Planning District Commission Meeting   4/1/2021

There we go.

Just like to remind those that are present that this, even though it's April the 1st, this meeting is being recorded.

And so keep that in mind.

And with that stated, as we see all the members come along, which is great.

Sure, I'd be 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.

This 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 Chapter 56 as effective November 18th, 2020.

A recording of the meeting will be made available within 10 days on the TJPDC website.

Yes, if you don't mind, I'm going to do so.

Sure, no problem.

Commissioner Payne?

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Mr. Galloway?

Aye.

Mr. Smith.

Mr.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Here.

Mr. Bobbyak.

Mr. Barlow.

Great.

And Ms. Bishop.

Great.

Did anybody else come in?

Thank you.

We'll need one more to make any votes to make any decisions tonight.

While we're waiting for all the commissioners to come online, let's go ahead and start with matters from the public.

Do we have any members from the public that are attending the meeting virtually that wish to speak?

And if you do, please, if you're calling in, which I don't think anybody is, if you star nine, and if you are joining us by Zoom, you simply go to participants, and you can raise your hand.

And Mr. Chairman, just say no.

Mr. Barlow did just join us.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

All right, I'm not seeing anybody raising their hand.

Sandy or Christine, are you guys seeing anybody raising their hand to speak?

Okay, do we have any comments by email?

Okay.

We do have a change to the agenda tonight.

It'll be item number 5C, a resolution authorizing the issuance of a request proposal.

Each of you received an email earlier concerning that.

Normally in a meeting, we would vote to accept the agenda.

Do we have any objections to this modification to the agenda?

OK, great.

So item number 5C will be added.

With that said, moving on to the presentations.

The first one we have tonight is original cigarette tax.

I think, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, there's a memo in your packet that really just has some background

about the authorization for cigarette taxation that was given to counties by the 2020 General Assembly that's effective this coming July 1st to be able to tax cigarettes up to 40 cents per pack.

We've also talked a little bit about a piece of legislation that was introduced this past session, which as it started out would have required that counties that were going to levy a cigarette tax

would be required to be part of a regional cigarette tax board of at least 10 localities.

That legislation was amended through the process to point now where it is encouraging localities to implement the tax regionally, defines a regional board as being one of at least six localities, and then also lays out some of the duties and responsibilities

that a cigarette tax board would have.

Things like stamping, collecting revenues, distributing the revenues back, et cetera, et cetera.

But the main thing I really wanted to talk with you all about this evening is to just go into some detail.

I know we've mentioned the past several meetings.

I think there's been some mention of a cigarette tax or cigarette tax board at these meetings, but just wanted to go into a little bit of detail about some of the efforts

and some of the work that the TJPDC has been doing in this regard.

To get a sense from you all also that we're headed down the right path and then just to give you some sense of what we would see the next several months looking like in terms of continued to work on this issue towards setting up a regional outbreak.

So with that, I will tell you that we have in the past several months had a number of conversations

I know even before we really kind of started interacting with folks on a broader scale, we had some conversation with the Northern Virginia Cigarette Tax Board and their administrator.

They have a regional board in that area of the state that administers the tax for 19 localities.

Most of them are towns, the rest cities in one county of Fairfax that's part of that group.

Also talked with our legal counsel just to make sure that everything was kosher in terms of TJPDC being able to step into this type of an arena.

We're very grateful to have a session in the first part of December in which we had folks from the city of Charlottesville participate.

And Jason Vandiver, who's on the line tonight, the treasurer of the city of Charlottesville, presented a webinar.

At that time, we invited folks from throughout the region to join.

It was very informative to hear him talk about how the city implements its tax and administers the program and to have some Q&A with him.

It was very helpful.

And him, as well as Todd Dyers, the city's Commissioner of Revenue, have continued to participate and be a resource to us as we continue to have discussions.

We followed that up with a

We have a meeting in February in which we invited county administrators and finance folks just to again talk about where we were in terms of you're working towards a regional effort to get their questions answered if possible and really just to kind of see where some of them were in terms of the discussions that they were having with their boards and what the interest might be.

Number one in implementing a cigarette tax and number two doing something on a regional basis.

So all of that was very helpful.

We've continued to work just now the past couple of months in a smaller kind of working group.

We've got some county administrators.

Again, we've got the city folks.

Albemarle County has had a couple of staff people who have been very helpful.

They've been doing some of the number of crunching with regards to projecting revenue for not only themselves, but for other counties in the region and beyond.

try to take a stab at what some of the expenses might look like.

So it's really been a good group effort.

Again, I wanted to come here tonight to talk with you all about where we were headed.

I think from here, we see that following this meeting within the next week or so, that we would send out some materials to every jurisdiction in our region, which would be the city and the five counties, as well as the four towns.

that are part of our region, but also casting the net a little bit wider to some of the counties that adjoin you all, adjoin our member counties.

And a couple of things, send out some background materials, send out a memo, but also send a resolution of interest.

with the recommendation that the county boards consider that resolution, express your interest in participating in a regional effort, in a regional board, authorizing your county administrator or your staff to participate with us in discussions about what this may look like.

Certainly not asking anybody at this point to commit to anything.

Smith.

So, you know, that would certainly come later in which we would be coming back to do, you know, if there were to be a memorandum of agreement to establish a board and then certainly, you know, any county that wants to enact a cigarette tax would have to enact a local ordinance in order to put that on books.

Ideally, those resolutions would go out here in April.

They get put on agendas and get considered in May.

During that time, we'd also be working, continuing to work in our smaller working group.

Probably, again, on some of the financial things, looking at the sales projections, looking at revenue projections, really looking at what

trying to get a better handle on administrative and enforcement costs and those types of things.

And then hopefully being able to start sharing some of that information out on a little bit broader scale as well.

We would get those resolutions back, which again, I think is having a sense from the localities as to who would be interested in participating would be helpful as we're planning, just knowing how many entities we might be dealing with

and what some of the financial numbers might be looking like.

I think by the time we get to summertime, with June and July rolling around, we really want to be looking at what does this regional board look like, whether it's functions, what's the makeup of the board, what is the legal framework, those types of things, so that we can really be at a point during the summer that

We're going to be well positioned if there's going to be a regional effort that this thing is going to be ready to roll come January 1.

And again, I know I've talked about it here internally, but I think from when we started talking about it several months ago, we really look at it as being a six to eight month process.

So again, I just wanted to bring you all up to date again, get to get some

So I'm feeling from you all that we're headed down the right path on this towards setting up a regional effort.

And again, just you're not looking for any commitments from anybody at this point, but just knowing that we'll continue to move along with those folks who are interested and that tell us they want to be in so that we have a sense of, I guess, the scope of what we're trying to plan.

I actually would like to make a comment.

When Greene did a referendum regarding the mules tax, it actually passed pretty decently because the citizens felt like there was a lot of drive-by through Greene.

And so passers-by would be helping to take the burden off real estate taxes.

So this thing also seems to be a very good fit for Greene for the very same reason.

I see that we're not on that little list of the smaller group, but I just mentioned, I bring it up that this would, I think maybe be pretty helpful for Greene.

Of course, cigarette taxes like gas taxes may be a slowly diminishing source of revenue.

So that part is not good for anybody, but as far as cigarette taxes, maybe it's very good for everybody.

in other ways.

No, I agree with you.

I mean, this is something that I can't speak for the entire board, but I can definitely speak for myself.

We would be interested in pursuing this further.

And to answer your question, David, I think you're on the right track.

and I think that the TJPDC, what you're doing, test the direction we need to go in.

That's a question we're asking us tonight.

Sure, yeah.

I'd like to include, you know, maybe it's a county administrator, board chair, commissioner,

Thank you.

David, this is Tony.

I know Fluvanna County is interested in doing this.

Yes, sure have.

Thank you, Tony.

I sure hate taxes.

This is Jesse.

I guess Steve mentioned this the other day.

While you're looking that up.

This is Donna from Albemarle County.

We're interested in it.

We're interested in the regional approach.

Obviously, no one's made a final decision on this.

But candidly, we don't anticipate that the revenue that's generated is going to be significant enough to result in a reduction of property taxes.

We see it as a nice addition and we've got some particular things that we're thinking about using it for, but

You know, we just, I don't think at this point, our projections indicate that this is going to be a windfall financially in any respect.

Just a preliminary number, Jesse, 140,000 annually.

Now these calculations were really kind of based on a formula that Charlottesville uses and it came up with a per capita number of packs.

I think one of the things that's going to be more challenging as we move through this is getting a really good handle on what expected sales might be in any particular county.

because you can certainly see variations.

Is that $140,000 for Nelson County?

Yeah.

Do we have any more questions or comments for Dave?

And Dave, I guess what you're looking for tonight is pretty much

Yes, sir.

I didn't hear anything otherwise.

I don't necessarily need your vote or anything.

Keep moving forward.

I agree.

Thank you, sir.

I appreciate that.

All right, the next presentation we have is the fiscal year 22 MPO Unified Planning Work Program, UPWP, by Sandy.

Thank you.

I'm going to put up a couple of slides real fast.

Just to give you guys a visual.

So Mr. Stolzenberg has seen a version of this before, so I'll try to make it a little bit more higher level for you all.

But for those of you who might be a little bit less familiar with the MPO programming, we get funding, 80% of the funding for the MPO comes from federal sources, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration.

Those are matched by 10% from our state agencies, VDOT and the Department of Rail and Public Transit.

And then we also provide a 10% local match.

And so one of the requirements for receiving the federal portion of this funding is that we need to provide every year a work program that communicates what it is that we're going to be working on using those funds.

The FY22 budget for the MPO is $320,000.

And then in case you do go through the UPWP, the Unified Planning Work Program, and look at it, there's also a separate line item for VDOT to provide their staffing support for the MPO.

That goes through the VDOT budget.

That does not go through ours, but they do allocate a certain portion of funding for their staff to support the MPO operations.

At this point, we have had initial conversations with all of the MPO committees and have developed a draft work program for FY22.

So this is what is going to be advertised.

And this is the funding associated with each of the tasks.

And the MPO will be able to vote to adopt or to adopt with any amendments.

at their meeting in May.

And at that point, we will submit all of the formal resolutions stating that this is what we are committing to work on in FY22.

So just a couple of highlights for you.

Task one is the same sort of task one types of things.

Those are just things we have to do to keep the

MPO staffed and running committee management and voicing that kind of thing.

Task two is where we sort of devote our resources to the priorities for our specific planning.

So you'll notice that we, as we talked about last month regarding the rural work program, we are committing at this point $51,000 from the MPO to also support the Route 29 North Corridor Study.

If you'll recall, there was $30,000 that we also programmed into the rural work program.

So that is also included in this work program as well for the MPO.

We're going to start developing a scope of work for the next update to the long range transportation plan.

We want to do some strategic planning.

And then at their meeting at the end of May, the MPO Policy Board determined that with some of the programming and funding that wasn't already allocated, one of their priorities that they would like us to focus on is looking and researching best practices and opportunities for prioritizing projects that will help support the climate action initiatives that

are being pursued by both the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

So that's also going to go into our programming for FY22.

And then the task three short range transportation planning, a lot of those are pretty standard things that we include every year as well.

One thing that I will point out is that one of the goals for the MPO in fiscal year 22 and for this next upcoming round of smart scale

is that we really put some focus and attention into developing a much more robust engagement process for community engagement and input into projects before we start preparing the applications.

So we are investing a lot more of our staff time and resources into facilitating that process.

But the other items are fairly standard and also show up year from year to support programs that either are required

to be in compliance with federal regulations or things that we have committed to doing like supporting the Regional Transit Partnership.

So just wanted to give you guys a really high level overview of what is currently planned for the MPO to be pursuing, what that budget looks like.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

All right.

The next presentation we have is to Albemarle County Transit Expansion Grant Consultant Selection.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so there's a memo in your packet giving you some background on the Albemarle County Transit Expansion Project and the selection of a consulting team to support the technical aspects of the project.

So I've given an overview of this project before to this group, but just a reminder that the purpose of this project is to conduct a feasibility study and implementation plan for expanded transit service to population and employment centers within Albemarle County, particularly the Pantops area, Monticello,

and along Route 29 North between the city limits and UVA Research Park.

So specifically, the feasibility study is going to look at two different transit service options for each of those target areas.

And then an advisory group is going to help determine which of those two

transit service options will be pursued and put into an implementation plan that will be ready for the appropriate transit agency to apply to begin service for that transit service option in fiscal year 23.

The budget for this project is just over $100,000, with most of that being set aside for consultants.

The timeline for the project is about 10 months, so we should finish that up by the end of this calendar year.

So now we get into selecting the consulting team to help with this project.

So on February 3rd, we put out an invitation for proposals from the four DRPT bench contractors that specialize in transit planning.

These are the four groups and only Kinley Horn and Michael Baker submitted proposals.

We had a selection committee composed of myself as well as three staff members from Albemarle County, Trevor Henry, Kevin McDermott, and Siri Russell.

And we reviewed these proposals and scored them.

So we scored all of them from zero to 50 points along these four categories.

So the first category, which could earn the consultants up to 15 points was the vendor's understanding of the project scope.

The second category was the proposed project team, its qualifications and ability to complete the proposed workload in the designated timeframe.

And that could also earn them 15 points.

The proposed plans or methodology to perform all project tasks, which could also earn them 15 points, and then up to five points for the vendors past performance.

Ultimately, the selection committee determined that Michael Baker International, along with their sub-consultant, Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning, had the strongest proposal.

Things that the committee identified was that Michael Baker had a more thorough understanding of the scope of the project, a more thorough understanding of the study areas,

They more clearly indicated a willingness to consider non-fixed route transit service options.

They had a much larger team with a more diverse skill set that included specialized data scientists and very importantly, their estimated costs came within the project's budget.

The only like little flag, not a red flag, but a flag was that contract negotiations will need to clarify that the implementation plan technical memo deliverable will be received in time for the appropriate agency to apply for funding to commence service operation in fiscal year 23.

They plan to wrap up the project in March, but will need that last deliverable before

before then will need it in February so that the appropriate transit agency can apply for funding to commence service.

At this point, later on in your meeting, we have a resolution and our hope is that you'll recommend that you'll support the resolution to engage in contract negotiations and to commit to a contract with Michael Baker and their sub-consultants.

I don't have any questions, but I would say that was a great team from Albemarle County that you had.

and I would have a lot of confidence personally as a supervisor from the county on a recommendation that they came up with.

I was especially pleased to see Siri Russell from our Office of Equity and Inclusion involved in this.

We've been working really hard to make that a prospective rather than a retrospective consideration of the equity lens.

Do we have any other questions or comments?

And you have a chance to ask more questions later on in the meeting if you think of them as we go forward.

Again, that's item number 5C under resolutions.

All right.

Sorry about that, but I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on.

We're on to the consent agenda.

We have two items there, the minutes of the March 4th meeting and the monthly financial reports.

And what we'll do is, because individuals may or may not have attended the March 4th meeting, we'll take those individually.

So do we have any discussion?

Are there any changes to the minutes of March 4th meeting?

And if we do not, can I have a motion to approve them as presented?

Okay, so we had a motion from Andrew and a second from Donna.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I would be happy to.

Sorry, I wasn't at the meeting.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

And Mr.

Oh, I don't.

I will abstain.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

The next item on the consent agenda is the monthly financial reports.

I can do a very quick overview.

We're still at our goal of above five months of operating expenses.

We have seven

giving us just over $244,000 for capital reserves.

We're continuing to work towards a goal of having four months of unrestricted cash.

We're currently at 2.48, but at least above the concern level of two months.

Our net gain in February was $8,647, putting our total gain for the fiscal year just above $43,000.

We do expect our operating expenses to go down with the personnel transitions that have occurred.

At eight months through the year, we're about 67% through the year.

Our operating expenses are at 64% and operating revenue at 68%.

So we're right about where we would want to be.

According to our approved revenues report, we have ample funds to cover all of our expenses through the year with an average per month available amount of funding at $150,000 and our average spending at $106,000.

A year.

Christine, are you sharing your screen?

I just got it.

Okay.

No, I was just going to just do a couple of bullets.

Perfect.

Do we have any questions for Christine concerning monthly financial reports?

Thank you.

Have a second?

I'll second that, Mr. President.

All right.

I would be happy to.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

And Mr.

Aye.

Alright, thank you very much.

The next item on the agenda is the resolutions.

The first resolution we have before us is the Fiscal Year 22 Rural Transportation Work Program.

Nope, I'll do this one.

At the March meeting, Sandy presented the draft Rural Transportation Work Program for review.

As she stated at that time, we anticipate receiving $58,000 from

Virginia Department of Transportation with a 20% local match.

The focus of that rural program for FY22 is the North 29 corridor plan, as well as development of smart scale funding assistance and rural transportation program strategic plan.

Do we have any questions or discussion?

And if not, can we have a motion?

So moved.

We have a proper motion and a second.

I'd be happy to.

Ms. Price?

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

And Mr.

Aye.

The next resolution we have is the Albemarle Transit Grant Consultant Selection.

And who will be presenting the information on this?

Is that you, Christine, as well?

I see a hand raised.

This is the resolution that coincides with the presentation that Jessica gave both in the last commission meeting in March and just updated you on in April.

Thank you.

Do we have any discussions or questions?

And if we do not, can we have a motion?

So moved.

Thank you.

Do we have a second?

I'll second that, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, sir.

No.

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Mr. Barlow?

Yes.

And Mr.

Thank you very much.

The next resolution we have is when we add it to tonight's agenda is a resolution authorizing the issuance of a request for proposal

And we just had that presentation earlier from Jessica.

And I don't know if Christine or Jessica want to add anything else to this.

Christine raise your hand again.

This is actually a resolution for the regional transit vision plan.

So the one that we just previously approved in 5B was for the Albemarle transit.

This one is for the regional.

And I appreciate you all allowing me to add this.

A little bit late.

In reviewing our bylaws and the procedures for governing purchases for the PDC, we were reminded of the need for the commission to authorize issuing an RFP at different threshold costs.

And so since this one was a late add, I would like to read portions of the resolution to make sure that we are all understanding what this one is for.

So pursuant to the procedures and governing purchases approved by the commission in September of 2007,

Purchases greater than $30,000 require approval from the commission.

Also, whereas in Article 9, Section 7 of the bylaws, they further require the commission to approve purchases greater than $30,000.

And whereas the TJPDC was awarded $350,000 grant from the Department of Rail and Public Transit to conduct the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

with half of that being a grant from DRPT and a quarter being a match from Albemarle with a quarter a match from Charlottesville.

And the TJPDC will seek proposals from DRPD's pre-approved bench contractors to develop their vision plan at a cost that is greater than $30,000.

And the TJPDC commission is presented tonight and attached to this resolution a copy of the request for proposal for their review.

The Regional Transit Partnership of the PDC was appointed, they appointed a committee to review all of the proposals and will make a recommendation to the interim executive director as to their selection.

Therefore be it resolved that the commission hereby authorizes the interim executive director to distribute the request for proposal for a consultant in accordance with the provisions of the commission bylaws and approved procedures governing purchases.

Be it further resolved that the commission authorizes the interim executive director

to take all other actions consistent with the bylaws and procedures governing purchases to both procure and facilitate the services of a consultant to develop the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

Recognizing and respecting the fact that you all got this late, we are also happy to do an overview of the request for proposal if that is something you all request.

If not, it is attached for your review.

If there are any questions, we're happy to take them, or if you would like us to do that overview, we can.

Yes, I'm actually going to turn that over to Jessica for that overview.

Great.

So I don't have slides this time, so bear with me.

Basically, the scope of work that we've drafted so far really comes from ongoing conversations with the Regional Transit Partnership voting and non-voting members.

And I just want to clarify that that also includes our transit agencies, CAT and Jaunt and UTS.

The way we've described the scope of work is that it's basically three phases.

So the first phase of work is really working with the community at large to develop a vision statement for what high quality transit will look like for this region.

And that phase is also going to involve the consultants doing a lot of assessment work, looking at things like land use and destinations, trying to figure out

what the transit demand is right now and what is that transit demand going to look like in our region in the future.

The second phase is gonna take all of that information, our vision of what high quality transit looks like and the transit demand now and in the future.

And it's going to clarify the kind of transit that can be supported on regional travel corridors.

And by the kind of transit, we mean like the service level.

So would that be something like a really high level of service like bus rapid transit, or is that gonna be a lower level of service like demand response?

The second phase will also give cost estimates for what the suggested transit service would cost compared to existing transit service.

And finally, the third phase would specify really specific actions that can be taken to achieve the community's vision of high quality transit and achieve those suggested transit service options for the different corridors.

I think that's our overview.

No, thank you very much for doing that.

I'm assuming when you say regional, you're referring to the rural counties as well as the counties.

Yeah, just to clarify a little bit more, the main focus of the study is going to be the MPO area, Charlottesville and Albemarle.

However, we recognize that people are coming from the rural areas to work in town and people are also leaving town to go work in the rural area.

Thank you, Jessica.

Thank you.

Any additional questions?

Hearing none, can we have our motion?

Mr. Chairman, I'd be more than happy to do that.

Thank you, sir.

Do we have a second?

I'm sorry, Ned, did you second that?

Yes, sir.

I'm sorry, I cut you off there.

Appreciate it.

We have a motion and a proper second.

Sure.

Mr. O'Brien.

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Aye.

And Mr.

Aye.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank David, Sandy, and Jessica for your presentations tonight.

You guys did a great job.

So I think last time I forgot to do so, but thank you so much for all your efforts.

Under new business tonight, item I is the appointment of nominating committee for the fiscal year 22 TJPDC officers.

Last year, we didn't get a chance to do this, but this is where I get a chance to pick on three people.

You have the option to say no, but this is the nominated committee, and what you'll do is you'll get together to nominate the officers coming forward.

Christine, did I miss anything there?

All right, with that said, I'd like to nominate, or to appoint, if you will, Ned Galloway, Andrea Wilkinson, and Tommy Barlow.

Would you guys be willing to serve in the nominated committee?

I see Tommy smiling in the background.

Okay.

Ned, are you willing, sir?

Sure.

Andrea, are you willing?

Did you nominate me?

I did.

I didn't mention your name.

Wait a minute.

Does that mean you want to be on the committee or you don't want to be on the committee?

The same reason as Tommy.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

I know there's some bad blood between you and Tommy after our first session.

You guys worked together as chair and vice chair, so I'll let you guys work those differences out.

And I'm joking when I say it.

All right.

Thank you very much, Christine.

You have the individuals.

So I'm assuming that you guys will get in touch with each other before the next meeting and you'll bring forward a slate of officers at the next meeting to present to the commission.

And the next item under your business is the one we've all been waiting for is the presentation of the fiscal year 22 operating budget.

two seconds to pull up the other one from the old resolution here we go and excuse the scroll it wouldn't link to the exact page so i don't want to make you all oh so sorry okay here we go okay so i am presenting to you the annual the draft annual operating budget for FY22 and its work program with its anticipated revenue and expenditures being balanced

The bylaws state that the draft needs to come before the commission before its regular meeting in May and then consideration in May will be made for approval or adoption of this budget.

The work program incorporates all of the scopes of work from the MPO and the TJPDC for both the urban and rural transportation programs, housing activities identified through the home action plan, USDA HP housing preservation grants,

as well as the ride share work plan and the regional transit and housing partnership work programs.

As far as FY21 is concerned, we didn't see any major financial expenditures for the TJPDC and FY21 due to the pandemic, other than some additional IT maintenance and contractual work to support remote work from home for staff, but other expenses were kept to a minimum.

I would like to remind everyone that we did not give staff a salary increase in fiscal year 21.

And it looks like our FY21 revenues are going to have a sizable net gain for the year.

So this budget does recommend a 3% salary increase for all staff for FY22.

Additional excess revenues from FY21 are required in order to balance this FY22 budget.

In FY22, there's still some unknown impacts for what our revenues will be.

We know there's the possibility of some decreased local projects as the local governments maybe adjust for their own revenue shortfalls.

However, we also know that with the anticipated COVID relief bill, the American Rescue Plan Act, that there's also some potential opportunity for the PDC in that.

We're continuing to work really closely with our state and federal agencies to see if there are possibilities for state and federally funded projects for the PDC.

For example, VDOT's transportation alternative program, the TAP grants, CDBG grants supporting localities in that, as well as additional housing preservation grant and home funds.

We're also working really closely with Virginia Housing, who is working to develop a new grant program that they want to

use planning district commissions to administer.

So that's a real possibility and opportunity for us that we're learning more about by the day, as well as the potential to possibly resubmit for a build grant for the Amtrak station.

So we do know we have a lot of opportunity or possible projects coming forward.

In your packet, you will see the draft budget.

I'm just going to go through some high level things and then I'm happy to take any specific questions that you all have

since this is the first real budget that I'll be presenting to you.

I do know that I studied it very closely so I'm hoping to be able to answer any questions if you have them.

So for the updated budget, I'll bring it to you all again in May for approval and then it can come back to the commission again in November once we have a better idea of what our revenues are going to be so we can make any changes at that time and then it comes back to you all again in March of 2022 for its final adoption with all of the

One thing to note is should expected revenues not materialize, we do have a slight gap, slightly below what we had budgeted in for last year, but if we need to at that time, we'll consider that we need to make and that's detailed in the memo that I sent to you all.

We're looking at a $2.376 million expenditures in revenues.

There's a perceived shortfall of $57,000.

However, it's important to note that that's partially filled with $17,000 in deferred revenue that we've already received.

We just haven't earned yet, and that's programmed in for next year.

So the real shortfall is closer to $40,000.

It's also important to note that we have one-time expenses budgeted in for next year to include a $25,000 for an executive search firm, should that be required by the commission to permanently fill the executive director position role.

So that's in there.

If it doesn't get spent, that'll close that gap by that amount, as well as $35,000 is budgeted in there to do some

Modernization of our financial services the way that they've been.

So we have some one-time funds that really is what makes up that gap.

With the current level of staffing right now, we have 11.5 FTEs if you include David Blount's half-time.

And eight out of the 11 of those staff members are utilized above our goal of 90% billable.

Six of those are between 97 and 100 percent of their hours are billed out.

So if we were to secure additional grant funding, we really are close to not having staff capacity.

And so to alleviate this, I did include in the FY22 budget an additional planner position.

And what we're going to do is we're going to not fill that position until we are certain that we have a revenue source and that revenue source has been confirmed to be able to cover that staff member.

So I do want to show that that is something that we do have included as an additional planner to what we currently have.

The immediate goal of TJPDC management is to just manage the staff leadership transition.

The chief operating officer position is going to remain vacant until the commission determines the agency's permanent needs for the ED role.

However, we did budget in

one half year administrative position.

So that if we were able to fill that position, or if the executive director position were filled, that we would still have that within our budget.

And then let's see, a couple of federal revenues.

I can just do real high level.

I'm not gonna dig into the details unless you all would like me to, but the majority of our federal revenue is obviously through the MPO.

That's 320,000.

and then through our home consortium, that's $676,000.

Our state revenues, the General Assembly approved for FY22 an increase in funding for planning district commissions through Department of Housing and Community Development.

So our amount for that increased by $14,000.

Our ride share funding is budgeted at about $177,000 in revenue.

and then included in this is the anticipated revenue that we would receive from a yet to be determined source that we're hoping to cover an additional planner.

Local revenues are up from last year, but that's namely due to the local contributions to the transit planning grants that we've been discussing.

And then all of the local funds were submitted through local budgets, some of which are still in consideration for

River Basin Commission, Legislative Liaison, Solid Waste and Hazard Mitigation Plan, and Regional Transit Partnership.

Excuse me, I wanted to leave that one.

Other than that, I think the only other thing I would note is we do anticipate a decline in our rents just based on the current tenants that we have.

And then, let's see, I've already said most of this.

Health insurance premiums had a slight decrease.

Retirement through VRS is constant, and our indirect costs have gone up slightly last year, but that was due to the addition of the chief operating officer role, and it was in its administrative nature.

So that's all the details that I at least took notes on, but if there's anything in here that you all see that you would like me to give you greater detail on, I'm certainly happy to answer it.

At this time, there is no action needed.

This is just the draft that I'll bring back to you all in May.

Thank you.

The rent is down because we are not renting out the Water Street Center at this time.

So if we were to then rent out the Water Street Center, we would see an increase.

Thank you.

Christine, can you just, so I just want to make sure I'm reading it.

And I think I understand why obviously.

Yes, for FY22 it's lower than it was for FY21.

That's what I figured.

Just wanted to, if I didn't hear it out loud, hear it out loud again.

Do we have any additional questions for Christine?

If you have questions going forward, I would suggest, I'm sure Christine is okay with this.

You might want to email her your questions before the next meeting.

Thank you.

All right, moving on.

Okay, this is brief.

I've just got a couple of quick updates for you all.

We continue to work remotely, as many of you all do.

We're going to continue to monitor the pandemic to inform us if we will open partially a couple days a week to staff, but at this point, staff vaccinations are really what's driving that decision.

We have an anticipated opening date of May 17th, but again, that's subject to change based on the conditions at the time.

Just the same as what you all are going through.

Staff is working with VDOT on the rural 29 corridor plan.

I just wanted to update you all that VDOT recently received approval for their scope of work and a notice to proceed to their consultant, Kittleston Association.

Their scope of work included $228,000 of work on that 29 corridor matched with what Sandy already described to you all with the 51 from the MPO, excuse me, 51,000 from the MPO

and 30,000 from the Rural Work Program.

So the role of the TJPDC for that process is really to work with Albemarle and Greene County to develop the overall vision for the corridor to ensure that the recommendations consider items such as land use, community priorities and policy implications for the localities.

Another update is our housing speaker series, the spring speaker series put on by the Regional Housing Partnership had its first session

The session was on zoning hurdles and incentives.

It had about 90 registrants and about 65 attended.

We've gotten very good feedback.

It was very well received.

The remaining three sessions are coming up.

One of them is on affordable housing pro formas and financing.

Transportation and housing is the next one.

And then equity and housing.

And details on these sessions that are free are available on

the housing program section of the PDC's website.

As far as the hazard mitigation plan, staff has begun updating that plan.

They're working with a group made up of emergency response staff and planning staff in the jurisdictions and staff is currently developing a survey to get public engagement.

This is required by FEMA in order for localities to be eligible for mitigation grant programs.

and it's to be updated every five years.

So we have begun that process and we hope to be bringing you guys more information in an upcoming commission meeting when we have a lighter agenda.

I'll probably ask a staff member to come and present on that.

So you all are updated.

And then the final update is just that Water Street Center, we're continuing not to have public meetings there.

The United Way is continuing to use it for their tax relief program.

And then we will be in touch with you all if we have any decisions for reopening that space, but until further notice that is not open to the public.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions for Christine?

Okay, hearing none, we're now into the roundtable discussion.

And I'll go ahead and call on you.

If I'm missing anybody, please let me know.

I'm looking at the windows on Zoom.

So I tend to try to get in touch with everybody.

Mr. Rutherford, do you mind going first, sir?

I think, yes, I'm here.

Yes, I was just stepping away for a second.

Hey, real quick, just want to say we're looking at lowering our machine tools tax as well as lowering our personal property tax.

That's going to be big news, comp plans in and looking at doing some capital projects for a sports facility as well as a business park.

So all good news for us.

But other than that, I'm going to hop off here.

Thank you all.

No problem.

Okay, let me see here.

We're still struggling along with our budget, trying to figure out what to do with that and get it resolved.

Things have been kind of slow for the last few weeks.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to let Mr. O'Brien cover some of the Fluvanna County stuff.

I want to go backwards a little bit to the Regional Housing Partnership and the Speaker Series.

As the chairperson, one who moderated that last session, that was awesome to have 65 folks participate in that.

One of the panelists was the vice president of governmental affairs for the Home Builders Association of Virginia.

And I got a phone call afterward how excited he was.

He says, my God, I only do these things with five people on it.

So it was super engaging.

It just went well.

The problem was it was too short.

We could have went on.

The next one on the pro forma, please, please, please, please circulate that link out to your sphere of influences.

This is super important for folks to understand exactly what it costs to make one of these projects and put these projects on.

And the last item that I'll cover where the third one is focusing on transportation and housing.

We currently do not have a speaker.

If you know of anybody that you think might fit that bill, reach out to Christine or myself and we'll see what we can put in there.

I've got a couple of traffic engineers online.

The engineers are not exactly exciting.

Oops, did I just offend an engineer?

Apologize if I did.

But no, I'm only kidding.

So you can help us with that.

But please, this is a huge win.

for the commission.

This is a huge win for what we set up on the regional housing partnership.

And I mean, man, to have 65 people engaged is a huge win.

So please spread that out to the sphere of influences, please.

That's it, Mr. Chairman.

I did my sales pitch.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I think I'll leave the bulk of it to our Supervisor Price, who did most of the chairing of our budget work sessions, which has been the predominant focus for us the past several weeks.

We're getting through.

We've started to explore the monies that are coming down from the recent relief package from the federal government.

So supervisors we've started to look at how that to understand how that money can be spent and then where we're going to program it as well as working through all the other other budget items so you know we've all of our supervisors have had town halls on it been getting our feet back and are plowing through and I expect that we'll stay on time and I just keep every time I have a chance I ask for the public to make sure they come out and attend our public hearing so that we can hear about it but

Imagine that's where a lot of us are.

Coming forward, just as I mentioned before, our housing policy and our Rio Road form-based code are kind of tied together with a couple of details.

I love that lead in, Ned.

You really covered most of it.

But like everyone else, we've been doing our budget.

We've had about two meetings a week for most of the last month.

We think we've got most of it done.

And I think the thought that really crosses my mind all the time during this budget season is it's the best of times, it's the worst of times.

In some respects, things financially are really quite good.

In other respects, they're really quite difficult, as we think of not only the hundreds of thousands of people who have died, but their families, the impact, the reduced income, the lost jobs, the lost businesses.

That part of the economy has been pretty rough.

On the other hand, we see

you know other areas that seem to be doing pretty well.

We're very fortunate in Albemarle County that our county staff did such a good job last year as the pandemic was hitting.

We left a lot of positions vacant as people you know either moved or retired or whatever the case may be reduced a lot of costs that way and of course the CARES funding helped us out a lot last year.

This year the ARP money

We think will help us tremendously as we're able to put some extra money towards broadband and some other capital projects that we had to put on hold last year.

So right now things are looking pretty good.

We're not raising our tax rate, although residential property values increase.

So those tax bills will go up, but most of our commercial property assessed values went down.

And so

We were able to cancel the last work session that we were gonna have on the budget.

We're looking at getting about $10 million on the first tranche of funds from the federal government in May, same amount next year.

We know that at some point the federal government can't continue to be providing these funds, but they really have been a lifesaver for us this year, last year and going forward into next year.

We feel pretty pleased about where our budget is.

As always, there are more things we'd like to do than we've got money to be able to afford to do.

But Ned, you really covered all of the main things.

One of the interesting aspects, I think at this point at least, was we had virtually no public comment when we first started discussing the budget.

And I had two town halls and had very, very little public involvement in either of those.

And so I think that is a sign that our, our community members seem to be pretty satisfied with what the county is doing and as regards the budget.

And I don't really have a lot more to add on that.

Thank you.

Same as pretty much everybody else.

We're finishing up budget season, I guess about next week, and looks pretty good.

I mean, we had an assessment, so our actual rate's going down.

Of course, the net rate is the net payments going up about two and a half, three percent.

We're happy about that.

We have wide consensus and we also canceled our last meeting.

In our budget, we've included a taking out a loan for about $25 million.

to work on a new administration building and upgrade some of our fire and rescue vehicles as well as a sheriff and just county vehicles and buses as well too.

We want to take advantage of the lower interest rates and the impending inflation that seems likely to come.

On top of that, we have some debt that's falling off so we think we can make this relatively revenue neutral for us.

I'm sorry, tax neutral for us.

So that's exciting because it's a big catch up on our CIP budget for the county.

The tower is finally going to be operational in about another 30 to 65 days, so that's another good piece of news for us.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, thanks.

So of course, the big news of the day, most of you probably heard, we received a favorable ruling from the state Supreme Court on the statute lawsuit.

So I think most people expected just for the injunction to be lifted so that we could begin going through the new state process to, you know, get community input and eventually remove them.

But instead we were fully vindicated and they ruled that the 1997 law that prohibited us from removing them actually never applied to it at all because it couldn't apply retroactively and they were enacted in the 1920s.

So that'll save us a few hundred thousand dollars in attorney's fees for the plaintiffs and hopefully create a path for removal in the near future.

The other big news that you've probably also heard of is that the Charlottesville area transit is going to stay fare-free for the next three fiscal years.

So that's pretty big news.

Of course, they've been fare-free through COVID like every other transit agency because you can collect fares.

But it'll be great to see them stay fare-free, make it more accessible to more people, and hopefully get more riders getting on board, especially with that vision plan

that we just voted on.

So the budget is also underway.

Council is still deep into work on that.

It's looking a little bit less dire with a revised revenue projections for business and professional licensing taxes.

So I think they're still also assessing what the ARP will mean for us.

Separately, we have the comprehensive plan process is still well underway, and we're still hopeful that we will be wrapping it up in late summer, both in advance of a full zoning rewrite.

Just last week, we got our first look at the consultant's first draft of the future land use map.

So that was interesting.

Definitely going to need some revisions and some changes, but we're iterating that.

And there will be more community engagement on that once they make their second draft.

And then lastly, we adopted a Star Hill vision plan, which is sort of like a mini small area plan or conceptual small area plan for the area of Vinegar Hill and the city yard that were kind of emptied by urban renewal in the 1960s.

We now have a conceptual plan of how we can redevelop that more productively and equitably in the future.

That's all I got.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate that.

I love it when you give a report, Dale.

But I do mention that I have a question or two on the nominating committee, a couple of little small procedural things I'm hoping to hang on for about a minute and a half at the end.

So I can ask Christine and maybe the other people that are on the nominated committee can figure out how we'll do it.

Christine, you okay with that?

Mr. Gallaway, are you okay with that, sir?

Sure.

and Christine.

All right, thank you.

All right, a couple of things to Greene County on the broadband.

This goes to Donna and to Ned.

If you guys are working or Albemarle County is working on anything related to broadband, Greene would love to work with you.

We have some borders where we have lack of broadband access.

If you think that's an area that you're gonna try to cover or work on with your funding,

Reach out to our county administrator, myself, and maybe we can work together to cover a larger area using the same funding.

That's just a, I'm just throwing that out there.

It's not saying we should or should not.

Definitely think, I mean, not to,

I'm going to interject before Ned has a chance.

I'm on the Albemarle broadband authority, and I think getting Mike Cole and Bucky Walsh, Mike on county staff, but he is the chair of the committee, it is definitely worth pursuing.

We're all in the same boat here.

We all need more broadband.

Sounds good.

I'm the Vice President and Chair of everyone that runs the Broadband Committee of Meets and Green.

So we would love to be able to

to work with Albemarle County and maybe at some point in time I can set up a time for either Mike or a member of your board to meet with our committee virtually and go over the possibility.

Sounds good.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

That's good news.

That's the good news I needed tonight, and I'll tell you why.

Our tax rate will stay the same.

Our assessments didn't go up.

We would have probably have looked at

possibly lowering our taxes this year if it wasn't for our debt associated with our RSA direct answer authority or our water authority.

As most of you know, we had a collection of facility fees in place to pay for a reservoir.

The RSA took Greene County representatives as a board member, six members, two from Orange, two from Madison, two for Greene.

They stated that the facility fees were illegal.

They stopped collecting the facility fees, which we were used to pay for the debt.

They took away the voting rights of our two members.

We've been fighting to get out of the organization for a period of time.

Emmett Hanger has submitted a bill for us to try to pass a law that would help us get out of the authority.

Our voting members were reinstated.

We were asked to create a resolution to bring before the board, the water authority board.

And we thought that the resolution had enough votes to go forward.

And I just found it actually during this meeting that did not.

So we are basically in the same position we were about six months ago.

And for us, this can be very devastating.

because basically as we go forward and we try to grow, we approve a subdivision, a business, we have to have the water available to develop that area.

RSA can say yes or no that water is or is not available at this point in time.

We're going deeper in debt because they're not collecting the facility fees and they're not investing the funds that are needed to

to start the reservoir project itself.

So I know that Louisa and Fluvanna have gone through something similar probably four or five years ago.

And so I think each of you came out on the other side of this.

At least this seems more hopeful for you.

So this is what we're fighting.

And I have a feeling we'll be fighting this for several more months going forward.

So I'm sure we'll be in the press as time goes on.

and I really suspect that it's going to be more of a probably more news now than never before and I'll just let it go at that.

With that said, as everybody else we're doing our budget and it's always a fun time every year but we're getting through that and that's all we had to report for Greene.

And did I miss anybody?

I don't think I did.

I just want to make sure before I move on, because like I said, I'll do these little squares on the screen.

I've got two screens up there.

You see my head bouncing back and forth, so I just want to make sure I'm not missing anybody.

And here, no one speak up.

The next meeting will be May the 6th.

We have two items currently on the next meeting.

We had a resolution for the fiscal year 2022 operating budget and work plan for approval, the public hearing resolution for the annual action plan for home,

And as I always say, I appreciate everybody.

I know it's been virtual.

As I saw the nominated committee come up, I was thinking about the fact how many actual physical meetings I've actually chaired.

I think I started in August of 2019, and I chaired the one in August, September, October, November, December, didn't have one in January, I may have done February, and then March we were virtual, if I remember correctly.

It might have been face-to-face in March, I can't remember.

And the rest have been all virtual.

So hopefully, with the increase of the shots, the vaccinations that are going forward, I know that Greene County, it sounds like we were about 30%, at least in the first shot in our localities, and that the overall infection rate had dropped by 3%.

But I'm here, all parts of the country, where the infection rate is going up again.

And I know the schools had spring break coming forward next week or two for different localities.

Hopefully, the numbers continue to go down.

Hopefully at some point in time I can see each of you face to face.

You may not want to see me face to face.

I may have less hair the last time you saw me, but I'm looking forward to that day.

Do we have any comments or discussions before we close this meeting?

Hearing none, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting?

I'll make that motion, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, sir.

Do we have a second?

Second.

And Sandy, I guess go ahead and do a roll call.

Sure.

Mr. Stolzenberg.

Aye.

Ms. Price.

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien.

Aye.

Yes.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

I mean it.

Ms. Wilkinson, Mr. Barlow, Mr. Rutherford left, and Mr.

The meeting is now adjourned, everyone.

Thank you so much.

I know that there's going to be a conversation at the end of this meeting.

Realizing, Christine, you're still recording.

So for all those who are not part of the next meeting, I guess, we'll see you next time.

Be safe, guys.

Stay healthy.

Appreciate it.

Am I everybody that's leaving?

Christine stuck with Tommy, Ned and I. Goodbye to the rest of you.

John, wake up, you can go now.

Anyway, we haven't quite lost everybody but Christine, my question was, is there any way to use one of these little zoom or team meetings for the nominated committee.

Yeah, run afoul of the, you know, three commissioners, and it's not a publicly announced meeting.

That's what I throw out.

Other than that, we got a round of emails and then we can talk to each other on the phone.

Those are the other things that we normally can do.

So what do you think, Christine?

Also, the other thing you can tell us, I guess we have our chair has worked himself out of a job having had two terms already.

In other words, you're saying he could be vice chair if we wanted him to.

I didn't even know for sure, but our vice chair could do anything.

He could be vice chair again, or he could be chair.

The only thing that can only have two terms is chair.

The treasurer, I think, can go on forever, almost.

I don't think there's a term limit on the treasurer.

Okay, well, we'll check back with you.

And then, you know, we can, you can email three of us whether we can have a zoom or a Teams meeting.

But we can, you can get back to us on whether the treasure can continue or not.

And then we can review who we have as commissioners and

The three of us can suggest our favorite whatevers.

Perfect.

Does it work for you guys?

Well, just if he could, send out the contact information for you and Ned.

Yeah.

And you haven't changed.

Y'all, mine hasn't changed.

That would be good.

If you could send their contact information to the three of us around the all three of us, that would be great.

Very well.

So that's it.

That was my two minutes.

Great.

Thank you, Andrea.

Thank you.

Good night.

Good night.