Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   11/18/2020

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our November 18, 2021 PM meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A, an 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 is logging in right now, so she will be joining us here in a moment.

She represents 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 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.

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

Also with us today, we have our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner, our Board Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgeson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

Thank you, board.

And if everyone would please join in a moment of silence.

And that will bring us to number four, adoption of our final agenda.

We do have some things here to amend before we adopt.

kind of take care of the low-hanging fruit here.

I know that Ann had requested we'll add at the end from the board committee reports a discussion of approaches to broadband use in other places and possible direction given to ABBA.

I myself would like to add a conversation about boards and commissions that operate in the county.

both of those would be from the board.

And then Supervisor Palmer and Supervisor Malek we're interested in item 8.3 the stream health initiative update be pulled from the consent agenda.

So we will pull that and then just take that up briefly right after the approval of the consent agenda if that's fine.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Yes, I would like to add to the final agenda a proposed motion to amend the board's rules of procedures pertaining to matters not listed on the agenda for public hearing in order to allow the applicant and the public to comment on previously deferred applications when they return to the board for consideration.

And during the actual discussion I'll propose the specifics of that motion.

I'm sorry you said at the beginning of the six o'clock is that what we had?

Yes sir.

Okay so there's the ones that are known are there any other amendments or changes that need to happen before we adopt as amended?

All right, we can call the vote, please.

Ms.

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

The next item, number five, brief announcements by board members, and we'll go in our order or speaking order for today.

So, Supervisor McKeel, you were first.

Thank you.

The Studio Tour, the Artisan Studio Tour, which normally is one three-day whirlwind, has now begun last weekend, but it is online from now until the end of 2020 at www.artisanstudiotour.com, so please stop in and visit with the 37 artists who are there.

I am on the NACo Arts and Culture Commission and there is an ongoing effort to collect images and videos from localities across the country in ways that artists are helping to heal their communities.

That is the theme of this year's effort to bridge cultural and racial divides through art and somehow referring artists as our second responders

in this role so I would ask if people have information to share with me that they would please avail themselves of that.

The Croze master plan work is zooming along.

There were over 70 participants in the meeting last week.

Lots of challenging new concepts are being introduced by staff to solve problems that hopefully if they work in Croze will be able to be used across the county and the other growth areas.

This is a little anxious making for the Croze residents who feel a little vulnerable since nobody knows exactly how it's going to turn out.

But we're all working very hard together.

And lastly, my virtual town hall is tomorrow night at 7 p.m.

And White Hall residents have done a great job and please do more to send questions to me beforehand by email if possible so I have a better chance to get the information together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chuck Galloway.

The only thing is that I will be having a virtual town hall meeting on Tuesday, December 1st at 7 o'clock.

Notification for that just went out today, and I look forward to virtually meeting with as many of my constituents as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to give a shout out to the election board for the outstanding job that they did.

For our elections, we had an unprecedented number of early voting, ballot mail-in voting, very high turnout, and I think Jake Washburn and his whole team of workers and volunteers did an outstanding job in making sure that our procedures were seamless.

Last shout out goes to our own Grace because this is her one year anniversary.

So I'm glad she's on board.

Well, I was going to add a little something to Grace Tamblyn's one year anniversary.

I'm amazed to know how fast this year has gone by.

And I just want to say that a lot of people don't understand what the clerk's office is actually doing because

They see us and they see everything running smoothly.

But Grace is back at the clerk's office running the program that will be online for those who want in the future to watch portions of our meeting, go back and see what happened if they have a particular issue that they're concerned about, or want to find out more about.

So we really appreciate the clerk's office.

and Grace has been a great addition to that office.

So that's all.

I was struck by the comment that our board clerk made in sending a note out to us that the fact that we all talk about returning to a new normal, but she had mentioned that this is Grace's normal.

So coming in at the timing of it, that is true and interesting.

So thank you for pointing that out.

Definitely agree with being grateful to Grace's on board.

We do have a proclamation today in support of frontline workers.

I see Siri's name attached to this.

Is she joining us as part of this?

I'm not sure.

I don't see Siri.

There she is.

She just popped up.

Hello, Siri.

Just want to check in.

Maybe we'll go ahead and do the proclamation.

We'll read it as a motion and then if we need to make further comments, we will do so and these supervisors will have a chance to make comments if they'd like.

I am really happy to read this proclamation, and it is, as you said, in the form of a motion.

Proclamation in support of frontline workers.

Whereas Albemarle County recognizes that frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic are vital for the core functions of the economy and our community.

And whereas regionally, frontline workers receive lower wages on average,

and come disproportionately from socioeconomically disadvantaged groups compared to the overall workforce.

And whereas we have an opportunity for our region to emerge from COVID recovery with an increased focus on ensuring safe and equitable conditions for frontline workers.

And whereas the Board of Supervisors support the ideals of our regional partners

community-based advocates from the Equity Center and Local Steering Committee, Network to Work, and UVA President's Council on Community-University Partnerships to establish a regional standard of fair and equitable treatment of frontline workers.

And whereas the leadership of Albemarle County local government

has taken considerable steps in alignment with the aim of supporting frontline workers, including health and safety precautions, educating workers and managers on COVID safety, financial pandemic risk recognition, paid leave and flexible schedules,

Support for wraparound services and child and family care.

All right, you can call the vote, please.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Bistro-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Very good.

Only that we wholeheartedly agree with the proclamation and we're very grateful for those folks that have been doing this.

It's amazing to me.

I think we have to recognize right now that the pandemic and our challenges are maybe just the worst of it, maybe ahead of us, certainly this community.

Well, we'll have that discussion later, but I want people to understand that we don't think by reading this proclamation that we think it's over and done with.

We just really appreciate the people that have helped us get to where we are right now, and hopefully we will be able to support them going forward.

Yes, well put.

Especially the fact that the board will be supporting moving forward.

Only to add that among the community members, I think there's a much greater understanding of how everybody at all the different jobs across the community have to be pointing in the right direction, the same direction to make any progress on this and that people are so grateful for all the work that the people in the stores are doing and the rescue is doing and fire is doing and county staff is doing and teachers and everybody.

And Siri, I see Siri Long.

Dan, did you wish to make any comments?

I know that we'll get this signed and it'll be put in the proper place.

Siri thinks I'm talking to her.

Yeah, that's dangerous.

I didn't have a comment except to thank the board for its continued support of frontline workers and also just to take a moment to thank our partners with the University of Virginia's Equity Center and PVCC's Community Self-Sufficiency Division for their leadership in elevating this conversation for the region.

All right, board.

And that'll bring us to number seven 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.

We do have a couple folks signed up today.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

During the time set aside for matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda, individuals may address the Board of Supervisors concerning any issue not listed on the agenda for public hearing.

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak and a sign-up sheet is monitored through the Clerk's Office.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer.

It begins when you begin speaking and we ask that you bring your remarks to a close at the three minute mark because a few seconds after that your microphone will be muted.

When called to speak before the board we ask that if you live in Albemarle County you state your magisterial district in addition to your name

We that you address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

If you have written statements or other supporting material you may email that to the clerk for inclusion in the record.

If you represent a group or organization you may ask you may identify the group.

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 the public comment period.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

and we ask that you follow these rules in order to provide an opportunity for all the speakers to comment.

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

If you are joining by Zoom, we ask that you remain muted until called to speak and if by phone that you press star nine in order to speak.

All right, and who's our first speaker today?

Good afternoon.

If Mr. Grant you're speaking where you're either muted or we're having an issue.

Frank Lloyd,

There we go.

Mr. Grant, can you speak?

Yeah, I can finally hear you, Ned.

I can hear you as well.

Okay, let's get going so you folks can get out of your meeting on time today.

My name is Gary Grant from the Earliesville area of the Rio District.

It's apparent that the Albemarle Board of Supervisors as a whole

and you six supervisors individually do not care to answer questions submitted by telephone from constituent residents, property owners, taxpayers and or voters.

18 questions asked of you on October 7th and 21st and November 4th by telephone remain unanswered as of today.

These 18 questions now will be submitted in writing to the Albemarle Board of Supervisors as a whole.

and to you six supervisors individually.

Consider this an integrity test of your commitment to your alleged county government transparency related to questions submitted by constituent residents, property owners, taxpayers, and or voters.

Meanwhile, there is still a telephonic question related to today's meeting agenda.

You have a public hearing tonight at which you hear from the public

before taking a vote.

According to your Rivanna supervisor at your September 6th, 2020 meeting, and I quote here, I think most of us, by the time we get there, if we've done our homework, we already know how we're going to vote.

The question is how many of you, in addition to supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, already know how you're going to vote on this item before tonight's public hearing.

Finally, on a personal note, as of last Thursday, with numbered checks 850 and 851, this Albemarle County resident, property owner, taxpayer, and voter now has 2,156 more reasons to expect answers to questions from elected supervisors.

Thank you again for my less than three minutes of your valuable time.

Thank you.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Albemarle County Democratic Party, and I want to celebrate with you the elections operations

during very challenging times during a pandemic with high voter anxiety about getting their votes counted.

We had an almost 80% turnout with 20 precincts over 80%.

I want to congratulate the electoral board, Peter Werzer, Jim Heilman, Michael Rotemarle, and especially Registrar Jake Washburn's office and his staff

for the months of working on the designs for early voting and safe voting for early voting and election day.

Two thirds of our voters voted early in person or by mailing or dropping off their ballots.

Thanks to Jim Heilman for keeping this data separately so we can study what happened by precinct.

Thanks to Lance Stewart for setting up traffic flow

and the parking lots at Fifth Street to keep voters safe and for efficient handling of outside curbside voting.

Thanks to you for providing a budget for Jake so he could hire many part-time workers to handle the over 20,000 applications for mail-in voting to get those ballots mailed and processed when they return.

Jake and Clarice Schimelhorn

recruited at least, and this is my calculation, 300 elections officers who worked at early voting and on November the third during a pandemic.

They made the systems work.

And thanks to the legions of partisan observers and workers during early voting and on November third.

An example was the Albemarle Democrats had over 200 observers and other volunteers

inside and outside the polls on November 3rd.

And a particular huge celebration to the voters who showed up to vote.

On September 18, at the beginning of early voting, people waited in line beginning at 5 45 a.m.

And those included women with their garden chairs and their walkers.

We rarely had lines except on the first day of early voting,

and before the polls opened on November 3rd.

I hope you will agree with us that all of this teamwork resulted in a celebration of our democracy.

Thank you.

And do we have additional speakers today?

We have no more speakers.

I'm sorry, that was no more?

No more.

All right, thank you, Travis.

All right, we will close matters from the public.

All right that will bring us to our consent agenda and just as a reminder 8.3 stream health condition update was pulled and we will discuss that after the consent agenda approval.

Is there a motion to approve consent agenda as amended?

Second.

All right we can call the vote.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Ms.

Ms.

The consent agenda is approved.

And that will bring us to item 8.3.

I know Supervisor Palmer and Supervisor Mallek had both put in request.

Sure.

Thank you.

This item was not for action.

It was just for information only.

So I wasn't quite sure if polling it, how we address this, but

My concern is that it sounds an awful lot like we're doing what we did before.

And there were some problems with the phase one of how it was, how the public responded to it.

I think there was some confusion and whatnot.

And it sounded an awful lot like we were doing something very similar than before.

And so I wanted similar as before.

So I wanted to have a discussion at some point.

I recognize this is not the right time.

but to consider, especially during COVID, maybe a different approach to this in picking, you know, picking a waterway that we know is being impacted, that we know is in trouble now and needs to be addressed and maybe we could have lessons learned from that in a situation where we already know the area residents are very interested in doing something about it and not to

I'm trying to be quick about this, so I'll just give an example of the Mormons River.

where this board is, we've had some discussion about the parking issues up at the reservoir, but we really haven't had the discussion about what's going on downstream from the reservoir.

We've had a lot of complaints.

We know that people are parking, going swimming, sunbathing, not today of course,

but there was a lot of increased use before COVID.

Now it's increased.

We know we've heard from the Girl Scout camp representative that they can't even bring the Girl Scouts over to their swimming hole that they were using before because they never know what's going on there.

There's a lot of trash, erosion, et cetera.

we've got a couple of, we've got several things going on and I won't, we even have two, we even have a put in for kayaks, a takeout for kayaks along those, along that river that are regularly used by folks and that, so anyway, I thought that if we took something and used that as an example,

that we would have lessons learned.

So that's for a future discussion, but I'm just, I'm concerned about repeating what we did before and the reaction that we're gonna have from the public on that.

And I'll let Ann, since Ann asked to have it pulled, she probably has some additional things to talk about, but it's a bigger discussion, I think.

Are you ready for me?

Yeah.

My questions were really just questions in search of answers in the future because I was confused by the status of this process.

Is it just beginning?

Has it been going on for a year?

In which case I have a lot of questions about details under each of these lines here.

and who the partners are and what we're doing and what the engagement is going to be like.

So I'm just looking for more information and I'm not sure whether any of this question now is useful or someone was planning to bring it back with much more detail later anyway and this is just the initial

Here's where we think we're going.

So I don't know how much feedback to dump in right now or whether it's better done at another meeting in the future.

Thank you.

I can.

Well, thank you both for your comments.

Kim Biasioli, Natural Resources Manager.

I have an overview of the project that I think might address your questions and if I might share that now quickly.

Can you see my screen?

Yes.

OK.

So to address Ann's question about where we are in the project, just briefly, this Stream Health Initiative is a large project that, as you all know, started before my time.

It was endorsed as part of the Natural Resources Work Plan and developed as part in response to a lot of the goals and strategies of the Comprehensive Plan and the Biodiversity Action Plan and also was part of the most recent CDD Work Plan that was reviewed.

So the bigger project started in 2017

and there was a broad public engagement effort then that Liz referred to and there was a decision at that time to divide the project into two phases.

Phase one being really focused on the development areas and development related issues related to and strategies for improving stream health and phase two focused on the rural area.

And so all of the work that has been done to date has really been in phase one.

All of the proposals working with the development community and in most recently in July updates to those 13 proposals that Frank Pohl brought for review.

And we're divided into two

categories which unfortunately were also called phases but we'll try to remedy that now.

The first category being those that could be implemented immediately and the second category being those that were put on hold until further budget analysis could be done and in order to address staffing needs.

So the report on the agenda today is really about this new phase of the project

focused on the rural areas and planning for how to engage the public and stakeholder groups, hopefully in new and strategic ways to not repeat necessarily what was done, but rather to build on it and create more of a collaborative and iterative process where we can receive feedback and incorporate that as we work on building solutions.

So hopefully that answers your questions.

Well, I'll be glad to talk to you at a different time directly, Kim, because I am pretty concerned about how this is going, just knowing what happened and what the public's response was the last time.

And I want to avoid that.

So I would love to have a conversation with you about that at a later time.

Very good.

So I will look forward to learning about the partners and all that because there's a tremendous amount of information already available from partner agencies on all these questions.

So that's the detail I'm looking for is how are we getting information from others so we're not reinventing the wheel on any of this and that we amass a certain amount of information first before we go out to the public to ask them what they think.

Because giving them a blank page is very confusing.

Thank you Chair Galloway and Ms.

Bassioli, thank you for your presentation.

I understand this is just sort of a update on where things are recognized or at least I believe that there can be very different considerations between the development area and the rural area where we have agricultural, animal, husbandry issues and everything and I'm really pleased to see that the county intends to work hand in hand with a number of the organizations and conservation groups like the Farm Bureau, people like

because one of the concerns I always have is where it appears that sometimes government regulations put form over substance and here I think we really need to look at what may be the best business practices rather than relying principally or solely on a geographic distance of 50 feet or 100 feet.

So I'm really pleased to see the county is going to ensure that all those voices are heard.

No, I agree with what Liz said.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you, Kim.

Thank you.

And then I just, I do ask that if there's further things go, if there's more like just summary of those conversations, the whole board could just be kept in the loop so that everybody has the same information.

That would be great.

Thank you.

All right, that takes care of 8-3.

The other items got moved to later.

This is an action item, Confederate Memorial Time capsule presentation.

And Siri is back.

I am.

Thank you.

Happy Wednesday again.

I realize I didn't give my title last time and I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to do that.

So Siri Russell, Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

I'm going to share my screen with the group here.

Welcome.

So as Supervisor Galloway already noted we are here today to talk about the time capsule that was recovered from the foundation of the At Ready monument.

Today we're going to give some really brief background and then we're going to spend the bulk of the time with Sue Donovan who will be sharing with the board some of the detailed information about the

recovery efforts of the contents of that time capsule.

We'll speak a bit about long-term exhibition, leave some room for questions.

Oh, yes, you should.

Thank you.

That's an excellent question.

And I realized I skipped a step.

I didn't actually share my screen.

All by myself.

So yeah, now you get to actually see what I'm talking about.

Thank you.

So I just recapped the agenda, but you can see that I am

I have that actually typed out here for your reading pleasure.

So again, just briefly, we're going to hit that background, spend some time actually focused with Sue Donovan on the detailed recovery of the time capsule contents, and then talk about the long term exhibition options.

And of course, there's some time for questions right at the end there.

So, brief background.

As many of you know, the time capsule was placed inside a copper box in the foundation of the At Ready monument in May of 1909.

If you fast forward a little over 100 years here, in August of 2020, this board did hold a public hearing to remove the At Ready monument from Court Square, which was followed on September 12th

of 2020 with the actual removal.

And at the time that the At Ready monument was removed, the time capsule was also removed with consultation from UVA Special Collections staff.

This is an image of what we saw when the time capsule was actually recovered, just to give you guys a little bit of context.

And then this image is moments before it was actually lifted out of the ground

Thank you, Siri.

That was a really incredible moment that you shared with me.

So my name is Sue Donovan, and I'm the Conservator for Special Collections at the University of Virginia Library.

And I'm happy to be presenting to you the Board of Supervisors about the time capsule that was unearthed from the monument on September 12.

So my specialty is in book and paper conservation, but I did reach out to quite a few conservators in different specialties, such as the Virginia State Archaeological Conservator, a local textile conservator, and conservators and historians who had dealt with time capsules before in order to prepare for this time capsule and to help with its assessment once it had been uncovered.

So I was first contacted about the time capsule by Siri.

And during a call with her and Blake Applenaup, the chief of facilities planning and construction, I discussed what I knew about time capsules, including the potential for damage.

So generally speaking, a time capsule is an enclosure made of a sturdy material such as metal or stone that is buried underground, like this time capsule in Raleigh.

Siri, if you'll advance the photo.

Maybe it's one more back.

Oh no, it faded away.

So time capsules are buried under monuments or otherwise enclosed in a component of the building, such as another time capsule that was recently uncovered from a granite sphere on the Salt Lake City Church of Latter-day Saints Temple.

There might be another photo there.

Well, we might have missed some transitions that I put into the PowerPoint.

But so in general, time capsules commemorate a special event, such as the erection of a building or monument, or the turn of the century, or of a specific person.

Their contents are selected by specific communities or organizations that are responsible for the special event, monument, or building.

Historian Sarah Betham notes that time capsules are frequently found underneath monuments erected in the 19-teens and 20s because they were actually part of the fundraising event around the statue itself.

So the at-ready time capsule was filled with documents and artifacts celebrating the Confederacy, and so it represents the culture of a particular community that erected the monument.

Next slide.

So what can go wrong with time capsules?

Time capsules that are buried underground are at a great risk of water infiltration, especially when placed underneath monuments that weigh thousands of tons.

Even a well constructed and sealed time capsule can be breached and its contents damaged beyond repair.

The time capsule underneath the Lee monument in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is what you see here, was crushed by the weight of the statue and its contents were unrecoverable.

I spoke with one of the conservators in Raleigh who participated in the salvage efforts prior to the removal of the At Ready monument.

And they shared with me that because the time capsule had been breached, all that was left of the paper in the capsule were small little pieces of text amidst the debris.

Maybe we can get a photo of that, Asiri.

If you advance one more.

Yeah, there we go.

So this picture of a wooden box, it had been within the time capsule underneath the Raleigh Monument.

And what you see behind the person holding the box is what was left of the paper.

And so that could have been an indicator for me of what was to come.

So the reason why water penetration is so damaging is that water solubilizes acids that are in late 19th and 20th century papers.

and groundwater and rainwater also carry debris and silt that can further damage paper.

And even a small amount of humidity can cause mold growth, which is devastating even to good quality paper.

We can't rule out either that there would be some kind of microbial action within the time capsule, given the foul odors that often accompany time capsules.

So on the next slide, I'll talk about what could go wrong with the particular time capsule underneath that Ready statue.

So based on the list that Siri had shared with me, we knew that the contents of the time capsule were primarily paper and they had been put in there in 1909.

So I was anticipating that there could be mold growth.

I described Albemarle County representatives that mold growth on early 20th century paper would be very damaging and that any rupture of the time capsule box could be disastrous.

That said, the knowledge that the time capsule had been made of copper was very hopeful.

I had hope about that because copper can act as a natural fungicide and pesticide.

And I had discovered that there was a double-walled copper time capsule buried in 1915 and a cornerstone of the Arlington National Cemetery, which had been removed intact.

So while I knew that there was a greater chance that the at-ready time capsule would be in poor shape,

I still thought there might be some hope that the contents could be in fair condition.

So with approval from my director and from my associate university librarian, I offered to receive the time capsule at my lab after it was taken out of the ground in order to assess the condition of its contents and perform stabilization as necessary.

Next slide.

So I was watching the live stream and I was on hand via telephone to answer questions with Siri when the time capsule actually came out of the ground.

And when I saw that hole in the cement filled with water, I knew I needed to adapt a salvage approach, but I wasn't prepared for the extent of the damage of the paper-based items.

Next slide.

So the time capsule contents were completely bathed in water.

The foundation of concrete into which the copper box had been placed had expanded over time, which pushed in on the copper box and popped the lid off, allowing rainwater to come in.

And this meant that the time capsule had been soaking in groundwater since slightly after the box had been put into the ground in 1909.

Silt from the groundwater colored the water brown, coated the exterior of the piles with mud, and effectively acted as an adhesive in between the different layers of paper.

And as the water level rose, the contents of the time capsule became bathed in what the Virginia State Archaeological Conservator called an aesthetic soup.

It was not pleasant to smell either.

Next slide.

Inside the box, the acidic water had stripped the outer layers of metal, leaving the sides of the box orange and shiny, which you can see on the far left picture, while areas above the water line were a dull greenish brown.

Similarly, when the commemorative badges were excavated from the time capsule, the metal was shiny and bright, not at all what would be expected from metal obtained from an archaeological context.

and however, on exposure to air for the first time in over a century, the brilliance of the copper quickly tarnished.

And you can see the difference from when I first uncovered the metal in the middle photo to, I think that was roughly an hour later on the right side in the photo.

And on the next slide, there's a photo, there's gonna be a video and this is of me

uncovering or recovering the metal that you see on the right.

It was just

It was sunk in there.

With my left hand, I'm trying to use the capillary action of the non-woven spun polyester backing to try to peel apart the paper layers so that I could get at that metal.

It was very tedious and very difficult work.

but it was really incredible to finally uncover something like that medal that was distinguishable and that was clearly something that had weathered the course of time.

I think we'll go ahead and advance Siri.

The textiles within the time capsule were also intact, although there was a small battle flag that was heavily stained and only the faintest colors were discernible.

What you see in the left hand photo is me peeling back a silk badge that was listed in the contents.

And in the video on the right is me uncovering the battle flag that had been rolled up that was at the very bottom of the time capsule.

And I didn't want to pull it out all at once because I didn't know how weak the wood of the flag was.

And I didn't want to cause any further damage.

All right, next slide.

In contrast to the metal objects in the textiles, the paper-based items did not fare as well.

Unlike paper made from rags prior to the 1850s, paper made with wood pulp from the 19-teens and 20s has very short fibers and is inherently acidic.

The paper simply did not have the structural integrity to withstand over a century

of immersion and dirty acidic water.

The contents were in two distinct rectangular piles with what looked like paper pulp and other debris collected in the middle.

The exterior edges of the paper piles received the most mechanical damage, perhaps due to water and sediment entering between the individual leaves as the water came into the time capsule, which caused the paper to slough away.

Because of this damage, there was no way to identify and separate one item from another.

And everything felt soft to the touch, like the bottom of a lake.

I usually am able to discern when I'm doing paper treatments.

I'm usually able to feel some kind of inherent quality of the paper.

But when I touched these items, it just

poofed away.

It was really, I'd never seen anything like that before.

However, I did find that I could use strips of nonwoven polyester and the capillary action of wet pages to peel apart sections and reveal some less damaged text in the middle of the piles, which is what you can see me trying to do in the top left corner and on the bottom right photo.

At this point Special Collections Curator Molly Schwartzberg and Digital Production Group staff member Eze Amos photographed pages that I was able to reveal in this manner to help with future cross-checking against known list of contents of the time capsule.

Paper that I was able to peel off in small sections, I laid to dry on the drying rack in the conservation lab.

And a few of the thicker sections I sent to be frozen at the UVA library preservation freezer.

And at the time that I'm talking to you today, the frozen sections are still not ready to be removed from the freezer because of how wet they were when they first went in.

So that's a process that will probably take another month or so till we can try to see if we can separate those pages that have been frozen.

Next slide.

So again, these are more images of what I found really interesting about items that came out of the time capsule and what they looked like afterwards.

On the far left, I'm peeling away a picture postcard of the UVA Chapel.

And when it first came out of the time capsule,

The image was very clear and you can really discern that it is the UVA Chapel, but upon drying the photographic emulsion, it changed and it kind of formed this cloudy image.

So it's a little harder to discern what it is.

and at the top is the medal that I showed you before where you see how it was when it first came out of the time capsule an hour later and then just a couple days ago.

Next slide.

So for my

perspective as a conservator, I think it was quite surprising that we were able to recover as much as we did from the breached copper box.

While the acidic composition of the water meant that most of the paper-based items were damaged beyond repair.

It did prevent a buildup of corrosion products that is typical in archaeological metals.

So the details on the commemorative badges can be clearly discerned.

And it would be really interesting to do some research about where those metals were made and who manufactured them.

And we're able to, we can do that work now because there wasn't a lot of corrosion on the metals as they came out.

And I do think that the acidic water, the environment which was low in oxygen and the fungicidal properties of the copper box also allowed the two textiles to be preserved.

So currently the metal and textile items are being kept in temporary housing that aims to achieve low humidity conditions.

To preserve their condition, the metal items should be kept in tightly sealed boxes with silica gel and humidity detectors that keep the humidity low and prevent further degradation.

Next slide.

And I'd just like to thank everyone who was in the lab with me that day, my colleague Nicole for her support and extra set of hands, Molly for her curatorial guidance and her cool head, and Eze who was key to photographing and preserving the process.

I'm also very thankful that the county entrusted me and the library with the salvage of this time capsule.

It's something that not a lot of conservators or curators get to witness and Siri and Emily's

Elacrity and professionalism really helped me immensely as I moved through the process.

Thank you very much.

And so we did just want to take a moment after having seen Sue's really detailed presentation to make a couple points about the long-term exhibition considerations for these items.

One of the things that Sue alluded to here, but that I think is important to sort of elevate, is the significant investment in preserving these items, both from a physical

and Digital Material point of view.

There's also a matter of community accessibility, which we have had several conversations with Special Collections Library here, and we have a lot of confidence in their ability to maintain the accessibility of these items to our local community.

and even as Sue alluded to, to increase really the storytelling that goes along with these as a part of that.

I think from what we have been able to gather from the university and from Sue and Molly who are both here is that they do have a commitment to

A long-term investment in the exhibition of these materials and also a commitment to both the larger community and to maintaining some connection to the county.

And to that point, Molly, if you wouldn't mind taking just a moment to maybe talk briefly about

The future plans for unveiling jointly with the county and special collections?

Molly?

Sorry about that.

Yeah, thank you so much, Siri, and thank you very much for having us.

Like Sue said,

I'm really grateful for having been able to witness the unpacking, if we can even call it that, of this time capsule and discovering the items.

It was truly remarkable.

And even as we were going through the box, we were talking about how interesting it was going to be for members of the community to see what was in the time capsule.

and in fact, I had questions from friends when I was out walking the dog who said, do you guys have anything to do with the time capsule?

So it became clear to me that there's a lot of interest in the general public in the time capsule.

So in conversation with Siri and Sue, we came up with the idea of doing a sort of Zoom grand reveal event for the public.

in January in conjunction with both the County and Special Collections and the NOW Center for the Study of the Civil War, which is at UVA and actually shares our building.

And so they have a strong relationship with the Special Collections and use our Civil War Collections heavily.

So we talked to the director and they're very excited about participating.

So we'd like to put together a program

that would be open to the general public that would basically include Sue doing a demonstration about the conservation or salvage effort.

the county presenting what they'd like to present about the material and its history or context and then the NOW Center representative discussing sort of the scholarly perspective or some information on memorials and the Civil War, things like that.

I think they're contemplating the approach they might take for such an event

Thank you, Molly.

And Molly, am I also correct in noting that if the contents of the time capsule were deeded to Special Collections Library,

Yes, absolutely.

That when we acquire materials, we are very careful about the language that we use to describe them.

And I can include specific instructions to the archivist

to ensure that Albemarle County is front and center in the title of the item.

And when people borrow items from us, let's say it were to ever be borrowed for display elsewhere, they are required to cite the title that we give to a collection based on our own language.

Thank you, Molly.

Thank you.

I am amazed.

My first thought is how lucky we are in our community to have you and your office and your work available and to be able to keep this

these artifacts in our community so our public can actually learn from them and see them.

I think the idea for January is just great.

I'm not sure I have a lot of questions because right now I'm overwhelmed with what I just saw.

I'm amazed that you all were able to tease that much out.

And who knew that you would put some of these in the freezer?

And it's a fascinating process.

And at this point, I just want to thank you very much.

And I appreciate seeing this and learning.

I'm probably going to be following up later with more thoughts about it, but thank you very much.

Thank you.

This was fascinating.

When I saw the first photo of the materials covered in mud, my question went out the window, which was, what do you mean you have the right to throw it away?

Because that was in the documents, the sort of loss of control completely of its future livelihood was a concern I had, but obviously there's such a discrepancy between the things which could be possibly understood and those which can't that I'm not even gonna,

But it did bring back a wonderful memory from 1967 when I was working in a bank and a customer came in with a trunk full of money.

And it was completely dried, had been flooded and then turned into some enormous chunk.

And the people that we sent them to at the time put the whole thing in a bathtub.

and soaking in the bathtub loosened all, I mean, and I guess the money would be rag and linen and everything was so much better quality than what was used here that over the space of some length of time, every single bill, and there were hundreds of dollars, were all able to sort of float separately and be able to be recovered.

Whereas if we had tried to peel it when it was dry, it all would have been destroyed.

So that was very cool.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Ms.

Sportsberg, Ms.

Russell, Ms.

Donovan, thank you so much for what you've done.

And I'm going to echo really what my previous two supervisors have said, how blessed we are as a community to have UVA and your special collections here.

A couple of years ago, I was doing some family research and learned that in your special collections was one of only six existing copies of the book that had the information that I was looking for.

and to know now that this material, through the action we can take at the board, will be protected and preserved at the UVA Special Collections.

It just really makes it special.

So thank you for what you've done, and I really appreciate this presentation.

Well I did what my previous supervisor said it was really really interesting to see what was there what was presented and what we could actually uncover and that we're keeping it and

I have to ask, what was the text about that you were able to recover?

Molly, we uncovered some texts of, it was a history of UVA.

Yeah, there were actually several.

Suess showed you just a selected number of images.

And I will add that the images themselves that we took during the salvage process are an important now part of the collection because these were materials that couldn't be salvaged.

We could peel back

maybe this chunk from this chunk and then everything else was, as Sue said, it was like what you feel at the bottom of a lake when you put your foot in.

So as soon as you were to attempt to peel another page, there was no page to peel.

But we could photograph those openings and we own in Special Collections everything on the list with one exception, which was the item about the Red Land Club, I think is a bit of a mystery.

I think that's the one that we maybe don't own.

But everything else we hold copies of.

And so when we are actually back on grounds and when I start prepping for this presentation that we'll do in January, I was saying to Sue earlier today, what's going to be really fun is comparing those images that we took with the artifacts in the collection and matching up the books.

that we have with the fragments we could see in those images.

So yeah, there was a roster from an alumni report from UVA as well, and that might have been one of the images, I'm not sure.

And then there was, yeah, so it's a wide range of material, and it was just really interesting to try as we were going to match things up with what we saw on that list that was originally published, I think, in the Daily Progress.

But we haven't actually undertaken all the research to figure out what matches with what.

I do believe that the flag, am I right Sue, the flag was not included on the list and neither were the, there were a couple of marbles.

Mainly they were historical, like explaining what the community was like.

Like you said, there was a little history of the Redland Club and things like that.

It's interesting to think about what you want to put in a time capsule.

And my only other comment as the daughter of an antique dealer, who was an antique dealer for 60 years,

All the boxes that she brought home over the years have destroyed stuff that we would have to try to put together and end up throwing out.

I very much am amazed by what you guys were able to recover.

So thank you.

And I'll have to go back and look at that list because I think I missed the list in the daily progress.

We were actually able to figure out that there were two rolled up issues of the daily progress.

And I had just assumed that they would be part of the unidentifiable sludge, but we were able to at least see that was what they had been.

And the good thing too is that nothing was unique.

These were all printed materials.

There were no manuscripts listed.

So that's something that I think made me, at least as a curator, you know, I never want to, you know, not keep anything that's unique.

There's copies elsewhere then of all these things.

Okay.

I'm just I'll be curious I would imagine as part of the display or what will be released in January like you shared some of the behind the scenes video it's just that's the stuff that I get so curious and interested watching that sort of thing that I would imagine that will all be available as part of that presentation.

I'm looking forward to that.

We really appreciate you sharing this information with us today and taking the time and thank you for your work.

Siri, we do have to take action on the... Let's see, we need to adopt the resolution attachment A to approve the University of Virginia Library needed gift agreement and to authorize the county executive to sign the agreement, which would be... Am I reading this right?

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye Mr. Gallaway Yes Mr. Bea LaPisto-Kirtley Aye Ms.

McKeel Yes Alright, very good.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Great board.

That brings us to our next item.

Number 10, which is strategic interview and capital planning work session.

Yes sir, Mr. Chair, I'll be teaming things up and we do have a presentation that we'll make this afternoon and if we could get that in front of the board.

I'll go ahead as we're transitioning and mention that I've got a number of staff who are with me today who have been instrumental in working to get us to this point.

and I'll be introducing Christy Shifflett in just a few minutes and then after Christy will be Nelsie Birch.

Christy and Nelsie are working hand in glove with the financing budget department to begin to prepare us for the late fall capital work and then taking us straight into the fiscal year 22 operations work on our budget with our board and so I appreciate the time today Mr. Chair and members of our board.

If you could advance to the next slide, please.

We're going to use the time that we've got today to talk about our strategic plan review in the capital planning work session for this afternoon.

And so you have in front of you a sketched out version of our time.

We're going to try to move judiciously through this material and hand it back over to you, Mr. Chair, in the 2.45 timeframe for board discussion.

Our desired outcomes today, I'm going to take a minute and start with our affordability framework.

Then we're going to hand it over to Christy and she will revisit with the board your strategic plan and what is next in future planning.

Kelsey Burch will then talk more specifically about some of the projects that were paused, delayed, the capital projects, and then all of this

questions and discussion back and forth is in an effort for there to be advice given by the board to staff and board representatives on the CIP advisory committee as we move toward the end of the month with the advisory committee meetings that are scheduled.

I believe we have two of those that are scheduled and that'll be on our timeline that we go over.

So I've mentioned the ability framework and I'd like to take just a second to remind the board that last fall about this time we were working judiciously with our school board and we had worked through some capital project prioritization and what that meant was that we were

We still have some challenges in affording future operational costs because we're just not to a point with our economic stability and recovery to really fully understand if there's long-term damage to the structure of our local economy.

We had a challenge in balancing the execution of capital projects with position freezes and other things that we've done with our operational budget with our 366 budget strategy.

And we'll talk about that.

As I mentioned, with our new affordability framework, we talked about this last month with our school board, we have no obligated tax rate increase in fiscal year 22.

In order to be able to stay with that commitment,

we have to work within some conservative financial bounds both on the capital and on the operating side to ensure that we still meet the required services that we provide our citizens every day.

First quarter financial report is consistent with our budgetary expectations but we're still keeping an eye as this board knows on the January real estate assessment.

and that January timeframe will really begin to give us some clarity on where we are with our fiscal year 22 operating budget.

I'm proud to say, and this board is aware of this, that we've continued to maintain our strategic contingencies and reserves, including the board's capital strategic initiative, the one-time funding.

So as I do transition it over to Christy, I'd like to talk just for a second about the decision matrix for the timing in our funding.

Financial Foundation, which is at the bottom of this triangle, this is the core.

This is the core for this organization.

We are, I mentioned the 366 strategy, where basically when we were hit with the pandemic in March, we knew we had three months left in our fiscal year, May, June, July.

I'm sorry, April, May, and June.

We've closed those three months out, and you're going to get a report, I believe, next month on

how we close that out and how we look.

That's a big part of this and then the so the three followed by this year which is six and six we divided this year into two to six month segments and we're reaching the mid-year point and as this board knows once we get January reassessment for real estate work done by Pete Lynch and his team we're going to do we're going to know much more how we stand with recurring revenues for next budget year.

This will help us to begin to determine as we look at economic stability if we're going to need to consider future structural readjustments to our general fund budget.

It's going to take longer to determine what the long-term effect of our economic recovery looks like.

and also for this board you may need to consider in your strategic initiatives based on what we've seen, what we've learned, and what we've managed through over the last nine months.

Do we need to expedite recovery in some way that was not previously contemplated with your strategic initiatives?

Or are there opportunities or needs that have emerged over the last nine months

Where once you go through your strategic initiative review between now and January, it becomes more clear that there's an opportunity or a need to do something now with one-time money.

Finally at the top of the triangle you see workforce stabilization.

I choreographed to this board that we were going to be freezing positions in this current year.

Currently we have 28 frozen positions.

That has had a day-to-day operational impact on our workforce that when you combine it with the work that is required day-to-day to work a nine month

National, state, and local emergency.

We have to keep an eye on our workforce.

We have to keep an eye on our workforce-related capacity, related to recruitment and retention, related to their fiscal and mental health, and all of the associated issues that come with that.

And so with that, Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to kick this off.

Hello.

It's a privilege for me to be here today.

Thank you very much.

So we're going to go over the strategic planning efforts and we're in a progress report about where we are today.

You know, strategic planning is used to set priorities and focus energy and resources to move organizations towards their vision.

Albemarle County strategic planning for years to inform policy development and financial decision making and achieve the community desires and values articulated in the county's comprehensive plan.

The fiscal year 2020 to 2022 strategic plan is prioritized plan focusing on non-strategic priority areas.

It was adopted by you, the Board of Supervisors, on November 7th for the period beginning July 1, 2019 and goes through June 30th, 2022.

So thank you.

So these are your nine prioritized

Just last October 7th, I believe it was, the board

took action and adopted this climate action plan.

Our next steps are going to be to work on implementing these actions one by one.

We've done some prioritization work.

A community has asked for expanded recreational amenities through our recreational needs assessment we did back in 2018.

It's been a board directive for many years and we're fulfilling the need

by expanding parks and one of the newest ones is the Brookhill River Park and we did a soft opening two years ago and you can launch your canoe there and float down to Dardantow Park right here.

It's about a seven mile float.

Another park project is the Biscuit Run rezoning.

This past year's program is really good.

Our numbers are really up.

We had a movie night this past year that did really well.

Volleyball has taken off this past year.

So in normal years we have our middle school sports program.

When COVID-19 hit back in March and everybody was quarantined for the better part of April, folks were going stir crazy in their homes.

So we were happy to be able to keep the parks open for folks to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

And we started a park ambassador program to remind folks to be safe and follow all the CDC guidelines.

In 2019, the Board of Supervisors made economic development a strategic part.

The reason was the board recognized the importance of having high quality jobs, high quality built environment to improve the quality of life for everyone in the community.

Part of the economic development strategic plan is to help existing businesses survive with customized solutions.

Whether that's helping Willy Tree find a home such as this beautiful historic campus or include a restaurant and brewery for a world-class campus for a world-class company.

One of the accomplishments this year was finding a home for Castle Hill Gaming so they could remain in Albemarle County.

Eventually the COVID-19 pandemic hit our community and enforced economic development to change its strategic plan.

We moved from helping primary businesses to helping all existing businesses survive.

There's some really cool projects coming down the pipeline.

It includes expansions of some local businesses, a public-private partnership,

So as Albemarle County is growing, more families are moving to this area and as we welcome more students in our schools, we need more space.

So school expansion needs are important so that we have adequate capacity in space in our buildings to safely house all our students.

So we are excited to have two major projects under construction right now that will expand capacity at our schools.

There's a project underway at Red Hill Elementary and one at Scottsville Elementary.

So COVID obviously had a substantial impact on our schools when schools closed in March.

But with challenges come opportunities.

We have developed deeper partnerships with our families.

We have been able to invest in Wi-Fi access points, bringing internet access to lots of our families.

It's been a priority for a while and this pandemic has accelerated those improvements.

So right now we are in the design phases of two key projects.

One is an expansion at Crozet Elementary, which will help with the growth in the western part of the county.

— There is a system of underground pipes and other structures that convey stormwater runoff that lies on thousands of different private properties that is being ignored and not maintained currently.

So the board has asked staff to look at what it would cost to adopt a program to maintain this infrastructure.

So we've been working with contractors to assess this underground infrastructure to get a sense of the condition that it's in in order for us to understand how much it would cost to maintain it over time.

The strategic plan of revitalizing aging urban neighborhoods really reflects the board's desire to respond to a number of changing urban issues such as the changing preferences for households to move from outlying areas to urban areas with easier access to services and amenities, making sure that households

are living closer to their places of employment and to employment opportunities and also to make sure that our existing neighborhoods retain good quality housing, affordable housing and appropriate infrastructure.

Part of the goal of revitalizing urban, aging urban neighborhoods, it's really important to look at the transportation infrastructure and how those people are getting around, including transit, bicycle, and pedestrian modes.

So since we've started on the strategic plan goal, we've been looking at places where we could add more sidewalks and transportation infrastructure.

I'm standing here at Commonwealth and Hydraulic, where we just recently received a

Grant to put additional sidewalk heading down Commonwealth Drive here that will connect this neighborhood along one of our most popular transit routes.

And we've also got a new sidewalk going down hydraulic that was built a few years back with additional funding.

The courthouse and renovations and additions, too, have been a subject of board conversations for well over 20 years.

After deliberations by the board, it was decided that we would keep the courts in the locations that they're in now and maintain this historic facility.

An agreement was reached with the city of Charlottesville, a formal agreement,

to move forward with that as well as developing the levee site which is adjacent to this property for the new general district court building.

We began a very thorough and detail-oriented RFP process request for proposal for design services.

Pinterest Architects was chosen

Broadband expansion in Albemarle County has been a priority since 2017 when the Board of Supervisors appointed members of the Albemarle Broadband Authority.

We've been working to expand broadband to every citizen in Albemarle County, both from an accessibility as well as an affordability perspective.

The Albemarle Broadband Authority has been successful in retrieving grants from the state four years out of five years of existence of the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative.

During those four years we have received funding which provided service to 1,640 locations in the rural areas of Albemarle County.

So the board identified Rio 29 as a high priority project because of key corridors of the county and its potential to be a future transportation as well as its potential for redevelopment and the opportunity it presented to become a vibrant mixed-use area.

So in 2018, the board adopted the Rio 29 Small Area Plan, which identified the community's vision for the Rio 29 area.

And since that time, staff has been developing zoning regulations as a form-based code to make sure the regulations align with the community's vision.

And we're bringing that document forward to the community this month and next month for review and feedback.

Thank you.

We have a couple more slides that I'll go through.

I just want to thank the staff.

for their participation in that video and especially I want to recognize our Communications and Public Engagement team for putting that together for us.

So if we move on to the next slide, I just want to, there will be, this video will be published on our website as well as a final report for you to see the progress to date.

That report is going to focus on three key areas.

the progress that we have made to date in implementing our goals and strategies that you've heard a lot in the video.

I also want to highlight for you today the areas in which we've had to pivot due to the pandemic and also projects and efforts that have been delayed due to the board meeting in April where we discussed maintaining essential services

and evaluating our discretionary spending.

And so we chose to delay a few things and I'm gonna call those out for you today as well.

So if we move forward, you'll see, as you heard Roger Johnson speak about the fact that economic development had to shift its focus a little bit to project rebound, which was to establish programs and lift grants and safe spaces and places for our commerce community.

We also created the park ambassador programs to support all of those needs to allow the parks and trails to be accessible through following safety guidelines for our pandemic.

And then also I want to call out the focus on broadband and how this pandemic has only highlighted the need for our virtual and telework options and the continuing partnership with the school divisions as we bridge the digital equity gaps.

And so next is really a focus on those delays.

And some of the things that I'll call out has either been delayed because in these examples, areas where staff had to shift priorities or the social distancing requirements really created a pause in some of the

work efforts due to specifically the field survey as an example where going out into the public and doing that research took a minute for them at TJPDC to overcome.

So lastly are the areas that

The projects have been delayed based on that financial stability look that Ms.

Nelsie Burch will speak to in a minute as we connect and talk about the efforts moving forward in our strategic plan.

So next is really just to identify for you where we are in our strategic planning effort.

And you'll see there's a note there for where we are today in FY21.

As you've heard, we just gave you that first year's completion of our plan.

And then we're going to focus now on what we're going to do in FY22 and how we might update that plan.

And so this is going to inform you of the life cycle of our strategic plan so that if you go to the next slide, we can talk about how we can align the new five-year financial plan

also your new five-year CIP that we'll be developing, that those things in FY23 can come together.

I have that question mark there as we determine what our next strategic planning effort looks like as we engage the community and we connect with them on the pandemics, post-pandemic hopefully, community needs.

So with that, I will hand this over to Ms.

Great.

Thank you, Christy.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Nelsie Burch, the Chief Financial Officer for the county.

If you go to the next slide, we're going to talk a little bit about where we are today.

So what were some of the assumptions that we used and are going to use to help prepare us for both the now and also for the future?

and this meeting is an opportunity for the board, and you're gonna see in a few slides, to provide some feedback, not only to staff so we can make sure that we're giving you updated information, project cost, project development, timelines, et cetera, but also to your colleagues who sit on the CIP Advisory Committee, which will begin their work next week, which is a joint committee between the school board

The Board of Supervisors, there's a Planning Commission member and a member at large that sit on that.

So I am going to move to the next slide and remind those that are watching today as well as the board of some of the assumptions that we are using at the outset to plan for our capital project and our capital budget for FY21 and as we develop 22.

So we're in a very unique situation.

The uniqueness to our situation is not only because of the pandemic, but the decisions that were made in April.

about our capital plan.

And so we paused or delayed several projects, which are coming back to the board.

That's the unique part.

Typically, we've not done that.

I think maybe 10 years ago during that recession, there were some changes that were made.

But in recent history, we've not

Paz delayed projects that were initially approved or in a recommended budget, and then we had to pivot midstream.

And so now it's time for the board to talk about those projects, but also in a different lens.

The lens now, as you see on the top, is we are preparing to not have this dedicated tax rate

increase for capital, as Mr. Richardson mentioned at the outset.

And so that's changing what we can afford.

And it's changing our ability to be able to actually complete all projects that you're going to see on the list when I put it up on the screen in a moment.

The other unique things is we are going to use the efforts of the CIP Advisory Committee over the next few weeks to help

inform both the school board and the Board of Supervisors about what projects we might want to move forward with completing or beginning in FY21.

So for that next six months, what are we comfortable and what is our priority to start in the next six months?

And then the Capital Advisory Committee will also be informing Mr. Richardson about some priorities that they have as he develops his recommended budget for board deliberations starting in February.

So with that, I did wanna remind and provide for the public in particular that there are several projects that are currently underway that received funding that we have in our capital program that are not up necessarily for discussion today because they are in motion.

But I wanted an opportunity to pause and let the public know where you can find those projects.

And I've put the link there, but then also to call out

an opportunity that the board has.

This is part of that strategic reserves that Mr. Richardson indicated at an earlier slide.

There's about $3.6 million that's considered a capital project because it's in the capital plan and the capital budget.

That the board has an opportunity to make a decision on what initiatives they'd like to advance using those funds.

And those funds are already appropriated and can be used and programmed

um once the board uh provides some guidance to both uh to the staff and to the CIP advisory committee.

So this is essentially just restating everything I've said, but I did want to point out the two members of this board who sit on the CIP Advisory Committee that begins next week, those are public meetings, our Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley and Supervisor Price.

So they will start that project next week and move forward with a recommendation to come in front of the board in December.

Now the biggest piece of this that I wanted to spend a little bit of time and focus on before we turn it over for discussion with each board member is to talk about the work that staff has done since we met on 10-21 with the joint boards.

We wanted to take and look at the capital budget and our modeling.

but provide you with a prioritization that included some criteria that really reflected where we are now.

And so, the first bucket is the strategic plan and new reality.

You just heard from Christy Shifflett about the strategic plan and what we could and couldn't accomplish, what more work we can do in your current strategic plan.

But I also wanna call out something that you're gonna see on the next slide, which is related to our changing reality.

I love that the strategic plan video was there and did some of this communication for me.

But Biscuit Run, you're gonna see as the number one prioritized project on this list that staff has prepared for your discussion.

And much of that is because of the pandemic and all of us, I know myself and many staff and board members have taken advantage of the beautiful public parks and public trails

and offerings that we have in this community.

And so when you look at it from that perspective, Biscuit Run had been put on hold, but when we think about the operational impact is pretty low.

The cost impact to us being able to continue to operationalize that project is low.

We can execute it and we can begin that first phase.

And that's why you'll see a project like Biscuit Run come at the top.

The other thing is we've talked about is the affordability lens.

We've stripped out that dedicated tax rate increase that was anticipated when you all deliberated on your priorities from last year.

And then the last two buckets, which I hit a little bit on, but we worked internally with each project and program manager that has a project in the capital budget that you're going to see on the list when I get there in just a moment, to make sure that we're able to execute those projects in the event that the board provides a recommendation to move forward, particularly for FY21, because that needs to be executed pretty quickly.

But then we also, this last piece, and this is the piece that we've hit on a few times both today and last month, is we've got to be mindful of the operational cost impacts.

So the impact to our general funds when we make these investments now

making sure we understand what might come later from a cost impact and knowing that if we, in looking at the second green box there, if we're keeping and not knowing how far the economy may go, how long this pandemic may go, that that is going to be harder for us to be able to absorb in the future because of the uncertainty of our revenue structure.

Now the last thing I'm going to mention, there are schools projects on this list, but the school board has not provided their prioritization work yet.

This is work that them and their staff are working now to make sure that they can provide

recommendations to their board representatives for discussions and deliberations that begin next week with the advisory committee.

But as a staff, we needed to make sure that we put these up there.

And this is based on information that we had about operational cost impact before the pandemic.

And so we fully recognize, having worked with Superintendent Haas and his team, that they are still crunching those numbers to determine the cost impact.

But again, those numbers and how we've prioritized is based off of information and prioritization that we have used from last year's exercise.

So with that,

And I'm not going to go through, Andy, to the next slide, please.

So it's hard in this virtual world to make sure you can both see the prioritization of all the projects.

So it's actually over two slides.

The public will have this presentation to review.

as soon as it might already be on the website.

So I apologize if I don't know that.

But here you'll see the first 10 projects, and these are in priority order based on that criteria that I just explained.

And so this is staff saying, looking at the projects through those four lenses that we just spoke to you about, knowing that we don't have, we are not gonna have as much in terms of revenue to support this,

Program, we're going to have to scale back a little bit.

So this is our initial prioritization.

So this is 1 through 10, and you'll see on the right-hand side where it falls in the strategic plan, as well as the estimated operational impacts of those.

And then if you go to the next slide, you will see the remainder, 11 through 23.

So I'll give you a moment to look there.

And we can toggle back and forth as you all go around and discuss your priorities.

Can you just email that to us now so we can toggle back and forth ourselves?

Yep, it looks, it's for presentation

Visibility to the public.

So yes, this is exactly the same as what you saw and we sent out earlier, but we will send that again so it's at the top of your list or the top of your email inbox.

So with that, Andy, if you can turn it to the next slide.

Chair Galloway, this is where we would ask for you to go around and ask your colleagues to provide some feedback for discussion.

And again, this is really to inform the advisory committee as they prepare

for their work that begins next week.

And they're going to be providing that recommendation to the boards on FY21 projects that they want to see advanced.

And then also FY22 projects to the county executive for consideration as he prepares his proposed FY22 capital and operating budgets.

All right, I see the questions here, board, and if you have any questions you need to clarify anything on this list, obviously this would be a good time to ask that as well.

But it is both clarifying and if anything's missing, as Nelson described, etc.

Maybe, I guess I can make some comments, but having the list in front of us would be, I know you have those questions, I'm sorry.

And I do want to just, as I'm starting, thank you for the video.

It was really great.

And it was informative, kind of caught us up on some work, and I appreciate that a lot.

When I look at the projects,

and look at the reality as we've been moving through the pandemic.

We have community members, we have people in our community that have been impacted differently.

I think we all recognize that there are a lot of people that are doing really just fine.

And there are a lot of people that are not.

and where I'm going with this is trying to look at through an equity lens the people that have been hurt the most and how our projects moving forward are going to support those people, those individuals and those marginalized communities.

So has this list been looked at through an equity lens?

I guess is my first question.

And then I know that we have the new Atlas with lots of data in it.

Sure, Supervisor McKeel, I am actually going to turn it over to our budget chief, Andy Bowman.

He has been working really closely with Siri Russell in our Office of Equity Inclusion on this, and I think it would be a great opportunity for him to talk about our plan for equity and what we can already see and use as part of this and where we're headed in the future.

Sure, Nelson.

After the board's October 21st joint meeting with the school board, Supervisor McKeel's comment was correct, the direction to look at these through an equity lens.

So myself and our staff in the budget division got together with the Office of Equity Inclusion to kind of really consider, you know, what would this look like as we evaluate all these projects?

Because with the creation of that office two years ago and our new organization Value Community, we did not have the data available to us in the same way we did in the S.T.R.E.U.

plan.

The operating impacts, some of the financial information that we had when these projects were originally created.

And so knowing that we had an immediate data limitation for these projects to get ready for today's meeting, we also identified that equity is not just about these 23 projects being prioritized.

These are about decisions that have been made for the last 10 plus years.

So there's really a sort of you know for today's list that lens has not been fully incorporated but kind of our discussion with the staff in the meantime has really been kind of two tracks.

One of which is longer term to know that when we do as the board has an updated strategic plan and our long-range financial plan in the future you know an equity lens needs to be ingrained in the same way that a strategic plan lens and the financial analysis would in the future.

and really working with the opposite, equity inclusion, trying to figure out what is the data that we need to get, resources we need to cobble together to do that analysis in full.

I think we've had conversations more recently to say knowing that we can't do a full equity analysis, knowing that they're

you know what are some of those pieces together to inform how historical funding decisions have been made at least in the short term to not do a kind of a full-blown equity analysis that would be kind of a best practice based on the Office of Equity Inclusion's work with some other departments to date but what are some data points we can get together between now

and the finalization of the fiscal year 22 budget.

So through no fault of our own or your own, we have a little bit of a disconnect and a timing issue is what I'm hearing.

And we don't have all the data we really need to be able to do what I'm talking about and looking at projects through an equity lens.

I guess sort of what we're saying.

And I get that.

I recognize ships are hard to turn, but I would hope that we would approach this with some flexibility.

We all know our CIP is fluid and it's not written in stone, and that's the one thing that I would, as we get

As we're starting to look at the ALIS data that Siri has presented to us that shows where the greatest need is and where the lack of support over the decades has been, the area, I would hope that we would be able to

at least maintains some realization that the CIP changes and can change as we need it to.

That's a pretty broad statement, but I'm just saying it's not written in stone.

I see lots of, I see

Investment in parks, and I think that's great, but there are parks that people have to drive to.

There are parks that are not where our marginalized communities are.

It would be hard for our marginalized communities to get to.

You know, Andy, I'm just throwing out some thoughts here, and I think that's what you want.

And I'm not saying that I don't agree a year ago or two years ago with this, but we're living in a little bit of a different reality right now.

And I guess I have a quick question.

Connectivity is so important to us, but connectivity, maybe I'm a little confused, connectivity is not part of this.

because the VIP doesn't need to be part of this.

Well, from the, yes, because we talk about how we really need, I think many of us recognize that connectivity is one of our highest priorities.

Looking at that separately from this particular discussion,

I do not believe it's exclusive.

I think what you see here is we do not have dedicated capital funding for broadband.

It has been heretofore done a little bit differently through grant funding, et cetera.

But I do think it's absolutely a part of the conversation of the capital plan.

And do we want to invest capital dollars

to do things differently when it comes to broadband.

Yeah, and that's what I'm getting at.

So just trying to point out that this doesn't include anything for broadband right now.

That is correct.

Which certainly crosses both the county government and school side.

I do understand the school piece that remains in here I think that and I recognize that I don't have control over the schools but I do appreciate the fact that

Primary schools, elementary primary grade schools, elementary schools I think need to be supported.

I do hope we have further discussions with the school board and folks on the schools about how virtual learning is going to change their space needs.

But that's not for us to tell them, they need to tell us.

but I do think that's a conversation going forward.

And I think Matt Haas, Superintendent Haas has even alluded to it at times.

Could you just throw the next page up for me?

And I'm sorry, I didn't have it.

And I know it can all take too long doing this, but yeah, and I go back to, again, I'm looking at the green spaces and the boat launch and that's all great and they're all needed.

but looking at this through the lens of the marginalized communities that have not had the funding and the support

recognizing that they are the communities right now that have been struggling and how we get at that with the CIP.

And I guess, Ned, I'm just going to let it go with that for right now.

I made myself some notes, but maybe I'll come back in a little bit as folks go through theirs.

Here we go.

Now I'm ready.

Thank you.

I thought I was later, so let me get my notes up in front of me here.

So, whoa, where'd it go?

Hang on.

Lost my page.

So I'll just start with asking a question based upon what Diantha was just speaking about, because having accessibility to the recreation aspects, some of the recreation offerings we have or have

on our list are because that's where the land is that we were able to get our hands on.

But if we also go along with enhancing transit and access for people no matter where they are that they can hop on a bus and get to where the land is, I hope that is one option that would be valuable for people because there are limited areas where you have enough acreage to have a place with large

distance trails and things such as Biscuit Run has.

And just in the traffic counts and visitor counts that have been created this summer due to people's desperate need to get out on a trail and walk somewhere outside.

I think that that has shown us a whole new level of need than we may have understood before when we were thinking more about group programming.

And now we understand that how important it is for families and individual groups to be able to get outside and enjoy things without having to pay.

And that is another really important thing is our open spaces have

Lower operational cost, which is a good thing, but also if we are not charging, since we are not charging admission fees for these parks, that to me is a big plus to keep them on the list.

I definitely support the prioritization of the school projects and it was the school folks who actually chose them that are on this list in the order because the kids are already there and a lot of them are sitting on the floor.

So I think that that is when we had the

tax increase a number of years ago for Woodbrooke and people tried to get after me about that.

I said, these children are already here.

We have to do this.

And that was the end of it.

So I understand that it's always balancing the dollars, but when you already have capacity issues way over the top, then I understand completely why those were there.

And so I do hope that we will

take in what we have learned about how important the broadband is and how we need to look very carefully at how we're using our taxpayer dollars in the very most effective way and getting better service for our citizens from the companies with whom we are working.

We will certainly have continued our effort on the affordable housing as was described in the video.

So that may take us through our investment for the next year or so.

And the broadband we've already talked about.

And then just from the climate box, I keep reiterating that having our focus on what we buy and how we build things and how we do things, always having that sustainability element in there will help us in the long run.

And I will stop there.

I think the main thing I had to contribute was that if we're beefing up our transit in a way to be able to improve the accessibility throughout our growth area, for example, and all across it, then we will be able to have our citizens take advantage of a wide variety of different activities that they need.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you Chair Galloway and thank you everyone who's participated and contributed as part of the conversation.

As you know Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley and I will be on the CIP

One of the things that is very clear to me is that as we look at the nine priority areas in the 23 projects, we simply cannot ignore any area of work in the county.

Candidly, at this point, I somewhat feel like the little Dutch child with my finger in the dike.

We have so many things we have to do, yet we know that our finances are limited, but we have to do them all.

As I look at the reports that are coming out from the pandemic, there are several things that appear to be consistent across the country.

One is that right now the residential market appears to be doing well.

However, we know that there are 60 million people in the restaurant industry nationwide.

We have our share here in

Charlottesville, Albemarle County.

And we know that many of those businesses have either closed, will close, and they are likely not to reopen.

So there will be a new normal as we move forward.

For the first time since February, I'm beginning to have a sense of optimism as it appears that the vaccines are very close to being released.

But even with that, and with their very high efficacy rate, we also know that it will likely not be until the spring that we will actually see nationwide relief.

in terms of the risks that we face with the pandemic.

So what we see is that the hospitality, restaurant, entertainment, and commercial and business real estate markets are all going to suffer.

And I expect that we're going to have long-term changes from that.

What I would like to see is that we look to try and shift some of our funds into broadband expansion.

Just this weekend a resident called me and wanted to talk about broadband because this resident and their family had found a wonderful house they wanted to move to in a more rural area but both of them work from home.

Their children are being schooled from home and if they did not have adequate broadband they would not purchase the home.

They would not make an offer.

I really appreciate the work that Albemarle County has done.

As Mr. Colt mentioned during the video, four to five years of body, we've been able to get the funding.

We've expanded it greatly.

But if we do not expand it now, we will leave our residents and those businesses and the educational system that rely upon that behind.

Again, we cannot ignore any of the areas.

I believe that we must maintain our infrastructure.

We must expand the schools.

We have to help existing businesses more than bringing in new businesses at the time.

At this time expand broadband.

I want to see parks and recreation increased without fees to our residents.

because as we see with the changing quality of life situation in the county we must provide more outdoor opportunities for our residents and that all of this must be consistent with our climate action plan and as other supervisors have mentioned through the equity lens.

Okay I'm going to stop following Supervisor Price because

She keeps taking all of my thoughts and everything.

And I do understand what Supervisor McKeel and the other supervisors were saying.

As I look at this list, which was a good list when it originally came up, but as I look at this list, I look from a pragmatic viewpoint of

where our money will help the most people.

So that would include also being for people to be able like kids and adults to be able to get out, be able to go on walking on trails and everything.

I also look at something like water quality because I want to make sure and in infrastructure to make sure that nothing collapses

while we're going through this pandemic.

But frankly, one of my most important areas that I would like to see is an increase in broadband internet.

I was just on the phone yesterday, two days ago actually with a primary school teacher who teaches virtually and cannot do that from her home.

She actually sat in the fire department driveway for two hours trying to teach her class in the rain.

and we can't do that.

We have to get broadband internet out to everybody.

Her landline was down, she can't even make a 911 call.

So that has to be a priority in my opinion to get that to everybody and to see our monies where it will go the farthest to help the most people.

to help the most citizens and to make sure that our schools also have the funding that they need.

So that's the lens that I'm looking through this.

So definitely I'm going to propose some changes to our initial prioritization or our prioritization.

I think I'll jump around a bit.

First of all, Biscuit Run, I think that that's great that it's first priority.

Little bit concerned because the entrance is on 20 and I know that you can get in from Old Lynchburg Road where there, you know, if we want to talk about an equity lens, that's an area where we have a lot of people who could access that park if there was a safe and easy way to access.

It's important to keep it open so that then you don't feel like you're trespassing when you're back there.

But I think that's a great, important priority and I would agree with that.

There's a few things on here.

I just want to mention this column that we have in our materials that says whether things are related to strategic priorities or not.

Under water resources, it says water quality mandated TMDL program, no direct connection to our strategic priorities.

I would disagree with that.

I think all of our water quality

projects have a direct connection to our climate action plan, or it should anyway.

Our natural resources projects that support those and water quality to me certainly have something to do with climate, even though it might not be one of the things listed in the climate action plan.

I also think that

Given that we've had this wonderful example from Siri Russell as to how to incorporate equity into everything we do and we're working on that, I would say we would need to take climate action and use that example.

start trying to work climate into everything we do.

And there are things that we can do that don't really cost any money that we've discussed before that we can do with that model in mind.

And I hope that we can keep our climate action at the top of the list.

or somewhere close to the top of the list on what we're doing, because that is extremely important.

I know we have the money you already mentioned, advancing strategic priorities, but I always will bring this up anytime I can to keep our focus on what we're doing.

some kind of continuity in trying to get our convenience centers in.

The one that we've discussed in Southern Albemarle certainly has an equity component.

A lot of the trash dumping is out of our sight.

We have a lot of people in this community that are stockpiling trash or burning trash in their yards because they

either don't have any convenient way to get rid of it or easy way to get rid of it or they can't afford a hauler.

So we had discussed about planning, doing a site plan for a convenience Southern and Southern Albemarle.

And I know that's sort of under a different group, but I just, I gotta mention it.

As far as broadband is concerned, of course, being on the broadband authority, I do agree with everything that everybody said with respect to that.

Looking at our budget of what we had going into this last year, we had about $1.3 million in our ABBA budget.

We have spent it all.

We have

a lot of fiber coming to the home.

I got a call by, I spent some time on the phone this weekend with someone who was looking to buy a house in a rural area in Albemarle County and wanted to know if that area was going to get broadband and I was

Very pleased to look up their address and they are on a list for fiber to the home on one of the groups of about 800 homes that are involved in one of our projects.

So when we, I know staff is going to do this when we talk about broadband

I think that giving more money to ABBA is a great thing.

And I don't know what's in this budget to go into ABBA for next year.

If we don't have any numbers yet, it looks like, but I think that definitely needs to have a discussion.

So,

Basically, obviously, the schools have got a way in.

I'm glad to see that their priorities are probably going to be for the elementary schools.

I think that clearly Crozet Elementary is in need.

And I guess I'll stop there for now.

But what we're looking at is these 10.

And

and obviously the staff has got to evaluate these things through the equity lens that they do, but I do see that parks can be valuable for a lot of folks that especially since many of them are free to enter except for in the summertime for swimming and whatnot.

I think it's important for our representatives on the CIP committee because different supervisors starting with Supervisor McKeel mentioned the equity lens piece and even though the tool and the data might not be readily at hand as we go through the CIP process our thinking about that certainly can be at hand and be applied so I know that that is one that I would agree with that just

be at the forefront as you're going through the CIP work.

Just to reiterate that the school projects, of course, are just based on past work that we've done with the school board.

They do still have to go through their process and determine what their priorities are.

This is not meant to insinuate.

It's just based on the past information.

I know she had said that, but I appreciate that.

I think from a reaction to the top,

I'm looking at another slide that has the top 18 projects.

I think the top five projects are the right top, are the right five projects.

I may get a little squirrelly and try to reorder the top five.

Kind of have done that in my head, like well maybe this one is really three or four, but I think overall the top five are there.

I guess one question I have about Crozet, I'm assuming

And I couldn't put my hands on the, I'm sure it may even say this in the CIP report, but I know when you do an addition versus a new school, the operational impacts are much lower because of course, I'm guessing, if I remember right, that a lot of, it's not just growth, but you would be bringing some relief to Brownsville and the population they have there.

So when you're moving population,

You move staff, you move support, so you're not necessarily bringing on a whole lot of new resources or new staff to support that.

I believe so, yeah.

I do have some team.

It's just 170 seemed a little low in my even knowing that I know the impacts are smaller than if you do a new building which is why later on the list the high school center has got a much larger operational impact.

I would be happy to chime in on this.

Can you hear me?

Yes, the way I understand it, the schools take growth into account in general and do not put it per specific project to your point.

I do know that these figures are older and I know that they'll relook at these numbers on the operational impacts for their projects as we get closer to making some determinations about what we'll do.

But you are right that the general growth pieces

They know that that happens, and so they don't take that into account for specific projects.

I guess Donna and Bea, I'd just be keeping my eye on that one because 170s, that's three or four staff people.

I mean, probably not even.

In operational impacts, moving forward to the budget, no matter what type of project it is, is going to be critical for us to keep an eye on in any case.

I think it's important.

I agree with Liz's point about the no direct connection comment, but I also just want to make a comment about when we put this up in front of the community that just because it doesn't connect to one of the strategic priorities doesn't mean it doesn't connect to another county priority of some sort.

The strategic priorities list is just that.

For planning purposes, what are we going to be focusing on down the road, I'm going to need to be focused on.

but it doesn't mean that there's no other priorities per se that we go to connect to.

Health and safety, other areas that are not necessarily our strategic priorities but are still our governmental obligations and priorities.

I hope number five to the point that I heard being made about Parks and Rec and a lot of people going out

to use these amenities, which is great.

But there are also a lot of people in the urban areas just getting out and walking.

I'm getting more talk about sidewalks along East Rio Road than I ever have right now from folks.

And it's simply because more people are out and they're walking around their neighborhood and trying to get just to walk the network down to the trail to the Warner Park

So, you know, as we think about providing the places like the parks, we also have to think not just about car rides and all of that, but also who the sidewalks play into that importantly.

And that would be one instance where I start to think about is that the proper number five or maybe does that get moved up?

Same with number four.

I think number four is an important, our economic development funding is an important one to be in the top five.

Down there later, the parks and rec, the parks restroom renovation modernization, it seems to me that now I could be completely off base here, but if we've got more people going out to our parks

then it's probably putting a strain on really aged infrastructure to be used for restroom facilities.

And as we're in a health crisis, when we think modernization of facilities, is that properly prioritized in terms of being number 10 out of the first 10?

Not just thinking if you go into Biscuit Run and you put in a new facility, then that has a different type, but thinking of our older Parks and Rec, do we have

is modernization of a higher need now because more people are going out to those places.

I mean, just throwing that out there food for thought.

The windows projects, the estimated savings, does that change if there are less employees in the building?

Does the facility still be run at 100% air conditioning, heating, etc.

when we've had the work?

I'm going to turn it over and see if Mr. Henry knows that answer offhand.

That savings reflects what the request originally was and it was with an assumption.

of occupancy of the building.

An analysis has yet to be done because we're still working through, you know, when we get to our new state, you know, how much of staff will be here on a regular basis?

And then what does that look like from a heating and cooling state?

So that's analysis that we're not going to get to until we really land the post-pandemic life at the county building.

So I'd say it's possible, Ned,

That's all the comments and questions I had in reaction to this.

I don't think anything's missing from the list.

Great.

So with that, we had just one final slide, which is just a reminder of where we are.

Just for those of you who may want to tune in and who are watching this now, next week, we begin the work with the CIP Advisory Committee.

For FY21, those projects will come in front of the board potentially in January.

with a formal appropriation request from the board, the school board.

And then you will see really the reflection of the FY22 prioritized projects work when the county executive proposes his budget in February.

Thank you very much and happy to take any additional questions but have a great meeting.

So no other slide present points here anything like that?

No, I think I support many of the things that you pointed out, Ned, and some of the other supervisors as far as being important.

And I'll just let it go with that.

We're good, thanks.

No, thank you.

Not really.

As you could tell, my comments were more general than the specific projects that were listed there.

Again, I do look forward to getting all the input to me and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley from the other supervisors in terms of the other supervisors' prioritization of these.

No other questions at this time.

Just a comment that I agree with you, Ned, on the modernization of the restrooms and whatnot.

I think that was a good point that, you know, might be looked at.

I'm sure it already has, but I think it's a good point.

And just to and I recognize you were not suggesting this, Ned, but my point about water resources not having a strategic priority attached to it was really more of a general comment.

that many of these things come under the heading of climate.

And we need to start trying to think about that in that way.

So that's it.

And I would, just as a final thought, I don't think it's appropriate or would be here in this list.

But Liz's comment about the convenience center reminds me of when we talked about the

That project was specifically talked about during budget time, but so was the smaller scale roundabout at Earliesville and Ray's Ford Road.

As an additional project that could be done outside of the typical transportation type projects and funding mechanisms that we go through every year and maybe a way to get at it through there.

So happy to support

who seems supportive of doing some work there to get something on a smaller scale at the Earliesville-Raysford Road.

I will jump in one minute and just to say that in addition and on top of all of this, I know it's stated somewhere in the fine print, but everything in the maintenance category is above the line, which means that gets done first in a way, and then if they're leftover monies,

then we get to figure out how to apportion the leftovers and this is so important to the long-term culture of the county that we take care of what we have first and I know it's really important for our Moody's you know AAA people as well because counties who don't get in trouble so it's always discouraging to me because you think you have all these zeros and then all of a sudden once you've taken the everything above the line out the maintenance stuff that it's a much smaller piece of the pie but we will get there.

Yeah, I hope that hasn't changed.

No, it has not.

That cannot change.

No, it cannot change.

Yeah.

Mr. Chair, I know you're in the process of transitioning perhaps to a quick break.

Before you do, I would like to check in with the board

I did take notes from all six board members and all six board members talked about the elevation of broadband access as a priority and I'd like to make a recommendation for the board to consider that that the staff would work on a broadband access proposal that we would bring back to the board in the December or early January time frame

It would be great in that report back to the board to make sure it includes all the stuff that's in the pipeline.

And I want to use that, because you're spot on as you are a member of ABA and you're spot on with that capturing of that.

And Mr. Chair, this will be my last comment so that you can take comments from the rest of the board.

Mr. Pope is actually on the call and I want to publicly thank him for his service and hard work and dedication to ABA.

to broadband to the citizens of this county.

Mike has done yeoman's work over the last several years to really serve ABA and broadband and work tremendously hard.

And one thing he's done is make sure that we are looking at all these projects as the amount of money it takes to get to a particular resident and evaluating these on the cost per resident.

I got to throw that in.

I will say and thank Mike, take this opportunity to thank Mike because he certainly gave my CAC a great presentation on Monday evening.

He and Christine Diggs from the schools.

It was great, Mike.

And I do thank you, Jeff, for pointing out that the broadband is not just a rural area problem.

It's also an urban ring problem.

So looking at both,

And if there was a way at some point, and maybe this gets at, and I'm sorry to take us down in these weeds, Ned, but I would love to have a look at some point at our water and sewer structure in the urban rain, because I can tell you that I have folks across the road from me in the urban rain that aren't hooked up to public sewer.

and through serious work in our atlas, that should be a data point at least for us so that we know.

And you know, I hear it annually, but I would really like to know from an environmental standpoint and from a CIP hookup issue, because right now they're being told that they have to pay what the developers pay to hook up to public suit.

And I get that.

That's been the policy.

So as a result, we have folks that have septic systems that are not in good shape right across the road in the urban rain.

That's a piece of that discussion.

I've talked about it with Gary too, but I would like to have it mapped so that I know, are there two?

Are there 20?

Yes, thank you.

And I think I appreciate what Jeff said about making a sort of cohesive look.

And so I will just add some more assignments to that.

And I'll run over this at the end of the meeting today with the

thinking very carefully about how we spend our broadband money so that we're making sure we're getting the best values.

And just like all the people in the urban ring who are just over the hill from good service because theirs is coming through DSL and the phone company hasn't monetized anything in 55 years, the same thing in the country where all these wonderful projects that we've been paying through the nose to get CenturyLink to put in, the five houses a quarter mile away have nothing.

And so those small gaps, wherever they are, whether they're urban or rural or whatever, have got to be a focus that no company is going to do, even if we bribe them as we are now.

So that's really the basis of my trying to get people to think about and talk about and research about what other communities are doing with their money to take care and take control of this.

So we'll run over that later.

Thank you everyone and we're moving into a recess and as a next topic when we come back is our code compliance manager.

I don't want her after me for being behind.

So we can do our 15-minute break.

We'll call it, what would that be, 45, 50, 350, and then we'll be ready to move on.

And Lisa, good afternoon.

Oh, I can't hear Lisa.

It looks like you're unmuted.

Good afternoon Chair Galloway and board.

I'm going to share my screen.

Great.

Good afternoon.

I'm Lisa Green.

I'm the manager of co-compliance for the zoning division in the community development department.

I know you guys are already running behind a little bit.

I do have a lot of information for you today, and I'm going to go through this as quickly as possible so we can save some time for questions and discussion.

In today's presentation, we'll be covering three topics, the inspection process, the enforcement process, and how to file a complaint, and then finally some key takeaways.

The code compliance team is made up of four code compliance officers and myself.

And one of those four positions is currently frozen, leaving three CCOs covering all 726 square miles of the county for all permanent inspections and zoning enforcement complaints.

Most of your contact with our team relates to our enforcement cases.

but zoning inspections account for approximately half the workload for a typical work day.

Although not emphasized as much as enforcement, this is an important and time-sensitive part of the job as we are most often the last inspection before the financing for a loan can be obtained, families can move into their new home, or the grand opening of a new business can take place.

Getting these inspections completed on time can be vital to our economy.

As an example, this is a final zoning inspection request, even though the owners are eager to occupy, this was not ready for approval.

These inspections relate directly to health and safety for the whole community.

Inspections are for residential and non-residential, new constructions and any additions, signs, sheds, accessory buildings, farm structures in the rural area, structures related to agriculture, commercial, multifamily, any amenities that may be required with a new subdivision, any conditions associated with a special use permit or special exceptions,

and ensure proffers are constructed per the approved rezoning.

Basically we inspect anything the board has approved related to new development, rezoning, ordinance changes or conditions of approval.

We are your eyes in the field to ensure the board's mandates are completed as approved.

Every building permit and zoning permit applied for in the county gives a preliminary review and a final zoning inspection.

The preliminary review occurs prior to any construction inspecting the proposed location in the field, ensuring the project will comply with setbacks from property lines and stream buffers, is not in easements or critical slopes, and the use is appropriate for that zoning district.

These are time sensitive in nature

and they are often the last review before a permit can be issued to begin construction.

The final inspection confirms the project was indeed built per the plan or the approved site plan and the permit with all conditions and proffers met.

These inspections are needed as a part of the certificate of occupancy from the building official.

Site plans often go through rigorous reviews and approvals and the CCOs are the eyes in the field to assure each detail is constructed per the approved plan.

This often takes multiple inspections just for one site plan.

Here's just a quick look at some data that we've collected over the last 10 calendar years with our projections for the calendar year 2020.

This particular data is based on work done by the code compliance team.

As you can see, even with projections for this year, the trend line is continuing to increase.

It is very important to note that with every new approval, site plan, special exception with conditions, ordinance change, etc.,

These approvals are cumulative and expand the scope and scale of the program for the life of the site, not just the life of the project.

Another more well-known aspect of the program is the enforcement of the zoning ordinance and portions of the county code.

While this may be more familiar to you, it accounts for the other half of the workday.

One question we often get is, how do you file a zoning complaint or concern?

We have a system that anyone, including the supervisors, can file.

There are two ways.

The first one, our county's website, which has been recently updated, and now this link is much easier to find.

As you can see here, how do I click that?

A new window will pop up.

and then you will click on property nuisance incident.

That will take you to an online form.

There is some information there to follow, questions to answer and a form to fill out.

When you submit that information it will go directly to our intake personnel for processing.

The second way is to dial our direct number 434-296-5834

That will take you to a detailed voicemail that will ask you to leave some information.

That information will also go directly to our intake staff, who again will put this into the same database.

We always ask that you leave your contact information so that we can get back to you for additional questions or just to provide information.

Without enough information and a contact number, we may not be able to process or investigate your concern.

By utilizing this system, we can track the receipt of all calls and online forms.

It is important to know the enforcement process is a complaint-based program, except for a couple of different types of violations.

Signs in the VDOT right-of-way and home stays from the newly adopted home stay ordinance last year.

Complaints that are found to be a violation are civil cases.

Because most of the property owners or residents in the county do not know the zoning ordinance, they are typically unaware they have a zoning violation.

After a complaint or a concern has been received, the information is logged into a database where we assign a CCO and track the investigation.

The CCO then contacts the complainant with a couple of business days just to make sure we have the correct information and to introduce themselves as the person assigned to the case.

The inspection process begins, which includes a site visit and contact with the property owner.

At this point, we make a determination whether there is a violation or not.

We do receive complaints that are not found to be a violation at all.

However, this does not mean the complainant will always be satisfied.

When other complaints are found to be in violation, that begins the process of building a relationship and educating the property owner as to why they may be in violation and to help them understand what steps are necessary to gain compliance.

Some of these violations are very easily resolved and some of them take more time.

Through building relationships and education, we have continuously resolved over 70% of the total cases in less than 120 days.

In other cases where there have been an unresponsive property owner or resident, that case must take a different route.

If no progress is made within 60 days a notice of violation is sent.

That time frame can be much sooner depending on the circumstances.

The notice contains language of appeal which is a 30-day time period dictated by state code and gives the property owner an opportunity to appeal the decision to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

After those 30 days, if we still do not have compliance, we file a warrant in debt with the court, which is now a civil penalty case.

Once filed, the case time frame is at the mercy of the court.

However, the CCOs continue working with the property owner or the violator to gain compliance.

If compliance is still not achieved after the civil fines reach the $5,000 cap set by the state code, we then seek other measures from the court, which could be in order to abate or eject relief.

Even though a small amount of those cases go this far, it is important to know we do not close a case until the property is in full compliance.

While a very few violations linger or become repeat offenders, we recognize some of these non-compliance tendencies may be mental health related.

Many cases that rise to this level require a coordinated effort with other county departments or other agencies.

We frequently work with Almar County Police, Fire and Rescue, County Attorney in the Courts, Department of Social Services, and Health Department, just to name a few.

This is zoning data that we've collected over the past 10 calendar years with our projections for the calendar year 2020.

As you can see, the trend line continues to go up.

This data shows complaints regarding zoning complaint cases only.

It does not include engineering or building complaints.

One thing to note, the spike seen here in 2019 and 2020 accounts for the new homestay ordinance and we do not expect those numbers to decrease in the upcoming calendar year.

Just as with inspections above, I want to re-emphasize the responsibility for the CCO team is increasing.

With the adoption of a new ordinance and approvals for new developments, there is more opportunity for complaints and violations.

From those numbers above, this is a snapshot of the top 10 complaint types for 2020 so far.

Homestays, junkyards, and operable vehicles, no surprise, make up more than two-thirds of our complaints today.

We have also noticed an increase in noise complaints this year, but what we found after looking at the data is that most of those relate to activities that have moved outdoors due to the pandemic.

Noise complaints are one of the more complex violations and we do work very closely with Albemarle County Police Department as they are often reported late at night or on weekends.

Also some of these complaints are not zoning related and fall under chapter 7 of the county code which is enforced by the police department.

The key takeaways about the inspection process I'd like for you to take away today are legal mandates and health and safety items take a priority for all our work.

Inspections are time sensitive and have an economic impact

When we refine the ordinance to better address the community needs, those approvals and ordinance additions expand the scope and or scale of the program.

In addition, some key points about the enforcement process.

Compliance takes time and is achieved at a high rate through education and relationship building.

Some violations are complex and require coordination with other departments and agencies.

Throughout the years, repeat offenders are a very small percentage of cases, and in a very small percentage of cases, civil penalties just do not guarantee compliance.

Again, thank you for your time.

Oh, I doubt we have any questions about any of this, Lisa.

Lisa, do you have another hour to stay with us?

Always, always.

Very, very interesting report.

Thank you.

I do have a couple of questions.

I have had over the years some experience, as you know, with

violators.

And you're right, many times it's resolved and no problem.

We do have, I think what sometimes I refer to as frequent flyers that cause you, I'm sure, a great deal of time.

What I've seen happen at times, especially with those frequent flyers, is that they play your office and your team off against the police.

And it's a whack-a-mole where you go to try and get something straightened out, they move the problem onto the public roads, which becomes a police problem, then they move it back, and this can go on for a long time.

sometimes for years, at least in a case that I'm familiar with.

So it has been mentioned to me that a way to get at some of this to save everybody some time would be to establish a team

approach where you have someone from your office and someone from the police working in conjunction so that there's better information flow going back and forth and you're not doing this whack-a-mole.

Is there any movement towards something like that?

I mean, I'm just... Well, we often reach out and work with the police on a lot of cases.

Sometimes

Our timing is off, so to speak.

We have a meeting set up for December 7th with the police just to go over some finer details of some of our ordinances so that we're all on the same page about what we enforce and what they enforce.

But we work very closely with the police.

I reach out and speak to the district commanders and

Corporal Reeves, Sean Reeves frequently.

So we are probably weekly reaching out to them.

Again, every case that we do, we don't require that kind of team, but there are cases that we do, in some cases are just dangerous when we go out there.

And I know you all work really closely with the police.

Right.

That's great.

And I have another question.

When you, because you're talking about all the inspections that you do.

Oh, and that does remind me.

I just had some significant work done by Robertson's Electors.

at my house, right?

I mean significant.

And they were talking to me about the fact that they were going to have to get a county inspector to come by and take a look at them and went on for five minutes about how wonderful Albemarle County was with the inspections even during the pandemics

and how another neighboring community was not doing so well but that we were the gold star.

So I just wanted to let you know that.

So the businesses are really appreciating that we're keeping up with those inspections and making them happen.

We're trying.

That's not what I was going to say.

So in talking to several VDOT folks,

around my concern and someone who's pretty much embedded in the world of maintenance.

My concern that I've mentioned several times about our approving public versus private roads, okay, maintained private roads by homeowners and public roads that VDOT takes into account.

One of the things that was pointed out to me was that

The public versus private road is not so much a problem when the road is first built.

It's a maintenance issue down the road as the community no longer is able to afford the maintenance and all of those homeowner dues fall by the wayside and everything.

There's a whole myriad of problems there.

But to get to what I'm trying to say, I was told that in 2008,

We had two inspectors, county inspectors, and they said they were under the engineering, this county engineer.

who inspected all of the roads that the developers were putting down to make sure that they were putting them down to VDOT standards and that they were put in properly.

And that with the downturn in the economy, right, that those were two of the positions that we lost.

And so what the VDOT folks were saying to me was when those inspectors went away,

The issue regarding public versus private roads became more problematic because there wasn't that strong inspection as those roads were going in.

And I'm just thinking about asking for some real discussion by the board around this issue.

But Lisa, would your group not have been the group inspecting those roads or were they under the

Well, that is, that's exactly right.

It would be under the engineering department.

I can't really speak to that program.

I would advise you to ask those questions and maybe let folks come back to you with that.

We deal on the parcel itself.

That's helpful.

That's our jurisdiction.

Okay, thank you.

And with that, I've taken a lot of time.

Thank you.

So I've written all this down because it reminded me of some things I wanted to mention.

Several citizens a year have said to me, can you help me with this because I'm afraid to make a complaint myself.

When you're out at the end of a long dirt road and you're an elderly woman or somebody, you know, young person with family, they're not going to go toe to toe with their neighbor who might have a gun.

And so that's a great concern.

And I don't want you to be aware of that.

I haven't used your online form because I just go straight to you.

But I've also said to people, please give me the information.

I will supply it to zoning and you will not be named anywhere.

But I want you to know that that is a fear that people have, whether it's the voice on the phone or filling out the online form.

so that we figure out a way that those occasional boo-boos when people do find out.

are very, very rare because it could go badly very quickly for people in some of these circumstances.

I love the team approach idea.

You mentioned the danger of going to inspect a lot of these places.

And I know when we sent for Ashley up to Fox Mountain, I said, please take a police officer with you because you need one.

So that is a real situation.

But it's the same thing when, because we have this culture of citizen complaint,

It's a built-in antagonism among neighbors.

And I don't know how to fix it, but I know it is really, really a problem for some situations.

So I know you all know that and are thinking about it, but I'm very glad that you're being proactive about some things as people are driving by and they see whether those two categories you mentioned that are proactive, that's really important to do.

And if there are solutions that

can be dealt with to be able to have less complaint-driven and more other things.

I would love to know about that.

And the other thing is I know we send you a lot on enforcement issues, which are things you can't enforce.

And I just learned yesterday, for example, that our light ordinance doesn't apply to residential.

I thought, well, blast.

You know, people have been calling all night and all the time and saying, you know, there's this all night long monster light that's shining right in my house and I can't sleep.

And you have to go out there and say, sorry.

The board doesn't care.

I mean, you wouldn't say that, but our laws don't take you into consideration.

So I would ask that as you all are doing your everyday operations, if there are gaps that you and your staff identify, if you would please share those with Jeff, because there may be some tremendous time savings if the board had different rule bridges, bridges in some of these gap places where we're leaving things out that you still have to deal with.

and I'm absolutely convinced, whether it's dog leash laws or noise ordinances, that if we have really good rules, not even half of the people are going to follow them.

And that would reduce the other numbers that you have to deal with on a regular basis.

Could I just address a couple of things there?

So our complaint for zoning, when you call in, if you say that you would like to remain in confidence,

Our code compliance team keeps that in confidence and per state code that is protected by FOIA.

So in other complaints building code not the same but for zoning those complaint names are protected.

Now a lot of times when we go out we do have folks that think they know who called

Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're not.

It's hard when folks are standing at their driveway taking pictures and sending those to us and then saying, I don't know who called.

So, you know, some of it is just happening in the, you know, in the community.

It is online and it is on our voicemail.

That's right.

Yes, yes.

Second point about the lighting.

You're right.

Sunlighting is not something that we can enforce.

The lighting ordinance relates to certain types of wattage of bulbs and things.

So it's not really meant for residential.

However,

As I pointed out, we do work and build relationships with our residents and property owners, and we still will go out and take a look and maybe ask that property owner, hey, could you turn that light down?

There are multiple times, countless times that I, you know, we're

When we bring that to the attention of the property owner, they'll say, oh, I didn't even realize that.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Ms.

Green, thank you for your presentation and your comments and everything.

I want to point out that over the last approximate five years, other than an actual developer, I have probably had as much involvement with community development as any resident of the county.

Four of those five years as a private citizen and that's an important point because in those first four years I was just a private citizen obviously as a supervisor in either my official or my individual capacity people may look at me differently I believe I'm treated just like every other resident and that's the point I want to make and I have been extremely pleased with professionalism and comprehensive ability

of our community development.

I do want to talk about two things that I see a bit of a differentiation in though and that's the distinction between the work that's done for permits

versus the works that's done for inspections.

And I recognize there's a bit of inspection involved in both of those.

I have not personally experienced any delays, but anecdotally, I have had some individuals in both in the development and the individual property owners say that they believe that the permitting process in Albemarle County seems to take too long.

So what I would ask is that we look at establishing and documenting what I would call processing times from start to finish on an application along with each step in the process so that we can actually objectively look to see how efficient we are in the process.

When it comes to inspections,

I am amazed that even during the pandemic, if you call by three o'clock, I think it is on one day, they'll have an inspector out the next day.

And if you call early enough in the day, you can even set it for a morning or an afternoon in most occasions.

And again, I've done remodeling.

I've had a number of outbuildings that have been put on my property.

And I think the work I'll do is tremendous, but I do want to be able to objectively for our residents, be able to show them through our processing times,

and perhaps we can then compare that with some of our neighboring communities.

Other than that, I recognize that y'all, particularly when it comes to the code compliance part, that there are a lot of complexities.

I think y'all do a tremendous job and it's one of the reasons why this area is as pretty as it is because y'all take care of it.

So thank you very much.

Thank all of you.

But Ms.

Green, I'll just kind of say thank you specifically because you did the primary part of the presentation.

Yeah we also we have been working on that so myself, Michael, other folks involved in the process we're continually looking for areas to improve and to speed up that process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Green.

I really do appreciate it.

And again, you know, and I'll add one more anecdotal.

In what's left in my private law practice, I work with a lot of federal agencies that have done absolutely nothing since March.

And I look at the work that Albemarle County does every day of every week to keep our county moving forward.

So please, mostly I'm saying thank you, but that is one area that I would ask just to, you know, get some reports back so we can see objectively how we're really doing.

Thank you very much to both of you for the presentation, for the update.

Very, very informative.

I really appreciate that.

I have two things I wanted to bring up.

I'm not sure what we can do about it but it's it's a lot of tree trimming and grasses that belong private roads so my understanding I mean even to the point that some of the foliage is actually in the road so you have to go around it and then I find out that even though these are main roads and look like you know regular they are regular roads but they are private roads because they're a part of a

Commercial Development and then they go down into homes and everything.

So I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about that.

The other thing is along the medians in private roads where the grass is growing and also where it's not kept up at all by VDOT.

If there's something we can do there or if there's something you could suggest that we could do that would help you out, that's one thing.

That would be something we would need to take a look at.

We have jurisdictions for site plans and the ability to do maintenance, but that's only for a commercial site plan development.

That is correct and we did take a look at one of your concerns there and that was a VDOT right-of-way at that point.

Okay, thank you.

And this one is, of course, you probably know about this because you spoke to it about the Panop CAC meeting compliance.

with code compliances in junk yards, in the front of someone's home and everything.

Well, as I mentioned in the presentation, we have some folks that, you know, we get compliance.

We have some folks that are just difficult to get to the finish line, okay?

In this particular year, and maybe something you're particularly, you know,

As I said, we're at the mercy of the courts and so for a very long time, the courts were closed this year and so that did put kind of a halt on some of our enforcement proceedings.

And so with that, I would have to get back with you on that to see, you know,

We're working with the county attorney on some things and I would maybe just leave that at that now just and say we'll get back to you with something.

But some people it just takes more time to get and sometimes they're going to do things to gain compliance that may not look like the yard that we would have

Yes ma'am, thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Okay, one way we could help you is support unfreezing that position, I would think.

And which obviously I haven't seen the list of frozen positions yet.

My understanding is we will be seeing that, but I

I think this position is clearly something that the citizens of Albemarle would appreciate.

My question is the noise ordinance.

I'm still a bit confused on this.

I'm happy to hear that the December 7th you're having a talk with the police.

I assume that at least one thing on your list for that is the noise ordinance because we have

folks that when they call the police out the police say they don't know anything about the noise ordinance and that's the county's thing and so obviously there's some education.

But you mentioned when you were talking about the Chapter 7 being a part of the ordinance that goes directly to the police.

Chapter 18 is the zoning ordinance and that is the ordinance that we directly enforce related to land use regulations.

There was some concerns with some other noise

News, nuisances that are in Chapter 7 that do relate to specifically what the police would enforce.

Gun fire, for instance.

That would not necessarily be a land use noise unless it was related to a business.

And then you have things like cars that go down the road with a loud

radios and things like that.

That's a police thing.

The best way to distinguish the two is that probably most, if not all, of the complaints that come in under Chapter 7 are probably dealing with loud music and parties and things like that.

And the Chapter 18 is, as Lisa said, it's the land use.

It might be the small industrial thing or the dog kennel that's making noise or things like that that are regulated otherwise under the zoning ordinance.

The other

The other big difference is that police are, they're a 24 hour a day operation and zoning is not.

So if this is a winery or orchard or something like that, having events at night,

That's correct.

And that is some of that coordination between us and the police.

They'll let us know.

Yeah, there's been some changing of the guard.

So in order to kind of re coordinate and

and recalibrate everybody.

Great.

I'm looking forward to that.

That's one of my biggest things that I hear from folks about with respect to noise.

Thank you, Lisa.

The question I have, it's more, I guess, operational.

So do you prefer if us supervisors use the online reporting websites versus just emailing you direct?

Well, yes.

It's such an easier way to track things so that it follows through the system and then we have a time and date receipt on the calls and on the emails.

And then if I'm out or something happens and the email gets lost in the shuffle, it is a much more efficient way to do that.

And was the

What was the phone number again?

I was going to write that down.

I'm on the website.

So let me ask this question.

So there was a point where there was some like stormwater runoff, things like

and coming from behind where Goodwill is and all of that.

And then the trash or the litter that would go with the water issue.

So the water issue was one part, the litter is another part.

Now, I would think it would be easy if you go out and you go, okay, this place is just littering, they're not taking care of their trash.

It's easy if it's one actor, but my guess is it's probably multiple things in the public and everything.

Well, this is the most unpopular part of our job.

So when the litter goes to that one parcel, it is the then responsibility for that property owner.

And so we've worked with the police for folks, you know, littering and

That is, it's my understanding from the police, a very hard case to try in the courts because you have to physically see somebody throwing it out.

So in that situation, as I mentioned with all other things, we do work very closely with other folks.

So if engineering goes out and finds something,

and says, hey, I think we might need your help on this, then we'll go out with the engineering department and take a look at it.

So if you go out and you found multiple businesses that weren't taking care of securing the dumpster or overfilling and you have two or three doing that in addition to then the public is maybe doing some littering and the wind is all collecting.

I mean, would you do education locally?

We've got this issue.

Absolutely.

We need all of your help.

I mean, is that part of what a request could be?

It might not be necessarily a violation, but

Absolutely.

We would reach out to the property owner, the property management company that handles the leasing of that and talk to them about how they secured their dumpster.

I mean that's actually also a part of their site plan is to maintain their site.

And then I guess my other question is when other departments receive

And I'm not talking a direct thing like, oh, I went to the wrong department with a zoning code violation.

I'd imagine that's easy to identify.

They turn that over to you.

But if they go out on some other type of issue, like I was mentioning the stormwater and notice that that leads to something that could be a code violation.

Are they reporting through the same system that helps you easily track it and all of that?

We are still working hard to get everyone to go to the same system.

But we do, especially if it's within our own department, we're working very hard not to have those silos.

So we do work very closely together.

I mean, we would have

It is not uncommon for somebody in real estate to come to us and say, hey, we saw something you may want to check out and then we will work with folks that way.

But yes, while there seems to be a lot of silos, we do have a lot of folks come to us.

Within our divisions, building, engineering, and zoning, the team works very well together and that same line is the complaint line for all of them.

So they're processed out that way and we may actually get a request that's dual.

So you may get a building and zoning request out of the same phone call or off of the same form and then we talk to each other, we even have the inspectors go out together.

Well thank you.

I appreciate the work.

Are there any other follow-up questions real fast?

Lisa, I want to add to some of the other discussions that we've had if there's anything that you and your team feel like that we should take to our state legislators it requires a change to the state code or if you could let us know because I know for example the secondary parking ordinance required approval from the state and now we have

Yeah, great.

That's great.

Thank you.

One quick follow up.

When we were talking about the home stay and developing that issue, there was discussion about having a team inspection day so that for a new applicant, for example, they didn't have a building person one day and a fire person another day.

And because I heard a lot of complaints at the beginning and a lot of people just gave up because they couldn't be there for five days straight to get that done.

Yes, ma'am.

And so, as you can imagine, with the COVID pandemic, we did not have any interior inspections on that front for a while.

Those inspections are mostly handled by Michael Dellons, our building official.

And so I know that he is working with fire and they've got a system workout so that would be one inspection.

Great.

I really appreciate the board's questions.

Several board members have asked questions about what can we do to help, how can we help.

There was a coordination question that I believe that one board member asked regarding the online system.

and I believe Ms.

Green was very, she was very diplomatic but very candid about the more consistent the board is and how they pass along complaints the better we're able to log and track and respond and so I'd like to ask the board if it would be helpful if Lisa or the CDD staff if we could follow up with an email to the board to really spell out

What is the steps to put a complaint in the system?

And the board could even print that off, keep it, because I know board members get hit with questions from citizens, complaints from citizens, but the more consistent we are with how we put the complaint into the system, the better we're able to track the data, the turnaround time, the enforcement, the outcome, and all of that.

and I think Ms.

Green again was very diplomatic in saying, let's say she takes a day off or she's in training or she's away and it comes to her cell phone or it comes on an email.

That's a single point of failure because Ms.