Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   1/8/2020

It is just after 1 p.m.

and I will call this meeting to order.

At this time, I would ask that we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I would invite the public to join us in a moment of silence please.

I open the floor for nominations for chair of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for 2019.

We could go back and redo 19.

I would like to place Ned Gallaway's name and nomination.

Are there any other nominations at this time?

There being no further nominations, the nominations are closed.

Moved.

Do I have a second?

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

The motion to elect Supervisor Galloway as Chair passes.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I certainly enjoyed being chair last year and I look forward to continuing this year.

Hopefully what I learned last year I can apply this year.

I appreciate it.

Well, again, thank you for this.

I'd like to nominate Donna Price for vice chair.

Very good.

Are there any other nominations for vice chair?

I move that we elect Donna Price for our Vice Chair.

Very good.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Very good.

We have successfully elected a Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, and thank you to the other members of the Board of Supervisors.

I am deeply honored by your trust and confidence and will endeavor to earn it every day.

I know you will.

All right.

I would be glad to move that Claudette Borgeson be reappointed as clerk and Travis O'Morris be reappointed as senior deputy clerk.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Price.

Could I just say one really quick word about that?

Thank you.

I'd just like to point out that we do elect the clerk and the deputy clerk every year because it's amazing what they do and I just

have pulled one sentence, if you can indulge in me, from a website on the history of municipal clerks.

And I paraphrased a little bit to make it short, but all county departments call upon the clerk's office almost daily for some service or information.

The work is not spectacular, but it demands versatility, alertness, accuracy, and no end of patience.

the public does not realize how many loose ends of the clerk's office pulls together.

This statement was 80 years old and I thought that was pretty cool that it really, it really says something.

It speaks to our clerk's office today and so I just wanted to say that it's kind of amazing what they do do and I hope the public, I wanted just to say that so that the public would know how appreciative we all are of the clerk's office.

Well, congratulations and thank you Claudette and Travis The next item is our board 2020 calendar we have to set meetings times dates and places for calendar year 2020 and This may take a little bit longer.

We do have some items to discuss So the first item if we can if there's other items that need to come up and let me just go through what I know We have to address

So this past year, as you know, we made a switch to the first and third Wednesday of the month.

Prior, we had met the first and second Wednesdays.

So this past year, we tried to do the first and third for a reason.

So we do have to satisfy if we want to continue the first and third Wednesday, move back to first and second Wednesday, or do something entirely different.

In talking with staff and being that we're always entering into budget,

If for some reason we decide to do something different, the staff, and I agree, believe it is a good idea to start it after the first quarter because we have to get these budget meetings set and it's really contingent on when those budget work sessions are really contingent on being able to prep for that.

So we've already put our budget meetings in place, the dates.

So there's work sessions and such so that if we do decide to make a change, it would probably be best to do starting in the second quarter.

Now that can still be debated.

Obviously staff can make the change right away if we need to, but that's a recommendation that's coming from them to help us work through those sessions.

So why don't I just throw that out there?

If folks have some thoughts on first, second, first, third, or something else, now would be the time to voice your thoughts on it.

Who would like to begin?

I can go first and I hope that, okay, so I will go from a personal standpoint because I did have a few things that I wanted to say about this.

I have, you know, I think about this back and forth and almost liken it to, do you want the Band-Aid ripped off quick or do you want the Band-Aid ripped off slowly?

But it's, to me,

It is very, very helpful to go back to our old schedule of the first and the second.

And if it's difficult for the staff in the first quarter, the first third with the budget meetings, that's fine.

I have no problem with that.

But I want to just say a few words about when I first got asked to run for election way back in 2007,

from the previous, the person who was stepping down in my district.

I said, absolutely no, there's no way I can do that.

I'm a veterinarian, I work in a clinic, it just won't happen.

But then I got to thinking about it and I said, okay, well, let's see if I can get a house call practice going, if I can make it, I'll run.

And I did that and

What I found the first three years, I had to close the practice for family reasons, not having anything to do with the schedule.

But it was always very important for me to have the first and the second, because then I could devote myself the second half of the month to the business very clearly.

And so it allowed me to do this.

I do think when we talk about salary, when we talk about schedule, when we talk about those kinds of things, we really have to think about the next group of people who are gonna run for office.

And if you look at all us with our young whippersnapper here, excepted here, exception, this has a tendency to favor older people who can work, I didn't mean to, you know.

But in comparison certainly to me you are considerably younger.

And so I do think we need to think about that.

I have mentioned the

option to travel or take a vacation is more difficult with this schedule.

I will say one thing about the first and third, having the middle one that second Wednesday on hold with the other two, I find very difficult because then I can't schedule a lot of things.

And as I think about what I want to do work-wise now,

Outside of this situation, I find it pretty difficult.

So my preference would be to go back to the first and the second.

And if that's not the rest of the board's decision, I hope that we can take that Middle Wednesday off the book and not have it as a tentative.

and I will of course note, Claudia can speak for herself, but the clerk's office has said that it would be a little easier for them if it was the first and the second.

And so supervisors know as we go through and each person gets a chance to weigh in, I have asked the county executive, the county attorney and the clerk to speak to this.

So after we get our thoughts out there, we will have a chance to hear from each of them on the matter.

Who'd like to speak next to it?

I'm just remembering back to when we were beginning the experiment.

I was certainly open-minded to it because I thought it might be helpful for the continuation of discussion and I think that the negatives have outweighed the positives in my understanding of how this change has affected our operations.

One of the things that would come up when we would be in a meeting

and there would be answers that staff might be able to provide after the first meeting of the month.

There seemed to be an interest in being able to have an extra week to be able to get those answers by the third.

But I think that's a reasonable expectation.

I think there's most, the grand majority of the time, more than one extra week is needed to

Resolve issues that are lacking.

And so I think the solution to that particular issue is to just assume that when we have requests of staff for more information about a particular topic, it's going to come back the next month, not two weeks later instead of one week later.

I think that is, I'm planning in my mind to just take that solution.

off the table.

I agree that there will be more people interested in potentially interested in running for office if they do see more of a window in the month every month to be able to have a life and do a real job other than this job which some people have criticized as being just a little dinky part-time job but to me it is a

much more mentally encompassing all the time job.

I'm thinking about it while I'm working on the farm and doing other things and I think everyone in the building is functioning in that way.

but there is that obligation for people who are working full-time and trying to manage small children and that really makes it difficult to do all the meetings and so I am optimistic that having the going back to first and second and having the last two weeks of the month would help people in that situation.

and we have very high expectations for our staff and have made very big requests of our clerks to be able to make changes and structural changes and process changes in the way they handle information, etc.

and I don't think that we should be hampering them with this more complicated schedule where they never even have the two weeks or the week, the third week to be able to focus on the work, the outside, the beatings work that we're giving them.

So I think their success rate will be better if they're able to be at the first and second week.

Awesome, very good.

Who would like to speak next?

Thank you, Chairman Galloway.

I'm obviously a brand new supervisor.

I did attend, unless I was on travel with my job, every meeting from March, beginning of April, through the end of the year, which at least as a novice supervisor I think has given me an opportunity to observe what the Board of Supervisors responsibilities entail.

and I concur with the comments that have been made of the difficulty for having a full-time outside job and being a supervisor.

It's classified or categorized as a part-time job, but I know I'm walking away from my full-time practice of law because an inflexible county schedule is incompatible with an inflexible schedule of traveling around the country conducting hearings.

So I am very sensitive to all of the comments that have been made.

Over the last two months since the election, I've endeavored to learn from the various departments in the county, the clerk's office, the county administrator, the legal office, their thoughts.

And while there is not unanimity,

I believe that there is a degree of consensus and so what I would propose is that we continue with the first and third Wednesday of the month with two changes.

One that would be this year in July that we have a single meeting on Wednesday, July 22nd which would allow staff a bit of a hiatus from the last meeting in June which would be the 17th of June

and that would allow staff an opportunity to schedule a summer vacation which I think is important to the quality of life of our staff.

The other would be that in the month of December we have meetings on the first and second Wednesday which this year would be the second and the ninth which similarly gives staff the opportunity to schedule vacation at the end of the year

With over 40 years of experience as an attorney working with the government at various levels, my experience has been that generally the last couple of weeks in December are relatively slow, and this again would provide a quality of life benefit to our staff.

But ultimately, the decision to principally stick with the first and third Wednesday is based upon my perception and belief of what is best in terms of efficiency, productivity, and economy for the county, and that's what we're here for.

So that would be my proposal that we continue with the first and third.

However, during the month of July, we have a single meeting

on July 22nd because this year it happens to have five Wednesdays so that's a benefit.

And then in December we have two meetings on the first and second Wednesday which is the second and ninth.

I would like to see the calendar return I think for expediency purposes to the first and second Wednesdays of every month because I think having the first and second in November and December and then having it the first and third the rest of the month

I don't think that benefits the public.

I mean, they get confused.

After speaking with staff, I know that some of them do prefer the first and the second.

Having it the first and the second takes care of November and December for those purposes.

What I would like to propose is perhaps in end of July, well, July, beginning of August,

so you'd have the first and second in July and then maybe not have the first meeting in August.

In other words, give staff some time to have a proper vacation with children themselves, et cetera.

Either not even have a meeting in August or eliminate the first meeting in August, thereby giving everyone a nice break there.

as I understand that other, I think Charlottesville, the city of Charlottesville, I think they take off the entire month of August.

We're not going to copy that.

Pardon?

The whole month of July.

Okay.

And people hate it.

Well, this would just be one maybe.

Well, and just to speak to that, I'm sorry, Bea, did I interrupt you?

No.

You were through.

Were you finished, Bea?

Yeah, I didn't mean to.

I was just thinking about this because what I wanted to add to what you just said about the city,

I had, as chair of the jail board and the transit authority, had to cancel our meetings in July because the city was shut down for July for their meetings.

And they were out of town and taking vacations.

So that's how I know it was July.

I guess, is it my turn?

Shall I just keep going?

I just didn't mean to interrupt anybody.

I guess people are speaking personally first.

For me personally, I found it very difficult to have two packets and two weeks back to back and to do that reading and preparation because you'd no sooner finished one than you were starting another.

Having said that, for my personal life,

Vacation wise, the first and second is much simpler.

So I am, if I look at me personally, there are pros and cons, and I think there are pros and cons for everybody.

I will say that I don't think we can look at this as a decision that would cause people to all of a sudden be interested in running for the Board of Supervisors.

If we wanted to do that, looking at our schedule, we would need to look at night meetings or maybe week meetings on Saturdays because just going from the first and the second or the first and the third really doesn't help people that are working because I was full time until 2015 school board and board of supervisors

I could do school board very easily because their meetings are at night.

Now they sometimes started at five o'clock, but I couldn't do that.

Retreats were on Saturdays.

The schedule was such that it afforded someone who had a job the ability to really do the work.

So to be perfectly honest with you, I'm not looking at this as a decision that would help a working person decide

We are in fact part time.

We're not supposed to be full time.

We have staff that is, so we really are supposed, in my opinion, we're being asked to look at policy and staff actually carries out that policy and does the work.

So there are times when I think that

I have to remember in my head I really am a part-time person dealing with policy and not supposed to be spending 30 and 40 hours a week in this job.

That's not the intent.

Having said that, and I hate to take a little bit of time to talk about this, but because I'm a process person and because I think about data and like to make decisions based on data,

when I heard, and I guess I heard chatter about the fact that there was going to be a discussion about the change in the meeting dates.

And I thought, okay, so my inclination was to go to the computer and do my own unscientific research.

And I looked at 15 localities

and especially the localities that we consider our peer group and some that are smaller than us and some that are even much larger than us.

And what I found was none of the governing boards held back-to-back weekly meeting schedules.

When we were scheduling meetings the first and second, we were the outlier of the 15 that I looked at.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't some out there that are doing that.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that my unscientific study showed that people meet either the first and the third or the second and the fourth.

That's the way the meetings went.

As you might imagine, one locality, which was Nelson,

always met once a month and I think that's pretty understandable because they are so small, right?

They are probably one of the smallest of the jurisdictions that we would be looking at.

Charlottesville, Chesterfield, Greene, Henrico, Hanover, Fluvanna, Louisa, Roanoke, Fairfax, Stafford, Rockingham, Spotsylvania, James City all meet either first and third or the second and fourth.

The fascinating thing that I found was none of them meet as long as we meet.

If you really want to look at data, a few of them start their work sessions at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and then have a meeting that night starting at six or seven, but none of them start at one and go all the way later, and we're doing that twice a month.

I think this year we had 53 scheduled meetings.

That's why people can't have full-time jobs.

and Runford, it's not a matter of the time, it's a matter of the number.

But let me just share with you, while we're talking about this, and I hate to take time, but it is kind of interesting.

As a model for increasing public engagement and transparency, which I hear us talk about a lot, Arlington has a Saturday business meeting that starts at eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday morning to afford their citizens the ability, if they work during the week, to come to a Saturday meeting.

They follow that up.

Now this is one of those back to back.

They have that Saturday meeting and then on Tuesday evening and the evening they cover items that they had to pull from the agenda or from the consent agenda and they have a few public hearings and then that's it.

I'd be open for some sort of a discussion around that.

I think that's kind of an interesting idea.

James City County alternates business meetings with work session meetings, the first and the third or the second and the fourth.

That's a model that our school board adopted many years ago.

And actually we're using that for the transit partnership, the regional transit partnership.

We have a business meeting and then we have a work session.

For the partnership though, it's once a month.

So it's every other month we have a business and every other month we have a work session.

Chesterfield County with a population of 350,000 meets once a month with a work session in the afternoon and a business meeting that same evening.

Now this is, I'm saying, this is unscientific.

I went in and just googled this.

So we may find that they have committees that are doing work at other times.

I'm just saying that the supervisors are the councils.

I think allowing two weeks between our scheduled meetings for our staff from multiple departments allows more time to prepare their recommendations, their presentations, and supporting documents that we receive and have requested.

and I understand that our clerks, and I think perhaps I've heard that the workflow from the county attorney's office has some concerns about the first and the third.

Having said that, we have a lot of departments.

Our work is not really what we receive in our packets.

While it comes through Greg's office

for review, and it comes to the clerk's office, they gather it all up and prepare it for us.

And I understand how really hard they work.

I get all of that.

We have staff members all over this building that are preparing and involved in our

in the work that we get in our packets, I guess.

I'm not saying this very well, but you all understand what I'm trying to say.

It's not just the county attorney's office and the clerk's office and us.

So I agree completely with Donna in that while for me, I could probably go either way, I really think for the organization and the efficiency and the ability for staff to have time

and produce a better product for us, I think the first and the third works the best.

I will, though, say that this last year, our clerk's office

was in a little different situation.

I think they're in evaluating this process for them.

I really felt kind of bad because they had constant changes with turnover.

We had a couple of hires that left.

They were interviewing people.

I guess what I'm saying is while we added another half a position to our clerk's office so that we now have three full-time people working in the office,

most of the year was not, they didn't have, there wasn't stability in the office, I guess is the best way to say it, because they had several people that left and they were hiring and looking at workflow.

So I'm not sure that this was a really good example for the clerk's office.

Just from my viewpoint, I would have felt better if they'd had three stable positions this last year and had the ability to review it through that lens.

Regardless of the decision though tonight or today, I just want to offer up a couple of thoughts.

And Don, before I get to that, let me just mention that I do think your suggestions were really good.

December is great to change those dates because of the holidays.

The holidays always are interfering towards the end of the month, so I think that's a great idea.

I'm not so sure about July.

because the city shuts down in July, a lot of our meetings with the city, and I don't think we should determine our schedule based on the city, but the city is a partner with us.

And when the transit can't meet, MPO can't meet, I mean I don't know about, I just wonder if

we would be better off to have the first meeting of the month maybe and then take the rest and then cancel the second meeting which would give us most of the month because I do think capturing some time for us and for staff to be able to have a predictable vacation time is a really good idea.

how that plays out I'm not really sure.

One thing I do think we should think about and I will be coming back to this at some point is might be interesting for us, more than interesting.

I don't think we've ever looked at our clerk's office through a lens of how do we use the technology

that Jeff and our staff are working on so hard to upgrade for us.

How do we use that to make our own clerk's office more efficient?

And so I'm going to be asking at some point to come back and talk about

as I've said before, our boards and commissions, because that affects the work that our offices do.

Perhaps a survey of our, we could do a survey, an anonymous survey of our staff if we wanted to, might be an interesting idea.

But certainly looking at our own office, when we look at the fact that

Well, boards and commissions, our meeting schedules, our workflow, what we could take off of our agendas to make our agendas more timely and more efficient.

I just think it's time for us to look at our own selves.

It is interesting, and we all got this information, but we spent in the last five years in our own clerk's office $100,000 in overtime.

And I would love to know how that breaks down during the budget cycle.

And maybe if we could look at our own selves and our operational flow and have some sort of a, I don't know, a report that might come back to us in time for our retreat,

So we could actually talk about all this.

I guess where I'm going with this is my suggestion is that we maintain a first and a third for now.

We figure out what we're going to do for July and December, and then I'd like to have more of an in-depth discussion about our own workflow, the efficiencies, and how

both in time and money for our taxpayers when we have some budget discussions this year with the idea of looking towards a more in-depth discussion at our retreat in June.

And I'm sorry I took so long, but I really did find that unscientific survey that I did very interesting and very revealing.

as it often is when you look at data.

So, enough said.

Thank you.

So I'll just add some thoughts on it.

I think for me personally, selfishly, it's going to be important for me to hear some pretty unfiltered remarks from the three departments that we're asking speak to this today because I want that input.

The only reason I can do this is because I work on Saturdays.

I take a day off and this is how I spend my day off.

No judgment please, but this is, you know, that's how this works.

You either have to have a schedule like that or you have to have an employer that's willing to work with you and that's a decision you make before you run.

Once you run you have to figure out how to make it work for you if it's a priority.

But I have no qualms about scheduling vacations or handling things.

Ultimately I know that if voters feel like I'm not doing my job, attending meetings,

then they'll take care of the problem, right?

So I have a full-time job.

It takes priority.

I have a family which takes priority over all of it and I schedule my life accordingly.

So if I need to miss one of these meetings for family or work, I'm going to do it.

So that doesn't matter whether this is first, third, first, second.

It's just how that has to work out.

But I do appreciate the comments that this is a part-time job and we should take it seriously.

We should put the time and effort into it that's needed.

But regardless of when it meets or how often it meets or whatever, that's just part of what you have to work out.

Relative to the work, though, that you have to do, when we switch to the first and the third, for me, selfishly, to be able to come out of some of our meetings, which, I mean, the content that we wrestle with in a board meeting and the preparation for that content is substantial.

and it takes some time to prep and go through all of that, the questions, the work that's needed to do it.

And I did find that to turn around when we were meeting on the first and the second and get the next board packet on the Thursday after a full day of just going through that other packet was daunting.

And I'm somebody that's used to going through a lot of information, being on the school board prior, I mean this was not new to me, but that was a change that really I went, wow, I don't even get a day off, I have to dive into this next bit of content.

So when we moved to the first and the third, I felt that my ability to work through the second meeting's packet when I had some relief time to shut down, recoup, and get back into a new packet, which also allowed me then some time to do follow-up from the meeting we just came out of, allowed me to work through the content and be better prepared for our meetings.

Now I say that knowing full well that if I had a block of time off at the second half of the meeting that it would make my life easier because I could work two Wednesdays in a row and take some Saturdays off.

So going to first and third complicates what my job allows me to do for my personal life.

I'll take the time off if needed, if I feel I need it, regardless of what the consequences are.

But just working through the content, the first and the third seems to work for me, and I thought that we had, you know, like I said, I'll be curious to hear what the departments have to say, because that weighs in heavily on it.

I know that staff will do what we ask them to do.

I know that full well, regardless of what it means.

They will all stand up and do what we ask to do.

But it's important for me to understand how our decisions impact the day in and day out operations of our government.

So with that, I'd like to, Claudette, if you'd like to come up to the dais next to the county executive, I'll give, I've asked, I've prepped them, they're not being surprised that they'd have a chance to speak to this today.

But I would like to hear from each department to hear what the ramifications of first and second, first and third are.

There may be some give and take between departments, so that'll be easier.

But Mr. County Executive, would you like to begin?

Mr. Chair, thank you.

I will be brief and I have had an opportunity to speak to every board member one-on-one about this because I think the board has been thinking about this to some degree for at least the last 30 days.

This board did say it would be a trial period when you move the calendar last year and you did say that you'd like to come back and revisit that.

So this did not come as a surprise to the staff.

My comments are very brief and would make a couple of observations.

that we've done both.

That's the first thing that I would say is that this group that I work with, we've handled the flow of business operations specific to your meetings.

We've done first and second, and we've done first and third.

So the good news is that

I think there are pros and cons to the first and second versus the first and third.

And I think this board has pointed to what some of those pros and cons are.

The meetings closer to the first of the month and what I call front end load, your meetings, you do create additional downtime for both the board and the staff in between the second meeting of the month and the next meeting of the month.

You create that downtime.

and that is an opportunity for people, some people in the organization, depending on how they plug in to making sure this meeting goes well, that gives them some space to breathe and think in a different way and those are things that those folks appreciate when you spread the meetings out and you have a first and a third or a second and a fourth.

that amount of breathing time is diminished.

This board sees that, the staff sees that, and so that's an obvious pro and a con.

I think for the departments that are in here with regularity, and I point to the community development department, and then the roles that people play around that, they are a large part of the executive summaries and the work that's put together.

When you move the meetings closer together, I think that it goes without saying that you're going to have staff and community development sometimes when they have a meeting the first week and the second week and they have agenda items on both meetings, they'll be working simultaneously on items from both weeks.

And that means that they may not have quite as much time to do the quality of work

or the amount of time to prep for their presentation that they would have if you had some space in between.

So the first and the third gives us a little bit more rebound time to tweak between the meetings.

I don't disagree with what Supervisor Mallek said.

It's not that common that we're able to get a question on the first meeting and get back the second.

Oftentimes there's more to it than that.

It may be the next month.

But there is a little bit of space to react and to regroup if you're in a first and a third.

But when you sandwich them closer together, you get the back end of the month to refresh, do other things, take time off, and so there's pros and cons.

And the board looks at me with a grin when I say this, but this is your meeting, not the staff's.

we're full time so we're here Monday through Friday full time and so we need to be able to mold around you whether you do first and second or first and third so I really am glad that some of the board members are looking at it strictly from a board perspective I appreciate the opportunity to speak to it as staff but we really need to be able to mold around you based on what you think is best for the board and for the citizens of the county and either way you go we certainly will mold around you accordingly

Mr. Chair, members of the board, our preference from the clerk's office is for the first and second Wednesday of the month.

Our reasons being is that we touch on every item that comes through the board and we're a smaller department, so we have less capacity than other departments.

With the current schedule, we're in a constant state of meeting preparation.

When we meet on the first and second weeks, we have time off during the end of the month to focus on work for the post-meeting activities such as archiving, actions, letters, minutes, those sorts of things which we don't have that solid time right now to do that.

Mr. Campner.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, I'm going to give two perspectives.

One from myself and one from Marsha Davis, our legal service coordinator, because probably over the last 15 years, Marsha's role with respect to executive summaries has probably been

greater than anybody else in the county and to a large extent it is pretty much our primary function and has been.

We've been taking steps over the last four years to make that process work better.

What she would tell you is that meetings on the first and second give her about five work days of downtime during the month that allows her to work on other things.

When we've been in the period of first and third meetings, that number is reduced to about two days.

The executive summary processes that comes through our office is almost a month-long process.

in part because executive summary, some come in early, some come in late.

There were some that were being processed for next week's board meeting as late as Monday afternoon Tuesday morning because things were coming in late.

So that extends it.

So her preference would be to reduce, to go back to the first and second.

My perspective is a little bit different.

When we were in the first and second board meeting role, meeting schedule, I often went half a month without working on anything else but executive summaries and board meeting prep and board meeting time.

So I was pretty much isolated from everything else.

for about half the month.

The first and third meetings has allowed that to moderate so that I can throughout the month be working on other things, which helps me keep tabs on things, keeps my own personal projects, executive summaries and things like that.

moving forward in a timely manner.

What I saw over the course of the year, by the time we hit November in the calendar, even that benefit seemed to be diminishing.

Part of it may have been, you may recall that I missed the second November meeting because I was at the Darden School with training.

Between that and Thanksgiving and things getting all compressed, I got back from that and it just seemed like non-stop executive summaries between the middle of November and the holiday break.

The first and third meeting schedule works a little bit better.

We're making some other internal changes in our office that probably will negate some of the problems that I experienced during the year.

So to summarize, Marsha would prefer first and second.

For me, first and third, and as far as vacation.

time is concerned.

I tried to schedule our vacations around that.

When I was sitting with the Planning Commission, I was the master of the Wednesday to Monday holiday break so that I could be there for Planning Commission meetings on Tuesday.

And it's probably not politic, Ned, I'm sorry, but it's probably not politic of me to say this, but the truth of the matter is that we cannot have an expectation for us or for our staff or our clerks that no one can go on vacation.

you know we all occasionally miss meetings it's okay and my experience has been no matter who misses a meeting the sun comes up the next day and it's all okay I just want to say that because we don't want to think that we have to schedule something so that

People can't take time off.

I started my whole thing in the very beginning with saying this is a little bit like trying to figure out whether you want to rip the Band-Aid off fast or slowly.

It's going to be different for different situations.

So now we have a conundrum because we have almost a 50-50 on for everything.

Well, Ann's comment helps.

So, my question, I've heard wonderful ideas here.

I just wanted to share some things that have, from the last 12 years, when the board proceeded to not schedule a meeting in the past, one of those summer or something ahead of time,

it always came back to bite us big time because so many of the calendar items that come to the Board of Supervisors are working their way through a chain of action.

Many of them have statutory limits and what happened was all of a sudden we weren't meeting at some meeting in August and then the next meeting with all the catch-up plus it just got everybody all out of whack.

So that's one concern that I don't have a fancy answer for as far as how it would be impacted right now.

But I do know that I would be personally in favor of keeping the meetings on the book so that then if it turned out there was no public hearing scheduled for that meeting in August, great.

The other concern I have is that we have hundreds and hundreds of employees and I would feel very badly about saying to them, you can only take a trip at the end of July.

So we have to keep

the building going, we have to keep offices going, and so I really prefer that there are many people who have family that they would like to visit at other times.

And so as flexible as we can be and not make decisions for people I think is really, really important.

I just want to be clear.

My intent was never that staff or anyone could only take vacations at the end of December or during a break in July.

Right.

Right.

Like I said, people can come take vacations whenever they feel like they need to.

Are there other questions for the three departments that spoke?

Do we need to ask any other questions there?

I mean, we do, by my tally here, we are kind of a 3-3 here.

I think procedurally it would mean there's no change.

Chair Galloway, I have really no problem if it goes to the first or second or first or third.

I do think it's important though for holiday purposes for the staff and such to do the first and second in November and December.

and then maybe exclude one meeting like the first meeting in August or have it as a holding place if we don't need it we don't do it.

I don't want to be choosing which holiday we're going to recognize.

We need to set our schedule that's going to work and not be picking a particular holiday that's going to be recognized more than others as far as the wintertime.

Are you talking about November, December?

Yeah.

I was just going to say

While I agree with Donna in that I think it would really be a good idea to identify, but for me, one meeting in July that we just drop, I would not go to, in my opinion, I wouldn't go to August because August, teachers start back the middle of August, families are back.

If you're going to take a meeting off, the month should be July because that's when schools are closed and parents are really,

2,500 teachers and the whole community.

So I tend to think about July more than August, just from that viewpoint.

Well, I'm still in for the first two, having listened to

the clerks and Marsha's concerns.

I hear what others are saying.

I do think that, you know, I understand the need to sort of

have a period of time where you're not focusing, where you can focus on other things.

And so that's where I come from that.

If we do end up keeping the first and the third, I very much would ask that we take that tentative meeting off in the middle.

because that really bothers me when we have to continually have that looming over us as the third one.

I think that's very difficult.

I think lots of people take vacations regardless of when a board meeting is, so I think dealing with

Staff vacations is kind of not, is a non-event, I believe, other than the county executive, and he can figure out his vacation time very well.

He's done a good job so far, and I'm not so worried about that.

But I do, I disagree, I think that we have to, we should,

Every job is different as far as working outside this place.

And I do understand that's why I started off with the, you know, it really depends on what your job is.

I know for me it was much, much better to have the schedule the way it was.

You know, it's interesting because, Liz, I think that middle meeting, you're exactly right.

I don't think we used it but three times?

I think we only used it three times the whole year.

But I'm just saying, I don't think we used it really but three times, so I'm not sure we really need it.

That's all I'm saying, is I'm agreeing with you that maybe we could just do away with it, because it really wasn't utilized very much.

Greg, I really appreciate you saying, though, that you use

It sounds funny to say it this way.

When you take time off, it's an opportunity for someone else to come to the table and learn how to do this and get experience because that's exactly right.

Now, we don't have designees to do that for us, but it is true for staff.

Yeah, understood.

So, I mean, we have basically two options.

We take a vote.

If it's 3-3, either way, then what we have in place continues.

We can obviously do that vote.

If we want to then consider the second meeting, that can be done in a second vote.

I will say, though, that this

The way this topic came up this past year is frustrating to me.

It came up at the 11th hour in my opinion.

This is a topic that did not come up until over the holiday with me when it was raised as a concern from those who reached out to me.

to quickly try to put together something that impacts so many people in such a short amount of time was not what I would have preferred.

Well, and Ned, I didn't hear about it until the week of Christmas when you asked Claudette to call me about it.

So I'm agreeing with you completely.

I think the last minute, but at least I had the Christmas holidays to go on and Google and see

Well, I say that in not having, today's really the first, I mean I reached out to the three areas and had some conversations but said be ready to go back and this is probably more for Jeff and for Greg to go back to your departments, get some feedback and be ready to speak to it on the 8th.

we know we're going to keep I'm saying we can take the vote things remain as they are and we go on or the only other option is that we meet next Wednesday we are going to keep this in place through the first quarter anyway if people want the additional week to follow up with questions get information relative to what they heard today then we could make the final vote next week I'm happy to do either

but it would at least give some time if I wanted to have follow-up or anybody wanted to have follow-up conversations with Jeff Gregg or Claudette, it would allow that time to do an additional seven days but I'm just throwing it out as the two options so I'm ready to do either.

Seeing that there is a divided view, I would propose that we accept that and reaffirm the current schedule that we have.

I think it's important to move on, and I agree, we need to handle it like we handle all other decisions.

And to be perfectly frank, we used one of those for a joint meeting with the school board and if we're going to have joint meetings, that time's going to be looked at anyway.

That's right.

And Ned, to get to your point, come back to your point just for a minute, one of the problems that we have when we're trying to schedule meetings with the school board is they all have jobs.

And so when we're trying to schedule a meeting with the school board, just as you do, if you think about it, they have jobs.

Right.

So I think, and we'll have to make a motion on this to reaffirm what's been going on, but from what I've heard today, I mean, again, and this is a short time motion, I think it would be prudent for perhaps the chair, vice chair, the county attorney, the clerk,

just to have follow-up that if this is reaffirmed that this schedule is going on that we probably need to have some real conversations of how to look at some of the concerns we're hearing about the first and the third versus the first and second and seeing if some changes can be made that if it continues as first and third we can alleviate some of those.

And it might just be change in expectation.

So in continuing then we need a motion of something so that we can move on.

Very good.

Second.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

All right.

Very good.

That motion carries.

All right, now we have to have some conversation about times for budget work sessions.

So we formally approved the calendar dates at our September 4th meeting.

The dates, well, this was just simply that one of the meetings is accommodating an RWSA board meeting.

So you know how we meet usually three to six?

We have one meeting that starts at five to accommodate that RWSA meeting.

Do we want to consider moving the other three to sixes later for any particular reason?

Just keep it at three to six.

Well, I hate to start another big discussion, but I really have said now for six years, our budget work sessions in the afternoon preclude our community from being able to come and watch and listen if they choose to.

And I'm not, I don't think that if we moved our budget work sessions to the evening, we would suddenly have a full house.

But I do think by having them in the morning or in the afternoon, people that are working can attend and in the,

Transparency and for our community, which I think is really important, of all things, our discussion around our budget and where we're spending money, their taxpayer money, it seems like to me those meetings should be available to them in the evening.

and I would say that first of all you are asking staff to work overtime with that.

But this is the reason why we have put so much effort into getting our meetings online and videoed and in the rooms and we've tried very hard to improve our audio system in the other room and so there is no public comment at the work sessions.

So we do need to keep in mind that maybe we should be advertising better

that all our budget work sessions can be accessed the next day and live, but if people are at work, they're obviously not gonna do it live, but they can watch it in the evening the next day.

So while I understand the interest in doing it at night, we do have to think about staff over time, and we do also have to think that in the last few years, we've put considerable effort

It wouldn't be an outlier though, Liz, for us to have those meetings in the evening because many organizations do.

When it has come up in the past, it has been the benefit of being able to have staff come out of their office for an hour and answer questions when their part of the agenda comes up and go back to work instead of sitting here waiting in the evening.

So I guess my initial response is I prefer to leave them scheduled as they are.

It's not the 9 to 12, which is what it used to be.

So, I mean, if we just keep it as it is, that would mean all of our meetings with the exception of that February 25th meeting, that's the day to accommodate the RWSA, that would start at five, everything else would be three to six.

The board's agreed to that.

Is there any, I don't hear any majority opposition to that.

February

There is, so, following up on the February 25th, there's a February 28th meeting that falls on a Friday, which would mean we'd have a budget work session from 3 to 6 on a Friday.

If the board is acceptable to this, staff has said that that work session, because it's usually CIP related, and we've front loaded on CIP through this point,

that as opposed to holding that session, we can envelope or fold it into the 25th, not have to have a work session from three to six on a Friday.

We have

meetings scheduled through our budget work session are held so that if we don't get through everything we can go to them.

So it is if that puts some sort of burden on us that we don't get through all the information through other meetings.

We have backups to be able to plug in other meetings.

So that's news to me.

We definitely have one that was sent out on the 25th.

And then I will jump ahead.

You're talking about the calendar?

This is the clerk's calendar that they've set up for the budget.

Oh, right.

So somebody can clarify that so we can write it down.

Ms.

Mallek.

Yes.

Those dates were approved on September 4th.

For the Friday, the 28th.

I wonder why it wasn't in there.

but what that would do is remove it.

We'll take the topic, the budget team feels it's appropriate to be able to get through it in the 25th because we've already had several meetings on CIP and front-loaded it and then we'll have backup time afterwards.

Three to six on a Friday is an odd time for everybody.

Just let me make sure I get through each item.

And then everything else will be three to six.

I'm working through different notes, some of them are coming to me in person here live.

Now, let me hit this item and then I'll hit what you brought up here, Claudette.

At our fourth meeting, we also approved February 19th, which is also a third Wednesday of February meeting.

That's when the county executive makes his presentation of the budget to this board.

In order, what the recommendation or what's being suggested as opposed to starting that at one,

is typically the county executive's presentation as a separate item.

In the past it's fallen on some days that we come in for an hour and we listen to the county.

That's right.

And it doesn't break up another day, so I think that's great.

And that's the 19th of February.

At 12 noon.

Okay.

Claudette, should we take a motion to change the times at all or is having the board agreement acceptable?

So if somebody could make a motion to... So let's reiterate what we're so moving.

All times will meet from three to six, with the exception of February 25th, which will be five to eight, and then the February 28th meeting will be folded into the 25th.

And then February 19th starts at noon.

Further discussion?

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

So moved.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

Madam Clerk, are we good?

So now we go to number eight.

For the board rules of procedure, I did identify one typographical error at the top of page three.

So we'll do these separately.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

The next one is the adoption of our board policies.

Is there any item here that we need to- Supervisor Price circulated some comments on some clarifications for the travel reimbursement policies in A2 and A3.

And also a clarification to 4B regarding announcing, excuse me.

supervisors who are serving on a non-profit organization without compensation.

Thank you, Mr. Campner, and I apologize to the board for being late on getting this out as I'm learning some of the processes that we go through.

I have three items that I would ask to have some discussion on.

The first one is on page one, paragraph 1A2, mileage to prepare for matters to be considered by the board.

Current language is mileage for travel by personal vehicle or other travel costs to events reasonably necessary to prepare for matters scheduled for consideration on the board's agenda.

That phrase is what I want to come back to, which is not part of routine personal travel.

The second item in that same paragraph 1a but now under sub paragraph 3, parades and other community gatherings.

The current language is parades and other community gatherings not advertised as supervisors' town hall meetings to discuss county business.

And my concern is with the use of the language town hall meetings.

In discussions with the clerks, it was explained to me that the general

The theme here is to avoid a supervisor running for reelection being reimbursed for travel at a campaign event.

However, I think the use of the word town hall meetings could cause some problems because there are matters of community interest and a supervisor may want to have a meeting to discuss that and typically it's referred to as a town hall meeting.

Thank you.

Excellent.

I'm always worried about that parades thing, because I don't think we need to be reimbursed for parades anyway, but I didn't get anywhere last time.

I brought that up years ago, so it's okay.

You have it.

I have your email in front of me, so you're good, or you want me to read it.

You good?

Go ahead and finish that.

And the third one, as Mr. Campner pointed out, is on page four.

Supervisors serving without remuneration on board of trustees of not-for-profit entities, sub-paragraph B board policy.

The current language provides that a supervisor who serves without remuneration as a member of the board of trustees of a not-for-profit entity must disclose that fact at each meeting of the board of supervisors at which a matter pertaining to the not-for-profit entity is considered for action.

The disclosure should be made at the beginning of the board meeting at which the matter will be considered.

I believe that the language should be changed that the disclosure shall or must be made at the beginning of the board meeting at which the matter will be considered in order to avoid a vote actually taking place before the supervisor discloses their involvement with that nonprofit.

And one additional change probably should be further revised at which the matter will be considered or acted upon so that there's a parallel construction because earlier in that provision it speaks to considered or acted upon.

and sort of an enthusiast on the board for nine years, but that doesn't mean that it's, so anyway, I'm happy to put out all those memberships.

I mean, all five of them are what it returns and all this stuff, but it seems like it would be perhaps easier if we just listed them on the first day of budget season and then everybody would know and we wouldn't have to worry about making sure we had

Part of it is only because people can forget and you know as the budget season progresses there may be some members who are absent.

It's a practice you can call with Mr. Sheffield even though he was disclosing because he was required to do so under the conflicts act.

It was just a good practice for not only other members of the board but also the public to know that

Yes, he was acknowledging that he had, because of his role with John, that he had this particular requirement to disclose.

So, the other thing to remember is that this is the board's policy, it is not

This is not required under COIA because there's an express exception for this particular situation, but as a practice I would suggest keeping it as doing it at each meeting where the topic can come up, recognizing that it's possible that a topic will come up

that wasn't planned for and the rules, they recognize that, it won't invalidate any action or any discussion that the board takes and the supervisor who may have forgotten or anybody in the room who's forgotten, there's no repercussions, it's really a practice.

So if there aren't any further changes, the board's

rules provide that what happens is that a supervisor gives notice of intention to amend the rules or the policies at one meeting and then the revised policies or rules come back at the next regular meeting.

If the board is ready to do that, the notice can be deemed to have been given at this meeting, which means we would come back at next week's meeting, which means it won't be in your board packages.

It'll come separately.

So what the board can do, and this has been the practice that we've been making revisions over the last three years to the rules and policies, is adopt the rules as they are in your package today, and then we'll come back next week.

Second.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

And then also to step back, maybe I've missed it, did the board vote on the rules of procedure already?

All right, the next item then is to adopt our Board of Supervisors operating guidelines.

These are the, we had set this up a few, I guess it's been a year and a half, two years ago, two seasons.

You've all had a chance to review these.

The county executive would like to make some remarks about the operating guidelines or bring up an item.

This is one that I think, to be fair, I've probably introduced with the county executive myself on a number of occasions.

Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Number five, when a board member sends communication to a staff member, it should be copied to the department head as well as to the appropriate member of the county executive's office.

One of the things that I've been looking at over the past period of time is making sure that when there is traffic, email traffic, between board members and staff,

When I look at these things, the question I always have is, is this something that the entire board needs to see?

Is this a body of work?

Is this questions and work on behalf of the staff that I need to take, review, and turn it around to the entire board?

So that's one of the things I'm just choreographing to this board that that's one of the things that Doug, Trevor, and myself feel like that we're responsible for because a board member may have a specific interest in a specific item and that board member is beginning to drill down on wanting additional information.

The rest of the board may not show an interest, but sometimes I've missed the mark on that.

I've not been correct, because I've had board members come back and say, oh, I didn't know about that.

I would have liked to have seen that.

And there are other reasons, obviously, that when board members need information or are interested in an issue, a topic,

it may not be a topic that's related to your work here in the boardroom it could be just an issue that is in the public, citizens are talking to you about and you're trying to get your arms around what are the facts and it's our job as staff to be responsive not just to our citizens but to our board members and make sure that we're doing a good job of getting our hands around what the issues are and getting it back to the particular board member but I do appreciate this board's

attention to number five, making sure that the county executive's office, if you are working on something, thank you very much for taking the opportunity to keep any of the three of us involved.

I see Trevor, Doug Walker, and myself as basically just being three people that go back and forth, and on a typical day we're working on different things.

At times we will overlap and talk about things.

But any of the three of us, if you copy with your work, that gives us an opportunity to evaluate it as I've described.

And just a quick question.

Absolutely, the default is me but at the same time I'm very blessed in my office that both with Mr. Henry and Mr. Walker, they are very good communicators and they also work very long hours.

They are really good in terms of their response time with this board and I'm very fortunate that this board also works with Trevor and Doug both interchangeably on a day-to-day basis and what we don't want to do is bog you down because I had a board member last week say

I'll just add one thing and that responsiveness means take the time to get it right.

It's not immediate.

I would never expect a five-minute turnaround or something like that, but you need to give yourself the time and your staff the time to collect whatever you need to do because when errors happen because we're in a hurry, then that's self-inflicted and we don't need to do that.

All right, any other comments or questions?

Yeah, I have it right in front of me.

So this is, the board commits to using the following guidelines to ensure high quality governance.

Number one, the county's strategic priorities will guide the work of the board and staff and will be supported by a thoughtful priority setting process and cycle.

Two, we will honor the expressed will of the majority and respect the concerns of the minority.

Three, we ensure that policy decisions and directions to the county executive are communicated by the entire board.

Where this is unclear, the county executive will seek clarification from the board.

No single member of the board can provide direction on policy implementation to the county executive.

Number four, board members do not want their interactions with and requests to staff members to negatively impact staff productivity.

Staff members should use judgment and explain the resources that would be required to respond to board requests.

And if a policy issue is going to affect workload or a policy decision, it should come through the county executive's office.

Number five, when a board member sends a communication to a staff member, it should be copied to the department director and the appropriate member of the county executive's office.

Urgent matters will be clearly labeled on the subject line.

6.

We are responsible for our districts, the entire county, and the region.

Therefore, we should give our best efforts to work for the benefit of all.

So would we like a motion?

Sure.

I move that we approve the board operating guidelines.

Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

And these will come back to us for signature, this document, because we have it, we sign it and then we have it hanging.

Now that seems hard to believe, but number nine is adoption of the final agenda.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Good.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

All right.

Our agenda is approved.

This is the point where it's usually much earlier in the meeting, but we've introduced the members that are sitting around the dais.

So thank you to officers Rischling and Reeves for being with us today.

Thank you both.

And over here to my right, from the county executive's office, Mr. Trevor Henry and Doug Walker.

We have our county executive, Mr. Campner, of course the supervisors.

our county executive Mr. Richardson and our board clerk Claudette and our deputy senior clerk Travis.

all with us today.

Thank you.

And just as an official point that I haven't done as we work through all the procedural stuff, I think I'd be remiss if I did not welcome our two newest Board of Supervisors members after you've already been put to work.

But welcome to Supervisors Price and Kirtley.

So this will start brief announcements by board members.

I'll go.

You know I've told everyone since I moved here that I've never lived in a community where more people are more involved in making this a better place than in Albemarle County and I've got two examples of that that happened just over the last couple of weeks.

The first was December 23rd, two days before Christmas when I had the good fortune with Supervisor

Kurtley LaPisto to be invited to a HVAC install that Beck Cohen, a local business started here in Charlottesville in 1955, their iconic barn is right there on the downtown mall, donated a substantial cost of this brand new system to be installed into a house working with AHIP.

The Albemarle Housing Improvement Program where they identified a family that was in need.

It was right at the coldest part of the year coming on.

They didn't have working heat in the house and it was just such a pleasure to be there to see these people working together, local business, local community organization, taking care of local families.

Too often when we think of affordable housing, I think people think that's an inner city problem dealing with getting people into housing, and we overlook the fact that affordable housing is keeping people in their houses.

And one of the things I saw during the campaign, the biggest diversity in the Scottsville district, frankly, is economic.

And so when I see local businesses like Beck Cohen and our nonprofit groups like AHIP working together,

It really warms my heart like it did their house.

The second one, just last week, I was invited for the ribbon cutting at The Space of Scottsville, a local nonprofit founded by Captain Bob Abbott, a veteran.

and it is a fabulous place that provides all sort of woodworking, computer technology, 3D printing, arts, crafts at very, very low cost in a business establishment right in beautiful downtown Scottsville.

But it wouldn't have happened without community support and especially I want to give a shout out to Mitchell Anderson of Midvale Farm in Fluvanna County.

who owns the space and is allowing the space of Scottsville, she owns the building space, she's allowing the space of Scottsville to utilize it at way below even nominal rent.

And that is a signal of what I have seen from the beginning here, and that is the town of Scottsville is important not just to the Scottsville district or the Samuel Miller district right next to us, not just Albemarle County, but to our surrounding communities, our counties of Fluvanna and Nelson and Buckingham.

and so to have, you know, a resident, a business owner from a neighboring county provide this benefit into the town of Scottsville, it's just, it's community working together and I was, it was such an honor for me to have an opportunity to be there.

Thank you.

Okay, it's just a pleasure to be here to be working with everybody.

I think we have a great board and I really really and we have fabulous staff and I'm very excited about being able to look into the future.

and bring new ideas and opportunities into our county.

We have a lot of great people here.

We're very philanthropic.

Donna was right regarding Bec Cohen.

Let's see if we can do more of those.

That would be very good.

But I'm, I've just been, I'm excited.

I'm going to the Lewis and Clark event tomorrow night.

I think it's their 275th anniversary, something like that, pretty old.

and maybe I have the years wrong.

But anyway, I'm just excited to be here.

Thank you.

I do have a couple of things, but I just want to piggyback on Donna because while we could create a list this long of organizations and businesses that work closely with KTEC, Beck Cohen was right up there with the best of them.

From my years on the KTEC board, I was so appreciative of Beck Cohen.

Maybe we ought to look at sometime the businesses in this community that have worked with KTEC.

It just occurs to me.

That'd be good.

Anyway, let me just, a couple of things.

I want to remind everybody that it's not too late to get your flu shot.

As a retired nurse, the season is upon us and you can still get your flu shot and they are very reasonably priced.

Another mention is that the school board right now is seeking folks to apply for their health advisory board and their long-range planning advisory board.

So if anyone is interested, you can go to the school board website and take a look at that.

and the only other thing I wanted to mention was that Superintendent Haas is presenting his funding request which rolls out ahead of Jeff's.

Matt's funding request will happen in this room on January the 23rd at 6.30.

and I would encourage our board to go to that meeting or that presentation.

It is very informative to hear the superintendent of schools present his budget because you learn things that you don't necessarily learn once the process has gone forward for the school board and the budget comes to us.

So I often come and encourage you to think about it.

January 23rd at 630, and it's the school superintendent's roll out of his funding request to his board.

I got a few.

I have to write things down because I feel as if the whole year has gone by so fast and so much has been done and I just want to take a minute to remember some things.

So I'm so glad to welcome our new members and I look forward to a year as we all represent our citizens and carry on with our adopted ordinances.

We should be proud of many accomplishments.

The protection of the rights of individual citizens and the quiet enjoyment of their property.

both in rural and urban areas has been enhanced with regulations for event activities in animal welfare and also commercial activities in the rural areas.

There have been many small steps in progress in stormwater and water quality, but much more work needs to be done as we know.

We should not forget that after 35 years of debate,

Our locality has made a huge improvement in transportation with the completion of most of the elements of the 29 Solutions.

We will see the final phases of that project at hydraulic and the new train to DC in the coming years.

God willing and lots of good gripping on that.

We've got to work very hard to make that happen.

Our county is anticipating many major construction projects with VDOT.

which will improve the function and safety of vehicles and pedestrians in our county.

But there are smaller projects, traffic safety intersection improvements from stop signs to traffic calming measures that need to be completed.

Citizens are impatient to see completion of projects they have been discussing for a decade.

An example that Ned and I have been working on is the race forward early spill road intersection where easy steps have been done and the bigger structural changes are under design and redesign and trying to get the cost to where we can do it.

But we're working on it.

Transit expansion will help all citizens.

Imagine how people won't have to put aside a big portion of their budget to maintain a vehicle if we get more transit available.

The board has made significant investments in capital projects, hallelujah, to begin to catch up on a $100 million backlog.

The difficult prioritizing and deciding faces us every day.

but we have much to do.

We must do what we can to reduce the physical impact of chemicals on our citizens resulting from our daily operations.

This is the reason our Safal Chemical Policy was created and discussion will help move this forward.

True environmental advancements will be achieved when the board adopts more policies to continue strengthening the buffer and water protection rules that will actually do what we say we are doing.

True environmental advancement will be achieved when we make choices in capital projects with sustainability, health and taxpayer protection in mind.

Cheaper choices which then endanger the health of our citizens and their children cannot be made.

Our capital projects need to consider the entire life cycle of project materials, from construction to replacement and disposal issues too.

True environmental advancement will be achieved when local government chooses to use all accurate information available, not just that which is convenient, for decision making.

We should be using the latest, clearest, and most complete information we can get our hands on.

I have every confidence that with diligence and care we can succeed on these and many, many other issues too.

Our citizens demand nothing less, and I look forward to working with all of you and our citizens for our community.

And thank you for being patient while I took a long time.

It was great.

Thank you.

It was.

Number 11, Proclamations, Recognitions.

From the public, matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda.

Public comment.

Thank you.

And thank you, citizens, for being here today.

We look forward to hearing from you during during the time set aside for matters not listed on for public hearing on the agenda.

Individuals may address the board of supervisors concerning any issue not listed on the agenda for a public hearing.

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak unless otherwise decided.

And a sign up sheet has been provided here at the meeting.

And we have six people who have signed up.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and a light system on the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking and this begins your allotted time.

A yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish your comment and a red light indicates that your time has expired and we ask you to conclude your remarks.

If more than 10 speakers have signed up, which is not the case today, so we will stick with the three minutes.

When called to the speaker's podium, please state your name and if you reside in the county, your magisterial district.

Address comments directly to the board as a whole.

If you have written statements, we ask that you provide a copy to the clerk of your written statements and supporting material.

If you represent a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands and be recognized.

If you exceed your allotted time, you will be asked to end your comments.

If the speaker does not use all allotted time, the unused time will not be shared with another speaker.

You're permitted one opportunity to comment during each of the public comment periods per meeting, and a back and forth debate is prohibited.

Please do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

We ask persons in the audience to raise your hands to indicate your support or opposition to speakers at the podium at any time, but that you refrain from applause or other forms of approval or disapproval as a courtesy to each speaker.

Signs are permitted in the meeting room as long as they are not attached to any stick or pole and do not obstruct the view of persons attending the meeting.

Please note that all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

And we do ask that you please turn off all pagers and cellular telephones.

I will call three names and then ask that the first three come and sit in the chairs up at the very front of the auditorium.

The first is Peter Krebs.

The next one is Susan.

I believe it's Kreese or Kreis, Kreuse.

Thank you.

And then I believe it's Gary Grant.

Good afternoon.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Also, my colleague Sean Tubbs is here as well.

I'd like to start by welcoming the new members of the Board of Supervisors.

We're so happy to have you, and we're looking forward to an exciting 2020.

And I'd also like to congratulate Ned and Donna for your elections today.

Bea.

You said Bea?

Okay, so the Piedmont Environmental Council works to preserve the distinctive Piedmont landscape and to promote thriving communities here.

We do that through land conservation, soil and water protection, habitat restoration.

We advocate for smart land use and thriving, well-connected communities.

My own area of specialization is bicycle pedestrian connectivity.

We believe that this is an essential part of preserving the rural area by making the urban areas thriving, great places to live where people can safely get around without a car.

I'm here to watch Kevin McDermott's presentation on transportation.

There's a lot of exciting projects in that presentation.

I've read it already and I'm looking forward to seeing people's reactions.

Residents of Albemarle County have spoken very clearly about the importance of connectivity and being able to get around safely by walking, transit, and bicycle.

And you all have already heard that and you've spoken about it.

I won't go back into it anymore.

I'm excited about that and I'm also excited about what 2020 will bring.

I like to call 2020 the year of clear vision and I'm excited about that.

Thank you, Mr. Krebs.

Hi, welcome to the new Board of Supervisors members and thank you again for your service to all Board of Supervisors members.

My name is Susan Cruz and I am the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative, an organization I have had the privilege of leading since January of last year.

I'm here today to thank the previous Board of Supervisors for unanimously voting to set leadership climate targets of a 45% emissions reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

Albemarle was one of a fewer than a dozen localities in the nation to set this ambitious target on October 16, 2019, and a few other communities have actually followed your example.

Now the real work begins and you, the 2020 Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, will need to help to craft a climate action plan to reach those targets.

My organization, the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative, was founded for just this purpose.

C3's mission is to bring communities together to lead on climate.

We work closely with citizens, businesses, and local governments to develop climate action plans which accelerate climate action.

Last year, our organization submitted letters to the Board of Supervisors on behalf of 41 businesses, seven area schools, nine social justice organizations, and nearly 1,000 area residents.

All of these were in support of the county's leadership and mission target, and many of these individuals came to speak to you throughout all of last year.

We are prepared to convene these groups once again to help Albemarle County build a climate action plan which achieves our goals.

As transportation emissions make up the most significant share of the county's emissions, our first priority should be to create a climate action plan that prioritizes solutions which reduce vehicle miles traveled and incentivizes electric vehicle adoption.

Increasing the share of Albemarle County residents who utilize public transit should be the cornerstone of these solutions and will have the added benefit of enhancing accessibility to services for vulnerable populations.

We must also develop solutions for energy efficiency in residential and commercial sectors.

It is estimated that 30% of all energy use in buildings is wasted.

A revolving loan fund could help to begin to address this problem.

C3 is currently working with the City of Charlottesville to research residential financing options and in the Spirit of Climate Action Together partnership between the City and the County, we look forward to updating you on this project at future Board of Supervisors meetings.

I also ask today that you swiftly authorize the commercial PACE program for the commercial sector.

This is a policy tool which requires little county resources but could assist businesses, especially area nonprofits, with energy efficiency and clean energy goals.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not insist that one of the first steps is to create a new greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the county.

One hasn't been done since 2008.

If we don't know where we're beginning, it's hard to know the path forward.

I look forward to working with you on this important issue.

Thank you, Ms.

Cruz.

I apologize for misreading your last name.

My name is Gary Grant.

I reside, own property, pay taxes, and vote in the Rio Magisterial District.

I don't speak for Earliesville, I speak from Earliesville.

About all I want from government is information and safety.

Here's some information about the safety that's not being provided in Earliesville.

Following comes from the Albemarle County Police Department on Monday of this week, thanks to Miller Stoddard, a Lieutenant.

Between October 8th of last year and this past Sunday, 222,843 vehicles traveling in just one direction through Earliesville passed a solar powered speed radar on Earliesville Road.

12,033 of these vehicles exceeded the 35 mph posted speed limit at that radar location across from the Episcopal Church.

It appears that none of these 12,033 speed violators was caught, arrested, charged, or convicted.

While most of the violators were speeding at five to eight miles per hour over the limit, the highest speed recorded at this location was 60 miles per hour.

60 miles per hour is almost double the posted speed limit there.

The 60 mile per hour violations occurred at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 9 p.m., and 10 p.m.

I can't tell from the police report, though, how many times the 60 mile per hour violation was recorded or on which dates.

White Hall Supervisor Mallek, with 12 years on this board, and Rio District Supervisor Galloway, with two years on this board, both of whose districts include Earliesville's roadways, have failed to stop the speeding through Earliesville.

Yes, government has provided the information about this problem.

Government has not provided the safety to go along with it.

Thank y'all for giving me a chance to speak.

My name is Eddie Payne.

I'm from Scottsville.

Born and raised, educated, worked here, and finally retired here.

Congratulations to the new members of the board here, especially Donna.

Y'all are used to seeing her out here.

I figured it'd be an empty seat, so I showed up.

Let me know if I'm out of turn or not.

You all had a meeting last month concerning the Second Amendment sanctuary.

Is this a proper time to make a statement?

Thank you.

As of this morning, there were 124 jurisdictions

in the state of Virginia that have passed some sort of resolution concerning the Second Amendment issue.

And I'm just here to say I'm an elected official too.

I serve on the town council of Scottsville.

and I took an oath that said I would uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and Virginia.

And so I really don't understand why we call it a Second Amendment sanctuary because sanctuary to me is a safe haven.

I just feel like if this board were to pass some type of resolution like 89 other counties have, it would reaffirm the oath that we all took.

You may not agree with everything that's law of the land, but you have to represent.

And there's a lot of folks here last month

and they wanted a forum and a voice.

And so I think it's more than the Second Amendment.

It's a Bill of Rights choice.

It's a constitutional faith that we have.

And it's kind of like when couples renew their wedding vows after 20 years.

It's just saying, I still believe it.

and I kind of feel like, Ms.

McKeel, I kind of feel like I'm the outlaw when you look at that map and you see all the places that have passed resolutions right in the middle of Albemarle County and I'm just wondering why we're so much different than the rest of Virginia.

Thank you.

Well good afternoon and welcome to the new board members and to Supervisor Galloway and Supervisor Rice, condolences.

Tough jobs all of you have.

I'm here just to remind you of something.

In November, at one of the rezoning application hearings for 999 Rial Road, a point came up that there was really not any type of consolidated or

comprehensive corridor study and the Transportation Department was tasked with performing such a study and I understand that there's going to be on today's

Schedule, Kevin is going to present his monthly update.

I would ask that the board determine where that consolidated study is, because it really needs, as you said yourselves,

to be completed before there's any action for rezoning in neighborhood 2 area.

So please let me remind you and please ask Kevin where it is and when it will be completed so we can all take a look at it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Stringet.

Let's see, am I still up there?

It's down at the bottom, I believe, in the middle, the PowerPoint.

Claudette's giving me the signals over there, so I don't know.

Without using up my time, I can introduce myself, Dr. Charles Batik.

Welcome to the new members of the Board of Supervisors.

I didn't touch anything.

Thank you for that.

Well, here we go into the new year and I have some comments continuing on the climate change and the goal you set yourself following the United Nations goal, which was reiterated by the C3 up here.

This meeting started with somebody quoting from way back when.

I'm also quoting from way back when, the 1930s.

H.L.

Mencken.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front.

The urge to rule has been true over the years.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep populists alarmed, hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

This is from the 1930s.

So translated into the climate action here, Stephen Schneider from the United Nations often quoted as a reference here by the climate activist.

Here he says, reinforcing this idea, he makes climate science a politics.

We need to get some broad-based support.

capture public's imagination.

That of course means gets lots of media coverage.

We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, make little mention of any doubts we have.

In other words, we have to make it up to scare people.

All right, reassuring the facts.

Well, there's that little child over there screaming.

I didn't come up with that.

That's the lead picture from the linked article down below detailing what a Toronto mother experienced when her child was scared out of her wits by a presentation about the end of the world in 12 years and all this nonsense.

But we don't have to go to Toronto.

Right here in Charlottesville, right here in UVA, we have a UVA professor, an opinion letter, December the 7th,

stating in part, I recently spoke to my son's eighth grade class.

They might see entire summers in Charlottesville with temperatures over 95, blah, blah, blah, possibly much worse.

This is on eighth grade.

The eighth grade kids are not going to distinguish between possible and guessing in this story.

They're going to go home scared because they assume this professor is telling the truth.

It's only a guess.

What's happened to John Moore and the whole environmental movement?

It's now wealth redistribution, climate justice, now, action now.

And there's Mr. Edenhoeffer from the UN.

And if you read down there, I've shown this before, we redistribute de facto world's wealth by climate policy.

This has nothing anything more to do with environmental policy, such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

They even have our warrior person of the year, Greta Thunberg, saying the same thing.

We have to deal with colonial races, patriarchal systems of oppression.

And once again, you're focused on a little blip down there.

That tiny red blip is the panic.

CO2 is essential for life.

It's not a poisonous gas.

And here's Albemarle County.

That little kid is scratching his head too.

He's told he's emptying and lowering the sea level one bucket at a time.

Lots of luck, and I thank you for your time.

Is there anyone who has not signed up who would like to address the board?

Yes, sir.

Yes, ma'am.

Doctor, I don't know what to think about the climate change.

I put a lot of thought into it.

And here's what I have still to think about.

The coal industry is down 95% in their emissions.

Cars are down roughly the same.

But we're told things are getting worse.

I'm trying to analyze that.

It's not there to analyze.

Maybe it's coming from somewhere else.

I can't quite cope with it.

Can't quite calculate it.

Now, I've come to talk about current and future dealings with the city.

Most people are tricked.

They think the big push from the city are the statues.

Now they're a big deal, but they're not a huge deal and they're not their number one deal.

The statues will always exist.

They will not ever be melted down.

That's not my main deal.

My main deal is socialism.

Every move the city takes, their first step and their last step is socialism.

They have a new member on the board that will tell you his first and last step is communism.

When you have to deal with the city, never forget that.

Now I'm a pretty kindhearted person.

I like to see a person get a fair shake and a helping hand.

But I also like to see a person have some skin in the game.

Charlottesville doesn't ask for anybody to have any skin in the game.

By law, you can't ask for so much skin to be put in the game, and sometimes you can't ask for any to be put in the game.

But when you can, please do.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum.

Recently I determined that I'm five days into my 17th year of tracking local public policy, which is a long time.

And I welcome both new supervisors, and I welcome Ned as the new chair, the new and existing chair, as well as Donna in her role as vice chair.

The Free Enterprise Forum exists to move the community forward.

We have found over the last, really over the last five years especially, working together is the way to do that.

There are many times I will get up and disagree with you and you will listen and I thank you for that.

Sometimes you might agree and move just a little bit toward our position.

I thank you even more for that.

We stand ready to help

You move forward in this year of clear vision that Mr. Krebs spoke of and we look forward to working collaboratively with you this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will close matters from the public.

The next item on our agenda is the approval of our consent agenda.

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Episto-Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

All right, very good.

So board, we're running about one hour behind.

The original agenda had us taking a recess at four.

Do you wish to go ahead and proceed and just push through the recess?

Do you want to take a quick recess now and then try to plow through our items before closed meeting?

If we don't, we'll have to take the break at 4.

So if it's alright, let's take a brief recess.

Can we shorten it to 10 minutes and be back by 3.15?

Man, I didn't have a gavel.

All right, board, we are back.

The next item on our agenda, number 14, HS 2019-13 Crozet Restorations Homestay Special Exceptions.

Rebecca, good afternoon.

Bart, good afternoon.

Thank you.

I'm Rebecca Ragsdale and I'm a principal planner in the Community Development Office.

Happy New Year and welcome new board members.

This is an item before you today that you, excuse me, it's the first special exception for home stays that's been before you.

So we wanted to make sure we scheduled it as a regular item.

So we could give you a refresher on the homestay regulations that were updated in August and then go over the special exception process itself before we then jump into the specifics of this particular application before you and Crozet.

So what is a homestay?

So a homestay

is the term that we use in our ordinance for a rental of guest rooms less than 30 days at a time and that use is only allowed in association with a single-family detached dwelling and it's only allowed as an accessory use.

So what that means is you have to have a primary residence established before you can have home stays as an accessory use and in zoning terms the idea is that it's a use that

is of a size and scale that is not affecting neighboring properties.

So in this particular case, the property that's subject to the special exception before you today is zoned residential.

We have a couple different categories in the regulations as you saw.

We attached the ordinance in the packet, but those relevant to this property, which is zoned residential,

is that residential properties may rent no more than two guest rooms, and the guest rooms may only be located in single-family detached dwelling, not an accessory structure, and then no more than one homestay use on the property.

And then what we refer to as whole house rental is not permitted, and that means rental when an owner or manager is not present.

That's an option that's only available to the rural areas.

So the rental of guest rooms on a residential property will always have the owner residing and present on the property.

So there are a set of regulations that all home stays must comply with.

We mentioned the owner occupied requirement.

They must obtain a zoning clearance, which is a staff level review where we check and make sure that all of the applicable regulations are met in the ordinance.

We're checking for parking, making sure that it's located on site.

and there are enough spaces.

The applicant sends neighbor notice to provide an in case of emergency contact information and then with that initial zoning clearance and then yearly following that there is an annual safety inspection which covers smoke detectors, ingress and egress from the structure, addressing and appropriate fire extinguishers.

So those are the limitations in the ordinance, but special exceptions allow the applicant to request a waiver or modification of certain things in the regulations.

And special exceptions can only be approved by the board, and those seeking the special exceptions for home stays are required to submit the additional application and fee.

So the things that can be waived or modified are the number of guest rooms, which for home stays the ultimate limit is five guest rooms to begin with.

They may request the use of an accessory structure such as a guest cottage or a detached garage or a pool house and then they may request a setback reduction or they may request a waiver of the owner-occupied requirement if they had a

and owner, I'm sorry if they had a tenant resident manager that was the full-time resident of the dwelling.

The ordinance lays out the process for special exceptions.

As I mentioned, they must be approved by you all.

There are no specific findings that you're required to make, but you would consider the applicable criteria in the homestay section of the ordinance.

And you can either approve, deny, or impose conditions of approval.

for a home stay.

And the criteria that are in section 5148 of the ordinance that's applicable to factors to consider for special exceptions is that there's no detriment to any abutting lot and that there's no harm to public health, safety, or welfare.

So switching gears to this specific request, it is zoned residential, so without a special exception approval, the limit is two guest rooms, and in this application, they'd like to seek up to four guest rooms for rental.

Those guest rooms may either be in the single-family dwelling, and then the owners would stay in the accessory structure, or there may be up to one guest room rented in the accessory structure.

So just to get you familiar with where this property is located, it is in the Crozet development area north of downtown.

And it is noteworthy that the Crozet development area is, the entire development area is designated as a tourism zone.

In 2013 there was a study and discussion and then ultimately the action that led to the creation of the tourism zone

and it did identify that there are of course a number of tourism destinations and attractions in Western Crozet or Western Albemarle and also that there is a deficiency of lodging in Western Albemarle.

So home stays are, as some of you heard, filling in.

for some of those lodging gaps.

It's located within the downtown Crozet area as designated in the master plan.

So this is the master plan map that I've switched to and then the property is north of downtown.

It's walkable to downtown.

There are a number of recommendations in the master plan for supporting tourism in Crozet and supporting the downtown area.

So we've heard that home stays are doing that.

The property itself is at the corner of McCauley Street and St.

George Avenue.

It's a corner lot.

And with the lot that the house is on and then the adjacent lot, it's about an acre of property that the applicants have.

So that's showing you the location of the house and the accessory structure.

Now as part of their application that they submitted to us, they had provided that their neighbor, their closest neighbor to the accessory structure across the street and then beside them on St.

George Avenue had no objection to their homestay.

As part of the special exceptions, we do provide a budding owner notice that was mailed.

to all of the abutting owners.

And when we did that, we did not hear any concerns or questions.

We heard an additional email of support from Joanne Perkins that lives next door.

So we didn't have any concerns from neighbors, so we were able to make a finding that there was no concern about detriment to abutting property owners or harm to public health, safety, and welfare.

So you do have the resolution before you as attachment F to approve both the special exception requests.

We only are recommending one condition and that's that there be a limit of a total of four guest rooms rendered on the property at one time.

We don't include ordinance, we don't include in special exception conditions regulations that are in the ordinance already.

And am I correct that that condition is what they were asking for anyway?

Yes.

Great.

Yes.

All of the properties that are across from them, including the ones that are across from them on the McCauley Street and St.

So, from what I understand, the building, the people who live right next to the accessory structure, they're not, they're fine with it.

Okay, what would happen if, in the future, you had somebody else who, they would have to live with it, right?

Right, it would affect their... Pardon?

But what would be affected is there already all sorts of good neighbor standards that exist that would carry on as well.

We have our, the county has toy ordinances and all the parking regulations and all that sort of thing that were done for the reason of protecting impacts on neighbors.

So I think even a future owner of the house next door would benefit from those same

protections.

Yeah, except, well, and I'm not against this, but I'm cautious when we say that all of our ordinances are working well and that they're, yeah, that's what concerns me a little bit, that's all, because enforcement has been a problem.

We've been fighting certain things in the urban ring for 10 years, so I just want to be cautious, but I'm not against this.

The only thing I wanted to clarify, Rebecca, was you said it was about an acre, and actually it's circled.

It's 0.62 acres.

Rebecca, I have a more general question on the homestays.

So if this is approved, they can rent up to four rooms at a time.

Well, we don't regulate how many parties the guest rooms are rented to.

And the parking spaces.

Just one really quick one.

The additional lot, it's on St.

Yes.

So this special exception has nothing to do with any future building.

It doesn't restrict anything.

Right.

All right.

Point of clarification, excuse me.

No ma'am, the accessory structure and the house are on the same lot.

Point 62.

Okay, it's on St.

If there are no further questions, I certainly would like to make a motion if I need to find the language.

One second.

Come on, you.

Back here.

Where is it?

There we go.

All right.

So I move that the board adopt the attached resolution F to approve the two special exceptions with the condition.

Further discussion?

All right.

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, very good.

And I'd like to thank the birds for being our guinea pig applicant in the special exception line.

Congratulations.

And I'd like to thank the opportunity to have a more thorough discussion here for the board, because this is both a new area.

And we know that now that we are having special exception requests, there will be others.

And I think it was very informative.

All the documents in one place was very, very helpful.

So the board should be thinking about, since this is coming to us, normally this could come to us in a consent agenda item.

We had asked that a first couple of these out of the gate come to us so that we can look at them, consider them, etc.

so the board will have to keep in mind how long we want that practice to continue we don't have any make any decisions on that today it's just something to be keeping in mind after we get a couple of these at some point we may want to move them to consent versus them having them on the main agenda

that may differ from magisterial district to magisterial district.

So, when we discussed this prior today in the pre-agenda, I'd even mentioned, you know, sometimes they'll ask us if we want to waive a public hearing for some applications and the magisterial district person gets to call off on that, that that may be a point where if a supervisor's okay with it going to consent from the home district, that that could be part of it and if another wants it on the main agenda for the first handful.

One follow up on that.

Is there a process already, though, if you have concerns that come back to you from a Butters, doesn't that automatically kick it into a further level discussion at the board as opposed to consent?

It's not an automatic.

Not automatic.

That'd be good.

Yeah.

That's one.

Right.

And one threshold, at least, to talk about.

Good.

The next item, number 15, Transportation Planning Quarterly Report.

Evan McDermott is with us.

Thank you, Chairman Galloway, members of the board.

Welcome to Bea and Donna.

My name is Kevin McDermott.

I'm the principal planner for transportation and community development department.

And with me is Daniel Butch, senior planner for transportation as well.

So this is our core to the report.

We go through this every three months with you all.

And you have the entire report in your packet.

And we just kind of hit some highlights here and then give you all an opportunity to ask any questions you have.

So the first thing I wanted to bring up was discussion about transportation priorities.

Every couple years we go back and look at all the projects that are recommended in all our master plan processes and corridor plan processes and we prioritize those for the board to look at and approve.

And based on last year's prioritization process,

You can see some of the numbers along the left here of where these projects ranked, but these are projects that we've been working on recently.

In last fall, we submitted revenue sharing and transportation alternatives grants for those three projects at the top there, Berkmar Drive Extension, Old Lynchburg Road, Bike Pet Improvements, and the Tabor High Street sidewalks.

this year 2020 is a smart scale application cycle and I have the list of projects that we are looking at submitting for smart scale and we have been working with the Department of Transportation and also the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO on

defining these projects and getting them ready for those submissions.

The pre-application due date is in March and the final applications are due at the end of August.

So that's what we've been really working on.

Just to give you the idea of those projects, the hydraulic 29 intersection, that's going to be a Charlottesville Albemarle MPO application and they're still evaluating

exactly which projects that they want to submit but it was a package of projects that were approved through a transportation planning process last year or two years ago I think now and they submitted them last year unfortunately none of them got funded so they're kind of breaking those up and trying to find a better way to submit them once again this year.

250 East, Pantops that's an access management

We've expanded that because we're also looking at potential signal optimization throughout the entire corridor.

that would go from the interchange, which is on schedule to be reconstructed all the way up to Route 20.

So we might add some signal modification improvements in that.

Once again, we're working with the Department of Transportation on evaluating that one.

Fontaine Avenue 29 bypass diverging diamond.

This was a resubmission that was unsuccessful in the previous smart scale application right there at 29 right by the Fontaine Research Park.

Old Lynchburg Road 5th Street extended where the county office building is.

This is a project that is new to the list but we are doing a study that I'll talk about in a little bit but the potential for a roundabout there.

Route 20, Route 53 intersection improvements, that's right there by the Monticello area and this is a resubmission from 2018 as well.

Belvedere-Rio Road intersection improvements, something that the board's talked about a lot there where

The senior center's coming in with all that new traffic.

We're expecting that there's probably going to be some additional issues at that intersection and we're trying to get ahead of that.

So the idea of a Belvide-Oraya Road R cut is what we're looking at.

US 29 shared use path.

This is just south of the Rivanna River on 29.

Just working to try and extend some of those bike pet improvements there.

A resubmission once again from last year.

Frays Mill, Burnley Station 29, that's up in the northern part of our district.

It's currently a signalized intersection.

It's a safety concern.

We have a lot of accidents going on there and also heavy congestion.

So we're looking at possibly an R cut at that location as well.

and then the I-64 Exit 107 Crozet Park Park and Ride lot.

This is a resubmission from last year that the Thomas Jefferson PDC had submitted.

It was unsuccessful, but we are also looking at potential transit improvements in that area and so we think with that it might be able to score a little bit higher.

Some of the major planning projects we have going on right now, the Avon Street corridor plan is in its final stages.

I will be back here a week from now to present that final plan to you all as a work session and get your feedback on that.

This is the Fifth Street Extended STARS Study.

This is a VDOT led study and STARS stands for strategically targeted affordable roadway solutions.

We just finished a Route 250 West STARS Study through VDOT and this project will identify short and long term solutions.

As Kevin just mentioned, the potential projects of the roundabout Fifth Street and Old Lynchburg would be called out within this study.

Right now, phase one is complete with research and data collection, and we're beginning the phase two with public engagement.

They're having two public forums.

One's going to be held with the CAC, Fifth and Avon CAC, and also another one will be held with the Southwood community.

And then they're going to provide that public feedback and present a bigger public outreach event with

The Biscuit Run Park Master Plan transportation has been working with the Parks and Rec Department on that.

and within the climate action plan, the community mobility, the transportation sector group.

Related to transit, there's been a lot going on with this.

Of course, we continue to meet with the Regional Transit Partnership.

Smart Mobility Incorporated is the subsidiary that we work on with Jaunt, with me and Roger Johnson from the Economic Development Department representing Albemarle County on that group.

Then there's also Jaunt members.

and we're partnering with Perron Robotics.

And this was the project that we had to do the automated vehicle program out in Crozet that was running for a few months as a test pilot program.

That pilot is actually finished now and I think they're putting the final touches on a report to come back to you on how that went.

But we're looking at how we can move forward with smart mobility now.

One of the things that we're looking at is a potential innovation tech grant for another pilot project really where we would put automated technology in jaunt vehicles and run them in other parts of the county, hopefully in the urban ring this time.

So we're still working on that and we'll be coming back to you all with more information as it develops.

We also have been talking a lot with Jaunt and members of the Regional Transit Partnership on potential 29 Connect improvements.

The Park Connect, which is running up and down 29 from the university,

the main university grounds all the way up to the research park up north of Hollymede is probably going to be coming to an end soon and we're trying to figure out a way that we could wrap that service in with the existing 29 Connect.

We have a meeting scheduled next week with the PDC to talk more about that.

I know Diantha McKeel is going to be attending that with us.

and we've had some informal conversations about how we can make more improvements with that 29 Connect service.

They are also the Broadway Connect.

We've been working with the Willow Tree Woolen Mills Development as part of that proffer.

There was an agreement that we would set up a

uh shuttle service that would run from the that area out there on Broadway into downtown to provide a connection for all the employees that are out there uh the proposal that we have now is to make that an on-demand public service that would be running back and forth throughout the day so we're finalizing the uh discussions with that one

and then also the Afton Express Shuttle.

This was a project that we've been working on with the TJPDC and the Central Shenandoah PDC over in the Stanton Augusta-Wainsboro area to set up a new commuter service that would run from Stanton Augusta-Wainsboro

over to the Charlottesville-Albemarle region.

We will be coming back to you to talk more about that at the next meeting as well, a potential grant application that we're looking at partnering with them on.

Related to bicycle and pedestrian, of course, just last month we came to you to talk about the micromobility ordinance, the scooters.

We are continuing to work on that for hire regulation program.

We need to finalize the grants.

I'm sure you all saw that locally, one of the scooter companies did pull out of the area.

So that was Lime.

Now there's only one around.

It's Veyoride.

Right now, I do notice that they do occasionally have some scooters out in the county.

Those are really not sanctioned operations because they don't have a permit yet, but it's very minor numbers They're not getting redistributed out there So it's not really an issue But we will make sure I've already reached out to the folks in the city to put us in contact with Vail Ride So we can make sure we get them under permit for that that activity soon enough.

So that'll be coming to us shortly

The Jefferson Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, which was approved last year, we're working on a lot of implementation projects with that right now.

We are working with VDOT, the Department of Transportation has hired some consultants to do studies on a couple of the big projects that came out of there.

One of them is a Rivanna River Crossing, this would be in the area around

Woolen Mills and Riverview Park crossing over into the county near in the Pantops area.

The potential for a connection across there that would connect the Mill Creek Trail to the Rivanna Trail.

Yeah, so we're really excited about that.

They're working on the designs and cost estimates.

And then also another project to put in bike and ped facilities along Route 20 from the city line

all the way down to the Monticello Trail.

So a connection that would go right down there.

They've presented some preliminary designs for it.

We're considering maybe putting like a shared use path in that wide median there is one of the things that we think is most possible.

So we'll continue to keep you updated on that program as we move along.

The Burtmar Drive shared use path and the Commonwealth Drive sidewalks those are projects that were funded over the past two years that we are now in design with the Facilities Environmental Services Project Management Division has taken those on and we're working with consultants now to look at the design on that so I'm sure we'll be getting updates on that soon enough.

Development projects, these are things that the transportation staff has been working on, either doing reviews or working with the developers to try and find out how they can address some of the transportation issues.

Southwood redevelopment, obviously that was already approved, but we continue to work with them on road design and potential grant management that they are working on.

Breezy Hill rezoning.

I know that's something that we've been reviewing and talking with the developers on.

999 Rio as well, which you all have seen and will be coming back.

It's been resubmitted.

Barnes-Lumber property.

This was a project that the rezoning has already happened but we're doing a lot of work on the new transportation connections out there that are going to really improve the system and build that downtown.

So we're working with the developer and Department of Transportation on that.

Albemarle Business Campus, formerly Royal Fern, that's coming in and we're reviewing for the comments on that.

And Parkway Place, Wetzel, also known as Wetzel, that's one that we are reviewing.

It has been submitted.

Galaxy Farm has been approved already.

And then for reported transportation issues, we have Miller School Road through truck restriction that has been approved and signed by the Department of Transportation.

For Owensville Road, the through truck exception for agricultural use was not approved and that needs to be evaluated again.

It might need to have the same restriction as Miller School Road and we'll be taking that back to the board.

Key West neighborhood speeding concerns have been brought up, as well as we're initiating traffic calming with Hillsdale and with Eastern Avenue, as well as some concerns with speeding concerns in Ashcroft.

We also have for Earliesville Road, Speeding and Safety, staff has been working on implementing the speed radar sign installation as we go into the board next week on the consent agenda item about utilizing secondary six-year funds for VDOT to administer two permanent radar devices at this intersection.

Just a quick question about the Earliesville Road Speeding and Safety work on implementing a speed radar.

So that's in addition to what we heard from Mr. Grant this morning, or not this morning.

It's part of it.

So there's only one?

Right, because he had a report this morning.

He was speaking to a temporary study that was being done.

It will affect the same geography.

That's all we have.

So as I mentioned earlier, our favorite topic, so each supervisor will have a chance to make comments, ask questions.

Who would like to begin?

and this corridor study.

Is that going on?

Yeah, I can speak to it.

So we did receive that request regarding a corridor study along Rio Road in that area.

It's been put on the list of projects for the community development department work program.

So the old Lynchburg Road, 5th Street, Stended Stars corridor study, you said that there's a couple of public hearings coming, public comment outreach coming, excuse me, not a public hearing.

Oh, you don't have them yet, that's why I don't have them.

and my only other question for right now is the greenways on Sunset and near Azalea Park, all that stuff that we've been talking about for the last several years and you said in the report that you have been talking with the city, working with them, can you explain