Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting — Work Session, Tuesday, May 19, 2026

Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 3h 53m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3838
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 2026-10-27. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] a seat it is two o'clock on tuesday may 19th we're going to begin with the moment of silence thank you all rise if you're able for the pledge of allegiance

[00:00:30] all right we are going to begin today's work session with public comment time do we have

[00:00:52] anyone signed up and while i'm waiting for our clerk to come down i just want to let everyone know if you're signed up to speak please begin by stating your first and last name in the magisterial district where you generally reside. Up there on that screen you will see how much time you have. You have three minutes and let us begin. We have Dr. Kimberly, I should know how to say,

[00:01:28] Melman Aronco and Kevin Parker. So if you guys can get in line. All right Dr. Kim you may begin. My name is Dr. Kimberly Melman Aronco. I'm a resident of the Gainesville District.

[00:01:45] I first want to just speak to you all to commend you. This is one of the few bipartisan boards who have chosen to do something together that is meaningful, that is transparent, and you deserve praise for that.

[00:02:02] Specifically, I'm talking about how you recently reduced the Prince William County Schools budget by around $30 million. and you had the school come and explain to you why there was a increase in their budget, but a reduction in registration. I watched the response that you've received from Dr. Barbara Lateef, and that's only part of the truth.

[00:02:23] So let's talk about the whole truth. The reality is one of the things that they didn't talk to you about is the number of complaints against the schools from parents with children with disabilities has skyrocketed. the number of settlements has also gone up. I was one of the parents that they tried to settle with. They offered me $20,000 if I signed an NDA with teeth. They did this after there were multiple Virginia Department of Education findings that they were in violation of the IDEA and the ADA, and specifically one of those letters of findings said that they had a quote-unquote

[00:03:00] fundamental misunderstanding of their roles and responsibilities for students. I am just one parent. After they tried to get me to sign a $20,000 NDA with teeth, they proceeded to spend a half a million dollars litigating against me. And I'm not the only one. I've also served as a pro bono advocate for another parent. I encourage everybody in this audience, everybody watching this video to look up the case of Prince William County Public Schools versus Lasseter. There is now appellate court precedent that names me, Dr. Melman Orozco, as the pro bono advocate for this

[00:03:34] child, not my child, another child. They also spent about a half a million dollars there. In that case, I asked your Prince William County Schools administrators, will you settle? Will you offer even a penny? Will you remediate these failures? They wouldn't offer a penny. In the end, the hearing officer ordered $150,000 of private placement, and now we have appellate court precedent confirming that what happened was right and just. I encourage you to continue your investigation into Prince William County schools. And actually, I would go a little bit further. I'm actually also asking for

[00:04:09] the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and any other federal authority to look into this, because public school districts receiving federal education funds are generally required to provide assurances and certifications that they're complying with federal disability laws, the IDEA and the ADA. Noncompliance and saying that they're compliant when they're not is a big problem. With that being said, the last thing with the 14 seconds I have is you should also look into Wade Anderson, who's the current school board attorney. He is the former employee of where they're spending all these million dollars on law firms. So he's a former employee

[00:04:48] of Sands Anderson, and you should know that. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Can I have the thing here? Hello, my name is Kevin Parker, Neab School District. This bridge here is from the county's documents. It's a pedestrian bridge that's imagined in the Sudley Tap as a

[00:05:28] study that was done for the Sudley Corridor. And you look at this bridge and you're like, wow, that's a great bridge. It's not just only for function. It's something that we could be proud of, something that we could maybe name somebody after. You know, people might want to walk on it just to walk on it. So I'm back today to talk about the North Woodbridge pedestrian bridge because I keep thinking about it and I have more to say about it.

[00:05:55] And it's not just about that bridge. It's about whether the county really believes in walking and transit and, you know, if it's something that we really value or if it's a secondary accommodation for the small number of people that won't drive.

[00:06:13] It looks like it's made so that people, you know, people are thought that they're just supposed to drive over there. But if maybe they're disabled and they can't, well, there is a way. It's like a survival path for an extremely determined pedestrian.

[00:06:34] And this speaks to the county plan as a whole, how we plan to have density in one place and try to prevent sprawl. So this should be relevant to the Western people in the county, too, to have a great piece of infrastructure here.

[00:06:52] It's also a gateway to the county. Like, there's been focus on how the county looks coming in from Route 1. Well, this is how the county looks coming in from rail and as a walker.

[00:07:07] And, you know, cities that value transit know that it's not about just the transit station, it's about how, you know, what it's like, what the whole experience is to get there. I sometimes go to the Potomac Science Center for Civic Association meetings, and I cross this Route 1 going towards Belmont Bay, and it seems to me like I would not go out of my way to go over this.

[00:07:39] I would just risk going the quicker route, which is more dangerous, rather than going up these switchbacks and going all the way over on that way. It doesn't provide a more direct route. So I probably have more ideas here about it, but I really feel like if it goes through the way it is, we are really missing out on an opportunity for not just Woodbridge, but as for the county as a whole.

[00:08:07] Thank you. Thank you so very much. I'm going to Supervisor Angry to see if we have anyone remote. Thank you, Madam Chair. It looks like we have one remote speaker. Good afternoon, Vice Chair. We have no speakers. Thank you. All right.

[00:08:22] Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you so very much to everyone who's come out. We are now going to move on to agenda item number four, and that is county executive time. Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. All right. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, board members. A few items that I want to go over quickly in terms of directives that were issued at our last meeting.

[00:08:41] One county staff was directed to review the Coles District proffer funds to determine if it was appropriate to use the funding to fund the wells of the Cline rezoning. The directive was assigned to our Department of Public Works and the county attorney's office.

[00:08:57] County staff was also directed to live stream the board meetings. This directive was assigned to our Office of Communications and Engagement. And then finally, the county staff was directed to schedule a public hearing on June 2, 2026 for the board to consider conveying a permanent sewer easement across county-owned property to extend public sewer to the Bristol Manor community to address issues with the community's existing sewage disposal system.

[00:09:26] This directive was assigned to our Department of Public Works. There were no directives closed. I did send a memo to the board over the weekend, the FY26 third quarter revenue and expenditure report. This is in accordance with our principals of sound financial management.

[00:09:43] Happy to answer any questions always or direct questions to Leslie Weldon as they come up. Wanted to acknowledge, Madam Chair, that we had our fifth career expo last week. Over 600 came out.

[00:09:59] This is a testament, really, to our HR team. Twenty-three different departments participated. Forty on-site interviews were held at the session. Seven information sessions were hosted with nearly 250 attendees.

[00:10:16] Really just want to give a major shout-out and acknowledgement to our HR team for creating what has now become an event that has grown in its importance. And so I just really wanted to acknowledge all of the great work that the HR team is doing with the Career Expo and all of the folks who have been helped.

[00:10:36] And then finally, Madam Chair, I wanted to just remind that the county's Memorial Day ceremony is this afternoon at 530, right out in our plaza, and all are welcome to join. Thank you. Supervisor Gordy. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:10:53] Mr. Shorter, when we were going through our budget deliberations, we often referred to the need to meet with the school system to discuss the revenue sharing agreement. Has there been any outreach to them to look at a potential discussion?

[00:11:09] And we talked about the need to do it sooner rather than later. Has there been any outreach, or do you need a directive from us in order to begin that discussion? I certainly don't need a directive. I don't believe we've started to schedule what was typically our fall engagement with the school board around our legislative priorities.

[00:11:33] Because you've said this today, what I will do is work with the clerk's office and with Nikki and communications to begin to sort of schedule those out earlier on. If there's an opportunity, or let me say it this way, if board members would want to see meetings organized, for example, around our Finance and Budget Committee or some other format, then yes, it would be helpful to know.

[00:12:01] Not necessarily via directive, but just a phone call or an email so that I'm aware of what the desire is, and I'll work across the board and with the chair to make sure that we schedule them. Okay. Thank you. So, yeah, I think if we could, you know, begin that in the Budget and Finance Committee, that's my position on this.

[00:12:21] And if my colleagues agree, you know, that's something I think we should prioritize, you know, for our next budget meeting. Thank you, Ms. Shorter. All right, thank you. Supervisor LaCroix?

[00:12:34] I just wanted to remind Mr. Shorter that last week we talked about, which piggybacks with what Mr. Brody has just said, that you and I talked about, I mean Gordy, sorry, you and I talked about if there is major pushback of any kind with the school board or what have you, that we would talk about what percentage of the budget on the top would come off the top

[00:13:11] to give back to the residents or to focus towards the residents and maybe a tax cut or something like that so that there's no surprise next year. Is that something we would do in the finance? Well, as we start to have conversations about the FY28 budget, What I want to do is really work through a process with the board, and whether it's at the committee level or at the board level, be organized in our approach in terms of how we communicate with the school board.

[00:13:44] So happy to, Madam Chair, if there is. I am sorry. We have Coya stands because we're talking a lot about the school. So, wait, hold on. I'm going to go angry first. It's always voting first. Go angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, before the board considers and discusses issues related to Princeton County schools, I need to declare a personal interest in this matter.

[00:14:02] My wife is employed by the schools. As a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these matters. I will be participating in these matters because I am able to do so fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:14:18] Before the board considers and discusses issues related to the Prince William County Schools, I need to declare a personal interest in this matter. My wife is employed by the schools. As a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these matters. I'll be participating in these matters because I'm able to do so fairly objectively in the public interest.

[00:14:33] Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you. I'm sorry that we need to get those statements out the way. Mr. Shorty, may continue? Yes. What I'll recommend is this and suggest is that what we can maybe do at the Budget and Finance Committee meeting is just have a conversation as a committee about what you all would like to see in terms of our engagement with the schools, And then we can go forward from there versus me reaching out to them ahead of that.

[00:15:02] But what I want to make sure is I don't care about the schools as much. I mean, I love the schools, but I don't care about taking away from the schools as much as I want to make sure that we contemplate a tax break for the citizens so we can finally do what we said we were going to do years ago and every year since to make sure we give a tax break.

[00:15:24] So can that be kind of wedged in there somehow? So wait, I'm going to jump in because that's a policy decision of the board. Yeah, I'd like the board to discuss it. So we're going to discuss that. It sounds like in our next June 9th, it's going to be in our June 9th Finance and Budget Committee meeting.

[00:15:40] We'll have a discussion of the board. So generally we discuss things as a board before we direct or instruct staff to go off and do something. So Kenny has said he is the chair of that committee. I don't think you've been on a meeting for that yet. All right, so he is going to, he works with Chris Shorter to put out the agenda, and that will be a discussion as part of that committee.

[00:16:01] Perfect, as long as it's not lost. Thank you. Absolutely. All right, anyone else? Do you have anything else, Mr. Shorter? No, nothing else. All right, we are going on to agenda item number five. That is county attorney time. Madam County Attorney, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board.

[00:16:18] This afternoon in closed session, we will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding legal advice and personnel discussion regarding the following pending internal audits on debt capacity assessment, IT seat management fees phase one, and IT seat management fees external entities, where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the litigating posture, bargaining position, or negotiating strategy of the public body.

[00:16:42] And there will be consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to the discussion or consideration of the disposition of publicly held real property, along with the consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding probable litigation in the Dominion Energy Morrisville to Wishing Star 500 and 230 kilovolt project, along with the accompanying consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel pertaining to land use and energy regulatory law, where such consultation, discussion, or briefing at an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position, negotiating strategy, or litigating posture of the public body. These items are appropriate for closed

[00:17:22] session pursuant to 2.2-3711 A137 and 8 of the Virginia code. So moved. Second. It's been properly moved and seconded. Gordie Bailey and let's go ahead and take our vote. All right thank you. I just

[00:17:55] want to note as people can see under agency time that the public facility review for the Novak Diamond Hill substation has been remanded back to planning commission for them to properly notice and to hear that meeting. So with that, we are going to move on to our work session.

[00:18:12] Mr. Shorter, if you can go ahead and tee that up for us. All right. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I had an opportunity to hear, really, from this multi-agency group just a few months ago, this presentation, and am excited to have you all hear it and maybe ask some questions as well, really focused on reducing over-incarceration of folks with mental illness.

[00:18:37] So this was a partnership with ADC, Community Services, and there are a number of other agencies that were involved. So I'm going to kick it over to Dr. Goswell from our Community Services Department. Good afternoon, Chair Jefferson, members of the board, Ms. County Attorney, and Mr. Shorter.

[00:19:16] We want to thank you for inviting us here this afternoon to talk about the Stepping Up Initiative. I'm joined by Deputy Director Maureen Anderson with the Criminal Justice Services and Major Robert Dickinson from the Adult Detention Center. Today we're going to talk to you about the Stepping Up initiative.

[00:19:36] We will review the opportunity and problem as well as the goals and objectives of Stepping Up. We will discuss the value in bringing Stepping Up to Prince William County, and we will share an example of the impact of the work. We're going to review a timeline of all the efforts that the county partners have engaged in over the past decade and more.

[00:19:56] and then we would love to entertain a discussion and questions from you all. Here we are identifying some of the county agency partners and key community stakeholders who have worked together through the past years.

[00:20:13] Stepping Up was launched in 2015 as a national movement and a call to action. The initiative was a collaborative effort between the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the National Association of Counties, and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation.

[00:20:29] The goal was to develop a data-driven framework designed to reduce the over-representation of people with mental illness in jails. We have worked with these agency partners and community stakeholders towards that very effort. Stepping Up is a data-driven framework that assists counties through training, resources, and supports that are tailored to the local needs. It requires cross-agency collaboration, as you saw in the previous slide, with the county partnerships and key stakeholders, as well as leadership support at all levels up through the County Board of

[00:21:07] Supervisors. In terms of the national landscape, there are 583 counties that are currently stepping up to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jails. Virginia has four stepping up counties, Arlington, Loudoun, Rockingham, and Fairfax, and Maryland currently has five stepping up counties. This map is a graphic image of the stepping up counties currently in the country.

[00:21:45] In addition to the 583 shown here, 51 of them are also recognized as innovator counties. This means that the county has demonstrated the capacity to accurately identify people in the jails who have mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Those counties are able to collect and share data on these individuals to better connect them to treatment and services, and they use that data to inform their local policies and practices. Innovator counties also provide mentorship to other counties who are working towards stepping up. All right, good afternoon board. How's everyone doing?

[00:22:24] All right, so why are we doing this? Fun with numbers. Let's do some data. Approximately two million times each year, people who have serious mental illnesses are admitted to jails across the nation. Almost three quarters of these adults also have substance use disorders. Once incarcerated, individuals with mental illnesses tend to stay longer in jail and upon release are at a higher risk of returning to incarceration than people without these illnesses. So what does that mean here in Prince William? What does that mean for our local jail? So locally at the ADC, we use a validated mental health screening tool, which is applied to everyone committed to our jail.

[00:23:02] Essentially, it's a series of eight questions. As you can see, our total commitments are trending down from a high of 8,039 in 2023 to 7,272 in 2025. The validated mental health screening tool triggers the referral to ADC Mental Health for further assessment. Although the number of total commits are declining, we are still seeing a consistent year-over-year referral to ADC Mental health of over 800 per year. Why? What we're seeing, we see this as being the results of

[00:23:37] increased training and awareness on the part of our staff. More ADC staff are participating in specialized training, such as CIT. We even have a session that started this week. And the willingness of our incarcerated population to speak about their struggles with mental health. So some of that stigma is starting to decline. So what value is there for Prince William County? As it says, this framework is designed to meet counties where they are. It is flexible and allows for best practices for our locality. Using cross-systems collaboration and community-based services and

[00:24:14] supports, we can offer the best treatment during incarceration and provide a better transition from incarceration to the community. That previous slide, as we were showing a lot of data, what that works out to is roughly 20 people every single day are committed to our jail. And the inverse is true. Our average, we're releasing about 20 folks every single day back into Prince William County. The jail mental health team routinely communicates with the CSB to ensure continuity of care. We have developed a great relationship with George Mason University to help

[00:24:49] people with substance use disorders transition to a MAP program in the community. The ADC holds resource fairs. Our next one's this coming Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. You're all invited to connect incarcerated population with practical resources in the community.

[00:25:06] For this upcoming resource fair, we already have over 45 different organizations that have committed to represent. Many of these resources will not only help the inmates, but also aid their families while that person is incarcerated. As previously mentioned, this is a nationwide initiative, So participation will place Prince William on the national stage in terms of accountability and leadership.

[00:25:31] Let's make that map just a little bit more green, right? All right, these are our goals, or what we call our four key measures. It ensures the best outcome before, during, and after incarceration. So at the ADC, we don't start with the first one.

[00:25:47] We're going to start with the second objective. The ADC mental health and classification teams, along with our stakeholders in the community, strive to offer the best programs to give people the tools they need to be successful. We have nearly 200 volunteers and 80 active programs to include a recently implemented art wellness program. People at Prince William County are probably the most generous with their time, almost 200 volunteers. That's amazing. So far this fiscal year, our volunteers have given over 1,500 hours of service. Our GED program has seen nine graduates during the current fiscal year.

[00:26:25] These increased treatment connections lead to better outcomes and a reduced amount of time spent in jail. When individuals are better prepared for life after incarceration, recidivism is reduced, and by default, there is a reduction in the number of people with mental illnesses booked into jail.

[00:26:45] All right, now re-entry center. I know many of you have toured the ADC. That's usually one of the last stops. You're always welcome to come by and see that again. The ADC re-entry center is another example the work we do. Opening in February 2024, the center is strategically located just outside of our release area. We understand that citizens returning to the community after incarceration face many challenges, and this center is designed to meet people where they are, learn what those challenges are, and provide access to services. Many of the top services

[00:27:19] requested are basic life necessities, food, clothing, transportation. The center is staffed by several of our agency partners and key stakeholders to include our peers. So thank you to CS and George Mason for providing those peers to us.

[00:27:35] We have success using the peers because of those lived experiences, makes it easier to connect with individuals being released. And it's slightly more than two years in existence. This center has had an amazing impact on individuals returning to the community.

[00:27:51] And for these efforts, we received a 2025 VACO Award as recognition. As someone that's in the audience once said, it's a small office, but it's a powerful office as well. I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Goswell as she shows you the roadmap, where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.

[00:28:11] Thank you, Major Dickinson. So this is a timeline of all the actions taken in Prince William County, which started in 2009. As you look through the timeline, I'd like to highlight a few key actions.

[00:28:27] I'm going to start with 2013 and 2024. In 2013, we started sending our law enforcement officers out of the county for crisis intervention training. As Major Dickinson mentioned, there's actually a training happening today.

[00:28:44] CIT-trained officers are law enforcement personnel who are specially trained to respond to incidents involving individuals experiencing mental health or behavioral health crisis. They use de-escalation skills, active listening to ensure safety and to reduce the need of force, and they try to connect individuals with treatment rather than jail when appropriate.

[00:29:05] The other actions I would like to highlight are our specialty dockets. In 2019, the county established its Veterans Treatment Docket. To date, we have served 61 veterans with 44 graduating from the program, and recently the docket recognized six graduates from that program, highlighting its continued success.

[00:29:30] Looking ahead to fall of this year, we are hoping to have established the county's behavioral health docket. This docket would be designed to reduce recidivism and improve public safety by diverting individuals with mental illnesses or substance use disorders away from traditional jail settings and into supervised community-based treatments. The final action I would like to talk about is September 2025. Last year, the county opened its crisis receiving center. This is a remarkable

[00:30:02] complex that serves individuals 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is a walk-in facility which offers immediate intensive mental health and substance use care for adults and youth ages 12 and over. The facility has 23 observation chairs and a crisis stabilization unit which serves as an alternate to emergency rooms and jails.

[00:30:27] When asked about some numbers, I was told that when comparing a five-month period before the CRC opened and the same five-month period after it opened, that we had saved over 5,000 police hours on mental health calls.

[00:30:43] Again, this is highlighting our continued commitment to people with mental illness in the county and the remarkable complex of the Crisis Receiving Center. And with that, we want to thank you again and welcome any questions or discussion you may want.

[00:31:02] Thank you so very much. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, thank you all so much for being here today. I see many familiar faces. It's nice to see you in chambers, not just over in our meetings at the ADC. Certainly want to thank also our law enforcement officers for all of the work that they do.

[00:31:20] I want us to go to slide number 10, if we could, for just a moment, because I think this slide is extremely important, if not probably the most important slide in the entire presentation, and this is why. You know, I think that we should all feel very proud of not just serving the citizens of Prince William County, but being in a position to look at how far we have come.

[00:31:45] And I say that because this slide illustrates that for nearly two decades, for nearly two decades, Prince William County has been leading. And while I understand that this is a national framework, You know, the work, the dedication of people in this county is represented through this slide.

[00:32:04] And, you know, it leads me to the next series of questions that I am going to have because we clearly have a system that is working here in Prince William County. I would, you know, argue and call it a homegrown system, one that, you know, came to be because of the needs and the necessities that, you know, we saw and that we took.

[00:32:23] And when I say we, I mean collectively, everybody, not we as a board, but we. You know, there was a need, and, you know, folks stepped up to the plate, you know, brought forth solutions, and we're here today. And so my question is more centered around why the need to implement a national framework when we already have data that shows that what we've done on our own at the local level is working.

[00:32:46] What gaps are we looking to fill, or what gaps are we not filling, that only this national framework would get us to fill? I'll try to answer that. Thank you for that question. member Vega. The stepping up framework has, in a sense, guided us through this work, starting with the first sequential intercept mapping. So the system looks at how do your individuals with mental illnesses move through the criminal justice system, and then what might

[00:33:20] be needed to continue helping them divert into treatment instead of jails. The value of bringing it to stepping up is that it continues to help us and push us forward. For example, moving into the fall of 2026 with a behavioral health docket, we will continue our cross collaboration. We will be reporting out annually to our stakeholders if we become a stepping up county. And it again, as Major Dickinson said, it puts us on the national stage. Thank you. And I know that we're not, I asked to chair, we're not being asked to make any decisions here today, but I do think that

[00:33:58] it's important for us to consider as we continue to have these conversations with what's being proposed here I like to be in control of how we do things and I understand that sometimes when we enter into certain agreements or when we enter into certain partnerships that may come with strings that perhaps may limit the work that we've done thus far and where we want to go and I'm just proud that we continue to address the needs that we have here in Prince William County and while I appreciate national trends my focus is always going to be laser focused on what the needs of Prince William County residents are.

[00:34:31] And then the other question that I did have is the question comes from slide nine. And this is where we talk about the ADC re-entry center. I see that the top five highly needed services listed are clothing, food, phone calls, and transportation.

[00:34:52] You know, I don't know that we would say necessarily that that is somehow, you know, connected or a specialized need that falls under the clinical mental health diversion programs that we're seeking.

[00:35:09] And so have we shared this information with social services, other community partners, that this is their bread and butter to see how we can perhaps bridge that gap and those needs to ensure that we're getting folks who are reentering into our community the items listed here?

[00:35:26] Have we had those conversations? And if so, what has that looked like and what has come about them? Yeah, so I know with some of the other community partners, we have had conversations with, for instance, CS to continue certain treatments, you know, upon release.

[00:35:43] You know, again, George Mason has been a great partner with that as well. When we identify the needs, so this is just data collecting, a local food bank essentially opened the doors to us. You know, we found that food insecurity was pretty big. For transportation, we have reached out to different partners for that as well.

[00:36:05] So, yeah, we are getting everyone to the table as much as possible. I would like to add that, you know, when you look at those things, they seem pretty basic. But what we know is when individuals' basic needs aren't met, they can't possibly engage in treatment or recovery.

[00:36:23] So these aspects are actually very important to the mission. Understood. And thank you for that. You know, I always like to be efficient and where possible avoid redundancy. And so if we already have a system that's working, you know, perhaps a phone call or a gentle reminder of some sort can help us get these essential items to folks that need it.

[00:36:45] And so, again, just want to thank you all for the presentation and for the hard work that you do. That's all I have for now, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. Thank you so very much. I just had a quick question. I think it was slide four. You mentioned that Fairfax is an innovator county. What does that mean? Innovator counties are counties that are already demonstrating the capacity to identify their people in the jails that have mental health issues.

[00:37:10] They're able to connect them to treatment. They collect and share the data. Essentially, we're already doing that here in Prince William County. They are able to provide technical assistance. So it's one level above a stepping up county.

[00:37:28] All right, thank you. And you're saying we're already there or we're almost there? We're there. We're almost there. We're almost there. All right. Thank you so very much. And I guess what more do you need for us to become, get to that level? I think probably if we become a stepping up county after the first year when we are able to do an annual report out and kind of package everything that we're doing and share it with all of our stakeholders, we could probably at that point apply to be an innovator county.

[00:37:57] And what is the process for us to even become a stepping up? I mean, like what is it more, again, we need to do to get to that hurdle? So, Madam Chair, members of the board, next, your next board meeting, June 2nd, there will be an item on the agenda related to the Stepping Up Initiative where the board will have an opportunity on consent to approve or not the Stepping Up Initiative.

[00:38:21] All right. Hold on. I'm going to get to more people, then I'll come back to you. Supervisor Stewart. Thank you very much for your presentation and for everything that's there. I want to kind of step back and take a look at this from a 90,000-foot view and kind of keeping in line with what Supervisor Vega said about Prince William County specifically, because we are a county where nationwide minorities are actually the majority, all right?

[00:38:55] And when you look at the criminal legal system and how it disproportionately impacts individuals with mental illness, it also impacts individuals in minority groups, black, Latino, and indigenous populations. So the racial equities in the criminal legal system are well documented.

[00:39:16] But what are we also doing to, with your program, with Stepping Up, what further upstream actions can be deployed to mitigate mental illness issues, especially in minority communities, before someone has brushes with law enforcement to begin with?

[00:39:37] That's a great question. We've all been thinking about that through the past 20 years or more. I think that's why a lot of us enter this field. One thing that we're doing in Prince William County, again, it kind of started with the sequential intercept map, is we at Intercept Zero deploy co-responder units.

[00:39:58] When people call in that their loved one is having a crisis, we send mental health therapists along with the police and try at that point to divert them into treatment instead of sending them to jail. So those are some of the initiatives that, if I could go to the timeline slide, that we have been working on all these years.

[00:40:20] The evidence-based decision-making is another one. I haven't personally been part of that group, but that group uses data, locally driven data, national trends, to determine policies and actions that we take here in Prince William County to help people not be placed in jail when they have mental illness and substance use issues.

[00:40:44] How successful has that been? Do you have data around that? I don't have it here with me today, but I'm positive that I could get that for you, that the evidence they meet, I think, probably monthly or quarterly, and we could share information with you about that.

[00:41:03] All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Sarah. Supervisor Ingrid. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, they say with age comes knowledge, And with knowledge, hopefully, comes wisdom. I say the hopefully part. I think it's important for you all to, in this presentation, tell the story of how we got here.

[00:41:23] And so I just want to say, you know, and I'll just be blunt, America did a horrible job in dealing with our folks with disabilities or mental illnesses. And, you know, if we recall, I was 68, baby.

[00:41:40] So, you know, when we started that trend and we had this thing called asylums and, you know, we were treating people, those things that happened in there were horrible. But what we did when we closed them down is to literally release people back to the streets and to America.

[00:41:56] And we have done nothing well since then. I could even just use the 80s and say 46 years later, you saying stepping up now and where we are across the nation trying to do this is a huge step. the fact that we should have addressed this a long time ago so I just I think it's important to talk about how we got here and in the history of what we're doing here why this is so relevant my only question or concern it's not a concern but I think where we are I'm always talking about proactive and reactiveness and what we're doing now is more reactiveness because we're trying to

[00:42:31] deal with folks like in the system and I think you know I hadn't seen in there but they're the proactive part of this and what can we do to really recognize a lot of what we have in our population of citizens and I want to just go kind of one step further because as a 68 baby in the 80s being my teenage years you know we had this pandemic that ran through called crack cocaine and I just want to be real about it because we had a lot of births that happened after that and what we're dealing with now is just really a compounding issue of a lot of issues upon issues doesn't make these children or these folks bad people it just means we should have we should be

[00:43:09] addressing what you're doing here now and I like that this is a national program because whatever we're doing whatever Fairfax is doing whatever Loudon is doing whatever Orlando Florida is doing which is where I'm from this needs to be spread throughout every county city town and the nation so that we can actually get back to what we were attempting to do in the early days which is take care of our most vulnerable so not a question just a statement but thank you very much for what you're doing all right supervisor bailey thank you madam chair um victor is a disney baby

[00:43:47] um i just want to uh first of all i want to just thank um your agency for the exceptional work that you're doing um i did visit the facility and it is exceptional and it is different and it is a template of as supervisor vega was saying that we should take our show on the road and and we're setting the tone i applaud you for understanding the need and being one of the stakeholders for the crc as the board was bringing that along and understanding the importance of that partnering

[00:44:23] with your agency and please bring back the data to us to show us what that looks like because as we go forward with that mental health mental illness cannot be swept under the rug anymore since COVID and it's not a popular thing to talk about but it's a necessary thing the word recidivism has been swept under the rug also nobody wanted to say the word back in the 80s and the 90s but now we're saying the word because it's essential that we heal the word and so um With that, my question, this is the simple question I have.

[00:45:00] What is MAT, MAT Services? Medicated Assistant Treatment. Okay, okay. That's what I thought it was, but I didn't want to assume, you know. But with that, you know, it is very, very important when you do your next presentation that you are very specific about what the needs are in that.

[00:45:18] And just saving lives to assure that we have a stronger Prince William is very, very important. So I applaud you for the work that you're doing, the intentional work that you're doing. And please, you know, the CRC is something that the board, you know, it's a gift that keeps on giving.

[00:45:41] And we can't let that be anything but the gift that keeps on giving for the least of these. So just thank you. Thank you. All right, Supervisor Bode. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation, all the work that's been done.

[00:45:58] I see Dr. Yassine and Superintendent West out there. I see Chief LaBelle. I see Captain Castillo hiding over in the corner. So similar to what Supervisor Vega was saying, it's great to see so many folks that are part of that continuum of work sitting together sometimes literally in this room right now to talk about that because this is an all-hands-on-deck kind of initiative, and I appreciate the leadership by all the members of staff and, of course, the county exec on bringing that home.

[00:46:24] A couple of things that will echo, especially what Supervisor Angry was saying, When I moved here around 2015, and this is not just a Princeton County issue, but I heard it a lot when I first moved here, is that in many cases, folks' first ability to access mental health services is when they went to jail.

[00:46:45] I'm just going to say it. To me, that was just an idea, and there was perception, and that was reality for a lot of folks. But it was also a symptom of a much larger challenge that, frankly, as Suarez of Vegas said, we've been endeavoring us as a board, community partners, staff, everyone has been trying to tackle now for the better part of two decades, like Suarez of Vegas said.

[00:47:07] But, again, just this idea that in order to actually get the treatment folks needed, the help they should have gotten a long time ago, they had to interact with the criminal justice system. And so I'm glad that we're making headways there. I guess my question, if you go back to slide three, that's your agency partners, your key stakeholders slide.

[00:47:30] And my colleagues will likely not be surprised when I ask this. Where is the school system and the JDC in all this, and how do they fit in this continuum? So I can speak to the school system.

[00:47:45] So the school system is heavily involved in a lot of the programs we do. For instance, our GED class, that would go through the school system. So I mean, more broadly, we know that there are a lot of juveniles, and that's why I also mentioned the JDC, juveniles are just as prone to mental health.

[00:48:03] And frankly, right now, the Kermit client probably more prone to mental health issues than adults are in many cases. And so to me, if we're talking about really stepping up and becoming innovators and all the nomenclature you want to talk about, to me, a missing piece here is the juvenile aspect of us and children.

[00:48:20] Because if folks are already struggling as a juvenile, they're not getting the help they need they go in the jdc they may not be getting the help they need in the jdc i know that we've been making a lot of of head roads headways on that with with the the office of juvenile services what have you but if we're not really looking at it from that far back in someone's history we're setting ourselves up to then have to deal with it retroactively as opposed to proactively so just wanted to hear if you all had any thoughts about engaging the school system from that regard and the JDC as well well with regard to the JDC and the schools and the youth that

[00:48:53] end up in the juvenile detention center those individuals and those families do benefit from some of the um if I could go ahead for a moment some of the initiatives here like the CIT trained officers like Marcus Alert um I recently went on the Stepping Up website and they are now launching a national youth stepping up initiative so that's coming um we should and if we become a stepping up county we we can include the juvenile detention centers and some of our meetings we've kind of

[00:49:31] focused on adults but of course the crisis receiving center also serves youth ages 12 and up so there are aspects here although we didn't mention it specifically where youth and their families are getting the support that they need. I appreciate that. And I guess my other sort of main question is, if we do become a stepping up community and hopefully eventually an innovator community, what resources do we get from the stepping up framework nationally? You mentioned technical assistance earlier, those types of things. Can you be a little more specific about what we get from that nationwide framework to help our folks in Prince William County?

[00:50:10] The framework is really just telling us to continue to use your shared definition of serious mental illness. It's telling us to collect the data of all the people entering our jails with mental illness. So, you know, if flashing ahead, you know, we might do that for the juveniles as well. We continue to report it out and share it. Specifically, we could serve as guest speakers and people could come here and talk about stepping up. So it's kind of soft things. It's not something necessarily specific but we benefit from the framework overall okay thank you you're welcome

[00:50:46] thank you so very much supervisor gordy thank you madam chair i thank you for this presentation and all the work you guys are doing on this just my questions kind of try to understand how much of this overlaps with homelessness within the county when we take a look at our homeless population we just had the report from cog last week unfortunately i've not been able to dig into it but the last couple of years, about half of our homeless were people who were mentally or fighting and or fighting substance abuse issues. And they typically were the chronically homeless. So what do you see

[00:51:26] in terms of overlap between that population and the population that you're seeing? And what are the kind of infractions that they're that that may be that you're seeing that's leading them to be incarcerated yeah i mean i think it definitely goes hand in hand um you know the the infractions sometimes we're seeing the the trespassing you know some of the breaking and entering things like that um our population um at the adc definitely goes up um during during the more winter months the the colder months um you know uh several of our inmates have have told me anecdotal stories

[00:52:04] about um you know spending time at various shelters and and for a lot of folks jail is safe you know they're they're guaranteed meals it's safe it's warm yeah it's kind of what they know yeah um so i would absolutely agree um you know the the homelessness is definitely hand in hand in this situation so so kind of looking at it from you know in that context um and and sort of getting as as folks have heard me use this term getting left of boom right how do we how do we get ahead of them the incarceration how do we get ahead of this and and so i think this is something

[00:52:41] that, you know, it's not just about what we do once they're in the facility, but what are the things that we can, you know, the prevention side. And it sounds like this is probably something we need to be looking at, you know, particularly in times of the year where we see this spike within this population.

[00:53:00] So I think in terms of a data point, that's incredible data right there. That tells us where to really, you know, target some effort towards supporting this effort, you know, within that scope and that context. And then going back to your slide where you provided the five areas, and when I visited the ADC and saw the reentry program, I mean, that was just phenomenal, just fantastic.

[00:53:30] But in that list, I don't, you know, in terms of housing, what is the effort at trying to, because one of the interesting things as well about the pit count is, if I remember, somewhere in that 13 to 15 percent are people who have been just either, just gotten out of foster care or out of incarceration, and they just haven't found a place to live yet.

[00:53:58] And so ensuring, you know, again, we want to make sure that they are getting out of out the door on the right foot and into a place rather than going back into the environment in which probably led them to be incarcerated to begin with. So how are we helping them on the housing side as part of that reentry program?

[00:54:20] Yeah. So it's again, it's no secret. Housing definitely continues to be a big issue. Again, we have stories where we've, um, we've helped folks out kind of temporarily through the weekend. Um, we had one gentleman was released, um, severely mentally ill. He's also deaf and mute. Um, we did get him a place for the weekend, a hotel. Um, and that's really kind of what the mission of the re-entry center is, is to get them to those further services. Um, you know, it, it just kind of bridges that gap between incarceration and community is what our attempt is.

[00:54:59] We also will continue to partner. The community services has several programs, not particularly homeless programs, but they are geared at reaching out and engaging people who are unhoused. So we have the PATH program. We have a relatively new program, Critical Time Intervention, which really looks at people who are coming out of the hospitals or jails and tries to work with them, getting them housed, getting them case management services around their chronic homelessness.

[00:55:29] So we will continue to partner and share this information with the larger stakeholders. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Jefferson Vice Chair, members of the board, Phyllis Jennings-Holt, Director of Social Services.

[00:55:48] And as you were sharing information, your question regarding individuals that are coming out of the ADC and not going back to being homeless, we do have a moa with the office of criminal justice services um there's a limited beds but we do work with them and there's a space available for them to come into the shelter to be assigned a case manager to work towards permanent housing also there was a question regarding food assistance and so i know in reference to dss we do have a worker that is

[00:56:26] assigned to the ADC to help process SNAP applications so that individuals can get SNAP benefits if eligible, so they will have food when they return to the community. Thank you so much for that.

[00:56:43] Thank you so much. Sorry to put you to work. That was a great line of questioning. Supervisor LaCroix. Thank you so much for everything you've done in this presentation. It was wonderful, and And actually, I was a court reporter for 30 years.

[00:57:00] So I've seen this county grow in leaps and bounds with the criminal justice system and the courthouse. And, you know, it was a wonderful thing to see the mental docket. It was a different experience, and I was there many times being a court reporter.

[00:57:23] But, Phyllis, can you come back up? So one of the biggest concerns that I have throughout, you know, all of Northern Virginia and what have you, and I'm in Woodbridge particularly, where I do get to see a lot of people that are mentally ill and not necessarily just drug addicted or alcohol addicted.

[00:57:46] And my question to you is, unfortunately, a lot of times when people are really mentally unstable, medication is the answer. And I do know that you have a jail system where they do get evaluated by a doctor and get medication.

[00:58:07] But the problem with people that are medicated is oftentimes they go off their medication. And then they're back on the street without their medication. So I've got a couple of questions for you. First of all, do you have a place? I know we have Gander Mountain for people that are drug addicted.

[00:58:26] But do we have a place, well, Phyllis, just stay up here. This isn't actually for you yet. Do we have a place in the general population where people that are mentally unstable but not necessarily addicted will be separated from the other inmates?

[00:58:43] Because lots of times that puts the inmates in danger. Sure. So what we use is objective jail classification. So mental illness alone would not be a reason to segregate someone. You know, if the person, you know, everyone's treatment is going to be different, you know, that medicated assistance treatment medication may be the answer, but it's not always the answer.

[00:59:09] But, again, the mental health piece alone would not be a reason to keep someone from general population. Do we have a sister program where we have a mental facility that if you find that they actually are, that they will be transferred to?

[00:59:24] Or is that a judge order? Sure. So if we in the jail, we can do a temporary detention order to a mental health facility. If the person maybe lacks capacity to care for oneself, if the person is actively a danger to themself or someone else, at that point we could petition for a temporary detention order.

[00:59:45] Typically our facility uses Western State Mental Hospital. So that does happen in practice as well. Okay. And then afterwards, Phyllis, so when the patient is, well, not patient, but when the person who is mentally unstable is released or drug addicted is released, is there a follow-up program?

[01:00:08] I know there's probation, but is there a follow-up program that ensures that they take their medicine that has been prescribed and oftentimes they can't afford it? So is there a system by which they get the medication so that when we're releasing people that they're not being released to the public, needing ongoing care and us knowing it?

[01:00:32] Sorry to jump in. That's fine. Thank you. But also, so we participate, we have a jail mental health grant program as well. And so with that, anyone that is under the supervision of our mental health department, we are releasing with a 30-day supply of medication as well.

[01:00:49] And then to kind of go back to the first point, those that maybe wouldn't qualify for a temporary detention order, but they would benefit maybe for segregated housing, we do have up on the board HPOD, which is our mental health unit as well, where they're receiving more kind of direct care from our mental health team.

[01:01:13] So there's those options as well. but releasing folks with at least a 30-day supply of medication, that is what we're doing. Yeah. Go ahead. And to follow up behind that, if there are individuals in the community that come to our attention, whether it is through Child Protective Services or Family or Adult Protective Services, and they're not able to purchase their medication, we do help purchase medication, especially if it's necessary for them to have.

[01:01:42] Thank you. So, yes, we do provide that assistance. In addition to, on the benefit side, working with them to see if they're eligible for Medicaid. I just love this county. I mean, our workers are so good, and they're trying to do so much for our citizens.

[01:01:58] I just really appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Supervisor Orpega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have one more question for you all, and then the follow question will be for the county executive. There is another major component of the conversation that we haven't even mentioned here today, and that is folks who refuse help.

[01:02:19] You know, as a police officer, I met a gentleman who had a great family, very stable, but he just did not want to live at home, and he had a place. And we later ended up learning that, you know, he did indeed have mental health issues, and he was connected to additional programs, but once again, he refused those programs.

[01:02:42] He refused the help. So what happens? Do we have data? Do we keep track of folks also who refuse assistance or help? So, I mean, just to speak from the ADC side, we could get data on anyone who has prescribed medication that refuses.

[01:03:04] We keep that. But as far as any sort of other assistance? When we try to connect them to services, we don't keep data on that if they are receptive to? Well, at the CS, we have a program called Assertive Community Treatment or ACT, And that program offers the agency's highest level of care.

[01:03:25] And that program, probably unlike any other at the community services, will continue to work with someone. We see many people who are not willing to take medication, don't really want us to bother them, but we keep on.

[01:03:41] We follow a fidelity model. We keep assertively engaging them. We send out our peer support specialists to maybe take them for a cup of coffee or a walk. And over time, we have numbers on that, of course. Over time, we have seen that people slowly warm up to the idea.

[01:04:01] It may take a while before they're ready to take an IM, but they might start taking oral medications. But it's a slow process. Thank you. I bring it up. You know, Supervisor Budi, you were talking about it. Oftentimes, we see people going back into the system because sometimes it's not that we lack the programs or the help.

[01:04:19] It's just that they just don't want to partake in it. And I think that it's important data to consider, especially when we're going to be making policy decisions or implementing a new program because it all connects some way. And thank you. Mr. Shorter, you said that you want to bring this back to us at our next board meeting on the consent agenda.

[01:04:37] At what point is the board going to see the cost-benefit analysis and or a gap analysis or plan of action on this? Could you help me understand what you mean? So I want to know if it's going to cost any money to be a part of this program.

[01:04:52] And the chair asked, other colleagues have asked, where are we? Are we there? And the answer was, yeah, we're sort of kind of there. Well, that's not reassuring. I think that three important questions need to be answered before this is put on the agenda. And that is, where are we now? Where do we want to be? And how do we close the distance between the two and the fiscal impacts? Because if there are no fiscal impacts, well, that's an easy answer to that question.

[01:05:20] but I don't know if there are, and so I think that we need to have the answers to all of those questions. At least it would be my preference, Madam Chair, before voting on this. Certainly. I want to leave it to the team to kind of answer some of this. I will say generally what we hear from the team is that this is an opportunity to be recognized.

[01:05:38] The coordination is already happening. The agencies are already working together, and they have been for over a decade, and this is an opportunity for us to be recognized nationally for doing the work that we already do. I want to have the team talk about, in terms of financial impact, whether this would require or mandate that our jurisdiction spend additional funding that we are not already spending.

[01:06:03] I think the easy answer to that question is no. It would not require that we spend any money for what we're already doing. We are already a stepping-up county. Where we are probably working towards is to become an innovator county.

[01:06:19] But this timeline represents what counties who call themselves stepping up are working towards. We are already doing it. So we find value in recognizing us for the work that we've been doing. I mean, it still doesn't answer the additional questions that I have.

[01:06:40] While in theory I understand what we're trying to achieve here, I just want to make sure that we're being efficient and not adding another bureaucratic layer, right? We've been doing our own thing, as I mentioned, for over two decades. And I don't want us to enter into something just for an award or for national recognition, if that's the intent.

[01:07:03] I want it to be meaningful. I want it to actually go towards the goals that we have set. What are those goals? What are the targets? What are the metrics that we're looking at? I don't just want to do something because everybody else nationally is doing it. And that's just my personal opinion. I want to jump in.

[01:07:19] Is there a benefit to us becoming, not just awards, but is there financial grants or something else that we get out of this? Not that I'm aware of, no. So then the follow-up on my colleague's question, I mean, or is there some prestige or something in reaching this milestone?

[01:07:38] Well, I think, again, you know, Virginia currently has four Stepping Up counties. And quite frankly, Prince William is doing the work that they're all doing. We will continue to collaborate. Stepping Up does put out different pieces of information, additional frameworks that localities can use.

[01:07:58] But the beauty of Stepping Up is that what we need to do here in Prince William County, we tailor it for our needs. So we don't have to follow a national mandate. We do what's needed here. I'll also add, if I can, Madam Chair, as Georgia is making her way up, we apply for federal and state grants often.

[01:08:21] And I will say that when we are able to join with other jurisdictions that are doing similar work, and we're able to say in our grant applications that we are doing work that's generally accepted as best in class, that it certainly helps us from a grant perspective.

[01:08:39] I don't know if you were going to speak to... No, thank you. Georgia Bachman, Deputy Director of CS. That's exactly what I was going to say, Mr. Shorter, that certainly having this designation does allow us to state that and have us designated as best in class, as Mr. Shorter just said, and it adds to the validity of our applications as we continue to look for additional funding to add to our programs.

[01:09:10] I did just want to clarify that what you will be seeing at the next meeting in June, It's basically a resolution. So there is not a specific, as Dr. Goswell said, there is no funding attached to this. Although I will say that as we continue along this action map, that we will continue to innovate and look for additional ways to serve this very vulnerable population.

[01:09:41] So, you know, there may be additional asks in the future, but not specific to this initiative or the resolution that we will be asking you to agree upon in the June 9th meeting. All right. I'm going to let Supervisor Vega, you just had something quick.

[01:09:58] But it doesn't, well, the work that we've been doing right now, we're the second largest county in the Commonwealth. I think we can make the case that we're a pretty strong, valid county. nothing has precluded us from applying for grants or seeking any additional resources thus far, correct? Correct.

[01:10:13] Thank you. Now, I just want to say something real quick. I don't think this hurts. I understand you don't want that extra level of bureaucracy, right? But it doesn't sound like this hurts. It doesn't sound, yeah, you know, there is nothing, this isn't going to hurt us.

[01:10:29] It may actually have a small benefit. We're already doing the work. Why not just have this designation? That's what I'm hearing, correct? That's correct. All right. I feel like I see a lot of people shaking their heads. So from my perspective, it doesn't hurt us. Again, if we have a marginal benefit, I'll take it.

[01:10:45] But if we're already doing the work, why not be recognized? It's like, you know, if you have perfect attendance, you don't need the certificate, but it's nice to have one. And that's how I see this. Thank you. So Supervisor Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, again, back to, I know the devil is in the details, but I always, again, like to get the 90,000-foot view.

[01:11:13] So, you know, on the slide where the agency partner is about, like, for instance, you know, education is missing, right? And this is something that, you know, maybe is more of a national conversation to be had. But we already know that the benefit of universal health, not health care, sorry, but universal pre-K can help stave this stuff off.

[01:11:41] The most critical time of any human brain is the first 60 months, those first five years. And how you shape it and mold it inside of that time period is going to give generational outcomes.

[01:11:59] So, you know, speaking to homelessness and that sort of thing, because we know that the studies that show that the better health outcomes that boost children's early cognitive and emotional development, right, which staves off things like substance abuse and depression, can keep somebody out of that track of life.

[01:12:25] fight, we can reduce it. The best way to help the homeless is by not having a society that generates homelessness. If we're already doing some of the things that are working in Prince William County, and I just want this to be a thought amongst everybody up here on the dais and just public support of this, is to make sure that along with your program, because we've got to take care of the people that are there now, and I get all that, right? However, for the new

[01:13:02] babies coming down the pipe. We don't want to see them, you're doing great work, but we don't want to see them in a position where they need your services. All right. So I just wanted to put that bug into the ear of my colleagues when it comes to looking at things like universal pre-K and not going to be a cure-all, a fix-all or anything like that, but it's one more arrow in the quiver that we can utilize to take this problem down.

[01:13:39] Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to bring this back to center, I guess, and ask this because it's something that jarred my thoughts about our veteran population as it relates to recidivism and protecting them as well as it relates to homelessness, as it relates to what we're doing.

[01:14:11] Is there a process in place that you've incorporated in this as well? Because that has been an opportunity for us with our homeless population, I know. But can you just kind of enlighten us about this?

[01:14:30] Before you answer this, it's a great education for us as it relates to why we get awards and why they're important in the process. And we are the best of the best in the state of Virginia.

[01:14:46] But as we grow, we probably will be doing things a little bit different, and so the education of that is necessary. So we appreciate that. But if you could just suggest the veterans piece, I'd appreciate it. Good afternoon.

[01:15:03] So with Criminal Justice Services, our veterans treatment docket, we have an assessment that our veterans docket coordinator completes on individuals that are in the jail. and then he will speak with them, and then he sets up a program for them to go through when they come out of, or when they're placed on probation, and then they enter into the Veterans Treatment Act program, and there's a series of phases that they have to complete in order to complete the program successfully.

[01:15:33] Thank you. Anything else? All right. Thank you very much. We don't have anyone else in queue. Thank you for a very wonderful and informative presentation, and thank you everyone who has come up to the podium to answer our questions. So, Mr. Shorter.

[01:15:50] All right. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And again, thank you all so much for the presentation and great work. So the next 7B, the next set of presentations are really not presentations. They are really just updates to the board. As you know, I'm very proud of the work that the team has done to stand up PWC Works and the fact that it is kept up to date with so many just phenomenal projects that are happening around the county. So today we wanted to provide updates in this order and we'll have the teams come up right behind each other, but we're going to provide updates first,

[01:16:31] the community safety initiative, then we'll have an update from transportation on Prince William Parkway and Minnieville Road interchange. Phenomenal, phenomenal project. Then we'll have coordinated community care, a panhandling initiative, and then finally residential and commercial parking and parking initiative. This is, and I know we've pulled this up a few times at work sessions. This is the platform. We have used this platform to do much in the way of engagement with this community. Thousands of residents have come to this page to not just get

[01:17:07] updates, but to actually give us feedback. So I just really want to appreciate again all the work that Nikki and the communications team have done to design the page to make sure it's up-to-date and interactive. All right, and so with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Oh, to Nikki first.

[01:17:25] For everyone on the dais, I'd like to take a break between each of these topics so people can ask questions because it's a lot of stuff. It's meaty, and I know people are going to have things to say, so thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Jefferson, members of the board, Nikki Brown, Director of Communications and Engagement.

[01:17:44] I'm not going to talk a lot because you have a lot more interesting things to hear about. I just want to thank Chris for his recognition. This platform has really been a great tool and resource for us. You'll see as folks get up the different ways that we've been able to engage with the community.

[01:18:01] I think Rick will probably hit on the transportation survey that's currently out there. So between surveys and being able to drop pins in a map to being able to do FAQs and feedback, it really has been, I think, a great platform that we hope to expand upon and grow and continue to use.

[01:18:19] So just wanted to thank you all, thank the county executive for all the support in doing that. And with that, I am going to turn it over to Dr. Yassine. Hey, good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Tahiti Yassine.

[01:18:37] i am the director of the office of community safety and i'm really excited to present to you all i know it's been a minute um this initiative started back in 2022 and i'm really pleased with the progress that we've been able to make over the last year and a half really in going from an initiative to really developing an ecosystem around community safety um and so When I think about sort of this idea of left of response and the development of really proactive work, we've been able to do quite a bit since the last update, and it's really

[01:19:16] a testament to the investment in this innovative model. We're one of the first in the county to have an office of community safety. New York City just started an office last month, so we are really in this really great space around innovation.

[01:19:32] So we have about four main areas that we're really working on within the office. The first is around community resiliency. The second is risk mitigation. The third is response, coordinated response. And the fourth is recovery ecosystem.

[01:19:50] So I'm going to talk about each of those four pillars as we walk through the work that we've been able to do. And I'm going to start in 2025 because I think that was the last time we've actually. So one of the things that was really important when we developed the office was to really take a data-informed approach.

[01:20:10] And in the first quarter of 2025, we developed something that we're calling the Community Opportunity Index. It's an internal dashboard really focusing on helping us drive our investments and our programming from that internal standpoint. And it's shared with multiple county departments, and we're using that in order to really flesh out the ecosystem.

[01:20:34] We also onboarded our GRIT coordinator. So it stands for Gang Response Intervention Team Coordinator, and she works really closely with the police department and other stakeholders in really getting youth in those who have been at risk for gang activity and helping them transition into other things.

[01:20:56] And so she, and I'll talk a little bit more about some of the programming that we've developed coming out this summer. In June of last year, we had our first annual community safety innovation symposium, and that brought folks from all across the Commonwealth and outside of Virginia really to discuss innovation around coordinated response and what that looks like.

[01:21:18] We've had a great collaboration with the health district on their community health assessment, And that allowed us to get some survey questions into the community so we can better understand where we needed to put investment, but also what the community is experiencing around safety.

[01:21:38] And so that is going to bring us into some of the work we're doing this summer around the community health improvement. I'm sorry, yeah, community health improvement plan. I'm really grateful for the support of the board in December of last year, where we had the domestic violence fatality review team recognized and launched.

[01:21:57] We also were able to get a second ceasefire grant, and that grant is for $250,000, and we're able to use that towards some of this programming. And as I mentioned, with our violence prevention efforts and at-risk youth, that ceasefire grant is going to help us direct programming and initiatives towards at-risk youth and families.

[01:22:19] And then we had our Greater Prince William Human Trafficking Symposium, which several of you attended back in April of 2026. We also had a harm reduction workshop, which allowed us to start some of that landscape mapping of all of the community partners and organizations that are working with us around that ecosystem building for community safety.

[01:22:43] And this month, we're launching our partnership with Centara Hospital and also with the health district around hospital-based violence intervention programming. And so one of the first things we'll be working on is Stop the Bleed training. And so that will allow us to really look at data and show where we need to put investments in things like resiliency building, which is stop the bleed.

[01:23:07] And I mentioned the partnership with the health district. So the community health improvement plan is part of that partnership. We're going out into community, listening, and developing a program around addressing some of those needs that we're seeing.

[01:23:25] We are also working really closely with Fire and Rescue to develop our Coordinated Community Care Program, and that is going to address high utilizers, and Chief LaBelle and BC Wine School, I think, are here.

[01:23:41] They're also going to talk about that. And this summer, I'm really pleased with two programs that we have to address at-risk youth. One is with Prince William Water, and the second is with the Park Rangers. And so this is a pilot program where we have youth who are going to work with park rangers, learning about stewardship, horses, all those things that can get them better acquainted with potential pathways to employment, along with in the Prince William Water Program. And one last thing that we're developing this fall is a neighborhood resource map. And the goal with that is to have some forward-facing resources for residents

[01:24:20] throughout the county. Right now, we've sent a survey out to over 600 community organizations and resources and the goal is to really develop something that uh that residents can use um when navigating so yeah thank you for that and i'm open for any questions thank you so very much for that presentation do we have any questions all right whoa wait a minute i'm gonna move fast thank you so very much you are that good rick gets all the questions i have so many jokes but i'm gonna be

[01:24:56] good good uh afternoon uh madam chair members of the board rick canazos your director of transportation. I just wanted to kind of highlight something here that Nikki's kind of working through right now is that transportation projects actually have its own hub now on PWC Works. We have some projects on there we're going to be adding some more on there so we have our own hub that'll kind of list all the transportation projects that you're looking through here and you see all of them kind of list some of them listed there but today we will talk specifically about the Prince William County Parkway and Minerville Road

[01:25:31] interchange. Good to go there? All right. We talked a little bit about this last time. We had a review of these items. We talked about all the transportation projects up there, but some great things have happened since then. First of all, we did have a groundbreaking ceremony, and posted on here is the groundbreaking ceremony video. Now, I'm not going to play it for you today because it's 20 minutes long. It's a full recording of it, but if you do want to get in there. Supervisor Angry starts it off there, introducing everybody and thanking everybody for being up there. And it was a great time. I thought it was a great experience. I think we have a

[01:26:11] picture of it down here as well. Look at everybody throwing some dirt out there. Look at all those good-looking people. But we were able to celebrate that and get that project moving. As you know, the contractor is out there already. He's back there. It's lane construction you see the banner behind uh behind the picture there uh so as i mentioned the project is moving forward we're getting construction out there going on and you start seeing the demolition of some of the buildings that were uh in the shopping center uh but what i want to talk about today is let me see where is this here it is and here is main thing is i want

[01:26:47] to make sure the public is very aware of what's coming their way as part of the detour plan that's happening or part of the maintenance of traffic that's happening through the interchange and what's going to happen see it's starting in july you start seeing some of these detours go into place now we have a plan a communications plan in place we're getting with communications our communication liaison gretchen johnson is going to be putting out the word i know we're getting with supervisor angry's office to make sure that they get the word out and that we get to all their constituents through what we're putting out there we're all we have also bought four digital displays to be displayed throughout the project to make sure that people know where they're going in the detour.

[01:27:26] So we have planned out this detour very well and with a lot of time and anticipation. And we're trying to get the word out. As you know, we had a meeting with the supervisor. A supervisor, Angri, had a meeting just a few months ago regarding this, and it was very well attended. We were able to explain the detour plan there as well.

[01:27:42] So getting the word out on this detour plan is very important. So if anybody has it, please send them to PWC Works. It will always be up here for their view to see how this is working through the time that we're going to be in construction. Now, this detour plan is very simple. What we're really doing is taking the left turns out of the intersection.

[01:28:01] But the triple left from coming on the parkway north towards the building here from 95, the triple left movement onto Miniville will be able to continue throughout the whole project. That movement had too much volume on it that we did not want to detour to some sites, So that will continue to be throughout the project, will continue to have that movement in the same area where it's at today.

[01:28:25] A little maybe diverted depending on which side of the road they're working on, but it'll be at the at-grade intersection that exists today. What we are moving is all the other left-turn movements. So if you're coming south on the parkway going to 95, you will not be able to take a left on Miniville anymore.

[01:28:43] If you're coming on Miniville going from Dale towards Smoketown Road, you will not be able to take a left onto the parkway from there. If you're coming on Miniville and you're coming on Miniville and you're going towards Dale, you will not be able to take that left anymore.

[01:28:59] So what happens is, and we'll go through each one individually, if you're coming in from Miniville, from the Smoketown area to come to Dale and you want to take a left on the parkway, You will have to take a right onto Elm Farm Road, come to the stoplight that will be at the top there, and come and take a left on that signal to go through the parkway and down.

[01:29:22] If you're coming from Minnieville Road, you will take a left on this side, on this road, which will be the permanent road that serves courts, but will be on this side of the road. You come up here to take your left and take a left to go to the parkway north.

[01:29:39] And then finally, if you are coming southbound on the parkway towards I-95 and you want to take a left on Miniville, you will come here, take a left at the signal beforehand, come down Elm Farm Road, come down the temporary construction road or connector road that's being constructed just for the detour of this route, which will come out on Elm Farm Road and you will take a left onto Miniville.

[01:30:07] So those are the three movements that are being taken out of this intersection and being diverted to a detour route. There's been some misconception that we're detouring everything, but it's just these three movements. All the straight movements, all the right turn movements, everything else will continue to be at the existing intersection.

[01:30:26] So again, this is something that I really just wanted to talk you through and the public through, as well as let them know that this construction has started, and major construction will start this summer, where we'll have to implement these detour routes. If you need any further information, please come to PWC Works.

[01:30:44] We have a lot of information here regarding the project and its schedule, what it's doing, where it's going, and when it will be done. We're still looking at a completion of the spring of 2028, but we're looking for substantial completion to be done by the winter of 2728.

[01:31:02] So that still remains the dates, and we'll continue to work towards those dates and that goal. uh to be able to get this project as well as courts up up and going thank you i will take any questions all right let's get angry thank you manager and this is a good slide so rick when you just talked about uh going up um i think you said if you're coming from minneville going towards the parkway and you come you have to cut through uh the other the other direction the other direction yes yeah you say you come up there you'd have to hang a right on elm farm right and come through now you said if you want to get to the parkway so if you want to go continue down minneville

[01:31:39] do you keep across on the maintenance of traffic road correct if you if you're just going across miniville you can just just go straight straight through all you okay so it's the parkway that's the issue so okay it's only the left turn movements at the parkway okay but again this movement the one that comes up here and everybody takes that left on miniville that has a triple left that will continue to be there throughout the whole okay and then i see uh richard here too because do we have any construction zone speed cameras out there?

[01:32:10] I just have to ask. We do not at the time. Okay. Richard is here. He's working on permits with VDOT now to get those up. When we go through major construction and major construction starts, we will get those up. Okay, and the reason I ask is because it's the only way to truly get people to slow down in this corridor.

[01:32:27] And I know you all are getting some of their calls too, and I get a lot of them. and people are just extremely too close to the construction workers and people have concerns about how far they have the cones out in the lanes and look that's all for for pedestrian safety for the construction workers safety and so i just need people to slow down because if you're doing 25 then it makes sense but if you're doing 50 it doesn't make sense because you're mad because you're too close to a cone but that whole corridor is going to be like this for a while so if people just slow down it'll save the worst day ever and us dealing with a death and all that so i just

[01:33:03] i think those construction cameras are going to be real critical to put out there okay another question on m farm i see the um temporary road coming in right um i remember the young lady spoke about her daughter just started not driving which you know always happened a lot of drivers on that road anyway and the gravel on the road are they are they sweeping that up or getting that broom sweeper right now it's a gravel road because it's a construction entrance only sir Once the road gets developed, that road will be a paved road.

[01:33:30] There will be no gravel on it. Not that it's a temporary road, but just when you come out on Elm Farm. Because I see that they've got it graded out pretty well. So if they can just monitor to make sure on Elm Farm Road, they keep that gravel. We will make sure that. That's actually our department takes care of that. We will send someone out there to make sure that's being done.

[01:33:47] And we will make sure that our project manager is aware to make sure that that is removed if we see anything come out. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm going to ask something. I'm kind of also giving you guys a little bit of time to maybe pull it up on the screen if you can. Can you show people what it's going to look like? You know, what that Spooie is going to look like?

[01:34:06] You also had shown me once in your office something about Charlottesville, like, you know, what it looked like as they were building it across. Do you remember that? Yes, it is like the interchange that they have on 29 and Real Road in Charlottesville. Gotcha. And so basically you're building a bridge.

[01:34:23] Correct. Gotcha. It's a bridge that's going to go over the parkway, so the parkway will be tunneled, as you see here, under that bridge and continue with a straight-through movement with no signal. All the signals will be up at the top at Miniville. And what do you estimate the time frame for right now?

[01:34:42] What are we looking at to complete this project? We're looking for substantial completion in the winter of 27-28 to try to get the courts up and running, and we're looking for total completion of the project. by the spring of of 28 gotcha and i'm just wait before i go back to you what does this also mean for pedestrian access like you know if i wanted to not that i encourage people to cross this but we do have people who are out there who are walking and we're actually going to get into this in panhandling because you have people in the media right now what does that mean for them

[01:35:17] uh as you see here uh it is very connected uh we're actually even not only are we connecting the parkway sidewalks to minneville and making sure that they have appropriate uh crosswalks and ways to get through uh but we're also creating pedestrian improvements on elm farm road as part of this project they're going to connect elm farm road to minneville road as well all right got you supervisor angry and i just thank you madam chair i just had one more question can you talk about the plan because you mentioned temporary road on elm farm just that the plan of closing that road off and that it will no longer be an access road as you're using that as a temporary bypass?

[01:35:56] Yes, sir. No problem. The temporary road you are speaking of is this temporary east road, which is going to be the detour route for, like I mentioned, people coming in, going east on Minneville and trying to go south on the parkway. That road is built for that and the movement coming from the parkway out to Minneville East.

[01:36:19] That road, once the project is over, will be disconnected from this signal, and it will be cul-de-sac about this area here. So this signal here is not going to be a full intersection signal. It's only going to be a T-intersection with the parkway and Quartz Avenue.

[01:36:34] So this side of the intersection will not exist once the project is complete. And so will that light turn into a flashing light until we figure out what's going on? No, right now it's going to be on temporary signal head, so they will be taken out. And then just the main signal will be left up there for the T intersection.

[01:36:52] All right. All right. Thanks. Supervisor Brody. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for that source of anger. Because, Rick, that actually gets to my question there. Is right now there's still a divided median on the parkway right there, right? Correct.

[01:37:08] Is that going to be taken out? Are people going to be able to turn left from up there to go north on the parkway? Oh, I'm sorry. I think I went the wrong way here. No, I'm talking about the temporary access. Oh, I'm sorry, the temporary access.

[01:37:24] Right, yeah, up there, yep. Up here? Yeah, because right now there's still a median. No, there's going to be a median cut there, sir. That's going to be a full intersection for the time of the project. The median will be restored. The median will not be restored, actually, because you still need the full movement from the intersection from courts to be able to take the rights and lefts coming in from the parkway.

[01:37:48] Sure. But while the temporary access road through Elm Farm, will people be able to go straight through from that quartz road onto that Elm Farm? No, sir. As I mentioned to Supervisor Angry, this section of road right here that you see, this temporary exit road, will be cul-de-sac-ed about this area here.

[01:38:08] This will not connect to that signal anymore. It actually, once the project's over, that will be pulled back and cul-de-sac, and that signal will only remain three legs. It will remain the parkway legs and quartz leg only. The temporary road will not exist. Actually, the temporary road also ramps off to the left from Elm Farm as we're doing the detour.

[01:38:29] But once the detour is gone, we're also going to take that ramp out and we're going to put just a regular T-intersection that's going to connect to Elm Farm Road as well. And that's going to be done along with the sidewalk, correct, that I mentioned a little earlier. And the sidewalk is going to run on the west side of Elm Farm?

[01:38:46] The sidewalk will run on the west farm of Elm Farm, right down this side. And I think it's a trail. It's a shared-use path, not a sidewalk. And it'll sort of hook up to that one random neighborhood that's up there that has that sidewalk that starts? Correct. It hooks up with the townhouses or, no, the houses that are there that have the sidewalk on it.

[01:39:07] And then we know that there's other development coming up here. They'll be doing a sidewalk on that side as well. and we have applied for a grant to do some work in front of the mobile park home. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you so very much. We don't have any other speakers in queue.

[01:39:24] Thank you very much, ma'am. I'm sorry, ma'am, just one final thing. Nikki just wanted me to remind everybody, and she mentioned it earlier, that we do have a transportation survey online right now.

[01:39:40] We did a spring transportation event where we went and asked the public what they thought about transportation, what they wanted to see as part of it out there. And as part of that this year, last year we did not get a lot of attendance, so we wanted to expand it and be able to put something on PW Works that would allow people that couldn't make these live meetings be able to still give us some thoughts and some notes and what they're looking for in Prince William County.

[01:40:04] So if you go into this, you'll be able to go into it. If you tap the link, it'll take you to a map where you can kind of pinpoint a project and say what you want to say about a project in your area. So it's a really cool tool to understand what the citizens want, what the citizens are looking for from Prince William County Transportation, and also allows them to be updated on what we have going on today.

[01:40:28] Thank you. Sorry about that. Supervisor Bode just had something. Since you brought it up, Rick, and Nikki, thank you for flagging that. How have we been communicating out about this survey? Like have we been – because I'm talking about especially like employers, larger scale folks that we want to hear from in terms of their – yeah.

[01:40:49] Sure. So I think that's a great question and always open for suggestions. I will say we – I know Transportation has been sharing it when they've been going out in places, and as Rick mentioned, in their in-person events. But we've also been doing social media around it and really trying to push people to the map.

[01:41:07] We would love for folks to be able to have that direct link. But if there are other ideas, we're happy to look into that for sure. So thank you for saying that. Because just a couple thoughts there. Because I've noticed that when other localities have surveys like this, they do sort of targeted communications to their major employers.

[01:41:25] Here, that's a school division as an example. Micron, some others come to mind. But also the chamber and some other folks that have connections to businesses and what have you. Because as I think about especially the school division, Yeah, of course, for school buses they have, the kids can get to school.

[01:41:42] But we're talking about a lot of working adults that move throughout the county every single day to their job sites. If we're not really hearing from them, to your point earlier, Nikki, we're not really hearing from the best swath of folks to actually inform these decisions.

[01:41:57] So as much as we can, I think certainly targeting those. I'll think of some more and talk to my staff. And I think we all can put our heads together up at the dais as well to think about that targeted direction on that. Absolutely.

[01:42:13] Thank you for the suggestions. all right thank you so much good afternoon chair jefferson vice chair angry members of the board uh mr shorter uh i have the honor of even on a hot day uh being your fire chief and so uh wanted

[01:42:46] to just sort of tee up for our subject matter expert uh how we got here and so from 2021 to 2025 calendar year we saw a 35 increase in call volume that's about 15 to 16 000 calls In the comp plan, at 3,000 calls, we start talking about a new fire station.

[01:43:09] It's 15,000 calls. It's a lot, and it's not, quite frankly, something we're going to, forgive the pun, firefight our way out of. We need to come up with much better solutions, and this is part of that process. You were all kind enough in the budget process to take someone who had been doing some work here and there and a pilot project and give us the space to actually dive into uh i won't call it a standard model but a really well-established model in more progressive fire departments and so

[01:43:43] it's often said the back of a police car is not the best place for a resident what i would also say is the back of an ambulance is also not always the best place for our residents they need the services that they need. We have done an excellent job teaching people to call 911. And so what they do is call 911, even when it's not what they really need. What we see is two things happen, one within our own agency and one within a broader county concept. There's an idea called

[01:44:21] moral injury. And we all believe we are put on the earth to fulfill a role. And if we're lucky enough, we get to play that role. And when you're asked to do something that's not within your role, it is demoralizing. And when you know you have a mission and you're not able to fulfill it, it's demoralizing. And so what's happening with the greater and greater frequency is we're going to calls that aren't met for our skill set. And the people who do exist in the county, both county employees and not-for-profits and volunteers who are well-suited and want to

[01:44:56] provide these services don't get an opportunity to because we do it and it's just not a very effective model as we continue to figure out how to have the most effective fire department so i'm going to turn it over to battalion chief winsko good afternoon battalion chief rob winsko princeton county fire and rescue system madam chair vice chair mr shorter thank you for your time i just want to tell you a little bit about how coordinated community care how we got here A couple years ago, I was tasked with completing a pilot to determine the need for coordinated community care.

[01:45:36] We had a finite amount of time to approach some citizens that were basically our high-utilizer callers, our frequent callers, frequent fallers, lift assists, people that had a recurring visit to the emergency room.

[01:45:54] And we wanted to address how can we better serve them. And what I really did like was the model that was already existing that the police had with the co-responder unit. And I wanted to do something similar with the fire department. Have a fire department personnel go out with someone from one of the existing agencies and actually do a warm handoff.

[01:46:16] The fire department has that intimate knowledge of this person already, of the situation that they're in, the frequent falls, the frequent calls, the frequent visits to the emergency room. And this way we can put them in touch with the right agency. So that's where we started. And as we built this out throughout the last couple of years, as you can see from the timeline, we were making connections throughout the county's agency.

[01:46:41] One of the first was the Office of Community Safety. We did a few ride-alongs actually on fire engines and also with myself as we were going out during the pilot to meet some of these individuals. Worked with the community service board as well through folks that we came across that were in need of substance abuse help.

[01:47:03] And as we built this out, this was the vision that I had throughout this, more so than just dealing with one individual entity of the county, one individual agency to branch out and to go to all the different agencies, because we all kind of overlap.

[01:47:23] As the fire department comes into contact with someone, sometimes we have to refer them to the Department of Social Services. well that same person might be in need of housing help that same person might be in need of mental health resources so therefore we find what is the greatest need get them to that place initially and then they can also further refer them to another agency this way we're not having a duplication of efforts we're not having people fall through the through the cracks and as you can see what we came up with was opening doors connecting resources and coordinating solutions and it's basically just us all working together, using the best talents throughout the county.

[01:48:04] What I do envision going on to this new fiscal year, the public education and navigation, we have a pretty robust referral platform that we have been piloting as well.

[01:48:24] I'm going to get that out to our department members, but it's not only going to be just with the fire department making referrals. this is going to make it possible for anyone within the county to make a referral citizens included someone who sees a neighbor that might need some help so that's going to take a little bit of a public education and helping with that navigation maybe further down the road we can get into public safety communications and getting some better call routing when we notify identify these folks right away when they call 9-1-1 we realize it's not quite a 9-1-1 call we can get them directed to the services that they need that could help them a lot better taking a little bit

[01:49:03] of the burden off of our fire and rescue personnel getting out there the field-based non-emergency response that's that co-responder type unit very similar to what the police department has but this is helping these folks not make those constant returns to the hospital obviously if they need to go to the hospital we will make sure they get to the hospital but a lot of times we can get them services that can help them along a whole lot better. And then as we go on building more community partnerships throughout the county, working with the hospitals. The hospitals want to work with us. We're still trying to make sure that we maintain that patient

[01:49:42] confidentiality and make sure that we can share information appropriately. And as we build this out, the success criteria that we're going to be looking for, obviously reduced call volume, emergency room visits and then basically just making the the county a whole lot safer making our citizens a whole lot more healthy any questions um before i go to you sir if i was angry first of all this is amazing this is a really amazing initiative and effort i do want to ask because

[01:50:18] i know i believe i spoke with you chief when i first got here about community medics with something like this be included in that like if i'm a repeat caller it's something that your people can treat Is this going to be a part of that program, or am I thinking about something else? I absolutely would love for it to be part of a community paramedicine type of model.

[01:50:38] The one thing I envisioned when we had the grant money that was awarded to us, we wanted to have a fire department marked vehicle so we could have a fire department member go out with someone perhaps from the Department of Social Services or someone from a community service board to actually do that warm handoff we already have that the intimate knowledge of that that resident from the frequent visits they recognize us they're going to recognize the vehicle and then they're going to recognize us in our uniform however then we're going to introduce them to hey this is so and so they are going to be able to help you a whole lot further

[01:51:17] in their level of expertise yeah but absolutely i do want to get to that point where we do realize that we might have a medical emergency that could be associated with that too or maybe some medical additional steps could be taken and that's why we want to have a paramedic that's going to be part of that system as well. So the fire department member more than likely would like it to be a paramedic than with the agency member. And I just want to be clear what What is an example of the types of call that this initiative is designed to help with, if you can walk us through that very basic level?

[01:51:56] Like I call 911. So, yeah, and a lot of times a lot of folks will call 911 for, and I'll just give probably the most frequent one, is a lift assist. Maybe not even quite an injury from a fall. They have just fallen, but they can't get themselves back up.

[01:52:12] And they just get into a point where they may have been on the floor for a few hours in that respect. So we do go out there. We do assess them. We try to make sure that they are safe. Do you need to go to the hospital? Let's check out your vitals. No, no, I just need to be helped up.

[01:52:29] We obviously realize there's some mobility issues in the house. We realize there might be some clutter. They might need some help organizing some things. We might find out that, oh, it looks like your refrigerator might be empty. They need some kind of food assistance. So it's not just one thing.

[01:52:46] It's usually an avalanche of things that happen that gets them to that point. Do they need a caregiver to come in periodically throughout the week? Things like that. So it's not just one thing. It's always developing. One thing leads to another. So it's like pulling back the onion and figuring out what else is there and what needs to be.

[01:53:04] Absolutely. That is a great idea. Thank you so very much for this work. This is something, again, that I think makes us a community of choice and something that other counties, if they're not doing it, truly want to emulate Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I couldn't agree more. This is spot on.

[01:53:21] As that first responder that did those lymphases, that actually, when you mentioned meals, we've gone into homes doing health and welfare checks where it's just an elderly person with nothing.

[01:53:39] And then you do your blood sugar and realize they've got more chronic issues going on. curious question i just have for you to the um the mills portion um our area area on aging and mills on wheels are they a part with your partner okay because that is great because many times and i've done this as well i think many of us on this asf where we go ride with folks who deliver meals and these folks have on their schedule when we get there because that's a 30 minute i get to talk to somebody uh just sit down in the living room and have a conversation Then you've got to move on to the next house.

[01:54:16] And you're right. It relieves so much burden off of our first responders. Now, never mind the fact that I know many of us and all of us love to go and sit around and just kind of talk to folks. But the reality is there's another duty that we have to do as first responders.

[01:54:31] So I think that's just critically important. Also, Project Mender House, are they on your list as well? Because I think you should add them if not. We had a lady, her roof caved in, and she was still sleeping in this bed with an open sky, and the neighbors finally called, but Project Menhouse went in and did some work and put a ramp in and all this kind of cool stuff.

[01:54:52] So I think they're just another agency that you can really look to partner with. But let me just end by saying, man, this is great. I'm glad to see that we're here. This is a really good place to be for all of the other services that we do around the county. And I know that every first responder, firefighter, medic, everybody would just love to be in these homes and kind of sit down and talk with folks.

[01:55:15] But, again, there's a bigger role that we play out in the community just to be ready for those calls. So thank you for this initiative. I really love it. The coordination is just incredible. So thanks. Absolutely. And thank you, Vice Chair Angry. Just to answer your question about Neals on Wheels, the time that last year, I think it was, we rode together.

[01:55:35] We did some visits to some folks with Meals on Wheels. And that was one thing I picked up on immediately. It's like, yes, this is exactly who I should be working with. The trick is we need to develop those proper MOUs so we can share the information because there's a lot of people that have a lot of privacy that they want to maintain.

[01:55:54] One of the things I want to build out with CCC is to develop what's called a special needs registry. And just using that term, I borrowed it from another jurisdiction. it's basically finding those folks that are homebound usually it's the folks of a lot of times it's the folks that have the meals on wheels but these are the people that in time of a true emergency a catastrophic emergency within the county they're not able to get out they're not able to evacuate we want to be able to identify them right away so we can get people to them to get them out so that's one of the things i picked up on when we did that meals and wheels and and thank you madam chair i just you just triggered one more thing for me because i've seen this and

[01:56:33] you're right when you're going to some folks home they don't really it's their privacy but and i just want to call it for what it is you know in the actual district we have quite a few hoarder homes and we go in as first responders and see that i think it's a good partnership with neighborhood services to identify those homes because in the worst case scenario of a fire and i've been on a few we've been on a few where you don't know the layout of that home because it's cluttered with so much that it puts all of us in a bad situation so there's something to that that as you see these it's not too real idea and i know folks and their privacy is their privacy but it is to identify

[01:57:10] if that's ever a hazardous area that we know what we're walking into absolutely and that's something that we've done uh already with some of the referrals that we've taken in so far because a lot of times as you're well aware we do come across a lot of these hoarding situations immediately we identify them i get word out to the uh to the providers there there is a number to call for neighborhood services uh and but to make sure that no one falls through the cracks we're going to always follow up to make sure that they got that information i'm glad you brought up project menda house because we have had some referrals come in where someone just needed some assistance and i can't remember exactly what it was early on in the pilot but as they were walking

[01:57:48] up they put their foot right through the the decking leading up into the home and they're like this is a problem so that's one of the referrals that we took and project menda house is going to be a great resource and it's part of the the other resources that we want to build out this year now that we have the opportunity absolutely thank you supervisor bode la croix and then bailey sure thank you madam chair thank you for the presentation all the work that's being done on this and uh chief level i appreciate the the numbers you gave at the outset because that just shows the gravity and how much need there is in the community um a couple questions one uh goes something that supervisors are angry beat he has started um and knowing the sort of hipaa issues

[01:58:26] and what have you especially when it comes to medical information um and i think chief at one point in the previous conversation about this you talked about partnership with the hospital centera what have you can you add a little bit more about how the hospitals sort of uh play in this because obviously we want to have as much as we can avoid people going to the hospital emergency room things like that how they've been able to fit into this to be part of that proactive so does that react event yes currently we meet quarterly uh with the area hospitals and we have uh during these meetings we do have discussions about some of these frequent repeat customers

[01:59:00] uh if you will and some of them are almost on a daily basis it's a specific uh um medical ailment that they may have um and we see it they we we treat them there on the scene we get them to the hospital they get to the hospital they get a little bit more treatment but then they check themselves out they have capacity they have that right to to be able to do that even though it's against medical advice but then the very next day sometimes the same day we take them we we pick them up in the morning by the uh the evening they're calling us again for the same issue

[01:59:36] and we ask them please can you say this time to finish out your treatment a lot of times they don't and this was happening on such a regular basis didn't have to bring up names didn't have to bring up an address we just had to bring up the situation and the hospital knew immediately what we were talking about we need to develop a proper mou with the hospital that we can share that information fire department already has that ability to share that information when we pick up the patient and then drop them off at the hospital but at that point that's when the communication ceases but we have we can build out a way we can build out uh there are ways that we can have

[02:00:13] these special meetings to with the hospital staff to discuss certain patient populations some of these repeat folks and that's where I really want to get the paramedicine part of it into it we can work with the hospital maybe taking the paramedic to go out with a nurse from Sentara or UVA Prince William and going out to the patient's house and and having you know a discussion with them there to find out are they following through with their treatment are they getting their meds appropriately are they having the right meds uh do they need to cancel some automatic prescriptions to the point where they're getting uh you know too much uh medicine there and they're getting

[02:00:50] that confusion absolutely and then my second question is um you know since this is called you know uh coordinated community care what level of there will be around education especially around family members what have you because you know you're using a pretty good example of that already you know talking about folks that are aged folks that are just they have special needs they may be living at home or alone or they may be living part-time with a family member that family may be working two or three jobs around the home but what i've seen in a lot of these situations is if you have family members that are not even just professionally trained but just trained up enough

[02:01:25] to to be dangerous to know to watch her symptoms to know what to do to even just have that that confidence on how to react to situations it can make the world of difference can you talk about that piece too absolutely uh you know we have a in the in fire and rescue we have that ability we know the connections to make we already know a lot of these things and we can share a little bit of information with them but we have a very finite amount of time with them we need someone to spend a lot more time with them to have that education component to teach them this is how you go through the whole Medicaid process this is how you go through the Medicare process this is how

[02:02:00] you get power of attorney our proper medical power of attorney this is how you get your affairs in order this is how you get your estate in order for your family and for if you want to do home care One of the things I really, really want to focus on is making sure that people feel safe in the home and that they want to, you know, have the care in their home.

[02:02:21] And that is entirely possible in a lot of places, but a lot of people just don't know where to begin. And there are a lot of agencies out there. I'm dealing with it. I dealt with it with my own mother. I'm dealing with my in-laws as well. There are a lot of agencies out there, but I have that knowledge already. I've got to make sure we get that knowledge out to every individual we come into contact with.

[02:02:40] Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to just congratulate you, Chief LaBelle, and your team for just always thinking of innovative ways of protecting and taking care of us always.

[02:02:56] And this program is exceptional. And particularly because usually when we talk about community care, we don't always include, as my colleagues have said, our senior season population. And they're a part of our community as well.

[02:03:12] And though they are seasoned, they are still very active. And so that privacy piece for them is important. And this builds a lot of trust with your department to make sure you can get in and make sure that you support them the way that they do.

[02:03:30] So the only question I really have is I think it's a great thing that you meet with the hospitals as well. That's a new and improved thing as well as we grow. But in terms of other non-for-profit organizations that you deal with, what does that look like in terms of making sure that you are partnering with them in a healthy way, if you will, as you go forward in the future?

[02:03:55] One of the aspects I'd like to focus on is a lot of the community churches that we have in the area. And it doesn't matter the denomination. I want to get everybody involved because everyone has their own special way of helping.

[02:04:12] Even it comes down to the point we've had some frequent callers that will call for very simple things. They have mobility issues and they had the Uber driver, you know, bring the food to the door. They just need help bringing it in. Well, we can get someone for that, perhaps.

[02:04:28] Maybe we can get, you know, there's a local church that, you know, can meet with the person on a regular basis. You know, things like that. And then building it out a little bit further into some other charitable organizations. Yeah, I mean, churches are the next big one that I really want to work with.

[02:04:46] Yeah, and I appreciate that. I really do, because our churches are, like our seniors, very active. And that's a level of trust that you can partner with as you get your job done. And they get to know who you are. They know your faces. They may not remember your names, but they know your faces.

[02:05:04] And so that trust piece is very important, particularly via the churches. So thank you for saying that. All right, thank you so very much for a wonderful presentation. I don't have anyone else in queue, so thank you. Just one other thing I just wanted to add.

[02:05:19] One of the other pieces of the puzzle that we're putting together is we do have the additional position with the Office of Community Safety as the community navigator. This is not being done 100% by the fire department. We are using a hub-and-spoke model, and we are going to be utilizing services from a lot of different agencies.

[02:05:36] And one of the primary workers is going to be through the Office of Community Safety and the community navigator position that we're so much looking forward to. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. And you really may go this time, Chief LaBelle. All right. Next up, Phyllis, you're getting your steps in today.

[02:05:59] Good afternoon again, Madam Chair Jefferson, Vice Chair Angry, members of the board, CXO Mr. Shorter, and County Attorney Michelle Roble.

[02:06:22] Phyllis Jennings-Hope, Director of Social Services, thank you for the opportunity to provide you an update regarding the work of the process action team regarding panhandling initiative. I was before you exactly a year ago providing you data that we were collecting regarding the Panhandling Initiative and the work of our street outreach team.

[02:06:44] And so what I would like to do today is there are seven milestones that we have been working towards. And so I'd like to provide you an update regarding those milestones. And the first one is community outreach and community response.

[02:07:02] And so you all, the board, made a commitment to staff in addressing panhandling. And so we have our process action team. Before I get into the meat of the presentation, I would like to share with you who is on the process action team.

[02:07:20] DCXO Elijah Johnson leads the team. We have Deputy County Executive Mr. Blakely, our county attorney office, the Office of Communications and Engagement, Community Services, the Police Department, the Office of Community Safety, of course, the Department of Social Services, and Department of Transportation.

[02:07:41] so with you all approving additional positions we were able to expand our outreach capacity by hiring dedicated staff to engage with homeless and non-homeless individuals involved in panhandling activities and so what i would like to do is stop here and actually introduce our street outreach team if you could stand please i know you have heard me mention them but i want you to know

[02:08:10] These are the individuals that are in the community, day in, day out, in the meetings, responding to the calls, in the elements, talking to individuals about services, doing the assessments. And so I am so proud of this team because they do amazing work.

[02:08:27] I always say it takes a special individual to be able to engage someone that you do not know, to get them to trust you, to be able to step into services and work with us. So I just want you to put a face to the team. In addition to that, Community Services also added staff to support our joint field engagement efforts along with DSS.

[02:08:56] And then the Office of Community Safety also engages with businesses in the community when they have concerns about panhandling from their business or laundering. Our second milestone is multiple methods to report panhandling incidents.

[02:09:14] and the process action team has established multiple reporting methods for residents and partners to identify panhandling activity. We work with DOIT for the 311 implementation. We also have a dedicated phone line. We have a designated email address, and then we receive referrals from the police department, county staff, and community partner agencies as well.

[02:09:40] Then we have our outreach efforts. And so DSS, CS, and the Office of Community Safety have coordinated outreach efforts at known panhandling locations throughout the county to include discussions with business owners.

[02:09:57] And as we have our brief assessments, our outreach team, to include DSS and CS, conduct assessments during the engagement with panhandlers, offering supportive services to include emergency shelter, housing assistance, behavioral health services, case management, employment resources, and benefits navigation.

[02:10:21] Our fifth measure, monthly reporting. DSS implemented a monthly reporting process to track outreach activities and document the number of homeless and non-homeless individuals that we engage with throughout this initiative. And then we need the sixth one that's the public engagement and communications. The process action team, specifically the communications office, has developed key panhandling sites. Of course, this is one, Prince William County Works. It provides updates on county's community panhandling response, tracks major milestones, and allows

[02:11:00] residents to sign up and to stay informed. We have the panhandling Give Where It Counts, where Nikki provided information. She did a presentation last year in conjunction with me. And Give Where It Counts, there's a video and also a donation button for community non-profits And it provides a list of flyers and posters for the community to spread information.

[02:11:26] And then we have our printable toolkits on panhandling, which is in English and in Spanish. And it allows businesses, nonprofits, and other stakeholders to print out information on alternative giving to provide funds to panhandlers.

[02:11:41] And then now in the present, we are looking at the pilot program for establishing signs at designated locations. I know there's been conversation about that before. The process action team completed research, and we've identified high traffic and high risk panhandling locations throughout the county with a total of 12 locations that's been identified for targeted response efforts.

[02:12:07] We've created a baseline for a Phase I pilot, and that has been completed to support future performance measures and evaluation. The process action team is operationally, we're prepared to launch Phase I immediately following the installation of the signage of the designated pilot locations.

[02:12:30] But, of course, we know we need the approval of the board to be able to move forward with posting the signs. And then we have a phased evaluation strategy, which has been developed to assess the effectiveness outcomes and overall impact of the pilot program in each state of the application.

[02:12:48] We do have examples of the signs here, Nikki has.

[02:13:09] And so one of the reasons why we know we have the phased in and the different phases is because we have been informed by VDOT that the signs cannot be posted permanently. They are temporarily, so we have to take them down after every 30 days and move to a different location.

[02:13:28] And I believe Richard is here if you have any questions regarding that process. So I am open for questions. All right, I have first Supervisor Gordy, then Bailey, then LaCroix.

[02:13:46] All right, so I'm going to start where you ended. Who is responsible for putting up and taking down the signs? You, Tom, you are. All right, Richard. I guess we'll have a work day, you know, joint work day, you know, of moving signs around every 30 days.

[02:14:08] So, you know, interestingly, as you know, I can't remember how many weeks ago is just like there were no panhandlers. And then all of a sudden they were everywhere. I mean, just boom, there they were. So and we've already started getting receiving phone calls.

[02:14:27] You know, when we, I think it was last fall, we had a coordinated messaging campaign through social media, through, you know, movie theaters, things like that, streaming. Did we have anything this spring that was put out to kind of address that and remind people now that,

[02:14:49] And maybe this has to become part of our lessons learned in understanding every spring we must get ahead of them coming out and just filling the intersections and coordinate that campaign ahead of that, I'm just going to call it a season, because that seems to be what it is.

[02:15:12] But I'll let you answer the question. Thank you. That's a great question. So we did put out some information. Really, our plan is once the signs are going up, just timely, interesting, relevant to say, you're going to start seeing these signs, just a reminder about this campaign and why it's important and why it's important to help panhandlers in other ways, other than to give directly to them, obviously.

[02:15:38] The other piece of it is we're very excited, and I know Phyllis mentioned this, But now with the option for 3-1-1, I think some of the challenge was folks were feeling like they wanted to do something right there. And now with the ability and really appreciate do it, but with the ability for folks to call 3-1-1, it will allow that call to get to the right place.

[02:15:58] So it'll either go to Phyllis and her team if it's a panhandler, it'll go the non-emergency line if it's a peddler. So I think that will be helpful as well. So you'll start to, that's a long way of saying you'll start to see once the signs go up, kind of a push for letting folks know the signs are up and letting them know about 3-1-1 and we'll kind of reinvigorate that campaign.

[02:16:21] And we've tweaked a little bit just in terms of, I think, the feedback we got last time. So we'll try to keep it fresh each time as well, but with the same messaging of give where it counts. Yeah. Now notice the signs, they looked plastic.

[02:16:37] Are they plastic, not metal? Yeah, I think, and I don't want to steal Richard's thunder, but the way VDOT doesn't, one, is because it can't be permanent to, like, actually drill into anything, so they are, they have to be a certain material, and you'll notice there are some, like, holes up here of how we have to connect it to the poles, because they have to be able to be moved, so they are, I don't know the material exactly, but they're not metal.

[02:17:07] Certainly, thank you, Supervisor Gotti, Richard Wyman, Principal in Kind of Transportation. they are quarter inch pvc we went with that for a couple of reasons one of them was to keep cost down because this is a pilot program uh one of the things we don't wanted to do is not put them up permanently we want to move them around and see what the impact is and that's taken a lot of coordination but yeah they they are the standard sign for the keep right signs and they'll be going behind those and they were made out of quarter inch pvc okay and so uh you've got two signs so could we put a sign up one sign up and then replace it with another sign

[02:17:43] because it's a different sign so so the way it works is we we got it so that we could be temporary we can cycle through those um uh vito's very curious to see how this works to see if it actually has an impact because of course they're there's worried about people in the sections as as we are from a traffic safety perspective.

[02:18:04] So this is a new initiative. It took a lot of convincing with VDOT to do it and whatnot. So we believe we're in a very good place to work with the team to show some results, and then hopefully from here we'll go forward.

[02:18:21] And, again, you know, if the science proved to be completely ineffective, we don't want to waste taxpayers' money doing something that doesn't help. Yeah. So this initial pilot, how many locations will we be targeting?

[02:18:38] We are 12 locations, three in the four different phases. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you so very much. I think the big question is how do we determine success with this? I mean, how do we make sure that we are addressing the problem at its source?

[02:18:55] I know we've talked about, you know, coordinated care and all that, but if you can dive into that somewhere, that'd be great. I think that's the part of the evaluation process. Do I think that panhandling will be definitely eliminated? Probably not. I think success may be seeing a decrease in the number of folks that we see panhandling, being able to get individuals connected to services and moving forward into getting the resources that they need in permanent housing.

[02:19:28] I think that's going to be a case-by-case situation. All right, thank you so very much. I appreciate that. And I know this is a tough one. This whole debate has sparked a lot of emotions. We've had people concerned about it. You know, myself at the time we started talking about it, I believe Supervisor Vega too, we had children who were just learning how to drive.

[02:19:46] Yes. And that's a concern even for me as an experienced driver, seeing people going, you know, in the middle of the median on Mindyville Road, where we're going to have construction for the courts, for the Spooey. It's a problem, you know. And no, we may not be able to eliminate it, but just figuring out what success looks like and doing all that we can to mitigate it.

[02:20:04] Thank you. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I vote yes for the phase one pilot. I think that's progress, and we appreciate that. Congratulations on staying the course and making sure that we were focused on this because it is a really, really a concern.

[02:20:26] And like my colleague had said, you know, cherry blossoms came out, and so did the panhandlers, unfortunately. You know, and so we do need to serve them as well and make sure that they are protected and things are taken care of.

[02:20:42] My question, Phyllis, is with the 12 locations, I've got two questions. One is with the 12 locations, will we know where they are or is it a secret? Well, it's not a secret. Okay, good, good, good, good. So for our first, for phase one, right now we have Dunphy's Road and Vendoran Road.

[02:21:04] Yes! Prince William Parkway and Smoketown Road and Woodbridge Central, which is Central, Ashton Avenue. Okay, that's great. And will there be some type of communication or marketing, something that we can share with our – thank you, Nikki.

[02:21:25] You know what I'm saying. That's important as well. So the other question that I have is the – well, I had four questions. One was about posting street signs, but move point, Richard. thank you but uh the cards that we had talked about in the past do we still have cards those additional cards that we can share from our offices there were cards that were printed when we first started i believe the card you're talking about we did and if you would like more we're happy to get you yes if you could get it to our offices that would be great okay because those

[02:22:02] just as feedback for me i don't know about anybody else but it was impactful oh that's it did have an impact. Absolutely. So just thank you for staying the course. Thank you for focusing. I agree with Phyllis. It takes a special heart, mind, and focus to get this done. And we appreciate you. Thank you.

[02:22:20] You're welcome. All right. Thank you so very much. See everybody. Those are quiet. So thank you so much for all your hard work. I talk to people that are on the side of the road or on the corner that need help all the time. And you're absolutely right. It takes a minute. And thank you for being that person that does that. Where in Woodbridge are you putting these signs?

[02:22:50] In, well, in phase two, we have, again, Dunfreaks Road and Village Parkway, which is 95 North entrance. In Woodbridge, we have Prince William Parkway and Worth Avenue. So how about the Woodbridge District? Okay, and that will be phase three, where we have Dunfreaks Road and Route 1, Dale Boulevard and Gideon Drive. And then we have Sudley Matter and Sudley Road. And then phase four is Prince William Parkway, Sharper's Best Way, Smoketown Road and Garcia Way, and then Littenhall

[02:23:29] Road and Route 28. Okay. And so how we went through the process of picking which locations in which phases was based on the data in the baseline assessment of staff going out and looking at the how many people are out there how many times and being able to collect the data as far as the frequency and that's how we were able to get to making these choices so i'm thrilled to death at this program and i'm so incredibly disappointed that the places i think and i

[02:24:07] drive every single day um that i think that we need signs are not even being addressed well what i would say this is the initial part okay so the ongoing there will be an ongoing assessment and so as you indicated as the cherry block somebody indicated as cherry blossoms came out the panhandlers came out so we know that we had that discussion in our process action team and so we know that there will be a higher frequency and we will still be collecting data which means there

[02:24:38] will be signs going up in different places but this is the the pilot right now if if i put some money from my own account into it um could we buy more signs for some of the locations that are in dire need of it and there have been this is a big discussion in the woodbridge district um because there are an incredible amount of panhandlers and and dangerous ones too and in certain areas that if we could just purchase our own, if Richard would let us put them up, that would be great.

[02:25:18] I don't know if that's a Richard. Well, Supervisor, what I'll do, we'll work with your office directly. I don't know the answer to that question, and I don't want to go sort of back and forth. Would it be a VDOT question? I think there will be some coordination, yes, with VDOT.

[02:25:35] It is their sort of right-of-way. That said, I think we need to just engage your office. I want to make sure that I understand, we understand where these intersections are. Okay. And so if you don't mind, we'll work with your office to schedule some time. I just know that the people that have been talking to me nonstop about this, if they see it in other areas and we're not addressing Woodbridge, the Woodbridge District, that they will be amazingly disappointed.

[02:26:05] But thank you for what you're doing. I love the whole idea of it, and I love that your team just seems wonderful. So thank you. Thank you so very much. Supervisor Stewart. So hi. Thank you so much for this work.

[02:26:21] I have a question along a similar line. So this was last year. So let me just kind of reacquaint. When was the study taken as far as like what intersections and where have the highest impact so far for panhandling?

[02:26:44] When was that done? I'm going to have my assistant director, Tony Turnage, to come up and answer that question. Thanks. Good afternoon. Tony Turnage, assistant director, Department of Social Services, specifically with the Homeless Services Division.

[02:27:01] I just came back from the TMO, so that's the first thing I want to say. What I would say is that I know that the team had been working throughout the course of the year based off of where they do not necessarily panhandling, but street outreach in areas where they engage people. So some were panhandlers at that time as a part of this initiative in terms of when they kind of, you know, they're just out and about trying to help those persons from a street outreach perspective, but they also engage persons that may have just been strictly panhandling.

[02:27:30] That's why we focus on homeless and non-homeless. So what I would say, Supervisor LaCroix, is that, back to Mr. Shorter's point, is I think with everybody's office, if you are identifying an office, we are open to further pursuing that.

[02:27:46] that location and then putting that in the mix somewhere in terms of the phases of how we actually, um, you know, supervise those locations and try to engage those individuals. Got it. Yeah. Because the reason why I'm asking is because last year there was a discussion here on the day as this is before I even was on the board about specific areas on the Western side of the County, specifically, uh, uh, I 66 and route 15 cherry blossoms and icicles that, you know, they're there every day that ends with Y, right?

[02:28:25] And so it occurred to me as a missing since that conversation had already been had that that wasn't actually in phase one. I also want to, especially even for a location like that, want to find out from DOT what it's going to take to have something permanent there as far as signage is, like, what do we need to do to get something like that to actually happen?

[02:28:56] Certainly, Supervisor. So one of the concerns that VDOT has is, you know, whether or not these signs are even going to be effective. And one of the other issues we have is where do we actually put some of these signs at some of these locations? Because if there's no good place to put them because there's no median or something like that, we kind of limited. At this point we are basically trying to demonstrate that this is effective. So the fact that we're already getting feedback now saying that there are certain locations that it's still wanted is already a positive outcome because it identifies the next step

[02:29:35] is to move and try to get those locations. So no, definitely we are working hopefully to try to get to that point or to work out a longer term strategy on how to use this as a messaging and engagement strategy? So I'm happy to hear that there's a longer-term strategy in place to that end.

[02:29:57] However, I think a part of that strategy going into any strategy is, well, we can't try because we don't know what the result is going to be, right? If you don't ask, the answer is automatically no. And it's not a no from trying.

[02:30:14] It's a no from not even inquiring to begin with. So what I'm saying is, it's like, yeah, let's put this out, let's get the information from 311, let's see how successful it is, but there are other places, you know, as Supervisor LaCroix stated, and I'm sure everybody in this room who drives around the county can say, you know, just listening to that list, hey, what about X and Y on the coordinates?

[02:30:46] So, because, you know, what you mentioned, there are medians there. I mean, people come and set up chairs and sit there with their boards. I mean, it's, and they're always there, like I said, you know, cherry blossoms and icicles.

[02:31:04] So. Supervisor Stewart, thank you for the question. I think it's just a matter, I think you're right, and I think Supervisor LaCroix is right. We didn't get all the locations in this initial try. I think we have to engage all your offices, just make sure where you know that there's some locations.

[02:31:22] We can take a look at that for feasibility, see if VDOT's willing to give us a permit to put a sign in that location. As it's been mentioned, these signs are not permanent right now, and they're put behind permanent signs, so they're not taking any additional sign room out in the intersection.

[02:31:38] All these things have to be talked out with VDOT. We'll talk about, once we get through this pilot program, we'll talk about permanency and see if they are effective to be able to make these signs or post these signs on their own, perhaps. But for now, we have to kind of take a look at this as a pilot, be able to do it in the way that VDOT has kind of structured it for us.

[02:31:57] But we will get and engage your offices and make sure that we get some of the locations that may not be on right now that we may want to analyze to see if we can put something on there. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

[02:32:09] Alright. Thank you so very much. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to, I don't want to be a Debbie downer on any of this because this is, this is positive. So just hear me out. Okay. I saw something at the light at Dumfries and 234 yesterday when I was going to my office that I just want to bring to your attention as we go through this process.

[02:32:37] and it was a panhandler on the corner at the light when the light was red ran across the street just as the light was turning green and he went over to a gentleman that was on the bike and gave him something now the reason that could have been anything but the reason why i'm bringing it to your attention um uh is because this could be a little bit more than just panhandling and and we have to be prepared for that so as we go through these phases and move forward um i think it's

[02:33:16] important that we have all eyes open and wide and i know they are already but i just wanted to say that because that was a little bit strange for me to see that i hadn't seen that before and this was a new person that was panhandling on this corner so you know as we go through these phases i think it's important that we do have processes in place that we're addressing a little a little bit more than what's what's the norm if you will yes and I will say thank you for that information I think

[02:33:50] on the process action team that we communicate about things that we see the beauty of the process action team because of all the agencies that we work together and we're able to filter out if we need to get involved, get services provided, and respond.

[02:34:09] So that's the beauty of working together. So if it's something that's evolving, if someone sees an adult and a child, and it's hot outside, or they see an elderly person, and there is a need, we communicate with one another to be able to get that information so that we can respond.

[02:34:27] You helped me with that one thing, the child and the mom. I really appreciate that. But that's the partnership that we should have with y'all as well as you're putting together everything, because you are eyes and ears and feet, but you don't see everything. Correct. Thank you. Supervisor Vega.

[02:34:45] Thank you, Madam Chair. Certainly appreciate the efforts. I'll continue to remain patient. Yes. I was the one that issued the directive. Obviously, these initiatives don't address the intent of the directive, but I do believe that it's necessary so that when the time comes to bring it back up again as another option for us to consider, we will have gone through all of these steps and procedures.

[02:35:07] You know, I'm very adamant about actual tools that work. And I say that because it hasn't gotten any safer for young drivers or for anyone in general to include the panhandlers. You know, every day that they're out there, it's a risk not just to their life, but to those who engage.

[02:35:24] And, you know, I get it. It's tough. Just the other day in Supervisor George Stewart's district, there was a gentleman there all the time at that ramp with his dog. and it's hard to control a dog right on on a very busy roadway and he's there faithfully and you you know you want to engage whether it's because of the gentleman his sign says he's a veteran or because of the animal but you know we are reminded that there are different steps different alternatives that we have to take so that we don't engage with that being said I would be interested in seeing the data that you all have collected you know I'm wondering Mr. Shorter we have a data center

[02:36:03] interactive map. Perhaps we can add a map similar to that, to 311, maybe for reporting purposes or for just, you know, informational purposes also for us here on the board. I think that it would be an additional tool for folks to report. And then for us to also have, you know, data that helps measure what success we're having, where we're having it. I think that one of the biggest indicators is seeing these popular areas not have those folks out in these intersections. I think that's a very visible um measure of success but i'm certainly interested in seeing that data

[02:36:38] i know that um when elijah was spearheading this um we were given certain areas of of of interest i guess we can call it that and so just curious to see where they fell on this process and um you know how we got certain locations in phase one phase two three and four and whatnot but certainly appreciate the efforts, and I don't know what the time frame looks like in regards to getting us that data, but I'm certainly interested in seeing it. Thank you. Supervisor Vega, we do collect data. We collect data regarding magisterial districts, services provided, number of people

[02:37:17] that we engage, and I can get that data to you if you would like me to. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor once again thank you so much for everything you're doing um i have another property in virginia beach and i know virginia beach is not our vdot i've been told that but it says they have permanent signs that are very um successful and they say please don't encourage panhandling the city and local non-profits help the homeless call blah blah blah i like ours

[02:37:53] better because the 311 is so much easier and having people just be able to tap that and immediately do it so um i'm looking forward to it not being a no um sorry you don't get these spots they said we're going to work towards a yes with you supervisor la croire at least that's what i hear i always hear yeses when nos are like around um are you also gonna nikki um start a campaign along with this that because i like that 3-1-1 sign and i'd like to start a campaign

[02:38:28] in my social media as well as you know you know putting it in my window of my office and just getting it started i anything we can do to promote it so it is successful for these folks and their efforts yes ma'am so we will start pushing out information and we'll share that with you all we can share the toolkit with you guys you're welcome to use it you're welcome to share the social or just if you want to hand out the flyers we'll do the or the little cards as supervisor bailey mentioned as well so we'll get you all i'd love i'd love some literature on it

[02:39:04] as well anything that you're doing that's going to help people i can just hand it out or shoot it out to them immediately thank you guys you're welcome all right thank you very much i don't have any more um questions or comments in queue so wonderful job thank you so very much thank you All right, next up.

[02:39:28] Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. Bob Blakely, Deputy County Executive over the Safe and Secure Community Quadrant. I asked the group to allow me an opportunity to report out on this very important initiative because I know in my brief six weeks here in my preliminary conversations with many of you, this topic has come up.

[02:39:54] I know it's important. I know it's really important to our community. it's probably even more challenging than the topic we just talked about. So it is a very unique issue, but, of course, growth and evolving transportation needs have increased the demands for parking for both residential areas and commercial vehicles.

[02:40:16] So my predecessor in early 2025 created this multidisciplinary work group to kind of go in and figure out some root causes. why were parking complaints increasing and what could we do about it and I have to say from an outsider's perspective walking in the door this group is the dream team it's you know two deputy county executives deputy county exec Wade Hugh is on the group the director of transportation director of public works and nearly 20 other senior county staff members that have been working on this project since 2025 the goal in the beginning was

[02:40:56] to evaluate our ordinances and our legal framework, enhance our education and enforcement, increase fiscal accountability, and improve parking capacity. So those are kind of four broad-based goals as the group went out. And the first thing the group did was go out and have community conversations in the western, central, and eastern portions of the county.

[02:41:17] They met with the community. They posted information on the PwC Works site. They also launched a community survey. Over 1,800 visits to the PwC Works page and hundreds of responses to the community survey. I thought you might be interested in what our community members reported as this is the issue to us.

[02:41:39] What we found was the number one issue reported was too many vehicles per household. Number two was commercial vehicles parked in residential neighborhoods. The third issue was inadequate parking capacity in residential areas. And the fourth issue was inadequate parking for commercial vehicles.

[02:41:57] When asked what solutions does the community recommend in order, they responded with more enforcement, permit parking for residential areas, vehicle restrictions or additional vehicle restrictions. We have some additional parking capacity and time restricted parking increases.

[02:42:18] So I'm sure those are all things that you've heard in your offices and we were glad to hear them. So taking all that information and based on the data, and the team did gather quite a bit of data, they made their assessment. Now, what I know is that our community is a largely compliant community that wants to follow the rules and obeys the ordinances and obeys the laws.

[02:42:41] And two Saturdays ago, I rode with a police officer, and lo and behold, we were dispatched to a parking complaint. And I think underneath my breath, I was like, boy, if you only knew what type of conversations that this type of call generates for a police officer, it's just another kind of day.

[02:43:01] But it was in an area that we hear often for parking complaints. And as we drove into this neighborhood, I noticed there was parking tickets on a few of the cars driving in there. And when the officer pulled up, it was a vehicle parked right kind of halfway on the sign that says no parking here at a corner.

[02:43:17] So the person just tried to squeeze in and, you know, it was like, I'm going to leave it there. And this was earlier in the morning on a Saturday. And the officer said, I'm going to do a workup on the vehicle, found the address, and I'm going to go knock on the door. I was like, hmm, that's interesting.

[02:43:33] And why not just write a parking ticket and move on about your day, you know, like I think many police officers would do. So the officer walked down to the house. I walked along, knocked on the door. The resident said, you know, I'm sorry, we have, you know, four cars in this household. We only have two parking spots.

[02:43:49] And came home late, didn't, I drove around the neighborhood a couple times, couldn't find a spot. So I just parked there and I'll go move it right away. And the officer said, yeah, please do that. You know, it's a fire lane. Don't park there. Had a great conversation, but the community member left with a smile on her face and thankful for the officer's efforts.

[02:44:08] But I think in everything that we do, the officers are seeking voluntary compliance. And I think that the most part, when a community member gets either a warning or a parking ticket, that's that. Like, we're not going to do it anymore. I've received a speeding ticket, one, in my entire life.

[02:44:25] I don't speed anymore. I don't want to get a ticket. So I think largely we comply when we're reminded to do so. So in this kind of assessment, in my own mind, I said, what I see is that there is a pocket that is not compliant. And what the data will tell us is in the 2022 to 2025 timeframe, there's over 16,000 vehicles that were ticketed multiple times and didn't pay the fines and continues to break the parking violations.

[02:44:55] So 16,000 is quite a bit. As you can imagine, these repeat calls are probably some of the source of the areas that we need to look at. So I only say this to say that the police department's writing over 12,000 tickets a year, parking tickets, so enforcement is occurring.

[02:45:14] Looking at some of these non-compliant folks may be part of the solution. So the team came up with an action plan that introduces some new tools, really focused on kind of getting that compliance using a little bit of teeth, and I'll share those with you now.

[02:45:32] And I do want to just say, as the county exec presented this, this is an update to this point in time. There's so much more that we can do and are doing in this progress. So this wheel is ever turning. We're even just today having conversations about, I wonder if we can do that.

[02:45:48] Let's talk to the county attorney's office. So we're continuing this dialogue about options and next steps. But here's where we are today. So we're going to continue that enforcement. We're going to continue reminding the community through our educational and engagement efforts. We were just talking about putting a QR code on the parking citation or the envelope, if we can fit it, to share more information about parking offenses.

[02:46:16] I've definitely heard from many of you, and we will be considering, obviously it's a little early, but we'll be considering adding a staffing request for additional parking enforcement officers in the FY28 budget. I'm sure it'll be competing with many things, but that is something that we definitely are going to look at doing.

[02:46:36] And then we want to focus on some of these repeat offenses. There are some tools out there for us to use, and we are working through what business process would maintain our standard of excellence and would be thoughtful and intentional about how we would deploy them.

[02:46:54] Some of them, for instance, are DMV holds, the possibility for people who don't pay multiple fines, not just one, but multiple fines, that a DMV hold can be placed so the person cannot re-register their vehicle. There are potential collections, routes that may be available, and the code and ordinance does allow vehicles to be towed if they have three or more unpaid parking tickets.

[02:47:21] Again, business process is key because if we randomly go out and begin doing this, it may create some other problems. And with all of those solutions, as easy as those three things right there sound, there are incredible complexities to actually getting them pulled off.

[02:47:37] So we're working right now to see exactly how we can deploy those methods. We want to be very intentional, and I do want to reiterate that if and when we begin one of these more conservative measures, we are going to communicate, communicate, communicate with our community before we just show up and start towing cars, for instance, if that were to happen.

[02:48:02] We want to make sure the community has noticed well in advance. We've even talked about the ability of sending a letter to every one of those 16,000 repeat offenders saying, hey, it's coming. You know, just so you know. And then lastly, we have talked about some innovative solutions with other property owners who, you know, kind of a separate issue is the commercial vehicle parking issue.

[02:48:27] It really is so much so unique. And so we've talked about some solutions there as well, where some commercial property holders that are waiting for development have said, what if we allow commercial vehicles to park here? You know, over the next two years, this big lot is going to be empty.

[02:48:42] It's not on the front right up on the front edge of the roadway. uh it's it's not going to be a blight to the community uh maybe there's some options there so we're definitely exploring that as well so expect uh an update to the pwc works page soon with some of these uh solutions and i would love to pause for a moment and take your questions or hear your feedback uh certainly we're we're not done with this project uh by any stretch of the imagination so well thank you very much i also just want to give everyone a time check we do have

[02:49:14] the memorial day service at 5 30 so i have three um i have gordy and angry thank you madam chair um thank you and congratulations on your first presentation to the board thank you um so you know i i really appreciate this is certainly when i initiated this uh two years ago um it was really getting after the commercial truck parking because it is a problem within the uh brentsville district for sure where we have tractor trailers and and dump trucks and other commercial vehicles

[02:49:51] parking in places that are blocking people's view at intersections it creates hazardous situations one of the things that we did you know it incidentally last year there was a member of congress who has introduced legislation to because this is a national problem to provide grants to communities to help solve provide free parking for commercial vehicles unfortunately i was just checking the status of the legislation it hasn't moved it hasn't moved in subcommittee so it's not going to happen this year for sure um so so i think you know it really is up to us to try to

[02:50:28] figure this out um because even like when you take a look at wellington road at livingston um you have 16 18 wheelers parking it anywhere there is asphalt that is not a travel lane 18 wheelers are parking in it um and and and it doesn't matter if we write them tickets or not it's cheaper for them to pay the ticket than to you know go lease space for um a place to park so i really appreciate the initiative of working with other uh landowners to try to find a way to

[02:51:02] do this to encourage and incentivize these commercial vehicles to get off of our travelways out of the neighborhoods out of our commercial business centers you know shopping centers this is not the place they ought to be parking uh they they really do create a lot of problems for um uh you know for uh maintenance of these facilities so i really do appreciate that Um, on the, um, residential, um, you know, one of the, one of the challenges and, and, you know, and this is part of the, you know, the part of the message of what I've been

[02:51:39] saying is the problem with our development pattern over the past decade is we built starter homes, but we didn't build transition homes. And so you have families now with teenagers with cars stuck in their starter home and can't get out. And so now that's created a lot of problems within our neighborhoods, um, where had they been able to transition into a starter or into their transition home they would have had plenty of parking for their vehicles but they're stuck in a townhouse with places to put parking places and and and and really have nowhere else to go um and so when you and i love the interactive map

[02:52:15] by the way that's on this where you can go and see where people really have complained and and incidentally one of the worst places i'd have to say is in the gainesville district over there by Home Depot and Balls Ford Road, because you can barely get through there at times because of all the parking. So I just really want to say this, I appreciate the initiative, but I am really looking for a solution to this commercial truck parking. And again, we've been talking about it now, you know, for over two years, and then trying to figure out how we're going to find that place or places to get them off of our roads to create a safer

[02:52:53] environment. And in some ways, as soon as you get one truck parking, all of a sudden the next day there's three, then there's six. It just becomes a magnet. And again, trying to get after that to make sure that we're able to keep the wheels of commerce flowing, no pun intended, but at the same time making sure that these vehicles that are part of this commerce are not creating safety hazards on our roads. Supervisor Gordia, I only want to respond to represent the hard work of the

[02:53:30] group. This was actually one of their primary focuses, and I said to the group, I was actually surprised they came up with something that I'd never heard of before, and they had engaged VDOT and asked about using commuter lots for just this purpose. And, you know, I'm sure that there's a lot more to this conversation but the the terms and conditions you know just wouldn't line up so we we um we continue to look for that and i know we've had some interesting conversations about it so i'll keep this on the front of the front of the hot burner and and i keep asking the commercial

[02:54:07] side as well it's like look if you're building warehouses you need to provide space for vehicles um you know on your facilities not just so that they can back up to your facilities but once they're done backing up and you know or waiting you need they they need a place to park and and so you know unfortunately a lot of these commercial facilities they will build a building but they won't build the parking necessary to support their activities thank you madam chair thank you supervisor angry thank you madam chair um i know we got to get out of here so can i just ask um i like the presentation can i get you on the calendar by the office and just kind of talk more just

[02:54:44] Just leading into finishing up with the truck parking, remember I was asking about there was a gentleman who kind of leases land from developers, like we'll just call it the data center not built, and there's some property there, and he had a whole plan.

[02:55:00] Were you able to connect or find? I'm still trying to find that email to send to you. I don't think I sent it to you, did I? Yeah, I know. You did not surprise me, but we've been talking about it a lot, and I think we're all kind of searching for what's out there. Yeah. Let me find this, and I'll send it to you, because I was in conversation.

[02:55:18] It sounded like a good idea, better than the VDOT, because I knew VDOT was going to have issues with their commuter lots. But anyway, I'll get that to you. So I'm going to hold that for myself as a deliverable to you, and then I'll get you back on the counter so we can go over all what you just discussed. Thanks a lot.

[02:55:33] I'll bring Cam Castillo with me, because he's the expert. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're besties. All right, Supervisor Stewart. Thanks for this presentation. So my question has to do with the towing, also with booting of vehicles as well.

[02:55:57] Towing is expensive. Booting occurs to me as cheaper and actually a little more aggressive. Also, I'm not sure I can get my head around the notion of sending out letters to 16,000 people who know that they're repeat offenders.

[02:56:21] Because they know that already, right? And that just seems expensive to do something where we should just skip that step and do whatever it is we need to do in that situation for those folks.

[02:56:37] Understood. And the group did explore booting quite a bit. It would require an ordinance change, as we understand it. And there's some other nuances to that. And I'll give you one example that I'm familiar with, which is if you have staff conducting the booting, we need to have staff available 24 hours a day to also be able to remove boots.

[02:57:02] So the first time I experienced that at a different jurisdiction, that was a big challenge. So midnight, find the car booted, pay the fine online. Someone needs to unboot my vehicle, and no one comes to work for three days at the holiday weekend.

[02:57:19] So that was a bit of a challenge. All things that could be worked through, but I think some of the other things that we discussed like, again, what least path traveled. There is an ordinance that allows us to deal with scofflaw or multiple unpaid tickets that's in state code and county ordinance now to towing is an option and it is expensive.

[02:57:43] It's also very time consuming for staff to undertake that. So that's why we're looking at multiple solutions. On average, 30 to 45 minutes from the time an officer signals, you know, I'd like a tow truck to remove a tow. So we recognize that if our parking enforcement officers do that, you know, rather than write those 12,000 parking tickets a year, they're going to just sit there and wait for tow trucks.

[02:58:06] So we can work around it. Again, business processes, changes, even, you know, how can we leverage contracts and many other things. So those are all questions we're working through, but it's much more complex than I even imagined.

[02:58:23] But we're continuing the work, and we are going to have solutions. So like Supervisor Angry, I look forward to having you by my office as well so that we can dig into this on a more granular level. Looks like you're going to be doing a concert tour. This was my way to get out to see all of you.

[02:58:42] All right, thank you so very much. So I know that we, in about 30 minutes, we're going to need to go out for the Memorial Day ceremony. And we do have supervisors' time. If the board will allow, I would like a few moments for Supervisor Vega and I to give people an update on the inter-jurisdictional committee meeting last week.

[02:59:06] And, Mr. Shorter, if you can also fill in some things. You know, we have some really tense topics to discuss. And I've approached a few of you. Last week, we talked about the old Bennett School and the Shared Services Agreement.

[02:59:22] So I'm going to start with the easier thing. Well, not necessarily easier, but the Shared Services Agreement. There was discussion about changing the formula. We had recently changed the formula to give the city, Manassas City and Manassas Park, a more stable bill year over year.

[02:59:40] And they still have concerns about it. We've talked about possibly using a usage-based model, also possibly every few years looking at revisiting that formula. So that's something I want to bring up, not necessarily for a topic of discussion right now, but that is something we are going to have to discuss, making sure that they are, you know, that we are not overcharging and that they are pairing their fair share.

[03:00:05] So I don't know if you want to add anything on that before we go to Elle Bennett School. No? I was watching the city had a work session last night, and I was watching that. And one of the things that they brought up, actually their city administrator brought up, you know, that it's not fair that they're paying for certain things.

[03:00:22] Like they're paying for board time or they're paying for our staff, you know, some of our staff time. I don't know if you want to address that, Mr. Short, if you had a response to that. Sure. Well, I'll say, Madam Chair, first to your point, what essentially happened at the meeting is that all jurisdictions, both cities, committed to discussing this with their governing boards and coming back in July.

[03:00:47] And so we expect to have a conversation in July at the committee meeting. The shared services agreement as it is currently structured and as presented at the committee meeting absolutely has indirect costs. And so there are indirect costs, administrative costs, as there are with all of our MOUs and other agreements that we have with other entities outside of third-party entities.

[03:01:11] That includes back office administration and all of the oversight that you would expect to see. I would say that given, Madam Chair, what you just mentioned, the consumer price index method that we have now changed to has saved both cities millions over this last several years.

[03:01:34] And so in terms of the discussion that we are having right now, I think we remain open. It was clear at the committee meeting that we would remain open and that this would be a conversation. And what I suspect will happen after this committee meeting is that we will develop some sort of timeline for engaging.

[03:01:57] And that hopefully is at some regular frequency so that we can get to a place where all three jurisdictions agree. I don't know if that answers your question. No, that answered my question because, again, launching their work session, you know, I was disappointed with some of the comments that were made, to be quite frank.

[03:02:15] You know, which is why I want to address what you were saying about, you know, some of the administrative costs. You know, certainly Prince William County is not doing anything untoward. We are not trying to take advantage of our neighbors. We are trying to be good stewards with our taxpayer dollars and also have a system that works for everyone. So watching that meeting, that's why I want you to address that piece, that we are not, they're not paying for board salaries.

[03:02:38] They're not doing anything like that. You know, what we are charging them is standard with what we are doing for other agreements. It is absolutely standard and consistent with the population method that is sort of the foundation of the agreement.

[03:02:54] So 8%, I believe, for the city of Manassas. All right, and thank you. And the next thing I want to talk, I don't know if, again, you didn't have anything on, is the old Bennett School. I don't know if you want to give any updates before I speak. Old Bennett School? All right, so this is a sticky subject between the county and the city, and there are some things I personally want to clarify.

[03:03:17] You know, I respect the opinions of the people we've heard who are concerned about moving how we want to move forward with that building. It has taken a tone from last night's work session that I honestly felt was inappropriate and disrespectful because a number of the comments made were simply not truthful.

[03:03:40] The county has at no point talked about annexing parts of the city of Manassas. That has not been a discussion. I don't recall being a part of that. That has not been something we've talked about or thought about. The land that we are looking to expand the judicial center is county-owned land.

[03:03:59] It is county-owned land. Am I? I'm correct. Yes, it's all county-owned land. I'm saying that because that was a comment made that the city is trying, I mean, I'm sorry, that the county is trying to annex city land, and that's not true. We own the land. There is also comments made about us disrespecting a potential grave there, but there are state and, I believe, federal regulations about how you handle historic cemeteries and remains.

[03:04:25] There is also talk that the county is bullying the city, which I don't particularly see. And I think comments like that hurt goodwill and hurt efforts to coordinate and collaborate. And I want to stick with that one for a minute, if I may.

[03:04:46] We are paying for the capital cost of expanding the judicial center. We are paying that 100%, correct, Mr. Shorter? it is 100 percent on us but there are people in the city who you know want to preserve the old bedded school in um in its current form you know we have agreed to memorialize parts of the building the columns bricks you know have historic elements within the new judicial center but to hear that our colleagues some of our colleagues in monasah city are saying that we're bullying them i am not

[03:05:23] saying that because they don't want to contribute they don't want to contribute they are demanding that we preserve the building in its place, they are demanding that we absorb 100 percent of the costs, that to me feels like we are being bullied by them. To make that kind of request, regardless of the cost, to not want to chip in, to make us and our taxpayers want to absorb the full cost, that's not fair. And I'm not interested in campaign slogans or messaging. I'm interested in solutions. So I wanted to say that. I want to also say that our process has been transparent.

[03:06:02] we started having these discussions last year prince william times and inside nova covered everything we have public comment time at every one of our meetings our staff has been engaging with their staff so i do feel that this has been an open and transparent process and we do allow comments from people who live outside of the county we have had people from the city come in and speak so i don't know if i'm missing something and i also want to say this was a decision

[03:06:36] by the board as a whole, and I am one-eighth of that board, and I defend what the board is doing because we have spoken, and I want to move forward with that. So I don't know if there is any other discussion or if anyone, Supervisor Vega, want to say something, but I do want to go on the record as saying that we have, in my opinion, have had good faith conversations. We have not hidden anything, but the rhetoric that's coming out is inflammatory, and it's not helping us work towards a solution. I have offered to work with the mayor to maybe do a community engagement meeting,

[03:07:14] but it's hard for me to want to move forward with that when my colleagues or my counterparts in the city of Manassas are trying to fan flames over the situation. Certainly everyone here understands or respect the historic nature of the old Bennett School. You know, we are not doing anything untoward. It is our land and it's our taxpayer dollars. And I doubt that the estimates have gone down since last year they have only gone up so i wanted to speak to that i don't know supervisor viga if you want to add more into that but i just don't i wanted to speak to that publicly because i don't like the messaging that's putting out and again i don't think that that fosters a

[03:07:53] collaborative environment between us and the city of manassas thank you madam chair um i guess to our colleagues on the dais this is just us basically reporting out from a committee meeting that you all are not a part of and um i'm going to be quick i just want to say that it is an election year for some folks and there are things that they're saying I don't want anybody on this day as to fall for that rhetoric because as we all know we have a statutory obligation to expand the judicial center and I'll remind our neighbors that this is also to service their citizens their constituents and so you know we're doing the work that is required again we've been transparent I

[03:08:32] said this in our meeting at some point the ball I believe on their end was dropped and folks were not informed while I appreciate your intentions of trying to have a community meeting the ship has sailed we already voted on this we already made a decision and we have to honor that and you know for anybody that wants to voice additional concerns are always welcome to do it but I just want to remind our colleagues on the day is that we've already made a decision on how we're going to proceed and that we're doing what's legally required of our governing body to ensure that judges the clerk of the court and everybody else has the proper space needed to handle business at the courthouse thank you madam chair thank you 50 million dollars is not a small insignificant

[03:09:12] amount of money because we have needs in our county and i was elected to be a steward of our resources we had a tense budget season we not everyone got everything they want and there are things i know other initiatives to preserve land or preserve buildings that you know we have fought amongst ourselves over so i do want to say again on the record to our counterparts in the city of Manassas you know I hear you we hear you there has been nothing untoward about this process and that in order to have a collaborative dialogue I am asking that we have an actual dialogue that

[03:09:49] they respect the authority that we have over that land and that if it is not something that they are able or willing to do because I've heard one board one council member say that they shouldn't contribute a dollar but this person was also demanding that we preserve the building in place You know, I am willing to have one-on-one discussions with people, but I am asking that we tamp down on the campaign and the inflammatory rhetoric.

[03:10:15] That is all I have to say. I see Supervisor Bailey. Madam Chair, thank you for your comments. And Supervisor Vega, you are our representatives, and we appreciate the transparency, and we appreciate the openness of asking for a dialogue.

[03:10:39] Both boards are mature, professional people. And so for my one-eighth, I sincerely appreciate the transparency and the opportunity to open the door for dialogue.

[03:10:58] Thank you. Supervisor Henry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I want to support you on what you're saying here because no one has acted out of character in anything we've done. I haven't heard what you all have heard because you're on that committee, but we did hear from citizens talking about the Bennett School.

[03:11:15] Someone approached me and actually said it was the Jenny Dean School, and I'm like, listen, you have your facts wrong. I think it's too much going on, and let us just sit down and continue what we're doing. We do have a huge situation at that courthouse that we need to address, and so we've been discussing this the entire time.

[03:11:32] we've set a path forward uh mr shorter i would just ask and i know you and uh fleet management are having these discussions but let's just keep those numbers out there in front of what this really costs because this is a really big deal either way we go about this and so i think the folks need to understand if you if you're trying and i get it you're right that's a very historic building has a lot of history in it but you know it's in a bad place right now because it sits in the middle of a courthouse that we have a lot of issues with our courthouse so we gotta you know something's got to give and you know if you're not going to come to the table and have some other

[03:12:09] kind of funding to help us then i mean we just have to figure out how we're doing that and keep on the right track so i support you and i support this board and our decisions that we've made on how we're going to proceed forward to solve a lot of these issues that we're having currently right now with our courthouse so thank you madam chair all right thank you sir much i don't see anyone else in queue so what we are going to do now is we are going to go into recess we have um at 5 30 and invite everyone to join us our annual memorial day um ceremony and then after that um 10 minutes after that concludes we will come back into board chambers and will gather us back in we will pick

[03:12:48] up with supervisors time and then close session thank you everyone demonstrating the incredible impact that this model of care will have in this community but we can't do this alone we recognize that it takes a village to serve these patients, so true to our name, the team at Connections looks forward to collaborating with other service providers, with families, with community stakeholders

[03:13:27] to connect our patients with a vast constellation of medical, behavioral, and social supports that are available to our patients in this community. We're honored to have been chosen to share the impact of the Connections model with this community and to continue to change how behavioral health care is delivered in Prince William County and the surrounding areas. So thank you again to all the stakeholders in this community who make Crisis Receiving Center and this care possible, and to our Connections team for living our mission and our values every day. Back to Lisa. Thank you, Colin.

[03:14:01] I would now like to acknowledge the distinguished elected officials and some honored guests and partners who have joined us today. It is my intent to include everyone, but please forgive me if I miss you. From our Prince William County Board Chair, DeShondra Jefferson, Vice Chair Andrea

[03:14:27] Bailey of the Potomac District, Supervisor Victor Angry of Neabsco District, Supervisor Kenny Bode of the Occoquan District, home of our facility, Supervisor Tom Gordy of the Vrentsville District, Supervisor Yesli Vega of the Coles District, Governor Glenn Youngkin,

[03:15:05] 74th Governor of Virginia, Commissioner Nelson Smith of DBHDS, Delegate Ian Lovejoy, Kevin Brown, mayor of the town of Occoquan, Monet Nickerson, vice mayor of Dumfries, Amy Ashworth, Commonwealth Attorney for Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park,

[03:15:46] Jacqueline Smith, clerk of the circuit court. Representing the school board is Vice Chair Tracy Blake and Lori Williams, Superintendent of the Prince William County Schools, Dr. Latonya McDade, Terraza Jenkins and Tanya James, attending for Congressman Eugene Vindman, Irene Roberts,

[03:16:23] attending for Senator Tim Kaine, Colonel Jenny Colgate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, Elijah Johnson, Deputy County Executive for Health, Wellbeing and Environmental Sustainability, John Littell, Chief of Staff for Governor Youngkin and former Secretary of Health and

[03:16:51] Human Resources, Cheryl Roberts, Director of DMAS, and Patrick Sowers, Chair of the Community Services Board. We appreciate the support of everyone in the audience today and are so glad you could make it. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to the chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, DeShonda Jefferson, who will now share some remarks. Please join me in

[03:17:24] giving the chair Jefferson a warm welcome. Good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I have a couple more people that I would like to acknowledge. Our friends from the city of Manassas, Mayor Michelle Davis Younger. I have Sonia Vasquez Luna and Tom Osina as the chair of the Prince William Board of

[03:18:02] County Supervisors. I'm excited and delighted to welcome everyone here today. This has been a long time coming and all the people who are on the stage with me have made it happen. So thank you very much. You are the reason why we are here today. Give them another round of applause. We are here today to celebrate progress in unity with and thanks to the county staff, partners, and advocates who championed this project from its earliest stages. Northern Virginia, Prince William County

[03:18:39] included, struggles with significant mental health and substance use issues. Our hospital emergency rooms are overburdened with limited psychiatric resources, long wait times, and inadequate community support. An over-reliance on law enforcement for mental health crises strains the police department's resources, and they lack the health care-based solutions needed.

[03:19:05] With limited immediate care options, without access to timely local support and comprehensive care, individuals often find themselves returning to crisis situations. This just doesn't work. it's unattainable. We need to think differently as the saying goes and so we are. As the CRC ribbon-cutting theme says, this is a new dawn which symbolizes renewal, hope, and collaboration.

[03:19:38] It reflects how Prince William County and our partners have come together to strengthen behavioral health for our community. We cannot stress enough how much this facility and its services will mean for our community. The CRC complex represents a major investment in mental health and public safety, offering an alternative to emergency rooms and jails for individuals in behavioral health crisis. The CRC will be a safe and secure center offering immediate support during mental health challenges. The help here will include 24-7 care and interventions,

[03:20:17] A mobile crisis response team, a co-located Prince William County community services programs, such as integrated psychiatric care, peer support, and community resources, and a collaborative continuation of care with partnerships with local hospitals, healthcare providers, and community organizations to assure seamless support for individuals and their families.

[03:20:42] While this ribbon cutting celebrates the completion of the facility and the services it will provide, we are still working towards the official opening. I really want to thank everyone again who is out here today.

[03:20:58] And I really again want to thank the staff, our partners, and everyone who made this happen. Mental health for too long has been stigmatized, but we have to meet people where they're at. If we're going to care for our community and about our community, it is incumbent of us to care for the most vulnerable among us.

[03:21:21] I want to thank everyone again for being here and everyone for making this possible. And now it is my distinct honor to introduce my supervisor and the vice chair of the Board of County Supervisors, Andrea Bailey. You know you've made it when the chair of the board says, my supervisor.

[03:21:52] I tell you. So, good morning. If you can only see what I see standing here, I'm overwhelmed. And I just want to thank the community, first of all, for turning out today, for what is yours, the Crisis Receiving Center.

[03:22:13] Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I just said to the commissioner, it's cold out here. So I'm crying and I'm tearing from allergies at the same time. But we're going to get through this.

[03:22:28] God has given us a great day on today. Today marks a powerful moment in the life of our county. the official opening of the Prince William County Crisis Receiving Center. This is more than a ribbon cutting.

[03:22:44] It is a testament of what happens when compassion, commitment, and collaboration come together to serve the people. The center represents a promise that in Prince William County, no one will face a mental health crisis alone.

[03:23:05] It stands as a place of hope, safety, and dignity, where individuals can find care when they need it the most, day or night.

[03:23:20] Before I continue, I want to express my deepest gratitude to all who made this possible on this day. To our partners at the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, commonly known as DBHDS, we finally got it at the end of the day, and the Department of Medical Assistance Services, DMAS, thank you for your leadership, your resources, and your unwavering commitment to improving the behavioral health care across Virginia.

[03:23:55] And to our family, our delegates, our state senators, and federal representatives and offices who all are with us today.

[03:24:13] Your advocacy has been vital in assuring localities like ours have the tools to expand and access to quality mental health services. I'm grateful for you. To our county exec, Mr. Christopher Shorter, our community service board, led by the only, the one and only Lisa Madron, and her acting Georgia Bachman, can't forget Georgia, our law enforcement agencies who said we're in

[03:24:51] from the very beginning, and every member of our local government team, to our mayors, our vice mayors, to our superintendents, our council men and women thank you for your dedication for your turning this vision into a reality and also yes please to our school board who counted it not robbery to incorporate mental health as an essentiality as you do your work on the board i'm grateful yes to my fellow members

[03:25:30] of the board of supervisors i am honored to serve alongside you together we have proven that when we put people first we can move from conversation and maybe a little argument every now and then to action from plans on paper to doors that open in real life for me this moment is very personal i was raised in a family that believed deeply in community where neighbors looked out for one

[03:26:03] another where empathy was the rule not the exception my parents taught me that when one person is hurting the entire neighborhood feels it that upbringing shaped my belief that government's highest calling is to care and that the health of a community is measured not by the wealth of the community but by how it treats the vulnerable mental health challenges tough excuse me mental

[03:26:39] health challenges touch every family in every corner of our county regardless of income background or circumstance. They are not issues that can be ignored or stigmatized, which is the word that we're going to get rid of on today. They require compassion, coordination, and courage, and today this center becomes a cornerstone in that mission. The crisis receiving center will reduce the strain on our emergency rooms, provide critical relief to our first responders, and most importantly

[03:27:18] offer residents a space where they are met with understanding instead of judgment, with treatment instead of trauma. This is an investment not just in mental health, but in humanity. It reflects who we are and what our values are in this county.

[03:27:39] That access to care, safety, and dignity is not privileges to be earned, but promises to be kept. To every partner, advocate, clinician, and resident who helped bring this vision to life, thank you.

[03:27:57] Because of your work, we can now say that Prince William County has built not just a facility, but a foundation, one rooted in compassion, equity, and hope. As we cut this ribbon today, may we remember that we are not merely opening doors.

[03:28:20] We are opening possibilities for life, excuse me, possibilities for hearing, for connection, and for stronger, more compassionate here in Prince William County.

[03:28:38] And so I thank you, and may this center be a beacon of hope for generations to come. And lastly, I want to thank the one that puts up with me as I'm going through day by day, my wonderful husband, your state president of the NAACP, Cozy Bailey.

[03:28:59] Thank you, honey. Together, we've prayed for all of you and for this center. And so I thank you for its steadfastness. For my representative on the CESB board, Dr. Bill Carr, thank you. Thank you so much. I am overwhelmed today. I'm not going to take any more time, but I am honored to serve this community. And so when we started this project, there were two wonderful gentlemen that secured

[03:29:33] me in their offices you know they know who i'm talking about and said make it happen and we've made it happen so to chief littell i love you and to the next gentleman that i will present is my partner and promise commissioner nelson smith the commissioner of the commonwealth for the department of behavioral health and developmental services thank you for your community thank you for your service thank you for your promise thank you for believing

[03:30:12] Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Nelson. Morning. Thank you, Supervisor Bailey.

[03:30:28] We are back, and thank you for everyone who attended our Memorial Day ceremony, and thank you to communications team, as always, for doing a great job.

[03:31:00] We're going to go into Supervisor's time. I'm going to start with Supervisor Angry. I thought you wanted to go. Okay, well, I will start with Supervisor LaCroix. I just had a wonderful week, and I'm going to be really fast.

[03:31:16] I went with some of the transportation folks and we went all up and down Route 1 with the understanding of beautifying Woodbridge and Route 1 and doing a little weed whacking and hedgehogging and everything that's necessary to get the grass back and to get the Woodbridge Route 1 corridor from the beginning of Fairfax County where it crosses over the bridge all the way up to the Potomac Shores.

[03:31:47] God bless you. And I'm very excited about that. And I'm excited about the initiative that the panhandling, I think getting people the proper tools and getting them the proper services is the way to go.

[03:32:03] Other than that, I know we all want to leave, so that's enough. Thanks. And we still have closed session. All right, Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. In the interest of time, I'm just going to browse over a few key events. First of all, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the two brand-new bus shelters that we displayed at NVCC, Northern Virginia Community College.

[03:32:27] Thanks to OmniRide, the team there, and the students at NVCC for actually taking on that project. That was a great thing. Also, the Innovation District branding event, that was really cool. Nexus 234, that was awesome.

[03:32:42] I want to thank Virginia American Water. Every couple of months we do a Delaney road cleanup, and we did that. Well, they did it. I was kind of running late, so I just went over there and ate lunch with them. That was kind of cool. But, you know, those are my folks.

[03:32:57] I just want to thank them for really taking on that task twice a year and doing that. Also, American Independent Youth Leadership Conference in Williamburg, Virginia. I attended that. I spoke to a lot of our young, inspiring new leaders. Great event there.

[03:33:12] So thank you to MOWW, Military Order World Wars, for hosting that and having me come out and be a part of that. Also, annual tribute to our fallen officers, attendant dad on Monday, May 4th. Always a special event, and to all the families who lost a loved one, you are always in our prayers.

[03:33:29] And just say the names, and those folks live forever. I also want to thank everybody that came out to the Spooey groundbreaking ceremony for the Parkway-Mainville Exchange. Great event. The 2026 Older Americans Month Celebration in Haymarket, that was awesome.

[03:33:46] That's folks that love dancing, so we had a good time there dancing and enjoyed all of that. My annual appointee breakfast, I want to thank all of my appointees for coming out. It was really a family affair, so thanks for sharing all of your stories and why you were part of the solution in Prince William County and keeping this place as beautiful as it is.

[03:34:03] I attended the Amazon Rise and Recognize Community Impact Gathering. That was awesome just to note all the volunteers that we have in this county that are doing work for the people and that Amazon recognize all of those with a lot of checks and spent a lot of money on the folks. So that was good. I want to thank Dale City Civic Association.

[03:34:20] We presented to them the Maple Dale Plaza development coming up. So thanks to that leadership for having us. And then the 11th Annual Dale City Lightning Track Team Relay Game. I want to thank Dale City Lightning Club for really sponsoring that event.

[03:34:37] This year it was held at Forest Park High School, and they packed that place up. Probably, I don't know, 5,000, maybe even 10,000 people out there all day event for the kids running track. So it just shows the need of why we need to really invest in our future with our children.

[03:34:53] And then the Governor's School at Innovation Park Graduation Class 2026, congratulations to all of you and the leadership there, especially the principal for putting that on. And then Garfield Marine Corps JROTC Change of Command Ceremonies. That was an awesome event.

[03:35:10] All right, Siri, just mind your business. Okay, that was an awesome event. And I just want to congratulate the colonel there and the leadership at Garfield and all of the students that were part of that. And to the command that changed out, thank you for a job well done.

[03:35:25] To that new leadership in place, looking forward to great things from you. And then the volunteer, Prince William Volunteer Recognition Picnic, I guess luncheon, they had at Ben Lowman House. Thank you to all the volunteers in this county that do all of the work that are not seen, maybe possibly in the public.

[03:35:45] But what you do, you know, as I spoke to all of you, you're very critical. And I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do for this county and keeping it the way it is. And then lastly, so May 30th, we're having our spring dumpster day and shredding event.

[03:36:02] That's going to be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Gemini Way, commute a lot. The big piece about this year is that we are partnering with Project Be Green to collect gently used appliances, furnitures, and clothing. So if it still has life in it, don't throw it away.

[03:36:19] Bring it out. We can donate it, all right? And, again, that's Saturday, May 30th, Gemini Way, commute a lot, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you very, very much. I'll go to Jeannie. Oh, I'm sorry, Tom.

[03:36:36] All right. Just a couple of things. First of all, I want to congratulate Andrew Buckheit, the T. Claywood principal, on being named Virginia's 2026 National Distinguished Principal. I've been to quite a few events at T. Claywood. They do some incredible events. They also have a a very just excellent leadership program for their students.

[03:37:01] And they literally let the kids lead everything. It's so impressive. And so I really want to recognize Principal Buckeye on this incredible award. It is well-deserved. Saturday was an Oaksville day. It was just an incredible, beautiful day.

[03:37:19] Thanks for everyone that came out, Chair Jefferson. Everybody's very happy that you came out and joined us as well. And it was a record-breaking event with the number of vendors that came out and participated. So it continues to grow, so that's exciting. We just participated in the Memorial Day ceremony, but I also just want to thank all of our military families.

[03:37:42] This is the month of the military family, May, and so I want to thank our military families, the spouses, the children, the dependents, because you serve as a family. As they say, you recruit a soldier, a sailor, airman, a marine, but you retain a family.

[03:37:58] And so we thank every family that has decided to continue to serve in support of our military and our freedom here in America. And lastly, Madam Chair, I have a directive, and without objection, I'd like to direct the county executive and the staff to temporarily stop work on the data center opportunity zone overlay district zoning text amendment, which we initiated on march 3rd this includes directing the county executive and staff not to advertise and hold the planning commission public hearing which is currently planned for june 10th since the board initiated this zta my office and i have received a lot of good constructive feedback

[03:38:37] on it from the community and the industry and based on that feedback and one-on-one discussions with my colleagues i think there's strong opportunity with some changes to achieve a better final product for this ZTA. Therefore, I would like to direct the county executive and staff to temporarily stop work on the ZTA to allow us an opportunity to finalize proposed changes and discuss it with the stakeholders and my colleagues one-on-one. And my plan is to bring the revised ZTA to you all at the June 2nd meeting for initiation, hopefully with unanimous support.

[03:39:11] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so very much. Supervisor Bode. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just very quickly I just wanted to ditto and echo what colleagues have already said about the the poppies and Memorial Day you know some gave all all gave some and no matter who they are no matter who their families are we honor those who served in our military and serve in the cloth of our nation and just really continue to uplift all the veterans that we have in Prince William County as we often say we are very unique veteran robust community being sandwiched between

[03:39:47] two military installations and how much veterans and their families enrich this community. The last thing I'll say is this past week I was able to partner with Congressman Eugene Vindman for his congressional youth mentorship program. We hosted them right here at the McCourt building. This program gives high school students a hands-on chance to build civic skills and learn about government and the political process. I was able to host them and then give them a tour of parts them a court building including the very chambers we sit in right now had them sit in our seats to feel the weight of that um to really show high school students you know what is possible um and

[03:40:27] talked about the role of local government in their daily lives and answer their questions about what it takes to run and serve in public office i got to help students hold their own mock elections asking them about the type of leaders they intend to be i deeply believe that in the power of policy to strengthen communities, and it's always refreshing to see young people come together to learn how they can do just that. Our future is in good hands. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:40:49] All right. Real quickly, I would like to do a notice of intent to appoint Diana Paguya to the Housing Board as the Commissioner on Aging Representative. I'm sorry, as the Commission on Aging Representative. With that, I'm going to Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Very quickly, I also had an opportunity to attend the Older Americans Month in my district over at Camp Snyder.

[03:41:21] I was able to attend a fire and rescue pop-up at Ben Lohman. And also the Rise and Recognize at the now newly christened Nexus 234 area over there. And was given an in-depth behind-the-scenes tour of the Manassas Battlefield.

[03:41:42] and also um this past saturday which was very busy uh attended the vets short for corvettes for veterans vets for vets at the willing warriors retreat um also in gainesville if you get a chance really go out and check out the god's work that this place is doing as a respite for uh returning injured uh service members and their families um went and celebrated ben loman day and and at Ben Lohman, also in the Gainesville District, and attended the ribbon cutting at the winery in Woodbridge

[03:42:20] to finish up that, Cooper's Hawk, yes, to finish up that day, and although I don't drink wine, still Mazel Tov. Okay. Thank you. And Supervisor Bailey. Mazel Tov, I love it.

[03:42:40] Again, this month is Military Children's Month, and I just want to thank my exquisite, wonderful son who is a military child, for being the great son that he is, and to all the children who, not count a robbery, that they move with their parents and they adjust.

[03:42:55] They are perfect children in my eyes. I don't care what you say. So I just want to thank Amazon for Amazon Rising, the awards you gave to the community. It was just brilliant and really a good time for the community to collaborate. I had a great time on the 13th with the president of George Mason University in his annual Matthew House Art event with he and his wife.

[03:43:19] It was a great opportunity to look at the local talent at George Mason University. Thank you to our economic development staff for the Quantico Master Plan that you put on at the Potomac Shores facility.

[03:43:34] We really appreciate you moving forward with that agenda. And my office attended the Potomac High Senior Awards Night. Congratulations to all of the seniors and the accomplishments that you're doing in your studies. And then on the 15th, I attended the Nova Labor Dinner with the Nova Labor Union, where we had the opportunity to watch those who work hard for us in this industry as it relates to the workplace, safety, fair wages, workers' rights, and collective bargaining.

[03:44:08] Happy birthday to Mrs. John Harper, B.J. Harper, who turned 90 years young on the 16th. We are very proud of you and thankful for all the work that you and Lieutenant Colonel John Harper has done of Covington Harper Elementary School.

[03:44:27] Happy birthday to you. And for the Pride and Purpose Ribbon Cutting, congratulations to an annual event that you always ignite just perfectly every year. Congratulations to Chef Wesley and the senior culinary class at Potomac High School for how you exhibit the great work that you do from Potomac High School.

[03:44:50] On the 19th, today, thanks to my staff for participating in the retirement ceremony this evening for the Prince William County retirees. They didn't get our permission for that, but you've worked hard and long, and we appreciate it.

[03:45:05] Upcoming events, I will be participating in the Aging Gracefully Spring Expo on the 20th. And then on the 20th and 21st, I'll be participating in the VACO Springboard for Directors that we are sponsoring here with our wonderful chair, Victor Angry, here in the county.

[03:45:25] On the 21st, going to the state of the county chair with Chair Phyllis Randall, our partner in Loudoun, and to my mayor, Mayor Derek Wood, on the 28th, state of the town. He's doing an excellent job there. I have two directives that I issued, sent to my—I'm only going to give one today because I'm running out of time.

[03:45:47] But the one that I'm going to give is the Household Energy Rebate Fund. To my colleagues, I'm interested in exploring the county creating, establishing, and administrating a Household Energy Rebate Fund. I am contemplating that the fund could be established between $31 and $34 million with a maximum of $200 per household energy rebate.

[03:46:09] And it would be available to all residents of Prince William County with disbursements of energy rebate within three months. And I have a typo. It said 27, but I really meant 28 budget year because 27 is gone. Madam Chair, without objections, I'd like to direct the county exec to work with staff to review whether the board has the legal authority and ability to create, establish, and implement such a household energy rebate fund.

[03:46:37] The directive response should include recommended provisions to establish methods to prevent fraud, such as only rebate authorized per household, to include a promotion and communication plan for resident awareness, and provisions on the allocation's unclaimed funds.

[03:46:56] The county executive is directed to bring back any appropriate recommendations for the Board's consideration and possibilities. Such recommendations should, where applicable, include timelines, fiscal impacts, and other pertinent impacts for board consideration.

[03:47:14] I am going to object. I know that this is going to be tense, and our residents certainly do deserve some kind of relief. I feel that that should be given from the energy company. But I also have to ask where the money is going to come from. We had a very tense budget season.

[03:47:31] We're going to have to look at where we're going to have to cut money. And that's the big thing. I want everyone to think about where are we going to get the money for this program? Because, you know, we have some people who have concerns about revenue sharing. We have some people who, you know, I would have liked to see us do something on the meals tax.

[03:47:51] You know, so we have people who want to continue to lower our real estate tax. So my concern is where are we going to get the money, given our last budget season, with everyone's priorities. And I think that that's something the energy companies should be looking at, quite frankly.

[03:48:08] I think that that's something, but, you know, I appreciate the directive. I appreciate the spirit of what it is you're trying to do. Madam Chair, I appreciate your objection. I'd like to take a vote on it, if you're good, please. Yes, if we can go ahead. And can I give my comments, please? Okay, yes. The purpose of this is because we are trying to make sure that we are supporting our citizens as well as the other programs that we are putting forth, and I think it's an opportunity.

[03:48:32] We talked about this during budget season. It is an opportunity for us to do just that and have the county exec examine, as he always does with any initiative that we put forth, it's an opportunity for him to examine whether that's a possibility or not. So what I'm asking the board to do is to examine to see if it is a possibility, not that it's etched in stone.

[03:48:52] So I would like to take a vote on it. Well, I will call for the vote shortly. I just want people to be mindful that we have to think about all the things and initiatives that we're trying to do and be realistic about the monies that we have in our coffers. I don't see anyone else, so we'll go ahead and call. I'm sorry, Supervisor Angry? Oh, I'm sorry, we need a second.

[03:49:10] I'll second that. Okay. All right, let's go ahead. Motion passes 5 to 2. Supervisor Gordy and Chair Jefferson voting nay.

[03:49:30] All right, thank you very much. We are now going to go into closed session, so if everyone can meet in the back, hopefully this will not take terribly long, hopefully. All right, knock on wood.

[03:49:41] Madam Chair, move to approve closed session, certified closed session.

[03:50:17] Second. All right, let's take our vote.

[03:50:27] I'm a yes. Okay. He's not going. I'm missing something. I just need a second. Oh, Chair Jefferson. I put you as that. Okay, there we go. Now we go. I'm missing something. Vote unanimous.

[03:50:44] All right. We have something to report out. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we accept the following internal audit reports. Debt capacity assessment, IT seat management fees, phase one, and IT seat management fees, external entities. Second. All right.

[03:51:00] Let's go ahead and take our vote.

[03:51:12] Unanimous. All right. And our next item, we have Supervisor Gordy. Madam Chair, without objection, I'd like to direct the county executive to work with staff to review Dominion Energy's application for the Morrisville Wishing Star 500 and 230 KV project, including all proposed routes and submit written comments, verbal testimony, and or any appropriate evidence to the State Corporation Commission by the applicable deadlines regarding any potential impacts on county-owned property and planned county projects, including any financial impacts on the county.

[03:51:45] The county executive is directed to provide the board with updates on the county staff's actions pursuant to this directive and copies of any written comments and or evidence that are submitted to the SEC. The county attorney's office is directed to review any written comments and or evidence prior to submission to the SEC for any legal issues.

[03:52:07] Motion to adjourn. No, that's not a motion. That's a directive. It's a directive. There is no objection. Motion?

[03:52:25] i hate you i love corny jokes i hate him for making a joke second my mic was on when i said i hate you that's why i had to clarify no i'm sorry it went yeah it went red so it's vote unanimous it doesn't matter if they're gonna hear thank you everyone our next meeting is on tuesday june 2nd we are adjourned i forgot something in the

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