Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   12/6/2023

Hello?

Yes, good evening everyone and welcome.

I'm pleased to call to order at 6 o'clock p.m.

in Lane Auditorium this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

Just as an aside, we started at 1 o'clock with a work session with the school board and then adjourned in a different room, but here we are now at 6 o'clock p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

The supervisors who are present are Supervisor and Vice Chair Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, and Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, along with myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

A quorum is present.

Let me also mention and welcome our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, the Clerk for the Board, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, who are also present on the dais.

I also want to welcome and introduce our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present, Lieutenant Angela Jamerson and Officer Raymond Lilly,

Thank you and would ask that you now join us in a moment of silence.

Board, it's now time for an adoption of the final agenda.

I do need to move to amend the agenda because we adjourned with the certification of the closed meeting in a different room and we were going to have some motions coming out of the closed meeting in that room but instead have deferred those

into here.

So I would move the adoption of the final agenda as amended to allow the motions to take place here at this session.

Second.

A motion by myself, a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right.

Thank you, Board.

And we will now move to Vice Chair Andrews.

We do.

It's my pleasure to move the adoption of a resolution appointing Jacob Sumner as the Director of Finance, Chief Financial Officer, in the form distributed to the Board previously.

All right.

We have a motion from Supervisor Andrews.

We have a second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right.

Thank you.

Yes, we do.

I move the following appointments to boards and commissions to the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Board

J. Pun, and Russ Cronberg, to the Fire Prevention Board of Appeals Raymond Gaines, and also the local Board of Building Code Appeals Raymond Gaines, to the Joint Airport Commission John Mattern and John Post,

to the Route 250 West Task Force, Mr. Andrews Sollans, and to the Thomas Jefferson Water Resources Protection Foundation Board, Mark Wassler.

We have a motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor Malek.

Ms.

Ms.

Malek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just one announcement, an invitation.

Saturday, December 16th at noon, all are welcome to attend Wreaths Across America.

Wreath laying ceremony will begin at the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial at noon, then proceed to the county memorial on our front lawn here, then on to Oakley Memorial on West Rio Road, and then the VFW Memorial in Earliesville.

I'd like to see you there.

All right, thank you.

Yes, I do have something very important to bring forth.

We, the Albemarle County, well Central Virginia, but mainly Albemarle County, we received a certificate of recognition from the governor making Monticello AVA the wine region of the year for 2023.

We competed against five other localities, areas in the world and we won.

So I'm going to, if I may,

read the proclamation or certificate.

Whereas Virginia, rich with history, is the birthplace of American wine with a practice of winemaking credited to centuries of Virginians cultivating grapevines and producing unrivaled wines from the Jamestown settlers to the founding fathers to the innovators of today.

and whereas in 1818, Thomas Jefferson, founding father and third president of the United States, stated that, in nothing have the habits of the palate more decisively influenced than in our relish of wines.

Whereas upon Thomas Jefferson's vision and inspiration of grape growing and wine making, a superior American viticultural area, ABA,

Monticello was built some 200 years later on the

Eastern Slopes and rolling countryside of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, producing outstanding and award-winning varietals.

And whereas in 1984, upon the proposal of the Jeffersonian Wine Grape Grower Society, the Monticello ABA was established based on its name recognition and historical significance of its boundaries and most importantly, its fertile geographical features.

and whereas surrounding the city of Charlottesville in Albemarle County, the historic wine region of Monticello is the Commonwealth's oldest AVA harvesting approximately 30 varieties of grapes, most notably Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and Voynier.

And whereas today, the Monticello Wine Trail

A subject of the JWGGS is an active association of wineries all within 25 miles of Charlottesville, each honored to play a part in fulfilling Thomas Jefferson's dream of producing wines of state, national, and international acclaim.

And whereas the more than 40 wineries on the Monticello Wine Trail offer a deep historic significance and winemaking heritage, lush vineyards,

and views of the Blue Ridge Mountain, and of people who embody the grace, gift, and experimental spirit of our Virginia wine, and whereas more than two million people from around the world visit Virginia wineries each year to toast the local bounty of our region and enjoy the Commonwealth

Commonwealth's winemaking heritage and whereas Wine Enthusiast Magazine is an esteemed internationally recognized wine publication and 2023 marks the 24th anniversary of the magazine's Wine Star Awards and whereas honoring centuries of Virginia winemaking and recognizing the high level of quality achieved by the Monticello AVA and

The category of 2023 Top Wine Region has been awarded to Monticello AVA by the magazine's executive media team over four other distinguished 2023 nominees, including Lambrusco, Italy, Provence, France, Switzerland, Swartland, South Africa, and Victoria, Australia.

Now therefore I, Glenn Youngkin, do hereby recognize Monticello ABA as Wine Region of the Year in the Commonwealth of Virginia and I call this observation to the attention of all our citizens.

Is that a motion?

If it is, I'll second it.

You know, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, I agree.

I mean, this is really quite an honor, and what I would like is the indulgence of the board if we would all come in front of the dais with Mr. Richardson and if we could get a photo of this.

I can do this.

Thank you for that indulgence and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, thank you for your superb production of that event.

Anything further, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

That's all, thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor Andrews?

No announcements.

Thank you.

And the only thing I have is on Sunday the 10th at 3.30 at the Paramount, the Seville Band will be giving a community performance and I hope people will be able to be out and support our local arts in that fashion.

Anything else?

Then we can now move to item number six, proclamations and recognitions.

So we can move to item number seven from the public.

And let me check with the clerk.

We can move on to item number eight, the consent agenda.

I'm not aware of any amendments to the consent agenda.

A motion from Supervisor Malek, a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Ms.

Malek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Board, we can move to item number nine, and I think this is going to be a really fun one for us tonight.

Yes, Chair Price, thank you.

This is not the normal County Executives Report batting order for tonight, but I have a couple of things that I would like for the Boards

First, I would like to ask Jacob Sumner, our newly appointed Chief Finance Officer, please.

Could he come to the podium and just take a second, please, Jacob.

You've been in the interim role now for six months.

You've been with the organization for several years.

You've got some of your wonderful staff here with you tonight.

Board, I want to publicly thank you for your support this evening with the appointment of Mr. Sumner.

I think we got a good remembrance of the caliber of work that comes out of budget and finance today with our work that we did with the partnership with Schools Division.

Mr. Sumner, you and your team are doing excellent work, and I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Thank you so much.

Although I was prepared to present another 50-slide presentation, I figured one in an evening is enough.

So I just want to take a moment to thank you all.

Thank you for instilling your trust in me in this position.

I truly am humbled and honored to continue my service with the county.

to our community, part of the community, my service to you all for the board.

The partnership with the county executive and the county executive office and the executive team, I'm super excited to continue to work with the departments and the whole department team and our organizational leadership team.

And I am thrilled to be the lead of some amazing professionals on the Department of Finance and Budget.

We're doing great work and I've

I'm immensely proud of the team that we have together.

Well thank you, and don't go away, because I'm sure that the supervisors may have something that they may want to say.

Jacob, congratulations.

I think sometimes decisions or appointments just make real good sense and this is one of those.

I cannot recall a time where an interim has done things beyond just keeping things stabilized but actually moving things forward for the organization.

Thank you.

I agree.

Congratulations.

We're thrilled to have you in your new role, and I really appreciate very much your dedication that you've shown specifically to Jaunt, because you and I have connected many times over your work with Jaunt, but you've just done a great job in the office.

The presentation and the work that you and your team did this afternoon with the school board around our CIP projects was really outstanding and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you and congratulations and your department is the one that has contact every year with every single taxpayer in the county.

So good luck with that.

But we count on you to continue the excellent service that you're providing.

Thank you.

We're thrilled to have you and you were the right person at the right time for the position and your interim position proved that.

Thank you.

Well said.

Thank you for stepping up and doing such a great job.

Thank you.

And Mr. Sumner, don't let the brevity of our remarks send the wrong message because we have been working with you not just for the last six months as the interim but for months before that as well.

You know, there are some positions where you can

Bestow trust and wait to see whether it is reciprocated and earned.

Yours was not one of those positions.

You earned that trust from the very beginning of your first day here.

You demonstrated it up until the point you were you know appointed interim and during this last six months of many many challenges you have continued to prove that you have earned that trust and we are very very pleased to have you now in the permanent position.

Thank you so much and again to the finance department, the budget folks.

Thank you for pulling together over the last year and doing the work that you've done.

Very, very appreciative of the teamwork.

not just in the department but across the departments too, the good work with human resources, internal service departments, and then the connection back to our organization.

It's very meaningful to watch these folks do the kind of work they do every day.

Now I'm going to pivot and I'm going to go to an external facing department, if I may.

and I'm gonna introduce in just a second, and he's on the front row, just off the train from Arizona, Mr. Barry Albright, who's started with us as of Monday this week.

We're very lucky to have him here, but I wanna start by, before I introduce him, the board has appointed him to the position as Economic Development Director.

I wanna take a minute and recognize Mr. Trevor Henry, who has done amazing work this year

helping J.T.

Newberry to lead our economic development department over the course of this calendar year.

And we've not missed a step.

And it's the team that J.T.

works with in economic development.

It's Mr. Henry.

It's Ms.

Emily Kilroy.

These folks have pulled together.

Then we've seen some great work from our legal department in supporting us on our purchase of the property out at Rivanna.

We've seen outstanding support from facilities and environmental services, our budget and finance team, so we've all pulled together.

All this being said, Mr. Henry reported to U-Board several weeks ago upon his return trip from Orlando at a Department of Defense conference where he was there several days working with military and consulting personnel from D.C.

He said upon his return, Jeff, we've picked the right person for this job.

And so with that, I'd like to ask Mr. Barry Albright.

Come up, Barry, and introduce yourself to the board and to the community.

And we want to extend you a super warm welcome from Albemarle County.

First of all, obviously I'm pretty excited about starting this position because I showed up two weeks early.

I'm still living out of boxes and pulling those little stickers off the furniture.

I want to thank you for adjusting the agreement or the resolution to appoint me to this date.

I'm glad to hear that I was endorsed by a lot of people there at the Association of Defense Communities.

I do have some friends there.

It's a great organization, but I want to thank you also, Trevor, for his amount.

You're very much right.

Trevor did a lot of great work.

and convincing me, sharing the information, what makes you unique and I'm more than excited about my study and implementing the Project Enable that you have done an incredible job.

Rarely do you see

the community engagement illustrated in a strategic plan like Project Enable.

That was one of the big selling points in seeing that this community has the spirit of cooperation, which is the foundation of a successful economic development community.

If you have any questions, I'd be more than glad to answer them.

Thank you and don't go anywhere.

Supervisors are going to have some comments.

Well, welcome, and we very much look forward to having you and working with you.

I'm thrilled to hear you mention Project Enable.

So much has happened in Albemarle County in the last six years relative to economic development.

And it is vital to our future, especially as it relates to where we've been going to get all of our revenue from, which is our citizens and on the property tax.

And economic development is how we can start to ease that burden and gain more revenue in.

So you're coming in at a wonderful time not just because of Rivanna Futures but because Project Enable is getting to that point where it's going to get its probably version 2 or 2.0 and it'll be wonderful having somebody of your caliber join us and figuring out what that new version will look like as we continue to endeavor forward.

Thank you.

Welcome.

And we're really glad that your movers were able to accommodate, get you here earlier.

This is great.

And I'll just piggyback on what Ned just said.

The timing is really great because we are doing an update to our comprehensive plan.

And we have requested that economic development, the chapter on economic development, be reviewed and updated because it has been a while.

So we welcome you enthusiastically.

Your timing is great.

and I know you have the right expertise for us at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you and welcome.

It was great to meet you in person on Monday.

That was great.

Years ago, the county mantra for economic development was the university will take care of it.

And that was the official mantra in the 2000s and we had a long way to go to get even a baby step in the direction of where we are today.

But the selling point to me was we can have both environmental protection and jobs for our children and our grandchildren and our adults who want to change careers and all the economic prosperity that comes along with that.

So it's a very big lift, but I know that you can help us do better.

Thank you.

Once again, welcome.

Thank you.

Welcome and I add my gratitude that you're here because not only is your endorsement of Project Enable and our forthcoming revisions, but also of course the Rivanna Project and your leadership will be very important to that project.

Thank you.

Mr. Richardson, I really want to thank Mr. Henry and Mr. Newberry for the work and the staff.

Let me not just mention two people, but for the staff for the work they've done prior to your arrival.

And board, just so you'll be familiar, Project Enables, the revision will be known as Mark 1, Mod 2.

I think, Mr. Albrecht, you recognize that kind of language.

What I have seen just in the two days, well three days I guess now,

for our community is what I have seen in the starting blocks is a long distance sprinter, Mr. Albrecht.

He recognizes it is a long distance race for economic development, but you're starting off in a sprint and we are all looking forward to continuation of the work we've done and bringing it to even higher levels.

Well, it's been said before I'm not happy unless I'm at 90 miles an hour.

Well, I did want to just, for the community who have not had the opportunity, we have our new deputy

County Executive, Ann Wall.

This is the third day.

It's kind of like the twelve days of Christmas, Ms.

Wall, that three days in a row I've been able to introduce you to the community.

Ms.

Richardson, I don't know if you had anything more.

No, ma'am, you reminded me that I had three tasks and I was two-thirds of the way through, and so a good team makes sure that we don't forget things that are important.

And it is really important that we have worked as an organization to find just the right person to fill Mr. Walker's shoes.

Doug Walker retired back in July, and he remains a citizen and a community member in this community, very valued.

He and his family and we wish him the best and we took our time and we had a lot of evaluators.

We did a good process and I'd like to invite, if I could please, Ann Wall to the front.

Ms.

Wall has been appointed.

She is in her first week.

and she's hit the ground running so fast and fits in so well I almost forgot.

Ann, I'd really appreciate it if you could come to the podium and share a few thoughts with the board.

Thank you very much to Chair Price, to the members of the Board of Supervisors.

I am delighted to be here tonight and I am delighted to be in Albemarle County.

Just a little bit about myself.

I grew up in Virginia.

I have served many years in local government primarily in North Carolina where I had various roles in organizations and various roles in cities across North Carolina and most recently I served as city manager of the city of Greenville, a city in eastern North Carolina home to about a hundred thousand people and home to East Carolina University I have an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in city planning

and a master's degree in public administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Personally I have one son who lives still remains in North Carolina and is completing his master's degree.

I again am thrilled to be here

I'm thrilled to join this organization.

Having been a seasoned local government professional, what I can say is I truly appreciate and value public service and I truly appreciate and value the work that organizations like Albemarle County do

and the impact they make on the lives of residents in this community and it really is a wonderful opportunity to be here and I'm so much looking forward to my work here.

I've had such a wonderful warm welcome from both the Board of Supervisors as well as all the county staff.

Alright, well thank you and I don't want you to run off because while I've had the opportunity to introduce you several times

I do want to make sure the other supervisors have an opportunity to come in as well.

Well, welcome and both your credentials and reputation as they've been reported to us have preceded your arrival and I suspect everyone agrees that we couldn't wait for you to get here.

Just to pat a little bit on the back of our county executive team, we see them as a high caliber team that is committed to the ideals of a high performing organization.

And when they get excited about having a new team member come on to join them with that work, that must be a pretty special person.

Thank you.

Welcome Ann.

And I will say that I, in fact, am really assured, have been assured that you are the right person for this job.

I attended the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on Friday night, had barely gotten in the door, and a former educator that I used to work with at that time at Jack Jouett Middle School came running up to me and said, Diantha, you hired Ann.

and he moved to North Carolina when he retired and had the pleasure to know about Ann's work and I don't know how, in working relationships I'm not sure, but he was just so thrilled that Ann has joined us in Albemarle County.

So that was a great endorsement.

Thank you.

Thank you very much and wonderful to see you again.

And Greenville, I think, is the place where they have that beautiful pedestrian bridge over the river that we're all trying to figure out a way.

So you may be able to help us bring something similar to that to cross over from Willa Mills to Pan Tops.

We've been struggling with that for quite a few years now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, welcome.

I just share the comments of the other supervisors.

Thank you, and you know, I've had the opportunity now several times, but I don't want brevity of remarks to be interpreted in any way a lack of enthusiasm because we all share that same degree of enthusiasm and

Mr. Richardson, it's just another example of Albemarle County winning when it comes to the right people.

So you've got a huge area of responsibility, but we know you're going to take it and run with it.

Thank you all very much.

All right.

So with that board, we can move to item number 10.

This will be the first of our public hearings.

And so I'll turn the floor over to Vice Chair Andrews.

Can you pull this down closer?

Thank you.

These are the rules for public hearings for in-person or online comment.

These will apply to all the public hearings.

These also appear on the back of the agenda, which is, I believe, on the sign-up table and can be available, I think, on the chat if you're online.

During public hearings, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for public hearing.

Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item.

Community members physically present for the meeting will speak first, then those who are attending the meeting electronically will speak.

For those attending electronically, the clerk will assist each speaker as it is their turn to speak.

For in-person speakers, timekeeping is conducted through the timer and light system at the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

The yellow light indicates that you have one minute to finish speaking, and the red light indicates your time has expired and you'll be asked to end your comments.

For community members who are attending electronically, timekeeping is also conducted through a timer, which will commence when you begin speaking.

Beginning your allotted time, you will be notified when the three minutes are up, and you are requested to bring your comments to a close, as your microphone will be muted after about five more seconds.

To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the Board requested speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When addressing the Board, please state your name and, if you live in Albemarle County, your Magisterial District.

Address comments directly to the Board as a whole.

Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the Clerk.

If making comments through Zoom, you may upload your written comments through the e-comment portal or email your comments to the Clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Please do not speak from your seat or out of turn as all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

For those participating by phone, press star 9 at the time of the

Opening of those comments to let us know that you want to speak and then star six it from a landline to unmute.

All right.

Thank you, Vice Chair Andrews.

So we'll move to item number 10 public hearing fiscal year 2024 budget amendment appropriations and official intent to reimburse expenditures with proceeds from a borrowing.

Good evening.

Good evening, board.

I'm Ryan Davison, the deputy chief of budget.

Tonight's agenda item is a public hearing to amend the FY24 budget.

I have a couple of slides to provide some overview and brief detail of the contents of the amendment, and then after which I'll turn it over to the chair and the board for any clarifying questions and to hold the public hearing.

The Virginia Code requires that a public hearing before amending the budget when the total amount of funding exceeds 1% of the currently adopted budget.

That's the case tonight.

Overall, the amendment for discussion tonight at tonight's public hearing is for $40.7 million.

Of that, approximately $2.9 million of that was appropriated as part of prior board actions.

An additional $37.8 million is up for consideration for tonight's approval.

of the 40.7 million I mentioned, this slide outlines where the majority of these

dollars are going.

21.6 goes towards our general fund and our special fund reappropriations.

This is the standard moving forward of funding for those projects or efforts that were started in FY23, however, are not to be completed until the current fiscal year.

We also have $10.6 million in grant-related funding.

Of that is $7.1 for the FEMA SAFER grants, which we've been speaking to the board about, as well as $2 million for the RAISE grant for the three-notched trail shared multi-use path planning.

and also within this we have the $5.3 million capital fund appropriation for public school related projects.

That's related to the sale of the KTEC, revenue from the sale of the KTEC building and also for the Center 2 project and that was discussed briefly at today's work session earlier by Ms.

Kumazawa of the schools.

And finally we have $2.6 million for the FY24 revenue update, mid-year revenue update and for which the usage of the general fund portion will be discussed on the next slide

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm tall, but not that tall.

Hello, Kristi Shifflett, Chief Operating Officer.

Yes, I wanted to

Apologies, I thought that was up and ready.

Okay, I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper into the slides you saw before about the adjustments.

So this is to bring us back to what you heard on in November about our intentions and requests to

Take our Gallagher study recommendations and be able to fully implement them so that we can provide our staff with a starting salary of the midpoint range of our pay scale.

And this is for classified staff on our classified pay scale.

So we're requesting to move those staff at that midpoint range and then there will also be a time and seat adjustment so that we are recognizing a compression strategy about their years of service in that specific position.

This request is coming because there have been a lot of changes in our environment and our current market

We have the state has provided a mid-year increase that we want to recognize that is going to impact again our competitive market, specifically UVA, as well as we have seen market changes that have really impacted

our recruitment and our ability to not only recruit different positions but we're seeing once we find candidates the challenges

and actually being able to have them come and accept based on our current compensation strategy.

So we are seeing the need to adjust to that desire because of our affordability of our area as well as just the competition.

Some of our telework and hybrid work behaviors now is allowing a lot more flexibility as well as we have experienced a large amount of vacancies

in our organization.

We've maintained around 80 vacancies since July.

That has really made an impact on our staff and their need to fill in those gaps and to overcome and continue to provide that workforce that our community expects.

So with that, you heard this information previously, but I wanted to remind our community the needs for this increase in the request and how it connects, as well as we're requesting the board approve a 2% COLA

for all staff that's public safety and classified and that is to recognize the fact that our 23 competitive market institutions and local governments that we defined with our compensation philosophy it made shifts and adjustments many of our competing markets gave a larger increase

in July, and we need to recognize that and be able to stay competitive.

So with that, we request that information, that mid-year increase to take effect January 1, and that is in this budget amendment and appropriation.

One last slide.

Just to wrap up the presentation, staff's recommendation is that the board adopt the resolution in attachment B after holding the public hearing and attachment C, which is the intent to move first.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Davidson.

We'll go through our order.

Any questions?

Supervisor Galloway?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions.

I just want to make sure that there's clarity in the community because I've already had one call with a concern about that and I think it was a misunderstanding.

So I just want to make sure we're clear on the fact that what we're doing is we're continuing our classification and compensation study, the market-driven study, to make that particular study whole

And theirs was that, I think the confusion that, I think there was some confusion around whether or not it was for public safety as well as classified.

Just want to make sure it's clear.

Yes ma'am.

Thank you.

No questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have no questions.

I thank you both for your presentation.

We'll now open the public hearing.

Do we have anyone signed up to speak for this?

We do not.

All right.

So subject any further questions by the Board of Staff?

Seeing none, then I will close the public hearing.

I'm happy to make a motion.

I move that the board adopt the resolution attachment B in our packet for tonight.

Thank you.

We have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

I think there is a C. There is an attachment C. That was left off of this slide on the recommendation.

All right, so we have a motion from Supervisor McKeel and this time I heard a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you, board.

We can now move to item number 11, agricultural and forest school districts.

And good evening.

Mr. Poulter, how are you?

Mr. Poulter.

It's Clark.

Mr. Clark, good evening.

Good evening, I'm Scott Clark, the Conservation Program Manager in Community Development, and this next item on your agenda is a proposed addition to an Agricultural and Forestry District.

So just to quickly refresh your memories on how these districts work, they are voluntary conservation districts formed by landowners in the rural part of the county.

These are enabled across the state and many rural localities.

And the state and county policies that they're designed to promote include production of food and ag and forest products, providing essential open spaces, supporting a strong agricultural and forest economy, and protecting and preserving our natural resources.

These districts run in 10-year cycles before they're reviewed, and they largely function in the ordinance of the county code by limiting development to a more intensive use while the property is in the district.

So prohibiting some form of subdivisions, setting higher review standards for land use decisions,

and they also have some effect on prohibiting state takings for road improvements in these areas that are committed to agriculture.

So tonight's proposal is for an addition to the Kinloch district in the northeastern part of the county.

You can see the map here.

This property is 25.78 acres

It's made up of significant areas of prime and locally important soils, and it has three unused developments.

So it meets the criteria in the county's ordinance for addition to one of these conservation districts.

And you can see the location here with the arrow points to the red outline.

This proposed addition has been considered by the Agriculture and Forest District Advisory Committee, who have voted unanimously to recommend approval of this addition to the Kinloch District.

And also in November, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of this addition.

So I'll be happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you.

We'll go through our order.

Supervisor Galloway.

Thank you, Mr. Clark.

No questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So just to clarify, the reduced subdivision is family divisions only, is that right?

Family subdivisions are the only divisions you can do that are below 21 acres in a district.

You can do the 21-acre in larger lots, but every resulting piece has to be at least 21.

And the family divisions have to be held for 10 years, I think, before they can be sold.

It is.

or try it out and then get a conservation easement, perhaps.

Very good.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have no questions.

Checking with the clerk.

All right, that being the case, subject to any further questions by staff, I mean by the supervisors of staff, seeing none, we can close the public hearing.

I'd be happy to make a motion supporting

I move to adopt the ordinance dated September 7, 2023, approving the addition to Kinloch AFD.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right.

Thank you, Board.

Thank you, Mr. Clark, for your presentation.

This is a long one ZTA 2023-0004, STA 2023-0002, WPTA 2023-0002, VTA 2023-0001,

and OTA 2023-0001, Community Development Department, CDD Fee Restructuring.

I believe we hit the full alphabet with that listing.

Good evening.

Dave Shiflett, Assistant Director of Administration with Community Development.

Get the presentation up here.

Good evening board and chair Price.

With me today also is Amelia McCauley, our special projects manager in community development and our partner with the Berkeley group, Darren Coffey.

We are here for the public hearing on the CED fee restructuring project.

Okay, so to provide a little bit of background, the goals for the project

as well as a summary of best practices and fee schedules and then we'll go over a summary of the changes proposed with these ordinance amendments.

The proposed new unified fee schedule as well as amendments to the six county code sections to accommodate the new fee schedule are before the board for action after public hearing and then finally we'll close with next steps.

The board may recall seeing this list of project purposes as well as understanding that these amendments are an important step towards facilitating the implementation of our new community development system known as Enterprise Permanent Licensing, or EPL.

EPL is the permit and application tracking platform that will replace our current system, CountyView.

And the key themes for the restructuring project

have been to simplify and consolidate the fees.

The fees will move from 312 separate fees in six separate code sections into one consolidated fee ordinance.

With staff's recommendation, the fee schedule, we will have 153 total fees, which is roughly a 50% reduction in the number of fees we currently have.

The resulted unified fee schedule is found in your attachment E in the report.

So our methodology revolved around our engagement with the Berkeley Group.

They're a Virginia-based consulting firm who works with localities on government policies and regulations.

They examined our current fee schedule structure and compared it with seven peer localities in the Commonwealth.

and the Berkeley group recommended changes to our fee schedule based on that evaluation and these best practices.

The scope of the project did not include an analysis of charges for fees.

One of the goals is to maintain level revenues and this involved a fairly rigorous process with substantial data modeling and projections.

for example with our single family residential building fees.

The major focus was benchmarking and comparing our fee structures with the other localities.

Throughout the project we engaged with major stakeholders directly in the community through Engage Albemarle and you will also find a letter of support from the Blue Ridge Home Builders Association in attachment D to your report.

For the best practices, Berkeley Group's research resulted in finding these to be the best practices listed, where we're just keeping fees simple and predictable, bundling them when we can and when it's practical, and rounding the fees up and down to make the schedule readily available in one location.

We believe that the proposed new unified fee schedule and attachment E follows these best practices.

Since we were last before the board with a presentation, I believe that was on August 16th of this year, and since that meeting we've worked with Berkeley Group to produce the draft ordinances that are before you.

This included determining which are general fee guidelines, such as refunds, timing, and method of payment, and which others apply to specific ordinances.

We expanded the document that summarizes proposed changes, as we will further explain,

We also made several changes to formatting and terminology to reduce redundancy and improve clarity of the fees The Planning Commission did unanimously recommend approval of the proposed ordinances in their public hearing on October 10th of this year

The Board may recall the single-family building permit fee bundling that is illustrated with this slide.

The bundled fee is applied across all types of square footages and includes building plan review and the first two inspections per inspection type.

Subsequent inspections beyond these are subject to the separate reinspection fees and the proposed bundled single-family fees.

more closely aligned the fee with staff effort.

For example, smaller homes are subject to a lesser fee and bigger homes with more area to inspect have higher fees.

The board may also recall a fairly in-depth summary of the proposed changes at the August 16th meeting

Since then, staff added to the summary document, which is attachment A2, an explanation of proposed changes relating to ARB and WPO applications.

That is Architectural Review Board and Water Protection Ordinance, respectively.

The ARB application fees were grouped into the following categories based on staff effort.

A, Board Review Minor and Board Review Major, and B, Staff Review Minor and Staff Review Major.

Water Protection Ordinance application fees were consolidated where there was repetition.

In a few cases, the fee names were also restated for clarity.

In addition, we responded to a request from Charlottesville Area Development Roundtable

to allow full payment of the Virginia stormwater management program fee instead of half upon submittal and then half when it's issued.

All right.

We'll go through our order and board.

As you are aware, we have seven different items that we will be voting on.

So we will first start with the first item.

Any questions?

Supervisor Galloway?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have no questions.

Do we have anyone signed up?

Good evening, Andy Herrick with the County Attorney's Office.

It was advertised as a single advertisement.

All right, thank you.

So I think I had referenced it was going to be a single hearing.

If I wasn't clear on that, I apologize.

So my next question is, with the board having done its preparation, is the board willing to do all of the presentations at once and then do

around to see if any supervisor has questions on any of the items rather than each item round of questions.

I think it might save us a little bit of time.

There appears to be consensus, so Mr. Shifflett, we're going to let you do all seven of them and then we'll do one round of questions, okay?

Okay.

So you can move on to the next one.

Staff recommends that the board adopt the amendments to chapter 3 relating to agricultural and forest district fees attached to the staff report as attachment F.

Staff recommends that the board adopt the amendments to Chapter 5 relating to building fees attached to the staff report as Attachment G. Staff recommends that the board adopt the amendments to Chapter 7 relating to short-term rental registry fees attached to the staff report as Attachment H. Staff recommends that the board adopt the amendments to Chapter 14 relating to subdivision fees attached to the staff report as Attachment 1.

I'm sorry, I, attachment I. Staff recommends that the board adopt amendments to chapter 17 relating to water protection fees attached to the staff report as attachment J. And finally, staff recommends that the board adopt the amendments to chapter 18 relating to zoning fees.

All right, so I just want to confirm that all the supervisors have prior to this evening's board meeting and this public hearing previously been provided all of the staff materials related to each of the seven items and just would like a little confirmation from the supervisors that we've all received that.

All right, so But but first I just want to confirm all the supervisors have received the material.

Yes.

Thank you All right Now we'll go through with any questions supervisors may have on any of the seven items and with that supervisor Galloway I do not have any questions.

Thank you.

Could you repeat what you said about the Water Protection Ordinance because I was trying to find it and I didn't hear properly what you said.

It was a couple of sentences about what the changes were.

There was pretty substantial reorganization under very logical headlines because right now it's broken out under erosion, sediment control and storm water.

And so that was put together and where there was overlap it was listed as one common fee.

I've asked Frank Pohl to be here tonight.

I do not need that, but I just wanted to make sure I hadn't misheard something.

Thank you, and for the record, that was Ms.

McCauley who was responding to Supervisor Malek's questions.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Just looking back on my notes from August and I noticed something about when when were these last updated?

That's right, November 20th, 2007, I believe.

I'm sorry the amount of the fees were updated in April of 2021 following the board's policy to make

Annual or biannual updates based on changes to staff compensation.

So in terms of dollar amounts, that's when the most recent fee amendments were brought before the board and adopted.

That was more sort of a cost of living catch up, so to speak.

Right.

Right.

All right.

So at this time, I'll open the public hearing and checking with the clerk.

All right.

Do any supervisors have any further questions of any staff?

Seeing none I will close the public hearing and board I will ask if it because it does not appear to be much in the way of controversy if the board would be willing to allow one supervisor to make the motion and another supervisor if they're if y'all are willing to make the second each time to make it a little quicker for me to go through and would ask if a supervisor desires to make a motion with regard to attachment E

I move to adopt attachment E, the ordinance to amend Chapter 1.

Second.

And a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right.

I move to adopt Attachment F, the ordinance to amend Chapter 3.

All right.

Again, a motion by Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, thank you.

A motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, thank you.

I move to adopt attachment H, the ordinance to amend chapter 7.

Motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, thank you.

If we can go to the next one.

A motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Thank you.

I move to adopt Attachment J, the ordinance to amend Chapter 17.

A motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Thank you.

If we could move to the final item.

I move to adopt attachment K, the ordinance to amend chapter 18.

A motion from Supervisor Andrews, a second from Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right, thank you.

At this time, board, we can move to item number 13, an ordinance concerning appointing authority.

And here we will have an amendment to the documents that had previously been provided to the board.

I will initially introduce it, and then Anthony Bissette, senior assistant county attorney, will provide a detailed presentation.

So just preliminarily, we've

We found it necessary to make some minor technical amendments to format the ordinance properly.

And that's what the clerk has distributed to you.

You all have in your email another version that has the changes highlighted.

And they are minor and technical, for example, to include a title which was missing

from the materials in your board package.

In terms of substance, this draft that was just distributed to you is precisely the same as what you had in your board materials.

And I apologize for the need to reformat it at the last moment.

So before Mr. Bessette makes his presentation,

I just want to underscore a point that I believe that he will make, which is that our intention here in presenting this ordinance to the board for consideration is simply to codify or formalize existing practices concerning the appointment of employees in county service.

We're not purporting to change anything, but our intention is to include in the county code provisions that are reflective of current practices and, as I understand it, long-time practices of the board and the county executive.

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors.

As Mr. Rosenberg told you, the ordinance before you today is intended to formalize by placing within the county code current practice concerning the appointment and hiring of employees in the administrative service of the county.

It clarifies the respective roles of the Board of Supervisors, the county executive and others in the appointment and hiring process.

The subject is addressed in Virginia Code 15-512.

We have a

We have a PowerPoint presentation with just a few slides.

Before I just start reading code language at you without being able to take a look.

15.2-512 Board shall appoint upon the recommendation of the County Executive all officers and employees in the administrative service of the County.

except as otherwise provided in 535 and except as the board may authorize the head of a department or office to appoint subordinates in such department or office.

So the ordinance that you have before you leans on that language to set out appointment authority within the county.

So from this language, you can see that the board can authorize heads of departments and offices to appoint employees in their respective departments and offices.

But the authority to appoint heads of departments and offices cannot be delegated to others in the same way.

So these appointments are reserved for the board itself.

So as a matter of practice, the board of supervisors has authorized heads of departments and offices historically to appoint employees in their respective departments.

So for example, when the Parks and Recreation Department hires a new employee, the Board of Supervisors is not involved in that process and does not participate in the appointment in hiring.

This approach reflects an organization having over 900 employees and is consistent with local government best management practices.

So the proposed ordinance here formalizes existing practice and provides for appointments to be made as follows.

and the Board of Supervisors appoints the county executive, the county attorney, and the clerk to the Board of Supervisors.

For department heads and directors of offices including, for example, the Office of Economic Development and the Office of Diversity and Equity, the power of appointment is reserved to the Board of Supervisors consistent with state code.

Under the proposed ordinance for such an appointment, the County Executive conducts the recruitment, including interviewing of all candidates, and then makes a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.

This is a process, I think, that historically you would be familiar with.

And then, ultimately, the Board of Supervisors makes

makes the appointment.

And if there's a vacancy in one of those positions, this ordinance allows for an interim appointment by the county executive to serve for a period of up to six months.

The county executive appoints employees in the county executive's office.

Department heads and the directors of offices appoint employees in their respective departments.

and then the county attorney appoints employees in the county attorney's office and the clerk to the board of supervisors appoints employees in the clerk's office.

Finally, though, where a joint exercise of powers is involved, such as the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau or the Charlottesville UVA Albemarle Emergency Communications Center, their employees are appointed in the manner spelled out in the agreements that govern those bodies.

So an illustration may be more helpful here than an explanation so we have included this organizational chart showing lines of reporting to the county executive and the party responsible for making appointments for certain positions.

What you're going to notice is absent from this chart though is the county attorney and then the clerk to the board of supervisors because they don't report up through the county executive so you're not going to find them on this chart.

With that, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Bissette.

We'll go through our order.

This shouldn't be as complex as it just seemed like it was.

Exactly.

Precisely.

The county executive,

Got it.

So in this, understood we're codifying what we've been doing.

So we've not codified this before.

What is the liability or the risk that we're concerned about by not codifying it?

I'm not saying I wouldn't want to codify it.

I'm just saying that usually when you codify things,

It advances it.

It gives everybody a very clean, clear order of operation.

So it's good business.

I get all that.

This is effectively a cleanup.

To say that there's liability is probably

probably going too far, but the way not having this clearly set out invites question as to the authority of folks in various states.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No questions.

I agree, thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

I agree.

No questions.

Thank you.

No questions.

Thank you.

And I have no questions either.

To me, when I look at this chart, it makes very clear that from a legislative standpoint, the light blue, the Board of Supervisors is like the U.S.

Senate with advice and consent.

The president, our chief executive officer, our county executive, as opposed to our presidente sitting to my left.

nominates and the board approves and the rest of them are hires by the county executive and it really articulates it.

It makes it very clear and there's no question going forward.

I'd just like to add for edification that the one other locality in the Commonwealth that has the county executive form of government has also codified the appointing authority and it's been in place, that's Prince William County, it's been in

Making things like this clear is the best practice.

Any other questions by supervisors?

Just that since the establishment of our own local government human resources function, now approximately two years ago,

Ms.

Shifflett, Ms.

Jessica Rice, also Jacob Sumner in the finance department.

We're looking at our policies and our ordinances along with the help from our legal team to make sure that we align and that our policies are clear and that they're up to date.

And I think that that's just a broader statement about the broader work that's going on across the organization.

And so the board from time to time may be asked to look at things that may be on consent agenda.

and may not have a lot of discussion.

I appreciate the board's attention to this this evening.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

We've had a number of retirements.

One of the pieces of data first, before I answer that question, is the Human Resources Department recently shared information that out of our entire workforce, we're reaching about 50% that have been here less than five years.

And that speaks to a lot of retirements in the last five years, full-service retirements.

and just turnover.

Some of that was due to COVID and other related reasons.

Thus, the need for continued attention to our workforce stability efforts that our staff and our board are working so hard on.

At these levels, within the last three or four years, we have seen turnover in finance and budget, human resources, information technology, police, economic development,

and we've had human services and social services realignment.

We've also had turnover and equity inclusion.

And I may have missed something, but it's amazing because Ms.

Shifflett was talking to me earlier this week.

We have a leadership team meeting on Friday and we feel like we're a new leadership team that we've got.

a lot of new folks.

I did not even mention the deputy county executive.

Thank you.

And not only turnover

in the light blue, but in the dark blue as well, which again I think demonstrates why the significance of having this formalized as a procedure.

I have no further questions or comments.

I'll now look to open the public hearing, checking with the clerk.

All right, thank you.

Subject, any further questions by the board?

I'm happy to make a motion.

I just want to make sure Steve said she would pass this out to us and it's not exactly the same as attachment A. As amended.

Yes, so I'm going to just say I move an ordinance to amend chapter 2 administration article 9 personnel of the county of Albemarle, Virginia as amended

So I heard a motion from Supervisor McKeel and I first heard Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley with the second.

So I did catch that, thank you.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

All right.

Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Bissette, Mr. Rosenberg, and your staff for all the work that you all did on this.

Committee reports matters not listed on the agenda.

Just to officially or on the record state here that I want to again thank

the staff of the TJPDC, our Albemarle County staff, the Planning Commission and the members from the development community as well as the other board members for the special meeting this past Monday at North Fork regarding developer incentives and as that impacts housing Albemarle.

I feel we came away from that meeting with not just a clear timeline of a recommendation that will go to the Planning Commission and then to this board

but also two things hearing that both tax abatement to match the longevity of the timeframe for the affordability plus the predictability of different incentives while keeping the menu open is what we heard loud and clear if that's a fair summary without going any further but it's been a long time coming that conversation I just felt that the conversation that day to my second point to have open dialogue with stakeholders who are as critically involved with it as we are

was refreshing and thought it was a good productive afternoon that everybody walked out of the room feeling good about not just the conversation but the next steps to bring this conversation to conclusion.

So if Mr. Richardson if you would please just again echo our thanks to the staff here in Albemarle especially that were involved because I know that a lot of effort and time got put into that over the fall.

Thank you.

Yes, just a couple of things quickly.

I just re-forwarded a really interesting article about changes to the Virginia transportation funding, which is the smart scale.

It's a great article that describes the changes and some of the nuances.

which we'll have to adjust to.

The other thing I just wanted to let you all know and I just found some of this information interesting.

I attend the IRC meeting.

The IRC meets every other month by Zoom.

and I attend those meetings often when I can.

I have a lot of the refugees that come through the IRC located in my district so I feel a connection to the IRC and I attend the meetings.

But I just thought this was interesting and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole too much with a lot of data but our refugee arrival trends from November of 22 to October of 23, 292 individuals

in 96 cases.

50% of their pipeline is openings already filled for 24.

Currently, arrivals from Afghanistan and Syria have been the most prevalent.

They are expecting an increase in arrivals from Latin America in 24.

Interestingly, 50% of the cases having a United States tie, you know, connection, rather than, better word, they use tie, but connection.

Charlottesville, though, is an outlier from other IRC offices because we have about 70% of ours have a local connection, which I thought was really interesting.

And then just, I think that's probably, let me see if there's anything else.

Charlottesville goal for 24 is 275 refugees.

25% have already arrived.

Interestingly, nationally, 7,000 arrivals per month through December

This is nationally.

But increasing to 10,000 starting in January.

So the number has been changed from 7,000 to 10,000.

And then I would just want to see if anything else here.

Expansion of arrivals from Latin America, which I've already said, currently from Colombia, but with an expansion of Venezuelans later this year as expected.

I just thought you all might be interested in that data.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to add on.

Throughout my childhood and adulthood, my parents traveled a lot and even in the most remote places in Europe or Middle East or whatever, there was always someone whose cousin, uncle, whatever had some connection with UVA.

I mean, this was 50 years ago even, so it is, I'm not surprised that there are so many high percentage people here who have that connection through some part of their family.

Thank you.

I have to concur with what Supervisor Galloway said regarding our meeting on Monday.

I thought that was extremely productive.

I wish we would have done it sooner, but the fact is we did it and I think it was very productive and maybe that's a format we can also use for some other

Just a couple of quick reports.

I know other people have got their CAC meetings.

We had one on the 5th and Avon CAC last month and Laurel Williamson, I believe Stamos College, I'm not sure if I have the second name correct, spoke about the stream restoration biscuit run project and it was absolutely fascinating of what the master plan and how they go about doing the stream restoration that I have.

I applaud the report.

I think everybody was just thrilled to hear about it.

I hope you all have a chance to hear the discussion.

I also want to report that I attended the Audit Committee meeting, but I know we'll hear more about that at our next meeting.

Things are going well.

Jim, would you mind sending us the name of the streamer, that name, so we could perhaps, so I have it in writing so I can contact her and see if she'd like to come to my CAC.

And I appreciate Supervisor Andrews bringing that up.

It was really sort of counterintuitive, the order within which along the stream they do the restoration.

I would have thought you started the headwaters, but they actually start more towards the bottom part of the stream and work their way up.

It was really informative.

I don't have anything further.

If not, then we will adjourn to our next formal meeting on December 13, 2023 at 1 o'clock p.m.

here in Lane Auditorium.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate.

in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website on the Board of Supervisors homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.

But we will also be having a special meeting at three o'clock on tomorrow, December the 7th at in room 241 here in the county office building.

Mr. Richardson, I forgot to ask, did you have anything to add?

All right, and then with that, we are adjourned.