Planning District Commission Meeting   12/4/2025

here.

We're going to move on to the matters of the public.

Is there anyone online in the person who wants to get the public comment?

Seeing nobody, I will close public comment and move on to the presentations.

Our first presentation, the 2026 General Assembly.

Hi, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission.

I want to let you know that I wore my festive tie and my jacket today attempting to influence the vote, because that's what I do, right?

So mine is bloody good.

But let's talk about legislation and the upcoming General Assembly sessions.

This 2020 General Assembly session

will be a long session, which is a 60-day session on the next slide.

It will convene on January 14.

This is going to be probably seem longer than usual because the Constitution provides that the session will be on the second Wednesday.

The second Wednesday of January is as late as it can possibly be.

It will open January 14, 60 straight days to March 14.

A lot of changes.

Of course, there will be administration.

and we'll have Democrats in the Governor's office as well.

It's been packed in total with a lot in the Senate.

The Senate remains 21-19.

They were not out for election last month.

We're going to have some, nearly a dozen and a half new delegates, mostly new Democrats.

And you can see there, Democrats don't have any, really haven't been still on the news about.

We're going to have kind of a, some cascading, domino effect type elections still coming, it looks like, because

the Lieutenant Governor-Elect is currently in the State Senate sending her resignation and that triggers special elections to her seat and two members of the House of Delegates are running for that Senate seat and one of them will probably win this thing so we'll have another respective election probably sometime later on this Sunday.

And then just one logistical thing, pre-filing of bills

which the legislators are able to do in advance of the beginning of the session began shortly after the election, actually a couple of weeks ago, and that would continue all the way until the first day of the session.

Next slide, please.

It's going to spend a lot of time in the next several slides just talking about the state budget because that is always one of the biggest actions that the General Assembly has to take within a given session.

Coming up in about two weeks, well less than two weeks, Governor Young will introduce both amendments to the current fiscal year budget, fiscal year 26, as well as his proposed budget for fiscal year 27 and 28, the biannual budget.

He does that and then he leaves office, so it's left to the General Assembly and his successor to deal with the budget proposal that's presented.

State revenues so far are exceeding expectations in the current fiscal year.

And just having attended the Senate Finance Committee retreat and looking at documents from the House retreat from several weeks ago, they're expecting that over the course of the next two year budget period, there'll be about four to $5 billion in additional revenue available for appropriation.

mostly as a result of revenue growth but also some sizable carryover funds as well.

And you can see there for both fiscal year 27 and 28 based on the staff analysis in the House and Senate what they're projecting as the revenue growth for both 27 and 28.

On the next slide, yeah, the first bullet there is that $45 billion sounds great but it's probably gonna be eaten up pretty quickly.

You've probably been reading reports in the media

required expenditures in Medicaid, $400 million additional in this fiscal year and another 2.8 or 27 and 28 for a total of $3.2 billion.

Rebenchmarking, which is done every two years, K-12 education costs is going to be either 850 to 950, depending on if you look at the House members or the Senate members at this point.

Children's Services Act, I know we talk about that every year in terms of what you all experience at the local level with increasing costs, those that are expected state costs for the upcoming buy-in, an additional 180 million.

The other thing that's kind of in play, don't know how it's going to pan out at this point, but the state will have to do, the General Assembly will have to deal with how they're going to conform to the federal tax code.

If they were to do everything that they could do, then they would be looking at an additional cost of 1.10.

So you get all that math and you can see that that expected revenue that's available for appropriation for the next two fiscal years is gonna be eaten up pretty quickly.

So as I indicated, Governor Youngkin will introduce his budget proposal on December 7, 2010.

The legislators then get a chance to introduce their amendments or their proposed amendments to the end of the committee's budget.

They can do that up until a couple of days after the beginning of the session.

And then around the middle of the session, we'll have the House version of amendments and the Senate version of amendments released.

And then there will be that conference committee of senior legislators and the money committees to try to iron out the differences in the budgets by the end of the session.

hopefully by the end of the session in mid-March.

I would expect based on things that I'm hearing and conversations that I've had with some folks at the state, probably we'll be looking at some ways to generate some additional revenue.

I've heard actually the digital services, which they'd actually done a couple of years ago.

I think actually Governor Yunka had come back with a smaller version of that.

So I would expect that to probably be at the top of the list.

In terms of generating some additional images.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

Yeah, it's right now streaming, downloads, all those types of things.

They are not taxed.

In addition, they can be taxed.

They're taxed in other states.

Yeah, I haven't really heard anything about local revenue generation.

You know, we've got one that's shared in the finance committee that's typically every year we'll talk about tax reform, but then we don't see too much in tax reform.

I know there were some changes made back in 2020, I guess that's when, you know, localities were giving the authority to over hire or transient occupancy tax and meals tax.

That's when the rest of counties outside of Arlington and Fairfax were allowed to pack cigarettes for the fifth time.

That was kind of within six years ago.

Next slide, let's talk about some of the issues that were identified by both the House and Senate Monday Committee staffs that could be risk to the economy and the budget process.

and things that, you know, some of them, as you can see, a lot of them have some worries at the federal level and what may or may not happen there in terms of the impacts of outcomes that have been taken, what would happen if there is another government shutdown, what's going to happen with the labor force, particularly given the aftermath of there being federal layoffs.

I put the second bullet in there of note just to kind of emphasize,

You know, what I was trying to portray earlier in terms of the available revenues and the demands on those revenues, I guess.

Both of the reports that were made from the House and Senate said something similar in terms of where the F-25 annual identified budget needs beyond mandatory spending will only be met because of the availability of carry-forward balances.

You know, the revenue growth projections, but then there's a lot of carryover money that is coming from fiscal year 25 and 26 will kind of inflate the budget.

It makes cost us some of those expenditures moving forward into the next one.

While mandatory program increases can be met, high priority expenditures will have to be really balanced against one another.

So are they going to look at features out of this and

Salaries increases for state employees.

What additional money would that take?

And then what other priorities would be considered for the additional funding?

Are there gonna be things considered that maybe it would be trying to fill in the gaps for whatever may have been government, local governments or nonprofits or other organizations that have not been able to get reimbursed with lost grants

And then the final slide is just a little bit of about what we would expect legislatively outside of the budget process.

You know, typically we see 2000 bills introduced and then a whole bunch of resolutions in addition to that.

I think certainly from the local government standpoint, the last several years when I've come to talk to you during the development of the regional legislative program,

We talked a lot about land use authority.

I think, again, we'll be in one defense with that, particularly with regard to the housing arena.

We saw some things last year that would have required that local governments produce housing stock at a certain rate over a five-year period.

Energy certainly is going to be a hot topic again this year.

We heard that a couple of days ago at the Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting from some of the local delegation talking about energy on the generation side and also looking at energy data centers and the demand that they're placing on the availability of energy.

That will certainly be a focus.

I know last year we had a lot of talk about solar and some restrictions and usurping of local government authority on solar siting.

There will be one bill that's coming out of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.

Some people call it CURE, some people call it SEWER.

They have recommendations that was part of the reason I was in Richmond today.

One of their bills is actually to change the name.

You know, the Commission, they get away from CURE or SEWER.

But anyway, there is a

A siting bill that they endorsed has many of the elements of a bill last year that would have set some standards for siting in the code of Virginia related to setbacks and fencing requirements and the height of solar structures.

That bill was unsuccessful, but it looks like it may be coming back again.

It does state in the draft that I saw today that we're not requiring local governments to approve any application for solar and it also would allow for localities and applicants to be able to come up with, I guess, agree to standards that are part of the proposal that are less restrictive than what the state's standards should be.

I don't know what the reaction is going to be to that, from the General Assembly to that coming from BACO, VML, other folks that have a lot of interest in the solar industry, but we do anticipate that that and probably others in the solar realm will be out there.

And again, new administration, they're going to be transitioning in.

You've probably seen or heard the last several days, the governor-elect is starting to pick some

Secretaries who have to go through a confirmation process at the beginning of the session.

There'll be directors at the agencies that will likewise also be named.

This is a non-election year in terms of the state elections coming up in 2026.

So for me, one of the questions is, you know, what will they do in a non-election year

that may be more challenging, that may be more controversial, that they may not want to do that in the following year when all 140 members of the legislature will be up for election.

So, you know, again, budget, always a top priority.

Energy, as we talked about, tax reform, we'll see.

It certainly will be proposals to address health, housing affordability.

There's been a lot of talk here in the past week about

finally getting some legislation related to retail market for cannabis over the final, final hurdle.

And then certainly we're anticipating that we'll need some transit funding discussions.

I think primarily even within Northern Virginia and some commitments that the state will be facing in terms of WMATA, which is their regional transit service

And I think that was the last slide.

It was.

What are some of the carryovers?

Carryovers?

The biggest chunk of it relates to, I don't know specifically in the areas, but you may remember that there were a number, a significant number of epitomes

that Governor Youngkin submitted last year.

Both of them have budget items.

I think probably 800 million of these learning is due before at least crossing those different areas.

During the session, I will be as advanced producing a newsletter.

It's roughly every seven to 10 days, kind of time it out around beginning the session

A lot of bills were coming in, making sure that there's something out fairly quickly.

That middle point in session when we've got the two budget proposals coming out, when we get to crossover, which is kind of the halfway point procedurally with regards to legislation, it's still alive and can be considered in half of the session.

But certainly don't hesitate if

Yeah, you have a question about anything to email me or text me or give me a call.

There are a number of local initiatives that I'll also be working on, not so much in the legislative, a little more so than on the budget side.

So we'll see what we can do.

Not this year.

I mean, I don't know what you're doing.

I do have other things to do.

Well, I was down there a lot last night.

I know.

You were on the main.

We are.

You were not my client.

That's a fire lady down there.

You sound very faithful in the last few seconds.

You could have been my client.

Are there any other comments from the board?

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, members of the commission.

First, I want to sincerely apologize for not being to attend in person tonight.

But my name is Gorjan Gjorgjievski.

I'm one of the regional planners of the TJPDC working on transportation.

I will talk about tonight about a potential funding opportunity.

That is going to hopefully happen in the next calendar year, so the beginning of 2026 through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

So, as you all know, the Move Safely Blue Ridge plan was adopted by all six jurisdictions and as well as the TJPDC commission.

Just want to say at the start of the development of this plan, each jurisdiction made a commitment to roadway safety and that is having the total number of fatalities and serious injuries by 2045.

In the development of the process and the plan, we worked very closely with staff from your local jurisdictions, as well as VITA to tailor the projects in the plan based on the needs of the jurisdictions.

And then finally, with the adoption, opened the door to all of the jurisdictions to be eligible applicants for Safe Streets and Roads for All grant funding.

So the projects in the plan are going to be the essential elements of how we're going to meet that commitment in the future.

According to the NOFO of last year and what has happened in the past, this will be the final round of funding with approximately $1 billion available.

All applicants will require a 20% non-federal match requirement

So the eligible applicants can be cities, counties, PDCs, and MPOs with three available categories for implementation projects that are identified in the plan.

We have spot-specific improvements or projects.

We have systemic improvements that can be applied on the entire high injury network that was identified within the specific jurisdiction.

and then the policies and programs were focused on safety through examples like enforcement, emergency response, educational campaigns and many others.

The major questions that we as TJPDC staff are looking to find the answers to are if there is local interest in pursuing implementation funding available with the 2026 NOFO,

And what would be the interest of the localities that the TJPDC serves as the lead applicant and supports with the administration process?

So if the answer to this question is yes, then the next step for the PDC is to work with your local staff to identify the priority projects to be included in an application.

We were very curious about what others have done in their application when applying for implementation projects.

Specifically we were looking at, we did some case studies and we found some results specifically looking into what kind of regional initiatives others did.

So one of the important elements that we looked at was

If applications have supported both single and multi-jurisdictional projects, so the answer was yes, which was very good for us because as a regional body we are very

very well set up to be applying for that implementation funding.

The best applications align very closely with the high injury network priorities.

So the high injury network is the network that shows the concentration of fatalities and serious injuries and it is located within our Move Safely Blue Ridge plan.

Projects focused on low cost, high impact needs in broad areas.

And then finally, all of their localities had some kind of commitment to roadway safety.

So we did three case studies.

in our research.

And the first one is the Tidewater Corridor Improvements.

This is a local study.

It's through the George Washington Regional Commission, where the total cost was $27 million.

And they focused on key intersections with new signals and pedestrian crossing, as well as safe access to public transit.

The second case study counts as a regional collaboration from the Indian Nation Council of Governments where the applications was in partnership with three cities and two counties.

This is a $26 million grant that's focused on spot-specific projects and many other systemic improvements.

The third one was, I found it the most interesting, $16 million to the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

It was a collaborative effort between eight localities that had a mix of urban and rural elements.

One of the major factors that they looked

comprehensive approach that integrates capital investments with planning efforts to deliver long-term safety benefits across the region.

This approach meant the region doesn't just plan projects on paper and doesn't just build isolated improvements.

Instead, planning and construction work together

So investments are strategic, data-driven, and aligned with long-term safety goals.

Lauren, this is James Higgins.

Just a minor question.

Mast Harm Replacement.

And this is Taylor in the back row.

Typically that's a traffic signal replacement.

It's on an arm, not on a wire.

Alright, so this brings us back to Move Safely Blue Ridge, the safety action plan.

As I mentioned before, we have a few categories that projects can be pulled out of.

The first one I want to talk about is the systemic improvements.

As I said, these improvements can be implemented across the entire high injury network.

within a specific locality.

We could be looking at edge line treatment, curb delineation, flashing yellow arrows, and many others.

The next category I want to talk about are the spot-specific improvements.

So for the entire plan, we have about 43 spot-specific improvements identified.

So these projects were tailored

with VDOT and locality staff to really focus on the issues in considering the locality priorities and needs.

The last thing I want to talk about today is the timeline process.

So the application development can start as early as January 2026.

We will be looking to work on project scope, cost estimates, obtaining resolutions of supports, should there be interest in moving forward with application, and many other

things that we need from the checklist.

We're anticipating the release of the NOFO sometime in March 2026 with the application deadline in June 2026.

That's the end of my presentation.

I would be happy to take any questions.

It really depends.

That's something that we will have to work with VDOT because ultimately VDOT is going to be the one that kind of takes the wheel when it comes to construction.

And it really depends on the projects.

For example, the systemic improvements could take a lot less than the spot specific improvements.

But I think that the most important thing right now is to identify which projects the locality would like to apply for.

The reason I asked is we have an intersection which is already at Ganger State Fieldship.

But if we approve the power plant, then there will be even more traffic on that intersection.

And we talked about bringing up for a roundabout, they did a study, they said it didn't qualify.

I actually spoke to the VDOT regional engineer yesterday, I think so, and asked questions about how something along those lines would work.

Obviously smart scale, but also the fact is that the power plant itself could offer and

I'll start building the power plant probably within the next two years is when the process would start.

So the timeline there is something to talk about, but certainly I can get my planning director to reach out to you about that particular location, because it would be a good, not only for economic development, but for safety reasons.

It intersects with 53, but we get a lot of traffic from Buckingham traveling through there.

So it's more,

A community quarter then is recognized.

Yeah, that sounds great.

So is it that if you did the regional approach that you would each jurisdiction would still identify project projects?

And as long as they meet the criteria in this grant, it doesn't really matter what those projects are.

Right.

They do not have to be similar.

And just so I understand, this isn't you submitting on behalf of an individual locality.

This is a regional application, but all six want to participate, all six would be there.

Does that limit each jurisdiction from submitting their own applications in them?

As long as there's local support for it and the local match is completed.

Which is one of the reasons we looked into the regional application is trying to be more competitive by if we have two or three jurisdictions interested, go ahead and go to them all together so they're not competing against one another.

I like it.

Yes.

And we can help coordinate between your staff and our staff to figure out if that's something that you're interested in getting cost estimates and moving forward.

And we have heard from several staff from several of your jurisdictions already inquiring about what the process would be, what the timeline is, how quickly could you get cost estimates so that

It could go before governing boards prior to the application.

Do we have to reach out to board?

Yeah, you can reach out to any of us directly if we're pointing to the right people.

This is totally separate from Smartscale.

That's correct.

This is federal discretionary grant.

I mean, if you're expecting that there's something that could rise to the level of the Smartscale application, you probably have a better chance of getting it funded through here than you would through Smartscale.

Beto didn't share the good news about transportation funding.

What is that good news?

We sent a

Meno on this topic with all of the eligible spot improvements to all of your county administrators and CC to all of the relevant either deputies, directors of departments or planning staff that we had been working with in creating the safety action plan.

Could you just help us if you're not getting responsiveness from our jurisdictions to let us know that because we're voicing

Yeah, I would just likewise say, I think, you know,

Charlottesville City Council, at least, would certainly be interested in participating in finding that matching funding and being part of a general application.

And likewise, if there's not responsiveness from city staff, I think the city council would just let us know.

Certainly, I think the city council is interested.

What's the level of matching funding?

20%.

All right.

If there aren't any other questions or comments, we can move on to the consent agenda.

If there are not any amendments or questions about the minutes of the November 6

2025 meeting or the October financial reports.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Yes.

Is there a second?

There.

All right.

Motion is seconded.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Consent agenda passes.

All right.

I wanted to take this opportunity to go over with you all tonight some information about the TJPDC Corporation and what it is and what it does and who's on it.

Some of you are on it and some of you have no idea what it is.

And I serve as executive director and secretary.

So I just wanted to bring this,

before you all to make sure you're all on the same page.

Some quick facts.

It is a nonprofit that is registered with the IRS as a 501c3.

It's a charitable organization.

And it is registered with state's VDACs, which is through the Agricultural Department, where all charitable organizations need to be listed and with the SEC as a corporation.

It's tax exempt.

It's not a political subdivision or an advisory board like the Regional Housing Partnership is.

So that means it's not subject to FOIA.

It doesn't have to abide by open meeting laws or sunshine laws.

It's truly just a separate entity.

Now, it does have an agreement with the TJPDC.

It specifies about the mission of

The Corporation and how that will mirror the mission of the TJPDC.

It specifies board membership.

The PDC will appoint six members and four of them have to be current commissioners on this board.

And it lays out some information about like how the organization will function in terms of staffing, physical location, things like that.

And it has a maximum of 13 members of directors on that board.

So six are appointed by the PDC, but there can be additional ones just generally elected to that board by the existing members.

And so we have actually a few like that.

All right, some additional information about the memorandum of understanding that the PDC

There's this idea that there will be cooperative work on identifying projects and partners and funding sources.

The CDC will make sure that appointments to that board are maintained.

So occasionally I'll come to you and say, hey, we need additional members appointed, would you be willing to serve?

And then this board would actually make those appointments.

and then we do all of their financial record keeping and making payables.

And then the corporation has to undertake activities that support the TJPDC's mission.

So these, if you recall, the PDC's mission is to support our local governments providing regional vision, collaborative leadership and professional service to develop effective solutions for the region.

The actual mission of the corporation goes into that in a little bit more detail, specifically calling out housing, environment, community development, transportation, workforce and economic development, the arts and universal design.

It also specifically says that

It will support the TJPDC by helping broaden the funding base for TJPDC initiatives and acting as an implementation arm for selected projects.

This might raise a lot of questions in your mind of what is the corporation doing and how has it been used in the past?

So I wanted to bring to you what the current programs are and what some previous programs are.

Fiskel Sponsorship, which is really just taking organizations that probably will be a nonprofit in the future and hosting them, managing their finances for them so that they can operate, but they don't have to go through the six plus month process of becoming a 501c3.

So Dementia Friendly Central Virginia is currently in that camp.

have a website.

They're active.

They have a bunch of volunteers.

They maintain a lot of their own operations, but we handle their finances for them.

And that's all we do with them.

The Charlottesville Parks Foundation is brand new.

They came online about a year ago, and they are extremely active.

They have a bunch of volunteers.

What they're doing is needed work in the city parks to help with things that

city staff, city resources are not able to come up with, or some projects that residents would like to see happen, but our current priority is to develop a plan.

And so we have helped them figure out how to become a functioning organization.

And we're working with them to, you know,

continue on down that path of like, how do you get insurance for your organization?

How do you make sure that things are being run in a way that if you become a 501c3 in the future, you can meet all those requirements.

And then we also run a number of current programs through the corporation on case by case basis, such as fundraising for the

O'Brien, Tonya Swartzendruber, John O'Brien, John O'Brien,

I think I already thought I heard a comment.

We have a number of previous programs, some that still are around and some are not.

Here to Stay Wintergreen went off and became its own 501c3.

They're very active.

Seabill Village is also very active.

Piedmont Sustainable Woods, I don't know if they're still active.

I have not heard of them in the area.

And then the Geriatric Collaborative of Central Virginia.

was extremely active for a time.

We were their fiscal sponsor, but we also provided staffing and hosted events.

And that I believe is not active anymore either.

Because there's been so much activity with the Charlottesville Perks Foundation and other groups who have requested sponsorship, but maybe it hasn't materialized in the last two years,

I have put together this financial outlook for the current fiscal year.

So one interesting fact about the way the corporation is set up, it only generates revenue on the donations that are received by these organizations that would sponsor.

And it's 2% of those donations.

2% does not actually cover a lot of

the organization's expenditures for just administration.

In terms of dollars, what I expect that 2% will be for this fiscal year is $200.

Putting together this presentation probably took more than that in my time.

So the non-salary direct expenses that are anticipated

are about $1,400.

And you might be wondering why that's a large number.

It's because they have to have their own set of 990s financial documents prepared for their IRS.

They have to pay for DNO insurance for liability.

They have to pay their registration fees for being incorporated.

So all of that adds up.

Salary expenses, $3,000.

So that's a net income that's negative.

And then they have some savings.

Most of that was generated by the activities of the geriatric collaborative back in the day.

We actually made some profit off of that.

So I'm expecting our year-end dollars to be half of what our savings is.

All right, directors and officers.

So we have our TJPDC appointed folks, Mr. Reed, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Smith, Mr. Goolsby, and Mr. Woodward.

And then we have Genevieve Keller, who's a former TJPDC commissioner, former city councilor, planning commissioner, there we go, who also was

I think when she was appointed, she might have been a current commissioner at the time, but she's still appointed as representing Charlottesville.

And then we have our at-large folks, Sally Thomas, Christine.

Ruth, could I add something?

Yes.

To give you all an example, our last meeting,

Albrecht, and so forth since I was a university.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, but I mean, they really had had

Banks, you know, to be committed for that.

So we kind of left it that if they could get some structure, maybe some bylaws and some officers and that type of thing that, you know, and then come back to us.

Because a lot of times the need to follow a smaller startup

I don't think that's what those folks are looking for.

So, you know, it's not tremendously exciting, but so far I've found that the people who

can help them get to maybe and generate that structure.

That's right.

Parks Foundation on one side and the Charlottesville area alliance on the other I think are really good examples and one is a good candidate for partnership with the

There are other, frankly, better choices for sponsorship.

They are, as I was composed of, a bunch of non-profits that sponsor the grant.

Whereas the parks, they need somewhere for their donors to get their ride off from, and they can't partner with their natural hosts, the city, because the city does not offer them that benefit.

So this is like the nearest governmentally aligned corporation.

I should know this because I serve on it.

Yeah, there have been a number of instances where we've gone after smaller grants using the corporation

From what I can see, looking through prior minutes and activities with the corporation, it's really that and being able to do some

Does it feel like it's filling that mission adequately?

Yeah, it doesn't break even.

I think it's been underutilized by the PDC in terms of seeking

funding opportunities.

And I also think that the number of current organizations that we are sponsoring is low compared to the history.

Either not a lot of organizations need that kind of support right now, or we're not well known or something, but we have had a few organizations reach out directly to us.

Yeah, I mean we're listed like the Center for Nonprofit Excellence we're listed there as a fiscal sponsor as an opportunity so folks that are looking for non-profit support can find their way to us I think

At least previously, not now, previously, there was a real desire to help with the startup phase alone, but really anticipating that folks would then go and become their own, that the corporation didn't want to be long term, like financial sponsors of organizations, because a lot of them, like you said, they might receive a couple of donations, but they're not super organized, and they're not super active.

And so if we didn't see that they were like really finding their way, then there was a little bit of a risk that it would be a little bit of suck on staff time for something that

Thank you.

Included in your packet was a proposed calendar of meetings and the tentative topics at each of those meetings.

I did not list on there intentionally which would be virtual or in person as that might need to be flexible around things like weather but knowing that the first meeting of the calendar year in February will be all virtual because of the building renovations and then from there we all can decide when you want to be in person or virtual knowing that you can't do two consecutive meetings virtually.

But we would love a

Is there a motion to approve the 2026 calendar of meetings?

So moved.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any extensions?

Aye as well.

The calendar passes unanimously.

Couple of items.

I wanted to give you first an update on building improvements, the tenant improvements.

We have been in the process of doing all the material selection.

We're almost complete with that.

We had a walkthrough tomorrow with painter and contractor.

We're very close to getting a 3D imaging of the kitchen of placement, and then we'll be able to pick materials for the kitchen.

And then starting February,

Mid-December, we will be doing boxing up and moving of all personal effects, bookshelves, all of those things need to be put away so the movers can move furniture in order to replace floors.

We have been given an offer from our owner, the owner of the building, that all of our things can be stored right upstairs.

There's some vacant space so that we don't have to have storage units or anything like that.

So we can just bring our items up there so we don't have to move them around through construction, which will save time, be a little bit more efficient.

But we're pretty excited.

January 5th is the kickoff day.

Got a lot of last minute things that are going to need to be done, but really looking forward to having good board after pictures.

Any questions on that one?

All right.

And then the other one is just an update.

After our last commission meeting under y'all's advisement, we did move forward with filing a complaint on your recommendation with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB,

against Wells Fargo for the handling of the check rod and suspicious activity.

We also filed a police report at your request with the CFPB filing.

We received an official letter from them that they had received the complaint and that they would respond within 10 days.

We then got a phone call from our case manager asking for all of the relevant information and collecting the details.

She indicated that they would likely be able to resolve it within 10 days.

However, we received a letter

I think the day before Thanksgiving that it said that they're going to need more time to do their research and investigation and that we should expect a follow-up by February 9th.

So we are waiting to hear from the Wells Fargo end.

On the police department end, we did file a report with the police department.

They assigned us an officer who advised us to also file an online form complaint.

That complaint was received and approved on November 18th.

So it now has a permanent case number that's been issued.

We haven't had further communication with the police at this point, but we do know that there is a case number they're working on.

And then prior to filing both of those, we heard from Wells Fargo who advised us that their fraud case had been closed and that they would make no further attempts to recover the missing funding.

Go to themselves.

And that's all my updates.

If there are not any other questions or comments, we'll move on to other business roundtable discussion.

We've got

More zoning discussion next week.

Some people believe that six acre lot minimum sizes is a great number.

I'm not one of those.

That discussion is ongoing.

And we will find out what happens in two weeks.

But ours aren't exactly done yet anyway, so we're not going to vote on anything that's pretty bad.

We had some

Pretty big discussions related to

Moving on from there, water and sewer is actually becoming a bigger issue as we look at whatever evictions we have into the future, whether that's housing, commercial, et cetera.

So we're looking at that pretty seriously and figuring out what capacity we can afford.

The state did decide to take- I mean, the world revolves around loving students.

But it's basically going to be targeted in 29th Ward, or that Levexton flat area all the way to high school and all that.

Yeah, we're now going into re-benchmarking, which is

So we're getting hit again, and then we lost another 50 kids in our school population, so we're now in like year 10 of strengthening school population, actually year 20.

Just in my tenure, our school population has shrunk like 15-20%.

So we have some serious demographic situations that we have to address.

Beyond the benchmarking, it's going to be a disaster for us.

We did get our

I will admit we are in a way better situation than your next-door neighbors Amherst County that does their reassessment every six years and all their assessments went up to 95 to 110 percent.

So everyone says canopy when they start complaining to me I'm like hey I don't

Why do you guys sell your house in here, Todd?

So they actually do have pitchforks in PAR just south of us.

So grateful we're not them.

I'm fortunate we still have the assessment conversation, but we are probably going to have some discussions about doing a little bit closer to every two-year model or every year model.

Just thinking about that because when you were talking about the reassessment process, I mean,

Has a teacher in the museum ever thought of having an assessment board that they contract out?

I mean, that's like, you know, bringing staff.

That's one thing.

But, you know, there's the housing and the staff doing all those kinds of things.

And maybe the level of staff that you would need in terms of economies of scale isn't really there.

In other words, you'd probably hire two people, but you really need two people to, you know,

That's an appendable revenue stream too.

cycles, as long as we're offsetting each other.

So that concept has already been played around in some of the localities.

I don't really think we do.

No, but every two years.

But every two years, you get four counties to do that.

There you go.

There you go.

So I know Fluvanna would certainly consider it, because we're giving you commissioner revenue, and there's some conversations around

You know, whether we would bring that in house or not, whether it makes sense to bring it in the house house.

Those are good opportunities to do that.

But Jesse's point, you know, if you got four localities, one year, each locality, you can do it in a four year cycle and you can do administrative cycles.

Now there's something called Eagle View, which basically, you know, spots, you know, does a flyover type of thing.

And the Eagle View data is owned by the county if they pay for it.

And there's probably a way to structure that.

Gjorgjievski, ultimately just gives and holds the data and goes from there.

I know there was one PDC within the last six months where the commissioners started talking to the staff about looking into the commission doing it.

I think that

was largely born out of frustration with there's basically one entity in the entire state now that has a monopoly on the original reassessment.

So I don't know where that landed.

I haven't heard about those discussions for a couple.

I will say we did get, you know, we put it out for our people.

We got another response, which was lovely.

everything out there.

Other than that, personal property tax assessments came back and everybody's pretty upset that their F-150s are worth more now than what they paid for two years ago.

Well, I remember reading, you know, personally how many of those published comments only once a year, their voice supervisors meetings.

That's how they get away with the assessment.

So we're not busting public comments at once.

I think the state government, before the state government says simply you at least need to hold it four times.

In any case, on to Louisa.

Beale, and first part of January, they're saying.

So we're excited about that.

Then the reason that Mr. Barlow isn't here tonight, he went on the Santa train.

The Santa Train and the Spirit Train that they're also running for adults, which I'll be on December 19th.

All of those sold out, say, in the first three days, 33, it was 1921 first, and those sold out before the first week.

So they added 11 more of the Spirit Trains, and those are all sold out.

They're running some of the Santa Train

They've done it four or five times a day.

Now they're only hour trips, spirits train in the same train.

So I guess they go somewhere up next to groups.

True, okay, that travels.

But the one that we went on is to get ready for the next year run dinner training, which is similar to what they run.

They do a kind of stand.

We run two of those stand.

We run Sal, the one that actually comes over the highway, comes through the tunnel.

So we came the hour and a half out.

We got a tremendous view of the Shadwell Quarry and it stopped before we got to the Rhine River and there's a siding there so they pulled into the siding freight train would pass and the engine came and pushed from what happened before and came around to what happened in the back.

at least initially had their three-hour trains would go and then they'll add in some murder mystery trains like this.

So if you look, if you have any interest in looking at the Virginia City Railways website, they're looking to do pretty much what they do in standing.

So, but it's been extremely well received.

A lot of your comments

I took a video when we were there the first day as the meeting pulled up and it was only two callers hooked to it.

And I sent it to the chair of the board of supervisors, Dwayne Hales.

He put it on my own Facebook, so it doesn't really understand what we're talking about here, so I couldn't be really happy with it.

He put it on his face, he asked me if he could put it on his shirt.

That was on Saturday.

by Tuesday morning of that $47,000 in Sony views.

He says that's really good at home.

As long as there's 50 or more to go buy one.

I guess we had to make that.

But anyway, so yeah, we're really excited.

I might let Tim elaborate on that because he's more tied in in that situation than I am.

I might remark that this very evening in Orange County, their Planning Commission held a public hearing on the formation of a new zoning category, the Technology District

As you might imagine, this is designed to expedite a place for the data center anywhere in Orange.

Now, Orange County does not have the access to abundant supplies of water that Louisa County enjoys.

Indeed, like Greene County, Orange is highly dependent on dry water from the Rapidan River.

In fact, two years ago, Orange's Board of Supervisors asked the Rapidan Service Authority

to increase the daily draw on the Rapidan by one million gallons.

VDEQ denied that replacing.

So I think it's prudent for Greene County to keep an eye on this development down in Orange, if only because Orange is downstream on the Rapidan from Greene.

At some point in the next few years, we're going to be tapping the Rapidan to fill our reservoir.

No, just an interesting inter-county interaction.

We did get a $12 million grant to start with that water implement program, which we already had $7 million.

So that's a good start to it.

We actually do have a groundbreaking ceremony next Tuesday, ribbon cutting for the

water inlet and the raw water line that starts all of it and then it actually needs to go ahead and start the construction of the reservoir dam.

I think the last part of it, once all that's done, they're going to redo a whole new water facility plant every time.

Because the one there on 29 that's out there that's aged for the last 20 years, they've been putting the land age on it, keeping it going to

So that's a whole big project coming on down the pipeline.

We actually implemented the money from the county to start.

The county had two wheels that they had done previously and none of them actually bought them online.

So now with the last couple of summers of nickname drought and just

We implemented money to go ahead and start those and get them online.

That way those drought season parts of it can actually put into service and help the county with the water supplies that we have now to keep it from going into severe drought point of it.

Because even once we get the water line in during the summer months,

They're only allowed to draw so much water from it to pump back to Louisville.

So it's kind of, it could take three years, but once you've built three years to fully fill it, which we downsized the scale of it from where it was nine foot to six feet.

So it probably would feel quicker to put.

So it's, but it's going to be designed to where in well over 20 years down the road they can

Brangen, a pirate of need then in another 20 years or so.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, it's running at the time because it's a whole lot of development

there, you know, it's been in there waiting, more or less, to say to, you know, when it was approved and, you know, for previous commissions it was approved and all, so now that all of them is kind of like waiting.

Once the warrant is there, then everybody's going to pounce.

So yeah, that's

got the bylaw under construction, that's gonna be open probably, I would say, right after probably the first year of February, I'd look for that bylaw to be open.

It's been kind of quiet.

I mean, we've started working on our

financial or five-year financial plan and financial management policies, getting ready for the budget.

We met with Paulson Walker and the representative from Dean's office on Monday, first legislative priority session.

And I was meeting the transportation ground funding issue again there.

Coming out of Baco, it wasn't real thrilled with any of their responses.

One of our delegates said, oh, first, I'm hearing you.

Well, so I appreciate everybody's support of sending your group letter over to them.

And it seems like there were plenty of our colleagues at VAGO that were also speaking to this matter and issue at different pressure points from small rural type of road projects all the way up to really large projects.

So every county is feeling, definitely feeling the funding issue.

saying that at the NPO on the 17th, it's a virtual meeting still, correct?

Or did we change it back to a personal?

Virtual.

Virtual, yeah.

At our request there, they're going to explain funding to us.

So if you're interested in hearing VDOT explain how transportation funding works in the state, then that's a tune-in time, four o'clock on the 17th,

I've been advertising that to our colleagues on our board, but if you're interested in listening in with how it all goes and what they have to say, then that'd be a good time to do it.

Chair.

Chair.

So just yesterday, we had our joint capital priorities discussion with our school board.

We need to meet with the school board

twice a year during regular budget and then also later during capital priorities.

And I will like begin by just noting, you know, Albemarle does a five formula split every budget year, 10% of the capital, and then about two thirds, one third of school's family budget after that, which means at least during my time of service, I've served for two years, it's been kind of a,

Non-discussion, right?

They give us their presentation and their needs, we hear them, and then we just execute formulas with everything.

So it does not always feel like there's actually a discussion when we're sitting down with our school board counterparts.

And just before I joined the board, we thought it proved a pretty ambitious set of new major capital projects for schools.

That included three new schools, a new elementary in the south of the county,

A new career technical center that's in the middle of the county and serves all of the county and a new elementary school in the north of the county.

That put our total debt leverage to about seven and a half percent when included with, you know, other other county capital projects.

And of course, we have a 10 percent threshold, which I thought I remember thinking because I was at that point uncontested and was going to become a supervisor.

I was like, oh, well, damn,

They made all the decisions for me.

That's going to prevent any new capital projects essentially for the entire time I'm serving on the board.

The technique does do cool for the most part.

The schools came to us yesterday and requested a new high school.

They said, this is our number one priority.

It had not previously been on the capital priority list at all.

They had a 20 project list.

The messaging that we've been carrying that we've been given by our school board counterparts, because I'm not going to contradict the school board on their own priorities, the message we've been taking with the community is that the technical academy is going to serve in place of a comprehensive high school by taking extra load from all

It meets our instructional goals and it also prevents redistricting at the end.

And could be if Ende just came back and they're like, JK, it's not going to work.

It's not going to have enough of a load.

It's not going to sufficiently offload that entire community really wants a new school.

And I'm like, great.

The community has been telling us this for a long time.

I've heard it a lot.

We can't build it now because we've overloaded the capital plan.

It's literally impossible.

It is possible in a way that is almost like comically strained.

It requires a five-year planning outlook, saving, getting the tax authority that we want, exercising the tax authority that we want, then slashing their own budget voluntarily by a significant amount for 20 years, like all of that, and also freezing all future capital projects at their private

Salestack, and Mr. Day.

What game is the most animated game we've had?

I've seen either the school board since I joined because we were actually talking about something substantive, that they came to us with a top priority, and we had to turn around and say, no.

Well, not just no, but like, big dog, it's literally impossible.

The total ask for all of our projects was $570 million.

Half a billion bucks?

We didn't list Ask and Louisa for money either.

That's another thing that's on the table.

It was a robust conversation.

It was a robust conversation.

Did you see the most recent WIAA article that came out of it from the young guy who was there?

Excuse me, let me just...

I know it's public being, but it's...

I can say in Charlottesville there's certainly a very unique dynamic with an elected board that

makes budget requests but has no tax on the floor to be and it's not going to stop.

Van Halen, well apparently there's a picture of an excavating machine there at the corner of Zion's Crossroads where Wawa is finally breaking ground.

You saw that here, ooh.

Everyone's getting a Wawa this bad.

And when we did implement a meal's tax, we did have a conversation about, we just started the meal tax in August, I think.

We're still giving a grace period to certain people to come on board.

It's raised about $50,000 per month so far, but we know several have said, have that complied or have not maybe submitted the revenues that they've collected or haven't collected

The first sort of work session with them, the budget needs small in comparison to some of the counties are actually, you know, still a significant ask coming from them.

They had another final number yet, of course, because they don't know what the state federal monies are going to be, but it's going to be another big ask, and we'll have to address that as a county from that standpoint.

Why before the storm?

Because the Tonaska meetings coming up in

late January, plus we have another rezoning event, even though it's in the growth zone and even though it's just a rezoning, you know, there's an active group of folks that are saying, oh, this is terrible.

We can't have a garage next to us, God forbid.

You can't have solar.

You can't have anything there.

I didn't even know what that game was.

Now we can't stop thinking about it.

And I'm just going to come out and say it's for some reason Fluvanna's really good at it.

You know who has, what school has a really big croquet culture?

This is the Naval Academy.

The United States Naval Academy has a huge annual croquet game.

They play against St. John's next door.

That's cool.

Boxing and croquet, those are the two big things.

That's all I got.

We're gonna, we're just gonna do that.

It is a ten.

It depends on you.

It's not a book.

It's not a book.

It's not a book.

I think the whole pay would really not pay more.

Yeah, you can go first.

So CIP rent wins its way.

Mike and I will get back to you on Tuesday.

I'm going to share them for that.

Part of that, I got to say that procedurally we've gotten, and I've left the news on this, but over the last three years,

Our actual physical ability and the procedural ability to look at what's happening as it's happening has gotten much better than it was.

And we were warned three years ago that, oh, we've got this budget book, and it's kind of clunky, but it's in a pretty tight mold.

Those things were true.

And then last year, they actually figured out how to make it work.

And it was way better because you're in this position of no longer having to be

It's like if you're reading a book and it's in Gothic print, so you're spending a certain amount of your brain trying to figure out what the letters are instead of reading it, now you can just read.

So that's been interesting and delightful.

So there's that.

We've got a broad initiative to try to do something about the relationship between environmental regulations, development, resilience, etc.

that staff is working on and they are starting from the broadest possible to even know what our project is, which was interesting to be presented on that.

We've got

Yet another round of, we're working our way to the zoning code, fixing problems and updating.

No, it's been fairly quiet.

Budget season, kind of initial meetings getting underway, and not that anyone here,

have a desire to, but if you want to, there is that online budget book now that is much better in the past.

And you can search, there's been updates where you can see where CIP projects that have been funded, where they are in their timeline, to engineering that's been done, if construction started, and just a lot of things for, you know, good governance and transparency that weren't there before.

Likewise, schools are going to be a big discussion topic, I think, and always this budget cycle,

I've had a request to renovate and update every single building in our school system, not all at once, but on a phased timeline.

And they've tied that to the ability to do that sales tax referendum, as that went through a plan for that.

But it is interesting, our school population has been flat for over a decade, and so much focus on the single buildings,

You don't hear as much of a request about the people in the building in terms of teacher salaries, number of teachers, number of support staff.

I don't know if you see that, but it's an interesting dynamic.

The buildings almost get more attention in particular.

And other than that, I guess the next major thing that will be coming up is in January.

We'll have a work session about zoning, about how

Student Housing is treated in zoning districts, particularly in 10th and Page, Fyfeville, and Rosehill neighborhoods.

For those who aren't familiar, in summary, after the zoning, there is now zoning categories set in 10th and Page, Fyfeville, and Rosehill, which are historically black, working class neighborhoods, right next to them and in them.

Bywright with no special use permits or Board of Architectural Review, Discretionary Review, 12-story buildings are allowed.

And what that means in terms of market dynamics is the only thing that gets built is Hollywood student housing, because that's twice as profitable for a person as non-student housing.

So as you might imagine, there is a lot of anger about that fueling gentrification and displacement in those neighborhoods.

So we're really having a work session to see if there's a agreement on council that that specific issue was a mistake.

And maybe there's some value to having discretionary review for large student housing right next to working class neighborhoods.

I remember in Bloom, there was either a district or an overlay that I think was titled something like historically sensitive

The mixed use districts, like the X districts, allow that seven to

So in those larger areas, it wasn't initially resilient, but there was kind of concern raised that this kind of thing could happen.

So it was created, but it was only applied to some areas of West Main and Preston Avenue, but it was very limited in geographic scope.

That overlay, there was sort of a debate on the fly to what exactly where we ended up.

There was some debate on how long to make it.

And it also tears into, there's an overlay, what's that overlay?

It's a separate zoning category for those neighborhoods extended by Phil, et cetera.

And that was designed to be a placeholder to provide some sort of protection against abrupt gentrification until we could

It was pretty arbitrary.

I mean, for example, the LV Collective Project, which is the largest, is right next.

Literally.

right next to West Haven, our larger public housing site.

It was built on a hill, so it overlooks it as well.

It's not safe.

And of course, that public housing site is where it is, was to be dropped below the level of Main Street so that it was out of sight.

So it's a double tap.

Yeah, you're on your own 40 years later, 50 years later.

That's it for Charles.