Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Okay. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Monday, February 9th, 2026. Our first order of business tonight 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.

Thank [snorts] you, Angie. All right. Tonight we do have a um presentation from Mr. David Clark at V DOT. He's going to provide us some updates on some road projects. Welcome, sir. You've been very, very busy lately. I'm sure we're going to hear about it. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, it's a kind of a one topic uh update from VOTE. Um we've had snow and a lot of it. And again, you you can classify it as a couple different things coming down. We had some ice, too. So, snow and ice. The good thing though was um you know it it didn't cause what a lot of that ice caused last year which was a lot of power outages and trees down. So we're lucky for that. But it is the kind that seems to stick around for a long time especially on our gravel roads. Um we just had a hard time with those after after you've pushed them and people have driven on best you can do is just put down some gravel. And so we've been putting gravel down on the the paved roads. Um using lots and lots and lots of salt on the other roads um which you can still see on the roads. Um and uh that's been pretty much our our uh our life uh for uh the last few weeks. Started in late December or mid December, had a couple good ones in December. Um and then here at the end of January and February and then the cold temperatures also singledigit temperatures are um not even good for salt. Salt can't do a whole lot then either. So um that's that's kind of been what we've been up to really. Um, in in the in the weeks where we did have some some time where we weren't working snow removal or or cleanup, um, uh, we did get some brush cut, we've, uh, got it down, got the brush cutter out on, um, Ella Road and Janelle and Denhill and, uh, some on Mudpike as well. So, we've been doing a little bit of that and patching potholes when we can. Again, it's cold. They've got a pothole on I don't if you can call it a pothole. It's on 77. I don't know if it's been in the news or not. We've been talking about it

in Carroll County that it just just keeps popping out. So, um it's even hard to patch potholes when when the weather's like this, the cold is like this. So, that's really been all we've done. I don't have much more of an update. Um you know, we're uh we'll do another six-year plan public hearing um this spring. Um we're working on Taylor Hollow, the last part of it. We hope to get that done this year. That'll be our project for for the six-year plan. And we have probably a little bit of safety money. We can do some the the majority of the safety money is going to be spent on um the flashing signal at the Arsenal light, but there will be a little bit left from that. Um a couple projects that are coming up this year um is uh the turn lanes at uh at Prices Fork Road and uh Peppers Ferry Road 114. That's coming this year. Um center turn lane through Reiner right downtown Reiner. It's going to match up a couple projects that have already been done in that uh that area. And I believe the project at uh Alageney Springs Road and Route 11 in Shawsville might be late this year. So, look forward to a couple of those projects, too. So, that's all I've got.

Great. Well, let's see if anybody has any questions for you. Um any questions? Supervisor King, go right ahead. Thank you for our discussion earlier before the meeting, but one thing I forgot to mention on Flanigan. You and I spoke about the double yellow lines going up through our Yes, that has been approved. Pavement marking is again something you can't do in this kind of weather, but that that has been um requested and approved. Okay. Yep. Stop bar and it won't be a center line for the whole way, but it'll be a stop bar and something to indicate there are two lanes right through there. Yeah. split the traffic when vehicle was going up in there. Right.

And just a reminder, I know I just spoke to you about this about the no Uturn on We'll look at a no U-turn up at Meadow Creek and um and Tyler. Yeah. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. Do we have any questions for Mr. Clark over here?

I just have a comment. I want to thank VOTE for um the road clearing and I know when I I was coming back from Richmond after the Veco government day, I sort of got caught in that all a sudden snow on 81 and I could not believe it. Like four V do trucks were just right on the exit pulling on to to 81 and you know and you guys have I mean it's a lot of work and we had this was an unusual circumstance. So I just want to personally thank you uh for all you did. Thanks very much. And um I'd like to thank publicly all the hired equipment uh that we have helping us as well. So we have a lot of VOTE uh full-time employees in our trucks, but we rely greatly on just the citizens of McGomery County who have equipment themselves and are willing to sign it up and do this work that uh is really hard on the equipment. So thanks. And we got the uh um the Evergreen Road in Brush Creek this time. [laughter] Vice Chair Physicowski.

Yeah, I got a um a email from a citizen on Hastings and they were uh asking about the six-year plan and um getting that paved. Um if that's something that y'all could look into to see if that would be a good candidate down the road. I know our dance card is already full right now, but uh as things come off, that might be a consideration.

It still has to qualify. It has to have a certain traffic. I can look up the the latest traffic count um for it. And we can do a quick review of, you know, some some are good candidates and some just aren't based on terrain and stuff because, you know, we just don't get as much money as we used to get. So, we'll look and see if it'll be, you know, a lot of rock removal and drainage or if it could be something that could be done fairly cheaply. Okay. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for being here this evening, Mr. Clark. Um, any predictions for what the rest of the winter's going to hold for us? No. [laughter] I I hear it's going to be warmer tomorrow. We'll just live with that for now. Some milk. Well, thank you very much for being here um and for all the attention paid to road issues in Montgomery County. Appreciate it.

Okay. The next item we have on our agenda is a public hearing. This is for a special use permit for Shaw Development uh related to a contractor's storage yard at the western terminus of Flanigan Drive. And we have Bri Hopkins from our planning department here to give us a presentation. Welcome, Bri.

Thank you. Good evening. Um, so as you stated, this is for a contractor storage yard. It's located right outside the town of Christensburg, um, off of Interstate 81 on Flanigan. You can see it here as it's designated by the star. This is an aerial view of the property. You can see here it has an existing structure on it um, currently used for an agricultural use. It is zoned agriculture and all the property around it is also zoned agricultural as well. So they are requesting a special use permit to allow contractor storage yard. Um it's located at the end of Flanigan. It's currently about 41.28 acres. Um does have that existing structure that they use to store agricultural equipment. Roughly 9 acres of that parcel will be utilized for the contractor storage yard. um the remaining acreage will remain in an agricultural use. And if you remember, you did have a contractor storage yard request for this parcel here. Um and that was approved, but the property has since then been sold. Um so it is used for a contractor storage yard currently. And then Shaw does own the land around here. This property is currently leased by Riverbin Nursery. Um they use that to grow some of their plants for an agricultural use. So the property and existing 27,500 ft structure um would be used for the storage of the contractor's equipment. Employees of Shaw Development would be the main users. Um, they would transport equipment to and from the site. Typically between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p p.m. Monday through Friday. Occasionally, there may be a Saturday use if if they've got heavy construction

going on somewhere that they need to work overtime or probably here recently due to weather delays. Um, makes them work some on Saturdays, but for the most part, it is limited to during the week. Um, three to seven trips can be anticipated to the site per week. So, generally they get the equipment, take it to the site, leave it there till they're done with it, and then bring it back. Um, typical equipment would be on-site trailers, trucks, skid steers, um materials, building materials, metal building materials, block, stone. Um, most of the materials itself will be stored inside. Anything that is stored outside will be um located within the existing gravel area. And when we look at the concept plan, you can see that that is proposed to be fenced. So this is the proposed concept plan. The building is located here. Um this area will be fenced and will be gravel. And then this also will be an area for the contractor storage yard. This was the one that was previously approved that is used by Kesler. And then this is the Riverbend nursery property that will remain as agricultural use. um all this other surrounding light green property will also remain in an agricultural use. So these are photos of the site. You can see this is the access. This is at the end of Flanigan. Um as you go up the private access and then this is the existing structure that's located on site um as you drive up from the access. This is the rear view of the existing structure. And then this is the view looking toward the north. Um, and then this is the view looking down. You can see the Riverbin Greenhouse right here in the corner. Um, I 81 is here in the distance. And then this is the access road that comes up. So, VOTE has stated that they have no

objection to the request. Um, the driveway through the existing access is will continue to be owned and maintained by Shaw Development. Um, no water or sewer is proposed for this use. Landscaping, screening, parking, signage, any other requirements, um, would be reviewed during the site plan review process and would have to conform to county zoning regulations. Um, it is not in a FEMA flood hazard area and erosion sediment control will also be studied at the time of the site plan. No significant increase in noise is anticipated beyond that of the existing agricultural use. Um the ex existing exterior wall-mounted lighting will be used. At this time they do not propose any new lighting. Um if they do have new lighting it would have to meet all ordinance requirements. They have also proposed a type four and um rear and side buffer yard which is required um due to the adjoining property being a lowdensity residential use that does require opaque screening um in some form of fence and or evergreens or a combination thereof. Um, in addition, any storage containers and box trailers will have to be screened from view from any adjoining properties. It's located in an area designated as resource stewardship in our comprehensive plan um that states that the county may permit any non-aggricultural related um uses with a special use permit. The proposed use will generate limited impacts on the surrounding property. Um the proposed buffer yards and topography helps conceal the contractor storage yard and the project would not generate any significant noise or traffic to the area. Um it is accessed again through a private access easement owned by the the subject property owner um at the end of Flanigan which is statemate maintained.

The planning commission held their public hearing on January 14th. We did not have any citizens in attendance. Um they did recommend approval 6 to0 um with conditions and those conditions are here. Um site shall be developed in general conformance with the concept plan. Basic site plan will be required. It shall not be open to the public. So that means it'll be used by the employees only. Um contractor storage yard shall not create any significant exterior impacts. No trash, litter, debris, junk or construction waste shall be stored on site. Typical hours of operation shall be 7 to 5:00. We did say Monday through Saturday in case they do have those occasional Saturdays that they have to work. Um, any exterior lighting installed on the property shall be designed to pres prevent glare. Contractor equipment and vehicles stored shall be in good working condition at all times. So, they cannot have inoperable equipment that they're storing there for a lengthy period of time. Any outdoor storage shall be screened from view um with opaque fencing at least 6 feet in height and that is from the ordinance. Adjoining property owners were notified we did place um signs on the property and run the legal ads in Cardinal News. We have not received any calls or comments from any citizens or members of the public. Um however, there may be some folks here to speak tonight. And with that, it was kind of short and sweet. I'll take any questions you may have.

Thank you, Bri. Does anybody have any questions for Bri? Supervisor Gravki, just one clarifying. So, I think you mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that most of the surrounding the parcels surrounding this one are also owned by the most of them. Yes, most of them. Yes. [clears throat] Um there are some to the east I believe that are owned individually. They're individual lots. Um there is a road that separates the two a private drive um that would separate Shaw property from that and it is heavily buffered already um with Evergreens, but they would also be required to buffer their portion of the site.

And then to the rear of the property, Kesler did purchase that property as a contractor storage yard. The remaining property um to the west and south are owned by Shaw. Gotcha. Sorry, I was connect that to uh the local notificate notices that we put up and who may or may not Yes. So, um local notices would have went to all adjoining properties and we do extend beyond the properties owned by Shaw. Okay. So, um I think we even had to come across the interstate on this one. Okay. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Okay. Do we have any other questions for staff? Okay. Um I believe Mr. Neil is here.

Yes. I was going to say Mr. Neil, do you have some more information? Come on up. [clears throat] Welcome, sir.

Hello. Uh good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board of supervisors. appreciate your time this evening. I appreciate uh Bree's presentation. Uh my name is John Neil. I'm with Foresight Design representing Shaw Development uh tonight for the contractor storageard SUP request. Um I [clears throat] will be uh very brief. Um we are requesting this the property is 41 acres. Mr. Graphky to your question, we're requesting for nine acres. There are kind of two uh properties that are residential use that are kind of to the east. um as you're looking at that drawing uh to the left hand side on the drawing page or to residential use, but there is a substantial amount of woods uh that buffer us. But in case they were to ever cut down their trees or anything like they could, um we have proposed the type four buffer, uh we did request um an exception to allow us to not buffer uh Kesler's contractor storage yard um above us to the to the south above us but to the south and [clears throat] then also Riverbend uh to the north. Um, and one of the the main reasons you may you may be asking or I'll I'll answer a question that you haven't asked um is we uh Shaw came before you um back in uh early 2025 for a contractor storage yard for that property that's to the north. Um and then after they got that, Mr. Kesler made an offer um and they ended up selling that property to Mr. Kesler. Um which at the time it wasn't really critical. Uh but since then uh Shaw has actually acquired a grading contractor uh that has done a lot of work for them over the years for quite a few number of years. If y'all remember the preserve at Walnut Springs uh subdivision off Price Fork Road uh that contractor uh Stockner Excavating has done a lot of work for us for Shaw over the over a large number of years and they got to the point where they were ready to retire um and so Mr. Hagen purchased um their contracting

business and all their equipment and so we kind of have a need for an interim place to have equipment stored when it's going between jobs and things like that. So that was the reason for this this follow-up request. Um our goal is to have pretty minimal equipment there. We want it out on job sites doing work uh rather than being stored at the at the contractor storage yard. Uh and our plan is to serve all the materials uh inside the building if we have uh contracting materials, things like that, block, brick, um building materials, things like that. Um and there was a question at the planning commission. Uh if you'll recall, this used to be uh the kind of the hemp farm in the barn. Uh and then we also had Matt Hagen Cattle Company had a small retail um operation of that. That is that has went away and there will be no kind of retail uh anything like that. And as far as employees, um there would might be one employee there every so often. Um and then people coming and dropping off things or picking things up, but other than that, there won't be any employees on site or anything like that. Um we will have the the contractor storageard fenced and graveled and meet all the storm water management requirements um by the zoning ordinance. Be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, sir. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Neil? Okay, thank you very much. Um, so we did have a signup sheet for this public hearing on the contractor storage yard. This was in the hallway prior to the meeting. I didn't have anybody sign up in advance to speak um to this public hearing. Is there anybody here that would like to speak on the subject of this contractor storage yard? Seeing nobody come forward, we're going to go ahead and close this public hearing. We're going to move on to public address. Um, and I'm going to go over the um, guidelines for public address and we did have several people sign up in advance to participate in that. So, the public address guidelines, the signup sheet was available outside of the meeting room. Um, speakers are requested to provide their name, address, and phone number and list the subject matter on the signup sheet. Following the names on the signup sheet, other speakers will be allowed. Each speaker has four minutes whether speaking as an individual or a representative of a group. All comments must be directed to the chair and other supervisors from the speakers lect turn at the front of the room. Please begin by stating your name and address or 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 or comments to the supervisors with the board clerk at the end here. And speakers will be judged out of order should the speaker gage in any personal attacks, use of profanity or abusive language or debate with the audience and not address the supervisors. An accepted etiquette is to not applaud or make loud responses. So, as I stated, we had several people that signed up in advance. So, I'm going to go through the list. I'm going to go ahead and call out the first two names. So the person on deck is ready to come up. Um once we get to the end of the list, we'll see um if other people in the audience want to come forward. So

the first person um that signed up is Anna Vagan and following Anna is Karola Hos. I think you have a presentation correct. Okay, we'll get that loaded for you. Hi, my name is Anna Vayan and I live in district A. It will be no surprise that I'm here to talk to you again about school funding. Tonight's presentation will focus on first providing some of the hard data that board members have asked for over the past few months, including data that will help answer questions like how much of each county dollar bill goes to the schools. And second, correcting some common misperceptions about school funding that board members and others have expressed over the past few months, such as the misperception that state and federal contributions to the schools have been going down while the county's contributions have been going up. This table shows the total amount that each funding source contributed to the school operating fund each fiscal year in millions of dollars. This data comes from the approved budget each year since we didn't find a retrospective listing of actual resources provided. Local resources include things like reimbursements and sales of supplies and equipment. You can see that local resources were small and stayed constant over time. Federal resources were also relatively small but grew from 4.3 to 5.2 million from FY20 to FY26. The next line should read county, not count. So this line shows that county contributions to the school operating

fund grew from 51.8 to $65.3 million. And the last line shows that state contributions to the school operating fund grew from 59.5 to $82.4 million. So when we look at resources contributed to the school operating fund over the past six years, local resources did not grow. Federal resources grew by8 million. County resources grew by $13.4 million and state resources grew by $22.9 million. The first column in this table just lists the increases that we summarized on the previous slide. So again, county contributions to the school operating fund increased by $13.4 million and state contributions increased by $22.9 million over the past six years. The second column lists the proportion of the total school operating fund increase that was contributed by each funding source. So only 2.3% of the increase to the school operating fund was contributed by federal funds. 36.1% of the increase was contributed by county funds and 61.6% of the increase to the school operating fund was contributed by state funds. This slide shows the same data again, but with the added information on how much each funding source grew each year. So looking at the second line of the first table, county contributions to the school operating fund grew by 2.5, 3.1, and $3.7 million in the past 3 years. And state contributions grew by 5.7, 5.5, and 5.9 million in the past 3 years. If we look back over not just

three years but all six years, state funding increased by an average of $3.8 million per year, while county funding increased by an average of $2.2 million per year. This table shows the portion of the entire school operating fund that was contributed by each funding source. So for example, if you look at the column for FY20, you can see that 44.5% of the school operating fund was contributed by the county and 51.1% was contributed by the state in FY20. And I think Carol will finish this slide for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry. Welcome. Hi, I'm Carol Laas and I live in Reiner. And so yes, the the main point of this slide is that between 2020 and 2026, the county's portion of the school operating fund decreased by two percentage points where the state's portion of the school operating fund increased by 2.5 percentage points. In other words, the county's portion of each school operating fund dollar decreased by 2 cents and the state's portion increased by 2.5 cents. See, we can go to the next slide. So now we can look at the actual expenditures in terms of county county funds. If we compare expenditures on education with those for other government functions over the past five years, and now this is just five years because it's what was actually spent, not what was budgeted. So we just go through FY2025. We can see that in FI2020 expenditures for education and other government functions were nearly identical at five 51.6 for education and 51.7 for other government functions. However, by FY2025, education spending had grown to 67.3 million while spending on other government functions had grown to 80.8 million. And note that these are actual expenditures as listed in the FY25 annual comprehensive financial report. These are the same numbers that Mr. Alridge presented to you in your January 12th meeting when he pointed out the increase in the school budget from 55 to 67 million in FY2025. Looking at the same information by percent of spending rather than dollar amounts shows the same divergence with proportionately less of the county

budget being spent on education over time. In FY2020, both education and other government functions accounted for about 41% of non- capital government spending. But by FY2025, education spending had decreased to 39% of non- capital government funding, whereas other government functions had increased to 47% of non- capital government spending. If we look at increases in county expenditures over the past 5 years, you can see that 35.1% of the increase in county governmental funds was allocated to education, whereas 64.8% of the increase in county governmental funds was allocated to other government functions. Only.1% of the increase went to debt service. In summary, we looked at funding sources for the school operating fund. Considering the increase in the school operating fund from FY20 to FY2026, 36% of that increase was contributed by the county, while 62% of that increase was contributed by the state. We looked at actual expenditures of county governmental funds. Considering the increase in county governmental funds from FY2020 to FY2025, 35% of that increase went to education, whereas 65% of that increase went to other government functions. Our goal with this presentation has been to help correct some misperceptions that school budgets have been inflated in proportion to other spending in recent years. In fact, they have been proportionately underfunded. Board members frequent exhortations to lobby the state for increased funding is warranted. However, that does not absolve the county from also providing adequate funding to educate our youth. If the school board requests an increase in funding this year, I hope you will consider those requests without bias and understand that county residents and employers rely heavily on these services. If an increase in taxes is

required to be able to provide these services, it is your responsibility to constituents to advertise and consider a higher tax rate. Thank you. Thank you. The next person that we had signed up was David Vanhuser. If you'll give us just a moment to change the screen back. You can come on up and just give us a moment if you'll hang out and wait. And then after Mr. Vanhuser, we have Crystal Pretty. You wanted to show correct? Right. But she said it didn't come up very clear, but we'll see. Okay. Here you go. It doesn't. Okay. Can you

I don't think I can do much with it. [snorts] Well, uh, can you make it bigger? You can see this right here.

And if you could just point to that tank right there. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Jen. Yes, sir. Welcome, sir.

Name's David Van, who's right where I live in town. Actually, I got own property here in uh the county. Uh this line I was, you know, I've got a problem with these buildings being the zoning off not off the 10 ft, but that line's not right there. [laughter] Don't know where this come up. But uh my problem is with the septic system as you see I don't where they point it but right here is where it's showing the tank and they give you the permit from the health department. This paper here in the permit shows where the tanks are off the house. There's two tanks, two 1,00galon tanks, only one being shown here. And the pump's at the rear, and the pump needs to be at the front cuz the sewage has to go up the hill. The other tank is underneath this carport here. Um, so the sewage is is apparently getting dumped right in there. And all this dirt that he's put in here on the driveway is soaking it up, I guess. But that's where my problem is. I [laughter]

Okay. And we got your email as well before the meeting, so I know we have your contact info, sir. Thank you.

And then we'll do a screen change one more time and then Crystal Pretty. And following Crystal is Kelly Gumple. Welcome. Thanks. My name is Crystal Pretty. My husband and I live in Christiansburg. I am a retired social worker and my husband is John is John, a retired family doctor. We are originally from Hanover County where we lived five miles from Scotchtown. the home of Patrick Henry who wrote and delivered his give me liberty or give me death speech in 1775. He was Virginia's first governor and the loudest voice for the Bill of Rights, individual rights for all, freedom of freedom of speech, press and religion, the right to bear arms, the right to due process, and protection from cruel and unusual punishments. Recently, Hanover County Board of Supervisors voted 9 to1, rejecting the conversion of a local commercial building to an ICE detention facility. In my career, I worked with a variety of people, many lacking the resources and ability to represent themselves. In addition to a medical office practice, John, he's here tonight, was for decades a jail physician at Rono County Salem Jail. Together, we have seen a lot of suffering, but nothing that compares to what we see and hear coming out of ICE detention, where the stories of detainees and reports from multiple independent sources are consistent, inhumane, and immoral. John and I ask you to make it known in

your plans for M for Montgomery County that we oppose granting the licenses necessary for ICE to have a detention facility. And I'm not going to read it, but um we've included a list of all the conditions at ICE facilities. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, sir. Good to see you. You turned it off. [laughter]

Strike one. Right. Uh, Madam Chair, members of the board, uh, my name is Kelly Gamble. Um, I am really trying hard to find a house here in Montgomery right now, but I'm your new school superintendent. Um, that's probably been the hardest thing other than calling off uh school last week during um some of this crazy weather. It's just been nuts. But my purpose for coming by tonight is just to introduce myself and to invite you all out to my school visits that would be in whatever area that uh that you represent. You're welcome to join me on those. I think uh Tosh Osborne has shared those dates with you and also to come out to the listening sessions, the first of two. I'm going to do eight total, but the first of two will be um this week. Uh Wednesday night at Auburn Middle School and then Thursday at um uh Thursday, I think, is going to be at at Christiansburg High School. No, actually not. Blackburg High School, I'm sorry. So, invite you to come out for those. Those start at six o'clock. There'll be an hour and a half, and it's really just uh uh folks just talking and and me learning really. So, um yep, hope you'll join us. um hope to see you at our schools and uh look forward to working with you and collaborating with you uh for years to come. Thank you.

You sir, welcome to Montgomery County.

Okay. And that actually is the end of the people that had signed up to speak in advance of the meeting. So, if there's anybody else in the audience that would like to come forward, um we've got the guidelines on the screen. You have four minutes. Please state your name and where in the county you reside. Welcome. Thank you. [clears throat] Good evening. Um my name is Laura Brown. I live in Blackburg. Um in this moment of constitutional crisis, we the people need to be using every lever that we can to assert our civil rights. Petitioning our local government for policy interventions would be one. What is happening in Minneapolis is alarming. ISIS conduct is a major issue. Violations of basic equal protection principles are an issue. ICE agents are acting unlawfully with, as the vice president stated, absolute immunity. One by one, we are watching federal overreach strip our rights. First amendment, free speech, press, assembly. Second Amendment, right to bear arms. Fourth Amendment, search and seizure. Fifth Amendment, due process. 14th Amendment, birthright, citizenship, and equal protection. However, across the country, people are standing up and legislators are following. In a time of unprecedented actions, we the people are asking our lawmakers to offer unprecedented solutions. Nine days ago, uh, over a 100 lawmakers across 27 states met in Minnesota to coordinate legislation on limiting ICE, protecting constitutional rights, and demanding accountability. The last gathering of that, many state legislators from across the country to take a unified stand against federal action was the Hartford Convention in

1814, where they opposed federal overreach. They drafted constitutional amendments and they demanded limits on federal power. They asserted the rights of states to defend their own people. 10 days ago, a letter with 565 state legislators across 48 states, the overwhelming majority of the United States dean demanding accountability. These are not left, right, and everything in between. Legislators are uniting under one principle. The federal government has crossed a line. This is a request to every board member to take a stance on this subject. We don't want the terror of what's happening in Minneapolis to happen here. Protections against ISIS behavior should be a priority and addressed at a local level. A legislative package could include, but not limited to, prohibits ICE and other law enforcement agents from concealing their identities with face masks or unmarked vehicles and requires officers to to display badges. Codifies executive orders banning 287G agreements which allow local law enforcements to act as ICE agents. Prohibit county agencies from collaborating with ICE. prevent county agencies from collecting citizenship or immigration status. Information sharing personal data with ICE. Prohibit ICE from using county-owned properties. Bar county employees from granting ICE access to county-owned spaces without court order or judicial warrant. This is about standing in solidarity with our black and brown neighbors, immigrants, and atrisisk communities in Montgomery County. All of which have been heavily targeted by ICE agents without due process or without warrants. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else

in the room like to come forward? Welcome. Come on up.

Hi, my name is Alex Carney. I live in Riner, Virginia. And I would like to add on to what my friend Laura was saying. Um, while I know that we can all agree on the inherent worth and humanity of our immigrant neighbors, I must also urge all of us here to consider the economic implications of ISIS presence within our community and our nation. So, a study run by the US government beginning in 1994 demonstrated that without immigrants, the US public debt would be at least 205% of our gross domestic product. This study reported by the KO Institute showed that for each year between 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government. That is to say, immigrants create an overall net good for the US economy. But let's break that down into how it affects our community here. You see, it's easy to think of the US immigrant population as the quote unquote other. But if you look around you in our beautiful Montgomery County community, that's simply not the case. The immigrants in our community are our plumbers, our mechanics, our hairdressers, our cooks. If you've ever gone out for a celebratory dinner, if you've ever had any considerable construction work done, if you've ever had to have your phone replaced or fixed, you have immigrants to thank for that. If we seek to detain and deport immigrants, that is the exact group of people that we're losing. You can also already see this with our rising grocery costs that we've noticed because we're getting rid of the people who manufacture our food. Our average daily essentials have increased in price by almost 5% in the last 2 years alone. It's 2026 and yeah, we are all struggling. That is the reality of living today.

But demonizing and deporting people who work hard just as we do isn't going to fix that. Instead, I'm here to urge all of us to work together as a community to make this a place where we can all feel safe and flourish. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Would anybody else like to come forward? Come on up. If anybody else wants to come forward and just um come to the front to be ready um to speak, you're welcome to. Welcome. Thank you for welcoming me to speak. And I would like to speak about the legal liability that ICE has opened themselves.

Can you start with your name and where in the county you reside? Sorry to interrupt you.

No, I apologize. Um my name is Madison Justice and I live in Blackburg. Um, but I would like to uh speak about the legal liability that ISIS has opened themselves up to with the way that they have conducted themselves. Um, with the fact that they have frequently conducted warrantless searches and arrests with their blatant disregard for the Fourth Amendment as well as their blatant disregard for the First Amendment. um their use of excessive force in their arrests as well as uh their frequent uh mistaken detention of US citizens and the fact that when uh these law enforcement officers act in blatant disregard for the law, they open themselves up to legal liability and the fact that um anyone who um aids and abetss them would also open themselves up to that same legal liability. And as uh was shown in that recent news story with that DHS lawyer who begged to be put in contempt of court just so that she could get 24 hours of rest because DHS could not keep up with the frequent amount of court cases. Legal liability is something that the federal government is facing and that is something that our local uh government should consider as well when they consider how they interact with ICE and when uh they consider how uh they handle any sort of collaboration with ICE. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to come forward? come on up.

Wasn't really planning. Crystal Melo from Charlottesville.

Um, I just wanted to put on y'all's radar that MVP has until this Friday to respond to the concerns that the board brought up about the trains. They're also brought up more concerns about MVP now asking for more land which um I think they increased the acreage up to five acres. I'm not sure if you're aware but it feels like we all intervened. It didn't show up on any of our radar. So it just goes through with the transparency of like we should knew that they wanted more land and it had to be asked in this FK document. So that should be on y'all's radar. they should have to respond to that by Friday. And also, um, McGomery County is a beautiful county with many people that live here, um, from all places and backgrounds. And I would also support never having an ice facility in this place. um because I think that's what does make us unique to the surrounding counties is just how um the variety that we do have here and it makes it beautiful and worth fighting for whether it's MVP or against ICE. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to address the board this evening? Okay, seeing nobody else come forward, we're going to close public address. All right. The next item on our agenda is to go into work session. Um, is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. [clears throat] I think you're looking at an older version of the agenda.

Okay. So, we have a motion and a second to go into work session. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Kitz, hi. Mr. King, hi. Mr. Ficowski, hi. Miss BS. Hi, Mr. Gravski. Hi, Miss Karan. Hi, Chair Deas. I seven eyes. [clears throat] Okay, we have two items in our work session this evening. The first is fiscal year 27 projected re revenue estimates and then after that we have uh the second part of our county comprehensive plan update. So, Angie, I will start with you. Thank you. or maybe Mark,

there was an error in the order of the agenda that got changed today. That's why um this is happening before the addendum. It Mark has presentations to pass out to the board. And if any members of the audience would like one, Jen Harris, our public relations and community engagement director, has some of those. Just let her know. She'll look for you. All right, Mark. Thanks.

Good evening. All right. So, tonight I wanted to talk a little bit about our fiscal year 27 revenue projections. So, I'd like to give a little background on the county's revenue categories. County revenue falls into two categories. Undesated revenue and designated revenue. Undesated revenues are unrestricted revenues, meaning that they can be used for just about any purpose. Designated revenues, on the other hand, are restricted revenues, meaning they're earmarked for a specific purpose and can only be used for that purpose. As you see in the slide, uh the bulk of the county's revenue is undesated, and that is going to be the the focus of tonight's presentation. As a general rule, three categories of revenue drive the bulk of all revenue growth annually. Those are real estate, personal property taxes, and sales and use taxes. And what you'll see here is the undesated portion makes up about 88% of the county's revenue structure. [snorts] I point that out because in the past um let's say back during um right before the Great Recession, the undesated portion of revenue was around 80%. And so over time, local revenues have kind of outpaced state revenue support. As a result, local governments have been responsible for generating revenue to adequately fund public education. public safety and constitutional officers. The designated revenue portion makes up about 12% of our revenue structure and is comprised of compensation board revenue and local user fees. This next slide explains the county's revenue growth. There are two components to the county's revenue growth. The first component is the base revenue change which I'll explain in a minute. And then the second component is new revenue growth. So you know the the budget is an

estimate. So actual revenues that come in can be more or less than the budget each year. So the base change is basically a true up of what's happening in the current year and takes into account the ongoing difference in current year revenues and the estimates. Then we adjust the next year base revenue estimate to reflect those changes. So this base revenue amount is based on actual new construction, actual new personal property and new business personal property. Um and then the actual consumption of goods. The second component is new revenue growth and that's additional revenue from projected new construction, projected new personal and business uh personal property and projected increases in the consumption of goods such as sales tax. So, we take the base revenue change and then we add in the new revenue growth for the next year and you get your total revenue going into fiscal year 27. This next slide talks about what's happening in fiscal year 26, the current year that will have an impact on the fiscal year 27 base revenue change. talk a little bit about personal property. Revenues are projected to be less than the estimates by roughly $800,000. We had a significant reduction in business personal property. Several large businesses relocated out of the county and then the taxable pipeline infrastructure was moved out of the county after the pipeline was complete. Sales tax collections are flat compared to previous years. Revenues are projected to be less than the estimates by half a million dollars. And then interest earnings are projected to be less than the estimates by $400,000. And this reduction is due to interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve. So on the positive side, real estate

taxes are expected to exceed revenue estimates by $100,000. Public service corporation revenues are expected to exceed the estimates by $1.8 million. And I'm going to talk about this a little bit separately, but we have ongoing revenue from the the Mountain Valley pipeline of a half a million dollars. And then we have a one-time pipeline payment in calendar year 2025 for $1.3 million. And I'll explain that. So the half a million in ongoing revenue that was a result of the county estimated $2.2 million for the pipeline and the actual value that came in was 2.7. So we got a half a million dollars in additional revenue ongoing from that revenue source. The pipeline valuation took effect in April of 2025. Uh but that was not included in the fiscal year 25 budget. We didn't include any revenues for the pipeline until fiscal year 26. So the payment in December of 2025 is for the full year of calendar year 2025, which includes the spring payment in 2025, which is picked up in December, and the December payment, which is due in current time. So we're going to receive an additional $1.3 million in one-time revenues in fiscal year 26 because of that timing differential. Okay. Other miscellaneous revenues, recordation taxes are expected to exceed estimates by 300,000. Delinquent taxes are expected to exceed estimates by 300,000 and other local taxes are also to expected to exceed revenue estimates by 300,000. So taken together all of the revenue, both what we're going to miss and what we're actually going to exceed, we're looking at a $1.1 million surplus for fiscal year 26. Okay, this next slide shows what our fiscal year 27 base is going to look

like. And so, like I just stated, our current year projected actuals basically set the stage for what the fiscal year 27 base is going to look like. So, the county is projected to exceed the fiscal year 26 undesated revenue budget by approximately $1.1 million. We don't think any of that 1.1 will be retained in the base. The fiscical year 27 base is $1.3 million lower than the fiscical year 27 approved budget. And I'll kind of go through why we're having that situation. So if we look at the first category, personal property, as I stated, we're we have a shortfall of $800,000. That carries into fiscal year 27. Interest earnings, we have a shortfall of 400,000. We're actually going to have a shortfall of $.9 million going into fiscal year 27. And that's the result of the Federal Reserve reducing interest rates. There's two planned rate reductions in next fiscal year which are going to reduce revenues an additional half a million dollars. Real estate taxes are up 100,000. That's going to carry into the fiscal year 27 base. Sales tax, we have a shortfall of a half a million dollars going into fiscal year 27. in that shortfall is $600,000. The increase is due to a change in the school age population between the county and the two towns. Again, the pipeline, we have $1.3 million in one-time monies in fiscal year 26. That goes away in fiscal year 27. We have the ongoing money from the pipeline, a half a million in 26. That carries over into 27. And then other revenues, we have u a surplus of about $900,000. Um going into 27, we have about $400,000. We have a half a million dollar decrease. And that's due to some of those revenues being most likely one time in nature. Those include recovered cost, some delinquent taxes, and recordreditdation taxes that we feel are

going to be just one time in nature for fiscal year 26. So taken together again, we have a $1.1 million surplus in 26, but the fiscical year 27 base um has uh a $1.3 million amount that is lower than the fiscal year 26 approved budget. Talk a little bit about what's happening both nationally and locally. The US economy has remained resilient. However, economists have suggested that we're in a K-shaped economy. There's been a lot of attention on this over the last few months. And that's basically where higher income families are spending while lower income families are not. And so what we're seeing is kind of this tale of two cities where wealthy the wealthy are doing well and they're keeping the economy afloat while the middle and lower income classes are struggling. Um the current consensus is that a recession is not likely in 2026. However, locally the economy is slowing. We're not seeing the annual growth that we've experienced over the past 5 years. The baseline forecast for fiscal year 26 is still positive with moderate growth projected. Talk a little bit about some considerations. Uh labor demands have slowed which could create higher unemployment going into next year. The unemployment rate is estimated um somewhere between 4.5 and 4.6% throughout the rest of the year. Inflation is still above the Fed's 2% target range. Right now, it's estimated to be between 2.1 and 2.7%. Stock market uh valuations are at all-time highs. Real estate valuations remain at peak levels and government, commercial, and consumer debt are at peak levels and could could be problematic. Of all the things that I just stated there, the most worrisome thing that I see is the last one, which is the government, commercial, and consumer debt levels. And this is not just a problem that we're seeing in the

United States. This is something that is happening globally um where all developed economies are straddled with debt. Talk a little bit about fiscal year 27 new revenue growth. Historically, new undesated revenue is approximately $2 to $3 million per year. Projected new revenue growth for fiscal year 27 is 2.3 million. That's a little bit on the lower end of the normal growth range. And there are some assumptions here. We're using the actual real estate book value for calendar year 26 and known construction for fiscal year or for calendar year 27. Actional personal property book values based on the the 2025 book which is the most current book of values and historical growth patterns. Sales tax revenue growth at 2.24% and then normal trend analysis for other revenue categories. This next slide shows the breakdown of the new revenue growth for fiscal year 27. See real estate at 1.2 million, personal property at 800,000, and sales tax at 300,000 gives you a total increase of 2.3 million. So, our total undesated revenue growth for fiscal year 27 is right at $1 million. We start with the fiscal year 26 undesated revenue base which is 155.2 million. Our base revenue change of 1.3 million um which is a shortfall. Fiscal year 27 new revenue at 2.3 million and total undesated revenue is 156.2 million. It's a 1 million $1.0 million increase from fiscal year 26 to fiscal year 27.

talk a little bit about the state budget. According to the school staff, additional state new state funding for fiscal year 27 is estimated at 3.6 million. That's based on the governor's proposed budget and an average daily membership of 9,05 students. On the county side, there's compensation board increases. There's a 2% increase July 1 of 2026. The amount of additional funding is just over 151,000. However, there is non-supplanting legislative language that requires the county to provide a 2% increase to receive the revenue. If the county provides at least a 2% raise, this revenue can be used for other county needs. On the caboose bill, uh it also includes a 2% bonus for both school and state supported local employees in fiscal year 26, which is the current year. And that's all I have for this evening. I'll be glad to try and answer any questions you may have.

Well, I feel certain we will have many. Um, thank you very much for the presentation, Mark. And I am going to start with nobody's looking at me. Supervisor Bixs,

I don't really have any questions except it sounds like we don't have much to work with. Yeah, I mean I think we had um several years of unprecedented growth and I think we're starting to see a slowdown here locally. Um I think there is a dichotomy here because if you look at the national headlines, they're saying, you know, GDP is growing um somewhere in the two 2% range uh depending upon what you're looking at. Um and you know um they're not projecting any type of recession going forward. Um but locally, you know, we're seeing a slowdown and that's shown on the personal property book and uh and with sales tax. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any other questions,

Supervisor Kids? Okay. So, I've seen some of the requests coming forward and I'm just I'm just doing simple math here, but if we're we're about more or less neutral. I mean, we're we're we're 1.1. Is that what it was? 1.1 million or 800. I have 1 million 1 million in new revenue.

Okay. And I know the asks that are coming from preliminary budgets. We're going to be stuck because because we are kind of flat on on our revenue and you don't see a whole lot increasing and that decrease was 2.3. I'm just trying to make this clear so everybody understands that we're working with them. When you try to balance your checkbook, you've got to look at both columns. We got to see where we're coming from. So there's some sounds like we're gonna have to have some tough choices here coming up based on what you're saying and what's what's actual for this. So I thank you very much for what you've done. Okay. Any other Supervisor Gravki?

Hey Mark, thank you very much uh for all this information. Um I've got one question about the base uh the assumptions and the base revenue um specifically the interest earnings. Um, so I understand the the projected Fed rate cuts being factored into that. Now, is is our our base, you know, however much money we have actually earning interest, set aside for earning interest, is that number changing year-over-year? Yeah. So, I mean, it increases. So there there's there's how much money that we have in play and right now that number ranges somewhere between hundred and $110 million.

Okay. Um that we have in cash at any given point in time and that's an average amount of money. That number goes up and down throughout the course of the year. Uh but this estimate is based on $107 million. And it's based on um it's actually prrated because um you know there there's a projected right now the the Fed funds rate is projected to have two more rate reductions between now and when this fiscal year would close out. And so based on the timing of those projected uh rate reductions I have you know uh prorated it so that you know I've done two months at the higher rate and eight months or uh 10 months at at the lower rate. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. I was just trying to get a sense for is it all in or you know is it just the interest rate? Yeah. And part of that it fluctuates based on how much fund balance is used you know during the course of the year. So uh but we hover somewhere around a hundred to $1 million at any given point. Okay. Thank you Miss Kuran. Supervisor particular reason um why the large businesses re relocated out of the country?

Um I don't know this. Yeah, I don't know this the specifics. I know that um several businesses um traded hands and part of those some of those businesses actually sold off some of their equipment that went elsewhere. Some equipment stayed locally, some went elsewhere. Um one business I know of actually re relocated to another county. Um, and then sever several other businesses because the pipeline went away. Um, some of the stuff that was tied to the pipeline went away with them as well. And so they're still in the NRV. They're just not in Montgomery County to be taxed.

Yeah, that's unfortunate obviously. Yeah. Uh, the other thing is, uh, and if you don't know, it's okay. I always wonder about this. Um, what is the percentage of non-T taxable property of the county? Do you have any rough idea? I I don't know what that number I can get you that number. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any more questions over here? Okay. Well, then I will ask a question. Um, actual real estate book value for current year 26 and known construction for current year 27 from slide 8. How do we determine known construction? I know that's a very like granular question.

Yeah. So, it it's based off building permit information that we have. So, um, as building permits come in, they get, you know, a value associated with them. We keep a tally of everything and then we try and figure out whether or not those buildings that are on the permit will actually get constructed within the time frame of the land book. So, that's what we know at this point um that's known that's out there. Now, there's a little bit of that trying to figure out, okay, is the construction going to be complete during the time period, but we have a pretty good idea based on when the permit comes in, where they are in the construction phase, whether or not they will finish, uh, are likely to finish during that time period.

Okay. Okay. And did we have any other questions? All right. If you'll give me five seconds, I can find the answer to your question. I have it right here. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Maybe longer than five seconds. That's okay. That's okay. I mean, I don't have to have it right. Then

I think it's I think it's 26 27% are untaxed, which is really 67%. Let's see. Well, if somebody had more questions, it is 27%. So the total assessment uh of all value for Montgomery County is 17 million. Exempt from taxation is 4.6 million. So it's actually 26.8 26.86%. It's actually billion billion billion excuse me billion with a B not million with an M. All right.

Yeah. And so and part of that, you know, there there's, you know, there's a lot of land that's forest service land that's not taxable and then you have, you know, Virginia Tech and a few Yes. Yes. It's a big chunk. Yes. Okay. Seeing no additional questions for Mr. McGreder. Thank you very much for being here with us this evening. And we will move on to the second part of our work session, which is the next set of updates on the county comprehensive plan. This is Montgomery Matters part three and part four. Welcome Justin. Good to see you again.

Good evening everyone. If you give me just a moment, I'll get my presentation up. So, it's good to be with you again this evening to discuss more about McGomery Matters. Uh, parts three and four are focusing on our community development related chapters as well as our health and services related chapters. So, we'll jump right in with community development part three. We talked a little bit last time about how all of the pieces of this plan really fit together. So, we have some overarching actions within community development that span multiple chapters. We talked a lot last time about the zoning ordinance rewrite and how important that's going to be to execute a number of our goals and visions here. Talking about weather preparedness, that's something that we heard from a number of our citizens and again that impacts a number of different areas. And then looking at uh housing, university employees, first responders, and teachers. We hear those needs when we talk about housing throughout the county. And again, those connect into a number of different areas. So, starting with land use, uh just some things that we heard from the citizens that needed to be addressed. Uh we talked again last time about protection of farmland and the county's agriculture, preservation of natural habitat such as forests and rivers and waterways. Talking about the county's natural beauty needing to be preserved as well as we heard a lot about emergency response times and making sure we have the proper infrastructure to support growth. So when we get into land use again we talked about balanced growth a lot uh when we talked to the citizens again where growth should happen but also the type of growth that should be happening. Um so goal A really focuses on that

balanced growth and we talk a lot here about uh concentrating that growth in those areas that we discussed last time in Midount along the 177 corridor in the two towns and then in our village areas. But our citizens also really wanted to talk about the type of development that we were going to be seeing in those areas. So we talked a lot about infill development, renovation and restoration of existing properties. So really starting to have a conversation about growth that didn't necessarily focus on just new construction. Goal B focuses on creating resilient and inclusive communities. Again, we talked last time about natural resources and the needs to be resilient. So making sure that we're doing development in areas that are environmentally safe to do development. So not building in flood planes, not building in other sensitive areas, but also making sure that the communities that we're creating are really functioning for the residents that live there. So our priority actions within land use is really going to focus on the capital improvements plan. You all over the past several years have been looking at a number of investments in county infrastructure that will support balanced land use. looking at our existing infrastructure conditions, looking at uh alternative technologies at county facilities, again back to the zoning ordinance rewrite, and then again looking at where we're uh evaluating development to happen in the county and looking for those at risk features. And then we have our vision list for land use. Again, looking more at the tools that we have at our disposal to look at suitability for alternative energy solutions. There was a conversation also with some of our development community about whether there was a development pattern book that we could adopt that would fasttrack development to get more housing online sooner. Looking at community garden spaces and then identifying blighted or endangered buildings uh and ways that we can preserve those.

Moving on to economic development needs that we heard from the citizens looking at retaining a younger workforce. There was some discussion amongst our economic development partners that we need to diversify um the sectors that we employ here in the county again just to create more opportunities for growth. We talked a lot about household affordability and wages compared to costs and then again that balanced growth again you can see that interconnectivity between multiple chapters. So looking at our economic development goals, location and land use, making sure that we're citing commercial and industrial development in the right portions of the county, looking at again our prime farmland and making sure that we're maintaining that as a a resource here in the county as well. Again, we talked about diversification, looking at the industries that we have here in the county and being sure that we are continuing to keep up with trends in technology and emerging trends to ensure that we are diversifying our economy so that we're resilient against any potential threat to any one industry. Economic development and quality of life. This is really taking a holistic look at what resources, what benefits does the county need to be providing to our residents to maintain a good quality of life. Again, this ties back to making sure we have adequate housing for people that are looking to come to the area and work. Making sure that we have a robust park system to make sure that that park that parks and recreation uh lure is still there for folks in the community. And then workforce development. And again, we talked a lot with representatives from industry about making sure we have educational opportunities in the county for those who are looking to go into the trades. Um, also making sure we're continuing to work with our university partners to ensure that we have the best workforce in the county uh to provide economic development opportunity. So again, looking at our priority actions over the next five years,

looking at land for future industrial expansion in the county, uh engaging and coordinating with local businesses, partnering with our educational institutions on workforce development, continuing to work with the chamber of commerce. Uh and then another go zoning goal, looking at parking requirements and whether we are requiring too much or too little parking for specific uses in the county. Again, that can be an incentive for a business. If we can work with them on parking, maybe they can be on a smaller plot of land. And then our economic vision list over the next 20 years, again, supporting CTE in our schools to ensure that we're again putting uh trades people into the economy, looking at agurism, looking at micro grant programs to support local businesses. Again, things that are going to take a little longer to get off the ground. Moving into housing, one thing that we talk about quite a bit with you, uh, we heard a lot from our citizens about affordable housing availability and the supply in the market. Looking at different housing options for different needs here in the county and then housing in areas where public services and infrastructure exist or are planned for future development. [clears throat] If you'll remember in our existing comprehensive plan, we had one housing goal. And something that we heard from a lot of our stakeholders is that we really needed to think h about housing in multiple ways. So, we talked about housing in goal A as attainable and diverse, making sure that people can find a home that fits their needs, making sure that we are keeping people in their home if they want to age in place in their home, and then making sure that we have a variety of different housing options for people at various stages of their life. We also talked about thriving neighborhoods, ensuring that resources for neighborhoods are nearby, making sure that we have access to commercial options, making sure that our school system is as strong as it can be to support those neighborhoods, ensuring

that our neighborhoods are walkable and have access to multimmodal transit. And then we talked a lot about safe housing as well. And you all have heard some from several citizens over the past year about the creation of a maintenance program for homes. Uh we want to make sure that our citizens who are living in homes that may not be at the most peak conditions are connected to the resources that they have uh to be able to stay in their homes. But again, also ensuring that our um residents that are living in more vulnerable areas have options so that they're not stuck in those unsafe conditions. on our housing vision list. Looking at rental assistance and housing rehabilitation programs, expanding our rehousing options in the county, looking at relocation assistance for people who live in hazardous areas, raising awareness of intergenerational living, and reviewing barriers to employment and income support. Again, our priority actions over the next 5 years, you can see continuing to fund the housing trust fund. Again, a lot of this is going to fall to our zoning rewrite and how we look at housing in terms of how we zone here in the county. Moving on to transportation, uh, as you'll remember, back in 2023, we adopted transportation matters. It was the county's first standalone transportation plan. We have already been able to check off a number of projects that were identified during that process and we wanted to make sure that we were fully integrating transportation matters into the larger comprehensive plan. So we reformatted transportation matters brought the goals that were established back in that plan from two years ago uh into uh our comprehensive plan. So looking at making sure we're looking at safety, congestion relief, multimodal tra travel options, and connectivity.

We're also keenly aware that our transportation infrastructure directly relates to how economically competitive we are here in the county. So making sure that our industries have connections to the transportation modes that are benefiting them. We look a lot as well in this plan at all of our exits along Interstate 81. We know that's a major transportation corridor for freight and other items. So, we want to make sure that we're utilizing those interstate connections as me best we can. And this uh just some snapshots for you. Again, we have prioritized road projects over the next several years uh using that scoring matrix that we identified back in transportation matters. And again, I'm glad to say that we've removed several projects from that list because we received funding. Moving into part four, this is our health and services matters section covering four chapters. Uh looking at the overarching actions here, looking at bike and pedestrian safety, looking at school gardens and farm-to-table programs and educational campaigns related to substance youth and mental health. The things we heard regarding education, limited and uncertain funding streams, as you all have already talked about this evening, student wellness and how it can affect learning, awareness of the programs and resources that we have for students and their families, poor internet access in many areas, which the county is already making strides towards, and limited child care options. So looking at our education goals, uh this is a goal that carried forward from our existing comprehensive plan looking at lifelong learning. That's everything from early childhood education all the way to senior programming, educational programs offered through the schools and other partners, our educational facilities, ensuring

that we have the best for our students, and then the McGomery Floyd Regional Library. In this goal, um, we worked very closely with the library board. They had just gone through a strategic planning effort. So, we wanted to make sure that we were integrating in all of the items that they had, uh, addressed in their strategic plan and making sure that we were compatible with what they looked at going forward. Our priority actions in education, again, looking at libraries more as community resource hubs, not as just places to check out a library book. working with other organizations to make sure child care is affordable and accessible, providing regional partnerships again supporting CTE and offering uh campaigns on healthy lifestyles and physical education to some of the actions that were identified over the next five years. And then our vision list was quite long again looking and we've already started uh this particular initiative looking at schools as community- based health centers adopting unified trades programs and really looking at the educational offerings that we're providing through our schools and partners getting into health and services. We heard a lot from folks about the decreasing amount of medical specialists in the area. A lot of folks talking about how they have to go to Ronoke to be able to see a specialist. Strain on our health care system from an aging population. Limited mental health crisis response and resources. We heard about food insecurity. And we also heard about health gaps for certain populations. Goal A in health and human services focuses on health and well-being. And this is again making sure that we have the programming and the resources for people of all abilities in the community. and that we're focusing on overall well-being and health. Looking at our human services facilities uh and the programming that they provide

and then food access. So, um one data point that I wanted to point out when we looked at our peer jurisdictions throughout Virginia, we were slightly higher. We were at 14% of our county population who were food insecure. Um so that's something that we heard from a number of our stakeholders that they wanted to see addressed as we go forward. So continuing to work with programs like live, work, eat, grow that we've already established here in the county. Uh creating access to farmers markets for individuals in the county who want access to healthy resources. Um so those are some things that we identified with food access. Priority actions again looking as part of the parks and recreation master plan. again, how we connect across different uh chapters of the plan for opportunities for greater program access, supporting mobile food pantries and delivery programs and farm-to-table programs at schools. Just some of the options there. And then in our vision list, again, talking about uh facility upgrades, talking about new programming, uh and again, not all of this is going to be done by the county, but really identifying who those partner organizations are and how we can continue to support and work with them. Moving along to public infrastructure. Again, we heard a lot about internet access, public investments outside of the designated growth areas. And again, that ties into our citizens desire to make sure that we're putting our resources into the growth areas and not sprawling out into our more rural areas of the county. And we heard a lot about aging infrastructure and facilities as well. So looking at our infrastructure goals, communication access is something we heard a lot about. That's not just going to be internet. That's going to be uh telecommunications. That's going to be uh making sure we have good communications for our emergency services. Looking at energy and innovative utilities. This is talking about solar and other alternative energy solutions.

Water and sewer is our goal C. looking to make sure we have access to safe and reliable public water and sewer. But this also acknowledges that we know a number of residents in the county are on private systems. So continuing to work with the Virginia Department of Health, not only to provide support for those residents, but to provide education about how they can safely use those systems. priority actions uh for public infrastructure, looking at rebates for energy efficiency programs, connecting people to those resources that already exist, launching a real-time outage alert system when we have disruptions in the system, providing workshops on sustainability practices, and continuing our efforts to expand broadband. And then in our vision list, we looked at uh ways that we can identify and reduce water leaks. again continuing to work with VDH on those private systems and then providing educational opportunities for those with those private systems. And last but certainly not least, public safety and welfare. Uh some of the things that we heard throughout the process, staffing capacity, burnout and turnover for our first responders, making sure that we're keeping our equipment and software modernized, coverage issues across the county, strains on services because of the growing needs of seniors, and then substance abuse and repeat offenders. So, we initially um had just a public safety goal and what we heard when we were speaking to our first responders, to our representatives from those stakeholder groups was that we really wanted to focus out on those three specific areas in which we provide public safety. So, we developed a a police goal, a fire goal, and a rescue goal. And those needs again are going to be very similar between those three branches of public safety. thinking about issues of response times, thinking about facilities and equipment upgrades, but also ensuring particularly with fire

and rescue that we are continuing to recognize our volunteers, but also our career staff as well. So again, our priority actions in public safety and welfare, prioritizing new fire and EMS facilities to reduce response times, continuing to coordinate amongst the variety of agencies that provide public service here in the county, and then creating a unified emergency data collection and sharing system, continuing to work with NRV 911. And then on our vision list, again, a lot of education pieces here. Making sure that we're doing community policing, getting out into the community to connect people with resources, encouraging emergency preparedness, and mitigating uh a variety of different hazards here in the community. So, with that, that was a very quick overview, I know, but we had a lot of chapters there, and I wanted to be respectful of your time this evening. Um, our plan is to move forward, um, receiving any feedback that you and the planning commission have to get into that final draft, holding a public hearing with the planning commission in March on March 11th, and then bringing the plan back to you for public hearing on March 23rd, and really getting an opportunity to hear from the citizens on any input that they would like in the process. And after all of that feedback is integrated, we'll adopt the plan. So I will take any questions or comments that you all have at this time.

Thank you Justin um for bringing us the second part of your series. Fascinating um and really exciting. What kind of questions do we have? Uh Supervisor Gravki.

Uh thank you Justin. This is um one of those rare occurrences where the sequel is as good uh or better than the original. So, um, thank you for keeping us updated on this. Um, and this is probably way too early to estimate this, but you know, when looking at your priority action lists and your uh vision lists for these different um focus areas, do we have a sense or will we kind of try to estimate dollars and cents wise what some of these investments could potentially

be? And and as I mentioned, a number of these initiatives are going to be things that the county is already doing. So, we're going to be looking at ways that we can maximize the dollars that we're already contributing to those programs or other organizations. Um, but I do think when we come back to you yearly with this progress list, it's going to really be up to the board to determine where do we where do we prioritize our resources. Um, but again, I think there's some lowhanging fruit there that there are programs that are going to be um more easily implemented. I think we have also been as we've gone through the process starting to identify some funding sources, some grant programs that may help us along with that. So I think [clears throat] we are going to really be looking at the board as we look at those priority actions on what what can we accomplish in the most efficient way with our resources and then what we may have to start squirreling some money away to to work on as we go along.

Thank you. And then just one more thing in the public safety section. I'm just curious why why did we break out fire and rescue separately? So, what we were hearing through our stakeholder engagement is that while those needs are similar, um they do have some unique in terms of equipment and programming um that we needed to be thinking about. So, that was just really a reflection of what we were hearing from the stakeholders that they wanted to see those as separate goals. Okay, great. Thank you.

Do we have any questions, Supervisor Kits? So, I just want to throw one thing out there, and I know we've talked about it, the difference between attainable and affordable. And I've heard it come from developers more than I've heard it come from constituents. I just think we got to be very careful on where we we as we say that and we move forward and we want to try to help people with housing that we are careful with how we delineate attainable and affordable because it's different to different groups.

Um, as far as the fire, EMS, and police thing goes, I think that's an excellent way to look at it. Uh we were at a Veco conference back in November and that's one of the biggest things that they brought up is that when you put stuff forward instead of slapping a public safety tag on it is to be able to separated into fire and EMS and police especially at the point where we are where we're operating kind of a hybrid model and we have to be able to to talk with volunteers and who have different needs and even though the overall focus is on the organizational portion of the equipment, we still have different needs and the personalities of each of those is very diverse even though it is a very public service driven organizations for both of them. So I applaud you on on recognizing that issue and being able to separate that. So for right now until I can get into the weeds on this and that's about all I have. But thank you.

Okay. And we'll be looking for ways obviously the fire and rescue study uh those results are forthcoming. So making sure that um all of the recommendations as we prioritize going forward are in alignment with that study which got much more in-depth and in detail with facilities needs and and those issues.

Supervisor Bixs, um I just want to say the amount of work to put this all together I think is really important. One of the things you said that, you know, a lot of this stuff is being done, but maybe we we don't know where it's being done. So, you're bringing all this together so we can actually see what we have and then evaluate where we might need to go. I I think that's really important. I think the second part that you mentioned is revisiting it. And when you revisit it, it also goes along with when things come before us as a board,

we have something to go back to like, oh, was this something that the citizens said that they really want? You know, it really gives us like a guide, a guide book. Um, when I read through it, of course, you know, I I looked and I saw like how some of the things, you know, are way in the future and and they're really good things and I wish we could just do everything, but also recognizing the fact that as we move forward, resources aren't just money, they're people.

Absolutely. And if we really want to invest ourselves into accomplishing some of these things, then it's going to take staff. So, I just want to put that out there. Just like when we started the Animal Care Adoption Center, we started it with a very meager staff, but we knew going in as it grew, we would add staff. And I feel the same way about this program because what you have in here is so vital to our county and to our citizens as we move forward. So, thank you again for all the work that all of you put into it. This is it's an outstanding document.

Thank you. And I know as we have gone through the process, I haven't really dug a lot into the data trends with you. Again, we we've provided that in appendices, but I think something that we do is we're and to Supervisor Gravk's question as well, looking at where those trends are can also help us to prioritize and identify where we need to start working with our resources. I I think the other thing that that we're excited about at the staff level is state code requires that we look at the plan every 5 years, but we are going to be getting tracking tools where we're going to be able to do an annual review and see that progress. And if we need to pivot, if we need to change our approach and strategy, we'll be able to be much more nimble than we would if we were just looking at the plan every five years.

Thank you so much. Okay. Do we have anything else over here? Okay. I just have one small thing to add. Um, aside from my I think I've already been very affusive with my praise um, in the past, but this is just so fantastic and I'm sure it also feels good to be approaching the finish line. Um, very much so. Yes. [laughter]

Um, but I did have just one small note um, in the safe housing goals section um, and I think it was goal C. Um, I didn't it it went through kind of quick. Um, but Habitat for Humanity might be a potential partner for some of the um, housing repair program goals. And if we missed them, that was just an oversight because they were involved at every stake of our stakeholder. Yeah, I didn't see them, but that does not mean that they weren't there. It may have just left the screen. Um, but I wanted to specifically call. Jim Drader would not forgive me if they were left out, so I'll make sure we get We cannot be upsetting Jim. Okay. Does anybody else have anything else for Justin? Just thank you.

Thank you all very much for your support. Thank you very much. Can I have a motion to come out of work session? Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to come out of work session. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King, I. Mr. Ficowski, I. Miss bigs. I. Mr. Gravski, I. Miss Coron, I. Mr. Kits, I. Chair Deontz, I. Seven eyes. Okay. And the time is 8:49. We're going to do an 11 minute break and reconvene at 900 p.m.

900 p.m.

Okay, we're going to start back. And the next item on our agenda is the addendum. We do not have an addendum to our agenda this evening. So, next we'll go to our consent agenda. Is there a motion? Motion. Second. Is there any discussion on consent? Seeing none, madame clerk, [clears throat] if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Fijicowski, I. Miss Biggs, I. Mr. Gravski, I. Miss Kuran, I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. I. Chair Demottz. I. Seven eyes.

Okay. We're moving on to our new business agenda this evening. The first item is the special use permit for Shaw Development LLC. This is for a contractor's storage yard and this was the subject of the public hearing earlier this evening. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, Madame Clerk, if you'll call the RO, please. Miss Biggs. I Mr. Gravsky. I Miss Karan. Hi. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. Friikowski. I. Mr. King. Abstain. Hold on. Six eyes's one abstain. I didn't vote. Oh, I'm sorry. Chair de

I six eyes. [laughter] Apologize.

Hello. Okay. The next item of new business is a resolution authorizing a petition for writ of special election and this needs a board action. Um, this item is on our agenda because our sheriff has announced his retirement effective March 31st, 2026 and it authorizes us to petition the circuit court to issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy. Um, so while we are very very sad to hear about um, Sheriff Parton's retirement, we've got a little bit of business to attend to. Um, I don't know staff, is there anything, Angie, Marty, anything that needs to be said? No, just that the uh because of the timing uh we the special election will be during the general election on on November 3rd.

Okay. And and that would fill his his term uh through uh December of uh 27. Okay. So the person that is elected in November of 2026 would then have to stand for reelection again in November of 2027. Yeah. If they wanted to run for another four years, should they so choose. Correct. Got it. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay, it's been motioned and seconded. Do we have any discussion? Seeing none, madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Gravski, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits, I. Mr. King, I. Mr. Ficowski, I. Miss BGS, I. Chair Demottz. I, seven eyes.

And we have another election related item for our next new business. This is to schedule a public hearing related to a temporary change for A3, E3, and F3 polling places. These are the three polling places um currently located at Squire Student Center on Virginia Tech's campus. Um this is for a temporary change for a special election in April 20 on April 21st, 2026. Uh the student center is undergoing a renovation and so they are not able to have elections in that location. there anything else?

Right. And if you remember, we took a similar action because um squires will be down for uh rec for construction for the uh primary. And the reason we had to take two separate ones is um is the one that we uh temporarily switch it for the primary which is the Johnson student center is only available for that election day and is not available for this election day. So the registar uh talked to Virginia Tech and and she was able to secure uh Mccomomas uh for this one which is the April 21 um special election that the U general assembly has set.

Okay. Is there a motion to schedule this public hearing? So moved. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kitz. Hi, Mr. King. Hi, Mr. Ficowski. Hi, Miss Figgs. Hi, Mr. Gravy. Hi, Chair Deontz. I Seven eyes. Okay. And now we are into our report section. County attorney's report.

U trying to keep my uh report, you know, I've done a report now the last two meetings, I think. So, but I'm not counting. Uh, I just wanted to thank uh the Riner uh volunteer fire department for I don't get to go out very often, but on Saturday we got invited to their awards dinner and that was a lot of fun and food was really good and um my wife was quite impressed. So, she had never been to a volunteer fire department so she she enjoyed it and as did I and I wanted to thank uh the volunteer fire department. So, that's all I have.

You're on a streak. County Administrator's report. Angie, I'd like to echo Marty's um sent sentiments about the Riner Fire Department dinner. That was very nice and we did enjoy that. There was a great turnout from the volunteers as well. And along that line, I wanted to thank again this uh meeting, all the folks that have helped us during the weather, all of our general services staff, housekeepers, a whole lot of people at the county who've done things to keep us um going and safe, our public safety, law enforcement, fire and EMS, and our career uh our fire and volunteer rescue and our career staff as well. They've really done a lot to help us. Uh I have a meeting with uh Dr. Gumble on Wednesday. So I'm looking forward to that. We'll start talking about the budget. uh the new school superintendent. I will start talking about our budget um plans for the upcoming year and I I imagine that some of you will mention this in your reports, but we had a really productive few days last week when we went to Richmond to speak with our legislators and it thought it was really good that we got to speak to each of the legislators themselves in person. So, um, while we were gone, there was an exit and issues session on economic development and Brian Hamilton, our economic development director, presented on that panel. So, I understand that he did a really good job and I just wanted to give a shout out to him as well. Our next meeting, February 23rd, the schools are scheduled to present their request on their budget for fiscal year 27 to us. So, I wanted to make sure folks knew that as well.

Great. Thank you. All right. Now, we'll go to board members reports and we're going to start with Supervisor King. Don't have no report, but we all at the fire department appreciate everybody that could show up Saturday. They do appreciate you coming out supporting him. That's all great. Supervisor kits.

Um, had a good time as we went down to Veco in legislative days. had a chance to talk to our uh local delegates and senator about increased funding for fire and EMS um and some things we want to try to as we push forward as far as reimbursements for interstate accident reporting and things like that. So, it was a it was a good opportunity to get some things out that that we want to try to prioritize and to push education funding and I'll leave the rest of it up for the other members that went so they can talk about it. So, thank you. Thank you. I'll kick it straight to Supervisor Biggs from there then.

Okay. So, we were able to actually uh talk to Senator Hackworth and delegates Ballard and Franklin and we did catch uh Senator Sudterline the night before our actual government day, but we were able to talk to his aid. And so basically it all boiled down to again asking for more state money for public education as we do every year because the state still is not an equal partner. Yes, they've been putting in money and one of the questions I brought up was are you looking at the JARK study in some kind of manner so that you have a framework in an organized manner to start funding it. Um, we had one person answer that in the I think in some of the committee work that they might be looking at that. So, I'll throw that out there because you all always hear me talking about the JARK study. Um, the other issue is not taking away any kind of control from lo localities and that includes land use. That's really big for us and something that people might not be aware of. Um, you've heard a lot of talk about the personal or about the car tax. Let's don't have the car tax. It's regressive. Yes, it is. So is real estate tax. But what a lot of folks might not realize is that that we're very dependent on those two forms of revenue to produce the services we do on a local level. So there is a study that delegate Franklin put in um to just one of the things that concerns the car tax to look at it to see is there a sustainable way from the state to provide the money that would be taken away from localities. Well, here's the problem. Where are they going to get the money? Because they're not funding some of the things they need to be funding. And so a lot of money goes into education. My fear would be they'd take

it out of education, send it back to us, and then that would decrease the amount from the state to education. That's just my personal opinion. But anyway, while we were having this discussion, we were trying to figure out how much money does Montgomery County get from the personal property tax, the car tax, and we found out that amount. And Miss Hill, would you like to tell us that amount? The amount that we collect from citizens right now is about $18 million, a little less than that, which is about 15 cents if we translated that to the real estate tax.

Right? So, when we talk when we start talking about doing away with something, there has to be a sustainable revenue source to cover that. That is a heck of a lot of money. And you think about it, we have 95 counties in Virginia, plus we have cities. I don't see how the state would have a sustainable way to reimburse that, but that's just my personal opinion. So, those were like the main topics. And then I also wanted to um thank um the Riner Fire Department for inviting us. Um their awards ceremony was really it was a really nice event. So, can you take that back, Supervisor King? And that's all I have to say.

Supervisor Graphski.

Hey, thanks. Um, not a whole lot to add on. Uh, I, you know, uh, am grateful at the opportunity to travel with my colleagues up to Richmond, uh, last week and and speak with our our legislators and, you know, talk about our priorities, our concerns. Um, and then as always, you know, Veo is so great about keeping us up to date on, you know, bills that are being introduced, potential impacts, you know, locally and at the state. Um so always appreciate those opportunities. Um you know another thing that we that we brought up uh was talking about the classification of um vape and ecigarette uh products and there and you know currently those just being classified as retail items and looking at opportunities to put those into the cigarette uh camp if you will. Uh possibly a nicotine related tax. you know, another way we're always looking for ways that we can generate some additional local dollars. That's all I got.

Great. Supervisor Karan,

now it's very um hard to go the last one because everybody stole my thunder and said everything that needs to be said. Uh well, I attended the RER Fire Department awards ceremony as well. And um thank you Supervisor King for showing me around the building because when it opened I was not on board. I haven't seen it. So I had a special tour by Supervisor King and I traveled to Richmond as well and and one wish I have to go to Richmond next time with our representation from schoolboard partners. uh whether it will be superintendent and board chairs or you know the couple of the members I I don't think we will like to fit in their little rooms 14 of us but I think good representation and having uh us together as representing the local government asking funding for the same uh cause will look good that's again my personal opinion too and I'm continuing the ve classes um I think I attended my first PSA meeting on board with everybody else and that's it.

Great. Thank you, Vice Chair Fijicowski. Yeah, I regret I wasn't able to go to uh the uh the Riner um fire uh awards thing, but I I I did want to mention that I had a younger brother visiting me and we were going down Route 8 and we passed Reiner Fire Department and he made me stop the car so he could get a picture of it because he's never seen a fire department so beautiful.

So, we did that. Um, I will vouch for Brian at the uh, eggs and issues. He did a great job. Um, I'd like to say that there's a lot of optimism on that fourperson board, but I didn't really hear it. Uh, but I did hear one thing came through loud and clear. One of the members said, "One of the things that would definitely set Virginia back is if we do away with right to work." So, um that's something to think about. But, uh uh I want to thank everybody that was involved with this snowstorm. I mean, we had this was very unusual snowstorm where it wasn't very deep, but it was very messy and uh it was persistent due to the uh cold weather and uh I know it was a challenge, but hopefully this week we'll melt some of that snow by the end of the week, so things might be looking better. Um, also we've gotten a couple of unusual emails here lately for the board to consider and uh, but one of them was uh, one that kind of struck me. It was extremely long, but I read it. It had to do with um, asking this board if we would be interested in um, a resolution supporting VMI. Um, I don't know if anybody had a chance to read that. Uh, I did um I am in favor of doing something like that, but I would encourage you all to read it and maybe we'll get a consensus at the next meeting if that's something we want to do. So, that's all I got.

Thank you, Vice Chair Fijicowski. And I just have a couple of things. Um, I also uh was super happy to attend Veco Legislative Day with several of you. Um, and it was really I I want to extend a special thanks to staff because I know coordinating all of our various calendars and schedules and then adding that to the busy calendars of our legislators is kind of like chasing your tail at times. So, um I think that it's really great um that we were able to have face-to-face meetings with three of our legislators in the past. we've gone and been able just to meet with legislative assistants. So, I think that that's um quite wonderful because it helps us develop some of those important relationships or um you know, connections. And so, I'm I'm very pleased about that. Um, Supervisor Gravski failed to mention um that he beat the high score on the basketball machine. Um, [laughter] so he totally smoked us all and definitely um got the new high score on the basketball machine one evening. Um, and then I had one other thing that I wanted to kind of get some input from everybody on um, the Virginia Cooperative Extension is reviving their extension leadership council. Um, and this is kind of an advisory board to the council that has a mission to develop a program plan that will direct the cooperative extensions resources toward identified issues and concerns. Um, their proposal is a quarterly meeting of the um, ELC is what they're calling it, extension leadership council. They've requested um, for me to provide feedback on whether or not I would be interested in joining. if not me, they would like a representative from our board. And I didn't know if anybody had a particular interest in the work of the cooperative

extension. I am certainly available to serve, but if somebody um hears that and says, "Wow, that'd be a great fit for me." Okay. So, I will I will respond that we will be participating. Um and I it's a initial two-year term. Um and so in a few years somebody else will have to be appointed to that. Um and I don't have anything else to share. I'm not seeing anything else from my colleagues. So this meeting is adjourned.