Board of Supervisors Regular Second Meeting   9/21/2022

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to Lane Auditorium at 2 o'clock for our regularly scheduled meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, September 21st.

As I call the meeting to order, I do need to first state that Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley has requested to participate remotely in accordance with the applicable board rules of procedure, rule number 8B1B enacted pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

I'd ask the clerk if she could allow Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley to join us.

and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley has stated that she is unable to attend the meeting in person due to a medical condition.

All right, thank you.

So moved.

All right, I heard the motion from Supervisor Mallek and a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, thank you, Board.

At this time, Board, now that we are fully assembled, I'd also like to mention that we have present at the dais our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney,

Mr. Steve Rosenberg, and our Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson.

Let me also introduce and thank our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present here today.

Sergeant Jason Freistat, Officer Ben Chisholm, and Officer Angela Jamerson.

I would ask if you now all will rise as you are able and participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

And if you will now join in a moment of silence.

All right, Board, at this time we're up to item number four, adoption of the final agenda.

Oh wait, let me, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Supervisor Andrews.

Yes, it is 8.2, not 8.4.

My apologies, typo on my part.

It has been pulled from the consent agenda and will be added to the action agenda later today.

Any other amendments to the agenda proposed by any supervisor?

Seeing none, the floor is open for a motion to adopt

So moved.

All right.

And so we have a motion from Supervisor McKeel, a second from Supervisor Andrews.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley.

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek.

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel.

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

We'll move to item number five, brief announcements by board members.

and we'll go through our order.

Thank you.

Just a few quick ones.

First, early voting begins on Friday.

I just want to make sure everybody's noted that.

October 1st, Simpson Park in Esmont is having a community fair, five to seven, and a movie in the park.

There is a Batesville apple butter weekend coming up October 8th and 9th, and you can reserve your apple butter up to October 3rd and then order from there.

Thank you.

I'm crashing around.

Could you come back to me?

Supervisor Galloway?

Thank you, Chair Price.

Today I'm wearing a tie that was given to me by former chair and longtime school board member Steve Kolozar.

He gave me this tie upon his retirement from the school board, and it was right towards the pandemic when we were all starting to follow Governor Northam's lead and not wear ties because of, well, his own reasons.

I bring that up today and can't think of a better way to honor Mr. Kolozar, who as Supervisor McKeel will

as she served longer with him on the school board knows, Mr. Kolozar stood up for people, especially those who needed the most of others to stand up for them.

And I just want to say that I am very disgruntled and appalled by our governor's actions for his own personal political gain going after transgender students and trying to dictate our school's policy for those students.

I appreciate that Superintendent Haas sent out a message to our school community reiterating that our policy on this matter is still in force and I would encourage as I can't direct the school board attorney or other attorneys around this state to get ready because I find this

Very frustrating that this governor is targeting this population to go after and I would think that this supervisor will say to any school board attorney and our school board that I will support all efforts and resources to help protect this group of students so that they may live their lives with dignity.

And again, just probably could go on for other political reasons, but I'm a political player myself.

We sometimes try to rise above that as supervisors.

But I think employees of this county, our families in this county, and especially these students in our county need to know that we as a board have their back.

Thank you, Chair Price.

Smith.

I just was looking at the speaking order.

Right.

Supervisor Malek asked if we come back to her.

Oh, okay.

That's fine.

No, I just was confused.

It's not hard to confuse me these days.

I really appreciate Ned bringing that to our attention.

It probably went out to parents.

Oh, because you're a parent, you get it.

I missed it completely.

But I really appreciate you bringing it to our attention.

If you would forward it to me, I would really appreciate it, because I'd like to read it.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments and the sentiment.

I am pretty appalled at what is happening right now with the treatment and the lack of respect for students and different populations of folks, other areas as well.

Having said that, let me just say that I appreciate very much our staff.

Lance Stewart came to my CAC meeting on Monday night.

and presented the Fashion Square Mall proposal and what we approved with the storage units at JCPenney.

And Lisa Walger from the school division presented the Lambs Lane Campus Master Plan to my CAC as well as some community members who thought it would be great to just drop by and listen.

So that was really wonderful.

And I would hope that at some point, the Board of Supervisors will be able to see that master plan or a presentation or at least be able to familiarize themselves somewhat with that master plan.

It's gonna be important for 25% of the children in Albemarle County public schools are on that campus.

So it's an important master plan.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for giving me time to find my announcement here.

This is about Dippin for Dolly, and this is a fundraiser for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.

There's a whole group in the county city all over central Virginia who are providing books to children in their homes to help them learn to read.

And it is Monday, October 3rd.

2022, from four to seven at the Muth Room.

And this is at Preston Avenue.

Ice cream fundraiser for Dolly Parton's library.

And Dino's Pizza, Elavit Coffee, Bea Conscious Baker, and Milkman's Bar are all supporting this as well.

So I appreciate your help, their help with that, and hope others will go as well.

And now I have a couple of others I just need to jump back to.

Thank you.

Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival is coming up on President's Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday.

And at the Crozet community advisory committee last week, we had a wonderful presentation from Daniel Butch and Tim Padolino about the Parks and Rec department and all the plans going forward.

All right, thank you.

I have a few items.

First off, board, a couple of weeks ago, a couple of weekends ago, as part of the Sorenson Institute Political Leaders Program, we went to Southwest Virginia.

There were many things that we were able to learn in both Marion and Bristol, Virginia.

Being brief, the most significant experience was going to Coronado Coal and Buchanan Mining

where we learned substantially the difference between thermal coal and metallurgical coal.

And thermal coal is what's used for energy production, heat, things like that.

That is where most of the concern with coal and air pollution comes from.

But what we need to remember is that metallurgical coal is a key component in the manufacture of steel.

and without metallurgical coal right now, we do not have a capability of producing steel.

So it's very important that we not have extreme views on anything and we make sure we look at all of the details.

I joined 95,566,521 Americans with COVID last week.

We've had over a million 50,000 deaths.

There are 30 million Americans who experienced long COVID.

We are having 60,000 infections a day.

Fortunately, because I was quadruple vaccinated and because they have antivirals, I knew for me it would be a disruption of my life, but it would not be a potential death sentence.

And I encourage people to continue to get your vaccinations, to use safe practices.

because it still is out there.

We still are having several hundred Americans die every day.

The President may have spoken in one respect that we're beyond the pandemic, but reality medically is we are not and we still need to protect ourselves.

The latest booster focused towards the Omicron variant is out.

and I encourage people to get it.

Now that I've been infected I have to wait three months but availability for getting the appointments is out there now and I do encourage people to get it.

You know it was interesting watching last week with the death of Queen Elizabeth and her funeral procession and it was kind of timely because I've been watching a PBS special

It started Sunday night.

The second episode was last night.

The third is tonight on the U.S.

and the Holocaust.

And as part of my recollection, I've gone back and watched several movies, The Darkest Hour, The King's Speech, Dunkirk, all related to World War II.

But turning back to the PBS special on the U.S.

and the Holocaust, and Supervisor Galloway and Supervisor McKeel, I very much appreciate your comments.

As the only LGBTQ member of this panel, of this board, and the only transgender individual

I generally try to stay away from making comments specifically related to those issues because I do not want to be seen as the transgender supervisor.

I am a supervisor who happens to be transgender.

But when you look what was happening in Nazi Germany and you see the dehumanizing actions that were taken principally against Jewish people, there are great parallels with many of the legislative enactments and actions that have been taken with regard to the LGBTQ community and particularly those who are transgender.

We're looking at book banning being proposed around the country at a level rarely if ever seen before.

And it's interesting as you go back to that and you think about books and judging people, judging a book by its cover so to speak.

When it comes to sex, there are six components.

Chromosomes, genes, hormones, gonads, internal reproductive organs, and external genitalia.

And too many people when they talk about biological sex talk only about the last, external genitalia, which is judging a book by its cover.

and when it comes to gender there are studies that have shown that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis of the brain is directly related to gender identity and there is a biological component of being LGBTQ and I just want to thank Supervisor Galloway and Supervisor McKeel for standing up for this community of which I am a part and which I am a member and which is being attacked unfairly right now and is being used as a political tool so I thank you both for that.

I have nothing further at this point.

Donna, will you indulge me just a minute because I have an email that I'd like to share that just came in shortly after two o'clock.

As you all know, we have been discussing a renovation at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.

and this board supported going to the state to request 25% funding for that proposal if in fact we determine the three localities determined to go forward with that renovation.

I have an email from Superintendent Coomer that says right here that the Department of Corrections board just voted to support our request for 25%

So that will go to then the General Assembly as part of our package if we, as the three localities, determine that we want to move that renovation forward.

So that would be the next step.

I think I'm clear on that.

Is that correct, Doug, the way I explained that?

So I'm pretty excited.

All right, thank you.

and we're going to postpone this for the moment because of the significance of this event and one of our public hearing items.

Yeah, all right, thank you.

I just failed to mention that.

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

Matters on the agenda but not listed for public hearing or on matters previously considered by the board or matters that are pending before the board.

Let me turn to our clerk first, and I do see that we have individuals who have signed up in person.

All right, thank you, Ms.

Borgerson.

So at this time, we will

open to our first in person.

I'll turn it over to Vice Chair LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you very much, Chair Price.

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

Individuals are allowed one opportunity of up to three minutes to speak at each board meeting.

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

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

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

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

The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking.

The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

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

When addressing the board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district.

Address comments directly to the board as a whole.

Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

All comments are live streamed.

All right, thank you.

And one correction, we do have one online sign up, but the rules I think have been fairly covered for that.

That's an update since I first mentioned that to you, Vice Chair LaPisto-Kirtley.

So we'll go first to our in-person, Ryan Woodbury.

Good afternoon.

And when you come up, if you would just try to make sure that the microphone is near the front of your mouth, that will help us all to be able to hear.

You can bend it down using the gooseneck.

OK.

All right.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ryan Woodbury.

My husband and I live in Batesville in the Samuel Miller district, directly across the street and roughly 120 feet from the proposed cell tower location with our three children.

That's 120 feet from our front door.

While we live in a rural area, we have many immediate neighbors that would be directly affected by the tower location.

We bought our home in 2004 and have been restoring it on our own for the past 18 years.

We were fortunate to purchase two homes next door to us, which we have renovated and converted into much-needed long-term rental homes, small businesses that will suffer when potential renters learn of the cell tower's proximity.

We are strongly opposed to any special exception being given regarding this project.

The guidelines were adopted for a reason and there is no good justification for the Board of Supervisors to depart from following those guidelines.

The tower will already be taller than what was originally proposed and any additional spread of the antennas or items added to this tower will make it more of an eyesore than it already will be.

We think it is important to note that no one in our neighborhood was aware that this tower was in the works.

While most of us are not opposed to a cell phone tower in the area, we are opposed to it being located right on the road in our immediate neighborhood and so visible to contributing homes in the Batesville Historic District.

This process has been unfair to Batesville property owners and residents.

We should have been alerted to this project by mail in 2017 when it started.

No one in our community saw the small notice that ran in the daily progress in 2018.

As a result, there were no public comments in opposition to the Tower during the Section 106 review.

The letter from the County Planning Division that was sent this June pertaining to this special exception was not sent to all of the neighbors who will be directly affected by the Tower in its close proximity.

There are neighbors who don't share property lines with Miller School who will be affected as well.

We moved to the Batesville Historic District for its rural character and bucolic setting.

Not only will the cell tower have a significant visual impact on us, there will also be cooling fans and a generator which will create noise and increase the negative impact on us and our neighbors.

We have asked Verizon and Miller School to consider another location on its vast acreage.

to where it would not so negatively impact our neighborhood and the historic district.

As of yesterday, we were informed that they are not willing to look at alternate locations.

The school owns 1600 acres and there is ample acreage for an alternative site.

Lastly, the FCC claims that cell phone towers don't pose a health concern, but how do we know that for certain?

Would you be concerned about your own children and grandchildren living 100 feet from a cell phone tower?

We are not willing for our children to be the guinea pigs in this situation.

If this plays out, as Miller School and Verizon have planned, we will be forced to move away from a home that we love and that we have worked so hard to create.

We appreciate the Board of Supervisors' careful consideration of this request for a special exception and we hope that you will deny this unnecessary request.

And we'll see you at Apple Butter.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Jeff Woodbury.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

My name is Jeff Woodbury.

You just heard from my wife and I'm echoing everything that she just said.

My family and I first became aware of this project in June and ever since then have been struggling to come to grips with what is being imposed on our home and the neighborhood by Miller School and Verizon.

We realize the extent of your purview today has nothing to do with the tower's location, but ask that you temper this project's impact by denying the request for the exception on the antenna mount.

What is the point of having guidelines?

Unless they are adhered to, if an exception is approved, it implies the guidelines are irrelevant and will only serve to encourage bending the guidelines on future projects.

This project, ill-conceived from inception, has progressed to this point unbeknownst to those who will be impacted by it the most.

This pole and base station will be less than 100 feet from my front yard and not much more than 100 feet from my house, and will sit on the side of the road in view of the neighboring homes and all who pass by.

Approving this exception will make an already inappropriate situation that much worse.

Please consider the county residents most impacted who depend on the board and the other county representatives to develop and enforce guidelines and do not allow the guidelines to be set aside in this case.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shannon Worrell.

Hi.

Good afternoon.

Thank you all.

My name is Shannon Will, and I live on the landowner in the Batesville Historic District.

My home is less than 300 feet from the proposed tower, which I will be able to see while laying in my bed.

I strongly oppose the special exception for the addition antenna.

No one from the adjacent Batesville Historic District was included in what should have been a community-based and community-centered process that set the location.

Miller School, named for Batesville's own Samuel Miller, has been working on this project for 10 years without any input from the surrounding neighbors.

My question to you, our Board of Supervisors, is what is your long-term vision for how to address the encroachment of information technology infrastructure on your communities and our families?

The technology is ever evolving, the health and safety data are inconclusive, as well as digital privacy issues.

It is your responsibility to create an adaptive strategy that protects the historic environmental and human resources in Albemarle County.

This six inches may seem immaterial to you, but it sets an unknown and potentially deleterious precedent to allow private landowners to slap towers up without community input and approval.

I appreciate more schools' concern for their students' safety in these uncertain times.

I hope, we hope, they will extend that concern to their neighbors and friends in Batesville and the Samuel Miller District.

Alright, thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Emily Gary.

I live in Batesville as well.

And I'm here today because I strongly oppose the request of special exception 20220038.

My house sits across the street from the Batesville Historical District and next to, in fact roughly 100 feet, no 150 feet, from the proposed location of the cell tower.

Not only would it be a significant eyesore, I would be forced to listen to a generator, cooling fans, and a motor on the antenna.

Clearly Verizon recognizes that this cell tower would be unsightly because they're planning to paint it brown and try to hide it with saplings.

In July 2021, I had a ruptured brain aneurysm.

My health is now being closely monitored by neurointerventionalists at Martha Jefferson Hospital.

With the placement of this proposed cell tower, I would have increased concern for my health.

The American Cancer Society does not take a position on the effect of close proximity to cell towers because more research is needed.

The addition of a cell tower so close to my property would pose health risks for me and force me to move from my home as soon as opposed to much later in my life.

It would significantly reduce its value, creating financial hardship.

I am a single mother of three children who I support entirely on my own.

I am relying on the ultimate sale of our home far in the future to help fund my retirement.

Having to sell my home earlier than expected would hurt me and my children both financially and emotionally.

I moved to this home in 2007.

It's the only home my youngest son has ever known.

We were made aware of this proposal of the cell tower in only June of 2022.

The project began in 2017 and a notice was put in the paper in January 2018.

No letters were sent when Section 106 was under review.

My neighbors and I were not given an opportunity to respond to this construction.

Again, I appeal to you for reconsideration, certainly of the special exception request, but of the entire project.

Miller School has ample land.

They have other choices.

Thank you.

Hello there.

I'm a Batesville community member.

I live about 300 meters from the proposed area.

I don't have a formal monologue to offer you, but just from a personal perspective, my two children go to one of the schools on Miller campus, Seven Rivers Country Day School, and I'm very familiar and friendly with the faculty and certainly the people that live on Miller School, and I understand

and appreciate the school themselves not wanting to have the cell tower close to their school for aesthetic reasons because Miller School is a beautiful school, it's like Hogwarts in my opinion.

but it also the staff and faculty live there and they have people that come and board their children from all over the world there and there is perception associated with a cell tower being close to

school or children or indeed faculty members and staff.

And I appreciate that.

And as you heard more accurately from my neighbors, they have an awful lot of land.

And my personal perspective is it seems ridiculous to choose to site the tower right next to their community.

literally 120 foot from one of their communities.

When their community members go to the school and we knew nothing about this, we knew nothing as has been pointed out more accurately about this proposal.

We had no involvement in that choice.

I think a lot of people, again my layperson's perspective is if it was 500 foot or meters

into the woods and away from the area.

I mean, that's just my personal, but this wouldn't be an issue.

And I just feel that it doesn't make much sense what's happening here.

And I feel a little bit David and Goliath intimidated in this environment, but I mean against Verizon and the school.

My name is John Foster and my family and I live at 1562 Birches Creek Road within the historic district in Albemarle County near and soon to be within view of the cell tower under consideration for the Tier 2 cell tower special exception on today's agenda.

Our house was built in the 1870s and is a contributing structure to the Batesville Historic District.

I would like to second my neighbors' comments today, all of them.

The county regulations and process for siding Tier 2 cell towers has failed the Batesville community.

We were only made aware of the project after the applicant and landowner had gone through the entire siding and engineering process.

It's clear this was intentional by the applicant and enabled by the county's lack of regulation.

As such, we're now being told by the applicant that it's too late to move the location, even though the tower is proposed for a parcel of land over a thousand acres in size with innumerable locations away from houses and at the same elevation as the current location.

We've lived in Batesville for seven years and cell coverage has not been a concern to us.

We get plenty of bars at our house and I made a cell phone call while attending a bike race at Miller School over the weekend with no issue.

We also have high-speed internet.

and we'll hopefully soon get fiber internet.

While cell phone coverage in the area isn't perfect, the county should not reward this poorly planned cell tower project with a special exception.

The county's historic resources are worth protecting and it's up to our elected officials to provide the leadership and guidance to prevent their death by a thousand cuts by projects like this that could have easily been modified to avoid

its visual and audible impacts.

Please vote to deny this special exception and begin the process of reviewing the county's regulations that relate to protecting Albemarle's historic resources.

Thanks for your time.

Good afternoon.

My name is Nathan Holland.

I am a county resident, as well as representing Verizon Wireless.

I'm here today just to represent the application, to answer any questions.

And I did want to address a couple items I heard regarding this project.

It was started in 2017.

The project was put on hold by Verizon.

It wasn't brought back until this year.

So it wasn't like we were trying to pull anything over anybody's eyes.

It requires going through a Historic Preservation Office review, which is part of our FCC requirements.

That process

was started.

It was reviewed and approved by them.

We are now going back to them for a revision that we made to the application regarding the height of the tower.

And that process has not yet been finished, but, you know, withstanding anything else, we have to abide by whatever the State Historic Preservation Office says about the height of the tower.

Again, I'm here to answer any questions, and that's it.

Our next speaker, Lori Schweller.

Good afternoon, Chair Price, members of the board.

I'm Lori Schweller, attorney with Williams Mullen representing Verizon Wireless.

A tier two treetop tower, not an avoidance area, is a buy-write use.

So I want to mention that to explain why

There have been no public community meetings, no public hearings.

The county developed the regulations for Tier 2 wireless to avoid litigating every wireless facility that comes before you, as we used to do.

We have fully complied with all the many restrictions set out in the personal wireless service facility ordinance, which is an 11-page ordinance, including

Single monopole, ten feet above the reference tree, painted Sherwin-Williams, Java Brown, landscaping, all of the things that are necessary to comply with Tier 2 regulations.

We have scores of Tier 2 wireless facilities in Albemarle County, which is how we enjoy the wireless service we have today.

I bet no one in this audience, with the exception of Bill Fritz here, could name five of those, has ever even seen those.

This facility will not have visual and audible impacts on the neighbors.

As you've seen from the photographs provided by the county,

and the photo simulations Verizon Wireless produced from those, it will not be visible from neighboring roadways and properties.

As to noise, there is no noise generated by the antennas or other equipment on the facility.

The only potential noise that could ever be generated by this facility is if a generator is installed for when the power goes down, which is very common in the Batesville area.

Currently, we have no plans to install a generator.

If a generator is installed, it runs 15 minutes per week for testing and the sound is similar to your air conditioner.

It's not an obtrusive noise.

It would only run continuously if the power were to go out, so we would all still have wireless service.

All we're talking about today is the special exception.

The ordinance currently provides that the closest distance between the poll

and the antenna is 12 inches and the farthest distance is 18 inches.

And that's because, as most of you know, we used to physically tilt the antennas down towards where the service was needed.

Now that can be done internally to the mechanism, so we like to put it 18 inches out uniformly rather than in a tilt.

And so we routinely come before you to ask for a special exception to that 12 inch minimum distance.

and that's all we're doing today.

Thank you, Chair Price, members of the board.

I'm Valerie Long.

I might take exception with my colleagues' comment.

I know where at least five or so of those facilities are.

But thank you.

But I'm not here to speak about that.

One quick thing.

I want to thank Mr. Galloway and others for their comments about at the beginning of the meeting.

and I received a copy of Superintendent Haas' email as a parent of a public school student and I would just point out for the benefit of the public there's a link in his email where people can provide public comment because these are merely proposed guidelines at this point.

So I would encourage you all to spread the word about that.

But I was here to talk about the presentation that you will receive later this afternoon about utility scale solar facilities.

We work with renewable energy companies around the state to help them bring their projects to fruition.

And we were very encouraged by the bold statements that you all included in your climate action plan when you adopted I think last year that support and encourage utility scale solar.

So of course we pay attention to the agendas and when we saw today's presentation reviewed that staff report and we were just a little concerned that we did not see anything in the staff report that referenced the climate action plan.

And obviously there's lots of land use issues that are going to be part of that policy review and consultant process.

We just want to be sure that the important strategies

and action items that are included in the Climate Action Plan that support and encourage utility-scale renewable energy facilities are not lost in the shuffle, frankly.

And I'll read a few of those for you for your reference.

One of them is to a strategy is enable and incentivize utility scale renewable energy projects in the county code and during the community development regulatory process.

Second is partner with utilities and renewable energy companies to increase local renewable energy and energy storage initiatives.

Action items include establish a county policy clarifying this strategy to enable and incentivize utility scale renewable energy projects.

Review the building, zoning, subdivision, land use, and tax sessions of the county code for opportunities to better facilitate and incentivize renewable energy projects.

and develop a policy to support utility scale renewable energy projects and finally conduct a study in cooperation with renewable energy companies to identify locations for utility scale projects in Albemarle County and prioritize the use of rooftops, parking lots, brownfields, landfills, and post-industrial lands.

So again, we just hope you will consider those important strategies as you develop.

All right, board, and we do have one online sign up.

As soon as I unmute.

Basically, it would be if making comments through Zoom, you may upload written comments through the e-comment portal or email your comments to the clerk as opposed to actually being there in person.

If you are participating by phone, press star 9 to let us know you want to speak, then star 6 from a landline to unmute.

Thank you, Vice Chair LaPisto-Kirtley.

Thank you very much.

District, and I apologize, I reside in the White Hall District as well.

But in the Scottsville District, we have made, after a significant amount of community engagement over the last couple of months and since the county's previous feedback given to us, we've made a significant number of, or had a significant amount of community engagement and done quite a bit of work to buff up our application to a point that we're very, very proud of it.

And a couple leading elements of that would be that

we now have our project to a point where it can be smart pollinator qualified which is something that's a guidance issued by the state in terms of making sure that projects are not only providing clean energy and clean power but actually helping

and so on.

the way that Albemarle County is going to be handling these utility scale projects.

We hope that they continue to look at the climate action plan, which we've really tethered our project based on that climate action plan.

We hope the board continues to implement those pieces.

And in many ways, I think hopefully our project can serve even as a template and a guide for a responsible development of solar.

So very grateful for your time.

Looking forward to continuing to talk with you all.

Thank you.

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

As previously noted, item 8.2 has been pulled.

Any other amendments proposed to the consent agenda?

So moved.

All right, so I heard the motion from Supervisor McKeel and a second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right, thank you board.

And at this time we've already scheduled to have our discussion now of 8.2.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to have a discussion about this, to recognize the significant input from the community and concerns, but I did also hope to hear briefly from staff a little bit about the Tier 2 process to the extent that the county's involvement separate from

Board reviews, the history of the special exception and the 12 versus 18 inches briefly.

And I guess the question in particular that I had was this distances from nearest neighbors.

Is there a minimum distance?

What is it?

What size lot is needed?

Little things like that, just to be clear.

All right, thank you.

Mr. Richardson, do we have someone from county staff to address this?

Thank you.

I have a short amount of slides.

If you'll please identify yourself for the record, please.

Yes, absolutely.

So my name is Kevin McCollum.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division of the community development department.

So I'm going to speak today.

I was the lead reviewer on this application.

So briefly to begin, I just wanted to clarify.

the three different types of personal wireless service facilities that we have in the county.

There's three types, three tiers, a tier one, a tier two, and a tier three.

So a tier one, our antenna that are affixed to or within an existing building or attached to an existing building or structure.

A tier two is what we refer to as a treetop tower.

So a treetop tower is no more than 10 feet taller than the closest tree that's within 25 feet.

Tier two towers must not be in an avoidance area, so things such as a historic district or an entrance corridor.

So then a tier 3 tower is anything that isn't basically a tier 1 or tier 2.

These are typically the largest of the towers and could also be a tower within a historic district or within the entrance corridor.

And so the ordinance is pretty specific when it lays out the nature of review for each of these three types of towers.

So Tier 1 and Tier 2 are approved and reviewed and approved administratively.

So this means that if all those applicable regulations are met, staff has the ability to approve these types of applications.

This Tier 2 tower we're here to discuss

whether or not the special exception is approved today can be approved by staff since all the regulations have been met.

Tier 3 towers, on the other hand, are discretionary and reviewed during that legislative review special use permit process.

Tier 3 towers, different from Tier 2, require Board of Supervisors approval.

So what we're here to discuss today is special exception application SE 2022-38.

So this special exception is a request to increase the distance of the closest point of the back of the proposed antenna from 12 inches to 18 inches.

As you can see on the screen here, all they are asking for is to make that bottom part of the antenna 18 inches from the tower, meaning that those antenna will be parallel to the tower.

So the board has the authority to act on the special exception request, but it's staff's opinion that this type of mounting will have no additional impact on this tower.

So just to explain some of the review, as part of this tier two tower review, we did a site visit and the applicant held a balloon test.

During that balloon test, we drove all over this area of the county and tried to see any spot from the road or from the nearby historic district where this balloon or potential tower could be visible.

So we took photos of all those sites and provided those to the applicant.

The applicant then created these photo simulations of what this tower could look like.

So based on our visit, the photo simulations and all of the other relevant information, staff came to the conclusion that this increased standoff from 12 inches to 18 inches at that top of the tower will have no additional impact.

So I just wanted to emphasize this by showing two of the photo simulations that were provided to us.

This is one view from Birches Creek Road.

Those cars you can see on the screen there are where they will have access to the site.

So this is viewed sort of southeast looking towards the tower.

That red arrow is pointing to where that tower is.

And then here is a view standing on Birches Creek Road itself looking I think north at the tower.

Again, the red arrows are pointing at the tower up top and then below at the

Fenced area that's surrounding the ground equipment associated with the tower.

So that's all I have to present.

I'm happy to answer any additional questions.

Thank you, Mr. McCollum.

We'll go through our order to see if there are any questions.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. McCollum, for your

I have a question regarding the fence that surrounds that.

The site plan itself shows the number of trees that will be removed.

The applicant is required to

identify all the trees that will be removed.

So will they have to be replaced?

Okay, so the removal of trees to put the fence in should not affect the

Okay.

Thank you.

That's correct.

A Tier 2 tower is an administrative review.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. McCollum.

A quick question on this 12 inches versus 18 inch.

I understand the special exception is needed, but I'm not sure I understand the origin of the rule and why we would need to act on whether something's 12 inches or 18 inches if 18 is allowed at the top.

It just seems an odd arbitrary thing to be asked to rule on.

Okay.

Yeah, my understanding is that when we adopted those regulations, they had the intent to down tilt.

It must have been related to the technology at the time, like someone spoke a minute ago.

The original regulation was 12 inches and the applicants were requesting that the top portion be increased to 18 inches to allow that downward tilt.

The reason it was 12 inches was the 12 inch standoff combined with the diameter of the tower combined with the size of the antenna

Typically, the greater the standoff and separation of antennas from one another improves the overall coverage and capacity of the system.

It's just a basic of physics.

So they would like those antennas to be standing off as far as possible.

If they can get 20 feet off, they would like to be 20 feet off.

We look at it, the way the county has looked at it historically has been more as a

visibility concern than as a technical concern, although the downward tilt, the increase from 12 to 18 was as a technical because it allowed them to push the signal towards the area that people are.

They're down on the ground.

An additional question that is a little bit less related to tier two, but I'm just trying to understand.

I understand that

The setback for the structure it has the the tower has to be set back a distance equal to the height of the tower.

I don't know the distance to the property line.

Thank you very much.

It's always good to have a chance to go through these regs again.

That's correct.

And following up on Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley's question,

Looking at the simulation pictures, what other trees?

No, I don't believe the photo simulations factor in the trees that will be removed.

I think there are seven identified on the plans that will be removed.

I think there's

at least 15 or 16 that have been identified already that will remain, and then there's also an existing tree line along the road that isn't identified.

Trees aren't identified specifically, but all those trees in that area should remain.

My understanding is that they're showing all of the trees that will be removed.

I can't comment if they're adding additional trees.

If I may answer an old question first, the setback to the property line

196 feet to the southern property line and looks like it's around 87 feet to the center line of Birches Creek Road, which is the property line there.

So those two setbacks that are in place.

it's from from the from the from birches creek road it's yes it's like a half a foot it's 0.1 foot greater setback than the height of the tower the towers 87 shows is 87.5 and the setback shows is 87.6 on the plan I'm looking at and then it's 196

to the property line to the south.

Now, I will say this.

I didn't say this before.

There is one exception, and that is where a tower is located next to a VDOT right of way.

If a reduction in setback is permitted there, VDOT is OK with it.

And so you don't have to go through a process.

And VDOT was one of the reviewers on this and cited no objections.

To answer your question, Supervisor Mallek,

What we do with these plans is when we look at the plans, they'll show the trees that are going to be removed.

We take into consideration those trees that are going to be removed when determining what the visual impact is going to be.

And if we think those trees that are going to be removed would cause an increase in visibility, then we would say you're not meeting the requirements.

You need to figure out how to either keep those trees or move those trees.

As part of the conservation plan, they need to show us where all the trees are going to go to stay.

They've already done some of that on this plan, I believe.

And then they have to meet the normal conservation plan requirements.

You can't park equipment in the drip line.

You can't damage the trees to cause them to remove.

That's the standard conservation plan checklist that we have.

Okay.

It does, thank you.

And just as far as the notice, were the neighbors informed about the balloon test?

Yeah, so as mentioned this is a tier two.

We treat that as a site review committee item.

So all abutting neighbors were sent a letter with information.

And I believe they were informed of the balloon test.

And some came to the balloon test.

Some weren't available.

Some were on vacation.

I see.

Thank you.

Let me just make sure I haven't missed something here.

Very good.

History will perhaps prove me right or say that I'm inaccurate, but I think that more notice is better because when people find out later that they did not know about something, they're always more angry, and I will just give the example of when my children were

turning teenagers, I told them I am going to find out when something goes wrong.

So if anything goes wrong, I need to hear it from you, and I need to hear it from you before I hear it from somebody else.

That is sort of a mantra that works in general, I think, any time communication is needed.

So I hope that we can think about ways as we go forward working on our ordinance to improve that, just because it builds more community agreement rather than causing more dissension.

and the screening is so important because one of the towers that was put up before the rules has lost all of its trees around the ground equipment and so those of anybody who drives up and down a road in the Samuel Miller district, I don't want to get in trouble by talking about your district without your permission, but you can see all the nuts and bolts and everything of all that machinery because there is nothing there.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

I have no questions.

Thank you.

I have no questions.

I really thank everybody for coming to chat about this.

And I have no questions.

Thank you, Mr. McCollum and Mr. Fritz.

I'd like to follow up with one more.

Sure.

One additional question that I alluded to previously, and that is,

There have been numerous requests.

I can't even begin to tell you how many we've done.

I believe I sent something to Andy Herrick.

We were wondering this very question, 9, 12 in the last year, something like that?

No, last year.

I think that's the number I came up with.

But I probably shouldn't.

Don't quote me on that.

Thank you.

We'll go around for discussion.

Supervisor Andrews, do you want to go first since you pulled the item or just go in our regular order?

All right.

Thank you.

Well, I think what I'm hearing is that we're going to see some Tier 3s soon and we're in the process of looking at the ordinance, and I hope we will, to make sure that we're comfortable with the requirements as they're stated.

I'm troubled by the distance to the neighbors and the idea of just making it within the height and the distance to the historic district.

That said, I do recognize that we're being asked to rule on a six-inch offset.

And I also recognize the applicant's property rights here and interest in having cell coverage at Miller School.

Thank you.

I agree.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

I think the comment I will make is there was a comment during public remarks that said, what is our long-term plan?

And I know that we will be reviewing our wireless policy, which is grossly out of date.

There are varying probably differences of opinion on this board as we work through that process but those who are interested I would imagine when we start doing the outreach that we're working through that policy to make sure they pay attention and put their input in on is that because that once it's set in stone that'll be our policy moving forward.

All right.

I don't have any comments other than I look forward to modernizing and updating our cell tower policy, which is approaching, I believe, 25 years.

And if you think about where we were with cell phones 25 years ago, so the technology has changed a lot.

So we really need to get to that update.

All right, thank you.

I had a brick as a cell phone back 25 or so years ago, so yes.

Technology has changed.

Ultimately, what I look at this is, but for the six-inch tilt, this would be a buy right approval, and so that's what we're looking at.

In one respect, I could easily say, why not move to a different location, but also recognize that there are expenses.

More trees would have to be taken down to build it into a different location, but all of that is

is outside of the realm of what we are asked here to look at today and concur that improving our notification process, updating our policy would be advisable.

I have no further comments at this time.

to find it here.

I move that we approve S.E.

All right.

And that would be attachment I in our materials.

I don't have that.

I have that open.

Yeah.

All right.

Oh, thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley seconded.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you board.

We'll now move to what is item number nine.

Piedmont Virginia Community College update, Dr. Runyon.

Good afternoon everyone.

So again, good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you today to introduce myself.

I joined Piedmont Virginia Community College on July 1, and I am honored and excited to serve as the sixth president.

Before coming to Piedmont Virginia Community College, I had the privilege to serve at three comprehensive community colleges, two in Maryland, one in Colorado,

and coming back to Virginia is like coming home.

My dad served in the Navy for 30 years and so many of my years growing up were in the Virginia Beach, Norfolk area and in fact my mother is celebrating her 90th birthday today and she lives in Virginia Beach.

So it's good to be here.

It's also wonderful to join Piedmont Virginia Community College as we celebrate our 50th anniversary.

So much has changed since we opened our doors actually 50 years ago on September 25th and it's really the contributions and what we've been able to do in the community is due to advocacy and support

from every member of the college community.

And when I think about our students, since we opened our doors in 1972, about 250,000 students have come through our doors, 17,000 students have earned certificates and degrees, and others have joined opportunities through workforce and our academic programs.

And so the success of our students is really remarkable.

and these successful lives create strong communities and there's so much to celebrate as part of our 50th anniversary and our strong community partnerships and I just wanted to mention one for example that last year we had just over 1,000 graduates and 32% of those graduates identified

this county as their home.

Another partnership we're very proud of is our dual enrollment program with our local high schools and by the numbers these students last year and their parents saved 1.1 million dollars in tuition which really allowed them to have that early college experience to either come to Piedmont and complete an associate's degree or a certificate or to transfer to a four-year institution

but we're really excited about these and other success stories.

I'm really fortunate that Dr. Friedman left the next strategic plan for us to create

and we'll be launching that planning process in October and we are committed to building on the successes that we have already in the community and look forward to your engagement and community engagement as we look to the future as well.

And I also wanted to thank you for your support.

The building is actually coming out of the ground and it was your contributions through local funds made this building possible.

and I truly believe that leadership begins by learning and listening and so I've been conducting discovery tours on the campus in the community to really inform who we are and set the stage for the future as well.

And so what we're doing is we're asking community members to complete a survey, of course there's a QR code, but also on our annual reports

which we'll leave with the clerk.

On the back is a QR code and we hope that you will also take a chance to complete the survey to really share more about what makes PVCC unique, what you value, the untapped opportunities

and how we can continue to support the community as well.

And so we remain committed to ensuring that we are the community's college and commit to serving the community's needs.

And so I just want to say I'm excited and honored to be here and I look forward to being part of the community.

Thank you, Dr. Runyon.

I'm sure that our board will have some comments so I will go around our order.

time educator.

I am certainly, as are the rest of, in fact, I think we're all educators on the board, but I am very much and very happy to have you on board.

Love your proactive stance.

I'm glad you're meeting with members of the community and going out and having community meetings.

I think you're going to do a great job and I think

PVCC is something that is really held up as an example of what we should be doing as far as a community college.

And frankly, I started out in a community college and then went on to get my bachelor's and master's degree.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I'd just like to thank you for your presentation.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome.

And I hope we will continue to partner with Piedmont Valley Community Colleges in the future.

It's a great asset to the community.

Thank you.

Well, I will reiterate welcome home and also I'm excited about even more work going forward on workforce because I know you've had construction academies and all the certificate programs that are underway now and look forward to that being expanded to meet the needs of our young people and our middle-sized people and our older folks who are changing careers.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway.

Thank you and welcome to the community.

I wish you the best of luck in your leadership role and PVCC is certainly a pillar in this community as I'm sure you're learning.

Thank you for coming and spending a few minutes with us today.

Thank you.

Welcome to our community and thank you for coming today.

When you look at the price of colleges, community colleges have a real place in this country these days.

And I just want to thank you for being here and to just say I attended the PVCC graduation this year.

and it was wonderful to see the diversity of the students both in age and gender and just the wide range of students that you have at PVCC.

It's just great and thank you very much.

I hope you will continue the partnership with Albemarle County Public Schools.

That's a winner.

Thank you and Dr. Runyon, thank you for you and your office reaching out and helping to arrange for your coming here today.

As the supervisor who represents the magisterial district in which the college is located, I'm extremely thankful to have you in Albemarle County and in the Scottsville district.

In just the six years that I've been here, I've been to so many events and performances at the college and really excited as we hopefully are moving out of the pandemic to be able to have more and more of those public engagements.

Your university, your college there is such a

a pillar, such a cornerstone of what we do here in our community and I thank you and your entire organization for what y'all do and again thank you for coming and taking your time this afternoon to present before us.

Thank you and thank you for the time today and I'm looking forward to our collaborations and 50 more years of excellence and impact.

Chair Price.

Yes, Mr. Richardson.

I also wanted to thank President Runyon for being here today several weeks ago at our Seize the Day event down in southern Albemarle County.

We had a number of community partners at that event and PVCC was very well represented that afternoon and as a result we talked with staff, Mr. Henry, myself, several staff members.

We will be going to see the new president here in a couple of weeks.

We have a meeting in her office.

and we're very excited about speaking with her and her staff about what our opportunities are for future collaborations between the college and Albemarle County government.

And so we're very excited about that.

In fact, you can see Mr. Henry in the back.

He's going to make sure that he introduces himself personally to President Runyon as she leaves this afternoon.

But we're very excited that she's here and we really appreciate their presence at the Seize the Day event.

Mr. Richardson, thank you.

And you know, actually, I forgot something.

PVCC has been recognized as the number one community college for veterans in the Commonwealth, not NOVA.

not up in Northern Virginia, not Tidewater.

I'm retired Navy, spent my last six, seven years down in Tidewater, but here in Central Virginia.

So that is a great feather in your cap, and we really do appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

So I'm going to turn you over now to Mr. Henry, President Runyon.

All right, board, we'll move on to item number 10, utility grade solar presentation.

Hello again.

I'm Bill Fritz, Community Development Office.

I'm here to talk to you today about utility grade solar.

Just to give you an overview of what I'm going to be doing is talk a little bit about the history, what we're doing now, the potential areas for improvement to review solar facilities, and our proposed approach and next steps.

So the history, 2017, the Board of Supervisors amended the ordinance to add solar energy systems to the rural areas by special use permits.

by special use permit.

At the time y'all did that, no specific regulations, no special review procedures or anything.

So they're reviewed just like any other special use permit with the provisions in Section 33.

So we amended the ordinance and we got applications.

Three have been approved.

Rivanna was the first one that was done in 2018, early 2018, 11 megawatts.

Eastern part of the county.

Midway also was done in 2021.

That's 8 megawatts.

It had 4 megawatts of battery storage.

And then the Ivy Municipal Center approved the same year as Midway.

That's a total of 3 megawatts.

Currently we have under review the Woodridge application.

That's in the southern part of the county and that's approximately 138 megawatts.

We just received new information on that so my numbers may be a little out of sync based on the revised application.

But that's under review.

So

During the review of these applications, we've received a number of comments and I've put some of the key ones here.

There are a lot of other ones, but the visual impact on agricultural land.

What do you do with decommissioning?

How do you restore the property?

Issues of stormwater management.

The environmental impacts of the equipment and there have been comments there about both on-site and involving the production of that equipment.

the maintenance of vegetation and the equipment on site and any mitigation techniques, screening, pollinators, plantings, all sorts of things.

Those are some of the issues we've identified already in the reviews.

So we see some opportunities for improvements to the review process and regulations that would be specific to solar energy systems.

and that would cover the process, the regulations and the review criteria.

This work is not included in the CDD work program, but we could add it to the zoning modernization initiative utilizing the team that we already have with the Berkeley group.

So what we're proposing is that we do that and that the consultant focus on what are the best practices.

Look at other localities and our own locality and what would be best practices.

Citing agreements, that's something that's provided for in the state code.

Should we do them?

How should we do them?

appropriate fees for the review of these applications.

What information should be submitted with the application?

Should there be performance standards?

How do we review the information that's been submitted?

And the state code also includes revenue share options for solar energy systems.

How should we implement those?

What should we do there?

And then, of course, potential ordinance amendments to incorporate all of these things.

So the next step is that we would return to the Board of Supervisors with an ROI and it would have a very detailed project scope, project timeline, engagement plan, how would the consultant engage with the county and with residents in the county and potential applicants in the county, and what are those resource needs in terms of budget impacts.

And so we would come back to you with all of that.

Thank you, Mr. Fritz.

We'll go through our order.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

No.

Thank you, Mr. Fritz.

All right.

Thank you.

Sure.

As evidenced by the fact that we now have four applications, three approved, it's likely that we'll receive more of these, and they are a somewhat specialized type of application.

They take up a lot of land, for example, and they are deserving of analyzing for special regulations and bringing a consultant on board would provide an expertise that staff

doesn't have right now and would take a lot of effort for us to develop.

So it would improve our review process.

As we develop the engagement plan, we'll bring that back with the ROI, so we'll give you all that.

Thank you.

I think you're well aware that for the last two years the Bay Coast has christened a new energy committee and Joe Lurch is the staff person.

I think we've been on many meetings together about that.

So there's a lot of work going on in counties already.

So I don't want to miss the opportunity to learn by what they've already done and then figure out how we can go forward.

And in the prospectus you have received from the consultants, what sort of experience have they had with this particular topic in Virginia?

I don't have all the information immediately coming to mind.

Charles Rapp may want to come up and answer that, but I'll give it a shot.

They specialize in Virginia planning, and they have worked in various localities within Virginia.

So in selecting them as a consultant, that was one of the things that we looked for before we even select them to do the modernization.

I see, okay.

Well, I'd love to know where they've been working.

That would be fun.

Charles Rapp.

The Berkeley group is our consultant for the zoning modernization project and they actually have a sub team that just does solar.

That's all they've done throughout the state.

They've assisted numerous localities with writing ordinances, with crafting procedures.

They even assist with review as a third extension of that locality if needed.

So they have a team that is

strictly dedicated to nothing but utility-scale solar applications throughout the state.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

Thank you, Mr. Fritz.

No questions.

Thank you.

Bill, I'm supportive of this, but I do have to ask because even though we would be utilizing a consultant, staff is still going to have to spend time and it's going to involve some work on your all's behalf.

Given the work plan.

We're juggling all of that around.

What we'll have to do is fold this into our zoning modernization work.

So we have our traditional zoning that we're working on.

This is in addition to that.

So that's why I brought in Bill Fritz.

I'm going to have to allocate a lot of his time towards this so that we can keep it going.

It's just going to add more to that modernization effort.

So it may slow some of the other elements down.

If you remember a year or two ago, we had presented the

how we're going to try and keep up with the comp plan.

And as we continue to add more to it, it slows that down a little bit.

So that's what we hope.

We'll try and flush that out when we come back with the ROI.

Yeah.

And I just think it's fair for us to all recognize, if we do this, that staff only has so much capacity.

Certainly.

And so much time.

So we need to be realistic.

Thank you.

But basically, I'm supportive.

And I think it's a great idea to hire a consultant.

Thank you.

Mr. Fritz, did you have something else to add?

No, I'm just happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

I have no questions.

I have a couple of comments.

Thank you, Mr. Fritz.

Thank you, Mr. Rapp.

Supervisor McKeel, I totally agree.

This is something that will go into our budget requirements.

We have four that have been identified.

I know personally from community members in the Scottsville Magisterial District of at least another three

where property owners have been contacted and are seriously considering some of these industrial level solar installations and that's just what I know of right now.

I'm sure there are others and I know there are others in other magisterial districts as well.

I think this is something we absolutely must do.

One of the complexities we always have to deal with is we at the county do not get to pick where we want things to take place.

Property owners get to do that.

I would hope that as part of our consideration we would consider including discussion of things like parking lots for solar installations.

Out west in many locations they are putting the shelters that you park under which provide both

and

above parking areas there, it would allow for the generation of electricity and not be taking some of our prime agricultural land.

Also, we don't have some of the remediation or restoration that comes up later.

So anything that we from the county can do that helps to pre-identify locations that would be ideal for these industrial installations not on farmland

I think would be to the long-term benefit of the county.

I totally support what you're doing, appreciate this.

I also appreciate the attachment in our materials that listed a number of the considerations that need to be taken into account.

Obviously, one of the things that I believe we have to look at, particularly given what we've experienced lately with inflation,

is any agreements that are made with regard to either income to the county or restoration has to be something that's adjustable every periodic period in order to make sure that we're not falling behind economically by locking ourselves in a long-term rate that over the years would be of very little economic value to us.

But thank you all very much for the work you've done.

As Mr. Richardson has told us, we can do anything, but we can't necessarily do everything.

But I think this is something we have to do.

Let me just piggyback on it.

It might be really good, Bill, to make a note about, for the consultants, reaching out to the schools.

And the reason I said that is because the schools are having a discussion right now about moving those 200 school buses off of the Lambs Lane Campus

and moving them to individual schools with solar coverings and parking them under solar coverings so that they can charge their electric vehicles.

So I would just throw that in the mix.

Thank you.

Last year, I think all landowners of more than 100 acres received a color glossy large format.

I wish I brought it.

request from somebody from out of state saying, oh we can bring you millions of dollars and call us and we'll do this and it really sent shivers through my spine because this is the kind of enticement of out of towner investors that is going to be happening more and more that we need to be ready.

Thank you.

Rooftops.

All right.

I just want to pig back a little bit.

I mean, we heard in the matters from the public the importance of our climate action plan and the relevance of utility scale solar to that climate action plan.

There have been studies that basically indicate that we need to bring this online as soon as we can.

I hope that we can offer carrots to make sure that

And I think Valerie did mention that she didn't see any connection with our climate action plan in this document.

I can't, Bill, are you still there?

That's why I was staying up here.

Sorry.

Obviously, as we're doing this work, we're going to be looking at the Comprehensive Plan, the Climate Action Plan, the state code.

We didn't put it in there because that's just in developing the regulations and the processes.

And the only thing I will add, not to be argumentative, but that climate has many, many approaches.

And if we go and cut down our forest that is sequestering carbon in favor of solar panels, we are having a net loss, or may be having a net loss.

Thank you.

All right, board, we'll move to item number 11, a work session on the FY 24 to 28 strategic plan draft review.

Ms.

Shiffley, good afternoon.

I'm not going to take that personally.

Good afternoon.

Kristi Shifflett, with the mask on particularly, you'll need to move that microphone a little closer.

Got it.

You're welcome.

I'll start again.

I'm Christy Shifflett, the Director of Performance and Strategic Planning.

I'm here today to go over with you the updated strategic plan draft for fiscal year 24 through 28.

We met in August

to talk about the draft proposed objectives, goals and objectives, and we've received your input and feedback on that.

And so today I wanted to go through updates that we made based on that.

So we start with our vision and we really focused on what does our vision statement say and how do we turn that into goals and objectives for our future work.

And you'll recall that we are really attempting to align our approach over the next five years.

We have many plans in our community that drive work and progress.

And we really want to connect those things better and be able to align that work.

And so this big picture thinking allows our services to remain adaptable as our community environment changes.

specifics about how we'll execute those strategies and objectives will be developed through the annual budget process.

So today, as I said, we're going to go through the edits that we've made based on your input and feedback.

And then we hope if we're able to move forward with the draft that you've received, we're going to move to a public engagement component where we've created a web page and a survey for our community members to be able to respond.

and get that input to then bring back to you in October for one more review and check-in to see if there's anything that we want to change or adapt.

And then that goes into our five-year, our long-range planning in November that really guides our financial planning.

and also the annual budget as you see.

So we are trying to be able to bring this to a close so that we can have the goals and objectives supported through our work and be able to create project plans and initiatives that align.

So in the new draft, you'll see we have added a preamble of our core values.

and that is to really, based on our conversation, to really focus an expectation that our values are intrinsic in our work.

And so that states that we expect diversity, equity and inclusion to be integrated into how we live our mission.

We value our customers and coworkers by always providing honest and fair treatment.

We embrace creativity and positive change.

We honor our role as stewards of the public trust by managing our natural human

and Financial Resources, respectively and responsibly.

And we encourage and support lifelong learning and personal and professional growth.

So as you'll see, what we also have done is we heard your comments about making this able to grab and have maybe shorter words and easier content.

And so what we've done is been able to summarize basically those six key goal areas.

And these are prior tests to fulfill our mission and our vision.

but you'll see in the middle we have workforce and customer service and that serves as a central hub because as a local government our staff are charged with fulfilling our mission to enhance the well-being and quality of life for all of our community members and without that workforce we can't provide that high-performing customer service or really many of the initiatives that are around that circle.

So what I'll do now is I'll go through each goal.

I'm going to give a little bit of input about what has changed or adapted based on the retreat that we had in the 24th.

So for the first one, we have safety and well-being.

We want to nurture a safe and healthy community.

This goal remains the same, mostly, except that we did move one item about climate action to a separate topic.

The next one is resilient and equitable community.

There was consensus on the need for climate action, pocket parks in our urban areas, and the importance of cohesiveness within our community.

There was general consensus on the need of separate grouping for items concerning equity.

What we've done is adapted this goal to support that information, and that equity work needed to be called out more specifically, as well as stream health and climate action.

The third goal remains much the same, but we've added a little bit of more information.

We called out our broadband programming to connect to the county-wide communications.

We also added some partners in the work around the long-range water and wastewater plans.

For the item on public works department, we talked a little bit more about determining the level and extent of those services to get to the improved performance and different service levels in our median areas.

And then implement long range plans to embrace multimodal connectivity.

and goal four, this has changed a little bit and so I just want to call out the different reasons why we've adapted it.

There was consensus on the proposal to refresh project enable and we also changed from implement housing goals to implement housing Albemarle.

the need for affordable housing, the need for pocket parks in urban areas, and the need for improved means of communication within our community.

There was consensus on the need to address policy surrounding land use and density, and there was also agreement on the importance of pad-ready site development, all things that we can move forward in developing in our project work as we start discussing the annual budget.

Overall there was consensus for more communication about our relationship with our school system.

And so we will work with the school board and the board of supervisors to have more information coming forward in our future discussions.

And then also there is the addition of KTEC, who is interesting to see PVCC here today represented.

And so we're calling out that partnership as well as UVA to advance our workforce pipeline, but we've added in KTEC as well.

So the last goal that we have is workforce and customer service.

Most of this remains the same, but there was consensus on the paramount importance of workforce stabilization through revisiting the county's compensation practices and benefits.

There's also agreement on a desire for dynamic customizable benefits packages And so we've called that out here as well as in our discussion about our generational differences the need for modernized business processes and technology to transform customer service demands

as well as the office space planning and employee wellness.

As we focus on customer service, we need to also be thinking about the office space and how we can change or might need to do that differently in the future based on our workforce.

All right.

Thank you, Ms.

Shifflett.

We'll go through our order.

At this time, I thought you did a really good job.

All right, thank you.

Yes, I think these updates are great.

I wish I'd been at the strategic planning retreat in person, because I think tremendous things happen from that.

There's one thing that I don't see quite on here, and I'd like to know if it's been considered, and that is something about fostering community and civic engagement and community building.

I see a lot in here that relates to community but not necessarily in that direct way of engagement with the community.

And then a small sort of knit comment I guess is in the enhancing overall access to parks and recreational opportunities with an emphasis on the development area, I was thinking about

For example, Biscuit Run, which is not technically in the development area, and wondering if it might be better to say with an emphasis on serving the development areas.

So we recognize that connectivity to the development areas is extremely important, while not necessarily saying that, and I think the pocket parts idea is great, but not necessarily saying that all of our efforts are going to be in the development areas, but that we're serving those areas predominantly.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for bringing this forward and the previous work meeting was so well done and generally I run screaming out of the room in my head about this kind of thing but that one was so completely engaging.

It was a wonderful experience.

I love the idea of workforce in the center because

Every single citizen and landowner in the county engages with the finance department, every single one, whereas only a very small percentage might engage with any of the other departments that are going on.

that visualization that you created was very clear and helpful.

All right, thank you.

So in goal three, and I think I like that bullet three, is it possible to put goal three on?

Yes.

Because I know this part of this wording in bullet three is what I, some of the comments I made at the retreat.

I think the,

And I'm sure it's not going to get lost.

So I should just avoid and not wordsmith.

But I see the public rights away and the maintenance of those as something that obviously is in motion.

I mean, we won't be hiring.

And I don't know the timeline for the street sweeper.

But I mean, that stuff's going to come online next year.

So it's important to have that in there.

I don't want or my hope would be that that effort

and other infrastructure of public use gets lost or overshadows the creation or the need to create a public works department.

So I think we have it here.

In spirit, I don't know if that bullet point captures it for me.

So that's why I'm bringing up the comment.

I would think that we're all recognizing a public works department is necessary, not just because of weeds in the right way, but because of other things that are going to be needed.

And we're analyzing it from that perspective to go, all right,

Here's the reasons we need a public works department.

Here's the scope of what that department would look like.

And here are the x, y's and z's of how we came up with that scope.

So hopefully there's sub-bullet points that will get at all those details.

I just don't want it to get lost that we're just trying to get weeds out of the right away.

Although I would be thrilled with that when that happens.

I'm just going to react to, I know that Goal 2 has climate resilient community, but it's where we also say an equitable community and it does seem like, for good reason, there's a lot of climate initiative stuff in there.

So I don't want the equity, you know, it says and equity into programs and services that we should just recognize that there are compelling bullet points for that too, not just climate related.

And I'm not

Disagreeing with Supervisor Andrews' statement, because I understand the sentiment behind it, but I do not want to lose saying serving the development community to me doesn't get done what providing it in the development area is all about.

Biscuit Park, Walnut Creek, Chris Green, all serves everybody regardless of where you live.

But the point is,

is if somebody living in the development area would like to enjoy something like that at 7.30 at night when there's 30 minutes of daylight left, they can't go out to those places, and there should be places in the development area for them to go to.

So that, I think, is the distinction between it.

So I think it's an add-on to Supervisor Andrews' comments.

But that's something my CAC in particular talks about, that there's nowhere for teenagers to go

play ball or pick up a game of basketball or just go do something in a physical way that's not having to plan to go out to the hinterlands to enjoy an outdoor space.

So that's important to me that we capture that in the strategic plan.

All right.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Christy, in general, I think this is a great job.

You sort of captured our discussion.

I'm like a couple of the other supervisors, so I don't want to seem like I'm nitpicking.

Goal one and goal two, I'm fine with those.

and actually goal three as well.

Goal four, getting a little bit about what Ned was talking about.

When we have an emphasis on the development area in the past, what that has been is an emphasis on all the new developments, right?

I would like to see something referencing the older urban areas or the urban areas because those areas have gotten lost in all of the new development.

Help me here if I am making sense, but when we have an emphasis on the development area that certainly the urban areas are in the development area often but not always.

I have older urban areas that are in the rural, but they're right in the middle of practically Barracks Road and Georgetown Road.

I'm just saying.

With an emphasis on the development area, I guess I'm looking forward to trying to be clearer.

Urban, I don't know how you wordsmith it.

but I just don't want this to all be about all the new proposals in the development area.

I'm still a little fuzzy about refresh.

That seems to me to still, and I think I mentioned this before and maybe it's just me, we have project enable.

I understand it.

We need to look at it again and see how it better fits.

But I think the word refresh kind of is working.

Well, I think that with the plan being five years old, the plan was adopted in 2017, there could be a better word to capture what we're looking for.

But really, I think it's just like with this plan being a five-year plan with our CIP being a five-year plan, I think the intention, Supervisor McKeel, is for our staff to look for alignment,

to the strategic plan.

Also, we've been through two years of the pandemic.

Also, our community is transforming.

Roger Johnson and his team's work is different today than it was three or four years ago.

I'm looking at Mr. Walker to make sure that he has nothing else that he would like to add.

So, refresh may not be the word, but it's really to go in and make sure that it's not a five-year-old plan, but rather it is an updated plan.

Yeah, and I get that, and I understand, I guess, the choice of the word refresh, but I'm looking to, for Project Enable, to better integrate that into our work, right?

We just received the EDA yesterday, received the list of properties that we now have that are available for development and I'm just trying to get at how

to emphasize I'd love to be getting an economic development review or comments on every proposal we have.

I'm just trying to figure out how to word this better and get away from the word refresh and get economic development more integrated into our work rather than just going through and refreshing that.

I think that's excellent feedback.

I'm looking to make sure that other board members are okay.

We'll go back and we'll reconsider the word refresh and I'm hearing from you more integration.

You know we have been really successful.

The EDA has done great work and somehow or another while we have a lot of press releases that go out and we have a lot of work going on, a good portion of our community I think has missed that work.

and maybe that's what I'm getting at here when I'm trying to say if we can utilize the strategic plan somehow or another to integrate more for our community what we're really doing in economic development and the reasons for it and I don't know how to get at all that.

So that and the urban area or older urban areas and then

I think goal five is great.

I appreciate the KTEC edition.

That's great.

And goal six, these bullets are all things that we have talked about, we need to do, and I agree with every one of them.

I don't see, help me here with where we could get at

Looking at recruitment and retention of our employees through a different lens besides just compensation, like childcare.

Something that's innovative, because I really think that would set us apart if we could look at a way to stabilize our workforce through an innovative

that makes us highly competitive.

And so there's lots of things that fits under that.

And I think your idea of employer incentivized child care is an example of something that in the future we'll bring back.

But I think in a high level strategic plan, board members, what we don't want to do is get too far down in the weeds with the specifics because that's going to be, this document is going to be connected to our budget.

and it's going to come back to you.

You're going to see us try to connect to the budget with data that suggests we think this is a good idea and why.

And so your idea, you mentioned childcare, that may be the best idea that we can visit with 50% of our workforce having kids that are school age or younger.

But we're just not there yet.

We need more time to be able to determine

And that's the way we all think about it.

And so you're looking at a broader lens with this.

So that makes me feel better.

Okay.

That I'm happy.

Okay, thanks.

And yeah, that's the way I understood it was the structure.

When I was in the Navy, every year we'd get a total compensation package analysis which covered everything from the cost of our healthcare, the cost towards our retirement, all of those sorts of things.

And I've talked about the smorgasbord.

of America.

I totally support the conversations that relate to enhancement of accessibility and availability of recreational facilities within the development area not limited to new development.

Rio, Jack Jouett in particular, as well as part of all of our urban ring, all need more of that.

And Supervisor Galloway, totally agree.

Biscuit Run, Walnut Creek, whatever it may be, it's great if you live out in the rural area of the county, but if you're in the urban area, you can't get out there that afternoon.

So we need more of these recreational facilities closer in.

Totally agree with Goal 6, and we've talked about the total compensation structure.

and I'm not suggesting that you add what I'm getting ready to say, but in my mind I would say board, I would add another bullet under goal six applicable to the board of supervisors and that is that we keep in mind our role is to vote and set policy and then we have a county executive, two deputies and a county attorney who execute that.

and that we remind ourselves of our operational guidelines, which is we can raise questions to our county executive leadership and they direct and manage staff.

in getting things done.

That's not really our role.

So we have to remember our role, set policy, vote, and then have the implementation come through the county executive.

Now we all recognize that there are short-term situations where we need something, for example, in preparation for a board meeting, and obviously our rules allow us to send emails to county staff, always ensuring we copy

our leadership team on it, but remember that county staff, our leadership

manages and assigns tasks to county staff, not us, because if we're not careful, we are interrupting and interfering with that work relationship, which impacts our quality workforce.

I know as a commanding officer or department head and the division officer in the Navy, I didn't want someone outside of my chain of command coming and telling my subordinates what they needed to get done.

We've got to remember that the chain of command applies to us as well.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Shifflett.

I think this is a great presentation.

Any other comments by any other supervisors?

No?

The sort of aspect of mental health that we have talked about during the ... This does not belong on the list, but I know it's in there somewhere, but I'll just leave it for you to think about.

It combines all of those different things we have talked about, the availability of passive recreation spaces.

access to all the quality of life issues that we're talking about.

But a lot of communities are focusing a lot on the arts, all different kinds of arts, physical as well as visual, all that, as a way to help people all across their spectrum of residence.

achieve a higher level of quality of life and mental health.

I'll just leave that thought with you and maybe somewhere on the way down the bullets we start to include those.

I would really support that.

The arts, to include communities, are using it for traffic calming.

You may have been getting ready to say something.

No, that's fine.

Before you do that, and I feel the board wrapping this topic up, and I apologize for doing this, but I want to go back to Supervisor Andrews' comments.

He came out of the gate and he spoke first, and I didn't do a good job of active listening to him speaking about our

interactions and our work with the community that we serve.

And could you could you go back over that and say that again because I want to make sure that we captured what you said because we didn't make any comment on it and we didn't speak we didn't really speak to it.

Thank you.

Yes, as I read this and thought about it, I guess I'll come from the perspective of someone who has chosen to run for this office as a service to the community and recognizing our community engagement and the importance of it and the importance of civic engagement.

What we can do as a community to ensure that I think is invaluable service to our future.

I appreciate the feedback.

What I would suggest to the board, if the board is so inclined, is to let us take that guidance back from Supervisor Andrews, let us go back through the six goals, and let us make sure that we can come to the board as we go out for public comment and show that we're connected in a clear and consistent way.

because I think that's a, and certainly if Ms.

Kilroy or Ms.

Shifflett have anything to say to guide this, I don't want to manipulate the conversation here, but it's a real cornerstone of Albemarle County government is the connection to the community and I want to make sure that we don't accidentally miss that with this effort.

Mr. Richardson, first off, I want to commend CAPE, the Community and Public Engagement Office, for what they have done with the van and the way we are constantly communicating, connecting with members of our community.

I think that has been done exceptionally well.

What we hear periodically, and I'm not in any way trying to point fingers at anyone, you know, there's always the five percent, the phrase we've often heard,

What we hear periodically is people who, late in the process of a particular application, seem to become aware of it.

And it doesn't matter what it is, what we heard earlier today with the Tower, what we've heard with the Southern Convenience Center.

I mean, any possible application out there, there seems to always be some segment of the community that, relatively small, I believe in gross numbers, that doesn't get the word.

Part of that goes back to the challenge that everyone today is facing is that there is more information available but it's harder to find it than it used to be when you have one newspaper and three TV channels.

Everything was located in those places.

I don't know exactly all the ways the county is able to get information out.

But I want to be very clear and commend our community and public engagement individuals and the work they have done while still acknowledging and recognizing that there are other ways that perhaps we have not been as successful in getting the information out as we may have liked it to be.

So thank you.

And may I just add one little bit of history tidbit back in the 80s and 90s and probably it disappeared in the 05 range.

There was the Albemarle Neighborhood Association, which was a group for communication.

There was a representative from every neighborhood, and now there are probably 300 neighborhoods.

Back then, I think there were 80.

They met a couple of times a year, but it was a way to share information.

through a sort of tree of information going out.

I just wanted to have that awareness so that there may be some element of that that could be revived with something each of us probably tries to do in our own jurisdictions and districts.

There used to be, as I said, meeting in this room a couple of times a year that was a way to share things.

And it preceded, of course, the advisory committees that we have now.

All right, thank you.

Supervisor Andrews, did you have something?

Just an additional comment.

This is a very broad topic.

I understand that.

But I also want to remind the board that we have, I never know how to number dozens of committees and other ways in which community is engaged.

And we've been concerned about our communications and work with those residents who have volunteered their time.

And so I think this also comes under the same heading.

I would just tie the conversation back to the last meeting and the ability to search information on our website.

I know we're working on that.

I think it's probably easier to find current information than the archive stuff.

While I appreciate that we can do everything we can to push things out, there will always be folks that the last, oh, I didn't hear about this.

What is this 11th hour type thing?

But if they're able to go and find the information and that information has the whole history connected to it,

I'm just saying the easier it is for them to do that, the easier it will be for them to accept that, oh, it's not 11th hour.

Good point.

All right, Board, we have a very busy evening.

So if I could propose if Mr. Richardson, if you're available to do your county executive report now, then let's go ahead and do that.

Could Ms.

Shifflett wrap up?

Oh, I'm sorry.

We're cutting you off.

I want to check in on one thing.

So we were planning to provide, like I said, a web page with this draft for our community to engage on and give some input.

I've taken notes on all of your comments, and I really appreciate, even if you felt it might have been in the weeds, that's really good for us to hear as we work with department heads and our executive leadership on building out next year's plan.

What are the things that we need to do to connect to that?

And so that's my intention, that that won't be lost.

But what I do need to ask is, is there anything about the current, because I heard input, we can make updates.

Mr. Richardson said we'll take some things back, think about it, and present maybe a different solution.

All right, let's go through real quick just to make sure I don't miss anybody.

I'm not really seeing anything.

I don't mind having the public look at it and then react afterwards.

I did want to make a comment regarding what Supervisor Malek said.

I think it's incumbent upon us as supervisors to meet with our groups, different HOAs and communities in their respective areas.

I certainly wouldn't put it on

have meetings in the auditorium where people come in there and that takes up staff time, resources, et cetera.

I've heard a lot of pretty good feedback today and I hope it's been very fairly clear even if it's not precise of what kinds of things we are concerned about.

I wouldn't want to have this just taken as is without considering what changes might

Okay, so what I'm asking is that we would take the next 30 days or so to take your comments and your input that you gave us today, look at our current draft, make some possible small changes.

I didn't hear anything that was a large change.

A few word choices, a little bit of inclusion.

We can do that in parallel with asking the public what they think about it.

That's what I'm asking.

Are you okay with us moving forward, asking the public to give input on the current draft as you've received it while we make updates?

I trust you more than you realize.

I would like you to take a stab at what we've discussed, but I don't feel the need that it be discussed again with the Board before you engage the public.

I see a lot of affirmation around the table, so I'm going to step in here and basically

unless we have board members redirect that we're going to take back what you said today, we're going to make those changes in the plan and then we're going to go out to the public for feedback and then we'll come back to this board for a final check-in after that process is over.

And I appreciate Christie's active listening because we would not have known that unless you would have told us today that you needed to tell us that it's okay to go to the public with this feedback today and then we'll come back one more time after that's over.

Supervisor Galloway?

I'm all set as well.

Supervisor McKeel?

And I'm good as well.

All right.

Now, without cutting you short, thank you, Ms.

Shifflett.

Yes, ma'am.

I will.

Thank you, Chair Price, and thank you, members of the board.

really appreciate this opportunity to be here today.

Am I gonna forward the slides?

You are, you've got it, okay.

Thank you, Emily, I'm sorry, I apologize.

So this is the report for September 2022 and a lot of staff time, a lot of staff work to try to pull this report together in a meaningful way, members of the board, for our community to recognize the work that we do

each and every day, and each month is just a snapshot.

And I would suggest to this board, and I hope it doesn't surprise you, that there is many things that we miss and that we just don't catch to bring to your attention that some of you know about, and then after the fact we miss it.

But we do our best to pull this together from a timeliness standpoint.

Earlier today we briefly mentioned the Seize the Day event.

We did that when PVCC was here.

The county again supported this year's sixth annual Seize the Day event.

The goal for this event was to provide a free fun day for veterans, active duty, active and inactive reserve, guard their families in Albemarle and surrounding communities.

There were outdoor activities, there were water activities, a bounce house, games for the children, demonstrations, touch the truck,

Police and Fire, our public safety partners were there, tables with information from organizations that support and provide opportunities for veterans.

Citizens, community members were parked all the way out past the entranceway into Walnut Creek Park.

Our mobile engagement hub was there giving out snow cones, inviting veterans and families to respond to a prompt, how can Albemarle County become a place where everyone can thrive,

over 220 people on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

So this event was well attended, sixth annual, and I think it's just gaining momentum every single year.

And I do really appreciate the Parks and Recreation staff that day.

I saw a lot of Parks and Recreation staff and family members who were there working that day to serve our community, and I'm so proud of each and every one of them.

National Preparedness Month is observed each September to raise awareness around the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies that could happen at any time.

We encourage everyone to take some time to prepare themselves, their families, their homes, and ultimately their community.

We've collected some resources

for you to share with your family and neighbors so that we can all work towards a more resilient Albemarle County.

Please follow Albemarle County Fire Rescue on social media or check our website to check these resources.

If you have not already signed up for Code Red at communityemergency.org, please do so.

This emergency alert system will keep you aware of potential emergencies that are in your area.

Board, you are full aware that following public service and social media announcements about back to school safety and some monitoring of roadways around schools, our Albemarle County Police Department has conducted two targeted enforcement days to address driving behaviors.

On August 31st, over four hours, six officers initiated 49 stops, 59 summons.

The most common summons was speeding.

This is an ongoing initiative traveling to different school zones throughout our county.

It's really important that our public and that the board please help our public to understand that if you see a concern on a roadway around a school or anywhere else, you call the non-emergency line.

434-977-9041, we track all of those reports to identify hotspots and adjust resources accordingly.

And of course, if it's an emergency situation, call 911 for immediate service.

So we appreciate that cooperation.

and that way to be able to collect this information.

I got a report today that was just too late to put in this report to the board where the police department conducted another series of traffic-related focus stops within the last several days.

Approximately 40 individuals from Albemarle County Fire Rescue, Charlottesville Fire Department, Richmond Fire Department, Stony Point Volunteer Fire Company, Seminole Trail Volunteer Fire Department, Crozet Volunteer Fire Department, Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad,

Albemarle County Local Government, Charlottesville Sheriff's Office, and the general public came together at Monticello High School to participate in a stair climb on September the 11th, Sunday, September the 11th to honor the lives of all of those that were lost on September 11th, 2001.

Individuals climbed 2,071 steps and that symbolized the 110 flights that first responders climbed and ascended.

in each World Trade Center tower.

The group had a minute of silence at 846 when the first tower was struck and began their climb at 847 when responding units arrived there 20 years ago.

Of the 343 firefighters who gave their lives were carried by the participating individuals.

After completing their stair climb, a bell was rung to symbolize their final call.

Bagpipers commemorated the morning with a moving rendition of Amazing Grace.

The event was organized by ACFR firefighter Suzanne Herndon.

Summer has been a very busy season for Facilities and Environmental Services Department.

which manages the county's capital construction projects.

Over the summer months, over 88 million in planning, design, and construction projects were managed by facilities planning and construction team.

Pictured here are two safety projects that support pedestrians.

On the left, a multi-use path that connects all of the schools located off Lambs Lane, and on the right, a sidewalk project on Rockfish Gap Turnpike and Crozet with pedestrian crossing of Route 250.

Our comprehensive plan project, KC44, continues through phase one, Plan for Growth.

This month, there has been a series of opportunities to shape the so-called big ideas that will ultimately guide future phases, policy development, and action steps.

We've hosted two virtual roundtables and two in-person roundtables with 115 people participating from across the county.

The in-person events were at the county office building and also at Yancey Community Center.

1,300 people have reviewed our online materials.

We've also produced a Community Voices podcast where 10 community members shared their perspectives on the major topics of the AC44 work.

Listen to Let's Talk Albemarle on your favorite podcast platform.

The big ideas we're exploring are to be a community that is welcoming and equitable, connected and accessible, thriving and prosperous, green and resilient.

The county is sponsoring a community art project that is called Unsettling Grounds and that is through the Office of Equity and Inclusion and also with partnership with the Economic Development Office.

This project is also supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

There is currently a call for artists with local connections to work on the project, which will include a residency to develop a site-specific virtual augmented reality project around

Recovering Hidden Histories, viewable along the Broadway corridor.

This project connects the Community Remembrance Project and the Broadway Blueprint.

Information about the project is available at unsettlinggrounds.com.

September has been our transition board, as you know.

back to in-person meetings of boards and commissions.

Pictured here are two scenes from yesterday's Economic Development Authority meeting.

The left is from room 241 and the right is what it looked like to 12 individuals join the meeting virtually.

We'll be collecting feedback in October and continuing to refine operationalizing the new meeting procedures.

Supervisor Andrews earlier mentioned that Community Day at Simpson Park is coming on Saturday, October the 1st.

Returning this year will be this Community Day at Simpson Park.

The event attracted several hundred attendees last year.

Simpson Park is located in Esmont, across the road from Yancey Community Center.

We'll have sports, crafts, food.

And new this year, we will end the day with Movie in the Park, featuring

and Kento, we hope that you will join these folks down there for a fun day of fellowship.

It's always fun when we go down there.

On Thursday, September the 29th, from 6 until 730, we'll be hosting a panel discussion Q&A on the county's climate vulnerability and risk assessment report.

The event will begin with an overview of the report's key takeaways followed by panel discussion,

with local experts to help contextualize these themes with the daily lives of our community members.

We will close with an outline of next steps in preparing for resilience including the community engagement process to help develop a climate

Adaptation Resilience Plan.

This is the county's first true hybrid community event where attendees can be in person or virtual on the live event.

I'll remind our public that the climate vulnerability report is available on our website, www.albemarle.org backslash climate.

Jeff, I'm sorry, but can you repeat the date for that again?

September, it's Thursday, September the 29th.

6 until 730 p.m.

Thank you for the questions, Board.

Our Albemarle County Police Department joined partners in the University Police Department, Charlottesville Police Department, and the Sheriff's Office to raise funds for Special Olympics at two area Wawa stores this month by covering our cruisers $1,800 in cash and more than that in credit card payments were raised to support this cause.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of our men and women across county government that reach to our community just like this every single day.

And it's just amazing.

Albemarle County Fire Rescue raised $3,000 this year for Next Rung, a nonprofit that provides free mental health services to first responders and their family members.

We had over 50 people take turns at our rowers, including first responders.

career and volunteer, county employees, ECC dispatchers, hospital personnel, community members, all came out.

Our career first responders included departments ACFR, CFD, Prince William, Stafford, Orange, Louisa, and the District of Columbia.

So very proud of these folks.

The green shirts on the right are from ACFR's workout shirt for September.

And it is for Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.

I'm close to wrapping up.

Thank you, board, for your time this afternoon.

Today is the 31st annual United Way Day of Caring, and this photo is from the kickoff ceremony this morning.

The event is such an amazing demonstration of the caring community we have.

1,600 volunteers are working on projects across Charlottesville and Albemarle County today to address maintenance and beautification projects that will support the nonprofits, community organizations, and schools that provide critical services to our community.

The county is directly benefiting from the service of 25 volunteers from the University Health System who are working in the Yancy Community Center Garden today.

Also, we have a second group of volunteers, 20 people, that are doing trail building out at the future Biscuit Run Park.

Less visible but also important is workforce stabilization efforts that are underway.

Let me take a second to update the board.

The county's first comprehensive compensation and class study is well underway.

This is a way to understand how our jobs rank, how they stack up in the market, so that we can evaluate changes that might be needed.

This effort was funded in the FY23 budget with this board's support.

Another effort underway is a piece of the larger business process optimization work, and that is to bring on an online HRIS.

Human Resources Information System, which gives us modern tools to manage our workforce from recruiting and onboarding, professional training and development, benefits, all the way to off-boarding.

We're going to launch this October the 1st for recruitment and to shortly follow with additional modules for our staff.

And this is going to help us board with tools, pulling data, and doing better reports for the board, as you have talked about recently.

Board earlier when Ms.

Shifflet was in here, she talked about our core values.

And one of our five core values, Board, is learning.

We encourage and support lifelong learning.

We have adult workers in our workforce and we want them to continue to be lifelong learners for professional growth and personal growth.

Here are several examples.

Far left is Mr. Trevor Henry and myself earlier this week in Columbus, Ohio at our national ICMA event.

4,200 city and county managers from across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

We attended classes over about three and a half days on emergency management, public safety, leadership best practices, volunteerism, veteran advisory events, advisory and committee events, workforce stabilization,

How to align your boards and commission to your strategic planning work?

How leaders can connect better?

How we can foster civility with appointed and elected officials?

How can we build a more resilient community?

How we can create a more inclusive and diverse culture?

and so on and so on.

But it was an excellent opportunity for us to be there.

We had two more staff who were attending virtually and we will have an opportunity to share what we've learned with the website open until the end of the year.

On the right is a photo of many women in county and regional government from central Virginia.

We have two employees, Emily Kilroy and Nelsie Birch, from our leadership team that are participating in the first cohort of the Virginia Women's Municipal Leadership Institute.

It's a leadership development program created

through Virginia Women Leading Government and in partnership with Virginia Tech.

So they're trying to expand the network of women in leadership roles in local government.

Very proud for us to have two people from our organization in this initial cohort.

They have been meeting across the Commonwealth since March.

Last week, they were in Albemarle County.

Our staff hosted a mixer after a day and a half of learning, and that's what's pictured here.

So we also recently went to the code building right next door in downtown Charlottesville.

We took our entire leadership team.

That's the picture on the bottom left corner.

We toured the entire code building in small groups looking at a platinum LEED certified building, sustainable building right across the way here.

It was a fantastic tour.

and we're learning about space using cutting edge concepts and we really learned a lot that day as we look at our own buildings and try to learn and look for the opportunities that we have to be smart with the space that we have and to really, really highlight the need for sustainability.

Board last slide, I'll wrap up by sharing with the board

A wonderful letter that we received from a citizen earlier this week and she was talking about commending one of our officers, Bailey Legge, who was sent to follow up on a single car accident.

and the Citizen's Neighborhood.

It was caused by a medical incident.

No one injured.

The car needed to be towed.

Bailey was cordial, compassionate, understanding as she handled the situation.

She could not have been more helpful or professional.

Officer Legg is a real credit to the Albemarle County Police Department.

Please pass along my comment of thanks to her.

I just want to tell this board that

Many people don't take time to thank our staff because they just do good work and they move on because they're busy.

But when they do, we're going to try really hard to capture this and to share it with the board because we do things right most of the time.

And I couldn't be more proud of our staff.

So, Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and to share so much of what's going on as we connect to the community that we serve.

Thank you.

That was quite a report.

Board, I'm going to ask that we double two things here, if you don't mind.

Any questions or comments to Mr. Richardson?

And let's do our committee reports and everything we normally do at the end of the meeting.

So Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, if you'll cover both of those.

Thank you very much Mr. Richardson for that very comprehensive report and I don't doubt whatsoever the staff is doing a fantastic job and I commend you and all the executive staff and everybody frankly for doing a job well done.

And thank you for this excellent report.

I'm really impressed with all that gets done and how well it's put together.

I had put my little list of events and I did mention that it was National Preparedness Month and I'm glad to see that on there.

I'll also add that it's Sickle Cell Awareness Month and the Red Cross is looking for blood donors and this is an important time to remember that, September.

This is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States.

Okay.

And I guess I will bring up that Chair Price and I both were, I think you were there, at a discussion, or maybe you missed, sorry, discussion of traffic concerns in possibly coming in keen with the Southern Convenience Center and got some really good sense that VDOT is going to submit some requests

Thank you.

Thank you for the wonderful report because there's so much going on that we don't know about.

The only update I have is the State Workforce Board is meeting at the Omni next week, so all of the Richmond folks will be coming here and spending a couple of days in our area.

We hope to send them out to see the beauty and fun of what's going on here in the evening the second day.

will certainly be putting in continual work to focus our attention on training people who need new jobs, training young people to know what work is all about, and all those different expenses.

Sarah Morton, who is the director of our Workforce Center, will be

opening the meeting with a presentation of all the Pathways programs and things that she's begun here in the last year.

Thank you very much.

I will let you know.

All right, thank you.

Supervisor Galloway.

Mr. Richardson, the Code Red, the site that you, the website again, you had mentioned a website or a name for it.

And I didn't capture what it was after Code Red.

You can sign up for Code Red at communityemergency.org.

Thank you for that.

And I really appreciate the report, a great report.

Relative to committee items, it's just at the last meeting I had forwarded, or David Blount had forwarded, some stuff on the Blue Ridge cigarette tax.

I forwarded that information.

And then I believe Nelsie even added that there'll

Oncoming reports specific to our locality and our I'm presuming that'll be on consent I forget the time frame, but I just wanted to make sure everybody Did see that that came over.

Thank you for the really informative report, and I appreciate you sharing the good things that our residents send in, so that's great.

I will say that I, Jeff, have had over the last couple of weeks several, probably more than the word several represents, conversations with community members who have gone out of their way to express thanks.

for how well run county government is and the work that we're doing.

And I think for the most part they really have been recognizing that everybody's struggling for employees, we all have vacant positions, but that we're really, that Albemarle County is really trying to get the work done and move through.

Thank you for that.

And I guess that is all I had.

The ACRJ I announced this morning, so that's great.

And I guess that's it.

All right, thank you.

Mr. Richardson, that was an incredible report.

That was so much data.

I mean, that really was an incredible report.

I believe our own Deputy County Executive, Mr. Henry, participated in that stair climb in his own understated way.

He would never publicly acknowledge that he did that, but I really appreciate that's just another example of county leadership being involved in the community.

Speaking of the community, from Columbine to Uvalde, our nation has been tormented with school shootings

beyond what anyone should ever comprehend.

And we just in the last week had a couple of incidents of swatting where people called in fake claims of school shootings, shooter in progress.

And I want to thank publicly our police,

and our first responders for their prompt reaction there.

But I also want to say I saw a couple of comments on social media that were critical of police by their responding and increased the anxiety of the students.

And I'm thinking, are you kidding me?

I mean, compared to what happened in Uvalde where there has been

legitimate criticism of law enforcement for not responding.

Our law enforcement was there in the building immediately to take care of a problem.

Now, as it turned out, it was just swatting and it wasn't an actual shooting, but they didn't know that going in.

So I want to say once again, thank you Albemarle County Police, first responders,

for walking into danger to take care of us and protect us.

I do believe we're going to go into closed session.