Economic Development Authority Meeting   10/20/2020

We'll have the next time we'll start a little early for Zoom training and Stuart can lead this discussion.

So I think we've got everybody.

Roger, I guess, is not going to be here today.

So why don't we go ahead and get started and

Okay.

All right.

Right.

Do you have the preamble?

Oh, I see it.

No, I've got it.

J.T.

or somebody put it up.

Notwithstanding any provision in the EDA bylaws to the contrary, as permitted under Albemarle County's Continuity of Government Ordinance adopted on June 17, 2020, Chapter 1283 of the 2020 Acts of the

General Assembly enacted into law on April 24, 2020, and the resolution of this body adopted on April 21, 2020, we are holding this meeting by real-time electronic means with no authority member physically present at this single central location.

All authority members are participating electronically.

This meeting is being held in accordance with Section 6 of the County's Continuity of Government Ordinance.

All authority members will identify themselves and state their general physical location by electronic means during the roll call vote, which we will hold next.

The public has real-time audio-visual access to this meeting over Zoom and real-time audio access over telephone, both as provided in the Lawfully Posted Meeting notice.

The public is always invited to send questions, comments, and suggestions to the authority through the county's Economic Development Office at any time.

This meeting is being recorded and will be made available on the county's website.

Yeah, I'll do it.

And we have a new member of Mr. McNaughton.

Present, Albemarle County.

And Ms. McKeel.

Not a problem.

Thank you, sir.

We'll do a little introduction here since you're joining us.

Kat joined us last meeting so I think what we'll do is do a little quick introduction of everybody, say sort of what they do during their day jobs.

I'm Don Long, I'm a lawyer at Flora Pennant, and I am the chairman of the authority, and I've been on the authority for probably five years, I think, five or six, something like that.

I'm George Ray.

I am a broken down real estate developer in Omaha County exclusively.

Let's see.

So why don't we do the rest of the board members.

Sure.

I'm Stuart Munson.

Dave, how about you?

David Shreve.

I represent Jack Jewett District on the authority.

I'm a former

Kat, you're up.

I'm a double who from University of Virginia in Urban and Environmental Planning, currently Senior Conservation Fellow for the Pima Environmental Council, and I've had a long history of sort of land conservation, historic preservation work in and out of the area.

Happy to have you aboard.

Thank you.

And then we have several folks from Albemarle County.

Doug Walker and Deputy County Executive did have an opportunity to get to know Steve a little bit through the initial orientation.

So it's nice to see you again.

Good to see you too.

J.T.

Yeah, hey Steve.

We met during our EDA orientation last week for my day job.

Okay.

Jim.

Jim Bowling, I'm a lawyer in town.

Steve, I'm Richie DeLoria.

I'm with the county attorney's office.

And I do a variety of things.

But if there's any questions or anything, anything I can do to help, just shoot me an email or give me a call.

And I apologize for missing the orientation.

I was on vacation.

That's a good reason.

It was.

Yeah, I'm Steve McNaughton.

I am a graduate of the university.

I run an investment firm called Reed Wealth and I'm originally from Long Island, but I've been in Charlottesville for the better part of 20 years.

Great.

Welcome aboard.

All right.

So next on the agenda is the approval of the minutes.

Yeah, I'd like to thank you, Chairman Long.

I'd like to just make a few comments and no criticism for past practices, but

I'd like to encourage us maybe to have slightly more detailed minutes going forward.

I feel really strongly about being appointed by the Board of Supervisors and being a public group that we need to have as much transparency as we can.

Not asking to amend this set of minutes, but just would note, from our last conversation, for example, when we were having, Mr. Johnson was talking about the LIFT local business grant program, we had a, I thought a good conversation about

how nonprofits are also businesses and that maybe we should spend some time in the future looking and understanding more the nonprofit sector as part of the big pie of what keeps the engine running locally.

And then when we were having the conversation about the Albemarle Business Campus, there were some really good comments raised again about things like in the future, the design of the building,

Pedestrian bike connection, a good back and forth about what will be the need longer term for A1 office building space.

And then under other matters, I'd raise the hope that eventually we would have a chance to be briefed on the climate action plan, which was just adopted by the board of supervisors last week, and which I think has a lot of bearing for climate ready communities and businesses are looking for climate ready communities.

And also there was a brief conversation about

Maybe we could spend some time looking at other business sectors, including the leading sector in Virginia, which is agriculture and forestry.

So I just would like to capture that in the next set of minutes and encourage us to have a little bit more detail provided.

I don't think we can always rely or lean on Supervisor McKeel to carry all our comments forward to the board.

Okay.

I would just, from a staff perspective, acknowledge the interest.

That's the EDA's interest.

And I think that we would want to do our due diligence to understand what the implications are for being able to meet that on a regular consistent basis.

And so that we are meeting the expectations of the EDA.

I'm just not sure what the implications are from a staff perspective.

Well, and I might note, you may also want to check in with the Board of Supervisors since we serve at their pleasure.

I can certainly ask them.

And I can say just from the perspective, and I'm not disagreeing with anything Kat has said or Doug, I will say that the decisions that the EDA make eventually go to the Board of Supervisors and so

I think it's fair to say that while I'm sure that they wouldn't object to more detailed minutes, I've not, Kat, heard anyone in the years that I've been here mention more detailed minutes or anything.

Just saying.

Not that we couldn't do that.

But my sense is that Roger and J.T.

keep the Board of Supervisors pretty well informed on what's happening with the EDA.

but I do think that there were some things that were brought up at the last meeting that could have included in the minutes.

I agree with you on that.

Yeah.

All right.

All right.

I'll second.

All in favor?

Hi.

All right.

Then the financial report.

Dave, are you able to do that?

Yes, we unmute.

There we go.

Can you hear me now?

Yep.

The financial report looks very much like it did at our last meeting.

For the fiscal year thus far, we have a net revenue gain of $81.40, which represents $531.40 in interest income and $450 in expenses for professional legal services, which leaves us with a cash balance of $688,166

and 42 Cents.

All right, good financial report.

All right, so new business.

Yes, so one of the things we discussed at the last meeting was getting an update from our partners at the Albemarle Broadband Authority.

And we have guest speakers today from both our Department of Information Technology as well as Firefly.

So they've provided a presentation.

Jennifer, I think,

They can be upgraded to presenters, right?

They should be all in here.

I'm missing anybody, Mike.

Yeah.

I'm here.

Thank you for inviting us to present today, just as a brief

Remembrance, the Albemarle Broadband Authority was formed in 2017 by the Board of Supervisors under the state's Wireless Services Authority Act.

Under that act, that legislation does not allow the broadband authority to process payments or tax incentives back to individual corporations or in this particular case, we're going to be talking with co-op

A not-for-profit co-op called Central Virginia Electric Co-op and I'm sure most of the people on the call today recognize that name.

They're one of our great electrical providers, but they've also done a very unique thing within the Commonwealth and they're building fiber to their membership.

And we were fortunate to participate in a tax grant incentive agreement with them.

and today Gary Wood, Tina Malia and Dennis Reese who runs the Firefly Fiber Broadband operation are going to talk to you about how they've progressed and what the tax incentive agreement and how it impacts the Economic Development Authority.

So we're partners with SEVEC and we're partners with EDA to make sure that fiber is built out into the rural areas of Albemarle County.

and I'll turn it over to Gary Wood who's the president of SEVAC.

Sure, I'll give a little background and first of all, I appreciate you making time for us to be on the agenda.

Some of you probably remember when we came through with our request for an incentive when we were first starting our project and I'll review just at a high level what the goals of that incentive request was

And then today we just want to give you a quick snapshot of where we are as far as our project and tell you when we'll be back asking for a payment under that incentive program.

So when we started the project, we were looking at $110 million investment across parts of 14 counties over a five-year period.

Our original feasibility study

indicated that our subsidiary, we have to create a subsidiary to provide internet service in Virginia because electric co-ops aren't allowed to provide internet service by law.

But by law, we can own a subsidiary that can engage in any legal business in Virginia.

So we create a subsidiary, the co-op builds the fiber, leases it to the subsidiary, which does businesses, Firefly Fiber Broadband, and

They provide Internet service.

The original feasibility study indicated that our subsidiary would not reach breakeven on an annual basis until the seventh year of operation and that it wouldn't pay off those first seven years of losses and actually make the first true dollar of profit until year 11.

We have what we call very patient capital in the electric co-op world and in the electric utility industry.

So we were willing to wait for a while, but we also thought to remove some of the risk for our board of directors to be more comfortable, we wanted to create partnerships where we could with the counties and ask for a little bit of assistance, particularly in those early years.

And our request was based on the increased tax payments we would be making once we build this new overhead line and underground line in the counties.

We will add that to our plant investment that we report to the State Corporation Commission each year.

The State Corporation Commission in return goes back and provides the county what their estimated value is for our plant in the county.

and the county taxes the co-op at a rate that is similar to a real estate property rate on that plant.

So if we own $10 million worth of plant in Albemarle County, we pay it essentially the regular real estate property tax rate for that $10 million.

When you're building 110 million more dollars worth of fiber, that would have added about 60% more to our value in the county.

and we just asked that as we build that out, we would have an agreement that would essentially return the equivalent amount of that new tax revenue each year back to us for the first five years of plant for each area that we built out.

So that was kind of the overall goal was to essentially have like a tax abatement for the first five years.

And let me stop and ask if there's any questions about that before I talk a little more about some other things we did and then a snapshot of the program.

But we also went about looking for other sources of revenue where we could find them, whether that was the FCC Connect America Fund Auction or State of Virginia Telecommunication Initiative Grants and other types of funding.

And we've been very fortunate to find a number of sources of funding, including also the USDA has a grant program, the Reconnect Grant Program.

Together with those various programs, we have ended up with enough funding so that we will be in the black this year with Firefly, which is really good news.

It's our second year of operation.

And part of that is because of the programs like we have with Albemarle and those partnerships.

So we wanted to give you a quick snapshot of where we are today, and then we'll give you a update of when we think we'll be back asking for our first

support payment back out of that incentive.

So today we have our slideshow up.

This was a little bit of a repeat as far as the slides with pictures that you've probably seen before if you've heard any of my presentations to the county.

And if we go to the next slide, I think it just tells you that we're gonna talk about the rural broadband project and then the one after that

We wanted to give you an update today.

We have completed work in six of our 30 substations across those parts of 14 counties.

So we've been busy at work.

We started construction in August of 2018 down in Appomattox County.

Out of the six substations that we've completed, four of them include connections in Albemarle County.

The Martin Store substation over near Nellie's Ford reaches up into Albemarle County, both along Route 29 and a little bit down near Craigstor Road.

We built the Midway substation out, which is an area south of Crozet and down Miller School Road, crosses a little bit of Interstate 64 and 250, just a little bit up toward Whitehall in that area, but covers around the Batesville area and

that section of the county.

And I'll have a map that'll show a little bit of this later.

The Zion Crossroads substation on the eastern end of the county comes back along 250, the Kedwick area.

And then our Cassius Corner substation up near Gordonville comes down south of Gordonville along, I believe it's 231 or 22 coming down from Gordonville there.

And Albemarle, the take rates have been very good.

Our initial feasibility study, we intended to be conservative because we needed to make sure that we could make the projections and forecasts that we included in it.

So we assumed a 35% take rate over the first two years that we had service in an area and growing going forward from that.

What we've seen is, particularly in the Midway and Cassius corner area of Albemarle County,

We've had over 70% of the homes we pass take service from us, which is just an incredible take rate well beyond our expectations.

Overall, across our system, we've seen over 50% take rate.

That's an indication of how much need there is in these rural areas for affordable, reliable broadband.

at very good speeds.

I don't have our services listed in the slide, but we are a pretty simple business model when it comes to the internet service.

We really are in this for a service for the members of the co-op, and then we'll expand out beyond that to other areas in the community.

But it's not driven by profit for shareholders.

It's really service oriented.

So we have

Two internet service offerings.

We have 100 megabit service for $49.99 and a gigabit service for $79.99.

And we also offer a voice over IP phone service that's $29.99 if you combine it with either one of those.

So we're seeing really good take rates from all the areas of Albemarle County.

We are building right now to pace of about 20 miles of fiber going up a week.

So we're building at a pretty good clip.

We've moved up to that over that two year period when we started, we were building much slower, but we're putting fiber up in the air and underground pretty fast right now.

Let's see the next slide.

This is just a map that shows where we come into the county.

So you'll see Albemarle County outlined there in that kind of the mint green.

And there's some gold lines that are a little harder to see that just come up Route 29.

That's the Martin Store area.

And well to the kind of northwest corner, there's a little area we come in

with those goal lines.

The red area of Midway we have completed.

And with that, we had a Virginia telecommunications grant that the broadband authority worked with us on that really helped move that up on the list.

Otherwise, it would have been a little later getting started with construction there.

So we finished that up.

We, on the, to the east in 250, we have the blue of Zahn's Crossroads, comes in and you see the area, a little bit of the area there where we fill in, and then gray up in the northeast part of the county with Cash's Corner.

So we have completed those substations.

We still have down in the very southern tip Schuyler will be in the future.

We have Red Hill, that area that we will be going, and then Whitehall up in the,

We do not presently, let me talk about that in just a little bit, but we do not serve Scottsville electrically.

So this is just looking at where the electric lines are running for right now.

That's what the original project was.

All right, and those little lines are where actual electric lines are, and that was the original plan for getting this network out there.

All total, we had about $11 million we projected to spend in Albemarle County, and about 3,600 total accounts that we would be by once we completed all of that build out.

All right, let me go to the next slide.

Our board of directors at the Electric Co-op has approved this year a compressed schedule.

Originally, we planned for a five-year build-out that would have finished near the end of 2023.

We now have set a goal of finishing the backbone by mid-year 2022.

So we've got about 20 months left.

There's a lot of work to be done.

Not every person who signs up for service at that last substation will necessarily be finished

On the first of July and have their service into their home, that will happen during that summer.

Sometimes as we build out the backbone and put in our service drops and extensions to homes, it can take another

four to eight weeks or ten weeks depending on how long it takes to get some of the service drops in to get the final service in and do the in-home installation.

The reason I'm putting this provision on here is every time I set a date, I set expectations and a lot of our members call back and they remember the date.

but not all the detail that goes behind it.

So we will be getting people, all the people who initially want service who are co-op members will be connected by that 2022 summer.

And that is about a year, a little more than a year less in our schedule than we originally had set up.

The reason we sped that up is twofold.

Well, there are many factors to it, but two main reasons.

One, with the COVID issues this year, we have seen the need and we've seen it through the take rates, we've heard it from our members, we've heard it from the communities,

the need for hot spots for students who aren't going to have access and the need to move as quickly as possible and get families online so the virtual classrooms will work better for people who are working remotely and for telemedicine for people who do not want to go into a doctor's office during a pandemic and

go through those channels if they have options to do other things.

So with all of that demand, our board of directors wanted to speed this up as much as we could.

And then the other reason is that will free up Firefly to build off system.

And we'll talk about that in just a little bit.

So we have

The accounts, we'll try to get them connected by summer.

Our project costs are coming in a little above budget.

I first showed you it was $110 million project.

That's about $130 million total project now that we're estimating.

Mainly it's because of our overhead costs.

They're running a little higher because we've found that we have more, what we call make ready work.

on our poles, which is work to prepare the pole for the placement of the fiber.

So it may mean putting in taller poles in some locations, other locations means moving things at the top of the pole to make rooms for fiber.

The underground construction is coming in pretty close to what we first thought.

So that's a quick look at where we are.

And let me go to the next slide.

We've got next week, we will exceed 5,000 connections for Firefly.

We began 2019 with five connections, so we were just getting started.

2020, we had 1,600 at the start of the year.

We're going over 5,000 today.

We'll go over 7,000 by year end this year, and we will add 8,000 more next year, so we're continuing to pick up the pace.

We're projecting having 25,000 connections by the end of 2022.

So 7,000 this year, 15,000 next year and 22,000 or 25,000 by the end of the next year.

Firefly itself is growing.

I'm gonna let Dennis talk a little bit about that in a minute.

They are now up to 23 employees, a pretty good size business to have started up from scratch just in the last two years.

We will be cash flow positive this year.

That is important because Firefly is a new business.

And when we go to a bank and say we wanna do a $30 million project off system, the bank wants to look at our balance sheet and we don't have one yet.

So having positive cash flow and projections helps to go out, even though we have a great business model and we'll have cash flow that'll show that we are,

having reasonable expectations and that we understand this business, being able to show that positive cash flow the first couple of years is really important to being able to finance all system construction.

That is in part due to partnerships like this one at Albemarle and we really appreciate everything that Albemarle has done to help us in that respect.

Next slide, I think is the last one.

Firefly, after 2022, we'll turn our focus to off system construction.

Firefly fiber broadband does not have a service area like Central Virginia Electric Co-op does.

So the electric system has, we're regulated and have a prescribed service area from the State Corporation Commission.

If you're inside that area, you have to buy electricity from us.

If you're outside that area, you cannot buy electricity from us.

Firefly is very different.

There are no service areas for internet providers, so we can go wherever it makes sense and where there's a need.

We have begun talking to adjacent electric utilities about using their facilities where we can and being on pole lines.

We've also looked at going in VDOT right away where we can't get access to the pole lines or where it's not cost effective to be on them.

Firefly will continue to pursue other sources of funding, including VADI grants from the state, all federal programs that are available.

We plan to continue providing service in areas adjacent to the co-op territory, wherever it makes sense, wherever it's economical and wherever there's a need.

We'll talk about that more in the future.

But the first thing we're gonna do is build out this co-op territory.

We're doing a few small off-system projects, including a couple of projects we're looking at with the broadband authority now that we're trying to seek some CARES funding from the state to help build.

But those tend to be small for now.

So we're really focused primarily on getting those electric co-op customers access within the first two years.

And I'm gonna ask Dennis if he wants to give you a little background on Firefly or add anything.

I think he has the total number of customers in Albemarle.

And then I'll come back and tell you about when we'll be asking for the first payment through the incentive plan.

Yeah, just a pleasure being here and currently we have 653 active subscribers in Albemarle County and of course we're looking for that to continue to grow.

All right.

And now let me go back to the agreement we had, which, as I said, is based on those tax revenues.

In fact, our language, I think, and the incentive, and I didn't call it up or bring it with me today, but the goal was to allow for the co-op to have the plant in place, have it reported through the taxing system,

be taxed on it, pay the tax, and then come to the EDA and ask for the return of that, which actually goes to Firefly.

It doesn't go to co-op because Firefly is the one providing the internet service.

So they're the ones asking for the incentive back.

The electric co-op finished construction in several of these areas in this calendar year.

We report to the State Corporation Commission once a year in April the new plant additions for the previous year.

So next April of 2021, we'll report the new plant additions for Albemarle County in 2020.

That information will go back to the county, and I expect that the mid-year taxing next year will be the first time that we see taxes on this new fiber in the county.

We will pay for that as we get billed, and then we will be back to you probably at the end of next summer with our first request for a reimbursement of essentially those taxes.

So that's a high level review of where we are and of the timeline for what you can expect from us in terms of a request for a payment under the incentive plan.

No, I think you did a great job.

It's just a couple of things on the tax incentive.

It's capped at 105, so it's $105,000 per year.

And then there's a $550,000 max.

So this is for taxes paid into the county and then granted back to SEVEC and Firefly for those assets that are put in specifically for the fiber build out.

So the fiber broadband only, not any additional electrical

assets, only for the fiber assets.

But yeah, sounds like you guys are doing a great job.

Firefly especially is lots of good customer feedback, the 630 customers out there.

I can't imagine where we would be if you all hadn't moved forward with the Midway and the other substations.

Really appreciate the work.

It's definitely helped a lot.

So appreciate you being on today, Gary, Dennis, and Tina.

and I'll turn it back over to J.T.

or able to take questions as well.

I had a question.

Sure.

Forgive me if, you may have mentioned this in the first meeting months ago and I've forgotten, but the,

Estimates of breakeven, the original, and then of course the updated one, which is much better news.

So that was based on our,

That's what I couldn't remember.

Right.

Now, we've been fortunate to get a few grants to help offset that so it won't be 100 percent debt financed.

And we've been fortunate that the financing, which we do through the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service, that's the way that the electric co-op finances a lot of the plants that we build, the interest rates we pay one eighth percent above the cost of borrowing for the federal government.

So this year we've been borrowing at somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.1% money for about $40 million in investment this year.

And last year we were similar in the interest rates were about one and a quarter to one and a half percent.

And our original feasibility study, we assumed about a 4% interest rate.

It is a for-profit subsidiary with the intent, well they're owned 100% by the members of the electric co-op,

So profits will come back in the form of dividend payments to the electric co-op and its members.

Firefly was set up as for-profit because we intend to pursue opportunities such as with cell phone providers who need fiber to the bottom of their towers.

If there's outgrowth in the rural areas of 5G, every 5G tower needs fiber at the bottom of it.

Those can be fairly lucrative contracts.

and if we're not for profit, those profits are returned to the people who pay them to us.

And if I have the choice of taking Verizon's money and giving back to Verizon or giving to the rural members of Central Virginia Electric Co-op, we're choosing the co-op.

So that's why it's settled that way.

Go ahead, Jim.

I have a follow-up question if it's appropriate.

That is a good question.

And the answer is very little.

So the largest source of funding we have had in terms of a grant is the Connect America fund award through the FCC auction.

we received $28.6 million, but the auction funds from the FCC are paid out over a 10 year period on a monthly basis.

So we received $28.6 million, but upfront we didn't receive any.

So we still had to borrow the money to finance the construction that really works more as operational support.

Certainly that,

helped and it will help us pay off the debt a little sooner, but we still had to go borrow that.

We did have from our ReConnect award, a $28 million award that was half loan and half grant.

So we have $14 million in pure grant offset costs.

And then from the state, we have had several batty grants and tobacco commission grants that add about another

three to four million to that.

So we've probably gotten about 17 or 18 million out of that 110.

And then as I mentioned, we're now at $130 million project.

Mike, what other projects are,

Do you sort of see in or going on in terms of getting broadband to other rural parts of the county that aren't being served right now?

I just I happen to know that a colleague of mine who lives sort of south of 64 was talking about how he was having a really hard time getting good good service where he lived and

and was not getting a lot of response from efforts to contact their incumbent providers.

Yeah, that's an ongoing challenge, Mr. Long, Supervisor McKeel and Mr. Munson.

Yeah, the Scottsville all start in the southern area.

The rural part of the southern area of the county, we have a body grant that is currently underway and that's with CenturyLink, now called Lumen.

So there's a number of projects going on there.

There's six going on in the southern area and two in the northern area.

So that's an active project.

They are supposed to be live by

No later than March 5th, so there's a lot of activity.

Construction is beginning to start in those areas.

The other thing that we have in front of us is a pending body application for 838 more locations throughout the county, so we're waiting for that funding to happen.

and most recently we've activated an agreement with Chantelle to do a wireless service in cooperation with the school division.

So we're doing some work with Chantelle and they'll be contacting people by direct mail to bring that system up to speed.

Gary had mentioned earlier that our long-term strategy, future-proof, is to build fiber, especially into the rural areas where there's

Limitations in how we can site towers, things like that.

So we really see the fiber build out and especially with electric co-ops or electric companies in general is the way to go.

So one of the ways that we're doing that is through the CARES funding and just to get everybody up to speed, there's a $30 million CARES funding package that's available to the counties.

across the Commonwealth, and we've submitted an application with SEVIC Firefly to see if we can sort of move forward on moving off system in a smaller project that Gary had mentioned.

But we see filling those gaps as a great strategy of continuing our work with Firefly and others.

So the CenturyLink projects, the Chantelle, Fixed Wireless,

working with Firefly to extend services using their infrastructure are all great opportunities, but there's still a lot more that we can do.

So one of the ways that the state has addressed this is the new budget looks like it's going to be passed with $50 million for the body program for 2021.

So that opens up a significant amount of new funds that we hope to take advantage of over the next year, year and a half, two years.

It takes a while, but we're working hard.

Thanks.

One sort of technical question.

Resident or business, yes, yeah.

Sometimes refer to passes or living units.

Okay.

Just one quick question.

I know you have a Wi-Fi hotspot up at Afton, and I wondered if there was

That's for Gary and Dennis, probably Dennis.

Yeah, the free Wi-Fi hotspots that Firefly is putting out.

We're doing the same thing before they get started.

I mean, our cooperation with the school division includes

them being kind enough to allow people to drive up into the parking lots of each of the schools to gain access.

We also did that with JMRL, the library system, and we've activated Yancey Community School with a public Wi-Fi hotspot.

Yeah, we have done this some, and we're still looking for other areas to put these, but I think some of the key

Things that we're looking for is an area where there's a parking lot where people can park or to get the access because of the COVID situation.

We are looking at working with a few sites with some of the counties and localities that have designated buildings for where the kids are having to go in to download their homework.

And by the way, we'd be willing to work.

And if Mike has some ideas or the school system has ideas of areas that are unserved, that are near our fiber, it needs to be nearby so that we can get fiber to it.

But then meets the requirements like Dennis was talking about.

And that's the tough thing about rural areas is it's harder to find a

a safe and secure area with a parking lot other than occasionally churches.

Maybe sometimes you can find a rescue squad or a moose lodge or something out in the rural areas, but they're harder to find.

But if Albemarle County can come up with a location or two, we'd love to put up

Hey, Gary, do you have, is the map that was in your slide presentation, is that available on your website or could you guys circulate that around?

It is on our website.

It's on Firefly's website and on the electric cop website and we will get it distributed.

Great.

Quick question.

Alternatives are good and that's tremendous.

Do you know percentage wise how many people who are signing up or will have access to this new service where you are essentially

Well that's where when I gave that take rate early and I probably didn't explain that very well and that looks at those passings that Mike was talking about when we said we were over 70 percent we were actually I look today at 75 and 78 percent for Cassius Corner and Midway

That means out of every 10 homes, we went by seven or eight of them connected.

I followed that.

I guess what I'm asking, because I know some people who live, say in Crozet, or Greenwood basically, that have basically a hotspot from AT&T that they're using for internet access because they don't have any option from a provider.

And so I'm just wondering in terms of giving access to people that live in that kind of

Internet Desert, if you will.

Do you know what kind of impact that is or is that something you guys haven't really looked at?

Well, we're starting because the fiber does require physically for it to be connected back to fiber and then back all to the internet.

It's hard for us to drop into an area and start construction unless we can tie it back into our overall network.

Now there's a few exceptions to that, but generally that's what we're looking at.

And because we've committed to the members who are footing the bill or standing behind those loans to start with, we wanna give them priority.

However, we're looking at other projects we can do where we can bring in contractors that do not disrupt our larger project.

So anything we can do in addition to,

We're looking at, we're trying not to pull our contractors away.

The Greenwood area is another area that we're familiar with.

It's not far off of our system.

We'll certainly look at that as we look at off system opportunities when we start looking down the road a year or two.

And I think probably by the first of the year, we'll be ready to go back and talk with Mike a good bit more about what those future opportunities might look like and how they can

fit in with what the broadband authority is doing in the county.

I guess I'm explaining it poorly.

OK.

I'm talking about people that have Central Virginia Electric, but they don't have an internet service provider.

How many?

So that's the 635 that Dennis

Maybe I'm missing the question here.

Where people don't have CenturyLink or they don't have access to another provider.

I don't think we have that number because the project ends just to build to the members.

Yeah, I can add in a little here.

I would say at least 80% of what SEVAC has done in Albemarle County is delivering

High speed broadband to people who had no other option other than satellite.

So it's been a really good activity.

The Midway Project specifically was completely unserved.

So the folks who were tied into the Midway Project, there was no overlaying of competition, meaning they weren't going

and taking CenturyLink customers or Comcast customers.

The only change that I know of is from the Zion's Crossroads substation.

Part of that section, there's some Comcast and maybe some higher speed CenturyLink people, but mostly it's been folks who haven't had internet at all.

So it's been a lifesaver.

And especially- That's great.

That's what I'm getting at.

I appreciate that.

Through the timing of COVID, it's a great story.

The timing turned out really well for us.

Yeah, and so I'm sorry, I misunderstood the question to start with.

When we first looked, we didn't look specifically county by county, but we did take a look system wide across the parts of 14 counties.

And the number Mike used actually is pretty close.

It was just over 20% of people had any option that would even go 10 megabits per second.

And we had about 5% of people who had access to anything over 50 megabits per second.

Out of the 38,000 accounts we served.

That's significant.

I appreciate that.

Any other questions for these guys?

Great.

Thank you very much.

This has been really, really helpful.

We appreciate it.

Yeah.

Good job.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Let me see if I can get the presentation up.

Can everybody see the director's report slide?

Yep.

Okay, great.

So both Jennifer and I will give the authority and update on the grants that we've been working on, and we'll start with the community lift grant.

This was something that we did in partnership with the Department of Social Services where we solicited applications from area nonprofits.

Round one was completed recently and economic development funds provided over $350,000 to area nonprofits.

We worked with social services to divide the types of nonprofits.

They focused on food, shelter, financial security, and childcare.

And economic development funds focused on economic development organizations as well as groups that were affiliated with arts and other causes in the community.

One of the questions that came up during the EDA meeting in September was whether or not nonprofits would be eligible for the Safe Spaces and Places grant, which we'll talk about in just a second.

The way we've handled that is to keep all of the nonprofits focused on applying for the Community Lift grant.

and just making sure that they're aware that those funds can be used in the same way that the Safe Spaces in Places grant can be used.

So if nonprofits are interested in establishing or expanding temporary outdoor areas, they're able to do that through the Community List grant and

So the $350,000 in economic development funds was round one.

Round two of this grant just closed, and that's exclusively being run by the Department of Social Services.

So Jennifer will talk a little bit more about the LIFT grant for businesses that has been running concurrently with this one, but

We're really proud of the partnership we had with social services for round one.

And I will ask if there are any questions about the community lift grant from the authority.

So lift grant round two applications were accepted through Monday, yesterday and so we are in the process of reviewing and completing those applications.

We had 138 inquiries and we're going to have about 60 completed applications when we're when we're complete.

The grants will vary from

$5,000 to $50,000 based on economic injury.

50,000, up to 50,000 per business, again, based on economic injury.

So if your economic injury is only 5,000 or 10,000, that's the most you'll get.

And what's the total size of the pot?

That is to be determined because of the injury.

So they're all going to vary right now.

And until we finish the analysis, we won't be able to

to answer that one yet.

Yeah, Kat, I would answer that question by, you know, if we did the math on 60 applications at $50,000, that would be $3 million.

We don't have $3 million in our budget, but as applications come through and we determine eligibility,

The budget between these different grant programs shifts.

For example, originally we had set aside $800,000 for nonprofits in the Community Lift Grant Round 1.

And ultimately, the amount of economic injury that was eligible for CARES money for the categories that we were serving, there was between $350,000 and $400,000 of

of eligible economic injury that we could reimburse.

You know, we expect that, as I'll talk about in just a second, for Safe Spaces and Places, we originally set aside 600,000.

We're seeing demand that's probably gonna land at somewhere between seven and $800,000.

But it's all dependent on folks being able to complete the application, the Community Investment Collaborative being to validate their economic injury,

and the federal guidelines require a certain amount of documentation to be received before we can distribute the funds.

This is a more generic question or I guess overarching question over all of these things.

I mean, is there likely to be more money that's going to be available or what do we know, Doug?

Yeah, it's too soon to say.

I think at this point, we have roughly $19 million that has been awarded to us with the deadlines of December 30th to get it expended out the door on the street, helping those who are eligible for it.

And we just don't know if there's going to be anything else that's coming out as a result of that.

As was mentioned previously, and you actually heard some reference to this in the previous presentation, there are other lots of money that are CARES-oriented that are coming into the community from other sources.

So all of those are helpful in the way that they are being made available to us.

We don't know if there's going to be another round.

For example, a federal stimulus is being considered or not considered up in Washington today or tomorrow or not.

So we're eagerly awaiting.

I'll tell you though that the challenge that we have currently, particularly with compliance,

requirements and the time frame within which that we had to spend it, it's surprising how hard it is to spend this amount of money in a short period of time.

So we have been extremely aggressive from a bureaucratic standpoint, much more so than typical in trying to get this money out the door.

I think I remember the answer to my question, but in this round two, no one who received a grant in round one was eligible to apply.

No, they were eligible to apply.

And the length of time that was focused for round one of the lift grant was economic injury experience between March and June.

and Round 2 extended that window of time to be March through September.

So as the Community Investment Collaborative is reviewing the financial information that the applicants provide, many businesses, and Jennifer can add more to this,

You know, they may have been well suited to address some of the impacts early on in the pandemic.

But as it has gone on, they've experienced a different level of impact.

And so some of our round one applicants can continue to experience those impacts or even have experienced some

more than the initial round one period covered.

So they've been welcome to apply.

And we have some new customers here.

Absolutely.

We did a bigger marketing outreach.

We partnered with our community engagement office to send postcards out throughout the county.

We hit a lot of our small businesses.

That's good.

I ask principally because I heard from a number of businesses who didn't catch the news.

for Round 1 and were interested.

Yeah, and there may be additional questions, but I'll quickly cover safe spaces and places.

So we received almost 50 applications.

These grants range from $5,000 to $25,000.

We had approximately 110 inquiries that were submitted.

And so you've probably seen that that's a consistent theme in how these grants have been set up.

And by asking for information on the front end about how much

each applicant intends to apply for.

That's allowed us to monitor how much budget to continue to set aside and reserve as we work our way through these applications.

So the current estimate we have is between six and eight hundred thousand dollars for this program.

And the picture included here is Potter's Craft Cider.

This was a company that

The county matched an AFID grant opportunity and you can see that they've marked their outdoor space to have appropriate distancing and that's the kind of example of what we're seeking when we work with businesses that are looking to use their outdoor space.

How can they

How can they create those safe spaces that have sanitizing stations, that have appropriate distancing markers indicated for customers that are coming to see them?

It's been a great opportunity to touch base and connect with the businesses and the community that are continuing to work hard to address impacts from the pandemic.

Yeah, I just think you all have done a great job with this.

Thanks J.T.

Yeah, very quickly, just wanted to note at our last meeting, we knew that their final public hearing on their rezoning proposal was going to the board.

It was approved.

And so the

Our partner in this public-private partnership was very excited, very thankful for the EDA's input and support throughout the process.

Just wanted to note that it was approved and we're excited about the project going forward.

If I could jump back really quickly for one second, this was a topic that came up at the last meeting and it was Venture Central, which was a Go Virginia application.

that Roger brought up.

Information about this was distributed to the authority, but the most recent update is that that application was approved at the regional level, and it is moving to the state for a decision.

And so we're optimistic about what this

Those will do for entrepreneurship in our community, especially as we think about the long road that may be ahead in terms of business starts and entrepreneurship.

How do we foster an environment that's positive for that?

So just wanted to quickly note this information about Venture Central.

Okay.

So unfinished business, is there any unfinished business that we need to discuss?

All right, hearing none, other matters.

Yes, thank you, Don.

What I would propose is that we figure out, I guess, the outlines of what would be a change to our bylaws to make room for public comment at our meetings.

And what I would propose to begin the discussion after consulting with

J.T.

and a few others and Rich about the outlines of such a proposal is that we make provisions for a matters from the public period at the outset of each meeting announced by the chair and then to include a declaration by the chair as well that anyone wishing to comment may withhold their comment until we discuss a particular agenda item.

And then when that agenda item is raised, we have a staff report followed by the public comment period, eligible period, and then discussion by board members.

So that's the rough outline that I propose as a beginning for our discussion about how we might do this.

Yeah, so what do other folks, I'll let other people speak up and then I'll share my thoughts.

Yeah, I think more public input is a good thing.

Anybody else?

I'm certainly in favor of it.

I think my comment would be, and I know there was some email discussion about this today, was just, you know, what do other EDAs do?

What are the other public bodies in the county do in terms of their public comment?

I certainly think we need to, that having a matters from the public section makes sense

I'm only worried a little bit about the cumbersome-ness if we have to stop throughout the process to get feedback on individual matters.

But you know I'm not overly concerned about that either, so I suspect that it's not likely to be a problem.

I mean it's really, as I was thinking about it, more of a

The comments are really gonna tend to fall more toward things that, although we don't have public hearings, but it would be toward actual actions we're taking as opposed to thinking about the presentation that we just had.

Is that something that we want public comment or not on that sort of discussion, or is it really revolved more around actions that we're thinking about?

I mean, I agree that we should take public comment and we need it.

I would suggest one little change to what's been suggested.

And that is that we have the public comment all at one time up front.

So once we get to agenda items, we're not getting constantly interrupted by additional comments.

And the second thing is I would recommend that we have a time limit on public comments, much like the supervisors do.

This doesn't need to break down into a gripe session.

I would just add, and this is your all's decision, but there are models.

I mean, I'm on the Citizens Advisory Board, and while it's a very different board, we take public comment and have, so that's a model.

As chair of the Almar County Regional Jail Board, we take public comment.

We have a model there.

So you have those models out there, Don, just saying that.

There are different ways to do it.

Just a thought.

You know, many of the boards and commissions take public comment.

A very lawyerly response.

So maybe what we can do is maybe I'll work with Dave and Richie and try to come up with a sort of proposal that we could bring back at the November 17th meeting.

We had comments about should this be a

Jim had raised questions about, is it a bylaw amendment?

Is it a set of rules or procedures?

So maybe in between now and the next meeting, we can put that on the agenda to come up with a proposal to bring to the board.

Sounds great.

I don't know.

I think the way our bylaws are set up, this meeting just serves as notice to everybody that the next meeting there would be a motion to make to amend it.

So I think this discussion is terribly helpful.

But no votes needed at this point.

You're my lawyer.

One other note, George, I sort of agree with your take on this and pushing it up front would be okay.

The one thing I wanted to avoid, though, by doing that, and maybe we can figure out another way, is if it's up front, what you tend to get in public meetings are simply gripes about, not always gripes, but comments about,

Past actions were something of which the public has already learned because of previous meetings, et cetera, which is great.

That's important.

But what I would like to see on occasion, and I think we live in a community where we're likely to see this now and then, is a public commenter responding to ongoing discussion of events in the middle of those discussions.

Now, maybe it's okay

If they're present, then they come back the next meeting and respond to what was discussed, et cetera.

And it's a little more slow moving in that regard and maybe that works okay.

But I'd like to be as responsive as possible without clogging up the works too much.

Yeah, I mean, that's fine with me.

Yeah, and maybe a very strict time limit, maybe even stricter at that point than at the outset.

Not by much, but perhaps you could shave off a minute or so for the discussion of the agenda items at that time.

Something to consider.

Can I do one other matters thing?

Sure.

Let me get out of the way here a little bit.

I want to show you all something that we have been up to out here on Rylo.

Can you see behind me?

Can you see the photograph behind me?

Go west on Rile Road, past the intersection with Berkmar Drive, just past Berkmar Crossing on the left-hand side, right next to the Garden Spot Nursery.

We've got a project going, which is called Oakley.

And some of you may be familiar with it because of the Blake Assisted Living Project that was built there.

up the top of the hill.

What you see behind me is a second part of that project that we're just about finished with.

My brother's oldest son, my nephew, was killed on a combat patrol in Afghanistan about 10 years ago.

And that started me thinking about some way to honor his sacrifice, but more broadly to honor all of the

American military and civilian personnel who served us so well in the Middle East wars.

And this is not a political statement.

It's not endorsing the right or the wrong of any particular conflict, but it's honoring people who answer the call because that's their job.

And if you look behind me, you can see there's a brick retaining wall that wraps around it.

and then there is a eight foot wide sidewalk leads up to the plaza.

That's made out of these interlocking concrete pavers and embedded in that walkway are two foot by two foot cast stone emblems that have the emblems of all five of the military branches in Boston.

That was a gift from Allied Concrete

and then there's a plaque that dedicates it to the people that I just mentioned.

Behind that is called a boulder fountain.

There's a place up in Madison that brings these boulders down from the Blue Ridge and makes granite dust and fiberglass casts and creates these really wonderful boulder fountains that look so authentic.

They sit on a recirculating pump that's heated, so they run 24-7, 365 days a year and make that wonderful gurgling sound.

Behind that is a flagpole that's now flying the American and the MIA POW flag.

Behind that is what we're calling, and it's covered in the front, as you'll see, the pergola, a huge pergola, very visible from Rio Road.

To the rear of that is what we're calling the Wall of Honor, which is an arch brick wall.

And in the center of the arch, Coleman Adams Construction in Forest, Virginia, that does a lot of work for us, donated a bronze fallen soldier statue.

which is that wonderful evocative statue that they have at combat funerals with the boots and the rifle with the bayonet and the helmet hanging off the stock of the rifle.

And on the face of the wall of honor are four different areas for plaques.

The top two are reserved for people who want to make a donation in memory of a person who was actually killed

in any war involving the United States.

And below that are two longer plaques, where for a minimum donation, any individual corporation can have a brass plaque recognizing their generosity.

Over behind that arch, which is phase two, is what I'm calling for now a Dutch, the dawn park, where we will have

Exercise, traditional exercise jungle gym equipment for children, but also we'll have different stations for exercise for seniors and a fire pit with seating all around it.

And it's our hope that the people, grandchildren and seniors will meet there and talk and get to know each other and sort of bridge the gap between generations of folks.

and we are probably at this stage about 90% complete.

The huge planters that we're putting up there arrived yesterday so we'll get those taken care of and it's coming along really, really well.

I may send some of you some additional pictures and a wonderful website that my daughter helped me create

called GoFundMe Charity.

Just as generous as you like, and it will be appreciated.

I got to raise about $125,000.

So far, there's no government money in this.

Thank you.

Thanks, George.

Thanks.

Anything else?

All right, then I guess we are adjourned until the 17th.

Okay.

All right.

Bye.