Planning District Commission Meeting   9/3/2020

All right, if everybody's okay, I'd like to go ahead and begin the meeting, the TJPDC meeting on September 3rd, 2020.

One of the first items we want to do is to go to the notice of electronic meeting.

The governor has declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the nature of this declared emergency makes it impractical, unsafe, the Thomas Jefferson Plan District Commission to assemble in a single location.

This meeting was held utilizing electronic virtual communication, the Zoom software application, and in accordance with the virtual meeting procedures and policies as outlined in item 4.0-01, a Virginia state budget, HB 29, as affected April 24, 2020.

Beware of the fact this meeting is being recorded.

It will be posted after the fact for everyone to view.

Just a reminder, please mute your microphone if you're not speaking.

As far as the public, if you have a public comment, we ask that when it comes time for a public comment, either for a public hearing or all the comments, that you simply raise your hand.

If you're unsure how to do this, if you're doing a video, you go down to the actual participants and there's an option there to raise your hand.

If you're actually dialing in, as I see some people are, it's simply star nine.

Staff will be looking for those individuals who have raised their hands to speak.

Beware the fact you have two minutes to speak and staff will be monitoring throughout the process.

During the meeting itself, motions of seconds may be presented without the use of hands by the commissioners.

We'll do a roll call vote and I'll ask that as we go through this process that Christine will do a roll call vote.

to make sure we understand who voted.

We tried at one point in time to remember correctly.

Everybody voted at once, and on a Zoom session, it did not work out very well.

Ned Gallaway?

Here.

Is that him, the 4-3-4?

Yeah.

3-2-6?

Yeah.

Okay.

Dylan Bishop?

I'm here.

Andrea Wilkinson?

Here.

Michael Payne?

Tony O'Brien?

Lisa Greene?

Bob Babyok?

So that was yes, Bob?

Eric Persil?

Here.

So we have- This is Ned.

Okay, great.

Sounds good.

I appreciate everybody showing up tonight.

For those who did,

At this point, Chip, we're at matters from the public.

I think right now Mr. Shawn Tubbs is the only public member we have if he would like to say anything.

Sounds good, thank you.

None at all, Mr.

All right, and we're now going to receive a public hearing.

I sure will.

Charise and I are going to work together on doing a presentation.

We have a public hearing that is required for the CAPR, which is a annual performance and evaluation report for our home program.

I got to thinking that because we have a number of new commissioners, it might be very worthwhile for me to do an overview of our home program for you, touch on the CAPR,

and then turn the public hearing over to Sharice to give you a little bit of information, very high level information about the caper.

And this is an annual report regarding our home program for affordable housing that just talks about past goals and our performance in meeting those goals and providing assistance for affordable housing throughout the entire region.

And I'm going to share my screen.

If I can get this to come up and it looks like it will work.

OK, how is that?

Everybody see that OK?

All right.

The HOME program began, it's a U.S. Housing and Urban Development program, began back in 1990, and it assists state and local governments with providing funding for affordable housing in low-income families.

60% of all of the federal home funds go to 650 participating jurisdictions and then 40% is allocated directly to the states.

We are included, we are a consortium which is a consolidation of all six jurisdictions within our region

and so we fall within that 60% of the local jurisdictions.

Home funds for affordable housing, they can be used for acquisition, reconstruction, and rehabilitation.

Counties can also use these home funds for tenant-based rental assistance and they have a number of other flexible design policies that can address particular local affordable housing needs

according to the location that the needs are in.

Home for this past federal fiscal year was just under $1.4 billion.

That's a roughly $10 million increase from the prior federal year.

Make sure this is, there we go.

And just two years after the program began in 92, all of the jurisdictions in our region came together and they formed a cooperative agreement so that they share the money.

You'll see a little bit later, we do not get a lot of money.

Our population isn't large enough.

We normally get between four to $600,000 a year.

But if each jurisdiction tried to do that alone,

You would only be receiving, you know, the smaller jurisdictions probably wouldn't even qualify.

And the larger jurisdictions would only receive maybe $120,000 a year each.

So in 92, everybody came together.

The City of Charlottesville agreed to be the lead agency and then all of the jurisdictions signed an agreement with the Planning District Commission to be the managing agency and the administrator for this program.

Responsibilities that we have and the commission has through this agreement is we have to develop a five-year consolidated plan for these funds.

We have to develop the regional portion of the annual action plan.

We have to do the annual caper as well.

We have to produce an annual budget with an equal sharing of the funds among the jurisdictions.

We also have the program requirements for design and oversight.

We provide all of the financial management compliance and management.

And then we also have to stay abreast of any of the federal and state regulations that are imposed on these funds.

Of the funds that we receive, 15% of that total amount is reserved for what's called a CHODO, Community Housing Development Organizations.

And these are community nonprofits with a mission towards affordable housing that meets certain requirements as far as having professional staff and also having affordable housing tenants within their board structure.

We have several Chodos, and the money has to go to Chodos, the 15%.

If we don't fund that amount, we would lose that percentage if we didn't have enough Chodos for that to go to.

Luckily, that's not a problem for us.

The remaining funds have been reserved on an equal basis, but we have been practicing where the local jurisdictions, they share the money.

And so that, you know, just for instance, Greene may take three years of funding to be able to fund a sizable project.

And then Louisa may get three years of funding and then Nelson may get it.

The dollar amounts end up equally now

but they just don't equal out on a year by year basis.

One of the things which is very important to HUD is there are very strict timelines as to when we receive funding, we have to have those funds committed or under contract within a particular time and then those funds have to be part of a completed project.

and a project is not completed until a low income family is actually living in a housing unit.

And while they're very flexible, as far as the length of times, if you don't meet those time limits, then we're subject to lose that money back to HUD.

So we work really hard.

And because of that, any of the local jurisdictions who do not get their money committed

We put it back into the pot for the other jurisdictions to draw from.

This has been working very well for us.

I will say that with Charise and Christine looking very closely at this program with both of them being fairly new to it, we have found that it's time that we review this cooperative agreement with all of our jurisdictions

and also look at the program policies and guidelines just to make sure that it's fully meeting what we need for our region.

For the current federal fiscal year, we're receiving $644,000 to be distributed.

These funds go to affordable housing providers that are identified by our local governments.

and the current affordable housing providers are AHIP, the Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Fluvanna and Louisa Housing Foundation, Skyline Cap up in Greene County, the Nelson County Community Development Foundation, and then through Charlottesville, Piedmont Housing Alliance does their work

and Piedmont Housing Alliance partners with some of the other nonprofits because a lot of the the repairs or a lot of the expenditures that are made are more on the repair side than the new construction side and that's really based upon the low amount of money that we receive.

To give you an example,

The department I had in Baton Rouge, the home funds for Baton Rouge was under me and we would receive around $5 or $6 million a year.

You can build a few houses with that.

It's kind of hard to build very many units with only $600,000.

Right now, what you'll see in the report that was provided to you and to CAPR in the past year, Albemarle, or currently, Albemarle has five completed projects and they have another five underway.

Charlottesville has two complete but 12 underway, Fluvanna has two complete, Greene has two single-family houses underway, Louisa has two that are completed, and Nelson has four completed and one underway.

So currently we have 35 housing units that have been assisted with these home funds.

Teresa will talk just a little bit about the caper.

It's the annual review and it compares the affordable housing goals for our region.

These goals come from the most recent five-year consolidated plan and it compares it to the actual performance, making sure we're meeting our goals with this federal funding.

The PDC will be receiving comments on this caper from today through September 18th.

A final draft will be developed and we will share that with you at your October meeting and ask for your approval of that final draft before we send it off to HUD.

There is a component that you will read in that draft about the Community Development Block Grant Program.

The Annual Performance Report is a consolidated report of home and CDBG.

For our region, Charlottesville is an entitlement city, which means they get their CDBG funds directly from Washington, and they have to report their success in this same CAPA report, but

Other than Charlottesville, all of our counties, they can only receive CDBG funds through the state program.

And therefore, none of our counties are required to participate with the CDBG performance report.

The state does its own caper every year and submits it to HUD.

But in this case, Charlottesville does its annual report for community development block grants, and it's rolled in with the home

Caple Report.

That's a very high level.

I'll be glad to answer any questions that you might have on this.

Or if you'd like, you can just wait till the end and I'll let Sharice hit the high points of the caper itself.

All right.

All right.

So- I'm sorry to interrupt.

All right, sweet.

OK.

So our goals for our region are preserve existing housing units that we have, expand the affordable housing stock, ensure sustainability, support programs that aid in low-income housing.

And I'm sorry, I'm looking at my other screen because I didn't want to print the paper.

So they're mixed in with my CDBG goals.

And enhance and improve access to home ownership.

So for the year, within the year, what we did for PY19, Chip Sorter went over it.

For home buyer assistance, our goal was 14.

We completed three, but nine are underway.

And some of this is affected by COVID.

When COVID happened, basically, you know,

The builders basically had to adhere to the recommendations and buildings slowed down.

But those projects are still going now that we're working back into our groove.

Homeowner rehab, the goal was 17.

We completed 11.

Seven are underway.

Rental units, construction of rental units, it was four.

We've completed three.

So that's good.

and for new home construction, our goal was one and two are underway.

And to give you an idea, since July 1st, where our new year started till now, we have completed 10 of what was underway.

So we seem to be going quickly back on track to getting caught up with our goals.

So in 2019, in the program year, we completed 15 units and that was

as a whole that was three higher than we completed last year.

So that's pretty good too.

The home consortium, what we received in grant funds for this program was $588,830 and we've committed to a project that is ongoing or completed $410,752 of those dollars.

and 66% of our clients helped this year fell in the below 50% median income.

So we are helping those people who do need to be helped.

So that was high level points.

If anyone has any specific questions they want to ask, I'm here to answer them.

Well, I will have the final

Kaper Complete, and to this commission to look over.

We're aiming for October.

I know that's what Chip said.

We're aiming for October.

You all will see it, though, before it hits HUD's eyes.

I raised my hand.

When does it do, Sharice?

We have an extension.

We can have an extension until December.

Aaron is my city counterpart.

We're trying very hard to not take that extension.

But we want to do it right, is the thing.

We want to make sure it is correct that it doesn't get sent back.

So it's due September 29th.

Mr.

Chair, I raised my hand and started talking.

OK, great.

Because I had a couple of little tiny things.

Yeah, the draft.

I apologize.

Yeah, there were a few.

I didn't go through looking for every single one, but the one on the bottom of page five was one of them.

Any other questions or comments?

Do we have any members of the public that wish to comment?

And so please raise your hand.

Chip and Christine, do you see anybody raising a hand to speak?

All right.

The public hearing will now be closed.

So we will see this again in our October meeting for our vote.

Right.

OK.

But we will get a chance to see a final version and take action on it at a later date.

OK.

Thank you both.

That was a great report.

I appreciate that.

If there are no further questions or discussion, we'll go on to item number three, the consent agenda.

And if it's OK with everybody, I would request that we take these individually.

Is there any objection to that?

If not, let's go ahead with the first item on the consent agenda, the minutes of the August 20, 2020 meeting.

Mr. Rutherford has made a motion.

We have a second.

That's Andrea.

Ms. Rutherford.

Ms. Bishop?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien.

Aye.

Mr.

Motion passes.

Great.

Thank you so much.

The second item on the consent agenda is the financial report, fiscal year 21.

We'll just at a very high level.

Get these pulled up.

I think the important parts are that... Get rid of my participants here if I can.

Here we go.

Just to go over the dashboard, which are the higher levels since it's on the consent agenda, our net quick assets are building themselves.

We're at the highest point that we've been in over a year at 761,000.

You can see that, and you'll see a little bit later as well, that both our assets and our liabilities are up a little bit.

Well, assets are up a lot.

We've actually received more money in July than we normally receive, and that shows throughout all of our financial reports.

We have a number of projects going that are filling in the gap

from some of our state programs and our local government, local jurisdiction per capita payments do not usually come in in July.

So as far as assets and revenue, things are going very well.

We also, I'm very happy to report for the unrestricted cash, we have moved outside of the concern level and we're now at two and a half months worth of operating expenses that we have with readily available cash.

Just as a reminder, two months is our concern level, two months or less.

We try to have four months in the bank and

Just because of the state holding back a few payments, we were below two for two running months.

But now we're building it back up and I think by the end of next month or the following month, we will start to see numbers closer to four again.

With net revenue, July, as you can see, July of 2019, we had almost a $7,000 loss.

And a lot of that has to do, we don't receive very many of our per capita payments in July.

And usually the state doesn't begin making its payments for the fiscal year until August.

But this July, we had a very good month with nearly $13,000 net gain.

So we're starting the fiscal year exactly where we want to be.

I do want to mention that if you look at the profit and loss statements, I'm not going to pull that up.

We are one month in of our 12 month fiscal year, which I think is roughly 8% of the year.

We've already received 19% of our budgeted revenue for July.

which is very good for the beginning, but at some point during the fiscal year, we'll have a couple of lean months because we're getting a lot of the work done upfront.

The other thing that we're watching very closely is we have a couple of programs that are six month programs.

So we'll be spending the full 12 months budget by December 30th, because that's when the programs end.

And so from an annual standpoint,

It will be doing very good financially, I think, until December 30th.

And then some of our revenues will start to drop off unless we add some additional grants, which we hope to know of two or three by that point in the transportation area.

So that's the financials.

I'm happy to report they're pretty positive right now.

And I will talk about

One thing that doesn't, for me, it's a concern level, but it has more to do with fiscal year 22, and I'll bring that up when we're talking about the FY22 projected budget.

I have one, Chip.

Okay.

Yes.

The ride share remains pretty constant.

That's $177,000 budget, but the MPO, it's not divided out evenly.

And with SmartScale this year, we spent a lot of time out of the MPO program in July and in August.

So we will have a lot of

Yes.

Yes.

And thank goodness for the rental relief program and the other programs that we have.

We're building our cash coffers up so that after January 1st, we shouldn't have cash flow problems through June 30th.

And hopefully once we get through a year of these new quarterly payments, then we should be set for future fiscal years.

Thanks, Chip.

Are there any other questions?

Mr. Raulter has made a motion.

Ms. Wilkerson has seconded.

Let's do a roll call vote.

Bishop.

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Aye.

Mr.

Ms. Price.

Aye.

Thank you very much.

Now we're on to, we have two resolutions.

The first one we have is the fiscal year 2022.

Projected operating budget and local revenue requests.

Thank you.

I can't tell what you're seeing.

So do you have the agenda up or is that the budget?

Let me move this over and see if this is better.

OK, perfect.

We haven't changed.

I had no additional comments since I presented this to you last month.

We're anticipating just over $2 million in FY22.

As a reminder to everyone, this is just a projected budget that we have to do every year.

So it's very similar to the local government setting their tax rates.

We're setting the rate that we're asking the local governments to provide in their per capita payments.

We're not proposing any increases again this year for probably about the 15th year that we have not asked for any per capita increases.

We do have changes for programs and right now it's a balanced budget with no expected loss and no expected gains.

The budget right now does not anticipate any new additional hires and does not anticipate any salary increases or changes during this time.

We normally present those when we ask you to consider the actual operating budget, which will come to you in May for an approval.

So this is projected very, very early on.

A lot of things will happen before we come to you with the actual operating budget, but we do have to submit this with our local government requests.

Everything, you know, we aren't anticipating any real changes in expenditures.

One of the items that we have been talking about is in the rent payments because we have been talking about the purchase of a building.

We have an executive session at the end of the agenda where I'll be able to update you with our recommendations there.

but whether it's rent or mortgage payments, we do not anticipate a large swing either direction on that.

So that should not affect at all the budget that we're recommending to you.

The other thing if you in the handout and I apologize for the small print, I have not figured out

how to make this better as part of a bigger package.

But in your handout, and I will send to everyone a better printout of it, we break down each one of the jurisdictions based on their population, the percentage of the region, how much they contribute both in per capita and by program to the PDC,

And we carry that all the way out.

The other thing we show you on this is once we deduct certain required matches.

So for instance, Albemarle and Charlottesville, they contribute 100% of the required grant match for our MPO program.

And then all of the other jurisdictions plus a portion of Albemarle

They contribute to the grant match for the rural transportation program.

So we take those matches out, we take other required matches out, and the balance, we divide it between 75% of the per capita funding that we reserve for regional projects.

For us, regional means at least three jurisdictions benefit from that project.

25% is retained for a locality specific, a project specific to Louisa County or a project specific to Greene County.

The other thing we sometimes do and we've got one project like that right now where we combined both Louisa's funds and Fluvanna's funds

and we're doing a joint project at Zion Crossroads.

So for two jurisdictions, we just combined their 25%, but on a project there's three jurisdictions that comes out of the 75% pot.

So this gives you the specific if you're interested and also the population, which is out of our bylaws, we update that every year

from the Weldon Cooper Center's annual population estimates.

Do we have any questions for Chip concerning the budget?

I sure will.

Just in your packet is a resolution that puts into narrative format everything I just said.

It gives you, oops, there we go.

Then it's a balanced budget for fiscal year 22.

It sets the per capita rate at 62 cents per person and 40 cents per person for our legislative liaison services.

It defines the 75-25% split for the per capita.

Do we have any questions on a resolution?

Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the resolution as presented?

I'll make that motion, Mr. Chairman.

Is that a move?

Okay, we have a motion.

I think Mr. Smith had it first.

Do we have a second?

Do we have a second?

Second.

There we go.

We have a second.

Mr. Gallaway.

Aye.

Bishop?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Ms. O'Brien?

Aye.

Mr.

Herring?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

The next resolution we have is the Nelson County MOU or Nelson County CARES 2020 program administration.

Me again.

Mr.

Chair, we have an agreement and as you will notice looking at the PDF of it, we've actually already signed it and we have begun work on the project.

I'm really hoping for a favorable consideration from the commission tonight, but it's the type of thing we could not wait on.

Nelson County asked that the Planning District Commission administer a CARES Act program that I know all of you, your jurisdictions are currently participating in, all of the jurisdictions within our region.

And so we're administering this for Nelson County,

Of their CARES Act funding, they have assigned $350,000 at this time that they will be providing direct grants to small businesses within Nelson County that have seen some type of financial burden because of the COVID pandemic.

For us, we will receive a flat fee of $15,000 to administer this for them.

and if additional money above $400,000 is added to this $350,000 amount, then we would receive probably an additional, well I know, an additional $5,000 administrative fee.

We have a motion.

We have a second.

Any more discussion on the issue?

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms. Bishop?

Yes.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr.

Herring?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

At this point, we're on to new business, and I see that we do not have any new business at this point in time.

That is still the case.

Is that correct, Chip?

Yes, sir.

At this point, we'll move on to item number six, the executive director's report.

Sure.

I've got very little in that, the activity report from staff, but since we have met twice in the last month, I won't go into, and there's really no need to go into detail to talk about projects that we've already discussed with you.

The one thing that we are

I'm watching very closely, and I referenced it talking about our financial condition earlier, and it will also reflect some of our recommendations towards a property purchase.

For myself, it's a high concern of revenues for FY22 and possibly FY23.

I'm sure all of you have been watching the federal deficit, and it is steadily increasing for any number of reasons, but I'm really, because we receive so many projects from federally funded programs, I'm afraid that in the next year or two, that Washington will start trying to get a handle on the deficit

And the only really way to do that will be to cut funding to federal programs.

And so, you know, a lot of times when this happens, you'll see the home program may be cut in half.

The federal transportation funds that flow to the states and then to the MPOs can be cut.

or special grants that we apply for and receive occasionally, those are delayed for several years.

So we're watching really closely what's gonna happen.

While we're anticipating a very good FY21, 22 and 23 may not be so prosperous for us.

So we'll keep updating you on that, but it is a high concern for us.

Does anybody have any questions for Chip?

Sorry.

No, good job.

Thank you.

I'm really rooting for this whole let's not have a disaster in the economy and falling apart of our federal government.

That really would crap on my style and our governments.

But thank you for the prospect.

Does David have a question?

Yes, I'm here.

Well, General Assembly is in special session.

They have a over $2 billion budget gap to fill for the rest of fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22.

I think they're going to cover that largely.

By using the money that was frozen from this past regular session And then they just really used they went ahead and reduced that to largely fill the gap I don't think they're gonna dip into the reserves

You know, kind of like Chip was saying, fiscal year 21, at least the state officials are saying that that looks pretty manageable from their perspective with the budget.

But fiscal year 22 is a concern for them, just really with everything going on and not knowing what the economy is going to do, what revenues are going to be moving forward.

Thank you.

Any more questions for Chip or David?

OK, thank you.

At this point, we're on to other business.

And we're into the roundtable discussion by jurisdiction.

So I'll call on you.

If I miss anybody, I apologize.

I'm looking at my screen right now.

So if I miss anybody, just speak up at the end of it.

Thanks.

Thank you, Dale, I appreciate it.

Ned Gallaway asked if I might do it since he's driving.

We had a board meeting last night and of course I'll talk a little bit about that.

I think probably the biggest public issue that we've got is we have voted to remove the At the Ready statue, two cannons, and stacked cannonballs in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse.

We're having a special meeting on the 8th of September.

We expect that we will have several applications in

for groups or organizations that are interested in receiving those items.

And we've been very pleased with the community engagement that we've had in keeping our constituents informed of the process.

The expectation is that the items will be removed on the 12th of September.

That's over the weekend because we don't wanna interfere with the court procedures that'll be taking place.

and we're working really hard to provide virtual opportunities to observe the proceedings for those who may be interested.

We recently, the county recently publicized an affordable housing plan that we're working on and of course as I'm sure with each jurisdiction that's one of the major components of every land use development that we have.

We had a couple of ZMA's last night, one of which a relatively small piece of land

That is going to have a significant contribution towards affordable housing.

That was approved at Profit Road.

We have another one at Breezy Hill that we were able to spend three or four hours on and have it deferred so we get the opportunity to deal with that one again in another meeting.

coming up.

As with many of the jurisdictions, I know what we are looking at is ensuring that we develop pretty much to capacity in our development areas.

You know, Albemarle County has 5% development area and 95% rural as we try to fill in the development areas so we don't have to look at expanding into the rural areas.

On green space density, connectivity, and that connectivity both in terms of adjacent and neighboring

communities as well as transportation is really significant.

We're also, as with the other counties, we're looking at the CARES funding.

Separately from the board itself, I had an opportunity last week to attend an event where Senator Mark Warner was present and he stated that

He believes that there is a very good likelihood that additional CARES-type funding will be presented and the end-of-the-year spending requirement will be relaxed.

I haven't seen any definitive action on that, but that would be very helpful for all of our communities.

And we've also been looking at some rules of procedure last night with regard to hybrid meeting

Williams.

Thank you.

There was at least hope, if not expectation, that the pandemic might be a little shorter.

At least I, speaking for myself, other than specifically the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, believe that we have a long way to go, even with some talk recently of preparing for a vaccine to come out.

So we're kind of anticipating that this will be our new normal for a period of time.

And as we just discussed here, we have a lot of concerns, perhaps not as much in 2021,

on what the economic impact is going to be.

So we're all sort of got the eggshells under us as we're trying to figure out the best ways to go forward, both with advancements, but also being cautious about funding.

And I will, if it's okay, I'd like to just turn it over for Chair Galloway if he has some other thoughts for things that I'm sure I failed to cut.

I concur everything that Vice Chair Price handled.

Quite the update there that I'll spot on.

I guess two things.

This may have been reported before by Supervisor Price, but we do have a Rio Road corridor study was approved for funding.

And that study will focus on East Rio Road from 29 all the way down to the city line.

as a major corridor and a major entrance corridor for us in the county.

That's a significant one that will be going on over the next half a year to a year.

And the only other one I would throw out, this may be more for MPO, but could be of interest to the other commissioners.

Also in our meeting yesterday, we had a traffic impact analysis, not a traffic impact analysis, an explanation of our traffic impact analysis.

These are always a part of land use conversations.

But when I think of regional transit, I think of even the Affordable Housing Partnership, the Regional Housing Partnership, that it may be useful for other jurisdictions in some of these joint places to review how they're analyzing and going in, presenting or coming up with the data to present to the relative boards for decisions.

So for what it's worth, food for thought.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Donna.

Appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to have to head out to pick up my wife from DC, so I'm going to pass on any reporting for the moment.

So I'll keep my mouth shut, which is a rarity.

Drive safe, sir.

Appreciate that.

Sorry about the delay there.

We had a meeting last night as well, too.

You know, again, like all the other counties, we're focused on allocating those dollars.

A lot of it is going into loan programs for businesses as well as expanding our internet coverage.

We authorize about a half million dollars for expansion with CVEC and some of the territory that they wouldn't normally cover, but further down Route 6 and Route 15.

So that'll help number of the businesses down there as well as

the children that are there, I should say, not the businesses, that's ancillary, but the children that are there because of course we've gone to just all virtual for the year, I mean, for the winter so far, for this fall season.

And so we're concerned about that all the children can access the internet as easily as possible.

We're working with a number of churches to put in hotspots

as well as wherever is convenient that we can put in hot spots to do that.

So we're a little bit behind there, but we're being pretty aggressive about it and we're very fortunate to already have a lot of CVEC fiber in the ground, which is helpful.

We are doing an analysis to see if maybe we can expand that into some of the towers as well too.

Separate from that, we continue to see some positive growth on the economic development site.

We should have some announcements coming out in the near future, but we're getting a lot of momentum there and we're excited.

And so we're working on sharpening up our economic development package, which is a reflection of the finally bringing water to Fluvanna County on the Zions Crossroads side.

And I think that we're really benefiting from it in the long run.

So with any luck, we'll have lots more jobs coming to the area.

Thank you, Sara.

I appreciate that.

I see an applause from your counterpart there.

Thank you.

Bye, Keith.

Anyways, I think the biggest priorities in Nelson County is definitely access to broadband.

As everyone's familiar with our $1.25 million we spent in expanding that.

We're looking at doing that again.

and trying to get to another 500 plus households within the next 12 months.

As we've come to the realization, it's a nightmare everywhere.

Again, as I said in the last meeting to Albemarle and Charlottesville, guys, y'all sneeze, we catch a cold, still got a lot of farmers struggling, there's a lot of people who are struggling all over the place and I am hopeful that we'll be on the other side of COVID.

We're all holding tight and I hate to hear the word new normal,

I hope that's, I'm going to go with we're in a season and then pray that it's something different on the other side.

Thank you, Sara.

OK, thank you.

I guess I'll say thank you on that.

And Greene, a couple of things are going on.

As most of you know, we had an issue with our water authority.

We voted to pull out.

They voted not to allow us to pull out.

The resolution that the board has approved stated that if we were not allowed to pull out of the authority, we would seek legal action.

So at this point in time, we're trying to determine what needs to be done.

The bottom line is they have the authority or the ability to say there's not enough water to approve a project.

And they also have the ability to say they're not going to expand

The Water Access.

So it takes all public comments.

The Planning Commission and board, really, they could override anything that we decide to do as far as developing.

They do say they have a plan in place, but from what we're seeing, it does not relate to a 50-year water plan nor a comprehensive plan, nor does it seem to have a lot of meat and thought into it.

They tend to want to pull additional water from a river,

which feeds all the localities going downstream and in draft seasons that's not going practical.

So we're in that battle.

Our schools open up on Tuesday.

We're doing a hybrid.

We're doing K through five will be onsite.

Six through 12 is two days a week.

And any parent that wants to can do virtual.

So the locality has been working with different churches, different organizations, trying to get hotspots through the county.

And whenever Nelson and Fluvanna and surrounding counties work with Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, I always hear about how other localities are expanding internet and Greene County is not.

And so when you use the CARES Act funding to expand your internet, we don't have those resources that you do.

So we're very jealous.

We wish we could use those resources to expand internet and be up and running in a timely fashion.

We are trying to decide how to spend our CARES Act funding and our EMT or emergency services, our rescue squad will be going online in October.

And that's what we have in green.

Mr.

Chair, if I could, one thing did come into mind.

As we're talking about our next meeting in October, we do hope to, if not October at the November meeting, have a presentation for you that we will introduce you to our new website.

We have completely revamped the PDC website, trying to make it just modernized and more user-friendly.

And at the same time, we're hoping to also have for you a draft

of the Regional Housing Partnership's affordable housing website.

We have issued the notice to proceed and held the kickoff meeting with the consultant that is putting together a regional website and search engine for both rental and home ownership housing throughout the region and

So that local developers and landlords can submit their properties to this site and folks looking for affordable housing can go directly to this site in search of those.

So we hope to be able to run both of those by you in either the October or the November meeting.

the affordable housing website, we're very very excited with that we do feel that we've received a little bit of a reprieve and if you've all seen the federal administration has put a federal eviction stop stop eviction

Regulation in place that holds evictions for rental properties for several months.

Yeah.

Can you elaborate on that?

So are evictions banned until then?

Okay, the end of December.

Now, my understanding is there will be some legal challenges

to whether the president has the authority to be able to do that or not.

Thank you.

Any more questions for Chip?

All right.

Now, just a reminder, our next meeting will be on Thursday, October 1st, 2020.

As of right now, the time has to be determined.

If you want to do these in study hall,

You want me to tell you what the answer is?

I'm sorry.

They're doing homework.

Yeah, guys, make sure you mute your microphones.

You're not speaking.

Sorry.

Yeah, math is a bear.

Especially virtually.

All right, guys, with that said, we are now going to be entering into a closed session.

We have a motion before us.

I'll need somebody to please read that motion.

Mr.

Chair, if you will, David called it to my attention even last time and I miss changing it.

Actually, what I have says acquisition or property, Chip.

Mr. Chairman, I, Jesse Rutherford, move that the commission be convened to a closed session pursuant to property acquisition exemption found

And we have a second for Ms. Bishop.

Sorry, had to get the mute button.

Ms. Bishop?

Aye.

Mr.

Mr. O'Brien?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

At this point, for any of those who are in public, we are going to exit in closed session.

Mr.

Herring, can I interrupt for a second?

I think now we have to read the motion to exit.

Oh, that's on return.

All right, we're now back in public session.

I need a motion to exit the closed session.

Please read from your notes, if at all possible.

OK, I'll do it.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to exit the closed session.

We have a motion and we have a second.

Ms. Bishop?

Aye.

Mr.

Mr. O'Brien?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

Mr. Smith?

Aye.

And Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Thank you.

We have now the motion to certify.

It was discussed in closed session.

We have a motion and we have a second.

Roll call vote.

Bishop?

Aye.

Ms. Galloway?

Aye.

Mr.

Mr. O'Brien?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

That concludes all the items on the agenda.

Before we take a motion to adjourn, are there any other subjects or topics you might wish us to bring up at this point in time?

And if not, I'd like to state I'd like to thank Mr. Rutherford for stepping in for me last meeting.

I've heard some comments from some members of how grueling it was for those who participated.

I know.

Well, I'll joke aside, I do appreciate you stepping in last.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being back, fearless leader.

With that stated, it's nice to see everybody virtually.

Everybody's doing well.

And do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?

So made.

A motion and a second.

Me too.

Mr. Gallaway?

Aye.

Bishop?

Aye.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford.

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson.

See you all later.

Have a great week and stay healthy.

Thanks so much.

Thank you all.