Town Council - Regular Meeting

All right. I got the thumbs up from Heather. I think we are rocking and rolling. Welcome everyone. Welcome to everybody who's here in person and those that are watching online. Um, I like to start every meeting by reminding everyone to silence your cell phones. Go ahead and get your cell phone out for a second and make sure it is all the way on silent, not on buzz or some cool cartoon music or something else. Just all the way on silent please. It just helps us to respect one another's time in each speaker speaking. We ask for your patience and understanding. As council deliberates on various agenda items, we kind of have a unique meeting tonight as it is their CIP workshop, so we'll be in breakout sessions later. We do have open public comment at this meeting and all meetings, and you're welcome and encouraged to sign up at the sign-up sheet that's right up here. And we'll go through that when it comes time in the meeting. There are no specific public hearings tonight. Those are advertised and designated separately. We acknowledge staff's work in preparation of this meeting. Their insights are invaluable to each topic of town business and appreciate our town manager, Natasha Tucker, as we operate under the council manager form of government. Ms. Tucker handles our daily operations and department administration, while our town council provides direction and authorizes policy in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia and our town charter. While each council member has the ultimate responsibility to contribute and vote distinctly, the council does work as a body, duly elected to serve responsibly and ethically the citizens of Colonial Beach. Participation of each member contributes to effective leadership. Collaboration is key to productivity in the local government. Let's engage in constructive discussion, remain open to different perspectives and work together for effective resolutions. And finally, I just remind everyone that the meetings of the town council are formal proceedings and are thus recorded. And with that, we'll call our work session for August 5th, 2026 at 6 0 1 PM to order. Our roll call of members tonight is a little bit unique. Mr. Allison is absent on a work travel trip, but Mr. Larson is online with us. Tom, can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

We can hear you. Will you state your name, your location, and your reason for participating online, please?

My name is Tom Larson. I'm in Nags Head, North Carolina, and we're on a family vacation.

Okay, thank you. Powell, did I cover all my bases on that? All right. Otherwise, all other members are present. I don't have any additions to the agenda tonight. Do we have an approval of the agenda as written? All right, do I have a second? Second. Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Tom? Yep, and I and any opposed Our consent agenda, I think we're waiting on some minutes so we are skipping right by that tonight and moving on to our councilmember liaison Commission reports and I will start with miss grand stuff on your side. Is that okay?

Yes Good evening everyone reporting from the tourism side of things. I as I reported for EV at the last meeting. The tourism committee met on August 4th. Marinaway representatives presented plans to participate in two regional boat shows in early 2027, and the committee agreed to support the registration fees and provide promotional materials. The ongoing digital marketing campaign in the greater Washington, Northern Virginia, and Eastern Maryland continues, and the committee is working on a shoulder off-season campaign, which will begin in September. and run through mid-November. Those are those updates for now.

Thank you. All right. Ms. Sanford? All right. Good evening to everybody. So for NGOs, I just have one thing, same as last month, but from the Community Foundation, they are now accepting nominations for their Community Impact Award. That award is for Colonial Beach residents who've demonstrated outstanding service and a lasting commitment to the community. So if you have a... President that you like to nominate. Please go to the Community Foundation website and Nominations will be are now until August 15th Mr. Wood, okay.

Let's see. We'll start with Parks and Rec Continuing through August 11th We have the Teeny Tiny Town Scavenger Hunt. So good luck finding your teeny tinies. The Community Game Night is going to be August 11th at the Community Center from 6 to 8, and that's where the winner of the Teeny Tiny Town Hunt will be revealed. Coffee Walk has a new route. It's taking off from Love Bites August 14th at 8 a.m. The Sip and Stroll is going to be the 14th, 6 to 9 p.m. World Photography Day is going to be the 15th, sunrise to sunset at the CBE Creative Arts Center. The 11th Annual Water Festival and 46th Annual Rod Run to the Beach is going to be Saturday and Sunday, August 15th and 16th. And as far as the ongoing fitness programs, functional fitness is going to be, I believe these are all community center, crunch and curl, strength training, and Hatha yoga. And as far as the planning commission, 36 permits issued in July, four driveways, 10 accessory structures, four single family dwellings, five short-term rentals, three of those are new, eight tree permits, one home occupation, one cup, which was a small-scale grocery, one new commercial, again, the small-scale roastery, and two subdivisions, which were lot consolidations. We've received 120 short-term rental applications and average days to permit nine days and 58 walk-in customers, and that's it for me today.

Oh, great. I'm going to skip past Tom and go straight to Mr. Williams. Tom said just announce his when I announce.

Okay. Good evening, everybody. Just a few updates from the police department. I just want to remind everybody that this month's neighborhood watch meeting won't be held, but we are going to have one on September 24th at 630 p.m. The police department would like to congratulate Westmoreland County Sheriff's Office on another successful National Night Out event last night. Our National Night Out will be held on Tuesday, October 13th from 5 to 8. So still, if you didn't get a chance to attend the counties, you got at least another chance to attend the towns. And then also, just a reminder, please remember that school will be starting next Monday, so drive carefully, slow down, and be alert for children walking to and from school. And for those dropping off children, We're picking up them from the school. Please be careful driving through the parking lot. Thank you. And then just, I wanted to let everybody know, except I was out of town for a few weeks. I never announced that I'm going out of town. So a lot of people probably didn't know, but just, I haven't had my email access since I left in some, about a month without email. So if anybody's been trying to get ahold of me, I apologize for not replying back, but hopefully I'll have my email access back up in the next day or two. Thank you.

That sounds like a blessing. I wish I didn't have email access for a month. Okay, just a couple things. On Tom's behalf, I will announce that tomorrow is the Columbia Beach Schools ribbon cutting for the new front entrance to the high school. That is at 2.30 and then following that will be open house for the school for both schools, the elementary school and the high schools where all the kids will get to meet their teachers and see their classrooms and get their school supply list and find out which bus they're riding and all that fun stuff because school does start Monday. can you hear my hesitation in my voice on that monday okay and um... otherwise i had a camera executive meeting uh... this afternoon annex camera is hosted by king george and that is the twenty six at eight a m and that is uh... group of it's an executive meeting between king george uh... west moreland county the tonic when you beat charles county indian head uh... all together so that we collaborate across bases and across installations in support of our military partners. And that's all I've got for right now. So moving right along. Oh, I do have one other thing. There's been, and I know if you haven't had access, you haven't heard this yet, but there's been some concern about some neglected properties, and so we will be seeing that on a future agenda. Powell is gonna work that into maybe August, September. Okay, all right, September, so just, I was gonna say do we wanna make a consensus to that, but Natasha said she'd already been working with Powell on that, so I wanted to make sure we said something tonight that that is forthcoming and in the works in the background there until we have something ready to present, okay? All right, and that's all I've got then, and next up is our presentation. Are you guys ready? You're ready. From the eyes of the youth, our summer interns, Haley Smith, Noah Foster, Soraya Davis, and Olivia Cook.

Madam Mayor, council, those in attendance this evening, and those online, thank you so much for having us tonight, and we're so grateful to be here with you all. Today we will be presenting you with this strategic plan from the eyes of the youth, a strategic case for investing in Colonial Beach's next generation.

You're probably wondering who we are. My name is Haley Smith, and I'm here with Noah Foster, Soraya Davis, and Olivia Cook. We're all graduates from Colonial Beach High School and have lived here for most of our lives.

In our research, we developed three key areas for discussion, marketing, recreation, and community.

We wanted to make sure our recommendations were grounded in more than just our opinions. We spent time observing in our community, reviewing local and regional data, comparing Colonial Beach to nearby communities, and applying business planning tools. But to better understand where Colonial Beach could go, we first had to understand where it has been.

Since our town's founding, we've been known as a thriving waterfront community, and we still hold true to these roots today. Families from the DC metro area and throughout Virginia have flocked to Colonial Beach for a weekend getaway during the summer. And because of our reputation, we've been nicknamed the playground on the Potomac.

In our proposal today, we just want to stress that by no means do we want to change the town at all. We love the town. We only want to restore it back to its roots and its booming energy that it once had.

The first area we focused on was marketing. As we explored Colonial Beach, we realized the town already has a lot and we don't want to change it. We want to make it more visible. We believe sharing its story is one of the greatest opportunities to help the community grow.

When we looked at how Colonial Beach currently promotes events, we found that most of our outreach relies heavily on Facebook, flyers and handouts, the town website, and most heavily word of mouth.

As you guys can see by the graph all the way on the left, Facebook is not the most efficient mode to reach these young adults and teens. We believe that consistent Instagram and TikTok presence would definitely help reach these teens better, along with a more youth-oriented strategy, along with uniform promotion strategies between events to just build some consistency to help people better understand what's going on in the town. We also believe that more surveys and community feedback would allow us to better understand what the people of the town actually desire, people of all ages.

So what do these better marketing strategies deliver? When we utilize these more modernized platforms like Instagram and TikTok in more of a youth-centric format, and then we can apply these strategies consistently, we'll begin to see things like increased outreach, higher event turnout, more tourism and local revenue, Stronger youth engagement, which allows our youth to be able to engage better with other members of the community, and newfound connection between the generations where youth are able to open up to people of older demographics, not just with other youth. And that will build long-lasting community bonds.

The next area we decided to focus on is recreation. As we looked at the opportunities available in Colonial Beach, We found the greatest potential for impact lies in investing in our youth. This is where we believe that our talent can make the biggest difference.

When you look at the current opportunities for younger children, you'll see parks, playgrounds, several family events, some smaller clubs, and then children's recreational sports. On the opposing side for the adults, you'll see restaurants, breweries, bars, community events like the sip and stroll, for example, that are more geared towards people that are of age to drink alcohol. There's also various clubs, organizations, and social activities once again geared towards the older generations. But what do we have for those that are too old to go have fun in a playground, but yet too young to go have fun in a bar? When you really look at what we have, we have limited places to work, limited places to go, and limited sources of stability. And if you think that it's bad during the summer months, just wait until the fall, winter, and spring when kids need that stability the most and there is not very much to offer. From my own personal experience, I've looked at these people. I grew up with these people. And some things that many people don't realize is how many of these teens come from nontraditional families where they are being raised by one or no parents. These kids don't have that stability at home, and despite having access to the school system and the occasional sport or the occasional club, it still leaves them with so many empty hours of the day with nowhere to go. Many of these kids don't even have the resources to get their driver's licenses, so they rely on what they can walk to.

So with that being said, what really happens when teens have nowhere to go? teens will begin to feel disconnected from not only their schools, but their communities as well. After school hours become a higher risk because there are fewer opportunities for positive leadership, mentoring, and skills building. Over time, many of those same young people will choose to leave our community, which means fewer future volunteers, workers, and leaders. Ultimately, that slows down our economic growth and the entire community will feel the pressure.

The youth needs strong academic support and hands-on learning opportunities. They also need increased student engagement and school connectedness. The kids within the community will benefit from safe spaces that promote resilience and healing. Another thing they will benefit from is positive role models and mentoring relationships. Lastly, the youth needs strong community programs and support networks. This is what our youth needs to thrive.

So how do we fix these problems that we've mentioned? What we've come up with is something akin to a Boys and Girls Club style model. In this format, we envision a space where every young person has access to, first and foremost, a stable and nurturing environment. And we stress this because a lot of these kids that we're referring to do not have these stable homes, these stable environments that they grow up in. Secondary, we need safe and easy access to recreation where these disadvantaged youth are able to easily walk to these recreational activities and don't have to worry about getting to and from anywhere from a half hour to an hour long drive. Along with that, they need some hands-on learning opportunities that allow them very active experience As far as launching this Boys and Girls Club, we think that it would be good to start with a shared space. We could utilize the elementary or high school buildings for this and launch a pilot program with middle and high school youth. where we partner with local schools, churches, and nonprofits to be able to serve these youth. And we chose a Boys and Girls Club as opposed to other programs like YMCA because of its unique potential to start small in shared spaces and be able to grow from there. So it has a very low cost entry and very high impact potential and it's scalable. So as I said, it'll start off small, but it will grow over time.

The next area of focus is community, which is the environment that supports it all.

So community investment, when we invest in our communities, it will bring things like stronger tourism to the town, higher local spending, and our families will choose to stay in town, work in town, carry out activities in our town, and that'll bring more youth engagement within the town. And that builds sort of a competitive community brand that allows our economy to shoot up and grow long term.

So as a quick disclaimer, these images are simply to represent hypothetical amenities and attractions that not only we've heard of, but many people have heard of people desiring in the town. And not only locals want this, but various people who live outside of town have made claims that they would love to see these come into Colonial Beach.

So starting off in the top left, we have a Ferris wheel. If you don't know, the town had one before, and I think it would be a great idea to have it again.

Another thing that the town used to have that we kind of don't really see anymore are fishing tournaments. We believe that this would be a great way to draw in another kind of crowd, fishermen, which is a huge source of tourism and stuff.

Recently, there's been a population of people wanting to use bike rentals and scooters in nearby counties and cities, and I think it would help us to have those on our beach as well.

Something that a lot of people have probably heard whispers about in town is the desire for a community pool. Obviously, with the jellyfish epidemic in our Potomac River, there needs to be a safer place to swim. And it would also provide an opportunity to host swimming lessons because it's very important that people know how to swim, especially living in a coastal area.

And then we have the lantern festivals. A lot of cities like DC have these and I personally really want to go to one, but it's like a three hour drive to get to one. So I feel like this would be a great way to have families come together on our beach.

Another amenity that is another whisper that a lot of people have been talking about is a splash pad, which just like the pool would be a great safer option, except this would be a good option for younger children and younger families to come to.

And then for the more outdoorsy people, the people who like to get their hands dirty, we have an adventure park or a rope course.

And then lastly, we decided to add farmers markets. I'm sure most of you know the fire department has a farmers market every Thursday morning. But we would love to see this expanded into more year-round attractions. And we decided to place it in Eleanor Park, is the picture for our suggestion. But we believe that having more fall festival type attractions and even Christmas village attractions would be able to keep the town alive more during the off season. So in summary, we know our core strengths as a town. We have a very strong waterfront identity, deep historical character, and our distinct small town appeal. We also have our existing local assets that we already utilize, restaurants, different businesses, different events, and yearly festivals.

Some of our current gaps are limited teen-centered infrastructure, inconsistent marketing efforts, underutilized community spaces, and the lack of youth development.

A few of the key risks that we've highlighted in this presentation that we continue to see are just that ongoing youth instability, something that would not be extremely difficult to work on, and also the loss of youth talent and innovation. We also have, because of that, a few missed opportunities for economic growth.

And some of our strategic opportunities would be to have that Boys and Girls Club or youth center just expand our digital marketing just a little, invest into some of those amenities we were talking about and just generally improving our aesthetics.

In around zero to six months, we want to see a foundation built for the town. We would like to explore a partnership potentially with the Boys and Girls Club and get that ball rolling. We also want to see a community needs assessment that will help town council and town hall and town government in general and our other organizations be able to better gauge the needs of the community and we'd like to continue the pathway allowing our youth a direct channel to have their say by forming a youth advisory council somewhere where younger people can just come and share their ideas

In six to 12 months, we would like to see the startup of youth programs such as the Boys and Girls Club, strengthening the marketing strategies, and build social media brands.

In about one to three years, we would love to see an investment into our community. We want to see the Boys and Girls Club expand, and we would love to see more annual events and festivals that appeal to all ages.

And within the next decade, so three to 15 years, which I know is a long time from now, we would love to see a rec center that could potentially house a Boys and Girls Club. And if it is not specific to a Boys and Girls Club, we would love to just see a rec center that could be for the youth of the town. We'd also like to see some of those long-term investments into town amenities and attractions to build upon that aesthetic image that we showed a couple slides ago to turn that potential into a living reality. Thank you guys so much for your time, for your attentiveness, and for this opportunity to share our opinions and our voice. Any questions?

Can we give them a round of applause?

We're gonna be all right.

That was amazing. Okay, I'll open it up to council for questions. Mr. Wood.

Outstanding presentation, guys. Couple of things, first of all, make sure that you come back after you finish your education so you can come back and be leaders, okay? I do have some questions specifically about numbers, where you mentioned especially the 13 to 20-year-olds. Do we have a number of people who fall within that particular parameter?

I don't know if we came up with a very precise number. Um, but we know that would be a few hundred kids. Okay. Um, so a decent chunk of the youth population would be within that range, especially the kids who are in colonial beach high school, since it starts in eighth grade. So it would start a little bit younger of an age group. Okay.

If you'll indulge me with one more question, the, um, the boys and girls club, did you guys do any outreach to them? so that we have an idea of how to begin the process.

We did not do any legitimate outreach. We did a lot of research. It seemed to be the best fit compared to a YMCA or other organization like that because it is something that can start small. We do know that there is a Northern Neck Boys and Girls Club. A lot of people know that they tried to start one in Westmoreland, which is a half an hour drive from here, but that one did not last, so now the closest one is in Warsaw. And that one actually started in Lancaster Middle School, which is why we decided on a Boys and Girls Club because it's something that can be started in a shared space like a school or a middle school, a high school, something like that. But no, we did not do any legitimate outreach.

Thank you. Outstanding presentation. And we'll look forward to seeing all four of you back in about a maximum of three years.

Any other questions from council? Mr. Williams?

I just want to make a comment. Like Mr. Wood said, great job on the presentation. I think this is really beneficial information for council and the community. And I congratulate you guys on all the work you did to do this. It's obviously put a lot into it. It shows that you guys are committed. So I'm not sure what council can do to help, but obviously... I'm sure most of us would say we would support trying to help you guys foster that in whatever way we can. So like I said, congratulations. And I took some notes. And if you guys have information you can share with us, because I think some of what you gave to us will benefit us. I mean, it was definitely not surprising, really, because I get a lot of comments as a council member how there's nothing to do for the kids here. People come here for vacation and of course when the I think people have commented recently things are slow And it's probably because like what you mentioned the jellyfish What do you do when you come here, and there's no water to swim in it's kind of it's a flop so Yeah, I think that's great information you guys provided, so thank you awesome.

Thank you so much You guys make me proud to be a drifter. Thank you for that and I have a couple of follow-up questions from it. One, I think you did a really good job of highlighting that the gap is now 13 to 20. I think for a long time it was zero to 20, but we have really been hitting hard the younger age groups. Fortunately, we have Torrey Smith Park, which starts to gear a little bit more in that 13 to 20 age range. but obviously still some pretty serious gaps there. So, and thinking about what can council do and how can we follow up and just not let this be just a presentation that we hear tonight and are inspired by, but maybe to how does it fit into an actionable item. One of the things, I believe one or two of you all sat on the school board as a liaison member, as a student youth, you did, Olivia? And you had a second person too, right? It was Zachary Papa Nicholas. It was Papa Nicholas. Yeah, okay. And I was inspired by the school board doing that. And I don't know if council, we can bring this up at a future meeting. I don't have to make a decision tonight. But considering having a youth member, it's not a voting member. They're just someone that... comes and participates, but the model that the school board did I thought was good. Did you appreciate sitting on that board?

Yes, I did very much, and I think that it was really helpful not only for Zach and I to have the opportunity, but I think both of us agreed that we got to see real change in things that not only we saw, but our students, other students at the high school saw and talked to us, and we got to see real change out of that. I think that that would be very, very beneficial here.

Yeah, so that's one concept to track and maybe have some follow-up on. I know the school year is just about to start, so, you know, give us some time on organizing that kind of concept. And the other is, of course, we struggle to get our own Parks and Rec, even a department or even an employee, and, you know, it is a single person, and you all have helped considerably as interns, which is a big part of our internship program that you helped. support those things. In bolstering our Parks and Rec Department with a part-time person that would be of a skill set to foster a Boys and Girls Club, is that the kind of thing that you think would pair well with this?

Yeah, I think that having that resource would definitely be a big help to get that started and also just being able to partner with, as we said, the different organizations in town to kind of make that happen, kind of kickstart that.

Yeah.

And I think I focused in on just that 13 to 20 age group. It helps narrow the scope a little bit, because otherwise it's like, how do you help everybody, right? But I thought you did a really good job of making some really valid points. I don't know anything about TikTok or Instagram, so that's another reason to have somebody. You know how to TikTok it? Yeah. That's Tic Tac.

Very refreshing. Yeah.

We obviously need your help, is what that says. And we appreciate all you've done this summer. I know you all have really bright futures ahead of you. This is very exciting that you've been a part of our process here in the town. And I hope you do come back as an intern. Keep coming back and keep contributing and beyond. You know, Mr. Wood said, like, after you get your degree and don't forget us, come back. Yeah, there you go. Yep. Yeah. Is there anything else from council? No, we really appreciate you. Thank you so much. And let's make sure that presentation gets on the slide that gets online, please.

Absolutely. Thank you all again.

Thank you.

Great job.

All right, next up is our public comment. During all public comment or hearings, we ask that certain guidelines be followed. Please stand at the podium, and for the record, please state your name and address. If you'd like to be contacted, please provide your contact information to the clerk, and there's a spot on the sign-in sheet. If you missed that, you're welcome to pass it along to Ms. Heather Oliver so she can get back in touch with you. Make your comments to the council as a whole. Be brief, state your position and provide facts. And you may provide written statements or any supporting materials to the clerk for distribution to the council and to the town manager. Debate is prohibited. Follow up on comments is provided by the town manager. That's why it's important to give your contact information to the clerk. And speak clearly as we want to hear what you have to say. The council will try to hear everyone who wishes to speak on a subject and comments are limited to five minutes. Time cannot be transferred to another speaker. If you represent a group, you may wish to identify other members of your group who are in attendance. And after public comment is closed, I encourage you to stay as the council engages in dialogue and deliberation on the remainder of the agenda items. And with that, we will open up public comment. I got, I don't have a time on my thing. 634. Welcome.

Madam Mayor, town councillors, Nigel Long, 115 Lynnhaven Court. I had two quick things to speak about, but boy, that last presentation was really very motivating. Unfortunately, they're not here, but maybe Superintendent Ingram who was very involved in Westmoreland County in the Boys and Girls Club initiative and probably has some clearish understandings of what's failed in that initiative in Westmoreland County might be a good point of contact to get some information on. So I would suggest that might be a link that we might, they, we, however the town council wants to form it, might want to make to understand the pros and cons and difficulties of working with the Boys and Girls Club. But the principle is fantastic. I did just want to make sure that Council member Wood was not confusing TikTok with any other of those things online that have pictures in it. Moving on from that. Two quick things, you may well have read in the recent press about water systems around the country, primarily in seven states being hacked into. I think, for example, there were 30 local water facilities that were impacted in Minnesota. So I just wanted to be sure that we had the appropriate level of protection for I can't imagine that anyone would want to target Colonial Beach. I'm not suggesting that for a moment, but just that we stay, I'm hoping we stay aware of that and that we make sure that we have the right protections in place because the attacks were on individual programmable units, as I understand it, within water pumps and things, within the water supply system of those authorities. The second was something where I hope in due course you'll be able to give some feedback to the community. Back in May the 20th, there was a discussion about the, let's get this right, a Potomac Crossing Development Authority about hiring a law firm to represent us in our discussions with them. So that's almost three months ago. And I think at a future meeting, it might be valuable. I'm hoping that as town councillors, you are being briefed on what's going on, but might also be valuable for the public to know what, if anything, is happening with Lenar, their desire to re-energize that authority and where that stands in terms of SANS Anderson and how, if we are using them, how they're acting for us in respect of that. So that was my third point to request an update for the community on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening. Will Knuckles to Foreman Robe Avenue. Yes, I agree with you all about the quality of the student presentation. That was awesome. I've been a part of a lot of these, generally at the national level, which actually has a much bigger sort of feeding process about having to qualify at the sort of local, regional, state, and then the national level to bring students to sort of talk about policy discussions. And this is certainly on par with that in terms of the best that the states are feeding up the food chain to come to D.C. and talk to leadership about policy issues so I think if you're reaching that bar without all those selection processes even having happened and just coming directly to you that's really impressive so congratulations to them and hopefully we continue to give opportunities for those experiences for future groups of students so that this is not a one-off that this actually becomes a pattern of success hopefully that this shows you what's possible if we provide opportunities at the right time with the right resources. Nigel was talking about water. I got a different version of water, right? So there's, I presume y'all have been following State Resolution 25, which resulted in the DEQ water study that's been pretty heavily discussed in the eastern part of the state, at least, as it relates to water availability. Generally the towns reports tend to focus on water quality tends to be as a more of a contaminant view of things, as opposed to a availability view of things. Um, for folks that aren't looking into the weeds, they're generally mostly talking at the state level about the Potomac aquifer. I know that generally we don't say that we're on the Potomac aquifer because we're actually on a different named walk refer, but that aquifer is part of a larger aquifer, which is then part of the Potomac aquifer is actually all part of the same nested system. So when they're talking about these topics, they're talking about us too. Although generally they're talking about the areas that tend to get more attention because they've got a lot more data. So the areas that are live a lot more data are generally the southeastern part of the state. It doesn't mean that it's not a problem here. It just means that that's where their focus is because that's where they have more data availability. We have one USGS continuous water monitoring station that's in the northern neck region, but that's not a lot. And I have not seen regular reports even coming out of that data node. So it'd be good for you to look into that. And initially, I think, call on staff to say what their understanding is without further analysis of what our data availability is. It's also important that the state, as part of their report, they're actually asking for localities to take a closer look at just the topic, not generally, but also looking at ways that they might actually change their rules as it relates to development controls, as it relates to trying to reduce some of the impacts that relates. This is east of 95, by the way. It's not the whole state. It's actually the part that's the closest to the bay. In other words, us and communities like us on the bay. Next thing I talked about is if you go to the town website, what's the thing that's highlighted? The utility increases, right, that happened over the summer, that kicked in over the summer. That's the number one thing on the news section, which is costs more to live here. Hopefully you can dig a little deeper into some of your programs that are supposed to be helping offset some of that impact on some of the most vulnerable parts of our population. We do have a program. It doesn't seem to be used very much. I haven't seen a lot of digging into whether or not it's not used very much because people don't know about it, because they don't qualify for it. Not qualifying for it, by the way, relates to income, but it also relates to the fact that if you're behind already, you don't qualify, right? So You're really only talking about being able to get people in that just recently ran into a jam. But if you've been struggling for a while, it's kind of like a, oh, well, I guess you're going a little downward faster with the new utility rates than you would have been going downward already. That doesn't really seem to be a program that's actually going to help protect these communities, much less get them back to sustainability. So I think some examination at a detailed level as to what's going on with the current program. Is it sufficient? Do we modify what we have? Or do we actually need other mechanisms that we don't have on the books at all right now? Other things relates to affordability in the bigger picture, right? We need to look outside of the town as to what's going on in government in general. Things like changes to Medicare this fall, right? Part D, prescription drug costs are gonna go up for every senior in town who actually looks to Medicare for prescription drug coverages, right? We have people come in and say, I'm a senior. I'm on fixed income. I literally can't afford any extra cost. Well, if they couldn't afford any extra cost previously, it's going to be even worse come this winter time. So I think that we need to, when we're looking at affordability and we're looking at what people can actually bear and the way that our structure and how we charge is done, right? So we're not talking about overall program costs. We're talking about how that program cost gets allocated to the community. I think we need to look at not just what's happening in town, but we need to look at the bigger picture of what's going on in the state and what's going on at the federal level, because those are moving, and those are moving pretty fast. And I have fear that we're not keeping up in terms of our policy awareness of what's going on in the bigger sense so that we can refine what's going on at the local sense in light of those changes. I think that's my time.

Thank you. No one else has signed up. Would anybody else like to come up? All are welcome. Okay. We will close public comment at 6.43 p.m. All right. Next up is our CIP workshop. You guys want to take a couple minute break, stretch out and I'll get the board out and stuff like that. We'll just take two minutes and get everything ready to go. Okay. All right. Thanks.

Tom, are you there?

I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

No, he cannot. Tom, can you hear me now?

Yes, I can.

I do have it on. All right, I'll do my best I can. Tom, just follow along as we can. Okay, so it's this time of year again. We are gonna do our CIP workshop focusing on our FY27 CIP items. There's obviously a lot to do, a lot slated in FY27 and the staff needs some direction and some prioritization and also some pass forward to create a plan and map that out and get things done. So like we did last year, I'd just like to start this with reviewing our strategic goals from January. Let's not lose track of that guiding light. This is kind of a good time to check in on things. And so our council retreat, Had some major themes to it out of feedback then, and so I just kind of summarized them on the sheet up there. Core infrastructure, as we know, we talk a lot about wastewater treatment plant, sewer, water, stormwater, paving, sidewalk. That core infrastructure piece was a big part of the retreat and continues to remain a top priority for, I feel like, the whole council, and that's what came out of that retreat. Economic development, that's really the Main Street program, downtown Colonial Beach, those kinds of things. Attracting year-round business, maybe the Marina Way initiative, all of that, right? Community identity and quality of life, that's about beautification, town appearance, signage, enhancing, again, year-round livability. That's also where parks, recreation, and events has come into play in a lot of the retreat discussion and still continues to play out as we think about these projects and moving forward. Funding and implementation, and that's one of the things we tackle a little bit in this workshop, is what to implement and how to get it funded or how to send our own staff in a direction to go get it funded in many different ways. and communication and public engagement, the organization's capacity and staffing, and risk resiliency and emergency preparedness. So I just highlight those themes so that they're in your head a little bit as you're thinking through the CIP items. Also, our last year's legislative priorities, this is 2026. I know we're still in 2026, but now we're in FY27, right? So our fiscal year started July 1. And our legislative priorities have been the wastewater treatment plant, which we are still working through, state grant DEQ funds, and also ARPA reimbursement through that. Community infrastructure, that's a roads and sidewalks item. Environmental resiliency and storm water. Economic development and tourism items, that's a lot of grants through VTC and things like that that we USE THE STATE MECHANISMS WITH PROVIDING OR EMPHASIZING LOCAL HEALTH CARE. WE'RE APPLYING RIGHT NOW FOR THAT FEMA GRANT TO HOPEFULLY GET OUR RESCUE SQUAD ON COLONEL AVENUE. THE SCHOOL MATCH WAS GETTING VERY EXORBITANT. WE WANTED THE STATE TO PUT THAT A LITTLE MORE IN BALANCE. THAT DID KIND OF COME A LITTLE BIT MORE IN BALANCE THIS YEAR STATEWIDE, BUT THAT'S A STATEWIDE and then broadband, which hopefully our new tower that's gonna go up over here will also assist some with connectivity issues. So we've been working on some things and I think some of those stuff you'll see some progress on. As we also think about the last year and going into the next year, I wanna highlight the CIP projects that are anticipated to be complete or have been completed in this last year. And I just wanted all to pat yourself on the back just a little bit for getting these things done. Cause these are some of the things that got done. We did get a new trash truck. If you've seen it right around, it is working hard every day. The beach rake and tractor to maintain the beach out there, a utility and plow truck. We did also accomplish phase one of the Eleanor Park improvements, which I just saw recently. The little rails and path entrance ways are up. And the Azalea Park Playground is up and ribbon cutting done this last year. We also replaced some police vehicles, two police vehicles. We did the Denison Well Abandonment, which had been slated for as long as I can remember on the CIP. I mean, 20 years maybe that well abandonment, at least 15 that I can think of. That well abandonment was there when I was on the planning commission. So that's a great one to check off the list. And the generator upgrade on 3rd Street. Along with, of course, there's a lot of ongoing wastewater treatment plant stuff. But these are things that totally got done. They're off the list. And that's a great big deal for our community.

All right. So that was a little recap.

So we're going to get a gauge like we did last year a little bit.

think a little bit about the town, how the last year's gone, what you wanna see in the next year. And we're gonna ask for three words and a score, one to 10. One being the worst, it's a dumpster fire. 10 being the land of Oz, I don't know, does that exist?

And just give us a little bit of a rating of how it's going realistically, right?

And I know last time I think I had to start because we always get cold feet about this one. I'm going to think for a second. Three words in a rating. Jellyfish.

Ice storm. Fun. I think we had some challenges this last year, but I also think that we have a lot to look forward to.

So I'm gonna rate it a seven.

Okay, so 10 is the top. 10 is the top. Okay.

10 is euphoria. I don't know what that is. One is, I don't, nobody would ever wanna go there or live there. Yeah.

Pick it up.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% following. We're rating what, the CIP over the last year, the town as a whole? What are we rating?

How you feel like it's going in town. Just how town's doing as a whole.

And then what's the three words?

Any three words that make you think of Columbia Beach or how it's going.

Can I pass along something else while I think about this more?

Sure.

Improving. Growth. I don't know what the third one. I got two. Probably give it a seven. Yeah, I think we've done a lot. Accomplished a lot.

Community improvement, this is hyphenated. I'll make it my one word. Ongoing in regards to progress and some other areas. And I'll be at a seven. I don't have a third. Okay.

You want to call on Tom, David, and then come back to you? Go ahead. Tom, I'm looking up at the ceiling as if you're up there, but...

I'm looking right at you.

Okay.

Heather's doing a good job with the camera. Okay. Let's see. So, management, town management, all that typhoon, like Lisa said, I think that's... INVESTMENTS IN PLANNING. AND I THINK I'M GOING TO JUMP ON THE SEVENTH BANGLAGON. I THINK THE TRAJECTORY IS GOOD AND WE'VE GOT MORE WORK TO DO.

OKAY. THANKS, TOM. WE COULD HEAR ALL THAT. APPRECIATE IT. DAVID, YOUR TURN.

Okay. I'm not so great at this, and I'm not sure, but steady, I would say. I mean, things are rolling along, so that's a positive. I never have updates from the chief. There's no major law enforcement issues and stuff. We had that little hiccup, you know, earlier in the year, but that was, you know, that happens. And, you know, so I don't see any major complaints from the community as far as that goes. And that used to be when I was campaigning 2021, that was one of the big complaints. I think challenges, I think, you know, this town still has a lot of challenges. So, you know, I don't want to put my head in the sand and pretend like it's not that way. And if I'm being honest, underwhelmed, and it's not an attack against anybody or anything, it's just government moves slow, government's very inefficient, and people get impatient, and we have a lot going on in this town that just needs to be resolved, the infrastructure, the roads, all the stuff. So I guess I'm a little impatient. I want to see things move a little quicker, but...

um and as far as rating uh i'm always a harder grade so say six okay well i think all that was really good feedback and um just a time to reflect on that as we think about fy 27 items that are on the list as we know the cip is a five-year forecast some of the projects that are on our cip are not going to be in the discussion tonight because they don't have any funding required to them in fy 27 everything we're going to talk about tonight does have a funding allocated to this year and so if we do not find a way to fund it or prioritize it we are pushing it off that's the reality of the situation um there is some good news after this we will have a um If you looked at the resolution in your packet ahead of time, that is for some CIP funding from the policy, the CIP policy that we implemented. So we have something to think about and consider with that. But I'll get right into the exercise. So as we know, everybody has to pick a project.

All right, I got one for you, Tom, and one for me.

Okay, so next as we count off into, through to four, we're just gonna round off.

You're one, you're group two, you're group three, you're group four, you're group one, two, three, One, two, three, four. Tom, you're group one. And I'll be group two. Sound good?

Good.

Did you remember your group number? Okay, so ones will take this corner, twos will take that corner, threes will take that corner, and fours will take the fire extinguisher. And what you're gonna be doing is you're gonna be taking one of these sheets of paper, and you're gonna be taking your project, and you're filling out the project name. Just remember the P&O from last time. Project name goes on it.

And, The category, so there's a one, a two, or three. A one is a must do. Must do. Two is a should do. Should do. And three is a could do. Could do.

And when I say must do, it's like a legal authority.

We're going to go to jail if we don't do it. We have a contractual obligation, you know, things like that. That's the must do category, right? The should do, if it has funding, that's a big one here. Maybe we don't have a legal obligation, but we do have funding. And the could do is, of course, everything else, right?

So you're going to give it a one, two, or three.

You're going to say how much money. How much? And you can put in how much overall, but really we care about in FY27, right? How much in FY27?

Is it costing us? And who is involved in the project?

Who? And what happens if we don't do it? What happens? If we don't. Okay? So everybody should have a few projects in your groups.

And there's extra sticky note pads and paper and stuff like that and extra pens. And just writing each project on its own unique sheet, one sheet per project. that answers these things, a priority, who's involved, how much is it, and what happens if we don't do it, okay?

All right, we'll break out.

Tom, I think you're gonna be on a phone with somebody for.

Thank you.

All right, everybody back. One, two, one, two. Mic check. Okay. All right, the next. The next step of this is gonna be a voting. It's a voting section. Council members do vote differently than the staff does. And so before we get to the voting section, I just wanna quickly review. I'm gonna go around the room for everything that's a one. If it is a legal contractual obligation, then I am putting a red dot on it. The red dot is not a vote. It just means there's a mandate to this item, okay?

So we're going to confer on that. I'll start in group one. Disease to consent order wastewater treatment repairs. Mandate, right? Pond station, also under the We've got this county reversion, the two, North Beach shoreline emergency control, that's a one. We can do a contractual delegation with the grant and with the next planning district commission. We have a new extension. We have the grant already. We have an agreement with them. That's actually not even one year beyond this CIP.

So the total figure is on the sheet right now. 1.2 million. That's not all. Right now, in FY27, obligation is $327,000.

And we have the grant, and we have to actually do that because we're selling it for a lot. We've got two telework vehicles, meadows, left areas. We get our assessment. Municipal Emergency Operations Center study, I have a two. Sidewalk repairs is a one. Mandated. Mandated. Waterloo Bay Shoreline is a one. Do we have the grant for this already? I think this might be a two.

Okay.

Okay. Consider that in your next portion of voting so council members

You guys might remember this. You only get two yellow dots. The two yellow dots are your top two. You only get to pick two. Yellow means those are the top two things that you wanna make sure get done, paid for out of the CIP this next year. You can or cannot, that is up to you. That can be a part of consideration or not. I'm just... You can choose to put your dots wherever you want on any of the sheets of paper. That is your decision, okay? Everybody understand that part? There are two yellow dots. Now blue dots, there's six. So this means you like it, you're in favor of it. Now we have 16 projects up here and you only have six blue dots. So use them wisely. Yellow, more important. Blue, next important. Yes?

The red dots have a contractual legal obligation. You can put your dots wherever you want. I fully understand what your question was. Okay.

Okay.

So have you lowered the number of blue dots to six, Robin? It's six, Tom. I thought it was seven, but it's six.

It's six, Tom, not seven. Now, and you can choose to put all six blue dots on the same project. You can choose to put a yellow dot and a blue dot on the same project. You see what I'm saying? You put your dots wherever you wanna put your dots.

all right and Tom will come back to you once we get going with this okay I think I'm gonna send them to you Robin because otherwise you're gonna be bouncing all over the room trying to keep up with my list because I don't know where the papers are I think that's totally fine

Makes sense. Yes, Mr. Williams.

So you're saying that yellow is the number one priority, and we only get two of those, and then the others are just what?

There's still, you're voting for it, it's still a priority to you, but the yellow is your most, right?

I'm just not sure I understand the whole... anonymous part of this, like shouldn't the public know what we as their representatives are supporting?

You're welcome to label your name next to it if you'd like, but we act as a body in the end, and so I don't think it really matters whose dot is wherever whose dot is. We want to know where the body is having consensus, right? But you're welcome to label your dot. It's easier to cut these from the dollar store than it is to print out individually labeled name tags. So that's all. Make it easy. Don't overcomplicate it.

Okay. And also, what if we don't agree with the reds? Like I said, last year, Dwight Avenue was a low priority, and now all of a sudden it's risen to the top.

Last year, Dwight Avenue was not on the sheets of paper on the wall.

Yes, it was.

It was not.

Are you sure? I'm almost positive it was on there.

For the jam that we made from last year, we only did the FY26 projects, and I also, in your binder, put last year's CIP that has the list of the FY26.

There are three other projects to this point, though, that are not up here, that are on our CIP, and they are not up here because there is no FY27 fund requirement, okay? So just because that may happen again next year, the same conversation, right? So there are other projects that are not up on these walls right now, and that is because there's no funding requirement. What we're trying to do is bridge a five-year plan into an actual fiscal year budget, right? So we're trying to cross that bridge a little bit and give direction. This doesn't have to be a debate about any of these specific individual projects. This is giving direction for the staff to make priorities about how to bring you back in specific information about each project. Right? So this is right now, we're talking at top level, right, management. This is where we are. When we get to actually working through each individual project, there will be specific project presentations and ways, you know, we'll have to tackle them all in more detail, obviously. Right? Right now, this is just high level. Okay?

Okay.

All right, and then green is staff. So staff will each get one, and you guys can put them wherever, however you like.

All right, make sure you walk around first before you vote so you can think about all the groups since they are all around the room, right?

All right, guys. All right, so last year at the end of this, they kind of looking around the room, it does look like to Lisa and Rick's point that a lot of people know the red ones are mandatory. And so, like I know both of the wastewater treatment repair ones that are over there didn't get a lot of stickers, but they have that red dot on them and we know we have to do them. So I understand using that strategy too, that's fine. But then in other cases like North Beach shoreline, it has a red dot, we have to do it, but yet there are still a lot of stickers there and that's really important to note. So I think it just helps give some feedback to the staff about how much interest there is in a project and how much maybe they would want to update us on it if there is that level of interest and things like that as well. So at the end of this, Um, session, uh, Heather puts together a chart of all of these. She puts it in the minutes for this and she'll send it out to all of us. And what comes out of this is that the staff then, um, need some direction from it. So last year, what we did was we directed that all priority one items, all of the red dots, because we're already in FY 27, right? Like time, time is ticking and it's August last year we did this meeting in June or July so yeah so we're kind of behind the eight ball on it this year so it was to ask Natasha to have all of the priority one items outlined with steps for completion and then a financial plan for all the mandatory utility CIP items and and then a work plan for all the priority two items, or any of the unfunded items. So anything with a one outline steps for completion, a financial plan for all the mandatory utility items, and a work plan for any priority two or lower unfunded items. So do we want that again from the staff to happen again? I think that was kind of effective last year, which is why we got a lot done. Looking for consensus on asking for more for that information. Aye. Okay.

That's for me.

Okay. I think that was a yes from Tom from the ceilings. Is there anything else that you expect at this moment to happen from this other than that information to come back to us? Okay. Natasha, are you good with that direction? Yes. Okay. And we had had that request for the timeline for the completion items to come back to us in August, but it is August. So maybe by... september regular meeting or october work session what do you think oh yeah because labor day so october work session okay all right um all right anything any other comments or feedback before we move the meeting forward WE ONLY HAVE ONE OTHER THING ON THE AGENDA, SO I'M JUST GOING TO KNOCK IT OUT AND THEN WE CAN CLEAN UP. AND THAT IS THE RESOLUTION FOR THE TRANSFER OF THE GENERAL FUNDS TO THE CIP FUNDS. THIS IS THE CIP POLICY THAT WE IMPLEMENTED LAST YEAR WHERE THE UNUSED FUND BALANCE AND RESERVE COMES OVER INTO CIP. THIS IS PART OF HOW SOME OF THESE THINGS ARE GOING TO GET PAID FOR.

So moved.

All right. Is there a second to that? Okay. Second. Is there any discussion? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Okay. David?

Yes and aye.

Okay. And Tom? Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Can you hear me? Yep.

All right. Any opposed? I think all of us have aye. All right. And that's all I've got for this agenda. And so with that, we will conclude our meeting at 8 o'clock on the dot. Thank you, everybody.