Town Council - Regular Meeting

Everyone, is the audio working? Is the mics working?

Is that a drum beat to start us out with? Test. Test.

Testing. I feel like mine. Okay, it's on. It's on. It's good. Um, okay. We are having a little screen difficulty as if you're in person with us today, you can tell because the TVs are going on and off and on and off and on and off. So, we probably are going to just unplug that, which is what just happened right now. Um, so bear with us on that. Um, but the agenda is available up there and that's what we'll be following through on the screen. Um, I always uh start the meeting off with welcoming everyone that's here in person. Thank you for coming. And anybody who's tuning in online, thanks for tuning in. I would like to remind everybody to please silence your cell phones. Just take a second, check your phone, just double check that it is actually all the way um not on vibrate, but on silent as it is uh distracting and we want to respect one another's time in each speaker speaking. I ask for your patience and understanding as we deliberate on various agenda items. Uh we do have open public comment at this meeting and there is a signup sheet right in the front by the podium here and you're welcome to sign up um and speak at public comment. Um we'll go over the rules uh when that time comes to come up. Uh we do not have any specific public hearings today. Those are advertised separately and designated separately. Uh we want to acknowledge our staff's work in preparation of our agenda tonight. Their insights are invaluable to each topic of town business. And we appreciate our town manager, Natasha Tucker. We work under the council manager form of government. And so it is the town manager who handles daily operations and department administration. While the town council provides direction and authorizes policy in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia and our town charter. Uh while each council member has the ultimate responsibility

to contribute responsibly and ethically to the citizens of Columbia Beach, we um do uh have to work as a body. Collaboration is key to productivity and local government. We will engage in constructive discussion, remain open to different perspectives and work together for effective resolutions. And finally, I remind everyone that the proceedings of the town council and this meeting are formal and they are recorded. And With that, we will call the Wednesday, October 15th, regular town council meeting to order. And I believe I have 6:03 p.m. Um, if you would please stand with me for a moment of silence and reflection, and it will be followed by the pledge of allegiance. All right, moving forward. Our roll call of members. All members are present and in person today. Um, amendments to the agenda. Do I have anything amending the agenda? Is there a motion to approve the agenda as written? Second.

All in favor? I I. Any opposed? We don't have anything on the consent agenda. So, we're just going to keep moving forward to the council member liaison commission report. And um Miss Grandstaff, can I start on your side because you had a nice morning this were you there this morning at the Women's Business Network? Oh, okay. it. I wasn't either. So, but it's okay. But you have some announcements for us, I believe. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. Um, our Tuesday meeting was cancelled because there was a lot of um activity, but I would just like to highlight a few things that uh EDC is working on. Um, some of us have the flyer. They want to remind us of the fall breakfast that's happening Thursday, October 23rd at 8 a.m. at the high at the ice house. um the flyers being circulated. So, keep an eye out on that and if you're able to attend as a small business person, um we encourage you to do so. Um the second is the creation of a tourism committee. A tourism plan was created a couple years ago and has provided a baseline. I'm not going to go into depth of that because at our November 19th meeting, Charlotte and Kelly Woods Vaughn will speak to that. So, um I will let them speak and give more information on that and they can do a question and answer session. Um we're also looking to realign the EDC to the EV. The committee will be composed of business representatives and nonprofits. This is a main street four points approach and will enhance the community preservation and revitalization. I'm sure they will speak to that portion as well. Just to touch on that, um, November 8th marks the 20th anniversary of our Colonial Beach Community Foundation and holiday activities. Um, Charlotte has reached out to American Express to participate as a neighborhood champion in their small business Saturday shop small business coordinated holiday light and decor led by Christa Brown. And that is in progress. So, as that comes closer, there'll be more information and they will um give you that information. They will also have a parade enlightened of the tree on town hill with the village town which or village town hill with or village town hill decor. Sorry about that. Um and that's it for reporting. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you, Miss Sanford.

Uh good evening everyone. Um just have two upcoming events for parks and recreation um on October 18th, Saturday, October 18th at 9 a.m. there's the beach to beer 5K and 10K run and fun walk um that will be on Town Hill. And then also on October 25th there's the annual fall festival and Halloween golf cart parade that will be at 11:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. on Town Hill. There will be food, crafts, games, music, costume contests, family friend uh familyfriendly parade of golf carts cruising around the point which will start at 400 p.m. And that is all I have for parks and rock. Mr. Allison,

hello everyone. Uh so for the public works department, uh we have a few highlights. Uh we'll start with infrastructure and utilities. Um utility installs, they had one. Water leaks, there was one repaired. Sewer installs, one completed. INI repairs, there were two ini issues repaired. Uh sewer backups, we had four cleared. Uh moving on to the wastewater treatment plant, there's continued support, maintenance, and operational repairs. Uh performed tank cleanings and on-site improvements, completed general grounds cleanup around the wastewater treatment plant. uh moving into our streets. There is ongoing ditch cleaning and rehabilitation for improved drainage and flood prevention. Uh tree work throughout town to improve safety and visibility. They filled sand washouts along the boardwalk and also filled potholes across town to maintain safe road conditions. Uh general service, they did event support and beautifification which consisted of assisting with setup and clean up of the community events. uh completed rehab rehabilitation of the memorial cannon. If you haven't get a chance to go by and look at that, make sure you do. Um and also provided general beach and property maintenance. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Excellent. Mr. Wood,

good evening everyone. Um first of all, I want to congratulate Nigel Long on receiving his Virginia certified planning commissioner program certification through the land use education program. Uh thank you and congratulations, Mr. Long. Uh the planning commission met on October 9th. Uh the business included uh the following. There was a public hearing regarding the zoning text amendment to article 13 parking regulations. There was no public comment. Planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the amendments to town council for adoption. The public hearing will be held once council authorizes such. Uh the planning commission reviewed its annual work plan. The initial process and preparation for the 2026 through 31 capital improvement plan was discussed. A draft zoning text amendments regarding the site plan review process and timing in the division ordinance review process and timing as required by recently amended state code were discussed with the commission voting to advertise a public hearing for such. Planning Commission reviewed its bylaws in anticipation of adoption that is January 26 organizational meeting. Um appointments to the planning commission. There were three applications received. Uh all of the council members have received those applications. There are currently two unexpired terms vacated by uh Pat Curts and Bailey Thompson that expire January 1st, 2027. Uh Bob Christensen has notified the town that he does not plan to continue after his term expires on November 31st, 2025. I hate to see Bob go. Uh council may appointment or appoint a third candidate to serve effective December 1st, 2025 and ending January 1st, 2029. And we will discuss that a bit later. Uh on to the good news for the Colonial Beach Police

Department. Um the chief is pleased to announce that last week two police officer recruits uh started a police academy. They're expected to graduate in March 2026. They're also pleased to announce that as of this weekend, all three of our recent academy graduates will have successfully completed their field training and will be assigned to patrol duties. Uh the police department is exceptionally proud to report that on October 9th department was awarded their accredit accreditation from the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission. So congratulations on that, Chief. I know how hard you guys have worked on it. And then finally, hopefully everybody had a chance to uh visit the National Night uh out on Townill. That was Tuesday. Um it was a good time. I got to meet uh the correctional facility mascot uh who was Justice the Eagle or as I turned him the jailbird. But uh it it was a fun event and uh again thanks to you and the folks from West Morland for doing that.

Mr. Larson,

good evening everybody. Um as you know I'm the alas to the NOS's in town. That's a daunting task because I think there's over 20 of them now. U today I attended the meeting of the alliance of these organizations. It's really kind of a an excuse me an umbrella uh group that tries to make sure that the uh they don't step on each other with dates and things like that. Uh great session, a lot of great collaboration between uh the chamber, BAM, Osprey Foundation, downtown Columbia Beach on and on and on. There's a bunch of folks there today. Um so many things I could talk about that uh not appropriate to get into all that here tonight, but there's one thing that I thought I would share, right? So, um one of the things that the alliance does is coordinate volunteer activity, right? So, if you are one of these NOS's and you need a volunteer, there's a couple of ways you can request those. You can send an email to the alliance inbox. I can tell you what that is later. or uh you can post on the uh Facebook site that is called sorry a Facebook group called Colonial Beach Volunteers right so that if you're an NGO and you need volunteers for an event those excuse me those are two things you ought to do if you are a citizen uh and are just interested in helping out uh same thing right so go to Colonial Beach Volunteers group on Facebook and look for what's there if you have any questions about this you can reach out to me directly or Self Sullivan, uh, who can be found in her shop on Hawthorne Street most days. Uh, she's the, uh, the director of the alliance group. Uh, coming up next week is restaurant week in Colonial Beach. Uh, again, there'll be all kinds of online uh, resources to figure out who's has what deal going at which restaurant. Uh, please go out and support our restaurants next week. Uh, the I've been talking about this for the last two meetings now, for three in a row, including tonight. The Alzheimer's walk

happening this Saturday, October 18th. Meet at the Memorial Gun in the center of town at 10 a.m. Uh it's a three mile walk, but there is a uh an option to cut that in half and do a mile and a half walk if if that's what you would prefer. Again, plenty of resources online to tell you more about that. On Sunday, BAM is hosting their around the town golf cart scavenger hunt. Different from the the golf cart parade that Miss Anford talked about a few minutes back. This is happening again this Sunday, right? And the prizes are $100 first place and $50 second place. They have a few openings still left. Uh look for that online if you're interested. Okay. Uh finance announcements. Utility bills uh were due on October the 1st. Penalty and interest apply as of November the 1st, so get them done. Uh real estate and personal property tax bills were mailed and are due by December the 5th. Uh penalty and interest will apply starting on the 5th of December. Uh and again, as always, if you're experiencing financial difficulties, the uh the town finance office will work with you. give them a call, stop in uh and they will make accommodations as they are able. That's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

Oh, good evening everybody. U just a few updates on the schools. Um they've been really busy and I've attended uh the school board meeting this um last Wednesday and also a collaborative meeting with the town on Friday, October 10th. Um Dr. is going to give a I'm sure a pretty thorough overview. So, I'll just kind of hit a couple highlights for the the schoolboard meeting that I attended and then some highlights from the meeting from the collaboration with the town. Um, they talked at their regular meeting about the parent teacher conferences were held. Um, they talked about some test scores and some and some other scores that are coming in still. Um they also talked about uh chronic absenteeism and and some of the ways to deal with that. And they also talked about uh school finances and um pass some uh voted to you know pass some of the budget items. Um, as far as the collaboration meeting, which is a meeting we have at the um school board office with the the superintendent and members of the school board and also town staff. Um they're they discussed about uh updated that they're working on the 2027 budget process already. Um they mentioned that the audit's going well for the school and the town audits going as well as also um they discussed the CIP projects several in process and I'm I'm sure Dr. will mention some of those like this the front entrance the parking lot cafeteria furniture etc. Um the superintendent also mentions some of the age related issues um at the high school. Um, I'm guessing a lot of people know that the building is going on 30 years old or at 30 years old. So, there's some maintenance things that uh maybe weren't done over the years or

that are just getting ready to be done because of the age of the building. As as you all know, 30 years is a a good amount of time for a building to um go through various uh wear and tear. Uh let's see. They also discussed community engagement and um with various groups in town like am and um also possibly holding an event. Um mentioned the school safety. Um one of the things I brought up was uh because this has been brought up I guess um in previous council meetings about the kids getting home safely, you know, walking and and some of the routes that they have to go and um town manager had had mentioned that there was something actually being worked on with VOTE currently. Um and so that's about all I got. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Um, okay. I got a few announcements. Um, one, I just wanted to thank all the community members that came out for the connectivity plan um, workshop and community engagement that happened with DCB and the Timmans group at the school a couple weeks ago. It was very well attended, I thought. And, uh, there's a survey online. I don't know when that closes out, but if you haven't taken the online survey for the connectivity plan, it is on our website. And I please please encourage everyone to take that survey. Um also a quick reminder that after discussion at our last meeting we will be moving our November work session one week up to actually the October 29th. So it actually will move to October just the one week up because we are inviting Davenport to do a workshopping with our CIP funding which is uh something that we have been doing a thorough um presentations about for months now and so it's kind of time to uh get into the nitty-gritty of that but

that date will be one week ahead of time. Um, I want to give a really big shout out to our Plio Beach Police Department. Um, bikefest ran smoothly. I know that we had pending weather and we didn't know if it was going to rain or was going to rain and then Saturday ended up being kind of decent. I think Sunday was pretty much a wash. But, um, our chief, we we have a chief of police right now who knows how to handle this event with pride, with dedication. He has the connections. he has the knowhow and I just can't say enough about um your work for that event and your leadership with our police department because it really shows when you know we have events like that um just how you know professional and seasoned you are and I just really appreciate that in all you do. Um, and that just counter, you know, uh, acts to National Night Out, which once again was just impressive. And although we had some of the presenters at National Night Out are associated with the base command and could not make it because of the current situation of the federal government. Um there was just a broad show of support across the state from other police departments that came down which shows the connections and that entire network um that each officer has and we have capitalized on mainly because our chief of police also teaches at the training center and has been an instructor for many years there now. And you can tell that how that feeds into this professionalism and the support for our PD. And I could see it just very clearly at National Night Out as well. And um you know, and Bikefest takes those kinds of collaborations. So I think both those things are just um

really important to highlight and let our citizens know um because that's something you don't always get exposed to, right? Um, also, you know, public works doesn't never get by without some kind of shout out, especially when they redo an entire memorial cannon. So, um, James, Jim, James, somebody told me his name was Jim and then that stuck and then I called him that. I know there is, but his name is James and he works for public works and he is one of our grounds crew members who takes just enormous pride. I think it feeds through the whole public works department as well. But I just want to highlight him particularly because I have seen him go really above and beyond in that realm and that cannon was a team effort but James was still out there even on his lunch break on the tiniest little things just to make sure it was perfect. So, we're all looking forward to our Veterans Day service that comes up at that cannon this November. Um, our supervisor Trivet will not be with us tonight. He normally gives a presentation at the regular meetings, but because Monday was a holiday and their board of supervisor meeting would have been that Monday, their meeting is right now concurrently with this meeting. So, he is at his own uh supervisor's meeting and um not here tonight, but I would um be remiss to not mention the fact that at the Montros ball festival um I was asked to join in a joint resolution between the board of supervisors, the town of Montros, and to add in the support of the town of Colonial Beach in recognizing the volunteer and um and paid both paid and volunteer EMS staff that support this

county and our town. Um, and we presented that proclamation at the Montros Fall Festival and they were the grand marshalss of the parade which included also a lot of information about the changing and evolving um dynamics of EMS in West Morland County. And so without their service um you know we would really be at a much higher risk especially with the distance to medical care. So, we just really appreciate all the people that work in EMS and support our community in that realm. That is all of my announcements. And next up is our town manager update, which we do have the TV back for. So, we will actually have a PowerPoint, I think. Yes. On a prayer or Yeah. Okay. Awesome.

Good evening, Madame Mayor, council members, uh members in the audience. This evening, my uh town manager report will consist of our first quarter finance report, our third quarter public safety report, and our monthly sewer plant update from Inboden. Uh and then after John is finished with his report, then I would like to speak about um the accreditation that our police department has received. Um so, uh we will start off with Lisa. Good evening, Madame Mayor, county, town council. Um, can I present the first quarter financial report, and we're going to start off with our general fund numbers. Um, our this chart shows our revenue and expenditures for the first quarter along with our budgeted numbers. And I just want to let you know they we have collected 16% of our revenue, our budgeted revenue and see move this down here. Oops. And we have spent 29% of our budget for expenditures. And I do want to point out um on the revenue side um general fund revenue comes in our big chunks come in June and December. Um so being at only 16% in the first quarter is um normal. Um we have a lot of seasonal revenue that comes in at different times. So we are on budget for that. Next slide shows the breakdown of where the money came in and where it was spent. And we'll move along to the sewer fund.

Um our sewer fund uh we have a 20% expenditure of budget on both um expenditures and collection of revenue. So we are on target with sewer. And the next slide shows the breakdown of where the money came in and where it was spent. And then we get to move on to our water fund. Um on our water we have collected 28% of our revenue and we have spent an expenditures 43% but I want to point out on the water fund that our debt service if you look at the next slide um the 373,000 is almost 100% of our debt service for the year. The first quarter we have to make the biggest payments on our water debt service. That is why there's a big increase on that. And our last slide is an update on the ARPA fund. Um, so I want to point out two things on here. Uh, we committed, uh, town council committed the ARPA funds for the DEEQ projects of $2.7 million and the expenditures we spent so far in fiscal 26 was 226, which believes that now all of our ARPA funds have been committed uh, to projects. Um the little note on there, we still are waiting on a reimbursement for the resilient resilience plan development. Um that has been submitted and we have followed up on that and we do not have a date on when we're going to receive that, but they are working on that. Um the last thing that is not on the slide that I do want to give to town council and public um cash balances as of today, our general fund has $4,645,251.75.

The ARPA fund, as you can see from the slide, has two,758,55850. Our water fund has $2,49,759.86 and our sewer fund has 936,1226. And that is my presentation of the first quarter financials. Is there any questions? Go ahead, Mr. Williams.

Yes. On the DEQ reimbursement, the 2.5 or 7, whatever it was, Um, where does that money go? I mean, I know it's reimbursed to the town, but does it go into another account or is it already spent? What? What's the status of that? The reimbursement we got from DQ, the first round of reimbursement, it is actually in the ARPA fund. It was reimbured back to the ARPA fund where the original money came from. Okay. which you now committed last work session to spend on the um CIP projects that need to be completed for the consent order for DEQ. Okay. So that fact

and those items I believe Chris are all reimbursable by the uh DEQ ARPA grant. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Welcome, Chief. Thank you, ma'am. Sorry if I surprised you earlier.

Thank you. Um, we could go to the next slide, please. That's our mission statement again. Go to the next slide. And one more. Okay. For the uh uh this is Madame Mayor and members of council. This is going to be our uh the public safety's third quarter uh 2025 third quarter report. As indicated on the slide, we responded to 1,770 uh calls for service. Uh during this quarter, we took 110 uh incident reports, conducted 185 traffic stops, uh worked five traffic collisions, and made 44 arrests during this period. Now, the the arrest number doesn't necessarily mean someone's getting actually taken into custody. It could be serving a warrant or serving a summon on somebody, but that would the number still reflect in the arrest report. So, um, next slide, please. Uh, this shows the offenses. Um, I the actually on the next slide, it's going to be the 2024 u the same um chart but for uh the year 2024. during this year. Uh in this in this slide where we see an uptick on that is in the uh arrests for the the incidence of uh uh driving while under the influence. Uh it bumped up from um five in 2024 to 13. I think that's a function of our our uh u dedication our officers to traffic safety uh and the fact that uh uh officer Proski completed uh his DR training and is um actually he won our this year's MAD award.

So um next slide please that this is the 2024 uh numbers. So again you can see that we we dropped down from U uh that was bumped up, I'm sorry, from five to to 13. Uh there was also a slight uptick in the thefts reports and a reduction in the burglary and breaking and entering offenses. Next slide, please. Uh this slide show and I apologize seems a little light up there, but um it shows uh the arrests for this year uh or for the I apologize for this quarter. Uh we had a total again had a total of of uh 44 arrests with the u lion share of being uh DUI. And then there's also the the large the largest uh uh number there is for it's just for other offenses some that don't fall into uh other categories but as far as singular offenses DUI was the the main one. Next slide please. Thank you. Uh for this one, this shows the the um offense trends for days of the week. Um and this shows that we had a slight reduction in the incident uh in for days of the week. 24 there was three days 24's on the bottom. I apologize. 24 is on the bottom, 25's on the top. Um we had three days. In 24 that reached 20 incidents per day. uh in 25 that was reduced uh to 12 or two days and uh Saturday was the um the highest day or the had the largest incidence uh for that day of the week. So again we we try to schedule around that knowing that actually in 24 Sunday was the the uh largest day. So we try to schedule around that and make sure we have ample

coverage on the weekends. Um next one please. Oops, there we go. So, this shows the offense uh for trends uh off offense trends by the hour. Um and we try to keep an eye on this uh again for staffing reasons. We had um in 2025 we the biggest spike that we had was at 3:00 in the afternoon which is kind of an anomaly. Um but uh if you look at the um on the very left side and again it's very faint but the the highest incident rate uh per hour again was at 3:00 and that was only to six. In 2024, we had two incidents. Uh one from uh uh basically 9:00 until 11 o'clock and then another one at noon. Uh where we're at at 20 incidents and 17 uh incidents was at noon. But we are hopeful now that we have additional coverage on the uh street now with our three new officers uh that we'll start seeing a reduction in that. Next slide, please. Next one. Uh this is the for the uh uh Colon Beach Volunteer Fire Company. The the fire department responded to 58 fire calls, 14 motor vehicle accidents, 70 EMS calls, um 11 public service they serves 11 public service hours uh conducted uh or events, excuse me, and then manh hours 447 hours that they served. Um and average they average 4.31 members per call. And one more please on this one. The uh West Men Department of Emergency Services uh responded to a total of 268 medical calls. That's uh just in Colona Beach. They actually the total EMS calls

were over a thousand,95 uh but 268 here. They conducted a total of 161 transports and we had average response or they had an average response time of just slightly over nine minutes. So, and I in conclusion on this report, I did want to thank members of the public um for their help with us. We recently we've had uh three incidents that that were posted um on our uh Facebook page. One was a uh individual who had stolen some credit cards from uh a car that he' broken into uh and then used them at uh the vape shop here in Colon Beach. And then two other ones were stolen ebikes, the electric bikes. And with the public's help, we we have uh resolved and solved all those. So, I want to thank the public for for their help in in helping us fight crime in.

Thank you. And there's a neighborhood watch meeting. Yes. So you can get involved. Yes, ma'am. Lots of things to volunteer for. Thank you. John, are you next? I am next. And then we're going to come back around. Natasha. Okay, sounds good.

Good afternoon, everyone. So, if you could start with page two, please. There you go. So, this was really a pretty month. Not a lot to report. We um didn't have a whole lot of high flow days here. No real major rain events. As you can see, this was the lowest flow day that we've had all year long. And this is kind of that what we expect to see now until the next uh until the tour season picks back up. So, we're happy about that. Uh next page, please. As you all can see there, all of our sample results are well below where they need to be. The plant's performing very well right now in its current state. Uh, next page. This is probably the most significant thing I want to bring to your attention. You all know that we've been fighting, you know, the nitrites and meeting our WQIFF limit for quite some time. The plant hasn't met those limits in in well over a couple years. So, after adding the supplemental carbon land to the nitrate recycle that we talked about last month, we got this reporting period that we're discussing now down to a 3.77 average in nitrite. That is much lower than what it's ever been. Your limit is a three. Starting this month in October, every sample result that we have collected in nitrite is below that 3.0 threshold. So, we are well on our way to meeting our WQIFF requirement, which, you know, you have to have a 3.0 average for the whole year. So, it's going to take a lot to be able to get that average down from where it's at now. But I'm really hoping that we'll be able to finish off this year below a six in our nitrite level. And that's good news. And we don't believe we'll have any issue meeting that level in the future. Another thing it's left us able to do is start dialing back on other chemicals that were being used. So now that we can fine-tune the plant and start, you know,

getting the chemicals where they need to be with everything treating properly, we expect there to be a little bit of a savings there on chemicals than what you all have seen in the last year. So that is that is good news. But otherwise, no real significant issues at the plant. You know, we're collaborating with uh with public works to start a lot of these projects and things that need to be done before next year with this money that you have. So, a lot of good things to come. But that's really concludes my report. Any questions? Anybody? Nope. Thank you all. Thank you.

As many of you are aware, we have been working on um the accreditation of our police department. And I know when I was hired as the town manager and had learned that that was something that the police department was working on. That was uh certainly one of my goals to accomplish and to accomplish in short order. Um, so just last week there was a presentation in Fredericksburg and our police department was awarded uh an accreditation award and actually if it were not for the county holding their meeting uh this evening um Chief uh not chief but Sheriff Balderson would have been here to present our chief with the award that was presented um to us and I just cannot say how immensely proud I am of the chief and the department as a whole and just the tireless efforts that have gone into this process. Um all of the questions that were asked and gathering all of the paperwork, making sure that the department met each and every one of the criteria. We went through a mock um procedure and we passed all I believe it was 192. We passed all of those marks and we were told that that was virtually unheard of that no other police department passed a mock um assessment with flying colors as we did. But still we didn't rest on our laurels. We did not ease up on the efforts that we were doing or anything um that we were doing. As a matter of

fact, we ramped up those efforts because we wanted to ensure that we had this thing locked down. So now I'll pass it over to the chief and he can just go more in depth about what the process in Fredericksburg was like, some of the glowing words that um the t that were bestowed upon the town. So Chief, take it away. And then I'd like you to also come up and show um the the uh accreditation plaque.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. Um as town manager, it was on October 9th uh we appeared before the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission or what's otherwise known as uh to receive our initial accreditation review. Um after reading the assessor's report which indicated that we did meet 192 out of 192 standards, um our West Morland County Sheriff uh Sheriff Balderson who is a Valpy Commissioner he's on he is on the commission uh made a motion that that uh we be awarded our accreditation and that motion was unanimously passed by the credit the commission. So we are now officially accredited [Applause]

bring it up here. We got to see this. This puppy's been years in the making here.

All right, hold up. Hold up. I'm gonna I'm gonna read it right like a proclamation. The Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission Certificate of Accreditation. This document certifies that the Colonial Beach Police Department came before the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission on October 9th, 2025 and has met the requirements set forth by the commission and is therefore certified as an accredited agency for a period of four years. Signed by Sheriff Steve Draper of the Virginia Sheriff's Association, Jackson Miller of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, and Chief Scott Booth of the Rowan Oak Police Department. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

Well deserved. Th this this award uh is the culmination of a lot of hard work and commitment uh made by every member of the Columbia Beach Police Department. Uh this this process started on paper in November of 2021. Uh but started in earnest in March of uh 2023 when our accreditation manager Andy Gore was hired. Um and did it short very short amount of time but he worked tirelessly preparing the all the paperwork that needed to be done for this and this is a very arduous process. Um there are 192 professional standards and each one of the standards we have to prove that we have met. Um, for each standard there is a file and in that file it contains a copy of the standard and a copy of either a police report or a photo uh that proves the department adheres to and practices the professional standards as set out by Valpsy. Um, this is not a task for one person. It it is like I said it is an arduous task. The entire department has to be involved uh to make sure that we're following the standards and that our reports reflect that we are following the standards. uh and that requires the cooperation of all the officers and the staff. And not only do our reports have to follow the standards, um our department policies and procedures must also align with the standards. Um and so we have to make sure that our policies reflect the best practices uh which is a da truly a daunting task. We have 162 policies uh that we and every one of them has to align with the standards. Uh and they do. So I'm proud to announce that they do. Um, and the I think probably one of the most challenging areas uh that we had to address, one of the biggest challenges that we had uh was in our property and evidence management. Um and that typically if you talk to anybody

that's involved in in uh accreditation that's kind of the stumbling block uh because it's so detailoriented and you can imagine how much over the years how much property and evidence we've accumulated and so we have to know where everything is and how and make sure that everything's uh documented properly and in the right spot. Um and unfortunately a short time before we had our assessment our uh property and evidence manager left the department. And one of the rules is is that when the department or the the uh evidence manager leaves the department, you have to conduct a complete audit of everything that is in the property and um and then also get the then we had to work to get it up to standard. Um this was a huge taking and vital to our accreditation process. um then officer and now Sergeant Michael Dean. Uh I don't know if he was happy about it or not, but he was assigned to these tasks. Uh and I have nothing but the highest respect for him. He did a phenomenal job in getting that mission accomplished. Um our the assessor went through that with a fine tooth comb and the any defect or problem in the system they call them a return. We didn't have one return in pro well we didn't have one return on anything but no return in the property of evidence which was was phenomenal. Um during this process we had the support of our law enforcement partners especially with Morland County Sheriff's Department and also the King George uh Sheriff's Department uh who conducted reviews and mock assessments uh that were discussed and to ensure that all our fire files were squared away uh and that we were prep prepared for the actual assessment. The assessment itself is a three-day event. The the assessors are in our department going through everything for three days. Um and we can't thank our our law enforcement partners enough. But in conclusion, um this was a total team effort. We are so proud of the result

and we're so proud that we've joined the ranks of accredited agency. It's been a while since we've been in that realm and we're really glad to be back. Um now we have to work to maintain it. Um which we will and uh but this accreditation proves that the Colon Beach Police Department follows uh best practices and to strict professional accreditation standards and for that we're really very proud and thank you guys for supporting us in this uh endeavor. Thank you. Thank you. We're so proud of you as well. You want to take a picture or how are you going to announce this? Come on up here. Oh, does Andy know? Did you call him?

Good. And that concludes my updates. All right. A lot of positive news this meeting. Not going to jinx it with the Halloween proclamation. All right. As we do every year, uh the clerk prepares a fun Halloween proclamation for us. And so it reads tonight that the town of Clu Beach Halloween proclamation by order of the ghouls, ghosts, and governing bodies. Nice one, Heather. Um, whereas the chill is in the air, the leaves are falling, pumpkins are glowing, and strange creatures are stirring in the streets of Colonial Beach, mostly in costume, we hope. And whereas the town of Colonial Beach embraces the magical mischief of Halloween, a time for goblins and superheroes, pirates and princesses, and all things sweet and spooky. And whereas the town council recognizes the importance of community fun, safe spooks, and plenty of treats for all our little witches and wizards, ghosts and ghouls. And whereas Columbia Beach residents are known for their creativity, hospitality, and top tier

candy selection, which is true by the full-size bars that you can get at Betto Avenue. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the town of Clon Beach, um that Halloween shall be celebrated on October 31st, 2025 from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. patrolled by our great police department and throughout the neighborhoods of the town of Clono Beach. We hereby summon all costumed characters, big and small, to safely haunt our sidewalks, fill their buckets, and share in the joy of a frightfully delightful Halloween night. And we urge all monsters and mummies to be courteous. Carry flashlights. Stay with your creature crews. And remember, only knock on doors with porch lights a glow. May your costumes be clever, your candy bags full, and your frights be fun and friendly. And in witness thereof, we proudly and slightly spooky members of the Columbia Beach Town Council set our hand and seal this 15th day of October, 2025. All right, Halloween is here. And we do celebrate Halloween. Which day is it? October 25th is the trunk or treat at the school. Dr. Ado, you're on board with that. Trunk or treat. 25th at the school. The fire department, I think, host it. Yes. Excellent.

Yeah. And we got the parades. Bunch of parades. Look, look on Facebook. I don't know. Yeah, the trunk or treat is a great um place to go though because you load up number one, but number two is uh you don't have to have the dangers of walking in the street too, especially if you got little ones. So, it's kind of nice. All right, Dr. You're next. you and your staff. Wonderful announcement and accomplishment. And I do want to also give a huge uh thank you to our school board members. Uh sometimes uh we don't say enough and I hope uh folks say the same thing about the council members. Uh we don't thank them enough. their jobs are are not easy. Uh they do their best uh to to for us for the school board members to to service the kids and do what's best for the kids uh from their uh elected position. I also want to give a shout out to our fearless leaders, uh Miss Michelle Coats, elementary principal, and then Mr. Lush, uh Scott Lush, the high school principal. Been a principal before. It is uh it is a a very uh hard job uh to to walk in every day and you don't know what's going to happen with every kid walking in and you don't know what happened the night before at at their house or what they coming into the school with. Uh so I I also like to give

them a shot. I I don't do that enough and I do I need to do that more often. uh they're doing an amazing job with all the challenges in front of them in addition to uh unfunded mandates from from BBOE and also from the federal government that trickles down to our school system that we have to uh meet. I would say that at 2024 2025 school accreditation school performance data typically is out uh for all the schools in July. uh if I mentioned this before previously uh there's a new framework that came about this year uh and and up to today and it's still delayed uh because we we have a lot of issues with uh data we had to submit some data back to BDOE because it was incorrect uh they have a lot of incorrect data at least uh 64 67 school districts in Virginia submitted corre for student performance data. Uh so they're they they're backed they're backed up. They don't know when this will be released. Yeah, we still waiting waiting on that. Uh but preliminary data indicate that our students overall performed uh very well especially at the high school. Uh they they uh performed significantly higher than they've done in the past. However, as as a superintendent, I have to keep it in front of uh my folks and my teachers that we do have room to grow and that room to grow is our subgroups. When you tease down the data a little bit more, uh we have two areas of subgroups that are not performing as well as the rest of our uh students. Uh that's the black uh students and also students with disabilities. Uh so that's something

that we we're going to be focused on. we're going to tackle uh this upcoming uh school year and moving forward. Uh now to uh to get to a more brighter uh uh information for you guys, I will have to quote uh Kim Cow, who is our elementary school board student uh representative, seventh grader at our meeting last uh Wednesday. Uh to quote her, she said that 2025 2026 school year has been going exceptionally well so far and I have not seen any major problems and none have been reported to me by my peers. I say that because uh Kim will tell you if there's something wrong at the school and she will not be bashful to tell you to fix it. uh and and she she told us that at first meeting she was at that uh we need to change our code of uh dress code for for the school system because it's unfair to females. I mean she's very blunt to the point. So we do appreciate her perspective and what she has to add. Also, uh Zachary Papa Nicholas, who's a high school senior, uh a representative, uh shared how much he uh has enjoyed the support of the school board members, seeing them at football games, volleyball games, uh working at the concession stands and so forth. He really appreciates that. Also, the school leadership team, leadership team, seeing them around campus and supporting the students. Uh so we we welcome and we enjoy the perspective of our uh students at schoolboard meeting. Now moving on to the elementary school. First grade according to Mrs. Coats won the August September home room challenge for grades

K through three. Uh now what did they win? They won an extra recess time and also uh popsicles with the police. Uh so they they're looking forward to to to uh those uh events. They're excited about it. Uh also the uh library held its annual fall book fair in September. Uh the total sales uh for the fall book fair was $7,95.83. Uh so they they did really well. Uh uh we we are very glad for that. Moving on to the high school. According to the school administration, that is the best homecoming they have had in four years. It it was it was well attended. Uh if you're on social media, uh you you would have saw every single kid that was in there was dancing, line dancing, and and enjoying it. Uh and and my former district, I was getting comments from Co Pepper. Dr. Is is that your school on social media? Uh it was and I didn't even know till I had to look at it. Uh oh, yeah, it is. Uh is is Colonial Colonial Beach High School. Uh so it was uh it was uh great for the kids to to have a good time. Uh coming up at the high school, we have we have the ASVAB test that will be administered on Monday, October 20th. And that's the AR armed services vocational aptitude battery test. And then we have the FAFSA uh night is Tuesday, October 21st at 5:00 p. p.m. in our high school cafeteria as we are getting ready to help the seniors uh along the way for postsecary uh when we're talking about financial

stability. Uh for parents, please uh the FAFSA is important. If if you don't know much about it, please be there, fill it out, learn how to fill it out, and see if you can get some uh funds for postsecary. Uh now, we're also excited. I must sh say that a football team is three and three. We we we we won uh last week and it was shared with me that it was a last second interception. Uh time ran out and ding-dong, we got a win. It was it was wonderful. So, we we are excited by that. Now, we I'm looking forward to playoffs. Uh no no pressure on the coach at all. Uh I am very excited to announce that the Colonial uh Beach uh Colonial Beach public schools, specifically the elementary school, because that's what we wrote the grant for. We have received $80,000 school security and safety grant uh for the elementary school, but also part part of the grant was also for uh buses uh passenger ID card readers, but we we're geared towards getting another weapons detection uh system uh for the back of the elementary school, the cafeteria where we have our drop off and pick up from. Uh I think that is an area that is uh unsecured and we need something in the back of that elementary school uh for the buses passenger ID card readers something that we are contemplating that may be something that uh we will we'll table for now because uh the grant is at 20% match uh so we don't know if we'll be able to have all the funds to do both of those uh items and also we have applied for another grant to assist with growing our own pipeline of licensed teachers. We do

have a lot of paraprofessionals uh that may have their associates bachelors but it's not really in education. Uh so they have to go back to school to get that educational part of it and we are trying to get a grant that will help them with tuition assistance specifically for a program called been approved by VODE called I teach. We have four paraprofessionals teachers in it right now. Uh they should be finished in two years for that program. They will be licensed and we're trying to get a uh grant to assist uh more of our teachers. Now moving on to uh CIP as mentioned by Mr. Williams. We are in progress with the front entrance. Uh we hope to have a contract with Shyel Construction uh soon and then we'll move on to schedule of from demolition to whenever this will be completed. We'll keep you posted on that progress. We have also received Thank you to uh the town. We also has we have received the permit for the schoolboard office parking lot and we are moving ahead uh pending the weather to to do the parking lot. Uh it's getting cold so that may not happen. uh but we'll depend on the expertise of uh the folks that will uh take care of the parking lot for us. Uh finally uh I will give you enrollment as of last week Wednesday we have for the elementary school we have 350 uh students uh that is without prek. Uh the high school is 2011. Uh so we're looking at ADM of 551. remember our budget was based on I mean ADM of uh yes 551 our budget was based on 555

uh uh prek numbers the total prek students 31 uh uh so the total student population is 582 and I think that is that's it for me do you have any questions for me any questions I have one question. As much as we enjoy you presenting at our regular meetings, I would love for you to invite Kim and Zach to present on behalf of the school board at one of our future meetings. Will you send that invitation to them? Let me work on that. Okay.

Sure. Sure. Sure. Uh I I have to be honest, it's difficult for them to attend uh schoolboard meetings uh because they they they are involved in after school athletics and activities. Uh so we'll we'll see if I can task him with one more thing. I think Zach is a quarterback. Is that right? He's a quarterback. Yes. Yes. And they should be 4-2, not 3-3 because I was at one of those games that I mean I am telling you I was at the edge of the fence like we were so close. But anyway, very proud of them. Well, extend the invite regardless if they're able to make it. Sure, we'll do. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Okay, now I put my paper somewhere. Here we go. Next up is public comment. This is general public comment and there was signup sheet at the front. Uh, did you pick it up already? Okay. All right. During all public comment or any hearings, we ask that certain guidelines be followed. Uh, we will ask that you stand at the podium and for the record, please state your name and your address. If you'd like to be contacted, please provide your contact information to the clerk. Make your comments to the council as a whole. Be brief. State your position and provide facts. And you may provide written statements or supporting materials to the clerk and she can distribute them to us um and the town manager. Uh debate is prohibited and follow up on comments is provided by the town manager. We ask that you speak clearly because we want to hear what you have to say and council will try to hear everyone who wishes to speak on any subject. Uh the comments are limited to five minutes and time cannot be transferred to another speaker. If you represent a group, you may wish to identify other members of your group who are also in attendance. And after public comment is closed, I encourage you all to stay as the council continues to engage in dialogue and deliberation on future agenda items. And with that, we will open up public comment. I got no time because my little clock is not here and that thing I don't trust anymore. 7:06 p.m. Welcome, Miss Gold.

Good evening, Mayor Shik and Vice Mayor Allison and council members. I do want to take a moment to pick up on council member Larson's comment about my good pals over at the chambers restaurant week. Um I'm representing DCB. That address is 125 uh Wilder Avenue here in Colonial Beach. And I just want to kind of elaborate a little bit more on the importance of restaurant week to the town of Colonial Beach and all that we do. Um it gives Did I hold it up correctly? Yes. Um, next week, the 20th through the 26th, uh, just about every single restaurant in Colonial Beach is participating, and that's exciting. It gives our restaurant staffs an opportunity to shine bright, um, to show their hospitality skills at their bests, our chefs, uh, the opportunity to create, um, wonderful dishes for everyone, both residents and visitors. So, I would just encourage everyone to take a moment. You can either go to cbrestweek.com or you can maybe queue in uh get into the QR code and um and scan that. So just thank you for giving me the opportunity to pitch that.

Thank you. I think that's all we had signed up. Would anybody else like to come up? Okay. All right. We will close public comment at 7:07 p.m. and moving forward. Straight on to new business. Uh appointments to the planning commission. Um Miss Lawrence, do you want to intro the topic?

Sure. Madame Mayor, council members, thank you for for this. Um, we have currently two openings on planning commission, two members who resigned. Um, and then we will have another opening for a term that expires at the end of November. We did advertise and give a deadline as suggested at the work session and we have three applications. So, we can fill all three of those seats with one not beginning until December if you would like. The code um does specify that we stagger terms, four-year terms staggered. We had a little glitch in that for a little while. So, we're trying to get them back on. So, that third appointment will actually be a term of three years in one month. And then we will have everybody expiring either January 1st of 2027 or 2029. So, Okay, great. Um, we do have three applicants. I know one is in the audience because I met him briefly. Are the other two applicants here? Yes. Excellent. Okay, great. All three are here. So, you didn't get my brief ahead of time, so I'm going to throw you all on the spot, but um I just wanted to briefly have um each of you come up to the podium and just say hello. Um we've seen through your resumes and and all that, but just to so that we kind of put a face with the name and all all of those things. We really appreciate your applications. Um I got Amarie first on my just happens to be at the top of my thing. So, welcome.

Um I'm um I live here on Colonial Beach. I live on Monroe Avenue down near Dockside. Um you guys have my resume, you know, I've worked u I have a planning degree from University of Virginia. Um I've worked in planning capacity for in several uh ways for a private developer, for a regional governmental organization, and for a business improvement district. Um, so I feel like I have a lot of good experience that I got offered the town. Um, we're pretty new residents here. We moved here in the beginning of 23 after the nest was empty and we could finally move um because we've been trying to conspire to for a while. And um I love living here. Every day I walk my dog down to the battoic and I feel so lucky. And I think um being on the planning commission that it's really important when you are doing this this kind of work to make sure that the town can grow and thrive but also preserve what makes it so wonderful and the the reason why we wanted to be here so much. So that's all I have. You have any questions?

You do. Thanks. Go away. Mr. Wood has a question for you. Just a quick one. Um first of all, thank you for your commitment to service in town. I'm sure you're doing it for the all the money. It's free, by the way. Just in case you were doing it for the money, it is totally free. Okay. Yeah. Cuz cuz we ball here, right? But um and and thank you for the brief overview of why you want to do it. But let me ask you in your heart of hearts, okay, and not just the uh interview answer for those. What was it while you were walking around the that you want to get committed to the town and make it a better place.

Well, um, like I said, I mean, I feel very lucky to live here that I'm planning to stay here. Somebody called and asked if we wanted to sell our house and I said, "No, I'm planning to die in this house." Kind of ended that conversation very quickly, but realtor, yeah. Um, so I I like I said, I I um I hadn't actually, you know, I have I've been kind of looking at things in the town, but came up, I said, "Wow, this is such a good uh o, you know, overlap of things I I've done and I know this is a really good way for me to to put my my skills in." I mean, I I'm on the board of the Osprey Foundation and I have done like little bits of volunteering here, like doing the July 4th Ambassador with Parks and Rec. So, I've kind of been looking for like what's my it's my best way to be involved here and and to give back. Um, I just feel like that's important and this seems like it's a a really good fit for my skills and experience.

Thanks so much. Hold up. You ain't done yet. I got a question, too. You quick one. All right. Um, the planning commission bylaws do state that you must attend the Virginia Commissioners Program. Uh, there are both an inperson and virtual option for that. The next in-person program is in Richmond. This is a several months course. You go in the beginning for a couple days for orientation. You do homework for a few months and then you go back at the end for a final wrapup. Um are you able are you willing and are you committed to do that training?

Yes. Okay, that's the only question I had. Anybody else? Thank you. All right. Next up in front of me, I've got Lauren. Lauren, welcome. Welcome. And thank you for your continued interest, Lauren. I'm glad we have a opportunity to have you here tonight. Yeah, me too. So, I wrote a little something, so I'm just going to read from that. That's okay. Sure.

Um, so my name is Lauren Adams. I've lived in Colonial Beach for three years now. I live on um I live at 2319th Street and I've come to really love this town's charm and um the sense of community that we have here and I applied because I think that I can be part of the thoughtful development that helps kind of protect what we've had growing here while also building for the future. Um, I've worked in construction for about 10 years with a bunch of different disciplines, but mainly my strengths are logistics, strategic planning, site work, paving, concrete, flat work, sidewalks, utilities, design recommendations, constructibility reviews, and um, this is the second time I've applied. Um, so I would be honored to bring a practical community-minded perspective to the planning commission um, and help kind of guide growth here. So, thank you for considering me.

Let's see what kind of questions we got. She kind of answered yours already. You want to go ahead? She came ready for that one. She did. I you know what I did want to first of all thank you for your stick tuitiveness. you know, you didn't you waited for your opportunity to come around and honestly after seeing your resume might have been a shame that we couldn't have taken advantage of the first time around, but perhaps we got lucky this time. So, thanks for showing.

I'm really glad you stuck with it because I was a hard choice before and we just already had it happen when it came in. But I think um you know commitment it means continuing to show up and that's what public service is about in a lot of ways. So uh I just want to say again thank you for that. Again your resume is also impressive. But I'm going to ask you the same question. Uh there is a requirement in the planning commission bylaws to take the planning commissioners program course through the state of Virginia. It is uh there are two ways to do it. You can do it in person in Richmond or you can do it virtually. But the next session is in Richmond and it is January um through March and you do have to go physically to it for a couple days and then you do a lot of homework at home for several weeks and then you go back to it at the end. Are you committed and can you are you available to complete that certification?

Yes, I can I can do that. I'm committed to it. Okay, that's a Oh, you got one more. So Rick, you had the around the point. So, what brought you to Coney Beach and what makes you stay?

Um, well, I think the first time when we started looking, we had options of moving um to different parts of Virginia, but I came down here um because one of my friends came down here on a boat one time and she told me about it. And so, I came down here and I just kind of fell in love and we bought a house. We built a house on 9inth Street um in that area where all the trees and stuff were. And that's kind of how I got involved coming to the zoning board and that's when I started paying more attention to the things that were happening in town and what got me so excited about being on the planning commission. So a boat got you to Colonial Beach. Yes, it did. I just liked everybody to hear that. It was a friend,

not just a boat. A friend and a boat. Yeah. Any other questions? All right. Next up, thank you. I think it's Bill. Yeah, sorry, Bill. You got stuck to the paper behind it here. Welcome. Welcome, Bill. Same deal.

Thank you, Madam Morel. Uh, Bill Malone. I've been in town a little over a year. We moved down here from Alexandria. I was up there for a year. Uh, I'm worked for the Air Force. So, I work up that up there. I got 40 years in the Air Force. So been doing that for a while. As you see on my resume, I have 13 years of experience on planning commissions. Started out in Aenddale, Arizona when I was in active duty Air Force. Did that for four years down there without with them. A city of 50,000 when I started. So I have the big city. And then when I retired, we moved to far west Utah. And then that's why I got on the planning commission there. Was there for nine years with them. Uh small town 50. We started with 5,000. We're about little over 6,000 when I left. So, have plenty of experience. I was the chairman of the board for two years. Um, been doing lots of general plan updates and reviews, ordinance writings and reviews, pretty much the gamut of all that. So,

excellent. I'm gonna open up for questions one more time. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Wood. So, it it was a pleasure getting a chance to chat with We don't have too many youths in this town until gray hair. But um one of the things that when you see Northern Virginia on someone's resume, you automatically assume that someone has a kind of big city view on things, right? And uh one of the things that going to ask you to expand upon is your your idea towards um affordable housing

and um the idea of how you maintain the integrity of a small town.

Yeah, that's that's a tough one. So affordable housing is is is kind of a mandate from the federal government. We need affordable housing. We need it across the country. Um, when I was out in Utah, we had a plan in place that 13% of our town would be affordable housing. So, we had that planned out, had it in our plan, and we expanded from there. As the town grew, we would grow that percentage of affordable housing. big cities is kind of hard to do because you you got a lot of people that want nice big, you know, apartments and condos and stuff like that. From what I can see in this town, we have a mix. So, we can have a mix of affordable housing and we can have those big, you know, mansions if they want to have them. But, we want to keep it affordable for everybody. We want to bring people to our town to grow our town, make it the best we can. So we got to look at apartments, we got to look at trailers, gota look at homes that are affordable. So you got to look across the gamut of how you want to def first divers firstify your town and your city. So we that's how I would look at it. We have to look at the general plan, how we have it set up and then diversify from there.

Thank you. All right. And I'm going to ask you the same question. Uh it is a requirement um by the planning commission bylaws for you to attend the Virginia planners certification course. Uh the next course is in January in Richmond and it does run from January through March and there is homework involved and two-day classes there and two day classes at the end and essay writing along with the whole thing. Nigel just graduated. Oh, so we got somebody, you know. Um, so are you available and are you committed to fulfilling that requirement? Yes, ma'am. Okay.

Excellent. Again, this is not a paid position, y'all. Like, God bless you, madame mayor. Maybe we should let them know though that we will pay for your training and and travel expenses. Okay, let me clarify that. Reimburse. They reimburse you. Okay, she made that sound a little bit better than it is. Um, yes. Okay. Anybody else have any questions for Bill?

Not for Bill. I have one for the planning commission. I think it's important that that we know because there's going to be some staggering terms. Um, and was your suggestion that um the first two applicants should be decided to approve? Okay. Take the vacant positions and the third f uh the position that's ending in November or exactly what do you think is the best way to administer this?

It's my understanding that's a council decision to do that. The um I should have explained before those two unexpired terms are really filling the unexpired terms so they only go until 2027. Um and then the other and they would These dates aren't right. They would end January 2027. The other will end in January of 2029. So understood. But and again, I was asking recommendations, but what we want to do ultimately is have the terms expire at the same time. Is that correct?

No, they're staggered, Rick. According to the revised resolution that she brought up, two of them are going to expire in 2027 and one is expires in 2029. So that we have half a commission in 2027 and half a commission in 2020. I understand and I I said that in artfully, but the point is so that half the commissioners are going to go at one time and half. It's not exactly that, but we got as close as we could given the previous situation. One of the commissioners would only serve their term would only be three years. Correct. That's correct. And the other two would serve only really um one year and then could be reappointed to a full term.

So from the high aspect, if you'd like to do it, I listed them in order in the last whereas paragraph that they applied for and you can just fill in their names and those blanks if you'd like. Okay. So really the choice is which one is uh for the third section here. I mean I and I'm in favor of all three so I don't really have opinion on it. Um the one lady did say she'd die here so I feel like that uh does give her a little bit of leg. Maybe we should give her the shorter term.

I mean I was thinking the longer term, not the shorter one. Uh yeah, I don't know. I have no preference on that. I don't know if there's a preference of the applicants. There is two terms that just so that we naturally get term lengths in place again um expire in January 1 of 2027 and then there is one term that will start December 1st. So it's not as of today but as the person there's term expires starts December 1st and goes to 2029. So that then we have these staggered terms. This is this logistics of it. Okay. So is there anybody who's like super sure three years? All three. All three said okay. All right. No preference there.

I'd say do them in order as was suggested. In the order. You got it. All right. So, is there a motion to that effect? So, moved. Do you want me to be more specific? Yeah. Is there second to that motion? I second. Okay. You can clarify the motion, Mr. Larson. Read the names here. So, I'm moving that that Lauren Adams fills the first opening, Emory Bartow, the second, and Bill Malone will serve in the third opening. starts in December 1st on December 1st of this year and runs to 2029.

All right, that is the motion has been first and seconded. Is there any further discussion on this item? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Sorry, I didn't see your hand until I was It doesn't matter. You're good. I just had a comment. I I was just so impressed with all three applicants. I think we're just so fortunate to be adding this kind of talent all at one time. So, I'm excited. That's all I had to say.

Me, too. Y'all better watch out. There's three or they're going to add a lot. Excellent comment. Okay. Were there any days? I didn't hear any. I just want to make sure there gave opportunity. Okay. All right. Good. That one is done. Welcome to the planning commission. And Bill, you start on the 1 of December. Okay. you can get um with uh Miss Lawrence. Um all y'all can get with Miss Lawrence. And I think you have to go online to um sign up for the commissioner course. Okay. Great. All right. Next up, the RLM. Lisa.

Uh good evening again. Uh this resolution in front of you is to appropriate an additional $46,422 uh to the school in the 2425 fiscal year. Um every year the Commonwealth um and the Virginia Department of Education um gives us the final numbers uh for the previous school year. Um and when the final numbers came in in June, um the RLM had increased by the $46,422. Um so this is just a resolution for us to go ahead and appropriate and transfer the money over to the school um so we meet our required local match for fiscal year 2425.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. Next up, Mr. Dugen. That was very quick. Oh, you rolling shuffling my paper around here.

Okay. So, next up you have the the lease for the Denison Street property where the rescue squad has been historically and this is a lease with the county and it's intended as a temporary means to to keep the emergency medical services within the town and to have shorter response times. The the goal, as I understand of the county, is they still want to build a better facility, but this is a hold over. So, it's for two years and it allows for an extension beyond the two years if the parties agree. Um, it is I sent the draft lease to Richard Stewart who's a county attorney and he sent back some comments to me and we agreed on what I see as a reasonable lease. And my understanding is he's presenting this to the county tonight and they're expected to vote tonight to enter into this lease. Um I realize the questions might come up as to whether the council can act without a public hearing. There are a couple of code sessions that are involved. One is that if a lease is longer than five years, you have to advertise and there has to be an opportunity for biders on the property. The second is generally you have to have a public hearing anyway to go lease property. An exception is to another public body. So there's no public hearing requirement. So we council could adopt this lease tonight in sync with the county. Um and the lease itself um is I started um

with the existing lease with the rescue squad and track that mostly. So, it's essentially that. And also, I put some language in here that the county agreed to that as far as a level of services that they will be at least the same as any other EMS station and they'll maintain the same level they do now, but they'll be at least what that is. There two criteria there. So I don't have a recommendation because this is a policy decision but this is what I present to you. All right. Do we have a motion?

Motion. So move. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? All right. All in favor? I I. Any oppose? Nope. And it looks like we are.