Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session and Regular First Meeting   4/6/2022

In a very short period of time, what I would say about Ms.

Coltrane is that while she's been here six months, it feels like that we've worked with her for a much longer period of time.

She literally hit the ground running in her new job.

She is back and forth between this building and our Fifth Street location almost on a daily basis.

She's building a team from the ground up that will be the first dedicated local government human resources function in a number of years.

It couldn't happen at a more important time for this organization and for the community we serve.

I want to also thank this board for your interest and your commitment to our workforce.

In my career, I have never served a board of supervisors, ever, that was as thoughtful and supportive of our workforce.

And I see that consistency every single day with our elected officials.

And on behalf of our management team, our leadership group, we thank you for that.

Because this is a partnership.

We are in this together.

And as we move forward, we will be working diligently to move workforce stabilization

in a way that strengthens and stabilizes our workforce for years to come.

Ms.

Coltrane will walk you through today her thoughts and the thoughts of our leadership team on where we've been, the things that we are working on, the things that we will want you to be aware of and ask questions about as we move through this year.

Today, we will not have all the answers.

We do not have all of this solved.

but this is an important conversation and it will set up future conversations throughout this year.

So, Chair Price, with that I'll ask Ms.

Coltrane to come up and we do have some prepared slides and then there will be an opportunity in the time we have today for questions and discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Good afternoon, Ms.

Good afternoon Chair Price and members of the board.

Thank you for this opportunity to present this information to you.

Our monitor is on but we do not have a display on it.

I can see the light on for power.

As a chair emeritus, Supervisor Galloway is also our board IT expert.

Or I just know about loose wires.

First thing I want to talk about is what is actually, what we look at is workforce stabilization.

And I came up with a definition here.

And workforce stabilization is just that.

Ms.

Coltrane, could you speak a little closer to the microphone?

I knew I was going to do that.

I apologize.

It's the degree to which workers remain employed with an organization with 100% being premium optimum stability.

A hundred percent is a nice goal to reach, but we also want to be realistic.

So we want to look at retention, and that's what we understand.

And it's not just about retaining, but it's about the tools in which we retain staff.

It's about the training and the growth that we implement in our programs and in our jobs and workforce.

So real quickly, the agenda here is I want to talk about where we are,

The impacts to our stabilization.

And what does success look like?

I'm from the mindset of budgeting for outcomes.

I want to be able to make sure I tie those things together.

So where we are.

This information is not new to you.

We talked about this before.

But I wanted to be, just to get a reminder before you.

Right now, we have 853.65 approved and funded positions.

Right now, 7% of those positions are unfilled.

We also are experiencing recruitment challenges.

We're even dealing with that in HR as we try to bring on staff.

And there's a couple of things that present that, and I'll talk about that in a few moments here in the presentation.

Another thing we're looking at is retirements.

We stated before we had 22 people that have already retired, but we have 10 additional that will be retiring by the end of this fiscal year.

But I want to add, overall, we have 49 people today that are eligible for either full or reduced retirement.

If we take away those 10, that's still 39, roughly 40 people that can still walk out the door today if they so desired.

So what we're proposing is the 4% increase

for July 1.

And that is in attempts to address ongoing inflation, salary challenges for new hires, and retention efforts.

Because we have staff that they can research on their own and look at, is my job comparable?

And we want to be able to give them some good information.

Yes, it is, or it is not.

We have the $1.5 million for the salary survey, the implementation and review of that.

We have $1.3 million for a 6% increase in health insurance premiums and $0.7 million for the VRS system rate increase.

So what are some impacts to our stabilization?

First and foremost, I wanted to think about the great resignation that everybody calls it, but I call it the great rethink.

There's some data that I pulled from a peer report.

Keep in mind, this is not from our current workforce, but a few exit interviews kind of mimic some of the data that I gathered here.

And this peer report from March 9th highlighted some areas that are making people rethink what they're doing.

First and foremost, pay.

Pay was too low.

Opportunities for advancement are a challenge.

Feeling disrespected and not regarded in the workplace.

Childcare issues that are still ongoing.

I think we might have experienced that last week when we had an early closure.

What staff members have to do when those things transpire.

Not enough flexibility in the workforce.

How many hours individuals are putting in.

Benefits.

And at one point in time, government work, you would always hear, government work has great benefits, and we want to make sure we carry that torch still.

Wanting to relocate, those things we cannot really control.

But individuals are highlighting working too many hours.

When we're in a flexible working environment, when can we shut that off?

Are we working too few hours?

And then, of course, individuals who are required to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Just some of the many reasons that individuals are rethinking their current positions.

When we look at the work-life balance and the working, that is a huge opportunity for us here, is a huge challenge for us here.

The work-life balance is huge.

And we have individuals that combine the mental health, the work-life balance.

We have individuals thinking, you know, I just don't want to do this anymore.

So we have to make sure that we make our organization a place that individuals want to come to work and want to retain employment and grow where they are.

And then we have some other impacting factors dealing with our workforce changes.

I wanted to present this to you because I want you to see what we look like as of yesterday.

This is what our workforce looks like as far as generations in our working environment.

And you can see that our Gen X and Gen Y's are right at 38% in our organization.

That's actually a good thing for us.

It's really a good thing if we really look at it.

But we had to retain them.

17% of our workforce are baby boomers.

We did have one traditionalist, so they didn't register for us.

So they were literally like 0.0003% or something like that.

But I want to highlight that one person is important.

So I want to make sure I highlighted them.

And then we have 7% that are our Gen Z.

That's pulling up the rear.

And you think about that is a generation, and this is not a joke, and no disrespect to anyone that's in that category, but we're talking about a generation that's never had to roll down a window.

So they've always had to hatch technology.

You see them in the grocery store.

They have their laptops and iPads in front of them so they don't understand certain things that change for them.

So when we talk about workforce changes, we have to have flexible career paths for our staff.

But we have to also meet technology changes.

And we have to be mindful of people coming in from organizations that already have these things.

When we bring them in, do we have the technology they need?

That may be a work issue for them.

They can't stay with us because we don't have the proper technology.

Policy.

Our policy needs to mimic our technology expectations and our career path.

We have with our EDIB, our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Our policies need to show respect for our workforce.

So those are things that we really want to look at that impact our stabilization.

So if we implement some things for our organization, what does success look like?

First and foremost, success will look like proactive talent management oversight.

We already know ahead of time if we're going to have a vacancy.

What can we do to start gearing up for the vacancy?

Is the job description up to date?

It doesn't need to be restructured.

Those are things we need to look at.

We need to look at reduction and turnover.

I would hope that I don't come back before you at this time next year and still say we have 7%.

That's my hope.

That's a desire there.

Greater job satisfaction.

Some of our roles, we cannot change the work, but we can at least make the working environment comfortable for our staff.

So we need to be mindful of greater work.

And then, I want Albemarle County to be an employer of choice.

I want people to think, hey, I need a great job.

Albemarle County is it.

That is success.

We want to see more individuals applying for our jobs.

No more of this one or two people for a certain job path or a certain posting.

So when you become an employer of choice, that will reflect in our applicant pool.

So those are the things.

That's what success looks like.

So how do we get there?

We already have telework.

We already have flexible working environments.

And our supervisors, going forward, we're looking at what jobs, because we're back.

We're in the endemic right now.

We're looking at our jobs.

Is the job telework eligible, or is it telework capable?

And a supervisor is going to have to let us know that.

So when we post that job, the individual can make that decision ahead of time.

Do I want to come and work in an organization where my job, I can maybe work at home sometimes or not?

Let individuals know that up front.

We want to make sure we address mental health challenges.

Mental health is real, and it's been real for a long time.

But I'm glad to see it's finally getting the notoriety that it deserves.

But we just can't just throw a few things at it and say, hey, we're helping with mental health.

It has to be organic.

So first and foremost, we have to look at our EAP program, making sure we're really emphasizing the usage of that.

But then on the flip side, we need to make sure that in our training, in our orientation, we're talking about time management.

We're talking about stress management.

We're incorporating mindfulness tools that a person can use day to day.

Some things that your HR department will be looking at as well

As the compensation, our policies, retention and recruitment, and learning and development, we're strongly emphasizing soft skills and upskilling development.

We may have a job that has a skill change that may not require a reclassification, but does less upskill our staff.

Do we have the capability of doing that?

Excel.

It is often that we have a person that will put on their application, yes, I'm proficient in Excel.

And they come in the door and they can't do a spreadsheet to save their life.

And that's understandable because they feel like they've opened Excel, they can use Excel.

But we need people that can really do that job.

We get them in, do we have the tools to train them?

We should have those things available.

We have an HRS system that is another solution that is going to allow for us to pull data quickly, that is going to allow for staff to be able to see themselves, their entire record and profile in one snapshot.

It's going to streamline even the calls into HR that a person can take their career into their hands and look that stuff up on their own.

The market survey review, I spoke about it earlier, but we really want to see where we fall and where we are.

And some areas we may be high, some areas we may be low, but we want to know a baseline.

So when we have staff challenge, when we have new hires challenge us, we can say, you know what, you're right.

Or no, you know, we're right where we need to be.

You've been at your job 20 years, we expect you want something a little more, but this is what the market's saying, this job should be paying.

We want to be able to have that discussion.

And then we want to make sure that we have really solid benefits.

You may have to tell the person, you know, we can't give you that salary, but our benefits are great.

So our benefits are being reviewed such that we can look and offer the best benefits to our staff.

So these are some of the solutions we're looking at to stabilize our workforce.

I mentioned earlier about budgeting for outcomes.

It's just what's ingrained.

But we have to have metrics to measure that.

How are we really doing?

So we will have metrics that will be added that talk about skills and ability gaps, that will measure our hiring.

How long does it take us to fill a position?

If it takes us six months to hire a position, that's a challenge for us.

One, do we need the position, or who's doing the work since that position's not filled, hence adding stress to other individuals in that working environment.

We need to look at our equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging gaps.

Where are we struggling at, and where do we need to recruit?

I spoke earlier about time and cost to hire, but what about knowledge sharing?

Do we continue to have the single point of failure where one person knows everything?

Or do we make sure that we're cross-training and allowing others to grow and develop in that skill set?

Succession planning is a must.

We must have succession planning.

Succession planning is not replacement planning.

We're not planning to replace anyone.

But we know we're going to have people that are going to retire.

We know we're going to have people that are going to have to transition elsewhere.

So what are we doing to fill in that gap?

And what are we doing to fill in that skill set?

And then, of course, retention.

How do we retain and make sure the staff that's here?

We talk about the turnover.

We talk about getting new hires on board.

But really, I want to go back to that pie chart of those individuals that are here.

What are we doing to take care of staff in place so they don't want to leave?

So those are things that we're measuring so we can really work with departments and say, hey, here's a flag.

Let's be proactive in these measures.

How do we apply this, our learning and development?

Our training department is really gearing up to give supervisors compliance training right off the bat.

We have supervisory training now.

But we want supervisors to understand and know how to coach people right off the bat.

How do they apply the policies and procedures?

If they get that training, they are comfortable and confident so they can coach a staff member instead of looking towards discipline right away.

Because sometimes we have to discipline staff.

But can we coach them first?

And then do we give the supervisors tools to coach?

and then the soft and technical skills.

Supervisors will understand, you know, this person is lacking here.

We need to have the resources for that supervisor to help upskill and reskill staff members.

Those are things you're going to help take off some of that stress to reduce some, it's kind of a trickle down, reduces the stress, better workforce, a work-life balance.

Those are the few things that I have mentioned.

Thank you, Ms.

Coltrane.

Board, before we do our questions, I neglected to mention at the beginning that the opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

At this time, we'll go through our order.

Thank you, and thank you, Bea, for this

Presentation.

I appreciate you saying about the thoughtful and supportive members of the board, but I would suggest, speaking for myself, that you need to add, in all caps, demanding.

Because at the same time, I have a very high performance bar, but also I think that we make and should continue to make a great effort to provide all the training, all the support to really help our staff to achieve whatever that performance bar is.

It's a balance.

It's not just one or the other.

But I know that there is a lot to do and a lot of responsibilities.

And I appreciate how hard everybody works.

One question.

EAP, please remind me what that stands for.

That is the Employee Assistance Program.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms.

Coltrane, and we're really lucky to have you.

I have no questions.

I thought your presentation was very good and inclusive.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So a couple of questions I would have is that when you, I love the great rethink and the way that you framed that, so I appreciate that.

The turnover piece, you had the millennial

You had those different categories.

So just a capacity issue to get there.

Because I think of the millennial age group as well when I think of talent loss and that turnover piece, that that's an area.

It's like how many people that are seven or eight or 10 years in and we're losing to other organizations and they're getting the second 10 years.

And what does that mean to our ability to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish?

So it would be interesting when that stuff starts to roll in data-wise, though, to see how that goes.

When you're talking about mental health, you think of stress.

This job, when I think of folks that have to come here, at my job, when an employee does something and then turns it in to me, I meet with them.

And all their criticism or my questions or all of that is done in the safety of my office.

But a lot of times, this stuff is coming to us.

And I hear the cameras clicking.

There's a video camera back there.

We've got folks that are going to write about stuff.

Our staffers are coming to us, or employees are coming to us, and having to put this out on the table.

And that criticism and our questions, even if it's not negative, is done in such a public way that we have to appreciate the stress level that comes with that.

So when I hear the mental health, the wellness pieces of this,

You know, sometimes we lose sight because we just do this, right?

But we think, oh, we forget that layer of this.

This is a very public piece for people to put their work forward on.

The secession planning, I appreciate that.

And you say, well, it's not a replacement plan.

But secession planning, if it's a good one, is also our employees deserve to know how to move up in the organization.

And if an organization doesn't have a good secession plan in place, then they go, well, I want to be there, and I don't know how to get there.

or I want to be there, and I don't know if the company wants me to be there.

So how do we show them?

It's like, yes, if you're interested in upward mobility, if you're interested in moving to a higher position, it's contingent on the organization to show them how to do that.

And if they don't see that, that's why they might leave and go somewhere else because they can see it going to that other opportunity.

I would throw out here now, I think this is a good, I was thrilled that the workforce, this was coming to us as a budget work session.

I'm thrilled with the efforts being put forward in the budget this year.

I would throw out an idea to the board and call on Mr. Richardson specifically, that as we get into our strategic planning process this year, and whether it's called workforce stabilization or if it's called some other phrase,

that this needs to be on the list for consideration of being a board strategic priority.

The health of the organization is what's going to allow us to achieve in our current strategic plan, we've got climate action plan, we've got school space needs, we've got revitalizing aging neighborhoods.

We don't achieve any of that with an unhealthy organization.

Not saying we have one, but when we talk budgeting and programming of resources, we go to the strategic plan

I think our employees and our organization deserves and needs the resource programming over the next two to five years to rise to the level of the strategic plan and be called out there and may even be our top priority.

So I know that that process is going to be coming in the fall.

But Mr. Richardson, I'd like to see that.

Obviously, other board members would have to agree.

But that's for down the road.

But I think that needs to be in the mix to be a board strategic priority in our next strategic plan.

Thank you, Ms.

Coltrane.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you, Ms.

Coltrane.

I very much agree with Supervisor Galloway on his insistence that this be a priority.

My only question is I'm trying to get a handle on the numbers just a little bit.

I apologize if I feel like I'm putting you on the spot on it.

I'm looking at the amount for the 4% increase and then the

I would say honestly with that would be more research I would need to do but we meet when you have an increase in salary but you don't do anything with the benefits they both need to to be addressed and

because if we can't offer a person a good salary, we can at least say, hey, we have these great benefits.

And so it's an equal value if you look at it, monetary and the value.

Mr. Andrews?

I don't mean to interrupt because I know you're talking with Ms.

Coltrane but I'd like to ask Andy Bowman to step forward because we've had discussions about for every dollar we pay in salary how does that drive the benefits that are associated with that and that would be the direct benefits that you would see in the budget and so that's an excellent question and I knew I saw Andy stirring in the background and I knew he would probably have something to add to Ms.

Andy Bowman, Chief of Budget in the Department of Finance and Budget.

We can provide the full list and breakdown of what those benefits are included.

Some of those under the Virginia retirement system are set by the state as a percentage and I won't speak that percentage out loud because it's changed.

I may not have that on top of my head.

Certainly there's also the health and benefit rates that we have as well and we can provide the breakdown of how all of those play out for a particular position.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you Mr. Bowman.

Just to follow up quickly on Jim's question, I know this board over the last decade has discussed at times making sure that we have a way to share with our employees what their benefit package is worth.

I think it's gotten harder and harder as we're doing more direct deposit, people aren't getting it.

that check in the mail where they actually see because we used to be able to put something on the pay slip that they, you know, the check that they would get in the mail or the pay slip that they would get in the mail.

So I think it is good just to go along with what Jim was saying for employees to really understand that this is their salary but this is what their benefits package is worth as well.

and that's a little different from what I think you were saying, but I think it goes hand in hand.

Just a couple of, I just really appreciate your work.

We have needed this for so long to be able to benchmark is critical, succession planning is critical and I really agree with everything my fellow supervisors have said.

I have just two different things.

I hope that

When we look at structuring our employees, whether they're coming to the office to work or offering the option of working from home, where it's appropriate because certainly when we look at environmental issues, trying to get cars and vehicles off the road, we learned a lot during the pandemic.

about how we could reduce possibly our carbon footprint, and we need to take advantage of that learning process and not just go back necessarily to the old ways.

Just a thought.

So where it's appropriate, not always appropriate, and I understand that.

My other question is, I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this.

This community went through

a really terrible event, August of 17, three, you know, Unite the Right rally.

It created for us a lot of bad press nationally.

It used to be that I never turned on the national news if I didn't hear about Charlottesville.

Now, they didn't say Albemarle County, but we're certainly one community.

And when you Google Charlottesville or Albemarle, you get still a lot of the bad information.

Negative, I guess, is a better word.

I guess my question to you is,

I would love to hear at some point on what you think it would take or what we could do to help the image of Albemarle County nationally, because this gets to recruitment.

If I am looking at a job in Albemarle County, the first thing I do is Google.

And I might say, not so much, I don't think so.

So I would be, and I don't know if it's marketing, I'm not an expert, but I would love to know if, in your professional opinion, that there might be some things that we could do that would improve us.

We know what a great employer we are, and we want to be better, but we don't want to be branded under an old, negative reputation.

And I tried to say that carefully, but I think you know why.

Yes, thank you.

And I'm not expecting a real answer right now.

Thank you for that.

And I will take that under consideration.

But one thing I want to go back to is the benefits for a staff member.

Under our ADP right now, they can look in their profile or in their pay stub, and they can click on their drop-downs and see what they're paying for their benefits.

So that is visible to them currently now in our ADP payroll system.

So they can't see that information.

Whereas before they had the pay slip, it's electronic now.

That's good.

And maybe we should make people more aware of that.

Thank you, and Mr. Richardson, Mr. Bowman, and especially Ms.

Coltrane, thank you for your presentation.

I have three comments real quickly.

First off, I totally agree with everything Supervisor Galloway said, so that really needs to be an emphasis that we at the county take for this.

Secondly, I concur with the comments from Supervisor Andrews and Supervisor McKeel just then.

I think back to when I was in the Navy and every year we would get a statement

of our total military compensation, which showed substantially more than just your hourly wages or salary.

It was all of your benefits.

It was also the taxes that were paid by the employer, which now as a self-employed individual I find that I have to pay double on certain things.

It's the healthcare benefits.

It's your vacation benefits.

We really do need to make sure that everyone understands their total compensation package.

And I would say it needs to be something that does not require the employee to hunt and find.

It ought to be front and center and easily visible to the individual.

One of the downsides of technology is we're expected to have to search all the time for information.

And this is a particular item that needs to be front and center all the time.

and on a very lighthearted note, for this generation that's never had an opportunity to roll down a window, my truck out here has manual door locks and windows and you can bring them down anytime and I'll show them how that works.

This is related but not related to this specifically, but I wanted to ask for this follow-up.

Andy, I appreciate your recent set of answers to questions.

One of my questions was to the school division about, please explain in more detail what the $3 million budget for workforce stabilization entails in Amherst County Public Schools budget.

And I appreciate the response, but I don't think I asked my question very well initially.

This is the written version of what I understood that day.

I'd like actual examples of what they think could occur in the given year that they would spend that money on.

When I asked that question to the county executive, it could be signing bonuses.

It may have to be outside of the pay range you're in.

Those are examples of things you would do per employee or different staff based on what you have to do.

So I'm asking for them.

They've had some ideas of thinking, well, this is what we could be using.

I'm not asking them to commit to it.

I'm just saying, provide me some examples of what you're thinking is going to be necessary.

Do we move part time to full time?

Do we have to accelerate certain positions?

I don't know.

Thank you for the additional clarity, and I'll follow up with the school staff and provide a more complete response.

Yes, getting back to Supervisor Andrews' original question, I think what I'm hearing is that, for example, we pay someone, let's say we pay someone $75,000 a year, but the actual cost for that person is maybe $95,000 or $105,000.

We're tracking exactly as you lay that out.

So for every dollar, what would be the additional amount on that dollar in salary that we pay out in benefits?

We'll pull that together.

We'll show that to the board.

and that's going to be good for us.

As Coltrane said, when we do the market survey later this year, we're going to be getting an idea of how our benefits structure, the benefits investment, the things that we do, how does that stack up in the market and we need to see that to be able to understand what are the things that are out there that maybe we don't offer or what are the things that are out there that we need to consider, that we need to

Right, I totally agree with that and I think it's good for the public to know yes, we're not just paying this amount, it's costing the county actually this amount and that makes a big difference.

And tied in with that, that comprehensive compensation study will then give the opportunity to look at the totality of various types of costs, expenses, benefits, so that not only we on the county side know what each position costs, but each individual employee or potential employee

can see what the benefits that they will be receiving and if there's sort of a smorgasbord of selections that they can take because for some people healthcare may be important and others it may be time off and that really will help us I think towards that retention and workforce stabilization.

Any other questions or comments, supervisors?

No?

Thank you, Ms.

Coltrane.

Chair Price, I know that before we wrap this up that we'll just ask Mr. Bowman to come forward and to talk about, as he often does before we wrap this up, what's next, the number of sessions that we've had, what's ahead of us, and just making sure the Board is aware of what's coming down the pike between now and the May 4th adoption of the budget.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Thank you, Ms.

Coltrane.

Thank you.

I do not have any slides for this portion.

We just will return on April 27th to continue the discussion on athletic fields.

At that time, we're also scheduled to revisit items that have been identified by the Board of Supervisors for the list for potential adjustment.

Those include changes to staffing in the Department of Social Services, whether that be accelerating positions or adding additional.

also some either capital or other one-time issues of course the athletic fields which I already mentioned the Boys and Girls Club that was discussed last week also the request for additional funding to the housing fund to get to an even five million and additional support for the Southwood project and so those are the items staff is also preparing to bring back to the board in the future

as well as respond to the other questions and answers that the board has provided.

So with that, that concludes my comments and after the 27th, we'll adopt on May 4th.

If nothing further at this time, then we will adjourn and we will reconvene at one o'clock in place.

I would ask that supervisor and staff be back in place at about five minutes before one.

Regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for April the 6th, 2022.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the hybrid 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.

I would like to mention that in addition to our supervisors, also present today are our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Ms.

Cynthia Hudson, our Board Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, and our Board Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris.

I would also like to thank and welcome our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present today, Mr. Jason Freistadt, Mr. Kevin Dean, and Mr. Randy Jamerson.

At this time, board, we will move to item number 4, the adoption of the final agenda.

Before acting on that, however, I understand that Supervisor Andrews has requested to remove item number 8.2, amend section 8 of the board's rules of procedures from the consent agenda item.

All right, thank you.

In addition, I would like to add on the agenda in item number 8,

Discussion by the board with regard to the procedural rules for speakers on matters from the public, not on the public hearing, not on the agenda for a public hearing or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board, which are the rules we adopted during the pandemic.

So moved.

All right.

We have a motion by Supervisor McKeel and a second by Supervisor Andrews.

Is there any discussion?

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

At this time we will move to item number five, brief announcements by board members.

This is great going first.

So spring is here and I would like to announce River Fest which is coming beginning April 22nd with activities sponsored by the Rivanna Conservation Alliance and ending with the Flow Art Festival on May 1st and the Rivanna River Arts Festival from 11 to 3 on May 1st and it will be home-based at the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center where there will be arts, dance, drama, and sculpture and plein air painting throughout the center's grounds

with music on the boat.

And this event will highlight exploring the river through art, and it is an opportunity to connect with the river in new ways.

And we hope to see everyone there.

It is part of the River Renaissance that was started a number of years ago with the River Basin Commission and Elmore County staff.

Thank you.

I just wanted to welcome everybody who came today, and it's wonderful to be back in person and to see so many people.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway.

No announcements.

Appreciate that our friends from the media have found their seats again.

Glad you're back.

Thank you.

Just a couple of quick notices that you all are seeing our pinwheels around the county at the county office building south and here.

Pinwheels are a symbol of lighthearted childhood.

and a carefree life for children.

And we want to make sure that everybody realizes that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

And that's what these pinwheels are representing and reminding you of.

And we ask that you remember to support not only our county organizations but our nonprofit organizations.

that support our families and children.

The other thing that I want to just chat about a minute was that Donna and I, and actually Mayor Snook, attended a great event on Sunday

at the Ivy Creek Natural Area.

And it was recognizing the work that they have done such a good job on around the historic Riverview Farm, which is the house and the property of the Carr-Grier family.

and I'm sure Donna wants to say a few words about it too.

But I would encourage if you have not been to the Abbey Creek Natural Area, take a drive over there sometime and look at they have cleaned a lot of the property up, taken out the invasives, they're going to be restoring the old home, the barn is just a treat to see.

So keep that in mind and make a great outing for family and for your family sometime when the weather's good.

Thank you.

And following up on that, it really was a wonderful event.

The family back there, this whole farm started with a previously enslaved individual who, for I think $58, purchased about 100 or so acres of land.

Eventually it became well over 200, 250 acres.

And what it really shows is truly an American success story of a black family from enslavement

to one of the most important operating farms in our region.

The first black individual to be an agricultural agent who then helped many other poor families in the area to become successful farmers.

Greer School is named after a descendant of the family.

They've got wonderful trails out there and we were so fortunate because it was one of the rare times at this point that the homestead, the building itself was opened,

They've already taken actions to stabilize and now they're raising money and they're doing some research before they renovate it to open it up to the public.

And it's fascinating as you see this house that started off as a two over two, then had a couple of expansions added to it.

And it's a part of our history that is often overlooked.

Albemarle County is not just the home of rich white people like Jefferson and Madison and Monroe.

but it's also working families and black families and that's part of our history that is often lost.

In tying in with that, thank you for that introduction Supervisor McKeel, a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to observe an exhibit at the Jefferson School on Picturing Climate Justice and just yesterday I received a report from the organization that put that on

which I forwarded to Ms.

Kilroy, the Director of Community and Public Engagement, which shows the intersection between poverty

the environment and quality of life.

And not surprisingly, those individuals who are at the lowest income levels tend to be in the highest struggle in terms of simple things like paying their utilities.

When we talk about affordable housing, we'll talk about average median income.

But it also, this report showed that for those who are struggling financially, they tend to be in housing and in locations that are heat islands and things like that, which require a higher percentage of their income

for basic utility services.

I am really looking forward to how we can employ and implement that into our plans here in the county to help improve the quality of life for everyone.

Secondly, last week I had an opportunity to participate as a moderator on a panel that was hosted by Albemarle County's own former

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

And it was dealing with the way social media will use algorithms to send people down the dark hole of hate and divisiveness.

And it was fascinating to have these experts who deal with communications and math and algorithms to show how a person may start with a relatively innocent or innocuous search.

And before you know it, they're just being simply inundated

with hateful language.

And this is part of the propaganda that is leading to a lot of divisiveness in our country.

And so it's really important that people be aware of that, that parents be aware of that for your children if they're doing things on the internet, so that we try and avoid finding ourselves going down that hole.

And finally, it is wonderful to be back live in person in Lane Auditorium.

And we expect that we will continue to see more people show up for our meetings.

but the silver lining that's come out of the pandemic in terms of our situation is that we now have this hybrid opportunity so those who are not able to come to Lane Auditorium can still participate virtually and those who may not be able to access the internet as our broadband authority and

and the County's Office for Accessibility and Affordability helped to improve that, we'll still have the opportunity to come into Lane Auditorium.

But I want to thank Mr. Richardson, our leadership team,

that has worked so hard over the last two plus years to keep us safe.

With the Blue Ridge Health District leading on the medical side, Albemarle County continues to have the highest vaccination rate and the lowest infection rate in the Commonwealth, and that is what has kept us safe.

And so while we know there's been frustrations with the amount of time that's taken to get back in person,

It's because, Mr. Richardson, of the actions that you and your staff have taken that have kept us safe, that allow us to be here today.

And we cannot forget the more than 980,000 Americans who have died over the last two plus years.

The CDC recently released guidance to allow a second booster for those who are over age 50 or otherwise immunocompromised.

and I would encourage everyone to consult with your primary physician to see whether you are eligible and should receive the vaccination.

I also appreciate simply looking into the audience to see that while not the entire auditorium is set up for social distancing, that people are being respectful of those around them.

Some are wearing masks, some are not, but that's one of the hallmarks of Albemarle County.

We talk about the Virginia way

but Albemarle County I think leads even more than that.

The respectfulness that our community has experienced and expressed with each other has made a tremendous difference.

All right board at this time we will move to item number six, Proclamations and Recognitions.

Thank you, Chair Price, and I will read this proclamation as a motion.

Proclamation recognizing April is Fair Housing Month, whereas April 2022 marks the 54th anniversary of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, known as the Civil Rights Fair Housing Act, and whereas this act provides for equal housing opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability,

as well as to ensure fair practice on the sale, rental, or financing of property and whereas the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 added new rights, remedies, monetary penalties, and strengthened its enforcement procedures to affirmatively further housing choices to eliminate legal barriers to equal housing and to emphasize equal housing as a fundamental human right for all and whereas individuals in Virginia have the right to choose where to live

without discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status, disability, source of funds, sexual orientation, gender identity, or military status.

And whereas Albemarle County supports the intent and purpose of the Federal Fair Housing Act, the Virginia Fair Housing Law, and follows policies and practices in order to achieve their goals.

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

do hereby support equal housing opportunity and seek to affirmatively further fair housing, not only during fair housing month in April, but throughout the year.

All right.

Second.

We have a motion by Supervisor Galloway and a second by Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Ms.

McKeel?

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

Thank you, Board.

And I understand, Dr. Pethea, you are here to receive the proclamation.

Good afternoon.

I was afraid no one would be able to see me with the computer screen on the monitor.

Fair housing is so important to individuals in the community as a whole.

I can't say enough about how important it is to be able to provide housing choice to all of our residents because where we live really does matter.

It determines the quality of education we will have, the quality and types of employment opportunities that we can access.

what amenities we have available to us.

And so fair housing is really the basis of success throughout everyone's lives.

I'm not going to say any more than that except to say that this year we are inviting all county residents to participate in a community art project that is celebrating fair housing.

If you visit the community engagement website, which I can't read at the moment,

which is engage.albemarle.org.

We have some information about fair housing and we invite all residents to, of all ages, artistic abilities to submit a piece of art that really considers what community means to them, what diversity means to them and how can we come together as a whole.

Thank you, Dr. Petey.

At this time, I'd like to give the board an opportunity to make any comments that they may have.

Thank you.

And we are learning more and more about the environmental deficits that many low-income neighborhoods have with no trees to provide shade in the summertime and those kinds of things.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I have a cousin who has devoted basically her life to fair housing and has worked in the fair housing field.

When you hear the stories of what happens and how people use various things to trick people to not let them have adequate housing and fair housing, it really brings kind of shame to everything.

So I've always admired the work she's done because it hasn't been easy because housing does make a difference, where people live does make a difference for the quality of life and for the quality of schools.

You're absolutely correct, Ms.

Pythia.

So I'm glad we have this.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway.

I'll take the opportunity to thank Dr. Pethia for all the work and effort that she puts in, not just for the County of Albemarle, obviously, and her role, but the work and effort she's putting into the Regional Housing Partnership and attacking the issue regionally.

So thank you, Dr. Pethia.

And also to thank those who were involved in the Regional Housing Partnership.

That partnership is underway with a strategic plan to start understanding what that body will be doing over the next

So I appreciate all the developers and nonprofit members.

community members and other elected officials from other entities who are involved in that partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will just add that we obviously spend a lot of time up here talking about housing issues and it's really 12 months out of the year, not just one, and I'm glad that we can focus on fair housing at this time.

Thank you.

I certainly agree with everything that my colleagues have said and really appreciate your work.

and the work of your team and our ongoing discussions about affordable housing.

And I will just say that once again I want to thank the member of our community who sent us a book anonymously called The Color of Law.

And it was probably one of the best educational experiences I have ever had around how our government segregated America.

and I highly recommend it.

It's not necessarily the easiest read, but it is a worthwhile read.

And with that, thank you, Stacey.

And Dr. Patio, as you can see, we've changed the setup here a little bit with the bollards and the tape there.

So, whereas in the past we would have someone come up and receive the proclamation, I've given it to the clerk, if you don't mind retrieving it from her, and we're going to work on making sure we have that a little smoother as we move forward.

But thank you.

We all appreciate the work that you and your staff do to make housing better for everyone here in the county.

All right board, at this time we'll move to item number seven from the public.

Now this is our first hybrid meeting and for those in attendance either in person or online, we now have the opportunity for people to sign up to speak on matters from the public either online or in person.

The clerk has just informed me that we had no one sign up virtually today, so we will simply have matters from the public in the auditorium.

And then later, during our next item, we'll actually discuss the procedural rules that we have for that.

So we have two people who have signed up.

These are matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda in person.

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.

A sign-up sheet is managed by the clerk's office.

Up to ten persons may speak during each Matters from the Public session.

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

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

A yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish your comment.

A red light indicates your time has expired.

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 comments directly to the board as a whole.

Give written statements and other supporting material to the clerk.

If you represent a group,

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

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

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

Speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during either public comment periods

during either public comment periods per meeting.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

Persons in the audience are encouraged to raise their hands to indicate their support or opposition to speakers at the podium or any item during the meeting.

Please reflect

Please refrain from applause and other forms of approval or disapproval as a courtesy to each speaker.

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

Thank you, Vice Chair LaPisto-Kirtley.

Good afternoon.

I'm John Cruikshank.

I live in the White Hall district in the Earliesville area.

I've been a resident of this area since 1980.

I'm retired from the Albemarle County Schools.

Very proud of that.

But I'm here mostly to speak as a grandfather, because I have a grandson who's eight years old, and he's an aspiring athlete.

I recently saw him playing baseball on one of the Albemarle County fields.

He did a good job, too.

But I'm here to talk today about grass.

I'm here to urge you to maintain and enhance only natural grass athletic fields in Albemarle County.

Natural grass has so many advantages over synthetic turf.

It improves water quality and reduces runoff and erosion.

It provides habitat for worms, insects and other beneficial organisms.

It absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen into the atmosphere.

It cools the air around it.

It provides a much healthier environment for young athletes.

Artificial turf is made of synthetic products such as polyethylene, polyester and nylon with some type of acrylic coating.

It will pollute the water, air, and the soil.

It creates a heat island up to 150 degrees in hot weather.

It is expensive and only lasts about eight years, when it then becomes garbage.

The manufacture and disposal of artificial turf produces greenhouse gases.

So what does Albemarle County stand for?

Well, in the long-range solid waste plan, it states that the wasteful use of resources and the creation of non-recyclable waste byproducts will be reduced and wherever possible eliminated.

The climate action plan, which you recently approved, states that we will protect and restore natural carbon sinks.

who will promote practices on managed land to trap carbon and minimize carbon emissions.

While artificial turf may be convenient, maintaining a healthy and sustainable environment is sometimes inconvenient, but it's very necessary.

And I hope that you had a chance to either hear or read the article.

It was an NPR report by Sandy Hausman

Thank you, Mr. Cruikshank.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

Thank you very much.

It really is nice to be back and the public appreciates it.

My name is Barbara Cruikshank.

I live in Earlyville.

and I'm here to talk about children's health.

Children are not small adults.

They require additional precautions to ensure their health and development.

There is not one person in this room, I don't believe, who does not know that artificial turf contains many dangerous chemicals, industrial chemicals.

They can migrate into the bodies of children and disrupt their immune systems, their hormonal systems, their neurologic systems that are developing We all know this The artificial turf manufacturers cannot provide us with proof of safety In fact, our law does not require that they do provide us with that

The basic guiding principle of children's environmental health is the precautionary principle.

This principle states that when there is any action considered, if there is some evidence of harm to human health or the environment and we have other options, we must err on the side of caution and choose another action.

The precautionary principle has been adopted to guide decisions in children's environmental health by the European Union, by Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada and multiple other countries.

The United States has not adopted this precautionary principle.

Our system requires that we, the consumer, prove evidence of harm.

If we use a precautionary principle in the instance of artificial turf, we would not have these fields made of artificial turf.

We have other options, and there is more than enough evidence of harm to the health of our children and our environment.

It is 2022.

We do not have to prove anything.

We need to do the right thing for our children.

All right board, this concludes this item on our agenda.

We will now move to item number eight, the consent agenda.

As previously announced, item 8.2 has been pulled, and I would like to first ask if any supervisor has any other item that they desire to have pulled from the consent agenda.

And a second by Supervisor McKeel.

Yes please, Chair Price.

Yes, Supervisor Galloway.

I just wanted to thank Lance Stewart and Trevor for getting back to me.

I had some questions on the FES report that was on consent.

So thank you for that, but just for

I wanted to make the comment that the facility master plan study, I just wanted to call that out, that if you have not yet seen that, those answers have been shared with everybody, but it looks like by summer or fall,

that could be coming to us for further discussion, et cetera.

But that's one that I know that we're going to be interested in doing follow up on and seeing come before us.

So I appreciated the update to that timeline.

The others was on the Southern Convenience Center and the Wildflower Meadow, but I don't need to go through those.

Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

Any other comments on the motion?

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Alright, thank you board.

At this time we need to discuss item 8.2, which was pulled from the agenda, the consent agenda.

This was to amend section 8 of the board's Rules of Procedure.

Mr. Andrews, will you and Ms.

We can.

So just briefly, the consent agenda item that was attached to the original agenda had some inconsistencies, errors that needed to be fixed.

And so the table over there has copies, I believe, of the corrected version.

We have all seen the corrected version of the rules that make it clear.

Thank you, Supervisor Andrews.

Before Ms.

Hudson begins, just for clarity to those in attendance and are observing online,

This particular section, as Supervisor Andrews was referencing, deals with the procedures for a supervisor who may desire or need to participate virtually at a board meeting, as well as the number of times that may happen and the notification that needs to be made if a supervisor is going to request to participate virtually.

Ms.

Thank you, Chair Price.

You probably should have given that broader background to Supervisor Andrews' comments that you just gave.

But indeed, one of the last actions of our now retired County Attorney, Greg Campner, was to propose this amendment to your rules at Section 8 that addresses individual remote participation by supervisors to conform to the setting you are now in.

following the lifting of the pandemic restrictions that allowed you under law to conduct all electronic or all virtual meetings.

In order to allow participation individually by supervisors on a virtual or remote basis, the rules are suggested to be amended to incorporate the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act at 2.2-3708.2.

which allows members to participate in meetings remotely where the rest of the body, a quorum of the body is physically assembled under certain conditions.

And those conditions are where the, and assuming that the supervisor has followed the proper procedures in terms of notification of the chair, those circumstances include the fact that a supervisor is suffering from his or her own medical condition or disability.

and that does not allow them to attend the meeting physically or need to care for a family member with a medical condition who requires that they not attend the meeting physically or that they have a certain personal matter that they have to specifically identify that prevents them from attending the meeting.

However, in order to legitimately invoke those bases for participating remotely in a meeting, the Board of Supervisors is required by the Freedom of Information Act to adopt

a policy that sets forth these bases and the circumstances under which the board may consider approval of that remote participation and that's what this amendment proposes to do today.

If they are invoking the personal matter basis

for remote participation.

Thank you.

And it also requires that a supervisor notify the chair in advance of the meeting and should notify the clerk.

Right, thank you.

Any questions by any member of the board?

We'll go through our order.

No, you've taken care of them.

All right.

Supervisor Galloway?

No, thank you.

Just a quick recognition that we appreciate Mrs. Hudson being here today for her first day with us.

Thank you, Madam Supervisor.

It's my pleasure to be here and to

Well, we're thrilled to have you.

Thank you very much.

Certainly.

Any public body that is governed by the Freedom of Information Act with respect to its open meeting requirements

Board at this time the floor is open to a motion to adopt section 8 of the board's rules of procedures as amended.

So moved.

And I'm happy to second.

Okay, so Supervisor Andrews made the motion and Supervisor McKeel has seconded it.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, thank you board.

Now at this time board I asked and you agreed to add to the agenda a discussion with regard to the rules of procedure that we established during the pandemic with regard to matters from the public

not on the agenda for a public hearing but dealing with matters previously before the board or matters that are pending before the board and prior to the meeting I did ask the clerk to send out essentially four questions which of course are open to expansion by the board and I will state what those questions are.

The first one was, or is, does the board desire to continue the practice of having a 10-person speaker rule limit that was implemented during the pandemic.

We did this in part because these are times when it's during basically a work meeting.

Public meeting of the board, not a, it's a meeting of the board that is open to the public, not a public meeting.

And so it's up to the board to decide whether there will be limitations on the number of speakers that we have.

And so I would just open that up for discussion.

And again, we'll just simply go around our order.

Personally, I don't have a problem staying with a 10-person speaker.

The reason being is if you're speaking and you have supporters in the audience, I've done this before, before being on the board, where I've asked the audience, okay, who agrees with me?

I've had 15 people raise their hands.

in support of what I'm saying.

So that tells us that yes, that tells the board that yes, there are many people out there that support whatever the person at the podium is saying.

So I like that aspect of it.

So for, or maybe disagree.

So because of that aspect, I don't have a problem remaining.

We don't seem to have a lot of people

I'm

Hundreds may well, yes some cases hundreds of emails and so we receive the opinion of people Prior to the public hearing so really when the public hearing is before us.

There's really nothing new so to speak because people have already emailed us and we get their opinions so

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

Yeah, I'm fine with keeping the limit in place.

I would just tweak it that, to me, if you did like a total of 10 in-person and online, there's some part of that that I'd be willing to say, well, maybe we could do a 10-person in-person limit and a 10-person online limit.

I mean, the intent behind that limit was to allow us to keep control of the agenda time and what's on the agenda that day.

So doing something that has a limitation to it for non-public hearing items, because we don't put this rule in place for the public hearings, would still allow us to keep control of the timing of the items, the work that needs to be done in the meeting.

I can't think of over the last two years where we've encountered an issue with that that became problematic to have the limit in place.

So to me, whether it's online or in person, I think the limitation helps us just with better time management.

I mean, if the board decided that it was going to be 10 total between the two mediums, then I wouldn't object to that.

Thank you.

Again, I'm appreciating that this only applies to matters that are not in public hearing.

Thank you.

I agree with continuing the practice.

I think Jim makes an interesting point that just to not distinguish between the two, treat them the same.

But I'm happy to support keeping our current practice.

We have

We have the most engaged board, and I know, because I've heard folks talk about, we read almost every email that comes to us.

So it's not as if the community can't reach us.

And so there is always the opportunity for email.

Thank you.

And I would concur in most of the comments.

In the last two years, there may have only been a couple of occasions where more than 10 people actually signed up.

This is a distinction between public hearings where we do not have a number limitation.

The other thing is, and in sort of brainstorming with some other people with regard to signups by online and in person,

A thought that I had was that if more than ten total people signed up, that we would take five in person, five online, and if we only had, for example, three in person show up and seven online, then that would be the ten people.

but we would give each of the two groups both online and in person an equal opportunity for at least the first five slots and then we would just go from there in terms of the rest.

Not only do I believe that technology has allowed our community to engage with us in a way far before or beyond what we were able to do before emails and other things came in,

But this board is also very active and engaged in going out and meeting with our public about matters.

And if anyone, either if they're speaking and they go beyond their three-minute limitation, they're always invited and encouraged to submit their written comments that were not able to be articulated in front of the board.

So I would also support that we stick with the 10-person limit.

So what I'm going to propose at the moment is that we just take each intern.

and my count on that would be at least four or five were in favor of maintaining the 10 person limit.

A little flexibility by Supervisor Galloway, perhaps 10 on each and we'll come back and do a vote after we've had the full discussion.

So I would just, your rationale when you were talking about the five and the five, that was in my brain why I went to 10 and 10.

It wouldn't be unreasonable for me to think that six people would show up here to speak in person and then we have six online or five online.

and I thought 10 covers what, just in my, now I'm using the anecdotal, sitting up here looking at how many show up.

It's not usual that we get 10 people out there, but it is normal that we could see five.

And I'd hate for somebody to be here ready to sign up and then get bounced because they don't know who signed up online.

Thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

Just one follow up.

I was speaking about people who have driven 30 miles to get here.

They may not have a similar issue to anybody else in the room.

So it's not a question that I'm thinking of 20 people all coming about the same issue.

This could be five or six different issues.

So many people have said to me, oh, I really miss the meetings and I look forward to being able to come back.

I don't do email.

and I feel isolated from the process.

And since we have, as I said, very, very few times in 14 years ever had the section of the agenda spill over, I'm wishing that we would be more lenient about these numbers because I want people to feel welcome in the room here.

It's also possible for a group of enterprising folks to take over the whole sign up situation two or three days in advance or whatever

basically monopolized the time, which has been the case in some other communities.

So I don't know that that's happened here, but it's just what is in my mind about this topic.

Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

The only other thing I would add is we have experienced extremely long meetings in the past.

And this is part of a time management.

So perhaps it might be better that we just take each of the questions in turn.

So moved.

Chair Price, I just wanted to remind you of the rule of procedure with respect to amendment of board rules, which requires that

Thank you Ms.

Hudson, appreciate that.

Thank you, motion withdrawn.

I was pleased I had an opportunity to meet with Ms.

Hudson earlier today and pose the question to her and thank you for answering it.

All right, Board, the next topic for discussion, which again, we'll wait and take action next week, next meeting.

Does the Board want to continue with the pandemic rule as outlined in the Board's Rules of Procedure that confines comments from the public to matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda, matters previously considered by the Board, or matters pending before the Board?

And again, we'll go through our order.

Thank you.

No, I would like to stop with that limitation on topics.

Alright, thank you.

I have no problem with continuing with what we're doing because I feel that if someone does have a great idea they can always email us or bring it up that way.

But this way it does control

Thank you.

Well, should I say this out loud?

I have a confession to make that really over the last two years I've not known how this has precluded any statements other than those that are just not related to county business at all.

So I'm fine with this stated because I think it's open to allowing for all of the things that we would want to hear.

Typically,

When I hear the great idea comment, I think it's related to something that's in a strategic plan or it's connected to something that we are working on, that it would be a real hard press for me, at least when I was the chair, to say, oh, that doesn't fit into that category.

Thank you.

I'm fine with it.

All right.

And I would say simply that as regards a meeting last February where the chair was able to cut someone off immediately after accusations were being made that it is helpful to have a limitation on matters previously considered by the board or pending before the board.

I certainly understand in that circumstance.

So how many times has the clerk

or

Certainly, in my mind, I can put anything into climate change or some other local government activity, but if there's a filter happening that prevents people from speaking, that's a problem.

So I would like to know more about that.

That could come up in the next week or so before we vote.

Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

I would ask the Clerk to prepare information for the Board since we're not going to actually vote on any of this until next week, or next meeting anyway.

Alright, anything further on that one?

All right board, the third question, will in-person speakers be required to provide the clerk with a PowerPoint presentation 48 hours in advance?

This would be consistent with the rule implemented during the pandemic for online speakers.

I would, just thinking back to how it has worked before the pandemic, as long as people bring it

before the meeting begins and it can be uploaded ahead of time so that it's seamless in the presentation.

I think that has worked well in the past.

Yes, thank you.

I think this is more of an IT question because I think we wanted it 48 hours in advance to make sure that we could handle it prior to the meeting, but if someone's able to come up with a flash drive and insert it and not have a problem.

But once again, I would leave it to the IT experts to say that flows or the reasoning behind someone bringing their PowerPoint in person or right then and there.

And again, we'll ask the clerk's office to provide input.

Yeah, I'm fine with this.

All right, thank you.

Again, I think it is somewhat an IT question, but I again note that we have had the role 48 hours in advance for online.

But if we do something different in person, then that sort of puts somebody in a position where they have to come up to the meeting in order to get their PowerPoint presentation, whereas they might not.

They had to do it two days in advance if they were.

Yes, in general I'm supportive.

I do remember pre-pandemic folks would

Thank you.

And I also see it as an IT security issue in the sense of not permitting someone to come in and just simply stick in a thumb drive that could have malware and cause problems for the county.

And I concur that part of it is by having it in advance we can ensure that it is safe, that it actually does comply with whatever procedural rules we have established, and it does avoid the delays that we might face.

The fourth question for the board to think about is, does the board want to close the sign-up period for matters from the public at the start of the item or allow new speakers to approach the podium after the sign-up sheet has been delivered to the chair?

Supervisor, and we do have, we do limit online sign-ups before the matter starts, I believe, but the clerk's office can clarify that as well.

I would like to have people be able to respond.

They could come and sign up after things have begun.

Once again, this is matters not listed for the public hearing.

Right.

I think they should, once again, it's a time management.

and I just think that if we close it for people that are online, we should close it for people that are here.

If they want to speak, then they should be able to sign up, but there should be a closure, so it helps the clerks.

Otherwise, the clerk is going to have to be coming to us, saying, here's another sign up, and I just think it's more professional that if we just have

Once the item starts, that's it.

No more signups.

I'm fine with the signups while they're still going.

I mean, there have been plenty of times where people come in during the public signup period where we're not on agenda hard and fast, where

It might be scheduled for 1.15, but it doesn't start till 1.30 or vice versa, where somebody could be walking through the door, didn't get signed up, but would like to talk.

From a time perspective, this one has not ever been one that I thought was problematic for the flow of the meeting.

So I'm fine with this one being to allow them to continue to sign up until the speaking period is over.

When we come to you, Supervisor McKeel.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I do think that one of the rules that we've had is that we don't do a lot of back and forth when we have comments.

And I'm afraid that if we, I don't think that there should be a limit before the item begins.

But once the item has begun, I feel that it's a risk that people would be

Thank you.

Yeah, and just my clarification for what Ned said, he was referencing the people signing up for the start of the item and I'm not as

adamant about that, although I really do think it is important for people to sign up because it's about control of our time, right, and the meeting, because 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock meetings are not good, ending at those hours.

But I guess, Ned, what I was getting at is here, it says, or allow new speakers to approach the podium after the sign-up sheet has been delivered to the chair.

That, I think, really does not allow for good time management.

What we do see is responding back and forth from the audience members to comments, I just don't think is the place for us to be.

If people want to respond to a comment that was made, then they can email us a comment.

I will say, for me, this is a fairness issue.

If I go to the trouble to sign up, whether it's online or get down here to sign up, regardless of whether or not the item

at what point I walk into the room to address what Ned's concerned about.

And I would concur both with Supervisor McKeel and especially Supervisor Andrews' comments.

I believe that someone should sign up before the sign-up sheet gets passed to the chair.

Are there any other items with regard to this topic that supervisors would like to bring up?

So just to clarify, since we have some time to think about it, logistically, when the clerk brings the speaker's sheet up, it's to start and we go through the rules and we do that.

and then in the past when somebody has, I think they need to sign up.

I'm not in favor of somebody sitting out there and cherry picking, getting the last word and all that stuff because that gets all, there's some strategery there that gets worked out by those.

So we do direct people down to sign up, but there have been people that sit out there that don't know they're supposed to come down and sign up.

So how it's played out is that the

Clerk delivers the sheet.

As soon as somebody signs up or another person signs up, they bring that sheet up immediately.

Seeing none, we can move to item number nine, action items.

Commonwealth Drive, Dominion Drive sidewalk project update.

Mr. Stewart, will you be keying this off?

It may take me just a moment to bring up this PowerPoint.

Thank you so much for having me today.

Lance Stewart, Director of the Facilities and Environmental Services Department.

I have several people here to support this presentation today.

Kevin McDermott, our friends Brian McPeters, and Mr. Dillon from Kimley-Horn and Associates.

Blake Applenaup available to answer questions.

So that's five people, three minutes a piece.

I think we can do this in 15 minutes.

But if it runs long, I hope that you can give us a new green light down here.

OK, apologies for that.

So again, we're here to provide an update regarding this sidewalks project.

It has been on Infez's plate in the design phase for some time now.

The agenda today includes project history that will be covered primarily by Kevin McDermott with community development.

The bulk of the presentation will be handled by Brian and his team, the project engineers.

There will be a staff recommendation towards the end of this and I think you'll understand once you've been through this presentation why there's a staff recommendation.

This is in its own way a very challenging project and we've spent a lot of time trying to find solutions for this project and ultimately our recommendation is that we need to modify

the presumed scope when this project was approved by the board and approved for funding by VDOT via the revenue sharing process because of the negative impacts on the neighborhood in question.

So Brian will show you that very carefully.

We'll make a recommendation.

And at the end, we'll ask you to consider a motion to formally

to reduce the scope of work to reflect what we're relaying here today so that we can have some clarity when we have communications with the public and also with VDOT.

So with that said, Kevin McDermott, planning manager Albemarle County.

Thank you, members of the board.

Good to see everyone in person.

I'm going to start off by just giving a brief history of the project.

There we go.

So this project was first identified in the 2011 Places 29 Master Plan and there was a recommendation in that plan to add sidewalks along Commonwealth Drive where they don't currently exist as well as in the implementation chapter of that plan there was recommendations for sidewalks along Commonwealth and Dominion Drive

Back in 2015-2017 timeframe, the planning division was really looking at how we could best prioritize projects for grant applications.

In 2016, we were here discussing with the board some of the transportation priorities and the board asked us to make sure that this Commonwealth Drive, Dominion Drive sidewalks were added to that list of priority projects.

to look for grant application opportunities for.

So we didn't have quite the formalized process that we have now, but we would go through that list of priority projects to try and identify what might be good applications for funding.

So we wanted to look at a revenue sharing project in 2017, and going through the list, this project really rose to the top.

because of a few reasons.

One, because transit accessibility, Route 5 goes up and down Commonwealth Drive and it was known to be the route with the highest ridership in Albemarle County.

So we wanted to make sure that we could provide that transit accessibility.

Also noting that this is a very high density residential area along Commonwealth.

We have some of our

highest concentrations of apartments.

And so it's really high density in the area.

A lot of commercial development in the area.

Of course, Stonefield is right adjacent to Commonwealth Drive.

There's also equity issues that we considered because we recognize this was, this neighborhood has some of the highest concentrations of low income and racially and ethnically diverse populations in the county.

and we also had been working on another sidewalk project.

a long hydraulic that had connected Commonwealth to Georgetown Road.

And so providing that connectivity seemed to be a good reason to try and move forward with this project.

So in 2017, the staff recommended and board approved seeking revenue sharing funding for this.

That application was approved for funding in 2018.

And then in 2019,

Another point to note is that just as we were executing all the agreements with VDOT, the Jefferson Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan was adopted.

And that plan did recommend bicycle facilities on Commonwealth.

So it kind of made us go back and take another look at the project to see if there was a way we could incorporate those bicycle facilities into it.

This is a little overview of the project.

Let me pull up my pointer here.

So you can see.

So Commonwealth Drive runs along here and continues down through this and continues north off the page.

Interesting to note that this project does split between the Jack Jouett and Rio Magisterial districts.

You can see here, this is the Stonefield area that I was talking about.

Of course, we've got 29 here and hydraulic here.

The initial project did recommend sidewalks all along Commonwealth.

This segment right here was already completed.

It had sidewalks on both sides.

So that's why you don't see anything in this project here.

And later on, we did break this up into the three segments you see on this page, which include segment one along this section of Commonwealth Drive, segment two here, and then segment three, which goes along Dominion Drive,

229.

I'll also point out another commercial area right here.

This is 29th place.

And then as I mentioned, all that higher density residential is primarily focused in this area up here.

So with that, we get to our project overview, our project purpose.

The purpose of this was to improve pedestrian bicycle facilities along Commonwealth Drive between Hydraulic Road and Greenbrier, along Commonwealth between Commonwealth Circle and Four Seasons Drive, and along Dominion Drive from Commonwealth down to Route 29.

and that's to also provide that transit connectivity that I mentioned.

Thank you, Kevin.

My name is Brian Peters.

I work with Kimley-Horn.

I've been working with your staff here in the county for over 16 years, so thanks for the opportunity to be back in person and see you face-to-face for the board members.

I have not had the pleasure of meeting.

I look forward to working with you through this project and others.

As Kevin mentioned, this project was really designed and intended to be a pedestrian and bicycle safety project.

It also has transit user improvements that it's associated with, so the types of improvements that were contemplated by the original application.

for construction of concrete sidewalk bicycle accommodations.

We evaluated both sharrows, which if you don't know or are not familiar with what a sharrow is, that's a pavement marking that goes in the roadway that is designed to communicate to the bicyclist where they should be riding their bikes so they're both visible to vehicular users, but also so they can stay out of the dangerous door opening zone if there's on street parking or an in-road bike lane.

Pedestrian crosswalk improvements.

Whenever we deal with sidewalk, we have to think about how the pedestrian accesses and crosses the street and ensure that's done safely.

We're going to talk very detailed, particularly in segment one, on transit stop improvements and enhancements for the users of the CAT bus route that Kevin mentioned.

And last but not least, of course, whenever we design a project, most specifically a pedestrian project, to ensure that all of our citizen users of that sidewalk space can do so in accordance with the ADA accessibility guidelines.

So what we're going to do is we're going to walk through each segment of this corridor.

It's broken into those three segments that Kevin mentioned.

I did want to add to that discussion, as he kind of emphasized, each of those segments kind of has a slightly different context.

So starting near Hydraulic Road on Commonwealth, multi-family, high-density residential type developments already there on the ground.

Some of that case is recently while we've been developing this project.

And then as you transition to segment two, it's less dense, more single-family residential.

and then that segment three that runs out to 29.

I'll call that a transitional area.

We have a little bit of both of single-family residential as well as commercial uses within that quarter.

So as we dive in, we're going to first be talking in segment one.

That's the yellow segment that is on the screen or if you have the PowerPoint printed out.

That segment runs from the completed project that Kimberly Horne actually worked on to help deliver with the county along Hydraulic Road all the way to the existing signal at Greenbrier Drive.

This graphic is kind of our opportunities graphic.

It does, if you study it, give you an understanding of the lay of the land within segment one.

Just to orient you, Hydraulic Road is on the left of the screen.

Greenbrier Drive is on the right.

The blue is existing sidewalk that already existed in the corridor.

I believe in 2004, Kimley-Horn also helped the county construct the sidewalk that's along the northern side of Commonwealth Drive in this section of the corridor.

That's going to be an important thing to remember as we talk through the recommendation for segment one because there already is a continuous pedestrian facility within the right-of-way on the north side of the road.

You will note the orange transit stops.

You can see and we'll get into a moment what the different colored transit stops mean as far as what those are and what the routes are and what we plan to do at each of those stops.

But I did want to point out as well throughout here that there are crosswalks and other things proposed that we'll get into in a moment.

As Kevin and Lance have alluded to, I do have the able assistance of Dylan Lynch, an engineer on my team who has been working on the details of this project in close coordination with county staff.

Thank you, Brian.

This first component along segment one is the westernmost portion along Commonwealth, where we are connecting the existing sidewalk that was recently constructed on Hydraulic Road to the existing bus stop that runs along the eastbound route of the CAT bus route.

The intent here is to improve accessibility at this bus stop, also provide a wider sidewalk area for potential transit stop amenities, and so being able to provide

a more safer landing area for buses as they approach this bus stop.

The next two slides will show some photo renderings we have prepared depicting the existing conditions and what the potential improvements would look like.

This is on Commonwealth Drive looking towards the east towards the existing bus stop.

And I'll flip through the next slide a couple of times just to show you the difference between the existing and the proposed what this could look like.

You see the sidewalk connecting to the bus stop and the transit shelter in the background.

One thing I'll note too, the existing sidewalk you see here will be maintained and will serve as the main east-west pedestrian route along Commonwealth.

So while there may not be continuous sidewalk along the south side, that existing publicly maintained sidewalk on the north side will be maintained.

This next component on segment one is in the middle near Northwest Drive I just want to reiterate for the color coding scheme the blue you see there is existing sidewalk while the orange is our proposed sidewalk Here the main goal here is to connect the existing bus stops that are straddling Northwest Drive with an accessible crosswalk Because as of today there is no accessible crosswalk unless you were to go all the way to hydraulic or all the way down to Westfield Excuse me, Greenbrier

So again, here we're looking at transit stop improvements and the accessible crosswalk between the bus stops.

The final component is the easternmost segment or component on segment one.

This is close to Payton Drive.

Similar scope of improvements, transit stop improvements, crosswalk connectivity across Commonwealth.

You'll see here, though, the bus stop location does move slightly.

And the reason being, you can see here in that existing photo

There's not a lot of opportunity to really improve accessibility without significant tree removal and uprooting of landscaping.

So that's why we propose to move it in a more desirable location and actually closer to existing bus stops on the other side of Commonwealth.

And again, another photo rendering.

This is looking east towards the existing bus stop.

You can see in the way background where the large trees are.

So just in summarizing segment one, this slide is intended to kind of give us some of the key takeaways.

So as you noted from Dylan's presentation, we're not proposing to construct continuous sidewalk along the south side of Commonwealth.

That is because of all the white lines that you saw and the graphics that Dylan had up.

Those are individual parcels.

The more parcels that we begin to touch, the more complicated acquisitions become, and then we also have impacts.

We don't fit within the space behind the curb throughout.

So we would reduce the number of impacts that would come by targeting our improvements to just the transit stops to a minimum number of eight.

We do have to reconstruct approximately three driveways.

That's just to ensure that the driveway is accessible and we meet the accessibility guidelines across it with our new pedestrian route.

We do improve two transit stops with shelters, working with CAT very closely as part of the project, as well as benches and other signage.

And then we do relocate a third and construct a shelter similar to the graphics that Dylan showed you throughout.

So with that, we're now going to jump in segment two.

And as Kevin Dooley noted, there's already existing sidewalk east of Greenbrier until we get to Westfield for segment two.

And so that is denocated by the blue on the screen.

So we'll take a look again at our opportunity slide.

You can see the existing sidewalk that we've already talked about that was never part of the project scope, kind of left of that red dashed line that says segment two limits of work.

Again, you see that's represented by the blue lines.

The orange would then be a potential continuous sidewalk that we've evaluated through our process.

to connect sidewalk from this section all the way over towards segment three and Four Season Drive.

Dylan's going to come back in just a moment and walk us through what the impacts of actually doing that orange sidewalk that is shown there and throughout and have a conversation with the board and information and we'll be happy to answer questions after we're done with our presentation to talk about that.

As you can probably imagine, this section does have some pretty fairly significant impacts if it were constructed.

and this will be a part of our recommendation later in how we deal with segment two.

As you can see here on the screen, we focus our orange sidewalk on the south side of Commonwealth Drive.

We evaluated whether a sidewalk on the north or south is more viable.

As it turns out, impacts are very similar, so we

decided to focus our efforts on the south side, as you see here, with the main goal being connecting the existing sidewalk on Commonwealth all the way over to the existing sidewalk on Four Seasons to really complete that gap there.

I also note that there is a bus stop relocation.

Today, this bus stop just sits in the middle of Commonwealth with no pedestrian connectivity.

So this concept would propose to move it to Four Seasons to help improve that.

On the next slide I'll hit on some of the more details along this side and that's what this inset is going to show and some of the potential concerns we've noted.

What you'll see here is two options we looked at along the south side.

The lighter green hatch represents impacted area, whereas the darker green represents existing front yards that would be unimpacted.

The top image shows maintaining the existing curb line as it is today

which the benefit of that is the road itself would be unimpacted and the existing parking and pavement width would be unaffected.

But as you can see, in order to do that, we're getting up into people's front yards, garages, a lot of other large impacts that inspired us to look at a potential engineered solution that would help minimize that, which is what you see down here.

This solution we're proposing

proposed curb and gutter into the pavement, thereby gaining an extra five feet that wouldn't need to be impacted on people's front yards.

And you can see the impact based on our landscape sketching of how much savings it does have in terms of front yard impacts, driveways, garages.

and other photo rendering to kind of help to tick that.

This is the existing condition looking west along Commonwealth.

This is one of the steeper front yards that help sell the fact of the impacts that could be anticipated with sidewalk through this stretch.

This first image shows the proposed curb and gutter I had mentioned into the pavement.

You can see the impact we're anticipating based on providing a minimum sidewalk through this area, how far up these front yards

the slope impacts would be.

Please note that the parking on this side of Commonwealth would be unaffected, but in order to fit this section as we're shown, the parking on the south side of Commonwealth would have to be removed.

And in order to maintain that parking as I described earlier, maintaining the existing curb and gutter where it is here takes that darker green hatch and that impact on front yards even further up.

And I'll just flip through between these two to see the difference.

So just summarizing the segment two.

So if you were to construct sidewalk continuously through segment two,

Likely to make the improvements somewhat palpable to negotiations with property owner and acquisitions of easements and right-of-way and all the other things.

That would involve the loss of approximately 30 quote-unquote legal spaces.

We don't mark spaces in a subdivision street or a roadway street like this.

But using the links that would be commonly used, it would have resulted in the loss of about 30 spaces to avoid grading to the garage or the front door of the residences.

There would be 13 properties that would be impacted.

I would consider those impacts to be fairly consequential and through right-of-way negotiations, which I know several of the board members have been involved.

Ms.

McKeel can speak to that very closely and the challenges that are associated with when we remove folks landscaping or trees from their property.

There certainly is a way to make those offers whole and compensate the owner for the impacts, but that becomes very challenging and time-consuming through the process.

Also, Dylan briefly touched on this and you can see it in some of the photographs from segment two earlier.

There are a number of driveways that change in the order of 10 to 12 feet vertically in a short space, which means those driveways are extremely steep.

And we have to actually make them steeper to fit the sidewalk through because we have to have a flat 2% space for the pedestrian to walk across the driveway.

There are seven grading impacts to front yards and driveways.

So of the 13 properties we impact, seven of them have pretty substantial grading impacts, even if we move and eliminate 30 parking spaces.

And lastly, we'd have to relocate one transit stop, which would be a benefit to this segment, no doubt.

There is no good way to connect pedestrians to that transit stop because it's kind of isolated in the middle of this segment, so we can't necessarily target an improvement like we did in segment one.

What you want to take away from segment two, and you'll hear more in our recommendation, is segment two would be very challenging, if not impossible, to implement in the current project, just because of these impacts and the associated cost, and also the time impact that would go through.

And don't forget, and we'll talk about in the schedule, we still have to go to the public and communicate the design intent and the impacts of the parcels.

And I don't think, Kimberly Horan's opinion is we probably were not going to be, the public won't receive that very favorably.

OK, the last segment in wrapping up the engineering details of the project, this is the piece that makes the turn down Commonwealth Drive, down Dominion, and approaches the Route 29 intersection.

So remember there was high density residential in segment one.

Segment two was a lower density single family.

And segment three is kind of that mix of both in that zone.

You can see here with segment three, we evaluated to actually sidewalk on both three different options.

First one being sidewalk on both sides of Dominion, sidewalk along just the south side, and sidewalk along just the north side.

Reason being, unlike segment two, there does seem to be more opportunities in terms of front yard or less of concern from front yard impacts to potentially provide sidewalk along both sides.

Benefits of that are obviously, it's great to have it on both sides, but we wanted to see if, given the constraints we do have, what options we have for doing just the south or just the north.

And I'll go to this slide and zoom in on the image a little bit more, obviously showing both.

But the benefits of the south side, as you can see there in blue, there is already some existing sidewalk that we could tie into providing that sidewalk, obviously minimizing how much we'd have to build through this corridor.

The downside being the lack of direct connectivity that we could provide to the 29th place commercial development up here, which would be a desire for this segment, connecting the homes nearby to the shopping center nearby.

So that's the biggest benefit of the north side.

While there does need to be additional sidewalk that would need to be constructed, including ramp improvements at the 29 intersection, we could provide that direct connection

to the 29th Place Shopping Center here.

And you can just see here a few existing images of the segment 3 corridor.

As you can see, the front yards are not nearly as a concern as they were on segment 2.

So in summary, the biggest takeaway here, north versus south, you can see property impacts are very similar in terms of the number of homes and properties that would be impacted.

So this slide just kind of summarizes a lot of the things that we discussed.

It takes us through the different purpose and goals that we talked about in the original scope of the project.

Just to orient you, obviously a green check mark means that we meet that goal where it's a positive.

The yellow circle would indicate that it's essentially a push.

not really a negative, not really a positive benefit to it.

And then, of course, the red X would mean that there is a negative or a disadvantage to that.

So just to highlight a few, only segment two would construct sidewalk all the way through in a section.

It does not provide sidewalk, obviously, on both sides, as we talked about that in segment two.

Segment one is somewhat of a push because we do make a connection between those transit stops and the continuous sidewalk that already exists.

Dylan walked you through a little bit in segment three how we would just kind of increase our number of impacts to construct sidewalk on both the north or the south.

at the end of the day, it seems to suggest that perhaps only one side of segment three needs to be improved with the pedestrian sidewalk.

Segment one and segment two would provide room for bicycle accommodations.

Segment one and segment two both include transit improvements, shelters, benches, signage.

All of these sections would accomplish the goal of meeting the ADA accessibility guidelines.

And then remember in segment two, we have two big takeaways on the red X's there.

One would be for segment two to probably be palpable, we'd have to be talking about the elimination of approximately 30 on-street parking spaces.

And then obviously with the disadvantages and challenges of segment two and the grades and the grading and the right-of-way impacts, there is going to be a fairly significant cost to implementing that piece.

Thank you.

And we do have a question slide coming up next, so I can see that there are questions out there.

In summary, the recommendations of staff are to proceed with segment one as it was shown.

We are at just the conceptual design phase.

There's still public outreach and more design opportunities to fine tune that and to work with VDOT on what will be allowable to them.

We would presume in our design that we start with share rows in that section rather than dedicated bike lanes.

and that is due to the fact that the elimination of the lines that are in the road now by us triggers a VDOT requirement to repave the road before remarking, which is a considerable expense.

It also would include rebuilding pretty much every ADA ramp along the way, so our intention would be

When it is time to repave that road that we would work with VDOT and do the marking at that time, which is at no cost to us, and we believe a combination of signage and share rows would be a significant improvement over what is there now.

And you saw the transit shelter improvements.

I think that's really important at this location.

That is a major driver for many of the people who take the buses in the county.

It's the backbone of the CAT system.

We recommend that we don't at this time consider any work in segment two.

I don't believe it will be palatable to the neighbors and I think in addition to the duration of the right-of-way acquisition that was mentioned by Brian, I think we always are at the risk of someone just saying no.

and if we can't proceed with even bidding the project until every right of way an easement has been acquired.

So it could be an indefinite delay due to that.

In section three, you know, we

I believe that having a sidewalk on one side of the road instead of two is sufficient, that two would be duplicative to some point.

The feeling of the team on this is that we continue some design and public outreach efforts and take a look at which of the two sides of the roads would have the most advantages to the public generally and the least impacts on the neighborhood.

Yeah, last slide for me, and then we'll look forward to your questions.

So the schedule of what we'll be doing from pinning your direction here today is advancing the design.

So while you've seen some sketches and drawings and obviously some work behind the scenes to get us to a recommendation to you,

There's still ample work to be done to get us to a point that we can engage the public.

Our intention at this time would be in the fourth quarter, in the winter later this year, we will actually have a formal community meeting that will present the drawings and findings, nail down the impacts to parcels so that property owners are aware of what is going to be acquired, give them an opportunity to give feedback, comments, and input onto the design.

And then it's very likely, based on VDOT procedures, that

staff would be coming back before you likely at the end of the year or beginning of the next for a formal endorsement of the design and we would actually get approval of the design and that would enable us then to launch into right-of-way and utility relocations throughout 2023 into 2024 and then ideally we'd be under construction by the end of 2025 or spring of 2026.

Now this is the schedule we're communicating

Certainly, we'll seek ways to expedite that and work closely with both property owners and all the stakeholders to arrive at a design that can get it completed so that we can have folks walking on the sidewalk as soon as possible.

Alright, thank you.

Thank you all for your presentations.

Thank you.

I lost a connection somewhere because

One of

No, so the sidewalks that Dylan had on his slides at the transit stops that then provide a pedestrian connection to the continuous sidewalk, right, are proposed as part of the recommended scope for segment one.

What is not included would be a continuous sidewalk on what is the south side or the bottom side

of this graphic from Hydraulic Road to Greenbrier.

If you hop back one, please.

Yes.

In segment one, everything that you see that we presented is recommended to move forward on those graphics.

Got it.

Yeah, so in this example, they would have to cross at the signalized crosswalk that we constructed 2016, I believe, on hydraulic or 2017.

OK, thank you.

I was going to ask something regarding segment two, but since you're not doing anything on segment two, I won't ask.

Thank you.

So the segment three, if you do one side, north or south, the parking would remain.

Is the way that you're not removing the parking if you do a one or other side of design?

Yeah, the incentive with segment three, whichever side we would move forward with, the parking would be maintained.

Yep.

And then, look, I get it on segment two.

Segment two would be a quagmire.

I mean, I would hope that if you did segment one and segment three, the community that lives in segment two might say, well, now that we see

But I mean, it would be different once you see the full system in and see the gap, then the community may have a different take or desire to want to proceed.

I mean, it's different than when you can't see what it's going to.

Once the gap exists, I mean,

That's a tough ask of those homes with how steep those yards are on both sides.

My one frustration in not doing anything in segment two is the transit issue, the transit stop issue.

Is there any conceivable way to improve?

I loved your picture.

That's one of the best.

Go to the one before that.

Somewhere you had a picture of transit poles sticking up out of the ground on this side.

That's one of the best transit stops we have.

So the transit stop you're referring to.

Keep going.

You had it on an intro slide.

There it is, down on the bottom left.

That's what we get.

That's a high quality.

There's grass there.

But my point is that, like you said, it's just kind of there.

The bus stops.

It's in people's yards.

There's no facility.

Cross.

So I mean, there's a lot of these.

But I mean, if there were a way to make any sort of transit improvement while not doing the sidewalk elements of it, whether it's that idea of going down to Four Seasons, I don't know if there's anything there that can be done or if it just still is complicated.

But if there's a chance to get some sort of transit stop improvement in segment two, I would like to consider that.

But don't disagree with your recommendation at this point.

Parking.

So in Segment 1, understood, and I'm sure Supervisor McKeel will speak to it, is that's the piece that's in Jouett.

But it's connecting to a sidewalk that would be, what, privately maintained by those?

Well, it's under the private possession.

It might not be maintained.

Might be too strong of a word.

But when we're looking at facilities and not disagreeing with your recommendation, but the current sidewalk, that blue, and that parking area, when you put new facilities in to connect the facilities that aren't being maintained, obviously it's all those different owners of all those townhomes that are responsible for maintaining and the upgrade of those sidewalks.

So I don't know what, and I know this has been brought up before, of how we influence that

Certainly I've heard some things from folks over there that what should probably be criminal and rent raises are happening, but if they're doing that, then there should be some facility upgrades that are happening.

So this is getting in an area that maybe is not in your field, but it's at least an opportunity for me to raise the question of saying they have a responsibility to upkeep their property in a way that if public facilities are connecting to them, that they should do their part to enhance it, not just for the folks that are living there.

but for the folks that would like to traverse that.

But I like the improvements that are being suggested in segment one.

Thank you.

This is excellent.

I understand it, I think, much better than I did before.

But this idea of getting off the bus and being in traffic suddenly because there isn't a decent sidewalk is concerning.

So I like the way in segment one, even with these segments on the south, you've got connections to the existing sidewalk beyond it.

Segment 2, I also share the concern about the bus stop sort of being there without anything at all.

My question about Segment 3 is, I saw the picture on Segment 2 with the steep slopes and could just picture in my head the driveways that would be affected and how dramatically.

And you mentioned that the south side driveways on Segment 3 would also be steepened.

Yeah, I don't think we have that information quite yet.

We've done enough doodle to be sure that we can do it within the county's requirements as well as VDOTs.

But they will steepen over what they are now.

And there was a good photo, right, Dylan, of segment three in the driveway.

Where was that?

You can kind of see that at the bottom.

What's interesting is you look, that's the south side on the left, but you've got the inverse of what's happening in segment two because you've got driveways that are coming up.

At this point you're looking to negotiate sort of which side is better for acquisition purposes and all.

I think this is great.

I like what you're doing.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Obviously, Ned and I have talked about this project a couple of times because it overlaps between Rio and Jouett.

A quick comment about the transit stop in segment two.

Ned is exactly right.

What I would add to that conversation is that right now, Garland Williams, the director of CAT, is working with VDOT on the criteria and they're working the process of how to get right of way around these bus stops for shelters.

He has a prototype for a shelter right now.

This would be one that I would encourage

Cat to prioritize because he's going to be coming to us with a list of bus stops to prioritize.

That should be on the list.

It'd be a real missed opportunity if we don't push this one.

The other one that I think they're prioritizing is one on Georgetown Road, which is also another area that has high transit users.

I would just add that to your notes to contact Garland.

about that one, and what he's looking at is which ones need ADA access, which ones need shelter, so obviously I can't speak to the ADA access on this one, but it certainly needs a shelter.

So let me go back then to, and oh, and while we're here, I agree with what was said about segment two.

I think it would be very, very difficult to get those right of ways.

The best opportunity to obtain them would be, as Ned said, to finish both sides and let the folks see what the end result looks like on the other segments.

Even then, I'm not so sure.

In the segment three, I think is good, and it sounds like to me you have more work to do, but choosing one is the right thing, I think, to allow access.

If you chose the

side opposite the, I'm trying to think of my directions here and I apologize, opposite the shopping center.

You would do some sort of a pedestrian connection that would go across the road because I know people come down that road pretty quickly.

One of the concerns the consultant team would have is our proximity to the signalized movement at 29.

Just a crosswalk?

Only because of their policies.

Not a lie.

We have a process we have to walk through, and the proximity to 29

is likely going to be a challenge.

I'm not saying we're not going to try, but I wouldn't want anyone to think that if it went on the south side, we would have that crosswalk.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

It would be a missed opportunity to not be able to have a crosswalk there and a solar, you know, some sort of a solar-powered signal.

Something flashing or I don't know what would protect people, but they do drive.

This whole area is a cut-through.

There's no doubt about that.

People go through the shopping center and then make a right and head that way.

It is a cut through, so people are driving pretty quickly through this area.

There is a lot of parking on the street, especially in that segment too.

Let's go back to segment one for a minute.

Obviously, I'm very supportive and we've been needing sidewalks in this area for a long time and connectivity.

it is a high transit has a high usage through here we've all recognized that and of course Stonefield is right on the other side so people are trying to get to Stonefield to walk so the pedestrian access is important.

What I'm going to push back on a little bit is

what Ned alluded to, this is really a lost opportunity for this community.

I recognize that these townhouses are almost all privately owned or they are all privately owned.

A lot of rental and so what we're doing is we're pushing the pedestrians onto private property.

We're making an access to go across Commonwealth, and I get that.

And I love your transit connections, by the way, here.

This is great.

But what we're really doing on this one side is pushing everybody onto private property, the sidewalk on private property, which is really not very well maintained.

I don't know the answer to this, but I'm just bringing up my concerns.

The other thing that you don't see very clearly in this is there is a big berm here.

between Commonwealth and the duplexes.

You can probably go back.

The pictures can go either way.

This is the best look that I've ever seen.

When you drive down this road, you do not get this look.

And you all would recognize that, I think.

This kind of reminds me of real estate pictures that I've seen the real thing and then seen what's advertised.

But having said that, as you go further down here, there's a berm.

And there are all these skinny trees, most of them dead.

They look awful.

They're not maintained.

They're out hanging over the road half the time.

And then you go to the right-hand side.

And I drove through this this morning.

And I had to drive so slowly and avoid potholes that were this deep.

If you had a small car, you could break an axle, ruin a tire, and then one section further down is actually paved, sort of newly paved.

All I'm trying to say is that this is a lost opportunity around equity in a community that needs some help.

But we have private property.

We have people that have come in and bought these units.

and I understand the challenges around that.

Ned and I just recently had an issue come up where an owner has abruptly increased the rent, and I don't know that we need to go into that right now, by a shocking amount to handle other problems.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is this is a lost opportunity to improve this area for people that don't have that advantage, but it's rental property.

I mean, not every single one, but much of it.

I don't know where we go with it, but the right place, in my opinion, is to clean this berm up, put the sidewalk there, get it off of private property, and actually make a difference for this community.

not trying to throw a ringer in your plans, but just saying.

Because we're changing now the project in the segment two, and I don't know what your thoughts are, maybe it's impossible to do that.

I used to go out with Joel Nanunzio and we would sit there and look at the condition of that, because what happens is that's a parking area, but it is also a road.

It's used as a road.

Lance is nodding his head.

I'm referring to segment two.

Right.

No, I'm referring to segment one.

I'm sorry.

Segment one.

I looked at segment two at the bottom.

Segment one.

And I don't know how we grab this opportunity for the people that live in this community.

I don't know.

I'm just creating more problems than I'm probably helping.

But think about it.

I don't have a solution, Supervisor McKeel.

As I mentioned before with segment two, the idea of sidewalks in this area where they're missing would still be on the board's priority list unless you change it.

Segment one, segment two, segment three, your priority list says Commonwealth Drive in this whole area.

So though it may not be improved with this project,

It's just a shame to do this work and then come back later, I'm just saying.

Missed opportunity.

No, they're leaving this and they're going out to there.

Right, I mean you're just going out, because this road is very wide.

Commonwealth is very wide.

Anyway, I probably have created a whole other questions, but I just have to say for the people that live in this community, it is a lost opportunity.

Something to think about.

But I do appreciate the transit connections that you've made.

I'm just resisting pushing people onto private property to walk a sidewalk that is on private property that's not well maintained.

Let me see if I had any other notes.

Oh, one other note I had.

My hydraulic CAC, Citizens Advisory Committee, encompasses this area because Ned and I have a deal that because of community of interest and just location, I actually have several, I think three people

that live on either in the area of segment one or certainly the area of segment two.

So I would just recommend that when you think about public engagement, you keep my hydraulic CAC in mind.

I've started a problem.

I wanted to respond on behalf of staff.

What's in front of you today is a recommendation that we feel that we can move forward with and execute.

We'll still work through the remaining public process.

We'll work through budget.

We've seen budget changes, cost drivers.

Staff has spent

I would guess about two years looking at a myriad of options as it relates to this segment one.

And I haven't been moving the PowerPoint.

Brian talked about it.

I think Lance may have mentioned it.

But there's one slide here.

All those white lines are lot lines.

They're privately owned.

This section is a very complex section, and I understand

100% what you're saying about the opportunity.

It's complicated for us to try to execute that in its current state of extending the sidewalk on both sides.

So really what is in front of you is staff and our engineers' best work and our best effort to make improvements now.

There may be work, and I'll say we've had discussions

for several years on this through community development, through our legal department.

This is an area that needs continued focus.

What we're trying to do is move this project forward in an executable way that provides some improvement.

It may not be the ultimate vision of what we want to do here.

We can go back to the drawing board on this and come back with what it would take to do both sides

as kind of originally envisioned.

And I appreciate that.

I just have to say on behalf of the folks that live here, right?

I understand.

It's a lost opportunity.

And I thought we had discussed all of those right-of-ways with getting VDOT's help with all those right-of-ways.

Because I know there are something like, what, 60?

But anyway, I don't want to stop the project.

I really don't want to stop the project.

And to answer your question, VDOT is with us to do the right-of-way acquisition on the project.

That opens up opportunities and brings different resources into play.

But at the same time, it still complicates the challenges of working through a public process to talk through those.

Using that methodology in the right scope and frame of an application, yes.

But Trevor's point would still stand that if we need to look at that, if that's the board's decision, then we could.

Okay, I get that.

But I certainly in no way am saying we should stop this project.

I just have to say I would hope we can grab the opportunity.

All right, thank you.

I thank the four of you, the three who did the presentations and Mr. Henry for your comments.

None of us sitting here today likely know what the situation was at the time that Commonwealth Drive was originally paved and the initial developments were made, but I think what we see is the complications that come

from increased development and demand.

I am sure Commonwealth Drive is now wider today than it was when it was built and we can never project exactly how much impact that will have in terms of things like the ability to build sidewalks and things like that.

It is evident that no matter what we propose, it is not going to cover every single thing we would like to have covered and

Regardless of how you proceed, there are going to be gaps in the sidewalks, which will inevitably result in pedestrians having to walk into a paved pathway at some point.

But what I think we want to avoid is letting perfect be the enemy of good, and I do see that this does provide some improvement and I'm supportive of your recommendation.

With regard to segment two, the steep slopes, safety issues, the costs, the impact that that would have on the property owners to then be responsible for maintaining an exceptionally steep segment of property, simply in terms of mowing and things like that.

really cause complications there.

I think what I've seen is you've come up with the best that you can do, and let's not forget that this plan already projects out to completion of construction in 2027, basically five years from now, so I'm supportive of going forward with what you've presented.

Thank you, Chair Price.

I mean, former Chair Galloway.

Supervisor Galloway.

I'd like to Chair Emeritus.

I just need to clarify.

So the segment three, there was a question that came up

from another supervisor when we were talking about the crosswalk.

So I didn't think to ask this question earlier, but the piece between the outlet from the shopping center on the north side, 229,

and then the little segment down there in front of the bank by the crosswalk right on 29.

So everything to the west of that, we're saying one side or the other.

Are we saying that that bottom portion does or doesn't happen related to what we do up?

Because to me, that bottom portion, so if somebody's walking down 29 or up 29,

That section between the outlet from the parking lot 229 seems to me that that would be critical no matter what the choices are for the rest of the segment.

Yes, your observation is a very good one.

So if we did the north side, I believe your question is asking, would we still make this connection over here?

If you did the south side, there is already a crosswalk across the intersection as they're not doing.

Yes, that is correct.

And so the crosswalk I was referring to, and I apologize if I confused you,

This would be challenging.

I mean, the people that turn out of that parking lot to head to 29, well, I mean, they go fast at their risk because they're going to damage their car because of how steep that is right there.

But I just want to make sure that that orange section between the parking lot and 29 and that little piece down there is, no matter what side you do, does happen.

Thank you for confirming that.

And then section two, it was deceiving in that picture because it looks like there's right-of-way there.

But if I'm not mistaken, I'm looking on the GIS, the web, the property lines extend to the road.

Is that right?

Go to your picture where you have the blue line up on segment one, to Supervisor McKeel's point about the lost

Right back one, forward one.

There it is.

So those white lines represent the property lines, but that blue line does not show a property line.

The property line is the road.

The property line, it's probably 10 to 12 feet off the road.

This is the property line right here.

I can build the sidewalk.

I can't build the slopes and everything else.

And there's also, you saw this in one of the photographs, there's a swale or a ditch along what half the length of the corridor that we then have to deal with from a storm or management drainage standpoint.

It's one of these things that we start pulling at it and it's almost like a yarn, right?

Just worth asking the question.

Yep.

And then obviously there's savings from not doing segment two.

So that gets factored into the other two segments that we don't want to lose the resources if we can add to the other two segments.

Thank you.

Thank you.