Planning District Commission Meeting   10/3/2024

Haldeman, Paul D. Warder, Supervisor O'Brien, Mr. Smith, Mr. Woodward, Supervisor Reed,

Now we'll take a vote to allow for electronic participation.

Even though the picture isn't, I'm currently in Richmond and got stuck in a flight in Atlanta for godly knows how long, so I couldn't make it there physically.

I move we allow Mr. Smith to participate in the electronic.

I'll second that.

All right.

Thank you Mr. Galloway.

I seconded by Mr. Garoneo.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any big yes?

Chair goes aye.

Motion passes.

All right, next matter in public.

Do we have any follow-up comments?

No?

I think that's the same.

Okay, great.

Well, now we'll move on to presentations.

All right, so we'll move on to presentations.

Okay.

First is the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Force, 61, that's good.

Hi Mr. Chairman, members of the commission.

Ruth will be pulling up a very short presentation, but we do like to come before you every six minutes or so and give you an update on what's going on with the Cigarette Tax Board.

And if you'll just go ahead and go to the slide here.

Just a little background and refresher of how it works.

Hard to believe that the board has been in place for three years now.

It's formed in October of 2021.

You can see the original members there, six of the counties across the central Virginia areas in Charlottesville, as well as the town of Madison,

Significantly, the board agreed to allow an additional jurisdiction to join the board this past year, and that was Rockingham County that became a member effective July 1 of this year.

Taxis were levied in the jurisdictions beginning in January 2022.

First Charlottesville had an existing sales tax, cigarette tax, so they just kept levying the tax at the same rate they had been.

TJPDC is the administrator for the board.

We're working on a monthly basis with probably close to 30 distributors.

They submit monthly reports to us that show the stamps that they have purchased, the packs that they have sold to retailers, and then they remit

the money that they have collected from those retailers to TJPDC.

We process all of that.

The distributors get to keep back 2% for their cost.

We hold back our administrative cost and then the remaining money that is taken in is distributed to the jurisdictions based on the number of packs sold in those jurisdictions.

Next slide, please.

So we'll just give you a snapshot of some of the numbers.

We've been able to tabulate the end of fiscal year 24 and the end of June.

You can see that gross revenue for the year was just shy of $2.9 million in sales.

That is up only slightly from the previous year.

I think it was about $70,000 more, if you can believe it was that close.

Total PACS sold, however,

just under 8.5 million, that was actually down about 700,000 from the previous year.

We did have one jurisdiction that increased their tax beginning with July, July 1 of 2023.

So we're attributing that increase or that kind of holding steady in revenue, even though the work year packs do that very much, a very high rate, a higher rate that was implemented.

We've seen over the past couple years, typically our administrative costs have been running somewhere in the $150,000 a year range.

And then just to give you what one month looks like, because I still think it's amazing, you know, three quarters of a million packs of cigarettes in one month.

It's just, you know, kind of after three years boggles my mind.

However, and we'll see in the coming slides, overall, the sales of packs,

are trending downward year to year, 23 to 24, approximately 9%.

That's very similar to what two of the other regional boards in Virginia saw, similar 8 to 9% decline.

And again, the revenues were up slightly for 24 because of that one jurisdiction that increased its tax significantly.

and then again expenses about $13,000 per month.

Gretchen Thomas, our administrative assistant who you all know does the lion's share of the work.

I always try to plug her because she's really just kind of took this on when we started it up and has done a fantastic job.

Next slide, please.

Here's just a portrayal across the region by month and the number of packs sold, 23 versus 24.

You can see that for the most part, you've got a downward trend from 23, which is the orange, to the more reddish or maroon bars.

I don't know how we ended up using protect colors.

Did you do that?

Gretchen has had kids at Prince of New Tech, so maybe she did that.

I have to ask her about that.

It's been loaded.

It'll be in minutes.

Next slide, please.

And then to take a look at the number of packs sold again, this will be at 24 totals.

By jurisdiction, you will see the orange and blue right there on the right.

That's Albemarle and Augusta.

Over half of the sales across the region and then going on around alphabetically.

Next slide, please.

Keeping Ruth busy.

Now we move over into the money part.

And this is the total allocation.

So this would be the gross minus that 2% discount the distributors take and what we take for administrative expenses.

And again, largely with the exceptions, a downward trend

You know, in the revenues, you'll see the exceptions there in July and August of fiscal year 24.

That's when we had that pump up in the cigarette tax in one of the jurisdictions.

I think really, you know, before people figured it out, you know, you could see the revenues went up there before kind of stabilizing and more of a downward trend the rest of the fiscal year.

And then the next slide is just a breakdown of the revenues in 2024, the allocation to the jurisdictions.

Again, Albemarle, large number of packs sold at the 40 cent rate has over a quarter of the revenue.

You come on around, Augusta's rate, only 15 cents per pack.

So even though they had the largest number of cigarettes for sold, they've been that way pretty much since day one, their revenues are not as great because of the lower rate.

They did increase it from 15 to 30 cents effective August one this year.

And then Charlottesville in the green, you'll see they have a 55 cent rate higher than any of the counties, so a little bit higher piece or larger piece of the pioneer.

Next slide, please.

And just an update on some things that have happened since you received your last presentation six months ago.

The board meets on a quarterly basis.

It met later in April and the latter part of July.

You saw the budget that they approved in the spring for fiscal year 25, a total of just shy of $3 million.

Again, that's pretty much all passed through with the exception of that about $150,000 in our administrative expense.

Again, the board agreed to have Rockingham County join the board effective July 1.

We've continued to work with the board on our reserve fund policy.

You may remember, I think it was this commission a couple of years ago, had some discussion about the amount of the initial contribution that the localities had been asked to submit as part of joining and establishing the board.

decision was made really kind of at your all's with your all's discussion as a background going before the board and they agreed to to allocate a good portion of that initial reserve fund back to the jurisdiction so you know held back some money in reserve and continue to kind of massage that reserve fund policy as a result we did establish a new option this year for distributors not just having to send us their

I think we have only four or five that are doing it in that way.

And then a couple of meetings ago, we really had some good discussion about what happens when we have consistent violators of the local tax ordinances.

And we run into a situation where we actually have to seize cigarettes.

So we established a process for that to happen.

The board designated the executive director, her designee, to be the one to appeal, to hear any appeals that would be made by

retailers who have had their cigarettes seized.

Fortunately, I think I can say fortunately we have not had to seize any cigarettes yet and I think our compliance agent has been very good in really trying to work with the different retailers to try to bring them to compliance.

A lot of that is repeated visits but those cases have been very few and far between.

And I think that the last slide is really just a closer peek at the compliance efforts.

When we first started up the program three years ago, it was new to these retailers, so a lot of time was spent really just going out, compliance agent, visiting with them, educating them, making them aware of this new tax.

what they needed to do to get into compliance, to stay in compliance.

That's going on again now with the retailers in Rockingham County.

Again, 250 plus retailers.

I think that is probably closer to 270 across those pretty large jurisdictions.

I don't know the square mileage, but it's a pretty large footprint.

And as I said, most of the retailers, most all are in compliance.

Where there's problems, again, there's repeat visits that are made in order to bring them into compliance, making sure that their product is properly stamped with the Blue Ridge Cigarette stamp.

No seizures have been made, including at the end of 2023, which was kind of our final

Drop Dead, all this old product that you've had for two years that we allowed to be sold through when the taxes started, that was cleared out.

So that was a good thing.

And then we do have a process for the distributors who on a monthly basis by the 10th of the month, they're just submitting their reports to us, they're submitting their payment.

If they're late, there's a three-step process, which includes a warning for them to make sure that their reports are on time the next month or we move to the next step.

And we've really had to give very few warnings as well.

So I think all in all, and I think the board, someone at the last board meeting in July said it's a pretty well-oiled machine.

I think after

You know, two and a half years of collecting the taxes.

You know, things are running pretty smoothly.

We do get questions from distributors from time to time.

We get retailers that call wanting to know.

We're getting calls now from folks in Rockingham County as their new tax has gotten started here in the last several months.

All in all, it seems to be running pretty well.

I think the board, when we first started, they wanted to see the numbers go down to show that this was having some impact on seeing fewer people smoking or fewer cigarettes being bought.

And I think the trend line, especially this past year, 23 to 24, is really starting to show that.

Well, thank you very much.

Okay.

So last time I was, for you all, I was talking about the mobility management program and we just applied for funding for fiscal year 2025.

We were awarded that funding.

And I just, this is the end of our first fiscal year for 2024.

It will be the end of this month, will be the end of our year.

So I wanted to give you an update on the program.

We did a marketing plan which gave us the new name PATH, so it's no longer Mobility Management, it's PATH, which is Partnership for Accessible Transportation.

As our population grows, we're getting more elders who will need transportation assistance, especially medical appointments.

As recognized by the Blue Ridge Health District, their Community Health Improvement Plan found that people who cannot drive, the lack of transportation for people who can't drive is one of the top barriers to a healthy community.

And PATH works to build coordination among transit providers and services for older adults and people with disabilities to help them get more rides.

So we want to increase the amount of rides and improve the services that are already there.

In our first year, we worked a lot on partnerships and program setup.

We secured funding and also secured an agreement with Java to hire staff and set up and staff a one-call center so that people could call in and get information about all of the transportation services available in the region.

We also conducted the marketing study

with the help of a consultant.

And we hired and trained Sarah Richardson, our transportation counselor.

And then we started the information and referral service.

Sarah wasn't hired until May, so she's just been on for a few months.

After doing our market research and producing marketing material on a website, we worked with human service agencies to market the program.

We really targeted agencies who connect with older adults and people with disabilities, which is our target audience, to help us market the program.

The marketing study?

Yes.

Yes.

OK. Marketing study and analysis that we did, which also included a survey and focus groups in all of the areas.

So, and then we also tabled at events like West Haven Day, we presented at the center and a bunch of other community centers and senior centers.

And also the Blue Ridge Health District did some social media posts for us, and we have a public service announcement on WNRN.

Has anybody heard it?

Sarah recorded it.

I haven't heard it either.

It plays twice a day.

So the services that we're now offering to the public is the information and referral service.

It's free.

You can call us.

We also have a website with links to the other transportation providers.

We help non-drivers navigate the system and find the best rides for their needs.

So Sarah works at Java and she's really connected with insurance and Medicaid and Medicare, and she knows all the service providers.

We've got an extensive list of

Not only the public service providers, but private service providers in different regions as well.

So when somebody calls in, first we look to see if they can use CAT and then John Laker's CAT.

And then we kind of go down the line.

If it's for a medical appointment, will their insurer pay for it?

Do they have Medicaid?

But then we also have private taxis and just individual people who kind of do a transportation service.

So we've got a lot of resources.

And she'll also call in churches and things like that.

So she really works hard to find people what they need.

And we also follow up with them afterwards to make sure everything went okay.

I think I went backwards.

Okay.

I don't know why this slide keeps doing that.

So

I wanted to like, we have an extensive database system.

We don't have a lot of calls, but I wanted to share with you what we've come up with so far this year and just share like some of what we can do with more data in the future.

So the reason for calls, most has been that people need a ride to a specific event, mostly medical care.

And they usually call like a couple of days to a couple of weeks in advance and say like, I have this appointment.

I need to go at this time.

And then the second highest type of call is asking general questions about public transit.

So people are interested in learning more about what's available.

And we receive calls from all jurisdictions in Region 10.

And we also help people.

The other is people who call from outside Region 10 but are coming into Region 10.

So we also help them as well.

And as you can see,

The call volume kind of corresponds with the population, with Albemarle and Charlottesville being at the top number of callers for us.

The top reasons for travel is 84% is medical.

People are trying to get to medical services.

And just think about that.

If people aren't able to get to medical services, then what other activities are they not able to get to?

like just social, shopping, those types of things like they're really missing out on a lot of other parts of their lives.

So we typically refer to John and they are a great partner.

We meet with them often and they've just been a terrific resource and partner with us.

And then we also have that comprehensive list of other types of transportation, which is much, much longer than what's on this slide, but I just kept it to the top.

So the other part of PATH is community partnerships and coordination of transportation providing.

So we work with transportation providers to help improve their services.

We also work with human service agencies

whose clients need the services.

And we try to be a bridge between the two and then work with the transportation providers to improve the services and kind of seeing what people need and making those matches that way.

Some of our partner projects at the moment include working with the Charlottesville Area Alliance and PAT to help older adults learn how to ride the PAT bus through field trips and senior groups.

We're going to have our first field trip with Innovage

on August 8th.

It's at 10 o'clock if anybody wants to join us.

August 8th, 10 o'clock.

October 8th.

I'm sorry.

Yes, October 8th.

Sorry.

We're also developing a transportation workshop with, again, the Charlottesville Area Alliance and the Charlottesville Regional Redevelopment Housing Authority.

We're going to work with senior housing sites to, again, if they are able to, they have a bus stop close, we'll do the bus field trip.

If not, we're going to talk about all of the options that are available to them, how to use them, get them signed up for jaunt paratransit if that applies.

And then also kind of brainstorm and workshop with them on things that they could do, like maybe start a carpool program, different things like that.

We can kind of help the residents there get more rides.

Oh, we're also working with some volunteer driver programs like Seville Village and we're going to apply for a grant to reimburse their drivers for mileage and then maybe also reimburse for some costs like driver training and insurance and background checks.

I went backwards again, sorry.

So the Community Benefits Path aims to enhance transportation services by providing a centralized phone number and website to connect community members with all of the available transportation options.

We have several different options, and so this way people can just come.

It's a one-stop shop where they can just come to one place and learn about all of them.

We also work on coordinating and supporting services to improve transportation.

And we have a complex data system to frame informed decisions, expansions, and changes in transportation services.

So the mobility management funding that we receive from the state really helps us set up an infrastructure and funding foundation

as an expandable model that serves multiple stakeholders and programs in the future.

Any questions?

This question is probably better directed towards our fellow commissioners from Albemarle County.

Earlier this year, a meeting here with TJ, you mentioned that you were having a considerable problem

to get rides to doctor's offices to get back.

I don't know if they were, I mean, that was definitely happening because there wasn't, they didn't know who else to contact.

So I don't know that we've studied it to see to that extent, but that's happened.

The last time I recall Marta Kean, who's the executive director of JAHO is in front of us.

She spoke to them because they're doing, they've done a significant education effort to help

as part of even coordinating with this to help folks know what the alternatives are so they're not relying on EMS to come.

But it was, the way she explained it, I remember years ago, it was more, I mean, these are folks who have no support system, no family, no, so if something does happen, or if they need to get into a medical, they don't know what else to do.

So Java is taking on, so I think it's improved, I just don't know.

what the true extent or there's like, oh, it's improved by 50% or something.

One of the things we've found is people need stretcher transportation.

And that could just be like, if they're oversized and don't fit in a wheelchair or can't get into the car or transfer, their family can't transfer them from their bed into a wheelchair.

They don't have anywhere to go for that.

So my husband's a paramedic and they sometimes call

the ambulance service for that.

But also if they are able to get outside of their home, stretcher transportation is like a thousand dollars a ride.

So that's, you know, kind of out of the reach of some people and then they're really stuck.

So one of the things that we're working on, we applied for a grant for and are trying to fundraise for some more funds is an emergency use for people who are low income and have a really high need, maybe like one or two times

and we could just cover the cost of that service for them.

We do have a few people who have called with dialysis, which is three times a week.

And we couldn't afford to like pay, you know, for that.

Lucinda, I see taxi cabs from Charlottesville and Richmond and the town of Louisa and around Louisa County.

all the time during the week.

When I've asked people about that, they say, well, that's Medicaid patients who usually are on the way from a doctor's office.

Sarah.

Yeah, they'll leave them to medical appointments.

It also takes them to day programs if they have their relative voting.

They kind of get set up through Motive Care, which used to be called Logistic Care.

And they handle all of the Medicaid and Medicare transportation.

So if you want it to be paid for by insurance, it has to go through Motive Care.

And then they contract with whatever company that's going to provide the service.

A lot of those, like where I used to work at a crude home, there was one person that had a stretcher service that brought him home for the state program every day.

They came to be pregnant, but that's not where the drive came from.

It's known to people who haven't came.

I would say the majority of them, unless they're new to it.

If they've had this disability for a long time, then it's pretty well known, especially with the

with the agency to help people with developmental disabilities.

If it's somebody that's gotten Medicaid recently because of an illness that's caused them to be disabled, they may not know what happens now to that.

And it is so much complicated.

There's people who have, and there's so much to know about this, and I only know a little bit comparatively, but if people are, if they have the dual insurance, the Medicare deal with Medicaid, because they're over 60,

I don't know why.

Some people have told me that for medical appointments, Medicaid will handle a certain number.

I think it's either 24 or 48.

They don't count a trip as a round trip.

Fisher, it's each way, one is one time.

And for Medicare, it will occasionally cover transportation if you have that in part of the supplement, but then it's much fewer being closed.

For people who have had the disability, if it's a development disability, for example, and they're coming to a program all the time, then it appears to be

Not unlimited, but they get 10 trips per week to and from their week program or to and from employment or to and from school.

It's probably less if it's medical.

I think one thing of note is, you know, in comparing our data and working closely with the public transit agencies, looking at the data from Jaunt's calls,

And the data from our calls skew very differently because a lot of people are looking to jaunt to commute for work for regular appointments, whereas we're really getting these unique individual solutions for people who are really struggling to find access to medical appointments.

So I think it's a really good in tandem program that's not duplicating what's already happening with our existing transit, which I think we were concerned about in the beginning.

Lots of work.

Next, the consent of the agenda.

The minutes of September 5th, August financial reports, agreement dashboard, consolidated profit and loss, comparative balance sheet, and accrued revenue reports, revised TJPDC with permit policy, and revised TJPDC personnel handbook, annual department of housing and community development funding agreement.

If you wish to pool anything, comments?

With approval of the consent, I'll second that.

Okay, so in the September meeting, I present you all with a draft FY26 budget.

And as a part of that discussion, I said I really wanted to take some time and do some pretty intense analysis on all the local contributions for all of the different programs we run.

So I did that.

I also brought all of those results to the Finance Executive Committee meeting in their September 17th meeting to review that in detail.

And now I'm going to go through some of that analysis with you.

Happy to go into any deeper dive that you want.

I've got all sorts of spreadsheets to back the analysis, but really wanted to come to you guys and show you the findings of that analysis that I did.

So the first thing is just to set the stage, in addition to the per capita funding that you all are assessed based on your population, we receive direct contributions for specific programs and the money can only be spent on those programs.

And so that's Rideshare, Solid Waste, Rivanna River Basin Commission, Legislative Services, and then the Regional Transit and Housing Partnerships.

And so you can see that table at the bottom

is currently what was in the draft FY26 budget before this analysis was done.

Then you can see the total contributions by jurisdiction.

In order to do this analysis, I pulled all of the approved agency budgets for the last 20 years to look at what the requests and what the actual receipts were.

I then analyzed population trends between 2005 and 25 and how they've been changing over time.

I looked at the cost of living adjustments.

I looked at inflation rates and averages across the last 20 years.

And then I created and analyzed three different potential scenarios for increasing our local funding.

And I'll go into those a little bit more later.

I have several recommendations in here and then several that the finance executive committee also approved to come to you all for consideration.

So the first finding is that the local contributions for several of our programs haven't been adjusted since their inception.

And so some of these programs that were launched back in 2005, we've been receiving the same amount of funding since 2005 to do that work.

And as you guys

I think it's not necessarily needing to be stated, but naturally all costs have gone up, you know, inflation has occurred.

So a lot of those programs were feeling a real crunch to be able to do what is required in them with significantly less staff time in order to complete it.

And I'll give examples of that.

The table that you have, I printed this because I know these numbers are very small on a screen.

So if you want to follow along in the printed handout, it might be easier to track.

So this is the historical analysis of all the contributions for those six programs, including the per capita.

Anywhere you see like an orange or a salmon colored highlight, that's where some change occurred, whether it was a policy change, an increase in funding, a change in the way the assessment was done.

So I was highlighting where across time those changes were happening.

So for example, in the RRVC, Rivanna River Basin Commission,

You can see they started with a 5,000 contribution.

They adjusted that based on the need.

And then there was a decision made to go ahead and assess a flat rate for 10,500.

And that has stayed since that flat rate has occurred.

For legislative liaison, you can see there were different adjustments made at different points.

So you can see the same assessment for several years, and then a jump was made.

And that assessment stayed for several years, and then a jump was made.

The finding from this

is that we can see that all of these different programs have different points in which changes are being made.

There's really no mechanism and that's gonna come up later, but it does beg the discussion of should we set something up to make sure that the increases are occurring a little at a time related to the increase in the change of costs rather than having these one time big adjustments after many, many years of having flat funding.

So the second finding I had is that they're all calculated differently and have been calculated differently.

Sorry.

So for legislative services, for example, the last policy change was to do a 40 cent per capita rate.

And that has stayed 40 cents since that decision was made.

Whereas other programs, for example, Solid Waste in 2008,

An amount was determined, and that amount has carried through by jurisdiction since the beginning.

It's not based on a population.

It's not adjusting pro rata.

It is just the same amount across time.

Same with the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

There has been a flat dollar amount, but it's a different dollar amount than the RRBC, even though the total request is the same.

So my recommendation for this one is for consistency.

I would recommend that we convert all of our local contributions to a per capita rate.

And that'll ensure that all the contributions are proportionate to the jurisdiction sizes and that those change over time with the population so that there's not flat

So for example, if you have two jurisdictions contributing to the same program, regardless of what's happening in their county, they've been pegging that same amount.

One may be growing over time and the other may be losing population over time, but they're still contributing what they always have since the beginning.

The next table demonstrates what would happen if we did that.

So in the top table, that's our current assessments for local programs.

You can see per capita, which is the green column, is based on that 68 cents.

and legislated is based on the per capita of 40.

But everything else has its own split.

So the example I was just giving you before is if you look at the solid waste and the Rivanna River Basin Commission, they are the same total amount of contribution.

But what each participating jurisdiction is paying is different in each of those programs because they were set up at different times and have been static since they were set up.

On the bottom is if we were to convert everything to a rate.

So you can see that the total contribution does not change.

It just redistributes those costs based on population statistics.

Pause for any questions before I go on to the next one.

Okay, the third finding in doing this very deep dive is that the local funding has not kept up with the cost of our, the changes in our costs over time.

And the impact is that staff have the same, and in many programs actually increase requirements, whether those be state requirements for reporting or desired requirements for holding annual conferences for those events.

for those programs.

And so those have become much more demanding for us without necessarily the resources to be keeping up with those demands.

So an example I want to give for that one is also Rivanna River Basin Commission.

So if I go back to 2019 and I look at the budget and I say with that 10,500, if I take out all the direct costs, you know, rental spaces for their conference, we had about 153 hours for staff to meet the requirements of that program.

Fast forward to 2025, same amount of funding, they now have 120 hours to do the same work.

That's a 27% reduction in the hours to do the same thing.

So that's the kind of like deep dive that I was doing.

I was trying to see what are the real impacts of this so that we're not requesting increases in places we don't actually need them.

All right, then I took and I created three different potential scenarios.

What are some ways that we can increase the local funding in a way that is sustainable and that doesn't give us more than we need?

That is not our intent.

We don't want to come and end up with a lot of deferred revenue that we can't spend.

We have no interest in that.

So the first scenario that I ran is first I projected out the population for the next five years.

and I looked at based on participation in each of these programs what pro rata share would be needed by each local jurisdiction and I'll show you some tables in a minute and I said what if we just did one big adjustment because that seems to have been the trend in the past is at some point there's let's do a 10 increase

and then nothing for 10 years.

Let's do another 10-20% increase.

So that's the first scenario that I ran, is a one-time large increase to get us kind of caught up, certainly not all the way back to 2005, and then set a nominal recurring flat increase like we do for per capita.

2 cents per year for the next five years.

For each program that would be different.

We wouldn't need the same amount increase in every program, the ones that are $10,000.

We wouldn't need the same cent increase as the programs that are $100,000.

The second scenario is very similar to that.

I analyzed what would happen if we did a one-time percent increase and then created a percent

increase for each of those programs.

We're going to increase three percent each year to keep up with inflation or cost of living adjustments.

Again those will be different for each program because three percent of ten thousand is significantly different than three percent of a hundred thousand and so those would have to be adjusted based on the demand in that program.

The third scenario I did is what if we just did a flat percent across the next five years and what were the results of all three of those scenarios?

So I determined at least my analysis and my recommendation would be to go pick that scenario three where we set a percentage and we keep that percentage for a period of time and then readjust that after that five-year window.

Tonight I'm not asking you to take action on a five-year plan.

Tonight I'm going to be asking you to consider action on just the FY26 budget request and then we'll come back to you all in the spring to show you some of that analysis

So that we can make sure we are really targeting what is the right number for a longer term decision.

So that part I'm not asking tonight.

For scenario three, one of the reasons I thought this one was preferred is, first of all, it makes it a lot easier to budget for local governments.

There's not that year where there's this big one time increase.

So I think, A, it would be

More politically palatable.

I think it would be more fiscally responsible to be able to look out projected several years in a row.

The second reason I think that Scenario 3 would work best is because it is significantly less complex.

You don't have a difference in increase per program, a different percentage increase per program.

It's not changing those percents year to year.

It is flat and it's predictable.

And then just to reiterate, I'm not asking tonight for a five-year plan.

That's the analysis that I did so that I could make a recommendation for the FY26 budget.

David, stop laughing.

He saw all the spreadsheets.

So here is scenario three in numbers.

So I'll orient you to the spreadsheet.

The first row, the previous rate is if you all agreed to convert everything into a rate.

so that it adjusted pro rata each year.

It then applies that 7% increase.

In the green row, you'll see that would be 7% increase on each of those rates.

And then the bottom of that blue, the 2,646, 734, that's the nominal increase.

That's the amount of money that it would increase by program.

And then the split share by local jurisdiction.

And so this recommendation would be a 7% increase in every program except for legislative liaison.

And that one, the reason for that exemption is legislative liaison is already set up as a rate.

So there have been nominal changes over time as population has changed.

So we're not making up as much ground in that program as we would be in the other ones.

And then this slide would be the impact by jurisdiction of that third scenario.

So you can see what was in the draft budget in the first column that I presented in September.

If we went with a pro rata and a 7% for all programs except legislative liaison, that is the second column.

And then it shows it both as a total dollar amount and a percent increase by jurisdictions.

And then the finding four was, I don't know why I was surprised.

I was a little surprised the further back that I went that changes hadn't been made in so long.

And so I think it's because there's really never been a mechanism in place.

There's nothing that triggers a review of each individual program's budget.

So the fourth recommendation that I would make is

is to create a mechanism, make a decision for the next three years, five years.

And then every five years, we reevaluate that and set a new target so that we don't get in a situation where we're really catching up for lost time or we're increasing at a rate that's higher than we need.

We can back off of that if things change in the market or things change in the programming.

This is very similar to what we're doing with the per capita rate.

Was it three years ago now?

The decision was made 2% increase for the next five years and then we'll reevaluate at that time.

And then went through all this with Finance Executive Committee.

They did agree or provide a recommendation for you all to consider the three steps.

One, converting everything to local per capita to standardize it across all programs for simplicity.

Increased by 7% in all programs except for legislative services, which would be five.

And then the commission review a five-year plan prior to the final adoption of the FY26 budget in April.

Happy to take any questions, any discussion, or show any of the analysis that went into it.

I suppose if we did what you're asking, this is to put forward your budget requests to the localities.

I would interact with them.

I did not want to go out

So you might see a $200 change in one program and a $600 change in a different program.

But the total impact would be that $2,000 you're talking about.

Based on this, as I've never really connected with that way, seems to explain the hiring and wage issues we've had over the years.

It is, that is the personal salary infringed, but there are several direct costs associated with that.

So like his office in Richmond during the General Assembly, you know, there are some, you know, travel expenses, things like that.

There is

He already receives the salary increases that other employees offer.

I was surprised by the first two factors that you identified, not the scenarios, but the first two factors.

I was thinking, oh, it's interesting.

I expect these are going to be significant changes.

And in the spreadsheet, I was like, oh, that was deeply underwhelming.

Oh, how this did not actually make a significant difference.

Yes.

I intentionally went into this.

The first rabbit hole, that's not the word, but the first significant amount of time I spent on this

is how do we get back, how do we catch up?

And it really became this, we're talking about major, some of these programs would double in cost.

And I just didn't think that that was a reasonable request or something that would be received well from some of our jurisdictions.

For some it's not comparatively, it's not very much money, for others it's larger chunks for all these external agencies.

So I wanted to do five years of

More aggressive catching up.

And then at that five-year mark, say maybe it doesn't need to be seven, maybe it can be three, or maybe it can be related to our compensation increases as they go.

Would it be something that we would normally consider in a plan like this, in a long range plan like this, that locks us into a raised system?

Would it normally be considered to have some kind of trip wire for like counter-cyclical market events that might seriously impact our ability to, I mean, this is in the grand scheme of things and that's what we'll talk about when I talk about it.

I think that would, we would take your direction on that.

If there were something that was significant enough that you said, we need to look at this again, we would

I guess I'm also realizing whether or not we put a tripwire in the five-year plan.

We can always manually, as the board, do it because we control our time.

Thank you very much.

That one's actually an action item if you guys are willing to consider it.

If not, I can wait to present a budget and you can do both together.

So the recommended action on that in the ED report says finance executive committee and staff recommend the full commission one convert all local contributions to per capita rates,

2, increase local contributions by 7% for all local programs except for legislative services at 5% for inclusion in the FY26 projected budget, and 3, a commission review of a five-year plan prior to the final adoption of the budget in April.

It's in the ED report.

I'll make the motion.

Second?

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Everyone say aye.

Okay, so now we will move on to all of these things.

Great.

So you also have in front of you a paper copy of the budget.

Your last action makes this one a lot easier because the budget before you incorporates that local increase.

If you all had voted not to, I was prepared right here to present you with an alternative budget.

So I did not make an assumption, but I did put it in there to simplify.

So I also put a memo in your packet of the changes.

So between September's review of the draft and this one before you, there are a couple of minor changes.

The first one is that we did pull in some deferred revenue.

The solid waste plan, the 10,500 that we get each year, we defer a little bit every single year so that when the five-year update comes in, we can pull some of that because it's an increased workload in that year.

So I had not pulled that deferred in.

Only $4,000 difference.

There is no longer a need for a reserve transfer.

That was in the original budget of 34,922.

On the expense side, there was an increase in the salary fringe for the solid waste plan.

We're budgeting for a change in the mobility management program, as we discussed previously.

We contract with Java for that mobility specialist position, and we had talked about bringing that in-house so that there's better coordination, easier to collaborate.

So I moved that within the budget.

And then an increase in salary and fringe

for an intern.

We often get requests from our local universities and universities outside of the region to place urban planning or policy students either in paid internships, part-time positions, training,

I wanted to include this in the budget for these situations where we may have vacancies.

It's a way for us to get additional support.

If we don't need it, we don't spend it, but we have it there line item in the budget should we need to gap fill.

And so that we can be providing really good professional opportunities for folks coming into the field.

And we know from research that's been done by consultants that a number of folks going into public sector urban planning positions are declining over time.

So providing those opportunities for people to see what the work is like

It's pretty important as part of a recruitment strategy.

So the budget you have before you is now balanced.

It does not require a reserve transfer and its revenues and expenditures in the amount of $44,650,411.

The Finance Executive Committee in their September 17th meeting reviewed the budget with the incorporated changes and they recommended to the full commission approval of the budget as presented.

There's also a draft resolution within the meeting packets that if you were to approve the budget, the chair would sign resolution.

Could you explain before that flipper between the federal and the state changes that happened?

Yeah, that would be, that has a lot to do with body and what the source of the funding is, whether the local matches are coming from ARPA funds or local general funds.

So that just depends each year on who's contributing what.

That also for state,

would be some of the mixes in our grant.

So, for example, mobility management, our award increased, but the percentage is 80% federal, 16% state, 4% local.

Yeah.

What, David, did the state last year, wasn't there something relative to funding for PDCs?

Yes, $25,000 per PDC.

Going from $89,000 to $114,000.

And that increase in state funding, that was on the consent agenda for us to sign that contract with DHCD.

But that increase of 25,000 in this current budget is in a contingency line item so that we don't have it allocated necessarily to a cost yet.

Of course.

In the Executive Director's Report are the monthly statistics on the VODI 2022 grants that you can read at your leisure.

Some things to note is on September 27th, the Ravenna River Basin Commission held their annual conference at the Carver Rec Center.

They focused on goals for connecting and conserving the urban Rivanna corridor.

I do want to give a public kudos to Isabella O'Brien for her work in facilitating that and the execution of that conference.

We've gotten really great feedback.

So I was really, really pleased with that.

Also, the Regional Housing Partnership is working on planning for a March Regional Housing Summit at the Omni.

More details to come on that.

They're also scoping and budgeting for a regional housing study.

The last one that we did was released in 2019.

Conditions have changed dramatically since then, but we'll have an upcoming meeting where we'll dig into that a little bit more and talk to you guys about the plans for that.

And then new for us is something called the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, EFSP.

It is a federal program.

It was previously administered by a local nonprofit.

It was a little bit outside of their scope.

They approached us to see if we would be interested in administering that.

It is not a large staff commitment, couple hours a month, two hours a month.

There is funding to reimburse us for our costs for that.

So we agreed to do that.

Our VISTA is managing that program as an opportunity to manage a federal grant.

A couple of things that I didn't put in the report related to contingency funding.

As you guys know, the director of transportation position is still vacant.

So I have been in contact with several recruitment firms to get written proposals on what it would cost for them to help us recruit.

I'm hoping to get the fourth one this week.

That's part of our procurement policy that we have to have four written proposals.

And then it doesn't require any change to the current fiscal year budget because we did have that contingency set aside so we can allocate that contingency funding.

And then also in response to a lot of discussion at the end of

fiscal year 24 about being able to retain staff, being able to recruit staff.

We've had a lot of turnover in this agency in the last several years.

It's been a real trend with PDCs in general across the Commonwealth.

And so one of the recommendations was to have the PDC actually do a classification and compensation study.

We know each local jurisdiction has done their own, but we would like some really individualized analysis about organizations like ours, regional consortiums.

We compete not only with you all, but we compete with other regional bodies.

We compete with state agencies.

We compete with the private sector, as many of you all do in your own jurisdictions.

And we also

Since we're a small organization, we really want to do some analysis on how our jobs and their duties compare with like jobs in other places and how is our market like or dislike other places.

So for example, our director of transportation is going to be vastly different than your director of planning or transportation in scope and responsibility and duties.

And so we need a lot more analysis to be able to say, is it our compensation that is our barrier?

And if it is, here is the plan that we need to put in place to consider what are we going to do to change that so we can kind of have that tide of having folks come here, get great experience, and then move on to the next thing because they can.

That's the market we're in.

So again, I'm asking to use contingency funds.

It will not increase any access to local governments.

The funding is available, but we have started reaching out for written proposals to see what it would cost for us to do that.

And then the final thing that I didn't write in the executive director's report is I went ahead and looked in response to the changes in the all virtual meetings policy and some discussion on some interest in converting some of our in-person meetings to virtual.

I went ahead and mapped out between now

In the end of next calendar year, where are there good opportunities to hold all virtual meetings?

As a reminder, we can't do them consecutively.

I would prefer meetings such as audit or budget to be in person.

Others that are mostly presentation based or end of fiscal year,

Updates could be virtual.

And so I wanted to see what your appetite was for starting with virtual meetings in December, and then potentially going every other or every third, depending on that topic.

Completely up to you.

I would not recommend November, because that is an audit.

If you guys were interested in coming in December, I was also trying to think about winter.

December and March seemed reasonable.

It's likely for weather.

December.

Bagel.

How did I not think of that?

Yeah, the bread houses.

The annuals.

That is actually important.

So December virtual would be the preference.

Or you said February.

That's good.

February, there's also a finance executive committee preceding.

So we might be able to do that virtual as well and convert all of that on the same day.

If we have 10 meetings, we can have up to five.

They just cannot be consecutive.

I can't believe we just changed the date because of gingerbread houses.

But I also kind of love it.

That's a better reason.

That's a real reason.

Great.

That's all I have.

Okay, now we're going to move on to the roundtable discussion.

We'll go ahead and start down there.

I think the new director for the Guard and Sewer, he's on board and he's already making good strides on getting a lot of stuff and, you know, all the changeovers from the RSA and everything.

It was a big

Botwell to begin with.

He's making leaps and bounds and getting all that straightened up.

And maybe at some point, we start getting to that water impoundment for all the water treatments and pumping stations and coming down to the reservoir all together.

So it's all getting to the line, hopefully, to start to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Wright, Mr. Hayes.

Very briefly, these next two months are going to be important ones for Greene County's tourism enterprise.

We have a lot of people coming into the county who look at the autumn foliage, a lot of people visiting Shenandoah National Park and motoring on Skyline Drive.

We created a new agriculture enforcement district in Nelson County.

2500 acres in Montebello.

It's called North Fork Agricultural District.

Well, that's the national forest there, but it's all in the Montebello community.

The community started getting involved during the comp plan process and we moved forward with it at their request and they did the whole thing voluntarily as ag and forest conditions are driven by the citizens.

So now in Wilson County, we have a total of just under 11,000

We had a board retreat last week and we looked at the priorities that we have going into our revising all ordinances and prioritized, not surprisingly, homestays and short-term rentals is something that we want to do in the short term and not have to wait the two years that it takes to go through

New Ordinance Revision with our consultants so we can start a grouping on that and planning commission next month.

And our planning commission survived a small scale koozoo.

At our September Board of Supervisors meeting, I was voted off the Planning Commission.

I'm the representative of the commission.

I was appointed for a year.

And with four months left in my term, we had three supervisors present.

I was one of them.

I was chairing the meeting.

The other two voted me off the Planning Commission.

And in violation of the Virginia Code, which I guess you know,

Father to Consider.

So the motion was then rescinded 10 days later on board retreat.

So I'm back on the plan.

And if you want to know exactly what transpired, because I think it's really quite interesting, if you go to the Nelson County YouTube station,

and check out the last eight minutes on September 10th of the first meeting.

You can see the discussion that went on and the process.

It was not on the agenda.

Nobody expected it.

Nobody considered it.

Nobody turned it about anything.

So it goes to show what can happen.

I mean, it's such a crowded world.

And we have all four months left in my term.

So anyway, I think all the important information is on record.

I encourage all to check it out.

We had the ribbon cutting for leaf factory, lettuce factory, last one since the last time we did it.

And it's pretty amazing.

We had a tool book

So they still have a lot of capacity to go.

27 days is all it takes.

You can look at that and think, you know, the future of a lot of types of farming is right here because it's all controlled.

But it isn't soil.

Not the seed bar, I'm still working on it.

So that was pretty awesome.

We've had a very quiet last few weeks.

I can't keep up with Mr. Blue Bush.

He must have been the board.

Turned down on a lot of his truck stop numbers, how many?

So they say maybe a big time problem.

So we've got to remember that.

I'm pretty much the most excited thing in my life.

We've been pretty quiet since then.

We've been waiting for that water line to keep moving along.

We've been waiting for the Amazon data summers to break down.

Hopefully that will turn the people over there.

Thank you guys.

We've got a lot of things that have been

Sure, so let's see.

So as far as our budget process, we are already underway with that.

At the very early stages, the city manager has sort of changed up some process such that the planning commission has been asked to step in at the very beginning instead of being responsive to the initial loan trip and make recommendations to actually put forth the test priorities first.

We're sort of making that as we go along.

The new zoning ordinance has begun to bear fruit.

There are things that are really starting to happen.

There's a lot of activity with the consultative basis for the staff and folks at the public trying to sort of come to grips with it, including a couple of the first attempts at sub-lots and sub-dividing lots between

actually, which our chair signed off on at the meeting, actually at a work session.

So there's that that's sort of proceeding along.

We're sort of looking at our CIP budget very early here.

And one of the things that we're sort of looking at is the human capital strategy.

Because in some things, it's not a matter of lack of money.

It's do we have the ability to execute

in the time that we would like to see just in terms of having the right bodies in place.

And the fact is that, like everybody else, we get a lot of complaints about sidewalks.

And the fact is that sidewalks shouldn't be complicated.

But you do have to have project managers for all of the projects that are running.

And if you don't have them, then the projects don't run, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

So there's that.

And there are things that you can sort of feel happening.

I had a conversation with a developer client slash rebuilders slash friend who just sort of spontaneously was talking about the property he wanted to build and he wanted to get and it was one of the

Wilton Attucks III, which is sort of our most esoteric zoning designation.

Making forward progress in the land bank, I think.

We're pitching it to the city council on Monday.

I have not seen the staff memo on it.

Well, I've physically seen it, but I haven't read it.

Yeah, I guess recently we had a couple weeks ago a joint meeting with Albemarle County, which is the first time in over four years our two elected bodies and staffs have come together for a meeting, which I think was good for just focusing on increased regional collaboration.

UVA was there as well to present.

I think maybe the major takeaways from that meeting were

I need to unify around planning and strategy for public transportation as well as hopefully create some kind of town and gown committee where Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and UVA can engage in conversations around particularly public transportation and land use at first in a continued way, in a way that's more

constructed in the current land use and planning committee OPEC, which is closed to our body that hadn't really been too helpful for our localities in terms of figuring out how do we plan together regionally with UVA.

Other than that, Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority has just moved forward with acquiring some additional properties to preserve affordable housing and long-term redevelop

Good.

Thank you.

All right.

Sure.

It's actually been a little quiet the last month.

So my district had a grant that we've been working on through the economic development office with the government

and Afton Scientific, which is right at the fairly tip of my jurisdiction, just kept those tax revenues away from shadow, so I'll buy a few things.

But they're going to expand their operations.

They do sterile manufacturing, is really the best way to understand.

They make compliance that are used by the injectables.

They're expanding significantly with several $20 billion investments.

I thought it was 200, like that can't be.

As I was sitting there forming my gun, that's going to result in around 200 additional jobs.

These jobs are also really exciting.

They've partnered with several career pipelines, developed them, and it is going to be specifically like median income jobs that do not require a college degree.

And these are things that people don't need to go to college for.

They can get the certifications and training that we write at the local CDC to get out

That's exciting.

So Governor came down, said a few impressive words, towered over everyone.

It was a little taller than everyone else.

He's got a whole head on every single member of the board.

Anyway.

I don't know if it was mentioned in September.

I missed the September commission meeting, but the Albemarle partnered and provided incentive to get people committed to building their store by December of 2025.

So it provided a tax incentive

Smith, Simon Brownfield, you know, some of the things that they're running into with the demo site that it does commit them to get that particular store up and running before the end of next calendar year.

So being in my district, I'm pleased that that was going to happen.

There's been a lot of people wanting to hone detail around here for a long time, so that'll get up and going.

We are in, as I'm sure many of you are trying to look at your legislative packets, I'm talking to David and our teams about what we're going to be going to the General Assembly for.

I always like to put a picture or plug in here that if there are things that we all could agree on that going to the General Assembly as a group or a contingent of more than just one county or one county, but if

The better we can team up together to help support each other's efforts sometimes can have a bigger impact on legislators than just us working our individual legislators in our own county boundaries.

So we're starting to work on that.

Photo speed cameras in the rural, some rural roads type things might be of interest to folks.

But David, I'm sure we're working with all of your different teams.

We'll be able to do some crossover stuff with which counties are doing what.

I will put in a quick plug for my Regional Housing Partnership hat on.

The date for the summit is March 13th, which is a Thursday in 2025.

It's a day-long event and we have always had really good feedback and participation.

I always encourage members of this body, since the Regional Housing Partnership is under this umbrella,

Leibovitz, planning commissioners, housing folks, developers from your area.

Not just the information you gain from the different sessions that are held, but the networking opportunities that exist make it a really good event.

So you'll probably hear me pitch that multiple times before next March.

And then the other call out I'll do, in addition to what Christine reported from the Regional Housing Partnership, we did some discussion groups over the summer in the rural

discussion group is the one that really took off.

I credit Kim Hyland of Fluvanna and Margaret Claire, Nelson County, specifically for taking that out.

But they did a presentation, a regional housing partnership this past meeting at our quarterly meeting.

And there's a lot of good work going on between Fluvanna and Louisa, Nelson and Fluvanna, Greene County being in the mix.

So those staffs who are, they really wanted to get together and start to have a better network amongst themselves

Albemarle, and then the city of Charlottesville.

So more to come on that.

Keith and I will hopefully be coming out to visit some of your meetings, if we can get on your agenda, as we've done in the past.

We're going to start putting the road show back together for that.

I did have one other, by the way.

I remembered the thing I was going to say.

We had a septic sewer program that we identified in our budget using ARPA funding during our last budget cycle set aside a million dollars to do for places that are in our identified development area that are still on septic because it pre-existed when we ran ACSA services to them.

That is to say sewer services out to them.

those that are failing, and they also met a variety of income and asset thresholds, set aside money through AHIP, the housing improvement program that was going to help them convert to sewer and replace their their failing subject system.

Really exciting.

A lot of people were really excited about, especially met a lot of those older build houses.

Only half of it got used, which I was very excited about because again, that might be reallocated programs that were very near and dear to my heart.

But I wanted to bring this up to this body because this seems like something that can significantly impact a lot of our different communities in a very similar way.

The kind of reticence that we saw on the opportunity to actually hook up to Subaru and also the difficulty that we had getting those responses.

So this was

Our staff identified a universe of around 250 people who were likely to be eligible.

They did direct mailer contacts of them, offering them, you know, a free service for thousands, tens of thousands of dollars.

And very keen bites on that.

And a variety of different reasons were actually discussed that that could be.

Some people might be people resistant to it because they're like, oh, sure, this is just like,

$25,000 of work you're doing for me for free, but I don't want to pay sewer rates.

Right now I flush the toilet and it's free.

And so it's interesting.

I wonder if there's an education piece that has to be done.

I assume that your plan calls it if their system fails, they have to open themselves, right?

Yes.

It is something that we, as a board, agreed that we need to do kind of a continued push on ongoing marketing because

While I personally, from my own agenda, was excited to be able to allocate this money for other higher-rated needs, I thought, we know that need still exists and is going to continue to exist.

And these programs are initially going to fail.

So we're going to, we're planning to do increasing market messaging around this and then see if we can

Fair to say some people are flushing some free money.

All right.

With that, we've got enough problems.

Well, I'm going to let you handle that.

I'm going to talk a little bit of housing, if you don't mind, Tony, and pick up a little bit from where Ned jumped in on the regional housing partnership.

It's super important that I think I did a little video presentation.

How did that go, Ned?

Good, good.

So we're going from crisis or from pointing out what the problem is to solutions.

So this summit is going to be pretty awesome.

We need a little help, guys.

So this is my plug.

This is the salesman coming out in me.

We're about 50% there of what we need.

We need about 100 grand.

We're at 50 grand.

So people in your sphere of influence,

If they want to help donate and help us do this, please reach out to myself or Ned or Lori Jean.

We have sponsorship opportunities out there, but we're 50 grand short and March comes around pretty darn quick.

So anything you can do to help raise the funds, that would be great.

And I'm going to try to share my screen real quick.

Christine said I could, because there are some slides that I worked on.

I sent them to Ruth that really show where we're at in the crisis.

So hang on one second.

Let's see if I can do this.

Can everybody see my screen?

Yes.

Thank you.

So what you're looking at here is these are median prices on homes closed year over year by locality, right?

So you're looking at Albemarle's up 7%, Citi's up 15%.

This is the first eight months.

I've actually got the numbers for September.

I just haven't did the slides yet, and they're all tracking the same way.

Greene is up 3%.

Hovannes up just a little bit of 1.7.

Nelson, you're a rock star at 24%.

Louisa is all I can't see Louisa because the things are blocking it.

But I said that the, and I've got each slide broken down.

So for instance, the city of Charlottesville, we still look at that.

I can move that.

The city of Charlottesville, I think you guys were talking about that before.

The red line shows the price from 2016 to 2024.

But look at the volume.

The volume is not really trucking that much for the last two years, but we've jumped up.

So none of this is a surprise to us that I've been tracking it.

And I want to tie this back to the summit, right?

So the summit, we're going to try to figure out solutions on trying our best to come up with solutions to help kind of balance this market a little bit.

Of course, we don't control the market, but we can surely help influence it.

So I didn't want to take a lot of time.

If anybody wants to have detailed information about what's happening in the housing market in your jurisdiction, reach out and call me and I've got

Numbers out of you know what.

So let me see if I can figure this out here.

So if anybody has any questions, please reach out to me.

And thank you for allowing me to do this remotely.

I was out in Arizona and Flagstaff and Santa Fe, doing some conferences actually about this very, very topic.

So thank you.

And any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer it otherwise.

I'll try to get you guys out of here early and I'll shut up, which is a big thing.

Look forward to seeing all those slides down the road there.

All right, in Fluvanna County, I think it's terribly exciting that it's been going on because we'll be having our public hearing for the solar awareness and

Setbacks, I would say, depending on where the board comes down on it, would really make, despite very tight ordinances already in place, make a lot of projects not really financially feasible, so maybe death by ordinance.

So we'll see how that turns out.

I think in that process, for those who haven't gone through it, we'll be looking at your setbacks as part of the solar committee that I

You know, depending on how many of those awardees

We'll put in the ordinance to allow up to 3% and it will be a due to land cover angle under animal abuse.

So that's going to be a big story there.

Not really a county story yet, but I'm sure some of you have heard that the Lake Monticello board of directors decided that they were going to hold their annual fireworks event.

Mason, see the fireworks from their boats.

It's a pretty cool experience.

But they've decided that between the traffic congestion, maybe people coming from outside of the lake and so on, and the expenses and the insurance expenses, they were going to have to cancel that.

So we put a 7-0 on that, and it's a pressure on the board to see what they might do.

So I'm curious if other counties are, I know that Charlottesville lived here,

We renewed our comprehensive plan.

Just because of COVID, we didn't have much of a chance to redo it and rebuild it, but that's going to be under review and hopefully completed within the next year, year and a half.

The rest of the Planning Commissioner, not Planning Commissioner, but the Planning Director resigned and the Planning Director come on board.

One of the discussion points on that continues to be protecting the rural character and one of the items that's going to be discussed in the upcoming meetings is going to be rural cluster subdivisions because for that county had a growth rate of about

Or exactly that.

And then I think we also have a staff retreat, we have a staff retreat a board of supervisors retreat, which is productive.

We have two new members on the board.

We've worked some of our goals and some of our priorities and we're starting to enact all of those.

So that's kind of the latest look for this.

There was a private organization that did in Charlottesville with 100% of the insurance and the cost of

Once the pandemic started, Skyrockets, so they weren't able to do it anymore purely because of insurance and costs.

Any other accounts giving their own fireworks?

They did their big fireworks show, but their main contributor that was Capital Chairs was the main factor that paid for a lot of theirs.

They didn't do it this past year.

So I think the tourism council stepped in and the town of Sandersville together, they did a lot to have some good cost on that.

They still had the big show right there on the 4th of July.

So I think they were looking and trying to, they didn't do as big of a thing as far as the fireworks itself.

The year before last, they had, you know,

Country Music Center came in and all that kind of stuff.

So they weren't able to bring all of that in this year's thing too.

So he took a big hit on it, losing that main contributor and pay for the fire.

So they had to downsize a little bit, but it's, so they're, I think they're in the process of now trying to get more contributor when you come in, yup, pay for it too, going like that.

I would be curious.

fireworks.

In a sense, with the lake, I thought it was a very unique experience, and it brought folks together that are at the lake from that standpoint.

But you have to assume that there were increased gas sales, food sales, sales along those lines from that standpoint.

And another one of the concerns of the Al-Moyed was, is this really a county event or is it a lake event?

It's a good question, in a sense.

I would say that it's a little bit of both.

But if you remove the uniqueness of having the fireworks over the water, and then you're really just going to need to, with other ones, just how does that balance out?

So I think that's going to be some of the questions that we work through.

All right.

Anyone else?

Entertain a motion to adjourn.

I don't want to hang up.

It's been a motion to adjourn.

Woodward, all of us.