Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting - Strategic Planning Work Session   9/7/2018

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time today and at this time I'll turn it over to Christy.

And at this time I would ask each of you to share what items have meant the most to you or made you the most proud as you reviewed the progress report.

So that's one particular thing that I'm very proud of.

It's hard for me to pick one because I think they're all tied together.

Thank you.

and priorities are important as to how that work flows and I just really want to say I appreciate staff because I know they feel like at times they're pulled in a lot of different directions and your work has been outstanding and stellar and when you look at this report it really indicates hard work and for that I'm just very very appreciative.

those people lay it on the line every night every day in the case of the police department and night but for the volunteer departments every night and every weekend and they take time away from their families their loved ones to work on behalf of the county and I can't say enough about the level of dedication of those people and we can't take them for granted and they are a strategic asset and a strategic priority for us as we move forward

Anyone want to add anything else?

I was thinking we probably ought to move on but you go ahead.

We just tried to say different things but I think we all agree on all of those statements.

Thank the previous folks that served too much, and I think that's appropriate.

Thank you for doing that.

It is a challenge to do that.

Champion some change and hold on tight to the things we don't want to change.

Yes, you're here.

Thank you

And so with that, I'm going to ask Rachel Falkenstein to come up and review the Rio 29 intersection area.

So that is all I have for you, but would happy to entertain questions or comments or hear your thoughts on that.

as to where they have done a similar kind of urban renovation on a major corridor and looked at what's worked, what hasn't worked and determine kind of guidance on where the pitfalls are as you move forward and where also the opportunities are.

We have a framework sort of built out as to what we think we'll recommend, but we haven't had the opportunity to have a conversation with you all about that yet because we want to get this vision, the comp plan amendment done first before we have that conversation.

Yeah, okay, great.

Don't reinvent that wheel, it's already there.

We would start with that as sort of a template and see how we would make adjustments.

Terrific, thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

The first one is implement improvement actions developed from neighborhood inventory data to address neighborhood level needs and Siri Russell is here to talk about that.

One of the things that we talked about was maybe engaging each board member before taking action in your area to get your feedback and thoughts on look-fors and things that might be of particular import and then hopefully launching phase two as I said before.

and be a vibrant community, both in terms of appearance, but also in terms of community life.

Andrew Gasparay to the rescue.

but it's a great opportunity to understand better where we are today.

So then I gather when Saree Annette lets us know that there's going to be a potential phase two launch that phase two really is getting into a small area plan for this community and where the rubber meets the road is in the planning process and goals and objectives for regeneration.

So phase two would be a new section of the development area, not further work.

and also the public understand what the iterations are here and where this is heading and what the end goal is here in terms of the impact on the community.

?

That's an ongoing conversation, but when we come back to you, it will be with our recommendation for where those areas will be.

But but that that's a particular concern is just that's a great plug.

And since that does include, you know, that opportunity zone area, too, I think we're thinking along the same the same.

It really is a good way to get the data around these districts.

Thank you.

And Kevin McDermott is here to review that.

That's really all I had, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

We found ourselves saying fairly often that's an issue that we need to work on for transportation, VDOT, and that there's a true intersection between the work of this

then I put into that list and we prioritize based on that planning.

So while we're talking about these separately, there's a real intersection.

When those planning processes happen, they feed into this and our master planning process like Pan Tops is going on right now.

It's just a thought.

Be happy to take part.

It would slow everybody down too, so we shall see.

Other questions for Kevin?

Keep working on that extra lane on the ramp to the Ivy exit for me, because every day I get in that bottleneck, I think, boy, this is going to be tough.

Megan Dostup is here to talk about Southwood and the Habitat for Humanity partnership.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

and we're going to come back to Southwood and I have further comments at that point, but I want to thank you and Christy for the amount of dedication, commitment and effort that you've invested in working on the county's behalf to bring this project into fruition, which means being able to be passed by the Planning Commission and the Board.

and that's really we will be coming back to the board about the Southwood project many times but for today I think it was to acknowledge this phase one initiative and what we need to continue for and what your desires were.

It might also be helpful to look backwards but also to project ahead and what your estimation is of hours per month and the board then to discuss that in terms of highest and best uses.

Thank you.

Okay, so moving on, we have the General District Court and Circuit Court expansion and upgrade and Trevor Henry is here to review that with you.

And do you have questions?

Even though to me it looked like they could start putting two by fours in on those walls.

They're not at that level.

but at least we wouldn't have that would have to have been done anyway so we're that much further along yes ma'am we're not starting from scratch we're starting from a really good conceptual starting place but there's a lot of work to do to get us from that point to actual but that would be the basis yes ma'am because there was a lot of really good input developing how many of those things needed to be smaller conference rooms the court users really did have a lot of input and Jane DeMar especially with her mediators did have a lot of good input in that

We'd be starting at a good place on that.

Other questions for Trevor?

Trevor, thank you for your patience through this whole process, this long road we've been on.

It is a journey.

It is a continuing journey.

Long and winding road.

We're a ways away at it.

Great, thank you.

And Mike Culp is here to review that with you.

So we're working on trying to get that together and push it forward whether it's as part of a body grant or a separate public-private partnership is yet to be determined, but we are working in that direction.

I think that was all I had for today.

If you have questions, I'm here to answer them, so thank you.

Because I think we did in Howardville or something, we took some money down there to leverage that job down there.

But we didn't get the grant.

ABBA could then either match it or add additional working together with the ISP we could do more projects so that's one of the things that we're interested in doing and have proposed one but CenturyLink has not decided whether or not to do it yet so that's public knowledge so I'm okay to say it.

I think I'm safe to put it that way.

So there's interest in making sure that as that work goes on we're not left out of the equation.

We don't want to be missing the discussion.

folks were going to be impacted with, and I won't go into all the details, but with one of the co-ops, and 200 in Albemarle County, and I wondered why we weren't at the table more, and how had that, what the disconnect was, or was there even a disconnect, because not being privy to the broadband authority work, but I just saw the announcement and thought, wow, 2,000, over 2,000, and then 200 in Albemarle

I think it's safe to say it's not a disconnect on ABBA's situation.

Yes, exactly.

In other words, we're still in the arena working.

Well, when you look, it was a lot more than what it looked like it was affecting.

And so that's been one of the kind of difficult things that the broadband authority has been grappling with.

Hickory Ridge was not anywhere near where they were talking about.

So it's complicated.

So I don't want us to pull back on them either because they're still messing around up there in Kansas City.

As the other member of the board on ABA, Mike, I do want you to tell the board about increased state dollars coming in to that this year, that there's been an increased commitment on the part of the governor and his administration.

So there's other things going on that we'll find out about.

When it gets to 40, I'll be happy.

When it gets to 40, we're about halfway there.

But Mike's doing an exceptional job steering the ship of Aba through some, not choppy seas, but unexplored territory for us.

Ever-changing.

Yes.

It's really helped to speed things along.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know you just recently reviewed this with him, but it's important that we include it in our overall view.

So with that being said, I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

Now the Go Virginia grant where we're trying to get to the next level of site preparedness, whatever that is, has that been, the application's been sent and is there any feedback from the deciding board about that yet or is it still in preparation?

The deadline is September the 25th and the University of Virginia will be submitting that at that time.

Other questions?

I'll send the link to you and JT if you haven't had a chance to see that.

Thank you.

Everybody wants linked.

Okay, moving on, we're going to have Greg Harper review the water resource protection programs, including drainage infrastructure and the watershed restoration program.

Wow.

Thank you.

And the other is green infrastructure, which we've really going to refer to as watershed restoration.

You can go to the next slide.

We just can't get out there and start working.

The funding for what you've just described is the 620, the drainage infrastructure?

Yes.

and okay so the cameras are not running yet because you're still chasing people's permission to run the cameras.

Here's how this might refine our cost estimates for this program and then we'll be asking you for your preferences on some of the issues related to this.

That's a different, that's not in the $620,000, that's in the future.

However, that again is going to take a lot of time, which is money.

The yellow is private and red is public interceptor gatherer type thing.

So that's just kind of a preview of what will be coming in December.

We're going to

Will state law allow us to require that?

I don't think we would get into the business of trying to police the maintenance of upstream and private infrastructure, if that was your question.

by the owners or the HOA but because they're private we do not have a formal enforcement mechanism unless the complaints are received or conversations but if they're private they're private.

So I was just wondering if there was even a way to address that.

It's an interesting question.

You know, I'm just wondering.

Part of the program that Greg's division is doing is to get ahead of the failures so that we can prevent those from happening.

And I don't know the answer to that either.

Well, what happens is the downstream property owners whose property is damaged, they have a remedy.

It's really the community's benefit.

We're just at that stage where that approach is changing.

That's a big mistake.

Yeah, if there's a problem we could sort of look upstream now at our desk and say well what areas are draining to this with much greater precision than we used to be able to do that.

I mean that'll just save us all a lot of pain in the long run if we can get ourselves to that level of information so we know what to require when everything's going to hard surface all of a sudden it changes.

My final word is that we want to propose to use fiscal year 20 to also be kind of a bridge year between some sort of where we are now and a more permanent funding solution to the water resources programs.

Could you just send us, you probably have and I might have missed it or I saw it in some something that we've gotten, but just could you give us a breakdown of the grant money and contributions from the city and whatnot?

Sure.

Thank you.

that would that would just take this program further and again that timing will be to come back to you in that November-December time frame.

All right so the last item before we break for lunch is our school space needs and Miss Lori Alsace is here to review that with you.

and coming soon you have following this work session you'll have a joint work session with the school board and at that session you'll be talking further discussing long-range capital needs and kind of a broad way and it's a very good follow-up to this strategic planning meeting you're having today so that's the next step on it so thank you

Okay, so that is our morning agenda and now, yes.

So it's just something to again emphasize the pressing issue that serving the capacity is going to put on us in trying to figure out this capital problem.

And I think that we have ample time in the afternoon where we have set aside really some discussion time for you all to to dig in more, ask further questions if you have them.

Thank you very much.

So we will call ourselves back to order and we will begin with Christy or Jeff.

So Madam Chair with that I'll hand it to Christy and we'll briefly go through these areas just to give the board an opportunity to see some of the organizational improvement initiatives that we have going on today.

He's going to go over the implementing facility planning.

We're just getting rolling on this now so we will be continuing to work through this process over the next couple of years.

I think it was really wise that somebody came out.

It's unfortunate that Diantha's not here.

I can only say that because my colleague to the right is not here.

It was the ribbon cutting.

Thank you.

Next we're going to ask Ms. Lorna Jerome to come up and she's going to review the diversity and inclusion and succession management topics.

Don't have a lot of specifics today, but just kind of wanted to give you an overview.

And so having that ability to move back and forth and around is really great.

Oh and I mean succession management is just so important.

Especially here.

That speaks highly.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to call you back up, but that position is being re-advertised because certainly our school division, our police department, and our fire department are really struggling with finding diversity for classroom teachers as well as fire officers and police officers.

So how do we align both those roles to support both organizations around the diversity inclusion?

That's great.

I would imagine they would want to be at the table.

So just to make sure we're all operating off the same playbook, it's really good because we're more effective when we do that.

So I hope that both those agencies will come to meetings and get more involved.

Thank you.

Now we're going to move into emerging strategic initiatives and this is the time where we will go through and we're showing on our agenda 1230 so we are almost right on time and we've got five areas that we've flagged

And then try to tee this up for your discussion and consideration.

Thank you.

And the first one, Mr. Krigenberger is gonna review is expanding and promoting the county's outdoor recreational parks and amenities.

So with that, I'll answer any questions.

So in these parks you were just describing, are we talking about sort of urban where an old building is gone, that kind of infill type park with trees and picnic table and swing something little, pocket type size?

So we would be looking for a variety of different size parks and those particular amenities within that park system.

Because I think in the urban areas,

There is a desire to really get this done.

you know we've talked about for instance a small piece of county owned property next to Simpson Park that the neighborhood at one point had wanted to put some trails in there just for walking never got off the ground but you know there are things like that out there that you know that

between both of them if we can establish a means through a trail to connect them so that utilization can occur simultaneously with both.

It is something I think we should think about looking at.

Agreed, and we'll use the standards provided by our consultant in regards to the size of a pocket park or a community or a neighborhood park and what some of those recommended park amenities should be.

Because they don't have to be acres.

Not necessarily.

Not in the urban ring.

And to follow on from that, they don't have to be full-blown Disney at the very beginning either.

And I'm thinking of the smaller repairs and just as a strategy.

Everybody gets very impatient when that's going on.

And in each phasing, in regards to each project, obviously the infrastructure would be in phase one, but we would identify what we feel are the most important and most needed recreation amenity and experience and then move on from that point.

You know, we may learn something by hesitating a little bit on the second and third rounds until we really know what's going on.

Yeah, and in some cases, you're exactly right, but in the urban ring, some of these little small pocket, a small pocket park might not even need parking.

I would direct this comment maybe to Mark and even Roger to some extent that

I mean, that's the way to do it.

It's just a lot of the older places don't have that option yet.

I mean that's a great thing to be saying to developers whether it's residential or commercial to say this is a deficit we're dealing with what can you do to maybe help us out with this when you know land is short.

Especially after this coming legislation when they're going to take away those punitive wording that we were nailed with last year where we weren't allowed to talk to anybody.

I didn't cross any lines there.

Well good Bob, thank you.

Okay next we have the climate action plan and Andy Lowe is going to review that with you.

Real quick overview, y'all will be seeing this again.

So I'm just very conscious here of all of us needing to be on the same page literally on this to cut down on the amount of CO2 that we're generating.

goes out a lot.

Does local government side have an idling policy yet?

We have had within general services and facility environmental services internal policy, but we don't have a fleet policy at this point.

Staff wide basically.

Our own internal and external.

I just thought I would throw that out as something to look at.

You know, folks picking up children and...

Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, it is a struggle.

And that's one of the areas we want to investigate.

I recognize that there are different situations, but anytime we can keep it as simple and have a consistent policy for folks, I think it makes it better and easier for people to understand.

On public property, that's exactly where we started with the energy conservation was on public buildings.

So you can do it per area, per type.

The reason the thing was idling the other day is because it was 200 degrees in there without it and it had metal seats so there's no way that was going to be turned off.

But the people just sitting in the parking lot looking at their iPhones and running the

We can at least not have that happen on our county property.

And lead by example.

So where does that fit in your work plan?

Planning for the electric grid or for agriculture or for heavy rains like we've seen or extreme drought dry conditions so those things are associated but also a separate pot but we're looking to explore those within this process but not three years from now like right now pretty soon

Those goals were all established in 2009, so we don't need to redo that.

Andy, are you going to give the presentation on the solid waste?

There's so much overlap so I'll just wait for them.

your parking area is up here and it's a way of just making people stop and think interesting it's a way to role model what are we buying and what are we driving and for staff if you carpool to this facility then you get a closer we get a middle lot parking space versus a lower lot but those type of incentives things that like our own fleet

having an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicles as compared to standard.

And having designated, not individual spaces, but just designated areas and that's something that we could think about maybe partnering with the school division over because they have lots of teachers coming in and people, I don't know, it's just a thought.

Anyway.

And then we have another one regarding the housing choice voucher program.

So with that I'd be glad to try to answer any questions you might have.

But just to let you know that that initial strategic plan has been completed by the TJPDC.

But I'll just give him a reminder that our meeting is next week and we would hope that he could get it out so that our board would have this structure.

so that they can take a look at it and people can be saying good ones to be on it.

But anyway, I just wanted to add that to Rick's good explanation of what we did last night.

Absolutely.

you know we ought to be looking at that cross-pollinization that seems to be the word for the day.

This is all part of what I'm hoping we can coordinate in getting into this updated policy.

So anyway, thank you.

Is that something that's already been completed?

Back when we created the policy in the first place?

I mean, any time.

I keep looking for one.

I just know looking at some places that seem to do pretty well with this in Virginia, they've got a litany of things that they do.

That's right.

everybody's talking about affordable housing it doesn't seem like we've got one central location for all of the things to be in there and to say okay now if we're going to attack the issue here are all the different stuff and what are we going to focus on you know kind of a centralized place for the tools if you would yeah I appreciate that we've got a pretty good list of the tools what we don't have right now and this is what we're talking about is the alignment between the objectives and the commitment yet and we're hoping that the policy can help us with that

And I'm really hoping that that data is going to help us drive how we better align those objectives to what the county's commitment is.

and the neighborhoods are ruined or changed dramatically and the people who were left almost feel forced out.

There's a lot of discussion whether the best return on investment is actually into maintaining your existing stock versus trying to produce new stock of affordable housing.

It's different than everybody moving into an apartment complex somewhere.

And a lot of people don't want to live in an apartment if they can help it.

So I'm glad that that's part of the discussion.

Thanks, Mark.

The next topic is, sorry, Ms. Phyllis Vitas is going to come up and talk about the affordable housing voucher program.

Please come on up.

We have two strategies that we've identified for affordable housing support.

but I wanted to specifically highlight this one that targets again individuals with disabilities.

I guess one question I have about the voucher program, are the numbers of vouchers continuing to shrink because of the fixed federal dollar or has that been improved?

May I ask him to take a stab at that?

I just didn't know if that had been fixed or not.

And that's how the budget's been done for at least the last six or seven years.

And has that been an account where the board has put taxpayer money into the voucher program, or has it been strictly federal to now?

I'm sorry?

Does the county invest in that voucher dollar amount also or is it strictly the federal money that we're spending?

And the board was stepped up and put money forward so we wouldn't impact those families or those individuals in the crossings.

Did you have more to do?

I didn't want to cut you out.

So up next is solid waste with Andy reviewing it.

As I alluded to earlier, the curbside commingling, which has been a big change for the county residents and commercial buildings, this would provide options for source separation for those residents, but also for the community members who won't get those services from the service providers.

So we don't deal with any explosions moving forward.

And I do apologize for that.

What is your time frame on this master plan for the flat area at Ivy so we can quickly get compactors and things down there?

a couple of different options for the Rivanna board to deliberate on and that he has provided so it's well it's well along and yeah this is a

He's involved with a New York company that's doing some really very interesting things with composting from restaurants and whatnot.

So I can't wait to hear that whole story.

Thank you.

I forwarded that to the board.

It was sent to the board and I did not.

And the city is paying 30% of that and we just started it and at the same time it's a little bit funny with the numbers because we know Vanderland is just closed there all in one so we don't really know if we're getting any extra because of that.

All right, Jeff, go ahead.

I'll be happy to answer questions as I can and if not, we're ready to go to the next step of the process.

We want to be ready for it.

So if you would find out where it can go, then that will help me out.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We've got a lot.

If you put it in, you better take something out.

That sounds great.

And we'll go over that in a minute.

and as far as it's a little bit difficult sometimes because we don't know what the how the pie is divided and you know if we say we have a high priority on something does that mean we're not going to work on those other things so I'm I'm you know little trouble to buy it

And I don't know if that's an appropriate approach from what you're thinking of or not.

I'm not trying to change the rules.

I want to know what the rules are.

What best promotes our community's future?

and what are the critical issues that our community must confront?

Top priorities have landed medium and low and where we have common ground.

Thank you.

I'm going to ask you a quick question.

I went to private this morning and it was titled,

Thank you

I'm doing my exercise on paper.

Insure success.

all of them.

Thank you.

Good job, everyone.

Christy, thank you.

That's right, welcome.

And thank you for your time.

Any other comments, questions from board members?

That should be part of the strategic plan.

I hope we can preserve some capacity as we move into the budget process and not commit 100% or more of our resources.

So that is a case where that actually worked and the board was flexible, the staff was responsive and flexible, and we got it done accordingly.

Good management says you have to have that capacity.

Because you never know what's around the corner.

That's all right.

But we know we don't want to

change the list that's there now.

This becomes about impacting people's ability to use their resources in a way that gives them a quality of life that can start to impact even our local economy.

And those are great discussions that, in my opinion, we should have with, one, the school division, because there is some work that we could be doing together and there are some opportunities, I think, for them along those lines, as well as the University of Virginia.

Transportation, transit.

And it's about transit as well, but certainly some of our partners with the school division and UVA could be helping to us to influence how that plays out in our community.

I didn't want to complicate where we're at with the priorities but I'm just communicating to us that that's one trying to get ahead of something that may emerge but then departments have it in their mind that they can think of oh if that's something that seems to be going on if it does pop up what can we attack that's a step to take a bite out of that and that's something that I'd like to put everybody on notice about I think it's important.

because everyone that's opened is immediately full.

And so we ought to be able to somehow or another leverage our work with the University of Virginia and the school division, Ned, to get at some of that, as well as other partners.

and I think it's well worth having perhaps a discussion at some point about it and involving maybe a roundtable with different people coming in and learn more about how it's perceived in the community, what we could do to help facilitate it.

So I just think we need to think about tapping into our partners more closely and seeing what alliances we can build.

And so there's a lot of turnover of those, you know, unfortunately.

And then government does, in fact, I think have a role to help or assist.

And certainly facilitating those discussions is a great role for us.

Let me bring that up.

Thank you very much.

We are aware that some of them are coming all the time and some things aren't coming but once a year and to be more consistent about that.

Thanks everybody.

Because the way it works now, by the time we get around to doing that, A, we're crimped for time, we're tired, we want to get out of here, and nobody's really listening and paying attention, or those that are, are the most attentive people out there.

So, during board matters from the board at the beginning, just keep it real brief, because we used to do that years ago, and we tried not to hold it up too much.

Keep it in bullet form, format.

That's exactly right.

I'm not sure what the intent of those reports was to allow you the availability and opportunity to dig in and see the updates as you're available.

But I'm trying to think about how we could take that working with that dashboard piece, how we might be anyway, just a thought.

but that that might.

While we're not taking up more and more time with our meetings because we're trying to actually make our meetings more efficient.

Well everybody noodle on that and we'll figure it out.

Alright.

And we are going to adjourn to September 12th at 2 p.m. at Lane Auditorium.