Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

It was awful.

Me and my brother, we- Test, test, test.

meeting to order Franklin County Board of Supervisors today Thursday September 17th at 3 p.m. I'd like to welcome everybody here we've got a nice complement of staff at the Sheriff's Office here with us in the schools and we're very glad to have everyone with us we'll have our invitation delivered by Mr. Carter followed by the pledge by Mr. Mitchell if he gets here in time if he doesn't Mr. Tatum if you would

be so kind so let's stand thank you madam chair let us pray Heavenly Father as we gather here today to serve our community we ask for your guidance wisdom and peace we are reminded of the truth in proverbs 12 18 the words of the reckless pierce like swords but the tongues of the wise bring healing Lord we confess that too often rather than build up we ask you to soften the hearts of those who use their voices to divide and spread negativity help us all to remember that our words carry weight grant this community the grace to move past reckless criticism and instead choose words that heal

of the agenda. The agenda, as submitted, as you can see, has our two work session topics updated on CTE in a discussion, and then we will have Ag Fair presentation by Kevin Tosh. So, having you guys have seen this submitted agenda, I will entertain a motion for approval. Mr. Tate, was there a second?

Sorry, I think we've got to do the remote discussion first.

I'm so glad y'all came. Okay, let me back up and we'll redo that in a minute. I apologize. Okay, Mr. Jamison, Supervisor Jamison is participating remotely and he is in North Carolina on personal business and he is requesting a motion and I'm requesting a motion to allow his remote participation. So thank you, Mr. Tatum. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Law. We'll have a roll call vote, Madam Clerk, please.

Supervisor Jamison?

Do we have to talk about that? Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Carter?

Yes.

Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes.

Supervisor Law? Yes. Chair Smith? Yes. And then Mr. Mitchell is absent for the vote.

And Mr. Mitchell is running late. He will be here shortly. Now, we're going to try this again, approval of the agenda. I think we had a motion by Mr. Tatum and a second by Ms. Law. All those in favor, and I would ask Madam Clark to do a roll call, please. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Law? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes.

And Chair Smith?

Yes. OK, thank you all very much. We are going to move into our work session topics for this afternoon. The first of which is the CTE update and discussion. I will open the floor to Mr. Sandy for some introductory remarks. I know we will have Ms. Rosser, Ms. Poe, and Mr. Baumgartner presenting.

the 9-1-1 Center and Public Safety Administration building. So as we, we're trying to think of a really good name for it, but right now it's kind of Weaver Street or former Rogercraft is what we've got. So we do have, you know, last month, I think it, I believe it was last month, Mr. Quinn had made a presentation with some thoughts and ideas about the CTE and how that should move forward and kind of the various responsibilities and also the proposal of maybe we need an additional some of the things that have been going on and continue to go on relative to the CTE and kind of assign some staff to some of those activities and so what Brandy and Danny and Curtis and maybe Tim as well are going to touch on some of those things some of those partnerships some of those activities that are already underway and in progress and hopefully this will help kind know we will continue to kind of provide these updates and walk you through this process because this is a process we'll all be walking through as we go through this development of this entire property but I just wanted to hit on a few of those I don't think we're going to get into everything and answer every question today but certainly wanted to give you some additional context and then be So I think with that, I'll turn it over to Brandy. I think she's going to start out and highlight some of the things that have been going on. And then again, as we get, I think even through it, I think we're open to questions. But at the end, if there's any questions that anyone might have.

Would you like us to hold them to the end?

I don't think so. I think if it's applicable at that time, I think you should, while it's on your mind, go ahead and ask it.

I just don't want to be disruptive.

We'll ask the folks

It's a pleasure to have you, sir.

Thank you. All right, good afternoon. As Steven mentioned, we have taken the chart that Mr. Quinn graciously supplied for us as a great framework for how we may be able to develop this project. So that framework did have these five pillars. And today, what we're gonna do between myself and Danny Poe, Mr. Overstreet and Mr. Baumgartner, is we're gonna take each one of those pillars, we're gonna outline what each of those are gonna cover, like what responsibilities they would have, what staff members would be assigned to it, either now or in the future, and then some of the roles and responsibilities associated with that portion of the project. I think you're gonna find as we go through this, you're gonna very quickly see that this is a teamwork makes the dream work type of project. There's a lot of moving parts and pieces, so some of these roles and responsibilities you're gonna see fall under multiple pillars. And we do expect staffing to change as the project evolves. Somebody may be the primary staff in the beginning of the project, but as the project develops, they may shift to a supporting role. Or it may morph as this project goes along. So we do see this as a very fluid framework, but we feel that the five pillars are very valid. So we wanted to take each one of those and just update you about the progress that we've either made or we're planning to make for each. So looking very quickly at pillar one, which is operations and finance, that's gonna be your budgets, your grants, procurement equipment and operations. So your primary staff are gonna be county and and also our construction manager, or our owner's representative, as I've called them in the past, once they're on board. So we will see that budget become more refined as that construction management firm is brought on board. We have already started looking at funding opportunities, some of which we've considered on previous projects, such as the School Construction Assistance Grant through the Virginia Department of Education. Our current LCI allows for 10% approved for one of those grants. I will note this is the same program that we used for the middle school renovation. At that time, our LCI had not been adjusted to the current level. We were actually eligible for 20% of the approved project cost at that point, but that recent LCI adjustment has knocked us down to 10%. There you go, getting started. Looking at literary fund loans, that is a $25 million maximum But once again, the projects are prioritized by LCI, so that may hit us hard again for whether or not we would be able to get one of those loans if needed. There are some security equipment grants through DCJS that could be looked at, and of course the 1% sales tax referendum that will be on the ballot in November. So that 1% sales tax has the potential to bring in $6 to $7 million annually, a portion of which could potentially be used for those projects. For procurement, the county and public schools would take a lead in that obviously, and also the construction manager because they have the opportunity to bring some owner direct purchasing to the project that could save us a considerable amount of money. Equipment needs would be determined by the school system with support by the county depending on the function of the space. Sponsorships and donations would be the primary responsibility. of school system staff with some potential assistance from economic development and finally the maintenance security technology and long-term operations of the facility that's something that's really going to evolve as the project develops so i think we have some ideas of where some of those responsibilities may fall in the future but again it's kind of to be determined until we get into this And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Danny for business and community. Thank you, Brady.

Good afternoon, Danny. Thank you. Good afternoon to y'all. So for the business and community pillar, if you will, economic development will play a large role. But a lot of this, we are a conduit. We're building relationships, and we're helping foster the relationships with the schools. So we currently meet with our existing businesses on a very regular basis. And through that, we can understand the gaps that they have, the needs, the certifications, what have you. And then we share that information with our educational partners. That includes Virginia Western, Patrick and Henry, Ferrum, but also, in this case, the public schools. And so we would continue doing that throughout this process. Regarding donations, sponsorships, grants, A few businesses have expressed interest in supporting this project. We don't quite know what that means, if it's the naming of a room or a lab space. But we do have a few businesses that are committed to going along this journey with us. And so we will continue to foster that. And as those opportunities present themselves and we have a mechanism in which to receive funding, we will be working with those businesses and the schools. Regarding the colleges, community college partnerships, we're fortunate through the Franklin Center, we have great educational partners. And we utilize them within the Franklin Center on a daily basis. But in this case, the schools have their own unique relationships with our higher education partners. And so for a lot of this, they'll take the lead on it. Because they have other unique opportunities within the school space that we would not be a part of. Regarding the advisory councils for the pathways, Curtis would be taking the lead on this. But we would very much be supportive in such a way that we would ensure the industry clusters and the makeups within those clusters accurately reflect the community. Or if there are gaps, we can help provide the connection and introductions for them. And then through all of this, I think where you're going to see the most current, this is playing out. Right now, we have 19 kids that are in active internships with Franklin County Public Schools. And a lot of that came through one-on-one business visits with economic development and Curtis joining us. So this was the first year for that opportunity, and we are looking to expand that. And that is something that's presented to the businesses when we do our business retention visits. And then if they have needs or the opportunities for our students, we are able to share that with the schools. But for your general information, I made a list of some of the industries. So we are in agriculture, landscaping, construction, hospitality, childcare, retail, food services. So it's a good spread, and it's at least getting our kids out in the community, but it's growing that relationship between economic development and the schools that we will continue to foster. So this will continue. This will continue on our end, but this will also continue in partnership with the schools. Curtis has been a great partner to us, and we are excited to go on this journey with him. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the schools, because they will be able to dive a little deeper into their relationships with the community colleges and as well as the makeup of this advisory boards. But know that we are an active partner in it. We are regularly meeting with them. It's a collaborative effort. Do y'all have any questions for me about that?

Thank you, Dane. I'm sure there'll be some questions after we hear everything. But thank you.

to be a partner with the county in not only attracting new businesses but retaining the existing businesses we have. And the way our role, the way I see our role in that is to have the training necessary in the modern day workforce. One of the things that Danny hit on pretty hard was, I'm gonna go back in the next semester and some that are in there year long. So a good start to our internship program. We're excited and our goal there is to connect our students, our talented future workforce, with employers in the county because a lot of times when you're talking to our students, they don't know what's out there in the county. They don't know what careers are out there, what pathways are out there. So one of our goals was to make sure we're getting students introduced to that. Word of mouth is a big thing among students. So as they start these internships and as they continue who are younger than them about the internship opportunities and about the employment opportunities in the county so those are really a big thing one of the other ways that we're doing it i'm going to go back one more time sorry flip it back and forth is the ct advisory panel now this we accept a grant every year we apply for a grant every year from the federal government called the strengthening career and the organizations that they're involved in. It's the professional development for our teachers. It's a number of different things that we can have that money, the pots of money that we have. But part of that is we have to have a CT advisory committee. And it becomes a very large committee. And one of my goals last year, moving into this year, was to have kind of a more personal connection with the different departments that make up our CTE department as a whole. We have six different departments there, trade and industry, health occupations, business, and three others. I'm gonna forget them, ag, and I'm gonna forget the other two right now. But we have six different total. And I wanted to make sure that we connect them specifically with the business and industries that they represent. business one so of six different committees that connect with all of the different businesses here in Franklin County to help advise us of how we can do better to provide for the county for our mission again which was to attract and retain a modern workforce and retain those businesses so that's really really how we October so really excited about that that then will feed into our CTE advisory panel to help us as we grow and it's also meant to help us advise us as we move forward with this CTE project over the Weaver Street project sorry as we move forward with the Weaver Street project as to what the space design needs are what the equipment needs are what do we and attract and retain those businesses. The last two bullet points here, or the last three bullet points here, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Overshoot to speak to it. Anybody have any questions for me while I'm here? Questions?

Well, good courage for now. Thank you. Thank you.

Most people might have put their glasses on, but I've taken mine off. So I can see without that. So I want to talk a little bit about staffing and what staffing might look like. So the CTE Center will operate as an extension of the main high school campus, much like the Jerome Center currently operates as an extension of the main middle school campus that's located down the street. based on the limits of the kids in that class. It's got 320 kids. So right now we have elementary schools cafeterias that we have in the law and ramsey buildings so there won't be a need for a cafeteria in that building nor nutrition staff because that would bring additional costs to this project and we don't anticipate that that would be a need just like our governor school students that we must to run about a governor school they return for lunch and this year we started busting the students to patrick and henry community college for the new class in the afternoon they eat lunch before they leave so we assumed that this would work than what they were doing. moving into that between their 18th and 19th birthday. will be a selling point to bring families and students back into the division. The way the legislation is set up, we do most of our dual enrollment through community colleges. That's the way the law was sort of set up.

of the curriculum and the answer grade and so forth and one of my goals has been to try to bring students back to our high schools in our in our school system yeah and so with that um i'm sure that there are going to be questions about whether children that are homeschooled or go to some of the private schools if they'll be able to participate in the cte curriculum at the high school

in addition to what they're doing but staying in the private sector so there are policies already in place in franklin county public schools for students to participate on a part-time basis or a full-time basis and that includes ct They are full-time Franklin County students, I think maybe since COVID. When I arrived here four years ago, we were over 1,000. As of this morning, we were 936. we use that lab during the day for the instruction of our students and then the college uses that in the afternoon for their students and for their program so we're very pleased with those partnerships and it's been a great partnership this year i would say that working with danny and carly and the team there and curtis i feel like the school division and county staff probably have the best working relationship that i've seen in my four years since i arrived here four years ago we send out that email it's franklin county public schools it's your danville community college virginia western fair it's the staff from here in the county we are all working together as a team and i just feel like again it's the best i've seen in the four years that i've been here so we're all on the same page and there's no need of us replicating efforts if we can work together to streamline our processes to make things work more efficiently for franklin county families the last couple things i'll be sharing with you um is you know there's been the statistics, the anatomy and physics And they always, every time they go out and do a presentation, they always flag on Franklin County because we're the only high school that actually has a dual role teacher to teach anatomy and physiology. We're super excited. We would not want to lose that. We would not want to lose that opportunity at Franklin Center. I am super excited that this project will hopefully be in place. It was talked about when I was there, so I'm hoping it will be finished before my daughter gets there, so she can benefit from these opportunities. And it will save all of our families a lot of money, it will provide opportunities that our children frankly have not had, and frankly haven't. I'm happy to try to answer any questions that I can.

Excellent presentation. Any questions?

Alright, jumping over to pillar number four, it's going to be our governance and project management. I don't feel like this is as exciting as what they've done. They've done so much legwork and are working on so many great things and I'm going to talk about how we're going to spend a good amount of money. So looking at the overall leadership, the schedule, the risk, and reporting to our board and communication, really that governance and decision-making and project oversight is gonna fall to the county. So we'll have the overarching leadership of the project. However, there's gonna be a very strong relationship and partnership with the school system, their operations staff, and again, the construction manager. So I really can't stress enough how important that construction manager is gonna be and how we have to get the right person or right firm on board. They will be on booths on the ground every single day. So when we start looking at project oversight, we'll have county staff and school staff on site regularly, but that construction manager is the one that truly knows the ins and outs of every part of that project. They specialize in this type of construction, both for the CTE portion of the building, but also the public safety and E911. The project schedule would be one that's determined by the county and the school system, but that construction manager be responsible for implementing that schedule and making sure that we're in the right time frame. As far as budget risk mitigation and project performance, again, that is going to be a partnership between the county and the school system, specifically their operations staff. Again, the construction manager and the architect engineer are going to play pivotal roles and making sure that we do stay on the established budget, that we are mitigating any risk possible, and that the project performance of the architect and the contractor both are what the county expects as the owner. Regular updates to both the school board and the board of supervisors would be a responsibility of the construction manager. We may also have some secondary reports potentially from maybe a Mark Law or myself to either the board of supervisors or the school board. Finally, alignment with goals, budget, and schedule. As with everything else on this slide, it is a partnership with the county and the school system with heavy supporting roles of the construction manager and the architect engineer. The final pillar is facilities and construction. So this is going to be your programming, your architecture, engineering, construction, commissioning. So looking again at that programming and facility requirements for the CTE center specifically, that's going to be up to our school system with maybe some help from Danny with economic development. It's their specialty. It's not something that we really need to determine, so they know what they're doing, so they would be responsible for that programming and facility requirements. As far as architecture and engineering design, county and school staff would work with our construction manager and our A&E. That construction manager, once they're on board, they'll assist us with developing a request for qualifications or a request for proposals to get the architect engineer on board. And then between the construction manager and the A&E, they would assist with developing the invitation for bids for our contractors. For construction oversight, as I mentioned earlier, the county and school staff will be on site regularly, but the heavy construction oversight responsibility falls to that construction manager with assistance from the architect engineer. For furniture, equipment, and technology, a lot of that will be determined based on the space, so if it's a heavy space that's specific to the school system, they will be specifying a lot of that equipment and technology If it's a space that we may be using in the evening for workforce development or something else, the county may be helping out with the specifications on that. We would lean on a construction manager in our A&E firm again because we will have firms on board that specialize in this type of construction. So they're really going to know what we need for a successful CTE center and also the proportion of the building for public safety and E911. Commissioning would be primarily the responsibility of the construction manager with assistance from county and school staff. And then when we're really examining the future adaptability of the facility, that's where it's gonna become very important that we get a construction manager, an A&E firm on board that truly understands our need and the design, and that we're making sure that we hold them up to those standards. So that's something that'll be managed all along. But I think the key is going to be making sure that we really know what the goals and missions of that are and that we're designing a space that lets us achieve that now, but is also flexible enough to change with future needs. So just some additional progress on the project. A few weeks ago, we did hold a meeting with county administration, school administration, and economic development. where we discussed this pillar structure. Again, we feel like it's a great structure for how we can successfully deliver this project. And we examined some of the roles and responsibilities that are being discussed today. A request for proposals for construction project management services has been issued. So that RFP is currently on our website and also the Evo website. Industry partners that were previously interviewed were sent that RFP directly. I've heard that from several people that are either interested in submitting a proposal or they have shared it with other people in the industry. So I really feel like we're going to get a pretty good turnout for that. Those proposals are due on October 16th. and a committee to both evaluate the proposals and also interview the firms is currently being developed. So if I had to guess what the proposal's being due in mid-October, by the time they're reviewed and we're able to interview the firms and select a firm, I would love to say I could get it to you at the November meeting, but it's likely a December agenda. And with that, we'll be happy to answer any questions you guys have.

The construction management position, I've seen different models of the way this works. So you're envisioning this position not necessarily being part of the A&E firm, but a freestanding independent project manager from a different firm?

They're completely separate. The owner's representative, as I've referred to in the past, is the construction manager. Their job is to represent us, so they're actually overseeing the architect and engineer. That's what I like. My contract would be with the architect and engineer, that construction manager. They're truly there to make sure the A&E firm is doing their job. Thank you.

Questions from Randy? No questions. Ms. Lowe?

architects out in the county, or if we have some engineering people out in the county that would like to volunteer their services to help with this project. Do you foresee any way that we could incorporate those folks?

I've never tried to do that before. I mean, we're gonna have to have a large scale architecture firm under contract for this. Obviously, they'd probably have to reach out to them, unless we have a side project that's not included in the scope of the main building.

and the committee that's being developed to evaluate the proposals are they outside folks in the county are they business people are they staff people who are it's mainly staff we don't have the list finalized yet i reached out to dr sears and he suggested a couple people they would like involved i have people that i would like involved but we'll get that list

So is this the complete CTE presentation? Yes, ma'am. And the floor is open for anything that we've heard thus far? Absolutely. Okay. So I'll open the floor up. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Law, please. One final question.

Please, please. Do we have a county-designated grant writer that's going to try to assist with bringing in money to help with this project at this time?

We do not have a grant writer on staff. We have people that have typically work on these and Brian you can correct me if I'm wrong some of these accounting may not even be able to apply for it may have to come from the school system directly but I have not written the grants personally so I don't know if you does the school system have a designated grant writer person that's working on breaking in money there's

This guy right here. Well, you may just have found another job. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Well, I think I would just point out on that, I think it was Brandy mentioned that maybe on the first slide about some of the grant opportunities that could apply here, and we have. had some money actually that we didn't spend from that grant that we tried to utilize on other schools and the department of education will not allow us to do that so we have done those grants in the past or is it getting ready to pass for the next round of literary

the window for at least the construction assistant grants closed in july of this year so they keep on that schedule i imagine it would open back up in july of next year okay questions comments i have one question that the perkins grant you mentioned is can we get can you all get more than 158 000 based on the project so no so it's a federal grant that is given to all states

that they dictate to us.

I'm glad you kept the pillar structure organization. I think you played it back the same way, so that felt good. It kind of stood the test of time. It seems like a good way of organizing it. And I also appreciate that you had multiple people here, because it felt very hard to have one person speaking about the whole project. So already, you begin to see the complexity where it takes five people to talk about the project. So that felt good. spending capital, everybody's spending all this money. Do you envision rolling it up into one CTE budget? Or do you envision the school system maintaining their budget for the CTE and we maintain our budget in the future

um i guess there's probably two answers and brian might share more but i think as far as the the cost for the weaver street property i see that kind of all being one project in that sense of the cip but then i think for tracking purposes especially if we get the one percent sales tax we are going to have to differentiate some of those expenses that are specifically for the cte portion of the building versus non-cte we'll just call it that operations of the facility once it opens i think that's going to be something that we'll need to see in the school's budget when we get to you know that year when we expect it to be opening up so i don't does that help us i don't see this lying in the school cip necessarily i think this is really this project particular will be kind of a county cip project but

that are gonna provide feedback on business needs. Do you have a plan to systematically develop an inventory of all businesses within a certain geographic area and then to interview those businesses, maybe prioritize those businesses? Or is this up to the advisory council to do all that work with the businesses? Or how are you gonna, it just seems like there are a lot of businesses with varied needs and it's a pretty geographically dispersed area.

review those companies, I think that gets a little more challenging, but I'll let Danny speak to that.

Yes, so as I mentioned, and Curtis has joined us for many business visits, we meet with our existing businesses. We do the business survey to identify gaps, understand kind of what their workforce needs are, what their certifications are, the technology that they're using. I don't know that there's a scenario where we could truly interview all of them, just realistically. I don't think there's enough time. The logistics of that become cumbersome. So I think it's more understanding the makeup of our existing businesses and then the trends of where we are now and where we're going in the future to make sure that we're filling those needs. And so that's where, as Curtis is building it out, if they have gaps, we can support as new businesses are coming into the county, ensuring that they are connected with the school's traditional medicinals, as an example. They came to a Rotary meeting and heard the middle school horticulture teachers speak. And so now they're trying to work together with them. So there's just ways to build partnerships, even beyond just looking exclusively at the CTE courses to ensure that the businesses are engaged with our students.

And I think outside of the county, we also have the information from the two community colleges about what they're seeing as far as the needs of businesses that may be outside of our county that still have those needs for employees that are close by.

have other course offerings. And my favorite example has been Patrick and Henry, where they have a welding facility. And I really don't have an opinion whether we should offer welding or not. I just look at this as it's a very capital intensive operation. will you have a methodical approach to look at what all the other schools both what they offer but also what are their gaps they don't do this and it could be really interesting how will that be done to decide you know using welding as an example the last time i mentioned oh maybe you decide you'll have virtual welding here because that's a small footprint in a classroom just with computers but you'll rely on patrick and henry for stick welding and robotic building and again i don't want to prescribe any answer I don't really know the answer I just know it's a complicated thing to figure out and who's going to figure that out if you have a plan to figure that out and that's just welding in one school but you have other schools with many many programs and Brandy's kind of moving ahead pretty quickly getting into the design work and it seems like she pretty quickly even though we're doing welding or not you know going forward so I don't know

with the community college on that yeah so um actually mr quinn at the town hall that we had i think your venn diagram kind of answered that question right and you had the three-part venn diagram that where they intersected it was what the school is able to offer what the students are interested in what business and industry demands are so where they intersect is kind of the sweet zone of where we want to be And really, our CT Advisory Council can help with that. We can figure out what are the needs of the industries in the area. Do we need more welders in this area? Or whatever it may be, do we need more of that specific thing in this area? And can our school system help get those individuals for those businesses? Again, for our mission to attract and retain businesses. Welding specifically, we'll say this, in our partnership with Patrick and Henry Community College, us sending students down to the welding successful program that we had to send students down to. It's got a good turnout there. They come out with their AWS certifications and can go straight in the workforce and be a good tradesman out in the workforce. So I think we had plans in the original to have welding there. There's a lot of our programs at the high school that use it from our auto mechanics to our collision repair to our agriculture. So that specific program would be a pretty popular one at the high school as long as it meets within that Venn diagram, that kind of sweet spot that the student interest is there, the business need is there, and the school ability to have that program is there. That is a specific program that looks good going into the CTE center.

And Mr. Quinn, to follow up, you talked about curriculum. So what a lot of people might not realize is that when we offer these dual enrolled courses through the community college or through Ferrum, they have to meet the colleges needs and the high school needs.

So moving from that perspective, because I'm thinking about a typical model where you have conceptual planning as part of the A&E process, and then you move into more programmatic and logistical planning. Am I guessing correctly that once all the curriculum standards and all those products have been in place, that we would move with the A&E firm into actual programmatic design at the facility itself? Randy, do you know the answer to that?

No, and I don't know who all in the room was able to participate with Mosley Architects when we looked at the Purdue property. You typically hold several, what I'll just call a design charrette, where you have a variety of businesses staff, county staff, elected officials, so the architect can really get an idea of what needs to go in this building. The school system has always been fantastic about producing numbers on how many kids enrolled for classes, how many people they can actually accommodate, what they're seeing the desire for. So the architect's going to take all of that and they're going to pour that into the programmatic and kind of space planning of it to come out with our initial design.

Mr. Overstreet, with the SOQs being so terribly antiquated, 2002 of them, do you feel that the CTE articulation and the SOQs are going to be able to support at a minimum? Do they give us enough flexibility so that you stay in compliance?

When we have interest in a program, it's driven not only by student interest, but it's also driven by job market data. Cosmetology is a perfect example. Based off the job market data that we saw from 2020 to 2030, they're projecting somewhere around a 19 to 20 percent growth in that area within our region. And our region would be anywhere from Botetourt County all the way south to like Henry County. So that's kind of the regional outlook we look at when we're looking at that job

to be there for students to go into those programs once they graduate high school so that that's what drives kind of the the interest in the different programs and pathways that we offer up to high school and do you see that um just knowing what you know today and i know these advisory committees are going to yield a tremendous amount of information for you do you see that you can imagine that there will be new course offerings And it may be either or, but also having, like in auto mechanics as an example, you'll have the space where you can have three bays maybe versus the one bay. So do you see curriculum expansion and new program capabilities?

Yeah, I see not only can we fit more students into those spaces, we can maximize student currently have, but part of the, in the original design and one of the things that we talked about is having flexible spaces within the program so that when we have a program or an industry that needs to come in and right now we don't have the capacity to even have that program on our high school campus, that flexible space would allow us to adapt a program based off of the needs of the community within the high school.

I'll take just a, Mr. Jamison, are you still with us? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions, observations, things that you would like to express?

I've got one for Randy. Randy, on the last slide, you had additional progress. The fourth, I believe it's the fourth bullet down, industry partners that were previously interviewed were sent the RFP. Can you, do you have a list of those or can you give the board a list of those that it was sent to?

Absolutely. And those are the, it was both owner's representative firms, contractors, architect, engineers. There's probably about 15 of them that I previously interviewed.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. It was a good presentation, I think. Very good. I was impressed.

Thank you. I did send it to Marshall before the meeting so that he could follow along since he can't see it. Great.

Marshall, thank you for hanging with us.

Mr. Quinn, please. Curtis, I'm glad you brought up that diagram. One of the most interesting parts of that for me, and I wish we had it here, but school can do, but the students don't know about it. It's almost like they don't know what they don't know, but if they could learn this and make $100,000, they'd be thrilled to do it, but they don't know about it. Has that kind of stood the test of time with you? We had that town hall back in January or February. Are you finding pockets of activity like that know what they don't know was my thought.

Yeah, the best example I have of that was this year in mechatronics, advanced manufacturing. So we offered, through Patrick and Henry Community College, a partnership with them, we offered 12 slots for students to take mechatronics down at Patrick and Henry and come out with their Siemens certification in mechatronics. We didn't have any takers, no students who were interested in it. So we have business demand there, and we have the ability to do it, but we didn't have any students who were interested in it. the advertising of those programs and the explanation of what these programs can offer and what it is that they're actually going to do. But that is a perfect example of we didn't have the student interest, but the industry interest is there along with the capability of doing it from our standpoint is there. But we weren't able to establish a mechatronics class this semester or this year down at Patrick Community Community College. We're certainly hopeful that we can do that next year, but as of this year we didn't have that.

Yeah, it almost seems like a little bit of a marketing effort to help students understand. If you learn this, you get this, right? Yes. Because otherwise they look at that and think, that's a big word, I don't wanna learn that. Yeah, a lot of people don't know what it means. Right.

Yeah, certainly our students, and what careers could be driven from that, so.

Dan, I'm gonna interrupt you. Do you need to see your initial presentation?

No. Okay. So I had a place,

with the ability to cover those areas and I think so far as a team I think we've decided that we don't see where we need that but through this we may find that we need something somewhere else that we're missing so I think the short answer is not quite determined yet and I think as we continue to

last question so have you seen interest in the rfp that you released for the construction management person have people been asking you questions is it because sometimes we put out an rfp and we get one bid it doesn't feel that good has there been more interest um it just went out not too long ago i've already gotten three emails and two phone calls um specifically from those industry partners that i had talked to about this project before

So I think the market right now, we're going to get a very good turnout for this, for the architect, engineering, and the contractor.

And they would realize that if they take this contract, they would be OCI'd out from the future contract, the bid work, right? That they couldn't have both contracts.

It's like really two completely different fields. The owner's representatives or the construction managers are there to represent us. They're not... not really your contractor so i think they have contractors um that that they would have in mind that may do a wonderful job but i don't see them being the same when growing okay okay good thank you yes sir of course any other questions please just final question sorry as a new supervisor can you I don't know that we really have a final answer. I know when the Purdue property was looked at, in today's money, it would be somewhere in the 80 million plus dollar range. We obviously know we can come in cheaper than that, but I can't guarantee you that it's half of that amount. At this point, once the construction manager is on board, their specialization is gonna help us define that number a little bit, and then our architect's really gonna come in with that final number. I could see if we face this project, you can see the front building go quicker. You could say maybe that'll be two years and the back building would be three by the time it gets designed and constructed. But again, the project timeline will be established once we get that construction manager on board.

So basically a minimum of two to three years, probably. Yes.

And I think that they're not saying that we purchased the Weaver Street property. We did so at a cost, you know, $5 million that we felt was a very favorable cost saving measure for this project. And then, you know, that property obviously put us over the top for a wonderful CTE, but plus the new 911 Center of Public Safety admin. So that cost savings alone, you know, we felt like was gonna really start to buy down. But the $85 million project on the Purdue property, we felt like that we were gonna have major substantial savings for taxpayers going with property. Is that fair enough, Steve?

Mm-hm. That's what we're hoping, yes.

Okay, any other questions? I just really quickly wanted to thank you guys for allowing us to present this to you. Like I said, I think that the five pillar structure is very valuable. And if there's anything that maybe I haven't done a fantastic job on is bragging on the work that's already been done for our school staff and bragging on the work that Vandy and her staff have done. So by allowing us to kind of let you know what we've already done and what we're planning, hopefully it gives you a better comfort level with this and know that we are actively working on this project as slow as it may seem.

So Brandy, when did you, and this is just a ballpark, when did you expect that we would have the Amy firm hire? and actual boots on the ground every day of starting the project.

I can say if we have a construction manager on board in December, that sometime in early 2027, we would get out a request for qualifications for architect engineer. I can't say how long it would take to get them on board or what the architect's timeline would be for designing the facility. It is highly complex. It's not We're not just building a public safety center. With everything involved with the school system, economic development, that part of the project's gonna take a while.

Sure, sure. I was just curious. We all, I think this is very restrained. I think you said we've all been waiting decades for this project. Amen. Yeah, so the timeline really is an exciting prospect.

It is, this is the closest I think we've ever gotten to doing a CTE center, so it's very exciting.

Any questions, comments from the supervisors? Did this update meet your desires in terms of how we receive our updates?

I commend the school staff for the changes and that was spot on information that we needed to hear. Getting kids, giving them the opportunity over a year ago when we were discussing the numbers of the fall of ADE. And I asked him, it was down at the Franklin Center, I said, what are you doing to get kids back? And that shows a positive step in the right direction. And you all will be a father to that.

We always see the negative stuff that's out there. But there's a lot of positive things going on in Franklin County. Absolutely. And sometimes people just don't ask the questions to find out what's going on. Thank you.

OK. Mr. Sandy, did you have any closing remarks on this topic? I do not.

I don't know if you wanted to take a break in between.

Well, I would just like to thank our school system partners that are here, our staff that's going to continue to do an outstanding job, and just the partnership accolades that's coming from you guys with the schools in the county. That is such a breath of fresh air right now, and we very much appreciate that we're supporting each other, we're hand-holding through. This is a very significant project, but we've got the right people in the right places doing the right things. I think it's what my takeaway is from today. So thank you all very, very much. We can take a short five-minute break to shift to our next topic.

Oh.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're back from our brief break. We have next on our agenda to hear from Kevin Tosh with an Ag Fair update and discussion by awards. And Mr. Sandy, did you have any opening remarks?

Just Marshall, are you with us? Want to make sure you can hear us?

Yeah, I can. And just please remind everyone I would to speak up if you can, please.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes Madam Chair we do have Kevin to give an update if you recall we were going to do an update on Tuesday but we moved it to today but that also gives us an opportunity to get some feedback from the board because I think every year we have the fair and Kevin and the Parks and Rec staff and volunteers do a wonderful job but it seems like every year after the fair we hear ideas about something else we should do or a different way we should do the fair and so we wanted to have at that and determine okay we can make that change but there's a budgetary impact or we can't make this change because we don't have a facility or whatever the answer might be and so getting to that sooner than later is helpful for us if there are capital needs where something needs to be in the budget we need to pay something we need to you know whatever it is those kind of responses and information will be helpful not that we necessarily have to have answers today but at least kinda know there are some things the board wants to change or not change about the fair. So I think Kevin's gonna kinda start with a recap of this year and then maybe get into a couple of those discussion questions, if you will, of hey, what things would we like to see done differently or how maybe we would handle the fair differently. I think probably every locality does it a little differently. Some don't do it at all, but then you've got around here you've got and then Bedford does one, Henry does one. There's different ways to do it and so I think that's what will be helpful to us is to know where this board and the Franklin County community really wants us to go.

And if I can piggyback on that just as an introductory, a couple of introductory remarks. I have long thought and I've talked to several of you all about this and I think you've concurred We as a board, I think, need to have that fundamental conversation. Every year, we're trying to adjust. And I'm not using adjust lightly. We adjust from year to year, sometimes two or three months ahead of time. It's stuff popping up in the 11th hour. And I think it would be very helpful if we as a board, on behalf of our constituents, said, or had a discussion that says, and we might be able to build off of Kevin's presentation, What do we want the fair to be every year? What kind of emphasis do we want it to have? Do we want it to be big, small? Do we want it to have certain things it doesn't have down? My goal, personally, as just one supervisor, I think it would be fantastic if we could come up with a model. And therefore, we would be able to set a budget for the fair every year. that we would not be scrambling around trying to figure out what is the right number. But I don't know, I've been on this board a long time and I don't think that I've ever participated in a discussion. Tim, you might know if we've had that conversation. Mike?

We've talked about different venues and different things to have there that we've never really sat down and made of.

exact model well i just wanted to plant that seed with you knowing that as we go through this update um maybe be thinking about how we as a board each of us can collectively contribute to a conversation where you're thinking about okay what do we want this to be you know for our county is the name right is the place right are the activities there right um so i think everything's on the table but i think we once and for all need to make some determinations so that this fair is what the citizens want to see. And then it will help us understand what kind of resources we need to provide to meet those needs. Does that make sense? Bonnie, you're giving me the look.

I'm just thinking.

You're just thinking? OK. All right, so Kevin, I'm stealing your thunder. I know.

It took my whole introduction out.

I know.

But you do have 49 slides to think about what you want to do.

Danny told me you have.

Most of them are photos But kind of as guardrails for the conversation from my standpoint, the fair does fall under my department. It falls under my budget. I'm not advocating for or against any position. I'm here to do the will of the board. I'm here to do the will of the citizens. But ultimately, I have the fiduciary responsibility of coming in under budget. That's kind of the guardrails that we put on it. I think Michael, in his first couple weeks and months here is tired of hearing me talk about the fair and listening to all the different financial models that I run through, trying to set ticket prices before the fair and all sorts of other things. I love numbers. You're going to see a lot of numbers here because I want to give you all the information that I have at my disposal so that you can make the most educated decision. One of the biggest things for me and the importance for myself for this conversation is while the fair is just four days out of the calendar year, which is roughly 1% of our calendar year, It does equate to a little over half of my entire operating budget. So half of my entire operating budget is spent over the course of four days. So this is a very important conversation. So I do appreciate the opportunity, as you said, to really have a true work session on the agricultural fair. I started in 2022. We've never had a true opportunity to have a full-blown discussion about the fair. So hopefully we'll have a few moments for that today. But I'm going to provide a brief overview and recap of all the great things that happened at the 2026 Franklin County Agricultural Fair. And then we're going to put this year's fair in the context of the community impact. We're also going to look at the financial history of the fair so that you kind of have that overview. So the Franklin County Agricultural Fair continues to be much more than a four-day entertainment event. Those of you that were able to come out to the fair this year or previous years Know that it brings together our agricultural community, it brings our families, our schools, nonprofits, local businesses, volunteers, and even local performers for a celebration of truly what makes Franklin County a great place to live. And I'll kind of piggyback off of saying different localities do things differently. My goal is never to be a such and such fair. My goal is to create a truly unique Franklin County Fair that showcases a lot of the great things that we have to offer. First of all, that was our fair mascot this year. If you made it out to the fair, this goat probably said hey to you a thousand times. But you know, again, also want to give a shout out to Beth Preston Photography. She provided a lot of our photos. I only have a small number of them right now since we are so quickly turning around to have this. So we do have some other photos as well. But really wanted to kick off. This was a social media post that someone that I do not know made following their visit to the fair, and it really kind of encapsulated a lot of what the fair does. But it was a picture of her family and her young child, and the caption was, Franklin County Agricultural Fair Fund, rides, animals, fair food, and one little boy who wanted to see and do everything. He had an absolute blast, and honestly, so did we. Nothing fancy, just a good old family day at the fair, making memories. I did not know that was a good show. But I felt like that kind of encapsulated just your everyday citizen and their time at the fair. So kind of kicking off here, the first question that everybody wants to know, how many people came? So this year, the fair recorded 4,221 ticketed attendees. That doesn't include all the volunteers. That doesn't include all of the folks who participated in things like the tractor pull and other events Of those, 2,055 were adults, 1,284 were students, 588 were children under the age of five, and 294 were seniors. And one point, again, that stands out to me is that children and students, that's ages zero to 17, represented nearly 45% of those who were in attendance. That's important because it demonstrates, again, that the therapy continues to have a strong family and youth component to it. A big part of that, I have two children of my own, so affordability for families is really important to the work that we do. This year we did have a $5 increase in our unlimited ride wristbands. We contracted with a new company to do a fabulous job, but that did increase our price by about $7,500. And then part of that contract, the unlimited ride wristband did go to $15 from $10 in previous years. We're still $10 cheaper than some of those day room fares who use the same midway company and rides. that we did. But because of that $5 increase in the unlimited riot risk bands, we worked to offset that by making anyone ages zero to 17 absolutely free. So it does come out in the wash. You would pay the exact same thing that you did in previous years, but we didn't want to pass that cost on to our families if at all possible. Wednesday night typically being our student night, which would be free admission for all students. We modified that with family night, so adults 18 to 64 opportunity for those families to take advantage of on Wednesday. On Thursday, it's always our senior night. That's an opportunity for anybody 65 years and older, an opportunity to come out to the fair and experience it absolutely free. And then on Friday, that was our full price day. You see there. And then on Saturday, while the pricing was exactly the same as Friday, after the fair on Friday night, Michael got to listen to, again, my running all of the numbers and projections. We advertised the wristband would be $20 as part of our midway contract. We ran the numbers and we think, okay, I think we can make budget by keeping the wristband at $15. We were able to do that and it paid off. We had our busiest day of the fair. So again, just another opportunity to reduce the price when we were at all possible. So again, Kind of putting that in historical context, 2014 was the first year that the fair returned. You see the price break down on the left side there. You see the 2026 full price days here on the right side. So a family of four with two teenage kids and two unlimited ride risk fans in 2014, it would have cost you $40. In 2026 this year, that would have cost you $50 unless you came on Wednesday and it would have been the exact same price it was in 2014. So again, trying to keep that affordability whenever possible. We'll say that this year's fair always has some type of unique circumstance that we face, whether it's a hurricane or whether it's a global pandemic, there always seems to be something. This year, we were blessed with the 11-day new wave. So as you kind of see there, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday especially, extreme heat advisories, we were well over 95 degrees on all of those days. Saturday, we had a drastic cool down into the low 90s. But we will say that as the sun started to set over the midway, it was very comfortable during the fair. But again, you work all day in nearly 100 degree heat, it's difficult to get home and say, you know what, I'm gonna load up and go to the fair. So we know that that had a big effect. But more importantly, it had a big effect on our Franklin County Public Schools. Truly, they waited to that 11th hour to make a decision. And while it was difficult on our end to then have to pivot, they did everything I felt like they possibly could do to stay as a participant of the fair. But ultimately, they withdrew all of their participation during the day. So we didn't have our third and fifth graders come out during the day. They also withdrew from the evening portion. So if you've been to the fair, they do all of the agricultural exhibits under the large shelter. They provide all of our animals for our agricultural showcase. There's also a 40 by 100 tent that our building trades students have a big showcase on. So on Tuesday with the fair getting ready to kick off on Wednesday, we had to figure out a way to fill up the large shelter and to fill up this structure that we had in the middle of our fairgrounds. And we were able to do that and I think the general public would have had no idea Again, we appreciate the efforts of the school. They did as much as they could, but there's a lot of liability there, especially during the day. So it's also, talking with Mr. Overstreet, it's always a lot easier when you look back and go, that was the right decision. So all in all, we'll look to continue that as we move forward. So despite all of those conditions that we talked about, especially with the heat, the fair continued with a full schedule of agricultural educational entertainment and community programming. This was a hundred and Once again, a record number of entries across more than 400 categories. And I cherry picked some of the photos that kind of showed our young folks off. And you can see kind of a soup to nuts of different things from artwork to produce to crafts to everything that our young folks were able to participate in, as well as adults. And then our best in show table here, you can just see lots of craftsmanship. And again, another encouraging indicator continued community interest in agriculture, horticulture, homemaking, and all of those related skills. And also I love these two pictures, the intent of these two young folks taking care of their pullet chickens. We have our 4-H, I have their pullet show on Saturday, again for that youth component to it as well. Talking about the educational component, we have the Virginia Agricultural Mobile Education Unit, as well as the Virginia 4-H Life Sciences our volunteer fire association with their kids zone, quilting demonstration, we had a blacksmith demonstration from Garnet Creek Farm. So lots of educational opportunities there. Also a huge thank you to the folks at Callaway Hardware Plus and the Bazell family. When the schools had to pull out on Tuesday, they actually reached out to us and said, hey, we've already got all of our animals loaded up, can we still bring them to the fair? And of course we said, absolutely. The fair this year, I was also very proud that we had an opportunity all four nights to really showcase local musical talents on our music stage. We had the Ryan Greer Band, who's based right here in Franklin County. We had Orchestra Appalachian, the Jacktail Players from Barron College. We had Down From Chaos. We had Miles and Hayes, who is a duo from the high school that just reached out and said, hey, would you mind if we came and played for an hour? They were absolutely phenomenal. Would love to have them back. And then we had Help Jump Trouble, who was a Franklin County-based old-time bluegrass band that is a mainstay of the Floyd Country store. But again, an opportunity to showcase Franklin County-based talent at our fair. A couple of the entertainment things that you will kind of see as I work through the pictures. So there was plenty of family fun and entertainment. We had donkey baseball. We had donkey races. We had our traveling petting zoo. We had the tractor pull. There you see donkey baseball. You can see the video of that. They're going to be races. You would have thought with a race they would have been on the donkey, but that proved to be harder than you would think. These are our winners for our frying pan toss. And then we had our best beard competition winners as well. But we also had a watermeloning competition. New this year, we had a non-hole LED mini golf course. We had DJ Flex. He's the DJ for Virginia Tech men's and women's basketball. with his mobile fire truck DJ booth. It is quite the sight to behold. So lots of different entertainment options for folks to enjoy. Also talking about the Midway, this board approved the Midway contract earlier in the year after we put it out to RFP. Fun time amusements out of Danville. I don't have anything but good things to say about them. They were the consummate professionals throughout the week. We had no issues out of them. A great assortment of rides. They had three thrill rides. They had five family rides and two kiddie rides, along with three games. I did not personally partake of any of the hog drop, which was Michael's favorite, or the scat or the roundup, but again, great opportunity to come out and enjoy the fair with our rides. A lot of fun there. Another aspect of the fair is that the community aspect We had an opportunity to have multiple different community organizations, including Boy Scout Troop 130 on site, Believed in Grace Resources, Gideon's International, Ferrum College and their Ag program, the National Guard, Booker T. Washington National Monument, Virginia Western's Educational Foundation, again, the Franklin County Volunteer Fire Association, Southwest Antique Tractor Association, among others. So we do really appreciate their participation. in the fair. We also had an opportunity to showcase local businesses who had an opportunity to participate and showcase off to our residents and visitors. Crispy Pig, the Hot Dog Stand, Fry Knives, Santillo's Fry Factory, again, Garnet Creek Farms, Callaway Hardware Plus, Misty Mountain Ware, Rakes Road Bakery, all of those different folks that were able to kind of showcase what they had to offer. This participation, in my opinion, helps serve It's not just simply an event, but a chance for these folks to get out and meet new folks. FAIR would not be possible without our great sponsors. You see all of those wonderful sponsors listed there. And something new this year, working with Virginia Cooperative Extension is kind of offsetting some of the costs of our competitive exhibit. CARE with Cooperative Extension was able to reach out to some additional sponsors that we have not reached out to in the past. And you'll see a lot of these were just in-kind donations. Rural King is a great example. They would give out gift cards to a lot of our youth winners at the Cooperative Extension competitive exhibits. I would be remiss if I didn't give a heartfelt thank you to our folks and our friends at TNT Auto Body. This is the last year that they will be having the Cool Bus. down the use of the pool bus after 20 years of hauling folks to events. It was a hard decision for Tim and Tara and the family. We had a conversation about it on the first night, but again, they've provided a great service to our community and we've already Also want to thank a lot of our tremendous volunteers and organizations that helped support the fair this year. First and foremost, Miss Theresa Tyree. If you don't know Miss Theresa, you need to meet Miss Theresa.

You're missing something.

You are. She has been with the fair forever. I've worked with her in the past. She spent as much time as any of staff did at the fair. And what I would argue is one of the most difficult positions. She was kind of our parking attendant, so she probably heard every story. under the book on why someone needed to get in, but Teresa, you know, did kind of head up that. Franklin County Master Gardeners, Franklin County 4-H, the Miss Franklin County Agricultural Fair Queens and staff, including our Queen Ashlyn Hagler, Carter Bank, Ridgeview Bank, Franklin County Public School teachers for helping with the wristbands, are opening ceremonies of the cool bus reba dylan and the recreational development of franklin county organization and the volunteers that they gathered for baseball and donkey races and the franklin county volunteer fire and rescue so that's kind of the semi-quick recap of this year's fair anybody have any questions about kind of that programmatic side before we get into the financial side you know laura you got me thinking about

what the objective of the fair is. Because I don't have a lot of experience with fairs. And so I'm kind of curious, what is the objective? And I'm guessing there might be different answers as you go around the room. But what are we trying to do? Is it entertainment? Or we're trying to form a sense of community?

opportunity for franklin county residents to come out and not only learn about agricultural heritage have an opportunity for entertainment but also to showcase franklin county you know i see this as an opportunity for folks who may not be able to take a vacation during the year this may be one of their opportunities to get out and enjoy family fun together most of you have had an opportunity to come out to the fair You know, I view it as a quality of life service that the county provides.

Mr. Hayden.

The very first slide you showed proved to me that we met our expectations and our goals for this fair. For someone to send you that, talk about the little boy that had a blast, that meant for me any goals that we could set for the fair.

Dave, does that answer your question?

It does. So kind of a follow-on, as you look at are offering is there something that you like to just hit a home run like you really wish you could do this and it needs money or it needs resources or people or is there something a component where like what would it take it to the next level in your mind that we we didn't do this year haven't done

I would say personally, I wouldn't have a direct answer for that question. That is kind of a rephrase question that I'll post to the board a little bit later.

is because again the difference between if it's an entertainment factor if it's an educational factor if it's a quality of life community building to me they would be very different things also if you look at the agricultural side i think that answer would look completely different so i think you know ultimately from a staff perspective whatever the will of the board would be you know whether it would be modifying something that we're currently doing or looking to add something you know a Fortunately or unfortunately, we're also at the points where the more that you continue to add, there is a financial component to that. And I think that there's a pie chart a little bit later. Whenever you add expenses, that's either going to come from the county general fund or we're going to have to pass it on through admission charges. Also, again, I've said this many other times, a space is a limitation. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. Let me rephrase that. Flat space, is it a premium? But truly, in my opinion, this was

they were your experiment this year and now you have a feeling oh that was really good or not so good or somewhere in the middle but i think the experiments are really fun to do to the extent every year you have some kind of experiment just to see oh we're going to try this like uh quick jim and that donkey thank you you think the donkey baseball and the donkey races as a example in that

from a entertainment standpoint for those that came and enjoyed it, I think it was a home run. So I think, again, that dichotomy of, as you'll see financially, it was not, you didn't see a return on investment there, but in the entertainment, I think Supervisor Mitchell

It's a senior strength for these kids, the whole deal. bird dude sitting here with the roof all the time. If he can't litigate no better than he can play donkey baseball, he's no good. I like to see you telling this. He got thrown. He got thrown. I don't know how many times.

I would say that was a problem.

But it was a good time. It was a blast. Anybody who said it wasn't a blast doesn't know anything. My kids had a blast and I've gone to that thing multiple times each year a much larger turnout if it hadn't been 100 degrees. You would have had way more. But I know countless people stayed home just because it was so hot. It was great. I would reconsider the donkey baseball and spend that money on music. Did Tim Burns see the company for his injuries?

Don't even say that out loud.

We had to sign a waiver. of where the board needs to start the discussion, which is a qualitative versus a quantitative decision, and where is the middle? How can we have that really special fair? And maybe it's never gonna be, maybe there's never gonna be a profit, and maybe that's not our goal. It's nice when you've got that available, but this may not be that thing. It might be a service to the people that we serve.

have made that comment we're not doing it to make money we're doing it as a community absolutely absolutely okay i'll continue on we'll get back to this conversation um but again kind of that bottom line look again with on the expensive side i do have the caveat um this is subject to change some of this is budgeted numbers uh based solely upon the fact we haven't got invoices for some of the things like fuel uh for uh staff time from parks and rec and ed There you see $141,344. $75,000 of that came from budgeted funds in the FY26-27 budget. Admission garnered $52,244. Sponsorship at this point is $12,950. That does include a $3,000 donation towards the Donkey Baseball. And our vendor fees are right at $1,100. gets us to that $141,000 mark. The expenses, you will see that I do have this broken down. On the left side there, you see $134,725. Those were our budgeted fare expenses through about June of last year. As you know, we get our budget in roughly in April. Pretty quick turnaround for August, so the things that we had budgeted. But then we did have the donkey events requested by Ms. Dillon that were ultimately implemented, so that was an additional Kind of breaking that expenses down so you get an idea. Midway, as you very well know, as you approve the contract, $56,500. Logistics, this is everything from the lights that we have to bring in because we have no lighting, to the port-a-johns for the restroom facilities, to our tents, tables, and chairs, golf carts, ribbons, everything that it takes to physically put on the fair was right at $45,000 this year. Entertainment, $25,650. This was everything about in that entertainment side, from music to the mechanical bull to the DJ to the LED golf course, anything on the entertainment side. Again, that doesn't include the donkey races and donkey baseball. You see the price tag there. And then our marketing efforts for $7,036. I will say and point out that I would say the fair is probably rely so heavily on income that's not guaranteed. If it rains, if you have 100 degrees, that can adjust those emission numbers. So we really have very conservative projections. We do like to keep a little bit of a cushion on that expenses side, because you never know what the revenue, especially on emissions, would be. So that's kind of that broad overlook. Again, kind of seeing that as a pie. know roughly 53% of the funds come from the county's general fund so again if we continue to add things to the fair either the county funds portion is going to have to get bigger or we're obviously going to have to start to look towards increasing admission or finding increased sponsorship which are going to come from our local businesses as well you know expenses I thought this was interesting to midway it's about 37% logistics you know it's a big historical context as I said I started the fair with the fair in 2022 prior to that there were two COVID years where we didn't have a fair and then there were six fairs prior to that so kind of just to put the fair in historical context from 2014 to 2019 which was the course of six fairs the county paid roughly or actually to the county of about $100,000 per year to put on the fare. And the average annual expenses were approximately, on average, $154,000. Then we had the two years of no fare, 2020 and 2021. And then 2022 to 2026, that is five years, we reduced the cost of those five fares to just $266,000 to the general fund. That averages about $53,200 per year that the county is having to put in to operate the fair. So that's a reduction of 100,000 over the first couple of six years. We've got that down to 53,000 per year. And we've also reduced our expenses on average by about $20,000. One little different caveat, one year we had the extra money left over. So 20,000 of that 266,000 we spent on capital improvement at the fairgrounds. So again, showing You know, over that 2022 to 2026 period, you know, in my opinion, a significant reduction in annual county cost with expenditures $109,000 under budget. So from 2022 to 2026, the county is budgeting $75,000 for the fair. The fair has been able to return $109,000 back into the general fund. Whereas that wasn't necessarily the case before. We'll say the budget for the fair has remained at $75,000 since 2017. And so we've been able to manage those expenses according to that. Now is the fun portion. But does anybody have any questions on this before we move to the interactive portion of the day?

Kevin, I attribute a lot of the budget efficiencies to your leadership and staff as well. All of it? a look. But Kevin, sincerely, we appreciate your leadership so very much. You are a gem and we just cannot thank you enough for all that you do and everything that you're involved in on the county's behalf.

It's my pleasure. I will say though, you know, with that $109,000, you know, while that's great, I love returning money back to the general fund. That's always a positive. But I think that, you know, in a perfect with no money in that account because that would mean that you kind of balance that what the county put in but you know a lot of this money the 109 000 would have come off the the citizens through admission so again i think finding striking that perfect balance again love returning money to the general fund that's always a positive

Let's have been so does anybody got some leading questions? Oh, these are the 40 some slides. I forgot.

So just to put it again, to put it in perspective and hopefully make the work session fruitful. Planning has already started for the 2027 fair. We're already in talks for dates next year with our midway company. We did have first right of refusal built into the contract for that midway company from last year. If both of us were in agreement. So that is a positive. We won't have to go back So we're looking at dates that would fit within his schedule as well within ours. So again, kind of with today and the little bit of time we have left, looking for clear guidance from the board supervisors. It's needed to determine how staff should proceed with 2027 planning. As with everything that we do, timely direction is gonna help staff, preserve staff time and resources. It is a department of one, so when I'm working on the fair, I'm not doing other things. But we want to make sure that planning aligns with what the board's direction is. Now that I read it, this sounds like a threat. It's not meant to be a threat. But if there is no clear direction that's provided today, staff will just continue with the approach that we've had in the past and assume that level funding for 2027. Maybe I could have worded that differently.

So really, three requests from the

started to determine the desired county funding level that aligns with fair programming and services. Facilities planning, capital projects, those seem to come up every year at very inopportune times. So now is the time to kind of start that. One thing that staff would request being that the fair is located inside of a county park that operates 361 days out of the year that the fair isn't there. that any capital projects or any type of facility-level planning, we would like to see that go through the RAC. Again, our parks have to maintain the other 361 days. So again, just getting some type of evaluation and recommendation from the RAC for capital and facility-related projects. Then from a programming, logistics, and governance standpoint, provide direction on programming, which is the conversation that we started. And then more importantly, is whether this board wants to establish an official Franklin County Agricultural Fair Advisory Board to provide that governance. Since I started in 2022, it's been a volunteer de facto type committee. It doesn't work. A committee of volunteers is wonderful until it's not. So again, balancing that desired funding, ultimately what level of annual county investment is appropriate to support the ag fair? at the desired level of service These would be some examples I know folks have asked in the past just to maintain current admission prices that we have. And if we want to include something like the donkey baseball or something at that price range, that's going to increase the budget by about $20,000. If you're looking to do free admission for all ages, have a free gate fare similar to other localities around us, that would add an additional $22,000. And then a couple of different price points if you would look to reduce the cost of the midway rides, what that would look like in turn. map would be. Again, going back to master planning, a lot of the facilities master planning is going to be a part of the Parks and Recreation master plan that's going to be started here in the near future. And again, any facility and capital projects, we would ask that they be vetted and recommended by the RAC. And then programming and logistics. Again, additions, modifications, removal of existing elements, and then more importantly at the bottom there. So I think it would take care of a lot of the questions that we have if this board has an appetite for creating an official Ag Fair board. That Ag Fair board, we think it would operate similar to RAC. It could be whatever form that you would like, but typically represented from each of the districts and three at-large members. They would be a former board established and appointed by the board of supervisors. They would have defined terms of service, clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and advisory authority. And they would provide ongoing guidance to county staff and the board on fair programming operations and long-term planning. Again, the exact same formula that the RAC uses. And then, in addition to that, to broaden the scope and expand stakeholder input, this is just kind of a broad list of non-voting members or advisory members. That includes everything from Cooperative Extension, the 4-H, Farm Bureau, Young Farmers Fair, again, to provide an advisory role. That's all I have.

A question. You mentioned that you raised the price of the unlimited from $10 to $15. How did that affect the numbers? Did you sell more or less, or was it exactly the same or similar?

I would say, anecdotally, I heard no complaints over a $15 wristband as opposed to a $10 wristband. Would you measure how many you sold? We would, but with the number of Ticketed attendees being less this year, it's kind of apples to oranges. You know, we were roughly a little over 50%, I would say, folks that attended the fair bought a Rodgers band as well. So it seems similar. Yeah, I would say. So you didn't lose a lot of people buying? No, I would not say we had any. I've been spending a lot of time in the ticket booth, did not have. Because one question to That is, in comparing to other fairs around us that this Midway operates, typically it equates to one ticket for $1. And most rides take between four and six tickets. So by the time you buy $15 worth of tickets, you're maybe riding two, maybe three rides. Whereas for the same $15, you can ride for five hours or 10 hours on Saturday. There may be some families, especially with smaller kids, that maybe are only gonna ride one or two rides, that we could look into that. But in general, the unlimited is just a better option for families.

So Nick, you had something?

Kevin, based on your slides about the advisory committee, are you trying to persuade us? Nope. So what would you prefer? Cuz I'm totally against that.

I am not for or against.

You have an opinion.

We're just looking at some past receipts. I can say a volunteer fair committee was ineffective.

It left us high and dry several times. I'm not interested in that at all. But every fair I've attended, I had no issues. I think you're doing a great job. If you're getting by on $75,000, that's even better. And I already gave you my suggestion of at Donkey Baseball, while entertaining as it was, it was expensive. And I would spend that money elsewhere. It was great. It was a great time. Kids loved it.

And I think that example with Donkey Baseball is we probably wouldn't we we would love the input and the direction from the board that way when we have citizens who approach us with concerns that we would have an exact answer for us or let me just look at them say it was their fault that's exactly right now so i think the location is perfect i love it being in santa i love it being right there with the recreation i heard all right so let's break this down a little bit

Are there aspects programmatically of the fair that you all would like to see that we don't have or that we need more of?

You mentioned, Kevin, that the volunteer organization didn't work. But if we were to establish a board that's not paid, that's volunteer, it seems similar. And then following on from that, it got me thinking, I wonder if we reconstitute this ag development, if they could play a key role in this, because they play a key role in Bedford. And I think about how they kind of floundered around a little bit, in my words, without a mission. And this would give them a very, well, it's not their whole mission, but a very clear mission.

We got them involved in the Ag Fair. We went down there and spent a bunch of money putting in water spigots, cutting down trees. They didn't even bring a chicken. Yeah, they were supposed to bring all the stuff. They brought nothing.

And they had a mission.

They had a well-articulated mission. I would say two points. To me, the difference between an appointed and official board versus a volunteer committee is you would have oversight over it. With a volunteer committee, we may have someone show up in April and say, oh, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, and September rolls around. They haven't been to another meeting.

Well, there's no accountability.

There is no accountability. And ultimately, even when we had a de facto volunteer board, it fell to staff to pick up the promises that were made.

So Kevin, let me ask you this. Y'all need to tell me what things you would like to see that we don't have, we're either exchanging upon, but we do have, while you're thinking about that, Kevin, I'll put you on the spot. If you could create the kind of fair, because you've been doing this now for four years, right? What would you imagine Franklin County Fair to be? And I hate to say that money's not an object, but just keep that to the side. But if you wanted to do something to properly serve the citizens of Franklin County in an Ag Fair format, what would that look like?

In my opinion, the best thing that we could do for the fair would be to find a way to get free gate admission. So that it would constitute anybody who would like to attend the fair, would have, they wouldn't have a financial barrier to do it.

Was that that $22,000 number you had? Yeah, I think it was in that range. We need more sponsors. Yeah, and we can do that. We need more sponsors. Alright, so free admission is going to cost $22,000.

I will say, like, Carter Bank and them, I mean, they did a wonderful job. They're employees and they're working the gates and stuff, but I don't see why we couldn't find sponsors to do that.

I was going to say, my opinion is I don't know if anyone, everybody close your ears to this part. I don't know if anyone has ever approached a business and said, hey, I need you to give money to the local government so that they can provide a service. It's a pretty big ask until you get the businesses and the sponsors that see the value in it. That's why we send you. I understand. And we did have several businesses that actually increased their contribution this year. With our sponsorship levels, we did reduce a lot of the sponsorship thresholds. And again, another reason, our lowest level is $500. For a local small business, $500 is a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And so that's kind of that barrier. We did have a $100 tier, which was a supporter. We didn't have any takers on that, but it's just...

a queue or something just with picnic type food. We can invite businesses, kind of like a chamber thing. And then the purpose of this is to demonstrate, show a PowerPoint of what the fair looks like and the value of it, and then expect that they're going to volunteer to be a sponsor or write us a check that night. Now, is that not, I've seen that work time and time again.

I think staff capacity starts to run into a big

I'm not talking about, you guys would not, I wouldn't put that on staff. I think the board, Nick Mitchell can lead this up.

What about the chamber? Could we put the chamber in charge of? They're gonna want some of it. Wrangling sponsorships for the fair, specifically? I mean, would that be part of their mission?

Yeah, and I think, Kevin, we don't need to beat this, but I do think we can do, I think that the board and some of the connections that the county has, we can bring more sponsors to the table. I truly believe that.

And you make a good point, Kevin, because you think about when you bring up a family with several kids when they come in, it becomes expensive. And especially by the time you go in there and they want to buy everything. I mean, it's expensive.

And to me, by lowering that cost of entry, You're increasing the opportunity for more folks to be able to experience the fair. They're gonna have more money in their pocket than to use at our local food vendors, for our local crab vendors.

Again- Well, if you're somebody who's kept the spending at $75,000 for so many years, I would suggest you bring that number right there into a budget request this coming year anyway. Without even talking, you know. What, $75,000? No, add your $22,297. I would suggest you make that a budget request in the upcoming year. We hope you're paying attention. Bonnie, you're a lifelong resident here.

You've got your finger on the pulse of a lot of things. What are your observations about if you need to improve upon it, status quo, or being able to give

If you would like for your children to enjoy the rides, every little dollar adds up there. And that's a barrier for a lot of people. So I'm totally in agreement with that. I would like to see maybe some outside folks step up to try to wrangle sponsorships for the fair and not put this on county staff. They have enough to do. We got enough big money problems going on right now. Agreed. We don't need to add to their duties. We need to spread the love here throughout the county and have people that are willing in the county to step up and help, step up and help. But we do need sort of organizational launching pad for it. And the chamber obviously has access to all their businesses that belong to the chamber. But maybe they would have an outreach to other businesses that don't belong to the chamber. This might be some reason for maybe somebody to join the chamber, cuz they wanna support the fair. it could be a win-win-win all the way around i think but i'm really interested in me personally in spotlighting our farm and rural heritage and our appalachian roots heritage with our music i'm very very thrilled that they have a lot of local talent i have a lot of local talent that are in my own district i mean it's just mind-blowing the level of talent we have. So I was really excited to see that. But I just think we need to engage the community more and just let them know, hey, this is what we're doing. This is our mission. You want to help? Step up. You know? Okay. That's good. That's fair enough. Mike, do you have any thoughts?

I would tag on to what Bonnie said and just food for thought. Bluegrass is such a big part of Appalachia and a big part of our area. And I'm not trying to mirror Gaylax or Fiddler's Convention, but if we could maybe work some sort of a bluegrass, a musical event into the fair that draws a lot of older people who will sit there in chairs and listen to it. That could be another possible draw.

We have one of the biggest bluegrass names in the business.

He's played our fair.

Maybe we could also think about maybe having some type of a larger, bigger, draw-type concert one night. Maybe on a Tuesday night, we have a big concert or something at the rec park, a ticketed event, and maybe some of that money could go toward paying for the fare, and maybe some of it could go, actually, to the person that puts on the show. You know, anything we can do to help promote that space and promote the fair, but maybe make a few dollars on the back end of it or front end of it, I think we should consider. You know, are we going to have a tout for free at the fair, but however, we're going to have, you know, maybe a big blowout kickoff concert or something. That's going to be a lot of upfront money.

I know.

But we have concert promoters in the county also that can help with that.

Yes, we do.

Okay, Nick, do you have any?

I already spoke about that. Mr. Taylor. I think one thing that we kind of skipped around and hinted at was the fact that Kevin's a department employee. That's a problem, that's right. And we put a whole lot on his shoulders and expecting, and he's doing great things. everything that we've ever asked him to do. He's done great at it. But we're asking a whole lot of one person, and we need to get him some help.

And I will say that, if I can slide a little somewhat, we had roughly seven full-time employees working round the clock on the fair. Myself, Mr. Clark, I was there for the entirety of it. We had Paul Chapman and Ben. Without them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And then three maintenance guys.

it's it's kind of phenomenal that we turn a grass field into a fair over the course of about four days piggybacking on what tim said so would you view that your i think i know the answer that the needed help would be on the preparation um side of things like starting now like you said you're starting out for next year or is it more focused on health

those three those three or four days is it a blend of both now maybe you know michael have been seeing it the the lead up and the preparation you know i think you know with myself i think we can handle that but is there a week well there is a yeah somewhat yes with the parks and rec staff you know there there is we do have a

a collective there because you know i stay concerned about resource capacity because the last thing i want to see is us losing our wonderful staff because we're overburdening and you know we've got a responsibility as a board to make sure that we're taking care of the needs of the county and our staff are very important to this board and i would say that staff capacity while it is

something to be mindful of i believe we do have adequate staff capacity for what the request is it may not feel like that at times did you get that samantha you said that out loud yeah and i truly mean that you know yes we do we we do run lean but i do feel like that we do have adequate staff capacity for what we are being asked to do now that's the planning what about the the when the fair comes around again we've done it i mean this is now my fifth year of doing it and we kind of have a routine we kind of have everybody knows what our responsibilities and roles are so i mean i mean obviously if we had 100 more people i don't know what we could do with them but i would say that you know obviously more volunteers are wonderful but you know i would say that we have adequate staff

we can't get this covered. We didn't have somebody to address something that popped up. There were times where we didn't have volunteers

So as far as the midway is concerned are you comfortable that we have enough rides to meet the demand of what the citizens want?

I would say that that is in talking with our operator I think realistically we could fit maybe no qualms or complaints.

And how about the layout of the park from a logistical standpoint, lay the land type stuff, the pavilion. I mean, are there things on the capital side that need to be done and need to be properly funded? Is there paving needed or, I don't know.

To me, they're all preacher comforts at that point.

I'm not gonna

If we're going to have this holistic discussion about how we can decide at what level we would prefer to see the fair, and I've always said if the board sets direction for the fair in conjunction with our staff and our volunteers, then we need to fund it appropriately. That's why this discussion needs to be very directive, I think. And like you said, Kevin, and you understand what is it the board would like to see and i think it's a valuable conversation um and you know i i guess i'm just looking for any gaps that you could identify to us i'm hearing um we if we could do free admission at around cost of like 22k um potentially get two more midway rides potentially um what point am i missing anything else you guys would like

about how you'll have some people that don't care if they have to spend money, right? And other people aren't coming because they have to spend money. And it made me think, you know, maybe you could just offer one night for free. I was thinking Thursday night's free for everyone. And then those people that can't come, well, now they can come. And those people that they don't really care, they'll come on Friday and Saturday and pay the fees. So maybe that's one way where you don't give up all the money, but you still, there's a night where everybody can come and it's free.

Pick the historically slowest night and make it free admission.

Yeah, whatever that you got. I've had mixed results in the past with suggested donations. So you have a sign up, it's free admission, but this is the cost of putting this on. If you would like to contribute, you can.

So if you have folks that do want to give or can give. That's where the sponsorships, I think, could be invaluable.

to help underwrite the costs.

Parents have to work for a living sometimes. That's right. They don't know what their day is going to tell or what it's going to look like, and they might not be able to get there that night. So is it safe? I'm sorry, go on. Do we have, have you ever by any chance pursued any kind of grants?

know and with Virginia tourism they do have a events grant it's required to be multi-day ticket which we qualify for but you have to show the desire to pull people in from over 50 miles away and I would say that that's my understand that would not be the intended purpose of the fair the only purpose of the fair would be to provide a service to what about the extension I mean have we ever asked if they've got

grant opportunities that could help the fair under their auspices?

We can, we have, and they're great partners. They are. They're phenomenal partners there.

So in my hearing, you all, let's just kind of draw down to the bottom line for now. We can continue this if you wish another day. Are we hearing at least that there is a request to add to the $75,000 budget? See? I'm pointing to Marshall. Marshall.

If he's still with us.

Marshall.

Madam Chair, can you hear me?

I can, sir. I'm reminded that I have not yielded the floor to you, sir, on your thoughts about the Ag Fair. And anything that you think we could be doing be doing differently, adding to, you know, I hope you've been able to hear the conversation about potential of free admission, that those types of things. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to offer up?

Yeah, I've been listening. I don't, I can't hear all of it.

I'm missing probably every, catching every third word or something like that. So if I say anything, y'all please correct me if you already covered it at all.

But, Kevin, I understood you to say that if you had your druthers or you're thinking of free gate, and then I heard some discussion about maybe just one night free gate or something like that.

That's what the discussion was.

I would be in favor of that. How much money were you talking about for a free gate total? You mentioned right at the beginning of it, I think.

So it would be about $22,000 additional funds.

I would be in favor of that. Like I said, this is not a money-making thing for the county. It don't sound like. It sounds like a service that's good. And also, I do believe that we could get sponsorship from the local businesses in our county. I would be willing to say that, you know, I'd be willing to go out in Blackwater District to the business there and ask for it. If we put up some sort of advertisement, a board or something with the company's name and logo on it in return for a donation, I think it'd be very well, be very well worth it. Plus the advertisement they would get, I think it would be a good return for the businesses too. It's just goodwill, if nothing else, you know. But I don't know. Like I said, I didn't hear all the discussion from all the supervisors on the amount of money and all that. But I would definitely we need to I think we need to increase the budget for the Kevin, Paul, all the group together. I mean, they they do a great job. I went down Saturday with my one of my one family. grandkids and i only had a ball and it was uh you know everybody looked like he was having a good time it was a good fair y'all did a good job kevin but that's my thoughts lori i you know what i think anyway but i do think we definitely need to look into some sponsorship from local local business i think it'll pay off marshall that's really great feedback thank you so much

We are at that point, Marshall, I hope you can hear me, and we can continue this conversation, but I'm trying just to find a fundamental place to move from after today, which is we were getting ready to talk about does the board have a desire to increase the budget beyond $75,000 at this juncture, or do we need to have more discussion before you would want to make that type of decision?

I would be very willing for it.

I would support it.

We can always come down if we spend less, but I think we shouldn't.

All right, so we are in unanimous consent to give you more money. Okay, enjoy it while you can. We will use it to offset the citizens' portion. Well, but Kevin, I mean... That's a good caveat to that. It is. I think that's to offset... It is. But I think because of the variability of maybe adding a couple of rides to the midway, or maybe if you and whatever committee ends up coming about, think that an event, like Bonnie was talking about, a band night or something, where you would have a contingency built into your budget for things that you would like to be able to plan for without having to put back and forth. Does that make sense?

all right so do you all have a number in mind and i can i think i could bring maybe that back during the budget discussion to be part of the budget yeah i would say that this suffices to give an idea of what we're kind of looking at moving forward i would not think that would be unfair to ask for anything specific at this point no and i think kevin i just wanted what i wanted the takeaway to be was

you know whether the board felt like they were ready to say we want to increase your budget and then an opportunity to give some feedback on things that you know we might like to see the fair have or grow it or you know look location and all that stuff and i think we've had some pretty good discussion um and i think what i've heard and you won't tell me if i'm getting this right um i think everybody's been very very pleased with this year's fair fair enough to say And I think it can only get better from here, Catherine. And so, again, let's start from this, from where we left off today. And you give some thought to, excuse me, a committee or whatever it is. Because I know I've heard the ups and downs on your committees in the past. And you spend more time trying to herd the cats than get anything done. So let's think about that some. because I know we would like to help support you in that effort.

I think those would be the two main things and one wasn't necessarily addressed but I think the most pressing things you know kind of decision of what you want if you desire a volunteer committee to be formed and continue which or if you desire an appointed committee to be informed or if you are instructing this to be staffed um the decisions to be made at the staff level and then the other one it comes up all the time and it would just be very nice and put a bow on it if you want to remain the franklin county agricultural fair versus the name of franklin county fair i've heard that more than yeah i hear it repeatedly and i would love the agricultural fair is what brings all those exhibits

he's the boss yeah no i i think that there's a lot of historical perspective um in that and if we add some things you know thermal craft vendors or what have you it's just value added i don't know that it brought us to the level that we want to change well it's always so funny when you go back down walk to the

Kevin, has this been helpful?

It has been. As far as a committee, did we land? No, please no. No as in no? I'm for no committee.

I'm for staff. If you can form a committee with existing staff, I don't think that we're going to get anywhere with volunteers or us.

And I would say kind of a caveat to that. We do have a outside of the committee meeting form do provide a lot of support there so what date was that yeah um we are at the mercy of the midway all obviously um but the midway operator did say that once his season's over in roughly november he would love to discuss obviously labor day weekend is a difficult weekend but it was kind of the straw that we drew being the first year in august and saw success we've done the fair in september uh middle of september we saw success um you know just kind of if there's any if anybody has a strong opinion but you also have to take into consideration that you know in september you've got apple festival and you've got rocky mouth fest in october you've got folk life festival you've got all of these other events that are going on so did you know if anybody had a strong opinion of if we could push i mean we were even looking as far as into October, which it does get a little bit slower in October, but then you also get out of your growing season. So that would take a bite out of your competitive exhibits, so.

So what are your, what's your thinking, guys, in terms of elating? Leave it like it is. Labor Day. I like Labor Day.

It's great.

My mom said something, she's like, why don't y'all do it when it's cool? It's not supposed to be a hard degree for Labor Day. We can't do that.

How does that fall from you?

Yeah, if that's available.

He said typically schools.

On the weekend, they're not burnt out, tired, they're going to get back home to get ready for school, work on Monday, most of us, Labor Day.

Well, yeah, like I said, I can bring it back to the Lord once we have a

list of options of dates yeah exactly so do that and um once you get an outline of dates we can confirm at that point do you have what you need from us today absolutely okay thank you kevin excellent presentation i'd like to make sure samantha if we could get a copy of this this is a great great presentation okay mr sandy did you have anything else other than just the

He certainly can't do it by himself, but he does do it by himself.

I want to tell you, people want to help Kevin. Yes, exactly. If he was an ogre or somebody difficult to deal with, we would have to be paying people to help us.

And I hope the schools don't cancel next year, because I don't want to see Kevin like he was those kids coming in today they're gonna go on tell mom and dad I need to go back tonight and ride those rides absolutely we didn't have that this year absolutely yeah exactly okay is there anything else that supervisors would like to bring up before we adjourn okay what is the date Sam that we're going to adjourn to our next adjournment

Oh, I think you should.