Planning Commission Worksession   1/8/2026

I'd like to open this

January meeting of Louisa County Planning Commission work session and start with new business, which is capital improvement.

I'm sorry.

I'm gonna start with something else before we start with new business.

Just a moment.

I think we have to have a recognition here of one of our finest in community development who's having a birthday today.

Happy birthday, Miss Linda Buckler.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

So, very good.

All right.

Well, we'll start with the capital improvement plan now.

Chairman, members of the board, good evening.

Happy birthday, Linda.

Sorry, I didn't know that before now.

Thanks for having us tonight.

We're going to go into more detail on some of the projects we discussed at our last meeting.

There's only one change that I've made since our last meeting, and it was a typo on one of the forms.

So on the fire and EMS station for Shannon Hill, it's not in this fiscal year, so it's not a budget thing.

Well, actually, it will affect this fiscal year.

It's $50,000 for a study.

We said we were going to study where the best place to put these stations were.

And the study was in one of the fire stations and not in the other.

So I've added that $50,000 in this fiscal year and updated the form, as you'll see in front of you, to add that $50,000 into this year's capital plan to start the studies because we want to put them in the right place.

So that's the only addition and change we've made since our last meeting to what I had given you.

He's running away, he's heading out.

There we go.

You got a trick?

You should be able to roll up and down with the scroll ball over.

Well good evening Chairman Disosway and members of the Commission we appreciate you all having us here tonight as we talk about our elementary school and we're coming off the heels so the opening of our new addition at Louisa County Middle School which we really appreciate your support on that project and we opened it up for students yesterday and where it is alive and well so we're really excited about that as we opened up the

Alternative Education portion of that as well as the middle school portion as well so thanks for that support and if you've driven by the high school lately you've seen a huge project in the front of that school our CTE Center is alive and well as well as the walls are going up and we're hoping to have that under a roof maybe by the end of March so that is coming along well as that plan is to open up in

August 27.

So we're excited about that as well.

But tonight we're going to talk to you a little bit about our elementary school and looking at a new elementary school for our community and for our school division and talk to you a little bit about enrollment for and what that looks like, why we feel this is really coming fast and furious.

As you know, the

Community is growing.

Louisa County is growing.

Our enrollment is growing along with it.

And with that being said, I'm gonna ask Mr. Downey to come up here with me as well.

Good evening, everyone.

All right.

So, uh, you guys can see this.

There's a screen.

Okay, so great.

So this chart here

The actual enrollment over the last 10 years starting from 2016-17 school year to finishing the 24-25 school year and then if you see there the last column on the right 25-6 that number was the actual enrollment as of October of this school year.

And what I want to say is that the first full years there that number

was taken the last day of that school year.

May of 1617, the number was 4814.

Okay, so every May all the way up to 24-25 those are the ending enrollment numbers and then you have our October number.

A couple highlights I want to see, share obviously 600 student growth in that time period and then if you look most recently just from May to October we've grown over 100 students.

So, Louisa County is a happening place as we all know and we're growing and the numbers certainly prove it and these are, like I said, the actual numbers that we have here in front of us.

The next chart which got to go down, yep, there you go.

So this is a combination of things.

So this breaks down capacities, enrollment, and projections for future for each of the elementary schools as well as our middle and high.

So I'm gonna start off with the high school.

So if you look there, the second column over, third column over, excuse me, from the left is our current enrollment column.

We're at 1546.

And again, these numbers were as of October.

Just wanna make sure everybody knows that.

and the building capacity.

This is with the addition of the CT center that Mr. Straley just spoke about.

We're at 2072, which leaves a capacity of 526.

And then through a study we did in the spring, our projection for 2930 gets us up to 1,679, leaving us just shy of 400 capacity buildings.

So we're looking great at the high school as far as capacity goes.

and similar with the middle school.

We're at 1204 currently with this new addition just opening it takes us to 1565 with a nice buffer and then the projection of 1434 still leaves us with well over a hundred capacity projection there.

Now

The ideas kind of change here, and the picture changes with the elementary schools, starting with Jewett.

Obviously, we all know we did an addition there somewhat recently, a couple years now.

So that took us to the 775 that you see there, which the current enrollment is 682.

And 775 is

That enrollment is based on some specialty spec classrooms that we have there and so forth.

We could grow a little bit there with the potential of different moving programs or whatever it might have.

We do have capacity enrollment there of over 100, but then as you look over to the right, projection of 761 gets us very close to that building capacity of 775, only 14 seats available there.

Continuing down, Moss Knuckles, the picture gets a little bit tighter there, 662 current enrollment.

The building capacity is 700, which leaves us 38.

Projections for five years from last April is 726, which as you see, leaves us upside down by 26 seats.

Keep continuing on with TJ.

We're already over the building capacity at TJ at 701.

The projection of 781, we're 81 short.

and Tribillions building capacity of 570 and I'll explain that 645 here in a second.

We currently have 566 there so again very close.

We do have current mobile units there at Tribillions we can use which gets us that 645 number should we need.

the projection for 2930 gets us to 611 which again gets us based on the building capacity not including that mobile unit gets us upside down by 45 so as you see much different picture when you go from the secondary schools to the elementary schools as far as space to grow.

What I want to really kind of put out there is that statement on the bottom underneath the table.

So I showed you that first table with growing over 600 students over really nine plus years.

So this projected chart has us growing by almost 600 students in the next five years.

So our growth is, that curve is steepening quite a bit.

And so looking at the numbers that Mr. Downey just presented to you.

So first step was making sure we're taking care of the middle school piece.

We already had a tremendous amount of mobile units taking students in there as we're over capacity.

So we just moved into our new addition as I let off the presentation with.

So we're taking care of there as we've moved in to the addition.

The next piece, moving the mobile classrooms from the middle school, so the mobile units that we're able to move, we're going to move those out to Thomas Jefferson Elementary and to Moss Knuckles Elementary to take care of the student capacity for the next few years.

And so there are several mobile units that we're not able to use.

Some of those are much older units and were actually moved to the middle school, if you remember, back when the earthquake occurred.

from TJ.

So those units are really, they have seen their better life and they're not up for another move.

There's no way we could move those.

We could barely move them from behind the middle school over to the side of the middle school.

It was a lot of piecemeal once we got them there.

So those units will need to be demolished.

But there are several units we will be able to move.

to add an additional 100 capacity at Moss Knuckles and additional 100 capacity at T.J.

So good timing on those projects because we have those units to move.

And then looking at the beginning of the planning phase for our new elementary school in the upcoming year, so beginning that June 26, July 26, with flexibility for the start of construction.

and so what does that mean so having the mobile units moved out to the elementary schools it's going to give us some flexibility and in talking with Mr. Goodwin at the county one of the things we've talked about is so when is the best time to start that elementary school as far as revenue coming in

may be paying more cash for some of that project if we have some more of that revenue coming in.

If we could wait a year, would that possibly happen?

So we're going to be very flexible with that.

We're going to certainly work with everyone that we need to work with to make sure we can best set the county in position financially to be smart with this project.

So when I say the flexibility piece, that's what that side means.

And then the opening of the CTE Center in the fall of 27

will give us the capacity at the high school.

So the middle school, high school will be in a pretty good position.

And then once we open up our elementary school, we'll have that piece in a good place as well.

And one of the questions you may have is so where would that elementary school go?

And so right now we're working with a firm to really look at where all the developments going.

And throughout the county, where are the projections of current enrollment, where are those students coming from, and then projected birth rates as well.

And so they're looking at those pieces to really determine, all right, so where is this best going to, where does the school need to be best placed?

Yes sir, great question.

So we would look to build the same school that we built at Moss Knuckles and Thomas Jefferson.

That prototype has worked very well, 700 seats and it's worked great.

the other thing that strikes me is that several schools are going to be as you point out are going to be over full so there's got to be a reshuffling of folks around so it looks like however this is done

When you put the new school in, you're going to have to redraw your districts and who goes to what school and move folks around.

That's right and so the redistricting process certainly will need to take place and right now I think it's a little too soon to try to do what we're trying to do and in working with the firm is where are our students now if we had to divide from where we are where would we divide those lines and what would that look like to position the school in the best possible place in the county if you think about this if this opened the school doesn't open up until

fall of 29, fall of 30.

Many of those students are already into the middle school.

So it's going to be a process to wait to see what that looks like.

But we do feel like the lines are going to somewhat stay the same in talking with the firm we're working with.

They seem to think that that probably wouldn't change a whole lot as far as what it may look like if we did it today and then.

But it's not necessarily necessary for us to do it today as such, if that makes sense.

But there will be a redistricting, and I think

A fair amount of students will need to be moved to different schools.

And it might not just be to the new school.

And one last observation.

If you could back up one slide without one more.

There you go.

So when we get to 2930 time frame, we're going to be

We're going to be largely negative.

So take the 14 out of that.

About 120 negative, and we're going to bring in 578.

So that's roughly 700 students.

No, I don't think we'll be full.

So I'm just I'm just looking at your numbers down here.

Yeah, I think what you would see there is you actually, if you look under projections for 2930, so if you look at Jewett, Jewett would be full at 775, they would have 761, so that you wouldn't, I mean, that would sort of wash itself.

Moss Knuckles, you're about 26 students over.

TJ, you're about 81 students over, and Travailians, you're about 45 students over, right?

So you take those students, that would be what we would be over for capacity if we had four schools, then we're adding an additional 700 seats.

I'm sorry.

I'm adding my numbers the wrong ways here.

I'm with you on that now.

So it would actually give us a lot of room to grow.

It does.

OK. And what we would want to do in the redistricting process is sort of equal that growth out for each school to have the area grow.

Thank you.

Mr. Straley, and maybe I'm getting ahead of you.

Well you some of the when you're opening a new school as such some of those positions can't just come over because you're still going to need those so for example most many of your buses you're going to need so you're going to have to hire new bus drivers new cafeteria workers as such you may be able to bring one or two potentially but you're going to need a team of those as well as office staff

Administration as far as principals, assistant principals, and then teachers as well.

It's just not going to wash itself out cleanly by just bringing students from our staff from the other schools.

Yes, Sir.

Yes, Sir.

The projection of 1679 high school.

And then there's a part of that will be divided into the CTE Center.

Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

So the CTE Center is a part of the high school.

So it will be included in that.

So when you see the seat number of 2,072 as a capacity, that includes the CTE Center as well.

The vast majority of our students take classes within our CTE, Career and Technical Education Center, whether they're on a track to go to college, a track to go in the workforce, a track to go to a trade school, a track to go to the military, many of them are taking courses within Career and Technical Education already and will continue to do so.

It's my belief that all of our students need to be

Thank you for your time.

I do.

That is true.

All right.

I'm going to go down the list that Wanda has on the agenda.

So we're going to start with the training center that we have listed in 2028.

We actually put this in last year in sort of a two-phase look of our training center and what was needed out at the site.

And the training center itself, the land is perfect.

The area is perfect.

The location is perfect.

The training center burn building is perfect.

The classroom is what we're looking at.

It is small and out of date.

It will not hold as many people as we need or as many classes as we need.

We looked at it and with the help and talking with staff, that is the reason we moved it to 2008 to help and understanding that financially I think the county may be in a better spot then and with the need then.

In this current CIP this year in 26, we have in addition a renovation at Company 1 that actually took away a large meeting room and a training area that we used in the county.

Company 2 in Mineral currently is using their upstairs fire hall.

They've been through some renovations and it is currently being discussed to possibly make that into a bunk room area as volunteerism has increased in that location and they need more bunk room space.

So we're not only finding that we don't have the area for training,

classroom training but we also don't have the meeting spaces.

running out of that.

So this training center classroom we are looking at and discussing would actually be a large enough building that we could hold three separate classrooms.

It would hold our training division office staff.

And we could also hold meetings there in one of those buildings or one of those classrooms.

So that's what we're looking at as a bigger footprint.

Any questions on that?

I do want to follow up with letting you know that what we currently have done with this training building is we have 14 career staff this year that went through a 25-week training academy, one volunteer that went through the entire academy with us and completed that at that training center in this smaller footprint.

We've made it work.

We've had to move them out into a bay area and set up tables and chairs for them to do their classwork and so forth.

And also we bring the CTE program, our FIRE program, and our EMT students will come over to the training center to do some of their skills and drills that they are required to do by state.

If there's no questions on that, I'm going to move to the Zion's Crossroads Fire Station.

Go ahead.

It's outside of Mineral, down off of Sacred Heart.

I encourage any of you, please stop by.

There's usually one of the admin staff is down there Monday through Friday.

You're welcome to stop in.

Zion's Crossroads Fire and Rescue.

I'll hit that one and the Ferncliff Fire and Rescue at the same time.

You've seen this one listed before.

So we have been discussing that the location of Zion's Crossroads may need to move into that 15 corridor

where the growth of that area is taking place.

Getting it on that other side of the diamond may be very beneficial to response times.

In this upcoming CIP, we're requesting the $50,000 for both of these locations to make sure that we have a consultant that helps us with that.

with the data that we have, the response times, the call volumes, where the calls are, what is the best location for us to put those fire stations.

Zions Crossroads is the currently it is sitting at the second busiest station in the county next to company one here in Louisa District.

Obviously, moving a fire station has that effect on call volume and response times in another location.

And we realize that that will happen.

It actually may help the 64 corridor of us getting on the interstate much quicker.

But also in the Ferncliff or Shannon Hill area, there is a spot that

that actually may make it increase that response time area.

And we're looking at that Ferncliff or Shannon Hill area for an additional fire station.

You all have seen those before, I know.

You said the other side of the diamond.

Will that be the north end of the diamond?

That is my belief.

The diamond is really great.

Diamonds are great in how they work.

But unfortunately, if you are at that stop sign, if they stop at that stoplight and both lanes are stopped, we are deadlocked to try and get around them and them trying to move over enough for any fire apparatus to come around.

So sometimes it gets a little bit trickier.

Again, the $50,000 for the consultant and investigation of looking at our data and things like that to see where the best spot is is going to help us a lot to make those decisions.

And then the last thing is the building expansion at Locust Creek Volunteer Fire Department.

The last couple of years, the Management Oversight Group, which is the MOG, which is all of the fire chiefs of the county, all of the volunteer fire chiefs are one group.

They have supported taking to the board each budget year one major renovation for their buildings that are aging.

Locust Creek was the one that was unanimously brought forth this year to bring to the board to see if we could fund getting that renovation taken care of.

They are an older building.

I actually am sorry.

I did ask the fire chief to join me tonight, but unfortunately he works at NAPS and was unable to join me.

But they have been very, very supportive in having career staff there.

We also have put in a SAFER grant that we were awarded for nine additional firefighters and EMTs that will be located in that building for the east end of the county.

Currently there is only two full-time staff members that are there for the whole east end of the county supplementing volunteer participation.

and putting nine more additional people in that station will allow us to get the ambulance out and a fire truck out with an additional fire truck out every day or on every call that it is needed.

So that's a huge plus.

There's not enough space for them in that building, not enough bunk room, very small kitchen, very small living space.

So we're asking the additional funding to renovate that building, the inside of that building currently looking at that blueprint and

Expanding it out to add additional bunk rooms, additional bathrooms, a larger kitchen, a larger living area.

Questions?

No.

Thank you.

I appreciate your time.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Planning Commission.

I think last year I made a comment about speaking about the same things every year and I noticed that I have a lot more to talk about this year so I don't know if that's a reward or a punishment.

But anyway I'll get started.

Of course the two at the top are the ones I speak about every year at the Planning Commission.

The landfill closure fund and the landfill new cell development.

They kind of go hand in hand.

Basically, the closure fund is when we finish the life of a set of cells, which our current cells that we're filling now will be in about 2031.

And then the next phase, which would be cells 4A and 4B, they will continue until about 2049.

At that point, we will then have to close them out and cap them with either a two foot thick earthen

will have to cap it with a synthetic geotechnical like we did on the old landfill.

This is basically a savings fund for that.

It's going to be approximately, if it were in today's dollars in 2029 or 2049, it's probably about 5.9 million to do that.

So this is basically a savings fund.

So by the time we get to have to do that,

will already have the money in place and we're not searching for $6 million.

There may be, you know, 2, $300 up or down, but that's a much smaller amount for the future board to have to come up with.

The new cell construction is basically the same.

The same idea is we're saving up money for the next set of cell construction.

The next set of cells for a and four B will probably have to be constructed somewhere in 2030-2031 as the other set of cells get capped off.

So basically we're saving that.

That fund has actually gone up in the amount we increase to put in it because you know we may need in the future to make land purchases.

The county is currently under contract to purchase some additional land next door that'll give us another 250 years and some of this is basically to recap or recoup what we've spent into that.

So does anybody have any questions on those?

Questions.

You sit next door to the current landfill.

It's actually right adjacent.

If you're familiar with the landfill as you come down the entrance road to the scale has Pendleton's on the left.

The property will be to the right of that.

They just logged it.

Yes, sir.

Any other questions?

New stuff.

So the animal shelter building edition we have scheduled for next year.

We have actually already started on some engineering for that.

Basically, we're doing a space study, and we're doing our preliminary like soils reporting, setting up for where we're gonna have to do an established drain field and well

We already have money in store for that.

We originally had money set aside a while back for a renovation to the existing shelter.

Unfortunately, the existing shelter is 3000 square feet and it has been that same size since they originally converted it into a shelter in 1989.

I believe it was it was either in 89 or the very early 90s.

And of course we see about anywhere from 1100 to 1500 animals a year in that which is over 100 a month.

You know, with a spirit.

The cage capacity and the pins that we have, we're just out of space.

So we currently already have $318,000 sitting in a fund that is allocated towards this project.

We've already spent $50,000 and the work that's going on for engineering now to get what amount of space we will need for the next 10 to 20 years and develop a budget for that and a preliminary layout for adoption rooms, things like that.

you know we have to improve the HVAC to prevent cross-contamination and have quarantine rooms.

This is for an additional $2,023,000 to come to their total budget we believe for the project to be $2,335,301.

Yes, it will be an addition.

Yes, Sir.

And that will also include renovating some in the older space.

Yes, Sir.

Other questions?

I'll move on to the next one, which is a grounds maintenance shop.

Air Parks and Recs Department.

Currently they have a small shop which

in layman's terms is a glorified carport.

It has no heating, no air conditioning, no running water.

Um, you know, when we do a lot of air servicing on equipment and everything in the winter time when there's downtime for our full time employees and the temporary staff that works seasonally is not working at that point in time.

Um, the plan would be to build another 3000 square foot structure over on air parcel, which general services has in the industrial park.

and then we would give the existing building that's there the shell for storage for parks and rec.

Um, if you've been to the pool any recently, you know, there's a handful of sheds at the top of the hill that look, uh, it irks me every time I see them, their little dilapidated.

So that would become storage for parks and rec department.

It would be more than what they need.

And then we would also have a building for parks and rec to work out of and to be able to maintain the equipment better.

and give the full-time people there something in the winter where they, you know, I don't know if y'all have ever had to work on equipment.

I know Christian Goodwin would tell you as a farmer, if you have to work out in the cold and stuff, probably about 50% of what gets done is what normally would happen in a full-fledged shop.

So, you know, we've, I don't know, I've been here for 13 years.

James Smith, who's the current director, and Joey Groom, who is also the head of Parks and Rec.

I can remember coming in when I first started here.

It was mostly weeds out here at the admin building.

The grass looks better than it's ever been.

I currently am invested in some landscaping.

We have some landscaping with this building and district court this fiscal year and circuit court next fiscal year if approved.

So I think they need something to

Yep.

All right, on to the next one, the airport maintenance shop.

So currently, the airport has some equipment.

They have a tractor, a Ventrac, a couple of things that were bought on a fund, a grant, and currently they had been keeping it indoors in what was there to be their maintenance shop for their airport equipment.

Obviously now that we have taken over the airport, we're working more towards having service.

You know, Brittany's here.

She'll speak on some of this stuff later, but the plan is to give them an actual maintenance building to store their equipment at so they're not taking up the space that can be used to bring in revenue for the county for servicing airplanes and airplane works and all of that.

And, you know, obviously we have, if you look at hers down below, she's two people after a third person after me, she has a lot of stuff that's going to be going on there.

They're going to have a greater need for maintenance and everything there.

This plan, I believe it's 3000 square feet would be just across the fence from their property next to us.

Um, and I currently have about a I think that things 2400 square feet shell building that they're gonna use temporarily because right now they're actually storing their equipment outside the grants that they have it for 20 years.

They have to be able to keep the equipment to that amount of time.

They can't sell it.

They can't trade it.

It's a odd

We're going to currently use the building that's on my property to store things in, which I'm expecting delivery of that building at the end of January, beginning of February.

We'll store everything in that, and then once we build their maintenance building in 2028, all of that stuff will move over there.

They'll actually have an enclosed workspace, heat and air, just as I mentioned about Parks and Rec, and we will actually use the building there for our dry storage for our materials that don't have to be kept in any heated or in full climate.

Any questions on that?

All right on to the animal shelter complex, the paving.

Um, and that is basically so we've obviously we're looking at doing a training center at that down there at the fire training center.

The animal shelter is actually adjacent to that.

We're talking about doing an animal shelter addition.

And then we also have the share of storage building that is there as well as the impound lot.

Now, when we did the share of storage building in order to save some money and to keep our budget where we needed it to be, we didn't pave that parking lot knowing that we were going to have these things in the future, an animal shelter addition and also a training center addition.

And so the idea is for this to be after we get all of our other things done, we will actually pave that once the training center is completed, if it is approved.

And it's just one of those things where, you know, it gives a really good professional entrance.

It makes it easier on snow removal.

I don't know if anybody's ever pushed snow when it's gravel.

A lot of the snow that gets removed has gravel.

So it's constant maintenance thing.

And also, you know, we're going to have to have flat areas for ADA access.

So I'm here to request that we establish a long-term capital reserves plan for a community recreation facility, one that will be clearly defined by the county citizen's input through the town halls, through the surveys, and also through the development of a new comprehensive plan.

The county existing recreation facility, the Betty Queen Center, was constructed more than 23 years ago at a time that the population was nearly half of what it is today.

While the facility has served the community well, it is not designed to accommodate the size, diversity, or intensity of use now being experienced.

Today, programs routinely reach capacity, space limitations restrict the expansion of services, and the aging infrastructure presents ongoing challenges as well.

As the county continues to grow relying on a single decades-old facility is no longer sufficient to meet the recreation, wellness needs, and community needs of our residents.

Recreation services are especially important in a rural setting where access to private fitness centers, youth programs, and social spaces may be limited or non-existent.

Parks and Recreation facilities provide affordable, inclusive opportunities for physical activity, youth engagement, senior wellness, and community connection.

They also play a critical role in improving public health, reducing isolation, and offering safe, structured activities for children and teens.

In growing rural communities, recreation facilities also help preserve the community's character by serving as a central gathering space

that strengthens social ties while supporting economic vitality and overall quality of life.

In addition to meeting the community needs, the Parks and Recreation Department has demonstrated exceptional financial stewardship.

The department consistently achieves a revenue rate of 70% or higher, far exceeding the national average of approximately 29% for Parks and Recreation agencies.

We are also averaging 1,065 program registrations per month.

This does not include the child care program.

It's just the sports and other side of it.

The strong performance reflects effective program management, high participation, demand, and responsible use of the public funds.

The department's proven ability to generate revenue and operate efficiently positions itself well to successfully manage and sustain a second recreation facility, ensuring that the new investment delivers maximum value for the residents while minimizing long-term financial burden on the county.

Questions?

I have just a curious question and I know I'm hitting you with this cold but I've always wondered if a government invests more heavily in Parks and Recreation does that depress private sector activity in providing the same services

because they can't compete with local government.

Yeah, I guess one of the things that made me start thinking about it was a year or so ago with the whole pickleball deal where folks were wanting to use pickleball courts and they weren't available and they think, you know, I haven't looked into what it costs to build a pickleball court, but it seems to me like a warehouse

you could put a bunch of pickleball courts in and if you were an entrepreneur you could make some money on that and run leagues and all that and you know if we as a county if we compete with that and take away the profitability of it then you know we don't get the private sector putting that up and building that and instead we're asking the communities as a whole to pay for that

When, you know, there's a limited number of people that play pickleball.

It's not as limited as I thought, but there is a limited number of people that play pickleball.

So I didn't know if you all consider that sort of thing when you look through.

It was just a curious question I had.

Right, so what we're trying to focus on is really being able to offer programs and services.

to our citizens and I understand and integrate this affordable to all as well.

I think the advantage that we have over the private sector would be the fact that we have the opportunity to do that without the overhead that a private sector would probably have coming in.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next we have the Louisa County Water Authority projects and since these are our two savings plans from the last two years I told Pam I would just handle these since y'all heard these like we've been saving for this.

Bowlers Mill Dam is considered a high hazard dam so at the point that we can get some grant funding

We want to make sure we have our match to meet that grant funding when that time comes.

So we have been saving each year funds so that when the time comes that we are required to fix it, we will have the money hopefully to fix it.

Now the amount we have now, we may need more in the future as we go, but

Hopefully next year we should have about $2 million set aside for that as a match and I think the grant that her thing mentions is $65.35 so that we hope would be the 35% match.

Okay, the next one is the Louisa regional wastewater treatment plant ammonia nitrogen project.

And this is a federal requirement that we have to bring the wastewater treatment plant up to a certain standard.

We're hoping there will be grants we've been saving for this one.

I believe this is the one where the town would also pay half because Louisa we share with them.

I'm pretty certain.

So we've been saving to have our half of that

And we are wanting to get grant funding.

And it is something that Pam does each time try to tell them that, hey, we're at a minute amount of this, whatever this chemical is, compared to people around us.

But they're making us do percentages.

So it's unfair to us, but she definitely

Good evening, Mr.

Chair.

Andy Wade, Economic Development Director.

Airport falls under my responsibility as a new county department.

I'm joined here by Brittany Shoup.

She's our new, or somewhat new, airport manager as of earlier this last year.

I think March timeframe.

But anyway, you have a long list of items in front of you tonight.

We're going to focus on the fiscal year 27 items.

And the reason for that is,

One of the FY 27 items is a airport master plan and with new ownership, the county taking new ownership.

That new master plan is going to formulate and guide what CIP projects we do in the future years, FY28, 29 and on, that will better align with what you see on the sheet today.

So we're going to focus on the current fiscal year requests or FY27 requests and those that are highlighted on your spreadsheet.

Some of those may be there next year, but they will likely be shuffled based on the results of the master plan that we're green lighting, hopefully, in the next six months.

Good evening.

So the first thing on my CIP budget list is the airport rotating beacon.

This is old and outdated and we would like to update it to a new LED rotating beacon.

This has never been done before so that would be new.

The terminal flooring replacement

The flooring, the roof of the terminal building has never been replaced since the building was built back in the 80s.

So we need to do new flooring, we would like to do that, new baseboards, tearing up what is there now and re-layering with nice new things.

Same with the roof.

They're going to replace it, possibly do a build out on on the roof to make right now it is flat and doesn't drain very well.

And so they're looking to maybe pitch it a little bit so that way it'll drain better.

And again,

Like Andy said, the master plan update, we are trying to push that up this year.

It was supposed to be in the next five years, but because the county has taken it over the airport, we would like to look at what the county would like to do with the airport itself, maybe do runway extensions and things like that.

As you would notice, our percent of that is only 2%.

The FAA is going to cover 90% of that.

That is a $400,000 project that we as local government will only pay 2% of.

Let me just add some code.

On the beacon, that's the light that you see on the water tower at the entrance to the industrial park.

It serves a purpose for pilots.

And you can barely see it.

And that one is an 80-20 split.

So the department of aviation is paying 80% of that and the county will pay 20% and that's reflected a little bit.

That's a fair question.

Yellow flooring, if you've been in the airport, it is old.

It's a safety hazard, but it's more of an aesthetics.

We don't want to be, we don't want our appeal to be known as a junkie floor in a terminal building and probably should have done long before now.

But

Anyway, that's why we're here today.

The roof, as Brittany mentioned, does need to be replaced.

It's a 30-year-old tin roof, metal roof.

I'm not sure what the life expectancy of those is, but it's time limit.

Again, the master plan is really important because

It will inform our future development plans on the south side, on the north side.

And when we bought the airport, we added about 200 acres to the airport property proper.

So when IDA owned it, it was 200 acres less.

So now we've got a lot more developable acreage on the northwest corner that we can then now factor into our planning process of going forward.

There's no other department now in the county that has the funding capabilities of the airport because of all the federal and state money.

You'll see some of these big numbers on here like the terminal or the T-hanger construction.

Anytime you build something where it's a revenue-generating resource, you're not eligible for grant funding because the expectation is that the rent income pays the debt service if you have any.

Most of these big numbers, the million and a half of T-hangers on the south side, that's why that number is so large.

We have a current wait list of like 60 pilots for a teenager space.

So we really want to get the master plan done.

We want to make sure the T hangers are going where the T hangers need to be for the long term plans and development plans of that airport, which may include runway extensions and other things out in the future.

So that's the importance of the master plan as it is for any development project.

Well, thank you for having us all tonight at the next meeting on February 12.

We'll hold the public hearing for y'all to vote on on these projects and pass along your suggestions to the board.

Alright, next item up listed under old business is Planning Commission bylaws.

The bylaws were sent out after the December meeting for everyone to look at and review as part of our action during the discussion section of the meeting at seven o'clock.

We will approve the bylaws for the year.

The opportunity now is for for us to talk about whether or not

Are there any changes that we'd like to see to the bylaws?

So did any commissioner have any recommendations for changes to the bylaws?

And while you all are looking and thinking, I'm going to pass along what George Goodwin sent in since he was unable to make it tonight.

Regarding the bylaws and the time allotted for public speakers, if someone is representing a group, can we ask if other members of the group are speaking?

If so, the group leader should be limited to

to three minutes, dislike group leaders speaking for five minutes, then listen to a string of speakers from the group basically saying the same things, all else good.

So that's one possible thing for consideration.

And that is under the public hearing section, which is section 9B.

And it's item four.

For that it says each speaker may be permitted to speak for up to three minutes provided however representative of group may be entitled to use up to five minutes.

If when a group is speaking, people are on a court or whatever, do they yield their time as far as their speaking?

they may have an agenda that is like I understand Commissioner Goodwin's idea to shorten their redundancy but maybe

I guess we have no way of knowing what they're speaking and whether that's going to be duplicated.

Because unless we looked at what their bullet points are in the beginning, I don't think that you can

Well, would that change what's being done here?

Because only a single representative of a group gets five minutes anyway.

How does everybody feel about that and just in talking right now because all we're gonna do is talk about it right now.

All right.

Any other comments on it?

I understand what you're saying.

And I tend to agree with you.

The squirrels I mean, I don't know how you

I mean, you can let everyone speak anyway and say what they want to say, limit the leader to three minutes, but who knows if they're all going to say the same thing.

I really don't know.

I don't know if you really gain much because we don't have that many leaders of groups stepping forward during these, generally speaking, maybe two, maybe three in a really, really busy

You want to run into multiple speakers trying to speak while we're running the same thing.

If somebody's getting ready to speak and they're offering to speak for a group, then you can ask at that time, who are you speaking for?

That's different than what we do.

Ask who you're speaking for and then find out right

I don't know how you get it so specific in your bylaws.

The way I've always interpreted it, you only have one person to speak for a group.

We have the same thing, but we do sort of ask when that person comes up and they're speaking for a group, is clarify who you're speaking for.

I think if you change if you change that then you know we might be on the same agenda but

Then because I fall under that group or that session, then it kind of limits my way of speaking as a citizen.

You know, I might come up with something and I say, wait a minute, I'm a part of this group, but in the same vein, I do have some input.

I think we're probably treading on the wrong.

The person that is stepping up to speak for the group asks them to clarify, you know, who are you speaking for?

And if they, the others, the ones in the audience, and they may very well want somebody to speak for them.

But you kind of get that straight up front.

And then if you have a bunch of

people that, and there may be instances where somebody wants to speak, but then that's at the discretion of the chair to either let that person speak or say, you know, your spokesman for the group has spoken.

That's sort of the purpose of having the chair.

You can't write a rule for everything.

So I think the gist of what you all have is probably good enough.

I think you certainly have the ability as chairmen to decide whether you're going to let that person speak or not.

and if it rolls into where all of a sudden you got ten more people that want to speak then you can say no, you had a spokesman that spoke.

Disallowing their participation.

the head of an organization speaking at a particular public hearing which accounts for six minutes difference.

We've also had that exact same thing.

And what we have asked is, is just pause the meeting and say, you know, we're hearing the same thing over and over and over.

If and just ask them most of the time, they'll yield to that.

Yeah.

I understand.

I'm happy to say what we have.

I really am.

I don't think it's affected our meetings negatively.

I understand the point and I want to honor Commissioner Goodwin's request.

I just wanted to bring up at the last meeting Deputy County Administrator Mr. Coon had mentioned that we may have to look at the delivery of packages because of the new schedule for the agricultural and forestal districts and it's on page 12 of your packet but page 6 of the actual bylaws and I think we looked at it after the meeting

Okay, thank you.

Any other items?

We'll have one more opportunity to discuss anything that may come up in the next hour.

for that, but right now I only have one recommended change packet page 13 agenda page seven, which is the order of public hearings.

Item B for about fourth or fifth sentence down each speaker maybe for a minute speak up to three minutes provided however, instead of a representative group change to one representative group may be entitled to use up to five minutes.

I suppose you could say the representative of the group as opposed to one and just changing the article from A to B would indicate that there would be only a single.

Would that be an acceptable change?

So we make that, instead of one, make that the representative.

And we don't determine who's representative, they determine who they are.

So if they don't like it, they can take it in the hall and settle it and come back.

Any other changes?

All right, then we will adjourn the work session.