Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 11m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3562
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 2026-10-31. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:17] I'm Selene Wieckowski. I'm currently a police cadet at the Prince William County Police Department. So the cadet application process was fairly straightforward. You got a background check, a polygraph, went through a couple interviews. You started, you got full benefits. I have a full salary.

[00:00:32] You work full-time and train and learn all about the department up until you go into the academy. It's a wonderful place to live and work. See yourself here at Prince William County. - I'm Danielle and I'm a team lead in the GIS division.

[00:01:06] What GIS is is Geographic Information Systems and GIS can be used in so many different ways and it deals with patterns and trends and you're able to take that data and it can tell a story.

[00:01:21] We're a behind the scenes agency. We do a lot of the web apps for other agencies to help them do their job more efficient. And then the public and the citizens of Prince William County, they benefit from this greatly.

[00:01:38] If someone's coming into our office, they need our help. I feel like it's very important to educate them while they're here, to help them understand and walk them through the process. Prince William County is a county of people who care.

[00:01:58] We are here to help people and guide them. Building those strong relationships with our customers is so meaningful to us. I am very passionate about helping people. I love to help people. And Prince William County has just, I'm in my 24th year here, and it has been a wonderful place to work.

[00:02:23] I learn something new every day. Not only do I learn from my customers, but I learn from my colleagues. The team to me is so important. I have a wonderful team. They are very high performers. They go above and beyond on a daily basis. I'm very proud of them. I'm very proud at how they help the public, how they help their colleagues. They always go the extra mile to help that customer get what they need. That is the most rewarding part of this job is knowing that you're able to help someone,

[00:03:02] guide them, and give them what they need to solve their problem. I'm Danielle and that's how I serve. Child Abuse Prevention Month recognizes the importance of families and communities working together to strengthen families in order to prevent child abuse and neglect. Building resiliency is

[00:03:39] crucial in the prevention of child abuse. Resilience is the ability to bounce back during tough times and the process by which children and families meet personal and family challenges, trauma, and manage setbacks and adversity. Bounce Back is an acronym created by Dr. Helen McGrath for some of the foundational principles of resilience, specifically B. Bad times don't last and things get better. O. Other people can help support you if you talk to them.

[00:04:10] Unnecessary worries make things worse. Nobody is perfect. Not you, not your friends, not your family, not anybody. Concentrate on the good things in life, no matter how small.

[00:04:27] Everybody experiences bad times, not just you. It is a normal part of life. Be positive no matter how small the positives are and find the laughter. Accept what you can't change and try to change what you can.

[00:04:45] C. Control your feelings and actions by controlling your thinking. K. Keep things in perspective. Even the worst moment is but one moment in life. When things don't go as you want, or if you get knocked down, remember that you can bounce back and be okay again.

[00:05:05] By building resilience and working together, we can keep children and families safe and well. If you're concerned about the abuse and neglect of a child, please report it by calling the Protected Services Hotline at 703-792-4200 or the state hotline 24 hours a day at 1-800-552-7096.

[00:05:48] Stream restoration is a practice of where a stream may be out of balance or have a lot of problems. And we try to repair that stream. And a stream restoration project is a device, a mechanism for us to re-channel and reshape the way the water flows through the ground here so that we intercept more of the sediment and send less of it downstream to the bay.

[00:06:13] So what we did here to restore this channel is we reconnected it to a floodplain, restored the function of the channel and created lots of habitat for fish and bugs and near stream habitat for birds and other types of animals. We broke the stream back when we began agriculture in the 1700s.

[00:06:36] We cleared the forest, we got rid of the beaver, and that enabled topsoil to wash down into the stream, filled up the stream valley. We identify impairments of the stream system, and then we come up with a design to mitigate those impairments and improve the stream's quality for bugs and fish and animals.

[00:06:55] Through restoration, we are going to bring the balance back, and we will do this by stabilizing the banks, reconnecting the stream to this floodplain, and by doing that, we're going to prevent erosion, we're going to replant the riparian corridor, which will actually buffer for pollution, and improve the habitat and protect infrastructure where it's needed.

[00:07:17] The most important message from stream restoration is that it's a long-term solution. We're not doing this to try to fix the stream and have it be complete next week. In fact, stream restoration projects are unlike many other capital construction projects, And that the day that we walk off the site from construction, it's at a very weakened state.

[00:07:38] We rely on the vegetation growing adjacent to the stream and on the floodplains to help stabilize the soils and the banks. You know, it takes a while for that vegetation to grow. The willow that you see growing behind me, that's it growing in over a matter of weeks. This is three years old behind me. We get some criticism about what we do here and how we do it.

[00:07:56] Every tree that's been cut will be utilized in the project itself. So it's not like we're sacrificing something just to get it out of there. while using it as a tool to improve the environment this is a project that's good for the fish it's good for the fish in our local stream it's really good for the fish down in the chesapeake bay so we're restoring our local habitat here we may get mussels reintroduced here we're certainly going to get a lot of frogs and tadpoles and amphibians moving through our wet plain our wetlands and our flood plain here and we got fish that are already looking for places to create new baby fish as as they're swimming up Dewey's Creek.

[00:08:34] - I would encourage people to get out and put their feet in the water. You know, there's nothing more satisfying as a stream restoration design engineer than coming back a year or two later and seeing kids playing in the stream, seeing people walking the stream, picking up rocks, flipping them over to see what they can find.

[00:08:50] You know, just, I think it's great to get out and just get your feet wet. - Believe me, if you have kids, you're gonna want them to have a better future as they get older and have a Chesapeake Bay that's cleaner.

[00:09:06] The process of doing a restoration is pretty extensive. You have the people who work for the county. We're the ones that usually identify the problems, or we do watershed management plans with a consultant and identify stream problems. When that's done, then we select the stream that we want to repair.

[00:09:23] When that happens, then we get a consultant who will be our design consultant. The design process begins. - So my involvement in stream restoration projects begins at the very start of the project, identifying the site, coming up with the reasons for impairment, studying the stream, and then understanding why the stream is impaired.

[00:09:42] I work with fisheries biologists. I work with geomorphologists. I work with landscape architects. I work with arborists. I work with floodplain ecologists, people with all kinds of different areas of expertise that inform the design. - When that is complete and the design is finished, the construction phase will get involved, even before I get to that point.

[00:10:04] I have to do a lot of community service work. I have to spread the word to the citizens about what we're going to do and how it's going to benefit everybody. This is an amazing exercise where the engineers design a new shape for the stream channel to reflect a geometry that will minimize the flow of sediment by controlling the speed of the water that erodes the sediment and carries it downstream.

[00:10:36] Boy, when you start a stream restoration project, it looks like you're just ripping the place apart. You're bringing the big, heavy equipment in, and it looks like you're building another townhome subdivision. And so you might assume that you're doing a great deal of harm. But that's a necessary component of replanting the stream in a new location, restoring the stream banks in the floodplain, reconnecting the stream to the floodplain.

[00:11:02] I think we're doing a great deal of benefit, even though there is an initial harm. This project had a forested canopy over parts of it, however, in some areas it wasn't necessary to cut down some of the trees, but every tree that we cut down didn't leave the site.

[00:11:17] The trees that were cut down, in many cases pushed over, were used in the channel as part of the restoration strategy. We do try to minimize the impact of trees, particularly large trees that are within the landscape, but overall we feel like the benefit of improving the restoration of the site and getting water back on the floodplain will offset the impacts to the trees.

[00:11:36] In time, we replant everything. We put down maybe at least 400 stems per acre of trees and monitor it as we do the monitoring periods to see the success of growth and survival. Consider it surgery.

[00:11:53] The doctor has to do an incision before the doctor can do the repair. So here we're seeing the initial part on the first day of development as something that's ugly and unattractive. But at the end of the operation, you have a much healthier spot.

[00:12:08] As a designer, I believe the best way to measure our success is did we meet the goals and objectives of the project. In this case, our project objective here was to reconnect the stream with the floodplain, stop bank erosion, and recreate lots of habitat for fish and bugs.

[00:12:30] And walking this site, it sure seems like we've met that objective. We have to do monitoring for a period of five to ten years, required by the Army Corps of and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. We come out here every other year and monitor the success of the vegetation.

[00:12:47] We look at each stream structure that's built and we do as-built surveys to make sure that the structure's integrity is still together. And after that five-year period, if the stream or any issues with the stream is taken care of, it will be signed off by the Corps and the regulators as being a successful project.

[00:13:06] - We've created a place. we've created a setting which is rare in Prince William. Green open space not far from where people live in crowded subdivisions. This is a place for peace and quiet. This is a place for reflection. This is a place where the water running through the ripples gives you a different sense.

[00:13:26] This is a special place surrounded by a lot of ordinary development. So I look for an opportunity for people to get into these stream valleys and experience these places. That's when I know that we'll have success, when people are using these places.

[00:13:48] - Basically, it's about eight year process to restore a channel. And that includes identifying the problems of the channel, designing the channel, approving the channel design, and getting all the permits necessary. After that, then construction will begin. And that process can range, depending on how big a project is, anywhere from six months to four years.

[00:14:10] - Personally, I stay involved with the project it's complete. On this project for example I was out here in the field with the contractor throughout the entire duration of construction. This project began construction about four years ago and I was out here for part of the time during the entire duration. For projects that require a lengthy period of monitoring post-project I'm involved with that. I'd like to make site visits to my projects afterwards just to see how they're doing so I can see it for myself.

[00:14:38] Our objective here is to restore the riverscape and I want to see it through make sure that we're accomplishing that goal. So we may be looking at 10 years worth of work here on this one particular stream and then we'll be looking at a couple of hundred years of benefits coming down the road. The cost for a stream restoration project can vary greatly depending on where you are in the landscape. Urban projects can be much more expensive. There's a lot more lateral constraints we have to be concerned with. The level of detail in the plans is often much greater for urban projects because we're concerned about all these different issues

[00:15:15] within the corridor there's property restrictions that we have to be mindful of there are often easements that we have to be mindful of and all that adds cost to the design because we have to make sure that our design is avoiding those those types of constraints i basically say it's a thousand dollars a linear foot so you're looking at a multi-million dollar over five million dollar project here that's what it takes to restore 300 years of excessive sediment deposition and unnatural erosion at this location so the economic benefits to a large extent are going to be here and downstream but this is not inexpensive

[00:15:54] this is expensive this is not a cheap project and it's still a worthy project this is the best way for us to reduce the amount of sediment going to the bay that is required from prince william county so there's a lot of variability but it's because every stream is unique to itself it's not a cookie cutter operation the funding source for these projects are usually helped out with by a grant from deq it's called the stormwater local assistance grant or sloth these grants are for the purpose of doing stream restoration or putting restoring or fixing our stormwater ponds

[00:16:34] i think the best way for a prince william county resident to get involved is to attend meetings find out meetings where stream restoration or just really stream impact projects are being discussed people like me are happy to come out and talk to you talk to civic groups to talk to boy scout girl scout troops whomever whoever's interested to kind of foster that interest in streams there's there are a lot of us out here who do this just out of the sheer love of it another great way to to get involved is to volunteer your time. We're often needing people to come out and volunteer to

[00:17:11] take water measurements. Sometimes we need people to come out and help plant vegetation, plant trees, plant wellows. You know, there's tons of stream work that needs to be done in the county. And really, if you're interested in helping out, there's something for you to do. Let me recommend that people pay attention to what's posted online here in Prince William County that's locally specific, the Prince William Conservation Alliance and other groups that have information shared about our local area and how we can conserve our green open spaces.

[00:17:44] There's a lot of green infrastructure planning being done by the county and by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. Sadly enough, the best way to get involved is not to go outdoors and to play in the woods, but to go to a dull, boring government meeting and speak out and articulate that you care about green open spaces. So you got to have a recharge time to Get outside and enjoy what's in the woods.

[00:18:07] Get outside and enjoy these open spaces. And then there's really sort of the homework assignment. If you want to keep these open spaces, you need to speak up during the county's planning processes, during the state's road proposal processes, during the Northern Virginia Regional Commission Studies, and articulate that this is important.

[00:18:27] We only get the government we ask for. If we don't ask for green open spaces, we're not going to get them.

[00:18:42] During the month of Prevention of Abuse of Menores de Edad, we recognize the importance that it has the whole work of families and communities to strengthen and prevent abuse and negligence of their menores.

[00:19:03] The progress of resilience is vital to prevent the abuse of menores. Resilience is the ability to recover and adapt ourselves que todos necesitamos para lidiar con las situaciones difíciles, así como el medio por el que los menores y sus familias enfrentan sus desafíos, traumas y adversidades.

[00:19:29] La frase en inglés "Bounce Back", que en español significa "recuperarse" o "resurgir", es también un acrónimo creado por la doctora Helen McGrath para exponer algunos de los principios fundamentales de la resiliencia. Los tiempos malos no duran y las cosas mejoran.

[00:19:45] Otros pueden ayudarte si hablas con ellos. La preocupación innecesaria solo empeora las cosas. Ninguno de nosotros es perfecto. Ni tú, ni tus amigos, ni tu familia, ni nadie. Concéntrate en las cosas buenas de la vida, sin importar cuán pequeña sean.

[00:20:04] Todo el mundo, no solo tú, pasa por malos momentos. Es parte normal de la vida. Sé positivo sin importar cuán pequeños sean tus logros y encuéntrate con la risa. Acepta lo que no puedes cambiar de la vida y trata de cambiar lo que puedas.

[00:20:23] Controla tus sentimientos y tus acciones al controlar lo que piensas. No pierdas la perspectiva. Incluso, el peor momento es nada más un momento en la vida. Cuando las cosas no te salgan como quieres o si te derriban, recuerda que puedes recuperarte.

[00:20:44] O bounce back en inglés para volver a estar bien. Al desarrollar resiliencia y trabajar juntos, podemos mantener el bienestar y la seguridad de nuestros menores y sus familias. Si te preocupa el abuso o la negligencia de un menor de edad, por favor denúncialo llamando las 24 horas del día a la línea directa 703-792-4200 de Servicios de Protección o a la línea directa del estado de Virginia, 1-800-552-7096.

[00:21:28] One, two, three. Thank you so much for everyone for coming out.

[00:22:01] It is my honor to welcome everyone to the Occoquan District for the Summit School on Telegraph Road, Porno Road Lot Expansion Groundbreaking Ceremony. I know that's a little bit of mouthful, but we have a lot going on here in this project. It's truly a journey filled with planning, patience, collaboration to get to this point.

[00:22:18] So again, wanted to say thank you to our partners. This project will hit a lot of the things that we need to do in this area to bring it from what you see here today to a real hub of the Occoquan District in Prince William County. This started well before I got here, so I just want to acknowledge that this is a long time coming.

[00:22:37] And I was just joking that anytime I see Monica, that means that we are using some regional dollars. so that is a wonderful thing as well. Oftentimes it takes a long time to get to the point of the groundbreaking and sometimes people get frustrated and wonder if there's progress being made but yes progress is being made. This project will improve the quality of life for residents not only in Prince William County but in neighboring counties because what we know is that when we approve access and provide modal options, it helps all of us. And when people do not have to spend time

[00:23:16] in their cars, getting frustrated, that is time that they can spend on doing other things. It's, from our perspective, hard to argue with a comfortable, congestion, and worry-free trip using an omni-ride commuter bus route going up to the Pentagon or downtown D.C. So we look forward to seeing that trend continuing, more commuters coming back to transit.

[00:23:36] And with the redevelopment going on in the area, we're happy to be supporting the county and OmniRide and meeting long-term commuter parking demand in this area. This is a true multimodal project. We are standing in the largest commuter lot in northern Virginia today. We will be improving this lot.

[00:23:51] We will be building a new road, a new four-lane section of road coming into this. We will be widening a road down to the parkway, and we will be expanding the sidewalk and trail system throughout the entire corridor. The buses will get here quicker. People will get here faster.

[00:24:08] People will be able to use everything much more efficiently because of this project.

[00:24:20] Whatever your reasons are, whatever motivates you, there is a place for you here. Regardless of who you are, what you look like, or what your interests are, you have what we're looking for.

[00:24:36] And you can have a rewarding career at the Prince William County Police Department. To make a difference, you have to be the change. See the impact that you can make by becoming a police officer. See yourself here at the Prince William County Police Department. For more information, visit joinpwcpd.org.

[00:25:01] Prince William County is an ideal locality for us, and that's why we've been here for 19 years and hopefully, you know, for a long time to come. Today concludes the process that took over four years of searching for the right property, planning, and construction.

[00:25:28] I'd like to thank the great staff at Prince William County, including everyone at the Department of Economic Development. We want to grow. We want to prosper in this location. And staying in Prince William County is really going to allow us to do that.

[00:25:44] I'm Victoria, and I'm a Master Jail Officer at the Prince William Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center.

[00:26:11] My current assignment is in the Training Department. We are the foundation for all of the new officers coming in. We are responsible for the academies, the in-services, all of the training for our entire agency.

[00:26:32] Here at the jails, safety and security is our top priority. And honestly, that's something that we would not be able to accomplish if we did not have such a strong team. The best part about my job is it's very rewarding. I used to work in the work release department here.

[00:26:49] And that program allows incarcerated individuals that are low custody with their charges. They're able to be incarcerated and work. We keep the public safe by keeping these offenders incarcerated.

[00:27:06] But at the same time, we are able to send them back out into society. And I think a lot of that is thanks to the programs that we offer here at the jail. Alcoholic, anonymous classes, substance abuse classes, life skills classes. They are able to take that and go outside of these walls and build a better life for themselves and for their families.

[00:27:28] For me, personally, being able to look at some of these individuals that come through our doors here at the jail and then being able to see them go out into the community and succeed, it's just, it's such a rewarding feeling and you really feel like you've made an impact.

[00:27:50] I'm Victoria and that's how I serve. Natural disasters can happen anywhere.

[00:28:10] You can protect yourself by planning ahead. FEMAfinance.gov has the information you need to make a plan and help safeguard your financial future in the event of a disaster. Whether you're at risk of hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, or earthquakes, here are three steps you can take right now to protect yourself financially and weather any storm.

[00:28:35] Step one, download FEMA's Emergency Financial First Aid Kit and fill it out. Gathering all the paperwork and filling out the forms may take some time, but it'll be worth it if disaster strikes. Once you complete the kit, you'll have everything you need in one place.

[00:28:53] You'll have gathered important documents like your ID and your social security card. You'll have written down the phone numbers and account numbers to your credit card companies, utility companies, insurance companies, and more. If you need to apply for disaster aid or contact your insurance company, you'll want this info on hand.

[00:29:12] Step 2. Find a safe space to store the kit and the documents you've gathered. ConsumerFinance.gov recommends that you make a copy and store the original and the copy in separate places. If it's digital, password protect it. And if it's printed or on a thumb drive, make sure to store it in a waterproof and fireproof container.

[00:29:33] Step 3. Make sure you understand your insurance options and the extent of your coverage in case of a disaster. Renters, homeowners, and auto insurance policies generally don't cover all aspects of a disaster. You may need to look into specialized coverage like earthquake insurance and flood insurance.

[00:29:51] A weekend of prep now can save you months of frustration and lots of money if your property is damaged in a disaster. For more information on how you can protect your property and finances, and to download an emergency financial first aid kit before disaster strikes, visit consumerfinance.gov slash prepare.

[00:30:24] It's William County, a place where history meets innovation, where the promise of tomorrow is being created today.

[00:30:52] We are shaping the future of manufacturing. The future is smart, and the future is here. Our industry is fueled by advanced technology, robotics, AI, and the human ingenuity that brings them all together.

[00:31:16] But we're more than just a manufacturing powerhouse. We're a community. A place where talent grows, futures flourish, and dreams take flight. We're calling innovators, creators, dreamers, those who push boundaries, break molds, redefine what's possible.

[00:31:43] Make your mark in Prince William County. In Special Victims, I felt it was very rewarding being able to give voice to those who have been silenced and then really being able to do a thorough investigation and seeking the truth.

[00:32:12] Our unit was the keeper of secrets. I always saw the bigger picture, just constantly thinking, what else can we do? Instead of thinking of the problem, I always thought about the solutions. We continue on the tradition of providing an outstanding service to the department and to the community.

[00:32:36] Acts is here for our neighbors who are in crisis. Our job is to meet people where they are and then help them find their own way out of that crisis.

[00:32:57] In 1969, there was a family who lost their home in a fire, and 13 churches got together to try and help them out, and they formed Acts. Twelve of those churches are still existing. They're still supporting us.

[00:33:13] And while it's true we're not a faith-based organization, I always tell people we're a faith-filled organization, because everybody who works here feels like this is where we should be. This community already had a lot of needs.

[00:33:31] They weren't always seen. You know, you can't necessarily see somebody in a domestic violence relationship. You can't see somebody who's suffering. And you might not even know that they don't have food. When COVID hit, that showed a spotlight on all of the needs that were already existing.

[00:33:48] And then it also let people know those needs are exploding. So we already had 600 families coming to our hunger prevention center every month. With COVID, that number went up to 950 families a month.

[00:34:09] So the grant from Prince William Economic Development, that allowed us to do a few things that we didn't think we would ever do. We were able to replace our old raggedy carpet with brand new vinyl flooring. We were able to replace an aging and somewhat failing HVAC system.

[00:34:28] So now, when our neighbors come in for help, they walk into a space that is clean and fresh and welcoming. That's going to help them with their physical health? We know that. But it's also emotional. They're going to walk into a place and think, Okay, this is comfortable. I'm going to be okay here.

[00:34:50] To keep people safe, we had to make many changes with how we do things. like other companies we had to see how we could do things virtually but in this business there's only so much you can do virtually you can't drive somebody to a safe house virtually you can't put food on somebody's table virtually they need to come in contact with us we need to have a personal connection so the grant enabled us to make sure our environment was as healthy as possible

[00:35:23] for when we had those personal interactions in our mission statement my favorite word is neighbors acts is a community-based organization we serve the greater prince william area and that's because this is who we know this is who we are this is who works with us it's the staff it's the volunteers it's the community partners acts is that community

[00:35:51] that's what makes it work and that's why we do what we do and why we do it here are going to

[00:39:02] start with a few moments of silence all right thank you everyone if you are able please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag for the united states of america and to the republic for

[00:39:31] which it stands one nation under god individual liberty and justice for all all right thank you we are now going to move to agenda item number three approval of the minutes i'd like to get a

[00:39:47] motion to approve agenda item 3a 3b and 3c so all right let's take a vote vote unanimous all right we are now moving on to agenda item number four accommodations proclamations i would love to get

[00:40:19] a motion to move forward with items 4a through 4e so move madam chair second all right let's take a vote vote unanimous all right thank you so i would like to note for agenda item 4a we are going to to hold that until the 7 o'clock session. So with that, for item 4B, Supervisor Gordy, if you can join me to the podium. For item 4C, Supervisor Bode. And for item 4E, I would

[00:40:56] like to have Supervisor Bailey. So, all right. Supervisor Gordy? He's already up and move. Okay. If I could have Matt and the Dahlies, please come on forward. We're honored to have today with us uh matt llama from grace haven farms and um and the dollies from uh from birdside farms

[00:41:32] that is the famous uh tulip and sunflower farm so great to see you guys and good to have y'all with us um it is a great day to uh celebrate for october the 12th national farmers day and uh here is our proclamation october 12th is the national farmers day when we honor the hard work that goes into the food, fiber, and other resources our communities rely on across the country. Our local Brentsville farmers are integral to our food supply, and they consistently demonstrate a commitment to sustainable practices that protect our natural resources and secure a healthy environment for

[00:42:07] future generations. Throughout the county, we are proud to host agricultural gyms, including local farms, markets, and wineries where our community can gather, have fun, and learn. In recognizing National Farmers Day, we are proud to voice our support for our local farmers and everything they do for our community. Would you like to say anything?

[00:42:29] Matt, you want to say anything? Thank you very much. You know, I've been in the county since 1999. We're all about community and families and farming is just a it's an awesome thing to get into and we just really appreciate your support.

[00:42:55] Item 4C, Supervisor voting.

[00:43:46] Thank you, Madam Chair. So for the folks who are here for Poet Lariat Day, please come on down.

[00:44:12] Item 4C, proclaim October 12th, 2024, Poet Lariat Day. October 12th is Poet Lariat Day, in which we celebrate the ancient art form of poetry and the local writers who provide it. As a form of storytelling and song that predates writing, poetry speaks to the universality of culture and embodies the heart and soul of our community.

[00:44:31] We are proud to offer the title of Poet Lariat to promote writing and artistic expression in society and are happy to be in the company of laureates. Whereas Poet Lariat Day is a celebration that highlights poetry, encourages community participation in ancient art form, and honors our local writers who bring us creative verse.

[00:44:50] And whereas poetry is an art form through storytelling and song predates written word, and whereas poetry today spans a vast portfolio of genres that encompass, chronicle, and challenge our human story throughout the ages, and whereas in poetry the rhythm, imagery, symbolism, and resonance of words speaks to the universality of culture and body, the heart of our solar community, and last one, whereas we welcome state, regional, and local communities who honor practicing poetry.

[00:45:20] poets with the title poet lariat as a way of promote writing and artistic expression within society now therefore be it resolved the prince william board of county supervisors hereby proclaims october 12 2024 poet lariat day and celebrates being in the company of laureates thank you so much thank you thank you thank you county board of supervisors we're thrilled to be installing or we call it crowning our next poet laureate who will serve throughout this year until

[00:45:59] 2026. This is our 10th year that you've been so kind to give us this citation. I'd also like to thank, if they'll stand up please, our connections, our liaisons, our helpers, our pleasant, so pleasant people to do business with. The Department of Parks and Recreation, John Janet Stanley.

[00:46:33] It's very interesting to people when I tell them about the Arts Council that we're part of the Parks and Recreation because, you know, if you came to one of our events, our poetry events, you would know that it really is fun and a great way to spend a few hours. We have lots of different poetry presentations during the year and we invite you to be part of it and thank you again we're thrilled to celebrate october 12th as farming day and poet laureate day

[00:47:07] going on you know what you can stay here with me first since you have on pink today because i'm

[00:47:51] saying we have on we have the next one is for it's breast cancer awareness month so item 4d October is Breast Cancer... I'm sorry, first, who do we have here for Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

[00:48:12] October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, also known as Pink October. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer for women in the United States, but early detection can dramatically improve life expectancy and survival rates. For this reason, we take this month to raise awareness of symptoms and encourage women and men to take advantage of regular preventative screenings.

[00:48:34] One in eight U.S. women and one in 726 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, but the most severe cases is likely to infect women of color and men, both of whom are often diagnosed later and given worse prognosis. We in Prince William County extend our deepest respect to all those who have faced breast cancer and those who have lost their loved ones to this terrible disease and hope that by collective action, we can put an end to cancer.

[00:49:01] Do you have something you would like to say? Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Joyner. I'm the president at Northern Virginia Medical Center. We appreciate your support. We appreciate the awareness that you allow us to continue to bring this through.

[00:49:18] As you mentioned in your stats, too many Americans are impacted by this, and we as a health care system need to continue to bring awareness and access and make sure that we encourage everybody to go out and get testing. So thank you so much.

[00:49:43] Got the Boy Scouts, Truth 501.

[00:50:22] Well, welcome to our chamber. It gives me honor to do this, Madam Chair. This is exciting. I'd like to commend the Boy Scouts of America, Troop 501. And my neighbor is here that I had the awesome opportunity when her son became an Eagle Scout.

[00:50:40] So if you just wave your hand, Krista. Yeah, this is what this idea came from. Yes. Since its inception in 1910, Boy Scouts of America has been well known for encouraging youth to reach their full potential in a welcoming, safe environment where they can express themselves and find service opportunities.

[00:51:03] Woodbridge-owned Troop 501 was established in 2014 as a non-denominational interfaith STEM troop with a focus on character development and leadership skills. Each year, one of the Boy Scouts' Novus STEM Awards is selected and integrated in the Troops program as an educational opportunity.

[00:51:25] We commend Troop 501 for its commitment to breaking barriers, conducting service and passing traditions to the next generation thank you madam chair members of the board uh scout master of troop 501 i'd like to thank you very much for this commendation it has been an absolute honor and a privilege to serve for the youth of our community the past

[00:51:52] 10 years and look forward to many many years to come oh wait a minute for boy scouts before you

[00:53:20] guys go i just want to let you know i am having local government day on october 19th for middle schoolers if someone from my office i know you're listening go out and give them flyers because i'm trying to encourage as many people learn about local government days as i can thank you that's a very important psa all right you're such a happy cloud of sunshine all right now moving on to the um consent agenda um before i begin we're looking at items 5a through 5m does anyone have anything that they would like to pull from the consent agenda.

[00:54:02] Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Items B, F, I, and M. Let's see. E. B. Oh, B. Okay.

[00:54:18] F. I. Well, I just have a question on I. Okay. We'll just pull it. Or you said you just had a question? Yeah. All right. All right. Supervisor Weir. That was B, F, I, and M.

[00:54:37] B, F. She has a question on I. So it's B and F. sometimes we'll pull it then. All right, pull it. Pull it. Pull it. I'm going to pull it anyway. I and M as in Mary. M as in Mary. That's it. 5M. Yep. All right. Supervisor Bailey. Madam Chair, I'd like to pull item I. All right, we're pulling it. So right now, to verify, we are pulling 5B,

[00:55:11] 5F, 5I, and 5M. So those are the items that we are pulling. So to make this fun for the clerk and everyone else, I would like a motion for items 5A, 5C, and D, N, E, 5G, H, 5J, 5K, 5L.

[00:55:39] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. All right. Any discussion on those items? Madam Chair. Supervisor, wait, I see Supervisor Franklin. Sure. Thank you. Just want to flag item 5D to transfer budget and appropriate $346,000 from the Route 123 Underground Utilities Project and appropriate $170,000 from MBTA 30% funds.

[00:56:09] These funds will cover cost overruns for utility overages on Route 1 and the Mary's Way Featherstone Project. Thank you. Supervisor Bode. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just wanted to highlight 5K, which is a grant application that allows our police department to continue to utilize and administer traffic safety programs and training seminars with the community.

[00:56:33] I know that this board has talked a lot about safety programs, so I wanted to highlight that and commend the police department for the continued efforts in that regard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to highlight item 5A, which is an $800,000 grant that we've received for economic development in support of the American type culture and collection over at Innovation. This is going to allow for their fourth expansion. And so we're appreciative of this company and the investments they continue to make in Prince William County and really appreciate the Commonwealth for coming alongside the county to support this economic development.

[00:57:12] Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'd like to highlight item H and that two items, two specific items. One is just congratulations to Michelle Etried and her team for maintaining our triple bond rating. I think that's, I mean, that's outstanding. It gives us an opportunity when we're financing strategic investments that we have that level of triple I'd like to congratulate her on that but the other thing that I want to highlight is the utilization for this specific item by utilizing our IDA I

[00:57:51] don't think that the IDA organization gets enough of attention but this is an intentional timely strategic tool that we use in the county for invest an investment vehicle if you will for projects and we are very fortunate that we have an IDA in our county and so just to let the citizens know that it's not always taxpayers money in that regard it's a creative way but a strategic way of making sure that the projects that we need here in the county we use the tool called the IDA so thank you madam chair all right so we don't have any other

[00:58:29] discussion so we'll take a vote on those items vote unanimous all right thank you we are now going to go to agenda item 5b um i like to have discussion in a motion um i know that i obviously you pulled it for a reason but um you know all right so i'm going to go ahead and i'll start with you again i usually like to have things in motion but we'll just start this

[00:59:05] conversation thank you madam chair hi rick just a quick question for you i want to know what the cost will be annually to maintain these ev charging stations great question supervise vega i'm rick you're director of transportation I will actually turn to if Matt is here yeah we we get the applications form we've been able to install them like we're installing the garage but ultimately facilities maintains the the station so I'll let Matt talk to Matt Villarreal director of facilities and fleet

[00:59:43] management and I apologize I don't know that number off the top of my head but I do know that we roll that into the cost that we charge back to the customer for using is there any way that you can get me that figure i can get that to you and get it back to the okay and then do you um have any idea how much energy it's expected to be used that would be something i have to look up as well and get that information back to you okay but we do charge back for that as well thank you all right i don't thank you so very much i don't think we do we have any oh supervisor weir rick to dovetail on supervisor vega's question so that we don't

[01:00:22] have a repeat of the situation out front i'm assuming that we're going to be charging for usage from day one all publicly all public uh ev station charging stations are so we'll start recovering in theory funds from day one correct sir thank you all right i don't see anyone else thank you thank you did you have anything else no so um all right um just sorry a little discussion

[01:01:00] on the dais we are going to come back to 5b how soon do you think you'll be able to get us an answer your microphone sorry any more experience i'll make some phone calls and see what i can find out i honestly don't i may be able to get it right away i just depends on if the person i need to speak to is in today all right we're going to go ahead thank you so much wait supervisor franklin did you have so we're going to go ahead and move it forward all right so move madam chair

[01:01:38] second all right um any further discussion supervisor bode yeah very quickly thank you madam chair for folks who are uh sort of tuning in uh 5b is a grant submission that'll uh if we win the grants it'll hopefully expand the county's hybrid and ev charging networks to various uh public facilities and parks including the animal services shelter some parks throughout the county and some other facilities and libraries um frankly i support this because i know that as more and more of our constituents get hybrid and ev vehicles we should have an offering for

[01:02:14] them to be able to charge it and as was said before um all of these eb charges that we have in the county now are going to be charging not only charging their cars obviously but also charging to be charged basically folks are going to have to pay a fee for that which helps recoup the cost of maintenance and other things so just wanted to highlight that for everyone thank you madam chair thank you looks like we don't have any other speakers so let's move forward with the

[01:02:37] vote your screen's not up can you give me a voice yay or nay no thank you ma'am hold on let me go

[01:03:11] Motion passes, 6-2. Supervisor Vega voting nay. Supervisor Weir abstaining from vote.

[01:03:27] All right, thank you so much. We're now going to move on to 5F. That is to authorize Sixth Amendment of Lease Agreement with Sunrise Investments, LLC. For 8609-8613 Quarry Road, Manassas, Virginia, 20110. Supervisor Vega, did you have any questions for staff?

[01:03:45] Yes, and I see, Matt, you're the one assigned to be able to answer questions on this. Just curious, if we saw a decrease in 5E, We're seeing an increase of over 12% for this lease. Can you tell me why? Well, the increase in this lease can be the previous lease, which dates back to 2001.

[01:04:01] We got a really good deal on it. The market has changed. And now that we're going to renew, we're actually now kind of at a higher market rate than what we were previously at. Also, with this additional lease or this renewal of this lease, we've also worked in some improvements to the facility.

[01:04:20] And that's also another reason why the cost per square foot has gone up. Okay, so then you believe that that's a fair market price that we're given? Absolutely. Thank you. Supervisor Rear. Again, just to echo Supervisor Vega, I'm a little concerned with a 12% initial increase with an escalator clause.

[01:04:39] So this could get really expensive quickly. Yes, sir. So I'll be watching this. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? I'd like a motion to move this one forward. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. All right.

[01:04:55] Any further discussion? All right. Let's take a vote. Vote unanimous. All right. Moving on to 5i, is Mr. Hendler-Voss here?

[01:05:17] Is he here? Bailey. I think Bailey, yes. All of us, okay. Do you guys have questions for staff? I'm just wondering, do we have questions for staff? Madam Chair, the reason why I wanted to pull it, I'd like to make a motion to defer this item until October 22nd um for reconsideration of the board's approval there are some i think further discussion more in depth that i'd like to see before we approve or disapprove this item all right um supervisor

[01:05:56] franklin sure can someone give me some background on what's going on yeah i i agree oh actually first do we have any questions for staff does anyone have questions for staff i do madam chair all right then i'm sorry if staff if you can come up um you know if anyone is here for a seth can come up and address questions for staff five I five I and this is to authorize fiscal year 2025 arts grants disbursement as recommended by the arts grants panel and parks and recreation Commission do we have anyone staff okay

[01:06:33] all right hi Elijah I hope you can answer my question I know that um we can give money so long as there are nonprofits and I just want to make sure that the list here is composed of specifically nonprofits that are asking

[01:07:08] for funding? And I have my folks here backing me up. As you guys, you, the board, I mean, you all, the board passed a policy on how we have to do selections a few years ago. And during this process, we follow those guidelines to make sure everybody is qualified before we give awards.

[01:07:26] Okay. Thank you for that. And then I guess I'm just curious, because we see here the largest amount are going to the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. And I kind of just want to know why i understand that we can but why why such high amounts given to the cities it depends on the the applications when they come in there's no it could have just been another organization asking for other awards and and the grant is approved and they they would get them but you do have organizations throughout the council that involves not only the county but the city as well

[01:07:58] all right supervisor um bailey thank you ma'am chair uh elijah the reason why i mean well for For my colleagues, I just wanted to let you know that one of the things a couple years ago, and Elijah, as you just mentioned, there was a lot of discussion about other non-for-profits and having an opportunity to apply for this specific grant.

[01:08:30] And the reason why I made a motion to defer this, I want to make sure that based upon what the community and those non-for-profits were requesting that we've we've calculated all of those because the list that you have here are very familiar to us and knowing that we're a growing county and there are other art organizations that are non-for-profits that we have a balanced approach as we are distributing the funds so I just want to make sure that that is the mechanism that we've done I'm sure it is, but because of the request, and it came back again last year, I just wanted to make sure of that.

[01:09:10] So that was my reasoning for asking my colleagues to defer this vote at this time until the 22nd of October. As you recall, we went through that process to make sure, and we went through with the odds council to make sure we updated those policies to ensure that it was open to anybody who wanted to apply, and that's the new policies that we're operating under based on your approval and so we are competitive anybody who wants to apply can apply if they meet the criteria and

[01:09:42] score to receive funding they receive funding all right if you're done your question supervisor weir thank you madam chair as has been noted at least a quarter of the money is going to entities associated with the city of manassas one of which is a 501c3 but has a very heavy dependence on contributions both from prince william county and city of manassas for what are essentially operational and salary expenses, and I'm not fond of the percentage of which they use that.

[01:10:20] So based on that, I'm going to support the deferral because I'd like a re-review of some of the entities on this list because more than a quarter of it's going to essentially city organizations, for lack of a better term. Supervisor Angry.

[01:10:36] Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. So, Community Partners Program is, well, let me finish. I got the mic. This group are members of the Arts Council, and many of these groups were waiting on this grants program.

[01:10:58] They all know this is coming. I don't know, let me finish this. The groups that have gotten higher money have performed higher throughout whatever their performance standards are, and they've generated more money. And so as you guys go through and assign these, I ask this very specific questions and assign the funding.

[01:11:20] Folks that have gotten higher are because basically they're bigger. And so the other organizations that are lower in the cost, some of them have actually gotten an increase this year from what they've gotten last year. So I will just simply say that many of these organizations, if not all of these organizations on this list, We're waiting for this to be approved so they can get their funding to carry on with their performances for the year.

[01:11:47] So I don't know. I can't support a deferral because actually hurting the groups that need this funding right now. So if there are other organizations, then I will simply say that we need to look and make sure that the Arts Council is allowing them an opportunity to be a part of the council so that they can go through the same vetted process that you all have put in place to do here because that's what this list shows.

[01:12:10] So if there are more, I'll simply say that we just need to reach out and get them. But I don't agree that we should pull this up for the purposes of organizations. These organizations are waiting for this funding to continue their shows for this year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:12:27] Supervisor Franklin. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I was going to make that point in differentiating between the discussion on the community partners, which is where we talked about making sure that we're being more inclusive and we have a particular process versus what we're talking about now, the Arts Council.

[01:12:44] Those are two totally separate discussions. So I'm also very concerned about deferring this and agree that if there are other organizations that we're concerned that didn't get a fair shot, we need to know who those orgs are so that we can do the outreach, and then we can do that separately.

[01:13:05] But to Supervisor Angry's point, and I got a couple of orgs on here myself, when I say myself, I just mean that in and around kind of the Woodbridge community that certainly do a lot of good work, and I wouldn't want to hold up funding for them.

[01:13:21] So if there are other organizations that we're concerned about that didn't get a fair shot, we need to know who they are. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess the problem I have is somewhat similar to the community partners program, And I don't buy into the argument that we're going to do it this way because we've always done it that way.

[01:13:41] Sometimes things need review, as Community Partners does. And I think the Arts Council nominations for funding require the same sort of review. I'm not going to be in favor of doing anything just simply because we've always done it that way.

[01:13:58] That rationale falls on deaf ears on my part. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the second go-around. I, again, very much aware of the differences between the community partner organization and Arts Council, and I appreciate that.

[01:14:22] But the other thing is, and certainly don't want to hurt any of our organizations, just want to make sure that we are being quite fair and balanced, as I said earlier, across this list that we have, Because there was a little controversy before, and I want to make sure as we go and vote for it in a positive way that we're doing it in a very succinct but very educated way when we make the final decision.

[01:14:51] So I'm not trying to hurt any organizations because we appreciate all of our arts organizations as integral to our community. And not trying to heighten, if you will, or compare arts with community partners at all.

[01:15:07] You know, I think we've done a yeoman's job in defining and redefining our community partners program. But, again, my reference or my request in deferring is not to harm, but to make sure. So I just wanted to say that to make sure that my colleagues understand where I'm coming from, whether you vote yay or nay.

[01:15:29] Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Madam Chair. There may be some past issues here that I'm not privy to, so I apologize for not having the context. But I just have a couple of questions. Looking through the report, there were 14 applications, and all 14 groups received funding.

[01:15:50] Were there any applications beyond those 14? No, we're not. Okay, to get to Supervisor Weir's point, which I completely agree, but I don't – can you explain the review process? How did we – can you explain that so that we understand how these groups get vetted and approved?

[01:16:10] I'm going to – for the technical details, I'm going to defer to staff. So I'll give you the short of the long. I'm Janet Ofler. I'm a recreation senior manager that oversees the Arts Council program, and I oversee this process with our arts liaison. So we have two types of applications, grant applications.

[01:16:29] Applicants are permitted to apply as long as they are a nonprofit and they have to show their status as such. So typically it's the same groups that apply year after year. So we have a grant panel that after our review of the applications that are submitted, They review each of those applications, and then they come back to a meeting, and we discuss each application, and they score.

[01:16:54] The award amount for each applicant is based on their eligibility, based on their financials, their budget. So the two in reference that you speak about, the two higher ones that get the higher amount of funding, comes based on their budget, their larger organizations.

[01:17:12] So through that process, then we have a calculation that we use to determine a certain percentage of their actual eligibility that they can apply for. And then that's how the grant amount is determined for each applicant. So in terms of, you know, I know some of these groups, while they may be in Manassas, I mean, my daughter used to be part of one of them.

[01:17:37] We lived in Prince William. Do you know what percentage, do you know of Prince William County residents or a part of these organizations that would, that, you know. That makes up the organization. We can get that information. We get that from the applicant when they provide information based on their demographics that come to their performances.

[01:18:00] They typically will include that in the application. Not all do it, but some of them do it. They will show by zip code the percentage of attendees that come to their events or their performances. And then a lot of the organization's members are volunteers.

[01:18:19] So they could be from the surrounding area or outside, or maybe they were a past performer in the group, and now they're volunteering their time back to the organization. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that, Supervisor Gordy. I guess my initial question pretty much comes from that point of view.

[01:18:38] you know for me we had this conversation earlier in the year where we want to make sure that the cities are paying their fair share and that Prince William County is not picking up the slack and so I just want to make sure that the cities are funding their arts program and that they're not solely relying on Prince William County you know regardless of how much money they have and so that breakdown would be appreciated because I think that it would help I think all of us here on the day is if this comes back before the board and we have to make a decision on this. Oh we will have

[01:19:14] to get the information i i don't know off the top of my head what the cities provide to dogs yeah supervisor angry thank you madam chair i so i'm going to i'm talking to my board now we need to be careful the arts council is the arts council each one of these organizations are members of the arts council this is how the arts council funds this grant program that they're in so it doesn't matter if they're in manassas or wherever they're from if they're a member of the Council, then they become a part of the process for this whole grant

[01:19:52] piece, so I'm told. But I think for the bigger piece, if we're going to really start digging into the Arts Council, then that's a whole separate discussion because I think this is the very first time I've heard this board want to get so involved in the Arts Council. And the Arts Council has a process that they do things in the Arts Council. So if there's an issue with the Arts Council, I think we should discuss that as a board because this is the first that i'm hearing of it so wait supervisor baitley you've already had your two times i believe all right so we are also we have a motion hold on we have

[01:20:31] a motion on the table thank you staff for um there was a second um so thank you staff you may have a seat we have a motion on the floor to defer this to tuesday october 22nd supervisor bob weir had giving it a second so we can have within the motion now we can have discussion about whether or not we agree with the process or we want to tweak the process um i'm actually going to start the problem again seems to be with the process you know we do i will agree with you supervisor angry we have an arts council they have a process for how funds are allotted if we have a problem

[01:21:10] with the process then we're going to need to have a representative or someone from the arts council you know so that we can understand what their process says who they give money to is it just members how much are they willing to give you know i do want to be sensitive to yes this is prince william taxpayer dollars a lot of it's going to organizations that are not necessarily based here but again they service the greater community including us i'm also very sensitive to the fact that you know people are thinking that they're going to get money this was on the consent agenda it's been pulled um so those are my concerns you know i am open to continue

[01:21:47] this discussion and getting more information. I will reluctantly support the deferral so we can get additional information, but it's solely so that we get additional information because the process has gone through the process. We can have a discussion and talk about what to do in future years, but I am very uncomfortable on the day that we're supposed to take a vote disrupting the process, disrupting what people have already done and completely changing things around. So this can be a discussion you know for future years you know and we can invite the arts council to come

[01:22:23] and talk to us more about the process and people can express their concerns then but again it's the day of the vote i do have problems you know we can again we can defer it i will vote for deferral but i do have process problems just changing the process so um supervisor franklin and supervisor weir sure yeah thank you and chair jefferson you just hit the nail on the head this is the day of But what you said that is exactly how we should be looking at this is if we have a challenge with the process,

[01:22:56] which most of us, I would think, knew what the process was before today, that's a discussion for moving forward. To bring that on the day of, and I'm not sure, Elijah, was staff aware of this concern before?

[01:23:13] Okay, so no. So to bring this on the day of is a bit irresponsible, in my opinion. And if we have legit concerns, let's have that discussion for the process moving forward. But for these groups that are expecting this funding, we should go ahead and do what was promised and expected.

[01:23:39] And I do think we're taking good care of taxpayer funds, particularly with some of these groups. Some of these groups don't need the same amount of money that perhaps some of the higher amounts need, right? They wouldn't, you know, necessarily even be prepared day one to handle a larger pot of money.

[01:23:56] Of course, I'm sure they would want it, but I think they would also agree, you know, what we're giving them is probably a good start, and they can probably increase that moving forward. And to Supervisor Angry's point, some of them are getting more money this year than before. So I just think that, you know, we kind of need to look at this in a more responsible manner moving forward.

[01:24:20] Supervisor Rear than Bodie? Thank you, Madam Chair. I would actually disagree strongly with Supervisor Franklin. I would suggest that reviewing the expenditures of public funds is the most responsible thing. And we just got notice of this a couple of days ago, that it comes up regularly at this time of year. I've got a million things I'm working on, so I can't keep track of all the public expenditures that we've got and when their due dates are.

[01:24:44] But for the same reasons that I question some of the expenditures on the Community Partners Program, I question some of the expenditures here in that some of the entities have a significant amount of their funding used to pay salaries and benefit expenses.

[01:25:03] And I kind of have an issue with that with a 501c3 that's spending more than 50% of its take on providing salaries. I've done a lot of work for a lot of 501c3s that have no salary line items, Certainly not at 50%.

[01:25:19] So I think from a policy standpoint, I think that's something that we need to look at, and you're right, in the future, but both with respect to the Arts Council and with respect to the community partners and anybody else, any other charitable organizations that we're going to give funding to. What is the funding actually being used for?

[01:25:38] Supervisor Bode. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the conversation. I think it is responsible for us to have a holistic conversation about this. The same time, as Elijah said when he was up here, we already went through the process of reforming how the Art Council looks at these things and does this.

[01:25:53] This has been done already. We entrusted staff to work with the Arts Council to come up with a new process that's more transparent, more open, what have you. Elijah stood up there and said, hey, everyone that applied for funding this time got funding. It's not like there's secret people out there that applied for funding and didn't get it and we don't know what's going on.

[01:26:12] So I'm just a little frustrated that it's being presented that there's somehow haves and have-nots when we've gone through the process of reforming the Art Council. It's a lot more transparent. There's a lot more collaboration between them and staff on this process, and the process was explained.

[01:26:29] So I'm not going to be supporting the deferral because of that. As was said by a couple of my colleagues, this has been a process that's been done already. We trusted the staff that's worked with the Art Council to delineate this. more than happy to have conversations moving forward about reforming the process a little bit more, but we've already gone through this already. And so I just, I don't, I'm not there on us deferring, kicking the can down the road when, as was said, there are some really good, well-deserving organizations that are waiting for these funds that have been given assurances that this funding would be coming because on the consent agenda and that they've been trusting in this new process and suddenly we're going to pull the rug from under them

[01:27:08] because we want to push it out another three or so weeks. So I'm not going to be supporting the deferral. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Supervisor Vega then angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that it's our duty to ensure that there's accountability along this process, whether it's a week before the meeting or on board day.

[01:27:27] The vote hasn't happened, and this is for the county executive. There is a sense of frustration because there are basic questions that should be answered and included in the staff report. And if I sit here on board day asking answers to those questions, is because I didn't find it in the items that were attached in the board packet. And so, you know, just want to drive the point home that it doesn't matter.

[01:27:46] It's our duty to make sure that there's accountability and that there's transparency in this process. And again, to Supervisor Ware's point, just because we've done things a certain way for a long time doesn't mean that we're going to continue down that road if we can clearly see that not everybody's on the same page. And so I will be supporting the deferral because I think that it's the right thing to do to allow my colleague to get answers to her questions and for everybody else.

[01:28:07] And I, too, would like a report, Mr. Shorter, as to where the money is going. How do we know for sure that it's going back into the community? I think that that's an important question that also needs to be answered. Madam Chair. Yes. So let me say a few things here. One, we are happy moving forward to provide information that will likely be easily found in the applications for these organizations about the populations that they serve broken down by a resident, whether it's Prince William County or residents in the city.

[01:28:39] I will say that if we want this kind of information in the staff report, then we are happy to provide it. We were not asked for that information to be placed in the staff report. I'll also say that we have done our very best to send these agendas out well in advance.

[01:28:55] In fact, we've made in the last few months a pretty significant leap forward in putting this out 10 days before our board meeting. So if there are questions prior to the board meeting about what is in the staff report, we are absolutely open to answering those questions.

[01:29:12] I think I'm just going to say this real quick. I think it's not simply the board report. You also have a couple of us on this board who are at a disadvantage, because it sounds like the process has been debated and reformed. But at the same time, to me, it sounds like there are still questions that people such as Supervisor Bailey have.

[01:29:31] I'm going to go now to Angry and then Bailey. And thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Chris, for that, because we as this board, so if we got information a few days ago that this was a problem, This board should have known this was a problem. I just find it really hard that we're doing this now today when I don't even know what we're really talking about.

[01:29:52] So if there are organizations that felt slighted or there's someone on this list that wanted more funding, this board packet has been out. We all have appointees on this board. I just feel like right now we could have had more information if we would discuss this during the time to get to this board meeting so we don't have to have this discussion and figure out what it is you want to do.

[01:30:15] We might have even pulled this from the agenda then versus doing this now. But I will still simply say you have organizations, all of these organizations, provide a service to Princeton County in the form of arts, and they're waiting on this funding because they need this funding to continue doing what they're doing.

[01:30:33] So if we want to have a discussion about arts council or whatever this process looks like, we can do that. But I don't think holding up this for a couple of weeks, I don't know what that is going to do for the process. However, I do know that organizations on this list were waiting for this to be approved to get this funding to continue the services that they are providing to Virginia.

[01:30:57] Because let me just be clear, not everybody coming to these shows is from Prince William County. They're from everywhere. And this is a good thing. I'll stop there. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bailey. I agree with my colleague. It's absolutely a good thing. And I don't want this to be colored on camera as anything negative, because it is not.

[01:31:18] It is absolutely just an opportunity to make sure that we are, according to the revised process that we've created, we're dotting I's and crossing T's. And I think it would bode us well if we deferred until October 22nd to make sure that we are dotting I's and crossing T's.

[01:31:39] As everyone knows on this dais, a lot of times when calls are made to discuss what is going on with an item on the agenda, sometimes that desk is not coordinated. So I do apologize that if I didn't get either a return phone call or I didn't catch you when I called, that's kind of human in today's world.

[01:32:01] But that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about responsibility and accountability and transparency. And so as we conduct ourselves the way we always have as a very responsible and accountable board, we really need to step back for a minute, look at the process, make sure.

[01:32:21] I know I've had two phone calls to my office about not having, and I don't say this to an angst against Elijah or the county exec because they're doing an impeccable job, but a lot of times we might have to step back for a minute And it's not the first deferral that has been made.

[01:32:42] And consider that, knowing that the Arts Council has the responsibility to serve the community. But we have to be accountable. And so I don't think that's irresponsible at all. I think it is absolutely what they expect, to be supportive of what they need to do.

[01:32:59] So I'm just saying that to say I hear my colleagues. This was not last minute. A lot of things are. And you know in the day of, when it is, we fix it. And so I respect however you vote, but I don't want to leave a negative air on camera for any reason to our community to say that this supervisor is not supporting the Arts Council.

[01:33:22] Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. I guess I wonder, instead of a deferral, is it possible for us to move forward on this and just have staff come back with a briefing or even a work session? I think, honestly, I'd like to vote on the deferral and to see, you know, we can discuss other measures.

[01:33:43] You know, again, being new, I don't know what was previously done with the Arts Council, what reforms were made. You know, this is all very new for me. I would love to have a briefing. I think that would be ideal. However, there are people who do have concerns. I am, again, I will vote for the deferral because I want people to have the time to get their questions answered.

[01:34:01] And as I said, I think moving forward, you know, we do need to have a conversation. We do need to look at the process, but we have to also respect the process that was already in place. Madam Chair, last question, and I guess this is for the county executive.

[01:34:18] So that we don't delay this, because I also understand the urgency that some of my colleagues have raised in terms of these groups relying on these funds coming. Can staff have these questions answered by our next board meeting? Is that doable so that we can move this forward then? Absolutely. So we heard several questions today during this session.

[01:34:35] We will certainly respond to those questions heard. If there are any additional questions or other information that might be helpful to board members, I'd ask that you send that to me, and we will include that in the response to the collective board. Thank you. So the next meeting is on the 15th, and that is a work session.

[01:34:53] And so I do, the motion is for October 22nd. I'm comfortable, you know, I'm comfortable. I don't know how people feel. But do you want to accept the front, or do you want to just go ahead and vote?

[01:35:08] I can accept the friendly one. All right. Supervisor Bailey will accept a friendly amendment and go to October 15th. We would have to amend the agenda. We would have to amend the agenda. I will say that we typically don't take items for vote during the work session in that budget.

[01:35:27] I mean, not budget. That board agenda item has already. I am uncomfortable, I will be honest with. I say we go to the 22nd. If we're going to do this, it gives, again, I know. So, and I also have to say this with organizations, if maybe staff, have they been told that they're going to get this money?

[01:35:47] Are they planning on this money? Because this doesn't sound like this money is guaranteed until we vote on it. So, yes, they are planning on, they are expecting these funds. Okay, so they're expecting us to vote on these funds and to receive these funds soon. Do we, I am.

[01:36:04] To be, Madam Chair, and I don't, this is ultimately a board conversation, so I'm trying to say is to not sort of interfere. But that said, these votes are always subject to the board. So funding that comes to the board, even on items of consent, organizations should not expect that this is a given.

[01:36:25] So I want to make sure that we're clear that no promises have been made that the funding will be available. We're also going around in circles. Supervisor Franklin, Supervisor Bailey, you have had both your second times to speak.

[01:36:41] I would like to go on and move forward with the vote. Would you like to revert back to the original amendment to October 22nd? I'm sorry, ma'am. I would, and that was my whole reason for saying the 22nd, was because I know we don't vote on it. All right, so what we're going to do, we are going to take a vote on October 22nd.

[01:37:07] Motion passes 5 to 3. Supervisors Angry, Bodie, and Franklin voting nay.

[01:37:23] That was torture. I mean, Supervisor Angry said that's necessary torture. Yes, I agree, sir. All right. We are moving on to agenda item 5M. I see that we have the Commonwealth Supervisor here. I'm sorry, Commonwealth Attorney? I don't know, whatever. I call Michelle Robel Commonwealth Attorney, whatever.

[01:37:52] So we have with us the Commonwealth Attorney, Amy Ashworth, in case there are any questions on this. So for 5M, does anyone have any questions for the Commonwealth Attorney? His name is Amy Ashworth. All right. We have Supervisor Weir and then eventually Supervisor Vega.

[01:38:15] I don't have a question for the Commonwealth Attorney. I have a question for our financial staff. All right. For our staff, if they can. You can have a seat, Amy. Just chill out. Put up your feet.

[01:38:34] We're going to have Dave Sinclair come in. Yeah. Who are you? I'll defer to Supervisor Vega while they're... Supervisor Vega, do you have questions for Commonwealth Attorney? No, it would be for staff if it's not the same one that you're asking. Okay. So I apologize. We're waiting for staff. I could do a song and dance. Let's see.

[01:39:14] Madam Chair, could I suggest passing this by temporarily and proceeding with... I was thinking about... I'm trying to see how fast... I'm looking at staff out there.

[01:39:30] Here we go. I was going to do a recess, but staff is here.

[01:39:41] You look so expectantly at me. On the last page of the staff report, it says that there's no direct cost to the county general fund revenues or any other type of revenue above and beyond what's being allocated for FY25.

[01:40:00] But for FY26, there's an estimated, I guess, shortfall, for lack of a better term, of $93,000 in FY26. Can you explain first what that is, what that $93,000 is composed of? Okay, so the full year, this is a calculation and estimate.

[01:40:20] Let me say that, be clear for that for the board, first and forthright. That is meant to capture the full year cost of the salary, the benefits, the technology, the office supplies of the positions.

[01:40:35] It doesn't cost any additional money in fiscal 25 above the revenue that the county would receive from the Commonwealth because these positions would not be hired for the entirety of the fiscal year in fiscal 25. They'd be active for maybe six or seven months of the remainder of the fiscal year, right?

[01:40:58] But in fiscal 26, they would presumably be hired and filled, and their salaries and benefits would be paid for the entirety of the fiscal year. And that's an important point to make for any constitutional officer in the county or the Commonwealth of Virginia.

[01:41:16] The revenue that we get from the Virginia Compensation Board does not pay for the full costs of a position. That's true whether it's a Commonwealth attorney or a sheriff or a circuit court clerk position.

[01:41:33] That is a shortcoming of the Commonwealth, if you will. The revenue that we get on a per position basis just doesn't fully fund a position. I don't know if that's helpful or not, sir. That's helpful, but a follow-on thing is with increases in benefit costs, potentially salary increases due to raises, that sort of thing, cost of COLA, that sort of thing.

[01:42:00] Are we locked into an amount from the Compensation Board, or is that subject to change? Because I think this was amended by the General Assembly this year, which means it could be changing next year. And if we don't have that funding, are we on the hook for the delta between the two amounts?

[01:42:18] Possibly, but, and let me verify this for the Board. I think what is programmed in the state's biennium is a 3% compensation board increase for state-supported local employees. So the revenue in fiscal 26 would be increasing as well.

[01:42:37] But at a set 3% regardless of what we do with our salaries? I believe that is what is programmed in the state budget. I'll also add, thank you, Dave, I'll also add that this is consistent with the round of conversations we all have had with you around the legislative agenda.

[01:42:55] This relationship between the comp board and our budget is one that we are collectively going to be advocating for as part of the legislative season upcoming. All right, Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:43:11] Those were the questions that I had. I'm kind of torn when it comes to this one. I do hope, though, that this is taken into consideration when we have normal conversations about the budget. When that time comes, I'll leave it at that.

[01:43:29] All right. Actually, before we take a vote, Commonwealth attorney, if you can speak to the importance of having these positions and how this is going to and if this is going to be included in the budget request for fiscal year 2026.

[01:43:46] So these positions, the comp board actually funded four attorney positions at $70,000 each. Obviously, that doesn't cover what we pay in northern Virginia for an attorney.

[01:44:03] So I was able to work with the budget office to figure out a combination that would best fit the money that was coming in from this comp board. And so what we allocated it to was funding the attorney position that had previously been created and funded as an overhire.

[01:44:24] We had a vacancy coming up, and we had a really fantastic candidate. And so I was able to reach out and arrange for us to hire that new candidate, knowing that one of our deputy chiefs of staff was going to be leaving for another position this October.

[01:44:43] So it will be actually just funding that as an attorney position. And then we have one paralegal and a victim witness and an administrative staff. As you recall from our discussions back in April, we are underfunded or understaffed.

[01:45:06] Not underfunded, but understaffed. We are operating with approximately half of the administrative staff that the time study recommends and approximately half of the paralegals. With the positions that the board granted this office last budget cycle, I was able to get us up to 49 attorneys, which was the recommended attorney amount at that time.

[01:45:31] And so we are still in need of positions. The new time study numbers came out this August. Those reflect, those are from the Supreme Court of Virginia.

[01:45:46] They are based on the types and the volume of cases brought by the police department. So the Supreme Court takes accounts for those, and it's put into the comp board's staffing standards.

[01:46:03] They are now, for Prince William County, recommending 61 attorneys, 30 administrative staff, 15 paralegals. Again, that's above where we were last year and above where we are now.

[01:46:21] I've made the chair aware of those numbers and the county executive. And so this will certainly be helpful as we move on and continue to provide the services that we do to the county.

[01:46:37] All right. Thank you so very much. Supervisor Ware. Thank you, Madam Chair. This whole conversation is concerning to me. Now I'm hearing that this is partially justified by an August determination by the courts, which is post-budget adoption and post-beginning of the fiscal year.

[01:47:01] So ideally, or in theory, we should be addressing this for the FY26 budget cycle. That being said, I do have a question for legal counsel. Are we going to run sideways? Given the language here, and I haven't read the actual award, but since the language here says that the money is to be awarded for four additional full-time positions, essentially attorney positions, Are we running potentially afoul of good practices by airing out that we're not going to hire attorneys with this?

[01:47:40] We're going to do some sort of fiscal gymnastics and fund a variety of things with it other than the attorneys? And does that sort of fly in the face of what may or may not be the legislative intent? Is there a potential comeuppance for us?

[01:47:59] Sorry, I believe that's for county staff, correct? For the county attorney. Madam Chair, members of the board, I have not reviewed the grant reimbursement, and I believe that this is a relationship between the Commonwealth Attorney and the Compensation Board. If they have concerns with it, I'm sure they would let the Commonwealth Attorney know.

[01:48:16] I can explain. So we have 49 attorneys. I believe 26 of them are funded by the Comp Board. We are just, all we do is designate for other attorneys to be Comp Board attorneys.

[01:48:32] So it's a way we report to the Compensation Board. All right, then. If you have nothing else, Supervisor Gordy. Ms. Ashworth, thank you for being here and answering our questions.

[01:48:51] You mentioned that one of these positions is for victim witness. Can you speak a little bit to that? In previous conversations, we've discussed the challenges of the snitches get stitches and how we can ensure that victims and witnesses show up to trial to actually help us convict the people committing the violent crimes in their community How will this position go to help ensure that these folks get to trial?

[01:49:21] Yes, thank you, Supervisor Gordy. It's an important point that the criminal justice system in any jurisdiction doesn't function unless people who are witnesses and victims of crime come to court and testify. And there is a lot of reluctance on the part of people to do that, to be involved.

[01:49:40] People are afraid that there will be retribution. Sometimes people are just reluctant because, you know, they're not involved. They just happen to see the fight break out or see the car accident or see something. And so they often, what victim witness does is reach out, makes that connection, keeps them updated if there are any continuances.

[01:50:06] We've been able to access grant money to help with some of their safety concerns. It's just a vital service that they provide that means the rest of the administrative staff and the attorneys don't have to do that.

[01:50:22] They can rely on victim witness to make sure people are comfortable coming to court and coming to court. All right, Supervisor Franklin. All right, thank you. Thank you so much for coming and joining us today.

[01:50:38] I would like to entertain a motion to move this forward. So moved. Second. All right, now we're into further discussion. Everyone hit your, come on Franklin, hit it. Okay, Supervisor Ware beat you. So Supervisor Ware then Franklin. I've still got questions and I'm uncomfortable that I'm not going to go so far as to kill it, but I am not going to, I'm going to abstain from this because I've got some serious questions.

[01:51:05] Supervisor Franklin. Sure, just wanted to flag that obviously we did give the Commonwealth Attorney some resources in our most recent budget. She asked for additional resources. I think I made that motion, it failed. And so I think if we want to continue to have this discussion around public safety and making sure that our Commonwealth attorney has the resources she needs in the same manner that we make sure that our law enforcement, our social services have the resources they need.

[01:51:36] Because sometimes they service the same populations and the same demographics. So we have to make sure that each of these have adequate resources. So I will be supporting this. I think it's necessary. And quite frankly, we're going to continue to have these discussions about how the compensation board does their part, as I also advocated for, in making sure that localities don't have to continue to come up behind and put additional resources in.

[01:52:03] But they are doing their part. We should do our part. And I'm fully supportive. Supervisor Bode, then Bailey. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I will be supporting this, you know, back when we had this discussion during the budget. I did say that, you know, I wasn't comfortable with going the whole hog of what was requested above and beyond what was in the county exec's budget, clearly because I expected the compensation board to come through with additional monies.

[01:52:29] They're doing that, so to me, it would be seen foolhardy than not support that. So I support the Commonwealth attorney in her endeavor. I actually appreciate her creativity with working with them to be able to fund the position she needs versus just what was being mandated by the state, so I'll be supporting this.

[01:52:45] Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I too will be supporting this. I think that the Commonwealth Attorney did exactly what we asked her to do, and I appreciate you spending time, though it was a long time, just explaining in depth about how this works, because Bob asked the question that I had, and I really appreciate that. And so I will be supporting this, and this is a matter of making sure that our public safety entity continues in partnership with other department. So thank you. Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I mean, we've had a lot

[01:53:21] of discussion during the budget session about positions, FTEs, and where the funding was coming from. And I appreciate Mr. Shorter bringing up and reminding us that in our legislative package is an opportunity for us to get the state to put more investments in this to help support our localities and I think that is an absolute important priority for Prince William County in ensuring that they are that they're coming to the table with adequate resources to help support

[01:53:53] our safety here in Prince William County. Thank you. Supervisor Vega. Thank you Madam Chair. I'll say it's no secret I've been a strong critic of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office but I will also share that I've been making my rounds because we want to make sure that Prince William County does live up to the expectations that, you know, we say it is, that we want safe, secure, strong communities, and that we want a criminal justice that works for everyone in fairness and that it's just and all that it does. And so with some of the conversations that I've been having, whether it's with judges or probation, pretrial, criminal justice service division, there is a need for

[01:54:31] additional resources. So I will go ahead and I will be supporting this initiative because I do understand that there is a need and that this continues to be an opportunity for myself and the Commonwealth Attorney to work collaboratively to assure that we're addressing the needs that the office really has you know I'm really big on data I'm really big on you know the the cases you're prosecuting the workload if you will and that the ask that you're making of this board is supported by that workload so I look forward to engaging in further conversations and I'll be supporting this madam chair thank you so much we don't have any

[01:55:04] other speakers so let's go ahead with our vote vote unanimous supervisor we are abstaining from vote all right thank you so very much we are now on to public comment time um i have a list of five people who have signed up for public comments we are going to keep the list open for another 15 minutes for people to sign up if they would like to speak in person we will do um in-person comment and then we'll go to virtual please as a reminder you have three

[01:55:39] minutes to speak um and please begin by stating your name and what magisterial district you are from. We have first Nancy Liddell, Larry Bell, John Steinbeck, Alan Gloss, and Teresa Mintz. Can we come down there or here? With the pink mic. Sure, thank you. So first I have Nancy Liddell, Larry Bell, John Steinbeck, Alan Gloss, Teresa Mintz. I don't know. I think Nancy stepped out for a second. All right, so then I will have you start. Come to the mic, make sure we can hear you.

[01:56:19] State your name, sir, and where you live. My name is Larry Bell. I'm in the Coles District. I'm in the Coles District. And I understand that there is going to be some type of initiative about either harassing or arresting people who are homeless and panhandling.

[01:56:42] And I'm a former teacher, former coach, working in the central office for the education department here and all of that for many, many years. I started teaching at Garfield in 1980. So I am a 44-year resident of Prince William County, and I traveled the nation doing motivational speeches and stuff like that for teachers and all. So I had a chance to see other counties, and I just see what a wonderful county we have, and I just want to be sure I say that, that in the 44 years I've been here, what I have found is this. We are not a mean people in this county. I live in the Coast District. Not all of us go to

[01:57:20] the same church. Not all of us have the same political views, but we stop in the street, we talk to each other, we admire each other's pets and all of that. We're not a mean people here. And so for anybody to want to harass someone who's just trying to get enough money, $59 or something, to have a place to spend at night, I think that would be mean and evil. And I've not seen that in this county so I hope that that you guys as a board will never have you have a wonderful policeman and I say that clearly I want a policeman wasting their time chasing behind through traffic

[01:57:57] someone who's trying to get enough money to have a place to stay that night that is beneath this county it is beneath us and I just hope that you guys will never allow that to happen I hope you set up some kind of committee or commission to allow people to give you ideas to help the people rather than put them in jail for trying to feed the family. The last 10 years, I have gone out and I've donated food. Every Thursday, I go to trailer parks and try to help people. These are people that are human beings just like us. And my grandmother used to say poor people should not

[01:58:37] be treated badly just because they're poor. And before you vote to do this, and again, this is a wonderful county 44 years I've been here I want to say this to you my grandmother would say this think about this uh before you vote about what you're going to do with these human beings she would say there but for the grace of God thank you for your time thank you sir we're going to go to Nancy Lydell I'm Nancy Lyle and um I am from uh I live on Logan Court in Woodbridge and I too

[01:59:14] want to address the panhandling issue can you uh I'm sorry ma'am adjust the mic so we can hear you better. Okay. So I wanted to address the panhandling issue. I think that it's important. I know that there is an initiative where you're going to take a look at what are some of the root causes of panhandling and hopefully try to address those issues. I think the initiative as it stands right now is a little misdirected in that I know as a member of the community safety advisory committee,

[01:59:46] We have not been allowed input as yet on this initiative, and many of the people on that advisory committee work with people that are panhandlers. And so we kind of do know what they need and what will help them to move forward.

[02:00:03] So I would like a little time to allow more people to give some input on how to best address the needs of those folks that are panhandling. And I would also like to second what the gentleman before me just said with regard to going after panhandlers in terms of enforcement.

[02:00:25] I know it's unconstitutional, but lawmakers have a way to try to change wording and things like that that would have the same effect. And I'm asking you to please not tie this county up in another fiasco like the county did when it came to the anti-immigrant legislation that they passed years ago.

[02:00:47] As a community advocate, we brought together civil rights attorneys and stopped Corey Stewart from implementing that program. We will do the same for the panhandlers. And I don't want to tie this county up in the courts through litigation.

[02:01:05] Obviously, from before, funding is very important to the county. Our concern is let's spend that money as wisely as we possibly can by providing the services and filling in the gaps where panhandlers are losing out. Many folks have mental health issues.

[02:01:23] Many folks, you know, I know there's a jobs initiative. Some of those panhandlers actually have jobs, and I've talked to them. I take food to them on a daily basis, and they work. They don't make enough to pay for the hotel rooms at their jobs. So we have to think smart about how we're spending our money and our finances, but enforcement is not the way to go.

[02:01:45] I know a police does not want to go around trying to arrest folks, and we're not going to drive these folks out of our county. there are residents and they have a right to live in this county and just because they don't have a lot of money you can't just shove them under a rock or kick them out and we have to respect those folks and try to address the needs that they have thank you very much thank you so very much next speaker please good afternoon uh supervisors uh chairperson john steinbach i live at 76 15 lake

[02:02:23] Drive in the Coles District. I've been a resident of the county for 38 years. First of all, I'd like to congratulate you all on how you all are working out disagreements. Last time I was here with the previous board, it was almost unbearable to see the bickering and name calling that went back and forth. So I just want to congratulate all of you working together on this. And so you see me periodically. Recently, I've been advocating for the thoroughfare issue with the cemeteries. I was

[02:03:02] here advocating for the settlement at Carver Road, which is some unfinished business that you all need to deal with. But today I'm here to talk about your upcoming discussions about the issue of panhandling. So full information, I work, I volunteer with Larry and with Nancy with Woodbridge Workers Committee. We're an all-volunteer 501c3. We have no staff salaries at all.

[02:03:36] and we work primarily these days we work on food security so I'm not going to talk about the moral and ethical questions I want to talk about the the practical questions so so if the board moves forward and criminalizes panhandling think about what the implications are going to be so I mean And off the top of my head, I think number one would be the use of police time.

[02:04:08] Arresting people, warning people, and then arresting people for panhandling. That would be one. Another issue was something when we had the immigration situation, and that is people that are, we talked earlier about victims of crime, and people, if we start cracking down on panhandling, People that are homeless or people that are likely to be victims are going to be more and more and more unwilling to come forward to report and to testify against violent crime.

[02:04:39] I can imagine that if we criminalize panhandling, that we're going to end up causing the courts to be overwhelmed. and then if people can't pay because most of the people that I work with daily have virtually no money at all and so you so if you impose a 75 dollar 100 dollar fine then pretty soon they're not going to pay it and then they're going to be in jail and then we're going to turn the clock back to the 1840s in Victorian England and we're going to have debtor prisons and poor houses and

[02:05:19] do we really want to go there so so what I want you to think about is the implications of what you do before you do it. So, thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mr. Klaus. Good afternoon, Alan Klaus Koles. In a few minutes, the board will hear from Executive Chris Shorter and likely Deputy Executive Elijah Johnson about another governmental program that will bust the budget, but won't accomplish a single thing it sets out to do. I was here when Deputy Executive Johnson

[02:05:56] presented the program for panhandlers. I was also here when the directive was given to find a way to fix the traffic problems being created by the beggars in the median. What Mr. Johnson presented has no similarity to what the directive was.

[02:06:16] I don't know why, but that's what he came up with. He proposes that the county hire, keep Prince William Beautiful to administer a program where they pay homeless people to pick up trash for a measly $13 an hour. He doesn't propose that they do it on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, which would be the panhandling hot times, but he proposes to supplement their weekend panhandling with trash pickup on Tuesdays and Thursdays only.

[02:06:42] He expects Keep Prince William Beautiful to administer the program, but as of yet I have not seen any milestones or productivity measures put in place to ensure that that company is doing what they've been hired to do. Why did Mr. Johnson choose Keep Prince William Beautiful without submitting the proposal through the normal bidding process to allow other companies to weigh in on it?

[02:07:08] Why are we allowing a single-source contract to be put in place with this company? Could it be because the former chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Ann Wheeler's husband, John Wheeler, is on the board of directors for that company? Is the choosing of this company a quid pro quo for Ann Wheeler?

[02:07:27] It sure looks like it to me because I'm certain there's other companies out there that are more capable than keep Prince William beautiful to administer such a program. I understand the First Amendment concerns raised by the Supreme Court, but why don't we make the medians simply a no trespassing area mark my words even after spending a half a million dollars and giving ann wheeler's husband another quarter of a million dollars this year this time next year there will be more homeless beggars lining the medians and impeding traffic throughout the county we will not notice a single difference but we will surely miss all

[02:08:03] that money do better this is a this is a very poor program thank you all right and our final Speaker? Three cements. Is it on? Okay. Three cements, Potomac District. I want to thank law enforcement and first responders for all that they do, but I do not, I do not thank our federal government who has gone woke on us and betrayed us. Now, I have a question for the county exec shorter. You're giving money to Queen Anne, okay, his husband, during, during your exec time. Is this

[02:08:42] an elitist thing? You know, they live high on the hog already. Wouldn't someone else need that kind of money. And, but I have to defer to Mr. Allen over here that was just ahead of me. You're wasting our tax dollars. Are you, do you care about us? Do you work for us, Mr. Shorter? Do you work for us?

[02:09:06] You know, I have to question that. I'm sorry. I'm just, our mainstream media has betrayed us too. They've gone to the woke world. And here you are. We've lost our moral compass. We're celebrating Pride Month, LGBTQ+, colleges have gone woke on us, but I have to go back. We're talking about citizens needing help and stuff. You know what? Don't talk about anyone needing help when you've

[02:09:41] got the borders wide open and you're letting illegals come in here and they're taking the spots of legal Americans, legal Americans that are trying to do their best, no matter what color or anything they are. They're trying. But we're competing with the illegals and the criminals.

[02:10:00] Democrats support terrorists. They do. Because war-aged people are coming across. These young men that are coming across, they're the age of our military. Okay, we're in harm's way. I know I'm all over the place. But I'm so frustrated to see how blind people are that keep voting for Democrats, when the Democrats have betrayed us left and right. But when it comes, don't talk to me

[02:10:34] about illegals. If they can't come in here the right way, they shouldn't be here. And I'm sorry. You know what? God blessed me. God blessed me. My ancestors came here, and I'm grateful for that.

[02:10:51] And that's another thing. We are fighting a spiritual war, good against bad. And many of our churches have let us down they've gone woke on us and satan is out to destroy us the world obama george soros democrat politicians and democrat voters are with satan and don't forget the 13 military that died in afghanistan your democrat votes created their slaughter yes their slaughter but they don't tell you about the people that are handicapped from that as well all right

[02:11:31] thank you so very much and i believe we have no speakers online so thank you so very much everyone who's come out to speak today someone's a little too happy up here all right so now we are going to move on to agenda item seven we have public hearings madam chair oh yes thank you madam chair sorry to interrupt but before the board holds the public hearings and votes on these items i need to declare a personal interest in item 7a to authorize the issuance and sale of school bonds My wife is a school's employee.

[02:12:03] As a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by this matter. I will be participating in it because I am able to do so fairly, objectively, in the public interest. Thank you, Madam Chair. Everything he said just replaced my wife's name. Before the board holds the public hand and votes on these items, I need to declare a personal interest in item 7A to authorize the issuance and sale of school bonds.

[02:12:29] My wife is a special education instructional aide with the schools. As a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by this matter. I will be participating in it because I am able to do so fairly objectively and in the public interest. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, guys, for reading your disclosures.

[02:12:45] All right, so I am going to open the public hearings for Agenda Item 7A through 7E. Just to let everyone know, I'm going to call you up. I have a couple people who are signed up, one for 7C and the other for 7E.

[02:13:02] It's the same thing with public comment time. if you please state your name and where you generally reside. So we are open. And again, everyone has three minutes to speak on their item. Did you, I'm sorry, Ms. Minns, you also want to sign up? All right, we'll put you, I'll put you at the end. All right, so first I'm going to have Mr. Charlie Grimes on agenda item 7C.

[02:13:22] I have Kathleen Harding on agenda item 7E and then Teresa Minns. So I'm Charles Grimes, Gainesville Magisterial District.

[02:13:42] I would like to think this is a no-brainer opportunity for you to say yes, but it's always important to ask the elected officials to do the right thing. This is an opportunity for us to enhance our trails network. You've already got the county match.

[02:13:58] The hard part that's coming is what do you do about the remaining trail segments that are not being funded through this federal grant and already matched with county money. You have a fiscal year 26 budget coming forward. I encourage you to think about what you're saying in the strategic plan and what we've already said in the comprehensive plan.

[02:14:21] We want greater mobility within our community. We want higher quality of life. We want to provide access to our parks. We have a goal in our comp plan for neighborhoods to be within 10 to 15 minutes bike or walking distance to our parks.

[02:14:36] In order for that to happen, we have to do something we haven't done for 75 years. we have to start funding the bike and the pedestrian network the way we funded the road network. If we start funding now, in 15 years, you'll really see a major difference.

[02:14:51] If we don't start funding now, we'll not see a difference. So it's important for you to think ahead to the fiscal year '26 budget beyond the particular item that you have today. I encourage you to ask Chris Shorter and his staff to prioritize trails funding.

[02:15:10] let's get some bikeways, let's get some greenways, let's get some of the opportunities that we've been talking about plugged into the budget so that what are currently just lands on the map become places that people can actually walk and bike on. Thank you.

[02:15:26] - Thank you, next speaker. - My name is Kathleen Harding and I've been a resident of the community for about 57 years. I think I beat everybody here.

[02:15:43] And I'm part of the Neabsco district. And I'm speaking on behalf of Russell Road and the speed bumps that we want to have installed. We need more than two speed bumps. It has become a huge cut-through between Lake Ridge and the Parkway, and there's a development being proposed and has been approved that's going to have apartments at the end of Pennington.

[02:16:09] It's going to cause more and more people to use Russell Road. I'm concerned because the two speed bumps they now have are in fairly straight ways, But we have some curves, and I worry a great deal about the people who walk there. We have no sidewalks for the dog walkers, the children on bicycles, and everybody who uses that area.

[02:16:30] We need more speed bumps, and I hope that you will approve them and give us the safety that we need on Russell Road. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Ms. Mintz? Theresa Mintz, Potomac District.

[02:16:50] I want to comment on 7A. Supervisor Bode and Angry both say that it's not a conflict of interest for them. But I've seen their votes here. Everything is a conflict of interest when it comes to them. Okay, I'm here listening to them concerned about the safety of our policemen and everything.

[02:17:10] When Supervisor Bode was behind Black Lives Matter, and not only that, Supervisor Franklin was very involved in getting our policemen in harm's way. So, excuse me, you are not working for the citizens of Prince William County.

[02:17:29] You're self-serving. And no, angry and votey cannot be trusted. They are biased. So they should not be allowed to vote on any of these that concern their wives, okay? And please, stop lying that you support the police because you don't, okay?

[02:17:49] Fine and dandy. I sat here. I watched you all. Defund the police. Defund the police. But you're over here trying to take my tax dollars away. Please, county exec, please, please start supporting Prince William citizens.

[02:18:05] And I mean citizens, us that matter. You come here illegally, you don't matter. You don't belong in our census. You do not belong here. I don't go to your country. You don't come to my country. And you politicians, please start supporting America.

[02:18:21] Put America first. Okay, I'm done. You angry and you Bodie, you need to disqualify yourself. You are not honorable people. Okay, I'll be done because I could go on and on. All right, thank you.

[02:18:37] I don't believe we have anyone else signed up in person and we don't have anyone signed up online. So this now closes public hearing on agenda items 7A through 7E. I am, I don't know unless anyone on the board has any problems with that.

[02:18:53] I think we can do one, I'm sorry. So can we, I have one question. about 7b okay the speed up can i can i ask uh mr canada yes mr canada you can just just on the um this well excuse me not 7b this is speed bump so that is uh 7e no 7e what is it 7e yes sir it's 7e 7e 7e just a curious question um to to uh one of the speaker's comments i know we're getting i think it's two humps on that road you are sir is there like what i don't know how long that road

[02:19:33] i know it's pretty long road is there another opportunity where they could go through and do the same process they got to get those two to add more we can take a look at that sir our our traffic engineer is here today richard wyman he can talk a little bit to what's already been done and what what we did in that area to check for speed throughout the entire corridor uh and then But, again, you know, with time, things change, and we can always take a relook, as you know, at it.

[02:20:02] And we're able to do that if that's something you'd like after this meeting. You know we're putting in these two, and they're more towards the side, closer to when you head towards the parkway on Russell Road. We can take a look at the other side, that over by St. Andrews.

[02:20:17] I know this area well. My parents live in this area, so I'll be crossing those speed humps quite a bit. But I'll let Mr. Weinman talk a little bit about what we've done so far. He doesn't need to talk, Richard. I like what you said there because, you know, Russell Road was such a pleasantly kind of out-of-the-way hitting road, and it's very nice back there, rural, if you will.

[02:20:38] And I know things are changing in this area. We've got the courts. We do have those apartments. So it's going to – people are going to realize that real quick. And so I just – I compare it to going out to Clifton And when you see some of those speed humps in through some of those nice rural roads, that I'm just curious if there will be another opportunity.

[02:20:55] So don't need to answer that yet, just, you know, to kind of work with what... We will put it in the queue and make sure we get back with you. All right, thank you, thank you. Yes, sir. Supervisor Rear. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good thing you didn't leave. Real quick, secondary system Prince William County construction programs estimated allocations for the unpaved roads.

[02:21:19] What is that 239-067 going to be used for? uh this is item 7d ma'am uh regarding the uh the six-year plan uh supervisor weird great question uh that what we're going to be doing here is stockpiling that money like we have been for the last uh four years uh you see that there's probably a little bit over a million dollars if you look into the plan and what we're going to do most of the unpaved roads in the county right now will cost more than that any of the roads that are currently on the list but that we have made it

[02:21:52] And we talked about it at the last meeting when we authorized the grant for this, that we will be coming to all your offices to ask you if you have any priorities to some gravel road funds as we, excuse me, as we determine where these funds go for future years. Thanks. I wanted the public, particularly some of the gravel roads in the Gainesville District to understand that.

[02:22:16] Sort of ancillary to that, a number of roads that are included in the continued inclusion in the program are roads with significant either current profit improvements or soon-to-be profit improvements.

[02:22:33] Does their continued status on this list in any way, is that in any way impacted by the proffered road improvements? Now, for example, the intersection of Canharpen and Artemis. Artemis in its entirety is coming to us soon.

[02:22:50] I've got issues with Mountain Road. I've got issues with log mill. But then you've got, I thought thoroughfare east of Route 15 was already paved as a proffered condition to a previously approved subdivision. So why is that still on here? Madam Chair and members of the board, great question again, Supervisor Weir.

[02:23:08] Again, as I mentioned, we will be coming to your offices in the upcoming year to get your priorities. This list has not been updated in a few years, and right now we are just taking the time to be able to do the process that we need to do to be able to collect this year's money, but we will be coming to your offices in the upcoming years to find out what your priorities are to see where we can put some of this money on and how we can update that list to make sure that the roads that are your priorities are on there and not the roads that have been there for many years in the past.

[02:23:38] I will have my red pen and hatchet ready. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you so very much, Mr. Gonzalez. It doesn't seem like there's going to be, hopefully, no disagreement if I would like to get a motion for 7A through 7E.

[02:23:57] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. All right. All right. I have Supervisor Franklin and then Supervisor Bodie. Yes, thank you. just want to point out items 7c and 7d for 7c this is to ratify land and water conservation fund project grant submission by the department of parks and recs and appropriate 750 000 to construct and expand the trail boardwalk connecting the boardwalk at neapsco regional park to leesavania state park as part of the potomac heritage national scenic trail the staff will come

[02:24:31] back later with the de-restriction prohibiting the county from using the property for other than park or preservation purposes which obviously we support and so proceeding today with the ratification of the agreement and the appropriation allows construction to begin in the park to accept the grant so thank you for those that were advocating for that and hope hopefully my colleagues can support that for item 6d just want to point out that part of the six-year secondary road priority list includes ripon boulevard and featherstone road this is the vdot method of

[02:25:05] establishing word road improvement priorities and so obviously some development happening along the featherstone area will be happening obviously the road improvements will be helpful and obviously in the ripon area we do see quite a bit of traffic so this will also help with road improvement so thank you. All right, Supervisor Bodie, then Gordie. Thank you, Madam Chair. For 7A, it was discussed a little bit earlier. This is for bond issuance through us from the Prince William County Schools. There's also a really good number of capital projects that are going through this bond issuance, which includes the rebuild of Occoquan Elementary School. I know that a number of colleagues

[02:25:45] and I were at the groundbreaking or the rising, as it were, for Occoquan Elementary last week. Administrations at both Garfield and Woodbridge High, and a pre-K center at the rebuilt Occoquan Elementary. So really good projects that will be going through the bond issuance this time around.

[02:26:01] Included in 7D for the six-year second-priority road list for our district is Occoquan Road, Old Bridge Road, Telegraph Road, and Peaks Mill Drive, which I inherited from the Coles District. We know that alongside these road projects, wanted to give a nod to Mr. Grimes earlier, these are opportunities for us to improve roadways and add connectivity to those roadways at the same time.

[02:26:27] So we have projects where we're improving the roadway in one way, shape, or form. We're also able to go in there and partner with VDOT and some other partners to put in better sidewalk connectivity, better pedestrian connectivity, better bike, and other things. So these are opportunities for us to take another bite of the apple in these existing roads to improve not only the throughput and the traffic safe from a motorist perspective, but also the bike and pet as well.

[02:26:48] Finally, the speed humps on Russell Road, that's in the Diazco District, but I appreciate the work the folks did on that road did, and I agree 100%. You know, I live on the Smoketown side. That's windier a little bit, but they need folks to go out there too to look at speed humps for the Smoketown side and not just the side near Pennington, the parkway.

[02:27:07] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Kennizal, for your work on that one. All right, Gordy, and then Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. On 7A, included in that list is an addition for the Noakesville School. I just want to point out that right now we have within the planning department the potential for 4,000 homes that would all be zoned to the Noakesville School. And yet they're already over capacity and the reality is we need a new middle school. So you know I'm hopeful that and

[02:27:46] as I continue to speak with Dr. McDade and with the school board and the staff in the school system to try to prioritize and help us develop a smart growth program to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to accommodate this development. You know we're probably going to we're going to need some additions within the CIP from the school system related to schools in Western Prince William County. So I appreciate this addition, but we need more and look forward to seeing options that the school system is able to provide going forward. And then on item 7E,

[02:28:27] having gone through a couple of the planning cases on the planning commission that involved Russell Road, and knowing that once the construction of the new interchange at the Parkway in Minnieville is going to certainly put more traffic on Russell Road as people try to avoid the construction there. I was pretty outspoken during Planning Commission that, you know, the fact that there are no sidewalks on this road and that it is a dangerous road, and so I greatly appreciate the speed humps, but certainly know that more needs to be done, especially as we are

[02:29:02] going through this construction project, which is certainly going to put more demand upon Russell Road. So thank you. And Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to mention that 7D also included the Van Buren Extension Road in the Potomac District. And so, Rick, we really appreciate your focus and your working with the community and helping us to move along that project in an expeditious way but certainly in the best way for the citizens so thank you so much i just wanted to make mention of that all right thank you so much we have no other speakers so we

[02:29:40] can move forward with the vote vote unanimous all right we are now so little time so many jokes um we are now i'm sorry mr county executive i know you got some hot topics just gotta say you know i i wish you know like i i made a call you know having a catch-up with a reporter

[02:30:16] sometimes you know we need a little press y'all so hopefully we'll bring on some fireworks and you know give us a little excitement you know bob you're really strong i know i can't take you down but well i don't think anyone on this board i can take down but you know so let's move on to county executive time well hopefully no fireworks madam chair well good fireworks um as we pull up the uh the monitor here and pull up pwc works the engagement platform i want to go over a few things

[02:30:50] if i can madam chair members of the board the last time we were together we we took in two directives one related to bull run mountain service district that directive has been assigned to finance public works the county attorney's office and executive management and we will certainly follow up with you as soon as possible. We also took in a directive from the board regarding bringing back a resolution to initiate a zoning map amendment to rezone several G PINs

[02:31:21] and that directive has been assigned to planning. In addition to those two directives since we were together last we have sent responses to seven directives including tax relief for terminally ill, tax foreclosure, the tax foreclosure list, B poll, public art, project labor agreements, C&I tax, and food and beverage tax. So just want to make sure that certainly if there are any questions related to those responses, want to make sure that we are certainly available.

[02:31:58] Supervisor Bailey mentioned it a few minutes ago. I just really want to give a big shout out and just acknowledgement to staff regarding the triple A bond rating from all three credit rating agencies. This is a very big deal for our county and really puts us at elite status in terms of other jurisdictions. There are only 15, what is it, 53 counties in the country who have received this designation and only 12 in the Commonwealth. So again, a very big deal and a testament to

[02:32:32] the board's adherence and the staff's guidance around sound financial management systems. So very big, big kudos. I want to specifically acknowledge economic development and finance for the work that they did, really hosting those credit rating agencies when they were here.

[02:32:55] Also want to acknowledge, and I know some of you will as well, the work of Fire and Rescue Swiftwater Rescue Team. As some of you know, the team was activated by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management on September 26th ahead of Hurricane Helene. The team was assigned to Washington County, Virginia, near the border of North Carolina, in an area that sustained historic rainfall from the hurricane. The team rescued 24 people while they were there and assessed damage

[02:33:33] and did other searches. Yes, a round of applause. I know we don't do that. I will tell you, I had an opportunity to join Chief LaBelle and Chief Kurt Heinrich as the team returned to Prince William County a week and a half or so ago and just to hear the stories that they had to tell, to see the excitement and tired faces, but the excitement on their faces,

[02:34:05] And to know that they represented the county so well meant so much to me as a resident of Prince William, but means so much to our entire county. So just with that, I want to just say thank you to the entire system for being such great warriors for our community.

[02:34:24] That said, yesterday we deployed two members of our Department of Public Safety Communications in response to a request for telecommunicators made by North Carolina due to the devastation that they are still dealing with from the hurricane.

[02:34:46] They, in collaboration with members from Fairfax County's Public Safety Department, Loudoun County's Sheriff's Emergency Management Emergency Communications Center, and the Jurisdictional Incident Management Team, they are certainly responding and will be deployed from October 7th through October 17th.

[02:35:06] And so for the first time, we have members of our Prince William County community going out from Northern Virginia to engage and certainly help in events of this magnitude. So just a huge sense of pride for the work that they are doing.

[02:35:26] That said, Madam Chair, the last time we were together, a number of board members asked for an update after we gave a presentation on what we are doing around PwC Works and the new engagement platform that the communications team has developed.

[02:35:41] And so we have, in response to the board's request, asked Dan Alexander, our Deputy CXO for Public Safety, to come forward, and we're going to give an update on the community safety initiative based on what's on the platform.

[02:35:57] After that initiative, I'll bring Deputy CXO Elijah Johnson up to provide remarks as well. Good afternoon. Dan Alexander, Deputy County Executive, we thank you for the opportunity to come to you within the context of PWC Works to talk about community safety initiative and where we've been since we really had a last discussion around this.

[02:36:20] joining us today. We have Nikki Brown, who's kind of driving the platform for us. Thank you, Nikki. Our director, Wesley Dawson, and also Dr. Yazeen from our office to speak a little bit about what's going on with CSI. Really, this will be a little bit of expansion on what you see on the site as we go through this, and at the end, we'll be happy to answer any questions.

[02:36:41] When we introduced the community safety initiative to you in December of 2022, We discussed how this whole initiative was born out of a recognition that things have become increasingly more complex and our solutions need to match some of the challenges that we see in our community from an all-hands-on-deck approach to community safety.

[02:37:00] We introduced the general concept of BANG, a Marine Corps concept, which really represents anything that negatively affects the well-being of our citizens and the community, and then talked about being a little bit more left of BANG in terms of our perspective and responses, which is really a recognition that we have to proactively pursue prevention and intervention and not perpetuate this idea of just responding to the damage and being reactive as it relates to how we look at community safety in our community.

[02:37:31] We also discussed at that time the creation of the Office of Community Safety and the Community Safety Advisory Committee. Since that time, we've been working through an implementation strategy that we think is probably reflected in our work as we move forward with our strategic plan, your strategic plan, and really is centered around community engagement, evidence-based processes, and collaborative community safety programming.

[02:37:55] And so you're going to hear those themes, evidence, data, and programming, kind of permeate our discussion here today and work their way into what we're doing around PwC Works. All of our positions in the office have been filled by talented folks who are motivated around this important work.

[02:38:11] We have advertised and selected members for the Community Safety Advisory Committee, selected 18 members to date. We did our best to select a group that's representative of the diverse perspectives in our community. We add some folks as we receive additional feedback and still have the opportunity to expand that group as time goes on.

[02:38:33] As we laid out that structure to you back in 2022, we came to this notion that everything we do is going to be to inform the community and the board about the programming we're doing and how we're approaching community safety. And that is true today in terms of the way we look at how the office and the community safety advisory committee should be functioning as part of the community safety initiatives.

[02:39:00] We've made adjustments and we'll continue to make adjustments to how we're doing our listening sessions, how we're engaging the community, how we're looking at data, and how programming will continue to evolve around this very important issue. And what I'd like to do as we get into engagement and talk about data and programming is welcome Mr. Wesley Dawson to come up and talk a little bit about what we're doing around community engagement. Wesley? Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone. Wesley Dawson, Director for Community Safety. And as Dan already outlined on the background of where we were, I want to just

[02:39:38] kind of usher us into the conversation of where we are now. The office is uniquely positioned in Office of Executive Management. And I think uniquely in the sense that many of these offices of violence prevention, our laws, and other departments, we are able to navigate all of government and work with our partners within our quadrant, within the safe and secure community quadrant, our police department, our fire department, our criminal justice services, literally every single part of our quadrant, but also we're able to work with Parks and Recreation

[02:40:13] and others, the libraries, to make sure that we're supporting residents in multiple ways. So we are lodged in that space, particularly to have an optimal lens on how we're able to engage with residents and meeting them exactly where they are.

[02:40:30] And from the onset, I know I've come before the board before, our key here is really focusing on active and diverse engagement. We want to meet folks exactly where they are and hear exactly what they are interested in here in the county and how we can continue to improve.

[02:40:47] We started this out with a number of engagement opportunities, and as Dan mentioned, we are a county that is a learning organization. And as we learn things, as we hear from the board, as we hear from the community, if we have to pivot, we do.

[02:41:04] We want to make sure that we're reflective of those pivots. We started out with an open house, which was, I would say, very successful. We had a number of agencies within the county and community partners participate in that, and it really was a great showing out of the county and the resources that are presently available, as well as the opportunities for us to continue to grow as the county grows.

[02:41:29] In this time since we have started, we have launched the Community Safety Advisory Committee. We've also attended many of the town halls. Many of the supervisors have graciously invited us to attend, as well as we've shown up.

[02:41:47] Hosted community meetings, as well as conducted these listening sessions, which we are excited that we've already conducted two. Our first two listening sessions were focused on transportation and pedestrian safety. I want to thank Supervisor Franklin and Supervisor Bodie, who attended our first listening session to make that successful.

[02:42:07] And our second listening session was focused on mental health and wellness, which just passed by earlier this or last week. We have two future sessions planned and invite the community to attend. The next one focused on youth support.

[02:42:23] And the last of the four that we currently have slated focused on our aging community and making sure that we're including them in that conversation. So, as I mentioned, we'll continue to adapt our approach and want to receive all of your feedback so that we're able to be responsive and reflective of what the community is asking of us.

[02:42:46] And that's going to be in the form of showing up in the neighborhood, doing pop-up events, doing walk and talk events where we're able to hear directly from community. I heard about speed humps, hearing directly from community about issues that affect them directly and actually tangibly seeing that in place and committing to communicating what that after action looks like in a collective way.

[02:43:10] So we understand that community engagement must be at the heart of what we do, and it is everything that we do moving forward, especially as we're looking at evidence-based decisions and community programming. So at this time, I'll actually have Dr. Tawheeda Yassine come up to give a little bit more information about our programming and data.

[02:43:39] Hello, everyone. I'm Dr. Tawheeda Yassine, and I lead two pillars in the Office of Community Safety, the data and research pillar as well as the programming pillar. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what we're focusing on in those two pillars. Within the data pillar, we have two really exciting initiatives that we're focusing on.

[02:44:01] So the Neighborhood Safety Index, which is not just focused on looking at crime data, but also some of those assets of safety. So when we think about protective factors like green spaces, how do we actually look at the county as a whole and start to tailor our initiatives in ways that are more comprehensive?

[02:44:23] And that is along with our data dashboard. So we're now in the second phase of developing a data dashboard that will speak to some of safety stats and we're working with George Mason University as well as the the county demographer to really take a really wide lens in some of these safety issues the second is our our programming pillar which is focused on coordinated community safety response and so this really began out of look at

[02:44:55] data but data not just quantitative data but also qualitative data and data can take on lots of different connotations right so we're looking at just the anecdotes that we can take from police who can kind of tailor where we need to go with response but as well as that comprehensive data so the first thing is scanning and so with CCSR back in January after the the homicide at Easy Street the Eastern District police called us in and we were able to work

[02:45:34] across about seven agencies to really think about what is it that we need to coordinate in the aftermath of a homeless encampment and the things that sort of ensure after that. So we really see CCSR as our way of bridging residents, convening relevant stakeholders, and really connecting folks to the resources that are needed, taking a case management approach. In August, right before kids

[02:46:05] went back to school, we launched a community backpack drive. So we gave out over 300 backpacks, violence prevention backpacks to kids across the county. We were able to meet with over 100 parents and really talk to them about the things that were happening in their neighborhoods and the ways that we can respond to some of the issues, safety concerns that they have. And so some of the things that we heard were we need after school activities we need haircuts for our kids we need access to support for safety and so through this way of

[02:46:43] scanning talking to residents meeting them where they are and tailoring our activities to really a coordinated response we're able to to really build connections and and work through some of the silos that agencies that we agencies across the the county have and so we're really excited about the ongoing work around data and research as well as the coordinated community safety response we're working with the Prince William Health District as well as ANOVA on the CHHA which is the community health assessment which will give us some of that rounding data to allow us to see whether the initiatives and programming

[02:47:22] that we're instituting actually going to have an impact and so yeah I'll be happy to answer any questions they may have although I can't see the board is there any questions so far so as a gordon yeah thank you uh dan team for um for this um as looking at some of the topics you know some when we take a look at the violent crime in prince william county it it seems to align to two different types of violent crime gang related

[02:47:55] crime and domestic violence um can you talk about i mean you've got the cvi which kind of hits you know the gang side but it does what what are we doing to try to address the domestic violence side of the equation a great question i'll hit both really i think you know you're right domestic violence is a big part of of you know what we're looking at actually next week we'll be going out to a conference to look at domestic violence fatality review and in that process we're a very large jurisdiction but one jurisdiction doesn't have a process around fatality review um and so we're doing work in silos around domestic violence you know we do have a lethality

[02:48:34] review that happens with the police department during investigations we have prosecution we have victim witness we have not non-profits that are running some victim services and so what we're we're convening out there to talk a little bit not just about domestic violence fatality review but how are we programming around domestic violence we're not we're not really doing that right now in the sense that at one time there was a council and we had a much more coordinated approach to that issue. So part of the outcome from that convening and our further discussions is to determine how do we need to start bridge. We use that bridge, convene, connect, you know,

[02:49:12] analogy, these various agencies to deal with that issue. The idea is not for us to deliver that service as an office, right? It's bringing all the folks that are doing that work and silos together to see how we can do a better job of addressing that very big issue in our community.

[02:49:30] So great question. We're in the process, really, in progress. Same thing applies with gangs. We had a meeting just a week or so ago with the state folks that are working on that issue and some of our locals. But that's a broad spectrum of people that we're going to need to bring together and, frankly, have a more cohesive, coordinated approach.

[02:49:47] To your point, CVI will address that to a certain degree. Community violence intervention will address that to a degree because you're talking about groups, whether they be loosely affiliated or organized, and having a coordinated approach around that. But you're speaking to where the deficits exist right now, where we're not bridging, where we're not connecting and convening, and we frankly have to do a better job of that.

[02:50:06] And on the gang side, have you seen any indication that the Venezuelan gang, Trinda Aroa, is active in Prince William County? That's a very specific question around very specific intel.

[02:50:22] So, frankly, when we met, we had not delved into that, but that's certainly going to be part of the conversation and what types of groups and what data do we see, what anecdotal data do we see around what's happening. And, again, the whole group involved, gang involved thing is complex because over time a lot of them aren't as tight in terms of official association.

[02:50:44] And so we've got to deal with both, those that are recognized gangs and those that are loosely affiliated groups. Thank you. All right, Supervisor Bode, then Franklin. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Now that we know it's on Prince William Works, I've been looking at every so often, so I appreciate the updates on there.

[02:51:07] Earlier, I think, Wesley, you mentioned the homeless camps. And I know that we're sort of dealing with an issue in my district with a homeless camp, so not gonna go in that too far, but to stay sort of broad and high level, a trend that I know to speak of left of bang is there's been a push, and I understand where it comes from, especially when we have businesses that are being vandalized or robbed from and what have you, to just disperse these camps and evict.

[02:51:31] I know there's a process there, but at the same time, I know that what's happened historically is when we evict these camps, it doesn't get rid of the issue, it just sends it somewhere else. So can you talk a little bit, Dan, high level about what we're doing to get left to bang on that piece, and frankly how we have to change the dynamic there because we know to go back to the issue on gangs and fentanyl and all this other stuff, there are other folks who are you know infiltrating these camps infiltrating other folks what have you directing to do things like steal from this place do this kind of stuff and and until we're able to get higher up on the chain basically to to deal with that evicting these camps does isn't as effective

[02:52:10] as some folks might think can you talk about that yeah i mean we are being very reactive to this right now and a lot of it goes back to kind of the pillars that we discussed earlier one is engagement getting real understanding from our community and from other sources about where these problems are occurring, right, and getting in as early as we can to deal with what we're dealing with. And then in terms of looking at the programming and how we're approaching these things, I think you hit the nail on the head. We often go in and displace a problem as opposed to dealing with a problem from a response and not reactive perspective. So to the degree we can, we need to try to bring in the services, try to deal with what we call social determinants of the

[02:52:48] situation we're dealing with right uh and then bring every solution to the table and enforcement is going to be a solution at a lot of times but it's not the only solution and again we have to be careful that we're not just simply displacing the problem that we're experiencing to another another part of the county so it's it's really strengthening our ability to do each one of the elements i talked about knowing what what data is telling us you know really the vision is to get to the point where we're collecting data on the community on a consistent basis to recognize where we may have problems arise before they do, right?

[02:53:21] And so, you know, we're not near that point yet. Frankly, we've got to do better at how we react or respond to these things, and that's all part of the initiative. That's all part of working with the folks that we have in our county. The good thing is that you have people committed in every area of the county to want to do the work and do it well.

[02:53:38] The police department wants to get in there. They're folks of action, right? And so they're going to take action. They're going to do what police departments do, and that's one piece of the puzzle. certainly important piece. Accountability is a very critical piece of what we're talking about, but we've got to deal with everything else, too, to ensure we're getting to some of the root causes to the extent that we can. Appreciate it. And if I could manage this, a small follow-up.

[02:53:58] Dan, I appreciate that. And to dovetail that a little bit, can you talk about how you've been working with the business owners to get them engaged on this? Because right now, to your point, they've been very, very reactive. You know, you have a camp where you have a sort of a pocket of activity where they're being vandalized, they're being robbed, what have you. So they either have to adopt policies where they're engaging in certain ways what have you but how have you been able to help bring down those silos and get those folks together to be in collaboration with the county on that yeah again they said into every aspect of what we're doing around looking at engagement you know looking at collecting information and ultimately the programming from the standpoint of you know are your are your trespass programs in place where we need them

[02:54:35] are we looking at environmental design are the things we need to do relative to cameras cutting back bushes you know putting up gates you know dealing with that that piece and then talking prevention with them too to the degree that we can and we've had some success recently along the sudley corridor with with the businesses that we have been dealing with out there we're not going to rest on that in the sense that you know we had a fix in the short term but a big part of our programming has to be sustainability and that's true in any part of the county right once we find something that works and supported by an evidence-based approach then we have to create

[02:55:10] sustainability around that program. Thank you. All right, Supervisor Franklin, then Weir, then Bailey. Sure, yeah, and Dan, thank you for answering those questions, particularly as it relates to what Supervisor Bodie was asking. I do want to give you guys more credit than I think you just did, though. Even though it's a challenge kind of going in and cleaning up, for lack of better words, you guys have done a great job of that, particularly along the Route 1 corridor.

[02:55:39] We have seen where there are challenges of certain groups of people kind of moving from one place to another. But quite frankly, the county has offered services to people who want services. And I think some of the ones that you see kind of going from place to place have other needs that this CSI, I think it's going to help try and figure out because the goal is not only to get people off the street, So we want people to get services, jobs, whatever it is that is needed to make sure that our community is not only safe, but everyone is doing well in whatever capacity they're in.

[02:56:18] So I do want to give you guys more credit than I think you just did, because I know we talk about a lot replicating what we've done on Route 1 and other areas, and you guys are doing that, particularly with Sudley. The question Supervisor Bodhi asked about business owners is a critical piece because a lot of times they are the eyes and ears, and that preventative piece is very important.

[02:56:41] And obviously when we had our challenges with the Longview 7-Eleven, I remember our former chair, she said, well, why can't we just brush the trees back there to provide less privacy? What a novel idea. We did that, and it provided less privacy, and we got that gate up, and we pushed the schools to get their permits ready.

[02:57:02] And I remember the schools called us and said, all right, you guys are moving a little slow on those permits. Elijah got that phone call. And we got them their permits within a matter of days to be able to clean up that area within a matter of weeks. So I do want to give you guys credit where it's due, and it took a multi-agency approach, right?

[02:57:20] It took your office, it took social services, it took the schools, and it took, of course, law enforcement to get that done. Now, on the challenges, obviously, as Supervisor Bodie mentioned, we still have individuals going from neighborhood to neighborhood. And I think, again, part of the CSI, what I hope to do is for you all to get to know these individuals.

[02:57:41] And we have people, part of the CSI, that actually do know these individuals and have relationships with them. And it is my hope that you all utilize them to say, hey, listen, you guys know this individual who we see hanging out a lot. how do you think that we should approach them and build that relationship and figure out how to get them from step A to step B? So I also want to make sure that you guys are really and truly utilizing your working group for some of the experiences that they have that we can actually make this thing successful. So I want to point that out. I'll also just say on the issue of gangs,

[02:58:19] I do want to kind of clarify. It's my understanding that most of our violent crimes are DV and probably drug related and I do know that we have obviously gangs in the area we have gangs everywhere but that they're operating more probably discreetly but that a lot of our violent crimes are really coming from kind of drug related cases as well as DV as my colleague mentioned can you just talk a little bit about that I don't want to get into an analysis without well but what I also don't want to do is make it seem like we have gangs running rapid in our county and we don't yeah and I think this goes back to having a you know a data-informed discussion around all of

[02:58:55] these things so and and look you know I think as we have these conversations people identify around safety different ways and have different perceptions around that and we're very much in an engagement and listening part of what we're doing around the community safety initiatives so I don't think what you're saying is that that far off but it is as far as you know gang and group related violence. It is a concern. Domestic violence is a big concern. And so we got to focus on all of it, right? And that's what we're going to be doing as part of this initiative. All right, Supervisor

[02:59:28] Weir, then Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but, you know, it's a nice presentation and all that. But I've got to go back to a very skeptical, very frustrated residential and business base, particularly in the Sudley Corridor. And I've heard a lot of wonderful things about the Sudley Corridor in this presentation, but I haven't seen them. And I'm still getting the same complaints that I got the day I took office. I mean, we talk about community engagement, but quite frankly, absent any sort of concrete action to address what issues are raised during

[03:00:07] that communication and that community engagement, I mean, we're not getting anywhere. I mean, you can hand out all the violence prevention backpacks you want, but that's not going to stop an assault in front of somebody's restaurant or some of the other things that happen quite frequently along the Sudley Corridor. And then the police, you're saying they're willing and they want to take action. If that's the case, then why are they telling those business owners that if they really want to solve the problem, they need to go out and hire their own private

[03:00:37] security? I was in the room when that happened. And I understand their frustration. But until we take a concrete approach to this and you know you're not going to be able to spend your way out of this and all the social programs in the world are not going to not going to address the violent crime or some of the other issues that go on there but until we get to that part of the problem the problem's not going to go away and I think that's what we need to focus on and address because it's certainly not happening in the Sudley Corridor I can't speak to Route 1 but I can sure as I'll speak to the Sunday Corridor.

[03:01:21] So, Dan, thank you so much, you and your team, for this presentation. And I really, really am very proud, not just all that you're doing but just moving it forward, but I really like the piece that you talked about with the youth.

[03:01:41] I was out, but I heard you, because it's very critical. That's the next portion of our society, and we've got to make sure that they feel like they're valued. And so I'm really glad that you talked about that a lot.

[03:01:57] But the other part that I'd like to hear more about, either with data or if you could just give me a synopsis, is we have a very active aging community across the county. And so we've got to make sure that we preserve that.

[03:02:16] And what does that look like? Just give us a snapshot. That may have been something I missed when I was out. I heard the youth portion. But just a snapshot in terms of what kind of data we should expect to see and what the focus is. Yeah, I think, by the way, we have a listening session.

[03:02:32] Our last listening session is centered around aging. So we anticipate getting feedback from the community about what that means to them. And I'll say whether it's the youth piece or the aging piece, we're not taking a particular perspective on what that means to folks. We have these listening sessions, right?

[03:02:49] We want to get what youth safety means to everyone in the community. We want to hear from everyone as it relates to the aging piece. We'll be doing some significant work in mobile integrated health, which is our program through the fire department on how we deal with the elderly.

[03:03:06] We have a great aging department that does work in that space. So we intend to bring everyone together to look at the potential threats to our aging population. It can involve fraud, it can involve fault in the home, it can involve a lot of different things as it relates to that part of our community, right?

[03:03:28] And so that will be a big focus for us. We're going to do the same thing. We're going to engage. We're going to look and see what the data is telling us in terms of where we're having issues, looking at where our responses, our fire and rescue responses are in particular areas to see whether we need to do some preventative intervention programming in those spaces and making sure we're meeting the needs of that unique community.

[03:03:49] Yeah, and I appreciate that because, you know, when you talk about us being the 10th largest, you know, we've got to make sure that in that diversity that we have, we're including everybody, and that is a critical demographic in our community.

[03:04:06] Thank you for the work that you're doing. All right. We're in Vega. You were on there again, Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:04:23] You know, Dan, I guess for me, as a sense of frustration, We keep growing government, yet we really don't see any changes happening. And as much as I want to, you know, commend you for the presentation, Supervisor, we are highlighted the issues that we're facing in the Sudley Road Corridor.

[03:04:39] You know, you talked about the trespassing program. We all know that's done nothing to alleviate the concerns that business owners have in this area. People get trespassed once, twice, three, four, five. I mean, some people over a dozen times, and there's no accountability. And so I think that it's time that we start thinking about accountability when we're having these conversations and presenting the board with these types of presentation.

[03:05:08] And, you know, I'll give you an example also. There is a program right now to divert domestic violent offenders. Is your office or the team in contact with the CA's office in regards to that program?

[03:05:24] Are we monitoring that at all? That's all part of what we're going to get into as it relates to domestic violence. Okay, so we're going to, but we haven't yet. That's all part of what we're going to look at with programs for sure is what are they doing? What is ACTS doing? We give money to nonprofits.

[03:05:40] What's coming out of that? From an accountability standpoint to what you're alluding to, what's happening in the court system? What's happening with prosecution? What's happening with recidivism from an evidence-based standpoint? To Supervisors Weir's standpoint earlier around accountability, you know, part of what we're talking about doing is managing these initiatives so that we can come back and say we are making progress or we're not.

[03:06:06] And that's part of when we talk about coordinated community safety response and data, data is also case management. So if he's getting feedback that we're not solving the problem, then that needs to be part of the process in terms of what we're documenting and following up on, right? And so that is going to be part of what we do from an individual accountability standpoint, but to your point, I'll call it macro data.

[03:06:27] From the big data standpoint, you know, we're looking at where the trends are, what's happening generally in our community, and that how we are adjusting our programming to making sure that accountability is a factor and we're making headway on the other things that we need to make headway on.

[03:06:43] And the timeline on that data? Well, what we talked about, I think, in terms of the dashboard would be into the first quarter of next year probably have our first iteration of and i think we gave the ccjb a presentation on that so i'm hoping that would give you something substantive in the first quarter of next year yeah thank you now to that point too i would say that you know everything we do around programming everything we do around the other pillars is is ongoing work we've talked about doing ccsr work coordinated community safety response work that's going to keep going regardless of what we're doing we're not going to wait right there are things that we are going to do around that yeah and And thank you for that.

[03:07:22] And also just to close up the point that I brought up in terms of accountability, I'd like to see an emphasis also on, you know, being focused on the victims. Victims take a huge leap of faith by coming forward and reporting their abusers, whatever the case may be, but they shouldn't be ignored in these conversations during the process because, again, you know, we have to look out for victims while also trying to solve the other variety of problems that we have um you know i can't speak for anybody else's district but i can speak especially for the sudley road sudley road corridor because you've sat in in these

[03:07:59] meetings with you know business owners you know their frustration we continue to hear it and i when i say we i know it's supervisor gordy myself and we are because the three of us share a portion of that corridor and so um it's frustrating as a as a supervisor because we cannot provide answers and actual solutions for these folks and they continue to pay the price and so I'm going to keep harping and focusing on accountability you know there are consequences every action one takes is going to produce a consequence it could be a good consequence it could be a negative consequence but a consequence is a consequence and we have to make sure that we're holding folks accountable

[03:08:33] supervisor bode yeah thank you madam chair and actually what I was going to ask slash posit dovetails really well to that consequences because again I'll just go back to what we were just talking about earlier, where things happen and there's a consequence. We go into one place, we drive folks away, they go somewhere else. Are you going to start along that day and start tracking how, you know, an action may happen in one part to help alleviate some issues and it may cascade into other parts in neighboring communities? Because what I hope we are going to try to get ahead of is what's happened in the past, which is we clear a homeless camp or we go

[03:09:12] into a business corridor and we clear people from there, well, then they just move closer to a residential area. So then suddenly you go from businesses being vandalized and burglarized, then homes and what have you. So I hope that as we talk about these issues, whether it's on Route 1 or Sudley or in my dress or other ones, we're being cognizant of that. We're also beginning to have mechanisms around not only tracking that, but getting ahead of that trend that happened.

[03:09:42] I guess that was more of a comment. Okay. All right. Sometimes those get a little tricky. Well, thank you so very much. I don't think there's anyone else. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Thank you very much, Dan and team. And so if we could maybe pull out of the community safety initiative, just want to remind the board of all the various initiatives that we have listed here on the platform. One of those initiatives, as explained the last time we were together, panhandling,

[03:10:16] We have not added all of the details around community, the community response to panhandling because we wanted to make sure that the board collectively had an opportunity, while we know we have gotten around, I think Dan and both Elijah and Dan have gotten around to all of you, that we had to hear, had an opportunity to hear from you collectively and then move forward on the recommendations or not that have been discussed.

[03:10:46] And so with that, maybe we can go into, yes, and then Deputy CXO, if you want to stand up and just give some remarks, and then we'll have any questions that you all might have, we want to be responsive.

[03:11:04] Good afternoon. Back again, Elijah Johnson, Deputy County Executive for Health, Wellbeing, and Environmental Sustainability. As the County Executive just mentioned, Dan and I thank you for meeting with us over the past few months to discuss our approach further with you.

[03:11:22] I'm happy to see that when County Exec talked about Prince William Works, PwC Works, I'm going to get it right, Nikki, PwC Works, one of the first projects we thought about was panhandling and how do we respond to panhandling and make sure that you and the community were following along with us as we address those issues.

[03:11:43] As you see on the screen, we've been dealing with panhandling for quite some time in the community. You all issued a directive in February to address panhandling. Yes, it has two parts. One is a part that deals with an ordinance.

[03:11:59] I'm not here to talk about the ordinance piece today. We're here to talk about the piece where the county exec was directed to bring back some policy recommendations in reference to how we can move forward and collectively address panhandling. I'm happy to be following Wesley and Dan and his team as they talked about the community response and how we want to engage not only with other things that are going on in the county, but exactly with panhandling.

[03:12:27] So what we did was establish a process action team to take a look at this, to see what other jurisdictions were doing around this issue, what were some of the best practices, what some of the things that's worked in other parts, not only in Virginia but around the country, as to what was working in those jurisdictions to try to reduce panhandling.

[03:12:45] We're not saying we're going to eliminate panhandling. I would be remiss to say that. But we want to implement things that are making an impact to start to address the issues, which will include some accountability things. And Dan has been working with the police, and we'll get into those in a few minutes, about what they can do to continue to address and hold people accountable when they are making infractions on the laws that we can't enforce.

[03:13:07] So we identified three topic areas. Number one, traffic safety. I've heard from you all, and we've heard from the community. Although we haven't had incidents and people getting hit or panhandlers being hit, we have near misses. We do see people who are in the medians or in the streets that are panhandling.

[03:13:25] We have been fortunate that we have not had any issues so far with anybody getting hit. But we don't want that to happen. So we will be taking a look at that and how we can address those traffic infractions. Dan is working with the T for Police to see what type of enforcement we can do based on the laws that are currently on the books to make sure we are making those enforcement and holding those folks accountable within the extent of the law that we can.

[03:13:48] The other issue that's been brought up even today about aggressive behavior, we see that in our businesses and how people are being more aggressive. We get the complaints from our residents, and we also, as we go out in the community, see these things happening, so we wanted to address those issues. And laudering, we see people who are gathering in places where they shouldn't be gathering and causing issues.

[03:14:09] To deal with those issues, we said, what is the thing that has worked again? looking at those items that's happening out in other parts of the country. The biggest one was that coordinated response. That was the first key piece. We've been doing outreach and working with folks.

[03:14:25] Our Homeless Service Division have been working with other community services to do outreach, but we haven't done it in the coordinated way that Dan and his team just described. How are we collecting data? How are we maintaining data on those that we're seeing? How are we tracking those safety infractions that are happening?

[03:14:40] So we hope to be able to do that. Our intention is to do that with the proposal that we've put in front of you today. That's going to be crucial, if you can go down, Nikki. That's going to be crucial. As you see here, it's got three parts of it, that coordinated response, that focused pedestrian violation enforcement, and that targeted outreach.

[03:15:03] We want to make sure that we are combining all those three elements to make an impact on how we address Panhandle in our community. After which, we looked at what's the other things that people were doing. And one of the things that came out of that was that public engagement.

[03:15:22] Why are people panhandling? What are they doing? And what we got back, and even when we talked to some of our homeless folks who we know are panhandling, those folks are panhandling for funding to provide needed services that they need. Some are there to support their habit. It could be an addiction habit they're trying to support.

[03:15:39] Various reasons. We've even heard there may be some elements of human trafficking going on. So what we wanted to do is say, well, we haven't talked about the giver in this process. And how do we change that conversation to have a conversation with those who want to give because they see their fellow resident or citizen in need of help or perceived need of help?

[03:16:01] And so as we looked at other programs around the country, one of the things we've noticed is where they've had some success is where the focus is not to stop people from giving, but giving a different way, to donate to nonprofits that are actually doing the work, that can actually sustain these folks as they start their journey to recovery, if that's what they need, or if they start their journey to get employment, if that's what they need.

[03:16:25] So we want to launch Give Local PwC. We want to start a campaign where we are encouraging our residents to give to our local organizations. Number one, it's going to help those organizations have the resources that they need, because a lot of times when we talk to organizations, it's that discretionary cash to do the programming that they need.

[03:16:44] Yes, they go out and get grants and they do a lot of other stuff, but they come with a lot of screens to them when they do that. But having that discretionary cash to be able to address things and get the programs and services in place is crucial. Number two, it stops the exchange of goods and services that is causing those potential traffic violations.

[03:17:03] That is causing, when somebody goes to a window, I've heard situations where, yes, I was given that money because I felt that was my duty to give that person the money, but they backed up traffic. And that exchange of goods and services is what we want to reduce.

[03:17:19] We want to reduce that exchange of goods and services, whether it be at an intersection or whether it be at a restaurant or in a grocery, a grocery where people are shopping for their groceries. We want to change that action giving. So working with the communications department, we have come up with a communication plan. We have come up with a toolkit that we will be pushing out to our residents and to our businesses.

[03:17:40] The chamber has talked to us about saying their businesses are looking for something like this where they can post information in their businesses, encouraging people to give in a different way. So we've gotten a good feedback from our business community saying, hey, yes, we like this approach.

[03:17:56] And it gives us some tools that we can use as we address all the safety issues that working with the police department, where we can, as our patrons come into our services, we can encourage them to do it in a different way. If you go down. What we hope with that is, and what we've seen is, that reduction in that exchange of goods and services in those medians or at those things, then it has an impact on folks' faith.

[03:18:22] If I'm not getting my funding there, where do I need to go to get services? Because it does take time to build those relationships, as you all talked about a few minutes ago. We want to build those relationships, those trusted voices, to get people into services. If they really need support to help with that addiction, we want to get them into substance abuse services so that we can treat the addiction that's causing them to be out there panhand.

[03:18:46] If they really are underemployed and they need to get more skills to be employed, we want to connect them with programs and services that can get them the skills they need to get a better job so they can support their families and themselves. So that is our hope with that community outreach, and I'm looking forward to being able to connect with the community and move this program forward and increase our capacity in how we support our local organizations supporting us in this effort.

[03:19:10] And lastly, is a pilot employment program. We reached out as well and talked to other folks. What are some of the things, once we do all these things, what are some of the areas where we see, and is that in GLAAD? For those who really want to work and want to be productive, we want to provide an opportunity for them.

[03:19:26] Now, it's not a lot of money. It's only $13 an hour for two days a week. Yes, you heard a citizen speak about that. We want to start somewhere. We have to start somewhere in order to give people an opportunity to gain some skills so that they can get gainfully employed.

[03:19:44] And, yes, we'll need to be able to supplement the funds that they were getting by panhandling. Those folks who have been panhandling and need that funds to provide food and shelter for themselves, we don't want them to have to miss that income, but we want to be able to bring them in, provide them with now meaningful employment, working with one of our partners that we've worked with for years in doing this work and relied on them to provide this particular service.

[03:20:11] They are going to be taking on a large part of this responsibility, and the majority of the funds that are going for this program is going to pay folks to do the work. It's not going to pay salaries of the organization. It's for the administrative overhead for transportation and getting things done. So it's not going to direct salaries.

[03:20:28] They're even putting in some of their money to make the program work. So these are our, and what do we want to do? Number one, we want to reduce panhandling. We want to deal with those public safety issues that we're seeing in our community because, again, we don't want anybody to get hit.

[03:20:44] We don't want, I know some of you have mentioned you have young drivers. We don't want them to experience that. So we want to address those things now to not have that happen in our community. We want to support our community partners through a giving campaign to get them the resources that we've heard. We just talked about the arts councils and other folks needing resources.

[03:21:03] Wow, what if we can get this program going where we can have citizens provide direct resources to those organizations so they're not looking at the government for all of their sole funding source to get their programs out and work. And we want to make sure that we have, we talk about a high-class community.

[03:21:19] We want to make sure we are representing and painting that picture and creating that environment that we are the community that we talked about, that we want to be. I am happy to take questions. i know we went through kind of quick but i'm happy to take questions and address any concerns you may have about our program that we presented thank you and we have a couple people but before we start with questions i just want to say to everyone on the dais these are for questions for mr johnson if you have comments we can hold that when we have a motion uh with that i have bode then vega thank you madam chair i appreciate you clarifying just questions right now so elijah thank you for the presentation thank you for your work um can you

[03:21:57] talk a little bit about some of what we talked about in our meeting, especially as it pertains to signage and DOT and the movement on that, please? Thank you for that question. As we started this process, signage was a big component of that because we want to put things in medium so people can see. VDOT initially told us that they would not allow us to place signs in the medium. Transportation officers since reached back out to them, and just last week, a week before last we had a meeting with them around this issue where they're now looking at working with us to see how that can be done so we're had an initial meeting with them we're going to be following back up with them to see what

[03:22:36] their criteria they're going to be working on criteria to allow us to do this so we are looking forward to working with them communications was on the call transportation myself to see how we can implement this particular signage program so that now because we want to have that impact of of that sign at the medium or in the business community where the person who's giving can see is targeted to that person who's giving so they can see hey let me think before i do this action appreciate that and a couple more questions madam chair um we had a member of the uh community safety advisory committee speak during public comment time that they haven't had a full connection yet

[03:23:13] to to this process what have you can you speak to that and how the process action team is going to incorporate them into this process let me make sure i understand the how we're going to work with community the community safety advisory committee okay um good question now i get well we're going to be we wesley and his team is on on our outreach committee because if we if you all approve those two positions for that coordinated community response they're going to be housed in that office and that office is going to be working with that advisory group to advise not just panhandle

[03:23:47] but all issues around community safety so they'll get plugged in through wesley's office and his team as we do this work and we'll be able to get their feedback and what they're seeing as well through that community response in those positions that we have appreciate that and last one for right now madam chair is the uh the jobs program the pilot program for employment can you talk a little bit about the benchmarking the other mechanisms that will be in place to make sure that as we partner with keep pursuing beautiful in this situation maybe other organizations in the future of this rolls out into something bigger how we're going to make sure that everyone's being held accountable and doing what they should be doing right when we when we sat down and first thought

[03:24:22] about this and met with them yes we're going to the person who's getting employment we're just not going to give employment they got to meet the criteria that's set by keep prince william beautiful because they will be employees of that organization not the county we'll they'll go through training to make sure they understand safety protocols because when you're picking up litter no matter where they're at there are safety concerns that we have for the staff that's there make sure they have the proper equipment so we'll be working with people they will be there will be holding the holding these classes and then we will be monitoring the work we'll be seeing because when they have a litter pickup they'll be working with our public works department on exactly how

[03:24:59] much litter was collected we'll be tracking that data on the work that's done so we'll be working with them our department of social service will be coordinated with them as they make those selections so we know it's coming in from employment so we'll have a and they're on our on our team as well so as we have those monthly updates they'll be giving feedback on what's working what's not work thank you supervisor vega thank you madam chair i obviously have a lot of questions and i think that you already knew that um coming into this meeting before i get to the questions madam chair i do think it's important to provide the how we got here because supervisor angry you always

[03:25:37] say how did we get here back in february i issued a very simple directive because i went back and had to watch the tape just to make sure that i you know didn't misunderstand anything or that perhaps you know there was some type of confusion I was very clear and I was very direct in the directive that I issued and the directive said that I direct the county attorney's office to draft language for a narrowly defined ordinance which prohibits the exchange of objects in the right-of-way to present to this board for consideration it was supported unanimously by

[03:26:14] all of my colleagues on this dais and why is that important madam chair because we've heard harassing people, allegations that we're out to harass people, that these intentions are evil, that we're going to put people in jail. That's misinformation. And that was never the intent of the directive that I issued. There is a grave concern about safety. And that's what my directive stated. Of course, the county attorney then said some other language back to me. And we blindly, you know, say yes to the county attorney because we feel that the county attorney knows best.

[03:26:51] And then this has morphed into something that, quite frankly, I'm baffled over. I can't even believe some of the stuff that has been presented to this board for consideration. And while I appreciate the work that has been put, I cannot in good faith support something that is not ready for prime time.

[03:27:10] So let me get to my questions. How many employees does Prince William Beautiful currently have? I don't know that answer. Okay, you don't know that answer. I did a little bit of research online because I wanted to know how many paid staffed employees the nonprofit currently has, but you don't have that answer.

[03:27:32] What experience does this organization currently have in employing panhandlers? Specifically for panhandling? Yes. I'm not aware of any experience in employing panhandling. In reference to the projects and what we want them to do, they do have experience.

[03:27:47] They have volunteers, but what experience do they have? let's remove the panhandler terminology because that is what you all are using, right? We want to go ahead and provide employment, meaningful, and we'll get to what meaningful employment really means here in a little bit, but we want to employ panhandlers because we believe that that's going to solve the problem.

[03:28:06] So what experience do they have? In reference to? To paying folks to pick up litter. So with their program that they have, is my understanding, that they have, yes, they utilize volunteers and they have paid staff that administer programs.

[03:28:25] And they do rely heavily on volunteers to do this. We've been working with the public, with them for litter control and getting out information about litter in our community for years now. And speaking with them and going through what we need from them, we felt comfortable that they can deliver based on their experience.

[03:28:43] Even though working with volunteers, a lot of times if you work with volunteers, for those of you who work with volunteers, they are employees. I understand that, Elijah, but my question is, what experience do they have in paying folks to pick up litter? They have volunteers and they have paid staff that works for the organization, but what experience do they have in hiring and paying people to pick up litter?

[03:29:08] That's my question. This would be a new venture for them. A new venture. Okay, so they don't have that experience. Correct. Okay, thank you. Now, what is the cap that we're going to put on the number of people that can apply for this position? Do we even have a cap? In reference to which person?

[03:29:25] What if we have 100 panhandlers that apply? They will go through the screening process. Okay, so we will hire 100. No, I didn't say that. Okay, so what's the cap? Do we have a cap? I don't have a... That's all I want to know. We don't have a cap. We don't have a number. The cap is based on the budget that we have for the program.

[03:29:41] Okay, so it's based on the budget. Yes. Okay. And so you mentioned when you were, I believe, answering Supervisor Bode's questions that there is a criteria in place already, right, in regards to hiring these individuals.

[03:30:02] What does that criteria entail? The criteria that we will be going through, they will be going through to make sure that person is physically capable to do the job. Because if they're not physically capable to do the job, they can't hire them. We're going to be going through to make sure that that person is a good fit for keep Prince William Beautiful, to make sure that that person understands what being an employee of keep Prince William Beautiful means.

[03:30:26] And I can't speak to all of their other criteria, but we're going to make sure that person, number one, safety, that they can perform the work. Number two, they are eligible, meaning these are people that are coming through our system because they'll be either in our homeless system or person we've engaged with that are panhandling.

[03:30:45] So that's why we're going to work with them in our human service department to say, yes, we are familiar with this person. This person is known to us so that this person is going to the intended, the job is going to the intended community that we set out the program for. So my biggest concern is that we don't really know the full extent of what the criteria.

[03:31:03] Wait, hold on. I apologize. You're out of time. Do you want to take your additional five minutes now? Madam Chair, I have, can I just finish this one question and then I'll let somebody else ask questions? I'll give you this one question. Thank you. So the point I want to make is that we don't fully know the criteria, but we're allocating a certain amount of funding to a criteria that we don't know the full details on, and we don't really know whether or not we support the criteria or not.

[03:31:29] And when I say criteria, I'm talking about the hiring criteria. Yes, and that's why you, I'm going to leave some anonymity to the organization because this is going to be an employee of theirs, not the employee of the company. But who's funding the organization and the initiative? We are. Yes, we are. Okay. But I want to leave that, just give money to a lot of organizations, and we allow them to set criteria based on how they want to employ people.

[03:31:52] Yes, we have some basic things that we want to see. We want to see if that person is somebody we engage with. We want to make sure they vetted the person, that that person can physically do the job and go through the training process that they're going to have. But there are going to be certain criteria in their own HR rules that we're not going to have control over.

[03:32:12] And we're going to make sure they're following those things as they are implementing the program. Madam Chair, I'll ask the remaining questions for my second round. All right. And I want to say this. I do believe, although I'm not going to call them up because I don't think that's fair to put you on the spot, but I do believe we have a representative from Keep Prince William Beautiful.

[03:32:30] If I'm not correct, the Executive Director, Mr. Rico Fleshman, is here. Thank you for joining us today. I also want to take a quick moment to redirect that, no, Supervisor Veo, you are correct. This does not meet the intent of your directive.

[03:32:46] This is separate but supporting to us working to get a directive and to us addressing this issue. Because, you know, I support our law enforcement. They have a very hard job.

[03:33:02] We cannot always arrest our way out of a problem. So, Mr. Johnson, if you could quickly, I know that this has been based off of other problems. such as the, I'm sorry, other pilot programs, such as the program in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Can you talk about, you know, how the genesis for this program came about and some of the other cities and programs you looked at?

[03:33:22] As we researched this, and Albuquerque is one of the cities that we looked at, we also brought in Fairfax County and what they were doing in their program around this. It modeled a lot of what we're doing after their program. They have an Operation Screen Shield program. They do two things with that program.

[03:33:39] They do litter control, and they morphed into evasive plant removal as well. In talking with them, similar, they have partnered with a nonprofit organization who has either connections with them or connections with the homeless services department.

[03:33:59] They have worked with them. The folks have, similar to this, the pay is pretty similar to what we did. They did $13 an hour. We said, well, why did you pick that rate? and it was a rate where everybody felt comfortable within the budget to control the starter program out.

[03:34:17] I researched Albuquerque and saw the success they had had with their particular program. So that in doing that, what's the big draw that we got back and from hearing some of the feedback is the commitment of the staff once they have gotten hired and understood what they were doing and how important this was in helping them to gain skills.

[03:34:40] Some of those staff, some of those people that went on and got to be employed by the organization through their own litter control programs. So we're hopeful that they can get this gainful employment, get a skill. Now they can go out, if they can be employed by us or another jurisdiction who has similar type programs, now they can make a living way to be able to take care of themselves.

[03:35:02] Thank you so very much, Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Madam Chair. The communication, well, first of all, let me say I agree this does not address the directive. But I do recognize and appreciate the work that you guys have done to look at this holistically.

[03:35:25] I still think we need to answer the question that Supervisor Vega presented. Two or three weeks ago, I saw an article about a Colorado town. It says it slashed its homelessness by erecting signs.

[03:35:42] their signs seem to be a little bit more direct in their messaging than ours, uh, that were being proposed. Um, uh, but it, but what it does is in their message was handouts don't help. You can give safely instead of giving unsafely at an intersection, you can give safely to this thing.

[03:36:03] Um, and it was very effective, um, at, uh, reducing panhandling and reducing homelessness within their county um can you do you have um uh i mean when we look at the budget that you have here of sixteen thousand dollars can you ex uh give um the extent of how much how many signs how many locations that how far will this sixteen thousand dollars go if you got the i forgot the number mad chair members of the board nikki brown communications and engagement so not a great

[03:36:40] answer because it really depends so it depends on the signage what kind of signs where you're putting them that kind of stuff our goal we've talked about paid advertising in different areas and again that can depend versus social we've talked about movie theaters we've talked about a lot of different ways to get this out I think really what we're also hoping for is that the community will share it so I know Elijah has mentioned working with the chambers and working the businesses working with residents so really being able to we we have created a i don't want

[03:37:14] to call a media toolkit but i'll say a toolkit with all of the posters and all of the social graphics and social uh content um all all the things that we've created the video that we're hopeful that people will then share so they can print those out they can put them in their doors they can put them in their windows of businesses uh they can share them with other folks so it's It's really both a combination of paid advertising, obviously more is better, so I'll just put that out there, but it's also kind of a grassroots ever in terms of bringing the community along and getting them involved and sharing it that way as well.

[03:37:52] Yeah, I agree $16,000 doesn't go a long way, but I'm also concerned that we're not being, we're not taking a more aggressive approach to getting the message out, and I think there are things that we can do through streaming media um to get the message out to the community in their homes instead of waiting passively on somebody else who may hope is not a strategy right um and so if we're going to take a multi-pronged approach to this and we're going to be successful i think

[03:38:25] we need to be bold and we need to invest in making sure we get this message out broadly quickly um ineffectively as a county. Otherwise, we could be spending money that just dies. It just doesn't, it has no life. And so I'm a little concerned with the lack of boldness with this messaging, because when you take a look at the other communities that did this, they were very bold, very aggressive, and very direct in their messaging. And I certainly would like to see,

[03:39:05] you know what that communication plan is how you know where it's going um so that i can better you know as a communicator myself and somebody who's worked in this field for over 20 years um i think we've got again uh we must be bolder so that's my perspective thank you and i will just add really quick thank you streaming was one of those that we looked at doing in english and spanish so doing streaming in different services and also being able to see what the response is right so as we push that out if we're not seeing things that we can be able to tweak it we can always

[03:39:42] take a look at the language though for sure and last question number times the vdot piece and again i think that we know where the massive where the bulk of the panhandling is taking place and having signs at those locations and identifying those locations.

[03:40:01] I certainly would like to see where that is and see how far that $16,000 is going to go to put signs on those locations. Thank you. To that point, Supervisor Gordy, yes, when talking with VDOT, we're looking at how we can do that, Not just with permanent signs, but maybe there's signs that are mobile.

[03:40:27] Because we know once we put up signs and they're effective at a median, we may need to move them somewhere else. So we're talking with them about different ways to utilize signs, whether they are permanent signs or whether there are other type of signs that can be placed temporarily there and then move to another location as needed.

[03:40:45] So when we're coming up with the budget, yes, we would love to have $100,000. We didn't want to start out. When VDAC came back, we were like, okay, we got it. Let's have some money in here to get it started. And we may come back in the budget process and recommend to the CXO to put more money in if we need it.

[03:41:01] But we're working at how do we do that differently so that it's not permanent. If we can't do permanent signs, what are those other options? And to your question about the language, and we've been back and forth on language. We've had bolder language. which we've had softer language, and working with our partners with the continuum of care and some of the other groups, the bolder language didn't resonate with our citizens here for whatever reasons.

[03:41:29] And as we worked with language that was more softer, they were more receptive to say, oh, yeah, I understand that. That would make me think about what I just did. But we can work with language. That's not the issue. We can work with different language. If you've got ideas, before we launch, I'm just happy to hear that.

[03:41:45] But that's why we went with the language that we did. Well, we had one that said, I won't say it, but yes, we had much bolder language when we first started out. Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:42:00] I'm going to sort of pick up the ball from Supervisor Vega and run with it a little bit here. I'm kind of curious, how was, two-part question, how was litter control picked as the employment task or the employment avenue, the skills, so to speak, and how was Keep Prince William Beautiful picked?

[03:42:22] Was there any sort of RFP or that? Because there are a variety of other nonprofits out there that could certainly hire them and teach them what I would argue are much more marketable job skills, people that are running warehouses, whether it's inventory, running a pallet jack, whatever.

[03:42:39] I mean, how did we arrive at, quite frankly, one of the most unskilled lines of labor in terms of picking up litter instead of something that actually has a, for lack of a better term, career path to it?

[03:42:58] Love the question. And happy to get there in reference to what you're saying, if that's the direction the board wants to go to. The question as to why we chose the litter, as we did our research and we talked to other jurisdictions, and that was the one program that had impact and stuck with the folks who were there.

[03:43:18] Why keep Prince beautiful? Because working with them, as I indicated, they already have a relationship with the county. We could have went out for an RFP process. It would have been a lengthy process to go through. But with that relationship with Public Works, what we're already doing, what their reputation is to the county around keeping this county beautiful, we thought it was a great fit working with them, and that's why we chose this avenue.

[03:43:41] We're not doing an RFP, but using the community partner program relationship with them to move this program forward. But we would love to look at other things, if that's what the board wants to do, to be able to do employment programs in reference to addressing that.

[03:43:57] Are they assuming all liability for accidents or actions of the employees, or does part of that fall upon the county? One of the reasons why we designed it as employees of Prince William, keep Prince William beautiful, is for those purposes. Okay. I will have a question later for the county attorney on that.

[03:44:16] I'm curious about tax implications, administrative costs. I'm assuming that the administrative costs are baked into the amount that we're going to be transferring by donation. Okay. I think we're setting this up to fail.

[03:44:32] I mean, if we're not going to establish the criteria for whom we'll be eligible for this project, and we're not going to assume the liability for accidents or actions of the people that we would be hiring, and somebody else is going to determine whether they're a good fit or somebody else is going to determine whether they're a good character or their background fits.

[03:44:56] It occurs to me that at some point in time you're doomed to fail because you're going to filter out everybody who you would be sending over there or at least a significant portion of them. And requiring this sort of triage of who can do it and who can't, I would tend to believe that that actually disincentivizes anybody from seeking that employment in the first place, you know, because then the first question they're going to go through is, you know, is somebody going to do a background check?

[03:45:24] Is somebody going to do a warrant check? You know, are they going to check my mental health? Is my left leg the same size as my right leg? Take your pick. I have serious issues with this.

[03:45:40] You know, it's been, we've been accused of criminalizing panhandling, you know. That wasn't the directive that was made. And this isn't anything that, you know, sort of goes to the directive.

[03:45:59] I'm a little dissatisfied with how we got to this point. I have increasing concerns over how wieldy or, quite frankly, how unwieldy it's going to be, what the ultimate cost will be.

[03:46:16] Are we going to have to lay on more FTE? You know, does the program cost burgeon or does it wither on the vine? Because you don't get anybody to do it. And then what do you do with the funding? What do you do with the administration and the mechanism you set up if nobody volunteers?

[03:46:34] There's a lot of questions being asked. I think this is far from ready for primetime, so I'm not going to support it this afternoon. But I still have a lot more questions that I think we need to have addressed. Thank you. All right. So quickly, I do have Supervisor Angry, but you disappeared briefly.

[03:46:51] And Supervisor Bailey was in the queue. Did you want to speak? I did. Okay, you disappeared from me. So I'm going to let you speak, Supervisor Bailey, and then Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair, for acknowledging that. Elijah, thank you for your presentation and your enthusiasm about this. I know it's something that you and I had talked about in the past as well, so I'm glad that my colleague brought it forward and brought it to our psyche, I'll put it like that, so that we can start really talking about it.

[03:47:20] I was just briefly in St. Louis, and I saw a program not like this, but a program that was devised for this purpose. And I saw it because it was kind of in the area, in the urban area town.

[03:47:41] But I know we're talking about the entire county. But I did see it, and I saw people in uniforms working. You know, I saw that. So I'm saying that to say I believe, though I really respect and recognize what Supervisor Vega is saying.

[03:47:57] I know she still has a, you know, her question needs to be answered, And I respect that. But I think we need to start somewhere because it's getting worse. It's getting worse. And I think it's not just because of anything. People are suffering.

[03:48:13] People are suffering. People are hungry. People are trying to figure out how they can survive. And that's important to what we do here from this dais. And they're so suffering that the issue that we talked about earlier with the panhandler, with the little girl, you know, and I know that's been addressed also.

[03:48:39] But I'm saying that's how desperate people are. And whereas we understand holistically what we need to do, citizens may not. And so that's why I applaud you for taking the next step and also respecting what Supervisor Vega is saying as well.

[03:48:58] But my question to you is, and I said all that to say this, historically, Prince William County is, we don't do anything half done. We do it all the way.

[03:49:15] And so is there a timeline, once this is executed, is there a timeline? And number two, if there is a timeline, how do you spot check to make sure that we're on the right track? Because that's important in terms of funding and making sure that we're spending it in the right places and doing the right things for everybody, not just for the county and protection of the county, whatever that looks like, but for the citizen also.

[03:49:44] What does that look like? Great question. So as we explained, we met. We have three distinct subcommittees on each area that we talked about. We have a community response and outreach subteam. We have an employment subteam, and we have a communication subteam.

[03:50:02] They've got to be meeting on a monthly basis. Simultaneously. First, separately. Yeah. On each group meeting monthly within that team. talk about what's working, what's not working, where we need to tweak things, then we're going to come together every quarter as a full team to say, hey, what's going on?

[03:50:20] And if needed more than that, we'll come together as a full team. But each individual team will be working on a monthly basis. In fact, Teresa is up there scheduling meetings now to make sure that we are talking about this. We are making sure that we are looking at it, looking at data as Dan talked about what are we seeing?

[03:50:36] What are we doing? Is this working? Is this not working? Is this communication method getting through the people? Is it not getting through? Where do we need to change? Are we getting people in the employment program? That's why we couch it as a pilot program. Because if it's not working, we don't want to continue doing something that's not working.

[03:50:52] So we're going to be monitoring this over the next year, getting a lot of data around what's working, what's not working. And if something is not working, we're going to adapt and change to see how we can address it to make it work. That's key. And then lastly, Madam Chair, just quickly, I want to address something that Supervisor Gordy said also.

[03:51:13] And there's something that, Elijah, you and I talked about. The marketing piece, we have a fantastic communications department. The marketing department has to help us boldly get this out to address it immediately so that we can get those results and we are addressing what needs to be addressed.

[03:51:31] But it has to be intentionally in a bold way. So the marketing piece, I would encourage you just to highlight it and to, you know, we don't need to be conservative with that. Well, I appreciate you saying that because next stop after we're here is speak with you all to work with you all through your methods of getting information out to your constituents.

[03:51:53] This is all hands on deck approach. This is not isolated to just communications. We're going to be talking with community. We're going to be talking with police and talking to other agencies so that we are pushing this message out holistically. And you guys are a major part of that because constituents are coming to you when they have issues.

[03:52:10] And we want to hear about it. We want to work with you to push this campaign out through your forms as well. So I applaud you for saying all hands on deck and make it big. You don't know I'm dancing over here when you say that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Ingrid.

[03:52:26] Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Johnson, just, you know, this whole conversation has been going on for a long time. You know, I've only had one concern, really, and that's that I do believe there's some human trafficking element going to all of this.

[03:52:42] I understand the process action team, all of what you're doing, Supervisor Vega's point with, you know, the panhandling and the homeless, well, it was panhandling initially. But so I just I'm really curious is if in all of this, you know, we even with the timelines and check ins of different departments, all I want to do is get to a point where we can identify and separate out folks who are homeless that really which is kind of like been the American way since we've gotten into this situation.

[03:53:17] And then what can we do with those who truly don't want to be homeless? But then we know there's an element of people who just like living in the woods. So at some point in this whole process, we're going to have to lay out lanes of the people and what they are.

[03:53:34] Because I think the real biggest one to everyone's true concern here is the level and the improvements of the median request for money. You know, selling items now in these medians.

[03:53:49] It's turned into a business. And so I want to get to that because I understand with the homelessness and some of this panhandling, we can identify and find out who these folks are and if they want to be better, if they don't. But I do believe there's an element here that's tied to this, that while everyone thinks we're out to arrest homeless people, I think there's an organization issue that we have with a bigger element of this.

[03:54:19] don't know what it is, and I hope that this group can identify that so that we can tackle that problem. So I just want to mention that, okay? Thank you. And Supervisor Franklin, you were in the queue, but you were taken out of my queue. Do you still want to speak? Oh, yes. So I'll give you then Vega. Okay, yeah. So I have a separate set of concerns, and I've actually said this publicly before that we talked about how the CSI

[03:54:53] was actually going to have this as part of their overarching kind of mission to kind of dissect and look into. And I still think that should be the case. I think that with this particular initiative, we're kind of putting the cart before the horse. And I think that we ought to let the CSI kind of do its work. It just got set up. They've had a few sessions already, But I think we should go back to the drawing board and allow them to use the on-the-ground grassroots experts that they have to really delve into this issue the same way they're

[03:55:32] going to delve into other issues, a traffic issue, the mental health issue. We specifically talked about panhandling being part of that discussion. So while I have a different set of concerns than some of my colleagues on the dais, I would actually rather push this out or deferred until CSI has a chance to kind of really look at this and come up with some really good recommendations that maybe we haven't thought about because we're not the ones on a grassroots level like they are. They can have some good ideas that we just haven't thought of because a lot of them do this either for a living or in their spare

[03:56:10] time when they're doing their community work. So I've said this before publicly, but I think that this should be or continue to be part of the CSI's initiative and while I think you know this is a well-intentioned idea I just think that let's let those who do this as a passion come up with some good recommendations for us as we initially set out to do. All right Supervisor Vega. Thank you madam. I will just in little response and I appreciate that that that that direction and

[03:56:45] that's why Wesley and his team has been a part of this from the beginning, to make sure we are incorporating what they're hearing from their constituents and from their advisory group. And as that advisory group continues to get stand-up to give us information as to what they're seeing, I know some of the people that are on there, we've had conversations about what they're seeing.

[03:57:08] Definitely want to have them included. But just so you know, Wesley and his team have been with us at the beginning, working with homeless services, working with community services to understand what's happening in those organizations as they engage with these folks who are talking to them on a daily basis and how we work as a coordinated effort to bring those things in.

[03:57:27] And that's where the piece, so they have been, Weston's team has been together. Now that they have the advisory group together, I'm sure we're going to get more feedback from them as we move forward. But I think there's a difference in what I'm saying in that they have not, as an advisory group, had a discussion on panhandling. And I would like for them to have that discussion.

[03:57:44] Supervisor Franklin are you making a motion to defer be happy to do that second I have is that to a date uncertain wait hold on it would be the only problem is alright so we have no we have an active motion on the floor do we have any other questions for mr. Johnson madam chair I do but if we're gonna go with supervisor Franklin's recommendation to defer I can send those over and their questions that stem from the staff report in terms of transportation the furlazo building being the

[03:58:22] drop-off and pickup of course that's really far from folks on the western end of the county and so you know just just just want to close it out by saying that the intent is great it's good but it's not ready for prime time and i think that if we come together collectively we can put forth something that's going to be meaningful and that is actually going to address the goal from the very beginning so we can be compassionate while in my opinion enacting common sense policies and I welcome Supervisor Franklin's motion to defer and I believe Supervisor Angry seconded it. So I

[03:59:00] want to say a couple things quickly because yes I do support that because I'm hearing a lot of different things as we sit on the day as we need to be bold with communications there are a lot of questions about how this program will actually work and you know Mr. Johnson you can have a seat we're in the motion, you know, I don't think there are any other questions. We're in discussion now.

[03:59:21] Kind of the part of the problem, this is something that has to be addressed in the open. This is something that's going to have to have more discussion. And it's hard because of the current rules. You know, I can play phone tag with Vega, then angry, and then take their feedback and call Weir. And that's not how we need to do this. I do think we're going to have to have more discussion openly. You know, I do want to thank the team for all the work that you've done for this. I know it's a lot, you know. You come, you talk to everyone, you get feedback, you get up here, and we're going in a totally different direction, or we're not sure. I do appreciate

[04:00:00] this. And again, I will say this does not meet the intent of Supervisor Vega's directive. For me, that's okay. I want to attack this problem on multiple fronts. I do want to eventually get back to supervisor vegas directive um but this is a real issue and there are so many reasons why we've come to this problem it's not one thing you know there's not one thing that's driving this and i also i do think there is a lot of misinformation out there i think a lot of people um you know we've certainly received a lot of emails in opposition to this and some of the

[04:00:38] things that have come out you know have nothing to do with the actual program um i had one email you know one who mentioned to me that the majority of our board and da has seen it fit to tell police not to address the issue and in fact push the restorative justice slash racist everything negative i mean narrative pw county citizens are in danger and this burden falls mostly on people of color i mean i can tell you i've never had a conversation with police that said don't don't do anything I don't think any I mean I'm just saying I can only speak for DeShondra Lynette Jefferson

[04:01:13] I know I have not had that conversation um and this you know and this um email you know went on to say that you know you work for me and waste my money to advance your woke ideology I mean this is not a political issue it's not yeah thank you supervisor it's not intended to be a political issue we have a problem in our county neighboring counties have problems with panhandling we have limitations on some of the things that we can do to address the issue and so we have to work within those confines and we have to get creative the program that this was based off of in albuquerque

[04:01:50] i um there's a better way that was initiated back in 2019 and the person who did it the mayor at that time was republican you know and i've been reading a lot about in albuquerque is you know there's concerns because the governor is trying to push you know crackdown and panhandling and again running into the same issues that we have you know so this is a real problem not just for Prince William County. It's a real problem everywhere. You know, I appreciate our staff for working really hard on this. We're not going to tackle this, unfortunately, overnight.

[04:02:21] You know, and Supervisor Vig and I share one big concern in common. We both have teenage kids who are driving, you know, and every time my son leaves the house, it makes me nervous. One night after a football game, they came back late. He decided he was going to go to McDonald's with friends at 1.30 a.m. Yeah, I'm telling his business.

[04:02:37] And I'm so thankful for Prince William County Police because, you know, I probably, I mean, I got a hold of him. I would have been so worried and, you know, probably would have killed him if he came home with a bag of McDonald's in his hand. But this is a real concern.

[04:02:53] It's a real issue in our county. It's going to take us a time to figure out how to best approach it and to the public. I mean, we hear you. We see the problem. All of us agree that it's a problem. It's how do we solve it. It's not going to happen overnight. Work with us, you know, understand that we're working in certain narrow confines, but we do want to find a solution.

[04:03:11] This ain't about a woke ideology. It's about finding a solution that works, that fits, that we are, all eight of us, and 76 of our personalities are comfortable with. So with that, Supervisor Vega. Supervisor Vega.

[04:03:26] I'm still on the queue. I just want to also acknowledge the individuals that represent Keep Prince William Beautiful that are in this room. The questions that I asked, I just want to be very clear. We don't want to set anybody or any organization up for failure.

[04:03:42] We want to set everybody up for success. And so I continue to welcome the idea of partnering with them, but I just want to make sure that we have all of our ducks in a row and that everybody understands what we're getting ourselves into and that we've considered all of the unintended consequences because it wouldn't be fair to them, it wouldn't be fair to us, and it certainly wouldn't be fair to the taxpayers of this county.

[04:04:06] Thank you. I am having, just so the supervisors know, problems with my screen. People come in the queue and they disappear from the queue. So if you would like to speak, please put yourself in queue, because right now I only have Bodie and Weir. So, Bodie, you're next, and Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll start just by thanking the team, like everyone else has done.

[04:04:26] I know a lot of work has gone into this, a lot of work that a lot of folks don't really realize has happened. Chair Jefferson, I appreciate you reading one of the emails, because I won't read emails, but I'll paraphrase some of them, that we didn't look at what our other localities are doing. Well, the basis of this came from researching what other localities are doing, that this is sort of half-baked and, you know, that the county didn't do its homework enough to form this into something.

[04:04:50] I don't believe that at all. I think that you all, in your several presentations, not only to us at this dais, but also in meetings with each of our offices, came with receipts into every single thing that you are proposing and why you feel like, as was said by several of my colleagues, this has to be a multi-pronged, iterative, years, decades-long approach to tackle something that's been, frankly, a concern and a challenge for a long time. Because I know that this has been bundled up in Supervisor Vega's initial directive. I'm not going to retread ground there. But we know

[04:05:26] that the intents, ultimately, is to attack this issue as its source, not just go after folks who happen to be on this on the street uh asking for something it's to go after the the need behind the need behind the need which is at some point something happened in that person's life that they decide that the most lucrative thing they could be doing on a sweltering hot summer day or in the cold and dead winter night is standing on a street corner in a median or in a shopping center or chasing someone to a grocery store because they feel like that's the most lucrative thing they can do a lot of things had to fail at that point and until we start unraveling that

[04:06:05] and getting behind each one of those things will never get there. And this is a great and, frankly, a comprehensive way of beginning to unpeel all that orange and get at that. So I wanted to highlight that and commend you all for getting as far as you have with this so far and that it doesn't fall on deaf ears and it's not lost on, I think, any of us, that this is a way to really try to tackle a very complex issue.

[04:06:32] and as i know my colleague has said several times there's so many different lanes of folks that are part of this that there has to be a lot of that i don't call it weeding out but uh filtering you know what folks are generally genuinely homeless what folks are underemployed what folks just frankly haven't had enough access to resources yet to get them to a point where they're on their feet and what folks frankly are the bad actors and how do we begin to to wade through that and get those folks in where they need to go um so i understand why my colleagues i understand why folks aren't ready to take the plunge yet i don't like the idea of this deferring

[04:07:12] this indefinitely but i know that the votes aren't there to do anything else um i also acknowledge that we do have a community safety advisory group which is why i asked my initial question making sure they're plugged in this process because unfortunately and i don't think this was intentional but the mere fact it took so long to set up that group they didn't get a chance to advise a lot directly into this until it was already fully formed because frankly this board gave you all a really big sense of urgency that needs to be said too where we said hey we need something to act on really quickly not really realizing the downstream effects of having a group that's only been set up for the maybe a couple months now that's been actively meeting

[04:07:47] so there's a lot of disconnect there that this board created unintentionally with that disconnect So I wanted to highlight that, too. At the end of the day, I'm going to say two final things, and I'm going to stop talking about this. One is that, and I'm going to sort of talk about this a little bit, is I would love for us at the very least to move forward with the communications piece.

[04:08:10] that $16,000 to get signage going, other things. So we can talk through everything else, the co-coordinated response, the jobs program, all the other things that I think that we still need to work through as a board. But I think that at the very least, having that public-facing communications piece now would do some impact because every day that we don't have something out there that's saying, hey, you guys need to stop giving directly to these folks at the street corner or on the median or in the shopping center, there's another day that we're only exacerbating this problem.

[04:08:42] We're only letting that culture become more and more entrenched. Heck, we have pastors at the pulpit every Sunday that tell people they need to give in the way that we know isn't the most helpful. Until we start to have those conversations and change that culture, what needs to happen yesterday, we're just letting this go on.

[04:09:01] So that's another piece. So the last thing I'll say about it before I stop talking is we, maybe. We all know someone that this has touched in one way or another. I've mentioned other places. My mom panhandled for a while when she was homeless.

[04:09:19] She dealt with homelessness, substance abuse, all these different things. We know that if we're able to get these folks into services, as opposed to just giving them food and money, we'll actually be able to save their lives. And that's all I'll also say right now. Thank you. So quickly, I want to tag on to what something Supervisor Bodie said.

[04:09:36] Maybe at least just start to sign it. I don't know if it's that easy just to segregate that small amount. So I'm going to ask that staff that you guys take a look. If we just started maybe with the signage, what that would cost, what resources you need, and work with Mr. Schorrer and I to bring this back so that, you know, we know what that looks like.

[04:10:00] And in the meantime... Is that a directive, Madam Chair? Yes. All right. Andrea, I just want to make sure. Madam Chair, could we... I could ask Supervisor Franklin for a friendly amendment to just segregate out the communications piece for the $16,000, approve that tonight, and so that that can start moving forward.

[04:10:24] I'm sorry. Mr. Shorter? Just so that we can go back, I want to make sure that we have an opportunity to sort of answer some of the questions that we've heard today. I would love to be able to come back as a standalone versus just using the 16,000, come back with a much fuller perspective on what we could do if given just the opportunity to focus on communications and engagement.

[04:10:49] I appreciate that because I don't want to do this piecemeal. I've heard from both you, Gordy, and Bailey about being more robust and bolder in our communications. I would like to see what that would look like, but also, too, you know, I know you will do this, but making sure that you engage the individual supervisors.

[04:11:07] I just lost my entire screen and all the speakers, except for Weir. Okay, Bob has the magic touch. He never loses a place in queue. But again, engage all of us to see where we are.

[04:11:25] Again, we'll probably have this discussion in public, go back and forth. That's what we're here for. But with that, I apologize, I did lose my queue. Everyone who was in queue, please put yourself back in. Supervisor Weir, you're still there. Madam Chair, we've had a very robust public discussion on this matter and this proposal, one that was not contained within the framework of Supervisor Vega's original directive.

[04:11:58] So before we wrap this up with a nice little deferment bow, I think we need to address Supervisor Vega's original directive. You know, it's interesting that we're willing to accept or willing to entertain a proposal based on programs in other jurisdictions, some of them out of state, and have a very public discussion about that. But there have been several proposals for a potential solution or partial solution to the directive issued by Supervisor Vega that we

[04:12:33] haven't discussed publicly. And that is an ordinance to address traffic safety. And I've offered one that's actually been enforced for more than a year in a jurisdiction in Virginia without challenge now i understand there's some hesitation oh we might get sued well we get sued all the time but i think we owe it to the public to bring forth and have that discussion about public safety and traffic control devices in as equally a public forum as we just had on this on this subject and to that end i will bring forward a draft resolution next week or next 22nd i guess

[04:13:11] on the 22nd and so um quickly thank you i do want to redirect because we have a motion that it's active and i want to focus on that i know that there is a lot of frustration um because again we need to find a solution for this and we can have a more we will i guess take this back up with your motion and have a public discussion at that time um i'm going to go to and again if anyone else i have gordy and you're good gordy bodhi are you wait are you you're good all right bodhi and then we are going i thank you just just very quickly since i ran out of time thank you

[04:13:51] surazagordy for trying to resurrect at least the communications piece we were on the same level bordy was of one mind as usual um but understanding that super that the county exec wants to have staff some more time to go back and really flesh that as a standalone piece um all else i'll say on that is is i think like i said i think that needs to be done part and parcel separate from everything else because i think that there is power in that in of itself and if the all underlying thing is we know that a big contributor in all this is the culture of giving and we can channel that into something that's more productive and actually gets at the needs that these folks are doing. I think that's helpful. The last shout out I wanted to say is I know during my being with

[04:14:29] you, Elijah, I talked about retooling the panhandling website and the giving part to give missions of each continuum of care organization. You guys did that, so I appreciate that. Because frankly, we know that when folks are clicking into something, it takes them too long to find what they want. They give up and they move on. But by having a synopsis of what each individual organization does on that page I think people go well I want to give it to veterans organization or I want to give it to children or whatever it is I think that's helpful I think there's the last one is the only that doesn't have an um it might be the children's assembly of God may not have a description yet but wanted to highlight that as well the last thing I'll say

[04:15:06] in this time for real um is like I said we know and we've had at least one person in our lives that have been touched by this issue that have been a panhandler and for whatever reason um the system and the culture of giving brought them to that place and kept them in that place.

[04:15:22] We know that, as Elijah said, that we're not going to eradicate panhandling from Princeton County. It would be unrealistic to believe that. But like I said before, I believe that what we have at least are the building blocks of something that can really holistically tackle it at its root and frankly begin to even go after some of the conversations we had earlier around the encampments, around some of the other things that are happening, that these things are not happening in silos.

[04:15:48] People that are panhandling, sometimes they may go back to a house, but most times they're going back to a camp. And so we have to begin tackling these things as a holistic, multi-pronged thing. And I do want to, again, appreciate the advisory group because they're part of that work as well. So we can't just have this boil down to just the ordinance.

[04:16:09] The ordinance is something we need to talk about as a board. But until we actually also get programs and staff and support that links everyone up to tackle this issue at the multi prongs, the multifaceted challenge that it is, we're only going to be throwing resources, throwing manpower at one thing and letting the other part of it exacerbate it and fester.

[04:16:30] So thank you all again for this conversation. And thank you again, staff, for all your work on this. All right. Thank you so much. We have a motion. Let's go ahead and vote. The motion is to defer.

[04:16:48] It has been, sorry, was it Supervisor Franklin and then Franklin Angling. All right. Vote unanimous. Woo-hoo.

[04:17:06] All right. Mr. County Executive, you got anything else for us? You good? All right. Been a long night, long afternoon. Oh, boy. All right. We are moving to agenda item nine, the county attorney time.

[04:17:24] Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. We have one item for discussion in closed session this evening. That will be a personnel discussion relating to the appointment of the Director of Social Services, and that matter is appropriate pursuant to 2.2-3711A1 of the Code of Virginia. So moved, Madam Chair.

[04:17:40] Second. It's been moved and seconded. Let's vote. Vote unanimous. All right.

[04:18:00] Mr. Shorter, we got agency time. Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, members of the board. A few weeks ago, I sent a memo to you outlining what is a pretty significant change in policy direction and one that many jurisdictions are now dealing with.

[04:18:26] And I wanted to allow for the fire and rescue leadership, particularly Chief LaBelle, to sort of walk us through it. As you know, there's an item on agenda for the board's consideration today. and wanted to make sure that you had some clear background on where we are and why.

[04:18:47] So with that, Chief, you take it away. Thank you, Chair Jefferson, members of the board, Mr. Shorter, for the opportunity. Before I commence, I just want to point out Chief Kurt Heinrichs, our operations chief, is with us, and probably more for my benefit, Division Chief Chris Granger.

[04:19:10] Chief Granger is the division chief for our EMS operations section. So he's been working diligently on this issue. So bottom line up front, to maintain our current service levels, the proposed fire and rescue pharmacy program driven by recent federal and state regulatory changes will require a startup cost of 2.1 million and four FTEs.

[04:19:37] So, background on this, original changes, in particular to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, which ensures that drugs are tracked from creation to destruction, including their use, pushed the Virginia Board of Pharmacy to recognize that on November 27th, we need to move to something other than our current format.

[04:20:07] This requires specifically the tracking of Schedule 2 to Schedule 5 drugs. We also will be tracking Schedule 6, and I can get more into that, obviously, later if desired.

[04:20:24] Additionally, the DEA requires EMS agencies to also track controlled substances. Those are two different things, although obviously they're intertwined with one another. We've been, like every county in the Commonwealth, we've enjoyed a relationship with local hospitals, being able to both exchange one-for-one for drugs we use on patients that we bring to those hospitals, but also narcotic kits where we get the entire package at once, not simply the narcotic we utilize.

[04:20:59] We've also worked with Envers and NOVA to figure out how to deal with this issue. We've been aware for a few months but thought, quite frankly, the hospitals were going to take a different path, and we found out in the spring they weren't.

[04:21:15] I'll get into that in a moment. And then we've also been working with statewide medication policy and procedure working group. As a region, we've been working closely together, although specifically Loudon met with their board early.

[04:21:31] I can tell you many folks in the region have come and visited with us to watch how we've gone through this process. We've also worked very collaboratively with our volunteer organizations to make sure they were informed and understood what this process meant for them.

[04:21:48] And as well, the medical directors for the region have been very engaged in this issue. And then, of course, we've had a Prince William County work group, which included, again, engaging with our volunteers, FFM, and our own logistics division.

[04:22:05] So basically, once it became clear to us that we were going to have to start going down this road, we started to put together the program. We knew eventually we'd be standing here in front of you. We just didn't know when. And so back in July, we started to work on the IT requirements, started to open up POs so we could be ready for this.

[04:22:24] We've already started to order pharmaceuticals as well as some of the hardware. We've already got our drafts for policies and procedures. We've gotten our licensure and we've already started work on developing the primary pharmacy as well as security in the various stations.

[04:22:45] We plan on having things pretty much ready to go November 1st. However, we don't want to start November 1st. We just want to be ready November 1st. And we'd like to actually be up running a few weeks prior to the November 27th deadline so that we're not finding out on November 28th that we didn't have it quite right.

[04:23:05] but that November 27th is a hard deadline. The question is how the hospitals want to engage with that deadline. So implementation, again, we have to ensure continuity of pharmaceutical passage as a transfer between agencies.

[04:23:28] We also want to make sure, this is really important to me, about a year ago I was asked if the county wanted to go under a single EMS license, And at that point, I said no, simply because I wanted to make sure our volunteer organizations maintained their identity.

[04:23:44] It's still very important to me. We believe we can continue to do that. There was concern that everything would have to say Prince William County on it. We're not interested in it. Also, as they onboard members, that's also something we're not interested in getting in the middle of. We want to support them as we move forward.

[04:24:00] But we are going to have to head towards a single license. We also, obviously, we need logistics support. We effectively kicked emergency, the good news is emergency management is part of the fire department, and so we were able to kick them out of their space because it was well-suited for a pharmacy.

[04:24:17] And so part of the request you'll see here is to help put them back in appropriate space for their resources. So the physical location, the FTEs, you see some examples there of some of the hardware and some of the IT support. We're going to have to modify the stations.

[04:24:32] We also need to modify apparatus to make sure that we can lock things in the apparatus and that we know who unlocks it and what they take. Moving forward, finishing up the logistics piece of this, we're going to head towards a spoken hub model, which is recognized by the federal government as well as the Commonwealth Board of Pharmacy.

[04:24:55] Really that cradle-to-grave electronic tracking and DEA-required reporting. I know there is some documentation out there from the FDA, but it's also important to recognize that the DEA has a role to play as well.

[04:25:13] Also, quite frankly, a better experience for our providers so that they're able to get drugs quickly. They're able to get back in service quickly. They can feel comfortable about that chain of control, particularly the narcotics that they utilize.

[04:25:31] We have both ALS and career, excuse me, both volunteer and career ALS providers, making sure that they're comfortable with the drugs we're asking them to utilize. And then also automatic medication restock. These systems will allow us to do a better job tracking all of the types of medication we utilize, as well as some of the hardware that's not EMS related that we believe we can improve our efficiency with.

[04:25:58] So here's the numbers. So the actual upgrade of the facility into a pharmacy, 500,000, moving emergency management to a new lease space, four FTEs, the pharmaceuticals, we still don't know.

[04:26:15] We still have pharmaceuticals that belong to the hospitals. And so we still don't know what that looks like, and we don't know when we're going to know what that looks like. We don't know if we have to give it all back, if we have to buy it from them, what that's going to look at. So that's our worst-case scenario.

[04:26:31] at that point. I'll also point out that that also gives you an indication of how much free medicine the hospitals were giving us. It's not insubstantial. Apparatus refits, I already mentioned that, and then the fire rescue station retools. Just to be clear, they have to be in secure space. There has to be video cameras. There have to be electronic ID access to the space, access to the machine all things that make sure that we know who has what when they have it where

[04:27:04] they got it from and ultimately where it went to so 2.1 million startup 800,000 I do want to say we've obviously already been spending this money out of our general operations budget because we had to be ready for this scenario uh questions all right um I have angry we're Bodie Franklin thank you madam chair I really would hope that this would have been just quick for you um i can say just just without a doubt that this must be a unanimous vote that we approve

[04:27:38] this i'm not happy about it but i know it's we have to do this what i want to point out is that you know this fight isn't over so if the push from the commonwealth is to defer this as well or give us an extension date uh to actually have more i don't mean just prince wim kind of i speak on behalf of 95 localities that are affected by this because literally to drop this on the lap for November 27th, and this is not, because first of all, thank you guys for what you've done because you've put together the package that we need, so he's already left, but thank you for this.

[04:28:15] But this could have been better rolled out, not from you, from the state. And so we must continue that pressure to see if we can't get this deferred to figure out why because the reality is this the bottom line is this no one knows why this is happening it's literally just been forced upon and I will say even with DEA saying that they're out of compliance who's out of compliance there was a better way to fix this than just giving it back to our localities because just because we can fund this you know we really have to look out for the other counties in this commonwealth that cannot and there's going to be some taxes going up

[04:28:54] for some residents that aren't going to be too happy about this. But in the end, we must do this. So I understand that. So I just want to make it a point that we should continue this fight to really figure out how we can either push this back or find out another solution or some type of a support from the state to help us fund this so it's not out of everybody's general fund.

[04:29:19] Thanks, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Weir? Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to the impetus, I would suggest that it would probably be a large portion of it. Let me go back to the opioid crisis and some nonstandard practices by some medical professionals that helped create that speculation on my part.

[04:29:39] Nevertheless, I'm just trying to work out the time frame here because I agree that it seems foisted upon us. How long have we actually known that November 27th or some change was going to be imminent in our practice?

[04:29:54] When did we first become aware of it? So the November 27th date we've been aware of, as have the hospitals, I brought this up at a February chief's meeting at the state level. But it wasn't until this spring, I'd have to go back through, I believe it was April, Chris?

[04:30:12] Letter from the hospital. The State Board of Pharmacy, Chris Granger, EMS chief. The State Board of Pharmacy met in April, their regular meeting. The decision by the DEA to enforce had not been issued yet.

[04:30:29] They took May off. The issuance came in May, and when the Board of Pharmacy reconvened in June, the directive went out to fire and rescue agencies that they were going to have to track their schedule, their narcotics. So, in essence, both the feds and the state have pushed this down on us with less than a six-month window?

[04:30:47] Yes, sir. I would suggest we need to include that in our legislative packet for the year. I do have one other question. With respect to lowering some of the costs, and I don't know that this is possible.

[04:31:05] Yes, you're going to have to fund your own facilities, your security and that. But are local jurisdictions, perhaps this is a question for legal counsel that we'll address at a later date, able to pull their buying power, take advantage of an economy of scale and have a purchasing agreement across several jurisdictions?

[04:31:29] or are we locked into the pharmaceutical supply prices? I think the answer is currently no future yes. Part of the issue was every county in the Commonwealth within a six-month window were all vying for the exact same equipment.

[04:31:49] Which will drive the prices up because you're going to have a captive market. It also makes it difficult to do shared purchasing. What I will say is I was at a meeting this morning. We work very closely with our neighboring agencies, and so anything we can do to be collaborative, we do.

[04:32:05] Is there any prohibition against the combined? I haven't read the rules pushed down yet. It's kind of interesting. I never thought I would know about buying medications and pharmaceuticals, especially narcotics. Especially in bulk?

[04:32:22] Especially in bulk, and it's interesting. even though we're a government entity that they know what we're using for, we can't just buy what we need all at one time. They kind of portion it out to us. But directly to your question, as your relationship with the vendor gets better in the medication buying community, the more access you get to wholesalers.

[04:32:44] Now, we were just able to get through a collective contract, a nationwide collective contract, got access to the biggest, they're called Cardinal. So we do have access to one of them, the and the pharmaceutical costs are substantially lower that's what i was getting at but the one thing they won't let us do is pass medications between agencies it's all it's what drove the decision in the first place that a hospital couldn't give prince william county medications prince william county can't give manassas park or manassas city or fairfax county medications so that's where they have us a little bit bound up okay i'm curious if there's any way we can take advantage of an economy of scale if it requires some sort of change legislatively or

[04:33:22] anything we could do to sort of reduce the ongoing cost? I would say yes. If the Commonwealth comes together on a collective agreement on purchasing, it would help greatly because everybody would have access to these wholesalers. And as soon as you get access to the wholesalers, they all want to lower the prices.

[04:33:40] Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Supervisor Booty. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chief LaBelle, for bringing this before us. And again, I'm not going to retread anything that's already been said. My question actually goes in a much different direction because you talked about some of the belt and suspenders infrastructure of this having to move folks out and, you know, retrofit and all these other things.

[04:34:01] From a planning perspective and a CIP perspective and a countywide space perspective, I would imagine this is already then being factored into what the county is doing to look ahead, right? Because understanding that, yes, we can try all we want to make sure that we are able to adjust some of this to make to ease to harm reduce, as it were, the costs.

[04:34:22] But it sounds like chances are we're not going to be able to go back to how things were, where we're just going to be able to get all the pharmaceuticals from the hospitals, hunky dory, everything's fine. So understanding that and understanding that we're still in the midst of talking about how we have so much lease space as a county, how we're still building fire stations.

[04:34:41] this has to be incorporated every new fire station that comes up comes out of the ground how are we gonna are we already looking at those kind of conversations or is this all just right now frankly triage of what happened no we have been talking to ffm uh to matt earlier al's uh team about what least space looks for like for us down the road okay um but in the in the interim this is this is where we're at okay i just wanted to vocalize that so then six months a couple years from now no one's going oh well we didn't think about this in terms of the county wide space the space that we now own between mccourt and a bacon race which would make sense

[04:35:18] as another space we might be able to put some of this personnel in what have you so just want to make sure that that's being thought of right now absolutely thank you i apologize i'm still having problems with my monitor i have franklin um bailey you were in the queue now okay thank you sure yeah well first just want to clarify that we will not be raising taxes because of this issue thank you supervisor franklin yeah we will not be doing that but um this is a challenge and i do want to thank you and your team for getting this uh off the ground very quickly um in princelium county fortunately does have the resources to get this project um off the ground but smaller

[04:35:58] localities to supervisor angry's point may not have um the resources as quickly as we do and We're both part of the Virginia Association of Counties, where I know that we'll be having this very discussion. One thing I do want to point out is, been paying attention to this issue.

[04:36:15] I spoke to Congresswoman Spanberger's office about this, and they've been talking to the FDA. But to your point, it also has to be a discussion with the DEA. And so I do plan to issue a directive just asking for an official board letter to our congressional delegation expressing concerns and challenges with this issue and making sure that they're looking at all of the resources that could be provided not only to Prince William County but across the Commonwealth.

[04:36:43] And then also making sure that our state is involved in this discussion too. To your point about even just getting down to being able to cut better deals for some of this medication on the wholesale front. So just want to just flag that for my colleagues that we need to make sure that we're engaged.

[04:36:59] Supervisor Weir, to your point, I believe we did ask them, I believe at our last meeting, to add this to our legislative agenda. And so I think this is already part of that for the General Assembly. Thank you. All right. Hold on. So I just want to say, right now, let's make sure that we're asking questions.

[04:37:17] If we have any general comments, let's make sure we do that within the motion. So do we have any other questions? Because if not, for comments, I'd like to move forward. I don't see anyone else. Thank you so much, Chief LaBelle, for coming here and explaining this. So, no, we don't have a motion.

[04:37:35] Second. I'll give that to Gordy because I know, Bailey, you've been good today. You've been doing a lot of seconding. So now we have the motion. So if anyone has any comments or anything they would like to share, please jump in. Okay, Supervisor Bodie.

[04:37:51] Yeah, I'll just say very quickly, it's related to this, but a more broad issue is that we've talked a lot about federal-level lobbying over the past few meetings. I think that we need to, at some point in the very near future, start talking about having a federal-level lobbyist.

[04:38:07] Because right now we're just sort of doing things ad hoc, like letters and what have you. But I think we need to start having that conversation sooner rather than later. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chief, for just bringing this and getting on top of it for us.

[04:38:22] This was discussed in – well, thank you. This was, thank you, discussed in VACO in our last meeting in the Health and Human Services Committee. So just like the Medicaid concern that we have with the CRC, it's the same kind of issue.

[04:38:41] And so kudos to our staff for we're able to turn things around right away. And so we appreciate you doing that. You know, we knew it was coming, yeah, unfortunately. But we appreciate you just getting on top of it and moving it forward immediately.

[04:38:58] It is a communications problem, and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing succinctly. So just thank you. All right, thank you so very much. Supervisor Gordy, knock in there. Just, Chief, thank you and your team for enduring four hours with us today.

[04:39:19] You've been very patient. Thank you. And thank you for all your hard work on this. I mean, when you look at the tail, financial tail to this, the initial investment in $800,000 a year going forward, that is a significant fiscal impact.

[04:39:38] And so, you know, I would highly, you know, encourage if we can find some ways, you know, to look at grants and ways to try to offset some of these appropriations or this unfunded mandate, for lack of a better term.

[04:39:54] Yeah, that has been foisted upon our county and every county in Prince William County. We certainly look for those opportunities to offset those costs. But, again, thanks, Chief, and your team for all the hard work you've done on this, and we'll see how we're able to move forward.

[04:40:16] All right. Thank you, everyone. And, again, I want to take time to thank you guys because this is a lot for you guys to have to get up to speed on. you know you are lifesavers in every sense of the word now you're also going to be pharmacists i mean i don't think that you were trained that in when you're becoming a firefighter but the job is really evolved in ways no one can see um you know and i do i i do want to echo things that my colleagues have already said yes this unfortunately is an unfunded mandate you know that has come down on us and we're going to have to work together as a team you know all the

[04:40:53] supervisors on making sure that we have the funding to cover this you know i appreciate supervisor you know frankly you speaking with representative spamburger you know and you're right supervisor votey it highlights the need that we are going to you know definitely need a federal lobbyist to make sure that they're fighting for us you know i know the troops are getting restless i'm looking at one right now but you know let's go ahead and take our vote vote

[04:41:24] unanimous all right we are now on to supervisor's time before we go around the horn we have a couple things to vote on um first of all is 11a to appoint lint and lynn a meadows to solid waste citizens advisory group we also have 11b to amend the calendar for 2024 proposed internal audit plan i don't know if anyone has any objection to either i'm going to combine them and okay if i can get a motion second all right um i don't think there's any discussion hope not

[04:42:03] let's take a vote so we are going thank you sorry um we're going to go around the horn i'm going start with Supervisor Vega by request. Thank you Madam Chair. I have nothing.

[04:42:25] Supervisor Franklin. Thank you Madam Chair. On September 28th my office held a dumpster day at Ripon Middle so I want to thank everyone who came out for that including our county staff. We have 1.53 tons of discarded household items so successful event. I also participate in the Woodbridge Women's Club National Day of service at the Hildebark Homeless Prevention Center and so thank you for the Woodbridge Women's Club who donated more than 225 pounds of food to the shelter so thank you all for your community

[04:43:03] service. Just a couple upcoming events tomorrow October 9th Supervisor Angry and I will be co-sponsoring a Latino resource event at Freedom High School at 7 p.m. we'll have representatives from various community organizations present to share available resources with the community so please come out and join us and on Saturday October 12th I'm hosting the Woodbridge District Community Fund Day from 1 to 4 p.m. at Veterans Park. We'll have a video game truck, face painting representatives from various community organizations, and food trucks. So please join us. And then in terms of my directive, without objection, I just want to issue a directive to have county staff

[04:43:38] draft on behalf of the board an official letter to our congressional delegation outlining the concerns and challenges of said issue with the pharmacy restocking and also include engagement with both the FDA and the DEA around EMT pharmacy restocking and to our clerk I can clean that up and send that to you if necessary thank you I'm done thank you and supervisor Gordy okay madam Chair. Thank you very much. I just want to highlight that on Sunday from 2 to

[04:44:18] 5 or 6 p.m., we're going to be having our Brentsville Fall Bash. We're highlighting the farms and businesses of Brentsville. It will be held at the Burnside Farm. We met the Dolly's today, but it'll be at their location. We will have some accounting entities participating and look forward to this this free event for everyone although we will have some adult beverage providers and that will be on you but please come out and join us since our last meeting been to many events

[04:44:53] throughout the community just want to highlight a couple of them the community commitment for literacy stakeholder luncheon that we had at on the 24th a ribbon cutting for a new bb.q chicken in Manassas Mall, and they enjoyed attending on Thursday morning the annual brief to the community at Marine Corps Base Quantico, and then last night had a great meeting with the new Bristol Village Townsitter to talk about development in the area, and a couple ribbon cuttings. We had a park at

[04:45:30] modernization at Braemar Park, and then as well as the beautification along Sudley Road, I've enjoyed cutting the ribbon with Supervisor Vega. I just want to remind everyone that at 615, the 4-H week proclamation and the group is out here in the court.

[04:45:50] So look forward to going out and visiting with them for a little bit before 7 o'clock. I do want to wish our Jewish community a Happy New Year. But also, just remember the October 7th attacks in Israel was commemorated yesterday.

[04:46:12] The Shabbat Center for Jewish Life in Haymarket commemorated that event on Sunday. Unfortunately, I was out of town, unable to attend, but greatly appreciate the invitation by Rabbi Shmuley. And lastly, just praying for Florida. It's going to be a rough week.

[04:46:28] Thank you. All right. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. September 21st, my staff and I participated in the White House Farm Foundation, the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust Festival.

[04:46:46] Also, the staff took a park and recs bus tour of its indoor facility. I've been there, so I hope they had a good time. On the 22nd, we participated in the annual open house for the PwC annual shelter. On the 23rd, we had the thanks to Rick and his team for talking to us about how we're going to support Four Seasons and our community on Van Buren.

[04:47:14] That's been an ongoing conversation, but it was such a positive conversation. I just wanted to bring it forward. Then on the 24th, as Supervisor Gordy said, we participate in igniting the community commitment for literacy. And we thank Rahika Bajah for seeing the vision to enhance the outcome of our children and teaching them how important reading is and igniting the mind.

[04:47:41] On the 25th, congratulations to my colleague, Mr. Bodie. We participate in the Occoquan Rising Ceremony. Our schools continue to be the pinnacle on our platform as we go forward. And so it was an excellent, excellent event.

[04:47:57] Big thanks to Katab, Shemot, and Kathleen Holtzlander and VDOT for our Route 24 landscaping beautification ribbon cutting. I've been waiting for that for four years. It happened. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate all the hard work.

[04:48:15] And to the county exec, Mr. Shorter and Chair Jefferson and county staff, I am so appreciative for our annual Potomac District Community Town Hall, the big one. do smaller ones but this was the big one and to the county exec your staff just showed out they were awesome they were awesome and madam chair I know your schedule is busy but you came by and you gave encouraging words and that meant a lot to the community and so Potomac is on the move because it is important to all of you and we appreciate that October 1st thanks to Lieutenant

[04:48:49] Drew Hunter and Victoria Falls for a community meeting that we had on something that was very very important and we're having some concerns with people practicing shooting in their backyard in the district and it is a sport that has been going on I know even before I moved to the county you know too but it has been very carelessly affecting our children in our community and so I just want to thank Lieutenant Drew and Victoria Falls for putting this on the map and I'll be having some additional conversations as we go forward to protect the community on the 2nd of

[04:49:25] October, thanks to the Economic Development Department for arranging the Fetler Park Market Study input session, which included Quantico, Q-Town, and the Dumfries Township also. It was a very good, robust conversation that will help us identify where we need to put what in place in our community. So that was very important. I want to thank Colonel Colgate. Welcome again.

[04:49:52] welcome home. We're going to keep you, but thank you for the annual MCBQ at the Marine Corps Base annual briefing on the community. And Prince William County, we continue to partner with the base, and we're making strides and supporting the community as we partner with the base and with our schools, and that's so very important. So thank you very much. And then on the 5th, I was honored to be one of the guest speakers at the 8th Annual Gospel Worship Experience Scholarship Program at Mount Zion Baptist Church.

[04:50:24] Congratulations to all of our future students that was honored. It's a 501c3 that my chief really has spearheaded over the last eight years, and he's doing a wonderful job in supporting our community.

[04:50:40] And then special events in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, of course. Thank you, Madam Chair, for acknowledging that today. Fire Prevention Week, October 6th through the 12th. And, of course, October 10th, at least we forget, World Mental Health Day. So take care of not only your physical health but your mental health.

[04:50:59] And lastly, the Potomac District staff and I will be sending out our deepest condolences and prayers to the Bay Jew family. If there's anything we can do, please let us know. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Rear? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll try to make this quick.

[04:51:15] First, I need to give my notice of intent to appoint Kimberly Sparks to the Human Rights Commission. Then I want to invite everybody to the Joint Town Hall with Chair Jefferson and myself at the Pat White Center on the 16th, beginning at 7. As with all of my town halls there, it's no holds barred.

[04:51:34] Come ask whatever you want. You might not like the answer, but you can ask the question. Haymarket Day on the 19th. Please come out to the town of Haymarket. It's a really enjoyable experience if you don't have to work it, which I unfortunately do. Dumpster day. We're having another dumpster day, this time in the Gainesville District, in Haymarket.

[04:51:55] It'll actually be at my office on the 26th of this month. From 8 to 2 will be the dumpster day portion. From 9 to 1 will be the shred truck, and that's at 13575 Heathcote. Additionally, or similarly, my office is now looking for a new Industrial Development Authority representative.

[04:52:16] If anybody's interested, please call my office or contact my office because we're going to try and get a nomination in here in the next week or two. Several months ago, I thought I had made a directive.

[04:52:31] Perhaps I didn't, and I don't know if this rises to the level of the directive. But I'd like the county executive to bring to us a comparison of our hours of allowable construction with respect to our surrounding jurisdictions. I think I mentioned this several months ago, and our allowable hours are two hours longer than any other jurisdiction, at least two hours longer than any other surrounding jurisdiction, and even more on weekends.

[04:53:03] And it's becoming an issue for very many residents, and I'd like a comparison of where we stand with other jurisdictions. Last but not least, at the end of December, the State Corporation Commission is going to have a conference.

[04:53:21] I have volunteered, demanded, take your pick, to be a panelist on that conference. And they are going to address a variety of data center power issues. And for the first time, they are going to publicly discuss what is colloquially known as the extension cord policy, where all costs get passed on to the data center, amongst other things.

[04:53:44] It's going to be a very interesting meeting. I will forward the particulars on as they arrive. But in conjunction with that, I spoke to two members of our delegation last night, and there is some legislation coming down the road that's going to be proposed that will, in some small fashion, potentially limit local jurisdictions' authority on data centers, Not necessarily on approving them, but on whether or not they can get power, when they get power, or will not get power.

[04:54:24] And there will be some changes to the proposed changes to the state code by the General Assembly and their responsibilities of the SEC. I'm in full agreement with them, and I am fully aware that VACO is going to fight this to the death.

[04:54:40] I will die on that hill fighting VACO. i just want everybody to be aware of that supervisor bode pass supervisor angry i almost wanted to but i just got to get out your list i just got to get out a few dates um so thursday the 10th um well transportation transportation put together a great study on the uh we're trying to do a bus rapid transit along del boulevard corridor so we're going to do an open house

[04:55:16] at fanny fitzgerald elementary from 6 to 8 p.m anyone in the area want to come out and hear about that uh you're welcome to attend we've sent this out through all our avenues also on the on saturday the 12th is uh neapsco district fall dumps today and shred event at neapsco baptist church from 10 to 10 a.m to 2 p.m so come on out bring your stuff bring your shred let's let's take care of that and then saturday october 26th uh we're going to be hosting our first neapsco district community day at cloverdale park from 1 to 4 p.m it's a day full of family friends

[04:55:52] activities free food and a chance to connect with the community thank you very much thanks manager all right I'm going to be a hypocrite and talk because I got a lot um so first of all I just wanted to bring this up is redevelopment we yes I'm sorry Bob but you know we talk a lot about redevelopment on this board I don't know what this is going to look like but I'm going to work with shorter to maybe have some kind of presentation or discussion about what we can do as a county to incentivize redevelopment um we have a lot of areas the sudley corridor route one And, you know, Route 1 actually has a great broadcast coming, as does the Sudley Corridor.

[04:56:28] However, what else can we do as a county to get developers to not just look at the green spaces that are easy, but redevelopment? We have older areas of the county that need a little love, too. Secondly, we've spoken. You know, I know we're going to have a joint meeting with schools.

[04:56:44] I just want to let everyone know I had a great discussion with Superintendent McDade and with my counterpart, Dr. Barbara Lateef, about discussing the CIP, their CIP process. During our joint school room meeting, you know, again, we have a lot of growth coming, particularly to certain areas of the county.

[04:57:01] Their CIP process is different than ours, and I think it would be great to understand what they look at, you know, how that process works. Because, you know, I, you know, Supervisor Gordy, you have a lot of development coming to the Ventile area. What's that going to do to schools? As you mentioned, Noakesville School is already overcrowded.

[04:57:18] So we need to understand what their process is, and so that, you know, as the development is coming, we know what it's going to do for schools and how they're going to meet the challenges. The other thing I wanted to quickly mention is early voting locations. I've gotten a lot of feedback.

[04:57:34] We made a decision in May to have, based on data, you know, we have one, we have the Office of Elections open. Starting, I believe it is Sunday, October 13th, you know, we're going to have souls to the polls. You know, there's going to be Sunday voting, and we're going to have more weekend voting.

[04:57:50] And we're going to have more precincts open for early voting. I also want to say that because I've been hearing a lot of feedback from the community. People are concerned. Our early voting numbers are down. It was a decision, again, that the board made unanimously.

[04:58:08] And we are going to, I think I'm speaking for everyone here and saying that we're going to continue to monitor that. And we'll see what voting is like. We'll see what, you know, this new process looks like. And if there are any changes warranted for the future. It is hard to change people's voting habits. Again, people are used to voting at Haymarket, either for Lazo or DMV, as well as, you know, in Manassas at the Office of Elections.

[04:58:31] But I just want to address that concern. And so now I'd like to get into my Notice of Intent, then I will be done. I would like to announce my Notice of Intent to appoint the following individuals to boards, committees, and commissions. Navneet Patel to the Tourism Industry Advisory Board, Rod Hall to the Hilton Performing Arts Center Executive Board, mandy spina to the advisory plans examiner board as the prince william county employee and i would also like to appoint a reappoint lisa klima and jim larkin to the tourism industry advisory board

[04:59:06] that is it we are now going to go into closed session so um thank you very much get a motion to certify close session so moved second all right bob and yesley all right let's um i'm so sorry i'm having a brain fart right now here we go thank you thank you so much

[04:59:42] all right thank you unanimous and we have what i believe one thing to report out yes madam chair i move that we appoint phyllis jennings holt to the uh position of social

[05:00:03] services director second all right um let's take any discussion if not let's take a vote vote unanimous all right mr shorter thank you very much madam chair board members for accepting our recommendation and congratulations to phyllis phyllis we are so excited to have you on as the

[05:00:42] new director of social services if if i can i want to have you come up just to say a quick intro and

[05:00:50] good evening Madam Chair Jefferson and the supervisors on the board I deeply am grateful to be appointed as the new director of the Department of Social Services I want to express my heartfelt thanks to you the Office of Executive Management my colleagues who mentored me my DSS family and my family who has been with me on this journey thank you thank you so very much and congratulations we are in recess for the next seven minutes until seven o'clock thank you

[05:02:07] I am actually going to start with, and we took a vote on this earlier, a commendation for 4-H club.

[05:02:50] So I want people to file in so that we can work on the, get that started with that. And then we are going to move into public hearings.

[05:03:18] All right. All right. If I can have members of the 4-H on the side, I will be coming down so we can do your, move forward with your proclamation.

[05:03:49] I was going to say, parents, you guys can join too if you'd like. So this is to reclaim the week of October 6th to October 12th, 4-H Week in Prince William County.

[05:04:09] And this year's national theme is Beyond Ready, reflects our commitment to preparing the next generation for a rapidly changing world, providing youth with opportunities, experiences, connections, and discoveries that help them grow into their true and authentic self. And for 120 years, 4-H has served Americans' youth with the mission to make the best better and is now the nation's largest youth development organization.

[05:04:35] 4-H connects youth and adults to their communities, preparing them for work and life through experiential inquiry-based learning while fostering positive youth development through emergent research. Prince William 4-H serves over 500 youth through clubs and camping programs and engages with more than 19,000 youth in special interest programs, helping them become confident, independent, resilient, and compassionate leaders with the dedicated support of hundreds of volunteers who have contributed more than 10,000 hours of their time, talents, and resources to our community's youth.

[05:05:12] I'm very proud to have young people who are representing 4-H up here today, and I will invite you to come speak. Good evening, Chair Jefferson and members of the board. On behalf of the entire membership of Prince William 4-H, my peers and I want to thank you for extending this proclamation.

[05:05:33] My name is Aidan McDonald, and I serve as the Northeast District Ambassador to the state 4-H cabinet. Since joining 4-H, I've had the opportunity to participate in public speaking contests, food challenge contests, overnight camps, and statewide teen events such as state congress.

[05:05:52] Before running for the district ambassador position, I served on a smaller board called the Northern Virginia Teen Leadership Council. That role provided me with a stepping stone to learn the skills I needed to run and be elected for the state cabinet. 4-H is full of opportunities like this and for all the youth. Thank you.

[05:06:13] Good evening. My name is Kara Grahn, and I am also a member of the Kettle Run 4-H Club. I am newly elected to serve as the junior secretary to the Prince William 4-H Association.

[05:06:29] It is the leadership and mentoring opportunities provided through the 4-H experiences, and especially through my project work in the Food Challenge, that have given me the confidence to step up and take roles in collaboration with adults, such as serving as the Junior Board 4-H member of the 4-H Association.

[05:06:50] Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Ryan Nguyen. I am the youngest of four siblings, all of whom have been in 4-H, so needless to say, I've been there my entire life. I also am a Virginia 4-H All-Star, which, if you do not know, is the highest honor you can receive as a 4-H member.

[05:07:12] I'm also a club member of the Noakesville 4-H Club, which I've had endless opportunities and projects such as camping, fishing, kayaking, sustainability, embryology, and food challenge, all of which have given me so, so much knowledge and will definitely help me prepare and navigate through life after high school and after college.

[05:07:31] The public speaking opportunities are endless, and have provided me with opportunity to refine and enhance my public speaking skills, which is the reason I'm up here today talking to you guys. I'm also a member of the Trigger Time 4-H Club, where I learned how to take care of guns and gun safety.

[05:07:50] And this year, I am the newly elected junior board treasurer for the association, and I'm looking forward to being a trusted steward of funds and how to manage money alongside the help of wonderful adult mentors. Thank you, everybody. Have a good night.

[05:08:06] Good evening. My name is Tim Hershey. Like Kara, I am also a member of the Keteran 4-H Club and also the Trigger Time 4-H Club. I'm proud to say that I was recently voted in as a junior board vice president of the Prince William 4-H association. I've participated in 4-H food challenge for the past seven or eight years since I was like this tall.

[05:08:28] And I've learned so much about important life skills surrounding food preparation and nutritional knowledge that are the key to healthy living. Additionally, through weekly practices and competitions, I have the opportunity to hone my concentration skills, focus, and responsibility through shooting, education, particularly in my favorite discipline, archery.

[05:08:45] 4-H teaches leadership and life skills to prepare us for becoming contributing members of our communities. Good evening everyone my name is Lexi Strand and I'm a member of the Trigger Time 4-H Shooting Education Club and I currently serve as a Virginia 4-H Shooting Education Ambassador.

[05:09:06] I was recently also elected as the junior board president of the Prince William 4-H Association. As a senior 4-H'er I had the opportunity to travel and compete in regional and national championships along with my fellow club members, adult members, and peers from all over Virginia.

[05:09:23] Not only do I have the opportunities to explore project work in shooting education, learning the safe and responsible use of firearms, but I've also learned how to plan, fund, and operate a small business through the Entrepreneur Project and leadership and mentoring qualities by serving as a teen counselor at specialty and overnight camps. We take great pride in knowing that Prince William County values youth and makes it possible for our volunteers and staff to teach skills that will last a lifetime. On behalf of all of our members, we thank you for supporting the Virginia Cooperative Extension, Prince William Unit, and the 4-H program. Thank you. Do you guys want to be in the picture?

[05:10:03] All right, we have a lot of people. Do you think we should go outside? All right, we're going to go outside real quick. Madam Chair, just a quick question. Are they responsible for those cupcakes out there those are excellent yes wait did you guys bake them did the parents either way they're

[05:10:26] divine and thank you i feel like with people who bring us treats maybe we should have them more

[05:13:20] often so now we're going to get into the public hearings yeah i don't bring us treats i'm just saying you know um so we're going to start with 13a and that is a rezoning for bradley south in the coles district i would like to invite the applicant to come up to make the presentation Thank you, Madam Chairman, members of the board.

[05:13:48] The subject proposal has been seen by staff, and the Planning Commission is recommended for approval. The Planning Commission unanimously supported the proposal after making eight specific requests, which the applicant has embraced and has added to the application, and I'll try to give those to you very quickly as we go through the process here.

[05:14:11] Most notably, the recommendation was made to reduce the density, which is now reflected in the proposal, But this evening, we've received another request for a reduction in density. So the number of dwelling units that are being proposed now is 100.

[05:14:27] And I provided a copy of the revised proffer statement to Mr. Venegas, and he has that prior to the beginning of the hearing. The subject property is really a redevelopment project, and it's very interesting from the perspective of redevelopment.

[05:14:50] We don't have a lot of that in Prince William County so far. There was once a speedway on the property located here in the center. This outline is showing the various properties that have gone through rezoning as Bradley Square. These two properties here at the top were actually a part of it developed by Stanley Martin as well.

[05:15:10] And it was a school site that was dedicated from an earlier zoning that goes all the way back to 1983 in this part of the property. The school site is right here where the cursor is located. Across the street is the Prince William County Fairgrounds and the Armory. There are a number of commercial properties here that are starting to see reinvestment as a result of the redevelopment that's occurred back here in Bradley Square.

[05:15:35] And Bradley South is a 10-acre addition to Bradley Square here at the bottom of the screen. The property is designated RN3 in the Comprehensive Plan, which allows densities of 4 to 12 dwelling units per acre. The proposed density is a little bit less than 10 units per acre.

[05:15:52] property is well situated to have higher density. It is easily accessed to Prince William Parkway and I-66 or if you go toward Dumfries, Dumfries Road, you would also easily access I-95. It's six minutes by car to the Virginia Railway Express station and 12 minutes by bicycle. The adjacent properties are zoned commercially along the nearby properties are zoned commercially here in this area, and the fairground is anticipated to be redeveloped sometime in the near future.

[05:16:29] This is a more direct or more zoomed-in version of the same plan. Here, though, you can see all of the commercial zoning that exists to the west of the property, and I wanted to have this exhibit to show you that it is a combination of townhomes that have a grid pattern development and also single-family detached dwellings that are on the rear portion of the property.

[05:16:54] Incidental to this application and the rezoning that occurred earlier, Stanley Martin restored a natural area along a stream here and also down in here, which was previously, part of this was previously occupied by the speedway, the part of the drag strip, and in this area there was a landfill that they removed and restored, and there was a lot of encroachment onto the RPA along the stream, so there was a lot of environmental improvement as a part of that application. The property was rezoned in six to eight different zonings, depending on how you

[05:17:31] look at them, but these are the sections for Bradley Square. The zonings, as I said, this one up here started in 1987. Most of the others occurred after 2016, and that's what you would expect to see as the properties were assembled over time for redevelopment. Redevelopment is a bit messy sometimes you don't get one big tract of land to do all at once and so you have to keep adding to the the project as it um as it evolves the quick summary of this is that there's uh the comprehensive plan allows 4 to 12 dwelling units per acre the density now is below 10 units per

[05:18:06] acre it's not 10.2 anymore because of a change that we've submitted this evening and 10 or 10 percent of the townhomes that will be in the community which will equal 10 will be 80 to 120 percent of the AMI. That also has been a change that was requested that was submitted this evening.

[05:18:31] The five percent of the units will be up to 80 percent AMI, and five units will be up to 120 percent AMI. So the density is roughly the same. If you look at the property to the immediate north, if you carve out 10 acres like this property has, you would end up with the same density, so it's consistent with the density to the north. Very quickly I'll explain that this site is gaining its access through Ravana Hill Road. It does not have its own access to Dumfries Road so you go up

[05:19:05] to Bradley Manor Place and access it using this roundabout and the applicant has agreed with this homeowners association to add traffic calming measures along this route which I can show you in more detail, but won't unless you request. And also in response to planning commission requests, there's a 10-foot shared use path now being proposed on this side of the road, even though that's not shown in the comprehensive plan. And also in response to the planning commission requests, that 10-foot wide shared use path has been extended all the way to Bradley North.

[05:19:40] There was not previously a path here because it's not in the comprehensive plan. In addition to that, The applicant has proffered monetary contributions to schools that meet with school requirements and also a monetary contribution for a crosswalk that would be somewhere between this site and the interchange, and that's to facilitate the walkability of the area and to be able to take advantage of the new interchange and pedestrian flyover on Dumfries Road.

[05:20:10] With that, I'll stop, and if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Supervisor Vega, and then we are. thank you madam chair uh can you talk a little bit about the pad that we see there that has a lot of colors yes this is a a center park area for these units uh this pad here is is i think rather creatively uh reminiscent of the speedway that was once on the property to the north and this application uh for the where the speedway was actually located they gave um they have a an interpretive marker in the center square that tells the history of

[05:20:48] of the speedway. Down here, we were asked to honor the history of the area, that being the fairgrounds and the speedway. So this play pad area here is replicating the speedway. Children can ride their bicycles or big wheels, or people can jog around it if they wanted to. So that's like a speedway. There's also some play equipment in here that looks a little bit like some things that you might find at the fairgrounds. And so that was the purpose there. And then closer to the road you have some passive areas for the adults a gazebo and and outdoor seating and things

[05:21:24] of that nature also i should point out that this road is connect or this area is connected to the shared use path that is out on dumfries road supervisor weir thank you madam chair do you have a set of the revised proffers i could take a look at so what i have what i'm giving to the clerk is a copy of the one that we marked up an initial have one that is clean

[05:22:03] you go to pages three and four okay but pages three and four uh will eliminate the challenge of reading my handwriting i am going to stop the clock for you supervisor we're and we'll come back to you do you need time all right we're going to go on to supervisor gory thank you madam chair um looking through the analysis uh for schools it looks like there's going to be a significant

[05:22:39] impact. The schools in the area are well over capacity. What do you foresee being the options coming from the schools in terms of trying to mitigate this? I mean, one school, I've been at elementary school, will be at 140% of capacity. That's a huge capacity challenge.

[05:23:05] Could you speak to that, please? The applicant increased the monetary contribution in response to that capacity description that you just shared, and the school board responded that the application was acceptable.

[05:23:27] We're not really sure exactly how they're going to implement that or how they're planning to use the funds that are being provided by the applicant, but there is a substantial monetary contribution that is being proffered by the applicant, and that is within the proffered conditions.

[05:23:53] So $13,153? Yes, sir, that's correct. the final okay thank you supervisor we are you ready madam chair i would simply note that sort of standing on my head in recent months regarding adu proffers and the applicant has uh amended the proffer to meet my satisfaction of not offering it merely for six months on a marketing program but that that six months will not begin until issuance of the uh occupancy permit for that

[05:24:31] for said unit although it's not ideal for me it's what it's the least i'm demanding and i'm happy that the applicant has chosen to uh amend the adu provisions all right thank you we don't have anyone else thus far i just do have one quick question because you're mentioning that bradley square i guess was done in stages after this are there any is there any additional development for that planned for that particular community no ma'am there's no anticipated uh expansion of the project beyond this all right thank you if there's no one else from the dais let's hear from the staff

[05:25:07] good evening chair jefferson uh supervisor's my name is alex venegas from the planning office and cobra was our case planner for this and i'm i will be presenting the staff presentation this evening

[05:25:45] so based on the updated proffers these numbers have changed a little and it's gone down from It is a request to rezone 10.15 acres from A1 Agricultural to Planned Mix Residential to allow for the development of 100 single-family attached residential units.

[05:26:07] That number is inclusive of the affordable units that's part of this application package. The general location is just south of Bradley Square along Dumfries Road on the east side and between the Prince William Parkway and Dumfries Road.

[05:26:25] Staff is recommending approval. In the long-range land use, the comprehensive plan, the area is designated RN3, which has a density of 4 to 12 dwelling units per acre.

[05:26:43] This application is approximately 10 now that they've reduced it to 100, so that's well within the range of the RN3 transect. The property is currently A1, to the north you have R6, and then as Mr. Patrick had explained, the majority of the rest of the Bradley development is PMR.

[05:27:10] Oh, it's also in the Fairgrounds Activity Center. This is the illustrative layout. I won't get into this too much, but actually we got a lot of help from the Commissioner Justice and Vice Chair Brown.

[05:27:29] They actually negotiated it down, but I'm glad to see that Supervisor Vega was able to get a few more off. I think that really helps with the overall view of the development. This is the layout with the different types of units that are within the application.

[05:27:55] This is the buffering and landscaping associated with it. Originally, the application had ingress and egress through Dumfries Road. VDOT did not want that. So instead, they're using a connection through Bradley Manor Place to get access to Dumfries Road.

[05:28:13] And this is the transportation plan associated with the development. As Mr. Patrick had mentioned, they will be providing both a contribution for a potential crosswalk somewhere along the Dumfries Road as you get closer to the interchange and a shared use path as well.

[05:28:36] Staff is recommending approval based on the proffers dated today for the following reasons. It is a, the PMR is consistent, the density is consistent with the RN3 land use designation of the comp plan, and we'll gladly respond to any questions.

[05:29:01] All right, does anyone have any questions? All right, doesn't look like we have any questions for staff. Thank you so very much. So I am now going to open the public hearing for item 13A.

[05:29:19] Do we have anyone signed up to speak? let me just we're gonna we're gonna double check all right so we have no speakers online or in person for item 13a so I will close the public hearing for item 13a supervisor Vega this is your district would you like to make a motion thank you madam chair first off want to thank the applicant for working with my office and I also want to thank Commissioner Justice and her colleagues on the Planning Commission for coming together and working collaboratively to

[05:29:57] put forth a project that we can say we found common ground in so uh with that madam chair i would move rezoning uh 2023-0027 bradley south in the coles magisterial district for approval second i'll go with bailey all right discussion i don't see any so let's go ahead and vote vote unanimous thank you so very much we are now going to move on to item 13b proffer amendment from

[05:30:36] from Manassas Point, P-R-A. I would like to have the applicant come forward.

[05:31:04] - Madam Chair, members of the board, my name is Lee Gleason. I'm a witness attorney with Cooley, excuse me, representing the owner and applicant, Manassas DC operating LLC on this proper amendment application. I have with me this evening my colleague, Mark Looney, our client, Steve Muller, with the owner and applicant.

[05:31:23] I also have representatives of our contract purchaser, Iron Mountain, as well as representatives our civil engineering and traffic engineering teams with us as well to help answer any questions. We're pleased this evening to present to you a proffer amendment application in the Gainesville district west of Bethlehem Road.

[05:31:41] As you can see on this slide, the majority of this site, or all of this site, has already been developed with industrial uses. It is already, or it is largely vacant, so this is an opportunity to redevelop a largely vacant site with a data center development, which comports with the comprehensive plan.

[05:32:00] Our application site, as you can see here, is everything highlighted in pink. It's approximately 40 acres, consisting of three separate parcels, approximately 40 acres in size. Each one of these parcels is zoned to the heavy industrial M1 use, which allows data centers by right, and the data center opportunity zone overlay district.

[05:32:19] There are existing proffers on this parcel here, this parcel here, and oddly enough, small portion of this parcel here so the purpose of this proffer amendment application is to substitute those existing proffers bring them into a cohesive single proffer development and to allow for data centers in accordance with M1 regulations we are requesting a minor height modification with this application the by right maximum height is 75 feet we're requesting a minor modification of three feet from that to a maximum of 78 feet and are capping any

[05:32:52] rooftop equipment at 15 feet on top of that this provides some additional property details for our application development site as I mentioned a large portion of the site is already vacant this parcel here was home to the Hanson concrete manufacturing facility on this as part of this manufacturing facility there's an existing silo tower which sits at 102 and a half feet tall so with our proposed maximum building height of 93 feet inclusive of rooftop equipment we're at a 10 feet below that existing condition with our roof line at 78 feet

[05:33:29] we're at 25 feet below that existing condition this large parcel here was also home to the Allen Meyers asphalt plant special use permit site which was ultimately denied by the board a few years back about 75% 80% of our surrounding site is for like industrial uses there are residential properties to the east here however in the county's comprehensive plan those are planned for industrial supporting uses at OMU too. The entirety of our parcel is within the data center opportunities zone overlay district as well as the entirety of the surrounding parcels as well as everything out to the Bethlehem Road

[05:34:03] right-of-way. This provides some site details as to the vacant manufacturing plant. The manufacturing facility was construction and then constructed in the 1970s so this site's been industrially used and zoned for about 50 or so years.

[05:34:19] The manufacturing facility was ultimately decommissioned in 2008 so so it's been vacant for about 15 or so years. As you can see with these site photographs, it's been largely cleared of any tree cover, graded, covered in gravel, and as you can see, the vacant condition with some of these existing development has led to a rusted, pretty blighted condition, so we're excited about the opportunity to redevelop should this be approved by the board.

[05:34:45] As part of our analysis, we hired a viewshed consultant throughout the rezoning process. This is a drone shot, just confirming that the height of the existing tower is at 102 and a half feet tall. This provides some details as to the Allen Myers Asphalt Plant Special Use Permit.

[05:35:01] It was denied by the board in September 2020, largely due to increased traffic concerns and vehicle traffic on Bethlehem Road and beyond. There was lots of community opposition because of the increased traffic concern as well. So we believe we are really presenting a site that, or a use that's on the opposite end of the spectrum from an M1 perspective, especially with regard to traffic concerns as data centers are minimal traffic producers.

[05:35:27] This provides some existing or some details of the surrounding existing industrial uses. To our north, there's a VDOT Department of Transportation Outdoor Vehicle Storage Facility. To our west is a Waste Management Recycling Center, as well as the Branscombe Asphalt Plant. And then to our south, there's the Norfolk Southern Railroad Tracks, existing power lines which run parallel to the railroad tracks, a battery energy storage facility which was recently approved via PFR.

[05:35:53] And to the south is an existing data center development, Bethlehem Technology Park. In the northeast corner, this site is zoned to M2 and has a site plan approved for M2 uses. And this triangular out lot parcel is not part of our proper amendment application, but has a site plan pending for warehouse uses as well. I believe the last three slides really tell the story with this site. As you can see, again, it's been developed with industrial uses. It's in a heavy industrialized area. Another use has already been presented with this at this property and was found to be and failed due to the traffic concerns to the surrounding community. So again we think a data center application or data center development

[05:36:33] would fit in nicely here without much strain on the surrounding infrastructure. Here's a map of the comprehensive plan just showing that the properties to our east are planned for industrial supporting uses. Essentially the comprehensive plan has Bethlehem Road serve as a bifurcating line between the residential properties to the east, Mullen Elementary School, and then industrial uses to the west side.

[05:37:00] This is the data center opportunity zone overlay map, just showing the entirety of our parcel within the boundaries of the overlay district, as well as the surrounding properties all the way out to the Bethlehem Road right of way. This is the site layout that we've committed to as part of our application. We're committing to substantial conformance with the building orientation, the access points as you see here, as well as the vehicular circulation.

[05:37:21] We've also committed to the location of the substation, which you see here, which we've thoughtfully located away from any residential uses to the east of Bethlehem Road and adjacent to the existing railroad tracks the existing power lines and the battery energy storage facility which will be developed in this location here. This is what we anticipate the final building to look like at full build-out. Iron Mountain has a specific design aesthetic that they use for a lot of their developments here locally so that in conjunction to our commitments and the proffers to minimum building elements, minimum design elements, and earth tone facades this is what we anticipate the building to look like at

[05:37:59] final build-out. This provides some details as to our open space plan as part of our application. We're providing the required 50-foot buffers on the east and southeast corners here with 25 feet of supplemental landscaping behind those areas. We're committing to 15-foot buffers in this northeast location adjacent to industrial uses with 15 feet of supplemental planting behind that location as well. We also have several afforestation areas in this location here.

[05:38:26] this location here, and this location here, with the intent of returning some of the current impervious surfaces to a forested condition. We also have additional landscape open space in this location here and this location here, again to return some of the impervious surfaces to an impervious condition once all is said and done.

[05:38:46] Some additional notable commitments within our application. We did quite a bit of community outreach as part of this process, and one of the main feedbacks we heard was just ensuring that should this be approved, that an asphalt or concrete plant wouldn't be developed. So we've specifically prohibited that use should this application be approved.

[05:39:02] As I mentioned, we've committed to earth-toned facades to the extent anything is visible. We've also committed to minimum design materials and elements. We've committed to screening any visible mechanical equipment, both rooftop and ground level. Through our work with Supervisor Weir's office throughout this process, we've included a proffer to encourage any electric service riders to route the new lines to serve the substations coming from the southwest or northwest of the property.

[05:39:26] We also have noise attenuation commitments, 55 DBA maximum at night, 60 DBA during the daytime hours. That includes our HVAC equipment. And we've also committed to sound studies to ensure compliance with those proffers as well. Not that we anticipate any buildings to operate above those levels, but to the extent they do, we need to do anything and everything to bring them under our maximum committed to levels.

[05:39:47] We also have sustainability measures committed to. Prior to the planning commission, we were committing to a minimum of five of our menu of 20 or so options within the proffer statement. we've increased that commitment to a minimum of eight. We've also conducted a viewshed analysis as part of our application materials.

[05:40:06] The points that you see in red here are the proposed building corner locations. The points that you see in blue are the offsite observation points that we selected. The point being to cast a wide net along the entirety of the Bethlehem Road right of way. Our viewshed analysis revealed that none of our proposed roof lines were above any of the tree lines.

[05:40:23] Our closest building corner location to any of these offsite observation points was over 970 feet away. This point, number two here, is the Multnomah Major School Playground. Our closest building corner location to that is about 1,000 feet away. And then we've also committed to earth tone facades to the extent any buildings are visible through the tree lines.

[05:40:44] After the planning commission, staff requested that we conduct additional viewshed analyses from a few points in the Manassas National Battlefield Park boundaries, Chin Ridge, Matthews Hill, and Henry Hill. As you can see, each of these points is quite a bit away from our application site, The closest being about 1.65 miles away.

[05:41:02] The furthest point being about 2.75 miles away. With I-66 and other industrial development in between. The view set analysis revealed that none of our rooftops were visible from these requested locations. I'll also note that with that existing tower at 102 and a half feet, that was not visible from our location as well as part of the analysis that we conducted.

[05:41:27] I won't go through all of this in detail, but this just provides a detailed kind of outline of the community outreach that we did as part of this application. We met with several of the communities to the east of Bethlehem Road, this apartment building here, this HOA community here, as well as this HOA community here.

[05:41:43] We had individual meetings with the board. Prior to the planning commission in June, we had a community-wide meeting at Millen Elementary School that we sent notices out to the surrounding community as well. Largely the feedback being again, just ensuring that should this be approved, that we weren't gonna propose another asphalt plant concrete plant due to traffic concerns and then just ensuring that we are mitigating any of our data center uses from a viewshed and sound perspective which which we've done in our profit commitments the staff report recommends approval of this application finding it is in comport with eight out of the

[05:42:20] nine relevant sections of the comprehensive plan again this is a fully developed industrial site largely and largely vacant already so we believe this is an opportunity to really reutilize and redevelop a site that's been vacant for quite some years with the data center development that comports with a comprehensive plan.

[05:42:37] And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Supervisor Weir. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm going to apologize to the applicant because she just came to me as I was looking at this for the last time, and I would have one more ask. It's a small one. Yes, sir. As I'm assuming most of the board is aware, we are getting delused with complaints from residents along the Coverstone Corridor.

[05:43:02] I can't think of a good reason for the truck traffic to utilize cover stone from bethlehem but would you consider proffering out cover stone as a truck traffic route for your construction traffic much as was done with uh westbound 55 from the other two yeah can i talk to i don't see a problem with that but i kind of just double check with the

[05:43:28] specifically cover stone from bethlehem to sudley i've got it here on my computer thank you thanks

[05:44:06] for your patience yeah we can commit to that i apologize thanks for your patience so that was from the Culverstone Court, you say? Culverstone Road, Bethlehem to Sudley. It's all I have, Madam Chair.

[05:44:25] All right, Supervisor Gordy. So one of the proffers you have in here is related to construction parking. Thank you for laying that out. Given the fact that this site was previously developed, I assume it's relatively flat and would not require any dirt movement from the site to other locations.

[05:44:46] That's correct. It would be minimal dirt movement, if any, just because of the nature of the existing development already. Okay, thank you very much. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am very glad to see the noise attenuation. That is so very key to our communities, and so we appreciate that.

[05:45:05] Thank you. And what is the square footage from, it looks pretty far, but what's the square footage between the school and where the actual site is? What's the buffer site? I forget. The buffer is about, there's a 50-foot buffer to the adjacent on the east, And then a 25-foot supplemental landscaping behind that.

[05:45:24] So if you take that from the building corner location, subtract 75 feet from 1,000, it's about 900 feet, I would think, from the property line. Okay, that's great. And then the other thing that I want to say is thank you for the aesthetics on the building. It is complementary to the original Iron Mountain building, but it's something that the community had in terms of when data centers come in.

[05:45:50] Yes, 100%. So we appreciate it. Thank you. all right thank you for um taking questions and we'll now invite staff up for their presentation great good evening chair jefferson uh scott meyer the planning office good evening members of the

[05:46:22] board um mr gleason went through a lot of detail but i'm going to kind of add to that um so again this is a proffer amendment the essence of this is to consolidate portions of three previously proffered properties the site is located right here so as stated it's to amend the proffers associated with a three previous rezonings for the purposes of a consolidated campus for the ultimate intent of data center uses also it does give the option for heavy industrial uses as well

[05:47:02] and the property is just shy of 40 acres this is the portion that was the previous alan myers paver site it's also encompassing you know this parcel here there's a small sliver here as well so again all there was a contractor business there was a lawn business landscaping so this is basically superseding and replacing all those with a contiguous consolidated site this most of the site is planned for i3 industrial tech flex again which data centers are they could be among the

[05:47:39] primary uses the eastern portion is office low-rise that's important because to the on the other side of Bethlehem Road we have the school we have residential so if you think of it as you progress from west to east you have that transition so getting a buffer along the portion that transition was very important to staff we've mostly achieved that but I'll get into that so this you've already seen this right here this is in the data center overlay there is a substation that's on the southern portion of the site we'll point out that there are existing wetland features that will be

[05:48:18] disturbed i actually worked on the previous alan myers case about four years ago and there was a lot more forest preservation in avoidance of these wetland areas back then obviously this is a different site they are adding um you know what new forested areas supplemental areas but again this is a this is oriented basically north is to the right but we uh had asked for additional landscaping along the northeastern portion they've done what they could but we feel there could have been a little

[05:48:52] bit more uh towards that endeavor um this is showing again um the uh open space again that we have you know the buffers among the where butts residential areas in the course of school again this is in your staff report as well we have when this went to Planning Commission there was a lot of discussion over a lack of a particular layout we have that layout again we also wanted a specific proffered elevation we have an illustrative which is better but it's not fully what staff

[05:49:31] would have asked for them there is a end-user Iron Mountain that has been disclosed and when we have an end user to allow a height increase staff always prefers to get a specific building elevation we have an illustrative but we don't have a particular elevation which I explained in the staff report so again but this is the layout here which is an improvement from what we did not have before this is for illustrative purposes only it looks great but we don't know for sure if we'll be getting that. Again, when we have a particular end user, we always

[05:50:05] highly prioritize the need to get a specific proffered design, which we feel there are parameters for orienting the building with materials, but we really would have preferred to have a little more additional detail with that. Staff has found this is consistent with all areas of the comprehensive plan except environment. That was an issue before. As I mentioned there is a lack of commitment to specifically proffered building elevations there's also minimum landscaping in the northeastern perimeter but I will say that this is kind of

[05:50:40] interior to the site is surrounded by industrial uses but with the environment we have to look at what the intent of that chapter is and it's about resource protection you know staff would have For this to be fully consistent, we would have preferred to have seen a more robust preservation and restoration of the existing intermittent stream.

[05:51:04] There is a wetland system at the end. Again, it's planned for industrial, but environment still is a no, but all the others on balance are yes. We also asked for additional viewshed photos as well from three sites from the battlefield. We feel that there are mitigated impacts.

[05:51:25] You may be able to see it partially from one of the areas in Matthews Hill, but it's a considerable distance, and we feel that overall we're recommending approval. The Planning Commission recommended approval with five recommendations. That has been incorporated into the application.

[05:51:41] Again, it's proffered. This is consistent with the development for data centers. It's allowing the delivery of a data center campus. We have the height increase. We also had the applicant specifically proffer to a above-mean scene level datum elevation where it's 78 feet plus 15 feet, which is the max for rooftop equipment.

[05:52:06] We gave specific guidance for wanting a benchmark datum, and we have that in the proffers. And there also is an enhanced, we feel, context-sensitive parameters. So with that, in total, we are recommending approval, and I'll be available to answer any questions if needed.

[05:52:23] Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any questions from the dais? All right, Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Scott. Can you, for the facade, can you point to which part of the building would contain that facade?

[05:52:43] As per here? Let me let the applicant explain that because this was for illustrative, and I just want to make sure that I'm describing it properly, in relation to how the footprints will be. Yeah, okay. That elevation would be planned south on this side, so the east of the property, but planned south if you're looking at it from this angle.

[05:53:17] So Bethlehem Road is to the south of the property here, the south of the plan. So it would be planned south on these short sides of the facades facing the Bethlehem Road right-of-way. Thank you.

[05:53:35] Anyone else? All right. Well, we don't have any other questions for staff. Thank you so very much. I am now going to open Agenda Item 13B for public hearing.

[05:53:53] Do we have any speakers signed up in person or online? All right. So we have no one in person, so I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bode. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Vann, shall we begin? Yes, you have one speaker, and that is Rachel Ellis.

[05:54:11] All right, Ms. Ellis, please proceed. Evening. Rachel Ellis, Gainesville District. I'm here to say you can say no. You can say no to more. No to more far, no to more height.

[05:54:30] This is adjacent to homes, to a school, which, by the way, is a Title I school. Noise is still a concern. Diesel generators are a concern. Here's the thing. They can still build. They have parameters to build within. They are asking for more. And I'm telling, I'm asking for this board to actually say no to the data center industry.

[05:54:54] in order for more they're giving buffers and sustainability measures and they should be doing this already to be a good community partner to be an ethical and moral business they should already be doing this without requesting more more means more power we still have a power issue with all of this a majority of the current data centers are sitting empty there's no power there's no customers. So why are we approving or giving more to the data center industry? I have a graphic

[05:55:33] that I'm going to try to see if you guys are going to be able to see it. I don't know. Anyways, you can kind of see Virginia there. It's a different color. And what this graphic is, is 26% of data centers' share of total power consumption is in Virginia. Everything else is less than that. I think North Dakota is 15%, and that's the next highest. And that's not including everything that is under construction or that is already approved and hasn't even begun construction yet. Over one-fourth of the United States' data center power comes from Virginia.

[05:56:14] Like, at some point, we need to say no. And reminder to you guys, guess who's paying for all this infrastructure? Guess who's paying for all this electrical infrastructure for one multi-billion dollar industry. We are. Us in the western part of the county and everybody in the eastern part of the county and everyone else in Virginia. And it's time for us to stop putting the bill. So my request is to vote no. Vote no to more. Stop giving more to the data center industry

[05:56:46] at the expense of residents, our water, our land, our air, our pocketbooks. It's, they can still billed in you know it's kind of like they're asking for minor but in the grand scheme of things it is major when we continue to bend over for them so um thank you for listening and have a good evening thank you miss ellis and his fan to confirm that's the only person we had tonight that's correct thank you for your help as always back to you madam chair all right thank you so very much i am going to close the public hearing for agenda item 13b um supervisor weird this is

[05:57:24] in your district i don't know how you want to handle this if you want to make a motion madam Chair, first I want to thank the applicant because this application is markedly different than it was when it first walked in the door, both in terms of height and everything else, and they have acceded to most of my demands. That being said, if this had been brought forward last June or last July, given the relative minor asks and modifications, I probably would have voted in favor of it grudgingly.

[05:57:59] However, my office is in the process of completing its analysis of data center square footage in the county and the power demand. From a most conservative documented number, we're above 10 million square feet right now of operational.

[05:58:20] When you factor in currently under construction, that number spans beyond what is operational in Loudoun County. And then when you throw in the millions and tens of millions of additional square footage that we've approved but are as yet undeveloped.

[05:58:40] Given where the Commonwealth stands from a power standpoint, given where the data center industry stands in terms of when they're going to be given power, if they're given power, and given that the issue of power, because of locality's approval of such a number of data centers in such a short period of time.

[05:59:10] This is now becoming both a state and a federal issue, and I suspect that our hands, as I mentioned earlier, are going to be tied by our own actions. Since we can't control ourselves, other powers that be will control us.

[05:59:26] For that reason, Madam Chair, as I stated the last couple of weeks, I will initiate nothing that requests anything above buy-write. If anybody else feels like they want to initiate the application, I can't in good conscience make the situation worse.

[05:59:45] I don't believe that approving a single more data center in Prince William County is going to benefit the health safety and welfare of the residents and businesses of this county. So I will simply refuse to move it, Madam Chair.

[06:00:02] Motion to approve, Madam Chair. Second. All right, thank you so much. I will count your comments as a discussion. Bob, Supervisor Weir, I have Supervisor Weir in the queue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[06:00:17] I just want to quickly say we recall the Alan Myers option that we had, but I just bring that up because I want to actually thank Supervisor Weir for the work that he's put in to get it to the place it is today.

[06:00:35] I saw it before, like you, Supervisor Ware, so I just want to commend you on how we've changed how we approve these. I know, Supervisor Vega, you started it with the mid-county and some of those changes in height restrictions and going down and all this. So I think the path of how this is happening is good, and I know there's more work to be done on just making sure we have a complete package of what that should look like.

[06:01:00] So I just want to give you a little shout-out to Supervisor Ware for his work I'm putting this to where it is so thanks Madam Chair. All right I have Supervisor Bailey. Thank you Madam Chair. I too want to compliment my colleague for the hard work that he's done with the client. He and I had an extensive conversation about this project and so Bob I really commend you and I appreciate your thought process about this. We have come a long way and it is

[06:01:34] even to the aesthetics of the building, you know, and really even to talking to the community. And one of the questions I had to the client, you know, what was the negative impact from the community, and you didn't have a lot at all, you know. And I double-checked with my buddy over here.

[06:01:51] So thank you for all that you've done to put this package together. To our staff, we appreciate you. When we were greener than green four years ago, we got in trouble with that other thing. That was going to be there.

[06:02:07] And one of the major questions that I like tonight is when Madam Chair asked, was this, is this, whoever asked, is this flat land? So that inhibited the trucks with the dirt and all that. And so we've learned a lot. And so I appreciate all that participated on this project and for the extensive time that you took in explaining things to us in detail.

[06:02:29] I'm going to give credit to Supervisor Gordy about anything dirt related. I don't have a button. it's not giving me a button to at request to speak so something's definitely going on so gordy okay thank you um i also want to thank uh supervisor weir for all the hard work he's put into this project and i want to thank the applicants for all the work they do um but i also am just as concerned um i've had two very uh two meetings with dominion um and a meeting with

[06:03:02] Novec in the last three weeks, and we have a significant power challenge headed our way. Dominion will be putting forward a new IRP, an integrated resource plan, in the next couple of weeks, and they're literally having to change their approach simply because the way of doing business no longer works, given the significant demands for power, the demands for transmission within this, within the, um, a very small area, uh, in, in, uh, between basically the parkway

[06:03:40] and the airport. So, uh, or the 66 in the airport. Um, uh, I, I am not going to support this, but I, I do appreciate all the hard work that everybody has done on this to mitigate as much as possible through, through the proper process, the impacts of this. Um, but, uh, but, uh, again, I'm just, we're just running out of room for transmission and it's becoming much much more difficult for us to to come up with uh routing um and it's having significant impacts and in in a lot of these cases

[06:04:15] now it's not just they need routing to the substation but now we need reliability we need another routing of power lines to be brought in in order to maintain the reliability of the grid um which is further exacerbating our problems um and so uh again thank you guys for all the hard work that you've done uh but unfortunately on this i'm a no i you know i did have one quick

[06:04:41] question someone had asked um are you guys able to address the power concerns for this so we've had extensive conversations with novec and dominion throughout this process um we um our substation on site is a 300 megawatt substation so far in the process we have um a work plan agreed to with Novak is also my understanding that we've had the equipment ordered already we have the proffer through our work with supervisor

[06:05:17] we are to any additional power lines to serve the existing substation will come from the east side we've heard from Novak and Dominion that that corridor will serve along the corridor where the existing transmissions lines are along the railroad tracks so it won't it would be an easement within that specific corridor so that's kind of the extent of of our conversation so far with power it would be a 300 megawatt substation and we've gotten pretty far along in the process with novek and dominion supervisor weir thank you madam chair i know i've said it before and i'm going to say it again i

[06:05:51] don't much really care what novek says novek's not in the transmission business novek can build all the 300 megawatt substations they want but transmission is delivered by dominion um supervisor Gordy's point you know those corridors are going to be Dominion driven they're going to be SEC driven our hands are tied I don't know how many more times I can say it but you know having the facility and getting the power to the facility are two entirely different things all right thank you all right

[06:06:28] we don't have any more comments so let's go ahead and take a vote can you give me a yes sir no thank you sir motion passes five to three supervisors weir and gordy and chair jefferson voting nay all right thank you so very much we

[06:07:07] are now going to move on to public comment time right now i have one person who has signed up to speak in person um theresa men's would you please theresa men's the potomac district i really feel bad for rachel ellis she was against the data centers i say follow the money and let me tell you know that queen anne's hands are all over it she was on the board need i say any more queen anne

[06:07:46] okay i want to thank law enforcement and first responders for all they do i do not thank the secret service fbi doj etc they allowed a political hit to go against president trump yes i use the word political hit now i need to bring up why i called called out supervisors angry and Bodie, and they are not to be trusted. In the beginning of this Democrat takeover on this

[06:08:21] board, under Queen Anne's dictatorship, you all had an illegal meeting, and it didn't invite the Republicans. That's why it was illegal. You were sued, and Queen Anne allowed our, the citizens, tax dollars to pay for the Democrat supervisor's legal fee, and you dare say you can be objective.

[06:08:46] This is a lie. Your actions proved it. And you've never apologized for using our tax dollars for your self-serving elites. We are in a spiritual war. Good versus evil. Satan never sleeps.

[06:09:02] And you Democrats, you support Satan. Prayer is extremely important. And I tell the people here in America, you better start praying. Because Satan is alive and well and has been under Democratic control. Our Congress, the Democrat Congress, we have terrorists there.

[06:09:22] Check out who's there. And once again, oh, and we'll go to the great thing about my body, my choice, which is all a lie. You only allow us to have a choice when you can butcher babies, okay?

[06:09:42] What about the mandate on the Wuhan virus where you guys demanded that we had to have our shots, okay? You took away our choice. You said, no, you don't have any rights. you have no rights. And you know what? I learned several of you come from the D.C. swamp, and now you've contaminated us. I'm reaching out to you, County Exec Shorter. Please protect Prince William

[06:10:15] County. In turn, by protecting Prince William County, you protect America. America is very important. We must succeed. When America fails under the dictator Democrats, we are all gone.

[06:10:33] So once again, we need you. We need you. All right. Thank you. And we do not have anyone, I believe, online. All right. So we do not have anyone online, so that we are going to now. Move to adjourn.

[06:10:49] Second. I'm just going to sit here for five minutes now. All right. We'll take a vote. I know.

[06:11:06] Thank you, Supervisor 40. Oh, wait. I'm sorry, ma'am. What's wrong? It passed. Yes. We can talk to you after the meeting.

[06:11:23] I apologize. Thank you so much. The meeting is adjourned. - Bob, thank you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com