Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting — Work Session, Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Date: Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3506
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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[00:02:36] all the work um town halls and identifying representatives and then meeting including with the pvi team uh this is as the chair noted a very important day in the process so we look forward to your attention and your excitement as we plan the county's future so with that pvi going up so good morning manager good morning supervisors good morning good to see you

[00:03:10] Thank you all again. We are really excited about today. My team has done a ton of work in the Gaining Insights page, the data analysis, and the preparation for testing. But I'd like to share a little bit about myself if you haven't heard yet. I have heard from the Coast Guard.

[00:03:28] One of my assignments was in Long Beach, California, in an operations center that did Search and Rescue Headlaw Enforcement. I was able to participate on an at-sea, overnight, dangerous guard bus from one of our 82-foot cutters.

[00:03:44] That was very exciting. But right up the street was Los Angeles. And I was able to spend the day at the Bob Barker Price is Right 2-0. And got selected, but did not get up on stage.

[00:03:59] And so the door prize was a bathroom tile package. If you ever tried to do a bathroom tile with your files, you can hear and see what a challenge that is. So that was quite the event.

[00:04:16] You've heard that I live locally. I basically live on the north side of the golf course since Labor Day in 96. I got to see this golf course constructed. I got to see the whole development around the construction. One of my favorite little events is what I call foot-putting.

[00:04:34] It's basically if you put the belt ball down 20 feet away, 30 feet away, and put it to get it in. And I made a commitment to do that on all 18 holes. It took me two years, but I was able to accomplish the goal of having foot-putted on all 18 holes of this fall.

[00:04:51] So I have kind of a special appreciation for it occasionally. So thank you for being here. I'm going to introduce the rest of my team. Jessica's going to be the facilitator. I'll go next. I'm Cynthia Kuey, and I'm delighted to be part of the PBI team.

[00:05:11] As you have heard before, I have a background in association management, profit management, trade association management, both local all the way to international. My connection specifically to Prince William County, in addition to having a university, is that I have a son and a daughter, and daughter-in-law, like that, and a grandchild who have grown up.

[00:05:36] So, I have a connection to not only the area, but I've seen so many different changes that I've already occurred in this area. I'm delighted to be working with you today and going to the future. What a bright future.

[00:05:56] I think everybody has clearly expressed how excited we are to be working with the county. We know much of what we've heard, where it really can go, and we know the dedication in this group. You all heard a little bit more of that high back story.

[00:06:15] In the PBI team, outside the PBI team, I'm on the team that has the most private experience, so I like to make sure I bring those new innovative ways into things like county and local government and try to learn how to customize those ways that work for us.

[00:06:32] I've done international and national work across the country, specifically around helping teams of leaders set goals and move those forward in a huge way. So, we really want to talk about today, obviously, I'm going to be your facilitator.

[00:06:49] What does that really mean? My job today is to help keep us focused, to help move us towards the goal. We know your time is precious. You've got six hours to accomplish what we want. My job is to keep us working forward, to be focused, keep us respecting each other.

[00:07:08] So, I will respect you for your jobs while you guys help me, help us accomplish this job. Make sense? And just keep us working. Okay. so today introductions expectations kind of started with those we're going to go through the purpose and background that's the purpose of strategic planning in the first place why do we even do it as a county as an organization why and then some of the best practices on why we built the process that we're doing with the county today the way we've designed it and then go

[00:07:44] specifically into the process we're doing in this next year the rest of the year we're going to happen to the gaining results, gaining insights session. Those are lots of numbers. We know that. We could get into the weeds. We are here to gain some insights from them, listen to the community, our businesses, our residents, our staff, and then use that to move forward. The goal is not to get too deep into that data today. We know it is not scientifically evident. It is qualitative data.

[00:08:18] We know the community survey is coming out soon. Then we'll jump right into goal development. Most of the morning, a little bit in the morning, you're going to hear me jam around a little bit, but most of the day is us working together to first get those big themes down and then work on the wordsmithing, right?

[00:08:36] Words have to matter. They resonate. They have to resonate with us. They have to resonate with the community. So first the themes and then the wordsmithing. And in that period when we're running goals, we will find an opportune time to stop at lunch. We seem like we're running behind.

[00:08:53] We may have to have a working lunch, but we'll decide that as a team today. So we are all a team today for the county. Just keep that. So we're attempting to accomplish a lot today. Sometimes we're going to be aligned. Sometimes we're not.

[00:09:09] But that's okay because that's part of the process, and that's how you get to a most effective plan. We'll take breaks. If you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead. We're going to try to do breaks. We have time to breaks because it's good to have them at, you know, mental times where you've stopped something and moved forward.

[00:09:27] But definitely utilize as necessary. We've talked about the work at lunch. This will be a mentally exhausting day. Won't be your longest session, as I believe I am to understand. But it's going to be a mentally exhausting day.

[00:09:44] But at the end, we're going to come out with something that we can continue to unite on and use to focus our priorities, our resources, our staff, everything towards an agreement we made. So first, we want to start out with just an open question.

[00:10:02] We want to get you thinking forward. So what are you looking forward to in 2020? Run to the Ramla table, church reference, WP. wow um 2028 um looking forward to is um i think for me it it's it's starting to see some seeds

[00:10:35] grow i mean this is i've been seven months in um you know i've been working on uh the planning commission going back to november of 2021 a lot of the things that we've worked on over the past three years are still kind of in the planning process or the development services process or starting to be constructed, starting to see fruit from all that work after many years.

[00:11:10] Wow, I don't even know what I'm going to do tomorrow, really, let alone 2028. But in terms of the county, similar to Tom's point, I guess just really want to see the county um you know take its place into really being the powerhouse in the region that we know this county has the potential of being and that uh citizens see their their uh government here in the county um working efficiently and representing their best interests all right i was telling you

[00:11:40] i would like this to be a premier county and for me you know i accept this to my colleagues i'm How are you doing about Fairfax? One of the things that we need to make sure that we are best in our school.

[00:12:08] I hope that we can.

[00:12:35] So just two parts. I'll try to be quick. County, county-wide, that was just in twist. By 2028, I'd love to see a settlement. So our development has developed. And so I'm going to use a time cord here. So our dump trucks driving up and down the road are milling.

[00:12:51] The fact that we've got the development in place, and by 2028, we see the structure. And I mean, on our roadway, we just did a ribbon-cutting core. Neabsco Mills Road, why didn't that people actually love, we needed that, and for locally Neabsco District, I want to see the courts district, because that's going to be a huge development that's happening now, that has a road change development to it, and it's going to be painful in the next three years, and so I'm hoping by 2028, you know, that's done, and it's selling, and it's in, and so people can just enjoy proofs of the labor of Prince William County, and that we see all of those things that truly made Prince William

[00:13:29] county continue to be great but even greater because we're not in a revitalization phase of the county and definitely of the district that I hope by 2028 we see itself good morning um I will piggyback on a lot of it's already been said especially with that the chair talked about schools um those being sort of revitalizing and sort of set having it be that no matter where you live in the county you get a quality education for your kids um especially since

[00:14:03] I think my oldest kids will be out of high school, my youngest kids will be entering into elementary school. So yeah, definitely education, but overall, I want us to be known as, hey, yeah, I go to Princeton County every other week or so to visit either the farms or the mall or a sports complex or something, so we're not just, Princeton County, where is that?

[00:14:30] Where people know where we are, that we are a destination in our ourselves, and we bring people from not only within Prince William County itself, but all across the region to visit, to work, to play, because, you know, we say live, work, and play is a cliche, really, but really a place where people want to be, that people will choose to be.

[00:14:50] People, whether it's visiting for the weekend, wanting to set down roots, where people genuinely feel like it's a welcoming place. And that whether that's schools, a lack of traffic, good amenities, great services, a place to retire. It's a place that people actually want to live and to visit every so long.

[00:15:11] Who buys a word? Easy for me, 2028, this time of year, I'm looking to be moving into a lake house in a more tax-friendly state. With respect to the county, I think my sole focus between now and that date is going to be addressing perceptions, real or not, with respect to accountability, fiscal responsibility, both on behalf of the staff who was born.

[00:15:39] That's all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we're all in Fair Lake House, too. Supervisor Baby? Yes. Good morning, everyone. I've got two main wishes and thoughts.

[00:15:55] And one is that we'll have a collective mindset. And what that means to me is just embracing, truly embracing our diversity. And what that means in diversity in our thought processes, diversity in our education on embracing those elements in our community, diversity in our cultures, and what that means not just to Prince William County, but to the state and to the world.

[00:16:21] I think that's important and imperative as it relates to longevity in life and quality of life for Prince William County. That's important to me. And also for us to move to the next elevation for planning and transportation and economic development.

[00:16:41] What does that look like collectively? And we won't be looking at it from the west and the east or the east to the west. It'll be a collective effort to make sure that there's synergy and harmony with the people that have chosen to be here. I know you two aren't necessarily participating, but do you want to share on this one?

[00:17:02] Yeah. Just on this one, because this is really about the board, we are making some very significant investments right now, particularly affordable housing in our staff and capacity.

[00:17:22] We are also doing a lot around investments in our transportation. Yesterday, by 2028, we are seeing some fruits of the current labor in terms of those investments.

[00:17:38] So we often talk about, and we've seen the last two budgets, we've decreased the overall tax rate for our residents. I am hoping that that continues, that we continue to see that real balance in terms of sort of making sure that our residents are seeing the benefits of being here in Prince William County via the tax rate.

[00:18:10] I'm also hopeful that we are able to not just put the ordinance finalized in place, but actually see some of the strategic investments in affordable housing over that time. I'm also very hopeful that we would have invested in capacity for our organization so that we could get the needs of our growing.

[00:18:33] So I am very excited about the future, very excited about what has happened over this seven months in terms of words, functioning, being able to real progress through into policy decisions that have been made.

[00:18:53] So I'm certainly excited about the next few years. I look forward to continuing watching the board. I said it to you before, each of you has the county's best interest at heart.

[00:19:11] You may have different ideas for what that best interest is, but watching individual board members when you come together as one entity and working together and coordinating and listening to each other and moving forward, thinking of the county first and your residents, It's fascinating to watch, and it'll be interesting as you continue forward.

[00:19:38] And as you said, make a name for yourself. Instead of us being left as the last one and not even mentioned, you are the second largest jurisdiction, you should be. So starting off the bat, we all have a good amount of agreement, again, in certain areas.

[00:20:03] So you all have your PowerPoints so you can kind of keep moving. But why don't we even do strategic planning? right? The goal of strategic planning is to have a view forward of where we want to go so that we can see and make the correct steps to get there, right? Basically improve performance, whatever kind of performance you're looking at. So organizations do them at different levels. They do five years,

[00:20:43] sometimes even 10, three years, four years. Sometimes they break those down to one year, depending on what works for the organization. And when I say organization, I'm thinking about all the people that are meant to implement the decisions we make here today, right?

[00:21:00] That includes Mr. Short or Mr. Haynes and many of our wonderful staff in the back that really keep things moving and make things happen. Unfortunately, leaders think they're good at developing strategies, 68%, but that's actually decreased recently.

[00:21:16] So why are strategic plans not given as much attention as they might deserve? Well, most of the time we make a nice, pretty plan and sits there on the shelf. All right, we spent all this time making it.

[00:21:32] How do we actually execute on it? We're not always clear on how that big vision aligns with our day-to-day activities. We don't always have the metrics. Today we won't be diving into metrics, but you better believe that we're recommending very clear metrics for this plan.

[00:21:51] Priorities are clear and staff aren't engaged. We've all made it in a job in our lives where the boss just dictated down to you what to do. You were the expert at the job, and that didn't matter. So we want the staff to be able to funnel information up to you and still give you the power to pick and choose a little bit more.

[00:22:12] And that's where the objective alignment comes up. But unfortunately, the majority of our organization and the majority of our time is spent working what we call in the business. That's the day-to-day operations, putting out the fires, answering the emails, taking the drives, doing the maintenance, etc.

[00:22:32] So if you have 80% of your organization spending 80% or 100% of their time just on that task level, they're not thinking, how can I improve this? And you know they are, right? So how do we get those innovative ideas up to the top and more useful?

[00:22:50] Our goal is to move most of the organization to working 80% in the business, doing their day-to-day. But now, with strategic goals, we're thinking 20%. How can I contribute to my team, which contributes to my department and my quadrant, my organization, and my company?

[00:23:10] So the mindset shift of looking at that innovative stuff to improve just as much as I regularly. But all too often, that same thing we talked about happens. Only the top of the organization, the top leadership, really understands what those strategic priorities are.

[00:23:27] When we get down to the front line, it's about 13% of people. You can even ask what a strategic priority of the county is, and they're like, make money, right? So this is where we're trying to include them, but close the gap between the levels and make sure people understand where we're going so they can spend their time on the right part.

[00:23:48] So we want aligned strategic execution. And that's what equals success. Today, we're going to help create the plan. This year, we're creating the plan. PBI is also going to be working with the county on that execution, how we make this day-to-day, quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year.

[00:24:08] Highly aligned organizations are 36% higher growth and 80% difference in growth. It's a big difference if we can have an organization working 80% more effectively on the right things, that's huge.

[00:24:29] Let alone capacity, just that increase in what we have. So it's possible. And again, for a county, for a local government, growth doesn't always mean the same thing. It could be tax revenue, it could be residents, it could be the number of services or staff. Growth means different things for different perspectives.

[00:24:46] So the benefits of strategic planning, we get more clear on what success is. We're driving collaboration because we know how teams and quadrants need to work together more we're working towards that organizational excellence and getting all the right pieces moving in the right gears in the machine marking we're working more towards our vision and mission we write goals that are aligned with our vision then we write objectives that are aligned with those goals and strategies that are like we are keeping that alignment all about that north star that we're going to set today this moves us towards organizational

[00:25:23] excellence this is just a quick framework to understand all the pieces that make an organization effective and so we're actually focusing on that vision today and then understanding that leads to management being able to do an effective job of managing towards those goals we can get engagement we can maximize performance measure so this is the diagram we use most to understand why strategic planning builds the way at the top of the period the biggest north star

[00:25:59] is your mission why are we here why are we here i know i know i'm just waiting but i mean really why are why are we here any anyone in this room really why are we here to make our community better serve the citizens it's sometimes it's plain and simple really that's what it is to serve our citizens right we're collecting their tax money and they're to flourish their lives

[00:26:35] so that's our mission our vision goes bigger than that says based on that mission where do you want to go in the next what do you want to be that premier city that fairfax and loud and who that really we are known and we're distinctive and we're unique we don't want to be compared to we want to be separated and stand aside then we do those four-year goals and metrics and then objectives and strategies so you can see how each layer of the organization is clear on what they

[00:27:08] need to do to contribute to the level above them because your four-year goals are not going to be the same tactical project level as maybe your strategies in your work plan right we're not going to because if we were to set a four-year work plan right now covid happens in three months boom everything's out the window right so this is where strategic planning really comes in where we stay big picture so that these are timeless goals that we can continue to go back to if we do it

[00:27:41] correctly, then we actually get that outcomes. Every organization, business, local government, private, everybody wants four main outcomes. We want our financials to be stable. We want our residents to be happy and satisfied staying. We want our processes to be efficient and effective. And we want our people to be happy and engaged and love working at our organization.

[00:28:07] if you have those, everything works so first, can I call you Jessica? You can, sure so Jessica can I call you Victor? I know I can call you Victor but then I'm going to be mixing up and not call you and this is an interactive process? because I'm going to slide the question you asked about why are we here Michelle said it, she said we're the second largest jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia I'm just going to throw a number, I don't know if it's true or not but it's like 80% of the people in Prince William County truly have no interaction with the board and what we do for the citizens and really trying to create a push on kind of that is

[00:28:47] live, work, play, taxes are low and everybody's happy. So as we go through a process, you know, you get the same, you know, group of people that come and want to be a part of it. I noticed that during the strategic planning process, you know, the numbers were so low on the people to interact with what they want to see that the voice of the 80% of the call, whatever that number is, I don't know that for a fact, but I know it's a large percentage of people who really don't get involved in this process and so we have to make the best decisions that we that we believe are the best interest of everyone and not just a small group of people who you know

[00:29:27] and we'll take that into consideration when you get to the data sometimes you're right it's not perfectly representative data we do our best um but i think the resounding themes aren't going to surprise anyone and i'm sure when you looked at they they're kind of things we already know and deep in our it's just what we want to do about them so we'll kind of dive into some of that a little bit more to them again but overall this is kind of why we built you all writing goals the executive cabinet leadership objectives strategies so that it all goes towards that

[00:30:04] vision mission so we've talked about a lot right we this is specifically for local government it helps us with our own governing body it helps us communicate with the leadership of our organization it helps us prioritize things when it comes time to budgeting it helps us collaborate and justify new things in the budget or staff that we need based on what we have set as our future strategic so 83 of local governments said it was used as a prioritization tool 79 specifically it helped

[00:30:43] around budget request time, how does your budget request align to the strategic plan? And then 85% around that resource staff financial management. So when we set these goals, we help everyone below us get more clear on how to do what they need to do more.

[00:31:05] So on top of that, projects get done quicker, faster, and within budget, right? So we're getting that benefit. We're getting it quicker and we're getting it cheaper at a lower cost, right? We're not taking 20 hours, we're doing something more efficiently.

[00:31:22] We've got a lot of potential outcomes for doing this process today. So how are we doing here at its volume? I'm going to hop through a lot of these. I think you guys have seen many of these, the five phases. Most importantly, we want you to just understand where we're going with that alignment step.

[00:31:40] So we're working with the three layers. We're going to do the alignment step, and then we're going to write the plan, give it the county leadership staff community a chance to provide feedback and then we'll create the actual plan and work together again same diagram but now seeing where each level is playing in this piece to get us to that so when we have that alignment leaders and teams remain plan what's important so you'll see the board we're going to reflect the goals of the board today and we're We're going to go to the executive account, and we're going to say, look at these goals.

[00:32:18] What objectives do we have to do to accomplish these goals? And then we're going to take those objectives, and we're going to go to the quadrant leaders and the deputy county executives and say, what strategies do we have to do to accomplish those objectives? And what work plans? So that every layer of the organization is tied, and no longer is that front line.

[00:32:37] I have no idea what's going on at that strategic. This is what we call cascading and contributing. It's a working together, meeting in the middle.

[00:32:48] So these are just some examples. This is how we get alignment. So a high-level goal at our level, a high-level goal is something like expand our multimodal transportation system to create more accessibility and convenience for all. Potential metrics might be on our community survey. Ratings of traffic flow on major streets have decreased. Number of positive ratings of ease of travel by public transportation have increased. That's the level we're at. We're not down in project, right?

[00:33:20] then objective well how do we accomplish that well increase public transportation options to reduce traffic flow and emissions and that that objective takes that ownership of one of those key metrics and starts to add to it based on what they have to do and then it goes down the line now the strategy provide residents with more bus routes to meet the needs of our community and a work plan is first i'm going to go identify i'm going to do a survey i'm going to see what bus stops are needed most etc. So we're at the goal level and it will be alignment process we

[00:33:59] talked about this you all are going to do the goal development we're going to go write the objectives and we're going to bring them back to you to start to select through the multiple objectives we have to see what we're going to want. Executive cabinet is going to write those objectives and do the alignment for the strategies and the deaf and county executives will be doing the strategy any questions on the alignment process why we're doing it so you've seen this

[00:34:37] before mostly just timeline today we're working on finishing the goals august and september we'll be doing the objective and objective alignment and then around october november we'll be doing those strategies strategy alignment so the goal is by the end of the year that we will have a plan that can be ratified and accepted by the board in january and february as well as that implementation So once the plan is written, PBI will also be working in the first couple of months of 2025 with the county to really hone that execution process.

[00:35:15] What is every team going to be doing? What metrics? How are we tracking those metrics? How are we going to be coming back to the board to share those metrics? Etc. so i know today we're together for a long time but if we think about it in just a quarter just three months minus weekends the staff alone as well as all of us have almost 530 hours to work and we have the entire county staff working in all different directions that costs us a lot of

[00:35:49] money and time so today we're spending six dense hours to get that alignment so that the rest of next three months years four years can start to have that so it takes way less time although six hours is a long time would cost us much more now to get in line so lastly the one little quick areas around the strategic planning is how do we win together we've got the board we've got leadership we've got the staff how does this all work together we like to call them swim lanes

[00:36:26] actually adapted from this county right here originally at the bottom level you have the the board of supervisors, the biggest piece of the board of supervisors is the plan that will work on future. Where are we going? And then yes, of course, allocate resources, monitor progress, all piece of the puzzle. Then you have Mr. Shorter's level. He's got to work between the board and the staff to guide those resources, to make sure that we're executing on what was promised for the future. And then the staff is that executing actions, right?

[00:37:05] they're the ones that are doing the work and that's another reason why we're making sure to bring them in but we've got to be clear on what our lane is and where we best serve them we know that when there's lions crossing that sometimes people get disempowered they don't feel as valued they're not bought into the process um we're overstepping the chain of command we're not necessarily working as efficiently when one person has three people coming to them the couple conversations from different leaders etc less collaborate less productive and sometimes two

[00:37:44] people are coming to you two leaders are coming to you with different priorities so just kind of for future this is more for the beginning of next year when we start more about execution but just to kind of think again why we're keeping it ahead any questions about that before we dive into the results.

[00:38:06] No questions. I'm going to see how everyone feels. So our goal here with the results is just to glean over some big insights, see the trends, look at what we're hearing, understand the common themes.

[00:38:30] That way we can make sure that what we write today at least represents the voices we did get to hear. Our goal is not to dive too deep again into these. This is not our statistical community survey where we're going to get lots more quality.

[00:38:50] So we want you to listen with an open ear. We want you to be curious a little more than decisive, I guess. Reflect on what they really mean, get into their shoes, what they could be thinking.

[00:39:05] We've got all different perspectives in the company. And especially both now and in the goal session, we're going to try to stay away from the causes and the perfect solutions right now. So basically just, what if we're here?

[00:39:22] Let's start off the goal planning today. what we really heard from our residents, which is why. So we did multiple, we did multiple methodologies.

[00:39:39] You know many of this. We did supermarket interviews with each of you. We did focus groups in each district. We did stakeholder focus groups to the business community, community advisory committee. And we also met with city and town leadership that was available.

[00:39:57] And then we did staff focus groups and also gave a staff form, I would call it, to if they couldn't attend. Throughout the rest of the data, the staff information is combined because they were the same questions.

[00:40:14] It was just a forum in case they... So overall, we had a district town hall. You all each had a district town hall to hear what you heard from your own residents.

[00:40:32] We had interviews with you all. We had our own focus groups for those districts. And then we hired from each of the community advisory committee members, as well as different speakers. So this is, again, just a higher representation of who we heard from.

[00:40:50] So we know that ensuring, and this kind of talks the supervisor angries, first, we had a lot of people sign up, ensuring that they showed up, wasn't shale, across the board. But you're all going to say, we got to that.

[00:41:12] Yours definitely did. Meeting locations. Originally, we were going to do the district focus groups really in each district. Time started to crunch out a little bit, and so we went virtual so that we could also hit people that didn't want to drive.

[00:41:28] And so there's always that challenge of, you know, if we have a central location, people from the county are coming away from there. if we all go to there, so that that meeting location comes. We did not collect demographics in the focus groups.

[00:41:44] We did not ask them to walk in and fill out a demographic form. We did see some diversity across them more than others, but for the most part, there seemed a decent amount of diversity, knowing that Craig County is very diverse.

[00:42:01] Women and methods to invite for representation. We don't have everyone in the county's email address or the paper necessarily, to send an invitation to every door. So there is that challenge of being able to, we did ask all of you, we reached out to economic development, we used as many resources as we could to get that message out, but that's still a challenge.

[00:42:24] And we hear that any time we're talking about communication, right? And then it was an open-ended, qualitative focus on purpose, right? We can collect numbers all day. We wanted to hear what they had to say. We wanted to see the emotion on their face.

[00:42:40] We wanted to understand what they were feeling so that when we came back here, we could actually express that to you as best we could. So yes, potentially our sample is skewed. We did not get everyone. We couldn't.

[00:42:57] Again, this is partially where the community survey comes into play. They are doing more qualitative. They are doing a specific representative example and then a broader scheme for anyone. So there will be a lot more data or statistical data coming in the next month to help with setting those key metrics that we'll be looking at.

[00:43:19] But we know it, so that's okay, because we can take it for what it is and not take it to face value, but not just dismiss it because it's unique. Responses were organized in overarching themes. We tried to condense them into themes that still made sense, but were still distinguishable enough to talk about so that we didn't have 20 random responses.

[00:43:43] The number of mentions. So in a focus group, you are allowed as a participant to tally other people's comments. You're able to mention more than one thing. So just because there were exactly X number of people doesn't mean X number of responses were made because people are allowed to make more than one.

[00:44:06] So, questions asked. Basically, overall, the questions regarding the districts, we asked all the district focus groups, all the SWAT questions, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats to the districts. We only asked the supervisors about their strengths and weaknesses of the district.

[00:44:25] We wanted to also consider that county-level perspective from you all as well. Top strengths of the SWAT of the county was asked to almost all groups except for the district focus groups where there we focused on the opportunities and threats. And then each group was asked a more individualized question, such as the business community was asked, what is the challenge of leading a business in Prince Wayne? Cities and towns, what is the challenge of leading a city and town in Prince Wayne County?

[00:45:00] We asked the community advisory, how do we engage the community more in our meetings and our sessions, giving us their opinions, etc. So, some ideas were presented, even though we did have a smaller population for some of them. So, we're going to go through the results and district, county, and staff and those lines.

[00:45:22] So, we know we have a very broad district or a broad county with several districts, all the way from one end to the other. The biggest strengths we heard about were...

[00:45:38] rule open spaces what were the it's gorgeous here we love it we moved here and a lot of these are very related right rule open spaces it's your highest all district focus groups mentioned it every single one that tells us something people moved here because they love that area we also similarities to access to diverse geographical land yeah that wasn't specifically about the beauty but it was we have access to everything here anything we want so very related um we heard a

[00:46:15] lot about what we have to offer here so access to amenities balance of business and opportunity those are both key here and also location location in dc accessibility to all the different transportation um opportunities and then lastly the big area here was your population number seven You're a diverse, educated population, and number 10, you're committed and engaged residents.

[00:46:44] So not only do you have a smart, diverse community, they're engaged and really want to help make this community what it's going to be. Any questions about strength? I think you all know yours.

[00:47:01] I'm not going to cover your supervisor column too much today, but I think we can definitely see where we have a lot of agreement on what's possible. Yes. Just a comment. I think it says a lot about our county also.

[00:47:21] It says that our citizens appreciate the rural part as well as the amenities. And I see, as you described, there's a blend there. It's not just one specific thing over another. It's a blend. And I think that's important as we grow. And it's not that people don't want them any.

[00:47:36] They just don't want them necessarily next to their house or take over their beautiful spaces and parks and be more than that. Like, there was a lot. Yeah, absolutely. But the appreciation is growing. Yeah. And it's also, and this is where we'll look at the difference between the amount of people across all and the number of focus groups, right?

[00:47:56] So six of the focus groups, for the most part, said that they had really awesome access to things, though. Weaknesses, I don't think we're going to be too surprised around here, right? This fear around development not being as planned as it could be.

[00:48:15] Whether that be placement, whether that be making sure we have the infrastructure, that's traffic, electricity, utilities to handle that development. That was really, you know, we of course heard a ton about the data centers.

[00:48:31] Not too surprising here. But even these ones that follow, a lot of these three that follow, much of them came from this concept of, well, it wasn't trafficking two years ago, but now my neighborhood is jam-packed.

[00:48:50] I wasn't worried about crime before, but now I'm afraid to walk in. So even these other categories, the trust and transparency, we know what districts are not necessarily feeling this as a valuable, a representative, or a representative of their voice.

[00:49:14] So although these are different categories, a lot of them collapse even further to similarities, right? So we've got the development concept. And what that does, not only just the buildings of economic diversity, but how we use the land, where we place it. How are we making sure developers stay green and things like that?

[00:49:34] Also, the cost, right? We talked about the affordable housing, the cost of the county of taxes, and being able to be a senior and stay in this community, to be a young family who just got out of college and had their first baby. Can you afford to live in the county?

[00:49:51] So we heard some of these things around districts. And probably not going to be too surprising as we get further. So opportunities for districts, again, lots around that development. And I think Supervisor Bailey said, well, people don't want any of them.

[00:50:11] They really want to be revived. What does the whole economy look like? And, oh, there's a space. What does that mean? It's cool. Okay. Right? This really planned, where we're experiencing traffic and overpopulating schools and a little more experience of crime feels to them like we didn't quite plan for that before.

[00:50:36] Okay? Don't shoot the messenger. And a lot about this ability to future improve our, yes, our amenities, our process in our workforce, but again, a lot around that developer. People want developer contribution.

[00:50:53] They say, okay, you bring in a big, big business. Supposed to lower taxes, supposed to bring in a bunch of taxes to our community. Doesn't seem like my tax. I know that's what they have, but that kind of sentiment, like, no matter what development we bring in here, businesses aren't paying enough and we actually ever see our taxes go down. Our property taxes go up because people want to live here more and so this kind of chicken or the egg conundrum that we had So big takeaways, again we're not going super into the weeds

[00:51:32] People are passionate about their district They are. They really care about their district. Even the few that showed up, right, we didn't have as many as we wanted but they were passionate You could tell how they were communicating they were fully engaged, and they were really appreciative to be there.

[00:51:55] Not all feel significantly, sufficiently hurt, and I think we know that, but how do we remedy that? Not necessarily in today's discussion, but just in the way. All districts recognize that rule, beauty, that accessibility that really attracted them, and they're a little, it's really the big thing over here, right?

[00:52:19] We moved out of the city. Traffic and transportation was all districts realized. So we have two common things right there that every district that we have represented agrees on. And then that development.

[00:52:36] It wasn't that we don't want it. I'm not feeling it's as planned. And then there were some variations. Any questions on the district side? I do. And this is just clarity for me. You reached out to all of the towns for just recommendations for me.

[00:52:56] I believe we watched all the towns and cities. Unfortunately, we only were able to get three, I believe. We had the town and deputy town manager of Quantico City, Quantico Town, and then we had Aquapon.

[00:53:14] It might have been Aquapon with both. Yeah, Aquapon had the town and deputy town and then Quantico. Will there be an opportunity, I know we're moving forward now, will there be an opportunity source to capture information from the, again, from any other of the parents?

[00:53:40] Anything's possible. I think we heard from them already, and Mr. Short, I feel like you might have already started the ball, but more communication with them to be able to just have those conversations. When we get down to the objective, we're going to be using the board's commission's information.

[00:53:57] We could potentially reach out and get more information. The objectives will start to get into more of what we're actually doing on these things. So I think today our goal is just to keep in mind when we get to that whole planning who are we trying to be included of? We're trying to include our town leaderships, we're including our community, how are we creating that welcoming environment across the board?

[00:54:21] If I can, I will say, so one of the things during our session with towns, we committed to and they expressed an interest in ongoing engagement, better communication, coordination between them and the county, we basically committed to that.

[00:54:37] I know that we'll be working, in addition to figuring out kind of how we push this in through our objectives, we'll be working much more closely. And that just speaks to what you mentioned earlier about the progress and the growth, how we're expanding as well, that communication.

[00:54:56] I can appreciate that. I don't take it for granted that every community isn't doing it this way and being as thoughtful and thorough as we are. the fact that we reached out to towns and cities in this way none of our neighbors have done it yes so it's a big deal that we have now not only including them in strategic planning but committing to ongoing engagement absolutely and i appreciate that i'll just to close what i was going to say i appreciate that because that also speaks to what madam chair was saying about setting us apart

[00:55:33] from how we're moving forward that speaks to that so i appreciate it um just you said two statements and i just want to chime in on both um people care about their districts the challenging thing for christopher county being the second largest through six and three or four eight square miles is i need people to care about the county because there aren't seven counties in christopher county there's seven districts that make up christopher county so the conversation and discussion that we're having and what people care about in their districts has to be whole about the county and so that's the challenging part is that everybody wants their

[00:56:13] own little specific thing for the districts but looking at the bigger picture of the whole of the county we have to figure that out and that last piece you said is that people feel that they aren't heard again there's at least again i don't know the number but it's a large number of people who don't even haven't spoken to us they don't even have a voice haven't been a part of this doesn't mean they are not a part of this process. We just have to look and walk out our districts and see what's going on in our streets and start making those things that we believe are better for the entire county as we move forward with this. So it's just such a delicate

[00:56:51] conversation we're having in the discussion about the strategic plan that I want us to broaden as we start talking about what people want in the districts to really look out from the mountain to the river of Princeton County and what that looks like for us. And I'll to say this last thing you know sometimes we put in situations where we end up with what we end up with okay m2 zoning heavy industrial zoning wait we can't okay all right you always went ahead of me so you're absolutely right that's why we started with districts yeah but honestly for today's purpose what this district conversation was was to inform you about what other people's

[00:57:29] districts so that you can all think county-wide well i really hope that we are driving through these dishes, because they're all of our districts. Exactly. Okay, we're personally accountable. I appreciate that. I'm going to say something to Bob. This is the thing that I cannot emphasize.

[00:57:47] Our votes impact the county. They impact people who we are not, who other supervisors are not accountable to. We, I've seen this, and it does frustrate me. There are votes made over objections of residents or people in a district, because supervisors aren't accountable for it.

[00:58:07] They're not, these people aren't going to vote for them, so they don't. So I have to name that, because we talk, when we're talking about this, we can say feel-good words. We can talk about how we need to focus on the entire county, but we're not really doing that. We're not really focusing.

[00:58:23] And so I'm asking each of those supervisors to not just think about your county, but when you're saying we're talking about one county, go drive those, go talk to those people. Imagine if those people, would that change your vote?

[00:58:40] That's the one thing, if those people had a vote for you, would that change your vote? I'm the only one here unless they're at large. I'm the only one here. Everyone in every district has a say in, you know, at the ballot box in what I do.

[00:58:56] And I've gotten hit. You're spending too much time with me. They have legitimate needs. So that is my case to vote like a different time.

[00:59:15] Go. Just to kind of tell you, yes, the results are similar again. But with the results, the one thing that stands out in the world, we've got two-thirds of them, two-thirds of the respondents, two-thirds of the professionals, it was open space in the world.

[00:59:41] And that was three times more than the next one down the list. I think that's important to remember. And that's across the county. But that's where we just talked about this. That was cited by more people than constituted the entirety of the Breslin and the Gainesville and the Colts District representatives in those groups.

[01:00:02] So it's across the entire county. I think some of you have to keep in mind. Yeah, all seven. And it's quite obviously, given the numbers and given the output, you can take nothing else away from that data. By and large, there's only one who were right in concern because the next one didn't even have a quarter 25% agreement across the board, yet this one had roughly 67%, 70%.

[01:00:30] Yeah. So that's where we have clarity in districts. We just on the district, we're building to the community, but we want you to have the district in mind first because you're going to hear a lot of the same stuff when we get to the whole community level, right? Across stakeholders and everything.

[01:00:48] So again, I just want to, you know, take a little more time on this point because it is important and it's not just important for the sake of this discussion, but it's important as we continue down this path. And it worries me that there's a lack of participation that you didn't see, you know, a large number of people showing up and, you know, don't want to, you know, dwell so much on a lot of things that have already been stated, but I, you know, can't help to highlight the fact that people for the last four plus, 44 years have felt like their voices have not been heard.

[01:01:26] You know, at the beginning of this meeting, you talked about, you know, our record setting meeting where we sat for hours and, you know, we had double comment time and people come meeting after meeting and they let this governing body know what direction they want us to go in. And, you know, majority always carries a day and it's completely opposite of what people are telling us. And so I think that that is a direct result of why people are no longer showing up because for the last few years, we have demonstrated to them that it doesn't matter, that we are not listening to, you know, their needs, their wants, and I think that we should really focus on that so that when 2028 comes, you know, perception has changed.

[01:02:06] Before I was elected to this seat, I partook in Shiraz. They have been at the port, at the atrium, and it was crowded. There were no chairs available, and we've seen over the last few years that lack of participation will be diminishing again because as leaders we're failing to listen to the wishes and needs of the people we represent. And we heard those little statements like why bother or we get only the same voices in there. So this and I think we have already known it. We know it. It's just hard to figure out exactly how to combat it and get more but in general it's hard to get

[01:02:44] work hours you know after work focus group these things so absolutely I can see already objectives for me hey go every supervisor's driven through every other supervisor's district check you know we have in our community survey people are feeling represented that at least heard and and understand just like staff we they want to understand why the decision went against them and the rationalization things like that so absolutely absolutely so let's go through this county stuff and then really the

[01:03:21] goals to get through goal to goals i'm trying to again just keep us on a little track so again not too much surprising stuff i think many of you when you saw this most of it's not too shocking right different we've heard about the diversity of geography parks these first three were the same districts basically. Remember we talked about the similarity but the distinction of these three.

[01:03:48] All the districts before mentioned them somehow. Diversity of population. We cuddle. Opportunity in general. Diversity of population offers us opportunities. Business opportunities. The ability to grow. Most of our residents see the opportunity difference in the economy. They actually, many of them said the exact same thing that you did in the beginning. We don't want to be fairfax or lot of you move here it's different we want to be unique and we want that branding we want to

[01:04:20] be known for being the most beautiful county or whatever that and all again the proximity so again not to a little bit different order but for the most part again that beauty is what people recognize as our strength that diversity and weakness we did this one did bring up trust to the top and some of the districts we knew that it wasn't as heavy but when it came into

[01:04:57] stakeholder groups it also got a little louder so to speak but again all of this much of this beginning is all interrelated right it's because of the development i'm getting big rocks on a row that are breaking my windshield it's because of development now i have a data center and i can't out of my neighborhood you know just those kind of future opportunities again pretty similar with

[01:05:31] this one we hear a lot more about this messaging and branding and a lot more about this kind of inclusion and unity right how do we get this county thinking like a county acting like a county interconnected and accessible and value all its diverse areas that we have so although this one has not made it to the list as much.

[01:06:04] It was continuously a resounding theme that you've heard the word Manassas used to be known all these different past, you know, conceptions of the county. How are we intentionally putting out there who we are? Challenges economic development, but this one was interesting because we have to think for a future, right?

[01:06:33] So county services, it was very clear, even if we get more residents with this new housing, how is the city going, sorry, the county going to be able to meet that capacity? If we're having this growth, if violent crimes are potentially increasing, if, you know, it's hard to start a small business because the processing and permitting process takes so long, how we combat some of these things so that people do want to live here, are getting their tax value, and we're growing our capacity internally while we're growing our residents.

[01:07:15] And then again, a lot of the other traffic, all the infrastructure pieces that support my health and community. One of the nuances we did hear a lot about is like medical, the not having a trauma one.

[01:07:31] We heard a lot about this future workforce and really starting with the youth, trying to do entrepreneurship, like that. But even if we look across the districts to the county-wide findings, we're still finding some of the same resounding team.

[01:07:53] When it came to asking you supervisors, how do we get the districts to unify more and collaborate? the first one was focus on leading collaborating right moving the county forward leading by example that role modeling thing the second was meeting rules and barriers you all recognize that it's really hard to move anything forward because you can't meet in smaller groups you have to meet

[01:08:30] publicly and that can be a challenge also a challenge for transparency but it's challenging the collaborating. Addressing challenges holistically. Sherry Jefferson just spoke to this. They want it too. They want you to think holistically. You guys are saying think holistically to yourselves, so many of you agree on this. And knowledge sharing. Do we ever talk about what's really working in our district and how we did it to help your district get that

[01:09:03] really nice cute old town feel or something passed and approved or that center, conference center so the main ones are really around that ability to need shared knowledge i think we've already we've heard a lot through the staff we haven't gotten there yet mr shorter you all are showing some some great unity far past uh what what has been built possibly challenge in running

[01:09:36] a business workforce availability now and in the future we're attracting them retaining them the whole nine marks. That's both for our organization as well as the businesses that we hold on this. So all eight mentioned it. County services and support. The permitting process was mentioned several times. Takes years to get, I mean, one guy's got three years to get his business. If you're a small business, you don't have that money. If you're Amazon, you might, but not a small business, right? So that permitting process and also

[01:10:14] the awareness i don't we heard that business owners don't really actually know what's available for the county and then maybe the county could even be spotlighting businesses in a newsletter go check out this new place that just opened and start and and have that partnership relationship and then we heard mostly a couple one-offs interest rates women's initiatives security so the stay in business we are a little bit about you know i come and my shop gets broken into or the cops could do anything.

[01:10:49] I'm not staying here as a business owner. Oh, and the uniforms first. What? I don't understand that one. What is that? The uniforms? The uniforms first. I didn't agree. I think it was, so here's the challenge.

[01:11:08] The business group got mixed with some business and some economic development. We did have a little bit of staff, so I think that might have been more of a staff comment. Okay. Yeah, I had just a quick question, sort of a comment.

[01:11:26] Something you just mentioned, and I think everyone said I read in her name and I think we all read. You mentioned something about folks wanting there to be more highlights of businesses and things like that. From what I've seen, economic development projects have actually been doing that a lot.

[01:11:43] So that leads me to a question. Was there any discussion about how these folks are getting their information or what their sources are for the information? because it could be there's a disconnect there where we are doing a lot of these things but they're not hitting the channels these folks are getting their information from so was there any discussion there uh yes and no but both yes the the awareness piece right we have no clue who to contact what's available how to access it what we gotta do i'm not saying it's out there it we've heard it from the community as well as it's hard to find if you don't know it there's only so much

[01:12:21] you know you don't know I know I don't I know I don't know how to fly an airplane there's a service out there that I'm not accessing I just don't know I don't know right so what is our newsletter what is our so maybe there there's a big thing across the board about communication in general getting more out there a more synchronized message I know each of you have your newsletters and pieces but does the county have a really big newsletter that goes out every That brings all your perspectives into one and what events are happening.

[01:12:53] So that's kind of a lot of the communication, whether it's business or not, is really around that awareness view. We've already mentioned it. Half of our citizens don't even interact with the county because at that time, they don't need it. They are just paying their taxes. They're good.

[01:13:09] They're going to work. So it's how do we get them engaged, even if they are. Finish your sentence. No, go ahead. Okay. I just wanted to say that I think this is one space where COVID, among others, but one place where COVID really helped us.

[01:13:30] It forced us to communicate more. It forced us to do things out of the norm traditionally, how the county had been operating. And I think going from COVID into this, it forces us to communicate better and more in a different way, you know, across the county.

[01:13:52] you know based upon what the needs are and um the other thing that i wanted to highlight was the uh the permitting process you know that that's been worked on continually and i think that supposedly it got slower after covid but now it's getting better it's gotten better so i you know i think that also this it opens the opportunity for us to be more user-friendly with our business industry as we go and I think they're looking for that partnership

[01:14:29] biggest obstacle to leading a city or town a lot of this again remembering our sample we were not able to get every seat but we mentioned twice taxed by the county and town obviously uh aquafon and um um low budget so they have a low budget and they're dealing with a lot of need for capacity um and that awareness of what is available the county who to contact for what that whole concept um and then onboarding new city leader township so

[01:15:07] i just became you know a new city leadership does anybody from the county reach out to me say hey by the way welcome your leadership here's who you contact for support on this we've got these services just let us know what you need right so this awareness oh that so the awareness that concept of awareness and communication continues from business and across the board to start to be a theme of something we want to be more or something we want to prove and then

[01:15:42] consistency of policy so there was just one mention of like if i go to one staff matter i get one answer. If I go to another staff, I'll write a different answer. One department does it this way. One department does it that way. Just like improvements to enhance the relationship and collaboration. So we started this conversation a little bit. Alignment. Very similar, right?

[01:16:06] Alignment and clarity. As a county, a one water approach. Making sure that the community is clear. We are a whole county. We are taking this as one approach. We are all aligned. Communication information sharing. So again, having more ongoing meetings, more quarterly meetings potentially, cross-collaboration, sharing projects, supporting each other, staying connected and expanding some of those partnerships. And then on the one individual tips, we had the improved access to services, institutionalized interaction between it. So very similar communication

[01:16:45] and information sharing. They wanted it actually institutionalized as a regular reoccurring process and then that onboarding. So if I'm a new leader, how do I best start to partner? And more community engagement. So this is what we ask to our community, community advisory community. How do we get more people? We want people, we want to hear their voices, not just more people, more diverse people, people that don't always come and share their voice.

[01:17:16] So we are in more collaboration, partners in schools, youth, businesses, grocery stores. So we made the comment, go where people, everybody has to go to the grocery store, go connect there. More communication, we heard that transparency, where is the information?

[01:17:35] Do I go on the website? Is it under this tab? Do I have to search it on Google? How do I get information? And then utilize and incentivize participation. And then lastly, more interactive ways of interacting.

[01:17:56] So people were saying, send out a poll, use a QR code, put some QR codes around the county that people can scan and answer surveys about how they fit the ambiance of the town, et cetera. So just a quick summation.

[01:18:15] You all can see this and kind of look it over. But same big heavy hitters, right? Development, the way we're forecasting and planning for that development, Saving our green spaces, that affordability around tax and housing, transparency, communication, education.

[01:18:35] And we did hear, lastly, a lot about a community center, whether it's a recreation center, a senior center, a community center, a sports complex. Something that will bring tourism in, have amenities around it, and be a center attraction.

[01:18:52] Quick takeaways, obviously people are, although there were less than you would prefer, people were really glad to be asked to participate. They liked to be heard.

[01:19:09] We heard those strengths around that land, parks, and natural beauty, those weaknesses around and future opportunities, all three categories were really around that economic development and making sure to diversify, place it in places that really work, and the of niceness around and then people do want to see our county they do have that mindset and they do want to see that clear identity that stands out prince william having its own identity and then

[01:19:44] they really love their county but are a little concerned about where any questions before we take the break i can say yeah the next one because i wanted to do a time check when are we supposed out of that space i mean we have an exact time but we're definitely behind

[01:20:02] When I'm thinking what we have, I know that we have organizational, if there are high-level things that you can point out, because I know we're going slide by slide, we did receive this the other day, I don't know if everyone's had a chance, but you can point out, the staff's way higher likely, yeah, it's very high, that would be great, so, and it looks like we're going to have a working lunch, because I'm fine with that, I'm thinking, because this is, I'm sorry.

[01:20:31] If I could offer up her from the general at 2 o'clock this morning. 2 o'clock. So we've been thinking if we can get pushed by the organization level and then take just a quick break before we do it.

[01:20:47] Yeah, absolutely. I think that's perfectly where I'm. And really, the staff, you're going to hear, we got really deep on the first couple, but you're going to hear a lot of the same resounding themes, so I'm going to try not to repeat this.

[01:21:03] But staff level, what was great about the staff was they looked at both the county as a county and they also looked at the organization. We started to prompt them a little bit more towards tell us about the organization's strengths. But they really were thinking about the residents throughout all of it.

[01:21:22] So it was really great to see that. They think the county is diverse and inclusive. There was a little bit of a mix later in the weaknesses on employee benefits or not. but they really know that everybody is dedicated and really caring and set on taking care of the resident.

[01:21:40] And the new leadership was recognized, both Mr. Scherter as well as the board. So I think the staff is really looking forward to this leadership as well. Biggest weakness, six of six focus groups, was really around that slow, manual, ineffective process.

[01:22:02] we still have an age of infrastructure we don't have a lot of technology that is used either as effectively across the board um summarizer where that accountability was mentioned i was going to say something bottlenecks chain of command so a lot of red tape experiencing so we potentially look at how to use technology in the future to improve and then there was a lot around lack of training and wanting more career opportunities and more clear paths for careers consistency in

[01:22:35] that communication and i think the other biggest one was around understaff the capacity issue is starting to take it and it's in in both ways the staff again is very caring staff so that emotionally drains them but then when they're not able to meet all the residents they need to meet that also emotionally impacts them right i didn't get to help those four people they didn't have time to. So between that time, capacity, workload, how much they're taking on more now, they're

[01:23:12] really aware that that capacity has to grow with the services and the number of residents for service. And again, the rest of them really came down to clarity around the community, you know, housing, underserved community. And then there was a mention of competitive options. So we do live next to Fairfax and Loudoun, and there may be a more likelihood to kind of poach our staff. Opportunities, same, almost the opposite of weaknesses, right? Invest in the workforce for technology, for services and satisfaction, engagement, or recruiting and

[01:23:51] onboarding. Basically, most of the fixes. And then challenges, retaining talent and attracting talent were huge, especially with an adequate capacity team needs. So these were, again, very all interrelated.

[01:24:10] And then the next couple, infrastructure, technology, all variable related. And the bottom ones are really more focused. So overall, their priority as staff is the wellness development and retention of the staff.

[01:24:28] We do have a lot of staff that love to work here. Technology, business processes, and more cross-collaboration. So better working together. And then again, they were very focused on the community. A lot of their answers were about their community.

[01:24:47] So they also appreciated being involved. This was their first time that we had more staff involved than the previous plan. They like working here. As many have left and come back. They're passionate. They care about their work.

[01:25:02] They do feel overworked and near burnout, so they need additional resources. and they prioritize the community's service and needs over a lot of their first things they haven't mentioned. And that's how.

[01:25:20] And then we can take a break. I know some people have already stepped out. How long? As quick as you can. 500 centers is more what everybody needs. I know some people.

[01:25:36] Five minutes. Yes. I mean, if you need a minute or two, I might actually... I don't know.

[01:25:49] We're right into it, we're right into it, our timing is good now.

[01:45:24] I mean, they were 205 inches. All right. That was it. That was it? That was it. That was it?

[01:45:48] That was it. Air from it. That was false. It didn't work. It didn't work. I like the smell of flowers. Is that? It says shampoo in here. I'm still watching my dance. I know it. Not a lot of stuff.

[01:46:22] It's a helpful or inspiring piece and that shit.

[01:46:40] It's through the words.

[01:46:47] Supervisor Gordon, can you see this okay?

[01:48:13] Thank you.

[01:48:16] I think we're going to rewrite the theme.

[01:50:07] You'll be on lunch here soon, too.

[01:52:11] We are missing two supervisors, but they will be back when they're able to. they're able to. So we're going to kind of roll forward. This is a time period where we really will be jumping into starting to write the goals. Before we do that, the last spiel I do is just really getting us in the mindset of what a good goal is, what a goal at this level looks like.

[01:52:32] How can we start to break down the components so we can do this as a team? So our first goal today is really about brainstorming those themes. We're going to spend time wordsmithing them, but we might not be able to perfect the wording today.

[01:52:51] We're going to do our darndest to make sure that we do get really close to what everybody agrees on, but we know that might be a challenge. The first thing, we remember that pyramid, our vision is at the top. So when we are thinking about your themes and your goals that you're writing, think about the vision statement.

[01:53:12] Prince William County is a diverse community. Diverse community, striving to be healthy, safe, and caring with a thriving economy and a protected natural environment. That's short when it's got a lot in it that we're responsible for.

[01:53:31] So we're going to go back to this vision statement at the end and make sure we capture all those components. And we have something thinking about and working towards those components. And our values, accountability, communication, engagement, equity and inclusion, innovation, and integrity.

[01:53:48] So that's where, with these goals, we are thinking forward. We are thinking about getting better, not just where we're at now. In our current strategic plan, we have seven main categories. I know, I'm going to get one of you with it. Thanks, sir.

[01:54:04] Seven main categories. Health, well-being, and human services is our first one. Safe and secure community is our second one. resilient economy is our third one. So we've already got health, right, the vision, safety, economy, quality education and workforce development, environmental conservation, sustainable growth, and transportation mobility.

[01:54:30] So we've already kind of had some good ideas. Many of these align with what we've heard. Now what are we specifically going to write about the future in 2028 about these? So, goals provide clarity on intent and direction.

[01:54:50] Why am I doing it and where am I going? At a four-year goal, we want to think big ideas. We're thinking why. We're not thinking tactics. We're not thinking projects yet. Why do we want a resilient economy?

[01:55:06] Why do we want the foundation? Long-term and broad, so that, again, similar to the things we experienced with COVID, most strategic plans did two specifics. so that if something changes, half your plan is out the window. We want it to be clear enough, but flexible enough that we can bob and weave.

[01:55:27] If we do a project and it doesn't move the metrics forward, we change projects to actually make the impact. So we want to be thinking, what do we want to accomplish? And why is it important? And if we write it, we'll inform all of the decisions that the staff and organization make.

[01:55:48] Do's and don'ts align with your mission. You do want to keep an inspirational, aspirational, big picture. It's clear. It tells me why I'm doing what I'm doing. It is a top priority. It is clear and concise. It doesn't confuse me. Anyone, whether you're working in county government, any community member can understand what the intention is.

[01:56:08] So, again, questions. Why is it important? Pitfalls. If it's not these things, it's too long in detail. If there are too many goals, one conversation you may need to have today is how many goals are too many goals? We don't want to throw everything but the kitchen sink in there because if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.

[01:56:28] Inspirational, aspirational, and well-balanced. At the end, we will be asking ourselves with that vision, but we'll be asking ourselves about that data. Did we capture everything we needed to capture? So, into drafting our goals. First, again, last time I'll say it, remember, big picture, inspirational.

[01:56:48] We'll have the community to read this and be excited about what that could look like in 2020. If you feel like you could check the box, if you're recommending something, you can just check the community center.

[01:57:04] That's not high level, right? It's kind of a little test idea. If it can be done like a project or a task, we're too far down yet. Why envision four years and think about what legacy we want to leave.

[01:57:19] We may be reelected, we may not, but what legacy do we want to leave? Rules of engagement. This is where I become facilitator. Please allow me to do this. I know this is a tricky environment.

[01:57:35] Everyone participates, so if I hear more voices than other voices, I'm going to be trying to pull out those voices I haven't heard yet. No one dominates. That means no talking over each other, trying to build on each other's answers, respect each other. There is no wrong answers. It may not be the most popular vote, but it doesn't mean it's a wrong answer.

[01:57:57] Stay focused. The rest of the session is us writing goals. The rest of the session is us working. So try to stay focused. Our goal is really to get these done today so that this rest of the process that we have planned stays on target. Dream about the county.

[01:58:15] Think amazing. Remember that data. Remember word smithing comes last. And then, you know, cell phone and breaks, again, as you need. We're going to be taking lunch around a little 1.30, a little after.

[01:58:31] May become a working lunch, but we'll see. Make sense? All right, last thing is my preference to this. Goal sessions are harder than people think. We're less practiced about thinking in the long term.

[01:58:48] What was, she's not here to joke, but supervisors say, sometimes I can't think past tomorrow, or I don't remember what I had for dinner last night. It's hard to, we are so ready to action. We want to be productive, we want to get to work. But today is about setting that vision and that big picture for us.

[01:59:07] Assumption, sometimes we think we're aligned, sometimes we think we're not aligned. that's okay. We'll get there through conversation today. It takes time. Our first goal is likely going to take almost two to three times longer than our goals that we get going after. So the first one, trust the process. And then lastly, like we talked about this in the game, we're going to have a mental conversation. If we're not debating and being open about what we think, then we're not

[01:59:40] doing it right. Am I ready? So in front of you, just for help, I have a big list of verbs that sometimes help get the ideas going. Explore this, enhance that, empower this, advance that. Then you also should have a little thing of post-it notes. The ideal is first use your white big pad

[02:00:15] to brainstorm right you're going to brainstorm individually your top three themes top priority themes okay and you're going to write that you're going to write the theme on the top i like to call it the what what are we working on we're improving transportation we're creating multi more parks

[02:00:47] we're what try to keep it two or three words and then at the bottom right so we've got the one at the top at the bottom I want you to write the why. Again two to three words no more. Why do I want a multimodal transportation? Because I want accessibility and convenience. Why do I want to preserve the environment? Because I want beauty and sustainability. Why do I want to cultivate a sense of community? Because I want inclusive engagement. And why do I want to expand city services? Because I want quality and fulfillment. Whatever your top three are what on top what we're working on energy

[02:01:25] resources, time going towards, and what is the outcome? What's that thing we would measure in the end to say we were successful? What and why? So brainstorm on your white pad and you're going to pick three and write them correctly on your sticky pad. So each of you will have three to start. Commence!

[02:01:50] Does anybody have your pen? Do you have to do to get a bag? No.

[02:02:06] The notebook's on your bag. It's going to happen to a...

[02:02:38] No, it's also a pack.

[02:03:07] I'm sorry.

[02:03:10] Once you have your three, just bundle them, and then one on each.

[02:06:26] Sometimes we've got to keep it fine.

[02:06:58] We've got to have a little.

[02:09:22] Oh, no, we're not done yet. We've got to wait until everybody's done. Anybody who still needs, no big deal, but who still needs a little more time? I know Mr. Vega just kind of hopped in.

[02:09:40] Everything has to be perfect.

[02:10:09] We're just getting Mia's ideas up.

[02:10:34] You're done? You're done. You're all are going to partner up in a minute to dwindle these down.

[02:11:48] Plenty of time, too, for wordsmithing later, too, so mostly kind of getting that intention out there.

[02:12:05] So what we're going to... Does anybody still need another minute? Supervisor, Courtney. We're going to pair up.

[02:12:26] Two... I know Tom. Okay. And Tom and I are probably going to agree. We just have an oddball out with all of us. Well, no, I would rather...

[02:12:42] I want people because we have different... Mix, so I'm going to put me here. So are you going to referee?

[02:13:02] No, she's going to work with the comments. And then that will help with some alignment between the organization as well. But this is the first step of collaboration, so thank you. I definitely wasn't going to make that call.

[02:13:19] I was going to. I'll come to you. Oh, okay. Um, you don't have to, it's only going to take, so basically, before we all disperse, you each have three top priorities. Your goal now is to work to identify two between the two of you.

[02:13:47] If you need, I'll give you an extra third as backup or we're going to start with two. So identify two, top two, and a potential third if we need it out of the six that you've created as individuals.

[02:14:05] So we're going to do about fitness. We're going to do a little bit of fitness, and then we'll get lunch.

[02:14:27] So transfer real quick. Transfer the final answers on to new books. Okay? First of all, final answers are on to new books. 500 million pounds.

[02:15:23] of your top

[02:17:17] ones as well.

[02:18:06] Thank you.

[02:18:54] So, I know I need to go that way. I don't want to give you guys some words in my chat. I don't want to give you guys some words. I don't want to give you guys some words in my chat.

[02:19:21] Oh, my God.

[02:19:55] I never get myself up.

[02:28:06] So doodle these little categories because they're not named yet.

[02:34:36] We don't know what the categories are. We'll name them as we go. But we're going to organize these into things that might be somewhat similar, right? So our first one, first, I'm going to go across the ones first so we get priorities organized.

[02:34:53] One, quality education. I'm going to stick that one as an individual, right? Increased affordability. Different than education, right? Increased what? Affordability. I have a mic if I need to show you.

[02:35:13] Develop our own identity, right? So that's a little, but it also has, we're going to start with the ones. We'll get to the why. So far we have three different things, right?

[02:35:29] Keep quality of life by keeping taxes low. Does that go under education? No. What, affordability? Yes. Yes. Well, taxes are, keeping taxes low is what we would do.

[02:35:46] to make sure quality align right we would increase affordability to make it more okay road priorities we already have two somewhat common priorities all right second rule priorities public safety do we have a bucket yet no public safety um next expand our amenity not quite yet right diverse

[02:36:25] economy is that totally separate is that kind of related to amenities develop our own identity That's related to identity. I think developing identity in it. Sorry.

[02:36:40] Sorry, you're going to promise you. I'm sorry. You're going to put the sugar apart. I like it, I like it. Let me add a little context to this one. Diverse economy for economic stability and a sustainable base.

[02:36:58] Different categories. So, and then we have develop our own identity for economic growth and build community. Yeah. Really? Okay, so maybe we have a similar why, but the what? So the diverse economy just gets to the fact that something that we're getting ready to confront is the fact that we're going to start losing our small businesses.

[02:37:21] So how do we ensure that we maintain our small businesses and our diversity within our economy because of the land speculation that's taking place within the overlay that will eliminate small businesses? We're sticking it. So we have reshaped tourism to improve economic development.

[02:37:47] I'm going to put that under that. And that is economic development. Diversified economy. All right, so all of our, look at one, two, three, four, five, six. That was all your one and two priorities.

[02:38:04] Let's see where number three falls. Government accountability. Ensuring trust of residents and businesses, ensuring equitable treatment, provides level of expectations, provides a path to fiscal savings. That wasn't two words.

[02:38:21] Quality. That's like four and one. That's a paragraph. We all know I can't make you guys do anything, so this is how we work. We work. Everybody, give me what you got. We'll make it work. Government accountability, quality education? No.

[02:38:37] Increased affordability? No. I mean, there's a little bit about fiscal savings, but... Identify our own identity. I kind of would put it on. I think some of the whys go under there. Yeah. Not public safety, not amenities. So, closeness, I think.

[02:38:56] Does everybody agree with that? Yes. For the most part. We have our own identity that includes that our county is fiscally responsible and accountable. Strapen our schools. You know what I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then smart, strategic growth, purposeful development, and balanced housing.

[02:39:19] So we got a little bit of affordability, but economic development. Smart, strategic growth for purposeful development and balanced housing. So yes, right there.

[02:39:36] Economic development. Yes, sure. Because that would come with a lot of fun. Yeah, a lot. Wow, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun. That's both. So I'm going to do my best to do that.

[02:39:54] We want to be able to transform it so we can rewrite our talents. Transparency. All right, so we have education. We know what we want.

[02:40:13] We want strength in schools. We want quality education. We want better outcomes for our youth. We're going to work for us. We'll get to that one. The first is the what, right? If we had staff look at this goal and say, I got an extra 50 minutes on my schedule.

[02:40:32] Should I work on this or should I work on that? What would inform us? So what are those first rules, words, that would say what we wanted to focus our time, energy, and resources on, particularly to create quality education and strength in school?

[02:40:51] What are our schools not where we want? Where is our education system in schools just not quite where we want them to be and where we want to focus that time and attention? Yeah, I think that's it, especially when you consider the aftermath, and when you look at the reports, I was just sharing this with Supervisor Bailey, both of my kids go to principal and county public schools, and so maybe I pay an extra, more attention, if you will, to reports that are shared with parents as to where we are with reading levels, you know, math level, and all of that good stuff.

[02:41:28] And so I think that we can boost our education provision here in this county. The question I have is beyond funding, how do we directly engage that?

[02:41:50] I mean, we have a school board that sets its own priorities. We just give them money. So how do we affect that beyond just our budget in terms of, you know, And for me personally, the concern that I have is we have overpowered schools that are not being addressed.

[02:42:18] We have development that's coming that's all going to those already overpowered schools. Again, that's not being addressed. So what are the tools and the levers that we have to actually affect this beyond a budget? I think when we come together for our joint meetings, we come together with a discussion items, or for lack of a better word, input, to talk about what we see that's needed in the school system.

[02:42:56] It's understood that we're going to give money, but how do we partner with the school system and the things that we see that's needed and accountable? when we are hearing back from our citizens. Here's what's needed, like Supervisor Vega said. She's got kids, so she knows she's living it every day.

[02:43:13] You've got a son. You know, so a list of what those items are. And they may be compatible to what the school has planned already. But the what is, you know, we want to see 50 new teachers every quarter.

[02:43:33] You know, I'm not being that hypothetical, but, you know, for me, that's the what. We come to the table with a list of things that we think are missing. And when we're talking about it, it's we partner with it. To Tom's point, we're limiting what we can do.

[02:43:53] We're limiting the structure of the people. We're also limiting, and I'm going to say it because I don't care. We're limited by their lack of accountability. Partially our fault, partially our fault. And I think if we're going to look at this from a county board standpoint, We have to set a goal for something to be involved, something that we're not going to be able to impact the original and anything like that.

[02:44:23] However, we can impact, should we take, and particular concerns is what the school division's plans are for infrastructure. It's without argument that if certain developments go through, there will be new infrastructure required.

[02:44:44] There is no funding for it. That infrastructure will be principally on the west end because that sort of rapid growth in residential housing will occur or it is occurring and it's already occurred. The problem is, this has been a problem that ignored by the board for a very long time.

[02:45:04] Not anybody's fault. This goes back years, but we have failing educational infrastructure on the east end. We have schools that are rapidly deteriorating, and because of the demand for new infrastructure in the west, they're getting short shrift because all of the...

[02:45:23] Capital dollars have to go to that and they're not fixing the problem. Part of this is the school board because some of them have their pet projects or schools that they choose to ignore and have allowed to deteriorate to the levels they have. But if we don't step in and start directing dollars to where we believe these are going to improve the state being made, we don't start putting a focus on this and holding the school board's feet to the fire.

[02:45:48] Then why are we even bothering to talk about their budget at all? So I want to distinguish something, and this is my first time having the education challenge in this experience. Education versus schools.

[02:46:05] What's the distinction? One's a curriculum machine, one is a infrastructure. One is designated specifically K through 12. We have higher education.

[02:46:22] We also have community programs that can educate our system. So we don't have to necessarily, to keep these broad, again, we're not going to solve the problems today, but to keep these broad but clear enough, we can use things like education.

[02:46:38] We might advocate for education. We might make sure I added infrastructure. So on here, we had quality education. We had strength in our schools. I added enhanced infrastructure and quality of education to ensure. And then we had a bunch of outcomes written.

[02:46:54] So we look at these outcomes. What are outcomes for youth? That could be thriving workforce, more attractive community on these two. So what have we expanded outside schools? Because we heard about language barriers of secondary English speakers in the workforce trying to improve their skills.

[02:47:14] We heard about entrepreneurship programs for teenage and older youth. So they're out of the potential of getting more crime. So how can we expand and stay high level? But when we get, once the school's written, we can come up with all the tasks and projects eventually that we're going to do.

[02:47:34] But is our focus around ensuring infrastructure and quality of education, and how would we change those kind of words to fit and work correctly for what we're saying? I think we're going to start with everybody tonight. First, we have to be very, I appreciate the high level of education, but a lot of it does still fall under our school system, you know, like English language learners, you know, workforce first development, you know, a lot of those programs do fall within our school system.

[02:48:04] So I just wanted to name that real quick. And I do think even the thing with schools, that's so critical because as a county, you know, we have been putting more resources into school every year, but we also have a lot to make up for. And so that's why it's such a critical discussion among a lot of people on the board.

[02:48:22] It's because, you know, as Supervisor said, yeah, we have a lot of growth. We also have a lot of aging infrastructure on the east that have just been neglected for a very long time. So I do think schools for us, you know, maybe we do want something like that and need to be a little.

[02:48:43] Because it's such a huge issue. And it's such an important driver of why people want to live or do business in the county. And we are falling behind, Loudon and Fairfax. We are. We can look at our test scores. We can look at our facilities. We are wrong. That's my concern.

[02:49:00] I don't know if you can make it. Yeah, and I appreciate that, because I think they are, all they're linked, they are separate issues, and at least when I thought quality education actually links, so I just wanted to clarify that, because to me, yes, there is higher ed, we do have, you know, George Mason, we have these other higher education facilities in the county, but to me, we don't get the school side, right, K through 12, we're going to have pre-K through 12 education, right.

[02:49:29] We're already falling behind even to get those folks into a higher education place at the beginning. So what, can I just go ahead and I'll finish here. So I was just going to say, I think that, I agree that there needs to be a little bit more of a refined emphasis on the school side.

[02:49:45] Yes, education should play a role in that. But without the schools being sort of more highlighted and sort of brought out, I think we're missing that. Can I just correct myself before we all speak? I'm not suggesting schools don't matter. I'm suggesting at the goal level, it be encompassing that we can under here put schools, education programs, working with the university.

[02:50:06] And so when we get to objectives, that's when it starts to break down and say, well, we're going to work with the schools. We've got to go work with the university. We've got to set up some programs, partnerships. So that was more my obsession. If we only get six goals, if we write something just on schools at this level, does it leave other things out is all I'm trying to keep us.

[02:50:29] because we will be bringing all the more specific things back to you to say we do need a partnership with you. We do need to expand these three schools. So, and we can, these are your goals to write. Yeah, I'm sorry, were you before? I saw you.

[02:50:45] No, go ahead. All right, let's go. I just, because I'm really curious, through this whole process, as we talk about strategic planning, any time I hear education in schools, I know that we have an entire school board and a, you know, superintendent. Have they been a part of this discussion when it gets into the school system?

[02:51:05] Because to me, none of us should be speaking for the schools because they have their own board to do that. When it comes to infrastructure, I will agree and simply say this. In the New Hampshire District, I have one middle school being remodeled.

[02:51:20] I have three elementary schools being remodeled. So I know that they're investing in infrastructure. I don't have any room to build a new school in the New Hampshire District. So they're not going to knock down the whole school to build a new one. So right now, currently, they are being remodeled. So I don't want to get ahead and say they're not doing these things because the East End is getting left behind.

[02:51:38] Like, I don't know what's happening in the rest of the district with these schools, but I keep an eye on what's going on in the school system in the National District because, to me, that's important as I hear from these parents. But, again, when I hear from them, I can't really give them anything other than point them back to the school board and my district rep, you know, Tracy Blake, and just make sure they're communicating.

[02:52:01] Just curious as we get to the strategic plan about this, I feel like one or two of them should be in the room to kind of, you know, have that discussion as well. But that's just me to hear them. I just want to go around. Answer, probably. No time. What are we going to need you to do?

[02:52:17] Go ahead. All right, so we have, I'm sorry, where? Bailey Vega. I think we're respectfully, yes, in particular category, particular category, the way the education system starts.

[02:52:35] We have to keep, we have to keep the plan. We have to link it to what is within our scope.

[02:52:57] If we just start putting overly broads to achieve a goal that we have no impact on, then it's just a bunch of happy words that we can't make any achievable goal. If you want all the goals you want, but those goals aren't achievable, then why don't we exercise?

[02:53:14] Because then people are just going to say, you know, you said a whole bunch of nice things, but then you dunked it on the school board and they dropped the ball. You dropped the ball, I'm not forcing it. I think in this particular realm, you have to drill down as an overarching goal onto those things that we can do.

[02:53:35] Sadly limited, one of the things that we can do to change in policy is to address where we see infrastructure shortcoming. And I guess the question then becomes, how much of educational performance is impacted by varying degrees of structural quality?

[02:53:58] And that's when we get into metrics, and that's where... But that's where I think we can make an impact. I don't think if we start talking about partnering with George Mason. Well, those aren't even going to be today. Those are actions. We need to set the direction for the actions to later be made.

[02:54:17] So somewhat the recommendation, and again, this is where you're going to be your guys' goals. So whatever the words. If we say, so say we have one on schools. We heard a lot about the teens and workforce and education outside of schools.

[02:54:33] So do we do a whole other goal on that? And then we have 10, 12, 13 goals? Or you make the big umbrella, and then the objectives are when it starts to break down. So, Bob, what would you suggest as this goal? I'm going the direction you were headed in education, an educated, skilled, and talented workforce.

[02:55:06] Intelligent workforce? Talent. So, again, briefly, we've got a couple of different things we talked about. We talked about infrastructure, we talked about equity across the county, and we talked about quality, and we talked about the difference between schools.

[02:55:37] So that's our what we want to pay attention to, right? If the staff looks at it, you're working on infrastructure, you're working on quality, equity, maybe he's tied down. But in terms of quality, I think we can only tie it to the equitable infrastructure. We've got a couple of people here.

[02:55:57] Well, I mean, I just want to add that I think that, first off, we have to improve the relationship that we have with the school board. Yeah, we shouldn't tell the school division what to do, but we should have a say, at the very least, in how they do things, because, yeah, the reality is that we give them the money, right?

[02:56:17] 57% of the budget, right? Sometimes even more. We analyze this past budget. It's a lot of money. and so when you know you talk about accountability and we ask a question they're very defensive and you know you can't ask me anything you know I'm going to do things however I want to do them and then you know we fall into the situation that we're in right now where okay we have our meetings with them but it's just to check the box and if I'm incorrect somebody correct me because that's what it feels like it's not a productive meeting we're just pretty much going and again we're checking a box right and and I think that

[02:56:51] it's a missed opportunity because we could have this type of dialogue with them and then come up with solutions that we can implement to better the relationship between both boards. Also, I would say that when we talk about infrastructure, I do know that the school board has in previous years' occasions sent their opinion, for example, on a land use application because it is going to significantly impact the surrounding schools where this project is going to be built.

[02:57:26] They stopped doing that, and even in this new board, there was a little bit of back and forth. Why are we going to waste our time? The school board is not, the board of county supervisors is not going to listen to what we have to say. They're not going to care about the letter, so now we're left with, we're approving a project that is going to negatively impact the schools in the surrounding areas, again, because there is no real working relationship.

[02:57:51] And so I do think that this is an opportunity for us to better it and hopefully get to a place where we can implement a lot of the good stuff that we're discussing right now. Otherwise, like Bob says, we're just writing it on a piece of paper. And this is really saying, again, so if you had this in there, you would tell every person who's supposed to be vibrating, who's supposed to be looking at infrastructure, who's supposed to be looking at everything across the country.

[02:58:14] So you tell every person that it works in these areas, this is what to work on, and this is what you measure. So if the why is, if I do a program, we can say a program, right? I want to do this education program. I think it's going to deter youth in crime.

[02:58:31] I run that program for four years and not crime. Statistic drops at all. I'm wasting my time on that project. So that's kind of why we start high so that if we get down the road and be built by more schools and we're swivel, we're crowded, and it's not working, we're not doing the right. So the metrics are going to come.

[02:58:47] The tasks and projects are going to come. This is us setting that direction and trying to make it big picture, not to just be fluffy, so that every board and commission that needs to see themselves in the strategic plan, every staff member, every division can see where they contribute.

[02:59:08] Do I contribute to the infrastructure of the education? Do I contribute to the quality of it? And just to finish off, Mr. Angry, you're right. We probably should be both, sorry, Supervisor Angry. we probably should be looking at eventually aligning our plan to the state and understanding what they're working on, understanding what the school's working on.

[02:59:28] So when we get to these objectives and actually Mr. Shorter doing the work and the staff to go try to partner better, all of us trying to, if we set this direction, it tells us all as supervisors, now we all should be partnering. Now we all should be focused on infrastructure.

[02:59:45] And so that's kind of why we stay a little higher level of the four-year mark without behind you to work this in because it requires a more holistic approach than you are in the using it. If you've got X number of developments in this district that have been approved but aren't constructed, and then you've got three more applications come in, yes at this particular moment in time there is capacity, but you have to take into account the capacity that's already spoken for that you're now adding to, and we've had this happen over and over again with both

[03:00:21] Patriot and Bowsville High School. I mean, when my kids were in school, they had the one-way hallways and the one-way stairs. And it gets to a breaking point, and then you have to build a new $250 million high school, and that necessarily limits the debt service available, the borrowing capacity, the capital expenditures that are there to address existing but unaddressed issues throughout the rest of the county.

[03:00:52] It didn't happen to that. It happened elsewhere. We also have to replace county schools in stupid locations. We already have, Supervisor Bailey has something, because that's getting more like in the weeds. Yeah, I do still have something. I think we get in the weeds too much as it relates to the school system.

[03:01:10] And I think in order for us to be high level and be where we need to be and partnering with them, though we give them the money, we still, we're missing an opportunity in communicating with them what we see in our respective districts that we can offer to them as we give them the money.

[03:01:28] And I think that to what Supervisor Vega is saying, you know, in checking the box, when we're sitting with them, we're supposed to be at a high-level audience when we're sitting with them. We don't speak. We don't really say what we want to see with this 57%.

[03:01:47] And so to keep it high-level, it's okay if we poke the bear. It's not okay. It's not okay to just poke the bear. It's okay to collaborate at a higher level to say, this is our expectation with this 57%. And I think we're missing an opportunity with that by not collaborating with the superintendent, by not collaborating with our school board representatives at a higher level.

[03:02:12] We're missing that opportunity as we cast the vision. And so I would like to see us move in that direction collectively because, you know, our needs are different now coming out of COVID. So we've kind of got to start here.

[03:02:31] Again, we want clarity but not specificity. So I, again, thrown some words in here starting after what we've heard, what we've heard. Enhance. The couple of qualifiers we have are collaboration, infrastructure, equity, and quality of schools or education, and ensure an educated, skilled, talented workforce, and big community, depending on it.

[03:02:59] It doesn't mean that. Are we getting close? If we had to pick these out of these words, which are the two that resonate with us? I'm going to kick this out. Honestly, I'm going to make, for me, it's enhanced quality of schools.

[03:03:16] Okay. so nothing's and then this is just all that's part of it I mean but high level is enhanced quality I agree there's quality I can pick up to two up to two qualifiers collaboration, infrastructure, equity or quality and you can equity

[03:03:47] you can add anywhere to none of them are there for two days it's just getting us started For me, it's not just schools, because we have a growing population within our county of people who are not in Cape Town, who speak their native language, but can't read in that

[03:04:26] native language, and do not speak English. So how do they become productive citizens within our county? And that gets just beyond schools, right? This starts pulling community services.

[03:04:43] It starts to bring in community partners and other groups that are outside the school system. So for me, it's broader than just schools. Because when you take a look at where this is growing, this dynamic, we also see poverty growing.

[03:05:04] We see crime growing. So, as we start to look at this from an even higher picture, if we can solve the literacy challenge, we can start to solve other problems and prevent other problems from growing.

[03:05:25] So for me, it goes beyond just schools. Schools can be part of the solution to this, but it is about trying to accept our reality as we have it today and try to figure out a way forward in terms of providing that literacy, workforce training, and career and technical education.

[03:05:47] So I see it in terms of, yes, the equity piece of it, because this is very different than just what we're normally used to within our county. We're going to have to, again, accept a new reality that's present.

[03:06:07] And then, again, it gets to the quality. But for me, I have to add the third. We have to have the infrastructure for the schools for me to be able to accept what's coming next. that smart growth if we don't get the infrastructure this is going to all this other stuff is going to start to fall apart very quickly does based on what chair jefferson said could you see infrastructure being again a bucket underneath it will support and sustain this versus having

[03:06:44] out the world necessarily in there when we get to objectives and we bring them back to you there better be an objective on infrastructure around school there better be a capacity because well it's going to show up in Smart Road. If you go back to that theme that people were doing, that is repeated over and over and over again in these themes.

[03:07:03] Now we have equity and quality, quality and equity. Equity and quality. Equity and quality. Well, I would say equity and equality of education.

[03:07:22] So we're back to the education versus schools. Who votes just hands? Who votes for schools specifically? I'm going to vote for schools specifically because a lot of this is still going to fall under our school board. You know, it's not necessarily things we touch or we're not set up to touch. You know, I think we can have a bit fuller discussion around it, but if we want to talk about what is the change that we can actually have.

[03:07:48] If I may counter to that, what are the folks behind us here, how do they influence that? So if Elijah is being tasked with this how does he effectively do that if this is really a problem or challenge of the schools how does wade effectively do this from a planning standpoint when he can't effectively do that but what they can affect are other things that i think provide a broader perspective other than

[03:08:21] just merely schools where that they their their teams can actually produce those action plans for their departments that actually get to a broader, much more holistic challenge that we have as a county.

[03:08:37] So I need to be specific. So something like, you know, we know a lot of our programs fall under our schools. But what is something at the county level that we can be doing, we should be doing? So like community services could be doing literacy training, working with community partners, bringing literacy training.

[03:09:00] Now, let's be honest, a lot of these folks are not going to trust the government. They're not necessarily going to come to the government, but they will go to a church. They will go to a community organization where they feel more comfortable going. So we can then build those partnerships, build those opportunities, work and build those networks so that we can start finding the locations, the teams of people who can provide the training.

[03:09:28] And so that's what our staff can help do to work to provide a more holistic approach outside of the school system. I do, only because I want to sort of address this question of how the government will take what we get from this conversation.

[03:09:52] And that is where there is an opportunity for lifelong learning. So our library system, social services, and other places where we absolutely have an impact. They're very directed. So, yes, I think we will have some significant work to do.

[03:10:11] Once the language, we are clear from our board what the language is and what the actual priority is, we will go back and all of our agencies, where do I have a role for it? Well, and I have an email somebody sent me today because there's nothing for preschoolers at the libraries.

[03:10:32] Okay, so lifelong learning, starting from before kindergarten, providing educational programs in the libraries for kids at preschool. We did hear a lot about outside of schools education. Just to shed some context, I worked with a local jurisdiction that had no impact on schools, but education was the lowest ranking thing in their community survey, And we had a similar tough discussion.

[03:11:01] Well, we don't control the school. So how can we really, we came up with just to advocate for more educational opportunity. So there is a way to kind of work all of these things in. And if we keep thinking about the umbrella that all the things, the infrastructure we work under, working with the schools, working with the partnerships, working with all of those, what's that umbrella that all of those can fit under to get to tasks and projects when we get to that level?

[03:11:29] So we're close on, we mostly agreed on quality, we're pretty agreed on equity, still thinking about school or education, we've got some great arguments on both sides. What about the bottom half, to ensure an educated, skilled, talented workforce?

[03:11:50] That is, man, I don't know about the strategic plan in this board. I think, honestly, everything we've talked about is right there. Because when you say school, I'm going to add, at the end, board. Okay, like if you want to talk about a strategic plan, to me, that relationship between us and the school board needs to be better.

[03:12:08] And I think everything we just talked about is simply having the school board represented to answer these questions. I'm a numbers guy. I mean, I don't like to do the numbers, but I do live in the statistics world. So if you make a comment that something is not right, I need the data to show that.

[03:12:25] And I know they have all of this data that we're talking about because that's what they specialize in. So we're missing a key element of this discussion, which is someone from that school board, whether it's the superintendent or the board itself or the chair or whatever. So I think, for me, I would want to see us have a better working relationship with our school board to be able to answer these questions.

[03:12:47] You know, as we were talking about schools on the East End, I sent a text to my school board rep, and of course, there's a lot of work being done on the East End with a lot of the schools. So there's that, you know what I mean? So they can answer that question, which I've got. Some districts might read this and say, our schools are fine.

[03:13:04] We don't have to worry about it. Now, what is our education fine for seniors who don't know how to use a computer for kids before? We heard about before five years old, care and learning for them. I just want to read what I'm talking about here on every educational piece that he's talking about that we can control and do an accounting when it comes to the libraries and those outside programs that we can do.

[03:13:29] To me, that's bigger than the schools, right, because that's what we can control now. But any time you use that word schools, to me, you've got to add board at the end because there's a whole room over there that really can help us answer a lot of the schools. So I want to go to, wait, I want to go to Bodie, where we have lunch.

[03:13:46] It's been ready. Oh, wow. I hope we can get this one. I'm sorry. Yeah, keep talking. Madam Chair, members of the board, when you're working on your goals, I just want to, as Mr. Gordy said, the Virginia Constitution gives the school board the ultimate power and responsibility for the decisions affecting the operations of the schools.

[03:14:08] So in coming up with your strategic plan, understanding that the school board will come forward and say, we are responsible for the operation of the schools. So just keep that in mind as you're working on this.

[03:14:26] I reckon we're going to go to Bodie and where they're going. So I'm not going to say very much else other than I appreciate the conversation. And I think that there is room for us to have enhanced equity and quality of our education system.

[03:14:44] And include everything else that's been talked about. This would be an umbrella term that includes the schools part. It includes the workforce development part. includes all the social services that are great jobs are highlighting. I think all of this can fit under this term of enhanced equity and quality of education.

[03:15:03] And you can add more words to that, but I think that fits everything we're talking about and gets at what we've been saying is that I think Sergeant Ware has said very well as well. There's only a box that we can directly. Outside of that box, we can advocate, collaborate, we can enhance our relationship.

[03:15:23] All of that is true, but all that fits under this umbrella term. We're splitting it out too much. So I think what you have up there is this. Pretty close. Any word changes that seem correct?

[03:15:39] Because, again, this is the hard part, right? We want to come up with other concepts because we know. We know what's missing. This sets the intention for everyone in the organization to know what to work on. And then, yes, and then objectives will get us clear. Strategies will get us even clearer work plans.

[03:15:57] Okay, go ahead. We have one more person, and then we're going to break for lunch. Let's go back to the two awards, because keeping what the county council said, we've got to keep this mission focused and scope focused, what we can do and what we can't do. And everybody sort of danced around us, but I think the word that's missing off the sheet is accountability.

[03:16:19] Yes, they almost said, you know, they present us with a rather skippy-ass budget every year. No details. The county executive gave us the level of complete detail that the school division gives us and expected us to accept it.

[03:16:36] He'd be unemployed right now. We get broad numbers, no specifics. Their comp plan is, frankly, worse than ours. We get very little input. We get very little information. They don't even give us what's statutorily required.

[03:16:56] So can we fix that relationship until we hold them accountable? And that's got to be from our end. We have to make them accountable. Just giving them the money and letting them go off and do whatever they want to do when it has such a significant impact on the kids in all of our districts is an issue that we need to address.

[03:17:17] And without that accountability, without forcing them to the table on it, we're just putting happy words on the board. Again, we are, I mean, at a four-year level, that's... But you're right, I'm capturing a lot of what you're saying, too, because I'm going to take this all down when you don't do objectives and make sure that things like, how are we going to...

[03:17:36] We create the processes to hold them. Have the collaborative conversations that get us all finding out where and what we can do, where they'll let us step based on the law, where we can partner anyone else want to say anything before we have the lunch no you're okay we can have obviously a working lunch and everyone get their food take a break you know if you need to go to the restroom um

[03:18:06] we can go um 245 be back and ready that gives you time to go to shop get food make it home

[03:18:25] I only got one, two, four, five, six.

[03:19:11] I guess educational on the end, too.

[03:19:34] I thought I had three. I wouldn't have three. I wouldn't have three. I wouldn't have two. Okay. I was looking at the one, two, two, three, five, and three. I was trying to do the rank.

[03:19:50] But for the most part, you've got the six. Yeah. I know it's hard.

[03:20:08] Stability and stable base. Sustainable base. What are the numbers in there?

[03:40:12] Stable tax base. Tax base. What's got to say to the board versus sustainable? Wait, you've got to get up on the rules. You've got two words here, two words here. Thank you. So, it gives us a span.

[03:40:31] So we've got commonalities and ideas. Do we generate towards one of these phrases a little bit more than the others? What's the first word? Re-shape tourism. So when we talk about development, again, I'm going to always go to the kind of what and why to get us started.

[03:40:55] Time, energy, resources. Anybody reads this? What in the next four years, bless you, are we putting our time, energy, and resources into to have that purposeful development, economic stability, diverse economies.

[03:41:11] Well, I mean, the biggest thing, and I didn't put that down because I used to want to put, is, I mean, if you look at the results survey, what's said to us, that's a big one. Land use in this county is a huge, and we really are at crossroads with how we move forward and how we grow, which, you know, this is a huge issue for Brentsville because they have a lot of growth coming.

[03:41:38] OLS has a lot of growth coming, you know, we have growth in Gainesville as well, but I would say we have 64 planning cases. That's a lot. Out of 200. So I would say smart strategic growth.

[03:41:58] So kind of put a little bit of, you know, again, we're trying to define this in very broad but very narrow terms in terms of numbers of words. But when I think about smart and strategic growth, the past 30 years, we've built neighborhoods and shopping centers.

[03:42:19] We never really built communities, and we never connected anything from one to the other. Everything was just, we need housing, we need, because we have housing, we need shopping centers. So it was just build, build, build, build, build. And the developers have been in the driver's seat.

[03:42:37] We're at a place where, in my view, we need to drive that development in a particular direction. And as Vic and I talked about, we talk about we need to improve our transit, we need to create more routes.

[03:42:53] Well, in order to do that, you have to create those densities that would support that. And so now it becomes about how do you create intentionally, if he's building forts, What do I need to build in the Brentsville District that can then connect to create that transit tie so that people have either the jobs to go to or their homes to go to and go back and forth, which then begins to address, again, a multitude of opportunities and a multitude of challenges.

[03:43:25] So for me, it was about putting ourselves as a board back in the driver's seat of development, Laying out, I mean, we have a comprehensive plan, but I was a part of that process. And I can tell you, it, again, it became much more of a developer's wish list rather than something that drove to a very specific thing or specific strategy that how we were going to develop to meet anything of a, in terms of economic development, in terms of purposeful development.

[03:43:59] And then when you take a look at particularly every plan that's come to me, and again, we have almost 6,000 houses proposed for the Brentsville District. Well, every plan came and they all look the same.

[03:44:15] There's no, I mean, it's just one or two types of housing. And we've had to talk about this. We've had the AFDU conversation and work session is that we need options when it comes to housing. And I believe that's part of the reason why we have an affordable housing challenge.

[03:44:34] It's because we built one type of housing in my district, particularly 90% housing was townhouses. So there are no single family homes. So when one comes on the market, the price skyrocket. And then that sets the price for the rent. So as we start to think about how do we become more strategic about this, and then the smart piece always goes back to do we have the infrastructure in place to support the growth?

[03:44:56] Or is there a plan to meet that growth, you know, going forward in terms of infrastructure? So whether that's schools, it's roads, it's police, fire, other community services, libraries, things like that. That's very good.

[03:45:11] Yeah, and I'm just going to rile up what Tom was saying. Because smart strategic growth was more than just about homes coming to a district or community. Really, that bus transit has been, like, the critical one for me.

[03:45:28] So when we were talking, I was talking about, you know, right now we've got to study out on Dale Boulevard to try to look at a dedicated bus lane during rush hour traffic. Like, that's a huge problem. But also, if you look at Neasco, and if anyone works out west and they utilize the bus, and if you've ever gone up here to be the set around that transit and watch folks, they know those routes.

[03:45:49] When we change the routes on the bus, it affected some folks that literally go out west on the bus. One of the biggest issues is I feel we need more routes going west. We've got two hubs now. We've got an east end and a west end or central end bus hub system. And so those routes are going to become critical.

[03:46:05] That's just one level of looking at the smart strategic growth and how we plan out what tomorrow looks like for Cripsom County today. And just to keep us held, so we want to keep moving forward on this. We've got lots of ideas on how to execute this. Can we rest your family? Yeah, just briefly, I agree with what's been said, especially when Manitura's naming the different places where there is growth.

[03:46:31] There is no growth on the entire end, particularly with my district, in economic development. And so that's something that the county is at and the way I've been talking about. And for me, that has to be a part of that smart growth.

[03:46:49] And what can fit in that area called Potomac? Because we don't have a lot of land that's available like you have, Tom, in your district. But it has to be a part of the plan. It just can't sit out there because there's needs also on that end of the county as well.

[03:47:07] And we are kind of cut off a little bit by a big thing called Quantico Base. So how do we create and reframe the plan for that smart growth in its entirety, going back to something that one of my colleagues said about looking at the county at large, not just as specific.

[03:47:27] And I've said this for a few times, and I'm going to connect something back to what sort of Gordie just says. For decades, we've created buildings around the auto sector. Our neighbors are auto sector. Our shopping service is auto sector.

[03:47:43] Everything's about jumping in your car and driving somewhere, as opposed to being people-centric, connecting those people to where they need to go as a community. And so I think what has to be part of the planning smart food growth is reimagining how you develop into being more people-centric versus being auto-centric.

[03:48:03] Because it's great that we're able to get people out to the Beltway fast and bring them back or bring them from Manassas to Woodbridge or whatever. to the point that Suresh and Gordy especially made where we're not building these integrated communities where there's walkable walkability, where your job is being walkable, your store is walkable, doctor's office, all that stuff isn't walkable, or at least a short trip away where it's not going to jump in your car.

[03:48:29] We're still going to be stuck in this very much hodgepodge incohesive style of development. So making things a lot more people. And then the challenge with the people who don't want to live next to They're right, they want amenities, but they want their big green back, so that balance, right?

[03:48:48] Absolutely. Balance, maybe that worked a lot. And we're in this phase now of areas where we're redeveloping as well. So making sure that we, as I've been saying this off, we're going to get one chance to get this right for the next 20 years.

[03:49:08] So making sure we do get that right. And I think this next four years, I think, will dictate what that looks like going forward. As we start to look at redevelopment Woodbridge, we look at redevelopment of Sudley Corridor and other parts of parts of the Potomac District.

[03:49:27] So that, you know, instead of us just looking at that little isolated place, how do we then, again, make it connect to the other parts of the county? Wait, wait, hold on. Before I spread the word, guys, I do want to say this. I don't think we've put enough emphasis on it.

[03:49:45] Because in developers, it is harder for us to do redevelopment. And that's something we maybe can tell me is something about the brownfields, but that's one thing I'm seeing that up for.

[03:50:07] Because you're right. I'm going to take this in a little bit of a direction. You need to even focus on re-development, whether it's the existing infrastructure that already exists. And if I find it's a shopping center model, if you've got it, it's failed. Work in mortar stores or both by by.

[03:50:26] Nobody's going shopping anymore. Get it delivered by Amazon or whoever. And we need to focus and incentivize on that green fellowship rather than a continued practice of greenfield versus ground field development. All we've ever done in this county is green.

[03:50:44] And that's got to change. And, you know, I've got a shopping center that's actually a new district that is closer to my house than yours, where a shopper's food warehouse has been vacant for 15 years. And part of that is the county's fault, including a really lousy commercial development plan with limited access and necessarily everything failed.

[03:51:09] But we should take advantage of those existing opportunities for redevelopment. Where the infrastructure, the water, the power, everything else already exists, I think part of that also has to mean that we have to revisit the quote-unquote targeted industries.

[03:51:26] I think we put far too much focus on the targeting, especially these couple of targeted industries. It's resulted in, quite frankly, skewed allocation of county resources, and as Tom can attest, and I can attest in my own district, it's forcing existing businesses and employees out of the county.

[03:51:45] I can't count the number of contractors who have come to my office looking for something parcels somewhere to relocate within the county because they do not want to move to call them orange, warrant, lounge, walk here, but they're being forced out because there's no property left for them in the commotion arena, even redevelopment. It doesn't exist because our targeted industry focus is providing an impetus for buying everybody else out. We're going to lose in the long run. In the long run, this gets to the balance of time. We can't put our eggs in one basket

[03:52:22] because we'll have two impacts. One, if that business drives up or if that business, there are legislative changes, tax code changes, whatever, then we'll behold them and nothing else. The other part is it increases the costs necessarily to the residents or the businesses that are in the services that are not going to be brought out of town. It's a lot cheaper to have somebody from Gainesville service and plumbing equipment than it is have somebody drive in a Culpecker or Orange County.

[03:52:56] I think one of the other things that we need to sort of also bear in mind, yes, COVID is over, but we're living in a new reality. Part of that reality, as the feds are coming to find out, is remote workplace is going to be the rule for a lot of people.

[03:53:25] As the feds are finding out, federal employees are not coming back five days a week to D.C. It ain't happening. The unions are fighting it, the senior staff are fighting it, and if given the choice of returning to a five-day commute to the district or a four-day flex commute or working from home or having to change jobs to work from home, they're either going to work from home defense or they're going to find a job.

[03:53:51] And that impacts our commuter patterns, our spending patterns, but we need to reshift our focus and we need to reshift our incentives. You don't have anything? No, we don't. Just to keep us on track, just back to the actual goal right, because you're right, everything everybody has said, definitely things we're going to have to kind of really get into understanding what the best path forward is.

[03:54:17] Wait, do you have something? I do, I do. It just came to my mind. When we talk about something like this, because there's a lot of interchangeable terminology. So is redevelopment the same thing as revitalized?

[03:54:35] Revitalize is a lot more exciting, inspiring. And it could probably be used as both. Yes, and that's the reason why I say that. I'm not going to throw you off matter here. I say that because, as Bob was saying, Bob, I'm agreeing with you.

[03:54:53] As Bob was saying, you know, we've got to rethink this whole thing about how we're operating. And so, for places that are vacant, that's brought it up, is that revitalization?

[03:55:08] that redevelop it, but we've got to, if it's a good structure, we've got to use it. So I just want to put out redefining the terminologies when it comes to smart growth. So we have a couple of things going.

[03:55:32] Smart strategic, smart growth. That focuses on revitalization, developing a diverse balance for a sustainable something. When it comes to beginning this smart growth, are we okay with the phrasing strategic,

[03:55:54] smart and finding out a bourbon and that we want to focus on that but that that would focus on we've got some more choices revitalization or redevelopment could be potentially i think the other kinds of revitalization we heard a diverse economy and we also heard sustainable and balanced

[03:56:31] Balanced might refer more to the development part, and then we have the last one we want to describe. So a sustainable balanced economy, a sustainable balanced community, county, etc.

[03:56:48] So first out of these words, what really sticks in our mind? We had to pick really two that encapsulated everything we're thinking of. Between revitalized, diverse, sustainable, balanced.

[03:57:02] Well, it's just, I've been living that revalidization since I've been in the office, and that's what Neapstall District has been doing, so that's been the key to it all, but I will say this, as I keep talking about Prince of County, and this board represents all of Prince of County, the only way I can show that is by helping move Neapstall District forward into another tomorrow, because it's their own district from the 70s, and so everything's pretty built out, or so I thought it was, until fire rights came, but that's another story.

[03:57:33] But that's been the goal because to Supervisor Ware's point with those shopping centers, that's what we've been doing. We've been taking developers and having them come in and look at buying up these centers and doing the next phase with them. So that's happening. I'm hoping that it's happening now with this discussion for the county that we look at revitalizing the county through those such as that.

[03:57:56] Because we have shopping centers that are usually out there. I mean, so it's time for the next phase of that. So this is a really good, I like where we're going through. Is there another word? So if we have a revitalization, what would be your second choice in word? Balance. Let's quickly go around.

[03:58:15] Supervisor Bailey, what are the two words? Revivalization and sustainably. Weird. Go with me, Bob. Go with me. Revivalization and, I guess, balance.

[03:58:33] And some of these words we want to resonate for us. Some, they got to resonate for the community. I feel there's different ways the community. Revivalization and sustainable. Go ahead. Oh, you vote. A sustainable economy, I think was originally the phrase.

[03:59:00] Yeah, we haven't figured out this last word. Originally, it was on the post-it notes. It was a diverse economy, a sustainable economy. And just, we didn't talk about it. Bob did say it.

[03:59:17] That when we were talking about diverse economy, it's, as I said earlier, We're under threat of losing a lot of our small businesses due to the 800-pound gorilla coming in and buying up all the land that's currently occupied by these small businesses and then being kicked out on the street.

[03:59:34] We're going to lose the diversity of our economy. That's been something we've been trying to do in our commercial tax base is to go in and make them more diverse. So the whole diversity, it kind of was intended to talk about. I want to hit on something or something more.

[03:59:52] When we're talking about small businesses, you know, what are you talking about? You're talking about the poor. When you think about, for instance, Warren Baker, you've got everything from a recycling facility, auto repair, you've got rock, landscape companies, all these types of different activities.

[04:00:15] I mean, it's just, is there a thing you can think of? Well, yeah, you've got House Immersion is in some of those types of locations on Wellington Road. And, you know, and the building, they're leasing the building that could be sold. And they have nowhere else to go.

[04:00:32] At this point, we don't have a double class having to go because they don't feel like moving an operation. They do have sold that. We've got other non-profits that are in various warehouse spaces that are getting pushed out. And so that's what it's meant is that in some of the districts where, you know, you have their own overlay or that you're pushing out other uses like Linesville, we went and fell for it.

[04:01:05] And he was basically saying he wanted to build two more, but he's selling to data centers. It's not economically for him to build, you know, he would actually be losing money like we're doing it.

[04:01:23] So that is a bigger issue for the warehouse. All right. We did hear the warehouse. I just wanted to make sure everyone. Try to get closer here.

[04:01:41] So, Pega, did you know? No, I wanted to know what it meant because Tom and I were having a sidebar conversation about these buzzwords. Okay, but what do they mean? So that's why I wanted to know. But I would go with revitalization. And I'm kind of stuck between diverse and balance.

[04:01:59] I think they could both kind of represent. I think so. I think balance sometimes fits where it is. So what I've got so far is. Should we get close and balance? Yeah, I think it would be. This is where I kind of thrown in a verb for now. But advanced smart strategic growth that encourages revitalization, diversity, and sustainability for our economy or our economy.

[04:02:23] We're getting close. What would you change? Our economy and community. Yeah. Okay.

[04:02:39] Advanced smart strategic growth that encourages revitalization, diversity, and sustainability for our economy and our communities. Encourages and incentivizes. And incentivizes? Yeah. Otherwise, you're not going to get it.

[04:02:55] Well, but if we put incentivization out there and we don't get it in four years, is that going to make us, or can that be a bucket underneath? What do you think? I'll look at our calls. I mean, honestly, well, also, too, I'm just looking at diversity. You know, because every time the diversity of economy, diversity of health and stuff, diversity just in general, all of it.

[04:03:15] Because it came from diverse economy, smart strategic growth, so having multiple industries that we're pulling from, that's everything. And to get a supervisor here's a point, it's okay to set something because these are goals, and if we miss them, that's on us.

[04:03:32] you know, we need to set goals that, again, are aspirational, but also things that we can reach for. Because if we can already do it, it ain't a goal. It's just something we're not doing. I was more just asking if the incentivization would be more of like a sub-objective kind of thing of what we're going to do too.

[04:03:55] But if you guys think incentivization, revitalization, diversity, and accessibility, or get one of those. First, who's in for putting incentivize in the goal? kind of keep it as a possibility to reach the old.

[04:04:13] And then revitalization we already agreed on. We have diversity. We could change it to diverse and sustainable economy and maybe separate that. Throw out a phrase.

[04:04:37] Find out perfectly grammatically. There's a devis in somewhere. Well, I mean, advanced smart.

[04:04:58] So advanced smart strategic growth that encourages revitalization and enhances the diversity and sustainability of our economy and community.

[04:05:16] And again, most of the things you can think about that we want to do, you could probably bump it under again, right? This is telling our community that we're focused on revitalization. We hear a lot about the redevelopment instead of new developments, a lot about diversification, and a lot about the sustainability.

[04:05:35] And some of that sustainability we can use as a word for capacity. As we grow and develop, I'm sure we can revitalize all we want, do we have to take care of it even as it grows infrastructure all of that this will work all right and again you know we're not getting absolutely perfect potentially but we're pretty darn close and that's really good our next time is when i'll let you all choose we're back down to

[04:06:11] can't really tell but increase affordability make our county more inclusive improve quality of life like keeping taxes low so affordability or develop our own identity and government accountability which one do you guys want to have affordability these are both number ones as well so we're sticking with the high priority so this one we've got a couple of words i am going to

[04:06:46] A little bit of increase of affordability. Oh, and we want to do that to be more inclusive and improve quality of money.

[04:07:15] Now, again, this is just what we started with. So when you think about this, what's the real heavy hitter for affordability, right? That encapsulates quite a few buckets now. So just for, you know, brainstorming, if you think about affordability, that accounts is taxes, right? Does it count housing? What else would it count for affordability? Things beyond our control, interest rates, inflation. Okay, so external.

[04:07:57] Bobby, you were telling us we have to carry on what we can control. Prince William is much more affordable than Fairfax, but Virginia is more affordable than Prince William. So is some of this related to jobs? that's something we can talk about transportation and i do want to say transportation and and then i don't know what this fits in here but you know we you know in our senior centers um and you know we've got some some i don't know i'm hearing discussions about uh the senior our senior

[04:08:36] community which is a large community it's paying too much to live here so there's there's some issues there that i think in that single population of our seniors that um we can address when we We talked about increased affordability. Absolutely.

[04:08:53] So I added retention on there. So how would we, and I think we're close to affordability potentially because we're not going specifically down housing. We're not going, we're saying, man, we just got to be affordable. And that includes a lot of buckets.

[04:09:11] Is that what we would want to start the goal out with? Is there a different wording that might capture it but make more sense?

[04:09:24] So, would it make sense for us, we only have one on this, and let me just for quality check,

[04:10:06] right, we're making sure, we already have public safety, we haven't done yet, but we that's on the board. We have kind of that identity, brand, accountability, etc. And now we have amenities. So we don't have a transportation. We don't have an official housing yet. We can either bucket them under that and make this very clear that affordability is around taxes, housing, and transportation. We can potentially say we want to capture somewhere under this and make just one transportation goal, but housing might be under this, the

[04:10:39] taxes so we've got some options but part of the smart strategic growth that's part of the affordable housing or the equation that's included in that potentially yeah because i mean that includes that you know as what we discussed is that sort of the diversity of housing mix that meets everyone at their economic levels so that becomes makes that's where we have to be strategic because we have to force the developers into doing these different things that they've been doing for the past 30, 40, to help us meet these needs rather than just let them

[04:11:18] keep bringing their proposals and us approving them. Right, right. So, but that ties into transportation, that ties into schools, it ties into all the other types of things, so. Development infrastructure. Yeah, and so that to me is a very big overarching umbrella of things that.

[04:11:37] So you would say don't even do affordability because it's already under SMART? Or would everybody agree that housing's under there? Sorry. Well, I was sharing it with the chair, but she thinks it's important to share it with everybody. Yes, no table talk, but it's all hearing. When we talk about affordable housing, there's been a push to try to move the affordable component from it because it brings a negative stigma.

[04:12:01] And so I don't, personally, I wouldn't want to use fostering affordable wherever it is that we're going. I think that cost of living is a better choice than affordable if, in fact, we're trying to get away from, you know, the same arguments that are being made when discussing affordable housing.

[04:12:19] So when you say enhanced cost of living? We're sitting here looking at our cheat sheet. We're trying to try. Otherwise, everything is just like enhance, improve, enhance. So tell me more about the cost of living. what do we impact that impacts cost of living that's not housing specific and what else would fit under the bucket of again say i'm always in staff mind if i'm the staff i'm a committee i'm a random community member what action what kind of buckets of work would fall under here i mean

[04:12:54] it's all in what you get in the mail so when you get your personal property tax statement of course People are like, even if we drop residential taxes down, you'll still get the argument of all these other taxes. So somewhere in there may be those fees we can lower.

[04:13:14] I know the personal property tax isn't something that the county can be controlled, but we can offset a little. I think we were doing that 80%, 90%. We did during COVID, we knocked it down a little bit to help out folks with vehicles. So when you say we control it, you've got to explain that a little bit.

[04:13:31] Because if that's something that we can... We have the ultimate story. So if that's something that we can do, I think, when you start talking about whether that's cost of living or affordability, that those are the things we can control. And those deeds are definitely important. But also, I would add that it's not just the tax.

[04:13:51] When we keep coming up with new taxes, right, it's counterproductive to the overall goal that we're discussing right now. We're talking about, you know, making... Prince William County, an affordable place to live and whatnot, but here we are. And, you know, and I think we've got to be careful because every time that there is like a shortfall, the go-to is always the same well, and we're impacting people and their quality of life.

[04:14:14] And so it's not just the property tax, it's the meals tax, it's the, and we can go down the list. Tipping fees. Tipping fees. I mean, it makes it, it's another expense on top of, you know, other responsibilities that people have to have money for, and it enters our ability, I would say, to deliver on this promise of keeping the cost of living low in this county.

[04:14:40] So some of your groups wrote these more specifically. They have a conversation on affordability, and whether that's economy, community, whatever, and cost of living. Is, and again, just a question, is cost of living a big enough umbrella for the next four years that we can fuck it a lot under it?

[04:15:02] That makes sense. - Versus affordable housing and cost of living, just affordable, low cost of living. - I also just want to, you know, cause the word affordable is always what kind of, I'm sorry.

[04:15:18] - No, no, no, no. - It always kind of twists people a lot because you start thinking of affordable housing, but you know, that's why, yeah. So I like, you know, now we're talking about, you know, cost of living or affordability. Yeah, because it's really that whole broad thing we're talking about for the county.

[04:15:35] And that's why we were even discussing affordable housing, the issue was really around a variety of housing. You needed affordability and a stockpile of housing to really make it more affordable and give people options on where they can stay and how they can live. And that goes to this affordability cost of living piece, which rolls in everything.

[04:15:56] I just want to kind of clear that up because I think we hear that word affordable, think housing. Or we think cheap. Right. But it's really affordability, if you think about it, it's really income to outcome. It's an input output ratio. So your affordability is, I make $30,000 a year, and I only pay $500 in rent a month.

[04:16:16] Totally affordable for me. I make $30,000, and I pay $2,000 a month in rent. Not affordable for me. So it's that ratio. Yeah, I agree with what you want to say. I want to take it from the perspective of transforming the quality of life for our citizens.

[04:16:38] That's what I was like, transforming the quality of life. You like that? Yeah. And what I mean by that is if we do that, we are in a good space right now. We're doing good. We want to do better. We want to transform the quality of life for our senior citizens.

[04:16:55] We want to make sure that they can stay and live in place in their homes. Or we can provide an affordable condo for them that they can afford going forward. But we also want to provide, transform lives for our disabled community.

[04:17:13] You know, so for me, it's the quality of life that Prince William County can provide with our level of service, with our level of taxes, with our level of transportation, all encompassing. It's transforming the quality of life from a good space to an even better space.

[04:17:35] So we took out a quality of life education already and over development, smart growth. So we're not re-listing. What are two or three things around affordability, taxes, et cetera, that would go?

[04:17:51] Transforming quality of life for all residents through or by? Through level of services, higher level of services. Let me just grab the word, the three main words. Okay, services, housing.

[04:18:13] Yeah. I mean, we know they want rec stuff. Transforming quality of life for all residents through services, housing, cost of living. One thing we haven't heard anything much about that might come into play here is...

[04:18:31] Well, this is also getting into amenities. I think one of the main issues. Okay. I mean, it is by itself, so I think it absolutely is. It has quality of life on there too. Yeah. So we have amenities, improved residence quality of life, parks, open spaces, retail restaurants.

[04:18:48] Do these three words encompass at all? Is there any duplication? Do they call out the big buckets we need to impact the quality of life? I said I think amenity needs to be something. Right now I'm not seeing any of that.

[04:19:12] Okay. That was a big start. Right. Yeah, exactly. Who wants to fund the service? Well, and they do have open spaces in there, so I'll just probably bring anything to make it. Quality of life, parts of open spaces between each other.

[04:19:35] Transform quality of life for all residents through services, housing, cost of living, amenities, and open spaces. It's too many people, but we can talk about that.

[04:19:54] So now we have services, housing, cost of living, amenities, open spaces. Let's do our vote real quick and just see where we get closest to home a little bit. So, mine's our baby, mine's starting to switch two out of these four words, or five words, I'm sorry, would you?

[04:20:13] Services, and cost of living. Supervisor, what? Open space and amenities. Housing.

[04:20:35] Calvary and cost of living. Oh, we're going to get a really good tie here. I'm just going to bring it all. Cost of living. You're the weight right now. Hold my tier. E, cost of living and open spaces.

[04:20:54] We can see how these are all impacting. Are all related. I agree. On the last one. I'm thinking about what we can control and the two things that we can have the best control over as a county for the folks that are in the room here are services and issues.

[04:21:21] All right, so right now, cost of living and amenities are our strongest. And then we have a three-way tie between housing open spaces. Well, some of the things, I mean, honestly, amenities. Yeah, what's duplicative? Because that could also, you know, like parks can be, you know, parks up in space, that's an amenity.

[04:21:43] That's something people are- Trails, good ways. Service and housing could be included in fossil living. Yeah. Those moments, all those descriptions. So I think fossil, I think amenities definitely, because that can umbrella. So let's, let's X out one of the three.

[04:22:01] Is, sorry, does it make sense? I know this is an important one. And we actually, as a team and organization, would very highly encourage at the end of all these goals that we have an organizational excellence goal. That has to do with the county staff, the services, the quality of service, that accountability.

[04:22:23] So if we take that one out and put it on the list of itself, what other ones are we hitting on that? So we could actually almost have all four if we wanted to.

[04:22:41] It's number one. It's number one. It's pretty big on number one. By three to one. Yes. Okay. Bob's reading again. All four of these were very... Maybe we can't come up.

[04:22:59] This is where we keep words in the middle of our office. I'm okay, Jeff. Alright. These grants are...

[04:23:18] I need one. For all residents. Residents, citizens... Residents. And businesses. I mean, we can only get life as a business.

[04:23:37] Through. Put the good ones first. Did we say, is open spaces raised for me? And if you think open spaces...

[04:23:52] Preservation. Separate? We need preservation. We might need another... Oh, just on environment. You'll find that there's a couple of few. Alright, so housing, fossil living, and...

[04:24:15] I thought we were just small. all. We took out services for another potential goal, and we took out open spaces as a separate goal. We don't have to. It's not done. I'm just, I think, open spaces. Because we don't have anything on environment, like just the general environment, sustainability, conservation, open spaces, parks, beauty. Who's going to be? But these are your guys' goals, I'm just.

[04:24:45] So, how are you feeling? What would you like to change that? She doesn't have a good feeling. No, I know you're telling her what you think. Tell me, what do you want to change up here? I'm still processing thinking.

[04:25:03] I don't want to think. So, are we close? What do we want to change? Transform quality of life for residents through housing, cost of living, and amenities.

[04:25:25] It might be to retain, maybe we flip it? Transform housing, cost of living, and amenities to improve quality of life and retention? Yes.

[04:25:42] I think it might sound better. Housing only really, again, that kind of gets back to, okay, we're just going to build more neighborhoods. And it doesn't lead us to building community. And, again, this kind of goes to the other one, giving ourselves our own identity.

[04:26:03] What is our hometown? What is that other than getting beyond that I'm a suburb of northern Virginia? um so looking at instead of just using the word housing talk about community um and getting that we're building communities um that are more connected more um rather than just shopping center houses shopping centers and houses so transfer variety of housing it's it's it's beyond the house i mean quality of life is not a house is just one little piece okay so you're saying

[04:26:41] it's where the house is it is i mean we have one of the most diverse communities counties in the country and yet we have and we have more people living in prox in such close proximity but there's very little community so how do we get beyond the house and get to the community how do we get to where um where it's more than just this is where i sleep at night so that's where you're getting And this is where, again, when I feel like we have like community engagement, how we communicate, environment.

[04:27:17] Would you have a different word? I guess I'm sorry. The whole second is the housing, quality of life. It's just grammatically crazy. This one or that one? The second one. The second one. I mean, you're not transforming housing. I really, I'm not sure if that's up there.

[04:27:34] I think the top one. All we did is switch the what and why. Yeah. The why is for quality of life and the what. so we just put the what first to have you like that. I'm just saying. I'm not trying to be the grammar of God. Yeah, these aren't going to be out of the government anymore.

[04:27:53] So, everybody likes the top one better then? Yeah. Yes. I mean, we can read either of them, but turn it out to the top one. I want to go back to something that Tom said, because what we are trying to do is build a piece of community in our county.

[04:28:15] So, it's not east versus west we're trying to build community so um with the topic um we're transform transforming quality life by building community through housing whatever that word might be cost of living and amenities by building community is that too much no you're right you're getting i think what you're getting but cost of living you're going to build community by cost of living

[04:28:49] no you're possible you never know your house i think we're overthinking it yeah i think we're getting yeah yeah so it's it's about the big three buckets we originally started this one on a four building again whether we put the y for us to transform quality life and then how we do it after or the how when we want if this doesn't make sense this build cohesive community you guys Just tell me the word.

[04:29:18] I'll come from Vegas. There's no way it is now? I think it's good. That's a lot. Just leave the retention out.

[04:29:34] I think that's probably also what we're trying to fit in with. Quality of life and routine. I think sometimes we don't transform to like her. Probably not, but for now. Build. Enhance.

[04:29:49] Enhance. We can think of some words later. We'll start them all off. Optimize. Advance.

[04:30:06] I think enhance. The chair has spoken. Oh, I don't mind. I just know we have three goals in advance in the first week. That's why. Our education starts with enhance.

[04:30:22] So I was trying to think of something. Right? Improve, make better, advance. That's why the word thing came out. All right, so we're pretty cool now this time. We're busy. Improve, transform, or improve quality of life.

[04:30:52] Improve. Advance. Okay, improve. We have enhanced. We don't have advanced. We don't have improved quality of life, of life for residents, through housing, cost of living, and benefits.

[04:31:24] All right. Yes. All right. So we just did that. all right on to our and this is this may be the one where we bump it into an organizational organize you know organization one because it does have accountability so that's our processes and the metrics holding ourselves accountable and our own identity which is going to be kind

[04:32:03] of marketing and branding and so it might it might not but we do know that we're also potentially we're down to public safety and identity and accountability we have a potential for invite an environmental goal or service and organizational kind of goals just keeping those in mind we have

[04:32:27] government's ability and we have develop our own and that is for trust and this one was actually

[04:33:06] about economic growth so we might come up with other why's oh this one's to build so in this one we had government accountability and develop our own identities to create trust with residents and businesses, creating equitable treatment and a level of expectation, and a path to fiscal saving.

[04:33:35] Develop our own identity was related to economic growth and building. So this also ties into services, I think, if we're going to talk about government education.

[04:33:53] So we'll just make this generally, how do we be the best we can be for our residents internally? So what would we focus our time and attention on so that what are we doing to maybe identify our identity, create our services?

[04:34:22] What do we want to focus on? What are our weaknesses around county services? My comments is consistent by staffs of admission.

[04:34:41] I'm going to say consistency and communication. Most people don't even know what and how to get them. That was the strongest community. Which would also tie in eventually to our branding, where we kind of see how things fall under each other, right?

[04:34:58] If we set a goal on improving communication and consistency, I'm sure quality will probably touch enhance. Internal operations, because that's one of the key weaknesses that identify this accountability interagency-wise.

[04:35:15] I know we already used this word, but enhance what? Enhance to. And this is not grammatically correct, but.

[04:35:31] When, why are you sweating? When it comes to community services, or sorry, county services, community services, what internally as a board, as leadership, as an organization, do we want to enhance X and Y to have what outcomes on the county?

[04:35:49] That's when, I mean. So there are businesses who don't want to have anything to do with Prince William County. Why not? They don't. I mean, I was looking. Challenge sometimes.

[04:36:04] I was looking for a contractor for a very specific thing the other day, and they list all the locations that they do business in. Prince William County is not listed, but everyone around us is listed. From Culpeper to counties in Maryland, Prince William County isn't in the list.

[04:36:26] And it's because how difficult it is, and I know there's a lot of work on this, but I think this is something that we have to stay, keep our foot on the gas. And that's just improving our permitting process, improving the way our inspections, because businesses are just sitting and waiting.

[04:36:50] They're burning cash, waiting on inspections, waiting on permits. And some people are just saying, I can't afford to do this anymore. I'm out. And so if we want to affect, you know, the business side and grow our diversity of economy, we've got to make sure that we're doing everything necessary to help these businesses conduct business rather than sitting and waiting on government red tape.

[04:37:30] No, no. I think, you know, dovetail on top, and I think we're both experiencing the same thing. And we all know of industries, we've had one come in and complain publicly to us about how they're not going to service our county.

[04:37:48] But there's a bigger issue. We need you to go, we need to crucify you for this. Next year, maybe so. He's so complicated. But we need operational change.

[04:38:05] And I'll give you an example. Tom briefly touched on it. I can't count the number of small businesses that come in my office, and it's literally every day or every other day completely. They're complaining about, take your pick, permitting, inspections, E&S.

[04:38:26] And I've had several businesses that have literally just had to close the door for the E&O. It got too expensive to carry it cost. I know of a brewery that spent six months getting permitting.

[04:38:41] And one of the problems that we're consistently seeing is that building inspector A will come in. Issues have a checklist. Fire marshal, fire inspector will then come in and go, no, take those three off.

[04:38:58] put these four in, don't do this, they do all of that, they come in for their final, the next inspector goes, well, those guys were wrong, you need to change it. They change it again, the first inspector comes back, and it just continues and continues.

[04:39:16] So until there's some continuity in the process, and we're going to probably need some procedural changes, it's not strictly confined to, I'm not picking up weight, but we need to put some processes and procedures in place because the communication, And I think this is where the staff comments are coming.

[04:39:33] Communication between departments isn't there. Everybody's acting like they're in a silo. And because of that sort of silo operation, it makes life difficult for us and for miserable at the end.

[04:39:52] Because, and I think, one last thought, and I think part of it needs to be, if agencies or individuals that are authorized to make, or quite frankly, some cases, life-changing or business-changing decisions.

[04:40:11] I think sometimes they need to run about legal first so that we don't end up in court. So I was reading what it was between one county services, processes to be more effective and efficient, efficiency and deliver.

[04:40:32] You got my quick writing. I think consistency needs to be able, because to hold Tom and Bob's point, one of the biggest qualms we all get is the lack of consistency, and that's the death. When they get, like Bob just mentioned, different message from different people, sometimes those different things that they need to do are not just a one-off quick fix.

[04:40:58] It's probably about hundreds, about thousands of dollars that that business needs to pivot and change, where if they had just been told that the first time, they would have thought of that. So I think consistency needs to be in. Other than that.

[04:41:17] Again, I'm just kind of throwing what I'm hearing. Consistency. How many services and processes are consistent, effective, and efficient to deliver quality, supportive services to residents?

[04:41:36] The only other thing I would add, and I don't know what the exact word he's using, but it's the desolowing, because Tom mentioned involvement in desolowing communication, collaboration, and synergy. That's in the organization? Yeah. I feel like that might be a level down, because I think part of our recommended execution process as we move forward is going to be consistent alignment practice.

[04:42:01] and reporting practice. But if that direction was made clear from a policy standpoint, I think it needs to be a community, I mean, communication and consistency. Less streamlined. Do we just get rid of this and say, you know, improve whatever county communication and consistency and get rid of the services and assume consistency and communication are obviously around services and processes?

[04:42:29] What's the big picture that would make people underneath the world? We've got to work on collaboration and communication. If you look at them quickly before we're going to go in order. But there on the green post-it, I believe I had something down. This one?

[04:42:49] Yes. This one is? That one. That's over. But we're going to come in. Let's go to the homes. I forget it. I just want to keep this moving. I can find it. I can find it. Amenities, affordability.

[04:43:06] Let's move on. I can find it. Let's go to supervisor now. Can you finish your call? I'm finished. Okay. So I want to go back to what Tom was saying about people wanting to do business here.

[04:43:27] And I want to expand on that in terms of when you talk about streamlining, but also it simplifies the same thing as streamlining. The stream running also comes from hearing from the staff about slow annual processes and technology and capacity and enough people to do it.

[04:43:48] So there's a little, so I want to give it, I want to, as the manager said, I want to name something, I want to name it to heightening county services processes as it relates to things more modernized and simplified to do business in Prince William County.

[04:44:08] and I say it like that because I know that we're on the road of doing that but sometimes it takes time for people to catch on to here's how we're doing business different now and then relaying that to the people that want to come and do business you know so uh does that make sense yeah so it's it's not just streamlining it's heightening more modernized processes and standards and services.

[04:44:40] That's a lot of words, so I'm putting an idea out there. Heightening. Heightening. Elevate. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Kim. Yes.

[04:44:57] It doesn't necessarily elevate and streamline, or just elevate. I mean, elevate, it captures all the streamline talks, actually the more efficient. Elevate streamline. The technology. This is streamline. And I heard Bible words say that our departments aren't necessarily talking to themselves.

[04:45:18] I don't know what that is, but there's something where it makes it. So wait, let me finish. Okay, I don't think it's understanding, because if there's a new way of doing something, why continue to do it the old way if it's not working? So updating.

[04:45:34] Updating is a better way. So what we're doing is what we've always done at that point. That's what we're here for. So if I could just go back down to the first one you have to streamline. So I would change that to elevate county service through streamlining processes to be more...

[04:45:53] Yeah. Elevate county services. Modernized processes to achieve excellence in county services. Woo-hoo! Thank you. Hold on. Go start. Go start.

[04:46:08] That's a mic drop. Go start. Say that again. Now say it again. Liburnized processes to achieve excellence in county services. And accountability. How many processes are just processes? Accountability.

[04:46:24] What was the question? Processes, process, process, process. Processes and procedures and processes to achieve excellence in county services.

[04:46:40] Yes. But that excellence time goes to us being, identifying ourselves. Aimed to deliver supportive services, just delivering services. To achieve excellence in delivering category services.

[04:46:59] Yes.

[04:47:10] Modernized, so do we want just processes? Processing procedures are pretty similar. I did hear a lot about communication and collaboration earlier. Modernize processes in communication to achieve excellence in delivering quality county services.

[04:47:26] Quality of quality county services. Modernize, just without the communication. Modernize processes to achieve excellence in delivering quality county services.

[04:47:44] Modernize processes in communication. I mean, communications can be, you know, or it doesn't feel the need to call. I think the communication, and again, I'm always filtering everything through the data that I heard.

[04:48:06] Lots about communication, having no idea, having no brand identity, having no idea when events happen. So I think there's a possibility to add them both. Again, it's up to you. It definitely is a process, see, so. I would say, I mean, whatever. Do you think it's just a tool?

[04:48:23] Yes, I don't think, I would say process. I think the saying that you're... We're not modernizing. Achieving excellence, to me, is better community, modernizing, better, as we're older. I was just going back to what I heard you had talked about.

[04:48:40] We had gotten on this creating a cohesive community, and you really would be part of it. And I'll just say, because I walked in at any of this, but I already knew what the conversation was. And just in the most basic of it all, you know, it has been a problem with, you know, any business you go into just stood up.

[04:49:00] They always tell you a horror story about their whole zoning process and just the fire marshal office. And so everything here is good. But I would say that because we could be so all pushed in deep words, the basics of it is really about the services and how we get these businesses done.

[04:49:19] And I think how we did before, the subcategories that you can lay out, the rest of streamlining and all this stuff. But the fact of the matter is, like, we got departments for some reason, and maybe that's something we need to sit down with our departments to hear, their version of the story, and how they're not, you know, talking together.

[04:49:38] Oh, yeah, and the communication was across the board. Yeah, so I think that's a drill down piece that we can get into later, but it clearly exists that we have a problem with how our services and business, business development, zoning, it's very hard for businesses in the county.

[04:49:58] And I know it's not fair. Again, the only reason I'm throwing in communications is because we've heard it so consistently and if the public sees the plan. And we call it, I think it's better. Yeah, absolutely. Again, just resonation with what the public hears when they read this.

[04:50:17] Did we see anything else about communication? Because that's, we didn't hear much about. The only big process we heard about was low technology and the permitting process. And we can put that down when we go through. Because communications, again, we would say it's what I'd say.

[04:50:34] It's how are we delivering things. Even if it's not shown as communications, if it's something that is one of our interests or something, I think that that is. If they don't know about the service, then that's really the challenge.

[04:50:53] The people that don't. So this one, are we good on this one? I think the supervisor failing has to pay. Well, I don't want us to prolong anything, but I'm hearing, okay, you're speaking of communications from board perspective.

[04:51:17] From staff, from citizens, from businesses, from every. I'm talking about across the board. Everybody, we ask, every focus group. District focus groups, businesses, county area, community advisory committee, city and town leadership, staff, everybody across the board.

[04:51:34] And so this is going to be both an organizational but to the community as well. The only reason I'm mentioning the communication is because it was about, you can have quality services, but I don't know about them. I don't know how to get to them. I don't know who to call. I don't know how to use them. Yeah. And I think what we are talking about is, you know, how do we assist in getting things through the system?

[04:51:59] How do we, in delivering the product for the community, how do we get through the procedures and everything? That's what I'm trying to, because it's two different things. Right. And I'm also going back to, I think, Vega, you mentioned this earlier.

[04:52:17] There is this feeling that we went to these focus groups and these goals come out. Did we see what we said in those? And some of that's the other thing. We want them to be just as resonating with these goals as we are when we write them. So it's okay.

[04:52:33] I think we're pretty good, right? Modernized processes and procedures to achieve excellence and delivering quality county services. I do just want to say that the idea down there of the government has nothing to do with this.

[04:52:52] What's that term? It has nothing to do with it. That's also where communication would come in. That's a whole different thing. This is well beyond all that. That is a whole different thing. I'm glad that we get into it in here.

[04:53:06] And I know that we are, and you know, that's where you care to be.

[04:53:40] Because it helps inform what we can do it backwards. Well, and I think it kind of starts with our vision. If you read our vision, it's very internally focused. Yes.

[04:53:56] It doesn't elevate us to how do we compete with, I mean, we are the afterthought, and I'll give a perfect example. Right now, in the entire DMV, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is doing this whole task force on transit, right?

[04:54:20] Well, guess who doesn't have a seat at the table in Sweden County? We don't have a seat at the table. So they're going to impose all these requirements on our citizens. We don't even need to speak into it. So the challenge that when I'm talking about our identity is getting out of the shadow of Fairfax County, out of the shadow of being a suburb of D.C. and Northern Virginia, and what really showed me how big of a problem this is,

[04:54:59] I had a phone call with the mayor of Virginia Beach talking about indoor sports facilities. And he said, where's Prince William County? Now, he's 450,000 people, large city in the Commonwealth.

[04:55:15] Three hours away. Three hours away. We're the second largest county in the Commonwealth, and he didn't know where we were. So this highlights, and so many times when I'm traveling, I say, well, where are you going off to Prince William County, Virginia?

[04:55:32] Well, where's that? It's northern Virginia. Are people confused with the Prince George? Yeah, correct. And so how do we, and I think we have to be very strategic about this. And it's not merely just a branding, but it has to be changing our own mindset and trying to be the way that we do planning and the way that we do economic development, the way that we do everything that helps facilitate that new identity.

[04:56:10] An identity is not something you throw up on a commercial or up on a slide. It's who you are. And if what we are doesn't match what we're calling ourselves, then people are like, oh, you're still just a suburb of D.C.

[04:56:27] You're still just a bedroom community. So we have to stop thinking of ourselves as a bedroom community. To me, that gets back to how do we build our own community that has its own unique identity that stands out in this environment that we call Northern Virginia.

[04:56:48] If we are a bedroom, we just own it, and we purposely choose that, yeah. If that's what we want to be, and if that's how we want to be, then let's just own it and move forward with that. But I don't get the sense of what anybody's really wanting.

[04:57:04] I'm sorry. I just want to, you all made some very strategic investments. Real business, our time, our plan, exactly what we're talking about.

[04:57:19] I want to make sure that we know, ultimately, we're going to fit those into whatever goals are established here, how those fit in, and then how they inform how we act. So it's certainly coming.

[04:57:36] I just want to make sure that we are able to plug those things, those investments in, and product those investments into whatever goals are actually established here. So let's go on, because I think that's something we do need us.

[04:57:53] That is something, like, you know, I know we're running, because then also guides. Big guides are guides of what we're going to look like.

[04:58:11] We have to agree with who we are and be, because it feels like we're just, we've had, and I was talking to Mr. Shorter earlier about innovation. You know, it's like, you know, isn't that kind of like our downtown?

[04:58:29] We do have Hilton, we have a boutique hotel, but we have Tucsonos. But I've also seen previous plans of what innovation could have been that would have made it more of a downward, would have made it more of a downward, but we veered away from that.

[04:58:46] And so that's the one thing that, again, we have to be honest with them. We can't just go for every shiny little object. We have to stick to how we want to execute. We have to be intentional. You know, do we want to do some of this? Are we just going to grab any type of thing, even if it's not compatible with our music?

[04:59:06] I'm going to, you know, some folks are weird, and then we can get back. I'll keep it really short. It's a corollary to all of them. It's nice to know what you want to be, but in order to do that, you need to know what you're not. We are not perfect. We don't have a dog. We don't have the proximity to the district. We're not allowed. We don't have dogs.

[04:59:27] So trying to become something that we're incapable of becoming because we don't have the infrastructure or the physical or the geographic attributes or the challenges that others have.

[04:59:46] But we need to craft our identity based on what we are and what we have that they don't have. So let's stop trying to be somebody else. And I'm not trying to be fair of facts. I don't want to be fair of facts. That's what all the citizens said is we don't have a dynamic we chose.

[05:00:08] We've been called It's just the point that the intention hasn't been there yet and we're just getting there now So the last one we have on post-it notes is public safety. In the results this had to do anywhere from enforcement of people that have been arrested going all the way through conviction. This had to do with racing, speeds on the road, some social traffic

[05:00:42] stuff. This also had to do with car break-ins and stuff being sold off porches and being afraid to walk at night compared to what used to be, etc. Here we just had one and it was public safety for citizen satisfaction, routine So when it comes to public safety, where do we want to focus our time, energy, and resources over the next four to ensure that our county feels safe?

[05:01:19] It's a difficult question, because at the end of the day, we don't control prosecution. We're going to have to take that out of the equation. We can arrest everybody we want. Do we choose the police chief?

[05:01:37] But I think it's a policy to focus on. Do we have enough voice over what the enforcement policies of the police departments are?

[05:01:55] Do we want to focus on things like community policing and the impacts of community policing? You know, I've spent the last 25 years in Haylocking, and for most of the years that I've lived there, there has been a focus on community policing.

[05:02:13] Now, granted, there's a different dynamic in that the ratio of police officer to resident is significantly lower than it is in the county. But I can tell you this. Community policing does have an impact. It does keep the crime rate really low.

[05:02:31] They stop. They drive through the neighborhoods constantly. They stop and they talk to the kids. They talk to the parents. They actually visit the businesses and do a check-in. They do door checks. I don't know that we're doing that. In fact, I'm getting complaints.

[05:02:49] I think we just had him loud in somebody. Citizens took down a carjacker and help him to... Well, I get calls almost every day where they won't respond. They told us to fill out an online room, or it's not a high enough issue for them, or they're not going to prosecute it anyway, so why bother?

[05:03:07] So we need to set a policy direction. Yes, we have a chief of police, but he works for us. And at the end of the day, he implements our policy guidance. And I don't see that happening right now. If we're going to get serious about public safety, then we're going to have to issue some policy statements that it's going to be up to him to implement them.

[05:03:29] Otherwise, it's just pretty word on board. I'm going to kill this thing. Aw, thank you. Is my writing pretty? Is it Gibson, right? I don't want to know. I'm sorry. So, go ahead. Well, I just want to just offer out a, and I agree with a lot of what I'm going to say, but I just want to offer out a different little piece of perspective.

[05:03:55] So like just this past weekend, they had a conversation with cops over at this art gallery in Stonebridge Townsend, which was very cool because the public got to come in and they had all the public safety fire and rescue communications. Anyway, that happened.

[05:04:11] My big issue or question would be, A, when it comes to crime, is there a demographic? Can we find out of age range what this is? Because I would say one of the things that we can be preventive on is if we have a youth issue, then we should give the youth more opportunity.

[05:04:30] Like, I think every sporting, gym, fitness thing in Prince William County should be open to the youth free to a certain age. If we're trying to, you know, and I don't mind as a devil's playground, if we're trying to give them opportunities to do better and have the opportunity to do things, then we should provide something like that for them.

[05:04:47] After school programs? Yes. That is not a big funding issue, but if we're serious talking about public safety, and if we can find in that demographics of age, whatever that is, who is our crime people, or what are these issues, then we shouldn't be really trying to be more active.

[05:05:05] My point is to identify, hey, we need to identify what that is, because if we're saying public safety and people are having issues, who are they having issues with? What is this issue, right? And we can say crime all day, but if it's truly an age or demographic, then one of the things that we can control is at least giving them the opportunity to do some things differently because they have things to do.

[05:05:31] We've set up programs. We've done some steps to really help our youth or help our middle age or whatever they say, whether it's, say, you know, not having jobs or whatever. I just feel if we're going to talk about public safety, And we don't go to the end about what prosecution looks like because we can't control that.

[05:05:49] I think, you know, Supervisor Board, you said it best. What can we control? So what can we control in public safety to help improve that quality of life for everyone in Princeton and Canada? I think that's a big key component of what we need to look into and try to write out the strategic plan. So I just quickly, real quick, captured some of the things you heard.

[05:06:07] And again, exactly what the community said. They said, we got crime, but get it early. Programs for kids, out of high school, internships, entrepreneurial programs. But we know public safety covers a lot, right? We've got that road safety. We've got do I feel safe in my house?

[05:06:23] I grab the community police and we have engagement with the police. So when the police are going out and having a basketball game or an event to me. Police capacity. Also touched on that. Enforcement, quality of, level of, et cetera. If it is holding the police chief accountable, then that's, and then the preventative.

[05:06:42] So we've got a lot of pieces of public safety to capture. If we just say public safety because they capture these and that's okay, but if we want to actually focus on a couple of these in the next four years, particularly to communicate the public what we're talking about, about public safety to move safety, we want to keep it all up.

[05:07:09] If I'm talking in specific to my hot topic is speeding and railway safety, I think we need to invest in technology to assist our police officers. If we don't have enough officers on the street to really do traffic police enforcement, this is where our technology comes into play.

[05:07:26] Our red light cameras, our speed enforcement cameras. There are things out there in technology now that can assist us. D.C. just implemented a program with all the cameras in the district. They can monitor what's going on everywhere. Now, people don't like that. They call it Big Brother who's got the survey back to the mastermind.

[05:07:42] It works, you know, because you're going to be utilizing technology. to assist us. So if we're going to say that we don't have enough officers on the streets, then we should have something to enhance and help our officers that we do have. And I know we're growing our police force, so I don't know the exact number now, but I know we've done pretty well with Police Academy and a lot of graduations. So we're doing the right thing to help since based on 2021, the civil unrest period we went through, I think we're doing better in that area, but I don't think we're using enough technology to help us and help our police force and public safety altogether.

[05:08:22] So if you go back to when we were briefed by Ben's entire team back in early May, some of the things that kind of popped out were things that, in my mind, were preventable.

[05:08:44] Leaving guns in cars, that was a big thing, guns being stolen out of cars. People were leaving their cars unlocked, leaving their wallets in their cars. so it kind of gets back to the communication piece it's like you know how do we remind people how to not become a victim by doing the obvious things of lock your cars don't leave your wallets don't leave firearms in your vehicles so there are things that we can talk about in terms of you know a little bit of personal responsibility you know I mean we all lock our doors when we at

[05:09:23] night right before we go to bed. So, you know, you know, because you want to be safe in your home and want to take those right steps. And Bob has, you know, you know, initializes his anti-air but I'm just saying is, you know, when we start to look at what, you know, we've got those types of things, but then we also have the more serious violent crimes and we have the drug, the fentanyl type issue so you know there's so much we do and you know my view is we put too much pressure

[05:09:59] and responsibility on law enforcement when it's really about trying to figure out how do we uh term i like to use is get left to boom let get get left of the problem in order to uh try to to reduce the incidences where the cops are necessary and so what is it how do we effectively to do that through our other through community services even through our planning processes how do we you know build better communities and our redevelopment so just I think there are things that we could do to kind of

[05:10:35] reshape the environment that would help reduce the amount of crime okay I want to bring some prime club opportunities that is again people you know stealing guns breaking into a car stuff like that there we do social media reminding people to lock doors you know I know that there's neighborhood crime watches and that's some talk to you those are things it does go to constant responsibility but it also people feel that they're safe and it's not going to happen to them until it does you know the larger issue for me is what you're you know

[05:11:13] just the other types of kids providing wraparound services for whatever we need you know one of

[05:11:19] I feel part of public safety is when you create opportunities, you know, that's why I was a big fan of summer jobs, that's why I'm a big fan of other types of social services that help us reduce, you know, once you're offender, once you're in the system, it's harder for you, you know, I think keeping people out of the system is preventative, you know, and I'm also a big fan of community policing and of personnel to really do that well, because, you know,

[05:12:03] It is, I said, you know, it's law enforcement. There are so many things that we can be doing other than just relying on them. And I would like to focus on doing things that we can do that are...

[05:12:20] So I'm trying to get some of those sounds in there. So starting with one of these kind of invest in prevention and engagement of the community to cultivate a safe and secure community. I got communities built in there twice. I also had something like cultivate, optimize, increase public safety by building capacity and engagement with law enforcement.

[05:12:44] Are we getting closer? How would you say it better? Maybe instead of a safe and security, safe and security. Okay. We have community, right? Is this getting close to right, right?

[05:13:02] That engagement, we talked about community policing. That also means events with the police. That could be in community policing itself. Prevention, getting ahead of it. I don't know how you include this in it, but I hear a lot about creating programs, creating programs.

[05:13:23] I think that we have great programs, but if we don't know all these resources that we have, oftentimes we don't know about those resources. And so I feel like there's a disconnection. We're trying to reinvent the wheel when there's no need for it. And we have to be able to tap into the existing programs to meet what I think are goals that being mentioned by my colleagues.

[05:13:47] So knowing that we have the procedure improvement line and communication is going to take a piece under that as an objective, we could potentially keep that in mind? Or is there like what word would fit in here best to kind of capture that?

[05:14:04] I think supervisor, really what we were talking, was it partnership or collaboration that we used? It was partnership. Partnership, right? I don't know how you. Well, I think create partnerships. To invest in prevention and engagement.

[05:14:20] We're not free. I'm just trying to tap into what we already have. Right, because the schools have programs. Court divisions, they have programs. The adult detention center. I mean, you know, even I think the CAs are off it.

[05:14:40] And it just seems like everybody's doing their own thing when we just have to figure out a way to merge somehow or benefit off of what we already have. So it's sort of a whole of government, whole of community. Right. Because we need to identify the services that are already.

[05:14:59] But also, from a county perspective, a board perspective, we need to invest in them as well. Because one of the things that we always talk about briefly, but we leave it swept under the rug, is a mental health component that is a part of that.

[05:15:19] So how are the programs that's inside of those that are there so we don't have repetitive incidents coming back? Is that our community programs or is that our community safety programs or is that reinvesting in that population so that, you know, we are partnering with law enforcement at all levels?

[05:15:50] I mean, it might be, the community talked about partnering, so it might be partnering and prevention and engagement. Do you want to add partnering in there somewhere? Is it best the right order for us? That adjective even started, or that word even started us out.

[05:16:07] I like partnering because whoever said it, we got all these organizations doing the wrong thing, but we can somehow roll an umbrella with all of that to really try to push out that proper messaging because that seems to be what we're lacking is how we get all of this good information out to the community.

[05:16:27] So cultivate a safe community through a whole community approach. Through a whole community approach? Through a whole community approach. I'm missing out.

[05:16:43] Whole of government. Like whole of government. Oh, whole. W-H-O-L. You know that word? Whole. So you want to switch this to the beginning?

[05:17:00] cultivate a safe and secure community because that kind of establishes your goal through a well we said county safe and secure county well that's only because we have through a whole of government but to me but to me it's not just county because you also need partnerships with the state level

[05:17:35] there's even some federal engagement so it's it's really it's a hope through a holistic holistic partnerships yeah yeah so here's where i'm getting stuck because the holistic partnerships it could be potentially a task what are those partnerships about prevention engaging the community policing with the police all those things versus just like a whole county approach like i kind of feel what you were saying earlier like that's kind of vague like what's a

[05:18:09] whole county approach well i mean to every piece of government it doesn't just fall on data no right you know safety sir community doesn't fall just on him but that there's you know things that you know in elijah i caught you again you know so through some community services you know there are things that that they can do within communities through you know like uh there's even you know doing things through the schools we talked about you know um there are things that I mean, it's not just a law, this is, SafeServe community is just not law enforcement.

[05:18:49] Which is why we don't have law enforcement. I guess I'm trying to get this to more clear because as a partner, I know that you're working on prevention and engaging the community to help. Why don't we approach to prevention and. Tom, is the word holistic or?

[05:19:07] I was going to say integrated. Integrated. Yeah, stakeholders, yeah. We're talking a lot about these, we know that we have self-impact on them.

[05:19:25] Through an integrated approach to prevention. We are talking goal strategy. Yes.

[05:19:42] Goal is safe and secure conditions. Underneath that goal. These help kind of, as the leadership team, hold your goal to understand what they mean a little bit.

[05:19:58] So we know, so we have to cultivate a safe and secure community through an integrated approach to prevention and engagement. An integrated community approach? I guess we already have community in there.

[05:20:16] Integrated approach. I think it is. You guys tell me. Are we there? We have this one, we have this one, we have these down here. What's the closest one?

[05:20:39] I'm thinking is it just an integrated approach or is it an integrated county approach to prevention engagement? Well, it would be more than county. County. Yeah, because you're integrating services and organizations that are both government, state, federal, local, as well as private NGOs.

[05:21:04] So, so then the stakeholders? Stakeholders could work. Yes, stakeholders could work. You're flipping it back the other way, right?

[05:21:22] I'm just looking at the person back. Yeah, I'm just reading for me. Which one, let's just show of hands, which one is closer? Who thinks number one is closer? Everybody agree number two is closer.

[05:21:41] Cultivating a safe and secure community for an integrative approach to prevention and engagement. A prevention. Cultivating a safe and secure community using an integrative approach to engagement.

[05:22:02] An integrative approach to prevent and engage the community, to prevent youth, thank you. So this work. You've got to throw all the words out there, show me, too.

[05:22:19] You're going to help me a little. So what was it? Integrative approach. Yeah, I say it loud in the form of safety. Oh, okay, still process it. Bring something out loud, still work. Processing, yeah. I'm just trying to think of removing prevention and engagement.

[05:22:37] So, because I think that's, it's almost like we've got two goals, right? so within one statement cultivate safety through prevention and engagement so uh but cultivate a safe community through an integrator approach with uh community stakeholders yeah because i think integrated covers prevention i would like to approach residents and stakeholders yeah i like residents and stakeholders. And because community is in there twice and we don't want to hear that.

[05:23:10] I know you're brainstorming back there. Okay, how about cultivate a safe and secure community using an integrated approach? I had with residents and stakeholders, and I would say maybe engaging through, you know, engaging residents.

[05:23:28] I engage stakeholders or community stakeholders? I mean, we've used community, I just want to get away from it. Alright, so let's try and see if we got it.

[05:23:41] Cultivate a safe and secure community using an integrated, integrated, IV, or IEV.

[05:24:10] Integrated, it could be an integrated approach versus an integrated approach. Approach. A safe, sir, community through integrated engagement with residents and stakeholders.

[05:24:46] Approach. Is it only integrated, you were bringing up the other people, so is it only integrated residents or stakeholders? In residents and stakeholders. Oh, I mean, to me, all stakeholders are federal, state, local, horizontal line, vertical.

[05:25:04] I just, the integrated. Using integrated engagement with residents and stakeholders. It just, to me, the way it is, it's just a very, the sentence is very. Do we need integrated or do we say engagement?

[05:25:22] And then we have stakeholders, which integrates the stakeholder president concept. It feels like integrated is a little cohesive, holistic. Holistic engagement with residents and stakeholders. I used to know.

[05:25:38] I don't think the program is necessary. I personally, I don't know if we're getting a little too long. We're going to follow along. It's our last one.

[05:25:55] That's the last one. And then we're going to take a break. Well, this is the one we're going to be on post-it notes. All the priorities that we all came up with. This is the last one. And then if we need to cover, a quality check. I'm sorry, what is above integrated?

[05:26:11] Holistic. So we mentioned maybe there's something going on here that people were talking about changing either. Integrated, engaging approach. I think integrated, engaging. We're really getting to salad.

[05:26:29] Integrated, engaging approach. And I know this is challenging. We really do want to get as close to those words because these are going to set up our objectives. We know that time is of the essence.

[05:26:48] So the closer we get out these little words, otherwise we would have not been your appropriate goal, right? We got the themes. So cultivate a safe and secure community using an integrated, engaging approach with residents and stakeholders.

[05:27:05] So I'll be honest with you. I don't think approach to this. When we, I'm looking at this as an outsider. How do you integrate? When you, I'm sorry, can we have the next? Um, when you, as an outsider, if I'm reading through this, these seem like big, lofty work.

[05:27:21] And that is, that's kind of my complaint. We are wordsmithing and getting to putting all the buzzwords in there. But I want us to think about this. You want the message to be simple. Yes. We're not creating this. And that's, I think we're getting a little too integrated, engaging, put communications here.

[05:27:37] We're throwing in buzzwords. And that's, when I look at this from a paper company, like, who came up with this, whatever. And so I think we need to be a little bit more direct. We don't need every buzzword. So how about an integrated partnership with residents of safety?

[05:27:55] I think integrated partnership. I think this is where we get stuck between two high-level and not high-level. Right. I think some of these were, there's, right, we could just say safe and safe. That could be a problem. Where are we giving staff resources, leadership direction on how we specifically are guiding them?

[05:28:16] And that's where we started to come up with a prevention beforehand, engaging after school programs, engaging the community by meeting the police, engaging in policing. So that's how we got to this. - You got a suggestion? - No, I think we had a good one.

[05:28:32] - Give me a suggestion. - We had a good one with our research. - I'm looking at the band back there. - So, Madam Chair, which one did you like best? The integrated? - I'm sorry, it's Dan. - No, that's okay, sorry. - The man who does this every day, I'm sorry. - Fatal gender, did you have something?

[05:28:48] - I thought, you know, our mission statement As of now, community safety is cultivating a same structure of a policy community, realizing the holistic and data before the growth. Holistic? Look at that.

[05:29:05] Thank you. That's just how we paste that. Thank you, Dan. Does that really hit on, because a vision and a mission is way different than a strategic goal, which, again, funnels the next couple of years.

[05:29:23] What are we focusing on to get to that, to get to that, to get to that? So, Chair Jefferson, you said we were pretty close with the first one. We were starting to kind of lock it up. I don't know why I heard this one. This one? Yeah, we started, we had something that we started work smithing.

[05:29:39] And I hear you about we want to use the right version of the died staff. But I do feel like, again, we're loading this up. Yes, that's going to be fair. And the community, you mentioned, Linda, the community is going to read this. And they don't want to see what they said kind of come out in their words.

[05:29:58] And they mentioned prevention and you were mentioned. We're going to learn to see those at the objective and strategy levels, too. So just thinking about, yeah, okay, cultivate a safe and secure community using...

[05:30:16] Now this is where we got Mucky. Integrated, unintegrated, engaging. As we take out an approach, it just says integrated and engaging residents. All right, so Tom, I'm going to get back to you.

[05:30:38] I know you weren't going down the ramp. Because we had at one point cultivate a safe and secure. Where did we go down again? No, it was just trying to simplify it even more.

[05:30:54] That's all I was trying to do, just try to, by getting the integrated approach to community, it's like integrated engagement with the community. Yeah, but integrated is the approach, and you can do it by engaging?

[05:31:10] No, it's an integrated engagement. So it's not engaging, it's an integrated engagement with community, with residents and stakeholders. So are we automatically engaged or are you trying to get the community?

[05:31:27] We're trying to get. The goal here is to recognize the fact that it takes all of us to keep our community safe and secure. We have so many people need to do this. How many people do we need that?

[05:31:50] I would request you have five of us. Get a coffee. You're in the same room. Maybe we have the same room.

[05:32:06] using integrated engagement, community through integrated engagement with residents and stakeholders, but instead of using, put through an integrated engagement with residents.

[05:32:38] Alright, we're going to vote on this one. Just to start us, we've got two versions, cultivate a safe and secure community using an integrated approach, by engaging with residents and state court number one number two cultivate a safe and secure community through an integrated engagement with residents and state court here yeah i feel like engagement

[05:33:10] i have to agree to be an engagement you can't just engage by again this is up to you guys but as a As a person, I'm not sure I would. So everybody agree, Supervisor Rear, which out of the top two do you like?

[05:33:31] Two. Can we read that? No. Cultivate a safe and secure community through integrated engagement with residents and stakeholders. I guess that's already a mature.

[05:33:55] We're just choosing between these two. That's not, we're just choosing between these two statements that you like better. engagement with residents an integrated engagement or integrated approach by like i said i don't have to

[05:34:24] okay there we go all right so let's take a play break and then we'll just come back and we'll just talk about those couple of parking lot items that we made and do a quality check on ourselves How much are we on the break? How long?

[05:34:50] We have to be out of here at 6:00 for sure, so say 15 minutes, 10-15 minutes. As long as everybody's back on time, then I'll lose this hour and wrap up it. Dr. Jess, move forward.

[05:35:07] Safe, secure community through integrated engagements with residents and stakeholders.

[05:35:17] The five we have.

[05:52:16] education particularly around equity and quality, smart strategic growth to help economic development around that revitalization, housing costs, housing costs of living and amenities to impact quality of life, streamlined county services.

[05:52:34] I don't know if we had a poll out of that one, uh, to, tell me that's genuine. Modern on this process, they presume to be delivering. Delivering quality services, and then public, safe and secure community around public safety, around engaging in an integrated approach or integrate engagement.

[05:53:00] So what are some areas and themes that we heard about from the community that we have not either found a bucket for, that we know can go at a lower level on needs, that we really want to call out at that high, long-term. The environmental, open space, nature space piece.

[05:53:19] Okay. Make sure if you look at slide 56, you can find a priority. So just, again, to start this off, we're going to try to make this.

[05:53:40] We've learned through a couple of these. So let's just start with a couple lists. First list, what, right? What around environment do we want to focus on? We know we want to have a beautiful, long, sustainable but what are our environment?

[05:53:58] I think water quality is a big concern. We have a lot of folks right now in wells, and then we also have our, you know, the Alcaquan watershed, which is always, and we share that with Fairfax, so it's not just a matter of Protecting Rock one for a bit of a good Prince William, but for a greater region. So water quality is efficient.

[05:54:33] And you kind of used that one word. The other thing you just want to focus on in the country environment is air quality.

[05:54:59] A bunch of time comes in and they're asking about what we're going to do on environment, where are we putting our dollars?

[05:55:16] Well, I think, you know, part of, you know, kind of gets back to, we've talked about this a lot, but we've never put the money behind it. And that's the purchase of development rights and conservation easements. to help protect particular areas within the county.

[05:55:40] So it seems like so far protection is kind of of all these areas, whether it's our water or our night. Let's move that to what we can actually.

[05:55:56] So in development, we have some state of stormwater management. And somewhere in there, maybe if there's a way to look at improving, I don't know where that sits in the state of where we are in development and what those look like now, But I'm sure every day there's something coming out that's better and a better way to do that kind of business.

[05:56:16] Because those help protect our water probably and look at ways of making sure as we develop next, what we're doing with water runoff, how that's been processed to get back into, you know, our reservoir. So somewhere in there, I think innovative ways of thinking of how we develop and what does that stormwater for the environment or any of those environmental pieces look like for new developments.

[05:56:42] Okay. I think one of the things that we have to do is start getting into this whole question of space war quality is understanding what we have and what is protected.

[05:57:00] Quite frankly, that means reopening the town plan, because I'll be honest with you, we have overstated intentionally what our protected open space and protected green space acreage is by simply somebody planning, taking green paintbrush, covering swaths of land with the Parks and Open Space designation simply to gin up the numbers or including the land area of Lake Manassas as Parks and Open Space.

[05:57:37] You can't build anything on the lake. You can't even put a boat in it. But you're counting it in your acreage of open space. So there are some significant flaws in the long-range land use map that need to be addressed such that we can get an accurate sense of what is and what is not open space protected or otherwise until we have that base number where are we really going so and

[05:58:12] that has tax implications as well well this has something to do with protection it has i would say it has to do with sustainability from a perspective of i'm on the cogs farm committee and what's very interesting is i'm as i'm attending these meetings is how fairfax arlington alexandria dc montgomery county and other localities are all trying to figure out how they bring farming back to their community and through what they call urban farming um and i think what they all found

[05:58:51] out is as we came through covid that they really were food deserts and so when we think about it we have an opportunity to not make the same mistakes as they did by and and i don't i've stopped using the word rural area it's agricultural area because it has value and it and it helps sustain our community that if we need to be able to sustain our community we've got the land to be able to do that and so for me it's about recommending it gets back to the ag tourism

[05:59:27] the ag business but it's also about protecting that because right now there's a lot of development that's budding right next door to all of it and it's just not compatible you know suburban development is not going to like roosters curling at three in the morning they're not going to like hay cutting, you know, allergens coming up, they're not going to like spreading the manure on fields, and all that takes place out there.

[05:59:52] The slaughtering. Yeah, and slaughtering a whole bunch of stuff out there. Can I go tail on that? Because you mentioned something that I mentioned earlier, which is, you're talking about the Ag and Arts Overlay District. Yeah, we've got our ordinance. We don't have a map. So what good is an ordinance for an overlay district where there's no map in the overlay district?

[06:00:14] Jobs have done. Should have been incorporated into the comp map. You mentioned food deserts. Again, it's defining terminology because the way that you use it is totally different when you talk about the environment and food deserts.

[06:00:39] You mentioned food deserts for me in the urban area. In the urban area. It's without a grocery store. Right. Food deserts for what you just said. Environmental crops. Yes. Well, when you have a food desert, but if you have a way to grow food, when the supply chains are failing, as they did during COVID, right?

[06:01:00] And we all recognize how vulnerable we are to that. That food desert immediately starts to expand, right? But if you, there was an article last week, I don't know if it was in the Wall Street Journal or Washington Post, but it was talking about a guy in Fairfax County who has a 10 by 10 plot in his yard, and he sustains his family for five to six months out of the year off what he grows on that 10 by 10 plot.

[06:01:28] So if you've got dirt, water, and air, or light, dirt, water, and light, you can grow something. So it's about, and fortunately in the state, Virginia State University has a small farm program that can actually help people learn how to take care of themselves.

[06:01:45] We've lost that art. I mean, it's amazing that once we came back to World War II, we gave... No, no, no, no. We lost a lot of skills because we gave up a lot of things.

[06:02:01] Centralized versus decentralized. And so now we're learning. Maybe those are skills we should not have lost. And so helping people learn how to be more... And that gets back to sustainability. They can be self-sustaining, right?

[06:02:19] So that they can learn how to help take care of their families. So it's like, other counties, maybe city-wise, you might be out in five or six months, but our county can self-sustaining, continue to produce, and can. Yeah. OK. So with the environment, is that one of the highlights also?

[06:02:46] Agriculture slash food deserts. And I related the food deserts to basically-- and get me if I'm wrong-- we can sustain ourselves. We have the land, we have the resources, do we have the knowledge yet, but let's cultivate that, whereas the other cities are a lot more dense, might not have the land.

[06:03:08] I just want to help carve out this conversation, because this is what we're talking about. So I see what you're saying to Brother Boyd, Tom. Thank you, Tom. Just I can't. All walls are closing in on Prince William County.

[06:03:25] Prince William County is not Bath County. Bath County, Everything around Babb County is rural. Everything around Prince William County is not. The issue that we need to discuss is when you talk about sustainability of self-sufficiency of growing your own farm, it's what does that look like and how do we actually incorporate it in?

[06:03:43] Because we have an overgrowth population that that's why we have this housing crisis that we're trying to figure out. And I'm talking about spreading out our people, not more people moving in. But in doing so, our green spaces that was number one on the list that we're trying to protect, and to your point of food desert or, you know, garden deserts, whatever that may be, how do we incorporate that into this environmental piece that we're talking about?

[06:04:09] Because at the end of the day, we've got a lot of people in this county, and we're closed in on all sides by growth. And Princeton County may have been rural once, but the ruralness of Princeton County isn't as rural as it once was. The East End was all farmed at one point.

[06:04:26] Not too long ago, 40 years ago. 40 years later, there's not a lot of farm space left. Or when you talk about, you know, this ag or whatever you call that map that is not there. Like, the reality is we're different now.

[06:04:42] And so this is important as we lay this out on how we do that. What does it look like? I just want to put that out there because we can go all day about all the issues that we have. But really, we're boxing on all sides. We've got to figure out what we want to save or grow or how do we grow or what does it look like.

[06:04:59] And I don't know what that is. I just want to put it out there to get us back into that realm of what do we do about that? How do we do that? So a couple of things. I appreciate where the conversation is going. To sort of dovetail off the self-sufficiency piece is resilience.

[06:05:18] Because there's a couple different ways that resilience goes. You have resilient communities that are able to sustain economic shocks, put in security, what have you. But you also have the climate and environmental resilience piece where right now we're experiencing flooding. Right now we have a heat wave. We have all these sort of extreme weather events that happen.

[06:05:37] Regardless if you agree or not that they're increasing, we see that they're increasing. We can't agree on necessarily why, but we see that the severity of these weather events are increasing. I mean, we've had now back-to-back days where it's 100 degrees, right? We have sufficient, significant floods.

[06:05:54] We have all these things going on. And so how do we also make both the unbuilt environment, the built environment, more environmentally resilient? and how do we also shore up, sometimes pun intended, our existing environment to help become more resilient from that?

[06:06:12] So lots of different, and again, all these are great to capture because some of them may become buckets. All important to have an idea so that we can start to, just like everything else, themes.

[06:06:28] We've got a theme here around quality of environment. We have a theme around kind of the sustainability and resiliency and kind of that future of how we use it, That innovation, how to get better, that protection and innovation potentially.

[06:06:45] So we've kind of thrown together, just to get us started, is I started with Innovate, but Innovator Identified, planning and protection of our natural green spaces to conserve our beautiful county or conserve and sustain our beautiful county.

[06:07:04] Something around that beauty, that nature, that conservation, that environmental conservation, that planning and protection of where can we change or what we want people to work on towards environments and the outcomes.

[06:07:24] I would say there's more than our green spaces. Okay, so natural water and green spaces? Greenways and blueways. Yeah, because I mean, the Potomac River, which mostly is in Maryland, is still a test.

[06:07:40] I know you all, I'm sorry, I'm a citizen. I don't know what greenways and blueways are. Green spaces and blueways are green spaces in the water. No, no, I get it. I'm just saying. What are we going to do right now? I'm trying to figure out a way to save that. Our natural assets, we can save green space, water, natural resources, and green spaces, or just count them as big.

[06:08:05] They're a little distinct, but they could be. I know we all know the community is going to want to see something around this place. And then what is our outcome? To do what?

[06:08:20] Preserve. Conserve, preserve, conserve, sustain, preserve, preserve, preserve, preserve, and sustain, just preserve, and sustain.

[06:08:36] Let's talk about that word preserve, because let's define it now, preserving meaning we aren't touching it, and I think that's a risky word. We're saying we're going to make sure that certain areas that we want to make sure stay green, we're preserving that.

[06:08:53] and we're talking about certain areas. Otherwise, that word could get very tricky and lost countywide for preservation when, in fact, there is, you know, that's why it could serve for me. But anyway, I just want to make sure we understand that by saying preserve, we're talking about sectioning and not ever using preserve.

[06:09:16] Yeah, so that's a dangerous word to use in a county that has development still going on. If I could, I think that not only did I agree with that, I think that we need to be careful there with the no-ank lecture, but I also think that we would also be missing a part where we're thinking of the already more urbanized part of our county and reestablishing green spaces that are already been lost, which is far what needs to be done, right?

[06:09:45] We know that we talk about redevelopment of the corridor, root-wing corridor, parts of my district, There are opportunities that we have a lot of vacant brown space land that we can help revitalize with more greenery, with green spaces. So it's that equity piece there. There are areas that deserve to have green spaces that currently don't have.

[06:10:05] If Megan's not here, she loves cultivating roots. Yes, she would. She wanted to cultivate roots. She didn't want to use cultivating roots. Well, yeah, that's technically.

[06:10:21] Probably use cultivates. You're getting rid of weeds out of the garden. It actually means to invest in what you control. So we kind of, let's start with the beginning now, right?

[06:10:40] The what. What are we focusing on? And again, to do what? To get what? So right now we have innovative playing and protection. How do we want to change those? What are the two things that you're informing the staff in this community that we're going We're going to make sure we do actions towards.

[06:11:01] I think you should replace the word innovative with accessible. Is it possible? Yeah, it's a good system. Yeah, keep the money. You say that T even though it's not going to say it's true. That's what I'm going to say about here.

[06:11:19] It's like innovative. What does that mean? You're thinking of new ways to use the green spaces more effectively without automatically redeveloping them, taking them over, or revitalization. That's where that innovative comes in. I don't know. Again, just throw it out there. If you guys got a better word, you got to give me the better.

[06:11:36] Adaptive, adapt. Or it could be like a do, you know, like develop more planning or build more planning. You know, it could be a do action. So, well, why don't we say preserve our beauty, preserve the natural beauty of Prince William County, the county.

[06:12:04] Because that's the outcome. Right. The hard part that we're getting to is the what to do. The natural beauty, and that takes care of everything from Tomic to Bull Rhyme Mountains. Through a place adjective here, planning.

[06:12:41] I'll come first. Natural beauty has to count. I'm just reading what the takeaway themes were. Preserve the natural beauty. The hard part is, what are we going to do to protect it?

[06:12:58] Right, that's what I'm looking at through my home. Are we really going to push people forward? I like that first piece you said, because it doesn't say we're not necessarily developing, but we're going to make sure, in our development, we're preserving the natural beauty of what that county, you know.

[06:13:17] It's literally, it's kind of basically the same thing. Right. Just put this part first, and that part, so the what and why. Through protecting our green spaces and natural resources. Through our green spaces.

[06:13:36] Through the protection and restoration of the green and natural spaces. Protection and restoration. I like that. What do we restore? That gets back to what you said.

[06:13:53] What do we restore? Well, he's talking about some places, you know, within the more of the urban areas where there may be a vacant lot or something. Is that going to be replaced? You restore it. Take a look at some of the work that's being done up behind the Wawa there.

[06:14:09] I mean, that's restoration, trying to restore that area back to a chance of beauty. We get shorelines, we also turn our old computer lock into the park. What about Potomac, you know, like reclaiming there? We'll think about, yeah, Possum Point.

[06:14:25] Yeah, Possum Point. Yes, absolutely. So preserve the county's natural beauty through protection and restoration of our rain and natural spaces. Let me get it.

[06:14:46] Does it stink? We got to know if it's dump freezing and drenching and all that stuff too. So we don't have anything about sustainability.

[06:15:04] We have preserve and protect and restore. Nothing about planting rain. We got the rain spaces already. We didn't touch on anything about resources, which talked about these couple of things that we didn't include originally. Natural beauty and resources.

[06:15:21] Let me ask if I can, too. So given that so much work has been done, and I don't want to cut us off, there's another goal, another opportunity, but we go back, team, find that there's a gap or that there's some language that we could add to amplify the board's points.

[06:15:44] Are you all comfortable? Sold us. I just want to make sure that there's that the team has the ability to go back and including sort of the brain story that went through that it does give staff the insight into where we were going before we landed on what we did so if you all can then find those pieces to add back to make it much longer.

[06:16:18] We'll be taking a lot of those into the objective writing sessions. One thing I do want to preface, we know you all are off in August. We are, the plan is to get objectives, come back to September when you get their alignment objectives. If we do not finalize these goals, including the wording that we want, before that, time for them to prepare for those objectives and truly think through, that's going to put us on schedule.

[06:16:45] So not that it can't be done. It's more just a plea to when we send them, give us your feedback. Try to be as clear about, you know, I don't like this word. I like this word instead. And then it'll really help us get those wording. Because we have the themes now.

[06:17:01] I think we can all bring out the themes. It's that wording that's going to resonate with us, our leadership, our staff, our community, and getting that. And we've gotten it pretty good today as a group. So these ones will probably come back to you pretty close. I think what we're talking about, too, is anything we missed.

[06:17:19] So we just did this environment one. So what I would put out, if you all are okay with that, is now that we have environment on the list, and I'm going to probably ask you to check back to that slide that showed our previous goals to give us an idea of where we were before.

[06:17:40] What's the last group or two that we are missing that deserves a whole level goal itself that we can either throw some words on and we can wordsmith a little bit behind the scenes to get out on time, or just kind of, I don't want to say it's slide, we have a five, slide 56, or at least not just strategic plan, right? Yeah. Which slide is it? It's 56 on page 28.

[06:18:11] It's the one with the picture, the only one with the picture on it. Strategic plan themes, this one right here. What page is it? 23. So these are all the categories that we had in our previous plan, the themes that we had. So health while being in human services, we did touch on economy services, safe and secure community, we definitely touched on that, resilient economy, we talked about development and a sustainable economy, educational work development, workforce development check, environmental conservation, sustainable growth,

[06:18:49] so it looks like last time we separated economy and sustainable growth, and then transportation and mobility. Do we feel transportation has been caught under the development infrastructure piece as well as the safety piece of traffic and all those pieces or do we feel we need a full

[06:19:19] level for connectivity accessibility traffic transportation this tends to be the one where we do mix that public transportation with connectivity and walkways and biking paths I agree that fits under strategic, smart growth, because that's always part of your conversation.

[06:19:51] It should be, again, as Vic and I talked about, it was very much about our development should be in a way that connects our communities, to have us one community, but that transit mobility piece is essential to all of that.

[06:20:08] It is what the military, we would call lines of communication, point A and point B. So if you're going to be smart and strategic about your growth, this is an essential part of the conversation.

[06:20:30] 100% agree. I think there's two kind of buckets, right? There's as you grow, are you thinking about transportation and that infrastructure? And then there's just right now we've got too much growth or not, how we're doing traffic. We heard a lot about access to parks.

[06:20:46] We heard a lot about connectivity. Neighborhoods kind of just vary. Nothing's interconnected. Not enough biking, walking paths, walkable communities that you mentioned, kind of all that mobility. But all that still has to go through a planning process.

[06:21:07] Absolutely. Every bit of it. So it's all going to get tied in through that. If we had sidewalks, transportation's evolving, it's going to come in as a planning. We're not well connected on planning. You know, and I'm going to say this, because my planning committee, And he has talked a lot about walkability and other things, about sidewalks, and he's gotten shut down by other planning commissioners.

[06:21:43] People aren't really thinking about this. We're having a holistic conversation about what can be a walkable. Should the county invest in, you know, 500 feet of sidewalks so people can get to another, so that they can walk to actual?

[06:22:00] I mean, this is something, it really is a well-integrated thing. It's an accident. And I'm telling you about that because it's an issue. It's not just other planning commissioners. But frankly, not just for the previous boards, you know, somebody will throw out, we're going to put a small area plan here, we're going to put all of this density in a rural area, and then the excuse for the transportation is, well, there's a bus stop two and a half miles away.

[06:22:31] How the hell do you get to the bus stop? Or you're putting it on a two-lane road that can't handle the traffic. Or you're putting it in an area where there's no sewer and water. Or where the sewer and water is already maxed out. So, you know, the transportation component is always the one that gets the least amount of attention because, oh, we'll put a bus route there.

[06:22:54] And as we're seeing, there's no money for them. They're not in the existing neighborhoods. Now you want to create a new one that's even further from employment opportunities or, quite frankly, just being able to buy your staples. So why would you put a small area plan there without the self-supporting features and then tie it to a non-existent transportation network.

[06:23:22] That's always been my issue. Yeah, I'll just add infrastructure improvements. And so what I maintain there is one of the biggest issues with a large event development, such as the Corpse District, was that intersection was a derating.

[06:23:39] So thus we're going to now improve that intersection. Now, I know we can't build our way out with roads, but as you update or revitalize areas, Usually those road infrastructures have to be bought at speed. The biggest complaint I heard from citizens from 2019 was we always want to build new communities, but we never improved the roads or the infrastructure.

[06:24:02] So that is a huge one that we have done there. I made sure that happened in the development of the courts because those two have to happen simultaneously. The other piece is those sidewalks that go to nowhere. That's been a big piece that we've been improving.

[06:24:19] in the Nashville just finishing out the sidewalks that are there. Now, I will say this to the piece that where you may want to see sidewalks through a development and there was that word nexus. If the developer you just can't have them build a sidewalk that doesn't fit with the development and stuff going on. But what was identified is that maybe we need to go back and improve our comp plan to add in there this certain transect that didn't have, wasn't in there about a sidewalk. So that just says we have to go back and improve that process So add that to update so that staff knows that this area is one area that we're looking to put a sidewalk on.

[06:24:54] So I know that area very well. But I think those are the things that we talk about transportation and strategic planning that we're trying to help better for our staff team to do better. Before, and I saw, Supervisor, before we, where we can, let's keep the conversation.

[06:25:13] We know that as things grow and we do this better, this will get better. But maybe if we can just right now, take in the development aspect, what else on transportation? I appreciate this. I was going to go in that direction.

[06:25:36] Trails, we also have a very disconnected trail system right now. Because to me, having a true multi-role system means taking people off from the road to the beginning. Because yes, we need to build out our sidewalks at 300%.

[06:25:52] What kills me are the one-sided sidewalks where you're on one side of the street, then you have to cross because the sidewalk ends on that side, and you have to go about this way. But the also issue is we have a lot of communities where it would be easy to connect them by trails, and we currently don't.

[06:26:08] We have a lot of areas in the county where we could have put in a shared use path along a major thoroughfare or even a highway, what have you. We haven't done that. So, again, to the point of connecting communities, we're always looking for the built environment versus the non-built environment. There are so many more areas where we can share use paths and trails to really connect folks without making them jump in.

[06:26:27] Two real quick things. I'm glad you said trail connectivity because we're dealing with a comp plan amendment to get rid of that connectivity next week. I just want you to remember something. But to this point, courts districts are going to improve the traffic level.

[06:26:44] And that's what we should be doing. But if that's our goal, and that's the policy we want, then why are we changing the DCSM to allow the traffic levels to degrade? We're going from LOSD to LOSE as being acceptable.

[06:26:59] So from a policy standpoint, yes, I read the damn document. But if that's going to be our policy, or that's the direction we want to go, DCSM and the policies that staff are following need to comport, which means people that are writing the DCSM changes need to bear in mind what our priorities are, Not what the, not what, let's, I'll call it out, not what DOOR Act wants, or not what certain members of DOOR Act want.

[06:27:34] And it seems to me that if that's what, if that's typical of what you want to see in the future, then when these changes are coming with DCSM that allow degradation of the road service, then we need to squash that before it starts. Squashed it.

[06:27:49] Right there. Yeah. So I think it goes back to something that Supervisor Angry said about nexus. I think that we need to create a nexus in the mobility plan between planning and transportation.

[06:28:10] There has to be a nexus as relates to conflict. And also, in addition to that, there needs to be a lack of a better word, a revamping. When you talk about some of our districts don't have sidewalks, that was a plan back in the day.

[06:28:32] But now we want sidewalks. You know, so we can ride our bikes, you know. So there needs to be, I don't know what the term is of revamping, redevelopment, but there needs to be a nexus with all of that put together. So when we come to the planning commission, you know, there's no debate about it.

[06:28:53] Everybody understands that it comes from a certain document. This is what the project is, and this is how it's supposed to flow. So there, you know, in a, Victor mentioned nexus, there is no nexus. So that's how we lived in the past. So we need to create the nexus between those documents.

[06:29:17] So it's a total part. So we are just a little bit out of time. So I want to at least capture everybody's what and why and make sure we got it a little bit. I did kind of start putting some pieces together. Develop, create a more connected and accessible county for transportation infrastructure and multimodal options.

[06:29:38] We want to list out the specific, but I think multi-bottle, biking, walking, bus, public transportation, infrastructure may capture it. So when it comes to this, we've been doing this, we're on goal number, what, six, seven now? Week seven.

[06:29:55] Knowing we might not get to perfect close wordsmithing, go around the table and give me one main focus of transportation. Well, one thing we're going to focus time and resources on. Most important. Come back to him.

[06:30:16] Supervisor, Greg? Physicians do no harm. Come back to him. Connectivity for me. Being people-centric. People-centric.

[06:30:32] Is that an outcome, or what would we do to make it more connected to focus on people-centric? For me, you guys didn't mean that? Yeah, back to Tom's point about as we develop, we need to create this connectivity to our communities, and meaning with public transportation.

[06:30:50] So I'm really trying to tie... How we can bring in our world-class buses into how we develop our multi... Okay, so you just said that. So from a comp plan terminology, multimodal, we use the word mobility.

[06:31:06] Multimobility? It's just mobility. It's to get away from the term roads to just mobility is how we move people from one point to the other. So it would be more mobility options? Right. Then that would align it to what are other documents.

[06:31:23] So we want more mobility, and we want it through more ways to connect, more accessibility. Yeah, that's why I was told.

[06:31:39] Mobility was one of my words, and accessibility. Stuff, which is the what, which is the what, I guess. And enhance connectivity to enhance mobility. Right, so again, what would we focus on if we were enhancing connectivity?

[06:31:59] Would it be the bike trails? Would it be the power? Would it be the infrastructure? And I think we need to add the word safe. yeah in this because pedestrian safety is the biggest i think does that not go under the public safety well if you're going to be doing this we can put it under transportation because a lot of it yeah i mean so here's the two again wise the two what's i've heard so far are the infrastructure

[06:32:31] roads the systems the expanding of the roads the lessening traffic the congestion and the options walk, bike, bus, etc. I've heard those as kind of the what we would focus on improving options, improving infrastructure to create that accessibility, mobility, connectivity, or the words we can say it the other way around, right? Connectivity by infrastructure. What other words would you use to make those more accurate? I'm just thinking, I just want to note it's 543.

[06:33:08] I just want to get as much information as I can so we can go right this goal and it Actually be something that's pretty close to what you guys would say Does does this make sense the two big things we would offer focus on our infrastructure and the options?

[06:33:43] Okay, so if we do something to improve infrastructure, options, and safety of transportation to create a more connected, mobile, accessible community of some sort, those general, a lot of words, but roughly, would that work?

[06:34:01] I would just, I would be remiss, though I didn't say one of the wisest of leaving traffic transportation. You're a wise. Who's it? I'm going to get this one real. What is it? I'm going to have a shorthand in here.

[06:34:22] infrastructure, transportation, infrastructure, options, and safety to increase, to enhance, to— I mean, one of the things we also have is pedestrian safety, or pedestrian— These would both handle traffic, right?

[06:34:50] Yeah. We have better infrastructure and more people not riding in cars. Right. And safety. To increase what connectivity— And accessibility. Accessibility, accessibility, and the other word we heard a lot was mobility.

[06:35:06] Do one of these or two of these resonate more? Connectivity. Connectivity and accessibility. So generally, if we were to improve transportation, infrastructure, options, and safety.

[06:35:24] I would remove transportation because we don't use the word transportation. We use the word mobility. That's in our chapter now. We don't have to improve mobility, infrastructure, options, and safety. yes all right yes we got it pretty close so before everybody gets going right yet remember you guys still have a very important key we are going to send these they're going to be mostly just written statements we're going to try to minimize the wordsmithing through email it's not the same as we're all in a room you know supervisor bailey can be like well i like that

[06:36:01] or a lot like that or then we've got to figure out how to get so we try to get as close as we could today we're going to send them out please be delicate in what you really choose to say is needs changing because you want to get these sets so we can do those objectives and ready to get you back when you come back in september so thank you so much for your time today i know it's a lot i know there was some mind numbing moments but i'm very grateful that you all we got what we you to get done. So thank you very much for your time.

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