Board of Supervisors Meeting   1/10/2022

and Supervisors January 10th meeting to order.

We could all rise for a moment of silence.

All right.

Let's say the pledge.

Mr. Barton.

Good afternoon and happy new year to everyone.

Pursuant to the applicable provisions of 15.2-1416 of the Code of Virginia and Chapter 2, Article 2 of the Code of the County of Nelson, Virginia,

Nelson County Board of Supervisors conducts an annual organizational meeting at the board's first meeting in January of each year.

The first order of such business would be the adoption of the chair.

So I will now open the floor for nominations for chair of the Board of Supervisors for 2023.

I would like to make a motion.

Before I say so, I'm a person who's

who is I guess next in line.

But I think for a couple of reasons, one of which I think Jesse's done a really nice job and that we need to continue to do what we're doing and that my health is not what I would want it to be.

And I feel that it's best for the county that I don't do that particular job.

Okay, so we have a nomination for Mr. Rutherford as chair for 2023.

Are there any other nominations?

Okay, thank you.

The floor is now closed.

So moved.

All right, being duly moved and properly seconded to elect Jesse Rutherford as chair for 2023, Amanda, call the vote.

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

Parr, Mr. Reed, Mr. Rutherford.

All right.

Oh, I'm sorry.

All right.

Mr. Parr, are there any other nominations at this time?

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

Mr. Barton?

Yes.

Mr. Reed?

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

All right.

Moving on to do we have to do Secretary and Treasurer?

No, I didn't think so.

Well, the Secretary of Business is the first part of Resolution R2023-01, the annual organizational meeting of the board, where you set your

meeting date, time, location as such.

We've included in the resolution on the first page the current schedule for 2023 via the General District Courtroom and Nelson County Courthouse on the second Tuesday of each month beginning at 2 p.m. and reconvening thereafter at 7 p.m.

The resolution also allows that should the regular meetings fall on any legal holiday, the meeting shall be on the next following regular business day

without any action of any kind by the board unless otherwise canceled.

It also provides for should the chairman or vice chairman, if the chairman is unable to act, find and declare that whether or other conditions are such that it's hazardous for members to attend regular meetings.

The meetings will be continued on the following Tuesday.

And then it also prescribes

Robert's Rules of Order shall be observed as the rules for conducting business of the Board of Supervisors and the agenda for all meetings of the Board shall be established by the Clerk of the Board in consultation of the Chairman.

Looking at this, I think generally speaking, this first page is consistent with what we have done in prior years.

I don't think anyone, does anyone have any interest in changing anything on the first page before we go to the second page?

Nothing.

All right, so on the second page, when it comes to appointments,

I do not wish to serve on the Planning Commission any further.

I have conferred with Mr. Reed on that one.

And he has agreed to serve in that capacity, barring anyone else wanting to nominate someone else for that role.

So I would suggest that if we did approve this, that we would approve it with that amendment of putting Mr. Reed on the Nelson County Planning Commission.

And so move.

OK.

Motion for Mr. Barton.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second for Mr. Reed.

Any further discussion?

And this is for resolution R-202301, the entire thing.

Correct.

The entire thing with that amendment.

Right.

Yep.

Alright, we have a motion.

We have a second.

Any further discussion?

Mr. Harvey.

Yes.

Yes.

Mr. Reed.

Mr. Roger.

Great.

All right, anything else we need?

All right, moving on to now that we have a committee, I thank you all for letting me do this another year.

Look forward to a very productive year and seeing the county forward in hopefully maybe a little bit less stressful year than this past one.

So moving on into public comments at this time, we do have folks who've signed up.

Mr. Reed will be our timekeeper.

Grayson Morgan,

And keep in mind, when you come to speak, you have three minutes.

Please state your name and address for the record.

If you're speaking for a group, please specify who that group is.

The chair may recognize you to have five minutes.

And we will give you a little bit of a heads up that you're getting close to the end of time, and the chair may elect to give you an additional 30 seconds.

So that's rules moving forward.

Good afternoon board members.

My name is Grayson Morgan.

My address is 1328

I am also on Wi-Fi are property owners here in Nelson County, Lot B on Winery Lane and the Mill Hill Homeowners Association over in Roseland.

And I'm speaking on behalf of my wife and I as property owners and not on behalf of the homeowners association.

It has come to our attention through recent activities and permit approvals for special events in Nelson County.

The county code and permit processes do not take into account

The relationship of a property to an HOA.

In Virginia, HOAs are defined and empowered to regulate their members per state law.

This lack of awareness about a property's HOA status can and has in the past permits that have been issued by the county led to

Conflict between the county and the HOAs by approving activities which are either expressly prohibited or regulated by the HOA.

Specific areas that are of issue, campgrounds, noise pollution, lighting, special event permits, and zoning.

County code makes the exemptions for businesses in these areas but does not take into account if that business is also located within an HOA.

One of the things that I have recommended speaking with county employees in the Zoning and Permit Office

are recommended changes to the special event or temporary event permit to include lines which request that the submitter state whether or not the property in question is part of an HOA.

And if so, that the other property owners within that HOA have also approved that special temporary event permit or other permits which are authorized by the county.

I hope that those changes will take place.

Also, an issue if you do a search for a temporary permit in Nelson County, the permit that actually comes up is missing the requirements page.

Those requirements are an actual separate Word document.

Unfortunately, when that permit is filled out and sent to state officials, state police,

the health state health departments VDOT they do not know if the permit request is complete or not because it's missing the requirements page and the example that I mentioned previously those requirements were missing and yet that permit was approved at both the county and state level.

I hope the board will look into this and work to improve the protections for homeowners who also happen to be members of an HOA.

Good morning, gentlemen.

Thanks.

I'm here representing, I'm your representative on the job board, and I'm here representing John and the need for expanded transit here in Nelson County.

Just a couple of things that,

I get telephone calls from people in the county that need things that pertain to John.

Recently, I had a Region 10 manager calling.

She has a client that has got a job, needs the job, and has no transportation, and was asking, what was the schedule of John's bus service?

We're down to a two-day service, so people can't have a full-time job that need a full-time job.

Also, I've been working with a family, a low-income family at the low-income apartments.

You might have seen him panhandling at the beginning of the food line.

He was trying to feed his wife and two-year-old son.

He had a job.

He worked at the ski bar on the 151 side.

He would work every day.

They loved him there, but he couldn't get there.

And I transported him several times when he was desperate for money.

And we go pick him over the line and pick him up in the evening.

And we should be able to have in Nelson County a transit service that takes care of that just by expanding it.

I had another case manager call me.

She had a client that worked at the food line at night.

This was in the wintertime.

And he couldn't get home.

He lived in Shipman, six miles away.

and he was upset because he would have to walk in the winter on a road that isn't walkable safely, six miles to get home.

He normally has a friend who is a lift driver in Charlottesville that would come pick him up and take him home, but he was otherwise detained and his man couldn't get home and he didn't have a way.

So the woman called me, I called the man, I drove over and picked him up and took him home.

I lived at the Brent's Gap on the other side.

You know, I may be eight or nine miles as a crow flies from Lovingston.

It's just that I'm not a crow and I have to drive around.

That's 25 miles each way.

Thank you.

My name is Cindy Harrington.

We live in Stoney Creek in Nellysford and we are involved with an organization, Neighbors Helping

Neighbors called Here to Stay in Wintergreen.

And it's a nonprofit that was established officially in 2021.

And we have been very, very busy helping our members get to medical appointments and to not just for recreational transportation, but for very important transportation needs.

We now have 150 members in our organization.

We have 50 volunteers.

And those volunteers are putting in approximately 400 to 500 miles a week taking people here and there and everywhere.

We go as far as Pantox to the west or to the east.

And we go as far as Fishersville to the west.

We go out north.

to the airport road getting people to doctors and facilities.

Some of our residents in Wintergreen are needing in-home care and they are looking for people to come out.

They prefer to hire people who are licensed and unfortunately most of those licensed people are in Charlottesville.

And unfortunately when they work for a licensed agency, they make about $12 an hour.

while making $12 an hour and spending extra money on gas just doesn't cut it for them.

So many of our people in our area, and I'm not just paying for Stony Creek, I'm also thinking of the greater Nellysford area, which we're learning about more all the time.

They need these services desperately and they need good services.

And the people from Charlottesville had transportation out to our area.

Hello, so I'm Kay Petrovich, also part of Dirty State and Wintergreen, and I'm looking at it from the other side, because when I drive over here to Lovingston, this is where everything is.

The courthouse is here, Lourdes Medical is here, the library is here, the Heritage Center is here, Nelson Center is here.

All these things are things that not just those of us in Stony Creek,

but those of us on the other side would like to be able to take advantage of.

I won't say how old I am but imagine if you will someone who's like 85 years old.

You want them driving over here at night for a meeting.

They want to be an active citizen but if there's John or a facility like that to get people back and forth safely that's something to consider.

You would really hope that you will support this.

I know financially it's a big leap, but I think that there's a lot for everybody to be gained from this.

Everybody, both sides, everybody, workers, employers, people who want to just come over and get a book out of the library.

Although we enjoy our rural community, low population density can create pockets of citizens that are underserved and as a result have more challenges coordinating and finally relying on transportation.

The expansion of service will allow for working families, seniors, young adults,

reliable transportation infrastructure in the county.

Our current job market, Nelson, is competing with other rural communities with talented employees.

We know that there is no lack of jobs, but there is a laundry

I'm here to renew the interest in the COVID story because it continues to go on and it's affected the whole county and it's continuing to affect the whole county so I present the board I'm going to donate this book to you all

titled We've Been Played by Dr. Scott Jensen.

Just a couple quotes here's one from John Adams in the book.

Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes or inclinations or the dictates of our passion they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

And then further along here by Dr. Scott Jensen.

In an age of information where both disinformation and misinformation abound, complicated by never-ending propaganda and political agendas, it has never been more important to accurately discern what is true.

And this book by Dr. Scott Jensen shares a great deal of evidence that we have, in fact, as the title states, we've been plagued.

There's a lot of

pure criminality that has been happening behind the scenes.

So I'm going to donate a copy of this book to the board, and I know you all are going to fight over who's going to get to read it first, but you'll just have to work that out in your own diplomatic ways.

So I'll leave this copy with the county administrator.

Ryan Leitner.

I wanted to say Leitner.

Hi, I'm Ryan Leitner with the Nelson Community Wellness Alliance.

Thank you for allowing me to join you today.

For those who are familiar with the Alliance,

We're not an organization here in Nelson.

We promote wellness by eliminating barriers to access and increasing the availability to health resources in Nelson County.

Recently, we received a $3 billion federal funding to start a community health worker training program right here in Nelson.

Community health workers connect people to services and resources to improve health outcomes here in Nelson.

So not only is this program improving the healthcare in the community, but it's also creating jobs.

So there are three key areas that we're focusing on in this program.

Providing the training to become a healthcare worker, providing the apprenticeships to those trainees so that they can continue to grow their career in that field, and enabling services.

And a big part of that enabling services

All you've heard already today and will hear more from later is reducing the various access to care which goes back to transportation and the access to transportation through JAWS.

So the Alliance is supporting John and its efforts to continue to expand its services throughout Nelson to work for the betterment of the health care workers and citizens of Nelson County.

We'll continue to work with John and the Board of Supervisors to

continue to support that expansion.

That is all of who I have currently on the list.

Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in public comments?

Hearing none, we now close the public comment section of our agenda.

Moving on to the consent agenda.

Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

So moved.

Motion.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second, Mr. Reed.

Any discussion?

All right.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any objections or abstentions?

Hearing none.

Passes unanimously.

Moving on to presentations, VDOT report.

Robert, I have to say my compliments for the Godfrey Miles sign placement.

It's an honor to be there.

Nelson, Kevin and Dan did a great job.

Good to do things like that.

That's right.

I don't have a whole lot going on today.

I did want to talk a minute about the

In a couple of months we'll be working on a six-year plan, something to do with a six-year plan, revising that and updating that for FY 24-30.

And I was talking to Ken, I'm going to send her the last year's plan and my favorite priority list for you all to just get familiar with again and relooking at any road you will add to that list as well as looking at the priorities.

probably in a public hearing for the six-year plan and probably be looking for approval in May or June.

I don't know how that works out, but I do want to get that information back out in front of you.

I have tried to keep up with the roads that you all give me throughout the year.

I want to get that out in front of you where you can be looking at it.

We're moving forward with this year's construction program on unpaid roads, and this is what we are anticipating hard surfacing this year.

The remainder of Jacks Hill Road, that will complete that.

Also, we have another section on Cedar Creek 654 that will complete that road, and that road will be six miles long.

So hopefully that will get completed.

This one right here, Ball Mountain, throughout 643, can't even do board.

That's on construction planning this year.

Whippoorwill, 648, that's on our list.

It started at 65, I ain't stopping late.

That is on the list to be paid this year.

Did y'all get Ball Mountain?

Get Ball Mountain's on there.

The African Honeysuckle Lane, we'll be looking to do 674 Calholland.

That's done.

And I think we can, we should be able to get around 623 on the last section of our paved road on Davis Creek.

Davis Creek Road.

So, pretty aggressive list, but I'm looking forward to getting those done next year.

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

No, he's not.

No.

Mr. Reed?

Nothing except good to see Davis Creek is connected.

Just take my number off your block.

Not blocked.

Not yet.

No, I have not.

Is Campbell's all the way done?

I remember this.

OK, wow, that was.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're pioneering some places up there.

They're pioneering some places up there.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

OK, I do not have any at this time.

I do have some roads I'd like to add to the list, but when we get closer to the six year plan, I'll bring them up.

Other than that, there's nothing else.

from the board.

Have a good day.

Thank you.

See you, Robert.

Alright, we got the jail here.

Superintendent and uh Ben Wilson from Davenport.

Now, first, I need to talk to the superintendent about something critical.

Is our boy over here at the end of this table, mister Barton been paying?

He's been doing it.

I've been thinking about throwing him, giving him a test, test run.

Great job.

Chair, I would just like to briefly introduce this subject.

Over the past year or so, we've had a couple of presentations regarding the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Channel Renovation Project.

I just want to remind the board that that's been ongoing and they're in the planning phases and are here to talk to you today about project financing.

Thank you.

Thank you, members of the board.

Let's talk to you today.

I'm going to turn over to Bill to see if Mr. Wilson has any questions.

Afternoon.

Good to be here today.

This is meant to be an informational session to just sort of go through

financing process for the Joe Innovation Project.

We're not asking you to take any action today.

We just want you to be informed about what's gonna be coming up over the next year and a half or so.

Please feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions along the way.

I'm just gonna work through this presentation and see where we're good from there.

All right, so just starting on page one in the bottom right-hand corner.

Like I mentioned, we're gonna go over the overview of the funding process.

There are two parts to this funding process.

You've got the interim financing and the permanent financing, and then we're going to talk about briefly sort of the cash-flowing pact to the county, which we'll get into at the end of this presentation.

All right?

Let's move on to page number two.

So in Commonwealth Virginia,

As I'm sure you've heard over the past year or so, J. David is eligible for 25% funding from the state to cover major renovation projects.

So what that means is that you have to go through a somewhat rigorous process with the state to be able to make sure that they're signed off on the project and that they are willing to give that 25% reimbursement.

And as I mentioned, it's a reimbursement.

So you'll see part of this financing process is going to be getting the funds up front to be able to pay for the project that the state will then come back and repay for.

So like I said, this process is a little bit long and stretched out.

There are certain steps to it.

You have to first get approved by the Board of Local and Regional Jails, which has already happened.

Then you also have to get

That has not happened yet, but that's in process.

So, moving on to page three, there is a two-part plan of finance, like I mentioned.

The first part is an interim financing.

So this is going to be a smaller borrowing that is planned to happen over the next couple months.

And what's going to happen there is you're going to fund, like I said, a smaller amount than the board project itself.

And in that amount, you'll be able to pay for the design and engineering costs to get a good estimate or a good cost for the project before going out and permanently financing the project.

So that leads to part two, which is the permanent financing and a grant anticipation net.

So part two sort of has two components to it.

One of which I mentioned a moment ago, the grant anticipation net, or GAN,

That will be for that 25% of the project that Commonwealth is going to be covering.

So you'll fund that 25% with this GAN.

You'll be able to pay it off in a year or two when that grant comes through and Commonwealth pays you back for the costs that you've incurred.

The other part of it is a permanent financing and that's going to be financed over a longer period of time.

That permanent financing is also going to pay off

We're going to be doing over the next few months.

And in that permanent financing, it'll be about a 25-year level debt service.

So you'll have the same payments, mortgage style, every year.

And you'll be able to see that, the numbers here, in a few pages.

But like I mentioned, there's two parts to that one.

So moving on to page four.

The cost estimate for this project is $49 million.

For these purposes, we're going to assume that the

Eligible costs for that reimbursement from the state is about $48 million.

As you can see at the bottom there, based on the amended service agreement that you all put in place last year, the county is currently responsible for about 13% of the costs of the jail.

That could change in the future as inmate counts move up and down for yourself as well as Albemarle and Charlottesville.

So the interim financing.

What we've assumed for now is that the borrowing amount of this interval financing will be about $5 million.

Now that might change a little bit once we get closer to actually closing on that borrowing.

But we've assumed a 4% interest rate and 18 months till it matures.

The plan though is to pay that off before those 18 months occur.

So the plan is to close on this one this June,

It will have a maturity of 18 months, say December of 2024, but the plan would be to pay it off with that permanent long-term financing next summer in summer of 2024.

So we have this timetable here that sort of gives a little bit more detail behind the plan for this interim financing.

We are currently in that very first line there of us providing a briefing to each member jurisdiction.

Once those briefings have been completed, hopefully by early April 2023, we'll be sending out a request for proposals to banks around the nation, around the state, and locally to get proposals for that interim financing.

So we'll be looking for a loan with approximately a year and a half maturity, and we're going to want to be able to pay it off next year with that permanent financing.

So we would expect those responses to come back a few weeks later at the end of April,

And for the month of May, we will be coming back to you all and presenting the results of that RFP process.

And at that same time, we would ask that you all approve the financing itself.

And once all three approvals come through and the authority approves it, we'll be able to close on that interim financing in June.

Once that closing occurs, we will have already known who the architect and engineer is gonna be, so you'll have a much better understanding of how much exactly that architecture and engineering cost is gonna be, that's going to be covered by that interim financing.

So now we're gonna get into the permanent financing, which is something that is going to come back onto your plates next year.

So this interim financing is going to unfold over the course of the next several months,

hopefully closing in June as long as everything goes according to plan.

And then next year, the plan would be once the design is done and you're able to get bids on the project, you'll be able to go out to, I believe VRA is the option.

Not decided yet?

All right, so there could be one or more options for you all to fund the project.

It could be through the Virginia Resources Authority,

publicly issued bonds or through a bank.

But that would be determined closer to the point of actually borrowing those funds.

So as you can see here in the table, we're looking at a GAN of about $13.5 million, which that GAN is going to again cover the 25% reimbursement that you would expect from the state once the project is substantially complete.

And then the remainder of it, the $35.5 million, will be

financed over 27 years with two years of interest only, so you're not going to be repaying any of the principal on the bond for those two years, and then 25 years of level mortgage-style payments.

Like I mentioned, at that point, you will have bid the project and you'll know the cost, so there won't be any question as to whether you're borrowing too much or not enough.

Just moving on to page eight, this provides a little bit of a timeline of that permanent financing.

As you can see, that first blue bar, we're closing on the interim financing, expected to do that in June, with the design occurring over the next 12 to 18 months.

The grant anticipation note and the permanent financing will be funded sometime in the summer of 2024.

Based on this timeline the substantial completion would be expected to happen sometime between 2025 and then after that the commonwealth could repay their 25% of the project and you would be able to pay off that GAN that was in place and the permanent financing would continue on until it's maturity or until it's refunded.

Now moving on to page nine, this just gives you some perspective on what those cash flows could look like.

Now these are preliminary estimates.

We don't know exactly what these numbers are going to look like once that rolls around.

I'm into year and a half from now.

However, based on these estimates, we're looking at a permanent financing of about 2.7 million per year once that comes into play.

But for fiscal year 2024, which you can see in that second column there, we are estimating about $212,000 of interest associated with that.

And that would be split based on your income count, just like all other costs are with the authority.

So for you all, that second to last column, about 13% of that would be about $27,500 in 2024.

Now that will step up as the GAN and the permanent financing come into play starting in fiscal year 2025 to about $340,000.

And then if all the inmate counts stay exactly the same, you're looking at about $350,000 per year.

But as you all know, things can change and that number could vary a little bit.

But this is just a little bit of perspective on the order of magnitude, what we'll be looking at.

All right.

Yeah, end of 2025.

Yeah.

I will be meeting with our local representative Sally Hudson next week, hopefully to get her to advocate for us.

All the requests in the last several years I'm aware of have been approved.

We're fairly confident.

And just one more question.

Yes, sir.

I think that was all I had.

I was pretty impressed when I saw one of the facilities.

I was reminded of the song Seven by Nine, right?

And it actually is Seven by Nine.

If you go and you tour the facility, you see the beat.

Yeah.

But also if you spend some time in the facility, you're impressed by

Operation on the people who work there and the dedication to their jobs, which is very unusual in terms of prisons, you know, and also the lowering numbers of people who are in the prison.

It's impressive.

And I happen to know people

who are involved in the criminal justice system and who have impressed me.

And they're not talking about treating the inmates with kid clubs.

I think one thing that is critically echoed across the region by and large is the emphasis on mental health.

We've heard that y'all's check-in, check-out process and even though it might not be the biggest number in the world, a lot of girls aren't even doing that in a good fashion.

So mental health is a critical piece and we should be very proud of what ACRJ does for us.

Any other questions for

Davenport, is there, when should we be expecting to have to do action items?

Is this budget or?

I was thinking, I wasn't sure if we, FY 25 is one of the bigger ticket changes.

We just need to be cognizant of that and saying that repeatedly.

Okay.

Thank you guys.

Safe travels.

Nice to meet you.

All right.

Our next item of business is a Jaunt presentation.

We have Mr. Ted Wright, the Executive Director of Jaunt, here with us today.

Again, thank you very much for having me here today.

Again, I want to recognize I am

McNaughton and Brad are the representatives of the job board.

They're very active members on our board.

In fact, Brad is on our finance committee and doing an outstanding job there.

I just wanted to report that ridership in Nelson County has been growing.

This represents the trends in our demand response service.

We also provide a connect service to Charlottesville.

This represents

and also the service within the county.

We've been seeing double digit increases here and we expect to continue to see that in the foreseeable future.

We offer three services for the county.

One is what we call Nelson Circulator.

It operates within the county.

It actually serves about two thirds of the county.

We'll talk more about that, but it's only a two-day resurface, operating from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Another service, which is also demand response, operates two days a week, Mondays and Fridays, connects people within that same service area to Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Then finally, we offer a connect service, which is more like a commuter service, which takes people from the Lovingston area all the way through to UVA and

As Candy mentioned, we are in the process of finishing up a transit development plan.

In fact, our board will be asked to adopt it tomorrow.

The plan is a six year look ahead of our transit system.

It looks at some of our goals and where we want to be, what are some of the unmet needs, and also some financial planning for us as well.

It's mainly kind of a guide for our operation.

As part of the plan, we did a community survey of our riders, and this reflects ridership

and our entire system and generally John is receiving very high marks from the leadership in terms of delivering cost-effective services.

The plan though does highlight a tremendous need for training and services in the community.

This is our six county plus Charlottesville service area.

Nelson is in the southwest corner of the

Nelson County with their amount of the county is occupied by people with above average poverty level which tends to be a high need area for transit service.

This is the concentration of older adults, the darker the number

and the population of older people in the county that also typically are a high need for this type of service.

In addition to that, again, I'll focus your attention on the Southwest.

We look at a number of criteria, including older population and poverty.

We also looked at people without on the heels in their homes.

And we created what we call a population need index.

And the darker the color, the higher the need for transit in the area.

and, again, Nelson is a leader among our service areas in terms of needing services.

Among the recommendations of our transit development plan that affect mostly Nelson, one is a recommendation that we go detect.

We'll also be looking at Uber-like services for Jaunt.

We hope that we can do that on a more spontaneous basis sometime in the future.

In addition, the plan also recommended a number of service expansion recommendations, one of which that I want to focus mostly on is the Nelson Circuit.

That's the first service that I showed you earlier.

Right now it's a two-day-a-week service and only serves about two-thirds of the geography of the county.

We propose to go to a five-day-a-week service and provide county-wide service.

That's what this would look like.

The blue is where we're serving today, two days a week.

We would propose to extend to the pink area, which would include the Wintergreen Resort, or go to a five-day-a-week service, so we would allow

people who work within the county to hold jobs and to access other services throughout the county that they're not able to do so right now.

Are you talking about inter-county service?

Yes, inter-county service.

The other services are recommended for expansion as well, but we thought we'd start with this one first and see how that one goes.

On our current budget request, I know this is not a budget meeting, but when you get to that, you'll see that our base, that's what we're doing today, we're proposing a $104,000 funding request that's net federal and state funds.

Today you're providing $67,000, so it's a pretty significant increase over

Also, we've seen an increase in demand for services, which is asking and compelling us to increase service hours.

Because of labor shortages, which I think many of you may be familiar with, we've had to increase our base weight for our bus operators by 20%.

So all those factors are playing into the increase in our pricing for the base service.

If the county supervisors wish to consider an expansion

to add a three day a week service and go countywide that would be another almost $99,000 a year.

Again, that's after federal funding is applied to you too.

So that would bring the total budget for John in the area of 202,000 for next year.

That compares to the current $67,000 a year.

Again, that's a tremendous increase

but we think there's a need as well that this would represent.

In many ways, John public transit is a gateway service.

It's a way to get to other services.

Just mentioned that the Health Wellness Alliance is trying to improve healthcare outcomes in the county and transportation would be a part of that.

So transit is not for transit itself.

to help people lead independent dignified lives that they could not otherwise do.

Most people don't want to be dependent on other people for their lives and John provides that independence that can do spirit that is famous throughout the country and Nelson for example.

We see increasing demand for services and I think on a five day at work week's service would be really welcomed.

So we're able to get two dollars every three

We made it an optional item.

We have put in the base service.

I'm not sure what the process would be to add this additional service.

I think our actual budget documents we submitted

Well, to my knowledge, John has not utilized volunteer bus operators, but volunteer bus operators is a common service delivery method.

I listened to people talk about how they volunteered for the community.

I'm not familiar with the logistics of the volunteer workforce and how that works.

So it would be something we have to take a look at.

I'm not saying yes or no.

How would you take a look at it?

Well, first, I would mean to look at how reliable is a volunteer workforce.

If someone didn't show up to work as opposed to, how do you deal with that?

I don't know if people who are not employees of John could actually drive their vehicles if vehicles are paid for by state and federal funds.

I'm not familiar with regulations as to whether a non-paid employee can do that.

I don't know how our insurance carriers might react to it.

There's a lot of business things to consider.

I just don't know the answer to those and whether those would be insurmountable or not.

Again, I've seen volunteer driver programs elsewhere in the country

So I have to believe that there's a way to make that happen.

Well, I'm not saying we would try.

I just can't commit to doing it.

Well, I mean, I can say that I don't recommend it.

One of the suggestions I was going to have when we, I mean it is a pretty big picket item, is that we need to look at this with the guys at the budget probably, since it is a healthy six figures.

Is there any other questions for John?

I have a few.

So the circulator would be an on-demand service?

Yes.

Well, the circulator works door-to-door.

So if there's demand at a particular center,

People are going there at the same time, that kind of thing.

We would try to group the trips to make that work.

There could be a demand for a more defined service if that's what you're referring to.

Again, that would be something we'd have to look at.

Our goal would be is to maximize the productivity of the bus operator in the vehicle.

So sometimes if you go to a more defined service with defined stops and times, you can get a more critical mass of riders on the vehicle.

The demand response tends to be less productive than a more fixed type of service.

Hypothetical.

Say we approve the increase, that would, I'm assuming, depend on two things, what that would actually end up being.

One would be the federal success in getting your federal grants, and the other would be how long it would take you to actually implement

I know you really can't know what the federal grant scenario would be.

Well, on the first question, we're going to go ahead and submit a grant request on the Nelson service.

If you decide not to do it, we just don't get the money.

We give it back to somebody else.

And we need to submit that by February 1st.

And we should know by May, June, if we're successful in getting that money.

In terms of doing a startup, if there is a commitment from the county and we feel good about the federal side, then we can start considering starting up probably in, I would hope in six months, there would be a marketing effort to be able to decide.

We have to make sure we have sufficient drivers.

We have plenty of vehicles, so the vehicles wouldn't be a problem.

So I would think we could start sometime in the fall of 23,

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Safe travels and thank you all for coming.

Thank you, Diane, for representing us.

All right, moving on to this next item.

There's no next item.

New and unfinished business.

Master Plan Development Proposal.

Okay, previously the board had authorized staff to follow up with architectural partners regarding a submittal of a proposal for master plan services of the formal ark and property.

In your packet you have that proposal which outlines the scope of investigation and there's a preliminary list of things that might be considered in the master planning process that have been discussed

with them.

Those things being recreation center design allowing phasing ranging from a simple park and playground to a full build out of a recreation center as described in the 2021 study.

Athletic fields as described in our 2021 recreation center study as may be further defined or requested in conjunction with the high school middle school needs and planning.

whether or not to develop an industrial slash manufacturing site, the potential for housing development of some sort on the site, possibility of a career and technical education facility on site near the middle school, high school campus, potential for a reservoir which would address water capacity needs as well as recreational opportunities, something similar to Lake Monacan in the Nellysford area, the potential for energy opportunities such as hydroelectric and solar power generation,

and the proposed future use of existing school property for an FFA facility with livestock.

So those are some of the things that they would work with the board and staff to identify and tear down as priorities within the study proposal.

On the second page, the specific services that would be provided include

One meeting on site with interested parties to walk the property, generally assessing the topography, access, and suitable locations for buildings and recreation fields.

Up to four meetings in Nelson County with interested parties to review developing concepts and direction.

The production of a digital rendered master plan drawing to scale, indicating all proposed improvements in phases as needed.

along with property lines and existing conditions including access roads, basic buildings and facilities, existing waterways and existing topography as readily available from the county's GIS system.

Also, investigation and documentation of existing utilities and infrastructure if needed.

Some of this information may have been provided with previous work by the Timmons Group, which we'll have to take a look at.

It would also include compilation of companion written document providing an executive summary along with more details of the master plan, particularly related to the Recreation Center program and design, field uses, overall schedule, and current cost estimates.

Then there would be up to two meetings presenting the final documents to the Board of Supervisors or other interested parties.

They could begin this work on receipt of signed approval and anticipate final deliverables to be completed in May of 23.

depending on the ability to have necessary conversations and reviews within that time period.

And they have proposed a not to exceed amount of 36,000 for these services.

So we didn't include a resolution with this, but for your consideration is authorizing

All right.

What's the board think?

There's a recommendation that we move forward as presented.

Should we be going forth

Part of the master planning process would be to meet with you all and determine what those priorities are.

And then that way they can help guide us in the master planning and then.

Because, you know, if you get

We'll never get anywhere where we went from the beginning when we were permitted to buy this property.

We knew it would be in the metal, but we did.

I think the goal is just to, you know, have a thoughtful process and for the board to decide what their priorities are for the property and be thoughtful about where

So I'm assuming that on approval we would take a look at, we would meet with the consultants very soon and delete those things under scope of investigation and add those things that are on the second page that we wanted to get in there, get an updated cost and then start moving on it.

It makes me really happy to see that they're looking at May 2023 as having all the deliverables.

I think that means in the short term we're going to have to be pretty aggressive in terms of working with them and really focus on this to be able to meet that goal.

That's good.

They're going to be coming to some work, project work sessions it looks like.

That's correct.

Or we could work with them to extend it as needed.

Alright, let's get a motion.

So moved.

Motion for Mr. Parry, a second.

I'll second.

Second Mr. Reed.

Any discussion?

Any discussion?

Mr. Harvey.

Yes.

Mr. Barton.

Yes.

Mr. Parr.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Uh the next item, I kinda have another update

too, the judge parking.

So we have a judge requesting for some alterations for a parking situation.

OK.

In the board's packets, you have two letters, one from Judge Stille, who's our juvenile domestic court relations judge, and also Judge Sam Edelson from the general district court, both requesting that the board consider installing a more permanent

parking area for those two judges in the back area of the courthouse.

I think they both cite, let's see, security reasons and accessibility reasons for their request.

They had made this request at some point early last year.

The board was surprised at that request in a budget work session and no action was taken.

Mr. Carter did reach out to Ms. Morris Hernandez, who is the owner of the property on which this parking area would be, to get her input on the potential of getting an easement for use of access road in the parking area behind the courthouse.

We had not received a response from her on that, so should the board

maybe another board member, just to kind of figure out what's going on and if there's any mediation that we could do before we start putting in permanent things on someone else's property that we don't own, that we don't even have permission to do yet.

Another important thing is to check and see if the circuit court judge is not going to order it.

Because if they do that, then we have no choice to do it.

So trying to head this off, I have a brief conversation with Ms. Bryant, who was going to indicate, and she had indicated more than likely, Mr. Doucette would be willing to meet with us.

And I've also spoken to both clerks, General and JDR.

And I have mentioned having a meeting to discuss this.

And they said that probably would be a very good idea.

So I was going to suggest before the board made any action that we have this meeting with the judges and see what's going on, see if we can propose anything different.

And of course, we need to find out if the circuit court judge is going to be ordering this because if the circuit court judge orders it, it shall be done.

It's not massive.

It would just be one spot that would be shared by both judges is my understanding because they're here on alternate days.

Correct.

And we do, I would emphasize, our courthouse is handicap accessible.

It is ADA compliant.

And we do have access in other places, right?

This is one the judges are specifically asking for.

So if it's not for sale, we have to go to the landowner.

And we can explore that.

Just for the board's information, I did reach out to both of the clerks and, you know, called them.

And I'm not sure if they are, but they probably did because I set up about a meeting.

Yeah.

So let's have a meeting with the judges and we can outreach to these sets.

Well, they need access to these courtrooms here.

These courtrooms here.

And their offices are, yes, are on the rear side of the building.

They have a rear access, but there's a long staircase that extends down to the ground back there.

And then they walk around the side to the front to handicapped part ADA accessibility, accessible parking.

That's along the front row on the left of the building.

I think some of their concerns are that in an emergency, they may be forced to walk through people attending court that may not be too happy with them.

So that's where we are right now.

Let's have that meeting.

and then we'll figure it out from there.

Alright.

Thank you.

Moving on.

Don't worry.

You're not done yet.

All right.

It's going to start out with an update on the comprehensive plan.

Our project website, of course, is www.nelson2042.com.

The second of four scheduled joint work sessions of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission is scheduled for January 18, 2023, where draft content regarding natural and historic resources and community facilities and infrastructure will be reviewed.

An intermediate focus group work session with stakeholders on these items was held in the interim.

We just discussed the proposal from architectural partners on the former Larkin property development.

So we'll go into that.

I will add, though, that an initial brainstorming session of the sports committee was held and the Nelson County recreational needs assessment survey was initiated with the survey deadline being January 15th.

The survey was emailed out in a direct email blast to those registered for Parks and Recreation in zoning, tourism and economic development, and Nelson County employees.

The link was also sent to the school division for their dissemination and other dissemination efforts, including posting on the county's website, Parks and Recreation social media, posting flyers at Parks and Rec basketball locations, Blue Ridge Trail,

Braille Trail, Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail, The Courthouse, and Parks and Rec office.

And I have in my report as of January 6th, we had 202 responses received with 186 surveys fully completed.

I saw Mr. Jerry West this afternoon and he said it was approaching 500 responses.

So that's great.

Robert, that's great.

It's just a survey response that they do online and submit the responses and then all of that's compiled into results using SurveyMonkey.

It's a lot.

I've been reporting on the regional library agreement review in the last couple of months.

This is done every five years with the members of the regional library and the executive director, David Plunkett.

The last meeting was held on December 16th and the paramount consideration is keeping or not the out of area fee and its impact on member library costs.

This primarily impacts Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Another review meeting is to be scheduled.

Next, I would like to discuss the Emergency Services Coordinator response to the Ryan School Apartments on December 25th and 26th.

As reported by Emergency Services Coordinator Atkins in his report, multiple county departments and emergency services agencies responded to conditions at Ryan School Apartments on the evening of December 25th.

which necessitated their relocation to a shelter at the Lovingston Volunteer Fire Department for about a 24 hour period.

The apartment's owner, Piedmont Housing Alliance, relocated the residence and made the necessary repairs for rehabilitation and residents were returned to their units after a couple of days.

Ryan School Apartments is actually owned by Java and it's managed by Piedmont Housing Alliance.

One thing that I found out subsequently is that Java wasn't informed about this until after a lot of things had happened.

They weren't on the first line of information in terms of what was happening.

On the employee compensation study, the market survey of other agencies for benchmark positions has been completed.

MAJ is now aging the market data forward to accommodate the changes from the 2022 point of initial participation of peers and competitors to reflect a forward-facing salary structure that recognizes the changes by integrating the employment cost index for public administration, the consumer price index, and the adjustments to Social Security, recognizing the Social Security market update anticipated for 2023.

Mags indicated that overall accounting is definitely lagging the market and proposed adjustments should be anticipated to both the salary ranges for positions and to provide some internal equity adjustments to individual salaries.

The draft report for internal staff review is anticipated by the end of January and this will identify proposed grade levels for all positions included in the scope of the study and possible implementation costs.

Following the internal review, the final report will be presented by MEG for the board's consideration.

With the Gladstone Depot TAP grant, Mr. Jay Brown of the Lunchbury VDOT office has advised that VDOT staff can administer the project on behalf of the county in order to move forward.

And this would be made part of the draft TAP agreement in process at the VDOT central office in Richmond.

He will be in touch early in the new year to schedule a meeting with stakeholders to discuss the project.

And we're still waiting for the actual draft TAP agreement to come to the county from the central office.

At that point, the board can consider moving forward with signing the agreement or not.

The county was awarded $41,389 in Virginia Department of Forestry for sustainability grant funds.

The grant fund program assists localities that provide a lower forest land tax rate to landowners by restoring a portion of foregone revenues back to localities.

This year, 68 localities submitted applications with a foregone revenue amount of nearly $72.5 million.

For the code, monies from the fund must be used solely for public education generally or for projects related to outdoor recreation or forest conservation.

In relation to opioid abatement grants, county staff met recently with the Nelson Community Wellness Alliance to discuss the county support of a Rural Communities Opioid Response grant application.

Additionally, plans to meet with them and Region 10 are in the works to discuss the potential for an application to the state opioid abatement authority and to identify any synergies between these two grant opportunities.

As Mr. Rutherford noted during the VDOT report, the bridge dedication for the late Godfrey Miles was held on December 30th at the Farber Rescue Squad Building in Farber.

A brief program was conducted by Sheri Rutherford, who spoke, as well as CTB member, Mr. Bert Dodson, Jr., and other attendees.

And this was followed by the mailing of the dedication sign and also actually installation of the dedication sign.

and that was a really nice event as noted by Mr. Brown and Mr. Rutherford did a wonderful job at the ceremony.

We have no change from December to report on the new office building.

We're working on a draft MOU with offender aid restoration for management of the drug court.

This is pending OAR's review and then subsequent approval by the board.

Once in place, the first order of business would be to fill the drug court

Coordinator position, which is OER's responsibility under the MOU.

Short-term Reynolds, our Commissioner, Reverend Campbell, provided the Commissioner's Association standardized forms and recommended standardized local transient occupancy tax ordinance language pertaining to third-party payment remitters.

Staff is currently reviewing those documents.

Commissioner and County staff are in the process of participating in demos with vendors that provide short-term rental tracking services in order to provide a recommendation regarding procurement of such services.

So

Right now we're reviewing some documents the Commissioner provided that the Commissioners Association wants everyone to use so that it's sort of a standardized process between localities.

And then we're also looking at various platforms

So it's the vendors that have platforms that will go out and look for short term rentals in your community and provide you with a slick dashboard that tells you how many there are and who goes what and so you can kind of compare what they say you should be receiving in transient occupancy tax to what you're actually receiving from

I think so.

Yes, definitely.

All right.

We already discussed the Elmore Charlottesville Regional Jail Reclamation Project and the upcoming financings.

As far as our FY22 audit, where county staff is wrapping up review of the management discussion and analysis portion of the audit, this will be incorporated into the final document.

The final audit report should be finalized in the next month, with Robinson-Farmer-Cox Associates being scheduled to report to the board, likely the February or March meeting.

Likewise, Mr. Kuch from Davenport will be providing an update on the county's debt capacity based on the FY22 draft audit report at the February 14th board meeting.

I think, well, I haven't really given it a great deal of thought just yet, but just some preliminary conversations with Parks and Rec potentially.

If any of the supervisors have some input on that, we'd be happy to take that.

Oh yes, we'll definitely be receiving them probably the next month.

Okay.

Any other questions for Candy?

Hearing none, Candy?

Moving on to board reports.

While the jail board did not meet, they were having a COVID outbreak there, which is interesting.

The meeting,

Having been with employment is pretty much the same thing.

The problem is that it's not jobs, finding people to do the jobs.

Who are we enticing to work anymore?

I don't know.

It's more, I mean, folks from maybe across the board come do some work.

Did they talk about that at all?

To finally implode people to work.

I'm reluctant to speak in a negative way about this whole situation.

People have chosen not to go back

I think capitalism works when a person, labor is enticed to work by increasing the amount of money you pay them.

We live in a society that seems to like to entice capital to invest.

Capital is a wonderful thing to have in becoming very rich, but

not so much for labor and you know and resources are underpriced too you know and so we have a you know part if you would you want to talk about the state of the world is we have a real problem in our society with the distribution of income where the rich seem to we seem to

Some people think that having billions or even trillions of dollars is somehow a person deserves that money.

Where my experience in my life has been that a person who chases wealth for their life is missing what life is about.

But however, people who chase money often get it.

But they usually get it because they're lucky.

And they become rich.

And then they decide that intelligence is based on how much money you have.

And they think that society should make decisions to benefit the wealthy.

I think that's a crock.

I mean... All right, so we've got to get to board reports and you've now gone too far.

All right, any other board reports from you?

All right.

Mr. Reed, I just wanted to report with the service authority that the Wintergreen and Schuyler water treatment plants and the placement is going full bore and they're working very hard on both of those systems but

They're going to be applying for grant funding in March to be able to have a GIS mapping system for the service areas of the service authority so that they don't have to.

It wasn't implemented quicker because there was an opportunity to get some grant funding for it.

So hopefully they'll

Wonderful.

What else?

All right.

Wonderful.

All right.

Moving on, only reports I have.

We have the Regional Housing Partnership meeting coming up in a portable housing meeting on, where did I put it?

The 24th.

I will be sending out the invites here soon.

So please put that in your schedule.

We'll be talking about the affordable housing issues of our region, bringing in a bunch of stakeholders from out of,

in and around Virginia, rural development, Virginia housing, and some of the other stakeholders who have a lot of data to talk about the housing issues of our area.

So that would be March the 24th.

Just mark off your whole day.

And I need to, and if you do want to go send me an email so I can send it over to them so I can get you signed up.

All right.

Beyond that, we had

I don't think we had anything PDC related.

We did have a planning commission meeting related to the training facility that was voted to be put off a month for more information.

So that will be Ernie's job like next week.

I threw it off on you.

Beyond that, that is all I have to report.

Moving on to appointments.

Is there any appointments that need to happen?

Alright, no appointments.

Moving on to correspondence.

Any correspondence, Mr. Barton?

Mr. Harvey?

Mr. Reed?

No.

Mr. Parr?

Thank you.

Mr. Harvey.

Mr. Reed.

Nothing for Ms. Parr.

None.