Planning District Commission Meeting   8/4/2022

Oh, that sounded flexible.

Welcome.

Here.

So Andrews and Smith are on the line.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Supervisor Barlow.

Here.

All right.

So next item.

Now, can we do the public comment?

We can do public comment.

So that we can move to the public comment.

So we will go to matters for public comment.

From the public or in the development team as a person, do we have anyone here this evening for public comments?

It's like we have one online.

I hear the call, Mr. Tubbs.

It's my favorite.

Yes, I could.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You may know that back in 1968, the General Assembly passed what was then called the Virginia Area Development Act.

And that was the act that created the framework for climate district traditions.

I spent the next year reading the boundaries for the PDCs and the PDCs

Bost in 1969.

So PDCs, they're that state and local cooperation mechanism and also, that's right, local cooperation, but also state and local cooperation.

In this region, it took a little bit more time to get the PDC together.

So it was in 1972 that TJPDC was established.

So we fast forward 50 years.

and TJPDC is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

So we're very pleased that Delegate Hudson graciously agreed to introduce a commending resolution at the past General Assembly session commending the TJPDC and its 50 years of doing great things on a regional level.

That resolution was adopted by both the House and the Senate in early March.

Thanks, David and Mr. Chairman.

I don't know if there's a best spot for me to be so that the folks participating remotely, oh, they can see.

That's pretty impressive.

Let me just add my thanks to all of you for the work that you do.

As David said in his little crash course history lesson, we're coming up on 50 years of this region formally recognizing the regional problems, the regional solutions

And in those 50 years, the PDC has spearheaded so many efforts that are now household names.

TJAC, Java, John.

Yeah, they all have a chase.

So, so much of those, so many of the projects came right out of what you hear.

And now you're on the frontier of the next wave of those needs, whether it's our affordable housing challenges or climate change, everything you're speaking to.

All of the work where the rubber literally hits the road.

On a personal note, I can't say thank you enough to David and all of the legislative affairs folks who support them.

David is really my hope too for so many things that both the city and the county need during the war speed general assembly session where there is never enough time to earn as much as you want.

So you have to lean on these really wonderful people.

The different localities of the PDC are incredibly diverse and the work that you're doing can pull all of them together to support our schools and our transit and everything.

So I think it's great that the General Assembly can take a lot of time to applaud their work and do a little checkup on our own of the 50 years since we've spearheaded this.

We really can't thank you enough on behalf of all of the many people that we serve together.

for everything that you do.

I think we would all echo your comments about how we all lean on David, especially during Joe's time for legislative updates that he sent out.

So we are very appreciative of that effort.

We could even display our resolution of that.

Christine, David, any additional comments?

Would any commissioners like to make any comments?

Thank you so much.

Likewise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chairman Galloway and members of the

It's interesting to follow that 50 years, and all the change in regional work that this area has done, and this BODI grant takes it in and for it.

So what's exciting about the BODI project is it's 13 counties.

So we are actually spurred at it, it's even larger than our own region, and it's been really exciting to work with it.

So what I'm going to do is we're going to present with you just a few slides of where we are today on the project.

So unfortunately, many of you have heard this from Firefly.

They didn't come to a lot of board meetings and council meetings and board meetings because it's the rural county.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, they have a program that they call ROX.

When you think about the program Rise, you can see the 13 counties on the screen.

And you can see there's a 36 month program.

So it's three years.

The colors are really important because you can see that it's like a tapestry.

So programs called Rise, there's lots of different funding sources and lots of different pieces going into building a fiber network throughout these 13 counties.

So you can see that the body project area, and I don't know if you can see the different colors of blue up there,

There's a large portion of the project that's being undertaken in these 13 counties.

So I really like that matter because I really think it kind of shows the volume and how large and expansive this project is.

So also what's large is the dollar amount.

It's a $288 million project.

The body, it's grant funding from the state, $79 million,

And what's really interesting about this project is it has 209 matching funds.

A lot of times the matching funds are smaller than the federal or the state grant.

So you can see the matching funds and a large portion of that, 61% of that, is being paid for and supplied by the utilities.

So it's got a very good public-private partnership piece going.

And then 13 counties, and we have agreements with all 13 counties.

These 13 counties are where they match money also.

So it's a very large project with a lot of different counties, state, federal, and utility partnerships.

And this is a timeline.

We presented this timeline to you before.

It's a timeline that shows where on the left side in December 2021, the grant was awarded by the state.

And there's a lot of work that's called the punch list items.

It's pre-contract items.

A lot of things that the state is requiring us to do like instruction schedules, project management programs, all these agreements with the 13 counties.

All this work is being done over this time frame.

And we're in August and we all have our 13 agreements executed with all the counties.

We have everything done in our pre-contract form with just a couple more pieces.

So we're very, very close to completing all activities this month.

So it's a very exciting one for us

because we believe this is when we can actually launch the program officially, even though there's pre-work being done in all these counties to officially launch the program, it'll be probably in office.

So the next steps is that we enter into agreement with Firefly.

That's one of the last steps of the process.

Then we enter into the agreement with DHCD, which is our state organization.

And then we have a stakeholder kickoff meeting.

So we'll have this meeting throughout for all 13 counties and the stakeholders, the utility stakeholders will attend, just kind of kick off the whole project, officially start it out.

And then monthly the project reporting for each county and for the state.

And then there'll be invoicing, because we'll be invoicing both the state and counties for the portion of the match.

And then the last slide is just a place to go for information.

Because we know a lot of constituents have already started asking about this project.

Even though it's a three-year project, there's already questions.

We just wanted everyone to know that you can go to Firefly's website.

And they actually have a place.

It's Firefly.com RISE.

And you can go into the view construction updates and view all partners.

So they actually have seals for all the partners, county seals.

And you can enter through the county seal

and see what works being done in the counties.

And as the project gets more activities going on and as we build it out, we'll see more and more information on this website.

We're also going to be giving some website work at Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission to also have that as a launching place for people to go.

So I just wanted to make sure you know where folks can go to get more information about the project.

We will be hearing more about it shortly.

That concludes my

Martin, any questions?

Thank you very much, Laura.

So I think this is a good time for us to pause.

We will go ahead and take the action needed to allow our online folks to participate.

We have Supervisor Barlow for disbanding from Louisa for medical reasons.

We are Keith Smith,

Mr.

Second?

All right, do we have a proper motion to second it?

Second.

Sorry, Councilor Payne?

Commissioner Solis?

Yes.

Supervisor Andrews?

Yes, I'm wearing this.

Yes.

Yes.

You go online, folks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, for the next item, then moving back to our order, C, your presentation to the Watership Improvement Program update.

Hey.

I'm so excited to talk to you guys about this thing.

OK, so this is going to be a long intro slide preparing yourself.

So in words from my current assessor, the person that worked on this program before me,

This is my baby.

And I find this work to be incredibly valuable and rewarding to all of our community, but also to me as an individual.

And I really appreciate you helping me listen here to maybe learn something that you may not seriously deserve.

So my question to you is, do you enjoy water?

Do you drink water?

Personally, I'm sharing my eight cups a day.

and Brooke Waterstein they lunched out of it, floating down Maritana and stopping to see if you would just live in.

If you have not been getting adequate water intake or you haven't spent significant time by our lovely water resources, I highly recommend exploring your habits and enriching your lives.

Our water resources are a breathing, ever-changing, interconnected and living thing.

We could change the environment surrounding it,

You can expect to see changes reflected in the scientific and organic competition around that water source.

All I can tell from my experience and the perspective on the data is that things are changing and they're changing fast.

Based on my background in environmental science and my experience working with our Nevada Conservation Alliance, I think all of the water on Earth as the same thing.

The salt, the fresh,

Evaporations means no difference.

Every molecule of water is a part of the same water cycle.

Although the earth is over 70% water, actually about only 3% of our water is fresh and clean and drinkable, and even less is available for recreational use.

This is not something that's ever given to you.

Today I'm going to be talking to you about the whip and the why.

Why this matters to the globe, the state,

O'Brien, and then next door Namer.

Based on the data she published for our state and federal and local researchers and agencies and the University of Virginia, Albemarle, what is happening on top of Mount Everest or the North Pole or in that puddle in your backyard?

All you have, any semblance of control over it, is your here.

And your here is definitely seeing the effects on increasing development and population increases

While I see this trend as inevitable, there are things that we can do in our everyday practices and our work to ensure that our water resources and our healthy sustainable state.

I am here to help you tie these solutions into your work in housing, in economic development, in transportation, and really anything else you can think of.

The environment is nature.

We are in here, the nature is.

I think that's what we're missing here.

Yeah, anything else you can think of.

I hope that now that you know this, we'll have more contact.

Yeah, so let's go to the next slide.

Thank you for listening.

It's my little soapbox.

Okay, so this is actually an implementation plan.

So basically in 2010, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, or EPA actually, it's EPA, I know, they put out something called the total daily maximum load, and that was in 2010.

So that was prompted by a continued forward water quality of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and how watershed works

It was like basically a watershed is a big filter and the Chesapeake Bay is like the funnel of that filter and all of the tributaries, our tributary is the James River and the tributary of that is the Red Nana.

Okay, so it all connects.

You guys are in Greene County, it's floating right to Fluvanna, then it's sort of to Albemarle and to Charlottesville and what we do here impacts what's all the way down there at the Chesapeake Bay.

It's going right there and it's a big deal.

That's actually the biggest estuary in the entire world.

It's a really huge natural resource and that's why there's a crazy amount of funding for it right now, guys.

We have to hop on this all we can.

Specifically for Virginia, there's a 20.5% reduction in nitrogen, 25.2% reduction in phosphorus, and 20.8% reduction in sediment.

So what does that really mean?

Nitrogen and phosphorus are often found

and they are the fundamental ingredients that we're getting with fertilizers.

We're getting fertilizers to do plants.

They also do that in water.

So when those things enter the water, that's gonna cause algae.

Why does algae do that?

When algae dies, it sucks all of the water, or not all of the oxygen out of the water.

And as we take a close look, then there's no oxygen in the water and it creates something called eutrophication or a dead zone.

We know that there's a little oxygen there.

Nothing can live, and when nothing can live, we can't recreate, we can't use it.

It's no longer an economic development site, but something you can utilize, something that people enjoy, something that fundamentally calms people.

I don't know about you, but whatever I'm more, I can just separate from everything, everything, anything.

And I think that's really important for people to have access to.

And I'll talk about what we're doing here locally,

aside from the watershed implementation plan, this is a state funded thing by Virginia DEQ through the EPA.

So really federal.

But we have something called the Red Ann River Basin Commission here.

And that only consists of Charlottesville, Albemarle, Savannah, and Greene.

But I think one of the things that we're covering there are really sort of books of you guys over there in Nelson, you guys over there in Louisa, and this year we're planning a conference for September 29th.

We're going to be talking about most of the solar facilities

And the implications of having those, the landing implications, but the planning for it because right now it's happening so fast.

Like it's popping up every branch or you can see it.

But people don't really have all the knowledge that they need to make informed decisions about that.

So we're having a few speakers come in that have really been working on this for years and years and years.

We have the research, we have the UVA Welcome Cooper Center Solvers Initiative coming.

And we also have this organization called UMP where they started in Vermont.

They're actually coming down from the program to Virginia.

And it's all about like really cutting edge science and solutions for implementing solar facilities without cutting down on trees to just like have them there.

So like what that can look like is agri-voltage, which really means like agri, agriculture.

Voltage is like,

How do those come together?

So that's like our agriculture, like let's have native plants there, let's have a sheep that are grazing so that we don't have to cut grass all the time and the solar things can get the light, you know, that's how they work.

So doing that, we're using something that deals with this, it's called like a superglum site or a ground field, which basically like means that that location was probably used for industrial uses, maybe coal ash and how that's a thing over there in Fluvanna.

And it's still concluded that he can no longer utilize that land for really anything.

So, slaps and solar panels on there, guys.

And something that Encore really wanted me to get across to you all, I'm going to send more information to you right now, but they wanted me to ask, what locations are you curious about if you could implement solar?

And they would like you all to come prepared with a few things brainstormed out.

Maybe ask the public.

The public also can have a say.

about solar facilities at large, but then those household facilities too, and then we're over serving.

And then we're also bringing in environmental science because that's a big part of this contract this year.

And environmental justice is still kind of being defined.

So I'm having TEQ's environmental justice coordinator local.

He serves you all.

Come here and tell me about what he does, what that role looks like, what is environmental justice?

But I can tell you based on what I know,

It's about disadvantaged communities during their past war of anything, anything in life.

So how do we make that more equitable?

I think that's really important.

So I would love to see some of your smiling and shining faces there.

If you could join us September 29th at the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center right along the river.

And Louise and Russell are quite delighted.

We're gonna have tabling from all of what I call the river stewards from state, federal, and local

Agencies that you guys can ask all your questions, we're going to do a nice little river walk, each know each other, let's network, and let's work on this together, because that's what it takes.

So, that was a long tangent, what's with?

Other pollutants do exist, so there are other local total maximum daily loads that aren't your fertilizers.

And fertilizers, they can also come from industry, so don't be confused, those also do come from like

Runoff for more waste, or your pet waste, or salt on the roads.

Like in TBC, you never do that.

So yeah, other plutons, they exist.

And if there are local tangos, I implore you to look.

There are some for your smaller rivers, and they have action plans, actually, set out.

These are the panopies that you should implement to solve the watercolor issues.

I could help implement those, but all you have to do is ask.

Basically, what I'm saying about that is that if there are more intensive regulations on the local materials, then those are the ones you follow, not the statements.

And it makes sure that we're sticking to its goals.

So I am the PDC's liaison to the DEQ, and my role really is for information sharing, research and finance, sharing best management practices, presenting to you all, having these conversations,

changing our thinking.

Okay, this is, I wrote this down as I was preparing for this presentation.

So I think when you educate, you change people's thinking.

And when you change the dialogue, you change people's actions and then you change the results.

Okay, your next slide, thank you.

Okay, so how is it regulated?

So there's something called the MS4 and then there's non-MS4s.

What an x-ball looks like is Albemarle, Thermaineers, Charlottesville, all of it, UVA, all of it.

And what it means is basically that all of the water is going into a municipal, separate, storm sewer system that's taking everything straight to the water.

That's where the storm trays go.

So what's happening is the poop, the grass cuttings, the fertilizer, all the things happening in the car that suck.

and Salt and Sand and Dirt from construction and industry, all of this adds up and it goes right together to one location.

So it can cause some serious issues at that spot.

And that's called a point source because I can literally say, that's the source, I'm going to do it.

And so the NS4 is because they have a system that you point to the issue, they have to regulate it.

So there's a lot of things that go with regulation.

What it can look like is the Rivanna Stormwater Education Partnership.

If you don't know about that, I would implore you to look it up.

I am a part of it, but it includes sustainability from UVA, Charlottesville, Albemarle's water resources, Thomas Jefferson's local water conservation district, and others, RCA.

But they work together to come up with an education plan that we all share on social media to get the word out about what the best management practices and money and all the good things in the world

So you should follow the TJPDC's Facebook and the Rivanna River Basin Visions Facebook if you want to know about that.

Basically, the rural localities are everywhere else, and they don't have a point source.

You can go to the next slide.

Oh, yeah, they have a lot of regulations.

So it would also be water testing, like the science, but also the education.

So rural values

I can go to multiple sources, but I can't really tell you where they're flowing from that because it's gonna fall in like the topography.

So the lowest point, you can probably find it, but I'm not gonna do that.

So we don't know.

And so that means you have to implement the solutions across the board.

Like we don't know.

So when you're doing a new housing development, I wanna see some best management practices, some rain gardens, some riparian buffer zones, some greenery,

Not only is it like really good for the environment, but it also just makes things prettier.

Like I think things just look better when it's not all gray infrastructure versus green infrastructure.

Next slide please.

I would look up, look at this PowerPoint because I have a lot of extra links to resources.

You can also check out the TJPDC workshop presentation page or the right end of the presentation page, but don't judge too much because we're updating this this year.

So why should we get locally?

Because we should.

And it impacts everywhere else.

And what we do matters.

But also, this is from last month.

And we've had two harmful algorithms in the region.

Actually, probably more, because I think the Chris Green one's like slow going on.

So like I said, they die.

They take all the oxygen that we can't use for recreation.

There's no question there.

All right.

So what are the solutions?

That's what I do with WIC so I can share solutions as much as I really can.

But so this is specifically dealing with like exciting the bacteria.

That's not the same issue you can have more nutrients.

So it's that the sediment like that makes the water really cloudy and then the light can't enter it and then things can't grow.

And then the same thing happens.

You can really like do that with a bunch of different things.

But what all of these letters signify is the best man in the practice.

Some solutions could be like going to those sources and saying, we're going to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorous that's coming out of that.

We could do a pretty splashing.

I don't know how feasible that is.

I think that would involve like adding water from dams and then adding more water so that you're done with the amount of pollution, if that makes sense.

Mixing more because a lot of nutrients will get stuck at the bottom or stuck at the top.

So if you mix it, it's throughout the water table.

You can change the food lead to add things that eat that algae

you can do apparently ultrasonic stuff, I did not know that.

Sediment capping, so I actually did want to talk to you guys about this because there's a few lakes in our region and new ponds.

Dredging, I didn't even notice, I learned this today because I went to the Virginia waterfall of the monitoring conference and learned a lot of really good things, but sediment when you, so what sediment is, is things that like die.

So animals, many leaves and trees and branches.

And all of those things have nutrients within them.

They have that nitrogen, that phosphorus, that carbon, a lot of other things.

And when they die, they sink to the bottom and then they're trapped.

And what we call that in environmental science is that it's in the long nutrient cycle.

So it will stay in the ground for years until it's full, actually, and then we pull it out and we take all that energy again.

But if you dredge it, you're cooling it a lot.

You're mixing it all back in.

You're messing up that whole cycle.

And it's in a short cycle now.

So you're adding a ton more nutrients.

So, as in Marcello, as in Anna, what do we do?

We have to dredge a lot.

If you actually don't, if you implement those best management practices on the ground, they're going to stop those pollutants from getting in.

They're going to stop that sediment from getting in.

And it really makes sense when you think about it because trees absorb water.

What's in the water is those pollutants.

So they're taking out the pollutants, which also just happen to be plant fertilizers.

They're making your plants healthier.

And then they're gone, not underwater, and you can drink them or use them.

That's basically it.

Yeah, that's it.

But not here, next slide.

So there's a guide to best managing practices, and more are coming up.

And there's actually multiple guides.

So if you see an issue,

You don't have to do this because I'm actually kind of familiar with it, but you can look through it and find one on your own if you ask your staff to do it.

But what I've come to know working here for the past eight months is that a lot of those rural localities, you guys are doing the best that you can.

And you guys work so hard and I love working with your staff and you guys are very willing in what you can do.

And as TJPDC's environmental planner, I've worked for you guys so like,

If there's something about the environment you want to include in your comprehensive plan, I can update that.

If there's something about the environment you want to include in your housing plan, your small area plan, your multimodal planning, literally anything, ask, and I'll do it if I have the capacity.

And I'd love to.

I'd really love to.

Yeah, so the contractor team here, we do that coordination, that technical assistance.

BMPs, the solutions, and the movement to stop the pollution.

And they'll actually tell you what BMP is best for what pollutant you're dealing with.

So that's why water quality testing is really important.

Tell people, tell the public, you can be engaged in citizen water quality monitoring and help find that data.

So what that data can do, which is why I went to that conference today, is that, so those local implementation plans, they don't just come out of nowhere.

They take years of research and data, and they're based off of that regular testing.

So if regular testing isn't happening in an area, we don't know what the problem is, so we don't know what the solution is.

So we need people to be testing, we don't have the capacity, so let's get help.

That's why we're really working on a partnership with RRC and RRCA.

Yeah, next.

And I just wanted to remind you guys of the co-benefits.

As much as I am a full blown PWM, I do love the environment.

There are real benefits to this that are outside of that.

There's groundwater protection.

What does that mean?

That's your well water.

That's what you drink.

There's going to be less frequent dredging.

There's going to be just natural beautification on your landscape.

There's going to be wildlife protection.

The bees are going to have a place to roam, and the deer can like go through connected pathways.

That's actually why I just worked on a bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure plan for Stanageville and Scottsville.

You should check it out if you're interested.

But I talked in there about green infrastructure learning and the concept of an emerald necklace.

And the reason why it's so important to have a necklace, which really means a circle of interconnected space of vegetation, is because that connects

The Habitat for the Wildlife.

So the squirrels now can move both of them and the deer and the trees and the birds and things are good and have to be nice.

Like I just enjoy those things, I don't know how she got these.

Seafoods are so good, recreation, economic development, let's bring some people in, let's get four on the river and then decrease water treatment costs.

So it costs money to drink the water.

That's why that limited 3% of fresh water that we have actually isn't as renewable as people think.

Like we just seem to think like you can just turn on the water and it doesn't really matter because it's just always going to come back, it's always going to be there.

That's really not the case at all.

We're just a very good religion in America and that's not what's like in other places in the world.

And we can't take that for granted because it won't always be like that, I promise you.

Next.

Okay, and I just wanted to show you guys like actually what I'm working on.

So this is my contract report, just like formal slides.

But I'm just going to do a little quick overview.

And I've really had iPhones that I think are most important.

If you want to see what I work on, that's also on the TJPDC watershed implementation plan website, where I have everything that I submitted to the Department of Environmental Quality, the material evidence of my work.

So if you're curious, please do check it out.

But that's actually what I wanted this month, and next month for the most part.

So we're gonna come up with three new tasks.

There's required liberals, you can see that at the top right there.

But then we also have, we'll have a long list of optional liberals, and we choose three.

And so I'm gonna develop more optional ones for us to choose.

If you have an input or ideas, be able to extend it by right.

Posting to stuffs, you know, folks, things like this one, topics like this.

and encouraging attendance from other stakeholders.

Update the commission members, second and local boards about progress of key contract protocols and other community-related issues as needed.

Let's totally be sharing information.

What would you say in efforts on environmental justice?

So that's kind of why they're pushing out some information on all the new legislation about the solar panels.

Now they're known as impervious, which means water can't flow through them, which makes sense that they're solid.

So that means they're likely to cause runoff.

If you think about the angle of the solar panel, it's going to take all the water down into the roof.

What does your roof do?

It takes it into a drain and it's another point source of the ocean.

So you're going to have rills and rollways and things like that forming, and then you have to deal with that.

So that's why active potatoes and those way of defending solutions are very important.

So if you don't have more problems that you have to deal with, then pay more later.

EJ, we talked about that, just sharing, so that you guys know what we're talking about.

All right, next.

I will say something new about the environment sharing, the information sharing.

This year is I developed something called Words from the Watershed, and it's a newsletter that I'm doing once a season, maybe more, I feel like it.

And it's just gonna have, there's already one out, but I'll be doing one next month.

And it has information on BM, like there's one B and B on there, just the spotlight.

So it's kind of in Nell's head.

I'll talk about educational, like things that your staff could go to, or you could go to if you're curious on a broad range of topics related to the waterfall and the environment.

It's like, hey, I really, really looked at this one, guys.

I'm screaming, please, somebody, time for this, please.

And then also just the global news, environmental justice updates.

Yeah, stuff like that.

So I would love it if you subscribe to work with TJPDC's website right now, if you do that.

Okay.

Assists, localities, and applying planning for a few new youth webinars and grants.

That was a really specific one, but that was one of our optional ones.

And we already knew there were some entries there, so we wanted to edit that.

Continued to create Thomas Jefferson.

Educational materials, that's really an emphasis of this program because not enough people are talking about it.

Share regional information on faith programs with landowner change, so this is the part that says I can work for you guys.

Support local adoption of procedures, plans, policies, and or programs to support forest conservation, other land policies that reduce the impact of future development.

Like how broad is that?

I could really work on anything guys.

Like come on, just give me something.

and then research new ground, please, I'm going to webinars and learning things like that.

Okay, next.

When requested, again, guys, again, I know you guys are working on your top 10 updates, give me a minute there.

When requested, update the environmental sections of local government health plans and the great model collection implementation plan phase three for the HVAC future.

And then this is just the average start, I'm gonna see that it's gonna be a Q, I already did that, it went well.

Submit those original, specific optional tasks.

and then the final contract.

And then next, if you want to check out the week, or the, yeah, palette one, this has a list of the things that I think are most important to stay informed on this topic.

If you don't know, feel free to reach out to me.

Is there anything else?

Might be one more.

There you go.

And I just wanted to like re-emphasize that you don't want to wear a wardrobe as I do, but the new infrastructure and dolls act

has $40 million for the watershed.

And it's not like just watershed stuff.

Like it's like watershed stuff with stuff that you guys already want.

So let's just grab some funding.

National Fishing, Wildlife, Fire Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Trust, USDA, DEQ, DESCAR, UF, UF, UF, all of them have so much funding, so much funding.

Okay, next.

And then I just wanted to give you guys a few action items to walk away with today.

and they're not regulatory, they don't have to change their laws or anything, even though you probably should.

Apply for funding to implement sort of a lot of the best management practices on the value of property, or contact the TJPDC for grant assistance.

Receive places just has to bring for us, we can get some dollars there if we can do next, and then we have to do both of those, and then stream new information on what we're doing at work.

I would love if you guys share your money, etc.

I've talked about like 95 people on the now, but I would really like to reach more out.

encourage citizens to contact their sort of water conservation district.

They offer so much financial and technical assistance and they do a pump house, they will literally go to your land and say this is the best way that you can have your land so that you're like doing conservation landscaping and like managing your water and they'll do it all for free.

Like it's free.

They'll just come out there and say you want to do this?

You can do it.

And then you can incorporate best management practices and green infrastructure into all of your ground applications.

Today, not today, two days ago, I submitted three SmartScale applications for Nelson County, and I'm really excited about them.

Good job.

But I just wanted to say that part of SmartScale application is an environment, and there really weren't that many considerations for it that I saw, and there's opportunities for it.

And because of that, your application might have been a little bit stronger, but maybe that's fine.

I will say that the hardest part of my job is really trying to understand the landscape and nature of each one of those two localities while applying targeted and retested local solutions.

So I really appreciate it if you can help me to identify your unique problems and I'll be in a much better position to support and provide value to your localities.

Please help me get this word out.

I'm happy doing the information sharing I currently do, but wow, wouldn't it be so rewarding to get some solutions put out here out here and join the fruits of our fronted efforts?

And yeah, if you're asking me about science questions or those I'm fired up, then you have to be prepared to witness that, so be prepared.

I like to know how things were, but I'm curious about most of the things I don't understand, so it's just my privilege.

And I challenge you not

I challenge you all to not only look forward to problems related to this, but also for solutions.

So there's so many resources right now that provide solutions, and some from the state agency may be too expensive for me to implement these natural solutions right now, and it's your choice right now.

But at a certain point in the future, it will be mandatory and it will cost money.

We really do have an opportunity here to do something with this information,

I hope some of the background I gave you today will help you to notice how well time collects solutions.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Oh my gosh, you are really fabulous.

You are fabulous.

Thank you.

Can I take you home?

Your energy is phenomenal.

Thank you.

And then the presentation is in the packet.

Yeah, it's on the TJPDC website.

We have a staff page there.

And all of our information is there.

We've been doing our research thus far at the come across.

Yeah, the Hampton Roads area is one that's like right on the bay.

So they're actually kind of like the leaders of all of Virginia RPDC's web programs.

And like, they're really instrumental in doing like a really cutting edge research.

And I take a lot of inspiration from what I do, a lot of the resources, a lot of what I would say from them.

Shout out to Casey Filokino over there.

She's a PhD and she's just really transformed that area, I think.

And I'd like to end with that if I could.

Yeah, I'd say that would be nice.

What do you think is your biggest challenge in this particular region?

Do you have one item to pick?

Like an environmental issue or like an issue I have of doing this job?

No, environmental as far as I'm concerned.

Water shift and environmental, what is one issue that you would have in our localities really focused on?

As a culture.

As a culture.

Yeah, and it's really simple solutions that you can acquire

And that's called stream exclusion fencing, so literally excluding your cows and your horses from the streams but can't prevent.

So they recommend a hundred feet of right hearing buffers, which is just a forcing area basically.

And what that does is stops pollution as it closes water.

I'm actually at a farm in Louisa.

I have four horses.

She has all of that.

They came in a few years ago.

They put on a lot of water and spent it off the river.

She has a lot of creeks and even her little small ones that go through everything, spent it off horses.

It's a pretty big operation there.

And something I didn't know about the soil and water conservation issues is actually that they focus on the waters.

Like they will help.

I know college, you have like a specific site maybe that you want me to check out.

But like they are there for the homeowners and I've been like communicating with them because part of what we're doing with the ROTC next year, if anybody's interested in being a part of it, is having a stakeholder advisory group that's going to be like all of the river stewards from state, federal, and local agencies.

Excuse me.

A lot of our commissioners.

And the point of it is going to be really to elaborate to find solutions to these grants that are coming up so we can talk about it with informed people that know the problems and then find the best person to apply for the grant if it's possible.

Like if it is feasible, if we have resources, we're going to do it.

So I'm really excited for what's going to happen next year.

We're presenting the work plan to the RRBC, obviously the team.

If you want to check out that movie, yes.

Yeah, please talk about it.

Especially when I look at it, I mean, we're really deep in solar right now.

I know, we can.

That's the rear of the county house.

It's one of our projects not to do it.

And it's crazy because there's so many people that want to help.

Like, there's so many people that have the same passion that I know about the environment because they think it's like we're dead.

It might be.

And if it's not, okay, then go wrong.

We did something cool for the environment anyway.

Like, I don't think she's right about this.

I don't think it's like an environmental, global climate change, political issue.

I think it's just a local issue that we're facing right here.

It's like in the form of our hands on the solution is so close and we just aren't going for it.

And I don't understand.

I'm having a really hard time, but I don't approach people.

And I know you guys have made the best decision based on your constituents, but I just wanted to share my perspective based on science.

It's not the opinion.

Thank you.

All right.

I'll try.

This is housing.

This is housing.

Thank you, sweetie.

Well, hey, everyone.

My name is Ian Baxter.

I'm a trainer here at the TJPDC.

I believe I recognize most of you because I've been processing about this at all of our governing boards, at our localities, and towns.

But I just want to give you a quick update.

And actually, this part is outdated literally, if that all gets you in a moment.

So we can go to the next slide.

Again, I just want to remind you what the actual hospitalization plan is doing.

It does two things.

It essentially allows us to prepare for

to be eligible for a mitigation grant program, some of which are included in your packet.

It's the ones that require formal adoption of the hazard mitigation plan.

So this timeline, when I created it, we had submitted the plan to VDAM, but I'm very happy to report that VDAM gave the plan back with no changes.

So we are currently in the midst of submitting it to FEMA.

That was really good news for us here at the EC and hopefully for y'all too.

So yeah, like I mentioned, we were all around the region in the last three months.

This is just a quick breakdown.

June was a really heavy month.

We went to six localities and kind of bookended it with Louisa in July and now we're in May.

And yeah, so I said here in the corporate comments video, I was being a little bit pessimistic because we have nothing to incorporate here.

I'm really, really excited to see my team up.

And then again, I'll be in touch with you all in the coming months to work towards an actual formal adoption.

But yeah, I really wanted to just, I think the next slide is, yeah, so I wanted to,

to come before you all because I know the last time I talked to you it was kind of my first telling you what it was a few months ago and it was definitely, I was really new to the program but I'm very, very happy to report that everything's going according to plan and on schedule and we are looking to have plans adopted by you all so that you can potentially access these funds.

Three quick programs that I wanted to highlight that include your packet, flood mitigation assistance, the actual HMGV, your hazard mitigation grant program,

as well as the BRIC funds, which is a central building related to construction of communities.

There are a variety of different other prerequisites for these.

For example, flood mitigation assistance requires participation in the national lung treatment program.

The latter two only require adoption of the formal hazard mitigation thing.

And within that, you will see some of the stipulations, including information about local matches.

For example, with BRIC, the actual grant itself can be

There's an opportunity for legalities that aren't necessarily prepared to come forward with a formal proposal to access a planning grant, a capacity building grant, because I think FEMA understands that a lot of them have these don't necessarily have the resources to come up with a formal proposal for competitive grant application and would appreciate it to support this then.

So, and I guess the only thing I want to add to that is yesterday I was

In meeting with Louisa and someone brought up the, and Bella actually mentioned the community for preparedness funding that comes from DEQ.

That is something that can go, that can fund not only actual projects, but also that same sort of capacity building planning efforts, if your modality is interested.

So I am definitely here to support any applications for any of these grants.

It kind of ties into the hazard mitigation work we do.

Yeah.

I hope you guys are here.

Yeah, so I think the BRIC grant is actually really interesting because the range of funding

It's really, really wide.

So you'll have one and a half million dollar projects, then you'll have projects, I saw a few that were $300,000.

And again, a lot of the BMPs that Will was mentioning are included, especially when you're talking about flood preparedness and flood resilience.

So, you know, a cheaper project might be a nature-based solution, whether that be building a riparian buffer, and then some of a much bigger effort might be we're actually going to redirect the stream, or we're going to elevate or retrofit houses that are in a flood.

So I actually think that's a great question because I think it's important point that you don't necessarily have to come to this with, okay, we want to fund something that's going to cost upwards of a few million dollars.

This is something that the federal government, because there's so much money, they're willing to look at and accept smaller applications.

I know when you were talking about Albemarle, each supervisor had their own swivel of questions, things like that.

And I'm not going to revisit any of those, but after having met the localities, have any changes happened?

I mean, did you want to, specifically that Albemarle, I know that there was some data that I think it was Supervisor Mal and I noted that one wasn't a plan I made sure to go back and incorporate

The comments from not only our own supervisors, but whoever had comments or feedback.

Because we have had a comment period, but we didn't have very many suggestions.

And it made sense, obviously, if we were going to ask you all to formally adopt something that we incorporate the suggestions in Jeannie.

Let's see your hands on mine.

Any additional questions for you?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you all.

All right, that concludes our presentation.

That moves us to the consent agenda.

I have one technical change to the minutes that Ruth is going to bring up for those of you online to see.

Anybody in the room has a card copy in front of you.

One change that we're going to make when we note attendance is we're now going to track in person versus remote since we have to be able to show no more than 2% or 25%.

Any other changes?

Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the consent agenda as amended by staff.

Second.

All right, the motion is been made and seconded.

Go ahead, Mr. Chairman.

I want you to do the vote.

So I was the member, say aye.

Mr. Chairman, the consent agenda is approved.

And I did track some mounds up there on muted screens.

So it looks like everybody's a dive there.

We're good.

Move to number five, new business.

We have our first item, the quarterly financial update.

I'm somewhere in the middle, I think.

As you guys saw in the email, I sent you revised financial service, one amendment that we wanted to make.

Total income for May was just above $570,000.

Income for June, $275,000.

We did see in May a sizable net gain, $18,214.

That was budgeted.

If you guys recall, we've been accruing revenue to be able to make bonuses at year end.

And so June had a net loss, which was also anticipated at 14,000 for several reasons.

They could be anything from the number of vacations that are taken in June to the holidays.

We did invest in some acoustic sound paneling for this room to try to improve the remote experience.

We're also going to be looking into additional microphones because we have gotten feedback that sometimes it's hard to hear if people aren't loud and articulating.

So we're trying to make those improvements and we did make some investments in that at the year end.

And then the final net gain for the end of the year, we're looking at approximately 53,871.

It's not what our budgeted gain was.

However, with the vacancies that we have, we feel pretty good about how strong we've ended financially this past fiscal year.

Happy to

address anything.

I do want to draw attention to the unrestricted cash.

Our goal is to not fall behind four months of unrestricted cash on hand.

Alarm is at less than two.

We are less than two at this point.

However, since we are in a growth phase and we have larger grants, we're having larger cash outlays and larger receivables as we size up into that.

Many of our grants are reimbursable on a quarterly basis.

So we're paying out cash that is a receivable that we'll receive after that quarter is completed.

And so it's something that we're keeping our eye on very closely to make sure that we don't have any cash flow issues.

We do still have well in advance of our five months of cash on hand at 8.83, I think it was.

The Net Quick Assets.

And so we're not at any alarm phase for that, but it is something that internally we are paying very close attention to as we are working on larger programs and playing larger passion outside of what we're used to.

Happy to take any questions on the financials.

Yeah, there's a hard copy in front of anyone in the room.

Do we take action to accept the reports?

So moved.

All right.

And I think we can do an accreditation here as well.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Yes, so there was a memo in your packet asking for permission for us to engage in a public auction to procure a vehicle for the cigarette tax board.

The reasoning for that is we've had a lot of difficulty finding a vehicle to procure under normal methods, state contracts, cooperative contracts.

And a lot of the dealerships, when I've called, they've said, you know, we have vehicles available, but it'll be a year before it'll be delivered.

And we have hired our cigarette tax compliance agent and he has started working.

Well, we can have them drive a personal vehicle, gain mileage.

This is not going to work in the long term.

We could also use rental car, but that's going to be expensive.

Some people really have an imperative to buy vehicles sooner rather than later.

This is not the only option we have.

We could do emergency procurement.

There are a few other options, but this is an option that could be viable for us to procure car quickly and at a considerable savings potentially.

So our recommendation is to

The motion's been made in seconds.

Evers, thank you, Ms. Emmer.

Okay, the next item is C, pretending telecommunications initiative 2023 unsolicited proposals.

I do have a few slides to go through very quickly this evening.

You do have a memo in your packet as well as the unsolicited proposal that TJPDC received last week that will also be

Talking about the first part of the memo, I really want to address more of what Ms. Allshouse was talking to you about earlier in his authority by 2022.

I wanted to just briefly update you on the body in 2023.

In order to be able to apply for a body grant from the Department of Housing and Community Development, you have to first indicate you intend to apply.

and there was a deadline on July the 7th, and Woodward said a notice of intent or a notice of application to BACB.

TJPDC did submit such a letter.

It included our intent to apply and listed the possible entities or jurisdictions to be covered as the same 13 counties that were part of the 522 project.

Again, as it's been in the past,

The interesting thing with Body 23 is different from Body 22 is what grant funding is eligible for.

Under Body 22, it was areas deemed to be unserved if you were no more than 25 down and three up.

You can see that they have changed that criteria to be under 100 now and 20 now.

So, or as Ms. Allshouse was explaining earlier, the project that we have required on right now is covering the majority of the areas in the district and jurisdictions.

But there will be pockets and you can see we're looking at the estimates for the proposal for 5.5.

There's about eight of those current 13 counties where there are some pockets that would meet this new criteria and potentially could be eligible for funding under Body 23.

Body 22, the three-year time frame.

Body 23, because it's smaller in nature, will be back to what's typically been seen in the previous body.

So as has been mentioned, TJPDC last Thursday, I did receive the unsolicited proposal to provide funds to be a pro applicant, to be our partner, again, in applying for the MONEY 2030 grant.

In accordance with our EPA guidelines that we issued out back in April, we're recommending to you tonight, again, that unsolicited proposal is included in the package, that you accept this unsolicited proposal

for publication and consideration.

And the next slide, which I think is the final slide, kind of leads you through the next steps should you choose to take that action.

Tonight's action will then trigger a staff tomorrow publishing a public notice that we have received on this proposal.

We've looked at it on the TJPDC website and we've let there for 14 days.

We already have a section of the website, a very, very front page that contains the guide lines that were adopted by the commission.

We will probably close this with that public notice as well as those that the fire department has been receiving in that same section.

In the meantime, staff would be reviewing the unsolicited proposal and any others that may come in during that two-week period in response to public events.

And then at some point, I guess later in the agenda, there will be a request of the Commission to schedule a special meeting in order to award a public hearing on the unsolicited proposals that's been received and any others that may come in and to take action at that time as well.

on accepting the proposal.

That should take place prior to the very quick deadline that we're facing for August the 25th for TJPDC and other co-applicants who submit the grant application for 2020-2021.

And I say quick because last year I think our deadline was

It's past the middle of September, so they moved up the time frame at a time when we're really trying to get everything finalized and official about the 19th of 22, it's like doing these 23 standing events.

So should we move through this process, get that application submitted by August 25th, then we would anticipate a very similar timeline.

So all this past year, sometimes we get deeper into the fall or December, the DHCU announced the award winners,

and that if awarded that we would move that to the phase early in 2023 and to reach a movement for kicking off 2023 with people off.

And that's it, yes.

Yeah.

We'll say that Firefly has had a number of those conversations, I think, with the counties.

And I think if you look at the map depicting their proposal, I think they have a pretty good indication of where there's areas that need to be eligible to try to hear them.

So I would anticipate that

I don't know that they have as good a handle yet on what the numbers are in the projects.

And I would anticipate that they're working right now to put together what those matches would be.

I don't know specifically what the process would be.

In order to, you know, strengthen the application, you know, to give them a share of cash,

I don't have any indication.

There's not an informal report for some indication from the county.

So I won't be able to do that.

I think that will be helpful.

I will be certain that that will be our time tomorrow.

I will be happy to do that.

Yes.

We are all budget-related.

A lot of this we're differentiated between 20 and 25.

18 months, yes.

Seeing none, then we should move to the next section, which is the resolution.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, so that resolution carries.

Thank you very much.

Yes, all included in my executive director's report, but I'll go right to that.

We will need to do a special session because the application is due before your next regularly scheduled meeting.

Since we are technically still under the city's emergency ordinance, we can do that remotely.

So it can be an online meeting.

I will send out to all commissioners.

The 14 day timeline brings us to the 19th, which is a Friday.

So we would like to propose times on the following Monday on the 22nd, but I'll send that out via email to you all so that we can ensure that we have a forum present for that.

Yes.

All right.

And then I'll keep going on the executive director's report.

I'm not going to go through all of these because you do have it in your packet, but I wanted to highlight a couple.

As far as personnel updates, we have hired, as Ruth shared with you, we have hired our compliance agent for the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board.

He started this week.

We are very excited about that addition.

Otis Collier is his name.

We also are in the process of doing second round interviews for our planner position that is taking it.

And so we are hopeful that we will end up with a strong candidate out of that.

Sandy Shackelford, our director of planning and transportation returns from maternity leave next week.

We are also thrilled about that.

And then we actually just had one of our planners announce this week that she has taken a job for the federal government at the HUD and is relocating to Boston.

And so we will be advertising that position.

That is Ashreese Frankler.

She's been working on our home, older work, and housing preservation grant program.

So it's an incredible opportunity for her.

It is a lost kind of piece for sure.

Additionally, the FOIA Council will be meeting to develop a model policy for the all-torture public meetings.

We told you we were going to bring that before you.

We are going to review that model policy and hopefully bring that to you in September for a recommendation.

We want to see if you guys would like to institute any all-virtual meetings as a part of our 10 meetings a year.

As you guys know, we provide quarterly reports to our localities.

It's generally been like a white paper that is split by content area.

We are looking at potentially revising that quarterly report to make it more of a graphic newsletter, a little bit more information specific to work that's being done in the localities.

So separating out the regional projects that we have and the locality specific projects so that it's easier to skim through the things that are most relevant to our local jurisdictions.

We are going to pilot that for this first quarter.

So we'll go out in October.

We'll bring it back to you all in November to get feedback to see if there are things that you guys think we should add or that we can do differently to improve that reporting out to our jurisdictions.

Next steps for 50th anniversary.

I'm sitting here pulling on it.

I should have just taken it off.

Next steps for 50th anniversary is we are going to convene the work group that's going to talk through some potential ways that we can

We will be in touch with those of you that volunteered to be a part of that work group and welcome anybody else that would like to be a part of it.

And then I listed for you all professional development that staff has taken advantage of.

We've had a significant amount of staff

going to professional conferences, make sure we're staying up to date in state and federal funding opportunities so that we're looking out for our region as far as opportunities that the PDC can contribute to your local priorities.

There are a great deal number of housing updates, but I'm not gonna go through those individually.

In the interest of time, there are some large transportation ones.

So we have submitted all eight, four for the MPO, four for the TJPDC SmartScale applications.

Those were due on this first, as well as supporting the three for Nelson County.

All smart scale applications were successfully submitted.

I didn't lose any staff over that one, but it was a haul to get 11 applications in.

Commonwealth Transportation Board in their last meeting did approve their staff.

That included funding for the TJPDC to continue our transit expansion work.

So they are funding a transit governance study.

And that is going to be the next steps of looking at the regional vision for transit and then starting to look at what type of governance structure would need to be in place and what types of revenue sources can we look at to bring in additional state and federal revenue to take some of the pressure off of local general funds in order to be able to improve transit service in the region.

We're really excited about that work.

We have spoken a great amount of time to be working with staff in each of our six jurisdictions.

We feel very strongly that this is a regional project.

It is not an urban transit project.

The rural transit is one of the major focuses of what we're trying to improve.

So you will be hearing a lot from us on that transit work that we're working on.

I was going to say, Christine, mentioning the CTB, triggered me, there's a new CTB member for the Culpeper District.

It's from Fluvanna, I believe.

General Byers was appointed by the government last week.

Okay, next transportation update is US Department of Transportation has a grant out called Safe Streets for All.

It is something that several of our jurisdictions have reached out to us to see if there was interest in a regional application rather than individual jurisdictions.

I've spoken to staff in all six jurisdictions that have indicated interest in all six, which means we will be furiously trying to

Come up with a scope for this to make sure that we request the appropriate amount of grant funding from the US Department of Transportation.

We will be coming back to your staff to likely come before your governing boards before September 15th to see if you are committed to that project and if you are willing to contribute local funds.

There is a 20% required local match.

However, they are allowing it to be both cash and in time.

So it can include your staff's time in supporting that grant application.

That's called Safe Streets for All.

There's two different tracks in that grant.

One of them is a comprehensive safety action plan.

So it's looking at your entire road network and identifying where the safety concerns are, where fatalities are occurring, and then prioritizing projects that can address those.

There's seven different criteria that a safety action plan has to meet.

Once a locality or a region has a safety action plan in place, it is then eligible for implementation funding to apply to the U.S. Department of Transportation under the same grant program to get funding to work on those safety issues.

So it's a great benefit to the region and the webinar that I was on for training highly recommends multi-jurisdictional and regional applications to be competitive.

But you'll be hearing more about that.

I'm still working with your staff and identifying in this scope.

That grant program allows for either a regional comprehensive safety action plan or individual plans for any jurisdiction that joins a multi-jurisdiction.

So that's one of the things we want to ensure is that each locality gets what they need out of that plan so it could look like individual plans

for your jurisdictions rather than one more broad plan.

I'm going to skip environment because you did so much on that and so did Ian, so thanks to staff.

And then economic development.

We were awarded the Economic Development Administration SEDS grant.

That's a $100,000 project.

$80,000 of that will come from EDA.

We've had our kickoff meeting with EDA already.

We will be forming a strategy committee that will lead that work.

We apply alongside the RRRC, Rappahannock Rapidan Regional Commission.

We will complete a SEDS, which is a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

We'll complete one for our region.

Simultaneously, they're completing one for theirs.

And we will incorporate a multi-regional chapter on linking the two since we know economic development goes beyond our own borders.

And so you'll be hearing more about that as well.

This is new for us to have an economic development grant coming in.

It's the first time we've received funding from the EEA.

So as we learn it, we will be bringing it to you all.

That's all the updates I have for you.

If you guys read anything in the executive director's report that you would like additional information on, please reach out to me.

There's a lot of

A lot of new, as you all well know, new opportunities, new funding to take advantage of.

And so it's really important for me and with you all as the commissioners to make sure that we are applying as a region for the things that are most important to your localities.

So if you hear of funding opportunities that you think would be best suited, not as a local only application, but as a multi-jurisdictional application, shoot them in our direction and say, please look into this and see if other jurisdictions want to join us.

So we are very, very committed to applying for the ones that are the most appropriate for us, but also being strategic about it and not applying just because the funding is there.

It has to meet your local needs.

Very good.

That is all I have for my executive director's report.

Questions for Christine?

I would be OK with that, Chair.

That saves streets for all.

Interestingly enough, I was on a call yesterday with VDOT and they have local funding.

They have state funding that you can also use as a part of leveraging your application.

So they are providing to some applicants, it depends on your scope,

technical support and the safety and crash analysis, the data that we would need in order to complete the plan through USDOT.

And their response was it should be an interesting couple of years as implementation projects come before them.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Seconded.

Ms. Wilkinson.

Aye.

Supervisor Barlow.

Yes.

Thank you.

Supervisor Reed.

Aye.

Supervisor Rucker.

Aye.

Supervisor O'Brien.

I'll just call a roll for the vote session.

I don't know if I already made a motion yet.

I'm going to move the commission to close session.

Second.

Second.

Mr. Andrews?

Mr. O'Brien?

Herring?

Aye.

Mr. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Ms. Jones?

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Aye.

Yes.

Mr. O'Brien?

Aye.

Mr. Maron?

Aye.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Ms. Jones?

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I move that the clients committee convene an executive and professional

Mr. Payne?

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Ryan?

Mr.

Ms. Wilkinson?

Aye.

Ms. Jones?

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Mr.

Herring?

Yes.

That has been very exciting.

We've engaged with a lot of our populace.

We've run into a very major issue and that's getting native Nelsonians who got more than a couple generations of blood, Nelson can show up.

So we're finding ourselves getting a lot of folks who are transients and the way to say it, come here's and then here's, but maybe get into many more years.

That's a very big issue and in order to get buy-in for our confidence plan, we're going to get a lot more corn ears and a lot of time family generational folks.

So as a result, more than likely, at our next meeting, we will do additional public hearings, deliberately targeting the native population, hoping that they'll show up and get some buy-in and some calendar.

We have some major water authority,

She's coming up.

We have lots of infrastructure going in.

The Skyler project went from the millions of dollars it was now to another million dollars.

I did hear Jim Andrews was making a motion at his next meeting to give us that million dollars.

Thank you for the representation.

Anyways,

We have that.

We have recently transitioned our county administrator internally, Candy McGarry.

We are very proud to have internally promoted someone who's been with our county for a couple of decades.

She brings lots of experience and lots of county knowledge, and she ain't going with it.

That's a good thing.

I know Stephanie's very excited about that.

We have had a lot of discussion in our conference later about affordable housing.

Someone telling you, in fact,

I would say the number two topics in Nelson Academy during our comprehensive.

Public hearings has been affordable housing.

That has been very eye-opening.

You know, a lot of folks don't necessarily know how to discuss it other than they know the need exists.

That's been one thing that's been brought to my awareness.

People say, well, we need to develop where between Luggiston and Albemarle.

And I say, well, between Luggiston and Albemarle is the least developed land in Nassau County.

So, you know, the topic of what we'll have as the candidates.

So, it's exciting to be part of an organization like TJPDC that's had the forethought of topics like that.

That's all I got.

Great.

Thank you.

I guess the biggest...

Hot button topic, we got a short-term rentals around the lake area.

We got people that have been renting properties for 20 years and all of a sudden the neighborhood, and this is in subdivisions, the neighborhood is in an uproar for an ordinance that will regulate some of that stuff.

That's probably the only thing that we've got that's troublesome.

I would like to say that I enjoyed sitting in on the regional transit meeting on the 28th by Zoom.

That was a really good meeting.

And we also had some stormwater issues that have risen in the town of Louisa.

And Ian was nice enough to end that.

And that will be a controversial remedy, I'm sure, eventually.

Well, the thing we did do this week, we've only been meeting once a month in the summer, is we passed a solar ordinance.

And that took a while to hammer out.

As you know, Louisa, I think that many counties are kind of becoming the mecca for solar and a lot of farmers are looking into that as a revenue stream for them.

We only want 3% of our county to be solar.

Our urban included many things too.

The controversial items on it that we kind of hammered out was we were trying to limit it to 151 megawatts.

and so that would have been the larger projects and many of our solar companies came to us and landowners came to us and asked us not to do that so we did step back off of that so we do have the ability to have and to look at smaller options in solar in our county now and then there was a 300 foot buffer that caused a lot of indecisiveness

And we decided that we are going to look at 300 foot buffer only as an option.

That's just a suggestion.

And we'll work on each property because every property has its own challenges and it's different.

So instead of setting a standard across the board.

So once we got those hammered out, we've got our solar pass.

Tommy, did there is anything on the solar?

So now we do a solar ordinance in play.

Trying to sell solar.

Yeah, trying to stop belters from happening again in Louisa County, which is happening in Georgia.

Or what can happen when silver goes wrong.

So, we're trying to protect the county.

Hopefully, we'll do it.

We're using a public resolution.

Yes.

Yes.

I think we do that.

Thank you guys.

I have two questions.

One is, I was approaching, we have a lot of farms in Greene that have been working with cold-pepper soil and water to fence the 30, usually a 35 foot buffer, all of their streams.

What I recently had a gentleman stop by offering to

O'Brien, David Blount,

The Rybana River, and the tributaries that flow into it, which includes Welch Creek, which runs the Mike Farm.

But, you know, I've long since had the buffers already on my place, which is under conservationism.

Anyway, I will bring the paper with me, this other offer, which was even juicier.

We had pepper soiled in the water, and

A very great preponderance and cost for some time and that is getting sweeter and sweeter as time goes on of getting these buffers in and the watering systems and all of that.

But this is the first time, and you know the government has been paying little teeny bits of money for the acreage lost inside that fence that's been going on a long, long time.

But this is the first time I've heard of a thing where they will maintain buffers which is actually

A big expense to the property owners, the buffers and the fences, and pay money on top of it.

So I don't know what, anyway, I wish I didn't have to bring that paperwork in, but I will.

There's one other thing.

I wanted to comment on the very nice roundabout on 20 and Prophet Road, which is the most user-friendly and attractive roundabout that I've seen.

That thing is a three-way roundabout, and that may be part of why it's so nice.

But we, in Greene County, we have had one at Freddie Creek Road, Matthew Mill Road.

You know exactly what I'm talking about, Dale.

That's also a three-way.

And it was considered for a roundabout some time ago.

We dropped it as being too difficult to acquire right away, expensive.

But now it seems to be back in the plan possibly in one of our smart scale applications.

Anyway.

I hope we get something that turns out nearly that well because that thing has really improved that profit room and Route 20 intersection a lot.

Yes, absolutely.

Commissioner Herring?

The biggest news for us is that we are now again to form our own water authority.

We finally got the resolutions for the locality.

We're going through the process.

Dragan has set up.

So hopefully in the next 30 to 60 days, we'll be in charge of our water, which is a big improvement for, in some sense it's been I think so, but for our future growth, it was vital.

We were being, they were attempting to do a little of this, yes.

But,

So that's a big, big thing for us and should lead to a lot of improvements.

Kind of small things.

We just passed a zoning ordinance to improve agricultural heat processing facilities on a smaller scale.

That was asked for.

We also rezoned the 29-3300 B3 to B3.

That was somewhat controversial for one of the businesses there is releasing the drone.

I know it will be removed, but that's not really a forward decision.

And I think, I'm not sure I mentioned this before in a previous meeting, tourism is a big, there's a lot of opposition in Greene.

to where certain tourism landing was approved.

I'm not sure what month it was in, it seemed like a few longer years.

I know we tried to let them fall and recently.

There's another tourism project coming up on Actua 2, and that's, I'm seeing signs and opposition to those as well.

I've got a meeting with individuals concerning the project.

So one of the things I suggested is that we increase our TOT taxes by three cents.

and that three sentences go to Gretchen for public safety.

So then we allocate that money so that that takes away the argument that people always come up with that we can't afford to do this, this campground, this tourism event because public safety is not, they can't afford to increase the debt as well.

If you do this, the money's already built in there where you can.

So hopefully that'll go through the tourism council to discuss that and we'll break the budget next year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I've been kind of laid up in the last 10 days recovering from COVID, so I don't have that much to share.

Other than I just wanted to say thank you to everybody on the Commission for the Regional Housing Partnership.

Those who have read the notes, our fearless leader at the head of the table there is now the fearless leader

of the Regional Housing Partnership.

So I'm here to help support him in the organization moving forward.

But it's just great to see how the Regional Housing Partnership has grown up and is really impacting people's lives and moving forward.

So I'm good, Mr. Chairman.

Similar to Greene County, we are very close to starting the process, but we're in the middle of the process of getting our water as well, too.

So that's, again, a big step for the county with really three water programs that are in the next 15 to 20 years or further that are happening.

So that's going

For the county in economic development.

We have a business park that has a lot of attention for union.

That's just a stage three, but you know, once you process it, doing all that, and that has led to some activity, which is very promising for the county as well, too.

We just did a wage compensation analysis and study.

The board voted yesterday to implement that study to bring

increases, that was a little bit, there was a lot of discussion around sort of the purpose and how do you address the fact that some people are maybe getting raised and others are.

We ended up implementing a program where we gave a 3% raise for years, we gave up to a 3% year, I'm sorry, we gave a years of service raise of half a percent per year, up to 6%.

We did that and then I think the only other major thing to report is

Similar to the other counties, we're going through the comprehensive planning process and we have some folks that are not from here and we have some folks that are from there.

But the big discussion has primarily been around growth.

Savannah County had a lot of projects that were in the works when the housing crisis hit 10 years ago.

And so now we're seeing a lot of those projects filling up.

And the sense from people in the community is that we've gone wild, which we really haven't.

We haven't approved that many new projects, but we'll put them up to the old projects.

And so there's strong demands to make sure that we keep the rural community of the county, which is very rural to begin with.

And then we have lots of trees, and then we make sure that we have an architecture where we can work so that we

It can seem overwhelming for the public when they see a new development come up, or two new developments come up suddenly from that standpoint, and maybe the whole world is better.

So that's good.

We're making a lot of involvement.

I really do encourage that from the public.

And so we'll see how the comprehensive plan comes out.

I suspect we're going to narrow some of our growth zones, and that we will also see more emphasis on how to protect the world character as a major recommendation

That's the latest information.

Yes.

I'm a little worried about echo.

And maybe you should go first, and then I'll follow up with anything that I think you might have missed.

All right.

Well, that's now going away and did with other people as well.

So I'll give it a shot.

We've had a number of interesting meetings and they're relevant to some of the discussion we've had today.

So as recently as yesterday, we had a stream health initiative discussion where we talked about changing from regulation through

We're actually trying to learn from experiences elsewhere, so one of the things that came up is that Greene County has a way to look at

incremental development and make sure that incremental development doesn't accumulate to over 10,000 square feet of disturbance.

And we now are going to look at that approach as well so that we can watch and maintain buffers more completely.

So that's very relevant to some of the things that were being discussed today.

A lot of other things have been going on.

In transit, the micro transit pilot project has, as my understanding, has been funded.

So we're go ahead on that one, which is really exciting.

We had an update on the Charlottesville Airport, which I know is a major regional airport, and there are significant improvements in the works there, and ridership is up to 87% of fiscal year 18, about 77% of fiscal year 19, so it's coming back, but it's not

No, not where it was still.

And I'll let Ned talk about things like the Rio Road corridor that we had.

We've got some things happening where Fashion Square Mall was.

We're going to take over the JC Penney for expanding facilities for police and fires, public safety operations.

And I heard some people talking about homestay, short term rental issues.

We actually had some things come up just last night about, we've always wanted to make sure that when people have a homestay that they

That the owner of the property is there as well.

But we recognize that sometimes the beneficial owner isn't really the named owner.

And so we wanted to accommodate that.

And now we found ourselves kind of in a predicament of trying to understand how best to make sure that homestays don't become some corporatized way of life.

So that's come up.

Ned?

The only thing I would add is that closing out our fiscal year, and right at the start of the new fiscal year, Albemarle finally got to put about $5 million into a housing fund, and over, what, 90% of that's already been spent.

We had over $20 million of identified projects.

So we already, you know, I'm nervous about this year, because we don't have much left in this year, because maybe go other places if projects come.

But a lot of good projects being funded in the Affordable Housing Area comes alive virtually.

The Rile Road Corridor Study is huge.

It takes us from basically where Putt Putt is down all the way to the city line as you continue on Rile Road past John Warner Parkway.

And the whole point of the study is a planning document to conceptualize where the issues are, to put ideas forward of how to do what treatments are necessary at every intersection all the way through the corridor.

and then on East Rider Road, there's a lot of development happening.

So that's an area that's still being used as a throughway.

I would like to see that less as a throughway and encourage traffic to continue on the parkway.

We'll see if that stuff will go into fruition.

The fashion square mall, the item that Commissioner Andrews mentioned, the police and fire will be putting the anchor in.

It's not the whole JCPenney, but it will be a good portion of that.

And it would be a compounded

O'Brien, David Blount, Ryan Mickles, David Blount, Ryan Mickles,

And then the biggest news that I think we'll report is that we appointed at the end of June and he joined us on the desk for the first time last night as our new county attorney, Steve Brinsonburg, who has just recently, or was formerly, was the county executive or city manager in Stanton.

He was previously also with the report for UVA and has been a county attorney in other areas.

So he has joined Albemarle County after the retirement of Greg Kamkner back in April 1.

All right.

The city recently adopted a five cent plastic bag tax to line up with Albemarle County, which is going to take effect in January.

We've formally begun the search for the next chief of police and are soliciting public feedback at the moment.

We'll be doing some forms and other public engagement.

implementation of the zoning we write is continuing.

We've had a few public open houses.

We're going to be getting another update by the end of the month.

Likewise, we're hoping to kickstart soon a more formal methods for implementing our adopted affordable housing strategy, which hopefully will help build some momentum around creating a local land bank, having a more systemic approach to maybe utilizing community land trusts and

identifying a steady mechanism for funding the housing strategy at $10 million a year.

We've been able to do that the past two years, but there's really no formalized way to guarantee that longer term.

And finally, maybe the biggest thing is on August 15th, we're going to be hearing

and ordinance to approve collective bargaining for city employees.

That's going to be a discussion and in September, council will be voting on whether or not to adopt an ordinance to allow our employees to collectively bargain.

And if approved, we expect that transit and fire department will quickly be pursuing that.

And similar timeframe, our school board is also considering an ordinance to allow school employees to collectively bargain.

That'll be happening about the same time.

And finally, probably like other places, we're having some significant challenges with school bus drivers for the upcoming school year.

We're working on a safe route to school plan to help deal with that, but we've still got 40 school buses, but only seven drivers for them.

Yes, those are on there as a place for what we anticipate coming before you in September.

The FY24 projected budget and local revenue request, home and CDBG papers, draft presentation, and public hearings, and then an update on the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board and its first six months of operation, and then a legislation update on the all-virtual meetings

And then we will be hearing from Christine on the date for special meetings.

You might have seen that.

You might have seen that.

You might have seen that.

You might have seen that.

You might have seen that.