Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'm sorry, I'm reading the minutes. Today is Thursday, June 4th, 2026. It's 6 p.m. I'd like to call to order the Town of Bowling Green Town Council meeting. Will everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, I will now take the roll call. Councilwoman Davis? Here. Councilman Voigt? Here. Councilman Webb? Here. Vice Mayor Coyle? Here. Mr. Mr store, it's not here and we need a motion to bring.

I make a note motion, excuse me to have Dr Chanel entered into the forum. As an electronic number.

I have a motion, is there a second? I have a second.

Just as a matter of clarification, Madam Mayor, if Dr. Chennault could explain the reason for his, just whether it's personal, he doesn't have to go into specifics.

Dr. Chennault, are you not here for personal or business reasons? Business, I'm on assignment in Nebraska. Okay, thank you. You don't have to give us all that. We just need one or the other. Do I have a motion, do I have a second? I have a second from Mr. Hagerman. Is there any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. Dr. Chenault, you are in our meeting. We have six council persons present and one missing this evening.

Go ahead and do that now. I also am making a motion to add to.

Here's a mic because John won't hear you either. I always forget.

Making a motion to add two items to amend the agenda under unfinished business. One is $11. authorization for temporary lease agreement, relocation of town hall operations. The other is 11B, authorization to execute community partnership grant agreement for construction of a new play space at Bowling Green Town Park.

I have a motion on the floor, is there a second? I have a second. I have a second from Councilman Hageman. Is there any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes unanimously. First item on the agenda is the consent agenda, item number one. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes from the last meeting? Hearing none, We have to make a motion for them to accept the minutes.

Thank you, go ahead. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes as presented.

I'll second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes.

I'm raising our hand. We're not capturing John.

I'm sorry, John. Um, John. Did you raise your hand? Yes. Okay. Thank you. After this, all of our notes will be a roll call by the deputy clerk. So. It won't be an issue anymore. We are moving on to public comment. Anyone wishing to speak can come to the podium. You have three minutes to speak, please, after you give your name and address. Please direct your comments to me and know that our council rules do not allow for them to respond to you. I now open public comment. Is anyone out there desiring to come forward? Going once. I close public comment. Moving on to member comments. Ms. Davis? I have none. Mr. White?

A couple people quick though. Just want to touch on some event stuff. The Carolina County Agricultural Fair is starting pretty soon. That is on the 17th. What time is that? It's celebrating the 250th Agricultural Fair down at, you know, County Fair Area Meadow Event Park in the evening. I want to say it's six o'clock. Yes, yeah, June 17th through the 20th.

County fairs at Meadow Event Park, not at our county fairgrounds? No, you're right.

It's the fairgrounds. Yeah. Okay. 8332 County Fair Lane over Luther Glad. Okay. Yes. And then, let's see, two other things. First off, I did want to touch on Clean Sweep because that was like really big this time. And I just wanted to say that we had so many people when I was putting the signs out on Friday, I ran out of signs because I was putting signs out and other people that they just like changed their mind. It's like, yeah, we're going to do it after all. So they're like, you know, give me a sign anyway. And so we had extra people that were even on the map. So it was like 47 just houses in the town ended up doing it. A couple of people dropped out that came to the town hall, but it was still packed with 23 in the town hall here. So it was a really big day. So I'm going to maybe have to ask if we can get a couple more signs for next time. But it was fun, really good day. And lastly, I want to reference Randy there told me that the last meeting, a couple of people were having some issues with the sound being a little bit distorted. I did notice a little bit that we checked it before this one. We turned it down a little bit because again, we were overdriven. And we'll just need to know if this is a little better. I checked it since we started, it sounded okay. I checked it on my phone, but just let us know if there's trouble and we'll try and correct it later on.

Thanks. Very good. Ms. Davis, could you turn your mic off, please? Thank you. Mr. Webb? Yes. Vice Mayor Coyle? Nothing. Councilman Dr. Chennault, do you have any comments? No, no comments. Mr. Hageman? No comment. All right, moving on to our staff reports and presentation. We have Mr. Daniel Wan from Trupani, and he's going to come and speak to us about the EPA copper and lead regulations.

Sure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm going to share my screen to make sure you guys can see and kind of help stuff. Oh, it's right there. If you don't mind me sharing my screen, I have a little bit of control over it. And if something goes wrong, I will say it to you all. Let's see if that works. Does that work? Can you guys see everything okay? I'm going to zoom in a bit. I have 10 minutes, maybe 15. Let's go with 10 to try to explain the red and copper rule improvements. Normally, we can't talk about this. It usually takes about six hours. This rule is about 400 pages long. But I wanted to kind of give you guys a quick overview about what is most important and what you guys can do before the start of this rule in November of 2027. So who are we first? I am the managing consultant for this project. I'm a member of Trupani. We are an engineering and consulting firm specialized in the reduction of lead in drinking water. Currently our headquarters are in Knoxville, Tennessee, but we are moving in this month to North Carolina in the Valley area. I will actually maintain my location here in DC, so I'm only a couple hours away from you guys. But for the most part, our entire team is fairly remote, so we do have people located everywhere. The Department of Health put in a contract, hired us to help out water systems with lead and copper rule compliance. Our main goal is to provide technical assistance, meaning explaining the rule, kind of giving guidance about what needs to be done and then when we have the time to try to push this forward to make sure you guys achieve compliance as soon as possible because there's quite a bit of benefit to doing that. And so the focus here is on water systems that serve 10,000 people or fewer. And then there's basically anyone who serves 10,000 or fewer. So the big focus of the lead and copper rule improvements of the LCRI is the development of a service line material inventory. Now, some of you may be familiar with lead and copper. You may have heard of the lead and copper rule. divisions, which came out about three years ago. That inventory was part of the original Metacarpal Rule Revisions, or LCLR, that was published about three years ago. That still required the inventory. And so what we're trying to do here, we're trying to help you guys out with, is the development of this service line inventory. So for those who aren't familiar with, I guess, the water infrastructure, the service line really is the piece of piping, usually three quarters of an inch or one inch in diameter, that connects the water mains and the streets to the front of the building. Now, in Bowling Green, there is a division of ownership for this service line. That actually occurs at the meter, and so everything from the water main to the meter belongs to y'all, everything from the meter to the front of the building belongs to the customer. You need to know both sides. There's a split of ownership, but the rule requires that you understand both what is owned by the water system or the town, and then also what was installed and owned by the customer. Having no knowledge on either means you do not know what the service line is. You have to know both sides. And so what the rule asks you to do is to make an inventory of A, all the service lines in your system, and B, what are the materials? Materials could be something like non-lead, like copper or plastic. That's fairly common. It could be lead. You know, we do see lead in places like... We'll have lead service lines. Other times, the material may be something called galvanized requiring replacement. I'll talk about that real quick. And then finally, unknown. So if any portion is lead, whether it's the system-owned side or the customer-owned side, the entire service line is given the designation of lead. Otherwise, if you don't know what's on the customer side, which tends to be the case because you guys did not install it, then having an unknown on the customer side will give the overall service line the designation of unknown. Okay. A lot going on. Try to stick with me. Hopefully, we'll have some time for questions afterwards. So, one thing I do want to point out, which is relevant to y'all, is galvanize requiring replacement. In the case of galvanized iron replacement, you can see this diagram on the right. It's from WSSC. They're a log utility just north of y'all. Funny enough, I used to work for them. They're doing Montgomery County and Prince George County in Maryland. The idea here is that you may have a galvanized service line on the customer side. So the customer installed from the meter to their home a galvanized steel, galvanized iron service line. If that service line was previously downstream of lead, as the water flows from the system-owned lead service line into the downstream customer-owned galvanized line, lead is deposited on the inside of that galvanized line, and therefore that galvanized line behaves, in terms of lead risk, the same as a lead service line. The tricky thing about this is the EPA has said If you cannot demonstrate that a galvanized service line on the customer side is never downstream of a lead service line, you're going to assume it's GOR. Therefore, it's going to be replaced. It will require replacement in the future. So I want to hit that. in your mind because currently your inventory, which we helped you develop back in 2024, has galvanized lines on the customer side that are designated as GRR, which compels the water system to do a lot of things, including aerial notifications, including mandatory service line replacements, and includes potentially giving customers water pitcher filters upon request. So, The big thing about this rule. The first thing is right now we're in this kind of interweaving period where we basically have time to get into compliance the best that we can before compliance begins November 1st of 2027. I know that's a little more than a year away, but it is coming very, very fast. By November 1st, 2027, there are a couple of things you need to submit. First is an updated inventory. So an updated list of all the service lines in your system and what you know about the materials. The second thing is this LCRR also compels water systems to begin sampling at schools and licensed childcare facilities. So the state is requesting that you submit a list of the school and licensed childcare facilities and starting November 1st of 2027, they're gonna have to start sampling some of these locations. It's basically at a rate of 20% per year. Now, I already talked about this GRR situation. There's also the case where you may not know all the service line materials in your system, or you may discover that some are lead. In the event that a service line is considered lead, GRR, or remains unknown, you have to submit a service line replacement plan. There's a lot of things from how are you going to replace a service line? Where are the locations for these service lines that need to be replaced? How are you going to come up with funding? You are required to replace these service lines. You aren't necessarily required to pay for them, but there must be funding options described in the service line plan. And then starting November 1st, 2027, if you have a lead service line or a service line that's designated as GLR, you have to start replacing them. This replacement must be completed by November 1st of 2037. So, you know, a little over 10 years from now. The key thing here is that it has to be a full-service line of placement, so the LED or GLL components remain, but there is a wrinkle in this definition where you have to replace the one that are technically under your control. Control is independent of ownership. That's something I really, really want to emphasize. The customer may own their portion of the service line, but you guys have control over it. You can go in, you can shut off water, you can change the meter, you have control of the water that flows through that pipe. The EPA needs the water system to understand that. And so even though you may not own something, you likely have control over it. I'm going to skip ahead to kind of give you guys an idea of where you guys are in your inventory. But before that, one thing I do want to talk about. This is a public health rule. And so one of the things they want you to do is to notify your customers on an annual basis. And so the last round of notifications was to occur by December of last year. And it's my understanding that your account manager, Ms. Adams Jacobs, did a really good job of utilizing some automations through databases to try to get these notifications through. That is the best way to do it. However, the really best way to do it is to not have to do any notifications at all. And so if a customer is served by a lead service line, which currently I don't believe there's any lead service lines in the system, or if they're served by a GRR or unknown service line, they are required to receive an annual notification by the end of every single calendar year. What's coming up for you all, starting in July, is the certification that these notifications were distributed. Meaning, you need to tell the state that you did what was required. Someone needs to sign it. Someone needs to make sure that gets into the state's hands to basically say, yes, we did the notifications as required by this rule. One thing I want to mention is starting November 2027, when this whole really kicks into place, all customers who are served by a lead G or unknown service line must be offered lead testing. You do not have to pay for the lead testing, but they need to be offered it. And the tricky part isn't the payment for the lab analysis for this lead, for this lead sample. It is the administration process. It is setting up a lab who is willing to take these samples. It is receiving payment. It is communicating the results. It is dealing with all of that. It may cost $30, $40 to get a lab sample analyzed, but the amount of money it costs for you all to the administrative burden is going to be much, much higher. So what we're trying to do is help water systems out the best they can to get a fairly known inventory, eliminate these unknowns, make sure hopefully there's no lead, or if you do have lead, maybe you guys can begin proactive replacement of lead, and then also see if we can reclassify some GLR service lines that are in your system. So this is the overall timeline. I'm not really going to go through this too much. I've covered some of this because a lot of it is, there's just a lot of dates to be aware of. The big thing for y'all though, November 1st, 2027, you want to have as much done in terms of your inventory before this date comes into place. Here is where your inventory currently is. I have a little pie chart over here, but basically you guys have a compliant inventory that we helped you submit back in October of 2024, but it does have these GRR lines and it does have quite a few unknowns. What we really, really want to do is to help you guys develop a fully known inventory, help you potentially reclassify the GRR service lines. The reclassification of these GRR service lines would be based on the VDH guidance. We actually help you develop that because we do want water systems to be able to not have to worry about these particular circumstances, okay? So right now we have 530 unknown service lines. What we did on y'all's behalf is back in February, we developed a statistical proposal that will allow you guys to identify these service lines a lot faster. So instead of having to go out to each of the 530 service lines, working inside the meter box of digging a hole, the statistical proposal takes a random 20%, so 160, sorry, 115 locations, 106 locations, sorry. Map is not my strong suit right now. A little over 100 locations, we randomly selected. What you guys need to do is to go in, I'm sorry, I have the numbers right here, 107 locations. I can randomly generate 107 locations. You guys need to go and see what's on the cover. uses everything we've learned about what the system installed, but what remains unknown is the customer side. So we created this 107 randomly generated location, provided some extras in the event that you guys can't get access to the customer side. The hope is that before November 1st of 2027, you guys are able to go into the meter box, maybe do a hand dig with a shovel, maybe talk to your customers and try to identify the material for at least 107 of these randomly selected locations. I highly advise you guys start doing that right now. In our experience, to investigate 107 customer service lines maybe takes two days of work if the ground is soft, maybe three days. It really depends on how well you guys know your system and how quickly you're able to kind of get out there and find the service line, dig it up. Digging usually takes, you know, five, 10 minutes at most. Or if you can do a meter box inspection where you pop open the meter box, you can see the service line that's connected to the customer side of the meter and going towards their home or to the building, that is sufficient as well. How you go and investigate and visually identify these service lines is entirely up to you and based off your understanding of the system. What is the advantage of doing this? First, we have reduced annual notifications. So every unknown that is then determined to be non-led is one less person you have to mail. That's a huge benefit because I know even though you guys have a good system to notify your customers, doing maybe a handful rather than 500 plus is way better. We already talked about the fact that if you have unknowns, you will have to send in a service line replacement plan detailing how you're going to replace service lines, detailing how you're going to identify your remaining unknowns. But more importantly, It will give you guys an opportunity to see if you can reclassify your galvanized requirement replacement service lines. I mentioned in the beginning that a GLR service line is considered GLR if you cannot demonstrate that it was never downstream of a lead service line. So basically, if you cannot demonstrate that the system side was never made of lead, then every single galvanized service line on the customer side would be designated GRR. So there is an opportunity here to try to reclassify that, but you really need to identify all your unknowns first, because then you'll figure out any sort of remaining galvanized service lines on the customer side. to potentially try to reclassify, okay? And then also, if you're able to get a fully known, fully online inventory, you do not have to return back to standard monitoring. So this rule, like the previous rule, requires that you sample inside customer homes. Right now, you guys are doing 10 samples every three years. Standard monitoring will be 20 samples every six months, and it's a far more complicated sampling procedure. If you're able to get a fully non-lead inventory, then you can remain on your current 10 samples every three years. And then finally, as I mentioned before, if you get a fully non-lead inventory by identifying all your unknowns and reclassifying your GRR, you eliminate any sort of additional additional requirements like providing water pitcher filters if you disturb the service lines offering sampling to customers every single year when you notify them that will actually yeah that would be a huge benefit to y'all as well okay this was very very quick and I apologize it's a very very big rule but I do want to take some questions for those who do have questions are there any questions for Mr. Wong from this council

Go ahead, Ms. Jacobs. First, I'd like to thank Mr. Brown and Truth Money for their efforts. I don't know if you all have questions, but I do just want to say for the sake of the public and for transparency, they have been sent to us by the state to assist us as a small locality with this. The cost on average for this would be between $20,000 to $30,000 annually for someone to do this work. I would also share that myself, Mr. Fortune and Mr. Emboding from Emboding Environmental Services have worked with Mr. Wong over the last two years and they've been great. We have sent out those notices as required. I know there's been some chatter on social media about lead being in the water. That is not factual. So we definitely wanted to make sure Mr. Wong was here to explain that today. Residents did receive the first initial information to provide to the town the status of their lines in 2024. For those who did not respond is that's reason to continue to get those letters about the unknown status of your line. So if you would like to help the team with their compliance and not have to expand your resources or your future compliance efforts, if you could send those letters back, we're going to send those in the next round of utility bills to see if we can get some compliance there. As it relates to the 107 lines that need to be investigated, we work with Public Works. Mr. Fortune and the team have already completed about 80 prior to the emergency emergencies we had. They were slated to have that done by the end of this month and that will be sent to the state in working with Mr. Wong. So I definitely just like to thank the team as we are well ahead of the compliance process on this item. and we all know that water importance and our drinking water and our compliance is of most importance to our administration and council so thank you all for your support yes thank you mr juan um what is the do you have the email or the website that people can go to online um

There's a couple, so in, I believe I provided a copy of these slides, and I do have appropriate links. If you want state-specific information, you will see the VDA's letter of popular guidance has a bunch of information about how to, what it actually means, and you know, we have a bunch of actual information for y'all as well about how to approach getting a fully known, fully non-lettered inventory.

Very good, thank you. Are there any other questions at this time? Mr. Wong, thank you so much for explaining all of this to us and taking your time to be here with us this evening.

Of course, thank you. And I'll just wrap it up again. You know, Ms. Jacobs, it's been great. The fact that you guys are taking this seriously and moving forward with this is going to be a huge cost savings. You know, our services are free. We ask that if you need any additional help or any additional assistance, guidance, please just reach out to us. We're more than happy to have a conversation with any member of Bowling Green. But we appreciate you guys taking this seriously. I think the citizens should understand that, you know, you're doing your best to make sure that the water is mud-free and made mud-free. And I look forward to continuing this relationship. Very good. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank you so much, y'all. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Next, we're gonna move on to item number three. And Ms. Sherika Twiner and Sedona Lewis, excuse me. Sedona Lewis. I wrote Donna underneath to make sure I pronounced her name right and then I said it wrong. They are here to speak to us about the Mindful Miles Race.

Welcome. Hello. Hello. First, we want to say, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Town Council members, we want to extend our thanks and gratitude for you all approving the race and working with us to make it a huge success. The mayor was there and was our starter, so she got to see and experience firsthand the crowds and the smiles and the positive feedback that we received from all of the participants. We came in at just over 220 participants between the Maya and the with the 5K being the most heavily populated. And then we probably averaged about, I would say about 70 volunteers. So in that range from the schools, Y staff, community members, sororities, fraternities, it was just church members and family members. So it was just a huge gathering of community efforts. So we want to say thank you and open the conversation a little bit about the potential of next year. There has been some conversation about bringing back the 10 K. I know when we presented at the beginning of these efforts, that was our long term goal. It looks like that's going to be moved up a little bit quicker than we thought, because we do have a lot of interest. So we are waiting to. from submit the permit to you all until we talk with the timing company and also do an evaluation with VDOT as well as the volunteer needs that we will have because I imagine that our volunteer need will increase by about 50 people. So making sure that we have the resources to first and foremost, make sure that the race runs safely and that everyone is guarded on the course. So once we have that information and a formal certified course, then we'll come back to you, present that concept and get moving with next year. We're hoping to be able to have that on May 1st of next year, which is a Saturday. Keeping it in line with the first week at NMA, it seemed to work for a lot of people. So if any of you have any feedback, we welcome that you email us any questions, comments, or any things that you think that we can do differently. We've had a kind of a recap meeting with the race company and ourselves to kind of look at a few things that we would change differently. But overall, I think it was an overwhelming success. and I will turn it over to Ms. Lewis and she can talk about some of the efforts that she was involved in as well and the mental health aspect and kind of what we're looking at continuing to do next year.

Yes.

So with that, so I actually have a mental health practice where I provide mental health services to individuals in the community, that's telehealth, but then also looking to provide different groups for the schools, for back to school What was it? It was the transition from elementary to middle school. Yeah. So looking to get that for the next school year and get everything up and going. Very good. Does anyone have any questions for us? How much money did you end up raising? We ended up doing that right over $3,000 when it was all said and done. The first year is the most cost effective because of the timing agreement and they did everything with the company. So we're on a staggered basis. Next year that may change a little bit depending on the new cost of the 10K should we add that. We were thankful that so many of the local town businesses were sponsored as well. I did forget to thank our sponsors. So we had a great showing from several businesses on Main Street, both financially supporting as well as participating in the race. So I'm hoping to potentially talk to obviously more businesses and maybe the Board of Supervisors and see if they might wanna come alongside us on this venture, because it does overall benefit Caroline County. D10K, are you looking at trying to use the same race route that you used in the past? Yes, the past that we've done. That course, the certification has expired. So we would have to look at making sure and with the changes that VDOT may or may not have made, making sure that we can get that approval. And it's important because I think a lot of people will use this race as a qualifier for half marathons and marathons. So we want to make sure that everything is certified before we offer it to the community.

Very good. It says that you're requesting that we have the event next year.

We are. I do understand that I do have to complete the special events permit prior, but I just wanted to kind of put that date out there to see if you guys had any conflicts just to kind of get that on everybody's mind. Very good. Thank you.

Are there any questions from this council?

Go ahead. Not so much a question. I just want to say it was awesome. The goody bag thing that you're doing with the sponsors was great. Loved it. I ran it. I only did the one. Really enjoyed it. Time manager did it too. We're both out there. Are we doing the 5K next time? No. We might do the 10K. We might do the 10K. Thank you.

And I will say the hills, everybody was surprised by the hills in Bowling Green. I think so many people are just comfortable with that kind of main street and think it's flat. So it was nice to kind of surprise some people and show them the outskirts of town as well.

I was surprised with the 10k. Because the hill coming up from the cemetery to my house will darn near kill you. And we hand out water to people. And we clap and, you know, them up the hill because it's tough so thank you so much for being here and it was a wonderful event thank you for for bringing that to our town and and it was lively the whole town was just just engaged that day it was awesome so thank you we look forward to next year yes ma'am thank you guys so much have a great evening all right mount joy you are here with stan tech and you are going to update us on the water quality and well replacement project how are you this evening i'm great how are you i'm great good welcome thank you thanks for having me back um like i said like we said we're here to give an update on the corrective action plan um actions taken to date uh regarding the gross alpha um mcl exceedance and where we're going from here

which is what I just said. So just a reminder of what the collective action plan is. This is mandated compliance activities that the town and the Virginia Department of Health agreed to to start addressing the gross alpha exceedances. So it's a little small up here to see, but is this a yeah so item one is an ongoing task which the town manager town staff are handling regarding notifications to customers item number two of the correction that corrective action plan is special more frequent radiological sampling which again the town has completed The most recent item is number three, which was the hiring a professional engineer to develop a preliminary engineering report to evaluate technologies. This was due to VDH in May of this year, and we completed that. I'll get into a little more details of what that report entailed and the findings of that coming up. But that was submitted and accepted by VDH without comment in May. We are good to go on the preliminary engineering report task. And that moves us on to the next compliance item, number four, which is obtaining a construction permit for the required treatment technology by July of next year, 2027. So we are starting to kick off that work now. But I'll get into some more details of what that looks like. And then the ultimate compliance date is December 25th, 2029, where everything has to be constructed to treat to gross alpha down to acceptable levels.

Yes. What are the consequences if that goal fails to come to fruition? Well, that goal will not fail to come to fruition. I know, but I want to know what could happen.

I am not a compliance expert, I will tell you that right now. But there are a variety of things that could come out of it from the Virginia Department of Health. They are the entity that's responsible for enforcement, there are fines, there are implications regarding funding sources. It's not something that we want to get into. If we get into this project further along, things come up that justifiably extends the compliance ability to comply with these targets by this date, we are able to go back to the Department of Health and explain to them if something were to happen, whether it's a procurement issue or a contractor issue, something happens, we are able to renegotiate the terms of the corrective action. And get an extension? It is possible, yes. Okay. That is something that we did, the town manager, we negotiated this earlier on, the corrective action plan, to give us a little more reasonable compliance deadlines in the beginning of this process. So there's precedent for it here, even. Would they shut our water off altogether?

possibility um i won't say it's not a possibility but it's a very remote possibility very good i've been asked these questions by citizens that's what i'm asking okay um but yeah all efforts possible to proceed towards that deadline

So the preliminary engineering report, the items evaluated in that were the selection of replacement well sites, the treatment technology that should be employed to deal with this issue, treatment building locations, and costs for the different technologies and location options. So the PER, I'll call it PER from now on, is really the first detailed look at the problem and potential solutions to hone in on what the most effective and most cost effective solution is here. So real big picture, this has been submitted and it was available to you all in public for more details. It's a very large report, but the big picture conclusions are We are looking at a well replacement site, which has already been decided on the well number four lot. I didn't note that here, but that's already a decided location to replace well number four. The second replacement well target is on Lacey Lane. It's sort of hard to see on this map up here, but it is an existing town-owned lot that already has some infrastructure on it. So it was seen as a fairly... enticing option for that reason it is also in line with well number four well number 1a down here and the town's water tower so it minimizes the length of additional piping that's needed to get it to the new treatment location Second main conclusion here is that an ion exchange treatment technology is what we're recommending here. There are a couple of different options for dealing with the gross alpha radioactivity, the polonium 210 in particular, which is the source of it here. ion exchange is likely to be significantly more cost effective than the other options reverse osmosis is another one of those options but it requires a lot more water to be you know it's lost in the treatment process which is not ideal for the town knowing that we are also dealing with fairly tight groundwater withdrawal permit limits so we want to reduce the amount of water lost in the treatment process it's also a lot more expensive so it's an effective technology it's a cost effective technology Third main conclusion is that a central treatment location is ideal. The two alternatives we looked at here was one larger centralized treatment building versus a smaller treatment facility at each wellhead, which is currently how the town operates its water system. There are small treatments, right now it's just chlorination, but right now that is done at each individual well. Employing this technology at that small scale is not cost effective. We looked at the pros and cons of each and it will be both capital and operations and maintenance wise significantly less expensive to have a central location. It also simplifies things down the road. You never know what might happen with the town's water system. If you need more water, you need to connect more people. It makes it all a little bit simpler if you have one central location where all of your water goes and is distributed from that point. So, a few benefits there. The location that is being looked at for that is the lot that is What direction am I looking? That's right. Right over there. Yes, right across from the water tower. Again, it's an existing town-owned lot. It's empty space right now. It's close to the main infrastructure for the water system currently, so that was selected as the ideal location. It seems to have enough space for this. And then finally, we did a more in-depth construction cost estimate as we got further into the design process. And that is right in line with the preliminary estimate that we provided that went into the grant funding applications. So we are still working on target for being able to fit this under the grants amounts. Good. Any questions so far? I'll ask a quick one. How much water is lost in the ion exchange? It's about 10% these days. It depends. Before you got in, that's one of the next steps in this process is small-scale pilot testing to help understand how effective the technology is, the treatment requirements are a little more than desktop depth. So it varies, but about 10% is what you'd expect to lose. Okay. from the reverse. It's somewhat crazy with the reverse. It's like, what, 50% or something with reverse osmosis? It depends. It depends on what you're treating and how much is being taken out. But it varies. But it can be quite a lot. And it is very expensive to operate long term. Thank you, Councilman Webb. i'm assuming that each one of the wells that we're going to tie into this they're going to need to have a separate line not a distribution line so any future wells that we may have will need to be tied into this system as well if they also have the gross alpha exceedance yes they'll have to be tied in so new raw water lines are part of this project from the existing wells to the treatment plant So what Dan was referring to was the existing wells, they are treated at the wellhead and they discharge directly into the distribution system. So there is not a long length of untreated water line from the wells to another location, which is different than what's being proposed here. So that's part of the reason and the importance of trying to minimize to the extent possible the distance from wells to at least a central water main route to minimize the amount of the new piping that will need to be installed. So that was one of the big benefits of that Lacey Lane lot is it's right in line with a straight shot between existing well four, well 1A and the water tower area.

Have we looked into any future well sites, if we need to expand and pull more water out than what they're able to supply?

Yeah, there are a few different options that we've talked about for potential well sites. As you'll recall, your groundwater withdrawal is very restrictive right now, and the ability to pour more volume of water in any given year is just about maxed out. So, that said, things can change in the hydrogeologic environments. There's reductions in users. There's some, you know, you might know about HRSD's, they call it SWIFT program. They're injecting water into the Potomac aquifer. It's going to hopefully in the long term help sustain some of those bubbles. So, yes, there are options. Generally speaking, you will want to look to the east, the further east you can go for new wells, the better. Something else which will have to be worked out in the construction testing process is the spacing of these wells between each other. We can make some estimates ahead of time, but we really don't know how much water any of these wells are going to be capable of producing until they're in the ground and tested. So the optimistic The hope here is that these new two wells that are constructed will be high yielding, more efficient than the older wells that were installed and be able to meet the full demand of the water system. There is the possibility down the road or even as part of this process that those two wells do not produce enough water, we may have to look for another location. There are other locations that we've identified as possibilities and those are all generally speaking to the east of town. sure dr chanel do you have any questions yes i do uh curiosity question uh in the ion exchange technique can you hear me yes yes okay and the ion exchange technique uh the radioactive element of the polonium that's pulled off how is that collected and how is it disposed and are there any special regulations in regard to that Yes, great question. So the ion exchange technology works by having an opposite electrical charge to what the polonium-210 is. Typically speaking, your polonium-210 is a positive charge, so you have a specially designed ion exchange media that attracts those positive particles to a negative particle. It accumulates there over time and depending on how the concentration of the polonium in your water and the technology employed, the other water quality parameters, there becomes a time where your existing media, the ion exchange media becomes less effective and it has to be replaced. There are several options for that. We investigated those as part of the PER. One option, is that that spent, we call it spent media, is hauled off by a third-party vendor and they handle it entirely. It is disposed of, they bring it back, they bring new media back, replace it in your system and you don't have to deal with it. That is very expensive. because when that is removed from your treatment vessels, it's called, the acronym is TNORM, is what it is. If I get acronym right, Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. It is a regulated material at that point. It will have higher radioactive activity than your water. It's all concentrated together. Exactly. So the easier way to deal with that and what we recommended in the PER is that we develop a permitted strategy for handling that waste on site before it is disposed of. your polonium 210 has a relatively short half-life which means it decays relatively rapidly so when you take that out of your treatment vessels it can be stored on a secure location you know on town or lots in a building fenced off it can be stored there if I wanna say it was three years is what was estimated in the PER. And at that point, it could be disposed of as normal industrial waste. It was not considered a radioactive hazardous waste at that point. So it really drops the cost for managing that. And it's a relatively, and it's something that we'll have to put together into a formal operating plan to make sure the training is there to handle this safely and avoid being in areas you shouldn't be in.

but overall it's a relatively simple process that saves a lot of a lot of money from having to haul it off site as a radioactive material that was my next question was um what kind of precautions would our staff have to take because obviously if they're handling this and dealing with this we want them to be a safe we want them to be you know have safe conditions Do you have input on that, Mark, before I speak to it?

Not really. I mean, it's .

We only operate in one system that has . Can you come up to the mic? Sure. While he's coming up, I will say, I think they did identify earlier that there would be a higher level of operator classification required, and Mark can speak to that. Okay.

It would be a minimum class four. I'm sorry, class three, depending on what is installed. But we only operate one of the system that has, that will remove radionuclides through ion exchange. And it is the desired form. And our office, personally, I oversaw the PER and its development. I think the stand back did great work. And what their recommendation is, it's my recommendation as well. That was my recommendation from the beginning. I'm not sure of the life expectancy of the ion exchange resin media, but from our experience, it's going to be probably greater than 20 years. So any change-outs that have to happen, it's going to be very infrequent. And when it comes to that time, regulations will be changed by the time we have to deal with that. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. So to be determined.

Very good.

Yeah, the amount of time that the media will last is up in the air until we get further along can actually do some testing.

Okay, if I may, I know a comment was made earlier about our permit being at kind of the threshold in terms of withdrawal. I do want to say that as part of that withdrawal permit re-application process, we do have to project future growth as part of that was already mentioned in the compliment, which included potential development. So those numbers were included in those. They were built in already. Yes. I know there will be some questions on future development and what capacities there are and for future recruitment of businesses. So I just want anybody that's looking to relocate could probably know that we still do have some capacity.

Yeah, we have water. Any other questions from this council?

I do have a couple more. Got four lines if we're good here. So I think I sort of talked through this, just a diagram of how the town's existing system generally works. So you have individual wells that are treated separately and feed into the distribution system before going to customers versus what we're talking about now where your wells feed into a single centralized treatment location and at that point gets pressurized and fed into the system. So that's the distinction. The other thing that is underway are the well construction specifications. We submitted those to the town earlier this year, which will be included as part of the procurement package for selecting the contractor to do the well construction work. And that will come hopefully soon following the completion of some of that environmental work that has to be done up front. so next steps funding the town has been awarded 6.2 million dollars of state funds and two million dollars or so of federal funds through the state revolving fund program so excellent news that the VDH gave us the town permission to go ahead and utilize those funds they are still working to my understanding on the formal subrecipient agreement for those funds, although they have authorized the use of that money now. That is largely hinging still on federal government. I don't know, India, if you've heard any further updates on their expectations for that?

So the state process will hopefully be wrapped up by the end of this month with the adoption of a state budget. That's for the HB 1600. That was awarded in 2025 and hopefully will be reappropriated with extensions through 2028. The funding is from the federal government, and that is coming through as a principle of forgiveness, and that is awaiting the federal fund. So I'll brief council on my work working with our representatives on that, and we thank you for the support.

Thank you. So funding, we are largely in waiting modes, aside from the actions that Tom was taking. Environmental assessments, this is a requirement as a result of using federal funds for this project. It comes into play before any work can be done construction-wise, there has to be a environmental and cultural review to make sure that the federal funds are not being used for reasons that adversely impact environmental or cultural resources. So that is a process. And the schedule on that is a little bit up in the air right now. We are in the middle of discussions with the Department of Health on their expectations of that. Long story a little bit shorter is this project's a little bit unique in that it's combining the well construction piece with the construct your typical construction component of the piping and the buildings. The Department of Health does not often handle projects like that. So that's why this is a little bit up in the air right now. There is a possibility that they will acquire a environmental assessment before the wells can be drilled. And then also before any of the piping works, a treatment building can be constructed. So the sort of the wrinkle here is that we would really need to see some of the information from those new wells, how much water they yield, what their actual water quality is at those new locations before we finalize the engineering design process of the treatment system. So we're working with the Department of Health to try to expedite that process so we're not waiting around for environmental reviews to get the wells in the ground, which will hold up some of the engineering work. So that's where that is. But that is largely the next big item to take care of. So following that, as soon as we have approval for the environmental assessments, we're gonna get into the well drilling and construction tasks on the two locations we just talked about. That will be a competitive procurement requirements for the town to procure a well drilling contractor to do that work. And then finally, we will get into the final phases of the engineering design to obtain the construction permit by next July as required.

What size well is that? Sorry? What size is the well?

I believe 8 inches is what we specified. So a little more detailed schedule for those who can see it. I'm not gonna go line by line, but I will hit on the main points where I talked about the environmental assessments. We're gonna get started on that as soon as we have an understanding from VDH what they're going to be needing. Hopefully next week we will have a meeting to go over some of that. We'll start right away on the draft environmental assessments. We're gonna jump right into, we usually proceed in a phase design process, so we'll start with a 30% design, working through the higher level components of the project with the town, and then moving on to 90% final design, finalize our environmental review with VDH, at which point we will be able to advertise the construction project for bids. So right now we're looking at probably the beginning of 2028 for advertising that project for construction. And construction will occur through 2028 into 2029. We feel this gives us sufficient time. There's some room built in here to get this all constructed before the final date, December 25th, 2029.

Well, the walls, you said you're only going to hook up the walls that have the gross alpha to the system. From my recollection through the years, we've had wells that were perfectly fine and then the following year they have gross alpha and a couple of years later they're fine again. So.

wouldn't it make more sense i'm just asking just to go ahead and hook all the wells up and that's the patient that's the head and flow of the soil on the ones you know down the road if a new well is needed i think that's definitely a good idea given the history of the town um you would not be required to but it would be it would certainly be a good idea knowing that it does save us money because we're not having to jump in and do it all of a sudden because as well it's it's definitely more cost effective to do it at the immediate beginning phase rather than trying to retrofit it back into the system Thank you. And to that note, the treatment building will be oversized by some degree. Part of the requirements of the use of these federal and state funds is not to use them for the explicit purpose of growth. It is a water quality issue that is being funded. That said, no one expects you to design a system that just barely meets your current capacity. So there is room to oversize that system, make the building a little bit larger to accommodate new wells, additional treatment down the road as it's needed.

Any questions?

Mr. Hageman?

I don't know what the use of the building is going to be. It's across the street from over there in the subdivision down.

It is adjacent to this building.

I believe it was across the street from the water tower, but is it in that subdivision or is it.

No, it's not not the subdivision. It's a town owned lot right next door.

Go ahead, Mr. Wood. Kind of the same thing. Like, yeah, you say a little oversize. How big a building do you, what do you think it is then?

I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but it's a building of, I believe, 40 by, yeah, it's not a very large building, tens of feet.

Any other questions? Dr. Chennault, do you have any questions? No, no.

Okay. Go ahead. The public say, can you explain what goes out for is in a prior slide? We've talked about the history of this in 2006 and then how this problem came back in 2023 and then we hit the notice requirements in early 24. and then maybe highlight some of those specific dates because I know I get a lot of questions or there's at least a lot of social media chatter around the speed of which we are addressing this problem and why it's taking so long. So if you can highlight some of those specific dates for the public would be helpful.

Sure. So you spoke to some of the specific dates better than I could from recollection alone. But yes, this was an apparently temporary issue that occurred decades ago. It had shown up for a few sample events, the higher levels of gross alpha, and it immediately declined to levels below the EPA's maximum contaminant level. And that's where it stayed until recent years, last 2019, I believe it showed up the first time again. But 2023 is when it started to become elevated, stayed elevated. So that was unexpected, given the history of stabilization of those concentrations over the years. Can I interject here?

Yes. 2023 is about the time this drought started. Is that- The drought that we are experiencing right now, is that affecting the concentration of the gross alpha in the water?

We did do some investigation to try to figure out what the cause of this might be. I don't think so. The Potomac aquifer which you pull your water from is It's deep and it's confined, meaning it's not directly connected to land surface except all the way over at the football zone where it hits land surface, which you're close to it, but you're not there yet. The water in the Potomac is not directly impacted by droughts from year to year. It's a very long-term problem. trend is what I'm trying to say there. So I don't think the drought is an impact there. There is a history in Maryland and other states that are allowing to have similar geology risk to having the polonium 210 arising. So it's not an incredibly unique phenomena. It's not very common, but it is documented and to date we don't have a great explanation of where it's coming from other than naturally occurring. Okay, thank you. So yes, it showed up again recently. And the town manager reached out to us very quickly and got us involved. A lot of this is, it's an expensive work. So this is immediately jumped into funding mode. We utilize some early funds a couple of years ago for the packer testing on well number four to try to find to get some preliminary answers there through a more rapidly available funding source through the Department of Health.

And just to jump in, that was a $45,000 note match grant for the town. So no town resources from taxpayers were paid for that as well.

Yes. So that was, that gave us some helpful information right up front. And then, you know, we have been very proactive, Tom has been very proactive with discussing this with the Virginia Department of Health as soon as the, you know, we routinely followed up with the Department of Health through the funding application review cycles. That is also a lengthy process to go through, but we push that as rapidly as we can. And like I mentioned earlier, the town is still awaiting a subrecipient agreement through BDH, but through some correspondence with them we had earlier on at the beginning of this year, we did get authorization to go ahead and continue to use these funds while the federal budget is finalized, while the Department of Health still works on the subrecipient grant. So I would just say that we're moving as fast as possible as the conditions allow us

Very good. Ms. Jacobs.

Thanks, Monique. I would also add, Mr. Emboda and his team has been great. They have a compliance division. We all collaboratively to ensure that a testing is done. I think just looking a little bit earlier, we've probably done over 24 samples and just spitballing over the last couple of years. And we have been compliant on nearly every test. Line line and deadline that's set forth in the consent orders. There was 1 hiccup with between the state and the change of systems where 1 area was required for a sample. We sent that notice out as required. And this is here that can speak to that. But other than that, we have been compliant with every other sample. related to this item over the last couple of years since this item has come up. So I'd like to thank Mr. Mountjoy and Mr. Embodin for their work in assisting the town as well as council on being patient. And then of course Senator Stewart and Delegate Puket for helping us with receiving this funding on behalf of town because otherwise we would have to be passing over on these $8.2 million loan rate to our residents and so we've been working diligently um to find other funding sources to do that and i'm very happy that i've been successful in working with them to get that on behalf of the town so thanks everyone yes thank you for the work that you have done i think that is the end of my um presentation here if there's any other questions from council

Go ahead, Mr. White. More administrative one. This presentation here, I think some folks are going to be asking more questions along these lines. Is that going to get added to the packet later, like people look up the agenda for this meeting, hit packet for that?

Yes, it'll be in a minute, but we're also going to get both this one and the copper and red up on the website. Okay, cool. Thank you. Any other questions? We will post the video on social media, so as soon as it's on YouTube, because people tend not to read, so if we get the video, we can get it out there.

Any other questions? Mr. Meljoy, thank you so much for being here. Thank you all. It's a pleasure.

I appreciate all the activity and interest in working towards a solution.

Thank you. Have a lovely evening. The next item on our agenda is item number five, the Bowling Green Police Department report. I'm sure all of you have read it at this point. Our chief is not here tonight. Are there any questions for the town manager? Ms. Adams-Jacobs, what is the date for the National Night Out? August 4th. August 4th, thank you. Two months from tonight. Very good. And I hope that our citizens will show up. It's always a good time at National Night Out. The police department, the fire department, the sheriff's department, they all work really hard to cook hot dogs and have all kinds of snacks for people. And there's tons of children and I like to go every year and it really is a good time. So I encourage all our citizens to try to come. All right, next item, the utilities report. And I guess we need Mr. Markin Bowden to come up and speak to us at this time. All right, red light is on. Welcome.

Yeah, you get me today instead of Jamie. So you get the B team. I don't know about that. Well, before we get into our utility report, I'll go ahead and touch base on what India said about the compliance issues that we recently had. And this has everything to do with the gross alpha and has everything to do with the increased monitoring as required. Our office provided the town with a memo giving a greater detail and background into this issue. But we are currently in 100% compliance with BDH's regulations. So on the 29th of October of 2024, we did gross alpha sampling and the results of which exceeded the primary maximum contaminant level. And that triggered a requirement for increased quarterly radio nuclear monitoring at the entry point 401. On December 16th, BDH notified the town and the town only, and they did not notify anyone at IES, which they know better. I'll just say that. But as the town's contracted compliance manager, office my compliance team had no knowledge of the changed monitoring requirement and as because of such we weren't able to organize and schedule and coordinate q1 sampling in 2025 and so we missed a sample in 2025 on the first quarter because we didn't know about the requirement Thank you for that explanation. Absolutely. So, as we sit right now, we told them where the bottles dropped and everything is back into compliance as of now. All right, if you have any questions, we go into the town questions at this point.

No, no questions. Okay. Any other questions from council? Okay. All right.

So for the month of April, We had an average water demand of 136,000 gallons per day. All samples were collected and reported as required by the state, and they all passed. For the wastewater treatment plant, we had an average discharge for the wastewater plant of around 100,000 gallons per day, 101,000 gallons per day. And if you look at the chart on page, That would be page three of our report. You can kind of see some of the flows, the average flows trending upward. If we put a linear line on that and we can kind of see that trending upward. And I think that could be in large part due to the additional precipitation that we've had near the end of beginning of May and end of April. We did have an emergency repair that we had to do at the wastewater treatment plant. Some of the shafts on the rotors were at imminent failure. We were able to coordinate a subcontractor through Inverdient. It's called Power and Flow, and they were able to come in and do that repair. And so the system is now back up in operation. Someone apparently kicked one leg of the three-legged stool out, and we're teetering on just two legs. So we got the system back in operation. The sludge dewatering bag is still in operation. It's performing quite well. I actually spent the last three hours at the wastewater plant and I felt ambitious and I cut the bag open to see how our sludge was drying and I'm happy to report it is completely dry and it's actually ready to be hauled to the landfill.

And that was, I would like to ask, it was my understanding that the bag's filling up a little faster than we had anticipated. How much is that going to add to the cost for the town?

Because those bags, we have to... Well, it's going to be a net reduction in cost to the town. Just in hauling costs alone, we're probably saving upwards to $4,000 a week. Awesome. So then that is 100% due to the dewatering solution that we have in place now. What are the bags? The bags are less than $1,000 a piece. So replacing them is- One bag lasted almost four months. That's wonderful. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so maybe four bags a year. Wow. That's what we're thinking.

Five to eight gallons was costing us $4,000 a haul, so yeah. The cost is one week.

Very successful. So we just got rid of 52 or 51 other payments for the same amount. Okay, thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

So any questions? Townsend compliance with all parameters under PDHN DEQ.

Any other questions from this council? Mr. Imboden, thank you so much for being here on a lovely evening. Next, we have a public works report. I'm sure all of you have read this over. If you have any questions at this time, you can direct them towards our town manager. I do have a question. On item number 11, the very last sentence, and it says the town electrician installed the replacement. Who is our town electrician? Um, Jimmy.

I don't have your last name. Mr. Fortune, you should call someone named Jimmy. Okay. That's the one. I didn't realize we had a... We don't. Okay. He's probably the one that we call most regularly for service. Thank you.

Any questions for council?

Yeah, I just have a quickie. Number 14, installed banners on Main Street. Are those the... 4th Friday banners? Yes, ma'am. So I just have a question. Do we have any AR 250 banners? Is anything like that being done?

Because of the timing and getting the banners and the purchase from between EGA and EDA, there was a decision not to purchase 250 banners this year because they were going to be a one-time use. But we've opted for 360 banners to be added for next year.

So there's nothing for AR-250 at all. Posters, no, nothing. I hope you bring it in at night. If it's lit, that's good. Just curious.

Any other questions from this council? Okay, then we move on to item number eight, the Finance Director's Treasurer's Report. Will you have that in front of you, Ms. Morgan? Unless they have questions, there's really no need for you to come up. Are there any questions from this council? Dr. Small, do you have any questions about the treasurer's report? No, no, I don't.

All right, we're going to move on. I got 1 comment to add just just this 1 comment here that says all case on entries have been moved to southern and we have completely discontinued use. I'd like to read that.

Yeah, I would also add, we still have to keep it at least for a year until we get through the audit process, but we have to see you 100% correct. Okay.

Okay, we're gonna move on to item number nine, the town manager's report. And at this time, I will turn it over to Ms. India Adams-Jacobs.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be brief. The topic on the water quality improvement project and water placement, Mr. Mountjoy just mentioned that that process is moving along and we have met all timelines. The annual consumer confidence report on the water was included in the most recent utility bill. The quarterly gross alpha exceedance for this period will be mailed to customers in accordance with VDH reporting procedures that will go out in the next week or so. The volunteer fire department reached out for me to sign off on a group documentation for the state that was seen in May 14th. They had some revisions that was revised and sent back to them on May 29th and that was signed and notarized for them to meet their deadline and receive their grant. We've continued finalizing FY25 audit work. The final items are stated to be sent by the end of next week. I've met with Mr. Tom Scott, who's the new president of the Virginia Innovation Crossroads, formerly Fredericksburg Regional Alliance to talk more about economic development for the town. Connected him with Fort AP Hill so that he can meet with the new commander and our partners there. I've also met with the new Dominion Energy rep to discuss some funding opportunities for the town, but also we made the lights settle out as well as the request to remove the double poles. So she was great to work with and we look forward to partnering with her. Mr. Murray has been relocated to Um, to the region closer to his home in the new area, and then all the code updates on this power has helped us greatly with the taxation code section, which is included in the packet. And then those 2 items for the acceptance for a playground equipment, as well as the temporary location of a town hall. Wow. The repair of the renovations will be done to the interior and exterior during the months of July, maybe into August is added to the council meeting tonight. So, thank you.

Any questions from council. Well, go ahead.

We talked about those two poles in the back of our store. We don't know who they are. Remember I had to come up with a poll number and then they said they wouldn't fix them because they're on private property, but they've always fixed them before. Bill's checked with the owner and he's not paying the bill on them, so I don't know who's paying the bill. I'll have to follow up with her tonight.

I've got something to answer to Mr. Knight, but in the transition, I want to make sure she has that on her radar. Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Adams-Jacobs? I did want to move on to the budget adoption and appropriations and item number 10 on unfinished business. I know we're all familiar with this budget because we've had several meetings about it at this point and tons and tons of paper have been printed for it. So I would like to turn it over to Ms. India Adams Jacobs.

I think in closing the packet is the budget memo as well as resolution 26-13 for council consideration and appropriations. I like there's been no changes from the public hearing or from the 1st presentation from May 7th in the public hearing, which we moved last week. Council adopted the rates as well as the ordinance for a little zero rates, which remain unchanged.

Are there any questions from this Council at this time? Dr. Schimel, did you have any questions about the budget? Oh, no, I'm fine. At this time, I would like to ask for a draft motion to adopt the budget, please.

I move that the Town Council approve and adopt a proposed physical year 2026-2027 operating in capital budgets and appropriate the funds necessary to carry out the adopted budget as presented and recommended by the Town Manager.

I have a motion from Councilman Hagan and is there a second? Second from Vice Mayor Coyle. Is there any discussion? At this time, I would like to ask the Deputy Clerk to take a roll call, please. Councilmember Hagan? Aye. Vice Mayor Coyle?

Yes.

Councilmember Chennault? Dr. Chennault?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. The adoption of the budget has gone through unanimously. Moving on to item number 11, the town code update. And at this time, I would like to turn the meeting over to Ms. Danielle. Mr. Gore cannot be here tonight, so he's on the agenda, but- I can do Jeff, that's fine.

Good evening. Again, I will make this very quick. You have the ordinance and the packets with all the track changes showing what was done. There was also a memo that was included that provided a quick brief but important highlight of the most important changes that were done. Generally speaking, a lot of the changes were done really just to make sure that the tax code is aligned with state law provisions. There were a couple of changes related to most tax and transit occupancy tax, really to provide the council with some flexibility about how it's gonna impose its tax rates instead of having it being fixed in the ordinance. There were some other changes. We made it clear that the BPOL tax is a flat fee of $30, which applies to everyone that applies for a business license in the town. I think the The other big change was the elderly permanent and totally disabled persons. That was really just done so it mirrors the county and conversations with staff. We thought that was a better approach. Everything else really is just trying to clean things up, make it feel a little bit better. And like I said, ensure that it aligns with state law provisions. And so if you have any questions, I'm happy to do my best to answer them for you.

Are there any questions from council at this time to our town attorney? Do you have any questions about the code update? No, I do not. And the taxation. At this time. At this time, I would like to ask for a motion to adopt the changes for the taxation and code update.

I move that the town council adopt ordinance number 2605, amending chapter three taxation of the town of Bowling Green code to update and revise the town's local taxation provisions for consistency with applicable state law, corrected outdated references, and absolute language, improve formatting and terminology, and provide greater administrative clarity without materially altering the town's existing tax policies.

I'll second that. I have a motion, the lights will go on. And a second from Councilman Hageman. Is there any discussion at this point? I'd like to ask the Deputy Clerk to take a roll call, please. Councilmember Haven. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Passage unanimously. We have 11. It's Jacobs. We, the lease, we have 11A, the lease authorization for the work, leaving town hall and having to lease another property for our staff.

Yes, so that request, we briefed council a few meetings ago about the results of a walk-through site visit at our various facilities from our insurance company, and there were several things that would need to be addressed, including asbestos remediation, which staff should not be here for, as well as floor replacement in finance, and some electrical work, just to name a few. as well as ADA compliance matters as it pertains to steps, sidewalks, external to the building. So Mr. Fortune has worked on obtaining quotes for that, and that work will take place. In the meantime, we will hopefully be relocating to 113 Courthouse Lane just nearby. We have a parking lot there, so it's adjacent and closed. There's also adequate handicap parking there for this temporary relocation. And we've worked with the property owner on a fee of $1,100 per month. And then we would cover all utilities and then work with the attorney to get that draft and signed.

Very good. And the location is within eyesight of the town hall. So it's very convenient for our citizens to be able to come and do any business they need. I would like to ask for a motion for the lease for $1,100 a month to be passed so that we can take care of this and get all this work to be done. Mr. Jacobs, turn your mic off, please.

Thank you. I move to authorize the town manager to negotiate and execute a temporary lease agreement on behalf of the town with the property owner and the relocation of town hall operations to 113 Kodak Lane for a term commencing on June 15th, 2026 and terminating September 15th, 2026 for $1,100 per month, not including all applicable utilities for the purpose of maintaining... community and municipal services during the required repairs and renovations of the town hall facilities. 73 review and approval for the form by the town attorney.

So I have a motion on the table from Councilman Hageman. Is there a second from Vice Mayor Carrell? Is there any discussion at this time? I'd like to ask the Deputy Clerk to please take a roll call. Councilmember Hageman. Second.

Vice Mayor Coyle.

Yes.

Council Member Schimel. Yes. Vice Mayor, Council Member Weber. Yes. Council Member Coyle. Yes. Council Member Davis.

Abstain. Could you tell us the reason for your abstinence?

Because the building belongs to my daughter. I have no connection with it myself, but because it belongs to her.

A conflict of interest. Thank you. It's incumbent. it's not a legal conflict of interest she said but you can abstain that's fine so um motion passes five and one abstaining we i know i was looking at that we um We need to adopt authorizing the town treasurer to approve and issue refunds up to $10,000 as a result of erroneous assessments pursuant to Section 58.1-3981 of the Code of Virginia. So moved. Thank you. I have a motion from Councilman Voigt. Is there a second? I'll second it. I have a second from Councilman Hageman. Is there any discussion at this time? I'd like to ask the Deputy Clerk to take a roll call, please. Council Member Lee. Yes.

Vice Mayor Boyle.

No.

Council Member Chennault. Yes. Council Member Whitt. Yes. Council Member Boyk. Yes. Council Member Davis.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. The next item is the grant authorization for the town manager to execute an agreement with Kaboom for the grant award process and to accept the associated grant award for the construction of a new play space at Bowling Green Town Park, subject to review and approval as to the form by the town attorney. Can I make that motion? I have a motion from the Vice Mayor. Coyle, is there a second? Second. I have a second from Council Member Wright. Is there any discussion then?

Yes, I've got you on speaker. We'll just roll from here.

Yeah, it just froze. The screen froze and I lost all audio.

Okay, I've got you on the mic, so we'll roll from here.

Okay.

Okay, will the deputy clerk please take a roll call?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

I'm so excited about this.

Let's move on to informational items. And I want to turn this over to Ms. India Adams-Jacobs at this time.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just included for informational purposes is the official preliminary approval of the PER item, which was a checklist item on the consent order that Mr. Mountjoy mentioned earlier. I just wanted for transparency people to see that as part of the packet to know that these items are moving forward. So just there for informational purposes. Thank you. Very good. Thank you.

Okay, we have no one in the audience, so I will open and close public comment. And at this time, I will move on to member comments. Ms. Davis. I have none.

Mr. Royt. I will say to the two people that are still watching, just know that the internet in the building went down for a minute, and we're gonna replace the live stream that has that dropout with the recorded one here, so you will be able to watch what you missed.

So there will be no changes, no challenges, and status quo remains. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Hageman. Yeah, of course. No, I just want to mention there's a couple things I want to talk about. This Saturday, a bunch of businesses in town are having sidewalk sale. Emily has put it on. I think she's advertising it. She started a new web page on Facebook of businesses Bowling Green or something like that. And there's like five or six of us that are going to participate in it that I know about for sure. I also want to mention My great friend Jean is going to be having a birthday on Friday. So make sure everybody wishes her a very happy birthday.

Next Friday. Happy birthday. Any other comments at this time? I would like to ask for a motion to adjourn please. I move we adjourn. I have a second from Councilman Raymond. Is there any discussion on this matter? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. We are now dissolved.

Thank you.