Board of Supervisors Meeting   3/14/2023

Okay, moving into the second part of the agenda, public comments.

We have some individuals who have signed up to speak today.

You will be given three minutes to speak.

Mr. Harvey, there he is.

Five minutes to speak.

Only one individual or group may speak for the full five minutes.

Please specify who that group is.

Your names will be called out in order that was given today.

If you did not sign up, you will be given an opportunity to speak after those who signed up to speak have spoken.

So first, Mr. Reed, you're going to be a timekeeper.

I speak at the moment on behalf of MACA, the Monticello Area Community Action Agency.

I am your elected representative for Nelson County, too, for the board of MACA.

And the reason that I want to speak to you is that we will be holding a town hall for MACA, as well as our March board meeting at the Nelson County Memorial Library.

Next Thursday, March 23rd, we're going to have a town hall meeting from 4 to 5 p.m. on meet and greet.

We intend to have hopefully all of our Head Start and Early Head Start Nelson County teachers, those who are teaching at Pine River and at Rockfish Valley.

And we will also be conducting a democratic election of constituent board members.

There is a flyer which is being sent to you along with an invitation to you through your emails.

and we hope that you'll be able to be with us for that.

We are, MACA is dedicated and committed to Nelson County and I'm very happy to be working with them on the two counties we have.

So again, please keep an eye out for that invitation.

I'm over here asking you to please do something about these track tutorials coming through.

I called VDOT, I talked to Mr. Bartell, and I had talked to the sheriff.

and they just turned up everything.

They went to the underpass.

They got through tractors and couldn't get through the trawler and they hit the underpass and it gives a lot of damage to the trawler.

They are stern wheel holders, not drivers.

James Bryant, James Bryant, 938 Dr. Rose, we had the same problem with tractor-trails coming off of Route 60, the GPS

And they tried to back up.

Most of them came back up to get in the yard.

Last week, they told me my mother's mailbox starting on the left.

A couple months ago, we pulled the fence down and left.

If you get in the yard, it's her.

Everything just keeps going.

One ran into the back of my truck.

And they just keep going.

They don't pay no attention.

What I was going to suggest to you too is if you wait until the VDOT report is done, maybe you too can have an opportunity to speak to Robert out in the hallway.

Thank you, Robert.

James.

Hi.

Yes, although I was doing the NCCL.

Okay, that's fine.

Robert.

In light of the higher prices we're all experiencing and the fact we're in a very volatile economy, which is very unpredictable right now, which is very obvious to everybody, there are many of us out here that thought that we might consider taking big expenditures like

I've been on the back burner maybe for like a year because there's a lot of unknown coming down that's going to be just as fascinating as the past few years.

And with all the money that we just saved, maybe we could invest some money into researching what was true beyond the COVID story and what was not true beyond the COVID story.

Because to this day, there are many of us that are still free to help them.

That story said I couldn't go to church, but I could go to Walmart.

And as an American, and as all of you know, we've all taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution.

That Constitution was in the toilet.

And we all are still dismayed out here that, oh um, let's move on to the next thing.

Thank you.

I believe there's some roof work going on at the moment.

Hello, I'm Raelynn Allen and I live at 114 Grunge Drive in Madison Heights.

Gentlemen, good afternoon.

I've come before you today to request a small donation of funds for a worthwhile project.

As a student in the Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School, I was tasked with selecting a senior project to support my community.

The project I chose focuses on ways to improve student engagement in the learning environment.

I had the idea of creating an outdoor space in which students could get out of the classroom and experience learning in a natural setting.

Ty River Elementary School has an existing concrete pad in a protected courtyard area, but there are currently no options for shade, which makes it difficult for students to both see their work and focus when the sun makes it too hot to focus.

I thought it would be a beneficial idea if a structure could be added that would provide a shade and better define the space.

Thus far, I have raised enough funds to start what I hope to become one of several phases for this project.

For phase one, we will be adding six by six salt treated posts to support the installation of a commercial duty sail shape.

We selected materials that will support the design of future additions to the project.

Ideas for future phases could include adding additional posts and structures to create an attractive pergola, adding select plantings to both beautify and better define the space,

or adding specialized outdoor furniture to promote learning and considerations for special needs students and enhance walkways to walkways leading up to the space.

I would humbly request the board consider a donation of $300 to $500 for this project.

Good afternoon, I'm David Hill, Sheriff of Nelson County.

I spoke with Ms. Moyer last week, and we had talked over the last, I'd say probably the last couple of years, correct, in regards to the issues with trucks outside of the road.

So I know Mr. Brown over the months has mentioned about the signs and increase in that.

We sat for a little while this morning just looking at some of the signs

Brainstorming what could be done.

I hate to hear when our constituents are having to pay out of the pocket and they may be on a fixed income for damage.

Our guys, our deputies, guys and girls go out and they take reports and sometimes these calls may come in at one o'clock in the morning and by the time they get there,

The truck's gone.

And so Ms. Moyer and her neighbors, they do the best they can to get descriptions of the vehicles.

There have been times where we've actually run the tag information to try to pursue charges, whether it be property damage or what have you.

We've been unsuccessful with that.

But enforcement of these trucks coming through, these signs are up.

There are signs on 60.

There are signs just as you turn them to Tiber Road where it gives them a warning but my mind is drawing a blank.

I was chatting with the major about this earlier.

We were at a conference some months ago and we were coming back from Virginia Beach and I came around the locality, maybe VDOT can explain it, but they had the height warning symbol

And as we continue to have these issues, whether it be on Beach Grove Road, going across Reeves Gap, or Tyler Road with the Thunderpads, maybe it's time that we look at some of that technology or ask the state to help us out because what if there's an emergency?

We need to get through.

We can't.

It delays minutes.

You know, or an hour to get to someone that's in need, who are our residents.

And they're the ones that we serve.

So, I was surprised Mrs. Morey got spoke.

She asked if I could get up and speak for her.

So, I thought I'd have no problem doing that.

So, I'm just speaking up.

In the last few years, there have been a few incidences that she has reported to us personally in regards to property damage.

Who knows how many times she has not called us.

She has a great driveway, it's paved, and they see that as an opportunity to turn around because it's better than South Palace Island Road, which, you know, that too alone is dangerous right there for them to make that turnaround.

Thank you.

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

Hearing none, we will close public comments at this time.

Moving on to the consent agenda, there is actually a change that did make it on the wrong journey.

You see that attached, looks like that was an additional bunch of amendments to 11A.

Someone's got that.

Do we have a motion?

Now, I was going to ask also, Mr. Harvey, did you want to read the, I know we have the Emergency Management Week,

Whereas the emergency management team of Nelson County and the Commonwealth of Virginia work tirelessly behind the scenes to create a safer, stronger, and more resilient Nelson County in the midst of natural disasters, pandemics, social unrest, terrorism, and other man-made natural threats and hazards.

And whereas every emergency begins and ends locally.

And whereas emergency managers are considered vital

Public service to and between essential services and assist the county to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.

And whereas emergency managers develop agency plans and procedures, organize training including first responders and community partners, manage, lead, and provide skills and resources to minimize the impact of disasters, work with state and federal agencies to find the most effective methods of disaster recovery to increase safety and security as well as build business continuity

and Paul Fair of all who have been visiting Nelson County.

We have a motion.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second, Mr. Parr, any discussion?

Any discussion?

We'll do a vote by acclamation.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all.

All right.

For the remainder of the consent agenda, do we have a motion to approve as presented?

So moved.

We have a motion, Mr. Parr.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second from Mr. Barton.

Any further discussion?

Any other discussion?

We'll do a vote by acclamation.

All those in favor, say aye.

VDOT report.

I don't have a whole lot to report this month.

Had a little snow operations Sunday.

I'll point them out.

I don't know if anybody got up there to see them, but it was, the snow looked beautiful and there was a good snow because it didn't stick through the roads.

The pavement temperatures were up.

That was nice.

But I don't have a whole lot to report.

On Route 623, that is still closed to three traffic.

We are replacing a structure.

I was down there a few minutes ago looking at it.

That should be reopened.

Hopefully within the next two weeks it looks like we've got the new structure set in the back building, so that really should be open soon.

Other than that, we are doing a lot of ditching operations, shoulder cutting on various roadways.

I know we were almost made out today in the primary headquarters, and they're doing the same over at Shipman's Area, of course.

You will start to see a lot more focusing on

on us working on drainage, ditches, shoulders, and replacing pipes.

That's kind of cool.

Trying to get back onto the basics of our maintenance operation that has a great, great impact on how our units hold up and the maintenance that they need.

Amanda put up the current

We will begin building a six-year plan revision here shortly.

That's just a list of what we already have.

Rose, that we already, that you've asked us to put on the list.

I just asked to just take a look at that list.

If there are any other roadways that have been broken by your constituents, please let us know and we will add them to that list.

And then when we have our six-year plan, six-year public hearing on secondary road destruction budget, we can put some priority to those if you desire.

and also just talking to Candy about when we could possibly have our public hearing.

I would like to suggest that we do it May 9th at 7 p.m.

I think that's when we'll do it.

That's when we'll have our public hearing just kind of if that's what we always desire.

Spartan, do you have any questions?

Yeah, you know, we've talked about it five or six times about Ms. Moyer's problem.

Yes.

And I'm really glad we shared the table and Ms. Moyer's son came in because

The property damage is real.

I've seen it.

And somebody suggested maybe we can get them to take it off the app.

That's a shortcut.

It's possible.

But I've come by this sign that exists for the last possible place to turn off before you get down to the bridge and across the bridge to the

Underpass.

Is it possible?

I think it's a necessity to put a light on that sign because clearly people go right by it.

They're not looking because it's not like the crossroads or anything.

They just go right by it and they never see it.

Now, someone also mentioned, it's

It's a health problem because people of that neighborhood have mentioned if a truck gets stuck underneath that underpass, there's really no way, you know, real way to get into that area.

I think, you know, we've talked about it so many times, and I know you're sympathetic, but I think we need to make it a priority.

I don't disagree with anything that you said.

I don't disagree with anything Sheriff said.

This is a problem when you have a restricted route trying to get truckers to obey

Whatever level of signage that you have, certainly we will be glad to look at it again.

It has been reviewed at least twice by our traffic engineers for additional signage and ways of making improvements.

Obviously,

The truckers are not heeding the warnings that are given on those signs, but I certainly would be glad to take another look at it and, you know, Mr. Barton, maybe get out of the box a little bit and be a little creative if that's what it's going to take to maybe to try to help the situation.

But I look at

I look at other roads that we have constant, we have truck restrictions on that we're having little success at keeping them off.

I think about the, about 600 over there that goes to drive off 60.

We have made numerous attempts to put up additional signage and I still get the same complaints from drive truckers are coming today.

I'm just saying we can think out of the box.

We can do a lot of different things that we hope will help.

But at the end of the day, these truckers have to understand and be able to understand signage.

And I think that's a big problem, Sheriff.

We've got so many truckers that do not understand signage or can comprehend it.

And I don't know how to fix that, but we will certainly

Look out of the box.

You know, we've been looking at it from a signage aspect.

What can we do?

I know we don't have the international truck symbols on that route.

That seemed to have a little bit, make a little bit of difference on the, on Route 600 going right.

Put it up to the international truck symbols.

Circle, and a crosswalk to it so that they're protected.

Maybe that's the answer.

Maybe what you're talking about, I'll put in some flashing lights on them, may help.

But at the end of the day, these truckers have got a footfall on their GPS, and I don't know how you change that because we have very little success getting any of the GPS companies that now

They're responsible.

They're saying instructors on the roof that it's going to cause trouble.

It's on every app, every phone, every computer.

Are you telling me a lot of apps are full of baloney?

I knew that.

But the idea of, you know, was, you know,

Some sort of life because of that sign.

Another aspect of this is that the people who go there are not usually professional truckers.

Truckers would only have to go through it once not to do it again.

So it's a lot of people who are not experienced truckers and that's a problem.

You have to

Is that good Mr. Harvey?

He's got it on his agenda right after we're done.

Mr. Harvey?

I just want to continue that a little bit.

Mr. Brown, are you familiar with any states or commonwealths that have taken steps to try to bring their departments of transportation and these apps into alignment?

Is that something we need to lobby our state senators

And then it is to try to implement because this is a problem.

We've talked about this probably every year at some point.

And you know, the problems have not gone away.

They just continued.

And I don't see any other possible solution to this except for perhaps counties and VDOT and maybe TJPDC or whatever it is to get on a legislative agenda to try to get some

Mr. Reed, I'm not aware of anything ongoing, but I'm probably not the best person to ask.

I need to talk, Mr. Bush.

I'm really not that person.

Absolutely.

Mr. Parker?

Yes.

The intersection of 29 and 151 in Clifford

has I guess it's kind of an interactive flashing light on 29 when people are coming out.

It's a dynamic, color dynamic, so yes.

Has there been any thought of placing something along those lines at 29 and 56?

I have not heard any discussions on that.

I know that intersection, we looked at that intersection closely a few years ago.

It was so high and we made some changes to the, I said we made some improvements or changes to the crossover, put some pavement markers on that to help prevent double stacking.

and keep people aligned for a short double sunlight.

Other than that, I don't know.

We've looked at that seriously.

That is something we can check into.

I'm not sure about how the crash data has been since we made those adjustments.

I think that was after the improvements were made.

It's a bad spot.

I can't tell you how many times I sit at that stop sign and watch the double stack in front of me.

Oh yeah, they're sitting right beside the sign so there's no double stack.

We just sort of have a conversation about it and take a look at the grass down in the city and what that shows is we made those improvements.

Yeah, I'd like to know, you know, if you don't even know, since the improvements were made and what's happened most recently.

And then just you mentioned shoulders and stuff.

Coming down the west side of Saunders Hill between the Big House and Jesse Johnson's,

That's eaten away real bad.

I mean, it's coming out of the pavement on that side.

Mr. Reed?

Yeah.

Mr. Brown, I know you probably will be here for Ms. McGarry's presentation, but I wanted to thank you and VDOT for being proactive on the 151 corridor study and getting the first

I just wanted to mention it for the people here and thank you for getting that moving while we're still, you know, putting together a comprehensive plan.

Well, I will hope best of all for Mr. Youngblood, because he is the mover and shaker of that, not me, and he does a great job.

Thank you.

I'm definitely going to also agree with Mr. Parr.

I had a lot of constituents who make those terms there on 56, and that's something that's similar to 151.

I think maybe rumble strips would actually kind of make a little bit of sense.

I think, doesn't it already have links?

All right.

Another question.

Robert, Sheriff,

Moving on to audit report.

Once again.

Thank you all for having me.

My name is David Foley.

I'm a partner with Robinson

I was the partner in charge and audit manager for the counties that buy 22 audits.

And then we have completed that audit, and so I'm here to present the results of that to you all.

As part of the audit, we issue two different documents.

One is the audited financial report, and the second is our communication letter that starts with governance.

I'll start first with the audited financial report,

Before I get into the audit and financial reports, I'd like to give a brief overview of the audit that we do for the county.

Really, as part of the financial audit that we do for the county, there's really three main pieces to that audit.

One is, of course, we audit the financial statements to make sure that the county's financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

And then the other two pieces, the all that we do in accordance with government auditing standards, one of those is in addition to just looking at the actual financial statement numbers themselves, we review and gain an understanding of the internal controls that the county has over its financial reporting.

And then the third piece of the audit we do is a federal compliance piece.

So anytime an organization expands over 750,000 federal grant funds, you're required to undergo what's called a single audit, which is basically a compliance audit.

And so for the major federal grant programs that the county and school board have, OMB

That provides a compliance supplement which lists all the various compliance requirements that the accounting schools have to comply with when they're expended in the federal grant program.

So part of the audit will go through that compliance supplement to make sure that the county is complying with those requirements.

So that's really the three main pieces of the audit that we do.

So as such, included in the audited financial report, there's three different

First is kind of towards the front of the report.

It's on number page one.

This is our independent auditors report.

And then this report is what we say we did on the audit on the county's financial statements.

And it's also where we issue our opinion on the county's financial statements

The other two reports from us are way in the back in the compliance section.

The first report back there is on number page 161 and this is our report over the county's internal control over its financial reporting.

Overall, we feel that the county has strong internal controls in place over its financial reporting.

And then the third and final report from us is two pages over.

On page 163, this is our report over the county's compliance with its major federal grant programs.

This report was claimed as well by significant deficiencies and material weaknesses were noted

Also, no items of non-compliance were noted as part of the audit.

So again, the clean audit in terms of the county this year, all three reports from us were cleaned.

In addition to the audited financial statements, we also issue our communication letter with the charter governance.

Basically, all of these standards require that we communicate certain things to those short of governance.

At the end of the audit, we do so in the form of this letter.

I just briefly would like to go through those with you all.

First, some qualitative aspects of accounting practices.

And here we communicate management is responsible for the selection and appropriate use of accounting policies.

Management, the county did have to implement a new accounting change, the SB 87, which changed the way you had to account for operating leases, but the county did implement that and that implementation is reflected in the financial statements of the county.

Accounting estimates are integral part of preparing the financial statements.

For example, management's estimate of depreciable lives for capital assets, and that's used for calculating appreciation expense.

Also management's estimate of the pension and other post-employment management liabilities.

Those estimates are based on actual evaluations done

Difficulties encountered in performing the audit.

We had no difficulties in dealing with management in performing the audit.

If we had any, we'd have to disclose those to you all.

Really, all the county staff does an excellent job of working with us during the audit.

They always do an excellent job of having documents ready for us when we come on site so that we can jump right into things.

They also do

An excellent job while we're on site answering any questions that we have and also pulling any additional documents that we require.

We certainly understand that all the county staff has their normal job that they're dealing with and to have four auditors on site walking in and out of your office can be certainly time consuming but we've

and Robert Marcellos, to get the audit done.

Corrected or uncorrected misstatements.

There were no uncorrected misstatements.

Any adjustments that we proposed as part of the audit were provided to management and posted to the accounting system so that way the accounting system agrees with what you have in your audit financial statements.

Just a few more here.

Disagreements with management.

We had no disagreements with management over in the accounting and reporting.

If we had any, again, we'd have to do you all.

Management representations.

We do get a signed representation letter from management at the end of the holiday.

We do that on the signed letter.

And then lastly,

We got in management's consultation with independent accountants.

Of course, we're where management did not consult with any other independent accountants in terms of second intention shopping.

But even those were just the required communications we had to make to you all.

But that's all I have.

Any questions at this time?

Great.

Anything else?

Are we supposed to, this is nothing action.

We ask that everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Thanks for having me.

I'm sure I'll see you at another meeting.

Yes, sir.

So hi, I'm Margaret Blair.

I think I know everybody.

You all know me.

And we just wanted to get together so that we could let you know who we were from a community center perspective, what we are doing here in the county for the people who live here in Canada.

Some of the challenges that we face and how we went to work, how we are working, how we want to work, and how we want to continue to work with the county and each other.

Community centers are important.

We started this coalition, which is very VC-based.

We started this with the purpose of just opening the lines of communication between

The Community Center kind of springing from the comprehensive plan.

We want to make sure that comprehensive plan takes shape and a lot of conversations about centralized services, things like that, that we don't lose sight of

The labor that has gone into creating and maintaining and following these centers.

So I just wanted you to know who we were.

We're talking about right now the community centers that are housed in the old elementary school.

We don't have representation from everybody here.

We have the Schuyler Elementary School, which is the Walgreens, Melton Museum, and I know you guys know them as well.

They work close to a limited time, but they are part of the coalition and they do give us commentary, although they haven't been able to meet with us to date.

The Heritage Center is John Medfordette, I know you guys know her as well.

I'm representing the Nelson Center.

We've got Stu and Sarah,

Sue Mills, and Sarah Taylor of RBCC, and I believe some board members as well.

We've got Fleetwood, which is Florence Hernandez, and I know you know her as well.

And in Gladstone, we've got Joanne Hampshire is here for us.

And we'll go, I've got a slideshow to go through each one, and I want everybody to have an opportunity to speak to their particular center, and then

I don't recognize them.

Going straight to Skyler, I'll speak to theirs.

They were south to 91.

They provide a community center for all activities.

They have space to rent.

They have a wonderful museum, which is actually the first interaction I have with Nelson County.

It's on my wedding trip.

We came through and went to anything.

It kind of tells you what a camper van I am.

Good afternoon, I'm John Alfredette, the Executive Director at the Nelson Heritage Center.

As you can see, the Nelson Heritage Center was established in 1991.

As we all know, the Heritage Center is the building that was formerly Nelson Memorial High School, which was a high school for blacks prior to integration.

Currently, the Millennium Group of 5013

operates and maintains the Nelson Heritage Center, and we've been extremely, extremely busy.

So first and foremost, I want to thank you for your continued support before I ask you for anything.

I promise I don't come with a NASA today.

Just put a note there, I'll be back.

We have finished the renovations to our gymnasium, so a $400,000 project to renovate the gymnasium.

We're just waiting on some last minute things before we receive full occupancy of that space.

And we're extremely excited to partner with Parks and Rec and other recreational groups within the county and even outside of the county to bring some much needed physical activity, not just for our youth, but for adults in that space to create that safe space that especially our senior citizens have a nice, flat, safe climate control place that they can walk and engage in physical activity.

We are also under construction now, as you know, for the health department.

So we are working with wall construction and renovating the southern end of our building, about 30% of the building that will house the health department.

We have been in conversations and talks with the Wellness Alliance, and we're extremely excited about ongoing partnerships there.

We continue within our building to have space for our other

Tenants, long-term tenants, also just to have space for the community to rent.

We have a very affordable rental rate.

And actually, as I speak today, we are fully booked through June, the third week in June at the Heritage Center.

And that brings me to our next renovation project.

We are currently working on renovating actually the part of the building that you see right here, the largest part there, which is our auditorium.

That's the most rented space that we have.

So we're working now to acquire quotes to renovate the auditorium, the restrooms, as well as the lobby.

So with that renovation, along with the gym renovation and the health department community on the other side, we're extremely excited about what this building will continue to mean for the community.

We're truly each and every day living up to our vision of a community coming together.

And that takes us to the Nelson Center.

The Nelson Center was a big project, like a $3 million project, where we worked together, the county, NCCDF and Java worked together to renovate the old elementary school.

We operate really as a hub for the services that are in the county.

We have the rec department, we have the extension department, we have T2 Plus is in the basement, we've got NCCDF, we've got NACA offices there, we've got, we've had the wellness alliance, and maybe they'll take some of that, we'll see what happens there.

And so, and we also have the rental space at the auditorium, which I think has been in there, it's very lovely.

Very nice place.

We're always working with rec to use the six acres that we have.

We're working with the library to make sure that they feel like they've got enough parking over there.

And the whole campus is very beautiful and is a great asset to Lovingston, specifically in Nelson County, generally.

So we're very happy to always be working with you guys.

I'm here with Sarah Taylor who is our operations manager.

That's a fairly new picture of RDCC that shows that

We're formed in the year 2000 and now in our 23rd year of operating social and educational and cultural and recreational opportunities for the Rockfish Valley and that puts us squarely in earnings territory and

I just wanted to mention to you that we do our strategic planning every three years and in our session this January we address the desire of our board to reach out with the expertise and resources that we have to assist you as leaders of the county in doing the long-range planning that needs to be done.

in the areas that we both serve.

One of those major areas is recreational services.

As you may know, we've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last 10 years to improve the recreational facilities that we offer to your constituents.

And we'd like to offer our expertise in those areas and our desire to work with you in planning as you look at new opportunities for

for recreational services in particular for the county.

I'm very proud to be involved with the Coalition of Community Centers that has recently formed.

Thanks.

Hello, I'm Lauren Tananez with Fleetwood Community Center.

We got started in 1995 when the school closed.

We have operated mostly as a recreational facility to house and host equestrian and trail rides twice a year.

This year, in April, we'll have our 30th anniversary.

We'll have one for the spring and one for the fall.

In the last two years, we've had a new initiative to really reach out to the community

bring everyone together and do a whole lot of historical renovation which you all helped us with.

We now have bids in for the group campaign and other collaborative efforts are going on for volunteers and professional collaborations to make that happen.

We also have bids going and the work is getting ready to go underway once the warmer weather comes for the nine-hole R3

We like to do a focus on outside until we get insight completely fixed.

We are focusing on fishing and more recreation outside.

We've had a harvest fest where kids are going through corn mazes and going through pumpkin patch.

We've done showcasing all of our local apples from all of our local different orchards.

Everyone's come together and it's really been beautiful.

We also have a lot of tie dye and arts and crafts where everyone gets to do some hands-on activities as a unified community.

So we're very excited to work together.

We've talked a whole lot about

How we can supplement and not necessarily repeat, or we can work together and help each other.

I'm going to have to then join after representing the Gladstone Community Center and the Deco.

We are still in the beginning stages.

We're not open and certain communities

As of yet, we do try to serve in other ways just by, we have a candlelight ministry that comes in once a week and gives out food to seniors and people in need.

So as everybody's mentioned, there are quite a few services that we independently provide to the people in our communities, office space for rent, meeting space for rent, and oftentimes for free, I don't know why.

At the Nelson Center, we get people coming there all the time.

We have playing fields, we have playgrounds, we have walking trails, equestrian events, all kinds of recreation that we

We've put together tons of cultural space.

I know at RBTC they have a gallery that was private and now is, well still private, but it's a community center that's running it.

It started with a theater over there.

We've got the museum.

And it's Melton County culture, too.

It's not necessarily exterior culture.

So we have space for musical events.

And then we have commercial spaces as well where you can do shopping like that.

Rose Apple Pictures in our building.

We've got the Treasure Chest, which is my go-to shopping place.

And the markets.

And I mean, there's many, many opportunities that we already serve for the county.

Now our challenges, as you might even imagine, is our buildings are old.

Some of us are way down the path of renovation and it's a maintenance issue for us.

Our Nelson Center renovation is 20 years ago.

It's happened for 20 years and everything starts to break.

And it's a constant struggle to keep those buildings open to the public.

If you haven't started, it's a

seemingly insurmountable path forward.

We also have security issues where people are running into the bushes or they're, you know, if the trash dump is closed, they just put the stuff right there in our excuse, whatever.

I mean, there's just use and overuse and abuse issues that we are challenged with.

And then, of course, funding, which you have heard many times, I'm sure, and you probably will hear many times again,

We're always looking for funding for those renovations.

We have opportunities to collaborate with youth in all of these areas where we're collaborating with each other to try to see if we can maximize what we're doing versus competing with each other.

In closing, we want to again thank you, but to also thank the community.

Thank you for, and you all know, you are very familiar with our community centers and the work that we do.

But just in the synopsis of today, we all serve very specific needs in the areas of the county in which we exist, but we also together

And we're honored to do that work.

We're humbled to do that work.

But we need some help.

And we will continue to need help as you look at all of the challenges that we face.

But the benefits that we provide to the community as a source of recreation, as a source, just as a place for the community to come together to fellowship, to meet, providing those meeting spaces for other nonprofit organizations at little to no cost.

Those are all benefits for the county overall.

And as the community centers have come together in this coalition, we've had the opportunity to meet and to talk and to strategize and to talk about grant writing and to talk about different avenues.

So we wanted you to know that we're definitely working not just behind the scenes, but out front to make Nelson a better place.

We love this county.

So we hope to have the Health Department Turnkey in the building early fall.

So August, September is what we are thinking.

We are currently working on a revised timeline just based on some approvals that we need to get from VDH.

So once we have those, we'll iron out our timeline.

And my plan is to get Candy and then just make an appointment to come back and do a full presentation on the Heritage Center.

Thank you all.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

It's nice to see you all.

I'm Tracy Hickey.

I'm the co-executive director of the Nelson Alliance.

We are joined here with my other co-executive director, Ryan Lightner.

And I want to take a moment to point out our board president, Christie

is back in the back.

Kristin Klain is our president currently.

Please feel free to stalk her in the community, grab her, ask questions.

She is definitely eager to share with folks what we're up to.

And we're also always looking for candidates for advisory councils and such.

All right.

So we are very pleased to be able to come here today.

There's been so many changes to the organization in the last few years.

So we want you guys to start getting some regular updates from us on what we're up to.

I introduced Ryan and myself.

Most of you know Stephanie Martin, our founder, who is now our director of enabling services.

And we have hired on Afton Root as our full-time program manager.

So we are a team now roughly four and a half.

We've got some folks doing some part-time work for us and not 1099s or some things.

So we have a lot more staff, a lot more hands than we used to, which I'm very grateful for.

From when we began in Nelson, we had quite a few changes from the original plan of what we started as.

We started as a conversation between multiple organizations, nonprofit agencies, the schools, families, parents, a lot of different folks that had concerns about substance use and its effect on children in Nelson County.

And as that program started to be just conversations around a coffee table, it expanded and it snowballed and it grew.

And what it turned out to become is this overwhelming group of people who were all tied together for the betterment of the lives of residents of Nelson County.

and expanded beyond just substance use.

It began to turn into health and wellness as a general quality of life issue for residents of Nelson.

And over the years, we've had a few changes to the mission, but our current mission has expanded to reflect our work as it is now.

And that mission is to serve as a catalyst for improved health outcomes in Nelson County through meaningful partnerships and programs.

Now you notice the word catalyst.

We are not actually a service provider.

That is not what we do.

However, there's no need to reinvent the wheel with so many wonderful nonprofits.

I mean, the presentation you just witnessed is a great example of how well Nelson County groups are able to work together on things.

And we didn't want to slow that progress or compete with it.

So our job is to basically act as a facilitation group.

And we work as a group who sponsors a lot of grant funding and different programs that can

helped those groups work more efficiently, work together on things that might have been siloed before.

Our vision, why are we doing all this?

We want to see a Nelson County that is free of barriers where all of the residents here can enjoy easily accessible resources and a really high quality of life.

So what do those values look like?

We believe that all Nelson County residents, no matter where you are, who you are, you should enjoy the opportunity to thrive within every single social determinant of health.

Therefore, we improve partnerships among neighborhood and built environment, social and community context, education, economic stability, and healthcare resources.

Now all of that is kind of a lot.

It's kind of complicated and it goes around a lot.

And so one of the things that we wanted to do today for you guys and also for the community is sort of break down what does that really look like here in Nelson County?

What is that going to mean for you and for the residents here?

One of our top priorities, obviously, is improving health outcomes, right?

So that generally means when folks come for health resources, when they go to their doctor or their lifespan or their general health while they are alive, those are all health outcomes.

It's the result of their experience within the health care system.

And so those outcomes, those are systemically lower in rural communities.

It may be because you don't have enough providers here.

Nelson County is recognized as a healthcare provided shortage area in multiple areas.

I'm sure you guys all know that the doctor's offices, dentists, mental health professionals, they're very few and far between.

And so a lot of folks aren't able to access those resources.

That absolutely has an impact on your health outcome and you can't get to the resources.

But it also has all of those other social determinants of health that we were talking about.

So your neighborhood, where you live, like I was just talking about, baptisms, transportation.

Is there a stigma in your community against seeking health care or seeking certain types of health care?

or is there a community context where it is appreciated within the community to take the time you need to have sick days or within the kind of jobs or industry that's in that community?

Education.

If you don't have a solid education to go on, you may not know about the health care resources or the health care things that you might not need.

You may not know that your grandmother might need to go to the doctor or your child might need to go to the doctor for a certain thing.

Economic stability.

Every single one of you, I'm sure, has somebody in your life or knows someone who has someone in their life who, because they can't get a job that pays enough, they do not have health insurance.

They cannot get the health services that they need for their family.

And health care resources, obviously, that's the providers we have here.

So what we want to do to improve those health outcomes in all of those sectors

We want to expand the collaboration between all of the different agencies.

And Ryan's going to talk a little bit more about how we're doing that.

We're continuing our monthly meetings with the community.

We're communicating very regularly.

Since the beginning of the year, I think if Ryan and Christy and I together have not had 70, 80 meetings with different agencies here, I mean, most of the time we're in meetings back-to-back or month-long with different agencies trying to work on bringing things either to Nelson County or improve what's already here.

We want to raise the quality of life.

We want every single one of those areas, those social determinants of health, to have an improvement and we want to be a part of that.

We want to be stronger, more accessible, increasing access and removing barriers.

You guys hear that all the time.

I'm sure a lot of people have heard that.

It's a very good buzz phrase right now in a lot of brands, you know, television, a lot of us are throwing the terms around.

What it really means is I want to make sure that they can get there and I want to figure out what it is that's keeping them from getting there.

And I want to make sure that we can help them remove that problem.

And for us, what a lot of that has become is our enabling sources, right?

I'm sure every single one of you knows a grandmother that's watching two or three grandbabies because somebody can't go to work otherwise.

There's a lot of problems with childcare here.

So we're currently working on that problem as well.

This has become all encompassing for those social determinants of health.

So we're trying to get them there and remove the things that are keeping them from getting away, or getting there.

And educating the professionals and the public on health and wellness.

Again, those social determinants of health, people might not think that the education that they're getting might impact their health care and their wellness.

So we're trying to make sure that those providers understand both mental health, behavioral health, physical health in different areas,

and the public also understands what's necessary for them to have a longer life, a higher quality of life.

There's a lot of different groups.

Men have very different health outcomes than women.

They have shorter lives.

There's a lot of things that impact your overall quality of life when it comes to health and wellness.

Thank you Tracy.

So like all these wonderful programs it all starts with the money.

So we in 2022 we received a HRSA grant for three million dollars paid over three years to develop and implement a community health worker training program for the residents of Nelson County and surrounding areas.

And

Short summary, I mean, a community health worker fills a lot of roles, but a short summary of what that is is a person who serves as a liaison between healthcare providers and the community.

They're deeply rooted into their communities.

They know where these services are.

They have relationships with all of these organizations and can help people navigate a very complicated system.

A lot of people that need help often

Don't need help in just one area.

There's multiple steps that may need help in housing, food, in addition to their health care needs.

The community health worker can help them navigate and make sure that they're receiving all the services that are already available to them in this county and then following up and making sure that they are getting the services needed.

So this ties in with our mission because what we're using these, what we're doing with this

Grant, is we are creating a pathway for people in this community to train to start a career in the health and health service industry.

So this could be anyone who maybe has a young family, wants to go back to training to become a healthcare professional, students, high school students that are graduating, maybe college isn't for them, but neither is the military,

So the program is, it's a six-week program that we worked with PVCC, the Virginia Department of Health, Virginia CareerWorks, and many other organizations to develop a curriculum to take virtual

In addition to that certification, the training, there's also a year-long apprenticeship period that you have to get with.

We're also working with the partners through the alliance to

guided these trainees into these paid apprenticeships so that they can when they graduate from those apprenticeships they would have the best opportunity to have a job applying for them at the end of it.

So when we were applying for this grant we took a look and realized well what are the things that are going to deter somebody from going through this training program and what's keeping people from applying and we realized that it really fit the mission that we have here and it comes down to

I listed here just for an example I'll briefly touch through those so the community found this something that we're also building at the same time we're building this training program and as you enroll in this program you'll be met with a case manager to make sure that you are having all of your basic human needs met and can help connect you to the things that you need so that you can

Do the best that you can do it through this program.

So a big thing that we discovered with that is affordable child care.

I've talked to so many people already who are interested in becoming a CHW, but they don't have means for affordable child care in this county.

There's one spot, I believe, that has, it's over the long, it's in Nelson and Mount, and there's no, right now there's no

I'm a licensed child care for children under the age of two years old.

So if you have a baby and you want to work, you have to find private care or you just don't do it.

And that's a big factor when it comes to people that want to

Trains, not just for CHW, but for anything.

So we're working, and you heard from John earlier, we're working on opening a daycare center in the Heritage Center so that we can have affordable healthcare.

We're working with social services.

We're working with United Way.

We're finding ways for people to bring their kids here no matter what their income level is.

We'll work with you to make sure that that happens.

through the CHW program.

The other half will be open to the child, to all of Nelson County.

Child placement and training, that goes back to the grant and making sure that the apprenticeships are lined up.

We're helping people bolster their resumes to provide training modules in addition to

What's available through the PBC standard course and through their apprenticeships so that they have the best opportunity to find a job after they graduate this program.

And the last thing is another big piece and we've heard a lot from this for the last three months, transportation continues to be a problem and getting people to the apprenticeships, getting people to the childcare center and other enabling services so that they can do what they're tasked to do.

And that's something else that we've

So what's next for us?

We're enacting talks with all the people I mentioned before about watching this program.

We're working on taking students and having classes start in August of this year.

At the same time, we're also developing and renovating and helping with the renovation of the Heritage Center.

So we're hoping at the same time to open the Child Development Center.

so that we can provide that service to our students.

And the Community Hub, we're hoping to launch that by the end of this calendar year.

So the needs that we have, there's always additional funding.

As you can see, we're doing a lot of different things at all at the same time.

We have a team of four.

I feel like we should have a team of 20, but that's just how it goes.

We're all hustling here.

We have great staff on our side.

We need support for HUB launch.

Funding is obviously key for that, but also finding the case managers and the HUB director to support those efforts.

Daycare, staffing, and scholarships.

We're going to be hosting those jobs very soon, this spring, so that we can start that process.

But also, the scholarship is typically an important part so that when it isn't filled by social services and United Way and the Department of Education, we can make sure that all students and all families have affordable access to the center.

and then to get to our operational expenses, just things that aren't being covered by this grant right now as we continue to expand outward.

This takes a village.

We have four people on staff from one organization and we're all working really hard, but we can't do it alone.

So we've had such great support from all of these wonderful resources here within Nelson

So this doesn't happen in a silo and that's kind of the point of what our alliance was founded on is that we want to make sure that we're utilizing the resources and facilitating them so that everyone in Nelson County can live the best life that they can.

So before I open the questions, I do want to just make one comment, just kind of drive from the point of how important this is.

This is a huge step in preventative care, and if you look at not just Nelson County, but this is happening everywhere, and not just rural communities.

It's happening all over the country where people do not have access to

Healthcare Resources, Mental and Behavioral Health, Drug Recovery.

This is an area where we're not serving, not just Nelson, but everywhere.

It's important to me, and I know that I'm a new guy here, and I'm not from Nelson County, but I do want to share this with my youngest brother, who's probably my best friend.

He's a law enforcement officer.

outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

He's also on their crisis intervention team.

And he calls me before every shift, night or day, whatever he's on.

And the amount of calls that he's going to that are for crisis intervention is increasing every month.

Every month.

It's almost a daily routine for announcing.

And I know that's not Nelson, but this is personal to me because every time I hang up the phone when he's going to hit one of his shifts, I'm always afraid that's the last time I'm going to talk to him.

This is important because this is happening everywhere.

I don't want anyone to feel like they have to have that last conversation with a relative, whether they're law enforcement, whether they're a loved one that's struggling with mental behavioral health or drug addiction.

This has to stop, and someone has to do something about it.

My dream, my vision, our dream and vision, is that Nelson becomes the gold standard when it comes to preventive health in the community.

And it starts with us.

So, I appreciate the time, I'll welcome any questions from you guys.

We're not sure.

The Department of the Federal Department that works on it for Health and Human Services, this is a pilot program.

And I actually want to comment, when Ryan was saying that, it made me think about it.

So everyone else across the country that got this grant is a huge organization.

It's state health departments, universities, and then us.

Nelson County is on a spotlight right now, nationwide.

And that's renewable.

Whether it's renewable or not depends upon how far we take this.

All of us collectively as grantees.

because the administration, the federal administration in the White House and on the Senate floor are watching us very carefully to see how well this goes on a national scale.

Everybody's being watched carefully to see how this goes because they want to implement this on a larger scheme.

I mean, we sat down, Brian sat down with Kane and Warner's office.

They invited us specifically to apply for congressional funding.

Senator Dean's office up in Richmond has invited us to apply that he would introduce special legislation for funding.

We have partnerships here.

But they're also looking to see what each community can contribute themselves in order to move this kind of program forward because they want to see here, Pennsylvania, Georgia, all the places that got funded, they want to see what the bottom is.

And for us, we're working our best to make sure that those things roll over and we're trying, you saw our group list.

We don't know if it's renewable.

And so we're trying everything we can to make this self-sustaining.

And you bet your bottom, if it's renewable, I'm going after it again.

But we definitely want to continue to partner as strongly.

You guys have been there since day one.

and we want to continue to partner with Nelson.

We appreciate your support.

Does it mean something to them?

They're looking at us.

And if it's not renewable, there has been, like you said, we're in the spotlight.

So it might not be this exact same grant, but this opportunity for us to see additional funding.

I mean, we're actively going after private funding to make sure that we're filling in those operational gaps.

And this is something that's gaining popularity nationwide.

And so even if there's not this exact grant, what there are are pieces of the grant because the Community Health Worker Program is exploding.

If you Google Community Health Worker right now, you're going to see overwhelming amount of data of people all over the country trying to implement them to solve some of our current health care provider shortage problems across the country.

So everybody's kind of getting on this train.

We're just sort of the first

But we'll find the funding to shore up where we can, but we definitely want the community to be involved in it as much as possible because that's what we're here for.

Any other questions?

Yeah.

Daycare is enormously important.

So you're optimistic?

Our primary focus right now is to start with infant care because there are zero available spots in the county.

Toddlers are probably going to start at the same time.

Our goal is to offer up to five years old to have a preschool in this area.

But we have to take it one step at a time because if I don't have the magic checkbook yet.

We have actually, we're in conversations with the schools about that we were aware of the aftercare problem that's here currently.

The problem is right now is that because we're not a childcare organization, we don't currently have licensure or staff that's licensed.

We also don't have a current facility.

And so that's been part of the delay in this has been that we're aware of the problem.

And it was actually really cool to have them call us and say, hey, do you have any suggestions about this?

Because I mean, that's what we want to do.

We want to be here to solve problems.

And so we're working on it.

But we also have multiple sectors.

It's the same thing where we can get a chunk of cash and then there's a chunk of cash that we can put out to do peace and then another comes in.

It's going to be kind of piecemeal on that.

Yeah, and to add to that, the after-school care is important.

There's also going to be a short drop-off period, too.

where you don't actually need a license to operate.

Or it's different procedures to do that.

So someone that might need to take advantage of the hub services, they might need to go through an hour or two hour intake period.

They can drop their kids off in the short term, say, and do their services.

Or even maybe clear the house to do their community health training program work.

And those are two different licensure requirements.

All day is a set, and it's got a lot of laws behind it.

If you've been to a gym, I'm sure everybody's seen a little kid play drop-off area.

The reason they have those is because it doesn't have the same licensure requirements.

And so that would be easier for us to start with that.

We just are trying to make sure we have the location, but also the trained staff that can do it.

Any other questions?

Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it.

All right, Nelson County Community Fund.

Your honor, the third institute with the word community in it.

These are tough community acts to follow, but thank you first of all for welcoming us here today.

I'm happy to have a chance.

The purpose of this presentation is threefold.

I'd like to share some information with you about the history, where we started, where we come, the evolution,

A little bit about ways in which we might be able to partner with the Nelson County Board of Supervisors and to follow up on an earlier request that we made on the board for endorsement of the Nelson County Community Fund.

So let's look at some of the background information.

I think this will be of some interest to you.

We were created about 22, 23 years ago by a local resident, Gordon Smith, who donated a fairly substantial amount of personal funds to get the NCCF started.

We have a fairly simple mission.

We work to award grants to organizations that are addressing the humanitarian needs of people living in Nelson County.

And that's an important thing to keep in mind.

Some of the organizations that we support may have activities outside of Nelson County or may be headquartered outside of Nelson County.

The money that we give goes to families and individuals that benefit from the organizations that have activities in the county.

We don't have any paid staff.

We are an all-volunteer board.

Our numbers range different times from 10 to 15 different volunteers.

but we always maintain a leadership group of the president, the vice president, treasurer, and secretary.

Several years ago in 2019 to be specific we achieved 501c3 status which means we are a recognized non-profit agency tax relief and we rely extensively on the donors to provide the funds that we then grant to different organizations providing services.

And if I counted correctly, we're up to about 1,000 different unique owners alike in the county.

So if that's what we are, what do we do?

I think one of the major things that we try to do is raise awareness of the challenges facing Nelson County residents.

We present at different florida.

We host on social media.

We engage with people in our homes in small gatherings to talk about their needs and have a fun idea and a position to help address them.

A major part of what we do is trying to raise money.

We see contributions from individuals.

Perhaps some of you have been reached by our spring and fall appeal letters.

We also engage with local businesses in the hopes that they may find advantageous to contribute to NCCI.

And we organize periodic special activities, fundraisers, such as the Opportunity Ball.

Last year, in October, we held a road rally throughout the entire county to raise money.

We've done silent auctions, and we're constantly searching for other ways to generate both awareness of the funds and contributions into the funds.

We raise the money in order to award grants, and we have two grant cycles a year.

One grant cycle, the applications are due by December 31st, and we make our awards in late February or early March.

The second grant cycle, the applications are due by June 30th, and we award in August or early September.

We have a formal, although very simple, application procedure.

It is not taxing.

It is not a barrier to organizations wishing to receive funding from us.

But it is a standard application.

And we insist that all elements of that application be completed thoroughly.

And then we conduct a site visit.

If an organization has submitted an application

and they seem to be within the realm of what we are trying to accomplish.

We organize a visit and two or three of us will go spend an hour or two with the organization, talk to them, learn about them, they learn about us and see if it's a good fit and whether they meet all the criteria.

So, this is the grants program.

We typically issue grants of one year's duration, and since the beginning of our funds, the average size of the grants has been quite small, actually $6,400, although I did a little subsequent analysis, and in the last five or ten years, the average size has gone up about 30%.

Our rewards now are closer to $8,000, $8,500 on average.

It took us 15 years to reach the first $1 million of grants we awarded.

It only took us about half that long to reach the second $1 million.

So we're granting, I guess we could conclude at an accelerated rate, which is perhaps consistent with growing needs in the county.

Each year, on average, since the beginning of the fund, we've granted about $85,000.

In the last 10 years, that average has jumped up again to about 100,000.

Again, we're doing a little bit more in recent years than we have for the life of the entire economy.

Today, through December 31st, we've issued 306 grants to 66 different organizations.

Many of these organizations have received multiple grants, and I'm happy to see that several of those organizations are present in the audience today.

This is a very simple graphic, just looking at the grants awarded by the year.

306 grants across the 22 years that we've been active.

As you can see, the average now is trending upward a little bit.

And whereas in the life of the fund, we've averaged about 13 grants per year, now it's closer to 15 to 17.

And this is a slide that shows the award value accumulated since the inception of the fund.

And as you can see, we reached our first million in about 2014 and 2015.

And we're just about to punch through the second million in our creative this year with the second round of grants.

Well, what do we fund?

This shows the different sectors of funding.

and the percent of the number of grants that have been awarded by sector.

As you can see, health, housing, and education are the three largest sectors receiving grants from NCCF.

The others include community, these are community centers, activities and community segregation, things of that nature, social services, child services, and food security.

And these are half the dollars that have been distributed, from nearly 2 million awarded into some version.

About a third of that has gone to health-related activities, 27% to housing, education, about one out of five, and the other categories that some of you will recall.

This has changed a bit.

This, again, is cumulative since the beginning of the fund.

More recently, as I've done analyses with

It would take far longer than I have to share with you all the results that our grantees have accomplished, but I pulled a few representing perhaps

So one of our grantees, a new group called the Central Virginia Farm Workers Initiative achieved near 100% immunization rates for cochlea.

These are the migrant farm workers coming up from Mexico to work in the vineyards and the oceans.

Another one of our grantees, I believe it was the Foothills Child Advocacy Group, helped train 487 people to recognize and deal with issues of child abuse.

This is over the course of 14 year training sessions.

With funding from NCCF, CASA, which is the court appointed special advocacy group,

They've recruited three new CASA volunteers to support activities in Nelson County.

We've had a long history of collaboration with the Blue Ridge Medical Group and one of their programs is called the Medication Assistance Program.

What this does is it helps people navigate a fairly cumbersome and intricate process to get the medications they need and that they can afford.

and they have been amazing to give this job opening in the recent bureau of the 400 people to access the bus negotiations.

As was mentioned by John Eck, recently the gym renovation at the Nelson Heritage Center has been completed and we were one of many donors to that cause and we're very happy to see that that is done so far and in such a moment of data

In the area of housing, we facilitate, through our grantees, emergency repairs, support for rent if somebody's in dire strait, similar to support for utilities when they can't make a payment, and hundreds of venues that benefit from that.

We also support environmental education.

We have Nelson County High School, there was a camp last summer at Wintergreen that has the knowledge of environmental education, and through MACA and other groups we've provided some scholarship support for first and family students attending secondary schools.

And finally, there are numerous programs in the county that provide food for families in need.

One of our grantees are making school children who might otherwise have not had adequate food over the weekend so they can do school programs.

So they provide a weekend supplement.

So looking to areas of possible support and collaboration with Florida supervisors,

First, I'd like to thank you.

My colleague, Chris Santos, has been in touch with many of you, and you've helped identify some potential candidates to join the board.

And you've had discussions with several of them, and you are very optimistic of bringing them on in the coming months.

So thank you very much for your inputs on that.

It's been most helpful.

We would greatly welcome an endorsement by the County Board of

Finally, I think one thing that could really help us is to get the word out about NCCF in all the parts of the county.

I think there are better ones perhaps in the central than there are in other parts of the county.

You all have contacts that extend way beyond our own and you may come into contact with organizations that you think might benefit from grants that we could potentially provide.

So if you're able to put that in contact with us, we'd love to expand our reach and that would be one way to do it.

And yeah, I encourage these organizations to submit grant applications to NCCS.

And one thing I'd like to point out is that while we do focus on Nelson County and many of our grantees are based in Nelson County, we also serve as a bit of a bridge or a gateway for organizations outside the county that want to begin implementing activities in Nelson.

And so I think it's been a good way to expand the services that can be made available to you by having you come in perhaps

So at this point, I'd just like to thank you for your attention, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

And again, it's both fortuitous and satisfying to know that so many of the groups that have preceded me have been working with us as grantees, and we're looking forward to doing that collaboration.

Yeah.

I'm curious.

So scholarships, Smith scholarship, is that part of this Smith scholarship?

Well, yeah.

Does that come from this much?

My history with NCCF doesn't go back far enough to be certain of an answer to that question.

I do know that while I've been involved in the funding for scholarships, and these are not full scholarships, these are support for students, possibly covering the cost of books, or the cost of anything.

So, that would be separate?

That would be separate, yeah.

So it's kind of a complimentary assistance.

It's often the new MACA,

and something called Project Discovery.

I'm curious.

This is a question you may want to answer.

Well, the Smiths were given handsomely in this county in many ways.

Is that money that they gave still there?

Cheryl, please, K, L, U, H on the measure.

We're talking about the Smith family gave money originally, and we put all of them through a lot of our guidance, such as the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, which has grown a lot since then.

So I assume, I came on as treasurer, but I'm assuming that that has

That was part of what went to CACF.

And we have more funds now.

So I just put those into CACF or SNAP.

Any other questions?

Thank you guys so much.

We have a resolution to be read.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I would like to make a motion to approve resolution R-2023-13, Nelson County Board of Supervisors resolution of support for the efforts of the Nelson County Community Fund.

Whereas the Nelson County Community Fund Incorporated, an all-volunteer organization of Nelson County residents, has worked since

And whereas NCCF has successfully awarded over $2 million through February 2023 in grant funding to local nonprofits to address these critical needs.

And whereas these funds are awarded only after a thorough review by the NCCF board representing a broad spectrum of the local community.

And whereas NCCF supports both new and well-established organizations to accomplish their program roles,

We have a motion.

We have a second.

Second.

Second, Mr. Parr.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, we'll do a vote by affirmation.

Any objections, abstentions?

Hearing none.

Thank you all for your work.

Appreciate it.

Candice will sign one and give it to you later.

All right, moving on to the budget introduction proposed schedule.

While we're just getting our revised draft budget calendar loaded, I would just like to take this time to thank all of the community organizations that came and presented today.

All really good information and the county staff had to keep in contact with them and have been talking to them off and on over the last few weeks.

I will probably be able to see that, but we do have a new revised draft budget calendar.

We're hoping to introduce our budget today.

However, staff needs a little more time.

So we are proposing to start the budget introduction and work session, first work session on Tuesday, March 28th.

This calendar is color coded and we used in some

particular items.

The black text indicates a regular board meeting.

The blue indicates things that have to happen that are related to taxes.

And the green indicates a budget work session item.

And the kind of bronze color indicates it's related to the budget public hearing.

So as noted, even though the schedule is revised, we were able to keep about four budget work sessions

scheduled every Tuesday and Thursday starting March 28th.

And you'll notice the last one that's proposed for April 6th is where the board would need to make any decisions related to any tax increases and authorize a public hearing if that were to be something the board wants to do.

And then

Following down the line, we would have deadlines related to submitting the notice to the paper for the public hearing on any tax rates if needed.

We would have the board authorize the budget public hearing at its Tuesday, April 11 regular meeting, and that would be for a public hearing on May 9.

We have scheduled an additional budget work session if that were to be needed for April 13.

That's the Thursday call on the regular

April board meeting.

And then we have where we would advertise the public notice for an increase in the tax rates or the public hearing for that.

And then the public hearing, if needed, would be Thursday, April 20th.

And there are some code-related requirements as far as notice.

And then when the public hearing can be held following that notice.

And that's all listed on this

Right, they would have their meeting right after and then we would have our public hearing on the tax rates if that were necessary.

Okay.

Yep.

So then you can follow along down the list there.

We would

schedule the budget public hearing for Tuesday, May 9th.

That's the board's regular meeting.

And then we would seek to adopt and appropriate the FY24 budget at the June 13th regular meeting.

Good, and obviously we can change dates and times as we go meeting and fitting anyway.

That's correct.

Alright, so, I guess we'll continue this meeting for, till tomorrow to have a joint meeting with the Planning Commission.

Okay, sounds good.

We'll pick a time tomorrow.

It looks great, Candy.

I have no conflicts with anything that's there.

It's flexible.

Great.

We'll pick a time for the 28th tomorrow.

Any other questions for Candy about the...

We're going to take a quick five minute recess before we do presentation.

It just involves authorizing meetings assigned to the state by April 18th, and then we would be eligible to receive direct allocations as a result of the opioid settlement with the state of Virginia.

Can we get a motion to approve?

Sure.

All those opposed?

We have a motion, we have a second.

Second.

Second, Mr. Parr, any discussion?

No discussions.

We vote by commission.

Hearing none, the show is unanimous.

Moving on to proposed minutes of chapter three, analyst.

Kevin, you want us to do this, right?

Okay, so I'll introduce this, and Mr. Wright is here to help answer any questions you might have regarding what we are proposing.

Okay, and today is just,

Consideration of authorizing some code amendments for public hearing.

So the emphasis for this was for the board to consider a livestock at large amendment to the ordinance that would prohibit livestock from running.

While we're in our ordinances, our county attorney likes to take a look and see what kind of housekeeping items he can make while we're already working in the ordinance.

So the proposed draft really is to authorize a public hearing to receive public input

to incorporate provisions pertaining to defense law as relates to livestock, some proposed fee changes, and removal of sections that are duplicative of state law.

So I believe of primary interest, let me get to the livestock.

As you can see, Mr. Payne is struck through a lot of the code section that is duplicative of state law.

So the main item under consideration is adding Article 5, the Fence Law, which would be Chapter 3, the Animal Ordinance.

So you would add Section 3-81, Boundaries to Clear Multiple Fences.

and this says the boundary line of each lot or tract of this county is hereby declared a lawful offense to any domesticated livestock or poultry.

And then Section 3-82 would be unlawful for livestock to run at large and says it is unlawful for the owner or manager of any domesticated livestock or poultry to allow willfully or negligently

Any such animal as to which the boundaries of lots or tracts of land have been constituted a lawful offense to run at large beyond the limits of his own lands within the county.

Any owner or manager who allows such animals to run at large shall be deemed to have violated this section, which shall be punishable as a class one misdemeanor.

And the state law reference is Virginia Code 55.1-2820.

and then section 3-83 would be added for the recovery of costs and states when domesticated livestock or poultry running at large are recovered by animal control or law enforcement then all costs associated with recovery and confinement of such animals shall be the responsibility of the owner or manager.

Such costs include but are not limited to the engagement of private citizens to capture the animals, fees for transporting the animals,

Boarding expenses for confinement by the county or on the property of others and expenses incurred in connection with the sale or disposition of such animals.

We haven't had this before primarily because we have been a fenced out county.

Once we changed that law, made a fence in, it allowed us to also have a livestock at large ordinance.

Right, this is just authorizing the ordinance amendments presented here to go to public hearing.

I believe Mr. Wright had submitted some information regarding the current fees and what the proposed fees are.

I thought I had Mark in mind.

I know the daily impoundment fee would be changed from $5 to $10.

Adoption fees themselves are also changed.

In connection with adoption of a dog, the fee would go from $70 to $160 and include spaying or neutering of an animal, rabies vaccination, a tattoo of the adoption number, and a license tax certificate.

For cats, it would go from $65 to $90, which would also include spaying and neutering of an animal, rabies, vaccination, and a tattoo of the adoption number.

I've got a question first.

In reading over this, I have to say it was pretty complicated to understand exactly what the resolution covers.

It was clear that with all the things that were being struck,

and all the things that remained in chapter three.

And I think the public hearing notice itself would be a lot more explanatory than the resolution to authorize in the public hearing.

Yes, sir.

Any other questions for Candy or Kevin?

Hearing none, can we get a motion to approve R-2023-15?

So moved.

We have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

Any further discussion?

Nellys, do you vote by nomination?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any objections or abstentions?

Hearing none, motion passes.

Shipman Historic District Planning Grant Application.

See you at the next.

Good afternoon.

It's cost share grant time at Virginia Department of Historic Resources and it's counting in my head how many historic districts we have.

One, two, three, four, five.

We're currently working on the Warminster

Historic District, so that's six, and we've, in the back of a lot of people's minds, Shipman is the next, Arrington, Shipman is the next place that we'd really like to do some survey work.

I think if you have, in front of you the application for the cost share grant, I've had at least two meetings, if not three, with our folks at the Department of Historic Resources and

What's happening right now is they are, we made a good list of properties that we think should be included in the survey.

I just got a call today from the folks at Oak Ridge and for the first time since I've been here, they're interested in being involved in this process.

That's pretty exciting too.

So what happens now is we will have a

The discussion, continued discussion with Department of Historic Resources.

I need your guidance and input on boundaries and then we can talk about the cost associated with the different, there are two different approaches that they are suggesting.

One is the phased approach and the other one is do it all and that's a little bit more expensive.

Understand that it is a cost share grant so the county would need to

to appropriate at least 50% of whatever the cost of the survey is and I would encourage you to do a little bit more than 50% because that's how, honestly that's part of the rating system is at what level is the county supporting it.

We can do it with in-kind services such as staff help and some other

Hoppy and Nailing of things like we normally do anyway, just to make sure the constituents, the residents understand what's going on and public meeting space and things like that.

So what we're talking about is approximately 150 properties in total.

So either the thought is do it all at once, but that is 32,000 approximately, or

We could start with just what's called preliminary information form, which is a much, it's an easier, it's a lot less information.

And then just do some property surveys just to get started.

And again, Department of Historic Resources estimates at this time, that's about an $8,000 budget.

And then our share would be at least 4,000.

So that's the direction I'm looking for today.

The application, I believe,

Any questions for Maureen?

Or is there?

Yeah.

Payne, what is that number?

I'm trying to figure it out.

It would hopefully include the village of Shipman

We have five going on six historic districts.

And at the public media, I always ask property owners who may have properties in one or more districts to ask a question.

At the South Rockfish Rural Historic District meeting, I asked Mr. McClellan, who has properties in both districts, I asked him how the Lovingston Historic District had affected his property values, maintenance, anything he said, honestly.

There was absolutely no change in the way he operated his business for those properties.

And that is a huge relief.

These are voluntary districts.

That means

You can paint your house purple or burn it down.

The importance of this process is that we survey these beautiful places that sometimes fall down, go away, are completely renovated to something that they weren't.

Historic properties are those more than 50 years old, so we're just surveying the older properties.

There's also an archaeological component to this.

They look at graveyards on

They look at the historical fabric of those communities.

And Shipman has such an important railroad and African American culture related to it.

So we had this conflict over the building in Nodesport where

That does not exist in Nelson County.

Yes.

Those protections do not exist on those homes.

Okay, why?

You want to do 4K or 16K?

Is that a motion?

Mr. Reed, do you have any questions?

We're not sure yet.

Oh, they will add many.

That was just a quick five-minute exercise from my head.

Yes, and there are rules about that.

So if something is like too far out, like I'm not sure about, I don't know.

We're just gonna have to let the HR come out and do a quick, not a great one, an afternoon windshield tour

No, that's a whole different program.

This program is specific to districts.

No, I'm just kidding.

And what normally happens, we're just kicking off Warminster, we just had the first informational meeting a week or so ago at the library and we sent out letters to all the property owners in

in the proposed district as well as adjacent property owners.

And it was a really good meeting.

Because we want people to know what a historic district is and what it's not.

Because people get nervous.

A lot of questions about private property rights.

What else do the board think?

I think there's great value in creating a ship in the historic district.

I think the only way we can possibly do that is to let the DHR have their way with it and see what they come up with.

The public meetings are a little bit further into the process, but we're really very careful about keeping

Right.

Got it.

The one real value for the voluntary historic districts is that if a property owner within that district chooses to do a substantial rehabilitation according to the superintendent of the interior standards, which

It's a pretty high threshold.

Basically, you can't replace the windows.

I mean, that's the biggest one.

It has to remain historically authentic.

And it's an expensive renovation.

But if indeed a property owner would choose to go in that direction, they can get up to 45% from federal tax credits and 40% from the Commonwealth tax credits.

So there is value.

If a property owner wants to go in that direction, but it's a process.

So that's a benefit of it.

But other than that, we're just recording, and I will tell you that the historic districts, the information that we have on, there's a file on every single property in the Lovingston Historic District.

It's upstairs at the library, and those are very well used files.

Okay.

Is there any dissension to 16 grand before we vote on it?

Okay.

You made a motion.

Up to 16.

Up to what?

$16,000.

Is that your motion?

Okay.

That's his motion.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, let's do a roll call vote.

All those in favor say aye.

So just a quick question.

Maureen keep running.

It's not limited to these things.

No, it's not.

Yes.

Thank you.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to the board.

I'm not feeling my best today, so I feel like I did a great job on the animal ordinance.

But hopefully, I'll do a little better with my reports.

All right, first item on the list is our comprehensive plan.

The project website is www.nelson2042.com.

The third of our four scheduled joint work sessions of the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission will be held tomorrow, March 15th at 6 30 p.m. and that will be in the old Board of Supervisors room here at the courthouse.

We will review the draft chapters pertaining to housing and economy tomorrow night.

As far as our county website redesign, Maureen tells me in February the consultant worked on new layouts based on our feedback, customized the theme, and started creating the style guide to include color palette, fonts, and general page layout.

So we are on stage one of content organization and initial site structure for menus and navigation.

Our Piney River wastewater pump station repairs were completed in late February and we had to do some additional work to reprogram the variable frequency drives and these operate the pumps at the pump station.

As far as I know, operations are back and also there.

As noted during our VDOT report, the 151 corridor study is moving along.

VDOT has released a survey as part of the corridor study which can be accessed at www.metroquestsurvey.com backslash vz37.

We also have a link on the county's website to the survey and

The VDOT project page, Route 151 Corridor Study, nelsoncounty-projects.com, backslash, Virginia Department of Transportation, also has links to the survey.

There will be two public engagement sessions related to the corridor study update that will be held within the study area, with the first being on April 7th at the Rockfish Valley Community Center from 4 to 6 p.m.

County administration was advised recently by the Amherst County Department of Planning and County Administrator's Office of an Amherst County solar project going on that is a utility scale project on property in Amherst County that joins the Virginia River Railway Trail.

They've asked for a special exception from Amherst County.

The project's site will utilize parcels that are 431.4 total acres with approximately 169 acres being used for solar arrays.

These parcels have frontages on 2508 Patrick Canyon Highway and 1187 Rosedale Road.

County staff including Dylan Bishop, Jerry West, Maureen Kelley met on site with the project developer and advised that due to the

Topography and anticipated sight lines, the solar array should not be visible from the railway trail.

The Amherst Planning Commission will hold a public meeting on this project on Thursday, March 16th at 7 p.m. in the Amherst County Administration Building.

On March 7th, county staff applied for Virginia Outdoors Foundation Preservation Trust Fund grant

Opportunity and the application was submitted by Jerry West for $195,000 in funding for the Start Nature Park property with no local match required.

The grant funds are proposed to cover costs related to professional survey of the property, master planning work, and development of the trail system, entrance, and parking area.

If awarded the grant, staff will seek the board's approval for grant acceptance.

In terms of other opioid abatement funding opportunities, county staff met with Region 10 staff to discuss the potential for a regional application to the state opioid abatement authority.

These grants are competitive and are in addition to the direct allocations we're getting from the settlement funds.

So this grant would benefit the member localities of Region 10 including Nelson, City of Charlottesville, Albemarle, Savannah, Green, and Louisa.

The proposal would use approximately $1.3 million in these grant funds to expand their crisis response services, CTAC services, and community outreach services that are currently available to its members.

As reported by Region 10, 50 to me, an amendment of 55% of the adult client population they serve in Nelson has a diagnosis of a substance abuse disorder.

So that was interesting to me.

These applications must be submitted by a member locality who would also serve as the fiscal agent on behalf of Region 10 and its members, and Algoral County has agreed to serve in this role.

Region 10 will present this proposal at the April board meeting and also seek the board's official support of the regional application, which is a grant requirement.

The application submission deadline for this funding round is May 5th.

In terms of the new office building for social services, PMA is proceeding with having the Consulting Engineering Subcontractor Timmons Group conduct the more in-depth geotechnical work on the Cali Hills site, which includes 15 borings, analysis, and reporting, as well as seismic refraction to identify the soil thickness,

in depth to identify weathered rock and solid rock in proximity of those building, parking, and drive areas.

We're still trying to verify the timeframe on completion of this work.

A little bit about the FY24 budget.

We're hoping to begin sessions later this month on the 28th if that should work out for the board.

We reviewed the draft calendar earlier today and

The state budget has not been finalized for the General Assembly yet and they're supposed to resume their work in April.

The school division approved its FY24 budget at their March 9th meeting with the additional requested local funding being $1,582,639 for a total request of $18,884,261.

We have provided the board with the package school division budget information and school division has requested the opportunity to present their budget at a joint meeting with boards on April 20th just prior to their regular meeting agenda.

And I would like to take this opportunity to thank school division staff and school board for keeping at least myself apprised of

their budgetary decisions and what it was looking like in terms of the local contributions.

I do appreciate that.

I know it was a priority for the board and for staff to not have any surprises in this budget cycle, and I think we've worked well on that this year.

In terms of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, Mr. Barton may be able to expand on this in his report, but the Regional Jail Authority Board approved its FY24 budget last week in the total amount of $9,453,000, which was a 4.6% increase over last year.

Member contributions are based on the individual member's five-year average percentage of population.

And Nelson's percentage increased from 12.99% in FY23 to 14.74% in FY24.

This translates into a $219,783 increase in our share of operations for a total share of about 1.3 million, almost 1.4.

This includes an estimated share of interest only debt service for the anticipated interim financing related to the proposed jail renovations of $38,766.

You said you were going to fund it for free, right?

Yeah, personally.

A couple of things.

That's correct.

I think it's at least holding steady at a higher rate and since it's our shares are determined on a five-year average if it stays at that same level or you know or increases that our share is going to keep increasing and

So, I mean, I'm sure there's a valid reason for this or I'm not sure, I don't know, but I think Mr. Rutherford should come in and explain to us sometime why this is the case.

The other thing is the jail renovation, which has become somewhat controversial because of the circumstances of the jail in general.

And most of this renovation is to do with increasing the quality of the jail.

in quality services and can deal with recidivism.

For instance, the Charlottesville Outlaw Nelson Regional Jail has a lower incarceration rate

based on the population of those areas.

There's less people in jail in this facility than any other place in the state.

Now, in the renovation, there's not a request for more cells.

It's a request to

create services that will realize that in America, incarceration of people is a real problem.

And we need to do something to enable some of these people to end up in jail, not to go back to jail.

And I think I can speak for Candy,

You know, since I've been on that board, I've been really impressed by the people who work there.

One of the things that really impresses me is that the amount of years people seem to stay there.

I had a brief experience working in a facility, a juvenile facility, and the turnover was enormous.

It's almost close to 90% per year.

And this isn't happening at this place, this jail.

And people who I know, who have experience with this find that this jail is spirit to other jails in Virginia.

As it relates to the state, isn't the state contributing a certain percentage?

25%.

It's earmarked in the budget, but we don't know it's final until the governor signs it.

Sure, got it.

Well, in FY24, we'll have this interest only payment, and then I think it's 25, we started seeing.

I mean, you talk to the sheriff and it's not ideal.

I mean, there was at one time, I think it was either 18 or 19, Mr. Carter did a really light study of what that could look like.

and to buy your way, one, you have to buy your way out of a jail.

You have to pay them to leave.

And then you have to pay another entity to go in.

And the cost of doing all that was just like, wow, you could just build you a jail at that rate.

And that's not something I don't foresee us in.

Mr. Harvey, you probably were around at the time when they were pushing us out of our Nelson County Jail and put us in the Albemarle County Jail.

They basically paid our way into that to get out of the jail business for Nelson.

When was that, the 90s?

80s?

Long time ago.

You know, ACRJ is exceptional.

I mean, after my tour, getting to interact with some of the folks on the ground, you know, they have really good practices in recidivism as well.

Absolutely.

The other thing I should mention is that

Okay, nothing much to say there.

We're just, staff is continuing to review and vet the information provided by the consultant.

We just want to have a better understanding of the resulting pay classification.

And obviously there'll be more discussion about this

The last few items, there is no change from the February Report for Short-Term Rentals, the Regional Library Agreement Review, the Gladstone Depot TAP Grant, or the Renaissance Ridge Housing Development.

Yeah, they call it a special exception.

It would be a special use permit, most likely.

I'm not sure.

It concerns me that the solar arrays should not be visible from the railway trail.

Well, that might be the language that I used.

When I talked to Jerry, he was like you.

It was more of a should not, hope not kind of thing.

It's Piney River L.O.

Solar LLC.

Who is putting it?

So it's commercial electricity, right?

That's fine land and footing.

As soon as you cross 151 across an Amherst County, it's a farm on the left.

As soon as you go right across from the Warr Park Road, that's the farm.

Isn't that the mine?

No, no, that's maritime.

It's on the Nelson.

We get that.

They get the solar farm.

It's on the Amherst?

Yeah, it's West McBride Farm.

Yeah, and then this company comes in, leases the land, puts the solar home up, and sells it to the electric company.

Right, yeah, but in terms of energy benefits.

You know, I thought of speaking of taxes, I thought of something the other day.

Ernie, you probably would remember.

I remember when we first interacted with Firefly.

And they wanted us to do that match.

I think it was in 2019.

And it was like $1.5 million.

And instead of that, we bought $1.5 million in

Are we supposed to be getting some revenue off of that infrastructure?

Do we know what that dollar looks like now or when it starts or started?

Yeah, I have to look and see.

I mean, we should get it as it comes online, as it's being used, I think.

I'm sure they're depreciating it over time.

On their side, yeah.

I was curious about that, because that hit me the other day when we were thinking about our budgets.

Right, it comes in revenue, oh gosh, public service tax I believe.

I think the co-op's a little different, but they probably still do make money on their infrastructure bills.

Anyways.

That was just a thought I had.

Any other questions for Candy?

Hearing none, let's go on to more reports.

Skip, you've been going first all day today.

You go first.

Well, when you talk about the jail, the work, what's it called?

The workforce thing you're on.

Workforce thing, yeah.

Are you going with us?

You know, they have various things that attempt to break out finding workers, you know, and not much helping Nelson County.

On the 23rd, they are giving something at the high school.

They're going to set up a desk or something in the left lunch room.

But, you know, I don't know.

I have difficulty because the primary reason we can't find people who work, we talked about this too, is the amount of money you pay.

So I'm not exactly, I'm not negative towards it.

They do work for the people who need work and need to find a new way to work.

And they do act on behalf of employers that are looking for workers.

You know, in Europe, almost every European country, the industries take responsibility for trading their workers.

And in this country, for some reason, industry likes to think, likes us to believe that the responsibility of the schools

to compare people for money.

And it doesn't surprise me because the industry likes to pass off their costs onto someone else.

So, you know, I wish it was doing something to help us, but apparently it's in the best case.

That's it.

Mr. Reed?

I was not at the TJPDC meeting.

I was sick that week.

I missed another meeting as well.

But had I been there, I'm sure I would be reporting back to the housing summit somewhere.

Jesse will talk more about that, because I can't really report on something I wasn't doing.

So it appears that we've now got some wheels moving so that we can

try to see about getting a water plan or an accountant there and how that might affect possible future development in the Arrington, Lovingston area, which I'm really excited to see go forward as soon as we can.

So this is maybe partial directive, which is let's get going on this thing and see what we can find out.

I know it's going to take

We've got a service authority board meeting coming up later this week, so I don't know, hopefully that'll be something that we take up there.

That's really, I mean, I was hoping, I don't, I'm not.

No, no, no, it's just true.

I mean, I mean,

When we were there, I wasn't sure how far the discussion had already gotten, and I didn't realize there was still nowhere for it.

So, I mean, put some fire under them, because whatever we do, we need to know what that is.

Originally, the service authority was there to run things, and the county was supposed to be

You know, preliminary engineering study to be done to determine how all that can take place and kind of timeline and permitting process and things.

That's all I have.

Mr. Parr, MS Council did not mean due to weather and that team being called

We had some friends from Rappahannock County who were Board of Supervisors who came down because they were looking to remodel the courthouse and David and Mr. Tressel were excellent assets in that conversation for them.

Although they're the county half the size of us, they want to figure out how to incorporate their existing courthouse or build new and so they had a great time.

I think y'all also watched the Thomas Tressel video as well.

We have the TJPDC meeting.

Basically it's pretty much we're centered towards a lot of transportation issues with the internet build out that TJPDC is doing on a regional basis.

It's just exponential now and very much centered on the regional housing partnership coming up next week.

I do hope if you all are attending and there's some of you who already registered,

I know we have some members in the audience who have registered, which is great.

And I was brought up.

Nelson County should have good representation and attendance.

You know, it's funny we talk about the historical piece of shit in today.

As someone who's lived there his whole life and the only place I know is Elma.

You know, we talk about pulps, right?

And bringing up the topic of what does housing stock look like in Nelson?

What is the history of it?

How does it exist?

You know, one day I was driving down Peoria, and I just counted how many homes that were on that street when I was a kid that someone lived in that it's no longer, it's Galapagos, no longer lived in.

And that context, then you just start driving up and down other homes, Stevens Cove, Freshwater Cove, and so many other places, and you can just nick out these homes.

And you're like, wow.

You always forget what happens over a generation of people who may leave and never come back, or who just aged,

and just it is that dilapidated and as soon as that individual passes away or moves on, there's no host to that inventory whatsoever.

So that was kind of an interesting observation I was making the other day.

So I'm gonna probably drive around a little bit, especially in the hollow that I've always known and talk about some of that story in the rural context of if you don't, if the family doesn't refix it, it doesn't get redone,

Yes, Nelson County may have the same population today, but that population is living in entirely different housing stock than it was 100 years ago.

So what does that replacement look like?

How does that context work?

What are the things that impact that?

So I'm pretty excited to get some more thoughts in on that, figure out some data points, and make Jeremy tell me all sorts of numbers so that I can break it up.

I also need to meet with Susan and talk to her some too about 911 addresses over the last 50 years.

That's all I got.

So the thought process with 911 addresses is if you get a new 911 address, probably 9 out of 10 times, that's a new residential home.

Yeah, I'm trying to recall when maybe the 911 system was put in place.

But even then, I can benchmark it off the last decade or two.

So just stuff like that.

Yawn with that, I don't think I'm missing anything.

The walk around the walk-in property was fun.

David disappeared.

I was playing in the creek.

I got stuck in the creek.

Ernie and I stuck it out.

We were fine.

That's all I got.

Moving on.

Appointments.

We do have some appointments to do.

One of them is the EDA.

We have an applicant.

Is it one or two?

Two.

Larry Saunders and John Conaway.

I guess both of those people can fill in the role there.

I don't know why I was thinking that.

Do we have a motion to put Larry and John?

Well, we need to pick up for that specific position because of the terms.

I just wanted to ask a question.

What's the specific role of the economic development authority?

I mean they're main vehicles to be a vehicle for bond issuances for the county and the school division.

I mean I think they meet monthly and I think they are quarterly.

When you say the coordinate bond issues, how does that work?

What's that process?

Right.

So I think typically it's a ground lease to the EDA that is the collateral for the bonds, and then it gets leased back to the county.

And that's just the financing vehicle

Yes, I would emphasize that they also work at the pleasure of the sport.

And in the event something of that nature happens, people can be removed and then be put on the court.

Do you agree with that?

I mean, that's accurate, yeah.

And I only agree with that.

I studied this a little bit recently, so I know a little bit.

but that is a mechanism these individuals work at the pleasure of the board.

My only perspective on this

Besides that experience that we had is that the mission of the Economic Development Authority is that it promote diversity and growth and I think diversity to me is pretty key and so

Without giving thumbs up or thumbs down on those folks that have already applied for positions, I think it might be a good idea to leave this open for a period of time and see if we can get a more diverse representation of people to select from.

I'm just throwing that out because until I saw the appointments,

I didn't realize that this was coming up and it seems like an important thing especially given our comp plan and scenario that we're working on and then just you know if we just put it off a month and see if we can get a more diverse representation people might want to serve on that it might be a good idea and it might not be necessary.

The first one that Robert Doyle is in so we can begin.

And in that likelihood of them having a meeting is like none properly.

They only meet like once or twice a week.

I don't even know.

It was orderly, but I don't know when.

I don't know.

I can understand your sentiment there and if you wanted to leave the Kim Bryant seat open.

I don't see any reason why we can't fill in that one position until June 30th.

I was just bringing that up so that I can get a better group on it.

Yeah.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

And the objections are abstentions.

Hearing none.

Now, the second one.

Let's go ahead and get the other one done.

Nelson County Drug Court Advisory Committee.

Ernie, we need to put you on that.

This is going to be a one year, third thing.

I don't think I can make the first meeting, but I could do it after that.

Alright, so we're going to put you on it and if you can't make that, Skip can make sure he's there to talk a little bit.

Okay.

Alright, someone put Ernie on it.

I move.

I make motion.

Skip moves to put Ernie on the Nelson County Direct Board Advisory Committee.

Second.

Second is required.

Any other discussions?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Great.

So with the second EDA position, what does the board want to do?

Does the board want to wait?

Does the board want to put John Conway on it?

That's fine.

All right, everyone else fine with waiting one more month in that position?

That'll work for me.

All right, moving on.

Any other questions you need to talk about, Amanda?

That's it.

Correspondence, Mr. Barton?

No.

Mr. Harvey?

Mr. Reed?

Have you looked at it?

I'm trying to see what correspondence I got.

I'll do that.

I have an experience with that.

I'm going to talk about the Nets soccer field for a second.

I'm glad you're here, Dr. Hester, so I might call you for some questions.

Of course, some of you have gotten correspondence from that.

I'm sure everyone's gotten emails.

I've gotten a lot of phone calls because I have a very specific experience with the Nets soccer field.

I was one of the first teams to play it on that field when Nets actually started seedin' and fertilizin' water in that field.

So obviously I know we are at a place where it's the rec facility, Parks and Rec is using it for four games and three games and there is a camp, a soccer camp

Right.

You know, and I can understand and I'm not really pointing fingers anywhere and I just think for that entity, you know, I remember back in, shoot, that was like

2009, 2010, so for that nature.

They would drag out the whole soccer field, and we'd have to water it, seed and straw it, and we went and run around it, and they managed to run around our cleats to make sure that we could hit the seats in the first class.

It was a lot of work, and I remember doing a lot of fundraisers with it too.

And one of the thought processes of doing that is, I remember, we actually had teams that would refuse to play

Nelson County's travel team, because we were playing at Fleetwood, they would have these horse camps and all this stuff, so we had to get out there and shovel manure.

And so apparently some kids got out there one day, got hurt, got the infection.

And so there was an individual team that actually refused to play at Fleetwood, therefore a short interim.

and you know some of that also came into play of just having a higher quality team because we wanted to play a different level and you know in order to do that we had to get a field that exemplified that to other teams and also to our team itself so I remember when we went we got the Rockfish field going and I tell you that program exploded we were able to field a lot of teams we were able to pull in a lot of really great talent and I have friends who

I had played parks and rec soccer with and then got to play nets, who went on to play college.

And that was really cool to watch and have lived that experience.

And those opportunities for some of those individuals would not have been possible had it not been for the nets experience and for certain recruiters to have been able to watch the off seasons and then play.

All this to say, you know, those fields have a very, are very,

Emotional to a lot of individuals, a lot of players, a lot of coaches, and even refs.

And as far as I'm aware, they're maintained by Nets, generally speaking.

And they weren't tax dollars paid for, it's on tax property, and I understand that.

But I think it'd go unsaid if Nets wasn't greatly complimented

It's the nicest soccer field we've got in Nelson.

It's better than the high school's field every day.

That's just the fact.

You go out and you watch the games

players who go out and play and you get entirely different game play at the field in Rockfish than you do at the high school.

I mean, just by the quality of the field.

I mean, we don't really even use the Fleetwood field anymore.

No, we haven't used that in years.

The Nets field, do you remember Mr. Wheaton and Brian Farrin when they were doing it at the Rockfish Elementary School 12, 13 years ago?

Yeah, that's the field we're talking about.

And so the rec department's utilizing it some and it's just

And that would be probably some of their take because, gosh, I think it was like $25,000, $30,000 that we had fundraised back in 2009 for that field, something like that.

I don't know a lot of birds I've heard.

And I just think, you know, if there's a conversation that I could be part of, because, you know, of course, I played soccer at Parks and Rec for eight, nine years of my life, and then I coached for four years at Parks and Rec, and then I refereed for Parks and Rec for four years, and refereed for Nets.

I think we could probably field some of those concerns

I think there's also a lot of value that they can provide to you guys in how to have a high quality feeling.

I mean, they've done the right stuff year over year.

What else do we want to talk about next?

You want to talk about it?

It's pretty good.

It's five o'clock, okay?

You want to call it a day?

David, you have anything else to say?

What do you want to say?

You know, the walk you guys took when I was out there and meeting with the landscape architect and all that thing is, you know, if we can build a park,

that is a place where people of Nelson County can go to with their children and their grandchildren and swim.

Being that we live probably in a place where God would live if he lived on earth, it would be like the people of Nelson County could be on vacation all the time.

They could have a place where they could take their families and vacation, all the people of Nelson County.

And to me, it's just a vision which I want people to share.

Is that a directive?

I mean, I just want to,

People think about coming home from work and taking their children to go swimming and having hamburgers and looking at the beauty of Nelson County.

All right.

Any other correspondence?

Hearing none, moving on to directives.

Any directives from anybody?

I don't have any.

And we'll go ahead and continue this meeting to seven o'clock.

Can we get a motion?

Yes.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

I'm Mark Franklin.

I'm at 723 Shapers Hollow, Maine and Roseland.

I'd like to start by giving credit where credit is due and thank those involved for the good news I received.

where Parks and Rec will start using the school board fields and public property and fields of Rockfish Elementary.

This is a step in the right direction where we need to see more communication and collaboration between the school board and county in building opportunities and benefits for our community.

It is a bad idea for the county to rush into debt and jump at double-digit development ideas, ag centers, rec centers, and swimming pools.

A better idea would be to work with what is already here.

Collaborate with the community centers and organizations working hard to do good for the community.

Community centers that once were county property, who gives away real estate.

Apparently, Nelson County gave away taxpayers real estate.

The school properties and community centers could be developed to better serve the community at this time now.

Smaller investments could be made that give a bigger impact right now.

The Heritage Center has a beautiful gymnasium.

With a little effort, its doors could be opened.

As a volunteer basketball coach and looking for places for soccer teams to practice indoors as we once did before 30 years ago, trust me, it will be used immediately.

Both elementary schools had softball fields and fences that were never used.

This again brings a bad planning and another waste of the taxpayers' dime.

The county could satisfy recreational needs by redeveloping these areas with a smaller investment than developing its newly purchased raw land of the blocking property.

The Travel Soccer League showed leadership and initiative in developing public property.

They also have highlighted the demand and need for soccer fields.

Just as it is only right for the county to directly benefit from the taxpayer's investment into the school properties, it is also only right for the county to match, maintain, and upkeep these fields to the current condition of the private investment.

Another of my messages from a year ago, we need more ball fields.

I don't want to share a field for my practice.

I don't want to start my practice at 7 o'clock into the sunset.

We need to practice fields and gain fields.

Are ball fields too much to ask for?

You could eliminate the unnecessary expenditures and waste of the taxpayers' money on tourism marketing, benefiting only a select few private businesses, and do good for your community.

If we are one Nelson, Nelson strong, we can and must work together.

I know renovation and development of old sites may not seem like the big deal some of you may want to push for and see built, but it can be a right move in taking small steps in restoring what we have.

We can take our time in making development plans to be sure we don't waste like we have done in the past.

Save our money and invest in us.

All right, anyone else wish to speak in public comments?

We have close public comments.

All right, this is a request for a special use permit for Class C Automobile Graveyard use of properties done to aim on agriculture.

which is located at 110 Family Lane in the North District.