Board of Supervisors Meeting   12/14/2021

I would like to call the order of the December 14, 2021 regular meeting of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors.

Please stand for a moment of silence.

We are going to open today's meeting with public comments.

Just as a reminder, for the public, you should give your name and address.

You have three minutes to make your point, unless you're representing a group in which you have some more.

It's the chair's discretion whether additional time will be given.

Yes, sir.

My name is Al Ponton.

I live in Lovingston.

And the thing that I like to talk about, one of the things is the assessment.

It seems like there are a lot of people having issues with that.

A lot of people live on Social Security and I've got a sister that's 85 years old.

So I made a call to the assessment

Number that was on that sheet, and I talked to the guy, and he was really nice about everything.

He said, well, basically, the assessment was viewed to the 20, 25% increase on the value of your house and land.

Well, mine went up, as well as my sister's, about 34%, and he couldn't give me a good answer as to why it went up that much.

And I think that you guys need to

You know, make some adjustments or something or use somebody else.

And I realize that the cost of land and houses and stuff like that have gone up, you know, basically across the nation.

And I understand that.

But you have people, my sister lives on less than $900 a month.

And she can't afford that.

It's $66,000 increase on her house.

and those are issues that you guys need to address and I'm not exactly sure how you go about that.

The other thing I'd like to talk about is I know there's a creating a committee or something like that to talk about the stats you're out here.

You need to create a committee to talk about what we do about drug abuse here in the county.

I've got a son that's addicted.

I've been working with him for over two years now.

Right now he's in jail and farm.

And they finally caught up with him.

He missed court date and court date and court date.

And hey, it's a tough thing to handle for parents.

And whatever, you know, that goes on here in the county, you know, that sheriff's office, they need to look at this a little bit more in depth.

Now I see on the agenda that you haven't yet, you've got something on there about drug abuse or counseling or something, and I plan on staying around, you know, wanting to hear what that's all about.

But the drug use here in the county, you've got to address that.

And you guys are the ones that I hold responsible for making those things happen and directing whatever needs to happen along those lines, along with the Commonwealth Attorney and all of those people, you know.

You know, it is what it is, you know.

I've lived here all my life and Lord knows that I've got, I started at an early age using and when I was 52 after my son was born, I quit and I went through a program and I got clean.

I've got over 18 years of cleaning and I know what I'm talking about because this progression with drug use

You know, it's a horrible thing.

We're having people overdosing and with the stuff coming across the border and stuff and you know, we need to do something here in the county, you know, to take care of this here for the people who live in this county and maybe we'll grow, you know, for the state of Virginia and our nation.

But that's basically what we want to talk about and I appreciate y'all listening.

Thomas Nelson, I live at 304 near Woodcote in Roseland, Virginia.

A couple of things.

I did get my assessment.

I used the assessment officer to talk to.

He basically said everything went up across the board for raising your house and improvements.

One of the things I want to just let you know about

Let's say our median price at home went up 20% in the county.

Therefore, according to state code, you're supposed to, before you negotiate the tax rate, is lower the tax rate as it start when you start building a tax rate.

So you would go down, let's say 20% of the tax rate, then you look at that figure.

At that point, you're revenue neutral in the county.

That's the idea is you go up into that and you come down, so your money's the same, you know that.

So I would just suggest that you do state what

It's been great as you're looking at it for revenue neutral.

As you know, in the Democratic White House, the Democratic state government, everything has gone up in cost.

Therefore, when I go to the drugstore, my wife does, but excuse me, we pay more taxes, which puts more money into the coffers of the county.

About everything you do as taxed by the county increases the revenue in the county.

So I see, unless you want to spend more money,

Say you take the tax rate that's lower based on the name, the housing values going up.

Take that lower figure and accept it if you really don't want a lot, if you don't have any more money to spend on things.

So I've been to places where the supervisor will say, well, we're not going to lower the, we're not going to raise the tax rate.

Well, it's already lowered by state code.

So go with that lower figure, let people know about it.

Good afternoon, Mr. Reed, board members, Mr. Carter and his team.

Appreciate the moment to speak with you all.

I just want to touch base real quick as we move into budget season.

So I've heard in several individual and public meetings the comments regarding the school division's $7 million federal grant funding.

I just want to remind the board of the grant restrictions as these funds must be used for their intended purpose.

COVID-19 mitigation, addressed learning loss, and emotional distress caused by the pandemic.

I just implore you to not only look at the bottom line of that amount,

but also reach out to ask questions so that we can make sure that you have a good understanding.

Of the seven million allocated to NCPS, approximately three million has been set aside for capital expenditures.

Items such as school buses, cafeteria equipment, and a portion of a major roof replacement, as we've discussed, has been designated for the use of these federal funds, resulting in tax savings for the county taxpayers.

This funding, as you probably know, is a one-time allotment for specific needs.

It is not purposed for annual operating funding, and this funding is temporary and is scheduled to end 2024.

I do want to bring your attention to a direct impact of a one-time allotment for, excuse me, for our operational budget to the change in our LCI, which is our Level Composite Index.

It went from 0.5604 to 0.5888.

which means our school division will receive less state funding for its regular operational budget according to SOQ funded positions.

So as we head into the budget season, the first step as you know is to look at the governor's initial budget proposal coming out this next week and begin charting the projected funding and known increases or decreases in our expenses.

The projected funding will change several times as we will receive a new governor's proposed budget in January.

and then wait to see what the General Assembly does to finalize the budget.

So there are many unknowns at this point.

There are some things we do know though.

Inflation is at a record high with 6.8% increase over the last 12 months.

We are experiencing a severe labor shortage and will need to address salaries to be able to attract potential employees.

We have vacancies in the following positions we've not been able to fill.

Bus drivers, custodians, instructional assistants and teachers.

So I just wanted to touch base again on some of those points for budget.

So as you are aware, I am out for the next few months for some medical leave.

And as we enter into budget season, I'm grateful that Dr. Joe Potts will be standing in as acting superintendent to work with the school division for daily needs, but also to work with Ms. Shannon Irvin in developing and presenting our budget.

So Dr. Potts comes to us after retiring in 2019 from Colonial Heights with 18 years of experience as a superintendent.

So I thank you for this opportunity to come before you.

I thank you for your support of Nelson County Public Schools and in the budget.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year.

I will see you in the spring.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Eagle.

It really is a privilege to be in Nelson County.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

So thanks for having me and Nelson and I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.

Thank you very much.

Would anyone else like to speak during public comment?

Okay, we will then close the public comments and move to the consent agenda.

Mr. Chairman.

If there is nobody looking to pull any items from the consent agenda at this time, I would like to make a motion to approve as presented.

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Parr?

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

OK, presentations.

Our first presentation is on the proposed drug treatment court for Nelson County.

There's a reason we practice in an 1809 courthouse.

We don't have to use any of this.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, thank you for letting me have to come and present.

Of course, I'm a Commonwealth Attorney for anyone else here for Nelson County.

For some time, I know you've been able to see reports or see things going on.

I wanted to give a

This is an update on what we have.

First I want to make a quick disclaimer that all the data I'll be showing comes from Mr. Grillo, who's also here in the back.

I have with me on the part of this presentation, we have the Nelson Wellness Alliance with Dr. Stephanie Martin.

We have Ms. Susan Morrow, and of course I have my assistant, college attorney, Will Flory, who I called in, stole from Waynesville, who will be presenting on some challenges not only we've seen, but some potential

So as the past 10 years, you've kind of seen through Mr. Goodlow's reports, I'm going to give a quick rundown.

It won't be all of his reports together, but it's fair to say that Nelson County has had a vast increase in the charges that were taken out and the amount of people who were incarcerated.

So as you can kind of see there, the pines against a person,

The rate started on par with the average for comparable counties, but rose steeply starting in 2016.

Of course, in 2016, you just had a new sheriff's election.

Sheriff took over on January 16th, and I came in office in November.

And with that combination, we saw Nelson's incarceration rate go at 6% of the ACRJ population to about 13, almost 14% of the ACRJ population.

You can kind of go down and see Nelson's crimes against society rate began below that of the

163% compared to the peer group.

We're going to get into that a little bit more.

And of course, if you have any other specific questions that happen to be below, we'd be able to better nail down into those things.

So this is a brief presentation that shows, and it's almost fitting in, that shows our biggest crime.

We had narcotics, DUI assault.

You can see it by year from 2011 to 2020.

And you can see in Nelson County, narcotics has taken off.

and has taken over in great fashion.

More importantly, from 2011 to 2020, that blue chart is narcotics.

It has increased by 550% since 2011 to 2020.

That is at the current rate that this office, between the Office of the Commerce Attorney and the Sheriff's Department, if you let things stay where they are without any mitigation or any other tools we have, we will continue doing what we do.

But you will see that keep continuing because we can't charge our way out of addiction.

And I say that as this office has no problems incarcerating individuals.

We take no pleasure in it, but we will do it and we will do our job each and every day.

You also see we have probation violations have increased 414%.

That's felons who are sentenced to jail, come out, are put on probation, and then reoffending again.

415%.

Then you see a weapons increase.

My office takes it really serious.

I love my firearms.

I train my kids.

But if a criminal's using a firearm, we do not take any mercy or pity on them.

So we make sure that we include that and that they are punished for that part as well.

So again, sorry for this chart.

We're going a little bit fast to do it.

But this is the comparative.

Ms. Wright, could you address it so it would fit in the screen a little bit better?

So this is kind of the Nelson comparable to all the other counties regarding crimes against crimes against the person.

So that will be your salt and batteries, anything like that where the crime is against the individual.

The counties are down over all 4%.

Can you shrink the lens?

Nelson's Bookings, so obviously that's for the Admiral Charlottesville Regional Jail.

That shows everything from narcotics, DUI, assault, larceny, license issues, probation violations, conspiracies, weapons, and then going all the way down to fraud.

Here is the percentage change from 2011 to 2012 on each of those that we talked about.

And then of course this is now how we're ranking in our comparable counties with the increase.

Again, you see in 2015 to 2016 things changed.

because we started taking things a lot more serious in the law enforcement community.

It's not because necessarily they weren't there, it was just sometimes it was overlooked or other things.

So here's the crimes against property that we've had.

Notice how Nelson County fits in with the like-kind population.

Appomattox, Floyd Madison, Nodaway, and so forth.

You can see how

crimes against property again in the chart showing to comparable counties.

And then wanted to switch more into the Nelson County narcotics booking.

I want to show you a 2011 to 2020 on those looks.

So in the 2019, you see that tall blue, that right there represents over 90 or over 110 individuals.

So that's your felony possessions.

That's not distribution.

That's just straight possession.

That's your address.

So you can see in 2011, it was seven people, and there was four people who were arrested and booked for distribution.

We come into 2020 with the coronavirus impacting officers' ability to do things for safety reasons.

It is that 54 individuals, with over 34 individuals being charged with possession of contented distributes.

That's here, drug dealers.

We're not talking about people selling a grandest sport of habit.

We're talking about people

Here in Nelson, 14 pounds.

So it's not some small number.

And so that is brought into this number.

Here's the most important thing.

This is taking all the individuals, if you start running it together,

This is the average length of day all of those individuals spend in jail.

So 74 days per possession.

Possession with intent to distribute, 148 days.

And probation violations, 113 days.

This is the crimes against society.

Of course, now this is your drugs.

It's our crimes against society characterization.

It shows how Nelson ranks again on our like kind positions.

Now, I didn't put this in there, but

You'll see we submitted how Fluvanna put in for their request for a drug court.

In this ranking, Nelson County outdoes Fluvanna, and it's not a prideful thing to say, it's regrettable.

We have more charges against Society for 1,000 Residents than Fluvanna does.

We have had a decrease from 2019 into 2020, but I showed you the first chart, that decrease still

has us at 553% higher than where we were in 2011.

But this shows how we've come down.

What's important is in 2017 and 18, and going into 19, our office took the extraordinary step to take federal-esque statutes and to go after drug traffickers, what's under the name of racketeer.

So we charge people from, we had the Federales working in the police force in Mexico be charged, we had individuals in Jamaica be charged operating out of here,

We hauled people up from Atlanta, Charlotte, anyone who would take large amounts of drugs and ended in Nelson.

We started wrapping up into this and making sure that those Nelsonians who were involved, who also are distributing large amounts, were brought to this.

And so you can see after our efforts, it decreased the amount.

The coronavirus also impacted us.

So we're trying to figure out if that's going to be going on.

But regardless, even with this

and higher than what we were in 2011.

And I keep saying that because that is a massive number.

So here's the ACRJ felony drug cases, just to compare us with everyone else.

You see Nelson County starting out in 2001, so I backtracked us even more.

And of course, going all the way up to 2019, you can then see the massive increase we had compared to Albemarle and Charlottesville.

Here's the drug certificate types.

When you want to know what are the drugs,

Methamphetamine is it.

At the end of the day, methamphetamine is eating our county alive, whether you like to admit it or not.

The school system will see it in the students, everyone will see it from every level.

It doesn't just affect us in the court system, the counselors see it, the teachers see it.

I say this, my wife and I, we foster, not through Nelson County, our children we foster were born addicted to meth.

And they were born premature, and we are working through that, because that's something my wife

Buddy, and everything.

Grandparents, siblings, officers, sheriffs, commonwealth attorneys, boards of supervisors, and parents.

It's not something to be ignored.

So here's the cost.

So we went over kind of the days and the individuals.

There's two total numbers.

One that the county generally is on the hook for has to pay is the $69.90 per person.

The $93.96 is the overall, that's what everything combined pays.

So when you start looking at the numbers that we have, so just 20, 20, 54 people, if they serve an average of 74 days in jail, and we multiply that over a lot of things, we're talking about just possession only, a large sum of money.

So here's the bad expenditures.

Nelson County's expense has gone up over 67% compared to Charlottesville going down and Albemarle slightly going up.

This is pre-pandemic.

Now I'm showing you this.

This here is our figures we keep.

This is how the Commonwealth Attorney's Office gets paid by the Supreme Court.

We get paid when we're looking at Circuit Court.

I start in 2011 on the far right.

You have dispositions, that means final sentencing, and you have filings.

We get paid on considering both.

It's a travesty how they figure this, but I wanted to show you how our offices handle things.

In 2011, the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney disposed of 173 felony cases.

At the height of the pandemic, our office resolved 416 in 2020.

Year earlier, 612.

Just this year, all the way through October, we resolved 311.

So we will still, we're on par to be double that in 2011 with only 33% of the office staff.

We have one new assistant.

Again, it's just what we do.

You can also see the filings are coming up.

You see how everything's filed in 2011 and coming in January through October.

So the filings are still there.

Our filings are set to be higher than what they were in 2020.

2020 was a pandemic year.

So again, the numbers that we resolved in circuit court are still tremendously higher than where we were five years ago and earlier.

So one thing I want to take a pause real quick.

I want to introduce Mr. Florey real quick.

Mr. Florey?

Good afternoon.

My name is Will Flory.

I'm one of your versus Commonwealth's attorneys.

If you don't know me, I came to the Nelson County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office in July of this year from the Waynesboro Commonwealth's Attorney's Office when I was in Waynesboro.

My primary agreement was major narcotics, although I did all kinds of cases there.

Prior to that, I spent a year as a law clerk for a circuit court judge in Stanton.

I am cross sworn as a special assistant United States attorney.

I have worked

In the drug context, I have worked with Homeland Security folks, DEA, ATF.

So I've sort of done all of those things you can do from a state prosecution side in terms of drug prosecution.

And one of the things that Mr. Rutherford asked me to do when he brought me here was evaluate the way that our office was handling cases and specifically was handling drug cases and dealing with the

continued increase in drug crime in the face of the aggressive prosecution that's going on in Nelson County, particularly over the last couple of years and how we see that continued increase in drug crime, even in light of the fact of the more aggressive prosecution.

So I want to contextualize this for you guys a little bit so you kind of understand exactly what we're talking about here.

So we've been fighting the war on drugs since 1971.

That's when, and I almost put Richard Nixon on this slide, but that's when most people consider the war on drugs began.

So we've been fighting this war for 50 years and what we've learned is over the last 50 years is that prosecuting people is only one tool and we cannot prosecute our way out of drug addiction.

It just doesn't work.

We can put people in jail over and over and over again and we're not going to solve the underlying sickness that contributes to

The drug trade that creates all of these societal problems.

Just to contextualize again, that's the 14 pound number that was rougher throughout.

You all earlier, I had to do the math on my cell phone because I can't do the math.

So those 14 pounds contain 453 grams per pound of methamphetamine.

The average addict would consume approximately between a gram and three grams per day.

So just for the sake of math, let's say a gram.

That's about 6,500 single uses of methamphetamine that have been taken off the street in this county.

6,500 days where people would have been on meth and aren't now because of their seizures.

And that's just a drop in the bucket in terms of volume.

Just last year over in Waynesboro they seized 45 pounds of methamphetamine.

So it's here.

We are doing a pretty good job of stopping it from getting into the county.

But it's here, it exists, and it's a problem.

And those problems

create additional problems outside of the criminal justice system and create added costs for our society.

So you have adolescent exposure, you have associated criminal activity by users.

When I first started as a prosecutor, I asked a street cop that had been a police officer for over 30 years, I said, what's really, tell me the difference between heroin and methamphetamine.

And he said, well, somebody who uses heroin

They're going to take heroin and they're going to sit down and they're going to brown out in front of television.

And they're just going to sit there and feel high.

And that's the chemical reaction that heroin creates.

It's a set up.

The methamphetamine user is the guy, this is what he told me, the methamphetamine user is the guy you find naked hanging from the monkey bars in the playground at 3 a.m. Methamphetamine is designed to make people more active and it's an uproar.

It's a stimulant.

And so it

By virtue of the fact that the primary drug of choice for our addicts in this county is a stimulant, you're going to have additional associated criminal activity, larceny, breaking and entering, property damage, those sorts of things.

So that's another additional cost, both to the community and to the criminal justice system that exists because of the use of methamphetamine and addiction.

Increased health care and emergency services costs and the increased criminal justice costs.

And you've seen some of those as demonstrated

by the grass that Mr. Rutherford put up.

So how do we solve this?

Mr. Rutherford sort of demonstrated to you what the problem is.

And so how do we, the question, and this is where I get to be, I have the fun part of the presentation, and I hopefully get to present to you one of the solutions, or what we think the solution is, certainly.

Our office has done a really good job

Disrupting the supply of methamphen, the sheriff's department, and the discretionary drug task force have done a really good job addressing this flow of drugs into the county.

We're not 100% successful by any stretch of the imagination, but we've been very effective at disrupting the supply.

But you gotta contextualize this in terms of supply and demand.

And where we're missing, well, the piece that we're missing, the component piece that we're missing right now, is addressing the demand.

We can keep

Targeting Traffickers, and we can keep arresting people and putting them in jail.

And we're gonna disrupt the supply, but we're gonna disrupt it temporarily as long as there is still demand for drugs.

So what we're here to talk to you guys about today is Drug Court.

So Drug Court is a, what we would call a diversion program.

And what that means is that it's a program whereby we take criminal defendants that are identified based on a set of criteria

and divert them from traditional criminal justice treatment, which is to say, pull them out of the normal criminal justice system and put them in a program that runs through the criminal justice system through our office in the circuit court that is designed to treat addiction.

And the goals are to reduce addiction, reduce dependency, as a byproduct, produce recidivism,

reduce court workloads, because hopefully if we have less addicts who are committing less crimes, we'll have less crimes to prosecute.

Increased personal, familial, and societal accountability.

And this is where I want you to think about those costs that I put up.

Miners exposed to methamphetamine.

Emergency service.

These are areas where there are not necessarily measurable impacts, but I think we can all agree that reduction in methamphetamine addiction is going to cause positive outcomes in the foster care system for our DSS workers, for our health care system.

So it's going to promote employment, which is going to increase tax revenue, right?

So there are all of these ancillary benefits that go beyond simply reducing the crime rate, which is a pretty low

So what a drug court looks like is there is a group of people called a drug court team and the drug court team consists of the circuit court judge, a probation officer, a clinician, a defense attorney, someone from the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, someone from the Sheriff's Office, and there are various other probation people, the Department of Health, there's other folks that are entitled to be on the team if they so choose but are not necessarily required to be on the team.

And what these people will do is meet once a week and identify candidates for the program, implement the program, and run and manage the program.

And so what that looks like is every Thursday morning or Friday morning or whatever morning of the week we pick, I say Thursday because that's what I'm used to, all of these folks come to the courthouse and they come to the courthouse and they report all the

AA meetings that they've gone to that week, all the treatment they've completed that week.

They get a gold star from the judge.

They get positive affirmation.

And they get a list of tasks for the next week.

And they're sent off to complete those tasks and proceed to the program.

They're monitored for drug use.

They are sanctioned if they fail to complete the parts of the program.

Those sanctions usually include incarceration.

but the idea being to create both positive affirmation and negative consequences to modify behavior and because that's the only way we can treat the addictions to try and modify behavior in such a way and to give the addicts the tools.

We can't do it for them.

Mr. Rutherford and I can't make them seek treatment but what we can do by investing in drug court is create a

System under which they have opportunity and access to the resources necessary to lift themselves out of addiction.

And these resources in some ways exist now.

Our biggest challenge right now for our offenders is geography and access to services.

And those are two of the problems that we can address in the drug court by bringing drug court here.

The idea would be that these our offenders would have access to both a clinical treatment

Probation and Supervision here in Nelson County.

You would not have to travel to Lynchburg or Charlottesville to have access to those things.

So I wanted to throw this up there.

This is generally drug court programs contain four or five phases.

Usually it takes a member, a participant about a year to two years to complete the program.

So in this particular model, and this is not necessarily the one we'll use, it's just one that I pulled off the National Insultation of Drug Court Professional website.

This is what they use as their model for phase one.

And so you'll see this is pretty basic stuff, right?

Drug testing.

You're going to come to court.

You're going to go to appointments.

You're going to be honest.

You're going to do some very basic things, but these are the fundamental levels that we have to start on with addicts to make sure that we can give them the tools they need to be successful.

And as a participant goes through the phases, the supervision level decreases.

So as they demonstrate their abilities to succeed, then the degree of supervision is reduced

and they can begin to be independent from the program.

The idea being that at the conclusion of the program, when the person graduates, they have the tools to be painfully employed, not reoffend and deal with their addiction outside of the criminal justice system, essentially.

And so this sounds like a great idea, but I know you all are interested in what the impact might be.

And so every year, the Conwell,

conducts an evaluation of all of the drug courts across the state.

And the number one thing obviously up here is the reduced recidivism, right?

And so that's going to have the societal impacts that we've talked about.

Better outcomes all the way across the board in terms of foster care, employment, children at home, that kind of thing.

The other thing I want to point out to you is that according to the Commonwealth,

Treatment is the most expensive cost.

So treatment accounts for 76% of the cost of drug work.

Treatment means going to a clinical setting and accessing the tools that you need to be treated for your addiction.

It's extremely expensive.

But compared to traditional incarceration,

traditional prosecution methods, including incarceration, the average savings per departure, and when they say departure, what they mean is somebody who leaves a drug court program per defendant.

This is how you can read that.

It's $19,000.

That's what the Commonwealth says across the state.

What the Commonwealth is saving and the localities are saving per outcome, per positive outcome.

So we're on a little bit of a timeline here and I wanted to point this out to you because I want the board to understand what the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office is doing.

So to have a drug court here in Nelson County, what we've got to do is write an application and submit it to the Supreme Court.

They are the arbiter of can you have a drug court or not.

Part of that is, part of that application process is receiving some training.

We have applied for that training and the member, the folks that we identify as potential members of the team, particularly folks from my office, the judge, folks from the pretrial supervision agencies, folks that we think are well positioned to provide clinical services will undergo that training with us.

And as I've been

led to understand by the state's drug court program coordinator that training is sort of the touchstone to unlocking the application process.

But in the meantime, I've got to write an application for drug court.

I'm going to work with our partner agencies, namely OAR and Region 10 to write this application.

And I think Mr. Rutherford provided a copy of Fluvanna County's application for all of you.

That is, as you can see, if you've had a chance to take a look at that, it's an extremely time-intensive process and it involves bringing people, collecting together a lot of information from a lot of different sources, some of which we have access to and some of which we're going to have to create.

Our goal is, so the Supreme Court accepts applications twice a year.

They accept applications in the fall and in May.

Our goal is to have our application

to the Supreme Court by May of this year.

And what that will allow us to do if we're approved is to begin to seek funding through grant resources.

And I just had, we got Ms. Moro from OAR here today.

She was just providing me with just more information about those grant processes.

Our hope will be to fund both a clinical position, i.e.

the clinician that we need to provide the treatment for the folks in drug court

and the Drug Court Coordinator, the person who does the day-to-day, the drug testing, the confirming that they've gone to their AA meetings through grant funding as our goal.

But as you all know, grants are not guaranteed.

And so we, this is the timeline that we're on, but we don't, you know, until we get approved, we can't begin going down the process of grant writing.

So this is going to be a lengthy process.

And it's going to be a lengthy process once we get approved.

And it's going to be a lengthy process from the time we get approved and get our grants to the time we see our first inductee in the drug court.

And I think

Once we get to the program established, we're going to have lots of good candidates.

I know Ms. Rutherford and I have evaluated a number of cases recently that would be excellent candidates.

In fact, I was in circuit court last week and I had the defense attorney and the judge say to me, aren't you working on drug court?

How come you don't have that up and running yet?

We want to put this person in drug court when that time comes.

So there is a need for a program like this.

There is a need for these resources.

They make sense financially, and I think they make a lot of sense for the community.

So, ultimately, I know the number's gonna be, well, what does this cost?

What's going on?

I'm trying to give you what Savannah, what their costs were.

They were able to get a half a million dollar grant over a three-year period, but it didn't really cover everything.

At the same time, what we anticipate, making sure that there's additional hours covered for the bailiffs.

That drug court itself is intensive for the clerk's office.

We want to make sure that of this $255,000 that we anticipate per year, that goes to the clerk's office gets a supplement because that's additional work for the deputy clerks.

This is an additional job they're given.

My office would need supplements because this is an additional work.

It's very time intensive.

You need to have funding for OER as that individual would be here to supervise the Nelsonians.

Our goal is not to have them drive to Charlottesville, but that it's run from here in Nelson.

We also need to make sure that there's recovery support for Region 10, and we've talked with Region 10 on those costs.

We want to make sure that the purchase of drug and testing supplies are also all included.

I know 255,000 is a lot.

My budget is 150,000 more than that, and that's prosecuting every individual.

I don't say this lightly on this part, but I can't emphasize enough, if we keep doing nothing, our 54 could go back up to 110 and can keep going from there because it will.

And where we started in 2011, if we would have taken this serious, when we were back at seven,

We would be in a whole different ballgame.

This number that we're dealing with, the problems that we're having, isn't going to go away.

And as much as I wish it to, and looking at the numbers again, I know it's not cheap.

But at the same time, we cannot afford to do nothing.

If someone goes to jail for more than 280 days, you spend over $18,000.

Those individuals have just yesterday, we sent someone on a probation violation.

It was his first probation violation to one year in jail.

You have now funded one tenth of drug court through that person.

And we sentence way more than one person.

So I don't mean to be kind of very direct on that, but it's we cannot afford to do nothing.

What I am asking in the meantime to help with this is Mr. Flory, I've been able to steal him from Wayne Thoreau.

He handled and ran the drug court on behalf of Wayne Thoreau.

He's very knowledgeable as we've seen him.

He's had over six years of being a prosecutor or a clerk for the circuit court.

So we understand how this goes.

I am asking for a supplement of $7,500 to assist him because he's doing a lot

We have 15 jury trials that come now in June 30th.

Last year, we had two jury trials total.

The year before that, we had seven jury trials.

The laws have changed on how we handle things, and it's impacting our workload.

Again, my office handles it.

I appreciate always working with the county.

I understand that I always come asking for things.

This is something a little bit more than what my office has, and this is to be able to start addressing the things.

I honestly didn't know if Mr. Pompa was coming, and I'm glad he did come, sir, because we get to deal with more than just his family.

There are hundreds of cases just like his that we handle every single time, every day.

When we had the high schoolers come to our office, and they got to sit in on one case where a gentleman had over a pound of that buried in his backyard.

The high schoolers got to see it.

followed by another individual who had drugs and guns in his car.

That was a 19-year-old at the time of the events.

It was meth over at the junction.

It's not stopping.

And so we're asking that you provide some supplements so we can continue on.

My office is willing to take the lead to get all this in.

We're not asking for a full-time person.

We're not asking for a criminal item.

Mr.

Flurry, I have all faith and confidence in his ability to see this through the end.

We're asking for some support so that we can get all the applications and paperwork in so we can work with OERs and brought them, continue working with the Wellness Alliance, continue working with Mr. Yudlow on getting all the data that he's provided us as that's instrumental.

This isn't a one-man shop.

We're working with every agency partner we have as we brought them.

Region 10 was supposed to be here.

They had something come up, but we're working hand-in-hand with them.

So this isn't just a common fraternity tax, but we wish to take the lead to be able to make this happen.

So I want you to keep in mind what the big picture is.

We're going to try to alleviate the 255 as much as we can.

But at the same time, I want to be upfront and honest with what it is and not over-promise something.

That's simply not true.

But with all this going on, like I said, we would ask for supplements.

We can continue doing this.

We would ask that if there are funds that you've received

through the Coronavirus backfill.

If you could set some aside and potentially, if we don't get grants, we would like to continue going on because we can't afford to do nothing.

Otherwise, my office is only tools incarceration.

And if that's the only tool we have, then that's the tool we'll use.

But if we can use more, my office would greatly do that.

My door's always open.

I don't want to be more than happy to take questions.

I also know you have to run the whole county and get to the next order of business.

Ms. Rutherford,

I want to turn it over to the brains of the operation who has seen it work for a team.

Most programs involve either a charge reduction or an outright dismissal of the charge.

That's something that we would probably have to evaluate on a case-by-case basis and craft an outcome as part of the plea bargain process that puts a person into the drug court program.

Drug courts generally come in two varieties, what people call pre-conviction and post-conviction.

Pre-conviction are drug courts where people have an opportunity to get their charges dismissed.

Post-conviction are, all right, we got convicted of a crime, now your choice is go to jail or go to drug court.

And I think that our perspective generally is we'd like to follow the pre-conviction model.

Generally the pre-conviction model has a higher success rate because the sort of carrot and stick thing is a little bit stronger.

And I think it provides us an opportunity to intervene in the lives of some young people who maybe aren't convicted felons yet.

and we can help them get the treatment they need and avoid a felony conviction if possible.

So that's kind of the direction we would go.

Any other questions?

Phrasing Larry from the region that was going to be here, she had a death in the family so she was not emailed because of one.

You know, I think they are equipped, they provide the treatment component for the Charlottesville

and all law drug court programs for the floumanid drug court programs, they are equipped to, the programs exist.

It's a question of getting the staffing to a place where they can implement the programs in this area, I think is what she was saying, based on our discussions.

And so, and particularly, you know, for example, with drug court, because of the structured nature of the program, we're able to put people in, for example, there's a program that,

We call, it's often called IOP, Intensive Outpatient Program.

And that can be a four to eight hour a day outpatient program where an individual goes and completes programming like they are in an inpatient setting.

If they're in an outpatient setting, they go home every night, right?

And so that's a program that, for example, is much easier to get people into and have them complete when they're in the highly structured environment of drug court

than when they're trying to do it on their own.

When they don't have the positive affirmation of the probation officer following up with them saying, hey, did you go to your treatment this week?

When they don't have that added incentive of, hey, I know if I don't do this, I'm going to jail.

And so that's kind of the, I think that they are, they have the tools that they need.

I was struck when you put up on the board, 1972 was the beginning of the war on drugs.

Drugs are, the use of drugs, addiction is a health problem.

And it's really nice to hear you talk in those terms.

I thank you for making this kind of turn and going in this direction.

He's taken on this additional work in addition to prosecuting a lot of our other intense drug cases, taking on a third of the load in the general district and juvenile court.

He's taking on this drug court as an additional job title.

I put in here our like-kind compadres that are ATTI's Augusta, who handles drug court, has a county supplement of $19,000.

Louvaina's the same.

They have a $22,000 county supplement.

And then Rockbridge, without ending with the same training experience, they have that pay.

Mr. Fleury does not get to that level.

And I would like to increase his pay to be on par

with some of the other folks.

And I've given the entire county supplement of every county and every jurisdiction for every office for the office of the commerce attorney to show where they all are.

But for Mr. Florian to be able to pay for all the training he's already done, we sent him down to Alabama for other training that he does just being a special U.S. assistant attorney.

He does a phenomenal amount.

And to be able to do this, to be able to work, because he goes to the Nelson Wellness Alliance meetings, he goes to a lot of things to make sure we bring this all together.

But to make this happen, it takes extra time.

So I'm asking for $7,500 as a supplement to this authority between now and the end of June so we can get this application in, because it's time intensive.

It's a 35-page application.

Getting the training in place with the Supreme Court and getting the grant writing out, he's going to take that on as well.

So that's what we're asking for, working with every other part of the agency.

But that is what I'm asking for in the system between now and then.

And I think that what I would encourage you to do is keep that 250 number in the back of your mind because we may be back in six months and say we tried to get grants and we couldn't and this is what it costs.

And because that's what a fully staffed drug court would cost the county per year.

And obviously we hope to see grant funding that will

Take care of a lot of the costs associated with the staffing.

But it's going to take buy-in and financial support from the board to make this happen.

Well, for right now, that is it.

I want to be upfront and honest.

Yes, and with the help of Mr. Flory, he made sure that we had the presentation ready, and I apologize for getting a little tardy here.

I was stuck in Kentucky for a couple minutes over the past week, but that is all we need right now.

That is what we're just asking to be able to get this application in and continue working with our agency partners.

We'll probably be back in May to update you on the application process.

This is going to be a continual involvement.

We have this updating where we're going and what the next steps will be.

But between now through June, that is all we can ask.

Aside from waiting for the Supreme Court or if you want to go talk to Justice Lemons now.

My goal is to bring them to the like kind of piano that just did their drug court.

Because again, unrelated, my office was entitled to a full-time, another full-time assistant commonwealth attorney.

We forbade that for some county supplements.

My office is still continuing to operate, reviewing the bodywork, doing everything as we should.

Mr. Flori is actually on the same experience as my deputy commonwealth attorney with the scope and everything else.

And I was able to bring them on with a promise of little pay and a lot of work.

What I would like to do, though, is, given that he's taking on additional work outside of any other true assistant commonwealth attorney, to be able to then properly compensate him.

As we go in the near future, we're not asking for any full-time position for drug court until we really see how it's going.

So I'm just wanting to compensate my employees for their hard work that are handling the drug court.

So when it comes to a full year, we'd be able to put him on par when he ran on the Austin and Rock Bridge.

Again, if he was just a new assistant and we had one of those, we paid him the new assistant rate and we kept him on that level.

We're kind of in a different plane with Mr. Ford.

That is correct.

It would be as long as we have drug court.

If there's no drug court, if it all fails, then obviously that's it's over and done and we won't be happy.

But if drug court's going on, it's going to be an additional court session and additional paperwork and additional case management and an additional style that my office has to immigrate in.

You are fully committed to this.

Yes.

As long as the Supreme Court approves us, which, after we've done our training, we should, we're committed to making sure we do this, because if we don't, I don't want to be the definition of insanity.

Can we make a motion?

Is there any other members of the

OK. Mr. Martin?

I make motion we fund what Mr. Rutherford has asked for, for $15,000, or $7500 for this, $7500 for initial funding for looking into this

OK, motion and second.

Is there any further discussion?

It's compensating Mr. Flory for all the work that he'll be doing for this.

It's not necessarily grant writing.

So I've got to write the application, attend the training, write the application.

In the meantime, I'll be writing grants to try to get the other positions filled.

I'll be working with them.

They are region 10 to establish the actual programming, the programs.

The programs all have manual.

I mean, I think it's extraordinary.

And to let the board know, once our court's approved, that will include, say the 15,000th of the full year, handling drug addiction.

I'd also like to state that in my work with Nelson County Community Wellness Alliance, Ms. Martin and Ms. Rose with the Department of Social Services,

Yes, and we will always be working hand in hand with all of our agency partners because this is an entire county effort.

It's not going to be just the Sheriff's Department, the County Attorney's Office, and ODR.

Mr. Hardy?

Yes.

Mr. Barton?

And thank you, Mr. Brown, for your patience.

You could now come and give us your VDOT report.

I'd like to report the, I think I've shared some of this information, the bus stop warning.

It was requested on eight hours.

151 traffic counts, that has still not been converted from raw data into a count that would make sense if that was given to you.

So that will be accompanied.

I don't know if it would or not.

I really don't know.

It possibly would.

We would have to lay this down, but they aren't supposed to be getting me that information.

Just, you know, get it formatted so it can make a better sense of it.

We're all working on Fire Arms Road.

There's some winding over there.

There's some winding on Fire Arms Road that was requested.

and Douglas Parr.

That project is ongoing.

Unfortunately, we've run into a little problem and we've completed it.

Weather and weather and the COVID outbreak is more of an inquiry that we're working on.

You know, we got shut down on that.

But the

Other than that, I don't have a whole lot to report.

We just got out of Wilson Road, rural Rustic Park Circle project ready to start.

We should start on that early this spring.

I did come through Route 6.

That bridge is Route 6 of Woodsville.

I know that's going to be an issue for a lot of folks.

They have opened the bridge back up and it is, you know, we will be back next spring to do a lane closure for a couple days to do an octave overlay on, but that's just two days of work.

So I'm glad that's opened back up and has impacted and been reduced, because that was a pretty good impact.

I mean, it was a hard job, hard project, and wasn't an easy way to do it.

I did go out, I don't know if any of you had a chance to go out on 250, 151, where the ground is about to be constructed.

Looks like that's moved along pretty good.

I didn't see much of color in the construction phases, I think, yep.

Yeah, if you want to see the construction phases of how it's going to go, but it's going to be pretty much be, initially be built out of

I do not have anything at this time.

It could have.

It very well could have, but some of those

You know, the restriction to go over Brents Mountain, I mean that, I don't know that they would have made it over Brents Mountain with the long trucks that they were staying on 151.

But there was a, I don't know if that, there was a request to review the signage for the truck, truck,

for truck restrictions on 151.

I think Mr. Walter received a letter, Mr. Martin, you received a letter from Mr. Rowe to look at SVI to review the signage for truck restrictions on 151.

You know, this came up when we had the mudslide or a landslide on 250.

You know, our signage may need to be looked at and we'll certainly, with this continued interest in it, I think it's a good time for us to do that.

Take a good look at how our signage is and make sure that it may have been fine 20 years ago or 10 years ago, but I think it's time to take a look at it to review it and make sure that we have what we need.

Mostly, no it's pretty much the whole, the whole road.

Yeah.

Says I need your advice, I want to get the illegal trucks on 151 between 250 and 6 and route 6 between 151, it is a northern section Mr. Parr.

Yeah and talking about River Road.

Does it,

It's trickling south.

So a couple of Sundays ago, I decided after hearing a few concerns from people, I decided to go on the Sunday drive and I waited for the road tractor to come through Piney River.

And just for the heck of it, I followed a big truck.

Not a little box, but a big road tractor.

Went through Piney River, Roseland, over Brents Mountain, took a left on Beach Grove Road, went up

and Carl Street Gap down through Sharando and hit 81, I mean hit 64 at the other side of Afton Mountain.

This was on, it's six o'clock on a Sunday evening.

The following Tuesday, we had our planning section over in, on the other side of Prince Mountain and the meeting room we were in, we could see both Beach Road Road and 151 and during that meeting, we counted

It was at least three, if not four, full-size road tractors come down off Prince Mountain and turn and go up Reed's Creek Beach Road during that meeting.

And that was between nine and four in the afternoon.

It's just constant.

He did make it around Reed's Gap.

I was impressed that he kept going.

But I was just curious to see, he almost turned to go to Hershey.

And he got over into the left lane and then whipped it back and kept going through Shrando.

Instead of turning there to go to Hershey, he went straight to 64.

I'm still looking for my sign, I believe it's down there.

Okay.

Yeah, I know.

It's a 90 degree turn, you know, it's not there.

I thought that'd come back and I'll check on that again.

Thank you for the sign on Paydah Road, the bus stop sign.

It was curious to me that there was signage for traffic westbound, but not signage eastbound.

Well, the site distance is one direction that it met the

The straightaway gives enough time for something to accelerate.

I appreciate that.

I haven't heard anything back from anyone or noticed myself, but I'm keeping my eye on it.

So thank you again for doing that.

Mr. Chairman, real quick, since we, no, you're good.

Social services, real quick, since we have the director here with us today, will we be discussing the building?

We will, is that going to be in your reports?

Okay, got it.

So that would be new and unfinished business.

Is there any?

Thank you.

So when I first accepted this position two and a half years ago, I was aware that a comprehensive plan update was on the horizon.

Over the last couple years, there's been a few roadblocks with that, but it's also given me a good opportunity to become familiar with the current comprehensive plan, zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinances.

So I've been able to see how they function, how they don't function, how effective they are, how they can be effective areas that are needed for improvement.

So our current comprehensive plan was adopted in 2002.

There have been a few updates to that.

State code requires that each locality adopt a 20-year comprehensive plan to be updated every five years.

Typically a comprehensive plan should guide the development in the county.

It's not a regulatory document.

It's a visionary document.

for the next 20 years paints the vision, the goals, priorities, strategies, how we're going to accomplish those.

Our current comprehensive plan is sort of flipped on that.

Right now the zoning ordinance is guiding the development, not the comprehensive plan.

When it's done correctly, it should be an economic development tool.

It's often used as reference for grant applications such as SmartScale, Virginia Outdoors Foundation grants,

When you have something to point to that says, yes, our county already supports this, it's a lot easier for an entity who would be granting funding to say, well, they're already supportive of that.

Let's go ahead and give them that money.

It'll also update our demographics and our inventory of infrastructure.

So we had authorization to release a request for proposals for the comp plan and those zoning and subdivision ordinance updates.

That was advertised on October 7th with a deadline of November 5th.

We received three proposals in response.

So there were two firms that had qualifying proposals and the panel selected by the Planning Commission interviewed those two firms last week on December 8th.

There were several criteria referenced in the RFP.

to evaluate which firm would be chosen.

Those were project understanding, approach and methodology, experience and qualifications, references and cost.

After interviewing both firms and discussion afterwards, the selection committee is recommending awarding the contract to the Berkeley Group located out of Bridgewater, Virginia.

Their project team is composed of individuals who have previously worked in local government setting

Their plan focus is on people, place, and performance.

Their method allows the county to take ownership of the process and the final document, which I feel is important.

Their process includes a diagnostic review of our existing comprehensive plan that's based on state code requirements and best practices from the American Planning Association.

We'll work together on a thorough public engagement plan.

It'll be unique to Nelson that is wide-reaching, inclusive, and will be maintained throughout the process.

They're recommending joint work sessions of Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, so expectations are managed.

We'll kick off the project, identify key issues, and encourage constituent involvement at that first kickoff meeting.

That'll be scheduled in January.

Then we'll begin website and branding, issue a community survey.

We'll begin to hold public workshops and stakeholder listening sessions and their recommendations for the best direction and best practices we should use will be based on the findings of their investigation.

We'll also do an existing conditions analysis, vision and goal setting, policy development, and an implementation plan, all with joint work sessions.

And of course, there will be public review and refinement prior to plan adoption to ensure that everyone was heard, everyone's concerns are being addressed, and everyone's on the same page with how we're going to move forward.

Once a final plan is adopted, they will follow up with another diagnostic of the zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinances.

They'll generate recommendations that will make it consistent with our new comprehensive plan.

Like I said, that'll be the enforcement tool to set the vision of the comp plan as the years go on.

Current projects that Berkeley Group is working on include Richmond County and Greensville County comprehensive plans.

Northampton County adopted their plan in June of this year.

And they also did the City of Lexington comprehensive plan, which received the 2021 American Planning Association Commonwealth Plan of the Year Honorable Mention.

Our office has also referenced that plan for topics such as lodging when researching how to move forward.

In front of you are the cost and timeline estimates.

They'll be right at the top of your desk.

So on it they've provided I think a really good breakdown of their costs and what each of the items will be doing.

They've estimated the total cost for the entire process to be around $160,000.

The board's already allocated $50,000 in funding for this fiscal year which we can use to get started.

The final cost will be determined in partnership with county staff to align the project scope with available funding.

So like I said, in front of you, you've got costs and timeline estimates.

Their timeline carries through the end of 2023.

That is the quickest it would get done.

Dylan, that's great to hear.

I'm glad that this is right on the horizon for us now.

Um closer than that actually.

It doesn't.

Well, say when I accepted the position, Mr. Carter had passed on a memo with a few items on it.

One was comprehensive plan update, non-performing ordinance, commercial solar ordinance, and the Gladstone Depot.

So I can report back that three of those have been taken care of and have either been completed or in motion.

And I'm very much looking forward to lifting my head down and working on them.

OK.

I move that we approve the request for the Berkeley group.

Second.

OK. We have a motion that we approve the Berkeley group as the consultant for our new comprehensive plan.

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

Mr. Barton?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you, Ms. Bishop.

Next we have our county administrator report.

Okay, I've had a request to take a five minute break, so let us take five and we'll be back in a few.

Mr. Barton, are you set?

I'm ready.

Okay.

This is an update from last week's board meeting over Dabbles Backbone.

The board asked us to update the previous work on the possibility of changing for a joint health department in a specific building.

So we asked our potential partners who presented some information last week about this

This is the counties of the economic developments of the artist Callen Hill property.

It's about 17 acres.

And this is a rendering of potential for a joint facility being constructed over there.

That would take about, I'm talking to Ed Mark Smith this morning, about 4.2 acres of the property.

Both facilities are at 6,500 square feet,

and Ken Lee, parking spaces.

So that's what they came up with.

We did speak to Dr. Bonds this morning, Candice Van Den Ive.

I'll show you some more in a second.

The health department, the state's department of general services, their individual real estate services is working.

I think the board is aware of the heritage syndrome of the hospital.

You saw the footprint this morning from preliminary plans.

The Heritage Center's architect has presented to the building department.

So they're showing a 4,200 square foot footprint on the long hallway.

As you enter the Heritage Center, you take a left-hand turn.

It's about 4,200 square feet either side of the hallway towards the southern end of the building.

Intensely, the health department here could be smaller.

Dr. Bonds at 4,200 square feet seemed to be adequate.

And also, in discussion with Dr. Bonds, this is what our patient did just real quick as we requested, but talking to her, she said they could potentially share a kitchen, conference rooms, et cetera.

So, speculatively, it's possible that this parking could go away, this is enough, and this overall footprint could be reduced because, as you'll see, this is how it would line up office-wise.

And this was done probably from Thursday until this morning by our potential partners.

So pretty quickly.

Single-story building.

Here's some photos of similar facilities our tech department has done just to give the board an idea of what this facility could look like.

All costs included, architectural and engineering services, furniture, fixture, equipment, site grading, et cetera, et cetera, $4.418 million.

Instead, potentially, the board wanted to move forward with this.

We could scale that back somewhat.

It's potentially being a building next October if all things work out.

I think that's it.

I also spoke to Robin Cooch this morning about it.

Based on the presentations that he did last week with the border cards, you're right with it.

This is that $18 million that's before the state's contribution.

Right, that's just the county's contribution.

That's to be determined.

Dr. Bongs noted that

You know, this could be negotiated based on the square foot cost of the county.

We've been talking, again, finally, with the new Department of Real Estate Services coordinator took over for Melissa Nelson, who we've worked with for a long time.

Melissa retired, and it's taken us a while to get her to get back to actually contact us, and we just had our initial discussions with her, and we didn't really glean much new information.

This is really, and this hasn't been presented to DRES yet either.

We wanted to share it with you all at first.

So, you know, if you scaled it back to somewhere about, if you could, three and a half million, depending on the square foot lease cost between the county, let's just say, hypothetically, you could, three and a half million would be three or 400,000 a year, you might get 100, 150,

So the last four or five years we've managed about $60,000 to $65,000 in income from DSS for services we provide to that office.

One thing that would probably go away would be the lease payment we pay for the property where the offices are currently located because the county doesn't own that.

There's a couple of factors involved here.

The Department of Social Services offices could be paired with something else like planning or recreation, etc.

One of the things we have going on here is community involvement.

The community has really got involved in trying to place the health department at the Huron Center, which would have enormous benefits to that community.

It also has community involvement, and I believe it would be cheaper

We were just asked to bring this back.

Excuse me?

The staff was just asked last week to bring this back.

It was done quickly.

But it's not a decision.

I hate to be putting off the decision on the health department.

Right, so the timeframe for the health department to remain at the Butters Medical Center is December of 2022, so about a year from today.

for the Millennium Group or the Heritage Center.

Chuck has indicated, and I'm not trying to present this as an issue, but it's just something that he has to work through if it goes to the Heritage Center.

The use group for that building will change, and it will potentially require the building to be sprinkled, fire doors,

That's too big a term.

He hasn't really looked at those drawings.

And I don't know if this cost, of course, we're not pretty,

We were asked to present Jesse, and this is sort of where we are.

I do think, and Doug defines, that the health department doesn't need to be this large.

I think one thing is for certain is we need to make a move for social services.

They definitely suffer in their current situation in the

And the Health Department does have the timeline that we've backed up several years.

I've always appreciated the Heritage Center.

And as we mentioned community, I want to support the Heritage Center even more.

And I think we did so in recent months with the $50,000 contribution to the roof.

And I'd be open to supporting more and how we can assist them in rehabilitating and bringing that community center back to life.

I do know that as we've talked to many other folks that, you know, the health department is probably, it needs to be in Lovingston in my mind.

I think that's, I guess for sure, but I can assure the board.

Sure.

And you know I guess I was trying to do some rough math real quick and you know they were looking at trying to get the health department to contribute $20 a square foot for, is it 4,000 square feet?

Something like that?

If the Heritage Center came here today and asked for that $20 a square foot to rehabilitate that 4,000 square feet I wouldn't be supportive of it as a Board of Supervisors.

and I think we could do that.

We could do both, get the health department in the center over here and help them rehabilitate with that $80,000.

I just think it would better serve the community at least here being centrally located and it would also benefit the town of Lovingston having a more centralized workforce in the town respectively.

So

You know, that's where I would be supportive.

I don't disagree with what you had to say, Mr. Rutherford, but as soon as that meeting was over last week, I became really concerned about the decision to move forward on this proposal because

I'm aware of the time and energy and financial investment and determination that the Heritage Center and the Londium Group have put forward on behalf of the county to provide a home for the health department.

And I was really concerned that

just to say, let's go forward with the estimates here, sent a message.

And that message was one that didn't really, I think, and I personally didn't really consider at the time we approved it, what kind of a message that sends to the community.

When the community steps forward to provide something that the county has not, then I believe that it's an important function of the county to work in conjunction with and supportive of the community centers,

the efforts that the community is making, especially one as significant as housing something that serves the entire county.

And I was pretty distraught about it.

I was so distraught that I quickly looked up to see how could something like this be reconsidered?

And of course, it had already gone forward, and so that wasn't an option open to us.

But, you know,

You know, the county has more ability than community groups do to set the tone for the community.

And if the county sends a message, whatever it is, that it's not at least appreciative of, if not supportive of the work that the community groups are doing on behalf of the county, then

That's a bad message and a problem.

I think the county could be more proactive in working with community groups.

I think community groups have lots to offer the county.

The county has lots of support that it can do because we have to do these things together.

And as much as I agree with what was said at that meeting and with what Mr. Rutherford said and the needs that we have,

So Emily, can I make a couple comments?

Sure.

Just to make sure

And then this is an information side, it's a reporting side.

It's really a question of serving the interest of the community center or serving the interest of the county in total.

As if you put it down on the far south, and that's, I'm fine if you do it, but if you put it on the far south end of the county, it doesn't really serve someone like me that's Afton.

You know, Mr. Reed, and I understand this community aspect, and that's why I echoed my support to contributing to their intentions to, you know, build out that community center.

It's had a substantial role in our back community, especially.

You know, we've had, they've had the opportunity to do something the last two years, kind of deal with the health department while we considered and waited until we got the capital improvements.

Here we are.

We've learned our capabilities and what we need to do.

We have the ironies for the social services and the health department.

And, you know, with us and our ability, we can get that started tomorrow, you know, and going ahead, do an RFP, correct, and start going out to bid and get specs and reduce.

And, you know, again, you know, this is not any move with this capital project.

is not an anti-heritage center.

This is pro.

I want to support both, you know, and I want to do the best diligence I can also for my constituents who live in Schuyler, who don't have ease of access to the health department and even other access to like region 10 and how we can support those communities.

It's more than just one, you know, it's the whole thing.

You know, that's where I'm at.

Welcome to Heritage Center to ask you to come before us so they can ask us how we can help them.

I'd like to contribute myself too.

That $4.4 million, the board needs to have that next work session on capital improvements because

I mean, you're going to go from one extreme part of the county to the totally opposite end of the county.

Three miles from where the health center is now.

And people do need to go to the health center.

And that is a perfectly legitimate idea that it can be centrally located.

But there is another benefit accrued from having

and participation in the county by a number of people that were sought to meet the needs of the county.

And it strikes me as remarkable that people are very much concerned with the movement of people coming from distances to go to the health center when they would go once or twice.

We talk about moving children every single day from Afton down to Tyre River to have some sort of consolidation in the schools to save money makes me suspicious of the motives that we have for what we want.

You know, I mean, yeah, it's legit.

You want to have that health center in the middle, but how often do people use it and how much

difficulty would be for people to go to that health center.

I would maintain, with all due respects to Mr. Harvey and the district that he serves, that the south part of the county could use the boost, could use support, could use an office, could use something that brings people to that part of the county.

When we look at the entire county, I think that whether the county is making investments, whether the community is making investments, we really have to be extremely careful that we don't frustrate the efforts of those who have taken it upon themselves to provide something very necessary for the people of the county.

Again, in a perfect world, you don't have the kind of conflicts between equity and fairness and things like that, both socially and economically.

But in our county, there's no question, just as if what's important for Mr. Harvey, what's important for Mr. Rutherford and Lovingston area, what's important for the county in terms of central location,

I know we like to use that, but if that's the case, then I'd like this to go to Schuyler.

We're going to talk about, you know, equity and what communities have lost and suffered.

That community has a lot of needs, too.

And I'd dagnabbit, I also understand the feasibility of geography.

I'm going to get off my soapbox, but, you know, Schuyler needs it just as bad.

So I've been sitting back waiting for anybody that doesn't know.

This facility is in my district.

We keep saying south.

It's actually in the West District on the south end of the county.

This location was good enough where the building was built to serve a specific purpose for all citizens of Nelson County.

If the location was good enough when it was built, it's good enough now.

On the flip side of that,

The very first meeting we had as a board member, Skip, you were still at the hospital.

You had just had your stroke.

We had a meeting in January.

Ernie and I were sitting over there.

And I don't know if you remember, this topic was on that board agenda, that very first meeting in January.

And it was a $3 million facility at that time.

And Ernie and I looked at each other and I said, why the hell would we not do this?

It's 3 million.

Why would we not do this?

And then we heard about the proposal from the Heritage Center and all that.

thrown out there and we wondered, and no one has ever said, is what does the health department want?

Do they want to be down there?

Do they have a dog in this fight?

Do they have any opinion on that?

But I've never heard what they want.

Do they want to be there?

Do they not want to be there?

Do they want to be at the stoplight?

Where do they want to be?

I think I would like to hear that information at some point.

At the same time, I've asked the Heritage Center twice

Since that $600,000 figure was thrown out, we were saying 1.2, they were saying $600,000.

We've never seen anything on exactly what would be going on.

I don't know who makes this decision.

I think this is a great looking facility.

I think it opens up opportunities.

It's a good location.

I also think we have a group of individuals who are committed to making something like this work.

It could be the

What's in a strip mall, the main building in a strip mall?

Your anchor, thank you.

It could be the anchor for that facility to help it, you know, springboard off into other things.

You get that activity.

You've got the gym now, you have this.

I'm not saying which way I'm leaning.

I've got frustrations on both sides.

And I think we need to sit back.

Waiting a month isn't going to hurt us.

I would like to sit back and wait a month, give the Millennium Group, the Heritage Center, an opportunity in its time to jump or get off the pot.

They either need to make a decision and make a presentation and say, we're gonna do something, we're gonna have it done by November of next year, or we can't get it done and we're gonna let the county take it on and move forward with something like this.

But, you know, that's where I am.

I think today we need to say, okay, everybody, let's get it together.

The county's got this.

What do you all have?

Right.

That's where I'm at.

But I do support the idea.

Obviously, it's in my district.

I think it would be a great benefit.

But we got to stop dragging our feet.

What I would suggest.

And you have Walnut Mountain Museum, so I will.

which could use a lot of support of course.

I guess I need to come back with that next week.

What I would suggest we do since we have this, the plan is set in stone and we want to give the due diligence for the Heritage Center.

Let's put it on the agenda for January and have the Millennium Group present or at least provide you the plans at that time and prior for us to review.

and then that way we have some kind of idea and let's try to get the health department present if they're willing to be in person.

We need to provide some funds for them to seek this information that we want.

I thought they'd been working on this for a year and a half or almost, well not quite two years, but almost two years because in January two years we talked about it so they can march

Mr. Rose might be able to mention Moore's Architect.

Does that sound familiar?

I think it's Moore's Architect and they're fully capable of doing a cost estimate and design work.

I've seen their work before.

I believe if they have any questions for our architectural partners, whatever that might be.

I think it would be great.

I feel like the Heritage Center needs more than an ultimatum to show up in a month with certain information.

I don't know what that is, but at the very least, I would like to express a willingness to work with them on

on the project that they're working on.

They have done their project pretty much with the exception of the money that we mentioned that they got.

They've been working on this initiative really on their own and on their own nickel.

And I want to express how grateful I am to them for doing that and for stepping up.

I think we should give the Millennium Group, tell them that we're open to talking with them at the next meeting, but not have a decision on the agenda.

I think that for all we know, they could be

What Dr.

Bond said this morning is that she's not directly, she's indirectly involved.

It's the state agency that I keep referring to, Department of Real Estate Services.

They are in discussions about, at least that's what Dr.

Bond said,

At the end of the day, you know, we obviously, Ernie, I agree, we want to give and extend respect and opportunity to the Heritage Center, but our ultimate responsibility is to the citizens of the county.

And, you know, we just, it's time to act one way or the other.

I'm not saying which way to go, I'm just saying we need

And that's the ultimate responsibility that we have.

And it would be great if we could have our cake and eat it too and have this wonderful repurposed facility in a section of the county that could use it.

What I would suggest the board could do is we begin action with the social services piece proportion with a potential addition of the health department side.

and we can have our connect report and start.

Proceeding with the social services portion with a contingency of adding the health department in the event we've changed it.

That way we're doing a due diligence with the social services.

That way we're not, I don't want to hold social services to whatever we have to deal with with the health department.

You know, and I don't think that's appropriate for them.

They don't need to have to be stuck in that.

I think it would be easy enough

I would not be in favor of that.

The reason being that it's the responsibility of the state to decide what they're going to do.

And in some in some respects, the social services?

No, no.

The health department.

Yeah.

I'm saying we leave that alone.

Well, I understand.

I understand.

But what I'm saying is it's been, the ball has been in their court and they have not yet really taken the initiative in my perspective to get that job done since it started.

And I really would like to, the Department of Social Services

Whether we decide to move forward on their construction or not, I think is is certainly something that we should do.

Well, yes, I'm saying move forward with social services, get it done.

They need a facility.

If in some rare event that we need to our rare our potential that we need to add the health department,

It's gonna be easy enough.

I'm just saying, we'll just put that out there too.

I'm just saying, just be mindful.

Yes.

The social services location over there, yes.

And then if we have to in January to add on the health department, we can do it.

and then wait again another month, it's just a month.

If this is what we were telling on doing back when we did something with this, we should not have lent it out to a group that is now going to dictate to us what we're going to do.

And the location is two miles from Amherst County,

And I think at least the health of it needs to be in the town of Lovingston.

Yeah.

Mr. Carter, I think what you articulated is what we need for our next meeting.

What was it?

Well, if I, we'll reach out to the VRS coordinator in tomorrow and ask them to give us information, we'll share it with the board immediately.

Sure.

Sure.

I would suggest we do that and reach out to the money group.

Sure.

Where we count a second into the bottleneck of these discussions is

Sure, well tell them we're looking to make a decision in January, hopefully.

Yeah, this, as we discussed,

Is that over?

Yeah.

We'll just save it.

Yeah.

We can talk to her after this.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

You have the rest of your report.

Right.

Let's go.

I'll do it real quick.

Well, a couple of things.

On the Spanish Coronavirus,

The information I reported is from yesterday, which is information from December 10th published on the health department's website.

So as of the 10th, there was six new cases of the virus in the county and a seven-day average of eight cases.

As of yesterday, there were three cases, new cases in the county and an average, seven-day average of nine cases.

on the state's website, our line had been pretty flat for the last month, sort of ticked up a bit, in the highest being about 14 cases on December the 7th, I believe.

So, not significant, but still not, of course, going away.

And the county still is a commonwealth area of high transmission,

and the CDC recommendation is to wear a mask indoors in public settings, et cetera.

General real estate assessment, Wandlerings, I think the board is aware it's currently conducting its assessor hearings and they should be submitting their certified report by the end of this month.

And then the board will need to appoint the Board of Equalization.

We're working on that.

Hopefully that can be done in January.

The board will sit for its hearings and make its report to the board sometime next spring.

And the board, as someone mentioned earlier in the public comments, you'll be obligated by state law to look at what it takes to equalize the tax rate through a public hearing process, and that has to be done.

The tax rate can then be set, whatever the board determines for the next fiscal year.

We've had compensation studies.

I've reached out to the institute, the government, which the county's a member of, and we've got information on court counts that's shown in my report, and the costs associated with their studies.

But then we reached out to Management Advisory Group International, which is working with Galois Charlottesville Regional Jail, currently on a compensation study.

and the Regional Jail is doing that through Frederick County's Cooperative Procurement Agreement, which Nelson could also utilize if the Board wanted to move forward with a compensation study.

So we contacted MAGI and asked for a proposal.

They gave us one yesterday.

The cost was $24,500.

They did receive some questions.

So we've responded to those questions.

Spectatively, I think we still would be with an updated estimate somewhere between 24,500 and probably 30,000 or less to do a compensation study, looking at our job descriptions, and potentially a factor on how to adjust compensation levels on an annual basis.

So if the board wanted to move forward with that, we're potentially reducing for a cost, we think somewhere under 30,000 or less.

And it would include county direct employees, constitutional officers, and an option for Department of Social Services waiting on a new cost estimate.

Okay, any questions for Mr. Carter?

We have board reports.

Mr. Harvey, do you have any reports?

Great.

So the PDC, we've had some great discussions, looking forward to continuing the affordable housing conversation and planning a conference this coming fall.

I hope this board would love to participate and learn the rest of the opportunities.

We're going to be talking about how to implement affordable housing in the comp plan, which can go into zoning and so many other options and how we as boards can take more of an initiative on the lack of affordable housing in the rural context.

That was absent from the Water Authority meeting and Nelson went to the Firefly event yesterday which announced the successful fatty grain application.

I believe our region, and I'm proud to chair that committee of powers from Jefferson Planning District Commission, where we were able and successfully to solicit close to $80 million, which that number might go up some if some of the challenges fail in getting the region greater Charlottesville area fiber internet in the next couple of years.

Beyond that, that's all I got.

Mr.

They were going across as of today.

I saw that.

I would stop the track.

So that's a very monumental move because they've been trying to do that for at least a year.

So I think they finally did.

Others, anybody watching on the internet, that means people on the other side crossing the tracks for Cragetown Road, now 56, might be getting internet soon.

Thank you.

Mr. Parr?

I have nothing.

Okay.

We do not.

That will expire at the end of this month.

We are seeking an applicant.

We have that advertised both in the paper and on the website.

I'm working on it too.

Board of Equalization, when do we have to have that completed by?

Can we do that in January?

Because I will say, judging by as much backlash as I got, and I sent everybody the application, we only got three.

So folks, tell your friends, please join the Board of Equalization if you want to have a voice in the conversation of reassessments and values and what you might feel.

Yeah.

What is the max number?

minimum of three, maximum of five.

We do have some, you know, we have to have 30% of our members of that board need a commercial or residential real estate appraisers, other real estate professionals, builders, developers.

Mr. Nelson, Thomas Nelson, he left here earlier.

He has reapplied.

At what capacity?

What was his use of the Board of Equalization?

I don't know that one.

So he as far as his background, you know, he did not he was part of the other 70 percent that could serve.

But he does have experience.

And we did reach out to all the previous board members.

OK.

Uh.

As reassessments, I know there's a lot of folks who are upset about that I've received.

I can't tell you how much correspondents, but that could before the tax rate ain't it yet and we might equalize some because all the way.

Still in the air and doesn't take place till next budget year, so.

Those who are listening, keep that in mind.

Directives?

Yes.

Curtis Sheets had provided some information as it related to the EMS needs of today.

I'm not sure if you've seen the recent movement.

I wanted to get an update and see if we could put this on the agenda in January to bring up discussion of some of the difficulties that they're struggling with on the EMS level and some of the potential improvements that might be needed as well as equipment potentials.

Steve, I know you've received some correspondence with that.

Yeah, I would suggest that we'll not take this up in January but wait to the budget and then work on it there.

You might get reports from Curtis in January, but among other things, they have suggested, they mean the

Thank you for having me.

And one of the things that we just saw either last week or yesterday, I think it was late last week, was another summary of that and a request for the county to provide a trailer as a training facility.

and the similar facilities made the point in Roanoke County.

I think that Curtis said there's one that they are in, either Appomattox or Buckingham County, which kind of wasn't aware of, but they've asked for a number of considerations, they being WPA.

One of the things we want to bring forward either next month or relatively soon is consideration of increasing

Basically, just to keep us more current, even at 150%, just our preliminary review, that might generate about 200,000, but it still wouldn't be sufficient to offset the total operational increase across the program as we continue to go up.

So, a lot of budgetary considerations that WPOA's presented.

We've been trying to determine the need for more personnel, salaries, things like that.

One of the things that was least suggested was, and I certainly don't want to say this, that the volunteer agencies would stop and they would just become a part of the pay program.

I think I recall that correctly.

One email that Mr.

Sheets sent probably two months ago was suggesting that from the MS Council that, potentially if I recall correctly, the other volunteer MS agencies might give up their licenses in following to volunteer as a part of the MPLA.

I haven't heard one word from any of this stuff.

And I don't want to overstate that.

I haven't talked to anybody.

Because that was a threat at the very beginning that the volunteers had is if you come in with a pay department,

As I said, in one of the previous emails he sent a couple months ago, that was one of the inferences in the email.

So I'm certainly not averse to the decision to have him come in January, but it's probably better if I can just suggest that we work with Curtis and WBOA and put all these things together.

For the budget session.

Can you communicate that with Mr.

Sheets?

That's what we've been trying to analyze and I'm waiting for our research coordinator to look at our database on call volumes and one of those calls.

Hopefully soon because it's been a while.

It has been a while.

I have a suggestion for that job description, maybe include an expectation for a personal visit of the local departments, maybe like board meetings at least once a year of the local fire departments.

I certainly don't want to strongly suggest that Mr.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Then I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Continue, yes.

Adjourn and continue.

Mr. Chairman, I move that we continue this meeting until seven o'clock.

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

Mr. Reifer?

Yes.

Mr. Reed?

Okay.

I have to go to the back.

Yes.

Is that one?

Is that one?

Is that one working?

Okay.

I'd like to call the order of the evening session of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors for today being the 14th of December.

Which order of business is public comment?

These are comments that are not related to the public hearings to follow.

I don't have anyone signed up on the list for public comment,

may come forth.

Seeing none, we'll close public comments and move on to the public hearings.

Thank you.

This is a request to rezone a property from A1 Agriculture to B1 Business to allow the existing opportunities to continue and allow opportunity for other commercial uses on the property.

by Akers, owned by Tectonics II, Justin Crandall, is here tonight.

The parks are zone A1, existing zoning in the vicinity is B1 and A1.

It's adjacent to Devil's Back, known campground.

The area is mixed use in nature with a combination of agricultural, residential, and commercial uses.

The property did receive a special use permit for retail in 1984.

That since expired since then the property has been primarily utilized for commercial office uses.

It's currently home to the Tectonics II office.

They recently moved, they were just up the road there.

There are no development plans as part of this request.

It's accessed by an existing entrance on Beech Grove Road.

Any future expansions and development will require review of the existing entrance, but no upgrades or modifications are required at this time.

Served by existing utilities, there were no proffers submitted with the application.

and at their meeting on November 17th, the Planning Commission voted 4-0 to recommend approval of this to the Board of Supervisors.

I mean, Dylan pretty well covered it, but just a little more context in case nobody knows of the property.

We've been up East Grove for about 35 years, had this property for about 25 years or so, 20, 25, 20 years, recently moved there

and I think it would have better served to switch it to B1 instead of going for another SUP.

I've dealt with those before and like the previous one, it's already expired.

Property's been a business forever.

It was the old Glenmary Nursery building.

I think Winthrop Nursery had it for a while then it was rented out to some real estate people and then also Wintergreen Nature Foundation still uses the greenhouse on the property.

So right now, we've been utilizing it

Close to a year, we have a storage barn there, use it as staging for equipment, materials, so we can use it around and all of that good stuff.

Reason I want to go to B1 is I have no idea what I need down the road.

If I need another barn for storage, more office space, I just don't know that right now.

So it seems like it might be complicated to go the SUP route and update it if I shouldn't need additional space.

Thank you, Mr. Crandall.

Okay, I will open the public hearing.

I'm rezoning 454.

I wanted to be one.

I would read the procedures for a public hearing, but I think that if anyone was here to speak, they would be here.

I'm going to close the public hearing.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Is there any discussion?

Only discussion is that I was living on Beech Grove Road when Glen Mary was there and

and I was not at the Planning Commission meeting when you came in front of the Planning Commission.

I was not able to attend, but I just wanted to say Godspeed.

Mr. Barton?

Yes.

Mr. Parr?

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Mr. Reed?

Yes.

Yeah.

This is a lot of fun.

I'm going to try to go help with kids events.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

So this is a required public hearing to reestablish the county's election districts following the 2020 census.

The board's previously seen this subject presented a few times.

So we're in a public comment period, but within that period the board can have the public hearing tonight, but we cannot act on the audience until the January session.

All right, so one of the contradictions that we have with Nelson County and the Supreme Court is they are including entire voting precincts.

So for example, Nelson County once again, and this isn't finalized, currently these are only draft maps.

So we are not dealing with law, we are dealing with contingent line changes.

So if you look up there at Afton, Afton, Farber, and Schuyler,

are going to be in, I think it's the 53rd House District Seat, which will be all of our Mall in Charlottesville.

So instead of being cut by 151, we're now gonna be cut by those entire voting precincts.

That's what's suggested.

Now what I suspect will end up happening is either all Nelson County will be thrown to the 53rd, other pieces will be thrown to the 53rd, it's still a draft map.

But what we have to do as a board, from some of the folks I've spoken to up in Richmond and whatnot, was that they said these maps aren't finalized, so it's not law.

They also can't tell us to contradict law.

So we have to make adjustments to the father and or Nellysford precincts.

They can't look at us and say, no, you can't change it because now all those people voting in this House District know that they have to change with us.

So what we need to do after this meeting is she's going to send a notice.

We also need to get a notice about this voting change.

And we also need to get Jackie, all of us thinking about it, to do the same thing.

And she can point out the exact number of people and whatever voting census blocks that is.

And so can Susan to master special or special masters, whatever they call them.

So at this time, it is our job and the Supreme Court can find themselves doing something completely different.

So everything's contingent.

So we as a board need to move forward in the correction of actions to follow the law that the state has given us.

So I wouldn't worry about it.

I ain't worried about it.

We just need to give them the heads up.

By the way, you might need to include either another precinct or find yourself going to a different precinct completely.

because the county would still have two House of Delegates districts.

If you put people over into the East District from the Central, those people would still be required to vote in the- Lovingston Precinct.

Well, in the other precinct, the West Precinct, instead of the precinct on- Yeah.

That would be Lovingston.

Or the district that would encompass Lovingston, this side of the

You said the way that we've been redistricted is the north, the east, and the central district are going to be part of our model?

Yes.

Yeah, I was going to point out.

They're probably going to but we don't know.

That's the problem we've run into with the entire map process with the state this census year is they've contradicted themselves probably five to a dozen times.

So this is

The state maps are about to be dramatically different.

We won't be in any valley politics anymore.

We will not be part of the valley on any map.

One of the other issues you have is Louisa also has a huge population change so their maps are changing as well.

the only ones that are experienced.

They also, there are some governments, localities that are adding voting, entirely new positions.

So they have issues with that as well.

So they understand these are coming and that's one of the reasons why they're probably not gonna vote on this until the middle of January is to see how those changes look.

Yeah, if I can real quick or go ahead.

I was just gonna, for Mr. Barton, basically this blue line that runs here,

is the existing line for the current state house districts.

The change that we made is in this area here.

Actually, their line goes here.

We're proposing to move it here.

So we weren't conforming to their districts, and that was the only spot if we did what we originally proposed to do.

Yes, they have to conform because remember the map that we're talking about is a draft map.

Is there a scenario under which we would have to have another public hearing and tonight's would not?

But it could happen.

I think what

The Supreme Court can't do is make us contradict state law.

We are doing everything state law has told us to do and conforming to the percentages that we need to conform to.

So I mean, in January, if they all of a sudden say, no, you have to do this, that and the other, well, they also need to justify their new rules, because in that case, you would be over the limit that you're legally allowed to have.

I'm not worried about that.

Now, the north, this I know is not going to change to mount anything.

Right.

But then the Nellys forward,

And is it Farber?

We already voted to make that change, Tommy.

That's Woods Mill.

So we're putting Woods Mill into the East District.

Right.

And from the state standpoint, the line that we currently have, they used that line moving forward to again have Nelson as a split

You're talking about lower.

Buried Hill, Trussler's Lane, I think maybe.

Tommy, all of your people will be voting for the whatever delegate, Admiral Charlottesville.

You'll be fine.

You're the same.

Okay, any other questions?

Okay, let us commence with the public hearing.

We'll open the public hearing on amending the Nelson County Code concerning election districts.

If anyone would like to speak at the public hearing, since I have no one signed up, you can come now.

Since no one is present, I will close

Edwards, the board approved in November, I think, to provide for the establishment of the Regional Cigarette Tax Board, as you know, in October.

But then the board supposedly decided not to proceed with the cigarette tax and directed staff to get notice of the county meeting with the regional board and regional entities.

So presumably your next step is

to repeal that previous ordinance.

And this is what this ordinance provides for.

Thank you, Ms. Carter.

So I would like to open the public hearing to amend the code of Nelson County to repeal ordinance O 2021-07.

Anyone wishing to speak at the public hearing, please come forward.

I know, I know.

One day, I'm just going to say no.

Mr.

–07 Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve Ordinance 2021-11 and those County Board of Supervisors repeal of Ordinance 2021-07.

Second.

I apologize for my confusion.

Mr. Parr?

Yes.

Any other business to do this evening?

Seeing none, hearing none.

I do have a question while you're thinking about that.

I mean, it's my understanding that one of them got postponed until next year, but funding got postponed.

Could we begin a list of what

I'm looking for a motion.