Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Um we are going to convene the meeting of the Franklin County Broadband Authority uh today, Tuesday, January 20th, 2026. Um I would like to of course welcome my colleagues uh the authority members and staff to the meeting this afternoon and and our representatives. Uh first order of business um is going to reflect um our opice occasion of electing our chair and vice chair of the authority. I had sent you out uh an email some few days ago or what asking for you to be considering um your pleasure. So um Mr. Sandy, did you want to facilitate this or can I facilitate or the what's your desire?

However you want. Okay. I'll be happy to open up nominations for chair of the broadband. That would be fantastic. Thank you. Not everybody at once. Now I know Mr. Sandy, I would like to nominate Lori Smith for chair and Nick Mitchell for vice chair because I don't see any reason why we should play musical chairs when it's the same board conducting the same business. We'll get you in the parking lot afterwards. I'll second it. Listen to you gentlemen. Um, okay. So, you've got a nomination. So, I think we got nomination for chair and vice chair, but we should probably vote. We're going to separate those. I'll nominate Lori Smith for chair.

Y'all have a the death wish for me, don't you? Second. Okay. No other nominations. I'll close the nominations and then I think we need a roll call vote. Sorry, we're all tied up. Supervisor Jameson. Yes. Supervisor Mitchell. Yes. Supervisor Carter. Absolutely. Supervisor Meredith. Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. And Supervisor Smith? Um, my guess?

No. I I'm very honored. Um, gentlemen, and thank you for your continued confidence uh in my leadership. Um, Steve, do you want me to do vice or you going to do vice? You want to go ahead? You want me to go ahead? Okay. Thank you for your help with this. Um, so I would like to open the floor for nominations uh for the position of vice chair of the broadband authority. Madam Chair, I'd like to nominate Nick Mitchell for vice chair. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Is there a second? Second. Someone else want that? I think Mr. Meredith Mr. Meredith, did you second that first? Was that you? Yes.

Okay. All right. Um, there's a second. Uh, are there any other nominations to come before the broadband authority? Okay. Hearing none, uh, we'll do a roll call vote uh to affirm Mr. Nick Mitchell as vice chair. Supervisor Mitchell. Yeah. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Quinn, yes. Supervisor Tatum, yes. Supervisor Jameson, yes. And Supervisor Smith, yes. Better not miss any meet. Did you hear what he just said? You better go out and buy her some vitamin C and get her healthy is all I can say.

That's exactly right. Well, I appreciate that, gentlemen, and we'll continue um to work hard on your behalf and with you. Um these are these are important matters for our citizens. Okay. At this point in our agenda, um we will look to uh approve the broadband authority meeting dates that you had provided to you. U Mr. Sandy, do you have any remarks?

I would just say, you know, typically those are going to be the 2 p.m. an hour before your regular meeting. And as you know, we we don't always have those meetings. So, on occasion, we'll be canceling those and um Mr. Mitchell may be pushing me to cancel more. I don't know. But but but anyway, just wanted to say that we're setting them for every month, but that doesn't necessarily mean we will have that meeting every month. Understood. Understood. If we don't have the meeting, it's a placeholder is kind of how I view them. Correct.

Um Okay. Do any of the authority members have any questions regarding the proposed calendar dates for 2026? Any concerns? Okay. Um, madame clerk, if we could have a vote a voice call vote on the dates, please. Carter, yes. Supervisor Tatum, yes. Supervisor Quinn, yes. Supervisor Jameson, yes. Supervisor Mitchell, yes. Supervisor Meredith, yes. And Chair Smith,

yes. Thank you all very much. Okay. Um the next thing we have um is to seek your approval of our minutes from the December 16th Broadband Authority meeting. You have that attachment. Um are there any requested changes, additions, or deletions to those minutes? Okay. Hearing none, I'll entertain I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes as submitted. So move. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor, Amy, do you want a roll call on this? No. All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. And that carries unanimously. Thank you very, very much, gentlemen. Mr. Sandy, have the floor. Sir, wondering what was different. Oh, the little top came off.

Sorry about that. Um, yeah, just wanted to introduce uh Rodney Gray from Zitel. So, uh, Rodney's here today really for a first of of several project updates, um, from Zitel. So, if you recall, uh, you've heard a lot from Chentel over the the past couple years really that those projects really are wrapped up, uh, from the 21 and 22 grant programs. Um, there's a little bit of information in your packet, some closeout letters. We're working through final details with DHCD and and kind of all the administrative pieces, but in essence, the construction is is almost sub almost completed all together. There's a few little pieces still left to do, but uh we don't really anticipate any further project updates necessarily from Chantel on those projects. You'll continue to hear from River Street on the projects they're working on which are funded through 2022 and 2023 VI grants. Um and so again those are typically going to be the Snow Creek area uh Henry and Indicott areas just generally speaking in the county. uh 2024, if you recall, we awarded a contract to um Zaitel to do some additional fiber build um throughout the county and and Rodney will address some of that. They've started their construction. They've started work. Um and so we're having them come in now to start giving their updates uh to you at the broadband authority meetings um on on occasion. I'm not sure it'll be monthly, but you know, it'll be probably a quarterly basis of giving updates and we'll coordinate those updates with the River Street updates as well. So, so today the the only one we have coming before you today for an update is Zaitel and Rodney, come on up. Um,

Steve, while Rodney's coming up, um, are would you be prepared to offer a quick update on River Street even though they're not here? I can give a little. Okay. Um, and I think there is a brief update in the packet. There is. I just wanted to let you just kind of project activity there. Yep. Thank you. So, Rodney, welcome. Hi, Rodney. How are you, sir?

Madam Chairman, Madam Chairman, members of the board, staff, thank you for having me today. My name is Rodney Graham. I'm the chief operating officer for Zaitel and um wanted to come to you guys. I don't have a humongous update, but I think we've got some really good news. We are progressing through our Franklin County body build which was an award from 2024. And um if you look at the presentation, you can see that we have 52 miles of fiber in the ground already of the total of the 210 210 220. Let's say 210. It sounds better. 210 miles of fiber that we have been awarded to put into Franklin County. Um, this is all being fed right now out of what we call POP two, which is at the Scrugs uh, volunteer fire department. POP one, we're still waiting for collocation with uh, excuse me if I get this name wrong. I always get it wrong. It's either Next Revolution or Next Generation Computers.

Next Generation. Next Generation Computers there at the Westlake area. They bought a complex there and they're uh we're working with them to erect a what we call a a central office which is a set separate standalone building which I think is in your the final approval final inspection stages through the county building inspections departments before we can start moving equipment in there that'll feed POP one which will get us a lot more subscribers for the area because it feeds up um more wood maybe the alpaca farm towards Copper Cove. give me more wood. Yes, there's a lot of uh subscribers up that area and it'll feed the the rest of Westlake and back to the bridge to get to Bridgewater Plaza. We have fiber.

The biggest accomplishment we have is that we have fiber crossing Hails Ford Bridge. Now, we have a conduit on the bottom of the bridge and we have 144 count fiber going through the bridge that connects the central office or the knock that's at Body Camp Elementary with the central office that's going to be at Westlake for Franklin County. So that completes the loop, the ring that'll give redundant feeds coming into Franklin County for the fiber. Um, so 52 miles of fiber done. Pop one, pop two are probably 95% complete, which is the Westlake POP or the Westlake CO and the Scrugs POP. POP three, which is the one in Burke Chimney, which we're partnering with uh Franklin County Emergency Management Services. Is that right, Steve? Emergency Management Facility at the Water.

Yes.

Yeah. So we're partnering with them. We're actually going to partner with them to colllocate in their um in their building right there behind the water tank and provide them an exchange. We're going to run dark fiber to almost every single one of your emergency management and communication towers so that we can get you off of that microwave back haul between all your towers and get you on fiber and you can take your 911 exchange over to fiber with a backup on your old microwave u wireless connections with those. So, we think we've worked out a great deal with them to to share space and work together and be a be a really good partner with the county in that sense. Um, currently we have about 650 passings, which is homes that were eligible in the grant. That number is probably actually double. It's about 1,200 homes that we can service. We've only been turning up customers for a few weeks. Um, and this number is changing on a daily basis, but last I checked, which was when I put this together last week, we only had 28 subscribers set right now in Franklin County. Most down around Scruggs, Bluewater Drive, which is we're going out from the Scrugs Volunteer Fire Department and building all the connections out that way from there. Um, right now the main parts of POP one that we're building in is down Marman Way. um getting that little leg built and the leg there's a small area of rock between the Hillsport Bridge and the where we pick up and go aerial which is just past Marian around Bojangles or something like that on 122. Um and then those connections back to the bridge is all we've got left. They've hit a little rock which takes a little longer to build and get through. Um pops four and five are slated to begin on or about March the 1st this year. um which is the biggest bulk. It's the Callaway build, the Rocky Mount build, all through there. That's the bulk of the mileage and getting the the middle mile to get to them of that 210 mi. We have an

estimate, knock on wood, for good weather. So, let's not hope we get the 18 inches of snow that the European model's calling for this weekend because those snowfalls can delay us weeks and weeks because the snow plows just pile the snow up right on the easement. we have to wait for that to thaw or get out there with excavators and move the snow off the easement into people's front yards, which is never a good thing. But um so but we estimate total project completion and and and all the fiber lit up and ready to go by the end of October 2026. So I included in here just a couple pictures. This is all work that's either ongoing or been done here in Franklin County. Um, I wanted to show the one picture there of the ped where we put off in the woods and we always do the standard seed and straw around it, but it ended up with a little island of grass growing right around it in the middle of the woods. I thought that was a pretty interesting picture. Um, we have crews, subcontracted crews and um, in-house crews working throughout Franklin County. I think we've got six or seven crews work actively working right now. Um, we go back, you'll see some of these outlaying areas down here around Burnt Chimney. Those are private neighborhoods where we don't have to wait on VOTE to give us permitting. We can just go build the private neighborhood, get the fiber in place. So, when the VOTE permits come in, we're waiting on um permitting for I think POPs four and five. We have all the permitting in place for POP three, which is the burnt chimney pop, which is one of the bit larger ones.

Um, if I can interrupt you briefly, how did you u come up with these locations that are somewhat isolated from the others? Like I said, those are private neighborhood roads and they just they I mean, have they gone through the county for this or are they calling Zaitel directly? No, they're part of the body the body grant. They're part of the body grant. No, they're part of the body grant. They have eligible addresses on them and we have to build those neighborhoods. Okay.

And a lot of private roads in Franklin County, maybe that private road's only 600 feet long. It's got three addresses on it. It's still a named private road by the 911 system. We may not build actually build that road. The intersection will just be out at the state road and we'll run drops when they when and if they do sign up for service. These neighborhood roads are bigger. They may have 15, 10, 20 houses on them, but the roads are still private and so then it's easier for us to build a fiber down through there and we don't have to wait on BOT to provide us with permitting for those. Thank you.

So, we just we go through and use the the existing uh prescriptive easements or deed easements for access and utilities that are already in place and and build the fiber down the side of the private roads. Um, and most that's why you see some of these little isolated islands that are off um in in in the area done. And uh so right now I'll just answer any questions you guys have about the project. Um anything you want to know or have from your constituents on your radar that you need to talk about. I'm willing to answer any questions you you have.

Okay. Um colleagues, do you all have any questions or comments for Rodney? Feedback. Uh Ronnie, I uh as you know um I've continued to get phone calls about citizens observing hanging wires and um those types of things and um you know I've run them through Mr. Sandy and it it appears to me that you all have been highly responsive to that and some of it's just the way we do business uh in this work if you will. Uh I know there was some easement issues down under near the bridge. I'm hoping that those have been resolved. Um, but I think the citizens just have I think when they see wires hanging down near or on their property. Um, and then there's nobody uh working on them, it looks like they've been left that way. So, um, anything that you could impart to us to share specifically with our constituents with those calls?

So, on on the aerial part, yeah, we leave slack loops hanging down at the polls and that's because as customers sign and that's you're going to see a wire hanging down. It's going to come down. going to be looped about 4 foot off the ground and then it goes right back up at the pole to keep going. That's where we're going to tie in a can and we'll straighten that up when we tie the can in and come back through. A lot of times

there's no reason just because of safety factors and just convenience. You build that can and you put it at the top. You do that, you're guaranteed going to be back next week because somebody's going to sign up and their fiber has to be put into that can. Then you put it back up the top and you bring it back down. So when we get to the we wait till we get to the end of the construction project before we go back and tile all those cans up. Now do those a lot of times the guys or the subcontractors are using they don't have the proper what they call delt straps which are basically really high industrial velcro straps that they use to strap them up. We tell them to try to get them six foot off the ground on the pole. Six or seven foot. Break out the black electrical tape. Wrap it around there. Get the get the get the slack loop at the bottom of the pole. weather, cold, heat, hot, moisture, it's going to cause that to fail, then it falls in the ground. We have a QC department and we have to depend on the public to contact us.

Okay, great. Just contact us. We'll send the QC guys out. We'll get that repaired. We'll get it put back in place. We appreciate your responsiveness. We We try to The last thing we want to do is make enemies of the public, which are our customer base. That's right. You know, exactly. There there are times when you can't get around that. You know, there's just, you know, you're going to have the citizen who thinks he owns out to the edge of the road and he doesn't he's going to put up fencing and I mean, we have run into this where they have chicken wire fences up to the edge of the road and

we've got to come in and remove it and go down the through the easement, but there's nothing you can do about that. But we try to we try to be as responsive if we can to the public. Um, you know, we try to deal with H the big thing going down Scrugs Road, a lot you have a lot of the lakefront communities, they have HOAs. We try to get in front of those HOA boards, talk to them about what we're doing. We put door hangers out, pre-construction door hangers, you know, four or five days before we go through a neighborhood. We go out and put, hey, this is who it is here building. You know, it's a little door hanger that we put up. A lot of times if they're Airbnbs, those owners never get that stuff. Oh, yeah.

The biggest problem we run into in these HOA neighborhoods is that they run their dog fences and their irrigation lines right out to the edge of the road. We call in miss utility dig tickets. We follow the laws just like we're supposed to. We have stuff cleared. We have everything comes gets marked. A citizen's not going to be notified of a utility work going on in front of their house to go mark your irrigation lines. We come through with the machines. They come running out of the door. You busted up my irrigation line. We apologize. We tell them to go get it. You know, you're going to have to get this fixed. Shut the water off. Or if we hit it and we notice it, we run to the door. Hope somebody's at home so they can shut the water off for the irrigation lines. just pe people have to learn what the rules are. You know, that 10 15 feet off the edge of the road, you're not supposed to have that stuff out in the road um along that edge of the road because that's a that's reserved for public utilities.

I think citizens get a little confused because they know they have a private road and the and you know in their mind sometimes a private road means private roads we deal with a little differently. It's different. It is different. it it you have a deed easement access or prescriptive utility easement along these private roads and we deal with that. We do usually put door hangers up. We try to talk to HOAs. We we make an effort to go through that neighborhood and talk to people. Is there anything in the road? If it is, please try to get it marked. You know, do you have do you own both sides of the road and running water to your barn on the other side of the road that we can look at it? And we we we do as much due diligence as we can in those private neighborhoods because we have to, you know, we want to be there. We don't want to. But but what I'm talking about here is all statemaintained roads, right? You know,

right? All the roads that go down to the lake off of Scrugs with the rightway and yeah, you know, Dudley Amos, uh, yeah, Island Lane, they're all statemaintained roads. They have public utility easements of 15t off the edge or 30 foot from the center. So, well, Ronnie, I appreciate you hearing our concerns and attempting to answer my questions and we appreciate your continued partnership with the county. uh we value that very much and uh we're just you know helping our citizens get caught up and it's it's such a good outcome for all of our county. So we appreciate it. That's what we're here to do. Thank you so much.

I do want to um and you guys can pass this on um VOTE Franklin County, your um your VOTE uh district manager here, I think her name is Lisa. Lisa Lewis, she's fantastic. She is she gets us our permits back. Very responsive. much better than some other VOTE locations and district managers that we've dealt with. She's super responsive. She's very in tune to what's going on in Franklin County. She gets us, we're not delayed on permits and never delayed on when she asks questions. A lot of the the VOTE superintendents will get your permits and sit on them for three, four weeks and then they'll ask questions and then they'll wait for three or four more weeks. Day at the most we will make a special point to thank her.

Yep. She has been fabulous for our construction team to work with. Thank you. So everything's and that's that that's that's a refreshing thing for us is to get a very cooperative VOTE office to get to get into that. Excellent. That's perfect. He's not the only person that said that. No, that is true. That is true. Heard that several times. Yeah. Yeah. So Rodney, thank you. Of course, you know, your interface with Steve continue as is, you know, normal and um we look forward to future updates. Madam Chair. Yes, sir. One question. Rodney, what was the start date on four and five? March. March.

That's that's that's the goal. I mean, that's what and and and we tell this to our customers. We have customers call in all the time and ask us, "Well, when are you going to be done with my neighborhood? When are we going to do fiber?" And it's a loaded question that has so many invariables involved of permitting constraints, construction, some these machines that we use to put the fiber in the ground. I mean, they're sometimes I think they're in the shop, they're down more than they're working because, you know, it's a vibratory plow. It's a 18,000 to 24,000lb machine that literally shakes. That's that's how it's designed. It shakes that big blade three foot in the ground to work its way through. So it shakes itself apart. And you know there I would tell there's a very interesting video if you get an opportunity to go to our website at zaitel.com in the I think the about us the news section. Um the the the current it's a YouTube news channel associated with WSLS. They came out and did a news board on us in Bedford County as we finished up our body and we've in the top side of Montil and Baxton. It's all rock. I mean, you're getting up there near the parkway up into the mountains, it's all rock. And we have a machine that is literally one of those vibratory plows with the big knife blade. If you haven't seen one, there's one sitting on the side of the road of 122 going towards um the bridge. It's a, you know, 20,000lb machine. So, think they took that blade off that pokes in the ground and they took a skill saw blade, but a skill saw blade that's 10 foot in diameter and 8 in thick and put it on the back of that machine to saw through the rock. And to see that machine operate that they took the video of is pretty pretty impressive to saw through that rock.

Wow. Mr. Jameson, did that That's good. Thank you, All right, Rodney. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Sandy.

Yeah, just a couple followup. Rodney, and you you may want to come back up and address this. Um, couple things. This project, if for those of you that may not know or don't remember, they're kind of overbuilding in in some areas. And so the way this whole body grant process worked, we it'sve I've I've described it before of this buckshot pattern or this scattershot kind of pattern and that was the way the system worked and that was the way we had to to go through it when we were applying for grants. So, a lot of what you'll see with Zaitel is is in a lot of cases people are having a second or maybe even a third option now for for internet service um in some of these areas, but they're having to build in some areas to get to other areas that haven't been reached yet. And though um I think that's that's certainly a positive for folks. And then I think what you you heard some of the difficulties that they're having going underground. So in some aspects it's it's cleaner, it's quicker to go underground, but then there are their own challenges that go with that. And you've heard some of the challenges from Zaitel or um Chentel and River Street with doing the aerial projects. Um so I think the point I wanted to make is each one of these projects have their challenges. Um you know, talking with Rodney earlier, you know, if we get 15 in of snow, that's a problem and it's going to delay their work for a period of time. it it's probably also going to affect River Street because American Electric Power is not going to be out there working on the fiber. They're going to be working on restoring people power. And so all these events and activities kind of have their own unique unique challenges to them. And um you know all of them seem to affect our projects in some way. And so I think that's just another point I wanted to make. Um, and one thing maybe Rodney could speak to just quickly is, uh, Zaitel also got some bead approval or will be getting some bead approval for additional addresses in the county,

which is kind of, um, once Zel finishes with this project he was just talking to you about, we have roughly 3,000 households left in the county that that we need to get to, and that's going to be covered through the bead program. And so Zaitel got the largest portion I think of and we got almost 90% of bead in Franklin County. So if you don't mind maybe he could just touch on that as far as what he's hearing as far as next steps uh for the bead process. It's probably my guess is it's going to be a little bit lengthier process cuz it's a federal uh federal program but um maybe Rodney if you could just touch on that and I think it's roughly is it 2200 households something like that.

Something like that. Yeah. It's um beat is the million-dollar question right now on what's going to happen with these federal dollars. Um we have we are

a uh presumptive winner of I think it's about 87% of all the um unserved and remaining addresses through Franklin County. It's going to cause it'll be one of our biggest builds in all of uh the bead project except for Carol County. We we want 100% of the eligible addresses in Carol County. Um, and we want enough addresses in Patrick County to connect the dots between Franklin County and Carol County and get a continuous feed from, it'll actually be a continuous feed from Rockbridge County, Bedford County, Franklin County, Patrick County, Carroll County. Um, we expect DHCD has given us the green light that they expect contracts to be signed by March or April. Um, that was under the Yunken administration. um who was I don't want to get political here but they were friendly with the Trump administration and the NIA

and we're switching to the spam spamburger administration who is not friendly to Trump and the NIA who is overseeing this project. So, we don't know how this project may change. With the um original bead funding, they gave us x number of millions of dollars for the state of Virginia and said, "You have to put half of it towards actual construction and the other half of it towards digital literacy, equity, different things like that." And the Trump administration said, "Nope, we're calling all that back. You're not going to use it for that. You have to use everything we give you for construction." And the, you know, the state had agreed to it. Now, with the new administration, we don't know what's going to happen. Um, Brandon and I have a bet between the two of us of what we think is going to happen. I won't tell you which one of us is leaning which way, but we're definitely at differences of odds of how long this is going to take. Our plans are, and I hope that we will get contracts signed for bead in or about March or April and then simultaneously be building bead and finishing out VO in Franklin County at the same time. So we will get the rest of those 2200 connected up within 12 months of the signing of the bead contract. So we will be working on the body addresses through October of 2026 and the remaining bead addresses to get the entire build which I think is another it's almost another 270 miles of fiber through Franklin County because you got to think we're building a lot of middle mile to get to these outline addresses that are up near the Rono County border down near the Patrick County border. you know, some of very remote addresses that we're trying to build to. But what it's going to do, like Steve said, we have to over to get to there, but it's going to give them a redundancy of service. They'll have a competitive market to build in that will be competing with Chantel and River Street and Comcast and and others that are in the area. Um, and I think even Cox through Rocky Mount, if they ever I don't know if they've started building that

um the because I felt Cox was coming out of Rowan Oak and built it into Rocky Mount at one point, but

we're going to build on top of them, too. Um, we're hoping that we can get the entire project done with a simultaneous construction project going on that will be done with bead on or about March, April, May of 2027 and be completely done because we got to get the crews on over to Carol County and get that larger project started. The bead project is actually a 34month contract signing. It's a 34-month project. Um and um that's the time we have to get it done, but we have other obligations in Franklin County and Bedford County's bead obligation. We're going to just throw all the eggs in one basket at the very beginning and try to get them knocked out and built and and then we can spread out a little bit.

Very good. Thank you for that update, Rodney. That's that's helpful to know. There's a lot moving, a lot of moving plates, if you will. There's a we our staff has increased. So, when we originally applied for the Franklin County VI 2024 grant, the first meeting that we had with you guys here in the smaller little room in the back, um we had 18 employees for Zetel and we're at 64 right now. Really?

So, we have grown substantially and we'll be for the bead project we're probably all said and done when we get done with bead, we'll probably double in size. We'll actually be one of the largest employers in Bedford County at about 100 to 125 employees. Well, congratulations on that. It It's nice to hear that, you know, as you're picking up wider scope of work that you can resource it.

Yeah. Well, we we stepped outside of our comfort zone unlike um some of our competitors when the original body grants came out in the Northam administration back in 2022. They they just they went after the big apple and and taken all the bites of the apple they wanted. We wanted to prove to everybody else and to ourselves that we could do it. So, we just built Bedford County. And then with the next versions of VI, we just went after two counties, Carol and Franklin. You know, took next step, our next baby step with bead. We took some big bites of the apple. We're going to be building in Nashville, Tennessee. Um a large build outside of Louisville, Kentucky. Um a large build on the Gulf Shores of Alabama. Um Broward County, Florida, and uh Spartanberg, Greenville, South Carolina. So, we'll become

a full Mid-Atlantic company, still owned and operated and based right here in in Bedford County. And and we consider Franklin County, I mean, we think of us as a Smith Mountain Lake Company because we're going to have a CEO and another office right there in West Lake. So, we we see both these areas as our as our home areas. In fact, Brandon now lives over here in Franklin County. So, he's going to be paying you guys some taxes. Good. Good for him. Yeah, he bought he's gonna pay you guys a lot of taxes because he bought way too big of a house. Well, thank you so much. Quick question. Um, please, Mr. these little pockets you talking up towards grown. Is that overlapping the Star Link? I think at one time he's talking about some of these rural homes is going to use Star Link. Uh is that overlapping? I think I think Franklin County got about 10 10 eligible addresses that were

Yeah, we have very small number of bead funded satellite addresses, but but some of those, you know, more difficult addresses to reach um would be satellite coverage, so would not be part of Zaitel, but we probably when we're all said and done, we'll probably be 99% or more fiber throughout the county uh to everybody's home. There'll be a few that really their only option might be satellite, but that's going to be very few when we get done and when they get done with their work that most everybody will have at least one fiber option to their house. For example, there's there's an island in Smith Mountain Lake's got a house built on it. That's an we we mask that address as ineligible.

You know that we're not gonna So they're Starlink only customer. Okay. Um and Starlink's great. Don't get me wrong. Starlink's a fantastic product. Elon Musk is a technical genius at what he's done. But when you step back 15, 20 years ago and look at Huenat and Viasat

back then 15 20 years ago they were the greatest thing ever. The speeds were there. They were equivalent to what we had with coax cable from Comcast and Chentel and DSL from Verizon. They were equivalent and everybody thought there's the solution. Well, what happened is that the needs of the public outpaced the ways that satellite companies could keep up with. And Starlinks, they're going to be the same way. I mean, low Earth orbit satellites are just going to unless you want to go outside in the evening sky and see nothing but satellites in the sky in 20 years in in 10 20 years, fiber is the only solution that that you really need to get into your home. So, okay. Thank you, Rodney. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. You guys have a great afternoon.

Thanks. You do the same. Mr. Sandy, I noticed there's a couple um uh attachments that you had included on the agenda. One of which was River Street.

Yeah. So, just quickly, you have attachment uh three, which is um right after the minutes. That's a brief update on on River Street, and I can expand on that just a little bit. And then attachment four is what I mentioned earlier, the the Chintel closeout letters um where we've we've sent to the state that you know this project is substantially complete. There are a few lingering items like we talked about before. There's uh some addresses that are affected by the parkway. There are some that are affected by railroad. Uh they're still waiting for permits there. But in essence, that project is is complete construction-wise, and it's uh significantly complete on the administrative side, too. We're doing some final closeout uh financial uh reporting and invoices and reimbursements, but that's all moving along uh very well, and we're approaching the finish line, you know, on all that stuff.

About time, right?

Yeah. So, we're we're very happy for that. And I I should note, too, that Lori Crouch in our office has been a huge help. uh to to me and to the county on on particularly the Chintel project at this point because all those invoices are coming through our office and being processed here. So, um Lori and and Brian's team in the finance office have have done a great job of helping us get through all that and and the multiple uh multiple invoices that have gone through that project. Uh multi-million dollar project. Um back to the River Street updates. That's just a brief update. Um, you heard Rodney talking about the tails and and so forth. I know, um, Mr. Mitchell is is very familiar with those now after a couple site visits of lots of tails that are kind of, uh, hanging and waiting for the next step. And so we've talked about uh these projects a lot of times they're kind of done in stages where you know they'll run fiber to a point they they'll stop they'll wait for the next crew to kind of come and do the next piece and then oftent times the the last piece is actually getting it to the home itself and and getting those customers connected. So it most of these projects run kind of similar uh type of phasing of their construction work. Um the again the River Street project is the one where they're working with A on the poles where A is running the fiber. They're doing a lot of that testing now to to test the fiber that AU has put in. Then they go through a process of attaching to the River Street fiber um before River Street can connect. It all has to be tested. Um so they're still going through those processes. And you know, like I mentioned a few minutes ago, anytime we have impending in inclement weather, that always concerns me because I think that doesn't do anything to help our projects move along, right?

Um because those resources often times get, you know, utilized somewhere else. Yes. So, um I would say probably not a lot of progress has made been made over the holidays on that project. Just just my my assumption there is probably hasn't been a lot of progress made. But this is the January 6th update. Uh just coming out of the holidays. So we meet monthly. We get um project updates monthly. Um we can do some more site visits for any board member that wants to to go out and look at any of the work that's happening out there as well. Okay. Do you have any questions? Mr. Mitchell.

Steve, I have an email dated um let's see, Saturday, December 20th. Um and you're tagged in this where I sent in several questions. I have yet to receive an answer to. Okay. Um but I was Is that Rob Taylor responded said he would get the answers I think. Or he did. Okay. Um but and and I we've been talking about this project for long time. And I remember the night that we awarded Zaitel Yeah.

theirs. And it was very late one night and I had a good feeling about them. And they So they've started 23 24 and they're already lighting people up and they're burying cable and this this the project in my district has not moved has not moved. We can talk certainly not at that speed that that Zaitel is a and then I sit here and Zel's like oh yeah well they already have two or three options but we got to cover them anyway. It's just well and I know that the my frustration can't lie with this with the county because I understand it's the whole point of VAD was missed

by not going to the underserved people first. So I they're not making the progress they need to be. I was told I would when that day we went out Tim was there. I was told I'd be invited for when they go to firing it up. Oh, we'll be doing it in a week or two. I phoned it. Yeah. I haven't heard a word. And I did that purposefully to see if I would get a call and be able to monitor progress. Nothing. And I don't know what we have and what we can do, but those options need to be explored. Gota.

So, I'd like an answer to that, too, on what we can do. I think uh I've I've brought this up with Michael Armbberster at the West Pedmont as well because they're technically the project manager and so I I think well at our next PE West Peemont meeting I will be there and it will be discussed. Yeah, because there technically this is under their their project management. So, you know, making sure that they're keeping the the pressure and leverage on them as well. Tim, I wonder if maybe we should have um Michael reach out to Mr. Taylor from River Street and have him come to our West Pedmont. wouldn't be a bad idea. It' probably be good because they're also covering Henry and Patrick as well. I'm sure Henry County's got questions, too. I will I will try to make those arrangements. Okay.

And if there's I mean, you know, Nick, if there's if there's a need for this authority to to pin a letter of of pressure, let us know that if I don't know if it would help because you all are boots on the ground. Well, do you all feel that I'm out of place for feeling that way? No. No, I don't at all. I'll reach out to them and get them. Do we at our next West Pemont meeting? Yeah, I don't Do you know when the next schedule meeting is? Is it be the fourth Thursday in February? Next month. Next month. So, there should be plenty of time to Okay. Yep. I'll I'll look I'll And if you would let me know when that's scheduled and I I mean I'll be happy to to try to be there as well. Okay.

If you want me there, you can let me know. Okay. I'll do it. Mr. Sandy, did you have anything else? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, it's the time on our agenda to receive any comments uh from the authority members. Do you all have anything that you would like to discuss today? Anything? Okay. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the broadband authority meeting. So move. Is there a second? Second.

Good afternoon everyone. All those in favor, please. Uh it is a pleasure um to see a room full of our our citizens and and so forth with us today. We're grateful that you're with us. Um today uh we're going to begin our meeting. We will have an invitation that will be offered by Mr. Jameson followed by pledge of allegiance by Mr. Meredith. So if you would please stand.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we just thank you for the opportunity to be here today, Lord, and conduct the county's business. We ask for your guidance, your wisdom, Lord. May everything said and done here to be to your glory. Lord, we just thank you so much, Lord, for your un unchanging love, Lord, for your forgiven grace and Lord for your healing stripes. We just ask that you be with all those who are ill, Lord. Whether it's a cold or whether it's a severe sickness, Lord, we just ask for your healing. Be with us now in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you, Mr. Jameson.

I pledge algiance 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.

Okay. Thank you very very much. Uh the next item on our agenda um is the approval of the agenda and um I would like to propose um to you that we remove uh items number one and two uh which makes up the entirety of the consent agenda. Um and my um what I would like to do is defer these two items to our February board of supervisors meeting if that would be something that you would approve of. Um so I'll leave that uh with you. Do you all have any comments or questions or um do you have any problem with deferral of those two items? Anybody? Um and and I think generally speaking the deferral is really um the uh is is to gain more information on number one and number two um we're still cleaning up these policies uh to get them to you um in a in a manner that will be close to adoption hopefully. So uh given uh given that uh we will move on. Oh, is there let me just say is there a motion to approve the agenda with those two exemptions in place?

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor, please say I. I. And that carries unanimously.

Okay. Um on our agenda today, this is a celebratory moment. We like these positive moments uh to do some recognitions. And so today, um, every year the Rowan Oak Magazine recognizes outstanding young professionals through its 40 under 40 program. This year we are thrilled that eight of those young professionals are from Franklin County. They are Josh Ball, Alexander Gil, Alexandra Gil, excuse me, Tyler Lee, Anna Robertson, Kevin Tosh, Rachel Walton, Morgan Washburn, and Corey White. Uh if you all are in attendance with us today, I would appreciate you meeting me up front uh at this at this time.

Hello Okay. Uh, first of all, I just on behalf of the board um and staff at the county, we want to congratulate you. This is a very prestigious um acknowledgement and award that you're getting and we're so proud of you. I wish that I qualified for 40 under 40, but I don't. Um, but we are so proud of you and and your accomplishments and I'm sure you've got aspirations moving into your future that are going to be even better yet. So, what we would like to do, the board uh we offer a resolution of appreciation for you to be read as follows. Whereas the Rowan Oak magazine annually recognizes outstanding young professionals through its 40 under 40 program honoring individuals who demonstrate leadership, professional excellence, and a strong commitment to their community. And whereas the Franklin County is proud to be represented in the 2026 40 under 40 class by eight individuals whose professional achievements and community involvement reflect the strength and talent of the county's workforce and leadership. And whereas the following Franklin County professionals have been selected for this honor. Josh Ball, community paramedic, Franklin County Fire EMS. Alexandra Gil, owner of the Magnolia Closet. Tyler Lee, private banking officer, Ridge View Bank and Councilman, Town of Rocky Mount, Virginia. Anna Robertson, owner of Twin Creeks Distillery. Kevin Tosh, director of tourism and communications, Franklin County. Rachel Walton, director of library services at Farm College, Morgan Washburn, private school senior manager of academics, Stride K12, and Corey

White, assistant director of finance, Franklin County. And where is the recognition of these individuals highlights the leadership, innovation, and dedication that contribute to Franklin County's continued growth and quality of life. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Franklin County Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes and congratulates Josh Ball, Al Alexander Gil, Tyler Lee, Anna Robertson, Kevin Tosh, Rachel Walton, and Morgan Washburn, and Corey White on their selection to the Rowan Oaker Magazine's 2026 40 under 40 class, and commends them for their outstanding contributions to Franklin County and the region. CONGRATULATIONS. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Okay. Uh, did you want to get a picture or

do it in the hallway?

You're going to do it in the hallway. Okay, great. Well, thank you all so much. Um, I don't know if any of the board members have anything that you'd like to express. Um, but I think the resolution kind of says it all. We're very grateful for you and we're glad you're in Franklin County. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Did I lay my pen down somewhere? you.

Okay. Excuse me. Uh, supervisors, with regard to the consent agenda and pulling those things, um, I had, um, misstated that those were the two things that were on the consent agenda. We do however have under consent the mean the meeting minutes from December 16th uh and January 5th and they are sitting as active um pieces of the consent agenda appropriations

and appropriate approval of appropriations. Thank you Mr. Whitler. That's kind of buried in there. I didn't pick that up. Okay. So I would entertain a motion unless you have any questions uh for anything on these on these issues. I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as as submitted. I'll make a motion. Thank you. Is there a second? Thank you. Madame clerk, would you do a roll call on those, please? Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Jameson? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. And Chair Smith?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, we're going to move on uh to VOTE. Ron Cassella uh and and VOTE staff are with us this afternoon and we welcome you all. We're always look forward to having you come and share with us. Lots going on.

Yeah. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. It's always a pleasure to be here with you all. I've got a couple of one new face and one familiar face. Of course, you all know Robin Keeler. Uh she's been our assistant resident administrator and she's taking a promotion. So, she's going to be leaving us effective the 25th of this month. She'll be in Martinsville. So, she's not going far. Still a resident of Franklin County, but uh she's taking a promotion to go there. So, in the meantime, for a few months, we have Jet Lily. JT Lily, and um he's a student that has been uh graduated from Virginia Tech. He's in our EDGE program, kind of a core development type program. So, he'll be spending a few months with us to learn uh about the residency and uh so he'll be a familiar face here. And of course, Miss Lewis is always happy to help us out all the all the time, too. So, um, we just wanted to introduce you all to them and

Yeah. And Robin, I would like to say it's been a a distinct pleasure for us to have you, uh, reporting out to us and, uh, congratulations and we wish you the very best in in your endeavors. I'm sure that, uh, you'll just continue to, to shine in in your role. And, uh, is it Jet? Jet, that's a very cool name, by the way. Um, we welcome you and uh we're so glad to have you as part of the team that that covers Franklin County. And uh Brian, I do want to send a little bit of an accolade to Lisa Lewis. Uh we had our broadband authority meeting young lady and uh Zaitel um Rodney um expressed many many compliments um on the work that you have done to help facilitate um the fiber and the permitting and so forth. So, I wanted I told him I wanted to pass that on to you and he's very grateful and we are grateful as well.

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. Of course. Of course. Okay. We love good news. I know. I know. I know.

All righty. Well, we'll get started with our uh report out here. Um basically, we're just continuing our ordinary maintenance for the past 30 days, moving on to the next 60 days. I'll just call your attention to the last two bullets on our report here. uh 615 the frontage road uh pipe replacement. We've had a detour in place. It's not a significant impact to traffic. Um that should be completed by the end of this month. And then on route 808 Rockland Road pipe replacement. We actually just finished that one up. So that's now complete. Um moving over to we've got our land development permits and a plan review. I'll call your attention to uh Route 653 Ellis Road. We have a request for um reviewing the roadway for a posted speed limit. So that's in review. And then uh on the last page there, just our same project updates. Um nothing new really to report there. A lot of construction activity going on on along 220, the whole corridor. And so um with that, that concludes our report. Be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you, Brian. Any questions, Mr. Meredith. Yes, Brian. Um, I was nosing Maria Valley Road resurfacing. I think Nolla was also with that. When is that supposed to get started? They'll be this year. Yeah, we're actually uh in the process of doing what we call a straight line sketch getting our environmental folks getting that permitted and everything. Uh, but we will plan to have those surface treated this year. When? This year? I mean, we're started. I mean, I know uh Red Valley it says I think it's summer. You're looking to start to fall late summer. So, I didn't know where Noville would be in that schedule.

It'll be right behind it. And in fact, we uh we plan to we're working both of those with our consultant engineer right now. Um wrapping up the it's not really a design cuz they're they're just a minimum plan project, but uh Novella is going to be a pretty simple one to do. It lays well. Um so we we we want to say by fall, hopefully sooner than that, but that's that's what our plan is. Okay. And um I got two more quick things. I'm sorry. Um about the 10,00 block of Boon Mill Road by the railroad tracks. That's caving in again. Okay.

We already had one accident there. It's cracking. Is there plans down the road of putting like steel beams to build some kind of retaining wall instead of just letting this? No plan currently, but that's something I can look into. I mean, it just seems to be a recur right. It's just a bad area right there at the curve where the railroad tracks is. Yeah. And I know some places they'll put the steel beams to build kind of a retaining wall that will hold that bank up in that little area. We'll we'll review it and see if there's anything we can do to shore up.

Okay. And one last question. And I drive trucks, so this more at Summit View Business Park. There's only one northbound entrance on the north side. It's the only way you can get on northbound 220. First of all, if you've pulled out there lately, all them signs and that marquee sign for the construction, you can't even see traffic coming up to you. That's one concern of mine. Second is no trucks can make a lefthand turn there. Where does tractor trailers or big trucks have to go to make a Uturn to get back on 220 north? So, they will come out uh to go northbound on 220. They'll come out at the northern entrance and make the left to go northbound.

But there's a sign there. It says no trucks, no lefthand turn. I know there's one um at the southern entrance for no left turns. Well, there's I'll double check. I pulled out was coming through and I it caught me off guard cuz I was like, where's the truck supposed to go coming out of a business park? So, I'll double check it, too, and make sure I didn't Yeah, the the uh the north the northern entrance is intended to be a left out, but not a left in. like this.

Correct. Thank Thanking. I I So, I'm just curious. You know, we're trying to promote a business park here that right now I trying to figure where a tractor trailer would get on northbound 220 using state maintained roads. Where would they make a U-turn at? They essentially have to find the that was a part of the original plan. I think Steve Sandy also be aware that I'm trying to think They'd have to go south and then find their their just find somewhere and just hope wish for the best.

Nice. Okay. I was just curious. I just, you know, cuz I, you know, I know you can't go by Connor Funeral Home because that's a private drive and then you got the U-turns in front of the antique mall, Mike Jordan, but that's not much room for a track trailer. All right. And that's just kind of concerned with uh log hours. Yes. But, you know, that's as we're trying to promote a business park, accessibility is a huge issue. And right now, I just that's all. So, if that's something maybe we look at or think about it, I'd appreciate that. Ultimately, those are proposed to be signalized. Right. So, when when you say proposed, what year?

Um, I actually think this year. Um, we've got the signals have been ordered, the polls have been ordered. Um, so I guess it's at such time that it's warranted. I don't have a date. Okay. Because I know y'all adjusted all the lanes because there used to be certain turnins and y'all adjusted that. So, correct. Cuz that that would be great to you know if that is in the pike. I just was wondering caught me off guard when I came out there and saw that sign. Sure. Made me think. So, okay. Thank you so much. Yes, sir.

Right. I could I could speak to that briefly. Um so it is uh there is a project to have that signalized ultimately. Um we used our our contractor who did the the road internal to the park to do some of the road improvements out there just recently. Some of you can still see some of that work was just completed. So we are waiting for the next phase where VOTE will install the signals through their regional signal contract. And so I'm questioning them about every two weeks about when is this when is this coming? So the the poles are in. I've been told that. Um so now we're just waiting for them to be installed. And my understanding is at that point that that left turn restriction goes away. Um you know, so yeah, we're we're we're really kind of at the mercy of VOTE and the regional signal contract uh contractor to do that installation, but it's ready to be installed as soon as they can get that scheduled. So

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Does that satisfy your inquiry? I just like said just as we're trying to promote our county. Oh, sure. That's a great inquiry. Yeah. Well, um, let me know if you need any further, uh, work on that. Anybody else? Mr. Tatum, Brian, uh, last month we spoke about, uh, you know, the bridge on 40 West Pass Crossroads and and having a town hall meeting in Phum. I'm trying to nail down some a date and uh, probably looking at maybe March. Okay. That works for you. Uh, I wanted to get hopefully passed this weekend. Yeah,

I know you've already got your snow shovel out, but uh uh what I'll do once I nail down a date and a exact location, I I I'll probably get a couple dates and and email them or call your let you know. So, we can make arrangements to have someone from from your office to to be there to answer questions. Yes, sir. Yeah, that'd be great. But, uh that that's my goal is hopefully sometime in March. Okay, that sounds good. Do you have anything else, Mr. Tatum? Mr. Mitchell. Brian, I spoke to you last month about that trailer on Yes, sir.

Colonial Turnpike and measured from the tongue over to the right away and we were just out of it. Well, recent developments that trailer has fallen apart. So, I'm wondering if maybe we're any closer to the rightway, if there's something we can because it's obvious the land owner and the owner of that trailer are not concerned, but the people who drive past it every day are very concerned. I'm sure. Yeah. And um I was actually just reading through the email thread that you and uh Mr. Broton and Steve Sandy, we were all on. Um I'm just wondering if we have any other options on that. I mean, if it's in the rightway, we can we can

if one wall has fallen off of it and it's laying in the rightway, does that give us any sort of I'll go measure it and see. We have boots on the ground up here, Mr. Mitchell. I love it. is the property owner, you know, what's the situation? I I can reach out to the property owner, but if it was on my property, it would have been handled much sooner and so I will reach out to them and I will also go measure to see if that has fallen into the right away. Um, and but other than that, we don't we don't have any I guess where we're unzoned. We have no teeth in that fight, right? And I didn't know if VOTE would have VOTE can't

within our rightway limits. We can remove what's there. Only but only the part of it that's in the rightway. Correct. Wow. I understand that. That's terrible. But um and also I know it's an eyesore. It it is a terrible eyesore. And on the potholes on 619 down there at Airport Road and I read in the email that y'all would continue to monitor those. And and my only concern with that is that's a brand new job

and and the citizens I you know we say we're going to fix the potholes, but we're looking at it saying, "Wow, our taxes paid to pave this road. It's done halfway and it's kind of it's a rough spot right there in front of the greenhouse and then another one back this way from it." Uh I think I think we should maybe consider getting that group back in there to uh refix that patch. Okay. It's a pretty bad spot right there. That's all I had. Okay. Sure. Anyone else? Okay, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you all. We appreciate the support that you guys offer us and uh in the Salem office. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Okay, we will move on now. Um I would uh Chris, do you have any initial uh introductory comments um to make before we call uh Mr. Mr. Stone, Miss Eperly, and probably Mr. Carter. Sure.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Um, annually the annual county audit, if you will, our annual comprehensive financial report is presented to the local governing body. And typically, we try to do that by year end year calendar in December by code. And of course, if you all recall, last month, staff advised the board that this year there would be a delay. Um, there was some delay in information from the school system in completing the county's financial audit. The auditors have been quite busy u Mr. Corbinstone and Miss Diana Eperly with uh Mr. Carter as well as back and forth with the school system to complete that audit and they're here today to present the findings of the audit. Uh madam chair and we can answer any questions that the board may have.

Thank you. Mr. Carter, do you have any remarks you'd like to make? I don't want to forget you. Thank you, Madam Chair. No particular remarks. Um as as Mr. Whitmo said so this is part of the annual required financial report update and presentation to the board of supervisors and after Mr. Stone and Eperly are complete if there are additional questions or comments be happy to attempt to answer those. Thank you Mr. Carter. Hello Corbin. Hello I should say Mr. Stone seeing you uh twice in in two weeks. Uh an honor. Welcome. So glad to have you with us today. You and Miss Epley. Thank you so much

Madam Chair and board members. Thanks for having me. What I'll do is kind of go over a brief summary of the the financial report, the audit report, and then um we'll talk a little bit about school board towards the end, and uh then I'll answer any any questions you have. Let's see if I can move this thing down. There we go. So, you should have a handout in front of you, and I'll kind of walk you through that. It's just a a few pages. I think we put one up there in front of everyone's desk. Um, you did receive, if you go to the I think it's the third page of this handout, you did receive what we call an unqualified or unmodified opinion on the financial statements. That just means we believe the financial statements are materially correct. Um, your management discussion and analysis is on page 15. That's where Brian goes over the financial statements and more of a layman's point of view. Um, exhibit one is the statement of net position on page 25. That's full acral accounting and what that does is it takes all the assets of the county, subtracts all the liabilities and shows you in that position. Theoretically, that's the closest number we can come to. If you sold everything off what what you're worth effectively. Um, but you have to remember buildings like this, we take the original cost and to depreciate them. So, they may have gone up in value, they may be worth less than depreciated value. U, but it would include liabilities such as your p pension obligations, any any long-term obligations you have. Exhibit three is the balance sheet. That's on the modified acrruel. A lot of people call that the modified cash basis of accounting. We ignore long-term assets and we also ignore long-term liabilities. So, we ignore pension obligations, but we ignore the value of this building on the balance sheet, which is exhibit three. The government auditing standards opinion is on page 169. And that basically says, do you have good internal controls in place? and did you comply with major uh areas of

concern with local governments? We did have a finding that was referenced in that schedule of findings and question cost that we recommended several material adjustments to the school board's books at the end of the year. Uh so we did have a finding on page 176 in the report and then federal grant compliance opinion on 171. We randomly not I don't say randomly it's a systematic way of reviewing federal grants but we don't look at every federal grant every year. We go through a selection process and we audit specific federal grants. We didn't have any issues there. Uh so you did receive an unqualified opinion in that regard. So again, unqualified opinion on the financial statements, unqualified opinion on federal grants. We did have a qualification on internal controls and compliance in that government government auditing standards opinion. It's going to be hard to read that. You're gonna have to read this one in front of you because it's be hard to see on the screen. But really this is just the general fund summary and I'm trying to compare uh really nine years worth of data. Next year we'll have 10 years worth of data and then we'll just carry forward with 10 years going forward. Uh what you can see in the general fund uh total revenues back in 2017 were 83 and a.5 million. This year 121 million uh annual growth rate of about 4.81%. That's a compound growth rate of about 4.81% overall. Uh the one that we'll pay attention to that I pay attention to right now with what we're dealing with in the economy uh other local taxes. Those are your point of sale taxes. Uh effectively they occur when there is a transaction, sales tax, things like that. To the extent the local economy is doing well or doing poorly, you're going to see it there first. Um assetbased taxes, general property taxes, you're just applying a rate towards the value of some asset. it's, you know, changes in the economic conditions are going to show up there last. Uh, so we always look, and I know Brian always goes over how the local taxes are are doing, but that is really kind of the canary in the coal mine, if you will, for local governments.

Expenditures grew by an annualized rate over this 9-year period of about 4.84%. That's on the next page. And overall fund balance down at the bottom grew, this is just the general fund again, uh, grew at an annualized rate of 11.53%. And I think maybe the next couple couple tables down, you'll see that sounds great. It really grew quite a bit, but inflation kind of ate into that. So those dollars you have today are worth quite quite a bit less than the dollars you had five or even nine years ago. And it kind of plays out. You can kind of see that in a couple couple pages. Just giving you a pie chart of general fund revenues. You can see by far the the largest revenue of the county that's general property tax. Again, those are assetbased taxes. Uh the second largest is intergovernmental federal and state aid at 25 million. Uh you we do expect and what we saw after the great recession back in 2007208 we had big spike up in federal aid and then it dropped back down. So we do kind of expect to see that not only in counties, cities, towns, but school boards as well that they had a big spike up in federal revenue that slowly slowly decreased. Third largest revenue source were those other local taxes that I just mentioned. General fund expenditures, largest expenditure by far, education, uh from the general fund, $39.8 million was transferred uh to the school fund for operations. review of the county's reserves. Here we basically take ending general fund balance at the top. We have in cash and investments right below that. Uh again, this is just for the general fund. And you can see cash is a little bit below that ending fund balance. That's because typically your receivables exceed your payables at the end of the year. So that's not unusual to see. If we take total net operating expenditures for the county, the general fund, E911, schoolboard operating

expenditures less the transfer between the the county and the school board, uh we get total operating expenditures for the county, $176 million at the end of 25. Compared that to 2017, which was about $130 million. So that's inflation. I mean, it's it's right there uh pretty easy to see. Ending fund balance is a percent of expenditures, 31%. ending cash balance as a percent of expenditures 30% and unassigned fund balance uh as a percent of expenditures was 26.8 26.9% we'll say um so even though that's grown that unassigned fund balance has grown uh even though overall fund balance has grown uh still as a percent it hasn't grown as much as you would have you would you would think in comparing it to expenditures it would have grown even more percentage-wise it hasn't because your expenditures are going up at a pretty pretty fast pace. Uh so and when I say unassigned fund balance that's fund balance that's not externally restricted or has not been set aside internally. Uh so it is at the discretion of the board to use th those funds. Uh but they ended the year at 26.89% and the government finance officers association recommends the minimum unassigned to be about 16.67%. So you're above that. You're not way above it though. recommendations for the audit. Um report finding, I mentioned that earlier. We did have some material entries to the school board's financial statements and that was a repeat finding. Other recommendations we had uh statement of economic interest and disclosure forms uh need to be completed properly. Those are really hard forms to complete, but we go through and you check a box here and because you check that box, you're supposed to complete a whole another form. And so we find people just miss those other forms. We don't see anything intentionally done wrong. It's just a difficult form to complete. Um, talked to Brian about tracking delinquent balances in the general ledger. U,

number C, we ran some reports on the delinquent taxes, the delinquent balances, and the detailed reports in the summary reports didn't agree. They weren't off by that much, but there's something in the software that's causing those two not to agree. So, we want to figure out why why that is. Um, also kind of the same thing with prepaid tax listing. Sometimes people come in and they pay their taxes early. Well, that's a liability because that tax hasn't been assessed yet. So, that's really a liability. Technically, you owe it back to the person and we want to make sure that those accounts are reconciling or agree with the the liability posted in the general ledger. Um, we had a parks and wreck account that was not in the county's books. We think that needs to be brought in. It was basically for making deposits when they have some activities out there and then they're transferring money over the county. But we think that ought to be on the county's books just from a control standpoint that someone else is seeing those bank statements. U and we did have one account I believe that was not confirmed as a public deposit. When I say public deposit, you get additional security in case there's a bank failure. There's additional security by having an account noted as a public deposit. In other words, you're insured above those FDIC limits. The account we identified did not have a balance that high, so you weren't really at risk. Um, but we want to make sure they're all recorded as public deposits and you can't you can't note your own accounts as public deposits only only for local governments. Um, gee, the school board overspent their appropriation for the fiscal year ending 2025. And I have a separate handout on that. We'll go over that in just a minute. Uh, we do have a cafeteria account at the school board that's used to deposit money to and then periodically they transfer money to the county. It's really to accumulate the the cafeteria sales, if you will. We really want that to be on the county's books and not just maintained outside those books. We didn't see any issues with it. We were able to reconcile it to

the underlying sales reports at the schools, but we we would like to have that on the county's books. We also have a flexible benefits bank account at the school board that probably needs to come onto the county's books. Even though it's for the benefit of the employees, we'd like to see it on the county's books. Uh and finally, just some budget cleanup. when we import the original budget for the school board, I think for the last one or at least one year, maybe two years, they've just brought in totals for that original budget because they didn't really have enough time to lay out all the different revenue sources. Then they go back later on and adjust out all the revenue sources in the final budget that's presented in the financial statements. But we want the entire budget to be entered, not just in these lump sum totals. Um, with that, I will let me see what's upcoming accounting standards. Uh, probably don't need to go over these too much. They're going to be Brian's headache for the most part. Uh, the first one is a rework of the financial reporting model. So, this this report this year, the actual financial reports, I think 176 pages. Next year, it'll probably 182 pages uh, as these new standards are are put into effect. Um, I will go over the other handouts we had as well. Of course, those management comments that I just went over, that's one of the handouts. I won't go over those again. We will talk about school board, but I won't go over all those again. We have a letter to those charged with governance. It says at the top, communication with those charged with governance. If we come in to do an audit and staff here or the school board just doesn't respond uh to our inquiries or um gives us bad information over and over and that sort of thing, we have difficulty gets reported here. Uh we didn't really have that. They did respond to our inquiries. We didn't have any issues with people not responding. Uh we also tell you about the major estimates and the financial statements. Uh so you understand the pension

liabilities and things of that nature. It's our best estimate today what ultimately all these pensions are going to cost the county. It's based on actuarial tables and we simply don't know how long people are going to stay in the pension. Uh but it is a letter for you to kind of review and tells you about the key estimates in the financial statements and key disclosures. And the last handout, it's a one pager, a one-page handout, is looking at uh what we all know about now, uh the school operating fund. And in the report, we actually combined the school operating fund, uh school cafeteria, um school construction into one column. But for this, I've kind of separated out the school, just the operating fund. and I've really honed in on what the final budget was and what was actually spent. That's what we look at. Uh a lot of times folks will say, "Well, we got this much money from this and if we had done this, this would have happened." And it doesn't matter to me as an auditor. As an auditor, this board appropriates the budget. You say you spend $98 million. That's how much you can spend. That's it. Um so what we had with the school board, the final budget was $98.9 million. The reported expenditures were $100.9 million for an over expenditure of $2 million. And then we had a cash adjustment of about a million dollar for some expenses that are normally paid in June that were paid July 2nd that related to payroll. Well, the county has a kind of a unique situation in some of your payroll accounts. you write a check out of the the fund to this payroll clearing account and then you wire off money to VRS or the federal government, the state government for taxes that have been withheld that you do that really as a control device. So if somebody gets your routing numbers for those payroll that where the money the payroll money is coming out of all your money is not at risk of loss just what's in that clearing account.

So, we'd already recorded deposits in transit from the school board in that clearing account and reported the liabilities to VRS primarily from the school board, but the school board hadn't reported the actual expense in the school fund. So, we went back and had a cash adjustment of a million dollars to report that expense in the school fund. That reduced their cash and it increased their expenditures. That simple. So at the end of the day, our cash balance in the school operating fund was a negative $3.1 million or 3.189 million. It's highlighted in green for you. And the over expenditures that we saw in the school operating fund were $3 million. Now, we would have had additional adjustments to the school fund to make sure we got payables and receivables correct, but at the end of the day, you you had to transfer $3 million over what was budgeted so that the school board's checks were were valid, could be paid. Um, you do have a pulled cash concept, meaning each fund does not have its own bank account. You have a bank account and multiple funds feed out of the same bank account. the sum of the cash in each fund equals a total in that bank account. So, it is possible to have a negative in one fund and have if you have a positive in other funds, the entire bank account hasn't gone negative. So, you didn't you didn't draw bad checks, if you will, but the school board definitely had a negative balance in their operating fund. Um, so at the end of the day, that's where we were. The final transfer was $39.8 million. Uh, the budget transfer of the county 36. And of course that additional 3 point just roughly $3.2 million in cash was um is really you can you can look at the over expenditure and it's pretty pretty close to that amount. Um I will say we didn't have any issues. I don't think there was any uh any any desire to cover cover that up or not disclose or anything like that. And the controls that were in place this was

noticed by the county by the audit by the school board. this was identified, you know, right right after it happened or at least for us when we came in to do the audit. It was brought to our attention. Um so I don't think there was anything no ill will there. They just wrote more checks than they should have. So um and it's difficult uh and say write my check more checks than you should have. You know, you don't want to end a year having only paid 11 uh power bills, right? You want to make sure you got 12 in that year to make it a full year. So what you don't want to have happen is any entity hold back and not pay their bills because they've run out of budget. You want them to you you don't want them to do that. You want them to say we need more money and come to this board and ask for a supplemental appropriation which is that's what should have happened. So and I'll stop there and answer questions they might have.

Thank you so much. Um I will open the floor um to my colleagues for questions uh feedback. Mr. Tatum. Uh, Mr. Mr. Stone, thank you for your report. Uh, and I'm looking this last sheet that you went over just to simplify it down. Basically, the final budget for the school was 98 million and basically they spent a h 100red million. So, that sounds a whole lot like a bad check. Yeah, it's um and if if you or I want to write a bad check, we stand a chance of going to jail. That's correct.

I'm gonna branch off, Tim, if you don't mind. I was going to ask you to walk us through that one more time on how those that payroll the poolled account and how the payroll came in from July compared to and how the fiscal years how that cut off occurred with that million how that cut off and how that occurred with a poolled check account between you said the money's in one and transferred to the other. Can you explain to us and maybe this will answer your question, Tim, how that Can you walk us through that one more time, maybe a little slower?

You bet. No, it is kind of a it's a unique thing. So, um, let's let's say you're a county and you've got 70 funds and there might be counties out there with 70 funds. U, well, that means you got if you had a separate bank account for each fund, then somebody's got to go reconcile all those bank accounts every month and that's quite a bit to do. So, what most counties do, what pretty much all counties do, is they have a pulled cash account, one checking account, but each fund uses that same checking account. So, when the school board writes a check, it's on the same bank account as the county general fund. It's it's the same bank account, but we're tracking it to we know that if that bank account has $45 million in it, you know, $44 million is the counties and a million dollars is the school board. That's always being tracked. uh their revenue gets reported in their fund, their expenditures get reported in their fund, and if you look at the ending bank balance of their fund plus the ending bank balance of the general fund, those two will agree to the bank reconciliation. So, um and what happened with the million- dollar adjustment, we were going through the Virginia retirement system. Actually, we they confirmed to us how much should have been paid by the county. And so we we noticed that hey, what's actually posted to the books is about one month off from what should have been paid. So what we realized was is we had checks written on July 2nd that are historically written on June 30th or June 29th or right when that last payroll run's done. The county had already recorded those in their clearing account, which is a separate bank account as a deposit in transit. Well, if you write a check from this account to this account and this one is showing it as a deposit in transit, this one better show it as an expense, right? So, that's what we did. We posted that expense back to the the school board. And so, that was a million dollar adjustment that you see there. Hopefully, that makes sense.

So, excuse me. So, how do we keep this from happening again?

It's not as simple as just saying don't spend money. Um, like I I said before, it's it's difficult and we've had this happen before and the school board says, "Well, we'll be on the cash basis of accounting." And then they get to May and they stop writing checks and then July 1st they start writing checks again. That's a bad idea because then the hole just gets deeper every year. Um, so it really uh requires a somebody reviewing it at the school board. Hey, we're going to be over our budget. we've got to go back before the board supervisor and ask for more money. Um, if they've already obligated the funds and most of their expenses are going to be payroll related, it's going to be difficult, you know, come June 15th to cut expenses by two or three or four million dollars. Um, so it really has to start with a good budget up front. Uh it really has to start with the budget planning that you're going to start here in the next month or so and have a good budget up front that you know you can that they can survive on. Um and be conservative uh in the estimates of what things are going to are going to cost. But that's really what has to happen. Um the controls it was it was found. It was it wasn't it didn't um it didn't go unseen. Um, but it's it's hard to once those wheels are in motion, it's very hard to to stop it.

So, did y'all catch this or did the school

Um, I think Brian actually was the first person to identify it. Uh, and then he mentioned that, "Hey, this might be something you want to look into." And we looked into it and said, "Yeah, we think you're right here." Um, in in the course of the It's something we check anyway in the course of the audit. Uh this board gives people the authority to spend money. That's called the appropriations process. When you appropri when you appropriate money um they can go spend it. Um now the there can be an issue that arises. Let's say you have let's just say a $10 million budget and you expect to get eight eight million from the state and federal government and two million from the local government. And so this board appropriates $10 million. What happens if you only get seven million from the state and federal government? Um, can you still spend $10 million? And the the answer, my understanding, is because the funds have been appropriated, you can spend the money. So, you've got to have a good budget in terms of estimating state and federal revenues, but then also a a feasible budget on the back end on the expenditure side so that you don't overdraw this this local appropriation. You want to do both. You want to stay within your total budget, which is what we monitor, but you also don't want to draw down more local funds than what you had budgeted in that budget. So hopefully that makes sense.

I'm just wondering and and and I'm just throwing this out there to get your opinion on. Right now when we appropriate the budget, we're appropriating their total budget once a year. Would if we did appropriations on a closer scale, say quarterly or monthly or something, would that do you think that would give a better way to keep a handle on because what this looks like to me is we had to spend $3 million of Franklin County citizens taxpayer dollars more than was budgeted to cover the the shortfall. And you know, I've got to go out and and and look my citizens in in the eye and explain where their tax dollars are going and they're they're going to be looking at me screaming, you know, saying, "Y'all got to learn how to handle the money better."

Yeah. And yes, I I think that would help. That would at least identify, let's say you you get to December and you've done 50 million in appropriation and they've spent, you know, 40 49.5 million. Well, that's pretty tight.

Um, that being said, it's it's it's a bit seasonal with school boards as well. Um, so they don't have much in way of expenditures usually in July and August. Then expenditures really start to pick up as school opens up. So, uh, it's seasonal, so you would expect them maybe to be at say 42 or 43% of their budget at the end of December. So, it is a way to at least see, hey, looks like we're trending in the wrong direction. what are you doing over the next six months to make sure you're you're on budget? Yeah, I think that is that is a valid uh way to approach it. Um how how much you can rein it in that's that's another question. Uh but it's a valid way at least you know earlier that's the main thing very good point

and Mr. Tatum, I would add to that if I may that um I think that is a good point and I think that because of the code of Virginia um sets up and stipulates how we receive our funding or how we allocate excuse me appropriations to the schools um we might need to get some legal guidance in terms of um what kind of flexibility do we have with our appropriations? Um and Mr. Gwyn um I'm not going to ask you for a legal opinion on the spot. Is that a good question, the right question to be asking in response to Mr. Tatum's feedback? I know there are some local governments, I think Corbin's aware of it, too, who will not appropriate it all at once. Exactly. Yes. Okay.

Appropriate, some do it monthly, some not many monthly, mostly quarterly, I think, because the appropriations every month are just That's a lot,

right? Anecdotally, I'll I'll tell you, we had a school board one time uh a county had gone to monthly appropriations and they happened to they met twice a month and they happened to do the same appropriation twice at two different meetings. Okay, they appro they normally appropriate funds at the beginning of the month, but in this particular case, they accidentally left on the agenda and they did it twice and um they actually overappropriated the school board in this case. This is a long time ago uh about $2 million. And so the county administrator was livid that they had spent $2 million more than they should have. And we went through the appropriations and said, "Well, actually, it looks like you did a you did 13 monthly appropriations instead of 12." And I went up to see the superintendent and he said, "Well, I saw their mistake and we needed buses." So, um, and he subsequently had retired said, "And I I'm close to retirement. I'm going to retire him. Um, so

don't get any ideas, Mr.

Uh, so, so you really have to, um, yeah, be careful. Just just do those once. Um, but those things do happen. And the, the other thing, and Brian and I talked earlier, you know, do you do you appropriate on a cash basis or modify a cash cash basis? And we've seen the places that do cash basis, which means a checkout needs an appropriation. The issue we see there is they could stop paying their bills in May and just hold them all to the next year and pay bills in July. And then this $3 million problem over a number of years could really grow to be a much much larger larger problem. Um so I I would recommend you stay on a modified cash basis u for appropriations as best you can. So to make sure you get 12 payments of everything in every year.

Okay. Mr. Meredith. Yes. Um, I got three quick questions and I Mr. Carter might have to answer a couple of these. Um, the reason for my three questions just so I understand this. I went to the school board and watched their proposal on what happened. And in question number one, they said, um, the program, their accounting system is very unique and difficult to use. And there's a letter uh by one of the board members said that even our county finance director, it was buried so bad. What kind of software accounting program? How's it different from the counties? Well, it's basically the same.

So, it's the exact same accounting program we use. And was you not aware of this before that board meeting or how soon did you notice this? Are we talking about the structure of the accounts or the statement that it's

Well, they were just saying the money was buried so deep. I'm reading. Let me read this word for word. I don't want to prerize anybody. Um it was something that was buried deep in the accounting process. So much so that even the county director of finance did not see it either. So, I think the concept that the schools were trending to overspend their budget was noticed in the summer and this board was notified of that. If I remember the July board meeting and so we had subsequent meetings and so the school uh staff felt like that that was inaccurate and that that they would have a surplus and so we we um I took their word on that. So, okay, well, we'll let the audit occur. Now, we did not know, nor did I know exactly what was causing the overrun. We don't we didn't have the capacity to dig into that level, but we did notice the trend that it looked a little off and we did bring that to their attention. So, to say that it's it's that complicated. We did not know the specific accounting error that the auditors mentioned, but we knew that something wasn't looking appropriate for where we thought they should be.

Okay. Um, question two, they mentioned transportation increases. Um, I know they use a lot of substitutes being a business. When you're got a substitute, it's actually saving you money. But I'm not saying parts u did not in inflation. The transportation increases caused this deficit. Oh, I'm not I'm not sure. I mean,

yeah, m I would say, Mr. Meredith, may I interrupt Mr. Stone? Those are the kinds of things we're going to deal with Thursday night. I just I like I said I just want the public to know because even private day school I just looked our expenditures and we spent wrote checks for closely to $812,000 for private day residential schools and the public was informed that the school system is paying 100%. And I think that's misleading to the public and I just want a clarification. I think those are good points. That's fine. We'll discuss those Thursday. Yes sir. If that's okay with you. That's fine. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, feedback from Mr. Stone?

We have Oh, I'm sorry. Sure. Of course. The State Code of Virginia when it addresses schoolboard overage. Are you familiar with that code? Could you basically cover that just for the record so we get it in our minutes? The the not verbatim, but the gist of what the comments. And you're not supposed to do it. Okay. Good answer. That's the easy answer, right? You're not supposed to do it, but it it does clarify that it it could be considered. I think malfeasants in office is That's the word I was I wanted you to say. So, I I do think it it references malfeasants in office, but um I didn't read it just before I walked in. Sure, I understand.

So, um but yeah, it's not this is not something you don't address. Right. Right. Thank you. Anybody else? Mr. Stone, we greatly appreciate it. Brian, did you have any closing remarks? Um, or Mr. Stone, were is that the completion of your report I should ask first? Okay, Mr. Carter.

Yes, Madam Chair. I don't have any additional remarks as related to the to the audit other than to mention again, we did receive an unmodified opinion, a clean opinion for the audit. Just want to thank the county staff and the school staff again for a lot of diligence in the work. It is a lot behind the scenes that most people don't see. And so, absolutely thankful for Mr. Stone and Miss Eperly and their team as well. certainly appreciate the the work that they do. Yes, that's well said, Brian. Thank you. I'll reiterate that. You know, it's 176 page document that is very technical. Yeah. Um so Brian staff and and even the school board, social services, they really uh have to work pretty hard to get all this information to us.

Yeah. Well, we appreciate your assistance. We're in good hands with you all and we very much appreciate that support. It's our pleasure. And if you do, if you get home later tonight, you have a question, my contact information is right there on the front page of the presentation. Don't hesitate to send me an email or give me a call. Thank you, Mr. Whitlow. I would defer to you and Mr. Carter with an inquiry. Uh, do we need to uh approve or adopt um this audit into the public record?

Madam Chair, I don't believe it requires a motion to approve. Uh there is a uh certification that we do need you to sign that needs to be presented to the auditor of public accounts and Mr. Whitow needs to sign that. But as far as the record, I think the public presentation and the minutes will reflect that. Very good. There's not that to my recollection. Mr. Gwyn may need to correct me, but you need to take a separate vote to accept the audit report. That'd be it. Yeah. Okay. Well, then and that would be this evening, correct? Yeah. Just a a voice vote to accept the audit, right? Then let's do that. Right. So I would open the floor for a motion to accept the audit as has been presented. Excuse me. Should Excuse. Yes, sir.

Madam Chair, should we wait and give us time to look at this? Go through it a little bit. Is there any problems with deferral? Is there a date around this thing? We may already be late. Well, we are already on. I think so. So I guess the simple answer is you're not going to change anything in this audit report. So even if you look at it, the numbers are what they are, right? Um and I think for us, the real thing for us is just the certification to the state. Uh we we told them we would have that done by the end of January when we posted our our late notice. Okay.

And so other than that, Mr. Jameson, members of the board, I think that's the only piece we would be concerned about. And so the remediation efforts, even those smaller ones on the county side, you know, all of those will take place after uh formal acceptance of the audit, uh this is just kind of a an exercise to declare that we've heard it. Uh we've received it and it's on record. Would that be correct? Yes, ma'am. That is the correct way to describe it. Okay, I'm good with that. Okay, thank you, Mr. Jameson. I would entertain a motion um to uh place an acceptance in the public record for our audit. I'll make a motion. Pardon? I'll make a motion. Thank you. I'm sorry. That's okay. Me to interrupt.

That That's okay. Uh is there a second, please? Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Uh Miss Madame Clerk, if you would do a roll call, please. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Jameson. Yes. And Chair Smith. Yes. Okay. Uh gentlemen, on the agenda, we're due for a brief five minute break. Would you like to take that or move on? We Let's Mr. Move on.

You want to move on? Everybody okay with that? Okay. Very good. All right. So, Mr. Carter, we're going to defer to you now on the agenda for your monthly finance reports, budget calendar, and budget work sessions. chair and get all this together here.

Okay. All right, madam chair, members of the board. So, monthly finance report. So our report is going to be through the end of December. So this would be six months halfway through our fiscal year that we would anticipate reviewing. And so you would see uh most of these you would anticipate being around 50% of our budget. And so obviously some are are done different cycles. And so property taxes being one of them. You can see that's almost at 67% of budget. We would expect that. And remember, we have the the real estate that will come, which technically is the first half of 2026, but it'll be in your the end of your fiscal year for June 30th. And so the rest of the revenues are looking to be right at uh a little bit above 50%. Uh one item, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but if you notice your revenue from use of money and property, it's at 47.7%. And so we're monitoring that. If you remember, that's the line item where your interest income is. If you remember, we've mentioned several times that as interest rates reduce, that's going to be an impact to your budget. You have to make up those funds or reduce services somewhere else in the budget. So, we're starting to see the softening on that. We're uh at the time of peak cash reserves because of our property tax collections in December. So, likely you'll get above that marker when we get to the January, February time frame as you earn interest on the deposits in the account. So we're not concerned overall with it, but it is a little bit uh softer and we would anticipate that as interest rates decline. Uh so for every other revenue for the most part uh we would expect that based on the timing and the and the cycle of where some of these would fall in the fiscal year. Uh same way with expenditures. You can see that the ones that typically run a little higher that especially your general and financial administration. That's the same where a lot of your um

invoices are frontloaded your your contracts, your insurance, all those payments that have to be paid in full at the beginning of the fiscal year. So overall, not uh not over budget any particular line. um your transfers at at the bottom uh 70.5% that's typical when we get to December because we disperse those funds to all the other funds as Mr. Stone was talking about that all rolls up into one bank account. So we're not concerned with that. Uh we'll have a little bit more to talk about on some transfers a little bit later. Can I quick question? I mean of course. Yes sir. One quick question. What the recovered cost? It's a 29% rate. what what exactly would fall under recovered costs just to educate me please.

Yeah. And and so recovered costs categorically are typically items that um as the name would suggest we are reimbursed for and so it's an it's basically a revenue offset for the expenditures a service we may provide. So, give you a quick example. What's a big part of that number is we um invoice the school system for a cost for SRO's and that's a roughly about $400,000 number that would be a recovered cost. And so, I I would have to get the full list for you, but Mr. Merida, that categorically that is those are the items that are part of that. CSA costs would be recovery cost for private day. They're included in that category as well. That's that's roughly a $600 $700,000. Actually, I believe it's a million dollars this year, but don't quote me on that. But those are the two large numbers that make up that category.

So, nothing you're concerned with at this moment at that. No, I think that is back to uh the cycle. We usually invoice the school system for SRO once a year for the entire amount and for the sake of we wait and spend most of the money and then just invoice them toward the last quarter of the year. And the same thing with private day. You'll see that a little bit later on expenditures. Uh we we did mention last month that we had one particular vendor that we do use fairly frequently for private day. Their internal billing process was behind. So we had a catch-up month in December. And so I think as now that we've paid those invoices as we we invoice the school system and are received back that percentage will will align a little better. All right. Thank you. Yes sir. Thank you Brian.

Yes ma'am. So graphically just to show you the the revenues, uh you can see we're we're roughly even. I want to break that down a little more for you into the major categories. So general property taxes, you can see an increase and really uh I have a few more detailed slides for more real estate and personal property. They're relatively flat. What's driving that increase is the collection of the MVP money through our public service corporation taxes. And if you remember, we did mention that that that was going to come online this year. Those funds have been received. It's roughly $2.5 million that we had not received the year prior. And so some of that is offset in personal property taxes because the commissioner was assessing them. Now the the state is. And so it's not a a complete 2.5 million. It's roughly about a 1 and a.5 million net increase in the budget. And so that's what's driving that increase. uh other local taxes uh are and if you look at that and and revenue from the Commonwealth uh other local taxes are relatively flat. You'll see that in more detail as Mr. Stone was mentioning uh your sales taxes, your meals taxes, your occupancy, those are a faster barometer of the local economy and what we look for from a budgeting perspective as to how we can gauge where our projections may be. uh revenue from the Commonwealth or state revenue. It is down uh excuse me uh yeah it's down uh this year compared to last year and so a lot of that is timing. It actually has to do with the two largest numbers that we receive or I guess I should say three our compensation board for our constitutional officers social services reimbursements and CSA. And so really the two that are driving that are social services and CSA. There's a timing difference that appears to be in just the when we spent the money and the reimbursements because expenditures are fairly comparable but uh reimbursements uh have not been received to the same

level. When I look at the comparison they're a little bit different. I think they've been filed. I think it's a matter of just receiving the reimbursement and the timing. Some of that is also going to catch that additional private day that we spent in December as well. the revenue has not been received yet. Whereas prior year, we had already received that revenue because there was not a billing issue with a provider. So to to give you the uh if you remember from the from Mr. Stone's presentations, the vast majority of our local revenue, our budget is funded by property taxes. And so that's why it's so critical that these property taxes meet budget. Uh so real estate uh through December, we are a little behind. And we're about $685,000 below where we were through December last year. It's about 3.1%. Uh we did we were just below budget last year. However, we were well above delinquent taxes. So when we look at the assessment, it's either going to be considered a current tax or delinquent depending on when somebody paid it. This is only showing you the current taxes because that is the trend we really want to show where the collections are. Uh when we look at overall uh we we did meet budget last year so relatively I think it's going to be tight again. Uh so we're not seeing a ton of growth in our real estate. And keep in mind I know we have some new housing developments but we have over a $7 billion reassessment. So a $5 million apartment complex really doesn't move the needle very far when you count the taxes we collect off of that off a $7 billion assessment on an annual basis. So really the in between years on your new construction are not going to carry you. It's all based on the reassessment. If you remember we only do that every four years. Uh personal property tax. So we are a little below on personal property tax about 110,000. Uh that's roughly even.

That's not a statistically significant number. Uh when we look at revenue today uh we we have no concerns about meeting budget. We're at 96 almost 96.5% of budget as of the end of December. We're pretty much um few hundred,000 for meeting budget and personal property. Not concerned about that. Real estate's a little further behind because of the the other the we collected in two halves personal properties all at once. And so we'll look at that um as we continue to to monitor. But real estate is going to be a little tighter I think. Um, as long as we don't have another concern this year about the bills going out on time, hopefully that software issue has been resolved. As far as we know it has.

Can we stay on top of that, Brian? We will. Well, we we were on top of it to the degree that we can. I understand. But the, you know, I think and some of those comments go back to the audit comment about the delinquent taxes. I think we're having some software issues with the vendor if I'm being honest and there's only so much we can control. that's more of a commission revenue and a treasurer function, right? Um, but I do think we probably have some areas we need to look at. As

Mr. Stone said, we we can't determine why some of these reports don't agree. And so that's a problem. Uh, so for me, I like to know the numbers. So, I I think that is a contributo issue in a handful of things we're seeing out of the vendor that we use for our billing and collections assessment of property taxes. So the 600k that was on the previous slide variance almost 700k um there is is any part of that collections or aged receivables. So this is only the current that's what I thought I heard you say

this is only current. There is a delinquent line. Uh I don't report that we can lump it in if that's how the board would like it. No. Um, we like to keep the current for the sake of us meeting because when you get delinquent, it I feel like it's not a large number, so it's not going to skew this a lot anyway. Um, and the real estate process is a little different. So, I feel like the current we budget more on the current assessment and so that's why we track this number. Um, delinquent is is still trailing a little bit, but it it typically does because of the time it takes on the real estate side to to file these second notices and to then follow up on on collecting those taxes. A little bit easier to collect personal property than it is real estate.

I I would defer to the board um as to whether you'd like to see as part of Brian's monthly financial reports um some tracking of the of the aged revenue. Mr. Carter. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question. It's not really your department, Brian. I guess it's the treasurer. And I know that delinquent, all those delinquent taxes are public records. You can look at it online and it's a a lot of money tied up in there. Is that up to the treasur to collect that? And do you have an idea of what that ballpark number is?

Uh we do uh review uh typically annually. It's not something that that we look at in finance uh monthly but but there is as Miss Smith said the age receivables report and so that gives us Mr. card are the the outstanding taxes to be collected based on billy year. And so we usually look at that. What you typically see on that um is you have about a period of three or four maybe five years and then after that the process has taken effect to either collect those taxes or submit them for debt set off. And so um that the treasur has collected those. You see that drop off significantly after that 3 four year window. Um, but year one is usually higher as far as unpaid taxes. Year two, it gets better as the treasur's office works on collecting those. It's just a more detailed process. Um,

and there's a lot of items on there that are really aged. I don't know if they're uncollectible or these some of them are businesses. I don't know if they've gone out of business, but I remember

there was one that's a local franchise restaurant and they were delinquent owned tax years for three years in a row and it was I don't know three or $4,000 each year. And I know when I ran small businesses, I paid my taxes. I don't know how a a current business like that can keep being delinquent year after year after year without something being collected. And it that probably in more detail is a treasurer question. Uh but I know there is a different process for real estate taxes just by the nature of it. Uh ultimately if taxes aren't paid u the property goes up for auction and the treasur's office manages that process but there are a lot of steps that go through before you get there. So at the sale of the property at the public auction all taxes are made current. And so that's why you see a little bit of a delay in that 3 or four year time frame that you likely don't see on personal property taxes because those that lean can be put on equipment and things of that nature faster than you can handle real estate.

That's my layman's okay analysis of it, Mr. Yes. So um I guess let me clarify then. Do we want delinquent taxes or any other variation of how this is presented to the board every month? We'll be happy to provide it. What is your desire? Would you like that additional information reported or maybe even quarterly? Be good to see it just so we know what's out there because last time I looked online, I think it was close to 2.1 million. It's a lot. And I was going to say you could always send the board the link to that site. You can look at it anytime you want to online. The general public can look at it.

Maybe a Would you all be satisfied with a quarterly um overview or do you want it to be monthly? I would lean toward what works for Brian. If quarterly would be easier for him, I'm fine with that. What do you think, Brian? So, if all we're looking at is a total number, I mean, the report could be simple enough to run and to add, I don't think that's a lot of extra work. Um if you more analysis is looking for that that might be a more quarterly look. Absolutely. Understood. Thank you. Well, we want that break like year 1 2 3 4 5 just because we know on year five there may be legal procedures processes that could take place.

I mean or just one lump son. I'm just going to throw that out there. So we kind of know what's got at year five and we may be starting some legal processes to recoup this money. I don't know. I'm going leave that up to you. Yeah. I think the problem with that is that's up to the treasur.

I was going to say that any detailed reporting like that I think would need to be a conversation with the treasur Brian uh in terms of getting a little bit more detailed in a year-to-year comparative analysis. We um there is a report that could be run and so whether we include it in the finance report or your meeting packet or just a separate item that the board would like to see uh we could certainly request the treasur run that for us monthly just to to track the the var and it uh Mr. Mera, it does provide by bill year and and since we went to uh twice a year collection on real estate, you get a first and a second half on that bill year. So, you can see what has been assessed and what has been paid to this point, what's still outstanding, and it goes back maybe 20 years. It's a long report,

but Brian, due to the nature of just tracking this, do you feel like quarterly would be adequate rather than monthly? I don't know that there's a lot of movement on a monthly basis. That's my point. Um so I you know other than and just board information I don't know financially you'll see a lot of change and variation in financials but uh it from my understanding it's it's a canned report that can be run in the system. So, it's just pleasure of the board

and I guess at some point if the board decides that you want to hear from our treasurer on any of these matters, especially during budget, uh you and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Um we certainly have that purview um you know to bring her in and ask her to help us understand things better. Certainly be happy to coordinate that. Um, and so what we can do is I I'll make the note and so we'll ask the treasur for a copy of the report and maybe give you an idea of what that looks like next month and then we maybe that would give the board a better idea of if that's something you'd like to see on what frequency.

Yeah. And the timeliness as I said with budget as we you know get into those we might get further clarification Brian on um what we want to see don't need to see that kind of thing. Sure. Absolutely. All right. I'll make that note. And so I think it's at the end of the day it's information. So whatever the board is comfortable with we want to provide it. So you select Thank you. Sorry for the interruption.

That's okay. All right. So went through personal property. So sales tax uh and so this is getting into those other local taxes range that we were just talking about. So you can see sales tax had a relatively good month. The light blue line where wherever that is. There it goes. Um you can see here is the current year. So through December at a little bit higher collection than it was uh prior year, not as much two years ago. Uh and so but you see about 114,000 year-over-year, 52% of the budget. So we're trending well. Uh if you remember, we talked about that moderate growth that we're seeing in those other local taxes. When you collapse them, there's not a lot of growth, but it is growth. It's just uh moderating. You're going to see that with the others. So Mills tax is going to have the same situation. You'll see about $46,000 in growth through December. Uh that is uh up a little bit. It's 57.5% of budget. We would anticipate uh that that's a little ahead just because of the seasonality of when those taxes are collected. If you notice this, the summer months are your peak collections for meals and you'll see that in occupancy taxes as well. So occupancy, you you see a similar curve as far as the peak summer season as to when you collect those. So we're at almost 69% of budget, much smaller portion of our annual budget, $12,000 year-over-year growth about 4.3%. But on a positive side, I mean, it's trending in a growth level and growth mode. So we're we're still encouraged by that. Okay. So for expenditures, uh, we do have, so you see that for remember I said we we do the transfers with all of our other funds. So they're all in the same bank account. We spend any more money necessarily, but we had to move cash into these pots to fund all our capital fund um the uh the debt service fund, all of these things that

we pay. So you see that jump now. That is higher uh than it was last year. And so um something that we're going to keep an eye on. And so, uh, we've we're still working with the school staff and I know we have more to talk about, but at the end of December, uh, we had transferred 62% of the school's local money to them. Uh, at the end of last December, we had transferred 44% of their money to them. So, if you remember what we were talking about earlier, they're trending hot again. They're at what I call the burn rate. They're they're spending more of our local money faster than they have historically spent it. And so, we've talked with Dr. Sears and the school staff. We've met uh we're working through some revenue analysis and so there may be some additional recommendations if we feel like revenue projections are not are too high from the state and federal perspective particularly. So there may need to be a downward budget adjustment if we can't find a comfort level there and we'd like to make that adjustment or make those recommendations sooner rather than later. So uh county and school staff are are working through those items. I just wanted to bring that to your attention because you graphically see that um that you can see when we did those transfers, but when I saw that I wanted to look at that transfer percentage and so we are still seeing a higher percentage transfer to the school system through December than we would want to see at this point in the fiscal year. Uh so December um for categorically on expenditures uh roughly relatively the same. We would expect an increase. A lot of that is driven by personnel and just other inflationary factors that we see. Uh your public safety and your health and welfare being the two largest categories function of public safety share of fire and house. All of those combined. Uh health and welfare. I want to break that down. We typically try and show you this. And so if you remember we we mentioned the private day CSA last month was a little behind. Now it's caught up

and you see it's ahead. Uh so uh budgetarily uh we're trending where we would anticipate from a percentage of budget but um costs do not decrease in the CSA world and so there's just very little you can do to maintain or or project a lot of that. There are some things you can monitor and there's some things you can control, but there are a lot of federal and state regulations that take that out of local control. So, we manage it as best we can, but budgetarily, even though it's up year-over-year, we're still trending okay from what we have in the adopted budget this year. Okay. So, if you're uh fund balances, we did switch to that monthly look. So, you can kind of see a cash balance at a point in time instead of just at June 30th and then we carry it through the year. So through December, your uh and this is unawited uh but your unassigned fund balance I probably should make that clear at the top uh is $46.3 million. And so if you we are at the peak point typically of cash balance in the year because of property tax collections. And so December is November December depending on the timing when the collection date falls is your peak month. that cash number is going to dwindle as we go through the rest of the fiscal year until we get to the first half of real estate that's due in June. And so we take that $464 million. We back out a couple of things that are restricted. Your opioid settlement funds, the grants and donations that we carried forward were required to. They're restricted. Um and then our policy minimum. That policy minimum has been updated by our audited general fund revenue number to be in compliance with policy. So the the 20% is $24.3 million. So when you back all of those out, our our unassigned fund balance is about 20.5 million above our required limits or or that we have flexibility to spend

in order to maintain compliance with policy and to maintain compliance with restricted funds.

Okay. A couple of notes on this one. that the budget stabilization reserve has been um noted that we we took out 750,000 to balance capital. There was an intent to balance that with uh year end carryover probably a discussion for Thursday. Um but we will continue to monitor that. Uh the other thing is the capital reserve. If you remember, the the board authorized the purch purchase of a Boone Mill tanker at the last meeting, authorized up to $750,000 to be paid for from the capital reserve until the latter truck could be sold and proceeds reimbursed. And so, so that $135,000 is earmarking that money for the purchase of the truck. And then ultimately we should see that restored and we we're working through that process on the staff level. Okay. So economic and budget update. Uh we do have numbers this month. It's a wonderful thing that the federal government is back open and providing information to us. So December uh the CPI inflation was 2.7% compared year-over-year uh December of prior year which is still above the 2% target rate for the Federal Reserve but it is a lot better than it has been. It has been trending in that 2.7 2.6 2.8% range the last few months. So that's encouraging. uh core inflation as well it increased 2.6% but it had been increasing higher than general CPI inflation and so core inflation just takes out food and energy uh which are typically your your more volatile uh unemployment rate was 4.4% 4% as of December uh 31st and the Federal Reserve that no real change. We reported this at your last meeting. They have not met since your last meeting. Uh we anticipate possibly depending on economic indicators another quarter percentage point reduction in the rate when they meet at the end of this month.

We'll monitor that bring you back an update for February. Uh the governor did present his um bienial budget and so of course change in administration, new general assembly. We will see what if any of that holds. Uh a lot of the budget pressures are not going to change. That's Medicaid K12 education funding. Uh there's very little additional funding for localities uh realistically in in the governor's proposed budget. U there 2% cost of living increases in each of the two fiscal years. Uh our concerns are there's language to cap the state share of CSA private day costs. That has always been a somesufficient program and they changed it this fiscal year and they're looking to further push those costs down to localities in the next fiscal year. So certainly not in favor of that. And of course education rebenchmarking it it will occur for the next bianium and so we'll see what that leads to as far as funding for our school system or SOQ positions. Uh so local composite index uh we we did see an increase in that. So working with the school system the the latest estimate these are estimates you know so we will find that uh want to want to clarify that but um it does uh look right now and we're still working through some of the uh items they looked at maybe some of the analysis they used but uh $2.3 million reduction in state funding for next fiscal year. So that's better. you know, it was probably a little more than we were hoping for when from the last LCI reduction. Uh but right now that that's probably a planning rate for us that we're going to see a reduction in state funding of over $2 million for our school system next year in state funding. Uh additional work um as we've mentioned and of course we'll talk about uh at our Thursday meeting continue for the county and school boards and staff to resolve the fiscal year 2025 deficit. And so we're we're analyzing numbers and uh so Dr.

Sears and the staff of course have been accommodating. We appreciate that as we we try and work through these and just come to a a comfort level for um for us to move forward. So that madam chair members of the board that is the finance report. Any questions for Mr. CL? Thank you madam chair. Yes that uh VD uh owe the 2.3 million lost from the schools is that from the LCI is that where they're projecting it? That's correct. That their estimated funding tool after they dropped in the new LCI numbers is what that generated based on the inputs and ADM. Yes, sir.

So that what that equates to um just for understanding is the schools are going to receive $2.3 million less than what they received. The LCI continues to hit us very hard. Yes. Yes. It was about three and a half $3.7 million. It was 3.7 last time. And so, you know, now you're 2.3. So, over the last, you know, three years basically, I mean, you've lost $8 million in state funding. Well, it gets back to the formula, correct?

That is, I I believe antiquated. Um, but the formula is in all of those inputs into that formula. Um, and it basically tells us as a locality that we can afford to pay more on a local basis for public education and therefore the state doesn't have to give the locality as much. Do I get that right, Brian? Correct. Is that a Is that a pretty firm number, Brian, or do you think it sits a ballpark? I I think how this is calculated is based on the calculation tool that they've provided with inputs. Right now,

I don't think it'll be final till the general assembly session is done. That those numbers are then provided to the secretary of education who all of this flows down through staff level. Um, and then we'll have our I think it's March 31st ADM, which is kind of the final number. And so all of So it's not final. Um, but you know, I agree, Miss Smith is antiquated. There's no way you will ever convince me that we have a higher ability to pay than Lowden County or Fairfax. It it'sable. But unfortunately, these are the numbers we have to deal with. And so it's it's so antiquated. I don't know. It would be a monumental effort to change that formula. So,

Mr. Carter, did that add? Any other questions for Brian on his reports? Okay, you may proceed, Mr. Carter. Thank you for those reports. Thank we go. Um, well, your budget calendar is is an attachment. We had an amended version that should say draft on there for you. It does. Okay. I'm trying to see if I can find it. You all had one of these at your place right up there. So we can just look at the paper copy. Yes sir.

Okay. I got it. So uh so basically this is the the draft calendar. We presented this. We we've tweaked it some for some comments or some just change in the way we've seen from the state budget and how it's aligning thing. Uh so I think really for the board it if you approve a budget calendar it's not set in stone. It can still be changed but we're we're looking for guidance on how you would like to move forward with our budget process. how many work sessions, when you would like to have them. I think a couple of a couple of main points just to because I tend to be a person that likes to see, well, where do I want to end up and then let me figure out how I'm going to get there. And so, where we want to end up is an adoption uh right around April. So, we have uh the public hearing uh for the county budget on April 14th uh for the for the tax rates. And then you can once you have the public hearing, you can adopt a week later. And so you would have April 21st as that anticipated adoption point for for tax rates and for the budget at that point. So in order to get there, um if you look about a quarter of the way up from the bottom, you'll see the proposed county budget CIP and then presentation of the schoolboard budget at either your March 17th or your March 19th meeting. So that's your regular meeting week. Uh the schools are a little bit about a week later this year and so just to give staff enough time to analyze their proposed budget when they provide it to their school board. Uh I think that's we would like a little bit more time and so we're we're proposing that March 17th or 19th week for the county uh administrator to propose his budget to you for Mr. Sandy. And so uh but and then everything else is just work sessions up to that point. Could be work sessions in between that proposal and adoption. So, uh, just feedback from the board of to what you like about this, what your plan is because we, if we want additional work sessions, we want to get

one get them advertised from a a public meeting standpoint, but also, um, align staff resources to to be prepared.

Brian, one thing that I had prepared to discuss with the board this evening. Um, I know that you're in need, as you say, um, to see what the wishes of the board are in terms of what we want to see during our budget work sessions. meaning um every year we have a conversation and it varies from year to year. Do we want to hear from every department? Do we want to hear from just those departments that have requested increases? Um or do we want to pick and choose the departments that we need to hear from as an example that might have those higher ratios of of funding attached to them like public safety like you know we will do the schools anyway. Um, so that's what we really, if you all could give me some feedback and Brian tonight about how you want to see these work sessions, it will help us kind of gather around the calendar to make a determination of how we space those out accordingly. So, um, I' I'd like to open the floor to your feedback on that.

I suggested last year that we base it off of percentage percent of budget increase. If a department makes a request for an increase and we should set a number of how high of percent we should hear about it. Okay. Now, is this going to be because the departments make their uh budget requests and then it goes to the administrative team. Um so do you want to know that after the administrative team is reviewed or straight from the department? It should be after Steve presents us his budget.

Very good. All right. So there's one option, gentlemen, for you. Other thoughts? Don't be shy. Anybody? I'm good with Nick's proposal. Okay. Percentage of revenue. Mr. Jamson, did you have I'm all right with that, too. I was I was going to say and then we go from, you know, after each meeting, we'll look where we stand. Like I said, maybe we'll need more, maybe we won't. Okay. Mr. Carter, do you have any preference? I've seen it done both ways and I think

if it's easier for staff, I agree with Nick, if we can if one of them's got a certain large budget increase, maybe we hear from them just to hear what that reasoning is. Okay, Mr. Meredith, do you have any thoughts? I agree. I I think if there's a big jump, whatever percentage is because if everybody else is staying level, okay, need to hear from him. Mr. Quinn, I agree with that. I think you might also want to look at where we're spending the most money. So you might have a department that didn't have a big increase but you'd still like to take a look at what they're spending. That'd be my only addition.

Yeah, I agree with that. Um public safety is a prime example. You know, we and we constantly are, you know, having discussions um and adjusting in public safety. I think that that is a very fluid department that requires our attention, especially at budget. Um so Brian, does that give you enough guidance or do we need to be more specific? Uh I think for me it does. Um Steve,

so so my recommendation then uh and you know then Mr. Sandy you either chime in or just stop me. Um so hearing that then I don't think we need separate possible work sessions until Mr. Sandy proposes his budget. What we will have is in your normal meeting week probably we will need budget work sessions because if you remember we typically do compensation. We we'll see where the general assembly is going. We'll have refined revenue projections. We'll look at these pressures, but that's more a global perspective, not a department specific perspective. So, I think in your your meetings, we will have those your February if we need to in your March meeting. Um, but ultimately that's scheduled for proposal right now. So, but on the calendar where it says possible uh board work session, we just won't have those. You'll probably have a work session then February 17th or 19th in that regularly scheduled board week. And then Mr. Sand will propose his budget at the March meeting and then we'll backload all those work sessions between then and adoption if I'm hearing this correctly.

That's fair enough. Yes. Okay. Is that okay with with you gentlemen? Okay. I think that's good. I I think that'll work. Um I was getting ready to bring the CIP up. Yeah, that's going to be an important pull out, Brian. Um we will So we we kind of gave you a really high level. Do you want to see all departments on the CIP? I mean, the proposal will be what it is. So, what kind of work session detail do you want on

As a matter of fact, Mr. Sandy and I have had a conversation over the last few days. Um we are going to be proposing to the board um probably within the next few months that we have a strategic planning and capital improvement plan um work day or work days plural probably two days on separate weeks um because my interest uh given this board we have a new member Mr. Meredith and some of the members here have not been through a strap plan for this board. So, I think that in terms of what we do with this budget on CIP, it might be helpful if we focus on year 1, um, you know, what we're trying to fund in the upcoming budget 2627 um, and maybe not get too far beyond that, uh, knowing that we want to really kind of peel this thing back very specifically um, late summer um, to really look at the organization holistically um, talk about topics, talk about uh, board desire ires for priorities um cost uh identification of potential uh funding sources and that kind of thing. So um does that sound okay uh with you all just to focus on the 2627 CIP funding mechanism and we'll get into the rest later Brian?

Okay. Is that helpful? Yes, ma'am. That's helpful. Okay. So work with that. All right. So, uh, do we need to do you want us to adopt a budget calendar yet or do you want to wait? I think if we have board consensus that you're okay with that. I mean, your adoption doesn't really set it in stone. It's just a a roadmap forward. So, I I have an understanding or you go with direction. Okay. I I think I'm okay with just board consensus. I think we saw board consensus that you're okay with that. Just give me a yes or no. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Unanimous move forward then. Yes. And we'll we'll revise and send it revised out. So something doesn't look like you thought it would, of course, please let us know. Okay. And then you've got one other item, Brian. Yes, ma'am. The 2627 work session or was that contained within the uh calendar? Uh no, we we will have that we want to provide some revenue projections for tonight. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. And so we try and do that at the January meeting. Very good.

And so a very high level as you'd expect. And so I'll try and and move through these. I apologize. I'm taking way too long this uh afternoon. Um so this go. Okay. And we'll have a copy of the presentation we'll hand out to the board so you have that to take with you. And so all right. So budget recap for the current year. Uh just to remind you of a few of the the larger ticket items. Certainly there was a lot more in the budget. Uh we did increase uh funding to the school system for $500,000 in their operating fund for this fiscal year. We also provided an additional $150,000 in one-time money that was not recurring for replacement of school buses. Uh remember, if you remember, we did have a million dollars in savings for health insurance, which was a very pleasant surprise last year. We will likely not well know we will not have that this year. And so that'll be a savings we cannot count on. uh coal over 3% that we funded for uh for employees uh and uh 250,000 was budgeted uh for the school resource officer phase in and so that's coming in next fiscal year that we have to then start spending that money the grant drops off and so he's just trying to build some money so it wasn't a hit all at one time so state revenue outlook uh so these are are coming from the the governor's numbers and so through December state revenue grew 8.6% 6%. A lot of that was driven by individual income taxes. Of course, localities received none of that money. That is solely estate revenue. Uh sales and use taxes were up 5.6%. Uh we're not seeing quite 5.6% on the local level. Uh but we are seeing growth. Uh total revenues are about 1.2 billion ahead of forecast through six months of the fiscal year according to the to the governor statewide. Uh and unemployment was steady at 3 and a half%. So that is below the federal level of 4.4% if you remember from the monthly finance report. So overall I

mean a healthy economic outlook for the state uh on a revenue perspective. And so the governor's uh proposed budget has very truncated version of his budget. As I mentioned there wasn't a lot um that that was in there for localities that that we really um could notice to this point. Uh it does assume a revenue growth of 3% in both fiscal years of the bianium budget 2027 that we'll be budgeting for now and 2028 next year. Uh the largest cost driver is Medicaid and public education. And so there's $4.7 billion in his increase in his proposed budget um for those two areas. And so one of the concerns with Medicaid is the cost share

uh and so that the federal government is pushing down. So, uh, if I remember, I mean, most of his proposed budget, although I really don't know what that dollar amount looks like for our locality is that the state is looking to pick up a lot of that cost share for the administrative costs. Now, 2028, we have a whole another matter, but we'll we'll we'll wait and talk about 2028 later for for next fiscal year. We're looking at a cost share in administrative costs that will hit the localities possibly because what's going on right now is a bianium budget adoption. It is. So, this is session. This is the long session. This is the long session. Yeah. For the bianium budget which correct can be telling shall we say.

Yes. Well and I think that's for us you know because of the change over in the general assembly and the administration. We're really not sure what to expect. We have some ideas.

So we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. So right now I think we feel like most of these the budgeter the the governor's proposed budget is not is probably the the conservative. I don't think we'll get any lower funding than what the governor has proposed uh out of this general assembly session. Um so there were increases in the school construction assistance program and the Virginia business ready sites program. I mentioned the the cap on the state funding for private day previously. Um that cut basically that cap in half from what the state did last year if I remember. The other thing that's concerning is the governor reduced the state match for community-based services. Uh and so he wants to go to more of a a overall statewide analysis instead of more locality specific. His estimate would double our local match for community based services in our CSA program. We're roughly at 15%. His uh if we go to a statewide match, uh it is roughly 71% state. So it would go to 29% locality. So that's roughly double what we pay in community based services now which would mean more local funding we have to cover. Um it does not include funding uh for K12 educate staffing and ratio recommendations from the JARK study. That's been a consistent uh I think Veco has supported that. We support that. Uh the state needs to pay its fair share and they have failed to do so for decades now since the recession of 2008 2009 to be honest. uh funds for a 2% cost of living increase in 27 and 28. There's also 2% bonuses in the governor's proposed for 2026 this fiscal year. Uh that's again similar to what we had the the beginning of this. It's the SOQ positions for the school system are state supported local positions. And so if that stays in there, then the localities would either have to come up with a match to fund everybody a bonus, not do bonuses at all, or cherrypick who receives a bonus. And so uh we'll hopefully that gets clarified through

the session. Uh local budget climate uh revenue growth appears to be moderating. We mentioned that you saw it in the finance report. Uh we did receive the ad valorum tax the property taxes from MVP. Uh so that is going to be a it is on a depreciation schedule. So that will be a declining tax as that depreciation schedule occurs. And so we'll we'll monitor that. But I don't see as much growth in that as you may see a re from a real estate assessment. Inflationary pressures persist. Uh we know that we've talked about that. Continuing to pressure operating costs. Uh state funding is projected to decrease. We mentioned that with the LCI uh you know minimal state funding to localities in the governor's proposed budget. Just didn't see a lot of increase there at this point in time with what's been proposed. And so that leaves a relatively flat revenue on the state level. If you remember, there's three large buckets of our budget that are funding streams. Um, state revenue is is one of the largest and so that we're looking not looking for a lot of additional state revenue uh at the current moment. Budget pressures, these are fairly consistent. I won't read them verbatim. Uh, just to remind you because it has been a bit since we talked about it, we did have 3.5 million in additional operating requests for departments for next fiscal year. um that does not include the 2.3 million in new position requests. Um and so part-time, overtime, all of that is included in there. So roughly it was about $5.8 million in total new new requests when you consider all of that for next year. Obviously, vast majority of that's not going to be able to be funded without additional revenue. Uh we did we're budgeting to match right now the 2% still are dealing with our structurally imbalanced capital fund. We mentioned the SRO's. This is we look at our health insurance renewal. Uh this is a every two year we get a rate reset for our VRS which is our retirement percentage that we have to

contribute to the state pension system for our employees. A lot of the other items, utilities, uh ambulance replacements, CSA operational costs, all inflationary pressures that we're seeing. So won't belabor that point. Um so budget revenue outlook. I I have my disclaimer on several slides and so make sure we put that in there again. So these are subject to change. The um but what we're looking at with growth right now um so a lot of your general property tax revenue growth is in that MVP that ad valorum tax. We do see some growth that we're projecting uh as well in personal property. Real estate's looking uh relatively flat as we were mentioning from an overall scale perspective, but we are looking at just under 5% in growth about $3.4 million. Very level growth on other local taxes. We're just not seeing a a lot of growth in there. We want to be conservative to an extent. We may moderate that as we see some additional tax revenue collections. Other fees and revenue. So, I want to note this because it's a million dollar reduction. and it's about 11%. And so, uh, the the note the asterisk at the bottom includes permits and licenses, fines and forfeitures. There's the use of money and property we're talking about. So, this is anticipating a significant drop off 18 months from now when we finish our fiscal year June 30th of 2027. That interest rates are going to reduce fairly significantly. And so, that that's the the largest majority of the impact uh that we're looking at in that line item. and a few other items that um that we typically see. One of the items being um some landfill charges, our private landfill, uh we don't anticipate receiving that uh going forward. And so state revenue, slight growth, uh two and a uh we said 2% overall. When you average all that out right now, we're looking at 1 and a.5%. Um conservative, I think, but not a lot.

You're looking at just under $3 million in new revenue. Uh that's two and a half% growth. If you remember inflation was 2.7%. So we're trending right about just treading water with what we're looking at at a new revenue growth. And so um that's not going to cover the the $5 million in department requests. That's not going to that that will cover the 2.3 million LCI loss, but then that leaves little for the county. And so I think we'll be having those discussions as we move forward. uh 2.9 discretionary revenue is projected. Uh we talked about real estate and personal property is really some growth, not not a ton of growth. Personal property looking better. Uh other local taxes are normalizing. Uh we still are trying to be conservative in our revenue projections. Um so projected new revenue, I think the key is going to be the allocation uh between the county and the schools. That of course is going to impact what what priorities we fund. So, budget balancing mentioned the 5. Do I say 5.8? I probably round it up. 5.7 million uh in total department requests including positions. Uh department request for capital was $16 million. We have about 3.8 million that's funded in local recurring money. Uh however, some of that 16 million and so I know we talked about a capital, but remember some of that is larger capital projects, some related to the modu facility that we anticipated funding and construction. And so all of that is never anticipated to be funded with local recurring. That's going to be a borrowed cost. And so the gap isn't as wide as that may appear. We still have a pressure on fire apparatus ambulances. We we just the costs continue to go up uh fairly significantly every year on those and we're um we're just continuing to pull onetime money to pay for them. Um we mentioned that with the year in surplus in the current year and so we'll have a structural imbalance again in the year going forward with that. We mentioned

LCI, the SRO phase in compensation pressure. I did see a bill uh for minimum wage to go to $15 an hour in the general assembly. Yeah.

Um the minimum wage itself, if that passes and depending on when when that becomes effective, uh will not be the largest cost driver. The cost driver will be the compression that we have to fix when minimum wage goes from $1271 to $15 an hour. And so that's going to be a significant cost. But if we don't pay that and pay our people and fix that compression, you lose a lot of good people. And so we need to be very cognizant of that. We have a great staff here at the county. Unfortunately, if that passes, I mean, that's going to filter to everything else. When you up minimum wage, guess what all of our maintenance service contracts do for our contractors? Guess what that does with all of our services we pay for? Their cost goes up as well. So you're going to see that inflationary factor. uh we mentioned the capital imbalance. So in summary uh you know we have revenue growth not significant not atypical of any normal budget year to be honest outside of a reassessment. Uh we have the LCI reset. We know we're going to have inflationary impacts to the extent will depend some on what happens in Richmond. Uh and balancing the budget is going to be managing priorities and shared fiscal accountability as we have many pots that that are funded through the county's budget. So that madam chair, members of the board, I'm happy to take any questions.

Ron, this is great. And you'll ensure we get a copy of this again. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Because this will be a a good uh predicate to our budget work obviously. Any questions, comments on the revenue projections, Mr. Gar. Thank you, Madam Chair. On those AB valorum taxes, Brian, is that based on the volume of gas through the pipeline? Do you recall how they figure that roughly? I do not I do not think the I'm not sure. My understanding is that's more of the cost or the value of the property and the equipment, the pipeline, anything else underneath it. I do not think it is the flow of gas that count tied to amount of product.

I don't think so. There is a separate tax. We as a locality are not able to tax that. We're not able to tax gas that flows through a pipeline. we're able to tax gas that um is then distributed to commercial and residential customers. So in this case it would be everybody that run a gas hooks up to the line we can tax but the pipeline itself and the the rate of flow through there is not something that we as a locality can tax is the way I remember that. Just for discussion, I recall when Runo Gas was coming here. Uh, one of their promises to the county was to provide gas to the uh town of Rocky Mount for the schools and all this. It would be interesting to look at what the cost savings would be for the high school and the middle school and some of these other buildings if we if they switched over to utilizing natural gas instead of fuel oil to heat those facilities. I think it would probably be a significant number.

I'd imagine so. And Mr. Carter, I think uh you know, we'll be having a joint another joint meeting with the school board probably mid to late February so we can continue to add to the list of things that uh require joint discussion on those issues. Anybody else? Brian, thank you so much. This has been a great overview. Um, and uh, just I I don't know how to say thank you enough to you, Corey, and finance staff uh, doing an outstanding job uh, managing our precious taxpayer dollars um, and helping us and guiding us to make good good fiduciary decisions uh, for our constituents. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, before we get into um the county administrator report, Mr. Whitlo, I'd like for you to join me down below the de please. Mr. Whitlo, uh we all know uh this is your last board of supervisors meeting. Uh we celebrate your decision to retire and go on to do some meaningful things in your life. We're happy for you, but we're also sad uh to lose you, to lose just your very presence, your leadership, uh and everything that you have continued to bring to this county organization and to our citizens. um you've had just tremendous impact. Um you've been a wonderful leader of of the boards of supervisors that you have provided guidance to. Um and I would like to offer on behalf of the board the following resolution if I may. It is a resolution of appreciation. Whereas Mr. Christopher Whitlo uh has served Franklin County faithfully for at least 21 years, most recently as its county administrator since December of 2018. previously having served as a deputy county administrator for 14 years. Whereas Mr. Whitlo has steadfastly represented Franklin County in the most positive light, through his service on various boards and commissions, both local and regional, including but not limited to prior service on the Western Virginia Regional Jail Authority, uh, on which he served as the past chairman as a member and past chairman of the Ronut Valley Detention Commission and through his service as an executive board member for the Rowanoke Regional Partnership and Tri County Lakes Administrative

Commission. Additionally, he has been a member of Visit Virginia's Blue Ridge and the Rono Valley Alagany Regional Commission along with the Virginia Association of Counties Finance and General Government Committees. Whereas during his long tenure with Franklin County, Mr. Whitlo has overseen and helped to manage and facilitate important capital projects vital to the growth and development of the county such as the new regional jail, new libraries, fire EMS stations, the solid waste landfill, the animal shelter, the development of the Franklin Center, and Summit View Business Park. More recently, he has welcomed new business to Franklin County such as traditional medicinals and the expansion of cornerstone building brands. Whereas Mr. Dr. Whitlow as county administrator successfully facilitated and helped to guide the county through multiple state local states of emergency necessitated by natural disasters such as a tornado, forest fire, and a series of ice storms in early 2025. Whereas prior to his tenure at Franklin County, Mr. Whitlo worked as the economic development administrator for the city of Roanoke and in addition worked in various planning and community development positions for the towns of Bridgewater, Rocky Mount and the city of Martinsville. He previously studied and worked internationally with various local governments in New Zealand. Whereas Mr. Whitlo has provided unparalleled service to the board of supervisors, the people of Franklin County, and has and has been a positive role model to staff and citizens throughout his many years of dedication and hard work. And therefore, be it resolved that the Franklin County Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes and expresses gratitude and appreciation to Christopher Whit in his work leading with high degrees of integrity, honesty, and commitment. The board hereby extends best wishes to Mr. Whitow in his

retirement and this will be duly adopted today the 20th day of January 2026 before uh before we uh we have a gift we'd like to present to Chris um but uh I'd like to give my colleagues an opportunity to make any comments. comments that you would wish to make uh with regard to Mr. Whitlow.

I'll start. I've probably known Chris the longest of anyone here. Uh Chris and I grew up in the same neighborhood. I've known Chris all of his life and most of mine. Uh Chris is a there's no other way to say it except Chris is a good person

and a godly man. Uh, I grew up, we grew up in the same neighborhood, went to church together for many years. Uh, him and his family, very special people in the community. And, uh, I'm not going to say Chris is going to be missed cuz I know where you live. And uh uh between your wife's honeydew list, I'm sure she has for you. Uh we're not going to let you get by with sitting on the rocking porch on sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. We're going to put you to work in the community and keep you keep you active. But uh Chris, thank you. You mean so much to Franklin County and you mean so much to Henry area where you grew up. And uh I just want to say I've enjoyed working with you during my time being on the board and uh wish you all the best.

Chris, thank you. It's on. Thank you. Uh it's been an honor to share it with you. It really has. Like I told you before, I've learned a lot from you and uh I wish you all the best. I'm sure whatever you go to do, you going to do it right. Thank you.

Thank you. Known Chris since he was a young guy working for the town of Rocky Mount and have watched him grow into a great leader for the county. And I think our financial position speaks volumes to Chris's leadership and the great staff we have here at the county. And we're we're so fortunate to have had Chris as a leader. And it's been my great pleasure to work under you, Chris. and thank you for all you've done.

I also credit the county's financial position to Chris Whitow cuz he's super conservative in everything he does. And in my time here, I have never for a minute doubted that Chris Whit had the best interest of the county as a whole at at heart and mind. I have never doubted that for a single minute. So, Chris, thank you for all you've done. You've made Franklin County a better place because of what you've done. Congratulations, Chris. Uh, I just it's been a pleasure working with you and thank you for your years of service and I look forward to hearing more about your next ventures. As I ask you every day,

as a new member, I didn't get to work too long with you, but just a funny story. We was going over orientation since I just got elected and uh I told him, "Chris, you don't remember, dude?" He said, "What do you And I said, "You coached my daughter about 15 years ago in basketball, Henry." And we got talking and then next thing I know, he disappeared, came back and he's got a plaque from that team. He goes, "Here's Cameron." And he was told his son. So, we was able to reminisce about the good old days. So, uh, like I said, Chris, I wish I would have had the honor to work with you longer, but like I said, we go way back and even then, I know you was a great guy and appreciate everything you've done for the community. Mr. Green, would you like to make some comments? Sure. You got to. everybody up there

as the as um I've worked with a lot of county administrators and um I don't think I've worked with one that was as concerned as Chris has been just about the well-being, you know, of the county itself, but also you has, you know, he's he's constantly raising to me, well, you know, this is happening here and this is happening there, just to keep sort of keep me informed on background. Uh, and then he'll tell me stuff about the staff and what's going on there. And it's, um, it's amazing to me. I credit his youth, uh, for being able to keep all that in his mind, uh, because I sure can't. Uh, but in any event, uh, from what I've seen, uh, and and what I can compare to, uh, just a a solid creative leader and Franklin County has been very lucky to have him.

Thank you. Okay, Mr. Whit, we have a gift for you and we'd like for you to open it if if you would be so inclined. So, it's good luck. I won't read all the sentiments, but All right. see what this is. Can me open it? Yes, absolutely. This was in consultation with your lovely wife.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We're smart people. We learned quickly. And Amy, you may want to speak to some of this. You you had some you had some more involved in that. Jennifer just shared with us some of your favorite places in Franklin County. Um, so that's a collection of photographs of from some of your favorite places.

Beautiful. Thank you all so much. This is beautiful. I'll tra speech. Do would you like to make any comments? I don't want to put you on the spot.

Yeah, you do. as most of you and as most of the staff uh would appreciate um you know I'm never going to pass an opportunity to talk sometimes agnauseium I tell the staff and they're like oh no here Chris goes again we're going to turn into skeletons if he talks about this is the toughest budget year that we're ever going to see it sounds like the one coming up Steve Brian it's the toughest budget year that you guys will ever see I know that happens every year now I'm humbled grateful um I was uh very fortunate uh really as a sophomore in college uh to begin working in public service for the town of Bridgewwater with the town manager. And so I was able to get into that very young. And I'm so blessed to be able to have a long career here in Virginia and to be able to retire from local government service at a relatively not so young but not so old age either. Uh so I look forward to the opportunity of of what the Lord has next for me and my family and look forward to remaining here in Franklin County. uh certainly uh will forever remain a champion for Franklin County and of course I think the staff knows the the board knows if you all ever need anything I'm a phone call away in all sincerity so Godspeed best things are always ahead so thank you

thank you Yes.

It's very sad. I'm surprised I got through it. Okay. Um, what I would propose, um, to my colleagues, um, given the hour and we need to go into close session, I would recommend that we defer the county administrator's remarks and county attorney's report uh, to the beginning or either the end of the 6:00 p. p.m. session this evening, unless you all object to that. Okay. Hearing none, u,, Mr. Mitchell, if you would take us into close session, please. The Franklin County Board of Supervisors moves to enter into a closed meeting in accordance with 2.2-3711. A1, personnel discussion of appointments to county boards, commissions, etc. A3, discussion of the acquisition of real property or the disposition of real property. A5, discussion concerning a prospective business or industry or the expansion of an existing business or industry. A8 consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. A29 discussion of the terms of a public contract of the code of Virginia as amended.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. I'm Madame Clerk, if you would do a roll call, please. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Jameson? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Yes. And Chair Smith. Yes. So, we'll adjourn into close meeting. Um, do we want to go in B75, Chris? A cold night.

Um, but we do appreciate you being here very much so. Um, the first order of business, uh, the board needs to certify it's close session. And I will ask Mr. Mitchell uh to read the code language, please. I certify that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session to which this certification applies. And only such business matters as were identified in the motion by which this close session was convened were heard, discussed, or considered in the meeting to which this certification applies. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Madame Clerk, would you do a roll call, please? Supervisor Carter. Yes. Supervisor Tatum.

Yes. Supervisor Quinn. Yes. Supervisor Jameson. Yes. Supervisor Mitchell. Yes. Supervisor Meredith. Yes. And Chair Smith. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Um, we deferred two short items earlier this afternoon. Um, I think we can pick those up now if it's uh if it's okay with with the board. Um, Mr. Whitlow, you have some reporting items perhaps.

Sure. Just a few up updates, upcoming events. Madam Chair, members of the board, just a reminder on Thursday, this Thursday, uh 6:00 at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School East Auditorium, there will be a joint school board uh board of supervisors meeting where we'll hear from our school system regarding the FY2425 budget. Um and then another upcoming event on Thursday, January the 29th. Um that's next Thursday. Um the Hotel Rowanoke um will be the location, the Ronoke Regional Chamber is holding their annual meeting. And so our staff really needs to know in the next couple of days if any board members wish to attend that event. I think I mentioned last month um the Rono Regional Chamber at their annual awards this past fall. I think Mr. Tatum I believe you were able to attend that. Uh several Franklin County businesses were honored. Um, speaking of earlier today, if uh if anyone missed uh that presentation, uh the Rowanoker magazine named eight Franklin County citizens uh top 40 under 40 in the Rowanoke region. That's really significant for a locality to have eight individuals recognized. So, we applaud those efforts earlier. Um just a couple of uh other items. This past Sunday, um, the raising the shade committee unveiled a new statue at the First Baptist Church here in downtown Rocky Mount honoring the 70 men who served uh in the United States colored troops during the Civil War. And that's the first monument honoring the United States Colored Troops in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And so kudos. I appreciate uh Assistant County Administrator Brandy Roser and uh Director of Tourism Kevin Tosh for attending that event as well as others in the community. I know that was a milestone event for that effort in that group and I understand it's a lovely monument. Um yesterday uh the Martin Luther King annual breakfast. I think Miss Smith you were able to attend that on behalf of the board as well as Danny Poe and others from county staff with the annual Martin Luther King breakfast honoring Franklin County's um uh own if

you will the community impact award winners including Eric Onspot, Glenn Moore and again the First Baptist Church in Rocky Mount. Uh, and in addition, uh, I I'll do a shout out. I understand, um, Franklin County Sheriff's Department Deputy William, of course, most of us know him as Bubba Martin, uh, was, um, um, awarded the Community Impact Award winner. And anyone that has ever worked with Bubba Martin, who's worked with trustees. I know Mr. Tatum, you have through the years. I've had the pleasure of working with him. Just a tremendous guy. What a role model he is for our citizens here in Franklin County and all the work that he's done with the trustees program. And so another big shout out to Bubba this evening. And then finally, uh if you haven't heard, and this is kind of breaking news, if you will, Madam Chair, members of the board, um the Country Barn restaurant is actually going to be featured on America's Best Restaurants. Uh apparently a film crew was in town earlier this month and the Country Barn will be featured in a future future episode of the show. So stay tuned to that. I always like to uh give a shout out to businesses and citizens here in the county. Madam Chair, members of the board. And then finally, um whether we do this now or whether we'd like to do this toward the end of the meeting, I think, uh our deputy county administrator, Steve Sandy, uh has some updates regarding the zoning ordinance review and the timeline um to maybe offer the board as to how that process is going. So,

thank you. That's all I have. M. Thank you, Mr. Willow. Mr. Sandy, did you want to do so now?

Sure. I can address it quickly. Uh I left a copy of uh kind of just some uh timeline for kind of the next six months for our zoning ordinance process. So uh that that zoning ordinance update has been in the works for about a year really between our consultant staff and the planning commission. We've had some joint work sessions over that time with with the board, but we're we're coming down to crunch time and and so really looking at a summer adoption. And so this schedule uh gives us a couple opportunities in February to meet with with board members, kind of discuss any of your questions or concerns with the consultants. Um there'll be another uh later in February be a another work session with the consultants with our planning commission uh to go through it kind of uh I won't say one last time, but but again kind of uh another good look at it. And then we're looking at March 26 for a open house, a public open house that uh we'll have at the Franklin Center to um have the public come in and speak with staff and consultants about some of the changes that are proposed uh in the zoning ordinance update. Uh May 13th, we're looking at a joint uh work session between the planning commission and board. So that'll be after the open house. consider any you know uh comments that were received at the open house. And then uh these dates are real tentative but tentatively planning commission holding their um officially their official public hearing in June for consideration and recommendation of the updated zoning ordinance and then if they make a recommendation at their June meeting looking for that to come to the board in July. So those would still be a bit tentative, but wanted to kind of get that schedule out in front of you and and be able to get those things on your calendar and let you see some of those opport opportunities that are coming for the the board to maybe be more engaged than you have been because mostly it's been most a lot of the planning commission and staff work to this point. Um, and but I know there's some things within the updated ordinance that the board, you know, is certainly interested

in in weighing in on and having some discussion on. So, thank you, Mr. Sandy. And I would just kind of add um this is a significant accomplishment um for the county. Our current zoning ordinances were created in 1988. Uh so you can imagine the conformity and alignment um that has become necessary. So uh we're going to have a a very good document in place reflective of current day land use and practices. And uh I'm very excited about that. So, thanks to you and staff, Lisa, uh, everybody that's working on that. Thank you very much. Okay, Mr. Gwyn, did you have anything to report, sir? Uh, no.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We are going to move into the public hearings uh section of our agenda. Uh, board members, uh, we'll be dealing with, um, the first one. It's tab six in your book. Uh it is um articulated as applicants Michael and Elizabeth Far uh for address 234 Waterford Drive, Manita, Gills Creek District, applying for a special use permit to allow for short-term rental uh of a dwelling. Um Miss Cooper,

yes. Thank you, Madam Chair Smith and other board members. Um excuse me. Yes, we're here to talk about a special use permit for short-term tourist rental of a dwelling. Just to give you a little bit of background on the property. Um, this is the only dwelling located on the parcel uh where the short-term rental will take place or the proposed short-term rental will take place. The property is located on a secondary statemaintained road and has a driveway that would provide ample parking for the short-term rental. The water is supplied by Parkplace Waterworks and the sewer supply is a septic system. Um the closest residence is approximately 43 feet from the proposed short-term rental and both sides of um 234 Woodwood Drive, excuse me, Waterwood Drive are well vegetated to provide screening, especially during the summertime when most short-term rentals um take place. According to the county uh records, the dwelling is a one-story residence. It was constructed in 1992, consists of three bedrooms, three full baths, and approximately 3,36 square ft. The septic permit was issued by the Virginia Department of Health in 1991 for a three-bedroom. There is uh one sept septic tank load located in the front of the property and one septic tank located in the middle of the property along the left side. And it is my understanding that the sewer system is pumped up to a vacant lot that is shared by other drain fields for part of the subdivision. Um the short-term rental can be rented for the maximum of six adults. Um Mr. and Mrs. Far indicated that in their letter of application they eventually would like to retire in this home. They stated that the house has been rented and for long term um and they have owned it and

rented it out and they've had to rent Airbnbs around Smith Mountain Lake. So they have decided that they want to use their home and they would like to also use it as short-term rentals. Um they also stated that they have already hired a lo local property management uh Taylor Odell and we'll be sending the contact information if approved um to the adjoining property owners. Staff received two phone calls, one inquiring about the application and one in opposition. Staff has also received four emails in opposition. There were three citizens that spoke in opposition to the planning commission at their public hearing. Most of it was there was some discussion about the long-term renter that had been in there, just strangers being in their neighborhood, um rules not being followed or enforced, and then safety issues. They were all concerned about if it was turned into a short-term rental. We'd like to give you a vicinity map of where it's located in the Gills Creek District. This is also an aerial. Um it's highlighted in blue. The property, this is your zoning map. As you can see, it's A1 um agricultural and you have a little bit of a residential plan development across the lake. We also like to give you your comprehensive plan. As you all know, it's newly adopted. It is low density residential and that a lake influence area that's part of the new comp plan. We also like to give you some type of conceptual plan showing uh where parking would be located and um there is a dock on this parcel. Um one of the planners in the department took some pictures in case you didn't get to go out there to see um where the house was, the parking and the vegetation.

analysis of the property. The proposed short-term l uh rental is located on a lot that is 68 acres and the closest family as stated before or the closest single family dwelling is 43 ft. Um during the main short-term rental season, which is normally May through September, there should be vegetative screening. The property is surrounded by single family dwellings and other um surrounding properties have about the same lot size. The property has a driveway that leads to the dwelling off of Waterwood Drive, which is ample um parking for the short-term rental. Traffic generated in this short-term rental should be similar to what you expect in a regular single family dwelling with full-time residents. The noise of the rental should be um not more than normal. what is expected in a residential neighborhood. The comprehensive plan designated this property as lowdensity residential and lake flu fluence area. As I stated before, lowdensity residential, as you all know, is suburban patterns of development and housing that consist of single family dwellings on a variety of lot size. The lake influence area consists of residential uses, but the increase in tourism around the lake and the need for accommodations for these guests. The county will see an increase in short-term rentals in the future in this land use designation. Some of the primary land use types in the lake influence area is lodging and tourism. There needs to be some type of balance in traditional subdivisions between residents and our trans transient occupants that allows STRs to be located in subdivisions around the lake where tourists want to rent and property owners want to rent their homes. The planning commission concluded that there would be minimal impacts surrounding the area. The character of

the A1 zoning district would not be changed and the STR would be in harmony with the proposed intent of this chapter and the uses in the A1 district. The planning commission did hold their public hearing last month. They did make a recommendation for approval with six conditions. This will be the only short-term rental on the property. If there's any change it changes, it has to go back through the process through the planning commission and you as the board of supervisors. The owners shall be required to comply to all the supplementary regulations in the county code which is section 25138 and 5.5-72. The owner shall also provide um and maintain proof of liability insurance covering injury of a guest over not less than a million dollars. The owner shall have to register the short-term rental and this registration is yearly and inspected yearly. No rental will be able to be used until the inspection and everything takes place and they are found to be um in compliance with the county code. The owner shall supply the planning department with the name and phone number of a property manager and or contact person which we have already. The planning department shall be notified at any time this information is changed so that the planning department can notify the adjoining property owners. The applicant owner shall retain the existing vegetation on both sides of the property to allow for screening due to the closeness of the dwellings. I would be glad to answer any questions that you have and I'm sure the applicant the fairs would like to speak.

Thank you, Miss Cooper. Before we move on to the applicant, um, do do you all have any questions of Miss Cooper while she's up? Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I I hope there's going to be some more information about this shared drain field. I would like to hear more about that when the applicant comes up to speak, how many people are using that drain field and the capacity and so forth. And also, Miss Cooper, have you had complaints about this long-term rental that was in there in your department? No. The first time um I heard about any complaints on the long-term renter that must have been in this home was at the planning commission public hearing. All right. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. Um Lisa, just one quick question. um in your introductory remarks um you mentioned that some of the feedback that came in um addressed was around safety issues and and enforcement. Now, were these issues prior to our short-term rental regulation and compliance model? No, I think it's just um that some of the property owners, some of them are elderly, they walk, they'll probably tell you they walk their dogs. They're worried about people in the neighborhood that they don't know. So, safety issues that could happen. Okay.

Or um rules and regulations of the short-term rental that wouldn't be met either county regulations or a lot of the short-term rentals have their own rules and regulations. Um I think that's why a lot of them you see are going to property managers because it's easier for them to manage the property and if there's any complaints and when was I think it's stuff that could happen. Yeah. When was the last septic pump out? I am not sure but hopefully they can let well we can ask them. That's if not it's probably some information I can find out for you.

Okay. All right. So if no other questions Miss Cooper of Miss Cooper will if the applicants are here uh um we would love to hear from the applicants. Yes. Hello Mr. Fair. Good evening. Hello. We're so happy you're with us. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. Uh my name is Michael Far. I'm here with my wife, Lisa, and we are the owners of 230 234 Waterwood. And thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. We're requesting uh approval for permit for short-term rental. Um and we appreciate the time and consideration given by the county staff and the planning commission.

Oh, sir, do you mind talking into the mon and if you would just Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Um okay, proceed. I'm sorry.

The property is a single family home located in the Northshore Gills Creek area and we purchased the property in September of 21 with the intent to retire here when that time comes. Um, we've been visiting the Smith Mountain Lake area since 2009 when Lisa's sister and her husband built a place uh in the Park Place neighborhood. Um, fell in love with the area and spent several years looking for our getaway on the lake. Um, the house had been rented longterm since we've owned it. Um, and as uh they were saying, we've we're forced to rent short term when we come here to visit and things like that. Um, so we're hoping to be approved for short-term, so we can use our house a little bit, bridge the gap between now and when we can manage to retire. Um, and uh, the rental will be limited to six adults. It's a three-bedroom septic, and it was pumped out last month when we were

Thank you.

Um, no events, parties, or large gatherings permitted. The intent would be a quiet family oriented rental and not a high turnover property. It's not meant to be long-term income property. It's just to bridge the gap until we can uh retire down here. The property has ample off- streetet parking. All guests would be confined to the the circular driveway. Um and noise and neighborhood impact are our top priorities. Guests will be provided with clear house rules. Parking occupancy and those rules will be strictly enforced. We've retained local property management um uh who's highly experienced, maintains a five-star superhost rating uh on Airbnb, and they're available locally and can respond quickly to issues after hours if necessary. Um the home will be rented primarily during the summer season as vacation rentals are um consistent with the lake use area. Not intended to be year round high volume, high frequency rental. Um we'll probably spend time here in the offse as much as possible. U most days will be short family vacations similar to many neighboring homes that are seasonal in use. Um we believe the request is reasonable and compatible with the surrounding area and we're committed to being responsible owners and good neighbors. Um we're fully uh willing to comply with any conditions uh you have and the six that the planning commission recommended. Um and I'd like to thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. if you would remain. Um, any questions, concerns from supervisors? Mike, I just have one question. I'm curious. If you move here full-time, what would your thoughts be if your next door neighbor was a short-term rental? It's hard to say. Um, and I would feel uh, you know, I would probably feel similar to how they feel. And if they were in my situation, I'm guessing they might feel similar to how I feel about trying to be be able to use our own property until we can get down here full-time. So, there's a good mix of things, you know, in the area for short terms, and I don't believe there'll be a serious impact. Not the way we're looking to rent it out. Okay. Thank you.

Yep. Um, to piggyback on you, Mr. Carter, Mr. Fair, do you have any uh insight into the shared drain field? Um, I did do the foyer request for the original permit and submitted that to the planning board. Um, it's several lots up. There's an empty lot and there's an easement up there for our drain field. Um, I know our neighbor to the west um, also has a drain field up there. Um, but none of the I don't you know, our tanks aren't together. Our lines aren't together. It's just the drain field up in that large lot. Okay. And that's a a pumpback system if I understood the literature correct. It pumps from your septic tank to this drain field. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. Any other questions for Mr. Fair comments? Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for your time and thank you for answering our questions. Okay. Uh we will open the public hearing. Um Madame Clerk, has anyone signed up for the public hearing? Um I have Robert Burgerer and he's listed that he representing six different neighbors. Okay. So are we allocating five minutes? Did they request five minutes? I think if no one else is speaking for all of Okay, very good. Okay, please come forward if you'd state your name and your address, please.

Good evening. Uh my name is Robert Burgerer and we're at 204 Waterwood Drive, Monita, Virginia. So, we're in the culdesac. Very good.

Well, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk on behalf of the neighbors that are in the culde-sac. Uh, prior to this meeting, we sent over a note that had some of the reasons why we felt that uh we're not in favor of the short-term rental. And we also had an aligned uh chart that just aligns all the signatures of the people that I'm representing with where they live. So you can see that there's only 12 homes in the whole neighborhood and most of them are in the culde-sac that we're talking about here. So the folks that asked me to come talk to you are the Wetchers, the Deans, the Stubs, the Dinkens, the Meyers, and the Burgers. And everybody is opposed to the short-term rental primary primarily because we're taxpayers. We've all upgraded our properties. We take great pride in the area and we we do feel that there's a compromise in the quality of life that may be happening with a short-term rental. We specifically bought in the Franklin County area because we did look at Bedford County and we did see that the propensity of short-term rentals allowed us to realize that number one we didn't want that and number two is we wanted a quiet neighborhood with a really quiet cove. This neighborhood is on a dead end, so it's a no outlet street and there are no lights and there are no sidewalks. And so it we like the fact that it was quiet. We like the fact that the cove was quiet. Um we we actually have seen that um some of the people that have rented in the the Bedford area have said that there's an issue with the um actual rules being enforced in that area. And that's one of the reasons why uh it's a concern. But we actually uh have three

particular reasons why we're against it. Number one is safety and security. Uh feeling that reduced safety with concerns of a constant influx of strangers. Uh as what was mentioned before, there are two widows that live in the culde-sac right here in this area that are both over 80 years old and they both walk their dogs at night. And candidly, they're very nervous about the fact that there would be a propensity of of drivers coming down the street when there are no lights and when they're they're uh nervous about new people. Uh we also have concern because of the cove, we have concerned about uh boats and watercraft and inexperienced boat and jet ski drivers. Um, we know that uh that is a problem because the people that are in the cove and are in our neighborhood have young grandchildren to come and visit. And I mean there there is just a nice feeling of the quietness of the cove. The second uh issue is no noise disruption and increased traffic. uh general disturbance of increased traffic and knowing that when you have short-term renters, you could try to do whatever you can to keep the noise down, but there's going to be parties and hootin and hollerin, and we understand that, but we do know that uh we would like to keep the limit of uh late night gatherings and loud noises to a minimum. Also, um the vibe and the feeling of the neighborhood, the quiet atmosphere we have is something that's very important to us. We do feel that the quiet atmosphere with transients coming in and out is going to be compromised. Um, and you know, we talked about the fact that there'd be um the uh enforcing guidelines. So, I went on uh Airbnb and DBO to look at Franklin County to look at being able to rent for four adults, four children over the age of 12. And

you can't believe how many threebedrooms showed up. So, we know that that you could do what you can to uh affect um guidelines, but it is a an issue where we say that there isn't going to be the ability for somebody to to know that there's not going to be uh teenagers and kids flying around on on uh seeds and and there wouldn't be grandma and grandpa getting the Airbnb and then having a whole plethora of kids and teenagers, etc., etc., are coming in. So, we're just concerned about that. And the the big thing that we're concerned about, too, is that this uh Airbnb or the short-term rental would be the first one in our little neighborhood. And we're very concerned about the prospect of there being more than this and opening it up for more. And it really does change the vibe. It changes uh the whole idea of why we came here to purchase in Franklin County and that particular neighborhood. And that is why uh we oppose short-term rental.

Thank you, Mr. Burgerer. We sincerely appreciate you sharing and representing your neighbors. Thank you very much, Madame Clerk. That's all we have. Okay. So, I will formally close the public hearing. Uh is there anyone that would like to speak to this that didn't get their name on the signup sheet? I'm happy to entertain those comments. Yeah, I got something. Please come come up, sir. If you'll state your name and address, please. It won't take you long. Madam chair, I see we got a new chairperson. Yeah. I don't know whether to say congratulations. Do you have my sympathy?

I tell people that all the time. I don't It might be condolences, right?

Uh Amos Denton, Callaway, Virginia. I had a me and my wife used to own a lakehouse on the Beford side. our next door neighbors short-term rentals and we lived there for part-time for years, full-time for a few years. Yeah, every now and then we did have a weekend where it might have got a little rambunctious, but most part never. I mean, I've had neighbors that live beside me for 40 years that were worse than most of the short-term rental people. And I feel like that short-term rentals is always something that I really don't like. you know, the one gentleman that came up here that does have a bone in the fight and I really don't. Uh was like, you know, they're all taxpayers where so so are the people that want the short-term rentals. And I feel like the Bedford I mean we lose a lot of money by not allowing short-term rentals. Um I do we allow it now? I think yeah, y'all finally got together on that. Thank you. Uh but I'm just saying, you know, look at it from an open mind. You know, I know the neighbors don't want it. It's the first one in their community now that it's allowed. Trust me, it won't be the last. Um, and well, we got pretty high taxes. Not really, but we do. So, taxpayers got to pay it some way. So, you know, keep an open mind when you're thinking about it. Listen to both sides. Yeah, the neighbors should have a say, but the people that own the property should too as well. Um, and like I said, live beside short-term rental property for years. Um, well, it's just like the rest of your neighbors that you live beside your whole life. You're gonna have one every now and then that just gets you a little. Thank y'all.

Thank you so much. Okay. Um so we have closed the public hearing. Um I'll defer to my colleagues um for additional questions, insights, feedback um to uh then preclude with uh your desires and action on this item. Any feedback, questions, comments? Okay. Uh, hearing none, is there someone willing to make a motion on this application?

Are y'all awake? I'll offer a motion. I just want to make sure everybody's awake. I'll offer a motion. Madam, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Make sure I'm on the right tail. I find that the use will not be a substantial detriment to adjacent properties. that the character of the character of the zoning district will not be changed thereby and that such use will be in harmony with the uses permitted by right in the zoning district and with the public health safety and general welfare to the community. Therefore, I move to recommend approval of the applicant's request for a special use permit to allow for short-term tourist rental of dwelling on the property with the six conditions as recommended by the planning commission.

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Uh, is there any further discussion on the second? Okay. Hearing none. U, Madame Clerk, if we could do a roll call vote, please. Supervis Excuse me. Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Quinn, yes. Supervisor Tatum, yes. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Jameson, yes. Supervisor Mitchell, yes. And Chair Smith,

no. Okay, thank you all very much. Uh the next item that we have before us this evening for for public hearing is uh applicant Dan Kobarick, owner of RDK Property LLC, uh regarding uh short-term rental, 108 Pennsylvania Avenue, Union Hall. Miss Cooper, thank you again, Chairwoman Smith. And if y'all would bear with me. Oh, sorry.

Whoops. Wrong one. I'm sorry. You really don't want to talk about the budget. I'm sure Lisa No. No. I would rather talk about short-term rentals. Thank Is it this one? I think it's this one. Is it this one? Yeah, it says Lisa. Okay, I should have looked for that. Maybe it doesn't want me talking about short-term rental either.

You got any ideas of why it's not working? Thank you.

Get me off my game here. Okay. Um, we have another short-term rental in front of you. Um, this one is in the Union Hall district. And I'll give you a little bit of background information on this one as well. This is the only dwelling um that'll be on the property that would be for the purpose of short-term rental if approved. Um the property is located on a private road right now, but it is supposed to be taken into the state secondary system at some time. Um the driveway is circular with one entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue and the driveway has um ample parking for the short-term rental. In your packet in your transmitt, there was a mistake we had that it was a circular driveway with two entrances. There's only one on Pennsylvania Avenue, so I wanted to clear that up. Um, the water system as well, and the sewer system is a septic system, and this is all on that lot. Um, the closest residence is approximately 35 ft from the proposed short-term rental. According to the county records, this dwelling is a one-story single family residence. The certificate of occupancy was issued in 2025. It consists of five bedrooms, five full baths for a total square ft of approximately 4,444. In 2024, the OSE construction permit was issued by the Virginia Department of Health for a 5-bedroom home. The septic tank and drain field are located in the rear of the property, and the short-term rental can be rented for a maximum of 10 adults. The applicant um said that he will be hiring a property manager and I think he already has to ensure that the rental um

the renters are respectful of the property in the neighborhood and the property manager that he has um contracted with is flip properties and they are located in North Carolina. staff has received seven phone calls, eight emails in opposition, and one phone call in support. We have also received a 11 citizens uh spoke at the planning commission public hearing, one in support, 10 in opposition. Um a petition in opposition was provided for the planning commission during their hearing. And I think we have been receiving other emails in opposition since uh the planning commission public hearing. Some of the things that were mentioned is that their restricted covenants do not allow fences. So there cannot be fences put up. The disruption of the neighborhood. There was um mention about water uh quality um because of the blooms um that we have had in the past. foot traffic plus um vehicle traffic more in the neighborhood and um noise and also there is one person that has had issues in another area with um blocked driveways. Um we'd like to give you a vicinity map. It's located in the Union Hall election district. Like I stated before, we'd like to give you a picture of the property. It is highlighted in blue. This is an aerial. We also like to give you your zoning map. Um this is zone agricultural. You'll notice that um the subdivision next to them is zoned R1 residential suburban. We also like to give you your comprehensive plan map which is low density residential and the lake

influence area. We also like to give you a conceptual plan. This is the lot that's highlighted in yellow and the X marks where the septic tank is. And then the driveway obviously is off of Pennsylvania Avenue. One of the planners in the office wanted to give you pictures to show you in case you didn't get to get out to the site. This is the circular driveway. It also shows you pictures from the road just to give you an idea. Um analysis. Um the proposed short-term rental is located on a lot that's approximately an acre. The closest single family, as I stated, is 35 ft. Due to the proximity of these homes, a landscape buffer is one of the conditions of the special use permit to screen the two properties. If you would notice from um the area, I'll just explain why it's only on one side. This is um the side where the screening would take place if approved by you, the board of supervisors. The other house beside them is located closer to the lake down below. Um the property, um like I said, has two single families on both sides. Most of the properties in this area are close to the same lot size. It is um the property does have a driveway that looks like that it would have ample parking for the short-term rental. This one also traffic that's generated, we don't foresee it to be any more than what would be generated if a single family was used by full-time residents. Uh the community does have a little community area at the end of the culde-sac that possibly could generate more traffic than the short-term rental in in use um for events if people would

rent it out. Um the noise of the rental should be normal than what you what you have in the residential neighborhood and the noise at the community area could be more than the short-term rental of the neighborhood. I realize that it would be event somebody would not be spending the night at that area but it is worth to be mentioned. The comprehensive plan as stated before does designate this as low density residential and lake influence area. So as stated prior in the previous one lowdensity residential as you all know is suburban patterns of development of housing that consist of single family dwellings on a variety of lots. The lake influence area consists of residential uses, but the increase in tourism around the lake and the need for accommodations for these guests, the county will see an increase in STRs in the future land use designation. Just like before, some of the primary land uses for the lake influence area uh designation is lodging and tourism. And there does need to be a balance between the traditional subdivisions between the residents and the transient occupants that allows the short-term rentals to be located in subdivisions around the lake. The planning commission did conclude there would be minimal impacts to the surrounding area. The character of the A1 zoning district would not be changed and the STR would be in harmony with the purpose and intent of this chapter and with the uses permitted by the right in the A1 zoning district. Your planning commission did hold their public hearing and they did um make a recommendation to you all with six conditions. I'll go through them again. Of course, they are the same. Um, this will be the only uh pro this will be the only house that has the

short-term rental. If it changes, they would have to come back through the process to you, the board of supervisors, and the planning commission. The property owner shall have to comply with all the supplementary regulations of the Franklin County Code in section 25138 and section 5.572. The owner will have to provide and maintain a proof of liability insurance covering energy up to no less than a million dollars. The owner shall register the short-term rental use annually and the property will have to be in compliance with our county code and the short-term rental cannot take place until it is in compliance. The owner shall supply the planning department with the name and phone number of the property manager or contact person. The pro the planning department will notify all the adjoining property owners and staff needs to be notified if this change if this information changes. The owners shall plan a landscape buffer between the subject property and 78 Pennsylvania Avenue from the front edge of the home to the 800 ft contour along the property line. The landscape planning will be approved by the planning office prior to the approval of the short-term rental and annual registration. I would be glad to answer any questions that you have and I'm sure the applicant would like to speak um on this matter also.

Thank you, Miss Cooper. Are there any questions for Miss Cooper? Mr. Meredith, I have one. Um with the restrictions conditions, I'm reading where they were recorded in 2017. So, they're kind of contradicting where it states no residential only, no commercial use, but it also says short-term rentals are available. Has that been changed? Are you aware that has been updated to clean that up, or is that still how it sits with the restrictions and guidelines in in the subdivision, but that was recorded? I guess what I'm saying is one part says you you can have residential only, no commercial use,

but another section over here it says that a short-term rentals are allowed. Nothing has been updated to take one of those out. Correct. No. And are you talking about in our code, our county code? Are you talking in our HOA? Oh, in their HOAs. As far as I know, there has not. There was some um discussion at the planning commission that uh some of them were under the impression that the developer was going to reszone the property to R1 which would u not allowed short-term rentals even though it was allowed in the HOA. Um but no there as far as I know that has not been changed. Okay. Thank you.

But somebody from the HOA might be here might be able to answer that better than I can. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Is that all Mr. Meredith? Yes ma'am. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chair. Lisa, maybe you can provide some clarification. It's a private road, but it will be taken into the secondary system once it meets all the criteria. Is that going to happen? Is it still going to What's the criteria? And

the criteria when we were actually when this came in, it looks like it does have three houses on it. So, um staff will be reaching out to VOTE. We'll work with the HOA to see if there needs to be any improvements to try to get this to you all to get it into the state system. And we are still holding a I think it's a $300,000 bond on the roads. Dependent on more houses being built. Is that No, it has to have three and Pennsylvania Avenue has more than three. So, it should be able to be taken into the state system. I will have to talk to VOTE um about the road coming in. That could be why it hadn't been taken in. The road coming in, I don't think has three houses.

Okay.

But we will be working with VOTE since we noticed that it did have three houses on it to see if we can get it taken into the state system before it starts wear and tear. Yes. So essentially, um Mr. Carter um the roads to be taken in VOTE would typically do a visit with staff and they would make a declaration as to the the the criteria that these roads need to meet. If I'm misspeaking, Miss Cooper, please. No, you're not. And um and so anything that that VOTE would determine needs to be done to bring the road into the secondary road system, it would be a cost that would be borne upon typically the HOA. um the folks that live there. Um with the understanding that there are some options available if there's a letter of credit or bond in place certainly uh in addition to that would be um uh potential for revenue sharing. Um there's some things through VOTE's programs that come could come into play, but there will be a punch list. Um I haven't seen one subdivision yet where there's not been a punch list.

No, there will definitely be a punch list. The good thing is is the road is still new. It still looks like it's in good condition. Um the county has tried to make strides um to make sure that we keep enough bond money in case something happens um that you know the bond could be pulled to take care of the road. At this point, I'm assuming the homeowners that live there are responsible for maintenance on that road until it goes into the VOTE system. Yes, it would either be the homeowners or the HOA. It's going to depend on how it's written in their association, right? Any other questions for Miss Cooper? Okay. Uh, is the applicant here? Um, I'm almost positive.

There, Mr. Kavar. Am I pronouncing your name correctly? Yes. Okay. I apologize if not. Well, welcome this evening, sir. We're glad you're here with us.

Thank you. Uh, hello. My name is Dan Karik and my wife Ruth and I purchased our home at 108 Pennsylvania Avenue and Kennedy Shores this past June. Before buying the home, we checked the Kennedy Shores uh covenants to make sure that short-term rentals were permitted. And this is important to us because we bought the house using a 1031 exchange, which means that we are required to rent the property because we sold the rental property that we exchanged this for. Um, we're required to rent the property for a period of time and it is our intention to rent the home enough to satisfy the IRS requirements. Uh, the Franklin County Planning Commission has given me six conditions for approval and I plan to comply with all six. In addition, I'm cont committed to maintaining the peacefulness and tranquility of the neighborhood. I'm hiring a property manager to screen renters and ensure that they are respectful of the property in the neighborhood. When people rent through VBO or a Airbnb, not only does the uh renderer rent the property, but the property owner also rents rates the renter. We will not rent to anyone who has less than a five-star rating. If they don't have a five-star rating or they don't have a rating, we won't accept their rental. I also have installed security cameras and I believe we have some pictures. I don't know if we can I sent them in. I don't

we have them available. Yes, we do.

Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse us. I didn't mean to. You're okay. Big delay. No, you're fine. I'm I'm sorry. She don't have to get up and do it anymore.

I did just want to show you the view that I will have of the security cameras. Um I've installed three of them. There's one covering the front door area. There's one covering the garage area and there's one covering the backyard. I can access them from my phone. I can both see the pictures and hear the noise. I'm actually using the one facing out the back right now to monitor the water in the lake. Praying for it to come up some. Yes. Can't launch my boat right now. Yes.

Um but uh I did want you to be able to see that I will be able to monitor the activity at the property. and uh we'll come back to that when they're ready. Okay. While we're waiting, I would also like to say that uh I working with my property manager, I have developed a set of house rules that will be in place and I'd like to share some of those with you. Now, one second.

Maximum occupancy will be two adults age two and above per bedroom, which would be a total of 10. No events or parties of any kind are permitted. Quiet hours from 1000 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. must be observed and guests must comply with all local noise ordinances. No pets are permitted. No smoking. The sandy beach area. There's a sandy beach area between my house and the neighbor's house. Uh they'll be told that that belongs to the neighbor and is strictly off limits to our tenants. No fireworks. Guests must respect the neighbors property lines and privacy at all times. And the owner operator maintains 24/7 local contact for any problems. Oh, didn't see it there. Okay,

here we go. There you go. We're getting there. All right, sorry about that. Thank you, Amy.

Okay, so this is the view off the front door. Uh, as you can see, I can see a fair amount of the driveway as well. Here's the view from the backyard. And as you can see, there's the sandy area that I was talking about. And and also you can see down to the dock and uh we don't have the one of the garage, but the one from the garage is shooting out more down the driveway and you can see a little bit of the street. So, um I've tried to go to great lengths to maintain uh the tranquility of the neighborhood. This is a luxury property and I will act quickly to resolve any and all problems. I believe this permit will not have a negative impact on the neighborhood. At the planning commission, several people came forward uh with objections and I'd like to address some of those objections. Now, uh a petition was submitted state in opposition stating that it had 80 there was a letter attached to it stating that there were 80 signatures on it. I got a copy of the petition and I could only find 50 and of those 50 only about half of them were actually property owners in Kennedy Shores. Uh the rest were from surrounding areas.

Um the covenants have been in place since 2017 and um there is a mechanism in place to be able to change the covenants with a twothirds vote. a twothirds vote would be about I think 57 or 58 um homeowners. So um there has been no change to those covenants. They exist today as they did in 2017. There is a a point in there about uh no commercial use. Um, and I would like to also say that that in is referring to running a business out of your home as opposed to residential use. Uh, so I think those two things are a little different in what they're and what they're covering. The covenant says that short-term rentals are expressly permitted. Water quality and septic system uh strain was also mentioned. Um, in fact, 10 people using the septic system for the 10 or 12 week rental season is less than what six people living in that house year round would would do. So, I believe that there will be minimum strain on the septic system. And finally, traffic and parking were areas of concern. As I've said, House rules will prohibit parking anywhere except in the driveway. And as for traffic, renters have a tendency to come and stay. Uh they've rented they spent a pretty penny to rent a piece of property and they're going to get the most out of it as opposed to people living there full-time who come and go every day to work a job to uh church to grocery stores, school. Um so I think the traffic will be a minimal impact. Um I'm truly sorry that some of my

neighbors are in opposition to this. I'm new to the neighborhood and I didn't really want to meet him this way, but based on the covenants that are in place and the fact that the county does permit short-term rentals in situations similar to this, I would ask the board of supervisors to approve my petition. Thank you. So, thank you so much. Do any of the supervisors do you have questions or concerns for the applicant? Yes, Mr. I have a couple questions. So, I'm familiar with the IRS rules for a 1031 exchange. However, I'm not familiar with how long you have to keep the property in rental use in order to comply with those. Do you know what the the duration is? Yes, it's two years.

So, once you've met two years, then you're free and clear and you've accomplished what you need to do for the 1031 exchange. Yes. Okay. And the second question was what um is this your long-term plan to rent this out or do you plan to retire and move into it or I'm just curious what your will this always be a rental property from your perspective? Once I have satisfied the IRS, I really don't have a lot of interest in renting this property anymore. It's a brand new house. Uh my wife has decorated it has decorated it and uh we have a lot of nice new stuff in there and so yeah I'm not interested in uh constant turnover of renters or doing it long term.

Thank you. Um I have one question if I may. I noticed that your property management folks are in North Carolina. Yes. Um was that an intentional decision given that you've got the cameras up? uh we typically get a better feel for these applications when we have local property management firms in place uh obviously for the timeliness of responsiveness and so forth. Um can you comment on that at all?

Sure. Uh I'm from Greensboro and I happen to know this individual well. I know that he has rent has managed rental properties at other lakes um Lake Norman, Lake Jordan, uh luxury, uh properties like mine. And so he has experience uh with this type of property. Uh and even though he's not local, we are both committed to being here at a moment's notice if there's something that needs to be addressed. Very good. Either he'll be here or I'll be here. Gotcha. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Anyone? Thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate your remarks.

Okay, I will at this juncture open uh the public hearing on this special use permit. Madam clerk, do we have anyone signed up? Denise Mock. Good evening, Miss Mock. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please.

Denise Mox, 70 Kennedy Place and Kennedy Shores. Um, first I just want to say that we all appreciate the opportunity to speak so freely this evening. It's a forum that gives us a a great opportunity to express our concerns. Um, my husband Gary and I have lived full-time in Kennedy Shores for six years and this is our forever home. We're not going anywhere. Um, there's a strong sense of community and we support many organizations in Franklin County that have been established to make this an even better place to live. We take a lot of pride in where we chose to build our retirement home. We're not in support of short-term rentals. When I say we, I refer to 100% of the full-time residents in Kennedy Shores. And 85% of the Kennedy Shores lot owners who signed a petition that was sent to them electronically. We obtained over 100, actually 106 signatures from Kennedy Shores and neighboring communities. And each signature is a household. So, I have to challenge Mr. Cavaric on the numbers because I think what he was not looking at was the ones we got electronically which are all in your packet. I noticed they were part of the minutes. So, there are 106 signatures here and 100% of the full-time residents and 85% of the lot owners that responded. I sent it out via email. Obviously, we didn't get everyone to respond because some people just don't care or what have you. Um, but of those that did respond, 85% said absolutely not. And a lot of folks are here today to to speak to you about it. It is true that in our 2017 covenant for Kennedy Shores says that short-term rentals are permitted, but only if a special use permit is obtained. There's no guarantee in the covenant or anywhere else that the permit will be granted. In fact, my husband and I questioned the Frontier Land Development we bought and they said, "Oh, the permits are very difficult to get. Just vote against it." Whereas to other people who wanted to

rent, they said, "Oh yeah, you can get a permit." They I mean they worked both sides because what they were trying to do was just sell lots. In March 2017, there was a special use permit approved for a house on Kemp Ford Road in Union Hall. The properties over 7 acres and the house is over 150 ft from the closest neighbor. It was approved. Um, but the planning committee noted that short-term rentals are less appropriate in residential neighborhoods where smaller lots and minimal yard areas exist to shield neighboring properties from any negative impacts associated with short-term rentals. The application before us today is 35 ft from the closest neighbor. Planning committee also noted that quote the parcel in Kemp Ford is not located in a platted residential subdivision and is set back sufficiently from neighboring structures. quote, "In cases where lot sizes range from half an acre to 1 acre, short-term rentals are generally not appropriate. Kennedy Shores is clearly a residential subdivision with the average lot size being under an acre, and a short-term rental is not a good fit for this community. Um, one of our neighbors rented their house out without a permit. They had three dogs on the lot barking all day. They partied till all hours. And um, I've observed negative behavior. I don't want it in my backyard. I just don't. Thank you, Miss I. I appreciate you coming forward.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Brian Deeders.

Good evening, sir. Welcome. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

Yes. I'm uh excuse me, Brian Deers. Uh 249 Hyannis Point, which is a block away from the uh residence in question or the permit in question. Uh, I'm here to strongly urge you to deny this application. Uh, a special use permit is not a courtesy and it's not automatic. Under Franklin County's zoning ordinance, it may only be granted when the proposed use is clearly compatible with surrounding uh, properties, consistent with the intent of the zoning district, and will not adversely impact neighboring land owners. This application does not meet that burden. This property is in a recorded subdivision A1 agricultural. A1 zoning exists to preserve real character, limit land use intensity, and pro protect the per uh peaceful enjoyment of property by permanent residents. A short-term rental is not simply another residence. It is a commercial transient lodging use that introduces a revolving door of short-term applicants into an area that is not compatible with that purpose. In a subdivision, this impact is magnified. Subdivisions are built on stability and predictability. Allowing a short-term rental here replaces the stability with uncertainty and disruption. That is fundamentally incompatible with both the intent of A1 zoning and the design of a subdivision. The impacts of a short-term rental are well known and well documented. excessive noise, late night activity, parking problems, trash accumulation, and repeated enforcement issues. Conditions placed on a permit do not prevent these impacts. They merely respond to them after neighbors have already been harmed. That is not protection. That is damage control. Approval of this permit would shift the burden of enforcement from the

applicant, who is 2 hours away, to surrounding homeowners and county staff. Residents would be forced to monitor behavior, document violations, and repeatedly call for enforcement simply to preserve the priestful use peaceful use of their own property. That is an unreasonable and unfair outcome. Just as importantly, approval would establish a dangerous president, inviting additional applications and gradually transforming our stable subdivision into a transient lodging zone without a comprehensive plan amendment or resoning decision by this board. The board is not being asked whether short-term rentals are appropriate somewhere in uh Franklin County. You're being asked whether this use is appropriate here in this location, in this zoning district, and in this subdivision. It is not. For these reasons, I respectfully but firmly ask the board to determine that this proposal is incompatible with our subdivision, detrimental to neighboring property owners, and to deny the short-term rental special use permit. Thank you for your service.

Thank you so much. Madame clerk. Mark McGee. Good evening, Mr. McGee. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please. Yes. Mark McGee, 79 Pennsylvania Avenue, and I am the next door neighbor. Okay. To uh Mr. Kavar. Before we get started, um just want to I am the HOA president acting.

Um there was a question earlier about the roads. I can answer that or bring some clarity to that. The two roads that we have with completed homes, three completed homes are Pennsylvania Avenue and Hyannis. Um we do have new homes under construction, but that's where we stand today. The other uh the other condition um that's required to meet the uh VOTE um you know for bringing the roads over as secondary is the um the CVU. We have a central mailbox unit at the end in the culde-sac of Pennsylvania Avenue and that is uh Virginia uh excuse me VOTE says that's in the right of way and has to be moved. So we've been working through the process of uh with Parker Design Group and um and um the developer to get that moved. they are going to fit the bill for the move of the CBU. And so we're not there yet. We do have stop signs. We don't have speed limit signs. Um and again, the connecting roads to Hyannis and uh Pennsylvania Avenue are not um ready to be taken in to the

Okay, thank you for those clarifications. That's very helpful. And the other um minor correction from earlier that I just want to mention was in the description of 108 Pennsylvania Avenue property. It was said that there's a well. It's not a well. It's community water. Just like the rest of our lots in Kennedy Shores, nobody has wells. Thank you. Yeah, sure. I just want to clarify. No, I appreciate you doing that. Um Yeah. Yeah. especially from your perspective as the chair of the HOA.

Sure. Thank you. Okay. Well, good evening, madam and uh members of the board. Um my wife and I live uh in Kennedy Shores at 79 Pennsylvania Avenue. As I said before, we're opposed to short-term rental and respectfully request that the application for this permit not be approved. It would be a drastic change for our residents. Also, I understand that no special use permits for short-term rental have been approved for a lakefront property in Union Hall zone A1 in the last couple of years. Full-time residents since May of 22, we're next door to the applicant. Our houses sit only 35 ft apart. We share a property line with no buffer and installing a screen as suggested earlier or or required earlier would obstruct our current view of Smith Mountain and the lake which is not allowed. Kennedy Shores architectural review guidelines state any landscaping changes must be approved by the committee and acknowledged by any neighbors that may be impacting. And as you said earlier, madam, the fencing is not allowed. Or I'm sorry, I believe it was

Miss Cooper, I think.

Miss Cooper that said that and that's correct. Um, I'm now in my third year serving the board of directors as president. So, I can speak to the transition from the developer to owner control that was brought up earlier. The HOA has not turned over the owners. The HO was not turned over to the owners until after the developer sold the last lot in late 23. Per our declaration composed by the developer in 2017, owners permitted to short-term rent must acknowledge and comply with rules and regulations implemented by the HOA. A list of rules has recently been drafted, which I did share with the applicant just to give him a preview. And it sounds like he incorporated some of those into his house rules. But because there's no short-term rental in Kennedy Shores today, the rules of the HOA still need to be implemented as new policy before any short-term rental can take place. Finally, the developer should have moved to reszone the subdivision to the more appropriate R1. Kennedy Shores is subdivided into 87 residential lots with improved common areas including community pavilion, boat, launch, pier, and beach. Instead, most feel that the developer was laxidasical because their primary objective was to sell all the lots and move on to their next development. Meanwhile, other similar residential subdivisions including Wat's Edge and Boxwood Green have reszoned to R1. others around Kennedy Shores are zoned R1 today. The HOA board of directors intends to request that Kennedy Shores be reszoned and moved to modify our declaration which requires the 67% or 2/3 of our owner's vote for no short-term rental.

Sir, your time is up. I'm sorry. Yeah, one last final sentence that seems likely to pass based on the outcome of our petition. Thank you. So appreciate the board considering my key points and the full impact of this and again ask to please not approve uh this special use permit. Thank you very much. Thank you. We appreciate it. No, no, no. Please, no apologies necessary. All right, Madame Clerk. Fran Francancy Kiato. Good evening. Good evening.

If you'd state your name and address, please. My name is Francancy Chaido and my address is 384 Hyannas Point in Kennedy Shores. Good evening. I'm here to speak in strong opposition to the short-term rental special use permit application for 108 Pennsylvania Avenue in my neighborhood, the Kennedy Shore subdivision of Union Hall. The applicant submits that the Kennedy Shores HOA covenants allow for short-term rentals, which is correct. However, that same section of the covenants goes on to say that STRs are allowed, quote, subject to the lot owner obtaining a special use permit. The Kennedy Shores covenants do not guarantee or automatically allow STRs in our subdivision. Our covenants also state that quote, "Lots shall not be used for commercial purposes," unquote. I cited the specific sections and paragraphs of the covenants for these statements in the email I submitted to each of you. The deed for 108 Pennsylvania Avenue shows the owner of the property to be RDK property limited liability company. According to the Internal Revenue Service website, an LLC is defined as a business entity allowed by state statute. Webster's dictionary defines a business entity such as an LLC as a separate organizational structure legally recognized to conduct commercial activity. Mr. Cavaric has stated on multi multiple occasions including in his application letter that RDK Property LLC purchased the property located at 108 Pennsylvania Avenue in order to satisfy the Internal Revenue Code for a 1031 exchange. This code is a method for real estate investors to defer capital gains taxes when swapping one investment property for another of quote like kind. It is my understanding that RDK Property

LLC sold a warehouse/off building, a commercial property in Greensboro, North Carolina, the proceeds of which were used to purchase the subject property. Mr. Veric's application also states that the Pennsylvania Avenue property must be rented in order to defer paying the capital gains taxes on the sale of that commercial property. I argue based on the above reference definitions and due to the property satisfying the like kind requirement of Internal Revenue Code 1031, the property at 108 Pennsylvania Avenue should be considered a commercial property by our HOA and by the board of supervisors. As noted earlier, Kennedy Shores HOA covenants expressly prohibit commercial properties within our subdivision. As I said before, short-term rentals are not guaranteed in the Kennedy Shores subdivision without the approval of the Board of Supervisors for a special use permit. Each of you, as our representatives on the board of supervisors, are able to help protect the interests of full-time residents in Kennedy Shores by rejecting the SUP tonight. Please help us ensure that our homes and neighborhood remain a safe and peaceful place free of commercial businesses. Thank you for your the opportunity to express my concerns.

Thank you very much, Sylvia Holly.

Good evening, Miss Holly. Please state your name and address, please. Sylvia Holley, 97 Caroline Court, Union Hall. Um, my name is Sylvia Holley. My husband Jerry and I built our home in the Kennedy Shores subdivision because of the safety and beauty of the planned residential community. Obviously, a beautiful location is useless for a home if it's not also safe. As documented by insurance companies, having short-term rentals, STRs, in a neighborhood increase the risk of fire, theft, and accidents. Area insurance rates and property taxes are often increased. If allowed, the people using their houses for STR businesses would make profit at the financial expense expense and reduce safety of their neighbors. Kennedy Shores is not suited or designed for STR businesses at all. Our yards are very open and most house locations are close together. In our subdivision covenants, fences are prohibited and no owner may plant trees or shrubs as to screen the view of Smith Mountain Lake from adjacent homes. Our subdivision covenant states that because of our zoning, STR is permitted if a county special use permit is issued, but it also states that homes are for residential use only and commercial use of any property is prohibited. There are problems associated with the VA vacation mindset behavior that is often seen with STRs. For example, in 2024, a house in Kennedy Shores with no special permit was rented out on a short-term basis on several different occasions. It was advertised online as the house can sleep 15. However, the septic system license was for only four bedrooms. The renters acted irresponsibly. The problems of excessive noise and too many people staying there went on for many months off and on and

until it was stopped by complaints to Franklin County. Research shows that in areas where there have been STR businesses inserted into what was residentialonly communities, the problems often add up, sometimes making the whole area too expensive and unsafe for long-term residents to stay, destroying the sense of community. This is especially true when businesses from outside the area come in to exploit the community for their own profit. If Franklin County wants to increase the number of visitors, then it must continue to be a great place to live. Residents of an area are the ones who make an area viable and attractive to visitors by supporting local businesses and the community year round. Allowing STR businesses in residential areas would greatly diminish the appeal of our county. Ask yourself if you would like to have an unsupervised mini hotel rented daily or weekly next to your home or your grandchildren's home. We strongly object to houses in Kennedy Shore being used as STR businesses. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Ed Shiato. Good evening, sir. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

Yes. My name is Ed Chido and I live at 384 Hyannis Point. And thank you for allowing me to speak this evening and also thanks to each of you for serving on the board. My wife Francancy and I are full-time residents in the Kennedy Shore subdivision in Union Hall. We are very concerned about the investment we made in Franklin County 5 years ago when we made a conscious decision to forego the close by amenities in Bedford County and instead purchased the lot in the more peaceful Franklin County as the location for our retirement home. We had a negative impression of Bedford County due to the high number of STRs located within that county. When searching the internet for pros and cons of STRs, a common theme found across the comm community across most communities which generates most of the complaints to local governments is the negative impact of STRs operating in residential neighborhoods as quasi commercial uses i.e. via rental agencies such as Airbnb and VBO. These rental agencies are commercial businesses operating in residential neighborhoods and have no local presence and therefore are not vested in the local neighborhood nor impacts potential impacts. To that point, Mr. Cavic himself intends to use a rental company based in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he also resides over two hours away. Again, his intended rental company in North Carolina doesn't have a ventfested interest in Kennedy Shores, nor in Franklin County. While the intention of a homeowner operating an STR may be to monitor and prevent disruption within the community, that responsibility will unfortunately fall on the full-time residents of the community. As indicated in the application packet in front of you, the future land use map designates the subject property as low

density residential and in accordance with your county guidelines on and as documented on page 84 in the documents in front of you and I quote, "These areas are intended to be predominantly residential with very limited neighborhood commercial uses such as childc care facilities." End quote. And as these same county guidelines states on page 86 of that document, and I quote, "A balance is needed between allowing STRs in appropriate areas as an asset for tourism and property owners investment while also ensuring that regulations adequately limit adverse neighborhood impacts and protect interests of the county's full-time residents." End quote. You have received in your packet of uh this evening a petition signed by not just a handful of of people but over 100 households in the Kennedy shores and its surrounding communities who strongly oppose this STRSUP application. We respectfully request the board of supervisors reject this application and protect our interests as full-time residents. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you very much. Charlie White.

Good evening, sir. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please.

My name is Charlie White. I live at 621 Monte Vista Road, Union Hall, Virginia, which is in Highland Lake section 1. Uh I do not live in Kennedy Shores, but Highland Lake section one is right next to Kennedy Shores and uh we have a connecting street. And also thank you for this opportunity to speak before I say too much more. Uh I'm here kind of to represent my community, talk about those 100 signatures. I helped get signatures in their subdivision. Like it was we have 29 full-time residents and another it's actually 97 lots in our subdivision.

The others either undeveloped or people live you know just using for vacation. There's also 48 condos inside of Highland Lake. So the if you go on a GPS and or on Google maps and Google this address for this rental property what they want it takes you through S subdivision because that's the shortest route to get to it. So that's going to be extra traffic in S subdivision is why people in F subdivision concerned why they sign the petition. Of course we are one and we don't have short-term rentals. So, we'd like for the neighboring uh subdivision to be the same. Also, uh back before the zoning happened in Franklin County, I've been associated with subdivision Highland Lake since 1978.

And there's a property now on Alpine Drive, which is with almostin sight of this uh it is within sight of this house. And my best friends in Danville owned it. I live in Danville time. And they let me use this house and I took helped take care of it. And then when the owner died, his heirs wanted to keep it, but they needed money, so they wanted to rent it. So I managed it for 20 years doing short-term rentals. I never advertised it. I mainly ran to people I knew, tried to screen them, and the headaches I had from that, I would never do a short-term rental again. I had somebody I knew the last night they were there of a week rental, had a van there, and had 40 people. Of course, I'm I'm fortunate today that I still live in a subdivision. Those two neighbors on each side of that are still friends cuz I apologized and did the best I could. But short-term rental people are there. They're paying less money and it for a week they want to have the most fun they can have. But you can't. But it is going to cause problems. I mean, no matter how hard you try, I know from my own experience 20 years of doing it, there will be problems if you do short-term rentals. So for that reason and the fact that air subdivision is next door to them, you know, air subdivision overwhelmingly supports a rejection of this permit.

Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Indeed. Thank you. That's all I have. That's all you have. Okay. Uh is there anyone else that did not sign up that would wish to speak? Yes, ma'am. If you'd come forward, please. If you'd state your name and address, please. Thank you. I'm Kristen Swenson and I live at 249 Alpine Drive. And as a point of clarification for Mr. Kovaric, adjacent neighborhoods will be affected by the STR as his lot is in the same cove as my home.

We are zoned R1 in Highland Lake and essentially, like I said, we're in the same cove and will experience the renters. And as you know, renters on a lake are in the water all the time. It will definitely increase the water traffic in the Cove. So, I am against the short-term rental. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Anyone else? We're happy to hear from you. Okay. Hearing none, I will close the public hearing. Um I will open up uh roundt discussion with the board. Uh supervisors, uh if you have any questions, feedback, um now's the time. Let's have that discussion. Mr. I'll start it off. Gory, thank you. So, this has been a very difficult decision for me.

It's the first time where I've been on the board and we're considering an SUP for an STR where the STRs are expressly permitted in the HOA covenants. The neighbor opposition is always really important to me and and in this case, it's significant. However, the HOA language expressly permitting STRs is compelling to me. The applicant based his purchase decision on the HOA text and all the homeowners had to receive a copy of the HOA text and purchase property knowing this provision. Should we consider approving it? Um I would like to add two additional conditions. And the first one, I'll really give credit to Lisa and the county attorney uh for helping me to come up with this as a way of alleviating some of the concerns. And the the first condition would be this is the additional condition to the six that are already provided. The STR shall be limited to two years from the board of supervisors approval. After the two years, the board of supervisors will evaluate to determine if the STR has been following the regulations in Franklin County Code. At this time, an extension shall be granted or the STR revoked. And then the second condition would be all trash shall be stored in closed containers and properly disposed of upon the conclusion of each rental period. Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Um and certainly your um recommendations for additional conditions will be considered by the board. Um anyone else wish to uh enter in any comments feedback on this application? Mr. Gerson, I would I have a problem with the um property manager being that far away. I think we need to, you know, if we add a condition, if we do approve it to have somebody more local would take care of it. on quicker. Okay. Do you have anything else, Mr. Jamson? No, that's all.

Okay. Thank you for that. Anyone else? I'd like to say a couple things if I may. Um on this application, um I I don't think it's a surprise to anybody. um my uh my uh position on short-term rentals in densely populated uh subdivisions. Um I consider, you know, because property rights is a big deal. It's a big deal for the people that own the property as well as the people that have property rights that where they bought their property and made that investment. So property rights I feel are on both sides of of the discussion. In this case, um I very much am concerned about the transient nature of traffic that short-term rentals, they absolutely evolve and it's just a fact of the way it happens. Um you there's introduction of transient people in and out um on usually a weekly basis. Um and I kind of all always think about if if this were next door to me, how would I feel about that? I I live in a, you know, dense uh HOA neighborhood. Um I think that there are adverse impacts. I don't think I view short-term rentals in in an HOA or or a dense neighborhood as being a commercial entity. In my mind, and it's this is me, I feel like we we're walking away from the residential use um of the home and it's migrating into what really is a business. And I I very much um you know I've helped a couple neighborhoods go from A1 to R1 simply for those protections to get the R1 protections of no short-term rentals. Um so this particular application I I too with Mr. Jamson um I am worried um

about the out ofstate property management issues. Um, and I I really think that this has the potential to really be injurious to the current residents of Kennedy Shores and the adjacent property uh neighborhoods uh that are there. Um, for these reasons, um, I'm not inclined to be able to support this. Uh, it goes against my fundamental judgments uh, about running a business in a residential neighborhood. Um, and um, there are some of these that I'm happy to approve of for myself. um I cannot get there on this particular application uh for some of the the reasons that I've so stated. So I just offer those for your consideration. Anybody else? Okay. Is there a motion? What's your pleasure on on approving or disapproving this permit?

I'll make a motion. I find that the use will not be of substantial detriment to adjacent properties, that the character of the zoning district will not be changed thereby, and that such use will be in harmony with the uses permitted by right in the zoning district and with the public health, safety, and general welfare to the community. Therefore, I move to recommend approval of the applicant's request for a special use permit to allow for short-term tourist rental of a dwelling on the property with the six conditions as recommended by the planning commission plus the additional three conditions we discussed tonight. The two that I brought up and then the third that Marshall brought up, which would be uh forcing the property owner to have a local property manager.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Mr. Jameson. Madam Chair, please clarification standpoint. Can we define local a little better? You want it to be in the county? Do you want it to be within a certain radius? Do you want I'm not that familiar with the property owners there now or managers, somebody that used there already, you know, around the lake area. I don't know. No, no particular name, Jim. I really don't. But for two hours back from Greensboro, if I call, there's got to be somebody much closer there around the lake that they use.

And Mr. Glenn, I think history, just in my recollection, when supervisors have that concern in general, um it's more or less, and this is a general statement, it's more or less they want somebody that um is in Franklin County and much more desirable within a close proximity, but not in it's not ever been a measurable statement that's been made. Um, so I would say at a minimum Franklin County, I think that should probably be the more defined standard if we if you want us to define that. I just think it might prevent misunderstandings. I I don't disagree. Is that perhaps I like that. I like the addition. Marshall, you're okay with that, too? Yes. Okay. Okay.

So, a local property manager that has their business in Franklin County. Is that suitable? That's fine. Okay. Did we get a second on that motion? M Mr. Damson. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor of the motion to approve. Um Madame Clerk, if you do a roll call. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Jameson? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? No. And Chair Smith? No. Okay, so that is five yeses and two nos.

Okay, very good. Thank you and thank you to all the speakers that came this evening. We very much appreciate it. Okay, we we will move on to the next item. Um last public hearing of the evening. Uh applicants and owners Leonard Capital LLC um in search of a a special use permit for uh STR address 500 Blue Bin Road in Rocky Mount. Miss Cooper.

Yes, ma'am. Let's see if I can do this better. Thank you. This is our last public hearing of the evening and as uh Chairwoman Smith um stated, it is for a short-term rental of a dwelling. and I'll give you some general information. Um, this is the only dwelling located on the parcel where the short-term rental is proposed to take place. The property is located on a secondary state road and has a driveway that would be ample for parking for the rental. Water supply is well, and the sewer supply is a septic system. The closest residence is approximately 247 ft from the proposed short-term rental. Um, and according to the county records, the dwelling is a onestory single family residence with a certificate of occupancy issued in October of 2025. It consists of three bedrooms, two full baths with a total living area of approximately 1,338 square ft. Um, the septic permit was issued by the Virginia Department of Health in 2024 for a three-bedroom home. The septic tank and drainfield is located on the right side of the home and the short-term rental can be rented for a maximum of six adults. Um the applicant, Mr. Leonard, um stated in his letter of application that he and his wife built the home for their retirement home, but are not quite ready to retire and move in. He also stated um that he will use a local individual um managing the short-term rental. It's a Jennifer Chapman of Evolve Vacation Rental Company. With her and her team um

nearby, they are familiar with rules and uh regulations of this area. Um staff has received two phone calls, one email inquiring about the application. Staff also uh was contacted by one couple in opposition of the application. They came into our office and we've received two emails in opposition. There were five citizens that spoke in opposition at the planning commission public hearing. We like to give you a vicinity map before it's located. And this one is, excuse me, located in the Rocky Mount election district. We also like to give you a map of showing where an aerial, showing you where the property um is located on Blue Bin. It's in the blue area. We also like to give you your zoning map. Um it is agricultural A1. You can see this orange color area here is RC1 which is your residential combined subdivision. And then over here the green is your R1. We also like to give you your comprehensive uh plan map and this is rural county. We also like to give you a diagram or conceptual plan of the map. You can see the location of um the house that was constructed and you can also see where the drain fields are located um with the tank and the pump. Um one of the planners in the office did take some pictures um just to show you some of the area and the steepness of the slope. However, we did not get a picture of the driveway for the parking and I apologize for that. Um, this proposed short-term

rental is on a lot consisting of just a little over 4 acres. It's very well vegetated and as stated before, it is 247 ft from the nearest residence. Um both sides of the home offer a bunch will offer screening between the proposed short-term rental and the adjoining properties. Um, there is a single family dwelling to the right side of the proposed short-term rental as well as across on Blue Bin Road along with a vacant lot that appears to be farmland or pasture land and a single family dwelling to the left on a large lot and the dwelling is approximately 1,700 ft away. The remaining area for the subject property is residential properties being close in lot size or larger than the proposed um STR. We do feel that the property the driveway does um allow ample parking for the STR. We do believe that the traffic generated by the short-term rental would be similar um what is generated by the single family dwelling if not rented. The noise of the rental should not be more than normally expected in a rural residential neighborhood. The comprehensive plan designation for this property is rural area county. Rural area county. In your comp plan, rural pattern patterns of development. You will find farmland housing consisting of single family dwellings on a variety of large uh lot sizes. This particular area of blue band road could support the STR and have minimal impact on the surrounding area due to the size of the lot and being located in a wooded area. The STR should not generated as sayate um any more traffic for this rural community or disrupt the surrounding neighbors. The planning commission did hold their

um public hearing and they felt that there would be min minimal impacts to the surrounding area due to the location, the area having large lots that are wooded to protect the STR being disrupted to adjacent property owners. The character of the A1 zoning district would not change and the STR would be in harmony with the purpose and the intent of this chapter. I did fail um to tell you when we were talking about the individuals that spoke at the public hearing of the planning commission, a lot of them was worried about the road. Um Blue Bin Road is a curvy road. It is a small state um maintained road. They were concerned about the possible of increased traffic and people not being familiar with the road and possibly running off into ditches as they've had um to help people pull out of um some of the ditches along this road. So, I'm sorry about that, but I neglected to tell you all that and I wanted to um back up and do that. But moving forward, the planning commission did feel that the special use permit should be um have an a recommendation to be approved with five conditions to you all. um the special use permit. This would be the only dwelling that would have the STR. If something would change, they would have to come back through the process to you all that the owner would have to comply with all of the Franklin County codes, section 25138, section 5.572. The owner shall provide and maintain the proof of liability insurance uh covering injury of a guest not less than a million dollars. The owner shall register this short-term rental and have it inspected annually. And the short-term rental of the property, she'll have to be comply with all of our regulations before the the rental can

take place. The owner shall supply the planning department with the name and phone number of the property manager or contact person, which they have. And the planning department will be notifying adjoining uh property owners about this information and any change of this information would have to be given to the planning department so we can notify adjoining prop adjoining property owners of changes. I would be glad to answer any questions that you might have and I'm sure the applicant would like to speak. Thank you Miss Cooper. Are there any questions feedback? Mr. Jameson, please. Lisa, your packet says this is in uh the Rocky Mount District and our in our agenda it says it's in Blackwater. Yeah.

It is in Blackwater and I'm sorry. It's Blackwater. I think it is. I'm sorry. I spoke to someone in that neighborhood and uh they don't vote at my polling places and I I was under the the Black Waters. I'm sorry. Not my district. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jameson, for that for pointing that out. Zoned area. It's nonzone. As far as I know, is that nonzed? It is. That blows inherited, doesn't it? This um property is um zone A1. Thank you.

Any other comments, questions for Miss Cooper? Okay, Miss Cooper, do we have the applicant that would like to address the board? Yes. Good evening, sir. Please state your name, please.

Good evening, ma madam chair and board of supervisors. My name is Perry Leonard. I'm the owner of uh Leonard Capital LLC and um thank you for this consideration of my my special use permit. Uh we did purchase this this land um as as our forever home. Uh uh I did realize that I jumped the gun in in construction in terms of that. Um I am a class A licensed uh builder. It's kind of in my uh veins to do that uh to to to build. But um I'm also a responsible land disturber licensed in Virginia. And uh we built this home for our uh forever home. But uh we have two kids in in private universities here in Virginia. So, we realize the timing is not there yet. We got to keep our our jobs um in uh in Northern Virginia. Uh but um I'm no stranger to communities. Um moving in uh being uh the the new person uh 24 year army career um moving uh through Tampa, Levvenworth, Kansas, West Point, New York um and uh and and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, being a resident, buying homes in those communities, and knowing that you you must integrate and communicate and and and be a member of those communities. So, I do want to maintain the the peace peacefulness, the serenity of this area. And that's what I'd also like to open up for others to enjoy this these surroundings. And uh we we really appreciate the the uh residents of this area and um and the just the overall uh feel that you get when you're when you're um looking at that hill and the river. Um this uh this wooded property has um the on the

Rambler home uh fully uh three tank septic system uh safe water supply um uh and uh uh it's uh suitable for guests to use and and approved. uh not only my uh is is my contractor license uh going through those uh visual inspections and things, my contractor uh my GC and and superintendent and then of course most importantly the county um approving these as a safe beautiful dwelling. Um, I do address some of the concerns that that I I heard previously uh from the residents. Um, and those can be built in to the contract. There's a contract with the a short-term renter that that they must comply with. Uh, so building in the house rules, the noise, smoking, parking. We talked about parking in the driveway, but it's also a twocar garage. It's with no uh nothing in there. So that's the open um for the the the uh the guests to use and and really there there should be even no reason to be on the the three car parking um driveway, but that's available. The windy road, yes, it's uh you know that also building that in the house rules to be careful when uh when you're entering this area. Um, I do vacation in the in the Smoky Mountains and that's just a part of the the the lifestyle that you you have to uh forewarn people about. Um, the uh with the the forest and the the buffering noise. I I hope we can we can alleviate that, but I do also want there to be more of a positive and a welcoming um of of guests rather than just assuming there's going to be loud parties and and and destruction and and garbage. Uh I I'd rather appreciate a

friendly hello and and and and good treatment. Uh because that's what this community is all about. And our our managers are very local. uh one one of the people on the team literally lives about 3 mi away and then the others the the managers are in the uh in the surrounding areas and and her husband. So, thank you for this opportunity to address and uh uh thank you for all you do for the community. Thank you, Mr. Leonard. If you'd wait just one moment in case supervisors have any questions for you. Anybody have anything? No. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Leonard. We appreciate you being here.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay, I will open the public hearing on the special use application. U Madame Clerk, do you have anyone signed up? Chris Wright. Good evening, Mr. Wright. Good evening. If each state your name and address for the record, please. Uh Christopher Wright, 1380 Blue Ben Road.

Thank you. I am one of the oldest residences um there. We built our house about 40 years ago. I actually named the road. Um that area has been known uh as an area of retirees and a lot of grandkids.

There's a lot of people walking that road on a daily basis, including my little five-year-old grandson. I am concerned about the increased traffic because I invite any of you go on that road. It's the other side of the mountain from Kentucky Fried Chicken and I think everybody knows where it is. Road's a nightmare. It is statemaintained but not very well. Um, I think each of you have a copy of the uh covenants of the subdivision that John and Linda Leler put into place. Uh, Linda was a vet in Rocky Mount for many, many years. John was a teacher up at Farm College. It's a very small subdivision, but they wanted it to be for families. They put some restrictions in. One of them on page three is singlestory dwelling should not be less than 1,600 square foot. They also put in there that it is not to be any businesses in this little subdivision. So my position is I am not a direct neighbor, but I look at the back of the property from my house. If I can look out my bedroom window and I'm looking at the back of it, I can't imagine that anybody would want to vacation there with all the other options that are out there. That's his business. But that makes me suspicious of who would go and rent it. So, what I would ask is please respect the property owners who are there now, the ones who designed this subdivision,

the people that bought into this subdivision with the restrictions and agreed to abide by them. I'm also speaking for the next door neighbor, Dr. Steve Lewis who owns property directly across and beside him. He is out of the country right now at a medical conference, but he asked if I'd speak on his behalf. So, I appreciate your consideration. Thanks for hearing me out. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us, madame clerk.

Okay, very good. Is there anyone here that would wish to speak to the special use permit application that didn't sign up? Okay, I will close the public hearing uh and we'll open up the floor to the supervisors for your uh questions, inquiries, um feedback. Mr. Meredith, yes, please. Yes, I uh the last speaker just spoke what I was going to bring up. I was looking at the confidence and restrictions that was recorded and that was something I forward to everybody hopefully. But yeah,

in this situation, it's not quite a gray area where there's two different things listed as we just witnessed. But I did want to point out on page two, you know, each watch should constitute a residential building site shall be used for residential purposes only. And then the other section I think was page four at 4.2 at the bottom talking about businesses. So, in this situation here, I know it's on the very edge of the subdivision looking at the map, but this is in my mind, you kind of know what your restrictions are as you go in. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Other questions, inquiries, thoughts?

Okay. Hearing none, um, is there a motion that someone would like to put on the floor for consideration of this application? No motion. I'll make a a motion, Madam Chair. Thank you. I find that the use will be of substantial detriment to adjacent properties, that the character of the zoning district will be changed thereby, and that such use will not be in harmony with the purpose and intent of the uses permitted by right in the zoning district, and with public health, safety, and general welfare of the community. Therefore, I move to recommend denial of the applicant's request. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Is there a second?

Second. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Um, Madame Clerk, if you would do a roll call vote to affirm. Um, yes. And so, a yes, no is to deny. A yes vote is to deny. Correct. Um, Supervisor Jameson, yes. Supervisor Mitchell, no. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Quinn, no. Supervisor Tatum, no. Chair Smith, yes. Okay. So, we have four yeses and three nos. Okay. So, it carries. The denial. Denied.

Yeah, it's denied. Okay. All right. Thank you all very much uh for your contemplation on these uh special use permits. Each one of them is always different and uh demands different levels of attention. So, thank you all for that. The next item on our agenda is public comment. Um if you'll indulge me for just a moment to read a declaration. Uh we have now reached the time set aside in our meeting for public comment. Public comment gives citizens an opportunity to address the board in person or in writing on matters appropriate to the responsibilities of the board. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes for their comments. Speakers must direct all comments to the board as a whole and not to individual board members or employees of the board or county. Personal attacks and insulting, profane, or vulgar language will not be tolerated. Likewise, commentary on issues that are not within the purview of the board and that are not a function of local government and over which we have no control or not acceptable. Public comment is not a question and answer session and board members will not answer questions during public comment. If a speaker violates these rules, the chair may rule the speaker out of order and upon second violation have the speaker removed from the podium. Madame clerk, do we have anyone? Tracy Whitaker.

Hello, Mr. Whitaker. If you'd state your name and address, please.

Tracy Whitaker, 361 Lena Lane, Rocky Mount. Madame Chair, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for your service. Uh I'm here to speak along with some colleagues uh ask you to pass phase three uh for the education and budget even uh despite of the deficit uh from the past year. Uh for 10 years my contracted steps were frozen uh or about 10 years. Uh that freeze cost me about $10,000 per year. Over the decade it's about 100,000. Uh that's income that I'll never recover. The loss is had real consequences. I've had to make hard decisions just to put food on the table to feed my boys. Uh I also couldn't invest in their education the way I wanted to. Not because I don't value education, but because the money was not there. Each year the frozen pay it narrowed my options and created permanent issues and losses. I stayed in the county when I could have gone elsewhere and earned significantly more. I chose loyalty. And that choice came at a financial cost that will follow me into retirement. What's hard to accept is the message that sends about priorities. The county seems to find money for land and farms. It invests in property. At the same time, it seems hesitant to invest in the people who live here, work here, and keep the c county government running every day. Buildings and land do not educate children. People do. Offices don't run themselves. The future of this county depends on the people who serve it, not the property it owns. You have asked for transparency. This is what a a delay in a phase three funding looks like in real life. It shows a

system that places more value on property than people. And that needs to change. I respectfully ask for you to fully fund and implement phase three even at the cost of raising taxes. I ran for board of supervisors over 20 years ago and I realized the perils of the even the look of raising taxes in Franklin County. But I uh do think it's one of the most patriotic and civic-minded things that we can do is to pay the taxes. The Bible even says give to Caesar what is Caesars's. I don't mind a few cents raised as long as it's uh entrusted to uh being overseen for its use remain uh for the uh vigilant use of every dollar and I know that uh you've already making those decisions with all the money already and I know you'll continue to do so and I hope you'll you'll pass phase three. Thank you.

Thank you sir. We appreciate you being here. Lauren Walker. Good evening. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Hi, my name is Lauren Walk and I am from 355 Rolling Hill Drive in Rocky Mount.

I am the PTO president at Boon Mill Elementary School. And over the past few years, as I've worked closely with teachers and staff, I have seen a significant increase in strain and stress within our schools over the cuts over the last years. I've heard similar concerns echoed by the other PTO leaders across our country or our county. Our local PTO's have stepped up wherever possible, but there are clear limits to what we can provide. We cannot pre replace staffing, long-term funding, or systemic support. With the school board reviewing its budget this year, cutting positions, the state's potential reductions in educational funding positions or the state's potential reductions in educational funding for the upcoming school year uh for our county and the board of supervisors making decisions that shape future school budgets. I ask you to consider a few very important questions while you come up with that budget. What kinds of schools and programs do we want available for our students? How competitive do we want to be with surrounding counties? How can our schools retain quality teachers and instructional aids when our pay and insurance offerings are not competitive? Our students success is directly tied to the future success of our county. The question before us is how we plan to invest in that future. I recognize that the school board has taken steps to address what happened this year to through increased oversight, additional audits, and more frequent budget reviews to prevent what happened this year from happening again. I am hopeful that these measures will prevent a similar situation moving forward. I also understand that tax increases are wildly unpopular. I have seen that on social media. It is a huge uproar and I know that's a lot of stress

to deal with in your positions. However, Franklin County's real estate tax is significantly lower than that of surrounding localities, and this represents one potential funding option. During the December Board of Supervisors meeting, other funding options were discussed that could help address anticipated shortfalls. Taxpayer funds should be respected and I'd argue that they are necessary to be used in supporting community programs. I respectfully ask that the board actively explore and pursue solutions to better fund our schools in the coming school year. Our teachers, staff, and students deserve the stability, support, and resources necessary to succeed. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. Tracy Clots. Who was that? I'm sorry. Tracy Clots. Tracy. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Tracy Clots. Um, I'd like to state my address privately. That's fine. Do I do it right now or do I wait after? You can do it afterwards. That's fine.

Okay. Thank you. Um, good evening, chair, members of the Franklin County Board of Supervisor and Staff. I'm here tonight as a concerned resident of Franklin County and joined by neighbors and friends who have a vested interest in the recruitment of qualified, ethical candidates to run for local office. We are paying close attention to what has come to light regarding the center of Supervisor Dan Quinn. info that has now entered the public record through a town hall, multiple media outlets, and supporting documentation. This is not about personalities or party politics. This is about process, fairness, and public trust. In November, Supervisor Quinn received notice of potential disciplinary action, citing his disclosure of close session confidential information having occurred 7 weeks prior. Why would the acting chairperson bring forth a disciplinary action seven weeks after a confidentiality infraction? What changed during those seven weeks that suddenly required punishment rather than resolution? Why did the acting chairperson choose to protect the outgoing chair while selectively prosecuting supervisor Quinn when the outgoing chairman publicly disclosed the same information in a crowded restaurant? information that included discussion of the decision to promote and hire who is now the subsequent county administrator. A disclosure that was witnessed by Ba Brad Bashim at HEA's restaurant and later posted publicly as a Facebook response to Supervisor Quinn's post regarding interviewees names only. Why was one supervisor shielded while another was censured? Furthermore, where is the evidence that the board followed its own central rules and procedures? Specifically, the requirement as clearly outlined in your rules and procedures that a separate meeting must

occur prior to any central proced proceeding to affirm confidentiality of the material in question. Did that required meeting take place? If so, where are the minutes? Where is the public record? and if it did not occur, why was the censure process allowed to move forward? The November notice of disciplinary action further cited supervisors Quinn's request for an independent review into board of supervisor misconduct allegations involving a county employee and a support of a supervisor candidate running against an incumbent board of supervisor. If this is how an elected official and colleague is treated for raising concerns requesting an independent review, then I have to wonder why anyone would step forward to serve this community. And if the allegation of misconduct against one an employer come to any of you, would you not have done the same thing Supervisor Quinn did? These are not unreasonable questions. These are questions any engaged citizen would be asking. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Hey, Miss Denton. Ma'am, could you Miss Claus, could you provide your address to the clerk, please?

I'm sorry.

No, that's okay. Thank you. Amos Amos Denton. Here we go. Amos Denton 81 Mockingbird Road. No, 550 Mockingbird. I'm sorry. I just moved Boonville, Virginia. I was at the schoolboard meeting on Monday night and listened to the proposals. Now, I understand that y'all don't oversee the school board. I understand a little bit how this works. I didn't make it through high school, but I did learn a few things, but y'all kind of do oversee them because y'all hold the power of the purse. I'd like I understand that that our school system is in bad shape right now. I mean, I think we can all agree on that. Um, from one end of the other, really not what it used to be. I mean, we used to have people move in here to teach in this county. Now, they can't wait to retire. I hope before y'all start handing over more money, y'all take a good look at what their proposals are to fix this. 15% from each school for the school supplies. the teachers are already paying out their pockets for these kids. Suspending the DSIP program, I mean, that's something that we probably should keep in there. Um, it lets retired teachers come back and work a little bit here and there. I didn't see anything in there about admin cost. Now, I'm pretty sure our school system is admin heavy. Money money's heavy on the admin side. And best I remember, y'all gave them what they asked for this past year. Y'all gave them their money, told them to spend it, and they did. A little too good, apparently. Um, before we just hand them more money out, maybe we

should figure out why they're at going through way more money than they asked for. That's really all the oversight y'all have. But I I hope that some way somehow we can hold somebody in the school board or the whether it's the school board, the school system, somebody has to be held accountable for this because you know this you give me $100 and I come back and say I spent 110. How's that possible? I mean it's pretty basic. And I wasn't going to talk about some other stuff, but I think I am now for about a minute. all the stuff on social media about censoring one of the board members. Obviously, he broke a code. I mean, he fairly admitted to it. Um, I don't care what later problems down the road have been or in the past don't matter. Break a code. I mean, it it is what it is. But then after the fact to go on social media and try to redeem yourself and blame other members of the board that don't like him as the reason he got censured. I mean man a team of mules that pull together get a whole lot straighter line in the field. Now I mean start pulling apart everybody in this county suffers from it. We can work together. You got to be willing. Thank you.

Thank you very much sir. Peggy Ephreth.

They're Peggy. Okay. Peggy Ephreth. Uh she's we the signs were a little messed up. She and three other people are in my group. I'm gonna speak on behalf of that group. Okay. So, five minutes hopefully. I have no problem with that. Okay. Good evening, sir. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

Yeah, my name is Dennis Crumpler. Um, I live at 285 Cove Road in Union Hall. Um, I'm here today to talk about a problem you and the businesses in this county and all the citizens face and it has to do with public perceptions of this government. um the uh and I represent a group of businesses in the county um who would like to actually stimulate uh dialogue or discussion just to make sure that it's clear what the stakes are that are involved. um look for ways to address it which are going to be tough and also to make sure that even the simple arithmetic of how bad it could get quickly um and I will get into some math in a minute uh it could be um we are drafting three or more white papers. I'm going to preview the first one. You're going to get a little bit of an abstract tonight, but it'll be written, shared with you, signed by several business owners and made public. Um, but the main thought on this first talk is about the relationship between economic development or business development, its linkages to public trust or dependence on public trust, and that's direct relationship to the taxes you can extract. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean it's part of your deal. Um so how capital friendly is this community and it your reputation as to um scandal or the things in the news cycle that have to do with uh Title 7 employee lawsuits um accounting school money disappearing um school closings and empty $50 million business park. I can understand how all those things may have happened, but and

I'm not here to talk about or or those cases. I'm here to say we have a public perception problem and I'm going to get into a little bit of detail about that. But all this starts with let's the basic contract that voters have with you. They need a bunch of services. They hire you or elect you to basically provision those services and they give you tremendous power to tax to to accumulate the money to do it. And they also expect you to to behave in certain way. Exercise good judgment, be trustworthy, lawful. There's a list of things that I think you all know and I've never read your oath of office, but um they they're they're in there. And the minute you get elected, you're handed this mathematical reality of, oh my gosh, we have a $200 million budget. We have uh flat population growth projected for years. And at with 2 or 3% inflation, that says on day one, year one, if you can't raise $5 million more in taxes, you're going to have to cut rates, uh, either cut services or raise tax rates. O, and there are ways over time that you can work back at inflation, but you deal with a very tough problem. Economic development or business development or attracting new revenue into this county is vital. Let me give you one of several cases we're working on to prove the point or to illustrate the point. It draws from my experience at the codes where the place that I manage and it also starts with something that Steve Sandy taught me 15 years ago which is the most attractive revenue that can be brought into account this county new revenue would come from $2 million

houses at the lake. Why? They're eight to10,000 a piece in new revenue. Um, and the multiplier effect of every one of them, that money plows straight into the local economy and it helps the businesses in the subs. The Cove right now has an additional three dozen lots. So if you ma if you if that's4 to $50 million of revenue uh that um could plow through the economy and an additional three to $400,000 against that $5 million per year recurring headache you've got to we've got to deal with. Um but the lessons I've learned from the people who have come to the coes I know what they want. I deal routinely with people who I'm trying to help us solve our tax problem by bringing new buildings to the community, new houses. I won't review what they want. I can tell you what they don't want. They don't like the the reputation of the schools. They do not like um the fact that crime I actually have a crime experience that that law enforcement has been working with me for years, but it's real. It has stopped sales. But I'll tell you the thing that actually stops sales dead in their tracks is a public reput a reputation of local government that has any hints. I'm done. You'll read about it unless you want to hear the rest. That's it.

Thank you very much.

Barbara Bour, Miss Bour, nice to see you again. Yeah, good evening. How's it going? I'm doing well. for you to state your name and address for the record, please.

My name is Barbara Bour and I live at 133 Leisure Lane in Union Hall. Um, in my career, I spent a 37year career in public service with cooperative extension in both North Carolina and Virginia. And in those 37 years, I ran search processes, HR processes, hiring processes for county at the county level because I was the county director. I ran a at the district level because I and that gave oversight to several county positions as at the state level. I have oversaw county positions throughout the state as well as hiring of state positions uh for the state level uh responsibilities and of course in doing so I gave opportunity of course I chaired search committees but in doing so I gave the broader system who I was hiring for an opportunity to hear the candidates once we had screened them and even so I plan community forums or system forums for candidates to come forward would interface with the system. The system have opportunity to hear their qualifications, present their visions, and of course provide input to the search committee, and the search committee use that input in the decision-making process with their own examination of the candidates. A few weeks ago, I was uh in a community meeting in Union Hall, and it was brought to our attention that there had been some concern expressed about uh revealing the candidates for the county administrator position and that those candidates has already been determined. In my opinion, a county administrator is going to represent my interests. They're going to coach you on decisions. They're going to coach you on guidelines and policies. And therefore, I like to know the background of the kind of people that you're going to be considering. And I'd like to have the opportunity to give

you input on a candidate that you're considering. And so my concern is that there was uh when candidates were those candidates were revealed, there was adverse reaction to revealing those. And so all I want to say is please consider your HR practices and how you're doing business. And when you do do business for a position that I'm going to be affected by as a taxpayer, please give me the opportunity to have input. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara.

Okay. Is there anyone here that would like to speak to the board that hasn't signed up? Yes, sir. If you'd state your name and address, please. My name is Bati Ananda. My address is 3249 Foothills Road, Callaway. ready for me? Yes, certainly.

Hello, my name is Bati Ananda. I'm an art teacher in this county at Rocky Mount Elementary School and I am on the outreach committee for our educators union FCEA. As of now, Franklin County is ranked number 31 in education out of 93 counties in Virginia. This is an impressive feat, especially in a state with some of the wealthiest counties in the US. I want to take a moment to celebrate our board of supervisors and school board for this accomplishment. As we continue to work together, my hope is that we can continue to incentivize our educators to stay in this county. I have spoken to dozens of educators in this county who have dedicated their entire career to this special community because they feel the specialness here. Many of them have worked for upwards of 20 years here and yet are not getting paid on the pay that is necessary. I urge you to consider this circumstance and provide the additional funding of 3.6 million to the school board which is necessary to fund phase three of the compensation study in order to honor our wonderful educators. If we do not, I am concerned that they will continue to leave for other better paying counties. If we continue to work, if we choose to work together and be part of a solution, we can propel our county's educational ranking into the teens, which we could use as a base camp as we ascend to number one, thus attracting more businesses, families, and educators to our area. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us. There anyone else that would like to speak? Yes. Yes. Hand in the back here. Yes, sir. Please, if you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

My name is Joe Yarra. I live uh in 305 Haley Scott Drive in Union Hall and I attended the um the town hall meeting with Dan Quinn in the community and I'm here to discuss the censor that was placed on him. Um I've got 20 seven years plus experience in the fire service. y'all did if it's all uh correct and according to what I've been told. I've been told three four three of you other than Dan was in favor. But when it came down to actual vote, three of them didn't have the guts to stand up to support him. If the person that this happened to, the firefighter that this happened to or EMS person that this happened to was your son or one of y'all's relatives, the ones that enforce this censorship, I guarantee you it wouldn't have happened. I guarantee it. We don't want this county to turn into a US Congress. And that's the way y'all are acting based on what I've been told. The county is I went through, like I say, the fire service for a long time now. I went through a career of transitioning from from volunteers to career. It's a difficult thing, but it can work. You have a hard enough time getting volunteers. And for those that don't know, a volunteer firefighter has the same exact same qualifications as a career firefighter. There's no difference other than the fact a career firefighter goes to an academy for 12,

14, 15 weeks and he's a firefighter one and two. A volunteer goes to the same course, but it might take him 12 months because he goes on weekends and at nights, but he has the same credentials and certification as a career firefighter. and you're having a hard enough time because the way society is now day nowadays on cost of living, people don't volunteer like they used to and you don't and you want to run away your career. Guys, you better think about this. Have y'all dealt with this because what was done was not right. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other Yes, sir. Please come forward.

Hey, good evening. Addison Hancock, uh, 6100 True Vine Road in Glade Hill. And, uh, I I'll just say publicly, you know, Nick, I really appreciate what you've done as representative for Snow Creek District. You've, uh, we've seen we've seen the good that's come out of that. And, but I wanted to come up and just speak about the public school situation. And um you know it's a it's a tough situation where we have shrinking enrollment and uh a change in the state support of our funding system and increasing uh overhead costs. And so you're getting pinched on both sides.

Uh and so there's not really a a happy solution. But then I then I look and I see that next to like Arlington and Fairfax, Virginia, Franklin County has some of the most expensive real estate in Virginia. Uh and and it's because we have Smith Mountain Lake and we are we're blessed. We are blessed to have Smith Mountain Lake. So I I see that and then I I see that we have our school system has has crumbling infrastructure and our and our teachers are some of the lowest paid uh certainly compared to our adjacent counties. And so it just doesn't seem it doesn't seem right that we would we would be so blessed to have uh Smith Mountain Lake right here uh uh a haven for people in Northern Virginia and Richmond and and around the country. But we don't have uh we don't have the means to support our teachers and to provide the school infrastructure that that our kids deserve. We we really need to stand up for the next generation of kids. And so I I would propose uh uh one of two very unpopular suggestions which some have already been pitched is is increasing property taxes. You know, we pay a half to a third in property tax than other other counties or a more targeted uh increase in transient occupancy tax with that increase being dedicated to uh to the public school system. I I know some of that has to be turned back into the tourism industry, but some of it is at your discretion of how you want to spend it. So, I would I would propose an increase to the transient occupancy tax that would would not impact residents but impact those coming to enjoy the thing that we're blessed to have that is Smith Mountain Lake. Or option the option would be proposing uh new debt for the county. And I know debt is a scary word, but I think done responsibly uh with a a a responsible outlook. uh issuing debt for the county doesn't place the burden on residents today but spreads out the burden of our financial

needs across uh 10 to 20 years uh of residents. Uh so between new debt and targeted transient occupancy tax for the public school system. Thank you guys again for your time. Thank you very much.

Anyone else would like to speak this evening? We're happy to hear from you. Did I see a hand? Okay. All right. Well, thank you all so much for spending your evening with us. Uh, which it's what it's amounted to be. We appreciate you being here. Uh, we take very seriously your feedback. It's very important. Uh, we work for the people. We know that. We take it very seriously. Um, so we thank you for being here. We'll move on quickly to other matters by supervisors. Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Quinn, did you have No, I'll start if you want. Oh, sure. Absolutely. Please. So, I I actually have three topics tonight and I'll try to go fast. I know it's late. That's fine.

But at our September meeting, we turned down a solar farm project on a 6 to1 vote. I requested we draft new evaluation criteria for staff or enact a moratorium on solar farms. Mike Carter recommended that we wait until January when the new board was seated, which we did. And since then, we've turned down another solar farm project on a 5 to1 vote. Denying these solar projects causes big problems for us. The county staff spends hundreds of hours over multiple years on these projects, which is a huge waste of their time and taxpayer dollars. Denying these projects that conform to plans and exceed requirements without any rationale from supervisors is demotivating and debilitating to county staff. Your best and brightest employees like Best Sims and Stephanie Mathenina will leave this toxic environment. Lastly, businesses considering Franklin County and seeing a project where the business owner has exceeded all requirements will be alarmed at a board that is arbitrary and capriccious with no logical rationale offered. This behavior on our part creates uncertainty which is business's biggest enemy. Therefore, I would like to make a motion. I move that the Franklin County Board of Supervisors adopt a 5-year moratorum on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for new utility scale solar energy facilities within Franklin County, Virginia, effective immediately upon adoption of this motion.

Okay. So, you've submitted that motion in a formal sense, Mr. Quinn. Correct? Is there a second to that motion? Mr. Gwen, Mr. It's not on the agenda, Madam Chair. Therefore, it would be out of order.

Thank you. Thank you. So, u Mr. Gwen, under that circumstance, I would uh request that you withdraw the motion. Uh maybe you could um um continue with, you know, getting this on a future agenda uh for discussion. Um I would personally advise that um that that is a big topic as we all know. Um, and I think that in order for the entire board to appine on that, um, I think that there's going to have to be some homework done, uh, by individual supervisors with guidance from a staff report perhaps. Um, I'm guessing at that. I'm not sure that this board would be prepared just to make a, you know, a motion on the table and get the thing passed. I might be wrong about that. Um, but that would be my recommendation at this point. So, if I'm required to withdraw the motion, I'll withdraw the motion.

Is that a requirement, Mr. I don't think y'all can act on it. No, I mean, you can put it in the record and let it die. Okay. So, let it die by taking it to a vote. No. No, you can't vote on it. It's not on the agenda. Yeah. Okay. Not a matter like that. So, shall we enter his motion into the formal record? I think he's made it and I think at this point I've recommended that it's out of order and you rule it out of order. Okay, Amy, is that clear? Okay.

Okay. The second topic, I'd like to bring two lines of thought together for proposed action. Lori and I met with Chris Whit about a year ago. We discussed economic development and I praise the county for doing a good job on reactive business development. For example, when a new business requests information about Franklin County, we are very good at quickly and efficiently providing that information. At the same meeting, I made a plea for the county to start proactive business development and cited many examples where it was not happening. After another year, I realized it is up to the board of supervisors to develop an economic development strategy with clear and measurable objectives for the county administrator. Without that effort, we will continue to operate solely in a reactive mode. The second line of thought is regarding our past off-site summit and the future summit under consideration. I would character characterize the last off-site summit we held as a kumbaya. We felt good that we generated activity. However, there was not one meaningful result, objective, or call to action from this meeting. Now, bringing these two lines of thought together, I propose that we do a future off-site summit with an objective to create and adopt an economic development strategy with actionable objectives. And so, I don't need further comment on that or voter. It's just a comment. So, then the last topic I need to go up here for,

please go up where you going to the podium.

Oh. Oh. Oh, perfect. Thank you, Amy. So, like most of you, I was able to go to the Patrick and Henry Met. This is about six months ago, and I was just blown away by their offering. So both the sophistication of their curriculum which included AI m manufacturing automation as well as the teaching techniques that they had for example you first had to become an expert at virtual welding before you became an expert at stick welding before you worked with robotic welding. In talking to Dr. um to Greg at the end, I asked him how they came up with the curriculum and he said that they interviewed every business within 50 miles of the school and the curriculum became a basis of what the businesses needed in that area. And for me, the light bulb just went off, but it took some time to think about it. After we went to the Met, we went to our own um building where we'll be doing this, the Modicraft site, and they handed us the sheet that you see here, which was so disappointing after being to the Met. And I'm thinking, wow, is this the best we could do? So the objectives of this and I'll try to keep it really fast but it's the potential for regional business collaboration which ranges from light which is our current CTE to heavy which is how I characterize the Patrick and Henry Met. It's a key decision that we're going to have to make. There's a huge benefit for Franklin County to utilize regional business development and and the regional businesses. I want to make a a distinction here. It's not just Franklin County, it's the region. I think that's really important that we look beyond Franklin County. We have an opportunity to leverage our

regional partners like the Met and manage the area CTE as a complimentary educational ecosystem. These decisions must be made before we initiate an RFP for engineering and architectural services. And there's really an opportunity here to optimize our relationships with Franklin County Public Schools, Franklin County Economic Development, regional partners, and regional businesses. So this one. So the choice we have with our new school, do we want it to be evolutionary or revolutionary? And if I look at how course demand is today, we have state standards, we have student demands, parent and counselor like guidance counselor demands together. They make up the whole set of course demands which you see in the green. If I overlay that with the orange, it's Franklin County Public School course capabilities. This is what the school can offer. So, just to give you an example, if a student wants training on a 747, the school can't do that. Where it becomes really interesting is when you layer in Franklin County and regional business course demand, which is in the blue, and you look at what the traditional CT course offering would be if you ignored the businesses, it would simply be the subset of the student demand in the green and the Franklin County Public School course capabilities in the orange. This is the end of this slide, but it's has such a a profound change in how we look at the school. Over on the left, let me see. Right here, these are courses that students want, but businesses don't need. And I I don't want to insult anybody here that came out of college with a history major, but I had friends coming out with a history major and then they wondered, "Wow, I I can't get a job." Well, it's because

there aren't a lot of jobs for history majors. And Was that you? What was that? But I found this thing called law school.

And then over here on the right are courses businesses want, but the students don't know about. The students don't know what they don't know. And so the the the shift here is so profound. Do we want to be teaching the courses over on the left that are just coming from the student demand and are provided by the Franklin County Public um schools or do we want to consider the regional business course demands that you have on the right? The other thing I did and I wanted to show you this was a little and and so one thing I would say about this is none of this work is finished. I see this all as a straw man for us to work on.

If I double I identified all the CT functions down the left hand side that need to be done to run the new CT. And over to the right in the darker green, I identified those groups that will be responsible. And I just wanted to show you on this Excel spreadsheet that I have detail for each one of these major areas. So number one, student focused services is one of eight major areas and then the detail below that. So now I can go back to the other one. Can you open the Perfect. So now I collapsed it so you don't see the detail, but you see the eight major functional areas that need to be provided. And then off to the right you'll see Franklin County Public Schools. And I've identified whether they have primary responsibility, shared responsibility, or or it could be both. And then further off to the right, Franklin County Economic Development. And again, whether it's shared responsibility or primary responsibility. And you'll see some of these, you know, if you thought about just giving this school to Franklin County Public Schools, well, everything here would be a primary for the public schools. And the case I'm making is that our economic development group needs to play a huge role in managing the school. Further over to the right, we have the community colleges where they can be both consultants and partners and then businesses that can be partners. And then the last slide really highlights some of the choices that we have to make. Again, going back to this theme of do you want a school that's evolutionary or revolutionary? And I would see this not as black and white that you're either one or the other. How look at it as a continuum

where evolutionaries over on the right and revolutionary or evolutionaries on the left and revolutionaries on the right and you're looking at how far towards the revolutionary side you want to be. But just to illustrate the differences, if you look at how am I going to manage this facility? Well, if you're evolutionary, you just turn it over to Franklin County Public Schools and you're done. If you want to be revolutionary, it'll be a hybrid managed by Franklin County Public Schools, the county economic development group, and even potentially area community colleges. The regional business participation influence, well, evolutionary, it's going to be light and revolutionary, it'll be heavy. The regional educational partnerships, again, if it's evolutionary, it's light. If it's revolutionary, it's heavy. And then the curriculum will really change it. If it's evolutionary, it's going to be simply focused on student demands and the Franklin County public school system capabilities. If it's revolutionary, you'll consider the student demands, but you're going to prioritize current and future regional business needs. And then the business incubator facilities, really, if you're evolutionary, it's none. If it's revolutionary, you'll have a full offering. And just in closing, I believe we want to heavily involve these regional businesses in our regional partners in the school. So, thank you for giving me a little bit of time.

Thank you, Mr. Quinn.

Um, for Mr. Quinn, um, you've probably heard me say this. Um, we're going to my my uh intention is that our board have a joint meeting with the school board potentially late February after we get through some of the other matters um with a CTE focused uh work session where we begin to lay out um how we're coming out of the gate, if you will, um now that we've passed all of the zoning hurdles and so forth. Um, and what I would tell you, um, because you and I talked about your ven diagram a year ago probably, um, and I think that a lot of what you have in to be revolutionary has been part of the conversation since day one.

Um, status quo, I don't believe this board will have buying. I'm sorry, Mr. Tatum. I just before you, uh, finish, I just want to let you know if possible if I could go next. So, I need to get back to work. Of course. Of course. So anyway, we're going to get into all of that, Mr. Quinn. Um, and uh, thank you for your feedback, Mr. Tatum.

Okay. Thank you. That's quite all right. Uh, just one thing, I've been on this board for 10 years. And, uh, every year, uh, we hear from our teachers. And I'm going to tell you straight up, Tracy, you're darn right you're underpaid. My daughter-in-law teaches in a county neighboring here and she started out making considerable more considerable more than that same position would be here. My question is Franklin County pays more per capita per student than any other locality around with the exception of Reno City.

Why are our teachers amongst the lowest? What's happening with that money? Can somebody ask answer that question? I we we toss that around. You know, like I said, I've been here 10 years on this board and it's it hasn't changed. We are spending more money per child than everybody but Reno City. But yet, our teachers are way down their list when it comes to pay. I mean, my daughter-in-law, she teaches in Henry County. and and the same position in Franklin County and she teaches uh high school a she started down there making $8,000 more a year than what the position paid up here because reason I know she interviewed for both of them.

You know why? How is it that Henry County can pay their teachers so much more but yet the county level is spending less money than what we are? What's happening with the money? I know we we saw some issues tonight uh with with our auditors, some numbers with the with the the school's budget and everything. Tracy, I hope like heck we can help y'all, but I tell you with with everything that's going on is not looking good. uh you know it's it's really you know I sat and listened to the auditors today and I listened to you know the pro projections of you know financial projections and and Franklin County is not in bad shape. We're we're we're we have we've got a strong uh financial situation as a whole but man we've got to do something about with with the schools budget with something as far as accountability once it leaves our controls. We have no say in how it's spent. We've got to relook at that. We We discussed some of that today. That's going to come up. We We're going to we're going to work on some solutions. Uh I think it just it took the last couple uh weeks with with these issues, auditing issues to bring it to a head. And we it's time we sit down, roll up our sleeves, do the hard job, and fix some of these issues that's been going and going. Again, my question is, we're out. We're spending more money than anybody around us, but yet we're not paying our teachers what these other places are paying. I mean, uh, Patrick Patrick County and Floyd County, the only two counties around here that are below what we're paying. I mean, it just it don't add up.

But thank you, Madam Chair. Of course, if anybody knows how to answer that question, let me know. That'll be the million-dollar question. Absolutely. That might we'll write a book and we might be able to sell it and pay some of these shortfalls we got coming up. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. I appreciate it. Okay, Mr. Meredith.

Yes, Madam Chair. I just got uh three things real quick. Number one, um I would ask the board, Madam Chair and staff, uh maybe hoping maybe next, uh board meeting in February, uh if we could do a time slot for the town of Boone Mill. I've been working with them. Uh they've got some great things going on. They actually just did a study with the old Continental Homes property. They actually have a drawing of some housing, how they could develop it. The town actually owns that. I know uh in up around West Lake we're looking at affordable h workforce housing. Correct.

And with us promoting the summit uh Summit View Business Park if we right now I think they capacity of 60 to 70 homes there and I would just like them to present that to us just some of the things going on right there especially with uh budget season coming up and you know partnership and they're able to get some grants theirelves that might help you know offset. So that's number one. I'd like to see if we could get them a time slot on agenda. Sure. And I'll let them know to be prepared. Kind of gave him a heads up. Sure. I was going to see. So, absolutely.

Um, number two, um, Steve Sandy, he followed up on about the EMS fire advisory committee. Thank you so much for getting that to me. Um, I would like for the board or and staff to consider, you know, looking into us a little deeper. I'd like to see why it was recommended in the past. uh why why not maybe look at starting advisory board or something to help out. It is our biggest part of the budget as we mentioned earlier.

Uh it is one of the biggest needs in our community. Uh so I think we got advisory boards you know for library and aging and and our citizens. I think that would be something to look further in. So I would ask to see if I could be followed up. And my last thing and I'll make this quick and please be patient with me on this. I am 100% in favor of a stock tanker truck for Boon Mill fire department. I will say starting off I would like for us to still think about the sale of the tower and I'm going explain why that tower still has 20 years of life on it. It is paid for. We have a comp plan of 2045 of hopefully having the Summit View Business Park full. We Mr. Whit was talking about how tall them walls are around the outside. I think that would be a great asset to our county to have that close by. I think it might be a great selling point for business knowing that we have two ladder trucks within 10 minutes counting Rocky Mounts and not knowing this is a $2 million apparatus. So I think I would like for the board to consider, you know, just thinking about that a little more. Um I know the comment and already here it's like where are we going to find that? But if we go 5 years down the road and we say, "Hey, we really need a second one around here," we're probably looking at 2.5 million. So if we only get 700,000 out of that, I'm just no numbers or anything. I think we're doing our taxpayers a disservice. So I just and I know that's being passed. I know it's being motioned. Um and I may just be speaking to the wall, but I think it's something we ought to consider like if we're really going to be proactive and look to the future. I just hate to see something go pennies

on a dollar that's got 20 years of life and it's paid for and the only thing is cost is maintenance. So like I said I do support the stock tanker no problem with that because I know what happened and all that but I also think we need to look at our business park and what is the services and benefits of a business being located there. That's why I talked to V dot about trucks coming in and out it. You know these are the little things we need to look at. So, I just would like those three items to be considered as we move forward and I don't know if anybody else has any comments on it. Thank you.

Sure. Sure. Thank you for um giving those um to us for consideration u Mr. Meredith. Um you know the board we we decided last year to look towards Mr. Sandy and and the chief um to deliberate um any public fire and EMS matters um and and then if something rose to the point that it needed to come back to the board of supervisors for action if it rose to that you know level of decision-m then we would leave it to staff to bring that to us. Um and I think that's really unless this board tells me otherwise um that's kind of how we're doing business now. you've put some very constructive um thoughts on the table. They're not going to be ignored. Please don't think that. Um I think that as long as any supervisor has concerns that are ongoing, um we need to continue talking about them and we need to continue making sure that staff um and the board are having good communication about the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and all of that, pros and cons of these matters. So, I do commit that to you, sir, and I hope that that's satisfactory to you.

I I I appreciate the opportunity to express and like I said, I just those are some facts that I think at the end of the day, we always need to look at our citizens first and our community first and how we're going to grow as county. And that's the reason I wanted to present it that way. I do understand it was passed in December. Um, and I'm I'm will just leave it at that, but thank you for uh listening. Oh, of We appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us, Mr. Mitchell. Other matters. Well, we've had a whole lot of um good conversation this evening, a whole lot of talk of how to spend money.

Um to the note of when you add up the schools, you've got 1.4 million in the in the deficit, you've got um possible 2.3 million that we're losing due to the LCI, which is 3.7. And then when you look at the um step three of the uh teacher comp and I don't have I'm not giving my opinion one way the other but you're looking at almost $7 million which is seven cents on the real estate tax. So we can have talks all the what Steve you just started looking at me when you said but we can have these talks all live long he's going to be the new boss right but you know the coming months is going to be the hard talks about how we pay for it and we can talk about fire trucks and we can talk about everything but there's some hard conversations coming

they're diverse I mean we're a large county with a lot of need there's some hard talks coming and I'm not I'm not I'm not leaning one way or the other as to what we should do but uh I can future future conversations are going to be how to come up with this money and not talking about how we ought to be spending it. Well, and uh other than that, if you got livestock, get them fed up because it's going to snow this weekend. Mr. Carter,

I don't know what to say after all that. Um I'll start on a positive note. If you all haven't been out in Summit View Business Park, drive up in there past the silos and take a look at the new traditional medicinals building that's going up. it it's pretty fantastic and I think it's an economic driver that's going to be in the neighborhood of $52 million. Um, you can say all the negative things you want to about Summit View and and I was one of the very ones that thought it was a bad investment. I thought they spent too much money on it. But I've sort of shifted gears and it took Bodat County 30 years for theirs to start developing. We've had this for eight years and we've got three businesses in there and hopefully more coming in the future. Uh but but drive out in there and look at that building. The other thing I'd like to mention uh a real citizen of Franklin County passed away a couple weeks ago. Uh she was a leader. She did a lot for Smith Mountain Lake. Uh Miss Dee Bondrant. So uh but you all please remember her family in your thoughts and prayers. And I think one of her greatest achievements, she formed this group called the she dues and it was a group of women that rode around the lake on sea. Pretty interesting.

Yeah, they had their little That's all I have. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Jameson, got a couple things. Yes, sir. I would like for the board to consider reaffirming the December 2019 resolution declaring Franklin County as a second amendment sanctuary county. and if possible maybe put it on next month's agenda if we possibly could.

Um, tying on to to Dan's presentation. He's talking about what's happening with the CT. He has some good ideas, I think, on how it's going to go forward once it's built. I think board needs to look at how we're going to construct this thing. We got some options here now ahead of time and I think they need to be discussed and uh set some time apart for it. I'm I don't know where we stand and school stands as far as the engineering going so far this way, but I'd like to understand it and get a feeling for it. Uh there are some possible opportunities to save some money and how we construct it. And I don't know if we turn all this money over to the school. If we are, shame on us. um after the problems we've run into today, we need to be involved in any construction of this thing and have some oversight in it. I know the school board, I think, has appointed two members to the design team maybe or something. I'm not sure how they they uh named them, but uh that's something at the very very least we need to do and I think it's there's some options there for us and we need to look at them.

Well, if I can maybe partially respond to that, Marshall.

Sure. Um, as I said, um, it un it's my, um, I'm going to be very deliberate about making sure that we have a joint meeting with the school board on CTE and not clutter that agenda up with other stuff because I said last year once we get past the resoning and all of that that business we had to go through, it's time to start pulling the trigger. And but before we pull the trigger, we've got to have a meeting where we talk about expectations. We've got to have a meeting where we talk about um what the school board what their expectations are and more specifically what the board of supervisors expectations are. Um that's got to be first and foremost on the table in my humble opinion. Um, and then when it gets to who's making decisions for what, that that discussion in my estimation needs to be very detailed and articulated and no room left for ambiguity. Um, this is a very important project and we've got to get it right and um, I think Mr. Quinn would attest to the fact I think we all agree that this project um needs to be top of, you know, it needs to be a a first class uh operation. and it needs to address. We've talked a lot about regional business needs, uh, Franklin County business needs, apprenticeships, working with businesses where maybe they would bring a student in as an example, um, to train on their equipment in our CTE facility and have a guaranteed job on the flip side. So, there's a lot of creativity that's been injected into this conversation. But from, you know, from my perspective, we've got to have that that very intentional discussion with the school board about what is this, who's doing what, and who's responsible for what. And I would encourage my colleagues here to be

thinking about that. I'm thinking we'll probably be able to have that meeting, I'm hoping, in late February. Um, but I'm going to be thinking about how we're going to structure that conversation and I'm certainly open to any of your feedback on that. Um, you know, I think if you think about this when this the inception of this for instance 6 years when I got elected, it was this is a schoolboard project. You know, the board of supervisors shouldn't be dictating a schoolboard project. It's our responsibility to fund it. Well, I think we've come full circle away from that. And so for that very reason, I do not see and I do not sense feedback that I've received from from you guys that um we're going to turn this project over and walk away. I don't see that happening at all. And so we've got to determine how we're going to proceed and under what conditions. Um and and Mr. Jamson, I hope that that gives you some confidence in what you've expressed.

It does. We do. We need to have a com conversation among the board. Like I said, do we need to look at options how this thing can be built? I know there's there's some uh schools, some counties have built schools where they turned it the actually the board of supervisors turned it over to the uh IDA. They built the county built the school here. It is yours. Yeah. And that's going to be another category of conversation, you know, about you know the A&E piece. Where are we? I know the schools have been doing some A&E already. You know, where are we with A&E? Um and then to talk about um pulling the trigger on things like PPE um you know, uh bill.

Yeah. Yeah. Standard bid, you know, design bid. It it's we we have nothing in it. Just like D there's a school, there's a money take and go. I don't want to see another windy gap bill. Well, it's a beautiful school, but it's it's a lot of waste as far as money goes that could have been gone to the education part of it. The way I see it, I mean, right now, if we county decides to get rid of it, hang a U Cabela sign out front. You got all the rock. I mean, it's a beautiful building, but it's a lot of waste and a lot of cost, extra cost in operation that's not needed.

Right. Well, I think that we will have a very robust conversation, which I look forward to. Uh we've got to get through this meeting Thursday night. Um we've got some things to work through to get to that conversation, but that conversation in my estimation has to be as soon as we can possibly get it scheduled. Um there's too much floating around in the community unknowns. Um and as I said, uh Mr. Quinn and I talked about this his uh his presentation tonight a year ago perhaps. um we've been on the same page since day one uh about about this project. Dan, would you agree with that? Yeah, I think it was back in September.

Was it was it wasn't a year. So, um anyway, I think we agree on a lot. I think we've just got to get some process uh put into place. I think uh Marshall, to your point, um we probably as a board need to kind of talk about, you know, uh how we want to approach that meeting. and the school board. I would encourage them to do the same thing so that when we come together we have an informed discussion. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody have anything else? Okay. Very good. Well, um given that uh we will adjourn our meeting. We will recess until Thursday, January 22nd with the joint school board meeting. Um, and that will be held in the East Auditorium at 6:00 p.m. at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School. Thank you all for for being with us this evening.