MPO Policy Board Meeting   7/22/2020

I got it.

I'm recording.

The TJPDC Policy Board are meeting this evening, July 22, at 4 PM with a quorum of voting members through electronic virtual communication of Zoom software application.

The meeting agenda and virtual meeting address has been posted for one week at 401 Water Street East,

on the TJPDC website and provided to local media outlets and provided to the general public and policy board members contemporaneously.

This meeting is open to public viewing and public comment will be allowed through electronic communication at such time as provided on the meeting agenda.

As a public body, the MPO Policy Board is allowed to meet utilizing virtual meeting procedures and policies as outlined in item 4.1-3.

01 of the Virginia State Budget HB 29.

Item 4.0-01 allows public bodies to meet through electronic communication means during emergency declarations, such as the current COVID-19 emergency.

The governor has declared a state of emergency.

The nature of this declared emergency makes it impracticable or unsafe for the public body to assemble in a single location.

The purpose of meeting is to discuss or transact the business statutorily required or necessary to continue operations of the public body.

The TJPDC shall make available a recording of the meeting on its website in accordance with the timeframes established in 2.2-3707 and 2.2-3707.1 of the Code of Virginia.

The nature of the emergency, the fact that the meeting was held by electronic communication means, and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held shall be stated in the minutes of the public body.

We will begin by calling attendance of the policy board members and then TJPDC staff members.

We ask that you keep your communication devices on mute until you prepare to speak.

In addition, you may use the raise hand or chat feature to indicate that you would like to speak or ask a question and the host will call on you.

We ask that the public stay on mute except for the public comment periods to cut down on background noise.

Those wishing to speak during the hearings or public comment periods are asked to use the raise hand or chat function of the Zoom program to indicate that you would like to speak.

The meeting host will call your name and then you can unmute yourself and speak to the group.

If you prefer to speak using the chat feature, the host can read your comments to the group.

To see the raised hand feature on your screen, click on participants at the bottom of your screen.

Thank you.

I'll call the role now for the board members.

Ann Mallek?

present.

I was on my computer before and I could see you all talking but couldn't hear a thing so I'm now on my phone until I get my computer rebooted.

Okay sometimes on my computer I have it on mute and I forget that my speakers I have it on like no sound I forget that I have it on there I don't know that helps.

Lloyd Snook

Is Lloyd here?

Ned Galloway.

I thought I saw Ned.

Ned Galloway.

Present.

And as far as staff goes, listen to Shannon.

That's me.

I'm here.

Chip, Wills, Sandy Shackelford, Rechin, Sarah Pennington, Jessica.

Is there anybody else from TJPDC who's here?

So we're missing Ned Galloway and Lloyd Snook.

But we still have a quorum?

OK. OK.

Right.

If anybody would like to speak, you can unmute yourself and speak now.

Hey, Lucinda.

This is Peter Krebs.

I'm so sorry.

I hadn't muted myself before, so I didn't have to unmute myself.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel like this week has already set a record for the longest week, and it's only Wednesday.

So thank you for your perseverance, and I know you're going to be staying late this evening.

I wanted to talk just a little bit about the smart scale process.

You guys are going to talk about it, I think, item number eight on the agenda.

And I don't have a prescription for you guys, just something

that I thought I would observe.

So the board had their board of supervisors meeting the board of supervisors about their smart scale.

And they had had a pretty controversial project that they decided needed more time for the community to work through.

And so they decided like, OK, so we'll do that in the next round perhaps.

On Monday night, city council also had a pretty controversial

proposal.

And their decision was a little different.

They they decided that the smart scale funding kicks in in a little while and there would be time to do community engagement prior to the funding even landing.

So they went ahead and went forward with that.

And I whatever it's all good.

I support the logic behind both decisions.

It's not a

There's no right answer, but clearly there does need to be some kind of way of learning more from the public.

But on the other hand, also still being able to go forward with projects that are more or less okay, but have issues to work through.

And the memo, it looks like you're sort of walking that tight rope pretty well by maybe pulling out a couple of items that need a little bit more refinement.

and I also just wanted to say that like we did with the development of the regional plan, PC would love to work with the planning district and working closely with the community when it's needed.

And in fact, I think the donor community right now is very, very cognizant of the importance of community engagement.

So I think this

Community Discovery process should be funded, but I also think the private sector will be able to participate with some funding for that important research.

That's all I have for this evening, and I look forward to watching the meeting.

Maybe I'll check in at the end.

Thank you, Peter.

So that's the TIP amendment and

This is the transportation improvement program.

And when we amend the tip over a certain amount of money, we have to make an amendment instead of just an adjustment.

So we would like the policy board to approve this adjustment or amendment.

And basically it is to, and I apologize, I made a mistake during,

drafting this memo.

So it was a really small mistake.

I'll pull up the new tip block.

It was, we have, so basically the VDOT who maintains our roads for us is reallocating money

for the road maintenance.

And they have added in fiscal year.

So here's the two blocks for it.

The tip is mostly just allocating funds for roads and maintenance.

Okay, hold on.

I'm sorry.

Let's see.

There we go.

So thanks, Andy.

Can you see it now?

Okay.

So in the Transportation Improvement Program, the table on the top was the original one that has fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 21.

Not a lot of funding.

There's $2 million, a little over $2 million in fiscal year 20, and the same for fiscal year 21.

In the new table, they've added quite a bit of money to fiscal year 20.

They haven't changed fiscal year 2021.

So that's kind of all there is.

They just added more money for maintenance for the roads.

Okay, so I'm going to go back to the agenda.

So we're having a public hearing, it's required to have a public hearing on this.

So we can start the public hearing now.

And if there's any comments or questions on this item from the public, please raise your hand or you can unmute yourself and speak now or type in the chat box.

Seem to unmute Ann.

Thank you.

I'm ready now.

I'm going to mute myself until I'm ready.

OK. All right.

Any comments from the public?

OK. We're going to close the public hearing.

Go back to the agenda.

Okay.

And the next item is, so I would like to ask the board if they could approve this amendment.

I make a motion to approve the TIP amendment.

Second.

All right, everyone in favor?

All those opposed?

All right, the motion carries three to zero or four to zero.

I'm here for this vote.

Yeah.

Ned?

Yes.

I can do a roll call.

OK. Ann Mallek?

Yes.

Lloyd Snook?

I don't think Lloyd's here.

Yeah.

I would recommend just running the meeting that we do roll calls just for the virtual meeting.

Definitely.

Please.

Yeah, I'm trying not to like

I will not be offended in any way.

Okay so thank you for that vote and we can move on to the next item in the agenda which is item 4 general administration so

You'll want to review and approve our current agenda.

Yeah.

OK. Ann Mallek?

Yes.

Lloyd Snoke?

Ned Galloway.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

The next item on the agenda is the November meeting is the day before Thanksgiving.

So I wanted to bring that to your attention and then ask if you guys wanted to try to reschedule that meeting or decide not to hold it.

I just, this previous November, it kind of snuck up on us and we weren't able to meet.

So I wanted to bring it up ahead of time just to see what the committee wanted to do.

We can hear you, Ann.

Oh, thank you.

I was trying to raise my hand.

In the past, we have occasionally moved it to the first week of December and had a combined November-December meeting.

Now, of course, it couldn't be on a Wednesday.

That's lovely.

Let's see.

The conflict is the county board would meet on December 2nd.

Okay, does anybody object to staff trying to schedule a meeting in the first week of December?

Okay, I will.

The next item is approval of the May 27th meeting minutes and Ann had some changes which I've made.

I'll call roll.

Ann Mallek?

Yes.

Ned Galloway?

So I think the motion passes.

The next item on the agenda is item number five, and it's a formal resolution of support for the local government SmartScale projects.

So with SmartScale,

The TJPDC is submitting four projects on behalf of the city.

The MPO is submitting three projects on behalf of the county.

Right, and then we're submitting one project on behalf of Albemarle.

Right.

Three projects on behalf of Albemarle and one project that's a joint project with the city.

All right.

So, so yeah, the item number five is only for the projects.

It's only supporting the projects that the, that the local governments and the TJPBC are submitting.

And then item number six are, is a separate resolution to,

support the projects that the MPO, that this policy board would be submitting on behalf of the county.

So the first item that we're going to talk about is number five, the formal resolution and support for local government smart scale projects.

And there's three kind of

handouts in your packet.

There's a summary of the projects that are being submitted.

And then there's a summary, there's a report that is a summary of the comments that we collected during the public workshop period in May.

And then there's the resolution, the support of local projects that we're asking you if you would like to

signed to support the projects.

Yeah, so here are the projects, the MPO projects, the TJPDC projects are the 107 Park and Ride lot, the Fifth Street,

Hub and Trails, Route 29 Shared Use Path, 29 Frays Mill Burnley Station Intersection Improvements, and then the City of Charlottesville is submitting West Main Street Phase 3, Emmett Street Multimodal Phase 2,

Preston Ave and Grady Ave intersection improvements, Ridge Street multimodal improvements, and then Albemarle County is submitting the access management on US 250 East from Virginia 20 Stony Point Road East to Hanson Road, John Warner Parkway, Rio Road intersection improvements, Belvedere Rio Road intersection improvements,

the old Lynchburg Road 5th Street exit county office building intersection and route 2053 intersection improvements.

We have Chuck here if you guys have any questions about those.

That is what is in this resolution to have the board support those applications.

And then at Albemarle's last board meeting, they pulled one of their Smart School applications.

Just for clarity, that was an MPO potential project, but even for the MPO projects, we request the local support and require the local support.

And so Albemarle County decided against recommending to the MPO to submit and therefore the MPO pulled that project.

OK, no, that that that clears it up.

And I guess the only comment I would have is just as was mentioned in public comment at our city council meeting on Monday, there was a lot of discussion around the Preston Avenue and Grady Avenue improvement.

And it was approved by city council, but there was just a really strong desire to ensure that it has a really robust community engagement

Peace to it and a strong desire to have a small area planned for it, but I'll just note that.

May I end you up?

I have a question.

Is Chuck available to give us any possible update on Burnley Station design?

We haven't really, this is Chuck, we haven't really made any additional changes to the concept moving forward.

If we need to do some more outreach to the public, we can do that.

If the project's funded, we will obviously have public hearings and more outreach to the public.

I actually have a question, Sandy or Chip.

Albemarle County had five applications, but

Yeah, it had to do with Brian Road and they were trying to decide whether they wanted to combine the applications together or keep them separate.

So I don't think they have, as far as I know, they have not made that determination yet.

But they had asked for five projects in the pre-application.

And I think Kevin McDermott is on the call.

He might can fill that in because I do think each of the local governments were able to submit five projects to be scored, but only four can be submitted for funding.

Yeah, thank you.

This is Kevin McDermott, transportation planner for Albemarle County.

I'm looking at this right now.

Yeah, it's on the next page.

Yeah, that's it.

That was the problem.

We currently have five potential projects.

And one of those is going to be removed before we finalize this.

We're still going to work with our board on that.

But at this point, we're not sure if we're going to combine the John Warner Parkway-Rio Road intersection with Belvedere.

or break those out and only do one of them.

Okay, so the policy board could decide to support all of the projects as they're listed in this document on the packet or you could decide to support some of the projects or not to support them at all.

Second.

I'll call roll.

Ann Mallek?

Yes.

Lloyd Snook?

Not.

Ned Galloway?

Okay.

Okay.

So the motion passes.

Go to the next item on the agenda.

So the next item on the agenda is a formal resolution of support for the MPO smart scale applications.

Those applications are...

So actually, there's been some changes.

So the resolution that we're asking you to, there's been some changes to the 29 Fontaine Avenue interchange improvement.

And so what we're asking tonight is a resolution to support Hillsdale Drive South extension and the hydraulic road and US 29 extension.

And then in September, we will ask you to support the Fontaine Avenue interchange improvement.

Yeah, I think there have been some recent changes to the US 29 and 9 in Fontaine Avenue that I think are sizable and we just didn't feel comfortable asking you to make a decision based on only what you would see today.

Changes right up until a couple of hours ago that we got information.

And if acceptable, what we'd like to do is have some type of a community engagement virtual meeting during August and then come back to you for a final resolution for that one project in September, but hopefully be able to approve the other two to go forward.

And Kevin or Chuck, I mean, I wouldn't want to try to get into too much detail of the design changes because I know that you're constantly kind of working on them now.

This is Chuck.

I'll speak up.

Yes, we were

We took the original document, the DDI that was submitted during round three of SmartScale, and we tried to look at it and come up with a concept, modify it to that would cost less and have less impacts.

We did that, but it took a long time.

We just recently finished that concept and we have it available, but we felt that we needed to, like Chip said, since it really hasn't had any public review,

by even the Board of Supervisors, we wanted to make sure we were able to get some review of the concept before we finalized the application.

So that's why I think we wanted to hold off.

It's a significantly less costly concept, but it is significantly different.

Those things being said, we have that concept we may be present, or we can send it out.

But we thought we would take some time to review it and to get input before we finalize the application, which is due to 17th.

So we want to get your feedback on how you wanted to proceed with this process moving forward.

And then, like I said, we'll come back in September

and to vote on whether you are going to support it or not, but we need you to provide some guidance to the staff on what we want to support.

I can try to schedule a meeting for the public to go over, and the policy board, everybody, to go over the Fontaine Aventur improvement changes to the project.

That seems reasonable to me, but I don't really have many thoughts on it.

May I?

Is it my turn?

Yes.

This is Ann.

The board will have to hear about this on August 5th, because I haven't even gotten to be able to look at the video yet that came out this afternoon.

I guess my question is,

So all the work that we did so far is now thrown out by somebody who is now substituting a whole new plan that nobody knows about.

And is that the only choice we have on this to have this abrupt change happen now?

It took us a year to get used to the last sort of out of the box, I mean, outside the box plan that was put forth.

So

I would like a little predictability here about what the process is going forward so that John Lynch perhaps should talk about this or Chuck, either one.

This is John Lynch.

Just quickly, I think the process that the team has been going through is trying to refine the concept to reduce the costs and

pretty much try to salvage the benefits.

So your cost benefit for the scoring is higher and gives it more chance for funding.

So I think on a big picture level, you still have an alternative intersection type of project.

It's just the movements are a little bit different to try to facilitate, reduce some of the

significant costs from the original concept.

What you just described has anything to do with what I thought was already funded, left turn crossover, all the movements going to the east, and for the trucks turning west from 29 north onto 64 west.

Because I thought that process was beginning to start.

Projects that are in the Albemarle bundle are all under construction, so that includes the changes at the interchange, so removing the one loop ramp and putting in a dual left, as well as the dual exit ramp for Fontaine.

This is Chip, I just want to be clear because I think there might be some miscommunication here.

I believe you're asking about the northbound traffic on 29 that turns to go west on 64.

That is not under construction nor approved for funding.

Oh, all right.

Well, that makes that makes all the difference in the world because I from what John said, I thought it was the others.

So now thank you for clarifying that.

So this project that we've been trying so hard to get for so many years is what is now being radically changed.

Okay, so we will have more to do about that.

Okay, nothing.

I see.

So if the Albemarle Board of Supervisors is meeting on this on August 5th, then I could send out a notice to the policy board list about that meeting where there'd be an opportunity for everybody to review the project.

And then

It's up to the policy board if you want me to also schedule a separate meeting.

It would have to be in the next couple weeks before 2017 to review the project at the time.

May I please interrupt to say that if the NPO could host its information webinar first,

The August 5th meeting is already a jammed agenda, and so we could have a public discussion briefly, but if the public comment is taken as more generated at the webinar or your NPO-based meeting the week before, then that would be tremendously helpful because we're basically jamming this discussion into an already packed agenda.

Oh good, okay good.

We would need to take a public action at the August 5th meeting in some fashion in some way in order to have it come back to the MPO.

So what I'm hearing is that the policy board would like me to schedule a public meeting to review the Fontaine Ave interchange improvements before the August 5th board meeting, which I'm happy to do.

I hope I can find a time when everybody can come on such short notice, but we can do our best.

Is that correct?

Right, I will do that.

So we still have a resolution that you can decide if you want to make a motion to pass that would support only the Hillsdale Drive South Extension and the Hydraulic Road and US 29

I'll second it.

OK.

I'll do the roll call.

Ann Mallek?

Yes.

So the motion is passed, and I will get that resolution to you for your signature.

The next item on the agenda is a formal resolution of support for the new FOIA officer.

FOIA stands for Freedom of Information Act.

It's a federal act that allows people, the public, to know what their government is doing.

So all of our meeting notes, all of our documents are open to the public.

if they wish to review any of them, they can make a request to us or any other public agency through the Freedom of Information Act.

So we're required to have a officer who would be a specific contact person for the public to contact in order to access the documents that they're requesting and pull up that resolution.

So the TJPDC also,

passed a similar resolution to this.

It's kind of just designating David.

I'm so sorry, Sandy.

I can't remember his last name.

I never call him.

David Blunt.

Yeah, David Blunt, one of our staff people.

He's our policy person.

as the Freedom of Information Act officer.

I don't have any questions.

Good luck, David, is all I can say.

I will make this motion to appoint David as the FOIA officer.

I'll call roll.

Ann Mallek?

Yes.

So the motion passes.

The next item is just a discussion.

And it's the process and use of committees and development of smart scale projects.

We have a memo that Chip prepared.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And it was nice.

It's already been mentioned a couple of times earlier that

In this process for SmartScale this round, we have already had two projects that have come before us.

One being an MPO project and most recently a project within the city of Charlottesville.

For the MPO, it was the Route 20 bike path project and in Charlottesville, it was the Preston and Grady intersection project that a lot of community feedback came in concern that in putting together these projects that

There wasn't adequate community input during the process.

And so we would like to try to correct that at least for the policy board projects.

I really want to kind of emphasize this is that we're not proposing that the city or Albemarle County, you know,

I think they should make decisions on how best to move forward with projects that they intend to submit.

But for the MPO Policy Board, we'd like to take a look at putting together a policy that will somehow identify what I would call possibly controversial projects, bigger projects, larger scale projects that demand more time and community involvement prior to the

the pre-application period.

That way, by the time we're getting to where we are right now, hopefully everybody will at least be knowledgeable of the details of the concept and will have had a chance to provide input.

I don't have to tell all of you, we can't meet every one of the demands and requests from everybody, but at least everybody hopefully will feel that they've had a better opportunity.

I do want to say, too, though, that I do not think that we could do this for four projects.

What I envision is something on a much, much smaller scale, but still along the model of the hydraulic and Route 29 solutions, where if we identify one or two projects for a smart scale round, we can have some pretty extensive engagement throughout the conceptual design process.

The downsides, you know, the positive is, of course, opening up for a lot more opportunity for community engagement.

The downside would be a couple is that the projects that we want to pursue have to be identified much, much earlier than they have been in the past, which would mean, you know, perhaps more work on the local government staff and the local government bodies

to recommend projects to the MPO.

Our technical and citizens advisory committee would have to work earlier to identify the projects that we wanted to move forward.

The other kind of downside to it is that once we get closer to the pre-application and the period, then VDOT assists with a lot of the conceptual design.

In this process, VDOT may not be able to help with that design work.

The MPO for one or two projects every smart scale rounds, we can organize and we can facilitate the discussions, but we aren't design professionals.

So somewhere the funding would have to be found for the design work to look at the concepts.

Right now, we aren't trying to drill down and define exactly what that policy would be.

One of the first steps we would have to entertain is begin working with the MPO Technical Committee, the Citizens Advisory Committee, and the staff from VDOT, Albemarle County, and City of Charlottesville just to get the parameters and then start trying to put together the details of a policy that we would then come back to you with for approval.

But what I'm envisioning is something that immediately after the scores are given from a current SmartScale project, which is usually January or February, then we could begin looking at what the possible projects are for the next SmartScale round.

In the past, we have normally taken projects that didn't score very well that we had submitted and tried to revise those.

You know, take one big project and break it down into two or three smaller projects or take a total review of it and revise it so that we can try to still reach the same benefits but at a lower cost or try to find money to match.

So that would begin to occur immediately after the scoring process and would then work its way into a 12 or 16 month period with community engagement.

Again, we could probably do this for one or two projects every round.

Hopefully at least two of the projects every round will be smaller in scale and wouldn't require this type of effort.

I would love to speak.

Okay.

So I appreciate what Chip has said, but I think there are some other

Perhaps smaller things that need to be adjusted that will be able to be done in-house that will, I think, make it simpler to then accomplish the things that Chip is talking about, which is the bigger sort of HPAP type model discussion.

What, in my opinion, what happened, it was not an issue of lack of knowledge about a project.

It was the fact that the decisions that ruled out other choices of

trail locations were made by a group of people totally out of view and not county staff, all county staff, but private advocacy groups involved.

And they were making decisions about spending money.

And the choice that they made without everybody else getting to discuss this then caused all the money that was spent for the VDOT designer to be wasted.

So I want to prevent those kinds of things from happening again.

And we have a much clearer process start to finish of where these where these discussions are going to happen, that they're going to be have agendas and meeting minutes.

And we do these things officially so that we don't get caught behind again.

So and the options, though, maybe this is only the second year of pre-application.

And so that's why we're having such a hard time with this.

But

I was appalled on the first of April to find out that all the options that we had thought we were going to get to decide after pre-application had already happened.

And so that's really where I'm coming at this.

I think if that orderly process happens, it will not take 18 months.

It will already be going on on a regular basis.

And then we have a shorter, big gatherings of meetings

similar to the hydraulic thing, which was still six months, I think, and be able to develop a process that people can support.

So that's a long ramp, but I wanted to make sure to get those issues out there before we went too far down the pipe.

I guess you said you'd have the capacity to do one or two.

Yes, we do not have design capacity at all.

So anything from a design standpoint,

would have to be funded elsewhere.

We have worked very closely with VDOT.

Again, if we're able to ask them early enough that they're able to consider us in their Culpeper or district budget for help.

But again, we have to plan early for that.

Is there a sense of what kind of

Completely project specific.

I'm not about to start talking about, you know, the high end, which is a hydraulic and 29 type project.

You know, we certainly aren't anticipating something to that extent.

It could

And this is something Chuck and John could probably answer much, much better to me, but we could spend $20,000 or we could spend $100,000 in the design.

Yeah, it varies.

We have consultant capacity, plus we can use in-house staff, both from our traffic engineering section and from our L&D staff.

And some of the projects, a number of the ones that we're doing, we're doing in-house, assisting the county on several of their projects.

and we have consultants, bakers working on the one for the hydraulic changes just because they were the ones who did the overall project before.

A lot of them, especially the ones that are recent missions, we're doing them, we're doing that design and cost estimating in-house.

So we do have that ability, it's just we need time to do that and just to work it in with our regular work that we do as an ongoing basis.

We can work with logistics and if it's a new project, I may want to look at a consultant doing it.

If it's something that we're just reworking, something that's existing, we may want to look at doing it in-house.

So we can sort of provide a lot of those services to assist as much as possible.

Thank you.

Yeah, our thought was that we would clearly in the policy try to determine some kind of determining factors of whether what would push it over the line or keep it under the line, have the technical committee and the citizen advisory committee both make recommendations then to the policy board.

The MPO Policy Board then would make the final determination on that.

Okay.

I don't have any further questions.

This is Ned.

Yes, I think it does.

And I think the locality working with NPO staff would be able to quickly figure out each year which projects would benefit the most from this.

I mean, I don't disagree or not support this.

I just would want to say that we all have shrinking resources and capacity right now that, you know, part of the effort, in my opinion, is educating people how the smart scale process works.

Because before they get funded, you know, it's a big if, right?

Like, we've learned that the last round.

and my local folks who have local projects that when they're coming out and talking to me about their concerns, well, this isn't even far enough along yet, but there is a part of this that once it gets funded, there's plenty of time still for engagement if it gets funded.

So I just don't want to be doing overkill on things that

that could be happening anyway before and then just have it be for not because it doesn't get funded.

Case and points, there was a roundabout at Penn Park Lane the last round.

And I remember spending a lot of time answering questions and concerns and things in our CACs, our Community Advisory Councils for committees.

And the project didn't get funded.

It's not even in the realm of thinking right now for the next round of smart scale applications.

There's a whole corridor study going on.

So had a lot of time and effort been put into place for that, I don't think that project rises to what Ann's speaking about, about the trail.

I think it's a different, was a lower level type thing.

But to think that we would put a lot of extra time and energy or staff capacity into that, but then not have it get funded.

And that's not even in the conversations the next round would be a loss of time that we couldn't recoup.

So

And that's very much our fault.

Hey, Posco.

Yeah.

Hey, buddy.

Will do.

We don't.

Wasn't a motion.

Yep.

We're good.

The next item on the agenda is a review of the draft public

Public Participation Plan.

Yeah, just real briefly, to update you all, this is a document that is required in the federal regulations for MPOs to have a plan on how to make sure that we are getting public input on our planning documents and processes.

There are specific ones that are listed, but of course, you know, we want to, as we've been talking about with SmartScale, for example, even when we're not required, we want to make sure that we're

making every effort to always be thinking about how to keep the public engaged and aware of what's going on.

So this is one document that demonstrates to the FHWA and the FTA, which are the federal bodies that fund the MPO activities, that we are going to meet the requirements that are set forth in the regulations.

So this is not a major overhaul of the plan that we're suggesting.

The reason I started looking at this was because of the state of emergency due to COVID-19 and some of the electronic meetings and communication and public outreach that was happening.

We realized that that probably needs to be reflected in this document so that it is accounted for when we're in this situation.

but then just also reviewing the plan to see where certain practices that were referenced needed to be updated and looking at a couple of other factors that we needed to probably do a better job of addressing effectively.

So really what I want to emphasize is that part of the discussion about this public participation plan update

led to us looking at the planning district commission as a whole across all of the program areas.

So while this document is intended to show how we are going to meet the minimum federal requirements, we also wanted to keep all of the things that are in this document as far as requirements at a very high level so that we would have the opportunity and the flexibility to customize any of our outreach and public engagement efforts

as much as possible to what would make sense for individual programs and planning activities beyond the minimum requirements.

So that's really what I want to emphasize is we're committed to going beyond this and doing more than this, but we think that this plan updates it, makes it more relevant and more timely, reflects our current practices and programs as the MPO and the PDC as an organization.

And then also

considers improvements in some of the areas that needed to be addressed a little bit more specifically, like our communication with underserved communities and how to do that a little bit more effectively.

So you have a draft review.

I did get some comments back already from John.

They just asked that we update some of the language and references to their organization, that kind of thing.

Nothing substantive.

Those are not reflected in the draft public participation plan yet.

I'm going to do that, though, before we post it to be shared publicly.

But what's going to happen is that if you all have any comments you want us to hear now, you're welcome to do so.

Otherwise, we are going to prepare the plan to be posted publicly.

There's a 45 day public comment requirement.

So we'll get that posted and we'll share it through social media and through

through mailing lists last and that kind of thing.

We'll do our best to get the word out in as many different channels as we can for public feedback.

And then at our next meeting, we'll have the final draft of the plan and a summary of any public feedback that we get for you all to consider as far as moving forward with adopting a revised version.

I do.

This is Ann.

And during the whole discussion about the shared use path, I spent a lot of time with our existing PPP.

And I remember that more than a year ago Wood had described all the work that was going on to try to update it.

But this is a really important document.

And I think not following even the one we have was what got us into trouble with the trail.

So these are very closely linked in my mind.

And I looked carefully but did not see and perhaps it's in there.

Things about minutes and agendas.

Because to have public participation, you have to have a way for people to find information.

And if there are no minutes and no meetings on these groups who are meeting, then that can't happen.

So please consider ways that you can add a few words or a phrase or a bullet point under some of these to put in the plan that we intend to not have little independent groups of people going off spending public money and not keeping any records of what they're doing.

because that will give us something to rely on.

If things start to go astray, we can pull this plan out and say, wait a minute, no, we're not doing that.

So please consider that.

Yeah, no, not all the changes I made were for comments to come back.

But if you want me to, I can go back and highlight all the changes.

Well, I do not want you to do a ton of work, but it's really hard for me to remember what was there before if I don't see the changes.

We can move to the next item on the agenda, which is staff updates.

The first item is

Virginia's draft 2124 STIP is open for public comment and review.

It's on the website.

And this is what relates to our TIP, Transportation Improvement Program, that you guys reviewed and approved in the last meeting.

We talked about amending it in this meeting.

So this is just for the entire state.

It's the funding allocations for transportation for the entire state, for federal funds.

So that's up on the website.

That's just information for you all to review it and make comments on it.

It's during their comment period now.

The next item is just an update on the area, the MPO area design and construction projects.

We just prepared a little kind of flyer for you and the public

where to find information about transportation.

in the MPO area.

So there's the Virginia Department of Transportation.

And then there's some links here that you can see where you can find out more information about the projects that are under construction.

So these projects have already been funded and now they're going to start construction or are under construction.

And you can contact the Culpeper District Office with questions about that.

And then there's also Albemarle County has some construction projects.

So these are links to the Albemarle County construction projects.

I listed a couple of upcoming projects that the MPO Policy Board might be interested in.

And then also the city of Charlottesville has a few construction projects as well.

And this is links to their construction projects.

And again, I listed the most pertinent projects and links to those and who to contact if you have questions about them.

So that's just an informational piece.

I don't know if there's any questions or comments.

The next item is the Invest in America bill.

Chip, do you want to go over this?

You're on mute.

Thanks.

If you'll just pull that up.

And if I can, I may talk about the next two agenda items because they're both, while informational, you may choose to ask us and vote to send these out.

The first is a bill that's in Congress right now that's called the Invest in America bill.

It's an infrastructure funding bill and MPOs around the country are sending support letters for Congress to consider funding, trying to get our roadway and other transportation infrastructure back up to the level that it deserves.

If this is something that you would like for us to send to and have our chair to sign for our congressional members, we could do that for you.

I tried to put enough information in there to make it kind of

clear of what we would be supporting.

The other is a localized bill that has been submitted by one of Virginia's congressmen, which is called the Longbridge Congressional Act.

It is to fund

money to Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC for the construction of an additional leg of the Long Bridge.

The Long Bridge is a rail bridge that crosses the Potomac from Virginia into DC.

And right now the Long Bridge as its current condition is at 98% capacity.

And every Amtrak train that runs from Virginia into DC has to cross this long bridge.

And so at 98% capacity, we can increase any passenger rail.

from Virginia to DC until this Long Bridge is improved.

It's a billion to $2 billion project.

It's currently in the environmental impact statement phase, but it's gonna need congressional support to get funded.

I love that idea.

I sure can.

And just as a reminder, yes, as a reminder, too, it just hit me.

We, several months ago, sent a support letter to Virginia, the Department of Rail Public Transportation,

the secretary and VDOT in support of the Long Bridge project, but this would be a congressional support letter.

Second.

Call roll.

Ann Mallek?

Yes.

The motion passes.

We'll prepare those letters and send them to you for your signature and then send them

And the last item on our agenda is additional matters from the public.

At this time, the public is welcome to provide comments.

There's a limit of three minutes per speaker.

If you would like to speak, you can unmute yourself and start speaking.

You can also raise your hand using the feature in Zoom, or if you're on the phone, you press star nine to raise your hand.

Thank you, everyone.

Good night.

All we have to do is stand up and go.

Good night, everybody.

Great meeting.