Board of Supervisors (bos) Agendas & Minutes - Regular Meeting

I'll be taking any Board of Supervisors to order.

We do have a forum. The only absence we have is our chair. So you'll have to listen to me tonight. All right. The first item we have with us, Pastor Jacob Vanover, for Retreat Baptist Church. If you all stand, we'll have him talk, and then we'll

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your grace, your goodness, your mercy. Lord, we rejoice in the love that you have demonstrated through your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, I thank you for this board and the labor they put forth and the guidance of this county. Lord, I thank you for these citizens who have come to exercise their liberty and rights. Lord, we rejoice in having a country that is free as we are. Lord, we know it takes great pains and great work to maintain such a thing. Lord, I pray that you'd watch over us, Lord, in meetings like this all across our state, but especially here in Wythe County. Lord, that we would make decisions that are wise, and Lord, that would be circumspectum. Lord, that we would not walk in our understanding, but realize that we need you. We need your guidance. We need your brilliance. Lord, you have seen every moment of every day while we are walking in a new day every moment. We trust in you, O Lord. I pray that you'd give wisdom and understanding and a peaceable meeting. I pray that your blessings would rest upon each of these attend. And Lord, I pray that you'd bless this county. And Lord, that you would allow your grace to be abounding, your name to be magnified. And Lord, truly the freedom that we've enjoyed these 250 years to continue on strong in this county and in our midst. And Lord, that we will look at our decisions in a course and manner to which we will guide this place so that we can pass it on to the next generation, that they too can enjoy the splendor in which we have. We trust in you, O Lord, and we ask your grace to rest upon us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

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

All right, the first order of business is the citizens' time. First up, we have Mr. Joe DeBoard.

Good evening. My name is Joe DeBoer. I live at 158 Widener Way, Royal Creek, Virginia. I stand here tonight to discuss several issues with regard to the Recreation Department. We're going to start off with the first big bang. I want lights on in Speedwell, period. There's no excuse for us not having those lights on in Speedwell. I'm going down to see the superintendent of schools. I stopped by his office today to have an audience with him, and we're gonna get this thing going. We're gonna have those lights on in the Speedway. You don't wanna hear my chirping about that anymore, so we're gonna work on that. Number two, we have a opportunity to do some work at Ager Park. The staff has worked up some ideas for funding for that park. I want that passed in entirety. I want it up to snuff as far as the bill that was presented a couple of meetings ago because we need to have that done. The reason why I say that is because since I was on the Recreation Commission back in the 90s, there has nothing been done out there at Ager Park. It's time to refurbish and fix those courts and everything. The next issue with regard to that, we had a problem with a sign out there. It had to do with the playground that people in Wytheville and Wythe County put together back in the 90s. The sign was in deterioration. We had a problem about getting it removed from the property, and I took care of that myself. I will not have things like that happen in our county. I'll do it myself, I have to, okay? I also am involved with a scout troop here in Wytheville that is interested in putting in nature trails out there. We want that done. We want people to be able to come in and public-private partnership to make things like that happen for our community. Our young people need to know that they are responsible for the property thereof, so we'll have things for the future. Second, Royal Creek Lake. That's a good one. With regard to the lake, I have asked the staff to provide me with information with regard to all the contracts and that sort of thing for Roar Treat Lake. I'm gonna study that and make a recommendation to you in the future. I won't go over, but there's a reason for that. I am going to tell you that Saturday night we're gonna have a tractor pull at the Roar Treat Lake up there, sponsored by the antique tractor pullers. We also want to have another program in the next month with regard to old time stuff going on out there. Old time farming and expo out there. There's going to be more activity out there and we're going to be working for that. Number two, next Tuesday night there will be a meeting with regard to that group held out at held up here at Virginia Heights. There will be a meeting held the following Thursday with regard to the Lions Club, and they want to be a part of this thing. So we're trying to get people together in order to make things happen for us here in Wythe County. That's my goal. As soon as I get through with this little deal right here tonight, I'm headed to Black Lake and we're gonna get together and have a opportunity to put a tractor together so our young people will be able to go up and participate in that tractor pulling operation. And I wanna thank you very much. Have a great day.

Thank you, Mr. DeBoer. Next we have Donna. What is it?

Nictor.

Nictor. Okay. I'm sorry.

That's fine.

That's fine. Yeah, Donna Nictor. I was going to talk tonight. Y'all have heard what I've had to say before. but I saw something on the way here that disturbed me earlier this week past weekend I think I saw some land that was being stripped and trees down near exit 80 and Forch as well. And I realize it's commercial and I didn't get on the GIS map to see who owns it. So just a couple questions. I can go on and see who owns it. But if you have any information like who is it what are they doing do we know what they have planned because that whole hillside when i came today was stripped even more more trees down like how much further are they going to go can we just know what's going on i can email chair smith to find out information but if anybody has information during supervisors time thanks

OK. Thank you. The next person we have on the list is Tracy Gardocki.

Hello, everybody. My name is Tracy Gardocki. I live in Max Meadows in Carters Park. I just have two questions. As elected officials, how is it that the few of you sitting here get to decide on things behind closed doors for what is good for the citizens as in regard to the data centers? The second question I have is who has the power or who has given the permission to put up all of these flock cameras all over the county and in our towns? And that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. The last person we have is Andrew Russell.

Good evening. I passed around a map that accompanies the points I'm going to make here. During the summer of 1861 and the summer of 1862, the Union and Confederacy conducted a pair of battles just outside Sudley Springs, Virginia. These two battles together netted around 25,000 casualties. Now, Sudley Springs may not ring a bell, but the locations to the south are what it was eventually named after. That's Manassas and Bull Run. The first battle of Manassas was conducted nearer the Manassas National Battlefield Park label on the map, but during the second battle, a year later, the generals Stonewall Jackson, A.P. Hill, Jubal Early, and James Longstreet put up a stiff defense against a Union thrust at a location called Stony Ridge, which is the chunk of woods just to the east, northeast of the Red Spike, halfway up the east side of the Red Boundary, where it's kind of meeting the battlefield spot. I wanted to draw attention to this proposed campus, I know it's in Prince William County, with the maps being circulated as a cautionary tale for the people of Southwest Virginia. I'm not sure which is more insulting, that this plan to site 37 data centers and 14 substations was drawn up with no awareness of the sanctity of this location to the American legacy or that they did know it and decided to follow through with attempting to cite it anyways, in spite of the opinions of the community. Evidently, there was at least one all-night listening session with countless people opposing, and yet their board still voted to move forward four to three. We in Wythe County stand at the threshold of all but handing the keys to the same developers, and I know Wythe County citizens are not interested. This park had been created, the battlefield park, in 1940 when some Civil War veterans were still alive and had been expanded due to the efforts of many groups to preserve parts of the battlefield. We're talking about plans to improve and widen access to the park that were several decades in the making, now being held hostage by an industry that's either ignorant, indifferent, or antagonistic to the will of the community, perhaps all three. If there's one thing that binds all Virginians together, it's a deep understanding of how the story of America had many of its key moments here and how it's our job to protect it for the other 49 states to appreciate. in spite of this as of the summer of 2024 the american battlefield trust was aware of proposals on or adjacent to five other battlefields of northern virginia including the wilderness brandy station deep bottom glendale and north anna i can assure you that my time at these battlefields as a teenager with my boy scout troop would have been severely disrupted by the humming of the data centers or the noise of its construction If the data center industry and their supporting cast is this comfortable putting all of these locations at threat of desecration, I shudder to think of the wanton disregard they will have for the modest but equally important historical sites in our corner of Virginia of which we've been given the responsibility to protect the legacy. One more sentence if I can earlier this year that 2000 acre Manassas data center complex on the map Was defeated due to a lawsuit from failing to properly notify the public on the proposed site This defeat occurred at great private cost from the community to shoulder the legal fight to oppose it Do not let these sharks in the pool with us and give us the tools to keep them out. Thank you. I

All right. Thank you. We have no one else signed up for citizens' time, so we'll close citizens' time. The board has in their packet the invoices for this month. And are there any invoices you want to speak about, or do you want to pull from the list?

Make a motion to approve the invoices. Second.

We have a motion and seconded to approve the invoices as presented. We need to do a roll call on this. All right, we'll start with Mr. Byrne. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. All right, motion carries. Invoices are approved. All right, you also have the minutes of the previous meeting. Is there anything anybody wants to pull out of those minutes or change?

Motion to approve the amendments.

Second. We have a motion and seconded. We don't need to voice on this one, do we? No. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed? I'll abstain, Mr. Chairman. I was absent.

OK. All right, minutes of the previous meeting are approved. Next item on our agenda is old business. Mr. Bear.

No old business for me, sir.

Mr. No, sir.

Okay. Being no old business, we'll move on to new business. The consent calendar.

I make a motion to approve, sir.

Second. We have a motion and a second. We need to do roll call on that?

Yes.

Okay. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

All right. Consent calendar is approved. Next item is the extract of votes.

Mr. Counts is not here with us, but you have the extract from the primaries. I would recommend you all just make a motion to accept the information from the registrar. So moved. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. We'll start out with Mr. Burnett.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. All right. Next item is our Commissioner of Revenue update. Mr. Linkus is not here.

Mr. Linkus is not here. He emailed everyone his comments with updates on where reassessment was and on the tax tickets. My understanding, real estate was finished at his office and has gone over to the Treasurer's office as of today, I believe, and they'll still be bouncing back and forth, and they are trying to finish up personal property.

Anybody have any questions? Comments? Okay, next item is treasure update. This is Lori Gwynne.

Good evening. I'll pick up at the tax billing that Mr. Bayer had mentioned from Mr. Lincoln's report. Real estate did come over to us actually today. We are now in the process of updating escrow codes, which does take us a few days. We did find an issue this afternoon late that I called IT director about so he now has to work with support to try to figure out how to fix that issue so that we can move forward but it does take us a few days to get those escrow codes in so once we do that then we'll shift the tax billing back over the commissioner's office for them to finish out some of their processes it'll come back to us and then we'll continue on with ours so at this point unless something major comes up going forward I firmly believe tax bills will be out in early October. It may not be October 1st, but it will be early October. Like I said, barring no major hiccups or anything like that. So it looks like real estate is going to move along fine. Personal property. Honestly, I'm not sure where personal property is at. I know commissioner's office has still been working on that, so I can't really speak for an update on that side of it. So staying with taxes, With the June 30th fiscal year end, which we'll talk about the delinquent list that were sent to you here in just a moment. But as of June 30th with the 2025 tax billing, which we stayed at the December 5th due date, which is our regular supposed to be normal due date. that we were back at for 2025. Between real estate and personal property collections, we were averaging or averaged at about 94% collections as to what we build. So the numbers that you see in the financial report of what is budgeted, so keep in mind the amount that's budgeted is different than what is actually billed because we budget lower than what we build. So collections are standing pretty good at this point. Moving on, the delinquent list that you have that Mr. Barry, Ms. Collins, somebody had distributed. I think that had to go out through email because of the size in the packet. But you have both the real estate and personal property delinquent list as of June 30th. In the past, the board has opted to publish those. State code says that you can publish it in a newspaper of general circulation in your area, or it can be made available on a website that is operated by the county. So you as the board would need to decide if you want to publish the real estate list, especially as normally what is published in the paper, so to speak. If you want to publish that locally, if you do, I would recommend Southwest Virginia Sun just because the cost is much cheaper than what it is through the Whitfield Enterprise. But in addition to that, I would ask that you consider publishing the delinquent personal property list on the county website. Also in the past with these lists, those are the June 30th lists. We're now at August the 24th, so a lot of folks have paid bills. There have been times you have opted to obtain an updated list from my office that you then publish, so I'm not sure if that would be in your desire tonight if you decide to publish either one of those lists, but that would be direction that I would need so that we can pull that and prepare those lists to get those sent to Ms. Collins for those to be handled however you see fit.

Our website is obviously the cheapest to post them on there. We have posted, like she said, in Enterprise. I don't think we've done the Sun before, but that is an option to do the Sun. And typically, I like going ahead and doing the updated numbers in the process, let her add anything that's been paid or whatever, and pull a clean list. So if y'all would like for it to be on our website, that we can follow that. If y'all want to post it online with one of the newspapers, we can do that.

Do we need to?

I would request a motion just to go ahead and post on the website. Make a motion, Mr. Chairman, to post that on the website? With the updated numbers. With updatedness.

As of what date?

As of today. As of currently? Yeah.

In a business day. Okay.

All right, we have a motion. Second. All right. I guess we need to do a voice vote on that. Aye. Mr. Terry?

Aye. Aye.

Motion carries. OK. Anything else?

And Ms. Collins, I'll send those to you probably be tomorrow afternoon before we can get those out. It may be Thursday morning, but we'll get the numbers as of the end of today and get those to you. Okay, so that's the end of the tax information. So moving on to audit and reconciliations. So I was here at the end of May. I don't know the exact date, but your second May meeting, and we were discussing the bank reconciliations, and Mr. Garcia was here as well. So at that point in time, the July and August reconciliations had been completed or may have been in the vicinity of completing August. I don't exactly remember where we were at. So my staff had started September. We've run into quite run into things that we've had questions on we're not sure that to be very honest that the spreadsheet is very complex it um requires a lot that you know we're we're doing a lot of jumping around and trying to figure out so we um are still behind on reconciliation so that therefore has delayed um the audit um which we're required to complete by december thirty first at this point in time it doesn't look like we're going to meet the december thirty first deadline We spoke with Mr. Bayer last week, met with him, and Ms. Woods is now going to be helping us with the reconciliations. We've sent the information to her. I think she's trying to get her head wrapped around it as well as we have been trying to do. So she's working with my staff actually as of yesterday. We're trying to get work through those. So she has questions, she's asking questions. We've also had questions we've sent back to Mr. Garcia. So we are trying to get through those. It's not a fast process. But we're trying to get through it. So I'm hoping that Ms. Woods will see something that we're not seeing or haven't seen and will be able to help us get over the hump so that we can move forward and be able to get those moving. Because after September, we start getting into the heavier transactions or more transactions throughout the month. So that is still a work in progress at this point in time.

Ms. Glynn, does that include the bank files that would be necessary to do the reconciliation in Munis, the way that we learned in Washington County?

Okay. I'm sorry. No. Repeat your question.

Does the information you've given to Ms. Woods, I haven't talked to her, does that include the bank files that are necessary to do the reconciliations the way we learned in Washington County?

The bank files downloaded that, yes, we can provide to her for her to be able to use, yes. Great.

It's going to be a delay on our audit. The pre-auditor, HBC, Mr. Garcia, they have reached out to Robinson Farmer Cox. But Robinson Farmer Cox has emailed us back and said they will work on the schedule off of RFC or off of HBC. I don't see any way that it's going to be done by the December 31st deadline, so we will just have to work through that. But we will... Our office will provide the assistance. If you recall, it was Mr. Garcia's recommendation back in May. So we are finally at that point. And in two weeks, we'll give you an update of what progress we've been able to make on it in that.

And when you're talking about July and August, that's this?

No, it's July and August of 2025. Last year.

We've completed the reconciliations off of our old what is now our old worksheet. We've completed those for every month going forward. We're up to date on those. However, we have not been able to fully reconcile everything out to where everything is balancing. So with that, and because that had kind of been an issue because we're always off one month, we can be 30,000 off the next month, 500,000 off. The next month, 150, it fluctuates. So what Mr. Garcia did is he developed a new spreadsheet for us to use. And so that one, it requires a lot more time and detail into it. So that is what we're currently in the process of trying to learn. and get figured out and man Miss Woods has now been pulled into the process so she's been reviewing the spreadsheets yesterday afternoon or she sent those yesterday and today is her time allows as well to see if she can help us figure out things because there's there's numbers you can change and the formulas will be thrown off completely all through the spreadsheet so We're we're a work in progress.

I don't know how else to sum that up because we're trying to get all that figured out.

Well, I mean, the auditors were noted as such. There's already a concern of possibly having a qualified opinion in the process. And then, obviously, it can impact you when you're looking at borrowing your funds and stuff like that as to concerns of, you know, why are your audits not ready? Rural development and all them want to see our audits done in the timely process. Okay.

And you're saying we won't have this done until December?

We... are currently, you know, when you schedule with the pre-auditor to come in, and they basically spend a week here working with us, they get everything ready, and then the auditors are scheduled to come in, and I don't remember, they were coming in October. The pre-auditors were coming in September 6th, and the auditors were coming in mid-October.

Like mid-October.

Yeah, so now the pre-auditors can't come in, so we've got to get rescheduled on them. Well, I won't make up names, but they were working with us September 6th. They're going to be working with another county the week after, another county the week after. So they've got to work us into their schedule. But we can't have them come here until we get 10 months. caught up from the treasurer's office of the reconciliations. So as we get those done, they'll be scheduling us to come in and then we'll see when the auditors can come in may still happen by December 31. But with everybody's schedule of everybody's timing, I don't know, I just want to give you a give you a heads up. The school board has submitted all of their information to the pre auditors from what we understand. And the DSS has submitted everything to the pre-auditors. Our staff has everything to the pre-auditors. It's just waiting for the treasurer's office to do their job to get the information to them.

You know, I don't want to be mean, but I've balanced my checkbook my entire life. I can't wrap my head around how that's that difficult. You kind of just make me understand.

Come by and visit us tomorrow. I'll be glad to show you. We have multiple bank accounts with the number of transactions that we have going in and out. We're just not able to get it reconciled. And we don't know what it is. And that's what we're trying to figure out. That was part of Mr. Garcia developing the new spreadsheet because he changed our entire process of what we're doing and bringing everything in. We're actually downloading everything in from the bank, trying to match up transactions, work through things, There's transactions that will hit the general ledger that do not hit the bank within the same month, or a partial part of that transaction hits the bank. Not all of it hits the bank. So figuring out what parts and pieces are actually clearing and what are not or if there's things that haven't been entered that need to be entered that's where we're at on everything so we're printing those general ledger reports out every month we're comparing to the bank statements we're trying to go through and work all those transactions but with everything feeding in it's it's not as simple as your personal checkbook it really isn't But I would be glad to show you what we go through if you would like to come by and visit. I'm more than glad to show you just so that you can have an idea of what we do face.

But it did balance a year ago.

We have been out of balance with which it's been going. We've been out of balance even prior to the beginning of this or this past fiscal year. So that led us also to this because we felt like there may be an issue with our spreadsheet because that spreadsheet has been in use for a long time. So we weren't sure if some of our formulas had gotten messed up and we weren't getting everything tied in. But now with this new version the months that we've been working on until we get them resolved we're out of balance more than what we were on the version that we were originally using so it's it's a work in progress i i just don't know what else to say about it because we're trying to get it figured out how many years have you been out of balance how many how many years have we been out of balance How many years? That I do not know the answer to. I'm sorry. But I would say we've been out at least a year and a half. Not significant amounts.

It was nothing that was considered a material amount that caused any problem on the audit last year.

Well, but I mean, if I've been out for a year and a half, then that's 18 months that I've got to try to consolidate and reconcile, right? I mean, that's what I'm asking. How many months do you have to reconcile to try to get this thing to balance?

we're not going back that far we've gone back and picked up the balance as of June 30th audit last year and pick that up starting with the July 1st balance for last year and then we're coming forward with that there has been entries that we've had to make but I think in the end all of those are going to flush out but that We haven't had to go back through all of those months, just back to July.

They basically have got to do September through June. They've got 10 months to do a reconciliation. They've got the August. Mr. Juan Garcia, when he was here, they've got the July and August reconciled at zero difference, I believe, in the process. So you started at zero back then. Right. They started clean on July 1st. And then when he came in and worked with them, he did July with them, he did August with them. Those reconciled, those balanced. It's just all the months since then.

And we're going back and forth with questions for him of, you know, where does this come from, where does that come from, just trying to figure out how he has that spreadsheet configured.

Okay. Thank you.

And other than that, the only other thing that I have is I did want to thank you all for hosting the county picnic for the employees. Again, my staff enjoyed being able to attend. I got there late due to the unfortunate passing of our former treasurer, Mr. Crockett. I had attended his funeral and some fellow friends come into town. So I had met with them, but I do appreciate that. And on behalf of my employees as well, I do appreciate the raises that were also given to the employees. based on their salary, they do appreciate that. And I do on their behalf, so thank you for that. And I don't have anything else unless there's other questions.

No questions?

I do, just out of curiosity, do you have a full staff?

No, I don't.

How many are you short?

I have one vacancy at this point that needs to be filled, yes.

Ms. Gwynn, I will mention that it concerns me a little bit that we are up here approving money to be spent on accounts that we don't know are 100% accurate. And we're responsible to our citizens for that. You're elected as well as we are. And I've sat here since January and listened to our citizens tell us how they don't trust us anymore and that we do things behind closed doors. And this certainly does not help. But thank you.

Thank you. Anything else?

No questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next item on our agenda is staff reports. Deputy County Administrator.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have a lot for you tonight. I would point out our Regional Improvement Commission checks were issued last week. I'm the chair of the commission this year, so I got to sign almost $17 million worth of checks last week. Our share was $1.185 million, so that has been deposited. I'm grateful to the legislature for setting that up. It does all go toward public safety for us. And I did want to point out our public safety agency, our emergency services department is a new agency still. But last Friday we got a really nice reminder of why we're doing this. We had a seven-vehicle motor vehicle collision on the interstate. We had four patients who were injured, two of them critically with entrapment. We, through every resource that we had available to it, still had enough to cover the town of Whiffle and the town of Royal Retreat along with the western end of the county and got all the patients to trauma centers or to the appropriate hospitals and got that accident cleared very quickly. I do want to recognize our staff for a very good job in getting that done. Standing out there on the rain in the interstate with all that traffic going by next to you is a scary sort of thing. Driving 80 miles an hour to the closest trauma center is a scary thing in the rain, but it delivered the level of care that we've come to appreciate and expect from our staff. So we did want to recognize them for that. We do have our arena equipment. The dehumidification equipment has been operating much better since the uh manufacturer sent someone in to retune it refired up so we're happy with the progress that we're making there i did hear from everything ice today the the folks that put down the closed loop system in that floor they're going to be here just to do some tune-ups and some potentially some repairs sometime the next two weeks before the hockey team is ready to put down ice for the season so we can be ready for for the season I did want to point out to new emergency service equipment that we have in place or are expecting to be delivered. We did pick up the new rescue boat in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. It has been put into service already. It's still going to get some marking, but it's ready to be in service. The new Barren Springs fire engine, we're scheduled to go to do inspections on that in early October to get that delivered either in late October or sometime in November, depending on what we find during the inspection. We have a new ambulance that we ordered last year that's on the way and should be delivered in September or possibly early October. And the director's truck has also been delivered as well. So appreciate the new emergency services equipment. If any of you want to see it or inspect it, we'll be glad to give you that opportunity. You asked the staffing question, Ms. Gwynn. I'm pleased to report that the recreation department is up to full staff now. We had our recreation supervisor start on Monday of this week. We are in football season, so it is one of our very busy times of the year, but we're glad to see all of our staff be on board and making progress. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have about other things on the report or in general.

No questions? Thank you. All right. County Administrator.

Good evening. A couple of things here. Number one, my report is not in the package. It has been extremely busy over the last few weeks, as you all know. So I do have some information. I do have a handout that provided there for you. But Mr. Chairman, I would like to just comment on a couple questions from citizens time if I could while we're talking about it mr. the board's comment I have been in touch with the school system talking about the stable lights they were doing some checking on it I'm glad you're going to meet with dr. Street on that so we have we have asked them to look into that in the process And on exit 80 there is grading going across there. I did confirm with the county engineer earlier this week That is all agricultural grading. So they're doing agricultural clearing So it does not follow any of our regulations land use control or anything else. So that is what's what is going on there So anyway, just to go through that information a couple things Mr. Smith and Chair Smith and Vice Chair Morgan and I attended VACO Summit in Richmond last week. The governor spoke, and one of the things that she spoke about there was apologizing to the local governments for hers and the General Assembly's last-minute budget that got passed and came to us and talked about realizing the problems it created for the local governments. which everybody was in agreement that it does create problems and they promised to do better we'll see what happens next year but one of the things out of that is we do need to make a budget amendment the school board has a received basically a million forty one thousand one thirty six there's an attachment that shows it on there with it additional funds that goes into their budget. These are all state funds, not coming from us. We will add this, later we'll be talking about another budget amendment, but we will add this to the notice for the September 8th, 2026 meeting for action then, but just wanted to let you all know about it. JPSA update. We have a vacancy in our operations manager. An individual has accepted that position, and on September 2nd, we should have a new JPSA director. Our staff is committed to working with them through the transition. The JIDA, as you know, the executive director left earlier this year to go to the Tobacco Commission. Mr. Matthews has accepted a position with the Virginia Tourism Corporation. This is his last week of employment. They do meet Thursday, and we will provide information following up with them on where they are with their executive director search. I was advised today they have sort of reworked some of the job description, and they are to send that to me, and I will share that with you when I receive that. Once again, staff is trying to make certain everything continues to move forward there, and I am trying to assist them with... Answering questions and inquiries on on industries and items like that right now Legislative planning vice chair Morgan met with me last night and county administrators and chairmen from our surrounding localities just to talk about the upcoming legislative session and any special items. Any items in particular you know of? Photo enforcement fund, sheriff's was one of the things we talked about, about the restrictions on the revenues and what can be done there, fire, EMS items, just several of those things out there. They did talk about if there were modest budget amendments in the 50 to 100,000 for things that were desperately needed or whatever, they recommend we get those in, so be thinking about that if there's things that we need to have or address there. And then lastly, Mr. Hankins has been talking about this, but really want to kickstart our capital improvement planning. We usually do that in the fall of the year and get that voted on. I'd like to get that voted on by before the end of December this year just to update our capital improvement plan, show all of our items into it. The big hairy goals that are out there, the small things that are out there, make sure they're all in there in the process. From tools to recreation to fire to rescue to everything else in the process. We added a lot of items into it last year to start preparing that. Just need to continue to update that and be prepared. And other than that, that's all the information that I have for you today, sir.

Okay, thank you. All right, next item. Oh, excuse me, county attorney. I'm sorry. Okay, next item of business is board reports. First is economic development. At its meeting on August 18th, the Economic Development Committee made the following recommendations. SOLUS, ARX, Archipelago Performance Agreement. Approve the Solis ARX archipelago performance agreement amendment which updates the name to fluid stack and revises the performance date for certificate of occupancy. Capital investments and dates for 250 million and 500 million do not change.

I guess we need a... You have a motion from committee, so you don't have a second, so you just need discussion.

Don't need second, okay. We'll start with Mr. Terry. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Motion passes. Okay. Next is the Budget Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Barrett, do I need to do these amendments?

I would just recommend them in lumps unless anybody wants to pull any of them out individually. I would just indicate it as on the report.

All right. So the Budget Committee made on August 18, 2026, makes the following recommendation. Budget amendments amended and appropriated in the following request, which Mr. Barrett said we don't need to do unless you guys have any questions about any of those. And there's a motion.

Don't need a second. So we'll start with Mr. Burnett.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Motion carries.

All right, second item, e-summons maintenance contracts transfer $34,198 from the e-summons account to the general fund and amending appropriate the same amount to account number 3102-443040.

We don't need a second coming out of committee. We'll start with Mr. Burnett.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. The third thing, the Ager Park project, amending an appropriate $150,000 to $9,470,255 and award the bid to G&H using $150,000 from photo speed enforcement proceeds.

Coming out of committee doesn't need a second. We'll start with Mr. Terry.

Mr. Chairman, if I might, I would just like to express appreciation to the sheriff before you all vote on this. He did offer the funds from the photo enforcement fines, the unrestricted funds, to help cover this difference in our costs so we can move forward with this project and get it done.

Okay.

I appreciate that, Sheriff. Yes, sir. Thank you, Sheriff Klein.

Okay, Mr. Terry.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Fourth item, fiscal year 27, budget amendment for Lot 10 project. Set a public hearing for September the 8th of 2026 to consider amending the fiscal year 27 budget by $6 million for the Lot 10 development project.

Coming out of committee doesn't need a second.

If I'm like Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to advise her once they understand what this is in the process. We currently have two million dollars in our budget for the county's share of the project. The remaining money is coming from a grant that the JIDA has received for the lot 10 grading project which as you aware is the the project to uh grade the lot next to the new industrial access road and um ely trinkle to create a 50 acre graded pad just for purely for marketing purposes just to to have a graded lot out there um They're ready to bid the project out. They would need to pay the contractor once they're selected. The JIDA does not have $6 million in their budget to float and do that in the process. In lieu of them borrowing money and having to pay interest on it in the process, we would use our reserve funds that we have be able to assist them in paying those amounts and then get the reimbursements back from the state, which would come back to the JIDA and then would come back to us. So it is not local funds. I mean, it's local funds to initially pay it, but basically within 30 to 60 days of each pay application, we should be receiving funds back from the state. We cannot make this change today because it is such a large amount. It requires a public hearing, so your action tonight is just to set the public hearing for the next meeting for the Board of Supervisors to consider. I'll be glad to answer any questions if I confuse that for anyone.

What would be the date?

September 8th is the next meeting, I believe, Ms. Collins? Yep, September 8th.

Okay. We need to make a motion?

Yeah, the motion is there from the committee. You just need to vote on it now, sir.

Okay. Okay. Mr. Burnett?

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Motion carries.

All right. The last item from the budget committee is the Southwest Virginia Strategic Recovery Planning Program, CDBG-DR North. Accept the grant award and authorize the county administrator to sign the necessary documentation.

Coming out of committee, that doesn't require a second. We'll start with Mr. Terry. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

That's all from the Budget Committee, Mr. Chair.

OK. Thank you. Yes, sir. We'll start. We'll have the next item on the agenda is Board of Supervisors time. We'll start with Mr. Burnett.

Very good. I have actually a handful of items. I'll try to do them quickly. Two weeks ago, I went to Henrico County to visit around 14 data centers. We first met with county staff in their economic development. They had a list of questions that was generated from our citizens about the concerns. They first had a data center in the late 90s, and they are currently building up to about 30 of them total when they get done. And so we asked them questions concerning water usage. We asked them about electrical usage. We asked them about noise. We asked them about heat loading, island loading. We asked them about sewage disposal and any issues that they've had in the almost 30 years that they've had data centers. We then loaded up and went to visit 14 data centers. We could not gain access, but we could drive around the perimeter all the way around. We stopped and we listened. The building was very nice. We checked the thermometer when we got into the van 15 miles away. We checked the thermometer there. There was no Heat increased whatsoever. I know that's not very scientific, but that's what we had. We listened for noise. The road traffic noise was way louder. We could not hear anything coming from the centers themselves, and we checked several centers. They do use a tremendous amount of electricity. They told us that their water usage was 2% of what Henrico County uses, and Mr. Smith crunched some numbers and told me that was about 35,000 gallons I'm thinking he said day, but I don't want to put what Mr. Smith said. So I'll wait until he gets back on that. So all in all, I think a lot of times what I'm finding out about data centers is you have data centers that's built to a certain standard, and then you've got others that are just a free-for-all. And I think Enrico County said that for them the importance was having covenants and zoning to control how they was built. And they was needing to be built to a certain efficiency standard. And so that was my experience. with the data centers was very eye-opening to me and somewhat relieving of what we've been told and that we have passed on to our citizens that has been fairly accurate from what we've been told. Then moving on in front of all of our board members, you'll see the paper with the little writing with the highlighted. This is a copy of our relief. Four years ago, we opted a little bit to allow more senior citizens to be get some tax relief. This is just a $250 per person benefit that is eligible. I reached out to the commissioner and the commissioner said that we have 244 applicants. That is $58,000 dollars total of my goal would be to increase this by 40 people to 280-some people. I'd like to refer this back to our budget committee for them to look at to see how we can crunch the numbers and just, especially this year with the real estate assessments going on, I think it wouldn't hurt, you know, 40 people is $10,000, in case you were wondering, you know, and so just a little bit more for our senior citizens and veterans, I'd certainly appreciate it. The other thing that I've also asked was because our citizens are saying they don't trust us that much and we're not getting information out, I checked with Mr. Bear and to add a newsletter to our water bill would cost about $350 a month. And I'd like to put that on the agenda for our next meeting to discuss to see if that would be the board's pleasure to do just 350 for a handful of months, a bullet point of what the county's doing so that when the water, I know it don't reach everybody, but I'd like to just put that on the agenda for the next period. And then our 1% sales tax, I support it. I've had a lot of people ask me what the state lottery does. I did research on my own. State lottery covers operations of the schools. This 1% will cover construction costs. So that would be the difference. And then this evening, we met with a company called DECA, which is the one developing the Thousand Acre Data Center, and they have expressed that they wanted to come out to the communities and start talking to our residents, and they did not want to do any NDA agreements. They wanted to be totally up front. They expressed their desire to... pay their own way, and make sure that any infrastructures being built is paid by them. And so that's the little bit that we've got, and that's all I have. Chair. Thank you.

Okay. Ms. Crockett?

It's a hard act to follow. Nothing for me. Thank you.

The only thing I have is an answer to Mr. DeBoer. We have spent a lot of money on Atria Park already. And thanks to the sheriff, we're going to spend the rest of the money, I guess, to finish it out. But it's not like we're ignoring things. But it takes money to do these things. And people don't want taxes raised. And I said I wouldn't raise taxes while I was on here. And so far, we've only dropped them. And so I don't want to raise taxes. I've got one more year left, and I don't want to raise them again. or raise them at all. So some of these things just have to wait. And unfortunately, we've had the money for Ager, and as far as Rural Retreat Lake goes, we've sunk a lot of money into Rural Retreat Lake. A lot of money. You just can't have everything overnight. You either got to take your time and let the money build, or you got to raise taxes. And I don't know anybody in here want me to try to make a motion we raise taxes I don't think so. So that's where we stand on that. We're trying.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

I just want to say that we had I've got to go along with Mr. Burnett and and the others on the trip to Henrico County. Not to say that I'm honestly I was pleasantly surprised I was figured was expecting to see monstrosity of a fortress for a data center a very aesthetic facility the noise and the heat was not there that we were kind of expecting and that we've been told about um no i'm not excited about a yard full of data centers but At least we did get to see. And if the opportunity arises, I would be willing to go look at some others.

And that's all I have. Thank you.

DAVID BURRAGE. Mr. Terry?

I don't have anything at this time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

DAVID BURRAGE. OK. I've got a couple of things. I want to reiterate what some of them said about our trip to the data centers. I was surprised myself how the ones that were finished, how neat and orderly it was. And again, we couldn't hear, I couldn't, we were right outside the gate of one of them, you couldn't hear a thing. So I want to encourage everyone to come to our community meeting on September 3rd, is that right? Yep. At six o'clock, George Wythe High School, is that right?

Scott. Huh?

Scott. Middle School, Scott Middle School, okay. OK. Also, I want to talk about the legislative session that Mr. Barry and I attended last night. Opened my eyes to a couple of things, but the surrounding counties are having the same problems we are. in some cases probably worse than we are so we don't don't want to feel alone so we've got company also the capital improvements were beginning to look at the capital improvements for the coming I guess the coming years, and we'd like to have a lot of input on that, whether it be schools, roads, whatever, Ager Park, whatever. I guess that's all I have. Anybody else got anything to say?

I do have one more thing to say. All right. The trash pickup point out on 52 is going out of town there. The old man that works there, you know, I just had the surgery. My wife loaded a bunch of trash in the back of my truck and she was going to take it and I decided I'd take it, but I got out there and it was a little more than 10 pounds. I ain't supposed to lift it. He came out and unloaded my truck. And he doesn't know me from Adam. He doesn't know I'm on the Board of Supervisors. So I would assume he would do that for anybody. And I just want to say, since the new company has taken over, I've had nothing but compliments from that place.

Thank you. I'll pass that along.

You can pass that on. I'd appreciate it. Certainly.

OK. Anything else? All right. We'll move on. Our next item of business is a closed meeting. Code of Virginia 2.2-3711.A.3, Acquisition Disposition of Real Property for Chiswick District Apex Holding Lease.

There should be one additional one on our third. Do you have that?

Yeah. And Code of Virginia 2.2-3711. Point eight, point eight, consultation with legal counsel, bid review, Jackson Water Works, wastewater project.

I make a motion for a closed meeting.

Second. OK, I have a motion and a second. Do we need to do a roll call? OK, Mr. Terry? Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

OK, motion carries.

Mr. Chairman, I'll read the certification. Whereas the Wythe County Board of Supervisors has convened a closed meeting on the state pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Whereas Section 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia requires the certification of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors and such a meeting was conducted in conformance with Virginia law. Now, therefore, it be resolved that the Wythe County Board of Supervisors, hereby certify the purpose of each member's knowledge on the public business matters lawfully exempted from this promotion of the meeting requirements of Virginia law to discuss in this closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies. And only such public business matters that are identified in the motion to be in this closed meeting are heard, discussed, and are considered by the Wythe County Board of Supervisors. And I'll make that a motion, Mr. Chairman.

So moved. I mean, second.

All right. Is this going to be a voice? Okay. We'll call Mr. Burnett. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion carries. We are in open session. Mr.

Chair, I'd like to make a motion to reject all bids for the Jackson Elementary School

lift station project due to informalities and over budget and authorized staff to rebid the project second okay um we have a motion in a second um we'll have a roll call vote mr terry hi hi hi hi hi motion carries okay is there anything else come before the board no sir Any other members? Martha? Okay.

Oh, I messed that up. Just as a reminder, Martha's got it on here. Joint Governing Bodies meeting is next Monday night at the Whitfield Meeting Center at 6 o'clock. Just make sure you get that on agenda. Then September 3rd is our Community meeting September 8th will be our regular meeting here, and we'll have a reminder on it that the Monday following that, September 14th, is our meeting with the JIDA. Keeping you in meetings, we realize that.

Thank you, sir. All right. Anything else? Okay. We will stand adjourned.