Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, January 28th. Um, and our first order of business is a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance led by our county administrator, Angie Hill. Please rise as you're able for a moment of silence and then join me as I lead us in the pledge.

Let us pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Angie. Um, we're going to start tonight with a series of public hearings. Um, so we're going to start I just touched my screen and got everything all messed up. Um, we're going to start with the county reassessment frequency. Um, this is something that we've had several meetings about um, for almost the past 18 months. Angie, did you have anything you wanted to say before I open the public hearing?

Yes, thank you. I just wanted to give a little bit more context to how we got to the point that we are right now. In March of 2023, Craig Meadows, who was the county administrator at the time, presented in his budget message um the idea of potentially moving to bianial reassessment. And our first work session on that topic was in October of 2023. And that presentation was really a basic overview, a preliminary look and to just gauge the board's interest. We didn't conduct an in-depth analysis at that time or a whole lot of research. It was just a starting point. We did continue to discuss that with the board over the since that time and we actually held a public hearing in January of 2025 at the board's request. That wasn't required, but it was just to get some input from the public to see um what the thoughts were and a couple people spoke with some concerns about increasing the frequency. Since that time, we've conducted a whole lot more research. It's been more in depth and we've really delved into the matter more as you have continued to express interest and we have discussed that transitioning to a bianial reassessment would increase the cost because we would be doing it more frequently but the purpose of moving to this bianial frequency would be to improve the uniformity of assessed values as compared to market values throughout the county.

Great. Thank you very much. Um, do any supervisors have any questions before we open the public hearing? I know we've talked about this as recently as our last meeting. Okay. Um, so we did have a signup sheet in the hallway um, for this public hearing. Um, we did have a couple of people sign up in advance and um, I'll just go ahead and we've got the public hearings and then public address immediately following. So, I'm going to go over go over some of the um the rules for public address and it also applies to the public hearing. Um we did make the signup sheet available in the hallway. We'll first go to the names on the signup sheet and then anybody that's present tonight is able to come after we finish the signup sheet. Each speaker will have four minutes whether speaking as an individual or a representative. All comments must be directed to the chair and other supervisors from the lectern at the front of the room. Please begin by stating your name and where in the county you reside and debate between speakers and members of the audience will not be allowed. Speakers may leave any written statements and or comments to the supervisors with the board clerk at the end of the das here and speakers will be judged out of order should they engage in personal attacks, use profanity or abusive language or debate with the audience and not address the supervisors. Accepted etiquette etiquette is to not applaud or make loud responses. Um we did have two people sign up. So we'll start with our list. Um first sign up was Wayman Pac and then after Mr. Pack we have Anna Vajan.

Thank you Jen for your help.

Thank you.

Welcome sir. Good evening board. My name is Wayman Pac and I live on Pineywoods Road in Ryder. And I've heard many reasons why Montgomery County should change the real estate reassessments from four years to two. Everyone who has spoken out in favor of this change have the same talking points. Number one, McGomery is the largest county in Virginia that still has a four-year assessment. Does this mean that if we change, the next largest county can use us as an excuse to change? Two, when no county in Orange County reassess every two years. Last time that I looked at a map of Virginia, there are a lot of counties between Montgomery and Orange. Three, if we go to a two-year frequency, we have a better chance to catch areas that may have had more development than others, and that can bring in increased revenue. Four, land owners subjected to a two-year frequency should not see such a large jump in values. Of course, that argument flies out the window if there's a tax increase in intra. Five, we can bring this operation inhouse and save the cost associated with hiring an outside contractor who, by the way, hires a number of locals to actually visit the properties. Now, let's look at these arguments and see how they stack up to remaining on a 4-year frequency. When this idea was first proposed during the October 23rd, 2023 meeting by our director of management and budget, Mr. Mark McGrder, he out outlined some of the pros and cons. It seems as though the pros are being highlighted, but no one's mentioned the cons except in passing. During that presentation, of which I have provided copies of the salient points to each of you, it was stated that the in-house cost associated with this change would result in increased cost to the county of approximately $95,000 annually by needing to provide year- round salaries with benefits to the staff. All right.

Three, there would be additional upfront costs associated with the purchase of vehicles which would need to be maintained, the purchase of office and electronic equipment in addition to the software which may need to be licensed. Now, if my assessment increases 2% over two years and then another 2% the following year cycle, how much have I actually saved over a 4year inc 4% increase over a four-ear span? Nothing. Consider a $3,000 property. 2% plus another 2% equals 312, $120 valuation. 4% over the 4ear span is $312,000 less. Mr. McGrder stated, quote, "If property values declined or did not increase during this period, we would also lose the 1% from the state to help pay for the reassessment. If that were to happen, not only would we be paying more for the reassessment, we'd also le lose the reimbursement from the state." Mr. McGrder also stated, quote, "If the revenue neutral rate is higher than the existing rate, the revenue neutral rate is considered a tax rate increase and has to be advertised as such. While a rising market adds increased value and additional tax revenue, a falling market could mean multiple years of tax rate increases to generate the same revenue even with new construction growth. Please consider the cons alongside of the pros before making this decision. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll need just one moment to change the computer back to the public address guidelines.

Thank you, Jen. Good evening, Anna.

Good evening. My name is Anna Vayan and I live in district A. and I won't take a lot of your time for this public hearing at least. Um, but I just wanted to be on record saying that I am in favor of reassessing every two years. And um one important reason for this is as Miss Hill pointed out um in your previous meeting um reassessing more frequently will lead to more uniformity of assessments and this could be make um the taxation fairer across um the county. So, for example, if your property um value is increasing by $100,000, say over four years, um you're going to be underpaying taxes um by somewhat significant amount over that second two years. um if you're only reassessing every four years. Um and that lack of that lack of um tax revenue from those those properties is going to have to be made up somehow. And it's probably going to be made up by a tax increase, tax rate increase um which is borne by everybody but um including the people whose values aren't increasing as fre as frequently um or aren't increasing as much. Um, so yeah, I do think the more frequent reassessments could lead to um fairer um fairer taxing over um all property values. Um and then of course you all know that schools are an important issue to me and I think when pro when it's every four years it's

a big jump and people um you know understandably are saying well it's such a huge jump it shouldn't be that well the numbers work out that well it should and that's how much your property increased by and you should be paying a bit more. Um, but I think it will be less painful um if it's every two years and there will be less fighting about how are we going to fund the school and the county functions that we need to fund. So that's what I've got to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, that is the end of the signup sheet for the change to the county's reassessment frequency. But if anybody else would like to speak on this public hearing, welcome, sir. Good evening. I'm Kelly Brennan and I live in Reiner. Um I am actually um rather ambivalent about two-year fouryear certainly not one year but what you decide on this to me the much bigger issue is the issue of fairness in appraisal not frequency of appraisal um you know I've looked at the pros and cons and I I think there's good reasons to do two years or not do two years Um, but to me, um, you know, with the 2-year, it's been pointed out, which I think was a good thing, that you can actually set a tax rate that is more in line with the actual property value if you reassess more frequently. Um, but and that's a good that's a good argument, but again, for me, the issue is fairness. And I just wanted to relay a couple stories I've had with um real estate assessors who've come to the door when I've happened to be home or not. Um the first one was 12 years ago or more. Um and I think my wife's told this story before, but um we got the bill. We were like, "Whoa, that's quite a jump." We went made an appointment, went downtown. Not everybody can take the time to do that. So that was a fortunate thing for us. But it just happened that the fellow who did the appraisal for us um was there at the office to take citizen comments that day and um he's like, "Oh yeah, I remember your property. It's really

beautiful. I'd love to have that." And of course my wife being very quickwitted said, "Well, you better buy it quick cuz the price keeps going up." And uh and it's it's really true because uh this was a really young fellow who seemed like and he said, you know, he was new to the the the whole business. He didn't really understand rural property assessment. So it was pretty easy to um you know, convince him that, you know, he needed to change things for us. Um so that that worked out. Um and then the other one was um fella comes to the door, he's an older gentleman. Okay, that's a good thing. He's experienced. That's a good thing. But then he starts going on about how um you know, there should be a tax revolt that he's supporting this supervisor down in Bedford County where he lives to, you know, dis get rid of property taxes. And I think, okay, so where are we getting these appraisers from anyway? You know, we got somebody young who doesn't know what to do. we got somebody old who maybe wants to get rid of taxes altogether. So to me again it's a matter of fairness in appraisal. Um can we do that better inhouse or can we not? Um the last fellow was perfectly fine. He works from a firm from Massachusetts but he was a local fellow with local ties, kids in schools, understood the whole um community. So again um fairness and appraisal. Can we do that better with inhouse or with outside appraisers? Thank you.

Thank you. Is there welcome.

Hi, my name is Carol Hos and I live in Reiner and um I was going to give my full support for bianial assessments but I think Mr. pack had some good arguments against them and I will trust you all to make a good decision. But the reason that I feel like the bienial assessments would be more useful is if we use those employees for other things as well. And so again like you all could decide how that would work. But again, I feel a strong value in having permanent county employees who know the community who understands that rural land is not the same as an Airbnb, right? But it's, you know, that farmland is is used for farming and not not assess things on some sort of tourist mentality they might have. So I I share um those concerns about like having people who know the the community. And I would also love to see permanent county employees available to meet with citizens to explain these issues. Again, um the ability to come and appeal an appraisal if you think it's it's ridiculous, right? We live on Little Creek that the cattle water in. Ours was called waterfront property, right? When we went to say this is not waterfront property, it's in a flood zone. You couldn't build on that part, right? You know, we got our assessment back to what a normal farm property should be assessed. But not everybody has the opportunity to to take that time and do that. And so that, you know, the hours are very limited, the time is very limited. And so to have permanent county employees so we could do you know evening or weekend sessions we could um get better information to the citizens I think would be really helpful. So that while I agree that you know if it's just for doing the assessments, yeah, maybe maybe it's not the greatest thing, but I would assume that if we had permanent county employees, they could be engaging with the public more on these on these

issues and, you know, helping everybody to understand and helping to have better, you know, better assessed property. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this public hearing on the county's reassessment frequency? Seeing nobody else come forward, we're going to close this public hearing and move to our next public hearing, which is a resoning or RWW36 LLC and RWWW34 LLC. And we have a presentation by our planning director, Bri. Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you. I will get going here. Um, so as you stated, this is a reasonzoning request. Um, this is located right off Interstate 81 in the western portion of the county here on the 177 corridor. Um, you can see here is the exit 109 interchange with the property right here. This is an aerial view of the property. Um the two properties being reszoned minus the right ofway um are located in yellow and actually this property that's subject is because it is acquiring additional property around it from VOTE. Um this property was a parcel that was noted for future development on the last concept plan and now they're requesting for it to be resoneed to general business for conformity. And then this part of the right ofway that was vacated um during the barn road realignment that has been um added to this property and I'll explain why resoning is required for that in just a little bit. Um so you can see the two properties here. This is our zoning map. Everything around it is zoned general business. Um this is the hospital property zoned pudcom. So, in 2009, we had a resoning request um to reszone from general um from agriculture to general business. Um it included a master plan and it had lots of identified uses on it in various locations. Um in 2010, we did an amendment to that um to allow for the alignment of Meta Creek Road and um the acquisition of some additional property. They revised that master plan and also included a hotel and some medical offices on the property at that time. Then in 2024, um we came back to amend some profered conditions and update the

concept plan. They found it hard to market the property with the exact locations of the buildings. So shown on the concept plan. So they needed some flexibility on where those those buildings could be located and those uses could be located. So now we are back to reszone some additional property. They have acquired 67 acres on Barn Road. Um that was in 2015 and then 43 acres of unimproved rightway. So the way our county code is written is any to territory that comes into the county um that is not currently designated. So normally that's either through B.way right ofway being abandoned or sometimes we'll do jurisdictional boundary adjustments, friendly amendments with our towns. Um those properties always come in as zoned conservation C1. Um so basically at that point whatever happens with the property normally does require reszoning. Um so they're wanting to clean up some of that where they've acquired the property and I have a map here showing where that is. Um they have also acquired 988 um acres of rightway from VOTE that adjoins the property on the far side of Meta Creek. So you can see here these are the properties. This is the current approved master plan. Um we have highlighted the area to be reszoned here. This is the parcel that's currently zoned A1 that would go to general business if approved. And then this is the additional right ofway that they have require have acquired which is now zoned conservation C1. And then they have acquired this right ofway from VOTE as well. Um this is currently considered C1 according to county code. Um so they just want to reszone it to general business to match this lot here. Here's an overview of the property. You can see this is the subject parcel. Um, this is former Barn Road. We're at it culde-sacs. And then this is private

Young's Lane that connects back down here to Meta Creek. Just a survey plat of the property of both sides. And you can see once you add this right away, it brings this parcel up to 2.156 acres. Here's some drone footage. Um, this is 177 corridor with Interstate 81 here. This is Meet Creek Road as it as it navigates through the property. Um, you can see they've put in an entrance already. Um, here this is Tyler, the hospital in the background. So, this is the parcel that would be reszoned and then this would be part of the rightway. And then on this side, this would be the part that would be reszoned. So public hearing signs were posted on Barn Road and on Meta Creek. We have had some inquiries about that. So I wanted to make sure that we presented that. Um transportation impacts impacts are very minimal because essentially there is no change other than adding the additional property. It's not necessarily going to add any additional uses because the profered conditions would remain the same. Um so the uses would remain the same. Um the entrances will still be from Tyler Road. That's a right in right out. Um with a full access from Meta Creek Road and then sidewalks on both sides of Metac Creek. Those have already been installed. VOTE also took no exception to the change. Um it's within the Riner Fire and Rescue Service area. We do have confirmed locations for fire hydrants. Does not lie within a FEMA designated flood area. Um, it will be served by Montgomery County Utilities for water and sewer. It does lie within the 177 corridor plan. This is a joint agreement we have with the city of Radford. Um, in 2010

they stated the development met the goals. Um, we did submit this to them and they've stated they have no comments or concerns as it hasn't substantially changed the development at all. It's in an area designated as urban expansion was which is also one of our urban development areas that's identified. That's where we prefer all new um residential and non-residential development to occur. And then here are the goals that it complies with. It is consistent with the urban expansion planned commercial transportation and environmental chapters. Um and it does meet the land use criteria um for the 177 corridor plan. So, the allowed uses do remain consistent with the general business. Um, attention should be given to exterior lighting. This will be looked at during the site plan review. Um, in order to reduce glare, they are required to submit a lighting plan. This question did come up in the planning commission. So, I wanted to make sure we addressed it. Um, our ordinance does require that there is not overspill onto adjoining properties. Um, so that lighting plan would have to show that to us during site plan review. Um these are the profered excluded uses the ones here that are marked out. Um so you can see what they have said they would not locate on this site. Um any uses not stricken would be allowed um as by right with an approved site plan. Again this is not a change from the former resoning. Um this is consistent with what they profered last time. And here is a continued list. The planning commission held their public hearing on the 14th of January. We did not have any citizens present to speak. Um they did recommend approval on a 5 to1 vote. We did have one commissioner that noted some concerns regarding the lighting and lack of details to confirm that they would be dark sky friendly.

So the planning commission again recommended approval. These are the profered conditions. I'm not going to read over them one by one. um they are consistent with what was previously approved there. There is not really a change other than the date to the concept plan um would be updated to the December 15th to show those additional areas that they're adding. Joining property owners were notified. Um we have placed all legal ads. We have not received any inquiries from the public at all. Um, we may have some folks here interested in speaking this evening. Um, until then, I'll take any questions you may have. Steve Simonus is here on behalf of the owner as well and can answer any questions and and may like to speak following me. Okay. Do we have any questions for Bri? Supervisor King, you and I discussed the intersection there. Tyler and P not pig path but Meta Creek.

Yes. Has V do got any idea what they gonna do there? Um so for this development there are no additional improvements required. Um the the improvements that were required by the owner to develop this property were done with the realignment to Meta Creek. Um, if you remember, there was a reasonzoning approved on the opposite side of Tyler Avenue, and that would require some significant upgrades to Tyler Road prior to that being constructed. At the time that that was approved in 2009, VOTE had stated they would require a roundabout to be installed there. Um, we have not had any submitts for development to that site, so we have not reviewed it since that time.

This is not going to affect Barn Road at all, right? or the rename of it. No, there is not any entrances at this time and I'll I'll divert to Steve to clarify um proposed onto Barn Road because that one gentleman when they reign the road, his garage is on that road. So, I don't want to mess him up going in and out his correct way. And he is the owner of the private access um called Young's Lane and it connects from Meta Creek through his property. It actually stops just short of this culde-sac. So both both sides will be coming off of Metacree. Yes.

Okay. And if and when you're talking about a motel, I know there's a hydrant right down the Well, it's few hundred feet down. I would like to suggest at a hotel they would be at least one hydrant closer. Okay. Yes, we can definitely look at that. Our ordinance also requires hydrants at specific locations, right? Um, so we would check that to make sure it was in compliance as well. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions for Bri? Okay. Um, thank you, Bri. Steve, do you have a presentation?

We'll be brief. I promise. I'll give you four minutes.

Four minutes. Good evening. Steve Simonus with Westwood Professional Services, 80 College Street in Christiansburg. Um I hope this is the last time we're here to clean up this parcel. Um the good news is is that since 2009, we're finally getting activity out there. So after all that work we put into the resonings before VOTE changed the regulations, we actually have some movement. So, if you remember in August of 24, as Brie showed, and you see it here, um we are in the process of working through site plan approval for the convenience store that's also going to have a couple food um services within that. And the reason this came up with the right-of-way um vacation was we actually have interest. Um Mr. Woody, our client, has um has the property just above on the top part here of Meadow Creek. we have somebody that's under contract to purchase that from him to build an extended stay um hotel on that. Um so as we were getting into that closing uh we realized that this conservation uh designation was on there. So again, we're back here to kind of clean this up. They're just waiting for um action from the board and they're ready to close and move forward. So u we're excited to see some movement out there and I just wanted I added this to planning commission. Um, you may have this in your packet, but one of the hotel developers did write a letter, present it to the county. Um, I told him it might be helpful just to let the county know what type of investment they're putting in, the number of jobs. Um, so I just want to read this. This would be a Woodr Suites hotel. Um, Mr. Sahil Patel in in Salem, who owns several hotels in the area, would be one of the developers. He's actually one of the partners as well on the convenience store. Um, so this is going to be at about $11 million construction investment for the hotel and the improvements itself. So this would be a again an extended stay. So it would support workforce housing for health care professionals, traveling nurses, medical staff, university affiliates,

contractors, and corporate guests. Um he's anticipating somewhere between 20 and 25 total permanent uh full-time local jobs and estimating between 5 and $10,000 per month in lodging tax revenue and possibly up to $30,000 annually in real estate tax revenue. Um and again he is part of that 5 to6 million gas station and retail center going across the street as well. So it will be an investment at McGomery County. It's an area on that side of the interstate that we've been looking for growth to support the hospital, the nurses, the doctors, and and obviously patients and families over there. So, we're excited. Um, happy to answer any questions, but uh, thank you, Steve. Does anybody have any questions?

Supervisor King like I asked Bri on that fire hydrant. You think there'd be any problem putting one? No, sir. I don't think so. will have to have fire protection. You know, we we'll be required to have a sprinkler system for that hotel anyway. So, to have that fire hydrant backup, we would have one likely closer than that anyway.

And I will and I'm sorry, Madam Chair, if I can answer one more thing Mr. King U, Supervisor King mentioned. So, the access to this parcel would be off of Meadow Creek. There would be no access off of Mr. Young's private drive down there. the parcel down here in the bottom that we showed for future development that may have access off of Barn Road, but it would still be that public access. So, it would still be a commercial access off of Barn down there. If you know the property very well, Mr. King. So, where that where the power line comes across Tyler and goes down, we've got a big dip in topography because we can't fill underneath that power line. So, getting from Meadow Creek down through the gas station site into this is pretty tough from a topographical standpoint. So, if we did get something down here, we'd have a commercial access located off a barn most likely.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Now, we did also had a signup sheet for um this public hearing posted in the hallway. I didn't have anybody sign up to speak, but is there anybody in the room with us that would like to speak on the public hearing for this reasonzoning? Okay, seeing nobody come forward, we're going to close that public hearing and move to our next public hearing, which is the fiscal year 2627 budget process. And the purpose of this is to receive citizens comments on the upcoming county's fisc year 2627 budget. Andrew, did you have anything to add before I open the public hearing?

Just that this is the first official board action that will uh take place with the fiscical year 27 budget. Our staff has been working on budget um preparation already, but this is the first opportunity for the public to comment.

Great. Thank you. Um we did have a signup sheet for this public hearing in the hallway as well. And we did have one person sign up. Um Anna Vayan, if you'll come forward um and give your comment and then after Miss Vayen, if anybody would like to um address this issue, we'll give you time. Welcome again.

Thank you. Thank you. This I'm Anna Vijay and I live in district A and I have a presentation this time. Um so basically I want to talk about education funding that is transfers to the school operating fund. um and with a comment relative to the FY25 comprehensive financial report that you received last meeting. Um so this overall picture I'd like to take a look at how county support for the schools has grown over the years and how that growth compares with growth in the county's operating expenses over the same time. Um so just this first slide has to do with a presentation you received on January 12th. Um, at that time, Mr. Alidge stated that the largest increase last fiscal year, FY25, was in the school operating fund. And he said that education spending went up by 12, a whopping $12 million in FY25 um to $67 million. Um, and that was after remaining steady at 54 to $55 million for the previous four years. Now, that sounded like pretty striking. Um and the way he pointed it out seemed to raise it as a concern. Um but yes and the numbers do show that. So on the second line of the top table um the expended um funds line does show that 54 to $55 million um being expended for those previous four years and then in FY25 that going up to $67 million. Um however, if you then go up just go up to the approved line, the one above um that shows the approved um funds um those various budget years for the transfer to the school operating fund. Um and so that

doesn't look as concerning because that really grows pretty um pretty consistently um from year to year. Um I um so I don't have all the exact numbers to understand why expenditures were lower than um the approved amount in FY24 but higher than the approved amount in FY25. But I think what's important, what's clear is the approved amounts climb um pretty slowly by about two to three million dollars each year. And you can see that on the bottom table um in the last four years from FY22 to 25. Um the increases in the approved transfer to school operating fund are just two to $3 million. Um so I don't think that's concerning. Um, I also wanted to point out that the FY24 budget was approved in the year that the property tax rate was set to be revenue neutral and the schools didn't necessarily get the increases they actually needed that year. Um, so it makes sense that the following fiscal year there were extra needs and the budget need to grow a bit more than usual to allow for funding along the lines of what they really the schools really needed. Um now, okay. Um this next slide show takes just a wider look at um um funding over 10 years. So basically same numbers but over a larger number of years. um the transfers to the school operating fund grew from 45 to $65 million over that time. Well, trans uh the government general government

portion of the general fund grew from $46 million to $78 million over that time. So, that was a big number that I wanted to point out. Um they started at about the same amount and ended up quite different.

Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And that was um the only speaker that signed up um on the signup sheet in the hallway. Is there anybody else in the room that would like to speak? Give us just a minute and we'll switch the screens. Welcome. Hi, I'm Carolas and I still live in Reiner. the um I just would like to request that you advertise at least a 5- cent tax increase this year. Our taxes have been suppressed for a while. Our needs are huge. I you know, you can if you advertise too low and then you learn the details about what's needed, you have no recourse. But if you advertise a tax rate, you give time to to that's, you know, that's high enough, you give time to deliberate. So, I hope that you would advertise no lower than than five cents on the dollar and on the $100. And just again, as a reminder, for somebody who owns a $300,000 home, that's only a $150 increase per year. And so, the big expense falls on the wealthiest land owners, right? It's it's not a big expense for people who have modest modest homes. And you know, you already presumably deliberated and investigated and found that the tax relief for seniors and people with disabilities was sufficient, right? You said that on the fall. So, you know, people who can't afford those taxes should be able to use those mechanisms for tax relief. So, I hope that you'll set a a tax increase high enough to to

cover our needs. And again, if you think about um you know, I've heard some disparaging comments about, oh, the schools are always asking more. You know, they just need to budget better. Well, last year Chris Walls was in here and said, you know, your staff are complete idiots. I don't know anything about radios, but you know, Chris Walls was in here saying like they had a repair that he could do in an afternoon and they didn't know enough how to fix it. And so you all were spending $10 million on a new radio system that nobody needed and he could fix in an afternoon. I don't know anything about radios. I don't know anything about Chris Waltz's skills. I trust that your employees know what they're doing and that you wouldn't have made a $10 million investment on something that somebody else could do in an afternoon. So, I hope that you will also trust our parents and our families and our school board that their needs are legitimate, that they're just not making up wacky wacky things. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak on this public hearing?

Welcome. Thank you. Uh, Kelly Brennan Reiner, take two. Um, I, um, you know, this agendum item is listed as budget process, and I'm really here to speak more about budget process and budget priorities. Uh, it's what I spoke about last time. Um, if you'll remember, um, I spoke about how I enjoyed spending my Saturday with you all and, uh, learning a lot about the county and how it's operated. Um, and I also enjoyed and was pleased and impressed to hear how much value you give to your employees and how hard you work to make sure they have a healthy and positive work environment and are adequately compensated and retained. And those are things that are at the top of the mind of your peers on the school board. They wanted to do the very same thing. Um, and if you've been paying attention, you'll note that there's quite a disparity between um, what you all pay some of your employees and an equivalent what the uh, school board can pay their employees. Um, and I think that's something you really need to keep in mind and remember that we're really one team. You know, it's the school board and it's the board of supervisors, but it's all Montgomery County. Um, and I think we really need to keep that in mind as we work together to um, provide the best services we can to our citizens. Um, I also wanted to point out that um, you know, last budget season um, it was a sort of a

business as usual um, until you had that joint meeting and then it all went south. um you all essentially came in saying this is the way it is and this is how it's going to be and there was no opportunity for collaborative uh interaction with their schoolboard peers. Um it caught a lot of them offguard. A lot of them were new to the school board. Um, and that was really unfortunate because it resulted in some really hard feelings and it really uh got set off when some of you all felt like they were misleading you about what they were going to do with their budget. And again, this is something that needs to be talked about and dealt with. You know, there's a lot of interpersonal um angst between people, anger, frustration. we need to work that out if we're going to really make this thing work. Um, and so, um, I just feel like, uh, we can do better if we're more intentional about how we go about this process. You know, I spoke to Mr. King last spring after all of this and I said that meeting, that joint meeting was a waste of time and he totally agreed with me. So, um, we need to make this joint meeting coming up not a waste of time and we need to be having those conversations now. And it may be uncomfortable. You know, I know people were attacked and that's uncomfortable, but you need to to deal with it. Um, and also finally, you know, um, the way that you all withheld money from the school budget that they had asked for um, just was not right. And um you know um as Mr. King has said, we give them the money, they make the hard decisions. And Miss Bond, you know, at schoolboard meeting said, you know, you

all made it seem like we did something wrong and we didn't. And I couldn't completely agree with her. You they did not do anything wrong, but you all definitely made it seem like they did something wrong. That was a public safety issue that should have never even been before the school board. So, thank you.

Thank you. All right. Is there anybody else that would like to speak to the fiscal year 2627 budget process? Seeing nobody else coming forward, I'm going to close this public hearing and move to our final public hearing of the evening. And this is an amendment to the fisc year 2526 budget. Uh the total amount is $5,95,650 um related to school capital bond interest proceeds. Angie, is there anything for you to add before we move on? The public hearing was advertised to also include up to a million dollars of county appropriations because at the time that the uh public hearing had to be advertised, we were not certain about how much we would be bringing to the board tonight. But we do not have that on our agenda, only the school uh items.

Okay. And then I saw just a few minutes ago uh several members of the public schools staff came. So, thank you all very much for being here. Um so, we have the ability to ask some questions. Does anybody have any questions before we open the public hearing? Okay. We also have this as an agenda item later on in our agenda. So, if there's questions, we can ask them at that time, too. Um, for this public hearing, I didn't have anybody sign up in advance, but if anybody would like to come forward and speak to this fisc year 26 budget amendment, please come forward at this time. Seeing nobody, I'm going to close that public hearing and we will move to public address. And this is the opportunity to address the board on any issue. Um the same guidelines apply and we did have two PE speakers sign up in advance for um public address and first is Anna Vagan. Following uh Miss Vijayan is David Vanhuser. Who's your I've probably still messed it up. My apologies. Welcome again.

Okay, this is the last you'll see of me. This is I'm Anna Vajayan and I live in District A. Um, now I didn't budget my time very well with my um, previous presentation. Um, I'm going to email it to you later. Um, there was one other slide that I kind of really wanted you to look at. I'll just show the picture of it. Um, so on this slide, I've I've put the numbers um, I've kind of transformed the numbers that I presented on the previous the previous slide um, into percentages. So on this slide, so remember on the previous slide I said that I showed the data that show that from FY17 to FY26, both the um transfers to school operating fund and the general government portion of the general fund started at $46 million. The school operating fund ended up at $65 million in FY26. Um but the general government portion of the general fund ended up at $78 million. Yeah. $13 million more. Um, now for this next slide, I've shown um I've basically calculated percentage increase from FY16 in the previous year. Um, so the yellow bars represented the amount the percentage amount by which the transfers to the school operating fund are higher than they were in FY60. So the yellow bars are growing um and then the blue bars show um the percentage increase by which the general government portion of the general fund grew over that the FY16 amount and the blue bars are growing. Um now the blue bars are growing higher than the yellow bars. Um reflecting that

um the general government portion the general fund did grow more than um transfers to the school operating fund did over that 10-year period. Um now what I did want to point out though is there's I don't know if you can see this. There's a red line at 30 what was it? Um 35.36%. That red line shows how much inflation was from FY16 to FY26. Okay. So if if funding levels from FY16 kind of stayed the same over those 10 years um or or rather kept just merely kept up with inflation over those over those 10 years. Both bars should be up to that red line. They both are more. So both did grow more than inflation, but the general government portion of the general fund in blue grew a lot more um than the the yellow bars, the transfers to school operating fund. Okay, so that's that's the data. And so a few of my personal comments relative to this state, um something I hear quite often from some residents and some members of the board is that the schools are always asking for more and more money. Um, and there's the implication that somehow what they're asking for is excessive. I think this data shows that what they're asking for is not excessive. Um, and that the increases that they've received have actually been quite a bit less than the increases in the county's operating expenses over the same period of time. And I really don't mean to criticize or point fingers at anyone on the board. I know all of you support the schools. Um, but I just wanted to point out that maybe your perception of how much you're sending to the schools each year doesn't necessarily match the reality of what's happening within your budgets and what's make causing your budgets to grow so much over the past few years. Um, I hope you'll remember this data when you look

look at the budget for the schools this coming year and that you approve a healthy increase, an increase that's at least on par with the increases the county was able to see over the um, the past few years. So, I'll stop. Thank you. Thank you. David, I'll let you say your last name this time. Name's David Van Husseier. Live in Christensburg. Thank you.

Own property in the county magtorial district. Had a problem with the horses which y'all took care of. Um but I've also got zoning issues with the buildings on both sides. of my property. Um, also when I went to talk to the gentleman on the track E, I noticed that he's got u there's problems with his septic system. Um, he's got a pump system. I went to the health department and got the um where they had the septic system installed. It's never been modified or nothing. That's the only system he got. And his carport is parked over top the septic tank. His pump tank where he shows the pump at is at the backside. There's no way it's going to pump up the hill. He's built up a big burm system in front of the pumps, in front of the tanks, I guess, to catch the sewage, whatever. But there's a problem there. I don't know what could be done or what y'all if y'all can do something, but yeah, I need to bring it up if there is an issue.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I don't have the uh I think we have we have your contact information so we'll be able to reach back out to you. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much.

Okay. And I didn't have anybody else that had signed up for public address, but anybody that is here um is welcome to come forward. You will state your name, where in the county you reside, and you have four minutes. Welcome. My name is Joshua Vanna. I live in District F. Um, director of Artemis, Virginia. I've been working with frontline communities and regional advocates fighting Mountain Valley pipeline and other associated projects for about 10 years. um was hoping some of my friends and colleagues would be able to be here tonight to um continue to speak on our concerns about the MVP boost project proposed. Um lots of folks either couldn't be here because of a previous commitment due to the rescheduling or are still kind of iced in. Um but a few of those folks wanted me to relay some things to you. So I'm going to try to do that. Um like to thank the board for its resolution from the December 15th meeting uh representing the concerns of Montgomery County residents on the proposed MVP boost swan compressor station plan for Elliston. Also like to thank the board for communicating those concerns uh to the FIK in their scoping comment period. Um, I'd like to ask ask that the board continue hearing community concerns and advocating for them to be uh seriously addressed as MVP Boost attempts to get a an air pollution permit uh from the Virginia DEQ likely sometime this year. Um, we understand that the board doesn't have state environmental regulatory authority on this project. Um but it the board can definitely help represent uh residents and their numerous concerns about the project and

facilitate uh DEQ actually hearing those concerns. Um I if I you know unfortunately in my experience with DEQ if I were uh certain that all of our concerns would be heard and acted on properly with DQ uh I probably wouldn't have to reiterate that but um regarding the air pollution permit um like to read a few things from DQ's MVP boost web page um on November 3rd 2025 5 Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC applied to Virginia DQ for a minor NSR permit for the Swan Compressor Station portion of the MVP boost project. As proposed, the compressor station would include three natural gas three natural gas fire turbines for a total of 36,900 horsepower operating continuously um for the compression and transmission of frack gas. Uh 15 natural gas fired microurbine generators potentially operating continuously to provide electrical power and backup power to the station. Five natural gas fuel heaters potentially operating continuously to preheat natural gas in order to maintain temperatures above due point prior to combustion. Um the application states that the proposed swan compressor station would emit more than 15 tons a year of sulfur dioxide, more than 20 tons a year of volatile organic compounds, more than 40 tons per year each of um particulate matter, PM10, PM2.5, um carbon monoxide, and more than 50 tons per year of nitrous oxide. Um among what would be emitted by the gas

turbines at this facility would be a number of different carcinogens likely fromaldahhide, benzene. Um these are things that people close to this facility. Um would probably if given the choice would not be breathing in, especially folks who um have pre-existing respiratory conditions such as asthma. Um, DEQ has a web page for this, but we'd like to request that the county also construct a web page for MVP boost similar to the one it has for the MVP mainline. Thank you. That's the end of your time, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Is there anybody else that would like to come forward during public address? Welcome again.

Thank you. I apologize. I'm Kelly Brennan from Riner. Setting kind some kind of a record here, but um um well, first tonight you're going to be um looking at the comprehensive plan or at least parts of the comprehensive plan. And I think uh Bri and her team have done an outstanding job with that. Um I think it's a fabulous plan, a fabulous vision for the county. Um so uh let's run with it. Um the issue that we've been talking about for a while now is data centers. Um you all assured us that there were no applications for data centers that um data centers weren't even mentioned in our zoning ordinances um and therefore not allowed u at least by right in our county. And um given that it it really confuses me as to why we would even want to come up with a zoning ordinance that might um lead to the presence of a data center in our county. Um I understand again there's the monetary imperative um but there's a whole lot more other um important imperatives about quality of life and everything that we're talking about in the comprehensive plan. And I think if you asked anybody in this county if they wanted a data center in their backyard or even a mile from their home, I think you'd get a really big no. Similar to the gentleman talking about the compressor compression station. Um, you know, if we want to preserve quality of life and protect environment, then we need to do that. Um, data centers are bad news, period. Um, and so I think, you know, it I'm really curious to hear an update on what kind of ordinance we're coming up with because that's

crazy. Um, if we if we one can't be allowed, then why do we need to change that? Um, unless there's some potential legal way that some developer could worm in here because we don't have anything on the books. I don't know. But again, um if we can't uh if one can't locate here, then why change it? You know, as we say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Um the other thing I wanted to talk about, um at that Saturday session, you all had a um presentation about the citizen um presentation on school uh funding for the last six years that was made in November. Um and essentially that presentation fundamentally was about just uh discrediting that presentation by that person. Um, I wish I had the technological skills that other people have, but um, basically you said that uh, there were lots of subjective um, elements to that analysis, but it was noted without being printed that all the math was correct. Okay, how do you figure that one out? And my question is, you know, you had all these tests that this um presentation should have had, like what previous boards think and imply and do. Well, do all of your county um assessments and analysis do the same thing? I think you should look back at that list and really see if your analyses of all the different things you analyze meet those same criteria. I really just felt like it was a um just a flatout dismissal of this citizen. And again, you know, we clearly got a passionate person here. Why aren't we

working with them instead of against them? You know, bring them on. Help us figure this thing out, right? Same with tonight's presentation. Let's work with people and collaborate. Thank you. Thank you. We are still in public address. if anybody else would like to come forward to address the board on any topic. Okay, seeing nobody else come forward, I'm going to close public address. We do not have an addendum this evening. So, our next item is to go into work session to discuss the county comprehensive plan. Is there a motion? So, moved. Is there a second? Second.

Okay. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Kits, I. Mr. King I Mr. Fijicowski I Miss Bigs I Mr. Gravki. Hi, Miss Karan. I Chair Deontz I. Seven eyes. This is exciting. Welcome. I know we're all really We've heard a lot about this. We've had several presentations. So, this is super exciting to get to this point. Welcome.

This This is exciting. Um, and I get the fun part. So, um, I'm just going to do the introduction and I'm going to turn it over to Justin because he has been the project lead and carried this all the way through and can probably tell you frontwards, backwards, upwards, and downwards and everything that you need to know about the comp plan. Um, so he's definitely our our resident expert. Um, so it is exciting. I remember when I did my first news interview, um I believe I was with Supervisor Biggs and we had the the interviewer asked me at that time, he said, "So, is this like your Super Bowl?" Um and I said, "Yes, this is our Super Bowl." And it is. And here we are. We are at one of the playoff games. Um so we're going to do this one for the playoff. We have another playoff coming up and then we'll have our public hearing and and that's our big harrah. Um so we're very excited. We have been through a long process as you can see you all have been there with us. Um we have went through lots of data gathering. We've done engagement throughout. Um and now we actually have some draft text to look at which by the way is not only great but it is very pretty. Um so that's that's the first thing I said when Justin showed it to me. I said this is so pretty. Um it's very reader friendly which was our goal. We wanted it to be readable by all of our citizens. Um, so it's reader friendly, user friendly. Um, it's going to be easy for our developers to use, easy for us to use as staff, you all as as our elected officials as you go through reviews. So, we are here at the final stages. Um, as I said, engagement does matter. We have done a lot of engagement. As you can see here, we've had multiple um, citizen interactions through open houses. These four open houses that we note here, those are just the ones that related to the overall plan. Um so that does not include the village plan open houses that we have

had and we will have one more set of those before we bring the village plans to you. Um what you're looking at now is just the main comprehensive plan and then those village plans will be added on as small area plans um along with two others. So we have multiple community surveys where we've had over 1100 participants um 10 planning commission work sessions, eight steering committee meetings and 25 stakeholders. Um so this just gives you an an view at how many people we had involved um because the steering committee is separate from stakeholder meetings. So we had all these different people um that were with us throughout this entire process and then at the beginning we had a lot of those public intercepts. Um the public open houses are not included in those public intercepts. So those are events that my staff and I attended. Um I sat in the planning commission last month or this month I guess. Um I am proud to say that every member of my team has been involved in this process and has attended multiple of these meetings. Um and that's impressive because when I say every member, I'm talking about our GIS staff, um interns, like we have had them all there and um we could not have done it without such a great team. I'm very proud of them. um they've put in a lot of work. So our main goal with this plan and and our guidance from you all is we want this to be the citizens voice. Um so this needs to come from the citizens. So what you are reading is what we have heard from the citiz citizens, our stakeholders and our steering committee as we went through um out everything. So these are just some of the quotes we picked up. Um you'll see some of this language throughout the plan. A lot of this language is from the citizens. it's for the citizens um and it's it's what they want. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Justin so he can give you all the great details and um then we

can answer any questions that you guys may have.

Thank you, Bri. Um and I'm very glad uh Supervisor Karan, welcome to the board. Uh for those of you who may not know, Supervisor Karan was a member of our citizen steering committee. uh supervisors King and Gravki were your board liaison to the steering committee. So some of this information is going to be familiar to them. Some of it might be new. We're excited to share everything with you this evening. Um so we have broken McGomery Matters up into five parts. Um we thought it was very important that our citizens who are reading this document understand what the process was to get to this draft text. Uh we wanted to have the document be very userfriendly as Bri mentioned to you. Um, so this first part is really outlining the plan and the process, talking about some of the overarching vision and goals that we had throughout the process, and talking about how we're tying McGomery Matters into other plans that are out in the community. So, at the very beginning of the process, we established several guiding principles, and Bri touched on a few of these, but I think it's good to reemphasize. Um, our mandate from you was that this would be a communitydriven plan. Um, and that is a very different approach to comprehensive planning than we did 20 years ago. We were very focused on making sure we had the experts in the room and making sure the plan reflected that. Um, unfortunately that type of comprehensive planning often leaves people out of the conversation. Um so something that our staff did from the very beginning was ensure that we were designing a process where people would feel welcome. People would feel able to come and express their opinions and then they would see those opinions and those ideas expressed in the final plan. We also wanted this plan to be concise and userfriendly. Our existing comprehensive plan without the village plans is over 350 pages. Uh McGomery Matters uh our goal is to keep it under 200 pages. So it will be a much more concise document. If you've looked through, you've noticed we rely very

heavily on graphics and charts and we try to keep our text as minimal as we can. Uh just again to be able to reference that policy guidance very easily. We also were dedicated to making sure that the plan was strategic with very detailed steps and tactics. Um at the end of the day, a list of goals is great, but if you don't have the actions to achieve them, then the plan is meaningless. So, we wanted to make sure that we had those steps. We had a realistic timeline for when we were going to execute those steps to make the goals a reality. Uh, and we were making sure that we were being strategic with our resources as well. We wanted to ensure that the plan was consistent and holistic. And that is again where we tied in those existing plans that are out there in various areas so that we could make sure one that we're not duplicating efforts, but also that we're not being contradictory to the efforts of other organizations and partners. And really something that we heard very loudly from the citizens is that they care about relationships. The thing that we do very well here in McGomery County and throughout the entire New River Valley is to work collaboratively. We understand that the county can't do everything. We need to work with our partners. So throughout this process, we really focused on not only identifying those partners, but figuring out ways that we can continue to work together in the future. So when we get into how the plan is going to be used, again we have a variety of different audiences that we needed to ensure were met through our comprehensive plan draft. We really want this document to again reflect the citizens and residents of the county. So having them be able to read this plan, have it not be in planner jargon so it can be in terms that they will understand and can apply to their everyday lives was very important to us. We also know that this document is going to be helpful to our developer uh developers and investors. So, we wanted to make sure that there was a very clear understanding of where the county is prioritizing growth and development and

how we're going to support them in those endeavors. And then ultimately, the comprehensive plan is a policy document. So, you as the board of supervisors and our appointed planning commissioners, making sure that the plan is consistent and clear so that when you're making these decisions, when you're weighing these current land use challenges and problems, that you have a document that you can go to and provide that consistency in your decision-m. So, as I mentioned, we looked at a variety of other plans. I've listed some of those for you here. Um, again, we built on our existing comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2004. What we heard very early on from the citizens is that that was a very good plan. There were some good ideas there and that they wanted to see those carried forward. What we have done though in some instances is tweaked those goals to really uh match our current time but also getting new ideas from the citizens as we move forward. Again, we worked with a variety of different organizations, looked at a number of different plans to make sure that we're looking at this really as a all-encompassing document. Chapter five is our community trends report. Um something that we did at the very beginning of the process is we needed to get a lay of the land. Where are we? What issues are we facing? Um and so I included this slide here for you just to show a little bit about the demographics of our community. It should not shock anyone that we are a bit younger than our neighboring jurisdictions. So our median age here in McGomery County is 28.4. Um the state average is the state median is 38 as well as the national average. Um, we are a little bit below the f federal and state median household income, but we are growing faster than the national and state rate. So, when we get into our matters of principle, these are really the overarching themes and goals that you'll see reflected throughout the entire document. Uh early in the process, we worked with our citizens to develop a

vision statement for McGomery Matters, and that's reflected here, keying in on the fact that our citizens believe that McGomery County is vibrant and resilient. They want us to be forward thinking in how we work together, and they want us to innovate to make sure that all of our residents can thrive. And then early on, we came up with these four uh principles that we call our core matters. You'll see these reflected in every chapter of McGomery Matters. Uh McGomery is going to be intentional, taking the initiative to anticipate opportunities before they occur. Accessible, making sure that we're providing opportunities and services for everyone in our community. Again, that collaborative spirit that we've talked about. And then resiliency. And it's not lost on me that when we were starting to have these conversations in 2024, our communities were recovering from Hurricane Helen. So the idea of resiliency was sort of front of mind for everyone, but we built upon that and it's not just environmental resiliency. It's making sure that we're prepared for any of those threats that may be lingering out there. Some key takeaways, what worked well, we again, as I mentioned, we looked back at McGomery County 2025 uh as a starting point and we looked at what worked well in that process and how can we build on that success. So in our previous comprehensive plan, there were multiple ways to participate. So we continued that forward. Again, local facilitation builds trust. We were out in the community having those conversations. It was our staff that was doing those frontline interactions with the citizens. Um, and that was again consistent from our last comprehensive plan. And again, having really clear data that we could rely on to make these recommendations. And you can see some recurring themes that carried over from our last comprehensive plan. uh a focus on preserving our rural landscape, improving transportation and housing, recreation and the arts, renewable energy. As you'll remember, we did a solar amendment to our existing comprehensive plan. And it was very

important that we honored the work that was done there and the input that we got from the citizens and made sure that that carried forward. Um and then building our digital capacity in terms of bringing more things on the internet to citizens u meeting them where they are as opposed to them having to come physically to the building. So some of the crosscutting ideas uh that you'll see reflected in the plan we have uh titled prime transformations. These are the big lifts that we will do as a county to execute the goals that you're reading in McGomery Matters. Um we've talked a lot about our zoning ordinance over the past several years. I'm happy to say that after we adopt McGomery Matters, we'll be moving right into a zoning ordinance update. that's really going to be a tool for us to ensure that these goals are able to be put into code and that we can start seeing um development happening around these goals through the zoning ordinance. We're also in the process of uh developing a parks master plan. I'm happy to say that the consulting firm that we've worked with on McGomery Matters is also working on that initiative. So, I think we're going to see a lot of cross collaboration between those two plans and that's going to be a very detailed network of of recommendations for our parks and recreation department. Um, because what you'll see as we get into these later chapters is that our community really cares about the outdoors and recreation and they want to see those resources continually invested in. We also heard a lot about a countywide interconnected trail network. We've talked a lot about the valleyto valley trail over the past several years. For those of you who were on the board, when we did our last village plans, we had our village transportation links initiative to provide multiple forms of transportation between our villages and the towns. Um, so that was a a prime transformation that was identified for our citizens that they wanted to see over the next 20 years. And then we heard a lot, as you might imagine, about growth in the county. Um, we heard a lot from our citizens that they love the county, but what they love about the county is the rural areas and that they can come to

town or go into the village when they need a service. So, we were very intentional with our approach to how we were going to manage growth over the next 20 years in the county and I look forward to sharing that with you as we move forward. So, if you'll remember in our existing comprehensive plan, we targeted 80% of all growth in the county to be in our villages and the two towns. Um, if you've been in Blackburg and Christiansburg lately, you know that land is at a premium in those communities. Um, and we can really focus because we have the infrastructure to support it. We can really focus on more dense development in the two towns. But what we heard when we did our village engagement throughout the spring and summer of last year is that our citizens really didn't want the villages to be that next tier that captured growth. A lot of our villages have grown faster than others and that development pressure has really impacted our citizens and that feeling of what makes their community unique to them. So something that we heard was we want something else to capture this growth and that was where we came up with this idea of of growth areas and we've identified two growth areas and we talked about this with you at your work session. The midcount area that we're referring to as the Marramck growth area and then along the 177 corridor to the city of Radford which we're calling the Bethl growth area. Um these are areas where we can continue to invest in infrastructure to support development. It takes that development pressure off of our villages and it uh generally is adjacent to the two towns. So the type of development is going to be compatible with what we're seeing in the towns. Our next level are our villages. Uh we currently have six villages that are identified in our comprehensive plan through our engagement efforts with the villages. We will be recommending four villages going forward. And then a new tier, our rural villages, which will still have infrastructure. They will still support development, but they

won't capture that density like those other tiers. We also have identified settlement communities which are smaller u more residentially focused areas of the county. And then two things that we heard from our citizens were we like the rural nature of the county. We love the mountains. We love the vistas. We need to protect those. So we've identified both farm preservation areas and outdoor and natural areas that we will preserve in our future land use map. And again, trying to find that balance between how we can grow responsibly but preserve that quality of life that our citizens have told us repeatedly that they enjoy. So the structure of the plan um again we've covered our tri our prime transformations. We have goals established in each of the chapters. Under those goals are a variety of strategies that we can use to achieve the goal. And then we have detailed actions uh that you'll see that support those strategies and ultimately will help us to attain the goal. So our part two is our outdoors and culture matters section. This contains three chapters of the comprehensive plan focusing on environmental resources, cultural and historic preservation and recreation. And as we go through each chapter and when we get to parts three and four, you'll see that this chapter organization is consistent. We have an introduction. We talk about what we heard from the citizens and we refer to that as McGomery's voice. We do a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat analysis regarding that chapter and those goals. We provide the goals listing with the strategies. We give you data snapshots to support that goal development. And then we list out the individual actions. So when we get into outdoors and culture, there were some actions that were sort of crosscutting across all the chapters. So those were put up front here. You'll notice the way these are organized. We have the action numbered. We have if it's a program, a capital

investment, an activity or an initiative. We have the organization or the department that will be leading the initiative. And then we have a time frame. As I mentioned to you at your work session, one of the tools that we're developing in conjunction with the plan is a tracking tool that we'll be able to go to regularly with the planning commission on a yearly basis and see if we're making progress toward these goals or if we need to change our approach or our efforts. So, just highlighting a few of those crosscutting actions here. Uh utilizing profers for new developments, setting aside open space. Uh again, making sure that we're bringing that natural environment into our communities that we're developing, supporting our regional tourism efforts, and supporting heritage tourism. And then we talk, as I said, as in each chapter, we talk about Montgomery's voice, and these are the needs that our citizens have said throughout the process that need to be addressed. Uh in terms of our environmental needs, we there was a concern regarding the loss of native habitat uh due to new development uh impaired waterways according to the EPA's analysis and continued loss of local farmland. When we get into our environmental goals, we have three under this chapter relating to natural resource stewardship, streams, rivers, and water quality, and then natural hazards. You'll notice with each goal sheet uh we detail the goal. We detail the strategies. We provide a little bit of background about why the goal was developed and then we identify for each of the goals certain metrics that we can use in our evaluation to see how well we are addressing the goal as we go through the process. And as I noted, collaboration is a huge part of this plan. So on every goal, we identify our partners outside of Montgomery County government who we will work with to ensure that these goals can be executed. And as I mentioned, we identify these priority actions. Priority actions are

going to be things that we're going to achieve hopefully over the next five years. Um, so we prioritize those there. Again, we identify the uh department or organization that's going to be responsible for that. You can see planning and zoning is going to be very busy on this particular initiative over the next 5 years. But then we also have a vision list. These are things that we're going to accomplish over the next 15 or 20 years. And the great thing about having these outlined in this way is we can work with the board of supervisors and the planning commission to go in and prioritize these goals as we do our yearly review with the tracking sheet and then the required five-year review by state code. If we want to prioritize one of these in a in a earlier year, we can do so. And having those laid out in this way allows us to do that. regarding our history and culture. Um, some of the things that we heard from the citizens is there's a lack of awareness of our institutions that we have available here in the region. Uh, internet access was something that we heard regularly. Uh, uncertain funding sources and organizations that were working in silos and maybe not working collaboratively. We identified two goals in history and culture. uh historic preservation, which was something that our citizens mentioned quite often uh as we met with them, wanting to make sure that we're preserving not only our historic structures, but our historic viewsheds. And then our cultural facilities and fine arts. We have with the university and other organizations here in the region, uh a really great opportunity to expose our citizens to the arts and give them connections to the arts. So, working on ways that we can continue to emphasize that over the next 20 years. our history and culture priority actions. Again, these are our five-year goals. Again, uh working with tourism, working with our department, working with public schools uh to achieve these goals over the next five years. And then our vision list uh going up to 2045.

And then recreation. And I will say this is the area that I think we heard the most about. Um our citizens like their parks. They like all of the outdoor uh recreation and resources that we have here in the county. Um and they really want to make sure that we're providing the resources and staffing to maintain those facilities. Consistency amongst our trail system. Uh we heard a lot about the need for more indoor space for equipment and programs, particularly senior programs. Uh hosting sports leagues. Um some confusion about having three different parks and recreation departments within the county. um our citizens said repeatedly they don't care who's providing the service, they just want the service. So opportunities that we can all work uh together between those three organizations and then access to the new river was something that we heard repeatedly from citizens. We have three goals that were identified here. Community health, uh recreational access, and environmental and cultural resources. I think these goals show again how cross-disciplinary the comprehensive plan is. Outcomes um for health are directly tied to how often people are able to get recreation opportunities. We know that uh children who are more active perform better in schools. So again, even though we have the chapters divided up in this way, there are going to be cross uh pollinated themes that you're going to see throughout the plan. And then our priority actions here, parks and recreation, they're going to get the lion share of these, of course. Um, and these will dovetail into the work that's happening with the parks master plan and will give them again a very detailed um outlook over the next 5 to 10 years um through their plan. So in terms of next steps uh one of the requirements that we have uh through the state code is that VOTE has to do a review of uh the document uh particularly how it relates to

transportation outcomes. Um as you'll remember back in 2023 we adopted transportation matters which is functioning as our uh transportation chapter for the document. Um, so we already feel that we're going to have a very quick review with VOTE, but that's with them now and we expect feedback from them within the next 30 days. We plan to bring parts three and four to you for work session at your February 9th meeting and holding public hearings with the planning commission on March 11th and with you on March the 23rd. Um, our goal is to have all of our draft feedback integrated in, get this on the McGomery Matters website so the citizens have a good amount of time that they can go in and research and study the plan and then we'll adopt McGomery Matters. Um, we still have some work to do though. Um, as Bri alluded, we are going to be doing another round of village meetings in April and May. Um, we'll be out in Shawville and Ellison. We're going to do that as a combined meeting because as you can imagine we had citizens coming to both meetings from that part of the county and a lot of the recommendations between Shawville and Ellison are going to be very similar because they share that one transportation corridor. Um so we're hoping that getting everybody together we can get some good uh collaboration and discussion there. We'll be in Reiner and we'll be in Prices Fork. Our plan is to finalize all of our village plans and the future land use map and bring that back to you in June so that we will wrap up this entire project in this fiscal year. And with that, I will take any questions that you have.

Thank you so much um for bringing the first two parts to us this evening, but also for you know the two years plus of work that has gone into this. Am I correct in that it's been Yes. So, thank you and thank you to Bri as well. Um, and every member of your staff. Um, so let's see what kind of questions people have. I know we have some supervisors that are way ahead of the rest of us in understanding this. Also, um, we did have printed copies made available in uh, the administrative suite. So, if anybody needs a printed copy of the plan, those are available. Um, but let's see what kind of questions. We'll start uh with Miss Karan just because I know you served um on a steering committee.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that. Thank you. Um it's not a question. There are two minor things I think to make it even more perfect. one I noticed that under the state of the county trend section page 11 figure 4 do not include any Hispanic fig population of the county in the other other uh graphs they are included but there's one particular one I mean we have a quite a bit population so I don't think it will be right to you know not have and I'll yeah we'll go and walk

I mean it is so minor I don't want to blemish the perfect document here but and the other thing is I think one of the partners when you mentioned in the U recreation section um I think the uh it's called now Virginia Tech Art Center most art center not being used I thought we caught all the mosses but we will go back and change that yes ma'am

I mean I still call it most center but uh it's a great work. I'm proud to be part of it from the beginning and thank you for including me uh representing the Blackburg community. It was an honor and I think I tried to attend as many meetings as possible. I miss couple village meetings but I hope I will make them next time around when April May comes. But thank you for all you did and happy fifth anniversary also. Oh, thank you with us. Thank you for your service to the committee. It was great to have you. Thank you, Supervisor Graphski.

Um, I I don't have any questions, but I just want to comment that, you know, this is not the first time that I've seen uh Justin's presentation, but every each time I there's there's just something else. It's like re-watching like a favorite movie or a favorite show, right? Like you you catch some nuance to it. Um, and I think that's what makes this document so special is it it it's not superficial whatsoever. There's there's layers and nuance to it that really reflect um kind of a top down and bottom up approach, you know, collecting the citizen input using kind of the vision of of county leadership uh to put this together. So, um, thank you, uh, for for all the work there and I'm just looking forward to seeing the whole the whole document. Thank you.

And then I'm going to skip over to Supervisor King because no nothing. Okay, Supervisor Biggs,

I can't tell you how impressed I am with this whole thing, having lived through other comp plans, having been on the board so long. Um, the organization, I went through the whole thing that was sent out last night. I was reading everything and um I mean I'm blown away. Literally blown away and the fact that we did go with the citizens and you put all this together. Um I have a couple things that I that stood out to me that I thought were interesting. One of the things is protecting the farmland and I know that's a really difficult issue if you know folks want to sell their property and this has come up every time I've gone to the Farm Bureau uh dinners this is one of the things that they talk about and so I'll be real interested in how that's going to fit together like what can we do or how do we go about you know doing that and the other thing I think it that really stands out that has sort of floated around for years is your mention of parks and wreck and Christiansburg, Blackburg, and the county all having their different departments and there's never really been like a coordination to see if things can be brought together and so I was really happy to see that in there too. I just think you all have done an outstanding job. Um the hours that you've put in beyond your work hours is just astronomical. So, thank you for everything that you and the staff have done and I look forward to the rest of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Biggs. Uh, you mentioned the Farm Bureau. I want to give a shout out to Mr. Bruce Stanger uh who served on our citizen steering committee uh and advocated to make sure that the voice of the farmer was uh reflected in everything that we were doing. Um, one thing that I'm really happy that we've addressed in the plan, uh, we talk about agurism, we talk about other strategies that our local farmers can use so that maybe the the draw of a developer, uh, isn't going to be their only option for being able to keep their family farm. So, I think the document is going to provide some strategies and some actions uh, to provide options for our farming community because again, it was identified not just by the farming community, but by our citizens that they want our food grown here. They want options uh to get out into the community and experience the rural landscape.

Yeah, I think it's just really important. I know my district probably doesn't have a farm in it, but I've always been interested in that aspect. So, I'm glad that Bruce was involved with this. He's a great guy. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I think I might have one little tiny farm in my district, like very small. And I was just going to say quickly is that the planning commission had very similar uh uh sentiments as it related to you know how we walk that line with uh with our agricultural land and and support our farmers. So good insights. Supervisor kits.

I just want to say I appreciate because I'd come around like during Christiansburg at different fairs and things and I'd stop and ask questions. cuz I've kind of pulled my hat down and so nobody knew really who I was and I just kind of pitched people to come over to ask to put their information on there and you were really patient trying to explain as this because this gets really really deep. So I'm very appreciative of the effort that you and the staff have put into this. It shows in the product that you have now and it shows the pride you have in the community that I think speaks uh a lot louder and should tell everybody how much pride you and the staff have in in what we're doing. So, I just want to say thank you. I'll get more into this. You know, I will as uh as you get build this up and uh I'll have more questions a little bit later, but thank you.

Vice Chair Fijowski, anything?

Yeah, I'll uh add on to the uh the concerns for farms. Uh the one piece of advice that was given to me when I got elected was from Jim Politis, former um supervisor District D. Um he said, "Take care of the farmers." And uh I'm glad to see that that's being done. That's that's great. Um I really enjoyed going to the village meetings and the several meetings that you had up here uh in the government center. Um you guys did outstanding job just going out of your way to pull everything out of every citizen that walked through the door. And if they didn't have an opportunity to speak their mind, then I don't know what they were looking at because uh you you all did a outstanding job on that. And uh that's all I've got. I don't have any questions. Thank you.

I think people are still getting sticky residue off of their fingertips. But we had a lot of dots over the past two years. Well, I think the comments um really reflect how excited the board is um for you to wrap this up and also to be able to have this document to guide decision making for you know the next 5 to 10 years. So, this is just a really exciting update. We'll look forward to seeing you at our very next meeting for parts three and four. Um and thank you very very much for your perseverance. um and dedication to this effort. It really means a lot.

Thank you. And if I may, um we we talked a lot about stakeholders. Uh we worked a lot with our external stakeholders, but I I want to make sure to mention uh thank you for the admiration of county employees because all of our departments also participated as stakeholders throughout this process. We have the parks plan, we have the fire and EMS study. All of these things are sort of going on. And something we talked about amongst staff was, are we going to get survey fatigue? Um asking our citizens these questions in all these different areas. And we asked oursel internally, are we going to get staff fatigue by asking um our departments to add another meeting to their calendar? But everyone showed up. Everyone provided really great feedback. Um and this really is a document that our department can be proud of, but the entire county can be proud of because we all work together. So thank you for your leadership and support.

Thank you. Okay. Is there a motion to come out of work session? So moved. Is there a second? Okay. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King. I. Mr. Fijicowski. I. Miss Biggs. I. Mr. Gravy. I. Miss. Karan. I. Mr. Kits. I. Chair Deontz. I. Seven eyes. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. The time is 8:53. We'll take 10 minutes and come back at 9:03. Actually, I'll give us till 9:04. Feeling generous.

and um reconvene. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Fijicowski. I Miss Biggs. Hi, Mr. Gravski. Hi. I Miss Guron. Hi, Mr. Kits. I Mr. King. I chair Dematz. I Seven eyes. Okay. Our first item of new business this evening is the reasonzoning that we heard earlier during our public hearings. Um, is there a motion with regards to the resoning request? Motion.

Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Biggs, I. Mr. Gravy, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits, I. Mr. Fikowski, I. Mr. Keane, I. Chair Dematz, I. Seven eyes. Okay. The next item on our agenda for new business is the ordinance for the county reassessment frequency. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. If do we have any discussion?

Yes. I have a question if if I could ask. Um do we know how much of an increase from our last assessment in 22 that we paid? Um compared to this one that's coming up in 2022. The contract price was $685,000 and this year it's a million. Thank you. Can I Yeah, please. Time for comments.

I tell you this, this is an issue that um I really thought more citizens would get involved in. I tried to talk to as many that would speak to me and a lot of them kind of felt that um either way it went, they were be okay with it. Um, but when you're going down to pros and cons and the question I just asked about the cost is is one of the things that that worries me that as we move forward in time, uh, that this is an issue we're going to have to deal with at some point if it doesn't pass. um we're going to have to deal with it because we're going to start running out of companies that are going to do this type of work. And if we've already had a approximately $400,000 inc increase in the cost, what's it going to be four years from now? Um that that's something that is uh that's kind of been weighing on my mind. I I'm also not so naive to think that if we handle it inhouse that we'll be able to work with the citizens much better. Um because you're going to have citizens, it doesn't matter what kind of argument you make or what you say, they do not want their taxes to go up. And so you're you're going to have unhappy people. I mean, there's just no way around it. But I also feel that it's going to be more accurate. It's going to be uh I think fair to everyone or should be more fair. Um the last chart that you sent us I thought was very interesting because the two other

counties, they seem to get a lot closer to what the real assessment should be. And I think that's the goal. um instead of the these shock uh increases that it should it should level out. And I think it's something that like I said, we're going to have to do it eventually because uh we're going to we're going to get priced out. If the the cost of doing it keeps going up, then it's going to get real close to the to the cost that we're going to be spending, which is the other downside. I I I don't like spending a lot of money. I don't really not crazy about creating a new uh department in the uh county, but um it it comes with the territory. So, that's my thought.

Supervisor King.

Well, as each of you know, I've been against this from day one. Number one is we're starting off with $600,000. That's a year. That's not a onetime thing. We're paying a million dollars every four years. Now, we're getting ready to go through the budget trying to find money for everybody. I think this is just an expense that we don't have to take up right now. I still I know people saying every two years, but think about this. Your house is more likely are going to go up every year. So it's going to go up one amount in two years, another amount two more years. That's four years. It's going to have an increase every time you reassess. This board has control over the tax rate. This board has control over that. We can look after citizens for right now and leave it where it is. I'm totally against every two years

supervisor kits.

So that's a 46% increase from the last time. If you spread that out over four years, every year it's 11 and a half%. So extrapolate that and go further as it gets the amount of people that can do it gets smaller and the ability to control the price goes up. If you do a 46% every four years, and that's just, you know, we're ballparking here. We don't know. That's a significant emotional event as you get four years out. Um, I'm a big one on trying to project forward. I'm a big one on trying to make sure that I I I talked about force projection before to be able to talk about where our departments need to be in four to 10 years. Where do we need to be in 10 to 15? How do we need to be able to present to be able to grow and match the needs of the people that we have? Um, and it's not just now. We need to look ahead. If you want to fix things and do things for now, you're already behind and you're already you've already lost that battle. So, I understand where Supervisor King's coming from and I respect that point because that's the way business has been done, but you can't expect a different result unless you change the math. And we need to be able to adjust and change the math so we are more responsive to the needs of the county. We have more flexibility and we are able to accomplish the goals that we set forth moving forward. Until that time, we're just pedaling or moving backwards and we're not growing. And one of the things I had asked before, as I said, the force projection was to make sure that our staffing needs were up where by department based on population. And I know I've asked that. I know it's coming, but we're not. We're way below counties that are our size personnel wise to take care of the citizens needs. And that has to be addressed also. So, I'm 100% for this. I had asked this question when I first came on the board because I didn't understand where we

were as far as as that goes. So, I'm 100% behind this because I think it's this is a chance for us to adjust to the time period that we're in and to be able to look forward. So, I'll leave it at that. Okay. Do we have comments on this side? Yeah. Um, remind me if you know off the top of your head, Miss Hill, what what percent of our county's revenue comes from real estate taxes? I don't know off the top of my head. I can look that up while you talk. We'll come back to that. That's right. I think it's a significant it is significant.

And you know, with that said, I think that the consistency, the accuracy of real estate assessments is a vital input to um the county's sustainability, you know, uh things like that. And and then I started to think about this, you know, businesses have to think about do do I make the you know, do do we have the competency internally or do we outsource for you know these functions and we've outsourced this for a long time and this has already been brought up um by two of my colleagues here but you know as the availability of that external resource shrinks. Um there very well could be a time where we're kind of caught with, you know, uh um without access to this and you know, what do we do then if if we uh don't have a contractor to do the reassessment and then we're put in the position where we've we've got to build this competency anyway. So, I I think that we're being prudent in trying to get ahead of that curve. I think like uh Supervisor Fijicowski said down there um and internalizing a very vital function to the operation uh of the county.

35% 35% of our of our revenues come from Okay. from real estate. Real estate. Thank you, Supervisor Biggs. you also had some questions.

Um, yeah, this is something that I've uh brought up a number of times um over over time and so I I've always been for this and I think it's the the main reason our county is large enough now that I think that we need to be looking at this and I think it's a more balanced and fair way to do things. Um, one thing that we haven't mentioned that I think that it would help in the budgeting process for our staff because um, they can they can look at they can look at what's coming in and a little bit, you know, not waiting four years, but like look at it a little bit differently. And I I really think it helps with the budgeting. I think it will help with our citizens. And I think that, you know, you don't have that big shocker stick, you know, like like we we had last time. um is a gradual thing and when you're thinking about as some of the supervisors have mentioned planning for the future which we all are here to do um it's a way to help with that planning for the future and how you meet your needs and how you're going to pay for your needs because you know that's that all goes into the budgeting process. So I am very much in favor of this. Thank you

supervisor Kron. Well, I think all my supervisors explain this or um share their thinking very eloquently. Um I mean all the same reasons. I don't want to repeat and take time but definitely less surprising. uh definitely close to the real value and I think there's an advantage of having your own employee doing those things in instead of contracting to people and hopefully the cost will be u on our side and also year-to-year budgeting um I'm just part of the budgeting module on the supervisor's school and and I think that's one of the things that they mentioned that there as well that it is important important to see what we do down the road five years planning how this will um work with that and we will know a little better than every four years results so so I'm in support

well okay go ahead

um I apologize madam chair uh one thing I forgot to bring up was that I wanted to mention was the other thing for this is the change in commercial real estate that that many of us have seen with buildings being sold that they're being grossly undervalued. Um, and I think this gives us an ability to adjust that also because that's one thing that keeps getting left out because Reno's County, I think, was 13% of their real estate parcels. Ours was 17%. So, it's 4% more as far as parcels go to be able to adjust that too. And I think that comes into play also. So, I apologize for interrupting. Well, I just have um kind of a couple things to add that reflect some of my colleagues comments. Um but what has been particularly impactful for me in making this decision um are are three things. Um one, we are the largest county in Virginia that is still in a four-year reassessment cycle. Why? um and and wondering is that a good thing or is that a bad bad thing in the way that in my view from district G um in Blackburg uh we are a very high growth county and um by not reassessing on a more frequent cycle um I don't think that we are adequately capturing the growth and it does result in sticker shock every four years related to that um is also just in the ability to more equitably assess real estate taxes. And so looking at that again from the perspective of district G um without this is uh a conjecture. This is not factual. I would guess that my district has the most rental property, residential rental property of any of our districts. And I

know Mary, yours is probably a very close second. Um but with um such a heavy concentration of rental property um and purpose-built student housing especially in my district um I don't think anybody up here has um has missed the news that rental rates are rising um which is tied to valuation of those commercial properties um which means you know if rental rates are increasing four or 5% a year in some cases um considerably higher then we have a 20% over a four-year cycle rental increase that we're not able to capture with the real estate assessment. Um and and that creates inequity um throughout the entire county because some properties are not assessed fairly um based on the valuations of you know the income but also um just their market valuations. And then finally, I am um quite convinced and especially after hearing some of the citizen comments tonight um that bringing reassessment inhouse will result in better customer service, better citizen service and more consistent citizen service. um because having permanent full-time employees in that office um that know our community, that live in our community um and are familiar with um the character of our community I think is a real benefit to the reassessment process. Are there any other comments, questions, concerns before we go to the vote? Madame Clerk, if you'll call the role, please.

Mr. Grassi, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kitz I Mr. King no Mr. Ficowski I. Miss BS I. Chair Deamontz I. Six eyes's one no. Motion carries. Okay. And then the next item on our new business agenda is the general services capital transfer for $790,000. Motion. Second. Okay. That was quick. Um do we have um any information about that? I I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but I think so too. I don't have anything to add unless you have questions.

Okay. Does anybody have any questions? This is specifically uh to transfer funds to be used in support of the courthouse roof replacement project. Um and this is part of um kind of the ongoing plan. The board of supervisors has been talking about this for quite a while. Um so I'm not seeing any questions. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Karan. Yes. Mr. Kits. I. Mr. King. I Mr. Fijicowski I Miss Biggs I Mr. Ravski I, Chair Dematz, I, seven eyes.

Okay. Our next item is the NCPS supplemental appropriations school capital improvement fund. Um, this is for $5,95,650. Is there a motion? I know there's going to be discussion, but is there a motion? I'll move it. I'll second. Okay. And discussion, um, I will Let's see. I'll start. Supervisor Biggs, did you have any questions or anything? We have uh members of staff from the schools here as well.

Yeah. Um this is something um I talked to Supervisor King earlier about and the question is of the money um I see that 4,500 is going to Christiansburg High School. And I just wanted clarification because at one point in time last year I think the former superintendent said that there was an um leftover from Christiansburg High School from what they did. there was leftover amount of money and so I was just wondering like what happened or what the difference is or could we get that straight?

I think probably that would be best answered by any of you guys whomever wants to come forward. Um the the question was at our at our last update we were told it was under budget and so and there was extra money. Yes. I think it was at our uh joint meeting at the end of June.

Yeah. End of June last year. Welcome all of you. All right. Um I'm Angela Bland. I am the director of finance for the schools. Um I'm going to go back a little bit though to my purchasing days because I think that will better answer or help to answer this question. Um I was in the role of supervisor of purchasing when this solicitation was issued. When we received the bids and we had an apparent low bidder, the architect and engineering firm at that time scheduled a meeting and um invited the apparent low bidder and um the district administration as well as the um facilities staff um for the district. And that allowed us to sit in the room together and look at the funding and do some value engineering to be able to reach an amount that we were able to award the contract. Um at that time the cost estimates were higher than what had been appropriated for this amount. So we went through a lot of different value engineering. We we cuted a lot of things. Um some things just could not be cut um because it would materially change you know the the scope of the project. Um we pulled out owner direct purchases. So we pulled out some parts, goods and supplies, equipment, different things of that nature, larger purchases that we could save on um taxes. So, we we pulled that out, contracted ourselves, and there was a tax savings to do that. At the end of the day, um, and looking at all of that, um, in order to to even reach an amount that we could come close to being able to award to, we had to pretty much cut out all contingency costs, um, and lower the technology budget for this project by half. Um, after doing that, um, a decision by the district administration was made to award that contract. um there was still a shortfall of approximately $1.3 million at that time. The the guidance was to move forward.

Hopefully, there would be more cost savings. Um but in addition, there would be capital funds, you know, each year that could be utilized for the balance of that towards the end of the project. Um I I mentioned that the soft costs including technology costs were pretty much cut in half. Um at the end of the day for this project, we pretty much we have all the technology needs together. that amounts to approximately $1.6 million. Um that that budget was called cut to $885,000 as part of that budget. Um so there is a shortfall for the technology needs and those technology needs um they are that their needs they're not wants. It's just to address you know items needed for instruction and operations. Um in addition I can only give you an amount. I can't speak to what they are but Dr. Brown is here to help with some of that, but um to date we have incurred change orders of approximately $1,350,000. Um these are unforeseen site conditions um and construction conditions, but he could speak more to that. I'll let him speak on on that matter. Um there have been several presentations to the to the school board. Um the architect and engineering firm typically comes in and gives that and and part of that presentation is a a budget presentation. And so they will talk about the finances of that. Um each of those presentations, I've gone back and looked at each one of those. Um and it does show that the amount is higher than what was appropriated. Um and in the discussions at that time, uh the district administration did advise that capital funds would have to be utilized if at the end of the day, you know, that there were no additional savings to account for that amount of money. Um and and so with that and looking at capital funding, if we were to utilize that, obviously we have 19 other schools um that that also rely on that capital funding and that at this point the the decision by the district administration was to try and utilize the interest um

savings um you know for this project in instead of taking capital funds in order to do that. Um but Dr. Brown is here and can speak on um the uh change orders if if if you would like to know, you know, more detail regarding those. Can I ask a follow-up question on your question just real quick and then I'll get right back to you. Yeah. And then I had something else just to say. Okay. Yeah.

Um just to clarify, you said there was not a contingency built in when you awarded the contract. Sue, the recommended contingency at the beginning of the project before it was finalized and awarded um generally is somewhere around 5% but it was about $5 million and that had to be cut out um in in order to reach an amount to be able to award it there. There were not funds for so there's no no contingency in the construction. That's

okay. Just Okay. So I think I understand and I understand how these things happen. So, I just want to be clear like so, you know, when we mentioned I guess Miss Hill mentioned the interest money at our June 30th meeting, there was some talk of that money going towards helping with the Blackburg Elementary Schools at that time. And so, we were unaware that this other stuff had happened and so it's the administration and the school board that would would prefer that the money go here for these needs. Is that correct? um for this dollar amount I I know you know this this obviously is a huge chunk of of that interest money there there are funds still remaining um you know to date we have not tried to get costs for any firms you know to look at doing that design um you know I don't think we're quite at that point um you can certainly go out right now and do that um but I think it's still maybe premature you know when we're looking at trying to build schools you know I and I don't know the exact dates but we were like three to five years out um to to do that now may be premature because I think their estimates, you know, I I don't know how much um value they would have at this point, but there is definitely still interest in pursuing that um at a at a different moment um in time.

They really need this amount to finish off Christiansburg High School on this request. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much for that explanation. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Okay. What other questions do we have? Supervisor kits.

So, I'm gonna come back to this and it you kind of answered one question, but I don't think you answered that question and maybe I'm wrong, but in June it was under budget and they were excited because they were ahead of schedule and under budget. Now, we're over budget because there wasn't a contingency filled in at the beginning. So that contingency is now going to be filled by the interest from the bond that was left there at that point for an extended period of time. Correct.

I that's where I learned the word arbitrage, which I I wish I'd never learned. Um I can't get it out of my head. But the problem I have with this is that was a hope and a wish because what if we didn't what if we didn't let the bond sit? What if we hadn't built that interest up? Then where are we at now? We we're in the middle of a project and now we're short. Am I am I understanding that right?

So in the capital money, you know, each year it's it's a little over $3 million. Um this this year um that this current fiscal year that we end when we started looking at the capital funds for that um there were discussions about, you know, do we need to set aside money at this point, you know, for um Chrisensburg High School. Um there had already been discussions about the interest um funds that were sitting there. Um so at that point because the needs were so great at our other schools, they decided to go ahead and use the three plus million, you know, towards those projects um and let the interest still be sitting there to accommodate, you know, for for for these additional costs that were coming in. um it would be the same and looking at it for the amount that we need we would need to use we would have had to use this current fiscal year's capital money as well as this coming um July funds in and it would take the majority of both of those years in order to to reach the amount that we need for this I'm just I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around because they were awarded the contract they knew where it was going to be. we decided that to limit the what am I saying the um contingency fund but yet now we're here and now we're having to play catch-up on that based on the interest and I just I understand I just have a problem trying to rationalize that on how we started with that and now we're here at this point and that things have come up things happen I understand that it's just I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the whole process of hopefully we're going to get to this point and whatever have whatever have to because you're talking taking two years of your capital budget in order to finish a project that they had already bid on previously. So that's maybe I'm hung up on that a little bit. So I'll let that go and I'll go to one of y'all. So I'm trying to process that one.

Supervisor King, first of all, thank you for being here.

Absolutely. When we all started, the school board board supervisor sat down, had a discussion, several discussions, and we all agreed Chris Bird needed renovate. They needed it. We all agreed to that. We also agreed to 95,316,935. that also included furniture, fixtures, everything that it needed. But now on this 4.5, it says furnitureures, fixtures, and other things. And also, if I'm not mistaken, somebody correct me if I am, we had also money in there for changes. I think it was $5 million in there for changes. We appropriated $5 million and then we issued the bonds that were 90 million to make that 95.

Right.

I need help with this. When when the last superintendent come in front of us, they was on schedule and saving money. All of a sudden, here we go.

If this can be um helpful, you know, we we could certainly provide what the bid tabulation was for for the the lower parent bidder as well as what the architect cost um were agreed to. based on those two amounts. Um, when you look at that, there there wouldn't have been any money remaining based on that, you know, for for furniture or any of those other items. Um, I I I do believe when it was bid, you know, we were hoping that the cost would come in a little bit lower. Um, but that that didn't happen. And we did receive multiple bids. We I think there were five to six firms that responded and we did go with the the low apparent bidder. Um, but it it was higher than what we had hoped um during that process. What kind of different furniture do you need? We done paid for that once.

So, um the there's there's the the furniture that's currently in in in Christiansburg High School um is is very dated. Um there are also certain labs that require um certain tables and things of that nature that they're getting. There's there's nothing um there's nothing really special. These are the basic needs. chairs, desks, um teachers desks, uh things of that nature. Now, when you're when you're building it, we did pull into our kitchen. We pulled as much equipment. We kept as much equipment as we could utilize for that. You do need some new equipment, you know, when you're changing some of the processes and changing the the layout of that, but we utilized a great deal of equipment and and furniture um as as part of this new building.

Well, my apology to you that I have to ask these questions. No, I really do. I don't like putting somebody on the spot, but we're dealing with taxpayers money. Absolutely. The school board and the board of supervisor and the taxpayers agreed to $95 million. Now it's on almost $100 million.

I would like to put this vote off till we get more answers. Why this? why we was told head of schedule under a budget. It's got furniture down here. We done paid the taxpayers has done paid for that once. That's all I got. Thank y'all for being here. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Can I supervisor and and and not to to harp on this uh ahead of schedule under budget, but I'm I'm trying to to tease out um this project because it's kind of in two phases, right? You had the the new the expanded space and then now the kind of internal renovations. And so the the ahead of schedule under budget um that we keep referencing it was that more in reference to that that phase of the project the the addition and then now we're as as we're kind of coming into the the second half or the final stretch of this of the second phase. Is that where we're coming up short or

I believe so. Um I I think maybe Dr. Brown can better address um the change orders as as far as when those came into play as part of there's like some timing Sure. elements of this, right, that we should all consider. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I think what part of the issue is is that we didn't know about this until this came on our agenda that there was even any kind of issue. we were all back at the June meeting thinking, "Yay, it came in under budget and and money could be spent for other needs that the school board." So, this was sort of a shocker.

So, I hope I can answer your question and I can only speculate. Uh, I believe when that comment was made that we were under budget and on time, we were in a different phase of this project. There's actually really five phases. There was a phase zero and then one through four. We're currently in phase three. So I believe when the former superintendent made that comment, we were probably on time and under budget at that time. We're we're not over budget, but we, you know, we have had some unforeseen conditions that have come up, namely with unsuitable soil right off right off the in the in the first uh phase one. Uh we've recently encountered some unforeseen conditions inside that, you know, during pre-planning and and um the uh working drawing phase couldn't be discovered because it was behind hard surfaces and so forth. So, we've had to deal with a little bit of that. Uh in terms of furniture, um Supervisor King, you know, we're we're actually purchasing that f furniture at per phase. Um, so there was probably furniture in phase one, phase two, there'll be furniture in phase three, and there uh I think there's some in in phase four. I think we have one more. Is it one more or two more furniture?

Just one. One more. Yes. And we're going to sit down and comb through that and make sure we're we're only getting what we need. So we're we're not asking for any more than what we we need for the project. So I believe these funds will you know address some of some of the things in the past and and and current needs as well and going forward. So I hope that I hope that answer your question a little bit. It does and because like like I said I I I knew there was an element of phasing to this project and so you know what we

what we say on Monday could be very different than the reality of the situation on Friday. I mean, another organization I'm affiliated with, over the course of 8 to 12 months of planning for construction of a building, our budget grew by 20%. And we haven't put a shovel in the ground yet.

So, and to be fair, we've had to say no to some requests from from our people um just because of budgetary concerns. We we've had to say no and we've had to say maybe. And you know, we are very u aware of the budget and we are trying to stay on budget and and under budget if we could. Uh but we've had to say no to some of our folks and we're actually getting ready to uh review the budget again with the uh architect and we will have conversations with the contractor. I mean, we're in the final six months of this project and Miss Bland and I will keep our thumb on it and make sure our taxpayer dollars are being spent very wisely. So,

yep. Thank you. Um, and then the other thing I'll say, uh, is yes, our, you know, I wasn't on the board when we agreed to issue the bonds for this, but if I'm not mist, we're still only pay repaying principal and interest on the original issue, right? So, this interest money is kind of icing, right? This these aren't incremental. It's not costing.

These aren't incremental taxpayer dollars. Now, are they taxpayer dollars that or dollars that could be potentially allocated elsewhere? Yes. And uh going into a project without a contingency is uh not advisable, but we are where we are and we've got a we had a budget to work with. So, that's all. I'll shut up now.

Supervisor Karan, did you have anything to add or any questions? No, I'm I'm good. I was just going to mention uh this has been a difficult project and has been going on for a long time too and it's not just simple building from scratch or even renovating from you know scratch in so many parts and pieces and um you know I was going to bring that up then in different phases so probably what we heard at that time I wasn't on board but you know I heard it from the other side uh that we are, you know, on time under budget, but probably like for that particular phase that was meant to say. So, thank you for bringing it up.

So, the 4.5 million for the high school is mostly from change orders or what percentage would be change orders? don't have the I don't we don't have the exact percent uh tonight but you know there has been some change orders and some pretty sizable change orders due to unforeseen conditions um do you want to

sure I I I can speak more to amounts I I guess um for that so that the to date um we've incurred change orders um of approximately $1,350,000 um there is still the $1.3 million that at the beginning of the project was needed to complete all construction um and and is still sitting sitting out there to to to be um taken care of and and then in addition the technology needs um that original budget was at 8 885,000 um and you know they're 1.6 6 million. Now, that's that's with everything in um there there have been additional costs, you know, small buckets of money here and there. Um when obviously when you're doing a renovation and you go into a building, there's a lot of surprises and things that you don't expect. Um it's also a difficult project when you have students there every day. Um, one of the things that we ran into was having to move the parking lot so we could create new a new bus lot and new new student parking. And we had to completely move the bus loop um for a year in order to to to be able to allow them that access to get to the concurrent bus. That's easier said than done. We thought it would be a real simple you go behind the building, you pave it, and everyone's good. It is not. Um those buses are very large and to get them in and out um it's it's problematic. Um, we had to purchase large barriers.

Jersey walls. Thank you. I I do not I do not know the name of those, but they are tremendous concrete barriers to put up so that people didn't drive right into the bus lane as buses were trying to come out. So, um, there were just all of these uh expenses that also have accumulated to to help, you know, reach towards that 4.5. The the total costs are not exactly at 4.5. um you know, but they are this is where they're at and they're they're creeping up to that amount. Um this would allow us, you know, to to finish that out and we we are hoping and anticipating that there will be no further change orders. You know, we are in the final phases. We're in the last six months of this project. Um and we we're hoping that all those unexpected expenses and those unforeseen conditions, we've we found our way through those and we're going to move smoothly through the rest of this project.

Okay. Thank you. So, I'll start by thanking all of you for being here um very much and making sure that you were able to come over. I know you've had a long evening already, so thank you very much for all being here. Um I will say that entering into a $95 million construction contract with no contingency um is that takes me by a lot of surprise. Um, and I'm very disappointed um to hear that there is not contingency built into the contract because I don't think we would be having this discussion tonight if there was. Um, and so that's concerning because it would cover things like I mean we know the age of the building asbestous lead based paint um soil compaction issues you know that that that's what the contingency is there for. So I'm not saying that that is anybody that's here's fault. I'm just expressing my own personal disappointment that a $95 million construction contract was entered into with no contingency. Um I think this highlights though um the full request. So we have a $5 million five $5.1 million request in front of us. um four and a half of that is for the renovations, but we're also going to be able to use some of that um interest money for really important other projects um that I I don't want to lose sight of. So, I'm really excited to see we're going to do some playground work at our elementary schools in Christensburg. Um we've got the um design work for an HVAC replacement, preventative maintenance. That's speaking my language. I love to see that. Um, so I think that I don't want the um the really good stuff to be buried in that as well. Um, I will also say

I recognize the constraints of not having a contingency for this plan then meant where are we going to get that money? Let's look at future capital. I'm very happy that we don't have to use all of that money that's being set aside for future capital such as these smaller projects to deal with um the overruns on the Christiansburg High School project. So again, I appreciate all of you being here. I just wanted to share my thoughts. I don't know if anybody else had anything to add. Supervisor Bixs.

Okay. And I think um everybody is committed to finishing Christiansburg High School. Like um Supervisor Kan said, this has been going on for years and we really want to see it finished. I think that you've given us a good explanation about what happened. And I and I guess like what we could learn from this going forward is like as things come up like that, you know, and maybe it could be communicated back to us so we weren't caught by surprise and we were like informed. And um we were informed tonight. You all did a great job. You sat through our meeting. You brought everybody here. Um, and I can support it knowing that the administration and the school board, this is what they want to do with this money. And so, um, I just wanted to say that.

Supervisor Kits,

I want to apologize because I came off kind of aggressive on that one because I was trying to do the math in my head and that's not I'm an infantryman. That's not strong point for me. So, I just want to say thank you and I understand the the problems you're having and the complexities of the operation and I just want to make sure everybody understands that this is not coming out of the county's budget. This was interest that was acred. So, I'm a little disappointed that we don't have the money to put towards other things in the elementary schools and other projects as I know you guys are. So, I want to make sure that's crystal clear to everybody that I'm very appreciative of you being able to work within the constraints that you have with the tools that you have been given at this point. Um, I think we all agree that contingencies are important on any project, especially one with a school this old. Um, and I I I'm with Supervisor uh Damas on this one because I I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it again, but I know it's not your guys' fault on this one. And I don't want you to feel like you're getting pummeled on it because you're the people that are standing in front of us right now. And I thought maybe I came off a little harder on that one because I was just trying to get the math straight. So, I want to say thank you. I want to say I appreciate very much because Christiansburg High School is dear to me because it's right next to me. So, and it's where my daughter went to school. So, I think it's important. Um, so I'm for it. I can support it understanding that and again for the county, for everybody in the county, this is not coming out of any other budget other than an interest built on the bond. And I want to make sure that's clear. Thank you very much,

Supervisor King. Again, I want to apologize. Not necessarily, not necessary, but I do appreciate each and every one of you being here. Hopefully this $4 million will get us over the finish line. Yes,

I am kind of disappointed. You know, with both boards agreed $95 million and I wished it would have stuck to that, but I will support this so we can get over the finish line. And if you have to come back, send the school board members back. Thank you all for being here. And again, I apologize to each one of you.

And go ahead. One of the things that we would mention to um you know, we I did mention as as part of my explanation, there are presentations that the architect and engineering firm has provided to the school board. And we'd be more than happy if if if you were willing to include that on your agenda here and there, we'd be happy to provide, especially these larger um construction projects. we would be more than happy to come and give updates. Dr. Brown would be happy to to speak to everyone on that. And we could also we could also handle that via a memo. Um and and we get um county administrator updates regularly. And so those types of updates um directly to the county administrator that she could disseminate to the board would also be save you another nightly meeting.

It would enhance the communication. That's what we're all about. Yeah. So Okay. Well, thank you both very much. Thank all of you for being here as well. Um, with that, Madame Clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Karan. Yay. Mr. Graki.

So, I I have a a point of disclosure here. Um, so the EMHs clinic renovation here, that is clinic space, as I understand it, for the community health center of the New River Valley to open a school-based health clinic, of which I'm on their board of directors. Um, and so one, I want to disclose that and then two, either just just abstain from the vote. Okay. So, um, with that disclosure, I'll abstain. Okay. Miss BS I Mr. Fikowski I Mr. King I Mr. Kits I chairs I

six eyes one stayain motion carries thank you and thank you all um the next item on our new business is to schedule a public hearing for a temporary change of three polling places that are currently located in Squire Student Center. Um the public hearing will be on the relocation of those temporarily to Johnston student center also on Virginia Tech's campus. Um this would be for the June primary election only and it's due to some renovations that are going to be taking place in Squire Student Center. I don't know if anybody had anything to add before we get a motion on that. Okay. Is there a motion? So moved.

Second. Okay. Is there any discussion or questions? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Kitz I Mr. King I Mr. Ficowski I miss big I Mr. Gravski I Mr. Karan Hi, Chair Deamontz. I Seven eyes. And then our final uh new business item this evening is to certify the declaration of local emergency. Um you guys haven't seen this, but behind the scenes we have all been discussing how we dealt with the glaciers in our driveways and sidewalks. Um and this is to certify the declaration uh that our county administrator made over the weekend of this being a local emergency. Anything else to add or Okay. Is there a motion? So moved.

Second. Any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King, I. Mr. Ficowski, I. Miss big. I. Mr. Gravsky. Hi. Miss Karan. I. Mr. Kits. I. Chair Dematz. I. Seven eyes. County attorney's report.

Um, yeah. Real briefly. One, I want to thank the board for scheduling the public hearing for the uh for the three precincts that are located at Squires. Um, and we're going to probably have to do it again um because as you know, there could be another special election. Uh that'll be um sometime in the summer or early fall, I think, and maybe summer. Um and it's my understanding that Johnson would not be available at that point. So squires may not be done. So we may have to come back at a later time and put it somewhere else on campus. So the uh the registar is looking for a spot as we speak. Um and so once that election's set then we'll be back to schedule another public hearing not for the primary but for that um I believe it's going to be a special election on constitutional amendment. So if that happens may not. All right.

Okay. That's all I have. Thank you for that report, Mr. McMahon. We all loved it. Uh, county administrator's report.

I have a few things. Um, I want to thank the planning staff. They have done a really great job. All of them. I went to several, not nearly as many as they went to um, of their engagement events. And Bri described it very accurately. Everyone was there. Every staff person, they were excited. They had a good time. They interacted with the public. and that really does mean a lot. Thank you all very much, Justin. I know you've put a ton of work into that. Um, also there was a lot of work that was done over the weekend related to the winter storm. We had great collaboration. It was led by our emergency management services and it included county administration staff, social services, human resources, general services, utility department, the schools, public relations, animal care and adoption center, and the sheriff's office. I probably left somebody out, but we met um throughout the weekend and talked about the things that could happen with the predicted ICE and where would people be able to go, what if the interstate was shut down, what would we do with the the animals? You know, we did look at every aspect of that. And our general services staff is just awesome. They worked tirelessly over the weekend making sure that our facilities were ready to go this week as soon as they could be. They worked in such extremely cold temperatures. I really appreciate all that they do do for us every single day. They're really committed and I'm very thankful for them. Some other good news, the 911 authority has received notification that uh when the federal budget is approved, they're going to receive approximately $2.1 million in funding to help offset the cost of radios for the radio infrastructure project. And that will be split between the member jurisdictions based on the number of radios that each of us need to purchase. So that's really great news. That's um about half the

estimated cost of those radios. As you know, the radios are just a small portion of the big project that includes lots of tower upgrades as well. I mentioned that we've been working on our budget. The county departments, agency heads, and constitutional officers have met the past they we met this morning. It's Wednesday. It's supposed to be Monday. We met this morning and last Wednesday. uh for people to be able to present to that to that group what their budget requests are and it's really another great opportunity for us to collaborate. It generates some new ideas for um different approaches. Sometimes a third party in the room will hear two people present their budget requests and say, "Hey, maybe you guys should do this thing that will save money and consolidate a request." So, that's been going well and we look forward to presenting more to you about that in the future. Mary and I attended the Go Tech launch ribbon ribbon cutting at the Christiansburg Middle School last week. That was really fun and exciting. Mary will probably share more about that later. And then Friday, we had our service award celebration and lunchon. That was a great success again this year and I appreciate so much the board support of our employees and um all the work that human resources puts into that event. We recognized almost 900 years of service last week and I appreciate uh chair deonts vice chair Fijicowski and uh supervisor Biggs for attending that on behalf of the entire board. I know it really meant a lot to the employees. And finally, a week from tomorrow is legislative day in Richmond. So, I'm looking forward to that with several of you um joining us to meet with our legislators and share what the county has as priorities and some things that we might not want to see coming out of the general assembly. And that's all I

have. Thank you. Um now we'll go to supervisor's reports and I'm going to start with Supervisor King. positive.

Don't have no report, but I would like to thank all the utility workers. I'm talking about V.A.P. and and our staff here. I know they've been out there ever since this thing started and before VOTE done a really wonderful job with the roads. And uh one thing I got here, the uh chief of RER Fire Department wanted me to invite all of y'all, I had to get the time here to our awards banquet on February the 7th, starts at 6:00. If you can come, he would appreciate it. Just you can let me know or Angie and she'll uh relay it to him. That's all. Thank you. Maybe we can add that as an event to the calendar, too, just to pop that on there. February 7th at 6 o'clock. You said, Supervisor King, February 7th at 6 o'clock. Okay. Uh, Supervisor Biggs.

Um, just to add to what Miss Hill said about the Goatee. Uh, this was at Christensburg Middle School and it was really interesting because they had a variety of community folks that came in and actually got to see the students. um you know do the robotics and everything else. The thing is um well I got excited because I wanted to do the robotics but anyway it was for the students but I think it's going to be a real asset and it was uh it was an exciting time. Um, I just want to add that I want to thank also, as Supervisor King said, the staff and everyone that was involved in working towards this storm emergency because it was really critical and um, and thanks and I want to thank um, Scott for getting me here tonight since I couldn't get out of my home because of what was in front of it. So, um, anyway, that's that's basically it. and we're looking forward to going to Richmond to talk to our legislators. So, if you have something on your mind and you're not going to Richmond and you're on the board that you want us to to tell them, please let us know. And that's it.

Supervisor Kits. So, the first PSA is take the snow and ice off the top of your vehicles when you drive down the road because I had to dodge a full sheet of ice about 3 in thick that somebody didn't clear off their roof. It came off at one piece. I saw one hit a car in front of me and shatter their windshield. Be careful. Make sure you do that. That's my big public service announcement there. But I want to thank people that come forward for schools because I understand where you're coming from and I understand the passion. I do want to kind of temper some things because I want to put this out there because this is going to be a hard year for all of us. Sacrifices are going to have to be made and conversations are going to have to be had that are difficult this time because we're going to have to play a little expectation management. State revenues are going to be down. Our revenues are going to be down and there's going to be an intersection of things where we're going to run into areas we've never had to run into within the last let's say not never but within the last 10 to 15 years. So, we need to be able to look at this as an approach of where we're going to have to do this moving forward, but I sit and listen to everything they say. I have a chance to talk to people afterwards, and I take a lot of I take a copious amount of notes on the points that are brought up. Um, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the members of this board do not take it lightly on the money that is spent and how it is spent and how it is allocated. that it is an a very difficult process that we'll come to. But I just want everybody to understand a little expectation management in this cycle especially because we're going to come into some things that we haven't run into before. I also want to thank and I'm going to say this this go crazy but the Christiansburg town uh I'm trying to think the guys with the with the ice the snow trucks because they came through and cleared everything. God I couldn't get it out. public works for Christiansburg and I

know for Blackburg but Christiansburg those guys were out at two and three in the morning plowing roads and I want to say how appreciative I am even though you put a two-ft wall of ice at the end of my driveway that I had to have a pickaxe to get through I am still very appreciative of you guys even doing that point. So I want to say thank you because that's tough. It's hard. It's continuous and they don't get enough accolades for being out there at the hours that they're doing. So for our staff in the county and for the two towns, I just want to say to those guys, thank you very much. So that's all. Supervisor Gravski, do you have a report?

Uh just a couple quick things. Echo many of the sentiments here, right? To our towns, to VOTE for the great work they've done. Uh Angie, you your team and the staff here and all the planning and anticipation of this and being ready for just about anything. mother nature had to throw at us except for sheets of ice off of the top of cars. But um so just thank you for for your diligence in in making sure that we were as ready as we could be. Um glad we got the lower end of the range of that storm. But um I I wanted to to bring this up uh because two weeks ago at our planning commission meeting I was giving uh sadly my last liaison report uh to that group. Um, but it was requested of me to make sure that I shared the planning department's appreciation uh for the boards and administration's support of that team of their efforts um and and giving them the resources that they need to do the work. So, I just wanted to share their appreciation with you all. Um and then the last thing I have to add is um you know I'm the I'm on the regional commission uh as as s serve as our our representative to the regional commission and uh many of you know know or have heard the name Holly Leco. Holly retired this month officially. Um, you know, Holl's been she's only been at the the regional commission for five or six years, but she's been in this community for decades. Uh, she directed their community health program, which included oversight of the recovery ecosystem, which has just been such a huge, huge asset um in this region, in this

community. And so I just wanted to recognize Holly and all of her uh work and effort uh that she has done for this community in in her tenure at the regional commission. That's all I got.

Supervisor Karan. I will d um recognizing Miss Leco because she was very instrumental when when I was on the schoolboard side when we dealt with the COVID uh with the organiz of course with the regional health u district but she was there when we were giving the shots or we were getting the first shots uh uh very instrumental I think she's looking forward to the retirement I feel like um number of things did I know some other colleagues were with me but when we attended the schoolboard meeting where they announced the new superintendent so we met him and uh looking forward uh working uh with him and I uh attended the new supervisor uh forum uh that's why I couldn't actually make the um Christiansburg middle school event it was just overlapping too much the first one continue a little too much online so I wouldn't uh dash out the um Christiansburg Middle School but I was really looking forward they actually to see the robotics it's really fun to operate those things I did it in the back um and also I started my first module again with Waco I was in Richmond u and I came back right before the snowstorm and I was very worried that I won't be able to make it but uh it is on budgeting and I'm already learning a lot Um there are a lot of new supervisors from the area. So it's nice to you know meet with them too. So I didn't feel like I'm the only newbie. So that was good. And also I attended the library board meeting as a Leo zone. Uh first time not as a trustee. So that was very nice. They welcome me. Everybody was happy. Sorry supervisor kids. They they miss you too.

Uh that is wrapping up and thank you again for everyone for the uh dealing with the weather and of course thank you all the um Montgomery matters things that I'm so proud of it that I was teeny bitty part of it.

Vice Chair Fijicowski. Um, I really enjoyed the um uh the employee awards um that we had. Uh it's it's amazing how I think we're up to three sessions now. Um how many employees that we have, but to see their faces and be able to talk to them and uh it's just is just a great moment um that they they put so much into their jobs which benefits all our citizens and I'm very grateful for that. Um, and on a darker note, um, I just heard that it was a a rock slide on Alageney Springs Road. I think one lane is blocked, so if you're going that way, uh, plan on, uh, taking a little bit of time. And lastly, um, after Supervisors Kit's comment about the length of speaking that Supervisor Gravky had, I tried to tabulate it and I think you both are even ty.

I was unaware that there was a measuring system going on. I need to put you guys on a clock. Chair Deas, can I add something to what um Supervisor Kits was saying about,

you know, what's going to happen budget-wise? All the folks that are interested in education, they need to be contacting their state representatives and the state senate and um and and the delegates because Virginia is still not funding public education like they should be. And the JARK study is still laying out there not being fully funded. And to fully fund it, it would have to be done in increments. So that's another way the citizens can help us to get more state revenue back here for public education. And then I'll be quiet.

And just a reminder, several of us are going to Richmond to say that exact same thing at the end of next week. Um I'm very much looking forward to that trip. It's always a very nice time to be able to meet with our uh delegates and senators in their offices, bring Montgomery Countyy's concerns to them, um make sure that we're right in the forefront of their mind, um and then get to spend a little bit of time just getting to know um our statewide elected officials is super impactful when there's an issue that comes up to be able to call somebody that you know um and and say, Hey, I really need your help with this. So, um I know we're really looking forward to that, uh trip and several of us are going to be able to make that. Um and I also just kind of want to reiterate what several people have already said. Um this weather it's a glacier. It's not even snow. It it there's no real way to describe it. And so, um I think we're in this snow pack for a while. the temperatures don't look to be improving. Um it's really been very beautiful to watch the community come out in help and support of each other and so um please continue to do that. Check on your neighbors. Um keep your animals nice and toasty warm um because we're we're in this uh temperature period for a while and possibly more coming this weekend. So, um, our localities have done an absolutely fabulous job with a very, very challenging precipitation event, um, that is now certainly bonded to the roads that has not been scraped from. So, um, they've been working long hours and it is not unnoticed as well. So, with that being

said, I see nothing else. This meeting is adjourned.