Planning District Commission Meeting   3/4/2021

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Good evening.

I'd like to call the meeting of March 4th, 2021, Thomas Chesney Plant District Commission meeting to order.

We're happy to.

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

The meeting was held utilizing electronic virtual communication with the Zoom software application and in accordance with virtual meeting procedures and policies as outlined in item 4.0-01 of the Virginia state budget HB 29

as effective April 24th, 2020.

Thank you very much.

Do you mind going in and doing a roll call vote?

And I'm sure this will not be a roll call.

I'm sure this would change as the meeting goes on.

Sure.

Yeah.

Michael Payne.

Ned Galloway.

All right to remind everybody this is a public meeting and the meeting is being recorded as the meeting progresses we'll have I'm sure that Christine and Sandy will be monitoring to see if any other commissioners join us we do need a quorum for at least one item tonight one item is critical as far as a vote we do have three items on the agenda for a vote tonight three resolutions so hopefully we'll have a quorum before we get to that part of the agenda and Mr Payne just joined

Thank you.

If anything happens to those who are here, if for any reason you are disconnected, don't panic, just dial back in or reconnect and someone lets you back into the meeting.

You pick up right where you left off.

If for any reason I'm disconnected, Mr. Rutherford, device chair, will pick up and run the meeting.

And I'm sure that Christine and Sandy have backup plans in place as well.

We know the current environment.

We always like to think that things run smoothly.

That does not always happen.

Don't panic, just read it all back in.

If you remember the public, just do the same thing.

Thank you very much.

Sure.

If there's anybody from the public who would like to make a comment, you can drop a note in the chat box or just unmute yourselves and let us know that you would like to make a comment.

You would have three minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

At this point, we'll move on to item number three.

We have three presentations tonight.

And these presentations are the Fiscal Year 22 Ride Share Work Program, the Fiscal Year 22 Rural Transportation Work Program and Budget Draft, and Route 29 North Corridor Study.

All right, very good.

The first presentation we have for you is Sara Pennington.

She is our Rideshare Program Manager.

In the last commission meeting, you all approved a resolution to submit the application for FY22 funding.

So Sara is coming this time to go through what the work program for FY22 will look like and share that budget and answer any questions that you all might have.

All right, good evening, everyone.

Thanks for having me back again.

Just wanted to give you guys a chance to review the work program that we have proposed with our FY22 grant.

The grant was submitted, like Christine said, at the beginning of February and last month, the resolution for the commission passed as well.

So just wanted to give you a little bit more

Excuse me, more information.

I think everyone's fairly familiar with what Rideshare is, but just briefly, we are a program that was established actually in 1980 at Jaunt through the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to provide carpool and vanpool matching services and support.

The program later moved over to the TJPDC.

And then in 2009, we expanded our coverage to include

the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission.

So we kind of work in conjunction with our folks across the mountain.

We offer all of our services completely free and that is both to commuters and some services that we have to employers as well.

And that services are available to folks who both live and work in our particular planning district region.

In addition to providing the ride matching services with our online platform, Agile Mile, we offer a guaranteed ride home program which affords folks the insurance policy that if something happens while they're taking an alternative form of transportation, they are not stranded at work.

That is a great comfort and what we always hear as the first deterrent that keeps folks from taking that alternative transportation.

We also work with VDOT to inventory

our 26 park and ride locations throughout the region.

So we do quarterly checks on those.

We let VDOT know if there's something signage or maintenance that needs to be taken care of.

And then we keep a tally of the number of folks using those lots.

For employer services, we offer density maps.

We offer kind of to take a really a look at what that specific employer needs for them.

It could be parking management.

It could be looking at changing time schedules.

As of this year, it's been all about telework.

So there's a wide variety of different things that we can offer some of the region's employers.

We also do vanpool coordination as well.

We have three vanpools that come into our region and two that go out of our region to the Richmond area.

Some current initiatives that we have been taking part in with Rideshare is we have partnered with the C3, the Community Climate Collaborative with their Better Business Challenge.

We are on their steering committee.

We provided a lunch and learn on telework.

We are also involved with the Afton Express which some of you are familiar with which will be a bus service that will run from Stanton, Waynesboro, Augusta County area to Crozet and to Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

We are also starting to get plugged in now that telework is so important to some of the broadband

access issues and some of that information that's coming up.

Still involved in developing more park and ride lots.

We're also involved with the Regional Transit Partnership and have recently joined forces with UVA and the CSPDC on a co-working survey.

So we're looking at spots and how folks are open to the possibility of having co-working spaces as telework continues

So in the work plan that you've got, it just kind of goes over some of the highlights that we've had last year, which again, talks a lot about teleworking and some of those initiatives.

We also partnered with DRPT to do some transit appreciation posts for the transit workers in September.

We highlighted some of our commute folks with commute stories on Facebook.

and have had the opportunity to participate still virtually with many of our associations to continue professional development and learning.

So moving into FY22, what we're looking to do is to obviously continue providing the basic ride share services.

Even though things this year have been weird with the pandemic, there are still some folks who are going into work and who may still need those commute services.

So none of that has stopped, but we have pivoted a lot of our direction and especially our resource and information sharing into the field of telework.

Not having a crystal ball, it is my best guess that that will continue into FY22.

You know, everybody's coming back or evaluating when they're coming back at different times.

So telework I think is going to stay as a main staple of the information and part of the programming of LiveShare.

In addition to that, we also work a lot with our MPO committees.

So that is part of the program.

The big thing that we have or anticipate going on is we are looking at doing a marketing and branding initiative.

So we're looking to outsource in a marketing firm to do, first of all, an overall dive of

What are the options for marketing here?

How are folks in this area receiving their information?

We haven't had anything like this in the 10 plus years that I have been at the TJPDC.

So we feel like it's a really good time to check back in as to how better to reach

the commuters of our region.

In that we will work with them to come up with a plan that we will be implementing as staff here at the PDC for ride share and marketing all of the services in the area.

While we provide the carpool matching, we do also promote any other alternative form of transportation.

So

If there's news about transit coming up like the Acton Express or a new cat rattle, something like that, we would partner with them to make sure that that information is reaching the largest number of commuters in the area.

Everything else is kind of still business as usual.

We're looking to go back to advertising some more of those areas beyond telework once that becomes safe and DRPT in the state has given us the okay for that.

We look forward to hopefully doing some challenges and some promotions.

Again, a lot of that hinges on getting permission from the state and DRPT to do that.

I want to make sure there's plenty of time for questions, so I'm going to go ahead and open it up.

Just a general question.

We have seen some months our registration numbers are down.

I am still encouraged, though, that we actually are still seeing new registrants, even if it's just a few.

So again, that kind of lends to the respect that not everyone has the ability or the option to telework.

Thank you.

Question, do you think that the State Farm, the cylinder facility, is that going to impact the Ride Share Program?

So we did have some folks who were registered in Guaranteed Ride Home because since they were taking an alternative form of transportation, the minimum is two days a week.

So we did have a few folks in there and we would send them information.

I don't anticipate it being hugely impactful other than through mostly Guaranteed Ride Home.

One of the lovely things though, as these folks from State Farm are teleworking,

They can register in our system and actually still participate in our rewards program.

So everyone who's in the Rideshare database, when they register with us, they have the opportunity to log their trips, whether that's a telecommute trip or taking actual transportation.

And with that, they build points

that they can then cash in for rewards.

So there's actually more opportunities in some ways for them to participate.

Yeah, that is a huge change.

I remember when that news came out, I was shocked.

But it makes sense for them.

Any other questions?

Well, if you think of them at any time, my contact information at the PDC, feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you again so much for giving me some time to speak this evening.

All right, next up is Sandy Shackelford.

She's going to talk to, she's our Director of Planning and Transportation.

She's going to present the FY22 Rural Transportation Work Program draft and budget draft.

This will then come before the commission again in next month's meeting.

Sandy, correct me if I'm wrong.

You have the full draft in your packet.

So what I'm going to ask Christine to do is just to pull up the last table that shows the overall breakdown of

of where we're going to be spending that money.

Just as a heads up, I am assuming that this project budget or program budget is going to be the same as it was last year.

So this is state funding that they give us to basically do transportation planning functions in the rural localities or in the rural areas outside

of the MPO.

So this is a pretty standard amount.

It requires a 20% match.

So we end up with a budget of $72,500.

This year we've been using that funding basically to do a small area plan for Zion Crossroads.

And we've also been using that primarily to start this Route 29 North Corridor Study.

The first portion of that table just shows kind of the standard administrative tasks that we have to do regardless of what other projects we want to put into the work program.

So making sure we're meeting all of VDOT and voicing and reporting requirements, developing things like the rural work plan, which are required by VDOT.

and then making sure that we have staff available to coordinate the meetings and develop meeting contents and that kind of thing as well as just general information sharing which would be things like going to local government governing body meetings or planning commissions or going to meetings with VDOT or DRPT or those kinds of things just to make sure that we are aware of

Any sort of changes to regulations or programs that would be beneficial.

So the second part is where we have the opportunity to do more of the sort of project coordination work.

We are starting the Route 29 North Corridor study right now.

This is going to be funded jointly with the MPO as well.

This is looking at the North 29 Corridor from the northern portion of Albemarle County into the southern portion of Greene County.

So working on that, we'll continue to work on it.

next fiscal year as well.

So that's the biggest project that we're working on.

We will also continue to support our rural counties preparation of smart scale applications.

We leave a little bit of funding in there just for requests to provide assistance to the rural localities as things come up that maybe aren't necessarily on our

On our radar right now, things usually come up.

A lot of times it's a request for GIS assistance or there might be some grants that we want to work with the local governments to pursue.

And then we're also putting, this is a little bit new, but we're also putting a line item in here to support the regional transit partnership, travel demand management, and bicycle and pedestrian activities.

One of the reasons we're including this more generally is there are a couple of initiatives that we're not really sure what level of involvement may be needed, but we want to make sure that we're ready to support those.

One of those is the

The expansion of the Virginia Capitol Trail from Richmond through our region through the Charlottesville area and even west into Stanton.

We want to be able to support those initiatives.

The Regional Transit Partnership is currently in the beginning stages of kicking off a regional visioning plan.

And so we want to be able to make sure that we have resources to plug in some of the rural considerations into that regional transit partnership from time to time.

And then we also just want the flexibility to work with the local governments on different initiatives or projects that they're interested in that might help support some of the travel demand management, bicycle and pedestrian connections.

And then this last point I think is something that will help us develop these work plans into the future and that's just to spend a little bit of staff time or potentially work with a consultant to do some strategic planning to help identify where the opportunities are for us to most effectively provide service to the rural areas.

Are there things that

Maybe topically we're not hitting.

Is there a way that you prioritize your projects that you want us to include?

This will just help us give a better idea of how we can be thoughtful and intentional about making sure that the work that we do ends up providing the biggest benefit to the local governments.

So at this point, this is just an initial draft of the plan.

This will be presented to the Rural Technical Committee later this month, and they'll be able to provide comments.

And then our plan will be to bring this back to you all for a final resolution of support next month so that we could then submit that to VDOT.

I have a quick question.

You mentioned there's actually two questions.

The Capitol Trail, that goes from Richmond to Williamsburg right now.

That's part of what they're working on now to try to work with various local governments to identify where those opportunities are and to plan what that route might be.

It could be right now.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and Jessica, this next presentation, Jessica has a map that she'll pull up for you to show you.

And it might be better for the next.

Sorry, is that me echoing?

Sorry.

No, it's me.

Yeah, it's Blabbalot, Babiok.

I had a question for Sandy regarding the

The study, we have an excellent, you mentioned it, but the Zion area study, we have an excellent phase two meeting, a lot of great participation across the board and a lot of good results.

And I just hope they don't run out of funding

Sure.

And I will reassure you, Mr. Babiak, that while I cannot- I know my audio is awful.

Well, while I cannot control what happens on the VDOT side, I can assure you that we will, whatever we end up working with, we will complete our portion of it.

And I was curious how the, it might be for the next segment, but either way, how the breakdown for the 29 North study, it looks like it's 30,000 from the MPO and 20,000 from the rural program.

Is that just based on mileage?

Yeah well that's for this fiscal year is what the breakdown was so the portion for next fiscal year it's not really based on mileage it's based on sort of what is available through those programs because the MPO has a much larger budget than the

Rural Transportation Program does.

So basically we identified this as being the big rural transportation project.

Usually we have about $30,000 for those.

So that's what gets contributed from the rural transportation budget.

You will also see the Unified Planning Work Program for the MPO, I believe is that scheduled for the next meeting as well.

Okay, and that will be a draft.

The MPO will not have approved it at that point, but hopefully we'll know what's going to go into that.

That's going to be about a $50,000 contribution for next year.

OK, cool.

Thanks.

And I guess the other thing I'd mention is I know at the last MPO tech meeting, Tim Keller with Albemarle had raised some concerns about bike head or really bike, I guess, improvements on bicycle route 20 or 76 rather.

But it was outside of the MPO area.

So he said it was out of scope.

Sure.

Yeah.

Great.

Any additional questions for Sandy?

All right.

Very good.

Thank you, Sandy.

And then our third presentation is from Jessica Hersh-Ballering.

Great, thanks Christine and good evening everybody.

So what I'm going to do with these slides is I'm going to first give you an overview of the corridor study and then I'm going to go into some of the actions we've already taken and some of the actions we're planning for the future, including one action we're hoping that you guys will take today.

So first the overview.

So on the right hand side of my screen, you are looking at the study area.

So the study area extends from the south at Airport Road all the way up to Rutgersville at Route 33.

We decided based on conversations with Albemarle and Greene counties to include the airport and the UVA research park in the study area.

So the overall purpose of this corridor study is to develop broad transportation recommendations that complement the existing land use designations in the study area.

The focus of those recommendations are twofold.

One, the focus will be on transportation connections between housing,

and employment and educational opportunities.

And the second focus will be on road user safety.

Not necessarily in that order.

They are both equally focused on.

Additionally, this will not just be personal vehicles.

It will also include transit, bicycle and pedestrian transportation for the entire study area.

The budget for the corridor study for this fiscal year, as Rory just mentioned, was $30,000 from the MPO, $20,000 from rural transportation.

Just for this fiscal year, we are still determining the budget for next fiscal year.

The timeline for this project is about 18 months.

We began this project in about January, and we will continue it through this fiscal year and next, concluding at the end of next fiscal year, or June 30th, 2022.

So these are the efforts we've taken so far.

So far, staff at the PDC have met with planning and development staff from Albemarle and Greene counties to discuss study goals.

That's how we got those two focus items for our recommendations.

We have met with VDOT staff to discuss possible VDOT funded technical assistance in roadway data collection and to identify metrics of interest, like what exactly did we want them, what kind of data do we want them to collect.

In those meetings, we discovered that some data has already been collected as part of other projects, especially in the northern part of the study area.

So that's exciting that it's already been collected.

But it means they won't necessarily collect that same data in this round if we are to ask them to go and collect it.

So we'll just be working with some data from slightly different time periods.

Also, staff have identified potential organizations to be represented on an advisory group for the project, such as staff and elected officials from Albemarle and Greene counties, major employers from both counties, and transit agencies.

The next steps that we are planning to take are to continue to work with staff from Albemarle and Greene Counties to finalize membership for that advisory group to formally request technical assistance to collect roadway data.

So this would be, there's a little asterisk there because this is what we're asking of you later today.

This is the resolution that's in front of you to ask for this technical assistance from BDOT.

We will use any data collected to indicate areas of concern along the corridor.

So using that data to figure out where there are issues, where there are problems.

And then staff and the advisory group would work to create another scope of work for the remaining components of the study.

So once we get that data, once we identify where the issues are, what are we going to do about those issues?

And public engagement is going to be an important part of this corridor study as well.

Right.

I have one question regarding the intersection of 33 and 29 in Greene County.

There's a smart scale project kind of underway.

That's a great question, Sandy.

You're a little bit more up to date on all of the SmartScale projects.

So what this project is going to do is it's going to look at some of these specific intersections.

It's going to work with the community to really define the priorities and then look at where the opportunities are.

So if there's a SmartScale project that's already being implemented at that intersection, what it means is that we'll probably just be focusing on

either other things we need to consider about that intersection that already incorporates the improvements that are being made if there are other considerations or we're going to make sure that that's integrated into how that's going to impact operations further south down the corridor that we might need to consider when we talk about where the opportunities are and what kinds of solutions

might be recommended as a result of that.

So I think right now what's a little bit tricky about this process is we don't know exactly what kind of recommendations are going to come out of this until we start collecting data and know where we can identify some of the deficiencies as well as once we do the sort of the visioning or the expectation setting or the project

defining with the public as well to know what they're going to prioritize.

But the consultants will have all of that information.

I would just say that by underway, planning is underway.

Doing things has not happened at all.

And there are some concerns about the plan and changes in the plan.

right near that intersection.

So anyway, I just bring it up.

And I can add, Andrea, that's a great point.

Chuck Proctor also brought up the 33 intersection as well as the 607 or 670 connector.

I'm sorry, Dale.

And this is not a real pleasant aspect of all this Route 29 changes because

We have already witnessed an increased amount of truck traffic coming down Route 15 heading towards routes of Interstate 64 and the truck drivers and their GPSs are saying that it's a lot

Now, because of all the intersections, because of all the traffic lights, it's a lot faster for them to get to 64, even if they're going west.

So with all the increase of this development, that's going to, again, force more traffic on the 15, which wasn't built for that kind of traffic.

So I don't know how you can incorporate that in.

That's a great point.

And one thing I was going to state was that there are a lot of projects that are on the books now for Greene County as far as apartment complexes, which is, I guess, is north of the 2933 intersection.

There's also a subdivision that has been in the works for several years, which to prove this development to go ahead and move forward at a rate of about two years faster than planned.

And that's definitely going to add to the increase in traffic.

Probably, I don't know if it will affect your study or not, and I'm guessing the data points you received were probably from the study of the 2933 corridor and then a 607 or 670 connector that goes right there before sheets of 29 because we had two public hearings on each of those.

and probably in two years we'll see one if not both those projects started.

And then when you see that, what may happen is we may see a decrease in traffic on 607 and 670 because what happens is a lot of people from Orange County, I'm sure Louisa comes that way too, they'll cut over on 607 and 670 to bypass 2933 intersection.

And is the airport authority engaged in this or is that part of the one you choose an advisory board process?

Any additional questions?

Actually, I got one more question.

I know we've been talking about an MPO redistricting that would potentially end up including Greene.

I can't remember what timeline we were talking about that happening on.

I think it was dependent on census data.

Would that change the budget outlook?

I guess the whole project would be included in the MPO at that point, right?

Are you talking about for the project budget to complete it?

Yeah, this will hopefully be done by the end of next fiscal year.

And so we won't have any sort of changes to the boundaries by then.

I think if anything, we're probably would just be starting conversations about formally changing the boundaries of the MPO.

And based on some information we're hearing, there might be some delays in getting that census data anyway.

Makes sense.

Any additional questions or comments?

All right.

Here now I'd like to thank Sara, Sandy, and Jessica for your presentations tonight.

I know you probably had other things you prefer to do besides being in our meeting, but I appreciate you being here.

Thank you.

And with that said, we're moving on to our consent agenda.

And if there's no objections, I'll take these two separately.

And we'll vote first on the minutes of the February 4th meeting.

Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

Did Bob second it?

I don't know.

Whoever.

All right, sounds good.

Well, the only thing, Mr. Chairman, I was saying, for minutes, I think we could just go without, we can move without objection.

Newton's supposed to roll call, if that's proper.

I'm okay with that.

Do we have any objections to approve in a minute?

Okay.

Nada.

Okay, that has passed.

Thank you very much.

All right, I'm going to remember the monthly financial reports.

And I am going to share screen to make sure that I have in front of you the dashboard.

Can you guys see my screen?

Two seconds.

It's not going to the right.

It's not linking to the right page.

Well, I will find that dashboard as we are talking, and I will go ahead and get high level.

As I understand from sitting in the meetings, oh, here we go.

I apologize for the scrolling.

That's never fun when you're watching a screen.

As I understand from sitting in the meetings you guys get a more in-depth view on the quarterly meetings and then there's more of a high level from month to month so I'm going to go higher level this time if you want any additional detail or if you want me to not give as much detail on a monthly basis please just give me that feedback.

Okay, so for the net quick assets, they have increased for the month of January up to just over 780,000.

Based on a 12 month operating expense average, we have over seven months of operating expenses available.

Our goal is to have five months, anything in excess of the five months is then put into the capital reserve.

So we currently have in capital reserve.

just over $244,000.

As far as unrestricted cash on hand, our goal is to have four months of current target level.

Right now we're at 2.36 months, which is lower than we would like to be.

Our concern level, the alarm level is anything under two months.

Right now we're attributing that to waiting on some pretty large payments for some of the work we're doing specifically with

MPO with DRPT, there was some significant changes in their reporting requirements, which got invoicing to them a bit behind.

So we have several months that we're waiting to receive payments for all at once.

Similarly, for example, the regional housing plan that we're working on is based, payments are based on deliverables.

So we've done several months of work and we're just waiting on those payments.

So we attribute, we expect that number to begin to go up as we start to receive some of these larger payments for work that's already been completed.

As far as our revenue-less expenses, we had a net gain in January of $630.

In sitting with the executive committee and in talking with the former director, Chip, who said anything over a dollar is decent.

So keep in mind that it's not always going to be as significant as it has been in previous months.

We do expect our operating expenses to decrease a bit with the changeover in staff and being down a staff member.

And with these transitions and with a couple of changes that you'll see later that we made to the FY21 operating budget, we're expecting a net gain just over $100,000 for the year.

As far as our P&L with seven months or about 58% of the fiscal year complete, we've received 150% of our budgeted income and our expenses that are 142% and that's due to the emergency rent and mortgage relief program that we had significantly more revenue and expenses due to that program that weren't in the original budget.

and then operating expenses for that same period, we're at about 57%.

And so we're right on target with our operating expenses and our operating revenue, we're at 59.4%.

So we're also right where we wanna see ourselves for as far through the year as we've completed.

For our approved revenues report, our existing grant contracts and balances for FY21 are updated.

I will pull that up, but knowing how small it is,

It seems like it's not going to be too informative on a screen, but this is the accrued revenue report that we use to make sure that we have enough grant money to cover the expenses that we anticipate for the year.

So for the remaining five months, we have 117,000 available per month.

Our January operating expenses were 104,000.

So that should cover that.

And the 12 month average is about 107,000.

So we anticipate our grant money to more than cover what we need to complete the work through the end of the fiscal year.

And then finally, I included at the end of the financials, just a copy of the FY20 audit governance letter that we received several months after the audit is completed.

So I put that in the packet for your review as well.

I'd like to make a motion that we accept the financial report that's presented.

And it's a minor key thing on terminology.

We usually accept those instead of approving them.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Thank you.

All right, roll call.

Is he still on the call?

Mr. Galloway?

I'm not hearing anything.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

I just want to confirm Mr. O'Brien is not present, correct?

Mr. Smith is still not present, correct?

Ms. Bishop?

Aye.

And Mr.

Yes.

Mr. Chairman, before you leave this item, Mrs. David, can I jump in to let the Commission know something about this from a legislative standpoint?

Yes, sir, definitely.

In my work with the Virginia Association of Planning District Commissions, we had some

time in discussion with the auditor of public accounts last fall.

They were seeking to try to educate different commissions and authorities and districts that are required to report their financial statements and audits to the APA on a yearly basis.

And one of the things that came out in that report

was that it was really a tight time frame for these entities to meet the state requirement to get their audit scheduled, get it performed, get it done, get it approved in a very tight three month time frame, which is the current state law.

So we had a bill introduced during the most recent General Assembly session.

It was approved unanimously.

And so now

The state law will allow those entities until November 30th, so five months to get that work done.

So I don't think anybody in the planning district world that we heard from was able to meet that three month time frame.

Thank you.

Anybody have any questions for David on that issue?

Any comments?

All right.

Thank you, Dave.

Appreciate that update.

Moving on, we're on item number five.

We have three resolutions before us, and we do have a quorum present this time.

I'm going to hope that this link works.

Excellent.

Quick background, and I know you all know this, but the very first step in the budget is to approve a projected budget in September or October, then comes back to the commission to approve the operating budget in May preceding the fiscal year.

And then during the fiscal year, we approve an amended

Fennell operating budget with changes to revenues and expenses based on more accurate up-to-date information than the projections we're able to provide.

So that's the one that we're at right now.

There are only a number of minor adjustments from the budget that you received last month in draft form.

They're very small changes, but I want to make sure that I highlight those so you can see what those differences were.

The first is we removed a program 189.

We had been receiving local contribution for this.

It's not an active program right now and so we just pulled that from the budget to clean it up a little bit.

Further, the rideshare revenue, both state and local, reduced by $11,984 due to budget amendments from VRPT for FY21.

So we removed some of that revenue that would be received.

And then additionally, we transferred a reserve transfer from deferred revenue.

This is the year that we'll begin the solid waste plan update.

I'll say a little bit more about that later.

But what we do is we generally have just over 10,000 a year to work on that.

And we've put aside half of that and passed that through from year to year.

So in the year that we're developing the plan,

There is enough revenue to cover the work that's required.

So we're pulling in 7,000 from that deferred revenue in order to cover the work on that plan.

As far as changes to expenses from the last one that you received last month, same thing, cleaned up the expenses related to that same program that we removed.

And then there were minor adjustments in multiple programs, but overall it only resulted in a net change of 176.

So it's very insignificant.

and then changes to pass through or the ones I spoke of.

We moved $5,000 in this fiscal year up into the solid waste as well as we removed $11,900 and passed through for the ride share due to the reduced revenue.

So overall that took our, exceeded, we moved up the expenditures

The revenues will exceed the expenditures by more than they were presented last month, and it should be closer to over 100,000 than it was last month with somewhere hovering around just over 90.

We're continuing to work on the FY22 budget that will come to you all next month in its draft form.

And then we do anticipate a bit of a gap for FY22.

So some of this

revenues that are exceeding expenditures, some of that may be used in order to balance the FY22 budget.

So we may need to pull some reserve transfer in order to close that gap.

So

What we have in the resolution states what the original annual operating budget revenues and expenses were that were approved May 7th.

It then says, whereas as the interim executive director is now recommending the amended operating budget with the revised revenues and expenses and resulting in the net income of 103,000 just above.

And then

following with the code that follows.

And then the staff recommendation is to approve the final amended FY21 budget.

Thank you.

I've got one other little tiny thing.

It's a formatting thing on the

Right below the operating expenses, there is the terminology on the next line, net ordinary income dash pass-through dollars.

It seems a little bit different than what we had there before.

The whole point is we have an amount there which is income including pass-through.

office expenses that do not include pass-through, and then we have all of our pass-through dollars that are being deducted that are, it's kind of like we don't maybe need that subtotal error, or if we do, we need to call it something different.

The pass-through dollars are all those items that are listed there.

There's, I don't know, one, two, three, I guess, items listed there.

And the point is to really break out the dollars that are in the income.

The way we do our profit and loss statement, we do not break out of federal, state, local, all these other revenue items.

We don't break out pass-through monies from grant monies.

They're not broken out in the revenue side.

And we didn't use to break them out anywhere.

So it was very hard to pick out the ongoing office costs

So we have done that now and that's a help.

I'm just a little feeling like we're calling that one line the wrong thing.

And I don't, I've just dropped it right there.

I guess I could discuss this with Christine separately sometimes, not drive you all crazy.

We'll talk on the phone or something.

I'm going to drop down real quick.

Andrea, that would be helpful to talk offline if there's a better way that I can be reporting that.

I think one of the reasons I brought it up is because we removed it in this revenues list.

We removed it from the pass-through and put it up into active.

So I just wanted to make sure that that change was noted somehow.

Correct.

Do we have any other comments or questions?

Hearing none, can we have a motion to approve the resolution as presented?

I'll make the motion.

Do we have a second?

Thank you.

Sure.

And I'm so sorry.

Thank you.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien?

Mr. Smith?

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. Babiak?

Ms. Bishop.

Aye.

And Mr.

Aye.

The resolution passes.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on to item number B under resolutions to VDOT technical consultant assistance for the north 29 corridor study.

Okay, so this one is related to the presentation that Jessica gave on the North 29 corridor study.

VDOT has funding available to conduct planning studies for high priority areas as identified in the Virginia Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, OIP.

And that's also through the multimodal transportation plan, which is V-Trans.

So in order to have access to that funding, the governing body has to approve a resolution to seek that funding support.

Thank you.

Do you have any additional questions or comments?

If not, can we have a motion?

So moved.

OK, thank you.

Sure.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien?

And Mr. Smith?

Ms. Wilkinson?

Ms. Bishop?

Aye.

And Mr.

Resolution passes.

Thank you very much.

And the last item under resolutions is 5C is to 2021 CDBG regional priorities.

This one is not formatted as a resolution, but it does require a vote of the commission.

So I put it in this section.

DHCD, Department of Housing and Community Development, who administers the CDBG program, Community Development Block Grant, asks for the PDCs to submit regional priorities for anticipated CDBG applications from the region.

We reached out to local governments and through you all and to area housing agencies, service providers,

For any notice of anticipated FY22CD we do projects so that we could include them in our prioritized list.

Albemarle, Scottsville, Nelson, and Louisa all sent staff anticipated projects, which are included.

So at the bottom of this form that we have to send to BHCD, we show the priorities by type, as well as some expected FY20

It's their FY21, but it's our fiscal year FY22 proposals.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Thank you.

That was Dylan.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Payne?

Yes.

Ms. Price.

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Smith, Ms. Wilkinson.

Aye.

Ms. Bishop.

Aye.

I'm glad Louisa spent $15 million on fiber.

Mr.

Aye.

And the priorities passed as presented.

Thank you very much.

Item number six, new business.

We have the interim executive director, 100 day plan.

Give it a second.

It doesn't seem to be loading.

I'm going to pull that up again very quickly.

We even did a test to make sure it would work.

My apologies.

Give me two seconds to reopen this document.

All right.

Thank you.

Sorry for that.

Okay, so this 100 day plan really came out of discussions with both CHIP, but also I've taken it to the executive committee to get some feedback on.

I think especially in an interim role, it was really important for me to not only identify goals for myself and for the agency, but to figure out how to prioritize what needed to occur in this 100 day transition.

And so I went through and mapped out for myself

A timeline and a set of goals and what actions I might need to do in order to meet those goals within this 100 day plan.

So I just wanted to share that with you all.

I'm happy to get any feedback from you guys.

Any guidance would be wonderful.

And then I plan to work directly with Mr.

Herring on a regular basis so that he can help me monitor how these goals are going and how reactions work meeting those goals are working out.

So the five goals that I set for myself, the first one is related to regional community and that's try to integrate as much as I can into the regional community and to expand my own professional network.

The second was related to areas of opportunity for the PDC and just assessing where are we strong, where are areas that we can expand, what are some regional needs that we might be able to provide service.

The third goal was related to agency operations.

Since we're leaving the COO role vacant, it's going to be really important that we are managing the operations and that we're spreading out some of those responsibilities within the agency.

So that one was to not only maintain, but to continue to improve the agency operations.

And then the fourth goal was related to my own professional growth and that's to identify and take advantage of any opportunities that I can through this hundred day process.

And the fifth goal was related to an agency review and in order to serve effectively in this interim role, I felt it really important to kind of do a pretty good review of all of our agency's guiding documents to make sure that I am

following things like strategic plan, bylaws, comprehensive plan, all of the different agency documents.

So I'm going to do a high level into each of these goals.

If you want any further detail, I'm happy to provide it, but I didn't think it would be a good use of your time for me to get into the individual action items as those are really to help guide me.

So for this first goal, integrating into the regional community and expanding professional network, things that I want to do here is make sure that I am staying caught up with what all of the regional bodies and community leaders and existing council and board of supervisors meetings, planning commissions, what's going on in those and staying very in tune to that in all six of the jurisdictions as I can.

I want to identify the key leaders and stakeholders and schedule one-on-one meetings to begin to develop relationships and to begin to network with all of the different localities the best I can in the amount of time given.

and then finally expanding that into meeting with staff and ultimately and trying to determine goals for our own staff and how to continue to engage in all of the localities and see if we can't come up with a plan for making sure that we have staff present.

in each of the localities as major decisions are being made or funding decisions, budgets are happening.

So that's related to the regional community and trying to engage and integrate into it as much as I can and learn as much as I can in these first 100 days.

The second goal is about areas of opportunity for the PDC, and this is going to be about making sure I'm subscribing to and following all of the local, state, and national agency newsletters, paying attention to what's going on in places like PRPTV.HCD, attending their meetings as I can.

and as they relate to funding opportunities and opportunities for the region and engaging regularly in the VA PDC peer-to-peer meetings so that I can also learn from like colleagues across the state and what other PDCs are doing and how they operate.

Goal 3 was about maintaining and improving the agency operations.

This is really kind of the nuts and bolts of what I'm going to have to do.

That's in finalizing the FY21 budget, preparing and presenting the FY22 budget, scheduling meetings with the chair and the executive committee to make sure that I'm getting feedback and course correcting as needed as we go through this transition.

But also attending staffs program and project meetings so that I'm providing support where that where I can and so that I can learn alongside all of the partnerships and committees that we have going on.

And then finally in the last couple of months, our hope is that we will be able to really look at operational needs for FY22.

And we're working on finalizing an agency communications plan so that we can better communicate with all of our stakeholders.

And then near the end, developing the next hundred day plan for what needs to occur in the next several months for the agency.

Goal number four,

So identify and take advantage of opportunities for professional growth through this process, making sure that I am identifying a local mentor who has a lot of government experience, joining professional organizations, getting as much development from those as I can, identifying relevant training or conference opportunities that might help close some of the content gaps that I may have in some of the areas that we work in,

and then continuing to meet again to expand this on the staff meeting with our staff one-on-one and you know helping our staff also begin to think about their own professional development goals and what the next year could look like for our entire staff trying to identify where are areas that we could use training or support from conferences so that we can continue to grow

And then the fifth goal was conduct a comprehensive view.

I'm happy to take questions or comments about that or even feedback.

Any guidance that you all have through for me as we go through this, I'm very open to.

Can I have one suggestion?

I have one question.

I would suggest that before you visit the Board of Supervisors of these particular counties that you might want to touch base

with a representative of that group, maybe one of the board members that is on, like myself or Mr. Barlow, to give you kind of a

A better preparation of what to expect or the potential questions that could arise.

This would familiarize yourself with all of the potential subjects and that way you'd be better prepared when you come.

Now, fortunately on one March, our first board meeting,

Mr. Barlow opened up his wallet and gave the Thomas Jefferson Planning Commission their full request of their budget request.

So thank Mr. Barlow for that.

Thank you, Mr. Babyok.

That's great advice.

And actually within the plan that I wrote for myself, one of the action items is to reach out one-on-one to elected officials before attending.

Any other comments or questions?

Mr.

Chair, if I may?

Yes, sir.

We have two.

We'll go ahead and see.

I'm not sure who went first there.

My question is pretty simple.

Thank you.

Yes, if I may.

Christine, I think your first priority is spot on.

You know, I've worked with you in other capacities throughout the TJPDC, and I certainly think you have the capacity and the skill set, but you know, what that executive director of the TJPDC provides for all the different localities is a confidant and a resource that we can turn to

from a locality and that we know that they're going to have the expertise of the region or the whole region in mind.

So, you know, in the past, reaching out to CHIP and saying, asking certain questions and then getting a review of not just, you know, a perspective from Albemarle, but how the other localities factor into whatever topic we were calling about.

So that came to mind when I saw your first goal and just wanted to point out to you that I very much appreciated that that's your top priority.

Thank you.

Thank you, Galloway.

Any more comments or questions for Christine?

I'd just like to say, thank you for the presentation.

It's a pretty ambitious goal for 100 days, especially during COVID.

I was thinking in your presentation how this would be in a normal situation.

And then with COVID, and as we have seen tonight with internet access coming and going, connectivity issues, and trying to communicate,

It's really an ambitious goal.

So thank you for that.

We appreciate that.

I'm sure the rest of commissioners do as well.

Thank you so much.

With that said, we'll move on.

And I kept this section fairly brief because we did have three presentations that dug a little deeper into some of our topics.

And also happy to hear from you all moving forward.

If there are things that you would specifically like updates on, please let me know and I'll be sure to include it in the next executive director's report.

So just a couple of high level things.

The draft FY22 budget is coming to you next month for review for a May approval.

The Urban Rivanna River Corridor Study, staff has completed a full draft of this study.

It's currently being reviewed by both Albemarle and Charlottesville city staff.

And we anticipate finalizing the recommendations by the end of the fiscal year.

And then it will move into the public comment and review phase.

So that's moving along very smoothly and on target.

The five-year Thomas Jefferson Solid Waste Planning Unit, we call the Solid Waste Plan, staff are working on the initial data collection for that.

A working group has been established and they are now meeting regularly to provide updates and guidance on that plan.

It should be brought before you all in the August-September timeframe for your review and consideration for approval, and then that plan is due to be submitted to the Department of Environmental Quality, DEQ, by October of this year.

And then again for that one, like I said in the budget conversation, we do a set aside a pass through each year to make sure that we reserve enough resources to complete that plan.

We are diligently working on this regional housing plan to incorporate a draft comprehensive plan housing chapter for each of the jurisdictions with recommendations for addressing the housing needs both in each locality but also as a region.

We will highlight the regional housing priorities in there and talk through what each local government can do to support the regional priorities.

We have what's called Strategies and Analysis Committee from the Regional Housing Partnership that has been instrumental in guiding that work.

It's been a very active committee.

The final draft is expected to be completed

Ambitiously by April 1st is still our goal.

We are desperately trying to meet that deadline.

But then it'll be presented in each jurisdiction for review with ultimately going back to the Regional Housing Partnership to make a recommendation to you all as a commission to approve that regional housing plan.

We are recently in conversations, but initially, just to back up a minute, originally this plan was going to be following behind the work that the city of Charlottesville was doing.

So when this process first started two years ago, the city was already out ahead.

They completed their

needs analysis.

We're moving into the housing plan development.

And so as a PDC, we were going to come in and do the remaining five counties.

And as it goes, we happen to have quite a bit of synergy and a lot of work is being done concurrently in the city and Albemarle County and the other four counties.

And so we've been in conversation with both Albemarle County staff and the city of Charlottesville staff to make sure that their chapters are included in the regional plan.

So that all of this kind of comes together and works together.

So I'm really pleased with the progress and how everything is kind of coming together at the same timeframe for the regional housing plan.

I'm happy to take questions, but I'll keep going and maybe save them to the end if you guys have any.

For the porch light update, the Regional Affordable Housing Locator website, we finally have backend access to some of the data.

It's not extremely user-friendly for pulling down reports.

So for example, if we want to see how many people conducted a search and did not find what they were looking for,

Right now you have to look at individual day data.

So we're working with emphasis to see if there's an easier way to pull down some of the back end data that we think will be useful for us moving forward.

What we are able to say is Porchlight has had a total of over 12,000 individual searches.

since it's been up with over 2000 of them occurring in fiscal year, in calendar year 2021.

So since January 1st, there's been over 2000 uses on that site.

There are currently 197 listings in the region by 76 landlords.

So as we have previously stated, our priority is going to be trying to get more units listed on this site and see how we can use this

I know a lot of other areas are using this for example to require proffered units to be listed so finding better ways to utilize this site from a listing standpoint.

We're going to continue to monitor the statistics that are coming out of it but again I'm going to have to work with emphasis directly to see if there's an easier way to gather the information that we want rather than clicking on individual days on a calendar which

We're not able to export in mass what we want to get.

So we're working on that.

And then Water Street Center continues to be no public meetings due to COVID.

We are allowing United Way to continue to use it for their tax filing program for eligible families.

But we have pretty strict cleaning protocols in process.

But otherwise, we're still not using the Water Street Center for any public meetings or public meets.

Not a question, but just a comment.

I'm really excited about the regional housing partnership and that plan.

I think it's really going to connect with what we've been doing locally and

I think it's just going to be a huge step forward for that regional approach, which every day when we discuss housing here in Charlottesville, we hit on the reality that it's a regional problem.

It's not just Charlottesville.

So really excited to see the progress there.

Thank you.

Any more comments or questions?

Okay, thank you, Christine.

Now it's everybody else's turn, I guess, to make a few comments here and there.

And what I'll do is I'll go ahead and go through, or if I miss anybody, I'll apologize in advance.

I prefer to meet face to face, look at everybody's picture or name on the screen.

Sometimes I get confused and I will skip over somebody.

And if I do, I'll apologize in advance.

Politely stop me or yell at me as you see fit.

Mr. Griffiths, give me the look already.

I haven't skipped you yet, but I'll come to you in a few minutes.

So we'll start with the city of Charlottesville first.

That's okay.

And Michael, we're going to start with you, sir.

Goodness.

Well, the major thing for us in Charlottesville, especially over the next year, is really rebuilding our organization and getting it to a better place.

Chip has entered on with a daunting task, but perhaps not surprisingly to some of the people here, a lot of positive work has started.

I'm optimistic that we're moving into a much

More stable place.

The big thing for us is the budget.

Like with everyone, we're beginning our budget process and starting some of those work sessions.

We formally adopted our affordable housing plan, which is now part of our comprehensive plan.

And we're also working on our comprehensive plan update as well as the zoning rewrite.

So those are going to be pretty big and longer term, but we're continuing to make progress there.

Something that's come up that may be of interest to other localities, I don't know, is we've been working for a long time on a school reconfiguration process to invest in our school facilities.

And one of the challenges being able to afford it, especially in the pandemic and the revenue impacts.

And one of the things that's been suggested to us as a possible idea is the General Assembly

one or two sessions ago passed legislation that allows localities if the General Assembly approves it to increase the sales tax by one cent by referendum and all that revenue would go strictly to school facilities and that's something that again needs to be approved by the General Assembly and I think the General Assembly is also

We also discussed legislation that could allow that to happen statewide.

Right now it's only a couple localities, but that's something we're really exploring as a possible way to be able to fund our school reconfiguration.

And if, I don't know if other localities are in similar situations, you know, what we've heard from our representatives is it'll be much more likely to happen and happen quicker if we have a groundswell of many localities saying,

This would be a useful power for us to have.

Thank you, Sara.

Yeah, that was pretty comprehensive, but I'd add the Cherry Avenue small area plan that TJPDC wrote was approved.

I think I mentioned it last month.

It was revised and then approved on Monday.

And as Councilor Payne said, the Affordable Housing Strategy comp plan zoning rewrite continues apace.

Council just gave an informal nod to the affordable housing component of that plan.

So that will now be folded into the comprehensive plan.

We just had our first work session talking about the future land use map, and we'll have another one later this month, which is really getting to the meat of the comp plan.

Now that we're in our fifth year of this comp plan rewrite, it's good to see it finally chugging along and I'm hopeful that this will be the final year.

I really, really hope.

Lastly, our housing production goals are in.

Sorry, so we produced just under 100 housing units last year, which compared to Albemarle's 1140 was a pretty pathetic turnout.

So more housing pressure spilling out to the county and to the outlying counties until we finish this comp plan and zoning rewrite and hopefully accommodate a lot more growth within the city.

That's what I got.

Thank you, sir.

I appreciate that.

Another whole lot to report.

We got our county executives recommended budget.

It was a little surprising, I think, to our supervisors last evening that no one had signed up during public comment to speak to that.

So we're getting ready to kick off work sessions next Wednesday and we'll be working through the budget.

And the only other project I thought I might add is

We approved a land use application to rezone the red carpet in property on 29 turning that into what will be predominantly affordable housing units with one commercial building at the front.

And while that is going up in phases, the red carpet in will immediately within a couple of months be accessible to those who need emergency homes.

So those who are struggling with homelessness right now under emergency situations, all those units will be open up to them to be able to serve those struggling with that right now.

And we'll continue to do so as that project gets online.

That's all I got.

Thank you, Ned.

Thanks, Dale.

As Ned said, it's kind of quiet.

We're working on our comprehensive plan, our housing plan, our healthy stream initiative.

As Ned said, we're talking about our budget, which is pretty exciting to start off with a balanced budget proposal at the beginning and no tax increase.

But we're looking to put a few million dollars towards expanding broadband and some other pretty significant things.

One of the more interesting things that happened last night at our meeting was we're talking about revising our community development fees.

And as our community development office was checking with comparable jurisdictions, it was quite interesting to see how different

Different governments actually calculate their fees.

Some do it based upon a square footage of the improvement.

Some do it on the estimated value of the improvement.

Many jurisdictions, as in Albemarle, have not revised their fees in some period of time.

So it's really going to be a pretty complex aspect as we go through that.

Also looking at does the developer pay all the costs or should part of that be considered to be community improvements as a result of a particular developer's improvement.

So it really is a, it was a quite fascinating presentation given to us by our community development office on just how complex it can be in trying to figure what are reasonable

Fies for development aspects.

But other than that, I think Ned really covered everything.

We've got about twice a week for the next four or five weeks, these budget work sessions.

So our eyes are bleary.

The numbers are small in print and font, but large in numbers and the calculations are significant.

Thank you.

I don't think we have an invite for Fluvanna just to make sure I don't see Tony O'Brien or Keith Smith.

Is that correct?

Okay.

Moving on to Louisa.

Tommy, let's start with you first.

I know you have some internet news to speak of.

Thank you, sir.

That's the main thing.

We're like everybody else.

We're in this budget session.

So far, that seems to be going pretty smoothly.

The James River water line is moving along inch by inch.

Maybe one of these days that'll happen.

Thank you, sir.

Bob.

Yeah, this is kind of strange because all my Zoom other meetings, I don't have this issue.

So I'm going to have a technician come in, or I might go to the Ned Galloway telephone to do the verbal.

We do have a few other deals.

On Monday, 1 March, we also approved the panhandling prohibition.

So no more panhandling in Louisa.

We also approved a 2.5 million study to bring water from Ferncliff up to our industrial future site at Shannon Hill.

The latest on the 120 foot flag pole.

Right now, the Flaggers Inc bought and paid for,

paid for a permit to reduce the height of the flagpole down to a maximum 60 feet.

That is supposed to be done either the 13th or 14th of March, depending on weather.

I wanted to have a big thank you for the terrific job

that Mr. Block did on the huge state budget.

He just put it out in such great plain English, even I could understand.

And it was a tremendous effort and it really paid a lot of dividends.

We're just going to have to wait for the trickle down impact of how it's going to affect each of our counties.

And Governor Northam visited Louisa today.

He specifically went to our high school to see the CTE program, the CareerTech program.

And he spent a few hours there talking to both staff, teachers, and students.

So that was a barn burner for us.

Thank you, sir.

Believe it or not, most of that was totally clear at that time.

So appreciate that.

All right, moving on to Nelson County.

Yeah, so on Tuesday night, we've got our solar farm and nonconforming ordinances going to the Board of Supervisors.

We're also working on other minor ordinance revisions just with our small staff of two.

We've been trying to chip away at what we can.

So we've got some other minor things going.

Other stuff we're drafting leading to potential mixed use districts, which would allow higher density, like commercial uses.

So we've been working on developing and drafting some of those ideas because we are anticipating some level of funding this budget year to get

The ball rolling on that.

So we're looking forward to the housing chapter coming out and being able to incorporate all of that cell phone towers, solar infrastructure, taking an inventory of all of that, trying to figure out what areas to highlight, how to steer development there.

We've also been working on our iWork software.

The company's called iWork.

So

We're pretty much up and running with that.

Our building office now has the ability to apply online, request inspections, look up permits.

So not able to make payments online yet, but we're, you know, been taking these few months, first few months of the year to start that.

And so that's been going pretty well.

So if anyone has questions about that or tries to use it, then let us know.

Yes, it's always a pleasure to see you folks again virtually for almost a year straight.

I can't wait for us to be back to normal.

Again, I want to congratulate Mr. Babyok getting all that fiber internet.

I'm glad I could lead the charge for you.

I'm just kidding.

However, I do want to say that here in Nelson we have a lot of opportunity coming as it relates to revitalization of Livingston and hopefully we're going to get some good efforts moving forward on some housing development and of course that's a huge topic that we continue to talk about and I do know this that

With the nature of things today and the cost of supplies, if you're a builder like myself and a property manager like myself, it's kind of a terrifying environment to think about housing.

I do think a topic that is very much untalked about when we approach affordable housing, you know, we haven't had foreclosures in almost a year.

Since March, there's been a prohibition on any foreclosure that is related to a loan that's insured by the federal government, which sets a very dangerous precedent, potentially this summer, when that foreclosure ban is raised.

You're gonna see approximately, they say around two to five million homes being foreclosed upon in six months immediately, which is very dangerous now.

I think that's something that we all need to be conscientious about from Louisa all the way to Nelson, because when you have a huge cheap supply show up, you have major impacts hit many different avenues ranging from social services to

Rental property availability all the way to just general economic impact and people not being able to pay taxes or whatever that may be.

So that's just something to keep in our ball caps thinking about it as we go into this coming year.

And beyond that, still mischief.

So Mike, you better be taking care of it, boy, all right?

We're trying.

Again, the Nelson County threatened ban on goods going to Charlottesville is still a potential.

Working with Babyok on shutting down 64 potentially.

I'm just kidding.

So, but anyways, we appreciate it.

And I've had a chance to watch it on a couple of your meetings and I'm grateful to see his input in him holding these meetings together well.

Beyond that, real quick, this is to Donna real quick if you're listening.

Working on some stuff down in Schuyler.

We're trying to do some youth stuff at the Schuyler Museum.

I mentioned this to Liz Palmer.

I got the Yancy folks.

They're going to be meeting me out there.

I really need to get a hold of y'all's rec department because we're trying to do some neat stuff with the kids in Schuyler's 50% Nelson, 50% Albemarle.

So if I know, I think Liz may have forgot to email the rec person, but if you could or Ned or whoever, if you could shoot them a message and tell them to contact me, that'd be awesome.

Sure.

I'll send a note to our parks and rec.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

We're just trying to do some kid stuff in Schuyler.

So that's, you know, that's a Scottsville piece too.

Thank you, sir.

I love to listen to you do our report, Dale.

We'll probably be at the door on time, too.

Yeah, this is your first meeting.

Great job.

I agree.

This is the first full meeting.

I think last meeting Chip was here chiming in.

We know that Chip, if he's in your room, is going to be chiming in.

Well, I wondered.

For Greene, a couple of things.

We're entering our budget season just like everybody else.

We do have some significant potential impacts.

One of those, of course, there's our water project.

As most of you know, the water authority removed all of our revenue streams that were created to pay for the upcoming debt.

That can have significant impact on our budget.

We're trying to pull out a water authority to be in charge of our own

Future, if you will.

And that's got some challenges with it as well, but we feel like that's the best approach for Greene County.

It'd be the best approach for Albemarle County and Orange County as well, because what happens is we've got a lot of people from Albemarle or who work in the City of Charlottesville, work in Albemarle County, they move to Greene County.

Whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, we need water to make sure these people have a place to come to.

And we've got a lot of development coming online.

So you're probably, in the 29 studies you mentioned earlier,

All this relates to what's taking place as far as water goes.

So we're trying to wrap this up as quickly as possible.

We had wanted to start our reservoir project about two years ago, and RSA seems to have different opinions on that.

So we're moving forward the best we can, and we work in cooperation with Orange County and Madison County trying to get their project moved forward.

So that's one of the budget issues we may have.

Broadband, believe it or not, thanks to all of your efforts, we're now seeing some trickle down into Greene County.

Orange County, which is not part of this group, they came from Louisa to Orange and then into Greene.

So Orange County would actually have a fiber coming into the northeastern part of our county for a subdivision, and they may want to expand into some northern regions of Greene County.

We have Chantelle coming from across the mountain, and they have a, they just approved, or we just approved the extension of one of our towers,

And they will offer what's called beam technology to about 527 residents in Greene County.

And we're still working, waiting to hear back from a VANI grant to see how that works through.

And I know tomorrow there's a presentation, I think David sent the information out, and David's part of that presentation tomorrow concerning, if I'm correct, I think it's tomorrow, concerning the Louisa, which is RAC, CBAC, and Old Dominion collaboration.

Actually, Mr. Chairman, it's next Friday morning at nine o'clock.

Okay, I'm glad I brought that up.

So I'm looking forward to that presentation.

I really want to see how Louisa had worked through the process and hopefully that will offer us an avenue to improve our broadband access.

And that's pretty much it for the most part for Greene County right now.

We were here a lot in the budget cycle as we go forward.

We started it last Tuesday.

DeBulca will be presented probably this coming Tuesday.

And then of course, we have to advertise our tax rate by next Thursday.

And as you know, the tax rate you advertise is the maximum tax rate you can charge at a given time.

So we've got a lot of work to do in a short period of time, but I would like to say it's easy, but every year for us seems to be a challenge.

It's just a different set of circumstances.

And that's all I have for Greene.

With that, do we have any other comments or any questions

Thank you, Christine.

Good job, Sandy and staff.

Appreciate y'all.

Thanks, Jesse.

Yes.

Just real quick to David on legislative update.

As it relates to, all right, this is a fun topic because I represent Schuyler, so I get these questions all the time.

What's the status of legalization right now?

Okay, this is important.

So the bill was only like 207 pages long.

Many parts of it had a reenactment clause attached to it, meaning that it has to come back before the general assembly next year for approval.

But probably to more directly answer your question, the legalization and the retail portion of it would not be under the current legislation until 2024.

So there's a lot of work that would have to be done in the meantime, setting up the regulatory scheme, et cetera, et cetera, figuring out all the, you know, the logistics of doing it.

So, I mean, this is, so it's legalization, but not essentially.

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that's taken effect July 1.

You know, last year, the General Assembly decriminalized it, but there's a difference between that and legalizing, you know, whatever amount they would choose to legalize.

And I can tell you that, you know, it's still, I would say it's probably still a very fluid piece of legislation, even for this year, because I know that there particularly are groups that want to go ahead and move forward with having legalization of small amounts,

Y'all need to get y'all's people straight and get this done already.

We've been waiting an entire, like 10 generations.

I represent Skylar and we're trying to make Skylar Skunk great again.

Charlottesville is not your problem for legalization now.

I'll tell you that.

Where our representatives are, or at least certainly don't want to see the timeline to 2024.

Well, I do think that on a local government spectrum, this is an important piece to talk about and the impacts, not just economically, but on how our police are policing and whatnot and how we train.

So I do think this is pertinent in the future of knowing how we construct ourselves, because I am fairly confident Nelson County is going to be a popular place.

I have actually full confidence in that.

and I'm Charlottesville Albemarle.

So how we adapt to that is going to be a critical piece.

I believe that there is some local revenue options built in.

I think it's an option for maybe an additional 3% tax on top of whatever the state tax would be.

And there's also, at least right now, there's a process included in the bill for a locality to opt out of allowing retail.

And I think that that would probably happen more on the front end of the next three years, that you would have to decide what you wanted to do on that front.

Well, I appreciate it.

Sounds good.

One comment I think I want to make to everybody.

I guess everybody saw the NACo CARES Act potential additional funding coming through.

Did everybody see that?

Because it was broken down, I think, by localities.

If you did, you might want to take a look at that for your region.

I'm not sure.

Nothing's guaranteed yet, if I'm correct.

It was just federal funding.

Where is that located?

The NACo site, when NACo sent an email out to, I know a county administrator sent it to the board.

It's from NACo.

They broke it down by locality.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, that was a breakdown of the amounts that you could expect from the House-approved version last weekend.

Of course, you know the Senate's taking it up this week, you know, and there'll be changes, you know, to the provision, I'm sure.

I've seen just a rough sketch of some, you know, components of the Senate's plan, but, you know, we may know something

And there's no discussion as of right now any restrictions related to that funding.

Under the previous funds, there was restrictions associated with what it could be used for.

I think that I want to say that there's probably, you know, it's pretty flexible in what was approved by the House.

I don't know that that necessarily will survive, you know, in full in the Senate.

I mean, it's really, I think just kind of hard to tell.

I mean, I've even heard that they may be trying to eat into the amount.

that's included in the bill to go to basically state aid or aid to states and localities, you know, kind of peeling some of that off, you know, for some other uses.

Thank you.

One thing I'll put it there for Albemarle County, I know that Albemarle County, the border we share

and a Southwestern portion of the county has this problem with internet access.

It might be worthwhile if the funds come through, if we're able to work together to try to cover that region more effectively.

That's just food for thought.

Together we might be able to bring something in that direction.

I know that you've been working on that and we have as well.

And again, that's the rural part of Greene County and Albemarle County Southwestern part of our counties.

Yeah, I'll just jump in and say one thing that might be relevant to rural broadband guys, not so much for me since I'm on Ting, but just hearing in the last week or two that SpaceX Starlink internet, that's like low latency, lower turbid satellite internet,

has started sending out invites to people who signed up for the beta in our region.

They finally got down to our latitude.

So keep an eye on that.

Yeah, that hit our area.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've actually had a couple of people, they sent the emails out.

Yeah.

There's a suggestion that I gave to

another Board of Supervisors up north.

You know, there is, if Starling proves to be a effective, which I think it could be, effective delivery of broadband, counties probably could potentially subsidize some of those upfront costs.

Yeah, and I think they actually got some of that FCC, Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the auction they had.

I think, at least in some of your counties, they were the winners for that.

OK, guys, any other discussion, comments?

All right, Christine, great job.

Staff, thanks for your presentation.

Do we have a second?

Second.

And I'll do this, I'll follow Mr. Roper's suggestion earlier.

Do we have any objections to adjourning?

Hearing none, the next meeting will be on April the 1st.

April the 1st, so that's the next meeting, so Michael Cole's going to be our next meeting.

I look forward to seeing each of you in person at some point in the near future.

I tell them, guys, stay safe, stay healthy, and thank you for everything you do.

If you have any questions in time, feel free to reach out.

Take care, everybody.