Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting   12/11/2019

1. Call to Order.

2. Legislative Priorities Discussion with Delegate-Elect Hudson.*

• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:00:01
    Okay, good afternoon.
  • 00:00:02
    I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our December 11, 2019 meeting.
  • 00:00:08
    And welcome to, let's see if I get the title right, Delegate Elect Sally Hudson.
  • 00:00:14
    We are thrilled to have you here today.
  • 00:00:17
    Congratulations on your new position.
  • 00:00:20
    We look forward to not just the work we will do with you, but the work you decide to focus on and do that are your priorities.
  • 00:00:28
    Before we get started, I'd like to,
  • 00:00:31
    just as a small token of our appreciation.
  • 00:00:34
    We have a County of Albemarle mug that celebrates our 275th anniversary.
  • 00:00:39
    So before I forget to do that, I'd like to give that to you as a welcoming gift today, and then we will get started.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:00:47
    I think what we need to do is ask Sally to count up the number of mugs she gets over the next couple of years and give us a... Sally, that is not a quid pro quo gesture on behalf of the county here.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:01:01
    We will see which meetings, committee meetings, you decide to drink coffee from that mug, though, when you're down in Richmond.
  • 00:01:06
    So how today will work, welcome everyone.
  • 00:01:09
    So just quick introductions over to my right, Trevor Henry and Doug Walker from the county executive's office and officer, Crickenberger, sorry.
  • 00:01:21
    Crickenberger is with us as well.
  • 00:01:23
    Of course, the supervisors, our county attorney, Mr. Greg Campner, our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, and our board clerk, Claudette Borgeson, over to my left.
  • 00:01:32
    And then we obviously have some other folks here joining us in the audience as well.
  • 00:01:37
    So how this will work, we're going to have a quick presentation of our legislative packet that Mr. Campner will take us through.
  • 00:01:42
    And then supervisors, I think it would be appropriate that if there are any specific things that you would like a chance to speak to, we could do that.
  • 00:01:50
    But then I also offered to delegate elect that if there are her priorities beyond just what's focused on the county, that we have an opportunity for her to do so as well.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 00:01:59
    May I just say one quick thing?
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:02:02
    We really appreciate you reaching out to us.
  • 00:02:04
    You don't know how spoiled we feel that we had you reach out to us and show an interest in meeting with us today.
  • 00:02:12
    So thank you very much.
  • 00:02:13
    It's part of the job.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:02:16
    and then we're going to have a chance to see an end of year review that Emily has championed.
  • 00:02:22
    It will be nice to be able to share that with delegate elect Hudson as well.

3. Legislative Priorities Discussion with Delegate-Elect Hudson.*

• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:02:25
    All right, Mr. Kamner, it's all yours.
  • 00:02:27
    Thank you, Mr.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:02:28
    Chair, members of the board, delegate elect Hudson.
  • 00:02:33
    The presentation today will be a quick review.
  • 00:02:35
    These will be the same slides that the board received on September 5th when we met with the delegation.
  • 00:02:47
    We did have a couple of successes last year, the key ones being
  • 00:03:07
    The statutory changes that were required to allow the county courts project to proceed.
  • 00:03:14
    The other piece of legislation was a change to the notice requirements regarding zoning violations, which returned the state law back to what it had been about three years ago, where it allowed notices to be provided by either certified or registered mail.
  • 00:03:32
    And that was provided a cost savings to
  • 00:03:37
    local governments across the continent.
  • 00:03:42
    Here's a quick overview of the board's 2020 legislative priorities.
  • 00:03:48
    The one that we will talk about probably the most, which will be the first three now, which are ones that appear to be on the table for 2020.
  • 00:04:03
    In-kind resources for volunteer firefighting and emergency
  • 00:04:07
    service providers carrying specified loaded weapons in public areas and at monuments and memorials legislation.
  • 00:04:17
    Impact fees, equal taxing authority for counties, and increasing the minimum tree canopy.
  • 00:04:23
    We will talk about those briefly.
  • 00:04:26
    Some of those are multi-year initiatives that have statewide support by localities, but we will discuss those.
  • 00:04:37
    not quite as extensively as the first three.
  • 00:04:43
    Under Virginia Code section 15.2953, localities have the ability to donate property and money to volunteer firefighting and emergency service providers.
  • 00:04:56
    What we do not have is the authority to provide in-kind resources and given the trend that is happening with volunteer both firefighting and emergency service providers not only in Albemarle County but nationwide our desire was to obtain enabling authority to provide in-kind resources
  • 00:05:22
    In the bottom right hand corner of this slide, we identify some of the types of resources that we would like to provide, which would allow the county's contributions to the volunteer companies to go even further.
  • 00:05:39
    In the current budget,
  • 00:05:43
    County anticipates that it will be providing about one and a half million dollars to the volunteer companies.
  • 00:05:52
    We already provide a number of
  • 00:05:58
    Financial and property contributions to the volunteer companies, but this enabling authority would allow us to better assist them and to let the county's public's tax money go even further.
  • 00:06:18
    Two pieces of legislation that the board has supported the past two years, both of which failed in committee in 2018 and 2019, was legislation that would give localities more control over war memorials and monuments.
  • 00:06:37
    and also being added to the list of localities.
  • 00:06:42
    There are eight currently in Virginia Code Section 18.2-287.4 to be added to the list of localities who have authority to prohibit carrying specified loaded weapons in public areas.
  • 00:07:01
    And
  • 00:07:05
    Delegate-Elect Hudson, you will see that those are identified as conditional requests and at the time that the board adopted its legislative priorities in September, it was uncertain how the General Assembly would be composed come 2020.
  • 00:07:31
    Still waiting for committee assignments, but these are two priorities of the board.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:07:38
    Forgive me.
  • 00:07:38
    Can I ask conditional request sounds like a technical term that has a more formal definition than I understand.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:07:45
    It does.
  • 00:07:45
    It does not.
  • 00:07:46
    I think the board at the time was waiting to see how the elections would go.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:07:51
    We've got but so many things to prioritize in a packet that there have been with the makeup of the board politically, it just or the assembly, I'm sorry.
  • 00:08:01
    Does it make sense to continue to bring things back if no changes are made?
  • 00:08:04
    So we've put some items in there that are still of interest to us, but we kind of accepted the reality that until such time the assembly had a different makeup that these likely would not proceed.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:08:15
    Which is where we are now.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:08:17
    But I think, Sally, it is unconditional in terms of the board's view that there should be an increase of powers of local control.
  • 00:08:26
    You saw today's article about a number of different counties and cities in the Commonwealth that are interested in seeing
  • 00:08:33
    greater power ceded to the local level by the General Assembly to ensure there will be discretionary decision making in pursuit of local governmental objectives of health, safety, and welfare.
  • 00:08:48
    And this would be one of those.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:08:55
    Impact fees.
  • 00:08:56
    This is a multi-year statewide initiative.
  • 00:09:00
    Local governments have been pursuing shifting from impact fees or to impact fees away from proffers to deal with the impacts of new development.
  • 00:09:15
    and in your board materials I included a separate set of PowerPoint slides that go into more depth.
  • 00:09:25
    We had a work session that dealt just with the proffers versus impact fees issue.
  • 00:09:31
    What the
  • 00:09:37
    The board and what other localities would eventually look for would be enabling authority to establish an impact fee program which would apply.
  • 00:09:46
    It would be a fee that would be imposed on all new residential development.
  • 00:09:51
    Right now, proffers are collected to deal with the impacts of new development only for those
  • 00:09:59
    residential units and only for those commercial projects that go through a rezoning process when they're going from a residential district and they asked to be rezoned to a commercial district from a residential district to a mixed-use district.
  • 00:10:19
    And with that being the case, the locality's ability to address the impacts of new development through proffers is quite limited.
  • 00:10:32
    There are also some ramifications.
  • 00:10:35
    because of the current system, because it eliminates the incentive for localities to proactively rezone property because if localities do that, they lose the ability to collect proffers.
  • 00:10:52
    and it also incentivizes developers who may have a low density residential zoning designation on their property to just develop that way rather than go through the rezoning process.
  • 00:11:07
    The effect of this is that in Albemarle County's
  • 00:11:13
    Urban Ring is a good example where we have zoning designations, let's say for residential, that may be R1.
  • 00:11:21
    R1 means that the minimum lot size is one acre in our urban development area that has been in place for 50 years.
  • 00:11:33
    And in the 50 years since then, the county's comprehensive plan, which establishes the 20-year development vision for the county,
  • 00:11:41
    has evolved significantly and the form of development has evolved significantly.
  • 00:11:47
    The transportation impacts and needs have evolved significantly in that time.
  • 00:11:54
    But we have a very forward-thinking comprehensive plan
  • 00:11:58
    and a zoning map in our urban ring that is 1969, 1980, with some limited rezonings that have occurred in the decades since.
  • 00:12:14
    This is a multi-year initiative.
  • 00:12:18
    There was a coalition called the High Growth Coalition.
  • 00:12:24
    I attended one of the meetings they've been working on this for and you probably owe ten years.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:12:30
    Any multi-year.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:12:34
    But this has a
  • 00:12:38
    This has a potentially long-term beneficial impact for not only addressing impacts but also letting a locality zoning better match its comprehensive plan.
  • 00:12:54
    To give you an example of how deficient proffers are, I can't remember if it was the High Growth Coalition, I was at a Senate subcommittee work group over the summer, but Loudoun County was there and they told the group that their proffers, and their proffers are about $55,000 per residential unit.
  • 00:13:18
    That addresses only 2% of their capital
  • 00:13:22
    needs.
  • 00:13:24
    Loudoun County is adding multiple schools every year to keep up with their demands for growth.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:13:32
    Can I just, if I may, for your sake, Sally, when you get full-time enrichment, Senator Stewart has been one of the leaders, Republican Senator from the Peninsula, in opening the potential of impact fees being implemented in the Commonwealth.
  • 00:13:51
    I would urge you when the topic comes up to meet or have your staffers meet with his staffers and have a discussion about that.
  • 00:14:00
    There has been a great amount of interest and the reality is given the fact that Virginia is fairly esoteric.
  • 00:14:07
    We're the only state with proffers that most of the states are using impact fees which is a cleaner way for a municipality to address growth.
  • 00:14:19
    and it's a fair way because everyone that's growing ends up contributing to the pots that then are distributed out for different purposes, schools, police stations, libraries, etc.
  • 00:14:36
    So it's just a cleaner way to operate and it really finally puts the responsibility for growth with new residents rather than having existing residents pay for future growth, which usually has negative externalities associated with it.
  • 00:14:53
    More cars on the road, more kids in a classroom, et cetera, et cetera.
  • 00:14:57
    So you'll hear a lot more about it, but this is just an intro to proffers versus impact fees.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:15:04
    So this slide, and there are the other PowerPoint slides that were provided that go into this in more depth, but what we have right now in the proffer system is an incredibly
  • 00:15:19
    and I would say ridiculously complex set of laws with multiple scenarios, different rules will kick in when an application was filed and I'm not going to spend much time on it.
  • 00:15:35
    because it is just so complicated.
  • 00:15:37
    It would take an hour to even begin to explain what we are dealing with right now.
  • 00:15:43
    But what we see firsthand is that our own community development staff is struggling with it because it is just so complicated.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:15:57
    Maybe convoluted is more appropriate.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:16:01
    And they don't even work.
  • 00:16:04
    The bottom line is they've not.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:16:05
    Yeah.
  • 00:16:06
    Equal taxing authority with cities.
  • 00:16:08
    You know historically counties dealt with rural issues and cities dealt with urban issues and what's happened over the last 50 years probably compounded given the moratorium on city annexation since 1987 is that a lot of counties have taken on urban characteristics.
  • 00:16:26
    at the same time they lacked the same taxing authority.
  • 00:16:31
    So there has been an ongoing statewide initiative for counties to obtain equal taxing authority with cities.
  • 00:16:40
    The board decided we have some key personnel who are new in their positions.
  • 00:16:45
    The director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce in particular
  • 00:16:55
    who are new.
  • 00:16:56
    And so the board put a hold on whether or not to pursue equal taxing authority, more authority for its current transient occupancy tax, the hotel tax.
  • 00:17:11
    Right now we are capped at
  • 00:17:14
    A number of other localities have obtained legislation to increase that amount.
  • 00:17:23
    Albemarle County, to give you an idea of how much the transient occupancy tax provides in Albemarle County, fiscal year 19-21.
  • 00:17:43
    approximately $1.2 million, and that is $1.2 million out of approximately $60 million of all the non-real property tax revenues collected.
  • 00:17:58
    It's not huge, but it touches on a theme of addressing the impacts that can be created by people or visitors who come in who otherwise are not paying real property taxes
  • 00:18:13
    while they're here, but they do impact the roads.
  • 00:18:16
    They may impact emergency services and things like that.
  • 00:18:24
    This is another one that's a long-term, multi-year initiative to deal with
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:18:33
    And we should just mention really quickly that when we brought this up to our legislators in the past, some have suggested that we have a coalition of high growth or urbanizing counties to try to work together for this.
  • 00:18:50
    So not necessarily broad brushed across all counties, but to concentrate on those urbanizing counties.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:19:00
    A couple of more, a couple of minutes over my time allotment.
  • 00:19:06
    The board was looking at legislation that would amend Virginia Code section 15.2-961 and this is the enabling authority that allows us to require the development, preserve, or plant a minimum tree canopy.
  • 00:19:26
    And this has been
  • 00:19:29
    We've looked at it, and right now, this has been put on hold, there's a study underway.
  • 00:19:37
    David, do you want to give the board the current status of that?
• • SPEAKER_35
  • 00:19:43
    Good afternoon, David Blount with DJPDC.
  • 00:19:47
    Actually, on two fronts, we are expecting legislation this coming session to direct a study by DEQ of the use of tree canopy as a stormwater BMP.
  • 00:20:01
    It's a little bit different than the issue that you all have been talking about.
  • 00:20:03
    but specific to Ural's discussions there are a couple of provisions in the watershed improvement plan that was released back in late summer that direct the Department of Forestry to look at urban tree canopy and it makes specific mention of increased local authority in that realm.
  • 00:20:23
    So I think there is going to be some movement maybe on this in the coming year and maybe on a couple of different fronts.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:20:34
    and lastly financial support for Biscuit Run Park.
  • 00:20:38
    The board adopted one resolution stating its position itself and it is adopted a second resolution which is the one that was included in the board materials requesting that the local General Assembly delegation support in the state budget five million dollars in funding.
  • 00:21:10
    Rick, you've been involved.
  • 00:21:11
    Is there anything new to report on that?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:21:14
    The only thing I'd add is I think the governor is due to present his budget on December 17th, and we are very hopeful that 5 million for the fiscal year 21 is going to be included in DCR's dedicated amount.
  • 00:21:30
    If it's not, we hope that we can get it in there.
  • 00:21:34
    it's critical and we can talk as we've already talked one-on-one about the park I'll look forward to following up with you and discussing this in more detail but the reality is that the county will be able to open this park to meet the needs of the same overall constituency but at less cost
  • 00:21:55
    for user of the park than would have occurred had it been a state park and understanding also that $5 million of mitigation money was meant to come to the county that is now tied up in lawsuits as well as federal mandates that they cannot move forward.
  • 00:22:14
    It's even more critical that we have money available because we can only go so far in our CIP to fund this given all the other needs that are on the table.
  • 00:22:25
    We have school board representative, the chair, and the former chair in the audience who will testify that really we're looking at about
  • 00:22:33
    55 million over the next five fiscal years just in capital projects alone without Biscuit Run being part of that because we're continuing to grow by twelve to fourteen hundred people a year but this is why we think it's fair and reasonable to ask for five million dollars this year and then come back next year in the following year as well but most critical we have to get in under the door this year with five million so we'll be in touch to talk about that.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 00:23:04
    Are there any questions?
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:23:13
    Not right now.
  • 00:23:14
    I think I've had an ample time to review some of these things because they haven't changed much since September, but I thank all of you for answering my questions on the side along the way.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:23:22
    So, supervisors, it may be appropriate at this point if there are any specific things we want to bring up.
  • 00:23:27
    In addition, we have a chance to do that.
  • 00:23:29
    I know a couple will come from some fall meetings since we've done our packet.
  • 00:23:34
    And then, like I said, I'd like to give Delegate-Elect Hudson a chance to talk to us about her initiatives as well.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:23:40
    Liz, you want to go first and then I'll jump in with mine?
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:23:43
    I can.
  • 00:23:44
    I was thinking, I was thinking the schools and the early voter registration were the things that the whole board wanted to talk about, so maybe we should go first.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:23:53
    Sure, how Ned was going to get it done.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:23:55
    Was your topic one of the schools or the early voting, or was it another one?
  • 00:23:59
    No.
  • 00:23:59
    So then we can bring those up now.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:24:03
    Let's get those done first, because I think those are really important, too.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:24:06
    So we'll have information that will come to you for the school.
  • 00:24:09
    I know you were just meeting with the school board chair and some folks there prior to this meeting and I know information will be coming that speaks to this but by and large to try not to be too quick with it but we want to make sure that school funding from the state and how that impacts a locality.
  • 00:24:25
    and obviously a school division is going to come and ask for more funds as they should, but we're trying to make sure that we understand the threat all the way to local resources.
  • 00:24:35
    I would, if you have had not had a chance to do it, maybe Sam could put it down.
  • 00:24:39
    There was a 2015 JLARC study that came out in the fall that talked about how
  • 00:24:44
    State funding has diminished for school divisions around the Commonwealth.
  • 00:24:48
    That started obviously in the pre-recession years.
  • 00:24:50
    We're currently standing at about a $600 per student deficit from where the state has funded in the past.
  • 00:24:57
    And what that Jaylark study found was that in the southeast, all of the cost burden shifted to local entities.
  • 00:25:04
    And more so in the southeast region, Virginia took on that bigger burden than other states did.
  • 00:25:10
    So it's really been an impact on local governments throughout the whole state.
  • 00:25:13
    Now what that does for us means that we're sending more resources over to the school division to backfill what the state used to fund, leaving us with less resources to do the needs we want to do.
  • 00:25:23
    Rick mentioned a $55 million CIP over the next five years, and it's probably what, $150 million critical needs list?
  • 00:25:30
    And that's not even the whole list.
  • 00:25:31
    So it's really limited then when we start talking about our DSS services and affordable housing and other strategic priorities like climate change that the board has identified.
  • 00:25:39
    that we're being asked to dedicate resources to, but when you're filling back, filling the gap that the state's not been doing it or part in education, that restricts us from using those dollars.
  • 00:25:49
    So if the state finds their way to getting more money to education, that frees up those resources for us to now go attack our local issues that we haven't been able to do for the last 10 years.
  • 00:25:59
    I believe we have, like I said, what our gaps are and things like that that we won't need to get into now, but we'll make sure you have that information so you can see how it impacts us locally.
  • 00:26:08
    I would say two less things.
  • 00:26:09
    I'll let others, don't mean to hog the mic.
  • 00:26:11
    There would be micro ways to address that.
  • 00:26:14
    There are a lot of things that school divisions get unfunded mandates on that come down as edicts from the state and the funding doesn't follow or
  • 00:26:22
    perhaps broadening how you fund SOQ positions.
  • 00:26:24
    So when raises come up, you're not just funding a percentage of our teaching force, but the actual teaching force.
  • 00:26:30
    And then there's more macro levels.
  • 00:26:32
    So in our joint meeting with the school board this year, school board member Kolozar spoke to just increasing the whole pie for everybody.
  • 00:26:39
    So there are different ways to get at this, but every dollar that comes down from the state to help the school division frees up local resources to go to our local needs.
  • 00:26:46
    And I'll invite other supervisors to speak to them.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:26:48
    Can I ask really quick a follow-up question?
  • 00:26:51
    One of the places where I will be looking for mentorship and support from you is how to be a constructive player in that process as a freshman legislator who will care deeply about these priorities but likely will not have a seat on the Appropriations Committee that ultimately steers those decisions.
  • 00:27:07
    Senator Deeds, of course, will be on the Senate Finance Committee and may be able to have more direct influence over those levers, but if you have guidance on the role that I can play as a member who will be inside of the House, but outside of that committee, I'm all ears.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:27:22
    Awesome, and I'm sure we will be following the lead of those that are working down in Richmond, not looking at anyone in particular, but we will certainly be helpful in that regard.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:27:32
    I was just going to add to what Ned said.
  • 00:27:34
    I know the school division was going to prepare a one-page information sheet.
  • 00:27:39
    I don't know, Jono, do you all have it?
  • 00:27:41
    She has it?
  • 00:27:43
    That's great.
  • 00:27:44
    Then you already have it.
  • 00:27:45
    When you're talking $660 per student in arrears, essentially, and we have 14,000 students, you're talking about some real money.
  • 00:27:56
    Yeah.
  • 00:27:57
    So we could really use some help at the state level with making up that difference.
  • 00:28:02
    And I think, Ned, you covered it beautifully.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:28:06
    I do think that since it was a joint or the JLARC studies are commissioned by the state that those findings in that report are pretty solid in terms of what are there and there have been other articles and things over the last couple of years that speak to other micro ways to get there so I think between the school division and us speaking to it we'll figure out maybe some strategies that could help so thank you for the invitation to be a team member with you on that.
  • 00:28:30
    The second item, I'm sorry.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:28:33
    Was early voting.
  • 00:28:34
    Was it early voting?
  • 00:28:35
    It was early voting if you wanted.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:28:37
    Unfunded mandate.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:28:38
    Yeah, speaking of unfunded mandate.
  • 00:28:41
    Right.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:28:43
    Yeah, are you going to take that?
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:28:45
    I'm happy to yield that one.
  • 00:28:47
    I could probably do a quick one on that.
  • 00:28:49
    If I miss anything, then somebody can hit.
  • 00:28:50
    But you probably know about this.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:28:52
    In case it's helpful, I've had some extended discussions with Jake Washburn about this.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:28:57
    You're up to speed on this matter.
  • 00:28:58
    Just to be really clear about any discussions, the 45 days all of a sudden requires us, there's no good work around, it requires us to immediately
  • 00:29:12
    to devote capital improvements money to that effort.
  • 00:29:21
    And while we all agree, I'm sorry, what?
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:29:23
    We're not, I don't think, ready for that discussion.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:29:26
    I'm not going to, I'm not, I'm just saying that it is a, it's going to hit a budget and it's paying, robbing Peter to pay Paul routine.
  • 00:29:38
    So we're hoping for some help here.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:29:40
    And I know that the State Board of Elections has heard that loud and clear.
  • 00:29:44
    I had a phone call with Commissioner Piper a week or so ago on a number of election reform issues, but made sure to pass along that message from yet another person that the localities are concerned about having the funding to do this right.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:29:55
    It's significant.
  • 00:29:58
    They just need to live up to their obligation.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:30:01
    It's not that we're opposed to early voting.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:30:03
    We're very excited.
  • 00:30:05
    We're excited about it.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:30:06
    We really think it's the right thing to do.
  • 00:30:08
    We just have to figure out how to pay for it.
  • 00:30:09
    And just like schools, we don't want to have to rob Peter to pay Paul.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:30:14
    Right.
  • 00:30:14
    And I think that that message is being heard loud and clear inside of the Democratic caucus, which has put election reform really at the top of the agenda.
  • 00:30:22
    And I think we understand the urgency of doing it well, because if it rolls out poorly, it sours momentum for the effort more broadly, kind of like healthcare.gov.
  • 00:30:31
    The execution can undermine the broader effort.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:30:34
    Right.
  • 00:30:35
    Again, it's making the pie bigger, not just re-slicing the pie in different ways.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:30:41
    And those were the two I know that came out of the fall, and then I know we have some specific items.
  • 00:30:47
    I'll give each supervisor a few minutes to speak to an item.
  • 00:30:50
    And Liz, did you want to start with the one you brought to the whole board?
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:30:52
    Okay, I'll try to go very quickly.
  • 00:30:54
    One thing I just want to mention, kind of hot off the press with the Governor's new announcement, was his continued interest in joining the
  • 00:31:07
    Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
  • 00:31:11
    I know you're very familiar with that and I'm sure you're supporting that, removing language from the budget to allow us to move forward with that and any legislation to improve that.
  • 00:31:23
    One of the things I just wanted to bring up is the suggestion that in order to get other counties on board and other cities throughout the Commonwealth on board with
  • 00:31:41
    talking about climate change and getting ready for it, that we have legislation saying that counties will need to, in their comprehensive plan, put a resiliency plan together.
  • 00:31:57
    I think it's a great way to get everybody starting to talk about it.
  • 00:32:03
    The precedent for this also is that we had a severe hydrologic drought from 2000 to 2003 in the state.
  • 00:32:12
    And the state then required all localities to develop a 50 year comprehensive identification of all water sources and develop a 50 year water supply.
  • 00:32:24
    and so this went throughout the Commonwealth and I think it was very successful.
  • 00:32:29
    We here now have a 50 year water supply plan and of course Hampton Roads in 2015, the Hampton Roads PDC was required to have a resilience plan to deal with sea level rise.
  • 00:32:43
    So if you need any help in going through anything, trying to figure out how to make that happen, people to go through bills, I know that you will be very much involved in all the things that you can be, and you still don't know what committees you're going to be on.
  • 00:33:02
    But I know that there's a lot of folks that are interested in that, and I understand that you are too.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:33:10
    I think it's a wonderful suggestion.
  • 00:33:12
    We have just passed the deadline for submitting new drafts for new ideas to the legislature, so I think that the mechanism for achieving this goal is to find another bill that we can naturally tuck this into unless someone already has.
  • 00:33:25
    We will be keeping an eye out for our opportunity to do that, but I think as you know there are 3,000 bills.
  • 00:33:30
    So if this is something that's a priority, a very helpful thing that you could do is to also be on alert for where is the House bill coming in where this would naturally just slide in and then we can talk to the sponsoring patrons of that bill about whether or not we could amend it.
  • 00:33:45
    One thing I'll also highlight, it is much easier to amend the text of a bill before it becomes publicly listed on LIS.
  • 00:33:54
    My understanding, because it needs to be formally amended as opposed to adjusted with the drafters behind the scenes.
  • 00:34:04
    and so if you get word of another bill from another legislator before we do that has not yet been publicly filed but is still in the drafting process if we can tuck it in sooner rather than later it's just logistically simpler.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:34:20
    Maybe David you could help us with that if something comes across to your attention.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:34:25
    We also have some wonderful organizations locally that are watching these things pretty closely so I'll reach out to them and see if they can be on the watch for us too.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:34:39
    I guess it would be no surprise that from my perspective the non-partisan redistricting I hope is still number one and the focus of the greater caucus and the greater assembly will live up to their what I perceive to be an obligation, moral obligation to continue with that.
  • 00:34:59
    Just some more piling on on the need for more local decision making.
  • 00:35:03
    Others have mentioned different aspects of it but to
  • 00:35:07
    Disallow the local government level who is closest to the citizenry and have them not have the flexibility to react to local citizens' desires is a real handicap.
  • 00:35:18
    So we cannot regulate where sewage sludge goes, for example.
  • 00:35:22
    That causes incredible heartburn in the urban rural interface where people who live in urban neighborhoods are having to deal with this on the very next property.
  • 00:35:33
    We have water protection.
  • 00:35:35
    things that we need to be able to take care of to protect our own reservoir and yet we're precluded from doing that because a legislation was passed to benefit one business in one faraway county and yet all of the counties and all of the similar businesses are treated the same way in a single one size fits all.
  • 00:35:53
    This has been a disaster in the past.
  • 00:35:55
    We've spent lots of summers, David and I and Greg, working on sort of prevention measures and defensive measures for
  • 00:36:02
    particular legislators who go off the reservation and want to make every winery in the Commonwealth grandfathered so they can never plant another vine or do anything.
  • 00:36:12
    It's just the amount of effort that is wasted and invested in protection because people in the legislature seem to think that they know everything about everything and that those of us in the local government don't know anything and our citizens definitely don't know anything.
  • 00:36:28
    and so I hope that you will be able to use your great persuasive ability to educate your colleagues that we're all representing the same people and that they have an obligation to stop treating them like children and actually share some of that responsibility.
  • 00:36:47
    The tree canopy bill actually is a little different from my constituents point of view and I think in some other districts as well where there's been a lot of development happening and maybe in a second year the more local effort will happen.
  • 00:37:00
    I'm sorry it got diverted from the Arlington version into this forestry thing because that sounds like a punk to me.
  • 00:37:07
    But citizenry is very upset that there is nothing local government can do to
  • 00:37:12
    prevent demolishing a forest on 50 acres and then coming back and planting little trees the size of my pinky that will take a hundred years to replace the ones that were cut down.
  • 00:37:23
    So some communities have had the ability for decades or more to say you can only remove
  • 00:37:30
    some percentage far greater than 10%, which is all we have right now, to prevent this basically making everything a tabletop that may be easy and fast for the guy on the bulldozer, but it certainly doesn't result in quality development.
  • 00:37:45
    So I hope that we will get there on that as well.
  • 00:37:48
    And it'll be just a fascinating year for you all, I think.
  • 00:37:56
    Reminds me of my first budget in 2008.
  • 00:37:58
    I was panic-stricken most of the time, especially in August when the state then, that was August just the beginning of the recession.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:38:04
    That's not a great time to learn how to budget.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:38:06
    No, and they called, after everything had been adopted, they called up in August and said, oh, by the way, that $6 million that we were going to send you for the schools, well, we're not.
  • 00:38:13
    And so we just don't ever want to have to go back there.
  • 00:38:17
    And hopefully you can prevent that.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:38:21
    So we'll get a quick couple minutes.
  • 00:38:23
    Supervisor Dill, then I'll go to Supervisor Randolph and then Supervisor McKeel.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:38:27
    That'd be great.
  • 00:38:29
    I think, aside from the specific bills, which we've agreed that we'd like to support, but in general, we all have, between Charlottesville UVA and Albemarle County, climate change goals that will be very difficult to reach unless we do something more dramatic.
  • 00:38:47
    So I think just in
  • 00:38:50
    every part of what the General Assembly is working on there should be an awareness of trying to make it easier to whatever is appropriate in the right situation about wind and solar farms and that kind of thing so I just
  • 00:39:09
    Everybody's so interested and has a high priority of doing something about climate change, but when it actually comes down to talking about economic growth and transportation, it seems to just always be a tertiary priority, so I would just try to
  • 00:39:28
    I guess I would want to see that be the focus as part of virtually everything that's done to make regulations easier to finance, to limit the power of dominion, to set the rules, that kind of thing.
  • 00:39:44
    That's good for me.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:39:45
    Thank you.
  • 00:39:46
    Supervisor Randolph?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:39:48
    Sally, I want to also talk about climate change and CO2, but I want to put a different spin on it.
  • 00:39:55
    And what I want to do is relate it to the gas tax.
  • 00:40:02
    If we continue with the status quo, where we have more automobiles that are hybrid and electric,
  • 00:40:07
    The Commonwealth collects fewer dollars each year because cars are more efficient with ICE, internal combustion engines, and super efficient with alternative engines.
  • 00:40:23
    So we need a different paradigm if we're really going to address the transportation
  • 00:40:29
    gridlock that is out there not only in northern Virginia or Hampton Roads, but is here alive and unfortunately living too well in central Virginia and Albemarle County.
  • 00:40:43
    So I would suggest
  • 00:40:45
    to be innovative and creative with this and urge you to do that and to look at perhaps an annual mileage fee because cars have to be inspected annually in the Commonwealth and when they're inspected the odometer can be read and it is clearly a violation of state law to set your odometer back
  • 00:41:04
    So there may be some healthy fees collected with people that don't follow that law if such a regime is put into place.
  • 00:41:13
    But you could create categories so that retirees that may drive a thousand to four thousand miles a year and no more
  • 00:41:23
    and putter down to the market and putter back again, they pay an annual fee of X amount, then somebody that drives 4 to 10,000 miles a year pays X plus Y, and then anyone who drives 10,000 miles a year and greater, and these are the individuals that really are putting stress on the roads.
  • 00:41:48
    the road warriors that commute to their jobs near Midlothian and have to be in the car for extended periods of time, myself included for many years in New York State and Connecticut.
  • 00:42:05
    But there really ought to be different rates there so that we're collecting fairly
  • 00:42:11
    the impacts of tires and weighted automobiles because after all the lightest weight hybrid or electric car still comes in at close to 2,000 pounds and that's going to wear down the surface of the road and going to contribute to therefore infrastructure needs going forward.
  • 00:42:31
    But we have an antiquated approach to addressing developing transportation infrastructure
  • 00:42:38
    not only for automobiles but also some of that money can be more creatively used for bikeways and multimodal transportation and a spillover effect also into buses.
  • 00:42:52
    So just urge you to think about that as you go forward and be as creative as you can as I know you are.
  • 00:43:00
    Thank you, sir.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:43:01
    Supervisor McKeel.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:43:02
    And I'll try and be quick because I know we are running out of time, but I just wanted to speak a few minutes, Sally, about the need.
  • 00:43:10
    It's a great segue from Rick about the need for transit support.
  • 00:43:17
    We hardly go to a meeting or discuss a topic in Albemarle County right now that transit doesn't come up.
  • 00:43:23
    and you know we are as a county and a city struggling with our transit system and there's no doubt that transit is moving in some different directions and we haven't really figured out exactly where it's going to go right now but there are some core needs
  • 00:43:41
    and I'm going to share these with you, but I think we can certainly agree that there's a lack of sufficient funding to meet the needs of transit right now in the state.
  • 00:43:54
    One bill that I would like to mention to you, and these are drafts right now, but there is a draft in the General Assembly right now to reinstate the business deduction for transit commuter benefits.
  • 00:44:10
    which could be very helpful.
  • 00:44:12
    The purpose is to allow a business deduction for employers who provide their employees with transit or ride sharing benefits.
  • 00:44:22
    We used to have that and it was eliminated back in 2017.
  • 00:44:29
    It would be really important, and this is not just so much for local, but at the state level for all of our businesses, because what we're doing right now, the businesses are competing with Maryland, Washington State, Minnesota, California, I could go on.
  • 00:44:45
    Those states, especially Maryland in our backyard, offer a business deduction for businesses, obviously.
  • 00:44:53
    So that's something I would really, and I'll give you this information I'd like for you to look at very seriously, talking just transit for the state in general.
  • 00:45:02
    The other one that could be important for us are transit passes for working families.
  • 00:45:08
    and it's amending budget, it gets back to that amendment you were talking about, budget item 364 to add a change for a first year of $5 million for the first year and second year of $5 million from the temporary assistance to needy families block grant
  • 00:45:28
    Anyway, I don't want to take our time and go up into the details too much, but this would really help with transit through an equity lens for working families would be great if you could look at that.
  • 00:45:41
    So that, and then I have one other transit impact that has come across my world because of my association with the Virginia Transit Association.
  • 00:45:55
    One of the new disruptions we're starting to see in transportation is a similar model to the Airbnbs and it is allowing someone to, just like we're renting out rooms or houses, it's peer-to-peer car rentals
  • 00:46:15
    that would act similarly to allowing citizens to rent out their vehicles to others using an app-based digital marketplace.
  • 00:46:25
    So what we could be looking at is a reduction in revenues to localities, obviously.
  • 00:46:35
    I will give you this information, but if the Airbnb model is moved to the car rental industry, the impact on Virginia's transportation funds would be significant.
  • 00:46:44
    And it gets back to what we've been talking about.
  • 00:46:47
    around receiving less monies.
  • 00:46:49
    And so I'll share this with you.
  • 00:46:53
    It goes into the details and it gives you more of the information.
  • 00:46:57
    But I would really like for you this session to just, when something comes up around transit, to be thinking about the importance.
  • 00:47:05
    It's not just Northern Virginia.
  • 00:47:08
    and the area in Hampton Roads and Newport News that needs transit, but we too need it and looking at some of these bills through that lens.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:47:20
    Thank you.
  • 00:47:21
    So here's your information.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:47:24
    Delegate Elect, I invite you if you'd like to share with us any initiatives or things you'll be focusing on or the mic is yours.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:47:32
    Sure, so let me maybe divide my thoughts into two parts.
  • 00:47:35
    One about the specific initiatives that I'm hoping to patron and then separately my committee service.
  • 00:47:41
    I think the general theme, the two priorities for me in the legislation that I'll be introducing is both election reform and local authority.
  • 00:47:50
    And to me, those are two variants on the same theme, which is making government responsive to our needs, I think exactly as you were saying.
  • 00:47:58
    So the redistricting bill I think is priority number one.
  • 00:48:01
    There's been no greater threat to government accountability in Virginia than gerrymandering in the last decade.
  • 00:48:07
    In addition, a number of specific initiatives that I've introduced are all about local authority.
  • 00:48:13
    Some of that's about granting the city greater flexibility in its toolkit for addressing the affordable housing challenges or equal taxing authority for the counties trying to make sure all of our localities.
  • 00:48:23
    have those same flexible toolboxes.
  • 00:48:26
    Some of it's about wages and procurement policy, that kind of very nitty-gritty thing.
  • 00:48:31
    One that I've heard a lot from constituents about but that you haven't mentioned and I would love some feedback from you at some point, doesn't have to be now,
  • 00:48:39
    is about local authority to better regulate pollutants and toxins, particularly those that come from single-use plastics.
  • 00:48:46
    Polystyrene, our local Sierra Club advocates are very strong on that, so we put in a bill for drafting to allow that local authority, but haven't yet released it and would love to talk it out with you.
  • 00:48:59
    We're so blessed with citizen advocates in this community who have been elevating those issues.
  • 00:49:05
    So that's, I think, the general theme that's running through the bills, is that local authority, and especially for the monuments.
  • 00:49:13
    Separate from that is my committee service.
  • 00:49:16
    And as I think you all know, I'm an economist by background.
  • 00:49:19
    And so my hope is to serve on the committees where I can best make use of that professional skill set.
  • 00:49:25
    Those are finance and commerce and labor.
  • 00:49:28
    The Finance Committee has been a very sleepy place under the Republicans' majority because they're not entirely interested in raising revenue.
  • 00:49:36
    I think we all have to come to grips with the honest reality that we have to grow the pie.
  • 00:49:42
    There is no way to make good on our commitments on so many fronts without raising some revenue, and there are lots of ways to do that.
  • 00:49:49
    Some of that is about being more thoughtful about the way that we consolidate existing tax credits and deductions.
  • 00:49:54
    It doesn't necessarily mean
  • 00:49:56
    and big tax increases, but we should leave that on the table as well, adjusting tax rates.
  • 00:50:02
    Some of that is about meeting overdue old promises, so funding our schools, especially in high cost communities like ours.
  • 00:50:10
    I hear a lot from a lot of our local service providers about how they can't reimburse their employees at the same rate as the folks in Nova because our state code hasn't acknowledged that Charlottesville and Albemarle are high cost communities in the same way that they are.
  • 00:50:24
    and then some of that is about getting more creative with additional instruments like perhaps vehicles mile traveled.
  • 00:50:31
    And then on the commerce and labor side, that's really about trying to address the two top priorities that I hear from constituents when I'm talking with them and that's healthcare and climate change.
  • 00:50:44
    both health insurance and energy regulation run through the Commerce and Labor Committee.
  • 00:50:50
    We don't have a standing committee on the environment and energy, so most of our climate change legislation runs through commerce and labor.
  • 00:50:58
    It's a committee that I think I'm qualified to serve on as a labor economist.
  • 00:51:02
    I don't know how to get a committee title any more closely to what I do, but it's also a bit of a long shot.
  • 00:51:09
    It's a coveted spot for freshmen because it's a great place to fundraise from.
  • 00:51:15
    People like having seats on the committee where you regulate industry because industry provides the most support for our, and I want to be very transparent about that because I want to ask for your help.
  • 00:51:28
    Our community has typically been represented on that committee.
  • 00:51:32
    Delegate Toscano was a member, but because it's a place where you usually come to with seniority, it's going to be a little harder for me to get a spot on that, despite my background.
  • 00:51:42
    I'll be the lone economist in the Assembly, but for some reason getting a seat on Commerce is a bit of a stretch.
  • 00:51:48
    So anything that you can think of as advocates for our community, whatever your relationships are between here and more senior folks in Richmond, I think that I've already done everything that I can as a rank and file member of the caucus to express my interest in serving on that committee.
  • 00:52:08
    But if you have a strong relationship with other current or former representatives who are part of the broader leadership structure, formal or informal,
  • 00:52:17
    If you can make it known that our community cares a lot about health care.
  • 00:52:22
    We've got two major hospitals within our district boundaries.
  • 00:52:25
    Our community cares urgently about climate change.
  • 00:52:28
    That work will happen in the Commerce and Labor Committee, and so our best shot at having a voice in that room is if I can serve in that spot.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:52:38
    The headline just yesterday, I guess, about the 200% increase in the premiums.
  • 00:52:43
    For our area alone, it's just disgraceful.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:52:49
    That ought to be one of the factors.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:52:51
    Absolutely.
  • 00:52:52
    No, I mean, health insurance prices, if I'm talking about what I hear from people in knocking doors and when people grab me by the elbow in a hallway,
  • 00:53:02
    it's health insurance costs and that work does not go through the Health Welfare and Institutions Committee.
  • 00:53:09
    It goes through Commerce and Labor because it's insurance regulation.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:53:12
    And it's somehow impacting the business who really is in charge of everything as we all know.
  • 00:53:18
    You had mentioned about the cost to compete.
  • 00:53:21
    It comes all the way through Culpeper County.
  • 00:53:23
    So it's 30 miles up the road and that's something that we've been talking about for 15 years and so I hope you have success with that.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:53:30
    Back in the day when I was on the school board, we'd had several years of a huge initiative with Acosta Compete and we could easily draw the line and document the similarity, how we were exactly like some of the areas in Northern Virginia and we got nowhere.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:53:48
    Well it would be wonderful if that were hinged to something empirical rather than being a geographic carve-out if there were an objective measure of cost and then we wouldn't have to adjust it every time somebody else like Harrisonburg or Waynesboro grows.
  • 00:54:03
    Yes, that would be lovely.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:54:05
    Well, that data must easily exist for someone in your role as an economist.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:54:10
    Put your finger on that in no time.
  • 00:54:12
    I'm certain that it does, and as I know you know, it probably has much less to do with economics and way more to do with politics.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:54:18
    Right.
  • 00:54:18
    Oh, as far as the ultimate decision.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:54:20
    As far as the decision.
  • 00:54:20
    Yes, exactly.
  • 00:54:21
    Absolutely.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:54:21
    You are right.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:54:22
    Delegate-Elect Hudson, we really value and appreciate the fact that you wanted to speak with us today to review our priorities and appreciate you sharing your initiatives and what you're focused on as well.
  • 00:54:31
    I think I speak for all of us and our incoming supervisors that you know that we are here at your disposal to help you do what you need to do to be successful.
  • 00:54:42
    And obviously anything we can do to help what our priorities are in the county, we're here to help with that as well.
  • 00:54:48
    If we may invite your indulgence, feel free to stay at the dais or go.
  • 00:54:53
    Actually, I'd like to do the county year in review, give you kind of a taste of what we've done over the year if you have the time.
  • 00:55:00
    If not, we understand as well.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:55:02
    I'm afraid I have to go scoot to grade final exams with my teaching assistants.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:55:07
    Great.
• • SPEAKER_23
  • 00:55:07
    Well, thank you for being here.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:55:10
    It is that time of year.
  • 00:55:11
    We'll make sure that we get that over to you.
  • 00:55:13
    It'll just give you an idea of what's going on in the county.
  • 00:55:16
    Good luck with your final grading.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:55:17
    Please share your staff people's cell numbers and all that stuff so we can be in easier contact at 11 in the morning or at night when we're supposed to be writing our emails and things like that.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:55:27
    What was the last name again, Sam?
  • 00:55:28
    I'm sorry.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 00:55:29
    Baker.
  • 00:55:30
    Okay.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 00:55:31
    Thank you.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:55:32
    Thank you, Sam.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:55:33
    Thank you very much.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 00:55:33
    Thanks, Sally.
  • 00:55:35
    That's great.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:55:37
    All right, Chair Galloway, Vice Chair Randolph, and members of the board, thank you so much for the opportunity to share the year in review with you.
  • 00:55:45
    I'm Emily Kilroy, the Director of Communications and Public Engagement.
  • 00:55:49
    The approach for the year in review video this year is different than past years, and what we prompted staff to think about was what made you really proud from 2019, what are the projects, the initiatives, the milestones that we reach that make you remember why you really love public service.
  • 00:56:06
    and then we actually asked the people who were responsible for those milestones and projects to tell us in their own words about the work.
  • 00:56:15
    I do want to take a moment to recognize Sam Hart.
  • 00:56:18
    She is always pushing us to think differently about the way that we share our stories with the community and I think you'll see the shift in approach here through that.
  • 00:56:28
    She was our videographer, our interviewer, our editor and our producer.
  • 00:56:32
    and so really we would not have this without her work.
  • 00:56:35
    We really hope you like the approach and we're so pleased to share 2019 with you.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:56:41
    Hi, I'm Jeff Richardson and I'm the County Executive for Albemarle County Government.
  • 00:56:45
    I'm so pleased to get to visit with you today and we're excited about 2019, our year in review.
  • 00:56:51
    It's been an exciting year in this community.
  • 00:56:54
    Lots of vibrancy, lots of energy, and lots of positive things that are going on in our community.
  • 00:57:00
    We're going to share some of those now with you and I hope you'll enjoy it.
  • 00:57:03
    Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:57:04
    Hi, I'm Narissa Turner and I work for Facilities and Environmental Services.
  • 00:57:09
    This past summer we launched our Climate Mondays initiative that ran for three months and it was our attempt to really hear what constituents had to say and get their feedback for our climate action plan.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:57:23
    I'm Roger Johnson.
  • 00:57:24
    I'm the Economic Development Director for Albemarle County.
  • 00:57:27
    What you see in the background is the old building mills, which will be the home of today's manufacturing, Willow Tree, which creates apps for people all around the world.
  • 00:57:39
    We're going to hire over 200 new employees, we're going to pay them well, give them career ladder jobs, creating career paths for our community members, as well as bringing new revenue into our county.
  • 00:57:53
    We're very excited that Realtree chose Albemarle County to be their home.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 00:57:58
    Hi, I'm Mike Culp, I'm the IT Director for Albemarle County and this year, 2019, we were fortunate enough to have an award for a broadband project for the Midway
  • 00:58:08
    area of the county and it's going to provide fiber broadband to at least 600 locations within the county and the benefit is for advanced education, telehealth, all the things that people need to access through the internet will now be available to people in the rural area of our county and we'll continue to build
  • 00:58:30
    fiber access for people in the rural areas of Albemarle County.
  • 00:58:34
    Hi, my name is Cameron.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 00:58:36
    I'm Michaela and we work in neighborhood planning at Albemarle County.
• • SPEAKER_32
  • 00:58:39
    The 2019 Pantops Master Plan update was an update to the Master Plan that establishes land use, transportation, parks and recreation, and environmental recommendations for the Pantops development area.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 00:58:51
    And this was an important project because community members were advocating for the plan to be updated and we worked with them to develop the recommendations of the plan.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:59:01
    Hi, my name is Trevor Henry with the County Executive's Office and former Naval Officer with MEAS.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:59:06
    Jamie Gellner, I'm with the County Schools and I'm a former Army Captain.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:59:10
    We're here to talk a little bit about the affinity group that we formed this year.
  • 00:59:13
    Really excited about it.
  • 00:59:15
    It's an employee driven volunteer group.
  • 00:59:17
    It's really based around our protected classes.
  • 00:59:19
    We have obviously background in veteran and military and so we wanted to try to start that up this year.
  • 00:59:26
    Jamie?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:59:27
    Yeah, so I think it's going to be a great initiative not only to have schools and county employees working together, but to highlight how veterans benefit our community and to hopefully have some really good events to support veterans in the community and in our schools.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:59:40
    Hi, I'm Dana Robb.
  • 00:59:41
    I am the program manager for compensation rewards and human resources.
  • 00:59:47
    This year we had our employee recognition event in October.
  • 00:59:52
    And it was very well attended.
  • 00:59:54
    It was the best turnout we've had in several years.
  • 00:59:58
    This is a great event to recognize our employees and show how much that we truly value their contributions to our organization.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:00:07
    Joe Clark with Albemarle County Parks and Rec.
  • 01:00:09
    We had over a thousand kids participate in our middle school sports programs.
  • 01:00:15
    We had over 500 participate in our summer rec camps.
  • 01:00:19
    We launched a new movie night at Minsprings Park.
  • 01:00:21
    We had over 80 kids and plan on having three more for next year.
  • 01:00:26
    And we offered three more volleyball clinics this past year.
  • 01:00:30
    Had over 50 kids participate and already had eight more volleyball clinics signed up for 2020.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:00:38
    Hi, my name is Elizabeth Jones, also known as EJ.
  • 01:00:41
    I was the project manager for Albemarle County's 275th founding anniversary celebration this year.
  • 01:00:50
    And I was asked why I thought it was a success.
  • 01:00:53
    Well, the first thing was people showed up.
  • 01:00:55
    And when you have an event, it's always been important to show up.
  • 01:00:59
    The more importantly for me and for the team is the fact that every single county department was represented on this project.
  • 01:01:08
    Whether they showed up for a team meeting for brainstorming or they showed up the day of in order to pop out chairs, everyone came together to make this event a success.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:01:20
    Hi, I'm Ned Whitaker, Tag Chief of Fire Rescue.
  • 01:01:23
    This year in Fire Rescue we started a new hiring process in which we required no previous or prior certification to be held.
  • 01:01:29
    That's allowed us to focus on hiring the right people for the job as opposed to people with the right certification for the job.
  • 01:01:35
    We've provided all training during the recruit school and we've had wonderful results in being able to hire great people through this process.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:01:42
    and I'm John O'Prandy with County Fire Rescue and all of this ties back to our public service covenant.
  • 01:01:48
    We're trying to provide a professional and empathetic and responsive service and this all enables us to do an even better job of that.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 01:02:00
    Hello, my name is Ceci Stapler.
  • 01:02:01
    I work for Albemarle County Department of Social Services.
  • 01:02:05
    In Albemarle County, we have an increased population of Hispanic families.
  • 01:02:09
    With that being said, we also noticed, I noticed that during this work, doing with families that are Hispanic, a lot of CPS investigators came to a difficulty with doing forensic interviews as there were no forensic interviews.
  • 01:02:29
    interviewers in Spanish in this county.
  • 01:02:34
    They will have to contract with other cities such as Richmond and Washington to bring a forensic interview when there was a situation that needed a trained forensic interviewer for a child who has been abused or neglected.
  • 01:02:49
    This book sparked me and I decided to request the county to help me become a forensic interviewer.
  • 01:03:00
    and the county supported this decision and here I am.
  • 01:03:04
    Welcome to Cronus Land.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:03:09
    There once was a system for keeping time.
  • 01:03:12
    Its name proved quite difficult to rhyme.
  • 01:03:15
    We also use it for leave.
  • 01:03:17
    Implementation has at last been achieved.
  • 01:03:21
    This team's work has been sublime!
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:03:29
    Hi, I'm Rashawn Smith, and I work with foster care here at Albemarle County Department of Social Services.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:03:35
    And I'm Jay Chaudry, I work here at Albemarle County Social Services with Family Preservation.
  • 01:03:40
    With Rashawn, I started a group of, a support group here after hours every Monday night, and then I also started two support groups, one for women and one for men in the local Albemarle County Charlottesville Regional Jail.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:03:57
    So the idea behind the evening fatherhood group was just we wanted a group where dads would be supported as they're going through the relationship with social services and looking to have their kids brought back home to their families.
  • 01:04:15
    Any questions that they have, any need for resources that they have, just wanting them to feel free to bring those things to the table.
• • 01:04:24
    Not just questions, but even their frustrations.
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:04:27
    It's a difficult situation to be in, and so to have
  • 01:04:32
    A place, and not just any place, but social services building where there may be a lot of fear, a lot of different negative thoughts that have this kind of place open for them to come, for them to speak to their concerns, their frustrations, their needs.
  • 01:04:50
    It's really important so that they can feel confident when they come through these doors.
• • SPEAKER_34
  • 01:04:54
    This year the Office of Management and Budget worked with the school division to continue efforts for the two boards to work together and build commonality by re-conceptualizing the way the county approaches capital planning.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 01:05:07
    The desired outcomes were for both the school board and the Board of Supervisors to understand the current state of the CIP, identify affordability constraints in the context of growth and needs, and prioritize capital projects for the next five years.
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 01:05:21
    Hi, I'm Louise Wyatt and I'm in the County Executive's Office.
  • 01:05:24
    The key designated leadership meeting started a little over a year ago as a way to bring managers together from across the organization and build relationships and to really help them understand and implement our pillars of high performance.
  • 01:05:37
    We see these meetings as a really important way to help us achieve our vision of being one organization committed to excellence.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:05:43
    Hi, Bill Lotteri, Chief Financial Officer for the Finance Department.
  • 01:05:51
    comprehensive financial report to GFOA for their review, and we're so pleased that we've gotten their very highest achievement award, which is their certificate of achievement in government accounting.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 01:06:06
    Hi, I'm First Sergeant Matthew Powers with the Albemarle County Police Department, and I'm here to talk about the Adopt an Elementary program.
  • 01:06:14
    Back in the fall, at the beginning of school, we started sending
  • 01:06:21
    with the students, staff, and parents.
  • 01:06:24
    I feel that the Adopt an Elementary program truly is showing that we are one organization committed to excellence.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 01:06:34
    Hello, my name is Marsha.
  • 01:06:36
    This year we transitioned our county code to MuniCode, an enhanced platform that enables citizens and staff to access linked ordinances, Virginia state code references, as well as archived versions of the code.
  • 01:06:49
    Municode's layout and searchability are also greatly improved and their codification of ordinances that have been adopted have been very fast.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 01:07:00
    I'm Michael Freis.
  • 01:07:01
    I work in facilities and environmental services and just a little quick overview of Yancey School Community Center.
  • 01:07:13
    Yancey School had always been more than just a school.
  • 01:07:17
    It had also been a focal point socially for the area.
  • 01:07:23
    And when the school closed, we continued that mission as opening up the community center to remain that focal point for the community.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 01:07:37
    All right, I'm Siri Russell with the Office of Equity and Inclusion.
  • 01:07:40
    I still want to make this acronym work, so OI, the Yancy School Community Center Project.
  • 01:07:47
    is really an example of Albemarle County living its mission to enhance the well-being and quality of life of all residents.
  • 01:07:57
    This has been sort of a multi-department effort with Facilities Environmental Services, with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and with our friends in Parks and Recreation to expand opportunity and enhance services in Southern Albemarle.
  • 01:08:16
    So we've been really excited to be a part of it and I've been really excited to have such an excellent teammate.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 01:08:24
    Hi, I'm Emily Kilroy.
  • 01:08:25
    I'm the Director of Communications and Public Engagement for the county and I'm happy to share that this year we refreshed the county seal.
  • 01:08:33
    So as we started working on our website project we pulled together our colors and our logo and decided that it might be time to refresh on our 275th anniversary
  • 01:08:45
    the look and feel of the county seal.
  • 01:08:47
    So the new seal has an updated color palette and actually really gets closer back to the original vision of the county seal that was officially adopted back in 1950.
  • 01:08:58
    We're really excited about how it honors our history but also reflects and projects where we really want to be in the future as a community.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 01:09:07
    Hi, I'm Greg Canberra, Albemarle County Attorney.
  • 01:09:10
    I was a member of a team with members from other county departments who worked
  • 01:09:16
    This was a public-private partnership with Habitat for Humanity to redevelop the Southwood community.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:09:27
    Hi, I'm Megan Adosup and I'm a Principal Planner in Community Development and this project allowed for our affordable housing goals to be realized by replacing substandard housing within the Southwood community.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:09:40
    I'm Kristi Shifflett, I'm the director of the project management office and I have the privilege of working with these two folks as well as many other county staff.
  • 01:09:51
    This really was an effort to maximize our resources and have system and process alignment across the organization as this project really touches many departments and it takes a lot of people to make it successful.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:10:10
    Thank you.
  • 01:10:11
    Thank you very much.
  • 01:10:17
    Board members, in the interest of time, I think if we could hold comments on our reactions to this until afterwards, I understand Letty is, we've got to get her on schedule to get her out.

4. Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy, Master of Public Policy Student Report on Albemarle County Boards and Commissions.*

• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:10:26
    So I'd like to bring Letty Bien to the microphone.

5. Year-In Review.

• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:10:30
    Is she coming up to sit with us, or is she going to, whichever you're more comfortable with,
  • 01:10:39
    So, and I'll let, Ledi obviously will speak to this, but this has been working with a focus on our county boards and commissions as part of a degree in leadership and public policy that Ledi worked on with us this past spring, right?
  • 01:10:58
    Through the spring, into spring?
  • 01:11:00
    and some of us had a chance to meet earlier in the fall some of us did not so we were hoping to get the chance for those of us who did not to hear about this and we think this is going to be the first real time frame on a much larger conversation so this is kind of the kickoff for that larger conversation with that I'll turn things over to you
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:11:18
    Thank you.
  • 01:11:21
    Chairman and supervisors and supervisors-to-be, good afternoon.
  • 01:11:25
    Thank you for allowing me this time.
  • 01:11:27
    My name, as you heard, is Letty Bien.
  • 01:11:29
    I graduated in May with a master's degree from the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at UVA.
  • 01:11:36
    As part of the graduation requirements, we were to conduct a study for a client that addressed a specific issue or problem.
  • 01:11:44
    It was called an Applied Public Policy Project, or APP as we called it.
  • 01:11:50
    I am an Albemarle County resident who in the past has served on the county's Economic Development Authority.
  • 01:11:57
    Serving on this authority was a real honor for me.
  • 01:12:00
    I wanted to do something here that helped my community.
  • 01:12:03
    The county agreed to be my client on a pro bono basis, so I was certainly within the budget, and allowed me to take a critical look at the board, commissions, authorities, and committees that the board of supervisors appoints volunteers to.
  • 01:12:18
    The county leadership had the insight and understanding that the structure and use of these entities needed some attention.
  • 01:12:28
    By the way, I don't know if I got the right colors now.
  • 01:12:34
    I apologize if I don't.
  • 01:12:36
    You're fine.
  • 01:12:36
    Okay, so next.
  • 01:12:40
    This was essentially an academic exercise.
  • 01:12:44
    I was required to address a very narrow issue, that being how to reduce the volunteer vacancy rates of Albemarle County commissions, committees, boards, task forces, and authorities.
  • 01:12:57
    And before I begin, just a couple of caveats.
  • 01:13:00
    The study was finished in April, so any changes that have since occurred are not addressed today.
  • 01:13:06
    Second, throughout my presentation, I will often use the term backs as a term of art in referring to any commissions, committees, boards, task forces, and authorities so that we don't have to go through that whole title each time.
  • 01:13:21
    My intent today is by no means to throw the county under the proverbial bus.
  • 01:13:26
    In fact, my admiration for supervisors, both past and present,
  • 01:13:30
    The county staff and the appointed volunteers has increased as a result of this exercise.
  • 01:13:37
    So how did we get to the point where we think the matter deserves attention?
  • 01:13:41
    Well, let me explain.
  • 01:13:43
    My theory.
  • 01:13:46
    Albemarle County, as you can see, grew quite rapidly.
  • 01:13:49
    From 2000 to 2010 alone, there was almost a 25% increase in that 10-year period.
  • 01:13:58
    As the county grew at such a rapid rate, it appears that the desire also grew
  • 01:14:03
    to allow for more input from residents to be in fact more inclusive.
  • 01:14:08
    It was through this concept that the backs expanded as well, but with little definitive process or procedures to guide future evolution.
  • 01:14:17
    Things were moving swiftly, particularly residential and commercial development, and with more residents, there was a higher demand for public services.
  • 01:14:26
    The BACs started to proliferate as the county was trying to stay abreast of this movement.
  • 01:14:32
    In order to fulfill its obligation to a growing and complex community, it was necessary for a part-time Board of Supervisors to employ BACs to expand their oversight and inform the Board of the many broad
  • 01:14:47
    issues as well as possible solutions.
  • 01:14:51
    Unfortunately, over the years there has not been any successful effort to decommission BACs that no longer have viable missions, if you will, and hence a proliferation of BACs, and with that a greater requirement for more volunteers.
  • 01:15:06
    It should be clear to all listening today that the county leadership
  • 01:15:11
    in allowing me to conduct this study and to present the results in this public venue is surely committed to improve its processes and to be transparent in so doing.
  • 01:15:23
    And to that end, the staff, the elected officials, and the volunteers get an A plus from me, which is better than anything I got at Batten.
  • 01:15:34
    So let me set the stage.
  • 01:15:37
    To engage the community in an advisory and participatory manner, Albemarle County attempts to appoint more than 250 citizen volunteers to serve on approximately 50 different backs.
  • 01:15:52
    These can range in number from 15 or so volunteers on the Neighborhood Community Advisory Committee,
  • 01:15:58
    to one volunteer on a criminal justice board.
  • 01:16:01
    Like many municipalities across the nation, Albemarle County is facing the problem of attracting citizens to serve on these municipal backs.
  • 01:16:11
    It has become increasingly difficult to identify and to attract volunteers willing or able to serve in these capacities.
  • 01:16:19
    There are many reasons for the lack of volunteers, and my paper goes into depth on volunteer motivations, their impediments, as well as local competition for volunteers.
  • 01:16:32
    According to the county's website, on average, 20% or more of these board positions are vacant at any given time.
  • 01:16:41
    That's one fifth of the need is vacant.
  • 01:16:45
    Further, those that are serving tend to fill multiple board positions or are reappointed due to lack of application from new volunteers.
  • 01:16:54
    The county would also like to see a more representative sample of county residents on the backs.
  • 01:17:00
    Those with varying, from varying neighborhoods, different occupations, as well as income levels.
  • 01:17:08
    So for this study, I look to have a goal of no more than a 5% vacancy rate at any given time.
  • 01:17:15
    So, you know, why is it important to have volunteers?
  • 01:17:19
    Well, volunteers serve as a representative voice for our community.
  • 01:17:23
    They are critical to policy innovation and effective, inclusive decision-making.
  • 01:17:29
    As a point of fact, we see this in action with all the county's various community action committees, which seem to be very involved.
  • 01:17:37
    Back meetings are public meetings and they're subject to the Virginia public meeting requirements.
  • 01:17:43
    Failure to meet a quorum has adverse effects.
  • 01:17:47
    Without a quorum, determinative proceedings of the meeting are invalid.
  • 01:17:52
    If there is no quorum, then discussions are limited and voting for an action or policy cannot be conducted.
  • 01:17:59
    Further, the meeting might then have to be adjourned, causing inconvenience
  • 01:18:03
    to the volunteer members, to staff, and to citizen attendees who may have been in attendance.
  • 01:18:10
    The business at the back is delayed, sometimes to great detriment.
  • 01:18:15
    Numerous studies support the conclusion that citizen participation is critical to building a resilient and inclusive environment.
  • 01:18:25
    Until the boards and commissions are appropriately populated with non-elected participants, the county is unable to maximize and benefit from its citizen input.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:18:35
    Let me ask you to pause for just a second.
  • 01:18:37
    Is this something we should do now or should we?
  • 01:18:40
    So I've just been told that our streaming and our recording devices have all just gone down, which means we're not being recorded or streamed.
  • 01:18:47
    So the recording one is of real concern.
  • 01:18:53
    So what we're going to do is just take a, we need to take a pause until we can get that recording item hopefully back up.
  • 01:18:59
    I apologize, Libby.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 01:19:00
    I'm good.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:19:01
    This needs to be part of the record.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 01:19:02
    We could take a convenience break.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:19:04
    Yeah, that's what I mean.
  • 01:19:05
    A convenience break would be good.
  • 01:19:06
    We could take a short break and then we'll have to get this out, so I apologize.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:19:10
    Please don't apologize.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:19:34
    Hey Mike, it's Claudia.
  • 01:19:35
    We've lost our...
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:27:54
    almost ready to go supervisor Palmer we are ready to move back into action all right sorry for that delay but I understand our recordings back going so we're ready to go
  • 01:28:14
    Okay, when you're ready.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:28:17
    Great, thank you.
  • 01:28:18
    So I left off with the fact on talking about why veterans, excuse me, I was just talking to Trevor about veterans, why volunteers are important to the county.
  • 01:28:28
    And so there's a process that the Batten School uses to do these studies and part of that process was then the research associated with looking at volunteers.
  • 01:28:39
    So once the problem was identified, my next step was to research the issue.
  • 01:28:43
    and how did I, how did I look, what was I looking at in researching?
  • 01:28:48
    Well you could see I looked at all the county documents.
  • 01:28:51
    I will tell you I spent a day reading the entire budget and actually I found it very interesting which should tell you something weird about me.
  • 01:28:58
    I did what's called a literature review which is looking at peer reviewed studies that are conducted
  • 01:29:05
    or about volunteers, about municipal boards and so on.
  • 01:29:08
    I actually had interviews with peer counties, Fauquier, Hanover, James City, Montgomery and Roanoke to see how they manage and handle their committees and boards.
  • 01:29:20
    I had discussions with professional associations.
  • 01:29:22
    I interviewed Albemarle residents as well as all the supervisors, a lot of staff and some back volunteers.
  • 01:29:29
    The objective of all this research was to become smart on the subject to identify what was successful elsewhere and could it be scaled to be usable in Albemarle County.
  • 01:29:41
    All with the goal of coming up with some viable options for increasing our volunteer participation.
  • 01:29:46
    So these are the four options that I came up with.
  • 01:29:50
    Let present trends continue.
  • 01:29:52
    In other words, do it just the way we've always done it.
  • 01:29:54
    Maintain the status quo.
  • 01:29:56
    You know, if it's not broke, maybe don't fix it.
  • 01:29:59
    And if I think something's broke doesn't necessarily mean that it is or that the board considers it broken.
  • 01:30:05
    Develop a comprehensive outreach program.
  • 01:30:08
    Initiate a volunteer training program.
  • 01:30:12
    Or consolidate and centralize a program and hire a volunteer coordinator.
  • 01:30:17
    Once the options are then identified, they're each analyzed against a set of criteria that are believed to be key indicators for success.
  • 01:30:26
    The four criteria that I evaluated these four options on are these.
  • 01:30:33
    Is it effective?
  • 01:30:34
    Will it meet that 5% goal?
  • 01:30:37
    And what about the secondary goal of diversification?
  • 01:30:39
    Can we get to that point as well?
  • 01:30:42
    Is it politically feasible?
  • 01:30:44
    Will it get the support from key stakeholders?
  • 01:30:47
    Key stakeholders being those around the dais, those in the audience, citizens, volunteers, as well as staff.
  • 01:30:54
    Is it administratively feasible?
  • 01:30:57
    Is there sufficient capacity on the staff to make any of these changes?
  • 01:31:01
    Do they need to add additional resources?
  • 01:31:04
    And finally, what's the cost to the county taxpayer, if any?
  • 01:31:08
    While time does not allow for an iteration of the full analysis of each option, that can be read in the report that is now on the county's website.
  • 01:31:17
    And I do hope everybody with an interest will read the report in full, all 40 pages.
  • 01:31:24
    So each option offered a different approach to effect change and each had valuable features.
  • 01:31:31
    And so the question you ask are will the recommendation ultimately made solve the problem and provide a return on investment.
  • 01:31:39
    And this is pretty much what I came up with.
  • 01:31:42
    This is an outcome matrix.
  • 01:31:44
    It's a broad visual of the results of that analysis.
  • 01:31:47
    And as you can see, option two in the green was the recommended course of action.
  • 01:31:52
    And why?
  • 01:31:53
    This option was chosen as the realistic first step toward meeting the goals of the county.
  • 01:32:00
    Although it does not rate as high as option four in reducing vacancies, it can have a more immediate impact, especially if the expanded use of already existing county medians
  • 01:32:12
    is utilized such as Facebook, the county's television studio and email.
  • 01:32:17
    Perhaps one of the most important findings in assessing the reasons why there might be a high vacancy rate comes down to communication.
  • 01:32:26
    I found a significant void on the part of county residents, a lack of knowledge if you will,
  • 01:32:33
    about the county boards, committees, and so forth, and citizens' opportunities to serve.
  • 01:32:39
    So many people had no idea about these committees.
  • 01:32:45
    Further, this data void means that raising awareness and appealing to the broader Albemarle community is a must.
  • 01:32:52
    Option two can address this awareness campaign at minimal cost.
  • 01:32:57
    The four options presented here are not mutually exclusive nor exhaustive.
  • 01:33:02
    I believe that the county's volunteer rates would be significantly enhanced with implementation of select components of the options presented.
  • 01:33:12
    Great, so now we have a recommendation.
  • 01:33:14
    Now what?
  • 01:33:16
    The study does provide concrete actions for moving forward.
  • 01:33:23
    So implementation of option two.
  • 01:33:28
    The essential components of a comprehensive plan start with understanding your current situation as it relates to the boards and the volunteers.
  • 01:33:38
    The county should conduct a thorough review, analysis, and an honest evaluation of the overall program.
  • 01:33:45
    Are there boards and commissions that have outlasted their usefulness or their legal mandate and can or should be dissolved?
  • 01:33:56
    Are there any that we can consolidate?
  • 01:33:59
    Why does the county appoint volunteers on some community organizational boards that it funds but not others?
  • 01:34:08
    Second, surveying existing volunteers.
  • 01:34:11
    We need to understand our audience in order to target an outreach plan.
  • 01:34:18
    A survey of currently serving county volunteers should be considered.
  • 01:34:22
    What motivates this cohort?
  • 01:34:24
    Why do they serve?
  • 01:34:25
    Do they feel like they add value?
  • 01:34:28
    What suggestions might they have in any kind of reorganization?
  • 01:34:33
    Next, identify the goals and the targets.
  • 01:34:36
    In order to meet those goals and targets, what neighborhoods or income demographics currently are not represented or represented enough?
  • 01:34:47
    What occupations need to be on the various backs?
  • 01:34:51
    What's the best way to reach our citizens?
  • 01:34:53
    How might it be made easier for people to engage?
  • 01:34:57
    So just as an example, Fauquier County is now pretty much a bedroom community for Washington, D.C. All the people on its boards are not in that area during the day.
  • 01:35:09
    They're in D.C.
  • 01:35:11
    They've moved some of their very key boards to night meetings as well as weekends in order to take advantage of those skill sets.
  • 01:35:20
    and what makes serving Albemarle County unique.
  • 01:35:23
    I was thinking perhaps some information sessions could be conducted at various sites around the county to educate the community in our quest to generate volunteer interest.
  • 01:35:34
    Many of you have town hall meetings and that's a perfect location and time to talk about your boards and commissions.
  • 01:35:42
    The long term sustainability of a pool of volunteers depends on a mix of creativity, communication, and value added, not just for the county, but for the volunteers as well.
  • 01:35:55
    Let's have a budget for the plan.
  • 01:35:57
    In the immediate short term, expand on assets and resources that the county already has.
  • 01:36:03
    The county's Facebook page has not mentioned the volunteer vacancies or marketed the backs for the entire year that I worked on this project and I looked every week.
  • 01:36:15
    Conduct some pricing models for social media engagement, direct mail, Twitter ads and the like.
  • 01:36:21
    We can't do things the way we've always done them if we want younger involvement in our community.
  • 01:36:27
    Registering on a volunteer matching website and engage in local organizations that can serve as incubators for volunteers.
  • 01:36:36
    Perhaps even devise an incentive program for quality volunteer referrals.
  • 01:36:41
    Finally, while the charge for this report was narrowly focused on how to increase citizen participation in the boards and commissions, there is a glaring underlying factor and that is the suboptimal volunteer selection and onboarding method.
  • 01:37:00
    That is the elephant in the room, a lack of an established coordinated and transparent process.
  • 01:37:06
    I know this is a real sore point for Supervisor McKeel.
  • 01:37:11
    So for example, there is no identified procedure for when a committee is formed and how it's formed, nor is there a path to sundowning a committee when it's appropriate.
  • 01:37:23
    So the county might consider revising and implementing a cohesive internal processes and procedures.
  • 01:37:31
    While the county has written some skeletal policies and procedures for its boards and committees, these documents are first of all not comprehensive enough and they have not been implemented or followed.
  • 01:37:46
    Recommending a broad review of the county's needs and processes and revise the standard operating procedure for the application, recruiting, selection, training, and retention of our community volunteers.
  • 01:38:02
    These revised procedures should then be operationalized such that there's a template for all county boards and commissions populated by volunteers that it's adhered to and there's a baseline where all of the backs meet a baseline requirement, whether it be for how minutes are handled or how someone is released from, let's say, attendance requirements.
  • 01:38:28
    needs to be a foundation for all the committees and then each committee can continue to have maybe its bylaws for its specific use.
  • 01:38:39
    So in summary, just sort of a quick go through, you know, the problem is we have a one-fifth vacancy rate across all the volunteer backs.
  • 01:38:49
    We need to see some backs should be dissolved or consolidated.
  • 01:38:52
    The county should intelligently use all methods available for public awareness and recruitment.
  • 01:38:59
    Determine the best manner to encourage participation among our citizenry.
  • 01:39:04
    Consider centralizing the volunteer activities to alleviate staff of the scattershot requirements of managing the various backs.
  • 01:39:13
    I did not go into the aspect of county staff and how
  • 01:39:21
    The management of all of these committees is separated out and is not a smooth, seamless work.
  • 01:39:32
    And it also takes away from a number of the county staff significant time for doing
  • 01:39:38
    the work that they really need to be doing with regard to community development or clerks or otherwise.
  • 01:39:45
    And so standardization of the recruitment application selection training and retention of valuable volunteers.
  • 01:39:55
    So that's it in a nutshell.
  • 01:39:58
    You have the report.
  • 01:39:59
    It goes into much greater detail.
  • 01:40:01
    I'm happy to answer any questions.
  • 01:40:04
    It was my privilege to work on this.
  • 01:40:08
    I'm so proud to be a resident of this county and I thank you all for the attention and time, particularly staff as well that provided me with innumerable documents and information and everything was totally transparent and I think that that in and of itself is just terrific.
  • 01:40:28
    Thank you.
  • 01:40:29
    Thank you, Lettie.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:40:30
    Thanks, Lettie.
  • 01:40:31
    That was great.
  • 01:40:32
    Allow for some questions.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:40:33
    I have one.
  • 01:40:35
    First of all, thank you very much.
  • 01:40:36
    This has been wonderful and very helpful.
  • 01:40:41
    Did you, and I'm sorry I have not read the whole report yet, have you, did you look at the CACs specifically and that they do have a dedicated training process that staff does, which seems to be quite effective and I've attended some of them and they seem to be good.
  • 01:41:00
    and if you did, did that help?
  • 01:41:05
    Because obviously one of your options was the training.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:41:12
    Well actually even on economic development authority we got some training but a lot of it tends to then be dependent and I'm not speaking in the term of the CACs because they are pretty robust.
  • 01:41:24
    But a lot of the onboarding and the training
  • 01:41:28
    particularly subject matter training tends to be dependent on the strength of that committee or back chairman.
  • 01:41:37
    If they take them under their wing and they say okay we can do this that and the other but you know there's there's certain
  • 01:41:43
    there's certain training that all BACs have to have you know conflict of interest things of that nature and then there are those that are that are specific so the CACS and EDA and a few others may be outliers in that but and that was not even that was also as you saw not the option that's recommended but I do think that some components of all of that can be built into a new process if you will
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:42:13
    Others?
  • 01:42:15
    Questions or comments?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:42:18
    Just a couple of questions.
  • 01:42:20
    I too have not read your master's thesis with a careful eye and look forward to doing so.
  • 01:42:30
    But I just wondered, you've identified a problem that
  • 01:42:34
    You're coming up with solutions in a locality where the problem is actually a universal problem nationally.
  • 01:42:44
    And there have been many people that have written about this.
  • 01:42:48
    I go back, as this board knows, I constantly cite.
  • 01:42:52
    Yale's Robert Putnam's book on Bowling Alone, which identified the fact that civic participation rates in the United States have declined rather precipitously over the course of the last 30 years.
  • 01:43:10
    And the ethos of community engagement or what I would call the community participation gene seems to become genetically more one that's drifting than it's engaging.
  • 01:43:25
    It's harder and harder to find people that are really willing to engage civically, except when they're reacting to something they don't like, which is the NIMBY phenomenon.
  • 01:43:36
    But to stay fully engaged and sustain that
  • 01:43:41
    with a period of time and then develop a passion and a commitment to the best interests of the community in pursuit of that engagement is something much harder.
  • 01:43:51
    I think of that because I started out in Philadelphia politics way back in the 1970s.
  • 01:44:00
    And I've seen it in Pennsylvania, I've seen it in Connecticut, and now also in Virginia, that it's quite a challenge.
  • 01:44:08
    But the other book that I thought would inform some of your thinking that I read in my doctoral work was Robert Michael's book, which was a comparative study of European socialist parties.
  • 01:44:21
    called Political Parties.
  • 01:44:22
    I don't know whether you consulted Robert Michel's book.
  • 01:44:28
    But in that book he comes up with a, I think a key concept, which is the iron law of oligarchies.
  • 01:44:35
    And the iron law of oligarchies, really he submitted it applies to political parties.
  • 01:44:40
    but there is a certain validity I think we see in terms of local government as well and that is that everyone who talks about organizational democracy is actually using an oxymoron because as we know
  • 01:44:57
    that when you get out in the community, you tend to find the same people doing the work over and over again.
  • 01:45:05
    As much as you think that you're going to be able to attract and draw in new faces, they may come and go, as I will paraphrase Elliot, talking of Michelangelo,
  • 01:45:17
    but in reality they're not going to be there and when push comes to shove you end up using the same old troopers time and time again because they're the people to get things done and know how to get them done and it's a real challenge for us because on the one hand especially Liz brought up the CACs we have a sunset clause for participation on the CACs which we should have because we don't want to have people
  • 01:45:45
    in essence feeling ownership perpetually over one body for a long period of time and exercise too much influence.
  • 01:45:53
    But on the other hand, because we have a sunset clause at X number of years, I believe at six, and out you go, we're losing leadership, which is hard to then replace.
  • 01:46:05
    And it truly is a challenge.
  • 01:46:07
    I don't have any answers for it, but I don't want to cast any doubt of what you recommended here, but I think if we could organize our way out of this dilemma, we would be unique in the annals of government in terms of having come up with a lasting and effective solution to address this.
  • 01:46:31
    We know that there's a lack of awareness of
  • 01:46:35
    American government and civics that's not taught in many schools.
  • 01:46:40
    Fortunately, in Monticello High School, we have an excellent program for students in their senior year where they have to learn about public policy and they have to be engaged with an issue.
  • 01:46:50
    but that is the exception, that's not the rule in terms of the United States today and so it is truly a major challenge but I thank you for being bold and venturing where the less intrepid
  • 01:47:07
    have failed to go or refused or were afraid to go in making your recommendations to the board.
  • 01:47:13
    I think that's really helpful for us to chew on that or us the new board going forward to chew on that and come up with some recommendations.
  • 01:47:22
    So I thank you for it.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:47:24
    Well, just if I can just make a couple comments.
  • 01:47:28
    According to the Virginia Service Corporation in 2017, 2.2 million Virginians, or 34% of the total population, volunteered a total of 232 million hours that carried an economic impact of about $5.5 billion.
  • 01:47:45
    We rank 22nd among all the states, but we sit at second best for the number of veterans that volunteer.
  • 01:47:52
    It is a decline in our ranking.
  • 01:47:55
    In 2015, we were a little bit higher.
  • 01:47:58
    However, I think that a couple things need to be said.
  • 01:48:01
    That is, if you do reduce your number of boards and commissions, then you need less volunteers.
  • 01:48:07
    Or you consolidate some, you'll need less volunteers.
  • 01:48:10
    The other issue is
  • 01:48:13
    We certainly don't have 34% of our population volunteering.
  • 01:48:17
    And when they do volunteer, actually, religious and churches, organizations have the highest percent of those.
  • 01:48:26
    And professional associations, civic and political, is a very tiny 3% of the total piece of the pie.
  • 01:48:32
    But if they don't know to begin with, then you don't even have the opportunity to ask.
  • 01:48:41
    And I think that
  • 01:48:44
    I mean, I drove people on the street crazy.
  • 01:48:46
    Every pickleball game I played, I asked the people playing, are you a citizen of Albemarle County?
  • 01:48:53
    Have you served on a board?
  • 01:48:54
    And it was the deer in the headlights look that I got from them.
  • 01:48:58
    And some have indicated that they would.
  • 01:49:01
    In fact, one of the faculty members at the university, at the Batten School herself, went on the website to see what
  • 01:49:09
    This was a professor of public policy that didn't know we had boards and commissions that she and Albemarle resident can serve on.
  • 01:49:19
    So while I agree with you in the big picture that people are doing less volunteering particularly for something that sometimes can be pretty boring and very finite, I think that we owe it to the citizens to at least give it a shot and make sure that people are aware that we have
  • 01:49:38
    Such an opportunity for them to serve and be a part of the policy making of this great county.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:49:45
    Other, Supervisor Mallek?
• • Ann Mallek
  • 01:49:47
    Thank you.
  • 01:49:48
    This is really terrific and a great jumping off place and I love the idea of the big outreach effort to help people understand and the town halls, etc.
  • 01:49:56
    I probably will sound like a Pollyanna here, but I think our community over the whole county, but then particularly in certain neighborhoods, is still much more focused on participation than your average bear.
  • 01:50:09
    and the more they participate, if they sense that they actually have a chance to have their voice listened to, they will come back again and again and be more involved.
  • 01:50:21
    The biggest risk, and this happened in prehistory, 2010, different group of county staff, different group of consultants working on the downtown Crozet zone,
  • 01:50:30
    the people were very disrespected and the staff had to basically throw out the consultant and rewrite the whole thing themselves because they kept inserting their own words instead of the words that the community wanted and it has taken years to overcome that bad experience but we've learned from it and it's far far better now and so I think having that real genuine interest to listen to people is very very important
  • 01:50:56
    but I think we do have people who care here and I think the economy has made it very difficult for people of moderate means to be able to leave their families and do other things especially if it's big like fire and rescue and things like that I mean if it's a 50 hour a week
  • 01:51:12
    I really look forward to having some of these information sessions.
  • 01:51:23
    I think that would be great.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:51:30
    volunteers feeling value as which you just talked about and that they're not just there pro forma to fill a seat.
  • 01:51:39
    Now granted there are some people that serve on boards because they have longer term goals whether it's running for office or learning about something in their neighborhood or the NIMBY
  • 01:51:47
    I think we're not quite like the average bear as far as participation here, but there's a lot of things that an organization can do to
  • 01:52:02
    not incentivize but reward volunteers that are non-monetary so for example I mean I think in terms of you know the military and how units you know make a big deal about some of the soldiers who do good things if they score well on tests or whatever so we'll have like a soldier of the month what if we had a volunteer of the quarter and they got recognized and they had a upfront parking space for the month
  • 01:52:29
    something you know with their name out there something as simple as that that shows some recognition that when they're out there playing card game or at their rotary club you know I got the front parking space for the next month at the county office building I mean there are things and I agree with you that they do have to feel there has to be some I mean while I feel there's some altruism to do that I also feel that there does need to be some
  • 01:52:59
    kind of a value and recognition component.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 01:53:03
    Well we did do one maybe six, seven years, right after Northside Library opened was the second one.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:53:08
    So the breakfast that we had?
• • Ann Mallek
  • 01:53:10
    There was a luncheon thing and there was also a breakfast thing and there was pretty good attendance so I love that idea.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:53:17
    See that one cost a little money.
  • 01:53:18
    I was trying to give you ideas but no money.
• • Ann Mallek
  • 01:53:21
    It was a small investment for the amount of work that people do.
  • 01:53:23
    Yes it was.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 01:53:24
    Supervisor McKeel?
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 01:53:26
    I really appreciate this, Letty.
  • 01:53:28
    And I hope all of us will be able to take a look at the entire report because it does have some great nuggets in it for us.
  • 01:53:39
    And I'm hoping that in January, because I recognize this is December, Rick and Norman, but I'm hoping in January our board can come back and have a discussion about how we might
  • 01:53:54
    take the information from Letty's report and look at our boards and commissions in their entirety.
  • 01:54:03
    I don't think, and I could be wrong, but I don't think the Board of Supervisors have taken a look at their boards and commissions in 20 years.
  • 01:54:15
    I mean, a real look.
  • 01:54:17
    at what we have.
  • 01:54:19
    And we add, but we've never really stopped to go back and say, okay, which boards and commissions are actually, as you said,
  • 01:54:36
    successfully completing their assigned mission and how many of them are perhaps could be rolled into one.
  • 01:54:46
    I'm not interested really in just wholesaling and doing away with a lot of our committees, but I do think every organization at some point owes it to those volunteers and we owe it to our county in a way to look at this process, see how we can improve it,
  • 01:55:03
    I'd like to, from my community, see if I can improve the diversity among my committees.
  • 01:55:15
    Whether it's gender or
  • 01:55:18
    I just think if we never start having those discussions, we'll never get there.
  • 01:55:25
    This is going to take time, though, and it isn't even going to happen in two months or three months.
  • 01:55:30
    But I do think it's important, at least for me, that we come back in January and talk about it as a board and see how we might start that discussion.
  • 01:55:41
    And maybe Letty's willing to help us
  • 01:55:43
    Along that way because we will probably need some help.
  • 01:55:47
    I'm not interested in going out and hiring a consultant and the last thing in the world I want to do is jump into another paid person, but It may very well be that if we took a look a comprehensive look we might be able to significantly save staff time and
  • 01:56:09
    I think our 62 average, 62 boards and commissions right now, this was just a quick snapshot last week, 62 active boards.
  • 01:56:22
    Do we have more boards that are not active?
  • 01:56:26
    I'm not sure but we have 375 seats right now with 59 open and
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:56:37
    Just a reminder, some of the boards and commissions and authorities are state mandated.
  • 01:56:43
    Yes, I was about to say that.
  • 01:56:45
    I understand that.
  • 01:56:46
    So you're not going to be able to, at least until Sally does her work, you're not going to be able to do a lot with it.
  • 01:56:52
    But it's not many of them.
  • 01:56:54
    There's a handful that are tri-regional.
  • 01:56:57
    There are those you could set aside, but then there's the ones that boils down to which are the county ones and what can you do with regard to that.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 01:57:05
    Absolutely.
  • 01:57:06
    And at the end of the day, we might say every one of these is worthwhile and we need every one of them.
  • 01:57:12
    Or we might say this is where we need to tweak it.
  • 01:57:16
    But I definitely think that in an effort of, if nothing else, helping staff address the time that they are spending on these, and they are spending an enormous amount, we owe it to our staff to look at these from a different lens,
  • 01:57:34
    and try and provide a more efficient process that actually has outreach to our community and more transparency, perhaps.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:57:46
    Well, you know, the other thing, I mean, I think there's a bunch of nuggets in there, too.
  • 01:57:51
    And one of the nuggets is that studies have shown that the smaller the board, the more productive and the less vacancies.
  • 01:57:59
    So let's say there's one that's, you know, an eight-person board or something.
  • 01:58:03
    Maybe it should be a five person board.
  • 01:58:05
    You really need to, when you evaluate, you're evaluating multi-dimensionally with regard to those committees.
  • 01:58:16
    If we have five people that are on that board versus eight, there's three right there.
  • 01:58:22
    Maybe those three can be on another board.
  • 01:58:24
    Particularly if you decide that you need to keep all of these, then it's a question of
  • 01:58:28
    of really looking.
  • 01:58:28
    What is their mission?
  • 01:58:29
    What's their task?
  • 01:58:32
    How will you use them?
  • 01:58:34
    I mean part of what Supervisor Mallek spoke to was value.
  • 01:58:38
    There's no requirement for some people that you put on, for example, the YMCA board.
  • 01:58:45
    Why are we putting people on that board when there's no report back
  • 01:58:50
    requirements.
  • 01:58:51
    There's just there.
  • 01:58:52
    Well, the YMCA is going to appoint people from the city and the county anyway for their board.
  • 01:58:58
    I mean, why do we have to make that an extra task for this board to have to look at and for Travis to have to manage to make sure that there are people on that
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:59:13
    Some committees, I'm thinking about the Solid Waste Committee.
  • 01:59:18
    It's a very, very active committee.
  • 01:59:20
    They recently asked if we could have more people on there.
  • 01:59:24
    And when we looked at the charter once again, went back to the charter, it was that the charter was given a choice of the number of people.
  • 01:59:36
    and we happened to pick the lower number, so we didn't even have to go back and enlarge the committee.
  • 01:59:43
    So that's another, I don't know how many committees are like that where there's an option to do that.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 01:59:52
    I think there has to be an operational reason, something that makes sense to enlarge or reduce a committee.
  • 02:00:00
    Absolutely.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 02:00:01
    But if we never look, we don't know.
  • 02:00:04
    For example,
  • 02:00:05
    I am on the Java board.
  • 02:00:09
    I am an appointed at large member from the county.
  • 02:00:16
    Because but the city and Nelson and Green and Louisa.
  • 02:00:22
    All have supervisors appointed to that board.
  • 02:00:28
    We don't because years ago, Larry Davis said we couldn't appoint someone to the Java board.
  • 02:00:34
    Okay?
  • 02:00:36
    So I have to be very careful when I'm at the Java meeting to say I am the Albemarle County at-large member.
  • 02:00:45
    I am not representing the Board of Supervisors.
  • 02:00:48
    And I'm happy to do that.
  • 02:00:50
    But maybe it's time we look at the boards and figure and at least treat the majority of our boards that fall under that designation the same.
  • 02:01:02
    I'd just like to have the opportunity to come back in January and talk about this.
  • 02:01:07
    And I know we're running out of time probably, but this was great.
  • 02:01:11
    Thank you very much.
  • 02:01:12
    Thank you all very much.
  • 02:01:13
    Really appreciate it.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 02:01:14
    We are past time.
  • 02:01:16
    Letty, thank you so much.
  • 02:01:18
    Obviously, if we do revisit this, we may be calling on you again to come back in and give input.
  • 02:01:25
    All right, board, we are actually, I'd like to just take a few moments if anybody would like to make comments or in response to the year in review video that we had.
  • 02:01:35
    I mean, there were some things in there that I was not aware of, which was excellent to see.
  • 02:01:44
    The one that's sticking out is the Adopt a...
  • 02:01:46
    The elementary school, the Adopt a program with the police department.
  • 02:01:49
    I was not aware of that program at all.
  • 02:01:52
    But well done, thank you for sharing that and taking the time to do that.
  • 02:01:56
    I believe we're going to have another opportunity to share that at a future meeting as well.
  • 02:02:01
    Just, we called this meeting, that might be a surprise to you.
  • 02:02:04
    But since this meeting came on books, we'll maybe get it into a regular meeting as well if we can.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 02:02:11
    And I'd love to see it on the website, perhaps.
  • 02:02:16
    And specifically, I would love for my CAC to see it.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 02:02:20
    Absolutely.
• • Diantha McKeel
  • 02:02:21
    That would be cool.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 02:02:22
    We'll be sending it out.
  • 02:02:23
    I don't have the exact date on top of my head, but the reason that it had captions on it, that the speaking was notated on the screen, was so that when we put it up on social media,
  • 02:02:32
    We're compliant with the American Disabilities Act and also people who watch videos quietly will still be able to follow along on their phones.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 02:02:41
    Well it was very well done and we appreciate the having that.
  • 02:02:44
    It's always nice to see what things were because I'm sure there's many things that don't make the cut.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:02:48
    I'm sorry Sam couldn't be here.
  • 02:02:50
    She left when the film ended but I think that was a really good creative way to do it.
  • 02:02:59
    in the past videos have been creative in their own ways too, but they don't have to be the same every year.
  • 02:03:04
    So yeah, I thought it was great.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 02:03:06
    And if we could please forward that to Delicate Elect Hudson, I'm sure she will take the time to do it.

6. Adjourn to December 18, 2019, 1:00 p.m., Lane Auditorium.

• • Ned Gallaway
  • 02:03:14
    all right board well if there are there is no other business scheduled if there's no other matters we're actually going to adjourn to this evening December 11 2019 6 30 p.m. at Agner Herd Elementary School as I'm aware there are going to be more than three of us there this evening in attendance so we'll adjourn there but we will have to call to order and adjourn
  • 02:03:35
    630.
  • 02:03:35
    It's in the cafeteria of Agner Herd Elementary School this evening.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:03:39
    And just for the record, that school is at 3201 Berkmore Drive.
  • 02:03:45
    Oh, thank you.
  • 02:03:45
    I didn't write that down.
• • Ned Gallaway
  • 02:03:47
    So we are adjourned.
  • 02:03:48
    Thank you for your time this afternoon.