Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right, we have calling order. Uh, invocation is going to be led by Supervisor Straoud, followed by the pledge of allegiance. Would you please stand with us? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. We thank you once again for this opportunity to serve and ask you to provide us with the judgment necessary to perform the job. We ask you to keep your hands on our citizens, employees, and especially our law enforcement and military as they go into harm's way, ensuring they're victorious in protecting our way of life and in defeating our enemies. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Right. Thanks everybody. Do we have any amendments to the agenda? Yeah, I'd like to add to the uh board of directors agenda a uh discussion on uh electronic meetings for the service authority and adding a uh section to the bylaws. Okay. Do we need a second for that or is that just will of the board kind of thing? Anybody have an issue with that?

All right, sounds good. Thank you. Any others? All right, I'll open the floor now for public comment. Comment should be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so that it can be properly included in the public record. And we will start with Pastor James Shaw. I think he passed it to me. He's second. I'm okay. I see the numbers now. like what's that about?

He figured out all right. Uh he didn't want to be first. I'm Sherman Davis and uh I vote in the Dan district and uh I'm thankful for the opportunity to read you from scripture and I'm going read from the gospel of Luke chapter 23 and uh verse number 40. It's about the thief on the cross and he says but the other answering rebuked him saying not not fear God seeing thou in the same condemnation? Point is, we're all under the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, for we receive the reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amidst. He said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. I like to think about this thief for just a moment on the cross as he uh just in a few minutes after this, he's going to be in heaven. And uh just moments before he went to heaven, he was uh cursing or slandering the Lord. Matthew 27 tells us both thieves were uh abusing the Lord verbally. And uh this thief had never been uh studied the Bible evidently. He had never been baptized. He had never known anything about church membership. And yet he made it in. And I'm sure that there must have been some angels up there. Maybe Gabriel who might have thought, you know, uh how in the world maybe they didn't get the memo. I don't know. But anyway, how did this man make it into heaven? And uh this murdering thief and he looks at the thief and he says, "You made it in. How did you make it in?" And uh the thief just kind of went like, "I don't know how I made it. I don't know how how I made it in, but I'm here and I'm in heaven." And he's rejoicing the fact. And so the angel again, well, how did you make it in? What the angel must have thought? What? How in the world? Oh, just a few minutes ago, I saw you on the

on a cross cursing and mocking and and uh uh tearing the Lord down. And uh so the uh man, the angel asked the man again. And so uh he doesn't know the answer to the question. And so uh he said, "Well, you know, I need to call my supervisor angel. Maybe my supervisor angel can help me to figure out how you got in here." And so he calls the supervisor angel. the supervised angel uh comes in and he says, "Do you know anything about the doctrine of justification by faith?" And man, I don't know anything about that doctrine. You know anything about the justific about the doctrine of the church membership? I don't know anything about the doctrine of church membership. You know anything about the doctrine of good works? I don't know anything about the doctrine of good works. Well, on what basis are you here? How did you get in? the man in the middle uh he said, "Well, only thing I can tell you is the man on the middle cross said, I could come in." And the truth of the matter is if you get to heaven, it'll be because the man on the middle cross said you get to heaven or you go into heaven, if you ever stand before the plegation, ask the question, why should you come in? If you answer in the first person, you're wrong. You say because I've done this, because I love Jesus, because I do good works, because I love my neighbor, because I go to church. You answer the first person, it's wrong. The answer is in the third person. And that person, it's because of he what he did to get us there. The man in the middle cross is a reason we can go to heaven. God bless you. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Shaw, there you are. Are we ready now? Yes, James Shaw James Monroe, district columnist for the Northern Next Sentinel citizen journalist, KG Media. Not speaking in my U capacity as a EDA member. Uh, no hat today. As I have stated previously, I grew up in Vermont for four years during a time when there were more cows than people. I waited for the school bus at 20 below with a cast on my leg and crutches from a skiing accident. Once it started snowing on a Monday and we still had school through midday Wednesday after three feet fell, but they knew a couple more feet were coming and the plows couldn't keep up and so they canled school so all the kids could start shoveling snow and keeping their driveways clear. On Monday, uh we had some challenges and and such uh uh as as it is with the snow around here and other days and such. And that's okay. We figure things out around here in King George. And um we do our best. We help our neighbor. We help our family. We help our friends. We help the elderly down the street get through these kinds of unusual snowstorm combo things. Um, and life goes on in King George. Remember, there's a lot of people out there who are contributing to make life that it is. you folks up there, us people out here, all the hidden behind the scenes people, first responders and the like.

They are part of what makes this a special place and we are thankful that they are there in our time of need. I heard that u uh for example some of the service authority um uh service people were out and about uh on their hands and knees because of the ice doing water and sewer fix things. Um, you do what you got to do and life goes on and we make things work and we try not to complain too much and we're very thankful for all the people who make this a special special county and place. I read too much complaints on Facebook recently. That's why I'm getting emotional. Have a blessed day. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. And I uh have to say I'm impressed that you grew up in four years in Vermont. I'm in my mid-50s and still working on growing up.

All right, Miss Lavel.

Hi, my name is Anna Maria Lo. I live in Presidential Lakes. I want to thank you for your service to the community. I know the job is hard. Do you is hard and you work really hard the first year trying to fix things that been broken for a long time. You tried to find where the money was going. Well, I still want you to work on the service authority and bring down the county debt. Last year you concentrated on fi on fineter for the service authority and I appreciate that you hired Mr. Lan Hamilton. I haven't had a chance to talk to with him but I think he's doing a great job. Also I ask you to make good good decisions for the county about the data centers. How many data centers do you wanted to put in King George County? How much do you want to change King George to get more revenue? I think you have already approved the data centers in Dagria along along chain m on parkway route 301 and I understand the planning commission has given a preliminary green light to proposal for the 7 5 million square foot data center project of for the Amazon at the bridgewood power plant location also the bridgewood power plant partners had asked for resing of the location from a limit agriculture A1 and rural agriculture A2 to industrial industrial district with a special exe exemption amendment to clear the way for 869 acre data center park. What I want to know is how how the electricity and water they use is going to affect the prices for the people of King George. I know you worry about the revenue for the county. That is what the

supervisors say 30 years ago when they approved the the length field. We shouldn't have any problems if you stop spending money on things that we don't need the spend only in things that we really needed. Also, I want to tell Mr. Stout that I know his businessman and wants to bring more business to King George. you sitting in that chair because the last person in it also want to bring more business and people to the county. He was a great person but he lost it. The people of King George that had living here for a long time just want to live in peace. Thank you. Sorry, that's everybody that signed up. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like Is there another list going around?

Sign up. You have another list.

Mr. Lson, come on up. Evening. AR Elias James Madison district. Tonight I come with a question and uh it's predicated on the fact that in the near future we will most likely have an action to consider the application from green energy ventures. And in an attempt to understand what it is we're getting into with that, I was doing some research and I found an oldou, but it's a couple years out of date and I could not find a performance agreement so that I could actually have a look at the deal. And uh my question is could any one of you please help me out with where I can find a performance agreement to have a look at and review? I would appreciate it so I would understand better the the issues. Thank you.

Miss Balon.

Hi, my name is Sarah Balon and I live in the James Monroe District. I emailed the board my concerns of the environmental footprint green energy ventures would leave in our community last March 2025. On January 20th, I was sick and could not physically attend the board meeting. I watched the live stream where the board patiently listened to every community member's concerns. Instead of restating my initial concerns, I would like to take this time to speak to some of the concerns that the board members have. I agree with Mr. Kenneth Strad. No matter how you run the numbers, the vehicle count does not make sense. And I too am concerned about the potential traffic light at the Bloomsberry Road in Route 3 intersection. I think we can all agree that Kings Highway has enough traffic and many residents would probably make an attempt to avoid this light. I would like to point out that the other end of Bloomsberry Road cuts out to 218, which is notoriously known as a dangerous road. The speed limit ranges from 20 to 40 mph, and a friend of mine totaled his car while making a turn. We do not need any more traffic on this road either. There was also a concern over VOTE leaving the upkeep work of the flowers to King George County. And the gentleman proclaimed that native flowers do not need as much maintenance as the grass currently present. I do native plant installations and that is simply not true. Half of the work that we do is weeding and installing irrigation systems. I highly doubt that Green Energy Ventures was planning on putting an irrigation system in the middle of the highway. We are in the middle of a drought. So I ask who is going to water the flowers? If the flowers do not get cared for, they will be of no use. I also want to point out that the gentleman exclaimed to us that Green Energy Ventures decreased their initial proposal from 22 buildings to 13 as if this is a great deal. But a resident pointed out that 6.5 million square ft would make this data center the top five largest in the country. To me, it seems like all of the favors Green Energy Ventures is offering isn't helping anybody. There was a comment made that we cannot all eat honey. I

would like to counterargue that we cannot eat money either. I attended Sealston Elementary School as a child and I can assure you that no amount of a tax break will make sense to those kids if they cannot breathe the air. I understand the board wants something to be built on this land, but Green Energy Ventures is not the correct project. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And Miss Cleveland.

Good evening, chairman and members of the board. My name is Carrie Cleveland. I am a resident of the James Monroe District and you may recognize me as a member of the King George County School Board. I first want to say thank you so much for your support of the new Votech building. We appreciate that the board of supervisors recognizes the need for our students and also for our community. As we continue to move this project forward, it would be helpful to start thinking about procuring an architect so we can continue to make plans for the new facility. This board approved the demolition of the existing building, which we are super appreciative of, but what we don't want to happen is to have a vacant lot for an extended period of time. Our community has used that building for different activities. We understand that losing the property for these activities will be a transition, but not moving forward immediately after demolition would definitely be less attractive to our community. I'm asking that this board make a motion tonight to direct the county staff to draft an RFP for procurement of an architect so that we can begin designing the new building and move this project forward as quickly as possible which will help provide the best experience and best education for our students of King George. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you ma'am. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak? Mr. Dyn, do you have anybody online? No, Mr. Chairman. Did anyone receive any correspondence this week? All right. Seeing none, we'll move on. I'll close public comments at this time and we'll move on to uh reports of the members of the board. Mr. Robotham.

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh so, first things first, I want to thank everybody for coming out this evening. Uh Pastor Davis, it was great great to hear you speak. You're back with energy. I like it. you've been you've been sick the last couple times you've been here. So, it's good to see you feeling well again. Uh, Pastor Shaw, I want to echo something you said. The King George County staff, they did do a great job when they were out servicing at least my community in my district uh that I represent here uh this week. We had uh a number of pressure issues in Hopiard and I believe we'll talk about those uh later in the general manager report. So, hold by for that. Um, but I saw I saw the county uh staff out there uh at one of my neighbors houses right across the street as they were uh digging through all the ice to try and get to the water meter and they did that multiple times in the uh in the community that week. So, uh it was it was great to see them work so hard to try and and and help the customers here. So, I appreciate that. Uh Miss Lavell, I agree. I believe we've uh made a good choice in the general manager here. So, I've enjoyed working with Dan so far and I look forward for the things to come and continuing to serve you here. Uh, with that, I will uh pass it on. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir. Miss Binger, can you hear me? Yep. Loud and clear.

Thank you. I'm going to try to conserve my voice for later. I apologize I can't be there again being trapped in your house. Unfortunately, germs travel and you get us you get a cold. But, uh, I want to thank all the people in the community for everything, helping your neighbors during the snowstorm, plowing driveways, shoveling, and looking out for everybody. And I also want to thank all of our staff for the service authority and the board of uh, and the uh, our own staff in the uh, county government for all they did during the storm. And I also want to give a shout out to Mr. Smoldick and all the work that he did to help coordinate with uh, Mr. Matson Cedric's Crossing. So, um, the other thing I want to make a a point about is I really feel that all of us should really pay attention to the legislature, the Virginia legislature. There's a lot of stuff going on and a lot of bills that have consequences that we don't even realize. So, it's I've been following it and I I encourage you to follow all these bills because a lot of them do not have the best impact for our localities. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And uh I should note uh as you've guessed that she's participating online and uh um does anybody have any issue with that? All right. Cool. We'll move on to uh Mr. Shroud.

Thank you, sir. And uh thanks Miss Supervisor Bender for pointing out that legislation because uh that there's a there's a lot of impactful things going on right now um that is worth our citizens looking at. So just to to begin with, I'll talk about um the things that I did on the the 22nd. I was blessed to be able to go and participate in mock interviews with uh Mrs. D. Straw's crew over at the high school and um had a great time there. Was really impressed with the kids um or the young adults, not kids. They're uh they're already better at interviewing than some of the applicants we have at applying for jobs um with our company. So, they're doing a good job over there with them. and uh it was really good to see. And then the next day um I was able to go speak with Miss Barbara Anderson's honors government class and um that was a lot of fun. um seeing young adults be involved in in in government that they ask a lot of good questions and some challenging uh questions which I enjoy challenging questions and uh enjoy speaking to them and uh and and being very frank with them. Um also as the emergency operations center leazison, I participated in a planning meeting prior to the winter storm firm. I was really proud of the way that our our uh personnel stepped up to the plate and they leaned into ensuring that the county was ready and prepared. Fortunately, we didn't have to open a shelter um in the county. Some of our sister counties did and had people in

the single digits uh show up. Uh I think one of them had one person show up. And opening a shelter is a lot of money, but it also involves having employees go in and man it uh for nobody to show up. That's that's a lot. So, it's it's a you know, you're trying to weigh that and that's what our our folks did. um the leaders we had in the county uh and and that they made the right decision in not opening one and um which saved money and save our employees from having to come in and put them in a hazardous situation just getting into the building. So um you always question yourself when you're trying to figure that out and and fortunately we were really blessed through the storm to not not have a lot of emergencies or a lot of people that needed that assistance. So although everyone um I felt did an awesome job, there were a few people who I noted that that made a notable difference um in it. Mr. Steve Basham, he came in um to fix a hung up domain controller. And you know, you may think, well, what's so important about that? that that domain controller is what allowed the communications within the county to take place and had he not done that the communications we couldn't have communicated. So that was uh you know that he came in and that that was on Saturday the or Sunday I believe whenever the the weather was uh really bad, the roads were bad and um he braved that to come in and take care of that. Miss Amy Southhall for her ability to identify opportunities to communicate uh with our citizens and then making it happen to include updating our four-wheel drive uh volunteer force uh contact roster. So during the EOC meeting, we talked about

it and uh I don't know if she she she volunteered or uh was nominated, but she ended up with the task of updating it and she did a good job with it and and uh with getting that done and uh and that's a crucial thing and and uh I'm grateful for the volunteers in the county that signed up for that, the the four-wheel drive crew, because whenever we have elderly people or people that live down some of these roads, especially private roads that aren't plowed or aren't maintained and they need assistance that we have these volunteers that are willing to leave their their family in their own comfort or whatever they have to do to go and help people. That's um it's an incredible thing and that's what Pastor Shaw talked about and and we appreciate and we're grateful for it. I'm grateful that Miss Southall picked that up. But a lot of the the communication was coming out by text message and on the website of what was going on. um she's the one doing that and she's really amazing at it. Uh Miss Susan Courtourtney HR for addressing the personnel schedule and coordinating with folks uh on the transportation requirements. So you it may not seem like a big deal, but a relatively short notice um you know she has to figure out what county employees are going to be where who's going to man the EEOC and and where they're coming from and how they're going to get there because they don't all have four-wheel drive vehicles and they don't all live close to the fire station and so whenever the traffic or I'm sorry the weather's bad and they've got to get there, it's figuring out who's who's going to go and of of course they all have concerns themselves whether it's pets or family or whatever. So um she worked that and and did a good job with it and I appreciate that. And of course, Captain Lynn uh Lind um he pretty much ran the show. Uh he was back there smiling, but uh he ran the show and went

down was checking the list, calling on everybody and made sure that everybody had their input and uh checked his list uh twice and uh thank you sir uh for that. and then the our uh elected officials, constitutional officers, as well as our county staff, the senior leadership. Okay? So, where they stood out is they didn't stand out front. Their people, they they kind of, you know, not that they were there, they were all there. Uh sheriff was there, chief was there. So, all these guys were there, but they weren't the ones that were running it. They were letting their people run it. what that's a hallmark of a leader that they train their people and they trust them and let them do it and uh and they do really did a good job. So, um I just wanted to take a moment to to address them and again everybody was engaged and performed well. I know that um we had I had uh some calls that weren't pleasant for people that weren't happy with the roads being cleared and um you know these storms don't come along all the time but whenever they do that that heavy ice present a lot of challenges and it did for everybody. Okay, for everybody. Nobody was immune from it. But um ice is especially challenging because the trucks can't plow over the heavy ice. the plows don't don't break through the ice. So, you need something to break through the ice before you move it. And and for people that don't understand heavy equipment, they don't understand the hazards with it. All they want is a road cleared and they want it done now. And if you wanted to get your hands on a skid steer, there weren't available. They were all leased ahead of time cuz the people with the foresight went and rented them. So if you needed one that if you didn't own one um you couldn't get one. So it became it's challenging

whenever everybody needs the same piece of equipment all at the same time. And there's a lot of hazards just with on the roads because you don't want people plowing a VOTE road because or even some people you don't want on the road anyway there's damages. So whenever you start picking up ice, um ice takes asphalt, gravel, it takes other stuff with it. And then then what do we have to do? We have to pay to repair the roads and fix them. So it's a lot more challenging than people think. And it takes time. So um for those that had the patience, those that called and let us know that they needed help, it's important that you call in and let us know you need help. That's important. Uh but for those that did it without yelling um calling us names or whatever, uh thank you for for that. um to some of the remarks tonight. Uh I've already talked for quite a bit, but um Miss Anamarie, um I made a couple notes on your comments and uh you speak to us quite often about bringing down the county debt and um you also mentioned about how many data centers do we need. You're not the only person that has asked that. I've had other people, how many data centers do we need?

Well, um, we have one that was approved before this board came in. It's Amazon, right? They haven't built anything. Nobody we haven't we're not stopping them from building. They're just not building. So, so there's there's there's not like there's revenue coming in from that, right? And we can't make them build. Um, and Ron, you asked about a performance agreement. The only data center that has a performance agreement was Amazon. That's the only ones that and we didn't accept the performance agreement because that's what requires us to pay back give them back twothirds of the tax money and they already they were only paying half the revenue of what other businesses pay in the first place and they were to give them back 2/3. So, you know, that's the problem. They have a huge campus. They're not building anything and they want all the money back. So there's nothing happening there. Um Dogger and West that's approved, you know, that's they're they're they're uh moving forward and things are moving uh there. Uh I can't talk to the details of it. Um but I know that that's happening, but uh then there's the proposal with the Green Energy Ventures. Um so and I think everybody kind of knows where I sit on that. Um, we want to hold them their feed to the fire to delivering what they say they're going to deliver, but uh we can't pay down debt without having more uh revenue sources. You mentioned the landfill. The landfill is going away. So, that's a big gap that's going to be coming with having to backfill that. and coffee shops and things like that just don't fill that gap. Um, small businesses don't fill that gap. Uh, it's understanding where the the

money comes from. Whenever you have a small business, the taxes on it are real estate and the and the personal property. If the employees don't live in the county other than what they eat and they spend on food in the county uh or gas, they're not contributing to the debt. They use the roads and they they may um while they're here require emergency services or something, but they're not contributing. So the data centers bring in a large revenue for that. And what that does is eventually what it would do is it would ease the burden on the county in approving other less um profitable. Profit's not the right word, but less um financial um the the financial means to the county that would benefit the county. Uh so whenever you're trying to make a decision on other things and I guess solar farms would be an example even though it's not the best example but it comes to mind whenever you're looking at that say well that's not a huge revenue base it's a revenue it's some revenue but a lot of people don't like that matter of fact there's very few things that anybody's came and proposed business-wise that everybody does like somebody comes and talks about everything whether it's a solar farm a data center or whatever you know somebody's doesn't like But we have the vocational center that's looking to be built. You know, there's other costs that are going up. If you said in the budget meetings, we haven't raised and you've you've came and talked about lowering taxes. Lowering taxes. We didn't raise taxes the last two years, but the requirements on us get bigger. I think it was like $39 million in the first budget meeting increasing this

year. Now, I'm not saying all of us can improve, but there was an additional $39 million. Where does that money come from without raising taxes? Nobody's going to like that. So, whenever whenever people in in government make um hard decisions, uh you know, they quite often get voted out. But you know what? Hard decisions have to be made because whenever people don't make hard decisions, they may stay in office. You know what happens? The debt continues to go up. That this was this came out during the Brack and the base closures. And nobody wanted to close bases. None of no congressman and no senators. Nobody wanted to close bases in our state. Why? Because they knew they're going to get voted out. So what happened that you were paying we were paying for bases and paying this for this debt that we didn't need. They had to set up this this institution called a B, an independent agency that would make those hard decisions because government wouldn't do it. Government won't shrink itself. But those are hard decisions that that you know we're going to be forced with. Um Carrie, we need to talk about the uh the architect and all that. Um because before uh I'm not against an architect, but before that we hire an architect, we need to know what the requirements are. We need to have like some sort of I can talk to you about this and go over it. But I did the same thing with the chief before the firehouse. And the cheapest thing that you're going to do is sit down with pencil and paper with the board and draw out what you think, you know, come up with some measurements. What do you think? Where

do you need restrooms at? How does it make you know what do what do you envision? What do you think you want? Because if you just go to an architect and say, "Hey, we want a vocational center." then they'll draft something, send it to you, and you go back and forth and back and forth, and we're paying them. So, the the best thing to do is sit down first and come up with envisioning what it is and draw something out. And I'm not saying architectural drawings, you don't have to be an architect, a pencil, a paper, ruler, something come up with what we think we need even what's the requirement. How many vote what what classes are you going to have and and stuff like that? uh before actually engaging an architect, go in with some because they're going to ask you and you're going to need that information anyway. I'll end there. Thank you, Sean.

Mr. Mitt. All right, let's see if I can follow that. Um first off, uh I I will echo what Ken said there. Um I see Chief Moody in the back. I would like to personally thank not just Chief Moody, but the your crew there from station three in the Fairview Beach area. Um, we skirted a huge issue with this storm in in power loss. There were nine people that lost power. They happened to be in the Fairview Beach neighborhood and the probably maybe not everybody knows this, but the um emergency services actually tried to reach out to all nine of those people to make sure that they were um doing okay Sunday night with the temperatures. power did come back on later that night. So, um the other thing I would echo is just because we didn't open a shelter doesn't mean there wasn't a plan. Uh emergency services always has a an escalating plan to deal with um things like loss of power and loss of heat in the community. Um and I would say we're not done with this storm yet, right? As much as um there there's a lot of thank you to go around, um we're still clearing roads. I had to dodge a four-wheel drive tractor and a and a VOTE plow to get here tonight. Um, so we are still out in the communities. VOTE's still out in the communities um clearing streets and um that leads into um this week did have a number of conversations and uh went and actually met with a couple of the residents in on Sedick Court and Alberta Court. Um that is a difficult situation where this county was working uh up till about three years ago to transfer those to VOTE roads. Um I would ask the will of the board to have Mr. small Nick continue to look at why that final transfer didn't occur um and see if we can come to resolution on why VOTE didn't take those two two roads because they ended up not being plowed and they were the residents were under the belief that they were VOTE owned and maintained. It is VOTE signed um and an investment was made to get

that road into the VOTE system and um appears it got lost in at the very end there three years ago. So that's good. Um the other item I have uh during the review of some of the materials coming up, we've got a presentation coming uh on uh a particular solar farm exception discussion. Uh I did a lot of research and went back and looked at some of the videos from previous solar farm discussions and one of the things the will of the residents seems to be, hey, how come we can't put solar over parking lots? Um and I had a conversation with Mr. Smallik and uh Mr. Stewart, we have in our zoning uh ordinance in three different paragraphs, the lowest surface of any panel shall be a maximum of 4 foot. So, will of the board. I'd like to ask Mr. Smallnick to get with Miss Leuk and see what that paragraph was added to prevent. It seems very uh short-sighted. It actually would preclude doing solar over parking, which is exactly what residents ask at every solar discussion we've had so far. Good to take a look at that paragraph.

I'm not asking to remove it from the zoning. I'm asking for you to research it and come back to us with a whether that's a good idea to remove that paragraph or not. Basically, put shade over panels. Yeah. Four feet. Uh unless you know you drive a sports car. I can't fit any of my stuff under four feet. So try it.

In discussions, it seems like that it was actually inverted in the text. Maybe um there's a lot of debate on why that it's not in the height restrictions, which is interesting. There's a whole section about height restrictions in solar. This is in a design considerations paragraph that's later unsure why it got added in and it's in all three of our commercial, medium size, and residential sections. I can give you the reference if you want. All right. It would be ugly, but it would keep our cars cooler in the summertime. Okay, that was it. Thank you. All right. Well, I mean, are y'all good, will of the board, are y'all good with Matt pursuing these two items? He can look into it.

Yeah. And and I can speak right now on Seduit Court. Uh, so I've done some research on this. This first came to me last Thursday evening. So, punch list was done. Um, VOTE walked it. All those items were addressed. And then the the next step is so the county was acting as the developer. they had to pull bond on this back in 2020 2019 somewhere around there. So, we were acting as the I guess the applicant to try to get into the system. VOTE had sent us there are administrative fees associated with getting this in and then a one-year shity. If you can recall when we did Fox's way last year, there's small administrative fees and then by board resolution that can act as your one-year shy with VOTE. So back with Sedra Court and Albert Alberta Court, those fees were sent to the then uh zoning administrator and which were passed along to the the the county administration at that time. Um that's where everything came to a halt. Um so so what I've done is it should go out tomorrow to Mr. Be. I'm already I'm my letter is almost done requesting a waiver of these fees. It's $3,790 if that comes to mind. Um, but that's, you know, $4,000 taxpayer money we're trying to save. So, I'm requesting a waiver for these fees. Um, and then we will have to go back and rewalk that since it it's been a couple of years. Um, the information that's been provided to me is unless there's something a big sinkhole, we'll accept it and the board's resolution would act as the shity, the one-year shity. So, I hope to have my letter to to Mr. Beal, like I said, this week. uh it goes to um I believe it goes to central office for approval and then you will see this coming on one of the board agendas in the very near future and we'll just do a resolution to act as a shorty but that's where and I've been on this since I got the the email on Thursday morning

and thank thank you Mr. Small. Um, we've there's been a lot of discussions over the last four days about about this site. You know, obviously if they were in an HOA, they would have planned for this and and been able to cover it. They were under the impression it was VOTE road and were very curious why it wasn't getting cleared. Um, they still may be some people there that haven't been able to get a propane delivery. Um, like I said, we're not done with this storm yet and and all of the result consequences. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Thank you, sir. So, thank you first and all for everyone coming out. Congrats and thank you to you guys. DMS whenever there's something coming up, me and Chief Moody, we always email each other what if there's anything you need and he's always been right there. And I think they know that we stand with you guys if you need support in any kind of way. And the same thing goes with the school board. I I had a chance, you know, I heard about some of the parking lots weren't getting moved and I know we didn't have the equipment to really handle what was going on. So, I got I got a chance to speak to Mr. Boyd and get a company and just set something up and and I want to, you know, and just talk with him about having something set up kind of like we do with like service authority. We have agreements with if we ever have like a major blowout or something like that, we have companies that we can call and we already have agreements with that will come in and work and fix things late at night and they need to have some of those emergency things on the school board too just to make sure that if you ever come across something, you're ready for it. You never know, as this storm has kind of told us that. A couple different things I want to say. Thank you to the community. I know that there's been a couple local businesses, a couple local restaurants that um that were closed because of the storm. And it's very hard on local businesses and the people really came out and supported on the days they were open just, you know, buying $100 gift cards and just doing whatever they can and doing this because they knew that it was tough on them and just just the way King George is. And I just really appreciate all that. Miss Cleveland, you stole a lot of my talking points tonight, but we are in um full agreement on that. We I think there's people that are on staff here that are trying to delay some of the tearing down because it's going to inconvenience, you know, of some kids. And I've heard people on Facebook say that we don't care about the kids. And it's like, man, I we complain when things move too slow and they complain when things move too fast. And it's like, I'm trying to build a building for two to 300 kids. So, yes, I'm trying to fasttrack that thing through. I don't understand and I've seen the map out of, you know, you tear it down and then you got to do this and then you gota do this and it's like I understand things that's the way it's always been, but I don't

understand why you can't do everything at the beginning. Why you can't put out the bid to tear down the building, put out the bid for the architecture draw, put out the bid for the side draw, put everything out at one time. Why do we have to wait through stages to get things done? And if that's just the way it is is the answer, that's the way we've always done it. That's just not a good answer for me. There's no reason for us to just accept that government has to move slow, that projects have to move slow, and I would very much like to see a way that we can fasttrack it. That that building is on the top of the list. I promise Mr. Collins it would stay on top of the list because it's very important to the school and it's very important that we move those things forward as quickly as possible. So, I'd like to see us to just kind of get more creative in the way we're doing things. I understand that there's, you know, wrestling and things like that and it's going to inconvenience somebody at some time. And I understand parents don't want it to be their kid. It's it's just like seniors graduated during COVID. I'm sorry that they graduated in year 2020 and they didn't give a have a great graduation or whatever and didn't go to school a lot and that it's unfortunate but it happened. Um Sarah, thank you for coming out and speaking of things. I did read your email and I I appreciate you emailing us in. I have been talking to uh Green Energy Venture a little bit a little, you know, I last time we were here, I spoke out about constituents. If you have ideas to help, you should send them in because I listen to those. So, I had a one a constituent call me and started talking to me about a program. He was from North Carolina. He said, "Mr. Davis, I heard you talk about it. There's some you can do. So, here's some things we did in North Carolina." And um one of those things is called it's called the Green uh the Green Leaf Project. And basically what it was is data centers would take a portion of their income and put it into a into a an account for grants to be used by local farmers to help keep keep King George and keep that county rule. Other words, the hardest part about starting a farmer, being a farmer, is the fact you get out of college, you ain't got you don't have money to buy the tractor. You

don't have money to buy the farm. You don't have credit to do all those things. But if there's grant programs in place, so if you can if we could actually take a data center and yes, it's going to eat up land at a location, but if I use revenue from that as grants towards helping other parts of our county stay rural, you know, help when people need growth or tractors or whatever they need to do. And that would be maybe be run by farmers, local farmers in King George. Like they would be getting together and they'd be deciding on what's going to go where. And I know it have to run through the county on some way cuz there you can't just give money out there and let it go away. But using the revenue that we're getting to keep King George rule, there's going to be areas where that's not going to happen at um but it's beats houses. You know, I know that we talked about Mr. Stout and the gentleman that was there before him. It was wasn't really about businesses they were trying to bring in. They were trying to bring in more houses, more rooftops in order to bring in more businesses. That was the game plan before. That's the opposite game plan of what we're doing now cuz all that did was raise taxes and that's what we're dealing with today. Hopard's dealing with it. I know that that system was supposed to be totally sufficient, but they weren't planning on the future growth and those contracts should have been read over and they should have seen what was going on there. I want to reach out to uh Renee and Claudette. As a lot of you know, I've been talking um a lot about Ralph Bunch. It's been pushed that people want to get Ralph Bunch renovated and get it up and running. At the same time, you have the historical society who's looking for a who needs a space to house there. So, I've been talking with them and I'm going to have a meeting with them probably this week or early next week and they've come to an agreement that instead of having just the Ralph Bunch for just what they want just for the rise and all those things that with with Bush Rod they want to do, we can just have one museum that is the King George History Museum where we can have all the King George history there from from Native Americans uh to the

settlers and and then to the to the school that was there and just pay homage to all these people and just have one location, one um great and just have one building as opposed to having to build a couple different buildings. I think it would be great for us to look it up from that level. Is Amarie also you said you hadn't talked to Dan Hamilton yet? Hit me up and I'll give you his telephone number so you can call him whenever you want to. All right, I'll take care of that. That's good with you. All right, so thank you guys. I appreciate it. I also like the fact that there's one thing that Mr. Straoud said and he was talking about leaders and there's one thing that that a true leader does. A true leader never seeks credit. A true leader never seeks to get the credit for anything getting done or a pat on the back. They're always pointing to their people to do it. You know, that's why we we vote for chair up here and we vote for those things up here because we want to have people up here that aren't always looking to take credit and pat themselves on the back. And same thing they do at the school board. And when I I've been to a couple fire, I've been to the big fire and I watched our chiefs stand back and let his people run it, debrief, do everything. And I've seen Mr. Jiles, our sheriff, do the exact same thing. And it that's how you produce leaders and I and I I just thank you guys for all that you do. Thank you very much.

Right. Thank you, sir. Okay. I want to open it up um my report with an apology to my friend here. For folks that don't know, Mr. out of me that that comment about you sure may have come across as snippy and and and uh just rude and uh so I do apologize. In the military, you spend a lot of time uh communicating through sarcasm. Um for me personally, if I'm not picking on you, it means I don't know you very well or I don't like you, you know. So, um I respect my brother up here very much. So, please understand that was a joke, but I I am sorry if that came across as rude, bud. Um now as far as uh the the engagements uh for the last couple weeks uh on the 2nd we had a George Washington Regional Commission on the 26th um had an agenda meeting with Mr. Smallnik and uh and uh Miss Fish. Uh 24th breakfast at IHOP with a local concerned citizen. Really enjoyed that. I I enjoy the Saturday mornings at uh at the various breakfast places around the county. And uh I promise I'm going to hit up GS. I think I just get out earlier than y'all do. So maybe I'll do lunch at Gies, but um I enjoy those things. Um there was a question on Facebook a few weeks ago like why don't I announce these things? It's not like I just show up at a breakfast place and wait for some Porsche mug to show up and I grab them and make them talk to me for an hour. These are people that are asking, "Hey, can we meet up and chat?" So if if you want to meet somewhere, I'm more than happy to. Typically, it's going to be Saturday morning, early Sunday morning before church or after later in the afternoon on weekdays. But happy to chat. Um, love to hear folks and meet with you. Um, on the 21st economic development partnering event, did that in King George. Um, that was kind of cool. Got to meet some uh new folks uh contractors and whatnot around the area that are interested in uh coming to uh mostly to the base cuz the you know the potential for um major income there. But some of them are actually interested in uh um working with the county as well. So that was cool. Um, so emails, phone

calls, mostly dealing with road conditions and school status as you would imagine. Um, got a meeting tomorrow night with uh Dr. Boyd, Miss Bender, and our counterparts on the school board. Um, going to be talking about the um the the school budget for the coming year, uh, school closures, snow asynchronous learning, some stuff like that. Um, I think that's about it on the report. Again, I want to echo what everybody else said. Thank you'all for coming out. Um, thanks to all the service workers that are helping uh make it through this crazy uh storm. I I uh think it was Thursday night, maybe. I don't remember. Regardless, I went up the hill at my house. I live in Clayell and uh I'm in the front, so my yard looks like this. On a dry day, back when I was mowing the grass, I would have to wear cleats to keep from sliding under the mower. So, you can imagine living on an ice rink that slanted 40°. Um, but used a shovel, got myself to the top of the hill, got the snow off my car, and uh, turned around. I guess I forgot there was snow on the ground or something. I don't know. But busted hard. I smacked my head, my shoulders. The next day I felt like I was back in high school. You the day after a football game. You know, back then I was way lighter and uh, you know, probably not big enough to play football, but you know, I made it work. But uh, Saturday morning was always painful. It was the same thing Friday morning this past week. So, thanks for uh digging that out and trying to keep our folks safe. Um, at this point, um, couple of one's not a nomination. Just I want to acknowledge that I've got a a seat open on the planning commission. There's a person that I've talked to about taking that and he agreed to, but I'm going to hold off on that nomination because he texted me earlier this week said he wants to meet up one more time and we haven't had a chance to meet yet. So, I'm just going to hold off on that until he and I get a chat. But, I do want to nominate Mr. Waltered leg for appointment to the landfield advisory committee.

Second. Properly seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Congratulations, Mr. Le and thank you for your volunteering your service, sir. All right, that's it for the board reports. We will kick off the board of supervisors with the consent agenda. I have a motion on the consent agenda. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Have a motion properly. Um seconded. Any discussion? And by roll call. Miss Bender. I miss Mr. Stra. I.

Mr. Mets. I. Mr. Davis. I. Chair votes I. Motion carries. Constitutional officer officers. Do we have any constitutional officers or the representatives here tonight that'd like to speak to us? All right, seeing none, I'll hand it off to Mr. Robotham, acting chair for the board of directors. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, so with that, uh, we did amend the agenda to, uh, bring up a quick bylaw amendment for the board of directors. Do we mind if we take that first?

All right, sounds good. Uh so uh what we're trying to do here uh the service authority bylaws do not have any uh um any input for members taking these meetings uh via electronic means that was uh left out of the uh bylaws there. So uh what I want to discuss with the team here is uh basically adding section five bravo from the King George board of supervisors bylaws which covers uh quorums and actions and electronic meetings. And basically that allows uh participation electronically uh pursuant to Virginia code uh 2.2 TAC 370 3708.2 which basically lets uh members participate electronically granted that a quorum is physically present and assembled.

So I move that we make that change as presented by Mr. Robotham. Motion properly made. Any any second? I'll second that. All right. Uh with a motion properly seconded. Any discussion, further discussion? There any issues or problems that we can see if we looked over it? I don't believe so. It's the same uh rules that you all have adopted as board of supervisors already. So, I would I would imagine not. Uh that being said, uh uh all in favor say I. I. Ken's not. Yeah, I'm good. He represents him.

Chair votes I. Motion passes. So, uh, with that, uh, um, input of the bylaws, uh, us adopting that that allows, I believe, Miss Bender to now participate electronically if she needs to. So, uh, Miss Bender, as long as we still have you feel free to speak up as needed. Uh, so with that, uh, we'll move on to the consent agenda. And, uh, do I have a motion for the consent agenda? Move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Motion properly seconded. Any discussion? All right. Nothing heard. All in favor? Roll call vote. Mr. Mets. I. Mr. Sullins. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Miss Bender.

Hi.

Chair votes I. Motion passes. Uh, with that, uh, no presentations. We'll move on to discussion items. Uh, SA22, which is the Oakland Park decommissioning. And, uh, Mr. Hamilton, I'll let you field that report. First of all, I want to apologize for interrupting you. I should pay better attention there to who got up and left. Um, in any case, uh, the agenda states that Bryce Young, the county engineer, was going to present this this report. I'm going to do that on Bryce's behalf, and I apologize for not making that clear, first of all. Um, in any case, this is a report that was prepared a few years ago. Um, it's a preliminary engineering report. It's related to the decommissioning of the Oakland Park wastewater treatment plant facility. Um this brief PowerPoint presentation I think is maybe 12 slides. It's um it's just an abbreviated version of a 33-page report that describes how this wastewater plant should be um decommissioned and removed from the operations of the service authority. Um and thank you Jackie for for running through this for me. So first of course you can see the agenda here. We're going to discuss the purpose of the project, the current infrastructure, the proposed pipeline that would be associated with this decommissioning, um why we're talking about the use of reclaimed water, and then estimated costs. Next slide. So, um what we're talking about here is taking uh a smaller and deteriorating outdated wastewater treatment plant facility um and basically transferring the the sewage that is processed there to the hopyard plant. Um, a typical wastewater treatment facility uh lasts maybe 20 to 30 years without either major upgrades or renovations or replacement. Um, something we're dealing with right now at the Dogren Wastewater Plant where we're putting $4 million in it to upgrade it. Um, in this case, the the existing facility has reached the end of its useful life. Uh, it was built in 1993, so of course 30 years from that

would be 2023. So, we kind of already exceeded that. Um, DEEQ, the Department of Environmental Quality is is also encouraging us to decommission this plant rather than try to upgrade it. So, the current infrastructure, of course, this is an aerial photo. It shows you the existing facility. Um, its average flow is 48,000 gallons per day, which is pretty low. Um, it collects sewage from the Oakland Park neighborhood and also the Sealston Elementary School and the industrial park. Um, next slide. So the hopyard facility has an average current flow of about 90,000 gallons per day. So we're talking about twice of what um Oakland Park can process. Um the average future flow including the Perkins quarter uh Perkins Corner facility which is in the process of being decommissioned now would raise that up to about 150,000 gallons per day. However, as you can see, it's currently permitted to to process 375,000 gallons per day and can be modified. Um the state would basically transfer or allocate the resources from the one permit to the other. We could process up to a half million gallons per day at the Hopyard plant. Um so this obviously the hopyard plant collects sewage from the hopyard neighborhood and we'll also uh within the next year or so be taking sewage from the courthouse system as well which served by the Perkins Corner plant. So, this is another aerial view of the Hobbyard plant. Um, which again, as you all know, is is on the left off of Port Conway Road about a mile in right after you cross the little creek there. Um, next slide. Um, the proposed pipeline that we're talking about, primarily what we would need is a 17,000 ft on 6-in PVC wastewater force man, which would take the sewage that's currently being processed at the Oakland Park system and push it up to the Hopyard system. Now, this slide makes reference also to adding 17,000 ft of 12-in PVC water mane um which is really separate from

decommissioning the wastewater plant, but that would allow us to interconnect the Oakland Park water system with the hopyard and courtyard system. I'll explain at the end here why that helps us in terms of redundancy. Next slide. So, this gives you an idea of the footnote, excuse me, the footprint of the pipeline. We're talking about using the right of way along the edge of the road here. Uh I'm not going to go into a bunch of detail. I'm sure nobody online can see this slide very easily and it's difficult to see from the audience. But again, we're not talking about taking down woodlands or anything like that. We're talking about existing rightways. So, next slide. So, the reference to reclaimed water, which you're going to see in a minute when we talk about the costs. Um, basically reclaimed water has now become potentially an asset that we can market to some of these potential data centers. They can use that as cooling water instead of taking resources from the ground which is currently our source water or potentially the river i.e. the Rapahhanic or the PTOIC. I'll be talking about that in my my subsequent report here. But so if we were to install a reclaimed uh wastewater line, it would include roughly 28,000 ft of 10-in PVC um a booster station and a 6,000 gal 600,000galon storage facility. This would be funded by the the developer. This would not be something that would come at the cost of the current rateayers. And I'm also going to be talking that about that in my report. But um as a standard of business when it comes to water and wastewater utilities, when you take on new customers, the way that we calculate the impact to the system um is specifically designed to prevent current stakeholders, current customers from financing the impacts of an additional customer or an additional development. So when we talk about a

data center or any other type of industry um basically it's self self-funding um they have to provide the upgrades necessary to the facilities andor the additional pipelines. So this project cost is if you look at the bottom you're going to see the number of $23,700,000. Again this is not something we're talking about doing this year or next year. This is something that's probably two, three, four, five years down the road. Um, but it includes some costs that we don't need as part of the decommissioning project. And the first one, have a little trouble seeing this here. Uh, I believe the water main cost, which again, if we're going to lay the sewer pipe from Oakland Park all the way up to Hopyard, we should probably go ahead and install a water line at the same time to interconnect those two systems. The estimated cost at the time this was repaired, which again I believe was two years ago, was a little over $5 million. um that would provide redundancy. It would connect these two systems so that if we lost a well or a storage tank or something like that in the one system, we could feed the other system um through that interconnection. That also reduces the operational costs of operating these plants independently. We could potentially get a combined permit which would reduce the amount of monitoring, laboratory work, chemicals, um staff, etc. that it might take to operate these plants. So, of that 23 million, again, 5 million of it would be related to a waterline upgrade. So, I would kind of take that out of what we're talking about terms of the decommissioning. Um, then you see the cost of the force main, excuse me, which I believe is about 2.6 million. Sorry, folks. 2.6 million. Um, you see the reclaimed water man, you're looking at 13.5 million. I'm sorry. The reclaimed water piping, not a water man, but a wastewater really. It's reclaimed water. Um the cost for that would be 13.5

million. Again, this is an estimate. It's a couple years old. That would not be funded by the current rateayers. Um if we were to do that, it would be because we're providing reclaimed water to potentially a data center or similar type industry located in the industrial park. So, that would not come out of your pocket. um it would be financed by proposed development. Um then you see pump station improvements here, I believe that's about 600,000 uh dollars. And then finally, the actual decommissioning of the Oakland Park system, 1.3 million. So if you look at the overall totals here, you're talking about 23.7 million. We can take out 13.5 of that from what it would cost rateayers. Um again, that would be funded by a potential developer. Uh, and then the water main project that would be separate, potentially eligible for grant funding. You're looking at about five 5.6 million. So, we're really more down about $10 million, I'm sorry, $5 million to to decommission the Oakland Park wastewater plant. Um, one of the advantages to that, again, at the moment, we have five wastewater plants. We're taking out Perkins Corner. Now, we're shifting that flow to to Hopyard. If we were to also decommission the Oakland Park plant, we'd be down to three treatment plants. Again, the cost to staff it, the cost to operate it, the cost of chemicals, the trust of treatment, permitting, all of those things would result in a savings. And I believe the next slide, Jackie, if you can go to that, um, describes these savings. Uh, again, these estimates are a little bit out of date, but the annual cost to operate the current wastewater plant at Oakland Park, roughly a half million dollars. Um the hopyard plant, you're talking about $880,000 for a subtotal of 1.36. Um the future cost to operate the Hopyard plant if we were to divert flow from Oakland Park at the time this was done would be about $950,000. So you're

looking at a yearly savings of about $49,000. So, just to put that in perspective, if it was going to cost us roughly $5 million to decommission the current Oakland Park plant and we would save $400,000 a year, you're looking at about a 12-year costbenefit analysis in terms of return on your investment. So, although there would be some upfront costs, i.e. potentially debt, um you would recover that in a short period of time through long-term operating costs. So the chairman uh chair Binder had asked me to make sure this report was public uh because this is something we're going to be discussing over the next few months and years. Um the 33page engineering report or preliminary engineering report is certainly um available to anybody who would like to see it. We will probably also add it to our website. I believe there is a section on the website that talks about annual reporting or um engineering reports. We can put it there. But if anybody has interest in this information or questions about it or if we're dealing with future developers and we're looking for profers of things that we need help with, this is a good place to start. So, are there any questions about that before I proceed?

Mr. Hamilton, I did Yes, sir. I had two questions. Um, I think you you were pretty clear on that. the uh assuming board kind of stays the way it is, the county portion of that spreadsheet that you put up there would be about $10 million for our portions of running the water and sewer lines from Oakland system. Correct. About 5.3 million of it would be the actual work necessary to decommission the Oakland Park plant, i.e. the sewer line and the decommissioning of the plant itself. The other 5 million would be the water line.

Potentially there may be developers along the way between those interconnections who we could get to pay for part of that cost. Um if we need to extend the current system to provide service to them typically they would be responsible for that funding. So yes sir. And then um this is sort of a history question. So we got ARPA funds when we were decommissioning Perkins to connect that through to Hopyard and it went through the Arnold's Corner area and picked up those two. Right. So there was what was the reason this didn't get included in the ARPA funds?

I I'll be honest, I can't answer that. To be clear for those of you that don't know, I've been here since last summer. this report was prepared a couple years ago and the the politics or the technical reasons why certain things weren't included. I just can't speak to it this time and I'm sorry. I'd be glad to That's fair to research that and respond, but I can't tell you now and I don't want to make it up. Just seems like we were so close to having everything along the Rapahana connected and this didn't make the the cut list.

Well, I'll be candid. I've said this to some other folks. You know there is an opportunity anywhere there's an opportunity to interconnect a system if nothing else for emergency sake i.e. the dog run system that belongs to the service authority and the dog run system that's operated by the base. If one system has a problem potentially other system can help out. Um I think people forget and this is going to come up in a minute in my general report but we're a 247 business. Nobody thinks about water and sewer until you don't have it. uh then the phone starts to ring. We take that very seriously. It's certainly a matter of public health and redundancy and interconnections are the way to go. Um having an emergency well that you can just start up and use when you need it, it's not that simple. Um the testing required, the monitoring required of the water supply, all those things, it's not just flipping a switch. So interconnecting these systems, any way that we can do it, especially if we can put the burden on new growth. Um not something I can control, by the way. the growth. That's up to you folks. But once once we know it's going to happen, then that's where the opportunity is to to spread that cost. So, yes, sir. Yep. Is there anybody online that has a question about this? I know this is a little complicated. Um, again, it's a it's a more complicated engineering report and there are some things missing, but this is this is where we're at. All right, Mr. Robotham, is it all right if I move on?

Yep. Go ahead. Okay. So, uh, the second item on the agenda here that's in my purview, of course, is just an update on the status of the surplus property sale. As I believe many of you may know and some of you may not, we have two pieces of property for sale right now to the general public. Um, anybody can bid on them. Um, the sealed bids are due next Tuesday, February the 10th, by 4 p.m. They should be submitted to the King George County Service Authority, which I believe the address is 9207 Kings Highway uh right up the street. Um, we have a tenth of an acre for sale uh in Fairview Beach at Everite and we have a half an acre for sale in Presidential Lakes. Uh, at the moment, the board has not, to my knowledge, express a preference that you have to be an adjacent property in order to buy that property. um that was recommended at one point but was not part of the motion taken by the board or the action taken by the board. So at the moment that's a public sale. I just wanted to tell you so far we've received two sealed bids. I believe there's a third one that if I don't have it I will have it in the next day or so. Um I have not opened those. I don't intend to open those. I will be open those in front of a notary at 4:00 or 401 on Tuesday, February the 10th. Um, there are about a half a dozen or maybe a few more people who have made inquiries about this over the course of the last few months. I'm going to personally reach out to those that have made their interest known and just remind them that that deadline is next Tuesday. And of course, once that time passes, I'll open the bids. I will review them and then I'll provide you all some type of of summary report so that we can take action on the 17th um to facilitate that sale. And to be clear, these are both surplus properties that have no use to the service authority. There were there was equipment there in the past has been removed or they're sold as is. We don't need the property. We won't need the property in the future. So that's why we're getting rid of them. We don't want to be maintaining property for no

reason. It's just an expense we don't need. Um, one of you had asked about the costs. I believe I supplied that for you to um, abandon wells and do some other things. Do you want me to discuss that now or? No. No, that's fine. Okay. All right. Well, that's the update I have on surplus property. Any questions about that?

Apologize, folks. Feel like every time I turn away from the mic, I'm gone. All right. Well, I'll proceed with the general manager report. I will try to keep it uh short. Um there's been a lot of talk already about the storm uh storm winter storm burn. Is that what they named it? In any case, uh much of the last two weeks has frankly been consumed at the service authority by preparations for the storm and a response to the storm. I want to um before I do go any further, thank Miss Levelvel and a few other people for your kind words. I'm going to keep striving to meet or exceed your expectations. Um as I said a minute ago, water is a 247 business that nobody thinks about until you don't have it. And I'm going to come to where we've had some complaints about that in a minute. But um we knew about this storm at least a week if not two weeks beforehand. I think most local news stations were pretty adamant that we were up for some type of event. At first there was talk of a snowageddon and 2 feet and towards the last few days of course that was reduced down to more like 6 8 10 12 ines and some ice. Um, ice is clearly the enemy of utilities. Um, causes power outages and we certainly received a fair bit of that. But I will say we were involved with the preparations and the coordination through the emergency operations committee. I'm grateful for being included in that and there were certainly board members who attended those meetings. There was valuable information presented and shared and there was also a lot of coordination. uh our staff, I believe we have over 50 different facilities. And I'm talking about buildings, structures, i.e. pump stations, water tanks, wastewater plants, and other things that all require entrance and all have emergency power. So, we went ahead of time and made sure that, you know, fuel tanks were full and generators were operating.

And then once the storm began, we were out I think from very early that Sunday morning pretty regularly um for the next week or so plowing and attempting to deise and make sure that there was the ability for people to come and go from these facilities. Um the wastewater plants and the water treatment plants are generally staffed every day. So people need to be able to come and go. Um we need to be able to get chemical deliveries. We need to do things like that. Um and there really again there's just no excuse. there's no snow closure or school closure or sorry um we just have to keep that going. So I do want to thank um the small staff we have of maintenance people who worked very hard through that storm um on days where we're snow where we're closed for snow emergencies. They're essential employees who work and don't make any extra money. Um they don't get a day off, they don't get a snow day, they don't get time and a half until they've worked more than eight hours. Um they work very hard. So I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful for the county uh folks who we coordinate with. I believe parks and wreck and general properties. Um we borrowed some equipment from them. In fact, a skid steer, which I heard one of you mention was hard to come by because there became a point in this storm where you really couldn't plow it with a truck. Um you needed heavy equipment to break it up and we had places like that. So um again, much of the last two weeks has been kind of consumed with either preparing for the storm or recovering from the storm. We are still doing that. And before I get forget this, I do want to point out one thing that hasn't come up yet tonight that I witnessed today, and this is still a major hazard, but I was sitting in the office about 3:00 this afternoon when a sheet of ice um broke loose from our roof, and I thought a tractor trailer had struck our building, which is a little tiny brick building right up the street here, but extremely dangerous. Um, water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. I assume ice weighs the same thing. And I can't convert a square foot of ice into a gallon for you in my head, but I can tell you that was a couple thousand

pounds that fell off that roof. If that hits you in the head or strikes a vehicle that you're driving, you're in a world of trouble. So, I'm just reminding everybody in this room and our fire department friends are here and others. Um, just because we're through the worst of the weather doesn't mean that during the next few days of warmer weather that these things aren't going to break loose and come up off the roof. So be careful of that when you're coming and going from buildings and when you're getting in and out of your cars and when you're behind a tractor trailer that's got something on the roof. Don't tailgate. Um is my best advice to you. In any case, so um that's really what we've been consumed with for the last couple weeks. Um there have been some other things going on that I can report back on later. But I also want to mention the in the issues that were reported at Hopyard. Um roughly about last Wednesday or Thursday, which was about five or six days into this extreme cold snap, we started to get a significant number of complaints about low water pressure in the Hopyard area. Um, as I understand it, there's 899, if not 900 homes in Hopyard, and we probably received over a two-day period complaints from about 50 people about low water pressure. Initially, we attempted to respond individually to each one of these um customers that reported this issue. Um because we generally don't attempt to or ask to access private property, particularly if people aren't home, um our responsibility is to dig up and excavate the water meter that is located at your property line, which kind of defines the difference between public service and private service. We put a meter there with a flow testing gauge, and we can identify your pressure and make some calculations about the amount of water that's flowing. And in every one of the cases where we visited these properties, we found normal pressure and normal flow. But we continued to get calls. So after some research and checking very thoroughly at the plant that serves the hopyard area, um we came

to the conclusion that it was very likely an issue related to to extremely cold. Um it's potential and possibility that some of the water lines in the hopyard subdivision were not buried below the frost line depth. And I don't mean the water mains because we've exposed those when we've had leaks. Um, I'm talking about the service lines in people's yards. I can't prove this. I can't guarantee this, but I've seen this before. I I worked through an ice storm 30 years ago where I had water manes freezing in the road. Um, but anyway, the the piping is either too shallow and it's transferring cold into the service line that is feeding these homes. And there also, for whatever reason, it appears that many of the homes in the Hopyard community have a pressure reducing valve installed on their home plumbing where the service comes through the wall into the home. And thankfully, there's a couple people in this room, including Chief Moody and Mr. Robotham, who I was able to communicate with about their observations because we had a number of people who were convinced that this was a service authority problem. The problem is we would have one person on one side of the street who was complaining about low pressure, somebody next door who had no problems, which is another clue to us that this is not a system issue, but an individual plumbing issue. I can't prove it. I haven't been able to say with certainty what the issue is. I'm quite certain it was related to water temperatures. Um, water lines that are not below 36 in, which is typically the level of the frost line and also the plumbing code requires that a water line be buried below 36 in, could potentially be affected by extreme cold. And I don't think any of us in our memory have witnessed cold like this. As I understand it from the local news, we haven't had 10 days below 20° since like 1872. So, we're talking about an extreme event. We never had anybody lose pressure. Um, after the first 24 to 48 hours of this complaints, these complaints, I kind of generated some

information for the ladies that answer the phone to share with people. We encourage customers to run the water in their home to pull warm water in from the main. The groundwater that we provide as a source to you is typically 55 or 56°. um it stays roughly that temperature as it moves through the treatment process and is transmitted to you through the water manes. If we find that the water is much colder than 56°, it's a pretty good clue that there's something happening where it's it's taking on cold. Um so we feel pretty confident that that's what the problem was. We are not 100% certain. I've tried to provide a written response to everybody that has has created an inquiry and there has been a few. Um, we have tried to circle back with all the customers that have contacted us. I just want to say that we are aware of the problem. We are doing everything we can to make certain that it is not a problem our end. We have made some adjustments on pump settings in terms of when the pumps kick on and off to help keep pressures from dropping low. Um, but at any time, please do call us. We do not monitor social media. I understand there was a lot of angry people on social media. I don't have any way to get that information. we count on you to let us know. Um, so I don't want to not acknowledge that. Again, I appreciate the help of people who were willing to communicate um about what they were observing rather than just be angry and make accusations. I understand that it's frustrating. To the best of my knowledge, no one lost lost water at all. They may have had some low pressures. I do want to point out that one of the advantages that people don't think about when you're connected to a central water system or community water system, you're not on your own well. So, if your power goes out, guess what? You've still got water. Again, we have standby generators at almost everyone, if not every one of these facilities. So, you don't lose your water. You also still have fire protection through those fire hydrants, which is provided to you, I'll say, free of charge. You don't get

a bill for that. Um, there are people who are protected by our our our fire hydrant system who aren't customers, but they get a benefit from that. And of course, we want that. We don't want anybody to lose life or property. So, I just want to be clear, we're we're well aware of the issues. We're doing everything we can to say with certainty what the problem is. This is one of those things that's taken me kind of a process of elimination, trying to make sure that I know what isn't the problem before I can say what is. I know there are customers that have complained about low pressure in Hopyard six months ago or a year ago at times that weren't extreme cold. Those were very likely and I believe we know were related to water main breaks or other issues where air got in the system and it causes intermittent problems. That is not the problem right now. I'm almost certain it's related to extreme cold. So I just want to say I appreciate everybody's patience. I understand that you're frustrated. We are doing everything we can to make sure it's reliable and it's safe. And again, no one lost water. Um we maybe got one call today, two yesterday. So the number of complaints has gone way down. Um but again, if you have a problem, please reach out. Don't assume that we know and we will do the best we can. So with that, I think I probably spoken enough this evening. Um does anybody have any questions or comments about that?

Mr. Chair, can you hear me? Yes, because earlier uh we had some issues with go to media. I couldn't chime in. Um I wanted to clarify with Mr. Mets, he did ask a question about the Oakland Park system in the decommissioning. Unfortunately, it was uh there was not when we finally processed the ARPA paperwork, the cost had gone up and there was there was not an ability to put both projects together to for use with the ARPA funds because that was the original intention. And Mr. Bets, if you want further information, you can just call me.

Thank Thank you. That that that's good enough. And uh yeah, understand we all have to fit within our budgets. So, uh makes sense. Yeah, I do agree. At some point, we need to glad we'll be talking about this over the coming months to years. Um that system is getting rather dated.

Well, I just want to be clear. There were some folks I think that made inquiries implying that the system was overloaded. In other words, there were too many connections or or in some other way that there was something related to planning or system failure. That is not the case. I can tell you for a fact that is not the case. We have enough water. Um, we can electronically monitor the operation of our generators and the pressures in the treatment plants. We can also electronically monitor your use at your water meter. So, we can tell how much is flowing in gallons per minute. We don't do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but the data is there and we have the ability to call it up and and review it. We do that all the time. When we're reviewing bills, we had customers today who we could see were using 200 gallons an hour who normally use 10. That's a clear indicator that either something is really wrong or a garden hose is left open and they're watering, which I don't think anybody's watering their grass right now. So, I mean, we have ways of being able to monitor this type of thing. I also yesterday ordered a piece of equipment that I can install in a customer's home that will record pressures over a 24-hour period or a 7-day period. There are electronic devices that I did not buy because they're more expensive that can actually send me that data through cell collection, but we're planning to deploy this in places where people are complaining about persistent problems because if we can identify when that problem is happening and be certain that it is happening, that gives us better and more information to try and resolve what it is. But again, we're aware of it and we're working on it. The one thing I left out and I wanted to address because it came up this evening in some of the public comment. Um to be clear, the data centers that I'm aware of, um none of them are looking to use groundwater for cooling water. the one data center that I think I'm not talking about the Amazon one.

The the Dogrren West one that is scheduled to go in on 301 near Doin is talking about using our wastewater as a cooling device. That would be at their expense. It would not cost the rate payers a penny and it's as far as I'm concerned it's getting twice the use out of the same resource. It will still be discharged back to the environment. It will still be discharged in a way that meets the standards of the Clean Water Act. Um, it will not be an impact on your pocket and it will not be an impact on the resource. Now, they'll have some portable water usage as any commercial building would, whether it was a restaurant or a real estate office or whatever. And if you know they meet the standards and are approved by the planning and uh planning commission and this board then we will provide the service as appropriate. But I'm not in a decision-m capacity and the service authority is not in a decision-m capacity. We will simply make sure and I will simply do everything I can to make sure that the resource is protected for the people that are already on these systems. you will not have that resource impacted or less water because they're there. Um so on that note, I do also want to point out that there is a memorandum of understanding that we are in the process of finalizing with the dog innovation hub. Um that document has been somewhat confidential or still under review until the last few days. I believe that I know for a fact that it's now a draft that's available to anyone that wants to review it and uh chair binder asked me today if we could distribute that to the board tomorrow which I will do and then we'll more than happily share it with anybody else that wants to see it. We want to be completely transparent and again we are not offering them any kind of a deal. They will pay the same rates for water and waste water that you do. And if

they're going to make use of our wastewater through a recycled waist stream, that cost and impact will be solely on them. The maintenance of that be kind of standard business. So I understand the concerns. Folks are in a difficult situation. You want to keep your taxes down. You want to keep your rates down. Same sense you need resources and income. and I understand your dilemma. So, I hope that's clear and I think that concludes my report, sir. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Uh, any further questions from the board?

All right, moving on to secondary public comment. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so it can be properly included in the record. Is there anybody for secondary public comment for the service authority? All right, seeing none. Uh, Mr. Dyn, is there anybody online? No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. All right, seeing uh nobody, I will go ahead and close secondary public comment and look for a motion for adjournment.

Move that we journ the board of directors to Tuesday, February 17, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the uh boardroom of the River building. Second. Motion properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Chair votes I. And that is the end of the service authority this evening. Thank you.

Thank you sir. All right. Back to the board of supervisors. Uh there's no public hearings tonight. Uh we will kick it off with presentations. Item 0202 power and solar farm. Special exception request. Jackie, is the It's working. Yeah. Okay, it's working. Go back. Okay. Good evening. Thank you, Chairman Solins and Supervisors. Thank you for the opportunity to present our Powatan Road Community Solar Project this evening. My name is Cara Roma and I'm the development manager for this project. Tonight I will give a project overview which is will include the purpose of this project some um of the site details and site design um as well as going over some community engagement we've done over the last nine months and of course we will be around for questions in the room with me tonight. Um we have our landowner Larry Carr um who has been living and farming in this community for decades. It's been a true honor getting to know him um throughout this process and and his wife Patty as well to learn how this small solar project will help to alleviate uh financial pressures and um maintain ownership of this um family generational farm. And then also with me is uh co-owner of ESA, Justin Vandenbrock. Um he helped co-found ESA back in 2017 and has been working in the solar industry for about 15 years. So, this project is intended to be part of the Virginia Shared Solar Program. This is a statewide program that allows projects 5 megawws or less to

participate. The program allows Dominion Energy customers to subscribe to a portion of a solar project like this and receive around 10 to 15% bill savings, electricity bill savings every month. uh projects are subscribed on a first come first serve basis and there's no obligation for subscribers to um you know have this long term. You can cancel it at any time. You can take it with you if you move or um or whatever if you don't want it anymore. And um we would expect for a 4.99 megawatt project, this could serve up to 1,000 households and save subscribers about $5.4 4 million over 20 years. And part of the program dedicates 30% for low to moderate income residents such as, you know, folks like on fixed income like retirees, ensuring electricity bill savings for those who may need it most. And before zooming into the project site, just giving everybody a context of where the project is located, which is in the heart of the James Madison district. Zooming in, you can see the project area highlighted in red and um it is located um east of Port Conway Road and west of Milbank Road. We would expect uh traffic related to the project to likely enter off of Port Conway Road or uh 301 South. We recognize and understand that the um road coming from Milbank, the turn by the church is quite tight and um hard probably hard to navigate for large construction vehicles. So um that's why we have those two routes highlighted there.

Projects of this size do not require substation construction to be next to the solar project. Uh we will connect to we connect to the existing three-phase distribution line along Powatan Road. That power line runs to the Arnold's Corner substation a few miles away. We do have an executed interconnection agreement study with Dominion Energy. This agreement allows us to legally connect to the power line for the life of the project. And giving some additional context of what we have going on the property currently and how the project would fit into that. The project area is about 24 acres. The remaining 40 acres of the farm field will remain. We are preserving the forest to the south as well as the forest to the the north of the array on Larry's property. Um, of course, Larry and his wife and his animals will all still be on the property as well. And just to just give a little bit more perspective on size. Again, this is 24 acres and just some perspective that it's smaller than the about 30 acre horse track on the adjoining property. Okay, the next handful of slides will be a site tour. So, with some renderings and um photos starting to the west, this is the existing conditions. Um and then looking towards after construction and once we plant the 30 foot wide landscape buffer um around the project fence line, these trees will be 6 ft tall at planting. And just to give a rough number, the amount of trees that we'll be planting to help conceal the

project will add up to roughly about 2.5 acres of new trees. And uh all right, within 5 years, we would expect the trees to grow to around 13 to 15 feet tall. Uh just for some additional context, the panel height is 11 ft at its greatest max tilt and the panels are 100 ft away from property lines and Powatan Road. Now, in the middle of the site, we have some more site details. Um we will be adding a 20 foot wide entrance to both the north and south arrays. The uh access roads are designed based off VOTE uh feedback and their standards. Um again that area in green around the fence line that's just kind of giving a top down view of that planted buffer um around to conceal. Uh the equipment pads um are going to be in both the north and the south array sections. The equipment pads uh essentially house the transformer pad and the inverters which collect the power and then connect to the um electrical line to send to the substation. Um and that's what I'll just point out for now. Okay. So, at the planning commission meeting and um of course at our community meeting, we received quite a few questions regarding storm water management. Um and so to directly respond to these questions, we contracted Kimley Horn to um create a preliminary storm water management plan. Um, this is not the final robust civil

plan that will be required to be submitted prior to any land disturbance, but we wanted to give help give a better idea of what storm water features will collect that that erosion and sediment control. So, on the northern array, um, these drainage areas. So basically what Kimley Horn does is they take the topography of the site and they they correlate these drainage areas for where water runs off currently. So because there are multiple smaller areas of drainage, they would expect that to imp to implement features like silt fences or earthen BMS or diver diversion ditches to collect any storm water and um erosion. But on the southern array, you'll see here that a uh uh pond location is proposed or will likely be proposed on the southern part of the the panel area and inside that fence line just because it is such a great area of drainage. Um I will note that, you know, this size and of the pond is not final, but um that will likely be the location where you'll collect storm water. Um but also to add again with the preservation of forests to the north in the south that plays a really great advantage for us because as we know soil remediation for cleared forested areas is very tough to remediate the soil and ensure proper runoff of erosion and storm water. So because we are not going to be clearing any trees, that plays a really uh good point for us. Um also the topography is very flat, so we won't need to grade the the land. So that will also play a really big role in

ensuring proper storm water runoff and in management. So these are just a few pictures just to contextualize some of the things that I've been talking about. The on the left you have the single axis tracker which we'll be using for this project. They're mounted on a tracking system that rotates throughout the day to collect sunlight. Um we'll be planting native pollinator friendly ground cover underneath the panels. The top right that is the area of the equipment pad that I pointed out a few slides ago with the string inverters and the transformer and control box. String inverters are much smaller than central inverters. They're they're much quieter than central inverters. Um, and we will ensure that we follow the noise ordinance and and any and comply with those conditions that staff has for us. Additionally, the project will be enclosed with a woven wire fencing. This is going to be 8 ft tall. Um, we prefer this kind of fencing because it fits more in with the rural uh landscape rather than the typical chain link fence that you see on some projects. We will be using crystalline uh solar panels. These are very safe. They're commonly used. They're used on homes. They're used on farms. Uh very similar to what's in our cell phones. You have the glass, the silicon cells, and the aluminum frame. And finishing up the site tour on the east again with the current conditions. And uh just this is also a better view of that three-phase line that we'll be connecting to. And then at planting with that 30foot landscaping buffer, 6 feet tall trees and within 5 years we expect that the

project will be largely concealed from folks driving along the road. Construction. And we typically of course get a lot of questions about construction for a project of this size. Um construction typically takes around 6 to9 months. It starts with the initial site work getting the ground ready stabilization. Then you have the uh delivery of the piles. You basically lay them out where they'll be driven. Next you have the pile driving. This is typically the the most intrusive part of construction. Um it is the loud loudest part of construction but again small size project. This is done within three to four weeks. Um the panels and the racking are then assembled. Uh that's really mostly done by hand and and hand drills and then the project is connected to the grid. And most importantly of course decommissioning. We submitted a decommissioning plan as part of our application. Um, and the the decommissioning process is simply the construction process in reverse. And this tip this process typically takes about um a month or or two. Um, and then of course, as required by Virginia law, we are required to post a decommissioning bond in the amount that it would cost to remove the project. the bond is put in the county's name. It has to be updated every five years. There are um 18 conditions that staff has proposed. We are in agreement with all of them. Some of the ones that I wanted to highlight are the um water quality monitoring. We have to um test the water quality at different baselines

and different intervals. Um again as I mentioned erosion and sediment controls control and storm water management plans have to be approved before we can start construction um with the equipment standards that is going to be subject to the department of defense review to ensure electromagnetic compatibility and we have to coordinate with the training or with the fire and rescue and and comply with all the fire codes. I um know Chief Moody is here. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him in person, but I did speak with him a couple months ago to ensure that he was um okay with our plans and um as long as we comply with what staff has in our conditions, they are on they're okay with our project. Neighbor engagement is very important with any project that we do. um through one-on-one door knocking with all adjoining neighbors, the community meeting and um well one-on-one meetings with neighbors and door-nocking with neighbors along Powatan Road and around the touching the project. Um we wanted to make sure that the neighbors and the community felt that they were contributing to this project and we were collaborating with them to present the project that we have for you tonight. And uh just some other things that we've been uh fortunate to be part of uh sponsoring the fall festival, providing a grant to Love Thy Neighbor, and we are in active conversations about um entering into a multi-year sponsorship with the high school pre-apprenticeship program. With that, I am done with my part, but happy to answer any questions.

Thanks, Cara. All right, we'll shift over to to questions kind of like what we did last week. Instead of doing popcorn questions, I want to let each uh supervisor finish their train of thought. If y'all have stuff to piggyback that, feel free, but uh I would like to, you know, so ready. No questions. All right, Mr. Mets,

just a clarification. Uh thank you for the presentation, but um when you talked about travel into the site during that 3-we construction phase, um I'm sure you've been out to the site and uh I think you had talked about the the the hard turn off of Millibank if you I mean I've driven it driven to this site as well. That's also a pretty difficult turn there off of Port Conway. Um, have you guys had any conversations with VOTE, like maybe temporary help with your biggest trucks there from a um, particularly if they come off of Route Three? Uh, that the way the yield works there is they have to yield to oncoming traffic from Port Conway.

Um, I would suggest they come off of 301 and that way it can make a right-hand turn, but then it's a 90 degree turn as well. So, I would strongly s I guess it's more just a suggestion than a question. Please consider the traffic flow in Port Conway when you're doing the three weeks of construction. Got it. Okay. Thank you for that suggestion. Thanks, Miss Bender.

Thank you very much. Um, I do have quite a few questions, but I I wanted to the one thing Mr. B just said. I I'm concerned about accessing the property on Port Conway, right where that turn is into to Powatan, because that is a very dangerous intersection. and you're bringing in some big construction traffic. Have when I spoke to Mr. Beal a couple weeks ago, have you he said you haven't had any conversations with VOTE about that road to make sure that if anything happens there, it's brought back up to standard. I mean, have you had conversations with VOTE about that road?

No, we have not had conversations with VOTE. believe they provided their review on our entrance, but I do know what turn you're talking about and agree that is a very dangerous turn. Yeah. I mean, just bringing a car is scary enough, you know, if you got a big construction. That's why I'm asking that. Now, you mentioned the storm water runoff. Um, I've driven that road when it's rain. There is some runoff that comes onto the road and you're now taking a land and now putting big panels there. What is the assurance that there's not going to be storm water runoff because there already is some now?

Yeah. So, the good thing about this site, like I mentioned, is that it is very flat. The little rain being in a farm.

Yes. And that's where those those drainage areas that um I had on the slide. Um maybe I can go back but ensuring that we have proper um features like those silt fences or diversion ditches those all come into play with the 30 to 90% civil and storm water plans that is a very robust process with DEEQ that we won't get approval until there's adequate features and um mitigation measures to ensure that there's not a lot of runoff or yeah, not a lot of runoff from on the road.

Okay. And then another question about the disposal of the panels. I know you drive down 17 and there's a lot of uh solar farms that have panels just not just thrown on the where they they have to replace them. They're just left there. They're not put in. What is the the assurance that the panels will be gotten off the property and disposed of? And you know, there's lots of pictures online with these ice storms all across the country of the panels being damaged from ice storms. Like, what is your plan about doing that, disposing of them? Um, do you want to touch on that?

Yeah. Yeah. It's just our standard operating process not to leave excess panels on the site. There's no value to the project to leave them there. So, they would just be hauled away and disposed in accordance with state regulations. So I I would like to see something in there that that's an assurityity that they're just not left there.

We c we can work with staff. I mean I I do want to be mindful of when you are doing operation and maintenance and you're in the midst of construction that it's not misinterpreted if we're in the middle of doing a module replacement that a pallet situated for replacements is being misinterpreted. But um point taken that we could work with staff to make sure that we we meet the needs and you're not stuck with an eyesore or blight, which I'm I'm sure is mostly what you're trying to protect the community from,

right? Cuz it does they don't look very nice when you travel down to 17 a couple of those farm they're just stacked up. And so I just want to make sure then another thing I mean I know you've a lot of the solar farms use data to say after 30 to 40 years it's going to be this great thriving farm even better than it was before. And I've asked Kaledon Solar and when Gibson Solar comes back, I'm going to ask him again. Do you have any projects in the United States that have been decommissioned after 35 to 40 years or only short data? Because I would like to see that data.

Yeah, we can point you to some research on that. Happy to. I mean, we we work really closely with a firm that specializes in decommissioning projects and that's what he does for a living. Um, so he's constantly documenting and making sure that the best practices are put in place. Um, so yeah, happy to point you to some information around that. But I think where you typically see the commentary around that, it has to do when you're converting land that's industrially farmed where you're consistently tilling and extracting nutrients and don't have strong soil organic matter and instead you're allowing the soil to rest. And so when you plant the right ground cover, just like if someone is setting up a a good grazing operation and they're establishing their their grazing mix, that that seed mix is going to rebuild your soil health. And so if you're not constantly tilling and pulling out those root balls, then those root balls are going deep into the soil and rebuilding that soom. And so that's where you typically get that commentary. But we also have an interesting video. We can send you an email of an actual pile being removed from the ground. We asked our geotech consultant when they were doing pile testing recently to document that because they drive piles in the ground to test and do the engineering in advance of the design of the site. And we asked him to also take videos of him removing that pile because obviously he's not leaving it there.

And it's just an interesting video we can send you if you're curious. So I agree there's not a lot of information widely out there. Yeah. Thank you. And and then I I know we've asked this question before with other projects, the solar panel makeup there to ensure that there's no foreign adversaries that you know have any kind of components in the panel. Yeah, there's these are to to even comply these days and get tax credits. Um the fiak restrictions, the foreign entity of concern restriction under the federal government requires that China, Iran, Russia and one other country are not uh manufacturing the equipment or financing the manufacturing of the equipment and so we have to comply with that. Okay. And

to qualify. My last question is is about you you mentioned about the community solar for the public. How much is it to subscribe and how far away can people access that? Is it just King George or is it outside?

So any any Dominion Energy customer can subscribe to Virginia shared solar. Um but you have the we have the optionality to create a registration window for King George residents which is what we discussed with the planning commission in dece January December. Um, so if that's what you're getting at making sure that you want uh benefits of this project to be rewarded by King George residents, we're happy to collaborate and build a website and if the county wants to publicize that um within what feels comfortable for the county of publicizing something that's private enterprise, um, we're happy to generate the website. You would save us money if you did that.

Well, with also too, how much is it cost to subscribe to get into it? There's no upfront costs. Okay. Because usually when you think of subscription, there's usually a cost to that. So that's why I asked. Yeah. Well, you have to pay your electric bill. So that's important. That's that is the cost. Yep. Um but Yep. All right. Thank you. All right, Mr. Davies. Just just a couple comments. Miss car, how many acres do you own? 358. 150.

158. All right. So, just for people out there that that may be interested. So, we have a citizen who has 158 acres of land. He's looking to take up 24 acres to put a solar farm on, which this is one of those cases and it's kind of like what we talk about the data center to me where a project like this actually keeps the county rule, right? I mean, it gives you the ability to keep your land. It gives you I mean just from the studies I've done I think it it generates 24 acres can generate somewhere between 40 and $60,000 and then that pays property taxes that pays other things and I can't believe you haven't retired as a farmer already but you're still out there kicking it. I mean that's awesome. But this is the type of deal like you know it's a you'll get emails where people be against things but these are the type of things that keeps your county rule. it enables you and you keep your property and pass your property on generation things like that. To me, it's um it's just it's a no-brainer for me. That's all I got to say.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Um only one I've got left um they've hit mine mostly. Um have you had any other interactions with the uh the the neighbors that own the for the horse farm? I know there was some a little bit of push back. How's that going? Yeah, Justin couldn't speak to that.

Yes, sir. I spent two hours with them last month uh at the property with Mr. Mr. Guest himself and his attorney and we went through the pretty much the identical presentation went through each slide, answered their questions. Um and within 30 minutes of leaving the property, his attorney called me and let me know that they won't be filing any sort of appeal or intervention in it. So um and he also wants a lease agreement. No, I'm just kidding. But um yeah, it's it we had a really productive conversation and once he understood everything and saw things like the the woven wire fencing detail, the buffer detail, the setbacks, the storm water plans, those were the main concerns is they want to protect their investment that they're making and particularly uh storm water is important to them and so we spent a lot of time going through those details. So yeah.

Okay, cool. Thank you. Actually, one last thing, Mr. Strad. Sorry to put you on the spot. I think you were telling me a story, like an anecdote um a few weeks ago about uh your horse that uh accidentally ate some plastic or something with your silk fences. Are you planning on using anything like that? Is there any chance of that getting on the farm? Am I completely messing that up? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's different. That's uh that was hay netting, not uh silk fence is probably not going to appeal to a horse. Okay, cool.

The horse is smarter than me. Then again, most people are. So, okay. Uh All right. Thank you'all very much for your time. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to item number 02-03, Agricultural Natural Resource Program from Miss Megan Williams. Welcome.

Hi, good evening. I appreciate y'all having me here. Um, I am Megan Williams. I am the agriculture and natural resources extension agent for King George um with Virginia Cooperative Extension and I've been speaking a lot with Mr. James Shaw of the Economic Development Authority um about sustainable agriculture in King George and he encouraged me to come and present to you guys just about what I do. Um, I've met a few of you, haven't met all of you. So, just want to give a little overview of the program that I've got going on. Um, for context, if I can get this going. Um, just a little bit more about me. Um, I was a Navy brat. So, my brother was actually born here in Dogrren. I moved around a lot. Largely grew up in Virginia and San Diego. And that's actually a really funny connection to Mr. Shaw. his sister was my high school psychology and uh statistics teacher in Coronado, California. So, it's a very small world um that always brings you back here to King George. Um but I ended up back in Virginia for university. So, I got my uh two BAS in environmental science and global sustainability from University of Virginia. Then I bopped up to New York for my mers in soil and crop science at Cornell before immediately coming down here to start working in King George. I also cover Caroline County. So I'm one of those lucky agents that gets multiple counties. Um but also we kind of serve a planning district model. So I also work a lot with the agents in Spennsylvania and Stafford. Um but we also kind of help out across the whole northeast district. So over um to the east and up to the north is where our northeast district is. Um based on my educational background, it makes sense that my passion, interest, joy is found in sustainable agriculture and soil health. Um so a lot of my programming, especially this year, is going to be focusing on that. Um if you're not familiar with Virginia Cooperative

Extension, we are a partnership of Virginia Tech and Virginia State University. Our overarching goal is to build local relationships with collaborative partnerships um to help put scientific knowledge at work in order to improve the economic, environmental, and social well-being of all of our constituents. Um and we do that by providing access to unbiased scientific research-based information that relates to locally defined issues and needs. Um agriculture and natural resources is just one of the big facets of Virginia Tech. might be how most people know us or it might be through our 4 programming. We also have family and consumer sciences and I'll talk a bit more about that later. Um, but for agriculture and natural resources, um, our main goals are to connect farmers and our community members, so our homeowners as well to research based information so they can better inform themselves on how to interact with our local farms, their local home environments, as well as our landscapes to keep them healthy, safe, and natural for a long time. Um my programming has kind of an annual cycle just like our farms do. Um so some of the annual programs that we have um are private and commercial pesticide applicator training and re reertification. So, Virginia Tech is partnered with Virginia Department of Agriculture um to make sure that we are both getting our private and commercial pesticide applicators trained every year um to keep their pesticide applications safe and healthy for our people and our environments. Um we also do soil testing. We help farmers with forage testing and we annually host a wall testing clinic. We also host various conferences. Um the fivecount ad conference is our local ad conference that's hosted in January. Um and that's actually typically hosted down in Dwell and Caroline. Um we also have our extension master gardener volunteers. That's another way you might have interacted with Virginia Cooperative Extension before attending one of their

green talks in the area. I also kind of have a help desk function where people can call me, email me, stop by the office with any questions they may have that relates to anything in agriculture, natural resources. Um, I'm definitely not an expert in all things, but we are well equipped to help find the information if we don't know it already. Um, I also send out a monthly newsletter um with things like events, programming, upcoming opportunities, research, and community spotlights um that relate to agriculture and natural resources. So, going from kind of the annual rotation to some of the specific things that I did outside of that last year in 2025, um I received a cover crop research grant um from the Virginia A Council because one of my major interests is cover crops and how we can continue to implement them in a sustainable way across the state. Um I've also helped out with Virginia Tech's corn earworm pest monitoring. So, that's a major pest of corn and soybeans if you aren't familiar with it. So, we had a uh trap down um by the bridge over to Port Royal. Um I've also collaborated with the library in a few different projects. Um their seed library as well as their garden planting talks. Um at the church just down the road, we hosted the Eastern Virginia Forest Conference in collaboration with some surrounding counties. And of course, there's the extension master gardener green talk series that I mentioned before. We really could not do a lot of our education without those master gardeners. Um, and just those numbers on the side of the screen there on the bottom is the number of people that I reached in King George in 2025 specifically across 36 different sessions. And the number on the top is kind of the number of people that I've reached across the whole area with my work with other counties. Looking forward to 2026. I can't believe we're already here and there's already things going on to my calendar for 2027. Um, but like I said, I want to be focusing a lot on soil health this year. So, I'm hosting a couple of soil health webinars that are aimed specifically at farmers to help them understand a little

bit of the science behind this word soil health they may keep um hearing and how they can actually implement those practices on their farms. Um we have a few beef um producer focused things coming up like a cving demonstration. Um and to tie into my cover crop research, I'll be hosting a cover crop and nutrient management field day down in Caroline. But like all programs in the area, farmers from every county are always invited. Um, a big thing I'm excited for this year is I plan to start growing free vegetable seedlings um through grants that I've gotten from community organizations like the Op Shop and the James Madison Garden Club so that we can provide free vegetable seedlings for homeowners in the area um to help them kickstart their own home food production, especially with rising cost of groceries. Um, I'll be working with our 4 agent on some youth pasture educational field days. Um, be working with producers hopefully to help them build some community through a summer potluck. Um, and also help them build their knowledge with things like a farm disaster preparedness webinar. Um, and information on navigating grants, cost shares, and loans to help keep them moving forward, especially in economically tough times. Um, and an exciting thing that we have going on for the area at September, um, is a pesticide container recycling drop off program with Vax, um, to help again keep pesticides safe, um, and properly used. So, now we're kind of zooming back out to the long-term goals. Um, all those things that I listed before are kind of in support of a strong aggress, you know, part of our history and I want to keep it here. Um, I am only one person, but hopefully the work that I'm doing will overall strengthen our a workforce, both current farmers and our youth that hopefully will be coming into a from King George. I hope to help strengthen a business through production and marketing education. I'm not necessarily an expert in marketing, but

I do know people that are and hope to bring them in for presentations in the county. Um, overall economic, social, and environmental sustainability of agg is really important. you know, all three of those parts of sustainability should be focused on and I hope to continue to do so. Um, I also hope to build agurism capacity in King George through my advisory kind of help desk services by helping homeowners and homesteaders um as small farms continue to learn how to be self- sustaining food producers while also bringing in that tourism to the county. Um, and yeah, just overall help our farmers have successful niches here in King George. Um earlier I mentioned our 4 positive youth development. So we have a 4 agent as well in the office. She has a lot of 4 clubs. You might have heard of the livestock club. It's kind of one of the things you traditionally associate with extension and with 4. She also has educational programs through schools um and community programs like the upcoming um second annual 4 county fair in September. And we also have our family and consumer sciences agent. She does family support and education, food access and nutrition education and financial stability and life skills. So if you look at a natural resources, 4 and family consumer sciences all together, you can kind of really see how extension is working to make our communities as a whole a better place for everybody. Um that is all I've got. I appreciate the time from you all. Um I'll happily take questions now, but also my email is always open. um and would always happy to have you in the office to talk a bit more about the work that I do or how I can support King George. So, I'll take any questions now if you have any.

Awesome. Thank you, Megan. Any questions? Mr. Chair, I do have a question. Go ahead. Um I'm looking at one of your slides. I think it's slide eight and you talk about supporting the farmers and that. Do you I know I've spoken to people from Virginia Tech and the you know that have courses in horiculture and that. Is there any thought about hooking up young farmers with older farmers that have the equipment and the land and some kind of way, a lease agreement or something to help young farmers get in to the business because I know the cost of entry is it can be you know quite high and you know some kind of program to help facilitate that to keep these farms farming.

Yes. Yeah. Know I love that thought. Um there is I am aware of a program I can't think of the exact name or organization that runs it right now but there is a farmer mentoring program that does cover Virginia. Um I'd be happy to get in contact with you and send you that information. Um I also do think that on a more local level if you know I'm still building up my repository of contacts of every farmer that we have in the county. Um and luckily often when new farmers move into the county they do reach out to me for information. So I'm also building my contacts there. But uh you know concerted effort to connect those farmers would be I think a positive thing. I think you know land and equipment are their own beast. Um if for people to hold on to them, maintain them and access them. So I do agree that some sort of system to um connect farmers new and experienced would be useful and I'd be happy to you know talk more with the board um on how we could do that at a different time.

Thank you so much. All right. All right. Thank you all. Thank you, Miss Williams.

All right. We'll shift over to action items. Our first item for action is uh 0204, a ratification of the local declaration of emergency by Chief Moody. Uh Mr. Chairman and uh members of the board, good evening to you. In your packet is a resolution uh for the local declaration of emergency. Uh this is a requirement under state law. So anytime a um a locality um declares a local emergency at your next uh scheduled meeting, you have to have a ratification or a certification of that local declaration. Uh before you uh vote on that, I would like to just give you take a few minutes give you a overview and a briefing of some of the operations uh that that occurred if that's okay. So during the period of the uh declaration um as some of these were already mentioned beforehand u there's always people out there that are going to give you you know tell you about everything that went wrong. I made 10 bullets of pretty much everything that went well and um an all hands operational uh weather briefing was held at the EOC on Thursday uh January uh 22nd. Uh this included county leadership in most county departments uh public safety with the sheriff's office and fire rescue, state police, social services, VOTE, uh naval activity, South PTOAC, Dog Emergency Management, and Dominion Energy. Uh this ensured everyone was on the same page uh right from the onset. Uh staff were prepared. Uh Supervisor Mets uh uh hit the nail on the head and that is even though we didn't open a shelter, we were prepared to pull that trigger in the event it needed to. We were closely monitoring that situation pretty much on the hour. Uh, Supervisor Straoud had mentioned uh to his point that, you know, when you open that shelter, you don't take it lightly. So, it need there needs to be an identified

need, not necessarily just, you know, if it's just one or two people that have a need, you don't want to open up an entire high school gymnasium and cafeteria in order to do that. You can kind of facilitate that on a one by one basis. uh fire, rescue and sheriff's office along with the uh 911 communication center uh had an increased posture with staffing and operational readiness and deployment. Uh over the span of the declaration uh uh there were a total of 473 incidents uh which included 116 fire and rescue calls uh only four motor vehicle crashes surprisingly enough. Uh we did have 48 transports to uh uh transporting the sick and injured to uh regional hospitals. Uh 37 disabled vehicles. And just uh to point out some of the more notable calls that we actually had during that time frame. Uh I think as the chairman had mentioned, we had certainly had a lot of slips and falls uh as expected. Uh 15 in total uh that required um uh folks to call 911. Uh many had head trauma and uh suspected broken bones. Uh we had one uh car that was on fire next to a house. Uh we had a snowplow truck that caught fire. Uh we had a roof collapse in a commercial building in Dogren. Uh we had um uh two elderly patients with dementia that were found outside. They were found outside by their neighbors. Uh, one I think one of the patients was still like in their in their night gown and had had to be treated for long uh uh you know cold exposure. Uh very very fortunate uh that they were found. Uh two dogs had to be rescued. Uh there were um folks had called and said, "Hey, look, I let my dog in the back. Didn't know how icy it was." And they just went flying right down over the embankment. Uh so our our

crews u went out and rescued them. We had one lady we had to gain access to that was going in labor. Um we had uh one propane gas leak inside of a house. Uh we assisted West Morland County with a house fire and also a man that had fell over the edge of a cliff. So that's just some of the just a handful of some of the more notable emergencies we had during that that that week. Uh we had a partial activation of our emergency operations center. Uh we created a staffing plan in the event that it was a we had to ramp it up uh more if necessary. Uh the weather forecast was was pretty much accurate. You know, we got to give the weatherman credit when credit's due. And pretty much uh you know, the weather was on spot. The forecast was uh sustainable power uh the sustainability of the power grid. If we didn't have the power grid uh and we didn't have power and we had a a loss of power throughout our county, this incident uh an event would have been a whole different animal. Um we could have had long-term shelters open. Uh but but really what kept us where um kept us pretty much at bay was having the sustainability power grid. And that that that says a lot for Dominion and Northern Neck, you know, clearing the rightways uh throughout the years and periodically. Uh it was also that the that the storm the event you didn't see a lot of ice in the trees uh as you saw like out in the western part. If that would have happened, we could have been dealing with a much different situation. Uh we were tracking some small outages I think that Supervisor Mets had mentioned earlier. Uh so we were reaching out to to those people and you know doing everything like opening up um the fire station in Fairview Beach as an emergency warming shelter if needed. Uh the the fuel depot at Company 1 was filled prior to the storm and was uh was

operational. Uh public outreach and messaging was in place and kept our citizens informed uh throughout the event. VOTE was well prepared and and was deployed around the clock uh putting the priority and focus on the primary and secondary roadways. Uh good operational we had great operational uh direction from county leadership and uh supervisor Straoud and Mr. Smolnik uh and transparency on policy uh decisions along with daily updates from David Beal about the status of VOTE and roadways and such. And last but not least, um you know, big thanks to our citizens because, you know, that's what makes King George great. And the the citizens, um I've heard numerous stories. The citizens were prepared. The first couple days there wasn't anybody on the roads. They they they heeded the warnings. They stayed off the roadways. They made our job easier in the first 48 hours. Uh they u they they they you know, they stocked up. Uh they were prepared if the power went out. Uh we had a lot of situations where neighbors were helping neighbors. Uh we had uh the volunteer list as as was mentioned earlier. Uh and you know people people signed up to assist with snow removal and ice removal. So um all in all you know we couldn't do what we do if it wasn't the support from the citizens and and the support from the board. So with that I'm happy to answer any questions about that. But the resolution you have in your packet, uh, that would need to be voted on and, uh, approved so we can, uh, submit that to the state.

Thanks, Chief. Uh, question, how do you, if you do activate a shelter like that? How do you close it down when all is said and done? What if you have uh, lingering customers? Yeah, that's a that's a great question. Um, that's something you just kind of have to handle on a case-byase basis. uh you know, our experience is after about 72 hours of somebody being out of their home and being they're they're ready to leave. Okay.

Uh the the biggest thing we monitor with that is do they have power? Do they have do they have heat in their house? Uh if they do, a lot of times you don't have to kick them out. They're ready to leave. Um, you know, so there's, uh, um, you know, we've never run into a situation, uh, where, you know, we've had just one or two people that needed to be there for, you know, a day or two or three longer. A lot of times it's all within a matter of 24 to 48 hours. It it, you know, things kind of clear up. You're aware of Brisbane Center and Micah Ministries and Yes. Okay. Cool.

Um, what's the significance of this declaration? what what is how does it benefit the community that we made this decoration? Yeah, that uh so uh typically on largecale weather events like this, we kind of look at hey what what is the state doing and the state uh the governor has to declare a state of emergency uh and then you know usually the counties that are going to be impacted like if we're uh incurring uh certain cost this this particular event this storm was a weekend event so you had to incur you got some costs that will uh that are occurring from overtime. Uh certainly there's a lot of uh VOTE uh work and a lot of monies and funding going towards that. Some of those fundings actually go towards uh the localities cost in regards to if there was a presidential disaster declaration. So if if you don't declare a local emergency, then there's no possibility if there was a presidential disaster declaration that you could say, "Hey, this is what we had to spend in order to prepare and protect the public." You would have no chance of of of getting that returned. So this is this is um that that's one of the things. The other thing is is that it also allows if you had to make some emergency uh purchases, if you had to say, "Hey, uh we need to rent that skid steer." Uh then you don't have to go through some of those um more common day-to-day processes in um in procurement and such. The county administrator, you know, could say, "Hey, we're, you know, we we need that skid steer. We need to clear this off." And I'm making authorization to to make that happen. So, any other questions, Mr. Chair

to the chief? Any anytime the locality um declares a state of emergency, as the county administrator did, the law requires you all to ratify it at your next meeting. Aside from trying to get any recovery of any funds spent, you just law requires you to ratify that decision by the county administrator. just to contribute a little more history, right? Um, winter storms in this county have caused a lot of damage over the years. Um, we're between two big rivers and bodies of water move a lot of uh stuff around uh during winter storms. Um, having a an emergency declaration enables us to apply for certain reimbursements down the road. and FEMA's granted us significant funds in the past for certain storms that have occurred and this one kind of falls into that as well. Um I I don't know if I had an emergency declaration question, but Chief, I I know um you guys have still worked with a number of families and homes that uh are low or out of of propane if they use propane heat. Do we have any sway? because it seems like the bigname companies are taking very much the the tact of I'd say USPS is if it's not cleared we're not going to deliver and um you know we could have families that are dependent upon that as a as a heat source. Um I don't know if we have any sway in the county to influence that. Yeah, that's a that's a really tough question and I and and I' I've I have experienced um talking with a couple families that were in that that that situation and that is either number one their propane tank ran out and uh now they're calling because they're smelling

gas in the house and you know it's a very cold week um and and you know they're they're um they're in need of getting that gas filled up. However, now we're now we are have a very unique situation and that is to get where they need to fill it is completely covered in ice. So, um I I I I wish we had um something that we could do. Uh there there really isn't. Um I you know, if I called Omera Gas as the fire chief and said, you know, hey, you know, these people are out, you know, can you go fill them up? Most of the time in these cases, uh there's going to there's a backlog of other a lot of other customers that are in that same situation and there's also u you know emergency delivery fees they want to tack on to that. Um, so it's a it I think one of them was down on Sedwick uh where where they couldn't uh just gaining access to the road uh was was certainly an issue with the gas company. So it uh certainly a problem. I don't know if I have a I don't know if I have an answer for it though.

For this emergency, I think you know in some ways we've ducked a a worse problem which would have been that if we had also lost electrical power. I think this is an opportunity.

There are neighbors helping neighbors. Um thankfully in this situation, maybe something we ought to think about as we're planning out future emergency responses like um you know, because we do have plans if we were to lose power and the things that we go down there as well. Just something to consider. There's a lot of people here that are on propane as a as a source of heat. Thankfully, in this case, we still have electric. It's very expensive, but space heaters, you know, and the such do help. So anyway, no thanks. I just wanted to make that part of the public record there. Thank you, sir. Sir, thanks, Ryan. Anybody else? All right. Do you have a motion?

Yes, sir. I'll make a make a shot at this. Uh I'd like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution, the declaration of local emergency resolution declaring a local emergency to exist in King George County, Virginia. Whereas on January 22nd, 2026, the county administrator in his capacity as director of emergency management issued a declaration of emergency declaration applicable throughout the entire county of King George pursuant to Virginia code section 44 tag 146 uh 21 due to wintertorm firm and the impending snow and ice. And whereas the board of supervisors were not able to convene at the time of the decoration was made due to ex exigencies of time and impending inclement weather and hazardous road conditions and power outages persist. And whereas the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia authorize a board of supervisors to conform circumstances giving rise to existence of a state of local emergency and to that end state of emergency when conditions warrant. Now therefore, it is hereby declared by the board of supervisors of the county of King George, Virginia, that a local emergency exists and continues to exist throughout the county of King George, Virginia, effective 11:00 a.m. on January 22nd, 2026. may have be further declared and ordered that during the existence of this emergency the powers function and duties of director of emergency management and the emergency management organization and functions of the county of King George or those prescribed by the laws of the commonwealth of Virginia and the ordinances resolutions and approved plans of the county of King George in order to mitigate the effects of said emergency be it further declared and ordered this state of local emergency shall end on January 30th 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Unless otherwise extended or sooner rescended under law.

Well read, sir. Do you need a bottle of water after that? Second. And seconded. Any further discussion? Just a roll call vote or just discussion point. Um is is the 30th. Go ahead.

I'm just cur we had expenses related to this storm after Saturday. I read that right. Yeah. Saturday would have been the 30th at 5:00 pm. Does it matter that I mean I guess the way you declared it when you started this I don't know if we envision the extent of the ice problem that we had. I'm looking at Mr. Smallnick as well. If it if there if you you know like to extend it you know we we can amend I would just s suggest amending which is r-03-26 with a new uh end date of pick the date and time was Friday 30th was Friday.

Yeah 30th was Friday. So there were some expenses incurred after that. So should the board so wish to entertain a motion to amend R-003-26, you could change that date till I I would make a motion we extend that date to today. Uh friendly amendment. Friendly amendment. Have a second. Second. Second. Okay. Friendly amendment properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I I opposed chair votes I

amendment carries and back to the original amend amendment I'm sorry back to the original motion um all in favor say I I any oppose chair votes I motion carries thanks gentlemen thanks sir thank you chief all right all right uh 02-05 acceptance of the DCJS grant for drone replacement. Captain Steve Land Fire Department.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Here tonight to speak to you about the Department of Criminal Justice Services unmanned aircraft trade and replacement program grant award. Summary information. On December 30th, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services notified King George County by email of the unmanned aircraft trade and replace program grant award for $20,320. And presentation will follow. So, just real quick, just want to give a couple examples of what the county uses the drones for. Uh, this is a picture of the fire back in the summertime, Cooks Place. We use that just to do help document the scene and, you know, in our afteraction report. This is a video of a training we did. Uh, we simulated uh two lost hikers or missing children in the woods at night. And what we're seeing here up here is the thermal video of us locating the missing children. You can see them right there in the hot the white um colors right there and the different pallet right there in red showing showing heat. So u you know missing child, elderly person uh definitely this is where the drones definitely help benefit and reducing manpower and searching these areas and locating the victims quicker. And this is just showing it highlighted right there. Information about the grant, details about the grant. Uh the grantor is DCJS. And the purpose of the uh this grant award, this is a very unique grant program to replace public safety drones that are manufactured by certain foreign countries. And as mentioned, the grant award uh that King George County received is $20,320.

This grant has some uh unique uh requirements. uh we reviewed the paperwork and it it's definitely um we we can meet these requirements. We feel uh the certification of acquisition that we have to buy the replacement drone uh from a company a manufacturer meets the requirements outlined in in the grant details and also there is replacing a drone and the drone that uh we identified for replacement. we have to certify that the drone was destroyed and it it the grant program talks about the process in order to meet the requirements to certify that and I'm happy to answer any questions about the grant or the grant award.

Thanks Captain. Any questions, Miss Pender? No, I don't. Awesome. Do I have a motion? I have a Oh, you recommend action authorize acceptance of the DCJS grant in the amount of $20,320 appropriate $20,320 from the general fund balance and authorize the county administrator to execute all necessary documents subject to approval as formed by the county attorney. So moved. Second. All right, we have proper motion properly seconded. Do we have any further discussion? All right, roll call vote. Miss Bender. Hi, Mr.

Straoud. Hi, Mr. Smith. Hi, Mr. Davis. Hi. Chair. Motion carries. Thank you, C. Thank you.

All right. Over discussion items. Bank of America purchasing card from Miss Cook. Thank you, ma'am. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Okay, I'm here tonight to present about the Bank of America purchasing card, the PECard program. All right. What is a PCard? A PC card is a companyisssued credit card used for approved business purchases. It's designed to replace small dollar purchase orders and minimize employee reimbursements and is only used for authorized business expenses. A few examples of authorized trans transactions are travel training, conference fees, emergency purchases, purchases, dues, registration fees. How the PCR program works. The PCARD helps reduce paperwork for both employees and the finance team. It improves the administrative process and improves tracking of expenses. This slide shows the PECard workflow. Starting with a card holder making an approved purchase. After the purchase,

the card holder collects and uploads receipts and completes reconciliation in the system. The transaction then moves to the supervisor or approver for review. Once approved, the information flows to finance for reporting, compliance, review, and audit purposes. This process helps ensure purchases are accurate, documented, and aligned with policy. This slide details roles and responsibilities of card holders, approvers, program administration, and finance controls and compliance. Each PC card has built-in controls, including per transaction limits and monthly spending limits. Merchant category restrictions help prevent misuse and track transactions are monitored for unusual or potentially fraudulent activity with audit ready reporting and an easy dispute process. And these are some of the program benefits. There's no late fees, no finance charges, no expedited card delivery fees. Rebate multiplier based on cumulative spending of all participants, fraud alerts and transaction monitoring, immediate card suspension if needed, secure online access for all users and next steps. The first step of the next steps I forgot to include would be to authorize the county administrator to execute the Bank of America participant account form. We would then finalize the program policy which would require the current credit card policy with the county to be updated, identify card holders and approvers, configure limits and controls and then launch training and then finally go live with Bank of America PC card program.

Questions? Thank you, ma'am. Um, do you have any ideas who your card holders are going to be at this time or roughly how many cards we're going to have? We currently between the county and the sheriff's office have 93 card holders. Wow. That not kind of high. I believe there might be steps to reduce those with this new policy. And that's a curiosity. It just Wow. Okay. Um, did you need action from us tonight on this or you gonna come back? I would love action tonight. Before we move into that, are there other questions, Matt? I

I would just like to add something. So, yes, this is uh, you know, a good time to look at how many credit cards we have out there and and really identify, you know, are they all necessary? And really, I've I've used a system like this at my previous place of employment. It it's going to improve efficiency within within the finance. it puts more onus on the the individual who's making that purchase as far as coding it uh to the proper account. Takes a lot less work, you know, and it takes work off of her finance team, you know, tracking down receipts and whatnot. There's there's a lot of that that goes on with the system we're in right now. Um, so I'm I'm, you know, I know when Miss Cook first came to me, I was like, absolutely, this is a great thing. Let's get in front of our board. So, I fully support this. Increase efficiency. look at the number of credit cards we have and put more onus on those individuals um who use the B card.

What kind of checks and balances we have in place to ensure things are handled properly? I know in in the government I' I've got a travel card myself, there are tens of thousands of them, I'm sure, but it it is very rigid and if you if you misuse it, you're going to get in a lot of trouble. How do we handle that?

So, I'm I'm looking at my finance team. Those are there's there's there's our our uh our checks and controls two of the individuals right there between Miss Cobb and uh Miss Dillard. Um you know, as far we have a a policies what you can use the credit card for right now and I I tell you if if there are charges that come up and you know the the finance crew spends a lot of time looking at this, they they'll come to me, you know, Mr. Smallock, this is what was made. We look at it. Nope. and and we've actually we've denied requests because something was not made in accordance with the current policy. Um so, you know, the the policy is in place that was and that I know Miss Cook uh mentioned that would have to be readopted, you know, with this new program, but um of course the the final check is are the auditors. I mean, they're going to pull anything that they want. Um, but my finance team, we've got How many individuals do PECAR purchases go through in your office? Four different individuals. So, it's it's not like there's just one person reviewing everything. So, I've got four professionals looking at this.

Other questions? You got one? Motion. I have questions. Yeah, go ahead. So, I'm curious, ma'am. Uh, any of you? So today, do you have a problem with people bringing receipts for purchases? I can No, I can speak to it. Is that Yes.

So what happens whenever somebody doesn't produce a receipt for a purchase today? Um so right now what we have to go through is our AP person when they don't produce a receipt an email is sent out with a copy of the um the policy and we give them a timeline to turn in the receipt. We also CC Mr. Small Nicknick on that and then if they don't produce the receipt um we pull their credit card we turn it off. They're no longer able to use it and we make them pay out of pocket for it. if they don't produce a receipt or they have to give us uh we have a missing receipt form now. So there has to be has to be some kind of justification for audit purposes for your purchase.

Okay, very good. Uh so with this new program, whenever people make the purchase and they're going to have a receipt, are we going to have a way for them to like what they write on their receipt like but uh because sometimes it's not legible. So maybe they hand write the last four, the the card, the purchase amount, the date and who it was or something on the receipt, scan it in and upload it to SharePoint or something like that.

So it will be directly they'll be directly responsible for loading the all of that information into the Bank of America portal. So once they have issued their receipts, then it will go to the next step which would be whoever the approver reviewer is. If anything's missing, it automatically gets kicked back to the card holder. So, it will not go through that sorry workflow before all those steps are completed and then finally it will end up with finance where they will complete the transaction for payment.

Okay. So, I'm just curious whenever they upload to the portal, they're going to take a picture with a cell phone and upload that some way of getting that receipt uploaded to the portal. They'll scan it, digitizing it, right? They'll scan it and then they'll upload it and then they will be responsible for coding that receipt. You guys are going to provide them what the codes are. Yes. Yes. Same structure that they currently have. That won't change.

It's just putting more accountability on the Sorry, it's putting more accountability on the card holder. It cuts um staff time down from chasing after people. And then when it comes to an audit process, we now have more of a audit trail and we're more compliant um by having a system like this. Right now with our current card, it's a small business card and it's basically I can take this card and go anywhere. This new card, this PC card, will have restrictions on it. So as a department head, I can say, okay, I want Kimberly to have a card, but I only want Kimberly to have travel um options on her card. she will not be able to go to Walmart and use this card or things like that. So, we're able to restrict it, but right now we don't have that option.

Okay. No, that's good. Um, and I'm not saying we have this problem, but uh, in in in my business, um, not and I don't have the problem, but I've helped entities with problems where they would put limits to the number of gallons because they may have their, you know, people would have their wife pull up on the pump on the other side of their company vehicle and they'd fill up their wife's car and then the company vehicle. So now they've got 100 gallons of gas whenever the vehicle that they drive on it was 40. and and so there's these these alerts go off that we that are pre-programmed in and things like that. Um so okay, just quick question. Didn't see it in the brief. No fee for King George on this. All of the Bank of America expenses are taken out of what they earn off the card transactions.

That is correct. So they actually really my question is in next year they're not going to hit us up for a fee. No. So the multiplier through the multiplier for the rebate that the county would receive, there's a small percentage that they receive of that rebate. That's what pays for us to use this PECARD system. Thank you. All right. Did you have a motion? Sure.

Like to make a motion to authorize the county administrator to execute the Bank of America participant account form. Second. Probably seconded. Do we have any further discussions? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Thanks. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Miss Cook. up again.

All right. Uh status of the river building elevator repair. Also, Miss Cook. All right, this is just going to be a brief update and then asking the board for next steps. The elevator overheated and malfunctioned in the county administrative county administration building uh September of 2025. Otis performed Sorry. Otis performed evaluation and submitted a modernization quote for $215,000. Elevator modernization would include upgrading key mechanical and electronical components of an existing elevator system. The board of supervisors deem sourcing alternate solutions and pricing to be the best path forward. procurement issued a request for proposal in November of 2025 to have a contractor to repair or replace components and deliver f fully operational elevator that is pursuant to code. The RFP was extended due to lack of response during the initial posting. The county only received a single proposal that was deemed unresponsive due to an unsealed cost proposal. Staff moved to source a contractor by piggybacking off of a cooperative contract. Coney Fissenrop Schindler and Metro Elevators companies were contacted by multiple emails and calls and attempt to schedule site visits. Metro Elevator responded and stated that a site visit would be priced at $335 an hour at a

2-hour minimum. No other responses have been received after multiple attempts at contact. So, that kind of brings us back to our original quote that we received from Otis. I did call, well, I didn't call, but Mike Muny did call and verify with them that the original quote is still good through April. So now I'm looking to the board for next steps. I do have a board report prepared if the board wanted to move forward with the quote that we received from Otis.

Any thoughts, comments, questions?

Comment. It bothers me every time I come in this building and the elevator's not working. It's uh this is our community building. It's our face to the community and u saying that you know certain community members might not be able to get to the second floor because they have a disability that prevents them from using the stairs is quite troublesome. Um said I guess with the 215 Mr. Smallnick um are we under running on any of our CIP budget items where this could come out of the CIP fund as opposed to general fund? So, so know this whenever this elevator first um malfunctioned back in the fall, you know, this this was never part of our CIP. Um it was it went out in an instant. Um so, you know, at that point in time, we tried the emergency repair. Um you know, went through all the steps Miss Cook outlined. So, this is not part of our CIP. This was more as we deemed it initially an emergency repair. And that's um you know what we're suggesting to uh to how to fund this and how to repair it. I

think it means does any anything we've already funded is it underwrunning so we can take some of that that surplus and use it toward this. Yeah. Really I was just you know we under on any of our projects with I don't think we had a project in the community in the you know money anywhere else. There's there's money in the in the fund balance for the capital. Um, yeah, I don't know, you know, specifically a dollar amount for each individual projects, but I'm looking at Miss Cobb for confirmation that we do have money, some money in fund, capital fund balance, retirement account. We can take it out of our capital construction line as stated by Miss Cop.

Mr. Chair. Yeah. I'd like to make a motion that we authorize county administrator direct staff to proceed with the original quote. Update is required by Otis as submitted by Otis for the Rivercom administrative building elevator modernization. Second. The motion's properly seconded. Any uh discussion on this? I have a question. What if we do this? What uh what's the timeline for getting it turned around and complete? And what kind of warranty is are we getting with this? Yeah, I I'd have to go back to that original proposal to see the timeline

I can answer. The warranty generally is one year parts and labor. That's usually what we um that I think that's just kind of the norm. I believe lead time on this, the last time I spoke with Mike Muny, was 30 to 60 days before the repair would begin. But this doesn't include the actual repair cost, correct? No, this includes this is

I've got somewhere What was your question, Mr. Stout? What was your question? That that it didn't actually include the repair cost. It was the uh them the on site them coming to evaluate it. This is this would be the modernization of there it is. Sorry. This includes the engineering, materials and installation. So, this is the bottom line. It's going to cost us $215,000. It'll be up and running. It's guaranteed for parts and labor for a year. Yes.

Okay. And I can get clarification on warranty details tomorrow. I think he found it up here. That's what I was looking for.

Mr. Small. So the motion was two 215. I'm looking at the quote from Otis right now. It says $215,335. Is that within your So I I would friendly motion to to get that specific dollar amount um as as outlined in the Otis proposal as stated by Mr. Mets. So, do you want to amend your motion?

Yes. I'd like to amend the motion to for the amount of $215,335 vice 215,000. Second. All right. Properly seconded. Um, any other discussion before we move on? I will note that these last two items are discussion items are kind of breaking protocol. I'm fine with that. Um, just acknowledging that we're we're kind of getting a little bit ahead of where we would normally be at this time, but I I agree this thing's been out of service for a long time and we've got um residents that can't get up to the uh to the offices that they that they need to. So, um yeah.

So, we're discussing it. the the option is I I don't think there's a requirement that we have an elevator, but we'd have to come up with a way if they wanted to meet with people, the county staff would have to go down and meet with them at another office, but right, but they would we could the county staff could come down and meet them first floor. I believe it's also for employees. Employees are going to need to access that second floor. If you have an employee who cannot access their office upstairs, then you know what sort of accommodations are we going to have to make. So it's it's I believe it is the employees and the public.

All right. All right. Roll call vote. Mr. Stra. I Mr. Mets. I bender. Hi. Mr.

Davis. I chair votes I. Motion carries. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your time. All right, down to the county administrator report. Mr. Smallik, thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. A couple things uh for the board and for the citizens tonight. Uh I know Miss Pucket was not able to be here tonight. She sent me an email this afternoon reminding the board of board of equalization appointments. We first talked about this back on October 7th um for you to start thinking about who you would like to appoint and then would need to be certified through the circuit court for board of equalization. Uh you know we're the assessments are just about done here. We're going to get in a crunch time for budget here in the very near future. So, uh, you know, as we stated back in October, really encourage the board to to, you know, talk to your constituents, figure out who you want to appoint, um, to the board of legalization so we can keep the process and the budget moving forward. So, I I I told Miss Puck I would make that uh announcement during my county administrators report. So, check that box. Second thing, uh, the Bay Workforce Consortium. So, this is a board where, you know, Mr. Stroud and I are are active participants. The uh the the the fees for this are based on a per capita 25 cents per capita with King George's fees for the current fiscal year we're in $7,142. Now, if you recall back in the spring uh of 25 uh outside agencies, I was directed to, you know, to to cut the funding. And then we brought that back to a board meeting where the board looked at individual outside agencies that are non-mandatory and you selected which uh which groups to fund. This particular board did not receive any funding. This has been a board that Mr. Strad and I have been actively engaged. We actually have a board meeting tomorrow at noon uh to help uh individuals post and find jobs uh in

this King George area. And it's a it's a wide range all the way to the Eastern Shore that this group works with. Now, you know, I do have authority to to spend money out of a contingency to cover this, but you know, out of respect for the board of supervisors, you gave me direction not to fund it last year, so I I will not do that. So, a couple different items um that we we we could look at should the board want to um consider you continuing this particular group. I've got Let me just pull up these specific motions here. Please bear with me, Mr. Chairman. I want to make sure I get the wording correct. Here it is. So, so should the board want to, there are two different options um to pay the the $7,142. You can either a authorize the county administrator to transfer $7,142 from the general fund contingency to the bay consortium workforce development outside agency general line general ledger line or B appropriate $7,142 from the general fund balance to the bay consortium workforce development outside agency general ledgers line. So the difference of those they sound very similar. one is the contingency that I have built into my operating budget um you know for for for you know emergency events to cover for that fiscal year. The second option would be just take it from the the general fund unallocated funds uh to take care of this.

Mr. here. Sir, I'd like to make a motion that we authorize the county administrator to take the $7,142 from the general fund balance. Um, unless I really don't care which one it comes from. Uh, but I think that it's uh worthy for our our uh students and for the youth in the county. It's beneficial for us. So I don't really care which fund it comes from. You want you want the the contingency. We'll do it from the contingent general fund contingency. So I amend my motion to be from the contingent fund. Okay. Have a second. Second.

All right. Properly seconded. Any further discussion? Okay. Mr. Stout. Hi. Mets. I bender. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Chair votes. I motion carries. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Next item. So, septic pumpout. I know we've been talking, we've had some discussions about this. The septic pumpout monitoring program is is is done through the community development department. This that this program um ceases to monitor and and track this back in 2024. Now, the current system that the the community development department uses municip goes back to 2021. and there was a a solid uh uh recordkeeping tracking in place for for those those three years that we used munic. However, 2024 the gap started and we have not done anything since then. I'm here to let the board know that uh Miss Leuk and her staff have have you taken the bull by the horn here and and and ready to reimplement the the septic pumpout program. Again, this is for all private systems in the Chesig Bay preservation area. You have to have your private system pumped or inspected once every 5 years. So, it can be inspected by an AOSE, authorized on-site soil evaluator as outlined in state code. So, these letters uh right now there are the letters are I believe stopped and ready to start going out. Uh there are 4,000 in total to send out. This starts back with where the I guess where everything stopped in 2024. the individuals who were next on our list, those letters will go out first. I believe community development is looking to get out 100 to 200 a week until that 4,000 is met. So, as to not have them all go out at the same time and then receive 4,000 letters all at one time. Um, they will space this out. Um, I think is there anything else I'm missing, Miss Luke? I think that about covers it. Um, again, this is this is standard practice on amongst localities in the Ches Bay preservation area. And this is part and this is part of our local code.

No, I got you. I'm just wondering did So last year when I had mine out, I didn't really have to. Y'all weren't paying attention. Thank you for pumping your your septic system out. I got a letter. So So if you have it, so so yes, whenever I believe in those instances, if you've got your letter and whenever your time comes due to get that, you can submit your receipt to say it was pumped out in the last 5 years or inspected. So So you expect me to keep that receipt a year later? usually taxes. We have some serious talking to do about your salary, sir. But anyway, do you have a question?

Yeah. Um, so it's a shame Mr. Hamilton has left. I I thought I rec and maybe Miss Binder knows. Um, I thought I recalled a conversation where Stafford was no longer accepting Septage. We were talking about making an upgrade at Dogrin to accept Septage, but that upgrade hadn't been made yet is my understanding. And so if we send these letters out, are we what are the residents to do? Um, you know, the septic companies I think somebody just got sent to court for illegally dumping. I I know I saw that in a

I mean I I know it's in the code and hopefully there's a description in the letter this time about an inspection because I can remember years ago when I got my letter there was no discussion about the inspection part of it being an option. So, um, so, so in big bold letters, septic system inspection or pumpout compliance form. So, so that that's that's big bold letters, uh, you know, what they were received and send back to the county. Yeah. I guess I I do we have resolution that there is a place for the pumpout companies to take septage for our residents.

So, we do not have I know Stafford's not accepting it. You know, we are not equipped yet. Um, you know, this is this is to preserve the Ches Bay preservation area and it's part of our code. Um, this is just something, you know, staff is looking to implement. Yes, it will probably if somebody does need their septic tank pumped out. I mean, there's a reason it needs to be pumped out. It's full. Uh, you know, protect, you know, we are located between two rivers here. We need to protect our rural lands and our and our ecosystems. Um, you know, will it cost them more to transport it? It probably will versus, you know, if we had some place here in the county. Um, so that's a decision, you know, this board needs to make. I mean, this this is our code. It is a requirement. Um, and this is just a notification going back out to staff to um to you to be responsible stewards of our county.

Yeah. That just I there was a lot of anecdotal evidence last time, discussions about septic pumpout companies saying, "Well, I don't know why I needed to do this. It was only half full or quarter full or or whatever." So now they can do an inspection. It it's always been an inspection in the code. Well, it was always an option. And I don't think that was widely communicated to the public, right? Maybe um most people get out of this much cheaper than having to have it pumped. And if they need to have it pumped, you're right, need to have it all the way somewhere. Um I guess maybe this my other plug for let's get on those upgrades to Dog.

Yeah. And I've reviewed this letter that's going to go out to the citizens. It's it's very clear. I mean, you know, pasting copy of our local code in and it's very clear that they can do either war. So, so I don't need any action from the board unless you direct me to halt, you know, but we're going to move forward with this. Just wanted you to be aware and more importantly for your constituents and the citizens to be aware um that this will be uh coming coming down um in their mailboxes. Next item, just a Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, if the state doesn't require it, state does require it.

Requires an inspection for sale. state. This was part of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act done years ago by Delegate Murphy and it requires that your septic system be pumped out every 5 years. I I think either the health department will monitor this or it can be part of the local ordinance. It's part of King George County's local ordinance, but it is required by state law. They just people didn't know. I don't know. They didn't tell them. Um, it either has to be pumped or it has to be certified I think it's by an engineer that it's functioning properly by a septic engineer that it's functioning properly properly either or what happens is most of them just get pumped out

right or wrong that's important because I've got people that have u you know said they've lived there their whole life never had a problem and now they have to have you know that the countyy's telling them to do this and it's it's not the county. They think that we're just doing it for money or some other this is a mandate from the state that's it it's probably was enacted 20 years ago. I know there was a law was passed last year 40 years ago. Yeah. Time flies by when you're having fun, right? It's been it's been in effect for a long time. Thank you.

Any other questions on that? I got two more quick topics. So the next one, just a reminder to the board and to the citizens, uh we will have a joint work session with the planning commission on Wednesday, February 11th. Uh 5:30 start. The first hour is slated for a joint meeting with the planning commission to discuss the comprehensive plan. I know Miss Leuke and I had and Miss Cook had a a pre-bid uh meeting with uh consultants who are looking at that RFP for comprehensive plan services. So we had that the first hour we're dedicating to the conversation with the planning commission at their request. Second um part of that meeting we'll be using uh Microsoft whiteboard. This was I know in our meeting Miss Fish brought you know brought us to this and we've been my staff has been hard at work on this last couple days. Uh please bring your laptops to this. Uh if you're remote you can participate in this and essentially what we've got we've got I think it's 14 or 15 major projects. These are, you know, the votech, the what do we do with a courthouse? Do we buy land for economic development? We've put a price tag on that and it's an interactive and and the the reason whiteboard was selected that people at home can watch us and and watch the screen. As you move your sticky notes around, each board member is going to have a color a color specific sticky note. It may say votech building $19 million and you have, you know, starting in 2026 out maybe I think it's 10 or 12 years. You get to select what year you want to see that occur. So this exercise will provide staff the guidance from this board of what projects are most important to you and I know Mr. Young I met with him today we will have a a presentation what we will do is the vast majority of these projects are already in the CIP. Now you all haven't seen this year's CIP but some of these projects you saw last year's CIP. So I'm I'm having Mr. Young put those uh request forms from the CIP to accompany his staff report so you have some background information on them. We'll go through those a time for a question and answer and then we'll go

back and then you will go ahead and prioritize your projects because some of these will require borrowing. You know, for instance, if that vote building is at the top of your list, we cannot cash fund that. We will have to borrow funds and that's going to give my staff lead time to start working with Davenport to find the best financing options for us. So, uh, February 11's going to be a critical meeting. I think it's, you know, it's going to be a good product. Thank Miss Fish for her for her suggestions and and her hard work on this. Um and the last thing I I wanted to talk about, I know um you gave me some direction a little uh at the start of the meeting to look at the the height of the solar panels. I will work with community development on that. So, as part of the the FY27 budget, um there there are some new fees that will be proposed. Um fees, they're not codified right now, but they really should be part of the code. We'll hold a public hearing to get those into the code. So, Miss Leuke has some she's been working with her staff. A lot of her fees, these are fees for developers, home builders. Um, you know, no nothing on the on the taxpayer, but if if you want to, you know, build a home, if you want to do this, there are you try to cover a majority of your cost through the fees through community development. Um, there are some things that have not been touched for a number of years and we've we've done a lot of research. Kelly and her staff has done a lot of research on other localities. So, I wanted to let the board know that, you know, Mr. Songs, as we said, some of the next upcoming uh agendas, I'd like to have this uh you know, on the board for action in the near future because that will impact our projected revenues for fiscal year 27, which I will need to do to build the budget. So, I just want to put that on your table. It's it's coming in the near future. And I think that's all I have for my report, Mr. Chair.

All right. Thank you very much. All right. Any questions before we move on? See none. Good. Yeah. I don't have a question, but the 11th I will not be around. You will not be available. No. You dial in it. So, so if you're not going to be around with this with this whiteboard, we can send it to you in advance. We'll have all the information for you and you can go ahead and select and move your post as to what and and that whenever we open it up, your yours will already be in there as far as your priority, sir. Thank you. All right. Thanks a bunch. Yeah. Have a motion, Mr. Chair. Well, we got to do public comment.

Well, I mean, it was You about to have a motion to adjourn? Okay, we're almost there. Trust me, I'm ready for myself. All right. Secondary public comment to address meeting items only. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so that it can be properly recorded and included in the public record. Is there anybody that would like to make public comment at this time? Come on up.

Hi, my name is Anna Maria Lobo. I live in Presidential A. I want to thank you you for the that you were involved in the storm and also I want to thank you to the sheriff's department and the fire and rescue squad. They do an amazing job when my children were little. Now they don't live in here, but they do an amazing job with all older people. If you need a call then Mr. Moody work long hours during this storm. All of them working long hours and we need appreciated that. Thank you.

Thank you ma'am. Anyone else? Mr. D, you have anybody online? No, Mr. Chairman.

Anybody get any correspondence? Mr. Shout and I got one. Um, this is from Miss Ray Celeste Tanner from uh 8101 Washington Drive. She says, "I saw the Powen Solar Farm presentation for tonight's agenda and I wanted to comment on how much I love this project. I especially appreciate one the decommissioning bond ensuring the developer will restore the land to its prior condition. Two, the minimum traffic increase with at most 25 employees trips per day during the three-month installation period down to 1 to two per month when the panels are in operation. Number three, the clear project timeline of 35 years. Technology inevitably inevitably becomes outdated and this proposed project accounts for that. Number four, the fact that this project presents no adverse effects to local residents and keeps our rural county rural. I realize this is a small project covering less than 25 acres, but I'd love to see King George with more of these kind of thoughtful creative solutions that don't sacrifice residents health and well-being and maintain the rural tradition that we love about King George. Sincerely, Ray Celeste Tanner.

And that's it. Uh, Mr. Chair, so I have I have another email and so it's not that one. I thought that was the same, but it's not. This is uh this email. I'm not sure uh where the resident that says resident of King George, but it may not be one of my constituents. Um it's from Ray Ray Basich. Um it says, "Hello, Mr. Strad. I'm writing you in regards to proposed idea of building a data center off of King's Highway near King George Dump. As someone who lives near there, so would be M. I am highly against the idea of many studies and reports within the past couple of years that communities who live near these centers have experienced increased respiratory issues and illnesses due to the pollution they emit. One of the gases emitted from these data centers is nitrogen dioxide which can cause lung irritation and produce acid rain and smog. There's also farmland near this proposed location and with that air pollution being emitted near them, the crops and the people working in the fields will be exposed to the emissions. In addition, the unsightly view of these facilities provide property values near them go down as well. Also, within the past couple of days, I've seen reports saying that Open AI is projected to lose funding by 2027, which would render this construction a waste of money. These data centers are extremely power hungry, too. It takes immense amount of energy to keep them running which is overwhelming our power grids which in turn causes electricity bills to go up for the surveillance near them. With all that has been said, please don't build a data center off King's Highway. Sign Ray Betich,

resident of King George. All right. Thanks. Anyone else? No. I'll close public comment at this time. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Yeah, I'll make a motion we journ the board of supervisors to Wednesday, February 13th, 2026 at 5:30 in the boardroom of the River Cone Building located at 10459 Courthouse Drive, King George, Virginia 22485. Wednesday, February 11th. What did I say? Wednesday, February 11th, 2026. Have a second. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Any post? Chair votes I. Motion carries. We are adjourned. Thank you very much, folks.