Board of Supervisors Budget Worksession   3/3/2025

I would like to call this budget workshop of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to order.

Today we'll have a discussion fiscal year 2026, operation and maintenance and capital improvement budget plan.

Oh, sorry.

Jeff being our chair now for the housing foundation, so it's nice to have a Louisa County rotate the chair position to a Louisa County resident.

It's been a Fluvanna County resident for quite some time.

So he certainly has best interests of our community here.

Very briefly, you know we only have five staff, and we have six members of Louisa County who serve on our board.

And as supervisors, Rachel normally comes to our meetings, but anybody is welcome to come to any of our board meetings if you really want to see some of the inner workings of the housing foundation.

You have an open Thursday, so the next one is April 10th.

We're always glad to see you.

This is our list of volunteers as it currently stands.

When I came on board, I don't know if we had any volunteers.

We had a couple who were helping out on a couple of things, but we have really amped up the number of people volunteering with the organization.

So some of these people are hammer and nails.

A lot of them are different, you know, answering phones, doing paperwork for the foundation, helping us with grant proposals.

Tim Hodge is now doing our IT, so we have an accountant who helps us out.

And just as a brief refresher for everybody, we have five programs, home repair, rental properties, and just as an aside on the rental properties,

We just moved a county worker into one of our rental properties and we're hoping to make her a homeowner for that home.

Financial education and first time homebuyers, construction and ramps.

Brief overview, my favorite program by far of what we do is essential home repair.

It has the broadest reach for the county.

We did a hundred repairs last year.

Roof, HVAC, a ton of other major repairs.

Well, septic, water heater, electric.

We're starting to do bath modifications so that the elderly can stay in their homes.

and take a bathtub and make it a shower.

We found some funding for that that helps.

So that's been a big asset for people and plumbing, of course.

We stayed at about the $400,000 mark again this year.

I'm anticipating again we'll hit at least $400,000 in repairs, perhaps higher kind of depending on when projects wrap up.

So until I cut a check, it's not a completed project.

This has been the rate of growth for our grants.

So we hit just a tiny bit higher from last year, 283,000 in grants that went straight to our residents.

Next to that is the HPG program, which has been a significant funder for home repairs.

So I wanted to go a little bit further back in that one.

This year, we did 100, we received, our residents received 115,000.

of HPG funds.

The bad news on that, the funding went down significantly for that particular grant this year.

So this is money received by TJPDC and applied for on our behalf, and they distribute the funds to us as we do projects.

It was about $180,000, I think, and we got $115,000 of that.

This year, the total available is $111,000.

So we do take the line share.

That's even less than what we received, that we actually got for the counties last year.

So this was the reason for me asking for the $50,000 of program funds.

There have been a couple of other smaller grants that also have been reduced, like BAMA, Twice as Nice, Louisa County Community Fund.

These are ones that we draw on.

for our residents and they receive funding directly from those grants for their home repairs.

So there's about a $65,000 deficit in grant funding this year.

So this was the reason for it.

I'm trying to diversify the different areas that we can utilize to help lower the cost, particularly for our elderly residents to stay in their homes.

I figured if you guys are interested in providing program funds, that could go directly into program funds, and that was the purpose of the $50,000 ask.

While I was doing that simultaneously, I also applied for the third time, Joe Griffith, who's not here, has been great at it, to the older adult home modification program that is sponsored by HUD.

We won that one this year.

So, that is a million dollars of home repairs.

Obviously, only to older adults, so that doesn't help our younger residents out, but that frees up some money for the younger residents, people with families, helps them out a bit.

So, we were very thankful for that because the HPG funds have already run out for this year.

So for the rest of this fiscal year, the federal fiscal year, until September 30th, there are no HPG funds.

So we'll see how quickly HUD gets OAHMP up running.

HUD is a lot of fun to deal with.

So we're getting it set up right now.

We had to get in a bunch of paperwork by Friday, February 28.

So that is all in.

But it is very limited in administrative funding.

So if we don't have administrative funding, to have people go out to houses and actually dole out these funds, make sure we certify the projects, we may have to forego utilizing this grant.

So that would be worst case scenario.

By county, we did 48 projects in Louisa.

A lower number of projects, but an overall higher number in dollar repairs, so more significant repairs.

So there were 48 projects in Louisa, 213,000.

Grants were $163,000 that were received by residents.

We provided $40,000 for loans.

And we have instituted a down payment program for all residents to at least get them used to paying in.

I think that has really increased our repail rate is to have them initiate a payment.

No projects can begin until they make a down payment.

So this is a little bit more proportional to the population.

It used to be Fluvanna was only getting about 20-25%.

I don't know why they weren't servicing that county as much, but it's a little more even now.

Fluvanna, I think, is a little more caught up.

They were a little further behind.

Each grant application has its own unique set of application instructions.

So a whole process that it needs to go through.

So I'm going to show you real quickly.

This is an example of the HPG funds.

This is just one of our grant funds, the process that we have to go through for each and every application.

So every single resident of those 48 residents in Louisa County that received HPG funds

Glad to walk you through all of this.

Only the portion, the bottom right hand corner, you'll see two slides, the very bottom corner slide and the second to bottom slide.

That's where the actual construction is.

So that's where we can actually say, go ahead, start on the project, and then we get the work completed.

So we have to go through an environmental review, an ERR, and then a DHR, Department of Historic Review.

That can take up to 30 days.

So we have to have a site visit before and after.

The application process is quite lengthy.

This is our easy one.

This one we have down pat.

We can get people through about six weeks.

The swap one for the septic and well assistance is three of these, and most of it is wrong.

So we had to redo it for Virginia Department of Health.

And with our help, they were able to actually administer it.

Good chance, no.

I don't think I did.

There it is.

I don't like this TV now.

It's just blank.

It's very blank.

Very, very blank.

I didn't hit the power button.

Scott, you want me to reboot the whole thing over here?

Excellent.

Any questions on that?

About the progress we have to make in order to get an application completed?

I know it looks like fun.

And just sort of an overview, the Housing Foundation started out in the 80s.

We had about half the population we have now.

So we are serving a significantly larger number of people.

We have an increased number of calls that are coming in.

And I think what we are able to do is, more than ever, we're receiving more calls, we're also answering them, we're getting back to people.

So long as the

You know, make sure they get us their information.

They bring in everything on their end.

It's gone very, very smoothly.

And things like Mr. Barnes mentioned that, you know, can you explain to them a little bit better on your website that it's not all grants, that part of it is loans, right?

We had a conversation.

I'm like, I don't know how to do it anymore, clearly.

And I sent you the screenshot of it, and it says very, very clearly.

We do partially grants, partially loans typically, so that people do partly fund their own repair.

I think that empowers people and makes them responsible for their own repair, but it greatly lowers the cost to make it much more affordable.

So just getting people to understand, it's a lot of information that we give them, so making sure that they understand it.

It's always helpful when you guys understand that as well and you have residents who ask you for help and you know

Why it's not 100% grants and that you're knowledgeable in that.

Real estate taxes back in 1989 were not quite what they are today.

They have gone up significantly.

Many of our residents who live in our rental units would qualify if they were the homeowner for a tax abatement.

The return on investment, I really think this is important for everyone to really understand how hard the housing foundation is working.

Thank you.

But definitely very well received by the community members.

Very costly repairs are being accomplished.

It has taken a long time.

It is very, very tedious.

We have two grant writers that have been fantastic who are volunteers.

Couldn't have done it without them.

So we're trying to do this as low cost as possible.

We were able to obtain $220,000 from TJPDC towards the construction project.

Just last year, that $283,000 that I listed for repairs is made up of HPG funds, in-kind donations, volunteer

Labor and other grant sources.

We provide almost 1.8 million dollars in loan servicing.

We just received this 1 million dollar OAHMP, Older Adult Home Modification Program, which I hope we will be able to administer.

We distribute the home funds, which you had asked me about before, Mr. Woodward.

Those are received annually.

to us through the county.

I'm always looking for new ways to bring housing and resources to the community.

So this $2.1 million in SPARK funds is through Virginia Housing and buys down the interest rate for first-time home buyers who are at or below 100% AMI by one percentage point.

It depends on how many people are in the household, but it's like 95,000 for four people currently.

and we're able to obtain a lot of different, we keep, we go to Louisa County Community Fund, Bama, we're always going to the banks, going to the power companies and trying to bring in different funding sources to help lower the costs for the community.

So which of these go away if we're not able to distribute these funds?

And you have to, these are not funds that a community member can apply to directly.

We're a CHODO, we're also a housing authority, so we play a role in getting these funds accountably distributed.

All of them go away.

So I think that's a pretty significant impact.

And just to help you guys understand the return on investment that is received by the county residents.

We have a very robust group of volunteers now working with us, two grant writers.

We just got a new work trailer which we obtained a grant for that to be able to increase our volunteer opportunities.

They've been very busy.

We absorbed a lot of our Louise Habitat folks who kind of crossed over and they're still able to work in the community on housing issues that are very important to them, but they have really been critical and been fully on board

with making sure we have more opportunities to serve our community.

They have been phenomenal.

Jeff stepped up as chair when we really needed him.

He has a lot of experience in providing affordable housing.

So everybody is chipping in to really push us to a whole other level.

Many of our repairs do require a licensed contractor, though.

So we can't go completely to a volunteer group providing all of the repairs.

We have HVACs, right?

We have Wells.

So these all require licensed contractors.

We do rely now on in-kind donations.

So we have HVAC companies donating HVAC units, and we pay for their labor.

So it's been very much a shared responsibility.

We had somebody put it in an alternative septic system and take $10,000 off of the price for the resident.

And that was in Louisa County.

So I mean, it's been very directly received.

For the construction project, the upcoming grants that we are pursuing, our workforce development, we're looking at $1.26 million for that.

That would cover all nine of the workforce units that we want to put in on the resource lane project.

So there are nine two-bedroom units slated to go in there, cover county employees, emergency personnel.

It would be partial grant, partial loan.

So $40,000 per unit would be granted and the $100,000 would be borrowed by the housing foundation.

Also, we had a brief conversation about this.

This would allow us to go up to 120% AMI, and what that does is give us some flexibility.

If you had a teacher and a firefighter both working, they might be over our threshold, but 120% AMI should keep them within our threshold.

You should not marry firefighters.

ASNH stands for Affordable and Special Needs Housing, so there's several opportunities that we're going to be pursuing there.

So again, another return on investment for the county where we're bringing funding here and not relying on the county to fund these projects.

What is causing all of these costs to be increased?

We have a lot of rising costs to staff.

When we were in the county building, we didn't have phone, internet, utilities, rent, website, you know, some of these other issues.

Some of these were needed.

We needed our own separate website, I think, to really

We are able to lower our costs now that we have Tim Hodge running it for us, so that's been very helpful.

We've added staff to meet the demand so that we can return all of the calls that are received.

And there's just been an increase in demand from ever since COVID.

It just has not let up.

The funding has been stagnant.

So we were at the same level and it actually dropped for a number of years.

It was as far back as you could find, yeah.

We have increased the number of funding sources, so we are able to service more applications, so that's a lot of paperwork for our staff.

But we've also lost some funding sources.

So it's a natural, I think, migration of different opportunities and sort of a growth of the foundation.

Of course our real estate taxes are up, insurance is through the roof.

as it is for everybody.

Our accounting audits are increasing.

We have to have by law an accounting audit every year.

Increasing our staff time, complicated funding requirements have increased the bureaucracy.

We have to do things like lead hazard reviews, radon compliance, but we have been here for over 35 years as a reliable assistance to the community.

When I came on, and I know some of you may not know, I sort of inherited an aging foundation which had done a lot of work in the area but hadn't really been renovated in a long time.

So we completely revamped all of the policies and procedures so that we made sure that we are serving the people we intend to serve in the community and that we're allowing them equal access.

to our programming.

They have an opportunity.

And a lot of little things.

Court recording fees were paid by the housing foundation instead of by the resident.

So those are now costs that the resident who needs it pays themselves.

We didn't have down payments.

So that has significantly helped.

We get enough down payments every year that it funds a whole month of repairs.

So that helps us to stretch our cash a little bit.

We get all the paperwork done in advance, so believe it or not, we didn't get all of the paperwork done.

The promissory notes, deeds of trust all signed, so it was confusing to residents.

They believed it was just a grant and it was free.

They were trying to help people in their defense.

They were trying to help people as quickly as possible.

They had an emergency.

They had a serious need, and they were just trying to get them help.

But I find that it bites us every time when we jump through hoops and we don't go through the proper channels for our processes.

And as we request a proof of income from every single person, we found out that almost everyone qualifies for our programs.

So I think it was a higher percentage than they realized.

We sold houses.

We have three more pending, so that's really helped.

to assist in our cash flow.

We're tracking the financial viability of our programs much better.

They weren't sure.

Howard had a lot in his head that he understood what was going on, and it turns out he was right that they were self-sustaining, thank goodness, but if we can't measure it, we can't really

You know, regulate it very well, right?

So we need to be measuring it and making sure that all of our programs are not just self-sustaining, but they're robust and they're doing what they need to do for the community.

We've increased our loan repayment rate.

There are consequences now for failure to pay.

We did have to bring, we threatened to bring a couple of people to court and they did comply.

We haven't had to go to court on anybody yet, but there have been instances.

We have pursued donations.

Our ramp program is all volunteer.

So I don't know how many people know Tom Payne down in Fluvanna.

He's covered both counties for the past two or three years and putting all the ramps up in both Louisa and Fluvanna.

You've met Mr. Payne.

He is a dynamo, but he is 83.

So we need to find some more volunteers in Louisa County to help with constructing ramps here.

Our volunteers are also painting our units.

We're utilizing them more to bring down our costs.

We're tightening the requirements for our tenants.

I did bring a sheet in with me.

I created a new addendum to our leases, which is two pages long, that all of our tenants need to comply with.

They need to initial each of these.

There's a variety of different conditions in here.

Some are things as simple as

We don't allow smoking on our properties anymore because it's a cost to us.

And it's also a cost to the residents.

So I want to make sure we're serving people who are really intent on improving their situation.

And I personally don't like the idea of lowering somebody's rent in order for them to be able to afford to pay for cigarettes.

So it's a health issue.

It's something that should be more sustainable, and it damages our property.

So it decreases our values.

We've upgraded our loan system, which is like a giant Excel spreadsheet.

So it's something that needed to be done.

We are going to have to reduce our staff or reduce hours.

Since I'm on my farm, we may lose the older adult home modification program.

We'll have some delays in construction.

And it's just going to be an increase in blight and lack of services for county residents.

which are going to burden the county government in turn.

Services and healthcare demands could increase and we do some things like mold remediation for people.

So those are serious health concerns.

Possibly a rise in homelessness because we do keep people in their homes and prevent them from becoming homeless.

So I think that is a really significant

A factor that is not well measured because they didn't become homeless, so we can't measure that.

But a lot of these homes, they certainly would become homeless if they did not receive a new roof or other seriously needed repairs.

And we're just trying to create the best long-term viability for the housing foundation.

We want to be robust so that we can continue to serve the residents of Louisa County.

And if we start cannibalizing our assets, it's going to hurt the county residents in the long term.

This is my last one.

So yay.

I want to show you guys that we are aligned with all of you.

We are at the center of this.

So we believe in efficiency, making sure we improve our costs.

We're providing gaps in services that the county cannot provide, or we can provide it at a lower cost.

We want housing preservation.

We want to preserve rural character for the county.

If there are things that you guys think we should be doing to serve the residents, we are here to serve Louisa County.

We are working together with all of you.

So each of you has a unique district.

You have different needs.

If you think of things that your residents need, let's talk about that.

We talked about what can we do to create affordable housing and assistance.

What can we not do?

What should we not do?

So there's a lot of different options.

I've been talking to a lot of different people about rental housing, which has been enormously successful for us.

being turned into home ownership.

So taking the person who is renting the house and making them the owner of the unit they are renting.

We have programs for that.

We've successfully turned a number of our rental units into home ownerships.

They're still there.

Every single one of them has been successful and we have several more in the pipeline.

I'd like to do more of that throughout the county.

So as we explore options, I think that's a great one on the table to increase home ownership.

I really appreciate the support you guys have given through the time that I have been here.

It's been really an amazing experience, and I've really enjoyed serving Louisa County, so I'm looking forward to what else we can do.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes, sir.

It'll be three years.

Yes, but I anticipate we will use it faster.

Yes, part of the difficulty with that one is it does have $100,000 of administrative overhead, but we need a program manager and we need an occupational therapist.

It's a requirement of the HUD funding, which I think is not necessarily necessary, but it is required both before visit and after visit.

It could cover things from grab bars to lighting in the rear of the house to a new roof.

a very broad program.

We also have to get our staff CAPS certified certified aging in place specialist, which I'm hoping will be of benefit and won't be just a piece of paper.

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, Kim, Jeff Martin is one of the standard setters of the CUCA district.

I have no doubt that he will take the Fluvanna, who is a housing foundation, to a new level with you.

So I want to give him a complete vote of support for what he's doing with you guys, and that's great news.

My question to you is, $165,000 or $50,000?

So the 50K was for actual program costs.

So if we get the 165K, we're able to administer the older adult home modification program for a million dollars.

And the 50K can always be used, but it certainly is less critical.

May I follow up?

So did you have, I think I heard this, some type of program that would take folks out of dilapidated homes

Homes that maybe, I don't know whether you're seeing the home every single year in your job flow.

But do you have any way of taking them from that home, putting them into another option, buying that home, renovating it, and then perhaps selling it so that that family can get that money and generationally move it into another asset?

So what I would like to do, so that's a really good question and I don't say that lightly, I don't normally say that.

Yes.

So the short answer is yes.

There are a number of different things we could do.

Building the new affordable units will allow us to take people out of dilapidated housing.

And that was one of our most severe needs and one of the reasons we created one bedroom units.

There was no place for people to go who are older, who want to stay in the community, they want to downsize, but they don't want to leave Louisa.

They've lived here their whole lives.

So that's certainly an opportunity there where we can free up lots that have

One of the hardest things for us to do is find land, so there's land, there's utilities already there, there may even be a foundation we could use, right?

There's well, there's septic, some of it may need to be enhanced or improved, but our goal would be to then put families in those units.

and be able to set them up for home ownership.

I would like to do more with, there are some programs through DHCD that Howard Evergreen actually got $500,000 for Louisa County in 2013.

And he renovated 10 homes, where Mr. Williams is probably very familiar with all of these.

They took very severely damaged homes and rehabbed them for the people.

So back then, $500,000 went a lot further.

They were able to rehab 10 homes.

They have bumped CDBG funds, Community Development Block Grant funds, to one and a quarter million.

So they are working.

Right, Wanda.

The county has to be the receiver, and they can reimburse us.

So it does require quite a bit of staff time, but it is money that could be brought directly into the community.

Thank you.

Hey Kim, thank you.

You all do a super job and I'm a big fan.

I do have a couple questions here and I've written some notes here.

You mentioned the $283,000 in grants that the people had that you had from different places.

So that is 100% grant, you don't charge any loan payback.

Okay.

So that's one.

Yes, and we are revisiting that.

We are discussing whether we should charge a nominal amount.

I mean, at 4%, it would be $71,000 a year, which would fund some stuff.

Problem is, it's hard to put the...

Chris McCotter, R.T.

Even, you know, you started back with the down payments, just a small portion, and it does give people some ownership, and it gives them some skin in the game before they get started.

Oh, I got to save up $400 before they're going to come here and get started.

So I do understand that.

A question, and don't, gosh, don't be offended by this because that's not what I try to do at all.

You have taken this and you've been expanding your footprint, expanding, and that's really great because you get to touch more people.

At what point do you stop expanding and just be content with running the operation and the organization?

Right.

That's probably going to be a moving goal.

That's ambiguous.

Right?

It is.

But I think when you have a percentage of people who are living really in squalor, you know, it's bringing enough people up to a higher standard of living.

It is.

So you talked about the population growing, and you said it's gotten you more people and more customers and more servicing more than ever.

Well, but those people aren't buying land.

Those people are sitting on a legacy piece of land.

And to get to Mr. McCotter's question, because I looked at a piece, there was a piece in the neighborhood that come up and it had, I think it had 27 liens against it.

And so you say, can you take this and can you do it and can you swap a house and do that?

The direct answer to your question is yes you can, but it doesn't always work out like that because this guy came to me and tried to sell me this lot.

He was trying to do something.

So my son ran a courthouse search and there were 27 liens against it.

You never go buy that.

I mean it's just not going to happen.

Not to mention there were 10 heirs.

There were 10 errors and 27 liens.

I mean, it's just a menagerie of a mess.

And everything that you touch is so individually specific and has its own nuances.

So one size does not fit all with what you do.

And I recognize that.

Because, and I was shocked.

So, and you talked about your real estate taxes and I'm going to float this one out there and we can, I don't want to offer, you know, nothing for 501c3s because then next thing you know I decide I want a 501c3 to do something and I have a non-profit and I'll comply for my tax abatement and one size doesn't fit all, but I think you are unique.

And maybe we could tie something to whoever is renting the house on January 1 of the year.

Make them apply.

on your behalf at their income level and the reduced rent that they're paying, and maybe we could offer some pretty substantial tax abatement for something like that.

So that's one of my notes here.

I go back to this administration position, and I understand what that is.

So let's bifurcate your administration issue.

Your main one is your administration issue on your million-dollar grant that you're getting and administrating at the same time your construction project.

Maybe the same person can help do both.

We are trying to wear as many hats as possible.

So it's also just one person servicing all of the repairs and ramps and rental units.

We have one person doing all of that for Louisa County.

That doesn't seem like an overwhelming task, the repairs, the rentals and the ramps.

So if my job is to track that and keep up with that, if once I get it established, getting it established is the hard part, where are they all, where are they located, putting them on a spreadsheet, managing a move, hey this person died, it doesn't seem like a big deal, and then if you have, how many rental units you got, 30?

30 rental units, 27 rental units, so managing 30 rental units, 44 ramp moves, and then what was the other thing?

The repairs?

Yes.

A hundred.

So I see your point in all of those.

Let me interject here for a second.

If all of those require one phone call a piece, I think that would be very doable by one person.

The problem is we get 10 different repairs.

We don't do a lot of the minor stuff.

We don't really do any of the minor stuff anymore.

We have a threshold where we don't give loans under $300.

We will help somebody divide something up, septic tank pumping, that kind of thing.

But walking people through the process is very time consuming, unfortunately.

And following up with all the paperwork,

And people call and they say, you know, I haven't heard back from anybody yet, and they haven't brought in their paperwork.

What I'm saying is if with your current staff, you could handle what you're currently doing, not your new construction, and not your million dollar grant.

Because your admin position you're looking to add is for the grant and for the new construction.

Hold on, hold on, I got a note here on that, hold on that.

But you need an admin person for that, and you need an admin person for your construction project.

Yes.

Could that, could one person do the same job?

for all of them.

I spent all day Friday working on just submitting to get the project stood up.

And that's only the initial negotiation with them.

Well, and that was one of my questions here.

Is your million dollar HUD grant subject to cancellation?

That's a really interesting question.

I mean, they cancel a lot of stuff these days coming out of federal government.

Right.

Is it subject to cancellation?

As I understand it, and what I've been told, is it's already funds that have been allotted to this program.

So it's already received congressional approval.

So same with our SWOT program.

They just sent us an email to make sure that we knew.

This was originally ARP funding that came to the state, and the state has the funds.

So these are funds that have already – it could happen.

Sure it could happen.

You never know these days what could happen.

So I just keep saying, you truck on ahead as if things are going to stay the same.

And that's what you do.

That's a good question.

I know they provide a lot of services.

Do we have one at DHS?

No, sir.

I wonder if Region 10 would have one, and we could couple and partner with them, like we pay

The Council at the School, not the Council at the School, but the CPMT.

We do a lot of times, we do case management.

We pay a case management fee to Region 10.

So I'm wondering if that's an idea here.

And I was going to ask about that.

It was one of my notes here.

We can look into that, but just coming from my background.

That's mental health.

Occupational therapy is not mental health.

So I don't think Region 10 has one working in the system, an occupational therapist.

So the occupational therapist is for the million-dollar grant?

And that should be a part-time position.

We don't know.

Okay, so it's $45,000 a year.

And you have to maintain that person to pass the term of the grant?

No.

So you've got to have three years of that?

Yes.

So that's $135,000.

That's the 150K.

Well, we will be funding a portion of that.

What are you funding?

We self-fund.

And once we get our rental units, the new rental units built too, I'd like to decrease our ask if we are able to at that point.

What's your rental unit build-out construction time period to have them up and rented?

We're phasing it.

We're hoping to start construction this summer.

So I would hope that we'd have all of the units completed in the next year.

OK.

I'm hopeful.

Every time I try to move forward, we have to do another environmental assessment or some other, you know, wetlands delineation.

We had to purchase.

Yeah, they were threatening that we were going to have to put a wall up because of the railroad for noise mitigation.

What do they care?

Yeah.

So I think we have circumvented that one, but that one was a little scary, because that would have blown the whole project.

It would have been probably a million dollar wall, and it would just trade one problem for another problem, because that whole area is wetlands.

Okay, so you've been taking your houses and selling them to the tenants?

So what we're doing, we sell them at market rate, but we give them usually 20% in order to have 20% down on it.

We divide that up into a forgiven loan.

So as they pay their mortgage every month, it buys down by about $250 a month.

And then part of it is a deferred loan.

And that was a model.

I wanted to say, first of all, thank you for, what was it, last Friday?

Last Thursday, Friday?

Anyway, for the two hours that we spent.

And some of the things that we talked about in our meeting, Mr. Williams addressed here.

So I do think there's some options that the board and the finance committee can explore as we look at the total amount that will eventually make a recommendation on funding that

Probably not ready for discussion.

Tax rebate issue is one that we're looking into.

I think I mentioned that to you.

Your rent, that issue.

But I do appreciate what you do.

We had a very frank and honest and open, as we always do, discussion.

But you do really, really important work for the county.

And in the county, not for the county, in the county.

And you're impacting the people who need it the most.

And I think that

Let us go back to work.

I appreciate this presentation you gave today.

I have a lot of information.

No, it's very informative.

But I think this presentation has helped the board understand, certainly helped me understand where we end up.

I don't know.

Thank you.

I certainly don't want to beat this to death, but I'll be remiss if I didn't just come out on record and talk about if we're going to start with affordable housing, if we can't start here, we won't start anywhere.

It's just the bottom line.

If we are true to moving forward affordable housing, we have to start here.

And so, I think Mr. Williams and myself understand a little bit, and I'm not going to beat the devil, but I got a constituent that Ms. Highlands is aware of that has a home that he's living in.

And I'm telling you right now, we couldn't lean on the wall.

If we went on there right now, and we've been trying to help them, but we can't get through the heirs.

Yeah, it's a big problem.

We can't get through the heirs.

And you can't get nothing else.

They're homeless.

They're homeless.

And so if we can't get anything done with this organization moving forward, it won't happen.

Thank you.

I'm just going to add to what Fitz said.

I sit at all of the board meetings and I listen how hard you all are working, your volunteers that are so dedicated that come.

And it's an investment into affordable housing in our community and doing something about it and we need to step up.

I believe is a board and support affordable housing in our community, especially right now.

With the way prices are and the times that we're in and more and more people find themselves doubling up and living in campers and RVs, you know, just to have a roof over their head.

I'm really proud of the buy-in we have in this community.

And Mr. Martin is an example of that and all the people that have stepped up and take the time and the initiative and use their skills in a variety of ways to serve this community.

And Kim, I'm proud of you as their leader.

You are a phenomenal leader.

You have brought this organization together, all of the volunteers.

You go above and beyond.

And thank you for everything you've done.

This is my adopted county.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, supervisors, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for inviting us here today.

I'm here with my treasurer, Billy Guilford, most of you will know, he's on our board of directors.

And obviously I come every so often to see you guys and to talk about everything that we do at the Art Center, and I was here only a little while ago, so this time I'm not gonna talk about how many shows we've got or what we've got coming up next.

Really what I wanted to talk about was

A little of the history of what we've done over the last six years very briefly, but really what the Arts Centre is trying to do for itself and what we want to do for the county and the challenges that we face.

So this will be a briefer presentation.

But for those of you that have been on the board since I came into the Arts Centre six years ago, you'll know that I spent my first year really just getting our own house in order financially.

There had been some good work done before I got there, but there still was a lot of work to do.

That first year only lasted 10 months because I was trying to ensure that we had at least a year's worth of reserves, you know, ready just in case there was any problems or, you know, any emergencies hit or, you know, something had to, you know, if it had to close down.

And obviously within 10 months COVID hit.

So luckily we had within that 10 months got a year's worth of operating costs in our reserves and we actually invested those into CDs so that we could actually get a little bit of return on that investment as well.

During COVID you'll know that I pivoted into securing grants where we could and also rentals in order to survive and we did come out fighting.

We came out ready to serve the people of Louisa again.

But the last three years I've presented a balanced budget each year and basically the money we've raised, every single penny of that money has gone out into the community for all the events that we wanted to put on for our community.

So what is the Arts Centre doing to help itself to raise money to do all the work that we do?

Obviously, we're very grateful to the county.

The county have been longtime supporters of ours, and the grant that you give us provides about 14% of our income.

But obviously, we need to focus on other sources of funding.

So the other 86% of our income is focused on ticket sales.

That brings in 35%.

We have sponsors and donors.

They could be individuals, companies, or foundations.

That's $105,000, so that's 24%.

We have other grants that we secure for 15%.

And then we also have rentals, concessions, what we call kind of like the other small amounts, which is 12%.

So the Art Center does go out every single year on a zero budget on the 1st of July.

and we secure 86% of our monies alongside the 14% that we receive from the county.

And that's looking at about $430,000 to $450,000 per year.

All that money comes in, all that money is then spent out in the community.

So we are responsible for managing every single penny and that's something that I actually stress to all of our staff and anybody that's working with us.

Every single penny is given to us and we have to ensure that we find as many low to no cost solutions.

So for example, we have our Louisa Arts Center Bus, we take that out into the community for free.

And we managed to gather supplies from Goodwill or from the Resource Council, some of them at no cost whatsoever.

So we try our hardest to ensure that we get what we need at a very reasonable price, if any price at all.

We also try to source really good quality shows because we want to make sure that the citizens of Louisa and our surrounding towns and counties can come to something really special at the Louisa Art Center.

So we get good quality shows, that means we can maximize ticket sales.

And last year I came to tell you that we'd had our record eight sellout shows in the year.

This year I can say after seven months we've actually already had eight sellout shows so far.

So this year we'll be having more sellout shows.

We are actually providing the entertainment that our community are looking for.

We're providing good quality entertainment.

We also recruit more and more volunteers to support our operations, and currently we have about 6,000 hours per year of volunteers.

A lot of that are our board members, who I thank very much because they are very much part of

My operational team, I couldn't run it without them.

Now also to be proactive and plan for future expenses, we actually opened a bank account, a local bank account, to put money away each year for maintenance and repair of assets.

As you know, I came last year to ask for an increase in the budget from the county because suddenly I was presented with all the theater lights need replacing, it's getting dangerous, and the cost of that is about $85,000.

So we have raised so much so far, we're still continuing to raise it.

But what I don't want in the future is to be blindsided with another expensive cost like that.

So every year we're putting money away into this account so that we can then look at our assets and look at when they need to be replaced, when their life is due for replacement or repair.

What are we doing to help the county?

I come from a business background and I always believe that you should come into any discussions, particularly budget discussions, with a win-win attitude.

So we are a non-profit, I understand, but I also understand that the money that you give to us, we need to show that we are actually giving something back.

So we have, and you know from my time here over the six years, we've increased the number of events, which has increased the number of visitors to our county.

70% of our visitors and our patrons are outside the town of Louisa.

And we've had visitors from 24 other states around America.

And that's all four corners.

So California right up to the north, right down to the south.

This not only helps put Louisa on the map from an entertainment point of view, but also helps to drive revenue for overnight accommodation and for food and beverage taxes.

We are aware, we're a non-profit, but we are aware that we are also responsible for supporting the county and the town and other businesses.

So our collaborations with other businesses, we co-promote our shows, our events, come to Louisa, come and have a dinner and a show, stay overnight, and it's a big plus for marketing and tourism.

With other local organizations such as parks, recreation and tourism, and our local schools, we also help them to support their goals.

And you know, and I've spoken about us going into all the elementary schools,

to help with the STEAM project and to take arts to every single elementary student.

We're actually there this week at Thomas Jefferson.

It's been a bit cold this morning, but the kids love it.

They're on the bus again.

We also collaborate with other performing arts organizations such as the Riverside Center in Fredericksburg, Charlottesville Ballet.

Charlottesville Ballet is now an annual, you know, on our Playbill every single year.

Not only are they bringing a great play every spring, they've asked us if they can bring the Nutcracker to Louisa this December.

That was my goal when I first contacted them, so I'm really pleased that they're bringing it to us.

So we try to bring new forms of arts and entertainment to our citizens.

I believe strongly that we are here to introduce our citizens, not just to have a good time, but to introduce our children particularly to new forms of arts and entertainment.

We also invest in the upgrade and maintenance of parts of the Louisa Arts Center, which is the town hall that the LAC uses to ensure it's enjoyed by other members and other groups in our community now and in the future.

So I feel that's our responsibility, and I feel it's our responsibility to share that with other groups in the community.

Obviously, all this does not come without its challenges.

As the county grows, there are more organizations who are applying for grants.

Thank you for

come into the center, close the doors on the world and just enjoy their time.

So I do understand it is in a completely different category.

But we still want to make this successful.

We see it as a gem in Louisa County and we want to continue and make it grow.

We have had for some time now a policy of keeping ticket prices

under the $50 mark to make it affordable for everybody or as many people as possible to come to our shows, but still bring good quality shows and performances.

However, this is getting more and more difficult.

Last year the performance fees increased by 20 percent.

Sorry, this year they've increased by 20 percent on last year.

We've increased our ticket prices by 5 percent on last year.

So the disparity is growing and growing, and we are really going to have to review if we can afford to keep it under the $50 threshold.

Obviously, we also have a lot of free events and a lot of our family events.

If anyone came to Louisa's Got Talent a couple of weeks ago, completely sold out, full of families from Louisa, it was wonderful to see.

We charge $5 for a child, $10 for an adult.

As a family of five, that still is quite a lot of money to pay.

So we do try to keep our prices low.

We are obviously limited by the number of seats, because we only have 205, so there's a finite amount of money we can raise through ticket sales.

And obviously, we want to introduce our patrons to new forms of arts and entertainment, but some of these come at a bit of a risk, so we're never going to be sure if we have a sellout, and we have to make sure that we can cover our costs.

Now I'm particularly proud of our mobile arts outreach program with our mobile arts bus which takes art for free out into the community and in particular to the underserved areas and the children over the summer times in some of the trailer parks.

But costs will increase if we expand this program too.

So I believe and I know a lot of you are very supportive and believe that the Louisa Arts Center is one of the great tourist attractions of Louisa County

which positively impacts other local businesses.

And I would certainly like to see it continue to grow and to contribute to the prosperity of our beautiful county.

Anyone have any questions, comments?

Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Karen, my wife and myself were fortunate enough to come over to a concert a couple of weeks ago.

on the border.

Is that the name of the band?

Eagles cover band, probably one of the top two or three Eagles cover bands in the world.

To have them in Louisa is pretty amazing.

They're out of Charlotte, so they're not too far away.

And if I remember correctly, what I was told, we went to the 4.30 show, or I believe it was the afternoon show, which was added on because the 7.30 show sold out so quickly.

And then the 430 show sold out.

So it's just pretty amazing what they're doing over at the Art Center.

The type of things that y'all bring to the community is pretty amazing.

So I think it's very important that our citizens be as well-rounded as we can get them.

I think that a good, thriving community has that.

And y'all certainly play a big role in that here in Louisa County and appreciate what y'all do.

I know it gets more expensive.

I know y'all try and have a sponsor, at least one, to help cover the cost of having these groups come in.

Or if it's a play, having the folks come in for that, the expenses.

And I have certainly found out.

A driver, a hard bargain.

Absolutely.

The Eagles cover band actually asked us if they could come and do a second show, knowing the first was sold out.

They asked to come on the Friday evening, and they cost $7,500.

It doesn't take much to do the maths on that.

You just need to look at 205 seats and times that by $45.

It doesn't give us a lot of room to pay tech and all the back office costs.

So when they said, could we do another show, I said no, initially, which they were surprised about.

I said, the only thing I would consider would be on the same day, because my costs will be less, and a matinee, which they agreed, and then tried to charge another $6,000, to which I said no.

Basically said, if you want to come, we do a split of ticket sales.

We will take the risk together.

They wanted 80%, and as 20%, I got them down to 65%, 35%.

And we actually made more of a profit on that than we did on the evening show.

So I'm now in discussion with the board and with our programming managers to go out to these guys and say, look, you might be able to go down to Richmond and have a thousand seats in a theater and charge them $7,500, $8,000.

We can't afford that, and I don't want to increase the ticket prices.

But thanks for what y'all do.

And I really do hope that as y'all go to schedule groups next year,

Let's see, Karen, can you tell me, and I should know this, and I think I do, but I just want everybody to understand, what are the most profitable events?

No, not at all.

And there's no way of adding more seats to the theater?

It's not our building.

I did meet with Kevin Louden last week and we were looking out at the back to see whether we could maybe add something on, but there's a lot of utilities.

Other revenues, maybe outside the building?

Possibilities?

And we have.

The fairgrounds we've used in the summertime, there's a little more risk there because of weather.

But we have that as an option.

But to your point, we have 205 seats in the theater.

So we are constrained, and that's why sponsors will support us.

The fairgrounds work.

We've been lucky with weather that they've succeeded.

But we have sold 1,000 tickets for the fairgrounds, and we have a big storm coming.

800, around 800, 850.

And I do have an agreement with the schools for the fairground events that that's a backstop.

So if there's inclement weather for the fairground open and concert, we can use the Alan Jackson Theater.

I have a follow-up, but I didn't mean to interrupt.

Well, I just think that you could probably ask for some tourism dollars, too.

The Transient Occupies Act, we talked about that a meeting ago for the Losing Historical Society.

We have, that's right.

I just went to Pennsylvania this week to see Riverdance in this cute little theater, the American Theater up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

And I don't think it was much bigger than the Alan Jackson.

It was really unique.

Having the Art Center here is important because it's mental health.

When you go, like you said, you shut the doors.

You're focused on that.

You come away.

You're tap dancing.

You step away from any worry you have.

So thank you for what you're doing for our community because it is important.

It might not be about housing and so forth, but it is still very important, I think, to have an organization, a nonprofit like yours, in your community.

I appreciate that.

I mean, we've actually had other art centers or theaters contact us for advice and guidance because they're struggling.

I mean, I think it was the one in Culpeper was asking how are we so successful, which is a really great compliment.

Scottsdale are trying to set something up.

They've been over for meetings, so I'm guiding them on the business side of setting up another center.

I can certainly attest to how hard they work trying to get sponsors for each of these shows.

They do a great job and I

I don't know how they managed to get so much in sponsorship, but it is definitely an attribute or an asset to the county.

And when I look back through these things, you don't have to look very far to find some extra money, I don't think.

You got the line right below it that increased $46,391 this year.

Well, first of all, let me tell you how much, not just my granddaughter, but my wife and I enjoyed the ugly duckling in the barter theater.

Mr. Williams was there and my granddaughter was thrilled that they actually picked her to answer one of the questions.

That was very nice.

I made a couple of notes.

You mentioned the Alan Jackson Theater.

Is there an opportunity for you on a consistent basis to utilize that theater for bigger events with the schools?

You don't have to answer that now.

But if your ticket sales are limited, as they are over there, to 205, and if you have an opportunity to get the band that Mr. Woodward was talking about that would have 800 people,

You said that 14% of your funding was from the county.

That was the current year we're in.

Well, I'll give you props because I remember the very first budget session I was at when I came on the board eight years ago.

I think it was in the 30% range that was county funding.

So that's a huge move in the right direction, in my opinion.

We get a very small fund, which I believe the county matches.

It's through a community fund we get from the town.

But we do then pay the town rent.

So we pay more than we get back from the town.

Do they pay your utilities?

Yes, they pay everything.

Mr. McCotter asked a question.

I know you've applied for a $10,000 grant through the Tourism Advisory Committee.

I would encourage you to continue to look at, you know,

applying for grants through that.

That's exactly the reason with a lot of organizations in the county that the board increased transit occupancy tax from 2% to 7%, 8% to generate funding like that.

So that's something that we can look in to as we go back to our budget as to where we can tap buckets of money.

That's great, thank you.

May I just ask one question?

Just really from, you may not be able to answer this long term, but where do you see the county financially supporting 501c3s going forward?

Are you, you know, do you still see them being supported or do you feel that most of us should try to be completely self-sufficient?

I'll answer my opinion on that.

It would be my goal that 501c's in general would become less and less dependent on the county and seek to find funding.

It's easy to go back to what I call the low-hanging fruit and sometimes I feel like the county here is the low-hanging fruit.

Let me just go back and see if I can ask them.

Not that it's not important.

We made a commitment

7 or 8 years ago, really just decided that if we weren't going to fund it at a $50,000 or $60,000 rate, we weren't going to have an art center.

That's before your time, but I mean, that was a decision the board at that time made, and it was pretty black and white like that.

I mean, it wasn't any gray areas in there.

If we didn't get the funding and the county didn't fund it, it was not going to happen.

So I think that's why we've flat funded you for so long.

We're hopeful that we could

Get you to self provide and figure it out.

And I mean, just a simple and you're a great business lady.

I've been told but simple Alan Jackson theater, two shows, go to one show.

Take all the extra ticket money, make them play one show in a bigger venue.

I mean, you know, I mean, it's, and I know the schools, it seems like the schools work with you.

They do, yes.

There's a slight caveat to that, obviously.

People come in the evenings to come to a show.

Can't have any beer.

So what was, I'm just curious, I mean, at the sold-out show,

You're only talking $2,000 to $3,000.

So that would have made up far in advance of having sold 410 seats in one show and not having to pay them 65% of your second door.

I'm just saying, the goal would be for the 501c3s, my vision would be, and we've been working on them a little bit at a time, we've stopped people from getting on the list.

People have tried to come on and get on the list over the years.

They have great causes, but once you get them on, it's just

It's like you've got to wean them at some point in time.

You don't take it the wrong way, but that's my opinion of the more we can get off and become self-sufficient and get you self-sufficient on your own, then you can take tax dollars and do other things with them.

And you're not a lot of tax dollars.

Don't misunderstand me.

So it's not really about the quantity of money.

Okay, that's great.

Well, that's good to know because obviously

And I'm just one.

I'm going to give you mine.

I always want to see outside agencies become more efficient and self-sufficient.

But some things are like come departments that the county has that are never going to be revenue generating, right?

But they're a quality of life issue for the county.

I think the art center, and I'll be very frank, we have been far more engaged with the art center as a family in our house since we had a granddaughter who we go a lot.

She goes, I always know when the art bus goes to Travail's.

So do I think you'll ever be fully self-supporting?

Probably not.

But when I look at, and I use you all as an example all the time, that when you've gone from 37 percent of your budget was county funding to 14, I wrote it down when you said it, 14 percent.

That's what I want to see.

I want to see that you're not 100% or so dependent on the taxpayer's money because I think you have such a great story to tell that you can voluntarily get far more money from the people of Louisa County because you provide great programming than for us to reach into their pocket and hand them to you.

So, just like the show the other night.

I don't know if it was quite sold out, but it was pretty close.

And it was great.

It was wonderful.

A lot of kids there.

A lot of young people.

So, you know, is that the goal to strive for?

In my opinion, yes.

Do I think you'll probably get there?

Probably not.

Do I think it's a quality of life issue for the county?

Absolutely.

I think the Arts Center brings something that if it was gone, the void in the county would be

And I think I've said before, if you need any help, if there's any other organizations that would like any help, you know, because 501c3s do not attract business people ordinarily.

It suits me, I really enjoy it, and I love a challenge.

If there are other people that are running organizations that maybe need that support, then I'm more than happy to deliver that as well.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

If I could just add on to Mr. Adams' comments.

I just want to add on, I'm technically here for moral support, but I am on the board and I am a volunteer board member.

I am the treasurer.

I've been supporting the Arts Center since it began in 2004, really, when we kicked it off the ground.

They've had their ups and downs.

Karen came on board and I was thrilled to see somebody with a business sense who knew what she needed to do with this organization and what she needed to do for the County of Louisa.

She is always looking when we are planning what is what is best for us and what is best for the county.

She is the one who has brought in new ideas on our cultural Sundays with ballet and opera and Shakespeare and when we brought those up initially people would say that's not going to fly in Louisa County.

We've sold out those shows.

So I just want to let you know we are always focused on

Thank you both.

Thank you Ms. Rach.

Thank you.

I have a lot to think about so the only, there's two that I just wanted to bring up and I think y'all are in support but I wanted to verify.

Java was one that y'all spoke with before and I know y'all had a, we're talking about approving theirs at $292,566.

It was the same amount the finance committee recommended but Mr. Woodward asked that we wait so I wanted to see if y'all were good with going forward with our ask, okay.

And then Historical Society, the finance committee had originally recommended $10,000, but we looked at, at our last finance committee meeting, the transit occupancy tax revenues like y'all had suggested, and they are recommending for the visitor center portion of their request, the $13,260, raising their ask with $10,000 being from general fund, and then they can apply for the grant funding for the $13,260, making their request

It is.

The $13,215 would be a grant from the TOT money.

13-260, when I looked it up.

What is it?

13,260 was the portion for the visitor's center.

I looked it up for that portion of it.

So they, I'm trying to make sure I understand this, is that a

Right now it's a grant program that they would apply for but you are the ones who approve that.

No, I got a different question.

Mr. County Administrator.

Sir.

We're going to have some revenue from permits from AWS.

Maybe you could shift some administration stuff around and do that.

I know that those funds have to be done with something like that, but it's the community development, it's community thing, managing if you have 100 projects a year, 100 small repair projects a year, something like that.

What if we hired the person here and gave them access to it and pulled in as part of the duties and helped them

Can I consider that?

Yeah, I was just getting ready to ask.

I'm not asking for one today.

You've got your question answered about... Yeah, I mean it sounds like there's a possibility that, I mean that's not some government grant that they're applying for.

Well it is, it's your government.

But it is, but it's your government.

Not for today, but I'm not comfortable with our T.O.T.

I think we can do better with it and be more creative with our T.O.T.

Funding, as far as some capital projects and things like that, I think I expressed to you there are some localities that have used A.I.

to track

The value of the T.O.T.

spending when people come in locales, where they eat, where they stay.

Before we move on from that, I think we're ready to vote at least on one of these, Mr. Woodward, and that would be Java.

You're the one that asked for them to come back.

Well, they got to apply for a grant.

Yeah, it's still not approved.

It's work.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

T.O.T.

So, the money is ours.

Is it a deadline or is it a wander?

You're voting.

I mean, I can put it in the budget that it's coming from that funding, which is what I've kind of done, but it should go through the process.

Just like everybody else.

Just because there's a committee and then it would come to y'all and y'all would vote on it and it could be done.

It's like if they

I can support the Business Center piece, but I want you all to understand now, we've been down this road before in Louisa.

We had a Business Center at Zion's Crossroads in the Best Western Hotel, and the board elected not to fund it anymore.

I'd just like to know, regardless, make sure we got accurate numbers on the visitation.

You can set it up where you know who stopped by, where they stopped on the way.

That one at Zion Crossroads, people were stopping by going to Monticello, James Monroe,

Monroe and all that, and we got the data.

But I'm just letting you know, that's been done.

Mr. Chairman, do you think though that when that visitor center, I wasn't, you were on the board then, was because of the proximity, because people were coming off of 64, it was a Flovanna, Louisa, it was a joint effort for a visitor center there, and so they were passing through

And I'm now on the poll side, just to make sure.

Addressing Mr. Barnes' comments, I think that

Your notion of being creative with funding is important.

So we can ask the visitor center if they're going to get that TOT money to do what we suggest.

Let's be creative with what you're doing.

Let's learn from what we took out of the designs crossroads situation and make it better.

There you go, one year.

Isn't that funding for somebody to, I mean, what are they requesting?

Staffing.

Staffing for the visitor center.

So, I think that says it.

I move we approve the $10,000 and ask them to apply for the Grad 13-260.

Any other discussion?

Any opposed?

One more thing, real quick.

Bottom of the sheet, $2.4 million still short, we're still working.

Thank you.

How about we convene in closed session pursuant to the following subsection of the Virginia Code, Section 2.2, 3711.

One, in accordance with Section 2.2, 3711, a five discussion concerning a prospective business or industrial expansion,

of an existing business or industry in the Mountain Road District where no previous announcement has been made of business or industry's interest in locating or expanding the facilities in the community.

And item 2 in accordance with section 2.2, 3711A7

Consultation with legal counsel and briefing by staff members or consultants pertaining to the actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiation or litigating posture of the public body.

And, item 3, in accordance with section 2.2, 3711A8, consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding

Do we second?

Second.

Been properly moved and seconded.

We go into closed session.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.