Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

forum. I'll call the meeting to order. It's the January 12th, 2026 meeting of the board of supervisors, and I'm going to be presiding over the beginning of the meeting until we elect a chair. The first item of business is to go into close meeting. Be it resolved, the McGomery County Board of Supervisors of McGomery County, Virginia, hereby enters into closed meeting for the purpose of discussing the following. Section 2.2-3711. Discussion, consideration, or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation of specific officers, appointees, or employees of any public body. Number one, Parks and Recreation Commission. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Second. Second. Roll call. Vicki. Mr. Kits. I. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Friikowski. I. Mr. Graphsky. I. Miss Karan. Hi. Mr. Mottz. I. Six eyes's. We are in closed meeting.

Motion to come out of close meeting. So moved. Second. Roll call. Vicki. Just second please. Sorry. Mr. King. I Mr. Fishikowski. I Mr. Gravski. Hi. Miss Kuran. Hi Mr. Kits. Hi Mr. I six eyes.

We now need to certify the closed meeting. Whereas the board of super the board of supervisors of McGomery County has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas section 2.2-3711 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by the board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Supervisors of McGomery County, Virginia, hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Second. Second. Roll call, please. Vicki. Mr. Fishikowski. I. Mr. Gravski. Hi. Miss Karan. Hi. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Mottz. I. Six eyes's.

If you'll all please rise as you're able with me uh for a moment of silence and then I will join us lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Let us pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Before we get started with the rest of our meeting, I'd like to uh mention that Supervisor Biggs is under the weather this evening and was not able to join us, but I believe she is watching. And uh the next item of business that we have is to elect a chair for 2026. So, uh I'll take nominations for chair and they do not need a second. I would like to nominate uh Supervisor April Deont to be the chair again.

I move that we close nominations. Is there a second to close nominations? Second. All right. Roll call, please. Vicki. Miss Karan. I. Mr. Gravy. I. Mr. Fishikowski. I. Mr. King. I. Mr. Kits. I. Mr. Deontz. I. Six eyes's. Thank you all very much. Congratulations. Thanks. Would you like for me to Sorry, that was to close the nominations. Oh, now we have to vote. Is there a motion to uh remind? Is there a motion to elect Supervisor Devont as chair of the board of supervisors for 2026? So move. Second.

Second. Now we'll have another roll call and then I'll congratulate you again, Mr. Mr. Gravski I Miss Karan I Mr. Kits I Mr. King I Mr. Friikowski I Mr. slots I six I's okay now congratulations and thank you okay so would you like for me to take over from here yes thank you

perfect um the next order of business this evening and apologies we only do this once a year so sorry for bungling that a little bit we'll do it better this time so um the next item of business is election of vice chair are there any nominations for our vice chair for 2026 I like nominate uh board member Steve for vice chair. Okay. Supervisor Fijicowski. I move that we close nominations. Okay. Um I'll second. All right. Perfect. So we will take a vote on closing nominations. Madame clerk. Mr. Kits. I. Mr. King.

I. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Mr. Davski. I. Miss Kron. I chair deonts. I six eyes. And now let's take a vote on um Steve Fijicowski for vice chair for 2026. Is there a motion? Motion. Second. All right. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please.

Mr. Grassi. I. Miss Karan. I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Fijicowski. I chairs. I six eyes. Okay. Next, um, continuing in some organizational matters, the next item is a resolution, uh, that concerns the selection of board of supervisors meeting dates for 2026. Is there a motion? So, second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Kuran, I. Mr. Kits, I. Mr. King. I Mr. Fijicowski I Mr. Gravski I Chair Deontz I

six eyes. Thank you. The next item is the rules of order and parliamentary procedure. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Is there any discussion? Madame clerk if you'll call the role please. Mr. Kits I. Mr. King. I. Mr. Fishowski. I. Mr. Gravki. I. Miss. Karan. I. Chair Deontz. I six eyes. Okay. And next is our code of ethics and standards of conduct. Is there a motion? Motion. Second.

Okay. Is there any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King. I. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Mr. Graphsky. Hi. Miss Karan. I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Chair Deontz. I six eyes. And then the final organizational matter is our 2026 calendar year policy for remote participation. Is there a motion? So move. Second. Is there any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Mr. Ksky. I. Miss. Karan. Hi. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. Keane. Hi. Chair Demottz. I.

Six eyes. Okay. And now we have um a presentation this evening. This is our annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2025 and it will be presented by John Aldridge with Brown Edwards and Company. This welcome sorry this evening. Welcome John. Uh we don't have the final reports printed yet and John's going to explain why that is in a few minutes but instead we have it p pulled up on the screen for you. So, as John goes through, he can go to the page he's referencing and you can follow along like that. And we will have the reports printed for you when they are prepared.

All right. Well, again, thank you all for having me tonight. And uh as Miss Hill said, uh the audit is finished except for one piece and um the part that's not finished relates to the federal uh award testing. What happened this year is the federal government, as you probably are aware, went on a shutdown for a little while. And before they shut down, they never got around to issuing the compliance supplement. So ma basically what that is, that's the guide we have to audit by. So as a result, we can't really finish the audit until the guide comes out. Well, the guide came out about the first week of December. So as a result, we went ahead and finished the audit. Everything but the federal expenditures. Uh everything was submitted to the state, which is fine because the state doesn't have to have that to meet their deadline. So, what we will do is come back in the next week or so since that guidance is out, finish the federal testing, and then at one time just print one report. So, it'll make it easy for you all. And again, that's pretty much any government in the uh throughout the United States is in the same uh spot you all are in uh that we're having to issue that federal piece separately. But with that being said, um we'll keep this pretty informal as we always do and y'all just ask me questions. Um you know, kind of I want to take this time to let you know each year you have to have an audit. Okay, that's required. It has to be filed with the state by December 15th. And as I mentioned, y'all took care of that. December 10th was when we signed off on everything. Included in this audit is not just the county but also the school board, the economic development authority and the public service authority. So four entities are rolled into this particular audit that you will have. And if you took the actual audit report and I'm going to you have to apologize for me scrolling here, but if you went to the part where it's got Brown Edwards at the top and it says

independent auditors report, you would want to focus on that second paragraph where it says in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects. So you all got an unmodified or a clean opinion on the financial report. That's as good as it gets. So, you had a clean opinion this year. And then as if you worked your way into the audit once you get a bound copy, there's this section here called management's discussion and analysis that is written by your staff. It really explains what happened this year uh to the finances of the county. They did a phenomenal job writing this. Uh this is a required component and they they uh they just really explain the the variances variances from budget, variances from actual. So, the goal is y'all should be able to read those 10 pages or so and get a real flavor for what happened this year at the county financially. And then you work your way down a little bit further in the report and you start finding yourself into the actual financial statements. And I always like to point this out to people. If you look at the financial, the statement of net position, we have the governmental activities column and that would be basically just the county, everything the county does. Then you've got a column for the P public service authority, a column for the school board, and a column for the EDA. And what I'd like to show you all is notice here something that's unique, and I always point this out to you all down here in long-term liabilities, $183 million. That's the debt that's outstanding for the county. And the thing that's unique is, if you recall, school systems in the state of Virginia cannot issue debt. So, as a result, when it's time to build a new Christiansburg High School or or any type school debt, that debt shows up on the county's books, not the school board's books. So, if you're ever looking at this and you're like, "Wait a second, why didn't the school board have debt? That's why

they can't." The other side of the equation is this. The actual building itself sits on the county's books. So, since you've got the debt, you have the building on your books. So, always like to point that out. The other thing that's a big number on this page that oftentimes I think people need to know, notice the pension liability. This changed probably about eight or 10 years ago that you actually have to put this on the report now. The county's pension liability is $13.6 million. Compare that to the school's pension is $64 million. Okay? It's not that you're doing anything wrong. It's not that that liability is too high or too low. you participate in VRS and Virginia Retirement System and they basically tell you how to fund that. So each year they'll tell you what your contribution needs to be. You're funding it as you go. So again, the other the option is okay, we just scr up $64 million and make it go away. As the auditor, I'd tell you it's probably not good business. I wouldn't do that. I would definitely pay as you go. Uh it's what everybody else is doing. So pay as you go. The VRS does a great job managing that for you all. Then in the report, just a few more things I'd like to point out to you. Within the actual county itself of Montgomery, you have two funds. You've got the general fund that pays for most of the operations would be public safety and whatnot. And then you've got a separate fund that's tracking the capital that comes through here, the capital uh expenditures. And you can see at the end of June, the actual county, you had $67 million of cash sitting in the general fund. Over in the capital improvements fund, you're sitting there at $50 million. Most of that $50 million is debt money that hasn't been spent yet. Some of it is money that's transferred over, but the bulk of it is when you issue bonds, that money sits there, and as you're building, you draw upon that. The other

thing to point out to you guys at the very bottom here that's important and this is something that I think I've always mentioned and something I every year I think I need to mention fund balance. Fund balance is what's left over meaning after we have our assets or liabilities then we have fund balance and the part of it that should have the most attention is what they call unassigned fund balance. So that's not earmarked for anything that you all as a board can make a decision what to do with that. But as of today, as of June 30th, 2025, the unassigned are the funds that aren't earmarked for any project. And you can see that number there is $36.9 million. What I like to do is compare that to your expenditures and see how many months of reserves you have. And if you did the math, and the math would be just basically taking your expenditures, divide them by 12, and then function into that number, you all have 2.59 months of reserves sitting there. So 2.59. Last year, the number was 3.6. So your reserves have gone down a little bit. I'm going to show you what happened. And again, you're probably aware of this, but it's something just to be aware of that the unassigned went from 3.6 down to 2.5. If we flip over a couple pages, you can begin to see what's going on. We'll look at the expenditures and revenue for the county. And you can see the revenue in the general fund was $181 million. But then we get down to the expenditures. This year, we had a few categories that went up considerably compared to the past. Uh public safety, we had some additional EMS expenses that went up $4.5 million. That was just part of it. Health and welfare, uh, those expenditures went up $2.4 million. Education is the big one. Education went up $12 million compared to last year. Okay, I'm going to show you a chart in a

second where you can track that over the last few years, but definitely education was the area that went up the most. And then finally, if you looked at the bottom down in transfers, transfers out this year went up quite a bit because you moved some money out to handle some future projects. Uh 10 million of that, I believe, was related to the NRV um radio system upgrade. So, you went ahead and moved those funds over to capital projects. So, that aid into a little bit of the fund balance. So, again, I say that just so you're aware of it, but also that you know, you know, you guys made the decision. this is what we're going to do. We're going to take this this funding, move it over to capital projects and help offset that cost. So, you know, if there wasn't a reason, if you know, if you didn't have that big project where you move funds over, then you're probably saying, "Okay, what happened? We've got to make some changes." But you know what you did? You had some reserves and you moved that over. All right. Few other things to mention. Then you'll have the report on exhibit five. You've got the budget to actual and you can see that you all budgeted revenues of $171 million. Uh the actual revenues came in at $177 million. Uh property taxes were definitely the largest one over budget. Uh there was an additional revenue stream there of almost $4.5 million. And then you look down in expenditures. Every category was below budget. So you were think, you know, one of the things we have to look at is to make sure a locality doesn't spend more than their budget. And y'all didn't. You spent less than your budget because if you notice there, your budget ended up being $186 million for expenditures. Y'all only spent 168 million of that. And some of that could be projects that didn't go on time. But again, just want to point that out. The one you'll notice here, education, as we mentioned, Montgomery

County Schools, at the beginning of the year, y'all budgeted $61.1 million, but throughout the year looked like some things were going to change. There were some things that needed to happen. So, as a result, the final budget went up to $68 million. So, again, the total expenditures were only 65, but you all made an adjustment throughout the year. So, that's where you will see that increase as well. All right, few other things to mention to you all. If you went all the way to in the report to page number 40, I think this is good information for y'all as far as the debt goes of of the county. You can get a real flavor of it. Uh what we have outstanding. All right, so here we go. All right. So, at the end of the year, total debt for the county was $200 million. General obligation bonds are $114 million. Refunding bonds $49 million. Lease revenue bonds of $8.7 million. Most all of this debt is school related. There's a little bit that's county related, but the overwhelming majority of this is school debt. Okay? And that's sitting on the county's books. Uh you can see that on the next page or two pages down. So you can see that we've got construction bonds for schools, Virginia public school authority bonds. I mean that's $114 million right there of the debt just those bonds for the those particular facilities. And then what I also want to point out to you all is in the very back of this report and again as a numbers guy I get excited when I see this. You probably don't like it but I like it. Um, we've got these statistical tables in the back and it shows things on a 10-year curve and it shows what's happened over the

last 10 years uh at the at the county. And so, let me go to 12. Here we go. All right. So, if you looked at this particular thing, the last 10 years with the county of Montgomery, what I'm showing you here is the general fund, and you can see the fund balance. This past year, we ended the year with $36.9 million of unassigned fund balance. That's in line pretty much where we have been the last few years. Last year, it built up a little bit to 44 million. So, it makes sense that we use some of that and transferred it over to the capital projects fund. So again, this year is more in line with where we were in the past, but if you go all the way back to 16, uh that number is only $21 million. So y'all have done a good job of building up the unassigned fund balance. Um the other thing I think you would like to see, look here at the various expenditures over the last 10 years. Most of these are fairly in line, but you can see where education this year jumped up to the $67 million where it was 55 54 54 54 51 the last few years. So this year we did see an increase quite a bit of education expenses. All right. And then the last thing I'll mention to you guys in in this particular report, one of the things we have to do when we look at the report relates to controls and you know segregation of duties and how things are going. And this past year we've had a comment the last couple years on you just don't have enough people to divvy up all the task. And as a result of that without having enough people to divvy up the task, there's often overlap. Okay, this past year your staff made a few changes and as a result

out of the I think there were seven comments in the past, we are able to take care of one of them. So, we're down to six. So, we've gone from seven to six. But here's what I found interesting and I think you guys should think about this for a little bit. This particular report here shows the full-time equivalent county government employees by function. If you went back to 2016, the total employees of the county is 390.60. At the end of this year, your total employees are 489.65. Well, there's a lot going on here. We've got a whole new fire and EMS group that's come on that wasn't here before. So, that's 39 people there. But the one that you really, you know, I think should take note because as we mentioned, the segregation of duties, diving up the task is a big deal. Back in 2016, you had 9.5 full-time employees in finance. This year, you ended the year with nine. So, you're actually down half a person compared to where you were 10 years ago. So, I can I can tell you this, governmental accounting and what your staff have to do has gotten more uh demanding. Uh the regulations are tougher than they ever were. Uh so that's an area where if I was you, I'd continue to look at that, possibly adding a position there. Uh it should help with a lot of the segregation duties. Again, we're happy to talk to you about that. Uh but with that, um big picture, you had a clean opinion. Uh there were no findings from a state perspective that I need to make you aware of. The federal testing will be done soon. Um your staff did a wonderful job of pulling all this together in a timely manner. uh you've got a out of the nine, you've got nine good ones and so uh we're always pleasure to work with them. So that I'm happy to answer any questions y'all might have.

All right, great. Thank you so much. And I'll um just make a a personal note before we get started with questions. I know this plays a role in it. Um but our finance team is incredible. Um, they've received the Government Finance Officers Association Certificate for Achievement for Excellence. Yes, I had to read that. In financial reporting for 38 consecutive years. So, um, it's great to have um, somebody with a outside perspective come in and reflect um, that same excellence of our finance staff. So, thank you very much for your comments related to that. What kind of questions do we have up here? Supervisor Graki.

Uh, thank you for for breaking that down. That was a whole lot. I went through all 168 pages, but thank you for summarizing that and that was insightful. Um, you know, you mentioned our our cash on hand and the unassigned fund balance. And so we were down from about 3.6 months last year or the previous year to 2.6ish. H how does that compare with other government bodies? Right. I I I could get you that those statistics. Um usually I have reports from other governments, but a lot of them are dragging their feet because of this federal.

But I can tell you I've seen in this area anywhere from half a month.5 up to eight. You know, that's kind of the range. You guys are in kind of the sweet spot. Where it worries me is if a locality only has one major manufacturer or, you know, a couple businesses that if if something happened to them and they went south, well, those reserves would go away like that. I mean, I remember I had a client one time, a small town that had one large furniture manufacturer there in the town and at the time they had like 20 months of reserves and people were like, "Oh, y'all are just a savings account. You've got too much." Fast forward when that business went out, they were grateful they had that 20 months because it went away real fast. But you're in a unique position. Y'all got tons of businesses in the county that are paying taxes in. It's it's, you know, three, two, three, uh, doesn't concern me. If next year we come back and we're talking 1.8.

Yeah. And maybe we we might have to tighten our reigns or really look at a little bit harder. So, but yeah. And the unique thing with you all is the comparables for you would be somewhere like um to a degree Rockingham County. You know, Rockingham County, I did look at their number before I came over here. Theirs is I think close to four. So they've got four months reserves. And the reason they're similar to you all, it's a county with a large university within kind of the borders of the county. Uh so that makes it a little bit unique to you all. Um, but again, you know, as long as you're consistent and you don't see a big dive either way, that's kind of what concerns me more.

Yeah. Thank you, Supervisor King. On this screen you got up now where it says uh refuge collection, is that the recycling places? I think so. It is. It is the consolidated sites. All of the cost associated with that and our tipping fees that we pay to the uh the number of jobs. It's actually employees. Oh, the number of jobs. Yes. Yes. All right. So, we went from 2016 we had 14.60. We're down to 8.60.

I can explain that. I was on a different page, but um previously when we had showed 14.6, six. We had classified positions for the site attendants. So, they counted in that number and now they're not classified. They're part-time employees, but they're not considered classified employees. So, they don't count in the number on this sheet. But if you want to know the total number of people that we have employed in that area, we'll be glad to get that for you. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Do we have any other questions? I have one thing to add. I appreciate you being here tonight, John. Um, we did send this to the board in December before we posted it on the website, which I think was on December 11th when I was uh having hand surgery. But I appreciate the folks that did that for me um to got that out to you. And I really do want to say thank you to the finance department and to Lisa Rain who's here with us tonight. They work really hard to get this done on time. is very important and they put in a lot of hours in the fall and weekends and I do appreciate that and just wanted to mention that as John said he he mentioned the liability recording changing and as um standards come out and things change over the years it does become more complex. So thank you Lisa.

Thank you sir for being here this evening and for providing this information for us. Really appreciate it. All right. Good to see you. Nice to see y'all. Take care. Thank you.

Okay, the next item on our agenda is public address. Um, we are going to put some of the general rules for public address on the screens around the room. Um, but I also wanted to review those um with anybody who would like to speak. We did have a signup sheet available in the hall um outside before the meeting began um for people to sign up to speak. If we get to the end of the signup sheet and there are other people here that would like to speak, we'll welcome you forward at that time. Um, each speaker will have four minutes whether speaking as an individual or a representative and all comments must be directed to the chair and other supervisors from the speaker lectern here at the front of the room. Um, we do ask that every speaker begins by stating their name and where in the county they reside and debate between speakers and members of the audience is not allowed. Um, speakers may leave any written statements or comments to the supervisors with our board clerk and she'll make sure that we get copies of them. And then speakers will be judged out of order uh should they engage in personal attacks, use profanity or abusive language or debate with the audience and not address the board. Accepted etiquette is to not applaud or make loud responses. We did have one person sign up using the signup sheet in the hallway. U Mr. PAC, we've got you on the list. please come forward and then we'll see if there's anybody else that would like to speak. Welcome, sir. Happy New Year.

New year.

Hope everybody had a good holiday. My name is Wayman Pack and I live on Piney Woods Road in Riner. And one thing that I hear in these meetings is the fact that most if not all of you have a genuine concern for the well-being of animals. And I'm okay with that. I don't have anything against any animal that's not trying to do me harm. But how do you feel about human life? There have been a number of speakers here who have brought up valid concerns about being trapped on one side or the other of the train tracks in eastern Montgomery. Especially concerning is a planned construction of a new natural gas compressor station in the area. Citizens with no way out in the event of a catastrophic accident at this new facility and no way for emergency vehicles to get to them is a recipe for disaster that doesn't take a fortune teller to see. Even with no such event as this occurring, how are you, as members of this board sworn to represent all of the citizens of the county, going to rationalize emergency services not being able to respond because of a train blocking the only egress for hours while someone's house burns or they die from a medical emergency. The second item in your code of ethics states that you are to be loyal to moral principles and the interest of the citizens of the county. And the reason I begin speaking about animals and humans together is because other communities care just about care about them just as much as you all do and done something about it. USA Today on December 20th of last year published a story titled North America's largest wildlife overpass opens over busy remote road. Prior to this overpass being built, there was an average of one animal vehicle crash per day with during the wildlife movement seasons which are fall and spring. and is expected that the

crossing will reduce wildlife collisions by up to 90% in that area. There are two take two key takeaways from this story. Number one is that this project was done to reduce the number of human animal accidents resulting in not only injury and/or death to wildlife but humans as well. The Greenland Wildlife Overpass, which goes over Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs, allows elk, mu deer, black bears, mountain lines, and other wildlife to safely cross six lanes of traffic. Number two, even with a high daily traffic count, it is located in a remote area such as eastern Montgomery. I want to ask if you believe that the human lives impacted are just as important as wildlife. If you do, then by all means, if you are unable to persuade the federal government, which controls the railroads in this country, to find a better place to park or become more responsive to the needs of the citizens of this county, or even obey Virginia Code 56-412.1. Please look at alternative solutions. Was this project cheap? No. across all six lanes of traffic carrying about a h 100,000 vehicles per day with grass covered dirt. It cost approximately $15 million with a federal grant providing the bulk of the funding for the project. The overpass is 200 ft wide, 209 ft long, and was completed within one year. Certainly, something can be done to alleviate this problems for the citizens you are sworn to represent. If you won't do it for the citizens, do it for the wildlife. blocked from crossing to get back to their habitat. This idea is not the only solution to this problem, nor is it something that can be completed in a short time because of the scope of the project and the fact that the railroad is involved. But if you don't do something to address

this problem, then nothing will be accomplished until people are ringing their hands after a serious loss of life and/or property while saying, "I wish we had tried harder before it was too late." Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. PAC was the only speaker that we had signed up in advance this evening. Welcome. Please come forward. Good evening.

Good evening. Uh my name is Kelly Brennan and I live in Riner. Um to start off with, I'd just like to echo Mr. pack's concern for that railroad crossing and I hope you'll provide an update on what the county is doing. I know you had said you would be checking with various people on this um either tonight or as soon as you have information on that. Um I just came out to say that um it's it's nice to see you all again this evening after Saturday's event. Um, and I I really enjoyed spending that six hours with you all, believe it or not, and no offense attend intended, but um, I learned a lot about the county and, um, you know, some of the considerations and responsibilities and rationale for your decisions and what the county does as well. So, um, I appreciated having that opportunity. Um, let's see. I wanted to go on and say that um I think it would be optimal for both boards to have that kind of informal conversational um opportunity to interact and learn from each other about um your your aspirations and and needs and concerns. Um it uh you know learning is a good thing and I like to say I learned a lot and I think you can um it really promotes understanding and better decision making when you have greater information and appreciation uh for the other party. Um, and let's be honest, I mean, I know it's on everybody's minds. Last spring's budget blow up, um, was not pretty and it was damaging to relationships between the boards. Um and from my my vantage u the approach of this board is what essentially um jumpst

started the conflict in as much as you came into the joint meeting um with this is how it is, this is why it is and this is the way it's going to be and sorry. And there was really little room for the school board to respond. Um, and that's to me just no way to uh build trust or uh camaraderie or collaboration. And I hope going forward you'll have a different approach. And hopefully that was an aberration from the norm. Um, now all that said, there's no doubt you care about publication education because you've done a a reasonably good job, if not a very good job of funding schools here in recent years. Um and um you know there's really no um no issue that jazzes people up more than you know issues affecting their children. So obviously school is very passionate. Um and you know people can get fired up. Um so um I just hope you'll keep that in mind and as you continue discussions this budget cycle I hope you'll make concerted effort to treat your colleagues on the school board with respect. Assuming that they like you are also working hard to provide the best services possible to the residents of this county. And I would also hope that the school board will reciprocate and do likewise for you. Um, one commonality I noted between the two boards is the emphasis on creating a healthy workplace culture and climate for your respective employees. And I couldn't agree more with that priority. And I hope you will take note of and support the school board's efforts to attract and retain quality personnel in all positions. Um, so again, thank you all very much for your

time, your attention, and your commitment and service to our community. Thank you. Would anybody else like to come forward and address the board this evening? Seeing nobody, we will close public address. I apologize, I just scrolled way too far ahead in the agenda. Okay, we do not have an addendum this evening. Um, so our next action item will be to go into work session to discuss reassessment frequency. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please.

Mr. Gravki, I. Miss Kron, I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Fijicowski. Hi. Chair Deontz. Hi. six signs.

Okay. Thank you. Uh before as Terry comes forward, just to give folks that might be watching at home or in the audience here tonight a little bit of background about the reason for the presentation this evening, we've been entertaining uh the option of increasing the frequency of reassessment in an effort to improve uniformity of assessed values to reduce large fluctuation in property taxes and also to aid in budgeting. And as we began talking about this, we actually had a work session at the first meeting of 2025 um about this topic. As we've talked through this with you and it's moved forward, the discussion also has evol evolved into including an option to bring the process inhouse versus continuing to have a contractor perform this work. So, as I said, we started it with it was actually before January of 2025, but we had a a work session at that date. We've worked through it with you several times since then. And our last direction at the November 12th meeting was to bring a work session to you tonight in preparation for a public hearing at the next meeting to entertain an ordinance to increase the frequency to every two years. So, with that, I will turn it over to Terry and um then we'll discuss what the next steps are and see if you have any questions for us. Thank you and good evening. Um what I want to do is uh review the information that was shared at the November 12th work session. Um a lot of this will be just a refresher of some of that as well as some responses to the specific questions that you all asked at the end of that work session. So um you would ask us to do some research on this topic. So on the screen you'll see some information um a summary that shows what

we collected from our contacts at Rono County and Orange County both of which have in-house reassessment uh departments uh land valuation uh real estate valuation departments rather. Uh so this gives you um examples of both a wellestablished department and a newly formed department here. So in taking a look at Rono County um you can see that they began doing um in-house reassessments in 1987. They have approximately 44,500 parcels uh with 87% of those being residential properties. They have an 11 member department with a budget of 1.146 million. And you can see some of the notes there. Um they physically inspect about a third of the properties each year. Uh they try to utilize as much technology as possible. And they had mentioned having some um hiring concerns and staffing concerns and uh you all had posed a question about that about what the specific um changes they had made in the qualifications to try to address those were. So, I reached out to my contact there and um the director said that to become certified, appraisers have to have a four-year degree for the highest level of the certification. And it had been Reno County's preference uh in the past to require degrees specifically in the real estate field. And the modification that they had made was to accept any four-year degree. So, in business or other anything related or a four-year degree uh there. So that was the accommodation and um in my conversation um the director also shared that recently more recently they have not had the same concerns. In fact uh the most recent search for an appraiser yielded 17 applications and seven of those folks had degrees and four of those had relevant experience. So they

are not really experiencing that issue at the present time. And then another question you had was about you know was was it more difficult to recruit people to this specific field of work. So uh we talked with the finance director at Renault County and she shared that really they are having issues uh in in other departments as well particularly in finance and in planning. So shifting to Orange County here. Um they formed their department in 2024 and at the same time they made a change in their frequency going from four years to annual and they also changed their tax year. So they had a lot going on in this transition. Uh and by way of comparison they have 22,500 parcels. 94% of those are residential. They have a staff of four and a budget of about 625,000. And the notes here um they do try to utilize all available technology and update that hiring has also been challenging. Um and they had spent you know in this initial process uh a good bit of time trying to clean up some of their records and a question was posed about what what specific uh things were they cleaning up in that. And so I explored that a little more with their director. Um, and he said that because they were looking at all the records in a more detailed way than than a contractor would, that that would obviously lead to some some corrections and just finding lots of things when they're looking um sort of a global look versus the transactional look that a a contractor would be doing. Uh he also said that they had the opportunity to look at the way they were coding some of their properties and to clean that up a little bit which helped to make some of their reporting to the state a little better, a little more efficient. And then they also determined that some of

their depreciation calculations were not consistent. Uh so they've uh cleaned that up to give a little more transparency to how they come up with those figures and that has made it more uniform across the county. And a couple of other specific questions that were asked as this information was presented in November. Um, someone had asked about the comparative parcel data to McGomery County and as of January 1st, 2025, uh, we had 43,731 parcels with 83% of those being residential. And then we were also asked to look at the cost of establishing an internal department in Montgomery County. And we think it would be somewhere in the range of 450 to 600,000 annually. And that really depends on how a couple of existing positions in the commissioner's office would be treated. And that would require a little little more in-depth look and some more conversations about it. But roughly 450 to 600,000. So shifting to reassessment frequency. Uh this next slide you have seen several times and um it was updated uh and shared in November for the change in Orange County that that county shifted in the table here. Other otherwise uh the point we wanted to make is that uh McGomery County remains the largest county in the state conducting reassessments on a four-year cycle. Another part of our research uh involved gathering information from the Virginia Department of Taxation's assessment and sales ratio studies that are conducted each year. And the table that you see here shows the median sales ratios and

the coefficients of dispersion for the county's last several reassessment cycles. Uh the ratios indicate the accuracy of assessed values as compared to market value. And you can see that these ratios decline each year within each of the four-year cycles shown. Uh the coefficient of dispersion or what you could think of as the spread represents how closely individual property sales ratios are grouped around the median sales ratio. And we have some other slides here that will help illustrate that concept for you. But the key takeaway from this data is that there is consistency over time when the housing market is flat. For example, if you look at the 2011 to 2014 cycle, um, but when the market fluctuates significantly, uh, there can be major impacts within a cycle. And you can see that in the 2019 to 2022 cycle shown here. This slide gives a very simple illustration to help understand the coefficient of dispersion and the ratios and how that information uh can be thought about. Uh the center of the bullseye represents the median sales ratio which again is a measure of the accuracy of assessed values as compared to market value. And the scattered dots here represent sales ratios for individual properties. So the example on the left here illustrates a lower or smaller spread which indicates more uniformity in assessed values for the parcels in that example and the one on the right shows a higher or wider spread which indicates less uniformity in the values for parcels. So this is not based this particular uh slide's not based on actual data. It's

just to give you a visual of what that means. This chart actually um depicts actual sales ratio from the state studies for McGomery County for these three cycles shown here. Each line uh is a reassessment cycle and the percentages to the right of each line show the corresponding average increase in assessed values for that cycle. So, as you move through the timeline from year 1 to year four, you can see that the sales ratio declines each year. The values aren't updated. The percentages on the right represent the catchup that is needed to realign values to market value. Um, this slide we had outlined some of the benefits of the increased reassessment frequency. Again, it provides um greater uniformity and consistency of values throughout the county. Um the assessed values are closer to market value, which is what they're supposed to represent, and then uh can help um avoid or minimize significant in increases in a particular cycle. So, we've um advertised to have the public hearing at our next meeting and then if the board chooses to take action on the ordinance that the public hearing will address. You could either do it that night, you could do it at the uh first meeting in February. If that would help us, as we've talked before about if we decide to move forward with this, we would need to start the process and include this in the upcoming budget so that we could have this for, um, values to be effective January 1st of 2030.

Okay, great. So, um, very much appreciate, uh, you coming back with this information and also that you gathered more. So, thank you so much for the answers to those questions. Um, so at our next meeting, we'll hold a public hearing and then we can either decide that night or depending on what we what feedback we hear, we could delay it until the first February meeting and still if we make the change be on target. Yes, that's correct. Perfect. Okay. What kind of questions do we have?

I've got one. Um, so I know we we just looked at a couple of other counties, but like looking at Rono County for example, I think in the notes you said, you know, they try to to physically inspect each property every three years, but they're reassessing annually. Um, if I guess we don't really know, but how confident are we or would the plan be that we physically see every building in that 2-year cycle or are we still kind of, you know, rolling and and making some assumptions and extrapolations if we would be in a two-year reassessment cycle? Um, what I heard from both of the directors that I talked to in both counties was that they really are leaning more towards the utilization of technology because the imagery is better, the the information, the mapping is better, all the information, the the tools that they have are a lot better. So, the they're the notes that you saw here say that uh Rono County has kind of relaxed that physical visit um requirement to a certain extent as the technology has improved. So, um, you know, I don't know that I could speak more directly to that than

I think our plan when we figured out what the staffing model might look at, right, um, would be to look at all each property in the two-year cycle and we think we would be able to do that based on our current process because the current process takes about two years to complete for which is done every four years, but yeah, we think that we would be able to look at the all of the properties in that time frame. Okay. And it does depend on the staffing level, obviously. Yeah. Supervisor Kron, I saw you maybe going for your mic. Did you have questions?

Oops. Here we go. No, no, I think I'm good. I think the the reasons are given there in terms of assessing better and not giving anybody a um sticker shock at the end. And uh I think it's more feasible to jump from four to two than four to one anyway. So yeah, confident that that's a good idea. Little did I know. Okay.

So one of my questions was how many parcels do we have compared to Ron Oaks? And I was glad to see that the 43 is right about them about right about what Reno has. The interesting thing that I saw was that Reno is 87% residential. You said ours was Can you go to that slide again, please? I apologize. That 83% is what we were. 83. So that's right.

That would change because I said when we started talking about this, I started talking about how I thought our commercial was being undervalued, especially with the purchase of that building and how it was off from the tax assessment to what the selling price was. And if we're doing 4% more than what Reno has, we're talking about the same roughly the same number of parcels. And that 17% represents a a much larger percentage moneywise than it probably would for the residential portion of that same percentage because of the values of usually commercial real estate. So, I would say that this kind of pushes me more a little bit that way because that's one of the questions I had is how much commercial do we have compared to residential and how do we compare to Ron Oak that way? And I think that kind of swings it a little more because of that commercial difference. So, but thank you. Thank you very much for coming back with those numbers.

Okay. much. Chair Fijkowski, I know you had some questions in in the Rowan Oak um model. Um is there any way to know what their coefficient was reduced to? Um the um the slide that you showed showed the the difference between if you do it more often, you get closer to market value. It's what I got out of it. Um their data would be in those state reports as well. So we can get that for you. Okay. Well, I don't know if I need the whole report. I was just kind of curious, did they find that it worked for them and that's why they

and remember they they made the transition in 1987 and so the person I've been talking with was not in the role and couldn't offer you know I guess we could look at what their coefficient is compared to what ours was at the end of the last four year cycle though. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be interesting to know um to see if it's worthwhile. I have a feeling it's going to be um you you had said it you estimate 450k to 650k to operate it yearly. Mhm. Is but that's not the initial cost is it? The initial cost for vehicles and what have you. The one-time costs are not included in those figures. Okay. Do you do you remember what that was?

I think we may have quoted that in the previous meeting, but I don't recall. Um because I thought it was over a million. Total is over a million including the onetime cost. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. We'll get that for you as well. I I had 200,000 in my mind for onetime cost, but that could be wrong. Well, I I don't think we still have settled on how many right people we need. So, I I expect it's going to yes fluctuate a little bit there. When I say a little bit, I mean a lot of money. That's all I got.

I have one question about Rono's staffing level. Um especially compared to the staffing level in Orange. Rono has 11 employees in their office and Orange has four. Um, and from the potential budget, it sounds like we would be not as high as Ron Oak. Um, in terms of number of people, um, did they say anything about their staffing levels? Are people in that office doing double duty um, in Reno County?

Yeah. uh the chart that John showed you at the end of the audit presentation. I think if you compared McGomery County to Reno County, you would see consistently that they have more staff in most departments than we do. I have also noted that for a same population that they generally have considerably more people on staff. Okay. And I I was getting at that without getting at it, right? So, thank you. um that I I think you know we would be somewhere probably between Orange and Ron in terms of the staffing needs. We tend to run a very efficient um staffing level. So do we have any other questions? Supervisor King,

how big on these numbers? You got 450 to 600 yearly. 600,000 yearly. How many staff members was you planning on? Um, again, it depends on what happens with the two in the commissioner's office, but we were um looking at a maybe a director, an administrative person, and four assessors. So, two of those would either come from the commissioner's office or we would have to hire those. So, that's what the difference in that spread is. Well, right now we're paying a little under a million dollars, right, to have it right a year every four years. That's correct.

So, if we do it every two years around 600,000, you're talking $1.2 million. So, you're doubling what we're paying now. That is correct. I just think, you know, I'm against this. I think the simple fact would be just like we done here several years ago when reassessment blowed everybody's value up. Simple fact is this board can lower the tax rate. That's act that is

save the taxpayers money. I mean you're doubling if you bring it in house you're doubling what we're paying now. And when we started the process, our goal really was to um try to bring that uniformity of the market values closer together because we know we see this in the reassessment cycles at the end of the 4-year period. There are areas of the county whose property values have gone up significantly and there are other areas of the county where their property values have stayed the same. So when that happens, the areas that went up significantly were not paying a proportionate share of the tax. So I I agree with you. It does cost more. I think it makes that uniformity of the values. That's the that's the big win. And then it's the board's decision as to the value of that because if you lower the tax rate in the four-year cycle, you're still not making those um adjustments to people's market, their their assessed value of their home. So, if if I live in a place where my the value of my house went up a whole lot and April lives in a place, which we know this is made up, where the value of her house didn't go up at all, then she's paying like a larger percentage of tax than I am. Does that make sense?

So, this is a guaranteed fix to that. It would make it better. It's not ever going to be perfect, but it would make it better. it would be more equitable. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Do we need to invest in a software be able to do those things or is it existing? I mean, we were talking about, you know, technology. So, we do have an operating budget included that's basically matches Renault County's operating budget is included in those numbers.

And um we have a a system now. So, when people build properties during the four-year cycle, they are added into our system. So, we would h we already have something in place. We would see how that works with this process as well. Okay. Thank you very much. And seeing no other questions, can I have a motion to go out of work session? Motion. Second. Okay. Uh, madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Gravki, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits, hi. Mr. King, I. Mr. Fikowski, I. Chair Demas, I.

Six eyes's. Okay. The next item of business is our consent agenda this evening. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion on any of the items in our consent agenda? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Karan. Yes. I. Mr. Kits. I. Mr. King. I. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Mr. Gravski. I. Chair Deamas. I. Six eyes's.

Okay. Our first item of new business is to adopt an ordinance to delay the assessment of penalty and interest on the 2025 real estate B taxes and the 2025 personal property taxes due on December 5th to December 8th, 2025 due to the inclement weather that we had on December the 5th. Is there a motion? Motion. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Just one thing that I brought up before too. When we do this again, could we at least do a week because that following Monday it was ice still out there. That'd be something I'd like for us to consider.

Any other discussion? Okay. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. I. Mr. Facowski. Hi. Mr. Gravski. Hi. Miss Karan. Hi. Chair Deamontz, I six eyes.

Okay. The next item on our agenda is our annual board of supervisors appointments to boards and commissions. Um, and I do appreciate greatly all of you um, sticking around to talk this through with me a little bit this weekend at our extended work session. Um, we were able to have a nice group discussion um, and kind of talk about this. And I'm especially grateful um with Supervisor Biggs feeling unwell that we were able to talk about it all together um before going in. So Marty, I'm looking to you for some leadership. Um do I take a motion to open the conversation here or do I kind of go through what we talked about this weekend and then take a motion? Second. Okay. All right. So you guys have to listen to me for a while. All right. So um each of these boards and commissions we handle the appointments to the boards and commissions at our organizational meeting. So that is this evening. Uh the first board and commission is the AFD advisory board and uh the supervisor responsible for that position is me. The next is the chamber of commerce liaison and this is held by the chair. So me and also the vice chair um supervisor Fijicowski will be the um other person in that role. And then we have a county and school liaison um and that is for 2026 going to be supervisor Mary Biggs and vice chair Steve Fijicowski and I will be serving as the alternate in the event that they are unable to attend. Next is the economic development commission. This is the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission. Um, Supervisor Kits will be the primary representative on that commission and I will serve as his alternate. Next is the Fair View District Home Board. Uh, a member of staff, Mr. Scott Woodrram, will serve as the primary and

then Supervisor Graphsky will serve as the alternate to the Fairview District Home Board. Supervisor Biggs will be serving as our legislative liaison. And next is our library board liaison. and that was previously supervisor Kitz who very graciously was um allowed supervisor Karan to take on that role and then supervisor King will be serving as the alternate for the library board. Next is the Metropolitan Planning Organization the MO. Supervisor Grai will be serving as the board member for that position and supervisor Karan will be serving as the alternate. Um, next parks and recreation commission liaison. I will be serving as the primary liaison in that role and supervisor, excuse me, vice chair Fijicowski will be serving as my alternate. Next is the planning commission liaison. Supervisor King will be serving as the primary in that role and supervisor Kuran will be the alternate. The road viewers board is all board members. The Transportation Safety Commission is s Vice Chair Fijicowski. The Virginia Tech liaison is Angie Hill. And that's the end of the list. So, is there a motion on those appointments as read?

Motion. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? And again, I want to thank all of you for um taking the time. Usually it takes quite a bit of time in this meeting to kind of organize all of that. So I appreciate you guys doing that with me this weekend. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King, I. Mr. Fikowski, I. Mr. Gravski, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits, I. Chair Deas, I. Six eyes.

Okay. The next item on new business is addition to VOTE secondary system of state highways as a nocost rural addition. And this involves Evergreen Trail and Buck Mountain Ridge. And before I take a motion, I want to um just shout out Supervisor Biggs. If she was here, she would be the one making this motion. She has worked on this for years. Um this has been a project that she has been very, very passionate about and has spent a lot of time um kind of getting it organized. So, it's really disappointing for her and for all of us that she's not here tonight to make this motion. Is there a motion? Motion

second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Mr. Gravski. I. Miss Karan. I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Chair Demas. I. Six eyes. Thank you. All right. And then now we move on to reports. County attorney's report. Uh, no report, Madam Chair. Great. Thank you. County administrators report.

I have a few things. Um, I failed to mention this at our last board meeting on December the 4th. The McGomery County Chamber of Commerce celebrated the region's top leaders, nonprofits, and businesses at its annual meeting and awards dinner at the end of Virginia Tech. And Volunteer McGomery won the Chamber's Community Service Organization award. So that's a a great achievement for volunteer McGomery. It continues to excel as um they have in the time of difficulty recruiting volunteers. They're really doing a good job with that. I'd like to congratulate all of the board members who were sworn in and took their oath of office on December the 18th. Um that was nice. And then this past Saturday, as was mentioned earlier in the meeting, thank you very much for another productive extended work session. Throughout the month of uh January, McGomery County Chamber of Commerce and the and Volunteer McGomery have joined together also to organize a communitywide donation drive with the goal of helping restock depleted supplies for our animal care and adoption center. So, be on the lookout for that. And I know some people have asked about the Huckleberry Trail. Um, that project is well underway and it is anticipated that it will be completed by March of 2026. That's all that I have.

Thank you. All right. And now we'll move on. Yes, Marty. I actually do have one thing. I guess we will. So, if I go, does that mean Angie has to go again after me or No, I might make it.

I don't know. You're the attorney. You tell me. I I just wanted to let the board know uh coming up the next meeting uh we're uh we're going to start the process of um doing an a uh temporary change of the voting precincts over at tech. Um, Squires is going under some construction coming up and um, so the registar has been notified that we're going to have to temporarily move those out to one of the nearby um, uh, buildings on campus and this will only be for any elections prior to the general election. So, it' be I think there's some anticipation that there could be a primary coming up. Uh, so it'll be for that or or something other than that, but it I think we we'll be back in squires in time for the general election. So, you'll see that coming up where the board will start that process.

Great. Thank you. Did they mention what building that it was possibly going into? Johnson. That rings a bell. Is there Johnson? JB GB Johnston Student Center. Yeah, I think it's there. Okay.

All right. And now we'll move to board members reports. And we have a very brand new member. Welcome. And not to put you on the spot, but go first. Oh my goodness, that is on the spot. Well, I would like to first uh thank uh District A representative of uh my predecessor Sarah Bone for her service. And of course, I am thankful to District A um folks that they uh were confident enough to vote me in for this job. And I'm very excited. And I'm also very thankful for all of you starting uh at the uh Va annual conference and then the work session you welcome me and I feel I feel at home so and I'm looking forward to uh working with you and the staff as well Angie and uh Chris and uh Marty um I register a supervisor certificate program and first module is on budgeting. I think it will be timely for me to catch up with all the happenings. So it will start in January 23rd and end March 27. First and uh last ones are uh in Richmond and uh there are three of them that will be in between um virtually and also I register new supervisor forum and it is on January 22nd and virtually and April 18 in person. So I'm looking forward to learning and as a um sworn in supervisor I think first um event was chambers exit and issues and it was nice to hear from town and county recap of 2025 uh uh with chair de being on the panel that was exciting and of course uh supervisors graphsky and kids were with me at the table so that's all thank you great

thank you welcome we're so happy you're Supervisor Gravki.

Um, not a whole lot uh to report tonight. However, I I I do want to kind of share some talk out loud through um you I know a couple of meetings ago, we we raised concerns around data centers and lack of um zoning and you know uh uh uh use um you know related to those and you know so we we put out that a request to the to our planning team uh and to the planning commission to come forward with some recommendations around that. And and I learned after the fact, you know, our concern was that because we didn't have anything in the land use and and our zoning ordinances was that, you know, there may be some some by right type use for for data centers. I have since learned that that is not the fact and not not correct. Um, and so right now really there's, and just so I make sure I am crystal clear on this, that nobody could put up a data center in Montgomery County currently under our

ordinance. Yeah, correct. The the way zoning ordinance is set up, you have to have a an identified there has to be a use in the ordinance that's either allowed by right in one of the districts or by SUP. Mhm. And we currently don't have a recognized use for data center. So it would not be allowed in the unincorporated areas. Now the towns are different because the towns have their own zoning and Got it. Got it. And so um that we're only talking about unincorporated areas. Unincorporated areas. Okay. So I know the town of Christianber does have data centers in their zoning ordinance. Okay. But regardless if they have it in theirs, there's nothing that we can do. Correct. That that's their call, not ours. Correct.

Yeah. Okay. Um and and and so I I just I bring that up tonight because like many of my colleagues on this board, I think I received several, you know, emails uh from concerned citizens about, you know, the potential of of citing data centers in Montgomery County. And at least again speaking for myself, it was never my intention of let's find ways that we can site data centers uh in Montgomery County, but rather it was let's make sure that we've got either the appropriate, you know, kind of safeguards, checks and balances in place or now that I know that there is no SU or by right uh way of citing that here, my concerns are are much less in terms of us investigating that further. That's it.

Okay. I think that's a good point and we'll see how others reflect on it before I take it away. Supervisor King, do you have a board report this evening? Do you have a board report this evening? No, I don't have a report. I just like to request everybody please check and clean your flu. That would be a wonderful thing to do right now. And as far as the data centers, we don't know what Richmond's going to do right now. We just need to protect our citizens. Supervisor Kids,

you stole my thunder because we got so many emails. I was like, we're not having any. None are coming right now. Nothing's scheduled. We just want to make sure we get ahead of it and make sure that it doesn't happen like that without us having any say so in it. Um, one of the things I want to bring up is something I got a call today. I had a constituent come at me and ask a question and I've said something to a couple of you about rent increases and his rent got increased 40%. at the end of the year. So, as a Dylan state, we're not allowed to sit here and control things like that, but there are a couple bills on the floor coming up, and I'm going to shoot an email out so y'all can look at it, but it's House Bill 278, and it's a anti- uh rent gouging bill that's going forward, and I just want you to take a look at it and see where we are on it and see what your thoughts are individually on it and see where we go because that's completely uncalled for. I understand it going with the market and going with cost of living indexes and things like that, but a 40% increase because you know you can at that point um I don't think is is is right even though I understand a free market economy. So I just want to put this forward and I'll send it out just forformational purposes. Has nothing to do with us. I just want you to be able to look at it and see where we are on it. So but yeah, no data centers. I just want to say that right now. There's nothing coming, guys. it's not there. Nobody's asked us. We just want to make sure that we've got the correct things put out in advance so we're proactive and not reactive. So, but that's all I have. Thank you,

Vice Chair Physicowski.

Yeah. Uh I want to weigh in on data centers. I think I was the one that brought it up. Um, one of the uh, one of the sessions we had or actually a couple of sessions we had at the annual Veco conference talked about the data centers. Um, now people have already chosen which side they're on based on information they've learned, which may or may not be correct if one were to ever come here. And like Supervisor Kits is talking about, um, if we do have one, we want to put it where it should be, not where somebody else wants it to be. Um, so we will we will notify them ahead of time. Basically, these are your areas you can use. If you don't like that, then you won't put one here. But I have said this before. Um people have jumped out to demonize data centers. We need data centers. Now you can say, "Well, I don't want a data center uh in Ellison straightaway." Well, I don't either. Um that's not where it should be, but what if we put a data center in a um a commercial location in a commercial uh park? Um, those are things that we need to look at and and decide on. So, uh, before everybody demonizes them, um, if you think they're really bad, then take your computer and throw it in the trash can because that's what it'll be worth without them. So, we do need them. And fortunately, we have a lot of them in Northern Virginia. Yay. um and not down here, but they they will come probably eventually or come knocking on the door and we just want to be ready. That was the strong advice

from all the counties that essentially have maybe suffered a little bit from putting data centers in and they kind of warned us, all you that don't have, you know, policies and uh zoning in place, you might want to start looking at it now and not waiting until you have to rush it through. So, um, that's my part on on data centers. Um, and yes, we don't have anybody asking us to put one here. So, it hasn't happened yet. Uh, on another note, um, it was a month or two ago, um, Supervisor King brought up um some, uh, pipe replacement, water line replacement um, in my district in the Shawville Elliston area. There's a lot of breaks. uh I forget what the age is on the water pipes that are there now but um they are constantly breaking on a regular basis and he asked about um monies that were set aside from ARPA to address that and that's what I'm asking is when could we expect any movement on there and is there money from ARPA? Uh we have some pipes that were purchased a few years ago that could be used in that area of the county and with the um funding that was set aside for ARPA. We the county provided just over $3.1 million to the PSA for ARPA projects and a portion of that about $318,000 was set aside and um had to be obligated by the end of December of 2025. That's not right. The end of December of 2024 and it has to be complete by the end of December of this year. that that we've

just begun 2026. So $318,000 was obligated and on a purchase order for a waterline design for the Elliston straightaway portion of that um system. I know there was a break I think near the Shawsville Middle School this weekend that yesterday that they had to work on. Um, we recognize that that is an area of concern that needs to be addressed and that the the system through that area is about I think it's about 25 years old.

Yeah, I know they they have breaks on a regular basis down there. And uh, of course, we had that major break, what was it about a year and a half ago where a large line,

right? And as a result of that, we added an additional storage tank on top of the mountain that's going to feed that area. But, you know, when you think about it, we have plenty of water now to feed it, but we don't have pipes strong enough to carry it. So, this is an issue that we're definitely going to have to address. And I am always thinking that we need to expand um our water and sewer into different areas of the county. seems like that every time we have a development, it's always right on the edge so that we can enlarge the town so that they will cover the water and sewer. And I I would love to see us do more of that, but uh it just seems like there's never any money for that. And if there's grants out there, I hope we're applying for them on a regular basis, uh because that looks like that's how it's going to get done. Um all right. Uh the last thing I want to mention, um there was some folks at the last meeting that brought up a railroad um crossing on uh off of Route 460 onto Cove Road in uh the Elliston area. Um I haven't spoken on this but uh I have on a regular basis um going up and down 460 seen the train stopped. The train sometimes sits there for 3 to four hours cuz I've gone to Rowan Oak and then come back and the train's still sitting there. It does not block that intersection. Uh that was the one that was mentioned in this. Now does it block other intersections? You better believe it does. There's a lot of private roads that it blocks and probably a handful of other secondary roads that it blocks.

So, it is an issue. It's an issue that um we have to deal with uh the railroad on. Uh I've never heard of a easy way of doing that. Uh it usually um involves a lot of negotiation if you ever find the person on the phone that you can speak to. I've tried it before. uh you get handed from one person to another. Um I believe state law requires that after so many minutes that they break the train to open it up and that has been done in years past. If there's an emergency and they got to get through, they'll break the train. I know they don't like doing that because that's uh creates more problems, but uh uh they have done it. um they they really need to have a better policy on doing that, especially when they're sitting there for hours at a time. But um that's something we're always looking at, always looking for a way to fix. But as of right now, as I said at the last meeting, I I don't know of an easy way to deal with the railroad because uh we've talked to state representatives and even federal representatives and we're still here in the same spot we were. So, we'll keep trying. That's all I got.

All right. Um so, I'll say just a couple of things about data centers. Um, and I think Supervisor King got it right with um, we don't know what's going to happen in Richmond and uh, in this session or in future sessions. And one of the things that this board has consistently adopted as a part of our legislative priorities is to preserve land use at the local level when and where possible. And so, um, I think one thing that this board needs to do is advocate, um, for continuing local land use control. Uh, we do not want a, um, bill to come out of Richmond that tells us that we have to have data centers, that we have to allow them because this, that, and the other reason. Um and so I think it's very important that we stay in contact with our legislators to communicate with them how important this issue is to our community. Um secondly, I have since since um we discussed it and passed a resolution, a referring resolution to the planning commission. Um and then of course we received quite a bit of citizen feedback. It occurs to me that uh we possibly need to clarify what we want the planning commission to do. And so I'm wondering if um we might even schedule a short work session on this topic.

We we're certainly able to do that if you'd like to. The way the process will work is staff led by Chris and Marty are going to meet along with the planning department staff to talk about what to refer to the planning commission. So, we got a lot of feedback from you this evening. If you want to have a work session to provide more to the staff before it goes to the planning commission, we can do that. How about we just maybe all individually provide feedback to you and then you can let us know if we need to have a work session. That sounds good. If there's a whole lot of variety of opinions.

Yes, that sounds good. So then let's commit to providing staff with feedback just so we provide a a good request to the planning commission. We don't want to direct them to work on something and then have them work on it um and spend a whole lot of time and effort putting something together that is not at all what we actually intended for them to be doing. So let's just all commit to communicating back with staff on um our goals for that. And aside from welcoming Gonan to our board uh again um and then thanking everybody for your support um for me to be the chair in 2026. That is all I have and this meeting is adjourned.