Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, 2.30 p.m. meeting here in Lane Auditorium. With us today, we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malik of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor B. LaFisto-Kirtley of the Ravenna District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District. Supervisor Missel is absent today. He is on travel. We also have with us our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson. our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our board clerk, Claudette Borgeson, and our senior deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris. We appreciate and want to acknowledge our Albemarle County Police Department officers present with us. We have senior police officer Ryan Esquirell and our police officer first class Lester Clark. Thank you gentlemen for both being here with us this afternoon. And now if everyone, if you would please rise as you are able for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And now, if everyone would please join in a brief moment of silence. Thank you very much. All right, board, we do have a final agenda before us. Are there any changes or edits to the agenda? Is there a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved. Second.

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lapista, currently? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Thank you, board. We will move to item five, brief announcements by board members. Supervisor Duncan, announcements today?

Nothing today.

Supervisor Pruitt? This Friday is the beginning of early voting in the election. We will be voting on candidates for the United States Senator from Virginia, the fifth district representative for the fifth district in the House of Representatives. And there will also be, are there any local?

No, there's no local offices, are there?

Referendum. There will be the three constitutional referenda on the ballot, plus the local school tax referendum that this board has previously authorized. That begins on Friday. It will continue through the 31st of October, which is Halloween. There is Saturday and maybe even this year Sunday voting on the last week of early voting. And then the election will be the following Tuesday. So get out there, vote. That's all I got.

Supervisor Lepisto-Kirley?

Yes, I have a couple of announcements. This Saturday, a very special event, Sin Barreras, will be at the Ting Pavilion starting at 2. For nine hours, there will be music, dancing, food. This is celebrating the Latin American culture that we have here. So if you want to have some fun, want to have a good time, Come on Saturday, Ting Pavilion in Charlottesville. Also on Sunday, this Sunday at Walnut Creek Park from 12 to 3 is Seize the Day. This is something that is for veterans, military family members to celebrate what all the things that they have been doing, the contributions that they made to our country. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. So upcoming in the Whitehall District, the Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival will be October 10th and 11th, Saturday and Sunday. 130 booths, artisans, live music, food, trucks, kids activities, 10 to 5 at Claudius Crozet Park. Get your tickets in advance to save the line at crozetfestival.com. It's a great fun place to do all sorts of holiday shopping. Secondly, apple butter time will be here in no time. They did get some apples this year. Hopefully they will hang on to the tree long enough to get harvested, in which case we'll be able to make some apple butter. The Whitehall Ruritans at the corner of Whitehall Road and Garth Road and Browns Gap Turnpike will be making their apple butter on Saturday, October 24th. Get there early before it runs out. And it's a great activity. Kids love to push the paddle in the copper kettle. And it's a great activity for hours and hours. Hard on the shoulders, but that's all right. Sugar and non-sugar versions are available. And so that would be something fun. Now, the Lights Out Pledge. Do you enjoy seeing the stars? Birds do too. Dark Skies Piedmont is encouraging residents to take a Lights Out Pledge to protect migrating birds. The season is October 15th through November 15th. As you probably know, birds migrate by starlight and need to be able to see the heavens to find their way. Artificial light disrupts their migrations, causes a whole lot of crashes into windows as well. Residents can help protect birds and aid their migration by turning out unnecessary interior and exterior lighting, especially during this season, and you may find out you like it a lot. It's very dark at our house, and the only place where the kids who lived in town could come out and lie in the backyard to actually do their constellation homework because they could see the stars. So it's worth the effort. You'll save energy, too. And there's a light dark sky international is one of the sponsors and dark skies Piedmont would be the place to search to get all sorts of great information. the roadless rule is something which has protected wilderness areas across the country in our national parks and national forests for at least 50 years and it is there's a proposal to roll it back which will open thousands and thousands of acres in the george washington right on our doorstep as well as forests all across the country and this is a time to do Your public comment to the federal government about this, safe public lands is the place to go, one of the many places to go. Just search for a roadless rule, and I expect you'll find your way. But this is a chance for a few hundred thousand comments to perhaps change the mind of people who want to drill and harvest and mine everywhere, even on the steepest slopes and most remote places. And that's all I have. Thank you very much.

all right thank you very much i do not have any announcements today we will move to item number six we have two uh proclamations and resolutions that we're going to do the first uh 6a is a proclamation recognizing september 2026 as world alzheimer's month we have with us today george worthington the dementia services director for the virginia department for aging and rehabilitative services Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley will read the resolution in the form of a motion. The board will take a vote. Mr. Worthington will invite you to come up and make remarks as you desire. And then we'll probably make some comments as well and bring the resolution down to you.

Thank you very much. Whereas September 2026 marks the 15th anniversary of World Alzheimer's Month, an international campaign dedicated to raising awareness of dementia and World Alzheimer's Day observed annually on September 21st and focuses global attention on the growing impact of dementia and the importance of creating communities where people living with dementia can remain active, respected, valued, and included. And whereas dementia is a growing public health challenge affecting millions of people worldwide and of the 21.4% of Albemarle County's population who are age 65 or older, approximately 11.4% are living with Alzheimer's dementia. And whereas research demonstrates that timely diagnosis and supportive community environments improve quality of life for people living with dementia, strengthens support for caregivers who provide essential support to people living with dementia and often experience significant hardship, and help individuals and their caregivers access available services and resources sooner. And whereas Albemarle County is committed to fostering an inclusive community that supports residents of every age, and dementia-friendly communities, encourages local governments, businesses, healthcare providers, first responders, faith communities, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and residents to make practical changes that enable people living with dementia to live full and engaged lives. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby endorse Albemarle County as a dementia-friendly community and encourage collaboration among county government, community organizations, dementia-friendly Central Virginia, healthcare providers, businesses, educational institutions, faith communities, and residents to advance dementia awareness, education, and inclusion. be it further proclaimed that the board recognizes September 26th as World Alzheimer's Month and encourages all residents to observe World Alzheimer's Day on September 21st, 2026, by learning more about dementia, supporting caregivers, reducing stigma, promoting early recognition and diagnosis, and helping build a community where every person resident can live with dignity, independence, and belonging. Signed the 16th day of September 2026, Ned L. Galloway, Chair, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Second.

All right, thank you. The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallet? Yes. Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Very good. Motion carries. Mr. Worthington, if you'd like to come to the podium, we invite you to make some remarks as you would like, and then we will probably ask some questions and make some remarks ourselves.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the board, and members of the community. On behalf of dementia friendly central Virginia, I want to thank the board for recognizing September 21 is world alzheimer's day. And through this proclamation for for affirming your support for families living with dementia and their friends and neighbors who care for them. This recognition matters because dementia touches almost every part of our community. People living with dementia are our parents and grandparents, our spouses and partners, our friends, neighbors, coworkers, colleagues, customers, and members of our faith communities. And the impact extends well beyond the person with the diagnosis. Families often provide years of care while trying to navigate healthcare, community services, finances, employment, and the many changes that dementia can bring. But becoming a dementia friendly community is about more than recognizing the challenges of dementia. It's about recognizing what people living with dementia can continue to do and making it possible for them to remain active valued and connected members of our community. Often relatively small changes can make an enormous difference. A restaurant employee who knows how to respond patiently when a customer becomes confused. A librarian who understands that someone may need a little extra assistance. A first responder who recognizes that unusual behavior may be related to dementia. a neighbor who continues to include someone after a diagnosis rather than withdrawing because they're unsure what to say or do. This is what Dementia Friendly Central Virginia is working to build, a community in which more of us understand dementia, recognize its signs, communicate effectively with people experiencing cognitive changes, and know where individuals and families can turn for help. Government has an important role in that effort as well. Dementia affects transportation, public safety, emergency response, housing, parks and recreation, libraries, social services, and many of the other services that local government provides every day. A dementia friendly community asks us to think about how all of those systems can remain accessible and welcoming as our population ages. World Alzheimer's Day gives us an opportunity to raise awareness, but our goal is something more long lasting. To create a community where a diagnosis of dementia does not mean that someone stops belonging. So on behalf of Dementia Friendly Central Virginia, and especially on behalf of the individual living with dementia and the caregivers and families who support them, thank you for this proclamation. for helping bring visibility to dementia and for joining us in the work of making Albemarle County a place where people living with dementia can continue to live with dignity, purpose, connection, and support.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Worthington. Supervisors, invite you to make remarks. Supervisor Duncan.

Thank you for your work in doing this. You know, it's very hard even for family members to realize like the beginning signs of dementia and how it progresses. So thank you for this and for having a wider recognition of this.

Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you so much for joining us here today for your work and for your earlier remarks. I work in discrimination law, focusing on housing, and it might surprise people to know that the significant majority of people who experience housing discrimination are people with disabilities. In our space, something that we sometimes say is it is the one protected class that applies to everyone given time. I bring this up because the work that you do and the issues of dementia are something that kind of come to all of us and they touch all of us, even if not personally, then in our immediate spheres of work. And so the work that you do here is not a specific interest group. It is the work of the entire community. So thank you so much. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirley?

Yes, this means a lot to me because the World Alzheimer's Day is on September 21st. My older brother's birthday is September 22nd and he has dementia and his wife is taking care of him. And I see the hardship that is involved and without lack of support, it's very difficult for family members. And so I really applaud that. what you're doing, that really means a lot. And just in a larger sense, I know we have members here from the CACVB, and we actually, the CACVB has an award for Wheel the World, which is helping disabled people, being able to be tourists, and being able to see what we what albemarle and charlottesville has to offer so we're appreciative of of that also and the mindset of helping more people and thank you for everything you do thank you supervisor malik

Well, thank you again. And also, having been through this, I think as the younger generation, it's very hard to understand at the beginning or to know the various patterns that are going to be coming. And so the work that you all are doing to help us all learn that in advance, looking back, it would have been very beneficial to me had I known a whole lot more about what was coming for my mom and been able to protect my dad in a way he felt completely responsible and refused to let anybody else help he was very sharp and sociable and wanted to continue having lunch at sloan's every day and see his 60 years of former customers and things like that who would come by to have lunch with him and he basically gave it all up and it was his it ended his joy of living too so There's just so much more that having better discussion, as you all are doing, will really help us all to understand how we do. And I'm trying really hard not to do that to my own children. So thank you very much. Planning ahead is important.

Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Worthington. It was a pleasure working with you on getting this resolution pulled together so that we could do this today. Recently, author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she's a Nigerian author, fiction, nonfiction, et cetera, years ago had given a TED Talk on one story. And the idea there was how she encountered coming to America, that people viewed her through the angle of just the one story of Africa. and then turned around and had her own experiences of experiencing others in just one story. But the point being to come apart and go, well, there's multiple stories that each individual one brings. And working on this resolution, along with you and the Dills, Sue Davis Dill and former supervisor of the Ravenna District, Norman Dill, helped me realize that I was approaching and viewing Alzheimer's from one story. And I know that at this past year's TomTom Festival, Sue was part of a panel and Norman participated as well and talked about his experience dealing with posterior cortical atrophy, which learning through the DILs what that is gave me a different story to perceive what Alzheimer is all about. And that specific, which is a rare form that I've learned from you all, really pushed forward home the dementia-friendly community idea that if businesses only approach folks with dementia or dealing with Alzheimer's from that one story, that they're going to miss being able to make some small, easy alterations and that really you have to think of your clients, customers, community members through multiple stories, especially when it comes to this and for other purposes as well. So I thought it was timely that I happened for a whole different reason to revisit that TED talk relative to the week coming up to this and how things sometimes align that way. But I do want to call out and recognize that in the spirit of his public service that he did with this board when he was a member. that he's still trying to give, you know, still giving back to the community and bringing attention and knowledge to this and working with you all to help. I know other jurisdictions have endorsed the idea of dementia-friendly communities and that Albemarle County is proud to do so as well. Both what that means for us as an organization to learn, but also then calling our citizens, organizations, businesses, et cetera, in the county of Albemarle to please do the same. So thank you for all of your efforts. And again, thank you for your help and letting us get to this point to be able to not just recognize the month and the day, but also this effort that the community do to make lives easier for those dealing with Alzheimer's, dementia, and those who take care of them. So thank you very much. I'm going to ask Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley to bring the proclamation down to you. Thank you. All right, we have a second resolution today. The second is a resolution recognizing Greg McDonald and Supervisor Pruitt is going to read this resolution and we're gonna follow the similar cadence and sequence as we did with the last.

Yes, this is a resolution recognizing Greg McDonald to be read in the form of a motion. Whereas Albemarle County recognizes Mickey Tavern as one of the county's oldest and most historically significant dining establishments known for its welcoming environment, exceptional culinary experience and contributions to the region's cultural heritage. And whereas the tavern has been owned and operated by the Conte McDonald family for 58 years and under the leadership of owner, Greg McDonald and the establishment has upheld its longstanding reputation for excellence, hospitality, and historic preservation. And whereas under Greg McDonald's guidance, the tavern has consistently provided exceptional customer service, maintained high standards of culinary quality, and served as a foundational pillar of Albemarle County's group tour industry, positively impacting visitors, residents, and the local tourism economy. and whereas the tavern has earned numerous awards and recognitions during Greg McDonald's tenure, including its distinction among Southern Living's The Best of 2026 restaurants, further affirming its regional and statewide significance, and whereas Greg McDonald has made a meaningful and lasting impact to Albemarle County through his dedication to historic preservation. tourism advancement, and the continued vitality of one of the county's most treasured establishments. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby recognize and honor Greg McDonald for his decade of leadership and service to Mickey Tavern, signed this day, the 16th of September, 2026. Second.

All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallard? Yes. Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Very good. Mr. McDonald, I understand you are. We would love to have you come up and make a few remarks, if you would. And then we're going to talk about you a little bit.

I'm here to defend myself.

So, first of all, thank you for this honor and privilege of being recognized. I would have never guessed this would happen. So, And so Mickey Tavern has really been a family affair for 58 years. Just one of the family members who played a key role in helping transform Mickey Tavern from very quiet, modest museum into a significant historic site. And our goal was pretty simple, to enhance the visitor experience for those visiting Monticello and Highland, and also for a place that locals would enjoy attending and coming to and a place they'd be proud of. And along the way, I had the privilege of working with, I think, back over my 49 years, literally thousands of employees, but especially proud of how many young people who started their working career at Mickey Tavern that we made a significant impact on their road and also to learn how to interact with visitors. Along with I was blessed with some great staff members, three in particular that were with me for 40 years. And because of all of that, we ended up having a good run during my tenure. So very proud of it. Feel very lucky and feel very blessed. So thank you for the recognition.

Uh, thank you, sir. And supervisor Duncan, we're going to go around and see what we have to say.

I remember the first time I went in after like being here for several years and I was like, this is literally the coolest place. Like why didn't I go sooner? Um, so yeah, it's just a really fun experience and it's really great having that and having such a really cool part of local history here in the community. So thank you for that.

You're very welcome. Supervisor Pruitt. I am fascinated that it took you multiple years because I feel like the thing that I think of Mickey Tavern is it is the experience that everyone who has been in Charlottesville or Albemarle for half an hour. has had this experience. One of my very close friends participated in the Sorenson Leadership Development Program, a statewide program. You all might remember that Supervisor Price was also a member. And they go all around the state experiencing different cultural touchstones of the state while talking about state government and the different stakeholders are at play. And there is one day that they normally come here and you know where they go.

They go to Mickey Tavern. And every time my friend comes back, he's like, hey, can we go get some chicken?

Can we go to Mickey Tavern? It's the one restaurant I know here, but I like it. That is the relationship that people from out of town have. The relationship that people in town have is, I mean, y'all cater a lot of cool events, right? Every time I go hang out with the Farm Bureau, y'all are catering it. It's good food. None of it's vegetarian except for the stewed tomatoes, which I do take umbrage with, but that is what it is. You're doing what you do. So it is a real cultural touchstone that y'all have maintained, and not just maintained, but as you said, built into something both new and old, that is kind of continuing to lead the way in building our cultural cachet in this community. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirley?

When I first moved here 19 years ago, over 19 years ago, that's the first thing when we had visitors, and we had plenty of visitors, not only from other states, but also from france who came to visit monticello and mickey's tavern that's that was the routine and your food is so good and i agree with supervisor pruitt the stewed tomatoes keep me coming back and i know you've introduced um i guess the baked chicken along with the fried chicken That's good. I eat both. So your food is outstanding. I just wish you were open for dinner also, because we could fill it at that time also. People get off work, they go to Mickey Tavern, good food. Okay, you know where I'm going with this. But thank you for your years of dedication. I can't believe it's been open that long. And it's part of our historical character here. So part of our history. So thank you for making all that possible.

I will plug that the oldest part of the tavern, we now call that the pub. And that is open until 7 or 7.30. So you can have dinner now at Mickey Tavern.

The same food? Yes.

Well, similar food. Not the buffet, but it's a la carte. But all the same type of food we're known for.

So stewed tomatoes and, I mean, I'm digressing.

Along with the fried chicken, ham biscuits, everything that's appropriate for an 18th century.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

She was getting ready to place an order. We can take care of that.

I look for places to eat. Thank you.

Supervisor Mallory?

So make an order and pick it up on the way home. There we go. Right over the hill and down to Milton. Thank you very much. As someone who grew up in Earleysville, I've always been interested in its origins. And the old sign has disappeared, fallen down. So one of my more recent quests is to get a historic marker near where the original sign was. 1777. And it was the post road over the west before any of the other roads were there. So everybody went by. And it was important. So if you also turn up any boxes of old records that Mrs. Henderson may have stashed under the stairs, I would sure like to know because there's a huge gap. Her diligence was to erase us in early spill. And so if you find some, please let me know and I will try to preserve them.

We have certainly looked hard over the years for them. And we did a lot of oral history of folks who remember the tavern at its original site. This is back in the 80s.

Right.

while they were still with us. And we learned a lot about that. And we've tried to clean up the history and give it an accurate story. Because back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, there were a lot of tales told, as you know. And it takes a while to get rid of those impressions.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Yeah, thank you for being I share a lot of the similar stories about first when I moved here myself. And when we used to have guests and friends come in, then we would take them there to experience. Then when I was in my professional career when we would have out of town companies we were affiliated with we would often go there for lunch, and the thing that everybody would come away with. acknowledging the quality of the food, but just the fact that not only were all the people there, all the patrons there having a great time, all the employees were as well. And the culture that was existing was not lost on people that were visiting here. What's interesting, I believe I got in right under the wire not too long ago, but this time now I'm having some guests and visitors that are coming here and I don't make the suggestion to go they're asking to go. So I think that's a credit to how it has become an institution in and of itself here in our locality. And then the only other thing is, how's the peach cobbler not been mentioned? I mean, I hope everybody eats the food.

I tell everybody to order the cobbler because then I'll get the cobbler.

Too full to finish, right? Well, yeah. I'm never too full to take on some more peach cobbler. Heck yeah. But we appreciate all the efforts and all the care to establish such a... an experience for folks there because after the meals, I always encourage the walk and down to, and to experience the space beyond just the restaurant. And they all do their walk a little slower than they do when they first get there, but it's all downhill experience. So we really appreciate you being here. We're going to have supervisor Pruitt bring the proclamation down for you.

Yeah. One quick question. Do you have to go?

Oh, we do have to go. You do? Yes. In the afternoons, thank you for the plug. We set this up pretty well, but every afternoon from 3 to 5, you can place orders earlier in the day and pick them up between 3 and 5.

Perfect.

Right on your way home. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Sorry I got distracted there, but... reading the next thing but thank you mr mcdonald okay board we will move to item number seven public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled public hearings we do have one sign up today for public comment and no online i'm just confirming that that was what the note i was reading um So during the portion of the meeting, during this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district. Comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. The podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains and red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live streamed and published on the county website. And with that, our speaker today is Mr. Neil Williamson. Somebody uses it. Thank you, Neil.

Good afternoon. Neil Williamson with the Free Enterprise Forum. Last week, Albemarle County Community Development Department had a single inspector tasked with completing all the scheduled building inspections. Let that sink in. One inspector. The Free Enterprise Forum has been in discussions with Albemarle CDD staff, and we know they've hired four inspectors and one plan reviewer since June. We're also aware that the commercial inspector building official and a senior building staff member position are currently vacant, and the deputy building official retires in 14 days. We are not convinced that you, the Board of Supervisors, are aware of the current problems or the coming storm. as development activity is poised to increase. This is much bigger than a simple county staffing issue. It's a regional economic development concern that may jeopardize the timely delivery of commercial and residential projects in the months ahead. Imagine the economic development message you are sending. Welcome to Albemarle. Your building or home is not ready because we couldn't schedule a timely inspection. Could you put your critical assets or belongings in storage for a few weeks while we get this sorted out? To be clear, we want to work with you to solve the issue. We believe the operating standard should be building permits in two weeks and inspections within 48 hours of request. Faced with this challenge, I have a quiz. Would you, A, increase CDD staffing, perhaps utilizing recent retirees and paying to maintain their certifications in exchange for covering vacations? B, establish a stable of approved third-party inspectors slash plan reviewers paid for by the county as applicants have already paid the fee? C, Redefine the qualifications for third-party inspectors to anyone with a professional engineering designation and stamp. D, work collectively with the regional partners like University of Virginia, City of Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission to develop an inspection plan review staff sharing program. Or E, all of the above. We clearly believe the answer is to swiftly move forward with number five. Albert Einstein may or may not have said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but he did say we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Considering the import of economic development projects in the offing, it's time for some out-of-the-box thinking to make CDD inspections and plan reviews routine, prompt, and without drama. We need a solution for today and tomorrow. and we needed it yesterday. Thanks for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. We do not have any other speakers signed up today, so we will move to our next item. Thank you, Mr. Williamson, for comments today. The next item on the agenda, number eight, is the consent agenda. Board, I'm not aware of any items that need to be pulled. Are there any that we request to be pulled? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. LaPista-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallet? Yes. Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Very good. Motion carries. All right, board, we're going to move to the next item, number nine. This is a presentation today. We have with us Courtney Cacation, the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, and going to be providing the report for that organization. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Hold on. Did I already mess it up? I used to be a young thing who knew how to do things like this, but I'm not anymore. So please bear with me. There we go. All right. Good afternoon, Chair Galloway and the Board of Supervisors. I really appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you today. I'm Courtney Cucation, the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitor Bureau Executive Director. I have a handful of staff and board members in attendance today. If you don't mind raising your hand to be recognized, I appreciate it. This is my first presentation in seven years that I've been on my job to the board of supervisors. So I'm really, really grateful to be able to be in front of you today. Thank you so much. I won't spend too much time on our agenda, but want to do a little bit of a reintroduction to the CACVB for those of you who may be less aware of what we do, go through the highlights of our tourism master plan, talk about our strategic plan, which builds on that master plan, and talk about how we support Albemarle County specifically. Okay. So what do we do? We have a mission to enhance the economic prosperity of the city and the county by selling and marketing both entities as a singular destination to visitors. And we really envision that as enriching our local community by providing a really welcoming and memorable experience for everybody who comes here. As you talked about Mickey Tavern earlier, thank you for recognizing Mr. McDonald today. And those are the kinds of memorable experiences that we hope everyone takes away when they come here to visit. So who are we? We are the official tourism office for both the city and the county, with the county being our fiscal agent, report to a board of 15, and we have 11 total staff members on our team. We have thought leadership through that board and through my work that lends itself into guiding the vision for our destination development team. That is the team that really considers how our visitors have experience, How can we get our partners, and by partners I mean businesses and nonprofits who can serve visitors to work better together? And then when we are working better together, what are the marketing and sales opportunities that come from that? And that's what our promotional team does. The marketing team works with doing our advertising and public relations efforts. And our sales team works with getting people here for groups. So at least 10 room nights at a time. And then our visitor services team greets people when they're here and answers the phone ahead of time, answers email, and tries to help them understand what their experience is going to be like before they get here and enhance it when they're actually here. We're funded by a portion of the transient occupancy tax. And we have, as you can see here, our structure, the board of directors to whom I report, and the various members of our team. I didn't mention our finance and operations manager who helps make sure that we pay our bills and follow all of the county procedures that we need to, in addition to helping me with board communication. Here is the board composition. So we have a very diverse group of people who represent a large swath of the tourism industry. You'll see that we have a member of the Board of Supervisors on our board. Thank you, Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley for your lending your expertise to our board. We really appreciate it. The economic development designee right now is our director of parks and recreation. And so those are the two positions that the Albemarle County has designated on our board. Why do we do what we do? It's big money. And we really appreciate that. We generate a lot of visitor spending. And we just announced last week that between Charlottesville and Albemarle combined in 2025, we generated over a billion dollars in visitor spending. We are exceptionally excited and proud of that number. And that is more than 7,000 jobs in both localities combined. But I know that you are with Albemarle County. So you're going to want your own slide. And this is your slide. So what does it mean for Albemarle County? It means more than $600 million in direct visitor spending, more than 3,800 jobs, $29 million in local tax revenue. So that goes into your coffers to spend. Albemarle County represents 1.7% of the share of spending within the Commonwealth. And we are happy to report a 2.8% increase over 2024. We also are in the business of welcoming people here. We want to make sure that people have a welcoming experience no matter who they are, no matter where they came from, no matter who they encounter. And that is part of, a large part of how we do what we do. I'll get more into that as we move forward. What do we always do? So regardless of whatever long-term planning we have, we always have our critical business imperatives. I'll walk through those in a second. We also do have a long-term plan. A couple of years ago, we established our first ever tourism master plan, and I'll walk you through the highlights of that. We have a three-year strategic plan that helps us chip away at that long-term plan. And then because we are Albemarle County employees, we also do our annual performance review system the same way that other county employees do. We have goals through that as well to advance our plans. Our overnight stays are really the bread and butter of what we do. Without those paid overnight stays, we don't generate the transient occupancy tax, which means that money doesn't come back to our budget. So it is of the utmost importance that people are spending the night in paid accommodations when they come. We're thrilled if people want to come for a day trip. We're thrilled if they want to stay with friends and family. But that is not what we do and focus on. And then a portion of that tax comes back to us to generate our budget so that we can continue to increase that bucket for all of us as residents. Visitor spending doesn't come back to the CACVB, but is a very important part of what we do. We generate a lot of money in sales and meals tax and support a lot of locally owned businesses. Visitors look for unique experiences when they are in a destination. You might go to a fast food restaurant because you're familiar with it, but you don't travel to a place to go to a fast food restaurant. You travel to a place to experience what's special about that place. And so it's really our job to do the storytelling of what you should do when you're here. And more importantly, sometimes is what you missed when you were here. So you have to come back. Midweek business continues to be an area of focus for us. We are known as a leisure destination, which means we are here for fun on the weekends. But we don't see as much visitation during the middle of the week. And that is an area of opportunity for us to really grow. And we're focusing on studying that and seeing how we can improve that over time. And through that, we do some research, which is the next part of this. We do a lot of research on behalf of our industry and make all of that research publicly available. You can access any of that on our website under our research tab at visitcharlottesville.org. Our leadership governance and transparency is very important to us. We are a public entity, and we take our initiatives very seriously. We want to make sure that we are running our funds transparently and effectively. And so we take that responsibility really seriously. We have an annual audit, and we have a lot of public oversight. Now to the meat of what people usually know us for is promotion. We are telling those stories. We have a website. We're talking to journalists. We're really getting the word out about why people should come to Charlottesville and Albemarle County and hopefully leave as much money behind before they go back home. We do that through our owned media, which is our website and our social media channels, our earned media, which is public relations, and our paid media efforts, which is our advertising, which is about half of our budget.

we spend on advertising.

Partner engagement and development. This is how we're working with the businesses and nonprofits in Charlottesville and Albemarle County to ensure that we are working together and we're filling the gaps that we need to in order to attract the visitor here. And then finally, our visitor services. Team I mentioned earlier, we primarily serve visitors through our mobile visitor centers. That was a transition when COVID happened, and it allows us to go out to where there's a large concentration of visitors and serve people where they are instead of expecting them to come find us. An example of that is where Sundays we're at King Family Polo because there are thousands of people there. Our destination management plan is destination 2045. We hired a firm called SIR based out of Richmond who does plans like this. I won't go through the timeline on the side, but you can see it here, all of the different steps we took to put this plan into action from August 2023 to June 2024. Through that planning process, we updated a SWOT analysis that we had originally done when I came on in 2019. Things have changed a little bit from 2019 to 2023 and again now to 2026, but we see a lot of the similar strengths and opportunities and some of the same weaknesses and threats that continue to pop up over time. And this is the basis on which our tourism master plan was written. It really goes into how we're going to use those strengths to leverage our opportunities and use those strengths to minimize our weaknesses and threats. And so I'm going to just keep going here, but there's a lot of meat on the slide if you want to dig back into it. The objective really was to create a shared 20-year vision for the industry and the localities together. I believe that we have a lot more in common than we had in opposition. And that's what I believe that this tourism master plan really shows, that we do have a lot of the values that are inherent in our community shown in how we want to do our tourism business here. Sorry, we have five overarching goals, amplifying visitor experiences, so really telling those stories and getting out that targeted marketing, fostering a welcoming community, strengthening community partnerships, enhancing the local quality of life, and boosting sustainable economic growth. And you'll see those as I carry on into the next section, which is our strategic plan. This part of the presentation I gave in my board meeting in June, summing up our first year of our strategic plan. The first part that amplifying that visitor experiences, we focused on doing a rebrand. We really needed an identifiable brand, something that our community was proud of and something that really reflects the tourism assets that we have here. This is the timeline of how we rolled out that brand. You'll see on this that we also revamped our website to make sure that it was up to date with our branding and then launched an advertising campaign in March. So what were the outcomes? We had a lot of survey respondents and seven in-person focus groups to gauge local resident and tourism stakeholder opinions. Why do we care what locals say about tourism? Because our locals are the ones that people interact with when they get here. And if our locals are not bought in, then the visitor is going to feel that. So it's really important to get their perspectives and as well, of course, as our tourism stakeholders. We also updated all of our materials and just from March to June, put out 30 million impressions through digital advertising. Here is the new logo and what it represents. I believe it's a wonderful blend of the city and the county assets together. We know that people are enjoying it because I know that CHO has a flight next week that they are unveiling to Newark. They have asked us for this logo in order to co-brand that flight and that rollout, which is really wonderful. We've had other businesses reach out to us as well to use this logo, so I can feel like our community is adopting it, which is really great. Fostering a welcoming community. Really appreciated the conversation earlier in recognition of being a dementia-friendly community. As Supervisor Lupisto currently said, accessibility is something that we focused on ever since we received funding from ARPA in order to do those initial Will the World assessments. We really feel strongly about the opportunity for us to really lean into that. And so we have a number of different ways that we accomplished that. Our most recent accomplishment was awarded through Virginia Tourism Corporation's $10,000 grant. We did a cooperation with Downs and Towns, which he is a social media influencer who is a photographer who has Down syndrome and he came here and produced an itinerary, helped us educate our tourism partners over the course of three days on how to serve somebody with Down syndrome and really helped us advance making our experiences more welcoming. And then we all took away knowledge from that experience. We have created training around it. And then we've presented at both our Tourism for All Conference and the Virginia Association of Museums Conference. on that work. As we've mentioned, Wheel of the World assessments, these go well beyond ADA. This is a couple hundred different points of accessibility that are, and we have more than 65 different sites in Charlottesville and Albemarle County assessed. This really helps us With our visitor services team, if somebody calls who says they have a disability, then we can talk them through what is the right path and itinerary for them. But it also helps our partners understand what they do really well and lean into those markets and what they might not do well and where they shouldn't be leaning in so hard. One of the major outcomes from the Downs and Towns collaboration was more than 600 images that Houston took of our area, which are gorgeous, as well as content that we produced around what he was able to do when he was here. We're also working on an ambassador program. A minute ago, I talked about how important it is for our residents to be excited for visitors to be here. We talked about Mickey Tavern again, having that welcoming experience. You felt like they wanted to be there. You want to feel that way when you go into a restaurant, into an attraction, into a hotel. You want people to feel like you want them there. And that is what our Tourism for All program is all about. We have been doing a Tourism for All cohort, which is a six-month training program. We're on cohort four now. This slide is from this June board meeting, so this is looking into the past. We've had 25 people graduate from that program, and it does intensive training about how to create a more welcoming environment in your business and how to use that to your competitive advantage. We also launched our destination 20 plus 45 events, which is a fun play on our tourism master plan. It's 20 minutes of content, 45 minutes of networking, roughly an hour to get our hospitality and tourism community together to talk about different topics that we know impact them and allow them to network and get to know each other a little bit more. Our tourism for all conference is the last piece of our tourism for all programming. It happens every February. It has been very well attended and reviewed. We continue to improve and iterate on that. The ambassador program is something that we have done. We trained our downtown mall ambassadors so they were aware of visitor experiences that are beyond the downtown mall so that they can speak to people who want to know where a good winery is, if they want to know how to get to Monticello. It's allowing them to understand how they can serve visitors in that capacity in their current jobs. And then we've had some requests from other entities to bring that ambassador training program to them. To make that feel a little bit more relevant to you all, maybe if you go into a hotel at the front desk, And somebody has never had any Virginia wine before. But they've taken our short video training on Virginia wine. They'll know something about it. And we just want people to know a little bit about everything so that they can cross-promote what else we have here. And I talked about our tourism for all cohort, which is underway this year with PVCC for the first time. They're letting us use their learning management system and giving us some guidance on curriculum, which has been a really fantastic partnership. Speaking of partnerships, we have been working on a food and beverage promotional campaign. Cuisine and craft beverage are a great way to tie the city and the county together with a tourism product. And we noticed that food really speaks to our hearts and stomachs. I think we can... say that was happening earlier, but it also speaks really well on our social media channels. And so this is one of those photos that we end up getting a ton of engagement. So we really wanted to lean into that. So we have been working with our food and beverage partners to have them get more engaged, including through ACPS's Saver Studio. That's part of their ACE Academy, the Scholar Studios, to make sure that we are creating that pipeline from workforce into the hospitality industry through ACPS. And also doing outreach to our food and beverage partners about their website listings to ensure that they're showing up in a really great way. A lot of restaurants are very small. They may not have a website. They may only have a Facebook page. We want them to have a really robust online presence, and we can provide that for free. What were the outcomes of this effort? As we were really ramping up for this year, where we start to go into the promotional aspect of our food and beverage campaign with our marketing team, the food and beverage folks continue to be really, really busy. And that is always gonna be a little bit of a hurdle with getting them engaged. If you're running a restaurant, you're not leaving a restaurant when it's running. And we know that our agritourism partners have really had a tough year. And so they are, you know, go out, support them, spend your money there, please. But they continue to really need to be hands on and are working with skeleton crews. We maintain a relationship with Charlottesville Ale Trail, which extends beyond the Charlottesville City and the Monticello Wine Trail as well to ensure that we are working together instead of competitively. We have also worked on the VA 250th efforts. They are not done, but they are mostly wrapped up as of July 4th this year. We have been leading the committee since about 2023 and have put $10,000 towards getting a marketing leverage grant through Virginia Tourism that was matched, so a $20,000 effort. And we're able to use that mostly to make a podcast series that also had itineraries so that people can learn about the history of tourism Charlottesville and Albemarle County and then bring it to life through actually visiting places through our itineraries. It's been really well received. So well received for our efforts that Carla Mullen on our team won a Virginia-wide award last fall for the 250th efforts. The podcast is what I was talking about just a minute ago. As of mid-June, we had more than 1,200 listens. Carla would tell you that a listen is just a listen, but doesn't mean a person. A classroom can be listening. A conference can be listening. So we know that there are at least 1,200 people who have listened, but we don't really know how many people it has reached. We have had the Mobile Museum in our market a couple of times, and we also have been helping coordinate grants for many of our partners who are interested in having statewide financial support from the 250th Statewide Committee. our quality of life. We worked on a crisis plan this winter. We got to test it out with Winter Storm Fern. For those unfamiliar, that is Snowcrete. And so it was really a great opportunity to see how that works together. This is a little bit of a timeline of how that crisis plan came to be. But what really stood out during winter storm Fern was that the hotels have some availability, but our emergency teams don't know where that is. And so we played the role of figuring out which rooms were available for emergency scenarios and communicating that back to our emergency services teams in the city and the county. They said that they had never been able to make that connection before, and by our team being able to be proactive with the hotels, we were able to put people in need in rooms immediately and not waste emergency communications time with calling around to our hotels. And finally, boosting sustainable economic growth. I'm going to gloss over this downtown mall section. Do remember that we serve both the city and the county. And the city celebrated 50 years of the downtown mall over the 4th of July weekend. We were downtown on July 3rd and up early on July 4th at Monticello. So we are always making sure that we are giving both our city and our county opportunities. Partners a lot of love. There was a lot of excitement generated around the 50th, and hopefully we continue to see that move forward and be an asset for our area for tourism throughout the city and the county together. Going into where we are headed in the future, we have completed year one. In year two, we're doing a comprehensive facelift of our existing website. It's about five years old right now. We have some really fantastic content on it. The navigational experience needs an upgrade. And so we will be working on doing that work and then moving into other pieces of this plan as we move forward. Our accessibility work will continue for the next two more years of this three-year plan, and then we hope that that will just be baked into what we're doing. Same with our Tourism for All ambassador programming. We are seeking accreditation this year. I believe that maybe in a previous iteration of the CACVB, we were accredited, but we hadn't been when I came on and we need to be. And so it's a really great roadmap for how we should be moving forward and a great way for my board to figure out where we should be investing. As we talked about the food and beverage and the 250th efforts, those will be largely wrapped up this year. We are working to foster a stronger relationship with the university and the foundation. The Virginia Guest House opening in April is now the largest property in the area. It has the largest conference center. We are watching to see how that impacts the rest of our hotel properties. The Holiday Inn on 29 is closing. So the number of rooms in the market will be about the same, but the meeting space will be different. And so we'll see how that impacts. And holiday inn rooms and Virginia guest house rooms are not necessarily the same. We also will be continuing to build our partner portal and making sure that our industry knows how to communicate with us. We're leaning into stewardship and how we can be better stewards of our environment and the long-term economic sustainability of our area internally, and then pushing that outward to our stakeholders as well in the coming years. And then finally, we will continue to be looking at midweek business, studying that and making sure we move that forward. Workforce continues to be part of what's holding us back from being successful. If we don't have enough midweek demand, we can't hire enough full-time staff in our hotels and restaurants, which then means that we're not open as many days, or we're not open for as much service, or we're not pursuing as much business. And so really creating that pipeline from ACPS, hopefully also Charlottesville High School, but that's not currently in the works, to PVCC and beyond is where we need to go to make sure that people know that this is an industry where they can grow. And then we have some ideas for our future strategic plan goals as well. Our hotel occupancy rates, this is some of the data that we typically share, are lower than they have been recently and continue to be so in part because we're seeing more seasonality and our average daily rate at peak time continues to skyrocket. That is labor costs. That's supply costs. That's a whole bunch of things all at the same time. And so it's something that we're keeping an eye on as we move forward. Revenue per available room is what that ends up shaking out. Those first two numbers are put together for how much revenue is happening per available room. And what you're seeing here is that a really strong spring led into a pretty weak summer. And that's not surprising, but it is something that we are trying to work with our hotels on now for next summer. How we support you all. Through a number of different ways, the AAA bond rating paperwork, I just filled out, I think, earlier this week. So we are working on that for you all in the tourism section. We provide tourism into site to many of your county departments. We collaborate on our crisis communications plans with you all and with the city. We've provided letters of support, lists of contacts, the 250th coordination, and as I mentioned, ACPS. In your comprehensive plan, we're recognized as the official organization for the tourism industry. Our tourism master plan is there. The Wine Region of the Year Award that we got through Wine Enthusiast in 2023 is recognized there. And the same with our inclusivity efforts. And then we continue to see workforce and outdoor recreation be opportunities there, in addition to our cultural, historic, and arts resources. We're mentioned in the economic development plan as well. We are working with economic development to outline what the support should look like. And we plan on, given this timeframe, writing this into our next strategic plan. We have what we call industry sprints, where we focus on a portion of the tourism industry at one time. And I imagine we will use that tool to help with the agritourism need that the economic development plan outlines. Thank you.

Any questions for me?

Oh, yeah. Supervisor Dunkirk.

Okay. Well, as you know, I really love tourism and the tourism industry and what you guys do. So this is very exciting. I learned a fun fact that I wish was not a fun fact. First time in seven years is wild to me. Yeah, I hope you come every year. I have, I guess, a few kind of questions. I was reading through your master plan, the strategic plan. And I guess, for example, you have in your master plan that there's like national trends and then kind of the implications for the regions. And so I for example, two things that you point out, um, is that there's growth in glamping and that there's, that's a national trend that people are interested in and also like dark skies. And we actually just heard about dark skies tonight for the birds. Um, I guess I'm kind of curious in some of your documents and stuff you talk about, like the need to like, you know, go attract people to come here and to, you know, sell this. Um, I guess, are there things... in those industries, for those two examples, to sell to people, or are there things that, say, the county could do to support making some of that stuff more available? You know, your question at the end was, you talked about how the CACVB supports Albemarle County, and I guess my big question, I have a whole bunch of little ones underneath it, but how can the county support you, and what are some things that would make it easier to sell some of these things that people clearly would like to do?

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question and would love the opportunity to follow up to. But when you mentioned glamping and dark skies, glamping is still a trend and still something that people seek out, especially because we tend to be a more higher end destination and there aren't any places to do glamping here. I know that that can be a public safety concern if you have people who are out in the rural areas. but I think it's an opportunity that is a business opportunity that I'm not sure that the county zoning ordinances really support right now. And so if that was something that you guys wanted to pursue, I think there's a business case for it, but I haven't studied it. I can just identify it. For dark skies, we are, I don't believe there are any parks where you can be after dark in Albemarle County. So we can't take advantage of those dark skies from a tourism lens. And so if that was something that the county wanted to lean into and provide programming around and a safe way for people to have that experience, I think that would be worth testing and seeing if that's something that has some legs to it. Maybe just choosing one park and having it open a little bit late with those dark skies and seeing if we couldn't generate some interest around it would be exciting. I get the question about dark skies. Relatively frequently, but I don't have a good answer of where people can safely be after dark in our parks. And that's also true in wineries and other places. People are leaving right around dinnertime and returning back to the city or going back to their hotel. And so we're leaving all of the evening economy behind. Okay.

That's really helpful. And then I guess my, I guess the last thing I'll just ask is, you know, you talk about needing to increase midweek business and midweek hotel stays. What, I guess, what do you need to do and what do you need to increase that?

It is not as simple as what I will say. We need to give them space to meet midweek or we need to have space to meet midweek or we need to have incentives to get them here midweek. So it either takes money to attract groups and giving them a sponsorship of some sort or if it takes going out and attracting more luxury groups and those higher end groups can end up bringing in some of that money or we need a larger, convention center, conference center, a keynote space where we could have a thousand people and then go into breakouts. The Virginia Guest House hosts about 700 people seated. They don't have breakout room in that hotel for more than 400. And then they don't have rooms for more than 250. around 250. So the math on the space doesn't exactly work. And so I really, really appreciate them and not trying to throw them under the bus in a public meeting. We're really excited to have them on board. But to try and get people here midweek, we need some of those pieces put together so that we can really get groups here. Group business is where we're you see the most bang for your buck. Trying to convince couples and families and individuals to come here is something we should always be doing, but if we can get bigger groups here, then we can start seeing a steadier stream, and then we're able to have more of that economic certainty.

And then just the last thing, I know I've talked to you about this before, but I appreciate your take on the Mobile Visitor Center, and I can see how they are beneficial, but I really wish we had a... solid state permanent visitor center somewhere. That's all.

All right, Supervisor Pruitt. Thank you. Thank you for the thorough presentation. I especially enjoyed you discussing the engagement that you get from your food promotion videos or content, I should say. I was just thinking, you know, the last few weeks I've been seeing a lot of photos of sandwiches that y'all have been posting, some of which are downright vulgar. That certainly gets some high engagement. And that is what I immediately thought when y'all were talking about that. Thank you. Thank you. It's vulgar in a good way. Vulgar in a high engagement way. It is. This might be a tricky one, but I have a few questions about kind of the state of ongoing stakeholder relationships and kind of insofar as those relationships exist, what kind of the texture of that looks like and if there's any extant demands that or requests uh that they might have communicated to you that would be helpful for us to know so the first uh what is the kind of nature of your relationship with the lodging industry these days

It's good. I mean, we have lodging representation on our board. We work closest with lodging that has meeting space because we are bringing them meetings and groups and things like that. But we do have good relationships with those who want to handle student groups, for instance. We have a lot of student groups who come through Monticello and other assets locally, but primarily Monticello and Mickey Taverns. And so we do a lot of communications with them. Most recently, we had a meeting with the sales directors for all of the hotels at the Virginia Guest House on July 1st. And we made a 45-minute to an hour presentation of what we were seeing in the market and then asked them for feedback on how we can adjust our trade show strategy and other strategies to benefit them more. It is difficult for them to give us data, both from a corporate policy standpoint and also because we're a public entity. And so sometimes we are a little starved for a little bit more information, but totally understand in a very competitive environment why they may not be willing to share all of that with us.

And are there any... Are there any specific demands, requests of ways that county government could be strengthening what we're providing that they see as harming their bottom line or that they would like to see more of?

They want to see more funding to our organization.

That bit I knew. um um i could tell you a little bit more about that but i think that's really on them to to relate to you all no that that bit i was following um i was curious if there were more i might say substantive things that we could do as far as driving tourism activity beyond just additional direct funding for y'all um The other kind of key stakeholders, unsurprisingly, that I'm curious about is kind of the nature of your current relationship with the Scottsville Chamber and also Scottsville government. I know there's some desire to do some streetscape improvement in Scottsville. I'm not sure what their capacity looks like these days and Scottsville Chamber and Scottsville Government both are always eager, I think, for more willing partners.

We would love to be connected with them again. I have done outreach to the town manager and to the chamber, and not sure where the status of the chamber conversation is, but I don't know that I've connected with the current town manager. I met with Javier before he left. I met with Matt Lawless a number of different times. But I would very much appreciate an introduction to get that off on the right foot. Scottsville is something that we think has a ton of potential and certainly a concentration of businesses that could be benefiting from the tourism industry if that's a place they want to lean.

Sure. I mean, there's so much... traffic and activity from neighboring localities i'm specifically thinking buckingham and flubana where it's their their primary place i'm i sometimes worry that not enough of it is realized as economic activity right like everyone wants to go hang out on the river uh in the summer it to the tune of hundreds of people um and i'm not sure that they're buying anything other than maybe a case at goco And I would love to figure out how to change that. I'd love to figure out how to get those Buckingham dollars in Scottsville business pockets. That sounded so nasty, but it's, I mean, that's our job. That's what tourism is. This is, you know, just earlier today, I had a conversation with someone, and this is a thing that the board's heard me talk about before, about having our other bodies, our agencies and authorities and committees be more engaged in the legislative process and also in policy development and policy request development. So in addition to, I would just say, I would love to hear more over time in the future, specific policy changes that y'all recommend for the board. Doesn't mean we've got to take them, but I would love to have that externalized, right? Like be an extra brain for the board to think through problems. But also I'm curious if y'all have thought about or engaged in a state level legislative priority determination before.

That happens through VRLTA, but VRLTA doesn't always represent necessarily, we're not always aligned. And so it is something that I speak to our attorney about, which is a county attorney, and we go through their platform so that we know what is being considered at the state level.

Are you formally constrained by your state parent organization and what you can and cannot recommend to this board to adopt as a legislative priority?

I'm constrained by the fact that I am a public entity that works at local government to inform you. And unless you request information from me, I cannot lobby you. And so I'm happy to be responsive to requests, but I cannot do the job of lobbying.

Understood.

And VRLTA isn't the parent organization for us. The more appropriate parent for us would be Virginia Tourism Corporation, which is a state-run agency. VRLTA is a loving organization.

That is helpful clarification. Also frustrating, but I get it. Thank you. I think that's all I have.

Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley?

Well, I want everyone to know that at our meetings, Courtney has been, it has come up a number of times that she has presented before the Charlottesville City Council and realized, and not us, so that's when I said, okay, well, we'll get you in front of the board, and here you are, and it was excellent, excellent presentation, I have to tell you. My hopes are dashed by your further information regarding the Virginia Guesthouse, knowing there's a conference room for 700, only rooms for 200, breakout rooms for 400. I mean, that's Anyway, but maybe we can see where that goes. And that might help get us for people to know there's interest here. And maybe, who knows, we can come up with a new conference center in Charlottesville.

But we don't know.

The other thing I wanted to let the board know about is regarding the midweek staffing for the hotels and restaurants, frankly, a lot of them only open for dinner, but for the hotels, they have to decide. Do they pay staff during the week and not have people there? Or do they just focus on the weekends where they have staff because people come on the weekends? So that's a chicken and egg thing. If they have staff and no one shows up, that's not good. But if they don't have staff and people show up, that's not good. So that's something that's not easy to decide. Regarding the agribusiness, which is very, very important for tourism, uh i think i've told you all we've had we had a bad year this past year and up to 90 of the farms the grapes and everything were lost due to the frost the freeze so that was really bad and um those those are all the things that i have when you said holiday inn is that aren't there two of them on 29 yeah it's the one um before stonefield that's on the left-hand side if you're going north okay Well, the Black minority business gala won't be happy to hear that because that's the way they always have their gala. So thank you very much.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. It seems a lot's been going on since I was the board rep. So I'm glad to learn all those things. But I do have a bunch of questions. So let me go back to the beginning of my list. You talked about destination development. Can you provide some more details about what that actually means? Product development is what we used to call it. And I've seen lots of emails go out where you're saying to the businesses, that it's their job to develop the product and then send you the stuff to share. And so is there more to it than that? Because other DMOs certainly do a whole lot more organizing and developing than I've seen locally. So talk to me about that.

We get our stakeholder groups together a lot to talk about their needs. And destination development is a continuation of product development. When I first came on, we digitized the Monticello Wine Trail and provided a passport. And what we realized was that we had done that without a whole lot of cooperation on their part and not a lot of interest on their part either. And a lot of other destinations put together passports. Those kinds of experiences are people like us will put together discounted rates at places, and we don't discount here. And that's fine. But it does make it difficult for the DMO specifically to put those kinds of packages together when there isn't an appetite for discount. And so that's why we really try and work together on getting cross-sectionality across all of these different businesses to see how their partnerships are working together. And then we can leverage and promote those partnerships through all of our different channels. And those end up often being really incredible stories for our public relations outreach.

I mean, outdoor recreation jumps to mind and the way Roanoke deals with it, where they're offering information about all the things when someone wants to come and ride in the preserve, for example, or run in a race. I mean, millions created and brought in when there's one of these running races in the mountains over there. So that's sort of where I'm going for. I'm very appreciative of the new focus on outdoor recreation, which I mean, many, many great things have come forward. And let's go down here. i meant you you mentioned about i mean the heads and beds is all the revenue base but are you does this automatically mean that there's lower interest in the local artists and things, for example, because they used to be funding for the studio tour and things that's no longer done. And so they're bringing in people from New York, and I mean you're not New York necessarily but DC for sure. And they may not be staying overnight, but they're certainly buying their many hundreds of dollars worth of craft items and then going out to dinner before they go home. So that is certainly a quality of life issue for all of us that I hope we'll get some extra interest going forward. You had mentioned the mobile centers. I'm glad to know you're back at King because there was apparently a big downtime there. And the only place I could find was at Iggs Park. So where else has it been since last spring?

We are on the downtown mall a couple of days a week. We are at Mickey Tavern. This is like a pop quiz and I'm trying to remember in order. The dairy market. Stonefield. Thank you. Yeah. And I'm happy to provide a list. I'm it's not all coming to mind at the top of my head. We do have a county office location where we typically serve visitors, but unfortunately it flooded. And so we're currently not in our office, but we will be doing that. We'll be serving visitors from that location again. And that serves as our county location on Wednesdays.

And is your landlord fixing that quickly or they just kicked you out and said, she seems to be doing a good job. Okay. Well, good. I think it's a far better, more accessible location than the old one that never saw any visitors for an astronomical cost. So I'm very glad that that's over and done with. Let's see, you answered that one already. Fam tours. You mentioned that term briefly. We had one come to our farm years ago, but I've never heard of anything coming recently. So... anywhere on the agriculture side. So I don't know whether that's something you could think about going forward.

Happy to. And if you know anybody who would like to receive them, please connect us. We are always looking for different experiences for people on familiarization tours. We tend to only hear back from some partners and we want to hear back from more. And that's where our industry sprints are going to be really helpful is in identifying more people who are interested in engaging with our organization and the visitor.

I mean, combining it with sort of a local food thing might be a really helpful thing. When I see some of your former people who came on previous tours from the frontline staff, basically at hotels, you know, they see me in the grocery store and say, we came and patted your cows. It was so great. So anyway, it does have a lasting memory when it can happen. And I think that kind of enthusiasm does transfer to the visitors and that's appreciative. The web help sounds great for small businesses. Are there county businesses who have taken you up on that?

I mean, we have hundreds of listings on our website. So there are a lot of businesses who have taken us up on having a listing.

So that's what it is, is creating things for the website.

Yes, but then we're able to pull those into blog posts and we're able to reorganize that content on our website so that they can get increased exposure.

Okay, and they can use it, refer other people to it, I guess, which is good. Yes. Glamping, I remember, I'm drawing a blank on his name right now, who had wanted to bring this to town in some of our winery locations and we completely were shut down by the zoning department. So that is where the decision would have to be made to change that is to say, And what I remember about it was they're completely on top of the footprint, not in the footprint. So they bring the thing, it has its own power, its own bathroom, and it just sits on the ground and then goes away, which to me sounds fabulous. And it's a way to get people to places where they can see the stars, for example. I mean, Nelson County is eating our lunch on the dark skies stuff. So I think that we're really missing the boat on that. The... And wineries could certainly reach out to them about the dark sky programs. The convention center, we had a big study before you came. 2018. And talked a lot about the Route 29 corner as a place for that because it is the center of our population. And the university at the time promised that they were not going to be competing with that they would do something small, which they've certainly with guest house event twice is what they said they were going to do but at least it's not to the other area but I agree there are very few places where 1000 people can compete. participate that's why some of the organizations have to go to the homestead or someplace because even though it sounds like it's a real waste of money they actually provide a tremendous service for the dollar and all those 55 breakout rooms all with av and stuff like that is really important for a big group who wants to do some work so i thank you for all of your information and i will send you some more questions i'm sure thank you

Courtney, in the interest of time, I'm going to maybe send you a few follow-up questions, especially on this midweek dip that the hotel, and if I tracked that conversation right, so I might have some follow-ups on that. But we appreciate having the report and the information. Good questions from the board. But yeah, if you have any more, I'm sure Courtney won't mind receiving those via email. So thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you all.

All right, Board, we're going to move to item number 10, presentation, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission Regional Transit Service Prioritization and Implementation Project Update. Holy mackerel, that was a lot.

Tanya, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. That is a mouthful. Board Chair, thank you for having me today. I'm Tanya Schwartz-Druber with CDD. I'm the Long Range and Transportation Planning Manager over at CDD. And let me get my presentation up here.

Okay.

All right. So I'm here to update you on the Regional Transit Service Prioritization Implementation Project. I'm just going to refer to it as the Prioritization Study. This has been a regional effort. So I have a few of my colleagues in the audience from TJPDC, as well as Mr. Murphy from Jaunt to answer any questions as we move along. I'm going to present a little background on the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority, or CARTA, and the Transit Prioritization Study. We'll look at the prioritized transit projects and methodology, along with feedback we received from the public and CARTA Board. Then we'll review next steps. And I need to clarify before we go further that the executive summary recommended that the board make a motion. We don't think that's necessary at this time. Instead, we're really looking for your feedback on the process as well as if the study is on the right track. So what is CARTA? It was established by the legislature and activated by the city and county. Its purpose is to serve as a collaborative, multi-jurisdictional entity for identifying and solving transit issues. The current members include Councilors Oshren and Flesher representing the city of Charlottesville, along with Supervisors Pruitt and Duncan representing Albemarle County. and drpt or the department of rail and passenger transit i believe transportation yeah, public transportation, thank you, is a non-voting member. The counties of Fluvanna, Greene, Louise, and Nelson may join in the future. This board began meeting bimonthly in early 2025, and one of their first responsibilities has been to weigh in on the prioritization study. The purpose of the study is to provide the city and county the foundation to request a dedicated funding source for transit from the legislature. We started with the recommendations that came out of the regional transit vision plan from 2022 and other regional studies. The study itself will produce a prioritized list of transit service improvements that we'll review and we will review the draft list in a few minutes. While we started with the projects in the transit vision plan, more than 20 other plans were consulted as resources for the projects. Those are listed on the slide and include the CAT Transit Strategic Plan, Johnson Transit Development Plan, our local comprehensive plans, and Albemarle County's Transit Expansion Study. As you can imagine, there was some overlap on the projects as they were listed in the plan. So our team did consolidate some of the projects. The next step was to develop prioritization criteria, which resulted in a prioritized list of recommendations. This stemmed from asking the question, how do we measure the impact of individual transit services and changes and the benefits of those improvements? Through stakeholder input, we narrowed it down to increased intensity and increased footprint. Increasing intensity means increasing frequency and likely leads to increased ridership. Increasing the footprint means extending existing hours, adding new routes, or increasing the hours of operation, which in turn likely leads to increased access. In order to measure these criteria, we evaluated the metrics shown on the screen and assigned a weight to each one. These metrics focused on the increase in population and destinations served by transit. Populations and destinations with certain characteristics received additional weight. I've handed out copies of the tables in the following slides. Audet is handing those out right now. These are slightly different than the tables that were provided in your packet because we found a discrepancy in the project order, as well as the names for the Route 5. These are a prioritized list of projects based on criteria that we just reviewed, including cost effectiveness. The one table is called the 2030 scenario or base scenario. The other is the aspirational scenario. The 2030 scenario focuses on the services that could be implemented with current local transit investment plus a small increase. And the aspirational focuses on the services that could be implemented with funding enabled by the legislature. The list of projects were evaluated by the criteria just discussed and listed in the weighted blended rank column indicated by the blue arrow on the screen. You can see that there is a mix of improvement types that we were just talking about as far as expanding the footprint versus increasing intensity. And also you'll notice that there's a pretty good mix of where these projects are over multiple jurisdictions. The incremental annualized costs indicated by the yellow arrow is the investment it would take to implement the route on top of our current investment in the route. The number does include both operating and capital costs for the service enhancements. This list shows that services could begin implementation in 2030 and shows incremental changes to routes with transit provider input based on realistic constraints like how fast you can hire and train drivers and considering that there will need to be some capital improvements needed along the way. compared to this list that shows the different projects we might implement if additional funding were enabled by the legislature. Another way to look at it is if we wanted to make all of the enhancements to a particular route, this is the order in which we would likely start. We recognize there's still a lot of work to do, and this is a demonstration of what we might do, not necessarily a checklist. We did have a survey out for public input earlier this summer looking at the broader questions about transit funding in the region. Response was a little lower than we hoped, but a couple of key themes did emerge. Our regular transit users want more frequent service, while those that do not use transit frequently might be enticed to ride more often if transit were close by and more accessible. And these are really themes that we would have expected to hear from a survey like this. So far, the quarter the card aboard has weighed in several times throughout the process, you can see, on the screen the different meeting dates, where the study was discussed. And the general feedback that was gathered most recently we incorporated feedback from the board into the prioritization scenarios we just discussed. These scenarios we reviewed include the feedback shown here, including refined cost estimates that cover ADA and paratransit costs where required. So next steps, we're here today to receive feedback from you. I believe Mr. Bren Chambers will be going to the city council in early October to receive their feedback. Once we get that feedback, the scenarios will be revised based on your feedback as well as CARTA's. A complete technical report will be completed as well as the final report for the CARTA board to review later this fall. So the questions that we have for you today are, are there any questions in the process so far? And are there any projects on the list that should be more or less of a focus? With that, I'll take any questions.

Supervisor Duncan?

If there's anything I've been over more and don't have questions on, it's this. I do have a comment that I just want to say. You know, it's, I know, for the public and even for me before I got on this, it's super easy to just be like, why don't we just fix the bus routes? Like, it's not that difficult. It actually is a little bit more difficult. And it's just, it is very expensive. There's just so much that goes into even adding an extra bus and you need extra mechanics and all of that. But we are clearly working on it in a way that this does feel like more hopeful and more significant than the mass amount of plans that have previously been done. This feels like there could be tangible solutions on the horizon if we can get funding from the state or federal government. And so, you know, we are working on how to improve it and that, you know, people aren't just sitting around doing nothing and that it is more complicated. But we are all frustrated. We all want the bus system to improve.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Thank you. Can you remind us, because I think we went through it fairly quickly. There was a fairly significant reordering of the priority list at the last iteration of it. Can you, I mean, frankly, for me, but also for the board, remind us again what the new factors that result in that priority shift.

Sure. I'm going to go back a few slides because I did skip over that pretty quickly.

I think just for content while you're doing this for the board, I think I've previously reported out like some of our higher priority items under the previous iteration. They've shuffled slightly. Everything's still in the get it done range, but it, I think it changes how we, especially as the county, digest the data.

the the main difference um was the fact that we included some incremental changes in the routes for example um a route might require might want expansion as well as increased hours might want to go up to hollymead for example what we did is we worked with both mr williams at cat and mr murphy at jaunt to make sure that those what was shown was incremental and that was achievable starting in 2030. Right.

What I've previously said about some of the projects we're prioritizing, so the things that are higher listed is that I do think it is broadly something I think reflects the fact that we have done a good job setting the criteria for evaluation for what to improve is reflected in the fact that I think we have a pretty compelling mix of the, and a pretty representative mix of some of the higher prioritized routes. The example I gave is for a long time, the top three prioritized things were the Buckingham Connect, the trolley, and the Route 7 on Seminole Trail, which kind of represents, when you think of Charlottesville and Albemarle, a lot of the different kinds of places we have. There is a dense urban route in Charlottesville. There is a suburban route that goes into part of our northern development area. And then there is a very rural route that goes into all the outlying counties. And I saw that as being, frankly, quite representative of the community and the differing stakeholder beliefs that we are challenged to represent simultaneously on CARTA. I will separately share with the board some of the concerns that I've previously expressed on this and have begun to express more frequently, which is this is important work. It also feels very similar to the work that Kat already does. It is, in fact, in some ways, just Carta now doing the work that Kat would be doing at the end of their current services upgrade implementation process over the next few years. They have a series of route improvements they're currently making. And frankly, at the end of that route improvement process, they would have hired the same firm to do roughly the same product. And it just wouldn't have included John. That's still something that needs to happen. And I would rather happen under the auspices of Carta than under the auspices of the city and CAT. So I'm glad this is happening. I think something that I've expressed and staff is working through this with with Carta is that it is not getting at the more immediate concern that I think at least we on the county have, which is. Currently, we are a customer of CAT, and we are not a decision maker for CAT, which means for all intents and purposes, we are not at the table in our own transit decision making, even while we have a transit authority. So it is my view, as one of our representatives on CARTA, that we should be trying to figure out how to use the regional governance body that we've created to actually do regional governance. And that is the more immediate concern. This is about some of the things we're going to be buying over the next 10 years with that new regional body. But I see that as step two in my mind. So this is exciting. I'm really excited to deliver all these. I want to be able to deliver these as in I want us as a authority to be making that kind of decision in the future. And right now it is not a decision-making authority that entirely sits with us. I just throw that out to y'all to kind of give you a peek into the conversations that we're having on Carta as this becomes a much more real thing. And also how at least I'm thinking of it as far as political process and how this is going to affect budget process in the future. And that might not have been clear. And that was also not forming a question for you, Tanya. I'm sorry. That's okay. But yeah, that's all I have to share.

Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley?

I would be more than happy to support all of this if I understood it. But I'm sorry. I'm not on the Carta board. And then I did want to ask Supervisor Pruitt, we're not at the table. Isn't that what Carta, it didn't Carta take over, Cat? And so now you're a decision-making body. Please, I don't know.

Chair. Yeah. No, we have not done that. Carta exists now. Carta did not exist two years ago. That is the big thing. We had the authority to exist, but we had had for about a decade an organization designed to build working proficiency, talking to each other, and suss out our comfortableness in having the organization we were allowed to create. We've created that organization. That organization has no staff, has no budget, and is basically cross-staffed by TJPDC and executive level staff from both the city and the county. That is not the ideal scenario. And so speaking on behalf of the county or on behalf of a representative of the county to the board, to the authority. I see it as a county prerogative to have a more direct hand in transit decisions that we currently have only an indirect view or hand in as a customer. And that is a goal of mine. And I would say the more present and direct goal.

than service improvement um but it's it's a process okay it's my understanding and obviously i'm i'm wrong but i thought carter was basically absorbing cat and cat would no longer exist and it would just be carter that would be doing cat jaunt jaunt and you know micro cat

I don't want to get too far away from the implementation study report out. I would say the answer to that, Bea, is that there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. I hear what you're saying. Okay. And the thing that I care about is having county decision makers in a driver's seat. The formal way of who works for whom and what agencies are part of what organizations is, I think, a more technical question that I'm not going to pretend to have the perfect answer on right now.

So the answer is we don't know yet if CART is going to be absorbing cat, jot and micro.

I think there's a lot of different people who represent a lot of different positions who will need to answer that separately. I could tell you what I think, but I don't know me saying what I think.

right now is the most productive way for us to spend our time okay so we don't know yet hence hence we have kat john i don't see carter anywhere on here but we have a scenario so a week is this is this something that they will achieve in 2030 and this is something they would like to achieve I'm sorry. I do apologize, but I'm just not getting it. And I'm very pro-transportation. And I see all these, for example, trolley. I don't know what trolley is. And I see all these streets, a lot of them I do know, And it makes sense. And I see the Emmett and Seminole Trail, that's the largest preliminary preliminary score or incremental annualized local costs. I see that. But are we saying by 2030, this is what's going to happen? Or have I been, you know, vaping too much? I don't vape. Just that was a joke.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask our Deputy County Executive Ann Wall maybe to take a shot at some of the governance questions that Ms. Lepisto currently has talked about. And then there's also some detailed questions in there, too. Ann, could you help us with this just a little bit?

Sure, I'm happy to do that. Ann Wall, Deputy County Executive. I'm going to follow up on Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley's question and Supervisor Pruitt's responses. Supervisor Pruitt is correct. We formed CARTA about two years ago based on legislation that was passed in 2009. The intent of that original legislation was to create a body for which we could use to generate some revenue to support transit. When we originally started talking about CARTA, we started talking about consolidated planning efforts. Those original conversations were not about providing service. Again, it was intended to be a body that would raise revenue to support the transit services. So as it relates to governance, there is a future conversation about what does governance of transit particularly look like? And that is the conversation that we begin to have with CARTA at this point. Does that answer your question, Supervisor Pisto-Curtley?

That really helps. And when you say CARTA is formed because we all supported that, and that's going to be a body that actually raises funds and everything. Raising funds, does that mean from federal, state, or local?

It is an opportunity for us to explore all our opportunities to raise funds.

Okay, so we're not driving any of the scenarios. Carta's not driving any of the scenarios, which I think was Supervisor Pruitt's point. We're just trying to raise money for them.

What I would say is Carta is leaning into its function about planning. And the intent is to understand if there were additional money available, where would we want to put that money? Would we want to put that money in service areas? area expansion, adding more routes, serving different area, or would we want to put those funds in places where we would increase intensity, the bus would come more frequently. Both avenues generate additional ridership. And what this study, which was this study, which is run by CARTA, It's run by CARTA, the CARTA team. CARTA has engaged on the study, but it's funded by the state, the city of Charlottesville, and Albemarle County. We are all funding this study. This study was trying to look at all this other work that's been out there and try to bring it all together so that we can identify transit priorities in the community. And what you see, and I understand that transit is complicated. It is expensive. And there's no better way to name a route than to identify the location, the name of the road that the majority of the route exists on. And that's the reason that you see these numbers up there about seven. That's route seven. A lot of that route is on Emmett Street and on Seminole Trail. The trolley is that. It looks like a trolley. It is essentially a bus that runs a smaller route that provides some additional service. The Buckingham Connect, a service provided by John, that is a geographic service. That is a vehicle that goes to Buckingham to pick up riders and bring them into this community. Does that help?

That helps a lot. Thank you.

i i appreciate that very much thank you thank you that all yes supervisor malik thank you look out so i'm having deja vu here because in 2005 the transportation working group was founded by lee middleditch i was in the room we met for months and months and months ended up going to the legislature and getting the authority to start something to raise money locally to do. And we were denied and yelled at by the delegate from Lynchburg that we were not to get any funding because we hadn't built a bypass yet, but that's ancient history. So I was disappointed to see in your long list of references that that really elemental study was not there and not looked at because every single topic which has been talked about for the last five years was done already. And I've mentioned this at the planning district. I've mentioned it until I'm blue in the face. We are going round and round in circles. And I'm really, it's just hundreds of thousands of dollars of consultant money has been spent to modernize the wording or something. And I keep asking at those presentations, did you look at this? No, we didn't. So here we go. I don't understand. I guess the... There are all these cost per rider things and in the in the chart that you did not give us today, but I printed out just before the meeting here to make it big enough to read. What are the cost allocations for those figures that how is that determine city versus county, for example. Those are the kinds of very detailed questions that I am interested in, have been asking for for years, is where is our money going? And we're looking at, this is just a chance, I guess, to raise this question because we've got all these numbers and it, even though it may not have been intended, it had a very FAO complete attitude when we got it in the packet. So this is why probably my hackles are a little bit raised more than they should be, because now it sounds like this is just a planning, a lookout document. to go forward. So if you jumped up to answer a question, I'll be quiet.

Yes, ma'am. This study does not look at the current funding model. It does not look at how funds are allocated between the city and the county on current routes. The purpose of this study is to identify future routes and estimate what their cost might be. It further does not go to identify future city and county funding because many of these routes would be done in future years and that funding model may change.

So the annual cost per rider column had nothing to do with today. It's future.

It's future. Yes, ma'am.

New service.

The intent of this document is really to help CARTA, to help the city and county understand that if you're going to make, it's intended to do two things. If you're going to make transit changes, where should be the best place? to make investment based on these numbers. And then the second, it is to position CARTA slash the city and the county to think about what are future funding opportunities, revenue that can be generated to fund these services.

Thank you. I will just end with two things. I support heartily the comments made about how the changes to the governance have to happen next, because that was determined 20 years ago that that was the one thing that was the obstacle to making any progress. And otherwise, we are continuing in this customer cash cow element without any ability to make choices about where improvements are going to be made or even get reports about where the service has been delivered already and where the missing gaps have been so that that shows I think that the county is Second chair here and I think that we need to not be satisfied with that. I Get it with the figuring out how to get there That's great. But I think that this needs to follow once the asset ownership and all those kinds of things have been worked out and we actually have a broader base of governance discussion. I really appreciate this whole presentation, however, because as representatives on CARTA from the Board of Supervisors, all of us need to understand in order to provide direction to you two on what to say. We're not sending you off to the wolves here to just make it up as you go along because that's not fair to you, and it certainly is harder for everybody. So this is a step in the right direction, certainly, to get information so we can... have better discussions going forward and give you the kind of ammunition you need to represent us. And I will stop there.

I think some of the underlying frustration that I hear from new folks and veterans is that it's, you know, I always, I'm reminded often of Supervisor Pruitt when he's talked in front of housing people when he says this is a solvable problem. Because this is too. You know, we have a current structure where we're a vendor and we pay for something or we're not the vendor. We're the customer paying a vendor for something. And in all my world where I was the vendor providing something, they wanted more. They paid me more and I gave them more. So that's a solvable problem if we want to do that, but that's a budget question relative to what we want to do. So I appreciate having this from the standpoint of going, okay, if I want, I can look at all the things that are specific to Albemarle on here and it gives me a ranking order and what it might cost to do some of these things. But for all of my complaints over eight years of the fact that the route that runs Raya Road is 60 minutes, I want it to be 30, pay more for it. And that's what Garland would say if he was standing here Well, okay, say that in the mic. But at this point, as a customer paying a vendor, I have a very powerful position there. Because I could go buy a different vendor. I could go get a different service. The county could go, let's do our own transit service. And we'll just complicate the mess that already exists here. Let's add another... prong in the fire that carta was designed to eventually get at neil i was thinking of neil because eight years ago neil always complains about us who don't run against opponents like somehow it's our responsibility to find opponents but the one forum that we got invited to in 2017 me and diantha mckeel sitting at this dais i think it was the league of women voters were the only ones that went well you don't have opponents but we'll still bring you in Right. And we listened to Liz and whoever she was running against. I think that was the race at the time and talked about the formation of a regional transit authority. And it's been almost 10 years since we said we need one governing body that can make all the decisions that everybody understands the funding mechanism of it. And it wasn't just county and it wasn't beaten up on cat. It meant that the university needed to be involved. It meant John had to be part of the equation. And lo and behold, where are we at? We're still having that same darn conversation. And. The routes on Rio Road are still 60 minutes, and I've got the best bus stops ever along Rio Road that are poles sticking up out of the ground.

And that's no one's fault because I want better bus stops. I could pay for that.

So it's a solvable problem. All that to say is it's hard to answer the question that you brought forward today because they've been answered multiple times over the last, for some of us, two years, for some of us, 10, for some of us, 60, but I mean, 20. What'd you say? So that gets frustrating. So I want staff and the TJPDC and Kat and John and everybody to know that the frustration isn't just born in the exercise or the questions you're bringing forward. It's a frustrating conundrum that's very complex, a lot of money's involved, and that's before you even get to the political layer. of everything that would be involved. As I've said to citizens, it's like, well, okay, we could do the things I mentioned, but if we wanted to take CAT away from the city, well, we won, we can't. It's not our call to do, even if we want that, which nobody said that's what they want, maybe under their breath or somewhere. But at the end of the day, they're a political entity. That's their department. You know, they'd have to decide if they want to go and give that up and what that would mean and set up something different. Other communities have done that. We've gone and visited some. But that's a political process and it has a lot of moving parts and a lot of things in it. And CARTA is not really there yet in its youth to get at that kind of level of conversation. When we first put it in place, the whole point, my memory from two years ago, was that the formation of the organization allowed us an opportunity to draw down perhaps some new funds that currently aren't infused in the locality. And there are a couple other conversations going on relative to partnerships of the organizations I've already mentioned that can also do the same thing And Carta was basically the RTP, the relationship building aspect of it that would maybe help us and increase the skids to the political process. So, you know, at the end of the day, I get it. You know, if we want, we can have right now enhanced. This is why I do am such a fan of MicroCat. We found a grant. We put something in place. People like it. I have better transit service in my specific district because of it and was happy to pay for it when the grant went by because it's something I can look at and see that people are happy with. It works. And fixed routes just aren't going to get it done for my district. because of the way the geography is laid out there. So at the end of the day, you know, I want to just see, okay, if there's going to be fixed route service, how does MicroCat play into that? I don't know if that helps your scenarios. I'm assuming at some point, the last, I don't remember when that conversation was, but Garland, I remember Garland shaking his head when I asked it, was at some point is Viya going to give us That level of report detail, because if that's in baked in here, that's my question for today. Is that baked in here? How micro cat informs the fixed routes I'm looking at on this, on this screen.

Not yet.

So there you go. That would be on this planning. Like why would be my question and not to be critical, but that was one of the points of micro cat beyond just the benefits of how it was going to move around. How does it inform that if we're going to enhance fixed route service out in the County where micro cats going, it was supposed to help us do that and not supposed to, it is, we just haven't done the analysis and we haven't done the report. So at some point, For this data, when that happens, I would think it would change some of the numbers. I don't know if it would change the expense or anything, maybe. But at least it might take something that's, where's your ranks, your weighted ranks? It might take something that's a six and move it to a three or something like that. So I would encourage using getting on via and let's get that analysis done. Whoever does it. I feel like since that's something we're also paying for and it doesn't even serve the city, that that's one of those, well, let's ask for it and get it and integrate it in ourselves that we could do something with that. So that last remark, I sorry, went off a little tangent there, but this last comment was one that's indicative of just this information. But really, by the time we get to probably build and get after these scenarios, there's just other pieces of the puzzle that have to be worked in. And it's partnerships and relationships and politics right now. And it's hard to answer questions about, do I think eight should be seven or should 16 be two? When I know until we get those things worked out, Frankly, this is informative and interesting, but it's not executable until those things happen. And that's contingent on us, supervisors. That's contingent on Mr. Richardson and the city manager and city council and the leadership at the university, frankly, and then potentially even some of the surrounding counties. Right. Eventually, like that's further down the road. So I would encourage that maybe the next time we see that report, we see the 2030 scenario of the political prioritizations of what we think the steps should be. And do we think political move number five should be really political move number two? Because I'm a. Sometimes when even in eight years, I know why Supervisor Malik responds that way sometimes. When you feel like you've had this conversation before, all that's changed are the numbers and the names. It's like, all right, we got to get in a different conversation. So I hope and I think that even though it's happening slowly, the card is getting there. I think some of those partnerships and political things are being worked out. I think we're getting there. It might not be as fast or as big of leaps as I would love them or prefer them to be, but they're getting there. And I suspect we'll hear some more of this conversation in October. Would I be wrong, Mr. Richardson?

No. Ms. Chair, if it's appropriate, if you're finished with your remarks, I do want to speak to that just for a second.

Remarks. You are very polite if I'm finished with my remarks.

And Ms. Wall, thank you for stepping forward earlier with some of the details. Anne is in a position to support Carta and Carta's work, and she works very diligently along – also on a parallel track with her counterpart at the city of Charlottesville. And Mr. Chair, you're right. I believe on October the 6th, there'll be an opportunity at the joint meeting of the city and the county on that Tuesday evening to recognize also with the University of Virginia there, because we've invited our important partners from the university to be there. And I know that we'll have representation there from the president's office on that it's a good opportunity for the boards to consider with the partnership report that will be coming out to both boards ahead of that meeting to ask questions about – more questions about the partnership work with – the work that Supervisor Duncan, Supervisor Pruitt, our staff, our partners at the city, and certainly Mike Murphy here this afternoon with John, our TJPDC partners, that it's important because I see things that, I've not been working on this like Ms. Malik has since 2005, but in nine years of me being with the county, I believe we're in a different spot than we were in nine years ago. And I just five minutes ago sent the board your reception invitation on Sunday night, September the 27th, because Chapel Hill, Carrboro Chamber will be here for two days looking at our community like 35 of us, including Mr. Williamson, who's in the audience, 35 of us went to Chapel Hill in May and spent two days looking at some of the things that are going on at UNC and Chapel Hill. I intend in my remarks on Sunday afternoon to say that I was impressed with a lot of things in Chapel Hill. But one of the things that I'm most impressed with is their integrated public transit system that's been integrated since 1974. And the ridership is amazing in that community. That is a robust, very, you said, this is a solvable problem. It's really nice when you go to another community that is a very similar size to us. The data will show that, and this problem has been solved for quite a while. Public transit is free in Chapel Hill. Public transit is paid for through the partnership in Chapel Hill, and it resonates well when economic development clients go to Chapel Hill to look at business relocation. It's in the top of the list to talk about public transit ridership numbers, free transit, We went to wait on a bus in downtown, and I said, don't even look at the schedule. Just go to a bus stop. It'll be here in about eight minutes. It was on a Thursday afternoon at 3 o'clock. It pulled up in eight minutes, and the bus was full. I was the last person to get a seat. The next man in stood up. Thursday afternoon, 3 o'clock, and school was not in session. Chapel Hill UNC had already – released out. And so we've got a good model to look at. We got a community that's a sister community that's willing to share with us. We've got interest from the University of Virginia and learning more about that. And we just got a lot of work to do. Ann, is there anything I've said that makes you uncomfortable that you would correct? And I'm excited. Mr. Chair, I'll turn it back over to you because I think October 6th could be a chance for us to just check in on that. And I hope I haven't gotten ahead of Ms. Duncan or Mr. Pruitt with any of my comments.

Are there any other comments?

Yes. I did just have kind of to speak to your point. As much as I express my frustration with the implementation study that I think is shared by some of the other members folks here in county government who are frustrated at the degree to which we do or do not have a seat at the table, right? As much as I've already expressed that frustration, I will say, I think there was a very valuable role in this as an exercise in planning for transit priorities because it was a collaborative transit process that we did with the city, which has not existed in this capacity previously, right? Like, It also just as a very simple thing, but like this says Charlottesville when it's not Charlottesville a lot. Um, just so be aware, please look at the route book. Like the number one route there is the mostly Albemarle County route, um, route two, right. That's almost entirely in my district. It says Charlottesville. Um, We expressed, and this is prioritized based on political priorities of the four members of that board. And there were, I think, some actual concern. Well, as in, like, we talked about the ways that this was prioritized and weighted and the factors that were included. And there were even specific concerns about tweaking it at different ways. And there were, I think, stakeholder disagreements that would break out the way you might expect that we worked through collaboratively, right? Yeah. It was polite, but I don't think the city was as keen on, it keeps getting used as an example, the Buckingham Connect being as high prioritized as I was. And I thought that was an interesting kind of proxy war for the broader conversation of how we think about prioritizing rural transit and specifically rural transit designed to target communities of poverty. And that was a thing that we worked through collaboratively where previously we did not have that mechanism, right? Right now there is a transit implementation process that's going on that's going to affect Route 2 in my district. I am very excited, but I am a customer and they could kill it tomorrow and I can't do anything, right? And this is not fully making sure that that's not true, but it is a real big step in the right direction. And so I wanted to say that to make sure I wasn't coming off as being too much of a negative Nancy. And I will also just say, I think we all hear and I will say certainly Ms. Duncan and I here, what a lot of the board's ambitions and designs on how this relationship should look in the future. It is also, it is a political process and it can be delicate, right? I just want to say that out loud very clearly for all my peers saying we want to absorb CAT. It is critical before we fund another scent of something. is not an effective tact for getting our way. I will just say it that way.

All right. Did you have another comment, Supervisor Allen?

I had two. Let's see. I'm glad to understand better how these charts all came about. Did you call on me? I'm so sorry. Okay. I thought I was taking that a turn. Okay. Just to mention that for the far north and for the far west, the connects have been fabulous for the residents of all areas. but especially those without vehicles. And the Afton Express, within a few months, the park and ride will be available, the kiss and ride, the drop-offs, all that kind where people can bike over. So that is sort of my Whitehall District version of support for all these other runs. And the Buckingham Connect may only have 15 people on it when it's coming across the border, but it's full by the time it gets to town. Same thing with the one from Savannah that may or may not still be going on. I don't know, Mike. I remember Donna Shaughnessy talking about how when people complain because it's not totally full at the county border, it's because they have 55 people to pick up before they get to work. And so it's really important to understand that. And anyway, I look forward to more discussions. My brother teaches at Tech, and my understanding, which may not be perfect, of the Blacksburg is that they have a joint system and always have, and Tech pays for it. There you go. It's operated by the city or by the town, but the tech pays for it. So there are lots of great examples that we can follow. And back in 2005, we used College Station, Pennsylvania, which was the same thing, 50,000 riders, most of whom were university. And they drove down hundreds of some giant magnitude more federal dollars because they were able to count the university students. So that's how long that discussion has been going on. Thanks.

You got more than you asked for today. Is there anything else that we need to decide?

No, it's great. This is what I was looking for.

Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, board, we are now to item number 11, our closed meeting. Is there a motion to go in the closed meeting?

I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under Subsection 5 to discuss and consider a prospective business or industry or the expansion of an existing business or industry in the vicinity of Seminole Trail in the Rio Magisterial District where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses or industry's interest in locating or expanding its facilities in the community. Second. Second.

All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto, currently? Aye. Ms. Malik?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. All right. We'll meet in 241. Thank you.

Fantastic.

If you drove slowly, you'd see the problem. Excellent.

Is there a motion to certify the closed meeting?

I move that the Board of Supervisors reconvene in open session and certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Second.

All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Thank you, board. There are no motions coming out of closed meeting, so we will move to item number 13 from the county executive report on matters not listed on the agenda. Mr. Richardson?

Yes, sir. Mr. Chair and members of the board, as always, I really appreciate the opportunity monthly to come before you and hopefully put timely topics in front of you of some of the work that's going on behind the scenes with Albemarle County government, that without this time, there might not be an opportunity for us to get this out into the public domain. This month, we've highlighted the work that goes on into providing safe, secure, and accurate elections. We're going to preview the preparation for the November election. ahead of the early voting, which will begin, as Supervisor Pruitt and several board members have been talking about, it begins this Friday, September the 18th. So, board, before I dive into this work that I'll go through, I've got several slides. As you know, we'll share this package of PowerPoint with you in case you're in the community. over the next several weeks so that you can provide this to your constituents. But at the end of this presentation, if there's no board questions, then I'm going to do several things. I'm going to give you an update separate from this on where we are with the work to start the police chief program. recruitment uh so i'm going to take a couple of minutes and i'm going to go over the police chief recruitment and then this later this evening i'll send an email covering the highlights of what i talk about with police chief recruitment i'll send it to the board in case you get questions in the community and i'm also going to send an email to the almark county police department all personnel at the department so by this evening everyone in the police department will have the information i go over you go over with you on the police chief search that usually gets a little more attention in our community and in every community when you're recruiting for a police chief. And then the final thing I'm going to do is I'm going to ask our community development director, Bart Savota, to come to the podium and talk a little bit about what I believe Board members are hearing in the community, in our development community, with the lag time on inspections and permit review. And I do appreciate we had a board member email today that asked several questions regarding what's going on. And we'll do our work to see what we can do to address some of those questions. So that's really how I'm going to spend my time this evening. And I'll ask Ms. Stump, who always does a great job of putting this information together. to help me walk through the great partnership and work that we've got going on in elections and voter registration. And I'd also like to mention that Janelle McFadden, who is our general registrar, the director of elections, she is on tonight virtually. She's listening to this presentation. And if there are any really detailed questions that stump our staff, I know that she'll take good notes and that she can follow up probably by email back to the board if there's anything comes up tonight that we're not able to cover. And I do appreciate her good work and her leadership. All right, so. Voter registration and election office, they direct every phase of the election administration from voter registration through election day results reporting. This office serves as the central coordination point for all county departments to support ensuring accurate, timely, and legally sound elections, registers and maintains all the records for all qualified voters, including overseas and military voters, tests, voting equipment, and packs and sends all mail-in ballots. This department also trains and organizes 300 to 400 election officials across all precincts to include the folks at 5th Street who greet voters and help them get through the process. The elections officials are hired by the county's HR department. And the department also is involved in selecting and coordinating teams that adjudicate mail-in ballots through the central absentee precinct, including twice-daily ballot pickups from the post office. On election day, they work to communicate with precincts throughout the election day to resolve issues and post live results to the Department of Elections website. And then finally, there's coordination. and support for post-election meetings where electoral board adjudicates provisional ballots and they review and certify the overall results. So, board, that's really a lot of work. And I know that you know that because you are involved in paying attention to this. Our IT department provides technical infrastructure, security, and support across every phase of the election. In IT, they keep election technology running smoothly so voters and election officials experience minimal disruption. They ensure network access and user accounts have the appropriate level of access and security controls. IT provides technical assistance for technology readiness and staff training when requested by the registrar's office. They provide mapping materials to assess the election team in directing voters to the appropriate district, precinct, and polling place. And finally, IT supports election day starting at 5 a.m. to troubleshoot and respond to issues as they are reported, including the ability for quick mobilization measures to maintain that voters can vote despite emergencies. Facilities and Environmental Services. They secure efficient and reliable election operations throughout the voting season. Facilities also provides the Registrar's Office with logistical and operational support. They maintain secure facilities for early voting and coordinating equipment. They participate in pre-election planning meetings to identify concerns. help align resources and confirm readiness and address facility and infrastructure needs that may come up. They partner with emergency management to deliver logistical support for election day needs. This includes a ready-go mobile unit with everything needed to stand up a polling station in a parking lot if they need to do so. They have acted as a liaison between the registrar's office and VDOT during road construction taking place at the entrance of 5th Street County Building to make sure voters can get into the building to be able to vote. Albemarle County Schools plays a vital role in making sure that we have school facilities available to serve 18 of the 30 election day polling places across the county. They provide classrooms, gyms, and other spaces at schools. across the county as designated polling sites. They coordinate, schedule, and building access and elections office to prepare sites ahead of election day, including any school closures or adjusted operations. And Albemarle County Public Schools is a critical partner during the planning meetings alongside emergency management, police, facilities, and environmental services leading up to election day. Our CAPE division, Community and Public Engagement Office, they partner with the Registrar's Office to promote voting access and stands ready to support real-time emergency messaging. During early voting, CAPE works directly with the General Registrar to distribute public messaging with e-newsletters, social media and traditional media coverage, for covering early voting locations and voter registration. They support emergency messaging that impacts voter access. For an example, past incidents involved gas leaks, fire alarms that impacted polling locations, which required real-time public messaging to voters. For several years, Aki Parker in the Cape Office has diligently collaborated with Registrar's Office to ensure clear and timely information is available to the community. Police, fire rescue, emergency communications center, the sheriff's office all prepare for and respond to any public safety needs at polling locations on election day. Public safety agencies conduct pre-event assessments. They do ongoing threat monitoring during and leading up to election day. They plan public safety staffing needs to support Election Day operations. They facilitate a command post on Election Day and coordinate response to any calls for service related to the polls. A representative from the county attorney's office is another critical piece in the command post to ensure laws are being adhered to. This approach allows a safe voting environment without an intrusive security presence. Emergency management leads risk identification and cross-agency coordination ahead of election day. They convene partner agencies that I've mentioned to align on response plans and shared protocols. They assess potential hazards tied to election sites, weather, other operational risk during early voting and in advance of election day. And emergency management also serves as our connective point ensuring all safety-related partners are working from the same plan. This reduces the likelihood of an unexpected incident that could disrupt the voting access. And the photo on the slide is a regional discussion exercise from 2024 that brought together registrars and election officials, law enforcement, fire rescue facilities, communications, and emergency management from the city and the county to discuss and talk through a community-wide crisis that if it occurred on election day, how would we deal with it and how would we push to make sure that the elections went through? So that is my report. It's a lot of information. I think this is something that we can package and send the PowerPoint out to the And this could be something, board members, that you would want to use between now and the November election. Mr. Chair, I want to turn it back over to you briefly to see if the board has any comments or questions just with the coordinative work. And again, I really want to thank our partner agencies, our departments, and the city, the city working with us to make sure that we're working together and sharing our resources adequately.

Any questions? Supervisor Dunham?

just the point that, you know, I've only kind of seen this from like the political standpoint and like from parties and staffing tables and getting volunteers, the fact that we have such a long early voting period is hard from that standpoint. I, but I hadn't really considered what it's like for all of the people doing all this work, the communications, we have a very long time to vote. Um, and so it is extra work. And so just want to acknowledge that and appreciate that, that, you know, a lot of effort is going into making sure that voting is safe for a really long time. So thank you for that.

Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? Nothing to add. Thank you so much for the report. Supervisor Lopisto-Kirtley?

Thank you very much for the report. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Supervisor Malik?

You've answered so many questions. There's been a lot of concern from people asking and worrying. What they don't know about makes the anxiety level higher. And I think what we hear in other parts of the country on the news is a little alarming to people. But this is, I think, a very reassuring presentation. I'm also particularly glad to hear about the picking up the ballots at the post office, because that leaves out a whole other section of where they could be lost along the way, delivering them to the building. So congratulations on that.

Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. I don't have any questions.

I'm going to switch to the next section. It's just a really brief update, really for the board and for our community. As we know that Sean Reeves has retired from the Almar County Police Department. And we have had interim police chief responsibilities first taken on by Camille Stewart, one of our majors, one of our deputy chiefs. And she served as interim for a period of time. And now we've handed it over to Randy Jamison, who is the current interim chief And this is going to take a little time. Our goal is to start the process. We anticipate advertisement maybe around October the 12th. That's our goal is to be able to go out and advertise this position for police chief. The county has engaged Raftelis. They are a consulting firm that with national executive search firm with extensive experience recruiting public safety leaders to assist with the recruitment effort. Of course, there'll be a lot of internal work from the human resources department that coordinates with the national search firm as well as county leadership where we will spend some time making sure that this gets the attention it deserves. Raftelis will support the county in advertising the position and conducting candidate outreach, screening applicants, and assisting with the final interview process. As I said, we anticipate advertising the position October the 12th, and we will be conducting a national search to identify a strong pool of high-qualified candidates. Board, I wanted to talk about a critical part of the process where we'll be gathering input from those who know the department best. First of all, all Albemarle County police personnel will have an opportunity to participate in the development of a candidate profile. This profile will help identify leadership qualities, experience, and attributes that are most important to the department's Next sheet. Representatives from Raftelis, I believe the lady that we will be working with most closely is Catherine Tuck Parrish. This board has some experience with her because she has helped the board and the staff in the past. Catherine is very familiar with this part of the United States and previously served for the city of Rockville, Maryland as a deputy city manager. She'll be working on site to facilitate employee engagement sessions with dates. and additional details that we'll announce soon. In addition, board, I really want you to pay attention that I'm going to reach together to get, in addition to get feedback from department personnel, I want Raftelis also to seek input from community stakeholders, organizational partners, county leadership, and members of the Board of Supervisors. So I will ask Ms. Tuck Parish to interview each board member, Board of Supervisor member, to get your input and insights as to what you think some of the qualities and attributes are for our next police chief to be successful. And I'll also ask Ms. Tuck Parish to ask the board to, if you have anyone in our community that you think is a strong community connection to the police department, to please give her that name so that she can invite them to be a part of the community leadership group that she interviews about this position. The engagement process will help ensure that the recruitment reflects both the needs of the department and the expectations of the community that we serve. The selection process will involve multiple stages of evaluation, including candidate screening, phone interviews, video interviews, and on-site stakeholder panel interviews. The county has successfully used this similar approach on other executive recruitment processes in the past, and we're confident that this comprehensive approach will help identify the best candidates for consideration. So as I said, board, I'll send you something more in detail tonight by email that you can take another look at it. I'll coordinate through the county executive's office how we get our executive search firm to connect with the board over the next several weeks. I know some of you are traveling, so we'll work around your schedule. And then this will all begin to come together. And again, we're looking to post the position sometime around the middle of October. Mr. Chair, I'll again turn it back over to you to make sure there's no questions tonight from the board, because I know this is an important position for our county.

Any supervisors have questions?

Thank you. Board, I said I had three things tonight, and our third thing will be our community development director. We are aware that there are some concerns in our community. I will tell you that our community development director, Mr. Bart Savota, who's at the podium, he is full aware, as a very engaged department head, of what's going on in our community with both permit review, inspections, turnaround time, lag time, and... some of the concerns that were noted earlier today under public comment, as well as some of the emails and phone calls that you've received. I asked Bart if he would come before the board this evening, just give an overview of what is going on in the department, and then be happy to answer any questions that the board may have.

Bart Sabota, Community Development Director. I'd like to start with, you know, we recognize, I recognize that the recent delays in service and service challenges don't reflect the level of customer service that we want to provide, right? So while our team has worked hard on the volumes of inspections, they really are substantial. So as an example, in 2025, we did about 2,700 inspections in August. This year we did about 2,300. Low for a daily inspection load is about 98. And these are just building inspections. They do not include E&S or zoning or bond inspections or anything like that. These are just building inspections. We're 98 per day on the low side of the scale, as high as 166. One time last year we hit actually 200 in a day. Um, we average about one 15 to one 20, which puts us on pace. These are current numbers that we looked at this week, uh, that kind of puts us on pace for about 2,400 give or take, um, this month. So we're maintaining that range of 2,300 to 2,700, depending on the month, um, of where we're going. So we have had, um, some staff changes, um, We've lost some folks to the private sector. We lost some folks to retirement. We've kind of hit a perfect storm. And especially last week when we had pre-approved vacations, we did have three inspectors on staff, not one. We had one residential inspector. So I just want to be clear on that. But we have folks, plans reviewers that are also certified. So when we have to pull folks for coverage, if the numbers are really high, then we'll do that. That does affect plan review. So there's a give and take of everything that goes on there. With the new folks that we have, fully staffed doesn't mean fully efficient. Let me put it that way. When we hire folks, we have some that are trained up that we are lucky enough to steal from other localities or that have certifications and experience. Other ones, we don't. So it may take one inspector two or two months to get up to speed. It may take another one six months to get up to speed and reserve their certifications. So in the last few months since July of 27, we've hired five new employees to fill those vacancies. So these are not new positions. These are just vacancies that we had. So that team of 10 inspectors was down four inspectors. And the review team was down one. So we were able to hire those in the last, since July 27th. So we've done fairly well. What that does do, though, is place a burden on us on training and inspections. So we're looking at various other options. Mr. Williamson mentioned some of those earlier today of whether or not we can bring folks back in. Can we use third party? Does the state, does DCHD have a program that helps out. We're investigating all those things. And I've been almost in daily contact with Mr. Williamson, been in daily contact with builders, developers, scheduling inspections, working through our system to see if we can get the most effective and efficient production out of that and with our folks also. We did activate yesterday our third-party inspection policy. And so we'll keep monitoring that. The hope right now is that kind of individually folks will apply, but that will develop into a kind of an annual list that you can just choose from. We want to monitor those qualifications because we're probably will have similar issues like we have with inspectors, meaning based on our unemployment rate, our population and those things, the pool is very small for our select set of skills. Right. So the complete package isn't necessarily on the shelf for us to go get. We have to find folks that are willing and able and smart. And there's good people in the pool, but don't have the specific skill sets. We have to train those up. So that takes a little more time. And so that's kind of where we are. That's not an excuse. That's just kind of the reality we're at right now. And so, you know, we fully understand the importance of timely, dependable inspections. And, you know, we're committed to restoring and maintaining that high level of service. I don't know if you all have any questions for me.

Bart, before, Mr. Chair, just let me interrupt you. Bart, did you mention the fact that we're working closely with human resources on hiring back qualified inspectors who may be retired? Yes, we have. And we're allowed to do that under Virginia law. And so we've researched that. Human resources has been tremendously responsive. And that can help us in a number of ways, even if we're only able to get two or three back on staff for 10 to 15, 18 hours a week. Anything, I just wanted to, that's been an idea floated. I think one of Ms. Duncan's questions had to do with that. HR has been very responsive. And then you might also want to mention also your recruitment pools and how they've strengthened since the board passed the bonuses.

Yes. So the recruitment that we have done, we have utilized the signing bonus that the board so generously let us use so that that has helped. The retired inspectors or inspectors who have left the field, newer is better just from a standpoint strategically, meaning if I don't maintain my certs as a retired individual, then there'll be something we'll have to figure out there or whether they can help maybe provide training versus actually do the inspection. So we're looking at that program. We're looking at it as a program to help supplement what we have.

Thank you. Supervisor Duncan, any questions?

Thank you. This was fantastic and obviously on very short notice. So this was really thorough and helpful. I really appreciate it. I guess just a sort of clarifying question about the third party inspection policy. Are the county's requirements for it the same as the city's and UVA's? Do we have a more stringent policy on who we use or what we require from them?

I don't know what the cities or the UVA's policy is. We will look into that. So what we did is implement or dust off the policy that we had as fast as we could to get it up and running. And then as we go through, I want to take the same consideration that we do when we're looking for folks. Is the thing that we're requiring in the policy actually available? So if it's not, then we need to make some adjustments. Yeah, I hope that helps.

Yeah, it does. And I mean, I appreciate how difficult it is to hire people in general, especially in these kinds of fields. So that's really, this is all very encouraging to hear. So thank you.

Supervisor Pruitt.

I have nothing further to add, but thank you so much for providing us this update on this evolving scenario.

Supervisor Lopisto-Curley.

Thank you for all your effort and making sure that we're, we get fully staffed. I know it's not easy and you have to, you're right. You all have a special skillset. So that requires a lot more time and effort and you're doing it. So thank you.

It is a team effort and with collaboration and partnership with, you know, our customers, our partners, the developers, the builders, the homeowners, that also helps us. Supervisor Malik.

No questions, but thank you. I think the train your own to help people who may not be fully certified get their skills is a great way to go.

Thank you, Bart. I know that each of us have received some things in the inbox from variety of sources. I guess the one question I would ask, because I'm only tracking the ones that I know I've sent, I'm operating under the presumption that those folks are being reached out to, rather than just an individual resident or a developer or what have you. that they're being kind of told what the situation is or expectation at least for whatever their individual

Yes. And based on the individual issue. So as an example, if I tried to schedule some finals and for some reason I couldn't get all four or five of my finals, then when we speak to that individual, we will schedule that with that batch. Right. And so there's a little bit of old school involved in cleaning this up, but we're trying to push this more towards the automation and there'll be some sorting because we don't want to have an inspector go to, you know, one house and do a final electric when they also got to go back the next day and do a final plumbing if we can schedule all those for the same day it's more efficient and effective so with our new system with some um software updates that we received and with the staffing training that we need to do. So there's just some resources that all combined all together and kind of created a perfect storm. So we're working through that. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, your emails will stop. Mine will lessen and we'll get things squared away.

Very good. Well, thank you very much for the update for getting this teed up so quickly.

So thank you.

Yes, sir. All right, board, we will move then to item number 14, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings. We do have some folks signed up this evening. No online, so we are all in person this evening. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district. Comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. The podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains. And red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website. All right, we have... Three individuals this evening. First will be Mr. Gary Grant. Second will be Ms. Stuart Overby. And third will be Mr. Reed Schrobach. Schrobach? Schrobach, sorry.

It's nice to know that answers to the public can come so quickly. I'm Gary Grant, Rio District. This taxpayer bought button says you want people to engage with you. So I'm here to engage this evening. Board, do you really believe that taxpayers owe you a paid breakfast before a meeting? Board, do you believe that taxpayers owed you a $457 hot breakfast upgrade on your meeting on August 17th? Board, do you not believe that you should be able to prepare and feed yourself your own breakfast at your own expense at your own house before coming to a morning meeting? Board, have any of you who ate breakfast funded by the taxpayers on August 17th reimbursed us taxpayers yet? Board, were you so afraid for your safety at your August 17th meeting that you hired a company out of Dallas, Texas and the taxpayers had to pay $752 for nine hours of security at that meeting? Board, if not now, do you think you will be ready to answer yes or no to these questions next spring during your community budget town halls when the questions will be asked again? By the way, board, these questions also apply to your county executive and his staff, those that were engaged in the taxpayer-paid breakfast on August 17th. And for an accurate public record, because all invoices from that meeting have been checked, the total cost for that meeting at a Charlottesville hotel came to $11,385. not the around $5,000 originally quoted by your county executive staff. Also just for perspective, this one day $11,385 expenditure is more than you decided to spend this entire fiscal year on the budgets for the piedmont ymca the jefferson school african-american heritage center or the magistrate court individually anyway thanks board for engaging me this evening with the questions. Just a question from one resident, one constituent, one voter, one taxpayer who pays for his own breakfast at home before coming to your meetings.

Thank you, Mr. Grant. Ms. Overby?

Good evening, everyone. I'm Stuart Overby with Don't Spread on Me. I live in the Samuel Miller District. I'm here with a request and an invitation. The 30-day comment period is finally open for this permit, the application we've been talking about since 2025. If approved by Virginia's DEQ, the permit would allow the company Synagro to spread many tons of treated sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants that serve urban areas of Virginia and Maryland onto thousands of acres of farm and forest here in Albemarle County. Our coalition of conservation organizations working on this issue are requesting that you all participate and each submit your own comments to DEQ. And to make that process easy, we're also issuing an invitation to join us tomorrow night. That's Thursday from 7 to 8 for a virtual comment writing party. It's free. It's open to anyone. It'll be hosted by Wild Virginia. And you can find more info about it and about comment writing in general on DontSpreadOnMe.org. There are QR codes on this letter I'm going to leave for you that will take you to a registration page for the party to DontSpreadOnMe.org. for more information and to the page on DEQ's site with info about the permit and about submitting comments. The end of this 30-day period is coming up on September 24th, so we have about a week. That's the deadline for submitting comments. And that's it. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Ms. Overby. Reid? Krobach?

Good evening. Hello, members of the board. My name is Reid Krobach, and I'm from the Beyer District. I'm a local high schooler and member of the county's Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee. Recently, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission presented their 2026 to 2031 Solid Waste Management Plan to you after an extensive feedback period. And I'm just here to say that the SWAC supports this Solid Waste Management Plan and feels that gives the county a strong opportunity to further its environmental stewardship. The purpose of SWAC is to advise the Board on policies relating to solid waste management, public environmental education, and other environmental matters. Once the Planning District Commission's Solid Waste Management Plan is approved, it will provide strong guidance for myself and other SWAC members to continue recommending environmental policies that reduce waste and inspire community involvement in important environmental initiatives. When the solid waste management plan goes into effect, it is essential that the county increases education efforts concerning proper waste management for households and businesses. During the solid waste management plan's public comment period, many survey respondents said they were unsure about how to recycle and compost correctly, and many expressed doubt that recyclables and compostables were going into the proper waste streams. Some people were also unsure of their access to these important services altogether. The implementation plan for the solid waste management plan created by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission already calls on Albemarle to improve community outreach and engagement in the waste management process. And this is something the SWAC is looking forward to working with all of you on. Improved educational resources about recycling, composting, and other waste management services will help restore the community's trust in the fact that their waste is going into the correct streams, and therefore encourage more community members to participate actively in these important systems. The updated solid waste management plan is a good step towards a more sustainable future in Albemarle and our neighboring municipalities, and myself and other SWAC members are looking forward to seeing it approved and implemented. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that was all of our signups this evening. We appreciate those who provided comment to the board. We will now close matters from the public and we will move to item number 14. I'm sorry, item number 15, our first public hearing this evening. SP 2026 five Beaver Creek pump station fill in the floodplain. And Jared Tate, good evening.

Jared Tate I'm a senior planner with the planning division of albemarle county community development tonight i'll be giving staff presentation for the beaver creek pump station fill in the floodplain request. The property is located in Western Albemarle County at the southern end of the Beaver Creek Reservoir, roughly in the vicinity of where Brown's Gap Turnpike crosses the Beaver Creek Dam. The surrounding area is of rural character with a variety of rural area uses, including low density, single family residential, forest and open space, and agricultural uses. The entirety of the property is within the WPO buffer, recently renamed the riparian buffer, and a portion of the property is within the flood hazard overlay district. A small portion of the project site infringes into the floodplain. The subject property and all surrounding properties are designated as rural areas in AC44, as you can see with the big block of tan color surrounding the reservoir property. The SP request is for grading activities including placement of fill in the floodplain. Less than 500 cubic yards of fill will be placed behind the two proposed retaining walls and only a portion of that amount will be within the floodplain itself. On screen is an excerpt from the concept plan illustrating the location of the pump station, the retaining walls, and other associated improvements. The red dash line represents the edge of the flood hazard overlay district and the area highlighted in green represents the area within the floodplain where Phil will be placed. This is the landscaping plan from stp 2025 114 with the site plan the applicant has proposed to not only retain as much existing vegetation as possible. But also to replant disturbed areas in the riparian buffer to the maximum extent possible in order to maintain the forestal character of the parcel the proposed landscape plan exceeds ordinance minimums for landscaping. Section 30.3 of the zoning ordinance includes the standards applicable to the flood hazard overlay. The provisions of this section are intended to restrict the unwise use, development and occupancy of lands subject to inundation. The proposed fill in the floodplain is necessary to allow the development of the raw water facility, including the stepping and separation of retaining walls for the facility. The applicant has certified that the amount of fill required will not lead to a rise in the base flood elevation for the reservoir and staff believe that the proposal is in harmony with the purpose and intent of the flood hazard overlay. The factors for consideration for special use permits are shown per the analysis included in the staff report staff finds that the proposed fill in the floodplain will cause no substantial detriment to adjacent parcels. will not change the character of the area will be in harmony with the purpose and intent of the chapter and is consistent with AC 44. Staff recommends one condition of approval for the fill in the floodplain special use permit that the development, landscaping, and use of fill in the floodplain authorized by SP 2026-5 must be in general accord with the concept plan. In summary, staff has identified one positive aspect for the request that the applicant has certified no rise will occur as a result of the placement of fill. Staff has not identified any concerns associated with the request and recommends that the board adopt the attached resolution to approve SP-2026-05. I'm happy to revisit any slides and take questions the board may have.

All right, Supervisor Duncan? I have no questions. Supervisor Pruitt? I also have no questions, thank you. Supervisor Lepisto-Curt?

No questions.

Supervisor Malik?

No questions, thank you.

All right, I do not have any questions. Do we have any signups? All right, we do have, and this is in person?

Online.

This is online, okay. Um, so we do have one speaker signed up and I understand we also have an applicant presentation. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board. Is this the right one? Not listed for public. Well, B, you should have did this. Speakers are limited to one appearance of up to three minutes. Applicants are allowed 10 minutes for their presentation and five minutes for rebuttal at the close of the hearing. In-person speakers will be heard first, followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District. Comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. Online participants may also submit comments through the e-comment portal or by email to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers, the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains and red indicates your time has expired. Online participants will be notified when time has expired and microphones will be muted shortly thereafter. All comments are recorded, live streamed and published on the county website. And with that, we'll bring forward the applicant. I have Victoria. Good evening, Victoria. Fort.

Hi, good evening. I'm Victoria Ford. I'm with the Red Band of Water and Sewer Authority.

And Victoria, pull those mics down and talk.

Can you hear me better?

Yes, thank you.

Okay. I'm Victoria Ford. I'm the project manager for the Beaver Creek Raw Water Pump Station project. And I just wanted to provide some additional context on the project components and the purpose and need. So the Beaver Creek Dam and Reservoir are the sole water supply for the Crozet community. The Beaver Creek Dam was constructed in 1963 as a Soil Conservation Service, now NRCS, water supply and flood control project with approximately 500 million gallons of raw water storage. The Crozet Water Treatment Plant was constructed shortly thereafter in 1966 with a capacity of about 1 million gallons per day for treatment. It was then expanded in 2020 to about 2.2 million gallons per day of treatment capacity and currently has about 1.6 million gallons per day of distribution capacity into the community. Increased demands for drinking water in the Crozet community, as well as necessary dam safety upgrades and upgrades to the pump station, have prompted the need to obtain a Virginia Water Protection or VWP permit. So that permit was issued by DEQ in 2024, and that establishes limits on water withdrawals as well as requirements for minimum releases downstream into Beaver Creek. On the left side here, I have a depiction of the overall water supply system, which includes the Beaver Creek Reservoir, Beaver Creek Dam, which you can see. I don't know if you can see my cursor. Right here is the dam with Browns Gap Turnpike running along the crest. The existing pump station sits below the dam down here. And then there is a raw water main that runs along Browns Gap Turnpike. It cuts across to old Three Notched Road and then onto Three Notched where the Crozet Water Treatment Plant is located. The project is being constructed on the Beaver Creek Reservoir on property owned by Albemarle County. This was selected to minimize impacts to public properties and for its proximity to the deep pool of the reservoir. So the site consists of the pump station building, a new access road with a bridge, a tunneled intake out to an in-reservoir tower. It will also include a diffused air destratification system, which I'll talk about in just a moment. And then a transmission main from the new pump station location back to the treatment plant along a similar route to the existing. I have also shown here the approximate location of proposed dam spillway reconstruction. This is part of necessary dam safety upgrades, which will take place once the new pump station is on site. And it is not part of this application, but I wanted to provide that for context. Just a quick closer look at the pump station site. So again, it is located on the edge of the reservoir on steep slopes With a maximum raw water pumping capacity to the treatment plant of 2.8 million gallons per day, that is sized to meet the needs of the community through at least 2075. And in addition to that, we have a maximum minimum in stream flow capacity, pumping capacity of 2 million gallons per day. And that is for releases into Beaver Creek. Here is a section view of what the pump station will look like on site. So you can see the building above ground as well as the cylindrical wet well shaft. There will be a tunnel tunneled out into the reservoir to the intake, multiple intake levels and all of those will have a drum or barrel shaped screen with mechanical brushes for cleaning. You can see also in this diagram there are stepped retaining walls on the reservoir side. That is to accommodate the tight site and the slopes to make this pump station site work. I also mentioned the diffused air destratification system that will be included with the project. So the Beaver Creek Reservoir experiences thermal stratification during the spring to fall months. It means that the sun and the air warms the top levels of the water and the cooler water sinks to the bottom. That cooler water has very little oxygen and those conditions lead to release of nutrients like phosphorus and metals, iron manganese, into the water down at the bottom. And then when the air cools, you see... turnover of that water and those nutrients and metals find their way into the upper levels of the reservoir. These conditions can lead to algal blooms and obviously degraded water quality, which obviously affects the environment, but it also affects us from a water treatment standpoint as we have to treat the algae and we have to use additional chemicals in treatment of the water. So how we are addressing that is with this diffused air system. which essentially consists of air compressors, which push air out into pipes along the lowest level of the reservoir. And these air bubbles effectively mix the full depth of the reservoir so that you mitigate those low oxygen anoxic environments down at the bottom and then improve water quality overall. So on the bottom right, you can see there's an example of one of these systems. So you can see the air bubbles along straight lines. That's where the pipes are located on the base of the reservoir. So that's similar to what you can expect to see at Beaver Creek. Here's a rendering of the completed facility. This is roughly from Brown's Gap Turnpike looking at the access road with the bridge and then the building in the background. Because that has to be benched, that access road into the slope on the upstream side or uphill side, we have a soil nail slope with a fall protection railing. And then on the lower side, a modular block wall, which extends all the way around the site. Here you can see on the left side existing conditions. And then on the right, our proposed landscaping plan. So our intention is to replant to the fullest extent possible to reforest the area once construction has been completed. So you can expect during the summer months from the surface of the dam not to really see most of that access road and the retaining walls. And then here is a view from, I believe this is intended to be a rendering from the boat ramp at Beaver Creek Park adjacent. So you can see the pump station building, but most of the site grading and retaining structures are obscured by the new vegetation. So in summary, site constraints require retaining walls to construct the facility within Elmiraugh County property along the Beaver Creek Reservoir. The requested 465 cubic yards of fill in the floodway fringe was found to result in no rise within the 100-year floodplain of Beaver Creek Reservoir. Extensive replanting is proposed around the new facility to maintain the forest character of the parcel, and thus Rivanna respectfully requests approval of the special use permit to allow fill in the floodplain with the conditions included in the staff report. And with that, I'll take any questions.

All right, thank you. Questions for the applicant? Supervisor Duncan? I have no questions. Supervisor Pruitt? I also have no questions, thank you. Supervisor Lopisto-Kirtley?

No questions, thank you.

Supervisor Malik?

No questions, thank you, Victoria.

All right, I do not have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. We will move to our online speaker, Ms. Nadia Anderson. Good evening, Ms. Anderson.

Hello. Good evening, board members. My name is Nadia Anderson. I am in the West Hall District. I'm here tonight in support of moving forward with approving the floodplain. Special exception here with Beaver Creek. I think this is very essential for modernizing our infrastructure. But I hope that the board takes an honest, disciplined look at how we manage Crozet's growth. The water is pretty personal to me. I'm a coach for the Western Albemarle High School crew team. I'm out on Beaver Creek practically every single day. I was there this morning. It was a beautiful day. We could get about eight boats across. But I see our water levels firsthand every season. And to be completely candid, I'm positive. Am I thrilled about upcoming drawdowns during construction disruptions for our rowing program? Probably grounding our docks, shrinking our lanes. Not, not really. But our student athletes and coaches are ready to probably roll with the punches because modernizing the intake and protecting Jose's drinking water absolutely comes first. I Got me thinking though, why are we putting these upgrades here? Because tying an isolated basin like Crozet into the urban system probably would be an engineering mountain that no one wants to take on. I have heard that it would cost upwards of $100 million. And I may think you're making the smart call to upgrade our local intake. and future spillway, but that means Crozet remains an isolated water island. If we outpace Beaver Creek Safe Yield, there's no emergency valve to turn. So my ask, as you approve this pump station application tonight, is to please pair the necessary investment with real planning discipline to, one, pace the growth, Please hold off on discretionary density rezonings while this intake and reservoir are actively disrupted by construction. Let the RWSA get this pump station online and expand treatment capacity before adding more demand. And two, I would ask for an account for cumulative demand. Ensure that our future land decisions rely on updated safe yield audit that factors peak summer drought along every approved unbuilt unit already in our pipeline. Our rowing program. Our community are willing to take this hit during construction to make this water infrastructure secure. And let's just make sure that the sacrifice isn't traded away for unchecked development. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And we have no other signups this evening. So we will, well, let me first ask any other, just any questions that have popped for the applicant at all?

One for Nadia, which is to talk about the draw. I mean, not for Nadia, for Victoria to give some more detail about the drawdown and if the boathouse is going to be high and dry and that kind of thing, because I was not aware of that.

Just to clarify, so the pump station portion of the project will precede the dam improvements. So the pump station will not require drawdown of the reservoir for its construction. Once we get into the dam construction, however, for safety, we do need to draw down the reservoir by about 10 feet in order to safely construct the modifications to the spillway. But we're looking about probably about two and a half to three years out from that drawdown at this point.

okay so the separation of the projects i get that's why i haven't heard so much about the other yet very good thank you very much thank you all right we will close the public hearing the matter is back before the board i'll just look to my left and right any additional questions or comments all right do we have a uh there's the motion very happy to yep

So I move to approve special use permit SP 2026-5 as shown in the staff report as attachment E. Second.

All right. The motion has been made and seconded without objection. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley. Aye. Ms. Malik.

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Ms. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Galloway.

Yes. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. All right, we will move to the next item, item number 16, ZMA 2026-4, Ravanna Futures. And good evening, Bill Fritz. Hello.

Okay.

Hello. Bill Fritz with the Community Development Office presenting today the rezoning request 2026-4 for Ravanna Futures. It's a request to modify steep slopes. This image is taken from the rezoning application for this property. It shows the boundaries of the property purchased by the county and a portion that was rezoned to industrial properties. This is the approximate location of the slopes that are under consideration tonight so that you can see its relationship to the surrounding area and the zoning boundary. The area highlighted is more extensive than the area proposed to be rezoned. I had to do this so you could actually see it. The zoning boundary represents the extent of the development area in both existing and the prior comprehensive plan. This particular application is a proposal to change the designation of preserved steep slopes to manage steep slopes. The county has a steep slope overlay district. This district divides slopes into these two categories, preserved and managed. Preserved slopes are shown in green and managed slopes are shown in yellow. You may notice that the areas to the north, far east, and far west of this image show some areas that are in orange. And those are critical slopes because they are outside of the development areas. So managed and preserved are inside the development areas and critical are outside the development areas. Disturbance of preserved slopes is severely restricted. To oversimplify, the permitted uses of preserved slopes are those necessary to allow some use of the property in order to prevent a taking, facilities that cannot avoid slopes, such as utilities and roads, and uses identified in the comprehensive plan. Managed slopes may be disturbed. Any permitted disturbance of either type of slope is subject to review to ensure that the activity meets all the requirements of the zoning and water protection ordinances. The area being proposed for rezoning tonight is approximately a half acre. And this, oops, and you can see highlighted the area that we have here. It's that northern area. Unfortunately, our GIS system does not allow the aerial photo to be shown with the zoning information, so I had to break these two into two different slides. This image shows the extent of the industrial zoning, which you saw previously also, and that's the blue area. Designated stream buffers are shown in purple. Managed slopes are shown in yellow, and preserved slopes are shown in green. The white areas of the map are zoned RA. The area of slopes under consideration is highlighted. And it's this southern portion of that larger band of steep slopes. The rural areas to the north, excuse me, the rural areas to the white area, the mappers owned RA, the rural areas to the north and east of the industrial developments are owned by the county. So they're part of the county property. Just trying to put this in perspective of where it is. So now we're gonna zero in on the particulars of the request. This image is taken from the applicant's narrative. It's included in your packet if you wanna really get it out and see the detail. And it shows the location of the steep slopes and the topography along with the watercourses. And what's shown here is you can see the entirety of the preserved slopes. The northern portion is shown in that light green and the southern portion is shown in that sort of grayed-out color, and it's the southern portion that's proposed for rezoning. The zoning ordinance includes detailed characteristics for both managed and preserved slopes. The exact language of the ordinance is in your staff report, and an analysis of each characteristics is also included in the staff report. Staff opinion is that these slopes display characteristics of both managed and preserved. However, generally, these slopes do appear to have more characteristics of preserved slopes. One of the mixed findings staff made is the relationship of these slopes to water features. This image shows the stream buffers in purple, and you saw that from the previous slide also. So stream buffers are in purple and slope designations from the county GIS. During a field visit to the site, during the height of the drought, I'd like to point out, during a field visit to the site, staff investigated the watercourses adjacent to these slopes. Portions of the watercourses are clearly intermittent and not subject to a stream buffer setback. The stream is perennial where you see that solid blue line that I've drawn on the map here. Even though the GIS does not show a buffer, a stream buffer or perium buffer now will be applied. During the site development review process, all design requirements will be considered and the stream protection requirements of the ordinance will be applied. And again, the area that's proposed to be rezoned is away from the perennial stream. Staff analysis of the characteristics of the slopes based on the language included in the steep slopes overlay district, as I said, resulted in mixed findings. It is important to note that the content of the steep slopes overlay district is not the only factor that must be considered during the rezoning review process. The state code and the county code set out specific criteria that must be considered. This analysis is included in the staff report that you have in your packet. And I'm not going to go into all the detail in the staff report, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. But now I want to highlight a few things. The county has on multiple occasions stated that the county's investment in Rivanna Futures creates a generational opportunity. This importance of this property to the county and its economic development is contained in the comprehensive plan and in the county's economic development strategy. These are significant factors in support of a rezoning that would facilitate development of the property. Industrial development, particularly large-scale industrial development of the type envisioned for Urbana Futures, requires large building footprints with a single floor elevation. To serve these buildings, travel ways, storage areas, and loading zones are necessary. These areas require limited slope and often need large, unbroken areas to accommodate large truck turning radiuses and safe operations of the loading and storage areas. The location of the preserved slopes in the center, that's highlighted in green, impact the ability to develop areas to the east and west. Those areas are highlighted in red. The red areas do not have limitations on development due to slope, stream buffers, or any other requirements. But because of that preserved slope, they get broken up. The comprehensive plan estimates the theoretical capacity of the development area contains adequate theoretical capacity to accommodate growth. However, the comprehensive plan also states that this is only theoretical capacity. The comprehensive plan acknowledges that constraining factors limit the actual capacity, which undermines the growth management policy. Development area priorities include effective use of limited development areas land, including through infill, higher density development, adaptive reuse and development, and balancing density with the protection and restoration of the natural environment. To summarize, Staff analysis has resulted in mixed findings. When considering the characteristics of steep slopes as contained in the overlay district provisions of the zoning ordinance, staff identified characteristics that support maintaining existing preserved slope designation and characteristics that support a managed slope designation. When all the factors to be considered when drawing zoning district boundaries are incorporated into the review, staff conclusion is that a rezoning is appropriate. Particularly compelling to staff are the recommendations of the Comprehensive Plan, the recommendations of the Albemarle County Economic Strategic Plan, particularly the identified need for industrial land. John Potter, On July 28 the Planning Commission voted four to one to recommend approval of this rezoning. John Potter, The Commission noted that no plan was included with the application demonstrating a need for a rezoning or alternatives that would alleviate the need for a rezoning. John Potter, The Commission also acknowledged that the comprehensive plan notes, the need to diversify the county's tax base and that this request aligns with the comprehensive plan. the commission noted that the rezoning requests for steep slopes are not unique and other applications have been approved. Staff would point out that the Board of Supervisors most recently approved a rezoning request for steep slopes on August 19th. For the reasons included in the staff report, staff recommends approval of this rezoning application, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Fritz. Supervisor Duncan? I have no questions. Supervisor Pruitt?

I don't have questions at this time.

Supervisor Lepisto-Curtley? No questions. Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. I guess the most interaction I've had with people have been requesting a bioblitz or something before this area is disturbed because of its presence on a whole lot of biodiversity documentation. And it's such a small area, it seems like that would be something achievable, especially with the number of volunteers who have already said they're ready to go out there, as we did at Byram and did 600 acres in two days. So is that something you all have already talked about, considering it's already been brought up multiple times?

The applicant is going to have some information on what they have already done, and that may answer some of your questions.

All right. But that may be something that could be required. All right. Thank you.

All right. I don't have any questions for staff, so we will open the public hearing. Do we have any signups? And this is in person. So speakers are limited to one appearance of up to three minutes. Applicants are allowed 10 minutes for their presentation and five minutes for rebuttal at the close of the hearing to ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers. The board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name. And if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district comments should be directed to the board as a whole written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. Online participants may also submit comments through the e-comment portal or by email to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. The podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains and red indicates your time has expired. All comments are recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website. So I'll ask the applicant to come forward. Mr. Blake Aplanap, Rivanna Futures Program Manager. And I see Mr. Heyer standing up as well. Good evening.

Good evening. And again, to reiterate, I am Blake Aplanap, Rivanna Futures. Very fortunate to be the Rivanna Futures Program Manager. And Thank you for having us here this evening. The consideration. Thank you, Mr. Fritz. With me this evening are Daniel Heyer and Anna Lou Bernstein from the Charlottesville Civil Engineering firm, Line and Grade. A little background, Line and Grade has been working with us on Rivanna Futures since early in 2023. through the due diligence period prior to the purchase of the land by the county, through all the site development, concept development, and now through design and construction of multiple projects going on at Rivanna Futures right now, many of which are grant-related. They're going to do... the lion's share of this presentation, and Daniel will provide his expertise to add additional information to what Mr. Fritz had conveyed. First of all, they'll start out with a little background of the program itself, some more specific details of the ZMA proposal, and certainly impacts related to this recommended change, and then we'll be open for questions that you may have. So with that, I'll turn it over to Daniel. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you, Blake. My name is Daniel. I'm with the line and grade. And we're going to talk about this ZMA proposal for event futures. We'll go through three movements this evening. They'll be brief, an introduction and a little bit of a background, the proposal and anticipated impacts. I'm sure all of you are aware, but for the sake of being thorough, since 2023, things have been happening constantly. So the land was purchased in 2023. In 2024, we were actually before you for a zoning map amendment and a special use permit. I'll cover that in a little more detail in a moment. 2025, AstraZeneca announced their plans to invest in locating to Albemarle County. And currently, 2026, this year, there's a lot going on. at the location of this project site. This is an abridged version of a lot of the due diligence we've gone through. If you want to talk or ask questions about everything we've learned about the property, we can come back to that during question and answer period. But suffice to say, there's been a lot learned and we continue to learn things about this property. The area shown in yellow is the area subject to the previous zoning map amendment and special use permit. 172 acres were zoned light industrial with a special use permit approved for office use. The AstraZeneca portion of the property is shown in purple. The remaining land bays are shown in the cyan blue color to give you a perspective of how their land holding relates to Ravanna Futures area for light industrial use. And here are a few recent photographs. If you haven't been to the site lately, it's kind of a fun time to go out there and see what's going on because there is a lot going on right now. And a lot of years of thinking and imagining what it can become are starting to happen. So if you haven't been out there, I think you should try to go sometime soon and see the action for yourselves. So what are we talking about tonight is reclassifying 0.46 acres from preserved slopes to managed slopes. As Bill previously mentioned, these slopes do exhibit characteristics of both types. We have been to the site numerous times. We've spent time walking them, looking at them, studying them both in a digital format as well. And again, I guess just to reiterate, they do share characteristics of both, but there is some compelling evidence to suggest that it's a reasonable ask to reclassify them as managed. Also to put things in perspective, the area we're talking about, the 0.46 acres is less than 1% of the land holdings real large. So this is a very small portion of the county's land holdings that we are asking to recharacterize. This is the image Bill also showed. Within the parcel that we are applying for the CMA, on that parcel, there's four and a half acres that are already preserved slopes, and there's 2.9 acres that are classified as managed slopes, which further suggests, as Bill showed, that in this vicinity, there are slopes that represent both typologies. As you're thinking about the action tonight, I think we would want to simply remind you that within the comprehensive plan, the effective use of the limited development area land to provide space for current and future employers and to balance the density with protection is one of your goals. And what we're doing tonight is trying to balance that density with protection. We are not grossly asking for a large reclassification. It's a very specific ask. That specific ask is rooted in specific analysis and specific intention of how the land will be used. We are not asking for more than would be needed. We're asking for the amount that would enable this particular land to be used in the way that it is intended to be used. And finally, our due diligence and our research has turned up that this specific area of the property has historically already been impacted by humans. This white box, we are basically right in this little nook right here. So this land has been impacted in the past for agricultural uses, and we put a lot of energy into appropriately aligning and geolocating this historic image. So we feel confident that This is not a new impact to this land. In fact, the vegetation in this area is not old growth vegetation. So with that associated with this zoning map amendment, the impacts as they are measured for a ZMA, we really have no measurable impacts. There's no impact to wetlands or existing structures or playgrounds or schools, public facilities, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a very small ask in the grand scheme of what is planned for at this property. And that concludes our presentation.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Heyer. Supervisor Duncan, any questions for the applicant?

No questions, but just this is the second presentation we've had where people have used historic aerial photos, and I'm a big fan of that. So I wish everybody would do that.

Supervisor Pruitt? I have nothing to add. Thank you. Supervisor LaPista-Kirtley?

No questions. Thank you for the presentation.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. I will repeat my BioBlitz question for you because it's come up in numerous public meetings and I would like to find out what on the ground research on this half acre has been done. And if it hasn't been done yet, then a one day blitz could happen to get it thoroughly characterized.

That's a good question. I appreciate that. On this site specifically during the due diligence phase, we've done the entire property. We've done a phase one and partial phase two environmental survey or studies, rather. The slide that I think I can go back to, if I can get back. Oh, there we go. Supervisor Malik this slide kind of gets into details. And I know it's a little difficult to read. As all the different things that we did during that whole process to determine whether this would be, you know, an advisable investment for the county. So we went to great lengths to make sure that we did all the environmental due diligence. And, in fact, I think Daniel's group is out there tomorrow. I'll ask him to expand on it, but it's kind of a foreign fauna study as well.

Yeah, before I answer that, I think I'll say that in this specific location, we have already conducted what's called a preliminary jurisdictional determination. So we've worked with environmental scientists to delineate all of the natural features across the land holding real large, but specifically in this area. We remobilized during this effort to put hoots on the ground as a part of this study. this application to validate that nothing had changed and it hadn't. We have also done what's called the SSWD, which is the State Surface Water Delineation. And that's been submitted to DEQ for validation in their agreement. And we've been walking very closely with DEQ and their staff on all the environmental aspects of this property holding real large. What Blake's talking about is we continue to use our environmental scientists and community partners And we have actually discovered some rare species of plant on the property which have not been previously classified or known. And so we're going out tomorrow morning with the voucher program to classify those natural resources. And they're actually not in this vicinity of where this ZMA is happening. They're actually back in the land that's not in the development area. But suffice to say, we are intentionally continuing to study this landscape very carefully. and make good decisions as we learn more.

Well, you got to the part I was asking about, which is the flora and fauna species, bare plants, things like that. When Byron Park 700 acres was being laid out, the trails were located based upon where the impacts were leased. And that's what I'm asking for. And as I said, it would not take a very long time for a whole mob of people to characterize, to get a recording down, documentation of everything that's there. It might help you out a lot. And I know they offered this months ago. So... It's not a delay situation. It's just to find out what what really is there So I'm grateful that you have reported what you found so far and hopefully we'll we'll do more But as I said, it's there are lots of people ready to help and I would like to make sure that that gets done.

Thank you All right our public any other questions for the applicant our Sign up is sage. Is it Brackburn? Sage Brackburn. Brack? Brack? B-R-A?

Bradburn, maybe? Maybe that's a D. She was here earlier, but I wonder if she might have tried to sign up for the other public comment. She left quite early.

All right. So last call. Sage? All right, we will move on and close public hearing. Close the public hearing matters back before the board. Do we have any additional questions or comments? I'm going to look to my left or right. And with that, do we have a motion on the?

Yes.

Was there more questions or comments?

One more question.

Is there anyone else who is interested in encouraging staff to get the bioblitz done on this very small area? Because nothing's going to be happening. My understanding was... Or anything else. Well, they said they've got somebody out there tomorrow, one person. So that's not the same as 20 people showing up for a morning to really do things. The same area.

My understanding was they've done the whole area. They're going back out tomorrow to do the area that they did find stuff on.

Someplace else, right. Right.

Did I misunderstand? Did they state that they did not do the whole area? I don't think it was what I was suggesting, but anyway, we'll have to. Well, we've got two different takes on this. We need it clarified. So, Bill, was it our, the, can I still bring the applicant forward to clarify? Mr. Heyer, has the whole site been done to what Supervisor Malik's been asking about?

You're asking about the bio blitz? Yes. I cannot say that we've done a bioblitz. We have used numerous environmental scientists that are consulting to work across the full spectrum of the property, but we haven't done what I would call a bioblitz with volunteer labor to run amok on the property.

Your folks are using data and maps and things like that. They're not out there looking.

Oh, no, no, no, no. We have literally canvassed on our feet almost the entirety of this entire property. And what we have found, we have raised the alarm that, hey, there's some very unique species here. And so one of the people who I think was involved with petitioning for the BioBlitz, who works for the Piedmont Discovery Center, is actually joining on-site tomorrow with the voucher program. So I think we're accomplishing the intent of what people are asking for. We've just done it through our workflow.

Thank you. I feel comforted.

I would point out, too, that that You know that work that they're going to be doing tomorrow again is outside of the reason light industrial area where we focused a tremendous amount of attention. Addressing all these types of items, but they took it a step further and have investigated outside of the area where we're going to be doing all the land disturbance.

Oh, thank you. And I do understand the phase one and two is reducing the risk for the purchaser, the county and the building. It's not reducing the risk for the rest of the environment out there. So I appreciate that the effort is being taken tomorrow. That'll help a lot.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. So we're ready for a motion.

All right. Regarding ZMA 2026 for Ravana Futures Steep Slopes, I move to adopt the ordinance included as attachment E. Second.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes. Very good. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. All right, board, we will move to item number 17 from the board, committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda. Supervisor Duncan?

We had a CAC meeting Monday night. Still didn't have enough people for a quorum. But I had a great presentation from the planning department on kind of a wide range of things coming up. The other thing that happened that was not sort of an official board or committee meeting is that on Saturday, Supervisor Lapisto-Kirtley and I toured the Mennonite community over in Dayton, Virginia, and that was absolutely incredible. If you guys have not been over there, definitely should take a tour. It was really helpful to see what the community, who has been there for hundreds of years, looks like when it's built out. It's sort of the organic farming, the wide variety of industries that they have, and that they service a lot of Albemarle County farmers who go over there for... tractor supplies. They have like a harness shop that does, you know, various leatherworking and equestrian stuff. It was just, it was, it's been the one thing actually since I've been in Virginia that has made me homesick because it felt such, so much like the Midwest and like corn growing. So I am very excited that they are moving part of their community here and the food we got was delicious their you know their markets were great so if you've not been over there it is definitely worthwhile to go see what it looks like in person great supervisor proof i don't believe i've actually had any committees since our last meeting

All right, Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtland.

Yes, I'm just going to tag on. When you go there, there's a market and they have the best lemon meringue pie. Oh my gosh, it was really, really good. But yes, prior to that, I actually went to JPJ where I was so in admiration and in awe of the firefighters, the new recruits, where they did 15 flights of stairs up and down celebrating and memorializing 9-11. So it was really, really wonderful to see them do that. I only climbed one. You know, it was an effort. Anyway, I also went to Places 29. We had Places 29 CAC. We did have a quorum. All right. And then where we had a really good staff presentation on the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, excellent. And also update and presentation on AC44. So that was really, really good. Kudos to staff for that. The other thing I attended yesterday was a joint meeting at the CACBB with the city of Charlottesville. And the things that were discussed there were the innovation corridor, That was Pace Lochte. And the Commonwealth bio accelerator update with their that's Nikki Hastings and what they're actually doing is moving to another building. And then also a really good presentation, not by Peter Krebs but by he did a video he wasn't there but he did a video on outdoor recreation and economic development there. So really appreciated that. We also had a police CAC where interim chief Randy Jamerson was explaining to everybody what the update on what the police department is doing. Very informative. And that's all.

Great. Supervisor Malik.

Thank you. Oops, I lost my notes. Wait one second. Oh, that's not it. Oh, well, fumbled my fingers here. Just a second.

Go away, go away.

Type instead of writing. I'm sorry.

Can Supervisor Duncan use seats available, Neal, instead of no quorum?

Can we do that? I think they should be community meetings, not... how they're set up.

Well, we didn't ask that question.

People can always sit at the table. So I'll start off with the sort of I've been hearing a lot from people in multiple different districts, not just in the Whitehall District, about the perception in the public that the effort in the master plans has been dismissed. And now everything is based upon activity centers only. And if you're not in one of the chosen three, it'll be at least a decade before any of your community master plans implementation projects come back. So I do hope... that there will soon be a presentation on where all those other projects are for all the various master plans and what has been happened because people now think that they've been forgotten and that generally increases hostility quickly. An example in the Crows area that keeps being mentioned to me is that the Park and Tabor sidewalk, which was funded in 2014, was after being on the sidewalk list for 10 years, and 10,000 more people had moved to the town, that money was swept from the CIP for that project and put on the Berkmar connector. And still there's been nothing that's happening. So that's just one of the many, many examples that are out there. So the one citizen statement I wrote down is that unaccountable, unelected people should not be making decisions about the future of the county. The board should be doing that. And so the encouragement for all of us is to understand that we need to be watching and involved with this and not just allow the perception that it's been turned over to staff to carry forward all by itself to continue whenever we can describe that. More clearly, I described it as a way of prioritization so that we don't have 100 things that don't get done. But that's really hard to convey when goes along with it. We're going to do one for three years and then we're going to do another one for three years. And that means it's 30 years before they get back to some of the neighborhoods. So that leads to a certain amount of impatience. So please consider that as we go forward, and we'll all try to work on ways to make sure that we get a better outcome than that. CCAC report was a fabulous experience. First time we've ever done this out there. There were Henley eighth graders who were doing their civic project, and there were 12 of them, I think, who came. They set up five different tables, and we had people who came, anybody who came, assign themselves to a table of interest, housing, transportation, trails, downtown, things like that, and addressed what are the most important things, what do we need to do better, what shouldn't we do at all. the kids led the presentation back to the group i was so impressed with their ability and i hope that they all keep coming back because it really was one of the best meetings we've had in a long long time and i will um credit our new president uh chair um grace balding for who has an eighth grader and he brought all his friends along so it was really great to to get that to happen um i'm also getting a lot of comments about hoping that the county will do a resolution in support of the governor's intervention on the next era merger, because more and more information is coming out on an almost daily basis about how awful the impacts would be if Dominion is subsumed into this giant utility. And so we have the, Intervention phase is already closed, so that window is not open to us anymore, but apparently one of the benefits is that you can do a resolution and talk about any number of different elements if you wish, whereas if you're an intervener, you can only talk about certain elements that SEC can talk about. particularly. So please think about that. And I will try to gather together all the notes that have been coming my way and send that to everybody for thinking. Yesterday's meeting at the BCWP, the workforce, Nicole Overley, who's the state director, came to meet with us and did a presentation about particularly their focus on apprenticeships. In Virginia, there are 15,600 apprenticeships today. greatly improved over where we were five years ago. So that's really terrific. We're looking for industry partners. A lot of smaller businesses and industries may feel a little reluctant to jump in and say, well, I don't know how to do this, but I do want to report that there is state and local mentoring and facilitation. If someone is interested, they can please, they could get all sorts of guidance for, um, And also on the job training stipends for covering the assistant, covering salary for people who, especially for people who are already an employee of the business, but who want upskill. And so then can become part of this four-year apprenticeship program, which is benefit for the employee as well as for the employer. The folks from KTEC talked about their apprenticeship programs and their Go Tech Virginia high school lab set up and working in seven city and county and Greene County middle schools. And they expect to train over 3,100 students, which is really terrific. And this is all good. Hands-on skills workforce, trying to help the young people understand what things might be interesting to them. I think often early jobs are the things where kids learn what they don't want to do. Like, oh, I tried that. But sometimes it's just hard because it's new. And if they have a little more exposure to something in a school setting, they might get over that hurdle and find out that it's something that is really worth their future investment.

Yeah.

Lots of projects going on. I'm just gonna zoom down here because things have really taken off in the job center. 75% increase in people served per month compared to the same month last year, like 930 this year and 530 last year for the people coming in. So that's really terrific. There have been many more engagements out in the community, meeting people where they are and getting them into training. And the WIOA federal participants are also up almost 10%. So that's great. Albemarle County gets the grand lion's share of the participants because we have the job center in our county out on Glendale, Glenwood Station with the bus line right there. So it's easy for people to reach. And it's really been a very successful effort after lots of zigzagging is along the way since 2008 i'm really thrilled with what they've accomplished in this area and so our locality money which is paid to the to support which covers programs that the federal and state programs cannot it's like 10 times magnified based upon the value that we get based upon the money that the county is putting in so i'm very proud of that and that is all i have thank you very much

I guess we did have a TJPDC commission meeting since our last board meeting. We got a first look at their upcoming budget. They're one that has to get out ahead of a lot of the funding organizations, so nothing really to report there other than it was just our first time to look at it. We got an update on the Watershed Improvement Program annual funding. and passed the resolution for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Funding. We also got an update on the Home and Community Development Block Grant Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, CAPER, one of the better Better, what's the word I'm looking for? And had a public hearing adopting the 2025 home CDBG caper. And same for housing preservation grant, pre-application statement of activities and intergovernmental reviews. So if you're interested in those items, you can go to the TJPDC website and pull up all of the presentation materials and information that we reported. I'm not remembering in the round table- There was some extended conversation about the Charlottesville's update.

I took some thorough notes of this to share during this and then straight up forgot that the meeting happened.

While you're looking for that, there was some conversation about the Charlottesville was updating on the... the encampment and the efforts to move folks from the uh from freebridge into the facility and it was interesting you know a lot of times charlottesville albemarle get tied into issues but it was interesting hearing the questions and reactions from the outlying counties asking about that specifically louisa county and recognition that there were louisa county residents as part of the encampment and they were asking questions in a way that i would say were were pretty good questions to be asking relative to the regional nature of homelessness.

Which was also interesting because Louisa has themselves been going through probably, I would say, two year long reckoning at this point. with trying to set up the appropriate zoning authority for a Potchum-like program. They have reached a compromise. It is, I mean, speaking plainly, since they're not in the room to yell at me about it, it is, I think, a very modest compromise that is still incredibly restrictive, but... They have built their homelessness thinking muscle. I think that's a good point. I'm looking through my notes. This was two days after the disbursement that we had this meeting, if I'm remembering. I think it was on Tuesday, and this was that Thursday. And at that time, there were 27 clients at Holiday Drive. Disbursement, right. And I think literally the next Monday, so just a few days after that, when I had my meeting with Mr. Richardson, it had almost doubled. It was something like 58, I think, when we had that meeting, which I think shows kind of the rate at which they're filling that. And that's currently limited by, yes, there's 100 bed maximum capacity, but they have not finished fitting all the spaces for it. So it's very much as space comes available, they're filling it.

I do have some updates from the other counties that I wrote down during the roundtable, now that I remember we had this meeting.

A few just quick notes. Louisa described their biggest political issue that they're engaging with right now is seeking to de-growth and limit their growth pressures that they're experiencing. Louisa has a commitment to retaining a rural character, and they have significant growth pressures on them right now. I have no idea what I wrote here. There is a discussion with Green on the role of event spaces that I found especially interesting given our similar conversations that we have in Albemarle County and the kind of related approval that they have coming, that we have coming to us. For Green, I think, is an issue of relatively first impression, and they're kind of grappling with what it means to have event spaces in rural areas. And Fluvanna is is heavily engaged in Valley Link and had came to us at the TGPDC to ask for us to join them in their letter in opposition. Fluvanna of all these districts were probably the most directly impacted by Valley Link, which is of course kind of the political issue of the day throughout a lot of the region. And they are exploring a straight up ban on data centers, not even, That is how they characterize it. It is already a special use permit in industrial zoning there, and they are exploring whether or not they want to, and I'm thinking legally can, absolutely ban data centers. And that's about it.

Thank you. And the only other item was Supervisor Malik and I welcomed the Region 5 portion of VACO. They had their regional meeting this past Friday over at Cobb Fifth. So it was good to see fellow supervisors. Then we had the presentations on the issues related to the merger and transmission lines and things like that afterwards, which Supervisor Pruitt was able to join as well as the audience member going through my rounds. So that all happened this past Friday. All right.

Was there anything discussed at the PDC as far as staff presentations on the RISE program for the broadband?

Not at this meeting.

Okay.

I don't believe. I'm trying to remember if we had that prior.

No, we talked about broadband, but we talked about broadband in the context of Vati falling off our books, and it's significantly affecting what our budget looks like, because the TJPD's budget has been, for the last several years, huge, because we're the pass-through for all Vati money. That is falling off the TJPD's books at the end.

Because they're the ones for the 19 counties for RISE, so.

Well, RISE is still being administered through Vadi, right? Like your RISE projects are rolled into the Vadi disbursements, right? Like I, on the broadband authority, when we're looking at different discrete projects, I'm looking around to make sure I'm not telling tales out of school, Trevor. But the RISE projects are discrete service areas and discrete partnerships that are funded by the overall Vadi funding disbursement. And I'm getting nods, so I know I'm not crazy. Thank you.

I thought it was a different, because Vati has been in our area, Brightspeed, and Firefly is the Rise group, and that's a different contracting procurement and everything. When people talk about how body's done and we're out the door.

I mean, we're not out the door.

There's still money.

I think we got something on that two meetings ago. We can go back and look at that. Because we got a body update two months ago. And I think that might have been part of it. But even that round is significantly lower through the budget pass-through than the first phase is what's really dropped off. So we didn't have anything specific at this meeting.

All right. Well, I've asked Christine if she wants to listen in to some meetings on Monday and Tuesday next week. So maybe she will have some information. Thank you.

All right.

Great.

All right. Well, then, with that, if there is no objection, then we... I was about to adjourn to the fiscal year 26 calendar. We will adjourn to October 6, 2026, 6 p.m. at City Space, 105th Street, Northeast, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22902, our joint meeting with the Charlottesville City Council. Is that right?