Council - Regular Meeting

So, if we can make sure that everyone is ready to roll, we'll give it just another second. The September 8th meeting of the Marion Town Council will now come to order. We'll begin with the invocation given by Chief Testerman.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for being able to come together in this community tonight.

Lord, please remember our community members that may be in bad health.

I know we had one recently that was involved in a horse accident pretty fast. So, Lord, please lay your healing hands upon her. And, Lord, help us as a community, Lord, to help each other and pray for each other and always be there for each other. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

We'll continue with the Pledge of Allegiance to our country. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will continue with the roll call, and I see all are present, aside from Dr. Gates, the Vice Mayor. And he did get in contact with us and told us that he wouldn't be here tonight, but he'd be here in two weeks. So that's a good thing. Does the Planning Commission need a roll call? I'm unsure. All are present. All are present on telling the commission. So we'll go forward from there. We need an approval of the minutes from the August 3rd and of the August 17th meeting. Can we do that in one motion? Separate, please. Separate. Approval of the meeting of August the 3rd.

I'll make a motion. We approve the minutes as written for August 3rd.

Second. Second. second second okay all in favor we need them um we need an approval of the minutes of the august 17th meeting second move and second um any discussion any additions deletions we'll take it to a vote all in favor And again, I want to recognize that Hunter is sitting with the Planning Commission, so he is voting on these things. I'm wondering why he's raising his hand. We need an approval of the agenda. I would like to make two changes to the agenda. I would like to address council immediately after the approval of the agenda, and that will be my mayor's report. And I would also like to, immediately after my mayor's report, move the PD and the graduates to that position so that they can return to duty.

I make a motion we approve the agenda with those two additions.

Second. Approve one second. All in favor? thank you i appreciate council's indulgence i have a few things that i think may be constructive and may clarify a few issues the reason i want to get this out before is we have a full house we have a whole lot going on and so i am going to sit where i'm closer to my notes and my poor old eyes can focus on the paper in opening i'd like to take a few minutes to address something larger than any one ordinance property, employee, or disagreement, I want to talk about how we conduct the people's business. I believe Marian is at a point where we need to take a hard look at our processes and make sure that we're following not only the letter of the law, but also the principles of open government, transparency, fairness, and accountability. I'm not making these remarks to attack anyone. I'm making them because I believe that the citizens of Marion, Virginia deserve better and because I believe it is my responsibility as the mayor to speak when I believe our process is compromised or can be improved. I have some questions as to some property rezoning. Those questions will be answered later in the meeting, I'm sure, to everyone's satisfaction. But I want to make sure that we're all following the process that we've established and that we're not derivating the process. There have been some changes in FOIA, those changes we're all aware of. but we need to make sure that if we are following the process, we're following it correctly. And if we're not sure we're following the process, let's stop, reflect. We'll take another look. I'm not accusing anyone of wrongdoing. I'm asking that we establish the facts and make sure that the proper process is being followed from beginning to end. uh the council agenda is not the entire process and i have heard the argument that if it's on the agenda we can vote on it putting an item on the agenda is very important but the agenda is not the entire legislative process The public deserves to know what we are considering, why we are considering it, and what action is being proposed. Council members deserve the opportunity to ask questions and deliberate before casting a vote. A motion is made, a second is made, and there should be discussion. I think we all agree on that. I do not believe that the parliamentary procedure of calling for the question should ever be used as a device to prevent legitimate discussion on important matters. We are elected to be here to deliberate. We are not here to simply count votes. I wanted to address deliberation by email. I know that it's a modern age and it's very important that we communicate electronically. However, I have deliberately avoided participating in substantive discussions about certain ordinances through email because I believe the citizens have the right to see their elected officials deliberate in open counsel. There's nothing wrong with sending emails and documents. There's nothing wrong with providing factual information by email. But there's a difference between providing information and deliberating about public business. If council members are using emails, text messages, phone calls, or private conversations to discuss an issue, persuade one another, develop a consensus, or effectively determine how they are going to vote before coming to this chamber, we need to ask, are we defeating the purpose of Virginia's open meetings requirements? The public cannot see our email discussion. They cannot hear the questions. They cannot hear the disagreements. They cannot see who persuaded whom. If we're going to deliberate, let's deliberate here. Let the cameras run. Let the citizens sit in the seats. Let everybody hear the same discussion at the same time. If it takes all night, that's fine with me, because I'd rather spend six hours deliberating a subject here in open council than five minutes deciding something behind closed doors. I believe that we need to take another look at our closed sessions. I also believe they need to be examined closely. Closed sessions are sometimes necessary and are specifically authorized by Virginia law for certain purposes. I'm not suggesting that every matter be discussed publicly, but closed sessions should not become the place where difficult public business is being discussed. simply because it's more convenient. Citizens elected us to conduct their business, not to conduct their business behind closed doors. No one is above the process. There are no entitled groups in Marion. There are no entitled individuals, no businesses, no developers, not employees, not council, not the mayor. Everyone should receive the same treatment under the law. No one should be able to jump ahead in the process. No one should be able to bypass the process. No one should be able to use influence to obtain results that an ordinary citizen could not obtain. Government must never, ever become pay to play. On the proposed loitering ordinance, I've intentionally refrained from negotiating the language of this ordinance through email because I believe the public discussion belongs here. Now, I want to state my position publicly. I believe portions of the proposed ordinance are problematic. Some language appears to me to be vague, some provisions may be overly broad, and I have serious concerns about whether the portion of the ordinance could raise constitutional issues. We must be extremely careful when we write an ordinance that restricts where people may stand, gather, or remain, or conduct themselves in public places. An ordinance must clearly define prohibited conduct, not simply give government officials unlimited discretion to decide who is acceptable and who is not. We can address legitimate public safety concerns. We can protect businesses. We can protect pedestrians. We can address obstruction and criminal conduct, but we must do it within the Constitution of the state of Virginia and within Virginia law. The mayor's office, let me be clear, I'm not asking for additional power for Avery Cornett. i'm asking that we preserve an effective office of the mayor for the people who will hold this office after i am gone the mayor is expected to provide oversight then the mayor must have reasonable access to information i appreciate being allowed that access and that vote of confidence from council in that. But I also believe that the entire council deserves that same right and should be able to access any information that we want. There should be no gatekeeping. We should have open, honest discussions, and all the information that any of us want should be available to us. And that's not power. That's accountability. I'm getting close, folks. Council's responsible for the governance of this town. Well, we need the access. Now, I'm told that there's some things that we can't look at. There are personnel issues and there are things in personnel files. And I'm not asking to open the files to the public. I'm not asking to be given information. that I don't deserve or don't need to do my job. But we can't govern what we can't see. So if there are things, questions that we can't ask, I understand that. But I believe that there's more questions that can be answered through access to other information. My responsibility as a mayor There have been attempts to diminish the mayor's authority. There have been situations where I believe the mayor's office has been bypassed. I have raised these concerns several times and will continue to raise them, not because I'm the mayor, but because the office of the mayor needs to be respected, and it needs to be effective, and it needs to be there for oversight. So if you understand that I want these things to happen, it's not for Avery Cornett. It's because I serve the citizens of Marion, Virginia, and I intend to do that job. So I suggest a better standard for Marion And it will be very easy. First, follow the law. Follow the established process. Treat everyone equally. And let's conduct substantive conversations in council, in these chambers, where the public can be in the seats and where we can deliberate effectively with each other in real time. In closing, I believe there are many things that are happening in our local government that the citizens do not see, nor do they fully understand. I believe some of our processes need to come back into the light. I believe that transparency should be viewed not as an inconvenience, but as a standard. Transparency is the protection for our citizens. The town of Marion doesn't belong to me, the mayor. It doesn't belong to town council. It doesn't belong to the town manager. It doesn't belong to any employee, developer, business organization, or special interest. It belongs to the people. As long as I have the privilege of serving as mayor, I intend to make sure their government remains open, accountable, fair, and worthy of trust. I hope that everyone, everyone in this room will help me and this council do our jobs effectively, openly, and transparently. And I appreciate you giving me the time to make this viewpoint known. We will continue now. Thank you. I'll turn the program over now to Chief Testament. Here come the real heroes, folks.

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to give congratulations here to Officer Blevins, Officer Sherwood, and Officer Halsey. These two on the far from me, they spent 20 weeks in and completed the academy and it's a long-ruling process like when i went through it was like 16 weeks so they've added on four four more weeks and as we all know i believe the academy is going to be moving down the road here in a few years hopefully and that'll get us right in our back door and open up a lot of training opportunities but we're extremely proud of them especially travis here he came through he was tried probably almost two years ago now and tore an acl so he He had to miss out on half of his academy, or four weeks of it, and then missed out on the entire academy and was able to get back in this last academy. And I know he feels like a big weight's been lifted off his shoulders, but I wanted to bring him here tonight and introduce him. and uh just give them a congratulations we're extremely proud to have them out and uh knock on wood we're fully staffed so here in a few months we'll be able to have everybody on the road on their own and try to help make marion safer and i'll let them go from here

Thank you. I enjoy every conversation we have when you come down. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And also this past week, Officer Probst here was awarded a Traffic Safety Specialist Award through the Virginia Chiefs of Police Association. He met the criteria to become a traffic safety specialist. And we're looking forward to using his skills and his much new learned talents to be able to pass down to all of us here at the police department. I'd like to congratulate him as well.

thank you thank you very much thank you everyone for coming now back to work right i hope it's a safe night i believe we have public hearings scheduled and at this time i will turn the public hearing portion over to cameron

We have a full forum. Everybody's here. The first issue is, and I'll introduce Mark Finney, who's going to talk about all the departments and down the journey.

Mark, if you want to say something.

So... So first notice was sent out to all adjacent property owners of 1025 North Main Street and that notice got sent out with the date being September 7th. There was enough time to correct that error because council was not going to be meeting on Memorial Day. And so Mr. Long did go out and personally speak with each individual that he mailed notice or left a new notice with. So he did go by to clarify that. And just for council's or for the planning commission's information, this property had two tax maps so if you recall where the old building that got torn down was located from the back of that building to main street that was one tax map and that was zoned commercial from the backside all the way back to 16. That was zoned residential. off to the looking up at the property from main street off to the right there was a residence that food city purchased and what food city is asking is that where they have it asphalted they're asking for that to be rezoned from residential to commercial and then the back portion that goes basically where most of the new building is, back to the stormwater retention, they're asking that that go from residential to commercial. They did vacate the interior lot lines as had been requested. This process started with former town manager Bill Rush and there were actions taken at that time. After they vacated the interior lot lines, they then came back and they had it re-subdivided. So for us to pull up a map and show you all um what's being changed it would not look right because of what they did but they they did comply with the request from the town and the way that we discovered this that some steps have been missed is that they were wanting to convey that storm water retention area to the town and we we noticed that's residential and and the most of the buildings the new buildings residential So they're asking that all that be rezoned from residential to commercial and a portion of that residential lot that was purchased, the house is staying, they're wanting that to remain residential. They put a parking lot for their employees. They're wanting that portion of the residential to go to commercial and then the road from 16 in to go commercial. So that is how it's gotten to you all. You all did have a meeting and reviewed this and now it's set for public hearing to accept public comment.

If anyone needs to address, Cameron, you may not have saw the hand go up in the back. I did see a hand. You need to come to the podium and give us your name and address. And is there any way we can mic the Planning Commission? We have a carry around a microphone or anything?

Jerry Harmon, 301 Park Boulevard. It really don't matter to me, but shouldn't all this been done before they built the building? I mean, I went through an act of Congress to get an entrance permit to not even build nothing for three months. And they could just do anything they want and then ask for forgives.

Roger Bowman, 844 Edwin Drive. I'm like Jerry, it don't matter to me. But I've seen a situation like this happen from one of my neighbors. Seems to me like if you want to do something in Marion, you go ahead and do what you want to do. And then you go to the council and say, oh, I've already done this. I need to have it changed. Is this the way we operate? Because that's how you answered mine.

Anyone else? Seeing none, find a commission. Questions? Council? Commission? Questions? Um, Watts, Mr. Chair, Watts 226, is that in private hands or is that at our desk?

That is still private.

And there's no one here. And, uh, Mark, there was no response to the question that I've been notified of.

There was one response and that was from a residence on Gross Close Street and they were not opposed to the rezoning. They were opposed to the water retention area being a harbor for mosquitoes and If the town ends up accepting that stormwater retention, the town, I've been informed, has the ability to put some type of tablet pesticide to kill the mosquito larva that may be in the standing water area. That should not be the way that it's made. It is receiving the water. We're dumping water from across 16 onto it. They're dumping water from their property back on it. And then they built a storm water system to take the water from that retention area into the town storm water system. So the only response was the one individual that was concerned about mosquitoes, which would have existed actually prior to any of the work being done. That's a maintenance issue that they're responsible for until such time as the town decides if it wants to accept that retention pond.

You did not get any response back from the residents of 36th?

No. Mr. Long informed me that it was just one individual that made a response, and it was not in opposition. It was just in regards to mosquitoes.

There was no other questions, then. Chair, I'm going to ask that question. I'm asking with the notion that you referred this to Town Council for their approval.

let's do the second

So the second one is 415 East Main Street, and the property owner is Andrew and Brooke King, and the property is currently zoned R1 residential, and they're asking that it be rezoned to medical arts with conditions. This particular property notice was sent out. It has been posted with a sign as well as the notices that have been mailed out. Mr. Long did go and speak to as many of the property owners as he was able to. Just for background on this, this came up. sometime in July that Mr. King did go to the zoning administrator concern because he was the town manager and saw it as a conflict and he wanted to avoid any conflict. And so he first presented it requesting a variance. That variance was considered by Todd Long. And due to the zoning ordinance, the zoning ordinance allows residents one home office. And what was being requested was multiple home offices. So he denied it. That matter was then appealed to the Board of Zoning Appeals. It was heard and before the Board of Zoning Appeals, again, the issue of Andrew and Brooke King owning the property was presented to the Board of Zoning Appeals. And there are minutes that we have draft minutes. And the reason that we have draft minutes is because the Board of Zoning Appeals only meets on occasion. And they may choose not to meet for a year. So we would have minutes that weren't approved for a year. But we have draft minutes, and those draft minutes clearly show that there was discussion by the Kings pointing out that they had the ownership interest in this property and they did it from the audience they didn't did at no time did mr king sit at the table to present his request in order to present his appeal to the board of zoning appeals he did it likewise at the Planning Commission meeting and so we do have some minutes that could be approved if we passed them out because our system it does a pretty good job of transcribing so the new system It transcribes and the secretary looks at it from the secretary's notes to make certain that everything's correct. But Mr. King I believe additionally may have done a letter for the town council. The town has set up a file and these minutes are in the file the clerk as keeping that file that file is retained for a period of five years and so it has been retained to show that yes the town manager had this interest and the town manager is not wanting to act as the town manager when he's making his request and his wife's making her request for reason so i'll leave it at that point in the king's can come up and discuss this.

all right thank you all this evening as mark mentioned i started this process back in july in an effort to run this through the boarding zoning appeals because my position does work closely with the town council it was important to me that we did it in a way that you know anyone else would go through this process so i did attempt to go through there the board of zoning appeals did deny my appeal, but they denied it on the definition of the word variance. So while they said that what I was requesting was reasonable and realistic, depending on contention upon the zoning that's already in that area, the rezoning was the appropriate way to go through what I was asking. So there's a lot that I've asked here. As Mr. Fennec acknowledged, this is a conditional rezoning. This is not a rezoning that would allow, I guess, all the attributes of medical arts. So I've got a few things that I'd like to read here, if you'd allow it. So I previously brought this matter before the Towns Board of Zoning Appeals on August 4th. And I appreciate the board's consideration, importantly, their recognition that I was proposing what was realistic, reasonable, and follows a precedent of rezoning on this street in this area for the same purpose. Their concern was not with the substance of the proposed use, but rather with whether my request met the legal definition of zoning variance in this particular circumstance. The board suggested that the appropriate path forward was to request a rezoning rather than to seek a zoning variance. I want to emphasize that my original request was for a variance was intentionally very restrictive. My goal here was never to fundamentally change the character of this property or this neighborhood. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I've tried to find a way to preserve every aspect of the existing residential zoning with one exception, allowing more than one office to operate in the home. The reason for that request is straightforward, and I've been open about this from the very beginning. Mount Rogers Community Services Board, across the street from this property, 415 East Main, has the property under contract to purchase, but they'll only complete the purchase if the zoning allows them to use the structure for multiple administrative offices rather than the single office that is permitted by right. I believe this is a reasonable request, and I'm asking the council and the planning commission consider it with the same spirit of restraint that guided my original variance request. My rezoning request is conditional in spirit because I want to protect the character and aesthetic of the neighborhood. If this property is rezoned to medical arts, the practical difference from its current R1 residential use would be limited primarily to allowing multiple administrative offices within the existing structure. I'm not asking for a commercial operation that would fundamentally alter the neighborhood. There would be no signage, no provision of service to the public, no excessive shipping or receiving, and parking would be limited to two vehicles on the street. There would be no significant increase in traffic. The primary hours of use would be Monday through Friday from approximately 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. In other words, I believe this property can continue to look, feel, and function much like the residential property it is today while accommodating an administrative use that is valuable to our community. I also believe it's important to recognize what is actually being proposed here. This is not a request for a new commercial development. It's not a request to demolish the existing home and construct an office building. It's not a request for a clinic, a treatment facility, or a high traffic business. It is the adaptive reuse of an existing structure. Mount Rogers Community Services Board is not simply another organization looking for office space in Marion. It provides services that our community depends upon every day. It operates the crisis center where members of our community experiencing mental health or substance abuse crisis can be taken by law enforcement, family members, or friends. to receive behavioral health and de-escalation services. Mount Rogers also provides a tiered range of mental health and substance abuse services, operates programs addressing homelessness, and serves as the single point of entry for many services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. These services are particularly important as our region continues to confront serious challenges involving substance abuse, homelessness, and behavioral health. Mount Rogers has also made a substantial investment in Marion. The organization has invested tens of millions of dollars in development in our community, employs many people that we work with and live with, and serves as a medical provider for many of our citizens. I believe there's an economic point here that deserves consideration as well. I expect that at some point this evening you'll hear tonight that selling this home to a nonprofit organization such as Mount Rogers will remove a piece of real estate from the town's tax roll. That's a legitimate consideration. I don't want to minimize it. The estimated loss in direct real estate tax revenue from this particular property is approximately $350 per year. But I think we also need to look at the broader economic picture. A new family moving into the town of Marion could potentially generate as much as $4,000 per year in direct and indirect tax revenues for the community through things such as sales tax, meals tax, utility-related revenues, vehicle taxes, and other local economic activity. If Mount Rogers ultimately brings five employees and their families into Marion as a result of its continued investment expansion here, that could represent as much as $20,000 per year in new revenue and economic activity associated with these families. In other words, we should be careful not to look only at the $350 in real estate tax that could be lost from this one property. We should also consider the much larger economic benefit that can result from encouraging employers to invest here, create jobs here, and attract families to live here. I would also ask council to consider the long-term economic benefit of having organizations like Mount Rogers continue to invest in Marion. When employers invest here, they create jobs here. When jobs are created here, people have an incentive to live here. When people live here, they buy homes, they shop local businesses, they pay taxes, they use local services, and they become part of the community. So while there may be relatively small direct tax consequence associated with this individual property, I believe the town should consider the much broader economic activity that this type of investment can generate. There's another point that I believe deserves particular attention. 415 East Main Street sits directly across the street from 404 East Main Street, a property already owned by Mount Rogers Community Services Board for a similar purpose. The property has demonstrated exactly what I believe can happen here. It is well maintained, it's quiet, it's unassuming, and it continues to look like it belongs in the neighborhood. There's no reason to believe that 415 East Main cannot be treated in the same manner. In fact, the council has already established a precedent for allowing homes in this area to transition from residential zoning to medical arts. That includes 404 East Main Street, as mentioned before, 106 Cedar Street, and 110 Cedar Street, all rezoned from R1 residential to medical arts in 2021. So I'm not asking the council to establish an entirely new type of use for this part of Marion. I'm asking you to apply an approach that the town has already found appropriate for comparable properties. There are also existing examples in marrying of properties that remain zoned R1 residential while accommodating multiple office spaces. Two notable examples are 309 College Street and 204 Funk Street, both owned and used administratively by the Blue Ridge Job Corps. These properties demonstrate that administrative office use in residential neighborhoods do not necessarily have to be incompatible. The question, in my opinion, should not simply be whether a property has an office use. The question should be whether the use is appropriate, whether it respects its surroundings, whether it serves the interests of the community. I believe this proposal meets all three tests. I would also ask the Planning Commission and Council to consider its own previous statements regarding the highest and best use of our main street corridors in Marion. The Council has repeatedly recognized these streets serve their highest and best uses when maintaining a purpose of business orientation. That philosophy is also reflected in the language of the goals of the Town's Comprehensive Plan adopted by Town Council. 415 East Main Street is located along one of those corridors. Rezoning this particular property to medical arts and therefore consistent not only with existing development patterns in the immediate area, but it's also with the broader vision that the town has articulated for its main streets. I also believe that one concern that may be raised this evening is whether changing the zoning could negatively affect the value of neighboring homes. I believe the experience we've already had in this neighborhood provides some useful evidence. With Mount Rogers Community Services Board already present and actively expanding across the street between 2020 and 2024, the assessed values of the homes immediately on either side of the subject property increased by approximately 51% and 78% respectively. The 78% increase was double that of the 39% average increase in reassessed values that Marion saw at the time. Those increases also exceed the appreciation seen in other established neighborhoods in Marion, including the Panorama area, Wausona, and the streets surrounding Holson Hills Community Golf Course. I believe that's important because it gives us actual local evidence rather than speculation. Mount Rogers presence has not diminished the value of these properties. If anything, the evidence indicates that it has helped increase them at a rate higher than the rest of the market area. I'd like to make clear that I'm not asking the town simply to make my word that the property will be protected. My intention is for the future of this property to be predictable for the neighbors. The expectations I've described tonight are very specific. No signage, no public facing services, limited parking, no excessive traffic, no excessive shipping or receiving, and normal weekday administrative hours. To the extent that the town's legal process allows, I'm willing to have appropriate protections incorporated into the approval so that the surrounding property owners can have confidence that this will remain a low intensity administrative use. Ultimately, I believe this request represents a reasonable compromise between several important interests. It allows a respected local nonprofit to expand its administrative capacity in Marion. It keeps the property maintained and occupied. It makes productive use of existing structure, existing municipal infrastructure. It is consistent with other medical arts rezoning the town has already approved. It's consistent with the town's vision for the Main Street corridor. It can potentially bring additional employees and families into Marion, creating economic activity that far exceeds a relatively small amount of real estate tax associated with one property. And it allows the town to encourage continued investment by an organization that already has a significant presence in our community. I'd also ask the Council and the Planning Commission to consider what happens if this request is denied. The alternative is not necessarily that a family moves into this house tomorrow and everything remains exactly as it is today. The current purchaser has made it clear that the purchase depends upon the zoning allowing the proposed administrative use. If the rezoning is denied, the sale may not occur. That means the town could lose the opportunity to place this property into a stable, well-maintained use by an established local organization, while also losing an opportunity to encourage additional investment and employment in Marion. I'm not asking to put a clinic in this house. I'm not asking for a high traffic commercial operation. I'm not asking for prominent signage or substantial changes in the property. I'm asking that the town allow a well-established community organization to use an existing home for administrative offices under conditions that preserve the appearance and character of the surrounding neighborhood. I believe we can protect both things that matter here, the neighborhood and the community. I'd ask that the Planning Commission and the Town Council consider three simple questions. First, is this property suitable for the proposed use? I believe the location, the existing structure, and the existing infrastructure and the surrounding development demonstrate that it is. Second, can the proposed use coexist with the surrounding neighborhood? I believe the existing Mount Rogers property directly across the street demonstrates that it can. And third, does this proposal benefit the Town of Marion? I believe it does. Through investment, employment, preservation of existing property, community services, and the potential attraction of additional families to Marion. If the answer to those questions was yes, then I respectively believe the rezoning is in the best interest of the town. If approved, 415 East Main Street can retain the charm and aesthetic it has today while providing Mount Rogers Community Services with additional space to strengthen an organization that our community depends upon. For those reasons, I respectively ask the Planning Commission to recommend approval of this request, and ultimately the council will approve the rezoning of 415 East Main Street from R1 Residential to Medical Arts. Thank you for your time and consideration and your service to the town. If you all have any questions for me while I'm up here.

Thank you all.

Hi.

I'm Sandy Bryant. I'm CEO of Mount Rogers Community Services Board, and I wanted to assure everyone that the use of what we, it's a perfect space because it's right across from our clinical services. And I want to spend, since we serve six jurisdictions and all of our administrative offices are in Whitfield, But we serve more people in Smith than we do in Whitfield. It's our largest population, and it's the one that's fastest growing. The largest homeless, the largest issues with The CSU Crisis Stabilization Unit and the highest acuity services are here. And I want administrative staff to spend one or two days a month here, but we are so full in our offices, there's no place for us to land. having a space where we can just administrative staff can be so that we can go to different offices or they can come to us where a community can come and talk about concerns or needs. That's what the use of this house was for. We would actually park in our parking lot right across the street. We wouldn't even be parking in front of that. the house. It's increased our visibility, those people that are responsible for making sure we have quality services. That's my responsibility. And over 1000 employees at Mount Rogers in we're very large. and we always have problems but we have so many more successes but i want to be able to hear from the community i want to be able to be accessible to our staff here in smith county just as much as with and that's why i was interested when pat said the house was dan was right across the street I said, let's go look at it. Uh, and, uh, it's right across the street. It's, it would be perfect for us for me in CFO, our communications director, our informations officer spent one or two days a week in the community where we're serving the most individuals. And I'm here to answer any other questions about, there's no need for a sign because I would usually, if anyone wanted to visit our community partners or that sort of thing, I would go to them. If staff wanted to come see me, they would know the address. It's also confidential. in which someone wanted to come talk to me, there wouldn't be individuals there to be served. HIPAA wouldn't be violated. There's a lot of reasons why we thought the House would be aligned. We want to serve Smith County the best way we can. And part of that is to be more visible in Smith County. That was the whole purpose. It's administrative staff to be here. for the community and for our individuals and for our staff. If you'd like to have some statistics, Matt Sabo, our communications director, pulls some statistics for Smith County.

Thanks for allowing us to be here. So in Smith County, we have 188 employees. And the number of people we serve, so we have five counties that we serve in and the city of Galax, 30% of the people we serve live in Smith County. So that's a very significant number. And it's about 3,000, almost 3,000 a year. And that's been pretty consistent for the last couple of years. And we're actually a little bit ahead of that. And I also wanted to point out that the one area we're really growing in terms of people we serve are our under 18 population. So in fiscal years 2025, we served 709. And then this past year, we served 766 in that population. And again, we're seeing those numbers increase. And the over 60 population, as we know, including me, an aging population, right? And so those are the two areas we're really seeing some growth. So those are the numbers I want to share with you and thanks for having us here tonight. Any questions? All right, thank you.

Hello, I'm Gregory Graham of 343 Rushing Mountain Road, Marion, Virginia.

I guess my question for Ms. Sandy Bryan is, have you all addressed anything to do with, I guess, the illegal union firing of me for union organizing from your, I guess, ESS location? I was fired for a union organization, but I don't want to file suit in court because it just gets my beliefs. But this is just a commission and a hearing, but I see not court necessarily. And I just wanted to ask if there had been any action done on your part to investigate.

Mr. Graham, you're not addressing the issue of the resume. That would be something that you would need to speak with.

I just want to address that there might be some things that are not seen necessarily in statistics and in forums such as your internet search engines. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hello. I'm Andrew Moss. I'm the chief of police in Chihuahua. Having worked in Marion for 24 years before I went to Chihuahua. Been using Mount Rogers services through various departments. the neighborhood has been mount rogers the entire time i was here i've been here since i was here from 96 until 2021. so mount rogers offices have been there the whole time we used to have a clubhouse there that was in the neighborhood but today i'm here as a one as a board member for mount rogers and another is a law enforcement officer in the county What I can say is as a board member, I toured facilities and with a lot of residential facilities. And what I can say there is from the outside, you can't tell that, you know, they do a phenomenal job. Sandy took me around. They do a phenomenal job of fixing up those homes. These were older, you know, likely dilapidated homes that were fixed up and made much more presentable. And I know that's not the case here, but, you know, they've They're just nondescript, and you wouldn't know unless you go in, maybe, that that's even going on. But the fact that it's been in the neighborhood for, like I said, at least since I've been here since 96, that's what it's been across the street. So I don't think it's a... The difference to the neighborhood, like I said, I don't have a dog hunt other than I'm with the board and I'm with law enforcement. When we have somebody in crisis or whatever, the fact that we can bring them up here and not leave Chihuahua unattended because we're either sitting in the hospital you know through the duration of an eco or teo the fact that we can take another crisis center you know the more services that are in marion the better snoop county law enforcement is able to deal with you know situations that come up so

I'm Dana Chamberlain. I live at 512 East Main Street. And let me start by saying I'm glad that we as a nation are finally realizing that mental health services are something that's valuable, something we should invest in, and that we're actually providing some funding for that. Regarding this subject, they've got this huge building project going on back there, and I don't know why they didn't plan for office space when they designed that building project. There was a house next door to us that was the clubhouse and sometime along the road they decided they needed to stop the whole clubhouse project and turn that house into office space. And I happened to be, during this, I was in their architect's office asking about what was going on and how that would impact. And I was advised that they had changed their mind a couple of times, that he had to redesign and redraw everything. And then ultimately they changed their mind again and decided to turn it into a parking lot. and lit it up like a ball field all night long so during this time as they were deciding what they were going to do with this building and building a parking lot i came home to find some people taking down part of my fence between my our property and that property which was a problem because i counted on that fence to keep my dog in the yard and when i spoke to them about it i said well we're going to move this fence two feet back into uh your property, to which my response was hell no. And they ended up having to rebuild a fence for me. So I think we can see why I don't really trust what they say they're going to do. They changed their minds so we don't know that, OK, across the road, where the Lisa Moore building is now there was another old house that was original to the neighborhood and that was office space for them and so now that's gone and they built the Lisa Moore building which is fine because that provides valuable services but we don't know what's going to happen after they metastasize across the street into the rest of the neighborhood this 100 year old neighborhood has been residential pretty much from the beginning and it's just I'm not sure that that's something that's that's really necessary I got off tracking lost my notes here um so anyway my did when they were building the Lisa Moore building the neighborhood was obviously upset about that and so they assured us that they were going to be sensitive to the neighborhood and you know spreading out into the neighborhood I don't think is being being sensitive so my request is that we keep mount riders on the south side of east main street there's plenty of space over there they could use what they need over there and don't let their camels and others get under our tent thank you

hi i'm susan ferraro i'm the executive director of the mel amen free clinic and i'm here to speak to the partnership that we have with mount rogers community services they have been providing counselors to us since 2021 because of this partnership we this year so far we have had 71 different patients partake in the counseling services, and that's a total of 203 appointments. We pay for them with grant money. However, they charge us very little because there's not a whole lot of money for us to get. They're excellent partners. If I have a problem, it's easy to get to them. I'm just saying the best part about this is the people that do not have insurance in Smith County, the ones that work part-time at McDonald's, at the restaurants, Walmart, can have counseling just like everybody else can that can afford to pay for with insurance. and this has been well received by my patients and i'm glad they're being able to get the service we've grown from one counselor a week to now two counselors a week to accommodate all the patients that are going through the counseling and behavioral health services any questions anybody

Is that your cell phone that keeps going off? That's your cell phone that keeps going off? Yeah.

It's an arm for her. So when it gets high, it lets me know it's going high. And there's no way I can cut it off. My name is Charles Hayden. I live at 726 South Church Street. And one thing's not been addressed tonight, but it has been before. Suppose this stays residential. You don't know, we don't know, it's a guess, how many vehicles will be with the people that buys it. So that's going along that side. Everybody's parking on the road now. That's going to congest even more that people driving up and down roads will have to deal with. I think that's the best use for it because he's already stating it's not going to be a high traffic. But depending on who was to buy, if he'd give this thing up, It could be four or five, maybe even six in the way people collect the cars. That would really congest that hill even worse than it is. So I think it's best used for it. Anyone else?

um good evening everyone my name is john hill and my wife vivian and i live at 407 east main street which is next door to 415 east main street i'm 80 years old and vivian is a lot younger than me and um Vivian's lived in that house for 49 years and we've been married for over 31 years and I've lived in that house for 31 years. We've enjoyed the neighborhood that we live in until the last few years. It was someplace that we could relax, be ourselves, sit on the front porch, talk to our neighbors, and all that is gone. In fact, we've even left for four days before and left the front door open. Not unlocked, but open. When we came home and discovered the front door was open, we weren't really worried because We knew who our neighbors were. We knew what the neighborhood was like. We didn't have to worry about people coming into our homes. so it's not like that now of course we lock our doors now we've never locked our doors before the last five or six years we have people walking up and down the street at all hours of the day including one or two o'clock in the morning we We've had people walking up the middle of the street, shouting out obscenities during the middle of the day, same thing at night. So we feel like the safety of our neighborhood has been compromised, which of course reduces the value of it, because who would want to live there with all that going on? Where the rubber meets the road, I had a neighbor that lived across the street from us in property that's now not even there, that was rezoned, and Mount Rogers came to the owner of that house and offered to buy it from him, but they offered it below market price and he refused to sell. So we talked about some other things. And then four or five months later, I saw him again in the neighborhood. And he profusely apologized to me because he said he was going to have to sell his house, that the property value was going down. He was afraid he would not be able to get enough out of it. So he had to sell it to Mount Rogers for a blow market value. Another thing that happened with our neighborhood is the very first rezoning request that took place while we were there that I knew about was across the street where our house had burned down and the lot had been cleared and the lot was vacant. And so there was a rezoning hearing or a zoning hearing because Mount Rogers wanted to rezone that to a parking lot. And I was told by a planning commission member to my face when I asked what they were going to use that for. A parking lot, about 8 to 12 cars will be there, and that's all. So now that where the parking lot was supposed to be, that never appeared. It's now a big brick box that sits there in the middle of our neighborhood. And if you walk down the street to the entrance and go into the parking lots, and count the number of cars that are in there, well, when I've counted them, they've ranged from 62 to 72. So instead of a parking lot that might hold 12 vehicles, there's two parking lots that hold over 70 vehicles. They are there every workday. How do you think they get there? They come up our street and so there's steady traffic coming up and down there all the time. It's just lucky we don't have any little children that live there now. We have people that walk up and down the street. They stop and sit on the retaining walls that are along the sidewalk there. And they just sit there sometimes. Sometimes they fight with somebody else. Sometimes they talk to themselves. Sometimes they yell at the top of their voices. This is what our neighborhood looks like now. And I know that the rezoning of one property on there will not necessarily cause those same things, but they allow Mount Rogers an opportunity to get into our neighborhood. And when they've been in there before, they have not told us the truth. The first rezoning hearing I went to, I expected to talk to these people and hear the truth about what was going on, but I didn't hear that. Everything, they just changed their minds as they feel like it. And I know in most localities, the zoning law allows zoning applicants to basically lie, to say anything they want to, and then change it later, and that's exactly what happened. So I would not trust Mount Rogers as far as I could throw them because of the experience that I've had with them We Don't I'm asking you all to Vote against this rezoning because it's Just an opening for Mount Rogers to get in there. I don't know exactly what happens if they would take ownership of the property if the conditions for the rezoning would stay with the property or with the new owners or if they have to even comply with them. I know there's a section in the zoning ordinance, I think it's 12-6, that will allow Mount Rogers to petition the town for relief from the conditions around the zoning. So I don't know if those conditions are even meaningful. So another thing that's helping to reduce the value of our property is the traffic. I already mentioned the traffic that's coming and parking up there. Pedestrian traffic, there's no way apparently for them to get up to the entrance other than walk up and down our street. And Mount Rogers should address that. Maybe they need to open up a separate entrance for pedestrians that keeps them off public ways. And we're certainly not trying to shut Mount Rogers down because we know how much good they do. But we're trying to preserve our neighborhood. This is our home. This is where we live. And I wonder how everybody in here would feel if the same thing was going on in their neighborhoods. I'm sure they'd be standing up here talking also. uh this is our home we enjoy living there we love the house we have we love the character of the house and all we're seeing is the neighborhood it's completely different now than it was five years ago we would like for it to kind of go backwards like it was in and apparently the town of Marion wants the type of citizens that we are to be here. We paid taxes on that property. Vivian's paid them for 49 years. One or both of us has paid them for the last 31 years. We're law-abiding, we've never been arrested. anything like that and if i was on the town council or the management of the town i would be the type of citizens that we wanted and i think that's why some of the things that are said in the comprehensive plan are in there because it seems like that's what the town wants but Mount Rogers does not care about the neighborhood all and I'm saying Mount Rogers does a lot of good the people that work there to me are heroes they should be recognized and some people work there because they need a job and they're not maybe that gung-ho about it but still that's good because they have a job And I just wonder how many of the senior management people have spent a shift on the front lines in the last 10 years. OK.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

We should have stated this before, but you have three minutes. I'll be quick.

I'll be quick. Hi, my name is Brooke Keene. I currently reside at 218 North Church Street, but I'm also the owner of 415 with my husband. I had a whole spiel, but just hearing some of the statements from others, I think I will just kind of go from the heart on this one. I can say both professionally and personally my experience working with Mount Rogers. I worked with the intellectual and developmentally disabled population for over a decade. A lot of that experience was working directly with Mount Rogers in the sponsored residential side. And I think a lot of people do not know the importance of the CSB, such as Mount Rogers. the impact that they make on these communities. I don't know that folks even realize that CSBs are the single point of entry for folks that have intellectual and developmental disabilities. So I like to highlight that because, again, I did that for a long time. Our son has autism, so that's something, too. We've reached out to Mount Rogers for support, advocacy. I like to highlight that. But aside's the point. I want to just note that You know, this was something that we tried to go about doing the right way, just like Andrew stated. We've gone about every route, every circum way to make this work. I just want this home to go to someone that's going to take care of it. And I know that Mount Rogers will, again, just from personal and professional experience. I know that, you know, But just because a house has been a home for a really long time doesn't mean that its purpose does not change. Just because they're going to be doing stuff on the inside that's not exactly what someone who lives there might do, the purpose does not change. This house will not change. The exterior will not change. We have made that perfectly clear. But the intent and purpose of this home will change and i think that it's important to realize that and the impact that mount rogers makes on this community and that's what i really want to focus and highlight i don't care who buys my house i i'm very proud of the fact of what andrew and i have done we've tried to make that home what it is but at this point we're thankful that someone has expressed interest and we know that it's a party that's going to take care of it we know that's a party that's been established in that neighborhood for a long time So I just ask that you take that into consideration when you're making these decisions. And if you have any questions, please just let us know. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Wendy Goyen. I have been with Mount Rogers 24 years. I have done direct care, matter of fact. Probably last week I was changing diapers. Many of us in administration have grown up through the ranks, so we know what hard work, what dedication is. And part of that hard work and dedication is meeting the needs of not only our employees, but particularly to our individuals and especially our county. We take great pride in investment. and we take great pride in what we do. As Miss King said, I do residential services. That is the day-to-day services of your loved ones with bathing, dressing, grooming, all the things that you leave in the care and the trust of someone. Administrative staff is on call 24-7. One of my peers, Kim Woodley, she was in coverage this weekend. So we are not just the administrative staff. We are direct care workers to serve our individuals, the county, and work alongside of our employees. So we take great pride in what we do and we're happy to answer any concerns and any questions that folks may have. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Yes, they are.

Yes, they do. We have many individuals that work. They either work through our employment support services or they work out in the community. So they do both. Other questions? Thank you.

Hey, sir. My name is George Martin. I've owned the home 403 East Main since 2005. I've been there off and on for the last 21 years. I'm 77 years old. When my current employment contract ends, I plan to return and live out my life there. Marion is my home. I'm opposed to the rezoning of 415 East Main Street to Medical Arts for three reasons. First, the value of my property and those around it will go down. That's a universal notion when commercial enterprises in a residential area. It may not come out of my pocket, but it will come out of my grandchildren's pocket, and I don't like it. Second, the quality of the quiet, friendly, true neighborhood could be diminished. I'm specifically opposed to further growth of the mountain lodges in the purely residential areas south side of East Main. There's plenty of room north of the main building that they should not be allowed to cross East Main to the south or east of Hospital Drive. I'm not here to dispute that Mount Rogers services are not important. They are. Nobody knows that more than I do. But Mount Rogers is not a good neighbor. Even Mr. King doesn't want to live across the street from them. I'm reading now from the Marion Comprehensive.

That's not true. He's not, of course. That's not true.

Mr. Keene, you bought the property in May. You relisted it on 6-12, five weeks.

Without ever moving in, if there was another opportunity that came about, that was going to be our home. Don't make an assumption about that. It's...

We've been very confident in the plan. Objectives are to promote safe, quality, affordable, well-maintained housing residence for all residents. Promote home ownership. Provide opportunities for neighborhood regional housing with preferences for owner-occupied housing. Encourage safe and housing for the elderly and disabled. I may not be disabled yet, but I do qualify as being elderly. Residential neighborhoods should preserve and enhance the integrity and quality of residential neighborhoods. It should ensure that zoning regulations protect neighborhoods from the encroachment or indirect impacts of incompatible land use. Promote home ownership, not taking an already existing home out of circulation with rezoning. I'll refer to the Marion town, the town of Marion zoning plan. Medical Arts General permits these following uses. Gymnasiums, fitness center, medical support facility, professional office space, pharmacy, laboratories, clinics, urgent care, medical office, opticians with optical supply, child care facilities, field senior facilities, medical education facilities, and monitors, and I was quite surprised, Mr. Mayor, that it includes churches, dental offices, and electric vehicle charging stations. These are your ordinances, not mine. I didn't make this up. And if the property is rezoned to medical arts general, all of these uses are permitted by law, and there is nothing that the neighborhood could do about it. Now let's discuss the setback requirements for medical arts general. The requirement, the setback requirement is 25 feet, but 50 feet if it adjoins a residentially zoned district. Mr. Hillenow, maybe the distance between the side of the yard, the property line in the front is 19 feet, and in the back is 24. The house doesn't sit exactly perpendicular on the lot, but it doesn't meet the setback requirements of your zoning ordinances. Further, there's supposed to be a privacy buffer of landscaping with not much room for that. And all lighting associated with commercial zone shall have minimal impact on the adjacent residential zone areas. I specifically point out the notion, the idea of regulation. All lighting should have mental impact on adjacent residential zone areas. This is one prime factor when Mount Rogers has not been a good neighbor. For three years, the lights in their parking lot were so bright that in my bedroom on the northeast corner of the second floor, I could read a newspaper at 3 a.m. with no other lights than from their parking lot. Vehicle traffic had, admittedly unscientific, but based on frequent operation, had doubled since Mount Rogers was allowed to expand northeast of East Main. There are people who roam the street, begging for handouts, constantly in my yard, as we walked up and down East Main all hours of the day and night, shouting, singing, and creating a general disturbance. The patients at Mount Rogers themselves have numerous times in their lives been so violent that they were adjudicated a danger to themselves or others and had to be hospitalized involuntarily. There are also patients who have been adjudicated as not guilty by reason of insanity but are in our community on conditional release plans which must be monitored by the community services board. Only a third of the patients in Southern Virginia mental health are there on NGR status and violated their community condition and relief plans and have to be re-hospitalized. These are not neighbors. They do not fit in this neighborhood. Lastly, I refer to page 61 of the comprehensive plan. Potential change to take place in Marion over the next five to ten years is a relocation of medical arts uses away from predominantly residential areas near Radio Hill, Snyder Street, and Karis Park. The construction of the new hospital and medical uses near the old hospital will relocate. Therefore, I'm asking that this body do not extend new medical zone or zoning on East Main Street, which runs contrary to the city's already established plan. Ms. Keene has said that if we don't allow this, that we will lose four or five families that would move to Merritt. But we also heard that this is not going to be new people. It's simply people who are in other offices around their five-area jurisdiction who will be visiting and having meetings. That's not new citizens. In summary, a single rezoned home in a neighborhood such as this is like a cancer. But with cancer, one cell goes bad, and another, and another. In a neighborhood, one home is rezoned, and then two, and then a block. And soon, like a cancer patient, the neighborhood dies. We would be destroying the exact kind of neighborhood that planning documents say is why people, potential homeowners and taxpayers, would move here in the first place. And even more importantly, stay here long term. Based on my math and your documents, Marion has lost 30% of its population since 1970. I don't want to live in a ghost town, but then I moved to West Virginia. Thank you very much.

My name is Linda Hartzell. I live at 403 East Main Street. I had a whole thing to read, but I'm not going to do that because everybody has pretty much brought up what I was going to cover anyway. My question, I guess, and my concern about rezoning this house for medical arts is we've heard a little bit that there might be some limitation on what they can do with it. But has anybody seen this in writing? Do we have a contract that says they can't do anything with it, but use it as like overflow offices? Because if that's all we have, just their word, we've had too many instances where they don't keep the word. I'm just saying that. I'm not making it up. We've had people get up here and talk about how they said they were gonna do one thing, and a parking lot became a building that became 60 to 70 cars instead of eight to 10. and that's we're just worried about that none of us that live on that street think there's anything wrong with mount rogers providing services to the neighborhood and to the community but are there not enough buildings or office space available somewhere not in the middle of this residential neighborhood that's been there for 100 years that you guys could put them into and i'm sure the white houses have been settling in marion for the last couple of years that the king's home could sell we're not harming them from selling their property by by asking that you not approve this result thank you

Kim Woodley, I'm the senior director of crisis services, and I came tonight to provide a little bit of like silent support, but I felt like it was important to say I've been with the agency for about 15 years and I started out as a counselor at the crisis state unit, which is now up at 220 Hospital Avenue, which was one of the first locations that went into the new construction there. Our crisis stabilization unit provides services for adults with mental health and substance use disorders and allows these individuals to be able to stay in their home communities to get treatment. We know that treatment is more effective when people are able to obtain that within their community, where they have access to their families and their support systems. I think one of the biggest injustices that we see when folks need hospitalization is that they have to go across the state to get it. When that happens, that automatically limits planning options and care that can be coordinated more effectively. We know that some of our families don't have a lot of resources, so they don't get to visit and those things. So having the services that we have in our community is vitally important. One of my biggest goals as I have worked up from a counselor. I went from being a counselor at the CSU to being the program manager of that program and then had the opportunity to step into the director of crisis services position. And one of the primary goals that I had when I took that position was really collaborating with our law enforcement. How can we support the law enforcement in this area more effectively how can we not work against each other you know a lot of our goals um a lot of the things by code that we have to do puts us in opposition with their needing to get back out on the road quickly and so we worked as an agency of how do we overcome that barrier we had the first crisis receiving center in marion in the state we set the standard on supporting law enforcement and getting individuals getting the officers back out on the street as quickly as we could so that they could protect our community. And I think part of being able to provide those services for law enforcement and being an employer in the community and being able to provide those services for the individuals that we serve is being accessible to them. We know that we have speed bumps. We're not perfect as an agency. We do a lot of things right, but you're probably going to hear a thing or two that went wrong. And so being accessible to the individuals that have those concerns gives us an opportunity to be able to fix those things. Having an open door. We have an open door policy. That's with our staff. That's with individuals. We take calls, you know, from individuals in the community that have a hiccup in their services. We take, you know, we have regular law enforcement, we have community partner meetings at our receiving center every month.

I think you're being very efficient with what we're talking about. We're really concerned about, and it's not at all, but this being an administrative office, that we weren't seeing people there in the administration.

That's right. And so what I'm saying with all of that is giving people an opportunity to come in and have direct access to our administrative staff so that we can hear those concerns so that law enforcement can come to us and and be able to talk to just not those of us whose offices are here, but the ones that are outside of this area as well would be beneficial. Any questions or comments?

Anyone else? My name is Mark Warren.

I'm the senior director at Mount Rogers. I also live in Marion at 619 Sherwood Drive here in Marion. And of course Mount Rogers is very beneficial to me, of course, because I'm employed by them. But what I would say is that I've heard several people mention the fact that how important Mount Rogers is and how much good work Mount Rogers does. Well, part of that comes along with the administrative services. And so having administrative services very conveniently located right across from the clinic is going to be very beneficial. That's all I wanted to say.

No one else?

I have no money in either side, but I do have interest in seeing the law and the process done according to law. In 2000, Charles Wasson, in 2001, 2002, zoning was accepted in Smith County. I guess it was going on in Marion before. But anyway, zoning was to protect the neighborhood from unwanted changes. Period. Follow the zoning. It's to protect the neighborhood from unwanted changes. If the neighborhood wants changes, change it. If the neighborhood doesn't want changes, don't change anything. But I'm here to see the process done the way it's supposed to be done. It has nothing to do with what Mount Rogers does or doesn't do. It has nothing to do with what Mr. Keene wants or doesn't want. It has, what it has to do with is the zoning is the law to protect neighborhoods from underwater change. Banking period.

Okay, further comment?

Speaking for the people that are here from our neighborhood, please don't think that we're saying anything against Mount Rogers and the work they do. We're not at all. Nobody has even mentioned that during any of our discussions. What we don't want Mount Rogers to do is take over our neighborhood and destroy it. And that's the way it's going right now. Thank you.

so you know what it is yes mr chairman i'd like to ask you about um the property of 421 um do we know that they received our notice mark all those that are sent out

Because of the original notice saying September 7th, Labor Day, that we sent out again paying Mr. Long, it actually went through trying to contact each property member.

Right. So, and have we heard back from the residents or the property owner of 421? I'm not certain of that address. And we know, I guess if Mr. Walden was here, he would help us. Is 421 owned by a person that lives there, or is it rented by him? It's a person, and she could not come tonight.

She does, she is aware, and she could not be here tonight.

Okay. Any questions? Council?

Mr. Chairman, I do have one question. Go ahead. Regarding the conditions and maybe more regarding the conditions. Is that going to be in the contract itself? Is that going to be, I don't know, it's not stipulated, it's not in the contract itself.

This would be a conditional rezoning. So the conditions, the restrictions would be stipulated in the rezoning for that. It's not just an open rezoning to medical arts. So the things that you heard about tearing it down, building a parking lot, and fundamentally changing the property, none of that is going to be able because there's going to be conditions on the property. In fact, the ad that went out in the paper even illustrated that the only change to this property would be that you could have multiple offices in it, and it specifically says in the wording in the in the zoning for this property that the additional, all the other designations and restrictions to R1 residential will remain in place. The only change is that they can have multiple administrative offices. I don't have anything, I could certainly request an addendum in the real estate contract, But I think that to have this as part of the conditional rezoning, which would be policed by our code enforcement, would be more of a grip. But I would certainly request an addendum to the real estate contract with the same language if the council and the planning commission wished.

Well, I guess, going along with what Mary just said, I'm looking at this and saying this is going to be office space. I'm not looking at this as some kind of clinical setting.

My understanding of the administration is you're going to do the kind of work, you're going to do the things that you need to do.

This is not going to be a patient facility at any time.

That's correct. The restrictions would say that there is no service provision at that property. I think when they say that they would be they would be on site across the street, the administrative folks would be and they could be accessed by staff, but there would not be service provision, counseling, therapy, anything happen in that in that setting.

This is Jeffrey. The bill of officials and all of the requirements that they'll face.

Mayor, did you have a question?

I think that one of my council members wanted to raise a question, but my understanding of these meetings is that when it's turned over to council, that is council's time to ask the questions and deliberate on these topics. So we've heard about two properties both wanting rezoning. We'll take those one at a time when they're released to council and at that time council will start their deliberations, ask their questions. I'll ask everyone that has spoken on this subject probably to stay because council really hasn't had the opportunity to ask the questions because that's not the way these meetings work. This is the Planning Commission part of the meeting. After it's turned over to Council, Council will deliberate and ask questions.

Is Mr. Wilk ready to close?

I have no idea. It's his meeting right now. You're fine, Mr. Wilk. Proceed.

We have not voted whether we approve of this return.

A we rather than a we. That's a motion. That's a motion. We can second. Second. I'm always concerned, historically I've been concerned, any time you take a residential house home out of entrepreneurship because there is a shortage of good housing. um i'm sorry can you

Can you re-vote and have them raise their hands? Can you re-vote and have them raise their hands so I can see?

To approve this to count? And I believe the count is 3-2, is that correct? Would you point your hands again? For Yetis? Yes.

For Yetis? I guess to approve it. I'm staying close, okay.

uh can i ask a question uh what is your reason for extension possible conflicts i have worked with my brother before mr fennick pardon is mr wolf allowed to abstain for those reasons so that had been brought up in the past because he

had contractual services architectural services that he has provided to mount rogers i'm not certain he may be of the opinion that he's trying to get additional contractual services and if that's the case abstaining would be appropriate i think it would be so um your abstention is uh

Did we vote on both issues? Yes. Okay.

And was the vote the same on?

No, 7-0 on the first one.

7-0 on the first one. Okay. Just so we're clear, you're turning the meeting over to us. We thank the Planning Commission for their service and their time involved in this. Now we will turn this over to the Council for further discussion and deliberation. I will excuse the Planning Commission, I guess, because their portion of this is over. We're not there yet, but did anyone sign the comic sheet? Did anyone sign the comic sheet?

No, there's no sheet over here.

I think Mr. Fulton said that. Hey, what's on that table?

hey

Oh, two sheets. Okay.

council are we ready to proceed with our part of this or does anyone need a break well let's get this over with okay let's begin with the 7-0 vote for the rezoning of food city it's open for discussion and questions now I personally feel like this was just a slight oversight in the original planning and I would like to make a motion that we approve the rezoning request I appreciate you can make motions at any point in time but tap the brakes just a little bit I think we need to discuss under what conditions this happened I would like to know more about why this happened, and that way we can eliminate that possibility of something like this happening again in the future. Because it causes me great concern that all of a sudden, elk sprouted a road that wasn't supposed to be there. Doesn't that cause you concern? Maybe an oversight, but a mere oversight to create an entire road through someone's backyard is there not anyone here from food city i think that i remember seeing that road in the plans in the beginning am i correct tony yeah so somebody tell me what happened here uh bill rush was mentioned and that they vacated interior lot lines uh they're just talking about the back drainage area okay so i i don't i don't understand is was that road permitted The road, there's a road there that we're talking about that goes from Park Boulevard to Food City. Am I wrong in that? You are correct. Is that in this property? You are correct.

Everyone understands that's going to create traffic.

Pardon? that road is through residential property and that's what we're wanting to resell commercially that is part of it yes okay and uh additional properties there that are and see we haven't seen a map or drawing yet but that i did some credit and it is in mr long's office and that is how this the discovery that what is that can she

vacated interior lot lines they believe that by vacating the interior lot lines it all went commercial because the front majority of the track was commercial the back part it was residential did the neighbors uh believe that that

was commercial when commercial i mean is this is this just a clerical error or did we miss something important here i i don't understand how i was under the impression all along when mr russell was here tony correct me that we discussed having a road

connecting to Park Boulevard. That was the whole idea of the drainage over there on the drive-in.

We absolutely discussed that.

We discussed that. You're correct. So I think it's just, I mean, it happens just over sites. I think it's not neither here nor there. I really don't see a problem with it at all, myself, to the community or it'd be a problem to Food City if it were denied. But for the town itself, I don't see any problem.

I don't want to see this happen again in development. That's the reason that I want to discuss this.

Well, you're always going to see it. You weren't here when Ballard Health omitted some stuff when they came to us and later showed up. Cindy remembers, I'm sure. But it's happened. There's been precedence before this council on that. It just happened. There's no... It's human error, human oversight, haste, whatever you want to call it.

But I believe you want to process, right?

Yeah, I want to process. I want to know what happened, why it happened, so it doesn't happen again because somebody, some were making a mistake. And that causes the credibility of this body as well as the credibility of the town of Marion to come into question. Now, we haven't heard from anyone on that property. No one was here to complain. It's a simple thing for us just to rezone it, and that makes the road commercial. Is the town of Marion going to maintain that road, or is that road going to be continually maintained as an entryway by Food City? knowledge so that mode is going to be an integral the only thing that food city has stated that they were going to do to feed a kid assuming that the town accepts it is that retention area okay so that that would be the property that we would be taking over with mosquito pellets correct and it it currently is a residential okay so we're

now i think i understand the problem i still don't understand the solution and i don't know what went wrong but i understand i would suggest the issue for roads and that they vacated interior lock planes and on that same flat did a re-subdivision that had they vacated the interior lot lines and then come to the town for rezoning and then after the rezoning then did the subdivision that would have caught the issue. They they went instead of doing two plants, they did one plant.

So

that that doesn't happen again is there anything that we can change in our procedures to catch things like that in the future council this is your question as well i just don't think there's going to be any perfect set of plans uh that's not in life i mean you're going to have additions subtractions from playing i know my father-in-law late father-in-law he built schools all over

the country and he always said he never saw a perfect set of plans they always had to adjust them and go back and i understand believe me i'm not i'm not against food city in this whatsoever uh i just want to make sure that our processes and our credibility remain i don't i don't like Mr. Freeman, do you have something to add?

Speaking for the Planning Commission, this project did not come before us. We never saw the site plan. And perhaps if it had come before us, we might have noticed or seen this problem or this point.

Is that an irregularity that it didn't come before you?

It's the discretion of counsel. to recommending to the planning commission it's the discretion of todd long when it comes to the planning commission but we did not ever see a slight

feel like moving forward the the burden lies on our shoulders here that if any if any situation like this comes before us then we need to as council members ensure that it goes to planning commission so in my honest opinion i feel like the fault lies with us and i do too and i apologize if my motion seemed like haste that's not what i meant i was just My assumption was that everybody sort of understood that this was mostly a clerical error and everybody thought that this rezoning had already occurred with vacating the lot lines, making the multiple properties one by the vacation.

so hence my motion your motion is now being entertained and I appreciate the discussion and clarification on that yes I believe that the problem does fall on council and in the future maybe we will learn from this and we'll put those site plans in front of the planning commission to make sure that things like this don't happen we're all for food city and their good community partners and their great uh investment in our community i don't want anyone to get the impression that we're not with them i just want us to learn how to do our jobs effectively and not have questions like this come up is there a second to mr second okay so we have a motion in a second we have discussed this all in favor of rezoning the food city property and it is unanimous now we can move on to the rezoning issue concerning uh hospital hill for that matter i don't have it right in front of me but uh probably for the record uh that is um mr king uh 415 415 main street in virginia okay eastbound r1 to medical arts okay uh we've heard

lot of differing opinions council do you have questions well I have a suggestion I think Andrew you mentioned it I'd like to see those contingencies put into real estate contract if you could do that the parking across the street The other things.

I'll be happy to request addendum to that. I'll have that drafted if this is approved this evening and send that to Miles Rogers for review. But again, that would be more on the real estate side, whereas code enforcement here would police what happens as far as the zoning is concerned.

I know it would, but that might be an extra coverage.

Absolutely. One thing also, a couple of the residents mentioned being able to see something tangible that would be reinforcing that. Would it be possible, once this paperwork was done, that any sensitive information be redacted and let these people physically see that paperwork in front of them with these stipulations? Absolutely.

Would it be recorded in the deed?

Mark, that's a I don't know.

Your rezoning is recorded in the minutes. Minutes can say that the restriction is that the house is to maintain the appearance of the house and it is to have administrative offices following that only to be vehicles can be part of the street. And then after that, if there were to be a change, Mount Rogers purchased it. And if they wanted to get rid of the restrictions, they would have to apply for another rezoning medical arts to do away with the restrictions. So it would come back to the council before anything differently could occur.

they sold the property same thing applies same thing applies I agree with the neighbors I mean you know to live in a neighborhood and have someone come in and change the complexion of that neighborhood is a gigantic encroachment what's My question is to Mount Rogers. What guarantee do we have that you're not going to come back next year asking for another property to be rezoned? And I think somebody used to cancer. My vision of Marion is not all these facilities. I'll be totally honest with you. I like the neighborhoods like they are. I think it's a beautiful city. Family, friends come in from everywhere and they love Marion. They love it as it is. we have things that a lot of places can't offer and when i visit large cities there's a lot of non-non-planning women involved and that goes back to what i'm saying about no perfect plans because nashville for instance but hither says they grew at all costs and but i i guess i'm old school i don't like to see our old neighborhoods the complexion of it changed and i'm torn and i'm all for mount rogers another thing that concerns me bothers me why is smith county 30 higher than everybody else on these problems That bothers the heck out of me. We're doing something wrong or not doing something enough. Well, that's not worth it to our discussion.

I understand your hates, but let's stay on subject.

Well, I am on subject. Okay.

It seems to me like we rezoned something of Market Street where we were told one thing and then something totally different happened.

You did. Do you remember that? I do remember that. All of a sudden, something else grew where the plan was apartments, from my memory of that. And the neighbors were not happy. No, that's true. No, they were not.

When they came to talk to us, that's when it changed.

I've got notes. We won't refer to those right now. Yeah, that was the subject of discussion. Ongoing.

This is very tough for me.

It is tough.

Because I had the opportunity to serve on the Mount Rogers board for the nine years. I believe it was. I think however many years it was. And I can also, and I do want to say, I never knew them to ever not do what they said they were going to do. That is a fact. I also see the side of the Davers, too. So, you know, this is a real tough situation because both of you are are good people and right, you know, with your arguments.

Mr. Finn, can we continue this public hearing until the next meeting and keep it open?

If you so decide to, yes.

Okay. One option. In the meantime, we could view the vacated or the addendum that they would have to. This would be at the discretion of council. This is not a call that I would make. This is an issue that we would vote on, of course.

Well, I guess it depends on how much, you know, how much haste is needed if they want to go forward with whatever. I don't know.

Well, I have questions. I'm hearing two completely different stories, and I like the preservation of the neighborhood idea, but I also think that, okay, maximum of two cars. Well, Mr. Hayden is correct. There could be six cars. I think that was you, wasn't it, Charles? It was. Okay. So, I mean, there are conditions. that could be the highest and best use of property if mount rogers does what they say they want to do but then we've got the neighbors saying they've destroyed the neighborhood already um i'm hearing two completely different versions of the same situation and that causes me

to ponder it a little bit more well that's why i ask you is there any plans for future further expansion of mount rogers and further you know enter that neighborhood we have to consider everything i mean i would also say that this property will be the only one that's medical arts with conditions so all the other ones had unrestricted medical

So even if someone would come in later and want their house medical arts for some reason, we couldn't do it?

That's a right. They'd have to go through the rezoning process.

Same as this one, right? Yes. Exactly the same procedures.

The subject of light pollution came into play. I think there may be some people that are familiar with light pollution. Is that something that can also be restricted? I don't know how I'm asking.

I'm just asking.

I thought that light issue was taken care of. Are you talking about from the buildings?

Well, the light conditions from the parking lot that Mr. Martin experienced reading his newspaper in his bedroom with the light from the parking lot, I think that that has been addressed. I'm not sure.

You are correct.

Okay, so that's been addressed.

I understand. Council, what are your feelings?

Well, I guess I'd like to hear about Rogers. Somebody talk about these things that have been said that you didn't do or you didn't do whatever. Can you address any of that?

You're welcome to come to the podium if we can help to gain some clarity on this.

Some of this I don't even have never heard about before, so I'd be glad to talk to anyone. I know the light issue.

The lighting issue probably happened at the time that we were remodeling, we were building the building. When we built the new Lisa H. Moore building, that's when we tore down the house down at the site at Native Park. I'm sure that the lights were a recommendation from the contractors and from the architects. i have never heard that there was a problem with the light never coming out and i never have heard that there was a problem with that so a lot of these things that people are saying that we

Well, I know I brought up something because some of the neighbors talked to me about the lights, and I think I talked to you Sandy maybe, and it was fixed in just a matter of time. Is that right?

The lights were turned. We don't decide those things. The architects, the contractors do, and they're the ones who study what the ordinances are and that type of thing. That is not my skill set. I'm a clinical licensed professional behavioral health, and we hire architects to do that. They follow those rules. I thought the lighting had been fixed. First I've heard about it. years mr wolf do you have something do you know this architect personally thank you i didn't have anything to do with the lights and where the lights were put uh it was who would it have been cameron jeff

That was not something that I was involved in, but I certainly will take responsibility.

I came here to serve the individuals that need assistance. I don't want to upset citizens of Marion. I just want to serve the citizens of Marion and Smith County the best I can. And you're right. The population has changed. We're seeing so much more serious issues, but they're Marion and Smith County citizens. We're not creating that problem. We're trying to help you solve those problems. But there is much more aggressive aggression. There's much more homeless. They are absolutely right. The population has changed and we are

what right with you and wanting to make sure those things are addressed in the best way we can but i'm sure they have seen a change because we have seen a change if the increases keep going incrementally like they have been then i can see the neighbors worry about you coming back and asking us to rezone another house or two and then you know

That would be a right.

That would be their rights, but that's a concern of mine.

You'd have to take up that concern at the point that that request was made.

They'd have to come back each time, though. Yes. Yes, that's what it said.

We don't want to disturb them. We don't want to upset them. We want to serve you. We want to serve you.

But as far as extending zoning, I don't recall us ever doing it. You, Trish?

I'm sorry, what was your question?

I said, I don't as far as extending a okay of a zoning appeal. I don't remember us ever doing it.

Do you know?

I mean, it was first time for everything.

But are you talking about You mentioned something about extending. Keeping the hearing open until, yes, it is something that we are able to do. We may have never done it before, but it is something we can do.

It's an option. It's an option. So to be able to consensus of the council, we chose to do so.

Of course, it's not my decision. It's just an option that we can employ.

So I call for questions on that issue then.

Oh, the question. No, we're still in discussion and deliberation. I understand you can call for the question. But I would ask you to hold on that. Unless someone wants to make a motion, then the question doesn't exist. okay we would need a motion on the floor right okay we don't have a motion we're in discussion okay so we would technically need a motion and a second so that we could call for the question because you can't call for the question if the question doesn't exist can make a motion that discussion cease i don't think that's great we can't get one more

Your motion would be either in support or opposition to the request.

I feel like there have been grounds for questioning on what Mount Rogers has done in the past, but that would warrant all the stipulations that are being requested and put into place because of due to previous uncertainty of how processes and plans have changed. And I feel like everybody is being as proactive as possible, and it will be up to us to enforce our zoning and them to write a good contract, us to write it correctly in our zoning, which I'm sure that Mark Finick would help see fit. We already have the same designation directly across the street. I feel like it's unfair for us to have already set that precedent and then to backpedal for the same thing when you're going and putting all these additional stipulations on it that nobody else has ever had. I feel like we're being proactive in trying to preserve that home and that neighborhood.

Well, I remember when we – I've been on council for quite a while, and I do remember when we were having this conversation before, and council at that point in time did not want to cross the street. uh said this is residential this we can rezone because it's on the other side of the street so that was something that did come before council before and i remember uh council's intent then was that uh this is now we felt like the other houses uh adjoined what was built there and are all of those houses down by mount rogers there's four of them right

There's only one house currently standing. It's under the 9-1-1. It's 404 East Main Street.

And are they trademark offices? No. I'm not even sure if they're occupying them.

I believe you've never addressed this council before, ma'am. You'll need to give us your name and your address.

Okay. My name is Liliana Figueredo. And what I see of all of you at home is very difficult, you know? And I know that it's difficult to take a decision. Why? Here is Monta Rogers. Here are the neighbors that don't want Monta Rogers in that area. Here is your town manager that you don't know what to do. Okay? But I think so, before you take any decision, put your hand on your heart. and think, do you want to be a neighbor of some other company? Do you don't think so this house can sell for someone else? It's my point of view. Then think about it, do you live next to, do you move to Miss Vivian's and her husband to the house, and want a project next to you? or any of you do this change, I don't know, then you had a very difficult situation tonight. And I know why. Now you need to take a decision. What is the best for the neighborhood? What is the best for mayor? And maybe this is going to be, you know, because I am the wife of the mayor, but

i had to gamble my wife i'm sorry so i understand she's correct this is a very difficult situation and we want what's best for mary and we want to protect the citizens of the town of mary so that's our first job

So I do have a question though. What year was the prison in Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institute built?

Oh goodness.

1838 or something. So my question to that is, is anybody in here been living longer than before that was built?

exactly so every person in here has already made the voluntary choice to move in beside the prison and Mount Rogers is providing a service that is trying to help us negate the downsides of this so I feel like with the medical arts we're trying to help resolve a an issue but everybody that already lives here has already made that decision voluntarily to live near a prison that's within rock throwing distance

The state hospital prison is separate.

The prison was a part of the state hospital. But it's still all in the same complex. It was a part of the state hospital and it got removed.

Well, they had two separate HRs. They had everything else separate, so I don't know. But the prison came much later than the hospital.

It actually was a part of the state hospital and it got, that particular building got taken out of the state hospital and put into the DMC.

Yeah, it became that street. So, what's our wishes? I mean...

My personal opinion is we all have signed up for a risk of living in Marion because at any given day there is the potential for an outbreak of someone at that facility. And I think that we have to trust and confide in our local officials and our police department. And I feel like Mount Rogers is trying to help us provide a service that will contribute to these people rather than beat them down. And that's my thoughts.

I understand yes is there not any room on the campus there buildings or

So all of the buildings are being occupied?

there's a lot of room over there in the state hospital area and plus the building right across the street from me has been a temporary or part-time office for the last three or four years and it wasn't even used all the time sometimes there was nobody there for days so it's not something that is going to shut down mount rogers because there's no there's not four temporary offices in our neighborhood in one of the homes in our neighborhood um and also if the property is rezoned there will be some differences mount rogers will own the property next to me Regardless of what they do with it, it can be changed. And if they want to, they can have it changed and do whatever they want to. There's at least 14 things that Mr. Martin read off that they can legally do with that property. And all they have to do is petition for it. Perhaps they won't get it. Perhaps they will because they already own the property. and that would probably be the thinking well they already own it they can do what they want to with it let us just change it let them do whatever they want to and then it won't be a former home that's in our neighborhood that's not causing any problems in the neighborhood who knows what it'll be That's what we're worried about. We want Mount Rogers to stay on their side of the street on the property that they have over there where they have plenty of room to do anything. They're building a huge building over there now. You can't tell me that there's not room for four offices in that new building or someplace else on the campus over there that either the state will give them or lease it or sell it to them for a dollar. It's just unbelievable, really. We would like our neighborhood to stay like it is, And the comments that this gentleman had right here that the zoning laws are to protect the owners of the property was the best thing I've heard all day long in all this. So I just want you to think about that. We're not downing Mount Rogers. We're not saying Mount Rogers is doing anything wrong. They do good work. They help the community. All we're talking about is let them help it over there. and not come into our neighborhood that's all we want is to be left alone let our neighborhood what's left of it let us enjoy that so thank you very much just wanted to say that sure thank you for clarifying that so where are we council i'm i think we ought to vote tonight

if that is your intentions then uh we can yes i know that i read on some of the letters that uh they were asked for uh asked for us to us to not vote tonight to vote the next time on what was the benefit of that

Those letters were, now that you have addressed them, those letters I thought were going to be introduced into the record tonight, but no one has introduced them into the record. I have asked Mr. Finnick whether those are actual FOIA requests. If they are FOIA requests, then they were submitted to each of us. and only one of us needs to submit those, and we have three days to, I think, transmit those FOIA requests. Mr. Finnick, how long do we have?

Well, actually, a FOIA request, there's five business days to make a response. And there are two that I was aware of, and you indicated a third one. And if it was sent to the FOIA address, it's a FOIA request. They're poorly drafted, but they are a FOIA request.

Okay, so I believe I counted three. They came in today, actually, and I had already drafted much of my thoughts about this. did look at the letters and read each one of them very well worded i will say and i could not i did not have time to check the facts so i would be interested in the foia as well and if we're going to wait on foia And that has anything to do with this. That's the reason I suggest that we keep the hearing open until our next session. That will give us time to comply with FOIA, and that way the hearing remains open. We don't have to advertise another public hearing.

A FOIA request would have no bearing on this public hearing. And in fact...

Well, the only bearing it would have would be that it raised some questions that I would like to have answered as well.

Well, no. Actually, it raised issues that were not what the code stated. So looking at the code and We have already met with the town clerk to get copies of the minutes of the different meetings where it was discussed to show that the town manager made the town aware of his conflict and that he was not wanting to participate in it. That's what it was requested. that was with the planning commission well no they they cited two statutes basically the two that i saw one copied the other one so it wasn't um two separate ones other than two separate names so two individuals made the same made the same request but no you've had your public hearing you do not if you continued it you don't have to have another public hearing You, in fact, did that with regards to loitering. You had a public hearing and continued your vote, and you're just now getting around to your vote.

So, Council, we have choices. We can decide this now. We can continue this meeting and take a look at whatever else. We can look at what's in our hearts, and we can look at any other issues items that we want to individually and then when we reconvene in two weeks um we will continue this public hearing and that will eliminate this portion of the meeting and we will move on to the rest of our agenda which is expensive tonight so uh leave it at council Or I can make a suggestion.

I would just like to ask one question. Sure. Is there any other subject matter that could be put before us that would change any of this? Like is there any, Andrew, with you and Brooke, is there anything else that could be presented in the next two weeks that we would see? Like everything is here in front of us now.

I don't think so. I submitted the same information that Food City did and the rezoning before and everything that's required to me. I did it as a citizen of the town, not an officer of the town. So I've done everything that's asked of me.

i feel like for for the sake of the process and also for you were speaking to it earlier for the transparency of it i feel like if if we push it that just gives another meeting that people may not be able to come back and voice their opinion of it i personally think that we should vote on it tonight so contingent upon the stipulations of the contract i would like to make a motion that we approve this rezoning request

Do we need more specificity on the contract, the contingencies?

The ordinance that was put out, the advertisement that was put out, says that everything is to remain. You have it on your iPad there.

Yeah, no signage. Administrative office is only limited to two vehicles parking on the street and no service provisions.

And then it also says in the advertisement for the public hearing this evening that it would be solely administrative offices. All other restrictions of residential zoning would apply.

There was a question about the setback in medical arts, and there was some measurements there.

19 feet on one, right?

Yeah, that doesn't meet the criteria of medical arts. Is that correct?

That's what he was alluding to, yes.

But no, I mean, are those measurements correct? Oh, I don't know. Todd's not here. So does the property, we're asking... it doesn't conform now to medical arts.

Is that correct? On paper, yeah. On paper. I mean, Todd's not here to clarify any or answer any pertinent questions.

Yeah, that's...

They didn't meet the criteria either. So that's really not a question in anyone's mind.

Why are we not meeting those?

I mean, how did they get approved? Well, that was a previous council. and what they did they did legally and and justly that's all i can say about that but this is this council and this council makes its own decisions

So if we made the decision to approve it, would it be legal and just? We would not be breaking any laws by not meeting those standards?

We would not, especially since he's asking for a conditional rezoning so that it will continue to look like a residential area. oh so no it would not you can go further up the street on the opposite side of the street there's a rock building and there a rock house and a house behind that that did not meet the setbacks either and council did allow that owner to separate those two houses so that they were able to sell off one of the houses. So there's been a long history of that being an issue or lack of issue.

Okay, where we left this is Councilman Atwell made a motion and I asked for clarification on the stipulations which Mr. Keene did elaborate on that those would be the stipulations of the property. So I would need to see that, of course, completed. So that would be a contingent motion.

of course my motion is definitely contingent upon those requirements being met and something being on paper tangible for people to have those protections put in place again you've got the advertisement the state of what those conditions were you can just so we can the clerk can copy that

So you need a second?

I hear no second, and I'm waiting.

I'll make a second in order to get it on the floor.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Now it's actually open for discussion.

I have a question. In the past, when we've had an issue like this and we've had a lot of complaints from the homeowner, what have we done?

um i've never been in this situation before we've been in it before uh well not not to this degree maybe not to this degree well the culvert drive property was the one that was you remember that was the major problem they got voted down yeah

The Colbert Drive property, for council's information, that was not across the street from an existing Mount Rogers property. That was a number of houses down. Ralph Price owned that house and was trying to get it to Medical Arts. That would have fallen within spot zoning because it did not adjoin

It was close proximity.

Well, the number of houses separated.

Now, we discussed quite a bit as referral from the Planning Commission. which was allowed, and we have a motion and a second. So it's now in council's hands. That closes any public comment. So this is our option, our time to deliberate. Or if we're ready to vote, then we can vote on this matter.

I have another question.

Yes, that's good.

In the past, the planning commission, somebody tell me if I'm wrong, has always given their decision.

We did. It was our recommendation to send out.

I know it was your recommendation, but did you vote?

It was 4-2, I believe.

I know, but did you have a vote before that?

No, the votes happened in public.

Yeah, I know, but maybe I don't know. Forget it.

There's strictly an advisory committee. It's easy.

Yeah, I know. I know that.

And it wasn't a unanimous vote. No.

It was 4-2 or something like that.

So they did send it to us. Okay. Folks, I'm about ready to take this to a vote. If there are any more questions. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hand. All opposed to the motion, please raise your hand. Motion does not carry. Thank you for your service. She asked if you would stay.

You need to.

She lives in the area, but I told her that I didn't think that everybody here would stay. That's not a basis. You would have to stay. So do we need to re-vote?

Yeah. Yeah.

All in favor? All against? Motion does not carry. Thank you. It's been a long night. OK. With that, we will move on to the next portion of our agenda. That closes everything there. And now we have public comment time. No, presentations. Charles Harrington.

thank you for your patience kind sir this will be short and sweet as council is aware the housing authority is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth we are not an agency of the town of Marion however one of the codicils is that for our commissioners that you give your blessing to the individuals that serve on our board uh... we've just had brian reid resign his position due to the numerous work things that he has got and brian's been with us since twenty nineteen served as vice chair done a phenomenal job and we're certainly going to miss him uh... in his stead james mcneil will move into the position of vice chairman but i do have to replace brian One of the things that's been very valuable in having Brian has been his connection with Mount Rogers PDC because of the different funding and different programs and different things that he's able to bring to the table. He works with a gentleman by the name of Mason Gregg who is extremely interested in being on the board and being able to pick up where Brian is leaving off. We would like to ask the council's blessing for him to fill Brian Reed's seat. What was his name again? Mason Gregg, G-R-A-G-G. he can very highly recommend it. he's been about rogers for several years he's serving in uh... several capacities uh... actually had some of their committees he's working with a lot of the different communities as did brian he's basically doing the same type things that brian was doing but uh... he's i think he has a master's degree if i'm i might be mistaken my understanding does but he's he's sharp as i'll get out very enthusiastic and younger than the rest of us so he's got energy we don't have any more

Have you spoken with this gentleman? I have. And he's willing to...

He's extremely excited about it, yes. He's very interested. Even Brian recommends him highly, and also so does James McNeil. James knows him very well.

Council?

I'll make a motion we accept your...

I'll second. All in favor?

Aye. Thank you very much.

public comment time and I believe that probably some of the people that signed up for public comment may have already spoke or but that doesn't eliminate your ability to speak again we'll go down the line and Jim I think that's correct. Okay. He is left. Okay. We'll get through this quick. Natrice Watts. Natrice Watts is from today, isn't it? Okay. Matt Wassum. No. Yeah?

He's from I think. Okay.

Well, if you hear your name called Jump up quick. Charles Hayden. Charles, you're on the list to speak.

I'm going to bring up a subject that I'm sure is not going to be long. It has to do with the Palm Street Law. Here's a picture. I think anybody here can recognize that's a crosswalk. Designated crosswalk. Here's a picture of that. It's impeding the free passage from the crosswalk. Now, I don't know how this got accrued, but it's something in ADA regulations. Now you can also move the ramp, make a ramp to go around that. But that is not what EPA says. It says clear passage. That means sidewalks got to be clear. You can put stuff off to the side. You can put stuff at the curb edge. Now, in the course of me discussing this before, I've been told that that was allowed because it was out on Main Street. Well, that's not entirely true. When you look on Main Street, you have a couple chairs, a very small table against the building. But nothing there was in front of the crosswalk. Nothing. I got McAdoo as an excuse. McAdoo is on their own property and they built that outdoor dining. We still have more than four foot sidewalk passing there. Clear passage. Now, My concern is, how did this happen? Why did it happen? But now, if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty, here's what I think Marines should have been concerned with. I'm going to pass this around. they were fought today i took those pictures each side each side of main street i was one citizen on that side one this council needs to be considered how to get customers in here not come up with ordinances like loitering, to run people out of here. And there's no clear definition of how a loitering ordinance could be enforced other than if you were totally in front of a business's door and refused to move other than that there's no clear precedent for it so all i see here is favoritism for the orange creek model that's all i see and if you was to do the boring every bench every table on main street must be removed Just like her business, when a person comes out and sits down and eats or bought their drink, the minute they were done, they'd have to leave because they'd be sitting out longer. You can call it anything else you want to. They'd come out to eat, they'd come out to drink, end of story.

i just don't understand the direction that we're going and how that got approved thank you thank you for your comments um and uh i certainly hope that we can entice uh some shoppers into downtown um good photos thanks sir uh next on the Brian, Brian Thomas. Brian has left. Dana Chamberlain has left. Olivia Bell has left. John Hill, you're still here. You're still with us. You're on the public comment sheet.

Thank all of you all for listening to us. I appreciate it. And also, I wanted to say to Ms. Jennings, because I didn't have an opportunity before, but when they first built the big building across from us, Mr. Martin was correct about the lights that were there. It was like daylight in our neighborhood. And I called Ms. Jennings on the phone and asked her if she would come by and look at it. And she showed up about nine o'clock one night and took a look around. She said, it's like daylight here. And so she took some action and Mount Rogers reduced the amount of lighting to maybe dusk, but it was a little bit more, but thank you. And thank all you all too. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to us to see what we were saying.

Thank you for being here and your input as well. We have two sign-up sheets, and I see that Andrew Moss has already spoken. Mr. Martin has left, and Linda Hartzell

she's gone okay so that only leaves us with david fulton david fuller you're last on the list david fulton pearl avenue uh for the past several months i know you you right now your comment is going to be at the county But let me explain. The county had been having issues, discussion about data centers. Well, apparently the county had received $80,000 for a comprehensive site planning project for 213 acres in Smith County. And this is in the Smith County News, September the 2nd. 213 acres is near exit 47 where the town of Marion owned property. This morning I was looking on the internet and it stated that representative of the town of Marion, representative of the county and Mount Roger had been discussing a comprehensive plan to develop that track and data center was mentioned. I would like right here, right now, to know if they've been any communication from a town council to a data center or back and forth. I would like a public statement.

We're talking about individually or what?

Any, any. Because what I read on the internet representative of the town of Marion, the county, and Mount Roger, are discussing a comprehension plan for that 200 acres, and data center has been mentioned in the plan. So I would like to know if any, if y'all know anything at all about any communication one way or the other.

Can I ask you a question?

Yes, sir.

Do you have the article with you? Can you share that with us?

Who wrote it? About the data center? No, about your article you're asking us about. I mean, I haven't had any formal conversations with them. I can't speak for anybody else. that one won't live to see the morning do i that one won't live to see the morning i know you're sweating plots um but if we were having discussions with anybody all options would be on the table correct me if i'm wrong andrew to be discussed but i don't know if anything's been discussed or not formally You don't take any options off the table.

We've always been trying to develop properties around Marion. That's always been confidential. And I know that you would love to get answers to all of your questions, but there are many things that you can ask us. We're not obligated to answer. It's that simple.

That's correct, but... There is a election coming up and they are four of you on the ballot. And this behind closed door stuff is adding up. All the closed sections you have had and the county have had about property. Now this come out, but you make a statement you don't know. I mean, When will we find out when it's too late to make a public announcement, I mean, for the public to speak up and object to what you are doing?

I will have to say that I haven't read that article yet. And I'm planning to, but it's going to take a little while. uh i have not spoken with the data center but that does not mean that that's off the table okay thank you thank you for that and as my habit is if anyone here did not know to sign up for the sign-up sheet and would like to speak now is your opportunity yes sir I believe I recognize you but please give us your name and your address Gregory Taylor 604 East Pointer I'm not here on my behalf I'm here for my little nephew yes who had to go back home he was on Iron Street a while ago

all the tables and chairs were in his way there were some patrons sitting there they told him to go around he tried to go around and he got stuck on the sidewalk he had to call me and it took me about five ten minutes to come get him because the other side is too steep for him to come across Other people, myself, can walk around, but not everybody has that luxury. We are one slip or fall from being in a wheelchair. We can see that right now with one of our council members. She fell. She's not as mobile as she was. If she tries to go off a steep sidewalk, she might fall again and hurt herself. So this town needs to be more ADA compliant. I have a video of him getting stuck right in front of Sip and Savor. And he was able to, well, I got him out. I didn't have the iPad with me. So we went back a different day. And he was able to do it again and show how he got stuck. And I have the video here if y'all want to see it. Or I can cast it on the TV and show everybody.

if you would allow that or however you want to see it or casting on the TV. That's not OK, but I have the idea if you want to see it where the is the council member to cast this on the TV.

We have to come forward with an email and we can do this.

Because I can email it and then we can put this in.

Well, the technology is pretty much seamless. Email it if there's something that you have. We've never done this before, but we can certainly cast it on the TV and take a look at it. Would that normally be a normal request? It's the first time it's ever come up.

Because if he's having issues, you know there's other people that would have the same issue.

I mean, is Mr. Finnick

can we allow uh someone during public comment time to cast on our tvs i suppose so the issue would be if you're emailing something i don't know that the town would want emails that could contain viruses to be a part of the town system but if there's another way i don't plug the iPad up so that it's playing through using the TV screen, rather than coming through the computer.

I know my granddaughters can do it. But I don't know what to tell you. I mean, if you want to show it to me, I'd be more than happy you may approach and I'd be glad to take a look at what you have a little bit difficult. But let's work on that. Let's let's figure out a way for people to tell us they're going to bring something in that they want to put on our TVs and We'll look at it. Use technology to our benefit.

But I'd like to consult with Todd and Chris King or IT people before we make any. Well, yes, that's a good idea. Because I don't know about buyers. I mean, they're the experts. I don't know.

because he couldn't get to the he couldn't get to the sidewalk uh that is uh that's that and and the bigger issue is what can the town do to uh rectify that problem but the thing is too is that it's why the taxpayers need to get something fixed when there's something there that works

Well, again, as I told Mr. Fulton, there are questions you can ask. That doesn't obligate an answer from counsel, but it does trigger a question, and we will find out what we can do to make that accessible while still permitting commerce to continue. Thank you for pointing that out to us. You can email me the video and I can look at it as well. But I've probably got a lot of viruses on my computer. So that was a joke. But please email that to me. We'll take a look at it. We'll see what we can do so that wheelchairs don't get stuck there. And thank you for bringing it to our attention. Do you have anything else that you want to?

No.

No? Okay. And you actually were doing this for Mike, right?

Yes. Okay. And he lives on 212 South Sheffield, right up the road.

I know Mike. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else in attendance? Yes, ma'am. Please approach and give us your name and your address.

My name is Amy Fallstrom and I live at Holston Street. And I just want to say the ADA requirements is only 36 inches. And I'm very familiar with this. The best man in my wedding was a C4 quadriplegic in a wheelchair. had many years experience with this and I know sip and savor very well and there's more than 36 inches there there's more than 36 inches for the ramp I've actually helped set it up with the tables and chairs so I don't think there's anything that needs to be fixed but I just wanted to give my two cents thank you okay thank you for your input there I'm not familiar with

all the regulations and i'm sure we can find a way uh to make everything work so we will work on that at some point in time uh moving along there's no one else that wants to say anything

My name's Sarah Taylor, and I live on East Koiner, and I frequently walk Main Street and the surrounding area with my nephew, Mikey, who has cerebral palsy. And he's a power wheelchair. That wheelchair by itself weighs over 500 pounds without him in it. It's very heavy. It tips. And we are not talking about the width of Iron Street that is available for him to travel on. We are talking about the drop off. So that is a completely different issue than the width. The width is fine. So I wanted to clarify that with everybody. It was the drop off. If you watch the video that Gregory just showed, you see the footrest of his chair tilt and go into the pavement. That is the issue. That would be the issue with anybody that uses any mobility devices, that drop off. The other side of the street is mostly level. So that's the problem. That's what we need to look at there.

I think probably what we should look at is all the handicapped entrances that we have. If there's any problem with them, let's just look at everything there. Let's make sure we're ADA compliant on everything. Absolutely.

I'm not advocating for anybody's business to have a problem, but we need to move forward as a community, and we need to move forward with the disabled community in mind. Gregory just said that anybody is a slip or a fall away from being part of that community. And, you know, he works with a lady that was just injured this past week. And, I mean, it can happen to anybody. So, you know, I mean, you need to take that into consideration. Everybody does. because not everybody can just walk around and and I think that's the sentiment that bothers me is that you know somebody that cannot walk was just told to go around it but he became stuck and if nobody can come and help him then he has a problem so that's well I'm I'm sure that we can address this yeah I thank you for your comments thanks thank you

and if I don't see anyone else that will close public comment time I've got a question well hang on Mr Carter let's move along with this it's your turn what I'm telling you is council members reports and we're gonna let you go first okay thank you sir yes my question is can we not I've never done it but we've been in this for three hours yes sir continue this council meeting at an appropriate time because We're not going to get out. We got three closed sessions. We're not going to get out here 11 o'clock. That's way beyond the call of duty.

Well, sir, that's what we signed up for. Well, no, we didn't.

There's no other jurisdiction I've ever known.

Do you need for us to take a break?

I do, but I'm just making no other jurisdiction I've ever known has six-hour meetings.

Well, we have a lot to...

I've served on the board of supervisors yesterday.

They don't anymore. Talk to Charlotte.

no they don't hour and a half but I mean it's just you know we got jobs we got families what are our options here if a council member cannot continue the meeting do they have the option to leave they obviously do we're not in closed session

I can leave. The clerk would just note that they have such and such time.

I was talking about the whole body, not me as an individual. The body is to continue the meeting at a later date for our convenience and the audience convenience.

and employees convenience well you know maybe we can pick up the pace here a little bit or something i i don't know um if uh can we set a time limit say if we're here at 9 30 we'll continue well i depend on about to close sessions we could defer that I've never been here before and I'm willing to stay as late as it takes to do the job I'm not but you go right ahead council opinions it's your comfort and your my opinion is that we're wasting time deliberating about it let's just move on okay let's move on mr. Carter object but I go on record with my objection on that Noted. Noted, sir. And Mr. May. No reports. Thank you. Councilman Adler.

I would just like to ask the town management staff, is anybody already looked at or been looking at the ADA compliance of the Sip and Savor Inn of Iron Street Mall?

Yeah, I mean, Jeff Speakers is working on it right now.

So it's already actively in progress?

Yeah, I mean, it's a progress, but...

Right. Okay.

Okay. So there's engineering involved already. Yeah. Okay. That's good news. All right. That's it. Okay. Councilman.

Yes. Just a couple of things. Our personnel committee met the other day. There was no motion, no action and no report to be given. I want to speak just a minute about the Lincoln Theater. There's some comments going around. The building, we're fine operationally. We have no problem. We're still in the black. Now, people aren't buying tickets like they used to, you know, because 60 facilities, our new theaters have been built, as I understand it, in our area. So people are going to the facility, to the theaters nearest their home. That's a problem. But our building is 100 years old. And so we need to replace all the HVAC units And we need a new roof. But we are working very hard with other financial organizations, grants, and so forth, to try to get those things done. But we are working very hard. We're not going to let the Lincoln Theater close. That is going around. And I just wanted you all to know and everybody to know that We're in good shape operationally.

That's good. That's good news. I'm glad to hear that. I hadn't heard the other.

I mean, we're not making the money on the ticket sales that we used to because people aren't buying, you know, coming there.

Let's not advertise. There's nothing to do.

Yeah, yeah. But we're doing operationally. We're fine. We're just trying to figure out how to fix the building.

Okay.

I'm done.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Jennings. Councilwoman Spencer. No report. Councilwoman Hayes.

and i took my report earlier tonight so that closes uh the reports attorney's report the loitering ordinance has come up again and you've already had a public hearing but it's come up for council to review it has been reviewed once okay does anyone have a copy of the loitering it is on your ipad okay has everybody got it in front of them

we uh that is the uh home page page 14 14 to 43. loitering or prowling section 46 dash 1.1 uh the purpose of the section is to ensure free passageways of pedestrians and vehicles from the republic across the waves and ensure free access okay um this uh ordinance is this in the final form can someone answer that

I can tell you that that has been revised since, has directed since the last public hearing.

Okay, it has been revised. That does not automatically trigger another public hearing, correct? It does not. Okay.

Public was here and heard council say the changes that they want.

Is anyone familiar enough with this that they can tell us what has been revised since the...

You can look where it says unlawful. Previously, there were places that said illegal and places that said unlawful. It is now consistently using unlawful.

Okay. What's the legal definition between illegal and unlawful?

So illegal would be if it is being violated. and it would become a Class 3 misdemeanor. And a Class 3 misdemeanor would be a fine of up to $500.

Are we sure that a Class 3 misdemeanor can apply to all of these activities?

Yes, so if you went to look at... Virginia State Code 15.2 Nash 926. You're going to see where these different things are being referenced.

Right. I don't see the reference to code built into this.

Page 15.

State references, oh yeah, okay. Thank you. Will that link take me automatically to that on my computer? Or do I have to enter that manually?

You'd have to enter it manually. There's no hyperlink built in.

So it's not an active link. All right. That's I wish there was some way to do that.

Well, so if you were actually pulling up the town ordinance as it is being revised, then you're going to have hyperlink. So yeah, at the point that the changes to the town code are finalized, People go to it, they're going to see the blue hyperlinks and they can click on it and it will take them to the state code section.

Okay. That will be in our revised code, but here for our purposes of looking at this code, the hyperlinks don't work. Correct. Okay. So... is there any reason council sees to uh read this uh aloud or is everyone comfortable with what they see here in front of them i'm comfortable it's in compliance with state code pretty much everything okay um i'm i'm not comfortable with a couple of aspects of it And first of all, I think that in some places it's very vague, and it leaves the interpretation of a lawful individual up to the government, basically. It allows uh police officer decide who belongs and who doesn't the police officer would be the one that would bring the charge it would then be the judge that would make the determination right but uh still um also if i take my wife to the dentist and i sit on the street in the car waiting for her i'm breaking the law that's in f says i can't remain in a car sitting there outside operating hours outside operating hours yeah uh does that operating hours of what eight to five whatever your dentist office is huh yeah everybody's got different operating hours well that's that's that particularly so does that mean that the police if they see me and i'm sitting in a car on main street They can come knock on the window and say, hey, we've got a complaint. You're here in a parked car, and that's against our ordinance. The ordinance takes what is non-criminal, ordinary behavior and criminalizes it. I mean, I can't sit in my car listening to my music with the air conditioning on?

I don't think you're going to find something so specific that it meets every criteria.

Yeah, but that's pretty specific. It says I can't sit in a parked car outside operating hours.

Wait a minute. Of the dental office.

No, wait a minute. Let's read it. It shall be unlawful for any person to sleep in any public park outside operating hours, comma, or on public benches, comma, in a public square, comma, or on a public sidewalk, semicolon, to park or remain parked in motor vehicle at any public place or any place open to the public. That doesn't read like it's outside operating hours, but I'm not reading it as a legality. I'm reading it as to park or remain parked in a motor vehicle any public place or any place open to the public or to engage in conduct that's prohibited under section but if you look at H nothing in this section shall be construed to prefer prohibit a lawful assembly or lawful picketing so if I'm sitting in my car and I'm picketing am I okay

So just for council's information, we've had picketers in the past. And as long as they're moving every so many minutes, then that's fine.

But that still doesn't answer my question about remaining in a parked car.

You can sleep in a parked car. during normal operating hours. Main Street would be different because we have businesses that stay open until, I don't know, 1 a.m.?

McAdoo's 11-11. So I can sit in my car until 1 a.m. That's how this would... Or you could go to the Farmer's Market parking lot and go to sleep in your car. Right, Mark? Operating business.

It's during operation. So the police, this is vague. It's just vague. It criminalizes normal behavior. It leaves it up to law enforcement to decide what is criminal. It says in here that you can't prohibit loitering. That is a First Amendment constitutional right. Loitering has to be attached to some other criminal provision in order for this ordinance to take effect. Isn't that correct?

If you look at paragraph E. Paragraph E. Yes.

is to loiter in and around any restaurant, tavern, or other public buildings using this subject. And loiter means to, without just cause, remain in a restaurant, tavern. So loitering basically has to do with restaurants, taverns, public buildings, or stay in a property immediately adjacent there unto. After being left, asked to leave by the owner, persons entitled to possession or control thereof, or by any police officer.

So you're not loitering until you're asked to leave.

You're not loitering until you're asked to leave. If someone's standing in front of my store and they're not blocking the door, they're not obstructing anything, they're just standing there, the bus stops there every once in a while from what I remember, are they loitering? If I ask them to leave and they don't leave, can I call the police and have them arrested?

Yeah.

Yeah? Yeah. That's normal behavior. People sit on, but if they say they're picketing, then they're okay.

They got to be moving. They can't just stand in front of yours.

I can't stand.

But somebody can't just stand there. You don't want somebody standing there for three hours looking in your window.

Well, the benches are kind of turned to where if you sit on them, you're going to stare right into a business's window.

Can you sit on the benches? I've never really seen anybody sit for three or four hours.

You can sit on the benches in the town street. The downtown area has businesses that have operating hours, so they're open beyond normal hours. Wow.

Chief, how are you going to inform your law enforcement group to enforce this ordinance? Just correct me.

It would really definitely have to study.

Now, if we did have a call, if somebody did call and say, hey, we've got these subjects here, I mean...

we'd be backed by the ordinance to ask those people to leave but would you cite them if they didn't leave so it basically gives you the option to show up say hey you've got to clear out of here we can warn someone to arrest warn summons or arrest yeah okay and that's the discretion of the officer yes as they okay and that would be based on me calling and saying hey there's a guy standing in front of my store and he's giving me the willies can you go ask him to leave yes so that gives me the ability to basically remove anybody i want to from the sidewalk just by picking up the phone and calling you because i don't like their looks isn't that discrimination

I'm not going to answer that.

Okay. You don't need to. Okay. Ms. Hayes will answer. I think it is. So is our loitering ordinance got components in it where it could be seen as discriminatory?

I know they had problems doing it at Farmer's Market. with loitering up there above there. I think that's the reason they cut the trees down in Yatoni.

If they're moving around, they're not loitering.

Yeah, moving around.

If they're crawling under a bush and sleeping all night, they're loitering. The issue of cutting the bushes was to prevent that.

Yeah, that was tree loitering. Because it was interfering with the farmer's market. People don't, you know, they were just staying there. Another night when I was down through there, it was this lady who had her entire belongings sitting over there. Hard to tell how long she was going to be there.

Well, in Coleman versus the city of Richmond, their ordering ordinance was found unconstitutional on its face because of vagueness and overbreath. And it had more safeguards than Marion's ordinance. The Court of Appeals argues that loitering itself is not unlawful. And I can't even say Papa Christ you versus the city of Jacksonville, but it's also the case there. Loitering has to be tied to some other activity in order for it not to violate your First Amendment rights. I'm not going to violate anybody's First Amendment rights with an ordinance that I'm going to agree to. I think that this either needs to be scrapped or rewritten to where it does not criminalize normal behaviors and definitely is not discriminatory towards any persons group or a cut of your jib you know I mean let's be real can we really vote on this we got a problem here in town I know that well but is breaking people's constitutional rights the answer to it I don't think anybody is

objecting to anybody during the day. The complaints that I hear from many business owners, they have to walk their young girl employees to their car parked at the farmers market or the town parking lot because of all the people, not all the people, because of several people that hang out there for hours at a time.

have these people ever costed anyone?

The threat, the possibility is always there.

But they have no place to go because they have no place to live because we don't have housing for them. So that's where they sit and stay because they have no place to live. So the problem is we need to get some place for these people. They're here. There are people, a place for them to live.

The ones that come up Chatham Hill Road, I've never seen before. I'm not sure they're our people. I think they're from other localities. I don't know. That's a separate subject, but you've got to have ordinances that protect their businesses and citizens, and people loitering around your place of business or at Farmer's Market, which is the town's, and they stay there all night. That's loitering.

we've had a business owner on main street that was forced to move because of loitering and they called the police and there's nothing they can do because there's no ordinance

I wasn't aware of that, and I don't ask you to name that person here, but I was unaware that anyone had that.

Olivia has spoken here about trouble with her having, at night, have to have her girls park on Main Street in front of her business because she's worried about them walking to her vehicle at night.

we have an obligation to protect businesses in the town and it's not from the top of Main Street to the bottom of Main Street it's all over town and we've got to have something in place to protect the businesses but and it's not just one group constitutional rights come before that there's a difference between sitting on the bench reading a book are people watching

A difference between that and people who live on a bench with all their belongings, leaving all their trash behind. There's a huge difference. That is loitering.

And I would think constitutional rights infringement would come from how the officer acts to the people that they deal with. And that could be me, that could be Andrew, who knows? But it's how that interaction takes place, right? I mean, we're putting something in place that if someone shows up and they're out of their mind, then the police can go actually do something to protect that business. or someone in general.

Isn't that already covered under trespass code? I mean, isn't there a state code that we've adopted that if I ask someone to leave my premises, they're trespassing, and if they don't leave, I can call the police? And don't we already have something like that?

Here on Main Street, as an example, the sidewalk in front of the buildings is not their premise. That's the town.

So I don't really control the sidewalk in front of my store.

Correct.

But this ordinance would allow me to control the sidewalk in front of my spot. But block the entrance to your door you control.

I mean, they can always move up and down the street, come back, walk back down.

And also the officer that arrives on scene, it's their duty to find probable cause for giving somebody a summons or something of that sort. Or the criminal behavior. Yeah.

Or just to ask them to walk on.

And honestly, I would imagine most of the time that would probably be enough. If like if Kevin has guys out patrolling the sidewalks, if they see a police officer and they say, hey, can do you mind to just move up?

You know, I have not had a conversation with Chief Testament. I don't know. Do not mean to put you on the spot. But if this is a tool that our officers can use for public safety, then I agree. But if it's a tool that's going to be used to harass people or people you don't like or people you're afraid of, I'm afraid of the dark, but it gets dark every night. Nothing I can do about that. I'm sure. I've had to call the police several times because I felt like I was being watched in my business. And I was. But at the same time, the police took care of the problem and we didn't have a loitering ordinance then. I just really think that we're... We're going down a slippery slope here constitutionally, and I am for individual liberty. I am for protecting the citizens' rights, and I just don't believe that we can create an ordinance against loitering except tied to the commission of some other violation that is criminal. That's my feeling. I've talked enough. but aren't police officers officers of their constitutionally upheld but they have to enforce our code and it depends on their interpretation of our code as well kevin you're welcome to speak at any moment in time in this proceeding or remain silent okay well you know as far as contact with people i mean we interview people every day like their job has been determined

based upon the totality of the circumstances, what possible charges could exist.

And like I say, we do that every day. So it's nothing really out of the ordinary to turn to somebody to violate a law. Study up on your code and apply what needs to be applied. We'll do what we need to do.

Well, you do a good job of what you do already. And I just don't want to be the town that discourages people from walking up and down the street. I just don't want to be that. I don't want to be the town that people decide to come to because we've got a loitering ordinance and they're going to test it. You know? I just don't know that that's the best look for us.

The courts ultimately decide what's right or wrong. As I always say, you can do pretty much anything. The court's the final decision. And most people are not going to push things that far. I can tell you. But you've got to have ordinances. They're not all perfect. We're not all perfect. But if you don't, you don't have some kind of guidelines. The police department can't function. The businesses can't function. You'll have people standing out in front of your jewelry store for six hours and they're going to... They do it already. Well, they're going to block entry, so you're going to have a couple of them. Because up at AutoZone, we had to run them off before because they'd get into the cigarette butts things there at the dorms. Well, that's private property. Well, that's what I'm saying, but you wrote them off. But we're talking about the site. Well, but we need, or it shouldn't have to be that way, though, the individual businesses.

So how does this apply to private property anyway versus public property? The owner can allow.

Pardon? The owner can allow.

Yeah.

And that's in that ordering section.

So this is only going to be enforced on public property.

Right. Well, it's like our parks. I mean, to me, the complaints I get is River Bend. That's the big one. Our people won't go down there anymore. And that's not the intent of us establishing River Bend. And the empathy, you know, I guarantee you if you went down there at 10 o'clock at night, there's probably people sleeping in it. Because it's ideal for somebody to lower them. I don't know. I don't go down that way that much. But you've got to start somewhere. We're not going to make perfect ordinances. No way. But the courts will tell us if they're...

But that shouldn't be the test. I think we're here to ensure the public, and we're here to protect their rights and their interests. That's just my opinion.

But I would hope our police officers have the integrity and knowledge to use discretion about who to run off. Well, gosh, we've all been. I remember college days, we got run off a lot of places. Tennessee never operated like Virginia. They told you we wanted to get out, and that was it.

I make a motion that we adopt this ordinance.

Yeah, I second.

All right, we have a motion on the floor to adopt the loitering ordinance, and we have a second. This is the second time it's come before us. So it is open for further discussion, or it can be taken to a vote. Does anyone have anything further they want to add to this ordinance? I mean, to the conversation of this ordinance?

I have asked several folks that I know that are involved somehow in local government, and they have all said they have a local order in ordinance to protect their people and be protected. And I also think that people can look at something that we draft here and they can make all kinds of, read anything they want into it. I think we try to make it only difficult for us to make a decision.

Well, I mean, I've already made my decision. I can't vote for anything that infringes on people's First Amendment rights. So I think that tells you. But I also can't dictate my morals on anyone else. All I can do is vote my conscience. But sir.

All right. So. Yes, ma'am. We have a motion on the floor.

Well, this is discussion, so we can discuss what this is.

I think we need to look at it.

I'm. agree with you um but we do have a motion and a second on the floor if uh you have anything further to say and convince any council members to vote with you then um you're you're welcome to discuss i just think we want we don't want to get it right

You know, and I agree with you, Debra, and I think that's what's happened. I think their person who is in charge of ordinances has done the best job he could do. He's their expert. Our staff up here have looked at it. Well, and our attorney has looked at it, and they haven't found anything wrong with it, I guess, right?

That's correct.

Yeah. So, I mean, we've done, in my opinion, just my opinion, we've done all we can do to make it right because the experts in the field have looked at it and said it's okay.

Somebody said that Loudoun County had the biggest, most comprehensive loitering ordinance. Has anybody looked at that?

She's one of them. My friend, I have a really good friend that lives in that town. She's one of the ones I've asked, you know, and she said, yes, we have an ordinance. I guess she indicated it worked. I mean, we could beat this dead horse to death.

Yeah, I know. We have a motion in a second. And we'll have to take this to a vote. We do not have a choice in this matter unless someone wants to discuss further. So I'm going to have to take it to a vote. All in favor, please raise your hand. All against, please raise your hand. Motion does carry. The ordering ordinance becomes an ordinance. And that's how council works. We will move on to staff reports. Cindy Stanley.

Yes, we need to set a public hearing, please, for the next CERC Phase 8 sewer. If you could set that for September 21st.

i'll make that motion i'll make that motion that we set that public hearing a second motion and second all in favor of setting the public here and that is you now uh chief richards keith

Yes, Your Honor. My speech will probably be about two, two and a half hours. No, sorry. Our calls for July were 276. Last year's was like 256. We're up about 13% to 15%. And Jim is giving me the final numbers for August right now. And we're at 301. We've never been over 300. And we're already over 2,000 calls for the year. And trending 15%, Jim? so we are getting busier by the month i was he might have to answer any questions or sounds good i think we're all tired well i mean we get a lot of repeat calls to help me out of a chair and help me bring me my remote i mean we get stuff like that yeah We had a gunshot wound today. Of course, we had two crews going, but one crew was tied up on a domestic because they couldn't decide who wanted to go to the hospital. I think the law enforcement were there. So it's stuff like that. So you had a gunshot. It was in the Atkins area.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

i'm hoping that was an accident yes it was that's that's never good news that it was a gunshot but i'm hoping that everybody's going to be all right i mean i'm brief if anybody has any questions i'll be happy to take time to answer them uh we thank you there richard thank you appreciate you next time we need our remote chief testament uh you've been here for quite a while and you now Okay, town managers report, Food City and all the things the town manager asked about.

Yeah, so the Food City grand opening is going to be September 16th at noon. I got a call from Mark Archibald with the Marion Tree Commission. He wanted me to brief you all on our Riverwalk Cleaning Day, which occurred on August 29th. That was a joint effort by, again, the Tree Commission, the Master Naturals Groups, and then the Marion Garden Club. September 11th, we're going to have our annual September 11th ceremony of the fire department in noon. And then I got a call from District 3. District 3 was awarded a grant. Pardon the rail and public transportation, I believe. But it requires a community buy-in. In part of this grant, it identified what the most used bus shelters were in the town of Marion. And those three shelters are on your iPads. They were in the council agenda packet. But they're the most utilized.

There's a total cost of this. Essentially the locality being the town can match, be a match partner for this grant to

install bus shelters at these three locations um the town match would be four percent um the total cost of the project is four hundred thousand um so the town match would be about fifteen thousand dollars um again on the packets there the uh or in your gym packets there the locations and the plans so that's not something that needs to be um nailed down this evening it would be something council would have to vote on by december but the council chose to appropriate a four percent match to this we could work with the district three mountain lakes program as well as the department of rail and public transportation and partner to install three bus shelters at our three bus stops

yeah we hadn't covered it yet at the board governors meeting it's next thursday so i'm sure we'll address it then but i don't know i know we discussed it in months ago but nothing i didn't know any grants had been applied i did not but i think it's something that the district had to apply for then like i said they if awarded they then go to the governing body and say we've secured 96 percent of this total cost

um if you'd want to partner with us on it now it wouldn't force being all right away we would take ownership of the facility um so we'd be in charge of the maintenance on it but again this is a it's a metal and glass shelter so outside of shovels and i guess cleaning up any attractions left that would be the extent of the maintenance until it's time to replace them but the locations are marion manor park terrace apartments and secret hill

Would there be any regular obligation as far as going and cleaning the glass?

There would be no obligation. I mean, we would own it.

We'd be in charge of maintenance. So that would just be, you know, we would turn that into our normal maintenance, our normal maintenance program.

$400,000 sounds awful high for three. I mean, you're not going to build a huge thing that never more than two or three at the same time won't go and get on the bus. I don't know.

i don't disagree with you again yeah i mean that's something we'll discuss next thursday it might get that yeah that sounds real high i i remember they brought this up when i was attending that meeting and and they do this for every town so if we pass it up i don't think we'll get another chance no there's been a lot of work behind the um behind the scenes so

I wouldn't necessarily look at it as a $400,000 number, but I would just say if it's worth $15,930.12 to the town to place shelters in those locations, we have the ability to do that.

I think it's a good idea.

No action needed tonight?

No.

we can certainly take action but if you all want to study the plans I can add it to a I'd like to see where they're going to be located you know I have a hard time with this little Seaver Hills, Marion Manor and Park Terrace are buried places well anyway We can vote on that or we can table it and come back to it after we review it. Council's wishes.

I think it's a great idea, but I think we need to know financially can we do this. Should it go to the Finance Committee?

I mean, you kind of know. Y'all know. Can you financially afford it?

Well, it's like I say, we hadn't discussed it at the Board of Governors yet, so we have the final say, so District 3.

District 3's got to put it in the town's hands at this point. So District 3 is placed in the town's hands. They've secured the grant and requested it.

Well, that's what I say. I didn't even know that they'd secure it. We hadn't discussed it. Like Todd said, it's been bannered, but I hadn't seen anything where we even secured anything. So I don't know. I'd say put it off.

How much would it cost?

$15,000.

Our match for the last 4% would be $15,930.12. Yeah. No, no, for the whole project, for all three.

That doesn't seem like a lot to me. I mean, it is a lot of money, but we can find that for anything else we want to do.

Is anybody able to pull up that on there? Every time I try to draw it down to see where the locations are, it goes away and then comes up over here on the side and it loses my place. I have to cancel out of it and then go back into the agenda to get to the Does anybody else's computer, y'all got it pulled up on your computers? I can do it.

Right there.

You use the two fingers, right? Using these two works.

All right.

Well, I think those are key locations because a lot of those folks use the bus, and that's their only mode of transportation.

So where are the locations?

Severed Hills, Mary Manor, and Park Place, or Berry Place, like, used to be Park Terrace.

So this one was Mary Manor.

So the property owners at Merriman, are these going to be out on Merriman? Do we have any property there? Whose property is this going to be on? It's just public, right? Off the sidewalk?

Yeah.

They pull over the edge of the...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there already bus stops in place for all these locations?

These are designated bus stops. So this is just an addition? Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's a private street. We don't maintain that street.

Or a sidewalk. Well, we better hold off the thing. But so you're able to leave it.

Does the Marine Housing Authority take care of that? I would think. So would it be their responsibility then to...

The way this grant works, it has to partner with the host locality. All right. So...

Well, I think we should do it because there goes folks who use the bus all the time. I give up.

The only question I have is if it's not town property, are we technically partnering with them if it's not on our property? That's the only question.

In those grants, usually if you pay, you're their partner. You don't have to be in line. And then we have other local government matches where we don't have to make

but we can legally partner with them without that being on town property because it's already a designated bus stop.

Yeah, the grant

I can even ask, I mean, the gentleman said he was going to come speak to council with more specifics. I've got a share of the council package, but I've got the agenda back. So would you like me to take that to me?

I think that works. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love more information on it. Thank you. As Carter said, $400,000 sounds like a lot. Yeah.

I dare say it wouldn't be three or four people sitting on a bench at one time at any of those places that I've ever seen. Would you tell me? And $125,000 to $30,000 a piece? It's ridiculous.

Concrete. We have some more things to cover. Mr. King. I don't know.

We've done that before. Okay, I make that motion. Second. Do you need motion is for the iron street motion who second okay all in favor all right the second one is uh our downtown vendors are creating a fall open house this is going to be the first year of this and they have requested a closure on broad street from 10 a.m to 6 p.m on september 19th This will be an area where there will be food trucks, kids zones, bounce houses, and that sort of thing.

Is that Saturday? Yes, I believe so. Yeah, but that's great. I'll make that motion.

Yeah, I'll second. Motion second. All in favor?

Yes. Then the last thing that I wanted to go over, this came up last meeting, was the signage on Chatham Hill. There was some discussion about changing the law essentially by making these changes or putting up these signs.

What staff is recommending, rather, would be more of a warning. So this would be the first sign. It would be a warning. Vehicles over 20 feet, use caution. Everyone who rode ahead, this doesn't require us to change any

traffic laws on that street along Lake Road. Then below that, there will be an alternative route, Arrow, that is pushing traffic over to the Park Boulevard corridor to access the lake. so these are signs that we can get ordered and put up if this needs to be that's fantastic i make a motion we do that warning i mean people would take the warning ones more seriously well it's both of them yeah yeah because they could go up fowler and hit uh prater prater fowler down calum to park boulevard

and i did have the the lady that owns the medic mart there on the corner of chatham hill and harris lane called she was concerned about in the last meeting it was somebody had mentioned using the parking lot there as a turnaround and she wanted me to caution her in public

um you know she hopes that we don't have large vehicles turning around as if to damage her asphalt and understand what's up so y'all are good with this we'll put those up um that'll kind of be but you'd have to shoot them up fowler if you couldn't if they couldn't turn around that's the only way they can go yep i think that's kind of the preferred but they had a large one come in and her camp ground this week or last friday and the people were complaining about gps in a moment

She said, the lady said, the worst road I've ever been on in a motorhome. I made a motion. I make a motion since I brought it up that we accept it. There's already a motion on the second. Oh, okay, second.

It's getting late today. Yes, we have a motion and a second. All in favor of the signage? There we go.

That concludes my report this evening.

Okay, any other items need to come before us before we go into closed session? Then, Councilwoman Jennings, can you take us into closed session?

Sure. We'll make a motion to go into closed session to discuss three issues. The first, personnel as allowed under State Code 2.237-1181. Second, acquisition and disposition of real estate as under State Code 2.237-1183. And the third one is discussion with legal counsel as allowed under State Code 2.237-1183.

second all in favor

make a motion we come back into open session and declare we only discuss the three approved issues as allowed under state code 2.237.12. Second.

Roll call.

Cornett? Aye.

Spencer? Yes. Jennings? Yes. Atwell? Yes. May?