City Council - Regular Meeting

Hereby I call the 26th of May, 2021.

Vice Mayor Comby, Councilman Sloat is out for this evening. Item two is the adoption of the meeting agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Schultz. Is there a second?

So moved.

Thank you, Mr. Wood. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it for zero. Item three is matters from the mayor. Councilman Wood and myself had the honor and privilege to participate yesterday in the Memorial Day ceremony at Ridgeview Cemetery, a very solemn occasion where we pay respect and remembrance to those who gave their ultimate sacrifice. I'd also like to acknowledge Remind all that tomorrow, May 27th, from 11 to 8 p.m., is Tour the Town. This is Destination Downtown Waynesboro's only annual fundraiser, and passports are still available at downtownwaynesboro.org. You can get your passport to eat, drink, and play your way through downtown. Passports are $45, and that gets you access to exclusive deals in our boutiques, food and drink samples at local eateries, and other fun things. So bring the kids along for their own scavenger hunt to earn ice cream cones token from Klein's. And that is tomorrow, May 27th, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Item four is matters from council.

Yeah, Mayor Lee and myself also participated. Colonel Melissa Patrick of the VFW has revived the Stanton Augusta Waynesboro Memorial Day service at the plaques at the Augusta County Courthouse, where from the history of Augusta County, there are members of Waynesboro who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in war throughout different conflicts. and we were asked to take part in that where we read some of the names and some of the history that Waynesboro participates in in our country's battles is unbelievable. When you start looking at it, we've actually discussed a couple of, for any of you who knows military history, Harlem Hellfighters, We have a couple of official Harlem Hellfighters that are from Waynesboro, and it's a very historic unit that fought for our country and some died for our country. So it was a great honor to be able to do that. Also, just kind of a congratulations to our recent graduates of Waynesboro High School, and also Fishburne Military School right here in Waynesboro. Both institutions had a good graduating class this year, so we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.

yeah I'll just add a couple of points of the mayor and I were fortunate enough to attend a ceremony at the Virginia Wildlife Center and as the US Postal Service celebrating the release of its bald eagle stamp so go buy some bald eagle stamps and it was really interesting getting a tour of of the facility and all this amazing work that they accomplished over there really, really was informative and just so interesting. What a valuable asset and how fortunate our region is to have such an asset. And then also, Councilman Wood and I were present and dug in literally and figuratively into the soil in front of Williamsboro High School to commemorate the breaking of the ground for what will be the largest investment in the city's history and the renovation of, well, demolition of subsequent eventual demolition of the 1970s wing and construction of a new state-of-the-art laboratory facilities as well as a gymnasium that will seat 1,500 that will put us on the scale of being able to host statewide and regional events. So just really what a wonderful day that was to be able to celebrate with our school division and our colleagues on the school board. and our community to celebrate this really once-in-a-lifetime investment. So just pleased to be there.

Thank you, Ms. Wood. Vice Mayor, anything?

No, I don't have a thing. But that doesn't mean I didn't do a thing. I just don't advertise it as much.

Item five is consideration of the consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Short. Is there a second?

I second.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Comby. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it, 4-0. Item six. is to consider adopting an ordinance approving a zoning map revision, rezoning a three-acre portion of tax map number 41-3-112, located at 0 Lou DeWitt Boulevard from RG5 General Residential to HB Highway Business, Russell Avenue Development, LLC, owner and applicant. This ordinance was properly introduced, seconded, and discussed at the previous meeting. Unless there's additional discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor of adopting the ordinance rezoning 0 Lou DeWitt Boulevard to Highway Business, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it 4-0. Item 7 is to consider adopting the ordinance granting a conditional use permit to allow multifamily residential in a Highway Business district located at 0 Lou DeWitt Boulevard. Map number... 41-3-112 portion and at 720 Lou DeWitt Boulevard, tax map number 41-3-115, Thomas Builders of Virginia, applicant, agent for DeWitt Place LLC owner. This ordinance was properly introduced, seconded, and discussed at the previous meeting. Unless there's additional discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor of adopting the ordinance granting the conditional use permit for 0 Ludewitt Boulevard and 720 Ludewitt Boulevard say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Ayes have it 4-0. Item eight is consider introducing the ordinance amending chapter 66, solid waste and increasing certain disposal fees charged at the Augusta Regional Landfill. Call on Mr. Trafford McRae, Director of Public Works.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of council. Thank you for having me tonight. I had two code updates I was going to talk with you all about tonight. The first being with the solid waste ordinance um just a little bit of a background refresher for you all the augusta county regional landfill is co-owned by the city of waynesboro city of stanton in augusta county it's managed by augusta water and the facility has a typical operating and capital budget structure in the late fall of 2025 the augusta water recommended that the landfill committee which consists of executive staff from those three localities consider increasing tipping fees so that that was a matter of discussion at a couple of meetings so tonight the the two things I wanted to talk through with the ordinance the proposed tipping fee increase what what the committee landed on and why they're recommending the increase and then also um historically the city manager and public works director have had the authority to grant waivers to tipping fees for city profits or for non-profit organizations no one's ever been able to find where that was actually formally delegated to the city manager so there's also language in this code update which would just formalize the city manager's authority to grant those waivers The proposed changes to the landfill tipping fees are shown in the table on the right. So it's an increase from $52 to $65 per ton for commercial industrial waste and a similar increase for commercial yard waste, some other items going up modestly, car tires, Freon bearing appliances. The table on the left shows some tipping fees for other surrounding localities. So Rockingham County, Blue Ridge Resource Authority, which is Rockridge County, and then Ivy. And as you can see, the proposed fee increase will put us kind of right in the middle between Rockingham well below rockingham county but still in line with some of those other neighboring localities we we don't want to be too far behind some other neighboring localities because landfill space is at a at a premium so if we end up take siphoning waste from southern rockingham county for instance we could end up shortening the lifespan of our facility and just another uh note is that at any time, Waynesboro residents can use the public use site at the landfill free of charge. This table, it may be a little bit hard to read, but what I really wanted to illustrate here is so, with the proposed tipping fee increase, if it goes into effect July 1, then it'll cover the operating costs for the facility for the foreseeable future. What we've been doing the past several years is relying on the revenue from tipping fees to cover operating costs and then trying to build a reserve within the refuse fund to cover capital costs at the landfill. They need new scale, scale house, cell expansion and everything that comes with environmental compliance, gas. gas monitoring, gas extraction system, so there are lots of capital items that go along with managing a landfill. I did not include a similar table that Augusta Water produced that showed us being, if we stayed at the current fees, we would actually be in the red both on operating and capital costs. So the committee landed on this as feeling like it was a good kind of midway point to where we could cover operating costs. So as far as the proposed changes to the solid waste ordinance, that's what I had. If you all have any questions.

I mean, I'm just kind of curious why we wouldn't go to, so at least from a regional perspective, the closest comparable site is $60. And so we're offering still an incredibly low entry point, right, in terms of cost, which then sort of begs the question, are we incentivizing by our cost and the tonnage to... have outside haulers going and paying the tipping fee that only then exacerbates the acceleration of the use of the cells and then ultimately ending for more cell closures and accelerating the closures and then need for opening new cells.

I think so we're in one of those situations where we found ourselves in other times with fees where fees stayed stagnant from I believe 2008 to 22 and then they were there until 2008 to 24 and then we raised them in 24 so it's one of those things of trying to we're trying to catch up but not necessarily doing it all at once. Because then you are still ultimately pushing the burden down on commercial haulers who are then going to have to push that down on their commercial customers. So there has been conversation within the committee that this is probably one of a couple of fee increases that will come before this. the various localities elected bodies within the next five to six years for sure. So maybe that's not a real clear, we're working that way towards trying to meet some of these other localities, but trying not to bite it off all at once. And it was where, again, we have three owners who also had to kind of meet in the middle as far as what seemed reasonable to those different.

Yeah.

I mean, it just seems, you know, certainly I'm grateful for the partnership that we have with our neighboring jurisdictions. But, again, I am concerned that we're so far behind. in comparative cost that we're incentivizing, potentially incentivizing and diverting collections from another region to come here to dump that only, again, exacerbates the filling up the cell, having to open up a new cell, that long term we're gonna be sunk with the cost. So my analogy would be stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. And why would we not go to the floor of $60? When everyone else is passing it along to their customers, why should we, you know, I'm not going to object to getting it to $52. I just want to lay out that it seems we're stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime.

So we're proposing to go from $52 to $65. Right, right, right. But, again, it was an incremental step towards kind of meeting the market rate, knowing that all three localities have to match that or have to agree on a fee structure. Okay.

When we raised the fees in 24, was there an increase of outside people coming in, taking advantage of it?

I would have to ask the Augusta Water folks what they've seen. I think there's... There's always a risk there, and I think they may sometimes see, again, if anything, it would probably be more just some of the area south of Harrisonburg that's developed fairly significantly, because these people are in business, obviously, and know their business, so they've got to offset the cost to actually get the trash 20 miles further or whatever it might be.

Yeah, fuel costs would have a...

right bearing on me if i was on it right yeah right so there are other factors at play but we're so but one of the things we considered was trying to meet the surrounding market and now just so that we can just so that we can get this in place and allow the augusta water time to notify customers where we sort of switched our standard operating procedure, just introducing the ordinance tonight, and then the public hearing will actually be on the 8th.

Any other questions?

No.

Is there a motion to introduce the ordinance? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Short. Is there a second? No second. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Any discussion? This ordinance will be the subject of a public hearing and receive final consideration at the June 8th meeting. Item 9 is to consider introducing an ordinance amending Chapter 30, Environment Article 2, Erosion and Sediment Control to Increase the Erosion and Sediment Program. Permit fee schedule. Jaffer, you got it.

So, round two. So... This concerns chapter 30 of the city code. So the stormwater program is, again, just a little bit of background. The stormwater program, one of the things they do is construction permitting and inspections to control runoff from construction sites. This is a mandated program with DEQ oversight. We've historically charged permit fees to offset the cost to both administer those permits and inspect the sites. And since, I believe, 2012, DEQ has received a portion of those permit fees. So of the fees we collect, we actually turn around and pay to DEQ to administer the statewide program. So again, the city's program to manage construction site runoff, it's a required facet of the MS4 program. Some of the fee changes, so overall the fees went up about 50% in both what DEQ intends to collect and then their recommended fee structure. Their portion went up modestly from 28 to 30%. Another important change at the state level was that the fees for the construction general permit are now tied to the consumer price index. So if the consumer price index goes up, then the state can automatically raise their fees. six months later, basically. So the ordinance changes are really to align the fees with those DEQ changes, and then also we're recommending to remove the fee table from the city code so that we don't have to go through a formal ordinance update if, again, we wouldn't raise fees unless the state says here's the new fee structure. so we're recommending that and then there's a another uh... just small administrative changes that update the name of article to the code section to uh... erosion and stormwater management because at about three years ago the state condensed the erosion control and construction stormwater regulations into one package so those are the updates to uh... to chapter thirty in a and again uh... so that we could have this in place um july 1 and put out at least some level of notification introducing the ordinance tonight and then holding the public hearing on the 8th but did you all have any questions no questions

All right. Is there a motion to introduce the ordinance? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Is there a second? No second. Thank you, Mr. Wood. This ordinance will be subject of public hearing and receive final consideration at the June 8th meeting. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Item 10 is adopting a resolution of support to replace the Veterans Memorial and Riverview Cemetery building by the Waynesboro American Legion. Councilman Wood, would you please read the resolution?

I would be honored to. Whereas the city of Waynesboro, Virginia recognizes the importance of public monuments as symbols of shared history, values, and community identity, and whereas the current Veterans Monument and Riverview Cemetery has been determined to no longer reflect honor for the soldiers and vision for the community due to the effects of weather and time, And whereas the American Legion is calling for a replacement, preservation, and protection of the Monument for American Soldiers in Riverview Cemetery in Waynesboro, Virginia, and whereas the American Legion desires to honor soldiers and their eligible family members in their final resting place with a lasting tribute and commemorate their service and sacrifice to our nation, And whereas the American Legion is asking for the City Council of Waynesboro, Virginia to authorize the American Legion to replace the current memorial with a monument that will respectfully embody the honor due soldiers in a way that inspires all who see it. And whereas the American Legion agrees that the new monument will be created and installed in accordance with all city regulations and ordinances. And whereas the American Legion will bear all associated costs of the new monument and for the installation at Riverview Cemetery. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of Waynesboro, Virginia endorses and supports the replacement of the memorial and Riverview Cemetery donated to the City of Waynesboro on behalf of the American Legion, passed and adopted as a resolution of the City Council of the City of Waynesboro, Commonwealth of Virginia, and its regularly scheduled meeting held on May 26, 2026. Thank you.

Mr. Wood, would you like to make a presentation? Yes.

It is.

Jim I really wasn't prepared for to speak to this but I do do appreciate the city's support in this for the last couple of years when we had our annual Memorial Day commemoration we've always looked at that monument there and said we need to do something about that so we got a committee together About six, eight months ago, and we're working towards getting a great monument, something that will look really good in that place. And again, I appreciate everyone's support in that.

Thank you. Thank you for all your effort.

Is there a motion to adopt the resolution?

So moved.

Thank you, Mr. Short. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have a 4-0. Item 11 is to receive a presentation from Dr. Kimberly McClanahan, Executive Director of the Valley Community Service Board on agency operations and the status of the CRC project. This is an informational item. No action is requested this evening.

Hopefully there is a PowerPoint on there. We said it last week. Well, fortunately, I have a thumb drive.

She got backups on her backups.

Amen.

Well, good evening. Sorry to be a little slow. Let me see from the beginning. There we go. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Kim McClanahan, Executive Director of Valley Community Services Board. And as you all know, I like to come once a year and kind of give you an update on what we're doing. Also, always to thank you for giving or approving the 10%. the state funds that we get it's very important to us that we get those and we really appreciate when a locality does the full 10% and you folks have been great about that during my tenure so really very much appreciate it okay why are you not working what am I doing wrong uh... area okay the c r c c issue is a name now and it is called the valley recovery and assessment center or b rack and as you all know because i've been here uh... a few times during the struggle that we've had to get this going uh... it's been a long and uh... well i would say torturous but certainly arduous process we finally uh... actually uh... purchased property last year it was actually the first property we ever looked at and put an offer on and the owners did not sell it to us at that point and we as if you read the papers you know we had some struggles along the way and then for reasons unknown to us but delighted to have them the owner decided to sell this property and I'll show you where it is in a minute but It's very close to Augusta Health. It's a little bit over six acres. We'll be putting a 25,000, 26,000 square foot facility on there and we are very excited that we have that. And right now we have three initial staff who are working on helping us get it constructed. They're doing policies and procedures and sort of getting ready for when we get out of the planning stages and actually in the building. And we hope that the building will be completed in January of 28 with opening in March or April of 28. So we're pretty excited about that. If you're not familiar with it, the Crisis Center is essentially a piece of crisis continuum that is not here. uh... so we have the hospital we have outpatient uh... and we have the emergency room uh... but we don't have uh... anything where somebody can go for a few days uh... to settle down and get back into the community so this particular uh... facility again uh... to refresher memory will have sixteen chairs and that's a twenty three hour observation area where you hope that if somebody comes in they may deescalate enough within that twenty four hour period to leave. It's actually 23 hours and 59 minutes is how Medicaid allows it to be billed. Don't ask me why. And then the other is a 16-bed actual crisis stabilization unit and detox unit where people could stay generally on an average of three to five days, but can be up to two weeks. And we hope that we're going to really help with the population that's in the state hospital. And also the emergency room as when I've come here in a couple of years past I know we've talked about the emergency department being overrun at Augusta Health Right now all the state hospitals are overrun with folks. So we're hoping to Break some of that gridlock. It will really be savings to hospital to our law enforcement and to detention and so we're Starting to get excited. It has been a long haul uh... so it is right the green there itself right bordered by wilson boulevard there at the bottom of the uh... screen and it is just owned as general business and it has all access to water wastewater utilities uh... we have met with the augusta county design review and they were very positive uh... we've also met with the guess the water dominion energy columbia gas and one of the things that i was concerned about was that the owners who sold it to us actually had a covenant on the property giving them the right to say yay or nay to how it was going to look and that sort of thing and i'm delighted to say that they have given us the go ahead and we'll give you a picture of what we think it's going to look like at the end here in a minute so it's a little concerned about that uh... even though they sold it to us so again it'll be there will be a sally port where law enforcement can drop off folks who may need to be there for a temporary detention order so that will be a safe area where they can also come in they can be evaluated they can be admitted right there It will have a large number of parking spaces, have fenced-in exercise facilities, and, of course, a generator. And there's a whole fire line loop, and we've talked with emergency folks and VDOT and all those folks who have control over our lives. And so far, things are going well with all of the approvals that we've needed so far. We are 95% finished with the... Blueprints, I guess and hope to break ground in August. So this is a exterior design and those pinky things you see on the top are HVAC units and they will be Settled such that you cannot see them from the ground And that is going to be what we're hoping that the facility will look like When it's complete And just a brief mention of the project budget. You've seen versions of this in the past. This is probably close to a final budget. 80% of this facility will be paid for by DBHDS, our Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, the state funds. We just recently received uh... an actual piece of paper that says you know we've been promised nine point six million dollars for the construction uh... over the past couple of years we finally have that in writing uh... which is pretty exciting uh... and have received uh... uh... a lump sum of nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars of that already uh... ten percent the rest will be on an reimbursable basis so we'll have to provide invoices to them uh... but they do a pretty quick turnaround with that uh... the valley community services board board of directors uh... committed one point five million a couple three years ago so that's there to be used and the uh... funds that you all help us with that two point three $88 million is over the period of a couple of three years. It's not just this year. And then, as you can see, project management, the land itself costs $971,000. Site development is in order right now. And then construction, we... we think will be 11.695 million. So at the end, about a $20 million project, most of which is paid for by the state. And these were all funds, the state funds, you use them for this or you don't use them. So we're using them. This would probably be the only opportunity is that the last administration had the Put a lot of money into crisis services across the state So we're we're gonna capitalize on that and use those for the folks in our communities And that's just a pie chart showing again the the funding sources and Project timeline, so design and engineering, nine months. We hope to be done with that by the end of July, breaking ground, and then construction, site development, all that, we hope to be done by January of 2028. We hope to have, we certainly won't be fully staffed with 55 people in, that would be a miracle beyond comprehension, when we open, but we certainly hope when we open that we'll have enough staff that we'll be able to use both sides of the unit, and that will all depend on, I mean, there are, Regulatory issues of how many people you need to somebody who's in a chair how many staff you need somebody's in a bed So we'll have to consider all that but we will hope to be open in March or April of 2028 that's just a Rendering again of all the folks who have been involved in this process So I'm going to talk a little bit about a few other things tonight Are there any questions about this before I move on? Clear as mud, huh? All right. So since we're talking capital projects, let me just talk a minute about the First Street ICF home. And the day I got here in 2020, or maybe not the day, maybe the next day, our developmental disabilities director said, you know, we are in, and ICF is an intermediate care facility. It's essentially a group home for people with intellectual disabilities. We have two of them, both of which hold six people. One is Grandview. They're both in Waynesboro right now. Well, actually, they're not because we've moved in here. But they have both been in Waynesboro for many years. Grandview is still here. We also had one called Greenstone that we leased since the 80s. And we never owned it. It is very institutional. It would actually hold 14 people, but that just didn't work as time passed. But we've been in there, and the building was starting to fall apart. We were paying a lot of money for something that wasn't serving our individuals well. So we actually owned a home on First Street in Stanton, and it had been many things, including a church at one time and just a residential home. It had been a day program for us at one point, and so we renovated it with Valley Funds, and now it is a six-bed ICF, and it is completely ADA approved. competent and the clients just love it they've just moved in and this is kind of a that's a back of it and then that's just this carport will allow a large 15 passenger handicap van to get our folks in and out so that they don't ever have to get wet or in the you know in the And that is actually a picture of a sunset that the neighbors took from our porch there, and it's pretty gorgeous. Any questions about that? Okay. Well, I thought you might be interested as well in a little bit of a financial update for us. And this comes from the much more practiced and expert hand of our finance director than me, but I can read a slide. But the folks who are accountants, they go to these websites. GFOAs and ICMAs to see how we're doing, and they check on a variety of things that tell you what your financial health is. And right now, with these folks, BCSB's financial health is 84 out of 100, so pretty good. with one watch item, and if you look at this, that we are, you know, we're gonna end the year in the black for sure, but that really is, if you look at it, it's because we have not spent as much as we had in our budget. Our revenue is below budget, so that is something that we keep trying to figure out, but part of that is because our primary source of revenue is Medicaid, and Medicaid does not pay all that well. But we continue working on that, and so You know, as John Sandy says, we're spending very carefully, and we expect the budget to end the year with a surplus. So, you know, we're solid position. We have about $25 million in the bank, and that sounds really good, and it is really good. But also, if you're thinking about us as a state and public agency, a lot of those funds are restricted. so we can't spend them for anything other it's like that nine point six million i was telling about we spend it on this building or we don't spend it and there are lots of other things that we are obligated to spend things on uh... that we cannot which we could talk about another time because there are things that we should be able to spend them on but we can't uh... so we we are restricted but we are in good shape uh... financially at this point uh... for that next year we're going to be concerned about the one big beautiful bill

and it will impact us.

There are a couple things coming in January, particularly for the expansion population of Medicaid. Those folks will have to enroll twice a year in Medicaid to keep their Medicaid, and also will have some sort of work requirement or volunteer requirement. I guess the good news is that many of the people who are in the expansion population work already, about 70%. But we're looking at that right now to see how many, right now about 26% of our Medicaid clients are in that expansion population. So we're really gonna have to be paying attention to that as this next year comes upon us. And this is just the proposed budget that actually Mr. Sandy will be presenting to our finance committee tomorrow night. And it just really talks about, you know, the state often will do a 3% or 2% or whatever kind of cost of living increase, and that's for state employees. And CSB employees are not state employees, unless you're an administrative, which we're not, we're operating board. So there's some proportion of people that are paid through state funds, and so let's say 45% of our people would be considered state employees. So the state will give us 3% for that 45% of people. If we want to give everybody a 3% cost of living, we have to make up the other 55%. So that's how that works, but we hope that, well, we don't have a budget yet, as you know, from the state, but once that happens, we'll know whether or not we'll be able to do that. It is incorporated. We have been trying to take good care of our employees for the last few years, so if the state's money comes through, we are prepared to do our part to match that so that folks can get that 3%. In 2024, we had – we actually became a – not Valley, but we created a 501c3, and it is a 501c3 that is just for the purpose of helping Valley out. So it has its own board of directors and – There are three ways that you can, if you have philanthropic folks in your lives, please write a check or have them write a check. Checks only at this point, we're still in the 20th century when it comes to the VCO. But there are three ways that you could actually give and one of the ways that a lot of people like to do is this number three where you have a particular love for developmentally disabled folks and you can write your check for that program. or program within that program and then john has also just put where you should make your checks payable to that sort of thing and then we're not very flush at this point and haven't done much to make us more flush actually ten thousand of that came from first bank and trust because they made a commitment to us when we were first doing it so we are hoping there would be more. I thought it might also be good, and I will be quick, but you know. Five, six years ago, if you've been around, you know that Valley had some bad times and some layoffs and lots of trauma for people and things were not financially very sound. So in the last five and a half years, we've spent a lot of time trying to get financially sound, trying to take away the trauma from our employees who are still there. And so I thought it might be interesting for y'all to see our latest employee satisfaction survey results, just briefly. But we had 72% of our folks actually completed the survey, which if you are familiar with surveys at all, that's pretty amazing. Really good return rate. And then in terms of our employees' engagement, our favorable score was 77% as opposed to 73%, and that's your industry average. So that's what we're looking, we're being compared to the industry as a whole. And then also, Very proud that, well, I don't know how I did that, but proud to work for the company. So VCSB was at 84% as opposed to 81% industry average. Recommend the company as a place to work, 83% as opposed to 75%. Extremely satisfied with the company as a place to work, we're at 80% as opposed to 75%. And rarely think about looking for a new job. Now, everybody always thinks about looking for a new job, but we still beat the industry average by a percentage point there. And then just a few more things. Again, there are two on this page where the industry average does better than we do, and that's the company has an outstanding future. It's not much difference. The industry average was 77%. We were 74%. And then I trust that senior leadership of this company and industry average was 69%, and ours was 60%. Recall that even six years later, we are still recovering from a lot of mistrust and distrust, and people are people, right? On top of that. And in fact, and I'm not going to go through these, but just kind of looking at positive and neutral and negative responses, and the neutral are kind of like, eh, I don't care. But you can see in terms of the positive responses that... I guess we train people well on how to report discrimination, and that the people that we work with, their teams, they love their teams. Our staff love their immediate supervisors, and people concede, and I feel that I'm a part of a team. And then the middle, and then just the negative, you're always going to get some negative responses, and we are no different than anybody else in that regard, where there's, you know, some folks are never going to, Be satisfied no matter what you do. And please don't think that I think we're perfect. We aren't. But I thought you all would find that potentially interesting to hear that we're doing well. And I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any.

um dr mcclanahan thanks so much for your presentation um let me ask you about icf um are there private entities that offer these services that to kind of fill the gap if you can't i mean of course you have two homes and i'm sure that's not you know comprehensive and so

There are. There are private entities that do developmental disability work. Now, during COVID, many places of the private places closed down. We hung on by the skin of our teeth. It's a very hard job. You can imagine being a personal care person for folks who are in wheelchairs, and they may be nonverbal. And it's a 24-7 job too. But yes, there are other, we provide other services as well as this. We have a sponsored residential program where these are people who live in private homes and they bring developmentally disabled folks into their home to live as a part of their family. And we have about 13 of those right now. And the family gets a payment. But we've had folks in these homes for years and years and years. I mean, they become a real family. And then we also do what we call in the mental health world case management for a lot of folks with developmental disabilities. But there are and programs are reestablishing at this point. I mean, it's several years after COVID, but there's more out there now than there was.

Yes. Thank you so much. And I also like to congratulate you on your crisis center. I told this story quick. Thirty three years ago, Valley Community Services Board was my first job here. And I did substance abuse services as a secretary slash crisis when you came in. if you were intoxicated, inebriated, whatever. And so you guys have moved on up. So thank you so much.

We're trying. Thank you so much. And I am told that this got sent to you in the mail last week. Now, I know the mail, it could be two weeks before you get it, but this is our annual report, which is pretty cool this year. So hopefully you'll get it in the mail. If not, maybe Julie will let me know and we'll forward some more to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate all that you do in the community and for our folks.

Thank you. Item 12, consider appointing two individuals to the Regional Youth Commission. Is there a motion to appoint David Lorne and Christine Tai to the commission?

I'll make that motion.

Thank you, Mr. Wood. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Mr. Short. Any discussion? All in favor of appointing David Lorne and Christine Tai, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it. 4-0. Item 13 is communications correspondence calendar. Mr. Wood. Thank you, sir. Item 14, citizen's comment.

We have one speaker, Peter Van Acker.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Peter Van Acker. I live at 704 Walnut Avenue. I can be nutty, but I'm not a nut, just so you know. The city of Waynesboro has made significant progress in its plan to catch up, keep up, and get ahead. Unfortunately, in the area of protecting vulnerable road users who walk, ride scooters, or bikes, progress is hard to find, with the notable exception of the Waynesboro City Parks Department. But you, our elected members of city council, have the opportunity to catch up, keep up, and perhaps even get ahead in these important areas. I respectfully suggest that you use the perhaps generational opportunity to reconfigure Broad Street to change the face of downtown Waynesboro. First, An unofficial audit of bike lanes in Waynesboro revealed that 0.0% of the existing bike lanes in Waynesboro meet standards. Second, Waynesboro has too few actual pedestrian crosswalks and even fewer crosswalks with crossing signals. The city has made little progress in making our town pedestrian friendly. Third, the Natural History Museum will come to Waynesboro at some point. Broad Street can be a way to welcome people to our city and expand our downtown footprint. Downtown Waynes-Brokens is primarily of one and a half blocks of Main Street. Broad Street, the other major street in downtown, is a downtown bypass. It's too wide, five lanes in much of it. The traffic is too fast. And while the posted speed limit is 35 miles an hour, we all know that traffic travels at 40 to 45 miles an hour. And we also know that road design encourages drivers to speed and that there is little speed limit enforcement. This leads to people not encapsulated in a 2,000 pound vehicle to stay away or literally run across Broad Street when trying to cross it. the existing vdot proposal to update broad street includes a number of crosswalks but no bike lanes and tepid traffic calming efforts this is no way catching up or keeping up with the certain and certainly not getting ahead if you believe that the city needs a local bypass around main street which i don't think it does but maybe you do hopeman parkway to delphine can serve as an actual bypass it it doesn't need a lot of work to do that all it needs is signs to say bypass as opposed to having people zoom through the center of your city the city council wants to actually grow waynesboro i respectfully suggest that the plan for broad street should be updated and i urge you to use the Broad Street renovation to send a message that the city welcomes people and businesses to invest their time and their money in an expanding downtown. Across the country and across the world, a combination of traffic calming, pedestrian crosswalks, and safe bicycle lanes encourages residents and visitors to get out of their cars to spend their time and their money in local businesses and to enjoy local amenities. A few of the traffic calming techniques include road diets, narrowing the lanes, narrowing, slowing down traffic, raised intersections at crossings, protected bike lanes, traffic islands and roundabouts, street art and landscaping. Traffic calming is not only about slowing vehicles.

Sorry, sir, I have to cut you off. Your time's up.

It rebalances the street space to include vehicles, pedestrians, people on bicycles and scooters. The last thing I'm going to tell you is that- Sir. Yeah, I'm going to step down, but I'm going to finish this.

No, you're not. Okay. Your time is up. Please have a seat.

Thank you very much for your time. I sent you a letter that says the same thing.

Thank you.

Item 15 is adjournment. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Short. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Wood. All in favor say aye.

Aye.