Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   8/5/2020

Thank you, Claudette.

Good afternoon.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our August 5th, 2022 PM meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A8.

and ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District,

and myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District.

The persons responsible for receiving public comment are the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Also with us today, our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner,

Okay board and if everyone would please join in a moment of silence.

The next item is the adoption of our final agenda.

Mr. Chair, can we pause one moment to allow Ann into the meeting?

Mr. Chair, Ms.

Mallek is having trouble with Zoom at this moment.

Ms.

All right, as Ann's working to get in, she would like to add under matters from the board, items not on the agenda, Claire, just a topic on the sports field use.

So we'll add that under the, like I said, under board members, matters from the board, not on the agenda.

Thank you.

Any other changes to the agenda or items from consent?

Mr. Chair before there's a motion I included with the email I sent last night there was a note regarding item 8.3 with a minor correction to section 4c on that item which required

the volunteer fire company to be registered with the state agency.

They've not completed that process yet.

It's not a requirement.

It's not material to the project or to the board's ability to enter into this agreement or an appropriation.

Okay.

Can I make a motion to approve final agenda as amended?

And do we want to pull 8.3 and look at it separately?

When we get there.

Yeah.

Just trying to figure out how to move us on here.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

And we'll just plug in three in after the consent agenda.

Yeah, that's great.

All right, next item, brief announcements by board members.

We'll go in our order that we've established.

So Supervisor McKeel, you're first.

Any announcements today?

No, sir.

Thank you.

This has been computer trauma today.

All right, let me get back to my list.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking care of my announcement.

Adding spectacular news we received that additional housing vouchers are now available that DSS is secured from the feds.

I think that's wonderful.

Yesterday I was able to attend the NACo Arts and Culture Commission meeting for the first time since being appointed last year and

A lot of people talked from all around the country about the importance of the arts in healing in times of stress, whether it's from disease or trauma and lots of wonderful things happening.

So I will report to all from my notes from that meeting.

And we certainly have a lot of wonderful arts going on in the county that I can share with them.

LEAP is also sponsoring another Solarize program.

Thank you.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Yes I would like to briefly comment.

Last week I was on vacation in North Georgia where my

My parents have a lake house.

And exactly a month before we arrived, a camp up there, Camp High Harbor, had opened.

There was a 15-year-old counselor who, unknown to herself, had been exposed on the first day of the camp.

She was fine.

Two days later, she had a fever.

It was a matter of just a few days, 260 of the 377 campers at that camp

have tested positive for COVID-19.

They closed the camp, sent everyone home, which meant 266 families now had been exposed to it.

In Georgia, their largest school system opened up and within the first few days, 260 students, coincidentally, tested positive with COVID-19.

I saw photographs yesterday from Paulding County, Georgia, where the halls were crowded with students.

Very, very few were wearing masks.

What they had done in Georgia is they did part of what you need to do.

Many people frequently wash their hands.

They wipe down surfaces.

But the governor of Georgia has issued a ban on face masks.

And none of these places have engaged in social distancing.

So what they did is they have exposed now thousands of people through these mass infectious events

COVID-19.

Most of our residents here have been very supportive of the action that we have taken as the board for the 60-day rollback a little bit into requiring that restaurants be no more than 50% capacity, that social distancing be enforced.

What we are doing here is our best to prevent these sort of outbreaks that are happening in Georgia.

We are fortunate that we have a governor who did not impose a ban on masks, did not prevent social distancing from taking place, and I think we are doing the right thing here to try and prevent

these type of outbreaks that other places in the country are experiencing and having just come from Georgia last week and seeing very, very few people wearing masks, I am extremely appreciative of our Albemarle County residents who have willingly gone along with social distancing, face masks, and have expressed support to us on the board for the actions that we're taking.

Thank you.

Number six on our agenda, Proclamations and Recognitions.

These are matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

Very good.

Thank you Chair Galloway and thank you Clerk Borgeson.

During the time set aside for matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning matters previously considered by the Board or matters that are pending before the Board other than items listed on the agenda for a public hearing.

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer.

The timer will commence when you begin speaking and this begins your allotted time.

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

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

When called to address the board please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County your magisterial district.

Address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

If you have written statements or other supporting material you may email them to the clerk to be included in the record.

If you represent a group or organization you may identify the group to be recognized.

If a speaker does not use all allocated time the unused time may not be shared with another speaker.

Speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during each of the public comment periods per meeting.

Back and forth debate is prohibited.

You're reminded that all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

And Clark, would you remind me, I think it's star nine if you are on telephone, to be called before the board?

That's correct.

All right, thank you.

And thank you, Chair Galloway.

Hey good afternoon board.

My name is Terry Maynard and I live at 334 Yancy Mill Lane.

I've already talked to several of you personally either over the phone or in person in reference to the mitigating conditions the board is considering for the approval of the special exemptions for Yancy Mills.

I'd like to address the issue of having a 45-foot truck access gate installed directly across from our property.

I've had a long conversation with Mr. May last night, and while I understand his viewpoint, I don't agree with his logic.

The gate, in his mind, is essential to the safety of the community.

If a truck turns down Yancy Mill Lane, instead of not turning into the mill, this proposed gate would be the only means of safely allowing the truck to enter the mill without having to back up

on the 250.

So there are several issues with this line of thought.

First, as an individual that currently holds a federal CDL driver's license, I can say with some certainty that no reasonable qualified person would back a truck blindly on any state road, let alone a highway.

Second, there's a much easier mitigating control that the mill could implement to prevent trucks from turning down our road.

A sign, a simple plain worded sign that states no trucks allowed.

Third, in reference to safety, a log truck in the state of Virginia, depending on trailer type and axle spacing, can weigh a maximum of 84,000 pounds.

Yancy Mill Lane is a 1.5 car width gravel road without a graded shoulder and is not equipped to safely handle trucks that size or weight.

And fourth, the placement of the gate isn't the safest placement on the mill's property line.

With safety being a primary concern, it's easier and safer to make a slight left turn than a hard 90 degree turn.

If instead of establishing a gate adjacent from our property, the mill could change the location to one that's directly across from Patrick May's property, just left of our property line, which would allow a truck to enter behind the weigh station, providing access that the mill wants with having zero impact on the quality of life of my family.

Furthermore, if the mill wants to install a gate to allow for occasional truck access,

then there should be a condition added to ensure that this commercial low-volume access point is permitted properly by BDOT as required by Title 24 Transportation of Motor Vehicles access management regulations.

There will be improvements required on the road and at the access point which will require permits.

In doing research prior to establishing a project such as formalizing an access point or understanding setback regulations hasn't historically been completed by the mill.

Therefore, I wanted to bring this to light prior to the Board of Supervisors approval of a gate that's being installed specifically for occasional truck use.

In closing, there's no impact to the operation of the mill to require them to install a fence adjacent to my entire property line.

As the 100 foot setback requirement is going to be removed if approved, a fence replacing what should be 100 feet of trees and other vegetation

It seems to be the minimum mitigating condition that should be followed.

What I'm asking for is if the Board of Supervisors ensures that my family's quality of life is maintained and- Sir, your time has expired.

If there's a full written statement that you'd like to be made of the record that you were unable to finish, you can send that to the clerk or the BOS at Albemarle.org.

We'll make sure the entire statement is part of the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

My name is David Swales.

I live at 6259 Rockfish Gap, Turnpike, Crozet, Virginia.

I wanted to address, it's really as we're heading into the final stages of the RA Yancy Mills Lumber Special Request Exemptions, I wanted to finally sort of wrap up, you know, on behalf of my wife and myself, as you're getting into the sort of the nitty gritty details of some of these resolutions to the mitigation documents.

And I think it's imperative that, you know, we focus

The devil is in the detail and I think it's so important that, you know, those details do get registered and reflected in those resolutions and the mitigating documents to accommodate all the residents' concerns.

It's important that we get it right and we turn over a new leaf.

The details listed are a roadmap moving forward and with no details, the big concern for all residents is that

Necessary mitigations either won't get completed, as they're not recorded, or relying on one's memory, everybody will have a difference of opinion, which will create a major issue down the road.

Now is the time to make the necessary steps to get it right, and all details need to be documented accurately to avoid a resurrection of the past.

Prior to today's update provided by Bill Fritz at 1051,

As an example, Patrick and I had spoken earlier last week regarding installing an additional fence on the west side of our property.

What Patrick had verbally

and via email agreed to install the fence.

He was at that time unwilling to commit to a date and a time frame.

The concern would have been, you know, with no time frame in writing, you know, my concern would be, would that happen?

Fortunately, you know, with the update from Bill today, that issue has been addressed, which I appreciate.

But obviously more importantly, there are other items that

aren't addressed and I think there's lots of other residents who have similar concerns for items which affect them more directly than ourselves.

Our next speaker.

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the board.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'm happy to elaborate further on this issue when you get to the next item, but as you know I represent the applicant in the Yancy Mills-Lumber Corporation project.

I just wanted to provide a bit of context on these issues.

You've seen and understand the revised proposed conditions.

We are

I'm more than happy to discuss the reasons for those revisions with you when you get to that item.

I just wanted to make sure you knew we were here and that we were happy to discuss them.

I'll briefly speak about in response to Mr. Maynard's comments about the gate there on Yancey Mills Lane.

Right now it's completely open.

There's an 80-foot fence that does not currently block the light, and then there's a large area that's completely open, and the company's proposing to replace that 80-foot fence that doesn't block light with what is effectively a 225-foot

and then a 45-foot-long gate.

The gate is just to provide essentially emergency access in those rare occasions when trucks do inadvertently turn down Yancy Mills Lane.

It provides an option for them to

get into the mill without having to back up all the way backwards on Yancy Mills Lane onto 250.

So again we're happy to discuss that issue in greater detail and respond to any questions that the board members may have on this or any other item going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you Grace.

And then the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Supervisor Price made the motion.

Supervisor McKeel with the second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer.

Yes.

Ms.

Price.

Aye.

Yes.

All right, and then we'll address 83.

This is the agreement between Elmore County and the Crozier Volunteer Fire Department for a paving project.

Yes, Mr. Chair, our recommendation was to approve the agreement with the removal of section 4C.

CVFD is still awaiting their approval of the registration.

They were asked to submit more information and rather than hold up the project,

The recommendation is to go ahead and approve it without it.

The registration is not material to the agreement.

I will be glad to move that.

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

All right, Supervisor Mallek made the motion.

Supervisor Palmer with the second.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Yes.

All right, very good.

Then that brings us to number nine, our action item.

This is R.A.

Yancey-Lumber Corporation special exception request and Mr. Fritz

joining us here.

Very good.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

Sorry about the time lag between the two meetings.

You have in your packet you have the resolution that was prepared by the county attorney's office and earlier today I forwarded you some revised conditions proposed by the applicant.

I'm happy to try to answer any questions.

I've drawn a quick picture that shows where the fences are proposed if you'd like to see that or I could just answer any questions you might have.

I will share my screen.

So the red, I assume everyone can see my screen, the red line here on the southern property line of the Swales property, that's parcel 11A.

That was what was discussed previously and was included in your packet.

It's a fence, 10 foot tall fence that would stop just shy, 30 feet shy of the southwest corner of the Swales property.

The applicant has also proposed a fence that would be constructed starting at the southwest corner of the Swales property.

running approximately 190 feet I think it's 189 but uh running stopping just shy or 70 feet shy of route 250 and that's the red there on the west side of parcel 111a and the applicant is proposing to construct the southern fence be this fence here within 90 days of the special exception approval and if that were to happen today that'd be today and western fence would be constructed

120 days from approval.

This is attachment D which is in your packet.

I just simply copied it and this shows the location of the fence and the gate on the Nancy Mill Lane frontage and it shows in red where a fence would be located and in blue where the would be located.

There have been some minor modifications proposed by the applicant to that to clarify the fence is not chain link necessarily it's metal and it has light blocking material.

That fence would be constructed within 150 days or before the sorter receives a certificate of occupancy.

And you may remember that the sorter stacker was going to be built in two phases with the stacker built first and the sorter built second.

All right, so we can go through with questions then.

That's all the presentation I have.

I have the language.

Go through and see if there are any questions.

Sure.

Well, the last map was very, and having the explanation helped a lot, but would you, my question is, are we talking about the first block of, the first phase of this order or the second?

because if it's by the time that the first order building is completed that seems completely appropriate and I would rather not have to wait for all of the other approvals, changes, re-engineering, etc.

So the swales fence is not dependent upon construction.

I understand.

So is that

or whichever is shorter, a timeframe.

Having those words in there is very important.

Otherwise it could be two years.

So I need to have those words in there in order to understand what's going on with that.

It is in there.

All right.

I lost my list here.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Mr. Fritz, can you put up that second image again, please?

One that shows the southern property with Mr. Maynard.

Thank you and I see that we do have Valerie Long and Mr. May on the line.

I would like to hear from the applicant and my understanding is the red line will be a 10-foot wooden fence.

The blue line now is to be a metal gate so that light doesn't come through that.

My question that I would like answered from the applicant if you go to the left on the western side of the mill property it looks to me like the far left is a weigh station scales and if you down that path you can see it looks like there may be an opening

that a fork could be built where if a truck happened to come down Mills Lane they could take a left fork onto the property rather than coming all the way around making a left curb and then a hard left turn into the property and I was just wondering if there would be any consideration for removing the gate from where the blue line is now to over

a little more to the west.

So if a truck comes down, it doesn't have to go right in front of the Maynard's property and then make a hard left turn into the mill.

Other than that, I have no questions at this time.

I do have some comments I would like to make before we vote on this.

Yes, Mr. Fritz, regarding this, let me see here, and I don't know if you can see my arrow.

Correct.

And I would point out the GIS is an approximate location of the property line.

I believe the actual property line slightly to the east here runs more, I believe the actual property line is more here than here.

I have no idea.

That has not been analyzed.

I would point out just for, and I've pointed this out to the applicant also, that construction of an entrance onto Yancy Mill Lane will trigger the requirements for a site plan for this property.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll save my comments for later.

Well, I'll go ahead and make part of a comment now so that Mr. May can explain if he wants to.

Having very recently driven out there to take a look at this and seeing how this tiny little lane is, how small it is, and actually I think this map is a little deceiving because there's

Parts of it, the property line or the mill itself is right up to Yancey Mill.

There's just maybe a couple of feet of something.

Most of the trees are gone.

And I think it is absolutely crazy to try to get a truck in there.

And I have to say that a sign

is much more reasonable to keep the trucks out there.

The Rockfish Gap, they have the whole entire section along Rockfish Gap open for trucks.

So if they want to comment on that, that's fine.

I'll make some more statements later, but I certainly couldn't vote for that gate.

Is Mr. May here?

You're muted if you are, sir.

Alright.

I don't want it to be an entrance.

I don't want trucks to go down Yancy Mill Lane.

I hope I rarely if ever have to use it.

But occasionally a truck will turn down Yancy Mill Lane because it is similar to the name of our business.

And so when someone plugs it in to their GPS and they put in Yancy Mills, they will sometimes choose Yancy Mill Lane and they will take a wrong turn.

And while I agree that trucks should never go down there, I don't want trucks down there.

You know, if someone comes down from New Jersey or Massachusetts or Georgia,

sometimes people make mistakes and I don't think it's a great access point anyway but it's better than having to go out into 250 and stop traffic while they try to back a 45 foot long flat butt bed truck out because it's not a log yard that I'm worried about them going into that's

Let's say they pull into Yancy Mill Lane and I have to get them into my log yard safely.

I still have to get them back onto 250 and back towards my sawmill because that's where the lumber is.

It's a pain and I don't ever want to do that.

It serves no good practical use except for in that rare occasion where someone has made a mistake.

It allows me to get them in and not have to

them back up onto 250 because there's nowhere to make a U-turn on that road.

But I'm not proposing that it is an entryway that is going to be used.

I think that's crazy.

That's absolutely not what I'm proposing.

It's more so I don't want to have to go block 250 and stop traffic to get the truck off of Yancy Mill Lane because they'll have to back up the entire way to get their truck off of that road.

and it's been done before.

And trucks, they're not our employees.

They come from all over the east coast and they have made mistakes and truck drivers make mistakes.

That's one of the reasons we got to have the shipping business.

That was clear to me.

My follow up would be if it's that rare, it's not that big of a problem.

We put the signs up, we figure out how to keep them out of there.

I think it should be a solid fence for those folks.

You know, there's no setback there.

I don't know if we're going to end up requiring some trees there, but it's just a really horrifying situation the way the mill has come all the way up to the edge of that road now.

And I just think if it's that rare, then, you know, that's great.

I'm glad it's that rare.

Let's put a sign up there and try to make sure it's even less rare.

Yes, thank you.

I very much appreciate Donna Price's suggestion of halfway down the road because as someone else with a CDL license backing up on a curve is the very worst thing you can ever do.

Whereas doing something on the straightaway right off 250, getting them into the property just south of the scales seems to be the only thing that we could approve as far as the safety of this thing.

I'm quite sure that once a gate is there, it will end up being used by people out of Patrick's control.

And that's the reason not to have the gate down there at the houses.

All right.

Supervisor, some of you alluded to making some statements or having some statements.

Yes, could we please go back to the second, the one with the blue line.

Clicking too fast.

Okay, so, Supervisor Price, where were you, now that I know that the trucks would be going down Yancey Mill Lane, where were you suggesting putting an entry in?

Right about there.

That's right about where it is.

Although, and I don't remember if it was Mr. Fritz or Mr. Campner mentioned that you would then have to do a site review and VDOT approval and everything.

So after the full discussion, I'm more inclined to support a big sign at the intersection of Yancey Mill Lane and 250 that says no trucks.

I tend to agree I think having a sign there otherwise Mr. May is going to be going through a lot more expense putting in an entryway where you suggested but having a large sign there saying no trucks allowed you know I would think that could do it should do it thank you

We want Supervisor Mallek, did you have a follow-up?

If you're not speaking, there is some background noise coming from somebody's mic.

Just make sure you're muted if you're not speaking to cut that background noise out.

So what I'll do now, Board, if you're ready, we can go through, if there were some general statements to be made, we can get that out of the way and then we can go through the items.

Nope, I'm just waiting to go through the items.

Supervisor Mallek, any additional comments at this point?

I'm waiting for the list.

All right, Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, and I want to address my comments in general, but also to three particular individuals or entities.

I met with Lisa about an hour and a half, walked the property with her, saw the situation.

I want to express my appreciation for you, your husband, and the other residents contacting the board about the quality of life issues that are impacted by the mill and that I do care deeply about the impact it has on you.

I had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Maynard earlier today where we went over a lot of these same sort of issues and I thank Mr. Maynard for coming.

I want to, and concerns.

I want to express my next comments directly to Patrick May.

The track record of the mill in terms of compliance with zoning in the county is pretty horrific when you look at it I believe from an objective standpoint.

I think an opportunity to spend an hour and a half with you walk the mill listen to you and even your candor today about the gate

I want to comment both to you as the individual, but also to the owners of the mill.

If it's the previous leadership of the mill that was coming before the board, I would be much more reluctant and supportive.

What I have seen and the sense I have is that you have taken this seriously.

You've acknowledged the failings of the mill in the past, and I believe that you've made a commitment to do the right thing going forward.

And it's frankly because of the action that you have taken that gives me a sense of confidence

that you will come through and follow through.

And so ultimately, I will be supportive of the mill, although we will go through each of the conditions.

Yes, I just wanted to know regarding where the Swells property is.

I notice on the southern fence there, there's a gap.

Can you explain why there is a gap?

On the west side, the fence doesn't go all the way up to 250.

So the gap, let me start with that one first.

We're gonna try to not leave a gap there.

But there is a culvert there, and so that may lead to us having to, but my goal is obviously not to, but in case, I don't wanna promise something that I can't do.

Because then everyone's gonna be upset with me, and I'm not going for that.

So that's the 30 foot gap and I'm trying to not have that.

But I just don't, like I said, I don't want to make a promise that I can't keep.

Mainly because it's the terrain more than anything.

And then on the Yancey Mill lane side, we want the fence to... Oh, we're talking about swales to 250.

Sorry, my mistake.

We're gonna take it up to where there's just this it changes elevation a couple times there and so that last section where the parking lot is that's really where we're looking at stopping the fence because at that point it it's not

Okay thank you for answering both questions and I do agree with you regarding the culvert because I've seen that culvert so hopefully yeah then that is something

that you have to be cognizant of.

Thank you.

Just a few comments.

This board has spent a lot of time talking about setbacks.

We've talked about setbacks with respect to our homestay applications quite a bit.

We're giving a lot of special exceptions for setbacks here.

and we understand why we're doing that.

We want the mill to stay in business.

We want it to thrive.

We're dealing with disorder and the stacker, hopefully to the satisfaction or at least the reasonable satisfaction of the neighbors.

It is a lot about the health of the neighbors here and the setbacks

I am very, very troubled by the setback along Yancy Mill Lane.

If you have been out there, the trees are gone.

And I haven't heard anybody on the board talk about trying to put a line of trees or something to filter all the dust, filter the air, that sort of thing.

We're giving basically a complete okay on the setback.

on the Yancy Mill Lane.

And I don't really think it's a very good thing for the health of that community, quite frankly.

We're doing a lot of stuff here.

I totally completely understand why we're trying to, we wanna keep the mill going.

I mean, that's important to this board, quite frankly, and to everybody in the community, as well as the Yancy and May family.

And I just, I think we really, really need to think about this complete okay on the setbacks on that area for the health of that community.

And I hope we do.

I think that fence should go down to the road.

Maybe there are some issues with the terrain there.

It's hard to see, but

and I do understand that it was explained to us that the trees make the wood mold get moldy, but there's just nothing there.

And a 10 foot fence going all the way is appropriate.

If we have to put a gate somewhere, I do think that it should go closer to 250 and not right across from people's homes either.

So I hope that that's a discussion we can have when we go more through bit by bit.

And Supervisor Mallek, you had a follow-up question?

When we talk about condition five, we will talk about that zero set back for storage of wood.

All right, so when we're talking line by line, let's all get on the same page.

Those three special exceptions are the ones that are at issue today.

Which was one, two, three, five, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen.

And then eighteen and nineteen were removed.

So that's item four, six, and seven is the three that we're coming back today.

So I'm presuming that's what we mean by line by line.

We're going to go through number four, six, and seven.

During the meeting previously several of us made very clear that until we saw things written down this was in concept and we were going to be approving these conditions individually at the next meeting, i.e.

today.

So I am very concerned.

I've gotten reassurance from multiple people

In the meantime, over the last week that we were going to be going through all of these, I've notified of the different ones that I had concerns about, that citizens had concerns about, and now to say that we're not going to talk about 5, 15, 16 is a really big problem because we did not do individual condition votes

and everybody made a point to say it hasn't been written down.

We don't know what exactly it's going to mean.

And to be clear, the conditions that are attached to four, six and seven are conditions three through 10.

plus an amendment to one.

Well, it would be really great if we could go down the list and look at them so the public as well, all of us can be in one place looking at these 14 things and be reassured that we don't have anything we have to say about any of them.

Please.

Yes, that would be just great.

I'm trying to find it myself.

There you are.

This is just pulled from our website.

And is there a way to just enlarge that some?

I'm working on it.

Thank you.

So then let's quickly, I mean, I would imagine we can move through some of these.

Greg, is there a list of the conditions that are here?

We'll get to that.

Make sure they were there and available so that when we got to them, we weren't moving around in places.

All right, so let's just march through them.

No.

Can it just be explained which one comes into play with Yancey Mill Lane?

Yep, and Bill, if you could point that out to us when we get there.

Number two, any objection?

All right, number three, any objection?

Yes.

Yes.

OK, help.

No.

Shoot.

It'd be possible to see where that comes into play.

Bill, you are muted.

I went the wrong direction.

It'll take me a minute to find that, but I would point out that we did an analysis of the special exceptions for the reduction of the storage of lumber, logs, chips, and timber.

and what we found was from the review of the historical photos that we have of the property going back a number of years that the areas had been used or appear to have been used for the storage of

these materials as far back as we can see in the photos going back to 1980.

There may be a few places, but by and large these areas have been used.

There actually are some places where they are using less area now than they historically have at some points in time.

So I don't have a map that shows the specific places.

There is a map, which I can find pretty quickly, that was included in the original packet prepared by the applicant that shows all the portions of the property where they're requesting that reduction.

If you can really quick, that would be wonderful.

Any objection to number seven?

I'm sorry, yeah, that's the new number.

Any objection to number eight?

Just a second here.

I've got too many too many screens open simultaneously.

There you are up to number nine.

Yes.

All right, any objection to number 10?

13?

Bill, if you could scroll down.

Thank you.

Number 14?

Yes, please.

Unless the weather is incredibly cold, I see no reason why this should be, engines should be starting at six o'clock.

We have had numerous forestry operations on our property over the last 50 years and the foresters who have been in charge have

Forbidding anybody to turn on the machinery because of the noise that it creates.

And these very large engines are not something like turning on the diesel Volkswagen in your driveway.

These are really big sounds.

And then it turns into extra operation because we have to move them to get to the next one.

So does that mean that the beeping, maybe this is a question for Mr. May, does that mean that the backup beeping will begin at six o'clock?

As somebody who has woken up to backup beeping every morning, including this morning at 6.30 for the last year, that's a really, really loud noise.

And I know we've had that explained that that noise does not come under the

Here we go.

So the warming up of equipment is not so much loaders, but these hydraulic power units that

We have electric motors that are tied to electric, or not electric, but hydraulic pumps that are coupled together.

And we have large hydraulic power units that power the stationary equipment that runs the mill.

So that is part of the warmup process.

Not so much the, I mean, would we like to be able to unload logs at six?

Yes, but the biggest reason for the warming is

The equipment, even in the summer, oil has to warm up.

But it's more so in the winter, it definitely has to warm up.

We warm it up for about an hour before we even run it.

It's kind of like when a restaurant opens, they don't open for business.

There's a lot of prep work that goes into getting it ready.

Our prep work is cleaning up and making sure that we have a safe site.

No, the thing that has to warm up is not... Yes, wheeled machinery in the dead of winter is nice to warm up, but the physical fixed equipment is the stuff that needs to warm up.

So if we were to, oh I'm sorry Ann, go ahead.

A clarification in the wording that says warming up of fixed interior equipment can start at six.

That I think is something I can support.

I would agree with that.

Do any other supervisors have an opinion?

May I comment on it?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

So, in the wintertime, if I just turn on the engine on the loader, is that, would that be your, so I would need to wait until about 7.30 or 8 to then unload logs?

Is that what I should tell the loggers?

I think that would be seven, right?

I can't safely unload them.

If that equipment is running cold, I don't think that's a safe way to do business.

So like in the dead of winter, the reason we'd want to be able to start that thing up at six, because that oil has to warm up.

Because we're moving a lot of weight.

It's not like starting your car.

The best person for me to bring into this would be like really any the tapscots can tell you they're not going to just start the machinery and start unloading stuff.

In the summer I can let it sit for five or ten minutes and run it.

My concern is just stuff that doesn't come under the noise ordinance.

Well, it's just running in place when it's being warmed up, so there is no beeping if it's just warming.

Yeah, I remember you saying that.

My personal opinion, I'm one board member, but my personal opinion is if it comes underneath the noise ordinance, I'm okay with it.

If it's something that doesn't come under the noise ordinance, then I would prefer you not start that till seven o'clock.

Yes, I have a question for Mr. May.

So from what I understand, you would not have any vehicles with the backup noise.

That would not be happening.

You cut out a little bit on me.

Between 6 and 7, there would be a logging truck that pulls on the property beforehand that wouldn't be mine.

I don't even know if they have backup alarms.

The only sounds that we have right now have been, so when we first pull a forklift up, it drives down to where it's going to go work for the day and it waits and it sits there.

So there's no backing up and pulling forward.

It's waiting for the mill to start running and the mill doesn't start running until seven.

So it's idling.

The loudest beeping noises I know of right now are the trash trucks that come at five twenty six in the morning.

And I can't

Right, no, understood.

Okay, but the things that are warming up, how much noise?

No, no, no.

The stationary equipment.

The stationary equipment is covered by the noise ordinance.

And that is compliant.

We're not running the equipment.

It's just that equipment is essentially idling as well.

So if I'm not running a piece of stationary equipment,

No.

Then I'm not sure what we're talking about.

I think we're getting it straightened out.

I'm a good person, but I think we've kind of, I'm okay with it, sounds like Ann's okay with it, sounds like everybody is okay with it as long as

It's the noise that is covered by the noise ordinance, go ahead and start it at six o'clock.

I mean, I think that's where we are.

So why are we asking for a special exception?

Oh, okay.

The reason why is because we want to continue doing what we've historically done, which is warm up our equipment.

and it gets into that gray area of what constitutes running.

Is it when I run wood?

Is it when I hit the start button to warm something up?

Is it when I'm stalling?

Is it when I'm pushing a broom?

What is startup?

And so the purpose of our request is clarification.

So just the same way

A restaurant opens up and they have pre-open activities.

Yeah, and I don't have a real problem with it other than a process because I thought we voted on these at the last meeting and it seems like we're revisiting them and from a process standpoint, I guess I just am trying to figure out exactly.

We've already voted on these.

I mean I don't disagree.

I did have a question for Mr. Campner.

Item 15, the fact that we're not saying that the warming up of equipment, they're not asking for a special exemption from the noise ordinance regarding the warming up of equipment, correct?

Yes, it violates the noise ordinance.

The reason why the applicants requested this special exception is because the supplemental regulations that apply to sawmills and woodyards don't allow any machinery

to operate between 7 a.m.

and 7 p.m.

And it was at 7 a.m.

time, probably the ambiguity in that language, whether or not the startup was actually operating the machinery.

So this takes care of that issue.

Oops, I have a question.

Whatever, it's my turn.

You call on me.

All right.

So we've just talked about how the loaders, unloaders, grapples, all those things are not going to be running before seven o'clock.

And now we have number 16, which says that they're going to be allowed to load and unload wood products in that 6am to 7 interval.

So those machines are not included, if I understand correctly, in the noise ordinance.

They are like tractors on a farm.

So that is why I'm very concerned about both 15 and 16.

But we can't have 16 if we're assuming that everything is sitting still idling between six and seven.

These machines are going to be moving forward, picking up logs, backing up, if number 16 is approved.

and I just don't understand how those things can go together.

Yeah I can respond to that.

So in the last meeting the biggest reason, I mean would it be nice to unload the loggers at six to help them get back on the road?

Yes, but if that's the big concern then we can keep with the seven o'clock hours

The biggest reason we were asking for the 6 a.m.

That's not a problem.

So this condition can be worded to say unloading and loading of the kiln.

And then I would have absolutely zero problem with it.

But I can't, without question, I have to question the fact of the big trucks coming in and unloading everything at 605.

If I can add one bit of additional information here is that the ordinance requires or limits the hours of loading and unloading to between 7 a.m.

and 12 midnight.

So in essence what the applicant is requesting is a time shift of one hour to start one hour earlier than the ordinance currently permits and end one hour earlier than the ordinance permits.

That's for loading and unloading of wood and wood products is permitted by the ordinance to occur between 7 a.m.

and 12 midnight.

What the applicant is requesting is that they be permitted to load and unload between 6 a.m.

and 11 p.m.

And that's number 17.

I had no problem with number 17, so that's why I thought number 16 was the trucks unloading their cargo in the woodyard.

and that is where I do have a problem that that be started before six o'clock because it means that all that machinery is really running at six o'clock in the morning and many neighbors have complained over the last 10-12 years that things do start a whole lot earlier and I understand people show up to work but that doesn't mean we should be writing it into our approval to continue on with that.

so we you can't have it both ways here either the kiln we know is 24 hours a day that's no sweat we don't have we shouldn't use that as an explanation for number 16.

I'll just say I agree that the six to seven should not be

especially given how close, especially how we are forgiving all these setbacks to start this kind of loading and unloading at six o'clock in the morning.

Once again, we have this dilemma where the board actually acted on special exception number 16 on July 15th.

and if there was a failure by staff to recommend a particular condition, that's on us.

But there was a discussion by the board and as Bill mentioned just a couple of minutes ago, what this really was, was a shift in time from six to 11 versus from seven to 12.

If the applicant is willing to volunteer some conditions related to this particular special exception, that would be appropriate.

Well, really what's in front of the board are special exceptions 4, 6, and 7 which deal with the sort or stacker.

Mr. Chairman, if I can jump in and perhaps address that question and try and provide a little bit of clarification because I think there's some confusion and it may have been on our end a little bit.

As Mr. Fritz indicated, our request had two parts to it with regard to this issue.

One was to shift the starting time for loading and unloading wood

to be permitted to begin at 6 instead of 7.

The main reason for that is because that is the historic time for this ever since the mill began certainly prior to 1980 when the regulation was adopted they have been loading and unloading woods beginning at 6 a.m.

That's when the logging trucks arrive because they they get there early

because they need

I won't demonstrate that from the record but the loading and unloading of wood has long been occurring prior to 7 a.m so our request was just to clarify that and codify that with this special exception as part of that however and so that would that would be contained in request number 16

Number 17 was related to the same regulation that prohibits loading and unloading wood except after 7 a.m.

We wanted to be clear that in the event technically that the pushing of the wood into and out of the kiln on that cart

constituted loading or unloading wood, that it was clear that that could occur at any time because of those occasions when it does need to be done in the middle of the night if a load of wood is finished drying.

So they have long been unloading wood.

so um to the extent that's the concern the loaders do um so maybe i'll let Patrick jump in on that uh you know the loaders do have second forms um sorry i wasn't prepared to speak on all these matters i thought some of them had been wrapped up so i apologize if i mixed a few things up uh so on the unloading of wood

We're not running forklifts before seven.

We have historically run the loaders at 6 a.m.

And we have not been doing it since I talked to my neighbor who complained about lights because he said his problem was with lighting.

And I had shifted our process to seven o'clock temporarily to the detriment of some of the loggers.

May I just ask a question real quick?

I just have one question.

Since the other mills have gone out of business and you have put in increased equipment to make yourself more competitive and stay in business, aren't you doing a lot more business now with respect to, there's a lot more activity at the mill?

The amount of business we do varies.

Right now with COVID, no.

We are not doing more business than ever.

We're doing less business than we've done since before I was there.

It's been a difficult scenario for me and any other business owner in this community.

So I don't really know how to answer, are we doing more business this year?

No, we're definitely not.

Last year, we did less than the year before that.

And the year before that, we'd done more than the year before that.

So it's, I mean, there is a cyclical pattern.

Part of it has to do with market, the cost of production.

There are some times where it costs more to actually make wood than we can sell it.

It is a commodity.

It's very stressful because of that.

But when there is a good market to sell in and we have

With what I'm hearing here, my understanding of number 16 was the shift.

I do remember the shift cutting off the end hour at the end.

I mean, an extra hour in the morning or an extra hour in the evening.

I mean the trade-off is it either goes to midnight or it starts earlier.

So I don't really know how to judge that.

Noise after 11 p.m.

and noise before 7 a.m.

seems equally problematic.

But I think they were trying to cover the noise with the other items, trying to get started to be able to run by 7.

So that was my understanding when it was before us the last time, for what it's worth.

For 15, 16, and 17, I've heard some concerns from two folks, some questions by three.

Do we need to modify any of this?

Is there more than three people that want to modify the language here?

By my count, I did not have the numbers to be able to go in and alter any of this.

Alright, back to number five.

Yes, I did.

Let me stop sharing this and start sharing another presentation.

This is the presentation that you saw at the previous meeting.

There you are.

So the areas in purple there show where there's a reduction of the setback that was proposed for the storage of material.

And you can see over here on the left-hand side, that's Yancy Mills Lane.

I did find, and this may be helpful, I did find, I did not find all of my research, but I did find some of my research.

Sorry, I gotta work through some of the,

So this is an aerial photograph from 1980.

It's of questionable quality, but you can see the area is disturbed all the way to or very close to Yancy Mill Lane.

If we go to 1974, I believe this is 1974, you can see that the area was largely chosen white.

You can see that the area was

either actively being used or was devoid of any trees in this area.

And then going back to 1967, 66, excuse me, you can see storage along there and entrance down here.

So you can see the area has been historically used and we used all these photos and I had to blow them up and do other things.

But that's why we said that

By and large, the areas that were being requested for a reduction in that setback were areas that had previously been used for storage.

We'd made no official determination, so even if these requests were denied, the applicant would have the ability to request an official determination from the zoning administrator of whether or not a nonconformity exists.

Hope that helps.

Thank you.

I have a question.

My question is I understand historically piles have fallen and that's what happened to the fence over the years so if there is a zero setback and the log piles go right to the property line

That is exactly why I raised this issue as concern instead of a 10-foot or something like that so that there is some possible ability to keep your materials on your property better and keep drivers on the road and others safer.

So if this is not possible because for history we've always been letting this happen then I'm outvoted obviously but I think it is a safety concern to have these enormous high piles of very long logs stacked on top of each other and right at the property line.

That's why I raised it.

Yeah, I want to see right around where the Maynard's property is across from there and those houses.

I recognize that we did vote on that.

I don't have, I see three arrows on Bill's picture.

I don't have any problem with the other areas where we have it.

I just think that we need to do something for that section of Yancy Mills Lane.

So

And I know Mr. May has said he's going to put a fence there, but it's not extending very far.

It's just going to the very edge of that property.

And in addition, the gate, there's, I mean, it's basically just a log laying across the, across the, across the area now.

Are there any other objections?

Hearing only two, it doesn't rise to the number needed to make any changes to number five.

And the conditions.

Well, do we want to work through the conditions, or do you want to work through the three?

The conditions, I would imagine, are addressing most of those three.

Let's go through the three, yeah.

Three that are, this is the new list, then they would be eight, or are they still four, six, and seven?

Four, six, and seven.

So four, six, and seven were the three that we were delaying, deferring action until today.

Seems to me that working through the special conditions probably makes sense in how we're addressing four, six, and seven.

So let's go there.

All right, number one, special, any questions or comments here?

Right, number two.

What about Bill's changes?

Because I haven't gone through Bill's changes in his email.

So we're going to go through that.

Mr. Chair, I just realized I believe there's an error in the building permit number.

the emails that Bill sent are number five and six or what or where those are addressed so number four while Bill's completing them one and then number five is the building permit timing and this is where the prior to earlier 150 days approval by the Bill

or the issuance of certificate of occupancy for the sorter equipment.

That would be great because one of those was the change in the fence and I would yeah I'd like to see that.

So number five.

Seems to me this got worked out through some conversation earlier.

I'm afraid I can't read that fast.

Yeah, on number five, I'm just one person, but I do object to the gate.

I think that that's a bad idea.

The gate in that location is bad.

Are we through both of them?

Just one minute.

So the gate along Yancy Mill Lane is supposed to stop right at the edge of the Maynard's property across the street.

Is that we cannot go farther down Yancy Mill Lane towards Rockfish Gap?

The gate was on the right-hand side of the property, and the next property to the east there is not actually part of the Yancy Mills property.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I understand that I'm talking about the fence.

Maybe I said the wrong word.

Why is the fence having to stop where it is?

Okay, I'm surprised.

I just talked to Mr. Maynard yesterday.

and he would very much like it, he said yesterday afternoon that he would like it to go further.

I personally think it should go further.

I think that it's a mess over there.

Ms.

Palmer, I can address that if you'd like.

Please.

Thank you.

I first met with Mr. Maynard back in early March, and the sort of genesis of the fence at all was a request of his to block the light from the trucks that are there in the morning.

There is an existing 80-foot fence there.

There's obviously a span that is not fenced that's open, which I understand you saw yesterday.

I recognize what he said in the meeting about the light

I'm talking about what it looks like given that we're doing a zero lot line and a setback and the fact that the fence that's there is pretty much a joke.

We're proposing to instead of the original request from Mr Maynard was to extend that fence to the end of the property line furthest from Yancy Mills Lane rather than just extending that fence which as you note is not in good condition and does not block light

Patrick proposed something which we thought was better was instead replace that 80-foot span of fence that wasn't blocking light with a much longer fence, 180 feet, that it would extend almost all the way to the end of the property.

They do want to leave that gate there if you'll agree to it.

But the request was about blocking the light from the trucks that come in the morning.

He had expressed that was his only concern with the mill at the time.

Extending the fence further in the opposite direction towards Route 250 poses a number of logistical challenges.

Among other things, there are numerous utility lines in that location.

There's overhead power lines.

There are underground utilities.

There's a fiber optic line and some other phone lines.

There's also a berm in place up closer to Route 250 that does provide some limited screening of the mill from Yancey Mill Lane.

It's right on the property line.

It would require grading that berm down, which we would prefer not to do, in order to extend the fence.

And the fence is also extraordinarily expensive at 10 feet tall.

So this was really a courtesy request to address Mr. Maynard's original comments to us about that it was all about the noise from the lights, excuse me, the light from the trucks that because of the angle that they came in would shine into his bedroom lights in the early morning hours.

So certainly we didn't want to do that.

So they agreed to extend the fence and address that particular concern.

So that's the genesis of that.

We think it's just there's no additional benefit to Mr. Maynard with regard to light blocking by extending the fence further.

In addition, Sarah May, who you may remember as the one of the officers and directors of the company, owns the lot adjacent to Mr. Maynard.

Mr. May is going to be moving there soon with his family and they would prefer not to have the view of the

We're trying to address Mr. Maynor's initial concerns, which we agree are valid.

Frank Lee, you know, still improving upon his request.

Again, there's no fence or any light blocking material across a large span of the area across from his property.

And we'd replace that with either an 180 foot fence and a 45 foot gate if you're agreeable.

The text you have on your screen includes revisions we made to clarify that it wouldn't be chain link, it would be metal and then it would have light blocking screening material attached.

In order for it to be a sliding wooden fence, the surface would need to be paved.

right now the ground right there is not paved so that would be additional disturbance and you know the point is really just to provide on those very rare occasions when a truck does unfortunately go down that road it doesn't happen often but when it does happen it's very challenging and so they just want to have that as a as a last resort option for when it's needed for emergency fire ingress and egress and the event that's ever needed it's a long time historically existing

Thank you.

I do.

I have more of a comment and maybe a suggestion.

This discussion was to be held from 2.30 to 3 o'clock and we had another agenda item.

We are now pushing almost 4 o'clock.

and we're revisiting items that we've already supported.

I'm not trying to disenfranchise or to stop good discussion, nor am I trying to undercut anything that the neighbors or the applicant needs to have discussed.

But I am going to suggest that we need to come back to this again at another meeting

because obviously there have been meetings and discussions and we've been getting information sort of at the last minute and I really think it's important going forward that all of the supervisors hear the same information at the same time and that has not happened and it's added to the confusion.

So for me, I would like to see us, I hate to say it, but because of the way this has played out, there's

I'm just not comfortable at all with the transparency.

Well, I don't disagree.

I mean, at some point,

And this isn't on anybody.

Things change, comments come up, and it goes.

So I don't think any of this is purposely done.

But the fact is that the packets get put out, we study the packets, and then if information comes after you've already gone through that material and changes, it does make it difficult.

Right.

And I'm not agreeing it.

I'm not blaming anyone.

I'm just saying that we're going on to four o'clock.

We have an affidavit planned things.

Our whole agenda now has been derailed.

And that's OK.

But what we're seeing happen is just not good.

It's not good progress.

And it doesn't make for a good proposal at the end of the day.

And so we've got to get this figured out.

We want to do it right.

That's right.

I have no problem with that.

My concern is that we had a lot, we went to, just a quick comment, we went to 11 and 30 the other night with a whole lot of conditions and a complicated situation.

And we tried to bring it back.

What won't be coming back are the items that were already voted on.

And I would request that we all hear everything at the same time together.

And I don't think any changes should be made last minute to do this again.

Mr. Kamner, are there any legal things that we need to be aware of?

Who is asking for... None that I'm aware of, Mr. Chair.

I honestly don't know where we are on the time limits right now.

There was a deferral, so we'd have to go back and look at that.

Valerie, we're going to defer this and bring this back, so please don't try to argue the counterpoint.

Mr. May, is there any issue for you to come back at a later time, at the 19th?

I'll be glad to.

17th, I'm sorry.

19th, it's the 19th.

You give me the time and I'll be here.

So we can get all this ironed out, it's all in writing, it's all clear.

and I would like to state that it's all in the packet on the packet release and that everybody understands the changes between the packet release and the meeting time are going to be problematic so that we can get everything set in square so that the supervisors have a chance to do all the reading and the prep and ask questions as needed.

Same for the applicant, same for the residents that are around and then we can just tidy this up on the 19th.

Good suggestion Supervisor McKeel.

So Mr. Chair I know you're moving to the next item.

This is Jeff Richardson.

The staff has been directed by the entire board to go back and work on any final changes and then the staff will bring this back to the entire board.

Is that correct?

All right board the next item on the agenda we had a discussion item this is number 10 from the public matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

So board this was a conversation that's just simply board discussion around our public comment procedures.

give a little history obviously when we went to the virtual meetings back in March.

Basically in the pre-agenda meetings we kind of cleared the agendas if you would of any major items for the first initial virtual meetings.

We took off anything that could have listed a lot of public comment.

We pushed those back.

Anything that were high controversy type items, we pushed those back until we had some dry runs, if you will, on other matters to be able to get through the meeting, see how the process would work running the Zoom meetings as a public meeting, and we did that.

In the, as part of that, in the chair, vice chair pre-agenda meetings, that's when it was decided and Supervisor Palmer sent an email question out about this, that in the meantime, we would not be entertaining PowerPoints and photo presentations and things like that a part of public hearing, just as we work through how to run these meetings virtually.

So the last time we had some conversations, we were thinking this could be a pre-retreat or a retreat type item to discuss further how we would handle public comment, things like amount of time, amount of signups, time limits for speakers, et cetera.

And that that could come back either as a special meeting or as kind of a retreat A or retreat B.

before our other retreat that we'll be doing in September.

As there was time on the agenda in August, we decided just to go ahead and add this in today.

So now it's just time, and I know that each board member have thoughts on where we should go, and they're thinking of general public comment and public hearings a little differently.

So today's really just a time for us to have that conversation.

and throw out our ideas, see if there's any consensus on it.

I don't think any of the changes will be made necessarily right away, but we can at least get the thoughts on the table so we're all on the same page and make some decisions of how to move forward and handle the public comment and the public hearing stuff as we move forward with the virtual meetings now that we've had several of these under our belt.

So what I think I could do, if everybody's ready for it, and if you'd like to defer to hear others and come back, that's fine.

I won't box anybody out, but we'll just go through our speaking order

and if you're ready to make some comments about what you think we should be doing for public comment, public hearing and to share ideas and we'll see where the discussion goes.

Vice Chair Price did I miss anything there from our going back to our pre-agenda meetings and kind of working through this?

I don't believe so Chair Galloway I think you've addressed it all adequately.

So we can start, Supervisor McKeel, did you want to start us off?

You're first up.

Yeah, I think we need to have a discussion, so I appreciate you putting this on the agenda for today.

I will say that I am frustrated personally at 9, 10, and 11 hour meetings.

and I think we don't make good decisions when it's late and I think that it's not fair to staff.

Often they're pushed off by an hour or two even on their presentations to us or we're having to cancel agenda items.

I think we need to wrap our heads around this and I think public comment right now, especially with the Zoom format,

but even without the Zoom format needs some attention.

And I think we do need to look at perhaps

the different types of public comment.

So I'd like to just, since I'm the first one out of the gate, I'd like to hear what other people's thoughts are and suggestions.

And I have some thoughts around some changes, but let me just leave it at that for right now.

Good decisions aren't made really late at night and we have to figure out a way to be fair to our constituents, fair to our staff,

And I think our processes right now are probably out of the norm of what our other peer localities are doing as far as time and public comment ability.

Thank you.

I have a very specific question, which has come to my attention because I guess I missed the boat when we were doing this originally, and that is that we have now a disparity in our public hearing setting.

That's the one I'm concerned about here, where an applicant has the ability to speak for 10 minutes and have all the technology that they wish

but anyone else who is speaking in the public hearing response is not allowed to put up a powerpoint and this happened to an application at the planning commission the same application is coming to us tonight and I think when people have prepared their materials or hired an attorney or would like to have their three minutes be something that's a little more visual

and more able to be done seamlessly.

And I've been told by our staff that the technology is not a problem.

As long as people provide the information in advance and everything is loaded quickly onto the county computer so there's no people not being able to open things, for example, then I would really hope that we would consider

right away making that adjustment.

Attorney Campner said that we did not have any vote on this particularly it was a general discussion and so it's something that we should have we have the ability to modify because I don't want people going home mad thinking they've been treated unfairly and then they go to some other recourse that ends up taking a whole lot more time for our staff and applicants and everybody else.

I think what we can do, once we get everybody's general thoughts, I'll try to keep track of the topics here and then we can go back and just hit them individually.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

I've been an attorney for over 40 years and every judge I've ever appeared before issues a case management order which requires the parties to submit their proposed exhibits and documents in advance of the hearing.

I believe that as an every legislative body that I've ever

either observed or been a part of.

I worked with Congress for two years in the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs.

We had requirements to submit information in advance of any hearing.

So first off, I think anyone who wants to submit anything to the board, we need to set a deadline and we need to hold to that deadline.

If you want something to be considered by the board, it needs to be submitted at a reasonable time before

I would suggest 48 hours.

That gives staff an opportunity to review it to ensure that it is appropriate and actually have everything set up so that it can be viewed.

Every legislative body that I've observed has a limitation on the number of speakers for matters from the public.

both in terms of the number and the amount of time.

And for hearings, they also set a time limit.

If you watch Congress or any other legislative body, the state legislature here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it will set a specific amount of time for a topic for discussion.

And at the end of the discussion, you go to a vote.

So I believe that we have sort of self-inflicted some of the injury upon ourselves by not establishing and then enforcing time limits and numbers of speakers

for the items that come before the board, and I think that would be appropriate.

Thank you once again, Supervisor Price, for taking all my thoughts and ideas, but I concur with that.

I do believe that we should be able to allow

people to do their PowerPoints if they're prepared and they submit their materials in advance.

No exceptions and 48 hours would certainly give staff enough time if there are any glitches and I would certainly want Mr. Richardson to weigh in on that to see if that would be enough time.

And I think there should be a time limit and I think if we have

One comment, I think it's the clerk's office that's going to have to comment on whether 48 hours is enough time.

Public comment, my feeling with that is pretty strong.

I have no problem in limiting the number of people that speak before it matters before the public, not for a public hearing.

If we limit that to 10 people or whatever, then we know what the maximum situation we can get off schedule for.

Public hearings, my experience with those is that we should not limit the number of people.

I think that's very, very important to the public, especially when we have very difficult subjects.

I know that this board has been pretty arbitrary in figuring out which one should be at two minutes and which one has been at three minutes, and I think it's very

aggravating for the public to come in and spend a lot of time preparing a three-minute discussion for a public hearing on something that they're really sincere and very passionate about, so I would prefer not to do that.

I'd rather see a limit on the amount of time that supervisors make their statements rather than put a limit on the number of time the public makes a statement.

With respect to the PowerPoints, I'm fine with that.

I completely agree with Supervisor McKeel on not having these meetings go so long.

I think there are some agenda management issues we can look at.

and I have every confidence that Ned and Donna and the clerk's office can deal with those kinds of, you know, brainstorming or whatever about what kinds of agenda changes can be made.

Just the example of today on the agenda, I really think that the Yancey Mills with the things coming in at the last minute, it could have been postponed till the 19th from the very beginning.

So we weren't trying to run around trying to read things at the last minute.

And, you know, this is my problem, but I did not really understand when at 11 o'clock at night when we were trying to deal with the Yancey Mill that that one little section was a zero.

said back right along Nancy Mills Lane.

So I mean, that's my problem.

But and I prepared hours for that meeting.

So I think that there really is a problem with trying to make decisions at 1130 at night or 11 o'clock at night.

So I would like to figure out how we do that.

It used to be that we started our meetings at nine o'clock.

We changed that.

I'm not suggesting we do.

I'm just saying that that was one thing that did happen.

for years prior to me getting on the board.

Soon as we got on the board, we went to this one or two o'clock in the afternoon.

So I'm just saying that maybe that's an agenda management issue, but I do think that we as supervisors have to be a little bit more cognizant of how long we speak rather than reducing the public.

I think it's reasonable for the general public comment up front, especially if we communicated out that the number of speakers or the time slot, we agree to a time slot that would be allowed for public comment.

I know that in the past when there have been those times where there's more than ten and the time thing goes from three to two,

But somebody had like thrown out 10, so you could maybe do something where you say we could have 10 speakers, that's 30 minutes, or 15 and two minutes apart, you still allow for 30 minutes of time.

And if we need to get more speakers in, then it would allow the chance for five more folks to speak, but then all everybody's time on that would go to two.

and then as an agenda and management item it could just be 30 minutes that you're allowing for public comment.

In the course of the meeting that would be a full hour because they would have 30 there'd be 30 minutes at the start of the meeting and then 30 minutes again at the six o'clock time frame.

And then that's been one of the items recently that has been putting us back I'm hearing the

I think with that type of management, that that's a reasonable thing, a way about going about that based on past practice.

but then also just we've got to have the time to do the work that we're going to do in the agenda.

I think in relative to the visual aids I don't I mean I think that when we've been here live and in person

They've worked pretty, you know, the speakers worked with the clerk's office and had that set up and ready to go.

So, Claudette, I don't know if you want to speak to that.

Would you see any difference in workload relative to how we did it when we had live meetings versus virtual meetings?

Mr. Chair, I don't see an issue with that.

And then I think from our standpoint, past concerns about somebody having control over our screen, it would give us a chance to maintain that control so that not just anything can be put up for visual display.

Now for public hearings in terms of the time frame and the number of folks I mean that has added to lateness of meetings as well.

I don't know I've heard different ideas on this but that I think it's a tough one.

I certainly can appreciate and understand that you want to allow everybody the chance to speak the ones to speak on it.

Those tend to be very specific items for public hearing but I know that in my district the Wetzel property I mean that I think that got us

I think it was 28, 30 speakers that night, so that was an hour and a half just in that alone.

So if we're going to think about doing some time pieces or some sort of control over the time limit on that, I think that's an item for further discussion.

I think that's specific to the public comment.

I think what happened today, I think that, I mean, your comment about agenda management is noted.

I think for the presentations.

I think if you're signing, I think the other piece is do we require signups?

If you've got 10 slots or 15 slots and like today we had three people signed up, if a fourth person just wants to jump in and they're not signed up, we'd have to figure out what the protocol is for that.

I think that certainly when we are in person,

We have people that hear something and really want to say something and I think that's important to allow people to do that.

I like the idea of, in the beginning of the meetings where we have the stuff not for a public hearing, if you just give a time slot and say this is the amount of time that I have, that we have, I would prefer that rather than requiring people to sign up because a lot of people don't understand that they can sign up.

I hate to

I think we should be.

I think it's important to allow people to do things at the last minute.

Maybe they just heard about it.

Somebody called them and said, oh my goodness, what the board is doing tomorrow or whatever.

I think it's important to allow people to do last minute.

I think the only exception to that would be if they have a presentation, if they want to present something, they would be allowed to do that.

And I would imagine if you're getting a presentation ready that you probably have it ready.

I can't imagine anybody would try to put a presentation—well, maybe I shouldn't say that last week.

But I think somebody that's going to the extent of getting a presentation ready for us probably knows well in advance of 48 hours of when they're opportunity to speak will be.

Well then is there any objection to just we can do a run of this and we'll have to decide on when we implement this but in terms of just setting aside 30 minutes for general public comment and by any objection to the thought of having that be 10 at three minutes or 15 at two minutes depending on the amount of signups in advance?

Understood the pain of trying to shrink a three-minute thing in the sitting in the audience while you're waiting to have your turn I would perhaps suggest that for the matters from the public we just say it's two minutes and up to 30 minutes total that way people can prepare and if they need to get a friend to do the second half of it or something like that then that will work but

I'm very partial to having people know in advance that they would have X amount of time for the public hearing comment to which so much of their lives depends sometimes.

And we've had a real assault of very, very high pressure.

items, which have been stewing for years in the last couple of months.

So it's no wonder that we're reeling from this.

I understand completely the exhaustion.

I feel it.

So I hope that when we get back to a little more normal life, it will not be as awful, but I really count on that chance for people to have their say.

This way, if they don't get what they want, at least they got an even shake

and they feel as if their voice is as important as somebody else's.

Having written many, many, many of these statements to give before the Board of Supervisors and other bodies in the past, it's very difficult to do one in two minutes.

So I'm a little concerned about the two minutes, especially if you have a complicated issue that you have to

This is the latter, the public comment not on the agenda right now.

So we do two different times?

We have two different times in the agenda for general public comment.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, I guess when I threw out the 10 at three or the 15 at two, if you're requiring a sign up in advance,

As soon as you hit the 11th speaker, then there's an acknowledgement to those who signed up that it switches to two.

I don't know if that's possible, but they're signing up electronically.

And the idea is we don't get that many folks beyond 10.

I mean, if you track 12 months in my own just memory, there's been a handful of times where it's gone past 10 speakers.

but I would think with technology, if you've got 30 minutes slot and that's gonna be maintained and 10 people sign up at three minutes, you got it.

Soon as the 11th person signs up, they're all alerted that two minutes is now the protocol and you can allow four more speakers.

Yeah, it's interesting because for years we've had on the back of our printed agenda more than 10 speakers are signed up to speak.

The time allotted will be reduced to two minutes.

We've had that on this piece of paper now for years.

We did that in 2016.

What's really important for me is that we treat everybody the same and that if we require sign ups that we make sure everyone signs up because to just allow people to drop in and out

really is not fair to the people who are going to the trouble to think ahead and sign up.

Now what Ned is suggesting is a little bit different take on that and I get that, but I think we have to be respectful for people that go to the trouble to sign up

and Joe Bob, however, we have situations now where people are gathering in homes and passing the phone around at the end of the meeting at 11 o'clock to speak.

Now, that happened to be during a public hearing, but I just think, somehow or another, we also have to remember that there are other ways for people to reach us.

We have email, we have telephone conversations.

This is not the only way that our public is reaching us.

I mean, I think Donna said at one point with one proposal that came forward, she had what, 700 emails?

I just was going to say that what has been done in the past was the chair or the vice chair who's ever doing the public speaking will say

You know, we've done this in the meetings.

If you have something different to say when it's getting late, or if you're repeating the same thing that your friends have said, can we just have you people stand up?

Now we can't do that in a, you know, in a virtual setting.

But certainly if we have the situation like we did with, you know, with the

with the gas station out in Black Cat Road where there's a campaign and everybody is saying vote yes, vote no, and we have hundreds of emails.

That's certainly something that the person who is running the public hearing can ask the public to do.

And I've heard that many, many times when I'm sitting in the Board of Supervisors back before I got on the board.

So, you know, we changed this in 2016, and we reduced the number when it got to be 10 to two minutes for just a couple of hearings.

And then other hearings, we've decided not to do that, for instance, on the statues and the guns, or I guess it was the guns, we decided not to do that.

So I definitely want, I think we definitely need to be consistent about this.

And

Just to keep this on track, and I know there's more to be discussed here, is there any objection then for the general public comment?

And then we can put this into play at our next meeting unless Greg advises me we should take a little more time before we implement it.

But we set up a 30 minute time slot and we can go with 10 speakers at three minutes.

And then it may give us time with Claudette and the Vice Chair to explore if the other option to allow more speakers at a lower time is even feasible.

I don't think we can make that call today.

But at least we can start saying that's going to be the process moving forward.

And then that gives us a very specific time that we can start planning our agendas around for the rest of the as we continue.

Yes.

Should we have something where someone who speaks and matters to the public at one o'clock should not speak at six o'clock and vice versa?

Because there have been cases where people come twice and say the exact same thing.

I think we'll see how that, we'll have to see how that goes out.

And I do mean the 19th at our next, at our next meeting meeting.

I think the, we have to get into the public hearings, but it,

I'm talking about the general public comment on the 19th would be the soonest we could implement that.

Craig, is there any reason why we should take longer to implement something like that to make this change?

What we can do is treat what you've just said as notice to the rest of the board and we can bring back amended rules.

And then we can do the same for the visual aids, the 48-hour piece.

It sounds like the clerk's okay with that.

And let me, just to confirm, up to 10 speakers in 30 minutes?

Three minutes a piece, yeah.

Well that's fair, that's why I was saying if we wanted to... We could start it at the first meeting in September if you want.

I mean, I'm open here.

I didn't come in with any preordained kind of setting on this.

I wanted to see where the conversation went because it seemed like people had some pretty well starting to define where they were at on this anyway, so I figured we could move it along pretty easily.

I just think that's a really good idea because then we all know everybody sees exactly what we're talking about and there's no confusion over what we agreed to this, no we agreed to that, right?

And then if anybody has concerns, we can pull it off consent and just address it.

I can't imagine it will be a real long conversation, but is everybody okay with it coming back on consent for that piece?

Yes.

To me, for the visual aids, that applies to both the general public comment and the public hearings.

So I think that just handles that item.

For the public hearing now, do we need to have further or others want to weigh in on their thoughts of either limiting time, speakers, etc?

Because that's still an item that we're not really arrived at a destination on.

Let me just because I think everyone should weigh in on this just for order's sake let me go through the order or speaking order and that'll help probably us trying to jump in.

Yeah, and I'm not trying to pull Jeff into what really is our decision, and I understand that, but Jeff's had a lot of experience with boards and public hearings, and I'm just curious as to what Jeff's thoughts are about what he's found that works, because we really are struggling to maintain a meeting time that we can all deal with.

Good decisions are not made at 10 and 11 o'clock at night.

We used to have a chair of the Board of Supervisors who at 9 o'clock put his gavel down and said, I'm done, and would leave.

Is that a suggestion to me there, Diantha?

Oh and this board has talked about different board members have made those observations today and collectively when I add up all the years of experience this board has I certainly don't have more years of experience than this board.

I've been in other places and I've been in places where we've struggled with late night meetings and I know Mr. Walker and I have talked about it and he has as well.

and we often search hard for that balance of effectiveness as it relates to openness and transparency with our citizens and such.

But yes, ma'am, I do believe that once you pass a certain time in the saddle for meeting time, and that's certainly subjective and somewhat personal, but certainly pass a certain time in the evening, I don't believe we're at our best and I've shared that with each of you individually.

and I appreciate the board's attention to that and I appreciate your interest and your energy in trying to figure out ways to back that down and I worry about your own safety.

Several of the board members are here late at night and you're traveling back at home.

In some cases several of you have been traveling after midnight and staff is talking.

about our worry about you being on the roads at such late in the evening.

This board I think today is recognizing that how tired you are.

Your meetings start at one in the afternoon and in the cases of recent work that you've done you've been here past 11 o'clock and that means you're into your 11th hour of a virtual meeting and it's exhausting I'm sure for the board.

and quite frankly, it's exhausting for the staff as well.

We're here for you, but I just don't know that we do our best work in the 11th hour of a meeting.

I think that in some prior situations I've been in with public hearings, we've said we're just going to attack public comment for a certain period of time and then we've got to move on and make a decision.

I look back personally at the Boyd Tavern situation where 35 to 40 speakers were lined up to speak and I heard the same information a lot over and over and over again.

and this board did too with speakers basically making the same point and so in past jurisdictions I've been in where we would have long public hearings the board made a decision and said we're going to cut public comment off at a certain amount of time

because you know we've got to manage the agenda and make sure that things are that we get to everything on the agenda in the evening and we know we're going to at some point run out of energy.

Well, and just to add to that, because I did ask Jeff to respond, I think we need to realize that while we start at one, staff starts at eight, seven o'clock or eight, in the morning.

And when we go that late on Wednesday evening, they still have to come in the next morning and go to work and survive Thursday and Friday.

So that was one of my points way back when when I suggested we move to Thursday evening because that at least the staff would be able to say we've got to live through Friday and at least we have the weekend to recuperate.

Liz's point about starting at nine o'clock, my recollection of starting at nine o'clock in the morning was that we still got out at nine or ten o'clock at night.

So whatever amount of time we allow, we fill it up.

So I am in no way interested in moving back to nine o'clock in the morning, which would only give us an even longer period to be just a comment on that one.

But thank you, Jeff.

Yeah, I wanted to jump in because, you know, the late night items that we're the board's experiencing with the land use items and under the state planning and zoning laws, these items that require public hearings, the public's allowed to appear and present their views.

So we can, the board is able to control the time that each speaker has, but

I'm not aware of any authority that allows us to cut off

the number of speakers.

There are a lot of techniques that the board has applied, and I think Liz mentioned one of them, and that was if you've heard somebody else asking people to stand up if you support or whatever, because there is a lot of repetition.

So just for clarification, so we have people that sign up for our public hearings.

We're also allowing people to just free flow in and out with comments.

How does the law affect that?

You know, we're

So even with the Zoom, obviously the Zoom changes it a little bit because we don't see them, but they're still, so they can be in their living room with 20 people and just pass the phone around.

At some point, you know, you reach this point of

where the whole statutory scheme and the whole practice breaks down where it's almost like a filibuster.

Right.

What our peer communities do, our other counties do that we consider to be, because when I look at, when I did my little independent survey back in January,

Yes, we are

We as an organization get into the details and that's part of what Lincoln's meetings are.

And that's just the way it is.

But I can take a look and see how, whether and how other localities are curtailing the number of speakers at public hearings.

The other thing the board could do

Right now, the board's rules allow three minutes for a speaker, and the board can reduce that to two minutes or to one minute and invite written comments.

It's important for folks to understand we're not trying to shut down any kind of public dialogue.

We have email, we have phones, but at some point we can't continue to have these meetings that go all day long.

Okay, so yep, Supervisor Mallek.

Sorry.

All right.

So I'm intrigued by this concept of having a group of people and passing the phone.

So Claudette, does the phone, do you disconnect somebody after they've had their comment?

Because that would be a way to control that.

It's just, that's all new to me.

And I guess I've already given my idea about having a fixed amount for the different categories.

And so I guess I'm behind.

So I was just surprised to hear that that might be a way that people are getting five people in on one phone number and that I didn't know that that was a possibility.

So I was just told that's what happened.

Okay, well, you maybe I just I'm not arguing.

I was just surprised.

But I do and hopefully tonight we will come back before we stop this discussion with the

Do we allow someone who sent in their materials for tonight's public hearing Monday at the latest of, tried first on Friday and then sent everything on a Monday to allow their representative to use their PowerPoint tonight.

And I think Claudette, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's more the Zoom meeting.

So these are people that did sign up ahead of time.

But then they're all around one computer, not one phone getting passed around.

That's correct.

And it usually has to do with connectivity issues.

I see why they do it.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And that makes more sense.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Mr. Campner, you indicated a moment ago that we have allowed people to speak even though they had not previously signed up.

And you mentioned that we have allowed three minutes per speaker, but we could change it to two or one minute.

So I would ask that you clarify if we established a procedure that required people to sign up in advance,

and I offer out 48 hours as a suggestion that it sounds like we could limit the number based upon that procedure.

So I'd ask that you get back to us on that.

I exchange 763 emails with regard to that application.

At the public hearing, as I recall, there were approximately 48 speakers, the last six of which were in a single residence.

And candidly, I don't think it makes a difference whether they've logged in on one computer or they use one phone.

If they've signed up, they've signed up.

So and I'm not suggesting that we limit all public hearing comment from the public to 30 minutes.

I think as we have a recent ability to identify the significance of issues based upon public concern and interest in some public hearings will be longer than other public hearing.

I believe that if we do not establish a process and a policy and a procedure and then comply with it

And I can tell you specifically that there is one vote that happened at about 11 o'clock at night

that in hindsight, I don't believe was necessarily the right one.

And it goes back to we are killing staff, we're exhausting ourselves, we're not being efficient.

And when we hear multiple people saying exactly the same thing, then I don't think that really adds to the public discourse.

I am not trying to limit public input, I'm not trying to limit public communication, but I believe that we have to be reasonable or we will not be an efficient board.

Yes, I agree.

I think with the Boyd Tavern,

Bill incident.

The fact that we had so many emails we could have easily anticipated the fact that we would have gotten a lot of public input and therefore had limited it to signing in advance like we did but then limiting it to two minutes.

People have to get their thoughts together they have to be efficient and I think as board members we also need to do that.

We extend our meetings a lot longer because we just go on and on and on and on

And I think we need to focus on what we want to say and get that message out to everybody and then call for the question and move on.

So I do agree when I think we have a lot of emails, we know what

issues are hot topics and limit the amount of input we receive from the public in just say two minutes.

But I like Supervisor Galloway's suggestion that for general public comment we limit it to 30 minutes and then we can say it's either three minutes or two minutes and then for regular public hearings if we have a lot of people signing up then we do the same thing.

because I think the public wants to be heard but then they also want to be able to stay up to hear the resolution of our decisions.

We're not going to be staying up until 11 30 at night to do that.

I have consistently complained bitterly about late night meetings over the years because I am an early morning person.

I'm up at five and I try very hard to go bed at 930 each night.

So I'm all for trying to figure out

how to do this.

I'm hearing from Greg, which I'm kind of glad to hear from Greg, that we are not supposed to be limiting the number of people who speak at a public hearing on a land use matter.

And he's going to look into that.

And I very much appreciate that.

If we have over 30 people signing up, I mean, these really long public hearings, we frequently will go for a long time without having one of those.

and then all of a sudden lately we've been having a bunch of them in a row.

And I think part of it, too, is that we're on online now and we've had a lot of glitches in the beginning trying to get things moving, etc.

So for the public hearing, I would prefer the three minutes.

And if we have X number of people signing up, we can, you know, have a thing that says something more than 10 for public hearing, I think is appropriate.

and then we can switch it down to two minutes.

I agree with Bea about we have to limit as much that we're talking.

And also, I think it was Ann that suggested in the very, very beginning of this whole thing about the representative from the applicant's representative.

But we have some very talented

people who represent our applicants who come before us time and time again.

And we are not as aggressive sometimes as getting those people to stop talking.

And I think that that's one thing.

The limit now is 10 minutes.

I don't know if that's required by law to give them 10 minutes.

or if we should be cutting them back and being a little more aggressive about when they come back up to respond to the public when they do the public hearing.

Sometimes we just let them go on and on and on.

And so I would suggest that those who are managing public hearing

That's fine.

I'll respond to that.

If you've sat or close to me during a meeting and vice chair can do that on all of my sheets, I take very careful notes of when things set.

So the chair, the clerk prepares a script for me

and on it has item start, item end, staff start, staff end, public start, public end, and then board start, board end.

So I can look back since I've been chair and I keep all of these agendas in my desk here and see very clearly how much time each person has taken.

So I can tell you since the virtual meetings have gone on that the 10-minute rule has been adhered to religiously by the clerk.

Here's where the applicant gets a chance to go on and on is when a supervisor asks and allows the applicant to respond to their question and then we get more presentation times and more visuals and that has happened

frequently.

So I'm hearing loud and clear that the supervisors want to be more regulated in their time and I'm happy to take that task on.

I just hope there's no kickback on the items that are of more priority to some other than others.

It's a delicate line to try to walk sometimes of trying to keep things in order and moving on.

And case in point, like I was looking back through my notes in the Child Development Center,

the um you know the public ended at 8 19 and we didn't end until like 9 20 and that was one of the shorter ones so that 40 minutes there well i guess it's even more that's almost an hour of board time after the public comment ended so we and that um that was a long evening

We started at 6.24 and ended at 10.55, and that had less than 30 speakers, so there was an hour and a half of that four and a half hours was public comment.

I'm using that one because I probably took some time myself as a supervisor that night.

So if whoever is chair is speaking, then the vice chair gets the job of regulating that speaker because technically the gavel is supposed to change hands when the chair is speaking on a night

But I've got that for Boyd Tavern.

I've got that for the first round of Boyd Tavern.

The same thing was the public ended at 851.

The first one we went to 922, so we took an extra half an hour.

I'm happy to enforce more, I think to be honest in being the one that's managed this, since we've gone to the virtual meeting, our time has been better.

When I've gone through a speaking order and called on supervisors, I think that really helps move us along.

The piece that I struggle with is if a supervisor is asking questions, be it of staff or the applicant, that they're really for understanding, it's hard to try to cut that off because that's needed to make a decision on the vote.

If we start getting into

Long-winded statements for other reasons than understanding and how to take the action.

I think that's where we can limit some time.

But honestly, I don't see many of you doing that.

It's really more about understanding the topics at hand.

So if we're all in agreement that that's a way to police it as well, then that's my job as chair to run the meeting.

So let me just ask a quick question as a follow-up to that.

For instance, today I asked the question about Yancey Mill Lane and the applicant's representative gave a very full explanation and then went over everything that was said in the last meeting.

I mean, I'll be happy to, you know, if that's

Me asking, I would be happy to break in as I tried to do at some point today to say, OK, you know, I get that.

Just answer the question.

And I do recognize that the 10 minute issue has been adhered to.

We've been very good about about that all along.

And as you said, it's the follow up.

And I'm happy to give you a high sign.

If you get the answer to your question, it's hard for me to decide if you've got what you need.

So once you get what you need when you ask a question, the virtual meeting, it's easy.

Just send me a chat.

I'm happy to put the conversation off and move us forward.

That's good.

I'll do that.

The trick would be when we get back into the live meetings at some point, we can have a chat up as well.

That would be feasible.

That works for me.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to ask would it be helpful if we try to be more conscious of our board packets now usually the Thursday before and of course we all read our board packets at different times but rather than waiting for the meeting to clarify our questions we really tried to get with staff on our questions ahead of the meeting

might help a lot.

Now, that's assuming that we're asking those questions because we need clarity.

If we're asking the questions because we want to make sure the community understands the situation, that goes down into a different.

sort of discussion.

But it does seem like to me that if we have enough time that we ought to be able to reach out to staff and make sure that we have our questions at least on what's in our board packet answered before we get into the meeting.

That might help a lot, Ned.

I don't disagree.

I mean I think and I you know we we do see a lot of that and staff is always being very well cognizant if if one of us asks a question and doesn't copy everybody else that they think is pertinent for everybody they're making sure that they get that out to everyone per our operating guidelines.

The only other thought I have relative to public hearing understood we cannot limit the number of speakers.

The time could possibly be limited.

I know

Board members are not always wanting to have extra meetings, but it occurred to me while we were having this conversation that during the virtual meeting setting, it's been easier for us to have an extra meeting, a special meeting.

So part of this, when I look at some of these agendas that have had some moderate public comment or even longer board discussion on top of another one that's a high profile topic,

it could be possible that if we have a Boyd Tavern or a Parkway place that we know is going to generate interest that we keep that off of the main agenda and schedule the public hearing in that second Wednesday time slot where all we're doing for the meeting is that big item.

It would require the extra time but it's different coming in person for the extra meeting I know than logging in for the virtual meeting.

So that's also I'm just throwing that out as an option I'm not

You know, it's hard with timelines to say you can't put a certain item on an agenda item if it needs to happen that night.

But if we're doing this ahead of their own deadlines, then we should be able to manage it.

If we come in with fresh eyes and ears at six o'clock, have a public hearing like a Parkway Place or a Boyd Tavern, and that's all we're doing that night, that might be different than having four or five hours plus two or three other smaller public hearings plus that big item all in one sitting.

So just throwing it out there as food for thought.

That would take, we obviously discuss in pre-agenda items that we think are going to generate larger public comment than others when we're trying to order what goes first and second etc.

in the evening.

So it certainly would be manageable ahead of time thinking a month or two months down the road when this stuff starts to get scheduled.

But the board would have to be willing to meet for that extra meeting for a large public hearing or an anticipated large public hearing for that to be possible.

So are we at a point where we want to say that I mean in terms of time limits for public hearings do we want to start we've got the consent item coming back to us for the general public comment do we want to consider putting a time limit on speaking time for public hearings or no?

I don't know that we can in advance because I think it depends on what the topic is some public hearings are much more

I'll use the word controversial or generate much more interest.

So I think that's something that the county executive, the county attorney, the chair, the vice chair and the clerk need to look at in setting up the agenda.

Thank you.

Yeah, my concern is being different.

It's like you have to be the same for all public hearings and don't start saying this topic gets a different time than this topic.

That to me is, that's troubling.

because we have had supervisors who have said, oh, I want more time or this particular person to be able to, you know, I mean, over the years.

So we do need to make sure we treat everybody the same.

Yeah.

I think, though, that we've seen the public interest that's generated and, you know, again, I'll go back to other legislative bodies, Congress, they don't set

the exact same time limit for every item that comes before Congress.

But you know maybe Greg needs to weigh in on that as well.

And since I mean we're under the time allowed I know we're running behind in the agenda.

We still have a little bit of time.

Do board members want to give some thought on the public hearing portion?

Best practice.

It would be interesting to know what other communities are doing.

Doesn't mean we have to adopt it, but I just would like to know how other communities are handling it.

Right.

Supervisor Mallek?

No, I got it, Diantha.

That's fine.

I'm happy to have the separation go ahead with the matters from the public as soon as it's practicable to do and to try to keep the three minutes for now for the public hearings because

Not having backlash later and having people get mad and take us to court is a really important thing.

We want to do the best job and have the perception among the community members.

Not that we're wasting time and we're bloviating up here.

but that they have a chance to say what they're going to say in something which is incredibly important.

Usually our zoning things are of people right next door and they have a great potential to feel aggrieved and so I've always tried to go out of my way to listen and try to, even though they don't get what they want, lots of times they do not get the decision that they choose, that they support, but they do feel if they've had their chance, the same as everybody else, that they will just have to live with it.

and I just want to make sure that we're not falling into a hole of letting that perception get away.

I would just say also that

we might want to try on our next controversial meeting to say something about if you hear your comment already made by somebody, please consider limiting your comments or some way to acknowledge that, I know it's really hard on a virtual meeting and I'm not quite sure how that would be, but to try to figure out a way to allow people to show their support

of a speaker without having to actually speak.

And I'm hoping that if we do talk about limiting the amount of time, we pick a number that's larger than 10 for our public hearings.

That's it.

All right.

Obviously this particular one will continue.

So then there's the matter of the request for this evening that there was speakers asking to present material.

They provided it, it sounds like in advance.

Do we want to allow this tonight?

Right, and Laudette, do you have the information in hand?