Planning District Commission Meeting   9/4/2025

from a rule amongst the previous challenge territory.

We've also added the Body24 grant, which was based on the original $79 million from DHCD plus an additional $12 million from Body24, in the least of the areas, which are up to $97 million from DHCD, over a quarter of a billion dollars in matching funds from both the localities,

as well as the private sector providers.

For a total project, it's over $350 million.

As we've said, this is what we call a super regional project, 13 county partners across five different planning district regions, four utility partners.

And when all is said and done, in four plus years,

We will have provided access, the project will have provided access to over 44,000 businesses and residences.

So I want to point out too that since we reported to you last, actually, I'm going to get to that later because there is a slide on that in terms of the increase in the number of passes that we're seeing due to accelerated 1.5 million.

Next slide, please.

I'm going to talk a little bit about some of our communication efforts as well as fiscal management and then end with some pictures to show some of the progress that's being made across the 13 county region.

There are the logos for all the 13 counties that are involved across the bottom are the utility service providers and then TJPDC and Firefly.

TJPDC and Firefly meets regularly every other week.

to have an external project team meeting.

And then on a quarterly basis, we invite folks from all of the counties and all of the participants and stakeholders in the project to a quarterly stakeholder meeting.

We have our most recent one, the first part of June, and we have another one coming up next week, I believe.

That's just a good opportunity for folks in all of the counties to be able to hear from Firefly, from Dominion, from REC, from

Apalachian Power about the progress that's being made on the project.

Some fiscal grant management points to just kind of remind you of.

As TJPDC is the grant administrator, we are reviewing invoices that are coming in for work that has been completed by Firefly and its partners.

We're verifying those invoices.

I'll tell you that an invoice package can be four to five hundred pages.

We're verifying that.

We've been submitting remittance requests to the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is the holder of grant funds, as well as invoicing counties for their proportionate share of given work that's been done.

And then once those are processed at the state level, we receive reimbursement back and process those to firefly.

Just to give you an indication of what we've been able to run through the books here at TJPDC so far, providing 22 as of the close of the fiscal year, about 82 billion dollars in funding run through our books.

That's the majority of that being from DHCD and the counties towards the construction costs.

And then you can see that for our administrative costs and the administrative budget that we have in our agreement with DHCD, we pulled in

over $675,000 to that.

Body24 is really gonna be interwoven with 22 as Firefly is doing its work.

So where are we through August?

And one of the things that we do is we submit monthly reports to Department of Housing and Community Development.

And this is the latest report in August.

You can see the numbers there, but you know, a lot of upfront field work, design work, make-ready construction.

What really stands out to me though, as you look at the, both the area on the underground, the miles of fire, it's over 2,300 miles of fire.

That's been Ponderberry across this project.

and that has made possible over 24,000 passings.

That's access that 24,000 residents or businesses could have a high-speed internet across the 13 county area.

That's where I wanted to let you know that since we reported to you last, six months ago, I think we reported about 17,000 passings.

So you can see that the work has really accelerated to see another 7,000 passings in about six months.

Firefly has a goal of actually making 200 to 250 actual connections to homes or businesses every week.

So if they can continue to do that and increase on that, you can see where the numbers are going to continue to go up.

Next slide, please.

Again, with Bonnie 24,

Field work that's being done, there has been some, some fiber that's been completed and a limited number of passings.

Those numbers will grow as we move forward in time.

I should mention too, I didn't specify previously, but the project was originally scheduled to be a three-year project.

We signed our contract with DHCD in August of 2022.

We were able to get an extension for the Body 22 project until June 30th of 2024.

I was already moving on to Body 24, which has a completion date of December 31st, 2026.

All right, now the fun part.

Every month, staff has been going out to the different counties to

see either work that is underway on the project or work that has been completed.

So just want to lead you through some of the recent months, first part of the year and into the summer, some of the visits that we made.

These are some pictures from Madison County.

Actually, sometimes the timing is just perfect because you get there and there's work going on.

So I've actually stopped at this communications hut up in Madison County that was being put in.

Once that was installed,

was going to kind of serve as the focal point for expanding service in that particular area along Hoover Road and Madison County.

In March, we had one of our staff visit a very remote area of Tamarisk County near the Blue Ridge Parkway where there was a rural country store that had received service recently with Firefly.

In April, a visit to the St. John Family Life and Fitness Center in the Keswick area of Albemarle County.

It was an old African American Rosenwald school, and they have recently just gotten broadband internet as well.

And I think we're moving towards creating a top spot at that location as well.

Skimming on to May.

We had one of our staff development field trips in May and we went to Nelson County.

Part of our visit included stopping at Saunders Brothers Nursery and Farm Market.

We had a great tour of their facilities there.

Jesse can tell you more about Saunders Brothers, but it's a family owned business.

It's been in Nelson for over a hundred years.

They've got about 400 acres.

and across their operations, they've got more than a dozen Firefly accounts.

So they use a high speed internet and a lot of their operations and we're very grateful to have had that service to their facilities.

And then I think the last site visit that we have to share with you is actually one that we conducted, started out at the Fire Hut in Cuckoo in Louisa County and that was one that

Staff from the Department of Housing and Community Development have requested to come and do a site visit for our project.

So the picture there on the left, you can see we're inside the hut, able to share the workings of the hut and where the service is lit.

Firefly folks were able to also share some GIS mapping while we were at that location.

We then hopped in vehicles

and followed the line coming out of the hut, this aerial, down the road till it went underground and went to the 53rd Winery and Vineyard.

And then were able to go and see both the external and get inside to see the internal connections there at the Winery.

And got to talk to, I believe it was one of the owners that was there, very appreciative of being able to have this service.

And I think one more slide.

This is the last slide.

It's just, we always like to point anybody that we get a call from or an email from or sharing with you all to point you to the Firefly website.

Particularly, they have a listing that shows updates in their progress, construction progress by county.

So you can go in and see where they have been working in different areas of the county and whether it's already connected, whether connections are in progress or a time frame, you know, fall of 2025, winter of 2026, when they're expecting to be working in those particular areas.

So always a great resource and I think they keep that updated on a week-to-week basis.

So I believe that is all.

Glad to take any questions that you might have.

We love this project.

It's a great project.

And we probably said it before.

We'll say it again.

I think DHCD has been very appreciative and satisfied, to say the least, complementary in public to the work that not only of all the partners in this project, but also the work that TJPDC is doing to administer the grants.

Great.

I got a comment.

I can say that the project of Firefly and TJPDC, of everything we've got going on, the Louisa and True Nest and Stormwood, this thing has gone perfect on schedule.

You had the tricks.

The start of our project, I don't even know how close to this.

And we were very fortunate to have Louisa County post, I guess about a month or so ago, the first part of August, a celebration of the 40,000th connection that Firefly has made as part of the Rise project.

It's about all the board's super, supervising members from there, and it's a great, great, 95%.

He's not going to jinx it for Louisa.

I think the other place that's left is Pichu.

I got a sleep service.

Good job, guys.

It's a big task.

It's a big deal.

I think Fluvanna is 100% comfortable.

I think that Harry Wood made a comment down at the high school that the area the firefly was covering is so far ahead of like 95%

to bring the three power companies together, Central Virginia bringing with it.

You know, one thing I do want to say publicly and I think it's important, Gary Wood is a hero and nothing short of that.

I truly believe that there is no elected office or anything that could ever accomplish what he did

in the last six years.

And to be perfectly honest, you know, this is something that I was considering on the Nelson County Board of Supervisors, some letter of commendation to Firefly and specifically Barry Wood, because this is his brainchild.

I mean, you know, I remember eight years ago, a PDC meeting over at a UVA building.

Do you guys remember that?

It was carried with me.

Eight, nine years ago.

We got to do this the first time.

I mean, I don't think I had any doubt that it would happen through Nelson, but to see what it has become.

Well, COVID helped a lot.

What's that?

COVID helped a lot.

COVID really helped expedite.

I think we take a step in this.

I would like to instruct staff to write a resolution thanking Firefly and specifically Aaron Wood.

This astronomical feat, one that many of us politically could have only dreamed of, but if it wasn't for the efforts of Mr. Wood and his staff and those around him, this would not be possible.

I do think that is a worthy

resolution, it says, okay, please forward.

That is a motion.

Seconded.

We just do five votes.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Yeah.

Well, it's certainly amazing what can be done with government programs and federal funding.

Good evening commissioners, I'm Isabella O'Brien, a regional planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and a key part of my role is managing our Chesapeake Bay Local Watershed Implementation Plan or WIP as we like to call it and tonight I'll provide a brief overview of this year's program, highlight some key updates and share our plans for next year.

But as an overview, this is an annual contract with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality

designed to help our region meet the pollution reduction standards of the Clean Water Act.

And as our region continues to grow and developed, we see increasing pressure on our waterways from stormwater runoff.

So the program's goal is to help meet the total maximum daily load set for pollutants entering local streams that eventually the Chesapeake Bay, ensuring our waterways meet the water quality standards for uses like fishing, drinking water, recreation, and other uses.

Next slide, please.

So for background, after decades of restoration efforts, starting with the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement in 1983, water quality in the Bay was still declining.

Pollution from agriculture, wastewater, and urban development continued to harm aquatic life and habitats, as well as the local economy.

So in response, on December 29th, 2010, the EPA established a numerical goal known as the Chesapeake Bay TMDL,

This is essentially a pollution diet for the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed seen here.

It sets a maximum amount of pollutants a water body can receive while still meeting those water quality standards.

And because the voluntary agreements of the past weren't enough, the TMDL became the federal strategy to accelerate restoration and hold all of the states accountable.

So to ensure project success, a four-part accountability framework was developed, which includes Virginia's watershed implementation plan, this broken down into two year segments, the WIP milestones, and then EPA tracks progress, and if the goals are not met at the end of the deadline, then EPA has the power to put in place federal actions to ensure that those goals are met.

So our work as the PDC is just one aspect of Virginia's WIP contributing to this coordinated effort to improve water quality.

So now that you've kind of got a big picture of the TMDL, we can talk about our role as a PDC.

So since 2018, this program has been funded by $58,000 from DEQ matched by $14,500 in local funds.

So our primary focus is providing support to the unregulated non-MS4 areas, which are essentially the rural non-organized portions of our region.

So unlike the cities and towns with a municipal separate storm sewer system, these areas don't have the same level of regulatory oversight by DEQ.

So after the technical committee to the Chesapeake Bay reviewed the Bay's response to recent restoration efforts last year, it became clear that the Bay jurisdictions were not on track to meet all of the pollution reduction goals by 2025.

So in response, DEQ instructed Virginia PDCs to transition our focus from regional coordination and education to supporting increased implementation of green infrastructure projects or best management practices.

So in 2024 and 2025, to support this shift, additional funding was made available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

And this allowed us to apply for additional funding to support shovel-ready projects in our localities.

So this grant and our work this year has already shifted further towards implementation, but no additional funding has been allocated through DEQ for 2026 to continue this work.

Next slide.

So some of the successes from this year, it's really been a pivotal year for our program.

In the way of on the ground implementation, we were awarded two additional grants from this IIJA funding.

This included $165,000 to support low income homeowners with septic system repair, replacement, maintenance, and connection to public sewer, which is oftentimes very costly.

BMP, best practices?

Yes.

So there's a whole slew of them that are defined by the Chesapeake Bay Program.

I could send a link if you're curious, but it's basically just green infrastructure practices that help reduce pollution to the Bay.

So this can look like tree planting projects along a river bank, rain barrels attached to a home, things like that.

Yeah.

So on top of the septic program, we also received about $14,000 to fund eight regional rain barrel workshops, a hands on way to engage the public and educate them on water conservation at home.

As far as tools and partnerships, we released the first version of the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project, first started in New York, which I'll discuss in more detail in the next two slides.

We've also updated our grant tracking document to help local staff and nonprofits easily find funding for Bay-related projects.

We launched a new quarterly regional environmental coordination meeting.

So far we've had three successful meetings where we've brought local staff together to share information, build partnerships, and hear from experts on topics like community flood preparedness funding and resiliency planning and the impacts of data centers in our watershed.

So the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project or STU-MAP is an online tool designed to help us better understand the environmental stewardship network within our region.

STU-MAP is essentially a living map of all of the organizations doing environmental work in our area.

It allows us to visualize their organizational characteristics so we can see details like their mission, the services they offer, staff size to help understand capacity and how they operate.

We also can see their geographic turf.

which shows where each group is active and this is critical to understand where there's overlaps in types of stewardship as well as gaps that we need to address across the landscape.

This is a screenshot of the SU map dashboard and it also links to a video tutorial and I won't play the video today, but I highly recommend watching the short five minute tutorial also on the TJPDC web page and it walks you through how to navigate the dashboard and the associated network maps.

Next slide.

So looking ahead to 2026, our proposed work program focuses on building on our recent momentum and leveraging the tools that we've already created.

We'll continue our workshops in partnerships with the soil and water conservation districts and the James River Association to help more residents conserve water and reduce stormwater runoff.

We will update the Stew Map tool, inviting existing organizations to update their data, encouraging new groups to join, and ensuring that it remains a valuable resource for identifying gaps and growing partnerships.

We will continue the regional environmental coordination meetings and keep hosting them to support collaboration among localities and local partners.

And then we will develop a regional communication strategy to better promote our work and the importance of our collective efforts to strengthen communications with the wider audience and better connect with local information outlets.

Next slide.

I also wanted to make you aware of the ongoing update to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.

As previously mentioned, the current agreement's goals have a deadline of December 2025, and research shows that we're not on track to meet all of them.

So this new agreement will guide the entire Bay partnership, including Virginia, and it's important for our region to be aware of the shifting goals and priorities.

The public comment period for the draft just closed.

We've been following this closely and sharing updates with our partners, but this new agreement will be the roadmap for restoration efforts beyond 2025, which are expected to continue.

And I provided a one-pager that highlights some of the key changes relevant to local leaders and links to the Bay Program website with more information.

At this point in time, the news is that Chesapeake Bay funding remains in the federal spending plans, but more to come.

Any questions or comments from the group?

Yeah, they're also part of the Chesapeake Bay Act and have to stay in line with EPA, but they set their own watershed implementation plan.

So back in 2018, 2019, different stakeholders to the watershed came together to create our state's local plan.

So theirs might look a little different, but they're contributing for sure.

I know Maryland's ahead of the game.

I think Pennsylvania is behind us, but they're working.

You should attend the upcoming River Basin Commission Conference.

Thanks for teaming that up.

That will be September 24th if you haven't heard about it, but we'll have some local experts from the Virginia Association of Counties, Piedmont Environmental Center, Rivanna authorities to share on what those impacts will look like.

Do you have any questions or comments?

Now we can move on to the last item.

Home and CBG consolidated ML performance and evaluation.

Good evening commissioners.

I'm Laura Jean Touloune.

The caper, as I think you all know, is the year-end report for the HUD-funded Home Investment Partnerships Program.

So our region receives anywhere between around $600,000 to $700,000 a year from this program.

We can just jump to the next slide.

Thanks.

So this year we spent $781,000 to complete eight homeowner rehabilitation projects, which were mostly in Nelson County this year, as well as Albemarle County.

I'll get to what the other counties are doing in a second.

And then one new homeowner unit, which was through Habitat for Humanity in greater Charlottesville.

And as I will share more later, we're working

with a lot of our partners on preparing a larger number of rental units for the future.

So the city of Charlottesville contributes the majority of the match funding year after year.

So the CAF Fund in the city of Charlottesville contributed these three different projects.

They gave additional funding to AHIP,

to do homeowner rehabilitation in the city, CRAJ, which is the public housing authority, which is redeveloping a whole bunch of properties in the city of Charlottesville, and then to Habitat as well for additional home buyer housing.

And then just a quick update on some of the long term projects that may not be reflected by those earlier numbers.

CSH is Community Services Housing and they provide primarily for folks with disabilities low income rental housing throughout our area.

And so they have received a fair amount of funding to do repairs on those units, primarily like safety concerns, as well as things like refrigerators that are no longer working, things like that, so that those homes can be better places to live.

And then FLHF, the Fluvanna Louisa Housing Foundation,

is working on two different whole little complexes of low-income rental units, one in Fluvanna and one in Louisa.

And so we're probably next year's year-end report will have a much larger number of money spent as well as number of units as a result.

And then PHA, as probably many of you know, the former MACA property.

My apologies to MACA for the A being in the wrong place there.

But the property just north of here.

They are turning into a large set of rental units.

I think perhaps a few home buyer units as well.

And so some of our funding will be going and contributing towards that as well.

So again, that's another thing we'll kind of be seeing coming down the pike that we've been working on this year, but will be more reported on in the future.

And just so you know, the timeline for this report that is due to HUD on September 27th, the city of Charlottesville has already

approved it.

They heard it twice and have supported it.

We did have a public comment period.

We did not receive any comments.

So if you all approve, then we will be submitting in the coming weeks.

One quick comment in the BRAC paper report.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll double check that.

Thank you.

We'll make sure that that's updated.

Yeah, I triple checked that to make sure I wasn't off this way here.

Yeah, at least another year.

But if there aren't any other questions, we can move into opening the public hearing.

Is there anybody in person or online who would like to speak?

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing.

Is there a resolution to adopt 2024 home CDBG caper?

Is there a second?

Second.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Mr. O'Brien.

Aye.

Mr. Smith.

Higgins.

Mr. Barlow.

Yes.

Mr. Woodward.

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford.

Aye.

Mr. Reed?

Yes.

The resolution passes.

Good evening everyone.

I don't have a presentation as such this evening as I presented last meeting on the housing preservation grant program that we administer from USCA.

We are in the process of finalizing our application, which we now know, we didn't know the amount we were applying for last time.

We were applying for $271,593.

from USDA.

This is for the housing preservation grant, which is for home rehabilitations in our rural localities.

So Albemarle, it would just be the rural parts.

So that is the entirety of the state allocation from USDA for the state of Virginia.

In the past, we've only applied for half.

Last year we applied for half and we got half, but the other half was not used.

No one else was a successful applicant.

So when there's two or more applicants, no applicant can get more than 50% of the funding.

So last year there was just one.

So hypothetically, we could have gotten the full amount.

So this year we are going to apply for the full amount.

The draft scope of work was included in your agenda and I have a physical copy here if anyone should like to read through it.

But yeah, the resolution this evening serves both as a

So a vote of support for the application, but also as an intergovernmental review.

So basically getting a cent from all of our localities that there's financial assistance available through this program in those localities.

Any questions for the public hearing?

Knott, I will open the public hearing if anyone in person or online would like to speak.

If you don't want, I will close the public hearing.

Is there a motion to adopt the resolution of interdevelopment of review and file a support for the HPG?

I see a move.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

Mr. Higgins.

Aye.

Mr. Barlow.

Aye.

Mr. Woodford.

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

The resolution passes.

On to your agenda item four, the consent agenda.

Then it's from August 7th, 2025 commission meeting involved July financial reports.

I have one comment to make.

On the consolidated profit and loss statement that was included in the financials, I just want to correct that that is not the full agency budget.

That has not, it had not yet been inputted yet.

So if you're looking at actuals to budget, the budget doesn't include our major programs yet.

There's not anything else.

Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Isolu, Dagon, all those in favor, aye.

I vote aye as well.

Hey, as you guys recall, we presented on this, Taylor on my team presented on this last month to you all.

We wanted to make sure that we left a minimum of 30 days to get any feedback either from you or your colleagues on the governing boards.

We did get a recommendation from the Rural Transportation Advisory Council.

They wanted to, or committee, excuse me, they wanted to look at the impacts of the SmartScale scoring.

As you guys recall from last month, we are, the rural areas of our Planning District Commission are unique in the state in that they were classified as Area Type C. We want to make a request to the Commonwealth Transportation Board to move that to Area Type D. Included in the packet was the presentation from last month.

as well as the memo that went to all of the county administrators, all of the Lynchburg and Culpeper district staff and residency staff to make sure everybody understood that this was a request that we were going to be making.

We did get a couple of questions from some of your staffs, which we were able to answer.

We haven't heard any opposition, any stated opposition to putting this request in.

So tonight, what we're looking for from you all

So moved.

We got it.

I'll second it.

Mr. O'Brien.

Aye.

Mr. Higgins.

Aye.

Mr. Barlow.

Aye.

Mr. Rutherford.

Aye.

Aye.

The resolution passes.

I just know I got one piece of feedback concerns is this undermine Charlottesville and Albemarle.

I just want to underline that this does not impact Charlottesville and Albemarle.

I just want to underline that.

I'm sending it to you all tonight.

The FY 27 projected budget, no action is required tonight.

This information will only all come back before you in next month's meeting for action.

The projected budget is intended to set the per capita rate and the local contribution requests that we will make

through your FY 27 local budgets for our requests, the TJPDC.

The budget before you is a balanced budget for FY 27.

I'm thrilled that we were able to balance it.

It does, however, have included in it.

You'll see that yellow right smack in the middle that has a one-time reserve transfer in order to balance the budget.

Some of that is just a placeholder for potential building renovations that would be coming from the Capital Improvement Fund that you guys have set aside

Some of that is for program gap.

Pretty much every year we have presented a budget that requires reserve transfer.

We have not had to use that transfer in the last several years.

So it is still, we still have some uncertainty going into FY 27.

So I can't say until closer to spring, whether we would need that reserve transfer, but you'll have another opportunity to look at that as we get closer to fiscal year 27.

The other thing important to note in here, the two orange highlighted,

Those two dollar amounts are not the dollar amount that we will be applying to our local governments for per capita.

The reason that those are higher is because there is MPO planning money that was not used in fiscal year 25 that rolls over into fiscal year 27.

And as such, we're rolling over the required match so that we don't have to ask for additional funding.

So that includes the ask that we will make, but it also includes some rollover funding that we have in reserve in order to cover.

These are by source, federal, state, and local.

The top half of this sheet is related to all of the staff time, staff direct costs, salary fringe overhead.

The bottom half, when we get down there, is all the pass-through funding.

So you'll see starting with pass-through by source, this is where funding comes into us and out

through to either a subrecipient or another party.

So that's things like body going to Firefly.

That's things like the housing preservation grants and the home funds going out to subrecipients who are doing the work.

A couple of assumptions that are in this budget.

I did tell you there's that one time reserve transfer as a placeholder.

It does assume a 70 cent per capita rate.

That was approved back in 2022.

It also includes between either five or 7% increases in each of the local contributions for direct programs.

That was based on the analysis that we did last fall that looked at programs that hadn't had increases in anywhere from five to 20 years.

And we decided to spread that increase out across the next five years rather than a one-time jump.

So it does have that increase included.

If you'll pull up the particular sheet.

We'll go through that.

It also has included in it the final 25% of the two year recommended implementation of the Plas and Comp study.

So if you guys recall for FY 27, we gave 75% of the increase as base salary, 25% as bonus.

This includes now the full implementation Plas and Comp.

And then it also assumes level staffing from FY 26 to FY 27.

It's important to note that this time in, you know, for planning,

We're talking about FY 27.

It's true of every year, not all staff at this point are fully allocated.

That usually takes us the rest of this year to secure additional grants, put in applications, see where we have awards that come through in order to fully allocate everybody.

If we were to operate on this budget as it's presented tonight and hopefully approved tomorrow, if we did not receive any additional secured funding, we would need to use that reserve transfer.

And we would have some staff that are not fully allocated.

The reason that's important to note is, for example, if somebody is only 80% allocated to a program, that means 80% of the costs of that employee can be reimbursed through the work that they're doing, 20% cannot.

So that could have implications on our indirect cost rate.

So if they're billing their time to an admin code, that becomes an administrative cost to the organization.

So it's going to be really important between now and when we present this to you guys in April, May, to make sure we secure some more programming to close some of those gaps

Otherwise, we might have to take some of these assumptions in the budget and rework some of the numbers.

Let's see, it is a bounce budget of $24,331,222.

You'll see that's about half of what the FY26 budget is.

That's primarily because we'd be getting to the tail end of the body projects.

So the majority of that drop in funding is the pass-through funding for the project.

So if you go all the way to the left of this sheet, Ruth, if you would,

See all the way to the left we base our per capita rates, the 70 cent per capita on the Weldon Cooper population estimates that are put out.

We then from that per capita, we see additional funding in the yellow.

So those are direct program asks that we put into the local governments to fund the staff time for those projects.

The purple or blue column, depending on how you see that is the total contribution by jurisdiction.

We then take from the per capita assessment.

So that's the 70 cents per capita.

From that per capita assessment, we then have to back out all of the required local matches for all of the grants we received.

So if we get a grant that's 80% federal, 20% local, we pull that from the per capita that you guys are already contributing rather than asking for additional funds.

That's what we use a lot of your per capita for.

So things like the MPO,

mobility management, rural transportation advisory committee, all of those we pull from the per capita.

So when you get to the tail end of this spreadsheet, you'll then see the balance.

That's the green column.

That is the balance of per capita funding after all required local matches are taken.

And then per commission policy, 75% of that can be spent on regionally significant programming, meaning it has to be two or more jurisdictions.

25% of that is for hyper-local support.

If your staff calls us, if your team needs us to do anything, we bill it to that category right there.

I did include new this year, the last two columns, just the total dollar increase in each locality's contribution from last year to this year, and the percent increase from FY 26 to FY 27.

This is another metric for us.

Any questions or comments from the board?

If not, well, thank you for that update.

Okay, so in my monthly report, there are two items that didn't make it into this, but they happened after the fact.

First is we have had our first instance of check fraud.

A vendor reached out to us, didn't receive the payments that we sent back in May.

The check did clear back in May.

We reported it to the bank as fraud.

We closed the account immediately.

We notified the treasurer immediately.

We reissued payments to the vendor that did not receive the funds and we opened a new account.

We have signed a disclosure with the bank that we will participate in the investigation to try to identify where those funds were deposited.

If the bank is unable to locate that and get our funds back to us, we would then file with our risk insurance in order to get those funds recaptured.

It is maybe $2,500 check is what we're talking.

So it was not a massive check, but it was still something that

happened over, we were notified on Tuesday after the holiday.

Someone stole the check in the mail?

Yes.

We have images at the back of the check and the agency, the vendor that we normally make those payments to has a particular stamp they use.

This one was not the same stamp.

With the 2500.

They knew that that check was good.

At 10,000 pounds that would cause a lot more trouble.

The other thing I was going to note before we get into how to do this, we do have the bank looking at all transactions.

They will notify us if anything suspicious happens within the next 90 days as the investigation is going on.

So they're looking to make sure there's no additional suspicious activity.

We also don't have any other reports from other vendors that have not had payments for them.

We'll keep you guys in the loop.

The second thing that came in since the packet went out is we have been working with the owner of our building to consider a scope of work for potential building renovations.

Within the last couple of days, they did send a proposal.

They had a contractor come through, do all the measurements, take it back and come up with an estimate.

After this meeting I will be asking to pull the buildings committee together to look at that proposal and start to have some discussions about what we want we would be interested in the scope of work being, what we do want to do, what we don't want to do, and then how do we want to consider doing it whether it's the TJPDC paying or the owner paying and it being our rent for the next five years as a part of our lease so just some decisions that we would need to make.

I'll go through the buildings committee first and then I'll have them bring their recommendation back to the full

I was about to remind everybody who volunteered to be on that.

That was Mr. Gjorgjov, Mr. Smith, Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Rutherford, and Mr. Galloway.

Are you still all willing and able to gather to discuss that topic?

Great.

I'll work to get on schedules, pull something together hopefully a little later here in September.

And then other items from the executive director's report.

I'm not going to go through all of these.

It's all in written form.

You guys can peruse this at your leisure if you want to highlight a couple of environmental things.

through the watershed program that Isabella was talking about.

There are four rain barrel workshops scheduled and on the calendar.

I'd love to draw your attention to those.

One in Charlottesville, one in Albemarle, one in Fluvanna, one in Louisa.

I encourage you guys to pass this information along to get those things fully that's paid for.

I mean, it's a great opportunity for the community to come together and learn.

And then the other one that I wanted to note is the Rivanna River Basin Commission is holding its annual fall conference September 24th.

And again, as Bella said,

That's focusing on water supply planning data centers.

A lot of great speakers for that one.

And in the packet is the Eventbrite link should you be interested in registering or sending it along to someone else.

And then the final thing is, as I told you guys in the last monthly meeting, we are going to have a standing item in the executive director's report of any environmental reviews that we receive as part of intergovernmental review.

Any questions or comments?

Now we can move on to the final agenda item, roundtable discussion.

Fluvanna, lots of exciting stuff going on in Fluvanna.

Let's see, we, we, Panaska is, Panaska wants to build a leather power plant, and he's Lumaic County right now, so that's probably the worst

I think it's been revised to almost a $2 billion investment, which is pretty substantial, and we believe the number is close to $8 million in tax revenue per year.

So that's an exciting thing.

It is not for public,

Wawa is still coming.

We hope that they're going to put shovels in the ground in the next few years.

More interest, of course, on the economic development side.

We certainly expect that there will be a fair amount of community involvement with regard to the approval or unapproval of the Tonaska power plant.

Jackson has been a very good partner.

The main concern among the community seems to be around noise levels, which are currently at about 50 decibels, which is essentially what I'm speaking at right now.

But that's the main concern in the community right now with regard to the pedestrian power plant.

Thank you.

Albemarle?

Great.

So you may have heard some news about Albemarle that I will not be discussing.

and I will leave it at that and you can do both.

There's also, we had our, a kind of first pass on our data center ordinance that we're going to try and find one for the year.

This was basically staff came back with a series of proposed regulations to kind of check our pulse on it.

It is an interesting thing in that I think the board is kind of a three, three split, generally speaking,

on how to approach the problem of data centers.

I don't think it's unfair to describe it as three who are data centers tactical and three who see it as a

Bigger, another big thing that like, you know, there's no heat, it doesn't feel sexy, but our comprehensive plan is almost done.

We've been working on it since before I was involved in politics.

And we had a, what will likely be a, like a final draft that has been released to the public that we will be reviewing soon.

Well, I'll start at the, I've been kind of on a soapbox, I guess, about road funding in Virginia.

In fact, the last smart scale, we had $30 billion around the state submitted and they only approved $80 billion in profits with $1 billion in addition to that coming as matches from localities.

I think I've mentioned this type of comment before.

I'm bringing it here to ask for those of you, as you work on your legislative packets for your own piece, that I think that sometimes when we collectively say together to the state, especially when we have different political mixes,

Hey, you're not doing a good job funding our roads.

They just have to figure out how to, they can't slice it high and small.

This is something where they're gonna have to go, we don't have the adequate funding to do what we need to do, and we have to figure that out.

I think there are good ideas in some of the delegates that are not necessarily representatives of our localities.

Looking at fees and things like that, they just have to get to work on it.

We're making, in Albemarle, it seems like our board is supportive of making that push of our own slayers when we meet them.

So I'm just asking for other jurisdictions to do the same because I think we're all in the same boat when it comes to not just road maintenance, but actual projects that need to be done in our localities.

The way they did it the last time, it's going to end up requiring that we end up having to fund our own pieces and it's just going to be another unfunded mandate sent down to us.

Some people think the issues with VDOT.

I think it's a revenue sourcing piece.

They just have to figure out how to generate the dollars to get these products done.

You can't approve one pair of projects in the commonwealth and expect that that's going to do anything for anybody moving forward.

So that's my pitch on that.

And David's had to hear it a few times.

So if there was some collective peace, I don't know if this commission would be willing to write a joint letter with all the jurisdictions kind of signing off on it or something like that.

But I think if we got creative and could present that to our delegations, it could have some power, seeing six jurisdictions of this PDC setting up.

And who knows, it could even get a dust-out waste for, I'm not mentioning the SAW, Campo could maybe join in that effort.

Home Depot is open in Albemarle Chem.

We had the grand opening last Thursday.

They do, I've learned that they do a board cutting with a power saw instead of a ribbon cutting.

It was so interesting.

They wouldn't allow any of us to live near that saw, though.

We'd stay on the stage and allow the professionals to cut it.

I have never been to a grand opening that has been so robust and energetic before.

They were, they had music going, they had tons of not just their employees there, but a lot of community turnout.

They were doing employee appreciation stuff as part of the lead up to having some, you know, a couple of our supervisors were there.

Senator DeDeeves was there.

Delicate Paulson was there.

Congressman McGuire was there.

So it was a big event.

They opened up for a couple hours last Thursday and are obviously open for a full day the following Friday.

They've been open for about a week now.

I said it to them, I said it to our board, that if the success of the store is half the energy they brought that day, it'll be a very successful Home Depot facility.

And I don't know about y'all's Lowe's out where you all are at, and then Greene and places, but our Lowe's has them had the best reputation, so there's a lot of community residents and total people that live around here that are really looking forward to having that Home Depot open.

We'll probably get in trouble for saying that Lowe's program

Our economic development strategic plan, we updated that.

So that got approved in Alomar County.

Put the new focus on what were, you know, targeted industries, how we're planning to do things in the development area and the rural area.

Next Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting will be a momentous one.

The Board will be contemplating a resolution to issue $43.5 million in 30-year revenue bonds to cover Phase 1 of the construction of the Greene County White Run Reservoir.

I anticipate the Board will endorse the resolution.

Also this month,

Louisa?

I'm going to pass Louisa's stuff on to Mr. Barlow, who's a senior, but I would like to take this opportunity to comment on what Mr. Gallaway said about smart satellites, and I think if all the counties here can get together with that and as we get together with that

When we wind up having nobody in the Culpeper District that gets any SmartStep projects as I recall, that's what it was for this year, there's something really wrong.

So I agree with you and we will deal with any way that we can possibly.

Thank you.

We're having not just this trouble with VDOT, but

And I don't know whether it's just our residency or what, but we have taken that out of our review process certainly because they're not, they're just not doing the job.

And so if they take all our projects and now they're in the review anyway, then we just remove them from the process.

It's an old negative note like that.

We had an Amazon application in and received, it would have been the third.

It received quite a bit of pushback, so it was with y'all.

I don't know whether to come back or not.

Just like I say, it was a big push against the right then, so we're still in the biggest thing that we have at home right now.

All of a sudden we decided that when we got to the status of the third in the state, we decided we had to do something.

I think we found the South now, which is going in the right direction.

Right now, I was in a meeting last night where we're trying to come up with reviewing all the salts and things to incentivize people to keep their farms and their timberlands and stuff like that.

We're looking at everything from purchase and development rights to tax incentives, just the whole gap of things.

But the main point here is I think

Very much the full board has decided now that we've got to do something to slow down the problem.

At this point, right now, that's the biggest thing we've got.

And it's no easy fix to it.

And so I don't know, but I think we're going to slow it down.

It's almost not there.

We can help with that, Rick.

We can help with that number.

I could have brought you there, right?

I mean, you have a lot of extra money.

I'm trying to figure out how to spend Mike, right?

We got a whole list of things.

You know, that paper was on the paper.

She was a Western priority, and one of which was tax rebates and actual lead back to us.

Well, that's all the double A's sold to because of love

Poor business.

That is the most anti-conservative.

I don't know what that is.

I'm going to have to really sit on that one for a little while.

Black-Charlesville, Lloyd O'Rourke II, Brent O'Sheeran.

How about if we did one?

Jesse Rutherford, personally, and his willingness.

All right, thank you.

Nelson?

I, Nelson County, am I writing a resolution to Louisa or to extend a heart-shaped loan?

Just seven quarters, actually.

You said one of those.

Extended into perpetuity.

Anyways, Nelson County, we're in the middle of our rezoning.

You know, it's definitely an interesting debate.

One of my top five

Things that I've been fighting on is home occupations for working type jobs, brick and mortar.

For example, if you're an HVAC guy, you should be able to run your HVAC business from your house because you're going to fill up your garage with the equipment and whatever that's say, as a per plumber, as electrician.

So we're in discussion about how many employees that person can have.

And of course, you know, I say, well,

I'm probably only going to have three, but why limit them to three?

They're going to have two retired guys that only work part-time, so let's say seven.

Seven?

Let's go with no.

All right, that's a seven.

It's a new number.

So we're in deep discussion on that.

In deep discussion about lot size envelopes, I have an opinion that you should be able to do, I think, a half-maker lot subdivision, right?

If you do not have access to water in the sewer, you should have it well-drilled in a pert septic site to prove that you at least have access to water and all that.

And if you're willing to do something by half a degree, you should be willing to do it well, with the exception of the parents on it.

The third is setbacks.

You know, philosophically, why do setbacks exist?

Does anyone know?

Front setbacks specifically.

Is it aesthetic?

Is there a scientific reason?

Yes.

There's no scientific reason.

It's about synergy, harmony, harmonious environment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Even though 80% of the houses could be non-conforming.

That is the most synergy.

What are you trying to bring rationality to this time?

I'm just trying to go from 75 feet to 40 or 50, which is a big ask, I recognize.

I am proud to say that Nelson County will likely be allowing manufactured housing in all residential zoning periods.

And specifically multifamily manufacturing homes.

Because this is a new product that's been actually first produced in Virginia.

Yeah, you just got two boxes, one box is one door and the other box is another door and you got a firewall right up in the middle.

It's pretty default, think about it, you got a marriage on there, putting in a firewall is actually really easy.

So the feds approved that new product.

So Virginia was the first factory to produce it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

It has to meet the standards for firewalls.

And you don't mean two to four.

We're talking about two to four.

Yeah.

Multifamily duplexes.

Yes.

Two to four units.

Anyways, so we did that.

We're in the zone.

We got through the school budget.

As you all saw, the article that Neal Williamson did, Nelson County is the spendiest county.

That is thanks to the...

Supervisors of Nelson.

Tommy Barlow, they took our money.

They came in the middle of the night, they broke into the bay.

No, it's related towards the school system and the shrinking school population and then the LCI and how that's impacted us.

I don't know.

I mean, when I went to his methodologies, it seems like it's a measure of acceleration of spend, which means like a spendier locality has less room to grow, right?

I didn't know we were winning.

But regardless, we did that.

Charlottesville, Christine Gjorgjievski.

Keep it brief.

I guess the two biggest things is one, the city, the new zoning ordinance, the lawsuit, which the city had entered default judgment for was reversed.

So the zoning code is back in place and the trial is set for June 2026.

So

But the new zoning will be in place until the conclusion of that trial if the city loses.

I think we'll need to make that pretty clear.

And homelessness is always a big topic for the city.

Earlier this week, we had an agenda item, first reading for a resolution not banning,

Camping throughout all city property.

It was a very contentious meeting.

That resolution was tabled.

But the main thing, I think the city is still trying to identify a site and afford with creating a permanent year-round low barrier shelter.

That's kind of the main fix that's needed.

Charlottesville's homeless populations, it's been pretty steady for honestly about a decade, from 200 to 250.

And

We have a low barrier shelter that has that level of capacity.

You know, you have a little bit of everything I think to make a big impact there.

So the Trump's Legislative Matters Planning Commission ran through its wish list to send out accounts like, you probably haven't really seen that yet.

Right?

Okay.

So we'll skip over that.

Some of those, one of those recommendations was

One that we had avoided processing last year because it had to do with clarifying the involvement of the Department of Transportation, the L.E.B.

Zillow, Laura Skiller Zoning and Planning Matters, which is the pointing end of the sphere of this lawsuit, and we decided discretion was a better part of Valerie, not to put a spotlight on that.

This year, our city attorney was very welcoming into that idea and has very specific ideas since it's all open and we haven't pointed out what we've engaged.

Battle, and the courts on that if you might as well.

So there's that.

I guess that ordinance that ran into the buzzsaw on Tuesday was a big thing.

And then just to synergize on that and use that again, you should find someone to ask for it.

I don't think I've got anything else along the scale.

Yeah, I mean, saying you have a lower vacancy rate than Semelom Square,

Thank you.

Just a reminder, the next meeting will be October 2nd, 7 p.m. And is there a motion to adjourn?

All right, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Meeting adjourned.