Board of Supervisors Meeting   1/29/2021

Thank you, thank you very much.

So, can we discuss this camera?

I'm not used to taping work sessions on planning sessions.

It doesn't matter to me whether it's on or off.

You know, we do have the press in the room, you know, so this really gets the love.

I'm going to go ahead for the dog and pony show.

We'll see what happens.

It's not planning.

Mr. Carter.

Thank you, Denise.

If I may, I'll start.

I'm going to introduce Chip Boyles and Christine Galpin from Flaming, Tom Chaps from PDC.

Chip and Christine are going to facilitate the board's actual work once we get to that point on the agenda.

And as several of you may know, Chip has done it before, so he's an expert, so I'm glad to have him here.

Thank you so much.

And then we have Mr. Roland Pitts from Davenport.

Roland's going to give a presentation.

He's worked with Candy, Grace, and me on financial analysis that he's going to present to the board, which I think you'll find very interesting and hopefully stimulating to him and to you for what you're working on.

So if I may, the first couple of items, Candy's presentation,

and the reports from the county departments.

We really want those just to be snatched at the top so that you can get to Mr. Cooch's presentation and then have ample time to work with Christine and Chip.

So the intent of those first two items is just real brief to get the board to some very preliminary information and then move forward as quickly as possible.

We have questions.

We'll certainly address them.

But we don't want you to really focus, particularly with the county staff's input.

It's just sort of a reference for now.

OK. OK. Financial overview.

Candy, you going to read the course?

Alright, I'll just close that for now.

And let go.

Steve said it's just a quick overview of kind of where we are right now.

As far as the general fund, this is just local revenue only.

Identify your average to determine what the increase may be for FY22, because we haven't quite developed those numbers just yet.

Find your average increase with 2.83%, so applying that to FY21, we're estimating our FY22 increase in just local revenue only

Now, I have to note is that we started the FY22 reassessment.

So our FY22 real estate tax revenue will be comprised of second half of the 2021 collections, which are based on current values.

And then the first half of the 2022 collections will be based on the reassessed values as of January 1, 2022.

So that's a little bit of a, almost a wild card, but

Something we'll have to take into consideration in developing the 1.22 budget.

Next item is referred to our general fund balance as of December 30th.

Our preliminary general fund balance at December 30th was $22,454,506.

We budgeted the use of fund balance at $2.7 million, so our adjusted fund balance at 1230 is $19,714,000.

We like to maintain a 90-day operating cash reserve, which is about 25% of our operating budget.

So that amounts to about $9 million.

And so after that, we have about $10.6 million basically on the fund balance at December 30th.

As we scroll down, this just shows what our beginning FY22 debt balances and payments look like.

You can see the highlighted items are the debt that's going to be coming off in FY23 and then in FY24.

And then the next item for today.

You all get reports from the assessors as they go through the process periodically to kind of let you know where things are going.

One other thing I wanted to ask a question on, Mr. Chairman, as it relates to the fiber build-out, obviously that is infrastructure.

That will be a taxable item.

Mr. Wood is getting some information about that, but I didn't think he'd get it for today's meeting, but yeah, that will definitely help move that, plus not next year, but 2023, when AAB finishes their

Yeah.

Okay, I'm good.

I think you've answered this question.

It just depends on when the work is completed and the way it works about the contract is.

They'll report the advance to the state corporation when they get an act and when they're inserted.

So here today we've already collected 108% of what we've budgeted.

So that is seeing an uptick already.

I'd actually like to add too that as of January 28th our local revenues

have been collected at 53.11% and that's not including the state virtual property tax relief amount.

The increase that we just talked about, public service tax, is there a particular year when we're likely to see the larger

Probably as Mr. Bruce reported, the build out in Nelson County of fiberglass net worth would be sometimes 23.

And so, hopefully by 23, 24, you'll see 100%

Any other questions for Ms. McGarry?

Thank you.

We also asked the constitutional officers, but I think only the sheriff responded and

So, as I said, I don't really want the board to focus on this.

You can study this, and we will work with the departments to try to prioritize things around the board's priorities through the budgetary process.

But I just want to give you an idea of the information you're going to receive.

So if you see here, 43 to 75 million worth of this is things we'd like to go into.

Ours were things that the board, like mine for example, I think the board may have discussed some of this potentially influenced that quite a bit.

We did put the Ag Center in there, but we've been trying to get information from the Old Dominion Agricultural Center, but to date we haven't gotten responses from the director of the facility.

I think there that the back of the commission

contributed grants, I think close to $4 million.

So I'm assuming you can see that if you go on the website, Old Dominion Agricultural Center, you can see it's a huge complex.

So I'm just guessing it could be 10, 20-plus million dollars.

We're trying to get that information.

Unless you have questions and you put this summary in the package, plus all the backup from each department, as I said,

Unless you have questions, we just wanted to share this with you.

We're able to find this, but basically today is for the board to set your priorities and then this will carry forward on the job.

Are there any things in the packet that are not included on this front list?

No.

OK.

Yeah, I think it originally started in 2000.

Yeah, I think I've been getting to the board.

We worked for Jamming Court initially and the outcome of that was the construction of the middle school, high school project.

That was good.

before the Tarupa Elementary School is when he was involved.

And then the big school plant plants was the middle high school.

Definitely the firm and relevant, definitely an influence on capital projects and planning for the county.

Okay, thanks.

Steve, does this work?

Does this go?

I appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you today.

Mr.

Harvest, good to see you again.

I think since we were here last, it's been a while, so I might not be familiar to many of you in terms of the board.

But a little background about Davenport.

As Mr. Harvey said, we go back a ways in terms of the school financing plans.

We've done some analyses.

Now, I'll look at this.

The bullet points down there are just some of the things we've hit on in terms of just working with the county from time to time.

What we do, my firm is Davenport & Coving.

What we do is we work

Not only with respect to debt and debt issuance, but also with respect to planning.

What you'll see here is a little bit of how we look at planning, how we help local governments think about planning.

With respect to capital needs, we're doing planning with respect to budget projections.

We do a water and sewer type analysis.

There's a wide variety of things that we touch upon.

Davenport and Company, and I can get you some follow-up information if you're interested, is one of the largest firms in the mid-Atlantic region in terms of working with local governments.

We go from all the way up north of Maryland into Pennsylvania all the way down to Georgia in terms of the finance.

We're perhaps the most dominant firm in Virginia.

in terms of local government clients.

We work up the road, we work in Albemarle County, down the road we work with Hanhurst, and Campbell, and all the way down to Hinchburg, and it's kind of a central part of the Virginia region.

Enough about that point, there's one here in that kind of perspective.

What we've done, one of the biggest things we did was we helped with the big school financing program on about 2002, and ultimately that was implemented

But since 2002, over about a 10-year time frame, I would say, we've helped with looking at the initial courthouse funding in terms of looking at some analysis on that.

We'll give you some perspective to think about in this little booklet.

And what I mean by that are

your ratios of reserves, your ratios of debt, what's reasonable, what's not reasonable, what's prudent, what's not prudent, in terms of things like that, we work with local governments in helping think about those things as they implement and consider future capital projects, because there's a pretty big list there of self-conceived, lots of things to maybe potentially prioritize, and we look at how you potentially may layer those in, in terms of that kind of approach.

One of the other things we did a few years ago as well is we looked at the service authority, kind of helped out on that side.

And lastly, what we do is we also help localities just keep track of their debt portfolios, look for potential refunding savings.

Because if there's an ability to lower cost of debt over time, like anyone who will want to refinance their mortgage, we want to make sure that the localities have, that clients have

So why are we here today?

To give a little bit of perspective.

We were talking to Steve and he approached us and said, hey, can you do a little things, take a look at us in recent information and give us a little bit of perspective as we think about future needs of the county.

So what we've done here in this presentation is we've looked at, and we're gonna give you some information on recent county financial trends.

Key debt metrics of the county as they relate to what we call industry standard benchmarks.

And I'll go a little bit into that in the next couple of pages.

And national credit rating agency needs.

Local governments can obtain credit ratings in terms of having the ability to issue debt on a daily basis.

So we'll give you perspective about that.

That kind of gives you some indications on where your financial strengths may be in terms of your finances.

And lastly, a preliminary evaluation of the county's debt

Those are two different sort of metrics, but they kind of go together.

Debt capacity is the ability to potentially borrow.

Not saying that you have to borrow to fill up that debt capacity, but what you can reasonably borrow and still maintain very good, very strong debt ratios.

And that allows you to take a look and put that into context.

One might say, well, I'm so averse to debt that I want to do it.

but on the other hand, if we never did use debt in a smart and creative manner, then we're always trying to save for cash or capital projects and they never ever get there.

It's like trying to save to buy a house and if you can ever build up that cash to buy the house, you're always chasing that project.

Debt affordability is a perspective of how much in my budget do I have allocated to payments on debt and does that

Allocation of payments goes down over time.

If so, can I put more or reallocate those payments to new debt?

And that's what I mean by debt affordability.

The current resources that are going towards those debt payments, and is there an ability to allocate those resources and redeploy them for future debt financing for capital projects in a very large way?

So in the next several pages, we'll talk about those as well.

Before we get into, I think we're in the background of getting into debt passing and affordability, we think it's important to look at recent financial trends.

And part of that is fund balance observations as well.

This is a snapshot, a learning by snapshot.

This is a really high-level comparison, or showing year-to-year comparisons of changes in general fund balance.

And that is revenues over expenditures,

and how that affects your fund balance over time.

One of the things that we've observed and we know is that over, and this is historically going way back to when we started as well back in the early 2000s, the county's always been in really good and solid conservative fiscal management change.

Operations have been very well managed and the county from year to year has generated positive financial results and allows the county

One of the things I'd like to point out here is that with respect to the practice of not using one-time fund balance to balance recurring revenues, that is to say, fund balance to pay salaries, that's not a practice the county's been doing, that's good and it shows in the financial trends.

However, that's not to say there's one-time funds that aren't used for the time being, whether they're property sales that generate excess surplus from year to year,

can be redeployed for one-time projects in the following year.

That's what we see when we look at the financial statements.

And we also see that there have been, in most recent years also, big grant fundings that come in that are used in subsequent leadership projects going out.

And that's evident when we look at 2018 through 19 to 20.

You can see that over time there,

At the surface, it might show a little bit of a difference, but really what's happening there is that's the use of grant funds and long-term funds as they come in.

We see that as well when we look at unassigned fund balance.

Candy talked a little bit about the assigned fund balance position and the ratios in terms of what was the working shop reserve.

Again, this is based on historic audited financial information, so we used it up to 2020.

And when we look at unassigned fund balance,

You can see that when we track a portion of the NSI fund balance that the county's been looking at with respect to its cash flow reserves, that number is about 25% of the general fund budget.

It changes from year to year a little bit as the budget changes, but that's about a $9 million number.

The remaining $16 million of NSI fund balance when we look at the most recent year, 2020, represents additional financial flexibility.

can be used for capital projects but capital projects provides additional financial flexibility in terms of being put a little bit aside for future debt service or also provides a safety net for unforeseen emergencies.

Well, sometimes things do pop up so that's a very important aspect to have.

What we look at here is this is what we call available fund balance.

That is the unassigned fund balance that we just talked about in any sort of committed or dedicated fund that can be redeployed by the county in that respect.

There's a little bit of committed fund balance in this area, but this is mostly unassigned fund balance.

We measure that on the side of fund balance and available fund balance against reserves revenues, which is the job fund budget.

So when we look at the percentage of that means the revenues, that's about a 69% in virtual revenue revenues.

So that provides you that much, we were saying, of your revenue now, revenue and information, you've got fund balance and reserves that equates to about 69%, correct?

based on the position.

When you look at the budget peers, the blue lines, as well as the regional peers, that regional peer is kind of the south, the central Virginia, if you cut a path through central Virginia, that's the regional peers.

Budget peers and population peers are counties with budgets within your budget range, and populations within your population range.

When you look at that, you're well ahead of what we'll call somewhere in the 40% range, 35 to 40% range,

And when we go a step down there and look at the light green bars, as well as the dark green bars, we've also put in some rating agency medians.

and well above, it's gonna be above the triple B.

So it's good to have those metrics there.

And also it's a good, we think it's a good perspective to see where the triple A's are as well.

In terms of the county's levels of fund balance versus its revenues, it exceeds all of those benchmarks.

It's in very good shape in that respect.

One of the things that we, if we've talked to the county over the years,

One consideration I'd like to leave you with a thought there is that potentially adopting formal financial policy guidelines that may push a target range with respect to the financial fund balance.

It's not to say that it's something that can obligate future boards, but what it does is it establishes kind of a precedent

and the National City Management Association.

It's a standard practice that is widely used by many local governments to kind of set that, you know, prudent financial management platform.

The next section here is talking a little bit about the debt portfolio and getting into debt capacity.

The existing tax-supported debt, that is to say,

This is all taxable and is paid for by the general fund.

And the existing debt profile of the county is comprised of debt that's paid for from general projects as well as school projects.

And we can see that as we look at this debt, that's principal interest on the left hand side of the page shown in that graph.

And you can see that it's fairly flat from 21 to about 24 and then it starts dropping.

What we do here is when we look at debt and kind of take an analysis of the debt portfolio, we say how much of that principle is paid off in the first 10 years?

It's a pre-standard credit metric and a key standard approach to evaluating how fast and how well you manage your debt, and is this enough pushing so much out to future generations?

You're kind of balancing out that aspect.

Typically,

A good practice is anywhere from 50 to 60% of your debt portfolio at any time is payoff intentions.

That's a standard practice.

If you think about it in comparison to a 30-year mortgage or a house, your typical homeowner is paying probably 25 to 30% of their debt off in 10 years.

Here, when we look at this, the ratio that you see on the right-hand side of the page, 2021, is 98%.

So as we stand,

And then what that means is also we think that's a good opportunity to look at where the debt position is to think about the learning and your projects and we'll show you that in the next couple of slides but within your current debt portfolio we've reviewed all of your debt obligations for potential refinancing opportunities

We think it's a preliminary estimate of the savings opportunity with respect to these 2012 lease revenue bonds.

Our current estimates right now is about $245,000 of savings, and that translates into about 4.6% on a present value basis.

That's the way we measure, as financial advisor, we would say, is it worth your while to refinance that?

Any time you get to a present value,

On the next page, getting into your debt portfolio and what that means in terms of debt capacity.

We talked about some key debt ratios.

This is one of those key debt ratios, which really says, answers the question, can I borrow that with respect to how much can I put against this S valuation?

How do I benchmark the reverse S valuation of taxable property that's your biggest driver in your local revenues?

And when we look at this, we're saying, okay, are we really leveraging our taxable base that much, or not at all?

What we're looking at here is,

When we stack the numbers up against the county's current tax base, your outstanding debt at this point in time is about .70% of your taxable sales valuation.

That is, if you look down at the rating agency considerations when they evaluate debt levels, that is a very strong, strong triple A weighted level there.

That's the best you can get in terms of that sort of category.

Now, what would be considered

you know, standard levels or prudent levels.

You can see as we measure and compare you to the regional and budget peers, as well as the national meetings and the Virginia meetings, you can see we're well below that.

But one thing I like to point out is that box that's shaded between three and three and a half percent, depending on the local government, generally speaking, that three to three and a half percent

doesn't mean to say you should borrow between that percent, but it's just something that we say if we're in this range or we're below that range, we're managing our debt in an appropriate manner.

The one thing I'll also have to point out in this chart, you can see that the national levels are a lot lower than the Virginia, so the budget peers, as well as the Virginia rated unions.

The one primary reason about that is because in Virginia,

National in general, nationally, typically, from state to state, those states that factor into these categories have school districts without tax and balance.

That is off of the local government's books.

So that's why the national level's always looked a little lower, Virginia level's always

The second key debt metric I'd like to talk about today is debt service versus expenditures.

And this is your actual comparison of a payment, your annual payment, versus your annual budget.

What we're looking at here is, really, this is an element of affordability.

That is to say, how much of your budget really gets into debt service payments, and when we say debt service payments, they're fixed costs.

You can't really adjust them.

Once you incur that debt, you gotta pay that

Here we're looking at the county's cut ratio of about 6.9%.

As we look at that level, again, that's still in the very strong and the best category there.

We're looking at some piece levels.

Sort of to reiterate what we talked about on the previous page, a good industry standard benchmark, if we look at it, is in the 8 to 10% range.

That's typically where we see most localities try to manage their level, not to exceed that 8 to 10%.

So we looked at capacity in terms of what could be borrowed in maintaining what we call debt metrics or debt ratios at certain levels.

However, another key part of that is debt affordability.

When we look at that now, what we mean by debt affordability is what could be borrowed on a current basis

based on your budget level, which is approximately a 20-21 level, just under 3.5 million.

What could be borrowed if that budget were held constant?

As debt gets paid off, how could you render in the future debt?

And what we see there is really there's real affordability on that.

We'll call it basic affordability.

If we were just to wait until that number, actual payments go down versus the budget, so we can see that

The basic affordability starts in about 2025, maybe a little bit of 2024, it's hard to see, but really 2025 when that debt steps down, and then in 2021 it steps out again.

Quick question.

So when we're looking at this debt affordability, essentially your y-axis of $3 million, that's

annual debt service.

So when that green goes down it basically frees up.

There's another couple million bucks that gets freed up in debt service and what that looks like as you go down.

So that means about right here you can start borrowing land here and about right here you can start borrowing land.

Got it.

So all that fits within the current revenues that are allocated to debt service.

Which means that we are not

So, what we did is we developed a very preliminary model based on the GLEC schedules and also looking at your key metrics.

What does that mean?

And Mr. Rutherford, to your question, if we looked at the basic affordability, that's got brown cell boxes and you can see right there before we start,

wearing in about 800,000, but then it really is about 18.3 million by next year.

When you do the math on all that, that's about 19 million.

That can be borrowed somewhere in the 23 and 24 time frame, based on that data.

Now, there's something that we also look at through a lot of our clients is how can we think about accelerating the effort?

If we have some priorities that we know

thinking about, you know, bounce around and kind of think about planning in terms of timing.

Is there any ability to get some of that sooner?

With the county's current structure and where we're staying right now in 2020, going into 2022, there is a means, there's a way, this is one possible way we won't come at it right now.

There's a multitude of different ways we can run countless of areas.

But one to say, the way we look at and help our clients think about it

Can we use a little bit of the financial flexibility that we talked about, kind of strategically deploy it and kind of use it to offset some of those early payments until our debt goes down?

And how much would it take to accelerate that?

And what I did here, what we did here, is just give you a sample.

If we have 19 that we can naturally afford for basic affordability, we said, let's see if we can increase that.

For this example, we took about $1.1 million and helped it out in terms of offsetting some of these payments.

And then we said, okay, we can then take, think of that, a $10 million installment deal, another $10 in 2024, and another $10 in 2026.

And that's one example of thinking about it.

We might be able to do something with a little bit more strategic use of cash, maybe $20 million, and that would be the balance of the economy

There's a multiple different ways you can kind of jump.

But what we wanted to do is show you part of what how we think in terms of capital is that you know depending on discussion priorities there's there's some flexibility to do what you're a very good opportunity for the kind of use that you get.

Another thing to think about as well is we're not only thinking about how we can move the capital up and down

We also want to watch the generations.

That would be affordability and capacity.

Well, I've got a question that maybe is looking beyond.

If the county is to purchase some land that is value that is paid, the cost of which is much higher than is the standard locally, let's say, you know, it's assessed value is low, and it's much more expensive than that.

Any way at all, because what that would do, if it does provide pressure that other assessments and valuations go up, that might increase tax revenue, for instance.

It also might put more of a burden on residents.

The cause and effect of that.

So when they're giving out their loan, they're looking at us globally, and it will be assessed on us that way.

I think that's a natural result of buying the property for more than it's assessed.

Whether or not that property

There's a lot of factors that go into that, so I'm not being a real estate consultant on that side.

But you guys don't really look at that.

No.

We can ask the assessors that question, but I want to say something in confirmation that you, the board, or another business, or personal, private,

Me, for example, buys a property much above the assessed value.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So hopefully I gave you some food for thought here in terms of thinking about how the debt can be managed in terms of the position portfolio.

What I'd like to leave you with here is potential next steps, not to say that you have to consider thinking about pursuing further analysis and more detailed analysis.

This is my last sales pitch here.

We worked with Campbell County, Delaware in terms of their marketing and basically tenure scope.

So that's kind of what we do and what we did to help them juggle those priorities.

But when you think about this, one of the things we can do is we can help you, one, take away the refinancing.

See if it works or if it doesn't work.

If it doesn't work, you know, part of the way compensation works is if it doesn't work, there's no fees or no costs there.

But with respect to the debt capacity analysis that we talked about in here,

We have the potential to further flush these models out and think about different scenarios.

If you want to see different scenarios of how projects lay down, we can help you look at those.

We can help you juggle those around.

There's a variety of different things that we can do to help you think about the approach

I just wanted to leave you with that thought.

And lastly, as typically when we do these, as we look at when we look at local governments that don't have formally adopted financial policies, we also would like to think about and ask the board to think about considering as they're looking at multi-year CIP, think about financial policies, because they kind of go hand in hand.

They keep that CIP from getting way out of control,

Can you go back to that affordability except with the accelerated debt graph?

Yes.

And there's there's a different maybe this could go a little bit

There's a lot of ways to think about this.

We can think about potentially accelerating the key priorities.

And that's without having to increase revenue.

Exactly.

Right.

Maintaining metrics within that.

Absolutely.

Maintaining metrics within those categories.

Sure.

and then also being able to think about, okay, if there's a project that just hasn't taken off in a while and you need to get it done, you need to think about just a little bit of capital fund reserve fund balance to kind of help that and accelerate it to the next culture center.

If I may, just as Roland said, what we wanted to read into was you establishing your priorities and hopefully we can then work

The board really wants to do, we really want to do this project or this project.

We could work with Davenport to do what Roland is presenting here, keep the county strong.

This is one example of what multiple townhorses have.

We could work with each other based on what you want to do moving forward or if you want to do nothing.

I'll give the board an example.

When I first came to work for the County of Weaver,

I still remember, some of you may not remember this person, but school superintendent at that time, that's how I forgot his name, would come down to my office and say, we have to build a new middle school, you have to increase taxes 26 cents.

And I told him, his name was Ernest Worley, and I mean, we had a good relationship, but I tell him, whenever he told me that's Ernest, go back upstairs, that's not gonna happen.

So, you know, we worked with Roland,

and his firm and we developed a strategy that the board increased taxes by five cents.

It was a 10-year strategy that when we got to year 10, everything would be the same financially as it was the previous 10 years.

We built that middle school, renovated and expanded the high school.

10 years later, the formula proved to be correct.

So I would just say don't necessarily be stuck by this.

There's a lot of things we could possibly do.

A lot of different ways we could juggle math around.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

Okay.

So,

for you on the operating side mostly.

And then I think a couple years ago, David Blunt, our legislative liaison from the office helped updated that.

And I'm really happy and appreciate Steve and Tammy for inviting us up to work on the capital side of it today.

Mr. Cooch, he put it so nicely.

I mean, he opened the door for my understanding of what we're going to do.

He talked about the money side and

helping you to understand what you can afford to do in the future.

We just want to help you to begin to prioritize what it is that you'd like to do.

Believe me, this is not going to be a scientific exercise.

It is by consensus just to begin to group and

I'll even kind of call it more of the big picture items.

I took a look at the list that you were given from your departments and I would say a number of those things, though accounting lies are capital, it may not be something that you really want to be looking at to capitalize through bonding.

Buying the Office 365 software application.

That's something you're probably going to look at from an operating expense.

So as you're thinking, I just want you to be thinking more in the bigger picture kind of frame for your capital improvements.

The other thing I want to do too is as you're thinking about this, and anytime I'm doing an exercise like this, and just to give you a little bit of my background,

I'm actually in, my background's in city management.

I'm not a planner, I'm more of a dollars and cents kind of person.

So I'd like to bring out two things I'd like for you to be thinking about as you throw out what your priorities are.

And of four things Mr. Cooch handled, one is how are you gonna pay for it?

We may all want

that new building, but how are you gonna pay for it?

Well, I think he's covered that very, very well.

The other thing I always want you to consider is when you start to look at capital improvements, the staff time and the ability to pursue whatever it is that you're looking at or thinking of, it takes a lot of time to put a major capital program together.

So one of your departments, your administration, they're going to have to spend time and effort to do that.

The other one is just always remembering what it takes to maintain whatever you build.

I had a city council member, Christine, I told her this story coming up.

He was actually a bar owner in Clemson, South Carolina and was a city council member and later became our mayor.

We could never talk about capital improvements if he didn't make us go ahead and pencil out, okay, when it's built, what's it going to take to maintain over the years?

Because I don't want to build a tennis court to have it look shabby the next year.

He was adamant about it.

Believe me, it sunk in with me.

Always be thinking that a lot of times capital improvements do take that additional operating cost a lot of times forever.

So just those are important things.

What we're going to try to do is today is just the old tried and true.

I'll give each of you some some dots in a minute.

The colors don't mean anything.

I want to list what's the most important capital items

that you have in your mind that Nelson County needs for its citizens.

Again, looking down the list that you had in your packet, you may have me push back a little bit.

I'm not trying to steer you in any direction.

This is for you all of us.

Something not on the list, we're gonna put it down.

But if it is something that I think, you know, that may be more of an operating policy, even though it's technically capital.

I may push back a little bit and say, you know, if you're talking and not meaning anything, you know, I'm not sure who put the lid together, but if you're talking about buying a Microsoft 365 subscription for $12,000, that's probably going to be an ongoing operating expense and less of a capital expense.

Now if you have to buy a computer system, that's completely different.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand these out while I'm kind of...

You've already gotten your departments.

One of the things we sometimes do is just try to break it down for people into saying, well, let's do recreation or let's do public works or something like that.

You already have a lot of your potential items broken down by department, but just in a round-robin fashion, no order or anything,

If you'll tell me what your priority project would be and just a brief, very brief description of why you think that's important.

And I will let anybody who wants to speak first go.

And of course, as we do this, then we'll get the sheets up on the wall and we'll give you a chance to vote and tell you kind of how you can vote.

I love to tell the other story, a different mayor I had in Clemson.

Every single year we did this, his number one name was a downtown carousel.

Did you say it?

No, I think there needs to be a swimming facility.

Okay.

Yeah.

I care about having it.

Okay.

And the reason I have it, I would want it to

be affordable.

And I also think there's benefits to having a summer facility indoor facility.

I mean, it would be magnificent to have a wonderful indoor facility, basketball court, and all that thing.

But I don't think it's going to happen.

But I think a swimming facility would also be wonderful in terms of community.

This train from Nelson County is community as we all know.

Well, don't don't, you know, don't again, don't discount it.

Say it, because I'll give you some some backup here.

In 2016, that was a mentioned item.

You've got

The Department of Health and Department of Social Services, building and land combined, I think is an excellent idea and a priority.

In this temporary structure right now.

Well, they've been temporary for almost a year.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, are both of those, and I'll try to keep my biases out of here, but I can't help it.

I always think about how we can revitalize Lovingston as well at the same time.

Are both of those in the Lovingston area?

Sometimes I'm always thinking that not all economic development has to be private.

You can move a governmental structure and operations into a Lovingston area as you bring employees in, they're spending money and stuff.

For me, it would be development of a business part.

We have infrastructure in place.

Now we need to bring in some tax revenue, some tax base.

I'm ready.

Just to be clear, we're like the musketeers up here.

One for all and all for one.

So are we not including anything that would be that would fall under the school division?

You can but what we understood was the board's priority.

Again, always trying to think efficiency, too.

I love to find things that could be combined, too.

I mean, sometimes you can build a sports facility that can be shared.

Or an ad comp.

I'd like to see us get rid of some porta potties in some of these facilities that we have.

So I see on here that there's a restroom facility at the trail.

I mean, that's a small item.

At the Planning Commission meeting this last week, Dylan Bishop presented the possibilities for the McGinnis building and everybody loves the location but it's in a floodplain so

Only so much can be done there.

The location is good, maybe even excellent.

Oh, okay.

The property is located in the floodway.

We had two engineering firms looking at it and trying to see if we could get it out of the floodway.

And they said, you can't get it out.

Do we own that building now?

Yes.

And I've never seen it flood.

No, I understand.

I've never seen flood water on that part of the property where they.

Right.

So all that's in the floodplain, all that like where they

No, no, no, no.

The flood map showed coming out to, I think just about the road there, maybe over to the middle part.

Quick moving water.

Flux it out.

I don't know if anybody can tell you that Bubba's seen water.

Yeah.

Probably a problem.

No, just remove it.

because the laundromat is still standing.

I'm just going to try to give some prodders too from previous discussions.

But we're not there yet.

We're not disagreeing yet.

You could put broadband up there, but then you'd have to put an extra thrust.

Well, I meant broadband as in the heads that we completed.

Two years and we'll be finished.

Did one of Scott's

Health Department and Department of Social Services in the two different scenarios here.

Well, I know that, but they also show it down here with other offices.

I'd much rather see a much smaller building built and put those two departments in there because you could do it much quicker.

It's probably going to be cost effective to do that.

You've got to land across the road.

When you make it a 20 million dollar project.

No, no, no.

Right, right.

Yeah, yeah, combined.

but we don't really pay for the health bill, do we?

We pay for it, then they pay a spread.

That's sort of the beauty of this together because we would get the health department, the state's sharing the money to help pay the debt for emergency operations.

Let's go back to the Dick Ellipa in the room.

The Millennium Group is trying to do something at the old middle school.

So we have stated that we don't want to be in competition with them.

So that, you know.

Like, we haven't talked about it.

Well, before we can go anywhere, we've got to talk about it.

Yeah.

Because, I mean, you're within two miles of Amherst County.

So, I think if I may, if the board wants that to be a priority,

I hang out with them.

Well, not only... Well, no.

It comes down...

It comes down to the director.

She is the final say.

Now my thing is, if she doesn't want to go out there, then she needs to speak up and stop this, you know, I hate seeing them spend $10,000 for nothing.

But that's what's got to be addressed.

Before even the, what is it, Department of Services or whatever?

Before they do that,

It's like they're going through step three when you gotta get the first hurdle dropped first.

Well, I think the issue is, or the concern is, that right now the only entity proposing to potentially construct an office space for them is the Heritage Center.

Because, as you know, they're gonna have to get out

You aren't necessarily just prioritizing them to go spend your bond indebtedness.

It could be just by prioritizing it, that tells staff this is something you need to fix.

Now, it may be through a private developer.

Maybe there's a grant that you pay for bathrooms.

We know this health department has these deals.

I mean, see, you're right that we need to deal with it.

We need to look at it.

And there are positive aspects of putting the health department in that building.

That building, you know, they have computer services for kids.

The food pantry is set up there.

There's opportunity for them to do more if they are able to have the health department there.

I mean, there are positive aspects of it.

It's not in the middle of the county, but it does offer things to the county that are positive.

and in terms of community, what I keep talking about community, communities, you know, that could be a, help them to make that more of a community center.

Yeah, but the central question on that, Mr. Barr, is what's better, to help them help themselves or is it in the

Go ahead.

The Health Department needs something ASAP and we all know that.

The Heritage Center

could provide something quickly for the health department on a lease that might be three to four years, two to four years, five years.

That could give us more time on that debt level

to be able to project, to build something a little bit farther down the line that might serve both the SS and the health department.

And one of the benefits to that, as Mr. Barton alluded to, is that to give the Heritage Center an opportunity to get their feet under them and to get something established there that brings people there, that increases services in the short term,

and have something in the future that we can project towards to do something right instead of hastily.

To get, you know, DSS and health department located somewhere else together and perhaps something else by that time.

I think, let me, so here's the thing.

And I understand, I had a great chance to go towards

And I think it's a great facility.

I also think the health department has its job and where it needs to be so it serves its people equitably.

I believe we can support the health department centrally located and also support the community center.

I don't think it necessarily has to utilize this government entity.

to have it sustained.

I'm all about community centers thriving.

I think that's critical, and I think we can do both.

I think we can make sure the health department gets in the center of the county and that we can, hey, let's work with that community center and make sure something great can happen there.

You know, those decisions are certainly not mine, but I just want to know if this is more based on a community center's

So there's a difference of opinion, as far as I understand, between the capital costs that the Heritage Center has seen.

I mean, I don't know, but this is what I've been told.

They're thinking the range of the capital costs to construct out an area for the health department is about $600,000 or so.

The architect who works for the county says that cost is closer to $1.3 million.

But the concern of the board thinking that in five years,

We can build a new health department in DSS building and that will be good.

If they incur that capital cost, they're going to be relying on the monies from the county and the health department to pay that debt off.

I don't think they have the money just to throw out $600 to $1.3 million dollars.

I feel like we're kind of jumping beyond the brainstorming phase and we're getting into the planning phase, maybe.

Aren't we kind of doing that?

If this is your priority, this discussion will happen at another time.

And we can talk about that first as soon as we finish brainstorming.

So one of the things that I would think we need to add is, and it really can be two different things, so you all decide how you want to do it, but park development and park improvements.

I'm all about we have to find ways to attract business and we have to attract residents.

Some businesses and increasing infrastructure in parks and adding porta-potties.

I mean getting rid of porta-potties and bathrooms.

Developing these parks is going to bring families to the area.

And then the second part of that is improving parks that we have.

Like I see on here, Parks and Rec says adding playground equipment to somewhere, fixing the basketball courts.

So fixing facilities that we have and improving them.

So those I think would be two separate things.

And then while I'm on roll and piggybacking on that conversation, personally I think instead of just that one conversation you all were talking about, maybe making community centers

and helping community centers be like we could help Heritage Center and we could help Fleetwood Community Center and that could be a separate item that we do to again encourage community and the residents but it not necessarily have to be Department of Social Services going into the Heritage Center but we could provide some support to help the heritage

Center, and Fleetwood, both, which happen to be in my district, help both of them thrive and be more attractive facilities for the members of the community.

Do you want to do that?

That is a recreation that we badly need.

And truly they could probably use some money in improving the existing computer center, but it could probably use them to prove it.

The basketball court is the critical element.

The gym, the indoor.

You're talking about the gym, not the outdoor basketball court.

Exactly, the gymnasium.

I mean, I'll go back to the idea of the swimming hole.

You know, we used to have vamp ripers and lake Nelson, people swim.

And I remember, people can swim any way they want.

They can swim in the river.

Well, it's dangerous.

And swimming, almost every community in this part of Virginia and all over the country has a community swimming area.

You know, people go to school in the summer, then the kids can get back together in the summer.

It's a place for young married people to go with little children.

It's a place for retired people to go with their grandchildren.

It becomes a part of the fabric of the community.

And I've seen it be a wonderful thing and a wonderful place.

I know you all favor that.

You all want it.

It's up there.

The problem is, we always put it off to social direct center, indoor rec center.

But the initial discussion was good because I heard two different things too.

I heard one thing originally that was more of a formal

And I imagine it's doubled since then.

And we haven't done it.

And we haven't done it.

It has been done.

Skip.

That there are certain times when we can afford to do some things.

Right.

And I do think kind of the conversation I started and when you're prioritizing, I would ask you to think about that too.

A lot of times, you know, your dollar amount is going to be finite.

So you want that to be spent on one big one or a lot of little things.

Now that comes to you when you start putting your dots up.

So any other ideas?

I still have one.

As kind of an outsider looking in, you're talking about doing things to attract people, and I do think the quality of life is so important to do that.

But I'll tell you, and I live in Charlottesville, but I come here a lot, what you have done with internet is unprecedented.

Well, I don't know that you'll see the demand that Albemarle has had over the number of years, but by having high speed internet, you've got something no other area around us has.

And with the pandemic, people are, you know, yeah,

Both people aren't gonna stay home and work from home, but you're gonna see more and more where one of a couple is gonna wanna work from home while the other one drives to either Charlottesville, Lovingston area, or Amherst to a job.

That internet is going to put you in a very, whether it's enviable or unenviable position

People are going to want to move here and my understanding from some of the real estate agents that we've talked to, it's already happening.

They're getting calls all the time about Nelson County because they're seeing that you're going to have a 100% internet connection in just a few years.

We'll be the first in the state to have it.

I don't know.

Lovingston Revitalization, when I say that, I'm just saying sidewalks.

That's all.

The only problem with the Lovingston Revitalization thing, there's two landowners that own all this stuff.

Standardsville, they have gotten CDBT grants, they've gotten Department of Transportation grants, and they've been building their sidewalk network

I mean, how the wardens fell.

I mean, you just want to go there and walk with a cup of coffee and just walk down the street.

S-T-U-R-T.

But that's what I had in mind.

I just want to get the full nature part there, because it has certain characteristics that lend itself to education, research, and connection with schools.

And some of the more aggressively developed proposals that might come up for it might make it difficult to balance both of those things.

It also has a lot of ticks and mosquitoes.

One trip, Skip took me there.

It was in the 70s.

We'll put as many as you want, or we can stop anytime you want to.

We're worried about the most important.

You're missing anything from y'all's perspective?

Usually we run out of paper.

What we've asked... You normally don't do this on a Friday afternoon.

Exactly.

Since it's so few, we're going to go ahead and just use the stickers you have.

And what you can do is you can put as many as two stickers up for any one.

Wellford Department, VDH and DSS combined, but that's combined.

You can put two of them.

So once again, you can put up to two, own two of them, and then just one dot for the rest.

We trust you.

It was $2,000.

You better be looking at your Gladstone resources.

That's not true.

So what is your work?

Good thing.

Good thing?

Yeah.

Have you made a donation before?

Saturday and Sunday.

I can't hear you.

Hey, you ready to run there?

I'm just old.

You're old?

I've got experience but I'm old.

I had wisdom.

I lost my wisdom too.

Did you keep yours?

Oh, I had two.

I'm just great though.

I just got involved in it.

I'll put my money in it.

It's terrible.

Just kidding.

We'll take this information back and we're going to put it into a report so that you can see it and use it later as well.

But for today, just want to kind of try to concentrate in on the

Yeah.

And maybe some other could be at max too.

You've seen the one in Pennsylvania County, hadn't you?

And see that's not, or is it government?

It's not government run.

They count it on their own.

If y'all had any thoughts of Virginia Tech,

Any real arguments?

Anything where, boy?

Do you want to conclude the business part?

I mean, I'm worried that that got only three dots on it because of the way it was worded as business park development rather than the closed session meeting we had a couple of months last month and that project that we talked about.

Right.

Yeah.

We'll put it up here because have you participated in these now since 2016?

That's been one of the highest ranking items.

It's more than just that.

I mean, you could look at several of these items and they were all almost kind of fall into that one.

I mean, that's almost like an umbrella over.

Yeah.

So make that as a mixed use development umbrella project.

Yeah, I apologize for limiting the wording of that.

I think, and I'm just relying back to previous discussions.

That's that's a key piece of property.

Thanks.

So, I mean, if I'm even thinking correctly, pretty much

All except for this one could hinge on that success.

Let's just take it a step further.

Let's say we're successful with this acquisition.

I would say in how we learned this, how to put it together, is that there are all opportunities if this is acquired, but they're not eliminated if that's not acquired.

Some of these ports feel complex.

Let me ask about the sports facilities just to make sure too.

And I see it as primarily for the people of Nelson County.

A lot of kids still playing ball.

But the one disadvantage we have to utilize it as a draw is the overnight facilities.

We don't have places.

And again, as you're developing it, there is nothing to say you build it for the locals, but as long as you do a really good job of it, you can expand it over time.

And I mean, my son has been a big basketball player and we travel all around with it.

And I mean, we go to a place in Richmond where it was a manufacturing facility.

Now it has like 10 basketball courts set out.

The thing I like about the way that it's played out is that everything we have up there is basically big ticket items.

And there are other things that got dots that are more

dependent on which way the wind blows as opposed to what we plan exclusively for in the long term that's going to commit a lot of resources and a lot of debt.

So those don't need to disappear.

Some of those are almost like pocket change.

Exactly.

The other, and I can say from experience, I was very lucky to have this happen once this

While you're working on your big ticket items, sometimes you just get lucky.

County administrators and directors and all, we say it's all expertise, but that interest rate falls when you're bonding and all of a sudden you've got an extra quarter of a million dollars sitting there.

You can go not fault one of those with no problem as long as you already have it listed.

So it's so important not just to forget about those.

You want to prioritize, but keep those on the firearm.

Steve, you think that gives you enough to... Now we're going to get to the operating costs for Ron

Awesome.

Anything else?

This is great.

Thank you all.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We'll take pictures now.

Thank you, technology.

We'll leave you the paper.

See, whoopsie.

Sugarloaf thing.

It's the building each hour.

It rises at some point in the near future.

It tells us to get off the tower.

The co-op owns the land.

The land was the old wall.

That's why I was surprised about the figure of it.

I thought that was American Tower.

A what?

I thought that was American Towers that owned Sugarloaf.

Hey, I don't know how to get here.

I don't think I'm leaving the world.

I'll come back.

I'll just miss seeing you on those first starter sites.

We'll do it.

Thank you all very much.

Next item on the agenda is the consideration of the joint meeting with Nelson County School Board.

Is there more discussion we need to have on this, Steve?

How do we move forward?

Okay, so engineering firms to assess this potential business part and the RFP we issue is broad enough that we can probably look at all of these things through that RFP once we get a firm on board and so we'll probably try to develop

You know, assuming we can somehow acquire the land that the board's been discussing, we would look at a massive plan for all of these facilities, potentially one that is used for acreage, and then bring it back to the board.

Are we comfortable with taking it?

I don't know.

I mean, the next step for assessment is the engineers will actually assess the property and determine what areas can be used

What's the best use of the land?

You know, a full engineering report.

And then we'll discuss all of these things with them and see where we can take it.

Well, that's subject to negotiation.

Sorry.

Nobody's going to pay what they're after.

So that's how I would approach it is we look at the use of this new consultant, whoever that will be, to help us assess this big picture.

And then if the board's comfortable, if you so, and Mr.

That speaks to all the large items.

And there's things that could... Well, I think that's through the budgetary process.

Those things are small enough to where we can just knock them out in the budget.

Right.

So we can include those.

Of course.

And direct you as a board because if we fail to get this land,

Sure.

I mean, as Chip said,

I mean, one of the things, dealing with Wells Fargo does not seem to be productive.

No.

Why not?

They own it.

I would just wouldn't be concerned about it yet.

And another thing, the ag facility, while we want to propose the combined location, that truly the vision is on a separate location.

Yeah.

The other thing is the Department of Social Services, they have a crisis right now that they have, the state is giving them a couple of new positions or 85% of it, and they have no room for them.

You may need a priority.

Yeah.

Are we committed?

We build that same facility.

I know we can't do that, but I mean, do we have anything available to them?

That's what I'm asking.

And they keep making do.

Well, can we consider it?

Because if they need something, if they need something in the short term, I mean, just the short term.

All the storerooms are now office rooms.

There are, there is structural stability in some areas of the

of the Heritage Center.

It's going to have to be made suitable for those departments.

Right.

Because they have, as you know, they have confidentiality issues.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, is it worth at least asking some questions and seeing if it's feasible?

I mean, I'm not saying that that's the solution to the problem.

I'm saying that

The goal of this weekend is to burn some of those brush piles over there.

So are we wrapped up?

Yeah, I will say one of those items, the ag facility, we're working on a time frame to at least begin the conversation.

Do we have a meeting set yet with hammers?

I'm pretty good next week.

I feel that's a separate thing from most of what we're talking about.

I might be wrong.

Well, I asked Dean Rogers what information they had.

Could they give it to us?

And I'm not criticizing Dean, of course, but I was sort of surprised those gentlemen who reported to the board said they've been working on this for two years, but they don't have any financial information to provide.

Well, they don't have any financial support.

No, no, no.

Well, that's what we've been working on since you said that's money we can't get

No, I know, but those grants went into the overall capital cost to construct that facility.

I'm just trying to see, because I've seen the facility on their website, it's pretty large.

So at least you all know.

It's phases, Steve.

Yeah, it's like the third or fourth phase to have it.

Don't you want to know?

Well, I didn't get the feeling that it was a big priority on the county administrator's shoulders.

We had suggested right off the bat, what if we give you the land to put it on?

It's just that coming the distance from Tide River to the high scope.

And where it's at now, it's almost equal distance from Nelson County High School to this site as it is from Amherst High School to that site.

And then if you bring mathematics in, they'd be coming right up to 60, and you'd be putting them right there.

Well, you can't come out swinging that, well, we wanted a Nelson County.

What?

Why not?

It's up to y'all, not me.

Well, you can build a day going in the structure.

We'll probably kill a conversation real quickly.

and the one boy that did all the things, he lives here on, what was it, Freshwater Cove?

Chris Brown.

Yeah.

CT's brother.

He lives on Freshwater Cove.

That's what I just told you.

I told you he lived on Freshwater Cove.

Tell me now.

So, we ready to move on?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Next item on the agenda is considering the joint meeting with the County School Board.

First, when I sent this alternate agenda out, I just thought, from my perspective, as I was telling you earlier,

I was laying in my bed last night thinking about this.

I just think it's better for the boards to engage without a lot of input from the staffs at present and doing sort of what you did today.

Let the two boards discuss what your priorities are and what you want to do and then shape that into the next meetings where you could have a real focused and defined agenda.

I don't think that's a bad idea at all.

Right.

That's what I would recommend to Gordon.

Can you hand it out to him?

I think everyone may have seen it, but you can hand it out.

While you're doing that, my intention with the agenda that I had pieced together was, well, what it was was to try to get the important points from everybody about what they thought should be included and make sure that it was.

And that was just my intention.

However,

I just don't think, if I can say this, that either myself, Kennedy, or Dr. Eagle should have any real influence on this meeting.

It should be y'all talking to each other and deciding where you want to go next.

Yeah, we can put together the current composite index, we can get the school enrollment, whatever you want.

Right.

And I also think that I would like to welcome Dr. Eagle and yourself and recognize that you're there and give you a chance just to say, you know, have a good time or whatever, whatever's on your mind at that time.

It can be as little as possible.

I responded and said that, sorry,

The two boards certainly know who we are.

The biggest problem is that we're going to look at any of this stuff right here.

They have got to come to reality on that budget.

I mean, suppose the operational budget right now is more than what our increase in revenues will be this year.

I know we set it up so that anything they had left over at the end of the year would go to capital improvements.

But I think we're being played on that.

Because, you know, that big amount of some thousand dollars was left over this year.

But that was just money they saved by not being in school and then turn right around.

Yeah, because if I may, when I made some comments to you about what I thought the board should consider, I really think this first meeting, like the thing Mr. Hart just said and whatever else the board wants to communicate is that you come from the board and not be coming from the staffs.

I understand that.

Because it's really about y'all engaging and deciding next steps instead of being overtly influenced by either myself or Dr. Reed.

Yeah, I was really troubled, you know, about sort of the scope of that agenda yesterday just because it really bothered me that we could lead you into arguing and that's not what this meeting should be about.

Oh, absolutely.

And who is Skip the professional to tell you about schools?

I think I do.

I think I have something to say.

There's nothing to do with the capital improvements and there's nothing to do with budgets.

But it has something to do with improving the schools.

And it has something to do with improving the schools that necessarily doesn't have anything to do with money.

It has to do with attitude.

Now, to say, why should, you know, these guys came in here, the guy from, where?

I think what I have to present will be helpful to all of us in terms of what we need to do to improve our schools and make them the best possible schools they can be.

I might say that I intend to entertain you.

I intend to entertain you with ideas on what

It comes right down to what kind of quality teachers can you bring into your schools and keep there.

And that relationship between those teachers and the students have everything to do with the quality of your schools and respect.

And that's what I'm gonna talk about.

I'm gonna talk about respect.

and I think I do have something valuable.

And I would like, you know, the board to say, hey, yeah, Mr. Barton, who's taught our children, who have taught some of them on the board, made a difference in our lives.

And why is that?

Well, what does Mr. Barton have to say about education?

I certainly don't need, I have no intention of putting anybody down

Everything I want to say is positive.

When we have people on board that have particular expertise that's applicable to what's going on, my experience on the board is those people have always been able to speak freely about what it was they felt about what it ought to be and who ought to do what.

And the board I sat on before did that in other realms as well.

I've got a lifetime of education as an administrator and a teacher as well.

And Jesse taught himself everything.

He's got a different perspective, too.

David's been on the school board, and you have built schools for us.

Well, but what happens when philosophy gets him there?

We've all got it.

Yeah.

And so and, you know, and the folks on the school board, they've got their personalities and their experiences as well, and I think that's

I think you're into the same thing.

I just sort of got us there faster, or got us there faster.

Each board member, their board and this board, each member would be able to say whatever they want.

There would be discussions.

I think what, and I don't know what you were alluding to, but for me, and I've mentioned this to Ernie already, the way the previous agenda was set up, and Skip, it sounds like you're still planning to make a presentation during that meeting, and that mentality of going into this joint meeting and you planning to make a presentation, to me is kind of outside of the scope of what this meeting is for, because I don't plan on coming in and making a presentation on the insurance cost of the school or how the insurance should work,

and I'm not going to go in and make a presentation on my experience as a school board member and how I think they should do it or Tommy's not going to talk about from his standpoint or Jesse you know that's what I was you know I think this should be a community discussion between 10 board members

with four administrators on the outside available for expert advice, not advice, but opinion and information as we need it.

But that was the concern I had with the way that agenda was set was of the 10 board members, we have one board member giving a formal presentation.

I don't care what it is as long as it's thoughtful and it's brief.

Those are the two things.

Brief always means we have to be brief.

I have no intention of going on and on and on and on.

that I don't have something you need to offer this meeting.

I don't think that's the case.

Is that the case?

I don't think that's the case.

And I want to offer that.

That's why I'm here.

That's why I went through that whole election process to get elected.

Because what I've done with my life is serve the people of Nelson County and serve the children of Nelson County.

And you know, I want the opportunity to address the school board.

I mean, I don't, you know, you, we've been talking about it all the time.

I mean, it's a constant conversation with you.

But schools don't have to deal with money.

You know, maybe administrators have to do with money, but schools have to do with people and they have to do with something that maybe you don't want to deal with, which is love.

The primary thing that the teacher does to a child is to love the child.

And when that child loves that teacher back, that student is inspired to learn.

And that's when learning takes place and is when

when the student takes initiative.

Mr. Barton, I'm looking forward to it.

I would hate to deprive the school board from having an opportunity to hear that.

Good.

So four to seven right here.

Nelson Middle School.

Dr. Eagle's gonna situate that, my understanding is.

I think we'll name that.

I'll get there early enough to make sure that it looks like it works.

I'm sure they've had school board meetings.

I am.

Mr. Chairman and truly does the agenda need to be in paragraph form like that or can it just be some bullets?

Yeah, I mean, personally, I think it's a little wordy and you know,

I mean, the agenda should just be bullet points.

This is gonna include what we're not gonna talk about, and I don't think what we're not gonna talk about has a place on the agenda.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, maybe the second two paragraphs under round table discussion don't need to be there.

Yeah, exactly.

Y'all work that out.

If I didn't have an opportunity to

say more than a few words.

Yes.

Yes, everybody will.

You know how much I can talk?

Okay.

You can look for that motion.

Mr. Chairman, I move that we continue this meeting to this coming Tuesday, which was February the 2nd.

4 o'clock at the Nelson County Middle School Auditorium.

Second.

Okay.

Mr. Parr.

Yes.

Mr. Harvey.

Yes.

Mr. Parr.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Really, I had no intention of bringing up school