Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   4/21/2021

Good afternoon everyone.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our April 21, 2021 1 p.m.

meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

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

Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District and myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District.

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

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

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

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

And if everybody would now please join in a moment of silence.

And with that board, we are at the adoption of our final agenda for today.

We do need to

Add two items.

One is the Fair Housing Month Proclamation.

That'll be added to number six, Proclamations and Recognitions.

And then we're adding an item for discussion under matters from the board, which is number 19, legislative agenda timing and the addition of speed cameras.

I believe that is a Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley's request.

Are there any other changes to the agenda today?

So moved.

All right, Mr. Morris.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Paul?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right, very good.

And we'll go through announcements today, brief announcements by board members.

Dogs clearly have some announcements today.

If you can just run around with me last, I forgot to look up my announcement dates.

No worries.

Supervisor Price?

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I'm happy to announce that the town of Scottsville will soon be receiving a DMV select office.

And so watch this space and watch the town of Scottsville information coming out.

This will be a real boon to the residents of the southern part of our county as well as our adjacent counties.

And then as I was preparing for today, something really caught my eye.

A year ago, there were 75 total deaths and 4,200 total cases from the COVID-19 pandemic 13 months ago.

That was where we stood.

Today, we have over 33 million cases, over 580,000 deaths, 25 million have recovered, and we're looking at a roughly 2%

We're finding ourselves in the dichotomy

where older Americans have been vaccinated and are having a much lower infection rate.

Whereas with spring coming and more people being out and the vaccination rate, we're seeing a significant increase in the infection rate among our younger adults.

So we're at this strange situation where over the last week or so, total infection numbers within the country have remained relatively stable because older Americans are

less likely to get infected second high, but younger Americans are seeing an upsurge.

So now is not the time to think that we're through this tunnel.

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but everyone still needs to remain diligent.

Thank you.

I'm okay for now, Ned.

Supervisor Mallek?

Starting off on the right foot again.

This is great.

So I echo completely Vice Chair Price with asking everyone to really pay attention because protecting others is really important and that's the best kind of compassion we can have is to take care of our neighbors.

and do follow all of the guidelines for the COVID protection.

Last week, DMV on the go, which is a very convenient operation, happened to be at its twice a year visit at North Fork Research Park.

So in addition to the wonderful office in the southern part, back in October again they will be returning to the northern part of the county

and people should watch that.

I thought I was going to get my real ID and it turned out no, I had to have a certified copy of my marriage license, which I did not have, so I'll be going back next October to start all over again.

Announcements, Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival for its 37th year will be outdoors for real May 8th and 9th,

500 people are allowed to be on the huge property at one time now so there will be pop-up tents for the vendors rather than a big tent so there'll be loads of room for people to come and hopefully it'll be a beautiful sunny day like today and people will have a chance to get out.

There will also be small events all around the western part of the district, different galleries doing special things and maps available when people leave the big festivals so they will have a whole day of other activities to do in the county.

I want to congratulate the FES department on their report highlighting the steps that we're all taking toward weatherization and reduced utility consumption.

This is I think back in 2010 was when this COB County Office Building received its Energy Star

and we've certainly come a long, long way since then.

So I'm so appreciative of that.

And my minutes were of September 18th, which was a really great meeting about and many, many citizens came to talk to us about their support for working forward in climate change and ways that we should be focusing on this from including the ability of farmers to have solar panels, which is easy to do now.

already possible, and also focusing on a circular economy, or what one of our local architecture firms calls cradle-to-cradle design, where they are designing the ultimate reuse of materials at the end of life.

as much as they are at the beginning for it to be used.

And I think this is very important for us to be including in our climate change discussions and in our purchasing and our procurement because we have to be very, very conscious of the amount of residue trash that we are generating, especially with big purchases and avoid those whenever we can.

On that note, the household hazard, excuse me, the e-waste collection at IVMUC is actually this Saturday from 9 to 3.

You do have to register.

You can do that on the on the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority website.

And it's

Spring household hazardous waste collection is Friday, April 30th.

You don't have to register for that.

You can just show up and the times are on the website.

It's also on Saturday, May 1st from 9 to 2.

And then there's a commercial household hazardous waste collection Thursday, April 29th by appointment.

And we also have the spring bulky waste amnesty days.

Your furniture and mattresses are May 8th, appliances May 15th and tires May 22nd.

This is all very, very popular because you can clean up your roads and not have to pay anything to get rid of those wonderful mattresses that people have left you on the side of the road and the tires and all the old washing machines and whatnot.

I say that because I live on a dump road and I am very much aware of the

wonderful old furniture that we acquire from time to time.

And I also just wanted to say on the note about Donna's mention of COVID, I am incredibly impressed at how fast we in this community with the health department, with help of county staff,

and UVA getting through these vaccines now since we've accepted people down to 16 years of age.

I'm getting all kinds of calls from people saying, wow, that was really easy.

I just registered, I went down there and got an appointment the next day.

And so it's really a great operation that they're running.

for this community.

So I just want to say thank you about that.

Yes, I do have an announcement now that it's quiet around here.

I just wanted to say that hopefully next weekend, working with Parks and Rec and the Scout group from Stony Point, we should be planting about 3,000 milkweed seeds around Darden Tow.

It'll also be planted in probably other areas, maybe some areas in Stony Point.

and um near the Veritan and we're calling it uh save the monarch butterfly

So we're really happy to be working with these scouts and to plant the seeds that were donated and looking forward to that because I don't know if anyone knows it but there's an actual natural monarch path that goes through Dardan Tau where when they migrate they actually come through that area.

So we're hoping to replenish that because right now it's a parking lot but we're hoping to replenish the milkweed

milkweeds around that area so that the population will continue to grow.

One point to add to Bea's wonderful announcement about the milkweed.

It is heartbreaking to see in October when the milkweed plants are four feet tall when so many people mow them down, including VDOT.

So any time that we can leave the milkweed standing until Thanksgiving, there is a second phase of the migration is four different generations every single year.

So the northbound migration is stopping here in June and the southbound migration babies are stopping here, born here.

in October, and they really need those tall milkweed plants to be standing in order to survive.

So we all need to try to think about that and just leave those things standing until they're totally dried up.

Thank you.

All right, very good.

I just wanted to make a brief comment that we do proclamations and resolutions recognizing the month it's in, as we will do today with several.

But it's also National Poetry Month, so find your favorite poem and read it.

Poetry just keeps popping up out of nowhere, I mean, this month.

And I guess it's because it's National Poetry Month.

The first is a proclamation celebrating Arab American Heritage Month, and with us we have Yurtava Binte Farid, I believe she will be joining us, and Siri and guests.

So I believe what we'll do, Supervisor Price will read the resolution and then, or the proclamation,

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I have a proclamation that I'd like to say and I thank you for letting me say it today.

That's as far as a poem I could do on such short notice.

I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to move that the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County adopt the following proclamation celebrating Arab American Heritage Month.

Whereas the National Arab American Heritage Month

is recognized in April and it's time for celebrating the history, contributions, and cultures of the diverse population of Arab Americans and whereas Arab American men and women have played an important role in shaping, advancing, and enriching the fabric of Albemarle County and our nation,

by making immense contributions to all areas of life, including government, business, arts and sciences, medicine, law enforcement, technology, and the military.

And whereas,

Arab American issues such as civil rights abuses, harmful stereotyping, and bullying must be combated in the forms of education and awareness.

And whereas Arab Americans join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feel safe.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors,

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Paulman?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Very good.

That vote carries.

And let's see, Siri, am I turning to you for introductions today?

Good afternoon and happy Wednesday.

You are turning to me.

I'm here representing Dr. Bente Farid very briefly, wanting to extend gratitude and introduce Dr. Hanadi Al-Saman, who is the Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature and the interim director of the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures at the University of Virginia, as well

as Mr. Elias Sultami, who is a third year student at the University of Virginia and the Chair of Diversity Engagement for UVA Student Council, and they'll speak just briefly to receive it.

Thank you for this brief introduction and thank you

Board Supervisor members for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you on behalf of your support of the Arab American Heritage Month.

The Arab Americans in this country have been part and parcel of the US fabric and story ever since even before the US became a nation.

In fact, the first soldier to die in the Revolutionary War was an Arab American who came and migrated from Syria in 1776.

And some interesting stories about the first nation to actually acknowledge the nascent USA as a nation was the country of Morocco.

which was the first to acknowledge the USA as a nation, independent nation in 1787.

And the migration of Arab Americans from all countries and walks of life started in the US from the 1870s and the first wave until the 1920s and these people came basically seeking

shelter and freedom and opportunity and the promise of what all the U.S.

would give them.

They were Christians.

They were Muslims.

They came from all colors of the rainbow, also white, brown, blacks, people from North Africa.

So, really, they represent America.

They are Americans.

And we do have luminaries of Arab Americans in the U.S.

Some of us know as Arab Americans, some of us don't.

Steve Jobs is one of them.

Politicians such as Ralph Nader, Donna Shalala, artists such as Paula Abdul.

We have even Casey Kasem.

Some of you are enough to know there's the tough list.

That was Casey Kasem, Lebanese American.

And actually part of the problem of Arab Americans in this country has been that they assimilated so well into

the fabric of the USA that nobody knows that they are Arab-American.

I mean, oftentimes in my classroom, if I didn't know you see me, then nobody would say that I'm an Arab-American.

So that's been the problem.

They assimilated themselves into invisibility that they pass as white, most of them.

And so really, part of what we're trying to do in Arab American Heritage Month is really acknowledging their heritage, acknowledging their contribution to the U.S.

as an independent entity, just like any other minority.

As a minority, they are proud of their culture, they have their own issues, but they also proudly

Americans, and they are actually your constituency in Albemarle County.

We have at least over 2,000 constituencies of Arab Americans, doctors, business owners, students, teachers, community leaders.

So I think really your bold move today to vote, thankfully, for the adoption of this resolution and proclamation is in lieu with what Albemarle County has been doing and being pioneer in adopting progressive decisions towards inclusivity.

and really celebrating and embracing all divisions and all peoples of all colors.

So thank you for this opportunity to talk to you and I'm happy to entertain any questions at some point.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

I just have a short thing I wanted to share with you all.

And Ramadan Kareem is everyone who's celebrating or practicing this month as well.

But it's truly a pleasure to be here and to extend my gratitude for your appreciation of the Arab American community, especially here in Albemarle County today.

So to this point, the Arab American community continues to face bigotry and discrimination in many forms.

So at a minimum, this recognition has an immense impact for our community.

As you all know, the Arab community is not a monolith and is in fact a beautifully diverse range of different races and religions spanning from Northwest Africa like myself, I'm a Moroccan-American, to Southern Europe and even reaching as far as Southeast Asia.

We represent an array of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, and many more religions as well.

So being here today, I just hope to uplift the narratives of my fellow community members from all of these backgrounds.

And I welcome you to join me in celebrating this diversity that not only enriches our community, but allows for a truly holistic sense of community building, which values the unique experiences and narratives of all of its members.

And thank you both.

And I'll ask supervisors if they have any questions or comments.

I just wanted to say congratulations.

We support you.

And my oldest brother was actually born in Oran, Algeria.

Wonderful.

Very proud of that.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So I just want to say I'm glad you're here and I'm glad we could do this for you.

I have no real questions because I don't think I know enough.

Like I had no idea that the first person that was killed in the Revolutionary War was Arab.

So clearly I have a lot to know about Arab history in very early America.

Thank you Chair Galloway and Dr. Al-Saman and Mr. Soltani.

Thank you so much for being here today.

I too have Arab relatives.

I have nieces who trace their lineage back to Kuwait.

And so like so many of us in America, our families come from all over the world.

I'm really pleased to have had the opportunity for our board and for me personally to be able to read that proclamation.

Many people may not realize, but

Arabic is the third most common language spoken in the home in Albemarle County, outside of English.

We have literally hundreds of Arab Americans, particularly those who receive the Iraqi or Afghani special immigrant visas.

And for those in our community to know, these are individuals who put their lives and the lives of their families at risk in support of American

I want you to think for a moment about what it takes to risk what those individuals did as full support of the American government well before they would have ever known that they had a chance to come to America.

I really thank you for being here.

I share in the joy of our community for embracing this.

I also want to thank our Office of Equity and Inclusion as they mature and continue to expand the impact that they're having.

And just as a kind of a humorous little note, everyone around the world every day knows that there has been a contribution to their life from the earth that

community, if by no other reason, Arabic numerals.

And so, you know, every time I write a check or balance my checkbook, I'm reminded of how great this world is.

Thank you.

This is really just heartwarming.

I join with my other supervisors in appreciating that you all came today and just am so glad that we could do this.

Certainly Arabic has been one of the languages at Greer Elementary School that has been spoken over the years and that represented that school population.

And I must add, it's always wonderful when we have a student from UVA come before us.

That's a real treat.

So we wish we could get more students from UVA to come to our meetings at times.

But thank you both so much.

And I really appreciate you taking the time to help educate me because I've learned a lot from your remarks, from both of your remarks.

So again, I agree with some of my other supervisors.

I need to probably do some more homework and read and educate myself a little bit better.

But thank you very much.

We appreciate you coming.

Thank you, and I agree with all the other comments.

I was very fortunate in the 1950s.

One of my parents' best friends was an immigrant couple who left Persia, or now Iran, in 1952 to come to the University of Virginia.

and founded foreign relations departments.

He was a professor and she was a chef and taught dance and all sorts of other wonderful art things to people here in Charlottesville.

And my favorite cookbook is Nesta's Cookbook right here.

That was a wedding present for me back in 1971.

So just listening at the table to those conversations was

A tiny bit of learning.

Certainly I've learned many, many things today.

And also my sister-in-law was an Iranian Christian and actually had to emigrate out of the country.

about 20 years ago.

So it's just a wonderful example of the mixing pot which we have here and we have benefited from neighbors on one side of the farm from Palestine and they would have all of their, anybody who could travel in the 70s and 80s, more large numbers of folks who would come and visit in the summertime and then go back to school.

So there were great opportunities to meet and try to understand the conversations that were going on.

and my younger daughter's favorite culinary teacher is from Lebanon.

And so it's just, as I said, we are so fortunate here to be a place where people, number one, feel welcome to come, but also want to come for all sorts of various business and opportunities as well as education and share what they have with us.

and I certainly echo and endorse all the comments of my fellow supervisors and Dr. Al-Savant and Mr. Sultani, we really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today to receive this resolution for this proclamation and join us again sometime soon if you so desire.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you today and this is what makes Albemarle County great to live in.

I've been a resident here for the last 15, 16 years and

Would love to stay here for many years to come.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And Siri, as always, thank you.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Board, our next proclamation is supporting the goals of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

We have with us today Renee Branson, the executive director of SARA, the Sexual Assault Resource Agency.

And Chair, before Supervisor McKeel reads it, for our community there was an inadvertent omission in the original drafting of this resolution and the word women has been included.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Right, I will read the resolution and of course this is in the form of a motion.

So proclamation supporting the goals of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Whereas Sexual Assault Awareness Month was commemorated nationally for the first time in April 2001 in order to raise awareness and support prevention of sexual assault,

harassment and abuse.

And whereas sexual assault does not discriminate on any basis that and can affect any individual in the United States including women, men, children, people with disabilities, people of color, immigrants, students on school and college campuses, youth and juvenile justice systems,

undocumented persons, LGBTQIA individuals, and those who serve in the armed forces and others.

And whereas the local branch of the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, known as SARA, serves the residents of Albemarle County and the surrounding areas and provides free services to all survivors regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity,

age economic status, education, parenthood, physical and or mental abilities, national origin, immigration, documentation status, or any other status reaching 550 survivors and 6000 to 8000 students each year.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby affirm our commitment to raise awareness within residents of Albemarle County about sexual violence, including how to recognize it, prevent it, and how to support survivors.

And we further commit to elevating the voices, leadership, and needs of historically and currently disenfranchised and underserved communities

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Mr. McKeel?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right.

Very good.

The motion carries.

Good afternoon, Renee Branson.

We're grateful for you to be here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your support and that wonderful proclamation, not just today and not just this month, but throughout the year.

Feel your support.

I want to say just on a personal note, as the new executive director, I've been in the position just since January.

It is a delight to be able to get to see some new faces and learn new names and hopefully we will all have an opportunity to be together in person.

This month is certainly important to us.

Outside of a global pandemic, we're usually doing a lot of public events this month, really working to draw awareness and not only awareness around sexual violence, but also in the prevention of that.

We're in the business of putting ourselves out of business, ideally.

And so having your support is so deeply meaningful.

and hope that we have an opportunity as time goes forward to work more closely together.

Just in the last week or so, we've gotten the good news that we are allowed once again to be going back into the ER to meet with survivors.

That of course had to be put on hold.

because of COVID protocols, but because we have the majority of our staff now vaccinated, we're able to be actually going in, in person, sitting by their side where we want to be and where we need to be.

And so, throughout this whole last, you know, more than a year now, we're so proud to say

that even though some of our services have had to be through telehealth, Zoom, and other platforms like we're on today or over the phone, we have never missed a step at meeting survivor's needs.

But we are, gosh, we're so grateful that we're beginning to be able to be with them in person again.

And just want to say I'm happy to

No, I'm happy to support this, very happy to support it, continuing to support it.

I think you're doing a wonderful job.

Your organization, thank you very much for being there for the people, the women that need it.

I'll just I won't repeat what Bea just said that that was perfect and thank you and and I know that your organization has been around quite a while so I'm

You know, I'm hoping you're having a really wonderful... I don't know.

I shouldn't say that.

Congratulations on your new job.

I hope you can take the take the organization even further if that's possible.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway and Branson.

Thank you for being here.

This is a topic that has weighed heavy on my heart throughout the 42 years of my legal career with countless cases involving

Thank you very much for joining us Renee and congratulations on your new job.

We look forward to seeing you often.

I will say as a retired nurse who spent many years with the Department of Gynecology, the 6,000 to 8,000 students is a shocking number but unfortunately it doesn't surprise me.

It is a real

issue and a real concern.

And I don't know where the all of our victims would be in this community without the resource of Sarah.

And we just appreciate your all's work so much in our community.

Yes, thank you.

And I would just echo what others have said.

Well, Miss Branson, thank you again for being here today to receive this proclamation.

And as you're three months in, good luck as you continue in your new role.

Thank you so much.

I'll be sure to pass along your well wishes to the staff who are on the on the front lines every day.

Very good.

And board, we're adding in the proclamation about Fair Housing Month.

And we have with us Keith Smith, who I'll introduce in a moment.

Yes.

Proclamation for Fair Housing Law.

Whereas the Fair Housing Act, enacted on April 11, 1968, enshrined into federal law the goal of eliminating racial segregation and ending housing discrimination,

in the United States and whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, and disability and commits recipients of federal funding to affirmatively further fair housing in their communities and whereas Albemarle County is committed to the mission

and intent of Congress to provide fair and equal housing opportunities for all and whereas our social fabric, the economy, health and environment are strengthened in diverse inclusive communities and whereas more than 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act

Discrimination persists and many communities remain segregated and acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal housing opportunity are repugnant to a common sense of decency and fairness.

Now therefore be it proclaimed.

that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby declare the month of April 2021 as Fair Housing Month in Albemarle County as an inclusive community committed to fair housing and to promoting appropriate activities by private and public entities to provide and advocate for equal housing opportunities for all residents and prospective residents of Albemarle County.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Potter?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Very good.

The motion carries and with us today to accept the proclamation we have Keith Smith.

Keith is the chair of the Regional Housing Partnership among many other things.

Keith is a

You are muted, sir.

Can we get Keith?

Most people who know me appreciate the fact that they can mute me on a regular basis.

Chairman Galloway, fellow Board of Supervisors, thank you so much.

I'm honored to be here.

I was thinking as the two other presenters were talking about the American, the Arab American Heritage Month and the Sexual Assault Awareness Month is only

saying why this is so important, and why fair housing is so important, and why we have to treat everybody fairly and equally.

I know you guys have a busy agenda, so I do not want to take up a ton of your time.

I do want to report in a little bit, every one of your fellow jurisdictions within the NPO, to include the city of Charlottesville, have agreed to adopt the same proclamation.

So this may not be the silver bullet to fixing fair housing, but as my dear friend from Portland State University is, I have stolen this saying from him.

This is one of the pellets of a silver buckshot.

You know, treat everybody fairly, treat everybody equally, and I just want to thank you for the opportunity from the bottom of my heart.

I've worked with each one of you folks independently, and you guys are doing some great work, so I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity.

Yes, this is also very personal for me because my first cousin has been working in fair housing for over 20 years, more like 25 years in fair housing.

Well, she does.

Thank you, ma'am.

Supervisor Price?

Thank you, and thank you for being here learning yet another role that you play.

In 1989, I was driving with my family through Alexandria, Virginia.

Two parents, three kids.

The oldest one is my daughter, who was seven, who just turned 39.

And she asked me, why do so many black people live in such poor housing?

When you think about that, at seven years old, she recognized the effects of discrimination in housing, and there followed a very long conversation about things like redlining and discrimination.

The need for the fair housing policies and laws has not gone away.

If anything, they must be reinforced.

And I thank you for being here, and I thank the supervisors for supporting this incredibly important message that we send out.

Thank you.

I agree with everything that everyone said, Keith.

Thank you for being here.

And it really is true.

The more we shine the light on this and talk about it, that's when we can start to do something to address the problem.

And it's really important that these proclamations are discussed and talked about.

So thank you for coming.

And I'm glad all of our fellow, the surrounding jurisdictions have done the same.

That's great news.

Thank you.

I think fairness is the most really powerful word here.

It's important for children on the playground and in school, and it's incredibly important for adults for their sense of safety and privacy to be able to have a safe place to live and have access to that housing.

Thank you, ma'am.

Will do.

And I also appreciate the fact you're taking some time to be here today.

I do not think you get the proper, or maybe not proper, the oftentimes don't get the recognition you deserve for being at the forefront of leading this entire region to addressing affordable housing as our chair of the Regional Housing Partnership and other endeavors that you've been involved with.

So we really appreciate that.

And all of us appreciate and look forward to continuing to work with you on solving the housing issues here in the region.

Thank you, sir.

You need to pull me up before I start tearing up.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks, Keith.

Have a good afternoon.

All right, board, next on our agenda, number seven from the public, matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

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

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak and a sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer.

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

You will be notified when the three minutes are up and you are requested to bring your comments to a close.

Your microphone will be muted after about five more seconds.

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

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

Address your comments directly to the board as a whole.

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

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

If you exceed your allotted time you will be asked in your comments and as mentioned above the microphone will be muted after a few more seconds.

If the speaker does not use all allocated time the news topic may not be shared with another speaker and speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during the public comment period.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

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

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Thank you.

I'm unmuted.

Yes, sir.

Gary Grant here from the Rio district.

How is it in this era of equity and inclusion that the all white, all Democrat Albemarle plantation of supervisors hasn't seen fit to actively practice equity of opportunity in elections for their Democrat party colleagues of color?

How come no incumbent of the all-white, all-Democrat, Albemarle plantation of supervisors has seen fit to take affirmative action to promote for election this fall one of their Democrat party colleagues of color who lives in the Rio, Jack Jouett, or Samuel Miller districts?

How come none of the other three all-white, all-Democrat, Albemarle plantation of supervisors from the Rivanna, White Hall, and Scottsville districts

has also not seen fit to convince one, two, or three of their all-white, all-Democrat Albemarle Plantation of Supervisor members to step aside from re-election to demonstrate equity and inclusion on behalf of their Democrat Party colleagues of color.

Could it be that the current members of the Albemarle Plantation of Supervisors are comfortable with the color of their power and with the color of their hired hands?

How white is Albemarle's plantation government?

Well, the all-Democrat Albemarle plantation of supervisors is all white.

And didn't this all-white, all-Democrat Albemarle plantation of supervisors hire a white county executive as their overseer?

And who does their white executive have helping Albemarle's all-white, all-Democrat plantation of supervisors?

Could it be a white deputy executive, white assistant executive, white attorney, white police chief, white fire chief, white personnel director, white community engagement director, white finance and budget director, white tax assessor, white economic development director, white community development director, white project management director, white organizational development manager, white manager of housing, white social services director?

And how many others?

of this same dermatological persuasion.

So shouldn't the question be asked again or better yet answered?

How come no incumbent of the all white, all Democrat Albemarle plantation of supervisors has seen fit to take no affirmative action to seek out and promote for election this fall, one of their Democrat party colleagues of color,

Presuming he has concluded, thank you very much.

All right, we will close matters from the public and we will move to our next item on the agenda, which is our consent agenda.

I do not believe we do not have any items pulled there, so there is a motion to adopt.

Second.

Okay.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Bonner?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Very good.

The consent agenda is now adopted.

All right, the next item on our agenda, number nine, an action item.

No, sir.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, members of the board,

Trevor Henry, Assistant County Executive, and it's my honor to be here today to key up this conversation on courts.

Do you guys hear me okay?

I just want to do a sound check.

I see a thumbs up, so thank you very much.

And I believe Lance Stort is controlling the PowerPoint at the moment.

So Lance, please go to the next slide.

It's really great to be able to tee this up today for the conversation on the courts.

I don't believe we've formally been in front of the board or the public on courts since the board took action back in December of 2018 and signed the memorandum of agreement with the city of Charlottesville and gave staff direction to initiate this phase of work.

There's been a great deal of work done to move this project forward, and I'm excited to be part of just a fantastic team that will be presenting today.

It's a blend of both staff and consultants that will be talking.

through this agenda item today.

We may run a little long depending on the number of questions.

There's a lot of content.

We've tried to put it in a digestible framework, and there will be times to pause for the board to have any questions asked and resolved.

We have checked with the clerk.

I believe there will be some opportunities to make up agenda time later in the afternoon as well.

As Supervisor Gallaway noted, today's meeting is an action item.

Project staff will present the methodology and results of the programming and planning analysis phase, which includes an overall evaluation of our court caseloads, both actual and projection,

It includes interviews and feedback and input from all our users and stakeholders of the courts, and a thorough review of previous studies and updates to those studies.

And then finally, all this work culminates in developing what the architects call a blocking and stacking analysis, which really is what then sets up the design process.

It creates the building footprint.

the number of floors, the configuration, the adjacencies, and the form and flavor of the different types of rooms, et cetera, that will be in the building.

This work takes into account the best practices for courts.

It reflects the impacts of operational changes that have been observed through the pandemic that will likely continue into the future and is grounded in the guidelines from

of Virginia Courthouse Facility Guidelines.

The next step of the design process will broaden out to include, you know, work and planning for the site, a master plan of the site and the court's campus, you know, and then moving into the actual detailed drawings of the architectural, the site work, site design that ultimately leads to what will be the constructive project.

At the end of this work session, staff will pause during different segments.

And then at the end, we hopefully will be able to answer all the board members' questions and ask the board to consider the following action, which is to accept the staff recommendation to approve the program as basis of design and then to authorize staff to proceed to the schematic design phase.

Next slide, please.

Before we jump into the details of the programming information, we thought it was very important to give some background and context to the project, especially since this hasn't been formally in front of the board for a couple of years.

We have provided updates of this project via our FES, Facilities and Environmental Services quarterly report, but we haven't been in more of a public setting on this.

This is a $44 million-plus investment by the county,

and we believe the largest capital investment the county has made in decades.

The future of the courts has been in discussion in this arena for over 20 years with a great deal of study, analysis, options, many of which members of this board participated in since 2010.

This slide represents a summary of what's driving this need.

Why now?

Why is this important to have updated, modernized, and expanded courts?

The courts have also pent up maintenance needs as well, and this project will address all of those.

The county staff, the board, and stakeholders have spent countless hours working through options and scenarios that ultimately led to the direction by the board several years ago to create the MOA, the Memorandum of Agreement, and where we are now.

I should note that the project that we're developing will not only address the issues that are laid out on this summary, these current day issues, but will be a long-term solution for the decades to come for our community.

Next slide, please.

This is an eye chart, and it's really more for visual purposes of what I just mentioned about the significant due diligence the Board of Supervisors has done over the past decade, related, past couple of decades, related to the work of our court system.

And also, it highlights the investments that have been made by the county in courts since 2000.

The last row of this slide, which is a little hard to see, but it just notes the partnership that has been developed with the city of Charlottesville.

They will be co-locating their clerk's office and their general district court to this new co-located site, which you'll learn more about in a bit.

This partnership helps not just in reducing some of the overall costs, but also really will allow the improvement of the general district court operations, how the judges currently work together

and kind of managing their dockets to be as efficient and as effective as possible because of that co-location.

This will definitely improve, I think, the experience by both the Albemarle County and city community members.

Next slide.

And this is my last slide before handing off.

And it really was just to remind the board and the public

You know, the magnitude of this project is $44 million.

It's a significant part of our CIP over the next five years.

This project has committed funding currently that really has been the source of our funding for studies and this initial part of the design phase.

And you can see there is a large funding augment planned in FY22 and the current recommended 22 budget of the board.

that if approved will fund primarily the general district court construction and allow that to move forward and then it will also allow the completion of the circuit court design.

The circuit court construction funding is scheduled for a couple of years out.

That's based on the timeline and the sequence of the project.

This is an important project for our community.

You'll hear more about the programming work in a few minutes.

It does involve some programmatic changes based on the analysis that the team has done.

And it's primarily in the general district court.

But the overall footprint and the costs are still tracking

to really our original, what I would call our baseline budget for size and for cost.

As we proceed through this design process, we'll continue to update both budget, schedule, et cetera in our quarterly report to the board, and then there will be future scheduled board check-in updates as we hit future milestones.

From my perspective, thank you for your time and interest today.

This is a big project.

I'm excited that we're here and ready to move into the next phase.

I'll now be turning it over to our Chief of Facilities Planning and Construction, Blake Apolino.

Blake has been with our county for nine years and has served admirably in the role of chief of the project management team for the past five.

Blake will introduce the architectural team

in total, and then introduce those that will be speaking today and will help us move into what really is the key and most important part of today's agenda.

It's been a while since Blake has been in front of the board, and I just want to acknowledge the work that he's done personally for his involvement in getting this project launched and getting it kind of off the ground and to where we are today.

Blake, fantastic work for our community to get us to today.

Lord, I look forward to your questions, concerns, and hopefully an endorsement to move on into design at the end of this action item.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

And again, I am Blake Applenau, Chief of FES Facilities Planning and Construction.

Good afternoon to all.

I'm excited about this opportunity to share information on the great work our team has been doing on the Quartz Complex project.

The planning work that our team is doing now will be the key to success on this project.

Dozens of design team members, stakeholders and project team members

have been working diligently to establish a solid foundation for our project.

I recently took a look at my Outlook calendar and found that since January 1, 2020, I've personally been involved in 176 courts-related meetings.

Before I introduce and turn things over to the project design and programming team, I thought a quick refresher about Fentrus Architects and their team would be beneficial.

The Fentress team was selected from a group of 10 outstanding design firms by a committee that included county and city facilities personnel, courts clerks, sheriff's department representative, and even included a judge on a non-voting advisory basis.

The decision to select Fentress Architects was primarily based on their extensive courts and historical renovation experience.

If you could go to the next slide there, Lance.

This gives you an idea of that information.

You have the experience and expertise of their programming consultant, Fentrus Inc.

And I should point out, it's strictly a coincidence that these two firms have the same name.

And there is no connection there.

But as you can see, Fentrus Architects has done 14 courthouses with over 355 courtrooms.

And they also specialize in historic renovations.

Fentrus Inc.

has done over 1,000 courthouses and thousands of court projections are done by their firm each year and they're a specialist in that area of planning.

And also, Fentress has a local partner, Daglish, Gilpin and Paxton Architects, I call them DGP, and they specialize in historic renovations

and as you can see, they performed over 70 historical renovation projects.

Their office, this is really important, valuable piece of information as well.

Their office is literally half a block from the Court Square job site.

So when we do have problems that arise and you can't avoid them, particularly when you're working on older buildings, they're gonna be able to respond in a timely manner and save us time.

from someone having to drive from Washington, D.C.

or wherever.

So it's a real asset for us to have that in place.

Today for our presentation, we have two gentlemen, the principal and studio director of Fentress Architects, Washington, D.C.

office, Steve White, and Kurt Schlow, who's a senior consultant for Fentress Inc.

programming firm.

Next slide, please.

This slide includes some examples of some of the outstanding courts design work that Fentress has done in the past.

If you look at the bottom right, it's the new relatively new Norfolk Court building that has 24 courtrooms in it.

And it's particularly relevant to our project because it's very similar to the general district court portion of our project, in that it's a multi phase constrained urban environment where this was built

very similar to ours with limitations on how much space we have and doing the fit or the programming fit that Trevor was alluding to.

Something that most of us if you've ever driven north of 995 to Washington DC you'll probably see one of Fentress Architects most iconic which is the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico.

and that's one of the real impressive buildings that they have designed in that particular branch.

Next slide please.

What you see here now is an overhead of our site

and you will hear a reference during the rest of the presentation, West site, East site.

And as you can see the West site on the left hand side of the screen is the historic Court Square, which currently houses the county circuit and general district court operations, as well as the Albemarle County Commonwealth Attorney's offices.

This will be the second major phase of construction renovating the building to serve the circuit court.

House has been completed and the circuit court operations are temporarily relocated to the east side of the screen there on your right.

And we refer to this as the east side or the levee side.

And that's where construction will begin.

If you look behind where the levee building renovation tag there is, you'll see a connector corridor and then also an annex back behind that.

And those two pieces will be

Demolish.

That'll be really the first thing that we do, creating room for the new General District Court Building, and the Levy Building will be renovated to house the county's Commonwealth Attorney's Office.

Next slide, please.

And that quickly, I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to our design team.

Kurt Schlow is going to take it from here.

Again, he's

with the programming firm Fentrus Inc.

And then Steve White will follow up with a little more detail regarding conceptual ideas for design.

Okay, next slide, please.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to share some of our information with you.

And thank you, Blake.

It has been a pleasure to work with this team thus far, and we're happy to be able to share this information.

Again, I'm Kurt Schlow with Fentrus Incorporated, Fentrus Inc., and we are the core planner on this project.

A little bit of background on space programming.

What is it?

What exactly does it entail?

First and foremost, I should say, the space program informs the design.

It provides somewhat of a foundation or a roadmap.

And as we walk through this information, I hope we'll illustrate the interplay between the analytical and some of the qualitative information that are collected in the space programming phase and how that translates ultimately into

what the design team is seeing as they begin to think from a spatial perspective.

Two related areas of focus in space programming, caseload and personnel, and then space itself.

So we look at how much business each court handles on an annual basis and look at the trends.

then the number of judgeships and staff that are required to manage that caseload and handle and process that caseload and interface with the public and efficiencies that are entailed in that public service.

So caseload and personnel, and then we look at the space.

Once we've identified the quantity of judgeships and staff that maps to that

magnitude of caseload, then we look at the spatial needs to house those individuals and also operations.

There's a lot more than just the offices or even the chambers that go into a well-functioning and properly designed courthouse.

and as Trevor had indicated, there are design guidelines that we looked at as part of that process and industry best practices from having hopefully decent knowledge base from the extent of our company's work on courthouses nationwide.

A very important point as far as our role and our entry point into the timeline that Trevor shared with you.

We were asked to come in and validate and really pick up where prior planning studies had left off.

A lot of good work had already been done when our team entered the picture here.

and so the directive to us was to really take a close look at the projections that were done in some cases several years ago approaching a decade, collect recent data, new data, updated data, whatever, but don't start from square one, please don't start from square one was the request to us.

And with that being said, when we look at a space program, not only are we quantifying needs, as you can see on the screen, I know it's small, but just an illustration that we are looking at individual office spaces, individual chambers, and counting those up,

looking at the necessary size, but we're also looking at functional needs and that comes from discussions with stakeholders.

So I'm going to get into some of those details in a moment.

Correct the existing deficiencies.

And yeah, it's fine, Lance, thank you if you'd like to move to the next slide.

The last point, and Trevor did hit on it as well, there was interesting timing with us coming onto this project because we were in the middle of the pandemic.

So the idea of what spaces, how might space planning change and what technologies might be involved in the future that maybe haven't been involved in the past, those items were really front and center for us.

On this slide, and I'm going to go through this information pretty quickly on this slide to get to our actual results, but this is just a little bit about our process.

First, we look at numbers.

We collected updated population figures from UVA.

We collected updated caseload figures from the courts.

And as I indicated on the previous slide, we matched those up against trends that were already prepared in association with this project.

So that was really how we approached it.

We married up that quantitative information with qualitative information that we gathered from the stakeholders.

That would have been the judges of all the courts involved, the clerks, other court managers, the sheriff's office representatives, and the commonwealth's attorney's office.

And we also, one very important individual sort of outside the immediate

jurisdiction or the administrative housing of the court but whose feedback was instrumental.

A gentleman named Neil Goodloe with the local criminal justice planning board.

We had some very important conversations with him about recent trends in law enforcement and prosecution locally and what we were seeing in some of the numbers that we were seeing and we wanted to confirm and he did that he was seeing the same thing in

and their numbers.

So as we went through that part of the process, what we're really doing is we're integrating both quantitative data from the information we collected, the numeric information and feedback from the stakeholder group through two rounds, once in about July that we did virtually, and then once that we did in the October timeframe in person.

and we'll be sharing with you then the results of that process and I should say we had some iterative review both with the design team and the ownership group and that sort of got us, once we achieved concurrence, got us to where we are today.

Next slide please.

Blake indicated there are two distinct portions to this project and we're going to take those individually as we share our information with you and the first is what we call the the west site or the the circuit court the historic circuit court so I'm going to drill down into that information just a bit

the circuit court here is part of the 16th judicial circuit statewide there are currently six judgeships and you see the the individuals who occupy those judgeships listed here of particular importance for us is Judge Higgins who's a full-time judge focused on exclusively in Albemarle County case draws

and Judge Worrell, whose time is split.

He's 40% in Albemarle, 40% in Green and 20% of his case draws from Charlottesville.

There was a, and you'll hear this reference to this report later in the presentation as well for the General District Court, but there was a statewide comprehensive workload assessment conducted in 2017

And in addition to the prior planning studies, that report really helped to inform some of our analysis.

And from the perspective of the circuit court, I'm sharing a few metrics here.

In that report they indicated, or the

The compilers of the report identified just short of six judgeship or judicial FTEs at the time for the 16th circuit and it even specified that they would consider that as an authorization for six judgeships.

At that time there were only five funded.

and just an anecdotal benchmark.

This is not policy.

This last bullet point on the slide is not policy, not derived from the 2017 report, but a reasonable planning benchmark based on statewide averages from the 2012 Albemarle circuit court planning study from 2012 that roughly 1,825 case filings translates into an additional judgeship.

So a lot of numbers, hopefully useful background.

Next slide, please.

This summarizes what we found when we put all of the numbers together for the circuit court.

Unfortunately, between 2012 and 2013, there was a change in the way cases were classified.

We cannot show the additional data going back before 2010.

It's not apples to apples, but hopefully what's here will help.

The lower green line is the caseload projection from the 2012 report.

The upper dark blue line is a revised projection that we did with the new data.

And as you can see, there's some separation here, but really not a lot when you consider that that prior projection was almost a decade old.

From our perspective, we felt like that was showing that not a whole lot had changed with regard to the magnitude of the circuit court's caseload.

Interestingly enough, and as we hit on on the previous slide, the 16th Judicial Circuit was right on the cusp of picking up that sixth judgeship, and that ended up being Judge Worrell in 2019.

The clerk of the circuit court, John Zug, made the point in our stakeholder sessions that that really culminated a decade of need where one judgeship, one full-time judgeship just was not enough to manage the caseload here.

And as you can see in the red-circled area,

supports that assertion that right at the end of the decade here, hitting 2018 and 2019, they had gone above a threshold that the 2012 report outlined as this is about when we would expect to see another judgeship come on board.

So from our perspective, and again, putting that validation lens, looking through that validation lens,

the circuit court figures were tracking almost exactly the way that the prior research from 2012 indicated that they would and where that left us was at 1.4 judgeships currently and potentially as many as maybe seeing that second judgeship go full time over the long term.

We're not there yet but from a spatial perspective 1.4 is what we started working with.

Thank you, Kurt.

Again, my name is Steve White.

I'm with Ventris Architects, and it's a pleasure to be with this esteemed group today, and it's an honor to be of service to you all through this court project.

Kurt has laid out for us the projections for the west site for the circuit court, and what I'm going to do is walk you through what happens with that data.

with regards to the program and what we call the blocking and stacking of that program.

And then we'll take a break for questions before we go to East just so you know that's coming.

Before we talk about the actual program, I think it's appropriate to share with you particular key space programming considerations that we take into account as we start to lay out these spaces.

And just so you know, this is sort of an umbrella that is reaching out over top of everything.

The first is that the operation of the courthouse really drives the design.

So when we organize these pieces,

It's really important for the public to be in a building that they feel comfortable in, that they know where they're going, for the judges and staff to feel safe going from their chambers and offices to the courtrooms, and for our detainees and sheriffs to feel safe

in transporting from holding cells to the actual courtroom, which goes to our second component, which is separate, safe, and secure.

These are just absolutely paramount for a well-designed courthouse and is absolutely what we will be providing for both the West and East site.

And then the third element is technology and really just creating, I think that the important overall understanding is that we're creating a backbone

of Technology that we know will change, but that we're going to harness what we can and create as much flexibility as possible.

There's a lot of things that actually COVID has accelerated.

Things like video arraignments now are very very common as a result.

which are actually safer environments.

Then of course in the jury boxes and witness stands we have videos for evidence as well as the docket schedule monitors and things of that nature, all of which enhance the security and the operation of the facility.

Next slide.

So we've taken the projections from Finterest, Inc., and that manifestation are these numbers for the west site, and they essentially are broken into these seven elements, and I won't go through each one, but you can see that there are courtrooms.

We have two courtrooms, one for Judge Higgins, the other for Judge Worrell's position.

We have their associated chambers, we have space for the public, space for the clerks, space for detainees and sheriffs, and then all the other support spaces that go with the building.

So the next slide will show you the manifestation of that to scale.

And we also have it color-coded just for simplicity.

So if you look at the blue, those are the public zones, which include the courtrooms, public areas, jury assembly, and things of that nature.

The second is the restricted, which is that Manila color, which you can see that includes the clerk's office and judges' chambers and related staff spaces.

and third is the secure zone, which is where the detainee cells are and their transport.

This slide is a further detail of that, and obviously you'd have to have pretty good eyes to be able to read this, but the intent is not to read it all.

The point is that each of those bubbles that you just saw are actually several small spaces that fit within that larger space.

Obviously the big ones pop out, the new courtrooms, the vehicle selling port, the record storage, but it gives you a sense of all the different moving pieces.

and the relationship of those pieces.

Next slide.

Okay so this is the west site, north is to the right.

So you're looking on the bottom of the page is the original 1803 structure which is such a cherished historic resource for your county.

I mean it is

When I learned of this project, I just think it's phenomenal that you all have made the decision to stay in your court square and not move out.

I just can't praise you all enough for that decision because I think for generations to come you'll appreciate having made that decision.

So we have the 1803 at the bottom of the page, the 1935 administrative building on the top of the page.

The blue is the public zones, and you can see the larger spaces are the courtrooms.

We've nested the Judge Worrell's courtroom in the top right there, which requires some structural gymnastics, but it's nevertheless possible to do.

and then you'll see that there are elevators and there's a red squiggly line and a manila squiggly line and those are basically transport of judges on the right and detainees in the red and then to their elevators to get either down to the basement for the detention or up to the chambers and also down.

The judges will come in through the back door in the mornings.

But that gives you an understanding of the layout of the court building, at least as it relates to the first floor.

This is a diagrammatic stacking diagram, which is a section through the courthouse.

On the left is the 1935 administrative, and on the right is the original courthouse.

And you can see that first floor, well, let's start at the basement, it's a little easier.

So that brings us to where we are currently with the west site.

Trevor, you want me to run through our speaking order?

Yes sir, please.

All right, questions here.

No questions at this point.

I have two.

I was happy to hear that the arraignments over video have become commonplace.

When we were first, I was on the board along with some other current board members in 2014 was when I first heard of

this court project.

I know it was going on much, much, much before that, but that's when I first got involved.

And one of the conversations at that time was how Virginia as a whole, the court system in Virginia was behind in embracing technology and that we had a lot of

work to do on that and acceptance.

Can you speak to that?

I know you already talked about it and it was front and center in the decision making and you mentioned the arraignments, but can you say a little bit more about that?

Team, would you all like me to respond to that?

Okay, so thank you, Supervisor, for your comment and question.

My personal experience has not been that Virginia is behind

our experience with Virginia has been limited to Norfolk and Charlottesville so our experience with Norfolk we were harnessing technology just as much then as we are now obviously it was about eight years ago so things have changed even in that short period of time but

Okay, well that's good.

And we're doing courts across the country currently, Kansas and Tennessee and California and Maryland, and we're not finding that you all are behind.

Great.

My second question is about the old courtroom upstairs.

in the front of the, kind of in front of the building as you go in, that the story was that it was used, well, it's a story.

But anyway, can you talk about that little teeny courtroom or is that going to be still there?

Or is that gonna go away with this?

Yes, ma'am.

That is a tough spot.

So we have been looking at various options.

I believe the option that seems to be getting the most traction would require that we do a small service elevator to get up there.

Right now it's an inaccessible space, if you recall, which makes it challenging for us to do any kind of

We would have a small service elevator to get folks up there and right now we've considered it for jury assembly.

We've also considered it for ancillary space for the clerks, but right now it's not very well suited for the services and needs of the court with regards to particularly the width of it is very narrow, and it's very difficult to get any detainees in that space.

So very good question.

That's it.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, and thank all of you for your presentations.

Ms.

Henry, I have a question for you first.

I acknowledge that this is maybe a little late in the whole scheme of things, but just for my own understanding, what we're talking about is Courthouse Square.

But the city of Charlottesville still has, I believe, general district court spaces on Market Street, correct?

They do currently, yes, sir.

It's my understanding that they will not.

Once General District Court, the new east site, which we'll be talking about here in a minute, is built, the city will relocate their clerk and their court to that new location.

I am not fully aware of what they plan to do with that vacated space.

So there still may be functions that remain there.

The reason I'm asking, will these two buildings, the east and west side, will they be the totality of the court spaces for both the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County or will

It's the latter.

The city will maintain its own circuit court.

In fact, it has just recently done a pretty significant renovation project on that.

And then we have the, currently we have co-funded and co-located our juvenile and domestic relationship courts that will continue to serve in that function.

So it really will be kind of a congregate of all of the courts, but the only, the two that will be really co-location, the existing JNDR and then the future general district court.

I appreciate that because on slide five when we looked at the cost differential it's 44.5 million approximately with Charlottesville paying 6.8 million and Albemarle County 37.7 million they're paying about 15 percent of the cost but have about 30 percent of the population but since the city of Charlottesville will maintain other

That's a great observation and a great question.

That ties to our MOA which really was around the square footage utilization of just the general district court component, not the total project at all.

And I really appreciate that because I think it's important for our community members to understand that there was a fair allocation of costs in relation to a fair allocation of spaces.

But if you just looked at those figures and look at our population, that wouldn't be clear.

I appreciate the question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For our two presenters, I apologize.

I'm not sure if it's Mr. Schlauch or Mr. White.

I'm very familiar with the Norfolk

Court System.

I was an attorney in Norfolk for about 17 years.

And the east side would be, I submit, somewhat comparable to Norfolk in that it's a small space and new construction, but the west side would be very different from Norfolk in that it's an existing site that's being remodeled.

And I'm also very familiar with the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico.

I commissioned my youngest son as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps there, in addition to visiting it several times.

And I would tell you that both of those, and as I'm sure with your other projects, are absolutely beautiful.

On slide 14, I was very pleased to see your specific coverage of the separate, safe, and secure aspects with regard to the segregation and separation of the judiciary, compinies, jurors, and witnesses.

The slide, however, is so small, even trying to use a magnifying glass, I wasn't able to fully see some of the features.

And so in the West site area, are there juried liberation rooms, witness sequestering rooms, separation for those sorts of things, in addition to the pathways which you showed for the judiciary versus the sheriff's department and the

Confinees and everything.

Thank you, Supervisor Price.

Those were very astute comments.

And Lance, if we may just go back to the plan, and I apologize for the squinting, and I have to squint myself.

Well, I can tell you this, particularly with, well, actually with both courtrooms, frankly,

We're working the best with what we have, and you'll see when you get to the general district court, it's a lot more ideal situation.

Right now, the jury deliberation room

is currently in the, if we're talking about Judge Higgins is the historic court at the bottom of the page on the upper left of that portion of that building mass, which is actually currently the jury deliberation room.

So there would not be a separate pathway

segregated pathway for those jurors.

They would have to be escorted in that public space.

The complexity of this being a 200-year-old building that was really built as a single room courtroom courthouse certainly adds challenges for us.

If we had our druthers, we would certainly

look at some sort of addition that would be probably towards the back.

Well, but it does appear though that that corridor can be closed off.

Thank you, I appreciate you moving the cursor there.

That's true.

There could be, it'll require some operational sequencing in terms of the most of the public entrance right now and security queuing is all on the upper

And then there's a portion of the building in the 1935 structure on the left so all of that

All that queuing and sequencing will take place in that upper left corner and then go down the page towards the old courtroom.

And that's for the jury deliberation room.

In terms of any witness sequestration rooms or anything, again, I apologize.

I have bad eyes.

I can't tell.

I don't know that our program calls for a witness.

Yes, do you recall

I don't know that that surfaced as a functional requirement from the, either from the stakeholders or from the design guidelines.

That is something that we could look at though, as you indicate, there isn't a lot of real estate in that area.

Now, I know that we did go back and forth on grand jury

and the sequestration of witnesses is something that would go hand in hand with grand jury and that's probably where that discussion either went and maybe where it had to end.

I appreciate y'all continuing to look at that.

I know when I was a trial judge, one of the issues we had was where our jurors or witnesses are accused, the spectators were all crisscrossing paths with each other down the hallway during recesses or other breaks, going to the same restrooms, and it's not a good thing.

And I do appreciate, I really do appreciate

You're operating within a defined and confined space and you don't have the luxury or the flexibility of some of those things.

But these are situations that in particular trials become extremely important and we may just have to be as flexible as we can given this particular site.

Because this is operating under an existing building and the other one will be new and based upon your experiences,

I don't think we'll run into a situation I ran into one time where the designer and the architect, I guess, for a little bit of terminology, were on different pages and we ended up having a courtroom with a column built almost square in the middle of the courtroom, which just totally destroyed it.

But a couple of areas that have routinely been problematic are air handling units that are too noisy,

making it difficult for the different courtroom participants to be able to understand what is being said, which is important not only for what's happening during the trial, but also for the record of the trial.

I was pleased to see your building and technology upgrade potential.

Lines of sight do not appear to be an issue here.

Lighting, of course, being another major issue.

But from what I can see, I think you all are doing a very good job in this very limited space.

And I have no further questions or comments.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I appreciate the report.

And perhaps, I missed it, but can you help me a little bit with the safe, and maybe it's too soon for you all to talk about it, but I'm sure there are some safety parameters or safety

considerations that you all are building in as you enter.

I was just curious if you could describe those.

I'm not sure what the best practice is these days.

I think Donna's supervisor Price is more familiar with courtrooms probably than I am, but I do have concerns about first keeping

The courthouse grounds as neutral as possible, which probably is not within your purview.

But the safety of folks coming in as well as Donna indicates, because I have been on several or actually more than one jury, and there is a lot of mixing, you know, just walking around currently, and how that might work when folks are coming into the building.

Well, I can attempt to respond and you can let me know if I heard you right.

Well, at the main entrance, which in this photograph will be on the far left there, where the portico is on the left,

We would have security screening that would be a dedicated space.

It would be a lot more, have a lot more real estate than it currently does.

And in that they would be, you know, checking with a magnetometer and x-ray machine.

And then they would also have lockers.

So for like cell phones and things of that nature that are not allowed in the courtroom.

There'd be lockers for putting those things away.

And one thing that'll be significantly different from what you would experience if you were to go to court today is that you'll see Judge Higgins just walking through the space.

and you know just wave and say hi well that won't happen anymore unless she wants to but that would not no longer happen nor her staff nor would you see a detainee with a sheriff which you would seek today.

I've actually seen someone carted out the front door to a police car.

So that would not happen under any circumstances in the new layout.

Now in terms of mixing of

the various folks that are in the gallery.

That will inevitably happen.

Folks that are serving on juries, that can happen.

If they're in grand jury, there's special requirements for those that would be sensitive and they would be handled differently.

Yeah, that does help a lot, actually, and I appreciate that.

I really like the idea of lockers as having someone... I was one time the federal courthouse and had to walk all the way back to my car to leave my phone because they had no place for us to leave phones.

Anyway, but I'm glad to hear we're doing them.

That's great.

And I do have one more question.

I understand the limitations of being able to anticipate technology and video streaming in the future.

And I understand you are all attempting to build in as much flexibility as possible.

I think the latter.

It's too soon.

I think it will be necessary and very important.

We also have direct communications with the Supreme Court in Richmond, so there's several

I just think it's important and I would say that we're looking right now with Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail, we're in the process of facilities study and we're going to be renovating our jail facility.

It would really be nice when we're talking about technology and video streaming, whatever we might be doing in the future, at least as best as possible to look at how we might be connecting and making sure that we're all on the same page as much as possible.

And I recognize it's hard to predict, but I guess those are all the questions I have right now.

Supervisor McKeel, in reference to your previous question regarding the entrance and security, I should point out also that something that we've discussed as a potential option in the future would be an entrance that, if you're looking at this picture on the screen, would be between what I would call the two buildings.

And that's one of the design options that we've been discussing as should we put in

Kind of a centralized entrance there.

And that was one of the concept options that, you know, was under discussion.

And, you know, again, it's pretty early to make, you know, to get into those decisions.

But we're looking at different, you know, ideas like that to try to provide, you know, the utmost security that we can.

And, you know, the top security, you know, priority was, you know, circulation,

Sure, thank you Blake and I appreciate the presentation.

Thank you.

So I think if I understand and I'm following the conversation correctly, most of these most recent questions have been based upon the renovation for the future circuit court use.

I'm just going to jump back across to the new building behind the Levy site.

And I think I heard you saying that you basically picked up where the previous concept designs stopped, for which a lot of work, especially the new building had gone on.

to make sure we had smaller and more numerous rooms for mediators as opposed to a large meeting room where two or three people would use up a lot of real estate that wasn't then available for other folks.

So I hope that that is still in the front of your mind.

Another thing that I remember from the previous iterations was the large changes in caseloads when just one business, the Martha Jefferson Hospital, moved from the city to the county.

The county caseloads went up by monstrous numbers and therefore then changed our whole future need.

Is that something that one just expects to happen?

Do they happen often enough that the designers, such as yourselves, are thinking, well, how is this going to go forward in 10 years?

Because so much of our decision seems to be based upon

the need for the three court sets eventually and the functioning of a certain level of numbers of cases.

So that's sort of a roundabout the horn question, but I guess how does one predict when these big moves are going to happen and what other categories besides hospital collections I guess would be big influencers on general district court.

And I very much appreciate the

the changes that are proposed for the access and separation for all the various participants and elements in there.

I had only one experience in 45 years of having to go to court as a victim and we were using the very, very small upstairs, it's about the size of a one car garage, with everybody, must have been

A hundred people packed in there.

And I thought, wow, this is not ideal.

So that's always what comes to mind when I hear really good planning discussions about separating our various participants categories in the court.

So I'll stop there.

Supervisor Mallek, I'm going to kind of jump in on the questions that you had, and I would ask great questions if we could hold just for a minute or two to get into the next discussion, which is on the east side around the general district court.

You'll actually see

The programming changes the most really apply to that site and it is, we're going to go into a little bit of depth on the court cases from what was predicted to what actually has played out and some of the whys behind that and then, you know, what that has resulted in is actually a pretty big increase in some of the meeting rooms that you were just mentioning and not the bigger court set that

had previously been conceived.

So that's a great like, you know, slow pitch softball for the next section.

If it's okay to just hold off for a minute or two on that, because then we'll do a little more of a deep dive.

Thank you, that's great.

All right, I don't have any questions at this time.

We do have a second part here.

Yes sir, thank you, and we will, part of this was really to help the board understand the methodology.

We'll move quickly, more quickly now, into the analysis, the results, and then some adjustments in the programming, and then hopefully get it back to the board for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I can move quickly.

We're going to follow the exact same

logic trail, if you will, with a little introduction.

Look at the caseload and look at what that means spatially.

And then we'll hit the questions at the end.

But thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

As Trevor said, you could not have set that up any more perfectly.

So I really appreciate that.

The general district court for both the county and the city, both part of the 16th judicial district, four judgeships covering the nine jurisdictions, and the two with which we are concerned were Judge Quatrara and Judge Sneethern.

They occupy those positions currently.

Judge Quatrara being a full case draw from the county and Judge Sneethern, 80% Charlottesville and 20% Greene County.

In the 2017 judicial workload assessment, the district was seen as basically being right spot on at the four judgeships.

So unlike the circuit where they were on the cusp of picking

they are pretty much right where they need to be in terms of the metrics that the state uses.

And again, not a policy, but the planning benchmark from the, this is from the 2015 study and also the 2017 update is give or take 25,000 case filings is where you might be considering an additional judgeship.

Next slide, please.

This is what we saw when we looked at the county cases.

And the blue bars are criminal, the orange bars are traffic, and the gray bars are civil.

And you see that the little red circled area among the contributing factors to that sort of prolonged area of escalation of the caseload perhaps was the

the UVA medical billing enforcement and pursuit payment pursuit cases.

There was some traffic involved there as well and the sense is that traffic it does just kind of ebb and flow over time.

There may be particular enforcement

initiatives and a focus at various times.

New academy classes will often result in at least temporary fluctuations in the traffic docket.

But the long and the short of what we saw, and you can see here visually, is that the projections that were done in the 2012 and the 2015 studies, and there are actually two green lines in that upper

and

So just to be very specific with what that percentage refers to, the total of those three dockets in 2019 compared to the 2019 projected value from the prior studies.

So looking through our validation lens, we put the brakes on when we saw this.

To us, this was a significant

Departure.

It was a sustained trend and it really caused us to go back and collaborate with ourselves and eventually the stakeholders.

to ask what does this mean?

The last point here on this slide is that for the county, what it really does mean is that one full judgeship for that county caseload appears that it will be sufficient both in the short term and at this juncture, even in the long term.

Next slide, please.

An interesting couple of

A couple of interesting additional thoughts when you add in the Charlottesville caseload, which we did here.

So going from the previous slide to this slide brings in the Charlottesville cases.

and the percentage difference is about exactly the same.

If we added the forecast from the prior studies and then looked at the actual value today, we're in the neighborhood of 63% below.

So again, the upper green is the prior forecast.

The lower blue is our updated forecast.

and again the red circled area on that higher dotted line both on the prior slide and on this slide.

that's where the caseload would need to be for another full judgeship to be considered.

And that was the parlance of the study.

You could even say that, okay, maybe a fractional judgeship is something we ought to look at.

But even that, if you would just draw a line across at about 65,000, 60 to 65,000 cases, that's where you would need to be for a fractional judgeship

and we're really not there and not trending there.

When you look at the caseload of both courts together, we can see that over time with some ebbs and flows, the workload of these two jurisdictions together taken collectively really hovers at right around 50,000 cases.

And the one judgeship for Albemarle

and the fractional judgeship at the moment for Charlottesville do not only address that caseload in a current context, but as for the last couple of points on the slide here, it builds in some growth.

We look at 1.9 to maybe 2.1 judgeships long-term.

And I will say we pulled the slide from the presentation because we thought this one addresses the point

If you just look at Charlottesville in isolation, it's the exact same thing.

Their cases are down as well.

We confirmed to the last point, we confirmed all of this with the judges and the stakeholders.

And we also, just because this is such a significant departure from the prior projections, we did confirm that both with the criminal justice planner and also with the chief judge of the 16th district as well.

Next slide, please.

This is just a food for thought and kind of a footnote that we wanted to include visually because the question does come up well you know but the population's growing and the quote that you see there we pulled from that 27 Virginia judicial workload assessment the changes in population are only weekly

and weak is not the timeframe, but weakly associated with changes in the number of case filings.

Population and workload don't always track together.

And what you see in the general district court over the last decade is exactly that, where they're moving in opposite directions.

Next slide, please.

We've already hit on a couple of reasons for those.

The shift in the UVA cases on the civil side and then just the cost of filing a case was seen by some of the stakeholders as a contributor.

On the criminal side, the regional focus on evidence-based decision-making and really a trend toward

Rehabilitative type services rather than punitive enforcement, that is seen as a contributing factor as well.

So I imagine we may circle back and take a few questions in this area, but it was something that we saw as a significant departure.

We do feel like we engage the stakeholders in very focused discussions on this topic.

and where we landed on our space program was saying that the number of judgeships moving forward combined and looking from a co-location perspective at the east site would be different than what we had seen previously and the functional efficiencies and the technology efficiencies that sort of rose to the surface from our stakeholder discussions

This finding really allowed us, and Steve is a designer, to focus in that area as he engaged the site.

Sounds good.

Thank you, Kurt.

So I'm going to take you through a very similar exercise.

So it's a very similar chart, very similar components.

One key difference with the general district court is that it does not have a jury, but it does have prisoner transport, although the prisoner or detainee transport is not as significant.

and in part because of the video arraignments that occur.

But you could see how these add up and essentially when you look at the courtrooms and ancillary spaces, number two, that is for two courtrooms and I'll get into some very specifics about that.

and then how we're supporting those courtrooms.

But it's a total of 36,000 roughly square feet and then when we, because this is a new building structure in addition to the Levy building, when we gross that out we're in and around 55,000 square feet.

Next slide.

Okay, so get out your magnifying glass again.

Sorry.

This is the east site, second floor blocking and stacking.

And essentially what you're seeing there is a court set.

And one key difference between this court set and what was done three or four years ago

was is that this each of these courtrooms is now 400 square feet larger per courtroom and the reason for that is in discussions with the two judges that the volume of traffic court is highly efficient if they can get as many people in the courtroom as possible so we made the galleries considerably larger to deal with large volumes of people

And then secondly, if you look between the two big blue boxes, we have what we call a cattle chute, which is essentially once you're processed and let's say you have a fine for a traffic ticket, you're escorted through that door rather than the door you came in because

you are essentially held hostage until you have made arrangements for your payment and what that does is if you if they go out the front door there's always that chance that someone will either forget or they can't find the office where they pay or um conveniently forget or whatever you want to say but what happens then is a summons has to happen the sheriff has to go to their house and then you end up with a lot of extra paperwork and a lot of extra time

But with using that cattle chute, you are now maximizing efficiency.

And it's also with DUIs for signing up for support services and other functions of that nature to help to get people help.

they all happen within that cattle chute.

So all of those transactional things like signing up or payments can be made.

The other thing here that's really important that was touched on by Kurt is there's a synergy by putting the city and county together.

Both Judge Sneather and Quattrara have a wonderful working relationship and they actually share caseload

Now that they will be next to each other, it's going to only grow that ability to share caseload on heavy days to be able to share space.

Also, I'll get into some specifics later, but you'll see there are lots of small meeting rooms that are supportive rooms for attorney-client conferences and things of that nature.

Next slide.

So when we go downstairs, these are our clerk spaces.

That's what those large white volumes are.

But something that's new to the program are the two blue boxes that are to the right.

Yeah, that's right.

Those are hearing rooms.

And hearing rooms are a modern day phenomenon where we can basically create the functions of a courtroom without the need for all the space that you have in a normal courtroom.

In the hearing rooms, we'll have the ability to have mediation.

We'll have the ability for the clerk to run some court functions where the judge is not needed.

Video arraignments can occur so that the judge could come down, take care of a half dozen video arraignments while the bailiff is getting the court set up for traffic court.

And then the judge takes the elevator upstairs,

and off they go and the courtroom's ready to go and there's no waiting.

It also allows for a visiting judge if there's a particularly heavy load the visiting judge can utilize that miniature courtroom.

And in terms of future flexibility we do have the ability to take those two boxes and turn them into a single courtroom

even though the caseload projections don't predict that sort of as a belt and suspender that could also become a smaller courtroom.

Just as a side note to that we're looking at the floor-to-floor ceiling height for this floor to accommodate a little extra height in order to do just that so that we could do that conversion to a courtroom if we absolutely had to you know way down the road from now.

Next slide.

This again is a stacking diagram.

I know it's a little abstract, but the big box on the left is the new cork facility.

The small box on the right is the levee house.

And you can see there's a basement that's envisioned for the east site.

We're actually studying that now where we may not do a basement and have it go up a floor in lieu of, but it's similar services at the lower level that we had on the west site where we have Sallyport,

Sheriff space, mechanical space, and in this case, secure parking.

and then as we go up, we'll have the lobby and the hearing rooms and the clerks and then on the top floor is all the court business.

The Commonwealth Attorney for the county is all housed in the Levy building as a separate standalone and that the public will access the public counter of the county Commonwealth Attorney in the connector between the two buildings.

Next slide.

This is a breakdown of within that program.

These are new items that have been added to the program since 2017 that are specific to smaller function meeting and conference room space to get to the question that you'd asked earlier.

So you can see there victim advocate, offender aid and restoration,

the two hearing rooms, various clerk conference and consultation rooms, and attorney-client conference rooms.

that are all now new to the program.

So as a result, we end up with actually a size building that's very comparable to where we were thinking in 2017, but we have two large courtrooms and two hearing rooms in these ancillary spaces to create a more streamlined, more 21st century functional building than what was previously envisioned.

Next slide.

And this is a little carrot of what's to come.

We have a massing model.

To orient you, the west site is in the foreground, and you can see the old building with the cupola there.

And then there's a little row of trees in Park Street, and you can see the Levy building over there.

And then we see the new building

Now, just as a note, this is only a manifestation of the stacking, so we have not really started what the architecture will be yet.

But just to give you an idea of the massing, the volume, the size of what the building would be, and the way it would be nested in the site.

One key feature of this scenario is the forecourt that is

there at the front of the building that allows for an anteroom for conversations and events and things of that nature.

Next slide.

And that brings us to our questions and comments period.

Thank you very much.

One comment, and I'm just very impressed with the fact that you're also designing this to look toward the future, like raising the ceiling and everything, to look toward the future in case we need it for other uses.

So thank you very much.

I have three questions.

Thank you.

I was a little bit confused when you were talking about the increased square footage of the district court space, whether that was referencing increase in design from what it was before or how much it was increased from what is currently

the district court space.

Could you clarify that for me?

Thank you, Supervisor Palmer.

I was referencing the 2017 planned space, which was 1800 square feet.

The current is 2200 square feet.

The current planned is 2200 square feet.

The existing is smaller than both of those considerably and also considerably more narrow.

So right now it's quite cramped.

You can barely get the bench across the back of the wall.

It's kind of amazing.

So I just wanted to make sure I was having trouble sort of visualizing the square footage and I just want to make sure we were making it considerably bigger.

My next question you might not be able to answer, but

In talking to one of the district court judges a few years back, he was commenting on this 25,000 caseload per year and how difficult it is to manage 25,000 cases per year.

Are we in Virginia any different than, is that something that other states do?

Is that an average?

I'll take a swipe at that one if that's okay.

And thank you, Supervisor Palmer, for that question.

It's a very good question and each state

would handle that a little bit differently and of course the jurisdiction, the courts of general jurisdiction in each state

don't always cover the same thing.

So apples to apples is tough, but a few general points.

One is that, and no, Virginia handles it in a very similar manner to other states.

And the way that that's done, echoing a couple of the slides from this presentation, in that 2017 workload assessment,

what they did is they really uh a cross-disciplinary committee of individuals with some oversight at the state level uh dug into the minutia of each each court's docket and they will wait different they'll get they'll assign a weight uh to each type of case and that leads them to a calculation of FTE full-time equivalent and I apologize I probably went flying by that acronym without

So judicial full-time equivalent essentially means that they add up that docket based on the amount of time that from their perspective it should take to manage each individual type of case.

That results in how many judges or judgeships are allocated to each court.

So in the case of, and the point I made for Albemarle and Charlottesville as part of the 16th judicial circuit, is that right now currently, or at least as of the 2017 report, from the state perspective, they are kind of spot on with four judgeships.

Now, you make a very good point, the 25,000 benchmark, that's not policy.

And that's why I did want to make that distinction.

That's sort of a planner benchmark as a statewide average, because at the time that 2012 report was done, for example,

They would not have had access to the case weights and the minutia that the folks at the state level would be able to put together.

You could probably find one docket for a judge who has 25,000 cases that doesn't feel overwhelmed because of the mix, because of the case composition.

and another judge who also has 25,000 cases that feel snowed under because that docket could be higher weighted and that would have a higher percentage or concentration of what you would call the busy cases or the heavy lifting.

So, boiling it down, it would be difficult to generalize an answer to that question, but bringing it back to this project, Judge Quatrara, at this point in time, did not feel that the Albemarle County docket was daunting on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.

As you've indicated, there's times when maybe things tick up a little bit.

He and Judge Sneetherne seem extremely collaborative and willing to make the trade-offs with one another if they have a busy week.

That addressed it beautifully, thank you.

And I think my next question is probably for Trevor and it might be premature, I don't know, but given that the city and the county are both going to be using the same district court building, what sheriff's department would, how would the, you know, right now the city sheriff's department deals with the city district court and county with the county district court.

Thanks, Supervisor Palmer.

Great question.

The assumption that was built into this project and memorialized in the agreement is that the county is responsible for the maintenance and operations of this facility.

So that will be our responsibility to do that.

However, the city's sheriff's department is a stakeholder in this and will have, I believe, some responsibilities within

the court itself for the city.

I guess that's okay for right now, but I think that's something that I would like to understand anyway.

Are we going to have to hire more sheriff's deputies, or what is that situation?

One more quick question.

I was told by the Commonwealth's attorney once that a lot of people don't end up in court for traffic court because they forget to pay their traffic fines or their speeding tickets.

I believe I can answer that for you, Supervisor Palmer, thank you for that question.

The clerks have the most volume of interaction with the public, more than the courts, so that's why the courts are on the upper floor and the clerks are on the first floor and there's a whole transaction counter

and I'm sure at some point we'll have a discussion about whether there's electronic kiosks or not.

Okay, thank you.

I just thought automation of that if we weren't doing it already would be great.

But that's it for my questions.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Thank you for the presentation and I think this really shows with the e-site the easier situation you have in things with regard to things like security than you do with the west site where you can have a centralized security point there coming in.

The design structure of the two buildings on the west side blocking make a single security point much more complex as we discussed in that

conversation with regard to being able to segregate the jurors in the jury room and things like that.

I do want to follow up a little bit on Supervisor Palmer's comments.

Supervisor, I can answer that question for you.

The sheriffs have their main office across the street over by JDR, but this facility will house

Okay thanks I just with the bad eyes and small print I just wasn't able to find that and then I presume I'm going to mention it anyway even though it may be

not need to be mentioned, but I presume that all of these upgrades will include things like bulletproof glass and doors and interior security here at the east side as we see the pathway from the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office building in the Levee Opera into this new courthouse facility that there will be ample security cameras and things like that.

Other than that, no.

Again, let's use your

path forward on the east side with the new building than you do maintaining the integrity of the west side.

I think I'm good right now.

Thank you.

So I was intrigued by the, what you call the shoot, where people would go to settle up their bills before they get out of the building.

Is that going to be used for both city and county clients?

Or is it, are there two shoots back to back so that the clerks have their own spaces to work?

Yes, ma'am.

It's a shared cattle chute.

So the hallway is a single hallway that is to both courtrooms and one has a city processing room and the other has a county processing room and you come off of the courtroom on the side there.

Okay.

Very good, thank you.

I was also intrigued by one of the slides that said, basement, Sallyport, and parking may push up to be above ground.

So that was a surprise.

And does this, and I understand you've changed

entirely really the numbers of cases we need to expect so while we were planning for three county court sets and one for the city it looks like we're now planning for one and one plus the two little hearing rooms that I guess could be shared by either jurisdiction so are we taking off a floor because we were having four stories three above and one below ground or are we because that sounds like considerable cost reduction if that's actually happening so

Oh, please don't apologize.

Thank you for your question.

And I didn't quite make myself clear and I apologize for that.

The intent there is if we were to pull the garage functions up, we would essentially keep all the program would remain exactly the same, it's just the building would

would rise up out of the ground.

So you would still enter at grade and have all the ceremonial lobby space.

It's just you would then go up and sort of behind a wall would be the sheriff's office and the parking in Sallyport and things of that nature.

That was a great concern five years ago, is what are we going to find in there?

And the cost uncertainty of the contingency was going to have to be pretty horrible.

Supervisor Malek, also you articulated well the base assumption of the, you know, the potential three court sets for the county and one for the city.

What this reflects is the reconfiguration of additional spaces that will be utilized differently at a gross square footage level.

The 2017 study of which this really was baselined on had us at 60,000 gross square feet.

the current programming has us at 57.

So it is, you know, it is really, you know, within that same kind of small order of magnitude.

So the dimensions have changed and the, you know, the space slicing is different, but at the end of the day, we're still tracking to the same square footage.

Yes, sir.

All right, is there any further discussion?

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, very good.

The motion carries.

Thank you everyone that was here today to help with that presentation.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Board.

OK, Board, we are definitely behind schedule at this point.

We had a recess scheduled at 3.15.

It's 3.28.

We can try to push through and get the economic development item through, or we can take our break.

Is there any preference here?

I would think we should take a shortened recess to do a break, and then we can hopefully get caught up.

Okay, let's do that.

If we could, board, let's take a quick five minute recess, then we'll come back for the economic development items.

Thank you.

Okay.

And I know, good afternoon, Roger, we have you with us today.

Thank you Chairman Galloway, members of the board.

If you'll allow me, I'm going to introduce Abby Cook.

Before we do so, let me set the stage.

We are here today because the performance agreements with Willetry have been impacted by COVID, and our purpose of this discussion is to amend, hopefully propose amendments to the agreement.

Rather than being redundant, we're going to address both items

21-230 and 21-231 concurrently.

With that being said, I will introduce again Abby Cook, Liberty University graduate, a certified public accountant, and the controller at Willow Tree.

She's going to tell you a little bit about the status of Willow Tree and some other general information.

Thank you, Roger.

Thank you, Chairman Galloway and members of the board.

As Roger said, my name is Abby Cook, and I'm the controller here at Willowtree.

I've been here a little over five years and in the Albemarle, Charlottesville area for the last 15.

I want to start out by sharing my appreciation for having me here today and all of your support for Willowtree over the last few years.

I'd like to use a few minutes, I know we're running behind, but just to introduce WillowTree to anyone who's not familiar with us and share some photos of our new space at Willam Mills.

So we call ourselves a digital product consultancy, although that is a very fancy way of saying that we build software for Fortune 500 companies.

That may mean helping Anheuser-Busch build software to help distribute products across the United States or helping Fox stream the Supergoal to millions of users.

We do that with a team of about 550 folks, half of whom are headquartered here in Charlottesville, which is where we were founded and that team works together to build these products.

The reason we describe ourselves as a consultancy is not only do we help our clients build software, but help them figure out what to build in the first place.

Then we help them adapt their own processes and even organizations sometimes to support these products themselves.

We work across a variety of verticals, bringing industry expertise to the table from the start.

As you can see, one of our key verticals is hospitality and restaurants, industries that were hit particularly hard last year by COVID-19.

While that swift hit to our projects and, therefore, revenue created uncertainty at the time, we're seeing the demand for digital products rebound stronger than ever and have restarted many of the projects that were paused last spring.

So our processes rely on our teams being able to work quickly, collaboratively, and creatively to solve problems for our clients.

As we've all experienced over the last year, that can be very difficult when working remotely.

While we were able to maintain our same level of service over the last year working from home, we believe it was because we built a strong foundation of working together in person over the last decade.

We demonstrated our ability to do that by being one of the few companies that are certified technology partners with some of the largest names in mobile and web and continuously being recognized for both our work and our team.

Now for the part that we're most excited about this year, bringing the team back to our new office at Woolen Mills.

We spent two years building out 85,000 square feet of beautiful office space and our team is so excited to come back there.

We built this space for growth.

It has a total capacity of about 550, which serves us well as we transition back to in-person work, since we have plenty of space available for the teams.

We also have a variety of workplaces or workspaces to help facilitate some of the working styles folks may have, including large conference rooms for collaboration or smaller booths for heads down time.

We also have outdoor spaces that we're super excited about both within our office and the adjacent wool factory for people to utilize.

Pictured here on the right is one of our libraries which will give a light but quiet space for people to work while they're here.

So we are excited about this new chapter of Willow Tree although it is one that will look different than what we're used to.

After Labor Day, the plan will be to be moving to a hybrid working model, being able to work from home a few days a week as needed or preferred.

Prior to 2020, we did not allow working from home because our core belief that the best work happens when you're sitting together

solving problems real time with people that you know.

However, we recognize that the work environment is different now and many people have benefited from being able to have more flexibility in their workday.

We are still 100% committed to growing and using the Charlottesville office and look forward to bringing more people to the community, which will certainly be made easier when they can visit both our space and the area in person.

Thank you, Ms.

Cook.

While JT pulls up the slide, I'll just handle a few logistics.

Most recently, we amended the performance agreement to Wood Mills, the site itself.

As a general update, all the built elements are complete and now the bridge has been given a certificate of occupancy.

Today we're going to talk about amending the performance agreements with Will Attrieve the Company, which includes the Virginia Job Investment Program, commonly called VGIP, and the Commonwealth Development Opportunity Fund, often referenced as COF.

JT.

What Abby did not show you is some of the pictures of what Willam Mills looked like before.

As you'll see, they had trees growing inside the building, broken glass, a dilapidated building.

And on the left-hand side, you can see just really in a state of disrepair.

Next slide, please, JT.

This is what it looked like during construction and then Ms.

Cook just showed you several examples of what the building looks like today.

It's completely a world-class campus and we're very proud of what Willow Tree and the county have worked together to accomplish.

Let me just set the tone again.

We're here to talk about the VJIP grant incentive, which is the incentive to create jobs.

We're also here to talk about the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund grant match program.

which is required of the local municipality in order for Willow Tree to receive a governor's award as well.

As a quick update, the governor has awarded $500,000 as a match and the county's required to match that and we are doing that through a rebate of 50% of the B-poll taxes and 50% of the real estate taxes.

One thing I want to make clear to the board is while we're amending this agreement or proposing an amendment,

The financial projections remain unchanged from 2018.

We are not suggesting in any way we change or increase or decrease the amounts Willow Tree would be eligible for.

Let's first talk about VJIP.

As an update, the state is providing $1,000 for each new job created as of March 1, 2018.

Previously, the county agreed to match the state's grant with $500 from the county and $500 per job from the Economic Development Authority.

Most recently, the state extended the performance period in recognition of COVID impacts until April 9th of 2022.

We're proposing that the county also amend our existing agreement to align with the states and have a deadline period of April 9, 2022.

We're moving now to talk a little bit about the details of the Commonwealth opportunity.

Currently, the existing performance agreement cannot be met due to the pandemic.

The current agreement required employees of Willow Tree to actually work on site.

Obviously, the pandemic impacted that.

The proposed agreement protects the county's interests and enables the company to safely meet performance targets.

Again, the wheeler tree has received $500,000 from the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund.

The existing performance agreement requires 75% of their employees be located in Weller Mills.

The county desires employees remain in the area to realize the full economic impact.

If you'll think back a couple of years, we had Dr. Terry Reppin from the University of Virginia's Welding Cooper Center conduct an implant analysis.

It's an input output method that deduced that the

Direct, indirect, and imputed or induced impacts are around 132 million dollars annually.

It's a lot of money that Willow Tree is bringing from outside our area into our community.

In order for us to realize that, we wanted to find a way for those jobs and those folks who were employed by Willow Tree to remain in our area.

So we are proposing that, JT, we are proposing that we replace the existing

Workplace requirement with a workforce residency requirement whereby 75% of all military employees in our community must reside within our metropolitan statistical area.

They must do that for years 2020 and 2021.

In years 2022 of the contract, we're asking that Willow Tree have 75% of their employees remain in our metropolitan statistical area, and they also have 50% of the workforce return and be assigned to the Will and Mills site.

And then in years 2023 and 2024,

We're requiring that Willetry have 75% of their employees assigned to work out of the Woolen Mills factory.

It's a nuanced difference than what we may have discussed with you before.

This is supported by our Economic Development Authority.

They thought it was important to have vibrancy on the Broadway corridor, so you'll notice that we now have a requirement that 75% be assigned and reside out of Willow Mills headquarters, and that's the purpose of that nuanced change.

A couple of things about Willow Tree I wanted to highlight.

They have a 10-year lease for 85,000 square feet.

That far exceeds the 40,000 square feet required in our current agreement.

Mostly, I wanted to illustrate that they exceeded the performance agreement already.

They've committed to add 260 net new jobs.

Of those, they've already hired 107 of those 260.

They have attested that over 75% of their employees already reside locally.

Some of their leaders took pay reductions.

They had no layoffs during the pandemics.

They've been good corporate citizens.

They've been engaged in the Broadway Quarter Study.

They followed public health suggestions and recommendations.

And they even have things to help with the environment to include electric vehicle charging stations and over $12 million of indirect investment in upgrades to Will and Mills.

As again, Abby illustrated, it's just a beautiful campus.

So in summary, we're asking for you to extend the Virginia Jobs Investment Program to match the Commonwealth schedule.

And number two, we're proposing to amend the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund grant to account for the pandemic.

And again, this does not increase or decrease the county's financial obligations.

So staff recommends adopting Resolution and Attachment D to amend terms of the contract for the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund match.

Staff also recommends that you adopt Resolution Attachment E to amend the VJIP Amendment for a 13-month extension.

Be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you, Rhonda.

Thank you, Abby.

Thank you very much to both of you for the presentation.

That's correct, and that would change over time, recognizing that we don't know exactly how the pandemic is going to impact

the workforce for the next couple of years.

I'd like to add a point of clarification.

Thank you for the clarification, Doug.

I would not expect that to be the case, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Correct.

Yeah, the only implication that we've talked about and are acknowledging is that part of our interest was in activating the Woolen Mills area and having all those employees on site every day, all day, obviously helps in that regard.

The pandemic and the consequences of that, obviously as they continue, not knowing what the future is, has complicated that quite a bit.

And so if there is an intention or a goal that we had on the front end that we're not quite sure how to meet right now as we work through the pandemic, that would be it.

is how do we try to find that balance?

Thank you, no further questions.

No, I think Doug clarified the point of how the original agreement was structured and then the change and then it goes back to that.

Two questions.

It began June or July of last year.

I'll have to

So 2020, and so you've got the lease until 2030.

Yes.

And what was the timeline?

I don't remember what the timeline was on the original VJIP agreement.

Can you just go, I know you gave us what it changed from this past time, what was originally?

You had that in front of you and it's March 1 of 2018.

And we extended it 13 months.

Yes, the existing agreement in attachment A for the VVIV item notes that it would last until March 1 of 2021.

Okay.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you.

Life is what happens to our new plans.

I think the pandemic is really as much as anything that we've experienced.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Walker, thank you.

I have no questions.

I fully support both of these and as the supervisor of the district in which you located, I'll be pleased to make the motion.

Thank you for this discussion.

I'm very supportive.

And Abby, the facility, the whole development is just lovely.

Just great.

And we certainly appreciate your flexibility.

We are trying really hard.

to get to have everybody work together.

And I'm very supportive of this.

It's as Donna said, you know, best laid plans.

Who would have known we would have been in the middle of a pandemic and we just have to figure out how to deal with it.

Thank you.

I fully support this also and the picture that was provided about what it used to look like, which I remember very well when I went to the old security storage there.

We have already covered our bases so strongly in just the increased real estate assessment and the quality of the work that has been done there and the quality of the jobs being offered.

Roger, I think I heard you right.

You said the bridge is up and running now?

It has been completed and given a certificate of occupancy, yes sir.

It's great.

I was down there a few weeks ago, had dinner at the restaurant with Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

That was good.

That was very good.

Thank you.

Supervisor Price, you said you were ready for the motions?

Thank you, Chair Galloway, and for clarity of legal issues, I'll make them two separate motions.

I move that the board adopt the resolution attachment E

Second.

Okay.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Aye.

Ms.

Ballard?

Very good.

Second.

Okay.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Very good.

That motion carries as well.

Thank you, Roger.

Thank you, Abby, JT.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, board, that will take us to number 11, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Quarterly Report.

Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Moyer.

I'm well.

Thank you for having me.

Let me see if I can share screen real quickly.

I have a short presentation for you today and I'll be glad to answer any questions.

So in the water, sewer, refuse and recycling world of Rivanna, the first thing that's happening is starting this weekend, we begin our e-waste collection program that the county helps sponsor.

followed by the commercial household hazardous waste program and next weekend we have the spring residential household hazardous waste program followed on the third weekend by the bulky waste amnesty days where people can dispose of furniture, mattresses, appliances, and tires.

So this is a very well used program that the county and the city support so we appreciate that.

and we do this in the spring and in the fall.

We also are excited to get working on the Keene Convenience Center for the county and as I'm sure you know this is going to be a recycling and residential bagged refuse collection site and in the Keene areas where it's planned and we're starting the design now and hope to have the construction completed next summer around July.

You're probably familiar that we have five drinking water supply reservoirs that serve our water treatment plants and the good news is as we enter the warm summer all the reservoirs are full except Sugar Hollow which on purpose we've lowered four to five feet as we replace this rubber gate that sits on top of the dam

and that gate does maintain a water level in the reservoir but it allows us to lower this rubber bladder when we have a pending storm and we need to pass more water across the dam.

It allows us to have that flexibility so that device is going to be installed in the next month or so and we expect to have this project completed around July.

We also have a project that's well underway out of Crozet, a wastewater storage tank, and this stores excess wastewater that gets in the sewer system when it rains.

We don't intend for rainwater to be in the sewer system, but it gets in there and of course we pump all the wastewater from Crozet back to the Morse Creek wastewater treatment plant.

So out in the Route 240-250 area we're going to build a storage tank

and that helps us to store about 1 million gallons of wastewater when the flows in the system are excessive and then we put the wastewater back in the system after the wastewater flow subsides.

You've heard me talk about in the past the South Rivanna to Ragon Mountain pipeline that's planned to support the water supply plan.

and what this map shows you that the black areas of the line we have obtained easements on most of this line now.

I'm assuming the Albemarle County School Board is going to grant an easement tomorrow night.

They've already had the first reading of that proposal.

So we expect to have a substantial portion of this water line under our control as far as an easement or an agreement with VDOT

We do have this little green area here that there are two private owners that are transitioning properties.

We have one property here near Barracks Road and the Sugar Day Farm.

We have yet to come to agreement with, but most substantially we have UVA Foundation who owns this property here near St.

Ann's Bell Field and down below the Birdwood Golf Course is also UVA Foundation property.

and we're working with them to acquire the easements.

We have already built the water line here along Birdwood Golf Course and we have a small section that we plan to build in the next two years which would extend from Birdwood north under 250 and under Old Garth Road.

So we have a plan to get that work done.

And just like you, we're budgeting and we have proposed budgets to our two boards on the water and sewer board.

We've proposed an operating budget of 38.9 million dollars.

We have a five-year CIP of about 170 million dollars to build the major water and sewer infrastructure.

and we have 96 employees proposed that we need to operate that authority similarly for the solid waste authority which manages the ivy landfill facility and the transfer station as well as McIntyre a recycling facility that authority has a budget of proposed at 5.4 million dollars of which the county supports about 2.2 million

and that authority will have 21 employees as proposed for next year.

So all is going well at the Water and Sewer Authority and the Solar Waste Authority.

I did want to give you just a quick report and answer any questions you might have.

Excellent presentation and no questions.

Thank you very much.

I have one.

Gary O'Connell for the AS Elmore County Service Authority is going to talk about rate raises coming up and of course Rivanna's CIP is a huge portion of that.

Can you just comment on the major drivers because

Thank you.

We've got three major water treatment plants under renovation which hadn't been renovated for many years and that was that's about 53 million dollars.

Those include the Crozet water treatment plant which is just about finished

as well the South Rivanna and Observatory water treatment plants are under major renovation right now.

We have the pipeline that I showed you on this slide if you can still see it but between Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the Observatory treatment plant that pipe is very old and we're planning to replace that in the next few years and build a pumping station.

and that's about $24 million.

In addition, we have many projects here at Morris Creek, electrical, lighting, and equipment replacement totaling about $25 million.

As well on the regulatory driver that we have, the Beaver Creek Dam spillway needs to be expanded in the pump station.

are relocated and that's about $27 million as well.

The Crozet flow equalization tank, the wastewater tank that I mentioned, the regulation is really driving that because if we allow wastewater to flow out of the sewer system, we have made an environmental violation and so that's

a regulatory driver here.

And just to add on to that, that pipeline that you had in the picture of the water supply plan, actually it's replacing two pipes from Ragged Mountain Reservoir over to O Hill.

70 years old.

So this is some of our oldest, not our oldest, but some of our just oldest water

So thank you.

It has served us well, but its life cycle is expiring and we need to replace it.

Thank you Chair Galloway.

Mr. Molyer, thank you so much.

Food, shelter and clothing, those were the three things as a child I was told we needed and water falls right in there in the food category I suppose and nothing is more critical.

I know that this area has previously experienced drought conditions.

I know Atlanta where I grew up has so the work that you're doing to improve the infrastructure is incredibly important.

Yes ma'am, that is an important component of all of our programs now is security.

And I wanted to mention too that Supervisor Price took a tour.

We gave her a tour along with the service authority of the Scottsville water and wastewater plants and that was a great opportunity to show her those facilities.

And in addition, last week we made a presentation to the Scottsville Town Council to

Let them know about the wastewater and water treatment facilities that we have serving the town of Scottsville.

Thank you Mr. Moyer and I think you clearly demonstrated during that tour if I didn't understand before and everyone needs to understand

Water is not free.

What has to be done to prepare that water to make sure it's clean and safe and reliable requires an incredible system and I really compliment you as well as Albemarle County Service Authority for the work you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I would just add to that we are very lucky in this community that we have our own watershed and that we have provided water for our community and Don is exactly right.

It is a very, very valuable resource and

and I think our community is very lucky to be in the position they're in when it comes to water.

Okay.

Yeah, that'd be great.

I'd just be, I'd like to follow that.

And I guess with that, I thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

This is such an exciting report because it's decades we've been working to get to this place and just to hear the pipeline described as something which is quote-unquote underway with right-of-way makes my heart sing because even though it is a very high dollar amount of the fact that it's replacing the 13-mile almost 100-year-old pipeline from Sugar Hollow which is leaking water all over the place into farmers' fields and people's backyards

is just a wonderful thing to have happen.

So 2029 cannot come fast enough for this particular element for me.

Thank you.

Just one more.

And not to contradict in any way, Bill explaining that this is where the pipeline is to actual construction in the planning.

but to point out that some of this infrastructure that has to do with the water supply plan is going in sooner than that.

For instance, the Ragged Mountain to O'Hill and the pump station and which will actually receive the water from this pipe and we get segments of the pipe done.

when there's construction in those areas.

And Rivanna has been very proactive in looking for developments that are, you know, being redone so that they can move in to put the line in, for instance, this small little section across to Old Ivy Road.

Thank you.

All right, very good.

Mr. Moyer, we appreciate you're here for the report and the update.

All right, you're welcome.

Thank you so much.

Have a good evening.

All right, the next item, number 12, Albemarle County Service Authority Orderly Report.

And Gary O'Connell is with us.

Good afternoon.

So I'm watching your clock.

I'll go fairly quick.

I sent a written report in advance, so most of what I'm going to cover was in the report, but I thought I would highlight a couple things.