Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

I'll call this meeting to order. June 2nd meeting of Board of Supervisors work session. Roll call, please.

Mr. Holwood?

Yes.

Mrs. Null? Mr. Drury? Present. Mr. Gunn? Here. Mr. Shepherd? Here. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum.

Thank you. We'll begin the work sessions. I'll call on Mark Bellamy to introduce the first topic, Virginia Peninsula Community College update.

Yes, sir. Todd Estes, the Vice President of Workforce Development from Virginia Peninsula Community Colleges is here, as well as Mark Vernon is here. Call both of those up to give the presentation. They're going to do a little tag team. And I didn't want Mrs. Wright to go unnoticed over here. She made the trip tonight, so I want to make sure you knew she was here as well. Thank you.

Well, we really, really appreciate y'all having us here tonight and offering a little bit of your time to provide a college update. So again, I'm Todd Estes and we're going to provide some updates on the state of the college and we're going to offer some key facts. If you have questions, please, please ask them. It's an informal for us. It's informal for us. Otherwise we can provide information after the fact. Can we advance one? Great. So we're happy to report the college is in good health, especially as it pertains to academic enrollment. So what you'll see here is the college has gained academic enrollment for two consecutive years. We're on track for a third consecutive year. And that's kind of a big deal because we have been on a downward trend for quite some time. And so to reverse that trend, we're very excited about that. And just so we know, to put it in context, community colleges nationally have been on a downward trend in enrollment for over a decade. And so VPCC had been part of that trend, and we're really happy that we are now reversing that trend. So academic enrollments are strong. We attribute that to a lot of activity that we've put in place over the last several years to increase community awareness, connection with our local high schools, and as well as initiatives to make it easier to access our services, financial aid, enrollment, advising, and the like. So we're really thrilled to report that we are in good health when it comes to academic enrollment.

So you're showing you have 6,600 and change actually, actually enroll, but you equate that to 3,600 full-time equivalent. So what do you guys consider a full, full-time? So full-time equivalent, you go ahead, Mark. 12 or more credits. Okay. So you're paying, okay. First semester.

First semester. 12, sir. 12? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Pretty much.

And you've got baked in there. Yes, sir. And baked in there is dual enrollment as well, which I'll cover once Todd's finished.

And that FTE calculation is a typical higher education calculation. And that's really also how we are funded through the state. So our state-level allocation is based on FTE. So that's a term that's really important to us. And you base that on the number of credits. Absolutely. And so our head count will typically be much larger than FTE because we have lots of part-time students as well.

Okay, on your explanation of the increase. So it looks like fall of 22 was kind of a low point, I guess. Yes, sir. And then you started going up. When I heard you did programming and stuff like that, that doesn't, to me, equate to anything that drives enrollment. I mean, it does make people, I mean, obviously making people aware, but I mean, unless they're probably going outside the Hampton Roads area and pulling in people from outside, I don't see that. And I don't see what you just said as a driver. So there's got to be something really driving people who want to go to college.

Well, that's a fair question. Of course it is. Now, there's a lot of alternatives. on the Virginia Peninsula when you talk about post-secondary education. So community college is not, BPCC is not the only game in town. So there's a lot of private providers, there's a lot of university providers as well. And so it is really important that one, we connect with students so they understand our programming and they understand the value of a community college education because they have other options. It is also really important we make it easy for students to access our services. So if our students don't know what programs we offer, they don't know how to negotiate financial aid, those types of things.

See, that's what I was trying to get to is what are you doing different now that you weren't doing in 22? Are you offering something really, some particular interesting courses to set people up to go to another four-year institution or what? I mean, I'm looking for something meaty here to understand.

Absolutely. And it's a lot of different things that we've put in place. So we have put in place some transfer programs with our local universities to mention. That's big. Absolutely. So we have partnerships and agreements in place with CNU and William & Mary, which is a big driver in transfer education. We have an initiative.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but don't we have this all over the state of Virginia, where if you go to the, because these are state schools, right? They are. Yes, sir. So part of the programs, you go to the two-year, maybe get your associate or whatever prep you need. Then you're going to be a priority for, I mean, one of the four-year schools are going to pick you up.

Absolutely. In the Code of Virginia, there are policies that apply to all public universities and community colleges where if you complete an associative science degree that you come in as a junior. That is codified. Absolutely correct. That said, each of your local community colleges do not offer identical programming, nor do they have the same agreements with their local partners. So we have put into place agreements to make it easier for our students to negotiate that transfer. And it also allows them to tap into additional services through universities. CNU is a prime example. So our students can actually utilize career services at CNU before they're admitted at CNU if they're on that transfer pathway.

So they understand what they need to get to help them go to CNU if that's where they want to go. Absolutely. Yes, sir. So in the big... I want to understand what he said, though, because it's the part about... Something has got to drive the increase. Cost. Cost is a great example or some way to deflect the cost or some program like that. So when you're briefing us on this is what I'm looking for is the meeting parts to talk about why this stuff is happening.

Banner. Great question. Let me interject. There's a couple of moving parts here and Todd alluded to it. Fall 2020 pandemic. You see, that's the low point. We're gradually building back up from the pandemic. What we did in conjunction, it's a lot of moving parts, as Todd said, we increased dual enrollment. So those are high school students taking advantage of VPCC for free. We don't charge high school students. So there's a deal. We've seen an increase in military. So our spouses, our dependents, and our active and veterans, our enrollment has grown in the military population. Todd's done a phenomenal job in workforce development. They've seen a huge increase in trades, people going back to get new careers because the pandemic may have shifted their lifestyle or their careers. That's what's driving

Would you agree? Oh, no, absolutely. And for the sake of tonight's presentation, we were asked to hold to a relatively brief presentation. However, no, no, no, no. That was a response to why we don't have some of the means.

Lots of luck, Charlie.

That was not because we were delayed. This is because we weren't able to get too in-depth in too many things. However, we can provide you with as much information as you need after this conversation, and we'll provide lots of details on those programs. Certainly, I want to make sure you have the information you need. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Absolutely. All right, Tom. I have a little calculator. Yes, sir. All right. So VBC enrollment, this just gives you a breakdown of by locality where academic enrollments lie. So you'll see Hampton and Newport News is the two largest, but you see a really good representation there in your county at 16.4%. So this is our breakout by locality.

But all others is fairly large. I'm surprised at that.

Where are you housing them or how do you house them? So it's a mixture. So we do have a large representation of online students as well as in-person students. And we have multiple locations, right? So we have our Hampton, our main campus is in Hampton. We have our HT campus up in Williamsburg, James City County, as well as some additional offsite locations. Understood. Yes, sir. So fast forward. So fast forward, as Mark just alluded to, that is the name that we provide to our accelerated workforce training programs. So our accelerated workforce training programs, so in the post-secondary vernacular, non-credit programs. So these programs are not the programs that we just referenced. These are accelerated training programs aligned with industry credentials. And so they're intended to be delivered in a very short format, student earn an industry credential and be employed very shortly thereafter. So anywhere from two to 16 weeks, there are some stackable programs, but they're relatively brief. So one thing that we have been mentioning to our localities, so, and Mark alluded to this earlier, in FY24 and 25, we had at BPCC, we had a 20% growth year over year for those two consecutive years and enrollment. So that's significant growth. And that match is relatively comparable to the rest of the state. These programs are growing across the state. And FY26, of which we're at the end of FY26 right now for our fiscal year, is we have contracted a little bit because we had less fast-forward funding available to us. So the way the state helps fund these programs is through financial assistance. So the state provides financial assistance on a tuition basis.

Are we still in the workforce training? Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Absolutely. All the workforce training. And so that workforce training, they provide financial assistance by student. And the simplest way to put it is they'll pay down about two-thirds of the tuition per student within a fast-forward course. So in our FY26, our financial assistance was much less than we had in FY25. And what this chart actually shows you is a state-level chart, but what it shows you is the VCCS overspent for poor consecutive years.

Why is it less? What caused it to be less?

For four consecutive years, we overspent at the state level. This is the answer. And what happened in FY26 is we were told by Shev in the governor's administration is you have to live within your means. So when we overspent for four consecutive years, we were able to do some budgetary adjustments within the BCCS to cover that overage. We were told this year by Shev for which the money flows through, then we could not do that. We could not make budget adjustments. So what happened was in FY25, we had $33.5 million at the state level. In FY26, we had to live with $23.5. So we had a $10 million deficit across the state.

Did you cause a deficit or did the state cause a deficit?

Well, yeah. You could say, due to the success of our programs, we overspent our budget, right?

Overenthusiastic about your budget.

Yes, so we were trying to serve as many students as possible, and so we served more students than we could afford. We made it whole, and then they told us we couldn't do that in FY26.

Does Workforce Development help fund some of this?

when you say workforce development.

Well, workforce council.

Yes, absolutely correct. And they helped a lot in FY26. That's what I was wondering. So in FY26, they filled a big gap, especially in the maritime space.

Yes, well, that's a biggie.

Absolutely correct. They came in and funded a lot of students. Healthcare on the other side took a bigger hit because we had less funding available. So that said, that's the bad news.

Okay, give me the good news.

The good news is in FY27, we expect to be made whole again if the state budget, unless it was signed today, if anybody knows. But if the state budget gets signed, as we expect it to, so the House and the Senate both have favorable budgets for fast-forward meaning One has about $33.5 million, one has $40 million. So both of which get us back to at least FY25 funding levels and shows growth. So in FY27, meaning starting July 1, we should be back in the growth phase for these programs. So what are your workforce development programs? Great question. So primarily in our college, our two biggest sectors are skilled trades, heavily influenced by maritime, and healthcare. We also do some IT and business and the like, but our biggest two industry sectors are maritime skilled trades and healthcare.

Well, health care being pre-nursery training or health and, you know, and...

Yes, ma'am. So certified nurse aide, certified nurse aide, certified medical assistant, certified medical administrative assistant, EKG tech, medical billing and coding.

And then once they complete the program, do they have an opportunity to be hired or will they be hired?

so we work very hard at the college because the success metric is the job not the training course right and and so we're working very hard at the college to connect them with employers our local employers so we invite employers into the classroom uh and and we make sure that they have access to employers uh when they're going through the training The college is also increasing investment in that space for next year. We're creating a new career services department, a new director of career services.

Okay, so of the students that have gone through the program, what is the percentage of those you were able to have? I can't either.

So I do not have the percentage by program. What I do have is we get a wage summary through our system on a quarterly basis that shows the wage gains for our cohorts of students. It is average over a two to five year cohort, but consistently all of our programs are our graduates from pre-income to post-income is significantly higher with an average. So VBCC average is about 89% higher pre versus post in wage gains.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

That's good news. So it sounds like in this aspect, you all do similar to what New Horizons? Is there partnership, collaboration there? Do you go your own ways? Yes. Right next door.

Right next door. I mean, symbiotic relationship.

And there is some overlap, but we do work very closely together as far as through the network. to make sure that we understand what each other is doing. So we're both doing welding because there are so many welding jobs in our region that they need both of us to do welding. They do apprenticeship related instruction. We also do some, right? But, but so we, we have an open line of communication. There's a little, there's some redundancy, but not in spaces where it's not needed is what I would say to that.

Does the college, is it a, does it provide prep for just the liberal arts? And when you go to a four-year degree, so when you come, because I always thought of the junior college as a less expensive way

to get through college i mean you don't come out with such a huge bill at the end so the majority of our students actually are transfer students which so whether it's liberal arts or science or business those are considered transfer degrees and so they are designed to transfer to universities to your point we're roughly a one-third of the tuition cost of a university so it absolutely is a less expensive way to become a junior at a local university but other required courses as a freshman

to help cover this.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

You get like an AA degree, right? You still do AA degrees? Yes, sir. So you do an AA degree, then you go to get your BA out of the four-year institution.

Yes, sir. We also offer what we refer to as socio-deployment science degrees. So those degrees are not intended to transfer, but they're more occupationally specific. So electrical engineering technology, mechanical engineering technology as well. So we have a pretty wide diversity of offerings. Go ahead, sir.

I think we're finished with our questions. I knew you were going to say that. They got a bunch of slides to go.

Hold on to your questions.

So real quickly, so this just shows our enrollment by locality. So you will see, so again, Hampton and Dupre News, and this is for fast forward. So the previous pie chart I showed you was academics. This is for our workforce training. You'll see that York County is an opportunity space for us. So these are FI25 numbers, and we serve 72.

Go ahead, Mark. Now it's my turn dual enrollment. So this is where you can see, as I was alluding to earlier, when Mr. Shepherd asked about how the growth was coming about, look at the high school students. Do you see that drastic increase? Because families are getting wise and they realize go to community college is expensive. We charge $170 of credit. You go across town to the four year institution. It's over $500 of credit. Well, people are smart and they're taking advantage of it. So there's a good trend.

Same thing with this chart.

Yeah, the next chart shows it exactly where you can see the revenue and how we're making. I'm 21. Yep, look at the difference. It's dramatic. Same thing here. York County, you can see the growth pattern. Just in York County alone, producing more high school students taking advantage of the community college opportunity.

And we do expect that trend to continue. There was a law change, right? So there was a recent law change for dual enrollment that now says that every high school within the Commonwealth of Virginia has to have a minimum level of dual enrollment offerings. So there have been high schools in the state that didn't offer dual enrollment. That's no longer even allowed. So all of our localities are growing in dual enrollment. So dual enrollment is, it's a VBCC course. You receive VBCC credit, but it's most often taught at the local high school by a local high school teacher that is certified to teach by the college. So that's the most typical model for dual. So what does that do for the student? So they get academic credit. So they'll get BPCC college credit. And we have students in localities that complete an entire associate degree. So we just had a commencement ceremony where we had some, I think it was Hampton High School students who had completed an associate degree before they graduated from high school. They hadn't commenced yet. So when they graduate with their high school diploma, they'll have an associate degree, which will allow them to transfer into university as a junior. So they come out as an 18-year-old going in and only have two years of college.

That's correct.

My friend, his son just did that.

Yeah, well, I had heard this year that that happened to some children over in York. And that's awesome. Yes, it is. Very good.

He actually had two graduations, a high school graduation and his Virginia Peninsula College graduation.

Okay. So you don't have to go to school and light your hair on fire. Well, I don't have any hair, but you don't have to light your hair on fire and then come out the other end with a huge debt. But so do you get feedback from four-year institutions on the success rate of these high school students?

We do. And we find that they are as equivalent, if not stronger in retention, to the native freshmen that start at the four universities. And so that's why our four universities are very eager to work with us. Of course, you know, they're in the same situation where they're trying to drive enrollment as well. But our universities are very welcoming to our students.

Interesting. Okay. I would think those high schoolers are fast tracking. They're pretty sharp people. They're not laying around doing nothing. You know, they're on fire to get their degree.

Yeah, you get the workload. You still got to do the high school part and then doing the college on top of that. So that's a pretty hefty load. Okay.

Great. Here's some statistics that show their back-end fall-to-fall retention. Students completing their degree, going on to successful transfer or other academic. What's the retention part of this? Students that move from first year to second year. Okay. So we're retaining over 5% fall to fall. Okay. Degree and certification awarded. It keeps growing year after year.

So 5%, what does that tell them? I don't understand. So fall to fall, retention rate 5%. You only keep 5% of the students? No, it's growing by 5%. Increased by 5%. Increased, okay.

Yep. Plus. Yeah. Correct.

Okay. Short-term. What's the short-term fast-forward? So that goes back to those non-grade workforce courses.

That's what you were just talking about, and that's terrific.

You call the fast-forward completers, huh? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. Now they have an official title.

And that answers your initial question in the beginning of the presentation. Where's the growth? There you go. 19%. Yes, sir. That's very big.

That really is good.

A lot of schools across the state are looking at us like, what are you doing? How are you making this happen?

Because you're offering the program.

That's a big demand for workforce development. And then mobility after they graduate, where are they going? Todd alluded to transferring to one of the four institutions or going on to career. This shows, again, where we're helping them grow and succeed and pay back to society, so to speak.

And it's also emphasizing the fact that your local community college students stay in your community.

I was going to say, these are Virginia colleges.

Yes, ma'am. This is a response to the brain drain concern, right? Are we educating our folks and they're going to North Carolina? Are they going to Charlotte? Community college students stay home.

This speaks to the actual employment after they graduate. So you can see they're transferring, 72% of them are transferring, over 80% are going into technical or graduate type of employment. And then short term, fast forward, we get to Todd's area of 77.7%.

How's the college as far as prepping people to become teachers?

Oh, so we do have a pre-education program. I owe you the numbers. I do not have those enrollment numbers all planned.

OK. How many teachers are teaching college courses within the high schools? Do we have that number?

I do not. I will get you that information. And I'll absolutely get it for your county. I'll get it for the rest of the county.

That's a good point, yes.

And it's a really good question because that's also been one of the limiters for expanding dual enrollment at the local high schools to have teachers that are credentialed to teach at the college level. And so it's a really important question.

Now I'm thinking about pay for the teachers and for these courses.

That's also been a topic of discussion.

All right. We need to know both sides of that coin.

And to meet the demand of the growth, we've expanded our physical presence, opening up Southeast Newport News. You can see remodeling the theater, opening the Newport News Trade Center, construction on New Hampton Campus, academic building, which will be front-facing on I-64 when you go past our main campus. A brand-new building will be there soon. A couple years, I suspect. 2027, we hope. Fall of 28 is what we were saying. Fall of 28.

What are you doing on the Centerville? Beg your pardon? What are you doing on the Centerville campus? On the Centerville campus. Centerville Road. Oh, oh, oh, and HT. I don't call it JCC.

So there's been a lot of emphasis, and our colleague Tracy Wright is actually home-based at our HD campus, and so there's a lot of emphasis on growing programming there and making sure that students can start and complete on that main campus. Is there any physical change? So there's a pending, a pending physical change that we're considering about offering some additional workforce development courses within that facility. That's not, not available yet, but we're looking at that right now. It would seem to be the one that's constrained.

It's a good facility as it is, but I can see where you'd want to expand always.

We want to give you some testimonies from students so you can read that at your leisure. And thank you for your time. We appreciate it. We went way over.

We went way over. However, great questions. I know our colleague Tracy is taking notes on all of those questions. We will get that information and any additional questions answered for you after the fact.

Tom went way over. You were on time.

You were on time.

I was out of time. They're used to it. Thanks, guys. That was great. Thank you all so much.

Mark, if you'd introduce the next topic. We're on Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center update. Sure.

We are on the cusp of opening that. had the opportunity to be in there a few times recently. They're putting on the finishing touches and it looks really nice. So with that in mind, we thought it'd be a great opportunity for Danny Yost, our executive director of the facility, colleagues up here and talk about what's going to happen there in the next few weeks and months to come. So Dan, if you wouldn't mind, come on up, I'm going to get up and let them have a seat.

Well, good evening. I'm Scott Stevens, James City County Administrator, and more importantly for this meeting, I'm the chair of the Historic Triangle Recreation Facility, the entity that's building, has done the design and construction of this facility. And as Mark alluded to, we are really excited to be here to talk about it. I'm going to do a short version of the history. We've got Ben who's the operator with Kemper Sports. He's going to talk about operation and upcoming events. And the Data Yowst, our executive director, our only employee of the HTRFA, is going to talk a little bit about the construction. We're all going to mention a grand opening June 24th. We're really excited about that. Hope you know about that. It's not a surprise. I look forward to seeing many of you there. I guess this will make it go. I've given names, but there we are. It's there for those that want to have us. We'll give some contact information at the back. I thought I'd start with a brief bit of history. This should be a slide. Oh, come on, Misha. A big spread of history. These were slides that we showed a couple years ago as we were going into the funding agreements. And the timeline here lists significant steps that led us to the groundbreaking of the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center. An indoor regional sports facility has been talked about in our community since at least 2014. The most recent discussion began in 2019 when the Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association applied to the city of Williamsburg for grant funds for designing and construction of an indoor regional sports facility. That led to the formation of a working group and staff from each locality meeting to review further studies and resulted in a recommendation to our elected officials in November of 2021 to form the Historic Triangle Recreation Facilities Authority, or HTRFA, to further study the feasibility of such a facility. Following the formation of the HTRFA, we received unsolicited proposal for this project. We evaluated several other, another proposal that was submitted and we selected a design build team. We secured a ground lease for the proposed site. We evaluated possible facility operators and we came back to our elected officials in the fall of 2023 with better cost estimates for construction, leasing, staffing, and operating. At that time, we recommended that three localities proceed with approving the funding agreements, and each locality did that in December of 2023. So that led to this one, what is the HTRFA? And for me, it is an extension of the localities. It is York County, James City, and the City of Williamsburg working together to own and operate and build this facility. And so our mission was initially formed to evaluate it and if feasible to proceed, and that is what we have done. It is a governmental entity, so we're subject to all the rules that others would be in terms of sharing information, and we're happy to do that with all that are interested. We do have a six-member board, two from each locality, and Mark Bellamy and Brian Fuller serve, and Brian actually got promoted to chair this year, and the chair is soon to come for him, I hope, so we'll see. We haven't talked about that. I'm sorry, vice chair, but he's been great and chair is soon to come. How about that, Brian? So at any rate, I just wanted to go back to slides we presented almost three years ago when we talked about what we had the vision for building, the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center. These slides are what you saw in 2023. If you were paying attention or part of the community that was interested in this and our elected officials that were part of it. The original scope was for 160,000 square foot facility. We talked about 12 basketball courts that could be 24 volleyball courts or 36 pickleball, a lot of ceiling mounting things from nets to courts that would come down. We would have tip and roll bleachers, curtain dividers, 115,000 square foot of hardwood flooring, which we do have, meeting rooms, food and beverages, all the things here we have in this facility. So what we said we were going to build almost three years ago, that is what we have built. We had some additions to the scope as part of that discussion, another 40,000 square foot in addition of We had a climbing rock wall in Ninja Dim talked about. That has really morphed into an indoor feature gym, and so we'll talk some more about that. I think it will be a really great amenity for our community members with kids or grandkids or those visiting our area as well as athletes that are here, their siblings will have something to do. And then really it is going to be the most attractive gymnasium you've been in. I have toured a lot of these facilities. They all have really good things. Ours is phenomenal inside, but architecturally it looks really, really good.

Should I say of course?

Yes, ma'am. And when you talk about cost, we told you almost three years ago it would be an $80 million cost. That is what it is cost to build this facility. And before I forget to share, most of us went into this saying we would use tourism funding. Three years later, we're all still saying we're using tourism funding. It has to be built on something that supports our tourism economy. And I know that's where the monies are coming from for the three localities today. And I believe into the future, that is the plan for us to recommend to our boards as well going forward. The commitment on construction was the city of Williamsburg at $2.5 million annually. We have our maintenance of efforts money that we are sending as localities to the HTRFA. So each locality has a little money in that part of it. But that $4 million will pay the debt service on the $80 million. And then James City County and York County both agreed to pay up to $800,000 per year in the first two to five years, trying to sort of fund and keep the operational cost in terms of capital reserve, operating deficit, ground lease, our hiring of Kemper Sports, our paying of an executive director. So that is what the counties are responsible for and really the end of what we are responsible for. So I'm excited about that. York and James City do have a side agreement that after we have a year of usage and we know who's actually in it and what residents are using it, James City will likely pay more. That was the former administrator felt that would be the case and maybe some members of the board. But we do have an agreement where James City could pay up to 850 and York could be reduced. And that would apply to whatever amount we're paying together as we go forward in time. What year are we in now? We're in year two going into year three. After year three and the year four, we ought to be making that. So this time next year, we ought to have some data about usage that would let us start talking about those differences. So I think that will come. I'm going to turn it over to Dana Yowes, our executive director, to talk a little bit and I'll try to keep up on the slides.

Oh, thank you, sir. My name is Dana Yowes. Thank y'all for having me here today. We are super excited to tell you a little bit. I'm going to talk about the vision to reality and the journey of the opening of when this began. So in August of 2024, y'all had the groundbreaking and that is where all three localities came together to create something that was probably one of the biggest from what I understand, next huge facility for tourism outside of Busch Gardens that was 50 years prior to that. On that note, the three localities aligned to share the regional vision. You had the groundbreaking mark to the transition from concept to reality. So for those of you who have been with us, you can see that it began with the site work and then we have the steel construction and it was the beginning of the gym. The turf was then installed and that's the largest retractable turf system in the United States. We're very proud of that feature. So anything from flag football, lacrosse, 5v5, soccer, all those fun programs can happen on the turf. And y'all decided that y'all wanted to build something more than just a sports facility. So you created an amazing hub area that is going to allow families and visitors and athletes to come and socialize and watch their kids in different areas of our facility. We also have a front parking lot. And what I think is so much unique about this is Ben has talked to several event right holders, and they may be providing valet parking. So you can see that that that parking that would be an additional cost so that is allowable for our parking lot and then we have the cafe won't speak too much because that's part of Ben's staff but we have the ability of with a commercial kitchen we will have our ABC license and they can cook anything from salads and chicken sandwiches and hamburgers and hot dogs to lobster and prime rib for our banquets and we did I say we. Kemper did boat their first wedding on the balcony, so that's pretty exciting. That's a different type of event. This is just another picture of the front entrance. Scott covered over the gymnasium floor. The gym floor is actually a floating gym floor which allows us to be able to drive vehicles on it so we have kipper has booked a car show um we're looking to do eventually um boat shows but it you can drive anything that's on a highway into the gym um we also have the mezzanine level that's the top part of our facility and it kind of mirrors the bottom level but that is where a lot of our breakout rooms and flex room spaces are for birthday parties conferences those types of events, board meeting opportunities. And then, of course, the Adventure Gym. And this is the actual Adventure Gym in the facility. The Adventure Gym here is going to allow so many people, and Scott has articulated so many different times that our retirees that never thought they might come into our facility, their grandchildren might come into the facility because they might be playing in the Adventure Gym. So there's opportunities for all ages that you guys have a vision for and created.

So it's interesting you said you can accommodate vehicles. Can it accommodate heavy equipment? And the reason I ask that is because I've been to some utility contractors and heavy equipment trade shows. You've got the space for it, but can the floor support it?

We don't have an engineering stamp. We're all a little nervous about that. What they have told us is a floor just like this, our facility built in Atlanta, carries a 24,000-pound vehicle. So cars and boats we're very comfortable with. You get into heavy equipment. we'd probably want to talk through and see how the cars and boats have done. Those trade shows, those are big trade shows. They bring in a lot of money. And I never envisioned we might put a car on it, but as we went through the design, our builder said, you can do that. And so we did to Dana's point, we lifted a door, raised it up. So we have a 14 foot high door. If you can drive it down the highway legally from a height standpoint and width, we can drive it into the facility.

That's interesting.

That wasn't part of the original.

So do you have a, established limit on weight?

I like we have a 16,000 pound stage going in for our grand opening. That's probably a good starting point. We're going to be careful with that going in. It's below the 24,000 pound on the floor just like it in Atlanta. We would follow a little more with the floor in Atlanta to get a better weight to get back because we have interest in a heavier show. I think we'd want to talk through that and see if we're comfortable with that.

So this next slide just shows some of the partnerships and I think it's so strong because you not only have public but you have private. So you have Kemper Sports and Visit Williamsburg and also we've mentioned the Hotel Motel Association just to name a few. But these are some of the partners with all three jurisdictions coming together. We recently did interviews for a story that we would like to tell and one of the very common denominators in that story was the fact that The biggest accomplishment that everyone saw that they spoke about was the three jurisdictions coming together to build something for the region. And it was extremely exciting to hear that. And so you're invited to the grand opening June 24th. We're going to open the doors at 3.30. The program will start at 4. Allie Krieger, who is a celebrity soccer star, she also is an analyst for women's soccer on ESPN, will be our celebrity speaker. We'll have activities going throughout the day, throughout the event, and we'll have the open house until 8 p.m. that night. So we hope you'll come out and join us for the activities.

And everybody will be exhausted.

That's right.

That's great. I happen to be in Myrtle Beach that week. Oh, I'm so sorry. We'll tell you about it. Yeah.

Well, I'm Ben Hardwin. I have the privilege of being the general manager of this amazing facility. I'm new to the area. I'm new to Kemper Sports. And as I've shared previously, when I was interviewing for this position, I came down here from Michigan and got a taste of what this facility would mean to the community. Spent a weekend here, drove around, talked to people at the hotels, restaurants, and I heard nothing but influence, impact, power, community, all of these things that meant a lot to me. It meant that there was a mission and there was a purpose behind the facility and it wasn't simply just a bricks and mortar. And so with that mindset, we set about creating this mission statement that we feel speaks to what we're trying to endeavor. So the mission is to deliver an elevated sports and event experience that brings people together, support health and wellness, and strengthen our community. We're locally rooted, nationally relevant, and hospitality driven in every detail.

Community meaning the historic triangle. Yes, ma'am. Yep.

You know, the facility is outstanding but you have to breathe life into it. And so part of the mission for the team, including myself, is to elevate the customer service experience. And what you find generally in these types of facilities is It's cold, popcorn stale, the bathrooms may be out of toilet paper, but you're out there because your kid's playing and it's all about the kids. But we want to go way above and beyond that. And we want to create an experience and a customer service deliverable that people talk about nationwide. And to Dana's point, people that have come by to tour the facility, event right holders, have shared with us that it is by far the most aesthetically pleasing facility that they've been a part of. well thought out, complex in its design. And so we're really proud and feel like we'll be able to deliver on this mission statement.

So the Chick-fil-A and Busch Gardens are sports entertainment centers. Exactly. There you go.

There you go. Exactly. So I need to update this just a little bit, but we're excited to report we have well over 100 secured events that span all the way to 2030. As Dana alluded to, we have a wedding. And I'll talk about the variety of our offerings in a moment. But we have a lot of opportunities coming through the pipeline. We work very closely with our partners at Visit Williamsburg to garner support and to go out and drive business to the region. So, um, we've been very successful with that. And this is just large scale events. These are not a sort of one day camps and local things that we're doing maybe with a William and Mary or a high school, whatever. These are events that are going to bring people to market.

So the next five years you have 89 definitive

We actually have over that now. We're well over 100. So that's what I said. I need to update this a little bit. The tentative ones are ones that we are in, I would say, negotiations with. We presented a contract to the event right holder, and we're discussing the cost. We're discussing the logistics. And then the prospecting ones are ones where we've just begun the negotiations. We're going back and forth trying to get an idea of the scope of what they're looking to do.

We're looking at the Hotel Motel Association. How is that? coordinating with what you set up for your events coming in? Is someone working together with them?

Yes, ma'am. So our process is when we secure an event, we send it through Visit Williamsburg. They have a platform that sends it out equally.

Did I pass the test? So how do those numbers match your targets? Oh, we're ahead of target on that. And what is your target for profitability? Are you on track?

So for fiscal year 2027, we are right on track with what we were projected to bring in revenue wise for our event.

And what's the hotel numbers for 2027?

It is right now, this is about two months old. So 49,000 hotel rooms were booked and that's within the historic triangle area. 29,000 are specific to the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center. Then you had like, I believe 7,000 for WISC. And then you had a couple others here and then spread out for some of the soccer. So those numbers are about two months old. So just to have that little statement there, but that, that is where we are. It's bringing in a ton of business and that's exactly doing what y'all expected it to do.

What do you, what do you, when you describe the historical triangle area, what is that?

It would be York County, James City County and the city of Williamsburg.

Okay. So the reason I say that is because a huge chunk of our hotels are down at this end and would not necessarily be considered right up front in someone's mind that this would be a location you would book. for Williamsburg because you think about, I want to be in Williamsburg for the sport event. I'm going to go up there Williamsburg, right? But we have a ton of hotels up there also. So the idea of, I just want to make sure that everyone understands that, that when people come and stay in any of the hotels here, they're actually supporting this event.

I'm not sure Williamsburg alone could handle They could. They can't. So that's why we've got so many hotels.

As I understand it, we have more hotels in your county than the others. And we have probably the more modern ones because they're the new ones.

I would tell you, I think hotel impact will be far greater than we believe. When we talk to folks in RICO, they are booking hotels here for some of their events. So I think Lower York will have a bigger impact than we probably first envisioned. Victus, our financial advisor, has been conservative and passionate projects they've been involved in. I think their numbers are going to be better than they told us, and that's good on our side. We want to be conservative in the decision making and better on the actual functioning and the supervisor run in terms of profitability. We did three economic models, two in 21, two independent firms. They both came up with about a half a million dollar, $300,000 to $400,000, $500,000 a year deficit. We updated the VICTUS model. The VICTUS was one of the initial ones. We just liked their modeling better and their history better. We updated the VICTAS model in 23 and it was still that same deficit because we had expanded the scope from 160 to 200,000. Maybe by coincidence, maybe Kemper did better research. Their operating budget of about $3 million has a half million dollar deficit. So the HGFA, really James City and York County had planned for that. That's part of our 1.6 million. So I would tell you today, we're right on where we thought we would be, except I'd have to go back to confirm the VICTAS model was in an operating year when you get up and running, not your initial year. So our initial year, I believe is functioning where we thought we'd be in year two or three. And I really believe the facility, if we run it right, can become, I hate to say profitable, but at least a break-even point. And then where we make up that difference is that incremental revenue for York was close to $300,000 from meals tax, sales tax, those incremental increases in hotel lodging taxes. For James City, it was just slight of that. And you do have the best hotels today and probably into the the near future, but our timeshares will benefit, and you certainly have a lot of those in great proximity to the facility, and they're booking. You can book those on Expedia as easily as a hotel room. When you search it, you see hotel rooms and timeshares, so I think both will benefit drastically from this facility.

Both are struggling right now to hang on. They are. This will be a good thing for them. I'm really wondering, is this enough of an increase in hotels to allow them to reach back into profitability.

Well, some of these events, not all, but some are 8,000 people for three days. That's a lot of people that have to stay somewhere. So I think you'll see more of that. And we certainly will focus on those big events going forward. And I think it, it's gotta be a big influx for all of us. And that certainly is the vision and what we believe will happen.

Something, something interesting, um, that kind of looking at your briefing and then what I was looking at today, um, This facility and the hotels are kind of central between Richmond Airport and Norfolk. And one of the big problems we've got now is because getting to and fro from, not Richmond, but from Norfolk is a mess. But it's getting better. The tunnel probably will open between, they say it's going to open at 27, but it's probably going to be more like 28, probably when it really opens. And that definition of opening is when the first car goes through the tunnel. But the Norfolk Airport, the reason I bring up this issue at Norfolk Airport is because That airport is just booming. It's unbelievable. I mean, you've got international flights now. They've got a lot of these one-way direct flights to Boston. They've picked those up now. So we're seeing more and more of that. And if I'm not mistaken, it probably really exceeds whatever they've got over in Richmond for an airport. So I see that when they get this tunnel thing all squared away, then that should be, I don't know how many people fly in, because flying is expensive. Maybe a lot of people drive in, but still, they got to stay somewhere. But I would see that that would be a boon for both, not only just for the Hampton Roads, or excuse me, for all Hampton Roads, really.

Tom, I think one of your questions about the hotels, motels, is one of the considerations that we've had on Visit Williamsburg is that The hotel, some of the hotels and motels in the area, immediate area, are older. And so that we know that they're going to, we're pretty sure that people will move to more modern hotels, which would bring them down, down 64.

I know we've got a lot of really brand new hotels down here.

We do. We do, but there are a lot of other hotels up in the area that are not as new as what we have.

But I can't remember a year. in the last 25 years where I haven't heard the hotel say they didn't have enough business. I mean, there was hotels always going under.

So now they can't complain.

I mean, it's just so they got to modernize. They need to be ready. It costs money to do that.

That is the problem.

I just want to be clear on expectation. I understand that the objective isn't so much about the facility itself being profitable. The objective is bringing business to the area so the hotels and the restaurants and local businesses grow and then therefore that's beneficial to the county. But the closer you close that deficit gap and the closer you work to break even, the less commitment from the localities are important. So I will always going to push on how are you guys doing towards operating in the black as opposed to operating in a deficit. So that's my driver there.

My board feels the very same way. We'd like it to be something that we don't have to put money into the operating. Exactly right. And that would be a really good goal for us. But I think it will outshine what we projected. And so we come out better and it's trying to close that gap more and more. We're with you on that same goal.

I thought our mint now, the minimum contribution is $300,000, right? And that's after the four year period or whatever that period, five years. Okay. So it's at 300,000, but we see that the tourism money is going to be paying this. paying this bill.

The tourism money.

That's exactly right. The tourism money. So it's not going to be general fund money. Right. 300 to 500,000.

I think that's a point that our listeners need to know. It's coming out of tourism money.

What's the standard average for tourism money annually?

I thought the, what is it that the state has this thing they give us is like $8 million or something like that for your county. I'm not for your county. Yeah. Your county is about $8 million in tourism funds. Yeah. No, in terms of the revenue that's associated. What is that organization called? It's an industry something. It's state, does it? There's the Virginia Tourism Council.

I'm not sure there where the money's coming from.

But they put out reports out that talk about where all the impact of tourism. And I remember from the VAGO conferences that it's been about $8 million altogether. Teresa, you know that number?

The tourism fund is about $3 million, just under $3 million.

That's the fund. I'm saying, what are we looking at annually, roughly?

It's about $3 million hotel, freight shed, and $2 tax.

Annually?

Annually.

And that's the general fund.

That's the general fund.

The what?

The fuels tax goes to the general fund.

The fuels tax is general fund.

I think that's what they were including, the state. I wish I could remember what that state organization that tracks that, but anyway. I'll find that out for you.

Scott, how does the admission tax affect this, or does it?

It does. The city of Williamsburg does have an emissions tax. It's 10% up to a dollar. So that is something we'll collect along with Colonial Williamsburg. We have an emissions tax up to a dollar there for people that for paid events, we have to pay to come in. And again, I think that'll work itself out as well. Max per person. Be $2 between the two entities. Colonial Williamsburg has one and the city has one. So $2 per person today.

Can I go back to the hotel? You said $49,000 and $29,000. Can you tell me the difference on that again?

The difference was, like I said, two months ago, so the $49,000 is what the total amount for this fiscal year. Now, there are over 100,000 bookings in the next three years, but what they broke down for us in our last big meeting was $29,000. 29,000 of those hotel rooms are direct impact of the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center. The rest are for the WISC or the other amenities in the area. That's correct. And like I said, that data is two months old, so just want to make sure we say that again.

The 29, is that part of the 49?

That is part of the 49, but it's over half of that is because of the sports complex. All right.

Okay, so the next two slides just speak to the variety and types of events and programs that we've already secured and will provide in the future. So the left column is just an example of some of our sporting events that we have the flexibility to host. High Rocks is like CrossFit, it's a fitness competition.

Was that like Ironman or something?

Not quite an Ironman. It's more like CrossFit. It's CrossFit. It's a version of CrossFit.

So the only thing missing on your event is State of the Nation. That's right. That's right. Planned events. That's right.

August 25th, I believe we have your. That's correct. That is correct. So again, it speaks to the variety and the flexibility of the vastness of things that we can offer from a sporting standpoint. One of the narratives that we're continuing to try to build and promote is our non-sport side of the ledger. And that was one of the things that we felt was fairly deficient coming into this. A lot of people knew about basketball, volleyball, et cetera, et cetera. They didn't know about the banquet services and the catering services and the meeting spaces and so forth. So on the right column, you can see some of the different types of conferencing opportunities, corporate retreats, wedding, as Dana said. No, you're good. Car shows, gaming conferences, food and wine shows, graduations, employee appreciations. et cetera, et cetera. One of the unique things right now that we're finding is groups that have standing relationships with our competition are trying to break those and come to us because they've come and toured. They really like what we offer. So we've got some very unique opportunities there. And then to continue, this is more kind of local things that again with the types of services we want to provide they're not only going to be large-scale events but more local things fitness classes you know wine and canvas fantasy football draft come rent a room and we'll provide food and beer and the whole the whole thing so really some unique packaging and promotions to come to use the facility for our for our local communities And then one more. Go back. That's all right. That's all right. The one before that was just just the local drop in opportunities. Thank you. So I get this question a lot. You know, I'm a resident or I'm a local. How can I use the facility? Is it closed to me? Do I have an event? the answer is no we would certainly welcome and encourage the community to come use the facility we're going to have a lot of drop-in options we'll have clubs and leagues and as scott said the adventure gym is just absolutely amazing it is the kind of the wow signature thing once you get past the courts a lot of people see that and and it is a standalone revenue generator and will be for Winter days, rainy days, days when moms and dads are tired of dealing with their kids and they want to go somewhere, the Adventure Gym will be a fantastic option.

So like these clubs and leagues coming in, they will just pay a fee to use the facility?

So some will, or they'll be organically developed by us. So it'll be our basketball league, our pickleball league, and you would do this. So you're going to start your own league? Correct. Some of them will outsource. It's just easier to get them up and running, and they're already established. In those cases, we'd collect a rental fee, as you said. And in the other situations, we'd generate and create the league or the club, and then they would pay us directly as the operator. And you already have your fee structure. Correct. Correct. Uh, so this is the team that's going to bring this to life. Uh, everyone pictured here is, is already established and, and, and, and operations. We are at a full sprint mode, as you can imagine right now. So very, very briefly, obviously Heidi Hume is our sales and marketing manager. She also handles our conferencing side of events. Antonio Gonzalez handles our sporting side. BJ Armstead has the tireless task of keeping the facility operational and clean. Katrina White is our financial controller. John Tandy is our executive chef. And Julia Soto is our guest services manager. One of the things, again, we wanted to do differently was when you come into the facility, you feel the difference of the experience. The staff is engaged and energetic, and Julia will bring that to life. And then finally, Mr. Dalton Newkirk is our adventure gym manager.

How many people is the facility employing?

Seasonally, when we have summer camps and so forth, it'll be about 120 or so. During our normal kind of standard, about 75-ish.

Well, I want to thank you for coming. And Scott and Ben, you both allowed me to tour the unit if you haven't seen it in space. It's well worth taking the time just to visit. And we would offer that any time. They wouldn't let me in the Adventure Gym that day, but I would be back. For the state of the county, you will get your opportunity. That's right. I will definitely be there. That's right.

It looks like there's a lot of parking. I mean, you've got a parking lot on the side. Correct. How many cars does it hold?

There are 1,000 spots. Oh.

So we'll be able to come in at 1,000 spots. 3. Yeah. Jim. Yeah, the 24th. Thank you very much. We're excited to see you. Thank you all.

Yes, I'll call on County Attorney Richard Hill. He'll take us through Freedom of Information Act, Complex of Interest Act, and the Virginia Public Rights Act.

Does that need to change?

Not really.

Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Make it clear.

Yeah, it's getting tougher.

All right. Thank you all. I want to talk about the three topics that are on here. I know I did promise that I would try to keep it short. but we do want to cover at least FOIA somewhat comprehensively because we can then count this as your required training. We may not get all the way through COIA, the conflict of interest, but I would remind you all that you are required to go through conflict of interest training. every two years by the Conflict of Interest Council and they do their own training and they have links available and they will certify that you've completed that training. You have to do it as required by them. And they notify us? They should or Ms. Schott should. So the answer is you should be keeping track of that yourself. And good luck. So here's my admonition to you all. I would recommend that sometime in the next month you go and complete your COIA training if you have not done so. And then you'll be good for the next two years. And then once you get your certificate, give it to Heather.

Send us a link or something.

Yeah. Because I'll forget.

I don't want to have to go digging around finding this crap. Yeah, don't forget. I mean, somebody point me to give you the click on thing, and that's all I need to know. I don't want to do this other junk. Heather says she'd take care of it. OK. God.

All right, let's move on.

So the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, otherwise known as FOIA, has two main components that are important. It's the open records provision and the open media provision. And you have this in front of you in your materials, so I will not read it all the way through, but I will note that the policy of the state for FOIA, the emphasis on it is open access to information, and the default is that all information, all documents are available to the public. When in doubt, the default is that the information is publicly available. The documents are publicly available.

We used to get a book with all the rules and regulations.

It's all online. It's online, but I do believe that the clerk has that information and will be distributing that. It hasn't changed.

It doesn't matter.

It is important though to make sure you have a current for reference. So I would just read the last sentence here of the policy. This is taken directly from the state code and just remind all public records and meetings shall be presumed open unless an exemption is properly invoked. and that the provisions of the law are to be liberally construed, which means, as I indicated that, um, the default rule is in favor of disclosure and it, the statute is always construed as that being the default option. The exemptions have to be only applied and construed narrowly. So, um, Public bodies and all of their officers have to make reasonable efforts to reach an agreement with requesters, which we do here in the county. And then the county is not allowed to adopt any ordinance or provision that is in conflict or inconsistent with the requirements of state law. Um, so let's start by talking a little bit about meetings. This has been, uh, it's a constant sorts of discussion. I know that all at your VACO conferences and everywhere else, it's always a topic of discussion is what is a meeting? Uh, state code defines meeting very clearly. A meeting is, um, any work session, um, when sitting physically or electronic means as a body or as an informal group of as many as three members or a quorum if you have a less than three. But for your purposes, for the Board of Supervisors, any time three or more of you are together, whether there's any votes cast, anytime that there is a discussion of or consideration of matters of public business.

Let me ask a question. So we, so four of us in here are of a political body, not a political body, a party. Okay. So four of us show up at a party meeting. that a violation?

It is not. There is a specific exception that covers and that has been clarified more recently by the General Assembly because of this very question. If you look at the next slide it explains some exceptions and one of them is if you're at a place or function where no part of the person or transaction of any public business, and it was not called or prearranged for that purpose. And then the one that's probably most relevant to what you're discussing, Mr. Shepherd, which you asked, at a public forum, informational gathering, candidate appearance, meeting of another public body or debate, the purpose of which is to inform the electorate or to gather information from the public, and not to transact public business or to hold discussions relating to the transaction of public business, where no discussion or transaction of public business takes place among the members of the public body. And here's the important language. Even though the performance of the members individually or collectively in the conduct of public business may be a topic of discussion, debate, or question presented by others at such public meetings. So it sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook. What does that mean? A practical that was clear that that language was added and clarified recently by the general assembly to alleviate concerns that were just described that multiple members of a public body would be unable to attend candidate forums or meetings of public party of political parties or other groups to discuss generally matters of public concern and have it not turn into a meeting.

So basically as long as I mean three of us attend but are not seated with each other or together in a group conversing.

It does not say anything about that.

There's no requirement that you not sit together, that you sit together.

It simply states that you cannot be engaged. The meeting cannot be called for the purpose of discussion and transacting public business. And you cannot have discussions about transaction of public business, um, during the, and in a minute, I'm going to get to a discussion about what is the transaction public business, because that's obviously a critical question. Um, obviously your, um, recommendation is probably wise, because if you also don't sit together and don't talk to each other, you can't be doing it. But the rules are not intended to require that kind of thing. The clarifications of the law are intended to allow members of public bodies to be together at meetings such as party meetings and such?

I mean, there are people in the public domain that relish the FOIA, okay? Not before it's openness, but as just a tool just to be, to serve the citizens of the community, okay? And it doesn't make the job any easier. So if we go to things like a social gathering where we say goodbye to somebody and the whole board shows up, all right? And so we're in there and somebody would be talking about, oh, gets up and talks about how wonderful this job was and how they did this and all that. Well, that could fall into a FOIA situation. I mean, a thing. So who called the meeting? And then it wouldn't be like us making a decision, talking about paving 17 or something like that. It's just that this is so loose. I mean, they've taken a bunch of words, and they've simply tried to make it cover everything but not cover everything. I think it just upsets people trying to figure out what the hell is being said here in the law.

Well, I think it's very simple.

You think? Yeah, I do. If we were in the same room, no more than two of us need to be talking. It's that simple.

So if two of us are talking and a third one walks up, somebody's got to leave.

Yes, if we were, if that was the only... It doesn't matter what function we're at. Right, but see, you're looking at it, what you just described is one sliver of the activities of the supervisors. For example, and we're always being very careful about this, you get on an email and start talking on an email. Well, guess what? You're just holding a meeting. All right. Well, that's why we specifically say don't respond back. But it's very easy to fall into that trap, you know, because somebody else could be bringing up a subject and all of a sudden you find yourself in a discussion and may not even know the other supervisors are even part of it unless you go up and look through the whole email list. So I'm not saying that it's not impossible to do. It's simple. You just go, okay, two of you show up. I'm not going to be around. And we've done that. We've gotten up and just walked away. Right. But to me, the frustrating part is the public doesn't get this class, we get it.

Well, the training is available, not from me, but from the COIA Council to other interested individuals as well.

So it's not exclusively... Well, they study it to see if they can find little traps in there.

You may get into this, but let me ask this and you defer if you want to, but in the scenario where Tom mentioned four of us in a political body, we're all there together and somebody else from that body asks us a question about what's happening in the county. And the answer in that is that now conducting county business or that just, you probably should avoid doing that. See that, that's, that's horrible because I can't tell the people, I'm sorry, we can't. That you can't tell them.

I can't tell the residents. We can't tell the constituents what's going on.

If there's three of you at the meeting.

Yeah.

Well, that's the two can do it, but not three.

That you can, you can't be in the meeting. So I don't see why it's not because that's why we go to these meetings.

So let's go to the breakfast club and there's three of us there and we have a discussion that is, We know better than have a discussion.

By not even having a discussion, we get asked. Let's move on to talk about what the definition of transactional public business because simply talking about anything and everything just because it has the word York County and it doesn't necessarily make it public business or the transactional public business. So more about movement meetings. Obviously all meetings have to be open to the public. All votes on any transaction, public business can only occur at a meeting. This is all meetings with elected officials, right?

All meetings. Okay. Now let me talk about all meetings.

So if I got a staff meeting.

That's not a meeting because it's not a meeting of elected, as you're indicating. That's what we're talking about. Because some people feel that they have a right to come to a staff meeting and they don't. if there's not elected officials in there that are, you know, uh, if, if, uh, I can't even now county administrator could get it because he has some papers, exceptions and stuff like that, but he's holding a staff meeting. Doesn't mean the public can walk into his staff.

So any, any public body, a public body is defined as, as, as an elected or appointed group, like the public body, The meeting is a meeting of a public body.

So if three of us were to meet with Mark, that becomes a public meeting.

The county staff is not a public body. No.

Right. But a lot of the, for example, the meetings I go to, where it might be the mayor of Portsmouth, myself, and maybe somebody from James City County. That's a public meeting. No. Because you're not in the same government.

It may be a public meeting of a different group.

It is not necessarily a public meeting of the regional. And because of that, that's not a local. Well, you still need to be aware of this, though, because in those meetings, you still have to have your quorum for a quorum of elected bodies, even their appointed.

So, Mr. Shepard, what you're referring to is a different, the same rules apply to any public body. That's a different public body. It may be a Like Mr. Stevens is up here talking about the regional sports thing. That is a public body. Those meetings are subject to the rules of FOIA, the beating rules. So the same rules apply. You have members who are appointed or elected to that body whenever three or more or a

a quorum if it's less than three. I want to point here to the board members, you've got to be aware of that because you still, you still got the quorum and the FOIA requirements and you're part, and you're in there, you're, you're, you're part of the. It applies to all public meetings. Part of the problem, part of the solution, I'm not sure which, right. Especially when you do those things up in Williamsburg.

So advanced notice has to be provided. And the notice, this part of the italics is relatively new. There was a recent FOIA Council opinion that went into this topic that the notice of where the meeting is and the location of the meeting has to be specific enough to allow a member of the public to locate the meeting. The example that was in the FOIA opinion was a public body announced that their meeting was gonna be in Charlottesville. but it didn't say where, when, or, I mean, I think it might have said where, but it didn't say where specifically. And so a member of the public who's allowed to attend didn't have a reasonable notice of where the meeting might be held. And so this, it seems self-evident and obvious that you ought to do that. But this FOIA opinion clarified that in fact, it has to provide that level of specificity. So the, additionally, the, Effective July 1st, this is a new legislative change that is going into effect. The code will now contain a restriction that says that a public body cannot take final action on any item unless that item is on the published agenda. And it can take, unless it's a time sensitive, and I don't think it will surprise any of you that the General Assembly in their wisdom did not give us a definition of what is time sensitive. but it did give us a definition of final action. And it's cause it says what it doesn't include. And to be, to be candid, I don't know that this change is going to do much to change anything in how we operate because we don't, We typically don't do any of this, but if you make a referral to a committee, referral to a future meeting, or you direct staff to provide information, or you make a memorial proclamation, none of those are considered final actions for purposes of this. So it doesn't preclude you from... during the course of a discussion to saying that you want to something that hasn't that wasn't on the agenda saying we want to could you please look into that or we're going to refer that to a future meeting that was the first bullet point not always been a thing um i mean we we've never taken just bring up something during a meeting and make a violent decision well we we may not in practice generally do that but um The first bullet point there, referral to a committee or advisory action, if you're referring it to a committee or advisory body, you're generally not taking any. Yeah, and I'm talking about that point.

I'm talking about the first bullet. I mean, we. What does that take about? Are you talking about the final action?

What it says, yeah, you can't take a final action that wasn't on the agenda. We've never just bring in something random.

Here's an action.

What I'm saying is that our practice is. Somebody else has been a problem and they had to put a new rule in. Yes.

Okay. CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: See, the nice thing here is they talk about that referral to a committee. So when we sit here and we say, OK, somebody brings something up and we kind of do a head nod on some action that we might want to refer to the Planning Commission for review, then we have made an action. But we got a way out under the law. JAMES CAVANAUGH, JR.: That's correct. CHRIS JERRAM, JR.: Because it's a referral, not an action.

JAMES CAVANAUGH, JR.: Because it's going to come back again and people have an opportunity to speak to it. And the rest of these are all standard rules that have been in place and York County has always acted consistently. Access to the agenda and materials have to be provided to the public. Minutes have to be taken. And we do have provision for remote participation under certain circumstances. And then closed meetings. Closed meetings are only allowed for very specific reasons. And a couple of the reasons that we utilize for closed meetings, there are numerous reasons for it, but the ones that are commonly used, personnel matters, discussion of the investment of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved, Discussion concerning prospective business or industry or expansion of existing business where no previous announcement has been made Protection of privacy of individuals and personal matters not related to public business consultation with legal counsel so that segues and this is related to both the question of documents and meetings, but it does raise the question of what is a a discussion of or transaction of public business. And as I noted, you probably are not surprised that the code contains no definitive definition. And so we are left with trying to use common sense and also discern from court decisions and elsewhere in the code what that means. So, The Supreme Court of Virginia did provide a definition in 2023, and that was for a topic to constitute the business, it must relate to a subject that falls within the purview, that's important. So a topic or topic may constitute public business for one public body, like say the US Congress, you know, the General Assembly, but as a Board of Supervisors, such as Board of Supervisors, but not constitute the public business for another, such as the EDA and vice versa. Furthermore, for a topic to constitute public business, it must not be, must not just be something that conceptually could theoretically come before a public body. It has to be something that is either before the public body or is likely to come before the body in the foreseeable future. That was the definition in that case that was Supreme Court utilized in the case that I cite there, Gloss v. Wheeler. That case involved meetings. But that's really the only definition from the Supreme Court that we have that we can utilize with some consistency to try to determine what it is. So you can tell from that definition that it is not, it doesn't mean any and everything where the word York County is used or might be York County. It has to be something that is within the purview of the public body and something that may be likely to come before the public body in the future or currently. So the General Assembly clarified that a little bit and added the following definition of public business, but this only applies with respect to what you were talking about earlier with meetings. So a public business is any activity a public body has undertaken or proposes to undertake on behalf of the people it represents. So if that, if the discussion that is taking place fits within that, that definition, then the discussion is transactional public business. And if you have more than two members present having a discussion about that topic, then it's a meeting. All right. So I don't see we're answering a question.

It may not. Is conducting county business. If you're, if you're, you're just answering questions of your constituent right. Right. regardless of who's there, you're not conducting county business. Now, if you start debating, well, Tom, what do you think we should do during that? Now you could conduct a county business, but if you're just going... Hey, what are you doing about the budget? Here's a rant.

Transaction implies some level of give and take and exchange and things of that sort. It's not simply between the elected members. Right.

You may have some of that give and take between yourself and the person you're answering. Here's what we could do. I'm not turning to you guys. What do we want to do there?

I would not encourage you to Answer your constituents? Well, I would not encourage you to exclude the possibility that there could be a meeting when the discussion is with somebody who's not a member of the Board of Supervisors. That could still be transaction of public business if the conversation is with somebody who's not a member of the Board of Supervisors. So I don't want you to exclude that possibility. But it has to be transaction. And it has to be two or more members, three or more members. but you just said three or more members and it doesn't have to be an elected official. Um, the discussion doesn't have to be had be occurring necessarily between exclusively between, um, elected officials.

I'm sitting here just hearing about it.

I'm not sure.

I was just going to say, say it again in plain language.

Three of us.

And then if you have a fourth, if there's a, if there's another person in the, in the discussion, um, Right. Three, what I'm, what I'm suggesting is in response to what Mr. Holroyd is saying is do not, I would, I would encourage you not to discount the possibility of there being a meeting if there are participants in the discussion that are not in members of the public body.

Okay.

I'm trying to get you to explain that better.

I don't understand what you just said.

I don't understand that. You just said that if I'm in a meeting and I'm the only elected official, but others are in the meeting.

That would not be the case because there would not be three of you present. So there has to be three. You're saying more than three. If there's three present, and you're having a discussion with the fourth person, that fourth person is who? It doesn't matter who it is. That fourth person, that discussion can still be transaction of public business if there's an agreement.

If there's interaction between all three. It sounds like if we're standing here and we start talking to this person, and there was three of us there, and we start talking to this person about a situation, then we're transactioning business. That's right. That's what I'm saying.

That's why I said before, just

So we can't do that with three of us standing. Right. And so that gets to that part about being at the Republican committee meeting, and they ask us at the end, you know, do you guys want to say anything? And you get up and you start talking about an update. Well, there's three of us in the room. But you're not agreeing on anything. But that's what it sounded like he was talking about.

We were just sitting there listening to it. I'm not trying to make this overly complicated. All I'm simply saying is in response to what Mr. Holroyd was saying is that it has to be only the members, at least I heard his questions being only the members of the public body collectively can transact business. What I was saying is that that's not, I wouldn't, I would encourage you not to look at it just that way. If you have three or more members and there's other people also involved in the discussion, you can still have transaction of public business.

The easiest thing is don't be three people in the same function. But you can't. That's not. I haven't been with you and somebody else at the same function. So, I mean. Other than ribbon cuttings and stuff. And then three of us aren't sitting around talking.

Well, yeah, but. We've been together.

Yeah, but we did it at I think we all know in our head that we don't sit around and talk three of us.

We don't. But just going to put this this narrow here that we could be talking to somebody at Chick-fil-A at the Chick-fil-A ribbon cutting. Three more of us there.

No, we'd have to be in the conversation. Can't be just there.

But it's also important for members of the public to understand that there may be reasons why, because you're gathered together, three or more of you together, that you may not be able to have certain types of discussions with them open meeting requirements.

I think you're confused. He's saying if three of us are standing together and a fourth comes up and we start discussing business, that's a problem.

You can't discuss business.

But if there's three of us at, at the ribbon cutting and we're talking to somebody else, it doesn't pertain to for you. Just because three of us are at the function, we all have to be together talking and interacting about business of the board. That's pretty simple.

That is, but I don't know if there's a proximity clause to it.

Obviously, this is always a... They would overcomplicate this. But this is a topic that's important because this is something that it confuses a lot of people and it causes issues, and it doesn't really need to be overly complicated. The issue is When three or more of you are together, you cannot transact business. Whether you're transacting business because the three of you are talking together or the three of you are talking to somebody else about business, transacting business, it's still a meeting. That's all I'm saying. I think the key is transaction of business.

Transaction of business is the key point. I'm just going to go with anything I say or write is... is open to the public and use common sense.

And that's got me through the past few years. And that gets us into the next point, which is public records. And, you know, the definition is very broad. It basically is anything that contains information, basically, regardless of how it's stored and And again, if it's not made in the transaction of public business, it's not subject to FOIA. So matters that are personal records are not obviously subject to FOIA because they were not made in the transaction of public business. All public records have to be open for inspection unless there's a proper exemption. And this is the point that I want to make sure to emphasize to all of you on the board. It applies to all records that you may have in your personal possession. So personal emails, personal texts, a letter that you write on personal stationery with your quill pen. If it relates to or it was made in the transaction of public business, if it was made in the transaction of public business, it's still subject to FOIA. and the open records provisions. So that's just an important reminder for all of you that you have responsibility for your own information as well under FOIA. And when in doubt, assume it's a public record. And if you have any questions, there's some contact information for the county's FOIA officer, Kim Hendricks, with her email address and phone number. And Shannon Forrest, the assistant county attorney in my office, is the one who primarily works on FOIA and will always be happy to assist anybody with those questions as well. A couple of quick questions about how it works with FOIA. If somebody makes a request for FOIA, Code sets forth the timelines. There's a five-day working day requirement to make a response. We can request an additional seven working days beyond that. And there is a provision in state code for longer periods of time with court approval. generally the preferred methodology is to retain a is to get an agreement with a requester because you have a high number of records but there is a procedure available to get additional time beyond that so you have we have five business days to respond to a four-year request how long does the law say you have to um

complete the four-year request.

You get seven extra days.

You respond to the requester and there are some things that you could respond to the requester such as saying we estimate that this is going to cost over that we want you to pay a deposit and at which point once if you don't pay the deposit that tolls the amount of time but The law is that you have five days to get the information, respond to the requester, and if you need additional time, you can get an additional seven working days. So usually, you can obviously get agreement with them and say, hey, this is going to take us a lot longer. And that's why I was going to go ahead. Will you agree to let us do it? So the law does allow for that type of negotiation?

Yes.

OK. That's correct. As long as there's discussion and agreement. All right.

OK. Working days does not include vacation days. Holidays, weekends. I said vacation. I'm out of the country. I'm not answering emails. Not answering emails. But he's saying I have five days.

No. So the way you get around that, it's not getting around it, but everything you do, just make sure it goes into the server. It goes into the county server. Once it's on the county server, you're done. If you send yourself an email, put it on the county server. I think this is a different issue because you don't know how you store those. That's a foible record. I'm not sure how you get them.

I interpret working days as meaning the county's working days. So that's county business day is county business day that's applicable to everybody that's in the counties.

And that just goes to negotiation. We'll respond back, but Mr. O'Rourke won't be back until two weeks, so we're going to need to negotiate.

Extra time or whatever.

So we have a portal that we request that people utilize for making Freedom of Information requests. The link is right there. It's also very visible on the county's website. You're not required to use the portal. We strongly recommend people do, however, for a variety of reasons. You might find that what you're looking for has already been asked for and is already made available to the public on many of our public records that are already there, searchable. It makes it easy to track and for us to process the request. But I do want to emphasize for all of you, particularly the fact that you are not required to use the Next Request portal, nor are you required, if you are a member of the public, to send the FOIA request to any particular person. Unfortunately, this can cause some confusion. The only thing that the person has to do is identify what they're looking for with some sort of specificity. So my advice to all of you on the board, as it has been to all County employees is if somebody, anybody sends you a request for information or a document, Treat it as if it's a FOIA request. Reach out to the county FOIA officer who can then help process it and help you work through the deadlines. Individuals throughout the county sometimes get requests from members of the public that are FOIA requests. And because you don't have to use a magic word like, I am making a FOIA request, if you make a request that is for that information, I say always assume it's a FOIA request until you confirm otherwise from the requester as a matter of policy and as a matter of our counties. Information and answering that question. Yes So a FOIA is a request for documents and records that are available in some form You are not required as part of FOIA to answer a question like somebody just sent you a general question Can you tell me or can you answer this X Y & Z? If there's not a document or doesn't ask for a specific document, it is not something that would trigger FOIA. However, the county's policy has always been that if we could answer a question, we try to do so in the interest of transparency, but Sometimes FOIA is not always an opportunity to what I would call issue a series of interrogatories to try to get responses to questions. But obviously, there's nothing to preclude you from simply answering a question if somebody does and hopefully that clears it up. But if it is a request for a document, then it's FOIA. If it's not a request for document, it's a request for a question which doesn't trigger FOIA. And then here's a list of several of the exemptions that we can exemptions. In most cases, exemptions are discretionary so they're not it's not mandated that they that they be invoked it's up to the public body to make that determination there's a few that are mandatory such as tax records certain confidential juvenile and other records that are governed by separate statutes and federal and state privacy laws but Most of these are the types of exemptions that you might see if you make a FOIA request or if you're involved in one. So personnel information, attorney client privilege and work product, proprietary vendor information, records that are related to negotiation and the award of a contract before the contract is awarded. Once the contract is awarded, generally that exemption no longer applies. unless there's another exemption that might cover it. Working papers and correspondence of the county administrator and I italicize the and because it is two separate exemptions and two separate types of material, working papers and correspondence. And as you can surmise, one is much broader Tax records are statutorily protected with privacy protections and there's potential criminal penalties for disclosing those. So that's what I would call a mandatory exemption. Social services and health records, many social services records are also covered by privacy protections. Public safety records. personal financial information such as credit card, bank account records, things that could identify somebody's transactions, and personal contact information. And then new, and Mr. Roan, in response to your earlier question, probably something happened somewhere that prompted the General Assembly to clarify this, but Contact information for minors that are participating in certain programs are now exempt from FOIA as of July 1st by statute. So that's FOIA. I wanted to move on briefly to talk about the Public Records Act and this is a distinct public law that is distinct from the responsibilities of FOIA and Public Records Act deals with records management and preservation. And we have a state law that covers this. The Library of Virginia is the general sort of authority on this. We have a designated person in York County who is our designated records officer and that is Deputy Clerk Heather Schott. or contact information is here.

Doesn't that code in Virginia specify how long a record can exist and it must be deleted after that time? That is generally correct.

And that's what it says there in the second bullet point. It requires that records be destroyed appropriately and timely and records kept of the destruction. And it requires that records be preserved as well for certain periods of time. And there's a link there if you wish to utilize it for if you have a lot of spare time and want to peruse through the retention schedules, you might find it It will help me put you to sleep, but it's actually interesting. So my recommendation to all of you, and this goes back to what we were talking about with FOIA and that you may have documents in your possession. And it's important that I note this, that you may have documents in your possession that are not in the possession of the county. And if they're not in the possession of the county, the county can't necessarily provide them as part of a FOIA request without getting them from you. but you still have an independent obligation under the Public Records Act to preserve records in your custody. So my recommendation to all of you is that you preserve all records throughout the duration of your service. Do not destroy them until and unless you consult with Heather about the proper... Because the Board of Supervisors and County Administrator records are permanent.

We have to retain them forever.

What did she say? Supervisor has to retain them forever.

And county administrator records have to be retained forever.

Like email like a record or text message.

So financial paper records like your minutes.

A copy of the 2022 capital improvement plan.

That would not because you're not the original producer of the record. Right. Okay. There's a distinction there. Okay.

So Heather is the, the, the guru on all things, public records. So she, if you have questions, obviously ask her, but again, the takeaway on this is preserve all documents in your possession that are public documents and do not destroy them throughout the duration of your service. And unless otherwise instructed by the county records.

But it's public records. That's the key. Correct. That's right. It's not my handwritten notes and my board meeting book because the board meetings are maintained. Right.

Correct.

That's my opinion.

It's Heather's too.

At least it doesn't have a retention of a permanent retention period.

It's a trash can as soon as it gets home.

So, In the interest of time, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the Conflict of Interest Act. I know you're all familiar with it. You've all read it. You're required to read it. We will forward you, Heather will forward you a link to the training so that you can complete it as soon as possible and make sure you get the certificate. I did want to just do a very quick highlight of overview of some things that I want you to just be reminded of. You know, the big issues are gifts. You cannot accept anything of value except for compensation expenses or other remuneration. There are exceptions to that. But as a general rule, you cannot accept any gifts. Obviously, you can't accept anything of value in exchange for getting someone a job or a contract. I mean, that's not only a violation of COIA, that would be bribery. You cannot use confidential information that you acquire as a result of your role on the Board of Supervisors or as a government employee to your benefit. can't accept anything of value, money, loans, et cetera, or business opportunities, if you know that they will have the tendency to influence you in the performance of official duties, you can accept certain honorary and gifts. There are limits on that, and there's very specific rules. I would encourage you to review that. And if anything comes up with that, you can certainly contact me, the COIA Council, and we can help walk you through what the boundaries are for that. And then obviously you cannot use your public position to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against somebody for expressing views on matters of public concern or exercising their rights that are protected by law. Those are all drafted into the code. The gift rules apply to all officers and employees of state or local government. And the gift, there is a $100 General cap on gifts by recommendation though, regardless of the a hundred dollars is to be very wary of any gifts, regardless of value and just no understand what the rules are. Cause you don't want to get caught up in that, in that rabbit hole. Um, the big things to be, to be worried about with gifts or registered lobbyists, you may not always know if somebody that you're dealing with, somebody that's offered you a gift, somebody that you're having dinner or lunch with as a registered lobbyist or a lobbyist principal, they're all supposed to be registered, but you, you, you may not have that information available to you. So again, be wary. Um, and anybody who's looking to, become a party to a contract with the government or the agency is somebody that you should avoid at all costs taking any gifts from. Again, there's some exceptions to this. I'm not going to go into any of those, but there are some exceptions, but they're narrow and they're going to be narrowly construed, and I would encourage you to be very wary of it before you do accept gifts.

The... Go back one. What was that first bullet?

Gifts that you receive from somebody because of a personal friendship.

It's not allowed or it's... That is allowed. I lost track. Are we in the not allowed or allowed part?

It's saying personal friendship. You don't have personal friendship with your wife.

There are waivers available for certain types of gifts and travel from the conflict of interest advisory council and they can help you with that and my office can assist if you have any questions about working through one of those. Personal interests and contracts and transactions. I would just note that the rules on this are highly factually specific to each individual situation. And the main rules that I want you all to be aware of is the Board of Supervisors are the rules that apply to the Board of Supervisors members. And the COIA Council is very specific on the extension of these transaction and rules to personal interests of spouses and family members and children. So be mindful of the interests that your spouses, your children, and your family members may have that would constitute an impermissible The types of prohibited transactions, any contract with your governing body, there are exceptions to that, but they're narrow. You can't have anything other than a contract of employment with another governing body if your governing body points to the majority of the members. And then there's a variety of transactions that you'd be required to disqualify yourself. And again, I note in the tallies for everybody's benefit that this also includes interests that may accrue to you because of a spouse or children or other household family members. And again, the exceptions and the rules are very factually specific. So if you have questions on these, contact my office and I can give you a formal opinion. I would caution you that if you do seek an opinion, either from myself or from the Commonwealth Attorney or from the COIA Council, that it's imperative that you provide all the relevant information because the opinion can provide you some protection from prosecution, but only if it is based and founded upon that complete and accurate truthful information when it is provided. Um, and then I'll just remind you all that you are required to file certain disclosure forms. The clerk does send reminders out about those. deadlines for those and those deadlines. If you don't meet them, we are required to, um, notify the Commonwealth attorney in the case of people who do not meet the deadlines. Um, skip over that. There's could be subject to a penalty or a fine if you don't file on time. And then certain other violations of COIA can, constitute malfeasance and higher penalties such as misdemeanors or in the case of bribery that I mentioned, for instance, there could be significant criminal penalties associated.

Ms. Mussel. ask is because we're trying to write but it's very confusing so yeah you just kind of figure it all out all right now we'll move on to the consent calendar we have four items under the consent number four is request of refund of real estate taxes for settlement number five is retirement recognition for firefighter jason medford number six is resolution to approve arts funding Number seven is acceptance and appropriation of next generation 9-1-1 deployment grant funds. I'd like on number six and number seven to have further discussion. Are there any others?

If not, I'll move four and five absent. What did you say, six and seven?

No, I wanted further discussion on six and seven. Right, discussion. So the arts funding, Sherry, could you speak to that? $80,000.

Just to give you a little bit of background, Arts Commission falls under Parks and Recreation's division. Shannon George is our representative to the Arts Commission. They meet about six times a year, maybe seven times a year. When you see the list of programs that they've supported, They each take three to four, or maybe five of those, and they actually attend. And then they all, and if they're invited to all the other ones, they'll attend that as well. But they do, the group, they follow the programs that are out, and they make sure that they're carried out the way they're supposed to be. Several years ago, we had an instance where one did not happen, and we requested the money back, and we did get the money back. That's when the municipio was overseeing that, so.

Any other questions? So this bucket of money goes to funding those programs that county residents participate in?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Bring in arts to our locality.

And if you shift to page 11 of that section, it actually often includes state funding.

Yes, there is some state funding that they do get $4,500.

And art is a pretty broad topic.

Yes, yes, it is pretty broad.

It's not like paintings. It's like a symphony.

Right.

Living museum.

Dance, literary arts, media arts. It's broad-based. Music, theater, museums, visual and related arts. So it's a broad spectrum.

Terry, if I could call on you for number seven. Next gen. This is the next gen deployment grant funds. Could you just describe where we are on the grant funding and what this specific one is?

Sure. So we received previously. Sorry about that. We received previously 439 $1,733 to deploy next generation 911 services. We've utilized that as a breakdown, $300,000 of it we've used towards our call handling equipment, the replacement of the telephone systems that the 911 operators answer. Our call handling equipment, I3 services, if y'all remember back a few years ago, Commonwealth Virginia came in with a mandate and they believe that it was a funded mandate to put 911 across the entire Commonwealth of Virginia for next generation. Well, what does that mean? It means that they took out all the copper in the ground and they put the internet in and we put it in from two different routes in every 911 center. So that bill increase, they took care of that for two years. And then they opened up a grant process to pay for the reimbursement. And this first $217 and $944, this first grant is a reimbursement for the Delta, the difference between what we were paying Verizon for the copper and what it costs now for the internet. They will do that one more year. It's anticipated. And after that, we'll pick up the $217,000 a year from there forward. So this is basically a reimbursement for some of the services that we have been collecting 911 tax across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This is a way to get our money out.

If I could add one more thing, I do want to recognize that Mr. Hall is a grant monster. Yes, he is. I asked Teresa about this the other day because we were talking about one of these grants that he had got, the one you're talking about tonight. And over the last four years, he's brought in over $2.5 million in grants. So 9-1-1, we do other things regionally. So and that happens across the organization as well. But he's here tonight and I wanted to highlight the fact that staff overall tries to do a great job with this. There's a lot of grants that come to the county, whether it's SLAF grants or 9-1-1 grants, etc. He's been very successful lately.

All right. No call, please.

The motion made by Mrs. Noll is to approve the consent calendar as submitted. Mrs. Noll? Yes. Mr. Drury?

Yes.

Mr. Rohn?

Yes.

Mr. Shepard?

Yes.

Mr. Holroyd?

Yes.

Motion carried. I'm glad.

I'll move on to open discussion. Is there any item that members would?

I have nothing to say at this time.

Okay, good. I got one thing I want to share. So this past Sunday at church was our annual graduation recognition ceremony. I think we had like 16 people participate. It had some local high school graduates, a healthy number of folks going to Crystal Newport University. That was nice to see. And we had some college graduates. We got one person going to the Air Force, another person going to the Coast Guard, some people going right into the workforce. It was a good variety of people. But the last name has caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting it. And the last name was for our very own Heather Schott. And, in fact, for a split second when the pastor mentioned your name, I went, how about that? I know a Heather Schott, too. They were, oh, that is Heather Schott. Because I knew you were taking a course, but I didn't know you were reading completion. So you have now completed your graduate study for Liberty University and applying all your knowledge right here in your county. So congratulations. Happy for you. I was happy to see your name up there.

The only thing I would add, not to that, but to the point, is that today I witnessed something I had never seen before, hopefully never see again, as I was on Ocean View doing about 25 miles an hour down the road. Off to the right was Dominion Power. And it looks like they were trying to put a pole into the ground or drill in a hole to put a pole in the ground. And they hit a gas line. And it got my attention real quick because it sounded like an explosion, but it was just a gas blowing out of the line. And it went up. No flames, thank heavens. But the guy that was standing next to it was jarred pretty good. And another guy started running the other way. And I'm going, this is not good. So I kind of got down the road and I kept looking back and I kept thinking, all these cars now coming down that road right next to this thing. And this gas is just billowing out. And I witnessed that. So I said, well, I got to get to my meeting, which is on the other side. So I turned around and went back. And the gas fumes were amazing. So I told the people there, I said, if you... If you hear a loud explosion, this is what it is. So fortunately, he didn't hear anything. I hope everything went all right. So what is it? You're supposed to call them this utility, right? So you never know where these gas lines. And the experts evidently didn't know because 911, I mean, not 911, but Dominion Power, here they were. Dig right into a gas line. It was pretty amazing. And the day I did, they had a tour because of the HRTAC stuff I'm doing and the chairman, Chairman Pons and I went down and they gave us a tour of the tunnel. It's amazing. Looking at the tunnel now, what I'm seeing is morphing into something that doesn't just like a big hole in the ground. I mean, a big round tube. It's now getting tons of road base being put in. There is actually, and they'll talk more about this, you'll hear more about it, if you have an accident in the tunnel, There are no elevators or anything out of there. What you have to do, there is an escape route right along the edge, but it's not this little rail thing. That was never a crowd control. It's actually, it's in the walls and there's a door you open up and then you go down the side. I haven't seen that in the old tunnels. I don't know if they do that, but they just tell you basically just get out and run towards the nearest opening, which is where you came in or went out. But, yeah, 2028 is when they're still officially saying the tunnel's going to be open. It's probably going to be, if it's going to be 28 or 27, but if it's going to probably more likely be 28, early 28. And the high occupancy vehicle, you know, the tax lanes, they will go, they'll start at near Jefferson, okay, here, and go all the way to Bowers Hill. And then they'll have, and I've asked that what we do is when they start distributing the maps for the exit points, so people, you know, I was afraid to get on the dadgum thing because I didn't know where I was going to come off. Yeah, and so they've got it designed pretty well that if you're going off of Greenbrier or someplace like that, you can peel out and go off there. But it's pretty amazing to watch. And they're clearing out the old stuff. They're going to take out the old trestles. When you see a map of it, the trestles that you're riding on mostly now are the old ones except for when you go eastbound and the new trestles are there. It's just an incredible engineering feat to watch how they've done all this stuff. Anyways, good progress and probably we'll see in the next year or so.

It's not fun to drive right now.

No, it's not fun to drive at all. At all. And it's just almost harkens back to the days when we had nothing and it was jamming up. I've spent well over an hour, two hours trying to just get off the peninsula going down there and have a meeting. It's frustrating. And in fact, the last TPO meeting, it took two hours to get through there. It just drives you nuts.

That was back in your horse and buggy days, right? Uh, I think we had Model Ts. It's interesting. I saw a video today on Facebook. They had videotaped the construction of the tunnel. It was amazing. It was amazing.

Yeah. So you're lucky that that pipe was drilled directly down the top because I meant the gas went straight up.

Yep, that's exactly what was happening. When you see it go up, you see the gas, right?

Eventually it would reach an explosive condition, but it's probably several hundred feet up. As long as it wasn't near my car.

That was scary. It really cut my attention.

That is not a good situation to be in. I had one comment. We have a CDR grand opening on the 11th of this month, which is a big deal. They've got that new building built and collected all the funds they needed for that and have an amazing product. So that was it. Mr. Shepherd, can you take us into closed meeting?

Okay. In accordance with section 2.2-3711A, supervisors convene and close the meeting to consider a personnel matter involving appointment of individuals to boards and commissions. Are you just here?

Mrs. Newell? I can't hear you. Did you call? Yes. Yes. You got to speak louder. Mr. Brown? Yes. Mr. Shepherd? Yes.

I'm sorry.