Board of Supervisors Meeting   8/12/2025

You know he's got a satchel.

It's better than you.

All right.

Yeah.

I'm sitting here like sitting here working on it.

been popular with all these and stuff during them.

Deflated that one, but that one didn't work, damn it.

My buddy of mine had one come up on his arm, and he said it was like four months before he could get in the pool.

I thought the whole idea was, you know, get that kind of quick.

I need to kind of pay attention to what's going on.

No, no, no.

I can't wait just to ride tomorrow.

Just nothing but riding.

So look, I got a blender that's knocking.

And it keeps it's going on and it's not.

I mean, it's pretty simple plastic part, but I still feel like fooling with it.

But it's going to make me fool with it one day when it's 300 degrees and it stays all hot.

I've never done one, but I went online and looked how it is on the camera and it just got a popped up on the glove box.

and then take a piece off down below it and it's right there.

Which they kind of notice everything you can see.

So like it's only there to keep animals actually on your intake, you know, that goes in.

So I put a filter on it.

Good afternoon.

Call to order the workshop meeting of the Green County Board of Supervisors.

With us, we have Courtney Rogers from Davenport and we will be discussing financing options for the water impoundment.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Many years in the making.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

So it's a long presentation.

I'm going to try to go through it quickly, but please stop me if there's something you want me to embellish a little bit more, talk a little bit more about questions as we go along.

It is a work session, by the way.

So happy to answer questions.

But essentially what I want to do today is kind of go back through following up with

the revised cost estimates and kind of what it looks like because we haven't formally showed that to you all.

Talk about the financing options, kind of where we are at this point.

Give you an overview of our recommended financing structure and how we recommend moving forward.

We talked some time ago about policies and if we're going to go to the bond market, we want to get those presented to you again and get those adopted.

and then talk about the capital funding side and what the repayment plan is going to look like and then go into our pro forma projections and the assumptions that basically have been set up with that pro forma.

As we understand it, Mr. Herb White was here and updated the cost estimates.

And so as we're understanding it now, the total project for Whiterun cost is now $65.5 million.

You'll see in the presentation, we're also going to talk about the $8 million loan that's coming from DEQ for the sewer project for the town of Stanardsville.

There we go.

So when we take that 65 and a half million, our thought was to go ahead and let's go ahead and while rates are where they are and not any higher, let's go ahead and take out the permanent financing that we did.

We had to get that done of course this summer from a timing standpoint.

So we've included that in there.

It's roughly about 14.2 million.

And then the $8 million sewer projects, we've got a well project of a million dollars.

total of $88.75 million and then you've got the commonwealth grants of $7 million that's been uh that that is footnoted there the $3 million from the 24 budget and then there's $4 million in the 25 budget session but they that could go higher and I know that uh we understand that we're going to um

put an application in to possibly get more, but to be conservative for the moment, we are going to pause at the seven million.

Now, we're gonna talk about doing this in two phases.

So the good news is if that money comes up or more money comes up down the road, we'll just reduce second borrowing, the second tranche, if you will, that will be down the road.

So I think splitting this up as we've kind of talked about this over the last several months,

I know that was an idea the chairman had come up with.

I think it's a great idea to split it up, especially since there's still a lot of cost to be, you know, what else might be out there.

So by splitting it up, it gives us an opportunity to come back and have a second bite at the apple, if you will, especially if we can find additional dollars from the state or federal government.

So we've talked a little bit about this in the past, so I just want to kind of go through how we get to this point, but there are a lot of different things that go into the end of the day.

How do we get the lowest cost of borrowing for any project?

and I've highlighted in red the ones that really are pertaining to this project and that's gonna be the size, it's the amortization period and prevailing interest rates.

When we went through and did the bond anticipation note, we were able to do that through what we call direct bank placement.

We sent out a request for proposals, the banks gave us their best bids and we went with the best bid that we had.

This being a lot larger reduces the amount of banks that might be able to give us a loan of that size

and there might only be one if anyone would give us a loan at 30 years.

A lot of the banks wanna do shorter loans.

They wanna do something inside five years, inside 10 years.

They don't wanna fix their rates for any longer than sometimes 15 years or 20 years at the max.

So that's one of the big things that's gonna drive us moving to the bond market and then prevailing interest rates.

When it comes to long-term rates, we have seen better rates in the public market than we have from banks.

And that's what this page seven sort of outlines is.

Our recommendation is to go with the public market issuance issue going out.

We'll need to go out and get a bond rating.

It'll be an offering document.

These will be offered to all of the major banks out there in Wall Street investment firms that buy taxes and bonds.

It'll go to multiple purchasers so we get more people looking at it and giving us the best bid.

It'll take us the next couple of months to get there.

We've already started on some of it, but it's generally a 60 to 90 day process.

And what you'll see is that you're going to get different interest rates for each year.

And so we call that a yield curve.

I have a question.

Yes, sir.

I think they're going to lower it at least once before the end of the year.

But that's a great question and a great segue in the next couple of slides because in our world, when the Fed does their deal of lowering rates for banks, which is basically the overnight loan rate for banks, it doesn't affect most of our interest rates that we're looking at over this 30 years.

It's going to affect maybe the first five years.

But after that, it's the general market condition and where people think the market is going drives the 10, the 15 and the 20 and 30 year rates.

And what you'll see here is this is the 20-year rate.

And you can see that's been inching up.

Does this thing have a pointer on it, Jim?

Does it have a pointer on it or something?

No.

No.

OK.

So on the left-hand side, this is the 20-year AAA tax-exempt rate.

It's put out by a firm each trading day.

And that's the 20-year rate.

And you can see it's been coming down since the early 2000s.

We hit COVID, it kind of bottomed out, and then we've jumped back up to kind of where we were, I'll call it in the 2010s, 2012, 2015, 2016 time range, and then we're starting to even edge up into early 2010.

On the right-hand side shows you since January of 24, so going back about 18 months now, and you can see it's just kind of been inching up, and part of that has been the marked overall marketplace, but not what the Fed's been doing necessarily.

If we do see the Fed lower rates, this next chart, what you're going to see is one year ago is that light blue line, two years ago is the green line.

It was a very flat yield curve.

As the Fed's been lowering, you'll see the first five years how it's come down.

That purple line is where we are now.

And so those rates have come down as the Fed made their cuts over the last year or so.

And so, if anything, we might see a few basis points, 25 basis points, just in the first four, five, six years, if they do it.

I think the last thing I saw yesterday was like a 60% chance that there might be a cut in September is kind of where the market is right now.

And that's all speculation.

But this gives you a sense of where that yield curve is.

It's still pretty flat out there past 20 years where it kind of comes up to a point and flattens out and that's good for us.

But it has been creeping up a little bit.

So our recommended structure is to, and we're working with bond counsel on this, is to go out and do a standalone public market issuance.

So I've talked about this with you all and we did go and visit with VRA.

I said we would.

We talked to them several years ago with the project and they said, no, it's too big for us.

We went back to them.

I think one of the things they were happy to hear that you've been seeing some growth,

That was something they were a little surprised that that's been going on.

And I think that that was something that was a positive.

But they felt like that it was the situation they needed to go to their board and get approval and felt like that if we took it to them at their next meeting, there's no way that they would make a decision without probably hearing it a couple of times, which means that we couldn't make the fall pool.

So we'd have to wait until next April, which would be the next time they would actually be in the marketplace.

And so knowing that we've got to get going on this project, we need to go borrow some money.

Our recommendation is to move on forward with what we've been talking about for a long time ever since VRA said no a couple of years ago, which was to go out and get the county's first bond rating and then basically go out and issue these as standalone bonds with Greene County's name on it.

So in order to do that, Bond Council has been working up what's called a master indenture, because these bonds are going to be issued to a certain set of investors.

We've talked about coming back and doing a second tranche later.

We want to make sure that the first bondholders are protected.

So there will be certain, in the document, there will be what's called an additional bonds test.

We have to meet a certain test in order to be able to issue additional bonds, things like that.

This is something that will be set up for the county for years to come.

One day, I'll probably retire at that point, but this will be a really vibrant utility system that'll be basically issuing more and more debt because that's just what utility systems do.

You look at Loudoun water, you look at Fairfax County water, you look at the city of Richmond,

We're constantly issuing debt.

It's just part of utility systems because there's always something that needs to be updated.

And so it's got to be spread out amongst the folks who are in the system.

So the bonds are going to be secured by the net revenues of the system itself.

That'll basically be paying operations first and then debt service second.

any income from investments that such as the bond proceeds or the reserves there will be a separate set of reserves for the utility system and then as needed if needed funds from the from the county would could be appropriated to pay for the debt service as well and if that happens

What will happen is from an accounting standpoint, there will be a running ledger, if you will, that reserve can be paid back to the county from the utility system when the system gets to the point that it can do that.

So again, from a timeline standpoint, you know, we've been talking about this more than three months in terms of the finance plan.

So that's really what we're, we've kind of got that wrapped up.

So the next couple of months or next really 45 days or so, Bond Council's going to be finishing up because they've already started working on the documents in terms of the bond indenture and the disclosure documents, the POS.

And then basically within a month, we'll be talking to the rating agencies, be getting a rating back,

and then finalizing the offering documents and then we'll take it to the bond market.

Can I back you up just a second?

Sure.

I'm a little bit behind.

That's right.

You stated that the bonds would be secured by the net revenues of the system after operational expenses.

I guess I really don't understand the meat and potatoes of that statement.

That's right.

So the revenues that are being taken in are going to be a combination of the user rates, basically folks who are paying for the use of water, and then the insurance.

And then also the connection fees, the availability fees that are being brought in by new homes.

Yes.

So basically the way it's set up is that net revenues, net of operations.

You got to pay your people, pay for the chemicals, pay for... So even connection fees go through that same process?

They don't get set aside just for debt service?

It's all net revenues.

Now at the end of the day, so if it had to you could, but what we set up and they're working with your utility department

The rates, the way that the pro forma is set up is right now we've got your user rates paying for operations.

I understand.

I guess I'd like to have flexibility to do what I want with the money that we get.

Well, the way that utility systems are set up is you got to get your operations paid for first.

The general fund could offset those costs just as easy, right?

The way the documents are set up, they're like little buckets.

But at the end of the day, yeah, it's all going in one big bucket.

And at the end of the day, it can be moved around.

But generally, you're going to set aside, you're going to pay your

monthly, weekly, daily bills, and then what's left over drops over to the bucket, that service is only paid twice a year.

And so there's usually from a timing standpoint, you're going to end up using that connection fee as long as there's enough user fees coming in, which is what we're trying to set up on this pro forma.

And that's why we had rates and looked at increasing rates and things like that.

And that's something that staff's going to want to do every year with the budget, right, is make sure that

The user fees are paying for the operations.

Could you explain that standalone?

Because I don't know if you can carry insurance on bonds.

So the credit, basically, the way that the market's going to see this from a credit standpoint is you're pledging your revenues first.

And if there's not enough revenues, then you use what other revenues you have at the county level.

And then down the road, it gets paid back and the utility system gets funds back.

Let's face it, there could be a downturn, right?

An example of this is we just did this in Caroline County.

three, four years ago, very similar size county, size utility system, where it's now they have an interstate interchange, two of them.

And a lot of their water system is around that interchange, some truck stops, restaurants, things like that.

But then they also have a lot of the residential areas that have come from growth from Northern Virginia come down, has been built around the same water system.

And so it's growing fast as more and more homes are being built.

But in their early years, they had to subsidize that out of their general fund.

And the board's mentality was, this is an economic development, because if we didn't have those truck stops and things like that out there, we wouldn't have additional revenues.

for the general fund.

So it kind of all feeds on itself.

It's much like if you didn't have Walmart here, then you'd have less taxes to help pay for schools, right?

So who's going to pay for that?

Well, the other homes, you'd have to tax your other homes a little more.

So it all kind of evens itself out.

If you didn't have the watering system, you wouldn't have probably Walmart here.

It was a good chance.

Or some of the other other economic developments.

So in a way, when you did the upgrades out there in Ruckersville, that was an economic development project in a way because it brought more economic development to that 33 and 29 board.

Thanks.

Did that answer your question?

I've talked about this in the past before.

I think it is very important to keep the self supporting nature of it from the operational standpoint so that those connection fees can

And at some point, we hope that some of those user fees will also be able to help with debt service as well, right?

I mean, that's the goal.

And then at the end of the day, we're also hoping that there's additional dollars falling at the bottom of that after debt service and operations, we're putting money into reserve, so that anytime that there does come a shortfall, you dip into that reserve before you have to go over and ask for help from the from the county side.

So I'm on to page 12 and just so a little bit about what will happen when we go through and talk to the to the rating agencies is they're going to give the county a rating because at the end of the day the deep pocket is the county and so

What's going into that?

They're going to ask about your economy.

We're going to talk a lot about the local economy and what's going on in the county.

We're going to talk about financial performance.

We're going to talk about your debt, not just the utility system, but the school's debt, things like that.

And we're going to talk about management in terms of your budgeting.

And that's where those policies are going to be important.

And so those are the type of things that we'll be discussing with them.

And this chart will change pages.

Well, page 13 is a wheel basically showing the key drivers to a credit rating.

And it was really the four areas, as I just talked about is the economic base.

They're going to talk about the tax base, you know, how big is your tax base from a, um, from a county standpoint, what are the demographics, um, in terms of income levels, things like that.

On the financial performance, your revenue and expenditures, how's your budget been looking?

How have you performed versus budget?

What is the debt levels?

How much do you have out there now?

What other types of things may be coming up in the future?

And then on the management side, how have your budget practices been in terms of in your policies and things like that?

Oh, finally caught up, I guess.

So again, when you look at the credit rating table, I think what we're going to shoot for is somewhere in that A1, A plus to the A2 level.

So I would say the double A3 is probably the sweet spot.

That's where I'd love to see us come in.

And so that's going to, obviously we're going to shoot as high as we can, but generally in Virginia,

With the ability to raise revenues by a majority vote, we usually have pretty good credits versus other states that may not have the same revenue raising flexibility.

So we talked about policies and we've talked about it in the past, why are they important?

And again, I liken it this way, the agencies when they see you have policies are going to give you bonus points for having them.

If you don't have them, they don't necessarily ding you for not having them, but it gives us more bonus points.

And it also, if you think about it, it sets up

or the next board and the next board and the next board, some guidance.

And so the funds, the financial policy we talked about is fund balances is a big one because, and this is for the general fund, the unassigned fund balance level.

You have a policy, it's strong at 15% plus one 12th.

It makes it a total of 23.3, but it's a little bit different number.

It's not something that we typically see out there.

So

Our recommendation would be to just make it a simple 25% rather than make it the 15 plus 112 which is a little bit different, a little difficult to kind of take into account.

Just go with the flat 25.

We're already there and we're in good shape there.

There's other enhancements that we would want to add in there such as

of replenishment, if for some reason you ever have to use it for a rainy day, then we wanna make sure there's a plan to get it back up into its policy limits within like a three-year period.

And so we'll add some language and just help staff put that together and get it in front of you in the near future.

And as you can see, in terms of right now, your fund balance, the dotted line is the proposed policy.

And so you'd be in good shape

and be right there at this point.

The other two are debt policies, and you currently do not have a policy for the first one that we're gonna recommend, which is debt as percentage of full value.

Essentially, it's the outstanding debt, including schools and utilities, as long as it's, if it's self-supporting, we won't count it, but if it's not self-supporting, we can dismiss it out of the calculation.

But essentially, it's tax-supported debt,

And the calculation is that it wouldn't exceed 4%.

It's essentially saying, how much outstanding debt do we have as a percentage of our tax base?

It's basically real estate plus personal property.

And that's one that most of the counties that we work with have as a policy.

You can see on the next page what you look like right now.

And we've included the existing utilities in there just so you could see what it looks like.

Well, now it doesn't even want to show my graph.

There we go.

and so you see you're just a shade above 1%.

The second policy is a different way of looking at it.

It's kind of looking at it from a budgetary standpoint.

It's your annual debt service and your budget divided by your budget.

Debt service is percentage of expenditures.

And again, you don't have a policy currently.

Our recommendation is to basically, again, all tax supported debt, not to exceed 15% of both the county and school operational expenditures.

And again, you can see what it looks like in terms of the existing general fund debt, which is the dark green.

And just to show you what the utilities would look like if we included it, you can see it's just a shade above 7.5%.

We'll bring these charts back up a little bit later and show you with the new project what it would look like.

Now, one thing that we

Also want to bring up is we talked about unassigned fund balance on the general fund side, but let's talk about a fund balance on the utility side.

And it's a little bit different calculation.

We calculated days cash on hand, which is basically you're taking the, basically the operational and debt service divided by 365 days.

And it's how many, how many days could you operate without any revenues coming in?

And so, um,

We're recommending at least 180 days.

We've already got that when you look at the graph here in just a moment.

And the reason that we use that is Moody's and S&P has certain rating criteria.

And this puts us right around the AA.

You can see Moody's is a 250 to 150 on the AA side.

We'd be right in the middle or close to the middle there at 180.

and then S&P has a little bit of a grid and their second day's cash, their 90 to 150 is their second area.

The last part of the policies is on the investment side.

You've got some basic elements in there and we want to just recommend maybe fine tuning a few policy items in there just to strengthen it a little bit.

So here's our plan.

So we've talked about being in two phases and then the Stanardsville sewer is off to the side because that's a separate loan that's coming in as we talked about earlier from the state.

Phase one would be in 2026.

We would go with the roughly $25 million for the Whiterun project, take out the band, go ahead and permanently finance it, and then a million dollars for the Well No.

2 project, so roughly $40 million of project costs.

Phase 2 would be $33.5 million, assuming we don't get any further money from the state.

If we get more money from the state, then we just reduce that amount.

We're basically the 25 million for the White Run project, working with Herb White, would take us roughly two years.

So we would come back in the fall of 27 for that second phase borrowing.

And if the project moves faster, then we'll move that up a slight faster as well.

If it goes slower, then we'll move slower.

This is what the projected debt service would look like.

So we've got the existing debt service in the first column.

Phase one borrowing, we basically structured where we kind of ease into the project that gives us time for more homes to come online and be built as everything's being, as the debt service is coming online.

And then the phase two, similarly, we're going to give ourselves a little bit of room to build into it so that we reduce the peak of the debt service

So the real peak starts in 2032, which gives us some time for the system to continue to grow.

So again, the repayment plan basically would be to have the net revenues of the system.

We're also going to take into account the decline in the debt utility debt service that you have currently outstanding and the two phase borrowing approach.

So we're not putting all of it on at one time.

We would use a little bit of what we call capitalizing interest which is basically we borrow a little bit extra to pay for interest while again we're waiting for some of that growth to come on and for the system to be a little bit bigger.

We also have the availability fees as we talked about.

We've got adjustments that you could make to existing rates.

There are planned rate increases that are built in, and we can also do more if we need to.

And then at the end of the day, if needed, general fund support, but only to the extent that there's not sufficient utility fund balance.

And again, part of our plan in pushing some of this debt service out is to build that fund balance up so that we can avoid that general fund support

So talking about availability fees, the current fee at $12,500 for the waterside, $10,000 for the sewer side.

Again, these are using the numbers you've seen in previous presentations based on the report and that Virginia Tech group came back and reviewed.

You see the projection over the first few years and then we've been conservative after that.

The first few years basically take into account some of those projects that are already in the works are already being moved out there over the next few years.

And then we decided to be conservative and not continue at that rapid pace in case things were to slow down.

Again, you've adopted 7% rate increases in 2025.

We've got some moderate increases built into the pro forma, but you can always increase those further.

Same thing on the EDU fees.

You can always increase those.

Our model does not incorporate any increases in those EDU fees at the moment.

And then again, at the end of the line, and only to the extent there's not funds in that utility fund balance, if we needed support from the general fund, that would be the last ditch effort, if you will.

And as you can see, you've not had to use that over the last several years due to the increasing in growth from the new homes.

The other pro forma assumptions, we basically were assuming increases of 3% annually.

We've been seeing that, frankly, a lot of utilities are going 5% because they're seeing the inflation on chemicals and electricity that costs to run these plants as well as workers.

So we use 3%, but we also only increased operational expenditures 3%.

So bottom line, if operations are gonna grow a little faster, we're gonna have to keep up and increase revenues.

Again, the new connections are based on the housing starts provided by county staff that we've been working with.

These are new.

We haven't adjusted any of those things you've been seeing for months now.

We're starting out with the cash balance just shy of $5 million in FY26.

So we've been able to put some additional funds aside since we've broke away from RSA.

So that's going to help give us that fund balance.

We're already above 180 days.

We want to try to stay there and grow it even further if we can.

We did not include any potential revenues if there's a partnership with Orange County in the future.

We, again, didn't include any further grant monies from either the state or the feds above the $7 million.

Exactly.

This is really just on the residential side.

So should there be anything outside of residential, that's not really baked in here.

That's correct.

Great point.

There's a lot of small numbers here.

And the reason we went out as far as we did is because while during the heavy growth period, you'll see the blue line being operational expenses and debt service.

We have way more revenues and availability fees coming in.

Once that tails off with our conservative estimates in 2030, there's a couple of years there where we do have some negative years.

So those are years we're going to use fund balance.

But once we get back up into about the 2035 period, and you'll see the ending cash balances down at the bottom, we're still maintaining a very strong fund balance down at the bottom, if things were to get even worse than we're projecting here.

We're trying to be concerned with these numbers.

You can see the red numbers are really, they're less than

there's 560,000 in 2030, nothing goes above, well, 773 in 2032, nothing above a million dollars in any of those years.

And we've got before that starts roughly 19 and a half million projected in the bank.

So that's what we're trying to set this up to basically protect the fund balance of the general fund and any dollars that you might need to come up with from the general fund, unless there's just a really,

As you can see in that box line, we're adding dollars.

and bills that fund balance.

And that's purposeful.

That's why we didn't put principal and start paying debt service back too quickly.

We wanted to build up that fund balance while we've got the growth and be able to have that because that fund balance not only gives us a buffer, but it's going to earn interest too.

And like I said, we didn't count that interest.

So you're going to be earning interest on $19 million by the time you get to 2029.

that'll be able to be, that's again, as I mentioned earlier, that is revenue as well.

That'll be part of the system.

So this is that, uh, this basically graphically shows you that projected cash balance.

You can see it build from 26, 27, 28, 29, and then while it does go down in those years that we are projecting, we will need it.

We're still well above that proposed policy on the dotted line on the right side, um, above our 180 days target.

I mentioned earlier we're going to show you what the graphics look like when we include all the debt.

Just so you can see, we're still below the policy that we're projecting, even with utilities.

If it's self-supporting, we shouldn't have to count it, but if we want to be conservative and count it, you can see it's still below our projections there.

Excuse me.

Yes, sir.

On page 35, from 2030 to 2035, and you're just covering the operating expense and debt service, when you get that, that's 1000 homes you're expecting.

It's 200 per year in those out years.

Right.

So right for five years, you're talking about 1000 homes.

Gives you the break even 200 per year.

And part of it, there's two things going on here.

One is the actual availability fees, right?

That's there at the bottom line.

The other is, you'll notice that the operating revenue starts in 2026 at 4.7 million.

You're at 9.9 million in 2035.

That's just with the growth of the homes and a 3% revenue increase each year.

Point being, the system's getting bigger, and there's going to be a point where it's really a nice-sized system.

It's just going to take a few years to get there.

I'm worried about it.

And that's why we wanted to show you out to 2035 is you're getting to that point where you've got a good size, good number of customers in the system.

I'm just hoping that the system holds up pretty good.

Well, that's herb side, but...

The reason I say that because right down 29 at a farm and all.

The pipes were breaking all the time because trailers were coming along and those rocks would go down there and break those pipes.

So wrapping up here is the schedule.

So we're here today to kind of give you an overview of where we are and our timeline would be to come back to you on September 9th with an authorizing resolution and the form of the documents basically that would, this would be you approving basically us moving forward with a bond issue.

It's going to have what we call parameters in it.

The parameters basically say that as long as we don't issue more than this amount of dollars of bonds, and as long as the interest rates don't exceed this interest rate amount.

then we don't need to come back to get any further sign-offs from you.

You're basically blessing us to go to the market and borrow the money and close and put the money in the bank for you.

You're basically authorizing the county administrator and staff to move forward with our assistance.

We also would like to bring those financial policies back to you in a written form for you to adopt on that same night.

That'll have that authorizing resolution.

You also have the preliminary official statement.

So you'll see the it's called preliminary until we actually have the final numbers in it.

But it will have all the demographic information about the county in it.

It's basically a sales document, if you will, for potential purchasers to read and understand and learn about the county.

So it'll have a lot of good information about the county in it.

You'll see that it'll be in preliminary form still, but it'd be very close to final.

We're going to spend the next couple of weeks finalizing our credit presentation.

We've got a potential date working with staff to go through and meet with the credit rating agencies at the end of September, get the ratings back roughly

seven to ten days later and then on or around the middle of the month there have a bond sale actually go out and the way that it works is we send out this offering document with it's called a notice of sale it actually gives the parameters it tells them what principal amounts we're looking for the dollar amount we want and they basically on the internet it's a bidding process that we tell them at

11 a.m.

on this date we're gonna take bids and all we can see as we're looking at the internet is the name of the firm and what time they submitted the bid and then at 11 0 0 0 we hit a refresh button new screen pops up shows the winning bidder and the interest rates that they that they gave us and so we basically take the lowest bid

And whoever has the sharpest pencil that day is going to be the folks who go out and finish selling the bonds.

At that point, the interest rates are locked.

They're locked in for 30 years.

We can refinance them after 10 years.

That's what we call a 10-year call period, no call period.

So the first 10 years, we have to wait.

And then once we get to the 10th year, any time after that, if rates look better, we go out and we can refinance them.

and that's typical for the market.

Roughly two weeks later, we close and the funds will change hands and there'll be an account set up with a certain, there are certain banks that hold taxes and bond proceeds.

We call them a trustee.

We'll hire a trustee for you.

It's a large bank, probably someone like a Regents Bank does it.

There's only certain banks that do this type of work, but they basically will hold the funds

and receive the bond payments from your finance staff each year.

And then they also manage the bond proceeds until they're all spent.

And we work with them, making sure that they're invested in the appropriate investments and such.

So it's a lot of information.

Trying to stay a little bit high, not to get too far in the weeds.

So in a couple of years, we decided on the EDU fees

Absolutely.

If you feel like it needs to go up, you can't, you can.

And some places do that.

I have water.

Just working with Louden Water this year, they went through and did a whole rate analysis and updated their rate, their connection fees over a three-year period.

They basically said, this is going to be our new fee structure over the next three years.

Funds in hand.

What's that mean?

We have possession of the funds or they're out there in a digital land?

It'll be in your name.

And that only goes to pay contract.

Right.

Part of their job, they kind of work for the bondholders in a way, even though we're hiring a warranty, because they have these legal documents and they make sure that you're not spending it on a school or something that's not part of the project, defined project.

And so what happens is your finance staff will actually submit requisitions and they look at it and go, okay, yeah, see, this is going to XYZ contractor for this project.

And then they'll transfer the money.

What is the cost of the county to get the bond reading?

So the way that the bond rate is the firm's work is they basically base it on size.

So we're talking about.

Well, the project cost is 40 million when we do the calculations with the the.

Capitalized interest and such, we may end up, I haven't looked at the number yet, so I'm not sure what we're going to come back to you with and not to exceed, but just for argument's sake, we'll just say 50 million for the moment.

So if that, they have a structure every year, it goes up a little bit.

So if it's from 40 million to 50 million, it's this.

I'm going to say it's probably at 50 million, it's going to be in the

probably $30,000 to $40,000 range per company is what they charge.

And that's an upfront fee that they charge to surveil it over the 30 years.

Yes, every time.

So when we go back and do phase two,

It'll be a new fee based on whatever that size issue is.

It's all built into them.

Is there any validity to lumping the ban on the second borrowing?

We do we, so I think the danger in that is what happens if the construction takes a little longer than the 24 months we projected.

I'd hate to go out and do a third borrowing.

If we had to.

If we wanted to not do it now and wait, obviously I don't know what rates are going to be in two years.

They could be higher, they could be lower.

So it's hard to call there.

Yeah, that's a bad sheet.

When Steven gets back next week on vacation, we're going to dig into the numbers a little bit again.

I want to look at our borrowing cost of this band versus where we think we might be in a month or two when we, you know, middle of October.

I mean, I think the only rationale I have is that, you know, we already have that plugged in, that interest only plugged into the existing budget.

So we're not really upset in that apple cart.

And if we waited a year

Say we do our second borrowing in a year, it does keep us from having that.

We can still, we can bank more money in that period of time.

So what I was thinking, I hear what you're saying.

Let me see if I can go, I'm going the wrong way.

Let me go back.

Um, for tonight's purposes, we've actually built in, in that debt service, um, the takeout of the band.

So to your point,

You're only paying interest on it right now.

We're only paying interest on it up until we start paying principal on everything.

Right.

28.

So you can see if the ban is, we've already taken it out of here and it's basically incorporated into those early deaths amounts like 1.5, 2.3, 2.3, which are interest only.

So actually we may, I'd have to go look and see this versus if we did the ban in phase two, but we actually may be a lower debt service here in the early years.

Right.

So you'd rather double check that.

And those funds could pay it off in one lick, basically?

The ban would go away completely.

The ban would go away.

In fact, it wouldn't even show up on your audit.

When we come back on the 9th,

We'll do a little bit more homework on that and talk about ban phase one versus phase two.

Yeah, that'd be great.

I mean, I know you got somebody with crystal ball, right?

But.

Yeah, the reason I wanted to show it this way was I just.

You know phase two starts getting delayed for whatever reason, right?

I'd hate to have to come to another time.

Yeah, that would be aggravating.

And while rates are a little higher than they were last year, it could be a lot higher in two years.

Who knows?

Well, you guys do the numbers on that.

OK.

We have to have some type of estimate.

We know how much your debt is going to decline.

because we have an amortization schedule that tells us when the principal's paid.

We just projected assessed value of the county growing at 2%.

I'm hoping it's more than that, but that's just, we're trying to be conservative.

If it's going faster, this is coming down a lot faster.

So it's just an estimate we use for basically everybody.

The million dollars for the well, if we decide not to do that well, let's just say we, because we will have a workshop on wells here pretty soon for the temporary water supply.

If we decide not to do that well and that million dollars is sitting out there, what do we do with it?

So yeah, the legal documents will be written.

But if you decide to move it to a different utility project, whether it be the

Other questions?

They're basically holding your feet to the fire, making sure you're doing what you said you were going to do, and they're looking out for the bond hold for you.

But they're also collecting the debt service and making sure it goes to the company out there who handles all the computer systems for paying debt service.

Thank you.

Easy way of saying it without getting too deep into it.

Explaining the whole Fed Reserve system.

Other questions?

Thank you very much.

Good.

Sounds good.

All right.

Well, I guess we'll close the workshop session.

Have a little break.

and we'll be back here at 5.30.

All right?

No, at 5.30 we'll, or do you want to go, we can't go into closed session now.

Well, that's fine with me.

It's up to you guys.

I mean, keep on rolling.

All right, Ms.

Kemp.

I guess we don't have a 10-minute break.

The Board of Supervisors are briefed on any desires to discuss some closed meeting in the following matters.

Consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefings in an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body.

Consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel regarding volunteer fire departments.

Whereas pursuant to section 2.2-3711A5A7 and A8 of the Code of Virginia, such discussions may occur in a closed meeting.

Okay, do I have a motion?

So moved.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second to enter into closed session.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby?

Aye.

That's fine.

Oh, that's it.

It's cold in here.

It's good.

It's real hot in here.

Do I have a motion to come into open session?

We have a motion and a second to come into open session.

Roll call vote.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Do all members certify that only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirement

and only such matters as identified by the motion to enter into closed meeting were discussed.

Roll call vote, Mr. Lamb.

I certify.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

McGuigan.

I certify.

And the chair certifies.

We have nothing to come out of executive session as is customary.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

Is there a second?

Second.

OK, we have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda.

Roll call vote.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

Ms.

And the chair votes aye.

OK, matters from the public.

Ms.

Kemp, could you get me the sheet, please?

Thank you, ma'am.

Welcome.

Hello members of the board and citizens, residents of Greene County.

My name is Dylan Taylor.

I work with Energy Right.

We're a renewable education organization from solar to battery to nuclear, all those renewables.

I wanted to come here tonight and personally invite the board and citizens of Greene County to a event that we're hosting in Charlottesville.

We are partnering with the American Solar Grazing Association, ASGA, as well as the Charlottesville Area Community Fund to host a film premiere of a documentary that they're presenting at Common House in Charlottesville.

It's a free event.

Free food and beverages are included from 5 to 8 p.m.

on Wednesday, September 3rd.

Some notable organizations are going to be attending there.

We've got the Charlottesville Renewable Energy Alliance, Piedmont Environmental Council, members of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, and I just got back from Madison County.

A couple of them are going to try to attend as well.

Farm to Power, ASGA, and Grazed Lambscaping.

For the event, we'll have the film, then we'll have a panel with some members from ASGA, Farm to Power, and some local landowners as well that have been in the solar grazing business.

And we really want to invite as many local leaders and citizens to come out to this event just to get an idea of what it has impacted for some grazers here in the state of Virginia, as well as organizations trying to do their best to make sure these projects are meeting the DEQ guidelines that they should be holding up to in the CUPs that everybody approves of.

I do have some flyers for you guys.

There is QR code on here and I have a bunch of others I can leave up here on the table for citizens but some QR codes.

for you all to RSVP too.

Again, it's a free event, free food, free drinks.

Thank you, Mr. Taylor.

Patricia McCoy and Elvin Davis.

which one of you is speaking?

I am speaking because of the problem that we have down in Ruckersville where they're building the new Wawa's.

We live in back down there.

And I know five years ago, they told everybody that they had to move, but nobody,

came and seen that most of the people that live there are elderly.

One lady's there.

She has special needs kids and four little small ones.

And there's no way that we can afford to move.

I have a double wide.

and I don't see any, I mean, I've tried to get alone, I've tried to go, you know, try to find somewhere to go, but it's just nowhere to move to.

That's a brand new house, I moved there in 2019.

And I don't know what else am I supposed to do, I'm supposed to give them a home?

I mean, it's really stressful to try to have something and then it gets taken away.

Yeah, I don't know what y'all are going to do about it, but you really need to really

talk to the people and see how hard it is for us to try to have, you know, to go on with our lives because after COVID, everything messed up.

It didn't affect just a few people or a county or just a city.

It affected everybody in the world.

And, you know, and now everything is all messed up.

And I'm on a fixed income.

I can't afford to move anywhere.

So I mean, what am I supposed to do?

Just leave my house there and just let you plow it down?

I mean, I don't understand what the problem is that, you know, should nobody help us because we're a low-income community.

It would be nice if you would see how we live and how things are going on and try to help us instead of just telling us to get out.

The people that we rent from, they told us, oh, we can move over into other dangerous part number two.

Nothing came of that.

Then some people came out and tried, oh, they were going to help us, OK?

They helped us, all right?

After they found out that we couldn't get a loan to move or do anything, they left us alone.

Like I said, we are elderly.

We don't have the money to move.

I have a brand new house.

And there's another lady that has a brand new house.

And I don't understand why we were moved there if that was going to be closed down.

Now we're stuck.

and it's really stressful.

So I just hope that you would kind of look into it and see if you could just try to help us, just to come and just talk to the people that live there.

Some people have moved out, that's good, they can afford to do that, I can't.

And I'm going to be homeless if I don't, if I do.

If I have to move, I'm going to be homeless.

I can't afford $2,000 a month.

I'm barely on the line now of just making it every month.

We're making it every month.

But moving that big house, it's not easy.

I mean, have you ever tried to move a double wide?

It's not easy.

You can't just hook it up to a car and just pull it away.

You know, you got to get people to pull it off.

You got to get people to set it up.

Then you have to find somewhere to put it.

Land is not cheap.

I mean, I'm 63 years old.

I can't go into debt anymore.

I'm already in debt having my home there.

I thought when I was moved there that I was going to be having a place to stay, live out my life there.

Now I got to pick it up and move?

That doesn't make any sense.

And I mean, nobody knows that we're back there anyway.

So I'm just saying, I'm just pleading my case, because I don't have an honor what else to do.

So if you could just look into that and just let us know that you do care, that would be nice because we feel like nobody cares about us.

It's just sad because what hurt me is we have one lady that lives there.

She has four kids.

And one of them is a special needs child in a wheelchair.

They moved her from one side of the street to the other.

They charged her $7,000 to do that.

And now she's got to move again?

That's not right.

I mean, it's not right at all, but just to let you know that, you know, we, you know, we are there and we would like somebody to notice us.

Okay.

That's all I would ask.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, me.

Thank you.

Good evening board members.

I just wanted to remind everybody that this coming Saturday over at the Greene County Park, the Lions Club will be celebrating our 75th anniversary serving Greene County.

We're inviting everyone and anyone from Greene County to come out and have fun.

There's going to be a bouncy house, face painting, inflatable slide,

free hot dog, free bottle of water, free bag of chips for every attendee as long as we don't run out.

We also have sprinkles there serving ice cream that will be not free.

We will have concessions as well and snow cone people will be there as well.

It starts at six and then through about eight o'clock and then the movie Mufasa will be starting up around 830 or so.

So I just wanted to remind everybody to come and have fun.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Anybody that's joining us online that wants to speak from matters from the public, just general matters, please raise your hand feature so that we know that you would like to address the question.

OK.

Okay, I will close matters from the public.

We will go on to number nine, public hearing.

It's a public hearing to consider a request from 33 Holdings LLC to rezone parcel tax map number 60C-A-24, which has a total acreage of 18.55 and is located off Spotswood Trail in Ruckersville.

This request includes a change of 0.29 acres of the parcel from R2 residential to B2 business general, as well as 6.14 acres from R2 residential

to B-3 business highway and high intensity.

Mr. Friedel, could you please give us the staff report?

Thank you.

Yes, exactly.

This is the area on the south eastern corner of 29 and 33.

It's the area right next to the Walla Walla building site.

It is the front portions of the current

Community there on Jennings Loop, what some people refer to as Park 1.

And it's the areas that are adjacent to Route 33.

So the areas that are up front that currently

are near the pond.

They're the road frontage areas.

They're not specifically the areas where the homes are, but they're the areas adjacent to the Wawa site and in that general vicinity right there.

I guess I could show you the pictures instead of talking about it because we do have those maps.

So these are the areas.

It's the area in green that we're speaking of.

So it's the road frontage parcels and then also a little bit of the area

down to the, it's going to be on, if you see down the middle there's a road that bisects the entire parcel and there's a little sliver of it to the west of that road down in the bottom there right in

This is the area that they're asking to rezone to B2, the rest to B3.

So the road front is to B3, this to B2 because it matches this business parcel that it is continuous with.

The current zoning is R2.

It's just another depiction from the map showing potential parcels.

It is illustrative because in the original picture it's hard to see the fact that the water retention pond is a significant portion of that bigger front part there.

And this is just the overhead view of the areas, the area in question.

And this is the whole overall parcel.

They're only asking to do the portion in the front up against the highway and the portion adjacent to the little sliver that's adjacent to the parcel that you can see that's a little rectangle here in the work.

in this area, a little sliver here alongside the road.

And that's the current zoning map.

It shows that this is R2.

We have highlighted the areas that we're talking about there in the red, outlined in red.

So it's R2, meaning it's multifamily rezoning.

And because this is the busiest,

intersection in Greene County, the applicant would like to use the road frontage areas as business.

So opportunities for small businesses that would be related to the area.

It's worth noting there is a plan under review for being able to combine

It's hard to tell from this picture, but you kind of can see this area here.

And then there's a little kind of stretch right there.

And then this area, those are the existing park one and park two for the

the community in that area.

Park 1, the intention was to move it to the east or offer people that live there an opportunity to move to the east where you see there's no homes there right now because it's just that rectangular area on the far east side of the striped area.

They've had some challenges because they

septic systems in park one and park two are older don't have when they were installed they didn't have a reserve requirement and some of those are failing so they are they've been looking at different alternative ways to try and be able to provide sewer and keep spaces available for the homes

Additionally, we've gone through five different site plan iterations on trying to find ways to do that because it really doesn't make any sense in an affordable home community if they have to charge

$4,000 a lot or $3,000 a lot for rent because the sewage would cost that much.

So they have found a way to create space for a small number of the units right now.

Their hope is, as this develops, that the commercial growth in the area would help for a necessary pump station.

And then that would allow them to make the connections with the affordable homes

and still keep those lots affordable.

The lots alone can't support the cost of a pump station.

The commercial development really is necessary to do that.

But right now, simply we're talking about these areas outlined in red there going from the R2 multifamily to business zoning for those areas.

Well, I wanted to give you some background.

I know that we had gotten a comment about sewage.

The sewage will be standard for the homes they're able to create because they've worked through the health department and got approval on that.

Long-term plan is to be able to have an affordable way to connect these to sewer, which is a better long-term health safety and welfare issue than septic.

Septics fail.

Sewer typically is more clean.

This is just a blow up of the area in question.

Again, the road frontage area there outlined in the dark red is the area that we're speaking about.

And then finally, just as a reminder, this is a request to rezone to B2 and or B3.

So whenever that happens, it's not just the things listed in the B3 district.

It's all of the uses that are allowed in B1, B2, and B3.

And so for the B2 portion, it would be all of the uses allowed in B1 and B2.

It's inclusive of the other districts when you get to the more intense ones.

VDOT reviewed this, so there was an extensive study on the area and where the location on this parcel was part of the Route 29-33 intersection improvements so that all of this right now would be planned to come off of that secondary road that comes off of 33.

If there were other entrances proposed, those would be reviewed at the site plan phase and they'd have to meet all the VDOT requirements and safety requirements.

Water and sewer, public water and sewer are available.

Obviously, Wawa will be on public water and sewer.

These lots are adjacent to that, so they'll be able to extend that to be able to use the gravity sewer in that general area.

And then we didn't have any specific comments from E&S, Stormwater, and Building Official.

Those are all going to be more specific once we have an actual plan for the site.

And then lastly, this is in our growth area.

Real quick, pass the map.

One small portion is in the higher density part of our growth area, the coral area, which is our mixed-use village center, where it's proposed for a mix of business and residential.

The other portions are just over that line adjacent to it, and they're in a mixed-use area, which is residential and business.

So these do fit.

The request does fit with the comprehensive plan.

and lastly, sometimes the, there we go.

At the July 16th public hearing, the Planning Commission did review this and unanimously recommended approval.

We do have online the property owner, so we certainly can ask them to unmute themselves and comment if they have anything to add, that'd be fine.

Sure.

I don't have any formal presentation.

Happy to answer questions.

I do want to address the comment regarding the dislocation of residents in Park One, because this has been an issue that has been of great concern to us as well.

I will say the only residents that are forced to move right now are those on failing septic systems because we don't have any alternative for those folks.

The other residents that are there have been notified that they are essentially on a month-to-month lease.

Our hope is that we can get the final plan for the part two phase one expansion approved sometime in the next few months and get that built affordably.

Obviously, there still is the cost of moving trailers and or double wides.

We have sought some financial assistance through grant funding and so far have not had a lot of luck but we're still committed to finding solutions that are affordable for the residents and I know how difficult this has been for some of them.

I'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have with regard to the rezoning or the park to expansion.

Okay, sir.

Well, we'll open the public hearing up.

I'm sure we'll have questions for you once we conduct a public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Kemp.

No one has signed up.

Yeah, so anyone that's joining us via Zoom, if you have

Any comments about this particular project, please use the raise your hand feature so that we can see that you want to address the board.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I will close the public hearing and open it up to the board of supervisors for discussion.

Yes, the whole parcel goes all the way back.

and the lady that spoke about having a double wire and that being R2, which is residential, but I can't see pushing someone out of their home just because of rezone, but I know, and I'm not blaming Mr. Stoner or no one, but I just think it's, I don't care for it.

I see it all the time, people being pushed out

moving, moving, move over here, move here, move here.

People don't have that kind of money.

And a lot of people.

And I understand how they feel.

So I'm not, I think something needs to be done for that.

I don't think I can vote for a rezoning if it causes people heartache.

And I'm not sure where the

Nobody is being forced out of their home as a result of the rezoning.

The issue that is forcing people or will force people out of their homes is the fact that we have septic systems that are failing in the park.

and we have tried desperately to find solutions that are affordable.

Unfortunately in Greene there's no support from the county for low-income housing, water and sewer tap fees.

We sought assistance for conducting, in fact we got some grant funding

I don't know, a year and a half ago from DEQ, but it didn't help with the cost of the pump station, which is the pump station, the extension of sewer to these folks would have cost well over a million dollars.

And if that cost has to be borne by the residents there, they're going to be forced out by the fact that they can't afford the rent anymore.

So we are committed to finding affordable solutions and would welcome any help that the county might be able to offer to help bring sewer to these folks.

Park 1 is again just a ticking time bomb because none of the septic fields that were built there were built according to the standards that you would require today and again we have a number of those that are now failing and so

I wish I could say that the Park 2 plan was ready to go, but the cost of creating the lots in our original scheme, which Jim mentioned, ended up being well over $70,000 per lot, and that's simply not affordable.

Does that answer your question?

Other comments?

Well, again, are those homes going to be moved as part of this when it's rezoned to B3?

Are they eventually going to be displaced?

Because, you know, when you wind up upgrading a zoning, the individual is getting something.

And it would seem to me that if there's going to be displacement as a result of it, either now or in the future, that that be part of the responsibility of the individual who's basically getting a movement from a mixed use residential to a B3.

So the, and I can let the Mr. Stoner answer that probably better than I can.

I did.

Yeah, so the plan has always been to allow people to move from Park 1 to Park 2, where we would have upgraded facilities for them at an affordable price.

And without these rezonings, we'll never get there.

The plan, as Mr. Friedl referenced right now, is to hopefully through

the addition of some commercial development and at some point some higher density residential development allow us to build a pump station to provide sewer to all the residents in Park 2 and residents in Park 1 which we are going to allow to move into Park 2 once we have that section built.

But without the rezoning, there's no solution.

And again, if the county, Albemarle County will give us off-site credits for sewer improvements that we make, but Greene doesn't have a program like that.

You know, the cost of extending water and sewer is and as you know, the cost of tap fees in Greene is very high.

And so for people who are living on, you know, fixed income and don't have, you know, money to spend, the costs, they're just out of reach.

And that's not a function of the rezoning.

But going back to this little tale of Greene that covers about, looks like seven trailers.

The seven trailers that were affected by the road network, they're already gone.

I'm not sure what area you're looking at.

You call it up.

It was the correct one on my screen, but it hadn't changed it.

No, it's the aerial from the GIS, so it's not the time video.

It really hasn't changed.

Yes, and those seven trailers have already been relocated.

And I think just to be clear, because you're not looking at the same map we are, within the area for the requested rezone for this evening, are there any current homes

that are still occupied in that area.

I'm very concerned about the whole MIPS question.

Especially about these homes, I feel so sorry for these families.

I've spoken to several of them various times and I know it's very frustrating, Joan.

But I think it's your responsibility as the owner of that property to work with them and help them.

I mean, they are lower income.

And another thing that I'm going to bring up is the old Lester's store.

When you demolished and closed that, you had promised, from what I've been told, and I may be wrong, so you can correct me, that you were going to put up another facility so those individuals who had booths in that antique shop would have a place to go.

But that never materialized, and they had to go to various places and find things for themselves.

I'm not in favor of it.

I personally, I think I need to defer it until we can get some more information on the storage problem.

I think that's going to be a big problem.

No, I'm not ready to make any decision on it either because I can see his point of

He can't do anything unless we change his where you can sell those properties to businesses.

I think that's what it boils down to.

And we have no guarantee.

So again, our commitment to the residents that are in Park 1 now is that we will help them move to Park 2 if we can get a Park 2 plan approved by the county.

And we now have a plan that we think is reasonably affordable.

It's still expensive.

But we have also made a commitment to the residents that are there now that they don't, unless they're on a failing septic system, they don't have to move now.

They can wait.

Now, if we can't make progress with the long-term plan, which is to bring public sewer, and again, that's something that we don't have control over those costs.

And if the county would be willing to help us with that, we could accelerate the extension of public sewer, which would protect long-term the futures of all the affordable units that are in Park 1 and Park 2.

And I would welcome the opportunity to work with you all to develop a solution that preserves those affordable units.

Because we, as I think Jim will tell you, we have been very committed from day one to preserving affordability there.

I would like to see a detailed, demonstrated plan in writing of what's going to happen to the displaced residents and affected residents with your motion.

Second.

OK, we have a motion and a second to defer.

Roll call vote Mr Lamb.

Indefinitely giving the applicant time for.

That's correct.

And then Mr. Stoder, you can advise us about the timing of that.

So we have a detailed plan now.

Jim, you all have a site plan that we filed a month and a half or so ago, which we are now responding to comments.

Those 24 units will- Those things that you and staff can work out, we've already voted to defer.

So I think those things that you guys can work out together and then contact the board when you have that taken care of.

Okay, number 10, presentations.

Roger Lynn, legislate.

Hello.

Hi board members.

You have 10 minutes, sir.

Got it.

Thank you.

Let me share my screen.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

All right, awesome.

So, hi board members, my name is Roger.

I'm here to present legislate and we are using AI tools to streamline internal operations and with the possibility of streamlining a lot of external operations as well for Greene County in Virginia.

So currently, this is our core team.

We have advisors from Harvard Kennedy School, city attorneys have worked in San Rafael for more than 40 years, former CIO of Palo Alto, our advisory team, and us as a team, we have deep and software engineering expertise with combined over 10, a decade of software development experiences, city attorneys of, a former city attorney of New York City, Oakland, Mountain View, and I've worked at AWS

and our mission is to streamline internal operations for cities because a problem we've noticed in the past two years was that the government staff spends five to ten hours a week on repetitive administrative work like researching, finding documents, drafting, legal reviews and more and I think these are the things that

doesn't create that much value but can be sped up a lot with the current technologies at hand.

So think about legislature like an extra team member that has all of your agency's data and is able to retrieve information extremely quickly and is able to produce and draft work extremely quickly as well which I'll show you what the productivity gain looks like But here we break down the functionality into four criteria Assistant, Knowledge, Vault, and Legal Review

and our return on investment is very straightforward.

We're going to see in these criteria, especially in researching, drafting, and legal review, we're going to see an 80% efficiency increase.

And also, if there is at least three staff within your county that uses our tool, we're going to see an estimated of $100,000 of staff productivity boost and also the potential of saving more than $50,000 in legal fees.

and a software suite like this is simply a tool we're not intending to replace any staff members or their capabilities we just want to equip the staff at the government to produce better work so they can have more time to do strategic thinking and putting human element into their actions

Here's some of the use cases and I'm going to a quick demonstration of what it looks like and some of these tasks may be relevant to the people that are at the stand today that are sitting in the meeting today but some of the board members who have never done that really administrative work could use our tool to access information for your agency as well

And just going back really quickly, our mission really is to improve service delivery and making sure that institutional knowledge is preserved because what we're seeing is a ton of knowledge being locked in PDFs and super dense documents that you have to find specific information from.

And that is something that we're trying to simplify.

So I'll go into demonstration really quickly.

And this is a very, very simple interface.

And you have the main functionality is just one chat.

You ask it like how you ask a person.

So let's say, can I raise a chicken?

And this data is from Prince George County.

And for Prince George County, they have their agenda meeting minutes, agenda packets, their municipal code, their state code in the back end.

And what we're doing is asking a plain English question, and it's going to output a plain English answer back.

So we're going to start with internal staff testing.

But we eventually just have the potential of being external facing as well to help residents to understand the legal data and also the public knowledge that the agency has.

Also, we do have translation functionalities here into many languages that may be available.

So as you can see, we have a plain English answer to if I can raise a chicken in Prince George County with very specific zoning, zoning restrictions, lot sizes, next steps and things like that.

And we also provide sources right here.

You can click on this.

Usually to find this code you have to go into the municipal code and find this specific section which takes a long time And now you can just click view source.

You can jump straight into that section It makes it very easy to to do any sort of information retrieval or any knowledge work and Let's ask another question.

I remember There was an enforcement pause

on chickens.

Tell me more.

So I'm asking this question because a lot of times what we're pulling initially is from the municipal code, which is the legal information, which is the source of truth.

However, there are topics that gets talked about in meeting minutes that sometimes going to municipal code doesn't

doesn't actually extract that information so what we're doing is trying to find that information within the meeting minutes and usually meeting minutes are very very dense and for people who have never been in a meeting or have never prepared a meeting it's extremely hard to retrieve that information so we can see that no official pause before acquiring chickens and then here okay

Sorry, there may be a little... Okay, here we go.

This is it.

So this is what the answer is.

So there was basically an enforcement pause on Prince George County's chicken ordinance and it was suspended until June 30th.

And there is no actual official record outside of meeting minutes that talks about the enforcement pause.

And this in here, you're able to ask a plain English question and it's able to extract that specific information from all those knowledge.

And here you can click on these meeting minutes.

You can view the actual section that talks about that and you can also open document and it goes to that specific meeting page so you can read more in detail about what the meeting, what the enforcement pause is about and provide multiple sources because it's looking through tens of thousands of pages that Prince George County has

You can also say, hey, can you draft a resolution about the suspension of enforcement?

So we have a record of the suspension in place.

So this was able to draft a resolution that looks like this.

And usually just for time's sake, I'm not going to show this, but this will take around 20 seconds or so.

You can click edit.

and you have a resolution right in front of you without writing.

Usually tasks like this will take perhaps 20 to 30 minutes for someone who knows how to write a resolution.

But for staff that doesn't know how to write a resolution, this really helps and say, hey, draft a letter to communicate this suspension to residents as well.

You have it right in front of you under 20 seconds.

Information retrieval work like this will usually take

It's 30 minutes or so for people who actually knows how to do it Now we're equipping that capability to all the staff that's in Greene County And there is other functionality as well like AI-powered document search For example, you can search up stormwater prevention Search in Prince George County

Usually, the current tech stack at Greene County, if you were to go search for a document, it has to be someone that really knows the document and it's only a keyword search and usually searches only the title So now we have enabled to search keywords and not just keywords but also a smart search that understands what the intention of your ask is

and searching within the body of the text within the documents that are 20, 30, 40, 60 pages long so it is a transformational experience in terms of document and knowledge retrieval so as you can see we're going to click on view source and brings you to that specific page and this is a complete different experience in terms of administrative work and you'll see the productivity boost here and

I'm going to show you a few more functionalities really quickly of what we're capable of.

So we have legal compliance.

It will be able to check with, let's say you have an ordinance or resolution or report that you want to check against past municipal statutes or state statutes.

You could do this.

You can also do PRA compliance and which automates redaction.

And this is what it will look like.

Sorry.

So basically what we did here is just pre highlighting everything that potentially needs a reduction.

And our goal here is to react to automate identification of these mistakes.

And this is what it will look like.

And it has been already redacted.

You can also do Summarizer here.

And this is just a very straightforward AI Summarizer.

You're putting any sort of document or text here and it will give you a summary.

And this is super helpful for a lot of understanding, a lot of documents.

So yeah, that is the end of my demonstration.

I'm happy to open up to questions regarding the software.

Questions?

Does it have any limitations on the interface that we use?

He asked if we use Civic Plus for our meeting agendas.

The search works with whatever platform that we're using, right?

So this is, legislative is a separate system from Civic Clerk, which is the agenda and meaning management platform that Greene County is currently using.

The search functionality on Civic Clerk is limited to keywords only and does not show you the preview of the body of text that the information is actually coming from.

You could definitely try the search functionality on Civic Clerk.

It is maybe about 30% of what we're capable of.

But what we do is we would go download all the agenda and meeting minutes from Civic Clerk and put it into our database.

And the interface is a website.

You use a username to log in.

And does it matter how they're stored?

And then would this be open to the public?

Is there an option for people to do the search?

Because right now you have to go like onto Google and the AI will generate some of what you're talking about and you can use Muni code to look up the ordinances and all that stuff, you know, with an attachment folder.

But would this be able to have anybody in the county to look up ordinances?

They'll kind of remember, oh, a few years ago I remembered this and

Yes.

Yes, it has a public capability.

And if the board approves and there is potential collaboration opportunities to put that search bar into the Greene County website to be external facing.

And just to let you know, legislative, we also own the biggest ordinance database.

Right now we have used AI power to scan more than 100,000 ordinances throughout the United States and we completely made this ordinance database for free for any local policy researchers or any local policy drafters to access ordinances that have been photo scans, locked away, and we've scanned all the body of text into actual searchable text digitally.

So it's like Google for ordinances and we've launched that for free as of February of this year.

And what's the cost?

Right now we're in negotiation process, but the price range will be from either 10 to 15K a year.

But when you're thinking about the return on investment, that is 10%, you know, 10% or less of the return on investment that you could potentially get as a county.

Is that contractual for a period of time?

You can contract for multiple years and also at the same time, we would like to sign one year at a time just because it is a software and this is just normal practice and we're happy to give, if you guys are not happy about the software one or two months in, we're happy to give a free refund as well.

Okay.

Roger, can you very briefly describe the code compliance check?

Absolutely.

I'm happy to.

So just give me one second.

Okay.

So one thing that we found very critically was that state code updates every single year and it's a lot of changes and it's changes to tens of thousands of pages and municipal code itself when you put it into a PDF it's more than a thousand pages long as well so when you're comparing and how we used to do code reviews is we go manually

And there are a lot of issues that were previously undetected and has a lot of refund liabilities and things like that.

and basically this report really protects the county from future lawsuits because if we are able to do it there might be bad actors that may be able to do it as well so having this report beforehand to see what the code conflict is between the municipal code and the state code and we'll also do scans for internal discrepancies within the municipal code and the land and development code sections to the building codes

the Virginia Building codes as well.

So these are reports that we could produce at a fraction of the cost.

We're sitting at around $3,000 per report and this is an annual report that you could produce and this is relatively affordable for counties your size.

And just to talk a little bit about what it looks like.

So you see an explanation right here on what the potential violation looks like.

And you can click on the municipal code reference right here shows you the actual code section.

And right here it shows you the relevant state code section here as well.

You can click on view state code section.

and this one has the plain English answer.

So that makes it really easy for people to understand, hey, why is this spotted?

And you can also adjust what the risk is right here.

Okay, other questions?

Yes, it'll refer you to another ordinance.

You look at one and they refer you to another right on.

It's the board's pleasure.

A proposal in your packet.

I think we should get some more information from you guys to sit down with him and see how

Holds up to everything that we have first and bring it back to the board.

We'll go from there.

Is that yeah, that's yeah, I think anybody think it's a bad idea.

No, it's pretty wild.

Yeah, we have a general initial quote.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Good night.

Thanks, bye.

All right, consent agenda.

Can we take it as alone?

Can we take EM?

Yes, sir.

So can we take, I have a motion for A through D.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second to vote on A through D of the consent agenda.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Leek?

Can we also take out C for a second?

Sure.

OK.

Let's start all over.

A, B, and D. Okay, we have a motion.

Do you have a second?

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to look at on the consent agenda A, B, and D. Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Mr. Durrer?

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby?

Aye.

Mr. McGuigan?

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

Yeah, the questions I had about the MOU was, what about insurance for the facility?

The property is owned by the county, so it is covered by the county's insurance.

There's also, I recall, we also have a lease with Greene Commons that may address it.

I can't speak to that.

I can't succeed with that.

We also have a lease with them that I think addresses it by itself.

They will be tired as a day, by the way.

I mean, I think we should look at it because, you know, I doubt if, even if we have it covered, it's eventually going to be a cost based on, you know, the facilities we do have, right?

The other thing that I, when you read it, it looks like Greene Commons approves the bids rather than us.

The majority of the money's coming.

Although the only thing they have right now is matching funds.

You know, he is providing services in kind for them to help them scope it, but I don't believe that he is going to be reviewing the bids.

And then we don't have a limitation on our funding.

So what happens when

There's 37,000, 50,000, the big comes in at 120, like what happens?

Does our money get devoted until, or does it not get devoted to this project until they actually get the funding complete for the project?

That would be my understanding.

Does that need to be written in black and white rather than assumed?

I wouldn't think you'd come forward with it till there's actually bids and somebody actually performed and then you would, then you would start writing checks.

Greene Commons Group, they want four, four bids.

If there is no project, there is no money.

We're not basically saying we're going to make up the difference regardless, I guess is my point.

Well, that's the one thing that I'd like to nail down that we're not going to consider additional funding, but maybe that's implicit.

But to me, I think we really need

You know, the claim was that we had the presentation that they were going to look for additional funding.

This was presented to us a year ago at a $90,000 price tag.

Now it's $142,000 and nobody sought to get additional

Donations within the county.

Well, I mean, it says resolution to approve the allocation of fifty thousand dollars from the transient occupancy tax funds for the construction of the restrooms at Green Commons.

It doesn't say up to or it's specifically fifty thousand dollars to that project.

When he was here last time, he said that they had people that they that have pledged, but of course there's no project.

So they haven't collected the money.

And they also got this sizable grant.

And then the final thing, who's going to own it?

I mean, is this going to be the county?

Is it going to be Greene Commons?

Well, they're currently having events anyway, so that insurance is going to be the same.

Right, I'm saying they do.

Second.

OK, we have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote, Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

Mr. Durrer.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.

Well, I was looking at this and when you increase credit cards from $55,000 to $200,000, you might get in a lot of trouble.

The total credit for the whole pandemic.

But how many people, I'd like to know how many people have credit cards.

I'll text to find out how many credit cards, but we recently had the issue and the sheriff can speak to it because he personally had to deal with it.

But it doesn't take much in a month for the entire county that's using the credit on the credit card to reach a 55,000.

and we constantly come up against that.

And we had a situation where the sheriff and his staff were at a training in another city, actually in Baltimore.

Yeah.

And the credit card was declined because we had already maxed it out.

Cause it was the end of the month.

And now here they are in Baltimore with a credit card, not working.

Well, trying to check into a hotel.

It was a terrible situation.

and we get it's a peak card so we get a bit of a kickback every time we use a credit card plus it's a lot more convenient it costs the money it costs county money to cut checks and they're a security risk because of the check washing the acid washing that happens on checks and stuff now so we're trying to get away from that we get certain incentives by using their credit cards but fifty five thousand dollars for the entire county is such a low limit that we feel two hundred thousand

each card itself has limits.

There are limits.

So it's just that aggregate is 200,000, but each card has its own limit.

And then there's also other kinds of security features in there too.

For example, you couldn't use it at an ABC store.

It won't work.

You can't, you know, like there's certain, and we get it gets flagged.

for suspicious activity.

Actually, the other bad thing about being in Baltimore was the cut flag because it was being used in another city.

I was like, what is the Greene County credit card doing in Baltimore?

So I guess, I guess we, you know, Mr. Lamb's question, we do have credit card policy.

Don't move.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second to approve E. Roll call vote.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

Mr. Durrer.

Aye.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Number 12, action item.

A, request from the Sheriff's Office for additional salary increases for E911 staff.

Mr. Carpenter, 911 operations manager.

You have 10 minutes, sir.

First, let's thank y'all for the last motion.

That was a long evening in Baltimore.

So anyway, you have a memo, I think that was in front of you all.

So back in, I guess, May, the state approved additional funding towards the compensation board funding employees, their portion of the compensation for

which I think equaled out, this memo is correct, that Ms.

Tracy was so nice to fill out for me, $10,198 is what they, additional funding for the 6% increase.

It left a balance for the county at $38,576.

I understand it's a lot of money.

I understand that it's August and those budgets are done in July, or before July.

Just a lot of staff has read several emails from the General Assembly, Governor Young supporting this bill for these, so staff has come to myself and asked that I be here.

So I'm here before you to ask for that money.

I do have a solution inside this memo where

We were fortunate to get a grant that would cover that amount of money for this year.

It would have to be budgeted for next year.

So I do understand it's a long-term commitment by you all to make that type of decision.

I think I just crashed my computer, so keep me away from the legislate operation.

There it is, it's back.

Okay, good.

What's the discussion possible?

I mean, we can take it under advisement as well.

The 6% is temporary.

Like if you just did the 6%, it's not coming back next year.

For the comp board and five comp board employees, yes.

The additional funding will cover what's left out of that plus the nine positions of the county fund.

and the $38,576 is what it would cost to give the same 6% to the other dispatchers.

You have a temporary solution, temporary solution for this year.

What's the board's pleasure?

First of all, if.

Whatever we decide, don't we have to?

Ms.

If you guys approve it, you'd only have to do something special if we had to change the appropriation for the Sheriff's Department.

They're absorbing it within their existing appropriation for this year.

Yeah, and that's all the time.

It's 24-7.

That's bad weather.

Natural disasters, they have to be there.

I spoke with Ms.

Schaffer, I told her, I mean,

They're driving personal vehicles to come here when power's out at home, kids left at home, they have to come to work.

Is there a second?

Second.

We have some discussion.

I'm worried about next year.

This year's taken care of.

It's like a COPS grant, right?

We don't take COPS grants for that reason.

They absolutely deserve it.

I absolutely hate that there's a discrepancy, but I think I hate the state more again because we made a budget.

We took in account all those raises when we were doing our budget and we bled for it.

So yeah, this year seems like we've worked out.

It's messing up all kinds of things by doing that.

And I know, again, it doesn't belittle the work of the people that are doing it.

I don't like how it's gone down.

That's the way it's been for years.

They do that.

Right.

The sheriff's department would have to adjust their budget come next year.

I guess that's my thing.

You're kind of already in next year's budget by doing it with a temporary revenue source, because that's how I look at that.

Yeah, you can't take it back.

So I think that's the actual impact of this.

That's really the big impact of this.

And I'm kind of all torn up about it, honestly, because I agree they definitely deserve it and they definitely work hard and they definitely are under stress all night long.

They don't get much break.

But I'm looking at the bigger picture for next year's budget.

That's what gets me.

I don't know how that lays in there.

And if you all don't have the same feeling, that's fine, too.

But it's just where I'm coming from.

We have a motion and a second.

Alright, roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb.

Aye.

Ms.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.

Mr. Goolsby.

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

Thank you, Derek.

Thank you, Steve.

Water and sewer projects financing options decision.

What's the board's pleasure?

We had a workshop earlier.

We discussed all the options.

We asked questions.

OK, is there a second?

Second.

OK, I have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote.

Mr. Lamb?

Aye.

Ms.

Mr. Goolsby?

Aye.

Mr. McGuigan?

Aye.

And the Chair votes aye.

All right, we don't have items for discussion.

Number 14, informational items, updates, and reports.

Board liaison reports are first.

Well, the Thomas Jefferson was all virtual the last weekend.

That didn't work, so I do have next story.

So that's a great thing, that building that's there on 29 that the county owns.

And then we've got the social services upstairs.

We get reimbursed by the state.

So it's a great investment for the county to own that building and have a way of paying the mortgage or the loan on it.

So I'm excited that's all worked out.

and they're very happy in their new space.

Moving is traumatic but the new space is nice.

The extension office has moved to 11235 Spotswood Trail and you'll probably recognize that address because that's where Water and Sewer is.

They have taken the basement which sounds terrible but it's actually it's been renovated by our facilities team and

It's nice.

It's also not connected to the top floor.

So to get to the extension office, you kind of go to the side and they took the stairs out.

So they're very happy with their new space.

Plus there's a potential for us to get a grant from the state to make a commercial kitchen, which would be awesome because now we actually have the room for it.

And I'm really blessed to test the gardens and everything.

I'm really excited.

And they're very excited too.

I'm as excited as them.

I can't wait to go over and help them get some plants going.

Speaking of plants, in the library,

We have volunteers that put in some of those natural gardens.

They've taken the plants back out.

They're the ones that pay for the plants.

They have relocated them.

And August is, as you probably know, a terrible time to be putting new stuff in the ground.

But in another couple of weeks, we're going to have a nice garden that we're going to put in there.

It won't be a natural garden.

It'll be more of a traditional kind of attractive

kind of space, and then the plants are enjoying their new home somewhere else.

August 5th was National Night Out.

The Sheriff just left, but they did a fantastic job as well, well attended in the parking lot of Lowe's or Walmart actually, sorry.

And the weather cooperated and ended up being really nice.

We have sunsets on Main.

which is coming up on August 29th back in that space over there where the pavilion is.

Ian Gilliam and the Fire King are playing.

It starts at 5.30.

It's always fun.

So you've got the live music.

There'll be beer and cider and whatever available for purchase.

And then the last thing I was gonna say is Greene County won a VACO Award for the Citizens Academy.

VACO is the Virginia Association of

County officials, so it's actually a great thing for the whole state.

They had a very competitive group this year, so we're proud to have won that, and they'll be coming to present that award at a future board meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Other items from the board?

Who'd like to go first?

We have a second to adjourn.

Roll call vote Mr. Lamb.

Mr. Durrer.

Aye.

Mr. McGuigan.

Aye.