Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

I call to order this meeting of the King George County Board of Supervisors. And I forgot, we're not meeting tonight. How you doing down there? All right, so please join me in the invocation led by Ms. Bender and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Everyone please rise. Please, Lord, guide us tonight to make the right decisions for the residents of our county to listen to our constituents and think long and hard about the items that are on our agenda. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, thanks everybody. Are there any amendments to the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we'll open the floor to 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 comments so that it can be properly included in the public record. First up we have Ms. Tutti Moncure.

Tutti Moncure, James Madison District. I'm here speaking as a citizen and not on behalf of King George Planning Commission. I would like to publicly thank Senator Stewart for all of his work in patroning Senate Joint Resolution 25. His efforts to get Governor Spangberger to release the data, the summary, and the recommendations will help us make better decisions about groundwater use in the future. I also want to thank Supervisor Bender for her work with the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Advisory Committee. These individuals, along with DEQ, deserve special recognition for their work in the support of our water systems. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Pastor Davis.

Thank you. I'm Pastor Davis, voting in the Dowling District. It's an honor to be here. I'd like to read to you from the scriptures in Mark chapter 8. So when he called his people unto him, and his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself. Ever tried doing that? Denying yourself? That's difficult. And take up his cross and follow me. For whoso will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake... and the gospels the same shall save it for what should a man profit if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul but what should a man gain in exchange for his soul whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall this man be ashamed when he cometh in his glory of his with his father with the holy angels I guess a good illustration to use for that would be, if God were to tell you he'd let you live for 2,000 years. And that 2,000 years, you'd never get sick. And that 2,000 years, you'd always remain handsome or beautiful. And that 2,000 years, you would have a million dollars coming in every day of your life. Every day, a million bucks. Successful, prosperous, famous. Everybody loves you, no enemies, for 2,000 years. And then you died, lost. What would it profit a man? Have all that prosperity and all that good wealth for 2,000 years, only to die not knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is the means by which God chooses to save men. And the gospel requires no obedience. The gospel produces obedience. If you had to be obedient to the gospel to get saved, you'd never be obedient enough. But the gospel, when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ, produces obedience in our life. So you don't get the cart before the horse. You get saved first, and then you can serve the Lord and give your life to Him. But what a profit if we gain the whole world and lose our own souls. And so I'm here tonight to encourage anyone who may not, and those who are listening by live stream, who may not know the Lord Jesus Christ, they have a friend in King George County that will help them to learn and, of course, know how to get to heaven. That's important. But living this life is so important, too, what we do here. Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Nathan Hoy.

Nathan Hoy, Shiloh District. I say never follow God or children, but I'll, I'll do my best. Um, so I'm just up here again to kind of talk about, um, my mom's house or ending up having to go with the, um, subdividing process. Um, everybody here that doesn't know, trying to build my mom a house on the property, but under on my, my property, but under the current ordinance, I can't go more than 35% of my, um, current houses, um, square footage which means that i'm capped at 900 square feet trying to put her a 1300 square foot house um four supervisors have been very open to listening to me same with county administrator's office i just think that it's worth looking at either the special exception process again or kind of maybe it's worth taking a look at the ordinance seems really silly again on uh on 118 acres i can't build a 1300 square foot house If my house is 10,000 square feet, I could build her a 3,500 square foot house on two acres. Special exception process cost me like 10 grand between the court fees, the $50 for each additional acre of my property. I offered some alternatives to that, whether being parcel size should be taken into account when you're calculating in the square footage. If you have 10 acres, maybe you're still at 35%, but if you have 20 acres, you can go 40%, so on and so forth. Or if your primary residence is the parcel that you're living on, maybe you only have to pay the court fees. Maybe the additional fee gets waived because that's a $6,500 process right there. um yeah a lot of time left uh the turning from pine hill on to round hill the visibility there kind of really uh is not good and that's all thank you all right thank you sir mr bob aird good evening mr chairman ladies and gentlemen something i want you to think about for a second

is the ancestry of our people here in the county goes back a long way we have a lot of different diverse population here but basically if you go back for scots irish and welsh where people there believe in god that believe in land we believe in our community we believe in working with each other you know, as members of the Board of Supervisors, as members of the Planning Committee, I ask that we take into consideration the needs of the individual people that they want to control their land, they want to profit from the land. We need to take into account their consideration and not just overall political aspects. if we're concerned about environmental issues let's talk about environmental issues let's not throw everything into a single bucket just because this is a residential area this is a commercial area this is an industrial area we have to look at each area specifically based on needs and we want to work within the four walls of that property as long as we don't negatively impact the neighbors It's not anybody else's business what happens on that property. It belongs to the people for their benefit. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Lovell?

Hi, my name is Ana Maria Lovell. I live in Presidential Lakes. I want to thank you tonight for your service to the community. Also tonight, I want to give you a specific thanks to those that help with the county programs, with a special thanks to the Sheriff's Department and King George Fire and Rescue Service. They do an amazing job keeping us safe. Also a special thanks to the King George Parks and Recreation, Mrs. Chris Clark and Mrs. Vivian Shelton, along with their staff. They do an amazing job with the programs for young and old. About 45 years ago, I worked there as a volunteer and as a paid employee. I worked with many people that volunteered, but they have retired now. A big thanks to those of you that were involved with the King George Independence Celebration on July 11 at the Silverstone Sports Complex for the 254th of July celebration. another great program king george county government has brought back for the second year the food truck rodeo for food fun and county connections i even did line dancing with the parks and recreation for the event i also dance zumba with the ymca we used to dance in the fall festival we always come in first place well since Mr. Collins left the elevator in the old courthouse has been broken and I don't understand why it has not been fixed the longer you wait the more problems you have older people sometimes cannot use the stairs they need a working elevator thank goodness I can still use the steps also I don't understand why the air conditioner in the old courthouse cannot also be fixed The air conditioner in the Sheriff's Office works, but the microphones don't work very well and seem to move a lot, making it harder to hear what has been said, even with good hearing. I have good hearing and vision, but still sometimes I have problems understanding. It needs to be fixed, those things. Please. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Denise Wiley.

Good evening, members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Denise Flally. I'm speaking as the chair of the King George Planning Commission and also as your appointed representative to the FAMPO Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I want to welcome ERP this evening, EPR, I'm sorry. I think somebody else got me hooked on getting them reversed. And I look forward to working with them and the rest of the community and updating the comprehensive plan. I'm primarily here tonight to strongly urge this board to vote for continued support of the transition of the 16-mile Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail into a state or federal entity, such as an extension of Caledon State Park or a federal Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail. network. At a FAMPO meeting a few months ago, I was briefed on the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail. This remarkable 800-mile corridor connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Allegheny Highlands and includes places like Mount Vernon and Great Falls National Park. Our local community's rich World War II history and beauty of the Northern Neck is deserving of inclusion into this network. Right now, maintaining nearly 16 miles of wooded property bridges and wildlife habitats require significant ongoing commitments. While volunteers have done an incredible job, a regional state level stewardship provide the level of professional, permanent resource management meant that a rural community simply cannot expect be expected to shoulder indefinitely. Elevating the trail to a state park extension or federal facility unlocks robust state and federal funding streams heavy duty maintenance support and widespread ecotourism marketing. Walkers, cyclists and others from across the mid Atlantic will come to King George patronizing our local diners, shops and lodging. It transforms a local managed management challenge into a premier regional asset at zero fiscal strain to our local taxpayers. Let's do what we can to secure the future of this greenway. A letter of support opens up opportunities for the National Park Service and state park system just to provide planning and assistance to our jurisdiction. It does not control the outcome of that planning, just as the current owner maintains complete control over the use of his land. Now we are privileged to have access to it. I respectfully ask this board to proactively pass a resolution supporting the state or federal transfer of Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail.

thank you for your time and your continued service to King George County thank you that's all the people that signed up is there anyone in the audience who would like to make public comment that's sure

James Shaw, James Monroe District, columnist for the Northern Next Sentinel, assistant journalist, kgmedia.top, speaking partly in my capacity as an EDA member. Repeat hat, water boy. The six-month delayed report on the water under our feet and the rivers and streams that run through many people's backyards has arrived. There's bad news and there's good news. You have no choice, you get the bad news first. As everyone knew or suspected, we collectively are using water faster than it can be replenished. The report deals with the eastern groundwater management area and the eastern shore groundwater management areas. These areas have a few aquifers at various depths. The deepest aquifer for us is the Potomac, and that supplies 70% of our groundwater. I live in Claydale. We just sunk a well into the Potomac aquifer 950 feet deep. The Yorktown Eastover aquifer system supplies 95% of that area's water, and these figures are coming from the report. When one combines the usage and breaks it down, you basically got three areas. One, industrial, about one-third, 35%. One-third is private domestic, about 34%. And one-third is public water supply, 26%. The good news is we need and can develop a long-term plan. we can foresee that all the water competitors are going to be approaching this from an old technology approach. We have a unique opportunity of jumping ahead of that pack. That is only possible if we do this creatively and we do this quite smartly and quietly. And that's why at this point, I'm zipping my lip in public. And I'll work privately with individuals to put King George County in a great water position for future generations. When I read the report, there's all kinds of mischief in there. And I'm not going to get into those details. Again, I don't want to reveal the hand. But knowing those things and knowing how the politics of this works and having researched this across the country, we want to prevent the trouble that potentially could develop. And so that's why I will be privately working with many of you in the coming days, weeks, and months, and perhaps years into the future. May God continue to bless the King George Renaissance. Thank you, sir. Mr. Butler.

Good evening, Gary Butler, King George Realty 9441. Kings Highway. I want to talk about two things this evening. First one is our educational system. I attended the grand opening today of the new Crows Nest Elementary School out by Brook Point High School in Stafford. My daughter who taught here for 11 years and my granddaughter who just graduated from Mary Washington are both going to be teaching there. Beautiful school, lots of energy, very exciting, but the Biggest thing is my daughter will be making in her 11th year or 12th year, she'll be making $17,000 more per year to travel 35 minutes to teach in Stafford County. My granddaughter will make $15,000 more per year as a new teacher. Something really, really wrong with that. We have to do better. I understand this is a BOS meeting, but you all fund it. When that school budget comes around, and we lost, I don't know how many, when I was up there today, I saw at least eight or 10 King George teachers that have left to go up there to teach. That's too big of a disparity, $15,000. So that's issue number one. Second thing is the comprehensive plan update and review. I went through one of those on the Planning Commission years ago. A lot of work. I understand that the county has employed a firm to help guide through that. I also understand that there's some thought or consideration being given to having a steering committee. The word steering should scare you to death right off. I mean, I should have named it something else so it wouldn't draw so much attention to what its purpose might be. But we don't need a steering committee of finding people out in the county that lay people. They can attend the meetings and voice their opinions all they want. especially since we have a firm that's leading us through the comprehensive plan the planning commission are people who have been dealing now some of them several years some of them a year or whatever the case might be with land use issues so they're going to be far more familiar with the types of things that are facing king george than each of you hand picking two people to uh I don't exactly know what the purpose of the steering committee would be, but we don't need it. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Is there anybody else? Ms. Morgan, come on up.

Terry Morgan, Shiloh District. I wanted to start out by just saying I've spoken with everyone except for Mr. Metz today within a few minutes, but this is just in reference to the rezoning and things with the Dahlgren West issue. I want to point out a couple things. 9% of the citizens of King George don't have internet. So that puts us at a disadvantage already. And out of that, 5% don't even have a computer. That's on our census. 30 to 40% still have landlines on average. So the average household that this deals with is 10,000. So that makes getting our information out a little bit difficult, in which we already knew and you guys have tried to adjust multiple times. The point I want to point out about is with the Dahlgren West, which has already been decided, which I spoke to people on that, I informed them of that. But I think that the county needs to be informed too, that that property and that land use when people are looking at it is still an ag land. So there's some sort of hole that's falling in the community with this. We voted and we brought it forth and it took over seven months for that land to be put into record that it was going to be purchased by Rowan. Rowan now owns it, but yet if a citizen looks, the land still comes out as agriculture. So there seems to be a discrepancy because once Rowan bought it, it should have been turned over to industrial use. it's not on our GIS like that so anyone in the area looking does not see that so it's just a correction that needs to be made I'm not I'm not asking for you know everybody to do it now but we do never recognize if people are buying into the community they're looking at their land and they're looking at adjoining lands and they're seeing that that land is ag land they're not seeing that that land has been transferred as of last year or the as of March, that it's been turned over to a developer. So therefore, it makes the people who some of the people that spoke here that were very upset, understandably, that they had no idea it was an industrial. I know that this board worked with it. I understand that. But I'm talking about somebody that's moving over here that's looking and not realizing it. I'm not saying that there's a whole lot of things that could have been done. But I think there is a whole lot of things that can be done eight months later. Now, that being said you know we're talking about large parcels here we're not talking about smart policies we're talking about 223 acres plus you know that that this spreads around you know and i spoke with several of you today so you know take that for what it's worth but i think that it's something that has to be addressed there's there's a pitfall somewhere that has to be addressed i wasn't planning on speaking to this but um when it comes to you know a steering committee I'm caught a little off-guard and so I can't do my research on all of that. But I know in the past we've had these and we've had steering committees. I look at that and I'll have to discuss it another time. Thank you.

Thank you. And we do have some comments that we'll bring back. So stick around. We'll finish public comment. We'll deal with this later. Yes, sir. Mr. Powell, come on up.

Sean Palavoda, 5505 Chatterton Lane. I'm vice chair of the planning commission. I'm looking forward to working on the comprehensive plan with the planning commission. We're charged out by state law to develop the plan and you guys get to approve it or decline it or modify it as you see fit. The steering committee seems to be an inefficiency, whereas that's just going to make everything take longer. The planning commission should work directly with the contractor to get this plan done. We can get it done efficiently and with the people that you guys have appointed to make these decisions. That's all. Thank you.

All right. Anybody else? All right. Seeing none. Anybody have any correspondence they want to read? All right. Anybody online? Excellent. We will continue on then with reports to the board members. Start off with Miss Bender.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Actually, before you get started, and I'll close public comment this time.

We go. I'm sure we'll have staff answer some of the questions that have been asked. everybody hear me it doesn't sound like it but and I will talk and actually during the meeting I'll send Mr. Beale a question about Round Hill and Pine Hill because it might be just some tree cutting that has to be done so I'll send him during the meeting email and he's always very responsive before I actually talk about the board report I gave I do want to make one mention we have in our community at the Smoot Library on Thursday and Friday a meeting about the Gibson solar project And I'm very disappointed in the new owner of that project, Hanwha, because I've had quite a few people in the Shiloh District and outside of the district. In the Shiloh District, particularly the people that are landowners, they got a letter in the mail. And I've even been sent the letter, so I know what it says. But they want information before they go to these community meetings so that they can ask informed questions. And there is no information out there. And our staff has asked them for it.

And the responses we get, we'll have it up the day before. That's unacceptable.

If you have a project and you have a community meeting, which is out there to all the developers, have that information out there because citizens want to come informed to ask good questions they don't want to get the song and dance and the food line gift card at the meeting they would like to actually have questions so they could ask you informed questions so i hope everybody out there including how i want to hear it where's the information and you need to put it on your website before you hold community meetings it seems you're rushing a little fast and it needs to slow down so the citizens are more receptive to our project if you actually give them the information because if not as if you've seen over different projects and even Dogman West citizens feel that there's no transparency and there's something being hidden so I just want to put it out there now I'll get to my board report The first thing I want to do, I gave a short fun fact here for America's 250. Since it's back to school time, here is an interesting fact about King George. Originally, King George in Stafford had the same superintendent. And the school board office was somewhere near the county line in a house that's long gone. But the first county superintendent was a lady named Mary Howard. And she was around 1921 or 1922.

And get this, she made $1,000 to be the superintendent of two school systems.

And the other thing is that you wonder why Stafford and King George have the same, not the mascot, but the school colors. Most likely it's because there is a superintendent.

So blue and gold kind of went with both schools. So that's just a little fun fact.

So our general manager Dan Hamilton and I went to the DEQ headquarters with also Imboden and Stantec who are doing our four of our water permits that are up for next year. And we had a good discussion with them answering some certain questions concerning extra data DEQ needed, justification of water needs and the push to an alternative water source. And I thought it was a very good meeting face to face with the folks writing four of our permits that are up for renewals of January 3rd, 2027. One of them being Dahlgren. Mr. Sullins and I also met with Nick over in Rowan about Dahlgren West and our county administrator was there also and we questioned specific items I know I did related to water purple pipe and discharge bringing up points that were from the newly released SJ 25 groundwater report. Mr. Sullins and I encouraged them to get more information out to the community and to hold some more engagement with concerned citizens. They responded I know to several direct questions from residents surrounding the project. And I want to say happy retirement to Patty Norris Barker, who retired on Friday, who worked for the King George County Service Authority for the last 32 years. We appreciate her dedication, well, actually for the county and the service authority. We appreciate her dedication to the county and wish her well in retirement. And one thing, it's so interesting to go to one of these and people come that you don't expect. And the stories about how Patty touched some people's life, including a young person, where she helped to put her on a path that she now works for Mary Washington as a health care specialist. So it was really nice to hear those stories. You never know how many people that you touch. So happy retirement, Patty. The last thing I want to talk about is in 2024, Senator Stewart helped to pass a groundwater supply report, the SGA 25 report that was supposed to be released by January of 2026. I know several speakers have talked about it here. So that report was not coming out from the governor's office. And there was a reporter from the AP, some of you might have read the story in the AP, that reached out to several people in the area, including Senator Stewart and myself. Senator Stewart and one other person were only using the article, but I was interviewed by her about this report, and it seems that when you give the governor an ultimatum to release the report by midnight, magically 30 minutes before midnight, the report appears, or the story didn't get released. So it kind of magic happens. But I did want to read you the quote that I gave her if she had written her original story, because the story changed several times. There was one story if the report didn't get released, one story when it got released. So I just want to give you the quote that I gave the reporter After skimming through the report, I appreciate its release and its summary of the challenges truly facing Virginia's coastal plain aquifer. The effects to the aquifer by certain industries over decades have caused strain and impacts not just in the direct areas affected, but miles away. Those impacts have true financial, economic, and human costs, and numbers on a paper don't fully show the big picture. As a small locality, King George, we currently have five water withdrawal permits under review that most likely will be tiered and force our service authority to go on an alternative water source by the end of the new 15-year permit. And I say five because the Dahlgren Courthouse, no, the Courthouse Hopyard Combined Permit, which actually we start our clock on the tiered permit, that one is supposed to be done very shortly.

So the other four are due next year.

One current permit negotiated in 2024 was one of the first 15-year permits that is tiered. By year 14, that permit calls for reduced volume for the existing customers, so an alternative water source will need to be found, designed, constructed, and paid for. Our customer base is just 4,700 customers, and our general population is around 28,000 people. Where do you find the funds? Another concern highlighted in this report is the possible saltwater intrusion impacting the source for not only the public system but for private domestic wells. Further review is needed by all stakeholders in the coastal aquifer. We must think long and hard about growth east of 95, not just for homes, but economic development as well. Our comprehensive plan is currently going through a review, and this report will need to be part of our analysis. The politics involved will be a challenge, but as our general manager of the service authority has said to me numerous times, his personal model is politics shouldn't control public health. And that is the end of my board report.

Thank you. Mr. Metz.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. Ms. Morgan, so I did go look if you look if so, if you don't see the Dahlgren West facility showing up as I for industrial on what you're looking at, I did I did go check our GIS site with the overlays for zoning. And it's there. but i am a big user of our website and have been known to find that sometimes you're looking we look at a different link or site and it doesn't show up correctly so let us know there's a gis email right there on the front of the gis website so hopefully that does get corrected i will say the gibson solar is not on our current projects list because it's listed in our compute completed projects list so which to me means that updated package

That means the updated package is probably not complete yet.

Is that correct? All right. So that'll turn over. You'll see that pop up on our King George projects list website as soon as that happens. Because I was unaware that there was a meeting coming up. So I guess I'll, just like everybody else, uninformed for that project. Thanks. I have a couple of nominations for the steering committee, but I think I'll hold those, and then if we get into discussion, we can come back to that later.

Sounds good. Okay. Actually, I'm going to deviate from the plan a little bit, just in case there's anybody that wants to leave normally i would ask mr small to put his comments on this in the uh in his report but that's like the last thing we do and if anybody wants to cut out early or not i don't want you to miss so do you mind go ahead and give an at least you know the part that addresses the uh the zoning so the zoning that is correct so i i got with our community development department this afternoon i was made aware of this i don't know about three o'clock this afternoon

So the zoning was approved August 19, 2025. A letter was sent from Community Development to several individuals, including GIS on September 19, and the GIS was updated September 19, 2025 to reflect an industrial zoning for Dahlgren West. So it has been updated. And I had our GIS manager, who's a longtime employee and resident here in the county, said, make sure of this. And he said, these are the dates that I updated them. So both GE and then I know there's another question with GEV. GEV, that zoning was approved February 17th of 26th, letter sent by Ms. LaDuke March 4th. GIS was updated March 11th of 26th. so staff has updated both of those to reflect the industrial zoning and Ms. Morgan if there's something that you're not seeing I would be more than happy to sit with you but they have in fact been updated shortly after the rezoning was approved September 19th 2025 for the Dahlgren for the Dahlgren West and then March 11th for Green Energy Ventures cool all right thank you we'll come back to you at the end of the meeting for your normal board report Mr. Stroud thank you sir I can think everybody came out and spoke tonight I'm not going to address everybody's remarks but

I look forward to speaking with you, Pastor Shaw, regarding the water. There's a lot of conversations going on about that and things that have happened, and I'm sure you guys have noticed what's happened in Caroline and them passing their straw. They're putting it in the river. I think it was approved at 9 million gallons a day. It was reduced from the original 13 million, but they did get an approval there. uh from the virginia marine resources for that uh thanks for the comments that people provided on the planning commission i found them rather interesting about the steering committee and the steering committee delaying you know the progress on that because i saw a beneficial there's a beneficial um aspect so to hear the comments have been uh to the contrary i found interesting on the 23rd i attended the uh rap panic jail board meeting um what was different is that now they're allowing public comment uh as well so that too is pretty interesting um some of the things that came out of that but It's new, and I don't think they're going to stop it for the time being. That's all I've got for now, sir.

Thank you.

Mr. Davis.

Thank you, sir. Thank you everyone for coming out. Appreciate everyone speaking. Planning Commission, all you guys showing up. I'll address number one, the trail. I don't think anyone here is against the trail. I think my concerns about it right now is, you know, we got Lake Caledon approved. The state's sitting on it because the state doesn't have any money to do with that area of Lake Caledon that we purchased. They have no money. Our state deficit is $40 million in debt. They're in the hole already. So there's no money to do that. So that land is just sitting there doing nothing. My fear and what I want people to figure out is If they purchase the Heritage Trail and they don't have the park rangers to go on the trail, they don't have the money to maintenance the trail, will they shut the trail down? Because it's state run. You have to consider the big picture. We can look at it and go, it's a great asset. It's a great asset. I use the trail. But if the state buys it and they don't have the money to upkeep and run it, will they just shut it down and not let anyone use it? So these are things that we have to consider. Is it best right now for us to kind of keep it in our hands with a few volunteers? Because they may say the volunteers can't run the trail. So you have to look at the big picture of it and make sure, because right now they have no money to give to parks and to, in our state right now, advancing those projects. They don't have the money. So we have to look at that from the end picture. I love the trail. I want people to use it. We have great events there. It brings people into town. But if the state doesn't have the money to run it, what happens to it? And would they put Mr. Lynch, all of his work that he's put into this and everyone else who's put work into it, does it just get put on hold and they're told that no one can use it right now, that it's state property and it can't be used until we have the money to do it. So we have to look at it from that aspect. I don't think that we're against the trail. And there are some things that there are some people that, people who have to cross the trail because they've devised their property and we want to see those relationships get better to where Those people are feeling like their rights are getting infringed upon too. That's the thing we brought up in the last meeting. We protect everyone's individual rights, your rights. I always say your rights go as far as the end of my nose and once they reach the end of my nose, your rights end. So we have to understand everyone's rights need to be protected, not just one, not just the majority, but everybody's. The water issue. I bring this up only because when this DEQ report got released, and there was information that I was privy to before I ran for office, And we caught a lot of slack about rejecting the Amazon deal. Like, you guys are crazy. You know, what's going on with you? And come to find out we weren't crazy. Come to find out that we have a big, major water issue. And when I go to a way and we go to Bayco, we go to these things and you hear people at our level of government Talking about water like it's gold because there's issues. I wonder what's not being told to us from the people who are up above us and the people who are up above them. Because by the time we find out about it and you find out about it, it's too late. So when we came in and said no water would be taken, I had people say, you're just rejecting it because it's Amazon. I have nothing personal against Amazon. All I had, what I have is I have a personal responsibility to protect King George County, the Northern neck and the state of Virginia from opposition. And I cannot allow water to come out of a river to cool your systems. And come to find out it was correct. You know, it's just, you gotta do your homework and stop just looking at, you gotta go a couple layers deep into things if you really wanna find the answer. Don't just get to one answer and think you got the answer. Keep going a little bit deeper and see what happens and what's going on there. We took a lot of heat. And I think DEQ now, and Mr. Stewart had a lot to do with that report being done in the state of Virginia. It started with Caroline. He was like, has anyone done a report to see if they get $14 million, how is it going to affect the river? So he had DEQ run tests and come to find out we're in danger. The water levels here are low. We took a lot of heat from the Zotac, from wanting to downsize land. Come to find out, we were right. I'm sorry. It's the east of 95. They're not just saying non-industrial development. They're saying that even residential development, like we can't handle any more of that on this side of the, read the report. You can AI and pull it up and then go specifically, what does it say about the northern neck? And specifically talk about the northern neck due to residential industrial growth that is a strain on the aquifers here. It's not our fault. There are water mills, there are paper mills in other counties that are just sucking the water and industrial things. They're sucking the water out of aquifer. Hampton Roads is trying to pump it in and they're sucking it out. And at the state levels where we need to be fighting some of these things and bringing those things up to head because those things are causing the quality of our life to deteriorate. We ain't getting very far with water. I don't care how many houses you throw up and how many people you bring here. You're just gonna have a bunch of people going around with no water. It ain't gonna be good for anybody. So we have to look at it. So if we talk about doing things like we need to put a pause on something for a few years, if people are all up in arms, we need to put a pause on something for a few years. Now it's coming from DEQ themselves and from their reports that we need to put a pause on some things for a few years because we are in trouble. We have to figure out this water thing. We can't act like it's not happening. It's happening in real time to all of us. And the more people that move here, right now there are houses. One of my buddies is a developer here. Love him to death, but he's driving me crazy because everywhere I go, boom, boom, there's houses are getting slapped up everywhere. It's just another straw, just another straw, just another well, another hole going down the aquifer. Just bring them here, bring them here, bring them here. It ain't working. It's not working. And we got to wake up just a little bit and say, wait a minute, maybe we as a community need to put a pause on some things and let people figure things out to figure out what the next step is. And then when things are ready, we can hit an unpause button. Mr. Butler was talking about schools and things, those issues. Those are all things that need to be solved. But we have to catch up to those things. And we're not going to do it overnight. It's just not going to happen. I do, I'll end on that. Oh, I do want to, maybe that's why you're here, Mr. Knight, but not, I don't know, but I heard that there was a donation to the animal shelter for $500,000. Is that correct? I don't know the gentleman's name. Are you going to speak on that tonight? Can you come, are you going to speak on it? So I had a couple of, I did have a couple of residents reach out to me. I don't even think they knew the gentleman, but their request was, they feel like something should be named after this gentleman, that some kind of plaque or something should be there to honor him. I mean, the YMCA, I think the county gave him $4 million, and some guy donated $1 million, so now that's renamed as near as long as the King George YMCA, which is kind of irritating to me. But I think there's ought to be something done for him. Maybe in the future when we have a dog park or something of that nature, I don't know, but we'll see, right? Okay. Just want to make sure. I just want you to know that residents reach out to me about it. Okay. Now I know. I'll just give him your number. All right. Next up, I want to... Let me pull this up. I want to nominate Christopher Pelosi. Did I say his name right? Yes. To the Steering Advisory Committee for Comprehensive Plan. Second. Properly seconded. Any discussion?

Yes. I would like to wait for a nomination so we decide what we're doing for the comp and we have their presentation and we decide if we're having a steering committee. I just don't think we should nominate people so we have this discussion. Are we not having one? I would like to discuss that. I would definitely like to discuss that.

Before you do? You want to discuss it before you make nominations? Correct. And then we'll make the nomination.

We can always make the nomination.

That's all. Nothing against anybody nominated. Just want to have the discussion before we throw names out.

All right. We can do that for you.

But if you were... No issue with you pulling that back.

I would definitely second it, though, if you put it here. Unmotioned.

There you go.

We draw your motion. I didn't mean to say motion.

I meant to check you back up.

Yeah, well, you should have chatted. Sorry. Thank you. I'm kidding. Thank you guys for being here, and thanks for listening to me rant. Kitchen's Point.

Were you going to mention Kitchen's Point, Bill?

Yeah, I was going to let you do that.

Oh.

Nope. We're done. Moving on. All right. Thank y'all for coming out tonight. I appreciate that. I'm not going to address all the comments. The one thing I will address is you're right. There are a lot of people in the county that don't necessarily have access to broadband, internet, and stuff like that. But I will say that pretty much everybody's complaint so far has done it on Facebook and in person. So that indicates they've got some level of access to the internet. So, okay. That being said, the Ms. Bender had already talked about one of the main things that we had this past cycle of engaging folks. I want to share with you a cool proclamation that we agreed to do. So this recognizes the Mount Bethel Baptist Association of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia on the occasion of their 151st historic annual session. Now some background on them. The Mount Bethel Baptist Association was organized in 1875, making it one of the oldest African-American Baptist associations serving the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia for more than 150 years to strengthen communities through Christian faith, worship, education, evangelism, fellowship, and service. On January 26, 1898, the trustees of the Mount Bethel Baptist Association purchased 75.12 acres of waterfront property in King George County, Virginia, creating what is today known as the Mount Bethel Christian Center, a place that has welcomed generations for worship, retreats, leadership, development, youth activities, education, and community fellowship. the association has maintained a lasting relationship with King George County for more than 128 years enriching the county's cultural historical and spiritual heritage while providing a gathering place that has welcomed thousands of individuals and families from throughout the region and there's quite a few more details on this but if you're interested in reading it please come up after Miss Fish will have a copy have a copy of it that you're welcome to access but uh i do want to congratulate them on their 151st year um in service so that that's that's a that's a wonderful run um with that being said i will close my report at this time and we'll move on to the consent agenda do i have a motion regarding the consent agenda do i have a motion regarding the concern i'll make a motion to accept the uh consent

Hold on, hold on. The consent agenda as presented.

Second. Properly seconded. Any further discussion? Roll call vote. Ms. Bender? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mr. Metz? Aye. Ms. Stroud? Aye. Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Over to constitutional officers. Are there constitutional officers who would like to make comment tonight? And you're actually on the agenda, sir, so no need to. What's up? Okay. Any other constitutional officers? All right. Moving on to the Board of Supervisors agenda. Public hearing. This is continued from Tuesday, July 21st um the king george county code chapter 14 article 8 meal tax the proposed ordinance amendment would repeal section 14-180 discount of the meal tax ordinance eliminating the current seller's discount region which does not allow sellers to retain three percent of the meal tax collected and timely remitted to the county draft ordinance um zero dash one nine dash twenty twenty six Ms. Regina Puckett, would you mind coming on up for any questions? We actually had the public hearing of this two weeks ago, but unfortunately our IT technology was not working out for us. So we decided to push the vote back to deny so that people who weren't in the audience, if they wanted to make any comment on this, could. So before I open it up for public comment, do you have anything you'd like to add, ma'am?

Yes. At the July 21st board meeting, the Board of Supervisors had extended the meals tax public hearing to August 3rd, 2026 meeting. This is a public hearing to repeal the 3% seller's discount under the current meals tax ordinance. The 3% seller's discount allows restaurants and food vendors to retain a small portion of the meals tax they collect to offset the administrative and collection costs. They provide and file, they pay their provided they pay their remittance on time. Monthly remittances paid after the due date are not eligible for a discount and are subject to penalty. The penalty is as follows, 30 days is 10%, 31 to 60 days is 20%, and over 60 days is 25%, not to exceed 25% with the minimum penalty being $2. Many of our small businesses take advantage of the seller's discount. I would not want to discourage the small business owners that pay in a timely manner in order to receive the small discount. The job of the commissioner of revenue is to enforce the code that is put into effect by the state of Virginia and or the local board of supervisors. Sometimes collection of the meals tax can be difficult. The seller's discount is in place as incentive for the business to remit the meals tax on time. It would be my recommendation to keep the seller's discount in place and set a cap of $200 on the amount of the discount. The discount would be 3% of the tax due or $200, whichever is less. Payments received after the due date will not be allowed this deduction and will be subject to penalties and interest.

Another option would be to repeal the seller's discount and lower the percentage of meals tax to 5% or even back to 4%.

There were a few questions asked of me at the last meeting that I would like to address. Mr. Stroud asked when the meals tax was adopted for King George County. The answer is 1991 at the rate of 4% with the 3% seller's discount on the amount of tax due. Mr. Sullins asked what the total discount for all meals tax would be. The answer is approximately $64,000. Mr. Metz asked what revenue was in 2025 for meals tax. The answer is 1,810,874.34 at that rate of 4% using the same numbers at 5% would have been 2,263,592.90 and at 6% would have been 2,716,311.48.

All right. Anything else? That's all I have. Excellent. Thank you for bringing that up. All right. At this time, we'll open the floor for public comment. Upon completion of the public comment, I'll bring the matter back to the board for consideration. The public comment is going to be lived into three minutes per speaker to ensure everyone has an opportunity to speak. Please state your name and address before you make your public comment. And I'll also note that this is only related to the public hearing, what we're talking about at this time. Is there anybody that would like to make public comment on this?

You need to come up.

You need to come on up.

I spoke last time. I get to speak again. Yeah.

You came to meetings in a row. You get an extra three minutes.

My name is Perry Bowen. I'm 17, 518 Nanzatico Lane, King George, Virginia. Here as a private citizen and part of the ownership group of Creekside Farm Brewery. I want to commend Ms. Puckett and all the work she does and her office does trying to keep this straight. As I said at the last meeting, I kind of got pulled into this at the last minute. I was given prior notice by Ms. Bender that this increase was going to happen. And was I going to get up and say anything and try to do something? I said no. I was going to keep my mouth shut. And then of course, I got in an anyhow. So enough background on that. I have since my last comments, research that yes, this is allowed. Yes, the law has been on the books. Yes, they've been doing this rebate thing. Do I agree with that? No, but that's fine. But I have also, since I said something at the last meeting and all of this gets out on the internet and every, I have had multiple conversations with all the stakeholders, including some of the people who voted to put you guys here. And I mean restaurant owners, patrons at Creekside, everybody. To a person, they don't think that this was properly advertised. I don't know whether it is or not. Please don't shoot the messenger. They kind of think it was hastily done. And when we discuss it for the percentages, we go to four to six, like that's nothing. But six is 50% more than four. And 50% is a lot. So that may need to be visited. As far as the $60,000, if you want to compensate for that, that probably needs to be looked at as well. Now to me personally, I thought about this a lot. Warren probably should have. But I thought about this a lot. And the comment that was made multiple times by you guys and other people is, well, if somebody's deciding to leave, you know, they're going out to dinner, they're not going to say, well, we're not going to eat in King George. We're going to drive to Fredericksburg because they raised meal tax 2%. Okay? And that's true. That's not undeniable. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't look at the fact that we need to encourage people to come to King George to eat. It's not the people leaving King George, it's people coming to King George. So anything we can do to encourage that we need to do. And cutting it back to 5% seems like a logical thing because that would be less of an increase. Okay. And it would incentivize you. It may at least make it look better to people from other communities. You know, it's in Prince William, I think it's 3%. In Fairfax County, it's 3%. So anyway, I don't know whether reset's possible or pushing things down the road, but I think you probably ought to consider that. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Is there anybody else who would like to make public comment? Okay, do we have correspondence? We have one.

All right, my correspondent is, my name is Jeff Stonehill from the Dalvin District. I've voted to object to repeal of the seller's discount. As we heard tonight, it seems pretty vague in the General Assembly. If the General Assembly actually changed the law this year, Searching Online comes up with mixed messages. AI shows there has been no specific legislation built in Virginia Senate to repeal discount, often referred to as a dealer discount or vendor compensation sales tax. The General Assembly has debated change and adjustments to dealer retail sales tax discounts and has simply voted on repeal portions tax by repeal measure targeting a local seller's discount. It has not advanced roll call vote. I also represent the King George Restaurant Owners Group, comprised of 10 businesses so far. All are disgusted with the lack of support that the county showed its local brick and mortar restaurants. First, it allows food trucks to slowly move to the county, taking business from local restaurants. Then the county starts advertising, promoting trucks to come in for truck Tuesdays and food truck rodeos. Then raise the local meals tax to 6%, with very little notice for us to come speak against it. A 4.5% or maybe a 5% would have been a lot easier to swallow. King George has always had the reputation of being business friendly. This needs to change. You need to think more about your local brick and mortar establishments that pay all their taxes.

All right.

Thank you. Any other correspondence? All right. Anybody online? All right. At this time, I will close public comment, and we will close the floor for public hearing and bring it back to the board.

I'll just put up from because I was probably the only one who didn't agree to the raising the meals tax and I've talked to a couple of small businesses and I've looked at their receipts and that I've seen the receipts that were out there when there was 4% and 6% and there's a percent yeah the public hearing is about the 3% right what I'm getting I'm getting to the part I've seen the difference it adds on. And then I've talked to those business owners about what does the sellers, those that take advantage of it, do for them. The restaurants have such a small bottom line. I'm not saying Chick-fil-A and Chipotle and the big restaurants. I'm talking about our small mom and pops. And there's got to be the 3% at least gives them that small margin, it helps narrow that small margin between success or failure. And so I understand not wanting Chick-fil-A and the bigger sheets and all them to get that, but I don't even know if there's something we can do to maybe the smaller business, and Mr. Smollett's shaking her head. So I am for keeping the seller's discount to help those small businesses. I mean, those true small business, not Chick-fil-A, not Sheetz, not Wawa, you know, to help them with those profit margins. And I wish we could revisit the meal stack I want to be raised.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anything?

Did I get my mic to work? Yeah, so I had also heard the concern about the legislative affairs paragraph that was in our proposed ordinance that we would vote on. And I ran it by Mr. Stewart, our county attorney, and he did come back with, yes, it is allowed by two provisions within the tax code to allow for discounts of early payment. So if we do pass it, that would need to be stricken. I think I'm kind of leaning, like Ms. Bender said there, with everything else that we've done this year, this is a small thing that we should just leave the way it is.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Bowen, for your comments. They're meaningful. I like your honesty and that you share how you feel about it, but also the comments from talking to people. comment. I just looked up Prince William because Prince William did. They just lowered their mills tax in 2025. They lowered it to 3%. But it's worth noting that they had a 4,237% increase in revenue, a 68% increase in two-year revenue from data centers at $280.2 million. Okay. they make significant revenue from data centers in Prince William. So, I guess if you're making more money than allows you to reward other things. As people have heard, this revenue, and it may seem small in the big context, but it was included in the budget. So if it isn't included, then it's got to come from somewhere. I enjoy Creekside. I know a number of people that come from the Fredericksburg area and South Stafford, the borders, King George, and goes to Creekside because I meet them out there. But they don't go for the lower tax. They go there because they like coming there. because the kids can play and they can, you know, enjoy seeing each other and they just enjoy being there. It's the atmosphere. It's not the lower sales tax. I am, you know, when it comes to helping small business, I'm not against that. I'm a small business. I don't think I get it. Do I get a discount? Regina? No, I don't. Do I pay you early? Focus. You know, well, it's just,

um i don't have a problem with it you know i'm not saying that you know is it good to hand out other people's money cool it is but it's not my job to thank you sir yes sir thank you comments yeah i mean i've made my point clear on this is i'm not a fan of meals tax period because i own a restaurant in king george has something to do with it and that's when i really started learning about meals tax i lived in downtown franksburg for years i've lived in other major cities I can't, there's not one time that I went out and eat and thought to myself, well, what's the sales tax there? And I bet probably no one here has either. You didn't go to Sedona and downtown Franksburg. You didn't go here and go, well, we're not going there. Their sales tax is higher. All right. So that's kind of a null point. It's not, that's not going to happen. The meals tax itself is ridiculous to me in a sense, because we needed to bring in revenue. It's like if, At my restaurant, if we bake a pie and we sell that pie, no meals tax. I put a knife to it, cut it into pieces, it's a meals tax. Same pie, same everything, except I decide to cut it up into sections and sell that thing, and now there's a meals tax board. It sounds a little bit ridiculous. But that being said, it's not going to go away anytime soon. Of course, if we vote on this tonight, I would do the same thing as when we raised it, is I would have to, I would abstain myself from voting on the subject because if I vote for it, it's not a win for me. If I vote against it, it's because I own a restaurant in King George and I'm after my own agenda and that's what I want to do. So I'm not a fan of it. I do think that if we were really, if we really want to help small businesses in King George, you know, they talk about how small businesses usually close down in the first three years. And that first three years in there, when a new restaurant comes in, and you got Galley's Cafe, and you got Lala's Puget Mousetide, I am there watching the two people struggle and fight and help each other out. They basically are just working back and forth helping. And maybe for the first two or three years, maybe we don't charge them a meals tax. And we let that small business get on their feet and learn how to run their business and start making money and And so they're not really stealing from Peter to pay Paul because that's really what goes on a lot in the first couple of years. If a restaurant breaks even in the first year, it's a success. That's the honest truth. It's like a daycare. If it breaks even in the first year, it's a win-win situation. So I'm not a big fan of meals tax period. I do understand that, like Mr. Butler brought up today, teachers, firefighters, police officers, roads and sheriff's department if i could tell you how many emails i get that tell me fix ralph bunch fix this build this build and it ends with and don't rate and keep my taxes low that's how it always ends it's just it it's amazing to me and it's like i mean you're you're always trying to catch up i think what's our what's our budget in the whole next year just starting out the lower 147 million

No, no, no.

What's the $10 million?

I think it's $5 million before we get into next year. We already have to find a way to make up $5 million going into next year. So as much as we want the things that we want, all right, I mean, we have to. It's one of those things, too. Like I said, I don't like a meals tax, but if you look at everything from a big scope picture of needs and everything else, You have to look at it down the line just as much as you're looking at it right now in the pain point. You have to look at the whole thing. Because it's not the small business. I wish there was a way to divide it and say the small business, they get the break. But Chick-fil-A and McDonald's, because their stuff's an automatic payment or whatever that they do, they're the ones that are making the most money from it. I mean, let's be honest with ourselves. I don't have foot traffic at my restaurant. You've got to specifically go, that's where I want to go eat. unless you work for the service authority. That's the only person that just can walk down the street to it. Anyway, that's the end of my report.

All right. Thank you. All right. As we bring this back up for a vote, I will remind you that this is, we're voting on whether or not to repeal the 3% discount. So whatever motion you make, be careful with any double negatives. Do I have a motion?

All right. Do you have any comments one way or the other?

For me personally, I think $64,000 compared to the rest of our budget is like a pimple on a nap. But I mean, it's just not, it's nothing. But if we can help If we can help small businesses, give them a little bit of a boost, then yeah, that's something I'm willing to do. Can I add on that, sir?

Only because I'm going to say this. Are you going to focus? I'm always focused, my friend. If we are going to do something like that, then maybe we can do something about the fact that when a small business pays its meal tax and it pays it by credit card, even if it pays it on time, it loses that reward because they charge you a 3% credit card fee. There's other things too that we're not rewarding to so I'm just bringing that up.

Okay. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to reject the proposed ordinance amendment that would repeal section 14-180 discount of the meals tax ordinance.

Second.

So I can read the rest of it. Eliminating the current seller's discount.

No you're fine. I was going to say I wish the county attorney was here because we could just do nothing and let it die but I mean But no, the motion's on the floor properly seconded. Any further discussion? All right, roll call vote. Mr. Stroud? Nay. Mr. Metz? Aye. Ms. Bender? Aye. Mr. Stain? Yep, understood. Chair votes aye. Motion carries. All right, moving on. Presentations.

Thank you, Regina. Appreciate you.

Presentations. First will be item 08-03, King George County Comprehensive Plan Kickoff Presentation Discussion. Presentation will be by Mr. Will Cockrell, Mr. Todd Gordon, and Tyler Hinkle from EPR.

Thank you very much for having us. I'm Todd Gordon. I'm principal planner at EPR. My colleague Tyler Hinkle, senior planner at EPR. Will Cockrell is a delight, but not with us this evening. I apologize. um so we are here to discuss the uh the beginning uh and the kickoff of the comprehensive plan update process um we're very pleased to be had the opportunity to work with the county on this important plan and so i will make sure this works there we go um so i got it um So some of you may be very familiar with comprehensive plans. I know we had some comments earlier from folks who've been involved in the past. Others may not be sure. But we'll talk a little bit about the basics as well as about the existing comprehensive plan. Would you like me to use this?

Thank you. Thank you.

We've also circulated a survey to staff as well as elected and appointed officials to begin collecting some of the data that we'd like to use, and so we'll discuss that as well. But again, our firm is EPR. We're a planning and engineering firm. We're based in Charlottesville, also employees in Richmond and some other locations. But we help communities plan for their futures in a variety of ways. So Will Cockrell, myself, and Tyler Hinkle all represent EPR. We're also assisted in this process by RKG Associates. RKG is a firm that we love working with who are economists. And so they'll be a great help when it comes to fiscal impacts and fiscal considerations. If you use the QR code at the edge of that slide, you would see the website that we put up as we made our proposal for this project. And so we will turn that into a project website as we go along. It's a place where people can go to receive information about opportunities to be engaged in the process, to read draft materials as we go along, and so forth. I don't think there's any need to show it now, but thank you. So a bit about the process. As we get into this process, there's a lot of assessment up front, which involves us going through existing documentation, the existing plan and many other documents that help guide the decisions that are made in the county. This plan, like any comprehensive plan, is also very much a plan for and by the citizens of the county. And so there's an engagement process that we'll go through. And we think it'll be a very robust engagement process of meetings, surveys, and other opportunities for citizens to be involved and have their voice. in this plan. And so as we get further into the plan, we'll begin to map our choices. That is, what are the strategies and goals that the county has moving forward? We'll also very importantly work on the future land use map, which is an important feature of comprehensive plans. I'll talk more about in a minute. We'll draft a document itself. We'll bring that draft document back to the public to make sure that their initial opinions are reflected in that plan. And then we'll talk about implementation. Ultimately, the plan is a guidance document that is implemented by the other policies that the county adopts. The zoning ordinance, your capital improvement plan, and your annual budget, and so on. So we had initially discussed a steering committee working role that is a small committee who could provide guidance to this process on how and when to engage the public to review draft items and so on. And so regardless of the makeup of that body, these are people who would be very involved in the process and help this plan to reflect what they see in their community. We also always plan for board or planning commission touch points to keep these bodies informed throughout so that your voice is represented in the plan and that adoption is sort of certainty. And so we want to also work very efficiently with county staff. You've got a great county staff who is dealing with land use and other issues daily. So very briefly about the comprehensive plan in Virginia. The comprehensive plan is required of all cities and counties and towns by the code of Virginia. It is meant to be a guidance document that provides for the future needs and requirements of the community. And as I was saying before, it is a guidance document. And so the comprehensive plan is not the law, but it is implemented by laws such as the zoning ordinance. And so this is a plan for the physical development of the community, including land use, transportation, utilities, housing and many other topics. And so every local government must adopt a comprehensive plan and the locality should review that plan at least every five years to determine if updates are necessary. You have an existing comprehensive plan. Your last comprehensive plan was adopted in the fall of 2019. And we've already begun the review of this plan. This plan, your existing comprehensive plan covers population and economy. It covers land use, culture and natural resources. There's a chapter on transportation, a chapter on utilities, community services and facilities such as public buildings, public safety facilities and so on. And there's an implementation chapter that sets out actions for the future. Your existing plan includes this map, which shows the general arrangement of the county, including outlying agricultural areas and areas where development has begun to occur. So the principles that are included in the existing plan are good principles. Nonetheless, this process will confirm or reaffirm these principles. But the existing plan principles include preserving the rural character of the county, enhancing the health, safety, and welfare of the community, promoting a healthy and diversified economy, protecting environmental resources, encouraging a balance of residential uses, guiding growth to certain designated areas, minimizing traffic, protecting the quality and quantity of water, and encouraging the construction of central sewer facilities in key areas. So this plan provides a strong vision and growth framework that we appreciate. It's certainly strong in its detailed background research and data. It integrates discussions of infrastructure very well and utilities, and it provides some goals for the future. But I think our hope and our goals for the plan update include having a very strong public engagement process. um updating all the data analysis there's a wealth of data out there that we can benefit from we'd like to see this plan provide a straightforward integration of maps and graphics so that the document itself is very easy to read and easy for all to understand and we'd like to be very clear about implementation that is what does the county want to do who is in charge of doing it and and on what uh time frame do we plan to to get it done

okay um so we circulated a bit of a survey that asked some of the questions that we need to need to understand um up front um and so i'm going to allow tyler to talk a bit about that yeah thank you todd and thank you all for having us this evening it's great to be here with you all um it was a good lesson and to look at some of the conversations you all had at the beginning it takes me a lot back to when i used to work in shenandoah county a lot of the issues of farmland preservation and water resources. So we're really excited and lucky to work with you all. One of the things that we wanted to do is just get a pulse from all of you on how you feel about your current comprehensive plan before we, you know, really dive into what it could be, what you want your community to be in the future. So the first question we asked was in terms of usability, how would you rate the existing comprehensive plan? I guess that's for first.

Sorry about that.

So we had a split in the vote and there wasn't a majority vote on it, but most felt that it was either fair or difficult to use. I assume most here feel that generally feel how you feel about the current comprehensive plan, that it might be a little difficult to navigate and use. And that's something we're going to explore as part of the plan. We want it to be a document that is accessible by everyone in the public, those who come here, that live here, and those who are using it every day. So we also asked, in your official role, what suggestions would you have for making the comprehensive plan more user-friendly? As local officials, what format would best help you make decisions? And the responses that we got were a variety of different ideas that folks had had. Some had hinted about the need to making sure that the plan is ADA compliant, to make sure we have plain language summary with quick guides, and then offer deeper detail for folks to dive in if they'd like to. Having very graphical representations, good maps, and personal level view of how the future might look. to cleanly and clearly explain the plan's purpose, designations, the role, making sure that your goals are connected to your actions, and to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats so that you can best position yourself for what you can leverage for the future. Turn it back over to Todd to talk about some of the topics that folks had talked about and what else we'd heard.

Again, this survey was a brief survey that was circulated among county staff as well as Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. One of those questions was what topics need the most attention. what we heard on that. Land use and development was certainly a standout. Economic development was certainly a standout. Community services and infrastructure, things like public safety fall into that bucket, as well as housing and transportation. There's much less attention to some of these other items, including historic preservation goals and mapping issues, but we appreciate those issues as well. Certainly, economy and land use are big topics. We intend to make a very good show of public engagement in the construction and update of this plan. That starts with a public engagement plan. That is, what meetings do we need to hold? At what intervals? Where do we locate them? How do we let people know about the opportunity? We'll also spend time looking at past input results, surveys and other comments that have been made in the past that might be incorporated into this plan. I mentioned before we'll have a project website as kind of a one-stop where people can provide input but also hear about meetings, upcoming and review draft information. We want to find out how to get the word out about these meetings through social media and other means of communication.

I have a quick question. I'm just on this particular slide. For the last time in 2019, we used like, it was a couple locations, but they had like whiteboards and post-it notes. What kind of, when you have these communication, how are you going to collect the data and what kind of interaction you're going to have for that? I would like to know that.

Absolutely. So we want to make public meetings as interactive as possible because, you know, inviting people to listen to one of us talk for an hour is not interesting. And that doesn't collect information. And so we typically do meetings in a variety of formats. There's a photo here of an open house type format where there are a variety of informational boards around a room for people to look at, including maps and opportunities for input by writing or sort of voting on certain things. Sometimes we do meetings that do involve a little bit of a presentation and interactive type things like mapping. So at some point in this process, we'll roll out maps and ask people to help us locate areas where growth may be welcome, areas that must be preserved, and so on.

I'm just giving a last one. One thing I liked is they had certain topics up in like a piece of paper and then posted notes and people could, and I was kind of, I got an education of what people wanted way back then. It was dog park even then. So I was just wondering if you were going to do something like that. I know it's different than 2019. There's a lot more tools available.

There are a lot of tools available, but that is exactly the sort of thing that we do. But there's some other things we'd like to do. We would like to have a community survey. That's one way to allow an input opportunity for people who aren't able to make it out to a meeting. So we would like to do that. Our plans as proposed, and there's flexibility to discuss this more, were for roughly four large community meetings. As well as our attendance at public events, which is something we do sometimes, is take this show on the road and go to places where people are, a farmer's market, our fall festival, to be there with information about the plan and with questions for people who are attending an event. We often do that, as well as stakeholder meetings. Stakeholders may be folks who work in county government. It may be chambers of commerce, environmental groups, and others who we'd like to have the opportunity to meet with and hear about their needs and their initiatives. There's no one answer to public engagement. The answer is many paths to collecting input. So we certainly asked for and will continue to collect information from you all about what you see as a successful engagement process. And so we did ask this of the brief survey that we sent out, and we heard quite a lot, certainly a lot about being as inclusive as possible, making input opportunities available to everybody. all areas of the county, people in different stages of life and so on. And we heard that we want to do our engagement in plain language, just sort of talk to people, avoid jargon, avoid legal or planning terms and so on. And to create a really transparent opportunity for feedback. So we'll certainly be talking more about that. We also asked about the planning process generally, not just the engagement process. But we wanted some feedback on what you'd like to get out of this process over the next 18 to 24 months. And we heard some things such as a shared community identity and a vision. A really strong statement about where this county wants to be in 20 years. And we heard about practical implementation strategies. That is, yes, here's where we want to be in 20 years. Now, what are the actual steps that we need to take in the next two, four, and six years to deliver us there? This one seems potentially a little redundant, but we did ask about those hot topics. What are the things that we really need to cover here? Comprehensive plans cover a range of topics, including those that are prescribed by the Code of Virginia, transportation and demographic issues and so on. But when we asked this question of you all, we heard a lot about the balance of growth and rural preservation. as well as expanding things like housing choice. And so the question was left open at the end of the survey, any additional advice or direction you'd like to share? And we heard a range of things, including giving very clear recommendations with this plan, using very clear and concise language to make the plan as usable as possible.

All right.

So next steps. As I said, this is an 18 to 24-month process. We're very, very happy to be working with you all on it. So some of the things that we'll do immediately is we should have this discussion about a steering committee. We are looking for a body to work very closely with. on this plan, planning for public engagement opportunities and vetting the process as we go along. Whether that's a steering committee, whether that's a planning commission or others, we can have this discussion. But we're looking for that advice, information, help with recruitment, that is getting the word out about input opportunities and so on, and review of draft materials. And so getting a group in place and ready to do that is certainly on the list.

and any other questions and discussion we're happy to hear before we open questions I did ask Mr. Schmolen to come prepared to talk a little bit about the timeline why is it going to take so long so so yes sir so when we brought up the RFP for for the for the comp plan we received five proposals One firm did not provide a definitive timeline for how long it would take to do their work. One firm had a 16-month timeline, and three firms had 18 months to complete their work. And you heard me say at the last meeting, 18 to 24 months. Well, if they're 18 months, then we have to go through the public hearing process at both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, thereby extending it to four to six months as far as public hearing. um so so i hope that answers your question and you know in as i stated back in july 21 you know in my 20 plus years local government the 18 to 24 month is this this is what it takes to get through a comprehensive plan update um anything else i can answer on that or you know the professionals would like to add but that that's what i've seen and what we received as far as uh individuals looking to update the comp plan

Okay, thanks. I'm sure we'll talk more about that in a minute. But Kathy, I didn't mean to shut you down. I just want to make sure Matt got his thing in the first.

When we did it in 2019, I actually came on the board in 2018 and it was already in process and it didn't finish until that date. So I understand that. But one of mine is I've read a lot over the past weekend about steering committees and letting our planning commission do it. And so what's the advantage? Because what I'm afraid of, I don't want one group steering it in one way. You know, I want you guys to be the moderators and then figure out true citizen input. So I would like to know what is the difference between, in your opinion, and why would one be an advantage over the other? And how could it be structured so that there's a template and you kind of put them, not in a box, but so that you guys are like the, as best you can be, the unbiased mediator?

First of all, on the term steering committee, the use of a group like this is to steer the process, not the conclusions of the plan. We want them as a partner in how do we conduct this process. Ultimately, the plan is meant to be, and if done successfully, is the voice of the community at large. And so we're looking to a committee to help us engage with the community at large, not to speak over the community at large. So it's certainly true that many governments go with a steering committee who's specially appointed to work on the comprehensive plan, which allows them to sort of focus on this long-range lens. But we have definitely worked with communities who also just had the Planning Commission serve that role. And so it can definitely go either way. The Planning Commission, yes, is in touch with a lot of the land use decision making and so has a real valuable perspective on that. But they're also so quite busy. So, you know, it can go either way. And I don't think we... are prepared to express strongly in either direction. Either way can be a very successful path.

It's a time commit so that I would want to if we do do a steering committee or whatever you call it to who we select on it to make sure that they could actually commit to the process That would be one of my things to not make quick whoever the first person who fills that application online. And I'd also want to give the community a little more time to actually go online and fill out the information to nominate themselves. So we have a wide range of individuals that would be good fit.

And also, as just discussed, these can be a somewhat lengthy process. And we want to work with a group that's prepared to be there from start to finish.

Other questions? Go ahead. Question, back to the schedule. I'll just preface this with I'm not against an 18-month schedule. A good plan that takes a little while is what we're after, what I'm after. I think the community deserves that. That said, I think you had put four major engagements with the public. Is there a thought about maybe two upfront and two towards the end? Fill in some of those bullets on that, those big contact points with county folks, if you could.

So certainly the thought behind our planning for community events and engagement is that the engagement takes place in phases throughout. And so we do engagement early in the process. And this is fact finding, hearing what people's, what issues people are seeing in their community. It's establishing that long range vision, where do we want the county to be in 20 years. In the mid part of the process, meetings two and three, we are collecting more specific information, say meeting two. This is a meeting where I would put maps on the table in front of the public and ask them to help us make decisions about areas for residential growth, areas for commercial growth, areas for preservation, transportation needs and so on. A little later in that process, we're in a phase where we've created goals for the future and are creating the actions. That is, what are the specific steps that this county needs to take in order to achieve our vision for the future? And then the very final phase is vetting the document. That is, we've constructed a document, we need to take it back to the public and say, does this represent what you shared with us as we went along? So those meetings are focused on different phases of the process that we had planned out.

Thank you. And you've heard tonight, we do struggle to get the word out here in the county. Lack of media, just the size that we are. So I've talked to at least two people on the planning commission. They volunteered some active engagements and maybe some creative like go stand in front of food line which is probably not something you as our contractor would could you know naturally jump to but I would suggest that as we get through this we'd be very active with our partners in this and see if we can scrounge up some volunteers to maybe add to your engagements go ahead yes sir thank you I don't have any problem with the timeline

I have some concerns. One, in that a part of this process, unfortunately, I feel needs to be an education process. Because if you don't educate the people that you're trying to get input from first, then they're gonna make uneducated decisions. And if they are not familiar with where data centers are going, familiar with the current plans are in place because amazingly, we find out that people are just unaware and for various reasons, but as Miss Morgan talked about tonight, you know, there is a problem that we have gotten so much better. I applaud the county staff and Miss Southall and what they're doing on the website. It's light years better and there's a lot of information out there, but people don't go there and they don't educate themselves. They're busy running kids around and doing stuff and living life and they're just not paying attention to what's going on unless it directly affects them, if it doesn't show up to their door. So whenever you have an engagement and if you can generate the engagement, If those people, if you don't ask them, you know, I don't know if you ever watch news like Jesse Waters World, and he used to go around and walk around on the corners and ask people questions and stuff. And they had no clue about things that you seem pretty common knowledge. And I feel like that may be the case without some form of education. Transportation. I know you guys are considerate, but a lot of people, you know, that's an afterthought. But here in the county, it needs to be a forethought. It needs to be, you know, we've got to think about how we're going to move people around the county, because if you start designating these areas without that, some people don't think about it until afterwards, and you've got a big problem. Also, I didn't hear any mention in your brief about what the other counties in the northern neck are doing. Okay, so here, because everybody that lives east of here, they either cross a bridge and go across the river so that they're south or they come right through King George. And everybody, because 301 being an alternate 95 into Maryland, it's like a highway, okay? I mean, you could add three more lanes to it and I don't think it'd slow people down. Those are some major considerations that need to be taken in, but definitely the counties west here. What is their long-range plan so we don't have fracture side and stuff with that? I think I can hold the rest until another time.

Thank you. Do you have any questions or anything you want to bring up? All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Looking forward to working with you. All right, we'll move on to action items. That was just a presentation. There was no decision or anything like that for tonight. So just getting the ball rolling. Action items up next is item 0804, Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail. So I know y'all had asked to take this off, but we can't because you asked to put it on two meetings ago to do the letter of affirmation that we still support it. that passed no action was taken it was brought back before the board for reconsideration last time the way our the way the bylaws in the board read if any voting member on the winning side of any issue the next meeting the next meeting only so there's a statute of limitations can bring it back up for reconsideration Mr. Stroud brought it back up. We discussed it. We decided not to vote on it last week, but to push it. Well, actually, we couldn't. With the new ordinance that the state has passed, we can't vote on something the same night. We have to stew over it and vote on it at the next meeting. Anyway, long story short, there is something that was passed. No action was taken. We have to address it. So we can keep kicking it down the road. But at some point, we're going to have to deal with it. So that's why it didn't come off the agenda for tonight. So are there thoughts on the proclamation for the trail?

I would just... I'd like to hear from one of the people that are here to represent. You've heard my concerns, and I just want to make sure they've been addressed. They've been addressed. Like I said, I have no issue with the Heritage Trail. So either one of you...

One or the other.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to come on up and answer some of these questions. Mr. Williams, the one question you had that if the trail could just be closed, there is no money. The Friends of Caledon basically keep Caledon State Park alive. I was the president of the Friends group for 13 years. When they went ahead to choose to add Lake Caledon to the property, there is no plan as such. Their comprehensive plan, they are going to start the end of this year. They have, they knew that the railroad is going to be part of Caledon State Park. They can't start anything until there is a comprehensive plan. So yes, it'll be delayed. And I saved Lake Caledon from 97 homes being built, which would have been a transportation nightmare. And I'd much rather have a park and the park does nothing than to have had 97 homes on that land so going back to the trail because I cannot really speak for DCR I'm not a representative but I am a representative of the trail the owner of the trail is selling the trail this is the whole purpose of why pushing for the state park to take it over And as you know, there is a utility easement on that property. What would you rather have on that 240 acres that goes 16 miles to our county? I'd rather have nothing done to it than to sell it and put in the wrong hands. So to keep it in perpetuity is to have our state park take it over. and if they don't have the money but the friends of the dirt plan on continuing on to support and maintain that trail and this is the best opportunity and decision for this trail may I answer any other questions yes ma'am thank you so the reason that Caledon Lake

area isn't opened, they have the money to open it?

It is open for walking. It is not open for you to drive your car onto. Any state park is owned by the, well, it is public land. So if you want to go and walk on that property, I've asked Nina, the manager of Caledon, I cannot stop anybody from walking on Lake Caledon because it is a state park. If you want to drive and park your car on it, just like when you go to Caledon, you pay a fee to park your car. But right now, you can walk on Lake Caledon.

So if somebody wants to fish on there, they can?

They can. People have been fishing on it.

Okay. So you mentioned that if this isn't sold isn't sold to the state and there there's a utility easement and you're saying that I didn't hear the option for the original property owners to have the opportunity to buy their land back no because it was purchased by the federal government back in World War II

And what is being purchased, the plan from DCR, is the real estate that is owned now by David Brickley. No more, no less. It's like somebody buying property next to yours. They can't decide they want a little bit more. And so what you see that's on the map of the trail is what it is.

So tell us about this, this other option with this utility easement.

Roger Williams owns the majority of the utility easement. He wants it become part of the state park. He has not decided if he wants to sell it or donate it. That's in negotiations now.

Where is that located? Pardon? Where is that located?

The easement. 15.7 miles underneath the trail. The whole trail is the easement?

Yeah. Gotcha.

Okay. 15.7 miles underneath the trail.

So if a fiber optic wanted to go, if you sold it to Dominion or whatever, be a horrible thing.

Also high transmission power lines for projects. Go to data centers. That'd be a nice pathway. But I would like you to ask a question that was brought up about the horse use because I did ask you that and you did tell me it was allowed but there was some agreement and one man didn't really keep up the bargain of making sure they cleaned their part of the trail.

there has been horses on the trail horse groups that was before me it was at least 10 years ago so I've asked some of the members of the group that have been with the group much longer than myself and a horse organization did approach the trail if they could use it and the owner of the trail said yes if you would help maintain what damage is done by the horses and they refused and that's kind of the conclusion it came that because of the surface cannot withstand a lot of traffic from horses my background is horses I know so unless somebody is willing a horse organization to come forward to help maintain then we would be more than willing to talk about it what is maintain Well, I talked to hikers on it today, and I always stopped to ask how they liked the trail, had they been on it before, what do you think about having horses on it? And the woman did a really funny face, and I said, well, explain to me. And she said, we hike a lot all over. We've been to Lake Anna. there are horses on the trail and there's a mud puddle the horse goes around the mud puddle the people then go around the mud puddle the mud puddle gets bigger and then and also of course horses leave manure behind I know horses when they go to defecate you know when they're going to you step off the side continue walking so there's little pops in the grass instead of I've seen them stop my horse and there's this gigantic pile in the center of the trail there are more hikers and bikers on the trail than there are people who are interested in equestrian but we would open the idea as long as we have help the state park I did ask if it became a state park on a rails to trails would horses be allowed and they said once we do the surface so it doesn't really mess up the surface for the bikers and hikers then yes horses would be allowed all right thank you ma'am anything else that's

All right do we have a motion or any action you guys would like to take?

I'll make a motion once again to do a letter of support for the Dahlgren Heritage Trail becoming part of the state park system. I will once again second that motion. Properly seconded. Any further discussion?

All right. Properly seconded. No discussion. All in favor of this motion say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Nay.

Chair votes aye. Motion carries. All right. On to discussion items. Item 0805, Letter from the Cheetler State. Sheriff Giles from the Sheriff's Office is going to discuss this.

Good evening members of the board. Tonight we're here to discuss a very charitable donation. King George County has been notified that the estate of John S. Cheadle has designated a charitable donation of $500,000 for the benefit of the King George County Animal Shelter. The donation is intended to support the shelter's mission of providing care, protection, and services for animals within the community. It is not intended to replace or reduce the county's regular budgetary appropriations for the animal shelter. Please see the attached letter of intent and excerpt of Mr. Cheadle's will defining the restriction. The executor is present tonight. If you happen to have any questions for discussion, Ms. Priscilla Morgan. In accordance with the county policy and general accepted governmental financial practices, donations with donor-imposed restrictions or designated purposes should be formally accepted by the Board of Supervisors before the funds are received and appropriated. Upon acceptance by the Board, the donated funds will be recorded as restricted revenue and used solely for the purpose purposes consistent with the donors intent and any applicable terms of the gift. Acceptance of this donation will have a positive fiscal impact by providing significant financial support for the animal shelter without requiring the use of County General Fund resources. Any questions for myself or Ms. Morgan?

I don't have a I don't have a question. I have a motion. i want to make a motion to accept the letter we can we can't oh that's right that's right i forgot that new rule that came up we can't do that but i do want to thank this is an amazing donation yes and it it really think helped the animal shelter i wish we could vote in on it one night we will in two weeks two weeks two weeks and one day thank you very much sir yes sir this is awesome

All right. Thank you very much. Just a second. Thank you. I was just going to appreciate not only Mr. Cheadle, but the estate for sending this over. So thank you.

All right. Thanks, General. Thank you. See you in two weeks and a day.

Yes, sir. All right. Another discussion item, item 08-06, ZOTAC recommendations.

Who's presenting this one? So, Mr. Chairman, this was requested to be added to the agenda. I know at July 21, there was some discussion as we were talking about the comprehensive plan, whether or not the board should re-engage, you know, I'm not sure what the correct word is, but to bring ZOTAC and some of those recommendations back on the front burner. This is just a history. I know Ms. LaDuke You can kind of recite it a lot better than I can, but there's a lot of staff time put into this through the ZOTAC committee, going to the planning commission. Planning commission, please correct me if I'm wrong, had a partial recommendation of the ZOTAC recommendations. They held a public hearing. late 25 and then it was brought back to the board. And then I believe it was on June of this year, the board said, let's wait until the comprehensive plan is over until we enact ZOTAC. Then the dialogue was brought to the forefront with the timeline and maybe we want to bring this back up. So there's nobody specifically going to be talking about this. This was at the request of the board to put it on for discussion.

So we were asked to bring it back back up yes when originally we talked about the waiting for the comp plan but if the comp plan is going to be a two-year process then maybe this is something there may be some nuggets in there that need to be addressed sooner than later rather than waiting for two years for that so that was a thought process behind that so do we have any thoughts or things from the board since we're the ones that asked for it?

So I think when I voted to wait till after the comp plan it was understanding that That was two years down the road. One, I think we should really stop calling this ZOTAC. That was an abbreviation for a group that is no longer chartered, I would say. I think the Planning Commission, if they have a particular ordinance that they would like to see modified and could bring forward that single ordinance recommendation, they can do that at any time. I don't think they have to wait for us. That's within their scope and intent. So it is interesting. I would recommend that our contractor, EPR, you have it here now in the agenda, at least all linked in one place. So maybe it'll save you a little time and us some money. But it was an active conversation about land use. And I would recommend you go read the notes from that.

I hear what you're saying, but the ZOTAC committee, remember, was a hybrid committee made up of not just members of the Planning Commission, but citizens at large as well. So to just say it was a Planning Commission, I think, would be a misrepresentation. Yeah. Anyway, your thoughts, either of you?

well I think the next step would be to for a public hearing if we were to move forward on this is that right so the planning commission held a public hearing yes that was back in November of 25 with one recommendation to come forward to the board now it's in your seats whether or not you want to take action and hold a public hearing on what the planning commission recommended I think when this was when it came out this was recommended as

exactly what i talked about in my board comments tonight is it's more of a stock gap to allow this community to catch up in a lot of different areas as opposed to more houses more rooftops as we know that those things you know drive up taxes more than anything else i just think it's important that i don't want to and because people know that some changes are coming you're seeing some building has escalated in our county i think at this point time that we need a chance to pause and we need a chance to catch up and and i think some of the things you guys brought up were more the interests and things of that nature which i talked to mr duke about and those are things need to be addressed and i think the down zoning of it needs to be and that they didn't want to do it but in light of things in light of water issues and things of that nature i think it's something that has to be addressed and i would take it that far

go ahead I would add a little bit to it because I know there was a list when Ms. LeDoux came on there was a list of the original ordinances that were kind of rushed at the end of things she wanted to to to address and the planning commission wanted to address one of the the major subdivision that was up there in a second that on the board and so I would like to all those kind of be addressed at the same time and have a public hearing or more than one so that we can address all those tweaks that they felt were important but with the down zoning the one thing I would still like to have the discussion too about the groundwater effects now that we have this new report that might give us a little extra insight that that also needs to be considered all right so

This is a discussion item. There's nothing we can do with it tonight as far as voting. Is there anything at the next meeting you would like to see on the agenda?

I would like to see the list from community development of other ordinances that they had a suggestion that needed to be fixed right away as opposed to waiting.

To adopt it?

No, to have a list from community development.

To look at it for consideration. we would have to anything we do still gonna have to have a public hearing there's a process but this is just uh getting the ball rolling and addressing whether we want to adopt any of these things because i thought we could do it all at the same time this is where i'm coming from and i would i want to look at it more beyond just the scope what the planning commission decided but what the zoetec board itself decided that we put together and so i'm not just yeah

that part needs to, but we need to look at the reason why it began in the beginning and look at the whole picture.

So I believe all the ZOTAC recommendations are attached to your current agenda.

Yeah, I'm just, what I'm saying is I want to look beyond just what the Planning Commission, they didn't like some of those things. The only thing that I think they really wanted was access. Yeah, that was it. so looking beyond just that scope and that's what I'm trying to say I don't want this to go out public hearing at all we're looking at access points I want to look at from its origin origination the way we started so to help the board we can have community development staff pull together the the topics of you know what was in the ZOTAC committee and then additional

instances where uh Miss Leduc and her staff have identified this is glaring we need to fix this right now we can come bring that back to the next I think we get that to the next board meeting I'm looking to next board meeting or the one thereafter um I'll get with Miss Leduc tomorrow we've got our weekly meeting yeah I said next board meeting but we can push that if need be I don't want this to become your job for the next two weeks your full-time job

So if you need more time, that's fine. Just let us know. But I would like to look at these things. As I recall, there were a couple things in there that lack of a more graceful way of putting it just weren't legal. We couldn't get away with it. So I would like to make sure that those are identified as well so that we can bring that out publicly and let folks know, hey, this was considered, but we can't do it, and here's why.

And on top of this, I've had our attorneys... do an analysis of recent general assembly changes where our code is not legal and those are those are going to also need to be changes um and i will get with um mr pelletier who's been kind of heading this up to see where you know where that list stands so we can do it all at one time but the thought process would be an initiating resolution from the board once you guys are set on what you would like to have then this would have to have public hearings at the planning commission and board of supervisors okay how much time do you think you need If we're going to do all the General Assembly updates, there's several of them that were identified just in 2026. And I actually had the stewards go back through the previous General Assemblies and there's a lot that needs to be fixed there. Okay, give me a number.

I'm sure Lucy can handle it.

Yeah, we got Lucy on it.

Maybe let them talk about it and get back.

Yeah, yeah. Let us get it together as I want to get with our attorneys. I need some guidance from them to see because a lot of it hinges on what they've identified and that would dictate how long to redline everything. Fair enough. Two weeks. Got it.

Just kidding for anybody out there listening. We'll talk more about it in two weeks, but yeah. Okay, cool.

all right thank you very much and over to you since your mic is on for your administrative report sure so a couple items so one thing i was hearing one of the discussions what what does the northern neck do so just my preliminary research here in the last five minutes it looks like northumberland county i know when i was talking to to their county minister they just approved their cop plan in 2026 Lancaster County is 2024, Richmond County is 22, and Westmoreland, the most recent I see is 2017. And it looks like either the Berkeley group or the Northern Neck Planning District Commission helped them out. So they've got some real time, some updated figures and plans. With the exception of Westmoreland, I can't say for certain whether or not they've got a newer one. But I'll reach out to those county administrators and their plans are online. But I think it'd be good, an interesting review for EPR to look at those most recently completed plans also. So I wanted to bring that up. A couple other items. i was asked uh let's see the the elevator in the admin building so elevator update i'm not going to go back through all the history the the board approved this back in february i gave i had legal review the next day we went ahead and signed the contract within a couple of days We're waiting on the company right now. And I texted Mr. Muncy. We're looking at a material should be done by September with an October construction completion or at least beginning work. I don't know the exact time of work. These are lead issues. I know a coil went out. Some people have seen a lot of water over in front of the library. There's a coil went out just for a simple coil. That's six to eight weeks just to get a coil in. So elevator rebuild is a lot longer. And on top of that, the HVAC repair. Actually, I talked to Mr. Muncie today. I was anticipating this question. At 12.02, I talked to Mr. Muncie. I said, where's the HVAC stand for the rubber comb boardroom? So it is now cleared and all the engineering is finalized. And now they have a 12 to 14 week lead time to construct the unit. So that's where we're at with the AC for that particular project. So we're getting on it. We're at the whim of, you know, train and some of these other individuals who are manufacturing these items. You know, I wish we could, you know, get that 14-weekly time down to two weeks, but we're in queue just like everybody else.

No, I appreciate you bringing that up in my day job. We have a lot of things that are long-lead items. That's what we refer to them as, long-lead items. So thank you for clarifying that.

Yes, sir.

Is that the rest of your report?

Just the other thing, we are going through the CTE building. I know the public have been driven through there, I think maybe since the last board meeting, but it is now a level field. Old CTE building is down. We interviewed two firms today for A&E services. We've got a couple more tomorrow. So we'll be coming back to the Board of Supervisors. We've got a good review team comprised of county staff and school staff. So it's an exciting project to get off the ground. So we'll be coming to you hopefully soon with our recommendation for a firm to design that facility for the residents and the students of King George.

Very good. So I have Sir. All right. Thank you, Sir. At this time, we will move on to secondary public comments to address meeting items only from tonight. Thomas will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district from submitting your public comments so they could be properly recorded and included in the public record. Is there anybody at this time who would like to make public comment? Yes, sir. Come on up, Mark. Or Mr. Jennings. Where you going?

My name is Mark Jennings. I have the privilege of serving on the Planning Commission and I am very excited for the comprehensive plan update. I am just standing here to talk about housing and affordability and how it's one of the biggest issues that's facing people my age, especially people with families, is the homeownership issue. And I'm hoping that I can work with people with this comprehensive plan to assist people people with attaining homeownership. I think I became a homeowner within the last couple of months and from that day I really, I really want, I decided that I really want to help other people with that. That I want to advocate for policies that are going to help other people with that. I think that homeownership is really a big driver in civic identity. It is something that makes people really feel like a part of their community and like a member of, you know, like a citizen. and so whatever i can do to help with that part of the general plan and help get more people particularly young families into homes that they own themselves i would be happy to assist with awesome thanks buddy good to see you again and congratulations on the new home anyone else mr fellow to come on up

Sean Palavoda, 5505 Chatterton Lane. I just wanted to comment on Mr. Cheadle's gift. I knew him well. I think he donated to a lot of the supervisors up there, including you, Billy, I think. He rented out a lot of houses, and he would mention to me every now and then, he didn't rent to the tenant, he rented to the animals that they had. And he just loved dogs in general. And if you guys are considering naming anything after him, I think that would be appropriate. My second point was... um if you look at the code of virginia 15.2-2223 um the very the very first line is the local planning commission shall prepare the comprehensive plan so it should or may contract out its shell so just like um mr stewart um assists you guys in making your decisions he doesn't do your decisions for you i think the contractor who i'm actually taking their class right now to be a better planning commission they should they should report to the planning commission and to address your concern um i think their advisory i mean that steering commission was only going to meet every other month the planning commission currently meets once a month and then um i'm going to propose at our meeting during during the comprehensive plan review that we meet more often than that just to get the planning commission, I mean, just to get the comprehensive plan done in a reasonable amount of time. And, you know, it's supposed to be done every five years. So if you waste two years doing your plan, you're already, you're already at the next, the next plan. So we, you know, it's not a, it's not something permanent. It's dynamic and needs to be updated. And the quicker we can do the plan, the better for our community.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Nathan Hoy, Shiloh District. Kind of inspired, but sorry, I forgot your name, your comments. Kind of just an informational item that now I'm talking with a coworker. The tax evaluations for King George, they went up 23%, Mr. Smolnick, roughly on average, right? So for new homeowners, if you take that assessment and you go to your mortgage company and you're still paying PMI, you can essentially use that to say hey look i've paid off 20 essentially already because my house is worth this much so in the effort to save everybody as much money as possible it's been my i guess my public comment thank you cool i like that one anybody else yes sir mr bowen come on up

Two quick comments. Perry Bowen, King George, Vansattico Lane, King George. Y'all know who I am. John Shield was an amazing citizen of King George County and a wonderful human being. I loved him dearly and I miss him dearly. And anything you can do to support what Sean was talking about, I agree with. The other thing I want to discuss, and I haven't had a chance to talk to the railroad people, but We're neighbors to Land's End. Land's End was given to the state. They didn't have to buy it. And they're letting it grow. The state's broke and they're letting it grow up. So all I'm suggesting is that I don't know any active part you have in it. But the county could lend resources to the people who are trying to sell it, reassign it or whatever, and help create a system that addresses Supervisor Davis's concerns because they are very, very, very real. I am a neighbor to that, to Land's End, and I was told to never go on it again. We would go over there and mow. We would mow around the house. We'd eat around the house. We'd try to maintain the sides of the roads free of charge, okay, for 20 years with permission, okay? And when the state got broke and they put gates up across it, the only thing they keep mowed is a path to get the game warden's vehicles in and out. So I know y'all aren't in the middle of this, and I'm not saying you need to be, but what I'm saying is if those guys decide they need the county's help, unless you just want to see it grow up and turn back into trees and stuff, you really need to get involved. the state doesn't really care and they really don't, they will run over top of them, okay? They won't, they'll just say, hey, we're the state, you're not, but they may not say it to the county. Thank you. Thank you.

Come on up.

Hi, my name is Ana Maria Lobor. I live in Presidential Lakes. I want to thank you, Mr. Esmolek, for trying to fix the elevator and the air conditioner. Please, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Come on up, Mr. Butler.

Gary Butler, King George Realty. I want to revisit ZOTAC since it was brought up, just to make sure that there's no revisionists uh history changes on it that committee studied uh the down zoning proposals and the vote was six to one against it the planning commission uh i don't remember the vote uh was it unanimous it was unanimous that in either nine or ten members and it was vote it was unanimously against down zoning and it's not an issue as Mr. Davis is suggesting that we go back and look at from the very beginning what the intent was because his intent was to stop growth a hundred percent in the county and now he's like trying to get his foot in that door again while I checked with members of the board of supervisors recently what's the status of the ZOTAC and the down zoning and it just kind of died it was never brought up after the planning commission had their public hearing on it and they voted it down there were a couple items in there that make sense to act on now with restricting the number of entrances to subdivisions and having an interior road system that somehow fell through the cracks a year ago when they revisited the zoning ordinance. And that's a good thing to bring up and to cure. I'm sure staff would like to have that done. But to not wait now that we're doing a comprehensive plan and try to put in some kind of an emergency thing to stop any growth. you know a previous board did that once upon a time and it lasted one month before they found out it wasn't legal so you know learn from your history or you know you don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past so all right thank you sir Miss Morgan come on up Terry Morgan Shiloh District I wasn't going to speak but now I'm going to address this um I don't have a dog in fight

I care less if you downsize or keep it the way it is or upsize. Doesn't bother me any. Mine's in a conservation. My land is landlocked. But I do kind of resent, you know, a decision and appointing out of a supervisor, changing his mind or whatever. I do resent that. I reside in this community and have for many years and generations. so therefore if we put a freeze on something it's temporary freeze if it has to be a freeze on the amount of you know land or the division of property that's how it's been worked um I mean, you know, I'm one of the biggest critics up here. When I come up here, you guys know it. I mean, I call, I'll send an email, I'll criticize you right from here. But not really criticize. I shouldn't use that word. That's kind of strong. But I mean, I'll point it out and I'm normally point blank and I have my notes and I bam, bam, bam, go through them and that's it. And it's no personal intentions. It's just a business focus and that's where I'm from. You know, but I... I have a real issue with comments being made about, you know, when we have new information about our water resources or we have new information about realty and stuff. I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not a realtor. So, you know, that's not going to persuade me one way or the other. You know, I don't work for a county position, so county positions aren't going to sway me one way or the other because I don't have a dog in that fight either. You know, so I like to be kind of semi open-minded especially if I talk to you guys we might differ on things but you know at the end of the day I take what you've said I ponder it I go back and I reread it but to suggest that if we make any plan changes that that they're not knowledgeable or they're not do you know we just got the water release issues obviously water is an issue You know, you cannot overlook that. We're drilling into our aqua force. You cannot overlook that. You know, we only have so much water, as many of you have said. We cannot overlook that. And you're talking about subdivisions. Like I said, I don't have a dog and fight. I don't work for a realtor. You know, I don't, you know, I work. Our land is in conservation. And as you all well know, and that's what I prefer. You know, so I... I just wanted to say thanks for taking into consideration not just one side but all sides and you know all divisions and all laws and all prospects that might come out of this and as far as doing a special committee for this upcoming I am full force in favor of that just like we did for Zotac just like we've done in the past this upcoming commission to redo the comp plan needs to have a driving steering group of people not the planning commission and there's reasons for that and there's reasons why the community has done it in the past and why they should continue to do it that way thank you anyone else any correspondence anybody online Mr.

Dimes no excellent I'll close public comment at this time and we will move on

to we have a closed session this evening do you have a motion I move that the King George County Board of Supervisors convene in closed session pursuant to Virginia code 2.2-3711 A7 for consultation with legal counsel and briefing by staff members pertaining to actual ongoing litigation involving AWS where such consultation brief and open meetings would adversely affect the county's litigation negotiating posture. If the county administrator county attorney is needed because they are deemed necessary under their presence will reasonably aid the board in its consideration of one more topics to be discussed pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-3712F.

Second. Probably second. Any discussion? For the record, the county attorney's on vacation, but he said that he can dial in, so he probably will be joining us in this closed session.

Well, I would like to say something, but it's not related to the motion that's on the table. No.

All right. For the motion.

I second it.

Yep. Any discussion for the motion itself? All right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. We're in closed session. We'll get it when we get back.

Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County. Nature, history, trails. Find it all between the rivers. Welcome to King George, Virginia, where rural charm offers an escape from the ordinary. Enjoy the charisma of a local coffee shop and delight in authentic diner classics. Sip and sample the many flavors of the farmer's market. Snack on locally grown produce at a farm store. If you share, you may just make new friends. Discover hidden treasure. And spark a new passion along the way. Expand your palette with global flavors made from local ingredients. Gear up to reel in your own big catch. Or indulge in fresh river bounties without the wait. Kick back and relax with a crisp cider or a refreshing Riesling. Enjoy great company over a superb glass of wine. And refresh yourself with a chilling slushie. Recharge with the perfect slice. Experience new events and meet new people. Unwind with the coldest draft on tap. Breathe in the country air and raise a glass to unforgettable moments in King George County. Eat, drink, shop. Enjoy it all between the rivers. Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County. Nature, history, trails. Find it all between the rivers. Welcome to King George, Virginia, where rural charm offers an escape from the ordinary. Enjoy the charisma of a local coffee shop and delight in authentic diner classics. Sip and sample the many flavors of the farmer's market. Snack on locally grown produce at a farm store. If you share, you may just make new friends. Discover hidden treasure. And spark a new passion along the way. Expand your palette with global flavors made from local ingredients. Gear up to reel in your own big catch. Or indulge in fresh river bounties without the wait. Kick back and relax with a crisp cider or a refreshing Riesling. Enjoy great company over a superb glass of wine. And refresh yourself with a chilling slushie. Recharge with the perfect slice. Experience new events and meet new people. Unwind with the coldest draft on tap. Breathe in the country air and raise a glass to unforgettable moments in King George County. eat, drink, shop. Enjoy it all between the rivers. Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County. Nature, history, trails. Find it all between the rivers. Welcome to King George, Virginia, where rural charm offers an escape from the ordinary. Enjoy the charisma of a local coffee shop and delight in authentic diner classics. Sip and sample the many flavors of the farmer's market. Snack on locally grown produce at a farm store. If you share, you may just make new friends. Discover hidden treasure and spark a new passion along the way. Expand your palate with global flavors made from local ingredients. Gear up to reel in your own big catch or indulge in fresh river bounties without the wait. Kick back and relax with a crisp cider or a refreshing Riesling. Enjoy great company over a superb glass of wine. And refresh yourself with a chilling slushie. Recharge with the perfect slice. Experience new events and meet new people. Unwind with the coldest draft on tap. Breathe in the country air and raise a glass to unforgettable moments in King George County. Eat, drink, shop. Enjoy it all between the rivers. Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County. Nature, history, trails. Find it all between the rivers. Welcome to King George, Virginia, where rural charm offers an escape from the ordinary. Enjoy the charisma of a local coffee shop and delight in authentic diner classics. Sip and sample the many flavors of the farmer's market. Snack on locally grown produce at a farm store. If you share, you may just make new friends. Discover hidden treasure. And spark a new passion along the way. Expand your palette with global flavors made from local ingredients. Gear up to reel in your own big catch. Or indulge in fresh river bounties without the wait. Kick back and relax with a crisp cider or a refreshing Riesling. Enjoy great company over a superb glass of wine. And refresh yourself with a chilling slushie. Recharge with the perfect slice. Experience new events and meet new people. Unwind with the coldest draft on tap. Breathe in the country air and raise a glass to unforgettable moments in King George County. eat, drink, shop. Enjoy it all between the rivers. Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County. Nature, history, trails. Find it all between the rivers. Welcome to King George, Virginia, where rural charm offers an escape from the ordinary. Enjoy the charisma of a local coffee shop and delight in authentic diner classics. Sip and sample the many flavors of the farmer's market. Snack on locally grown produce at a farm store. If you share, you may just make new friends. Discover hidden treasure and spark a new passion along the way. Expand your palette with global flavors made from local ingredients. Gear up to reel in your own big catch or indulge in fresh river bounties without the wait. Kick back and relax with a crisp cider or a refreshing Riesling. Enjoy great company over a superb glass of wine. And refresh yourself with a chilling slushie. Recharge with the perfect slice. Experience new events and meet new people. Unwind with the coldest draft on tap. Breathe in the country air and raise a glass to unforgettable moments in King George County. Eat, drink, shop. Enjoy it all between the rivers. Imagine waking up to the sounds of nature. Then your adventure begins. Explore the banks of the Potomac. Experience the bounties of the Rappahannock. Unwind and reconnect with nature. Uncover stories of innovation and transformation. Challenge yourself to exhilarating trails. Plan for unexpected memories in King George County.

All right. Do we have a motion to return to open meeting?

I move King George County Board of Supervisors return to public meeting. Second.

Probably second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. and certification I move the King George County Board of Supervisors certify by vote that only public business matters lawfully exempted from meeting requirements by Virginia law and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered during the closed meeting and no action was taken second probably seconded roll call vote Mr. Stroud aye

So certify. So certify. Mr. Metz. So certify. Ms. Binder. So certify. Mr. Davis. So certify. Chair certifies. We are back in open session. And that is our last item. Anybody have any comments before we close out?

Just real quick, we talked about the committee to help with the account plan update. What's our timeline on getting that fully staffed up?

The steering committee?

Steering committee.

I don't know that we've fully decided we want to do one yet.

Should the board want to appoint a steering committee? In my conversations with EPO, it was late September to have that track to that 18-month time frame. Should the board want to do it late September to have a full steering committee appointed?

Okay. So we've got a discussion point somewhere on a future board meeting.

Awesome. Cool. Any others?

Excellent. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion. We adjourn the Board of Supervisors to Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Sheriff's Office located at 10445 Government Center Boulevard, King George, Virginia. Second.

Probably second. All in favor? Aye. Chair Wozniak, much appreciated. We're adjourned. Thanks, folks.