Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

I'll call the March 3rd uh 2026 board of supervisor meeting to order. Roll call, please. Mr. Yes. Here. Mr. President. Mr. Brown here. Mr. Shepard. Always here. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum. Okay, we'll begin with uh presentations. We're starting with Colonial Behavior Health. We'll call on David Coer for the presentation. And I believe we have a handout in front of us. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here.

Do you have a presentation? I I do. Am I You'll probably sit right here. I'm going to bargain. Come on in. The water's warm. Okay. That's the hot seat. This the hot seat. Okay. All right. She's got it minimized at the bottom. Yes. Um It's one of those two. Must be that one. Mine is definitely not about economic development.

This tests my eyes. Yep. There you go. Okay. You win.

Got it right one and a half times. Well, thank you for the for the opportunity to be here. Privileged to be here. Um, we've been partnering with York County for a long time and uh, but it has been since we made a presentation to any of our localities. It has been looking at our records back before COVID. So, it's been years now um, since any of that has occurred. And a few things have changed uh, everywhere during during that time. A lot of things have remained the same, however. So, just to give a a quick overview, I know uh each of you know this already, but just for those that are that are with us in the uh in the gallery in the Mlin public, we've been around since 1971. Uh we were formed January 5th, 1971. Uh my saying on this round is that this makes us now 55 years old and we qualify now for the senior discount at IHOP. So, um, that it's gone over about that well everywhere so far. So, this fortunately, this is the last time I'll have to say it. Um, we are we are statutory agency created in the code of Virginia. Uh, the statutes were in 1968. Um, James City County, York County, and Williamsburg went in together in 71 to create Colonial. uh in 72 Picosen um they were making a decision between us and the Hampton Newport News area and they evidently they selected us um during that time. We are not only a statutory agency created in the code of Virginia but we are also a f unincorporated 501c3. So we we walk around with a foot in public private almost we're referred to

by many as a quasi governmental. Any confusions to do? Not much. Not not not much. It's it's it's mainly for you know a different sort of a tax exempt purpose more than anything else. We haven't seen a lot of uh have you specific there there are a few grants over the years that we've gotten that if you're purely a governmental agency you're probably not eligible for some funders won't do that. So being a 501c3 has opened up the doors to a few to a few funding opportunities. Good. Thank you.

Sure. um our our 15 member board of directors. Um the largest contingent is York County. Uh York County appointing six of those members. Three of those members are here with us tonight. U Mr. Kenir, our vice chair, Miss Richie, our secretary, and then Miss Thomas, um and all six all six of your uh appointees are valuable members of our board, and we we are appreciative of their support. You are, I'm sure, familiar with this. Uh, York County serves as our fiscal agent. I've been our fiscal agent for a long, long time. Much longer. I've been at Colonial for 22 years this month. And been probably at least twice that long, if not the full 55 years. I've been our fiscal agent. We also signed uh with you the health insurance agreement around the cost sharing this year. And one of the things that we have benefited from a great deal over the last several years has been when when the county implemented Munus um giving us the opportunity to be a part of Munice um free frankly that was that was a tremendous thing for us up to that point. We were doing all of our budgets on spreadsheets about three feet long um and they were getting unmanageable. So Munis really helped us a lot there. our vehicles. We have I think it's 43 vehicles that we that we own and operate. They are maintained by the York County's garage. We do pay for that. Um the same charge that you would make to other departments are charged CBH and those are done I believe through internal inter internal fund transfers. What I wanted to highlight tonight is our current situation. um our finance director um we've only had two finance

directors in the last 40 years and the second one uh retired at the end of December and since that time we've been operating going into budget season all of those things without a finance director which makes for elevated blood pressure and other other you can't find anyone to hire or we We have someone that's beginning with us March 16th.

So that's actually less than three month turnaround. It just felt like a lot longer than that um during that time. But um Miss Goodwin has been a part of our interview panel. She's been a part of the search process from the beginning of this even before December when we were in the first round. We have had others come and go from interview panels. She has been very consistent and we are uh extremely grateful. Also during during this time when our finance staff are having to step up and take on additional roles, your finance your finance team here uh uh treasur's office, finance office have stepped up and been a tremendous support to our team as they are trying to put together documents to support a budget do those things. Um, so we cannot be more grateful to York County for the support that you all have given us. Um, and uh, yeah. Um, ne never thought never thought anything like that would happen. Hoped it wouldn't happen, but it did. But, uh, the county has been our safety net on this. So, I just make sure we we say that over the last five years, um, and what we tend to work with with our local governments when we're we're talking about things like, you know, local funding requests and all that sort of thing, we we use a combination of utilization and population, and it's across a rolling five-year period. We do a rolling five-year period because it smooths out the bumps. Um, and so what you'll see for York County residents served, you'll see that number has gone up and down. It's sort of a little bit of a roller coaster sort of thing over these last five years. And you'll see the percentage of the total

from our four jurisdictions of how much um what percentage of our what percentage of our uh services have been provided to York County residents. So, when we come to you with um like the operating request that you know you can deal with every year, when we have an amount that we ask for from local government, what we tend to do is we'll come back to that five-year average and say we're going to ask for that that level of support of whatever it is we need. And every locality is different. Of course, James City County, of course, has the uh significantly larger share than than the others. Our revenue sources uh come from a number of places, but you'll see primarily that about half of our money comes from the state. The federal money we receive is administered by the state. So just just touch over 50 50% being state administered. uh local funds making up 18% uh small amount of of grants and fees coming out to just just over a quarter of our budget.

Where do your grants come from? Primarily from the Williamsburg Health Foundation. That's it. We have a couple of small pieces, but do you solicit grants or do you just hopefully they come through? We we actually write the grants. We solicit solicit. Yes, we do have we do have a staff person that I have a number of staff people that can write grants, myself included, but I haven't in a while. Um, so we have a couple of staff that do most of our grant writing. And who do you write staffs to? I mean, write requests to besides

there's a small group called the Kovar. It's a Kovar group. It's a small like a Knights of Columbus piece. they do some small mini um mini grants that they might help uh in many cases provide match that actually covers we'll do you know grants to the department of rail and public transportation so we'll do that with with federal dollars there's a match requirement for that if we do a vehicle during the year uh you a lot of times the Kovar funds provide the match for that so the vehicle actually comes to us pretty much for free and we have used it a little small small amounts like that. David, what's the total? I don't see it mentioned anywhere.

Oh, the total our total budget this year is about 25.6 million. The point might be one off of something, but it's 20. It's just north of 25 and a half this year. And you say 48% of that was from the state. Yes. Now 48% of that is from the state um three from the feds. So our local governments carry a statutory match requirement for our funding but our localities have always exceeded that and that's never been a question.

Um you know someday state blows up and gives us a ton of money and you know and we'll talk about that or something but right now we're we're nowhere near that. We're nowhere near that. Um I I won't go through all of these services. Um the services that are on your screen in blue are services that we have been providing for for many years. The ones in red are these that are more recently uh added by by Colonial. Um we did and start picking up a couple years ago now mobile crisis services which is not just your emergency services to go to the emer to the uh emergency room those sort of things but it's actually it can respond to a home it can respond to a school that can respond where the crisis is taking place and the goal of that is to intervene with a a situation before a person gets into actual crisis um so that we we avoid those things like you know police cards and hospitalizations respond to that.

Uh we have staff mast's level staff or licensed staff that will respond to that. That is a dispatchbased service. Uh is not one that um the way the service is set up statewide. It's not one that people just call colonial. If somebody calls us to come out, we still have to call somebody else to get dispatched. So they have to dispatch. Okay. The community is still figuring out how to use that. I mean, you you've needed something for a long time and then you get it, it's like, okay, now how do we work through the idea of how do we how do we learn when to use it, not to use it, that sort of thing.

So, that's where we are. The utilization is going up. It started really really slow, but it's it's not fully utilized yet. C can you can you share like a real world boots on the ground example of ser one of these services that that you've you've helped out York County resident not names but just so people kind of wrap their heads around what these services mean in in the in the real world for example I give you for example I could not remember off the top of my head where they live no

um um don't don't know that I could do that we have we have individuals uh families who reach out to us. I I'll give you two examples. Families that that reach out to us because they have a a child who they are having extreme issues with at home. Behavioral health challenges. Um maybe it's substance use. Maybe there's actually some some physical abuse going on in the home. An older sibling. Um beating up on and being violent toward parents or a younger sibling or that sort of thing. We get involved in those cases regularly. Often times those situations do end up involving social services because you know because of you know we're mandated reporters and those sort of things when when that sort of thing occurs. But but often when it's working the way we hope it will work, we get called before it gets to that point and we're able to intervene, begin providing some counseling services. Sometimes it's medication, sometimes it's family care, any number of number of options that every situation is going to be a little different. Another situation that's dramatically different is we have a number of individuals uh with intellectual and developmental disabilities that we you know we provide services. We have two four bed group homes for adults for with with ID. Um both of those are in are in York County. Um, so they're currently residents of York County. They may not have been at the beginning. Uh, there and there we're providing 247 care. We provide, we are their home. We are not their family, but we we are their home and their their 247 caregivers. We also operate a day services program. They're on Marramac

Trail where we have uh we're providing uh day services, life skill training services. even they will go out and do volunteer work at the humane society or different places that were actually providing meaningful activity and group activity and socialization and those sort of things. It's a wide range of things and and those are good examples because there could be people listening right now who are in the situations as you described and not realize that your team offers a relief valve to that and you may solicit a phone call that you may not have otherwise gotten and people don't realize that there's a option here for help. So that's what I wanted to do. I hope so. I hope so. So some someone's listening and they make that phone call.

Make that phone call. You're there to help. So 2203200 There you go. Thanks. Sure. Thank you. Um, so I'll I'll I'll keep us moving. I I referenced a couple of these services already up here. Um, we do have a couple of large contracts that we contract out. What's DD stand for? DD is developmental disability. Okay.

Um, and MH would be mental health. Uh you all know CDR, Child Development Resources, and the other acronym there, the the regional jail, VPRJ. Uh our we do contract um the funding for part C services uh in our in our area comes to Colonial. We contract those directly with Child Development Resources. And that's a that's an arrangement that's been going on for probably 50 years as well,

for a long long time. um one that we wouldn't dream of messing with. Um so some of the efforts that we're currently working with um we are we are among the communities that are that have had to develop and implement or not implement but submit a Marcus alert plan which is a Marcus Alert is a co-response model for mental health and and law enforcement that there's protocols involved around when law enforcement is the one who must go. Sometimes maybe mental health is the you the preferred responder. Sometimes it's a often it's going to be a joint response, but there's protocols statewide for that. It's based upon state legislation. Um uh two of our localities are not mandated to do that because they have populations under 40,000. York and and James City are in that.

Sorry, say again what two. Uh Picosen and Williamsburg are not required because because they're smaller population.

All right. Um, so the Williamsburg House of Mercy lost um lost their permanent supportive housing program. One of the things that that the state provided us with was some funding to pick up some of the um support for individuals that might have had a serious mental illness who qualified for our our support there. And then uh the Historic Triangle Drug Prevention Coalition, we were one of the founding groups for that. We are not the founding group uh for that, but we're we're one of the one of the core agencies there. A lot of efforts through that that I'm sure you've been invited to many many um many events for. And then just recently um the trauma sensitive schools conference. We were looking and inviting uh representatives from all of the school systems that we work with around um uh York County was the only one they're sending to to that. We we got the funding to support

school personnel to to attend that conference. So, we're we're very glad that someone in our area chose to do that. It's your county. So, with the Historic Triangle Drug Prevention Coalition, you all have gotten this update from the sheriff's department, I'm sure. So, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but since 2020, the the coalition has worked with our localities, law enforcement to uh all the drug takebacks. Uh the coalition's role in that is to disseminate bags. I I would I was pleased when I was looking through the the reference that York County has far and away collected more discarded medications and returned those safely than any other other localities that we serve. Um some localities haven't participated every year but only has and

return to whom?

Uh return to safe disposal. So, if you like pizza and you've been to Joe and Mima's or Andreas, you may have seen these boxes in the in in May and in September. Uh, so I don't know how many thousands have been in in some of the uh some of the restaurants we've worked with in different localities. We know that over the years there have been as many as seven and 8,000 of these boxes that have been given out with the 988 crisis line information shared there. our information and then the lock and talk lock and talk program is around gun safety in the homes. Um it's around those.

Do you have a suicide prevention program? I'm sorry. You have a suicide prevention program. Uh we like to think that hopefully everything we do is a suicide prevention program, but but we as far as a specific suicide prevention program, I don't know that we have anything labeled that. Well, people I mean, you know, people call in, you know, that are that are in having a crisis that those those are our emergency services, the mobile crisis services we mentioned. Um and I'll and 988 is the national That's what I suicide prevention ask is a 988. So well called 988.

It's national. I have a better reason than that. Well, it is crisis. I mean it's suicide. It's I got somebody with a drug overdose to call them. What do I call the cops? You know, the medics or the medics? I mean,

that would be the first call. Well, I mean, you know, it's like, okay, so my my point in this is that, you know, you you when uh Mr. Ran over there ask you some examples of what you do. Um, that's still a kind of a big cloudy area. You're like in a little bit of everything. Okay. But I know but specifically, I mean, you got 20 what? $22 million and so what are you spending $22 million on in the service to not only us but to everybody else? what 45.6

45.6 I kind of a millionear millionaire you know. So I mean so my what I'm asking is you know this is an opportunity to be very kind of specific because we're not dealing at least most of the board is not dealing very you know dealing with you on a daily basis. We you know over the decades we've heard of colonial you know behavioral health. Okay but the specifics of what you do is what's important and um so I'm trying to understand that not just have a big cloudy

big cloudy area up here called you know colonial health. So that's why I'm asking about suicide prevention, drug prevention. Uh you know, you do an inter inner interaction with maybe parents with a kid. Do they call, the kids call? Do the cops call you? Who calls the kid? I mean, the parents who calls you to get help or or are you actually that point where you end up with just somebody else is dealing with it on a um on a social services basis, then you get referred to for something else related to it. We get called by everybody. We We'll have families call. We'll have the individuals call. We'll have probation and parole call. We'll have the jail when someone's being discharged from the hospital. Somebody that's in the emergency room. We have um social services call. We might have the health department call. We will have family members call, neighbors call, schools call.

Okay. But look look here's here's what okay

most people especially folks that have been involved when in some sort of crisis can understand a benefit of a service that's being provided. Okay. Um on a general level when we hear colonial behavioral health you know most citizens have no clue what that's about because they're not involved in that kind of situation. Okay. So, what I'm trying to what I'm trying to get out of your briefing here is that you're providing us some facts and data and stuff like that, but I want to know some boots on the ground kind of stuff. So, we know the people here, you're on, you know, can the board, the staff, the people that you, you know, working with you exactly the value that we're getting out of behavioral health. I mean, just tell me you got 800 people on there. Well, if I look at that, you got $22 million and we're only 20% of what you got. Either we got some folks that are really getting a lot of

technology. Okay. Anyway, the idea is that I want to get a I want to get uh some specifics on what you're doing for the community. So, I'm not going to not Nope. I'm not looking for you to answer the question. This gentleman here is going to answer the question. Can I throw one out at you? How many calls a month or a week or how do you guys track that? That's what I was going to get to.

We We have a number of places that that gets tracked, whether it be a front desk or emergency services, a lot of different ways there's call in. I I did not bring that level of specificity. I did not bring that level of data with me tonight. Um that is something that I would be happy to go back and get and get back to you all but I I did not come in right prepared for any indication is it 500 is it a,000 is it 2500 I mean any I wouldn't want to speculate

and times question is important too because as you might imagine as we go about our normal business you know we interact with a lot of people in the community and we may get we may hear something go hey you know what I know who can help you call 220 whatever than Colon Bay Health. So we have again if we have specifics we can equate that to because I can't you look you're you're DD or your MH or your CDR you know again specifics will help us help our community by pointing them towards you and I'm I'm assuming that you guys probably get engaged by our 911 center as well. So they as they get calls and they say you need to talk to they'll get you engaged. Okay.

Yes. So, how would they engage you? That's that's sort of the kind of the critical part of this that most of the citizens will call the hospital or call 911. Okay? We 911, a wreck. Uh they're hesitant to call 911 a lot of times and they'll try to figure out how to get a a non-emergency number or they'll see a policeman or deputy and we'll have some engagement. That's it. But do they call you? You say you're getting calls from everybody, but then what are the kind of things that you're getting called for that kind of go back into the community? A 911 center says, "Okay, look, we got a person here that Okay, I'll give a great example. I'm driving down Jefferson um in the middle of the day and here's this guy in the middle street. He's standing just kind of, you know, you can see he's really freaking out. Everybody's people are trying to drive around him and every finally enough of us stop and the cops come running up there because he's in the middle of the street,

right? Okay. Would you get involved in something like that? Yes.

Okay. How what would you do? Well, what generally is going to happen in the scenario you just gave is that law enforcement officer will will come up to that individual that in that law enforcement officer very likely from any of our jurisdictions will have gone through what we call crisis intervention team training, CIT training, which is a which is an international evidence-based model providing 40 hours of training to law enforcement, probation and parole, jail personnel, whatever around how to recognize and to interface and intervene with individuals they'll encounter with substance use, mental health, maybe autism, any number any number of issues. And how to make sure that they help that person get what they need without escalating the situation into higher stress and higher, you know, propensity for violence or acting out or whatever that might be. Part of that training is that those officers are they get a full day of training on just what are the resources in the community for that to occur.

I'm not I'm not concerned about the police officers. Okay. I'm concerned about what your people are doing. But but that's how they get to us. The question was how how do they get to us? The question in that case is because there's been a tremendous amount of investment in in those law enforcement officers and any other number of folks. They know they know who to call. They call us, we will sometimes they the individual will be transported directly to us to our office. Sometimes we may meet them in them at your office. Sure. Okay. All right. We we can we can meet at the emergency room depending on what the what the officer may deem to be the level of need at that point. Sometimes they will call us and we'll talk through it and we'll make a joint decision.

So it sounds to me like your organization is what I would classify as a second tier response. In other words, first response would be the media crisis that you get. So, whoever is doing that, legal, whatever, and then you're you're taking it another level for of support that people would be involved with. I mean, if we have a child running naked, butt naked in the throughout the neighborhood at 3:00 in the morning, and oh, by the way, you know, that happens because we've had our deputies tell us about it. And then social services get involved. Do you get involved with that social services like and things like that?

In some cases we do and in some cases that whatever's going on may be a narrow definition of of a social services issue, but there are times that those are narrow definitions that it's just us. But we're we're describing some of the more extreme examples. Um, you may have five or six cases like that in a month, but the hundreds hundreds of other cases we deal with are families who are stressed, individuals who are struggling, individuals who are depressed, people who are having hallucinations, people. When you say a stressed family, what do you mean? What's a stress family?

There's something going on in there. Maybe maybe they had a family member that attempted suicide. Okay, maybe they had a family member that completed suicide. Maybe they're dealing with some traumas from their childhood from years and years ago and that person is struggling and it's affecting the entire family and the entire when when an individual in a family gets affected like that, it does affect the entire family. Do you provide if they people don't have food, do you help them get food? We have case managers that can help people get the get what they need. Link them link and monitor to people what they need. We don't we don't provide the food itself,

right? I mean, if you you know what is it Peninsula Food Bank? You would like you guide people to to that? How they need food? People are not eating heat, electricity, you do anything like that to help them or guide them to folks. We guide them. We guide them to those to those resources. So my one of the questions I would have is and I need to understand this how do people get to you that are that have this what I call a second tier because somebody in the community goes hey we got a problem you know they'll either come up to a you could come up to one of the supervisors and go we got a problem

so you know we would call the county the county then would probably know who to call and maybe your office for some help okay so that's kind of what I mean by second tier it's important but it's you're not on the lips of everybody in you know the in the county that want to call you know clonal behavioral health 911 kind of number. So I mean that's I just so it helps us understand

and that would be an insightful data point when you're looking up Wayne's query on call volume. The percentage of those calls that come from public private organizations like hospitals, social services, police department, courts versus families or individuals that call you directly because that would give you insight on how well your services are known in the community versus those that get get referred to. And you and I would imagine you want a greater percentage of people knowing to call you directly and getting engaged before social services or the police department get get involved. That's where you you want to get to. So that would be insightful if you could break break that down to see where your calls are coming from. Um, one one of the things that we notice about our field, you know, we have done, you know, quarter page, half page, full page ads and like nextdoor neighbor magazines and and all of those things that go on and people flip right by them because they're not looking for us,

right? Um, and they they'll go for what it is they're what it is they're looking for. So, there's more publicity out there than than people pay attention to. People don't often. I know I don't. If I was I don't look through newspapers anymore, but when I did, um I could skip past the full page color ad. Y um if I if I wasn't interested in what was there, I just go right past it and I have no idea what it is. I just flip past. Right. Um and that's always that's often the case with behavioral health services as well. Until it affects you, until it affects somebody that that you know and it affects your life, you don't pay attention to it. Right. Right. And and that's when you want to catch people. I'm going to interrupt here and let David take this.

Yes, that's I'll start a brainstorm here. We can go on forever. So, yes, part of it is it's fun for me, too. So, let's um but we'll we'll keep going. Um but save your time. We'll have questions at the end. I'll allow that.

Okay. Okay. Um I I will note that um we've done some restructuring of our front door. We've done some re reworking of of how we're approaching things. So, the number of people we're serving at at our front door this year is is on pace to double. We're really making some major changes and have made some major changes and we're on a on a significant track to increase those services. I will say that the numbers that we have had over these years, the numbers might have been going up and down, but the complexity of the services and the the clinical difficulties associated with the folks that are coming in the door are are more challenging today than they were five years ago. They they just are people are dealing with more things. They're approaching they're approaching us with more things that have been there. believe that they probably been there all along. Um but they're they're coming it people are feel are safer feel safer talking about them these days. Um so I'll just so our current challenges uh I'm sure you've never heard anybody having workforce challenges before. Um so surprise you and say we we have had work we have and do still have workforce challenges. Um what you what's your biggest type of job?

Uh there's actually two different two different ones. Um one is our licensed professionals, licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers, sort of the more higher credentialed folks. And then it's what we call our direct support professionals. It's the folks who provide overnight care in the group homes, people who work, you know, second shift, third shift, some of the some of the the lower level salaried positions. So it's really on both end both ends of the scale. Where where are you competing for those resources? I'm sorry. Who who you who are you competing with for those resources against your question?

There there are there are dozens there are dozens of providers out there that that need licensed staff. I mean there's Eastern State Hospital, the other inpatient programs, lots of private providers. Increasingly insuranceances and Medicaid and all of those require licensed positions to do much of anything. So they be they get much more in demand. So you know salaries and all that with direct support professionals you know we're competing with assisted living facilities and nursing homes and home health agencies and what what I thought. Okay. Yeah. Um I I don't need to explain federal uncertainties are what they are these days and the state's not much better um these days. Um I would say one of the challenges we're having is uh access to state hospital beds. While we do have Eastern State Hospital right here in our in our general area, uh it is very difficult to get people into that hospital. Um when we need to take someone somewhere, very often they're heading to Marian, they're heading to Northern Virginia, they're headed to Stanton

because Eastern State Hospital is primarily filled up with um what they call the forensic population. Uh individuals who are coming out of jails or certain types of court orders and that sort of thing. So, one of the reasons we need to try to get more of those services locally is to hopefully cut down on the number of times that your law enforcement are transporting people across the state

and then very possibly having to go back and pick them up later. Um, and then Virginia's redesigning uh behavioral health services that are funded by Medicaid, although it appears that's going to be delayed for a year from General Assembly actions. Um our current projects uh Marcus Alert we've already mentioned we are we are working diligently on a service model where we can integrate with a single front door uh your primary care services your behavioral health services and dental services in one front door one waiting room and something that we're excited about um that could be a uh significant boost for our system is the CCBHC model uh certified community behavioral health clinic. It's a federal model that uh is a mirror image of the federally qualified health centers out there. It's just on the behavioral health side of things. Uh we are working diligently to trying to get Virginia enrolled in in that national that national program in the over the next several months coming later this year. Our new crisis services center which we're referring to as the center for support and wellness. Um fully funded by Governor Yncan the right help right now initiative. And what you see there is the artist's rendering of of that. It is um the exterior sheathing is going onto that building right now. And we um we expect by the end of the month uh we've learned today by the end of the month we expect that maybe some of the brick start.

This is where we did the groundbreaking right out there. Yes. This was the groundbreaking what last year. Yes. In September. September 10th of last year. Yeah. So that the go the the goal is next year to to do the same thing. And there we will have you know residential beds 2 to 10 day 23-hour crisis stabilization chairs recliners not beds and then our CIT assessment center will be able to actually transfer custody from law enforcement during an evaluation. Eastern Eastern is right there is

Eastern's right there. But we're hoping to divert people from divert people from having to go there. Yeah. Okay. We're also seeking uh in the next little while, say this is in months, but um supported employment services for individuals with uh mental disabilities to be able to help folks get back into the workforce in a supported way. We have a day program called psychosocial rehabilitation model for adults with serious mental illness. revising that the partnership for integrated care and demarcus alert which I've mentioned a couple of times already. There's a lot more we do but we'll we'll we'll shut it down there. Always available for questions. Um and I'll take whatever whatever questions you employ just over 200

200 employees. Okay. And there mo are they how many of those 200 are I guess what you call certified professionals? Well, whoever has certification like psychiatrists and psychologists and whoever I mean you have a staff of these people.

We have psychiatrists, we have uh nurse practitioners, we have nurses, we have licensed clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors. I do not remember off the top of my head how many of each of those we have. Um and then there are certified substance abuse counselors. There are certified pre-screeners in the emergency services world. There's uh um qualified mental health professionals, qualified DD prof I mean there's

you have 200 people. Are they do they go to this are they at the center? They're located um we have a number that are in our York Mosen office which is down here in Hartwood Way. We have our psychosocial program which is in the Bush Industrial Park off Warick Court. We have three buildings side by side on Marramac Trail.

We have a children's services building up on Capitol Landing Road in the city of Williamsburg. My office and the office of our directors, our HR office is um it's in Mclaw Circle. We're leasing a space there in in James City County. The two group homes, four bed group homes are in York County. Our CIT assessment center is located at Riverside Doctor's Hospital. What's that? That's that crisis intervention team. Um it's a dropoff center where law enforcement can bring can bring folks trans. They have people there then that'll assess the situation. Yes. Determine the next step. Yes. That's at Riverside.

That's Doctor's Hospital. Yes. We do have a staff person embedded um for help assisting with discharge planning at PPRJ at the jail and then one one staff person embedded at the Marramac detention center.

I remember 25 years ago that one of the first problems we had was state was cutting money and uh they they went for your program. I think there was something up in Gloucester. you had some some extension program. And I'll never forget that because what the the sense to me was that uh no one understood colonial behavioral health. They didn't understand it because if they understood it, you get more funding. It'd be instead of 26 million, it probably end up with 40 probably 40 million because you don't have places to put people that need it. You know, they used to you have to you you'd stop them and you would haul them down to the jail. the worst place you can put somebody that's having a mental health crisis. So, you're doing a really important job. That's why I've been asking kind of tough questions because I want the public to really understand the value what you bring to the community. It I just remember that that was the first thing and I saw it. I'm going holy mackerel. They cutting that cutting the service is something really important because the state felt that it was important.

Well, if you all in the county, Mr. Bellamy think that us holding a community forum folks to to really advertise this and invite the public after that we will be happy to do that. We'll have a series of them. I mean

I'm not I'm not I'm not saying it's the public. That's I mean I don't I don't think the public could grasp what you do. All right. Because it's so diversified and so many things. But what it is is that we understand because we we have budgets. Everybody has budgets. You got to get money from someplace. But it's the people that that you know when I said your second tier it's the it's the primary the pro you know first responders that have to deal with these crisis and situations with a immediate you know action and then you come in and kind of help clean it up long because you're not talking shortterm stuff here. I mean somebody's got a mental health problem. It's not short term. It's going to be it's going to be a long haul. And that's where the that's where the value comes in. Anyway,

I'm just going to say it's it's always good to see you and thank you very much. It is a complicated situation, but I think the more we talk about it, the more people will understand really what it is, but more importantly know that there are resources out there for them. Yes. Thank you. And if there's anything that, you know, the county believes we can do to better do outreach, we're happy to happy to partner with you to do it. Thank you. happy to do that.

David, thanks for that u presentation. Um I know a lot of people that deal with this appreciate your services and I'm agree with Tom. I think a lot of people don't know because they don't have to deal with it. If you don't have a mental ill child or a relative, you don't get involved in this. It's like if you don't have a boat, you don't go out in the water unless somebody invites you to go, right? Um, so I do appreciate that. I would just ask that the information that you'll try to gather for us, if you could kind of break down like in subject order, like how many types of suicide calls or drug abuse calls. Um, and also I'm I'm really intrigued about the front door numbers. You said they doubled. I'd like to see that.

They're they're on pace to double this year. Yes, I'd like to see those numbers so we can keep track of that and see what kind of success we're we're getting and uh that helps us support the cause. So, thank you. Thank you.

Just test the outreach um conversation. You I think you would have a tough time getting an audience together if you say, "Hey, Colonial Bay would held us having a public forum." I think a lot of people because they wouldn't tune into that. Um but you know we reach out to our local communities through newsletters and so forth. So any input you can give us again some real world examples. Hey, if you're having a problem in this area, um here's a resource for you. And and Mark, maybe like for things like the um what the quarterly or banual HOA means. You can say,

hey, you know, this thing called the colonial health, you know, tell your tell your HOA residents about about some of their sur. So just spitballs out. Yeah. So that's it. We have done that in other localities. Ye it's been years now that we've done that. We've done it with some neighborhood associations different localities. Some ideas. Yeah, I'm good. You've asked yourself out already.

Well, I've got a couple follow-up questions. First of all, I want to comment and it goes back to when I was campaigning. The number of times that mental health capabilities or uh resources was mentioned to me as I walked door to door and talk to people. It was astounding. That was the one takeaway I had. I just didn't expect that. It it it you know, every weekend I'd be out there and knock on doors. I didn't come away a single weekend without having heard that comment. So, it was it was it was far more frequent than I realized.

And related to that, every um group I serve with the York County Youth Commission, youth mental health is always a topic. Always a topic. So, it it's there too. Another potential outreach coming out of COVID years, it was even more. Yes.

Funding. Um, you know, I I come back to most residents will not understand why it is that local government needs to help fund you. They think of hospitals like uh Cantara or Riverside, well that's funded by the state. Why are you asking for money from the residents? And I didn't really hear a good answer to that, but I think a lot of people have that question at the back of their mind. Why Why is your county involved in in funding requests for CBH? Could you could you speak to that comment just for a moment or two?

We're the agency that can't say no. Um, a few years ago when workforce challenges hit the Commonwealth of Virginia, it was announced by the commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services that uh we don't have enough staff. We're closing beds. We won't accept anybody. The state hospital system has always been the safety net for the community. Things got so bad and you had somewhere you had to go. It was always the state hospital. In that moment, it flipped because who was left that could not say no? It was the community services board. Um, we are the ones that in other cases, other providers when most of them aren't taking individuals without Medicaid, they're not taking people without insurance. And when those cases get really difficult and really tough, they need to refer them on. The neighbor who's also in the same business isn't going to take them.

They send them to us. So do you. to one of the reasons that our our our situation is getting more complex. The situations we deal with are more complex. We are the safety net. We're the public safety net for individuals with mental health, substance use disorder, and developmental, intellectual disability challenges. Um if if we're not there, I don't know what communities do. They'll have to create something else. So, I had one other tough question. It's FQC. Okay. Federally qualified health center. Yes. We already have at least a lookalike with Oldtown Medical, right?

And and there's some question as to is there more than one in a community? And and I had understood that there there's normally only one per community. So how how do you manage that split? How do you manage going forward having that capability when it's already present? Well, Oldtown is not a federally qualified health center. They're a lookalike. They're they're a rural health center. They're not a lookalike. Um that they have never yet filled out the application to become a lookalike. Um so disagree with you. That answers your question. Thank you.

And the the reality is there is a there is a federally qualified health center that when they were formed years ago, their federal area that they were authorized to go into included um the Kosen, York County, James City County, and the city of Williamsburg up to just north of Eastern State Hospital. that provider has never put a location in that area, but they are authorized by the uh health resources, health research services in HRA um to to do so. Okay.

What we're looking at is them just simply exercising what they have not done. They've got for 14 or 17 locations around Hampton Roads. They've just never come up here yet. In doing so, they're they're simply doing what they've been authorized to do all along, but they would be at that point the only federally qualified health center in the community. Understood. Okay. And my last question is uh for the audience, it's uh to April and Bruce and Amber, our three board representatives. Is there anything we need to be doing to help you? So, keep smiling. We're there for you. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate you coming and presenting to us today, David. Thank you. Very informative.

I'll move on. We have an equally uh interesting topic coming up next. Update on the towing advisory board enactment. I'll call on uh Captain Jason Houston and Sheree Constanu, our assistant county attorney, to give the presentation. Good evening, madam and gentlemen. Good evening.

We are happy to be here with you this evening and we promise to be just as riveting as Colonial Behavioral Health, if not more. Um, as you all will recall, uh, some months ago, York County for the first time enacted a towing board regime, an ordinance coming into, um, community with other localities across the state who sought to set up programs whereby when a citizen is has a vehicle that is subjected to a tow and they are not able to choose towing services in the necessary moment, they can be assured that everybody who gets towed in that situation and is responsible for the cost is going to be treated the same way. to that effect. Um the board, the advisory board led very very well by uh Captain Houston um created a scheme whereby they came up with very detailed menu of services, rates, procedures, all of which were weighed in on by a group that consisted of members of the towing community, members of law enforcement community, and an atlarge member. uh this board asked that once the uh activities got underway and the ordinance had been in use for a little while that we come back and report to you and let you know how things are going and and what things would we would be seeing for the future. I can report to you that under the very um diligent administration of your sheriff's office, we now have a 16 company roster of firms that are authorized to participate and provide police requested towing services in the county.

Both heavy and light.

Yes, sir. It's combination number and that includes 10 entities in the upper county and six entities in the lower county. On average, they are fielding roughly 75 calls per month. They were doing before, they're just doing it now in an organized, orderly, and and very uniform fashion. Um they have found since they started working now that um any hiccups have been largely minor. They have been resolved with education and instruction. The towing advisory board is set up in addition to advising this board to be ready to field formal complaints that work their way through the system. They have not had to do so yet. There has been only one complaint made and that was resolved at the first tier of resolution which is in the sheriff's office and frankly that was simply an error. Um there was a deputy who did not follow the protocol and called for two toes when they should have called for one. That was rescended. Um and uh the bill was taken care of and everyone moved on. Education was put into place and I don't think it's going to happen again. Captain Houston and his staff advise us that there are um approximately six companies awaiting their first annual inspection. Once once tow companies are admitted to the list on a rolling basis, the sheriff's office will stop by their yard, inspect their premises, check on their t on their trucks, make sure that they are in compliance with all applicable standards. There are about six that have left to be expect to be inspected and and that process is moving along well. The biggest challenge that we have seen is getting a sufficient not a sufficient number because they're able to answer all the calls, but they would

like to see a larger number of companies in the lower county. Oh, as I mentioned, there are 10 uh in the upper and six in the lower. The biggest challenge that they have is space because they have to have the appropriate lot to take the vehicles to and and let it sit. Um, anecdotally, the sheriff's office tells me that um the word on the street is that it's too hard to get a special use permit. I'm going to tell you as council to the planning commission, I haven't seen a single application since I've been here. So I, you know,

that may be a perception, but I haven't seen it play out in reality. I have not seen a single company apply for a special use permit to have a tow storage lot and be apply, let alone be told no. Um, you saying fake news or something? Is that what you're saying? Never, sir. Never. Never. Never, sir. Um there is I believe Captain you let us know that there was one company that's attempting to get a a spot some real estate in the lower end.

There was a company that was previously on the list and the business they were using was sold to another company and therefore they lost their permission to use that lot and it was already an established special use permit. So they've been unable to find another location that was deemed permitted to be able to res resume those operations. So they had to they had to resign from the list. So to be on the list, you have to uh basically you have to have a place to tow the car, tow the the vehicle in the area in your county. When are you serving that you're serving? Okay, that's what I was going to ask. So the requirement that the impound lights reside in your county or the city of Posa. Well, city procession. Okay.

For the lower end. Okay. Yes. And could it include James City or York for the upper end because you don't want the folks to have to go further than necessary. Okay. Right. You don't want somebody towed to Spsylvania County.

Exactly. Exactly. Um there have been a couple instances where uh the sheriff's office was not satisfied with the actual bills. Some of the charges looked a little excessive. They dealt with it directly with the tow companies. Fees were adjusted. No more was heard. So, all in all, I think they're off to a really good start. The advisory board um will be asking in a few months to come before you uh in a more formal fashion. They would like they're very very generally happy with the ordinance that they helped produce.

Now that they've lived with it, they would like to tweak just a couple things. They would like to tweak a definition. Some of the equipment standards that they used, they have come to discover were maybe not necessary. Um they did a lot of reading. We as a group did a lot of reading of what other places are doing, have been doing for many years. And so they've made want to make some minor adjustments about uh tonnage on some of the trucks, cleaning up the classes a little bit. Nothing that really impedes or or is critical for day-to-day operation. So at the appropriate time with leave of of the board, they will come before you asking to tweak the ordinance just a little bit. We couldn't do that in a consent calendar,

right? We would welcome that suggestion and could prepare a memo and get that together for you. Not sure that we need to sit through the details of the or Well, if we're amending an ordinance though, we would need to. That would be the nice That'd be the trigger. Yep. Okay. I had to get that out real quick before my boss started shooting darts at me. It's an ordinance. I understand. But but it would be the ordinance. If it if it were something else, we That would be great. But make it painless. That's all we're asking. We will do our best and Captain and I both are here if you have other questions. I don't have any questions. I'm glad that it's working. Nobody's fighting each other. No, ma'am.

That's good. So, um, I like the fact that you guys are checking, you know, the the fees and so forth because I think that was probably one of my concerns up front is are these going to be fair and are you getting complaints from the people being towed that they're too excessive? Are you getting any of those blank?

No, we're not. And uh my direction to the full-time staff that are working on this and doing this was they randomly audit by pulling the tow sheets because every vehicle gets a tow sheet. So they randomly go through and pull four or five tow sheets each month. Then they contact that tow and say, "Send me your receipt." They compare the prices and then they look at body camera and dash camera from the cars to see if everything looks legit. So, okay, that's how we're doing the the standard to make sure that everything is fair, firm, and consistent. Good. Good. Thank you.

Couple questions. The the um the participants, 16 participants, since you've been operating for a while, what's been the feedback from them as the actual people there making the toes and working with the advisory board? Are they are they pretty satisfied with

the few that I've talked to directly? They're happy because they are making more money consistently than what they were before. There was no set standard before for the minimum pricing. Uh identical toes could range from $200 to $500 depending on the company. So I think they like the fair, firm, and consistent pricing. They know exactly what they can charge, what they're going to get for each toe, and there's no gray area in it. though and we haven't again had any complaints from any citizens complaining about the cost or believing it's outrageous and I I frequently got calls from insurance companies before about the prices. Okay. And second question, the the advisory board, how do they evaluate their success annually? I mean, they may not got to that point yet, but I would imagine they they're going to want to get together and say, "All right, over the past 12 months, have we been successful? What areas are there for improvement? I mean that's a basic question I think any board should be asking themselves and but in this case you what would that you know have they done it yet or they plan on doing it? What were they look what were their

I don't believe there has been any discussion on that topic. They just are about a year and a half in. They have as a group drafted an ordinance what is it I think 12 pages of code they wrote as a group for your consideration from scratch. Um they have gone from meeting at least once a month occasionally twice a month to setting up a regular quarterly schedule. Um, and they are all volunteer appointees, right, who serve various terms. In fact, one of them at least I think is coming off in just a few months and will need to be um

replaced and so no I I I don't think that they have had a formal I know that they have all given their best effort and been extremely diligent and com and and uh if I had a resident come to me and say hey is that that tone advisory board is that successful I would go yeah they go well how so like well they've only had one complaint so sounds pretty good well right I would say the proof is in the pudding because 75 calls a month are getting served. Folks are not fighting over bills, calling the sheriff's office asking why do I have to pay this much? Why did my neighbor get charged $200 and I got charged $900. Um there's an orderly system

better than dominoes. They got to be there in half an hour and and they are unless it's a heavy duty, you know, which is a major accident accident anyway and that and that's going to be different. So, I think the proof is probably in the pudding and and would commend these volunteer servants of the community who have put together the ordinance from scratch. Okay. And the scope is motor vehicles on statemaintained highways. Does a county get involved in towing boats? people get an accident if it's involved in an accident or disabled on the highway impeding the flow of traffic or it's a product of a crime or a criminal investigation.

All right. So So on private property, no illegal parks, no repossessions, no abandoned vehicles in shopping centers, none of that. It's got to be on a statemaintained highway or person it to a criminal investigation. Okay. I I was just thinking violations on the waterways, criminal activity on the waterways, and the boat gets impounded. Somebody's got to tow it somewhere right now. That would be VMRC. That's all VMRC. That's what I was wondering if we we're probably involved in the investigation, but it be VMRC to handle. All right. Thank you.

And I would say another measure uh of what we did and how it's performing is we have other jurisdictions reaching out to us now wanting a copy of our ordinance. So, other jurisdictions are hearing about it and reaching out and um I've had I had a phone call last week from another law enforcement agency wanting to see what we wrote and what we did and they're considering doing the same thing. Okay. All right. So, we can see Yeah. You you tell them what what the cost was. Yeah. Say we can do a consult. I didn't I didn't tell them there was a copyright. It's not free. I think that's great. Invitation is the highest form of flattery. So, I'd be happy if they like it. That's good. they need it.

I was kind of curious about uh when we were going through this process of getting through the ordinance. Um, we had uh there was this discussion about heavy uh equipment, be able to move heavy equipment and there was I remember one of the folks that had a personal gripe here about that he had the only equipment that was going to be able to use for heavy equipment. And so how do we how does that how did that resolve itself in terms of you know it's pretty expensive equipment for the the big trucks to haul the semis and stuff like that?

Yes sir. So um that basically resolved itself because we have an upper end and a lower end of the county. We have the lower end list and the upper end list. Um, the lower-end list already had large records on it that have been servicing that area for at least three decades without a problem. That company is located in Newber basically right on Jay Clyde Morris at Jefferson Avenue, they can be to the lower end of the county in, you know, 10 to 15 minutes. So, when the heavy duty list says you have to be on scene with one hour or less, there was no issues with them being on there. The other thing was the company that wanted to be basically the sole proprietor in York County, we would then only uh relying on them. So when we call them and they have to be on scene in 1 hour or less and they can't be there in 1 hour or less, now we're potentially have a dump truck flipped over at Victory in 17 and we're standing there waiting. So we didn't believe that was a good thing to only have one company to only rely on one company uh because they could have equipment failure. they could have a driver that was out sick and they could be short-handed, whatever was going on. So, we wanted to make sure we had multiple large record companies. And since we had had a company that had cons continued to serve for three decades at least without fail and it hadn't been a problem, we continued to have a large record company on the lower end and one on the upper end. The company you're speaking of is actually for the whole county. He is on both lists. So, he's on upper and lower as well. But it's but it it was for the community. We have adequate equipment to do what we need. Okay. Super. Thank you. And

the only other question that we had at the time was on any disagreements or anybody that would be put on warning. It sounds like that whole system has not had to been uh we've not had to use that. That's right. That's good news. Thank you because that was painful. Great job. I I want to thank I want to thank both uh Captain Houston and Miss Constanu, but I also want to thank the advisory board. Uh they've done a great job and it's good to hear that they have suggestions and tweaks coming forward. I was looking forward to that. It just says it's healthy and working. Yes, sir. They were grateful for the opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening.

All right. Next up, we have uh consent calendar. Item number three was approval of the minutes from January 20th. Item four was appropriation for uh fiscal year 26 emergency shelter upgrade assistance fund grant. Item number five was authority refund real estate taxes for disabled veterans. Number six was employee of the quarter uh accommodation. Number seven was authorized economic development incentive with York County EA uh and Publix. Is there any item here that that uh member would like to pull or discuss? I got a quick question about number seven, please.

Okay. Number seven was the authorizing the EDA. All right. So, so, so we're in a we're in a good spot with what we're going to do here and that we'll always come out of come out ahead the way it's set up. Um, and incentive to get new business in the county, new employer, a new employer in the county. I think what did they tell us last time we talked how many hundreds of jobs they they anticipate generating?

100 to 120 jobs. I thought it was it was a three figure in my head. Um my question is it talks about net local taxes. So that includes real estate and sales. Real estate sales uh meals, beverage, uh machinery tools, beam pull, and business personal product. So we're going to easily meet meet those those performance targets. Okay, that's that's my question. All right. Thank you. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. Any other questions from the board? Fantastic. Thank you. Hearing none, I'll ask for a motion to approve. Move. Second. Roll call.

Motion made by Mr. Sheepard is to approve the consent calendar as submitted. Mrs. Null. Yes. Mr. Dr. Yes. Mr. R. Yes. Mr. Sheepard. Yes. Mr. Holo. Yes.

Motion carried. Before we get to open discussion, I just uh ask if our county attorney has any updates that you would like to give. Um I'm not particularly I mean I can I can I guess the one big issue I would note is um the Senate Bill 454 uh which we've discussed numerous times. This is the legislation that uh would require the it would basically override local zoning with respect to 50% of business and commercially zoned property and allow uh multifamily to be placed by right. Um that is the that bill is now the one out of the four that we were looking at earlier in the year. Two that would have put specific targets in place and given the board of zoning appeals a lot of more power. Those two bills the house and the senate version have have for lack for in in simplistic terms have basically gone away. uh the Senate and House bills that address the topics that are in uh SB uh 454 are um there there's slightly different language. One of the bill one of the versions of the bill has a uh delayed effective date of um July of next year, but the the substance of them is essentially the same. Uh neither one has been completely approved by either house and they're they're both pending.

It there is still an opportunity to discuss these bills with our local delegation who seem amidable to having that discussion and some interest. And so did Delegate Thornton call you? Yes. He was receptive. Yes.

It was great. Um, so I do believe that there is, you know, an opportunity either to continue to improve the bill, the bills, or potentially have them maybe carried over for another year. Um, perhaps put a reenactment clause in them that would require them to be reenacted by the next general assembly. that it's not as bad as it was, but it's still pretty ownorous in terms of overriding the county's

zoning and mandating uh uses that the county's comprehensive plan and zoning have not felt were appropriate for those districts. taking away local authority

and not just local authority. You know, our zoning map was developed by a group that consists of local citizens and other people from the community. It wasn't just this board deciding what it's zoned for. The community decided that. So, so the general assembly is basically telling the community, you're wrong and we're going to decide for you all across Virginia. So, it's just it's just honorous. they they they got their noses where it doesn't need to doesn't need to be and they need to back off.

And um so I would I would certainly encourage the board and and citizens to continue to reach out to your general assembly members and explain to them that, you know, affordable housing and and the affordability is a lawable goal, but at what expense? I don't think 454 actually used the word affordable housing with it. It just kind of laid these things out with the assumption. We are assuming

it also assumes I think the the argument also assumes that all of the multifamily housing that's going to come out of this process is going to be affordable which I think is probably not a realistic assumption by any stretch of the imagination. So, um, couple other, you know, the big things that we're interested in, the collective bargaining bills, um, have been amended. Now, the the two, they call them cognates, one in the Senate, one in the House, have been amended and are are going to need to be reconciled, but that looks like it's coming. So, the only question is when and whether there's going to be some implementation delay, but I would say at least by July 1, 2028. that's going to be in effect. Um the cannabis legislation is coming with no local opt out. So

that was kind of unanimous, wasn't it? Or it's not unanimous, but that that looks like it's coming. So there's going to be requirements put in place that's going to limit the ability of localities to regulate cannabis. There's some power to regulate the hours of sales when when they can be when it can be sold and still some open questions regarding where the retail locations will be located. But there there there is no at the moment not the none of the bills contain a provision in them that would allow for instance a local referendum opt out. So

I got the uh Go ahead. This is what I was going to talk about tonight. We spent quite a bit yesterday was well the last couple days has been pretty detailed digging into this stuff. And uh one of the things that really drives me nuts is that you don't the uncertainty of where the bill is going to look like.

I mean from day to day to day what committee it goes into and that's the big trick is trying to f figure out what committee it's in can be an influence. Um, there's a there's a piece here that I think people really truly need to understand is that that it does it appears to be like a a um an intent of the new administration to address housing shortage because we keep hearing housing shortage. Um and I think what we've seen is these proposals are being submitted by people and now I'm I don't know this for for a fact but they don't have they have no experience at local level in government. Okay. What happens I know our delegates don't um they have that experience and so the problem gets to be that I don't care how you cut it. This becomes an unfunded mandate. I mean, it simply becomes an unfunded mandate. This is what we're screaming, hollering about for ever since we've been on the board. The unfunded mandate. And how is it unfunded? Well, they create a law that causes us to do stuff that we're going to have to pay for, right? Uh, you know, they you build more houses, what do you get? You get more cops because you got more crime. You get more firefighters because you get more fires, more life support. These things are not Oh, yeah. Schools and all that, especially that's a big bill. So, um, the everything I'm seeing is now coming down. It's going to drive up the cost of living in York County, which is already pretty expensive.

Going to drive up the cost of living in

the whole state. But I'm but I don't I'm focused down here on York County and um and so it's uh it just strikes me as bizarre that people get all excited, get elected, put into office and immediately go out and start shooting themselves in the foot because I mean this is going to come it's got to come back. U you know all we keep hearing this thing of cost of living, cost of living. Now tied to that are some bills that we didn't talk about. So, uh, the trailer bill, that's one of my favorite. I love this thing. So, now just to kind of I want to just summarize this real quick. If you have a you have a lot anywhere in Virginia,

you can put a trailer on. Okay, that takes out any any um jurisdictional modifications. I mean, we had lot we had, didn't we not zone specifically? We were not allowed to remove trailers. Uh but we limited the trailers because they have a they they have a they don't have a they have kind of a shelf life that's not as long as a as a standing house. But now, you know, you can end up things like down in Florida, if you're going on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it's nothing but trailers. And then what happens when you you get a storm? You know, half the people are out in the Gulf because they get washed out there. And you have problems with that. Now, having lived in a trailer, I know that it's it's temporary housing, but then it comes down to us as to how we're going to address these issues. Okay. So, so that's a bill that's still hanging out there, right?

Well, the the there's two versions of that bill. One has already passed. And I want to note that that bill flew under the radar because it had almost no opposition. It passed overwhelmingly. No one No one

houses both houses. I don't care what party is it overwhelmingly virtually no opposition and one version is headed to the governor. The other version is I think in the Senate same bill, same language and that one has been passed by cuz maybe somebody finally noticed what what was going on. Well, you have to ask yourself. The bill was submitted there and you know, I don't know. I don't know the going rate for land in York County for an acre or half an acre or a quarter of an acre, but it's not cheap. So, why would you put a trailer on on something you may end up paying $100,000 $200,000 for?

Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things that's probably I mean, ultimately, I mean, it may not have that much of a real significant impact, but an interesting,

but it comes to us eventually. We got to figure out what we want for affordable housing because we have some requirements. I mean, some moral requirement, I I would think to try to address some of that. I mean, we we had this big battle a couple years ago over a tiny house. Remember that one little tiny house? They want 400 square foot. They I think it ended up in the trailer park. But there there are other options. But that's well if you're not going to address the housing, well, you're going to get the state down here addressing it for us and this peanut butter spread all the way across the state regardless of the structure. That's that's kind of thing you run into. Now tied to that, there's another bill about religious institutions that have property. Okay. Now they will then be allowed by right This is by right now to um build multifamily housing on it. All right. Not against that. But the point is everybody understands that's going to be taxed.

That's right. Okay. There going to be any free rides because you move people into our community. We've got to they got we still got the schools, the cops, all that kind of stuff to deal with and we've still got to fund it. Um I don't know I I'm not up to speed on how much of that land is available for that but it's a buy right. Um and then um let's see what was it there was the the the trailers the religious property the uh there was one other one accessory dwelling.

Accessory dwelling. Oh yes. Now that was a little more confusing. We used to in here go around and around and around. Somebody wanted to build a mother-in-law's house. We finally got down to where we got so many of them showing up like a tourist home almost. There was so many of them showing up. We said, "Okay, let's just put it there's the parameters. You work within the parameters. Remember all that stuff we did last year about fighting over this stuff." Okay. And then and then you couldn't be so far away and all this kind of stuff. So now you're going to have a byite ability to put a accessory apartment on your property. Roughly speaking, there's some parameters to this.

We we think that that bill is likely in its current form not going to impact York County because it exempts existing um accessory dwelling unit. Well, there's some more parameters, but again, but again, what do you got? You got a bill that's coming in messing around with local government giving us a chance. We build our zone and we do all that kind of stuff. So, that's out there. And um the unfunded mandates are I think uh are going to be they're going to be they're going to cost us. They always have. Um now this this thing about the um negotiating u I can't use the term here because I haven't used it that much but it's the where you negotiate with the employees for collective bargaining.

Collective bargaining. Guess what? You got you know there's there's another cost. Okay. fair. If we're not providing a we're not going to provide a um a livable wage, then guess what? State's going to come down and make us provide it. It's going to happen through we are going to give a a livable wage. I know we got I think our 70 percentile I think our 70 percentile is going to help address that.

But you know in the future that's going to be on the books. Okay. And um and it it's going to cost. So everything was talked about goes to the tax rate. Everything. Okay. Goes to the tax rate. So we're going to have to deal with this. I don't And I just I'm just stunned by how it came out of the chute so fast that it actually kind of a blowing bias and and it's typical where you're trying to lasso this horse as it's running down the range and try to slow it down somehow. So anyway, that's where we are with it. So I got my my spiel in early. I was going to ask if you had any more questions for our county attorney. Any other You have something to say. I have I just have a little bit of something.

Well, I want to come back to our county administrator before we Yes. the board. Anything to to offer, Mr. Bellamy? Okay. Nothing this evening. Thank you.

Now, we'll move to matters. Well, before you get to what you want to do, I just want to to let the public know that I finally got a a letter from the Secretary of the Navy regarding the possibility of a USS Yorktown. Now, that that's just a pos a faint possibility. I I won't read the whole letter, but it says, "The naming of a naval ship is one of the highest honors our nation can bestow. And on behalf of the Department of Navy, I'm privileged to receive numerous suggestions from veterans, service members, and citizens across the C country. I'll skip the rest of it. The process is a thoughtful and solemn one, weighing the many worthy recommendations for a limited number of vessels. Please be assured that your suggestion has been formally received. It will be given full and earnest consideration as we select the names for the next generation of naval ships. Thank you again for your whatever. Anyway, at least we finally got an answer. Uh so many people have written

and you know I got one back from one of our senators which was just a form letter, nothing on it. And I was beginning to wonder whether we would ever hear anything about it. And all I can say is this is signed by John Fel Phelm I think is how you say his name. There's a secretary of the Navy. So for those of you out there who listen to us and you have been writing letters, thank you very very much and keep writing and thank you Sheila. This has been your initiative. I was pleased to see that response. Let's just wait and see what what comes down the road. You know, it's we're not finished yet.

You're a lot further along than we thought you'd be. So, well done. Right. Okay. I've got several things. Um the one that's probably burning holes in people's ears tonight is the no wake zone committee. Um so that process is underway. If you don't know about it yet, underwake

underweight. Yeah. There's a news release that came out today uh that will walk you through that process if you want to be on that committee. So, please put your applications in and uh we will be vetting those folks. Uh for that, um there's some it'll tell you a little bit about that and what the committee is going to do. Um I would also like to ask for the board's uh support to sit on that committee and represent this this team. You got a vote? I do. You're good.

And I live on the water. I live on Chisman Creek, so I have a vested interest. Um, I do want to say that I know there's some consternation about the 12 month time frame. So, I want people to know that, um, we don't think it'll take that long. And also, the authorities have agreed not to to give citations out during the process time. So, we don't I don't want a bunch of phone calls and emails saying, "Oh my gosh, we can't drag this out for another year." So just know that we will be working diligently to get that done. Um second thing is back to Mr. Hill's discussion on cannabis. Um I would like to open discussion uh at least a a line of communication with Mr. Bellamy and whoever else. Um Mr. or Mr.

Mr. Anderson's over here there. Mr. Anderson right there to start opening um some discussion on is there a possibility of doing what we did with the STRs where we we we restrict how many can be in a certain given location or or distance from each other. Um things like the vape shops, the car washes, the things that are overloading our county. Can we put restrictions on those? Can we put moratoriums on certain things for a season while we're trying to bring better business into York County? So, I would like to get that conversation open. Question to So, you know, the one we did own is a sexually oriented business. That's what I was saying.

Okay. And we and you know, because we we met the legal bid about not zoning them out completely, right? So, I don't see any other business why you can't do that to any business, right? And I think that's the question I'm asking. Can we go work through the legal ease and work through zoning and the administration to find ways to start restricting some of these, you know, businesses that are really overtaking the county if you look at I don't need 18 car washes. We don't need 25 vape shops. So, if we've got them in certain areas where people can get what they want, great. But let's not overload the county with those. I hear endorsement from the board members to uh to look at that.

Take a look at it. Yeah. See what we got. You take that on. Thank you. To be very creative and innovative. Yes. Although on vape shops, I suspect there's new legislation coming our way that that has some restrictions. Most of that's going to be managed and administered at the state level. But yes, well, we can look at it. Yes, indeed. And you recently changed the ordinance to require special use permit for all vapor cigarette shops.

Okay. All right. Very good. Okay. And the last is I just want to do as I always do, give an update on new businesses. Um, if you haven't been by, Qaddy's opened up yesterday, had a ribbon cutting there and it was slammed. I think they had hours. Yeah, they were slammed today. I went back for lunch actually. I went through the drive-thru to see how that worked. And I I was pleasantly surprised. Uh, my wife and I drove through and from the time we placed our order, we got it in four minutes. Four minutes. That's good. That was good. Yesterday, not so much because they were trying to learn the process, but today

uh the lines were a lot smaller today because they're getting better at what they're doing. So, if you haven't been there, give them a shot. Great food, great service, great people, and um we want to support them all we can. So, uh Virginia Beer Company, every time I go by there, it's full. It's full. The parking lot's full. And um so, please, please, please go support them. Um, I talked to um the Chick-fil-A owner operator for the new Chick-fil-A yesterday, maybe today. Um, he said they are shooting for an April 30th opening. So, he said they're about two weeks behind where they thought they would be.

And if you haven't been by there, I think the brick on the back is done, the brick on the left is done, and the brick on the front is about halfway done.

So, that structure is up and going. Lights on inside. had there putting all the um electrical plumbing and heating and air. So, those guys are rolling along. Um the other one is Cookout. I don't know if you went by there today. The structure is actually being built. They're starting to to put the structure in place. And also at Chipotle, the footings are going in. So, lots of great great things coming to York County. And I'm excited because I've got some things in the works behind the scenes of maybe some other businesses that I think could be awful really good for York County and bringing in some more revenue. So, Mr. Chair, that's all I've got. Mr. Ro,

we um with with YA held the kids day coming up in April 18th, we had reached out to our local Chick-fil-A proprietor and said, "Hey, but what about getting the the cow there?" and he said, "Well, we we we're we're going to hold him because we may need him in April." So, that was a clue to their comment. And you know, you mentioned Q Daddy's. Q Daddy's is a great family story. I loved hearing what Miss Joy had to share with us. And I was really happy to see how they u did a tribute to Pops, some of the relics they found there and find it on the wall there. So, if you go by there, when right as you come in, look to your left and you'll see that little tribute they did. So that I like that a lot. Um

they also kept some equipment from Pops that they use in the in the cooking area, right? Yeah. Um so three things. First of all, time changed this weekend. So don't forget to change your clock so you don't you don't show up to church while they're singing a benediction. Yeah. Little little embarrassing. Um it's this weekend, right? This weekend. Yep. Coming up Sunday. Um um second extra hour, right? So you go to bed early enough for you to get an extra hour.

Um second of all, we received some sad news. The passing of Madame Nicole Yansy. For those of us, those of y'all who knew Miss Nicole, sweet lady, a icon in the community, involved in the community for years with the with the W3r Foundation. Really sad to hear about her passing and you know, prayers go with uh her her her son David, the rest of the Yansy family and hopefully the good Lord will give them some comfort in this time. And the third thing I want to cover, I I cover this in um my newsletter, but in case you for those who didn't get that, this this is important topic I want to make sure everybody's aware of and take advantage of. So um our cir clerk circuit court, Miss Kristen Nelson, worked hard and diligently over a couple of years to help get this implemented. And this is the Virginia deed alert system. So I'm just going to read it here. Describes it better than I can try to summarize it. So the Virginia deed alert deed alert system allows residents to receive electronic notifications whenever a document is recorded in the local land records that matches the names established with their account. These alerts can notify users of potentially fraudulent activities such as unauthorized deed transfers or filing. Now it will alert you after the fact. It can't prevent documents from being recorded or filed fraudulently. Virginia just doesn't have the mechanism in place to allow that now. Maybe in the future they will, but it they can't do it right now. So, I encourage everybody with any property, go to Virginia Deed Alert, go to the u the clerk of court's um website in the county. All the information is there. sign up, get on there so something happens, you'll at least get alert that you're something has happened that you need to take action on well in advance of finding out

from the bank or somebody showing up to your house going, "Hey, this is my house now." You know that that's an awkward conversation. So, you'll get alert a whole lot sooner. So, really encourage everybody check that out. Sign up for it. It's a good service, free of charge. No downsides to sign sign it up. Do so as soon as you can. Thank you. All right. Let me say one thing about Miss Yansy. Okay. Um nice thing about one things about uh Miss Yansy, her son David was a delegate for for some time

and um but uh when I was the chairman of the board here and the Airmon uh came in and the air is the ship that it's old worldly looking ship and uh it was great. Came in celebration here. They made a stop from I think it came from Norway if I'm not mistaken, but anyway, Scandinavian countries. They came in, they stopped over in Portsmouth, but they were going to stop here in Yorktown because of the traditional part. And so I had uh I've been studying French for a while, but not a lot, but I studied it. And so I uh I made I came up with this brilliant idea that um I wanted to give a speech in French. Okay. Now at that time I did not know who all was going to be there. For example, the governor of state of of Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia, the uh fir uh first commissioner of France, which was like the the most powerful commission position you can have under the whatever they call the president of of France, who happened to be married to this woman or something like that. I'm not quite sure how that all worked out. The ambassador of France French France. And then you had all the, you know, the uh UN or the the the international part, the HEG part over here, fourstar and his staff all showed up.

So I found out that I was going to give this speech in front of all these people

and everybody was really excited and I just needed I said um I said we just got to be able to you know I can say the words but we got this is what I want to say. And uh so Miss Yansancy, she uh we sat down. I said, "Uh here's I I wrote I wrote out everything I was going to say. It wasn't one of these, you know, hello, welcome here. We're glad to have you here." And boom, that was it. No, this is this was a full-up speech. And uh so she built the speech for me, okay, in French. So I then essentially had to memorize this whole speech. And then you want to know whether you you know you always have the inflections. You can tell if somebody from Alabama or or from New York or something like that. Well, it all comes through if you got a if you you especially if you have a kind of speech impediment, whatever. So I get up there and then find out that uh what is it? The C not C CNN but the the other one that's does a broadcast. they were filming this thing and uh so I got the speech out, did it, came through and uh and and Miss Yansy was in there. She knew when I stopped and then she started clapping and everybody else started clapping and uh it was it was uh I was to me it was one of the it was a you know important moment in my life uh to do that and um and so then the minister gets up and she gives a speech in English. Okay. The compliment to me from Miss Yansancy and some of the others was my French was better than her English. And uh I always remembered that it's like being in the trench with somebody. She's over at the house practice. No, no, no. It's you got this. And I'm in French, you know, they a lot of the words they don't uh when you when you say them out loud, they spell them one way and you say them out loud, the last letter is they don't use it. And then they have a thing um leazison where two

words in French you blend them into one word and it has to be has to end with a a vow or something like that. So and so I had this I had this intense lesson for months when I gave a speech. I'll never forget that. She was quite a lady. And then every time we have the uh the celebration on the 19th and she was like the I thought it was unofficial, but she was actually an official coun counselor or something like that for the French government here

and um and so she was real proud of that and she was real proud of her son and real proud of Yorktown. So she was quite a lady. I I you know I saw her not too long ago and and uh just I'm going to miss her. I really do. So, thank you. So, I jumped on a chair lift last week because I happened to be in Europe skiing and the ski instructor jumped on next to me and he was French and so my daughter and my son and myself all conversing with French and he would correct me every time I spoke. So, I can relate to that. Southern boy is tough.

I wanted to I want to do a shout out to economic development. I thought the Yorktown Admirals game last week huge success, a lot of compliments coming in and we owe we owe our staff um you know congratulations on pulling off a tremendous event with they even had Mr. Shepard out there dropping the puck as lead referee. Southern boy dropping a nice puck. Yeah, I missed it. And they had the sheriff and the you know deputies and the firefighters. It was a good drone. Yeah, the pip and drum did a did a solid. It was really good.

So, my last uh item uh you know, at our at our board retreat in January, we talked about House Bills 804 and 8:16 and they've they've morphed into this Senate Bill 454. Uh we also talked about um the uh Senate Bill 1263, which was the arbitration collective bargaining bills. You know, I did I did just a a brief calculation on what the impact of those two bills alone would be. And it's 25 cents property tax. 25 cents just to cover the cost of those two bills. It's it's worse than ludicrous. It's ludicrous. Yeah. It's worse than ludicrous.

Um so I had a couple of comments. Clearly, we need to move quickly on the amendment I suggested last month, which would be um a building fee for highdensity building. Uh we talked about uh adding that to the cost, no different than a sewer connection, but we need to be looking at that and moving that quickly. I just want to have something in place before we get hit with a bunch of high density housing by right uh provisions coming through and infrastructure fees

and um I guess the other point I'd make and I know other counties have done it. I think we need to look at developing a resolution for for three topics. One of them is the housing topic, Senate Bill 454. One is the collective bargaining bill 1263. The third one is clearly the you know the effects of the redistricting and we've seen it we've seen a couple of counties now put forward a resolution on that. With the board's concurrence, I'd like to direct staff to develop a resolution on those three topics and bring it back for our March 17th meeting. And uh three resolutions. Three resolutions. Yes.

And we'll vote on it as as a group. But I I think we need to make our voices heard. I think that I think we owe it to the citizens of this county to step forward and say enough is enough. We need we need to u to be very clear that we're not supportive of of those actions. This is year to do it. Okay. Yep. Yes. Well, as you guys will know, you wanted to say you are not in support of not in support of in support of

I understand the I understand what you're doing. I understand the issues. Okay. But I'm never going to support resolutions like this. Uh there's um one of the reasons I don't want this I don't want to be a part or not a part of but I look at this board it is focus. What is its focus? Um, is it going to be is it going to be a focus that you got to remember that we represent everybody in this county? Um, like it or not, uh, the the people that are elected to represent us are up there. Okay. The way we effectively affect these things is what we've been doing is calling up there and uh and and letting them know. That's what you can do for your constituents. But these kind of actions to me is I've seen it with the Second Amendment. That was the one that came through.

Excuse me, my throat's kind of dried up. Um, and what I did with I wasn't going to support it then. I wasn't going to support that. Although I'm a member of the Lafayette Gun Club. I own guns all my life and I'm a very strong supporter of of that and we have the right to carry weapons. But when I look at the level of what we've got to do, it's like, okay, if uh if it it's local versus state versus federal, which one of these things, where do you draw the line? Okay, why aren't we writing the resolutions uh for the federal aspects? Because some of that is actually more odious than what the state's doing. Okay? And yes, I agree this I don't you heard my concerns. I have voiced my concerns about these unfunded mandates and every for for well literally for decades. Um and so I try to put in perspective what our job is. Okay. And and so my feeling is I don't want to have I don't want to have this board just become a political whipping board. Okay? In other words, people come up here with a bright idea and they're going to have more people standing. I've been here with this building surrounded by the school board or remember the pitchfork rally. remember that

oysters and farming. Okay. And I remember I remember all that and u and that was stuff that we affected here. We could affect here. But I want to go to send a note to the state to uh or a resolution to the state because again we represent we represent everybody not just uh not just maybe a political as one political aspect of it. And then the other part is what is his value? what is his true value? Um, I remember Melanie Rap when she was a delegate. She said, Tom, one of the things that you got to understand when you go up and talk to the people of the general assembly, if I got a delegate in Bath County, does he give a crap about what I say? You know, what are they what are they looking at? They're looking at the the people that vote for them are the ones that care to hear about it. That's why it's important for us to go deal with our delegates, okay? And our senator. Uh we can go talk to the others, kind of give them a sense, but it's our de our delegates and senators. So, what's the value of this? This is this you can make these resolutions all you want. What's the value? I can't find a value. Okay, hang on, Sheila. You attack me later here. Um so, I just find that uh that that there's this, you know, the representing of everyone. I'm going to be I am going to be a a a supervisor for everybody. Okay? I I make the decisions I make my decisions based on the same information you get and I make it here. Okay? I don't make decisions uh do I want to influence uh the state? Yes. How do I do it? I call them up. Okay. That that's what I do. I call them up there. I talk to them. Try to build a relationship. And Sheila, you've been doing that for ages. Okay. that you with through the BO and all that and those organizations are designed to kind of do

the things. But when you get down here at the local level, I just have a have an aversion of dragging um dragging these things which seem to be more politically oriented than they are factually needed in their results. Um I welcome your input. I'm just telling you now on March 17th I know. So anyway, the representative, but what I've asked is the staff to pull forward and draft a resolution. We still have a vote. We still have to vote. I think one of the things we have to consider also when we're doing this is that we represent our constituents. These are going to affect their lives if cents on property tax. I have to speak up. Well, do that's what you're doing now.

Yes. But this resolution is not going to have any effect. I can just see that's why and you're doing and now I disagree with you. You said no, but you say 25 cents, but you don't know that for you don't know that. Well, you can do the calculations. Yes, you can

you can come up with your figures. I can come up with something. And I and I grant you when you start talking taxes, whole different issue. Okay. Um the budget, you know, uh the Virginia retirement system, $70 billion in the hole. Why aren't we raising hell about that? Why are we signing these things off? the state coming in and telling us that we got to add five five% increase to to the salaries of all our employees as a way to solve a gap that they have in the in their program, which was stupid because we could have figured it out by just giving the employees the money as opposed to having it then track us down later in the Virginia retirement system, which is forever. So, there's things that we can do and so how we going to handle it. So, I'm just I'm not going to argue with your point. I'm just saying that's why I I don't do this.

So, you recommending a fourth resolution for the address the retirement system? Yeah, that's that one's been around so long. But anyway, there's there's Yeah, just it's guys, I just don't I'm not going to I just won't sign up to it. Okay. Thank you. There is no closed meeting tonight. Um don't worry. So, I will adjourn this meeting. The next regular meeting of board of supervisors will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17th in the boardroom in your call. Meeting is a journ