Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Let us pray. Gracious God our father, we come once again. Father, realizing that you is God, Lord of all. Father, once again, we come to this place, this historic building on side of the road in Saluda, Virginia. Father, we ask you to be with us to each one of us, Father, in the things that we do and the things that we say, Father, that we can get an understanding, Father, for a purpose, Father, in it all. We hopeful and we pray that whatever we do, it won't be shameful to you in any way. In Jesus name, we all do pray. Amen. Hammond. 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. Miss Hammond, roll call, please. Mr. Williams, present. Mr. Bill Harris, Mr. Kittinden here, Mr. Jesse here, Mr. Don Harris present. Thank you, Miss Hammond. All right. Um, a motion would be in order to approve the consent consent agenda. So move. Second. So moved by Mr. Jesse, second by Mr. Kitten. Are there any additions to the minutes? Seeing none, hearing none, Roll call, please. Mr. Kittinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. All right. Moving right along. We're uh

down to item number two. I'll open the floor for any public comment. My first public speaker is Don Moore. Thank you, Kevin. Good afternoon, board members. My name is Don Moore. I am the current president of the NAACP Middle Sex branch. I am before you again as the body cam Sega keeps going on. Um, I'm not going to be before you long, but I would really like for you to think and consider there's been a lot of projects in this county that do not affect all of us. We are in a state right now in this world and it's coming closer and closer to Middle Sex and a lot of us need the feel of protection and right now we don't have it. We absolutely don't have it. There's no accountability. There's no safety mechanism. We need body cameras. No matter what it takes, this affects the county in a whole. We need body cameras. We're spending money on a walking trail that's in Deltaville. We will not The county is paying for and we will not see it. They don't want us down there. A lot of us don't want to drive down there. We are spending money on a water and sewer system that 90% of us will never see or use. But we are spending the money on it. Protect all of us and vote for the body cameras. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Moore. Anyone else? I did not have anybody registered to speak. Would anybody like to speak? Yes, there was one more. Mr. Jackson.

I don't know where he turned it in at. He did. Okay. Good afternoon board members and others. Robert Jackson. I'm standing here before you again this afternoon and hopefully for the last time to speak on the issues of body cameras. Not sure how much more can be said about body cameras that haven't been said already. This has been an ongoing issue for the last six years as some of you know. As mentioned before, all of our surrounding counties have police wearing body cameras. Hopefully, the resolution made today will be something that the county residents can look forward to in the near future. In the past several weeks, I have received several phone calls and thumbs up from people who want to see this happen. Some of them went into detail about what happened when they were stopped by a deputy. Some of their stories were extremely shocking. One of one story that was in particular that was told to me was when the person was stopped by a deputy and the conversation got prolonged. They were eventually called the n-word. They were called the n-word. It's situation like this when body cameras are extremely necessary given the conditions and the environment in which we live in today. We there are a host of reason why body cameras have put have become popular. First they increase the internal accountability.

Second they enhance transparency. Third, they facilitate investigations of citizen complaints. The public and law enforcement entry the the public and law enforcement interest in body cameras deployment remains high. Studies have shown that body cameras are a great tool and if used properly is one of the best advances in policing. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Jackson, would you like to speak? Come forward and give your name and where you live. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry I'm a little short. Uh my name is Karen Stelling and I live at 18032 General Polar Highway. And the reason why I'm here today is because of this proposed bike path that is going to be 10 ft wide. And my husband and I live in an area along with two, three, four other homes that is considered the most difficult part of the path because we will bas Oh, sorry. Thank you. It's Oh, okay. I'm not going to touch Okay. Um, where was I? So, this area, most of us are not super close to the road, but we're close. So, we had VOTE come out and actually mark our land to show where this is going, what would happen regarding the easement. Um, we're going to lose half of our land in the front. We're going to lose half of our property. And I just feel like I've been told twice by two different people, one from VOTE, one

from the county that this path is happening because of the people that come into the marinas and on their boats. They want to be able to come in downtown and or not downtown but to Deltavville Market and use all the other amenities that are down there. And I just feel like these the Boers are here for a portion of the year. I'm here as well as others who live here full-time. I live here full-time. This is my home. This is why we moved here. My husband and I wanted something quiet, something quaint, and we got it. We really did. But this path will literally ruin our yard. and we will lose our trees. And I've been told as well, hey, you know, we'll pay you for the trees. We'll pay you for, you know, what you're going to lose. And that's fine, but this is my home. This is where I live. And I just feel like to put this bike path in for some people, what about the people that live here all year round? I think all of us who live here, the the consensus that I got was that no one is wants this. Um I've been told that phase one, which is where my where I live is um finances have been secured. However, phase two and phase three have not been secured. So it's literally a bike path to nowhere. Um, if people are worried about safety, bring the speed limit down and enforce it. If you're wor if they're worried about being on their bike and they feel like people are driving too fast, I just wish all of you would take into consideration the people that are going

to lose in this bike path proposal. I thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak? Yes, sir. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And my name is Mike Stelling. That's my wife over there. So, live in Deltaville. Uh, as we said, um, just real quick, I mean, I obviously pretty much agree with everything she just said, but one of the things I've I've looked back at the um, quote unquote poll or whatever the official term for it is on um, Facebook that VOTE put out there about people using this pathway. Um, one of the questions was um, how often would you use this path? 59% of the respondents said, "I will never use this path." Okay. The next highest number said they would use it several times a month, but from there it just goes down into the single digits of people that will actually use this path. So, my thing is, um, you know, if it's $2 million, you know, allotted for this path, that's going to do nothing really for I feel the overall community. Um, it will bring my property value down. I will lose privacy. Um, I feel like that money could much be it could be better spent elsewhere. I mean, just take $2 million, which is a so-called budget for this or $3 million for acquiring property if you add that in. I mean, you know how many courtesy cars you could buy for these marinas to just give them? I mean, you know, you could probably get 30 30 35 cars per marina per million dollars. So, um I mean, and then that's kind of I think a win-win for everybody. If you're if you're a boater, you come here to the

marina and you want to go get some burgers and buns and beer, you know, your marina that you're obviously paying a docking fee or whatever, um provide you with a courtesy car and you can take that car and drive it on down to Deltaville Market because as it stands now, this first part of the path that will go through my area and connect up with the sidewalk, the sidewalk still doesn't hit any community businesses or I should say commercial businesses where a boater would want to resupply. Okay. So, the the the sidewalk still ends before you even get to the 7-Eleven, if anybody's familiar with the area, and you still have a good another half mile or so before you get to the Deltaville market. So, to take $3 million to do a eighth of a mile or quarter mile long path when you don't even have funding from my understanding for the other two phases that may not get approved down the road. So then what us? We lose our yards, we lose our privacy, we lose our property value, and the voters still don't have a way to get to the market. That's my opinion on it. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Yes, sir. Come forward. Hi, my name is Robert Roberts. I live in Topping. Um I'd like to u bring to the attention of the supervisors um over the 4th of July um the airplanes and the way they fly was just off the chart. I mean these people want to be want to be fighter pilots. I don't know what their situation is. And I filmed this on the phone. Um, and when you call up at the the office over there at the

airport, you nobody knows nothing. you know, while these guys are are doing this flying recklessly. And I'm trying to point this out because, you know, if they hit something that has a like a car has children in it when you know, you have that the sign that says, you know, uh, watch out for lowflying aircraft. They're not kidding. I've got a ton. I live right at the end of the runway and I've got a ton of video and I'm putting y'all on notice. You know, I'm telling you sooner or later something's going to happen there and something needs to be done to reel these pilots in. Um, and I would like to talk with my supervisor at your convenience about this issue. Then you can bring it forward to the for full counsel. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Seeing none, hearing none, I'm going to close the public hearing. Okay. Uh item number three, constitutional officers. Uh, treasury report only is in your booklet. Uh, commissioner of revenue is a report only on page 52 and stakeholders uh, committee update we're going to move to in a second. Any comments on item AOD, treasury report or commissioner of revenue? Seeing none, hearing none, I'll move to item C. Um, stakeholders committee update body cameras. I assume Mike Herd,

you're on the list for that or you have the report whereby the stakeholders have recommended going forward with body warn cameras. Um, one thing that came out from the meeting was in regard to um, persons needed by the sheriff, um, what you now have is, um, recommended about one bodywn camera clerk at 72,400. And I believe the difference was that, um, he's it's already in the budget for when he's talked about having a second person. Um, he explained to the committee that there's already um, budgeted for that. So the extra amount would be that 72 400. Um in regard to a Commonwealth attorney's salary, um I'll let you know that um I've now learned since of as of July 1st. Of course, the state has increased the minimum salary, state comp board salary. It used to be 75707 is now 72,976 as a minimum. when you're paying for a local position, uh it's mandated by code, but that a locally funded administrative assistant countless attorney can't be less than what the state comp board level is. So, as of now, that is uh 75707. Um I I'm sorry, it's now 77976, right? So, um I was recently contacted by an administrative sorry, assistant attorney elsewhere. I have not advertised for anything because there's no job available at this point. But I was contacted by someone who has immediate availability and he wasn't sure of his salary. I got what his salary was supposedly from his the administrative assistant in his office and looking at that today I realized it cannot be correct because they listed the minimum as below way

below as to what it is and then added the supplement. and he's checked his WT form and it's even not even as to what they report what his salary is. So that is all up in the air. Um at this point um I have found where what his salary is from the comp board as of this budget. Thank you. And as of this budget it is 87,490. um his position is now being advertised by that employer as 120,000 and if we take the 87,000 490 plus what I am told his supplement is um it's over 100,000 um so I'm back to what do I recommend as to to offer to somebody um I still think budgeting 100,000 would be good. You know, I may be able to get somebody at, you know, at 90 or 95,000, but I don't know how happy that person will be. Um, that job that he has now is not going to be available for him in August. Um, he has told me if he has to wait till September, he can. Um, he will not have to eat ramen, noodles, and toast is what he told me u for the month of August. Um, so anyhow, um, there probably there may be somebody else out there. Um, but this is someone with 16 years experience as an assistant cow attorney. Um, has been deputy commos attorney in two positions. Um, and um, of course I'd have to see who else would apply if I advertise, but that's someone who is in the local area. Um, so

I've told you I'm willing to try to find someone for less, but I'm finding that it's not going to be too easy. So that's what I have to to report and open to any questions. Questions. I know that changes something what I said the other day because in looking at the at what he was told, I realized that had not couldn't be right. And now he's got to look into seeing what happened to the salary he was supposed to get. Thank you. Mike questions. Uh that u you said that right now it's over $100,000. That's would be with his package and everything that that's how much he Let me um that's his current compensation. explain all that too because see what mainly talked about of course is the base salary but of course then there's going to be more cost to that and you have in your packet where it was um do I have it on the screen oh thank you yes so estimated to be 120 224 so we also took a look Mardi took a look what it would be say if it was 85,000 as a base salary Did I give you a copy of that? And you did. Thank you. Um that would add a package of salary and benefits at the base salary 85,000. The benefits included would be 108832. So it's really not a whole lot of difference. About $12,000 difference of $12,000 in benefits in regard to those two salary options. So that would be the entire cost including like anything that would be withheld social security and things like that. Okay. Depends upon what the salary is. If it's a 100,000

then it's that 120 224. If it was 85,000 it would be 108$ 832. But okay. Thank you. There we are. Did you say the comp board will be paying $70,000? Well, the comp board minimum is now you said 77976, right? 77976. Now, the attorney I've been talking to, his cop board salary listed now is um 87 49 something. You said 87490. That's it. So who's have to pay that? You said the compbo vote is telling us that's that's what we have to pay. No, the minimum for a locally funded position is that 77976. Thank you. Okay. Then we got to pay the difference in the 776. Well, the diff what we're looking at is can you get someone for 70 for the bare minimum plus benefits as I've discussed like a year ago when we were talking about trying to get somebody there's a lot of open positions available and back then I think it was around either 54 or 59 somewhere in that area and today I checked and it's it was I think it was like 56 um or I don't remember it was 56 or 59, but it's still a lot of positions are open. Not to say they're the same positions, but the point is to get someone for the minimum amount has proved throughout the state to be pro very problematic. So if we go past 77,000 Yes, sir. it cost the county benefits plus whatever we want it to be. for any position you have, you're going to be

paying benefits no matter what. I got that. But what I'm saying I'm I'm just saying the comp board is telling you what they're going to pay or they're telling us what we can pay. What you have to pay, you have to pay the minimum. In other words, the comp is not going to pay anything. I'm going to employ a full-time assistant attorney for $40,000. Full time. You understand? No, because all I'm asking you is to come and play pay anything. Not for this position. No, sir. Okay. Then it's not funed 100% by the county. That's all I want to know. Yes, sir. Yeah. I don't um maybe you can educate me a little bit. I think it's based on the size of the county. Um because we went through that on the on hiring Pat. Uh I don't think we qualify for any state assistance on a third Commonwealth attorney is the way I understand it. Yes, sir. Well, it's not based on population. This the salary of an assistant columnist attorney is based on there's AA1, I'm sorry, A1, attorney one, and then you have attorney 2 and so on. Um, attorney one is the the bare minimum. And so that's throughout the state. I understand that. But we don't qualify for the state picking up any money on a third commonwealth attorney here for whatever the reasons are. We don't qualify for any assistance from the state. That is correct. In the code, if there is locally funded bodywn cameras, then it's up to the locality to pay for an assistant attorney. Wonderful. What other questions from Mr. Herd? Uh, I'm going to go talk to my county administrator. When the board funded the assistant commonwealth attorney last year, we kind of went through some of the similar discussions and we funded that with

local money, not knowing 100% whether or not the comp board was going to fund it. Uh, Mike's office and several other offices, I think there were 23 around the state, were kind of in limbo while the budget was going on. and they finally came forward I think it was in September and told us that they had agreed to fund the recommended number of count uh comes attorneys based on that study that was more workload setting where the workload justified the additional come attorney and the state funded uh a portion of uh Pat's seller that we hired up to the minimum up to the minimum. Yeah. Anything over that we pay and and that's similar to other positions we have in other constitutional officers offices. I mean we have a supplement on many of those positions because people out here are a little harder to find uh less people to uh go around and especially a trained person like an attorney. Yeah man. But basically what I want to know is about uh the funding part of it and understand um how as as funding for Middle Sex County. I know we have to do it. Do we have the funds there for it? You you definitely have plenty of money in reserves and because it been going on long enough. That's that's my point. And you know, sooner or later we going we going to we got to we going to have to have this body cam. And I I think we we personally we dragged out long enough. Now if you going to sit here and nickpit and say, "Hey, you know, uh we we can't get for this little mount. We can't get this little amount." You either going to do it or not do it. And I think it's been going on long enough. and and and we you know as of right now you know the the the the big thing haven't happened here in Middle Sex County yet and we hope it never will but at least we have a backup plan for with the body cams you know all the other counties got it and around us and I think it's time for Middle Sex County to step up to the plate and get some the body cams and get it get it going. I mean because uh if we have to

pay something for it we just have to pay. I rather I rather pay a person than pay attorney to go through a lawsuit that we got to go through. So, that's all I'm just looking at. You know, we can sit back all you want or and nickpit all we want to say, "No, I don't I don't want to pay it." But it's been going on six years, and I think uh the sheriff didn't moved over there, and I think it's a time for us to start to go ahead and do what we need to do because it been going on long enough. And if you going to sit back and and try to uh do it cheaper, you going to pay for what you get. That's how I look at it. You going to pay for what you get. So, you you can go around and find something cheaper, but uh how long is that going to take? Nobody knows. So, it's up to us to decide, hey, do we want it? Uh, it's up to us to decide what we want to do. And if you want it, you have to pay for it. And and that's that that's that's the the bottom line. Any other questions or discussion? Go ahead. Um the uh talking about the the total cost of this, I know there's an upfront cost obviously for the cameras, which according to this document says $44,44 and that's with a 5-year warranty. Uh I don't see anything on here about cloud storage. How much is that going to be? That was supposed to be included in the quote. So, so that's $44,000 is going to cover the cost of cloud storage forever. That has been the cons, right? That that cost has been relatively steady. I think the last um quote they gave us was about 45,000 for some reason. But yes, it's okay. But I mean that that that that covers it forever as long as we have the the the system in place. As long as we're paying the annual maintenance. So for for the five years. So we pay annually. That's what I'm getting at. Well, this is annual after the 5 years. So, it's supposed to be this is the cost for the first five years.

I'm trying to find it. Sorry. Do you have a number for the um additional cost after that? After five years? Yes. No. No. They do not. They did not give us a five-year projection after that. That wouldn't because assuming we're going to be having this more than five years, is is there a ballpark? Uh I don't have that. Okay, let's see. Let me come up with a wild guess. Uh, sure. It' be about 7,000. Looks like it's about $7,000 a year. Okay. Okay. Uh my math could be off, but that's what's the time frame of the um life expectancy of And bear with me. Hold on. This particular proposal is not for five years. It's got a fiveyear warranty, which is good, right? But the cloud is only for one year. So, every year it's the $7,000 additional after the first year, right? That's correct. That's what I see in this proposal. And I'm sorry I saw I too saw the five-year warranty, but that's just the warranty, which is great. You want a warranty for five years, but every year you've got to pay. And of course, that makes sense when when I come back to you with your u um ERP solution. You're going to say that every year there's going to be a a cost to be up there. And I do know you do have to have that warranty because I did talked to Sharon also from King Queen County and um I think they tried not with the warranty but they say you got to get that warranty because camel's going to break down and they're expensive. They're very expensive. So she said

definitely you know about that. Uh got to have that warranty, right? And everything in there's got the 5year warranty. So I think that was the five years we were talking about. Sorry about that. Okay. And and I have a question for for Mr. Walker. Um I I'm not I I've never had the privilege of being on the board at a time after we've had our reassessment. Uh but my understanding is and you can correct me if I'm wrong that once uh you have that reassessment, it's easier to come up with funding. is that I would I would put it this way. In the reassessments here in the last um well 13 years I've been here as county administrator and in the four four years prior to that as planning director, I've never known our assessment to be lower. uh property values in the county have usually increased by some degree and uh we usually have a situation where we have to lower the tax rate to an amount to have parody with the previous tax rate. And I'm going to go into some of that when we have our discussion on reassessment. Uh it's generally easier because even if you lower the tax rate, maybe you don't lower it as much. In any event, you still got to advertise it as a tax increase because if we're not levying the same uh basic or base tax, like for instance, our tax rate right now is 61 cents. If the assessment goes up and we have to lower it 10 cents to 51 cents to achieve the same amount of revenue, there's a small percentage where you can be within that threshold and not have to advertise as a tax increase. But if we kept the tax rate at 55 cents, technically we still advertise that as a tax increase. It's a complicated ad to write, but we've done it before. Right. I remember that if if I if I

recall correctly, the in their most recent budget, we um we had to um to to take some of the money out of fund balance to make to to to balance the budget. So that's correct. Okay. We use some fund balance to uh balance the operating budget. So would we expect that that would probably not happen after we have a reassessment? When we discussed it during the budget, we felt like it would because we are more than likely going to be substantially lowering the real estate tax rate to a lower amount based on what we heard yesterday in our meeting, probably even more than we thought. Um you just wouldn't lower it as much. Still a tax increase, right? But it's a lower rate. Much lower rate. Thank you. And or rebates. I mean, there's the rebates are still on the table for discussion. Just means you don't rebate as much as you would have before. Yeah. I'm not sure uh Mr. Herd if you want to answer it all the other two, three members, one, two, three, four members that were on the committee. Um and that is uh for patrolman in Middle Sex County. How many do we have? I know we're ordering 16 cameras, but I don't know that we have 16 deputies on the street at any given time. As I understand it, generally there's about 10 u patrol deputies, but there's also school resource officers. Um they have detectives, they have baifts, etc. But most of those folks, most of the bailis will not be wearing body warn cameras if I remember right. Well, and and they needed some extras. The resource officers, they already have cameras at the schools. So, why would we need body cameras for them to have those on their person? And I apologize for asking you that question. It should not

be you. It should be um the sheriff here defending that position. Yes. Um so there's a question on I'm sorry ma'am I cannot I know but I cannot ask you that from the field. So um here's my problem. Would you want me to step aside? No sir. I want you to stay up there. Okay. You you're protected by that credenza there. Um, the communication between the sheriff's office, the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, and the Board of Supervisors has absolutely gotten better over the last several months in us all trying to achieve what we want to achieve. Correct? Would you not agree with that? Yes. Okay. Thank you. uh it's more open and and forthcoming of what I can do, what I can't do. I don't know that it's the issue of the body cameras per se. It's more and and we've set a pretty good precedent here in in the boards that I've been on the last four years of being very conscious about how we spend, what we spend, and when we spend it. So the questions and nitpicking is not necessarily nitpicking. It's making sure we're getting everything that we want uh at a reasonable price at a reasonable time frame. That being said, um I feel a little uncomfortable on us issuing a vote today based on this is a county project, so all districts should be representative and the Hartfield district is not represented here today. So, my opinion

would be we push this decision until August and see where we are. It'll give us more time to see who's available out there. Uh it'll give us more time to evaluate the cost that we're talking about. I don't and I think I've been on the same page with uh Mr. Williams from the get-go. I ain't sure the correct number is 16 body cameras. If we got 10 or 12 people patrol officers, uh, and you want two extra on that, fine. That's 12. Why am I buying four extra cameras? Again, given the fact that the resource officers are already under film um, for those positions, why would we need to have them wearing body cameras? It doesn't make sense to me. It was explained in the in the committee and it was accepted I believe in the committee as to as to the number that was asked for. I don't remember much more discussion. I can I can answer I being a member of the committee I can tell you that uh they did say that there the number that they came up with I think they came with was 16 and they said that two of them were going to be extras. the all the the the deputies are assigned individually. These each one gets one. You don't they don't just leave them at the station. They're they're they are assigned to the deputies. And uh and as far as the resource officers, they said that they uh need them uh in the in the summertime in particular because the resource officers then are supplementary manpower out on the street during the summertime when they're not in school. So that um that that was a re that was the uh what was given by the sheriff's office representative about the number that they needed. Okay. To follow on my rant, if I can say one more thing about that. Yes, sir. Which is it was brought up with the problems with the body warn camera sometimes in regard to you

definitely need to have a couple extra. Okay. Thank you, Mike. Um, have we got even gotten a second quote on from anybody else? I know in reading the minutes y'all had two people that you were looking at. One you liked better than the other. Um, but do we even have a physical quote to see what kind of range we're in or not in? Well, now we're going back into other things that were talked about in the committee that the full board wouldn't know about, but it was discussed about how um they was looked at by the sheriff's office at other suppliers as well and that overall the range price range was was around the same um is what we were Okay, I'll have to re read those minutes. Um there was a lot of a lot in both of those meetings that y'all had. if I may say, but from our standpoint in allocating money for this, it sure makes it look a lot better. And I'm not discounting what the committee said or what um Sheriff Bushy Bushy said about one camera being better than the other, but if it's a significant difference in the cost of them, it makes it easier or harder for us to justify what those amounts that we're looking to spend is. Does that make sense? It would except for what was discussed in the committee which was that it was looked at in regard to other providers and it was substantially similar. And then they also looked at in regard to uh the GTEC cameras versus say Axiom which was substantially similar in price but there are a couple of problems. One is a problem of the batteries catching on fire occasionally. T two in regard to the um immersibility in regard to use on

the water, not just being immersed in water, but one of the sheriff's office representatives worked for a city uh police department whereby he knew that their waterborne unit would turn the cameras off on the water because of the problem that they could catch fire because of moisture. Um, so there was there was that. Um, there was also in regard to GTEC is compatible with the uh computers that are already in the sheriff's office unit uh patrol units. There's also um there was another issue. It was about Axiom in regard to the problems involved with their software from the prosecutors trying to share it with other attorneys. They have to have a password. It's complicated. Um it is not user friendly at all versus the way that we can use it with GTEC. So there a lot of this was was discussed and I read that in in in the minutes uh and I understand that and I'll take the benefit that uh the committee did a great job in evaluating what they did for me. I'm a numbers guy. So now you telling me the cost is pretty comparison that doesn't tell me anything. If you tell me the cost here is 54 and the cost over here is 24 I got something to compare then. or 54 and 44. I got something to compare with. I don't have anything to compare with at this juncture. Um, from where I sit anyway, well, a committee was formed at the administrator's recommendation to go through all this. And I know, but again, that for me looking at numbers, there wasn't any numbers there for me to look at other than we felt that it was the best unit on on the uh, you know, on the block at this point. I would personally have liked to

seen some numbers of what that is and then the discussion of we think this camera is better even though it's more expensive uh gives me more legs to stand on on rendering my decision of what I think. Um the last thing I'll comment on is uh now with um the amended numbers um from the original page and then the secondary page that Ann Marie gave me on what the cost was. I'm still not convinced that we need a third Commonwealth attorney um for specifically just body cameras. It would not be specifically body cameras per se. is where it's understood in many studies that bodywn cameras increase the workload in a prosecutor's office. And there have been several different recommendations such as one was one per every 100 cameras, one per every 50 cameras. The general assembly chose one per every 75 cameras. But we als I also presented you to you before and I have it again uh in regard to what Matthews has experienced in regard to their overwhelmingly amount of hours they have put forth uh with body warn camera footage and definitely are desiring another common attorney uh an assistant um and so with the increase in workload we're requesting another commonwealth attorney for that because I tell you F Thursday night I was working till like seven yet last night till about 8. I mean we're still working heavy hours and you put on body worn cameras. We are not going to be able to review those with our current two people. You know, you might as well not buy them. Well, Mr. Herd, we gave a second Commonwealth attorney here for some of

those same reasons that you just spoke about about workload, etc., etc. So, you gave a supplement. You didn't give the position. You only gave a supplement to hire somebody. The position is state funded. The state comport. You're cor you're correct. But the number that the state said was applicable was far out from what we decided to do on that commonwealth position. Talking salary, not workload. I'm talking about salary. Exactly. Right. And it the contention was to lower the workload that the Commonwealth Attorney's Office had. But we're also thinking, okay, what else would they be able to do? So now you're coming and telling me that that added Commonwealth attorney if we decide to go to body cameras is not enough. And I'm not convinced that that's the case. Well, I guess all the Commonwealth attorneys are wrong then in regard to complaint. I can't tell you about any other Commonwealth attorney. I will tell you this since you brought up and opened the door regarding Matthews. There are other counties that do not hire extra Commonwealth attorneys because they have body cameras. They either have assistants in there taking care of that or they have the the sheriff's department make sure that that footage gets to where it needs to go. I know it goes up in the cloud. So, we're at a disconnect here and it's no need to belabor the point. I'm going to end my conversation by saying this. I would prefer us to wait until August to make a firm decision on it. Gather the more information that we need on it, including additional what the cost may or may not be, and then we make an informed, smart decision on it. I'm not a person that likes to make a decision and look back and said, "Well, we should have did this and should have did that because we didn't take time." And I

can't speak to anything about the last 5 years or how long it's been out here. Uh, and there's been some discussions on it. That's my opinion. I I won't vote to support it today. I would like to see it pushed to um to August and let's cross our tees and dot eyes and then come back then and make a firm decision on. And by the way, most of this board is under the impression that we won't even do it. We may buy the cameras and get ready to do it, but it should hit the uh 26 budget and not come in here late on the 25 budget. Mr. Chair, I'd like to say something that that's that's your opinion. And I'm glad glad you're saying that. But uh I'm not going to cause confusion here because really uh it can take three votes to make a motion as you know, but I'm I'm I'm going I'm going to wait I'm going to wait till August. But we need to do something cuz if we keep dragging it and dragging it and I know you say what you want to say, but I can make a motion and we can vote and if I get the three votes, what you say is is going out the way. So but but I'm going to let you know we going to work together and get this done. you had a committee and you're going over and over again. Look like we're going around in circles, but let's do it in August. Make a decision one way or another. And that don't mean they're going to have to wait till 26. I'm just letting you know that. Okay? I'm just saying all the planning that was done on the budget for 25. Really didn't look at body cameras in 25. We looked at it for potentially in 26. Now, if we decide to change that, so be it. We can change. But I mean, you're just saying, "Hey, you you you know, you're going to wait." You already said that. So, I'm, you know, ju just let it go. Let it go. I'm telling you, you can make any motion you want. Mr. Let it go. I'm just saying let it go. Let it go right now. I'm not making it. I'm But I've said something going to be done in August cuz we we've been going over this for long enough. Had

committees doing this, doing that, getting this back here. Now, let's let's dot like you say, cross your tees, dot every eye, and get make sure you get all your information because, you know, I wasn't on the committee. Not that I said I wanted to be on it, but you y'all y'all met. you met and this came up and now you want to meet again cuz you didn't get what you want. But let's make that decision in August. That's all I'm saying. I'm respecting I respect what you say, Mr. Jesse. Have no problem with that. I'm just saying there's still some unanswered questions out there as opposed to just moving. We will get that in August. Yes. Okay. Yes, sir. Oh, we can get that. And secondly, the reason I'm asking for it to wait is you have a potential of a two two tie here, which your motion will die if that happens. If you have all your supervisors here, it's going to be a 32 or 41 or 51 or whatever. You don't have a tie situation with that. You don't know what we going to have. Tell tell that motion. You don't you don't know what you won't have. You won't have a tie with uh it could be three to one. It could be three to one. You against it could be anything. That's what I'm saying. But regardless of that, let's wait. Let's wait till August and we ain't got to keep talking back about this. Wonderful. Hey, Don, before you go, I I just want to say um just a few things. You know, for us waiting to August, I think that's a good time. And I've said before that uh we're going to get the body cams, but let me make it very clear, the body cams and buying them and paying for them ain't the problem. It's nobody want to make a sacrifice at the jobs that they are doing. The compo dictates to mil sex how many people you need in a forcement of any type. And at other localities, it's different all together. So for us to purchase the body cams, I would say we purchase them and put them on, let them go and do it. But it don't stop there. That's not the cost. The cost is because we don't have enough people that want to make a sacrifice to see whether we'll work or not. We want to be perfect when we start out. And no other place is like

that. That's how that's the problem is because of the other positions that everybody needs that don't work. And the comp board since y'all use it, Mrs. County got 11,000 people. Y'all do the numbers and you tell you what you need in different positions regardless of what it is. It let you know. Then you look at Milsters County and is anybody making a sacrifice trying to get these uh uh cameras up and doing is anybody that's in the position to make it. All we here is what? I need more. I need this. I need that. And every time you say you're looking at $100,000 for a lifetime with every taxpayer that we talking about. So every extra position that we want be fair to the county, be fair to the taxpayers. Don't just shove it down the throat and then we use a language that we don't need to lose. So August, you know, we'll vote. We'll make a motion in August one way the other, but we need a price. And if somebody call you out for not doing it, I'm tell I'm very, you know, I say do more with less. And I'm going say it like this. That happened in the 70s. Hey, you do more with less. Everybody sit back and laugh. You got so many supervisors at work, they don't know what to do and you got them. So you started looking at your personnel and how you handle things regardless of where you at. You don't get efficient by get more people just get more people doing less and see. And since the pandemic, we got worse. We got bad on that. If you just look do your enrollment, do your do your number game. But anyway, we'll wait till August and I promise you we'll vote on it in August one way the other. But I'm for body cams. But I might not be for everything else in. So we got to watch very So you don't know you fail until you fail. Body cameras are not gonna fail. They take pictures go in the cloud. We ain't talking about that, right? You know, so that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jesse. Boy, do we need a 10-minute recess to hug and get some water?

Okay. All right. Um, thank you, Mr. heard for being here today and discussing what you had with the uh with the stakeholder committee. Uh I again cannot overemphasize I really enjoyed reading some of the comments and what was discussed from the minute standpoint and I do think that y'all have done an excellent job and um we'll continue to get where we need to be with that. But thank y'all all for what you contributed to the committee and uh information to the board. Thank you very much. Okay, where are we here? Item number four, uh agency and staff reports. VDOT report only uh is in the book. could show some of the areas that's going to have additional paving done. Um, and you can see that in your booklet and maybe uh Hey, Don, one question on that. Sure. It looked like every road in Delta was going to get paid. It was a considerable amount down there. It seemed like, you know, I'm I'm getting a problem with this year, you know. I mean, it look like every road in Deltaville is getting paid. What's wrong with 619 620? I mean, you know, and and this thing is not a joke. Um, this is not a joke. I mean, this is what happened. And we sat back and saying, and every time I look around, it's like the lady said, it's $100,000. Where you going? In nowhere, I guess. But I leave that one alone. I think those uh two uh road numbers were referenced the last time somebody was here. Correct. So, with that, I would ask um county administrator to get Jay or or Mcnite or whoever needs to come in uh to talk about that at the

next meeting as well. I was going to try to chime in before you moved on to school matters and uh let the board know that uh I think Mr. Kritten, myself, and the planning director are going to be meeting with our uh VOTE staff over here at the residency office and maybe some of the VOTE staff in Richmond regarding the the bike path between now and the August 5th meeting. And and it's my understanding we're going to invite them in in August to discuss and update the board on those projects along with the paving projects and some of the other items that we had brought to their attention a couple months ago. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Appreciate that. Okay. Um, school matters. Dr. Tracy S, uh, Sykes and Miss Mary, how are you? We are doing well. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Two supplement requests in your packet. The first one is on page 72. And this one is made up of the funding that comes once the budget was finally finalized at the state level. And so this was the additional portion that the general assembly had proposed and it was signed into effect by the governor. Did we get more money? We did get more money. That's wonderful. We got more money. That's always good to lead with that for sure. Okay. Yes, we would have been happy to lead with that earlier in the meeting also. And was any of that in in um in addition to salaries just out of curiosity? So yeah, you'll see that there was a little bit extra that goes towards the salaries the amount of money. I'll tell you what what I have planned for it and then I'll tell you that I've had a couple other little things pop up in the week. Um and so originally when we brought when we were going through budget discussions, there were two

additional positions that we had requested that were were not able to be funded. Correct. Um and that's what you would see in the expense area. One specifically was at the elementary school as a math coach and the other one the DW means divisionwide as a special education coordinator. So these funds would cover those positions. We've got we went ahead and posted those positions with no intent to move forward until it was approved that they come into our budget. I will tell you that we're probably going to put that um those decisions on hold. We've gotten some communication from the Virginia Department of Education that there is some federal funding that is potentially on hold until at least the new fiscal year starts f federally, which is October 1. Um, so some of that funding in there we may have to use to cover positions that we already do have that were funded through those. It's some of the title programs. Um, and so we may not be moving forward with hiring these new positions now just because of some of the things that have popped up related to federal funding. So there is more money from the state. Thankful for that. But potentially we could be use losing some federal funding and we would know that when? Not until October. Okay. Which probably more likely we'll hear about it in September this hopefully. So, and I say October. It could be that they decide they're reviewing everything now. They could make a decision before then. Okay. So, and I know that the uh budget process was was um difficult this year. So, um, it's nice to see that the sun shines sometimes when you don't think it's going to shine. That's right. Is that correct? That is exactly right. We were thankful that the general assembly's what they requested came through. Wonderful. Okay. Uh, a motion would be in order to approve 20.

I got a question before you make Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Um, you say you want to put it in the 26 budget. Is that the the uh I'm think I'm seeing it say uh general assembly budget amendment revenue into the 26 budget. Correct. It's it's 25 now. So you want to go well we are technically we we call it FY26. So when we start the 25 26 year July 1 that is FY26 for us. Okay. Okay. Mhm. Any other questions? Seeing none, a motion would be in order to approve 2026-01. So moved. So moved by Mr. Williams. Second. Second by Mr. Kitten. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Kinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. Motion's approved. What else you have? The second one. Um and that that is carrying over balances textbook balance and then um food supply or a nutrition program to carry them over from FY25 into 26. I I can explain the carryover also the textbooks we needed that additional money in addition to what we're receiving in FY26 for history textbook adoption. The textbooks are quite expensive. So the 31 carrying over will go towards that. As for the um the school nutrition, remember that's a self- sustaining account. The bulk of that is funding that we receive federally. We're required to keep um two months of needed funds in that account. And so it makes sense that you would have that much left at the end of the fiscal year to carry into the next fiscal year. Questions? Yes. Oh, you're asking them for

questions, which I'm happy to answer as I stand here. Okay. Anything further? No. Um gosh, there was one question I wanted to ask you. I was thinking while you were speaking, um Well, I'll have to ask that off to the side, I guess. That's fine. Seeing no questions, hearing any questions. Uh, a motion would be in order to approve 2026- 02. So moved. So So moved by Mr. Krennan. Seconded. Second by Mr. Jesse. Thank you, gentlemen. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Kinden? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. Motion's approved. Thank you ladies for being here today. All right. Thank you. Have a good day. Okay. Moving right along. Social services. There's a report only 7475 in your booklet. And moving right along. Um, airport updates. Richard Lewis, page 76 to 86. Good evening, gentlemen. Some of the weighty ma mey matters we have today. Uh, could I ask a question before we get into that? You certainly can. Uh, have you had any complaints of irregularity of flying at the airport recently? No sir, I have not. Okay. And on that on the July 4th weekend, I just looked up the stats. We had 14 landings and 14 takeoffs. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you, sir. We'll reach out to Mr. Roberts and see

if we can ascertain what the specifics were of his concerns, but we were discussing that right after public comment. And uh I think 14 it's a little high for us, but it's not No, that's a that's a that's a slow day. We've been averaging We've been averaging anywhere between 30 and 40 operations per day. Okay. Except when the weather's bad. We've had a high of 107 operations to uh and this is this is all from that 1,200 arrow. Yeah. So we can track the number of flights. We can track the number of flights. We can find where they went and I can if I get noise complaints, I can put it in here and find out who did it and where they were at that time. It sounded like everyone was in Deltaville at the ball game because it sold out. So Yeah. Yeah. Please uh catch up with our administrator and um y'all have some further discussion on that if you would. Appreciate it. Move forward. Go ahead. All right. So, uh as we all know, we've become a branded uh airport with Titan Aviation. They have generously offered to buy us uniforms. And when we started talking about uniforms and what we were going to put on them, we realized we didn't have a logo to go on the uniform. So I went and reached out to county staff. I reached out to the school and the airport committee for ideas for what we had for a logo. And these are the the top picks we've had for logos. The ones you see in here, uh the last two the last two were the ones that the airport committee kind of liked. But uh honestly I don't think I don't Yeah, honestly I don't think we have a bro. You can make a wrong decision. So I'm just asking for to make make pick one. Let me tell the uniform manufacturer that that's what we want

embroidered on the uniform and we'll move forward from there. And I'll also put that on our stationary and on the receipts in our booklet um which would be 77 I guess through 78. I've numbered mine and I I just want to get a consensus of the board. Uh and and really in the order that they do. Number one is the one with the flame uh plane flying. Number two is uh Hummelfield. Number three is the blue Hummel field to the bay and number four is Hmel uh field with a airplane on it. Um and to tell the sorry to interrupt but to tell the board you know the the uniform shirts we're getting basically this shirt right here is something long sleeve. Wonderful. Wonderful. The current board uh do you have a particular of these that you like or don't like? I I like the one because it designated Middle Sex County home field. The other one other one doesn't say that, but that's just me. We're on the same page for sure. It is your airport, sir. Um, other two gentlemen, y'all have a preference? Well, I recognize Mil. I was looking at another one, but you got the name. So, yeah, got the name. I just I like the plane coming in that just kind of you don't even have to see Hmelfield to know that that's probably advertising a uh airport. Is that the board? I don't know. Are y'all What are you thinking? There's two of us that like that one. Who do you want? Well, I I kind of like the one that says Homophil with the wings on it. But uh but but I can go I can go along with the other one. Okay, Mr. Williams. I'm going go over the airplane. Okay.

I I will I will let the I will let the artists know and I will I will put that into the to the uh to clarify for the minutes. Can we make sure we're all in the same one? It says Middle Sex County, Hmelfield Airport W75. Yeah. 477. Okay. Correct. And since Mr. Chairman, since Reggie opened that door, I'm going to walk through it. You put a smiley face and some eyeballs up there in the windshield. You got your mascot. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, well, that's what we think. Okay. And I I'll second that. That's a very good choice. All right. All right. The next question, next thing is I brought this to the board's attention probably what, three, four months ago, but cameras and access control system, we decided to kick the can down the road. Uh it's come to the point now where since we've got the funding for the airport terminal building and construction is should be happening shortly, it's time to get the contractor under get them under contract to put the access control system and the security camera system in place at the airport. I do want to say that this is the same vendor that the courthouse is doing the courthouse and the sheriff's office and it is compatible. And Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong, but everything will be monitored up here at the at the courthouse or wherever the sheriff's office is monitored. So, we'll have that monitoring done, which means the key fobs that all the county employees have can can be made access to that. So, if something happens, we can grant them access. The sheriff's office officers can have access to that to fill up reports. They can come in at any time of day or night to get access to the terminal building. So quite honestly, I would like to have sheriff's deputies come in and out to make sure that, you know, nothing's going on up there. So, and would you just briefly um talk about how this enhancement helps the

airport and our relationships particularly with the state aviation board. We are participants in the safe airport program and because we're participants in the safe airport program, we do a external audit and an internal security audit. Uh this was one of the punch list items we had on the internal and external security audit as a as a defect we had. This will take care of that. The state is so is behind this now and they're funding this program at 90%. So this is 90% funds because we've done the done the audits. This is part of the benefits we can get from this is getting our security cameras done funded at 90%. In the board package, you had a total cost of $69,22844. That bid has gone up since board package was put together. It went up a total of $18.87. That's too much. Continue on. So the you know the our delta the delta cost of the board is a buck 87. So I it's it's one of those things that the cameras will allow us to view both ends of the runway and god forbid if there's an accident we can have video evidence of what goes on. It keeps an eye on the terminal building inside the terminal building the fuel farm to make sure there's nothing unour goes on out there and both sides of the county hangers. So, we'll have eyes on everything. The other thing is, just like we've talked about before, if we have somebody doing something they shouldn't be doing, we'll have video evidence of that. The cameras are it's a three-year license on the cameras and the software that goes along with the cameras with a 30-day retention factor on the cameras. whatever retention that we'll have up here at the courthouse past that the access control system like I said is

something that we'll have the key fobs to go in we'll get rid of keys so if I don't have to worry about another employee if employee gets terminated for any reason I don't have to worry about whether I have to collect a key back I just deactivate their fob will these cameras be able to see the runway if somebody's you know acting up with airplanes in the air. The runways will watch the runways the airplanes taking off. Yes, sir. We'll have So that'll give us what get a lot of complaints about. Right. We'll have we'll have we'll have vision on both ends of the runway to look at the north end of the runway and the south end of the runway plus the center of the runway. So we should have complete coverage of the runway. Okay, we can take care of some stuff then. Any other questions for Mr. Lewis? A motion would be an order to approve um the enhancement of the security system in the amount from the county at whatever the extra one it's I I'll give it to you. What's the number? The number is $69,247.31. Correct. Contract before. Right. Right. Right. And I won't we won't do that sign off on that contract until I get the state funds approved because if I do it before the state funds are approved, they don't pay. And sir, you're you're in agreement or that uh TCI is is uh where we need to go with this. Yes, sir. Like I said, I work with Kevin and it's they're also in the county doing other things. I work with Kevin. They're on the approved list. So, Mr. Walker, are you in agreement? Absolutely. Miss Lewis, you in agreement? What? What is that? All right. Uh, any further questions for Mr. Lewis?

A motion would be in order to approve. So moved. So moved by Mr. Williams. Second. Second by Mr. Kittin. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Williams. Yes. Mr. Kinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse. Yes. Mr. Don Harris. Yes. Motion is unanimously approved. And before you leave, I would like to just say um we're very appreciative. The board is the county of what you do and that your attention to detail. Um and uh we're very lucky to have you in that position and thank you very much. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. And adding to that, Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to just acknowledge while Richard's here with us, over the last several years, when you count the resurfacing or not the resurfacing, but the realignment of the runway and now the uh monies and state funds that are coming in for the hanger, not saying hanger, the uh uh terminal building. Terminal building. Thank you. uh along with this next infusion, we have received a lot of state and federal money at that airport. And it may be worthwhile for us to work with Richard and uh our private partner down there a little bit to get an article in the paper talking a little bit about it because it's been one of the unsung successes the county's had in recent years. And we we hear a lot about what we do bad, but we don't we don't we don't get up on the fence and crow about what we've done. Well, and uh just from the on the tournament building and taxiway project, that was $2.5 million. By far the largest state funding of the last board pack board meeting they had for any other airport. Wonderful. I' I've heard from surrounding not surrounding communities but other communities in the state that they're amazed that we're able to get

done what we get done at Elmofield and uh that's no small part to this young man and others that coordinate and cooperate and get things done. Mark Flynn has been terrific for us as a as a consultant attorney to help guide us through some of the endeavors down there. So, um, it's no miracle that a lot of our airport committee want to go to that conference because they're kind of they get a lot of accolades down there, don't they? So, I just wanted to say that, Mr. Chairman. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, moving right along. Item E, engineer updates. Mr. England. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Uh for the record, my name is Chip England, the county engineer. Just here to give you an update on on a handful of items that I've been working on for you and the citizens. Uh basically got three items. Um I start on page 87. 88 gives you an outline of the three items I'm going to try to discuss with you a little bit here today. And we'll jump right into that first item. on page 89. Um on page 89, we're going to uh just give you an overview of a couple of supplemental projects we did out at the sheriff new sheriff's office building right on the heels of the renovation project. Uh these were projects that we put out for bid in February and then opened the bids in March and in April brought uh to you a couple of contracts to award. uh one was for paving and one was for some roof and gutter improvements. Both of these projects we were able to complete uh over in May and June um both on budget and without change orders. So I'm happy to report that to you that these two projects have come to uh come to conclusion. Any questions on the polar center

projects before we jump to the next one? I just wondered what it cost to paint that roof. Uh the the roof project was for coating of the roof and replacement of the gutters and that was a project for 77,951. I thought I saw it somewhere. I just 51 Shazo and Suns. We were fortunate to have a couple very good contractors that were able to get in and get the work done. Okay, moving on to the next uh item, the RCE building. I've started looking at that. Um the the first slide I've got for you there on page 90 is just some representative photos I've been able to take in the last several weeks. I know you're all familiar with the condition of the building. Um definitely um it's showing some age spots for sure. Um it does have some potential I think certainly um the flooring uh the masonry work is still pretty sound. Um it is going to take some looking into and I know there was has been some work if we go to page uh 91 I know there's been you know the current condition uh we you have allocated some money in the CIP budget 300,000 currently um and I know there's been some work done previously uh maybe an FY24 with a committee that recommended kind of using this building in the future as perhaps a multi-purpose recreational community type building. Um the immediate needs are certainly the roof. Um through this building, uh the electrical service runs and serves some other buildings. So we did address recently some immediate needs to patch a roof over the electrical road. Um but the roof is certainly something that needs to be done uh almost immediately. Um my

recommended path forward is to is to spend maybe the next month to two months um procuring a a term contract for an architect and engineering firm. It would be good to have those in retainer, you know, basically for the county to draw upon if if need be for any project. Um, and it can certainly be used as we look at this project to provide us some expertise, some costing of what we may want to be doing with it and maybe doing that certainly in phases. Uh, the design and construction can be done perhaps in phases going forward. So, as a first step, you I think that's the way I would like to recommend to you is that we we try to get someone like that under contract uh within the next couple of months, maybe three. And then one of the early assignments to them can be looking at this building and helping us do a condition assessment, structural assessment of that roof. What can we do and about how much is that going to cost? Um, and then perhaps chip into that 300,000 taking care of the most immediate needs. And that would give us the information I think we need as we come into the next budget cycles as well. If we are truly looking at this as a community center down the road, then we could perhaps have more budgeting, good budgeting numbers and then have a decent request for you in the CIP pro process next year. Um whether it be in year one or year two or year three, but I think we are looking at significant money. We know how much it recently cost us to renovate the Puller Center for the sheriff's office. Um that building was uh north of 10,000 square feet. This building is around 8,000 square feet. So, we know the order of magnitude for the types of renovations, you know, that we're looking at here if we are going to truly move forward to making this a community center. The next slide I had on page 91 kind of gives you just some budgeting

comparison information on I'm sorry, 92. Yes, page 92. So, at the bottom left there is what we did uh for the polar center about a $3.9 million project for 10,400 square feet. Um so, you know, if you apply that cost per square footage to the 8,200 foot rc building, that's the order of magnitude that you are you're looking at for a complete renovation project of a building like that. Um the upper left u medium and heavy renovations were numbers I got from an AR an architectural colleague of mine that they're typically using for budgeting purposes right now for medium renovation 310 square feet dollars per square foot and for heavy renovation about 400 dollars per per square foot. A lot a lot of that's going to depend up or down from those numbers on exactly what you're trying to do. But I think we are all all familiar with the condition. The advanced condition of the building is going to need some attention. Uh there's significant mechanical, electrical, plumbing needs that are going to have to be put into that building to to bring it back up and make it into a useful format. in addition to the the building envelope items, the the roof, the gut, uh the doors, the windows as well. Um and that, you know, there are some site improvements also that could go with the project. So, the upper right gives you just kind some planning level um unit costs there as well for furnishings in the middle right. And then I just put in the bottom right there the demolition that the demolition cost for what we paid when we demolished the other buildings associated at that complex as well as the other school down in the Deltaville area. So that's that just

gives you an idea uh just demolition just for comparison purposes. I know we have intent to reuse this building um but just uh just to have a comparison cost there as well. So I did in the back up just one slide talking about timing. If everything falls into place, you know, I think we could be looking at something along this as an estimated timeline. Working on getting an A&E services contract over the next two to three months. Um and then going into some design for some phase of the project that we agree that I would bring to you to award um a scope of services or a task order under that contract to begin down the path of doing those improvements. So those were my two slides, three slides there on the rce building and kind of where I am at this point and I'd open it up for any questions or dialogue that you might have. And I would want to chime in too. I'm really happy to hear it's been a while since I've been in that building, but when we started budgeting the placeholder amount to do something with RC building, we go back and look at the minutes. I had it been about eight years ago. May every bit eight maybe 10. Um the TZO floor. I mean, I'm glad to hear that getting my opinion upheld there that that's still s salvageable or not salvageable, but we can still preserve it, I guess, is the word I'm looking for because we couldn't afford to build a Terzo floor now. They've gotten incredibly expensive to install. So, there's an asset there that we cannot let go to waste. And with that amount of water coming in and out of that roof, I'm worried that shrink and free freeze and thaw, it's going to get on that floor and we're going to lose it. Um had a conversation with a couple board members about this and and this is one

of those issues that we've got to we've got to decide what we're going to do with it, move forward with something. And um I think I think the county engineers spot on with we need an architect to get that committee's vision down and move this thing forward. And I think you know Reggie I think I remember you saying we need something with a wow factor. Well you're right we do. And uh the floor when you walk in that building if that floor buffs out the way I think it will it's going to look like today Wayne Jesse was in second grade having having his little jacket hung on that hook and eating lunch. Um, but it's something that we cannot let just slide by because we got to preserve that building and and it is, I think, structurally sound. I'm not a structural engineer, but it's solid concrete and it's the same exact building as the Hartfield YMCA. So, um, whoever is controlling the screen, would you go back one um, back slide 91? Uh, yeah, it sounds about right. Yeah. Uh I just wanted to point out I I don't have any problem with any of your your uh time frame except I think it's a little premature uh on the design function starting uh in August. That's probably u I mean maybe but I I think you're probably going to be out a little bit on that. Um that's probably September, October is when that's that probably is more realistic. Here's what I'd like to see. I'd like um well first is there consensus to move forward with uh Chip looking at architect and getting some um uh better information if you would. Yes sir. And I just to point out too uh procuring architect doesn't cost us anything right now. Uh it's just the effort right we'll be going through in the next

two three months before any task assignments go to those architects. Okay. they would come with a a fee proposal from that architect that I would need to bring back to you. Right. Okay. Wonderful. Well, uh you have a consensus to move forward with that. Um me myself, I'd like to know structurally if that building is without uh giving up a arm and a leg, is it structurally able to have redesign, etc., etc., at a reasonable cost? And then secondly, um I'd like to know whether the the way the roof's laid out, is that um the best way to go or considering maybe some other renovations on it doesn't need to be a A-frame, unless that is a problem with anybody that particularly went to school there. Huh. To me, a to me a A-frame would be better on on top of that. I'm just saying looking at it, you just got to take all that tar and gravel and all that both of those. But those beams in there, I've been saying those cemented beams, they can hold a lot of weight. So you you've been in there and uh all that weight that's been on it for many years, those beams are solid. Yeah. That's why I pulled this picture up. You can see the roof is a layered asphalt roof. Mhm. That's I mean it looks horrible, of course, but these beams are solid concrete. You can't We couldn't afford to build that now either. No. No. Oh my gosh. Any other um questions for Mr. England? Well, welcome to Middle Sex County. I guess that it's hard to say that anymore because you had three pretty damn big projects, maybe four, that you've been involved in right from the get-go. And you haven't stumbled a bit. You've you've you've run pretty good on that course. And thank you. You haven't run him off yet anyway,

I haven't run him off yet. Um, well, I appreciate that. I just appreciate the opportunity to be able to help the community. Thank you very much for what you do and we're lucky to have you. Moving on, I guess the Broad Creek uh dredge material spoil site. So, we recently completed the Broad Creek dredge project. The bottom right picture shows condition of the site. I think that was on the day that we were going through acceptance of the project. that shows you the material in the in this in the dredge spoil s holding site currently. Um I did just in doing some research uh discover or found these 1984 um agreement and easement documents between the county and the United States uh essentially the core of engineers for this site. So 40-year-old uh agreement and easement where we partner for this holding site. uh they have come in subsequently under those agreements and done the improvements to those sites, you know, develop the BMS and the drainage structures on that site that are currently in use and were used for this project. So, we have a partnership with the federal government uh on this site that may certainly steer and drive where we can go forward with uh removal of these soils, improvements of the sites, how they get applied. A lot of that my recommendation would be to continue to partner and reach out to them. they have had some turnover of the decision makers in the in the operations and real estate and attorney side within the core of engineers that I really need to uh understand who's who's driving those trains on that side and then how strict are they going to be with those agreements that we have in place or do we need to work together to update those agreements so that we can have some more flexibility if we want to uh in controlling this site.

Uh the other kind of wild card perhaps out there is the planning district commission and whether we try to do things like this more regionally which may be more cost-effective for everyone that's in this type of game dealing with dredge operations and then the corresponding school sites that are developed and managed and what to do with those materials. Um you unfortunately I guess fortunately but unfortunately we have a partner but that also develops uh some constraints and some uh bureaucratic processes that we have to go through um a large federal government bureaucracy that that we do have to navigate as well. So if we were going to try to do anything as a locality with this site because we have a partner, we would at least need to bring them in the fold and get a head nod that what we want to do is okay under those agreements or u you if we're going to fund it or if we're going to work to get the funding to do it, uh they may say they may give us more leeway or they may have more federal strings that they can draw into to help uh manage the site. improve the site, get it ready for the next time. Even if we don't dredge until 10 or 15 years down the road, it's start it's good to start thinking about those things now, getting the site uh closed or removed to get it ready for down the road. Um I have used a an RFP draft that Matt kind of used I think about 15 years ago when this happened where we tried to hire a contractor to manage the removal of materials from the site. So, I use that as a basis and kind of develop my own draft and I put that in in your board packet to look at as well. But my recommendation would be to to continue to try for me to continue to try to partner with um the core and work collaboratively with them to try to put this RFP out there to see if we can't

hire a site contractor or a site management contractor to help us get the site into the next ready for the next phase or to the next phase of its evolution. um in in partnership with the core and perhaps with the planning district commission if if that begins to get legs with the regional activity u because they may be the ones that we eventually uh partner directly with or more hand the direct reigns to to operate facilities like this uh going forward. Uh, that's going to take a little bit of time, but I just put some some bullets in there on the types of things I'd be looking for in that RFP just to give you a highlight and then an estimated timeline. I gave myself a wide birth there July to to December just because I don't know what I'm really getting into with dealing with the federal bureaucracy uh of the core of engineers and they do have quite a bit of turnover. the operations engineer that I reached out to recently uh is fair fairly new and her role um and the longtime person before her that we that we dealt with on this site is has retired and is moving on and they're having quite a bit of that within the core of engineers. So, if I'm I'm happy to discuss this further or receive any comments or questions you may have, but that's that's kind of the current approach I'm I'm I'm taking uh with this site as we move forward. I absolutely it's the it's the right approach and you need to be warm and fuzzy with all of the people uh with the uh middle peninsula planning district and the core of engineers. stay close to them and uh continue to develop a relationship for Middle Sex County. And uh before you leave that slide, if I could chime in just real quick. Mr. Chairman, I will say that Louisie uh Rebecca Francis and Mark Mansfield, our consultants that we had on board with the dredging project in Deltville, I

think have given us some very good advice. Uh Chip has picked up the ball and has run this down the football field very well. I really like the changes he made to our old RFB because that was done on the fly basically just to try to bid out and see if we could get some money for the sand. Um uh suffice it to say the the idea to maybe partner with the core of engineers. It's it's kind of like they're our partner whether we want it or not cuz they got a 40-year-old agreement saying they are right. And but on the bright side and this is a key bit of information I will give credit to Mark Mansfield for giving to Chip and I both. He said, 'You know, while y'all are doing this, bring the Corora along for the ride because if they're a part of this and they're a partner with it, which they should be, then you're going to go a lot further. And you check so many boxes by them being a part of the process from the very beginning. And then when we're up for grants, when we've been very successful in the past for grants, we know this, then that just checks so many of the core of engineers boxes because they were a part of it from the beginning. they're knowledgeable of it. It's not something they have to learn about, well, okay, why is the county doing this or that? Because they were part of it from the very beginning. And I really thought that was some very good advice. Now, in the meantime, cuz that's going to take some time. Chip is exactly right. We still have citizens and contractors asking us for can they go in and harvest some sand. We have a beach project that I believe is going to kick off down in Deltaville with a with a property owner that has requested preference to get the sand. Uh there's plenty of sand to go around. So again, I I think the board would want to give Chip and I some guidance. Can we allow contractors to go in under strict supervision and harvest some sand in the meantime because this RFP is going to take a little while, especially if we partner with core. Uh and and I want to say this too. I meant to say it at the beginning of the meeting and Mr. Chairman if you mention it and I was

occupied with other discussions I apologize. Uh Mr. Bill Harris uh and I've had some conversations about the RFP and talked to other board members. He had pre-planned before y'all readjusted the meeting schedules to better align with the holidays. He had a planned family event that he could not miss today or he would be here tonight. uh he didn't realize that when when y'all voted to change the meetings and I was like yeah that that's that's true. So I want to make sure I say that otherwise he'd be here too to chime in. Um and that family event takes a lot of precedence over what we're doing here tonight. So I'm glad he was able to attend it. But I am asking the board and I think Chip's got it on the slide. We do want to allow some of our local contractors that sign the necessary waiverss, our insurance documents, and work under the supervision of our maintenance staff and or others to be able to go in there and harvest sand and u not damage the BMS, not damage the dewatering devices, but just be allowed to go in there and use sand. And uh if the board's preference is to give preference to our citizens first, we can incorporate that into our policy. Uh usually if my memory serves and Emory, you can correct me if I'm wrong. There were only four or five contractors going in there. So these are people we know, they know what they're doing. They could probably tell us how better to harvest the sand than we'll ever be able to tell them. And I have some confidence that they'll leave it the right way if we provide a little bit of oversight. So, while we're working on that RFP with our partner, again, I would ask the board to authorize surplus the sand and allow the contractors to work under uh CHIP and our maintenance departments uh oversight and um utilizing some of our existing policy to harvest the sand. Yeah, I think we ought to do what we've done in the past and offer the sand to

local contractors. Um, I think somebody needs to bear the blunt. Maybe that's you, Chip. Maybe that's Matt. I'm not sure. Y'all can decide how you want to manage that. Um, but I would think is a consensus of the board to let those spoils go out to our local people. Wonderful. That requires a motion. That's going to require a motion because you need to surplus it and then allow um allow the the public access pursuant to previous policies, please. Okay. You want to make that motion or for us? a motion to surplus the Broad Creek uh material spool site and to allow uh sand spool sand, excuse me, and to allow the contractors access to that stand um pursuant to previous policies adopted um or implemented by administration. So moved. So moved by Mr. Krennan, second by Mr. Williams. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Krennen, yes. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Don Harris, yes. Motion's approved. Thank you, Mr. England. Appreciate what you're doing. And as a segue to Chip leaving the podium, Louie and our consultant staff that worked with David, myself and and Chip towards the back end. Chip started getting involved in this. Uh probably probably because I asked him to. He probably didn't want to, but hey, welcome on board. um they're going to be here in August to give us an update on the closeout of the dredging project in Deltavville, lessons learned and opportunities to move forward, including a briefing on the regional dredge and maybe some other issues that are ongoing down there with the spoils site. So, um with that, we're

also probably going to get a briefing from them on the Mill Creek boat ramp because that may very well be our next dredging project depending on what the board wants to do. and uh opportunities and and and uh some of the discussions we've had with the state agency uh MRC, Marine Resources Commission, uh regarding uh keeping that site open and making sure that's still available to uh the taxpayers for their boat ramp. Thank you, Mr. Walker. We'll look forward to um your further report on that. Um, moving right along. You're still on the hot seat uh for uh reassessment RFP update. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We the committee selection committee. Well, first of all, the RFP went out. We had two very credible firms respond. Both are very capable to do our project. We were very pleased with their responses. Um the committee had a pre-proposal meeting back in May. We had a meeting in June to discuss the RFPs we received. Thank you, Mr. Williams, Reggie, for being on that selection committee and and your input. Um the committee was made up as it was last time uh with the commissioners of revenue for the three counties. Our commissioner here May Diggs, the commissioner in King and Queen and the commissioner in Matthews along with the county administrators of Matthews, King and Queen and myself and uh and Mr. Williams joined us as a board member and uh I cannot remember the board member's name from Matthews who joined the committee for the one meeting. Um well I'm at a loss but we had a board member join from one member from uh one meeting in Matthews. Uh as I said we received two very good proposals. The

first proposal was from Cowan LLC a smaller firm that uh is is relatively new to the scene. And I say relatively new. They have a wealth of experience because they've worked for other firms in the past. They recently completed Caroline County's uh reassessment and Lancaster County's reassessment. So they're very familiar with our region having done Lancaster's and Vision, which uh is is the corporation who purchased Wampler and Eans. Wampler I think would be doing the reassessment but they've been purchased by vision uh a a firm larger corporation out of Ohio and they again are very familiar with our region as well. Wampler did our last reassessment along with Matthews County, King and Queen County and I think recently Essex County. So they have a wealth of experience as well. Um I'm going to pull up just a quick synopsis. We had a very we had the usual requirements on on firms that for the if I can I think it's on the other screen. Emory, you probably need to bring it over. Um yeah, that's it. Thank you. We had cost as one factor of our decision on who we would select. Uh both of them were fairly equal, one larger than the other. uh both enjoyed the confidence of all the committee members. And Reggie, you correct me if I'm misspeaking. We had our last discussion about this yesterday, which by the way, let me back up and apologize. Why you do not have a written report in your board packet is because the committee could not meet again until yesterday. We met on July 7th because everybody's on vacation and you know, it's that time of year. After our meeting in June, we couldn't get the committee a together again to finalize some of the review and interview the

candidates until yesterday. So, we just completed this yesterday afternoon. As you are aware, your board packet goes out last Thursday because of the 4th of July and therefore you don't have a written report in your board packet. But the committee did come to a recommendation yesterday after some discussion after interviewing both candidates. It was the consensus of the committee that they wanted to give Cowan Services LLC the opportunity. Um, not asking you to make any decision tonight other than I'm going to ask the board for authorization to negotiate a contract with Cowan Services LLC. Uh, the cost estimates that they provided us were approximately $75,000 less expensive than Vision. Uh again, not not the final determinant, but it was one of the factors. Um there are some nuances in how we are a little different from other counties around us, like we have the campgrounds, we have a number of campers we want looked at, and then we want some more robust look at some of the marinas. Uh where we're a little unique. Matthews is close to that, but we have a lot more campgrounds than Matthews has. And therefore these are our costs uh per each and um at this point in time uh we're comfortable I'm comfortable as county administrator recommending that we move forward with cowen services. Having said that there was some concern about the size of the firm and their ability to provide redundancy if certain things should happen. We're going to try to address that in the contracts. Um, these prices are the estimates provided in RFP. Uh, just for Larry back there, he may not be able to see him. Cowan Services LLC was at 298,224. That's an estimate based on 12,477 parcels. This is a data sheet they got

from from May. Yep. And then what did I say? Sorry. 298,000. Yes. Oh, well, that's the base estimate. I was I was getting there, but thank you. So, when you add the campground fees that were discussed, they're looking at 2 to4 per camper in the campgrounds. That brings that amount up to $34,824. That's an estimate because people are creating parcels all the time. There's new construction that goes on. So, as of right now, that's their estimate. Uh below that we have the v uh the estimate from vision or wample learnines. I I know they're vision now but it's the wample learning staff that probably will be doing the bulk of our work. Uh their base estimate was $322,000 for roughly the approximate same amount or up to 12,550 parcels which is slightly over. It gets a little complicated. So, I'm trying to compare apples to apples there. But with the inclusion of our mobile homes, including the campers in the campground, that's an additional 52,200. So, their estimate came in at 375. We asked some pretty good questions yesterday. One of which is if we have a situation and we have a property owner uh find some issue with the assessment are are your team members capable and competent to go to court and be considered expert witnesses. Uh both answered in the affirmative. That's very important. Um so we're confident with both they can do the work. Both of them said if we can get them started by mid August, early September, they can still do the work. So, I'm asking the board tonight if you're comfortable moving forward. Uh you can authorize staff, which would be Heather and I to

negotiate a contract based largely on their RFPs and have EPC in front of you August 5th for approval. The last thing I would want to say, we had budgeted $200,000 in this year's budget for this purpose. This purpose will take us into fiscal year 2027. So, we will have to budget an additional amount of money to cover these costs. The $200,000 is usually what we keep in reserve for this project. We're probably going to start, if we're going to continue to contract out for it, maybe adjust that reserve amount a little bit. Having said that though, you know, I always like leaving you with good news. And Reggie and I really perked up when we heard this. There is uh not quite a full appraisal, but what's known as a desk review that we are allowed to do under Virginia law for substantially less money. After we get this core uh full assessment done, reassessment done, it may be that we can come in and do a desk review in two years. $8825 per parcel or some amount less. Uh that may be my recommendation because that keeps your reassessments closer and more accurate longer. I'm going to scroll up. The number we were hearing from both candidates yesterday was we based on what they're seeing in other regions could expect a 30% increase. I had said 20 back during the budget. I think 30 is probably more in line with what others are seeing around us. I think it was vision that said, was it vision Reggie that said that Essex came in at 40% uh above? Uh so whether you rebate or lower the tax rate, we're going to be looking at that in 2027. So, um good news and bad news. I mean,

I'd hate it be the other direction where property values are plummeting for something. That's not good. So, um, we do, u have an expectation that we're going to be receiving a substantial increase in the reassessment. That's a lot. I'm here to answer questions or try to. Okay. So, what action are you looking for us? Authorize staff to negotiate a contract to bring back in front of the board August 5th. Okay. And do we need a motion for that? Yes, please. Mr. Jesse also move also move I'll make that motion. Okay. Second motion by Mr. Jesse and seconded by uh Mr. Kittin. Any further discussion? So in August are you going to come to us with um everything locked down? Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Any further discussion? Seeing none, hearing none. Uh, Mr. Williams, on the desk review, Cohen was a lot less than vision, you know, in two years. Yeah, he was so much less, but I want to make sure y'all check that out. I don't think it was $8. I think it was more like four or $5. Maybe I heard him wrong. Yeah. And vision was like $15 or $16. So, you definitely want to make sure that's right because that's a cost that you don't see. And and the biggest cost about vision um is that it's the trailer parks. One of them got 52,000. The other one saying it's $4 or $2. You look at it, you see. So that's $52,000 different. And uh you're only looking at three to six. So that's the different in the pricing. You're looking at $20,000. Um you know, I I kind of like toss up uh you know, which one to get. I I

personally felt that uh vision was better. Uh but Cohen, we got to make sure that he got the manpower that he can do it. And um we got to watch, we got to do our part as being the feet, a foot on the ground because even with the uh vision uh the one we had before, we can easily say somebody made a mistake because we can kind of like blame somebody else for what we weren't doing it. But then the mistake kind of like was on us, but you don't get it out that way. So, uh, the committee did vote the majority like Matt saying, but I I felt it was a little I felt was a little, you know, won't quite straight. And then what I based that on was King and Queen is not going to go in before the 27. Matthews is not going to vote for uh for Vision period. So then all you had left is, you know, you had Vision and you had King and Ky. So you really didn't enjoy. We the big dogs in the fight, you know. So really it's our choice. And Matt really want to, you know, he said it two months ago that he want to uh try something try something new. I said, "Well, you got something old, you know what you got. You can tune that up. You get something new. You got you got to watch how you handle it." So it is at the end of the day, I do want to see the desk review before we vote in August. The difference in them too because we I'm talking about the second year now. We got to know what figures be uh on the second year because I feel like you done I think Coy I think he got a little room to come down. Yep. Okay. Yep. So uh if my memory serves I think the desk review for vision was 1585 15 something and and and cowan was 825. But I can double check that. I check that one. I sold four or five out. I said oh when he say like that you know I said he want the job. Yeah. You know, so and I did check references because all they gonna do is look at the numbers in the computer now and put the

numbers in. You sit on the desk, they barely going to go out in the field. Yeah. When they do this desk review, right? You barely going to go in the field. So you get, you know, you don't know what you get. I have a related matter, but it's probably something I should discuss after y'all take your vote. I I just wanted to say that that uh I I did talk to Commissioner Revenue about this and uh she said that they're both fine firms, but she was in favor of Kellen um giving them an opportunity and I did too talk to May Digs to Commission revenue and she said the same thing. Yeah, I have. She felt more comfortable. I have as well. Wonderful. Good. Uh any other discussion, questions? Roll call, please. Miss Hammer, Mr. Krennen, yes. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Don Harris, yes. Motion's approved. Move forward. So, I had to and Mr. Chairman, the other matter uh semi-related to this is I had a great uh fortune of seeing a good old friend of mine who's retired now, Tommy Blackwell, Commissioner Revenue up in Essex County. Uh saw him at the Repanic River Basin Commission. We sat right behind uh our chairman while we uh had the commission meeting down in Deltavville. Uh we had a chance to catch up and he asked me about the regional reassessment cuz he was involved in the first one that we had done collaboratively collaboratively with all four counties and I said, "Yeah, it's going pretty good. We got a couple good uh applicants." He said, "Have you thought about hiring someone to kind of oversee them perform their function?" And like Reggie mentioned, one of the wisest things that were said in the interviews yesterday with the two, and I I I can't quite recall whether it was Vision or Cowan that said it, he said, you know, this is your reassessment. If you get bad data, that's on you as much as it's on us because y'all need to be overlooking us to make sure we're doing

what we're supposed to be doing. I remembered that and I was thinking, well, you know, Tommy's retired now and we had talked about for years. It's probably been since the first time we did a regional reassessment of trying to set up some kind of in-house part-time office that the four counties could share and do their reassessment on a 4-year rotation. But then the desk review comment had several of the county administrators in in the room perk up a little bit because at 8:25 maybe we don't need to think about a regional office anymore. Maybe we just need to think about a desk review more often because that will keep your reassessment current and meet state code requirements. Apparently, Alberal County had done one. They were challenged on it meeting the requirements of a full reassessment and it went to state supreme court and they won. You got to do the first one to get everything based and then keep it up to date. So, that's very intriguing. That's something that we're going to be looking more into and including the potential of the three counties going in together and hiring Tommy Blackwell to oversee the operation because he's been through a lot more of them than all the rest of us have and he can focus on it. But that's more more for later. I just wanted to mention it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Walker. All righty. Wait a minute. Don, go ahead. Hey, man. Did he also say if we uh hire him as a firm that we automatically get the two years thing at a x number of dollars per year? Um I think that could probably be negotiated. I thought he Yeah, he may have but I don't think our RFP was out for the next one. It's it may be something we have to look at and the legality of it. But um in terms of Mr. Blackwell, he he offered just to come in on a part-time basis and help us set up the office and or oversee the current reassessment. So, that's a great

opportunity because Tommy knows what he's doing and I have the utmost confidence in him and we got to keep him busy or he's going to get into mischief. All right. Thank you. Moving right along, we have the economic uh development authority. Uh Trent Funkhouser, you have the floor, sir. I do. Thank you very much, sir. Nice to see y'all. Would you like to introduce the two ladies you have? I am giving you support because I have Whitney Law. I think y'all know, but just working on behalf of the EDA as well as VRR and uh keeping me straight. And then Miss Messer, I forget whether you've been here with me, but she's other people. Anyway, destination development manager. no destination development manager and our liaison and the person responsible for this plan. So, I'm going to turn it over to her in a second, but all we need is first, this was a free effort that the state coordinates to try and keep us in line and make sure we're doing things to be responsive to their grants and services at the appropriate time. If y'all choose to endorse it, and I wish you would, um, we can fold this into the comprehensive plan whenever the planning commission gets rolling on that. So, it doesn't have to be a formal referral right now, but we would ask that you endorse it or adopt whatever whatever you'd like to do if you're ready to do so after they speak. But then I'll try and answer any questions, but I think Laura's got the lead. And then Whitney, of course, is available for anything on this subject or others. Thanks so much, Mr. Funkhouser. And so, my name is Laura Messer. I'm a destination development manager for Virginia Tourism Corporation. I've been with VTC about three and a half years. Prior to that, I worked for a locality for almost 14. And so I'm very familiar with boards of supervisors like yourselves and county staff. Can I ask a question? Sure. Real quick. Where are you originally from? Virginia. Virginia. Virginia. Talk a little fast for Virginia. Oh. Huh. I mean, but continue on. I'll try to I'll try to

speed up what I'm my thing. I can talk a little slower. No, you're okay. Go ahead, ma'am. Now, now I'll just stand up for support in case he gets on one. Trent lived lived here long enough that he knew that question was coming. I went to Virginia schools. I went to college in Virginia. I'm a Virginia girl. All right. Um I get nervous though and so I'll try to slow down. I got ahead. And so we can move on to the next slide. And so I actually work for partnership marketing which is a division of VTC. Our ultimate goal is to really help Virginia communities maximize their tourism potential. And so we do that through strategic tourism planning, tourism business development, cooperative marketing. I work with everybody from small business owners to those that are, you know, doing ecoours on the water in the bay. And so we really work to help communities through our staff. And so on the next slide you'll see that um this is our statewide map. And so you will see that that teal colored portion I service all of that area. So that's all of the northern neck, all of the middle peninsula, the two localities on the Eastern Shore and then five coastal well four coastal communities as well as Caroline County. And so I'm very familiar with a lot of your neighbors at this point. And so VTC has staff similar to my position across the state focusing on high potential areas that are mostly rural. You'll see that that Golden Crescent um they do not have their own destination development manager partially because they all have staffs that are very large on their own in terms of destination marketing organizations. And so on the next slide we will see that I wanted to give you guys a quick update of things that have happened in Middle Sex County in the last few years. And so tourism action plans, which is what I'm presenting about today, that happened in Middle Sex in late 2024. Urbana completed one in 2023,

um, which was approved by town council in 2024. The tourism efforts in Middle Sex County have received nearly $190,000 in grant funding since 2022. So that includes small businesses, the DMO as well as um some additional funding through um ARPA and things like that. There is a regional destination marketing organization in process through the PDC. I've been working with them, but due to some of their staff transitions, um that is still in progress. Middle Sex does have its own DMO and then works collaboratively with the Virginia River Rome DMO. And so I did want to highlight that um BTC Public Relations did help earn this placement of the Urbana Oyster Festival on Thrillist as one of the best food festivals of 2025. That was a great placement because it received millions of views. Um that's the kind of thing that if you were to pay for it, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and it was courtesy. And so on the next slide, we'll see some state fast facts about tourism. These numbers are for 2023. We will not have 2024 numbers until September. And so there were for the whole state there were 43.6 million overnight visitors in 2023. That was an increase of 3.5%. $33.3 billion in visitor spending across Virginia, which is actually $91 million per day. And so that's actually up from $83 million in 2022. And just as a fun fact for you, we hope um to reach a hundred million per day in Virginia by 2026. And so altogether 2.4 billion in state and local tax revenue. Tourism saves Virginia, every household in Virginia $955 a year. And so the investment in tourism, you might not not think you see it, but it's really there. So on the next slide, um we will see the actual

economic impact in Middle Sex County. And so I'll highlight the 2023 data for expenditures. We see that $30 million was spent by tourists in Middle Sex in 2023. That was an increase of 2%. And so not a loss, which is good, not a huge gain, sort of flat, which is why things like the tourism action plan become very important to help you have sustainable actual growth. Um, I did want to highlight that local tax receipts for 2023 almost a million dollars and so those go to the county and then are dispersed accordingly including helping fund the economic development authority I believe to some degree. And so looking at the next slide we will see I do always like to show this because I think it's really important. This is the sector expenditures. And so VTC tracks five different categories. Lodging, recreation, food and beverage, retail, and then transportation. I always say transportation is the one that we can't really impact. Um things like the airport here in Middle Sex that would be in part of the transportation, but there are localities that have hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditures in transportation, things like the Norfick airport, um the cruise ships that go out of Norphick. And so that's the one category that tourism can't really impact. But we see that Middle Sex has a very large lodging that is in part due to the campgrounds. And so a lot of people when they first see they're like, "Oh, why is that? We don't have hotels." But it's the campgrounds and the transient occupancy tax from those campgrounds um and those folks that stay. And so overall we see that in Middle Sex we really probably need to grow work on growing recreation, food and beverage and retail expenditures to help balance out that pie because in an ideal world of course it's more balanced. Excuse me. And so looking at the 2024 visitor profile, BTC, we have a whole lot of research that we use. And so as part of this, we can look at who is

coming to Middle Sex using some public mobile phone data. And so for from that data for 2024, we know that 68.5% of visitors spent at least one night in the destination. That was a decrease of 1%. Um 31.5% took vis took day trips. The average number of nights in the destination is 1.6. six across Virginia. Those are pretty standard numbers. You guys fall in line with that. The most popular months, of course, here, no surprise, June, July, and August, the typical summer season when people are camping and out on their boats. And then the top three places that folks are coming from outside of a 50-mi radius because that's what VTC uses as a visitor, if you will. Um, and so that is the Richmond region and number one, Washington DC, Northern Virginia, and then Coastal Hampton Road. So, Norfick, Portsmith, and Newport News. Pretty much what we would expect, I think, in a lot of ways for the Chesapeake Bay region. It's that's very consistent across the different localities on both the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck. And so, in looking at the actual tourism action plan, um, as part of that, it was two facilitated half-day sessions, four hours each. I facilitated both of those. Trent and Whitney helped gather 17 different participants that were all stakeholders within tourism. There was also input from Middle Sex staff as part of developing the document. The goals are based on existing documents that includes the comprehensive plan. It includes the PDC saids um it includes a lot of different documents that exist. And so we I incorporate all of those goals into the goals that are developed in the tourism action plan. Then the group itself helps prioritize those goals into short-term, long-term, and then ongoing. Of course, the shelf life of this plan is hopefully two to five years um depending on changes. The last time Middle Sex actually had a tourism action plan completed was 2014. And so

plan had not been done in almost 10 years. There was also a pandemic in there and so that really changed the tourism landscape. And so it was definitely time um for this plan to take place. And so then within the plan we have four different categories. Um those are improve tourism marketing, expand tourism products and events, develop tourism relationships and partnerships and then expand tourism infrastructure. And so of those I did want to highlight a couple key goals. Um, moving on to the next slide within improved tourism marketing, the number one priority was really to develop an a Middle Sex event calendar that would help visitors see the different things that are going on throughout the county. Um, that was identified as something that could really help change the game, if you will. you know, all the Boers that are at the marinas, if they are transient and, you know, just staying for the weekend, that way they can look at this calendar, see what's on what's happening in Middle Sex, and then go partake. Um, within expanding tourism products and events, really telling those untold stories was highlighted as one of the key things that could be done to help grow tourism, highlighting the stories of the indigenous peoples that were here and then also the maritime history. and then also working to diversify and increase tourism specific small businesses within developing tourism relationships and partnerships. Increasing collaborative efforts throughout Middle Sex, including the relationships with both the town of Urbana and Deltavville was important, as well as increasing funding initiatives. I do want to highlight that um even though the board has not adopted the tourism action plan yet, the EDI did at a previous meeting and I'm proud to say that both Trent and Whitney helped get um not only a $30,000 DMO grant for Middle Sex and then also within the Virginia's River Realm which includes Kil Marik and Tapahanic um they all also got a $30,000 grant or

no 20,000 each sorry it totaled 60,000 for the three. And so that will all go towards improved tourism marketing and attracting visitors. The EDA also applied for a drive tourism grant and received it. That's $10,000 that they will receive for product development and marketing. So good action even though it was not been approved by you all yet. Um and then lastly looking at expanding tourism infrastructure that really included two items from the comprehensive plan developing the shoreline access and management plan um of course to help with provide additional public water access and then also the acquisition of additional properties um for recreation including parkland and natural areas. And so, like I said previously, uh the document itself, a lot of the goals are pulled from other documents that are already existing that those goals have been decided on by bodies such as yourself and previous bodies as well. And so that's really a brief summary. Of course, the most important thing is not only does the I think Trent and the EDA want to have your blessing, but they also um you know require your support as the board of supervisors in the county to make sure that this plan can happen in conjunction with partners. Um, you know, your discussion earlier I think highlight was highlighted how important partnerships can be and tourism is definitely it's a team sport. It's not an eye in any way. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the tourism action plan or the process. Um, and any comments you have. I got I got one, Mr. Chairman. Go ahead. More of a comment and a question. am familiar with some of it because I help our former tourism coordinator help set up the river realm. And one of the things that really surprised us is how many people come up from Portsmouth, Newport News, uh Virginia Beach, NOFK. Um, one of our EDA members, uh, Mr. Reed, James Reed, James Michael, Michael

James, I got to use all them names. He he had a, I thought a very wise outlook on it. He said, "We really need to be marketing to military people cuz we got all these proponents of military folks and their families and they're down there in these metro areas and they don't venture out that much because they don't know too much to do out and I'm wondering to what extent that was given some thought and maybe some action. Yeah, I definitely think overall as part of river own strategy, we know that geographically accessibility is sort of difficult, right? We know that that's definitely what we would call an obstacle, but really encouraging those sort of hidden gem destinations. I definitely think that a lot of the maritime history here can become really relevant. And as part of our statewide tourism plan that we're currently undergoing, I really hope to encourage sort of a maritime heritage history trail, which I think could be a big draw. And so I think militaryies Yeah. to military families especially and those that are interested in that history. And so I think the waterman culture and some of the trails overall I think that over time we're going to continue to really expand to those niche audiences like the um you know our military service members and having day trips I think is definitely a good thing for those folks that are stationed you know in coastal Hampton Roads. Right. Well yeah I think the Marine Corps knows us very well because we're the resting place of Chesty Puller, right? And there's not a Marine alive that don't know who that is. There is. I'm not aware of them. And we have the Marines run through and do the Chesty Puller run every year. So, I know they know where where we are, but I'm just wondering about the Army and Navy families. And it's something James said years ago, I I'd like to see us really do a lot more with that. And it just the military families. I mean, they're great people. And once they find us, they have a weird way of wanting to retire here for some reason, right? They return a lot. And I I do think your campgrounds are a huge asset in that regard, too. I mean you guys I

always joke that you're the camping capital of sort of the Chesapeake Bay. That's what we told the governor's office when we tried to make this closed camp. Yeah. No. And so uh definitely I mean the campgrounds are a great asset here and you know I think that people don't ne necessarily realize how much some of the events that those campgrounds host really do contribute. I know speaking personally, I judge barbecue and so there's a great barbecue competition every year at Beth Page and so that gives back to the burn relief foundation and I mean it's a great competition and you know it brings a lot of folks from out of town and out of state and if you volunteer for that barbecue festival you get to take some home or you can be a judge and then you get to eat it anyway. Other questions from members of the board? I said one um does a tourism office do you track uh Airbnbs because I noticed you had lodging. So that is included within the um data. They do uh calculate some of the fees through a company called AirDNA that's included in our lodging numbers. And so that is it's not necessarily a we track them individually but AirDNA a company that is contracted through our vendor um they do track that. And so there is that data in there even though we do not at BTC track. Yeah. I know we've had a real proliferation of those units saw particularly down Delta. I know. Yeah. And I mean those units are important to some degree because you know it essentially is helping create a reason visitors need a place to stay when they come, you know, and if the house is empty anyway, certainly um it puts it to good use. And so they're short-term rentals, as we refer to them at BTC, they're, you know, it's an interesting thing. Our VTC vice president of research always says that within tourism, there is room for both the short-term rentals and the traditional lodging because not

everybody wants to stay in somebody else's home, you know, whether they're in that home or not, you know, on a regular basis. And so, um, we do track some of that data certainly. Um, I don't know what page it is. Board packet page 138, goals, categories, tourism action plan. Uh, number two, expand tourism products. What does that mean? And so tourism products are the things that a visitor comes to do whether that's a museum or a trail or you know an outdoor recreation something or another. Those tourism products that's what we at in the tourism sector would refer to as the attractions. Gotcha. Okay. It's just a more inclusive term in some ways to call them tourism products because attractions tend to think of themselves as like the Colonial Williamsburgs and the Bush Gardens. you know, those big players, but the smaller attractions and assets like the Deltavville Maritime Museum are just as important. Yeah. I I just the terminology I wasn't quite sure about because I'm thinking what do we have in the county that people product-wise that people would be coming here? The Urbana Oyster Festival is a great product in the county. I mean, it's a signature event and it has been for I think 40ome I forgot the number, right? 60. The daffodil festival is 40 years next year. That's what it is. One of our Urbana town council members is in the back of the room and I'm wondering, are you ready for a million people in Urbana there, Larry? I don't know about a million. Any other questions? Thank you very much. You're very welcome for the presentation. Don't you have something? No, I'm looking at you. What's that? I'm looking at you.

Yeah. No, if if y'all would like to take action on it, otherwise um we're talking about the um tourism action plan. Could you have could you have put more copies in here for us? I mean, just messing with a long plan. It's a lot to read for sure. Um but it looks to be in order, right? So, are you looking for us to approve the tourism action plan from the EDA? Yes. Yeah. Now, that's the EDA's recommendation. It it adopted it itself, if you will, and then um it's it is necessary to have the the board do it. Technically, you're the DMO, the destination marketing organization, and you defer those responsibilities to us. Okay. Is it time critical? No, sir. Okay. Um consensus before we make a motion. Are y'all ready to approve that? Mr. Jesse, we would be looking for a motion from you. I'll make a motion that we approve the tourism action plan. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Jesse. And I'll second. Second by Mr. Kittin. Any further questions? It does look good. Thank you all very much. I stayed up till 12. That's why I try and meet the deadline and not on you at the last minute. Yeah. Well, that's another item and I'm I'm going to talk to Matt about it. May maybe we need to get these book booklets earlier than right before the weekend and then trying to cram on Monday. It's always a challenge, but it does look good. Thank y'all all for coming today. And um we have a motion and a second. Roll call, please. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Kinden, yes. Mr. Don, yes. Motion's approved. Anything else? Just No, not on this topic, but just uh real briefly on the next item. Okay, go ahead.

Um the VA250 middle uh uh mobile museum, uh your Virginia 250 committee meeting, uh excuse me, your local Virginia 250 committee has been meeting regularly and has been doing a lot of lecture series and some Junth events and other things that you all might have seen. Um, one of the things that the state offers is a mobile museum. It's basically a big trailer that has sliders, if you will. Some of you might have seen this at the Gloucester Festival or some other locations. It was at King William, right, a couple months ago for their courthouse anniversary. Um, so the Virginia 250 committee endorsed me applying. Middle Sex EDA endorsed me applying. I need the governing body and if you could authorize the county administrator. This is kind of an iterative process. We're gonna the EDA is going to cover the insurance. Um uh we're the priority is to have this at Wings, Wheels, and Keels andor Deltaville, one of the farmers markets. Founders Day is not going to work out, but um for a variety of reasons, but we we'll see where we can get this thing in accordance with the schedule that they have available. So, they're taking applications throughout the year. Um, so we'd like to get this oyster festival. What's that? N the oyster festival, we talked to them about that. It kind of gets lost in the It would be a good thing to have, but it just it's kind of unnecessary and it kind of gets lost in there. Um, but to to showcase it, uh, uh, the committee and the EDA thought that that, you know, Humblefield and maybe some of the smaller events and if we can work out something with the schools, we'll do that, too. Again, I need you to authorize the county administrator once I determine with VA250 what dates they're available where I can have this thing and assuming you don't have any objections to any of those sites. If that could just be general authorization, once I negotiate that with VA250 and uh the the site

people are ready to do it, it's just a matter of picking a date. Um then I'll I'll run that back through the county administrator and just get his signature. And there's no particular cost to the county for that, is it? No, we have to pay for some lodging, which may or may not happen depending on where the museum is coming from and going to, but they've got two of these things, but uh generally you just have to provide lodging for the museum staff, and that's two people. And then the people that operate the the tractor trailer and everything, apparently they sleep in the cab. I don't know why they get treated that way, but they do. Um, but there's no admission and there's no charge uh to the locality. Again, you just have to extend insurance to them. talked with Miss Lewis about this I don't know six months ago because it's a little bit odd but our our carrier had no problem with it and they've they've granted it to other people Versa um so they've they've done it so they're familiar with this but again it was a little bit odd um but yeah there's no direct expense and again admissions free once they bring it here cool uh Miss Lewis you want to help us with a motion for that or is it just the motion to um empower the uh county administrator to work with the EDA and yourself right um for the 250 celebration once we finalize some sites for the museum. Does that encompass it? I I think I think a motion to authorize the county administrator to work with the EDA executive director on uh finalizing an agreement and dates for the Virginia 250 mobile museum. There you go. So moved. So moved by Mr. Jesse. Second. Second by Mr. Williams. Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please. Miss Hammer. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Kinden, yes. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Don Harris, yes. Motion's approved. Thank y'all very much for coming today and thank you for what you do. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you? Okay. Um All right. Uh regular agenda items. Item number five, employee employee bonus ordinance. Uh, Miss Lewis. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Um, it's in your packet. This is based on what the board uh had had stated that it it I was directed to prepare a draft ordinance to allow a one-time payment of bonuses to county employees. Um, pursuant to state codes, you have to adopt an ordinance to give your employees a bonus. And so this is up for it's been properly advertised to it. It it was advertised twice in the paper as required by code. And so it's the board's pleasure. I'm happy to answer any questions, but if you have specifics about how this is going to be implemented, I will tag um Amarie and Matt because uh it is their numbers. I just put it in a legal format for your review and consideration. Okay. um 181. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And it's also on your screen. It might be helpful. Amory, would you mind just giving a brief summary of how this will work uh on the monetary side? I mean, I think the paragraph right there kind of explains it, but you say it much more eloquently than I read. If I hadn't just bit some chocolate, it it was a very good compromise that I think. So, what this will do, what this ordinance will um do is we will give a one-time bonus of $700 to full-time county staff unless they are constitutional officers, at which time they would get one and a half% of their comp board funded monies. If it is less than the $700, we'll give them the full $700. um if they are part-time employees, we have and we've

already done this. We calculated their hours for the past year, divided it by 2080, which is the number of um full-time hours in a year, we'll multiply that times the 700. So, basically, if they've worked 1400, if they're a current employee and they worked 14 hours, we would take that 14 hours, divide it by 2080, and they get $5.70 as a bonus. So, that is how again 14 hours is very rare. I just happen to pick that number. Um, but anyway, it's going to be a prrated bonus for part-time employees, $700 for full-time employees, unless they're comp board, then it'll be one and a half%. And this was budgeted. And that's all I got. Thank you, Emory. So, we're looking for approval of the ordinance. Is that correct? It would be a motion to adopt an ordinance to allow payment um of bonuses to certain county officers employees pursuant to code section 15.2-1508 or the motion can be in um a motion to adopt the ordinance as presented in your board packet on page 181. Mr. Jesse, I make a motion that we approve the ordinance to allow payments of bonus of certain county employees, officers, and pursuant up to the code of Virginia 15 dash.2-158. See, that's okay. Do I have a second? Oh, nobody want to second it. Okay. Um, what you got? Motion dies for lack of a second. Second. Oh, Reggie. Way to be dramatic. And from a, you know, procedural standpoint, I could second. Yes. Yeah, you could. Yes, Mr. Chairman, you absolutely have the ability to do so if you and some chairman have done historically and they have said specifically for the purpose of discussion.

Wonderful. Any further discuss? Thank you, Ratie, for at least giving us the second. I will say this and I'll ask our administrator to help me with it. At least surrounding counties I believe that are close to us. A few elected not to accept the uh that's my latest understanding. Uh, King and Queen, King William, and I believe Matthews are not moving forward with the bonus. Last I heard, of course, some of them are still considering it and may do so. Yeah. In the future, uh, Gouster is doing it and Lancaster, last time I spoke to Dawn, is doing it. Oh, they are. Because initially they weren't. They weren't, but they've been discussing it. Now they are. It's the last I heard. Of course, until that vote happens, gentlemen, a lot of h lot of things happen. Right. Right. Right. Well, and I'll just take the opportunity to say barring any of them and all of them, Middle Sex is a place to be. We try to look out for our people best we can. Okay. With that, any further discussion? Yeah, I got something to say. Go ahead. You know, um uh uh have we received the money from the state yet? And Marie, have we received the money from the state? We do not receive the money until after the payment is certified. The payment is generally certified on the 10th of the following month and then it takes however long the state. So, no, there's a big long process to get the funds from the state. We don't get it in advance. Okay. And we're not going to pay out any of it until we get what the state has to bring towards us. Correct. You pay it out first. Yeah, you pay off the money first. Pay it out and then get reimbursed for that

hopefully. Okay. Okay. Um, any further discussion, questions? Yeah, I just like to say that uh I think I I don't like the idea of the state putting us in this position. Um but they have and I think that uh we've we've I think we indicated in the past that we would support this. I don't think I'd do it in the future, but I know that there are probably some county employees who have already planned on this money and uh and so therefore I'm going to support it, but I'm going to hold my nose when I do it. Further questions, discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please. Mr. Krennen, yes. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams. Yes. Mr. Don Harris. Yes. Ordinance motion has been passed. And Mr. Chairman, now that y'all passed it, I want to say this on behalf of the county staff and employees. We want to thank you for what you've done. And that includes the lower paid state employees, comp board funded employees, because they wouldn't get all that much with a 1 and a half%. But I think Middle Sex County just did substantially more for the lower paid staff and that's very much appreciated by our folks that work in some of the lower paid positions in these constitutional offices. And um I'll keep the board appraised of of what's going on with the counties around us. It is my intention to attend the Veo summit because I know my

colleagues, most of us did not care for how the state handled this whole situation. From the state's perspective, they're being generous with their employees that they help compensate, but there are a lot of positions, a lot of deputies, a lot of folks that they don't compensate, and it creates a morale issue for local governments to have to come up with that in addition. So, while we support them being generous, hey, be generous, fund more positions because we're funding a lot these days. And uh while it looks good for them to give a bonus to their compensated folks, there's a lot of people in those offices that aren't state funded and they are still needed to conduct those functions. So, that was my remarks. Now, if you voted against it, I wouldn't had to say all that other than we're going to go to the summit and complain about the whole thing. But um I I think it's important for localities to stay united on that because what we see some of the oldtime county administrators and I guess I'm old enough to call myself one of those now. You are. Oh my gosh. When did that happen, Wayne? It didn't used to be this way. They used to call at least the county administrators and more often the chairman of the boards to say, "Hey, how would this impact you?" And then you tell them, "We didn't get a call. They just do it." And then that's unfortunate because that's a breakdown in communication because we are creatures of the state. You have local authority to govern a creature of the state. We are a state creature. It's a Dylan rule state. But we don't often times get included in some of those discussions. So with that being said, if the board would authorize me to do so, I will go down and say so at the summit which is going to be held later this month. That's all. Wonderful. Thank you very much for those comments. All right. Uh, moving right along. Item B under item number five,

Dominion Energy, uh, deed transfer and Heather Lewis, I think you're on the seat for that. I am. I am, but that's okay. I have a I'm going to use my phone a friend lifeline and uh, Miss Kelsey over here and Melanie came right to the podium. I know she she she heard me throw in the line. Um, Kelsey's family now. Yeah, I was gonna say have been here a few times. I hope y'all had a good fourth. Y'all are moving quick today. I had to rush from Richmond. Um, so she is here with some good news and Melanie is here as well and I know she any questions y'all might have they'll be happy to answer, but I'm going to let Kelsey present their update and uh and then I'll take care of the procedural part at the end. Thank you, Kelsey. Sure. Um, I appreciate y'all having me back. Um, and apologies because I told you the last time I was here that y'all would have this by the end of June, not realizing that I needed to go in front of a board meeting. So, you are a couple days early. You cut it to admin in June. I did. I did. You met the deadline. Don't I'm not going to let you take that one. She did great. She met it. And Melanie's kept us very sure. So, um, what you have in the packet is the deed for the gift, um, parcel, the development parcel, um, associated with the Drake sighting agreement. Um, I've worked with Heather and Dave and, yeah, if y'all have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. So, this is the deed of gift that was um, this was part of the sighting agreement. And as you'll recall, Dominion um, was able to expedite giving this to us. It was not anticipated to happen for I think another year or two, maybe more. A couple of years. I believe it's it was originally contemplated as 90 days after building permit approval. Um years. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're thinking late next year at this point. So it would have likely been 2027. Um maybe early 2027. So, um, in exchange, um, for accepting to move

the, um, set building permit date back per Virginia code, we were willing to go ahead and gift this to the county early. So, staff has vetted this and Mr. Cretz is present as well and um, and we worked with uh, Dominion's attorneys. It's very straightforward. I pretty much the terms of this agreement were already determined with the sighting agreement. The only thing I would note is there are some easements on there, temporary and permanent. Again, those were part of the sighting agreement. So, it's a rather straightforward deed of gift. And unless the board has specific questions about the easement layout or the plat or the deed, it is my recommendation, and I'm going to speak for Mr. Cretz until he kicks the back of my chair, uh that we would ask that you make a motion to author to accept the property and to authorize me to sign the deed. Um, I'll have it recorded and then I'll circulate copies to everybody and then the board is free to do what you like with the party with the property. Well, um, thank you very much for your diligence and working on this project and getting this done way ahead of the time frame. Um, and uh, we appreciate that very, very much. Well, I appreciate y'all working with us. Pleasure. Uh, I do have a question though. I'm sure it's on the plats. Uh, are we going to physically mock that area with stakes of our rods and stuff? What? I'm just curious. Are you Which area are you talking about, sir? The 3 acre lay down construction easement or Well, yeah, the easement and the property that's being conveyed back to us. I just was curious, do do we typically mark those? The property um the property as a whole is marked with the iron rods that you see in the attached plat, right?

Um so is the permanent easement for the utility infrastructure. I do not believe that the temporary easement is marked um just because it's temporary. So that they probably wouldn't place iron rods there and we wouldn't need that now. in the future if we wanted to do some development on that parcel, I assume we would go out and mark that uh at that point. I was just curious if that was marked. I know it's on the on the information that Heather and Dave have and that that suffices at this point. No problem. Okay. Any further questions? Okay. Help me uh with the motion again. Yes, sir. So, we need a motion. Um, the board needs a motion to accept the deed of gift for parcel identified as 29-4A and to authorize the county attorney to sign said deed of gift. So move on that motion. Second. So moved by Mr. Jesse, second by Mr. Kitten. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Uh, Miss Hammond. Roll call, please. Mr. Kittinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse. Yes. Mr. Williams. Yes, Mr. Don Harris. Yes. Motion's approved. Thank you again for being here. I am pleased to present you with the sign of All right. And we'll keep you updated on how Drake goes. Thank you. Okay. Uh am I on time? I think I'm I think I'm doing okay. Um surplus an Marie Ricardi pages 196 to 200. Thank you. Um my first item um is kind of a fun item. Your administrative staff has committed to spend the next year cleaning up the old cafeteria. That's the building by the CCO. Um it appears to have been sort of a dumping site of

stuff that people along the way say, "Oh, I might need this filing cabinet one day." And so they leave it there and 20 years disappeared. Um, so anyway, what we're asking for today is as we come across things, we'll be bringing them forth to you if they have value. Some of even if they don't, for example, if I come across an old uh flashlight or a set of batteries or something, we'll just go ahead and throw that away. But other things that we feel the board needs to be aware of, we'll bring that up to them. So today, what I'm bringing up is we've got 16 crates. I'm going to show you the picture on the screen because it didn't show well. We have no idea what these cat they appear to be some sort of cat crates. Um, but they they're in here. We're just going to put them on on a the resale the I can't think of the site. Gov deals. Thank you. The gov deal site. Um, we cannot imagine that there's any use for them. We have these four tables here. Once we get rid of these four tables, we can start seeing what's behind them. I've got this uh beautiful filing cabinet. It's just going to go to the dump. I've got this. Um, no, I was going to use that water fountain. Please get a tetanis shot before you use the water fountain. Um, these we will be putting also these um gymnastics mats out on gov deals as well, minus this um this thing right here, this carrier. This carrier will go back to the um gym department. So anyway, that's part of what I'm asking for. The other thing that I'm asking for, let me go back to my email or to my letter, is as you recall about a week a no, probably about three or four weeks ago, I notified you about a damaged skate park ramp that we just our staff team and determined it was unusable and we put a sign on it. We put red tape across it. Per the donor agreement, the original donor was given the option to re take it away. They said no, they don't want it either. Um, thus we're going to ask to have that

surplused as well and we will just dispose of it because again it's it is an unsafe ramp at this point. Um, it's rusted through. Yeah, you also need your tetanis shop for that. So, at this time, we're going to ask you to declare the item surplus and authorize staff to dispose of them properly. Okay. We need a motion for that. Yes, please. So move that the uh administration can surplus the items as they request an action on. Thank you. Second motion made by Mr. Williams, seconded by Mr. Kittin. Any further discussion? Seeing none, hear none. Um, roll call, please. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Kinden? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. Motion's approved. the the gym mats emory. Has anyone spoken for them? Anybody interested? Because at one time the young lady who started the local gymnastics academy wanted to acquire them when we was right. Okay. Sorry. I think we had a beam on parallel bars. I think she may have been the one that bit on those. We may want to reach out to her and see if she That's a great idea. Thank you. Yeah, please. Okay. Okay. What else you got? The second one, I guess it appears that as the uh sheriff's offices made their move, they're getting to the back of their um parking lot as well. And they found they found they finally decided that this 1993 Ford truck and this 1995 Chevrolet van, which haven't been moved, one of them we're not sure will ever move, um would be put up for sale, and we get rid of them. So, at this point, they've asked, they brought this to us. They brought us the titles and said, "Can you go ahead and have the board declare these a surplus and get rid of

them?" So, again, we're not using them. Nobody's using them. So, it's the best thing we can do is get them off our list of assets. Okay. Motion. So, move. So, move of the disposal of the surplus vehic surplus vehicles. Second. Second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Williams seconded by Mr. Kittin. Any further discussion? You you good? You got it. Seeing none. Mo uh roll call. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Kittinden? Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. Motion is carried. Thank you. We'll take care of that. All righty. Uh uh under surplus, is there any miscellaneous items that need to be talked about or No, we're all done. That was it. Those You got them all. You got both of those. And my water fountain. That's right. You can bid on it if you'd like. Item D, landfill solar RFP. All right. This is This is kind of hard for me to say. Um we put out an um an RFP following the board's discussion of the potential lease of the landfill and the property. The board asked um a company called Berkeley Group to build develop an RFP. They did. We received um two proposals which we me longest, Chip England, and um even Matt Walker reviewed them all and we gave them to we did give them to I'm sorry, Heather as well, but we didn't include you in the party. Um anyway, we we so we had a meeting and we decided we don't really know how to evaluate these proposals. they are. It's kind of like going back when we did the uh uh telecommunications ordinance. There were so many nuances to this that I felt that

I was un incapable of even I could analyze the present value of the future lease payments. That's not an issue, but there was more to it. There's more things about um the price of if we could buy back the the energy units or whatever. All of those basically we all agreed to come back to you all and see whether or not we could ask um the board to approve us to go back to Berkeley Group and let them do the evaluations and then subsequent negotiations because we just can't. So this is if you wish to pursue is because there's going to be a cost. We estimated the cost will probably be about six probably $6,000 to have them review and possibly negotiate. Um, but we've not I haven't gone any further with it except for asking them if they would and they said they would. So, I wanted to bring that back to the board rather than um make any negotiations on my own without it. So, that's where we are with you all. Um, I don't know whether I think Heather, you didn't have anything to add to that, right? other than to say um I sometimes have very strong feelings about consultants positive and negative and this experience with the Berkeley group they assisted me in drafting the RFP along with other staff Chip and Dave and and other members I was very pleased um they were very helpful and I don't feel like I can always say that so passionately um I do think their expertise in helping us to evaluate these proposals would be invaluable to the citizens and to the board. I think that it's um it sounds like an easy project, but there's a lot of technicalities involved in it that we're I'm I'm just not a solar expert, nor is Dave Cretz or Chip, but um so I support the committee's request for this. I think it really could be very helpful. Presuming the board wishes to go forward um another step in the project. Well, we got to we got to do the steps before we can vote on something, don't

we? Well, huh. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think my only comment is is if the board is not anticipating wishing to move forward with the final project, then let's not But it's good money after bad. Right. Right. We don't want to spend good money after bad if you don't want to do it. Yeah. Well, Mr. Chairman, I I'll go ahead say it from my point of view. It's hard and and everything Emory said was right, but if we're going to review these properly, we need to know just how much money's on the table routinely, customarily, I guess, is the word, because then I don't know. I'm kind of negotiating in a vacuum when I just simply don't know what's appropriate. I don't mind asking for inappropriate amounts of money, but I need to know where the appropriate line is so I know how hard to push. I agree. So what would be the motion for that to proceed with Berkeley Group for analyzing the contracts? Right. It says what we asked for is that you authorize the county administrator to enter into an agreement with the Berkeley group to assist in the analysis of the two submissions. All right. Just so moved. So moved by Mr. Kittin. Second it. Second by Mr. Jesse. Uh, any further discussion hearing? None. Uh, roll call, please. Mr. Kindon. Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. Motion's carried. Thank you very much for that. I I This is a project I'm kind of excited about. I know other staff members are, too. So, um, it's it's pretty innovative to see what they could do. I It wasn't that long ago, a former board member brought this subject up about doing solar panels on brown fields and and and and we all looked at it. It was unheard of. So,

it's been really cool to see in a very short period of time, just how quickly that technology has advanced. And um I I'm excited to see I'm excited that we got two proposals and they were well-written proposals and both of them proposed baby goats and they did they they they met my requirements of native native pollinators. Uh the firm fails my my uh memory right this second but the the group that monitors the water uh is that how frequently is that done? So well our engineering consultant is um it's there you go international they there go by their initials now ARM okay to be resource resource international thank you so how I I don't know how frequent is that a quarter ex there depends we've got gas monitoring and uh one other type of monitoring one's done quarterly and one's done every six months and we get an annual report and and the timing of those is dependent on the results of the results themselves. So if they get a positive result that exceeds their parts per billion, million, trillion, right? Um they may make you monitor more routinely, but if you have clean result after clean result, they'll space them out more. Okay. And I only asked that question because are any of the things that people are worried about with solar, will that show up on the testing part uh that this firm does for us? We've heard nothing from DEEQ with any concerns at all about any of that. In fact, I think DEEQ, and I may be speaking above my pay grade here, so the planning director is behind me. Uh I think DEQ is largely supportive of the endeavor across the state. Okay. Because they see it as a good dual use for landfills. Okay. Okay. And Melanie may know a little bit about

that and she's with us tonight. I think DEQ is very supportive. Okay. Okay. Great. Wonderful. I was just curious about that. I think about that sometimes at one o'clock in the morning certain things and that happen over the Fourth of July while you're reading your pack. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. Item E, citizens appointments and Marie 2002 to 2010. Excuse me. In your packet, we have um we'll start with the first one which is Mary Cardwell has been asked to be appointed to the social services advisory board. Um, Rey, excuse me, I think I could say that. Jay Ronovc has been asked to be appointed to the airport committee. John Moffett reappointed to the airport committee and Gordon White appointment to the board of equalization. Um let's see. And then you've got the rest of the packet includes their actual applications. And we're missing somebody for the planning commission with Bill Powell passing away. We that well right that just because that just occurred. But we've not had anybody. We don't have anybody at this point for that. Okay. Uh, hold on. Let me find my page number again. 202. And we can approve all of them at one time. That would be four individuals. Correct. Reappoint. Or did you want to approve them one at a time? We can do either one. Do y'all have any preference? Uh the only thing staff and I were talking about right here is that it's our understanding that there is also another vacancy on the planning commission, but um that'll probably be in your next packet. So, okay, just be thinking of of more than one if you know of more than one person who is interested in that position, be thinking about them.

Okay. What's your flavor, board? You want to do them all in one swoop or you want to do them individually? Do them all together. Okay. and make the motion for me, please. Mr. Chairman, I uh move that we uh accept uh the nomination and approve for Mary Cardwell, Jro Ronovac, uh John Moffett to be reappointed, and Gordon White. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Oh, did we have a second? You made the motion. I'll second it. Seconded by uh motion made by Mr. Kittin for the approval of those four individuals and uh to several committees and seconded by Mr. Wayne Jesse. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Kinden, yes. Mr. Jesse, yes. Mr. Williams, yes. Mr. Don Harris, yes. Motion is approved. Okay. Uh, item number six. Uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, Mr. Cretz has a quick comment if the board doesn't want. Sure. Yes, it is. Now, so you um it's not in the board packet yet, but we have one more planning commission member that has resigned. Okay. One from your district, Mr. Harris. Okay. So, just a suggestion. I mean the size

of these planning commissions are you know we have a 10 member commission with one board member uh the board may consider going to five it's just a consideration while you're down two it would take that discussion at some point amongst you know talk amongst yourselves to see if you ever want to go to that it's getting harder to find these committee members and commission members it would be maybe a little bit easier you're on those, you know, on the on the board members when those appointments come up. You do have a couple dual uh district you have dual representation in your districts now. So, some if you did that, you'd have to understand that somebody would have to step off. So, and you do have some older members in that. So, you're looking to or there's a thought of it lowering the number of it participants on on the planning commission. On the planning commission, it's just the thought. It's at 10 now. It's 10 now. That's the number. So each representative has to I mean it's conceivable at any one time you could have to find two members if two of them went off at the same time. And some of our members are aging and probably have the desire to come off. Okay. Unless you have those convers I'm just I'm just putting this out there for food for thought. Have you run that by the planning commission? I have not. So, something it's something discussed in the past really. Okay. Yeah. It's I've never I haven't discussed it with, you know, with any of the planning commission members. So, I'm not sure how that would go over with them. I'm just while you're down to um it's it's something y'all could consider and taking under advisement. This this would be completely, you know, a board discussion and something you guys would and I'd like to talk to you personally about that at some point, too. But thanks for bringing it up. I just want because it's I know it's

getting harder for the board to find these volunteers to come in. It's not a and the planning commission is probably one of the harder jobs. There's no doubt about it. Okay. That and the board of zon and appeals are tough jobs. So who who's the who left from the Saluda district? Uh Gordon Jones. That's not in their packet. Okay. Has he officially left? Oh, yes. Yeah, he he sent a letter of resignation. He's okay. I think I may have saw that somewhere maybe at the Senate. Yeah. So, okay. Just just and it's completely this like I said it's completely a board thought and discussion. Okay. The staff has staff has no problem deal working with the 10 you have now. It's not it's just something I'd be curious what the tenative thought is from the planning commission. Are they interested or not in that? And then we'll we'll talk amongst ourselves and I and with you as well. Yeah. It's just something you could think about. Okay. I mean because I know it's it matter has probably been talked about in the past and never really pursued. So, you know, it's one of those things that kind of bumps up for discussion once in a while. But great, I just wanted to make this if if if you were thinking about doing it, might not be a bad time to start considering it. Gotcha. Given you're down a couple people. Gotcha. Dave Dave, my question is, uh, I mean, I know every county is a little different. What's the norm? Uh, I think a lot of the bigger counties have five members, don't they, Matt? They they based on my understanding when we discussed it last time when I was director of community development, and this is was my understanding then, and it hasn't changed. Back in the days, you wanted a lot of people on them, so you would have a quorum. But then the law changed that if you have less than a majority of your members present, you

don't have a quorum. That was my understanding. Way back, and I'm dating myself, way back, if you had a 20 member planning commission, you're guaranteed to have at least 10 of them show up. They don't work that way anymore. If you don't have a majority show up, you don't have a meeting. Right now, that's just what I've gleaned before, but it's a mixture. Um, many of your larger counties, like Dave says, has five. Many of your smaller counties may be moving to that because of lack of volunteers. Yeah. Um, it it probably cuts both ways. Yeah. I just wanted to make the board aware. Thank you. It's it's definitely worth talking about. Part of y'all's discussion. I agree. It's a board call eventually. So, yes, leaving them. Okay. Okay. Uh, moving right along. Cigarette tax report only in in your um packet. Uh, staff reports report only. County attorney update. No, sir. I I spoke plenty earlier. Thank you though. That's me, too. Okay. Um, unfinished and new business. Let's start with unfinished business. Anything out there? Okay. Uh, new business. All right. Moving right along. Item number nine. Mattis presented by the board. I'll start in that direction with Mr. Williams. They ain't been a good day for me. Okay. So, I'mma just pass. All right. No problem. Um, I don't have anything to report other than what's been discussed here. Uh, Mr. Krennan, I'm I'm the same way. What's other than what's been discussed here? Um, I'm

good. Mr. Jesse, I'm good. Okay, everybody's good. All right, um, okay. Okay. Um, I'm going to go ahead and open the floor for public comment. Anyone want to speak? Seeing none, hearing none, I'm going to close the public uh comment section and we're going to move into close session. Yes, Mr. Chairman. It's my understanding that we're going to utilize this room and then uh I do not know if we will take a I do not know if you will take action when we come out or not. But the good news is is we have 7:00 business. So if you do, it'll be um at that time. So with that, so we will ask the public to uh vacate after the motion and roll call, please. So the board needs a motion to convene in close session pursuant to Virginia Code sections 2.2-3711 A3 and A8. This is so the board can have a discussion about um the disposition of county property and a discussion about acquiring real property for a public purpose where those negotiations and open meeting would adversely affect your bargaining position and your negotiating strategy and so that you may have consultation with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters, procedures, and questions about the disposition of and the acquisition of said properties. So move and Mr. Mr. Chairman, may I request that y'all take a 10minute recess on? I will get to that. I got you. Thank you. A second. Uh motion made by Mr. Jesse. Uh seconded by Mr. Kittinen. Seeing no further discussion. Uh roll call. Mr. Ricardi. Sure. Mr. Jesse.

I. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Kittinden? Yes. Mr. Don Harris? Yes. We will be moving into close session, but we're going