Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   5/18/2022

Good afternoon everybody.

Everyone will take their seats please.

Welcome.

It's good to see such a good crowd here today.

Good afternoon and I'm pleased to call to order this May 18, 2022 meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

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.

As you may notice as you look at the dais today, we have a few gaps.

So today will be a little bit different than normal as Supervisor Diantha McKeel is currently returning from a meeting she had to attend in Richmond and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley will be joining us later this evening as well.

The supervisors who are currently present are Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District, and myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

I would also like to mention that we have present here today our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Ms.

Cynthia Hudson,

Our Clerk, Ms.

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

I would also like to thank our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present, Officer Jerry Schenk and Officer Kyle Rose.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right board, at this time we'll move to item number four, the adoption of the final agenda.

I would note that I'd like to also move that we vote to move item number 19, which is the ACSA 2022-00001 531 James River Road to the consent agenda for deferral at the applicant's request.

And the floor is open for a motion to adopt the final agenda as amended.

We have a motion by Supervisor Andrews, a second by Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

Price.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

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

Thank you.

I don't have any official event announcements but we have all seen in the news the rash of

fatal accidents on our rural highways, and I would ask all of us to keep in mind to get back into our legislative agenda for next year to try again with the General Assembly to get permission for speed cameras on some of these high-risk roads.

Thank you.

In light of the incident that happened in Buffalo this past week, I would just simply like to make the remark that

While we live in a society that treasures and a lot of our democracy is built on free speech, that that right comes with profound responsibility.

And we should not, people should not be inciting or taking advantage of others just to spew.

The second thing I'd like to note is that yesterday was the anniversary of Brown versus Board of Education, which struck down the separate but equal was unconstitutional.

So just like to note that and mark that anniversary.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

On a little lighter note, I just want to note that I appreciate the press being in our meetings, Daily Progress, the print media, as well as the radios and televisions, and that we have one member of the press who is retiring and stepping away.

Thank you.

I will echo Supervisor Andrews remarks.

Thank you, Ms.

Rabel, for the great work that you have done and what free press really means.

We do appreciate it.

I also want to echo Supervisor Galloway's comments with regard to the violence in Buffalo, which is simply the latest in a string of simply unimaginable horrors that have been inflicted upon our country.

I have a number of other things to mention, not least of which, as anyone who has followed our meetings knows, for most of the last two and a half years I have commented upon the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

and sadly this weekend we did cross the million death threshold.

A million Americans have now died since basically February, March of 2020.

We now have a resurgence of the latest variant in our area.

Fortunately, it appears not to be quite as deadly as some of the earlier variants, but the number of infections and hospitalizations is increasing.

And so I would encourage people to A, get your vaccinations and your boosters and B, we need to

to be paying more attention about masking when we're in close proximity with other individuals.

I'd also like to note that May is Mental Health Month and I was very pleased earlier this week to be one of the participants if you saw the banner outside the front entrance here of Lane Auditorium to comment on

actions that are being taken to address mental health.

And Mr. Richardson, I want to thank you and county staff for the proposal that we recently approved in our budget that Albemarle County will now have a three-person team that will respond to mental health calls.

It will include law enforcement from Albemarle County Police, individuals from Fire and Rescue, and also a counselor from Department of Social Services.

It is anticipated that this will allow us to more appropriately respond to mental health concerns without it turning into a violent outcome, and that will be to the benefit of everyone.

I was also very fortunate as the Chair to have several opportunities over the last two weeks to represent the county at different events, sometimes alone, sometimes with others.

Last week at the Keswick Hunt Club,

A group of individuals came together to support funding of the rebuilding of the St.

John Rosenwald School.

And for those who may not be aware, Julius Rosenwald donated about $5 million, which contributed to the construction of about 5,000 different school buildings and other facilities around the country.

Seven of these schools in Virginia, these were schools for black individuals because of course in the 20s and 30s when these schools were built,

It was before Brown versus the Board of Education, and we had segregated schools.

Of those seven schools to have been destroyed, three are private homes, and two of them, one of St.

John's, Rosenwald, and Keswick, is being rebuilt and will be used as a community center, and it's really important that we know this history and heritage in the United States.

Also appreciate the opportunity to attend a Farm Bureau annual gathering at Carter's Mountain last week and an event sponsored by the Free Enterprise Forum.

Both of those events are opportunities for us as supervisors to mix and communicate with members of our community and learn from them of the interests and concerns that they have.

And finally, last week,

or I guess maybe it was earlier this week, we had a FEMA flood risk review.

And for those who may live in a flood plain, it really is important that you look to get flood insurance.

As we know, climate change is real and we're having more and more incidents of flash flooding.

So you may live in a home or area where previously floods were not a concern, but they may be now.

So thank you for allowing me to go through that lengthy list of events.

Thank you, Chair Price.

So I'd like to enter this in as a motion.

This proclamation recognizing May is Older Americans Month.

Whereas Albemarle County includes a growing number of older Americans, currently over 18% of the population, who contribute their strength, wisdom, and experience to our community.

And whereas our community benefits with people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds are welcomed,

included and supported, and whereas Albemarle County recognizes our need to create a community that provides the services and supports older Americans need to thrive and live independently, and whereas Albemarle County can work to build an even better community for our older residents by providing supports and services that allow for greater independence, developing infrastructure that is responsive to individual needs and preferences, and designing programs, services, and policies with people of all ages in mind.

Now therefore be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize May 2022 as Older Americans Month and urge every resident to recognize our older citizens' contributions, help create an inclusive society, and join efforts to support older Americans' choices about how they age in their communities.

Signed this 18th day of May 22, Chair Price.

We have a motion by Supervisor Galloway and a second by Supervisor and 72-year-old Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

And I think Ms.

Kilroy, will you assist in presenting the proclamation to Ms.

Keene?

Good afternoon Ms.

Keene.

Even in the best of times.

I just wanted as the CEO of Java and as chair of the Charlottesville Area Alliance, working toward an age-friendly community, to thank the board for recognizing this proclamation of May as Older Americans Month.

Albemarle County, as you mentioned, does have a population that's continuing to grow.

The census that came out after this proclamation was written has you now at 19.3% of your population over 65.

So in a month we've apparently grown 1.3% more.

But the theme of this year is Age My Way and that is what a lot of our seniors are doing, aging their way, wanting to stay engaged, giving back through volunteering and

Those who suffer from isolation even before COVID are trying to find ways to continue to do that.

Java is proud to have helped over 7,000 residents last year, and the Alliance is glad to have brought these webinars on housing and transportation last year and this year so that staff in Albemarle can continue to get new ideas that are shared of best practices across the country.

and generally all the things that you do to help increase the awareness of ways to keep Albemarle appealing to all ages.

Thank you and I know some of the supervisors will want to make comments.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

Well, I think that the

First thing I should say is that I'm aspiring to be as older than American as I can be at some point in time.

In a more serious note, I think the age my way is appropriate when we think about our efforts in affordable housing and recognize that in our community we have many older Americans who are financially constrained and the housing dilemma really hits them hard, especially in trying to live independently.

So I know that moving

Moving forward was we had tried to achieve all the goals in housing Albemarle that we definitely need to carve out and maintain our focus on helping

Thank you, Marta.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

I just want to second Supervisor Gallaway's comments again.

Thank you, Marta King, for the work you do a job on all of them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I'll turn to our county attorney, and perhaps I should have disclosed the conflict of interest as an older American myself before proclaiming

You know, support for the proclamation, but you know, Miss Keene, I've had the opportunity over the last two and a half years to interact with you and job on a number of occasions and your organization and others who perform the good duties, the good works that you do have my deepest gratitude.

Alright Board, we will move on to our next proclamation.

Yes, thank you.

This is in the form of a motion, a proclamation recognizing the Piedmont Family YMCA's first place and national champion Cavalier Aquatics Swim Team.

Whereas the Cavalier Aquatics vision statement reads, through a global mindset and provision of an outstanding athlete experience, Cavalier Aquatics will evolve into an elite YMCA USA club program in the region with the goal of becoming nationally recognized through positive performances in personal development, team atmosphere, community connection, and branding.

And whereas the Cavalier process focuses on developing a love for the sport, growth of individual swim skills,

from March 28 to April 1, Cavalier Aquatics competed

with 1,280 athletes from 170 WIS across 26 states in the YMCA National Short Course Swimming Championship held at the Greensboro Aquatics Center in Greensboro, North Carolina and whereas the Cavalier Aquatics swim team came home first place.

and national champions from the event with a total of 16 records broken by the team, six women's, four men's and six YMCA national marks, which is an outstanding accomplishment as many of the teams were larger and came from much larger communities.

Second.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

And I believe we have a number of representatives here today.

So Jessica Maslany, the YMCA CEO, Gary Taylor, the head coach, along with four of your athletes.

If you would like to come up to the podium, please.

And Ms.

Kilroy, how are we handling the delivery of the proclamation?

If one of you would like to come up and receive the proclamation.

I will absolutely do that.

Four senior leaders here, Matthew Heilman, who will be at UVA this fall, Teddy Cross, who will be at Loyola this fall, Elizabeth Bendel, who will be at Northeastern this fall, and Isabel Bradley, who will be at UVA this fall as well.

These are four of our not only finest swimmers, but absolute outstanding leaders.

They're great in the pool, but even better on the pool deck and outside.

I just want to say on behalf of Cavalier Aquatics Piedmont Family YMCA, I'm humbled and honored to accept this recognition from the board.

We're extremely thankful and appreciate allowing us this moment today.

Championships, as you're probably well aware of, typically don't happen overnight and they don't come very easy.

They're certainly not by luck.

There was a lot of hard work, dedication, and effort from the very top all through the program.

That starts with our CEO, Jessica Maslany, the leadership from administration.

High Performance Director Todd DeSorbo, Mindy Dodge works with me in aquatics.

It's fantastic at giving us what we need from a pool and support piece.

I've got a tremendous coaching staff around me too.

It's very rarely if ever done by one coach.

You know, I'm very blessed to have some outstanding people.

Connor Hussard, Hunter Mitchell, Ariel Howard have worked a lot with the senior group this year.

The best part of our program, as it always should be, are our student athletes.

I'm represented.

We have four of those representing us today.

But there were a number of student athletes at the competition representing our program.

They're extremely dedicated.

Whether or not you know this, I don't know.

But they're typically on the pool deck at about 5, 10, 5, 15 in the morning, five days a week.

They practice at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning.

and they do great work in the pool, but I think they're even better representatives outside the pool.

Championships are typically won through championship character and I would say that they represent the YMCA, our program.

They represent the county, their high schools, just the area with nothing but class and I'm really proud to be the head coach and oversee this program.

Again, thank you for the honor, the opportunity.

Thank you.

And I'm sure the supervisors may have some comments as well.

Oh goody, I get to go first.

So just thinking back to 2008 when I came on the board, the Y was still in building process and I'm just so grateful that before our time

People made the decision to support this place and to see it, help it get built and see it happen.

As helping the clerk of the course when my own kids, now 40 and 48, were swimming and then watching my granddaughter's and Teddy's team in the summertime, the benefits all the way through from little bitty three-year-olds all the way to old folks is just spectacular.

So congratulations to all of you.

Supervisor Galloway.

Well, I would say that I'm just in awe of, you know, I think of different sports that I've played growing up, and swimming was always the most challenging for me.

Just the physicality that's involved, the cardio that's involved, I mean, I'd probably drown if I tried to swim across the pool right now.

So the fact that you guys have not just only performed well, breaking records, that's phenomenal.

So the mental dedication and the physical

qualities that are needed to do that are pretty astounding.

Thank you.

I also wish to congratulate you and to add sort of a personal note that my wife is actually in the pool with you at 6 a.m.

many mornings of the week and this is a lifelong sport so I hope you just keep at it.

All four of my children were lifeguards.

and the skills that they took, the commitment that was required to be successful is something that will carry them through their life.

And when we go to my parents' lake house and they swim the quarter to half mile across the lake every year, it's that skill that they get that you have now as swimmers.

As with Supervisor Mallek, I applaud our predecessors here who had the confidence to invest in the Y and provide some assistance towards that great facility for our community that it is.

I'm very proud of all of you.

for what you have put into this and I'm very happy for the outcome.

There's a difference between the two.

I would be just as proud of you if you came home with no wins and no records because you only have control over the input, not the outcome.

But we share the joy of your accomplishments here in the records.

And when I read that resolution, the number of records that were broken at that event, any other team, any other facility would be proud of that record over the lifetime

of their organization.

For you to accomplish all of that at one event is truly outstanding.

And thank you and best wishes.

I know you will all be successful in your next endeavors as well.

All right, board, we will move to our next resolution, which I'm going to use the chair's privilege to read.

And this is a proclamation as a motion

in appreciation of Dr. Denise bonds, Denise Elaine Bonds, excuse me.

Whereas Dr. Denise Elaine Bonds has completed 30 years of dedicated service as a physician in our community and the surrounding localities and has faithfully served Albemarle County in the entirety of the Blue Ridge Health District as director for seven of those years.

and whereas during her seven-year tenure as the director of the Health Department, Dr. Bond served multiple districts including eight counties and two cities and oversaw several public health initiatives including the renaming of the Health District from Thomas Jefferson to Blue Ridge to reflect a more inclusive organization.

and whereas Dr. Bonds oversaw the expansion of the district's HIV testing and prevention services, increased access to testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and broadened the size and reach of the population health division

including launching a robust community health worker program.

And whereas Dr. Bonds provided Albemarle County and other localities with critical leadership and insight throughout the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic,

Under her leadership, the Blue Ridge Health District was one of the first districts to establish a dedicated resource hotline, offer community access to free drive-through COVID-19 testing, and make vaccines available in neighborhoods through the use of a mobile health unit and homebound services, resulting in the highest vaccination rates in the Commonwealth.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby honor and commend Dr. Denise Bonds for her many years of exceptional service to the residents of Albemarle County and the Blue Ridge Health District.

Her lasting legacy of health care service and the tangible results from her work

to make the Blue Ridge Health District better for future generations.

And I'm pleased to sign this the 18th day of May 2022.

And I do move this as a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

We have the motion by Supervisor Price and a second by Supervisor Malek.

Ms.

Price.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Ms.

Thank you.

Dr. Bonds, if you would please come up and

So thank you.

I'm actually going to take that off for the first time in a board meeting in two years.

So there you go.

So this honor does not belong to myself alone.

I was so sorry.

I was a very, very small part of the COVID response

This was really a collective effort that involved my amazing staff.

The hospitals that were so helpful to us and our government partners.

including Albemarle.

And that's why we were able to go to those neighborhoods because of all of the hard work by your amazing county administrator, Mr. Richardson, who allowed us to get the van in a very timely fashion.

And so Mobi is out and about all over the place.

We had some great nonprofit partners.

We had amazing businesses that stepped in to assist us in this effort.

And then finally, just the amazing people of this community.

The success of this effort really points out the sense of responsibility that individuals in our health district feel towards each other.

It is this sense of responsibility that makes us a community and is what kept our most vulnerable members safe during the last two years.

And they really were safe and it really is not because of what the health district did or what I did, it was because as a community we came together.

And that is what public health is about.

That is really what we do.

We work together as a community to make sure that all of our citizens have the best opportunity to be healthy.

And I am so honored to have been part of that.

So thank you.

I'm just going to leave this with an invitation that I hope you will all attend the COVID Memorial next Tuesday night held at the Martha Jefferson Amphitheater.

This is really an opportunity for us to come together and honor individuals who died in our community and to help our community members that lost family members in other communities.

The details are on our website, and I will have Catherine

Our amazing PIO.

Get those all to you.

So thank you.

My apologies.

I'm actually on my way right now to get my fourth booster.

That's my final act as health director.

And certainly if you haven't gotten your vaccine, today is an excellent day to get your vaccine because, as Price, as you noted, our rates are going back up right now.

And really everyone needs to have the maximal protection.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Don't go away yet because I know we're going to have some comments individually we'd like to make.

Thank you.

And your emotion is the reason why your success has been so outrageous, because you care so deeply and have really made that visible and tangible to all of us here and I thank you.

That's not something you can fake.

It's real.

So I appreciate you.

Supervisor Galloway.

Dr. Bonser, there's nothing I can say that would effectively communicate to you my profound respect that I have for you in the regard I hold you in.

You guided us through this crisis in a time when there was no business that this should have become hyper politicized as it did.

and I remain in awe of the fact that you stayed graceful under that pressure as you advised all of the localities in addition to the Blue Ridge and the responsibilities you took on to help us make the policies that we needed to do as a county to get through this crisis.

You did not hesitate to speak truth to the folks that needed the truth to be spoke to and even exhibited the political savvy to do that in a way that was necessary.

So I'm very grateful for that.

And the other comment that I wrote down here was phenomenal leadership.

And I think your comments just proved that you're a phenomenal leader because you spoke about your team and how the team works.

And all leaders understand.

And the best leaders definitely understand the importance of those around them.

So we are going to miss you and that professionalism that you brought and the expertise that you brought.

And I, for one, am just very grateful for having you at the helm as we work through this crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just have to echo those comments of gratitude.

I recently finished Michael Lewis's premonition and it's clear we owe a tremendous debt to public health officers everywhere and you have just been an exemplary public health director and we really appreciate what you've done for us.

Thank you.

Dr. Bonds, I really echo what Supervisor Galloway said.

There are not sufficient words to express the appreciation that individually, professionally, that we all have for you and our community that you protected.

It breaks my heart that a million Americans have died, and we know it's actually more than that because that's just the official numbers, but we know there are other deaths that are related to it.

But throughout these last two and a half years, you and your team have kept Albemarle County and our region among the lowest infection rate and the highest vaccination rates.

But for the work that you and your team did, we know that it would have been much worse here.

You will never be forgotten.

You leave a lasting legacy.

And we all thank you and your team for what you all have done.

Thank you.

It's been a rough two and a half years.

We will now move on to item number seven, matters from the public.

And these are matters not listed for public hearing on the agenda or on matters previously considered by the board

or matters that are pending before the board.

Alright, thank you.

So, I'm going to read the rules first and then we'll call our first speaker to the podium.

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

Individuals are allowed three minutes to speak and the sign-up sheet is managed by the Clerk's Office.

When you arrive at the podium, be aware that 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

and a red light indicates your time has expired, after which I will ask you to bring your comments to a close.

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 or others 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, and speakers are permitted one opportunity to comment during either public comment period per meeting.

Back and forth debate is not permitted, and please 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 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.

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

Our first speaker, Scott Reimer,

Good afternoon, supervisors.

Thank you all for taking a moment to hear me.

Scott Raymer, I live in the White Hall district.

So Madam Malek, pleasure to meet you here.

I moved to Albemarle County, Charlottesville area 10 years ago to pursue a PhD in systems engineering at the University of Virginia with a Jefferson Fellowship is really what drew me here and landed me.

I came here to study, after undergrad and masters in civil engineering, study how technology and its development truly complement human flourishing.

What does it mean to not just breakneck pursue technology, but actually look at how that makes human life better.

That's what I spent my time while at the University of Virginia doing, looking both within the U.S.

and the international context.

I had no idea at that time.

I was a bright eyed, bushy tailed grad student who didn't even know what a qualifying exam was at the time.

that I would actually get a chance to really pursue that in the real world in the county that I was going to live in.

I now live out in Crozet in an old 1920s farmhouse with my wife and I work with a team here just on the downtown mall, I just walked down here, called Hexagon Energy.

I submitted to you guys over the weekend, well my team, forgive me, it was not me by any means, I had a lot of support, submitted an application for Woodridge Solar located in southeast Albemarle County

in the Scottsville District.

I believe I sent a cover letter to you guys introducing myself, but I just wanted to take a moment here, introduce myself, open myself up through the coming months, weeks, however long our dialogue here goes, and also as long as I live here, which I plan on that being until I'm in the Older Americans Board myself.

So hope to be here.

A couple highlights of the project.

This is power for 25,000 out of Albemarle County's 45,000 homes.

That matters a lot.

But what I also hope to be clear about in terms of the use and ethics of our technology, this, I believe, truly takes what is a heavily timbered industrialized site, restores wetlands, preserves the ground for future generations, and makes this work for all of us.

We've been very careful to take neighbor, well, I haven't heard from neighbors yet,

anticipated neighborhood concerns of what I've seen in my time developing across the United States, this kind of project, things that might help them, such as 200-foot setbacks with screening, being butterfly-friendly plantings underneath the arrays.

I would love to explain more.

It takes a little more time than three minutes.

But I would like to open myself up for your comment in the future.

I would also love to go on site visits if you're interested.

My office is downtown.

I'm here any time.

Please reach out.

I look forward to talking with you guys more in the coming months.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tom Olivier, a resident of the Samuel Miller district.

In March, the League of Women Voters spoke to you about the growth management policy for the new comprehensive plan.

The League noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, deemed population and economic growth to be the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

The League also noted the need to manage and limit greenhouse gas emitting activities if we are to become carbon neutral.

Staff recently suggested that county growth management activities do not involve limiting or preventing growth

But in fact, Board of Supervisors decisions often promote or constrain growth.

For example, growth area expansions and programs that create jobs that must be filled by in-migration both increase growth.

In contrast, easement programs of which the county maintains two both limit population growth.

It's time for the county to acknowledge its influence on local population growth rates and then use that influence to help our community move toward carbon neutrality.

Building on the League's position, I have several proposals for the new growth management chapter of the comprehensive plan.

First, the new growth policy should explicitly acknowledge that population and economic growth add to our greenhouse gas emissions.

often reduce open space landscape sequestration capacities and thus move us away from carbon neutrality.

Second, the plan should call for an estimation of the impacts of land use and economic development proposals on community greenhouse gas emissions and landscape sequestration capacities.

The comprehensive plan should call for regular assessments of the overall contributions of population and economic growth to the greenhouse gas emissions of the county.

These analyses will allow the weighing of impacts of development proposals on climate action goals during decision-making.

In addition, they will support the assessment of the degree to which growth-related decisions by the board are impeding climate action success.

If we're serious about climate action, we must so understand the climate consequences

of County Growth Influencing Decisions.

All right board, at this time we'll move to item number eight, the consent agenda.

And I do want to mention that item number 19 off of the action agenda was moved to the consent agenda for deferral at the applicant's request.

So moved.

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

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

At this time, we will move to our next item, number nine, the Byram Park addition.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair and good afternoon board and executive staff.

I'll just pull up my slides quickly.

Okay, as many of you know, my name is Tim Padolino, and this is my first agenda item with the board as Albemarle County's Chief of Parks Planning in the Parks and Recreation Department.

And I'm pleased to be here today on behalf of Parks and Rec with our director, Bob Krickenberger, to request that this board consider accepting a proposed donation of land for the purpose of enlarging Patricia Ann Byrom Forest Preserve Park, which I'm going to refer to as Byrom Park for shorthand.

For this agenda item, I have six total slides and I'll provide some background information about the subject.

I'll summarize staff analysis and present staff recommendations for board discussion and consideration.

I also want to mention that the donor, Ms.

Terry Grant, was unavailable to attend today's meeting either in person or virtually.

However, it's my understanding that Ms.

Grant's representative, Mr. Brian Craddock, attorney at law with Florida Pettit, is here with us in Lane Auditorium today if the board wishes to address him at any point during the item.

So first, I'll start with some background information.

Byrom Park is an existing county park totaling 615 acres located on Blackwell's Hollow Road in the White Hall Magisterial District as shown in attachment A and on this slide.

And in September of last year, Parks and Recreation staff were initially contacted by Ms.

Grant, who expressed interest in purchasing and voluntarily donating to the county an undeveloped 65-acre property that adjoins Byram Park, Tax Map 6, parcel number 28C, as shown on this slide and also in attachment B.

In response to this unexpected and generous proposal ACPR staff performed a site visit to the property.

We analyzed its suitability for park uses and operations.

And we expressed to Ms.

Grant our interest in and support of the proposed donation.

And Ms.

Grant then provided a donation proposal in writing last October.

And that's provided to the board as attachment C. So following staff consultation with this board in December 2021,

Staff continued coordinating this proposed donation with Ms.

Grant and Mr. Craddock, and Ms.

Grant recently entered a purchase contract with a target closing date of May 30th.

Next I'll provide a summary of staff analysis, beginning with some site analysis and recreation suitability.

So I want to mention that the property is easily and directly accessible from the existing park trailhead at Byram Park.

So all of the required park infrastructure and improvements are already in place, meaning the county could utilize this gift of land without any significant expense or delay.

This area could easily accommodate approximately two miles of new trail.

And because of this parcel's topography being comparatively less steep than the existing park parcels, the trails on this gift of land could include sections that are more moderate in their average grade and therefore be more accessible to more visitors of varying age and physical abilities.

It's important to note there would be no mountain biking allowed on this portion of the park, per the donor's preference and per the terms of the draft deed.

And I'll quote Ms.

Grant here in saying that, quote, my preference is to limit the recreational use of this parcel to people on foot who are interested in the slow appreciation of the place, such as hikers, picnickers, bird watchers, and other nature lovers.

And additionally, accepting and including this parcel into Byram Park

would mean that there are no construction vehicles that would ever come through our park entrance or access road.

There would be no development on that property.

No perpetual private access easement would be required.

And there would be no logging or residential development as well.

And I think that's important to mention because the protected forest of that mountain landscape would mean we're enhancing our ability to sequester carbon in support of the county's climate action plan.

And we would also be protecting wildlife habitat in one of the county's three designated conservation focus areas in support of our biodiversity action plan.

And also, as you can imagine, this supports the county's strategic plan for natural resources stewardship.

Staff in multiple county departments also performed the necessary due diligence, including having a phase one environmental site assessment completed.

And that assessment revealed that no recognized environmental conditions in connection with the subject property.

And additionally, a satisfactory title report was completed in March.

So finally, in summary, Parks and Recreation staff concludes that this property and the donor's intended program and use of this gift of land would be a great addition to the Patricia and Byram Forest Preserve Park.

And therefore, Parks and Recreation Department recommends that the Board adopt the provided ordinance, attachment D,

to approve the acceptance of this proposed gift of land and to authorize staff to sign any documents required to complete Ms.

Grant's generous conveyance of the property to Albemarle County.

Thank you, Mr. Padolino.

We'll go through our order.

Oh, first.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tim.

This sounds wonderful that a member of the family has stepped up again to be able to help us with this and to remove the in-holding is really, really important.

I'm also especially grateful that there will be some less strenuous trails because the rest of the mountain is pretty vertical.

I didn't realize that.

Okay.

That must be very challenging.

Very good.

All right.

I don't really have any questions.

I appreciate the donor contribution.

I'm always very grateful when folks step up to do that.

Well, I guess the one question I have is more related to process outside of this particular project.

The statement that there's no immediate budget impacts, I presume that the ongoing maintenance and such falls into the Parks and Rec's regular operational budget for

And these smaller items, did these go through the CIP?

For something of that scale, it typically would not be a capital project unless there was a cluster of them as part of a bigger intervention.

Yeah.

Like out of the operational kind of funds or something?

Correct.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm very grateful for her contribution and looking at the map, it's just ideally located for expanding the existing parks.

Thank you, and it appears there really are no questions of significance.

Mr. Craddock, I want to thank you for being here today and really express great appreciation to Ms.

Grant for her generosity.

We are so blessed in this community to have people who do have the resources that they philanthropically provide to our community.

I have no questions.

I would love to.

I move that we approve resolution attachment D to approve county acceptance of parcel ID 6.

Thank you.

Second.

All right.

We have a motion by Supervisor Malek, a second by Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Price.

Aye.

Mr. Andrews.

Yes.

Mr. Galloway.

Yes.

Ms.

Malek.

All right.

Thank you.

And please express our great appreciation to Ms.

Grant.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, Board, at this time, we will move to our next item, a work session, Office of Emergency Management overview, an elected appointed official's role.

And Deputy Chief Oprandi, I believe you will have the lead on this one.

Madam Chair, members of the board, thank you very much.

I appreciate the time to spend with you today to talk about emergency management.

As you may recall, back in November of 2019, there was an opportunity for us to invest in emergency management at the county level, and you all were presented with that information and made that decision to do so.

Shortly before, we found ourselves in the pandemic, in the midst of the pandemic.

So we hired an emergency management coordinator.

and she was here for almost 18 months and we learned a lot through her contributions to our program and largely through dealing with that pandemic such that when she had another opportunity and took that and left the county we ended up kind of taking a look at our program and decided to increase the

exposure and the level of authority and responsibility of that program and really engage in that in a different way.

And so subsequently I've been made the Deputy Chief of Emergency Management for the county.

So I am thrilled to have that opportunity and to work with you all in that capacity.

I have been, my career started in Crozet Volunteer Fire Department as a

I was a teenager in high school in 1988, so I've been here in the county for a long period of time.

I've worked in fire and EMS, but also in emergency management, but now find myself directly engaged in that alone.

So I'm really looking forward to, as I said, working with you all.

What I'd like to talk to you about specifically is your role as elected officials, not only during times of emergency, but also ahead of any emergency that we might experience here in the county.

In addition to that, I'd like to provide a very brief and very high level overview of the National Incident Management System, or NIMS.

And then if time permits, I will kind of as a secondary goal just give you a little bit of insight into what we are focused on probably in the coming months and over the next several years in terms of emergency management priorities.

So your role as an elected official, it starts

earlier than a disaster actually arriving here as you well know.

I'm going to say this and you'll hear me say this a number of times throughout the presentation.

Emergencies and disasters start and end at the local level and have a lot to do with us being prepared.

So that preparedness begins now.

We have a responsibility to establish a ready and resilient community.

Much of what you all have been talking about this morning and recognizing folks for have to do with our ability to be ready and resilient and so

FEMA describes characteristics of a resilient community, and they're before you, a shared vision, a long-term perspective, community involvement, political commitment, strong partnerships, and significant risk reduction measures.

And so you all have demonstrated that political commitment.

I can't say that any better than what

Dr. Bonds has said here this morning between that and the community engagement that she experienced.

But beyond your investment in emergency management in the Office of Emergency Management, you also invest in the daily resilience of our community as evidenced by the Yancey Community Center.

You work in the Climate Action Plan, the floodplain risk assessment and analysis that you all participate in.

So those are all good examples of how you all are demonstrating that political commitment to the resilience of this community.

Local governments can't do this work alone.

It requires the whole community.

We've got to rely on partnerships, on community involvement.

Each

of our community, whether it's at the individual level, businesses, neighborhoods, they all have a responsibility to be ready, prepared, and resilient.

Businesses may do that through emergency operation plans, risk assessments, individuals through ensuring that they have a readiness kit, a preparedness kit at their home.

but it goes beyond that as well.

It's not enough for me to just be ready at my house in my neighborhood but I also need to reach across the street and ensure my neighbors are ready and if they need help during a disaster to help them during that time as well.

We have in existence community coalitions and committees that are committed to this community work, this whole community work.

the local emergency planning committee, the LEPC our community emergency response teams, or CERT

and CERT is something that we provide training through the regional ECC to neighbors so that they have the training and they're prepared to help each other in those first 72 hours, those most important hours after a disaster when we're asking for neighbors to be as resilient as possible as we prioritize things and get help to them as soon as we possibly can.

So that CERT team plays a significant role in our ability to do that.

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, which I'll talk a little bit more about here in a second, but another group that involves the community significantly as we prepare for emergencies here in the county.

And then there are various existing community groups like the Ruritan, faith-based organizations.

I've recently worked with

a coalition including the Ruritan and faith-based group down in North Garden, they wish to step into and be more involved in emergencies and how they might be able to support their community as a result of what they witnessed during our January 3rd snowstorm and ice storm.

Part of that resilient community is significant risk reduction measures.

Before we can actually focus on reducing risk, we've got to focus on identifying what our risks are.

And this is something that the TJPDC has been involved with for years.

We are involved in it as well as a county within the TJPDC.

They do a hazard identification and risk assessment, a HIRA.

and they are in the midst of a revision on that that you all actually will see a presentation on next month and that is

Reviewed every five years, and so they're in the midst of providing that review.

The climate vulnerability risk assessment I've talked about, again, the flood risk assessment, these are all assessments that we do as a community to figure out what do we need to prepare for here in Albemarle.

There are other department assessments that happen as well, and those departments may use those

to prioritize their own work within the context of their department.

Moving forward, we're going to use what's called a variation of a HIRA, a threat and hazard identification and risk assessment.

It's a HIRA.

It is a process that's outlined by FEMA, and the HIRA focuses entirely on natural disasters, mostly weather-related disasters, so hurricane, flooding, that kind of event.

The Thyra also includes human-made disasters.

So cyber security, terrorist activity, active shooter events, other human-made threats that we might have here within Albemarle County.

And so it incorporates that into our risk planning as well.

The other thing that a Thyra adds to our planning process is actually focusing on what are called capability targets.

FEMA defined 32 core capabilities, and those capabilities are across some specific mission areas that are required for us to accomplish our national preparedness goal.

The national goal of secure and resilient nations is very easily

transferred to a specific community goal for us, a secure and resilient Albemarle with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards that we've identified here locally as are the most important for us to focus on or to be prepared for.

So those 32 capabilities across those mission areas, looking at one, for example, response, that's the one that typically gets a lot of attention because it's in the midst of whatever it is that has hit us.

If you look back to the January 3rd ice storm and the power outages, you may recognize some of these capability areas, planning, public information and warning, the operational coordination.

We used these very same core capabilities in our after action report.

So when we put that together, we measured our performance against FEMA's 32 capabilities and then measured our gap and then reported that out in that report to you all.

We will continue to use this vocabulary and this framework because we think it works well to prepare us in very specific ways.

Ultimately, we're talking about the whole community having the capacity and the capability to respond.

And that means we have resources readily available, whether that's equipment such as generators, trucks, tractors, that kind of thing, or stockpiles of materials and supplies or volunteers.

We're going to need a lot of personnel, as we've seen in past disasters.

Again, we used certain volunteers on a number of different occasions.

So having those resources available to us

and knowing and planning for those and how we deploy them.

We have a lot of those capabilities known and ready, but we're also aware of some capabilities where we need to build and we need to spend some time working on our ability.

We observed some of those areas during the January 3rd storm in the aftermath and we reported on those again in the after action review.

Regardless of how ready we are,

and even in times where we're simply preparing for an event that may take place, a large event.

That could be something as large as the Unite to Write rally.

We knew that was coming in advance and so we brought in help from outside of this area.

Or it could be simply our preparation for an event like Fox Field just a few weeks ago where we bring in assistance in preparing for that and our ability to respond during that day to anything that may happen.

We rely on emergency management assistance and that's delivered through a compact through the state and through the federal government.

We have a great relationship with our V-Dem office represented here today by Region 3, which is the region we are in, V-Dem Chief Gene Stewart.

I've worked with Gene for many years and Chief Eggleston has a fantastic relationship with him as well.

He is, during an emergency, he's the type of person that you want to see.

You know him, he's calm, and he's able to bring the resources.

So to speak a little bit more about how we work together and what that means, I've asked Gene if he wouldn't mind saying a few words to you all here today.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and board members.

I appreciate the time to be here today.

This is very important.

I represent Region 3, like John said, and it consists of 22 jurisdictions.

I live over in Rockingham County.

and we come up 29 to Lynchburg and straight down through Farmville and all the way down to the North Carolina border in Halifax.

But I spend a lot of time over here and I definitely help out whenever I can and I support John 100%.

One of the biggest things that really is

During emergencies, we all know that not everybody has all the resources that they need.

And that's where it comes into the request.

And we always try to start out local.

So what does the county have?

And if they don't have it, does Nelson County have it, or Greene County, somebody nearby?

And if not, then he'll put in a request.

And all requests for all 22 jurisdictions during events, they come directly to me.

And then I have to try and find the resources that you need.

If it's during a snowstorm, do you need a National Guard?

And how do we get to National Guard?

And that is that we have to have a declaration by the governor.

And if we don't, then we don't have those resources.

So we start out local.

And one of the biggest things is that John will reach out to the county administrator, executive, and decide, OK, we need to do a local declaration.

and those local decorations isn't necessarily, we call it a local emergency decoration and we have for years tried to get the word emergency removed out of it because that gets the citizens in an uproar, oh my god it's an emergency and the world's coming to an end.

It is a resource request opportunity and funding opportunity and it also locally then

We've seen most recently during fire season the local decorations are put in place so that you can impact burn laws and burn bans.

During large events it helps to waive stopping at scales and that trucks can literally come and get to where they need faster to provide as resources.

So as those requests come in

We look at the local jurisdiction as the Walmart.

What do they have in their storage to help with disasters?

And if they run, their shelves run empty, then they reach out to VDM the state.

And we are like the Super Walmart.

So we don't have warehouses necessarily of equipment, but we have resources and ways to find what you need.

It may be a state mutual aid.

Every jurisdiction, state of Virginia, all 138 jurisdictions,

are part of a statewide mutual aid agreement.

And that statewide mutual agreement is that we will reach out to one another, and you are part of that to help your neighbors.

And you will work out an agreement.

It may be fine.

We'll send you law enforcement.

We'll send you fire, whatever is needed.

And that jurisdiction helping you may wait the first 24 hours, and you don't know anything.

Or you come in an agreement, yes, you will pay for overtime, equipment is broken, and so forth.

If we can't find it within the state, then we go into the EMAC that's mentioned, and I look at that as the Walmart distribution center.

And what that opens up is literally nationwide.

So we start out with states that aren't impacted.

If it's a major snowstorm and you're looking for generators, you're looking for plows or whatever it may be.

and South Carolina's not being impacted, then we reach out to South Carolina.

If you notice during major snowstorms, ice storms, that you have all these power companies and co-ops that come from other states.

That's because they're not being impacted.

So that's why they come here and deploy.

We can go back to some of the major snowstorms here that you've seen National Guard come in and assist.

and John would be the one responsible for that.

One of the biggest things I'd really like to touch on is how we get those resources and how you all play a part in that.

And one of those is that you're truly the liaison back to your districts, back to the folks that you serve.

and I know, like myself, I'm always saying, hey John, I'm here to help and we always hear, the state's here, the government's here to help.

Well, truly I am.

And like he said, we have a great relationship as you do with your citizens.

So when a citizen comes to you and say, hey, I'm not getting anywhere with trying to get this culvert cleared out or get this road cleared or get the power back on,

They come to you.

Can you do anything for me?

What I ask for you to do is to have that relationship with John and his department to say, hey, what can you do to help us?

Many times, and this happens in all jurisdictions across the whole state, is that you have that delegate of a representative who has come to you and also said, I'm here to help you.

Call me anytime that you need something.

And you do.

You'll come on and say, hey, can you help us get this or that?

When you do that, the names go up to the governor's office.

The governor's office comes down to the Secretary of Public Safety.

That secretary comes to my boss, Sean Talmadge, head of VDM, and he comes out to me, and then I come back to John.

So, it's coming back around.

So what I ask instead, and that takes days sometimes to get that message and get that relayed back.

is that when that citizen comes to you and is looking for help, reach directly out to John.

Have him in your hip pocket on speed dial and say, do you know what's going on?

If John doesn't, he'll reach out to me.

And at the state level then, if I don't have the contacts that we need to do, then I will reach up to Sean and we'll go back up that route through the delegate and into the governor's office.

But always try and work it locally.

Like John mentioned, disasters happen locally, then they go to the state level, then they go to the federal level.

We have public assistance for federal levels where you have a disaster and you apply for refunds, basically is what it is through public assistance or individual assistance.

So once that's cleared up, it comes back to the state because we receive the money from federal funding and it comes back to you.

Every disaster ends and starts at the local level and that's what John's job is and I support him 100%.

I was here, I guess like you said, 2019 with Dan when he presented to you all to take on from the regional concept to individual concept of Albemarle County and I supported 100%.

OK, to kind of summarize the preparedness aspect of it, we were talking about before a disaster strikes, what does that response preparedness look like?

And this process happens, it's secular.

We are going to work on this on a regular basis, identifying or assessing our risks, estimating our capabilities against those risks.

and then identifying where we need to build and sustain capabilities and then plan to deliver those.

And then one piece that I haven't talked about yet that I'll spend just a second on validating those capabilities, that's going to be really important over the next several years.

We're going to lean more into validating our capabilities and that's through training and exercises and we plan to learn from

conducting those exercises.

We learn a lot, obviously, from the real events.

We can do the same thing through tabletop exercises and having real world exercises where we bring people together.

We just had an exercise at the University of Virginia where we did an active shooter art.

County Police and Fire Rescue were involved.

And so there were a lot of lessons learned from that before we even actually had some sort of an event.

So that's the way we want to learn.

That's how we validate those capabilities and that's how we improve upon our capabilities.

and then we review and update our plans.

So we've talked about the community involvement, we've talked about those core capabilities.

Let me spend a little bit of time talking about the National Incident Management System so that you have an understanding of how we manage these significant incidents when they come through.

The legal basis for the national incident management system or NIMS comes out of a couple of presidential directives and they are mandates and they are required for us to follow it for every incident.

Let's use the example of a significant hurricane that maybe has impacted the county as we work through what these different levels mean and how we use them.

Nims describes four main mechanisms that work together to form a comprehensive approach to incident management.

Each has its own function and each its own team of leaders who then coordinate with one another.

Field personnel, which are the firefighters and police officers that are out in the streets,

They might be fighting fires, searching for lost people, search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings, those kinds of things.

They use the incident command system or ICS for all of their tactical activities and there's an incident commander or an IC that is in charge of that effort.

If an incident is large or complex enough, it will actually need some support beyond just what they can provide at the incident itself, and we will open an emergency operations center, an EOC.

The EOC is activated to provide that level of support, and each EOC has its own director.

That EOC can be virtual, it doesn't have to be a physical space, but it may be a physical space.

A multi-agency coordination group, or a MAC group, is a policy group.

It is a senior level leadership group, and they would coordinate on policy level decision making.

And then there is what we call a joint information system, or a GIS.

It integrates incident information and public affairs from a variety of organizations to help ensure accurate, coordinated public messaging among all incident personnel, whether they are on scene, in the EOC, or in a MAC group.

The public information officer leads this effort and one of the PIO's functions is to provide senior leaders and elected officials with talking points for communicating with the public if necessary and then obviously they take head on communicating with the public through various channels through that PIO through the EOC.

Let me take a moment to just kind of lay this all out on one slide.

On the left, you'll see the arrow moving up and down.

That's because the ICS, EOC, and MAC group are scalable.

We will scale based on the size and complexity of any single incident.

The incident command system is used on a daily basis.

I haven't had my radio on for the past hour, but we could have any number of incidents going on right now in the county that are using the incident command system as they navigate that incident.

If the incident is significant enough for media interest, our PIO would actually respond out.

Let's use the example of a house fire.

PIO will actually respond out to that house fire, engage with the media, provide some information.

They may not.

They may take care of those media calls back here at the office if it's a smaller incident.

But that works day in and day out at that ICS level.

When we activate an EOC, an Emergency Operations Center, it's when that either single incident gets very, very complicated.

For example, a jetliner crash.

It's a single incident in one part of the county, but it's a very complicated incident.

Or if there are a number of incidents related to something that, for example, a hurricane that has hit the county and a lot of coordination is necessary and a lot of resources are needed and decisions need to be made in support of all those various incident commands throughout the county, that's when the Emergency Operations Center is stood up.

and then finally the multi-agency coordination group, again depending on the complexity.

You saw this during the pandemic.

Almost on a weekly basis for a while, there was a group of, which could be called a multi-agency coordination group, of senior leadership from the city, county, university, from the health department, from the hospitals, meeting together on a regular basis to talk about policy, priority, decisions, and coordinate at that level.

That would be a multi-agency coordination group.

When an EOC is activated or we have a MAC group, the PIO takes on a broader responsibility, and they still use that joint information system framework in order to coordinate across multiple PIOs.

Every one of those agencies has their own PIO, but we need a coherent, consistent, and accurate message from all of those organizations, and that needs to be coordinated, and it needs to be one message.

very complicated just within our own structure, let alone some of the misinformation and some of the, I'll call it chatter for lack of a better term that we see on a regular basis, particularly during a disaster.

That's actually one of the things that makes it very difficult for us to do our job.

Social media is a big part of that.

but we cannot respond as quickly as those who are out on social media and we have to be much more responsible with our message.

So that makes our job very difficult, makes the PIO's job very difficult.

We recognize the need to move quickly to get information out but unfortunately sometimes that chatter makes it look like local government is either not taking action or not taking action quickly enough.

So we have to rely on planning ahead of time to make sure that we are operating as fast as we possibly can and then identifying trouble spots.

For example, in the 1-3, the January 3 snowstorm, we identified it took us a long time to get a public information phone number.

We've eliminated that problem.

We fixed that.

So we've got to identify those roadblocks ahead of time so that we can move quickly.

We'll never move as fast as social media.

but we have a higher responsibility.

So that's one of our challenges.

So we talked a little bit about your role as elected officials relative to being prepared for emergency, but what about when that disaster hits?

There are a number of things that we rely on you all for in that moment.

Again, disaster start and end at the local level and you all play a huge role in that when you declare that local emergency and when you determine that that emergency has ended.

Just like you did with the pandemic and just as you did with the ice storm that we experienced back in January declaring the local emergency.

During an emergency, you're Director of Emergency Management, which is Mr. Richardson.

He'll need to make a number of policy decisions and he may need your input and political support.

Those decisions may include curfews, commodity management such as fixing prices,

Funding, you all have had experience in this through the pandemic.

Again, local masking, local capacity limits, funding for the mobile clinic, all things that you are aware of.

That's the level of involvement you might have in setting some policy during a disaster.

the public information officer depending on the circumstances that we are presented with and the complexity of the emergency may very well wish to engage with the board chair or a board member.

The voice of the board chair or a board member along with our police chief, with our fire chief is a very powerful thing.

When you all speak

It really provides the individuals within our community that confidence that local government is acting and we have the emergency in hand and it instills that confidence.

So that's very powerful.

If that is necessary, the PIO will assist with that and will provide talking points so that we're all, again, using that joint information system and speaking from the same sheet of music so that that message is consistent.

You all also play a big role in combating that misinformation that I was talking about.

Because, again, as Chief Stewart mentioned, you all are going to get questions.

And so helping sharing the right information, the information that we have vetted and provided, is going to be a key role for you all as well.

And then that liaison role, Chief Stewart mentioned that as well.

So let's talk a little bit more specifically about that liaison role.

We will provide you

each time that we have either anticipating an emergency or we've had a disaster strike the county, we're going to provide you a point of contact.

And that may be different depending on the circumstances.

It may be Mr. Richardson is your point of contact.

It could be Ms.

Kilroy.

I think that's been in, you've had that, experienced that in the past.

It may be Chief Eggleston.

It's all dependent upon the emergency we're faced with.

We're going to share with you and ask you to share with your constituents the priorities that we have set in terms of managing the emergency.

And that's invariably going to be life safety, incident stabilization, and property and environmental conservation.

Those are typically our priorities, and the goals that we set in terms of responding to an event are based on those benchmarks.

You are aware of the goals that we established during the pandemic, and when we made decisions, when we needed to look and establish priorities, we used those goals and worked with you all on those goals.

So you're familiar with kind of how we prioritized during that emergency.

We know, though, that you're going to receive those phone calls, and they're going to be coming oftentimes from

desperate people in desperate situations.

And so they are upset and you'll need information to assist them.

Please call.

Again, we're going to provide that contact in each case.

Make that phone call.

Make sure that we're aware of the situation.

We may find that we were not even aware that something was an issue.

Oftentimes we may be aware and then we can let you know that that's the case and where that falls in terms of the priorities that we are using right now or that we have in place.

Again, disasters start and end at that local level.

But we also recognize that you do have those contacts as Gene mentioned.

and so we may find, let me say this, we do our best work when we work together, staff and the elected officials, you all as board members.

And so it may be that we find ourselves in a position where we need to work together with you so that you can utilize one of those contacts at the state or federal level.

and we can take care of a situation where maybe we do have some bureaucracy or there are some challenges that we need your help to overcome.

If we find ourselves in that situation, we will reach out to you and work together so that we can make that happen.

And another thing that you all can be a significant help on it

Invariably when we do have public assistance declared for the county or individual assistance, which are really rare occasions, that comes with a lot of confusion.

People interpret that oftentimes to mean that they are going to get assistance

at their home with their challenges, perhaps on their property, trees that are down.

And that's not what public assistance is about.

And so what we want to be able to do is provide you all with the knowledge and information so that you can help set those expectations with your constituents.

And we can do that ahead of emergencies.

We can provide you with information and some training and education.

But we'll also do that in the moment.

When we're in the midst of an emergency and we're starting to move towards recovery, we can provide you some one-page information and some just-in-time training so that you all can help us set those expectations with the folks that are your constituents.

So we'll prepare you for that as well.

So just to visualize that role a little bit, the operational response and the responders I've been talking about, they're at the ICS level out in the street providing that service.

The EOC is at the coordination level and sometimes in the policy level, the MAC group, and that's where we're going to reach out from those levels

during the midst of an emergency and work with you and who you will contact when you need to relay some information or ask some questions.

It will be at that level in our management of the emergency.

Additionally, there are some responsibilities of the Director of Emergency Management.

Mr. Richardson has a responsibility to understand the incident's impact on the continuity of the jurisdiction's day-to-day operations and activities.

He shapes the jurisdiction's overall direction and priorities and helps coordinate activities with you all and other government representatives.

resolving resource allocation conflicts.

If we find ourselves in a position where we have enough incidents happening throughout the region, the city, the county, the university, where the resources we have are spent and we have to prioritize assignment of additional resources, that decision is pretty complicated and is done at that policy level.

and so Mr. Richardson owns that responsibility and delegates a lot of that authority through the structures that we've talked about.

So just briefly, I'd like to just talk about where I think we're headed in terms of emergency management.

Over the next several months I plan to work on an implementation plan for emergency management priorities and activities for the next several months and then probably a one to three year time period and you'll probably see some information about that.

We will be formalizing the county emergency operations plan and how we work together as a region.

That's something that we are currently working on with a work group.

from the Emergency Communications Center, the ECC board.

We've established that work group and there are a lot of questions that we are wrestling with now as to how best to structure this so that we are taking care of the local emergency management as well as working together regionally where we need to.

Continuity of operations plan here for local government for Albemarle County.

We basically did a lot of work for a COOP throughout the pandemic.

The first order of business will be to take that information and formalize that into a COOP.

Moving forward over the next several years, there will be more work that we will have to do to exercise that and build upon it.

But we'll start there.

And then participating in existing planning processes, exercising, setting those capabilities that I talked about.

Those are all things that we have moving forward.

And as always, engaging with the community and other stakeholders to make this happen and to involve a lot of folks in establishing those priorities.

Thank you, Chief Brandi and also Chief Stewart.

Appreciate you being here.

We will go through our order.

Thank you and thank you both for all this information.

And I'm really pleased that we're moving to this next step of being organized, having been with you through several scrambles in the last 15 years, from derechos to snowstorms to strange things that happen.

forward to you as soon as I get the readout from one of the federal meetings I was in last week where one of the communities had used some IJL money to actually think forward about how they can improve their resiliency by turning strategically located schools into future shelter capability.

with showers and refrigeration at HVAC and all those kinds of things that were in everybody's mind as we were trying to improve the air quality in the buildings.

There's a lot on your plate and I appreciate it, but I also think that the personal attention that you have given just in this past year to helping to organize the various people who needed to work together to help the folks at the Meadows, for example, who were without power or any contact at all for

72 hours until neighbors got there.

You really stepped right in and said, okay, we're going to do this right now.

I really appreciate that.

Carry on.

That's great.

Getting the facts right is what's really, really important, too.

I think that's what we learned from the derecho was we can't be shared if information is changing, and it always is.

Thanks.

Yeah, thank you, John.

I find, as one of the elected officials, trying to walk the balance of not wanting to be in your way, but needing to be informed.

And it sounds like we're going to be getting at that in this plan.

I guess I'm always hesitant to reach out and ask the question.

I usually do that through Mr. Richardson, because I figure

He's informed and knows the process, and I won't get in anybody's way in doing that.

I presume that's the best approach if we're an elected official wanting to know what's going on because we are fielding questions.

I'm just making that assumption.

So likewise, if we're the initial point of contact for the incident, we're the one that it's reported to,

Not on your radars yet.

I presume same thing.

We should take that to Mr. Richardson and say, hey, this was just told to me.

Yes, particularly if it's early on in the incident.

You always encourage somebody to call 911, obviously, if it's something of that magnitude.

Hopefully, we will have communicated, well, we will definitely have communicated to you information about, for example, an information line for folks to call relative to the disaster that we're experiencing.

If they have questions, if they have other things to report that are not emergencies.

But we do find that sometimes people have not called that number.

So you'll have that, you can encourage them to call that number or you can make that call to the person that we've provided as your point of contact.

But we're committing that you will always have a point of contact that will get you into that.

Policy level, that coordination level group that we've established.

Well, I appreciate that.

I think a lot of times, granted you're speaking to large scale, you know, hurricane and like the winter storm event that we have.

I think sometimes our citizens, when it's a smaller incident, we just had a very bad crash over on Hillsdale and Rile Road.

that that might not rise to the level of emergency in the sense of a huge weather event, but still in the localized area it's an emergency.

So it's the same type of reporting piece.

You wouldn't necessarily identify a

Yes, sir.

Let me go on a smaller scale piece of this because I didn't think about this.

This was on my list for Carrie Shepherd, our VDOT representative, a little bit later.

So we had the winter storm back in January.

I mean, massive all around the state.

And the cleanup effort just for the trees down is ongoing.

I mean, it still has not occurred, which is phenomenal to me.

But it didn't occur to me that would that effort to do the cleanup from that event still be in Europe?

I'm sorry, was it Jean?

Typically with that is the trees if it is over a state maintained road it is VDOT.

After that point then it comes into contractors and that comes into a debris management plan that John has developed and will be developing and working on.

If it is on private property, of course, we can't do anything whatsoever.

No one can.

It never occurred to me that it may go up through and back maybe down to VDOT, is the way it goes.

I mean, there have been constituents still bringing up, I mean, in the last days about, you know, Earliesville Road, I know, Carsburg Road's the one that's the most immediate for me in my district.

I mean, and they were just clearing interstates not, but what, weeks ago.

So I mean, of course these roads are not, they have not got to them yet.

Right and what it is is that it's a clear right-of-ways So that is literally cutting it off at the right-of-way so that pass passage can be made and then as you were seeing there's many contractors on roads and highways that are coming in and clearing them back off from roads now.

They're primary

Right.

Because what we're finding now is that we've got on a smaller scale now the pedestrians who are trying to get past or through that right away can't because of the trees that are there.

And then the indirect where I mean trees come down during a winter event but then some trees are just weakened during the winter event and then they come down during a follow-up storm.

It's just crazy how the chain that

events can continue to happen with something like that.

And if this isn't there yet or there's not an answer, you can say, coming.

But oftentimes, we've talked about in an emergency, whether it be like the winter storm, where you can have a power outage, you can have phone service down.

So, you know, a lot of our access or all of our output or putting out of information is done electronically.

Yes, the short answer is

Actually both.

First of all, we learned we had this exactly happen back on January 3rd where we found ourselves around the table trying to figure out, wait a minute, all of our typical communication channels are disrupted.

And so we've got great people and they started to brainstorm how we might be able to use signs and place signs out on the roads that are run by generators and try to get information out.

Obviously, we can

do a better job of pulling that together into a formal plan.

And I know, I won't speak for the CAPE staff, but I know that's something that I've talked to Abby, our PIO in County Fire Rescue for a more formal plan.

In the meantime though, she has taken everything that we've learned from that

Whether it's the messages that we actually sent, they're in one spot so that if we find ourselves in that same position again, we go and reproduce that same message in the same way.

She's also worked at trying to establish where do we have those types of signs.

Some of them might be the old school where you actually take out a stack of letters and you might put them up, but they're determining where they are in the community.

So we'll have a more formal plan, but

Sure, I would suggest and recommend that whenever that plan is ready, that that rise to the level of an updated board meeting

so that, one, we're all on the same page with you, but then it also gets the attention or the airtime, if you would.

I'm sure this will come back to us, but that particular item should rise to the level of a board agenda item.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I want to hit that last point again because that's where I wanted to start out.

It's incredibly important.

I'm so grateful for your being here to discuss this with us, Mr. Stewart, as well.

This needs to happen again.

and again I think that this is the kind of thing that if we don't hear it and think about it repeatedly we're not going to be ready for it and so I really appreciate that and so as things happen and there's new information new things learned from it I want to hear about that because it would really help I think in everybody's to do this.

I only arrived on the board technically I guess January 1st and January 3rd was not a baptism by fire but a baptism by ice in the

If people were calling and contacting me right away about power, roads, communications, and other emergency services and any guidance that I could have had at that point as to how to handle this would have really done wonders.

So obviously emergency communications is a huge part of this.

I'm grateful that at home I get severe weather alerts on my phone when the storm is coming and I know when it is and it nags me about it, but I really appreciate that.

So I would encourage us to figure out every way we can to communicate clearly.

And again, to practice this, so we've heard a lot today and I, like I said, deeply appreciative

but a lot of it also is a little bit on the abstract and a lot of acronyms and things and I want to hear some examples.

I want to get some practice.

I don't want to become complacent.

I want to still expect the unexpected but at the same time get a sense of what's the role that we're engaging in, what can we do by seeing it in action and so everything you can do along those lines I think is a great public service.

Thank you very much if I may and I'll share this real briefly regarding the communication question because it's a shout out to my dad who is a life member out at the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department and it also demonstrates that it's the whole community is working on this because after the January storm he recognized that the electronic sign out in front of the Crozet Fire Department

Thank you.

Quick comments.

Supervisor Andrews was at a distinct disadvantage having just assumed office on January 1st, had not even been to a board meeting yet when the January 3rd storm hit.

That hit and January 5th, I was, you know, elected to be chair and was on the phone multiple times with Mr. Richardson.

So just as a tangent comment, I don't understand how Mr. Richardson either has more time in the day than the rest of us

or time slows down for him because he has six supervisors plus however many hundreds of staff constantly communicating with him and he's able to respond instantaneously with us.

And he had to remind me several times, you know, Supervisor Price, this is your first major event as a chair.

We have experts that are prepared for this and y'all are and you were and you do a great job.

As you know, this other supervisors have commented, we know it's not a question of if

it's the question of when and when and when again we will have these emergencies and so you know Mr. Richardson I want to personally thank you for scheduling and getting this presentation to us because that was part of our communication is what do we as elected you know how can we better perform our roles within the chain of command that has been mentioned so that we are not stepping outside of that chain and complicating

the response from the county and I think we all learned a lot.

I do want to mention again that January 3rd storm with the second significant but albeit a lesser damaging VDOT from our area removed 800,000 cubic yards of tree debris, 800,000 cubic yards and as you were just mentioning, Supervisor Galloway, there are still these side roads and property that people have

that needs to be cleared.

So we all greatly appreciate the work that you and your staff have done to present this to us.

Chief Stewart, again, we thank you for being here today and we do look forward to the next step of this information process for us as supervisors so that we will better perform our duty without interfering with staff.

May I have a quick follow-up based on what I heard?

Other questions reminded me just to widen your view to remember that all those church groups and neighborhood people in the derecho went out and put up great big posters on the telephone poles at the intersections to say, water for livestock at Earliesville Volunteer Fire Company, and otherwise nobody would have known and would have been wondering what in the world to do.

Question, does anything in this organization have extra input, I'll say, or leverage, with some of our utilities who have refused to look at the enormous trees that are leaning on wires?

Some are live wires, the communication ones, some are abandoned and have been allowed to be abandoned for 10, 15 miles along one road particularly.

It's just waiting to happen.

The other thing that occurred to me was the practice.

I'll volunteer my community to say if you want to practice with us, we're right down the road from the airport and we can have some kind of staged thing when you get to that point because something like that would really help individuals to understand where they might fit in and to encourage the Urgent Ready group and others to keep slogging along and to keep improving because it is hard to nudge people even to do something as simple as signing up for Code Red.

I'm very surprised how much resistance we had to that when we tried it last year.

So we'll try again.

Thank you.

All right, Board.

Chair Price, thank you.

I'll be brief.

In the time that I've been in Virginia and Albemarle County, I don't know that any time in my career that I've seen someone from the state level work any more diligently than Mr. Stewart has to push communication out to communities across the Commonwealth.

Mr. Stewart, and this is the first time I believe that we've ever seen each other face to face, but I feel like I know him because he pushes communication out regularly.

It's a significant amount and it's always in the spirit of trying to help communities within the region.

And so I did want to publicly thank him for his

ongoing support, not just when there's an emergency, not just whenever we're preparing for an emergency, but it's a consistent level of communication week in and week out.

I also wanted to thank the board for your support, and it is a consistent and continual level of support to our emergency management personnel and staff, not just John and his team, but we have a lot of employees in our organization

and we are preparing to be better and be stronger in the future when we do have a significant storm event of being able to capture a level of employee capacity and redirect that capacity to the storm.

I think the best organizations are organizations of course that are anchored from police and fire, building inspections, some of those key functions.

but the support departments that sometimes during an emergency event they really are required to take a pause because it's not normal business operations that we are trained to redeploy some of those folks to help with the storm event because John, his team,

the police department they are completely maxed out during a storm event just trying to deal with normal call and all of the work associated with the storm so it's very helpful for us to move forward in a way to where we're borrowing from other departments and training to where we can be a little stronger

in that regard.

So this really is a continuous improvement effort.

The final thing I'll say is that I did take from the board today that we will be coming back to this board whenever we work through our CAPE office and our emergency response departments with an emergency communication plan.

Thank you.

Board, at this time, we're scheduled for a break, so let's come back in at, we'll just say ten after three.

Good afternoon, everybody.

We will go back in session.

Supervisor McKeel is back in the building.

She'll be with us in just a moment.

And I do want to encourage everyone to stay connected through the end.

At this time, Board will move to item number 11, a COVID-19 reconstitution update.

And our Assistant County Executive, Mr. Trevor Henry, is up.

Good afternoon, Chair Price, members of the board.

Thanks, Emily, for the assist while I try to talk and greet at the same time.

Please stand by.

All right.

I will continue to talk and do a little hand waving here while Ms.

Kilroy brings the presentation in.

We had an issue, as you probably heard, on the laptop that happened right as the board meeting started.

So a little behind the scenes scrambling is what has happened.

So thanks and good afternoon.

There's a team of us here to talk about the public meetings and our continued work in reconstitution.

I, along with Andy Herrick, Emily Kilroy, will be presenting a brief presentation.

And in support, we have Roderick Burton,

Director of Information Technology along with Lance Stort, our Director of Facilities here in case there are questions that come up in those realms.

Today we want to give an update.

It was kind of mentioned at the front part of the meeting with Dr. Bonds being here about kind of where we are with some of the COVID issues in our area.

Emily will do a

summary of what we're seeing and some of the trends and assessment.

Mr. Herrick is going to walk through the legal framework as it relates to FOIA, including some changes that have occurred recently at the state level that give a few tweaks that will be effective later this year.

And so he has a few slides on that.

And then finally, I'll end it with a discussion around tier two, tier three, and a recommendation on what

a current recommendation staff has for returning to in-person for those bodies.

And so that's really the goal of today would be to provide that information with a recommendation at the end and certainly answer any board questions, identify any additional information you'd like us to track down, and we'll follow up as appropriate.

Ms.

And good afternoon.

Emily Kilroy, Director of Communications and Public Engagement.

I'll just spend a few minutes reviewing some COVID-19 metrics.

And first, I want to acknowledge that whenever we pull this data, it's a snapshot in time.

And as each snapshot continues to paint a changing picture of where things stand in the community with respect to this virus.

So first is the CDC COVID-19 community level.

This is a stoplight.

We went over this with the board in a previous work session, a red, yellow, green scale that looks at new cases per 100,000 population and also medical resource capacity for our region.

Albemarle County has been yellow or green for the past 10 weeks, as has most of the Commonwealth.

This week when we pulled up the data a lot more counties are yellow, whereas in previous weeks we've had a lot more green statewide.

This is new daily cases for the past six months for Albemarle.

As a reminder, the gold line is a seven-day moving average, and the bars are the daily reported cases.

You can see that while there is currently an increase in the trend line, we're still seeing cases roughly at the level of where we were in mid-February.

And that was when we were kind of coming down off that holiday surge.

This chart is for a longer time horizon.

It goes all the way back to fall of 2020 through now, and this is hospitalization of COVID-19 patients in our area.

There's been a lot of coverage nationwide around disease severity, and there remain indications that this strain will not result in as many hospitalizations or deaths as other variants, and that's due to a combination of factors, including vaccine booster rates,

and also more effective treatments that are more widely available.

So far we're not seeing nearly the level of hospitalization as we did in the winter.

What has changed significantly over the course of the past few weeks, however, has been the UVA model.

This model from the Biocomplexity Institute has proved helpful over the course of the pandemic in understanding the forecasted direction and magnitude of cases.

So while the exact numbers and dates may not be exactly right, it's been helpful in sort of seeing for planning purposes where we expect cases to go.

We are now at the beginning of a projected spring surge that will take us into early summer with a projected peak of early July at about 3,100 daily cases.

This is actually higher than what we saw in the winter surge and caused the Biocomplexity Institute to put out a report this week sort of explaining why and that has to do a lot with

a sense that there was a big undercount in the December, January, early February time period because of the confluence of the holidays, the winter storms that we experienced here in Albemarle in particular, and just general lack of testing capacity, testing availability over that time period as demand was really outpacing supply.

So they do believe that the winter surge was actually higher than what this projected spring surge will look like.

But in terms of what was documented at the time, the spring surge is expected to be higher than what was predicted and documented from the time period.

There was a large reliance at that point in at-home tests and those at-home tests sometimes make it into the official documentation and sometimes don't.

It depends on what individual actions are taken by someone who takes an at-home test and whether they engage with their physician or the health district or not.

The other thing that the Biocomplexity Institute put out is a health district's growth trajectory.

And so on this diagram, our health district is still being called the Thomas Jefferson Health District, but that is the current Blue Ridge Health District.

And we are in red with a lot of other health districts in the Commonwealth.

which indicates that we are in surge.

So this is the type of data that we're continuing to track as the virus and its impact on society continue to evolve.

I'm going to invite Andy Herrick to walk us through the current legal framework which also continues to evolve and then Trevor will kind of pull us back together on sort of what that means for public meetings.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Members of the Board, Andy Herrick.

I'm Deputy County Attorney.

It's a pleasure to be with you today.

I'm going to pick up, as Ms.

Kilroy indicated, and give you a brief synopsis of the virtual public meeting rules that are in effect.

We start with the notion that the continuity of government ordinance expired

Excuse me, it did not expire.

The local emergency expired on March 16th, as you'll recall.

That was when the board declared the local emergency ended.

However, the continuity of government ordinance remains in effect for an additional six months.

Now, I realize that represents a change in what Mr. Campner had told you previously.

We went back and took a look at the continuity of government ordinance.

By its own term, it has an extension of six months beyond the end of the emergency.

The reason that Mr. Campner had indicated it was 12 months is that the state enabling authority actually now allows for a 12 month period after the emergency has ended for continuity of government ordinances.

However, our continuity of government ordinance was adopted prior to that amendment to state law.

So at the time our ordinance was adopted, we did take full advantage of the six months that was allowable at that time.

If we wanted to have an extension of 12 months, we'd need to go back and amend the ordinance accordingly.

Staff is not recommending or suggesting an extension at this time.

We're hoping that we're able to return to full government operations at the end of the six months that our continuity of government ordinance currently allows.

And the continuity of government ordinance is what authorizes the virtual public meetings that we're having.

As you probably know, the Freedom of Information Act does not allow that.

I'm going to get into that here in a moment.

So now that the local emergency declaration has ended, authority for most, not all, virtual meetings will expire with the continuity of government ordinance when that ends at the end of the six months.

And at that time, the Freedom of Information Act requirements will kick in again, including that the members of the public body must be physically assembled, that the members of the public must have open access to the physical meeting location,

that the quorum of the public body must be among those in physical attendance and that virtual access to a meeting of a public body is allowable.

Now as you all may be aware, at the April 6th meeting, there was an amendment to the board's rules of procedure to allow for remote participation of individuals who might be absent due to some sort of family emergency or medical procedure.

So state law has been amended to allow for greater

remote participation by individual absent members.

And this slide summarizes some recent changes, some recent additional changes to state law.

The effect of September 1st, House Bill 444 will amend the Freedom of Information Act to allow more remote participation and sum all virtual meetings.

But all virtual meetings are limited and that

know all virtual meetings are allowed for local governing bodies, such as the Board of Supervisors, for local school boards, planning commissions, architectural review boards, or zoning appeals boards.

So those bodies specifically under state law cannot have all virtual meetings.

Even those that can have all virtual meetings are limited to having no more than two per year, or 25% of their meetings, whichever is greater.

There are other numerous limitations articulated in the bill.

So despite our hope that the pandemic might allow for greater enabling authority for all virtual meetings, sort of the General Assembly giveth and the General Assembly taketh away, that in fact there is additional authority, not much of it can be enjoyed by local governing bodies.

But our office, Ms.

Hudson, Mr. Gelorey and I are working on proposed procedures to allow the board and the other public bodies under the county's auspices

to take full advantage of these amendments and House Bill 44.

So we imagine that we'll be coming back to you with proposed rules of procedure for the board's consideration prior to the effective date of this new state law on September 1st.

So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Henry to round out our presentation.

Thanks, Mr. Herrick.

Just a couple of more slides and then staff will be available for questions related to the information or recommendation.

Really moving to the remaining public bodies and recommendations around return to in-person.

This is information we shared with the board in the work session earlier this year, January, February, as we established the recommendation for this body to come back in-person.

These are the factors that we used to evaluate our recommendation.

and assess really kind of the guiding principles and decision-making framework for the recommendation, trying to balance these elements.

We laid out kind of a tiered approach to that recommendation that resulted in

the current in-person meetings that we've experienced over the past couple months for our legislative bodies, the school board, planning commission, and our board of supervisors.

I think other than some technical difficulties and glitches here and there, the return has gone pretty well.

In fact, we had a planning commission meeting that had a new order of probably a couple of hundred people here.

I think that that went as well as it could have gone.

I think that this first step was a good positive step.

As board members, you can obviously provide input on your experience to date on how that's gone, but the idea was we wanted to start with the legislative bodies first, give us some time to get our legs under us, and then we would look at the next levels.

The second tier is what we labeled as the authorities or decision-making bodies, and you can see the list

of those in front of you.

And then finally, the third tier would be those bodies, committees, and boards that are advisory in nature.

And we had recommended previously that when we do come back in person that they be just kind of the old-fashioned, in-person way.

I'll talk a little bit about each in a minute.

But I wanted to kind of get to the punchline, which is this slide, which we are given

What we're seeing in the community related to COVID, looking at the EVA model that Emily did a good job of going through.

Current recommendation is that we still hold and stay in virtual for

for the tier 2 and tier 3 bodies until September 1st.

At that point, unless conditions change over the summer, we would recommend tier 2 going to what we call virtual public access.

Again, I'll talk a little more about that here in a minute.

that we would start those back in the building with virtual access for those bodies and then the remainder would return to just in-person Tier 3 as they were pre-pandemic.

Hybrid meeting, you know, our highest level of production.

Also the

the highest resourced meeting.

And again, I think we've done a pretty good job of working that with the clerk's office, our AV team, the board, and those that have come on virtually.

The virtual public access meeting again applies to the Architectural Review Board, BZA Board of Zoning Appeals, Board of Equalization,

broadband authority, and economic development authority, we're proposing is that is not the same level of production.

We are sort of over top to bottom.

We are recommending that the two of those bodies actually be present and operate their meetings in lane, again, through the virtual access process.

The Board of Zoning Appeals, pre-pandemic, would meet here routinely.

So they're just returning to where they formally met.

The ARB used to meet in 241 and could still meet there.

But one of the things that they've learned through the pandemic is the ability to review the materials with their laptops electronically.

And actually there's a lot of positive feedback about that experience.

If we return to 241, we'll also have to return to printing out

a lot of paper, a lot of drawings, a lot of diagrams, and so community development staff in consultation with the ARB have asked for consideration that they be allowed to hold their meetings in this room, therefore they could take advantage of the electronic technology that is in place.

Again, that's for board consideration.

Staff would recommend that we do that, again, really just to cut down

on the volumes of paper that we have to produce for the ARB meetings.

The remaining meetings would be in 241.

The image in front of you was a dry run that we did to kind of demonstrate what virtual public access means.

And so you have your formal members of the body present.

They're present around the table based on the FOIA requirements that Mr. Herrick just talked about.

We will have AV connected so that via Zoom you can still access that meeting and you can monitor the meeting and you can also participate remotely as an attendee.

It is a little more limited than the experience in the hybrid meetings in that it is more static in nature.

The body is around the table having discussions.

It is less connected to the public.

But it is still connected to the public to the degree that it is.

And so the facilitator of the meetings have to be attentive to who's online.

We've experienced this in staff meetings, remote participants wanting to raise their hand and get a question.

And it's a little less obvious in this setting

It's manageable, but just a little less obvious.

But it is one that still we think provides better access to these key meetings.

And so this image on the screen is what one would see if you were a public participant in a broadband meeting or EDA meeting.

Again, based on FOIA, the board and our committee members have to be present.

with noted exceptions and would be fully accessible but in a more static nature.

And then the final one is the in-person meetings.

You know, this really is geared to many of the boards and committees that have a geographical base to them where they meet in those locations to start with.

And again, these are advisory in nature because of

The complexity of trying to do an on-the-road AV show, the cost, the complexity, and the concerns about quality control, staff continues to recommend that the tier three bodies return to in-person the way they were prior to the pandemic.

So moving forward, the recommendation would be stay virtual until September 1, at which point

Tier 2 and Tier 3 would come back as discussed.

Staff will continue to monitor the metrics we meet weekly on this.

If there are considerations that would adjust this recommendation or considerations the board would want us to evaluate, we could come back in the second meeting of August for a follow-up on this.

and that is the recommendation and I'll keep this up here and open up Chair Price, the board, for questions for staff.

Thank you, Mr. Henry.

We'll go through our order.

Yes, I think I have a question based on a report out that Rich Deloria made yesterday to the EDA.

And I realize that the zooming, the hybrid option for boards is in flux based on the General Assembly.

Richie mentioned yesterday that

members, and I'm talking now about members of the board, right, would be able to, that if you were, and I'm trying to get this straight, saying it carefully, if you were asking to be able to zoom in for a personal reason, like you were out of town or whatever, you were allowed two of those a year, but he mentioned if it was a medical issue, that you would be allowed more than two a year.

I thought.

and is that part of what's some of the changes that are coming?

Right, so there are specific parameters that allow for individual members to participate remotely.

It looks like Ms.

I was just going to say that as the board recently amended its own rules to conform to the Freedom of Information Act, it does indeed allow for

I will say that the all virtual meetings, again, which doesn't apply to the board, but the bodies that can meet all virtually are limited to either two per year or no more than 25% of their meetings.

and it is a little confusing and I know there are changes to come and I don't want to get us too much in a swirl today, but it was interesting that Richie was, we were talking about that just yesterday with the EDA members, so.

Right.

All right, thank you.

I don't have any questions and thank you for the update and I would just request that you please write on your list that if COVID and the rules allow to have this room available on Veterans Day.

for our celebration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Trevor.

I'm sorry.

I didn't quite understand the point between 241 and Lane.

So the paper is required because they don't have the screen.

I mean, I don't have a problem with them using Lane.

Thank you.

All right.

Mr. Andrews, are you referring to training of the public or training of the staff?

All right, thank you.

I have a couple of questions.

Mr. Henry, since you're already at the microphone, I'll ask you first.

With regard to this slide, actually, so thank you for having that back up.

If the Board of Zoning Appeals previously met in Lane, I don't have any issue with returning to pre-pandemic.

I am, however, very hesitant or reluctant to expanding the use of Lane for more meetings, because I believe that there is a degree of formality that exists with Lane Auditorium.

and not to overstate it, but the old comment about familiarity breeds contempt.

My fear is that if Lane Auditorium becomes available to more and more groups, then the degree of formality that we expect in meetings such as this could be diminished.

There is.

As one supervisor would like to know what those costs would be, I've expressed previously in private meetings and I will express publicly, I am reluctant to expand the utilization of Lane beyond the meetings that we normally do or for the large

honorary type events that we might have, a retirement of the chief of police or something like that.

But I am not one who is ready to just say, well, sure, it'll save a little bit of printing.

Let's move more meetings into Lane Auditorium.

That's the only question I have for you.

I do have a question for Ms.

Kilroy.

And I don't know that you, it might be helpful if you go back to slide number eight.

So on this slide, thank you Mr. Henry, and I recognize the commentary that you added with regard to some of the projections from previous, but as this chart currently shows the data reflected prior to the highlighted arch or peak at the end, how does the data there

compare with how it had been projected previously.

In other words, we see now what the data, as accurate as or not as it may be, we see now how the data shows from approximately, you know, where we are today, middle of May, going back in time,

but how accurate or consistent is that with the projections that had previously been made under the UVA model and basically I want to use that as to give me a sense of how accurate what they're projecting now going forward.

Sure.

So it's a wonderful question.

Thank you so much.

And since we're looking at this slide again, let me just take a moment to orient folks.

The blue line is with the green shading on it is what's projected.

The blue line before that green shading is based on they kind of adjusted as they go along to actual observed cases.

And so that's sort of before the shading is sort of what actually happened.

And then the shading is what they project will happen moving forward.

The actual green shaded area itself is sort of the volume of where the modeling suggests perhaps where the cases may be so that lower the lower bound of the green shaded area is sort of the low end of the what they project and then that

What goes far above that blue line is sort of the high point of what potentially could happen based on a lot of variables.

So the blue is their best guess at this moment in time for that area, but it certainly could go a lot higher.

You can see the most recent model ran has the peak potentially up to 5,000 daily cases, which is extremely significant.

So as I said, they adjust that back data to what actually was observed.

And we actually have a spreadsheet that we can send to the board later so that you can actually look at how that UVA model has changed over time.

And off memory, when we were in the winter surge, there was a point where it was projected significantly higher than 3,000.

I want to say it was closer to five digits of daily cases.

And so as the report that came out this week with this data indicated, they do believe that the official count for that winter surge was lower than observed.

But they do adjust that line on that graph to be in line with what was observed.

And so that's why we say that the UVA model has been really helpful for understanding the direction and the magnitude, because they're adjusting every week as they go based on what's actually happening.

And so while it's not

100% accurate to the exact cases that are incurred.

We certainly have found it very useful over time as a tool to, again, just sort of understand the direction and magnitude.

And the surges typically have panned out with the surges that are projected.

And so we do feel like it's a good tool.

I think you've anecdotally answered and I doubt that it would be easy to statistically report it because as they adjust it every week it would of course be shifting.

But it does give me a sense of confidence that the blue line prior to the shaded area, everything to the left of the chart, was fairly consistent with what their projections going forward previous to that point in time had been.

and therefore it's much like a hurricane path.

We're projecting it's going to go somewhere in these numbers and they kind of go kind of in the middle and that gives us a sense of what we're looking at going forward.

I have no further questions at this point.

I'll just look around to see any other comments from any of you.

Having people come here is in any way diminishing the importance.

I think people really appreciate coming to this really comfortable, accessible space and it actually builds more support for or sense of belonging in our community to be able to come in here.

So I have a different view about how to, that we should

I don't perceive a benefit of keeping it to be the special, you know, the royal place.

Thank you.

And I come with 20 years as a trial attorney where the courtroom is considered to be a

a place different from a conference room.

So we just have a difference of opinion.

I don't have any objections to information.

I mean, I don't object.

I view it more just from a pragmatic standpoint.

If you've got more people, you need a bigger space.

My bigger point is I think that we, especially after the pandemic, have outmaneuvered or we've outgrown how we work in meetings and our facilities aren't allowing us to keep pace with how we actually operate.

You guys have done a fantastic job getting this facility ready for that.

and the current topic aside, that room and some others in this building, I just don't think live up to the, for us, school board ARBs, anybody.

It just probably needs some sort of redesign to make it more functional for the bodies that meet in there, whether it's us or whoever.

I mean, you would even think staff.

There's gotta be limitations to have like your leadership team in there.

You know, this old school model of getting in a room and everybody looking at one screen doesn't allow for work.

Yeah.

Point's well taken.

All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Henry.

So just if I could summarize, I think the board has accepted the staff recommendation.

There's a question around the ARB and its location.

I don't think it's a heavy lift to get a little bit of information.

And we can plan to come back at that meeting

Appreciate it.

I think that information is helpful even though it appears that consensus of the board is to open lane more than I would have, but that appears to be more the consensus of the board and that's the way decisions are made.

So thank you.

All right, Board, at this time we will move on to item number 12 of Virginia Department of Transportation quarterly report.

And I see that we have Ms.

Shepherd and Mr. McDermott here.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board.

OK, let's try this again.

Good afternoon.

Carrie Shepherd, of course, here to give the quarterly report for VDOT.

This is my second time being here in person since the two years that I've been here, so it's nice to be back again.

OK, this slide, largely unchanged from last time.

I will point out, though, that the Route 702 Fontaine Avenue bridge replacement over Maury Creek, which is the first one under the state of good repair, went to ADD in March, and we did not receive any bids.

So that is going back to ADD in June of 2022.

Hopefully, when that goes back out, we get some bids, and we can get that project going.

29 Solutions Project.

So the hydraulic package is well underway.

I just would like to remind the board that we have a public hearing scheduled for May 25th, which is next Wednesday evening, 5 to 7 PM at the Hillsdale Conference Center, which is 550 Hillsdale Drive.

We have a website available as well for additional materials if anybody is interested.

I believe that went out as a news release.

As far as the design-build projects, the DDI at Exit 124 is ongoing as well.

No changes with the completion date at this point in time.

However, the Route 151-250 roundabout, it's tentatively scheduled to finish six months early.

And that's assuming that everything goes well.

Otherwise, completion is February 2023, worst case.

And also just a note for the 2649 roundabout at profit, we expect next week, Tuesday, Wednesday timeframe for the traffic to be switched to the actual roundabout configuration.

And that also is on target to be complete no later than the fall.

This, the design build bundle number two, this is unchanged from last time.

We've still got quite a few, couple years before we really get going on these projects.

As far as our rural rustics, we have a specialty crew in place right now just focusing on the rural rustics.

We have some ground to cover, a little bit of catching up to do.

So we have just finished prepping Red Hill School Road, which involved ditching, pipe replacement, tree trimming.

So Red Hill School Road is currently ready for the hard surfacing, and the crew has moved on to Harris Creek Road.

That should not take very long and next week I expect they'll move on to Burt Mill and Hammocks Gap and the goal is to have all four of those complete by the end of June and then we will move on to the next ones on the list.

As far as our construction activities, 240 Bridge Rehab is still underway.

Still expect that to be complete mid-July.

One item I did leave off my list is the

Route 810 Blackwell's Hollow Bridge replacement.

That's a superstructure replacement and substructure repairs.

The road is scheduled to be closed May 23, so this coming Monday through July 29.

There is no posted detour, but there is a temporary pedestrian bridge in place for walkers, runners, and cyclists.

And we did have message boards out beginning May 9 to let the public know.

As far as traffic engineering, we're listed in the report, so I won't go into too much depth here, but these are the ones that we have completed.

Have a couple pending sign installations, and then some additional enforcement recommended, specifically for Penn Park Road, which Speed Study was completed, and Barley Station Road.

As far as our traffic engineering requests that are under review,

We have a no parking request under review at Digwoods Road and Miller School Road.

Of course, we're still looking at the old Ivy Road pedestrian accommodations.

Wesley Chapel Road, we expect to have that signed here shortly.

I think the speed data is being reviewed right now, and we should have

That final study shortly.

And then last but not least, Ryo Millsrode and Berkmar Connector, Supervisor Malek.

This one came from you.

Site distance and signage review.

We are investigating that right now.

And I will follow up with you when we have a plan in place.

Land use, this slide has not changed very much.

The only thing that we added here was just that Belvedere phases 5a and 5b.

The internal road network construction is ongoing, so we're just continuing to monitor these projects and provide support as necessary when requested.

And the last thing I will mention is a quick update on our debris removal efforts.

So as of right now, the Culpeper District total in debris removal is 1.2 million cubic yards, which is over 20,000 truck loads.

Albemarle alone, which excludes the interstate, is right now, we're not finished with Albemarle, but right now it's at 205 cubic yards.

And again, that's not including the interstate, which totaled in at 215 cubic yards.

This week, we are working on Route 250, 692, 712, 706.

And our goal continues to be to try to finish before Memorial Day.

And with that, I will stop here.

Thank you, Ms.

Shepard.

I'll ask my first question about your last topic.

You are still planning on getting to some of the urban roads like Barracks Road that come off of the 250 Bypass, some of those more local roads because we still have some tree debris on those urban roads.

Yeah.

But I do want to say, Kerry, thank you very much.

I drove by just yesterday the ramp coming down off the 250 bypass where you and I had our favorite concrete drain and it is clean.

So somehow or another you all are keeping that clean and we're not getting all of that debris on the road on that ramp, which is wonderful.

Thank you.

And I also want to thank you while I have a turn.

to thank you for the Woodlands Road meeting.

I know you had some takeaways, but it was a great discussion.

I really appreciate your help.

That's twice you've met with the residents on Woodlands Road, and I appreciate it.

Let me just ask a question about, and I should have looked at the number on the slide, I apologize, but you mentioned Old Abbey Road pedestrian accommodations.

When you referenced that, are you talking about the

pedestrian accommodations across that old bridge deck.

Is that what you were referencing?

I just wanted a little bit more information on that.

Old Abbey Road.

It said Old Abbey Road pedestrian accommodations.

No.

I think Kevin's jumping in here.

We are working together on this.

This is Kevin McDermott, transportation planner for Albemarle County.

The reference on the slide that I noticed is actually talking about a study that VDOT and Albemarle County are looking at pedestrian accommodations under the railroad

pass at the eastern end of Old Ivy Road right there.

And this was done.

It's been a concern from many for a long time.

UVA has brought this up to us.

We've got a lot of development from UVA going on on that road.

So we're trying to find a better way to accommodate those pedestrians.

And I thought it was talking about the bridge on the other end, but that's OK.

But that's good to know.

And of course, that area floods all the time.

You all know that.

So I have an email that just came in recently about the flooding problem.

And I'll just kind of leave it at that.

One other quick question.

You all were looking together at that whole area, what I call that triangle there from STAB.

We are, yes.

been put aside.

We're still working on that.

That's great.

And the only thing I will mention is that I seem to remember, I came through there the other day as I often do, and STAB was letting out huge number of cars because of course they all drive, they all ride, they're all transported, mostly in individual cars.

I seem to remember when we, when this board gave STAB the okay to move

the school from Ivy Road to that location, one of the schools over there, they promised to stagger their times to avoid that very issue.

My question is, and this may be for Kevin, he's looking like it.

Yes, you're correct.

That was one of the conditions of approval for that school and it just came to our attention that they may not be staggering that and we are talking to our code enforcement staff about how to address that situation.

So you're looking into it because and this gets at and this is not

any criticism at all.

When we have these conditions that we put on and we have no way to track them, we have no way to enforce them, to follow them other than just by complaint, it's very concerning.

That's not a criticism of you guys at all.

It's a criticism of 13 conditions that there's no way to absolutely figure out

Thank you very much.

Question first.

You mentioned specialty crew working on rural rustics.

Are these contractors again or are they local forces that you have assembled?

These are our state forces.

I'm so glad to hear that because Bluffton Road is a nightmare continuing because of what happened before.

Thank you.

Rio Mills, I'm really, really glad to see about lowering the speed there because

All of us, many, many of us are using that road and I'm putting along and piling up people behind me all the time because they want to go 60 and that's really bad.

So that's terrific.

Please put on your list to look at adding some more 35 mile an hour signs if it's reasonable on Bleak House Road on the gravel section.

Because that is another gravel road where many, many people walk and they're getting

having real problems with people going by very very fast and having to race for the ditch so if you can do that if it's possible to also because of the density of the houses and the curve when it's paved going down to race forward it may be appropriate to have 35 be consistent all the way instead of going to 45 when you get the pavement just because it's easier to

for people's brains to manage that all the way through and for enforcement to handle it as well.

So you can investigate whether that's reasonable or not.

And you both mentioned the old Ivy Road study.

This is an extension of this STARS thing where they proposed closing the loop from the bypass to eastbound 250, which would have been a horrendous

disaster.

So that's not coming back again, that particular element, right?

Because there was a really great effort to reduce the

Eastbound traffic at the Ivy exit and limiting that for real to people going west.

It says the local traffic sign, which is great, but nobody pays any attention because they run down there and then they turn left onto Old Ivy Road or they turn left under the bridge and go east on 250.

So if there's a way our engineers can figure out how to stop that and put everybody onto the loop, then it really would help a tremendous amount for people trying to get to those businesses right down there in the corner.

and that is all I have.

Thank you.

Carrie, thank you for the recent, I know I've thrown a few things your way that were come up from residents so I appreciate the helping them out and getting back to them and also appreciate the update on the debris cleanup.

I know one of the ones I forwarded was Carsbrook where it

Not really.

There's a system that the contractors are using, but it's permissions only.

Earliesville Road and Carsbrook Drive are the two that have come up in my district.

People are just asking the wind question.

I think everybody accepts that it was a massive effort and that the interstates are still being cleared as of recently.

These other roads will be eventually coming along line.

But those are the two I know of in my district that have recently come up.

Also on Carsbrook Drive, and this might be a dual or a trio for Kerry, Kevin, and Mr. Richardson, but that is Marlboro Court and Carsbrook Drive, I'm getting some real issues with speed and pedestrian and biking conflicts.

The question being asked by the Cartersbrook HOA was, well, when they had temporarily rerouted while 29 was being worked on, they had put in temporary speed bumps.

So, of course, when you do that, they're like, well, then why aren't speed bumps allowed all the time if you can do it when the volume increases for the road project that's happening?

And I have asked this before, so this isn't a criticism of you guys.

I have forgot.

But when an HOA or a community comes together and says, how do we talk about traffic calming if it's even feasible?

Do I direct them to Kevin?

Do I direct them to VDOT directly?

Like Carsbrook Drive, I mean, I would think that would be a difficult task.

I've said as much to them to get speed bumps or other traffic calming things permanently on that road.

they also would like to have some follow up on that.

So do I direct them and say, well, we get your association together and have a conversation with VDOT or a combination of the county and VDOT?

We could probably start there.

Generally, what we do is start with a speed study that's requested by the board.

And then the results of that speed study guide our next steps.

For the VDOT traffic calming process, if the speed study comes back and essentially we determine there's not a speeding problem, which means that the speeds aren't 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, then our process kind of stops at that point in time.

But that doesn't mean there's no options.

It just means for VDOT.

I would imagine there's been a speed study done in the past on Cars Work Drive.

I don't know when that would have occurred.

On behalf of that community, I'm asking that perhaps maybe a speed study is necessary then and specifically that Carsbrook and Marlboro Court area is where some conflicts are happening that are problematic.

And then the only other comment I have, I appreciate, well I've got two more comments, I appreciate the

efforts at

seems to not be having major delays and backups.

On a road that can do it all by itself, even without construction, I just commend you guys for the way that's going.

Then maybe the flag for the fourth quarter report this year for both the transportation, VDOT, and maybe

Maybe it's FEZ, Facility Environmental Studies, because I know at July 1 we've authorized a new position that's going to be working about our medians and the maintenance of the medians and all the, you know, when you had to listen to me complain about a lot of weeds growing up out of concrete.

but we'll have that position hopefully, I mean obviously we have to hire for it and all of that but I'm hoping by the end of the year just to flag and go hey how's that relationship kicked off, how we doing, what kind of game plan, that'll be past the growing season but you know I want to just note that that position hopefully will be onboarded and we get that program going because right now we're seeing the stuff growing out of the storm drains and the concrete and all of that but I'll stop my

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I really appreciate this report.

The list looks really good.

I'm thrilled about Old Ivy pedestrian.

I know that came up before.

Two aspects to this, obviously the road improvements and also the cleanup.

Are you feeling like you're getting the information you need about the cleanup?

Is that something where it comes through because somebody's complained to us and we brought it forward or somewhere in the county?

I mean, feel free to always send me an email if there's a concern.

But we do have our air headquarters staff that do drive our routes quite frequently.

So they have a good pulse.

But of course, if something has changed, they haven't quite seen it.

We always welcome the emails or the work orders.

So feel free to do that.

Okay, thank you.

And then with respect to the projects, I mean, I recognize this isn't necessarily the time to be adding on different projects.

But of course, again, I'm in communication with Mr. McDermott and constituents of concerns about different roads that have come up in recent days.

So we'll carry that conversation on ongoing as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

First off, I just want to thank you, Ms.

Shepherd, and you, Mr. McDermott.

Beyond or outside of specific development applications that we receive, I receive more inquiries from constituents about roadways than anything else, and you are collectively and individually so responsive.

I just want to publicly thank you for the way that you

Thank you very much.

really is incredible and so many, many thanks to both your department and the contractors for the work they continue to do to clear the road waves and it does help to at least temporarily satisfy constituents when I'm able to say

And it's 1.2 million cubic yards that they have removed.

I also want to follow up on Supervisor McKeel's questions to you Mr. McDermott and the response in terms of the difficulty of enforceability on some of the conditions.

We recently had

an application for a development on a very narrow road.

I actually rode it this week just to check it out myself and got to drive my truck over a downed tree.

I'm thankful that I have a high riding truck so I was able to get over it because there was no place to back up for almost two miles.

And so to have proposals with so many conditions that are almost impossible to monitor, much less enforce, is something that we always have to remember before we make a decision on a proposal.

And with that, I thank you very much for your presentation.

I'm sorry to be so forgetful.

In the discussion about the speed bumps, we have them in Ashcroft.

I know it took ten years of discussion with your predecessors to finally get approval because that neighborhood was having all this through traffic of construction vehicles and they were going wild.

So with whatever hurdles were achieved,

with that process, can those then be transferred to other neighborhoods?

I know when neighborhoods are asking for speed control, my question is, do we have local authority to do more than what VDOT says meets the rules?

I don't know who that would, because the future answer list, not immediate.

with these rains we've been having, totally different subject, with the rains we've been having the last several weeks, huge piles of leaves are now jamming up against people's personal culverts from 50 yards of deep, deep ditch.

Is that a get after the neighbors to clean it up thing or do you have a giant vacuum that goes around and takes care of these?

What's happening is now the water's going out on the road and around the whole culvert system because

There's literally a cubic yard of leaves piled up right there.

Okay.

I'll send you pictures and you can decide.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

All right, board, it's time for us to go into our closed meeting.

Before doing so, however, and this will be our first experience doing this, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley has requested to participate remotely in the Board of Supervisors meeting in accordance with applicable board rules procedure enacted pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley is unable to attend the meeting in person due to a medical condition.

So the floor will entertain a motion to support or approve Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley's remote participation in the meeting due to her inability to attend because of a medical condition.

All right, thank you.

We have a motion from Supervisor Mallek and a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

There we are.

Now we see her.

Good afternoon, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

Oh, you're muted.

OK.

Let's give it just a moment, and while we're waiting, I'll ask our county attorney, Ms.

Perfect.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley, could you please try to address us?

Yes.

Can you hear me now?

That's all right.

We'd like to thank Ms.

Kilroy, our Director of Community and Public Engagement, extra technician with Nicole and Claudette, and whoever else may have done it.

Chair Price, and this is my fault for neglecting to tell you this.

Thank you.

1137 Club Drive, Keswick, Virginia 22947.

Yes, I move that the board go into a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 1 to discuss and consider matters related to the terms of service of appointees to various county boards and commissions and also under subsection 1 to discuss and consider the appointment of the county attorney under subsection 6 to discuss and consider the investment

All right.

Thank you.

We have a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right, and just before we do close for that, I want to thank our county attorney, Ms.

Hudson, for always being ready with an answer to ensure that we don't overlook anything.

And at this time, we will go into our closed meeting.

All right, good afternoon everyone.

We can hear you.

We cannot see you.

For the public, we are working on that.

There she is.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, so I will call us back into order.

Yes, I do.

I move that the Board of Supervisors certify their recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

All right.

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