Town Council - Regular Meeting

Hello everybody. I think the mics are working. Are the mics working tonight? Speakers working. Okay, great. We're gonna get this ball rolling here and welcome everybody. Those that are here in person tonight, thank you for being here. And those that are tuning in online, I always start the meeting asking everyone to please take out your phone and silence it all the way past vibrate to the actual silent position, please. Uh it just helps us make sure we're respectful of each person speaking and we can hear without uh any distractions or interruptions. We do ask for your patience and understanding. We appreciate it as council deliberates on our various agenda items. We do have open public comment at this meeting at all meetings and the uh signups are encouraged. There is a sheet right by the front podium and for open public comment you can uh just sign up on the sheet and when we get to that time we'll call your name. Uh we do not have any specific public hearings tonight. We will be talking about authorizing one in the future, but I don't think there's anything um any specific public hearings. Those are separate from open comment. We want to acknowledge the staff's work in preparation for the meeting tonight. Their insights are invaluable to each topic of town business. And we appreciate our town manager and our council manager form of government. Natasha Tucker is our town manager. She sits right over here. And she handles our daily operations and department administration, while the town council um provides direction and authorizes policy in accordance with our town charter and the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia. While each council member has the ultimate responsibility to contribute and vote distinctly, the council does work as a body. Uh we are duly elected to serve responsibly and ethically the citizens of Colonial Beach. Participation of each member contributes to effective leadership and collaboration is key in productivity and local government. Let's engage in constructive discussion, remain open to

different perspectives, and work together for effective resolutions. And finally, I just remind us all that the meetings of the town council are formal proceedings and are thus recorded. And with that, we will call the regular town council meeting to order on Wednesday, March 18th, 2026 at 6:01 p.m. With that, I ask you to uh join me to stand for a moment of silence, which will be followed by the pledge of allegiance. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

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. All right. Next up, somebody didn't put their phone on silent after I said that, huh? All right. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Was a good example. Um, next up is our roll call of members. All All members with the exception of Mr. Allison are here right now, but he is on his way. He's just held up at work, so he should be walking in the door uh any minute pending. Um at this time, he's absent. And when he gets here, we'll put that on the record. Uh next up is additions to the agenda. Like to make a motion to add anything to the agenda?

Yes, madam mayor. I'd like to make a motion to add um just a brief discussion on the uh shoreline erosion and infrastructure repair. All right. Is there a second to that motion? Sec. Second. Okay, great. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. We'll add that under C for new business. So AB and then C under new business. Okay. All right. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended? So move. Is there a second to that? Second. All right. And all in favor? I.

Any opposed? All right. to keep moving forward. Next up is our consent agenda with the approval of some meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. Is there a second to that? Second. Okay. Is there any discussion around the meeting minutes? All right. All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Moving right along. Next up is our council member leazison and commission report and I'll start on Mr. Woodside this time if that's okay.

Okay, let's see. So, uh just a a brief u going on the Cove Park opening. It's coming soon, but uh keep your kids off the equipment. It's hard for me to stay off too, but right now it's not quite done. So, uh please stay away from it and we'll let everybody know as soon as it's open. Um, we've got a lot of stuff going on. Most of them are going to be at the community center. There's functional fitness classes on Tuesdays, yoga classes on Fridays, swing dance classes on Fridays, uh community board game night, uh coffee walks during at the from the Colonial Beach Buzz, Sip and Stroll, second Friday art walks, um the annual Chamber of Commerce Easter egg on Townill on April 4th starts at 10 a.m. April 11, the Virginia Osprey Festival happens from 9:00 to 4:00. Uh, April 12th, 2 to 3:30. Uh, come fly a kite. That's something I've been invited to do quite frequently. Um, but that's going to be park recreation events on the beach side of Townill. And, uh, there's going to be a volleyball open gym every Sunday at the Colonial Beach School Gymnasium. Um, as far as planning commission goes, uh, they reviewed the revised zoning text amendments and the conditional use of permit application related to the telecommunications facilities and a potential cell phone tower. Uh, council previously authorized a joint public hearing with a planning commission on April 9th. uh authorized an April 9th planning commission public hearing for zoning text amendments relating to small-scale production that would allow coffee roasteries and other smallcale and manufacturing in commercial districts with a commission conditional use permit and reviewed the zoning

conditional use permit and substantial court applications related to the proposed fire department building to include equipment and apparatus storage with meeting and event space. uh planning commission will hold a public hearing on April 9th. That's all I've got. Okay, Mr. Larson.

Good. Good evening everybody. Um just a reminder, I'm the leazison to both the schools and our finance team here on staff for the finance team. And they want to remind you that uh the April bills are out, utility bills are out and they are due, sorry, the Yeah, the bills are out and they are due by April the 1st. The business license renewals have been mailed. They are due by May the 1st and the 2026 golf cart uh registration stickers, tags are available now at the various dealers where you can get those. and uh our normal PSA from the finance team. If you're struggling paying your bills, uh come in and have a chat with them. They will work with you to come up with a payment plan that you can live with. As far as the schools, we're going to have a presentation from Dr. Ado tonight on the budget. I think that's been their primary focus here recently. It's certainly uh been ours on the council for the town budget as well. I had a meeting with uh with them over the about a week ago. Um, and we've spent a lot of time talking about finance as you might expect. Uh, there was also a pretty lively discussion about sort of their approach for uh doing communications. Again, very similar to what we're trying to do with the town to be more proactive with our online communications about all the events that the schools are doing. So, some nice collaboration going on there. Uh, and that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

Okay. Good evening, everybody. Uh just a few public safety uh updates. Uh let's see. I'll just have a couple things to read and then give you a couple other updates. Uh the Colonial Beach Police Department is extremely proud to announce that CBPD Police Officer Brian Tinder has graduated from the Rapahhanic Regional Criminal Justice Academy with honors. Officer Tinder earned third place in academics and first place in skills which include firearms, defensive tactics, and driving. Officer Tinder also received the award for the top overall recruit in his class. Officer Tinder is currently assigned to field training duties and we look forward to him serving independently as a Colona Beach Police Patrol Officer. Uh let's see. The police department would like to announce that Jersey Mike's is having a fundraiser for Special Olympics. Jersey Mike's will donate all the income from sales on March 25th to Special Olympics. Please consider supporting this fundraiser by purchasing lunch or dinner from Jersey Mike's on March 25th. Um let's see. The police department will be hosting our monthly neighborhood watch meeting on Thursday, March 26. So it's coming up soon. um at 5:30 p.m. in the community room at the police department. That's um near Truis Bank for anybody that doesn't know for sure. Uh the topic will be driving well under the influence enforcement. And then just a couple other updates. Um two new officer hires are in process, so hopefully to have them build soon. Um also, uh parking attendant crossing guard um position is in process as well. Um, let's see. Oh, I asked uh in my one-on-one mean ah one-on-one meeting with the town manager and the police chief, I asked about uh um one one of

the questions I get from constituents regularly is if something's announced that's pretty serious, like a murder, for example. Um is there anything that the town can do to kind of help uh alert the community? Um so the town manager is looking into that. Um my main concern was can we let the public know if there is any active threat? You know, if there's a murder, obviously that's concerning, but if you know, if there's not an active threat, it'd be nice for the citizens to know they don't have to be on alert or or worried. Um also, I asked when the new police cars are coming in and uh chief said probably sometime after July. So that's all I've got for that. Thank you.

Okay, Miss Grandstaff. Good evening everyone. I'm reporting for the economic vitality um portion for economic development. Um last night we had our meeting and some highlights. Um first 2026 business network and breakfast is scheduled for May 14th at the ice house. Agenda and invites are in preparation in April. There is some good news that will be happening in reference to the main street, but I will leave that for Eric since he's here tonight and not steal his thunder to speak more on that later. Um Benny Bowman, the chair, will be scheduling a meeting with Adam um Schaefer and the town finance department to discuss business licensing compliance and how they can assist with the components of the application format and management of engaging businesses to improve timely um and efficient participation. Also, they are beefing up their efforts um to collect pertinent data and statistics to help in making good decisions in their revitalization work and to share with their stakeholders. And that's it for me.

Thank you, Miss Sandra.

All right. Uh good evening everyone. So, for my report for the NOS's, uh as Mr. Wood mentioned, but I'm going to reiterate, uh the Virginia Osprey Festival is going to be on April 11th on Town Hill. Um, also there is going to be a second volunteer meet and greet during the National Volunteer Week on April 25th at Pier 909. Um, there is no time listed, but um, I know the event is posted on Facebook somewhere. Um, so hopefully I'll have some more information before that meeting. Um, so I can give you an actual time, but it should be a great event. Um, if you're interested in volunteering or getting any information on that, please uh, attend. And that's all I have. All right, since we're skipping Kenny, maybe he'll come in while I'm talking, maybe not. We'll see. Um, just a few things. Uh, we just met last week at our work session for the budget meeting. We still are ongoing in the budget process. Um, but just to give everybody a reminder, a heads up that the April work session uh for council has been cancelled, but we will have a joint um public hearing with the planning commission the following Thursday. So, uh if you're following our schedule or anything, just give that a heads up. Our work session was the same time as the uh school spring break and so a lot of people are on vacation right before Easter that week. Um also I just wanted to give a shout out and thanks for everybody at the Clooney Beach Community Center and West Morland Little League. Uh the sand lots down um at the old Lions Club field as some of us refer to it um is used uh widely where there are three different levels practicing there now. And so if you see a lot of kids out there playing and running around and trying to hit a ball off a tea, um it's pretty fun when there's been a lot of waves and a lot of excitement around

that. I'm glad to see um so many of them um so much use in that field so quickly. Games do start this Saturday. um for the little league teams. And just because I get this question a lot, I clarify that fireworks are July 3rd. Everybody asked me that question for six months until July gets here. They've been on July 3rd for quite some time. We find it works actually a lot better for traffic control and for the town to uh expand the holiday weekend to get people to stay overnight to the 4th. Um, and so we're sticking with the third. July 3rd is fireworks. And, uh, I got word that the carnival has been passed over to the ladies auxiliary, so it can be a fundraiser for them. Um, but that is still in progress and hopefully will get scheduled at some point in the year. I'm a big fan of the carnival for anybody who doesn't know. I am obsessive about it. I want a carnival here. I think any week would work, whatever weeks, however. But I know we're trying to get it back on festival. Um I have not had word on that or any success. But if anybody out there, and this is a little bit of a plea, if anybody out there has a personal connection to a carnival, you never know who is listening, uh please get in contact with us and the ladies auxiliary. Um the carnival we had last year did not have that date open, but hopefully we will find something in the works to get that back on a regular schedule for the town. Um, and also I just wanted to give a little bit of a PSA that in case you didn't know, uh, one of the things I found out this year is that for the Colonial Beach Foundation, which helps sponsor many events and many activities in town and other nonprofits, um, you can donate your derelict cars. If you have a car, we have uh we have nuisance issues sometimes in town with

people who have vehicles or motorized things that are not movable and they are sort of stuck maybe in their yard or something like that to that effect. Uh it is tax season and you can call the Coney Beach Foundation and they will get a roll back and they will come get your derelct vehicle and you can donate it as a charitable donation. Um, and you will get a tax write off for that and it it's pretty uh minimal effort and maybe can solve two birds with one stone and help your community out a lot. So, I just pass that information along because maybe some people didn't know about that program. So, just like to let people know. Um, and that's all I got right now for the mayor report. Since Kenny's not in yet, we'll move keep moving forward to the town manager update. Natasha Good evening, Madame Mayor, council members, members in the public. We will begin the town manager report with um one project update that I have, followed by the sewer plant update from John Simmons from Inboden, followed by the police department update given by Chief Parsons and lastly an economic development and tourism update provided by Miss Charlotte Cole, our economic development director. Um, so I really just wanted to provide an update on one project that we have been working on for some time and that is the North Beach erosion control and shoreline resiliency project. We've reviewed the um RFP responses um that we've received and Kimley Horn was the highest ranked firm and so we are moving forward to the contracting phase with Kimley Horn at the April 15th regular

meeting. We'll present to council a contract and proposed schedule um for the work at that time and um we'll answer more questions at the April meet 15th meeting regarding that project. And right now we will move on with uh John from Emboden for the sewer plant update. Good afternoon everyone. Can you hear me?

So I'll start on page two please. So what we have here shows the flows for the month of February. Um one thing we did have is a continuation of ammonia violations and interero and fecal caulifform for the month of February that began in the end of January. So here you see the flows and that kind of shows when some of our problems occurred. You know, at the beginning of the month, we were dealing with real frigid cold weather that inhibits nitrification, which is ammonia removal. And starting on the 15th is when that's where you see the rain events and the snow melts and everything where the INI was coming into the plant. And when you see those elevated flows, that's when we have to turn off, you know, our air blowers and our mixers and things to be able to retain solids so we don't send solids to the river. So, our efforts to retain solids worked very well. We kept everything in the plant. And if you go down to the bar graph there, you can see that, you know, August through January, the flow is relatively low. And then February, you had it go up there, your average flow. And that's due to those storm events. Uh page three, you know, your effluent quality. You see there your your orange and blue dots above the the line there shows our elevated sample results. The orange being an ammonia. We've um the permit average is 1.6. 6 we come in at a 9.0 zero the fecal colifform. You can see there that that was a little elevated too. That was mostly due to u cleaning the the lights or UV chambers and things before they took their samples. Exceedence details. What you see here is calls and remedy. This is the explanation that was sent to DEEQ along with the monthly uh report. That is what we call the letter of explanation. You can see there that

we've had frigid temperatures and a couple equipment failures that we that were caused by the cold and we had spare parts on hand. Chris and his team have come over and replaced gearbox and some other items there to get the plant back to functioning. And the final page, page five, that shows our phosphorus and nitrogen. nitrogen levels did go up because of the the lack of nitrification and phosphorus remained at a non-detect. So, one thing we do have is now that the warmer weather is back and you you know the public works department has fixed some of the equipment failures, nitrification is coming back, the plant is, you know, coming the treatment's coming back. Everything is stabilizing there. So, we're not really concerned that those things are going to continue. And does anybody have any questions?

Mr. Wood. Hi. Um, obviously we are obsessive about making sure we're on the right stand side of Department of Environment Quality. Pardon me. Uh, I'm assuming you've been in communication with them and yes, with the elevated numbers this month, uh, what has been their input on that? Well, you know, obviously they want us to get things functioning as quickly as possible. One of their biggest concerns was have we fixed the equipment that had failed. you know, they expect treatment issues when it's cold. You know, they know they know how nitrification works, but you know, they just want to make sure that we're following our schedule of compliance for the consent order and that we did get that equipment that failed back online.

And so, it's fair to say that they're pleased with what we're able to accomplish. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Yeah. Just a quick question. Um do you have any updates on the inflow and infiltration um testing and uh repairs?

Yeah, you know, we haven't done as much of it through January and February as what we were in December because of the cold, but some of the lines that we have identified, you know, there are some pretty significant failures out in the collection system. And we've got one contractor looking at doing a repair on one street on Sixth Street. We're waiting on quotes to come in to do that and we'll start that repair just as soon as it gets here. That's going to be about 800 foot of replacement of the main line and we have camber at about half of the point and smoke test at all of the point. And you know, most of the problems that we're finding are coming from cleanouts and things in customers yards that need to be repaired, but we are finding some significant failures in the main sewer lines, you know, especially like down on the Braftoft area. So, we're working now, Chris and I are discussing, you know, which one of these are candidates for slip lining versus full replacement. What we intend to do is identify places that the town maintenance department can go in and repair themselves. We're going to get those fixed. Then we're going to get some of the slip lining done before the end of October where we have to get the RPM reimbursement. And we're just working through it a little bit at a time. But, you know, we can already see in the flow in the flow charts if you look at back at that data that what we're already doing is making a difference. You know, the flow, the ini is reducing, but we do still have a ways to go.

Now, does the slip line does that go in the pipe or on top of the pipe? It goes inside of the pipe and then it's cured and stays dries in place. Okay. So, I guess we get less flow from that, but it's not an issue. No, it's just, you know, it's real thin. It doesn't really impact the flow of the pipe. You know what it really does is stabilize the pipe and prevent the INI, but as far as taking away the size, not so much. Okay. Thank you, John. Yes, ma'am. So, it seems everything is moving along. So, is it safe to make the assumption that you could meet you could still be on track for your deadline by June 30th of 28 and that you stated 40% of the issues were related to cleanouts. Do you find that that number is decreasing like you just said?

Most of it is still really the cleanouts. You know, there's obviously some failures in those old pipes, but one thing that we are finding is there's been a lot of pipe upgrades, especially in the point area over the years that I don't think people really realize. you know, some of it's been converted to PVC, you know, instead of the old Orangeberg pipe. And then you have also some concrete sections in there. You know, most of the problems we're seeing is in the Orangeberg, but then we also have some concrete pipe that the top is starting to cave in that needs to be fixed. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Are we still doing water quality testing of the actual river and bay? That starts up in in May. May through September.

Okay. I don't think the um Riverkeepers is doing that currently though and I asked that because uh the topic of the DC sewer spill is still very much on everyone's minds and I have not heard that they have reported elevated levels from their sampling. Have you heard that?

No, no elevated L samples in this area. The samples that are the reports that are coming back are very promising. you know, it's still, you know, as it gets warmer, some of that th stuff is still going to denotrify and come to the surface, but I still don't believe you're going to see much of the elevated sample results in any of the the solids or rags and things down in this area. You know, I think what you're going to see mostly down here is just the the impact from the fishing and things like that. You know, perspective is going to be your biggest problem. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for John? All right. PD Chief,

Madame Mayor, members of council, um an internal investigation into the use of forces in in way the independent investigator has completed a comprehensive review of all the submitted reports and conducted interviews uh to establish the facts of the case. A report outlining the investig investigator's findings has been submitted and we are now in the final stage of the process uh during which the police department and county administration and its findings to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted. If so, an appropriate level of discipline will be determined. As we have said from the outset, we remain committed to ensuring a fair and impartial process that leads to a just and equitable outcome. Anything less would not meet that standard. We appreciate your continued understanding and patience.

We expecting to have a conclusive report at the April meeting then. We would hope by that time, but yes, ma'am.

Thank you, Miss Cole. Good evening, Mayor Shik um and all attending this meeting, whether in person or virtually. My name is Charlotte Cole and I serve as the town's director of economic development and tourism. Thank you for providing time for me to update you on the work of our stakeholder team in doing in what we're doing to support our visitor driven economy and your goal in the um Colonial Beach 2026 legislative priorities addressing economic development and tourism. Um next slide please. So I just want to kind of give some quick history. Um I'm sure most people are familiar with this but there may be some who aren't. Our very roots here in Colonial Beach are as a visitor destination. Having been initially platted in 1882 as the business center of a fully planned resort along the Ptoic River seeking to attract residents from Washington DC, our historic district's diverse collection of 81 contributing vernacular and high excuse me highstyle commercial or residential buildings represents the whole of nearly a centurylong period of significance from 1875 to 1970. Compared to similar waterfront resort communities in Virginia, the district's level of pres excuse me of preservation overall remains moderate to strong and that's something for which we can be very very proud and which is a sign significant draw to visitors. On the left hand of this slide, I've included some statistics of the economic impact of visitors to Virginia. These are some pretty big numbers. Tourism is a leading industry in the Commonwealth as shown by these metrics reported in 2024, the most recent year tallied. Nearly 15 million

visitors came to the Commonwealth. Over 35 billion in visitor spending was reported. Nearly 330,000 total jobs were supported in the tourism industry. And over three billion dollars was generated in state and local taxes. Next slide, please. So, as you can see from the numbers, tourism is a powerful economic development strategy. Tourism boosts the local economy, generates jobs, and drives infrastructure investment by leveraging local assets and acts as a catalyst for stimulating hospitality and retail while improving quality of life and fostering community pride. The statistics on this slide are for tourism impact uh in West Morland County and again for 2024. We're closing in on or we closed in on 40 million in visitor spending which breaks down to nearly 22 million for lodging, nearly six million for food and beverage. And please forgive that typo, it's million, and uh about the same for retail. In addition, 153 total jobs were supported and tourism activity accounted for nearly three million in state and local taxes to our county. So, it sounds pretty impressive, but consider this. Cape Charles, another small rural waterfront community, experienced 261.6 million in visitor spending in 2024. And in Nuburn, North Carolina, which is in Craraven County, yet another rural waterfront community, visitors spent 183 million, fueling local tourism with 45.5 million in payroll and supporting over 1,33 jobs. So, what's the difference between CB and these similar communities when it comes to tourism? Well, they have a cohesive, consistent tourism marketing program and have for quite some time. We have suffered from and

have historically lacked an effective targeted marketing program combined with inconsistent communication of local attractions that has significantly tr contributed to the decline in colonial beach tourism. And this is backed up in any number of research um documents from Virginia Tourism Corporation. Our local business continued to sometimes struggle at the reduced foot traffic and visibility. And in short, the town has um kind of historically relied on limited attractions, the things that we have, the beach, the pier, um some of the gaming, um individual businesses without adopting and adapting to modern marketing strategies that highlight the area's charm collectively. So, we're changing that trajectory. Next slide, please. The job number one of economic development and tourism program is to make Colonial Beach visible in the marketplace. For starters, we're working under the official VTC recognized destination marketing organization, the town of Colonial Beach, which is and have established the first fully functional tourism stakeholder group in October of 25, uh, comprised of industry sector representatives, those best suited to help create a viable, durable, and sustainable tourism marketing program. We've permitted subgroups to focus on the most valued tourism interests, history and heritage, arts and culture, and absolutely our outdoor experiences. Their job is to identify compelling messages, develop itineraries, and guide creation of targeted marketing uh excuse me, targeted marketing tactics. The next step to the success um will be through inventory of assets. We've developed an embraceable brand highlighting all that is special about Colonial Beach. Our beach, our river, our bay, our marinas, our friendly

atmosphere, our quaint and quirky creative community, our unique historic ass uh historic sites, amazing natural surroundings. And this initial um effort was created proono by longstanding tourism marketing professional colleagues. Through their generous expertise, we're building our 2026 marketing effort around two central themes, one of discover and one of wonder. We're also in the process of revamping our website. Through our research, we learned that the increasing use of AI has render has rendered visit CBVA as ineffective because it kept pointing to Chesapeake Bay is CB. Our interim URL visit Colonial Beach VA. While it identifies correctly, it's not really excitingly actionoriented. The current imagery on our site is a little bit dull and un uninspiring and so the messaging throughout a little disjointed and incohesive and there's no continual urge to action. What our team has done is we're creating a new URL. It's work in progress that will be discover colonial beachva. It's more highly actionoriented. The market test rate discover for hires a motivator than visit. The new imagery and narrative we're producing vividly tells our story in a wonderful way and we will feature a wonders gallery that will illuminate all the beautiful and scenic assets that we have. We hope to deploy this new site by early May. So next month and certainly in May I hope that I can unveil that. Finally, as the season approaches, we have a few more items in the works to drive tourism here from our primary target markets, which are the Washington DC, Richmond, and Fredericksburg metropolitan statistical areas. These include digital and print ads, working with an influencer, and our VA250

collaboration with both the Commonwealth and with West Morland County. And re regarding those VA250 efforts, we are a certified VA250 commemorative partner as is the museum, the chamber, and DCB. And we're working, as I said, with West Morland County. Um, the state has an exciting VA250 passport. It is not in a digital version, so you have to go to an outlet to actually get it, but our West Morland County Heritage Passport, which supports this effort, um, is in digital form. So, we have seven sites throughout the county, one being our Colonial Beach Museum, which is within the passport. Um, you collect four of the stamps at the locations, and you're eligible for a drawing for um for a 10 uh $10 gift certificate at participating restaurants. So, in effect, um, we are working diligently, um, with the county on both the passport, the sticker program, and a Where's George scavenger hunt. Um, next slide. And in closing, I'd like to recognize our team members, our co-chairs, Karen Grisovich with Grove Virginia, our Patty Woodside with the Boat House, Janelle Johnson who is CBT Cruises, Kelly Woods Vaughn at Riverview Inn, Wendy Short at Hawthorne Merkantiel, Kathy Moran at CB Creative, Phil Bolan representing Marina Way, Chris Flemur, Engleside Winery, Dr. Lenny Levin at the James Monroe birthplace and boyhood home. Dale Henden, my partner in crime at the county level, director of uh economic development and tourism, and our uh community liaison, sorry, our council liaison, Lisa Gran staff. So, I want to thank you for your time and attention, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about our tourism efforts

and how we can continue to grow our visitor economy. Questions? Any questions? Yes, Miss Sanford. Um, I just want to say thank you uh for putting this together. I'm been eagerly waiting to see what you guys have been working on. Um, just one quick question. I was in the Fredericksburg visitor center the other day and didn't see anything for Colonial Beach. Um, that's the problem. We kind of have at the moment we don't have anything. I know that the chamber's working on its um new version of its visitors guide. Yeah. So, I'd like to see hopefully we can get something there because they have a lot of brochures there. Um, so

it's right down the street. So, I think that'd be a great opportunity. Thank you so much. The first um was to create a a message. Um I think Discover Colonial Beach is pretty strong. It tested really really well and where the waters welcome wonder um highlights all of our assets. So, um, as soon as we can get those printed materials and digital items together, um, we will certainly share them with you. But thank you. Appreciate that. Any other questions, Mr. Williams? U, yeah, just a quick question. Um, I know economic development's been a big topic for the town for quite some time. Um, and you know, of course, you know, we hear the the bad probably more than the good, but

um, one of the complaints I get is when people get here, there's not much for them to do.

Um, and I don't know what we can do to bring more entertainment here, but is there anything in the works to try to um to to gather more things for people to do? I mean, I know people could go to, you know, like to George Washington birthplace or to the to the state park and stuff like that, but as far as in town, I mean, like for example, a couple years ago, and I don't know if this even came to fruition, they had talked about uh like a a boat like, you know, boat rental thing or a charter, fishing charter, stuff like that. I haven't seen any signs of those things if they exist. So, if they do, that would be great advertisement. But if not, um, do you know if there's anything in the works for that stuff?

So, what you're describing is the classic chicken and egg, um, that a lot of tourism destinations will wrestle depending on the cycle that they're going through. For us, um, we're pretty much invisible in the marketplace. So, it's really difficult to call upon um potential charter businesses or dinner cruises or even landbased attractions to come to a community where you don't have the numbers to support it. Um that's what we're building. We have to build the capacity first. However, the silver lining is we have had several people since they heard of this initiative starting little rumbles of this initiative starting to grow who have reached out to us and we've been referred to some folks. Um, so there are a couple things in the works. It would be premature for me to speak about them, but there are some water-based activities that are finding Colonial Beach a potential market. there are some land-based activities uh entertainment related that are finding Colonial Beach um of potential interest. So that's what I'm hoping that as soon as we can continue moving forward and this team is working pretty darn fast and using all of their resources too to help us build this program. Um we hope that this time next year we'll come back to you and be able to report the numbers that have had significant growth. That's what the goal is. So,

okay, that sounds good. Um, just a couple of things that I hear from the public. Uh, like town, they feel like it's underutilized. So, maybe music in the park, like, you know, a lot of times it sits empty, so if on a Friday night it's, you know, maybe somebody could play some live music or something. Anyway, that's a suggestion. Um, like a beer festival, like a, you know, that's big in a lot of places, like, you know, local breweries come in with their different uh brews and they set up. We got a couple of breweries in town, so they probably sure they'd be happy with something like that. Just a couple things I've heard.

There are some strategies and so kind of I'm going to step out of my town hat for a moment and step into my DCB hat. Um those within our economic vitality committee. Again, Lisa Grandstaff works with us in that um space. We are looking at some programmatic types of things that are offered through grants that would speak to some of these um public uh interest opportunities and you're right by saying music is always going to be at the top. Anytime a consumable is going to be of interest to folks. We have such a great and vibrant arts and creative community that also. So what we on the DCB side are looking to do would be help shore up and assist all of those organizations, Osprey Festival Chamber, others who conduct events currently and help to illuminate those while looking to see where there might be a space that needs to be filled in some kind of event that could be created.

So it's a fabulous work in progress. Good. Oh, one thing I just thought of, I know Rick's got a question. Um it was we did uh I forget the name of it the the events where you can have like open containers outside and you go from place to place. Dora Dora stuff. Have you sip and stroll? Sip and stroll. This I know we got the sip and stroll, but is there any expansion? Because I know that was a big deal when they mentioned it years ago, but I haven't seen much beside the sip and strolls. Right. That's something that we can look into. We um when I was in Orange running that Main Street program, we did that kind of thing for a beer festival. So, you know, it's an old playbook, but maybe dust it off and apply it here. Our team will certainly look at that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you,

Mr. Alison. Did you have something? Okay. Mr. Wood first. Okay. Uh to lend credence to uh what you were saying, we are losing one of our um water related facilities. Uh Tiki Cruz is simply not going to reopen this year. Um, and that hearkens back to you have to build it before they come, right? Uh, one of the things and in the view of trying to build things. Um, I noticed that on Town Hill many of the times when we're trying to use mobile credit card readers

because of the lack of cellular data, they're basically plastic bricks. So would you agree that one of the ways to help bring more folks into town for events like that is to actually improve that communications infrastructure so that merchants can use it more readily. Yes. Okay. Yes. And I've been asked um by a couple of individuals to see how that can happen. And so that is funny you say that because we're working on that planning commission is pleas presently working on that. Yep. Mr. Alen.

Yep. So I would some would disagree about not having things to do in Clinton Beach because it seems like we have everything going on every single weekend through the year. Um but I think the the message is is having a single point of access to all the things that are going on. A lot of times it's disparent information that maybe on this Facebook page or that Facebook page and there's things going on a lot of times that we don't even know about going on just because of so much things that are going on. Um so if there could be some uh you know downtown Clay Beach and merging some of these things together um to help the audience right our our external audience or internal audience to see those things that are here are available um you know throughout town throughout the year uh even in the offseason right so I mean a lot of places have uh food specials or whatever the scenario is getting that message out across the board would help bolster the town's uh tourism and that kind of things which we could share you know through other social media platforms.

That's the whole idea behind Discover Colonial Beach VA the new website is um to have a more thoughtful approach to how that information is packaged and delivered. Um, one of the things that we have done as an interim step, um, is to up our game with social media and that we probably will be able to launch in the next couple of weeks through one aggregator. So, the information is trustworthy. It is deployed through all these various sources. So, you're reaching many more people um, kind of more efficiently because you don't have to type in every little thing. um having that kind of one-stop shop. It is a dream and I think we can get closer to it. Will it ever be perfect? Probably not. But I think um that's what our goal is to make sure that there is one totally reliable source that's recognized as the go-to. It doesn't subsume the other people who are in this space too. It helps add to it and and support their interests as well and their activities. Um, but building that one reliable representation of the town of Colonial Beach as a visitor-driven destination is what our goal is. And so we have, as you heard me rattle off, a number of really talented, capable individuals who are leaders in their respective space in the industry who are helping contribute to this. So I'm not overpromising. We'll get her done. I think you got a large task in front of you. Uh this will be about the 10th iteration of a branding marketing scheme that I have seen in Colonial Beach. Consistency.

Each one hopes to be successful, more successful than the last one and yet we continue to get those same results back. So I wish you all the best. Um, I will say that like the concept of a calendar that has all of the things going on because I could not be more busy in this town. I am liter. There's too many places to go. I can't I miss stuff all the time because I overlaps.

Um, but I'm looking at the parks and wreck newsletter, which is really great. I mean, the town's newsletter has come a long way. There's a lot of good information in that. I'm also looking at the guide book for our regular annual events. I'm also looking at the school's Facebook page for what's going on with the kids and what the kids are doing and, you know, events like that. Um, I mean, I'm going to four or five different sources to find information about stuff. And then I'm still missing things, too.

But AI is probably your best shot at starting to pull those things together. And one of the conferences I went to then this last year, um, municipalities are talking about how they need to teach AI about their towns

so that the information is out there for other people to find it. And so, uh, like personally, it's one of my personal goals to to continue to tell my AI all about Colonial Beach. And I just keep putting information about it all the time. Cut and paste stuff. Keep putting it in the AI, hoping that those answers get available to the AI bots that are out there for tourists to come because I think people are going to be relying more on AI assistance than anybody's website. Yeah. Well, true that.

So they, you know, getting the information into the AI that's out there, particularly the big ones, Google Gemini and things like that. you know, Chad GPT is going to be critical and having a source that that AI can pull from or multiple sources or telling the AI their five best sources to pull from and having that available to it, I think, is going to be our best shot at reaching people because nowadays they just ask their phone. They don't go to a website. They just ask, "What is there to do in Colonial Beach this weekend?" Right? How many people do that on Friday? probably everyone that comes here for the weekend. So, it's a it's a big venture though.

Yes. And and to that point, I mean, that's we have to get the information accumulated so it looks good. It's the right messaging. It truly reflects what we have to offer and how we can compete against other communities when it comes to those visitors making decision. And then the next step certainly is to use all the tools and technology available to make sure that when someone asks where can I go this weekend or where can I take my family for a week um within an hour and a half, two hours radius, the top answer bubbles up and it's Colonia Beach, right? I just keep putting Columbia Beach is not Virginia Beach. Columbia Beach is not Virginia Beach in the AI. Ergo CBVA. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you all. Any other questions? Um can I just um I know that we are very small and that like resources are very limited but um do some research with AI. Um maybe use it sparingly. Um I did see some statistics that like doing an AI generated video is like uses the same amount of electricity is running your microwave for an hour. So, um I know that resources are um and AI can be very beneficial, but just take into account like maybe not use it all the time for big picture. Yeah. Thank you.

All right. Next. Is there anything else, Natasha, for town manager update? No, that concludes town manager updates. Okay. Mr. Trivet. Supervisor Trivet. Yes, there you are. Welcome.

Madame Mayor, Town Council, you never know what I'm going to say when I come up here, right? It's always a surprise.

Well, I I want to tell you, you know, I I've always believed in transparency, good, bad, or ugly. And tonight, it's not pretty. um for those that came to our meeting. I know a couple of you did. It was there on the 9th. I mean, it pains me to even talk about some of these things, but I'll just tell you the I'm my seventh year representing this town on the board. Three years as the vice chairman and now the chairman, but during the past three years as the vice chairman, it it was pretty difficult to get information from people that I work with in the county. Um, so I thought in January that would change and unfortunately it didn't. It still became difficult to ask questions and get information. So, you know, I I've spent 30 years I'm retired now in in federal law enforcement and so it just makes you feel like when you can't get answers, you need to go somewhere else and find those answers. You don't just give up. And as a result of that, I I I discovered that the county owed the town several hundred,000. And that, you know, was shocking. So, I contacted the town manager who was extremely helpful, had three meetings with the county uh administrator and basically had gotten nowhere. Um, that was just one issue. So I I started looking a little bit further and and find out that we had eight loans through Royal Development that were eight months delinquent. Talking about a million and a half dollars and letters that had been sent saying they were getting ready to recall our loans which would have bankrupted our county probably because we have millions and millions of dollars worth of loans of rural development low interest loans. Um, so as a result of that, uh, you know, I brought this to

the board's attention, something that the board should have already known about and we knew nothing about it. And I asked our treasurer to come to the meeting. Uh, I I realized that and and found out that the money had been moved because it was just sitting there. We had the money to pay the loans. Um, but it just hadn't been done. Initially it was a it was a glitch with rural development which maybe you all faced as well because numerous counties and cities faced that um predicament when rural development changed something and the bank payments wouldn't go through. Uh but everybody fixed them except for us and this went on for eight months and um so as a result of that and getting the board involved uh those loans have been paid. Um, we're up to date now. Um, I'm going to try to set up a meeting with the town manager and the staff next week to get the town resolved. Um, and hopefully where it'll never happen again. Um, and there's a lot of things that that, you know, you find out when you start looking that, you know, shouldn't be like they are. And so, uh, as a result of that, we've had to bring in the the, um, the former county administrator as an assistant to the board to try to help us figure out where we went wrong and what occurred. So, he's going to be working with us for a couple months uh, to see if we can figure that out. Uh, as a result of that, we accepted the resignation of James Taylor, the county administrator, on March the 5th. Um, and we appointed Donna Cogwell as the acting county administrator uh, moving forward. So, I would just tell you that, um, it's ugly and it's bad, but there's nothing better in that I believe for any

of us that are elected than to be transparent. And there's people even on my board that would like to hit me in the back right now probably with something if they were here because you know everybody's not that way. But we owe it to you as the citizens and to the town government to help you, to be upfront with you, to be honest with you, and to provide you information any way we can because we work for you. And I've always felt that way and had that philosophy. I'll always be that way. I'm not a politician. and I'm just somebody that thinks that what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. So, we've made some changes. There'll be some other changes that'll probably be coming in the near future uh at the county level possibly. Um we do have a new finance director that started in January. Um so, she's just getting her feet wet and uh and she's got her hands full already trying to figure out, you know, how to straighten a lot of things out. Um, I'll tell you from uh from what I understand that that mistake is going to cost us about $125,000 in interest. Um, it's compounded on a daily basis. It's it's sickening. That's your tax dollars. That's my tax dollars. And it's just sickening. And um, but I I I believe that in order to be honest, it's something you need to know about. And like I said, everybody might not agree with me on that, but you know, I'm sorry for people that don't, but I think you have an absolute right to know when things go wrong and what we're doing to fix them. We're fixing them and we we're already showing that by some of the actions that we're taking. Um, and so if you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. I hope in the next week or so uh working I've worked very closely with the town manager and she's just been great to work with and and um and I I think that her and I will be able to resolve this hopefully within the next

uh week or so to where the town can get the money that they're owed because if it was the other way around we know you know how that works because we've seen it in the past. if you owed the county something and you wasn't there on day one with it, then you know, somebody's knocking down your door. So, we're going to take care of it and we're going to get it right and, you know, we're going to continue to work together and do what we can to make things right. Um, and I'll be glad to uh answer any questions if I can about about anything. There's nothing that I'm telling you tonight that that wasn't discussed at our meeting in public on the 9th. Um, and I'm sure you're going to read about it. We've already been getting foyer requests and other people calling us since since this became public um on the 9th and I and I and I have to say and I I I shout out to our attorney all the time, Richard Stewart. There's nobody any better. Nothing against your attorney because I like him too, but um but I just tell you uh

we like pal. When I notified him, the first thing he said is you got to be transparent. the public has the right to know if if we've done something wrong and we need to make it right. So, and I commend him for that because he thinks just like I do. Um, any questions tonight about anything? I hope I'm not forgetting anything. But before I start calling on people, I just want to, you know, the delinquency is related to sewer bells, right? That's correct.

And re related to that, I will just say you as a supervisor have been here with us. you're very diligent about coming to our meetings and I appreciate that so much and you know what we've been working through and you know how much you know work has had to go into getting on the right side of this. You know we've had to raise our sewer rates two years in a row. You get a town sewer bill you know just like I do.

Yes I do. Um, so it did surprise me that the county was not adjusting rates considering that was obviously going to have an impact there and I don't know why there would have ever been an expectation that that was not a shared impact because it is one plant for all users, right? So, I'm glad to you're working with the town manager to um resolve that the you know and I know that you'll do you know you work it out and that it will get resolved but um and I'm and I'm know there's been a lot it's so hard when you have that much leadership change. I just say that as a from this side from this council here. We've been through changes in town managers. You all have been through a couple now. And when you have a CFO, a brand new CFO too, I mean, that is a big impact to the county. And I know a lot of that is resting on your shoulders right now and the rest of the board of supervisors, but really on you as chair. And I just want to say that, you know, we're here to work with you and work through this as well and just extend that because I, you know, I just have some compassion honestly about how difficult that is for you guys. And I'm glad, you know, you've brought it to light and, you know, trudging through it, making some of the hard decisions that have to happen through that and we'll keep um working with you on it. So, I just wanted to start out with that. We can open up to other council members that have I saw a lot of hands go up. I saw Woods and Sanford. I'll start on this side. Is that okay?

Okay. Wood, first of all, uh Tim, thanks for your leadership on this. This is never you say you know you're a pioneer because you're the ones with the arrows in your back, right? Um and so this has got to have been a tough time. The the question I have since the money was there. Usually you think if bills aren't being paid, where's the money? Well, it was there. So from what you've discovered, has this primarily been a process problem within the county?

Um I would say probably so. Um um yes, you know, the finance director that we had, she retired um few months ago, like I believe it was last June. And then another lady that did accounts payable, she took over as the finance director. Uh and then in January, we we have an uh she retired in December. Now we have another new finance director. And so there's been some miscommunication somewhere along the lines when it comes to keeping track of things. And so, uh, there's no, um, I mean, I don't I don't think there's any embezzlement. There's nothing that we need to worry about anybody misappropriating any funds, um, that I'm aware of. But, you can believe one thing. I'll I'll follow that trail, too. If if if things don't work like I think they are right now, I mean, we're going to continue to find out what went wrong. And I believe it probably is because of people that may not have known the processes and procedures. So we may have to, you know, reinvent the wheel and and figure out, you know, where we go from here and and ensure more than anything else that this never happens again.

Well, thank you for your kind words for uh our town manager. Um you've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And u it was very encouraging to hear that uh you found our town manager easy to work with and uh I have no doubt that the two of you are going to come to a great conclusion on this. Thank you, Mr.

W. Yeah, just a quick question since we're in bu budget season and talking about money. Um, one of the things we noticed on our budget was the E E911 communications fees from the county had gone up significantly. I think there were over 600,000. Do you have any insight on that or

I I just have be honest with you, I do not. Um, we we're we should be well ahead of the game right now with our budget and we're zero. We're we're at square one just because of all that's going on right now. So, uh, but yes, I'm I'm, you know, aware of different things that involve the 911 and where that money goes, the tower out here. I mean, there's issues that we've been discussing and trying to get resolved now for the last couple years. And hopefully, we'll get a solution to all that. As you know, the dispatch has went up and up. I think it started out when the county first took over dispatch, it was around 268,000 and now it's I want to say over 500,000 or close to it. So, it's not I mean everything is is going up and um you know so um you know there may be and and and I'll tell you we're constantly having radio issues and that's going to cost us millions. I mean the chief can tell you theirs was down this weekend. I think it was the storm. The towers are not lining up. I mean it's we're getting ready to spend you know we had the people out there today. It's going to cost us about 20,000 to to line these antennas up. And then we're finding out that there's some they were not properly installed when they were put up in 2018. And so now we've got I mean it's just you just find things out that's just should never happen. But those radios are critical. You know, that's your life support. And um and so we're doing what we can to get that resolved immediately, which we do have talk around some different things that that we can use for emergency services that that works well. Um if you don't have that, so we got the emergency uh vehicle that we have as well with uh if that has to be brought up. But right now, I think everything's working okay. Um so we're working on that, but yeah, there's there's issues that need to be addressed and and uh and that being one of them. I mean, we've talked about that

for a long time, where that money goes and who keeps that money and how it how it's utilized. So, uh, but those are conversations I think the town manager will be able to have, um, at the county level as well and and get answers to those. Um, because I intend this year, I may only be chairman for one year, but I intend that we we have a lot of conversations that we haven't had in the past and we figure out things that have went ignored that we've actually questioned and and had conversations about that. That's all it was was just a question and a conversation and it went nowhere. and she can tell you she had three meetings that amounted to nothing. She got nowhere on the on this money that's owed the town. And you know, but I don't operate that way. Now that I'm aware of it and I'm involved in it, we're going to move forward one way or the other and we'll get it resolved. However, it's got to happen. We're going to make it happen. So,

I think Miss Sanford, you still had a question. Yeah. I just wanted to um kind of echo uh the mayor's point, but just say thank you for your uh transparency and due diligence and just getting to the bottom of this. I really appreciate it. So, thank you. Thank you. I don't envy your position right now, mayor. You know, I'll call you if I need your help for I know I'm just a phone call away. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ado. Welcome.

Well, good evening, Madame Mayor, town council members. It's my mic on I think it is. Uh it's a great segue to follow economic development and then Mr. trivet uh to talk about the uh school's proposed budget for the FY2027 for the sake of uh of time. Uh and I will try to go through this but not to minimize the importance of of uh present the presentation of this budget to the town council. I may skip a few uh slides. Uh but please for the public know that this presentation is also uh public on our website as of uh now. So they can uh refer that to that uh uh little slideshow on on our website. And as always, if you have any questions, uh, please reach out to myself or any of their board members, especially Miss Leburn, the board chair, and also, uh, Miss, uh, Lucas Payton, the vice chair. So, without any further ado, uh, next slide, please. Uh, these are board members, uh, uh, so you can reach out to any of them, including myself. Next slide. I keep thinking that's my phone. Uh the next slide, please. Uh this is a school strategic uh vision and mission and that's included in our strategic plan uh for at least for another year until we develop a new one. And and just in short, uh it basically tells uh our public tells our folks that uh what we we plan to do is equip every student uh with the skills that they'll need, the knowledge that they'll need uh today and uh and moving forward in the

future so they can be successful. Next slide, please. uh within our strategic plan we have uh five goals and those are the five goals that uh drives us it directs us it is our compass uh so uh we don't lose track and we continue to meet these goals uh we have successfully met uh most of these goals but we continue to excel as you can see the three goals that you see in front of you uh are in yellow and then below that are what we call our key performance indicators KPIs is it gives us a a a compass, a direction if we are meeting those goals. For example, a high quality learning environment. Uh these are some of the examples that if we're able to have those activities and events, we'll know that we are meeting that goal. Uh next slide, please. And the next uh two uh goals that you'll see in our strategic plan are the fiscal stewardship which is uh taking care of our business in terms of financially. Uh so any revenue will equate to the expenditures and it will produce the results that we're looking for in terms of uh student academic success. And then the last one is also always to recruit, retain, and have the best staff that we can for our kids. Next slide, please. To give you a legal uh background and context, uh the Virginia code mandates that um myself, every superintendent in a school division, uh prepare needs-based and balanced budget every year. Uh the budget is first to be presented to the school board which was uh done last week at the board meeting and then to the local governing body for approval and

the presentation for that is tonight. Uh the budget uh mostly include estimation of uh how much it'll uh cost uh the money needs to uh for the next fiscal year for the support of the public schools. Next slide, please. Uh to give you a little bit since our budget is largely based on the governor's budget, the bianium budget. Uh right now the uh folks in Richmond are going through the budget process. the initial uh initial governor's budget gives you a little bit of uh what's ahead that peak through the window until the house and the senate uh conduct the amendments and uh and make the adjustments. Right now the governor had 857.9 million general fund but very little excuse me went to K12. Uh now Virginia of course saw a significant bud uh budget surplus of nearly 2.7 billion to three billion. And with that we got a little bit of help because they were able to supplement the retirement system uh to VRS uh which reduced uh the cost for the employee contributions by 2.01%. Uh so the governor's budget indicates that 2% salary increase for state share of our standards of quality instruction and support positions with low localities uh to provide at least 1.5% for prorated share and also a 2% bonus to all SOQ positions and that is state uh contribution only. Uh now for this year we're projecting that our our membership tell why this is

just a commercial break. Now our ADM projection for next year will be based on 540 uh student count. Next slide please. Now, to give you a little bit about what's going on with the House and Senate, um I will uh maneuver back and forth a little bit. The state share of the house, uh it's basically from that 2% that the governor recommended for a salary raise. Uh I mean for the bonus, they have changed that to 1,500 as a flat rate for all SOQ positions. And I think that's also shared in the Senate. Uh the house maintained a 2% increase for next school year. Uh the senate uh proposed an additional 1%. So the 2% has gone to a 3% and we believe that is probably what's going to pass uh that 3%. And then additionally there's a two uh 1% uh recommended referendum for local sales tax for school construction. Uh and then there's some additional uh amounts of money to increase at risk add-on and also for special education. Uh those budget items uh for school divisions dropped uh drastically. Uh next slide please. So for the school's budget process, it's important that uh we all know exactly how that the budget process works. uh principles, directors, and coordinators will review their FY26 budget uh to look at their expenditures uh and determine if there will be any increases, increases or any reduction. Uh but granted that any any input that is submit will have a justification to it. Uh that process goes to our

executive directors. uh that review that uh process and then it comes to the finance director, myself and we review it and we see what is feasible, what is not within our budget for next year uh based on our projected ADM and then the budget is uh created. I must add that the uh budget survey is also very important uh that we put out to our parents, staff and students. Next slide please. This slide gives you a historical enrollment. As you can see, uh Colonial Beach public schools has fluctuates fluctuated a bit. Uh and now we'll review basically uh this past school year. Our budget was projected. The enrollment was 555 uh projected on our budget. As of March the 1st uh 2026, we are at 536. Uh uh now you may ask why so low. It is due to several factors. Uh one uh that we are trying to resolve is that we did have 10 seniors uh that uh finished their graduation requirements in December. Uh so you sort of lose 10 seniors out of your ADM in March. Uh so that that has happened last several years. Uh and and usually that has an impact on our ADM as we move forward. Uh so for next year, as you can see, we're projecting 540 uh for our total uh enrollment. Next slide, please. So to tie the ADM the average daily

membership to the local government share uh this year the budget was at 555 and it still remains uh to be determined uh at the end we will get another uh projection from the state uh when they will finalize our ADM for the year and ADM is collected in two uh points it's collected in in September mber and it's also collected at the end of March. Uh and then they will determine exactly what our year ADM will be and that does impact the local share. As you can see, as of right now, it's at 3.3 million uh for the local share. Uh and that would depend on exactly what the ADM if the ADM is lower, of course, the funds are also lower. uh if the ADM is higher uh typically some of the funds are also higher uh so the student uh body count is important uh there are a lot of other factors also but not to I'm just simplifying this a bit uh so as of our fiscal year FY27 we are projecting 540 students and the local share for that will be 3 million52,837. Next slide, please. Uh based on our community and staff surveys, budget input, uh we look at academic data. Uh we look at previous expenditures, uh our strategic plan, and these are the four priorities, budget priorities shared with uh town council last month in the budget uh in the survey. and his competitive staff salaries and benefits. As I shared before, the governor, the house, and the senate will probably pass

a 3% uh raise for all uh SOQ positions, mainly teachers. Uh academic programs and instructional materials is two, academic support services, counseling and mental health is three, and then you have uh facilities and maintenance. I think that number four is new for this year. Uh mainly due to our high school that needs uh some uh uh TLC. Next slide, please. Uh this is probably uh one of the important slides out of uh this presentation. It really uh the rubber meets the road with this slide. U starting on the left hand side is is just the operating budget highlights. Next fiscal year, we are looking at a decrease in funding from the local government and also from the state uh which will total $974,621 in revenue decrease. Uh 265,161 will be a decrease in local funding and $710,710 decrease in state funding. Uh so we're looking at almost a million dollars in in in in the shortfall for the revenue that we received uh for this uh fiscal year FY26. At the same time, every year as uh most people know uh we do have an expenditure that will increase and this year we have uh an increase in 308,431 and from that uh the 3% I mentioned earlier uh that we will be required to give SOQ positions uh that is a total of

$72,374 the FY 27 budget. We do have an employer health insurance rate increase. Right now it's projected at 13%. Uh from uh our insurance uh and then that will be 6,00 66,776. Also we are required to adopt curriculum textbooks for next uh school year. And that is something that is uh uh commonwealthwide for every school division is uh math uh science and social studies and that would be 169,281. That number is a projection. We expect that to go down a little bit uh but probably about $10,000. That's about it. And then our yearly commitment, strategic investments at $258,480 that goes to our ches Chesapeake Bay Governor School and also Northern Neck Technical Center. And if you look on the bottom, the last bullet on the left is 8.3 million almost 8.4. Uh that is our investment in employee pay and benefits. Uh so we're talking about salaries uh health insurance uh FICER uh VRS retirement that comes to roughly about 85% of the school's budget and that is uh is within the range pretty typical percentage for every school district in the Commonwealth. Now on the right hand side is what we estimate our operating budget will be for the FY27 and this excludes our food services. We'll jump to the bottom. Our food

services is about half a million dollars. It's mostly self-funded. Uh so roughly around 97 98% self-funded for state allocation. The state will according to our ADM the state will supply the district with 6,224,029 will be the state allocation and for the uh local governing body uh the town will be 3,52,837 uh required local government match and then we have 125,000 grants and miscellaneous uh that is our rate and Medicaid reimburse ment. Uh so as of what we have for the district uh we are total anticipated revenue as mentioned before will be $9,276 uh 9 million mean 276,991 is anticipated revenue. That gives us a shortfall of 511,559 uh dollars. Uh so what we are what I'm asking what we are requesting from the town is three 3.3 million uh from the town and but that will be $265,161 over required local match uh leaving the district at a shortfall of $248,398. uh we still have to make up that difference uh in various ways. Uh next slide please. So the expenditure highlights I'll go through this uh bit fast. Uh the main goal is really to remain uh competitive

with other districts as we're giving 3%. Uh other districts are given 3% and a lot more uh because they they're trying to be competitive. Uh we we have great staff, great teachers, and our goal is always to keep them. I think this past two years, we've done a great job of that. Uh of course, the health insurance increases uh to upgrade their high school uh student support services and of course we want to increase the APDE, CTE courses at the high school. Next slide, please. So some of our strategic investments uh you have already heard about uh the salaries by our people are the foundation of our success. Uh I I don't have to tell you public school is is is our people's business. Education is people's business. It impacts all of us one way or another. And what we want to do is just uh present the best uh education that we can uh to our kids uh of Colonial Beach. Next slide please. There are several things that impacts the uh workforce in a strategic environment. Uh our workforce really is we do we still have that recruitment stipen and we encourage that. That has worked very well for us. I give you an example that we have uh I don't want to use the word stolen but we have acquired uh three teachers uh from uh King George and and we are very excited about that. Uh previously in the years past it has been the other way around. Uh our teachers have been leaving to go to King George. Uh so we we we know that we we we have something good that's going on here. They enjoy our kids. they enjoy our environment and we we are competitive with our pay. So we we want

to continue to do that and then we provide a support for them uh while they're here to get acclimated and to get settled to becoming a drifter. Uh so to repeat that uh what I said earlier uh we have a town funding request uh from the school is at 3,317,998 and that will be the same funding as this past school year uh uh I want to say level funding uh but I I probably get it confused uh level funding each year is different uh depending on the ADM and what the LCI will indicate, but of course that's $265,61 uh dollars above required local match for FY27. Next slide, please. Now, uh we I wanted to put this slide in uh because it's important for the public to know that this is what a 3% looks like. uh let's say for an average teacher teacher with step five if you look at the middle of this uh chart uh at step five for this school year is making $55,52 with the 3% for next year their salary increases to $56,716 uh meaning their annual the difference is 1,664 but monthly for their paycheck check, they will get $13866 before any deductions are taken from that. Uh so it'll be much less than 138. Next slide, please. Uh we'll skip this one. Next slide.

And this is an overview of uh the school's budget. Uh where the money comes from and where it goes. Uh it's important that folks know from this uh pie chart on the left hand side the pie chart we we have 62.2% uh comes from the state and then 31.3% from the local government meaning the town and then our grants are the funding force uh sources that we have is 6.4%. uh where the funds expenditure where it goes uh instruction is 72.2%. And then you see administration at 11.7% food services, transportation, maintenance and operations. And I think is that the last slide? Next slide, please. And this is a timeline. In April, the school board will make any adjustments but approve the proposed budget and then it goes to the town. I think the town has will eventually approve the budget uh in May. I believe from what I see and that's the end of my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions. Any questions? I know the council members have seen the presentation already and this is just the public viewing of it. So, I don't know if there's any further questions since we've had a chance to meet with you about it already. All right, we'll keep moving forward. Dr. Ado, thank you very much. Next up is Mr. Nelson with Downtown Columbia annual report.

Welcome.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, Council, uh Madame Town Manager. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you this evening and give you an update on uh what's going on with downtown Colonial Beach. I'd first like to thank uh thank the council and the Ma town manager for all their support for downtown Colonial Beach. Uh Main Street is a true partnership program. It needs the it it must have the uh support of the town or the municipality as well as the the businesses in town. And we certainly have gotten that support from from the town manager and from you, the council. So, we really appreciate that. It's really what has gotten us to where we are today with uh with uh downtown Colonial Beach. Um so, I'm here today to uh talk to you a little bit about our annual report, which I believe all of you have received a copy of of that. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, perfect. Uh, I'm going to leave these copies here. If anybody from the public would like to get a copy, they'll I'll just leave those copies there. I'll take one so I can re refer to it.

Will you actually make sure you leave some on the table in the back? I find more people are willing to pick it up when it's on their way out the door. Sure. I'll Yeah, I'll pick it up and take it perfect back.

Thank you. Um so this uh annual report was is one of the um requirements that we had to do uh in order to achieve the next status uh that we've been working towards which is to have accreditation by uh Main Street America. So what it says here at the top of this is that we made it to the advancing level of Main Street. And the advancing level of Main Street is an accreditation by Virginia Main Street. And we did get that accreditation last year. And what we've been working for for the last 12 months is to get uh the accreditation by Main Street America. And as I sort of teased you with some information at the last meeting, uh we have been recommended to get uh full Main Street uh status by uh Main Street America by our mentor uh in Virginia Main Street. So we believe that that is coming. uh Main Street America has not yet made the formal announcement, but they but we have every reason to believe that we will get full Main Street status uh beginning in when they announce it in April. Uh so what you can see from this from this report is uh some of the accomplishments that we've made that we made last year, including some of the economic impacts that uh Main Street has had on on Colonial Beach. Um, and I can uh hopefully answer questions that you might have about where those numbers come from. Uh, but I'll I'll leave it for you to look at it for the moment. And if you do have any questions, I can answer them afterwards. Um, also the back side of it gives um of this annual report just gives some additional information about some of the uh activities that we've been ongoing uh for the last uh for the last year including of course the uh connectivity study that was done last year that has given us given the town and given downtown Colonial Beach sort of a

roadmap to follow for uh future activities. Um, so, uh, I'll I'll let you look at that more and I can answer questions about that at the end if you'd like. But I also wanted just to talk a little bit more about what it is that we what we've been up to. Um, one of the things that we are focused on very intently is uh, downtown investment grant. We are trying to get this grant. Uh, I think the amount is $50,000 alto together if that's correct, Charlotte. Yes, $50,000 grant. Um and the grant will be used for a variety of different things in this town. But uh among them are we want to create a uh uh a cartoony kind of map. I think um some of you who've been around for quite a long time remember that there used to be this kind of cartoony map of uh of Colonial Beach with a lot of the businesses highlighted. uh where we want to do that again and uh we want to then use that that artwork for kiosks that we're going to put throughout the town. So the kiosks will be uh wayfinding uh messages of where to go, where things are in this town, and there will be QR codes which will direct people to get more information about specific businesses, uh spec specific activities and that sort of thing. So we will be having I think four kiosks. That's our plan is have four kiosks throughout the throughout the area trying to again direct people to where all the fun things are going on in the town. Um, another thing that we are going to be using the money for for the downtown investment grant is uh to uh replace and revitalize the um the golf cart uh the love golf cart down on the on the boardwalk. um despite uh efforts by uh Miss Sanford when she was an employee of the town, uh it has now gotten into a state uh where it is really not really repairable

anymore. And so we're working with some local businesses to have given us um golf carts that we that will be used to replace the ones that we to replace that one. And uh there will be a second love golf cart that will be in front of um CB Creative. So, you can uh stay tuned for that. It's going to be a fun fun project. Uh, another thing that we've been working on is we have a new home uh or we have a prospective new home. We were at 125 Wilder. You maybe remember that building, Madame Mayor. That's where your office was were for a while. Uh we have left that building and uh for a short period of time uh Gray Construction has allowed us to use uh an office that they have in their building as a temporary home. But soon uh in May we hope we will be moving into a building that was purchased uh which is where the old lawyers title building was. That building is being uh painted and re and renovated. You probably have seen the the new paint colors and so forth of the building. And that building is uh is going to be the new home of downtown Colonial Beach and other nonprofit organizations that are in town. And uh we're also hoping that it can also serve as a visitor center so that people coming into town will have a convenient place to stop to get information about the town. Some of those details are still in the works, so stay tuned for how it's actually all going to uh unfold, but it's very exciting to have that building put to that use. Um, another development I want to share with you is that uh we have been downtown Columbia Beach has been without a vice president for a while. I was vice president uh two years ago when Jeff Crook was president. Uh, since I've been

president, there has not been a vice president, but we most recently we uh elected Kelly Vaughn to be the vice president of downtown Columbia Beach. So, we now do have a a very capable vice president. And um uh the succession plan is that perhaps uh if she's uh if all things work out, she will become the next president of downtown Colonial Beach. Um let's see. Another thing that we have been working on um well let me say this about downtown Colonial Beach board. We have tried very hard uh to have a board that reflects the community in terms of age in terms of um gender in in various way we've we've tried to reflect on our board uh the way the community looks and that is actually a requirement of of main street programs is that the board should reflect the community. One of the areas that we didn't really think about in doing that was um we didn't have anybody on the board that came from generational background in Colonial Beach. All of the people that we had on the board were people that were uh new arrivals to town. So we have decided that what we in order to make sure that we have the perspective of people who have generational backgrounds in Colonial Beach is that we are creating an advisory committee of those types of people so that we can make sure that uh the things that downtown Colonial Beach is doing fits with the perspective and the desires of the people who have uh helped shape Colonial Beach for generations. That is uh certainly a goal in general of main street programs is to is to respect the history of the location uh where the program is located. So we are

very seriously uh trying to intend to do that. So we want to again make sure that we take into consideration all of the uh all of the things that the the people who have again who have been in this town and built this town for many generations what they would like to see in this town. Um, and especially since uh next year is going to be our 135th uh anniversary and it reminded us of this that we really need to take our history very seriously and we really want to make sure that we are that again that our programs reflect uh the history of this town. And the last thing I want to bring to your attention is a um a fun event. Our fundraiser for uh for downtown Colonial Beach is going to be a Kentucky Derby party. It was mentioned earlier that we should do more on Townill and that's exactly where this event is going to take place. It's going to be a Derby party on May 2nd, which is the date of the Kentucky Derby. Uh come rain or shine, we're going to figure it out one way or the other, and we're going to have a great time. We're going to have contests and different activities. Um Kathy Cavender, who's on our board, uh who's a equestrian, is going to be bringing um uh folks dressed up in horse and horse attire, horseback riding attire. Uh so it's going to be a very fun event and I hope that uh you guys will come and uh enjoy yourself and support the organization. Again, thank you for this opportunity. I'm happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions?

Sure. Miss Hanford, um I just had a question. What's the difference between what the Main Street level is we are now and like the advanced status?

We are in the advanced status right now. So the the there's several stages of Main Street. The first one is called Exploring Main Street, which is where downtown Colonial Beach was years ago. The next uh the next status was called um I'm going to have to turn to Charlotte and ask her. Mobilizing Main Street. Mobilizing Main Street was where we were uh prior to getting this advancing main street status. So we have been in the advancing main street status since January or the end of December or January of last year. Uh so what we're striving for now is the last uh highest status which is uh called uh it's basically just full accreditation by Main Street America.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And by the way with each with each uh change in status becomes more recognition by the state, more recognition by the national program, more opportunities for grants, more opportunities to promote ourselves to as for tourists and so forth. So these are not just uh hurdles that we're trying to overcome for, you know, our own sake. They are hurdles that we're trying to overcome in order to achieve a status that makes it better a better main street program for the town. Mr. Larson,

so you just answered the question I was going to ask, but are there particular things that we get at this this this highest level accreditation that are maybe interesting for the council or the public to hear about?

Yes. Yes. That's correct. We will be getting more and more of these kind of um additional things. For example, one of the things that we now are are able to apply for is this downtown investment grant which which we wouldn't have been able to apply for uh uh at a lower level. So, it's those kind of grant opportunities and um and also just the the feather that we can put in our cap when we promote ourselves that we are at full Main Street programs. There's signage that's going to be put up. It's it's it's a big deal. Becoming a Main Street program is a big deal. And and I have to again commend the council and the mayor and the and the town manager for their support. They recognize the the importance of this and uh and have been and have really um made it a priority to be to achieve this status and and uh we are we're getting there.

Mr. Williams. Yeah. I was just wondering um you know the community has a lot of good input to provide sometimes especially when it comes to tourism and and the downtown. Have you guys ever considered maybe not every meeting but make an occasional meeting in public where people can come and provide feedback and maybe listen to some of the conversations?

Sure. Uh I'll answer that in a couple of ways. First of all, during the um the uh the preparation of the connectivity study, there were um community meetings that were held in order to gather public input for that important um document that was prepared. So that that did happen. Um we we are certainly we certainly do want public input. Uh we we have an affiliation with um um community heart and soul. Community heart and soul and and main street programs oftentimes are kind of like work together and the community heart and soul program as you probably are aware is a program that is all about trying to get community input. So we we are uh actively engaged with uh community heart and soul and looking into the all of the the documentation that they have prepared as storytelling and all of the input that they have received from from uh from the residents. So we are always looking for new opportunities to uh enhance uh the aware public awareness and public input.

Thank you. I think the Kentucky Derby event is going to be of great fun. I apologize in advance that I already will be out of town for that weekend. Um, doing a personal celebration for Mother's Day early with my son. So, I won't be able to attend, but hopefully the rest of the council can all be there um in support of it. It sounds like a great idea. It's going to be fun fun. Thanks.

Thank you. All right. Next up is public comment. And as always,

he hijacked the public comment paper. Um, all right. As always, we're going to start out with just letting you guys um in case you're new to the meeting or haven't heard the spiel, although you know, most of the time we have a lot of a lot of uh tried and true. Um during all public comments or hearings, we ask that certain guidelines be followed. We do ask that you come and stand at the podium. And for the record, please state your name and your address. Um if you'd like to be contacted, uh you need to provide your contact information to the clerk. So that would have been on that sheet. If you forgot to do that and you still would like to, just hand her a note or let her know um your contact information and how you'd like to be contacted. Make your comments to the council as a whole. Be brief and state your position and provide facts. and you may provide written statements or any supporting materials to the clerk and she'll pass it out to us and then and the town manager. Debate is prohibited and we do follow up on comments um provided by the town manager. So, she'll follow up on any comments. Please speak clearly as we want to hear what you have to say and the council will try to hear everyone who wishes to speak on any subject. Comments are limited to five minutes and time cannot be transferred to another speaker. If you represent a group, you may wish to identify the members of your group that are here tonight in attendance. And after public comment is closed, we encourage you stay. As the council continues to engage in dialogue and deliberate on uh agenda items. So with that, we'll open up public comment. I got 7:48 p.m. for the record.

Welcome Good evening everyone. This is my first meeting to attend and I have to tell you I'm very impressed with all you have all the accomplishments and all the future wonderful things going to happen here. I'm here really for a slight little problem. I live at 221 Longfellow and our street is a mess. We have puddles so large that ducks weigh in them. And I sent you an email with pictures from today. Um, two days ago there was rain and it still puddles. Um, so I just want to just little cheerlead for Long Fellow and see if we could get some help there to to resurface.

Thank you. Next is Carolyn. Welcome and take your time. No need to rush. I promise I won't run. Oh, yeah. Please.

So, hello, Madame Mayor and Council. My name is Carolyn Shamo, and my husband and I are new to Colonial Beach. We've been here since May, and we moved in and we built this really cute cottage, and we really love the neighborhood. Congrats on the snow removal. Was that you? The snow removal was brilliant. Like, honestly, it was so nice to see. So, I just want to say thank you for all of the things that the city provides for us. So, we signed our paperwork in May and we didn't get our deed in the mail. So, I went to West Morland County to get a copy of my deed. I live at 517 Franklin Street. The deed says I live at 517 Franklin Avenue. Exactly. So, West Morland, that office sent me to two other offices that asked me what' the postmaster say, who knew these were the problems with having the wrong street name on my deed. And I need help. We need help. We need to get that fixed. And when we've talked to somebody from zoning, the answer that we have gotten, our lawyer has gotten, and West Morland County got was, we know it's a problem and we're working on it. If that didn't get your parents spidey senses up, that would have gotten me checking out what my kid was doing. That is such a goaway. We actually need an answer. And I don't know where to go to get one. I certainly am not going to go to the zoning office to the person who had that come out of their mouth. We need help and I don't know where to turn. Thank you. Um, our contact information is on that sheet. So, we'd love help. Thanks.

Perfect. Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Knuckles.

Good evening. Will Knuckles for Monroe Bay Avenue. Um, I'll start with a topic that's not on tonight's agenda, but it's a theme of y'alls for a while, which is communication towers. Or actually maybe I should characterize the theme as somebody wants to do something in town and rather actually rather than dealing with that specific topic. Uh we seem to lurch towards trying to rewrite town code for the entire town to try to fit what one individual wants to do with sort of one area of town. We went through this with Dodson on school hill with some unintended consequences in other areas of town. Some people like those unintended consequences. Some people hated those unintended consequences. Right? But these are the sort of problems that you have when you switch from somebody wanting to talk about a use on a parcel and switching that into going like let's just rewrite the town code for everybody, right? And then later on going, oh, right, this is what this means. So I think your process is fundamentally flawed, right? And there've been some remarks about the fact that you kind of have to do it this way. You can't really focus on something. And yet later today on this very agenda, you have the fact that the rescue squad needs to go like we need to actually look at this particular area and we want to talk about the fact of having you guys work on this particular area. That seems to be flying along just fine, right? So it seems fundamentally inconsistent what y'all have been saying earlier this same calendar you're in the same quarter about how you can't address one topic and actually focus down on it narrowly but you're going to look at another topic and try and focus on that narrowly to sort of rearrange the uses to make it actually work with the town. This just doesn't make sense. It's bad policy. We've been doing this for a while. We keep doing this repeatedly with with bad things happening as a result. You got to get your heads around the fact that if somebody wants to do something different, it's a variance. It's asking for an exception and that every time somebody wants to do something in town, you stop rewriting the entire town code to try to make that one use happen because that one use isn't related to that one parcel. In this case, it's C1, right? So, it's everything from, you know, coming into town out on McKini all the way down Monroe Bay Avenue, the parcel right

across the street from me where I live, right? The vacant lot across the street from me. all of these things sort of come into play. Um, and as it relates to sort of the the breadth of what's going on when you try to look at at changing the town code as opposed to looking at a particular place in the town is that I hope that you'll all go back and review the town ethics guidelines and start to look at who has a connection to C1 that's bringing a part that already has been a part of this dialogue and who's going to be a part of this dialogue that's supposed to relate to things that like where you have business interests in this, financial interest in this, family interest in this, even the appear Appearance of conflict of interest is what the state says to look out for because it relates to your underlying trust in government, right? It relates to whether or not the citizens will believe you on any other day of the week about any other topic. This is why you step back and it's not about saying I won't do I'll make sure that the vote is going to go the way I want it, but I won't be caught doing the final vote. It's about recusing yourself from the process entirely. There's plenty of y'all up here, right? several of you could step back and the process could still go forward with an intelligent deliberation on what we do with our town when we have these appearances of conflicts or actual conflicts. Either one is supposed to make you go, "Whoa, I'm backing off on this." And when you're talking about something as broad as C1, that affects a lot of people, right? And I think y'all should individually and hopefully as a group both look at whether or not you're handling this appropriately and how you're going to handle it going forward. Uh, next topic is the budget, right? You're going to talk about the budget. you're going to talk about the recap of the workshop. Uh, you know, that's a part of this meeting today. Um, wasn't lost on me that there was no sort of public role in that, right? There's no, you know, you're going to talk about it today as sort of a recap. There's no public role in that other than if we sort of try and wedge our way into the the the public comment section here, but there's no active listening going on. The way the process is cooked up is you ask what the town professional staff want to do. Yelson and I've hashed this back and forth. It eventually gets around to the point of a public hearing

and then all you get back is eye right you get people that go like I don't like this I don't like this I don't like this but there's no positive upfront saying before we get into all that what would our neighbors like to have in this next budget cycle and listen to them upfront and then have the professional staff give you some guidance as to what it means to try to work in any of those ideas right even just at a conceptual level much less a cost level which should even be better but you'd have the public input early in the process process. Once again, it seems like you're teeing this up so that what you will result in is a is a 90% baked cake and then you're going to open up to criticism, in which case you'll get people who say like, "I don't like this. I don't like these costs. I want you to cut these things." But that's a reactive mode of the public. The public is actually a much better source of information in this town than that. It could really be instructive in trying to formulate what you want to do as opposed to what we don't want you to do. So I think if you listen to both pieces and try and find I know part of the process is already gone right can't rewrite history but as soon as possible try and find some avenue to finding out what people want and then also have the the formal hearings and stuff that you have planned anyhow for later in the process.

Thank you Mr. Knuckles.

Welcome back.

Yeah, thank you. Um, Eric Nelson, 1321 Losting Avenue. So, I didn't mean to cause confusion by taking the sheet. I just wanted to sign my name on it. I didn't have a pen up here, so I needed to go back. Anyway, um, just a couple of quick things. One is um, I have been meaning to uh, stand before you and publicly thank public works for the stellar job that they have done with snow removal. I I you know I have a place in Alexandria and I go to it and when and I did go to it in this past snowstorm and there was snow everywhere and couldn't get down my street and blah blah blah. Here everything was perfect. I mean you guys do a stellar job and I just wanted to say thank you very much. Um I also want to put on my CB creative hat and uh give you guys a heads up on a uh fundraiser that we are doing. Um maybe last year some of you will remember that we did a fundraiser where uh artists and other creative people uh got Aderonduct chairs and painted them or in other ways decorated them and then we auctioned them off. Uh this year we're doing the same thing but we are doing it with aderondac tables. So we are these are little side tables that go along with the aderonduct chairs that that we did last year. So um uh the the um the program was launched today. So um if any of you are artists, Madame Mayor, and you're interested in um in painting aderonduct table, um go over to CB Creative and you can get one and be part of our fun project. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I always like to open it up in case there's anybody that would still like to come up that did not sign up. I don't just know that you're all invited. All right, with that, I'm going to close the public comment at 7:58 p.m. And I'm going to take a 10-minute recess because we've been sitting up here for quite some time.

Take your seats and silence your cell phones again for me, please. All right, we readjourning 8:08 p.m. and we're going to move right forward into our new business, which is authorizing a public hearing date for uh the fire department for a cup to build a new facility behind Lenny's. Darla, is she on line with us?

I am. Yes, ma'am. Madame Mayor, members of council, Miss Tucker, um the Colonial Beach Volunteer Fire Department is requesting approval of two cases. a substantial accord determination SA 2601 and um for an emergency service establishment facility and reszoning from general business C1 and I mean C1 and general residential R2 to commercial residential CR with a conditional use permit approval to permit community facility use which is meeting and event space. The property does uh front the west line of Garfield Avenue uh for approximately 200 feet. It is right behind Lenny's um on Garfield Avenue and the subject property is.7 acre. The fire department proposes the new building to store equipment and fire apparatus as well as to have meeting space um a community facility type space for meetings and special events. The zoning ordinance permits emergency service establishes by right in a commercial residential CR zoning district and requires approval of a conditional use permit for the community facility portion of the use. The substantial accord determination is requested under Virginia code section 15.22232 to 2232 which requires um examination of the proposed use for compliance with the comprehensive plan for any public facility. The uh staff is requesting that the council authorized advertisement of the public hearing for your May 6th, 2026 meeting.

Okay. Is there a motion to that effect? Is there a second? Second. Okay. Okay. Any discussion on setting that date for the public hearing? All right. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. There you go, Miss Odum. Thank you.

All right. Next. What was the date for that? May 6th. May 6th. The May work session. Next up is the FY27 budget workshop review. Uh I don't know uh Miss Tucker, Miss Oaks. Miss Oaks.

There you go. Good evening, Madame Mayor, Town Council. Um we're going to give a budget update. Um we're going to start off um with the water and sewer um steps that we made to make additional budget cuts. Uh so we did some research um into the electric service as you know we had um proposed a 466% increase. Uh we reviewed the SEC case report um and after that review um it looks like that approximate rate increase is actually 15%. Um so the updated analysis resulted in a significant reduction to our original draft budget for this line item. Uh we also performed a detailed review of each line item and prior year actual expenditures, identified additional reductions and incorporated them into uh the draft budget. And these are the water cuts we made in each line item, repairs and maintenance, maintenance service contracts, our electrical uh rental equipment, licenses, contingency and replacement equipment. So, we were able to reduce our draft budget for the water fund by $52,18268. Again, we went to the sewer and wastewater treatment fund made these additional cuts in electric contingency, vehicle equipment supplies, replacement equipment, repairs and maintenance, repairs, maintenance on vehicles, electrical services contingency, and sledge disposal. So total on the sewer fund, we made more cuts of $169,422. And as a result, we now have amended rates that we're proposing

um for water. Um the new increase would only be 1.8%. Um and that is a quarterly amount of $1.96 or 65 a month. On the sewer side, uh we were able to reduce um the increase percent to 8.5 um which will increase the quarterly sewer by 21.44 which is $7.15 a month. And this last slide is uh the impact of our DEEQ consent order mandate. Um this first section is right out of our consent order. Columbia Beach shall raise s sufficient revenue to the limit of its financial cap capability to ensure timely completion of the corrective action requirements identified in this order and SOC. Further, Colonial Beach shall raise significant revenue to the limit of its financial capability to ensure adequate and continued operation and maintenance of the facility in compliance with regulatory requirements. Uh this means the town must raise as much revenue as it reasonably can to fix the required issues on time and to keep the facility running properly in compliance with regulations. Now Chris is going to give a breakdown regarding the wastewater treatment plant electric. Good evening. So in our last meeting, you guys asked to see what the meter readings were for the six months we used on our budget numbers. And as you see on this slide, there's two meters at the treatment.

Next slide.

There we go. Uh there's two meters currently at the treatment plant. Um each month of those six months is an average of about 230 kilowatts per hour for a grand total of the six months of 1.4 million kilowatts. That's what it requires to run the treatment plant. The de Dominion rate increase based off of the SEC for 2026 comes out to be about $11.24 per,000 kilowatt hours. In 2027, there will be another increase of 2.36 for the thousand kilowatts for a grand total for the six months of our next fiscal year of $13.60 60 cents per kilowatt thousand kilowatt hours. There's also another uh case in that same paperwork from the SEC that Dominion is also pursuing a fuel factor adjustment which would be a separate increase that's currently in the case now driven by fuel and wholesale power costs. And I can't see that last part. um the combined impact base rates and fuel adjustment applied together. Current average monthly costs comes out to be about 25,500 per month to operate the plant. The estimated increases would be between 2,300 and 3,800 a month. high usage amplifies rates multiple uh riders apply to the fuel and transmission environmental issues. There's a I'm we're proposing a 15% budget increase provides a safe

margin for the viability. I can actually speak to this next one. This is just essentially what Dr. Ado presented on the school funding show. It'll show what we if you go to the next slide, Heather, it shows um what the amount was last year compared to what the minimum is this year. And kind of that uh um year-over-year difference of 265. And so, as you heard from Dr. Ado, he understands the ADM is 540, which would be our required match would be 3,52 or sorry, 3 million. Um, but they are still requesting that $3.3 million of uh level funding as they got last year. So, this was just to go over essentially what he presented on tonight.

There any questions? question. Do these numbers reflect a 2% increase?

Not at this time. We did run those numbers and we can um make that adjustment. Um and it we will not have to do any any kind of um rate increase on the general fund. We we have enough but we can If you recall when we did the evaluations for the town manager actually qualified she would be happy. Um that's a hometown discount. It's important that we keep compens it is to have people who don't have so% well I would like to see those numbers reflected and hopefully I can get the agreement

the town um I don't have any issue with that but I have some other questions related to the budget is there any further discussion on the town manager's appraisal or the conversation involved in that piece. I don't mean to just skip forward. Yes, Mr. Williams. Oh, just question is like I'm not sure why we have to have the discussion. If if she qualifies for it and it's in there, why isn't it just automatic? I kind of agree with you, Mr. Williams. All right. Let's just make sure it's in there because it's a policy and so it should just be implemented. Yes.

Um I do have some other questions though related to um and Mr. Williams brought it up earlier with Supervisor Trivet here, the justification for the increases in the 911 dispatch. I did get a response from Garrett over at the county and he he said that there are a significant increase in wages which affects of course your VRS contributions that we have to pay and any other benefits um for the dispatchers and EMS staff. Um and that's what he's contributing that increase to.

Did he give you any documentation to that effect? No, because they don't have their budget documentation together at this time and or any validation as to why we would have to agree to that. We have a contract with them to pay these for these ser for the dispatch of the EMS. It was based on they don't even have a budget right now. How can they tell us what our contract amount is? That I'm I'm just relaying the information. You asked for an explanation. And that is the explanation I got from West Warner County. I find it inadequate from them, not from you, Lisa, and from them.

So, do we pay a non-disclosed amount for what? Whoever they decide to hire with no input or direction on our part, right? And also an actual salary amounts and the amount of increase. That's a lot to say that salary increase. you would have to be adding people and doubling people's salaries. I I can't speak to that. That needs to be explained. I know that every year

I will contact the county and provide further um information. As a matter of fact, when I meet um next week um regarding the other um situation, I will get some more information on the uh E911 dispatch. Yeah, I think they're going to have to justify that if they're going to Well, I know on the EMS side of it um that we're we have been paying and I what the state does not cover um for their for the EMS entirely. That's what we could build for.

I think the whole the whole agreement needs to be researched into as well in this process. And I think it just highlighted it because increase is so great this year and it really puts it into question. Um, now seems to be a good time to be asking some questions, considering um, and the other thing I wanted to bring up was some of them we've discussed before several times um, but we haven't really put it into policy and I'm hoping this year is maybe the year we'll consider staff bringing forward something to put into policy and that is creating a set school tax rate. So, uh, the county does this. Uh, lots of other jurisdictions do this. It's a very typical practice. For some reason, and I yet to understand why the town of Cle has never set what the school tax rate is. Um, it's just all aggregated in one one number. And what that's meant for the town over the years is that every time the school LRM mandate happens, the town general services get gouged from it. and um it's sort of inequitable and up left up to uh the state level um to dictate and often we not getting a budget out of the governor until we're halfway through our budget season. So um just as we have been refining these financial policies and gotten I think a lot more secure in the future here um setting a policy that is sets the school tax rate that way when and obviously the the base level has to consistently cover the the local required match, right? So we know there is a baseline that the state will not let us go under. Um the positive of this for the school system as well is that as

the town does better, the school also reaps benefits from that. It's called revenue sharing. And so it sort of helps everyone cheerlead for one another. Um which I think brings the town together in some ways, especially regulated to school, which has been sometimes a divisive issue. Um and so when we do better, they do better. Um, and that really goes that is rings true that when we do better, we have to pay them more. If you know anything about how the LRM is calculated and the Welden Cooper Center for the rate setting and all of that, when we do better, our requirement to fund the school mandatorily goes up. So, it sort of also makes sense to put it in sync with one another. So, I just want to bring that up as discussion points. We've had a chance to look at the budget this year. This is a good opportunity to set what would that rate be. It doesn't mean we're changing the tax rate. So, let me like make that abundantly clear to anybody who's watching or paying attention to this. We are not proposing any tax rate amount changes in the general fund, but it would be a delineation of how much of that taxes is paying for the school funding. Does that everybody's tracking? I know you guys are. you you've already heard me talk about it before. So, I want to bring that forward because staff if staff's going to bring back something policy-wise, town codewise, if this needs to be adopted into the code, then we're going to have they're going to have to do some homework on this and pro and a proposal to what that would look like. And ideally, this would coincide with passing a budget, but be printed on the actual tax bill this fall. And that's what the county does. You know, when you get your tax bill, the bottom says what the school district amount is and then what the regular amount is. So, it would

look, I imagine, very similarly. And like the county's tax bill, it is divided among multiple taxing agencies. So, you're not just using real estate tax, but multi they have like a little bit of each one contributes to this. I think that also balances uh everyone's communal con contribution to paying for the school system but also it gives coun this council future councils multiple opportunities to adjust as needed where needed right if um the school RLM does change there are some options you're not only having to go to one version of it right like we have talked in the past well how do we balance not on the full-time resident but more on the tourist by meals tax or lodging tax that aren't paid by full-time residents, you know, and vice versa. Right. Right. I'm throwing it out there. What do we think?

So, are you proposing that staff comes back with illustration of what that might look like consideration at the next meeting? Is that what you're essentially asking for? You

Well, we are not going to have a work session, so they get a month. Um yeah, something related back maybe what the process is and what the next steps would be at the next meeting and we're not like a fully flushed policy, you know, but kind of trying to coincide this our budget approval process is in May. We need to have something like this implemented prior to bill printing. So, you know, we would want to be wrapping it up by July. Yeah, I'd like to see it right in a little bit more detail so we can have a a more robust conversation about it. I mean, yeah, it's just a concept right now until they

So, at the next meeting, you'd like us to come back with um our findings and what the next steps would be to create that um special tax rate. Yeah, I think a timeline and I guess I would say like a delineation of tax rate, right? Because what I don't like it very quickly could be confused and misconstrued as an additional tax. That's not what I'm saying. You know, let's say that one more time. Delineation of the current tax rates. We're not we're not talking about increasing taxes to support the schools. We're talking about articulating what portion of your taxes are going towards the school under tax bill. You said it better than me, Mr. Larson. I give you credit for that.

Yes, Mr. Williams. So what you're saying is each year when we do our our budget the school we'll publish an amount and this is the portion that's the school's amount y so so there won't be any impact like um like what year or two ago it was a $500,000 swing and then this year it's 265 down right

so that won't impact tax overall tax for the citizens. it would delineate it to the school being the school impact versus the rest of your general services in its own impact. And I think it's just really about transparency of the budget and the information to people because oftentimes they just get all sloshed together like garbage disposal and you know um it would just clarity and more information and it would be right there on their tax bill. So it just like you know then there wouldn't be like an advertisement every year if it went up or down like

Well, I think if you change the tax rate you have to hold public hearings and advertise. Yeah. But ideally setting it in this realm as the town does better their revenue would also increase and would hopefully align in that in that way. So, you know, and if the LRM and and the point of the revenue sharing is you're also creating a baseline for the school system, right? They know they're they're 35% of our budget. So, basically what we're saying is you're going to be 35% of the budget and if you the state mandates you to have a half million dollar increase, then your rate of your portion of our budget has to be applicable to that. that and that has to be public and it has to be have a public hearing to it and a public process to it and the council will need to be clear about it kind of actually invites the public a little bit more into what that means

back to it goes back to Mr. Triv's thing about transparency, right? We're right now we're just throwing everything in the one pot to say we pay for everything schoolwise, town management, all that kind of stuff, right? By delineating it, it identifies the school's requirements separate from what you know the general fund would be. And as you know, if it is a million dollars more that we have to pay, well, maybe that million dollar comes out of the tax piece of the school separately, right? So we could increase the tax just for the school separately to say that's why we're doing this, not just raising all taxes. It's because of the school or because of the general fund needs to do whatever. Just helping identify that.

But I thought we were saying that it's not going to taxes. So you're saying I'm sure people could see tax increases automatically based on they would anyway. Nothing is automatic. Absolutely nothing is automatic. And there is no point in time in which this town can increase taxes without public hearing in the public process. That is illegal. So, so the scenario that you're worried about would be, you know, we get a huge bump in 100,000 next year and all,

right? And we're and we're going to have to cover that that expense some way somehow. Right. So that it's just a question of being more transparent about that your bills going up because the the uh the population school got you know up by 20% so the required local match went up by a bunch therefore you know faster than the town's growth could keep up and so we have to increase the schools tax. That's a hypothetical right? That seems like a very rare real situation because it happens every year or two

and we have to pay for it every year which is why we have had increases every year because we have to pay for that. So this makes it clearer and more transparent to the public about exactly what is increasing and why. So when the general services need an increase because something has gone up like Dominion has raised rates 46% which now we know is you know closer to 15 we would equally be transparent about that right

so forgive a product of public school here but um what we're saying is you still have because I understand yeah don't Mr. Williams, you still have leverage because in order to increase taxes, you have to have a supermajority to do so, right? Um, so yeah, to increase taxes, to increase taxes, I think you have to have a super majority.

Yeah. Okay. So, consequently, what we're talking about here is we're dipping the toe in the water without drowning all at once, right? So, it would be nice to see what it looks like because, you know, honestly, we're going to have to fund the schools some way somehow. Anyway, now your version might be we cut a bunch of stuff over here, right? My version might be increase taxes, but the point is you're not being held hostage because in order to get in the hypothetical my point of view, at least five people would have to vote that way. You see what I mean? So you can still stick the uh the thing underneath the door to keep closing. So it's an opportunity to see what it looks like. And I think we're all interested in as much information as opposed to less. Is that a fair statement?

Yeah. I I don't think people um know how much of the budget is related to the school system or understand the mandates from the state government or uh the fact that when I started in this position, the town was funding the school system at $1.8 million and now we're funding the school system at $3.3 million. I don't think people know it. We can talk about it while we're up here all day long, but we don't put it printed on their tax bill when they have to write a check. I don't think they get to understand. And it's not that they're, you know, don't can't understand that. It's that they're busy and living their lives and they're not, you know, God bless y'all who's sitting out here right now.

And and the reason I would be interested in seeing it, honestly, is because when you first mentioned it, I was under the same impression that Mr. Williams was. Okay. Then I clean clean clean my ears a bit and then I heard how it actually worked. Okay. So what I would like to see is how it work in actuality on a piece of paper. And if it's something that the rest of the council doesn't want to do, you always have the option of not doing it because super majority of us would have to vote to raise any taxes anyway. And just to be clear, all we're asking tonight is for the staff to come back and show us a little bit in a little bit more detail how it might work. We're not agreeing to do it tonight at all. We're just saying, "Hey, show us an illustration so we can have a a deeper conversation about it because we we see the examples in front of us about how it might play out." So, I think that's worth doing, right? Even if you don't like the idea,

let's have a look at it. my point of view. I think also just seeing some examples of the other localities that do um this because they're more do it than not. There are more examples than not of this. So um see how other people pan out with it. Yeah. And as we um perform our due diligence and what you've asked, I imagine if this is something that council would agree to do that this would be for the next fiscal year budget that we would incorporate and not this fiscal year's budget.

No, I think it's would be related to the bud. It does not impact the actual budget. Okay, just to be clear about that. Does not change the budget numbers, right? But it would be to implement for this FY27. Yeah. The budget we're currently working on and printed on the bill. And that's the only implementation for this year because we know what the numbers are for the school. We know what your budget is, right? So we know we don't need to do tax increases, but we would start showing them the slice of on the tax bill that is school. I actually think it's critical that it happen sooner rather than later so that there is a baseline set and understanding of that

along with the budget we do have to include in the public hearing the setting of the tax rates even if there's no increase. So it is part of the budget process. So if you want to have that then this year we can show that when we set the tax rates this portion goes to the town this portion goes to the school. That's exactly what I'm talking about Lisa. Correct. I think we're on the same page. Does anybody have an objection to taking a look, I guess, is the question because the look is free. I don't have an objection for looking, but I'm not a fan of implementing this for this coming fiscal year. Okay?

It's pretty short notice. We haven't got any information. It wasn't even announced in public that that's was going to be on the agenda. And it's a heavy lift at this time. It's I'm not sure if it really falls under budget. Well, every year we do have to have a public hearing on the tax rate setting. So, if we want to change the way we present the tax rate, this is the time to do it.

Public is exactly aligned with the budget and it is about even though it doesn't change the actual amount of budget. We're not talking about a tax raise. It's just talking about how that information is presented. So if we want it presented that way and we want to understand presenting it that way and the truth is we could have no policy and just present it that way on the piece of paper and say look your tax rate is you know 71 and30 of the 71 is the school budget. That's all you're saying. It's a sentence.

Yeah. And quite honestly Mr. Williams is gives you something concrete to present to uh the folks you're in communication with. I mean, it's it's not a bright line. It's something that uh can be confusing while it's being described. So, it would be nice to have a piece of paper that outlines it. And you know, honestly, if it were talking about raising everybody's taxes this budget season, I wouldn't move forward either. Okay? But it would be nice to see what it looks like for future reference.

I don't know who would not want to know how much of their taxes go to fund the school. Why would you not want to know that information? It's not about knowing. It's about the fact that what we're saying is, yeah, we're going to set the rate this year as a an announcement to the public and then next year the school match goes back up to what it was the previous year and then all of a sudden there's an automatic tax increase. But we also can readjust the rates within those parameters, Mr. Williams, you would have to take money from the general budget which but that would be then transparent to the public. See actually the

that would be clear then hey our t our tax rate before to the school was this amount and now we have had to change that and take from the tax rate that was not for the school and put it more towards the school. So it wouldn't be an automatic increase. Correct. It would just be transparency and communication as to how much of your taxes go to fund the school. Yeah. Because you still have to have a budget, right? And um the point would be that you still need a supermajority to raise taxes. If you don't have that, then the money has to come from somewhere else. It's already in the budget. We still show a higher percentage for the schools.

And one of the reasons we're kind of bannering back and forth is the concept isn't that clear, right? And it would be good to see it on a piece of paper because Lisa has too much time off anyway. and uh but to see how it actually works and and what's the I mean we could technically just publish every year what percentage of the school budget is the and accomplish the same thing

each year the town council has to adopt along with the budget the tax rates they have to set the tax rates every year all we're saying is right now you get a tax rate says your real estate taxes are 78 cents what Robin is proposing is that you now say your tax rate is 78 cents, but X% is general fund and X% of that 78 cents is school related.

That'll be transparent on your the resolution to set the tax rates. And every year, we said even if you don't raise taxes, those numbers could change depending on how much of the budget goes to the school. That way you're being transparent to show the public the school system cost X% of the budget. It's all that's how much your real estate taxes are going to go to. So that it is it's all just about being transparent on how much money is being spent on general fund services and school system our required local match. So when when we bring it back you'll be able to see what what it looks like.

Okay. But every year it's part of the budget process. Town council has to set tax rates. Do we know if the county does this? Yes, it's required. It's on your county bill. So maybe we could get like a an example like get you examples. Yeah, that would be good. Okay. Thank you. County real estate bill has it on there. We are working hard. Oh god.

Okay. Uh I'm going to keep moving forward then. Is there any more discussion in the budget workshop review? I know you guys wanted some more time. You want to maybe have some time to bring some more things back or is there anything else that came up since our budget meeting last week for anyone that you want to make sure Yeah, I have a just a quick follow up on the uh on the electric rates.

I did just a little sniffing around and in my reading it said that there was a separate rate schedule for water and and sewer plants than the standard residential rate that you showed in your slide. So I I don't know if you'd found that. Is it largely the same? Just curious. I couldn't actually locate that. We are actually currently waiting from a reply back directly from Dominion. We have reached out to I believe the term is called a key key account support. Yeah. To get that 100% finalized from them. Okay. Because I don't know if I don't expect it to be either higher than or lower than the residential rate. I just don't know. But I'm curious as to what it is.

To a degree, I would have managed to some degree in that aspect. they would probably consider us more of like a commercial account versus a residential. So, I went with the numbers that I could find the most consistently throughout. Yeah. As a basis, which is why I went to the 15% which is just slightly higher than what the percentage comes out to be. We'll take the 31% discount from last time. So, I mean, I'm not looking to give horse in the mouth here. I was just just want to follow up. Okay, cool. But, we are currently working on that as well. Anything else, Mr. Williams?

Yeah. So, what's the is it roughly 27 or $28 proposed water sewer increase? 23.40 is what I have. 21.44. 2340 a quarter, which comes out to be $7.80 a month. So less than $10 a month. This is sewer and $1.96 for a quarter for water. I had a month. It's a quarter. Yep. I think. Okay. 65 cents a month on the water side. The sewer is your biggest increase. Okay. Got it. So 21

$24. 8.5 on the sewer. Yes. Okay. And um I haven't had a chance to look. U I guess this information that you had you had like specific line items cut so we can see that. I guess get get a copy of that. That'll help. Yeah, I listed them all. I don't have any slides. Yes. Okay. And uh see I will say um just I know we're get are we going to set the public hearing? Is that part of this process tonight or we do that next month? I think our public hearing for our budget uh agenda is uh tenatively the May work session.

So we're going to propose um tenatively uh uh request a public hearing in April when we come back with um a finalized budget for your review. Okay. Is that the April 9th? April 15th. 15th. So, can we have like as we get a little bit more time to review some of this information, can we have a an agenda line item on the that particular agenda just to in case we do have questions on budget or discussion because I know we're still going to get probably some feedback from citizens on the especially the water sewer bill, but

are we going to have a line are we going to have a budget like we did tonight? just a budget um line on the agenda for next April. We'll present the entire budget similar to what we did during the special meeting. So the entire budget. Yes. Okay. We'll have discussion. You can ask your questions. Yes. I imagine relative to the water sewer. Yeah. Okay. I think that's it for tonight then. Let me question. Miss Gr, you had said at our work session that you were going to see if it's possible to address that contingency amount. Were we able to see if um there was a reduction for one of those um any wiggle room in that

for which one? I think they did cut the contingency amount. Okay. And that's Yeah, the spreadsheet we did. We cut the contingency. It's not up on the screen right now. Water and sewer and wastewater treatment plant. Okay. So, we did reduce all three of those. Okay. Okay. One more question. Um, police department, don't hit me. I just have a question for that. I um in the equipment section, I see it says um to update and it's like the 72,000. Is there any wiggle room in that? Um updated equipment?

That's all with you. All that is is there's not a penny for anything else. Okay. Thank you.

Is there any other questions?

Yeah, I would if I may. Um, I would just like to find out from staff if we feel as we want to be pennywise but not pound foolish. We haven't put ourselves budgetwise where we can't afford to have a flat tire, right? No, we we went back, you know, for the last few years and we and we looked at the current year that we're currently in um and just kind of see how we were spending those contingency dollars especially. Um and I think that we and Chris probably will agree, I hope he agrees, that we didn't make too drastic of cuts and I think that we will be okay.

Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Yes, Miss Sanford.

Um, so I did I wanted to um see other council's ideas. Um, I was looking at the parks and wreck budget. Um, and for the whole budget, it's 121,000. Um, 68% of that is just going directly to salary. um and leaving very little for any additional things to even occur. I mean, besides repairs and maintenance, 9,000, park signage, and supplies, that's all like onetime things that can be done in a couple months. I don't see how we can justify having a whole department and paying 12ome,000.

So we can't justify having a wholeart department that runs what 75 events a year. They don't run the events. They just do the administrative process. They coordinate them. They uh advertise them. There's one person Yeah. Who's doing all of that? And I did that and I made $40,000.

Okay. Well, I think that we should pay our staff a professional wage for a professional job done. Now, if somebody has a problem with the way they're performing their job, that's a separate issue and you need to we need to take that up with HR. But as far as one person running a department, running 75 events a year and you're paying them that amount of money, I don't see an issue with that person.

You're okay. I I don't want it to come off like I have an issue with person at all. No. Like I love Sally. No, that's not it. There I just could not reasonably justify. Like it just seems crazy to me.

All right. Well, the way that I justify it is that it is less than 1% of this entire budget and we are a tourism town that just had an economic development manager tell us that that's the only economy we have. And so parks and recreation is one of the few places that overlap between managing tourist events and also finally finally maybe providing something to do for our kids. And I hope that it bolsters and that we can expand that budget to give them more resources to do things for our kids. And if we do not spend at least 1% of an 11 million budget to be able to keep up with public spaces and parks and recreation, then I have a big problem with that. I think 1% is too small for that and it is a shame that they do not have enough money to do more for our families and kids in this town.

Mr. Williams, um to to Maggie's point, I mean this year we dodged a bullet by not having to raise real estate tax rates because of the school match went down by 265,000. So maybe this year we're okay, but we really are going to start having to take a closer look at things we're adding. I remember back when we added the parks and rec I'm not saying we need to get rid of it necessarily, but I mean there there may be a point in the future where we have no choice to make cuts like that. Um and so, you know, just to be fair, I mean, I appreciate Maggie's at least trying to come up with solutions. Um, but yeah, there's there's going to there's going to be a probably a situation in the future where we're going to have to start really looking hard because the only if we're only balancing the budget because of the local match going down where we're going to have to raise rates this year, um, what what happens next year? School match goes back up by 200,000 300,000 and we're and we're still short. So, um, something to think about. question. Oh, go ahead, Mr. Wood. You had yours.

Assuming I have the mayor. Go ahead, Mr. Wood. And then Miss Gr.

The the one thing that you always need to keep in mind is that you don't want to get rid of that which creates revenue. I mean, the events that we have in town bring money into our coffers with um uh taxes as far as food, beverage, um lodging, all of that. You know, that's like trying to save money by cutting your best salesperson. It just doesn't make economic sense. And then additionally, we don't want to make our staff's lives so miserable that we run them off. And then we because we've seen examples of not having quality staff just a few miles down the road. And that what that gets us.

Mr. Williams point is not um you know is is taken with understanding. We have known uh that expenses outpace revenue. We have Davenport work with us. We go through this every year. We are very clear about it. It is a big reason why economic development is so critical to sustaining the operations of the town. It's why we've had to do things like implement the trash can so that we have funding available to pay for a trash truck that we couldn't do when we're financing for, you know, and still paying off while it was broken and done. I always pray a little bit when I see a police or car. I'm sorry. It interrupts me for a second. Um, and so, you know, that's true. That's not that's not a secret, you know, and we do have to make hard choices. Now, I will say there are some hard choices to make in the budget process always, but there are also some very big line items that are going to that have an impact far beyond this very tiny department, right? And so I just want to make sure we don't ever get lost in the weeds of something small that creates a big impact to the big things that don't that seem to sometimes fly by even though they're half a million dollars like the 911 dispatch. You know, $600,000, $150,000. That's bigger than the whole department you're talking about right now. And they can't even justify who they're paying and how much they're paying them, you know. Yes, Miss Stanford.

I was after Mr. Wood. Can I ask a quick question? Sure. Okay. So, hard decisions have to be made and being you. My question is not and not getting rid of a department. Is there I see that um is there wiggle room salary wise? She was part-time. She is now full-time. That is the difference in salary before. Okay.

And we had slated to have extra part-time person because thinking it was like only a summer kind of need in the high season. But I'm I think this town manager decision about what works best. Seems like year round, there's winter planning for the summer. I think that's happening, too. I don't know. Instead of two part-time people, it's now one full-time person. When you look at the We cut the part-time assistant out of this budget,

right? But I mean, if you're looking at this the stuff you gave us at the work session, it's got the 2025 and the 2026. So, I just don't know if she's tracking like that part of it. And just to be clear, right now we have a balanced budget that's being presented to us. So just so that that's right. Sorry.

Yes, Miss Sanford. Um I just I was the liaison to parks and wreck. I saw I was also kind of doing some of those tasks when I did work through the town. it. I've brought this up to Natasha or the town manager before, but I don't really see new things that are going on. It's events that the chamber is putting on. It's administrative paperwork that is going on and she helping other people. I would see maybe her as the PIO position or maybe moving over there. But I I think we did a detriment hiring her just kind of wielding just giving her the director position because I don't

let's create let's create some outlines and some expectations for the department then. I think that's a very fair point. If the department needs to be doing producing a certain impact, we can set that policy and direct the town manager to that. I also want to point out that she wasn't the one that was hired for the director port. It was Bobby Duke that originally started all this. And I mean to your point there there's a job for what public works does and then there's the job that we say public works does, right? So, there are many uh local areas that have a public works director that handles all kinds of events and things like that.

Parks and I'm sorry, parks and w public works. Well, Chris was looking Oh, sorry. Well, I mean to speak to your point, Kenny, when I was putting on an event, she did show up for Chris. So, she has shown up for Chris for public work. So, you're good. Well, my point is

Chris was going to crawl under the desk. there there may be more things that our public parks and rec department can do holistically across our recreational things, right? But we're also asking her to do other duties at will whenever you know it's ad hoc really. Um so like you said it could be the PIO position that would then just cover parks and wreck as well. So, I mean, it's we have to look at it.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, she does hold multiple hats. It's just that we stick her in the parks rec department role or, you know what I'm saying? Like a, you know, FTE type thing.

I will say I'd like to see more. I mean, first off, an annual report from the department, right? If you're going to make the claim, you're not seeing new things. Well, let's put it on paper. Let's see it. Give us an annual report. what was done in 2025. So there's a better understanding of that. And then secondly, what are your expectations for 2026 or 20 I mean I guess we're going to be talking about 2027 kind of but you know like I'd like to see more family related kids camps. I'd like to see that. Now that's just my personal opinion, right? I don't know. You know, I'm sure other people have other ideas, but if we have want to set some benchmarks to where we want to go with our recreation al also, I just will say this for this town not having any healthcare options. I mean, God love Dr. Farconi, but uh he you know, we need to get people outside. We need to get them moving. I mean, it's not just cuz I'm turning 40, guys, but I really am on this health kick. And I mean, we my I want my community healthy. I want the town healthy. I want the people I know and love here healthy. And I want them outside because that's what does that to you, you know, and petting your dog, too, by the way. So, you know, getting people outside, activating that, all of that is kind of a contribution to our health, safety, and welfare, too, as a town. And that's our legal uh obligation as elected officials. So, you know, how can we improve that? I think asking that question and you know is critical and I'm open to asking that question. Let's ask it.

But that's the fair way to do it is to set expectations, set parameters, but just to say, well, I don't think they're worth it. I mean, you can't treat people by walking up, hey pal, how about we pay you half what we pay you now. You good with that? Probably not. So consequently, the only way you're going to keep competent people is to keep point of word. Yeah. I mean, that's the across the Okay. All right. Miss Stanford, do you want to would you like to keep

I don't mean to cut you out. Come on. Um, no. I mean, I would love to see a thriving parks and rec department here. Like, that would be my dream. It's just we're not giving her the money. Like, she needs money to do programming. programming costs money like good. So, will we save some in electricity? Can we uh help her out a little bit? Natasha, as a town council policy, you zone us out after we I know. What are they talking about now? Talking amongst ourselves. Community outreach and events. It says no longer using zero. I mean,

parks and that goes hand in hand. Like, why is that zero? Fair point.

So, a lot of our points, uh, cuts that we made in the parks department, um, as I've discussed with you all when I've met with you during our one-on ones, is that, um, Sally has really beefed up her efforts with volunteers because we know that every year we strive to present a balanced budget and we look at where we could make some cuts and still try to provide those services and uh through other avenues. So she has a robust um volunteer community which helps with a lot of her um events and organizations that she puts on. While a lot of her events are recurring events, she does have some new um events that she has on her calendar based on feedback that she receives from community members when she's out and about and she is always out um and about. So the community outreach portion um she does that automatically and she actually this year has partnered with some of the businesses in town to provide advertising for some of the movies that we're um going to present this year for the first time. So, as the movies are um playing, then different uh restaurants in town, they're going to provide some of the advertising. And so, we're recouping some of the funds from there. So, we've just been really creative so that we could present a balanced budget while still not cutting services this goound. Now, next year, of course, we can take a look at a lot of

other things. If um we want to provide her with more funding so that she can have more of a robust program, we can certainly take a look at that next year. And I always have um I always provide um within my contingency if there's anything that comes up that I need to cover that we do um that we do that. And so Sally's just been really really good in working um with me and being creative and providing all that she does provide. You're going to be supportive in your town manager contingency is what you're saying and I have. Yes. To your extent that you're willing to

continue to be uh I hear you. So I just want to address my fellow council member Mr. Wood on the end. It was not to slap Sally in the face to say oh you want to work for half. when Robin clarified that it went from part-time to full-time and what she's been doing because

when we are doing evaluations we never know until we see what someone is doing and on the paper um as Miss Sanford was alluding there were certain things because of being in parks and wrecks now my first time here I love Sally Sally and I get along well she supported me in outreach stuff that I've done So it was not to slap in the face that oh work for less. It was in seeking clarity which you provided Robin. But then we're hearing this other stuff. So I think it was a case you weren't seeing enough because you said you had done that much for less. Correct. And wanted justification for it. So if we can provide justification

that is fine. If I misunderstood I apologize. But the first thing I heard was, "All right, hold on. We got to end with a I'm finishing up." I know. So, um, if if we need more money for that department, that's great. Mr. Williams,

just a suggestion. Um, because I I don't see anything wrong with like putting an agenda item on for like because council members can ask for anything to be put on the agenda. So maybe that miss that would be a good thing for you to add like a discussion on our parks and recck department and maybe where we want to head in the future of things we're happy with and not happy with and and I mean cutting it's a potential discussion. I'm not saying that's what would happen but you know just a thought future

that's a discussion that's best had with me um since that deals with operations and personnel matters. So, that's a discussion that's best had with me. And after we've had that meeting with me, then council is free to relay um just contents of that meeting. I'm not talking about personnel. I mean, council is the one that created the parks and recck department. We authorized the um commission and all that. So, correct. I'm just saying that that's a discussion we could have. It sounds to me that you're asking for discussion on activities and direction of a department.

So that isn't council's purview. That's my purview. So I welcome a meeting to discuss that and after that meeting council of course can relay the information regarding the meeting. Okay.

I look forward to following up on that after budget season. Okay, sounds good. All right. Is there anything else on the B budget workshop review? We're going to get one more look at the budget in April and then we're going to be going to public hearing so everybody has the same expectations. Okay. Uh next up is Mr. Williams added shoreline update from the Army Corps of Engineers or information related to that.

Yes. Uh, good evening, council. Um, mayor, just uh just a quick update. Um, as a reminder, during our strategic planning meeting back in um January, one of the topics that was brought up was like having an overall plan for our beach and our shoreline and rip wrap and reourishment and all that. Um, and so, um, I I have a little bit of good news and I just wanted to make sure everybody, you know, was aware, um, because, you know, one councilman person can't really do anything on their own. So, um I did some digging, met with some constituents just to get some feedback on um suggestions and one of the suggestions was that we should probably measure our like have a program where we measure our sand in each year so we know what's missing and the core of engineers used to do that. Um but they also and that's a a pretty lowc cost thing they said. Um, also a suggestion was to um see if the core of engineers since they did the original design for all of our rip wrap all the way up through all the beaches if they would be willing to come. And I found out that the easy or the the way to do handle that is to go through your um your local congressperson because they typically um have contacts and the core may come out for them where if you know a town just says, "Hey, can you all come out?" They may not come out. So, um, contacted Whitman's office and I talked to, uh, I think it was Joe Shoemaker, um, from that office and he seemed very enthusiastic when I explained to him, you know, our beach, our history, um, what we had here and all of that. And so, he was, um, very enthusiastic about it. So, that's why I kind of wanted to add it to the to the agenda real quick tonight, just so that um, everybody was aware of that. And you know, it's it's could be timesensitive just because you never know, enthusiasm can wayne at any time and you we got elections coming up

and stuff like that. Um and so anyway, I just wanted to mention that um that they're interested in um uh potentially coming out and having somebody look at the beaches and do all that stuff for us. possibly, you know, look at the erosion and the infrastructure potential repairs and what, you know, maybe even help with that in the future. Um, and it it just mentioned it is on our legislative agenda. Um, and so it's a I think it's a good thing. So, anyway, I just wanted to share that real quick. I don't know if any council members have any um questions. I don't really have a lot of information, but I I believe that hopefully they'll be coming out soon if we if we ask them to come out. town manager sends him a request.

Yeah, I think Joe has been in touch with the town manager's office in the past, too. So, we should have his contact information, but let's make sure everybody gets connected and Kyler is on it since I think he's been navigating a lot of a lot of that legislative stuff. Yes, I'm seeing Natasha head roll. Y I mean, nod. Yes. Okay. Excellent. All right. Thank you. I hope that comes to fruition. I hope they do. Um, all right. Next up is I move that the town council of the town of Columbia Beach, Virginia, convene and close meeting for the following purposes and discuss the following subjects, all of which are exempt by Virginia law from public meeting requirements as indicated. Namely, pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A7 2-3711A7 for the purpose of consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in the open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the town council and pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-371188 for the purpose of consultation with legal counsel retained by the town council regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. So moved.

So moved. Second. All in favor? I will go into close session. Thank you guys.

doing it at different angles. Okay. Yeah. This is the legal angle. Is there a second? All in favor? I. Who has to work tomorrow? I All right. Is there a motion to certify that only public m business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed or considered in the meeting by council. I need a motion. Yeah. Second. Second. And I need individual certification. I certify. I certify. I so certify. Say it into the mic. I certify. Thank you. I certify. I certify. I certify. And with that, our meeting is adjourned at 9:54 p.m. Thank you everybody for your time tonight.