Planning District Commission Meeting   3/5/2026

Call the meeting to order.

Exactly one minute early.

There it is.

Am I ahead of you on this?

Supervisor Goolsby?

Mr. Higgins?

Okay, so we're going to skip past that.

Number two, matters from the public.

Do we have any public here?

That's a commitment, if it were.

Well, we're going to skip that too.

So we're on to number three before Smith is rocking and rolling here.

We've got administration, Chair Smith, and the big word that says none.

So that means I'm not supposed to say anything.

Next up, body six month presentation update.

David is doing that.

They're up, David.

How y'all going to do that?

You know, back in the day when you had the projectors and you'd have the screen under the plastic, then you put on the side.

Yeah.

All right, so this is your six-month Virginia Telecommunications Initiative broadband project update.

As we usually hear from Lori Alsachs, who's our body program director, they started such a great job with this program.

Going to the next slide, some of this you will have seen before, but this is the slide that depicts the total rise project, as it's called.

It's by flies.

All the work that it's doing across 13 counties, the Firefly project when they were initially covering their service territories in blue, the Body 22 grant that we received is covering the work that's in yellow, and then the much lesser red is areas that are being going to be constructed in June.

So again, just to break down, high level total project is over $350 million.

Between the two grants, we're receiving approximately $97 million from the Department of Housing and Community Development.

County batch, in excess of $30 million, which you all and other counties put up to assist, to support the project, plus the matching funds from the utilities,

is over $250 million, again, 13 county partners, the four utilities project that's over four years old right now, and the 44,000 businesses and residential passings, that's the total number that we have with the RISE project.

I'll talk to you a little bit more specifically about the numbers for the body.

And I would also just point out that of that 255 million in matching funds,

About 220 million of that has been spent already.

Again, that's the county match and the utilities.

So you can see we're getting very near to the end of this project.

Next slide.

After this, well, we've got to go over things related to our communications that we have, fiscal management, and then we'll get some progress that's being made in the project.

Here's this kind of depiction of all the partners, the 13 counties.

TJPDC, Firefly, and then South Virginia, Rappahannock, Appalachian, and Benignion as those utility partners.

As far as communications, yeah, we're communicating, and again, Laurie and Joe on the body team are communicating regular with the partners, with the stakeholders, you know, with the counties.

They're, you know, they're having meetings with the counties.

They're addressing constituent questions.

Some folks are looking for information.

We're directing folks to the Firefly website, which is updated very regularly so that you can go and see the extent to which Congress is being made and then what areas of the counties that are part of the project.

And then on a quarterly basis, we started this, I guess at the very beginning of the project, there are quarterly stakeholder meetings that provide updates from both TJPDC as well as the four utility partners.

And we've had our latest one this afternoon,

Next slide.

So just a little bit more about, you know, the finance, excuse me, the financial part and what TJPDC does in terms of, you know, receiving and verifying and submitting remittance requests.

You know, there's a lot of work that goes in kind of back office and working with the individual counties while working with the team at Firefly to make sure that the grant management is running smoothly.

Providing 22 through the end of 2025,

We've run, as you can see, almost $100 million through the TJPDC's books.

That includes the money coming in from DHCD towards construction.

And it also includes match from the counties, as well as the portion of administrative costs that DHCD pays to TJPDC.

And then similarly, providing $24 million as of the end of the year, nearly $2 million in funding that's

rolled through, and you can see the breakdown there in terms of what's coming from, to go towards construction costs, from DHCB and the counties, and the administrative costs that have been copied as well.

A little bit about the grants progress.

This is from our latest report that was submitted to DHCB in February.

It's going to be through January.

I won't go through all of those numbers, but you can see

The many, many miles of field data collection and fiber design and construction and slicing that's been done at 30,463 passings.

That is the number of passings achieved just through the BODI 22 grant.

So that's part of that nearly 45,000 that was the number that was shown earlier for their last project.

And thus far with BODI 22,

You can see over 178 million in private match.

Again, that's county and utilities that have been expended on the project.

As I said, we're getting close to the end of the project.

The BODY22 project has a completion date of June the 30th.

So we're talking less than four months, which will be actually before our next scheduled presentation to you all.

But we really are making great progress, I think, as we're winding up the project.

Just since our last presentation six months ago to you, we've reported about 24,000 passings.

Six months later, we're over 30,000.

I think we're supposed to be about 36,000 for the project providing 22.

So you can see that we're really, we say unique.

Fireflies really make a great progress in terms of getting passings through the project.

Moving on to body 24.

Again, the February report for activity through January.

A lot of work, kind of the field work, the fiber design, all of that is still kind of ongoing.

There has been a good bit of fiber placement already, but only 150 passings.

Those will come.

There's a number of areas where Firefly is working

in areas that are concurrently Body 22 and Body 24 areas.

So I think as we move through the remainder of calendar year 26, you'll continue to see that number go up.

And for Body 24 so far, 7.7 billion in match that's been on the Body 24 portion of the project.

The Body 24 is about 5,800

Passing, so you had the 36,000 and the 58,000 and you get over 40,000, 45,000 in Athens too, but probably 22 and 24.

All right, fun part, site visits.

So as part of the work that TJPDC does as the grant administrator, we've been able to practice to go out into the field just to be able to see

and really confirm the work that Firefly has been doing.

And we've been pretty successful over the past four years of the three plus years of being able to get around to all of the counties, probably twice.

These are some of the most recent visits that were in the Latin part of 2025.

We're really kind of scaling those back now, whereas we had been building last year, we're not going to be doing them quite as often as we wrap up the project.

This is just a couple of pictures from Buckingham County down near Dylen, a new hut that had been set there that's going to be serving areas of the Addison Easy project.

Again, north of Dylen, Route 15, Gravelville Road area.

Next slide.

This was from October up in Greene County.

Again, another hut that had been set up, the Petty Creek Hut, which was going to be

serving the Rutgersville area.

Again, this is kind of an example of what I had just mentioned about Firefly working in areas that are both body 22 and 24.

So that will be serving passings and service that covers both 22 and 24 areas.

The next slide, we did a couple of visits in December.

This was a fun one.

I got to go and do this one.

And actually, this was another spot where

Albemarle County, Joaquin Hutt, and actually got to see the hut being set.

So just to, you know, I got there before, you know, the big truck had gotten there, brought the hut in, crane came in, and just to be able to watch them, you know, strap that thing, you know, lift it up and then, you know, place it down.

It's pretty amazing to see.

But again, another area of service, you know, that's, you know, made possible by both Body 22 and 24.

And then

One of the other staffers went to Madison County right before the holidays to look at some of the aerial cable, fiber cable that had been installed.

Again, body 22, 24 area being served by some of the working room.

There's the Firefly website again.

I mentioned that they are really good about keeping that up to date.

You know, that is kind of the source that we use.

We sit in some spoons to see.

You know, where they're actively doing work, where they're going to be coming, say, in spring of 2026 or summer of 2026.

That's a great resource.

I would add just two things again with really kind of looking at the completion of the project, just being out in front of us.

A lot of the fiber work has been completed.

So again, I think we're going to really start to see more numbers going up.

you know, with the passings, there's no splicing, there's not even a push-by-fly, you know, it was probably doing 250, what I'll call installs, but connecting subscribers, about 250 or so.

There's a week, I believe it is.

They've really been working on it.

And then the final thing I would just add to you, and I think this will give me something to give this project some additional exposure, but Dr. Tamara Holmes, you know, has been the director of the broadband office

for a number of years.

She recently was appointed to be the director of the Department of Housing and Community Development and assumed that role last week.

Chandler Vaughn, who's been our associate director, is going to be the acting director.

We've been working with him for a number of years as well, and he's awesome to work with.

But evidently, Virginia Commonwealth University was going to be recognizing Dr. Holmes for

A service award, and they wanted to be able to put something together in presentation of that award and asked that they could come out and film some of the broadband construction.

So of course they called their best project to see if they could be part of that.

So I believe today as well, that they were going up to parts of Madison County to do some filming.

So I think that will, that will offer an opportunity, I think, you know, to showcase this project and, you know, maybe a different venue than it hasn't been before.

So I loved working this project.

You know, I remember Christine and I, you know, like my finger to go to hit the submit button because it was the largest project I've had, you know, TJPDC and all, but, you know, again, unfortunately they've had good people, great people to work on this and it's been a great project.

I just want to reiterate that Nelson County was first in line and we were glad to support you all's pioneering efforts into the latter part of the century.

I was trying to get past this topic so we didn't have to go down that road.

Nelson, thanks.

Since you've opened up that can, if it learns, do we know what percentages of Fluvanna County residents have broadband versus Nelson County?

Is that?

Probably really low, like 3% as well.

I mean, you know, Given that the lake is 45%, right there.

75% of the project, I think,

was part of the original RISE project because it was central Virginia electric co-op separatory.

So Columbia area and that kind of that quadrant of the county, it's kind of been on the tail end of the rest of the construction.

So I think 3% is probably more like 75%.

Today.

David, not to go off on a tangent,

I don't know.

It's not cheap.

But it is fast.

I have one.

I have both.

One when I'm going on job sites and I got no self-service and I need to do stuff.

But it's not cheap.

It's $150.

I mean, for good internet, if we were in the spot, I would pay for that.

You're supporting the evil empire.

OK. We're moving on.

Any other questions for David before we move on to 4B, draft a rural transportation work program?

Any other question?

David, thank you.

It is me again.

It's always interesting this time of year.

You get to see me in February for ride share and then in March for rural transportation.

But this is, most of you I think were here last year and years before that so you're probably very familiar with this process.

Our rural transportation program is funded through VDOT funds and part of their requirement is that we develop a work program each year

As our governing body for the rural transportation programs, the commission then views a draft and then approves it.

And then we have to submit that to VDOT usually by the end of April, beginning of May.

So that's why you get me in March for the draft of it.

In addition, this plan also goes to our Rural Transportation Advisory Committee, which is made up of planning staff from each of the rural localities.

So they have also already seen this draft and then provided the opportunity for feedback.

The draft of the work program is in your pocket, but I did just want to go over a few quick things about the work program.

How it's developed and what's in it.

So I won't talk too much.

There's a lot of information on this first slide, but this really just kind of breaks down the requirements, how the funding, where it comes from, how it's broken up with 80% federal, 20% being local.

Our funding amount has remained the same for quite a number of years, which is $72,500.

And that is broken up into some categories that we're going to go over.

So next slide.

So just some highlights of what we have been working on and what we have accomplished in FY26.

We have the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, also called Move Safely Blue Ridge.

That plan did start in FY25, continued into FY26 with all the localities adopting it.

We have also begun assistance with SmartScale applications and support for that.

Round seven just opened Monday, March 2nd with pre-application status and that will go through April and then additional work will continue after that when the full applications open in June.

The other project that we took on, knowing that we had kind of some new, within a few years, staff members from the localities, from the planning staff on our RTAHC, the advisory committee, and some new transportation staff at TJPDC, we really wanted to take

A deeper dive into rural transportation planning and having an understanding of what the planning staff is going through, what needs they may have, what challenges they may face.

So we did a rural transportation planning needs assessment, and that is actually still ongoing.

We looked and reviewed previous plans for the last 10, potentially 15 years.

We tried to keep it to about 10, but sometimes if something was relevant after that,

We reviewed that.

We came up with a memo that we had all of the locality staff look at to make sure we weren't missing anything, to see that we were capturing what in their plans appeared to be the priorities or the things that they were most interested in working on.

After that, we conducted a short survey to understand more about the challenges and the needs.

And then we have been having one-on-one discussions with some of the staff as well.

We still have a few

Localities to finish that round, but that project will be finished at the end of this fiscal year.

Next slide.

So in FY 27, not a lot is changing for how we developed the work program.

Last year at the guidance of VDOT, we kind of simplified our line item budgets.

It makes the paperwork easier for them and easier for us.

We still keep track of all of the line items by sub task internally, but by not breaking them down in the work program, it just kind of simplifies the process and takes a little bit of the administrative burden off.

Now one change that came from VDOT's instruction is they did ask that we add a line item for trainings.

So you'll see that that is one difference there.

Next slide.

And so with the admin tasks, these are the same pretty much every year.

These are the things that we need to do for compliance.

So we're talking about invoicing, monthly reporting, developing the work program every year, making sure that's submitted and approved by all the necessary bodies, staffing committees.

So that's the Rural Transportation Advisory Committee.

And then also making sure that we're presenting to you guys as our governing body.

Let's see.

Information sharing, you know, I think we brought information to you guys about the smart scale area type change in last year.

That's one example of some of the information sharing activities that we do.

That's making sure that we're staying connected to VDOT on top of any changes and making sure we're communicating those to all of the localities and to you as the commission.

And then there's the training and travel on there as well.

That item was captured before in the information sharing.

So it wasn't like that's a brand new thing.

They just wanted us to break it out separately.

So that's the only change there.

Now on to the assistance work.

So the technical side of this where we look at both short range and long range planning.

Short range planning does often stay the same from year to year.

That's where we're offering assistance for grant applications where we are providing assistance

to the localities for maybe their transportation chapter of a comp plan.

We're currently working with Fluvanna County on that right now.

So those are just some examples there.

We have continuing work that we do both in transit planning and travel demand management and bike ped planning.

So that's what that line item is.

That includes the park and ride inventories that looks at any bike and ped activities that may be happening.

The individual activities may shift and change a little bit, but we usually have at least some things that fall under that work, working with mobility management, that program.

Next slide.

Oh, no, sorry.

Got ahead of myself.

Long range planning.

So this is where it gets a little bit more interesting and where it changes up sometimes from year to year.

We decided when we were looking at this work program to keep the comprehensive safety action plan in as an item.

While our grant that we got has wrapped up, there's still so much that can be done with that particular plan.

There has been discussions with the localities about looking for other funding opportunities to implement some of the transportation safety projects.

So we wanted to make sure that that was still in there so we could keep those conversations happening and be keeping our eye out for different opportunities there.

With the travel demand,

Management Study.

That is mostly happening in the MPO, but it is happening in conjunction with the rural areas because we all know nobody sees boundaries when they're commuting to and from places.

So we have been helping and providing them information.

We hope to continue to work with them as they move that project also into FY 27, particularly looking at, again, how folks move in the region,

How that corresponds, that travel with employment sites and economic development.

So we see some collaboration with that there.

I have high hopes maybe to even broaden the study.

I just got to talk Taylor into it now.

We got to figure out what we're doing and then as we get better, then then we'll move it into the rural areas as well.

But it's been a really interesting project and I see a lot, a lot of opportunity when looking at transportation through this study.

And then the big project that we're going to have for FY 27 is our rural long range plan.

And I struggle to say that, so you can giggle at me if I mess it up.

So the last time we did the rural long range plan, it was adopted in August of 2018.

So it is time.

This project will probably mostly occur in FY 27, but we have a feeling when it comes to the individual localities for adoption, that part

may partially occur in FY28.

We're just unsure on the exact timeline yet, but we have budgeted it or looked at it for both of that to happen.

So once we start into FY27, we will begin to scope out that project.

It is not a short project.

It is a lot of data.

And that's mostly what we're looking to do is to update the data in that plan, but to also look at a regional vision for transportation

look at transportation deficiencies and areas for improvement.

I think the last document was a little less than 90 pages.

So we do anticipate some good and comprehensive work going into this project.

Now we can go to the next slide.

This is just a breakdown of how we are doing the line item budget.

So this is not what we're giving to VDOT, but we're giving you the insight of how we are keeping track of it there.

What VDOT will see is the program administration and the trainings and then program activities.

We do break down for them both short range and long range planning, but this is a little bit of a deeper dive into that.

So you can see, you know, we have the most dedicated to that rural long range plan, which is where we anticipate spending our time in FY 27.

So I encourage you, if you have the time and the availability to look over that draft plan, it goes over each of these

Different categories in a little bit more detail.

We welcome any feedback that you have.

At the next meeting, we will be asking for a resolution of support on the final plan.

So that would be, we would want to incorporate any changes or ideas that you have before then.

Sarah, thank you.

As always, well done.

Thank you.

So that grant program is the Safe Streets program?

Is that the one that, you know, federally?

We were talking about it.

You know, one of the things that was mentioned is that with federal programs, you usually have a lot of strings attached, but I recall this one was a pretty straightforward one, like the whole contracting process.

And I brought that up again last night in a meeting because

Tanaska's proffering a roundabout or I want to say conditioning a roundabout.

Well, actually they're doing a restrictive covenant for a roundabout I think is what they're doing there.

And so we talked a little bit about it because the question mark was what happens if we go over the five and a half million dollars that they're allocating towards that?

Would we be up for it or not?

So I brought up this program again

Question really is, can you use a combination here?

So could we apply for that program within it, even though they're going ahead and making the commitment?

If it goes through, they'll start the planning phase right away, spend $1.2 million for the design phase, and then once they get the acquisition and all that done, then they would actually go ahead and start building it.

But let's say that it turns out to be a $7 million budget.

Could we apply for it with you guys in the meantime and then have those moneys used for it?

And or there were also questions about what might be the tale of it, which was that we have, say, where we're putting the roundabout, there's another entrance that comes in a lot of times off of Slater's Forge Road right there.

So the question was, well, now that we're more efficient here on the roundabout, would we be creating a bottleneck just down the road?

and could we be potentially looking at putting in a turn lane there in order to make that traffic flow a little bit more easily.

I can speak to some of that.

I'm going to go back to Taylor to confirm all of this.

The one thing I do know is they are expecting that a lot of these projects are going to have a large funding stack, lots of different sources.

And the one thing that's nice about this is there is a required local match and it can be anything that is not a federal source.

So it could be that that provides the match for a federal grant that closes the gap of the project.

So we can look into this more.

Well, that would be a good one just because that did come up and it was a good question.

And, you know, there, there will be,

You know, four years of construction.

Some of it's pretty intensive construction.

And so that would be great if we knew that there were other alternatives, because even though that's the one condition that they're putting in, or I don't say the one, but they're putting another, that's a major condition for that.

There were other roads.

And so there was a traffic study done.

And the traffic study, that particular intersection was an F already, not counting

Not counting what's going to happen.

Yeah, I think we saw some of that when we were assisting Fluvanna with their transportation comp plan chapter.

I think there was a little blurb in there about that particular study that maybe had just been completed.

Yeah, Taylor and Gorjan on our staff have been doing a lot of the conversations, specifically on the Safe Streets and Roads for All or the safety comfort and the safety action.

So I know these conversations are happening.

I apologize.

So now it's

So that would, you know, it's not stopping the processes.

I have two quick questions about the rural long range plan.

And it's kind of

Kicking off, I think, a continued conversation that we've had at CARTA.

So the first is, I think, kind of intuitive from that would be CARTA has a transit needs assessment and is in the process of doing an implementation study.

And while the current operating members of CARTA are Albemarle and Charlottesville,

I think every member of the TJPDC is in our possible embraceable footprint.

And so I guess I do have the curiosity of how those, whether or not it needs to be a separate document or could just be feathered in, or if it does need to be a separate document, how we're de-conflicting that purpose.

And then kind of following off of that,

There has been some mild frustration and indoctrination from our board members about the seeming unendingness of planning and documents supporting things.

And so I guess to be very blunt with this one, who is the end user of the plan, right?

Who's got to pull it off a shelf and say, ah, X, Y, Z?

Because I rarely pull plans off shelves to say, I'm going to do X, Y, Z.

So the rural long range plan does need to be a separate document because it is a requirement by VDOT.

They don't have, it's much like, and I don't know how many of you guys are familiar with like the LRTP, the long range plan that the MPO does.

It's essentially the same partner document just for the non MPO localities.

While the LRTP has very specific timelines, it has to be completed at this schedule

The rural plan does not have the same timeline, but it does have to be updated every so often with VDOT.

So that's one reason that it would need to be a separate document.

What we find that the document provides is assistance with each of the localities when they're doing transportation plans, whether it's a small area plan, whether it's the transportation chapter of their comp plan, we realize it's

Off cycle for some, on cycle for others.

It's kind of hard to get that timing exactly right.

So I do think and certainly hope and what we've heard from our planning localities when we've met with them during the needs assessment is that they do use that information, particularly some of that updated demographic, economic development and things like that in there.

This will be my very first rural long range plan.

So as I'm into it, I may think and see

and realize that there's other uses for it, but those are the two that I kind of know off the top of my head, and hopefully that can answer your question, but having to look into anything else.

And I'm sure that we will be looking at, you know, much like the LRTP does, we will be looking at other plans to help form this one.

It doesn't kind of happen entirely in a silo, so I'm sure we will be taking

some pieces of some of those part of lands that have to do specifically with the rural areas and possibly be implementing them.

That can kind of help us sometimes, you know, pool resources when we can coordinate those efforts and that information.

Anybody else?

Do you all, it says in the work plan for 28 that you assist localities with their smart scale applications.

I'm hyper-focused on MPO, so I never really thought about that before.

Sometimes it's anything from providing data to actually preparing their applications on their behalf because their planning staff needs the support.

So it runs the gamut.

And there are some localities that don't lean on us at all for their smart scale.

It's staffing support.

No, we cannot prepare them.

Not for a rural jurisdiction.

The TJPDC can submit as long as it meets the requirements for those

along the corridor of statewide significance meets a regional need.

So outside of the MPO?

Yes, the TJPDC can.

Yeah.

But it still has to meet all of those same requirements.

It has to be the, you know, an interchange.

It can't just be any project.

But yes.

Yeah.

Before they went... Let me ask this differently.

Very rarely.

It's mostly been that supporting capacity of helping them gather data or, you know, get their items together kind of thing.

I mean, in the past, with all due respect to the other counties, we've used that to get more applications than what we were limited to or the MPO was limited to then using at those spaces.

Is your thinking that MPO projects are also benefiting Charlottesville and Albemarle?

I just never thought I'd forgotten about the fact that we had those extra four at one time.

I'm thinking more strategically for the other.

places, but I don't know, do any of you get to a point where you have more than four applications to submit?

And you're not even doing SmartScout anymore, right?

I'm not sure there's any need for us to, to be frank, but I'm sure we'll have some to submit.

We did two, didn't we, Ernie?

Well, one.

And Nelson is planning for two this year, because we are providing some support to them, and I believe

Greene County has a project or two.

At least one or two, I can't remember exactly.

They have not asked for assistance at this time.

We have checked in with them.

I think Greene County's project or projects, I believe are resubmissions.

So they're kind of just need the information from VDOT at this time.

So what was the project, and it may be ongoing, that the planning district was doing where you recognized certain elements of the road systems in the counties, I know you did in Louisa, and I think it was others as well, that needed to be improved, and it was gonna be looked at further.

I remember y'all, one night came to Warner Bros. Open last year,

The VDOT guy was sitting there and one that I had requested that they do a traffic study and one he said that night that they had and they didn't see any need to reduce the speed limit or take the passing zone out and y'all followed up with that with that was one of the projects that y'all saw the need of in the county.

That went into the safe streets and roads for a comprehensive safety action plan.

So in order to apply for implementation funds,

through Safe Streets and Roads for All, those projects have to be identified in the plan.

The plan is complete.

Now it is up to the local jurisdictions to determine if they want to apply for the implementation funding, because we are not the ones that would apply.

We can apply on behalf of you all for your projects, but you guys would have to determine which projects and the local match requirement and things like that.

Our staff is in communication with your staff to identify are there projects that they want to move forward to the forward level to get approval for.

Thank you.

And that plan had a lot of great information in it that we, you know, beyond even just that could be used for other funding opportunities.

You know, it was really just about making those identifications in front of having it on record, which is another thing that the rural long range plan also does in a slightly different way.

is by having that kind of on record and looking at comparing it to V-Trans needs, which has to do with the state prioritization of projects.

All of those things make grant applications stronger to boost their funding opportunities.

Great conversation, guys.

Anything else before we move on?

All right.

Consent agenda is next, just to kind of move things along.

I'm going to combine A and B.

So if anybody has any comments or questions or would like to take a motion and move through this item, I'd appreciate it.

I was absent.

I don't understand from this room.

Yes.

Anybody want to make a motion?

Aye, so move.

Thank you, fine, sir.

Second.

Second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

I abstain.

Two abstentions.

This is trying to be difficult.

That's true.

I have had to vote on the minutes when there was no quorum.

I accepted that reality.

I think you're still trying to make up for the lack of Internet connections and also lack of Internet.

I was in Richmond.

They didn't have Internet there.

New business.

Let's get this back on track, guys.

New business.

So Christine's going to tackle this, but it is time for the executive director's evaluation, Tony.

And then you're just going to jump right into B?

Go 1 and B?

I don't have them.

B will be right here.

This is just quick, Sam.

We're kicking off the annual process for the evaluation inside the executive director's report.

At the end of the packet, I put a timeline that Ruth is going to share up on the screen in a minute.

Basically, it picks off today.

You guys will start with a closed session at the end of this meeting, a brief one.

The human resources director will then send out to all staff

The evaluation form that they use to evaluate me, she will create a summary document that is anonymized, that gives me summary scores and comments.

Same thing will happen, she will send out the form electronically this year so that you can literally just click in the numbers, try to make it easier on you all.

Same thing to you all as commissioners, you've got the two weeks to submit it back to her, she'll create anonymized summary scores and all comments.

and give that back to me.

If the chair requests, we would then have a one-on-one meeting before the April submission meeting.

And then the April, you guys would go in the closed session and you would receive paper copies of all of the summary scores and all of the comments received and you would do your deliberations and then call me in as you see fit.

That's the process we used last year.

I did put in the packet, the tools that were used, the two survey tools that were developed.

In hindsight, I realized I put the 24 instead of the 25,

because the 25 was digital.

So in your paper packet in front of you are the updated ones that we did use last year.

And this year they'll be done through a Google form.

I don't want them to be a thing.

Yeah, it'll all be Google form and then it'll all be spit out into a spreadsheet for her and it'll be easier to file.

Any feedback?

Just keep in mind, we will have a short little closed session at the end.

Carol?

Thank you.

Ruth, you are up.

So in your packet, I have a copy of the Corporation's memorandum.

It's free.

It's at the TDPDC.

If you need a group call, at a previous Commission meeting, I had shared an overview of the Corporation and its activities and its relationships with the CJPs.

The website for the

Corporation relies heavily on, currently on, it's basically savings to cover the staffing costs that are necessary for providing the basic services of the corporation.

And in order to both protect the interests of the corporation and of the TJPDC as the corporation,

does important work for the PDC.

I've suggested some revisions to the memorandum of agreement regarding how revenue is used.

And so this has come before the corporations board already at their request.

But the red line version shows

There's a new section in the agreement that outlines that the corporation will pay for its own direct costs out of revenue first and then utilize its savings or the funds it already has available when that's depleted.

That is to make sure that the corporation is paying for its own insurance, its own renewals of its charitable status.

and that it's not relying on the PDC for that.

And then the PDC would not invoice the corporation until after it has exceeded the commission's budgeted amount that it has for the corporation as a program.

It's been about $1,500 each year.

The way we have operated that in the past is

That is programming that PDC has but then builds the corporation for and so those funds come back to the PDPC as well.

This is suggesting that this it would be more similar to a donation.

So anything in excess of that $1,500 would be billed by the PDC to the corporation, the corporation would pay for out of its revenues.

If the corporation is unable to pay for that out of revenue from that current year, then that would come back to the PDC to ask what they would like to do other than maintaining the corporation.

So if there's some activity that the corporation is doing that is really critical to the PDC's mission

then we amend the budget and say yes we would like you to pursue this activity or say no that's really outside of the scope of what we'd like to be paying for.

So this is absolutely up for discussion and if you have suggested changes to how this good book going forward we can take that back to the corporation board and go from there.

And I will remind you that six of the Corporation board members are appointed by the TJPDC Commission.

There's a hard copy here if you want it.

Yeah, I got it.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I think at the high level, I think this is

The attempt to get the corporation to be a little bit self-sufficient.

Yes.

And if I may, we are also looking at other aspects of making the corporation more sustainable.

Currently, the corporation takes 2% of the donations from the organizations that it's fiscal sponsor for, but

Last year that amounted to less than $200 and that doesn't cover our cost for insurance and it doesn't have any other sources of revenue right now.

We are talking about increasing that amount and also potentially having a service fee, a monthly service fee for those organizations that we're a fiscal sponsor for.

It is a question

on how to do that because we have two different organizations that the corporation is the sole sponsor for that have very different levels of activity and need for support.

One, we issue one or two checks a year and otherwise don't have a lot of interaction with them.

The other has multiple transactions a month.

They need support with how to function as an organization that's

potentially looking to become a nonprofit on their own.

So the takeaway is the corporation trying to figure out how to be a little bit more efficient in what it's doing.

But what's before us is not that topic.

What's before us is something else.

So any

Comments or thoughts?

And this is an action item.

We will roll on this one.

One, the

While this is about the corporation becoming financially sustainable and the TJPDC staff supporting that, the TJPDC also benefits from the corporation.

We are often able to submit grants that we're not eligible for under the TJPDC.

So lending, staffing support to that initiative, that makes sense from my perspective.

The other thing is for FY 27, what I would do just for transparency is in the local contributions spreadsheet that you will receive as part of the budgeting process,

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Yeah, and it is just saying I move to approve the TJPDC corporation memorandum of understanding revisions as presented.

Second.

Mr. Pruitt, Mike.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

All righty.

All business.

We have another action item, amended operating budget.

Okay.

This budget came before you last month and it strapped form.

There have been five very minor revisions from that version to this version that I'm going to share with you.

It is an action item.

The budget presented includes just over 42 million in revenues and 39.9 in expenses.

It does have an anticipated net gain of 110,000, about half of which is attributed to that reclassification with the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Forward from deferred revenue inputs fund balance.

The five very minor changes that we rolled over about 100 hours in the Watershed Improvement Program from FY 26 into 27,

because it's work that needs to happen in the later half of this year.

The second change was reducing some contingency revenue.

I had a placeholder in the budget for building renovations.

You guys authorized up to 20%.

We will pit that amount.

So I reduced the contingency and then we split it across five years because that'll be a depreciable asset attended improvements.

So I changed that.

The third change is utilizing a little bit of deferred revenue that we have in legislative services to account for some of the increased workload during the general assembly.

Fourth one is increasing administrative hours for BRCTB.

The auditor did recommend that we completely separate the books of the Blue Ridge cigarette tax board away from the TJPDC.

So this is just some setup time on finance directors behalf to get their books all set up and ready to go.

And then the fifth one is an increase in supplies expense to account for some replacement items as a part of the building renovations.

Very small line item, but things like

You know, safety rugs when you walk in the building since now it'll be plank instead of carpet just to make people like to feed stuff like that.

Just added a couple thousand dollars there.

So the cigarette tax part again, say that again?

You're just separating it again?

Yes, it's always been

The accounting has always been separate under a class within our QuickBooks.

We are now creating a separate QuickBooks file for the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board, because they are a separate entity from us, and they could elect to have any administrator, and those books would stay with the board.

You don't want those for hostives and so on.

Right now, we are the administrator for the board.

They could pick any administrator, so their books should be independent of ours.

I think it's called administrator agreement.

Yeah, it's an administrator agreement.

I mean, there's the fiscal part, but then there's the compliance part, too.

But I'm saying, when you say a different administrator, somebody besides the PDC.

They could.

Yeah, a different entity.

They could.

So if that board was like, oh, we want Madison to be the administrator.

Any other questions on the budget?

There's a roll call on this also, but can I get a person a second please?

We approve the budget as presented.

My second.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

We're still up.

Two different items.

So one of them is the tenant improvements, the building renovations.

We are nearing the tail end of the original scope of work.

There are still some outstanding items.

We did the punch walk.

Last week to go through and identify the last things that needed to be completed still.

I am awaiting the final agreement on the change orders and or additions that were put into that, that I should have gotten that today.

I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully it'll be there by the end of tonight.

As soon as I get that, they will be able to give me the timeline once they release all of the subs to do that work.

My goal and my hope

Is that by the end of March, this will be done with bow tie on it.

I'd love to have you guys in person in that space for your next commission meeting.

But I've also learned to be very realistic about having these goals when it comes to building renovations.

So it is stay tuned there.

There is the potential.

So they'll release the Water Center first?

That is what I am asking them to do.

They have not confirmed.

The Water Street Center, interestingly, in the first book of work,

because the building owner is the one that signed off on the scope, not us.

The Water Street Center has new flooring and the TJPDC offices have new flooring.

The breezeway in between did not.

And so that's something that I added in our additional scope of work.

So I would like that flooring to be complete.

Same with the kitchen off of the Water Street Center.

That did not have the new flooring when we did the punch walk.

It should have and the closet off of those all should have had that flooring.

So I'd like that flooring to be completed before we release people to come in.

Oh, yes.

My second, all of my normal updates are written.

I'm not going to go through those, but happy to answer any questions about them.

The other update I have is one that I don't actually want to give.

I'm saddened to share that Ruth will be resigning her position at the PDC, something we are all devastated by, but she is attending to a personal family matter and so is making a difficult decision to do that.

She will be with us through March, which means we will be

advertising for that position.

Currently that role is titled chief operating officer and director of programs.

I've done an extensive amount of research and through our class comp process, it's highly unusual for an organization of our size to have both a deputy director and a chief operating officer.

So we're thinking of revamping that position to do a lot of the same functions, but rather than be chief operating officer and program director, it would be director of planning and operations.

So it has a lot of the same, but it doesn't have that title of chief operating officer, which in most organizations, then HR and IT, a lot of these other departments report up to, and that's not really how we're structured.

So we're rewriting that job description.

We will get that posted as we need to.

And we will be doing the impossible job of trying to fill Ruth's shoes in that role, which means there will also be that transition at the corporation level of the executive director.

Appreciate all your hard work.

All right.

We'll see.

All right.

So any questions for...

So we're going to go to closed session.

Okay.

Hi, Jesse Relevant.

Move that the commission to be convened to a closed session pursuant to the exemption found in section 2.2 slash 3711A1 of the Code of Virginia to discuss matters of employees and performance of the executive director.

And I believe we have to roll call on this one?

Well, it's on the paper.

Supervisor O'Brien?

Aye.

All right.

All right.

There's a kitchen over there.

All right.

Yep.

No, my dad worked for him forever.

It was a household name my whole life.

He's a big developer.

Move that the commission exit closed session.

We need a second.

Second.

Second.

I got a second.

We will now exit.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Aye.

Supervisor?

Aye.

Aye.

I, Jesse Rutherford, move that the Commission certify that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matter lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identify the motion authorizing the closed session where heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.

Need a second.

All right.

Supervisor Pruitt.

Professor O'Brien.

Hi.

Professor Higgins.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you, everybody.

All righty, so we are now in our favorite panel, meeting the roundtable.

I'm doing fine.

We're deep into budget stuff, as everyone would expect, and trying to cram it all in before I leave town in a week.

So it's going to be a little bit of a challenge going to the West Coast.

North of you.

North of you.

Arcata.

Oh, yeah.

Point Reyes National Seashore.

Pretty ugly, yeah.

It's kind of like my home away, that spot.

You're going to want to talk about the VDOT open house maybe in Livingston, so that's the only other big thing, I think.

No budget in that.

Yeah.

You want to chime in and do your part?

Yeah, I'll just do mine.

You done?

Yeah.

All right.

We had a Livingston meeting, town hall, not town hall, whatever you want to call it.

It is a town hall, essentially, with VDOT, talking about the sidewalks in Livingston.

It has been remarkable to see how not far

Four million dollars goes in sidewalks now.

What was originally supposed to be about two million bucks back in 2018 is now four.

And like it's half the job done now.

Is it most of it a utility location?

Not really.

It's actually more of identifying, Livingston has an issue with people build houses on the sidewalks.

And so they have to kind of expand sidewalks amidst the parking spots.

I would, it would be good because we utilize the PDC for the VATI grant asks for the first round.

Do you remember that?

We need to make sure we put a moving timeline on that because we just missed this last round for VATI.

Pap Grant, Transportation Alternatives Program.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we want to make sure we stay on the revolving door.

VDOT says, please keep on compounding this because every three years they're going to do a chunk and then do another chunk and then do another chunk.

Um, cause they said if they start one part, they're going to want to keep going.

Um, this is going to take probably a decade to complete the sidewalks of Livingston at this rate using federal money, but it's that or Nelson County stroking a $30 million check, which is a shame.

Bax and Chris.

No.

Beyond that, we had a meeting.

I think there's a couple concerned citizens about parking.

I would like to make parking a little bit more of an issue and then address parking.

But beyond that, we have, we were underway with zoning.

We're largely wrapping that up.

Ernie and I had a two by two with a couple planning commissioners to discuss some

some of the, not nuances, but semantics of specific zoning stuff.

And we have decided to take a pause to now start addressing, not pausing the process, but pause so that we can now instead of doing public, go straight to public hearings, but to address the map draw, the map redraw.

For those who don't know, and you're doing the process, I strongly, especially in the rural context,

But beyond that, and we're in the middle of the budget, state has pulled how many millions of dollars, Ernie?

1.3 yeah it's more than a million it's over a million bucks they're gonna pull another million bucks we will be in the top five localities expected to pay the state's not paying so we will be close the state's gonna be doing their minimum contribution of 20% probably in the next six to eight years so we us in Falls Church are in the exact same boat yeah and why is that

It has a lot to do with our assessments.

That is one metric.

The LCI is a really, you know, JLARC study said it's outdated.

Obviously the state continues to say, sure, we agree.

Not going to do anything about it.

Our legislators, they understand it's a problem.

They didn't want to do anything.

And so here we are asking, what we'll probably do is just tell the state we're only going to do 20% of the rules that they make us dollar percentage wise, and then just see what happens.

Yeah, and they need another million, a million more than they did last year.

Yes.

What's the penny?

Do the dollar?

300, 350.

Yeah.

Yep.

I hope you get some success with the Lubbock Street Scape because the Stanisville Street Scapes project really made Stanisville popular.

Yeah.

What was that Mike?

Is that mostly federal?

Oh, I believe so.

That was also tapped.

Went up a big bill for infrastructure.

It was tapped.

Yeah.

Mike?

Sure.

Like most of you all, I think the biggest story that we've had lately has been budget.

We've received our recommended budget from the county executive.

Probably the most interesting thing about it is how we're planning to borrow from the future.

We're tapping our stabilization reserves for the first time since it was created at a half percent per year, which is half of it over the next two years in order to bridge the gap between now and when we have the revenue boost from AstraZeneca come online, hence the phrase borrow from the future.

Which is cool because it means at least as proposed, we don't have to have two years running of tax rate increases.

It is presented as a balanced budget and in response to a pretty direct question, our county executive said, yeah, if it wasn't for this, we'd probably be looking into two additional cents on the dollar to be able to balance it with our other obligations.

Community feedback, we've had a lot of the same feedback we normally hear on the budget, demand for increased housing, an assortment of nonprofits that would like slightly more of their requests obligated.

But the interesting one, and

I think it's fair to be fairly direct about this.

Our GOP chapter has a new chair who is trying to, I think, prioritize a specific issue.

So we had two people come and present on revenue sharing with the city of Charlottesville.

So we still have an agreement from right before the state.

ended annexation with the city of Charlottesville that contributes a percentage of our revenue to Charlottesville in exchange for them not annexing parts of the urban room, which they can't do.

But they didn't do it for a whole year.

It actually did something.

We pay a little over 20 million dollars to Charlottesville, which is about 10 cents on real estate for us.

It's about 20 cents on real estate for Charlottesville.

And they are

People, when they know about this and their Outlaw County residents are understandably annoyed, the renewed pressure is specifically, well, why can't you get out of it?

And this contract is the simple answer.

The only way out of it's political by playing nice.

And we're going to have to be very nice to Charlottesville for a very long time to earn up 20 million.

A year of annual niceness.

It's a lot of nice.

It is a lot of money.

Yeah.

I actually was going to say.

The two

Real quick, our last meeting had something interesting that we've had two different, I would say new policy that have been adopted, both which had their first way in which they were being realized coming to us.

And those of them got pulled from consent because we wanted to look under the rocks of how well the policies were working.

So our housing investment fund has a new formula for evaluating and doing annual disbursements.

And

In part because we wanted to know about it and in part because some prominent non-profit developers in my district were disgruntled with the formula.

There was some questions on how that was working and a request for additional data on it before we approved it.

And additionally, we had our first application under our new solar ordinance come forward.

It would have been by right, but for two

Oddities about the amount of land it was disturbing, not the size, it's small enough that it could have been by right, but it was also disturbing more than 10 acres of what was declared as contiguous forest block and more than 10 acres of what was identified as prime soil, prime agricultural soil.

They presented evidence saying

This forest block's actually already been disrupted by previous foresting so it's not 10 contiguous acres of foresting and they argued that the soil when they did boring tests was not actually prime and I found that persuasive and we approved a special exception.

The one other big thing that I'm sure isn't lost on anyone, this is not an Albemarle County issue,

There's a Fluvanna issue, but I hear from it a lot because we border very closely, especially my district.

Here's about it a lot.

So we've had continued pushback from the community.

I specifically have had a lot of continued pushback from the community as the nearest neighbor to oppose the Tenaska plant.

I understand it is a challenging position that y'all are in because a lot of tax revenue for a much smaller locality than we are.

And it probably feels pretty rich.

And that'll legalize the PM2.5 that we have.

We don't have a solar ordinance.

We have a no solar ordinance.

I believe Fluvanna is angiocyan electricity.

They are.

I think they want internet, but they don't want electricity.

I can't help it.

I shared with the other supervisors that I had shared at the mayor and chairs meeting too, but last night we got a couple extra comments, but

Mike gets the brunt of it because of the district, but it has surfaced at our public meeting.

Was it a nice letter?

Oh.

Handled all the budget stuff, so I can't think of anything else where we did get an update on our zoning modernization.

which is on the gills of our comp plan getting approved.

So they took the 340, 350 action items that are in our comp plan, identified the top 40 as the priorities for the zoning modernization.

That's not just policy and other stuff too.

That's just zoning modernization.

Started presenting that plan and the supervisors agreed to what those 40 items were.

Next month, we'll get the update on what policy type stuff could be coming and how that gets work planned, if you would.

So we're pleased that it's what it's not even three, four months after we voted on the comp plan that we're actually seeing the action to implement in front of us and get moving on that.

So yeah, I don't think there's any really anything else from this past month.

I did get to go to NACo for the National Association of Counties.

The legislative session, it's the first time Albemarle electeds have gone and we've met with Congressman McGuire and the senior staff of Warner and Kane to do some lobbying, not just for stuff related to our Road Mana Futures project, but the other elements in the county as well to see if we could shake loose a federal grant for support.

So that was interesting.

We've gone to the conference before, but Ann Malik and I are on different committees at NACo.

But there's good stuff.

If you go to NACO, they'll have all the summary documents.

The best part is you get really good, concise federal updates on where federal policies are going.

Housing actually is making its way through Congress.

It's got some bipartisan support and some stuff is shaking loose on that front.

I wish I could say the same about transportation and some of the things that they got to do there, but it's all getting pumped up.

But if you go to NACO's website and look at their stats, pretty crackerjack, and they've got like 15 of them, and they each got their own area.

So the information they put out is pretty solid, if you're curious or interested.

Does it look how you have to be a member of NACO to go to NACO, or do we go through NACO?

That's a great question.

Because it's in DC every year.

The guys that come out from there have no hesitation in celebrating what that party culture is and encouraging us all to come down there.

So it's, man, they like to govern and they like to have a good time.

I've got a really brand new issue that I'd like to bring up.

Louisa County, I think will be sending a notice to Albemarle

I'm looking at some of that Charlottesville.

I was thinking.

You know, Manning, I almost just want to say something about at the building update about the urinals.

I'm really trying to behave.

I appreciate them stepping on your mind.

No, I don't have much to say.

Like everybody else, we're going through the budget process.

I think we're getting really close to having our budget ready and have the goal of voting on the second meeting in April.

And I don't think that's going to be any problem to meet that.

Thank you.

It's been fun.

It's been a lot of fun.

Let's see, so we did set our advertised rate last night.

and we have God's rate, 777.

But you can go to the hundreds.

Oh yeah, we did.

This broke it down.

That was to add a position for deputy social services director.

And so that's good.

I mean, we're at 75 right now.

So that's 2.5, 2.7 cents up.

But I suspect we'll be a little bit under that by the time it's all said and done.

There's still some revenues coming in that we haven't

I've heard from, so that's good.

Our big meeting is coming up for Tenaska on March 18th.

A couple of kind of TJPDC related items that were part of the special use conditions.

It's been robustly discussed.

I mean, we did bring in Sans Anderson to the Berkeley group to review some of the conditions.

And really kind of one of the more interesting things was,

There was a lot of discussion around both the Good Neighbor Fund, and I misspoke earlier, but the Good Neighbor Fund, which is essentially Tenaska paying money to people that are within a one mile radius in order to address sound if they wanted to, but they don't have to, they can address it however they like.

And so the payout can be over the course of I think four years.

So there was a question about that, and then the other

component that we have in it, I don't know why I'm drawing it blank right now because I shouldn't do it like the back of my head, was a firehouse.

So they're offering to pay for a firehouse.

And so the recommendation that Sands Anderson gave was put it into a restrictive covenant because you can't really make the nexus between the demand and the need, but you can make it a restrictive covenant.

We kind of discussed doing it as a rezoning, but they didn't want to rezone the applicant, they wanted to rezone because it would start the process all over.

So that was kind of an interesting approach from that standpoint.

Did they have a location for that?

So it would be probably around the kid's store.

Kid's store is probably in part because we do a lot of calls, drug calls with Albemarle and we want to be nice to them so that they don't suddenly stop doing drug calls with us and force us to have paid fire.

So that's a lot in terms of that.

But the two sort of TJPDC special use conditions, one is

The applicant has agreed to provide $5,000 a year to the Robatic Conservation Alliance.

Okay, so that's kind of cool.

Second one, I'll give credit to my daughter, Bella, who said, Dad, you're, you know, I understand the need, the grid need, and I get that.

Of course, you know, she's an environmental planner, is not happy about the

Potensk Pollution that will be generated by the plant.

But she said, well, you can do more things.

And I say, well, yeah, but we don't like solar.

We don't have wind.

We don't have nuclear, right?

So what can we really do?

And she said, well, you got rooftops and all that.

I said, that's true.

So I asked Inaska to put up a certain amount of money.

They agreed to $2 million that if the county matched, you know, that would be applied towards residents being able to buy

Solar Rooftops on.

And I'm going to try to reach out to some of the other power providers and see if perhaps CVAC and or Dominion would help to participate in that program.

You know, we have 14,000 homes.

So if we were able to get, say, an eight million dollar pool together, you can divide the money around.

That's not that you get a free solar panel in your house or get some free solar panels, but you don't get a free solar installation, but you'd get that.

And I think that would be a good way for

Two things.

One is for the applicant to ask in this case to show that they are concerned about continuing to make improvements in the environmental side of things.

But the other part is too, in our comprehensive plan, we mentioned that we wanted to have decentralized energy and that we will have renewable energy and all these kinds of wonderful things.

And that's been brought up repeatedly by people in the community saying your comprehensive plan says this.

So this would be a way to, again, sort of

To me, in a sense, call out the county, if you would, in saying that if this is what you say, yeah, put your money where the mouth is.

And if this is what you're saying is important to you, then we should do that.

And as we know, federal subsidies have been removed for the most part.

How long do you have to obligate the match?

So it's just more, they just literally told me yesterday that they would be willing to do this.

And so then I told my fellow board members and a couple of them were like, oh, well, we don't want to do that.

So we'll see how that goes.

But I think as a discussion happens, it was kind of new from that standpoint.

And obviously if we're getting, if we end up

voting for this NASCA plan.

There'd be substantial revenues that come in from that.

And so we could use some of those revenues to create that pool to match and probably be done over a period of like 10 years.

It would be my guess.

And the other part of it is not everybody's going to jump on it because not everybody's going to want a solar panel on their house.

Not everybody's going to have the type of property where it's a good idea to put it.

Most people want things that are free though.

Yeah.

It's not free.

You're still paying, but it's being subsidized.

So that's kind of nice.

So those are kind of two TJPDC related items from that standpoint.

There's a lot of other things all total.

I think we're close to about 18 to 20 million dollars in potential goodies, if you want to put it that way, that the county is offering.

I mean, the applicant is offering to the county above the tax revenues.

One of the things that we're also working with them is the ability to

use their water line, particularly the discharge portion of the water line.

And so as we're building our county water system, that's a pretty big deal because as you all know, water is an expensive proposition for counties.

So I think their input is over 6 million gallons and so they've agreed to

And that's, yeah.

So to Keith's point, you know, one of the things when I first ran for the board, we were just starting to talk about the JRWA and bringing water to Zion's.

and the previous manager of the current Tenaska plant, Robert Mayfield, he had said that one of the options was that Tenaska would offer the ability to use water from the ECTI.

The county never took up that offer.

And from Alaska's perspective, discharge water is discharge water.

It is processed.

It still needs some additional cleaning, but kind of timely because we had a presentation last night

to bring water to Pleasant Grove.

And we were looking at wells from that standpoint as well too.

So, you know, would we do the wells?

Would we not do the wells?

Would we put underground storage or would we put above ground storage for the water?

All those things are part of it.

So that's kind of where that is, but March 18th will be a really exciting day.

Maybe it'll last a night or two.

On March 12th, Tim Hodge, a fellow supervisor from Palmyra and I will be

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's on the 12th, yeah.

What's that?

It's Thursday at 6.30, I think, at the firehouse.

Which one?

The Lake Montreal firehouse.

It's come first, come first serve.

So, I mean, we are using the high school for the, the, the other component.

So, and it will be televised.

So, I'm a little,

Yeah, it was raised, it was talked about, you know, it hasn't been challenged in Virginia, it's been challenged in other states, but it's been upheld.

And it's not proffers.

Remember, this is not a rezoning.

So this is special use conditions.

If it was a rezoning, then we could have done it as proffers, right?

So it's not because you got to create that nexus.

But yeah, this was kind of an interesting thing.

And that was part of the discussion that we had as a board.

Is this really, in fact, going to hold?

And even along the questions of does it hold, does it that impact?

The actual SUP, and because they're separate documents, the county attorney's like, well, you know, somebody wants to sue to not give the county, you know, $10 million, which is what these two is in essence, almost $10 million just for those two restrictive covenants to deny the county the $10 million, but it doesn't change the SUP.

Why would you sue for that?

So, you know, the most likely person, you know, so a lot of the information that's being presented out there is coming from the SELC.

and from Horizon Alliances, which is a local group that is working in conjunction with them.

And I will add and just finish with this kind of thought in terms of we have, you know, you hear from a lot of different speakers and one of our speakers is heavily involved with the industry and actually is like an auditor for them.

Kind of goes around all over the country and does that.

And he spoke last night and it was very, very kind of clever.

He said, you know,

Virginia is the largest importer of electricity in the country I think right now because of the data centers and so we import a lot of energy.

And the PJM grid has multiple three to five or more coal-fired power plants that are still in operation.

In fact, I believe that I read something that said that

The federal administration has said, no, you can't shut down these coal-fired power plants because the need from the grid, the grid is still so high.

And the point that he made was simply saying, so, you know, gas is, you know, much, much cleaner than burning coal.

And yet we're saying no to a plant that would eventually be able to replace a coal plant.

And so you're really not saying that you're necessarily for clean energy because you're okay for somebody else to have the dirty energy.

Right.

You're really just saying I don't want to hear.

And I mean, it was it was accurate in the sense, you know, this is where the technology lies right now.

It's not to say that if all things go well in Chesterfield in 1930 and in 2030 with the fusion plant there, that there won't be other options.

But even if that happens, conversion of the grid from, say, coal to gas, which most of it has already happened.

and then from gas to say fusion or to, you know, SMRs, that's still going to take a lot of time to make that all happen.

I can make signs though.

You're welcome.

James.

Very briefly, last month the Greene County Sheriff's deputy apprehended a motorist who was traveling on the Spotswood Trail at 125 miles an hour.

The posted speed limit is 55 miles an hour.

The Stanardsville Bypass is a major source of motorists who travel in speeds of excess of 90 miles an hour.

So the aspirations of the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan are commendable, but I'm concerned they may face challenges in terms of rural places and aberrant behaviors.

On the issue of the budget, we had a preliminary introductory workshop on Tuesday, our county administrator

proposed an increase of $0.09 in the property tax from $0.69 to $0.78 per $100 of assessed value.

The Green County, that is a substantive increase.

I anticipate that figure will be negotiated down in the coming months.

What the final figure will be is, of course, to be determined.

And finally, on a more uplifting note,

Congressman Eugene Vindman appropriated over $1 million for water and sewer infrastructure for Greene County.

We are most appreciative to Congressman Vindman for his efforts to help out Greene County.

County administrator.

Anyways, I do need to thank David for his efforts and we have another 30% increase being presented by ACWA, another 30% increase before and one of the arguments I've been trying to make along with sort of the affordability for electricity and also the affordability for water is that Lake Montauk, which is exclusively served by ACWA and some of the surrounding communities there,

probably account for about 65 to 70 percent of the tax revenue for the county.

We only get 91 percent of our tax revenue comes from real estate taxes and personal property tax.

And, you know, if we we currently have water bills, if you're a family of four, around two hundred and forty to three hundred dollars per month.

And so we're trying to get, you know, some legislation passed.

And so Jeff Black, who is an administrator from Caroline County, is also an awkward customer.

Second largest, we are the largest ACWA customer in the country for ACWA or in the region, I guess is the best way to put it.

And so there's three bills that have been presented by delegate Cole.

And we do have Tom Garrett and Senator Seifers on board, but I'll be to do it because my argument is if we continue to see these types of increases that we would eventually see housing prices decrease because we just can't compete with

Yeah, I also don't think it's unfair to mention electric bills my constituents have paid in the last month.

I actually got to see three constituents year over year, not necessarily same temperatures, but one bill being $400 last year.

Okay.

I mean, it was, it was terrifying.

Like, I mean, that, when it's, and you're starting to see it on the side of people pinching money to make a buy.

That, I don't know what the, I mean, that's a disaster.

When you're seeing people paying 1,200 bucks for electric and water, that's just like, you're going to be praying to have a well.

So, thank you.

If not, you can use this place again.

That's all right.

I got some carrots in us?

No, just for parking.

Thank you, everybody.

We're going to adjourn.

Take care.