Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

January 6, 2026 annual organizational meeting of the King George County Board of Supervisors. This meeting is being held in accordance with the board's bylaws and rules of procedure and the applicable provisions of the code of Virginia. Pursuant to the board's adopted bylaws, the annual meeting is defined as the first meeting of the calendar year and the county administrator is authorized to preside during the meeting pending the election of the chair. So, I'll start by uh a quorum. Um, Miss Bender, Mr. Davis here, Mr. Mets here. Mr. Sons here. Mr. Strad here. We have a quorum.

So since a quorum is present and the board is authorized to conduct uh authorized to conduct official business at this time we'll begin with an invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance. Please rise. Please Lord bless our meeting. Bless the county. Bless the country. Bless the world. especially bless all those that are seated here and those on the board. We have a challenging year ahead and bless us all to make the best decisions for the residents of the county. Amen. Amen.

I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] The purpose of the annual organization meeting is to complete the board's required organizational actions for the calendar year of 2026. These actions include election of the chair of the board, election of the vice chair, establishment of the regular meeting schedule, and consideration of the board's bylaws and code of ethics. In accordance with the board's bylaws, the next order of business is the election of the chair for the board of supervisors for a term of one year. I will now open the floor for nominations for chair. Yes, sir. I'd like to nominate Supervisor Sullins for chair, please.

Second, are there any further nominations? Hearing? None. The floor is closed for nominations. And then so we need to take a roll call vote for the nomination of uh Mr. Solins as chair for 2026. Miss Bender. Hi, Mr. Davis. Hi, Mr. Mets. Hi, Mr. Solins. Hi, Mr. Strad. Hi. Congratulations, Mr. Solins. I've got a gavl. Congratulations, sir.

All right. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, like to be recognized. Thank you. [laughter] Have it. Yes. I'd like to nominate Supervisor Davis as vice chair. Do you have a second? I'll second. We have any other nominations? I would like to nominate myself as vice chair.

Can I Can I second? I can't. Can I? You can. You don't have to. Okay. Are there any further nominations? Hearing none. The floor is closed for nominations. Um,

is there a motion to elect somebody vice chair? I make a motion that we elect Supervisor Davis as vice chair. Have a motion. Do we have a second? I second it. second. Moon, I'm sorry. We're we're having a discussion, Mr. Chairman. I think you you've had two nominations and I think all you have to do is call for the vote on each person. You can start with whomever you'd like. There were two people nominated.

You only had one vice chair. You don't have to have second [clears throat] for nominations for chair, vice chair. Okay? You can call whichever order you like. Okay. We'll um go in the order they were nominated. So, we'll start with um we'll do a roll call vote for uh Mr. Davis. Uh Miss Bender. Say nay since I've nominated myself. Fair enough. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Mez. Didn't realize who all was interested. I'm going to go nay. Mr. Stra. [clears throat] What do we got? Two two vote. Great. [laughter]

You wanted to be chair. All right. Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Congratulations, Mr. Davis. We have to do the musical chairs now. All right.

[laughter]

Okay. By vote of the board, uh, Mr. Bill Davis is elected vice chair of the King George County Board of Supervisors for the 2026 calendar year. Congratulations. We've played our musical chairs and uh I will say that you leave a a big chair to fill but I like my baby chair so we're not going to switch out.

Um my legs actually touch the ground when I sit in the smaller one. All right. So we'll continuation with the um organizational meeting. We will now proceed with the remaining organizational items on the agenda beginning with the establishment of the board's regular meeting schedule for 2026. Mr. Chairman, you can take up wherever you like, but Mr. Smolnik skipped amendments and public comment. I don't know if you want to go back to that or stay with appointments.

All right, we're going to start at the top. We'll come back to So, we did skip public comment. We will open public comment.

Any amendments to the agenda? Thank you. Are there any amendments to the agenda for tonight? Hearing none, I'll open the floor to public comment. Public comment will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so it can be properly included in the public record. Do we have anybody who would like like to make public comment? For the sign up here, I've got Pastor Davis. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations to uh Ryan Mets for his uh uh getting elected. I didn't vote for him. I voted his district. In fact, I I did everything I could to keep him getting elected, but he's here. And so, uh anyway, congratulations and we'll pray for you as we can. My name Davis, Pastor Davis. I forgot to say that the word uh world is used three different ways in the Bible. It's used uh where God created the world, the heavens and the earth and all the territory, all the real estate belongs to God. It's used in John 3:16 where the Bible says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That means he loves people. So the world there is used for people. In 1 John chapter number two, the Bible says, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but of the world. And the world perisheth." And so, it's not talking about just the real estate. is talking about the uh theories or the philosophies that's going on in the world that that's just running in our world. This word world

well it uh it's the uh ungodly worldly lust as Bible says and uh the world as the ungodly can uh express the lust and the and the and the lossness and all that the world tries to uh put out. God says not to love that world. That world is the system [clears throat] which is uh organized by men and doesn't care what God says. For example, there are people in the worldly philosophy night would not like for the Bible to be read in the in the meeting. They would not for the uh prayer to be done in the meeting. They won't wouldn't want prayer in school or Bible in school. It's a worldly system and they would rather have children committing abortions and killing babies and all that. the world that is the world system that's against God. And so our system are designed by sinners and sinful men. And so the the the point here is all about who has the right to rule over us. Who has the right to rule over man? God or our own philosophies or own what we come up with. And so, uh, we want to encourage you tonight, board, that you would, uh, continue to pray, continue to, uh, let people voice their opinions, of course, and of course stay on track. I love King George County, been here going on 50 years, and rejoice in what God is doing. I like Royal County. Uh, I always vote for the conservative people, and uh, that's just my preference. But anyway, we will, uh, appreciate you. love you and I'm here for you if you need me. God bless you and thank you.

Thank you, sir. Pastor Shaw, [clears throat]

James Shaw, James Monroe, district columnist for the Northern X Sentinel, citizen journalist, KGIA.TOP, not speaking tonight as a member of the EDA. The new hat 2026. Happy New Year. Welcome, Brian. As a James Monroe District resident, I have already had opportunity to get some info through him regarding the service authority and county debt. Thanks for your help. Results of that study are forthcoming, which should include a consolidated payment schedule and ongoing interest rate. The peculiar thing is that some of these notes were set up with a variable and increasing interest rate. Uh very small, but you know when you're doing spreadsheets that affects things and so it adds a fun layer of complexity to presenting to the consumer or taxpayer a friendly report or graph. Now I know why this information information has not yet been published. It's fallen on me. I'll do my best. Taxpayers want to basically know four different things. One, what did we pay for? A building, accumulating fines, pipes underground, or whatever. What's the interest rate? Is that rate less than money we have on hand for cash flow and unplanned emergencies that is invested in Richmond? When do we pay it off? Last payment is uh around uh March 1st of n 2035 just over 9 months 3,341 days from now. What's the current balance? Are the user fees being collected keeping up with the payment schedule because you have the variable rates and all that kind of fun stuff.

Not ready to put those numbers available. Give me a few more weeks. God bless the King George Renaissance where the debt gets lower and the payoff date gets closer. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to make a public comment at this time? Mr. D, do you have anybody online? No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. Did anybody receive any correspondence? Miss Bonnie, have you heard from uh uh Miss Levelvel? I Okay, good. She's okay.

It's not like her to not show up. Just making sure. All right, good deal. All right, so we'll move on. We'll uh close public comment at this time and uh we'll move on to the next item on the agenda and that's the appointment of the clerk. I'll make a motion to uh nominate Mr. Matt Spley second. We have a motion um on the floor properly seconded. Do we have any discussion? Okay. Roll call vote. Miss Bender. I. Mr. Mets. I. Mr. Davis. I miss I.

Votes I. Motion carries. Congratulations, Mr. Small. [laughter] one more task on your list. All right. So, we'll pick up the uh with the review of the adoption bylaw, standards of conduct, and code of ethics. Um starting with the adopt or amend the 2026 King George County Board of Supervisors bylaws. Um are there any changes that people would like to bring forward? I had a couple of changes that I just want to consider. One, one thing I know we were going to discuss later, maybe the meeting dates. So, do we need to wait to adopt them until we decide the meeting dates? That was my one question probably.

And then, um, hold on. I'll wait to know there's going to be some discussion about meeting dates. So, the next one I was going to bring up is for public comment. I know we have some citizens who feel sometimes three minutes is a little a little less than and then we give them a little extra time. So maybe if we moved it to four minutes that would allow that so we could just cut them off at four minutes and to make sure citizens get priority over outside residents. Is that a motion or I

I'm just throwing out for considerate consideration on that one if someone And if and if it's no, then everybody gets three minutes and it needs to stay uniform. I I don't necessarily agree with that. Um I think that we keep it at 3 minutes and if for some reason the chair decides that somebody needs needs more time, then it's his discretion at that point. My only issue with that is we need to be um evenhanded across the board. um we we have extended in the past but uh when we do so um we've done it for all parties. So, um

well, the thing is is whenever it's been extended, um whether it was in public comment or whenever it was a uh uh whenever we were having um not a town hall cuz we definitely went over during town halls, but uh I know there were times where it went over. I I tell you what, I think maybe we do have a second public comment. So, keep it at 3 minutes and if they have more to say, they'll come back at sec at the second public comment then.

And we've seen people be creative in the past where they'll bring someone with them, whether it be a spouse, a friend, or whatever, and and just extend it out, you know, through that means. Um, but that that's an observation on my part. What's what's the will of the board on this?

Well, I was going to say, Mr. chair as probably the most recent one to use that three minutes. It does make you prepare ahead of time and get your important parts across very quickly. Um I we do have the second comment period. I think 3 minutes makes people think about what they're going to say, what are the most critical points to make and if it is a big contentious topic to work with other people so that they can continue a thought through multiple um which gets more people out here to the meetings as well. Okay,

Mr. Chair, why I brought that up is talking to people, some people are uncomfortable speaking and they even though they wish they could be concise in 3 minutes, they get nervous and they stumble and I don't want to restrict people being able to speak. You know what I mean? And feel like they have to rush and and then they get nervous. Someone who has anxiety or you know, but that's all I was bringing it up for. Mr. Davis, were you going to say something?

Sure. I when when we did it before it was, you know, if we added 30 seconds, we kept it uniform as far as everyone got a little extra if they had something extra to say. So there's it's not like you're going to give one more time than the other. I think it a meeting like tonight with a handful of people, four minutes is no big deal, but when you have like 20 30 people, you start tacking on minutes and stuff just can sometimes turn into rambling. I would say leave it at three. I'd make I'd like to make a motion, Mr. chair to accept the bylaws as presented. Second. We got a motion on the floor properly seconded. Do we have any discussion?

Yes. I would like to bring up and uh this goes back to when I joined the board whether I agreed with the person who put it in or not. I thought it was a good policy is that the sh chair should ro rotate between districts. And the reason I bring that up is again every district is represented once at least with what interest on the agenda for that district. And I would like to bring that up again. I know it probably voted down, but I just wanted to put it out there. So is that a motion? That is a motion. We did it from probably 2016 to 2024. Okay. So we have a second an amendment to the existing motion

to the B. I would like to make that to the bylaws. I didn't get to finish. There was a motion made. I would at least like that part of the discussion. I would object to that. I I would support having the chair rotate. Okay. So, right now we're still in discussion on the first motion. The first motion was to accept the bylaws as presented. Um, we're in the discussion on that and uh, Miss Bender would like a modification to the bylaw. So, she she's asking for an amendment. There was a second to that. So, you would call for the vote on the amendment first and then go back to the original motion. Okay. All right. Any discussion on the amendment?

I'll second the motion for the amendment. There's discussion because uh, Supervisor Mets said that he supports it rotating, but it does rotate. It already it already rotates between now. It's just um whenever you add in as we have right now the at large who represents all the districts. We're just including the atlarge in the rotation. So, but it does rotate. Mr. Mets, that is incorrect.

I'm reading the bylaws right now. I cannot find the word rotate anywhere in the bylaws. What they're I think what they're shooting for is not the fact that it changes, but it's a a chronological thing where it goes district to district to district and we don't vote on it. We don't discuss it. It just moves along from year to year. And is that correct?

What I'm trying to say, I maybe I didn't state it right, is is and and I will give Miss Bravo credit. She was the one who came up with this is that it there was a there was a set like it was at large. I don't remember the exact order at this point, but there was an order. It was Shiloh at large. I think it was then James Madison and then it was Dogrron and then it was James Monroe and it rotated so that every district was represented. It was a gentleman's agreement. It was not in the bylaws. I am just asking for it to be put in the bylaws and that is why Mr. Strad I said I did not agree with you because yes it does rotate but it does not rotate at this moment between the districts.

Chair Mr. Davis,

I don't necessarily think that um I mean, why vote on it if it's something that's going to rotate? I think that if you can't win the respect of your peers to vote for you, I think that goes a long way. And to just have something given to ro given to somebody just because they're in that sheet, you know, then you do your job well. You win the respect as as a leader and as someone who handles themsself well and is able to lead themselves and you get voted as chair. I I don't even think it should rotate every year. You don't change CEOs of companies every year. You don't change presidents every year. If someone does a good job, I don't care if they go year, two year, three years. The guy in West M for 20 years. That doesn't bother me. If someone's doing a good job, then they should stay in there. Just like Mrs. Bender is the service authority chair for two years cuz she's doing a great job at that. So, I'm not for an automatic rotation that everyone gets a turn. I think it's about respect and it's like you earn it just like everything else.

Concur. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. It's my motion first. I just want to clarify for the first one. I say I I nay. Nay. I. So chair votes eye. Motion carries. Correct. The amendment. The amendment to the motion carries. All right. Now, back to the original motion, which is the I'm assuming the rest of the bylaws are accepted as presented.

I So, you just voted to rotate the chair by district. I know. That opens up a whole new can of worms. So, All [clears throat] right, I I'll leave that can of worms right now. It's going to come up, but because now you got to figure out the sequence for that, what the rotation is going to be. Is it going to be alphabetical? Is it going to be by name? Is it going to be by height or what? So,

I understand, but we're relatively smart people. I think we can figure that one out. We were smart enough to figure it out before having it in writing. I got you. All right. So, back to the original motion. I have no problem. The original I just clarified. Do we need to have the actual meeting dates before we adopt the bylaws? So, can we table that until we get back to the uh the meeting? That's the only right. So, we're going to table that for now. We'll come back to it um at the end once we've established the dates. All right. Item 0105, adopt or amend the 2026 standards of conduct.

Mr. Chair, I only had one question and I brought this up last year. Do the code of ethics and and standards of conduct, aren't they kind of should be the same document or do they need to be separate documents because they kind of repeat stuff? I think I mentioned it to you, Mr. Stewart, last year. Um, Mr. Chairman, I think I think they're all in this one. Am I wrong about that, Jack? I think you did that already in this document. I'll go through it, but I think they were all in this

because there's two separate documents. The 2018 code of ethics and there's the 20 I forget when the standards of conduct and it they kind of overlap. And do they need to be separate documents? That's all I was

I'm not sure there's a significant difference. If if there are one document, there would be three subdivisions. If it was three documents, they'd be three. And I'm not It can all be one document with three subdivisions. It can be three separate documents. It's whatever you all prefer as a board. It It's the words in those documents that matter as such, I guess, is what if I'm answering your question. No, I got I'm just looking at when I used to coach. You have all these rules and you have to live by all the rules. If you have it succincted to one document that's not 5,500 pages, it's easier to follow all the rules and to remember all the rules.

Is there something y'all need me to do with it? I'm happy to do it if there's some direction you want to give me with regard to this. I'm fine with it being two documents. I mean, there is a great deal of overlap almost like 90 95% but I'm okay with that. I just bring it up cuz I brought it up last year. Okay. I was just bringing it up again. They're not contradictory. I know that I'm I'm happy to reform it, revise it, whatever y'all want. How about this? To make it non-controversial, I'll make a motion to accept the I guess it's called the 20 20 2018 code of ethics and the do I got the names right?

And the standards of conduct. I don't think there was a year on that as presented. As presented motion to accept both of them. Okay. Second. The motion is um properly seconded. Do we have any further discussion? All right. Miss Bender I Mr. Mets I Mr. Davis Mr. Davis I chair

votes I motion carries. Okay. Establishment of meeting schedule for the calendar year 2026. Um item number 0107, establishment of the day of the week. Um there were three options out there. I don't know if you can bring those up. Uh one of the options was uh the status quo meeting on the first and third Tuesday of the month um starting at 5:30 p.m. The other one was for um only one meeting a month being on the first Tuesday. The other was for one meeting a month on the third Tuesday. Do we have any discussion on these three?

I don't I don't know how we would accomplish everything in one meeting. I don't think so either. Some of our meetings as it is, even going twice a month, go really really late, especially if you had a public hearing. That that would really limit public hearings, too. And we have warrants every every two weeks as well. So, yeah. I mean, you know, that's it'd be nice, but I don't I don't think it's feasible. What do you guys think? Just thinking if we keep the service authority together with it, I think we have to do two nights. I don't think I you get through the agenda topics without and you as chair can always make it a very short meeting if it needs to be.

Okay. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to establish schedule option number one for our board of supervisor calendar year 2026 as presented. Okay. Mr. Chairman, under option one, I want to draw your attention to November 3, 2026. November 3 is election day. So should the board want to, you can choose right now either November 2nd or 4th or we can do that later on in the year. I just want to, you know, bring that to your attention. I said we usually do it the day before, right?

I can remake my motion. I will make a motion to establish the meeting schedule for the calendar year 2026 to be schedule option one with one change November 3rd now changed to November 2nd because of the election. Okay, we have a motion properly on the floor. Have a second. I'll second that. Okay, motion properly seconded. Any further conversation? Seeing none, we'll take a vote. Miss Bender. Hi. Mets. Hi. Mr. Shout. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi.

Chair votes eye. Motion carries. All right. Uh item 0108, establishment of location. Right now there the meetings are in the boardroom of the reperc building located at 10456 uh courthouse drive, King George, Virginia. ex uh exceptions for when the the room the boardroom is being used by other things such as the election. Um are there any thoughts or discussion on this?

I'll make a motion to accept the River building as the main uh uh location for our meetings except for when needed to be changed due to unforeseen circumstances like elections. Do I have a second? Second. All right, Mr. Shout. Hi, Mr. Mets. Hi, Miss Bender. Hi, Mr. Davis. Hi,

Chairbo. I motion carries. And establishment of time. Um, for the last couple of years, the meetings have started at 5:30 p.m. on the scheduled evenings. Um, do we have any discussion on that, Mr. Chair? Oh, Mr. Stroud. [cough and clears throat] Go ahead, sir.

Thank you. One thing I know we we have there's been some discussion here and we've moved up some public hearings in the the last calendar year. Sometimes uh if if the we go through the agenda and public hearings, I believe one of them started like at 9:30 at night. Um you know, I'm sure there was some discussion and put on the table, we can keep it as is and just, you know, roll through it and whenever we get to it, we get to it. or do we establish a set time for public hearings? So, JOQ citizen knows I need to be there at 6:25 before 6:30 public hearing, get their crew there at 6:30 and that would also dictate when we do the advertisements. Um, you know, the the specific time of the public hearing would be called on the advertisement. So, just something for discussion. I know we made a couple amendments last calendar year due to some lengthy meetings.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Strad. Any other thoughts? I guess really more of a question. Doesn't the chairman have the ability to work with you, Matt, and and set the agenda on any given I mean, I know there's a template of the agenda, but in I guess you had to vote for it. How I'm curious how this would work if we have two public hearings in the same night. You really can't judge how long that first public hearing is going to go.

I think the concern is traditionally we start the uh the board of dire we start the meeting then we kick it off with a board of directors. Sometimes that meeting in of itself goes a little bit long. I think what uh Mr. Smallick is looking for is we start the meeting we get the public hearings up front and then we when that's complete then we kick it off with board of directors. Is that where and then we finish up with the board of supervisors? Is that what you're asking? Yes. Um, you know, I think if if there were, you know, to answer Mr. Mets's question first, if there are two public hearings, whenever we advertise them, we could say public hearings will start at 6:30 and they will be in this order. So, does they give the public a specific time when they start? If there's three that night, they will begin at say 6:30 in this particular order. I might amend that to say um at or around 6:30 because if [snorts] whatever's happening but starting from 5:30 to 6:30 if it goes a few minutes long.

That's right. The the the challenge with that is the sequencing that we have. We need we'll need to address that also uh whenever we're going through the um bylaws because we have the sequence in the bylaws and public presentations is down the list. So, um, [cough and clears throat] the other thing if we're looking at that, you know, I would like to move up any any the meetings where we have to have county employees at try to get those get the county employees out as early as possible. I mean, if we're going to look at that and and it's something that, you know, I mean, we've tried to do that in the past. I know last year whenever possible, uh, Chairman Davis to try to move them to get them out. Um, but even, you know, more so when we can try to get them out cuz sometimes they're here way late. It is stuck here, but sometimes we have we have people here way late and then try to expect them to work the next day and it makes it tough.

I think we can handle that on a a meeting by meeting basis. I don't necessarily think we have to codify that in because it's going to get real complicated real fast. But but I do appreciate, you know, trying to keep it consideration for the employees talking about changing the time if we have to have them here. What you need what we need to do is just make sure those events where they're going to be speaking or higher up on the agenda to get them get them done early. That's why I say handle it on a meeting by meeting cases. Get them up front. Um go ahead.

That's well that's what I was trying to say. But the thing is is right now we have the agenda set. We have all this spelled out in the bylaws. So [clears throat] it it makes it challenging either if we don't go by the bylaws and just remove it out of the bylaws and let the chairman set it for each meeting. You know, he does. He does. So if he does,

what if No, we're trying to get through this procedural vote. We can change the bylaws at any point during the year. We always have to approve it here. But I think what you're talking about is moving item number 12. Uh so Echo 12, page I don't even know what page this is. Two. Yeah, three. It would be two and three kind of overruns it. Moving item 12 up to something like three or four. I don't know what that would cause. There may be other repercussions to that. I think Matt can work through that if you would bring us back a proposal if that would be a good idea to make permanent.

Mr. Chair, the only thing then if we did that is to make sure number eight because we talked about the employees number eight to make sure that it's in front of the public hearing because constitutional officers they have to present. They might not have anything but

Mr. Chairman too, just so the I know you all probably know this, you can always amend the existing agenda regardless of what the the order of business in the bylaw says at a particular meeting if you choose. The chairman al always has the ability to bring things up early on the agenda if he he or she so chooses. So if you leave it, you can move it up or you can what whatever you have great great latitude and flexibility.

Okay, sounds good. And this all started because of trying to set to tell uh when the public hearings were going to go at a set time. So basically in the end we're just leaving it the way it is and dealing with it as it comes. I I think that's probably the cleanest way. Yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, we are. So, back to the original um question at hand. What time do we want to start our meetings? I would assume 5:30 as always. I would say stay 5:30. Okay. Have a motion. Got a second. I'll make a motion to have our meetings held at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom for 2026.

Second. All right. Motion properly seconded. Any further discussion, please? No. I Well, you didn't get to me yet, but I. Mr. Stra. Mr. Davis. Hi.

Chair votes I. Motion carried. We will start the meetings at 5:30 in the Rivercomb building and we will follow option number one where we continue with two meetings per per month. Okay. Next item on the agenda, appointment of King George uh County Service Authority Board of Directors and U. Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you. Um, we do have a motion on the floor that has not been addressed and that was to adopt the bylaws as presented with the section of adding the rotation of the chair on an annual basis um on a prescribed annual basis. So, the motion has been u made properly seconded. Any further discussion on that?

You just added the word prescribed. That wasn't in the first motion. Fair enough. Yeah. Rotate from year to year. You're right. So, I retract that by district because it already rotates. Rotate by what? That motion's already been addressed. Yeah. So, Mr. Chairman, again, I would point out that you were just elected for a year, so you probably got a year to work out. Yeah. work through this motion before it rotates the next year.

All right. So, roll call vote on the motion to accept the bylaws. Miss Bender. I. Mr. Mets. I. Mr. Stra. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Chair votes. I motion carries. All right. Back to our regular schedule program. Appointment of King Service Authority uh board of directors. Um, so item 010 or 01-10 atlarge district, I'll nominate myself to uh represent uh the atlarge district on the board of directors again this year.

Can we take them all as one slate? Mr. Chair, is there anybody planning to nominate somebody else in in theirstead? I am. Okay. I'd like to nominate Mr. Lee Robot to fulfill the change Madison district. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. I'll second. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Do I need to make a motion to accept the I can give each name so we can adopt the whole slate. Please.

So I will make a motion to accept for the appointment of the King George County Service Authority Board of Directors for the ATL large. Mr. Sins, the dog district, Mr. Davis for James Madison, Mr. Robotham, James Monroe, Mr. Mets, and the Shallow District, Miss Bender, myself. Have a second. Second. All in favor say I. I. I.

All oppose. Your votes. I motion carries. All right. Now, I'm going to call for a recess and hand it over to the King George uh call of recess of the King George County Board of Supervisors and have Mr. Hamilton called to order the board of directors. Do I need to gavvel or can I proceed? Thank you. Uh I'm Dan Hamilton. I'm the general manager of the King John King George County Service Authority. Excuse me. and I'm officially calling to order the uh organizational meeting of the board of directors for the service authority for the year 2026. Um this meeting has been duly noticed and advertised and is being held in accordance with the authorities's bylaws. And I guess at this time I need to do a roll call and confirm that we have a quorum. I think I can already see that everybody's here. But uh Mr. Batham, since you're immediately to my left,

you're here. Miss Bender, you're here. Mr. Mets, welcome. Mr. Davis, present. Mr. Sullivan, here.

Mr. Strad, I guess you're not technically part of our roll call here, but uh according to my notes, that means we have a quorum and the authority is therefore authorized to conduct business. [clears throat] The purpose of this uh excuse me, the primary purpose of this organizational meeting is [snorts] to elect officers of the authority for the 2026 calendar year. specifically the offices of chairperson, vice chairperson, and the appointment of individuals to serve as this uh clerk or secretary as well as the treasurer in accordance with article six of the authorities bylaws. So, at this point, it will proceed with the election of the chairperson. Uh pursuant to article 6 section one and section five of the bylaws the board shall elect a chairperson from among its members to serve a one-year term uh coinciding with the calendar year. Nominations are now open for the office of chairperson to nominate Miss Kathy Bender. Second.

Are there any additional nominations? Hearing none, the floor is closed for nominations. Uh, by roll call vote of those in favor of electing Miss Kathy Binder as the chair and Miss Oh, I guess we have to do Lee secondarily. I'm sorry. Um, so anyway, excuse me. So, by roll call vote, um, all those in favor of electing Miss Bender as chairperson of the King George County Service Authority for the 2026 calendar year, please say I. Mr. Hi, [snorts] Miss Bender. Hi, Mr. Mets. Hi, Mr. Davis. Hi, Mr. Sullivan. Hi.

Hopefully that's the last time I'll do this year. So, I'm going to correct you. It's Sins for the record. Sins. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm ashamed. Uh, in any case, it sounds to me like we have a new chair and I or a reappointed chair and therefore I will uh pass it off. Transition to the new chair to take the meeting from here. Thank you. I like this seat. This is a different I haven't been over here in a while. Uh, I would like to take nominations for the election of vice chair. Like to nominate Mr. Lee Robotham.

I will second that. Do I have any other further nominations? Any further discussion? Oh, close vote or close the floor. Sorry, it's been a while since I've done this one. Thank you. All right, with that, I will take a roll call vote for the appointment of the vice chair to be Mr. Lee Robotham. Mr. Robotham, I myself I uh Mr. Davis. Hi. Sorry, I'm I'm so used to going in a certain order from last year. Mr. Mets, I Mr. Solins, hi.

Obviously, chair votes. I a little off on my game today. Uh, thank you, Lee, for stepping into that role again. I really appreciate it. Now, we have the appointment of the clerk or the secretary per bylaws. And usually in the past, it was the general manager. And so, do we have any nominations for the clerk or secretary? Nominate Mr. Dan Hamilton. Have a second. We have a motion properly seconded. Is there any other nominations? Any discussion? I will close the nominations and I will take a roll call vote. So to the appointment of the clerk or secretary per the bylaws, Mr. Dan Hamilton, Mr. Robotham, I. Mr. Mets,

I. Mr. Davis, I. Mr. Solins, I. Chair votes I. Motion carries. Now the appointment of a treasurer. Do I have a nomination for the appointment of a treasurer, which most likely would be also the general manager? Is that a different one? Randy Jones, sorry. Yeah, Madam Chair, we changed those last year um and split those positions up. Forgot about that. Would have the county treasur. Thank you, Jackie, for reminding me. [laughter] Oh, come on. All right. So, the appointment of the treasurer for the board of directors to be Mr. Randy Jones. Do I have uh a nomination? We have nomination. Do I have a second?

Second motion properly second. A further discussion or other nominations. I'll close the nominations and I'll take by roll call vote for the appointment of the treasur. Mr. Randy Jones. Mr. Robotham. Hi. Mr. Mets. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Sins. Hi.

Chair votes time. Motion carries. Next up and bless you in the audience. uh the review in the adoption of the bylaws SA105 adopt or amend the 2026 uh bylaws which are referenced here the 2025 bylaws. Do I have a motion on that? But hold on, we might want to hold off on that because I know we want to have some discussion about whether we go to once a month meetings. So would everybody like to table that to jump down to uh the board of directors discussion on location, day of the week, and time?

So I know there's been discussion and talk about the board of directors going to a monthly meeting because there are some meetings where we do not have a lot on the agenda, but there is a concern about the warrants. So I guess how can we address that and are people interested in just going to once a month meetings? So I will take anybody who has any suggestions. Prefer to maintain status quo because sometimes that stuff's going to build up and for the same reason that it's difficult to take the board of supervisors to a once a month meeting. It's it's just going to snowball on us and we have to pay the bills on a regular basis.

Anybody else have thoughts? Mr. Robotham, I know you've brought this up before. Yes. So So just one of the thoughts I was uh were if there was a uh if there was a need there was additional warrants that came up if the u board of directors had basically called a secondary meeting during the second meeting Mr. chairman. Okay.

Yes. So, if you have a regularly scheduled meeting once a month, you could continue a meeting. If you didn't finish your business to that next meeting that the board's going to have the second meeting of the month, you could call a special meeting. Again, you have flexibility. Then if there's nothing, if there's, you know, if warrants were handled at the beginning of the month, the first uh during the first meeting, if there wasn't anything that was an emergency that had come up, or if we uh adjust how some of the uh with the general manager this year, how some of the flexibility is handled for potentially some of the uh the the bills that the service authority needs to actually pay. Um, if we look into some of that going to once a month and if this is something we need to continue, you know, a little bit of discussion on, we can move that further into another meeting. We can keep status quo for now. It was just uh just a thought.

I think you make [clears throat] some good points. Sorry. No, that's that's fair. Mr. Solen, what we could do is we could put on our future agenda. Sure. so that we could have a discussion about it and maybe have some steps and and talk to our finance about that too get their thoughts on it. So everybody agreement to put on a future agenda at least the discussion of it and keep the status quo I don't because I think there's a lot of moving pieces. It's a good point.

All right. Do I have a motion on the uh adopt or amend the bylaws then? I will go back to that. I move that we adopt the uh um 2026 bylaws referencing the 2025 King George County Service Authority by board of director bylaws as presented. Do I have a second? Second. Have a motion properly second. Any further discussion? That being said, I will call for a roll call vote. Mr. Robotham, I. Mr. Mets, I. Mr. Davis, I. Mr. Solins, I.

Chair votes. Motion carries. Next up, the establishment of the location, the day of the week, and the time. So, the day of the week, obviously, we said it would be the same board meeting. So, for the location, the Riverbome building, unless changed, and then the time 5:30. We could have a motion on that if everybody agrees. Can we make a motion that the um establishment of the meeting schedule for 2026 for the board of directors at this time currently follows the board of supervisors um meeting schedule for calendar year 2026? That your motion? Yes. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Have a motion properly seconded. Any further discussion? I will go by roll call vote. Mr. Robotham. I.

Mr. Mets. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Minister Solins. Hi. Chair votes I. So now that we have the day of the week, so we have the time and the location. Do I have a motion on both of those? What was the question? Does that cover Mr. Stewart that Yeah, you made a very thorough. I think I was being very He covered all three of them. All right. Never mind that. Thank you, though. Uh, do I have a motion on the consent agenda as presented? So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote. Mr. Robotham. I. Mr. Mets.

I. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mr. Solless. Hi.

Chair votes I. Motion carries. Uh, we don't have any information. Do we have anyformational items? Mr. Hamilton? Um, I wasn't sure whether you wanted me to present a report tonight. I assumed it was going to be whatever conversation we had. It would be very brief. I guess there's two or three quick things I'd like to maybe if you could spare me 60 seconds, I'll just get them out there. Um, first and foremost, we finished the year with uh, I believe 26 water leaks from the time I came here in the 20th of July through um, the end of December, which puts us on pace for roughly about one a week, about 52 leaks in a year. I have no statistical other information to average that against or but just to to give you a sense of what we're dealing with, you're talking about one day a week where the entire crew is dealing with something like that potentially after hours or whatever. and we can come back to that, but just want to let you know. Um, we did have two events over the holidays that impacted service significantly. There was a fairly large water leak at the entrance to the Hopyard community. Uh, I believe on Christmas night. It may have been the night after that. I cannot remember. The timing is never good. Um, but it was a significant leak and we had to bring in a contractor because the pipeline was at a significant depth and I don't want people working in the ditch. It's not safe. Uh it was service was restored within about 5 hours, I believe, by about 2:00 a.m. And I think it affected about 15 or 20 homes. And then we did have a um sewer backup/grease situation in front of the food line in Dogren on New Year's Day since we're keeping with the holiday spirit here. And that was reported quickly by someone sitting in this room. And thankfully, we staff responded and were able to resolve it pretty quickly in house without bringing in contractors. So there were a couple of quick events and then just last but not least at the previous meeting in December I mentioned that we had sent

out letters um that are now required by federal law um related to an inventory of people's materials that are used to construct the water service line that feature property. When that inventory was conducted a year ago, if we were not able to identify through our records whether your service line was made of copper or PVC or galvanized pipe, according to the EPA and the federal law, it's classified as unknown and we then have to send a mandatory letter about the health effects of lead. Um that letter was sent out about a week before Christmas. it had to be sent by the end of the year and a number of folks have received it and um if they've had questions of course as far as I know they've called or emailed the office which I'm grateful for because I want people to have accurate information and the letter as it's worded the language is mandatory we can't change it um it could be perceived as alarming by someone that doesn't understand the reference so I know over the holidays there was apparently some social media debate about these letters and all I can say is if anyone on this board or anyone listening to this meeting this evening has a question please contact me personally um or someone in the service authority office I will give you every detailed explanation I possibly can and I've also coordinated with Miss Southpaw in next year the plans are to draft a cover letter that will go along with that although we can't change the mandatory language of the letter that was based on the inventory, we can certainly add a cover letter which might eliminate some of the confusion. So other than that, I don't have anything significant and thank you for your time.

No, I appreciate it. And I want to recognize Mr. Davis who was the one who reported that. So and it was taken care of right away. Oh, and one more comment. Mr. Solins, I'm truly sorry. I know your name. I'm stumbling and bumbling tonight. Oh, I don't get offended. It gets messed up all the time. I just for public record, I wanted to make sure it was right. Yep. Yep. No, sir. Thank you. And then uh do I have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Hamilton, for adjournment. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn the board of directors to Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the board um boardroom of the Rivercom building. Uh with a motion, do I have a second? Second. Motion properly second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I.

I. Chair votes I. Motion carries. We are adjourned. We'll move it back to the board of supervisors, Mr. Souls. All right. We'll reconvene the King George County Board of Supervisors. Next item on the agenda is the uh consent agenda. Do I have a motion?

Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the consent agenda. Have a motion on the floor. Second. Okay. Motion properly seconded. Um, roll call. Any further discussion? Oh, thank you. Any further discussion? What was that? Approving a consent agenda. Yes. That's sorry, Miss Bender. I, Mr. Mets. I, Mr. Stra. I, Mr. Davis.

I chair votes. I motion carried. Will any constitutional officer shoot with us tonight? Do you have anything? Nope. Okay. Thank you. Next item up. We have no public hearings, no presentations. We do have an action item. The appointments to boards, committees, and commissions. Starting with the tourism advisory committee. The appointments to this committee are a one-year term and we have a stack of names here. Um, we also have a couple vacancies. Do we have any discussion on the uh tourism advisory committee?

Mr. Chair, I've got a nominee for the agricultural tourism committee. Sir, go ahead. And that would be Mr. Tom Jookum. How do you spell it? J O A K U M Mr. Chair. Yes. I also have a name for the aggra tourism position. Mr. Dragon Kerbalaha. And how do you spell that last name? K U R B I L A J A. Okay. Any other nominations?

All right. So we'll address um that first and then uh um if there's any nominations for the lodging we'll come back to that and then we will approve uh the the entire slate in mass. So for the vacancy to fill agurism um first off we'll take up Mr. Jookum. Um all in favor of Mr. Jookum. Yeah. Second. Second.

Oh thank you probably seconded. I just have a quick question since we're I remember when these we had a big debate a long time ago about these specific positions and what so I would just like to know each each person that was nominated what their background is to serve in that position since there's two nominees.

Okay. So right so uh Mr. Jook is um a marine. He's currently a contractor but he's got u his own uh business as well. He owns property as well as a home. So, two separate locations within the county. He is a James Madison uh resident. Um and he travels a lot, so he's got a lot of experience in in that area. Um and uh Miss South Hall also has had the opportunity to meet with him and or talk to him, sorry. Uh has had the opportunity to talk to him. So he's here tonight as well. So would you like to come up and introduce yourself? I guess the question I'm asking is is because I remember these debates year ago before any of you were on the board is like for each of these positions that they represent the agurism or they re represent the outdoor recreation or the arts and events. That's why I was asking and you got two nominees. [laughter]

No, no problem. Um uh my representative Straoud, thank you for nomination and uh thank you for hearing me. Uh I'm a professional pilot. In fact, I was 15 minutes late because of air traffic control tonight. But I won't hold that against him uh because I had to fly an airplane from uh Maryland over for work today. But I own a piece of property that's actually a forestry and an aperary. I actually meet with USDA and Department of Forestry for Virginia tomorrow. That's located in Shiloh District. Uh my home is in James Madison district. I grew up in an agricultural uh community background. I have an MBA from Embry Real Aeronautical University. I own a company called Fast Strike Industries that does uh defense industry consulting as well as um second amendment activities. And my farm is actually Forestry Outdoors Honey LLC. Um, as Mr. Stra said, I I've traveled all over the world. I've been uh we'll just say Middle East, uh, check all of it. Um, Africa, Asia, um, Central America. So, I've I've I've kind of been a few places. Um, and I enjoy King George County. I moved here cuz I was flying out of Pax River and uh I like living in a rural community. So, um, a lot of our agurism. I've been a patron now. I'm a particip uh participant. Sorry, no water and I'm running out of gas for the day. I've been I've been going since I got up. I didn't expect to fly today, so it was kind of a phone call. The other pilot got sick and I had to fill in. Uh do you have any additional questions for me or

No, that was a great summary of your experience. Also, one other thing to know, talk about your anniversary and what you did there.

Oh yeah. Uh so for for my anniversary, we stayed at Bella Grove um bed and breakfast and then we actually went to Creekide um and a bunch of agurism farms. And I'm not going to pick one out because I don't want to show favoritism, but I've been to just about every agurism farm. Um I actually cut trees for one of our local vendors who does chainsaw art at the um King George County uh farmers market. In fact, I don't even charge them. I'm just like, "Man, please get rid of these pines." So I'm like, "Pick the ones you want and we'll cut them." So, uh, yeah, I've I mean I most of my grocery shopping is not at food line. I'll put it like that. So, you know, it's mostly at the farm.

All right. Thank you. Go ahead. I asked you one question. Why do you why do you are you interested in doing this?

Uh, I was there's a need. Um, and you know, I'm interested in agriculture. I open up a, you know, farm of my own and agurism. I just I'd like to see more tax dollars and industry. Well, I I want to see more tourism brought in at King George uh to help out our local businesses, sustain what we have. You know, we're agricultural, so I think we're I think we're a little overlooked for what we have. I mean, Bella Grove is where James Madison was born. Um, I think historically we're a lot more significant than most folks think or know.

Thank you.

And so, um, so I'll just do a little intro. So, the reason I nominated Dragon, Dragon and Kevin own uh Gardening Gays Farm, a growing aggro business in this county that is bringing in tourists from outside. We've been talking for the last year about how to get more tourism dollars into the county. Um, and I might, and Dragon's in the back back there, and I'm sorry I go by your first name because your last name, I don't think I'm pronouncing it correctly. And I would like to he can get up and speak. um big background in um food service as well. So, this kind of crosses over a couple of uh items that the tourism advisory committee I think is going to have to contribute as far as uh input to county policy and and where we want to go. I might even make a recommendation here um based on the feedback. I see we still have a vacancy in lodging and uh I think Dragon's a good fit.

Let's do one at a time. Okay. Yeah, we'll Yeah, getting ahead of myself. um good fit because he's in the business that we're trying to uh to grow within the county, right? To maintain that rural character. So, uh with that, I'll let him get up and speak. Would you like to come introduce yourself?

Thank you so much. Uh my name is Dragon Kalia. Like Matt said, uh Brian said, uh I own and operate Ghana Gay's farm here in King George with my husband Kevin. Uh we've been here almost five years. We grew that business now from ground up. Started with 35 chickens and it is what it is today. Have a huge social media following. Um we my my experience with this I've spent uh 14 years in some of the biggest resorts in Orlando as a banquet manager and then moved up to DMV area. I spent uh managing restaurants. Uh I was general manager of Filamina restaurant of uh um Hanks Oyster Bar down at Dwarf and Smashing Grapes up in Annapolis. That was my last position as a as a hospitality manager. Uh so I have a deep background in hospitality. Uh here in the county we uh own our farm. We welcome all of our uh local businesses. We currently have uh over two dozen local small local businesses that uh display and sell their products with us right on the farm. Um last fall, for those of you who are aware, we organized the fall festival on the farm. They drew about uh 600 people on a Saturday, another 450 people on Sunday. That was

helping with the dates. uh last weekend of October last year. Uh so we're planning on another four of those events for this year and uh we love everything that's local. We have huge plans for the farm. People often compare us to West Morland Berry Farm. Um and we would love to bring something like that back to the King George County. So thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Sorry. Sorry. All right. I don't We're good. Thank you. I have a I have a question. Never mind.

Yeah. So, Yes, sir. So, um farms are expensive. They're expensive to run. So, I'm curious you, [clears throat] uh on your farm, so you guys generate enough agricultural [snorts] revenue to uh pay for the farm and for your activities uh all on all at the farm or is there outside funding? So, my Kevin still uh works a full-time job. Uh he's a lifelong journalist. I stepped away from completely from hospitality. I'm full-time on the farm. Um this year was the first year that we Oh, I'm sorry. 2025 was the first year that we finally had a part-time employee. This year, we're looking to add three to five employees on the farm. and farm is starting to produce enough revenue that where we can afford to have employees and uh but we reinvested literally everything that we earn on the farm right back to the farm us.

Thanks sir. Any other questions? Thank you. All right. So I'm going to do it a little bit different this time. We'll do a roll call vote, but I'm going to ask you for your response. Either say Mr. Jookum or Mr. Uh Klaya Dragon. Dragon. We'll go with that. Thank you. Either Tom or Dragon. All right, Miss Bender. This is for the agurism, right? Yes, ma'am. Tom, did I get that right? Yep. Mr. Mets, Mr. Trout. Tom and Mr. Davis. Tom.

And chair votes for Tom. Tom, congratulations. All right. I believe you wanted to talk about lodging. Something real quick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt you. I just want to say that most of the time we have we are very hard to find people to fill roles and so thank you to both you both of you are tremendous candidates for that role. I honestly believe that and I appreciate everything that I'm dragging. You guys bring this county and all that you do. It's it's it people love going there. I know that. It's I just really I just want to let you know that that that's a that's really a tough decision for me. So I really appreciate what you guys are doing. I really do and just just that you're volunteering means a lot. Thank you.

Well, so then I'll just move my recommendation to dragging in as the lodging. I think again this isn't about their farm. When I had this conversation with him and I talked with Miss South who also chatted on the side um this is about how we grow these businesses within the county. We have a great business owner here. You just heard the growth that they've made and the employees that they're bringing on within the county and and I'm all about jobs. Second. Thank you. Okay. Motion properly seconded. Do we have any other nominations before I close that out? Okay, I'll close out nominations. Um, Dragon is the only nomination for the lodging vacancy. Miss Bender. I smidz. I stra I Davis.

I chair votes. Hi. Congratulations, Dragon, and thank you. As he said, I'll echo Bill's thing for both you guys. Thank you for being willing to step in and take on these roles. So, uh, Mr. Chair, I think we need to make a formal Can I just, uh, make a nomination to accept the rest of the slate of names? That was going to be my next request for the tourism advisory committee. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I I. Any oppose? Chair both time. Motion carries. All right. Regional boards health emergency operations center. Oh, thank you.

Got tucked in there, didn't it? All right. Board of supervisors, emergency operations center leaison. This is a one-year term. Do we have any nominations or anybody that would like to self-nominate? No, I'll self-nominate myself for that. Okay. Is that the same as the fire is on? I'm not sure it is. Yeah. I'll second that. Okay. Any other nominations? Okay. Motion properly seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Chair both. Motion carries. All right. Now down to the uh regional boards. Healthy Generations Board of Supervisor member. This is a four-year term.

Um Mr. Solins, I would like to stay on that board. Okay. Okay. So, you're self-nominating? I'm self-nominated. Second. And properly seconded. Any other nominations? Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Chair votes I. Motion carries. Vampo. Freddersburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Primary and Alternate Board of Supervisors members. This is a two-year non- voting policy committee term. Um they meet once a month in uh Fredericksburg. Um, I'll Stephan nominate myself to stay on board. Second.

I was just going to say I'm the other one, but I could give that up if somebody else wanted to have that role. It is a non- voting member. I have no problem with you doing it again. I'll stay on it. Any other nominations? Any discussion? All in favor of Miss Bender, myself staying on as primary and secondary alternates. All in favor say I.

Any opposed? Chair both eye. Motion carries. All right. Discussion items. Appointment to boards, committees, and uh commissions. Board of zoning appeals. This is a 5-year term. The seven member board does not have seats based on local districts. Under section 15.2-2308 2-2308 and the BZA's bylaws which are established pursuant to the aforementioned state code members must be residents of the locality. The board of supervisors may make recommendations on the BZA appointments, but vacancies are filled at the sole discretion of the circuit court. Um, there any vacancies? We have a vacancy there.

M Mr. Solins, I had to ask m Mr. Smallnick about this because this can tell you how sometimes you're given the wrong information for eight years. I was always told it was by district and lo and behold I find out it is not by district because if you noticed on all the agendas the shil representative has rolled off she did not want to continue in that role. She appreciated the job and just didn't want to continue. So I found out that anyone can appoint anyone but it I was told when I came on the board and I was on the assumption for eight years that it was by district but I found out you can learn different things.

Okay. So, do we have an do we have an opening first? We do indeed. Just one. Do we have a nomination for that?

That one's always been very very hard to find because once people find out part of the legality of it, they're like, "No, thank you. Do you have something else?" So, can we table this one to a further meeting to a future meeting? Okay. Item 01-22, Landfill Advisory Committee. Okay. Uh we've some we definitely have some uh openings here. We've got a board of supervisor uh member opening. We've got an atlarge district and a dog district opening. Is there a board of supervisor member who's interested in being a part of this?

And I wanted to clarification on this, Mr. Solins because originally there were five landfill advisory members based on district. Mr. Collins from former colleagues kind of got thrown on there. So I don't know if we want to continue that having a board of supervisor because that's not the way it was done in the past. It was you know each district in the at large had a member on the board of supervis I mean on the landfill committee and I don't think they've met for a couple years. Yeah I [snorts] was going to ask I when I looked up I don't think they've met in the last year. I don't think so either. But should we go ahead and put names out there just in case they do meet? I feel like we should. Otherwise, I feel like we should probably table it if we don't have any. I don't know if we have any names right now.

Well, that's a good I don't have anybody to nominate for the at large at the moment. Can we ask uh Miss South to put a posting out looking for positions, looking for board members? Okay. Yeah, that's a great idea. Looking for the will of the board on that. Are you guys okay with that? Any issues? Guess which of the terms that are up, I guess would be my question for the vacancies. Yes. May I ask clarification? Would you like me to make an application to get their name, information, and why they're qualified or just interest and have them email me and give you guys their contact? I don't How do you want me to do that exactly? Sorry. I would say option one. Okay. I'll do a form and let you guys review that beforehand. Don't make it too form. No, basic information.

Just, you know, what's your name and why are you interested in doing this? And that'd be fine. Same thing we just did a few few seconds ago. Exactly. Perfect. Thank you. Very good. Okay. Uh, Social Services Administration Board. This is a four-year term. The James Monroe District is um up. I'm on that board.

Yeah, we can table that one as well. We're going to table that one. This It can't be that bad. They nominated me for all the hard ones. Yeah. I'd like to nominate Supervisor Mets for the Social Service Administration board for the James Mano district. Second. Are we allowed to have two supervisors on there is my question. Oh, yes. Yes, you are. You're patted. No, it's not corn. As long as no third shows up. There is no third to be there.

Okay, you can always nominate. Okay, we got a motion properly seconded. Uh any any discussion and your deer in the headlight slug seems to have passed. I'm assuming this s you now have somebody who can commiserate with you. [laughter] I'm not on that board. It's not transportation. So, all right. All those in favor say I. I. I any oppose? Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay. Regional board consortium uh workforce development board economic development director or economic development staff. So I'm assuming this is you sir. Is there any discussion on that? Um, it has to be you. Is that correct? Wasn't it TC? This one was the one that was TC's before. I was on it, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Mr. Strad is We had a meeting in Warsaw. So, so Mr. Strad was It can be elected official. It can be the C. There's a there's a list of individuals um the jurisdictions. Uh so it's the chief uh local elected official or up to two alternates including county administrator, county ed director, schoolboard member, school superintendent, other and any other staff affiliated with the workforce development activities.

I think you're already on it though. Do I have to So we can nominate two. Is that what you said? We can have alternates. That is my understanding. Yes. I believe last year I um I believe it was is it a yearly thing? Do I have to get renominated for this year?

If you weren't last year, it would not hurt because this did not I I do not recall this coming up specifically last year. I don't think it would hurt to, you know, appoint or reappoint Mr. Stra. he wants to to be on the specific board and you can do another alternative and should the board wish I'll be happy to serve that with on that alongside Mr. Straoud. So how do y'all feel about having um Mr. Straoud and Mr. Smallik as the primaries and Mr. Davis as the alternate for either of those? It's rotated every year. You got rotated. I'd like to nominate myself and Mr. Small to that board. That'll be an alternate.

Mr. Davis is alternate for the B Bay bait consortium. Just We have a second. I'll second that. Any discussion? Any more discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose?

Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Congratulations, gentlemen. All right. King George social media policy. Uh Miss Hal, community engagement director has a presentation for us. Good evening members of the board. Um before you is a draft policy. This was um at the request of some of the board members to add to the agenda for discussion tonight. Um the only thing that we discussed to change myself and Mr. Stewart is to add to under outline number two disparaging. Um so that would go with profane, vulgar, obscene or disparaging comments. It's a brief overview of keeping professional decorum in a public space just like you guys have in your bylaws for public comments at meetings. Um, so I'm here to answer any questions that you may have.

Mr. Stewart, you went over this, sir?

Yes, sir. Um, and and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I know the law on this. This is a voluntary thing that the county is doing. Um, free speech gets involved, but I think you can put reasonable parameters on it. Um, the original policy is as Amy and I looked at it, I had some concerns that it may not address current activities that had happened recently. And that's why we we looked at it and said on line two, we ought to add it disparaging. Um the the problem with all these is it's it's subjective. Somebody makes makes a subjective decision about it. But again, it is designed to maintain a civil tone on the county's page. Um and as I told Miss Southall, you know, we can do this until a judge tells us we can't. And that's just as honest as I can be with with the board.

Mr. Stuart may I did have a question on this one. So specific social media ecosystems, the state considers those public forums even though they are closed ecosystem. If it if it is a public space for a local government, it is public and so it's subject to the rules of FOYA um things like that. Sure. So let me give you an example. Right. So, our our bulletin board here in the in the center where we post for public the agenda. Mhm. If somebody came by and graffitied that, we would be allowed to remove the graffiti.

Yes. Until a court tells us we can't do that. But I think I think that you all can put reasonable parameters in place to to maintain a civil tone. Okay. But but I'm just being honest. This is an area of the law that is evolving. So, who would who would determine whether it's a civil tone or not? I mean, we're not going to bring it before the board of supervisors every time we need to discuss this. I think you should delegate that probably to whomever runs the site. And I assume that that is Amy.

I was going to say my proposal would be that I would flag and discuss with Mr. Smolnik. Um, and then in case of FOYA, uh, I would also be documenting those comments and make sure that I have record of them, but they just no longer would be public on our page. Um and I I did want to note that on page three, number five and number six, I do think that these also help protect us to make a statement that number five is referencing that um some comments may automatically be or sorry that's number six may automatically be hidden by the social media because I have no control over that. Other people may flag comments say that it's bullying or other reasons. People agree to those terms of agreements when they get on social media. So that's just a note on that part. And then number five is that we do run the ability to turn off comments at any point in time if something runs off the rails. Um and and that also is something that other departments are practicing. I try to steer clear from that cuz I want to engage with our community, but I just wanted to kind of say that this policy would help protect us for those two scenarios as well. I did also leave the policy as generic and vague as possible in reference to communication channels including social media. Um because as technology happens, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. So I don't want to come before you in two years and have something different be a reality. Um so just a couple of other things to note.

Okay. Do we need to codify in the instruction that your your plan of talking with Mr. Smallnick and adjudicating that between the two of you?

No. Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. So I in in in addressing this um you know I would like to say that it's important to look at the purpose. Can you go up to the purpose whoever's running the screen up there? There you go. Because this is the purpose of Okay. King George Countyy's official social media platform is to provide information of public interest to the county's residents, business community, thank you visitors, and other members of the general public. So, it's information of public interest. So, that doesn't include like disparaging comments. It doesn't include people just throwing stuff out there that is, you know, meaningless. Okay? It needs to provide it needs to meet the the purpose. It needs to be a public interest meaning that you know it's we could say beneficial to the public for their awareness, for their knowledge, something to improve the the county. anything that's disparaging if it's there to to degrade somebody um or any of those things that are addressed down there in sub paragraph 5, you know, we don't we don't need that and it's against the purpose of the website. So I think that right there, you know, it may be a public forum, but that doesn't mean that somebody has the right to go on there and say things that are that are mean, disparaging, or violate somebody's um age, religion, gender, all those things. We just don't need that. So I think if we focus on the purpose, then it pretty much addresses, you know, those concerns. So, and and if we want to I wouldn't say necessarily we don't need to really we could expound on the purpose, but that would be what we need to let people know whenever they're on a website. They're

making comments. It needs to be focused on the betterment of our county. And this will be posted to the county's website as well as pinned to all of our social medias so that people can read this when they interact with us. Um, so this will be very upfront. And you did make me realize that I have a typo. It says city. I pulled this from a bunch of different localities very last minute to get it on the agenda in time. So that will be corrected. [laughter]

But yeah, Mr. Chair, I would like to make a comment since this was brought about by something that occurred that affected me personally is and and this is not against any disparaging comments about votes we make or policies we perform. That's part of the business. That's being in the public eye. You kind of give it up. But let me tell you, I think I have a wicked wig. I think I'm an awesome wig. And those folks online, the disparage, I hope no family member ever has an illness that makes them wear a wig like I do. And shame on you for not keeping it personal and tell your dog and don't put it on Facebook. Thank you.

Any other comments? I will say bald is beautiful. You can join me in this. I'm close. No, I'm joking. You'll have to wear a hat year round. All right. Any other comments? All right. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. What's up? Do you I didn't say I was beautiful. I said Bald is beautiful. Okay. Good. Right. All right. Now, we're down to the uh county administrative report. Mr. Smlet,

thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. So, here we are. January 2026. Uh on the agenda is a a year in review and this will be posted uh tomorrow. Uh I wanted to to kind of highlight some of the things here. First the state of the county address. So for the citizens it's it's on the agenda but you can also find it under the main county website administration and the 2025 county state of address. The link will be there tomorrow. But I wanted to, you know, kind of break some of the the high points here um for the county and for our residents and and you know, what our staff has accomplished and the the priorities that this board has set and how we've we've enact you know the actions that we've taken. Um so with this there are there are 80 82 items in in total. It's been a busy year here at the county. Um, you know, I appreciate the board's direction on, you know, how you've directed, you know, me as the county administrator to implement certain things throughout uh the different departments. I'm not going to go through all these, just just a couple highlights and maybe pick one from each one, but these are these are pretty important. So, you know, last year we we've uh had the earliest adoption, least cumbersome adoption of the the budget, most expansive CIP in recent years. That was great uh from from administration. uh clerk of circuit court where we all knew you know they moved uh went down relocated them uh in the records room to the new courthouse so that's a a great thing a great facility down there for anybody doing any research commissioner revenue I know Regina and her staff have been busy at work with our our consultant conducting the county's uh reassessment of real estate uh values uh community development this is a great thing here a lot of people you know what's going on here a lot of rumor mills all over the place so they created an interactive uh projects map or uh a map app and added 750 complete projects. So this is where citizens can go in. It's all colorcoded to see what is going on on a specific property. You know, site plans, you know, scanned in. So So it's good

information and it really frees up the the community development staff of, hey, I heard this is going on this property. Can you tell me more? It it it allows the the residents to, you know, have all this information at their fingertips at their convenience. Uh community engagement. And I know Miss Hal's been super busy. She presented some of the updates for the tourism and the the newly redesigned website. We've got her first uh tourism visitor brochure that's been printed and circulating throughout the Commonwealth right now highlighting our tourism assets uh which would you know bring in some some tax dollars. So that that's a great step with community engagement economic development. I see uh Mr. Booth in the back one of EDA board members. Uh they've awarded scholarships for DECA students and uh future business leaders of America uh for for students at King George High School. So, I commend the EDA for really pushing our future leaders and allowing them to engage in in national competitions. Engineering, we all know they've been uh been busy with all of our our interconnects. Uh, you know, circle to courthouse, interconnect, Canterbury to courthouse, and they demoed the old middle school that was sitting there for a number of years. So, engineering's definitely been uh busy at work working alongside our our service authority, finance, procurement. Uh, you know, Levid and her team just top-notch. appreciate everything they do. You thing that stood out to me was successfully implemented vendor automated clearing or a payments using a two-step process. So, this is minimizing checks. So, as we pay our vendors, it's a automatic instead of, you know, going through processing, mailing checks out. So, uh moving in the right direction there in finance and procurement, fire rescue, you know, one of the the big things that that you all heard about and I I believe Chief Moody will will present a little bit on this is the the fuel depot. Uh we realized couple projects CIP uh budgets ago there was money allocated. They came in way over budget. Uh we got creative um in an instance where we had an emergency here. We could get fuel delivered through uh our emergency services but we had

nowhere to put it. So that meant you know we we may have ambulances and fire trucks waiting behind everybody else at sheets. Now we have our own uh highly regulated uh fuel dispensing system at company one for diesel and gasoline. And a big change is they became uh they obtain their DEA license to operate an internal pharmacy. So this was a change that was passed down to localities. Instead of getting the medications from the hospitals, we now have a DEA license and track and administer um those those specific uh prescript prescriptive medicines. Um, so general properties, you know, you've seen them here as you come into the Riverbome building. The uh the exterior security cameras, it's always good to have eyes on on everything that goes on. Um, that's, you know, one thing that I noted. So, we've got interior exterior cameras uh just to, you know, give give staff and citizens a peace of mind that we can go back, you know, in an instance and we have had to use it a couple times when there was destruction of property here at the river building. So those cameras uh were instrumental in in uh identifying the individuals in that specific case. Human resources. Um so one big thing here, they updated all the county job descriptions. You know, the board has heard about this. Um this was something that was was not done. Not every county employee had a signed job description. So in order to hold people accountable, you have to have a job description first. So So that was a major undertaking uh by by the the small HR staff and we got that done. appreciate all the department heads work on that. Uh it we know we're working on the upgrades here in this particular boardroom with uh the remote cameras. Um they're no longer in the back of the room. They've got a control room out back. And then um initiated password software for uh for key county positions, ensure continuity of government operations for each department. You know, uh we all know cyber security is is utmost important and our staff is staying on top of this to to make sure that your local

government can run um in the in the event of an unfortunate incident, you know, with IT system. Smoot Library, the collaborated with parks and wreck and friends of Smoot Library to offer summer movies in the park. I think some of them were cancelled due to the rain, but uh great opportunity for you to bring uh your family, spend some time with your friends out there, watch a movie outside underneath the stars. uh parks and wreck the the Dogrin uh parks master plan. This was the 150 acres at the foot of the bridge. Um that was a very intense uh master plan. So So now we've got a path forward. And another thing I wanted to highlight with them, it's uh completed first summer extern program with eight King George High School students. You see a pattern here with the EDA and a few others. you know, the getting the students involved, getting the the youth involved in our government to to, you know, maybe go off to college, go to trade school, go into the workforce, but stay here in King George County. So, so I I appreciate those efforts uh through parks and rec to work with uh the the King George High School students. Registerers office, we had 90 days of early voting, our new voter system registration. I think that went through quite smoothly. So, commend Lori and her staff on that. uh sheriff's office. We've now have three deputies certified as commercial vehicle inspectors. Um again participated in numerous community youth engagement programs, two youthmies uh and for the 12 and 18 year olds and a summer learning program for the 4 to 8 year olds. Again, you know, getting the youth involved here and building trust uh amongst the community. Uh a common theme which I'm very proud of. Social services. A lot of times we we have a a plan, we adopt a plan and it sits on a shelf. uh nothing's acted on it. But when you look at social services, they filled all the 23 25 strategic uh plans and goals, only one carrying only one goal is carried over into the renewed plan. So uh Mr. Franklin and his staff, a great job over there. Um it's it's a tough job in social services, but you know, great job for them to to really take this plan and not let it sit on a shelf, actually go ahead and do what it

said. And then solid waste, I know Mr. New Chock uh runs a a tight shaper convenience centers really held some some great and very well attended household hazardous waste collections uh to disposing of this material properly instead of throwing in a roadside ditch and you know polluting our waterways that we hold so near and dear to our heart. So um you know this was a a tip of the iceberg. Uh all 82 things they're they're on the website or on the the agenda here. This will be with a cover letter tomorrow. But I'm really proud of my staff uh for 2025 and you know we we kind of you know got our sights set on 2026 and you know kind of keep moving forward and appreciate the support of the board of supervisors. Thank you Mr. Smallik. Any questions?

I don't have any questions but I would like to say that that folks this is really huge. Um, thank you very much, sir, and thank you to the county staff because I can tell you, um, you know, going back to sitting where you folks are sitting tonight and, uh, observing, um, [clears throat] county administrators past and the achievements that were being briefed were employee birthdays and anniversaries. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with anniversaries and birthdays, but what was accomplished, okay? What was accomplished? People lived another year. That's huge. And but this is much better being briefed on what the achievements that people actually have goals. They have objectives. They're achieving them and bettering our county. Okay, this is this is really huge. And you know if if if you take a look back then you really see how big it is but but I'm really impressed. Thank you very much sir. Thanks everyone.

So thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Any other comments? All right chairman sir. I didn't know if you all wanted to vote on this social media policy. I'll make a motion to accept the social media policy as presented. Do you with women? Do you want the amendment to add the word disparaging on line two? Yes. Yes. In the correction of city to county. Yes. Can we clean that up real quick? Mr. Stewart, could you restate it and I'll say

adopt the policy as presented as amended on line two with the typo corrected. as presented. I'll make All right. All in favor or actually I'm sorry. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? Chair both. Motion carries. All right. We will open up the floor to secondary public comment to address meeting items only. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so they can be properly recorded and included in the public record. Do we have anybody who would like to speak? Mr. D, we have anybody online?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. We have Miss Colleen Davis. Okay. Go ahead, Miss Miss Davis. Miss Davis, can you hear us?

Hold on, Miss Davis. We're checking something, please. There she is. Oh, we can see her.

Can you try again, Miss Davis? Can you check your settings on your home computer there? I should be able to hear you. Got it. Okay. Okay. Okay, for those that didn't hear that, she's going to top out her question and Mr. Dyn is going to read it for us. In the meantime, did anybody get any correspondence? Any other correspondence? All right, we'll hold tight for this. Well, obviously I see it's a question for me. So, what's the question? All right.

Can you hear me?

This is better of a question for you and I was trying to take it but you're in a rush. My question to you is why your sudden change and to make a vote in changing the bylaws of chair and then you gladly take chair several years in a row for the service authority. So that's my question to you. My second thing is this year while you're chair on the service authority I hope to see just like a lot of people that my uh husband has protected your comments for you. I hope to see a change done. Thank you. I'm confused. Uh, I couldn't hear the whole question because there was a lot of reverb.

I think I think what she said was was you you wanted to make the chair a rotating position yet you gladly took the service authority chair for the third year in a row without wanting to rotate that position. I think that was what the question was the gist of it

and I assumed that would be brought up and the service authority as we've stated before is a totally separate entity. It is an enterprise fund. It is not a board of d it's not a board of supervisor position. And I know this is becoming very personal, but you know, I think I've done a very good job as the service authority, and I think this is only coming up because I brought up the rotating uh uh chairmanship for the supervisors. You know, I've had a lot of reflection in my life and you got to stand up for yourself and I really believe that that should rotate at least for the board of supervisors because that's an elected position and you serve your constituents and you should be able to serve your constituents at least once as chair so that you can represent their interest and you have done it. You did a very good job at it. Mr. Sins, I'm sure will do a very good job and each of you else if you Mr. Mr. Straoud if you run again or if you want to next year you would do a good job and so would Mr. Mets. So that's all I'm saying is to make sure you take a lot a lot out of that jockeying and then it it is um it's just a smoother transition and everyone's represented. Obviously, that is not your feeling and you're probably very hurt by it and I don't know what to say kind of putting me on the spot, but I see where there could be a contradiction. But I do know that continuity in the service authority as as as an entity in the enterprise is very important. It's very important to DEEQ, is very important to the regulators. It's very important to state agencies. That is not the same as the board of supervisors. Whether you believe that or not, that is what I believe. And I know other citizens believe in everyone has their supporters. Everyone had their supporters to vote for them. I hope I answered that question, but you kind of put me on the spot, so I answered it to

the best of my ability. Well, the vote put us on the spot, so I can understand that. And and Mr. Davis, I also want to clarify, I did bring this up last year about this and I did say that I would bring it up again in the bylaws and I assumed I would get shot down. Well, sometimes [clears throat] I don't hear about things that appear at this board meeting. All right. Any other public comments? Anybody in the audience want to join us? All right. Mr. D, anybody else online?

All right. I will close public comments at this time. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjourn to January 20th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the River Boardroom. You have a second. Second. Probably seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Chair both eye. Motion carries. We are now journ.