Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

meeting of the Board of Supervisors if we could stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Supervisor Mullins and the invocation by Supervisor Guzman.

Let's pray. Lord, Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the opportunity we have to gather tonight and just discuss the business of the county. And Lord, we just pray that you'd be with our first responders and our county employees and everyone that puts in hard work to make sure we have the things that we need in our county. And Lord, we just pray that as we go through this meeting tonight, that you would guide and direct our decisions, Lord, that we would do things that are pleasing in your sight and that everything would be done to honor and glorify you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Oh, OK. All right, before we start, Supervisor Lane, you had something that you wanted to say?

Thank you, Chairwoman Hayes. Real quick, before we get going with tonight's meeting, I just wanted to make a quick little announcement. It is my absolute privilege this afternoon to recognize an historic achievement by some of Spotsylvania County's finest young athletes. Earlier this afternoon, the Spotsylvania County Little League girls softball, ages 8 to 10 years old, won the state championship for Spotsylvania County. So here we've got, this is a freshly game worn jersey. So I'm gonna try to set this in the back, but she needs to be washed. But Skylyn, I appreciate you letting me borrow this. Bar this jersey, but Skylyn Casarotti, Lenora Eaton, Harper Grisham, Maggie Hurd, Lila Kuchlewski, Rylan Luttrell, Lillian McKinney, Maria Novick, Lucia Pinto, Faith Prika, Carly Spitler and Brittany Stepaniak. If I mispronounce those, I apologize. But ladies, congratulations. You have made this entire community super, super proud. And Amy, if we could, could we reach out? Mr. Fred Brown, as we all know very well, he took our flag overseas for us, is the Little League president. Could we please reach out to them? July 30th, they're going to be heading out to Tennessee. to represent the state of Virginia in the regional tournament. So if we could reach out to them, let's try not to bother them too much beforehand. But after July 30th, once that tournament starts, if we could reach out to them and try to get those young ladies in here for a proclamation and some hats off to them. So Vice Chairwoman, thank you so much. Ms. Chairwoman, thank you so much.

Thank you. That is cause for celebration for sure. We do have a quorum, and I was previously contacted by Supervisor Frazier letting me know that she would not be able to attend physically the board meeting today due to a pre-planned business trip. Dr. Frazier will be participating remotely from a hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. I move that the board approve Dr. Frazier's remote participation in tonight's meeting. Please note that Dr. Frazier Frazier's remote participation requires roll call voting while she participates in the meeting. So I'll go ahead and take the vote, Jake.

Yes, aye.

Drew?

Drew votes aye.

Chris?

Aye.

Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. And the chair votes aye.

Thank you. Good evening, Supervisor Hayes and the rest of the board. I do have an announcement before we get going this evening. There are two vote onlys on the agenda this evening. One is for Lafayette Commons, that's R19-0009, and the other is an SUP25-0007, Spotsylvania Meats. Both of those public hearings are closed, so the board will not be receiving any public comment on either of those two projects this evening. Your first item of business this evening is the approval of the agenda and we do have some additions to the agenda this evening. If I can have the floor computer please. YOUR FIRST ITEM TO BE ADDED TO THE AGENDA, AND ALL FOUR OF THESE ITEMS ARE GOING TO BE ADDED TO THE CONSENT AGENDA. THE FIRST IS THE APPROVAL OF THE BOARD CHAIR TO SIGN A LETTER OPPOSING THE REMOVAL OF NO WAKE SURFING BOYS TO THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE RESOURCES. THE SECOND IS THE APPOINTMENT OF MARY BURE TO THE SOCIAL SERVICES ADVISORY BOARD. THIS IS FOR THE CHANCELLOR DISTRICT. The third item is the approval of a proclamation to honor the Exploring Kunta Roots 50 Commemorative Experience and Joy Fest, August 7th through the 9th, 2026. And the fourth item is a grant application request in authorized order. Organizational Representative Resolution for the calendar year 27-28. This is for Firearm Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program for an additional prosecutor for the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. And there is no local match. And all four of those items will be added to your consent agenda for approval. I do have the proclamation for item three that I can go ahead and read. so that you all know what the proclamation states when you vote on it. Honoring the Exploring Kunta, Roots 50 Commemorative Experience and Joy Fest, whereas 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of Roots, the Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, a work that ignited a national awakening about ancestry, identity, and the history of the African diaspora, and whose 1977 television adaptation was watched by more than 130 million Americans. and whereas the Exploring Kunta Roots 50 commemorative experience is a three-day cultural heritage journey taking place August 7-9, 2026 that traces the documented path of Kunta Kinte from the Kunta Kinte Alex Haley Memorial at the Annapolis City Dock in Maryland, through Fredericksburg, Virginia, to Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and whereas Joy Fest, held Sunday, August 9, 2026, at the John J. Wright Educational Cultural Center, is the first celebration of its kind ever held in Spotsylvania County, bringing residents and visitors together through live music, food, fellowship, and a headline performance by Grammy-nominated gospel artist Luther Barnes. and whereas the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center has stood as a cornerstone of Spotsylvania County's African-American heritage since 1870 and continues to offer residents and visitors a living connection to the ancestors who shaped the region's growth and identity, and whereas Kunta Kinte was enslaved by the Waller family on Spotsylvania soil. forever linking this community to the ancestral story at the heart of roots. An ancestor now honored by his decedents, Bill Haley Jr., grandson of Alex Haley, and Chris Haley, nephew of Alex Haley, and a direct decedent of Kunte Kinte, both of whom carry forward their family's legacy of preserving ancestry and telling the stories of those who came before. And whereas this commemorative journey coincides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, creating a shared moment of national reflection, remembrance, and cultural reclamation for all Americans, And whereas this project was created and is curated by visual artist Nikki Brooks, lead artist of the Black Woman Aesthetic in partnership with Kunte Kinte Celebrations, Inc., the Inherited Roots Project, the Fredericksburg Area Museum, and the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center, the proud host site of Joy Fest, whose collective partnership brings this historic gathering to the people of Spotsylvania County. Now, therefore, it be resolved that the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes August 9th as Joy Fest Exploring Kunta Roots 50 Day in Spotsylvania County. And that will be added to your consent agenda.

Thank you, Ed. Is there a motion to add those items?

So moved.

All right, Jake?

Aye.

Drew? Aye. Chris? Aye. Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. Dr. Frazier?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

That brings us to your consent agenda. Your consent agenda this evening is as follows. Item 1 is the approval of the minutes of the June 9th, 2026 Board of Supervisors meeting. Items 2, 3, 4, and 5 are budget acceptance, adjustments, and appropriations for various grants. The first is for a 2027 School Security Officer Grant Award. LOCAL MATCH IS IDENTIFIED IN THE 2026 TO 2028 COMPOSITE INDEX OF LOCAL ABILITY TO PAY RATE OF 37.83%. THE SECOND IS A GRANT FOR THE 2027 SCHOOL SAFETY PERSONNEL AND SUPPLIES GRANT AWARD. THIS IS FOR SEVEN BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION POSITIONS FOR SPOTS OF VENUE COUNTY SCHOOLS. LOCAL MATCH IS AGAIN IDENTIFIED THROUGH THE COMPOSITE INDEX. Item 4 is another grant. It's 2027 Department of Criminal Justice Services Justice Grant for a Law Enforcement Equipment Award. And that grant has a 25% match. Item 5 is a grant for the Virginia Public Safety Answering Point Education Program. Item 6 is approval of budget adjustment and appropriation for additional CSA-mandated services funding. The local match is 46.36%. Item 7 is the approval of budget adjustment and award for a contract to CDM Smith, Inc. for the Nye River Water Treatment Plant upgrade and rehabilitation design. That's in the amount of $1,897,187.00. Item 8 is the approval of budget adjustment and appropriation of the 2024 EDA bond interest earnings for Holbert Building renovations in the amount of $487,495.00. ITEM NINE IS THE APPROVAL OF CONTRACT MODIFICATION TO ADAMS ROBINSON ENTERPRISES FOR THE MASSAPONICS WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT LEVEL ONE REUSE TREATMENT CONSTRUCTION. THAT PROJECT INCREASE IS $89,271,251, WHICH I NOTE IS BEING PAID FOR 100% BY AMAZON WEB SERVICES. Item 10 is the approval of contract to Muller Inc. for the Levels Road 24-inch water main improvement project in the amount of $11,270,000. Item 11 is the approval of a contract renewal to TRC Engineers and SCS Engineers for Solid Waste Engineering Services. ITEM 12 IS THE APPROVAL OF THE FY27 CONTRACT TO THE VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES GROUP SELF-INSURANCE RISK POOL FOR SELF-INSURANCE. ITEM 13 IS THE APPROVAL OF THE FAMPO APPOINTMENT CHANGES OF SUPERVISOR YACOBOWSKI FROM PRIMARY TO ALTERNATE AND SUPERVISOR GUZMAN FROM ALTERNATE TO PRIMARY. THAT TIME EXPIRES 1-12-27. Item 14 is the approval of three contract renewals for wastewater treatment chemicals. Item 15 is the approval of five contract renewals to provide professional transportation engineering services. Item 16 is the approval of eight contract renewals for water treatment chemicals. Item 17 is the approval of funding support for approved smart scale applications. Item 18 is the approval of a purchase order to facility support for new ups with installation and electrical at six locations. It's $275,404. Those are for fire stations. Item 19 is the approval of Task Order 10, Amendment 4 to SCS engineers for the landfill gas system expansion phase one in the amount of $3,950. ITEM 20 IS THE APPROVAL OF TASK ORDER TO SANTECH CONSULTING SERVICES FOR UPDATES TO THE STORMWATER AND ESC. THAT'S ENVIRONMENTAL STORMWATER CONSTRUCTION DESIGN STANDARDS MANUAL IN THE AMOUNT OF $226,241. ITEM 21 IS AUTHORIZATION FOR PUBLIC HEARING FOR THE LEE 1 BUILDING LEASE FOR ALORICA TO SUBLEASE TO KALAHARI. Item 22 is an authorization and resolution in support of a U.S. Congressional technical correction request for funding received through the federal fiscal year 2023 and federal fiscal year 2024 community project funding. There's no local match. Item 23 is the FY26 schools categorical budget adjustments. And items 24, 25, 26, and 27 were the items that were added to the agenda at the beginning of the evening that I read earlier.

Okay, thank you. Quite a long consent agenda here tonight. So with this, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing for just the consent agenda items. So that's just what Ed just read is the only thing that we can speak to at this point, okay? Amy, has anybody signed up?

There are two citizens signed up to speak. The first is Catherine Williams, and the second is Sandy Reinhart.

not at this time this is yeah this is just for the consent agenda items that were read yeah there'll be another time yeah no worries and Amy can you read the rules please

These are the guidelines for the public comment on the consent agenda. Public comment is an opportunity for you to address items on the consent agenda. This is separate from public presentations and public hearings. Sign up to speak at each public presentation and public hearing is separate. Public comments on the consent agenda is a one-way comment from you to the Board of Supervisors. This is not a forum for any dialogue or debate. The Board asks members of the public to conduct themselves civilly with their interactions with each other and to respect the time of the speaker who has the floor. Interruptions from those who do not have the floor, including interruptions and noises that interfere with the speaker's ability to address the board and any actual threats or intimidation toward a speaker or a member of the public will not be tolerated by the board and may lead to expulsion from this meeting. To make a public comment, please come to the lectern. Clearly state your name and voting district for the record. Individuals speaking on their own behalf receive three minutes to speak. One individual may represent a group and receives five minutes to speak. Please address your comments directly to the board. Public comments are for items on the consent agenda only and shall not be used to address matters subject to public hearings or to make any political campaign speeches or private advertisements, and written comments are always welcome. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Good evening, Board of Supervisors, and thank you for your time this evening. My name is Sandy Reinhart. I am with the Berkeley District. I'd like to speak on item 22 of the consent agenda. It's my understanding that this item is regards to earmarking funds for a community center in the courthouse district of Spotsylvania County. I have spoken to the board before in regards to the importance for a centralized senior facility in this county. A place where the seniors can go without first having to check a calendar to see what's happening and where it's happening. A single location that they know will be open and available all the days of the week. A place for activities and learnings that are engaged and active senior community that we have in this county. A place like what the Marshall Center had previously provided to us, a place for us to call home. I sincerely hope that the new center that you're talking about on item 22 is more than just a community center. I hope that this is going to be a place for the seniors to go and primarily used as a senior center for the county. Our seniors would like first consideration for the usage of that center. We'd like the new senior facility to be put on the budget for 2027, a subcommittee created so that you can find out what it is that the seniors want and need from a senior center in this community. It's been seven months since we lost the Marshall Center It's time to make that right and it's time to start providing for this important segment of your population in spot C County Thank you Thank you There are no other citizens signed up to speak Would anyone else like to come up and speak now?

This is just on the consent agenda items. I

Hello, thank you for allowing me to speak my name is Michelle Gooden and I'm in the Chancellor district I also spoke last year when the Marshall Center was closing and we were hoping to have a better solution than dividing up the seniors Among different centers. I am really glad to see that it is on the consent agenda to talk about a budget proposal for Community center, but I was saddened that it said community center as I feel like we have enough community centers here in Spotsylvania County But with 40,000 seniors and an increase expected in the next few years With baby boomers, etc. I would like to see it be dedicated to a senior center with appropriate staffing and different rooms to accommodate We definitely have the seniors that would like to come, and I understand transportation can sometimes be an obstacle. I'm sorry. But I appreciate that we have the senior population and interest in attending somewhere every day. Stafford County has a pretty good facility and an option for seniors to come without looking at a calendar, as was mentioned. And I definitely would like to have some of the community be a part of those discussions to ensure that the community center is... Accessible and appropriate for what the seniors are looking for. Thank you again for having it on the agenda I know that we were hoping to have an idea of how much this would cost by June from Parks and Rec and that didn't happen so thank you for Putting it on there and hopefully this can this can happen for our seniors my mom's 81 almost 82 and I know she participates everything we can and

having me drive her around gives her the time or the ability to get to a lot of places but most seniors don't have that so having a centralized location would be very beneficial thank you for your time thank you anyone else in the audience wish to speak on the consent agenda items okay seeing none we'll close the public comment do any of my colleagues wish to pull anything yes

Yes, Madam Chair. I'd like to pull 22 just to discuss a little bit further.

Okay. Anyone else?

Madam Chair, I'd like to pull number three to just get some discussion on that.

Okay. So let's take 22 first. Actually, let's go ahead and pull those. And then can we vote on the remainder of those?

Motion to approve the remainder.

All right. Jake? Aye. Drew? Aye. Chris? Aye. Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. Dr. Frazier? Aye. And the chair votes aye. All right. Then we'll take number 22 first.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to make sure we address this to make sure people understand what we're doing here. There's a grant program that was out there for a water tower that wasn't used. And we're working with... Representative Vindman's office to get the language changed so we can use it for a community center. And there's a lot of guidelines along that. But the big news I want to really make sure people understand that are listening, you know, this is an opportunity to get a community center at the courthouse with no taxpayer money. And local taxpayer money, I'll say it that way. So because it is federal money, so it's somebody's taxes. But so this is a great opportunity. I know we've been talking about it and throwing it around for the last year or so. I've been very adamant that I wanted to work with staff to make sure that we could get something for the seniors now that I am one. and uh and with you there and uh so i just want to make sure everybody understands that you know this is still a grant and it's got to be approved through the through the congressional side uh you know later in the year but we'll keep on top of it and if you have questions i'd be more glad to talk to others about it as well because i'll be watching it closely for you and i'd like to make a motion to approve okay jake hi drew hi chris hi gerald hi david hi dr frazier

And the chair votes aye. All right, let's take up number 3.

Thank you, Madam chair. Um, I'd like to pull number 3, uh, mostly. I'm not sure who the schools. Yes, there it is. Just just to shed light on the specifics of the. The bodies that you're going to hire and why you're hiring them and why you need them.

First of all, thank you for having us here this evening. Jeremy Schieffer, our Director of Security, applied for this grant for seven behavioral interventionists for our middle schools. We have noticed an uptick in behavioral issues within our classrooms, particularly at the middle school level. And in these seven positions, one in each school, we hope, will help enhance behavior by working with the teachers and the existing interventionists to improve student behavior. Proper student behavior enhances classroom education, improper behavior in the classroom will grind it to a halt. This is the first of what we hope to be five years of funding. At the end of the five years, if these positions prove effective, they will be incorporated into the baseline budget. If they prove to be ineffective, they will be dissolved at the end of the grant or sooner. We have a $254,000 match. We initially were going to use materials and supplies from various support spots to support the local match with the additional state funding that was just approved by Governor Spanberger. We will hope to use $254,000 for that additional state funding to support it. And we're happy to answer any other questions.

Thank you, Mr. Treyer. Could you Is this specialists will be used to help actually sometimes intervene when things are getting a little spicy at schools or or not?

The answer to that question is yes. One of the codes that's coming down the pipe, again, I participate in a quarterly Virginia campus, Virginia Center of Campus and School Safety, a quarterly meeting, and one of the highlights in our June meeting was the word intervention. And new code that's going to come in line starting July 1st, 2027, and we get time to implement and they want us to start implementing that this year is true intervention being put in place prior to just go ahead and implementing a suspension. It's trying to deploy like if I'm struggling at math, I don't kick you out of math class, I do tutoring, I do intervention. That's where this person could be an integral piece to it. We selected the middle school based on the discipline that naturally happens and why middle school exists is puberty. This is the point where not everybody gets invited to that Valentine's Day party or you don't all get a birthday card, right? They start to figure out who they are and they start to figure out how do I resolve conflict? So this behavior interventionist can be an integral piece in working with students that would be under tier two or tier three status, working with new teachers in effective classroom management, assisting in just making sure that all the interventions that we are deploying currently are being conducted with the fidelity as we are working with the Office on Youth to provide after-school anger management, substance abuse, tobacco education. All of these pieces are happening in live time. This position helps coordinate that in the focus in making sure that we are looking at these individual students that are communicating needs through behavior, and that we are deploying appropriate responses with the goal that they're not going to show up at the sheriff's office or in the court. We're trying to provide those interventions and the investments now to make them productive citizens when they leave and hopefully stay within Spotsylvania County.

So this isn't a... Maybe they have dual hats, but is this the next step where you have to deploy these folks with the population that has reached a point that they need to be dealt with, so to speak?

Again, it's looking at, if you think of a school population, I have tier one, which is everybody. So it's ensuring that we have those positive behavior interventions and supports across the entire board. And then you get a group of kids that about 15% is what we would expect that need a little more intense support, connecting to those families, and even connecting to sometimes outside resources. And then you get about 5% that fall into that tier three. classification that they need a much higher level of support. So you can imagine this position working within those populations and dividing their time amongst those groups and responding to all of that.

So it's not just a physical necessary intervention. It's intimate or one-on-one, but you've reached the last level of it either works here or it doesn't work at this point.

It gets to the one-to-one point, but it also gets to the entire school and then the small groups in between. And so this person would be assisting in all of those levels. On top of, we have a lot of new teachers. that are coming into education, and sometimes they don't have the background. And I will tell you, personally, I was that teacher. I had a science background. I was working in a laboratory growing a fungus, and I got hired over the phone. They're like, you have all the background and the skill. You don't have the education side. I told them I could manage a barn. I grew up on a dairy farm. I knew how to herd cattle. How do I manage children? That's a completely different skill set that has to be learned. You have to learn how to work with students. And again, the most difficult time period any of us, I think, would remember is that seventh grade year. That was the group that I enjoyed working with and building productive members. Because yes, I do believe as much as they will sometimes create some unique behaviors, they still want to connect with something. They still want to figure out who they are. That's where this position can help guide through a very challenging time of their life.

Well, I really appreciate you gentlemen explaining that in detail because these kinds of things can get lost in the chaff and people not understand that you're working hard to manage the challenges you have. And I wanted the public to hear that from you guys.

And I want to direct to Ms. Hayes, because I've been here before where in asking for support as a director of safety, it really took to heart a message she sent, which is, can't we get some grant funding to assist in this? So again, I've partnered with the county grant fund, you know, the grant liaisons here to truly bring in funding. And I'm proud to say last year brought in over $500,000 in funding from the state because we know we're not funded at the level that we should. And so that is what has brought this here to the table.

So on multiple levels, this is a good thing. And to the comment you had earlier, Phil, in that this is a five-year grant, correct? Correct. It could be five years.

One year, and then we can re-up it just like we're doing with the school's safety officer, the SROs as well. So if effective, and again, I come from a scientific background. I'm going to analyze the data. I'm going to see, is this working? If it's not, we're going to adjust course. I need this to work.

But the good news is if it works, we can keep applying and not have to worry about next year becoming positions that need to be funded directly. So we've got some time.

So in total, you get year one, and then you can renew it for three more, so four total years. There also may be additional, as Mr. Traer said, into that fifth year. Trust me, if there's a fifth year, I'm going to put it in.

Thanks, gentlemen.

And thank you for that, and I'm glad – that you're going to analyze the data because it's all about that, right? Finding out what works and what doesn't and making adjustments. I don't want to get in the school board's lane. I want to stay in my own lane. But I would just be really interested when you do have those statistics out. Can you share it with us? Because I really would like to know if this is something that's going to work.

And I will tell you, we're required to quarterly. So we will work with your grant folks that we submit quarterly data reports to analyze the effectiveness.

Okay, and so when would these people begin? This coming school year, right?

Yes, if proven tonight, we can move forward to hopefully get everybody hired and on board starting August 9th when we begin the first day of school.

Okay, so our first quarterly would be sometime in...

I think it would go July, August, September. So I believe September would be a truncated group. So typically we don't get a lot of data there, but we start laying that foundation of what are we looking for and laying the targets of where do we want to go.

Okay, great. I look forward to seeing that data. Thank you so much. Is there a motion to approve?

Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve item three.

Okay. Jake? Aye. Drew?

Aye.

Chris?

Aye.

Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. Dr. Frazier? Aye. And the chair votes aye. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right. So now we're on to public presentations. And this is the time that Anyone can come up and hold for just one moment, please. No, no, no, no, no.

It was supposed to be on the agenda. Y'all told me last week, last month, it would be on the agenda this month.

Sir, you need to sit down, and we will get to you. But we're not going to have this. Please sit down, and I've got to go through this. I've got to go through this in an orderly fashion. You will get your turn to speak. All right, sir, you will get your opportunity to speak. My apologies to the audience. Please, at this time, you can come up and speak on any subject that you would like, except for the two votes that we are voting only on tonight, and any public hearing. Any other thing you can speak on. Amy, is there anybody that has signed up?

Yes. There are multiple citizens signed up to speak. The first would be Catherine Williams, followed by Cynthia Statz.

Yeah, it will. You just need to push the button there.

No, it's... Okay. All right. Sorry, I've never done this before. You're fine. No worries. All right. All right. My name is Catherine Williams, and I live in the Lee District. My voting district is Lee Hill. I reside in Lee's Crossing area of Lee Hill. in the Spotsy area where the proposed Crossroads data center is projected to be. My family and I love our home and have made many wonderful memories with celebrations and trips to historic Fredericksburg. We have embraced living in Spotsy, and I have come to appreciate all that our neighborhood and community has done for us. We pride ourselves on the beauty and peaceful nature that is Spotsy. Recently, the peaceful nature was tarnished upon learning about data center in our area, and especially the Crossroads Data Center. I also learned in learning that Spotsy has eight data centers already and more in the works. We are a concerned community. I am concerned about the negative impacts that data centers have on our livelihood. We are a concerned group about the jump to have a large amount of energy-wasting, massive, noisy infrastructures in our backyard. A data center does not belong in our backyard. I am not the only concerned neighbor. I have over 180 signatures with me tonight from families in the Lee's Crossing and Lee Hill area that are opposed to this, to having crossroads. I am also a part of an organization, Safeguard Spotsy, and we are also concerned and we care about the negative impact that these data centers have on our lives and the environment. A data center is not a place to visit or to make a family memory or to look upon for its historic value. It is a massive infrastructure that is destined to drain our energy and destroy our peace. Tonight, you have the power to turn this around, to make a smart choice for Spotsy and not move forward with the Crossroads Project. I would like you, the board, to consider the 3,000 families that this infrastructure will impact. It's energy draining, the constant hum, the noise and light pollution that emanates from these infrastructures. Just to name a couple of problems from having a data center. Despite mitigating measures already put in place by the previous sup that was done, if this project were to go forward, I believe that it would devastate our community. We ask that you make the responsible decision about economic growth and tax revenue for the county and look to other ways that do not negatively impact our community. Enough is enough. Crossroads is not welcome here. I don't know if any of you would want a data center in your backyard. I wouldn't want to look out my bedroom window and see a seven-story building in the mist. I don't think so. Please make the choice that is right for the families and our communities so we can continue to appreciate the historic environmental beauty that we call Spotsy our home. Thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Cynthia Statz, followed by Josh Statz.

Hello, my name is Cynthia Stotz. I am a resident of Leehill and director of Safeguard Spotsy. As you know, data centers have become quite polarizing and unpopular, not only in Virginia, but across the country. I understand data centers will not be discussed today. However, I ask that over the next few months, As special use permits and applications come across your desk, that you consider the following. These decisions are not inconsequential. Data centers are going to have effects on generations to come. We, the residents of Spotsylvania County, deserve the utmost transparency, care, and thought to these data center decisions. I understand the county needs money, and the board thinks that data centers are the answer. A $1.25 tax rate and a technology incentive that can still be applied on a case-by-case basis will not provide the tax revenue windfall that is often touted. Are the increased costs that these data centers will cause to residents with increased utility bills, medical bills, loss of home value being considered, or the increased cost to the county through increased spending for electric, road, water, infrastructure, transmission lines, or the increased costs when data centers catch fire, cause flooding due to long-term construction, or when they need to be decommissioned or repurposed? We know they require massive amounts of power that we do not have the infrastructure for, nor do we want. The Brookings Institute states that two-thirds of PJMs increased power supply costs come from data center demand. Carnegie Mellon University estimates that data centers and crypto mining could increase electricity bills in Virginia more than 25%. Data centers already consume 25% of the total supply in Virginia, according to the Pew Research Center. We know for a fact that data centers cause air, noise, and water pollution. The 18 approved and proposed data centers will have, very conservatively, 2,000 backup generators. We know for a fact that they cause health problems for the residents, wildlife, and flora living near them. A University of California Riverside study looked at data centers in Virginia, and if, quote, actual emissions are 10% of the permitted level, The data centers in Virginia could already cause approximately 14,000 asthma symptom cases and 13 to 19 deaths each year, end quote. Why do you think Spotsylvania will be immune to these destructive results? Why are we not working harder to diversify where our tax revenue comes from? We are not bringing 18 water parks here. We're not bringing 18 medical clinics. Why? Because they wouldn't be a good fit for our county. The same can be true for data centers. Just because an industry wants to come here doesn't mean it's a good fit. We have eight approved data centers. The proposed 10 are not a good fit. Finally, I ask you to consider what happens when the AI bubble bursts? What happens when the technology advances and these massive complexes are no longer needed? MIT's study, the Gen AI Divide, states that the AI demand is consistently overestimated. The enterprise demand that these centers are being built for is failing to materialize in 95% of cases. 71% of Americans are against data centers, and that seems to bear true here in Spotsylvania County as well. We're asking our Board of Supervisors for more transparency and, above all else, to listen to their constituents and to listen to their neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Josh Stats.

Followed by Steven Cozella.

No, sir. Hold on a second. He's not. Okay. All right. My apologies. Yeah. Okay. Steven Cozella. Okay.

All right. Wonderful. Now you're good.

All right, well, I didn't quite get done writing. I don't know what green button I got to push, but good evening, members of the board. My name is Stephen James Cosella, and I live in the Berkeley District, which is your district. This has nothing to do with the data centers and other issues being presented here tonight. This has to do with me and my family being able to live a comfortable life in our new home. I came here last month and was told my issue would be put on the agenda by every single one of you. I'm here tonight because I have been told that I live in a black hole of county law. I'm being told that because where I live, I am exempt from the noise protections that probably most of y'all people in here enjoy. I am being told that even though a dog is located 70 feet from my bedroom, barking, blowing noise in my home 24 hours a day, I simply have to deal with it. I'm here to ask, why is my home less valuable than a home in the Chancellor's Courtland districts. Why does the county believe that a resident of the Berkeley district doesn't need sleep? Doesn't deserve quiet doesn't have the right to live comfortably in their own house Exemptions for agricultural areas were designed to protect farmers from being sued for occasional sound of a tractor or natural noise of livestock They were never intended to give a neighbor a blank check to run a high-noise kennel operation right up against the residential property line. Right now, the law is being used as a shield for a nuisance rather than a protection of a lifestyle by exempting our district from the standard barking ordinance You have effectively created two classes of citizens, those who are protected by the law and those of us in the Berkeley district who are left to suffer in silence or rather in the constant noise of someone else's business. When a neighbor's dogs bark for hours on end, just feet from where I try to sleep, it isn't farming. It's a violation of the basic human right to the peace of one's own sanctuary. My property taxes are not exempt. My mortgage is not exempt. So why are my rights exempt? I'm calling on this board to close the loophole. No district should be exempt from a basic standard of decency. If the noise is plain, plainly audible inside a neighbor's home for over an hour, it's a nuisance, period. It doesn't matter if that home is on a half-acre lot or on a 50-acre farm. Please give the residents of Berkeley District... some rights about this. Update the ordinance so it applies to all of Spotsylvania, ensuring that every citizen, no matter their zip code, can live comfortably in their home they worked so hard to build. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. All right. Is there anyone else in the audience that... Okay. We've got several. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. Hold on.

William Johnson, followed by Dina Kevalu. Neither, William Johnson. How about Lisa Amer? Followed by Melissa Sampson.

Okie-dokie, hear me? My name is Lisa Amer and I live in the Lee Hill District. And it's been a month, about a month since I was here last and requested a more informative and productive meeting about the Crossroads Data Center. be held. To date, surprisingly, I say that with much sarcasm, I have not received any information about a rescheduling. The developers have checked the box and they've decided to move on. It appears they don't either care about the citizens of Spotsylvania or they are scared of their own truth. I have so many concerns about this project with nobody to ask the questions to or have them answered. Who or where is the public's point of contact to answer questions about the impact this potential data center will have on us, such as the power and electricity, water, broadband infrastructure, land use, workforce and jobs, the impact that sites will have on noise, lighting, air pollution, and viewshed, traffic and local infrastructure, environment and climate, and emergency preparedness. There is an onslaught of data centers coming and they are trying to land in our backyards. The lack of transparency and community engagement is extremely concerning and should set off alarms. Is this what we can expect if it reaches fruition? What are they hiding? It is your responsibility as members of the Board of Supervisors to protect the best interests of your constituents and not the corporate interests of these data centers. And as an after note to my prepared speech, as I was sitting there I was thinking, possibly you as Board of Supervisors could hold public meetings to inform us of what exactly is going on the scheduling the issues that are being raised in a conducive meeting situation And that would help with the transparency of these data center projects, and most specifically, the Crossroads Project. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Melissa Sampson, followed by Donna Crump.

Good evening everyone good evening board Melissa was kind enough to let me take her spot. But this is pertaining to the roots experience, my name is Nick Nicole Brooks i'm a native of spots of me, and this is new to me doing something like this, quite frankly i'm an introvert sometimes so. So before anything else, I want you to know I'm a native of Spotsylvania County. This isn't just a project I'm curating. It's a love project because Spotsylvania is home. This soil, this land, it built me. But long before it built me, it was cultivated by hands that were never free to leave it. And so in honor of that, this August marks the 50 years since Alex Haley's roots, since he's come to Spotsylvania to hold and tell that story to a nation, how it changed millions of Americans and how they understood ancestry, not just in the Black diaspora, but we all have family lineage. But I want to be clear about something. This isn't only about Alex Haley's legacy, Roots gave one family story a name and a free, oh, I don't have my glasses, a face. Sorry. But for every Kunta Kinte we know by name, there are countless others whose stories were never written down. Enslaved men and women right here in Spotsylvania whose names we may never recover. Honoring this proclamation is a way of saying your story matters too, even the ones history didn't record. So tonight, I thank you for putting it on the docket. It's an honor to see it as the inner young black girl in me was honored to see it. So tonight I'm asking this board to proclaim August 9th, 2026, my love project, Joy Fest, exploring Kunta Root's 50th commemorative experience, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Donna Crump, followed by Kristen Bishop. Donna Crump. Kristen Bishop. Jennifer Child. Followed by Alan Branthman.

I have a copy to hand out afterwards. Sorry, I'm just waiting a moment. It's okay. Good evening Chairman and members of the board. My name is Jennifer Child and I live in Leehill South. I am speaking tonight in regards to the Crossroads Tech Campus and I want to begin by I want to make sure that I express my appreciation publicly towards the Planning Commission and all of the people involved in in their meticulous work for securing already 1,000 foot setbacks for St. Jude's Church and 1,650 foot setbacks for our neighborhood. These are important for the generator noise to help mitigate that. I wanna talk to you specifically tonight, if I can, about the types of noise that travels much further, the low frequency hums Before I do that though, I also want to thank this entire board for your leadership in moving towards a special use permit process. I know that it can be a terrible balancing act between the immense weight of budget revenue and versus community impact. I know that that is not an easy thing to weigh and So to be clear, I'm not anti data center. I just want a high quality responsible build over a cheap one and I know that the technology exists for that. My daughter is doing a science project this year on data center noise and the type of noise that happens at night where it magnifies due to temperature. So I went out and I heard and different centers have different hums, different sounds. But that technology Those companies can't justify paying for those upgraded technologies unless we mandate that with permit conditions. I know in my heart, I'm hoping that this developer ends up being Mr. Rogers, and he's the best neighbor ever. I'm hoping, and maybe the people who are representing this project, they are a little bit like Mr. Rogers, but at the end of the day, this developer, whoever they are, they are going to have shareholders and those shareholders are going to be looking at the bottom line just like you do when it comes to county budgets and you're going to be asking the question in tough times and they're going to be asking the question, was this upgrade wanted or was it mandated? Is it mandated by the county? And so I want to talk about two things and I'm probably going to run out of time but I have a thing. The local typography of Crossroads Tech that area is very specific there's a wetlands there's golf courses and it might magnify that sound so it is very important that we have a third party topography study before things are built the second is total noise that will go into our homes I'm out of time I knew I would be but I have copies thank you so much for your time and for your leadership thank you if you have stuff to give you can yeah just

He can take it there. Mark. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you, Jennifer.

Alan Branfman, followed by Kelsey Payne.

Hello. My name is Alan Branfman. I know some of you. I've known some of you for over 25 years. I just want to say that I resent the fact that I could not address the slaughterhouse up to this point and that I can't address it right now.

Kelsey Payne.

Hi, my name is Kelsey Payne and I live in the Newport community in the Lee Hill District and I'm here with Safeguard Spotsy. Thank you for the opportunity to address you all today. So last weekend our neighbors across the street hosted a barbecue. Our three-year-old daughter had a blast jumping in the bounce house and splashing around in the pool with all the other neighborhood children. The adults got to enjoy a live band that they had brought in and barbecue off a big smoker they had attached to a truck somehow. We all had a really great time. But just beyond the bounce house, there's Belvedere Farm, where last year we took our then two-year-old on a tractor ride through a pumpkin patch right up to the edge of our neighborhood. You can actually see the houses quite well from the farm. It's there, on top of the pumpkin patch, right behind the bounce house, where the largest data center in Spotsylvania is planned currently. In order to put a data center on Belvedere Farm, parts of the land must be rezoned from agriculture to industrial, and a special use permit must be issued. The zoning is governed by municipal code 23.4.1.6 and the code of Virginia 15.2-2284. And the special use permit is governed by municipal code 23.4.5.7. And there are a number of reasons why this farm likely will not meet the strict requirements in the zoning change, as well as a special use permit. I'm going to focus on special use permit because it is a little more specific and stringent and I don't have a lot of time. So, in order to have this permit, it cannot hinder or discourage the use of adjacent land or impair property value It cannot adversely affect health or safety of persons residing in the neighborhood, and it must be appropriately located relating to water supply, waste disposal, and other utilities, and it can have no unduly adverse impact on the environment or natural resources. Looking at Belvedere, we know this is a historic property. It's located on the river. There are endangered species involved. It's a very flat land. It would be difficult to obscure the data center and you'd likely be able to see it from the river as well as from the Stafford side of the river. It's also extremely close to housing. If you went out there, if you've ever been at the farm with your children or grandchildren, which I know many of us have, you would see just how close it was to this neighborhood. And, you know, along with other data centers, noise, utility usage, all those would be an issue on top of the environmental issue and the historical issues related to the farm. So in closing, I hope that in a few years, when my now nine-month-old is big enough to join her sister in the bounce house, that there won't be too much noise or pollution from the generators and the data center for her to play outside, and that there will be enough water to run the sprinklers and enough power to run the air conditioning when they come inside for lunch. So please help us protect our communities and our children and deny the Belvedere Data Center use permit. Thank you. Thank you.

There are no other citizens signed up to speak.

Okay. At this time, if there is anyone that would like to speak from the audience, and again, this is on any subject except for the votes that we're taking or the public hearings that we'll be hearing. Thank you.

Hello, my name's Scott Reinhart. I'm in the Berkeley District. I'm here to speak about the Senior Center. It's been 10 years now, oops, I'm sorry, this is my, I've shot out 10 years worth of presentations, because I don't have a lot of faith in what's moving forward. When I start hearing about grants, et cetera, I like to see a line item. You know, we've had semi-promises as far as getting budgetary numbers. That's gone by. And when I hear about a lot of these things, it's kind of just a black hole. You don't know who to talk to, what's going on, et cetera. So I just wanted to emphasize that I hear thousands of dollars for programs and projects that go nine months a year. Currently, we spend less than 10 cents per senior in this county. Less than 10 cents per senior. So my presentation, what I like to talk about is what I call the paper towel project thing. I don't know who to even go to to try to improve what we have now. I don't have any faith in a center, but let's try to improve what we have. So I'm asking for more funding than $0.10 a person. I think the number is $3,500, and that's been in place for 20 years or something like that. So I'd just like to propose a little bit extra funding or somewhere to go to try to improve our situation with what we have now. So any direction, we appreciate it. And please come out to one of the senior meetings and speak with us, and we'd appreciate that. So thank you.

Okay, thank you so much. Yes, Mark. You're fine.

Yeah, I'd just like to let everybody know that our overflow area is in the lobby and we've got the big TV screens on now. So if you get tired of standing, you're welcome to go out in the lobby and sit on the benches and you can watch what's going on within the meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Am I good to go?

Yep, you're good to go.

Okay, good afternoon. My name is Kayla. I just wanted to come on here. Our issue wasn't addressed last month, like you guys said, the barking dogs ordinance. This is incredibly frustrating because it feels like we've been let down and that you don't take our issue seriously because our district is isolated from this problem. And It's incredibly frustrating because none of us has gotten sleep since January, and we deserve to sleep because in order to work and live and function, you have to get enough sleep. This has been really annoying, too, because we've spoken to this neighbor multiple times without any change, and he's been very... He's not cooperating with us, and this is just really frustrating, so I hope you guys will take this into consideration so that we all can have peace in our homes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey, before I start, can I ask where David went?

I don't know.

Oh, because, I mean, I feel like he left because he knew I was next.

Okay.

No, like seriously.

No, not really.

Okay, so can we start my three minutes over since I was asking a question? Thank you. Okay. So good evening members of the board. My name is Ashley Forbes. I'm a local resident. I'm found this district McKinney Vento for Spotsylvania, which means I'm a homeless parent I am a local resident a legal support professional and a believer in open government I am speaking tonight to address a disturbing question of public integrity Why I a private citizen threatened with a massive $50,000 lawsuit in order to publicly apologize to people I didn't even know The answer is simple. It was a political hit job designed to use me as a pawn To show you exactly how this network operates. Let me read the written ultimatum They sent me under the threat of a massive lawsuit. They wrote for the public record This is not a public apology to anyone listed on this list Okay They wrote, I will drop the charges against you specifically if you post this on your page and tag your followers. I, Ashley Forbes, apologize for participating in the hateful post of the Spotsylvania parent collations. I am now aware that they unfairly defame and slander many respected community leaders, including... Larry DeBell, I'm very bad at names, by the way. Richard Lieberman, David Guzman, Jennifer Craig-Forb, Chris Yabuski, Eric Martin, Marcus Garcia, Brett Pritchard, Teresa Dobson, Mike Wood, Megan Jackson, and Clint Mitchell. I condemned this page and its allies, Roy Searles and Lisa Phelps, for their methods of advocacy. They even pre-signed my name, Ashley Forbes. Let me be entirely clear. A lot of these individuals are people I did not even know at the time. I did not learn who they were until this conflict educated me to their presence. I had and still have absolutely no association with them. They tried using this crushing threat of a lawsuit to force my compliance and to make me lie to 5,000 plus social media followers and let the record be clear tonight that this threat is over and done with. What they attempted was a textbook slap suit, stratic lawsuit against public participation under Virginia Code Section 8.1-223.2, our state's anti-slap statute. Virginia protects citizens from this exact kind of legal bullying. Their scare tactics failed. When individuals try these bullying tactics, travels between counties... sit in our boardrooms and try to slide into our county seats. They bring a toxic standard that breaks public trust. I urge this board to look closely at the backgrounds of traveling political actors who frequent these meetings. Spotsylvania must stay safe and open for all residents. Thank you for your time.

You good?

Sorry. Hi. Yo, Board of Supervisors, what's good, fam? It's your boy, Shamgar Connors, voting district 6th degree. You probably know me. But today I'm coming at y'all as a transracial black man straight out of the hood. You know what I'm saying? Last time I was spitting at the school board, you guys probably saw this, and I did my little trans-Hispanic mariachi bit singing about how they hired a pedophile bus aid who was diddling special needs kids in wheelchairs and on the buses. Now, Megan Jackson gaveled me down real quick, talking about, you need to leave. We're not discussing pedophiles. I said, you hired them. And then they kicked me out anyway. My boy Steve here back there was in on it. And, you know, straight clowning. But she let several other speakers right after me talk about pedophiles and pedophilia right after, you know. So I guess the rules only apply when it's me telling the truth, you know what I'm saying? Now, they hit me up with an eight-month no trespass order. But guess what? I've been locked up in the Rappahannock Regional Jail this entire time, eating ramen noodles at $1.10 a pack, absolutely insane prices, making a howdy get poor. That's why I'm locked up. We just got the letter, by the way. I got a letter. I'm going to submit it. It's from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression back in February 2026. They said it clear. The board clearly violated my First Amendment rights by silencing satire and parody about their DEI hires and cover-ups. They told you all to rescind that ban, and they didn't listen. First thing they did when the new board got in, by the way, I was there for that meeting. They restored all the sexually explicit books that the committee had banned. And then they denied a real third-party investigation into how Miguel Velasquez Velasco got hired and kept working after the complaints. But here's the real kicker. After they kicked me out, at least two more pedophiles and the people with the child porn charges got exposed working in spotsy schools. One's just this past June. I guess it's the hire no questions asked for background checks. Now, there's also been reports and allegations that the same individual abused over a dozen students, crossed multiple buses over many months, despite earlier complaints, and before anything was done. But I guess the school board cared more about protecting the precious DEI narrative than protecting actual kids. Now, I want to talk to you about another person. His name's Dante Braden. He's out here calling me a pedophile on posts. And he's saying, I'm forcing some teenage girl to come to this meeting. That'd be Carly right there. Now, he knew exactly what he was implying. Then he said, I doubled down on my posts and poking fun at my life-threatening organ failure and kidney issues, saying it's affecting my brain. Howdy, please. That's some low-down, dirty, hypocritical mess. You claim to be of religious liberty, but attack a man's health and smear him as a predator? Jesus ain't doing all that. And then my boy Clint Mitchell, shout out. If you remember, he called. There was a parked car. He saw it in a garage. It was empty. And it said Trump 2020 on it. He said it was the pure embodiment of white supremacy and white privilege on full display. He didn't even know. Who it was that it belonged to. That's straight racist, Clint. Now, Board of Supervisors, you all control the purse strings. You know, you'd have to demand that the school boards do a full independent third-party investigation. Hire on the cover-ups, these hiring. Demand they stop putting sexually explicit material back in the schools. And if they don't, don't approve the budget. Stop wasting taxpayer money protecting dealers just so they can keep pushing this woke clown show. And, you know, where are my howdies at? And shout-out to all the rest of my howdies. They got me locked up, don't let me out.

Locked up, don't let me out.

That's some Akon and Young Jeezy trying to keep it easy.

Thank you.

You can, if you want to go ahead.

I'm sorry. No, you're fine.

My bad. Good evening members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Carla Millsap and I'm a 2024 graduate of Spotsylvania High School and I just turned 20 years old back in May and I'm here today because I've seen the problems the cover-ups in our school division and I will not be silenced. for years shamgar connors has spoken about the serious problems in spottavenia public schools including the hiring and the protection of the people who were in danger to the students he was right when he used satire to point out how the district handled the former bus aid miguel velasquez who was later convicted of sexually assaulting multiple special needs children the school board removed him from meetings and gave him a no trespass order that broke the rules about free speech as shown in february 2026 letter from the foundation for individual rights and expression Some people, including Dante Braden, have tried to make Shamgar look bad by saying he forced a teenage girl to come to these meetings with him. That is not true, because I am that young woman. Shamgar is a longtime family friend of my mother and my grandmother. I came to these meetings on my own because I was affected by the problems in our schools, and I chose to speak up and nobody forced me. I also faced silencing at an October 2024 school board meeting. Superintendent Clint Mitchell told the chair to cut off my microphone when I raised concerns about how the district handled the Velasco Velasquez case and another staff incident that I was not allowed to finish up until after break. Legal advice that was wrong. It was an attempt to stop real public comments and about student safety. I must also speak about board member Rich Lieberman. During meetings, he took photographs and videos of me without my permission. I called him a pervert in a meeting because it made me feel unsafe. Spots he wore in social media posts show his history of making inappropriate and degrading comments about women. And in my opinion, someone with this kind of history should not serve on a school board or be in positions of authority around children at all. The pattern is clear. When people speak honestly about failures to protect students, the response has been to silence them. Whether by cutting microphones or banning speakers, Shamgar Connors was never the problem. The problem was the behavior that he was pointing out. The school board chose to attack the messenger instead of fixing the issues. I ask this board of supervisors to demand accountability, require full independent investigation into hiring practices of how misconduct cases were handled, protect the right of citizens to speak without retaliation, and make sure people with history of inappropriate behavior toward women and students are not placed in positions of trust over children. In my opinion, it is also wrong that Dante Braden has been suing people, including Ashley and Roy Searles, apparently to silence them and get information from them. This has been happening while Roy was dealing with his mother being in hospice, and she just recently passed away. While Ashley is a homeless single mother, and in my opinion, this kind of behavior is not appropriate at all. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

My name is Tony Hernandez. I am with Safeguard Spotsy, and I walk in most of your districts, and eventually I'll be walking and door knocking in just about every one of them. The following is taken from the Virginia-based news show Breaking Points. Congressional candidate William Lawrence of the Michigan 7th District this last July 3rd. with regards to his state's issues with data centers. This is from the interview. How the playbook usually goes is that the residents are the last to find out. The local elected officials have been signing non-disclosure agreements, and then the PR agents and the lawyers come in and say, everybody, this is a great deal. Just trust us. The utility companies have assured us that your rates will not rise. You know that there might be some inconvenience, but this is the price that we all have to pay for progress. So get on board. And people say, notice how I made a distinction between people and those who were saying otherwise. And people would say, why would we trust you? You've given us no reason to trust you. This was negotiated under an NDA. The utility monopolies are completely untrustworthy. Sam Altman, Musk, Alex Karp, and their ilk don't seem like the most morally upstanding characters. I mean, Altman's own colleagues called him a pathological liar. And then normally the next line is like, well, don't you idiots know that you don't have any better options? Because you don't get a lot of money out here. We've got billions upon billions of dollars in California. And if you don't get this investment now, it's the last best option you're going to get. And you're going to be left behind the rest of the country. That goes over like a lead balloon. His words. And people say, hey, actually, we kind of like California. our town the way it is. And yeah, we might want some things to change, but we want to be part of that change. And because that's what democracy and self-determination means. And what you're offering us looks a lot like a con job, and you're acting like bullies. It's a shame that we have to look to congressional candidates in Michigan for that type of courage and foresight. Thank you.

Thank you.

How you doing? I don't have a script to read. My name is John T. Shipe. I live in the Berkeley District. I reside in Spotsylvania County. Of course, to do that, I would like to address a situation, and I am a Second Amendment person. I do believe in guns. I do believe in everything else. I am a diehard Republican. but this has to do with noise and consideration of the discharge of firearms in the residential area i have talked to our new supervisor about this before uh I like shooting. In 1998, I had a couple deputies approach me and tell me, discharge that firearm one more time on my piece of land, and I will arrest you. I said, for what? He said, you are in a residential subdivision. So out of respect for my neighbors, whoever called, I have never on my property discharged another person. fire them on my property because of that being a law. Now, I have some neighbors right next door that use their property as a shooting range with multiple caliber firearms, rock me out of the house. Barbara, my wife, played a tape for our supervisor. He could hear it clearly. That was done with inside our home. I got a range meter. I got a noise... meter, right? Decibel meter. All right, with the range meter, I found them to where they're shooting to be 43 yards from their fence to where they were shooting and less than that to my home. But does that mean I got to stay in my home to stay away from where the shooting is. No, if I want to sit down in my yard and do that, that's my right to. That's my property. It's not theirs to use up to my home because of maybe a ricochet or the noise that's aggravating. This is not just five shots and done. This can be hours of shots at a time. There was a law in place that was five acres or less. It got changed. I don't know how. My question was, that means I could go into Hollybrook, Spotswood and shoot a gun. They say, yeah, but you got, you know, certain things. Well, it changes once again, like I've heard on other matters of where you're at in the county and whether it matters or not, because I think I pay the same amount of taxes as anyone else. And I have been for years. I'd like not to. I'd be a rich man. But this needs to be looked at, again, in anything in a residential subdivision due to just because a person may have five or three acres of land doesn't mean it's okay because where the setback of homes is and everybody's home on a piece of property is all determined by health department and everything else, the location. You just can't change your – and in most cases, people should if it's bothering you. uh do something different in one case my new neighbor next to me said we'll use suppressors okay fine they were doing that the other day i walked over the fence line he looked at me i went like this he went like that now i walked away but the only thing left in my mind is sir your time's expired huh your time is expired i figured my time was expired because i can't never voice my whole opinion in this county because i've got a time limit Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, distinguished members of the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors. My name is Brian Payton. I'm a long-term resident. This is my first time attending Board of Supervisors meeting, and I must say it is very impressive to see so many of your constituents here gathered to discuss issues that are important to them. There's an old quote by Marcus Aurelius was actually memorialized in the movie Gladiator by Russell Crowe. What we do now echoes in eternity. I raise that statement, or rather recite that quote, because I've got some concerns. I'm a parent. Many of us in here are parents. Some of us in here are grandparents. And as a parent, the day you become a parent, the day your children take their first breath, you realize that you have a very important responsibility, much like the distinguished members sitting up here making up this body. Your responsibility is to make sure that you do the best to provide for your children, you do the best to provide for their safety, and you do the best to make sure that the world that they inherit is good, if not better than the ones that we had growing up. The reason I'm saying all this is because there have been a lot of discussions, a lot of questions regarding these data centers. Now, full disclosure, I'm fairly late to this party. But one of the things that I found interesting in the past few minutes that I've actually been standing prepared to address this body is several people have stood up and spoken about the data centers. But more importantly, they have touched on their children, which I find very remarkable. And I also think that it's very indicative of the responsibility of this group. What we do will impact our children. I have some deep-seated concerns and questions regarding these data centers, more importantly, the speed in which they are propping up. Now, I understand that technology is important, and I understand that it helps us thrive and succeed better in life. But at the same time, technology is not supposed to replace humankind. Humankind is not supposed to take a back seat to technology. We are not supposed to sacrifice our air quality, noise quality. drinking water, everything that falls into those categories and ones that I failed to mention. That's a very dramatic way of saying there's a lot of decisions that this body has to make regarding the data centers. We understand that there's economic impacts and everything, but after it's all said and done, the biggest concern that we have, I think, is what does this look like for our children? This is a fairly new development. We do not know the longstanding ramifications associated with it. We do not know the environmental impact. We do not know the impact on workforces. We don't know any of that stuff. So what I would say to you before I run out of time is please do the prudent thing, do your research, and more importantly, listen to your constituents. If they take time to come over here to address this issue, that means it's very important to them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, that was perfect. I want to piggyback on what you said.

Can you just pull that down? Yeah, there you go.

want to piggyback on what he just said I'm Jana Coleman I'm in the Berkeley district and I just want to thank I'm here to thank you supervisor Guzman about this data center issue I think when we for when you first took over and I don't want to put words in your mouth I don't know for sure but that you were maybe slightly in favor and thought that the people that were upset about it was a little over the top I don't know that's my my interpretation or at least you were agnostic. And of course, I've been bombarding you with articles and so forth. And I just want to say thank you, because I know that you've made at least two, maybe more trips up to see for yourself what's going on in Northern Virginia. and talk to people up there on the boards up there, and I just appreciate you doing exactly what this gentleman said. You've been doing due diligence to see exactly what's going on, and I appreciate your responsiveness. I didn't vote for you, but that doesn't really matter right now, so thank you. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Trulane Billar. I'm in the Lee Hill District, and I'm here to talk about data centers, surprisingly, specifically generators. In the state of Virginia, it is currently legal to run a Tier 3 generator continuously for electric power. That means if you had a site with 20 Tier 3 generators, they would not be allowed to use that in lieu of electricity. So a Tier 4 generator produces about 10% of the emissions of a Tier 3 generator. Currently, in the law state of Virginia, you can run Tier 4 generators continuously for power. Now, you'd say a 90% reduction is pretty good if you only had one generator. The Crossroads Technology Center will have between 200 and 300 generators. That means that they are allowed legally to pollute the same amount as a site with 20 to 30 Tier 3 generators. Now, the Crossroads Technology Center has a special use permit which could help prohibit that. However, the currently approved data centers do not. So there is no guarantee when or even if these centers will get power. And I guarantee you, as long as they're legally allowed to, they will run those generators 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, unless we draft legislation to prevent that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Board of Supervisors. My name is Kelly Schaefer. I am in the Lee Hill District. I am a part of the New Post community as well. As there are many of us here tonight, I am here to basically echo what all of us are saying with Safeguard Spotsy, our grassroots initiative to stop these data centers. we have our research and we have our facts but to avoid getting into the weeds tonight i just have a request to you all um that as these approvals for these data centers come across your desks that you guys take a breath to look into it we have eight that are approved that have no special use or special use permit requirements or regulations really surrounding them we have 10 in the pipeline and i understand that we think that these SUPs are what is gonna stop everything that is detrimental to our community and SPOTSY as we know it. I want us to maybe take a breath and have you guys consider a moratorium on the county just in regards to, so we can see what happens, so we can collect the information, we can see the eight that have already gone through, what is gonna happen to those before we fall victim to something that we can't take back. And that won't render any money that we're being promised into the county, but will actually cost us millions to dismantle. And so I just want you guys to really put that in. I understand that everyone's fighting for these safeguards on new ones, but I'm asking that we just stop and consider what we have already done and see the research and the facts and what comes from that on how it's detrimental to our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, and all the other members of the board, good afternoon. I'm standing here unable to speak about the subject I want to speak about. And I know there are a number of items here that have been approved for comment, and then there were two that were conspicuously vote-only. And one of them has become very controversial, even has had a news story done on it by one of the television stations in the area, and has engendered a lot of discomfort amongst a number of residents in a number of large communities. But those people have felt they're unable to speak on the subject and have never been given an open hearing or a way to hear even the other side's position. And I would have asked that – I don't know why this was done in this fashion, but it would have seemed that it would have been more appropriate for that vote to be pushed and allowed comment at a future date so that people would have had an opportunity to speak on that subject. I thank you for your time today and an opportunity to say that. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Brian Dillon. I'm also here from Safeguard Spotsy. I'm from the Lee Hill District and a homeowner in the New Post area. And I'm here to pose a couple of questions on the Belvedere Tech campus. So, my 1st, 1 is as a couple of others I've already mentioned is on this cumulative impact, right? It's my understanding. The county's already approved 10Million square feet of data center capacity. Almost none of it is operational yet. And so my concern is that the actual noise water traffic and grid impact for all of what has already been approved is still yet to be realized and unmeasured. Uh, sure we have projections from the developers consultants, but we have 0 real world data from our county. And so this is concerning. We seem to be tripping over ourselves to approve more of this without understanding the cumulative impact of what we've already approved to date. And as my understanding that we're almost going to. Double that, right? Um, it would 10Million already approved. We're looking at perhaps approving another 7Million without understanding the cumulative impact of what we've already approved. so i would second the idea to pause until we can start to see some of the real world data flowing in and how that's actually impacting the county and so my question for this topic would be you know what if any mechanism is the county already have to understand the cumulative impact beyond what the developers consultants have brought forward to understand what we've already approved before we commit any more square footage If the answer is none, that we don't have a way to measure this cumulative impact beyond the consultant's data, how is this not a prerequisite? My next question is on the tax revenue. Perhaps this is the developer's... you know, their biggest selling point. My understanding is the county is selling the data center, is setting the data center equipment tax rate at $1.25 for every $100 worth of assessed value. We understand that Loudoun County, the now data capital center of the world, is charging $4.15, and that revenue funds their entire county general fund. So, for every campus approved at this rate, we're locking in at 30 cents on the dollar for what our neighbors are now charging and the revenue projections depend on a tenant that as far as the Belvedere tech campus is concerned, it doesn't even publicly exist yet. And the equipment that the. That the equipment that will be filled with, you know, in these data centers depreciates in a mere few years. So, my question on tax revenue is why would this county approve more data centers before redressing this tax rate? And more importantly, perhaps, will the board require a bonded decommissioning, the same protections already required for solar, so the taxpayers aren't left holding the bag when perhaps 28 empty data center buildings, if the taxpayers are left holding 28 empty buildings, if the tenant never materializes. My last question is on House Bill 153. As you may well know, recent state law, House Bill 153, requires the electric utility to provide a formal disclosure of every substation and transmission line needed to serve a facility like the Belvedere Tech Campus.

Separately, as my understanding... Sir, your time has expired.

Okay. Well, as I mentioned, we're from Safeguard Spotsy, and we're here to organize residents that require answers to these questions. We look forward to attending each and every meeting henceforth. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Dorothy Miller, Livingston District. I just want to say you all need to do a better job of your legal responsibility to notify people of public hearings.

That's all.

Thank you.

So much to address this evening. Good evening to you all. My name is Marcus Garcia. I live in the Lee Hill District of Spotsylvania County. I'm a father of a seven year old, soon to be second grader in our public school system. I'm gonna cover a lot. The first thing is, since I was mentioned by name as I walked in the room this evening by a young lady, I don't know who she is. Apparently I'm part of some complaint against her. I have no idea what that's about. I'm just a local dad who comes to almost every one of these meetings, many planning commission meetings, almost every school board meeting, just looking to make sure that this county grows and thrives in a way that is beneficial for me and my child. I'm not here to defend data centers. What I'm here to ask of you all this evening because I have come to so many of the meetings. I've listened to Ms. Pomato, Mr. Lovejoy talk on the engineering aspects, and I just hear so much rank nonsense. The gentleman who brought up tier three generators, tier four generators, good information. Don't know, I wish he'd have been in the room when we were discussing the generator ordinance. That's already in place. It's already tier four requirement. That's already happening here. So the tier three thing is, Second, they only run for 10, 12 minutes a month for maintenance. They don't run to power the data center. That's why the grid exists. That's why many of these companies are looking at co-located on-site generation. I would ask of you all, you have information superiority here. It is incumbent upon you to teach them, to tell them the correct information. We're not sticking intakes into the Rappahannock River. Tell them about the purple pipe. Mr. Lovejoy has come up here at more meetings than I can count with both hands to tell the few citizens that are in the room, we're not using potable water. It's recycled pee-pee, recycled poo-poo. And then the last thing I want to address is, because I do go to each and every school board meeting, I've been subject to you know, at least, you know, best case is the unprofessionalism that we've seen in there for the last three years. We saw a small taste of it this evening. It's because you, as the senior elected officials in this county, have not said more. You pass resolutions for other things that I have not necessarily agreed with, but that's okay. How about passing a resolution, at least a proclamation, that says this will not be tolerated? Maybe we can't prevent it legally,

but certainly make your opinion known that a lack of professionalism is not welcome in this county that's the minimum thank you very much thank you anyone else in the audience like to come up just kind of queue up thank you hi my name is vivian i'm rambusic i live in virginia heritage can you um the microphone hello there you go okay

My name is Vivian Rambucic. I live in Virginia Heritage. I just want to read an article that came in the news today. New York became the first state to enact a statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, halting any new development until July of 2027, giving state regulators a year to create new standards regarding environmental impacts and energy demands. I encourage everybody here to email, text, whatever to our governor, and it's time that we could do the same thing. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Christine Cooney. I am from the Lee Hill district. I would like to thank the gentleman who spoke previously for mansplaining potable water to us. I appreciate that so much. So I know that people talk about not in my backyard when it comes to the proposed and approved data center plan in Spotsylvania County. It's not not in my backyard. I don't want it in my front yard, my side yard, Uncle Joe's church. And that's where you're putting it. The technology campus on Lee Hill School Drive is so close to an elementary school, you can't spit and miss it. I'll mansplain that to you later. Again, this isn't, we want what's best for the county. And as we've said, eight have been approved. That's more districts than currently exist in the county. So eight have been approved. Let the other 10 go somewhere else. We can still get the revenue from taxes and not be paying 30 cents on the dollar, as someone stated earlier. There are things we can do smart for every district in this county, and we should be doing it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Adiba Manula. I'm a Lees Hill resident. Supervisor Childress, can you raise your hand real quick? I just want to, okay. And then Supervisor Jakabuski? Jakabuski? Jakabuski, okay. So Supervisor Childress, you took $2,000 from Charlie Payne as a donation. And Supervisor Jakabuski, It's a Polish name, isn't it? Yeah. You took $1,000 from Payne, Payne being the same guy that represents the applicants for RCK Digital Crossroads and the Gateway Commerce tonight. My question is, will you recuse yourself from these two votes? They can't respond. OK. Well, he just did. He said no. Okay, my next question is, has county staff verified who ultimately owns the land behind RCK Digital Crossroads? Not just the applicant listed on paper, but the actual ownership chain? Have we looked into that? Because I was here two weeks ago, and the question hasn't been answered from any one of you guys yet, which means that there has been no digging at all into this. My question is, why is the board wording before that's confirmed? Why do you want to vote on something that you don't know who the real owners are behind the project? And then the Crossroads Tech Campus community meeting last month was called an embarrassing mess by residents who couldn't even identify developers or their attorneys in the room. Will this board require a real presentation in Q&A format before any future votes on this project? Not just poster boards that no one can follow? because that's not fair to any residents taking time off of work to get off so they can come to these meetings just for it to be a science fair for us. And then my fifth question is, Supervisor Childress, you voted for loser setback Sanders in December along supervisors Mullins, Fraser, and Marshall. Supervisor Jakubowski, you voted against along with Supervisor Hayes and Lane, pushing for a special use permit on every project instead. Given that split still exists on this board, why is RCK Digital Crossroads moving forward tonight without the individual review that three of you have said what you want? And then lastly, will this board commit tonight, in writing, requiring a special use permit for every future data center application so no project like RCK, Digital Crossroads, or Gateway Commerce moves forward without a public vote? Because if you guys decide to vote on this, I think my time is up. It is, okay. It's unfair to all the residents, and you shouldn't be able to vote on such projects if you guys have no idea what you're voting on. I think a lot of you here sitting down here, two of you, which I mentioned already, are benefiting from the developer, from the clients. It's just corruption. This is just plain corruption.

And your time's expired.

All right, have a wonderful day. Thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak? If you'd like to speak, just kind of queue up. Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board and county staff. I wasn't planning on speaking today, this evening, but after watching a little bit of this process unfold over the past today and over the past several months, I felt that it was important to simply say thank you. I know that I'm not going to talk about it because I'm not supposed to. Serving in public office is not easy. Every decision you make affects people's lives. And every vote brings strong opinions from every single direction. It will be easy to make decisions based on whoever is the loudest, whoever put something out in the news media, but that is not your job. Your job is to listen to all of your constituents, review the facts, follow the law, and make the decision it is in the best interest of Spotsylvania County. Most people only see what happens in these meetings. They don't see the countless phone calls, emails, meetings, research, and conversations that happen behind the scenes by all of you guys. They don't see the hours you spend trying to understand every perspective before casting a vote. I especially want to thank my supervisor. I am in the Livingston District. I want to thank Mr. Lane. Because throughout all of this process, I watched you make yourself available to everyone. You listened to supporters and opponents alike. You answered calls. You responded to emails. You met with residents and neighbors. You actually met with farmers and did very long... trips to figure out certain things and to before you were making a big decision. Whether someone agrees with the outcome or not, that's what good public service looks like. It isn't about pleasing everyone because that is impossible. It is about doing your homework, weighing in every point of view, and making a decision based on facts, the law, and what is in the best interest for the county. I also want to thank the rest of the board for allowing the process to work the way that it should. Every person who wanted to be heard had the opportunity to speak at the public hearings. Every person also had an opportunity to speak at the planning commission. and their concern was considered. That is how public trust is built. As we move forward, I know there will be more difficult decisions before this board. Issues that once again will bring very strong emotions, as we can see right now, and passionate debate. My hope is that each of those decisions is handled with the same level of diligence, transparency, and professionalism. At the end of the day, thank you so much and have a blessed day.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak? Just, yep. You need to press the button there. I got it. You got it? Okay.

Yeah, okay. I just want to say I've done a lot of research. I've used AI, et cetera, on these data centers. I realize that they do a lot of good. However, you're going to destroy the land and our lifestyles here by putting more of these things up. Northern Virginia has over 300 data centers, the highest in the nation. And they've come down here because, obviously, the cost is less, and I feel that opposition is less down here. If they can get away with it, if they can pay less in taxes, et cetera, they will take advantage of it. And I just kind of feel like they're moving in here like the Oklahoma land rush. Quick, put your stake in the ground, and then you'll be set. You don't even have to have a plan. Just get the stake in the ground, and then you can decide what you want to do later. And again, as it was mentioned before, when they disband these units somewhere down the line, and the average length of time that these things will be pertinent is approximately five years. We technologically, mankind, double our knowledge and technology every two years. Where are these data centers going to be then? They'll have something else to replace them, and they'll just move on. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Hi. Push the green.

I think you're good.

Hi, I'm Robin Castles. I actually live in Caroline, but very close to Spotsylvania. And I wanted to kind of piggyback off what some other people have been saying about placing a moratorium on data centers in our area. I think we need to look at the cumulative effects of what's going on before we approve any other AI data centers. I think one of the hidden costs of data centers, which is important to me, is our health. Data centers are involved in every kind of pollution there is. Water, air, light, noise, and environmental. And this doesn't come without consequences. There was a study done by a Harvard doctor named Michael Cork in just one data center in Loudoun County, and it was responsible for between $55 and $99 million worth of healthcare visits in one year, resulting from air pollution. Air pollution is from the data centers producing fine particles, and they get into the air, and they get into people's throats, lungs, and they increase risks, especially in children, for rare childhood cancers, leukemia, and more hospital visits, more asthma-related attacks. There was also increase in heart attacks in the population of 40-year-olds, which is very young. There was also higher rates of onset dementia under 65. children under 10 years old having heart problems, and this is all within a five-mile radius of data centers. Also, data centers are responsible for livestock issues, chickens laying less than 50% of their regular egg production, sheep and goats losing 30% of their body weight, cattle losing 30% of their body weight. In people, there was higher incidence of miscarriage, stillbirths, and problems getting pregnant. Then there's air pollution. That was from air pollution. Noise pollution causes chronic fatigue, headaches, sleep disturbances, cardiovascular issues. There was a data center in Rockville County, their youth having mental health issues, and 7% were considering suicide from noise pollution. And worse even is the LFN noise, which is the low frequency noise below 20 decibels. It can't be heard by humans, but causes deafness. even though it's undetected. The noise travels through solid materials such as doors, walls, windows, and even through the ground. It triggers stress hormones, cortisone levels, chronic fatigue, and persistent sleep disturbances. Animals have it even worse than humans because they can feel it and hear it, and it drives them mad. I just wanted to say also water pollution. Most people have probably heard about the closed-loop system in Cheyenne, Wyoming that was under construction, and the contractor flushed contaminated water into the city's irrigation system. It was a bacteria called Culpera vidus gardia, and it went into the irrigation system, which eventually gets into drinking water.

and thank you miss castle i appreciate it um anyone else want to address us thank you hello everyone um my name is uh nicole cole delegate nicole cole um i live in the battlefield district of spotsylvania county and i'm happy to be here today and i too thank you for your service as elected officials. I actually wanted to come and just to put on public record, but then also ask you to reconsider putting on this ballot for November 2026. the referendum to allow the voters in Spotsylvania County to be able to have a 1% sales and use tax for construction and renovation projects for our schools. Having been on the school board previously for the past four years, or previous four years, I know and you can appreciate that I have full knowledge that our schools have a number of capital improvement projects that have been sort of held up over time as well as new projects ongoing that need funding. And while I understand that you plan on having a bond referendum specifically, that has a number of projects in it, it doesn't hurt and it can very much help the ability to move forward additional projects that are in the capital improvement plan for the schools. So I understand that when this went through the General Assembly, that it wasn't envisioned that you would be able to put the 1% sales and use tax on the ballot in this November 2026, that it would likely be put on the ballot in 2027. So with the governor's amendments that we passed through on HB 30, our budget bill, those amendments allow for it to be put on this ballot if you communicate it to the public at latest before August the 14th so that then it can get through the courts. as well for the August 14th decision period so that it can get on the ballot for November 26th. I had talked with, or at least my staff had talked with Chair Hayes to be able to try to get a decision for July 21st. which was the preferred time period. But I'm asking you to take the time to reconsider going ahead and putting it on this ballot so that the schools, as well as the county, won't miss out on millions of dollars, at least in a year, that they could start to collect to go directly towards school construction and modernization. Thank you. Anyone else?

Just no push the button.

Okay. Sorry. Hi My name is Dan Galvin. I currently live in Chancellor But I just purchased oh I got picked up my permits to build a house in the location very close to Something that's going to be voted on My concern is I got postcards about a public meeting and I showed up for the public meeting and there's no public meeting. So my concern is why wouldn't the Spotsylvania board here be able to provide the information before you vote so that the constituents here would be able to let our board members know what we are interested in. Pretty much that was it. Okay. I was not expecting to talk tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak at this juncture? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close public comment then.

Madam Chair, that brings you to vote on R19-0009, Lafayette Commons, Rappahannock Development Group, LLC, Lafayette Commons, and this is in the Battlefield Voting District.

Okay, let's take like a three-minute break, just so if people want to clear out, they can, or they can wait. Three and a half minutes, maybe? I don't know. All right, so we'll go ahead and start.

Okay, that takes you to the vote only. Lafayette Commons, Rappahannock Development Group, LLC. And this is in the Battlefield Voting District.

Yes, thank you very much. Me?

How about now?

Is that better? Yeah, if there's no questions from the board on the item in front of us, my apologies that I don't have the number pulled up right now. It's R19-0009. The public hearing was closed last month on this issue and asked for continuation. My questions have been answered and I will move for approval.

All right.

With conditions and everything else that has been put with this. With the proffers. With the proffers, yes.

All right. Fantastic. All right. Any questions or discussion? No. All right. Jake?

No.

Drew? Aye. Chris?

Aye.

Gerald? Aye. David?

Nay.

Dr. Frazier? Aye. And the chair votes nay.

Motion passes 4-3.

All right. That brings you to your next vote. This is SUP 25-0007. Spotsylvania meets Chester M. and Priscilla D. Mumma, trustee of Camp Solitude Revocable Living Trust. Spotsylvania meets LLC in the Chancellor Voting District.

Will you be taking comments before we vote on this one? I would just like to make a comment.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Frazier, we definitely will have discussion.

Okay.

Hi. Good afternoon, Board. My name is Ginger Deal, and I'll be presenting SUP 25-0007, Spotsylvania Meats, tonight. Okay. So the Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on June 9, 2026, and voted to close the public hearing and continue the vote to the July 14, 2026 meeting to allow staff time to update conditions and address comments or concerns raised during the public hearing. Staff recommends approval with the following updated conditions There's been an additional condition added and one condition has been updated All other conditions have remained the same that was presented to you at the June 9th 2026 meeting As shown here on the screen, condition number 28 has been updated. The changes are underlined and made in bold print. Any and all on-site incinerators will and must be smokeless, odorless, and will and must meet or exceed any and all applicable federal, state, and local law regulations and agency locality requirements for permitting, construction, maintenance, installation, and operation. Any and all solid waste and ash resulting from incineration will and must be disposed of in a manner meeting or exceeding any and all applicable federal, state, and local law regulations and agency locality requirements regarding disposal and including any landfill requirements. Condition number 31 is an additional condition. The applicant and or owner will and must provide for and cause to be performed and completed annual inspections of the property and the facilities thereupon, including the lagoon, for three years, and attendant detailed written reports of analysis of compliance with the special use permit, consistent with provisions stated herein. the applicant's and or owner's sole expense. An annual inspection will and must be performed and an intended detailed written report of analysis of compliance promptly submitted to the county one year from the first day of abattoir operations at the site. Thereafter, an annual inspection and written report of analysis of compliance will be due on the anniversary thereof for two additional consecutive years. The affirmation inspections and written reports must and will be performed and completed by a licensed professional engineer in good standing with his or her state licensing authority or other appropriate government official with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality or the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, as may be preauthorized by the zoning administrator in his or her discretion. In addition, upon reasonable notice by the zoning administrator in his or her discretion upon receipt of complaints or credible evidence of violations of the special use permit, The applicant and or owners will and must provide foreign calls to be performed and completed an inspection and an intended detailed written report of analysis of compliance promptly submitted to the county. The affirmation inspections and written reports must and will be performed and completed by a licensed professional engineer in good standing with his or her state licensing authority or other appropriate government official with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality or the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, as may be preauthorized by the zoning administrator in his or her discretion. With that, staff recommends approval with the conditions presented. Thank you.

All right. Do we have any questions?

I've got a few questions and comments for staff. Kimberly, thank you and staff. Jen, thank you so much for everything that staff has done working through this. Before I get started, Kimberly, can we? Can we review the notification process countywide? We notify any residents within 3000 feet of any proposal. Plus, we require that the applicant post signage on the road frontage. That way, if you may not be within that 3000 foot, right? But you may live in that area. And when you drive past, you should see multiple, not just one, you should see multiple yellow signs that say pending, gives you a phone number to call, website information on where to find the information on this proposal. I just want to confirm that all this was done by this applicant.

Yes, sir.

Okay. So on a caveat to that, and this is just, I won't waste my fellow board members' time. Where did our big map go in the hallway, Mark, real quick? We need to get our district map put back up in our hallway. I'm always used to looking at big, beautiful, purple Livingston, almost a third of our entire county. And why are we almost a third of the entire county? Because of our rural nature and our agricultural nature, especially if you look at that map right there, how almost half of the county is green. And we intend to try to keep it that way, some rural and agricultural aspects of the county. So... just want my my residents in livingston to know that whether you live in a a wonderful neighborhood like a bloomsbury or a lake acres or a farm lake or you live down a dirt road and live in a single wide trailer all of your concerns are taken to heart by me as your representative So regardless, it is my intention is to ensure that any community is protected while allowing the landowners in our agricultural community to continue doing agricultural things. Right. So with that being said, I visited multiple locations that are of similar facilities, one being Falk here is finest. I never would have known the facility was there because I work every day, 3 miles away from there. Never knew it drive past it every day. So I had the opportunity to swing by and speak to those owners and the operators of that facility. And I just wanted to say that they, they commended our county staff. because they actually looked at all 30 some caveats this SUP and This is from another business outside of the county. They commended County staff on what you all have put down They were very well aware of what was going on, especially after a news news story hit So I wanted to say hats off to staff for doing that you're being recognized even outside of this county and But to ensure that all residents are protected, we made a couple changes briefly to this SUP. And again, there's 34 caveats to this SUP to ensure that the community is protected regardless. One of the changes that were made is that this applicant has to become USDA inspected. There was one of the things when I went to visit Fauquier's finest, was the owner operator said, if I do anything wrong in here, I've got three federal inspectors, and he pointed over into this office. He said, I have three federal inspectors that are just waiting to crawl down my throat. If anything is dirty, smelly, anything out of the ordinary, they are ready to jump right on me. So one of the things that we put into this is that this applicant, and I believe it's on item three, that this applicant facility and operation will and must obtain USDA certification. Is that am I correct? Am I correct on that?

So just for the benefit of the board, this is the alternative additional draft language that is part of your agenda items. These are additional more restrictive conditions that supervisor lane has worked to draft along with staff to present for the board's additional consideration. So, just drawing your attention to the document if you don't see it already.

Now, this language was already somewhat in there. The applicant already said that they were going to become USDA certified. They have full intentions of doing that. But we actually put language in here now that says, if you say you're going to do this, you must maintain. Not only will you get, but you have to maintain to a certain level and a certain standard of quality at this operation. Another one of the items that we've looked at What was that? Was it 13, Kimberly? So item 13. So Kimberly, can you explain to me item 13 in the SUP? And you had a way of explaining it to me earlier of like a fail safe, so to speak. Can you can you expand on that?

Yes, I refer to it sort of as our safety net. As we've reviewed the proposal, we've tried to identify all of the potential impacts that could result potentially from the use. But as a safety net condition, we're recommending that language that really says if there's any aspect of the use that creates any nuisance impact to health, safety, and welfare of the community, then it's considered a violation of the SUP and would be enforceable.

Okay, great. So I just wanted to bring that to to my fellow board members attention just to let you know that we've had have have added that into the What was the last one, Kimberly? So item 31 on the SUP. And this is hats off to the applicant. They agreed to do an inspection. And this is something we talked about at the public hearing last meeting. The applicant agreed to do an inspection for the first three years. And speaking with some of my colleagues, we said, well, I feel a little bit better with that. That makes me know that, hey, somebody from an outside engineering agency is going to be looking over this. You know, speaking with with Kimberly, um, we've added a a by annual inspection thereafter. So, for the 1st, 3 years, it will be inspected. 1 year 1 year 2 year 3, then it'll be inspected on year 5 year 7 year 9 every other year. They will have to give county staff and inspection and that is to help. With the community's concerns on the lagoon, incinerator, any things of that nature, we're going to continuously get certified engineer inspections done on this facility. So, those are the only things that I wanted to bring up and I just wanted to make sure that as as a representative of 1 of the largest districts in our county, I wanted to ensure my constituents and falling late that there is a certain level of protection behind this. I visited similar facilities. 1 other thing we. we want a cap on the number of animals has been a hot topic and i've spoken with county staff and we've actually spoken with the applicant because we wanted to cut that in half and then with the ability to possibly come back to the county for incremental increases when we talk about what is allowed by right already the applicant is already doing over i tried to go with that 2000 number about half the applicant is already doing that 2,000-some animals are already being processed on this farm right now. So when we talk about what is able to be done by right and what is not, hats off to this applicant for wanting, because he could have continued, he could have upgraded his operation there at home and continued to process thousands of livestock animals every year. But he came to this community without a lawyer, without a high-paid law firm. He came to this community, to this planning staff as a taxpayer and said, here's what I would like to do. How do I go about doing this the right way? Is that the feeling that you got? Okay. So county staff worked with this applicant. The first meeting was in April. Then you had a second planning commission meeting. Then it came to us. Then it got kicked again. And we've allowed multiple, multiple times for this feedback on this. And a lot of work has been done by county staff. So I'm very appreciative of that. I want my residents to know not everybody agreed with this in a neighborhood, but not everybody disagreed. In that neighborhood either, so, but I want to ensure those, regardless of how you feel that the county and staff has put protections in this to help cover our, so to speak. So, I'm appreciative of staff. I'm appreciative to this applicant. As a generational landowner and farmer in this community, I support our agricultural production in the western parts and all over this part of this county. Food security, I could go on a list of things on why we need farmers. Again, I wanted to assure my constituents that protections are put in place and county staff has done an excellent job on this. And I'm appreciative to the applicant. For being for going through this long drawn out process of having to waste their own, uh, resources to work through this. So thank you. Kimberly.

Uh, Dr Frazier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make a couple of comments because I want the community to know that whenever something comes before us, we do. We do our best to make sure that we're informed. We are looking at things from different perspectives, and we're trying to make good and right decisions as we come before our communities. And I, too, had initially had some concerns when I got some phone calls about the meat processing farm. And the word that came out was it was going to be smelly and it was not going to be kept up with. But I am, based on what I've learned from the county staff in terms of the things that have been put in place, I think that... certainly our county is doing the diligence to make sure that we're looking at different aspects of it. And we don't want anybody in our community to think that we're not attentive to these things. And I want to make sure that those people who call me know that I hear you. But I also think that there's a space in this community for many things. And we're not saying that We don't hear you, but we have to weigh all sides of it. And I feel better about my decision to support this because of what I have learned through this process. So I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Drew.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I just want the community to know that, at least for myself, every project that I vote on, I go walk the earth of where it is. drive out there, look at it, data center, all the things that are on the planning commission's docket right now. I've driven around and looked at things so I can see it firsthand. I don't just rely on presentations. And in this particular case, last Friday, I went out and and checked it out, drove down Old Plank Road, and I did see the yellow SGP notice signs. There wasn't a lot of them, but you know, there was, it's a large area. And I guess that the advice is when you see those, pay attention to them. So I know people complain that they didn't see them, but they're there. So pay attention in case it affects you. The one thing also that was a byproduct of our last meeting was the DEQ gentleman offered their services to him. in a kind of a consulting basis as well so if he had any questions they'd be happy to come out and look at it so they're they're kind of available for additional support as needed but I went out looked at it went on the farm stood at the driveway there and got pointed in the specific areas where the different aspects are going to be in the lagoon you know you'd have to be there but The particular terrain is relatively flat, but kind of rolling. And one of the stipulations was the lagoon couldn't be in anything that would affect a 100-year floodplain or groundwater. And it's at the highest point for that regard. But lastly, I think this is a good project for the county. We are in a national, if you haven't bought beef lately, like I have just spent 80 bucks on four steaks yesterday and we cut them in half. So we don't eat them all at once, but we're in a national beef shortage right now in the country. So lastly, second to last, it was, I did get a lot of emails, a lot of text messages from folks. A lot of them appeared to be kind of a regurgitation of the same format, but that didn't mean I didn't pay attention to them. I looked at the general GPS region of where they were and the majority of them are anywhere from two to five miles away. Now, it doesn't dismiss their concerns by any means, but I just want you to know that, and we do this as a practice, most of us. We look at all these things. We don't just, because we don't agree with it, we don't dismiss it. So we did pay attention to that. The owners of the farm did mention that some of the closest neighbors weren't opposed to it at all. So I really feel like, just want the public to know that we don't just come up here and flip a coin and vote on things without checking it out. And I think this is a good project.

Supervisor Jakubowski.

Yes, thank you. I know it's a difficult last name. I get that. I'll tell you, it's actually nice to see lots of folks show up. We have meetings, and I'll just touch on the data centers for one second. They started being voted on three years ago, and we didn't have maybe one row of people in this building. And these things, the eight that you hear about, they've been done years ago. That wasn't anything that just happened last month or the month before. And that just shows me that we as a county need to do a better job of informing our citizens of what's happening. And this is another example of that. You have a whole bunch of people sitting here. that did not get the opportunity to speak, and we need to find a better way of doing our public outreach and letting folks know. Having a sign-up, I understand that that's all part of the process. And in fact, we've expanded that process over the years. It used to be 1,000 feet, wasn't it, Kimberly, that we would send out postcards for? And then we went to 3,000 feet. um put up signs try to do websites try to get in the press try to get the information out there to people so that they know what's happening in their community and I fully understand people are busy you have you you have lives this is not what you keep up with every single day and and we need to do a better job of getting that information out there to people so that their concerns are heard because in a world where you have a vacuum of no information, the information that gets put in there that might be incorrect or not complete is what takes over. And so I just have a couple of things I just want to touch on real quick because in reading the emails, and I read all the emails too, I don't respond to all of them because It's a lot of emails to respond to, but I do read them all. And they all basically were saying the same kind of thing. I guess everybody got the same. There was a list of 10 issues or so, something to that effect. And so one of the things I really want to point out to people is the fact that, and you said it tonight, Jake, they're currently slaughtering out there right now. I'm sorry. Processing. Slaughtering. It's killing. It's currently what they want to do with this SUP is currently happening out there. So have we had problems with this location? Have we had complaints? No, sir. Have we had any of the issues, and they're very legitimate issues that have been brought up. Have any of those things come before the county in any way, any regard?

No, sir.

not at all so now what we're doing is putting restrictions and saying that this is how this must be operated those restrictions are can be lawfully enforced that's that's code that's law and if they don't do it they can't use that facility we can go after them correct so They're currently doing it out there. There's currently been no complaints. And Jake, if you can let me know, you're the country supervisor here. I'm the city supervisor. Is that the numbers, how is that affected with the SGP against what they're currently doing?

Supervisor Jakubowski, this discussion I had with county staff and the applicant when discussing those numbers, this is a little twofold part. that why would I go through this county process when I'm already doing that? Why would I hinder myself? I'm already doing 2000 some animals a year. Why would I hinder myself and cap myself at what I'm, what I've been doing for the past couple of years now, you know? So that was the, that was the argument, I guess, on the cap, you know, on the number. And then also speaking with similar facilities in the area that are USDA certified and, and, uh, almost, almost identical to what this is looking at. They slaughter around 4,300 animals a year. And they were like, well, it's going to, it's going to take this gentleman, you know, you open up a burger joint. I don't sell out of Big Macs within the first week. It takes some time for business to get up and going for you to work out the processes. So yeah, you might be able to still do the 2000 some animals next year. Then it might be 25. Then it might be 28. Then it might be 3,200. But we know for sure that there is a ceiling. So we have a cap. There's a max cap. But, I mean, that's the feedback that I got when discussing numbers with staff.

So currently they do about 2,000. They have to work up their business because this is a business where you pay to have this done. So then they have to work up that business, build the business up to something. And during that time, there are rules and restrictions that are placed on here of inspections. The USDA inspectors will be on site. Complaints, if complaints are made, They're looked at immediately. This is not something that is going to turn into an eyesore and everything else sore because there are those inspectors and those avenues that you can use to go after a complaint. Complaints aren't going to fall on deaf ears, is my point. So if the community has issues, which, again, none have been there with 2000, and now we have restrictions And he's going to do it, I don't want to say the right way because it's not a right way versus the wrong way. It's a more stringent way of doing it. And there is a policy or a procedure to take those complaints and those issues that people have and look at them directly. So if this weren't to pass, he can still continue to slaughter 2,000 or whatever without restrictions. So the question isn't, are we going to have a slaughterhouse or not? The question is, are we going to have a slaughterhouse with restrictions and a way to deal with complaints so that the neighbor's issues are taken care of? Or are we just going to let him do what he would like to do and... whatever happens, happens, even though nothing has happened so far. And I'm not trying to denigrate the applicant whatsoever. I've never met the gentleman and I'm not assailing his character whatsoever. I'm just saying that if that can happen currently and there's no problems and we're putting restrictions on there to alleviate any potential problems in the future, Why wouldn't you do an SUP? And this SUP goes with the business. So if he were to sell the business, the next guy or lady that would come in would have to follow every single restriction that is in the SUP. And if they want anything changed in there, they would have to come back to the board for an amendment to their SUP. So I just want that to be laid out. And again, the process that we do, I really it's we need to come up with a better way of doing it so that these folks don't just come here and aren't heard from. and that's not done intentionally i will tell you that that's not done intentionally i will tell you i do my best and i know it's not a hundred percent but i do my best to make sure that information gets out there i know jake has done that because we've talked a million times about this i think we've talked about this more than we've talked about anything else on this board but um trying to get the information out there so folks know what is going on in your community and we as a county we need to step up our game and um so that we don't have this happen again this is this is very disheartening for me um to see that this is happening and um we need to do better by our citizens but i do Thank you. And everything that I've learned should tell me to stop right there because once you get applause or people saying you sit there and say thank you. But I really. So, yes, I'll stop. Thank you. Unless there's more applause. If there's more applause, please. All right.

All right. Now, Supervisor Guzman.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Jake, on the other side of 208 there is the Berkeley District, which is the rest of the agricultural land in that green. And I will say that I commend staff for the hard work they've put in working out these conditions and even after our last meeting and adding the condition 31 and then just the improvements on that. I think, again, shows that We're listening to what you're saying from the constituents. Even though you may not agree with at the end, we're trying to put the conditions in place to make sure everyone's protected. And I say that because a lot of you weren't at the public hearing, but yet I will tell you, your comments were heard. You know, and your comments were applied to the to make sure we've addressed those things as as Jake has added in some of those. So, uh, I mean, like, many of my board members here fellow board members. I mean, I read all the emails. Um, you know, I have a little more time on my hands. I probably replied to more than. probably anybody, maybe I didn't get all of yours, but I did take calls, took emails, took texts, try to be responsive. And again, and understand where you're coming from and apply that. I will say from my Berkeley constituents, they are very excited about this opportunity in the county, because right now for them to go process any of their meat, they're waiting in line six to 12 months or more outside the county. And it just drives the price up. So they're getting a high cost up north to get those things done. Now we'll have an opportunity. And I plan on looking at, you know, when you start selling stuff, you know, look for local meat. I'd rather buy local than have to buy from Walmart or Giant or someplace else. So absolutely, I think as an agricultural community, we want to support that. As I listen to my constituents, they're all in favor and absolutely would support this. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm not going to belabor this too long except to just agree with everything that's been said here. You know, part of the reason that we did continue it was there was that additional conditions that we wanted to put in to ensure public safety and ensure that it was right. And I, although I know that there, and I got all the emails, too, and the text messages and everything, and I apologize if, you know, I didn't respond, but I did read them all. And, you know, I can say with 100% certainty that each one of us up here, did our due diligence on this project to make sure that there were the most protections that could be put in. I mean, an SUP, the whole thing with an SUP is it gives you that ability to put conditions on a project to ensure that the public is safe. And that's exactly what was done here. This is a needed industry, needed industry in this area. And and so I support the project, but I hear the concerns. But you have the list of the conditions are over there on the podium, I believe, for your review. And so I want to thank everybody for educating me some more on this industry. And with that, if there's any more suggestions or questions.

Sure.

Supervisor Childress.

Thank you. What happened to Gerald?

I'm switching on and off tonight, you know.

I was just checking. The only bad part about going last is they already talked about everything. So one of the things I'd like to do is thank our staff for what you guys put into this. It was a tremendous amount of work, and we really appreciate everything that you guys do. I appreciate my fellow supervisors up here. We've had numerous phone calls. back and forth about this project what's going on what's the best for our community and that's the thing that we sit up here every day every time we're here we're trying to make sure we're making the right decision for everyone here um i i've had several phone calls with constituents and i appreciate that the thing to think about is they're currently processing 2000. they could move it up to 4,300 and there's nothing that could be done. So what we're doing is as the supervisors, the community is protecting our community and putting 34 different conditions in place to make sure all of your concerns have been heard and addressed. So, Again, I appreciate everything. And with that, if there's no one else, any other discussion, I would like to make the motion to approve SUP 25-0007 with conditions. All right.

Madam chair, just for clarity supervisor children's, I think is referencing what is the alternative draft that is part of your agenda packet that 1? and yes, and just for the record, I'm going to go through, you know, although Jake did a good job, the changes that are before the board. In Section 3, there is additional language that states the abattoir facility and operation will and must obtain USDA certification within 24 months of the operation of the abattoir facility. At the end of that paragraph, there is the additional language the abattoir facility will and must maintain USDA certification for the life of the abattoir operation. Down in Section 13, in the second and third line, there is the addition of and I'm gonna read the entirety and then I'll read the new language. Any nuisance or similar risk to the health, safety, and general welfare of the surrounding community and its citizens within Spotsylvania County, which results from, and I'm going, this is the additional language, any aspect of the abattoir facility and or its operations, including but not limited to the lagoon design, construction, so on and so forth. That language was added to be more expansive with that condition. Down in section 31, At the end of subsection 1 of that section, it reads annual inspections of the property and the facility facilities thereupon, including the lagoon for 3 years. And then it was added and biannually thereafter. So that language was added in there. Those are the additional conditions that were added per Jake's recommendation to the additional conditions, which were added at the request of the board is June 19th meeting. So, the motion to approve would be to approve the alternative draft resolution to approve with conditions special use permit. Thank you.

Okay. Jake?

Aye.

Drew? Aye. Chris?

Yes.

Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. Dr. Frazier?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Chair, that takes you to public hearings. Your first one is an SUP 26-0001, Gloria and Michael Miguelos, and this is in the Salem Voting District.

We're going to take, like, a two-minute break so people can clear out. Okay, three. Well, it's okay. All righty.

Let's get rolling. Okay, this is SUP 26-001, Gloria and Michael Magalhaes, Salem Voting District.

thank you good evening madam chair members of the board and members of the public tonight i'm presenting case number sup 26-0001 which is a special use permit application for gloria and michael margelis the special use permit is to allow Gloria and Michael Margellis to operate a home enterprise as a hair salon within their single family home, which is zoned in a residential one district. Although home enterprises are permitted by right in this type of zoning, Spotsylvania Code Section 23-5.4 requires a special use permit for properties that are accessed from state routes numbered above 712. This property is accessed off of Camelot Way, which is State Route 2010. In this case, a special use permit is required. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 17th for the special use permit request, which they voted to recommend approval with conditions. The property is located at 11811 Camelot Way, which is outlined in green on this slide. It is within the Salem Voting District and the Camelot subdivision, a neighborhood that is generally bounded by Gordon Road to the northwest and Harrison Road to the northeast. It is located within the primary development boundary, which means it is already served by public water and sewer. This property, which is tax mat parcel 22G-13-173, as noted earlier, is zoned Residential 1 or R1. It is surrounded primarily with the same type of zoning designation as illustrated by the aqua color on the map. This area is predominantly characterized by single-family detached homes, which is consistent with this zoning pattern. The comprehensive plan provides a framework for the future land use of the county, and this area where the proposed use is located is designated as low-density residential, shown here in the slide in yellow. The special use permit will not change the intent of the character of this future land use designation. On this slide is a street view of the Margellis residence where the applicants are requesting the special use permit to operate a hair salon within their home. The proposed salon would be a one chair appointment only operation with initial hours of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. In other words, it will be closed on Tuesdays and Sundays. The proposed use would also comply with county code requirements limiting home enterprises to a maximum of 10 clients per day. Staff broadly supports the proposed use and recommends conditions allowing appointments between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., providing flexibility for the applicant to run their business while maintaining compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood. The proposed salon will operate entirely within the residence and remain subordinate to the property's primary residential use. The salon area will occupy approximately 260 square feet or about 17% of the home's total floor area, which is well below the 40% maximum permitted for home enterprises under our county code. Access to the salon will be provided through an existing separate entrance on the right side of the home as shown on this slide with pedestrian access from the applicant's existing driveway. The applicant has indicated that all salon related waste will be contained and stored within the residence until disposal. Staff recommends a condition requiring waste to be removed at least once every 30 days. On this slide is an aerial view of the Margiela's home as noted on the previous slide and shown here the salon entrance is located on the south side of the home and will be accessed by the walkway which connects to their private driveway. The driveway provides adequate on site parking for both the residents and the proposed use. However, staff is concerned the clients may park along Camelot Way, which could create conflicts with neighboring properties and potentially interfere with emergency vehicle access. To ensure there are no negative impacts to neighboring properties or any impeding of emergency traffic, staff recommends conditions requiring all clients to park within the applicant's existing driveway and prohibiting on street parking by clients. As part of the review process, staff evaluated the proposed use against the standards of review as listed in section 23-7A.3.8 of the county's code and determined that with recommended conditions, the use is generally consistent with the intent of the standards of review. The recommended conditions will be covered on the next few slides. The conditions were recommended for approval with this special use permit by the Planning Commission members by a 5-0 vote on June 17th, 2026. I will read these conditions for your convenience right off the slide. Condition number one, the home enterprise, a salon here and after referred to as the salon is and under this permit will and must be limited to one stylist operating a single chair at any one time. Two, all services of the salon and its stylist will and must be provided by appointment only and limited to no more than two clients at any one time. Salon operational days, oh sorry, number three, salon operational days and hours are, and under this permit, will and must be limited to as follows. Beginning with the first appointment scheduled no earlier than 9 a.m. and last appointments no later than 6 p.m. and limited to only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. 4. All customers of the salon will and must park within the existing paved driveway on the property at 11811 Camelot Way, Fredericksburg, VA 22407. 5. Any on-street parking associated with the salon is prohibited. Six, solid waste generated by the salon will and must be stored within the principal resident unit until disposed of at regular intervals at least once every 30 days. And seven, this home enterprise and salon is and under this permit will and must be subject to and comply with Spotsylvania County Code Section 23-5.4A.2. And that concludes my presentation. Are there any questions?

Yes. Dr. Frazier.

I do have one clarifying question. I want to make sure that, I think I heard it, but I just want to make sure that there will be no sign around the house saying this is a salon. Is that part of it? They will not advertise their home as a salon, correct?

Dr. Frazier, under the Home Enterprise Ordinance, it does allow for there to be a small sign posted. That was not a concern that at least had been raised during the technical review of this request, but if that was a concern, that certainly could be conditioned to prohibit the signage, but it would be allowed under the code.

I just, I know that community well, and I, I would, I don't mind supporting, but I don't want the home advertised as a salon. I think that would be 1 of the things that I would not support.

Okay, any other questions for anyone to open it up to the applicant?

The applicant is here.

Okay. Would the applicant like to come up and address the board? Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, members of the board. My name is Gloria Margeles. And I live at 11811 Camelot Way, Fredericksburg, Virginia, 22407. And my family and I, we live at this home for 28 years. I have been licensed hairstylist for 35 years. Through all my career, I have worked in several salons. The later... Most the salons close permanently, and my current workplace is a JCPenney salon. It's also rescheduled for renovation, which means I will not able to work more than three months. at least three months. Opening home-based salon, I will give myself, give me a stable place to work without worrying about salon closures, renovation, or having moved my business. And I will allow me to continue to earn income, family while continuing to provide the same professional service my clients expect. The salon will be open only from 9 a.m. to 6, 8 p.m., and Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I will be the only hairstylist working in the salon, and I will have no more than two clients at the salon at one time. My client, all clients will be parking my driveway, which has enough space for clients parking. This will keep cars off the street and have no impact to the neighborhoods. Any trash for the salon will be removed as needed, at least one or every 30 days, and I will operate the salon with the Pennsylvania country code. I'm sorry, it's Pennsylvania County Code. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you. Sorry, I'm nervous.

It's okay. You did just great. No problem at all. So we'll go ahead and I'll open up the public hearing now. Sure. So you can have a seat and then see if anybody in the audience wants to speak on this and then we'll have you come back up if there's any rebuttals.

Can I say something too? I know I tried to follow the rules as I'm doing here for 35 years. A lot of my Customers, they request to open. Because I was working almost like four or five salons closed on me. First of all, first was the COVID, 28 years working. And then I was working for another salon, MasterCard, in one year closed. And then another salon closed. So eventually all the salons is closing. And then they request, said, why don't you open your house? And I thought it was going to be simple and easy. It is so difficult. Oh, my gosh. And you guys have a lot of code to follow, which is, I like it, because I know my house is private. I don't want it, it's not commercial, so I don't want everyone coming to my house either for my own safety, you know? But thank you for your code and your rules, so I just follow the rules.

Well, thank you. We appreciate that. I'm going to open up the public hearing now. Is anybody signed up to speak? No, ma'am. Okay. Would anybody like to come up and speak? Yeah, please come up. It's okay. It's not required.

Thank you. Good evening. And I, too, have to listen to you. how much you appreciate your staff and the work they've done. I used to be in the same situation where I worked years ago. And so I can share that appreciation for your staff. They've done heavy lifting here. So my wife and I, we're here to support Gloria's request. We've known Gloria for many years. We live in the same subdivision. We don't live on the same street, but I don't see any problem with anybody running a small business out of their home as long as it's not, indirectly or directly affecting the neighbors. I've heard that some people have complained they don't want to see the floodgates open of, you know, in-home businesses in the neighborhood. Well, I really don't think it's going to happen. And it's difficult to understand people who have some sort of expectation that it might. Anyway, so to another point, as I said, I live in the same subdivision and not on the same street, but in my subdivision, there are cars parked on a street on the easement, multiple cars in multiple streets, okay? And I'm one of those people. My wife likes to keep her vehicle in the garage, and if she can't get out, I have to move my truck out of the driveway. It goes on the easement. It's never been a problem. But anyway, so I just wanted to support Gloria. I appreciate you taking the time and putting this on your docket. And again, for your staff and the planning staff and so forth, you've all done a great thing. I just wish your meetings were a little shorter. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak? Okay, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing then. Is there any other discussion on the board? I just, I have a comment.

Madam Chair. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. She gets to come up.

Would you like to have a rebuttal to that? Do you want to speak to what was spoken to at the public hearing?

Me?

Yeah. Do you have anything else to say? Okay. Yes. I didn't think so, but got to follow order here. So I want to just, number one, thank you for going through the process. and doing the right thing by coming to us and letting us know that this was your intention. And small business is the backbone of our community. It really is. And I certainly can appreciate the fact that when you're a hairstylist or some of the service types of industries, when you're working for somebody else and a shop closes, your income is lost. But yet, I bet you have a huge clientele that love the services that you provide and want to continue to come to you. So I just want to thank you for going through the process and hanging in there through it. And I will support you, and I wish you all the luck in the world with your endeavor. I do have a question, Kimberly, to Dr. Frazier's point about the signage. Would we need to, would that need to be written in as a condition then and would it have to come back again?

It would need to be in the conditions. So per the code, she could have a three square foot sign. And so if the desire is to not allow that, then we would need to specify that as a condition. Okay.

Yes. So a couple things. Yes, we would recommend that it continued so that we can, number one, draft the condition. But because it is signage, because it is allowed otherwise in the code with respect to these uses, that's something we would also want to provide some legal research on because it does sign and speech. It does invoke some constitutional questions on the First Amendment to see whether or not we could do that. So the guidance may come back and recommend against it because of constitutional concerns. Also, I think it was good that Kimberly did mention with respect to The size of the signage, I don't know if that changes Dr Frazier's concern with respect to the size. I don't know if there's anything that the applicant can answer as to what her intentions are with the signage where she's intending to place it. Although not a condition. It might just help Dr Frazier further consider the matter. So. Bottom line, yes, if it is going to be considered a condition and the board wants that, please continue it to the next meeting so we can both draft it and also provide legal guidance.

Okay. Madam Chairman, it's our understanding the applicant does not wish to have a sign, but like I said, a three-square-foot sign would be permitted.

Okay. Dr. Frazier, does that...

I didn't hear Kimberly. What did Kimberly say that...

that they committed but this applicant really doesn't want to sign she's not going to put up a sign okay all right then i'll make a motion to approve okay wonderful all right um we'll go ahead and vote jake jake votes aye drew

I just got a haircut, but I'm voiding aye anyways. Chris? Jakubowski, aye.

Gerald?

Childress, aye.

David? Gooseman, aye. Dr. Frazier is an aye. Aye. And the chair votes aye. We're getting a little punchy here, I think.

Motion passes 7-0.

That brings you to your next public hearing. I'm sorry, SUP 26-0002, Spotsylvania Fire Station number 11, Telecommunications Tower, County of Spotsylvania Milestone Towers Limited Partnership, and this is in the Berkeley District.

Good evening members of the board. On your docket for this evening is SCP-260002, which is the communications tower at the spot C Fire Station 11. That's in the Berkeley Voting District. Again, The applicant requests a special use for a 195-foot-tall telecommunications tower with a four-foot lighting rod on approximately 4.34-acre parcels zoned Industrial 1 and Rural District. At the June 17, 2026 Planning Commission meeting, the PC voted 5-0 to find the project's location. character and extent substantially in accord with the comp plan in accordance with Code of Virginia Section 15.2-2232. Subsequently, the PC voted 5-0 to recommend approval with the recommended conditions and staff recommends approval with the recommended conditions. The site is shown here is on in red and is in is approximately quarter mile south from the intersection of route 17 benchmark road and crossroads Parkway with the proposed tower being located in the southern portion of the parcel behind the fire station. This would be approximately 405 feet back from Crossroads Parkway. Properties surrounding the parcel are characterized by a mixture of residential, commercial, and industrial uses. Such properties include the Beretta Warehouse and Crossroads Station Apartments to the northwest, and the currently unbuilt Village of Crossroads Station Project to the south and east. And here on the zoning map, the subject parcel is zoned I-1 and also rural, with the surrounding properties being zoned I-1 rural and mixed-use. And on the future land use map, both the parcel and the adjacent properties are designated as a mixed-use general. The generalized development plan depicts that the tower will be in a 3200 square foot compound surrounded by a six foot tall chain link fence with 12 inches of barbed wire as an anti climbing device. The site will be accessed via the fire station's existing paved access road off of Crossroads Parkway, along with a newly constructed 12 foot wide gravel access road to the compound entrance. The GDP also depicts a 100-foot vegetation preservation buffer proximate to the southern and western sides of the compound where forest cover exists, which will remain preserved and left undisturbed. Submodal plannings are also surrounding the site to meet the 15-foot minimum landscaping buffer requirements per code. And any potential environmental impacts to an endangered species, which is to note both the northern long-eared bat and tricolor bats, would be mitigated with staff's condition to prohibit all land of serving activity related to tree clearing during their summer occupancy. The proposed antennas for Verizon are at a height of 192 feet above ground level. The proposed tower will be designed to accommodate up to four antenna mounts, one to serve Verizon and three other additional carriers. Photographs from 17 different points surrounding the site have been included with this application, which show a simulated image of the tower from the balloon test. This here is an example taken about a quarter mile south at the intersection of Route 17 and Benchmark and Crossroads Parkway. The applicant has also provided a consultant-generated National Environmental Policy Act report, which found to be no adverse effects to any historic properties in the area. And these findings were reviewed by the Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, which concurred with these findings. On this slide, you'll see the special use standards of review is outlined in section 23-4.5.7 of the county's ordinance. Special use permits must satisfy these eight standards of review. These standards pertain to compliance with the comp plan being harmonious with the character of the area and not detrimental to public safety and welfare. Overall, staff finds the project satisfies these eight standards of review. And staff's analysis result in the following project strengths for this request. The proposal is consistent with the comp plan in respect to the land use chapter, which encourages the provision of fiber optic cable and other infrastructure throughout the county as a whole, and especially in the primary development boundary. The proposal satisfies all of the specialty standards of review as established in the ordinance. The proposal will also enhance telecommunication coverage and products for businesses, citizens, tourists, and emergency responders in the area. The proposal is also business-friendly, and the screening is expected to reduce the immediate visibility of the tower from the ground level when factoring in the plantings and buffering. In contrast, staff's analysis resulted in the following project weaknesses. The height of the tower will inevitably exceed the height of the natural tree canopy and is expected to be visible from some vantage points in close proximity to the site, as seen in the project renderings from the balloon tests. Overall, though, staff's analysis found the application to comply with the eight standards of review. And again at the June 17th Planning Commission meeting the PC voted 5-0 to find the project's location, character, and extent substantially in accord with the comp plan. And they also voted 5-0 to recommend approval of the special use permit with conditions. Staff also recommends approval with the following conditions. First, that the tower and compound will be developed in conformance with the GDP. That the owner of the tower upon site plan approval provide the county's zoning administrator with the current owner's contact information. That the 100 foot vegetation buffers on the GDP must remain preserved and left undisturbed with the exception of the area that is inside the 40 foot wide access easement where the gravel road will be. THE TOWER SHALL BE OF A GALVANIZED STEEL FINISH AS SEEN ON THE GDP. AND ALL LAND OF SERVING ACTIVITY RELATING TO TREE CLEARING IS PROHIBITED FROM APRIL 1ST THROUGH INCLUSIVE OF SEPTEMBER 30TH EVERY YEAR. AND THAT'S THE END OF STAFF'S PRESENTATION. I'D BE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS.

OKAY. ANY QUESTIONS? NO. ALL RIGHT. OKAY. AT THIS TIME WE'LL HAVE THE APPLICANT COME UP FOR THEIR PRESENTATION.

Thank you so very much, Madam Chair, members of the board. I don't know how you do it. You guys started at 4 o'clock and the end didn't in sight. Jonathan Yates of Milestone Towers. It's tough to do a presentation after Matthew Decatur did a 29-page staff report. I really just have to hand it to him. Throughout this process, I called him once or twice and asked some real stupid questions. You know, he never laughed at me. But the professionalism, the kindness of your staff, county administrators, it's a credit to you, the chair, and all members of the board. I also have to thank this gentleman, Tim Johnson, the county broadband manager. We really enjoyed this relationship. What we're proposing tonight, this is out at Fire Station 11, right across the street from the VRE Crossroads Station. You've got Beretta. The property in question, you know it well. The county bought it in 2013. The station went up in 2016. As Tim will tell you, there's a little deficit in that area for wireless infrastructure. The county property worked out perfectly for where Verizon needed to be. And when we talk about the facility, Verizon is the lead tenant. The facility has also been designed for three additional broadband carriers. There's space on the tower and the 3,200 square foot compound on the ground. uh matthew touched on so much but just to hit a couple high points uh the facility was reviewed and approved by the faa they made two and four important findings no hazard air navigation and no marking and lighting so no air nab litigation so it won't be lit up at night they made that finding because The facility is about three nautical miles from Shannon and about 2.9 nautical from the Sponsorvania Regional Medical Center Heliport. Matthew already touched on it. It was approved by Virginia SHPO, looked at by 12 Native American tribes. I'm not going to work you through all of them. But just to give you a feel for it, if we're allowed to do this after the bats go away, I'm here with my colleague Ozzie Reyes. It takes Ozzie's group about 45 to 60 days to put the facility up. A lot of that's in the foundation set. The tower itself just goes up in a day. Then Verizon starts to bring their equipment for integration to let it work with the network. After that, on average, we found Verizon probably only has to come out about 8 to 10 times a year. So even though it's a fire station, we're not going to be increasing traffic to it. And the beauty of this facility, it provides wireless infrastructure to the surrounding area, but it doesn't produce any noise, odor, lights, vibration, fumes, or glare. What does it do? A lot of people yakking on phones. You know, it was funny. As I was watching this long afternoon here, as people were waiting to talk and sort of listening, everybody was playing on their phones. I don't know what all they were looking at, but they were looking at something. But it's just become a fact of life. To me, the most important thing, you know, we're looking on a fire station. But you've got to have the ability for people to access the first responders. I joke about people playing on their phones. I joke about the time I spend on my phone. But you want to have effective access, whether it be fire, police, EMS. You have the Spotsy Alert system. It works great if your phone is working. I'm here for any and all questions the board may have. Again, my thanks to the county staff, their credit to the county, and also my thanks to Tim Johnson for working us through this process, and we're hoping to aid him in his development of wireless infrastructure where the county is on par with every county in the country. Thank you all.

Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. um at this time i'm gonna open the public hearing anyone in the audience um have a anything to say about this project okay seeing none we'll go ahead and and close the public hearing i'm assuming you don't want to rebut anything there's nothing to Well, I've just got something to say, unless my colleagues have something to say. But, okay, Jake, you want to go first?

That's fine. I didn't want to interrupt you. My question is the historical line of sight from this tower. Did we do any type of studies or look into that? On the opposite side of the VRA station, if my area is correct... wouldn't LaVue be on the opposite side of the... of the tracks and the view is built on a elevated hill built in 1848 for the awesome family by his son and the view is stands for the view if you stand at the second floor of this home that was used as a civil war field hospital during the battle of fredericksburg if you stand at the second story of this home and look out the windows, you see King George, Caroline, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg. And there may be one other county that you can technically see from the top of this historic home. So now when you stand at the top of this historic home and you look out, you will see a cell phone tower. And I'm not arguing the need of telecommunications towers and cell phone towers. I'm just simply asking, did we look into the historic resources that are elevated on a hill, maybe a mile away, less than a mile away?

Yes, sir, and the approval on December 22, 2025, Virginia State Historic Preservation Office approved the facility as having no effect.

Okay, so they did take a look and approve.

With every one we do, we have it reviewed by Virginia SHPO, and they made the finding of no effect.

Okay, do we have that? Do we have that staff? Do we have that from the Virginia historical society that for us to yeah, the whole report that was included?

Um, it's in it's in the back. Okay.

Thank you, Jake.

No, just a suggestion. If Jake would like, we could disguise it as a tree.

Yeah. or put a sign on top of it.

Well, so I'm in favor of this in a major way, and I'll tell you a real-life story. So when you're on Benchmark Road, you don't have cell service. There is a train railroad crossing on Benchmark Road that is the deadliest crossing in Virginia, okay? We've had multiple fatalities at that railroad crossing. Well, and I sit on the VRE board, so I'm constantly hammering home about this railroad crossing because it needs some major updates on it. There's a sign on the railroad crossing that says, in emergency, call this number, right? So one night, and I think I've told this story here before, but one night my son and I are coming home from band practice, and it's late at night, and this car makes a turn onto Mine Road, and the car gets stuck on the railroad tracks. And a train's coming. And I'm calling the sheriff's department. They go, I can't hear you. I can't hear you because there's no cell service there. I couldn't even call the number on the, because if you call that number, they can stop train traffic right away. I couldn't even call that number because we don't have cell service in that area. David and I were at the community meeting for this and, which, you know, it was just us, and Matthew was there, you know, and the applicant. And so it is absolutely a needed infrastructure in this area. So I am very excited to have this telecommunications tower going up, and I think it will be great for safety in that vicinity. So with that, anyone else have any questions or comments or emotion?

Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve.

All right. Okay. Jake?

Aye.

Drew?

Aye.

Chris? Aye. Gerald? Aye. David? Aye. In the chair vote side, Dr. Frazier has dropped off. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry for the wait.

Lori, you can do electronic voting if you want, or you can just keep going on the, up to you.

Your next public hearing this evening is to consider granting a request for an easement on a portion of county-owned property to Rappahannock Electric Co-op.

Good evening. REC is requesting the county grant an easement across county-owned parcels 36A-8 and 36A-83A for a single-family home being constructed on the parcel 36A-81. The county has reviewed the easement request. It does not impact any type of future use of the county property. The roadway you see down here, the main road, that's Lee Hill School Drive. The road that goes back along where the cursor is now, that's Lee Hill Park Drive, goes back to the convenience center and park at the back of the property there. So staff would recommend the board move forward with granting this easement following public hearing tonight.

Okay, sorry, I was asleep at the wheel there. The chair, yeah, I was actually, I was playing on the phone. No, is there any, what's the next step? That's it. I'd like to open the public hearing. There are no citizens signed up to speak. Okay, and the chair just rescued me. Thank you.

Oh, we closed the public hearing.

All right. Does anybody have any questions?

Is there anybody in the audience that wants to speak on the issue?

Oh, I thought you closed the public hearing. My apologies. Okay. All right. So we will go ahead and open the public hearing. All right. Anybody wish to speak? All right. Seeing none, I'll close it. Any questions? No. See, I leave for two minutes. 145, actually. Okay. All right. So I'll go ahead and entertain a motion.

Motion to approve, Madam Chair.

All right. And we can go ahead and vote electronically now.

Six yes, zero no. Motion passes.

Thank you.

Your next public hearing is a code amendment. It's CA 26-0007. This is to repeal County Code Chapter 24, Business Article 1, Technology Zones.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. The public hearing before you this evening is to repeal technology zones, which is part of the business chapter of the county code. The proposal is to repeal the entire section. This code amendment was put into place At the end of the Great Recession, it was an attempt to incentivize businesses, technology specifically businesses, to come to the county. It is an administrative incentive program, and it rebates BPOL and machinery and tools taxes for qualifying businesses, and that's all detailed in the ordinance how you would become a qualifying business. The rebates are for a period of five years at 100% for the first two years and 50% for the next three years. There are currently no businesses in the program. There are no pending applications. This is a program that, as I said, it came out of the Great Recession as an attempt to try to incentivize and bring technology businesses to the county. At this point in time, staff does not see a need to continue to have this administrative program and instead recommends that this be repealed and it therefore would allow for the board to consider incentives on a case-by-case basis in the future as you wish.

Okay. And I'll go ahead and open the public hearing. Does anybody wish to speak to this? Okay, seeing none, I'll close. Anybody have any questions? Okay, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to approve.

All right, let's go ahead and vote.

Six yes, motion passes.

That brings you to your next public hearing, another code amendment, CA 26-0005, Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors, Ordinance 23-193, Manufactured Homes.

Thank You madam chairman members of the board this is a code amendment as a result of recent legislation passed by the General Assembly that requires localities to allow manufactured homes in all zoning districts that allow single-family detached or stick-built homes so currently in our ordinance we do allow manufactured homes in our agricultural districts but that's the only districts that allow them currently The effective date was July 1st. So this will go into effect immediately. But the amendment, it revised the definition of single family detached dwelling to include manufactured homes. They must be on a permanent foundation. They must also be classified as real property and not personal property for tax purposes. The Plating Commission had a public hearing on June 17th and did recommend approval with a vote of 5-0. And staff also recommends the board adopt ordinance number 23-193 and approve the code amendment. And that concludes my presentation.

Okay, thank you. All right, we'll open the public hearing. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Okay, we'll close the public hearing. Does anybody have any questions regarding this? Yes, David.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just out of curiosity, so basically this change puts the same constraints and stuff on the rural as it does for the agricultural. So it's the same in both cases. Okay.

Right. So any zoning district that allows for single-family detached dwellings, it also has to allow for manufactured homes. But they have to be on a permanent foundation, and then, of course, like I said, taxed.

And that's the same as it is on the agricultural side today, before this?

No, sir. They did not have to be on permanent foundations. Okay.

All right. So there is a slight difference. There is. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you.

Okay.

Jake?

Kimberly, do we run into any risk of having a rezoning? where say developer comes in and wants to rezone a parcel of land to say put 80 single family detached homes on there. And we envision that being your typical cookie cutter, brick and stick built homes. And a year down the road, that developer says, well, you know what, I'm putting in 80, modular homes with permanent foundations single so i mean i mean so yeah to you could put in a single wide double wide any type of modular as long as it's on a permanent foundation could we run that risk of approving a rezoning envisioning a certain number of stick built homes fast forward a year later and next thing you know we've got 80 some modular homes there on permanent foundations.

Right. I would recommend that's something we should keep in consideration when you're considering any residential project. I would say that most of the residential projects that have been approved have proffered architectural renderings and have been very specific, so I think that that would kind of be a hard test to make, but it's certainly something to keep in mind and then make that proper language or encourage that proper commitment to be very, very clear on what they're constructing.

Perfect, and that's exactly my point, is we're just going to have to pay attention in the future to make sure that that language is in there to where we don't end up with something we're not intended to have. So thank you, Kimberly.

Drew? So to tag along on that, this bothers me. This is another example of the state imposing its will on counties and telling us how to run our county. And for this reason, I don't even want to vote yes for it, even if it's a technicality, because then I'd be on record of supporting it. But the idea that the state can say, yeah, you can do this now, you can fill in all over the, a development is one thing where the developer has to come and get a rezoning or special use permit, et cetera. But it doesn't, or I'm gonna ask the question, does it allow for an individual to just put a single person, if they own the land, to do that? Is that correct?

Sure, so if a property is zoned for residential use, then this will be a permitted use.

Right, and so to that point, It will happen that existing neighborhoods that exist in some sort of uniformity right now with certain property values will be On a case-by-case, they'll be infiltrated by these opportunities. People will put these single-wides or whatever it is down on the property. Now, if you want to be mad about something, citizens, this is a good thing to be upset about. This could affect everyone in some form or fashion. So I really feel like this is an opportunity for us, even if it's symbolic, to tell Richmond we don't agree with it. like we did with the First Amendment and Second Amendment and these other, the referendum things. If I hadn't been asleep, I would have probably asked to pass a resolution against it. But again, if we don't make a stand, it'll be the slow drip, drip, drip of erosion and the state will continue to do these kinds of things. So that's my comment.

David.

Yeah, and I agree with Supervisor Mullins. I mean, because now what you have is you have an established neighborhood with stick-built homes at property value, and now all of a sudden you've got a single-wide neighborhood. Built in your neighborhood is going to take your property values down, you know, and again, that's, you know, I understand the way the way things work here in the state, you know, we get dictated by. By Richmond on some of these requirements, but yeah, I agree with with Drew. I think it's a, it's a time where, you know, you ought to be talking to your representatives and making some complaints about that. Because again, if you're in one of those situations, you know, we talk about a lot of things here about you're afraid of property values going down because of fill in the blank. Well, here's something Richmond's going to do for you. You know, your property value is going to go down if you have something like this pop up in your neighborhood. Now, I'm not saying there's anything bad about them because it could be more affordable for some households and stuff like that in the right places. But the fact is that it becomes buy right. Now they can just pop up anywhere you want. That was why we wanted an SUP for data centers. We didn't want them just to pop up. Well, now we're going to have modular homes just popping up in neighborhoods.

Anyone else have any questions? So I have a question, but go ahead.

I have a quick question. Kimberly correct me if I'm wrong, but this wouldn't supersede covenants, right? For a planned community that has covenants restricting residents to certain types of structures, buildings. This wouldn't supersede that. So that is also something that the citizens can consider if you are in that type of community, you can get together and amend those covenants, you know, with a majority or super majority vote of the HOA to make those changes. But at the end of the day, this is something that, as you stated your frustration, it is something that's, you know, legally required. And of course, you know, the county would be at risk if it didn't do it. But you can certainly, you know, despite a

passing the uh the or approving the ordinance you can certainly always adopt you know any kind of resolution voicing your frustrations as as needed to the extent you know you need to beyond just these comments true i appreciate the legal advice and you're doing your job by protecting us carl um but this is one of those situations where people are going about their daily lives They're head to the grind or nose to the grindstone, getting up every day and doing what they got to do to survive. And they don't see these things. It's a little, you know, ankle biters that keep happening to us. This is our job, the seven of us up here. And staff will do what they can to fight the fight with us. So I just want people to know that this is wrong. Period. And just because Richmond says you have to do it, now look at all of Route 1 where you got little fill-in things popping up. People could just start dropping single wides or double wides or whatever. And like David said, I don't have anything against that in particular, right? It's got to be in the right spot, but no.

Chris. And again, in the wisdom of Richmond, as they're so wise when it came to used car dealers and we saw them popping up everywhere, we had to take action about that. But my question for the county attorney is, I know that this code is just going to reflect what the state has told us to do. And so if we don't pass it, what are they going to do to us?

It may not be the state, but there may be private property owners that have a right to do certain things. And if it's not an allowed allowance in our zoning ordinance, keep in mind that if it's not in our zoning ordinance as an allowed use, you're not allowed to do it. So the county could be subject to those types of legal issues. I don't know that the state would seek out and force it against us.

So it would open us up to lawsuits. And so, unfortunately, we have to.

Exactly. And this may be one of those cases where we need the or you all need the begrudging yes or no.

But, you know, again, at the same time, I kind of feel like Drew does, you know, it's. You know, we have representation in Richmond, and, you know, something as big as this probably would have, should have warranted a call or maybe just a, hey, what do you guys think about this, right? We didn't get that. We have a long list of legislative agenda items that we provide every year, but some of the stuff that's coming out of there is just, you know, I don't even know whose bright idea this was. I guess I can go and see who sponsored the legislation and figure it out. But, I mean, I'm kind of with you, Drew. I kind of feel like this is kind of a line in the sand that we should draw and see what happens.

Madam Chair, to that point, so we could approve this begrudgingly. Now we're in agreement. Two years from now or a year and a half when the new representation gets elected and they're not in favor of this kind of thing, they've got to unwind that. So then we have to come back. And in the meantime, we've set this kind of precedent. So I'd rather just fight the fight for two years and see what happens, because otherwise you're going to we're going to continue to make compromises that are not healthy for the community.

Yeah, I'd just like to say that anytime there's a conflict between local code and state code, state code rules. So, you know, we would have to tell staff if you keep this provision in local code that it's not enforceable. So, I mean, that's kind of the situation we're in because state code trumps local code.

Then, Mark, don't they have to, there has to be action, then they have to take action and make the efforts to enforce, correct?

Well, we would just tell staff that they need to comply with state law, not local code.

So, both now and

I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's a good practice to have something in local code that conflicts with state code. Yeah. I mean, y'all are free to do it, do what you like, but I don't think it's, I mean, it's, it's confusing for the citizens and also confusing for staff.

So, so how would we, okay. So, you know, we're up here saying we're begrudgingly going to vote yes on this, right? But we need to send a message stating that we do not agree with this. So would it be sending a letter to our state delegation stating that we pass this? However, we...

I would just add it to your legislative agenda for next year to repeal it.

Is the clock ticking on this? What's the clock? Is it running right now?

It's in force right now. July 1st.

July 1st. It's been state law since July 1st. So I have a question. Doesn't this happen in a building industry all the time? Local code is different from state. It happens across the board. So I don't see where it's a huge deal for us to stand up and say something that we don't believe in because I know in the building code it happens all the time.

Right. To Mr. Cole's point is that it's, you know, there are elements of our subdivision ordinance, of our zoning ordinance that, you know, may be in conflict with state code because we just haven't been able to put the staff resources to it. Like, for instance, we're in a Berkeley group zoning ordinance. They're navigating that overhaul to the zoning ordinance update. The subdivision ordinance needs to be updated. We try to do these piecemeal code amendments to make sure that we're compliant, which is what we're doing here. But yeah, in the instance where we find a situation where a permit has been applied for on whatever it is, and we find that our local ordinance is in conflict with state, then we operate consistent with the state code by default.

Okay, so...

Sure. Abstention. I can then do a symbolic no vote as well. That's right. And what happens in ties? Then I win. I'm kidding. I'm voting no anyway, so I don't care how it works. Well, I might just leave and go to the bathroom real quick.

Okay, so maybe we just take the vote and see where it lands and, you know, we'll just do that. Is that everybody good with that? Give me a motion.

I make a motion to do what the state is making us to do with this ordinance.

Okay.

One yes, five nays. Motion fails.

Thank you, Kimberly. Appreciate it. All right. I'd like to. OK, so we're going to do the presentation by others now. And then just as we're going.

Then we'll go to county administrator, county attorney report and board reports.

Yeah, because we have a lengthy closed meeting. Right. So we'll switch it around a little bit so we can. make sure that we don't have people waiting for us to come back.

Right. Okay. So we'll go to the ultimate presentation for speed camera updates.

Good evening.

Oh, no. Will the presentation, should I do it here or come down here? Is that the move?

It's been a long night, but, and it's going to get even longer, but that's fine. That's what we're here for. Thanks for being here.

I feel bad, but I did not know I was going to have this angle, and I can't see out of my progressive glasses.

I'm sure you guys will be very happy with me having to go get my bag. You're fine.

It might have been because my eyeballs quit working six months ago. It's a relatively new phenomenon. I've just been buying reading glasses daily to find the right match.

All right.

So sorry, I am Sam Crawley. I'm with ultimate your partner in your speed safety program here in the county. And you know, I just like to start off tonight. Um, By expressing our sincere gratitude for the county as a partner, we truly look to find partners at Ultimate. We don't look to just sign contracts and say, hey, we're going to do this many programs. It's about finding folks that work with us and share the same goals that these programs are put in place to accomplish. So thank you for... Given us this opportunity tonight. I think this kind of transparency is what truly leads to a successful program having the details and program reviews put out in a public space like this shows a true trust in the program and it allows you to align the county its residents and us at ultimate in the same common cause of working towards achieving your safety goals and quite frankly the awareness and education of it's much more important than giving out tickets to slow people down in your school zones. So I thank you for that. I'm having technical difficulties. This doesn't seem to be switching screens for me. Is there something wrong? I'm sorry. It's got you typically on a computer. If I hit that, it goes right down, right?

Sorry. What's the trick here?

It's like locked down. Yeah, we're done.

Should I close it? Start over?

Oh, no. It's not doing anything.

The PDF is locked up.

Did you already do that? Yeah, it's not.

Nothing. You can't exit out. The only thing that will work is the mouse is moving.

Do you have it printed out?

Is this a PDF? It's a PDF.

No, I can see it. I don't know if you can just speak to it.

Yeah, I have it. I have a copy.

Maybe it's on the agenda and that's, yeah.

Yeah, I have a copy myself. I can go through it without having it on the screen if you'd like. Yeah, I just...

Madam Chair, if we're not able to put this on the screen, we have citizens at home that are either watching or are going to re-watch this on regional web TV without having the information up on the screen and just hearing a bunch of words going back and forth and without the people being able to see the data in front of them. I don't feel comfortable wording this presentation. Okay, that's fine.

We can try rebooting the computer. It's locked up.

okay can we can we do this can we go to the other presentation while you guys are working out no you can't computer too okay we could do board reports now i guess then yeah let's do that are you guys ready okay chris why you guys pick on me tonight it's like

so well yeah thank you very much for um everybody that has come out tonight um i do think that we do need to do a better a better job of uh getting the information out there and letting so that people can come out and let their voices be heard but i do think on that issue a lot of the issues that were raised were addressed too which was nice and at any point if you need to cut me off let me know but i'll be using my 45 minutes very sparingly Yes. A couple of things about data centers. And I went outside. I was talking to some folks out there just about some of the information that is being heard. Number one, and Mr. County Attorney, can you correct me if I'm wrong, but we hear a lot about a moratorium. And we cannot place a moratorium on any type of building, can we?

That's correct. That's not something that's supported under Virginia law, and it's pretty well accepted by my colleagues across the Commonwealth. While certainly you can deny applications, there is no provision in the law that allows for a moratorium on data centers or any type of development.

Right. So it's not that we don't want to put a moratorium as we are prohibited from doing a moratorium.

Yeah. And notably, when the woman brought it up, you know, New York as a state, you know, established that. And that may be something that's doable at the level of the Commonwealth, but not localities.

Right, and so something there's another, and I don't think that this was set out here tonight, but it has been brought up before. And I hear this line as a, it's a very disturbing comment and this is not arguing one way or the other for data centers. Because I think my position has been pretty clear, even though a lot of people don't get it correct. Is that. Us entertaining votes on any issue, any type of rezoning, SUP, anything like that, does not indicate that we support that and are pushing that through. If you own property or you're purchasing property or you want to start a business, any of those type of things, you have an absolute right to bring that forward and to try to get your application passed and to sit there and say that we shouldn't even entertain it. That is a scary avenue to go down. We should not be doing that at all. This is the cornerstone of our country is private property rights. And for us as a governing body, I mean, just imagine that it's something that you do like and somebody were to do that. That is not a road to go down. And that's not to say that we don't listen to the concerns that are brought up, but we definitely need to make sure that we are vigilant in making sure that the private property rights of our citizens are... are well protected. One other thing I do, and I do want to bring this up, is about the power. And this is one thing that does frustrate me, is that at the local level, we deal with issues, as we just saw, of stuff that the state tells us to do or inaction by the state that reverberates all the way down to us. So I've told a lot of people this. I said, take data centers out, because we know data centers use a lot of energy. So if you take data centers out of the equation and replace it with something you want, whatever that might be, Why are we letting the state and the federal government off the hook for their inaction and their stupid policies that have gotten us to this point? Brownouts, high energy bills, and then you blame an industry for whatever industry that is. I'm not even going to get into that. It's a scapegoat, in my opinion, for poor policies that have been in place for years And I'm in favor of green energy, they call it, but not at the expense of what we know works. I'm an all of the above, let's do everything that we can to get as much energy as we can for our state, our locality, our nation. And when you have these people that just sit there and say, well, you know, this or that is what we should be doing, but, oh, by the way, you can't do something because we don't have the energy because of our policies. um that that is very very frustrating because number one our citizens shouldn't be used as a pawn in these political games that are played constantly and then um you know we talk about trying to get new streams of revenue in here and there is a lot of revenue that comes from data centers and it's not a blank check it's not just come here and do whatever you like But you can't deny that that there is revenue that comes from it. So I think all those things are are frustrating, frustrating for me in that also myself and Supervisor Hayes did 3 town hall meetings last year. No data centers have even been voted on since August, I think, of last year was powerhouse to August or September, somewhere around there. So I'm more than happy. I mean, in fact, if anybody follows me on Facebook, if you guys follow me on Facebook, you'll see. That I get literally hundreds of thousands of views on these issues when I put them up and I try to entertain and go back and forth with people and their comments and concerns because I'm not going to just out of hand dismiss any of those. That's not what I do at all. And in fact, I'll give you guys an update. Remember I told you about the gentleman who had said mean things. I don't want to keep bringing up what he said because that's in the past. But in fact, I just messaged him today and asked him how his interaction with state government has gone. And he said he's still not heard back from them. So I'm going to be getting in touch with staff tomorrow morning about this because he has concerns and state government is not doing anything about it. I'm very concerned about the path that this is going down where we start losing all... debatable points and we just say it is either this or that and it's not that my number one concern and my number one reason to be on this board is to make sure that our residents are protected period and we have multiple ways of doing that but we also need to have the the correct information that's out there so is that enough time did you guys get everything you're ready roll all right

Well, yeah, I'd kind of like to finish board reports if we could.

Oh, I'm not done. Oh. For now I am. Let's get on with the presentation and we'll talk later.

All right. All right. Thanks. You're going to get limited. All right. Let's go on this then. And just push the microphone.

We are back up and running. Don't know what happened there, but thank you for all the help to get it going. I promise I did not break your computer. That was not me. So, yes, we're very grateful for our partnership here in Spotsylvania. So far with the first school year with the program being in place, this is a great time to kind of review some of the data coming back from the program and just take a holistic view of how everything's going on a day-to-day basis for your program. I do always like to start just reviewing the why. It's pretty eye-opening, the difference in risk of death when a pedestrian or a cyclist are struck by a vehicle depending on the speed that vehicle is traveling. These numbers become especially... more eye-opening when you look at the speeds that vehicles travel through the county school zones anything you can do to keep that speed at 23 or lower makes a drastic difference when something happens and that's why we do this it's why ultimate does it it's why the county has entered into a partnership with us and i think it's important to to revisit that and keep that in mind as we go through the program review here this evening So high level, what are the cameras telling us? What are we learning from this program? What do the numbers look like? These three data points I think are a good place To summarize the first school year of having cameras in place in your school zones, so you had a total of 27,673 citations issued. While that is a large number, it's by no means in the first year of a program with as many school zones being enforced as the county has in place is that one of the highest ones you'll see where these programs are accurate. But the most important number here is that 73% in the center. Why is that important? 73% of citations that have been issued in the county have already been paid. Compliance is the key to people slowing down. Having 73% of your citations get paid is actually a pretty good place to be um as far as compliance goes and it shows by some of the reductions that we've seen in the in your school zones from speeding in general so it's you know i'll go through a more in-depth timeline here but when you look at the 132 days that were enforced throughout this school year you guys being your first year you entered into your warning program the warning period of your program which was actually extended which is a fantastic way to approach your program it's like hey we're going to take our time no need to start sending out penalties at this point there was an extended warning period and a tiered rollout of the different school zones but we'll go through the detail so it wasn't the entire school year every single day that was enforced in your first year of a live program so when a citation is issued in this In programs like this, it's a misnomer. So what's the first thing someone says when you talk about one of these programs? The automated enforcement program. It's not really accurate. At the end of the day, it's much more a technology-assisted enforcement program, meaning each citation that's captured by the roadside technology is going to undergo a three-layer review before it ever is sent out to a violator. So first off, you're going to have an automated review. The system itself will make sure anything that's missing, if there's anything that's not a citation, sometimes it'll just capture an event that ultimately isn't. The systems will filter that out. And these are going to be very simple mechanical issues that you'll see, whether it be, hey, that image didn't get caught because this was blocked, whatever the case may be. Then second layer is going to be our trained processors where a human review will be conducted by them. Then it's sent to the county sheriff's office for their final review before it's sent out. So you have two full human reviews happening as well as an automated filter that's going to make sure everything is present before it even makes it to the first human review. So yes, automated traffic enforcement, but there's a lot of human involvement to make sure these citations are indeed correct before they're sent to any violators. The program here in the county, where are the cameras? You guys have systems installed at 10. I mean, excuse me, at five school zones, it is 10 systems, and they are enforcing bidirectionally. So you have five school zones that have been enforcing through this first school year of your program being live. I'm not going to go through the numbers on this slide. I think we'll look at them at the graph on the next one. It is notable here that unless a vehicle's going through at 11 plus miles an hour, that's when the enforcement threshold is. The law actually says 10 plus in Virginia. And you guys, they have that extra little buffer before they'll actually get a citation. So what was measured, very simply, Those 27,000 citations, every single one of them was a very real violation in your school zones. It went through the three-step approval process. These are actual speeders that we're still violating, not just... Speeding through the school zone pretty egregiously speeding at 11-plus miles per hour over the posted inactive speed limit. Captured 27,673 of those citations across the 132 active days of enforcement. And very importantly... If a violation wasn't committed, no record or data was kept on residents driving through those school zones. The systems are only going to activate when a vehicle violates in the path of that zone. So these are not surveillance mechanisms. They're not collecting data on folks that are driving by. They're only collecting the data that would be necessary to prosecute that violation and actually send out the citations. your program timeline so as I mentioned the warning period starting at the beginning of school you entered into a 30-day warning period for all the the original systems that went live during that process we actually worked and installed the original all eight sites then we took the warning period out then the warning period ended and you go into live enforcement so by october 1st of 2025 all eight of the original sites were active and they were enforcing and issuing citations for those speeding through the school zones and then in february you added the additional two sites that went live to bring that total up to your 10 locations and five school zones This report is going to encompass the data collected through that initial school year, once we had a full school year of data in hand to really get an idea of how everything was functioning in your program. So, you know, I mentioned we look at the actual amounts of the violations. It's a pretty impactful slide because what this is going to demonstrate is, all right, you see those are going up and down. Now, what we like to see, if everything goes exactly as we want and you have only eight systems, they're all going live the same day, they're all going to be issuing for the same amount of time, you typically won't see that up and down. We do have a little bit of up and down here, but it's to be expected. So, you know, we call out your peak week there. That's a pretty high amount of citations in one week. There's also a reason that peak is where it happens to be. That's that first full month. When you look from like the 29th over through November 3rd, that's really going to be your first full month of enforcement with eight systems that have been warning period that had gone through a warning period and then begun issuing citations. So you see a peak there. That's when the driving population is really starting to adjust and learn, hey, these systems are here. You have the little bit of time it takes for them to actually get a citation, then they pay it, and you start to see compliance come bring that number down once folks are learning and getting used to those systems being in place. Now you see another peak up. As you may recall, we had a little bit of snow and ice in January, the end of January this year here in the Commonwealth. And you see a dip that goes down for that. That's not a compliance dip, unfortunately. That is a dip because school was not in session. And then you're going to pop back up a little bit. Reason being for that, you added two brand new systems in a new school zone. So it goes to be expected. A key piece of information out of this graph is what you see in your per site violations per day. And what the county saw with their per site violations per day was from that October peak, which was right at 32.6 violations per day per site, to the end of May, you went from 32.6 to 19.6, representing a 40% decline per site. we would expect that number to increase and compliance to increase as well, the longer all of these systems are in place. So as you move into next year, we should see the starting point be a little closer to that 19.6 that it ended the year. And then you'll keep reducing speeding in the school zones. How fast were offenders going? You know, we opened up, we looked at the difference that those speed limits and how fast the vehicle is traveling, how much that can affect the risk of death if a vehicle strikes a pedestrian or cyclist. The good news here is These are all 11 plus. That is a scrivener's error. I will get you an updated copy on that where it says 12. These are the 11 plus violations and that 11 to 15 mile per hour range makes up the majority of the citations you're getting. You know, if you're going to speed through a school zone, I think at least you're speeding at the lowest range of speeding, the majority of your speeders. But it is still pretty alarming and there's still work to be done when you look over at the 16 to 20 mile per hour threshold and then the 21 plus and then the alarming stat of a 72 mile per hour vehicle traveling through a 35 mile per hour school zone when it was active. That's pretty alarming. So there's still work to be done. Like I said, the program is trending in the absolute right direction to continue to build compliance and work to get that approaching 40% number of folks that are egregiously, truly egregiously speeding through the school zones to slow it down in your school zones. And Citations by camera location. So your Salem Elementary, the northbound approach, continues to be your biggest issue zone. So it is... That's a pretty drastic difference between that one approach and any others, even when you look at the southbound approach versus the northbound at Salem. But we did want to take an opportunity to just kind of break down how each of the different zones looks. This is important because if you get to a level of compliance in a certain zone where, you know, it's like, hey, we feel like we've gotten where we needed to get, I don't think any of these zones are in a position where, I would recommend saying, hey, maybe we should just pull the system. We're still looking at a pretty heavy amount of violations of folks speeding and kind of goes back to this next school year. We'll truly start to push that compliance percentage even further in the right direction. So, you know, I started out here tonight telling you that we're grateful for the partnership, but we truly are proud to partner with the county. Our focus has been from day one and continues to be to use our experience as the Commonwealth of Virginia's leading safety partner to provide a best-in-class enforcement program for Spotsylvania County. That goal will continue to be what drives us. You know, I'm sitting here tonight breaking your computer and I have Summer with me. Summer is actually our head of marketing at Ultimate. She works with the public information and education awareness portions of our program where you work on educating the public, alerting them to the systems coming in, and you put a heavy focus on the more important than citations public awareness and education piece of your program. But there is a very large team that comes to work every day and make sure Spotsylvania is getting the support it needs from Ultimate as its partner. Not going to go through everybody here, but I did want to make sure you had a chance to see the faces of the team that on a day-to-day basis make your program a success. Now one of the big things I wanted to review tonight are the legislative changes, the changes that have been put in place in the enabling law that allows for utilizing enforcement systems the very good news on this is we are those green checks aren't just green checks they represent that we are already positioned and ahead of where we would need to be for any rollout of these new changes here in the county so Just to give a little bit more detail on the actual changes that the law underwent in the last session. Signage and speed display signs. So there will be a requirement for two conspicuous signs. within 1,000 feet of each school zone moving forward. And one of these signs will be the speed radar feedback sign. So if you're driving a certain speed, your speed gives you a heads up. That should be helpful. an additional add-on to help with compliance and pushing that number in the right direction. These will be required to be in place by July 2027, which is the longest runway of the changes that we've seen with the law after the session. We are already aligned. We're moving forward with getting everything we need to do to make sure that compliance is in place in advance of the requirements. and working hand in hand with the sheriff's office to tick off any needs from the county on that piece to make sure it is efficiently and properly done prior to any deadlines. They also have put in what in effect will be a uniform summons across the entire Commonwealth, so all of the programs will have the same summons. The Supreme Court actually has, they have a little bit of time, it's October, before they have to get their final design out, but we're already aligned and in place for this piece as well. This will be required to be put in place in January 2027. And then reporting surrounding the second summons and failure to appear is also going to be a requirement moving forward. We've already put everything in place to generate those Second summons and report failure to appear to the DMV to allow for registration holds when a violator chooses not to pay when they've committed a violation. So everything is lined up there and then evidence rights and fees. So what changed here? Work zones one. You guys don't have an active work zone in the county, but they did update it to require sworn certification of worker presence at the time of the violation. That's actually a pretty top complaint that folks will say in Virginia. Workers are supposed to be present when someone gets one and say I didn't see any workers. There's actually a specific work zone where that comes up quite a bit. 30-day evidence inspection and contest rights for violators, and then the payment convenience fees being capped at 5%. Once again, we are aligned and ready for each of these. And we talked about the different dates. So each of these components that were changed, they don't have one hard due date. So the ones that went into play at the beginning of this month with excess revenue rules, data retention policy, Put to 21 days, the convenience fee cap, all of those are active and we're already doing them. Then that October ruling where the summons template will be formalized by the Supreme Court. Once we get that, we'll move towards that January deadline. the January 1st deadline for that piece and then the sign requirements are pushed out a little bit further and then November 15th we'll get the first annual report we will do the heavy lifting just to put all the data together for you guys and then work with the county to get that first report submitted in a timely fashion for your first annual report for your program And with that, I wanted to give a high level, but I did want to leave some time for questions.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Drew.

Yeah, thanks for the presentation. I have a lot of questions, so I won't ask them all right now. But when we received the initial presentation last year, I don't recall – Could have happened, but I just don't recall off the top of my head. The flock camera component. And that's become somewhat... Controversial lately as you know sure quite aware so background question is if you could clarify the. Cameras that are being used in the school zones. They're active during school time right when that's there when the school. Zone is flashing their active correct. correct are they active outside of that just generally for tracking speeders going through there no so they're dormant when that's not flashing correct what's the status of the flock cameras at that time um i would not be able to answer that question reason being

From day one here at Ultimate, we've been committed to be an investing class enforcement partner.

But the cameras, you install them.

We don't install flocks. You did not install the flocks. So we're committed to be an investing class enforcement partner. What we do is offer, as part of our program, the ability for our partners. We do believe in other public safety increasing technology. What a lot of... vendors, companies in our industry will do is they'll use their cameras as LPR cameras. They'll run them to collect additional data. We do not do that. So we were the first and only for a long time company that does what we do to partner with LPR companies like Flock, Vigilant. We partner with all of them so we could offer to our partners the ability to have that additional safety increasing technology completely separate from us.

So we as a board approved your package.

Correct.

I don't recall us talking about flock and partnering or any of that. So I'm trying to get some I'm hearing you say two separate things. You know, the the big picture we partner

but you acknowledge that flock cameras are part of the architecture the you know that's there they're not they're completely separate from architecture we pay the bill for flock flock has a separate relationship and they manage their data based on alpr laws right who installed them flock okay you pay the bill to flock without spending taxpayer dollars.

Okay, so Flock then is, it's 24-hour surveillance.

That's Flock, I don't know. Right. Typically, they're an LPR company and typically they're pinging plates.

Now, What's to say, like, well, let me ask you, is the school zone flashing light the trigger to turn on the cameras, your cameras?

Correct.

So that's not a, doesn't have to be deliberately done one way or the other. It's like once that flasher goes on. The schedule around the school schedule. Okay. 27,000 and change violators. 20, was it 20%? Or no, what was the, 73%. That. comes out to $20,000 and change tickets. The tickets were, what, $100 each?

$100 each.

So that's $2.2 million. Can you break that down where that money goes?

I can I don't have that broken down just generally just general so we your contract we get we are we collect $14 per paid citation okay this goes back to the account and then um do we know where that goes before the remainder General Fund

Correct, per citation. 86.

That's per citation issued, like made, not.

And that's, is that general fund mark, or where's that rest? The first was 50. The first was 50, okay. Oh, yes, that's true.

Sorry, the state law is 100. That's my fault, yes.

Mr. Mullins, just to help answer the question where the money goes, it goes into our capital projects fund right now.

That's all I'm looking for, just clarification, refresh my memory, but also so the public can hear. Sure. I mean, I should have led with this. It's a very effective tool, okay? And I'm really happy that we have them. I know it's changed behavior. Ask my wife. And twice in one day. I'm never going to eight minutes apart. It's a good story. I'll tell you about it somewhere some other time. But it's it's I'm all in favor of it. Right. I just want to make sure that people are aware that there's two things at work here in this zone. So don't think you're safe zooming through a school zone speeding because.

got law enforcement who can utilize and leverage whatever is on site flock wise at least to help out with with crime so i'm happy about that and that's you i think a very maybe not simpler but it's an important distinction the flock separate is means the county controls that data with flock we have nothing to do with it no line of sight into it and that's very intentional we do believe in focusing only on enforcement so

It's the sheriff's office that controls the data. The county doesn't have anything to do with the data. It goes to the sheriff's office.

Does the sheriff want to say anything at all about that? I'm a friend, Lieutenant Curl.

No, you're good. So first and foremost, there are no flock cameras in school zones. none whatsoever so when the schools are lights are flashing that is when is enforceable as long as schools in session and students are in class there are instances in the schools try to do a good job of turning off the lights when schools not in session as any electronics go sometimes it doesn't work that way so they are flashing but there are no kids in school then no summonses get issued flock cameras as part of the contract was one flock camera per school zone camera so if you have five schools it's ten cameras right okay So it's an agreement between FLOC and a property owner because state law last year in July said you cannot put it on VDOT easements. So the vast majority of them are a contract between FLOC and the private property owner to allow the camera put on there. All we said was, you know, it'd be nice to have one in this area and FLOC would go out and talk to the business owner and have a contract entered to have it on their property. All we have access to is the data. The county doesn't maintain it. The county doesn't pay for it. That is strictly a contract between ultimate and flock. All we do is get the data and I say the data is. Anybody who a law enforcement agency in Virginia who has an account can to a certain extent. access that data. Now, when I say the data, the only notifications we get are people with warrants, stolen vehicle, stolen tag, or missing people. So we get an alert on our application that says, hey, Flock camera captured this license plate in this vehicle. There's no registered owner information or anything else like that. Now, I can tell you for our agency, a lot of agencies give carte blanche access to all of their officers. We restrict it. We restrict it solely to specific supervisors and dispatch supervisors and a couple detectives. So I can tell you, out of our entire agency, we have roughly 18 people to 20 people that have access. Fredericksburg gives it to their entire police department. So we are very strict on who has access, and we have to provide quarterly an audit to VSP and the state on how it's being used. We also have a transparency portal where people can log into our website, click it, and it tells you how many cars are detected, how many times we actually searched it. I believe I looked the other day and it was like 20 something. So it's not something that's used all the time. And we can go back to several cases that were used to solve the flock, or solve using flock. And I'll give you an incident down here where we had a fatal hit and run on Courthouse Road. We used that, you run the license, not license plate, vehicle descriptors to see if we can develop a suspect. We don't sit there and monitor it and see who's driving through it. We only use it for specific instances that are delineated by state code. And those are different types of crimes, and I believe I provided Mr. Cole with that stuff, and he can share it with you. So you can see every instance. I believe it was 199 times so far this year it was used to try and find missing people. You know, it's not low-level offenses. These are robberies, weapons offenses, major crimes that trying to develop suspects and help protect the community. So we are very strict and very hands-on on who has access, and I conduct monthly audits to see how they were used to make sure it's being used appropriately. And then we have to report that to the state.

I really appreciate you putting those kinds of meat on the bones. Last question for you since you're up there is I think why they're controversial is like the city has a completely different use. They're all over the place. Some of them, like the one on Bragg or Fall Hill, that's right on the road. So that's their agreement, I guess, right?

Well, the city is maintained. They maintain their own roadways and everything else.

That's what I mean. They maintain their own. I understand that. And I appreciate the fact that you guys are very judicious and protective of how you're utilizing that.

And the data can only be kept for 21 days?

Yeah, so by code, it has to be purged after 21 days. And we can't share with out-of-state jurisdictions, and we can't share with federal entities. So it is only anybody in the state. Okay. Thank you very much.

And I will say, just because our city partners, we rely on them heavily for their success of their flock cameras to solve the crimes because we do intersect with them. So we are very pleased that they have the amount of flock cameras they have, and their council has approved all of them. They are a municipality, so they can put them in different areas versus what we can. I think what the biggest issue is, is the trending deflocking thing. Well, I think you could go back and let your constituents know. Until their family is a victim of heinous crime, you know, maybe put deflocking to rest.

I'm glad you guys cleared this up because the wildfire out there in the public and the information, disinformation, hysteria, now I think we can appreciate the tool. And I really do appreciate how you guys are judicious about how you use it. But there's always that other side that doesn't get voice. And hearing you should make people feel more secure.

And we're more than willing to show you how everything works. And when Mr. Cole emailed, I was like, here, here's all the information. Take it. But we are extremely responsible in how we do things. And go back to the speed cameras. I don't know the exact number of violations that were recorded, but it's only a fraction of them, maybe 50%, 55% that even get approved. So we are extremely conscious on what we're doing. It's not about money. It's about doing the right thing. And our deputies and other people in the county are not immune to it either. So it's strictly enforced across the board.

I do have a question, not about the flock stuff, because I probably do want to talk to you about that offline, but it's not for tonight. But I did get, so of all the tickets, and it may have been in here and I didn't see it, was there any ones that were overturned? Like the percentage of – because I did get contacted by a constituent, and I think it was on a day when her school might have been closed, maybe one of those snow days.

Yes, ma'am. There were two instances. So one instance, I'm going to blame – ultimate on uh where tickets were issued on the day that school was canceled um and we've talked about this before you guys and that we were recognized that we reached out to them proactively to have all those dismissed so that was taken care of the second one will be on us is because when massaponics had their graduation they had been doing graduation on saturdays well when they put during the week We didn't have the forethought to think that only Massaponics students were online. So there were no kids physically at school for educational experiences. They were just there for graduation. So we had to go back and get rid of any tickets that occurred the day of graduation at Massaponics. But the other four school zones were active at the time because kids were in session. Learning lesson, you know, we fixed it and made it right from there.

Okay, so that's the only two instances that that's happened then?

Yes, ma'am. At the infancy of the program, there were a couple because the way the schools are, it's not the flashing light. It's not the camera that picks up the flashing lights. They're programmed at a time, right? So if I say it's from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., some of the school zones may have started at 1 to 1 p.m. So there was a little finagling with the time that it wasn't 100% on what the school said. So at the beginning of that, we had a couple, and Livingston was one of them where the light on one side would turn on, and then a minute later, the second one would turn on. So we had to adjust the times to make sure they weren't getting issued tickets when the lights were actually flashing. That was during the warning phase.

Yeah, I was going to highlight that a lot of that was during the warnings, and then you guys extended it, which I think was a great idea.

And then if you're, so let's say the light's not flashing, and you enter into that zone, it's going to, so there's no tickets that get processed. That light has got to be flashing before the camera starts going, right?

Yes, ma'am. The lights have to be flashing in order for enforcement to occur. Okay. So the lights have to be flashing and school has to be in session with students present. Okay. If those aren't occurring, then it's non-enforceable. Okay. And there has to be video evidence of the violation. So we can actually go in there and log into the cameras and show the vehicle passing with the lights flashing. And if there was any doubt whatsoever, we just get rid of the ticket.

All right, great. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Sorry about that. Any upgrades or upkeep to the system, to the cameras, the devices, the new signage? You all pay for that, correct? That comes out of y'all's $14?

Yeah, so we take care of the upgrades and everything.

So upkeep, upgrades, everything like that is covered?

Yeah, like just in the time your program's been active, the system's, They're constantly upgraded. The software itself are pushed out at any time. The flashing light verification piece that Lieutenant Colonel was just referencing. So we developed a much better way for the Sheriff's Office to have that as a tool, and we brought it out and we've implemented it at our cost.

So any maintenance, upkeep, or upgrade is all paid for by your company, not through the county? Absolutely. Okay.

Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. Appreciate it.

No, thank you guys. I apologize again for breaking your computer.

No worries.

Thank you.

So that brings you to your next presentation by staff, and that is the health insurance update. And we're going to hope the floor computer works.

Okay, good evening. You all should have a copy of the presentation. Okay. So tonight I'm going to be speaking about the employee active health insurance. As part of the FY27 adopted budget, back in April when you all adopted the budget for this coming up fiscal year, you had tasked HR and Finance to identify a solution so that we could decrease our active employee health insurance by $500,000. So the employee health insurance plans, we haven't seen any changes or increases in cost since 2020, so it's been quite some time. In the subsequent years since 2020, our health insurance costs have increased to the county, but the county has absorbed all those increases so that we wouldn't have to pass on any of that cost to the employees. During the time, well, we put out an RFP in the January, February time in this past year. So, when the budget was adopted, we weren't sure at that point who our actual provider was going to be. It's been Anthem for as long as I've been here. And we are going to continue with Anthem after we went through the RFP process. They still were providing us the best benefits, the best cost value overall for not only our health insurance, but our dental and our vision. So all of our plans and the plan designs are going to be staying with Anthem for the next coming up five-year period. So the plan continuation, even our healthcare plans are going to stay the same. Right now we've got a key care 20 plan. We've got a key care 30 plan and a high deductible health plan. And none of the plan designs themselves are changing. Everything is going to stay in place as it's been. So, in working with One Digital, and they came and presented to you all last year about the retiree health insurance, we looked at several different scenarios, ways that we could save the $500,000 for the active employee health insurance. And these are the numbers that their actuaries came up with for our current budget, the projected budget for this coming up plan year, and then what our potential increases might be. So for the status quo, if we didn't change any of our plans, if we kept the retirees on our health insurance, if we kept all the plans exactly the way they were, we'd be looking at approximately a 21% increase in our health insurance costs. For scenario one, that plan design change, that is if we just took the active employee health insurance and raised the deductibles. And I'm going to talk about that in a couple more slides. If we just did that, and that would leave the retirees on our health insurance and leave everything else the same with the exception of the deductibles, we'd be probably looking at an approximately 18% increase in our health insurance costs. Scenario two is if we only remove the retirees, the over 65 retirees, and move them to Medicare and kept all the plan design changes the same. If we did that, we'd be looking at approximately 11 percent increase in our healthcare costs. So, what we are proposing for this year, this next plan year, is still taking the retirees, moving the over 65 retirees to Medicare, and changing the current employee deductibles and raising them. And if we get that approved, we're still looking at an 8.9% increase in our healthcare costs, but it's much more manageable. So, for the current deductibles, the last rate increase, as I said before, occurred in 2020. And we've determined, with county admins' input and finances' input and One Digital's help with making these summations, we've determined the best course of action is going to be a two-prong approach. And this will take place over the next couple of years. For this coming up plan year, the only change that we're talking about or proposing to make for the employees' active health insurance is increasing the current deductibles. So, you'll see in the first column, the current deductible for our Key Care 20 plan, right now it's at zero. So, the employees pay into it a little bit and then anything after that is either paid by co-pay or it's picked up by the county health insurance. Our proposal for the Key Care 20 plan is increasing the deductible to a $500 for an individual and then $1,000 total for a family. For Key Care 30, our current deductible is $500 for individuals and then $1,000 for family, and we're looking at doubling that and making it $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families. Our third plan that we currently have is a high deductible health plan, which is the least used of all our health insurance plans because the deductibles are higher. Right now it's $3,300 for individuals, $6,600 for families. And we propose remaining those deductibles will remain the same. We're not going to look at increasing those. So we're hoping by increasing the deductibles for this year, that will bring us to the $500,000 that we're going to save for their health insurance costs. In subsequent years, the second prong of this approach, we are looking to increase the employee cost share by a small percentage. As I said, we haven't increased any of their costs since 2020, and these are the current costs that we now charge employees. This is the money that comes out of the employee paycheck, each and every paycheck. And you'll see the differences for key care 20, key care 30, and the high deductible health plans. We're not sure what the increases may look like in subsequent years. But we do know to keep things competitive and to maintain our health insurance and to be able to maintain, you know, what we're providing the employees, we need to charge a little bit more ongoing for the employees.

But this year it's not changing?

This year it's not changing. Carl, all we're proposing this year is raising the deductibles. So, currently, there won't be any additional money coming out of employee paychecks. So I'll reiterate, as of 2020, we haven't changed any of the costs. Finance is currently projecting for this year the employee healthcare costs for FY26 to exceed the budgeted amount by a little bit over $2 million, or close to 16% for all county funds. And part of the reason being is over the last couple of years, we have been seeing higher claimants. The employees are spending more, hospitals are costing more, doctors are costing more, And so ongoing, our costs have been increasing. For the FY27 budget, there was a required increase of 3.5 million or 27% for all county funds to address this year's or FY26's average projected FY27 additional claim growth. And we're seeing a lot of the claim growth in the key care 20 more so than the key care 30. And so the increase that we're looking to put in the deductibles is like all of these numbers are already taken into consideration, that $500,000 savings. And unfortunately, we don't have a crystal ball, so we don't know what the claims are going to be for the rest of the year. And when we look at some of the high claimants that we've had already this year, you know, we can have one person who maybe has an unfortunate, you know, bout with cancer, and their one claim could be $500,000. And we just don't know what that looks like. And we have been monitoring the claims ongoing, and our claims are running a little higher so far this year to date. But we have no control over that. So for this year, that's the only change that we're looking to make is to increase the deductibles, and that'll maintain some of our costs to a more manageable level, and then ongoing we'll make other changes to the employee costs. i know there have been years back in the county's history where maybe employees didn't get a get a cost of living increase because times were tough i know back in 08 we had some some problems and things were a little bit tougher but i know in the past six years that that we've all been here employees have been getting colas they've been getting merit increases And so we look at increasing the cost of the employees by just a little bit every year, you know, to help us maintain our costs would be a positive thing for the county. And it'll help us maintain our key care programs because they're very, very rich programs to provide to the county employees. And we had talked about and looked at maybe dropping those to health keepers plans, but we decided to keep the key care. So we're trying to see if we can maintain that you know, by keeping our costs in line. One other thing that we're doing, and again, we don't know what the impact will be, is we're working with One Digital, and we have a program in place now, it just started, called RX Connection. And so One Digital is going to work with Anthem, and they're going to be looking at our prescription usage, and they're going to work with Anthem to make sure that if there's a generic available, we're using the generic, Are we using the best prescription, the most cost-effective for an employee that's using a certain prescription? So we're hoping that in the next year we'll see some savings there as well, just because we've got a little bit of outside help now to help us do that. And we'll keep you posted on that and what those savings look like. Are there any questions?

Thank you very much for the presentation, Jake.

Thank you, Ms. Newell. I appreciate the information. So I'm trying to go back and figure out, because I was just asking Drew. So the $500,000, that was the savings that we found during the budget process when we dropped the retirees, correct?

No. No. So there was a $500,000 by taking the retirees and moving them to Medicare, but you also asked us to save an additional $500,000 on just the active employee health insurance.

Okay.

So there were two separate buckets. Yep.

Yep. So I want to just be clear to my constituents and county employees. I'm looking to save the taxpayer every dollar we can, right? Because it's the taxpayer's money. I never once asked county staff to go find $500,000 in savings from our retirees or our current employees. So I just want to let my constituents know that to go find $500,000 in savings is off the backs of our current or former employees never came from this supervisor. So 500,000, because I remember when we talked about it, said, Ed, if I get the feedback from my constituents, the retirees that live in Livingston, and this is not going to pan out like One Digital says it is. And they've met with them. Can we roll that back? Yes, we'll be able to find that $500,000. Does everybody remember when we had that discussion? I'm seeing some head nods because I just want to make sure I'm not in the twilight zone. Because if we had to roll that back, if we had to go back on, take that back, it was said we could find the $500,000. Correct.

Yes, but. Yes, but. The $500,000, we're talking for the 65 and older retirees going to America. The $500,000 is, okay, so we're going to start the retirees in January, so that's for half the year, okay? for us to administer the medicare program because we're paying for the medicare program for those retirees it was going to be about 980 000 okay okay so being that it's 500 000 for half the year it's going to be another 500 000 if you're looking at a whole fiscal year because what the retirees are currently costing us are 1.9 million dollars in anthem coverage And we're looking at a 22% increase on top of that if we keep them on the key care. So we're actually looking at, it's not 500,000, it's 1.9 million. And they're trending at another 22% increase.

So that's what – I was always under the understanding that 500,000 would somewhat reverse our course if we needed to. But in reality, it's 1.9 million for the pool.

Plus the trend that they're going up by about 22%. So 160-some retirees.

Oh. is is basically what we're saying is about 150 about 150 and that's that cost about two million dollars annually correct for 150 retirees it costs the county two million dollars annually oh sure that'll show you there yep yep yep floor computer please

Look at the top line. The increase is $4.3 million just to keep this current plans.

Yeah, and that's everybody. That's the active employees and the retirees.

So I'm curious, what is it going to take to keep the retirees?

It's going to take $2 million plus a 22% trend increase in their claims.

I'm just asking these questions just so I can get my information.

Understood.

Now, going back to the retirees, on the last page, it says we are partnering with One Digital in a new program, the RX Connection.

Yeah.

Partnering with One Digital does not give me any level of confidence when things went down the way they did with our retirees. So that just does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They've let me down tremendously. And I was just curious. I know we don't need it right now, but I know we spoke a couple weeks ago, and they still had not spoken directly to every single retiree. Do we know if one digital has spoken?

So I actually have those numbers for you because we've been keeping – they've been updating us with spreadsheets. So they've actually spoken to 83 retirees. Now, they're meeting – they've got – 26 that they're meeting with is Do you have a No, I'm listening I'm just watching my fellow board members trying to check the temperature They've spoken with 83 retirees 26 have appointments scheduled there I don't remember the exact days but but there's three days over the next couple of weeks where they're actually going to be here and meeting with with 26 more and There are nine people waiting to be scheduled that Wendy says she's going to call back. Now, we have five retirees total that we have no contact information for. You know, unfortunately, retirees, they're not required if they move or if they change their phone numbers. We don't have any contact for those. We've got six retirees that we have found emergency contacts for. Now, I did talk with Lieutenant Colonel Myrick, and I asked him, with these folks, do you think maybe you could help us? Does the Sheriff's Department have a way to maybe do a search? So they're going to try to help us with that. I know there was one individual that we had an address for, and actually the Sheriff's Department did a wellness check, so we got his contact information. So out of all the retirees, we only have 11... that we may have a problem contacting, but it's still early on. We still have time.

Lori, I appreciate that. And look, this is not, I don't want to come across as I'm being fussy at you. Oh, no. By no means.

I just want to make sure you have all the information.

But this has been months now, months. And One Digital hasn't reached out. I sat here and we spoke to this. To every single one of us, and we said, okay, 150 employees, let's just say if me and you had to sit down and make phone calls every day, how long could we think it would take to try to reach out? Here we are months away, and they've only spoken with 83 employees.

Well, but 83 with 26 that have appointments scheduled. But I will tell you, in One Digital's defense, we work with them very closely in HR. In One Digital's defense, some people only have emails. So if they email, they got to wait for the emails to come back. Some people only have phone numbers and no emails. So if they leave messages, then they have to call them back. And some of these folks are on the road sometimes. So

So how do we get a hold of them when it comes time to open enrollment then? All these retirees that have to open enroll every year, do we just send them an email and hope they get a hold of us?

They're going to be here. They're going to be on site to make sure that the enrollment happens for the retirees for Medicare.

I'm just talking about trying to contact, having one digital, contact the list of our retirees, right? And you're saying, well, some only have an email. So in the years past, when it comes time to open and roll, how do we get a hold of our retirees? Has it always just been one email?

Typically we mail them. Typically we just pop stuff in the mail to them.

So why hasn't One Digital put something in the mail?

We have mailed stuff. We have mailed out stuff twice to retirees.

Okay, so every retiree has received at least two letters in the mail.

Well, originally everybody got a letter, right? And then as we started getting contacts, we started getting phone numbers, we started getting emails. So if you have a phone number and an email, it's a little bit easier than USPS. With the exception of the 11 that we don't have any addresses for or contacts for, everybody else has been contacted, either by mail, because everybody got the original mailer. I think we only got two of those back, but we got good addresses after that. And then we've got phone numbers and emails. So we have reached out and we have made contact.

Laura, I'm not saying this is – I'm saying One Digital has dropped the ball. And we have to take some responsibility for this.

If I can jump in here, we're dealing with adults here, not children. We've sent letters out. When folks got turned 65, they went on to Medicare. Medicare didn't go chase them down, right? I mean, there's got to be some accountability for the employee and the retiree to know what's going on. If they get letters and they don't respond, at some point, we can't go door to door.

I'm not asking you to go door to door. I'm just asking the numbers from Lori on who has been contacted, where have we made contact, how many are we missing. I'm not making any excuse for... The retirees or for us, we are all in this together. Some of those retirees put 20 to 30 years of commitment to this county. And we were told as a board that we want sure that one digital gets a hold of every retiree. We were told that.

They made the guarantee. And we have made efforts to do that.

And we've only spoken with 83 individuals so far with 26 appointments scheduled. I understand. But we've confirmed, One Digital has confirmed that they have sat down and spoken with 83 retirees.

Either by phone. Sometimes they couldn't. Sometimes retirees couldn't come in. Some of them don't live here. But they've...

They have physically spoken with 83 retirees out of 150. And we are two months into this process. If that is acceptable, right?

It's 26 appointments. Nine other people are waiting to be scheduled. So that's...

A hundred. Right, right. Right. But the 26, I'm not, yes, we've scheduled those appointments, but those appointments may be like two weeks away. I'm just saying right now, how many retirees has one digital sat down and spoken to? And it's 83 with 26 scheduled in the future.

Right. And nine, nine that they've contacted that they're waiting.

How many employees are on that? the plan where they already selected Medicare and they got a stipend.

Okay, so that's going to be 22.

So deduct that from the 150. That's great to know. All right, so their plan's not changing because they already shifted to Medicare. So you can deduct 22 off of the retiree number.

That is great. Thank you, Mark, for bringing that up because that is great information to know that 22 have made the change. And I've been trying to speak with retirees too because, look, I've got – Probably 30 years before I'm able to retire. But I came in and took time off of my work to come in and sit in a Spotsylvania County retiree class that one Friday here. Right. And and it was some great information. You all did a great job. And then as I've been talking to my retirees, I've been explaining to them that, hey, health insurance changes every year. In the private sector, ours changes a lot more often than government does. This is some great insurance right here. So I've been telling our retirees that, hey, the key care 20, the key care 30 may not always be there. And the prices may not always be the same. So you need to look and see what the changes are and if Medicare is the appropriate shift for you. And this is a prime example. We're letting the retirees know now that, hey, your deductible is getting ready to go up by $1,000 a month if you're on the family. So if you're on fixed income and you're a retiree, This is proof of what I've been trying to tell people that, hey, the insurance will not always be the same. Correct. But I've got to get one digital to we've got to meet with them and explain that to them. And then also some of the retirees who decided to say, no, I want to stick on the counties or whatever. Like this is this is the proof that the cost of insurance is going to go up. So it may be beneficial to them to go on the Medicare with the gap insurance that the county is offering. You know, so I'm not again, I don't my tent isn't the fuss or anything like that. So, Lord, please apologize. But I'm getting phone calls. You know, you got to think before the housing market changed, it was a lot cheaper to go out and live in Livingston and Berkeley than it was in the other areas of the county. And when you're a government worker or a teacher or whatever, you don't make a sheriff's deputy like my dad retired as you don't make a lot of money. So a lot of our county employees live in the rural areas because it's a cheaper way of cheaper life. Cheaper way of living, okay? So I have a lot of retirees, so I'm getting bombarded. And it's my responsibility to stick up for them. And if I had a list of 150, now 130, right? And I was given a certain time period to make contact with these individuals. And I went to my boss two months later and said, of the 120 or 30 individuals, boss, I've only talked to 80 of them. I've been fired. They were saying, well, I've given you two months to make contact with all these people. And I'm not saying it's you. I'm saying One Digital. One Digital, if we're going to put this on them to reach out to our retirees, they have dropped the ball for us.

And I'm going to disagree. I respectfully disagree.

I disagree as well. I don't think One Digital has dropped the ball. I don't think our staff has dropped the ball. If you have people calling you, please have them call HR. Because if they can get in touch with you, they ought to be able to get, and I don't want to argue about it, but if they can get in touch with you, they ought to be getting in touch with HR.

Yep. And so I have, I've had people reach out to me and I've had to reach out to Lori to say, hey, I need you to call this individual. And we've done that. I need you to call this individual. I've done that, Ed. I've done that. I've done that. Right. And I'm doing exactly what you're telling me to do, representing my people in Livingston. And you say, I've been doing it. Lord, you've got to reach out to this person. Here's this person's name. Look, reach out to them. And I've been doing that. One Digital should be doing it. If that's the responsibility we put on One Digital, they should be doing it.

People have to call them back. People have got to make those phone calls back. And you know what? I know there's resistance here. I know that some people don't want to talk to One Digital. They don't want to make those appointments because they want to stick with what we're doing now. And I understand that. But One Digital is doing a good job for us. And I know you don't see it because you're just hearing the one side from the retirees, but you got to see it from the HR side because we're seeing the whole picture. And One Digital is doing a good job. I wouldn't want anybody else as our broker other than One Digital. We've had other brokers that have just not done for us what we need done. And One Digital has gone above and beyond in many ways, not just with the retirees, but in a lot of ways.

And I've contacted Lori, and I appreciate all the work you've helped me with getting in touch with individuals out in Livingston. But I've also showed messages to the chairwoman of constituents reaching out to me to say, hey, I've emailed, I've sent this information to One Digital. It's been weeks. I haven't heard anything back from them.

Then call me.

So I don't know. And I did. And I did. And I did. I know you did.

But have the retirees call us. We are all in the office. If they're not getting what they need, if Wendy's not getting back to them, we can help facilitate that happen. Like, I know you've called me a couple of times, but I think there's a lot of retirees out there that are not calling us. I know you guys are getting the calls, but... I think we can facilitate that better than you all because we're closer to One Digital and we're boots on the ground. So please have them call us.

We've mailed every retiree twice.

We've mailed twice. So every one of them and only two bounced? Only two bounced.

So all but two retirees got two letters in the mail.

That's great. No. And that's, and that's why I ask. I'm not, I just want to know what steps did we take? Yep. And 80, 80 some, I was hoping, I was hoping you would say, Hey, we've, we've sat down and spoke with all retirees, but we still, we're looking at about another 50 or so.

No.

If you, if you, if you subtract the 20.

If you take – she's spoken to 83. There are nine that are waiting to be scheduled. There are 26 already scheduled. There are 11 that are just kind of in limbo because we're not exactly sure what to do with it. So that's probably close to 130. So I think we're right where we need to be, being that it's middle of July and we still open enrollment for Medicare doesn't come until October. We're just trying to get people the information, make sure that we understand what prescriptions that they're on. And One Digital is telling people what prescription plan they're going to need, where is the cheapest pharmacy for them to get that prescription, because some people are buying it at Costco. And One Digital is able to say, hey, you can get that cheaper at the Walmart or you can get that cheaper at Publix. They're actually providing that level of detailed information. HR can't provide that, but One Digital has those methods to do that. So they're actually giving really good information to these retirees. And right now, the deductible for that Medicare Plan G, I don't know if you all remember, is $283. Our deductibles are going up to $500,000. So it's like the key care 20 or the key care 30 are not going to be good vehicles for them.

And that's what I've been encouraging the retirees to reach out and speak with you all or One Digital because of the, like you just said, the deductibles are going up. Medicare deductible is not. Right. Where is your savings at? But I want to do what's right by those employees who did. Can you just let me know when One Digital says, okay, hey, every single retiree that we can get a hold of, we've spoken to.

Absolutely.

There's X amount that we have no way of getting a hold of. We're still working on it. But I'd like to know when they will be done doing their one-on-ones with our retirees. That's all.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Drew?

Thanks, Lori. Man, you're just 11 rounds. You're doing good. So I have a question about just to clear this up for me. Some constituents who have talked about going on Medicare and then certain drugs that there are or medications that they're already on aren't part of the formulary. And how do we address that? Is that a rumor? Is that not true?

Depending on what prescriptions that they're taking. But again, One Digital is speaking. When One Digital does their one-on-one, they're asking them, what prescriptions are you taking? And they can walk somebody through that. Like, what will it cost when you're on Medicare? What's the cheapest place that you can get it? And Medicare, for Plan D, there are nine different plans that a retiree can buy into. 50% of the people that they have spoken with so far can go on the zero plan, the zero dollar plan for prescriptions, because whatever they're taking is a generic or it's not that expensive. So that level of detail will have to come from One Digital because it's all dependent on the retiree's prescription. I have not heard from anyone yet that their prescription is not covered in some way.

Okay. And then... The county is or the plan pays the Medicare D party party and party the medic again Medigap plan and the party. So that's I think that part in the beginning wasn't we didn't do a good job or someone didn't do a good job of explaining that component. So people immediately thought that they're going to pay those because normally you would. Normally, if you went, a normal person who didn't have this kind of insurance would be paying.

And I think part of the confusion is legally, we as a county are not allowed to pay Medicare for the Plan D. Right.

It's reimbursable.

Right. And so that's the only piece that the retiree is going to have to pay for up front, but then we're going to reimburse them.

And I imagine in those one-off situations, One Digital's been able to explain, hey, you're going to pay these, but the county's reimbursing you. There's a mechanism in place to do that.

Right. But so far, half the people are on the $0 plan D. So they're not going to have to pay us anything because they're on the $0 plan.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

All right.

Any other questions then? Good. All right. Thank you so much. You know, I appreciate it. I know that I go through this with my own business. Sometimes people move on and whatnot, and then I don't know what their address is, right? And I get a W-2 back. I have no idea where they are, you know? So I don't know if it would be helpful because it is hard when you lose track of people like that.