Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   12/10/2025

Good afternoon.

I am pleased to call to order this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 10th of December, 2025, at 1 p.m. in Lane Auditorium in the McIntyre Office Building.

For the Board of Supervisors, we have Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District.

Coram is present.

We're also joined by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Travis Morris.

I'll also let me please welcome the Albemarle County Police Officers present, Officers Daniel Bonney and Lauren Daly.

Board, as always, our first item of business is adoption of the final agenda.

I've heard no request to change anything on the agenda.

There may be something on the consent agenda, but that's not the agenda.

So if not, I'm looking for a motion to approve the final agenda.

Motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Malek.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?

Yes.

Ms. McKeel?

Yes.

Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley?

A little to announce, other than to say I had a lovely time joining the Scottsville holiday happening over the weekend.

A lot of artisans, even though it was, let's be honest, brutal, brutal weather, there was also a nice bonfire though, so it all worked out.

And I mention this in part to remind everyone, we are getting into the holiday season, we're pretty deep in the holiday season, to the point where people might be scrambling to find some stocking stuffers.

We have so many

local artisans and local businesses throughout Albemarle County and I'm sure that folks would find that they can find plenty to stuff a stocking by walking down any of our main streets.

Thank you, my local.

Supervisor McKeel.

That's true.

I have two items today.

I just want, and I know that perhaps many of the Florida supervisors members are aware of this, but I was pretty excited and I wanted to point out that the governor-elect Spanberger has named Nick Donahue as transportation secretary, which is absolutely the best.

And for those of you that don't know, I am thrilled.

I worked with Nick around transit and rail, but especially transit a few years back when I was involved with the transit association, the Virginia Transit Association.

But he was the inspiration for SmartScale years ago.

and that really opened up at the time funding for Albemarle County for transportation.

And he's been in the private world since I think 2020 perhaps, or 2022 I think, 2022.

But I am thrilled because we talk right now about a little frustration about smart scale

and hopefully we will be able to be in a better place once we have Nick in place.

So I'm really just thrilled.

He's a great appointee for our transportation in Virginia.

So I wanted to point that out.

And the other thing, sadly, that I need to

make remarks about is that Charlie Tolbert passed away on December the 4th.

And Charlie was a friend.

He was a neighbor.

He was a mentor.

And more importantly, he was my campaign treasurer for 28 years.

Do you realize how many submissions that is to the State Board of Elections in 28 years?

Having said that, Charlie was also, I promised Jim I would make note of the fact that he was a physicist.

And he was in the astronomy department at the University of Virginia for years.

And was, many of you might have seen Charlie if you went to a graduation over the last 10 years, because Charlie was the Grand Marshal and carried the mace

for the graduation ceremonies for about 10 years.

So lots of involvement with the University of Virginia and a real community member.

And he also, for us, served as my representative on the Albemarle County Service Authority and was the vice chair when he passed away.

So he was a really influential person in our community and a great loss for the county and personally.

Thank you.

Mr.

Yes, thank you.

And so thank you for both of those newses, because I'm not getting paper every day.

I don't see anything anymore, unfortunately.

I'm always behind, so thank you.

But great news about Nick, for sure.

Thank you.

This morning's pancakes in politics.

Breakfast was brief and informative and wonderful.

Our General Assembly delegation members were all present and reported on

the insanity that's already underway and some of their highlight things and answer questions.

I think that the general consensus is that everything that was vetoed in the last four years is coming back and with perhaps very little regard for the authority of local government.

So this is be ready for defense as well as making sure that we are in the best position possible with our legislative lobbying to make some progress on some things that we really need to do.

Secondly, reminder that this Saturday at noon, as at 3,000 other places all across the United States, Wreaths Across America ceremonies will happen.

This one at the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial at McIntyre Park.

Wreaths will be laid there, and then at the memorial here on county office building grounds, and then out in Earliesville.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I believe Supervisor Pruitt made comment at this last meeting and I think it is worth repeating that obviously it's the holidays.

We have a lot of folks out on the roads and this year and it's been a couple of years since in December that we've had these weather events happening as well.

But with all the extra travel and cars that are on the road just ask that everyone be patient with one another to drive the speed limit.

Don't want to have something like that happen that

I'm going to modify that to say drive at or under the speed limit as appropriate because there are times when the speed limit is too fast.

Yes, I just wanted to say that in the Viritan for the Rivanna District, the Viritan next Tuesday will be having their holiday party.

Stony Point, and so that's going to be really nice to be able to see a lot of constituents as such.

Also, I have been for the last few years scouts.

To get their badge, I think it's the eagle badge, to get their badge they need to interview

local elected officials or I guess any elected official.

So I've been doing that for a few years but I'm sure it also takes place in everybody else's district because we have scouts in all the districts.

So a shout out to them because they actually they do listen and maybe some of them will one day be on the board of supervisors or school board.

We can only hope.

That's all.

Thank you.

Lord, I'm sad to have to report, but it's a long, well-lived life, that Jerry Fisher passed away on December 1st.

I didn't realize it until after our last meeting.

Jerry was a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors beginning in 1972, so he was elected, I believe, at like 35.

Could you imagine that?

So, representing the Samuel Miller district and became chair of the board in 1976, a position he held for 12 years.

Anyway, I shouldn't comment.

was well known in the community, a very formidable figure, I think, because of that position.

And he remained active, actively engaged in watching what was going on.

And as a significant member of the community.

Oh, I should also add, he was a physics major in college.

and my condolences to his family.

Chair, with apologies, I had a close-around that I had forgotten, so maybe a moment of privilege, but I represent the Scottsville District, which includes the largest and most prominent oath of citizenship ceremony in the United States.

We house the IRC's farm,

We house one of the largest migrant communities in the county in Southwood and my opposite number on the school board representing Scottsville and the school board leads the literacy volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Sometimes this board receives letters from the community and I think it is wasted if those aren't shared with the community that what we've received and we were contacted by a member of the community sharing a statement by the literacy volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle

noting that many of these people who are adults who are learning English for the first time, many of these people are legal migrants.

And quite a lot of their students have had their oath of citizenships canceled after they've completed their full interview process, after they've proceeded through the legal immigration process, they've had their oaths canceled in the last few weeks.

The literacy volunteers letter notes that many of our students have risked their lives for the American cause in their home country.

They have worked side by side with American soldiers.

Others have waited for years in refugee camps.

They have come to this country determined to make it their home.

We are heartbroken to see America break its promise to them.

I had one thing.

The cancellation of the nationalization ceremonies at Monticello is another form of losing that sense of building community that affects all of us, even long time residents or people who were born here.

So I'm really horrified by that as well.

Well, it sounds like we're piling on, but I just saw on the news this morning that there was a naturalization ceremony scheduled in Boston yesterday.

And two of the applicants that were going to swear their allegiance to the United States at that ceremony were taken away.

From the line, going in.

From the line, going in.

Because of their country of origin, not anything else.

Board, our next item is Proclamations and Recognitions, and I know this is a bit unusual for me, but I'm going to take this one and read the proclamation as a motion on behalf of the board.

This is recognizing the work to achieve universal broadband access.

Whereas broadband access is an essential service for full participation in our economy, an important tool for building community and social connection, a lifeline for accessible public safety and telehealth services, and increasingly essential to access government services and educational opportunities, and that many rural areas of Albemarle County have never had adequate broadband access.

and whereas Albemarle County has been dedicated to achieving universal broadband access for two decades, pursuing opportunities to expand broadband through strategic investments and public-private partnerships and whereas the broadband office of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development established and implemented the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative, which led to the creation of the Albemarle Broadband Authority and the development of Albemarle County's broadband plan.

and whereas through the leadership of the Board of Supervisors, county staff and the authority with the support of community organizations and elected and appointed officials and in partnership with broadband providers, Albemarle County invested in 1.3 million of general fund appropriations in broadband expansion and netted more than 60 million in state, federal and private funding which will deliver broadband to nearly 11,000 locations by the end of this fiscal year.

and whereas the recently awarded federal broadband equity access and deployment program sets in motion a plan that will continue efforts to ensure the 500 unserved locations in Albemarle County not included in prior grant programs will ultimately be connected.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby commend all of the contributors to this decades-long effort and recognize the tremendous accomplishments of our partners to bring the county to the doorstep of universal broadband access.

Signed this 10th day of December.

Second.

So, I've made the motion.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Galloway.

Yes.

Ms. Mallek.

Yes.

Ms. McKeel.

Yes.

Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Supervisors.

I will not be receiving this proclamation.

I'm going to introduce Bucky Walsh.

I'd hoped to introduce Mike Culp, but unfortunately he has taken illness today, and so he will not be able to join us today.

I want to just take a minute before I introduce Bucky to say a few words.

Despite having a hand in writing those words, it is humbling to be here to hear them read aloud because I came in on the tail end of 20 years worth of effort to make this a reality.

I don't know what required more work.

The 200 or so miles of the Grand Canyon being carved out by drops of water or getting broadband across 726 square miles.

But I think it's close.

I think it's pretty close.

A lot of that work can be attributed to Mike Culp, who was my predecessor in the broadband office and also our IT director for quite a long time.

Mike brought all of those people that you heard about, the community partners, the state legislators, to the table to make this a reality.

and so at the at the end of this I will read it into the record some of the names I've got a list of about 70 that I'll provide to the clerk and that doesn't include the hundreds and hundreds of people involved on the ground actually doing this physical labor to make this a reality

But before I do that, I want to introduce Bucky Walsh, who is another of those clouds that eroded the grounds to make this possible, to make the Grand Canyon.

And Bucky Walsh has been serving as the chair of the Albemarle broadband authority since, I believe, its inception, and has been as dogged as anyone else in pursuing this.

Did Jason say I was a cloud or a clown?

I wanted to call out a few groups and individuals myself today.

First off, the Board of Supervisors, not exactly constituted the way it is today, but many of you were here then to have the vision many years ago to study this problem,

to commission studies of this problem and then to finally launch the broadband authority and just as importantly, assign staff such as Mike Culp and now Jason Infuentes to be working on this project.

Nothing would have happened without people to do the work and these people are critical.

I'd also like to call out, because I was so startled and delighted when it happened, Governor Northam for deciding he wanted to be the internet governor and putting the state's money where his mouth was.

We would not be where we are today but for the funds that were available from the Northam administration.

I'd like to call out my fellow members of the Broadband Authority, some of whom are here on the board, some of whom are here in the audience, for being there for the last eight plus years now.

And as I think about this entire journey, I consider that

Without some of the partners that we've had to get us here, we could not be where we are today.

And specifically, the one that comes most often to mind is the one that the broadband authority is still actively working with right now on the RISE project, Central Virginia Electric Co-op, which created its Firefly subsidiary to launch, basically, broadband to the rural community.

They are like a gift from heaven.

First they brought that into their own CVEC customers here in the county and now they're part of the largest deployment of fiber in the county, which we're very much hoping they bring to a conclusion next year when my neighborhood gets connected and I finally get broadband.

Not that I'm personally committed to this, 100%.

Anyway, it has been a great trip with a lot of people, a very good return on the county's investment, in my opinion.

Thank you.

And I'm sure the supervisors would like to make comments before, and thank you personally.

Thank you, Bucky.

Something we say in the military is leaders eat last.

So it sounds like we're kind of realizing that vision with our deployment of broadband.

The leadership that, you know, I serve on the broadband authority currently.

But it's not lost on me that there is hundreds of hundreds of hours of leadership of previous authority members that precede me and that you're among those.

And of course, Jason has committed tremendous amounts of energy to making sure that we are one of the most digitally inclusive communities in the entire country, in all of Virginia.

That we have a level of broadband access that's pretty unparalleled for a rural community like ours.

And on top of that, that we

Thank you.

Yes, excuse me.

Bucky, thank you for your leadership.

I remember when we first, or when Jeff first suggested that he was going to have this committee in his office and you stepped right up to the plate and you've just done an outstanding job and staff as well.

And to bring it home a little bit though, I was just thrilled because I finally had somewhere to send all the emails

that we were getting from the community expressing their frustration and I got it completely.

Thinking back to 2008 or 2009, as the recession is crashing around us, there was also presented to the board at the time a big study from a consultant who predicted that it would cost $30 million of county money to

bring everybody in with fiber.

And there was general panic mode around the dais here.

And I think we sort of slid slowly in, nibbling away over the last.

And as one of those, as the chair and I and you are in those left behinds looking eagerly forward to the next, what was 2022, maybe 2026 will be the right year,

It will be great now that all those high school children who did school at home during COVID are now in college and on their own.

But the three adults who were home will certainly appreciate it, no question about it.

The White Hall district, being so mountainous and having such old copper line as well, on which most of the residents of those 500 or more

still rely.

I am sad to say a frequent flier with Jason on the other role that he has been volunteered by the demand, not by staff, but he has stepped into the fray to help the customers who have constant failures with our legacy copper phone because they're told, oh, it'll be three weeks until we get to you and you have a heart

I echo the gratitude expressed by my fellow board members of all the energy and the hours and work that you all have put in to make this successful.

It feels a little bit like, you know, this month is the completion of my eighth year on the board, and I still feel like I was jumping on the surfboard with you all, as you were.

in the final years of getting this to happen.

So I can't wait until all those 500 are served.

I know that will be a big task.

It's just phenomenal when you put it in perspective of how much the technology has changed over the last 20 years and how integrated it is, to supervise Sir Malek's point, in our lives and how quickly that can happen and change to make this infrastructure so critical.

and how long it takes to get the infrastructure in place.

Thank you.

I haven't had a chance to work that much with you, but we have worked a little bit.

But I'm going to focus my remarks on regarding Mike Culp and also Jason because they saved my district.

especially the Stony Point area, well no with the Keswick area also because you were so responsive and for a while there I think I was calling you guys almost every day, no just kidding but almost because there were so many issues and problems and you were right there

You were always there, you responded and you helped us and I also remember when Mike Hope came out and we had a community meeting on St. John Road with all the community there because they wanted to know what was going on and he was great and we had the

I have to say to Bucky and Ann, your leadership is going on because I actually learned that fireflies are on our road today.

It is important for people who are listening to recognize that there's a commitment that these will be served, 11,000, that there's still a lot of work to be done, a lot of infrastructure still to be put in place, but that significant progress has been made and plans have been put in place to

I also, because of the more deliberate approach that was taken, I think the focus that the county always has had on fiber as opposed to all the other stuff has been such a good idea because other communities who galloped in wanting to be first took all the shortcuts and now they're finding that those are not working and they're going to have to go back and respend to do it right.

So, slow and steady wins the race.

Thank you.

And I know, Jason, you wanted to read the names in the record.

I want to hand this over to Bucky.

And I assume that in your list will be the other members of the broadband authority, Waldo and Bill and Trevor and others.

Thank you.

I'll let you come up.

All right, as I mentioned, this is not an exhaustive list, but this is a list of 70.

I will only be read a number of highlights, including some of the people that are actually here with us today.

From the Department of Housing and Community Development's broadband office, Dr. Tamara Holmes and Chandler Vaughn, as well as Carl Cottle, current and former supervisors, including Liz Palmer, Rick Randolph, Norman Dill, Donna Price,

Mike Culp, of course.

And then a number of county staff that have been integral, including Morgan Rakes from OGA, Robert Rejoines from the county schools, Laurie Allshouse from TJPDC, and then our many fiber providers, including from Firefly, Gary Woods and Dennis Reese, as well as Misty Allen from Comcast.

And then lastly, I want to highlight the large number of community organizations and members that

Soffit to reach out and send letters of support, including many of our legislators.

So I will hand this over to the clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Do we have members from the internet community?

I'm not aware of them.

Oh, OK.

Thank you.

I appreciate your presence here today too, Mr. Woodson.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Mr.

Chair and members of the board, this is a real honor and a privilege

for me as county executive to take an opportunity and recognize for both the Albemarle County organization, the community and the community that we serve, as well as to the sitting board members who are not retiring today, to recognize two board members from this board.

Jim Andrews, our chair, Diantha McKeel, our vice chair,

and for Albemarle County government, it is both a very happy day and it's also a very sad day for our organization because these two board members have made the decision to retire at the end of this year and to step down from their elected position where Mr. Andrews and Ms. McKeel has served this community from their districts and as a part of this board for the time that they have served in this community.

I'm going to turn it over in just a second, first to Supervisor Ned Gallaway, who will really start the process in motion of this board recognizing their service to this community.

And before I turn it over to Ned, because we're both losing the chair and the vice chair today, I had a moment to speak.

And I just want to recognize, mainly for our community, that

Both Mr. Andrews and Ms. McKeel are examples of citizens in this community who at some point in time in their lives, they were recruited, they were sought out, they were approached, and eventually they were elected by the community through their districts that they represent to serve Albemarle County on a day-to-day basis as part of this board.

This board is six members.

When I became county executive eight years ago, I was so intrigued as to why an even number.

I'd served both in North Carolina at the county and the city level and never had I seen an even number of board members, except in the case of a city where the mayor did not vote.

So that meant you really had an odd number.

And it was made clear to me by retired county executive Greg Campner that this is purposeful.

in the Albemarle County ordinances, our charter, the things, our legal documents, that it sends a message that these board members are represented, are elected by the districts they serve.

They serve all of the citizens of Albemarle County and they must work together.

They must communicate.

They must collaborate.

And in the what I call very resounding words of Doug Walker, our deputy county executive who retired several years ago, he told me a number of things before he retired, but he said, never forget that in Albemarle County you get to be both a city and a county manager at the same time.

Board members, you get to be board members that serve an urban ring and an urban community that looks just like a city.

And you also get to serve some of the most beautiful and rural areas that I could ever see and be a part of.

What a wonderful community.

and regardless of your background and your experiences each of you are elected and you step in day one into a very demanding job and as I turn it over to Ned I've thought as we look through the broadband celebration today again this board had your fingerprints all around that and identifying a gap working with the state as a partner and saying let's solve a problem that as a Rotarian for 23 years the mantra in Rotary Club is service above self

That's what it means to be a Rotarian.

Well, probably in my career, I've never seen any better example of service above self than with the local elected

person that takes office in a city or a county and is elected to serve your community.

That really is service above self.

So it is an honor and a privilege on behalf of our staff to serve this board.

Mr. Andrews and Ms. McKeel will get to tell you bye as a staff tomorrow at a staff get-together and we look forward to that.

Mr. Gallaway, I will turn it over to you and let you kick this off.

Well, I think I'll start with the formal items and then make some remarks.

I don't know who's going to make remarks, but there's no way this is happening without me making some remarks.

But the official presentation on behalf of our clerk's office, Claudette, Travis, and Grace, and my fellow colleagues on the board, we want to present you with the captain's clock

and a plaque commemorating your service, I would say to both the school board, although you probably have a different plaque for that, and here at the Board of Supervisors.

It's nearly 30 years of public service.

And I know, because I know you have other items displayed, that these will hopefully be displayed alongside those items to remind you of your time serving Albemarle County.

So I'd like to present these to you first.

The plaque, for those who are presented with sincere appreciation to Diantha H. McKeel for her dedicated service and leadership as a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2025, enhancing the quality of life through public service.

In making some remarks, I thought, well, if I had to go through all of the goals, successes, et cetera that you have done over that time frame, we would be here till Friday or next Monday.

So I'm going to just make some casual remarks, if I could.

In 2009, I believe it was June of 2009 is when I first met Diantha.

I had nobody knew who the heck I was.

I had filed to run against Pam Moynihan, who loves to remind me she whooped my butt in that election, for school board.

And the day after I filed, or the Thursday after I filed, I sat out there in row G and started attending school board meetings.

That very first meeting, Diantha came up and introduced herself to me.

And I have to tell you, that is the epitome right there of who Diantha McKeel is.

It's straightforward.

It's like, well, who is this person?

I'm going to go find out.

And to this day, really, has been the only elected that's ever come up and introduced herself to me, curious about who I am.

Because a lot of times you have to go, and we're outgoing people, and we go and we talk.

But that started really an education for me, because Diantha is the one that taught me a lot about Albemarle County.

She taught me a ton about Albemarle County local politics.

and she introduced me and still does to so many people over all that, since that time frame.

And that networking, that connection is really what is the power of Diantha McKeel.

She loves networking, she loves connecting and she uses that to bring people together to achieve things that are important for our community.

I wrote down some thoughts like she is a networking machine, which I just said,

but really just enjoys that.

She is the embodiment of determination.

Now, Diantha would call that being a dog with a bone, as she often has said.

But there's nothing that stands in the way, really.

When Diantha wants to get something done, she's going to figure it out.

She's going to call on that network.

She's going to politic.

She's going to build relationships and partnerships.

And she's going to power forward to achieve that goal.

I love that.

She is clear and direct.

If you all know Diantha, a little bit or a lot, you know there's no subtlety involved.

You know what she thinks, you know how she feels, and you know where you stand.

And I have to say that that is so refreshing in politics these days, especially these days, where the answers, you could hear a politician talk for half an hour and not know where the hell they stand.

Well, with Diantha, you know.

And I've always appreciated that.

She is innovative.

To not be would be, to use her own phrase, would be wackadoodle.

Because you can't keep doing things the same way over and over again and expect different results, to quote Diantha.

And she herself has changed over the years, not just on positions or policy or ideas, but on how and think of just what has changed since your first days on the school board with relative to what was sitting in you and the technology and things like that over 30 years.

She is a complete master at constituent service.

And this is not to remark on anybody that served prior to Diantha in the Jack Jouett district or remark on anybody who will follow.

But the citizens of Jack Jouett are going to miss you because they saw you so often on their doors and not just during campaigns.

and I know that that is something that's appreciated.

So networking wasn't just about the people that you work with to try to get things done, it was about serving citizens and being a true retail politician by being on their doorstep talking to them about what mattered to them, whether it was a tough conversation or not.

She wants to get things done and then she cares.

And she cares deeply about this county.

We don't all agree.

We don't always necessarily think that the goals are, maybe we have differences on that.

But if anybody gets blinded by those type of conversations to the care that's behind that initiative, then they're kind of missing the boat as to why Diantha McKeel decided to run for office.

So I want to thank you for the front row ticket.

I got to serve with Diantha on the school board.

And then she came over here to the board of supervisors.

And we were able to partner, one as a school board member, one as a supervisor.

And now it's been phenomenal to be able to serve and have Diantha as a colleague on the board of supervisors.

So I'd like to just share a little funny thing, because here's, Diantha, I have to admit, and I have done this with trepidation over the years, but I've been, seemingly, the last four weeks, six weeks, been talking behind your back a lot about you.

Because people have asked questions, what's it going to be like, and what do you think Diantha will do once she retires from the Board of Supervisors?

So I've been thinking about that, and I said, you know what, I'm going to try to answer that question maybe today.

And I said, you know what, I'm going to use something from Diantha's own wheelhouse

So probably gives us a foreshadowing to what's to happen.

With pleasure.

And thinking about what Diantha McKeel will do now that she's retiring I expect the massage might be first on the list but after that my suspicion is she will continue to work for this community every single day because she's Diantha McKeel.

So thank you, Diantha, for your service.

I expected that you might have been getting a few things today.

So to put them in, I found this nice little tote that says it's wackadoodle time to commemorate one of the best words that Diantha likes to use.

So knowing that starting January 1, it's wackadoodle time in a whole other way, and you could maybe put a few items in here.

I'm pushing up daisies, not till I'm pushing up daisies.

Ned gave me daisies.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just one second.

I will say this is my first set of retirements from the board and so I was not quite as familiar with the process of feting of gifts so I don't have a kind of extensive and heartfelt speech prepared my apologies to both of you and what I do have is actually coming from another member of our community

The immediate past chair, Donna Price.

But it's something I think we have a little bit of shared history.

And when members of the armed forces, especially in the Navy, retire, there is a traditional poem that is read on that occasion.

And this has been adapted for the immediate purposes before us, so fewer ships and bombs.

But I would like to read it into the record at this time.

The Watch.

For 32 years, this public servant has stood the watch.

While some of us were in our bunks at night, this public servant stood the watch.

While some of us were in school learning our trade, this public servant stood the watch, doing everything she could to improve our public schools.

Yes, even before some of us were born into this world, close, not quite, this public servant stood the watch, concerned with equity in our community.

In those years when storm clouds of division were brewing on the horizon of history, this public servant valiantly stood the watch.

Many times she would cast her eye to home and see her family standing there, needing her guidance and help, needing that hand to hold during those hard times.

But still, she stood the watch.

She stood the watch for 32 years.

She stood the watch so that we, our family, and our fellow Albemarians could sleep soundly in safety each and every day, knowing that this public servant stood the watch.

Today we are here to say, public servant, the watch stands relieved.

Relieved by those you have trained, guided, and led.

Public servant, you stand relieved.

We have the watch.

Bosun, stand by to pipe the side.

Public servant going ashore.

So this is normally as part of a change in command, a change in the watch, representing both the daily turnover of a watch and then the broader from generation to generation exchange of the watch.

Like Ned, Diantha, you have been someone who was one of the first people I learned from about politics in this community.

I pinned you down and grabbed a coffee with you over at the Wegmans.

And I think I probably irritated you a little bit at the time because I'm just young, dumb, and full of ideas.

And I didn't know what was feasible and what wasn't.

But you have been a steadfast mentor and person who has shaped my understanding of politics in this community and helped me be someone who feels ready to relieve the watch.

and because I don't think I'm going to be afforded the opportunity in the order of business, I would say the same to Jim.

Jim, you have been one of my closest confidants since I've joined the board.

I have valued immensely being able to work through serious issues with you, to pick your brain, to

draw from your experience generations of familiarity with this community that I recognize I'm a newcomer to and I don't always know the relationships in.

You have helped me think through the issues that affect this community deeply and critically and have shaped the way that I view the work that we do fundamentally.

OK, thank you.

The six members, which our county executive described, also described six different perspectives, six different backgrounds, six different points of view.

And all of those exchanges really bring about so much better decision making and solution finding than any of us could do by ourselves.

And I so appreciate all of those exchanges.

I have, at a board retreat years ago,

learned about from your own words, your eagerness and enjoyment of debate, which was a great thing to learn because I thought, oh, okay, this is a positive.

I needed to take that more as a positive than anything else.

But I so appreciate the honesty and the frankness which you had always brought to all of the

discussions as the other native Virginian on the board.

I also appreciate your emotional connection to the county, to the county residents as a whole, in addition and far beyond those in the Jack Jouett district, and the leadership that you have shown by bringing younger folks in as the next generation.

And I've taken that task to heart.

I've got two years to do it.

I'm hard at it working on that, because it's important that people have that chance

Think about it and be in the audience and learn about things over a long period of time, rather than just sweeping in and thinking that it's easy.

Because local government is not easy in any way.

And if you give yourself a chance to learn slowly and sort of take it all in by osmosis, then you're having a much more enjoyable time.

But I expect that I will see you on the other side of the podium because I do not expect that you will disengage from what's going forward, including zoning re-modification and all these other things that are really, really important to our success.

Well, first of all, I will say that when you show up again, I'm going to lower the podium so that we can see you, because we've always had this contest about who's the tallest.

Obviously, Diantha's the tallest.

I think you beat me by a couple inches.

But we're not only losing, unfortunately, a good board member.

We're losing a friend.

and not permanent in a permanent sense, but we're losing a friend in that you always work with all of us.

You and I have gone through trying times, as you know.

You've been frank, I've been frank.

but your heart was always in the right place and you always wanted to do, don't look at me because I'm going to cry, you always wanted to do what was right for the community, what was right for your district and for Albemarle as a whole.

That is something I've always respected.

Thirty-two years of public service is a great length of time.

You've done it for the school board, doing the best you can, making sure that things are really good for the children, which is the most important for our community, the children.

And then also on the board.

I marvel at you.

I was on the RTA with you.

And then you wanted a regional approach.

And I'm going, god, how's that ever going to happen?

Well, guess what?

We now have CARTA.

That happened.

You made that happen along with your other board members in the RTA.

So congrats to that.

And you always show up for everything.

You show up whenever there's a ribbon cutting, whenever there's a presentation.

You're there.

You're representing the county and you're there to support.

So I'm hoping that

She has to stop looking at me, but I'm hoping that frankly that that will continue, that we'll continue to see you continue to get your advice because 32 years, I mean you've got a lot to offer, still a lot to offer.

So just because you're stepping down, don't think you're stepping away, frankly.

So that's what I think.

And I don't think that my remarks are short because I don't have a lot to say, but because I always feel as chair that I need to keep things going.

But your presence as vice chair hasn't been remarked upon.

And I think that without it, I don't know what I would have done.

been there at any of our meetings where we're discussing how agendas would go and how other things would go.

And it's been tremendously valuable.

You are a formidable supervisor, but I have great admiration for your passion for public service, your convictions, your tenacity, your sense of community, and your connections within the community.

And clearly, when the other organizations that you serve on in your board capacity

your presence there is greatly impactful so when we hear about the ACRJ we know you're involved and you're doing things with them and CARTA and others so those have always had your legacy is well beyond just what's happening at the Board of Supervisors but those organizations as well.

Yes Mr.

Chair, at this time

I have a plaque here to give to our chair presented with sincere appreciation to Jim H. Andrews.

What does the H stand for, by the way?

Herbert.

Herbert.

Herbert.

OK.

Especially if it's your grandfather's name.

I love that.

OK. For his dedicated service and leadership as a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors from January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2025.

enhancing the quality of life through public service, given the stay on December 10, 2025.

And with that plaque, because I can't give them both to you at the same time.

They weigh more than I do.

But it is a beautiful clock.

Isn't it?

So that way you will never forget what time it is.

And what's more important, you'll be able to know whether or not we're starting our meetings on time.

So if I can present that to you.

And I'm just going to say a few remarks that being a physics professor,

that blew my mind and that's what Jim is a physics professor probably because I didn't do well in physics actually I never took it but anyway he's a physicist and that's just that's something special his leadership has been calm

and

I see a few members, staff members laughing.

But you know, you have this calmness that brings us all together and helps us.

You communicate extremely well on issues.

You'll call, and that I appreciate very much as a board member.

You know the issues and how they affect our county and you make sure that you make those issues clear as chair.

And you've done that the entire time.

You're ready with everything.

And I really appreciate your services being chair, because I think you've done a remarkable job in being chair and letting us know what we need to focus on, what we need to do.

And on a personal level, you've got to be one of the kindest people I know.

and really very much caring.

So you care about this community and your environmental stance and etc.

But you really care and I know that you've always done your best because that's what you wanted to do.

All right, so I'm fortunate to present the gavel plaque.

And having had several years with the gavel, which I never remembered to pick up and use, I always think of that when I see mine at home.

This says, presented with sincere appreciation to Jim H. Andrews for his dedicated service and outstanding leadership as chairman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors from January 1, 23 through December 31, 25, enhancing the quality of life through public service from the Board of Supervisors.

And my comments are quick to say

that the tone of what you have created in the meetings is so positive.

Having been in the audience for 17 years before I joined the board in 2008, I understood personally the anxiety that speakers feel when they come to the podium.

During that 17 years, there were plenty of times when there was not a lot of welcome generated by the chair at the time, several of them over those many years, who really were like, what are you doing here?

What do you want?

And that is not very helpful.

But I really applaud your approach of welcome to our citizens who come to the board meetings to make the effort to either come online or by phone or truck all the way down here, some of them 45 miles one way, to come to the meetings.

As has been mentioned, you're calm and respectful, but firm.

And that demeanor creates the fact that the meetings are running well, but people don't feel rushed to say what they need to say, to have the debate they need to have for citizens or staff to answer questions.

In times of turmoil, that safe space of our board meetings extends to the welcome to participants who would never come if they saw the chaos, they predicted or were worried about the chaos in this room as is exhibited in so many other jurisdictions across the Commonwealth.

This is a legacy that we all work hard to maintain, but you have done such an admirable job to do that.

And also, as the other rural representative on the board, I very much appreciate that as well.

Today I wore, I don't have many ties right now, I don't need to go into why, but I just received some ties.

from my father-in-law, or I guess he's still a father-in-law.

And I bring it up because Jim and I realize when you start working and get to know somebody new, it's often that you try to find some sort of common ground or something that you've shared.

And we both had time in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

And my father-in-law was a longtime city council member in Shaker Heights, Ken Kovach.

And it's kind of a Christmasy tie.

And it took me a few times looking at it.

I said, I think it's an abstract Santa.

But anyway, I thought, you know what?

I like that.

I like having something with me today that connects us back to something that we had a shared background.

Because Shaker is a special place.

It certainly was for me when I was teaching there.

Jim, I've always appreciated your approach.

I remember one of the first meetings with you and the questions that you came with.

And I think you weren't even sworn in yet.

But it was clear in your lead up to becoming a supervisor that you were going to take the work seriously.

And it was going to be something that you wanted to do well.

And I think you certainly accomplished that.

It was mentioned that you're even keeled and calm.

I think that's phenomenal, especially in the role that you're serving in as the chair.

To Supervisor Malek's point, I do think that communicates a sense of confidence and trust and integrity to the community and those who come here for the meeting.

So for that, I'm very appreciative.

You know sometimes it goes, sometimes the chair has to take on some roles not in front of the public amongst us six board members and you know I think you've handled that and what I really appreciated was it was like all right well I'm not gonna wait till next week we'll just deal with this right now so thank you for that.

That really helps with the governance and how we relate to one another as board members so I think that's wonderful.

The packets, the analysis and preparation you bring, I mean, it's clear.

I mean, I keep mentioning that you're a physicist, but you're also an attorney.

And not only did I not take physics, I'm not sure I could spell it with confidence, but the fact that you bring the level of intellect and the level of analysis you have brought to so many topics

I can say that there have been times I've sat up here thinking one way, and then after hearing you state your opinion based on what work you've done, I have changed in some of my thoughts and minds up here.

So I appreciate that.

So thank you for being a great chair.

I think it's been a wonderful two years having you as chair, and I think, you know,

I hope that you feel like you enjoyed the time and the work here with us and hate to see you retiring after one term.

It has occurred to me that I haven't spoken and you have not spoken and I want to give you the opportunity.

Yeah, it's intimidating, I agree.

I really appreciate all the

Kind thoughts and words.

And I like to think about myself as an old soldier who's just supposed to fade away, but I don't think I'm going to do that.

But I have been around a long time.

I actually started, though, and I will say this, and then I'll let Jim have a few minutes.

But before I was elected, I started with Albemarle County Public Schools representing my district on the Health Advisory Board.

because I was a nurse.

And I was very upset that the teachers and the students' parents were all smoking in the schools.

So that was the issue that got to me.

And there's always an issue.

I see someone in the audience right now, and I can say affordable housing.

is her issue or is her issue.

So we all have something that draws us in.

And I was drawn in with a health concern for the teachers and the students that I would go into the teacher's lounge if I was invited in, and you could cut the smoke like this.

And I was very concerned.

So that's what drew me in.

and we could all probably say what drew us into this into this world but I really do appreciate the kindness today and the good words and the thoughts and I'll just let it go with that but and Jim I've enjoyed so much working with you.

I think about us as in a way opposites because they're right you're very calm and thoughtful and you get down into the weeds I'm much more emotional

and reactive, but maybe that's why we work together.

Thank you.

That's all.

And again, I also just want to press my appreciation to the board, appreciation to the public who elected me.

You mentioned that I often wear a different tie almost every meeting because I, in my teaching career, had a lot of them.

I still do.

But this one particular today, very meaningful, it's my father's.

And I said, I don't know where my father's tied.

My wife said, that's a really old tie.

And I said, yep, I know.

It was my dad's.

and so again I could go through a list of names but I think I'll leave it for tomorrow or whatever but I really appreciate this and I'm very happy to have had the opportunity and look forward to Sally Duncan who's here and Fred Missell I think will be welcome additions to this board.

We do have someone who's signed up to speak electronically, and then we have five speakers in person.

So I will read the instructions.

Let me get the right form here.

All right.

This is the last time I'm going to read this.

During the time set aside for public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board, other than scheduled public hearings, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors.

A sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office and community members physically present for the meeting will speak first, then those who are attending the meeting electronically will speak.

For those attending in person, I will announce the speaker.

For those participating electronically, the clerk will announce each speaker before it is their turn to speak.

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

You have three minutes and the green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

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

In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When addressing the board, 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 you make comments through Zoom, you may upload 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 hand in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker,

Back and forth, debate is not permitted.

All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

If participating by phone, press star 9 to let us know you want to speak, then star 6 if from a landline to unmute.

If by Zoom, please remain muted until you are called on to speak.

Thank you for having me.

And it is my privilege today to speak about the board of directors.

In particular, I am here for both a personal and professional salute to Diantha McKeel on her retirement.

How do I know Diantha?

Well before that, my friend Jane Foy, our mutual friend Jane Wave, is with me today.

So we're both here to offer a salute for Diantha.

When I came to town in 1999, Kevin Kastner invited me to be on the Superintendent's Equity and Diversity Committee.

And lo and behold, Diantha McKeel was on the school board.

So I met Diantha immediately because, as Ned mentioned, she will seek you out if you are involved in what she's involved in.

After that, she and Gordon Walker asked me to consider running for the school board, which I did in 2003 and spent four years on the school board with Diantha to those years as chair.

And then following that, my business at the time was in the Jack Jouett district.

So of course, I was on the Rio CAC and was able to work directly with Diantha in her work.

And most recently, in the summer of 2024, I get a phone call from Diantha McKeel

saying, Sue, we have a problem with dentistry and pediatric dentistry.

Will you please join me?

So the past year and a half, we have really made some phenomenal progress in addressing the needs of students in our community and realizing that there is a lack of dental professionals in our community.

So you'll learn more about that later.

But that's a little bit of background.

Diantha is opinionated, but opinions come from information, deep information and research, and also from caring.

So whether you agree or disagree, Diantha will listen.

She will actually hear what you're saying.

She and I have not agreed on several things, but we understand that both of us come from a point of view of deeply caring about the community.

and I think that's something that is rare.

in this day and age, the six of you, an exception, is finding people who are in elected office who are willing to listen to every point of view and willing to consider and willing to discuss.

So I'm hopeful the legacy of Diantha McKeel, as I call it, will continue.

Thank you, Sue.

Good afternoon Chair Andrews, Vice Chair McKeel, Supervisors, County Executive Mr. Richardson, Clerk for the Board Ms. Borgerson, and County Attorney Mr. Herrick.

Supervisors, all of you and your colleagues, I want to thank you for the public service that you do.

I rise today to recognize three supervisors.

I don't want Supervisor Galloway to be left out because all three of you have your term ending at the end of this month.

and Supervisor Galloway, you have gallantly decided and you ran, you were re-elected and I want to thank you from when I was on the board serving for two years as vice chair under you for the leadership that you provided not just to the board and the county staff but to the entire community.

You reluctantly agreed to serve a third consecutive term during what is probably the most difficult, challenging time that this community has faced.

the COVID epidemic.

And during that, you brought a sense of calm to this board that candidly I did not observe when I was running for office.

I am so pleased that you've been re-elected and that you will be able to serve this community again.

Chair Andrews.

I concur wholeheartedly with the comments that Supervisor Mallek and Supervisor Galloway have said about you and your leadership style.

You have a calm demeanor, a presence that unifies the board, and I believe follows the culture of this community, which is that the chair of the board is there to facilitate the board action, not to mandate what it is.

And that allows the six-member board that Mr. Richardson talked about briefly to actually perform its duties better.

And I want to thank you for that because that is the type of leadership our community wants, deserves, and needs.

Supervisor McKeel, members of the board, I have to tell you after the hour of y'all telling each other congratulations, I now remind myself why I don't watch things like the Academy Awards.

They go on forever.

Now, Supervisor McKeel is the only member of the board that I still work with on the Police Citizens Advisory Committee.

And y'all may not know it, but by coincidence, today is the actual day that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded in Oslo.

And the recipient, Maria Kocina Mshado, is not able to be there for her own safety.

There was another award recently announced and that was the FIFA World Cup Peace Prize.

Supervisor McKeel, I want you to know that I have here for you the first annual non-FIFA World Cup Peace Medal that I want to award for you.

It's as tacky as they come, it doubles as a really tacky Christmas ornament, and like the President, you may wear this anywhere.

Can I come get it, Donna?

I'll give it to the clerk.

All right.

Our next speaker, and I may not be able to.

I can tell it's Heidi.

Heidi, would you help me out?

Yes, my name is Heidi Divya-Bertou.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

These are all very hard acts to follow and I'm appreciating you being here to listen to what I have to offer.

I am a member of the Court Square Citizens History Group.

Yesterday we emailed you all an important historic mural for your attention.

Our photograph reproduces a mural hanging in the Illinois State Capitol that commemorates the moment in 1819 when Edward Coles, aboard flat boats on the Ohio River, freed all 18 enslaved adults and children whom he had inherited in 1808 and later.

Albemarle's ancestor, Coles, was the second governor of Illinois from 1822 to 1826 and a lifelong opponent of slavery.

Born in Albemarle County, he was raised at Enniskorte Plantation, almost adjacent to Monticello.

Upon inheriting a dozen enslaved workers from his father and against his family's wishes, Coles determined to free them.

Certain that enslavement constituted a serious threat to the American Republic and a stain on Jefferson's legacy, he entered into correspondence with the retired president, urging the Virginia begin emancipation.

Well educated at William and Mary College, Coles became the private secretary to President James Madison, who appointed him special US envoy to Russia.

Accompanied by his enslaved foreman and boyhood friend Ralph Crawford, Coles traveled in search of western lands where he could free his slaves and settle.

They kept the plan secret as they waggoned the group north to float down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.

A few miles west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Coles gathered his people together and in a simple statement, granted their immediate freedom.

We can imagine their astonishment.

Aged 33 but a steadfast vision of justice and liberty for all, Coles promised each of the three main families a gift of land.

He supported the newly free families, purchased and conveyed the land parcels as promised.

Elected as second governor of Illinois in 1822, Coles promoted the abolitionist cause.

With the backing of churches, Coles defeated the pro-slavery faction in 1824 to create Illinois as a free state.

He assisted the aging James Madison on a plan to emancipate Madison slaves in his will.

Coles lived to see the Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the 13th Amendment.

Can I just finish my sentence?

Thank you.

This favorite son of Albemarle County, Virginia died at his Philadelphia home on July 7th, 1868.

Freeman will continue with our request of you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Three minutes.

Yes, I am Freeman Allen of a remarkable supervisor, Bea.

LaPisto-Kirtley's Rivanna district.

And I'm glad to be here with you this morning.

Thank you so much.

That's great.

Thank you so much, Mr. Pruitt.

Supervisors, kindly turn around for one moment and look at the large screen above and behind you and realize that this remarkable mural in that size decorates one of the important walls of the State House in Springfield, Illinois.

Our history group has been in contact with the Secretary of State there in order to gain permission and to coordinate receiving this remarkable, much smaller copy of the mural.

But I want each of us to think for just a couple of minutes.

Let's put our feet in the shoes or perhaps

no shoes of 18 or 19 people working out here when Albemarle was a much huger place and little old Nelson County was part of us and out there on the Rockfish River this 850 acre plantation that this young man as early as 21 or 22 years old realizes he's been educated right here

in our state that something is wrong in the state of Denmark and we've got to right it and he starts dealing with a wise older president who says to him, you're exactly right young man, but it's for another generation and it's too, too radical for right this moment.

But this man does not give up and he has to wait about 11 or 12 years, a long time to get things straight with his family.

His family has said, oh my God,

Don't even speak of something like this.

How can we, the elite, the ownership class of our county, run our plantations?

He does not give up, and as Heidi's explained,

This is the result, this remarkable dancing on the flat boats.

And he actually said they jumped for joy in an electric moment.

And they laughed and they giggled and they fell into thankful promises of loyalty to him throughout the remainder of their lives with him.

So we have felt this young man was

somewhat neglected or semi-forgotten here.

I know many of you probably have known about him, but we are proud to be presenting this to the general district court during Black History Month and want to simply alert you to that fact.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

If you could just give that to our

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And the next speaker is, and again handwriting is a, it looks like Mary Cumbian?

Hi, I'm Mary Crumbine and I'm here because y'all have a special exception on the agenda for a homestay and I'm the owner at 2895 Rolling Road and I just wanted to say that I amended my building plans and filed this special exception as I worked with the county in an effort to make this safer for building code and fire code.

This was kind of the recommendation and the thing we came up with that we thought would work best and

I'm sure they have all the information to help you ask all the questions you need, the county does as you review that.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is participating electronically.

Oh, let's see.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

My name is Alicia Linehan.

I live in the Scottsville district.

When it comes to protecting the rights of our immigrant and refugee neighbors and everyone who lives in this county, you have the constitution on your side as evidenced by the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and fourteenth amendments.

When it comes to protecting the rights of our immigrant and refugee neighbors and everyone who lives in this county, you have the code of Virginia on your side.

It is unlawful to commit armed assault and battery while wearing a mask.

It is unlawful to impersonate a member of law enforcement, state, local, or federal.

When it comes to protecting the rights of our immigrant and refugee neighbors and everyone who lives in this county, you have the facts on your side, including those noted earlier by members of the board.

73% of individuals booked into ICE detention facilities have had no criminal convictions of any kind.

US citizens and legal residents have been detained by ICE.

Some, including children, have been rendered to other countries.

and you have remained silent.

Are you elevating pragmatism over principles?

To be principled is to think and act consistently with fundamental truths and to be willing to stand alone for them if necessary.

For pragmatists, truth is based on the usefulness of the ideas.

Whatever works is true.

Truth is a process constantly changing according to time, place or personal experience.

Is appeasement pragmatic?

The question brings Jim Ryan to mind.

He tried unsuccessfully to walk the fine line between principles and pragmatism.

History and UVA's experience have taught us that making concessions to aggressive powers to avoid conflict, anger, or further trouble can have catastrophic consequences.

You invite escalation by giving concessions to an uncompromising aggressor.

You misread the opponent by relying on the assumption that he is a rational statesman with limited definable goals.

You forfeit the balance of power by allowing the aggressor to grow stronger unchecked, often making the larger conflict harder to win.

You pay high moral and credibility costs because appeasement is often condemned as a sign of weakness or moral abdication.

Governor J.B. Pritzker described your role this way, to be in public office right now is to constantly ask yourself, how do I make sure that we're standing on the right side of history?

There's a simple answer.

The wrong side of history will always tell you to be afraid.

The right side of history will always expect you to be courageous.

Expect courage from people around you and it will show up.

Expect fear and fear will rule the day.

I'll close with this from Justice Sotomayor.

The rule of law is not a given in this nation nor any other.

It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that's all.

Thank you.

And it's my understanding that we're going to pull item 8.5, which is for information only, just because a comment is requested on the item.

With that, if not, there's something further.

I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

The motion from Supervisor McKeel, second from Supervisor Mallek.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?

Yes.

Ms. McKeel?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment.

And for those that don't know, 8.5 is an information item and it's the Facilities and Environmental Services Quarterly Report.

And I just had a comment I wanted to make about something, but

This is an absolute, I will preface it by saying this is a wonderful report and I'm always sorry when I see this report that it's on the consent form because a lot of people don't get to see it.

It has wonderful information in it and I understand why we can't have these on our agendas all the time but I would urge folks as you look at our agendas to make sure you pay attention to some of these types of reports.

This particular one

is about the joint litter reduction campaign with the city of Charlottesville.

We have participated in a litter pickup program to try and clear away litter in our community with the city of Charlottesville, which I think is absolutely wonderful.

I really applaud it.

And my comment only is, and I'm kind of looking at some of the folks I see within this

Departmental area.

We have a huge problem in this community with visual litter and by that I mean signage.

Illegal signage in the right of ways.

And Charlottesville has the problem as well.

And I'm just putting it on the record that while we're working with the city of Charlottesville we both have the same litter ordinances.

The problem of course is that

Sometimes the enforcement in the different localities is different.

And when we have areas that meet, Charlottesville and Albemarle jurisdictions bump up against each other in the urban areas.

If it's not enforced consistently,

then it's easy for the visual signage litter to creep into the other locality and back and forth.

And so I'm just putting on the record that if we could somehow or another work together with the city better on their ordinance and our ordinance around that signage, I would really appreciate it.

I'll be honest with you.

I've reached out to the city a couple of times and my section of Barracks Road and that area right through there doesn't get much signage to litter anymore because they know that they will get a call from me.

So I'm just putting this on the table and I will say that this is one of the areas I hear a lot from our constituents about.

We get a lot of emails about all the

Can we wash your windows?

We have free dogs.

We have this, we have that.

And it really is a problem because I travel a lot in other areas and I don't see this type of

Litter in other communities.

So I would just love to have an effort between the city and the county to see if we can make an impact.

Thank you, Jim.

Board, this brings us to our first action item, SE 2025-00025, 2895 Rolling Road Homestay.

Thanks for your patience.

Good afternoon, board, Chair Andrews.

Before I begin, I'll just add on, Supervisor McKeel and Chair Andrews, it's been a pleasure working with you and thanks for all your support and thanks for working with me all these years.

Thank you.

I'm Lisa Green, I'm the manager of co-compliance and today I'll be presenting special exception SE 2025-25 for 2895 Rolling Road.

This request is for the use of three newly constructed accessory sleeping units for a home state use on a rural area property.

The applicants are requesting a special exception from County Code Section 18-5.1.48 C2II for the use of accessory structures built after August 7, 2019.

These new units have not yet been constructed.

However, the property owner has applied for building permits, which are currently under review.

This slide provides an overview of the existing and planned structures on the property.

This property may seem familiar to you.

On April 17, 2024, this board approved a special exception to authorize a resident manager for the Monticello Inn and Cottage LLC.

It's solely owned by Mary Crumbian.

The 10-point acre parcel is located in Simeon, across from the Morven property held by the University of Virginia Foundation on the James Monroe Parkway.

The property was previously the location of the Slate Hill Baptist Church, shown here with the blue star, which is currently under construction to be converted into a single-family dwelling with the homestay rooms.

The associated parking for this homestay use is shown here with the orange P at the bottom.

The owner, Ms. Crumbian, is also constructing a new primary residence that will include two bedrooms intended for homestay use, shown here marked with the red star.

Once constructed, this will be the second dwelling on the parcel and the primary residence for Ms. Crumbian and her family.

The associated parking for these structures is shown with the green P to the northern property.

Finally, you see the location of the proposed accessory sleeping units indicated with the yellow stars that are subject of the special exception request.

Each unit will support the homestay operation with dedicated on-site parking per zoning requirements.

This exhibit focuses on the specific area where the three new accessory sleeping units are proposed.

These structures are the subject of the special exception because they are going to be built after August 7th, 2019, and therefore cannot be used for homestay without board approval.

The site layout demonstrates the applicant's intent to place the units together in a defined cluster on the property with parking located immediately adjacent for ease of access and to minimize disturbance to the surrounding area.

This parcel meets all the requirements for the homestay use, and by right is permitted to rent up to five guest sleeping spaces within a single-family dwelling or previously existing accessory structure.

This particular parcel has the development rights for the two single-family dwelling units, therefore can have up to two separate homestay uses, allowing up to 10 guest rooms for sleeping by right.

This special exception is only required due to the new construction of the three accessory sleeping units.

A condition has been added to the resolution attachment F to limit the number of detached accessory sleeping unit structures to the three as shown on the plan submitted by the property owner.

If the special exception is approved, the owner's homestay zoning clearance application currently under review will proceed through the approval process.

The property is currently in compliance with all zoning and taxation requirements.

Upon evaluation of the proposed newly constructed accessories living units to be used in the homestay, staff finds no evidence to suggest any adverse impacts on the surrounding neighborhood or on the public's health, safety, or welfare.

The homestay constitutes a by-right accessory use to the primary dwelling on the property.

It is consistent with the goal and policies outlined in the comprehensive plan,

and given the scale of both the parcel and the structure are compatible with the character of the surrounding area.

To summarize this 10.8 acre parcel with this application the request is to permit the three newly constructed one bedroom accessory sleeping units for a homestay use built after August 7th, 2019 in the rural area.

Based on the analysis provided in the staff report, staff recommends approval of the requested special exception.

Thank you.

Yes, so this is an interesting one, right?

It comes to us in the posture of a special exception to a homestay, but I feel like it begs questions that go beyond that related to zoning.

So I hope you'll forgive me for asking a few questions that deviate outside of the normal homestay process, because it kind of is straddling an interesting section here.

My understanding is that there is one unexhausted development right currently.

There's the church, which is acting as a dwelling, and then there's the owner residence that is to be built, which is currently unexhausted but would be exhausted by that construction.

Is that accurate?

That's accurate.

And the...

Additional dwelling the additional owner dwelling is going to require a certificate of occupancy Process and there will be a similar process if it hasn't already happened for the church.

Correct.

I'm going to call them the outbuildings because I think it invites lack of clarity to use accessory structure.

And I know that's the language we use, but I feel like that implies an accessory dwelling unit, which is a full certificate of occupancy thing.

And so I'm just going to clarify.

I'm going to say outbuilding instead of accessory unit for that purpose.

Yes, they're classified under the building permit as an accessory sleeping unit.

So it meets all the definition of a dwelling except for the kitchen, so it's just a sleeping unit.

And so similarly, would there be buy-write?

Those can't be rented out long term.

They're not dwellings.

Understood.

OK.

I think that gets at everything I had.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yeah, Lisa.

Thank you for this report.

And my sense is it's coming to us because of the multiple buildings, which is different from most of the home stays, which is why it reverted back to us.

Because we've been trying to not have so many home stays once we figured out the rules of most of them.

So multiple buildings.

And I did notice in the report

What you all are alluding to, maybe just for people that are listening, these buildings don't have kitchens.

That is correct.

So when you refer to a sleeping quarter, it's really just a place where people can sleep.

Correct.

Which is interesting.

Yes.

And I'm sure you will tell me if it's none of our business, but it always worries me

because if I stay somewhere and I can't cook, am I going to bring in a Bunsen burner?

Am I going to bring in something that I can actually heat something?

I'm just saying, Lisa, and are we talking about something then that's a fire hazard that we get into?

But as with all of the homestay requirements, these homestays will get the fire inspection annually, just like every other homestay that we have.

And that's what I knew you would tell me, that it's none of our business in a way, right?

It just always worries me.

because I've seen fires start that way, certainly in dormitories.

But maybe that's young people, and that's a different issue.

I don't know.

And these go through all the building.

OK. All right.

That was my question for right now.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

This is interesting.

In addition to the, I'm so grateful that the church is being historically renovated and I missed the thing from last week's presentation but there will be a recording from the Historic Society about the presentation in this room last week that some of you may have attended but I was not able to do it.

Please help me remind me, there's a difference between a stove and other cooking things like a microwave, correct?

So in that dwelling thing.

That is tricky.

When you have built-in appliances and under our definition, it's permanent provision for cooking.

That is what then makes a kitchen.

Again, we're not there to see what people bring in, but typically speaking, the microwave on the countertop is not a permanent provision for cooking.

the Keurig coffee machine or a pot that boils water for soup or something like that.

I mean, now people even have their air fryers or whatever.

Those are not considered permanent provisions.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

Supervisor Gallaway.

Thank you, Lisa.

This may be for Mr. Herrick.

We do have the right, I've confirmed this before, but I always forget.

that if we granted the permission for this, that we could stop it with just this owner.

That's correct.

That's now part of the enabling authority allowed by state code to make it owner specific.

And here's why I bring it up.

And I'm fine with this doesn't change my opinion of this particular application.

I'm surprised we haven't used this given past concerns my colleagues have brought up about business operations in LLCs.

This site kind of reeks to me that once this owner, who knows, it could be 50 years and stays in the family, but if ownership changed, it seems like you're immediately saying the new owner has to run the same operation.

So this one, I don't know enough about putting the stipulation on these, because all it would do is we require them to come in and get the special exception, but it at least requires them to do that, and say I'm taking this on, it's a new business, et cetera.

So if this were just one farmhouse and it had its accessory structure, I think that could be a little different.

But this is starting to say that if this property were to go on sale,

that you basically have to run homestays.

I mean, you could convert the three and do other things with them, et cetera, or tear them down.

I mean, you'd still have all those rights.

But it's already set up for a homestay operation.

And I just bring it up because I'd be curious to hear what others would think about that.

Now, I don't know, in terms of legal review, you're hearing this for the first time.

I'm sorry I didn't give anybody a heads up on it.

But it just seems to me to be a place where we would maybe want to exercise this option.

I don't think it changes anything for the applicant and her running of the property or anything for her.

But it may set up something that I've at least heard voiced as concerns for future business.

Like if you're an LLC and all you want to do is run home state businesses,

then this is like an ideal site down the road.

And that's the reason I bring it up.

And I want to put it in the ears of those who have voiced these concerns in the past to hear what your thoughts are.

Now Andy would have, Mr. Herrick would have to advise us on the legal ramifications of it.

And I'm not there and saying let's do it until I hear that.

But I wanted to bring it up based on this particular application.

I just wanted to offer a quick response to the idea that this basically requires the owner to operate a homestay.

The special exception would entitle the owner to operate a homestay.

It would not require the owner to operate a homestay.

It's an additional right that the owner has in addition to all the other rights that come under the zoning ordinance.

So if the next owner chose not to run a homestay, that would be their right not to as well.

I can't speak probably as well as Ms. Green can to what a change in ownership would involve in terms of further approvals, whether some sort of zoning clearance would be required for a subsequent owner so that that might be another opportunity to revisit the continued use of the home stay upon a change in ownership.

I have a question along these lines, and maybe it's the same one that Jim is thinking, but maybe it's different.

It occurs to me that the owner of the homestand, the person to whom we're issuing it, is not Mary.

without changing the ownership of the property because it's still owned by the same LLC.

I'm not sure we can avail ourselves of this law functionally because it can be inherited by whomever and still have the same owner, which is a thing for us to remember moving forward.

Which has been our concern multiple times.

The LLC can sell.

It can be sold.

And if this is the only asset the LLC holds, I don't know.

I mean, it could be.

I'm not sure if this is a thing that we can pierce the veil over.

I don't know.

Well I mean conceivably conditions could be added both to making this effective only as long as it were owned by such and such LLC and so long as the LLC were owned and operated by specific individuals.

Again that gets away from land use principles where we're looking at is this property properly used as a land use rather than looking at the ownership and I can

I imagine that's probably why staff is not recommending that the use be conditioned on ownership.

But again, I think that conditions could be added.

Okay, we're going to have to think about that one, but I did want to ask, there are two homes on two separate properties, correct?

They're the same property.

It's the same property, but 10 acres, but allowed to have two homes on there.

OK, so you have your one home where the resident resides with available home stays, and then the three out buildings, right?

and it's supposed to be for a home stay, would it have, we mentioned before earlier, a kitchen.

Wouldn't that have a kitchen and is that going to be part of it or demolished or what?

The converted church is going to be a full single-family dwelling, considered a full single-family dwelling.

And my understanding from the property owner, when I've spoken to her, is that there will be

folks also living there, caretakers.

So in this single-family dwelling, the church conversion, there will be people living there.

It helps take care.

And then the new residents to be built, again with the red star, that will be

The property owner's full-time residence.

Right.

Correct.

But it's built as a full single-family dwelling.

And the church is a full single-family dwelling also.

I thought there were rooms in there for homestays also.

So think about it just like a large house with many, many bedrooms.

Right.

Right.

OK, so that will have a kitchen, but it'll be the owners, and then they can rent a bedroom.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's my understanding that our rules, as they are written, basically would say you could have two homestay uses on the property.

Yes.

And there could be five with each.

Correct.

Right.

But in this case, the three external would have been allowed if they had been built prior to this particular date in 2019.

Yes, that is the sole issue.

Right.

So if they had these two houses and they just put five rooms in each, that would be fine.

But in this case, we're taking the three that are trying to turn into external structures that weren't built previously.

Correct.

OK.

I see it as within our rules, except for the fact that these are due construction.

And while it feels a lot like.

Hotel or a rural inn.

I don't see it as outside the rules except for the fact that these structures aren't in existence right now.

So are there any other comments or questions by the board?

Question.

Just to get future explanations some other time, I was under the impression that we were already requiring new owners to have process, and that that was the

the comfort that people got that if a new owner came along for one of these LLCs that they had to start all over again or at least come back to SAF and make sure that all their ducks were in a row.

And that was the only way that we had gotten over the angst about LLCs, period.

But now I'm being told that that's not the case, because you can then sell the LLC name to somebody else.

I don't think we've implemented it.

We haven't used it yet.

It is kind of a toggle we can select from when approving, and one has not come before us, I think, since we've had this authority.

And this is the first one where I think we've both had the ability and remembered we have the ability.

And it's because it's held by an LLC, which was previously approved.

Mary has come here before the board previously to get approval to run it through an LLC rather than through her own name.

It is slightly more complex.

And this is a complexity I don't think we've encountered before with the fact that they're LLCs.

So either we can do it through additional

restrictions, which I don't think we're in a position to do today.

Or we can exercise a higher level of scrutiny and care before approving LLC ownership, which has to come before us.

Those are the two different ways to do it.

But yeah, that part of it, I would say, is an issue of first impression with this.

While I'm yakking, you know, this is in the Scottsville district.

So I would just say, you know, the things that I have told the board before that I care about and think about with these things, obviously character and cohesiveness with the character.

I think this is interesting and slightly challenging, but honestly, I think

We're retaining a historic building.

We're putting a good use to it.

And we're having some amount of economic activity in the rural area, which I get excited about.

This is like a small impact version of the project that our neighbors in Fluvanna torpedoed at the border of Scottsville, if you all remember that.

and the other thing I'm concerned about is when a homestay would functionally remove housing from the long-term housing stock.

That's only come up maybe once and that gives me pause.

That's not implicated here.

We're not depriving existing housing stock.

We're turning something that wasn't housing into housing and we're creating a new outbuilding.

And so I have no reason to oppose this.

And I'll just, if you could go back a couple slides, maybe one or two, I can't remember.

Those are the criteria that I really would be looking at in this in my case, and I don't see those as being a problem.

There's nothing else if we could have the, sorry, we just got off the screen.

Thank you.

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

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?

Yes.

Ms. McKeel?

Yes.

Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley?

Thank you.

Can I ask a question, Mr.

Chair?

Sure.

Because it's related to this then.

In hearing part of Andy's explanation, he was mentioning that it sounds like staff takes

it into consideration that they can exercise the option to not have it continue past the applicant.

I wasn't aware that was part of the process.

Does staff do that?

I mean, we haven't had but so many since we've got the authority.

But I always kind of thought that that was an option that the board would have to remember to do and then do the thought process on it.

But that would be new to me.

If staff is taking these applications and using that as a consideration, that presumes that someday you might recommend we do that.

But if that's not part of the conversation, I'm not saying that's good or bad or needs to be or doesn't need to be.

And it needs to be somewhere in our guiding documents that we're thinking about, it would seem like to me.

Well, and I don't want staff to think like, oh, we haven't been doing this.

That's not a problem.

I never thought you were.

I just want to know that that's something we all need to remember to do.

And if it's on the board, it's on the board.

Typically speaking on these type of applications, especially with the new mandate or legislative approval, that would be something we would get guidance from the board.

Yeah, it would seem like it to me, and I think that maybe what you're saying, that there should be something in our guiding documents that would help

us a little bit with this as well, Lisa.

Not just that we can remember out of the blue that we had this.

I didn't expect you all to do that.

But if it's in our document somewhere, somehow, then that guides us to that if we want to use it or think about it, right?

That's what I'm getting at is let's have it somewhere so that when it comes to a board.

Right.

Well, that's right.

It's going to be exercised on other land use decisions.

I'm afraid I'm not understanding your question.

I thought there were some other instances where you could not run it with the land and stop it with the current applicant.

Not just Homestay.

We've never had that discussion.

We're making this sound like it's just Homestay applicant.

We need a learning opportunity.

Exactly.

That's what I'm...

Absolutely.

Bart Svoboda, Deputy Director of Zoning Administrator.

So we'll look at that.

I think we're here to Ms. Green's point and Mr. Herrick's.

We'll look at that legislation to make sure how it applies.

We'll also include kind of feedback on these applications if that's an option that that we see is something that either we want to know about and talk about or whether or not that we think that that situation calls for an ownership limitation.

We'll take a look at that.

But I don't want to

Without having the legislation in front of me, I don't want to assume which land use decision it applies to.

Consistent treatment among applicants is incredibly important to me, that we have this nailed down ahead of time so that we know that

I'm proud of us.

We saw that there was only a three hour meeting and we said no I'm going to earn my salary.

I'm going to add an award ceremony.

Well, let me just, if I could, I don't want to delay the point further.

But just to be clear, in terms of the homestay regulations, there's not a per se restriction on LLC ownership of homestays.

What it is is there's a residency requirement.

And since an LLC is not a natural person, the board needs to grant a special exception in order to allow a resident manager when a home stay is owned by an LLC.

So again, I just wanted to clarify what the LLC tie-in to home stays was.

It's not a per se restriction.

Right.

My question has to do with whether the LLC transference can trigger any kind of review.

Correct.

Board, I think this brings us to our presentation on the fiscal year 2025 annual comprehensive financial report and audit results.

About time.

Thank you.

And this is, sorry for the delay.

I appreciate your patience with us.

Thank you, Chair Andrews.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am Shenandra Usher, one of the assistant CFOs of our Department of Finance and Budget.

And I stand before you today to present the highlights of our Fiscal Year 25 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, commonly referred to as the ACFR, and audit results along with Megan Arganbright, our managing partner of Brown Edwards, our auditing firm.

Before we start, I'd like to acknowledge and thank our CFO, Jacob Somner, for his leadership and support.

In addition to Jen Lin, our controller, Dennis Click, our deputy controller, Mukhtar Farhang, our payroll manager, Shelby Coleman, lead accountant, Stacey Smith, lead accountant, Deanna Davenport, lead accountant, Lisa Davis, senior accountant, Troy Arevalo, senior accountant, Eric Rico, accountant, Audriana Thomas, accountant, along with supporting offices,

the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Investment and Debt Management, the Office of Revenue Administration, the Office of Procurement, the Office of Grants and Agreements, the Office of Enterprise Risk Management and Shared Services, the Office of Real Estate, Schools Fiscal Services, and the Office of the CFO.

If you are here this afternoon, please stand so that you may be recognized.

Again, thank you for your diligent work and dedication.

Before we jump into revenue and expenditure figures, I'd like to provide an overview of the ACFR.

There are four delineated basic sections of the ACFR.

They are the introductory section, the financial section, the statistical section, and the compliance section.

Within the introductory section, there's a table of contents, the letter of transmittal, organizational chart, list of principal officials, and the GFOA certificate of achievement award if received.

Within the financial section,

It contains five segments.

This is the independent auditor's report, the management discussion and analysis, which is required supplementary information, basic financial statements with notes to the financial statements.

This is the audited information, required supplementary information, and then other supplementary information.

The basic financial statements.

Oops, didn't mean to go that way.

The basic financial statements include two types of statements.

These are government wide financial statements and fund financial statements.

The government wide financial statements are enterprise wide financial statements that cover government activities, business like activities, and combined component unit activities.

The fund financial statements include financial reporting on the county's major and non-major funds, the internal service funds, investment funds, and custodial funds.

Fund financial statements

focus on near-term inflows and outflows of spendable resources at the end of the fiscal year.

Within the statistical section, it's broken into five categories.

There's the financial trends, the revenue capacity, debt capacity, demographic and economic information, and operating information.

Finally, there's the compliance section, which typically includes the independent auditor's report, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards, commonly known as the SEFA report,

and the schedule of findings and question costs for the current and prior year.

Due to the federal government shutdown, the federal compliance was delayed in its release for fiscal year 25.

Therefore, the CEFR report is not a part of the documentation that you all have received.

Megan, our managing partner from Brown and Edwards, will share more on this when she presents.

Now let's take a look at our fiscal year 25 general fund revenues.

The total revenues for general fund for fiscal year 25 is $458 million.

With the majority of our revenues in personal property taxes at $308 million, this consists of real estate, personal property, mobile homes, and machinery and tool taxes.

$84.5 million in other local taxes which include sales and use tax, business, occupational, and professional licenses, transit and occupancy taxes, cigarette tax, and bank franchise tax.

I'd also like to highlight the revenue from use of money and property.

This is from the county's investments and the rental of county facilities in the amount of approximately $8.2 million.

Now let's take a look at our general fund expenditures for fiscal year 25.

The total expenditures are approximately $458 million.

Our larger expenditures are in support of schools at $213 million and public safety in the amount of $69 million.

This demonstrates our county's commitment to providing the foundation for a flourishing community.

Our transfers out for debt and CIP are around $49 million.

and of the $33 million in expenditures that you see displayed in community development, approximately $17.8 million is a part of the revenue sharing program that we have with the city of Charlottesville.

Our total revenues equal in $458 million in total expenditures, approximately $457.7 million

The excess of the revenues over the expenditures brings us to our net change in fund balance, which is approximately $452,000 for fiscal year 25.

So the net change in fund balance plus the beginning balance from the previous fiscal year, which is $97.9 million roughly, brings us to our end of year fund balance in the amount of $98.3 million.

Finally, let's review a breakdown of our fiscal year fund balance.

There are three categories of fund balance as defined by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

They're non-spendable, committed, and unassigned.

Non-spendable funds and the amount of $897,000 is the balance of our inventory, prepays, and net leases receivable.

Our committed funds are

Approximately $7.8 million are funds that have already been approved by the board for future use in all functional areas.

This includes encombrances, reappropriations, and the school reserve balance fund.

Our unassigned funds, approximately $89.7 million, these are funds that are available for future use.

According to our policy use of unassigned balance funds, these also cover our 10% fund balance reserve and our 2% budget stabilization reserve.

Thank you.

That's really cool.

I'm Megan Arganbright.

I'm a partner at Brown Edwards.

And I brought with me Addison Reshley.

He's sitting there in the back.

Addison runs the job.

He's the manager on the job.

He oversees the day-to-day, and he actually is the one who prepared the ACVR.

So I'll be fairly brief here.

Thanks to county staff, it is not an easy process

We're always an add-on, right?

You have to do your normal day-to-day and then the auditors are here and asking you questions for two to three months on end to get the process rolling.

So I would not be able to do it without the effort put in by county staff.

We do have three deliverables as part of this process.

The first one, the big one, is the ACFR, the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.

We did issue a clean opinion, an unmodified opinion.

That's the one that you want.

As part of that opinion, if you were to compare last year to this year, you will see there was one new standard implemented.

And we did point that out in the opinion because it is a new process.

That standard was GASB 101 for compensated absences.

It's just the way GASB is going with increasing liabilities.

They did the same with pension and OPEB and leases, and now we're recording a slightly larger liability for compensated absences is generally the direction that that standard went.

County staff, though, was very involved in coming up with the estimates for how to record that new standard.

A couple of things also in the act for the transmittal letter, which is the very first thing, is going to be a lot of economic information, a large overview of the county and what's been going on and what is coming up in the future.

After our opinion is management's discussion and analysis.

And that is the only place, really, in the ACFR that you're going to find a current year prior year comparison.

So if you wanted a nice summary, it's like 40 pages.

But if you wanted a summary, you could read this management's discussion and analysis.

It provides a little bit more information than the rest of the ACFR does.

As Shenandra mentioned, usually at the end of the act, there's a little bit more bulk to the compliance section.

So because the uniform guidance and the compliance supplement was not issued, it was issued the day before Thanksgiving.

And so in order to not rush through that process and make sure that we completed the federal audit

to the best of our abilities.

In fact, you guys have finals, not to pat ourselves on the back, but last year if we had drafts.

So I'm very excited, and that's a testament to the efforts by the county staff to get this done sooner.

So we will be issuing a separate report on the compliance.

I won't need to come present that to you, but we will be providing it.

to the finance department.

And you will, I'm sure, receive a copy of that.

We did already start testing the federal awards.

That process is well underway.

We just couldn't finish it without the final documentation of the compliance supplement.

Our other deliverables include what we call a management letter.

It's a letter on internal controls.

To point out there, all of our comments from last year

had improvements.

And a lot of them were what was a significant deficiency or material weakness last year.

There are no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses, which is a level of internal control comments.

So worth noting that we made these recommendations last year, and staff made improvements in each area where we had a recommendation.

And there were no new comments for this year, which is also a very important thing.

So not only did they focus on the areas where we said you could have improvement, but all areas continued to operate

where they should be.

There's also I guess at the end of that letter some upcoming standards if you're so interested in reading about what I may be talking about next year.

There are three pages related to what's out there on the horizon.

The last deliverable is the letter to those charged with governance.

This is also commonly referred to as the audit committee letter.

It's a very standard boilerplate letter.

We have to communicate certain items to you all, including that there are estimates in the financial statements.

As I mentioned a little bit ago, there was a new standard this year, GASB 101.

There is a new estimate in that letter for that new standard.

There's also a place in this letter for corrected misstatements.

There was just one of those and uncorrected misstatements, which are items that we do not feel would influence anybody's decision making on the financial statements.

Attached to the audit committee letter is management's representation letter.

As I said, we come in here, we ask a lot of questions.

We ask for a lot of support.

And this representation letter is essentially saying, we've told you everything we know to the best of our ability.

We did not withhold information, and we answered all of your questions.

But it's seven pages long.

So beyond that, if you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

But again, I'll just emphasize it was a clean opinion.

There were no state findings, no new current year management letter comments, and improvements to all of last year's management letter comments.

Thank you.

I'm not sure I have anything.

Thank you.

Thank you for the report and the good news.

Good news.

I will say that occasionally over the years, I've heard people in the community question why we have unassigned monies.

Everybody has.

And while we have given them a tax increase if they're unassigned dollars.

And I'm just saying that they're capturing or looking at that unassigned.

doesn't mean that the monies are unassigned, but the word leads folks down.

Jacob Sumner, Chief Financial Officer.

The categories of fund balance that are presented in the financial statements, those titles are dictated by the governmental accounting standards board and so we don't get to choose those titles but there are certain reasons why things are classified in those.

So essentially the unassigned phone balance for us or for governmental entities are the things that aren't restricted either by the governing body or restricted by some external outside entity and they're also something that is

can be spent, so the non-spendable is another category like inventories and things like that.

And that's helpful.

And that's what I think of as our rainy day fund.

Yes, ma'am.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

No questions, but I was surprised about the name change because I guess, wasn't it called the CAFR for like 20 years?

And now it's ACFR.

It was.

Yeah, they had to change the name.

I think it was three years ago.

Oh, OK. Yeah, now it's part of my every day.

Thank you.

No questions, but two just comments.

With Jim, I serve on the Audit Committee.

So as there, I just wanted to commend staff because all of the items that were noted last year, the fact that they were all addressed, and it does state in the letter, no concerns currently exist.

So I appreciate they made improvements, but they've actually corrected.

So it's an improvement, but it's also handled.

It's not further improvement needed.

So congrats to you all and grateful to you all for doing that.

And then this new standard, I'm still not sold on.

It seems a little weird for auditors.

While liability is something an auditor would be concerned about, sure.

It's a little too theoretical or abstract for me what they're trying to put a number on because this is uncommon.

It's like trying to predict what your sick leave might be.

I mean, that to me is the part that's still a little fuzzy wuzzy.

Right, we're adding another estimate.

Thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

So is Fuzzy Wizzy going to take the place of wackadoodle?

Whackadoodle is more fun to say.

Whackadoodle is a lot more fun to say.

So I don't really have any questions either, but I do want to commend you on the fact that we don't have any state findings or management letters we have to correct, and the fact that you corrected everything from last year was previously stated.

Thank you, appreciate it.

My understanding is we need to accept this.

The CFO's office had coordinated with me this proposed motion.

This is the motion that's required or the code section you see at the bottom is the required action.

It's the

Executive summary wasn't quite on point.

Thank you.

I would like to move that the board authorize the chair and the county executive to execute a notarized statement that the county's audited financial report has been presented to the board.

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

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?

Yes.

Ms. McKeel?

Yes.

Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you.

And thank you for that report and good news.

Our next up is Zoning Modernization Formatting and Early Updates, led by Leah Rumfeld, senior planner two.

Thank you, chair.

And let's get this presentation going.

There we go.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Members of the board, Chair Andrews.

My name is Leah Brumfield.

I am Senior Planner 2 in the Zoning Division of Community Development.

And today, I am presenting an update on our zoning modernization project.

We did just adopt AC44.

Yay.

So we're working to incorporate it into the ordinance.

And today's presentation will be an information sharing update about how that is coming about.

So briefly, we'll start with a reminder of our project goals.

We have simplified those into four objectives, which we'll go on to the next slide.

Following that, we'll talk about the work we've completed to date, which AC44 and best planning practices are possibly going into the zoning ordinance, what that will mean as we look at that, and then the phased approach we're taking to accomplish our overall project goals.

Finally, we will wrap up with next steps.

I know we are going to probably have a lot of questions, but I would request that we hold them to the end of the presentation because a lot of the questions on one slide are probably going to be answered on the next slide.

So we have distilled all of the paragraphs of descriptive, beautifully evocative goals that we've written throughout the ROIs for this project, the early evaluations, the early presentations.

These can be summarized into these four bullet points.

We are rewriting the ordinance for clarity and for ease of use.

We're streamlining administrative processes for both efficiency and for the appropriate amount of staff and legislative body time.

We are aligning the ordinance with AC44 comprehensive plan.

And we're updating the ordinance overall for modern best practices that meet today's county's needs and move forward into the future.

So this first phase, which we are calling the foundation phase, is complete.

This phase, we worked with the aid of local government consulting company, the Berkeley Group.

We conducted staff and development community stakeholder interviews, two on twos with planning commission members.

And the Berkeley Group provided a general review of the ordinance against best practices and project goals, ending up with a zoning ordinance evaluation.

And at the end of this stage, we

we drafted new draft articles for the ordinance, establishing the language, the tone, the overall structure that we were going to be using throughout rewriting all of the ordinance.

We also condensed and simplified a few administrative processes here.

We heavily involved the community development teams involved in those processes.

And then at the end of drafting that,

We did bring the four new articles to the legislative bodies, and they are currently available on our Engage website.

So as a recap, the four articles we drafted in this phase were Article 1, General Provisions, with the overall pre-boilerplate, same establishment of authority as our current ordinance.

Article 2, which was establishing the authority of the bodies involved in administering the ordinance, the zoning administrator, planning commission, architectural review board.

Article 3, which outlined all the applications, the various permits that are covered under the zoning ordinance, and the processes for each of those applications.

and then Article 10, which describes nonconformities.

This was also fairly boilerplate.

It's very standard and didn't require a lot of decisions.

Very similar across all of Virginia.

So all of these sections do follow the same basic structure and this provides a logical consistency starting with the intent or purpose ending up with any modifications or waivers so a very natural progression of standard to less standard and everything in between.

As we needed, different regulations would have different sections added or would have subsets under a larger umbrella of different provisions.

But overall, the architecture of the regulations is very consistent.

So it's kind of an early word special.

We applied this ordinance architecture to the proposed revisions for Rio 2019 form-based code, which will be presented to the Planning Commission, I believe, in the beginning of 2026, I think around January.

Obviously, a board meeting to follow.

Our zoning modernization team has had a very strong overlap with our Rio 2019 form-based code team.

So we have been able to.

follow that same tone, the same language style, and the same overall structure.

So here you can kind of see the two sections on the left, the draft article three, and on the right, the draft writing form-based code, and really highlighting the similarities of the format there and the overall structure.

The numbering scheme is different, but that's because we all have to put the form-based code into our current ordinance, not the updated one.

So as phase one is completed, we are moving to phase two.

And this we are calling format modernization.

This is a slightly different project organizational scheme than we previously discussed.

So I'll go into that in the next couple of slides.

And the reason we are calling this format modernization is because this phase focuses primarily on the format, less so the content and the regulations themselves.

So going back to our project goals, this phase completes what we started in phase one, rewriting the ordinance for clarity and ease of use and organizational structure.

So at the end of this phase, phase two, we're anticipating adoption of a fully rewritten ordinance, article one all the way through, that will have simpler, clearer language, a logical and navigable format, and simpler administrative processes.

However, this phase would not include the majority of the substantive regulatory changes and those changes would be rolled into what we're calling phase three.

So as an example of what we're doing in this phase two, this would be rewriting and reorganizing the ordinance.

And one of those big changes that we're looking at is taking the lists of uses that you have to go through every single section to find and putting them into easy to scan tables.

So we have been working on these tables for a few months at this point.

And as you'll note, the example on the screen is for the format review only.

The Lorem Ipsum text is to kind of show you that this is just format not content.

What I would ask you to look at here is the ease of use of reading them.

You can easily see that something is either administratively approved by right, or it's a special use permit use requiring a board approval, is only permitted as an accessory use, or whether it's just not permitted at all.

So these kinds of formatting changes do make it a lot easier and simpler, and that is the standard for modern ordinances.

Additionally, we would have some simplification in language here.

The one example I would have you look at on this chart is the very bottom use, campground.

We currently have two uses in that category, boarding camp and a day camp.

And they're treated exactly the same.

And they both require a special use permit.

And they have exactly the same permissions.

They just have slightly different names.

And most camps are both a boarding camp and a day camp.

This would just be a simplification.

And that's the kind of thing that we are looking at in this phase.

Another of the changes here in phase two is reorganizing and rewriting language that exists.

That is again not a substantive change in this one.

Here you see the supplementary regulations.

Currently section five of the ordinance are being renamed performance use standards as a clarification of what we're trying to do here is avoid impacts from uses.

So here we have reorganized the types of uses into a more logical format where all of the agricultural uses are together, all the residential uses are together, and et cetera.

So here, just an example, again, not completed.

All of the social clubs and lodges are grouped under public, civic, and recreation use, and so is community center.

And so if you have a public, civic, recreation use, you can automatically go to that section.

It's clearer.

It's faster.

This kind of language change as well.

pulling the larger paragraph and pulling it into an easier to read list with a bulleted format.

That's the kind of change and update that will be applied in phase two, providing a fresh slate of the ordinance that's easier to read before we go on to the more substantive changes.

And finally, phase two will have some small regulatory updates that are as currently adopted in the comprehensive plan but are smaller and not large changes.

This slide highlights just a few of the types of changes that staff are considering rolling into this phase.

These types of changes would just be codification of standard practice that we do every day.

or it's a very simple adoption of an industry standard practice as a type of performance use standards.

So these are being brought to this project by staff who are noting which types of special exception applications are approved the same language over and over and over again with very little changes.

Example, taller building heights without requiring step backs or very low hanging fruit kind of implementation actions

that are currently listed in the comprehensive plan.

So these would be things that are being pulled from AC44, and we are working very closely with that team to determine which, if any, of the comprehensive plan actions would fall under this category.

So this is something that we'll be continuing working on.

So moving to phase three of the zoning modernization project, this is the regulatory modernization.

and this phase is pulling the last two goals, aligning the zoning ordinance with AC44 and updating regulations for general best planning practices.

So as the newly adopted comprehensive plan is a fairly weighty document,

Staff engaged with the public extensively on that process.

And the culmination of that work had numerous actions and goals for the community as a whole, spanning every department in county government.

But one of the direct ways that we implement the comp plan is through the zoning ordinance.

And so one of the big moves of AC44 implementation plan is to align the zoning ordinance with AC44.

Of the other big moves, the ones that are listed here are ones that can be incorporated in zoning modernization.

Just a couple of examples of what that would look like.

The zoning modernization team is working closely with AC44 team and also with the county executive's office as we are determining how these goals and actions are going to be implemented.

And throughout the phase three of this project, we would be bringing many of these types of changes to the board in draft ordinance format.

So that's kind of the high level zooming into the individual action level.

The comprehensive plan currently has, not currently, it does have 68 individual actions which might be included in zoning modernization.

And as we have mentioned, we are working to prioritize those actions.

figure out which actions and which goals are recommended to be included in zoning modernization and the discussions between staff will culminate in work sessions with the board and the resulting priorities will be written into new draft ordinance in zoning modernization phase three.

So at the same time that we're having these conversations we are consulting with other departments as well

We're trying to figure out how we're going to be addressing comprehensive plan goals and actions that are outside of zoning modernization and making sure that the actions that we're taking are going to be coordinating and meshing with other departments to make sure that our initiatives aren't working against themselves and are bringing about the most effective changes that we need to make in the county.

We currently have a target date of Spring 2026 to bring approval for the prioritization goals to the board and other departments of course will also be providing updates on different project initiatives along the way and continuing forward.

and then also the best planning practices that we had talked about.

We're incorporating a number of initiatives that staff, developers, property owners, commission members and board members have been saying, oh we should fix this for many years.

Updating our parking regulations for example, simplifying our sign regulations,

codifying minimum sizes and standards for tree wells, for landscaping requirements, and those types of things that are really just overall industry best practices.

And these types of changes will largely be informed by the recommendations from professionals and from other best planning practices from other ordinances both across Virginia and in the planning field in general.

As we are trying to figure out how this is all going to happen, how this is all going to line up, as we will notice from the handouts provided, which are also available on the sideboard for the public and also available on our Engage website, these two phases are concurrently both running.

They'll be following each other and they'll be kind of playing off of each other as they move forward.

So the format modernization phase, we're working on just rewriting the ordinance without substantive changes.

We're looking at concluding with the adoption of that cleanup ordinance with a target date in 2026, at the end of 2026.

The rewriting of the ordinance overall, however, reviewing the uses as we're going through that.

We're reviewing all of the different aspects of the regulations and then taking note which ones will require more in-depth work.

So right now, we're really in the pre-planning stage of phase three.

And then we are going to be noting which things we're going to be looking at and who we're going to be talking to throughout the drafting phase later on.

Once we receive direction on prioritization of the overall larger goals, the staff level review will guide work with topic-based focus groups and also our overall project partners, VDOT, the health department, ACSA, to write regulation changes that meet the directives that we have been given from AC44.

So as we are pulling larger countywide goals and directions from the comprehensive plan, the groups that we're going to be meeting with will largely be targeted topic experts and industry experts who will provide us with best practices and very specific implementation strategies.

So our current goal for the regulatory changes incorporated into the previously adopted new clean formatted ordinance will be in 2028, hopefully early in that year.

This approach with staggered milestones has a much faster delivery of the new ordinance with both clarity and user friendliness right off the bat, and then allowing us necessary time to do the research and engagement on topics that will require more in-depth discussions.

And every zoning text amendment that I've worked on, the board might remember there have been a few, have involved an iterative process.

By building that iteration into our project timeline, we're allowing continuous progress, we're allowing for project learning, and we're also creating efficiency in both staff time and in legislative body time.

So our public engagement strategy here focuses on information sharing to the broader public.

We're talking about updates in Albemarle County News, which you can sign up for under the News section on the primary Albemarle.org website.

the Albemarle County social media and our engagement website which I will share the link to that on our last slide.

You can also go to engage.albemarle.org and just search for zoning modernization.

Throughout the process overall we are keeping the public informed with both the progress and then also an emphasis on the hows and whys we are rewriting the zoning ordinance and an education series for anyone who wants to really understand what is the difference between the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance among other types of topics.

So following the robust

General Public Engagement of the Comprehensive Plan, which provided the county level broad goals.

This project will be focusing heavily on target engagement, working with the topic experts that we are looking for as we're writing the ordinance that is already outlined in the broad goals from the Comprehensive Plan.

We are working with our CAPE team, Communications and Public Engagement, building those topic level groups and we will be obviously consulting with them throughout our engagement efforts of the project.

And we will also have of course legislative work sessions throughout to tackle any questions and direction and receive feedback.

Our project's next steps will be continuing working on uses and use tables, general formatting, general language rewrites, and the overall reorganization of the ordinance to make it easier to read and follow.

And then our project engagement and education will be just ongoing throughout.

Donee Modernization and the AC44 team will be coming to the board with a work session scheduled for spring 2026 to determine which of the AC44 regulatory changes and which best planning practices will be encompassed in phase three of this project.

So after that work session, we'll be conducting the topic-based discussions and the legislative body topic review, starting that around summer and then continuing throughout the life of the project.

So this concludes our presentation on the zoning modernization phasing updates.

And we do have our Engage project website here.

Thank you.

Yes, so I want to begin by saying I appreciate the additional clarity that you provided, because my immediate question when just skimming through some of the materials was,

The format development process is as long as the regulation development process.

And you clarified that that was going to be done in parallel.

So I do appreciate that.

So there's actually essentially twice as much time working on substantive regulatory changes.

That is because the first half there is in parallel a formatting change that's proceeding.

Something that this board knows has been on my mind in the past, and I would now reflect back looking, because I don't see it explicitly called out.

Can you help me understand what the role of the CACs is going to be during this process?

Are they kind of bundled in there with work groups?

Are they soft advisory?

I think that we're going to be working with CAPE on their direction for that aspect.

I do know that, overall, the focus of our engagement is really going to be on topic level experts.

OK, thank you.

I guess maybe part of what I'm getting at is that when I've previously expressed some concern over the fact that the comprehensive plan includes a flume that had not been thoroughly community vetted, that's a separate process for the master planning process.

I guess part of what I'm asking is,

Is the CAC's master planning process that may affect individual land uses, is that going to be happening as part of this?

This is not a master planning process.

I think I have the answer I need from that.

The other thing I'd be curious is if you could help me make sure I'm understanding, because in some ways what we're doing is going to be like dozens of things that we would individually normally have hours long work sessions on, right?

We've never met an ordinance that we don't want to spend three hours with.

And we're going to be doing probably two dozen comparably scaled projects at a time with discrete level reforms.

I appreciate we want to move faster than that.

Can you give me a sense of what the shape of normative check-ins with the board is going to look like over the course of this?

Because I can see how there's a tension there.

Thank you.

I appreciate everything, Leah.

Thank you for the presentation, and I thought you

I've explained it very well, but I have a question that's probably, I'm asking a lot of questions now because it's my last opportunity to ask questions.

So, and to get things said or on the record.

So, if we're talking about ordinances, and I understand this is way up and I'm really drilling down, but, so we have an ordinance for home occupations.

Yes.

And I've asked multiple times for that ordinance to come before us because it needs to be reviewed.

Because in Bea's opinion, in my opinion, and I think even Ann's opinion, there are home occupations and Ann is agreeing with me and I'm going to look at Bea and she's agreeing with me.

That ordinance has inappropriate home occupations identified.

and it needs to be reviewed and I think the board needs to have a chance to review it.

So what do I do with that?

And what I would say is that ordinance also gets into neighborhoods, rural areas, development area differences because I represent neighborhoods in the development area that have tiny lots

and they have no HOA's to protect them.

and people get home occupation for landscaping and then they bring in all of their trailers and all of their trucks and they park them either on the road or in their yard or wherever they can make room for them and it's not fair for the people, for the neighbors.

If you live where Jim lives or where Ann lives in the rural area on a piece of property, I don't care if you have a home occupation for landscaping.

Am I making sense?

And right now

Everything that we're approving, almost all of the developments have HOAs.

So some of my old neighborhoods and even Ned's old neighborhoods that have no HOAs to protect them get caught in this and they're just full of

I mean, of people who have a home occupation for landscaping, I thought home occupations were supposed to be not seen and not heard.

And Ann is saying that.

They were supposed to be, you're working on your computer in your den, or you're teaching music lessons, or you're helping kids learn how to do math, or maybe you're giving physics

work on physics, right, helping people understand physics, not running a landscaping business out of a house on a quarter acre of property.

And I'm not fussing at you.

I've asked numerous times that I know Bea and I have had this discussion, Ann and I, and we have never been able to get that home occupation ordinance before us.

So is this process going to do that?

So do I have to come back and make sure I'm at the... Because they're not, well Bea will remember and Ann will remember, I'm sure.

If you let me know I'll come back because it's a huge problem in my urban neighborhoods where they have a quarter and a half an acre and it's really

causing a lot of consternation.

And it's not an appropriate home occupation for people that don't own property and have the property to store that equipment on.

You can't have a landscaping business without having equipment.

And people don't go out and rent property to put their equipment on.

A few do.

The good guys do.

I have one in my district who rents property for his equipment.

But most people don't.

I'm just saying.

So can you put that tickler on your list?

That would really be great.

And I think I know at least Ann and Bea would appreciate it.

And maybe Sally, because believe me, Sally's going to hear about this too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that's another example of making sure that we're doing things the same, because we did have one of these blow up in the rural area outside of Crozet, where there are tiny little lots.

It's an old hillside neighborhood from the 40s.

And it actually was forced to be removed after a while because of all the impacts that were happening.

But that puts staff in a really bad position when they're having to deal with these things as one-offs.

So I look forward to that.

And please sign up for that.

So this is sort of going back to what engagement really means because what I understand you to be saying is that the engagement you're talking about is one way.

Cape is going to be delivering what staff is doing and not really interested in feedback.

My concern is that the real work is getting done with the stakeholders.

Those you have mentioned are the people who are in business and applicants coming before the county with interest to make things go their way.

And that's back the way it was in the 80s and 90s, and I am absolutely not interested in going back there.

So there has to be a broader

definition of who stakeholders are.

The number one stakeholders are the citizens of the county and then others who do business with the county is different.

But we have to have a broad view if we're talking about what should be done.

I mean, the board needs to decide what should be done in these things if there's a question, not a bunch of people who are going to be building houses or doing whatever it is that sector is doing without having

full minutes and full availability for everybody else to be part of the discussion.

So I may have totally misunderstood what you were saying, and it looks like Jody's going to help me out, which is good.

The other feedback is when there are presentations to the board, my own personal preference would be smaller topics more frequently because we looked, looking back at the fire hose approach that we tried a couple of meetings during AC44, that was a fiasco.

And we ended up taking four times longer because we were going round and round in circles.

So I would just suggest that you put that on your list as well.

Thank you very much for the feedback.

Supervisor Pruitt and Supervisor Mallek wanted to just clarify something.

As Leah Brumfield had shared,

What we're doing with these next two phases is first we're taking what you all have already passed as your zoning ordinances and just changing the format on those things to put them into something that's more understandable.

So we're not making up new things per se.

in that phase two with some small exceptions for things like step backs where every single time we brought them to the board, you guys have approved the elimination of a step back.

So those are the kinds of things.

We will name those for you when they come to you, but that's what we're talking about for phase two.

For phase three, the reason we're going more toward focused topic-oriented interactions with people

is because already through AC44, we've gone through a full public process.

And what we're doing in phase three is activating the things you've already adopted in AC44.

So we're using that as the rubric to bring it forward and putting it into ordinance language.

So I appreciate this smaller bites of the apple is probably a good idea because