Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Mrs. Noll? Mr. Drury?

Present.

Mr. Rohn? Here. Mr. Shepherd? Yes. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum.

Thank you. I'll call on Pastor Daniel Smiley of Central Baptist Church to lead us in invocation.

All right, let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for this day that you've given us together. And thank you so much for this meeting that we can openly hear what's going on. And thank you for this form of government that you've given us so we can have freedom to do so. Lord, we want to thank you for these leaders on this board. I pray that a very special blessing would be given to them today. I pray that you would guide their thoughts and decisions. Lord, I pray that you would please unite them and make all these policies and procedures that we're going to hear about today possible. Drive towards a righteous conclusion, Lord. We pray that you would please help their health, help their energy. Lord, we think back to what happened with the founding fathers as they drafted the Constitution, Lord. They only had unity and they only had peace and they were only able to progress when they put their purposes and their will towards you. Lord, we pray that you would help them to rise toward the calling that you put on their lives. Help them to have the courage to make the right decisions, Lord. and help them to have the wisdom to be able to follow your direction. Lord, we do all these things in your name. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.

Those who are able, please stand for the pledge. Mr. Brewery, can I have you take a leave? Okay, I had a couple of announcements. First, I'd like to recognize Delegate Thornton, District 86. He's in the audience tonight. Welcome, sir. Before we begin, if we have any citizens who came for a certain public hearing, I would like to note that we have one withdrawn application. The county advertised a special use permit application for a tourist home, short-term rental on Winthrop Road. That application has been withdrawn by the applicants. I'll now move on to presentations. I'll call on Mr. Bellamy for Vaco Achievement Award presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Holroyd. James Hustler from he is the Government Relations Associate for Vaco, and he is here to provide award. And as James gets himself settled in right there, I do want to make one quick comment. I wanted to note that James is from Vaco. Our national organization is NACO. And just this past Friday, Tim And the IT staff received another award from NACO based on the Digital City Counties Survey. And it looks at things like cybersecurity, digital services, and innovation in IT. So besides what James is getting ready to share with you tonight, that staff has done some other great work.

And Mr. Bell, maybe real quick for those in the audience who are not familiar with NACO and VACO, quick.

National Association of Counties and the Virginia Association of Counties.

All right. Is this thing on? All right, cool. Hey. James Hutzer, Virginia Association of Counties. And I had a part in my speech that actually described what the, what VACO does. And we're here to serve county leaders. We are advocating on your behalf at the General Assembly level. Great to see that we have a member of the General Assembly here today. We also advocate for county priorities across the state at the federal level as well. We also like to connect with our county members through member services. things like our certified supervisors program, which I'm pretty sure some of your members have either gone through or are going through. And so we really like to bridge the gap between local governments across the state and the General Assembly and our federal legislators. But I'm here in my capacity at FACO to present the Achievement Award for the York County's AI recycling lookup, and I'm also glad to hear that Our parent organization, the National Association of Counties, has also bestowed an award. So I'm happy to present this award, and I would love to talk about it, but it's not about me, it's about your county, and I'd love to call my friend Tim Wyatt up to discuss more about what the award is actually for and what the program does.

Certainly. So this award was kind of catchphrase from crisis code in four hours. And I believe it's a great culmination of the hard work and dedication of the staff and the resources that this board provided to the county over the past couple of years. So kind of what happened was in late 2025, as many of our residents realize, is our recycling program unexpectedly got canceled for the region. and we went along three months without any recycling through hard work. York County procured another contract, but we needed to communicate out to every single citizen, 17,000 households, when the recycling was going to be picked up. Simple, straightforward problem. However, when you kind of take in all the different things, it wasn't so simple. The initial solution was, okay, we'll put it as part of our property information, the data's already there, but it wasn't intuitive. And the citizens reached out. In one day, Waste Services got over 500 calls trying to find it out because it wasn't intuitive. The initial solution did not meet the citizens' needs. So once we were alerted to this and we said we need to do better, that's what we do in government. We're not going to just not give the best service we possibly can. We got together. Due to the last year working with artificial intelligence, training up staff, we were able to engage artificial intelligence, create a website program where citizens simply could go on, type in their address, even if they misspelled something, if they wrote out drive instead of DR or vice versa, it would match their address and tell them what it was. When I originally was kind of proposed with this problem, I went to AI and said, well, what's this going to take? How do we solve this? And it said, no problem. Here's a scope of work. Give this to your team of programmers, and it'll take them a week to do it, and then three more weeks to implement it. And I said, we don't have a team of programmers. We don't have a single programmer on staff. And trying to consult out and contract out like we normally would would take too long. I said, I don't have weeks. I don't have months. I have hours. So one hour later, we had AI, the actual application, completely done. Then through a lot of staff resources, we engaged third parties because our website's on a third party platform. We had to stand up a server internally, do a lot of technical things. We went over every line of code that the AI generated in that one hour to make sure that we did our due diligence, it was correctly doing. And within half a day, we had a solution. Citizens had a need, and local government, we were able to respond within four hours of that need. What I kind of like to say to my staff is we're starting to move at the speed of social media. As soon as residents are telling us, hey, we would like X on some of those needs, we're able to find a solution, engage the right tools, and do this. That's what the actual award was for. the belief that it would scale out since just a few months ago when we submitted this we've already implemented this design for two other needs and had similar outcomes within about four hours we had a solution that would have taken us multiple months to achieve or possibly not been possible at all before that so with that thank you unless there's any questions great job good job

Mr. Bellamy, I did not want you to shut down recycling to be able to create a need that can be solved in four hours.

Well, hey, just wanted to close it out. It's great to hear, you know, AI is in the news all the time. People terrified over it. People excited over it. It's great to see AI being implemented to actually solve a problem at the county level. Really appreciate the work that you guys do, that your staff does, and I look forward to coming back next year to present another award. So thank you so much.

Thank you, James. Next, I'll call on Abbott Woodall, Housing Manager for Community Services, to talk about Penniman Road Corridor Rehabilitation Project. Abbott, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight and talk a little bit about our Penniman Road study and rehabilitation project. Very quickly, because I want to get to that, I just want to give a brief update on the most recent renovation project or rehabilitation project that we've done, which is Carey's Chapel Road on the lower end of the county. We just recently closed that project out. Just quick numbers, 14 homes were renovated through that project. One home was demolished and reconstructed. It just wasn't saveable. And then one vacant structure, it was a second house on a lot, not permitted, and it was vacant, blighting, and we demolished that. And just the quick numbers on this, it was just shy of $1.3 million, $344,000 in match, which a lot of that was also state and federal money that we recycled in. for a total project of just shy of $1.7 million. And again, just to kind of identify where those match dollars came from, those are not all local dollars. It was a small amount that came from our emergency repair program, but the bulk of that money came from program income from prior projects, administrative fee carryovers from other projects as well. It's kind of a mismatch of different funds.

How much came out of the county?

Out of the county? Probably like 30 grand.

We get $1.3 million. Awesome. Thank you.

And remind us what CDBG?

That's the Community Development Block Grant. So it is a federal program that, because we're a non-entitlement community, meaning that we don't get a direct allocation from HUD, Newport News, and other larger municipalities do, we have to apply through the state. So we've had a very good track record of going to the state for our Barlow Road project, Carver Gardens project, Carey's Chapel. We did do some economic development grants during COVID. So we've been very successful with those. And it's actually the funding source that we're looking at using for all the Penniman Road projects. So that's kind of why I wanted to give us an overview what we've used it for most recently and how that's worked for us. So the Penniman Road housing study and project, if you will, We received a $75,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. So these are still CDBG dollars. These are planning grant dollars. It's a different application process. What that allows us to do is go in and inspect homes. There's some upfront costs for us of all the surveying we need to do, just trying to identify projects and make sure that we have the need and the demand match. So the reason why we wanted to go to this particular part of the county is this is one of the largest concentrations of naturally occurring affordable housing in the county. And we want to make sure that we preserve it, that we maintain these homes, that we help. Again, a lot of these folks out here, too, are elderly. We want to make sure that their original occupants who have lived in the home for a number of years, we want to make sure that we're helping them to be able to stay in their homes. So if you look at this area, we worked with the county GIS department to come up and identify homes over 50 years old. That's not telling you anything other than just there's some age there. But what you'll notice in a lot of these neighborhoods is these are all either ranch style or smaller bungalows. A predominant number of these houses are about 1,000 square foot. And when we get out and start looking at them, we start seeing that they're aging infrastructure and things that just need to be updated and refreshed. So the way we started this, once we got our grant award, is we mailed out 882 surveys, which is everyone that GIS identified in those targeted areas. We received just shy of 200 responses with 120 people who at least self-identified, income qualifying, and interested. Now, we are still going to continue to do more surveys. But this was the initial response that we've received. So we've had 40 over income, 31 not interested, and three outside the service area. The three outside the service area is because, as Tim would point out, we don't want to just rely on paper. We do recognize it's a new day. So we have uploaded this to the website. It's an online survey as well. So anyone within this area, anyone in the county, if they want to, could answer. and get us to identify the needs or anything that they think they need within the community. But what we're doing is we're compiling all that together and trying to match up need and demand and come up with a series of projects. Because we know that we have 120 people that are interested. What I just showed you that we did, small handful you know these projects are not cheap it's going to take a number of projects to meet the full demand out there so what we're trying to do is identify discrete project areas so that we can go through there and prioritize and then over a series of years we'll the end plan is to go out and systematically go down the list based on priority to address all the need that we can find So the first identified project area was the York Terrace Northwest community. So it's a component of York Terrace and York Court. So we're trying to figure out how do we name this. York Terrace is a large neighborhood, and we know there's going to be multiple projects out there. We're just trying to find something that's descriptive. So we have submitted a request for $1.5 million. We have committed a match of $75,450. That's over a number of years. That is also coming out of the emergency repair budget, which is a combination of funds. And it's not all in one fiscal year. And right now, we have committed to working on 16 homes in this first project area. The outline in red, it may be a little hard to see, but I did want to show people's individual addresses that are agreeing to participate. If you look at it and you wonder why it's a weird shape, we don't want to not serve someone who may be eligible or interested later. So we try to extend the project area as far as we could based on demand until we ran out of money. And that's where we got where we got. So we started off kind of in the York Court area and then extended down Stewart Drive until we just, we said we cannot serve one more house. And that's where that 75 number came in. Based on our estimates, we decided that we needed that much to get all the houses done and we just, we wanted to include that last house. how these projects work so when we are working on the homes we do a temporary relocation because a lot of times we are gutting these homes to the studs there's just a lot of work that's going on so what we've proposed in our grant is to lease two apartments so that we can and that's for pacing so that we can have two projects going at any one given time we know that we've got a lot of demands we want to be able to work through this project quickly so we can get on to the next project The other component is we do mobile storage pods, if you will, so that when the contractors come in, they're working in an empty or vacant house so that we can, it just makes their process move faster. These are all grant funded. And when I say grant, these are 0% interest forgivable loans so that there is some skin in the game, if you will. It's not that it's just completely free. But it's covered under the program. Those pictures are actually from, The Cary Chapel Road project, that's the apartment we rented for the last project. And we were recognized by the state for some of the, I think we were the first one to start renting apartments. It used to be we would just do hotel rooms. It got to be very expensive. We're trying to be more mindful of our resources. Another one of the components we have is because we have to, there is a lien on the property, we have to verify title and make sure people own it. We're verifying that. We do contract out with a private attorney who goes and does our title searches, works with us to resolve error issues, do the deeds of trust, and we also are doing simple wills. These are not involved in state planning, but unfortunately in a lot of the communities that we work in, we find that people don't have these documents, which is why we have to do the title, we do all the error cleanup. So it's cheap on the front end, and we're hoping that the next generation won't have the same challenges with a cloudy title when they want to do something with the property.

Any of that pro bono work?

It's very discounted. Accessibility improvements. So if anyone in the home is disabled, we will put in whatever makes sense. This is, again, from Carrie's Chapel. Gentleman is in a wheelchair. His wife is somewhat frail. We didn't think a ramp made the most sense for her to be pushing him up and down that ramp, so this is a wheelchair lift. It's actually not that much different in cost, but it makes better quality of life. Just quickly, I want some pictures. Structural repairs, if you can tell, that is structural steel. All these are, again, from our most recent projects. We've run into a lot of sprawl spaces that are in serious trouble. Aging in place. Every project we look at, we're looking at how can we make this home last, not just for today, but going forward. So unless you absolutely need a bathtub, we're going to recommend maybe you want to look at a walk-in shower, things that make this home more sustainable long-term so that we're all aging in the way that we want. We're replacing interior components. So again, when you have The cabinets that are original from, you know, some of these, this particular house was from the 30s. They were in need of a little uplift. And then exterior-wise, you know, we're addressing, you can't tell that the posts that we pulled out of here were coated in lead. So we had lead-based paint. We actually are working with a family right now with our emergency program where there's a young child with elevated blood lead levels. If we find lead, we do abate it. We get rid of it. We have it tested. We make sure it's safe. Same thing with asbestos. And we're also trying to do curb appeal because we want to bring the whole community up. So anything we can do that improves the community and the curb appeal and the property value, we're trying to do those things as well. And then finally, just kind of a quick timeline. So we submitted the grant. It was, I think in June, y'all approved it at one of your sessions for us to request. And now that went in, it was July 1st. We anticipate funding announcement sometime in the fall of 2026. And then we've been told to anticipate it for successfully awarded either winter or early spring of 2027. Sometime in that range, we can't know. It goes to the governor's desk. So it's on her timeline. But we've been told to expect it to be relatively quickly compared to previous years. and then I will take any questions you have.

Questions for Mr. Whittem? I have a comment. Well, I do have a question. Okay, so the amount of money on this project, I didn't catch that. He had a slide there. You were showing that. Right. Can you call it back up, please? Okay. Let's see here. I think it was like your third slide, I believe.

Here we go.

Okay, so you requested $1.5 million. I'm going the wrong direction. There it is. So a grant request. So the match is $75,000, and where is the money for the match coming from?

It's going to come out of our emergency repair program. Because of the way this is projected to hit, it's going to hit three fiscal years. So it's spread over three fiscal years. So our emergency repair program is a combination of county funds, state funds, and it all kind of gets – lumped in together. Later tonight, we have an emergency repair grant application on the consent agenda. All those items combined together to fund this.

So you think, like Curious Chapel, it was about $1.3 million. So it was like $30,000 came from the county. So you think it's going to be about the same proportionate share? About. Yes, sir. And I really appreciate that. There was one house you showed here that he could have shown in a picture that the only thing holding the walls of the house up was the furniture. I mean, that's where this house was just about to fall down. Some of those, under that crawl space, the only way you get to the crawl space is through the floor. And it was in, you imagine kind of a swampy area. It was really, it was amazing that you could do, in fact, we had to be careful walking through the house so we didn't fall through the floor. And one of the other, the picture you showed of the house that was demolished and rebuilt, if I recall, one of the beds in that house, all they had was the springs. There was nothing over the springs, it was the springs, okay? And it was on a frame. It's crushing to think that people in our county faced and have to live in the conditions like that and Abbott you and your staff did just an incredible job I mean you talk about squeezing squeezing blood from a turnip I mean you got every penny of worth and the joy of the families that were receiving this gift if you will was was tremendous. Now one thing I want to add that's a personal opinion that I think it's goes back to the the days of Jim Crow and and all that crap okay was that these people that received a lot of this were a minority and the county's lines were drawn to separate the city of Pocosin from your county principally because of racial, because of the integration. And you could see where those lines were drawn and where these houses were. And I guarantee you, those people that live in this house had to live through some really, really tough times in Virginia, and their generations, and their generations of families. And I'm not saying this is a reparation, but what I'm saying is that it was us taking care of Virginians and people from York County. And I was very proud of the fact that we stepped up. And Abbott, your crew just did just tremendous. You had a great line of contractors that got in and did the work. And I'm really, really proud of the work you did. And one of the things for the future, is that the homes that you're refurbing here, if we talk about having places where people can buy a house later when generations passed on or families come in, this is where you buy these houses. And you wanna see, you don't have to have a cookie cutter type house, one right after the other in a community that historically has, they know everybody, okay? They just, because that's the way it was, the way it developed. But people can, other families, families that are coming in with kids, families that do not have the resources to buy a $600,000 home, or what is the average now, $450,000 in your county, can't afford these houses. And this is, to me, a very typical way that if we could do this a lot more, we would be providing housing for our young people, our firefighters, our law enforcement could live in York County. So I'm obviously pretty spun up on this, but I want to just congratulate you and your staff for the tremendous work you did. Thank you.

Adam, you know, I think Harvard Gardens was a really big development that you worked on initially. And that sort of set the tone for what you're doing now, I believe. And you've been really chasing the money, if you will, because your heart is in what you do. And I thank you very much for what you do, and I really appreciated having the tour the other day with our Swybrook and friends so they could see that we do take care of our people regardless of their income or their age. And I think you've done a fantastic job, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else you're going to do. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yeah, I'd like to say thank you so much congratulations for your success so far I know you. Scratch and claw every grant you can get and that's a huge benefit to your County citizens that benefit from the projects that you guys work on so from myself and the board we certainly do appreciate all that what you're doing thank you.

Yeah, I'm impressed with able to do with the grant funded year after year after year. A couple questions for you. You said you had 882 surveys went out, but you only got about a 22% return rate, which seems low for a survey that is going to offer assistance. I wonder if maybe the wording isn't clear. They didn't understand what they were being asked in the survey. Maybe we can clarify that to get better results next time.

We can certainly look and tweak that. So our intent is to send more surveys back out. Again, we have $75,000 to work with. And part of that is paying for the surveys and the mailing. Again, we do have it on the web as well. any way we can do to get that information out, because this is gonna be a multi-year project, and we wanna get the best information we can, so we are certainly open to that, and better technology or better wording, whatever we can do, we do hope that we can get more, the more information we have, the more specific we can be and more focused in our approach so that we're making sure we're meeting all the need that's out there.

Maybe our AI skills can help with that in the future. Second question, I'm hopeful that local contractors are able to bid on this work and we're able to keep the work in York County as well, taking care of the people in York County as well.

Absolutely. We do contractors really, really good.

All right, good. All right, good. Thank you. Yes, sir.

I think everything has been said, but thank you very much. You know this rehabilitation project obviously benefiting District 1 this particular time. As Miss Noel said, Carver Gardens came before Barlow Rd. I believe was one of them. Penamon Rd was one we've had. several districts in the first in district one several streets in district one that have really needed this kind of rehabilitation and I'm I'm thrilled that the county is able to do it and You know, it goes beyond just the housing rehabilitation. You're doing the similar work on sewer lines and and tie-ins to sewer etc, so my thanks to community services and the work that you're doing and Serving the number of people you do. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much I'm going to call on Mark Bellamy now to call to discuss the local sales tax option for school capital.

Thank you, Mr. Holroyd. I hope to give you a very brief summary of this tonight, along with the audience. So what we want to talk about tonight will be what was recently enacted by the General Assembly authorizing localities to seek voter approval on an additional local option sales tax that would be dedicated solely to school capital needs. Grab my clicker here. So this was recently passed as part of the state budget. The General Assembly authorized Virginia counties and cities to seek voter approval for additional local option sales tax up to 1% dedicated to school capital projects. This is a new authority for statewide. Previously about a handful of localities under special legislation had had this ability to levy this sales tax, but blanket wide for the state of Virginia, not until just recently was it available to all localities. So this is something different than what we've seen before. So that's the change that kind of got us here. When Mr. Hutzler was here, I was really hoping that he might mention this, but this is one of the VACO legislative priorities that VACO has been working on for a couple years now to try to get this as a tool for localities to work on school needs. statewide there's been a study talking about state funding for schools uh... the superintendent might give you another number but based on what i read it appears that statewide we're more than twenty five billion dollars behind in school capital for for new schools so this is a big issue for localities so they were trying to do something and this is the result so vaco has been working on this if you have been to a vaco conference and sat in on the school funding Sessions, what you've seen is they've talked about things like this, how much money that they could bring to bear on this, and how the localities might resolve this problem on their own. It's part of a JLARC study, and there's been a lot of conversation about it through VACO. So the legislation does have some limitations, and I want to go through that with you here in just a second. As I said, this presentation is very short, seven slides. We'll be right through it. So, but the resolution tonight that you will see in your consent calendar later, just request that you approve the resolution so that the circuit court can get the issue on the ballot and the voters can decide. And I want to emphasize that. The only thing we're asking for from the board tonight is to certify this resolution so that it can go to the circuit court and they can have it placed on the ballot. The voters will decide whether this stays or goes. so why should we consider this so school facilities are one of the largest long-term capital obligations that we have as a county if you look at our current six-year plan we have 117 million dollars in school projects of that 117 million dollars 100 million dollars will be financed with debt That's how we will pay for it. And as you know, we typically do our CIP in December. I'll present that this coming December. We are actively working on that as we speak. At your next board meeting, school board is coming to talk to you about their CIP and what they see in the future. So this is very timely that this will all come to pass just like this.

Along with that, are they, so we're gonna consider a 15-year CIP, are they considering a 15-year CIP?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Yes, sir.

So the estimated annual revenue. School projects and their debt are supported by the general fund. And as you know, the general fund is about 60% of that revenue comes from real estate taxes. If approved by the voters, the local sales tax option would provide an additional funding mechanism to support school investments and school facilities that would not come from property taxes. This law does include an exemption for things like groceries, personal hygiene items, so they would not be taxed like that. And we estimate this means approximately $12 million annually in revenue. That'd be the equivalent of adding nine cents to the real estate rate, just to give you some scope. These taxes, they would be paid on sales within the county, by both residents and non-residents. With 25% to 30% of sales in York related to tourism activities, this is an opportunity to let our visitors also support our schools. Over the past year, we've invested a considerable amount of time discussing the county's long-term capital needs. And not just over six years, but as Mr. Shepherd noted, over 15. School projects represent approximately 41% of the general fund capital projects that are currently in the six-year plan. That makes school capital one of the largest components of RCIP. While this funding source is limited to school capital projects, its broader implications to the county's overall long-term capital planning. Having a dedicated funding source for one of the largest categories of capital investment would add capacity to the county's overall capital funding strategy, providing better flexibility as the board considers how to fund other long-term priorities, such as possibly a courthouse, which no decision has been made on yet. Having a dedicated funding source for one of our largest categories of capital investment would be, excuse me, I've lost my place. So if this was approved, this legislation would give York County another funding option to use. But before discussing the proposed resolution, I wanna highlight a few important limitations that were established by law. This money can only be used for new construction, major renovation, or related bond and loan financing cost for the new work. We cannot use it for work that has previously been done. You can't use it for school operating expenses. We can't use it for general county obligations either. It is specifically for education. So the next steps. Ultimately, the York County voters, as I mentioned earlier, they will decide this, assuming that you approve the resolution tonight. This is an additional funding option for school capital projects. And the item on your agenda tonight, if approved, requests that York, the Coast, and Circuit Court order a referendum so the question can be placed on the ballot in the November 3rd general election. If the resolution is adopted, the county and school division will provide information to help educate the voters about the referendum, including how the revenue can be used, just as we just mentioned in the previous slide. The estimated revenue generated would also be shared in the school capital needs and what they intend to address with those needs. Only if the referendum is approved by the voters would the board then have the authority to enact their tax. So if you have questions, we'd be happy to answer those.

I've looked at this, and I want the citizens to understand that the board, by approving this referendum, is not taking sides. We will not decide for or against this referendum. You will decide for or against this referendum. But looking to the future and looking to the needs of the schools, this has finally opened the door for us to be able to plan further for the construction and the repair and all the other things that the schools need as far as that's concerned. You have to understand that our schools are very old. I'm not going to start talking about age. But nonetheless, we have to think about that. your children go to school and it's up to you to decide how you wish to make sure that their education is continued the way you would like it to be and in the type of buildings that you would like them to be in so as i said the board was not going to take one side or the other it's up to you if we prefer this to make sure that you check one way or the other on in November, all right? That's all I'm gonna say.

Well, it's interesting. I think this is, in my 25 years, this is the first referendum proposal. I think the last one I can remember was on the sheriff and police. And that was over 25 years ago.

That was in 96, I think.

So this will be interesting. And I've always prided myself in the fact that I can make a hard decision if I have to make a hard decision on funding and whatever and taxes. And we've done that. But in this particular case, it's just an opportunity that's been given to us by the state because of the Dillon rule. And Dillon rule means, basically, we can't do anything unless the state gives us permission to do it. So that's what they're doing here. Often in the years, even this year, but over the years, I often ask people, why did you come to York County? and invariably the answer always comes out schools I come here because of the schools from the schools I know that we have put a lot of money not as much as some communities but we've put a lot of money into the school system and we need to put a lot more money into the school system and that's why we have the CIP because if you look what's coming down the road you've seen tremendous amount of money that we've put in already into the schools where and by the way we're only second largest contributor state provides the most but if you look at the the construction cost of the buildings for people in my district have high schools the latest one is it's millions and millions of dollars so then if you look out into the future of what we've got to deal with we're going to have to deal with more fire stations at least three new fire stations and we're gonna end up with possibly a really big one with the courthouse and administrative building. And then we got some schools we still gotta, we're gonna have to help build. So we've got a lot of, this is gonna be a tough, next couple years is gonna be kinda tough on us. So this is an opportunity so people talk about the schools they come here and they say okay well we go I want kids in in our school system here don't want them in other other areas so they come here for schools. From the schools and because of the efforts that we've placed on schools your county has become one of the safest communities in Virginia. It's kind of why people come here. They take care of not only their children, but they also demand that we have great law enforcement and crime rates low. Our taxes have historically been one of the lowest in the whole area for a full-service government. It's been a challenge over the decades to keep this going, and at times we've had to suffer. Our staff has suffered. because of that. So this is an opportunity now for the citizens to figure out what they want to do here. Now, I will tell you this. I talked about the taxes coming, not taxes, I talked about the projects that are coming down the road, and now we're looking at this referendum. One way or another, we're going to have to pay for this stuff. One way or another, we're going to have to pay for it, and the people that are going to pay for it is going to be us. And the problem we face is this is probably one of the worst times that people can be faced with a idea of raising taxes on themselves. Gasoline now is $4 a gallon. Food costs are up. The housing costs have gone insane. You name it, it's gone up. Nothing's backing down. So this is going to be your call. It's going to literally be your call. So I've just laid out the kind of the landscape here. We can fight over the edges and around the periphery. But in the end, we're going to, one way or another, have to pay for this stuff. Or we're not going to be able to maintain our county at the level that our citizens have asked for it to be maintained and are used to. So I agree with Sheila. This is going to be your call.

I'll hold off until we get into the consent calendar. I think there's a few things to discuss. And I'm going to ask that that particular item get pulled and discussed and voted on separately. I don't think tax and discussion should be lumped in with consent calendar overall up and down approval. So I'll hold off till we get into it.

Well, for me, I agree with Tom. At some point, the money's gotta come from somewhere if we're gonna keep our schools up to date and maintained. But I love the fact that the voters get to vote. That tells us where you want to spend your money. And if it's on the school systems, you vote yes, and if it's not, you vote no. So I'm all about the public having their vote.

I have a slightly different view. I'd prefer to see a referendum on whether this money comes from the citizens at the county level or comes from the state. Because this feels like an unfunded mandate. This feels like less and less money coming from the state to support our school growth and construction and more and more of it coming from the counties. Now, I'm not going to deny the citizens the right to have a referendum. I think we're all in alignment that our job is to make sure that they have a voice. So I think the referendum is an easy call. But I, for one, am disappointed. I see many new taxes being introduced this year, and this just feels like another one. And that's not going to go over well with the citizens. Having said that I have no issue with giving them that voice. Thank you So the next thing is I'll move into citizen comment period As I usually do, I will preface that with some guidelines. So good evening. Before we begin the public comment and public hearing portion of this meeting, I'd like to briefly review our rules and expectations for public participants. Citizen input is welcome. This is an opportunity to address the board on any matter within its purview. Please come to the podium and clearly state your name and address for the record. Your three minutes will begin after you introduce yourself. Please direct your comments or remarks to the board as a whole through the chair. Public comment is not a question and answer session or debate. If you have a question, please direct it to the chair. I may, at my discretion, ask the appropriate person to follow up outside the board meeting. Please avoid repetitive comments if you agree with the prior speaker. You may simply state your name and position of which you agree. and finally we appreciate everyone helping to keep a respectful and orderly meeting please focus your comments on the issues speak with courtesy and all others the same opportunities to be heard be respectful maintain decorum with that i will open the citizens comment period and i will call on mr jim green first speaker to come to the podium just get your name and address please

Good evening, members of the board. My name's Jim Green. I live at 108 Posmo Turn up in Williamsburg. I'm here this evening because in the community that I live at, Wallermill Heights, also known as, well, the legal description is Powell Plantation, we've got some issues there as far as infrastructure goes. I've sent some emails to the board as far as the problems that we're running into up there. But this has been sort of a systemic problem that we've had going on with the developer of the community for the past at least 10 months. Things are not getting done in that community that should be done. Standard practices as far as developers and standard engineering practices are being overlooked. I come here this evening to ask the board to use your power as far as the county goes and as far as oversight goes to be able to get the developer to do the things that they're supposed to do so that we can have a safe infrastructure at Waller Mill. The two things that I'm going to point out as far as the main problem that we have, it's with stormwater management. The first thing that we've got is the developer is not maintaining the stormwater management ponds that we've got up there. creating major nuisances as far as bugs and things like that goes. I want to thank the county because they sent the mosquito people up there, so the mosquitoes are good. And the people that work here with the Mosquito Control Board are absolutely fantastic. My problem is, though, is we've got these things called biting midges up there, what you guys might refer to as no-see-ums. They're terrible. If you walk outside in Waller Mill Heights right now, if you went up there and you go out in my backyard and you stand out there for five minutes, you'll get bitten by at least 25 of them. So that's where the problem is. That's a nuisance. That developer should be taking care of that. We need your help to get them moving. And it's not just with the stormwater management. Another problem with stormwater management is the actual ponds are constructed incorrectly. We need the engineer as far as to take a look at it and certify that everything is correct before this thing's done or else the HOA is going to get turned over, a liability that could hurt them in the long run a lot. The other things that we have up there, The developer last Friday at a meeting that I was at said that the county is holding up streetlights from being put up in the community. We don't have streetlights either. I'm aware. 30 seconds. We don't have the streetlights either. And our roads, they're in terrible shape. They haven't been repaved. But there's a question as far as testing, as far as the ground density goes with those roads as well. The only thing I'm asking, folks, is for your help to do the oversight, do what the statute says, do what the ordinance say as far as the county goes, and get the developer to do his job. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Mr. Green. I'll call on Pampasio.

Good evening. My name is Pam Pusho. I reside at 103 Kimberley Court. Trump said of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch, we have a man who's doing a great job because he kept me out of jail for years. Not because of his innocence, but because Blanch kept Trump's charges of corruption tied up in courts for years until he regained the presidency and ordered all charges dropped. Trump said if his SAVE Act is passed by Congress, it would guarantee Republicans staying in power for 100 years. This is a statement for how to rig elections, not how to let the electorate decide. Trump is so concerned about free and fair elections that he has either closed or gutted the very government offices that ensure the integrity of elections. He has fired inspectors general and those who enforce ethics and gutted the Voting Rights Act. The SAVE Act disenfranchises voters. Unbridled corruption is his goal. J.D. Vance said courts cannot supersede Trump's executive orders. When Trump won in 2016, Obama was president. In 2024, Biden was president. In 2020, Trump was president. So it must have been his own administration that caused Trump's claims of a rigged election. His own attorney general and intelligence community told him he lost. during the most secure election in history. They told him China did not influence the election. Russia, in support of Trump, did try without success. Trump still loves Putin. If they are so against foreign interference, why did Vance go to Hungary to campaign for autocrat Viktor Orban? Virginia uses paper ballots. The machine readers are not connected to the internet, so there can be no tampering with the results. The Constitution states, the times, places, and manners of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. Interference in an election is a felony. Trump has no authority to threaten states to overturn voter rolls with identifying information or allow him to scrub voters as he sees fit. Trump wants to send ICE to polling places to intimidate and scare away voters. He wants to determine who may vote by mail by instructing the Postal Service not to deliver certain ballots nor return them to the registrar. Trump and Vance want to rescind two amendments that give women and African American men the right to vote. The 2020 election was not rigged, but Trump did attempt to do so. The narcissist-in-chief cannot admit he lost. Trump called January 6th insurrectionists to action. He wanted Georgia to reapportion 11,780 votes in his favor. He tried to insert 87 fake state electors and 62 failed court cases and ordered numerous recounts that proved no fraud. He has said that if he loses control of Congress, he will be impeached for the third time. Trump will do everything imaginable to rig the upcoming elections to prevent that. Widespread voter fraud is a proven myth. If you believe in saving our democracy from a corrupt administration, you will vote accordingly. I voted for Jason Knapp in the primary. Staying home is not an option. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bouchard. I have one other signed up, but I'm first going to say, is there anybody else in the audience who has not signed up who wishes to speak? Seeing none, I'll call on Bexar County School Division Superintendent, Dr. Jim Carroll.

thank you mr holroyd members of the board mr bellamy i am jim carroll division superintendent for the york county school division before i share my prepared remarks i want to endorse mr holroyd what you just said that we are in a situation where the state has not fully funded both our capital or our operating expense, and that puts us here tonight. But I'm here because I wanna add my support to the passing of Resolution R26118 that you'll consider later. As far back as I've been with the school division, we've never advocated for how the county funds its responsibilities. We've just made every effort to accurately describe what our needs are, and for both operating and capital expenditure. So tonight I'm gonna continue sharing information that we share the last few years. We have 18 school buildings and a few operational buildings in addition. The average age of our buildings now is 55 years old. The youngest of these is the Grafton Complex at 30 years this year. And our operations buildings would push that 55 year average higher. As we annually review our maintenance schedule for these buildings, we always evaluate needed changes in terms of additional capacity, fixing or maintaining systems at end of life, and finally, to facilitate innovation. Now, I'd add here that we're always striving to build value into our buildings. We are never here looking to win architect's awards. But when it comes to maintaining our major systems, it's really not unlike any York County homeowner. Mr. Roan, your HVAC system is going to last you 15 to 20 years. Mr. Holroyd, your Your water heater is going to last you 8 to 12 years. Mr. Shepherd, your roof is going to last you 15 to 30 years. And the same goes for us. But our systems have slightly differing lifespans, and given the size and complexity, they can be extremely costly. So we've long had an agreement with the county that we would use certain tools at our disposal before building new schools, and we've engaged in that work for many years now, adding additional classroom wings, using temporary buildings, and redistricting when needed for school zones. And this has worked so far. However, we may be pushing our luck also. We now have three school buildings that were constructed in 1954, making them 72 years old. It is generally accepted that the lifespan of a school building is roughly 75 years, so we are approaching lifespan of some of our buildings. And we're currently in the last phase of a facility study being completed by an outside architectural firm. We haven't seen the report, but we are generally aware of the coming recommendations, and they are that we have to replace some of our oldest schools. And these are because, and I've run out of time, my apologies.

Please continue.

Thank you. I would just share that the school board is in favor of the voters having a say in this. Thank you.

Thank you. That closes citizen comment period. I will now turn to our county attorney. Anything to report, sir?

Yes, thank you Mister chairman of the the 2 things I would like to note because I don't think we've had a meeting since the budget. And the amendments were finalized by the general assembly, the 2 big things to come out of the special session and the approval by the governor, the final the amendments of the governor were obviously the retail marijuana. Marketplace going into effect. essentially immediately with some delayed enactment of the licensing provisions. And the provision for granting licenses, it's still scheduled essentially going into effect in a year. But the a lot of the authorizing language goes into effect now that As I've mentioned before, that provision does put constraints on local government's ability to legislate and regulate in this space. And we are looking at some model recommendations from the local government attorney community as to what we can do to implement and continue to preserve our zoning power and other things over this. So there will be more to come for the board in the upcoming months in discussion on this. And there are some steps we need to take. There's a mandatory local tax on the sale of retail marijuana products that localities are going to be required to impose. This is a mandatory tax. And the other thing I would note from the A recent legislation there was legislation that affects law enforcement across the Commonwealth and in the community and the federal government involving the wearing of facial coverings I think. It will may have heard something about that that led that particular provision was enjoined by a federal judge before it took effect so it's kind of been a status of we don't know where to end up being So that's all I have on that. In addition to, obviously, the referendum that Mr. Bellamy discussed, the language of that was also approved in the final budget language and amendment.

I guess I'll just ask your comments. Ms. Kristen Reed and Sheriff Montgomery spoke last week at a session at the Lafayette Gun Club and talked about current laws regarding size of magazines, et cetera. That is also all on hold, I understand, at the moment.

There was a statewide injunction that was issued by two different judges. The Attorney General has essentially indicated that he does not want to have those cases decided on the merits until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on those issues and they are in front of the Supreme Court. probably for argument this fall. So those provisions, the assault weapon provision and the magazine provision were enjoined and are not in effect. There was another provision that was passed by the General Assembly that put restrictions on the carrying of certain firearms. That was delayed for a year in the budget bill, so that is also on hold. So that's the status of of those particular pieces of legislation.

Any other questions for. Thank you Sir. Call owner County administrator Mister Bellamy in the comments.

Just one comment Sir of some months ago the war talked about hiring a business advocate. And as part of the current year's budget. that was agreed to. And we have Mr. Bo Clayton here. I'd ask Bo to stand up. He is our new business advocate. He is.

Come to the podium, please, so we can have a picture of you on the camera.

He has started his second week, so he came back after the first day. So we're really excited to have him here. And we'd like to tell him welcome. And we are, as I said, very excited that he's here with us.

Good evening. I appreciate the opportunity here. I look forward to really doing some great things here along with the tremendous staff that I've already gotten to meet.

Thank you both and I've already had 3. Emails to me asking is a new position created yet. So you've got work coming your way.

All right ready.

Thank you welcome aboard.

I'm open for any questions that you might have.

Questions. I'll move on to a matters before the board. This is no you lead off.

Yes, this has been an unusual summer. The temperature has been escalating more than I ever remember, and people are going to tell me it's because of climate change. Well, I'm not so sure that's climate change. It's just hot weather. Recently, we had our Zweibrucken delegation visit us here. They came on the 1st, and they left on the 8th. I have to tell you that they were thoroughly engaged with all the staff that they could be. They appreciated so much the time and effort that went into explaining their jobs so they could go back home and implement some of the things that they learned. One of the things I would like to say, I'd like to thank Sherry Newcomb and her I want to say her gang of however many, who drove them around, took care of all the little things that needed to be done, and were deeply appreciated by our German friends and us as well. It was an exhilarating time, and this is the first time they've ever come for the Fourth of July. And they were astounded, the fireworks, were just the cream on the coffee, if you want to say, because I drink coffee. But truthfully, the relationship that we have with Weyerbrücken is a very special one because it's rooted in people who came here to help us. And it's not commercial. It's informational. and its relationships. And we've been doing it for now almost 50 years, I think. I have to look at the calendar. But if you ever have an opportunity to partake in a Zweibrucken trip, please do so. I think going to another country is eye-opening, and it's appreciative of your own country when you come back. And so even though they enjoyed our trip, coming to see us, I know that when they get back to Germany, they're going to breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy their own bed.

I might add that the mayor of Zybrook put a very nice article on Facebook complimenting York County.

Good. I don't do Facebook.

Tom? I was sitting here looking at the sheet from the TPO at the last meeting. That's the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization. It seems in my life I'm spending an inordinate amount of time doing TPO work in HRTAC, which is the, you know, if I, If I described it this way, I could say the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel was identified as a project, that's the TPO. The HRTAC is the ones that funded the program through a collection of 7% or .7% tax, real estate, not real estate, what am I trying to say, sales tax. So in the scheme of things, those are huge projects, billions and billions of dollars. But the things that hit home for us and it's kind of really frustrating, is that we have a lot of small projects. There's a thing called the Secondary Road Program that we get money for, and at one time, over 20 years ago, we would get, on a year basis, we'd get maybe $2 million. We would then be able to take the $2 million, add it to maybe another year or maybe three years, accumulate enough money, and then we would do a significant project within the county. In my district, we did a modification of Victory Boulevard and Big Bethel Road and on Hampton Highway and Big Bethel Road. So we did modifications. Well, as money is, money being tight and everything, those projects, now we were secondary, the Secondary Road Program, we would get, did we get $100,000, maybe? Maybe. And we have to spread that over six years. And if you're looking at a project that's costing five to six million dollars, guess what? You know, you'd be lucky to see it getting done in your lifetime. We're not the only ones that suffer from the lack of money coming in on small projects. A lot of times we will get people asking us, why can't I get my neighborhood road paved? I see Hampton Highway getting paved. Why is Hampton Highway getting paved, but I can't get my street? My street hasn't been paved in 40 years. And it's because of the money, and it's prioritization. Well, there's a... There's a program called Transportation Set-Aside. And I love this, because this deals with only small projects. I won't go through all the – you know, you have to wear a robe and have candles and walk around and talk in strange tongues to be able to understand the VDOT language. But in the transportation set-aside, we have – and the way things are approved, you have the Secretary of Transportation who chairs the thing called the Commonwealth Transportation Board, and the members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board are appointed by the governor, and then they're from the different regions. And we have one that sits on the board. He lives over in Virginia Beach and just happens to be the Secretary of Transportation now is, I think. No, he's not. He was the past one. The past one was from Hampton Roads. Well, anyway. So the good news is that this transportation set-aside small project came out to, I think it was about $9 million. And you go, well, what's $9 million gonna do? Well, there's two projects in York County. They prioritize these, okay? They get a bunch of submissions, and they go through this whole list, and then various VDOT people look at it and say, this one scores, should score here, and whatever. So they had 16 scores, 16 projects that were scored, two of them in York County, One is the Tabb High School crosswalk and sidewalk. And that was scored and total cost is gonna be about $950,000 total, okay? And so that's gonna be funded. And the other one was the Trail 757 York County Section 2. And we've seen that, that's gonna be in one of our things today. And that's going to be funded at a little over $3 million. So these little projects, and I pointed this out to the board how significant it is. This has got Williamsburg, Newport News, Suffolk, Norfolk, Virginia Beach. James City County yeah they're all in there okay but it's only sixteen projects and we got two of them so I'm real happy that we did that that was a kind of a big success so we'll see these projects come along thanks I'll defer till another time we got a lot coming up here we need to discuss and nights getting long so

First and foremost, I am really excited Bo Clayton is on board at York County. Something I've been fighting for for two years and he and I have sat down and had a long conversation about some things that we need to try to work through in York County to be more business friendly and try to bring more good revenue generating businesses. Bo, I certainly look forward to working with you, and I hope you can take some phone calls and emails off my plate. That's what I'm hoping for. But I've enjoyed doing it, but I'm glad we have somebody dedicated to do it now. So welcome to our team. I also would like to say we had a great time with the Zweibrucken team. a German delegation. I had the opportunity to go there a couple of years ago. It was a fantastic trip. They treated us like kings and queens, and they just went all out for us. And it was great getting to know them. And you get to know these people personally. So when the team came back this time, it was like we never left each other. We reconnected just like we left two years ago. I do appreciate Sherry and her team. I know you kept them busy, busy, busy, and they were wore out, ready to get back on the plane and probably sleep the whole way home. But I do appreciate Mayor Merrill bringing his team and just the great group of people that they are and the synergy that we have between the two groups of people has been great to be a part of. Just for people that are signed up for my newsletter, I did send a survey out just asking some questions about York County and what you'd like to see or have in York County. So if you haven't filled that survey out, please do so. That's how I get my information to bring back to the board. to make York County better and York County more of what our citizens want. So please get involved in that. And of course I'd be remiss if I don't mention the businesses and how well they're doing. Dutch Bros is well underway if you haven't been by there. They're putting pipes in the ground. Looks like the BMP has been constructed. Chipotle, I would suspect they're getting ready to turn the key here, I would think, shortly. They've gotten most of the work outside done. It looks like they're trying to finish up on the inside. Cookout, I think, is finishing up on their inside as well. So hopefully they'll be opening soon. And I'm really excited. I've been working with the owner of Meadows Custard. out of Williamsburg and Hampton. If you've never been there, their custard is amazing. And so they will be coming next year, hopefully in the spring, if we can get them through the permitting process in time. They will be going into the First Advantage building in Grafton, because First Advantage is going to be moving over to where in front of the food line by Fort Newsom Boulevard. So other than that, that's all we got, Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. I had actually several items to cover this evening, so begin with the first one. Mr. Bellamy, you received a presentation recently which you shared with the board, a presentation made to the HTRFA regarding a live performance venue to be added potentially to the sports complex. As I read through the presentation, the fiscal proceeds for York County is $256,000 per year. and yet the investment total is 83 million. I don't particularly want to see presentations scheduled before this board until the economics for this venue are clearly demonstrated on how each participant is expected to put cash forward and the revenue or cost of capital investment analyzed relative to the investment. It just doesn't make sense at this point. The members of the board, I'd like to see the county staff review our policies for the STR. We got into quite a debate in that last meeting and I just think it's time that we brought that policy forward and reviewed it once again to see if there's any recommendations we would want to include in that. We had considerable debate and I just felt that we were not terribly well aligned on the policy. and it behooves us to do the work in a work session to address what can we do. I had asked the county attorney to look at can we make changes to our ordinance. It would appear that we are still unable to do that based on legislation passed in January of 24 that prohibits us from moving forward with any changes to Current ordinances in place you can make changes, but you you risk the You you risk losing an sup capability, and I don't think we want to do that I And then finally, I had asked for a pause on future applications until such time as we've had that review. There are no current applications in the queue at the moment, so that's less of an issue. But I would like to have that policy reviewed and brought forward and agreed upon before we entertain new ones. Mr. Bellamy, I want to thank the county staff for preparing the recent summary of the 2026 General Assembly session analysis. One bill that failed during the 26th General Assembly was SB 454 zoning. It was a buy right multifamily residential development. Early versions of the bill included a development impact fee, and I'm sure that we will see similar versions of that bill resurface in 27. Code of Virginia 15-2-22, Article 9, addresses impact fees. And that was initially proposed for Bill SB 454 and then withdrawn. But I've gone back and looked at that, and I'm wondering to what extent provisions of article 15.2 2328 applicability of Development fees can apply to a county now that particular bill expired in December of 2008 so it's not likely that we can do anything on that particular bill, but I'm wondering whether there is anything else in the 15-2 that would apply to development fees that we could look at and

development fees on the developer.

And I would also like to examine how those impact fees were calculated by those counties that did apply that particular article back in 2008. If you could direct staff to do a bit of a dig on that. Thank you. Final comment is on Watermill Heights, and we've had gentlemen come forward tonight discussing the issues that they face in that community. I'd just like to make the comment that our public's work staff have been diligently following the progress of this development since construction began, and that's been well over two years. It's unfortunately we have some of the issues that we're facing in terms of BMP and potentially road road issues. But that doesn't stop us from continuing to do the work that we can do to drive both the developer and the county to improvements in that area. We are somewhat prevented in making any comments on that point because one individual has brought threat of a legal suit against both myself and the county. So we're under client council privilege on a lot of the issues. and basically can't make the kind of public comments to the citizens that we would like to be able to say other than we are working it thank you with that i'll take us into recess and we'll reconvene in five minutes

Reconvene.

Begin the public hearings.

First application is Stanley Park Auto and Mike's Towing LLC. I'll call on Earl Anderson, Director of Planning and Development.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. This application is for a towing service auto storage and impound yard at 1570 Penniman Road. It's that hatched area you see there. That area has got a lot of different kinds of uses in it. the surrounding areas, got a variety of different things to include. The green area is part of the Naval Weapons Station. To the east, you've got some multi-tenant warehousing buildings. You've got a landscaper that's out there. You've got a tractor trailer lot out there as well as a lot of different little warehousing buildings. This kind of shows the property here. This is an old picture, but they're looking to go here in the front area where these white tractor trailers are. This little green area is still there, but they're looking to fence that in to create the impound yacht here. They're taking basically an existing repair garage and converting it to allow for the towing use. But as I said, most of the uses out there are industrial in nature, and this really doesn't conflict with that at all. it'll be a towing and service impound lot about 14 000 square feet they'll have about 1500 square foot office space in that building and they'll operate monday through friday so people can come pick up vehicles do what they need to do between nine and four but they will have signage and stuff posted if someone needs to be able to get their vehicle a little earlier. So as we said in our memorandum, this is a very low intense use here on this site where we already have a lot of existing industrial uses. So it's very compatible with what's going on there. And the zoning ordinance and the conditions within the resolution you have before you will provide the necessary protections we have with all towing type operations that we've had in the past. So we are recommending approval, and you have resolution number R26-112. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of it at their last meeting, and I know the applicant is here tonight to answer any questions if you haven't. And I'm happy to take any questions you have as far as the staff report.

Questions for Earl? No, that's a pretty good use. I just had one.

Can you go back to the picture where the tractor trailers are?

Yes, sir.

So the land, the lot is going to be the tree line lot. These other tractor trailers up front, that's another business? That's another business, yes, sir. Okay, that's all I need. Thank you.

Earl, I have one question. Yes, sir. Is this owner following the guidelines of the Towing Advisory Board?

I probably should default to let him answer that. I'm not really sure because I'm not as familiar with the Towing Board other than what we've heard in these meetings.

Thank you. I'll hold off.

Okay. Could you go to the mat with the plat?

This one?

Yeah, so... The hashed area is? This is the building where they're going right here.

Yeah, it's a little unclear, but the whole property is this larger hatched piece, but the building where they're going is right here.

All right. So there's no provisions in this request here to expand any of the business into that sliver that goes north and then do anything in the back end of it? Correct. Is that protected wetlands? It's not.

I mean, it's mostly tractor trailer parking right now. This whole back area, there's a lot of tractor trailers parked back here, too. I think pretty much the whole lot's being used, if I remember correctly. for some kind of parking or warehousing materials.

OK. But they're not going to be used for towing? Correct. No.

The only area for the towing will be this area right here, where that building is. So this building right here will be just right in there.

OK. All right.

Thank you. That'll be limited to there. All right.

Thank you. Yes, sir. I just wanted to, I think the package is pretty clear. But for the public, I wanted you to state it. So you can do so this is not going to be a junkyard. It's going to be just a towing a vehicle in here. They're allowed to have one inoperable vehicle there just for 90 days, 90 days, and they can have one operable vehicle there for 30 days. I believe it was some they're not going to stack vehicles on top of themselves. So you're right. So this is just it's kind of in and out and and yeah, so. And my take was that this was part of, that was tied in with the Sheriff's Department's list of towing because he had to meet some, something was stated in the public hearing they did with it, I think with the planning commission. So, all right, great, thank you. Oh, you're welcome.

All right.

All right, thank you. I'll call on the applicant. Thank you.

I'm Aaron from Stanley Park Auto and Mike's Towing. He showed you where exactly that I am trying to put the storage lot. It's really not going to change anything, and the property is actually going to benefit by putting a fence up there to kind of close off that little area to keep people from driving right up into the shop door. But I've been in business for, in this business, for about 30 years. I do know the towing industry really well. I'm not part of York County or State Police yet. I have to have the storage lot zoned correctly. And then yes, I'm gonna follow all the laws to the Board of Towing Administration that is in place.

So let me stop you just for a second. So you are doing this to then be able to apply to the Towing Advisory Board? Yes. That was my question. Yes. Thank you.

So yeah, I'm just asking for y'all's approval so I can step my business up. Any other questions?

Questions for the applicant? No. Good. Thank you. I will now open the public hearing, call on any citizens who wish to speak on this item. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Board discussion?

I'll move.

Please move.

26, 112. That's the ordinance.

I think that was right. Yeah, that's right. Roll call, please.

The motion made by Mr. Drury is to approve proposed resolution R26-112 as submitted. Mrs. Noll?

Yes.

Mr. Drury?

Yes.

Mr. Rhone? Yes. Mr. Shepherd? Yes. Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Motion carried.

Good luck.

And I'll call on Earl Anderson to walk us through York County Board of Supervisors' application for zoning.

All right. all right so a few months ago the board had asked the staff to try to put some together some amendments that might be able to allow containerized cargo units to be used as accessory sheds in people's um in in residential areas and so staff has brought forward this information we've created a definition that kind of highlights some of the bigger pieces when it comes to these kinds of things that it you know is a reusable metal vessel it's been previously used for packing shipping movement transportation of freight articles goods or commodities by commercial truck trains or ships and then also that this this particular thing is going to be modified in terms of a requirement of a building permit and will eventually be called we will be considered a building i know there's a lot of words in there but i tried to highlight the the key pieces there of the definition we were trying to get at um this would be considered an accessory use on the property and so we've set forth in there we removed the um section in the ordinance that said it's prohibited so that that's out of there and we put it in there so that it's an allowed type use in is an accessory use but we've also set some standards we thought that would be there to kind of help protect the adjacent property owners and make sure that these do not become unsightly and so forth. So if somebody has a large piece of property and they want to bring one of these in, there's not as many standards for them. But if it's a smaller piece, it's visible from an adjacent property or the right of way, then they have to do a few more things. So some of those things that we put in there is you can only have one per property, so only one can be used. It does have to get a building permit, and there are standards in the building code that they have to meet. One of those is it has to be on a permanent foundation, and there are a variety of different kinds of foundations that you could do, concrete pad, but it has to be secured, and all of those are building code requirements, but we wanted to make sure it was in the standards so that if anybody was planning to do this, they had that awareness that that was one of the bigger things. You couldn't just bring it in and drop it on your property. It has to be used for the storage of the goods for the principal use, so we don't want it being used for a business or something like that necessarily. And then no stacking, so one container, not two containers stacked on top of each other. And then we put some stipulations in there that if it's visible, so if you can see it from the right of way or an adjacent property, then it needs to be screened. You can use landscaping to screen it. Or if you prefer, you could put siding on it and a roof. And I have some examples, so be patient. So I wanted to show you, this is like a 45 foot container. You can get up to a 45 foot, but I couldn't find a good picture for a 45 foot. But 40 feet is the type of structure you're looking at. Could go down to 10 feet. They do have some that are 5 feet in nature. And then this is kind of how they could look. This is one with siding and a roof, so it kind of makes it look more like a what you would normally see, a stick-built structure. And then here's an even smaller one with a flat roof siding on it. But again, it was a containerized cargo that they put this on. So with this recommendation, we've given a clear definition of it. We've tried to set some standards in there that would help protect the adjacent property owners. So we are recommending approval. And you have ordinance number 26-16 for that. this did go to the planning commission last month and they did recommend denial of this they didn't feel like this was something that they wanted to see added to the ordinance but i'm happy to answer any questions you all have for me on how we came up with this or if there's anything in particular that we missed be happy to talk about it

Yes, I'd like to find out, why did you do this? What is it about?

So there's a few months ago, the board had a discussion about these units being allowed as an accessory structure in the rear yard or in like a residential area. And so they asked a staff to kind of put together something to see if there's possibility of being able to do it. And so that's what we brought forward.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Yes, sir. So these... structures made of metal. And if I'm not mistaken, I've seen some of them rust out in places. So is there any maintenance requirements, like if the back end of it rust out or anything like that? I mean, do we have any maintenance?

We don't have a property maintenance code here in the county, so no, I don't believe so. It would be, I mean, if it's visible from an adjacent property, it would need to be screened, so hopefully no one would see it if it started rusting out.

Sir, may I? Mr. Anderson. If a shed was made of wood and the shed was rotten and falling, that would be condemned by the building official?

Yes, it could be condemned.

Much the same way that metal could be as well.

Very good point. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. I'm sorry. Yes. Condemnation is always a possibility if the structure is unsafe. Sorry. I apologize. Thank you for that.

rule. Can you speak to a couple of things one does the ordinance address any setbacks for buildings containers of this size property line setback and also about location on the property can somebody plop it in anywhere on their property or is it regulated to certain areas of the property.

So I know we didn't provide the entire accessory section to you, but in that section lists out where sheds can be located. So usually rear yard behind the plane of the existing house, they can be up to five feet off the property line. If they come into the plane of the house, then they have to be set back 10 feet from the property line. in that area but they have to be behind the front plane of the the principal structure so wherever the front of the house is it has to be behind that so it could be 10 feet or five feet depending how far it is into the rear yard okay so you can't pop a 45 foot metal container in your in your front yard and call it good you could not correct

but given the size of this, something we'll need to discuss here during board discussion is, is five foot or 10 foot setback enough for a structure of this size as compared to the typical storage sheds that you can get. So we'll probably talk about that during board discussion.

Mr. Drury?

No, I'm good.

I had a couple questions earlier. Yes, sir. Setbacks has been addressed. Is there an SUP required?

There is not. We put the visibility piece in there rather than require the SUP. If that is something the board desires, that could definitely be something we put in there. We felt like if it was visible, if they are putting siding on it or they're putting the landscaping in so you can't see it, that would be about the same things we would ask in a special use permit.

You said accessory use is permitted or carports, garages, utility shed. Or storage facility can't live in it, correct?

Correct, that's why I said as we put in there specifically that it's a that it could be only used for storage of goods for the principle use cannot be converted into an ADU, correct?

No other questions. I'll call on the I'll open the public hearing and call on any citizens who may wish to comment on this. Ann, please state your name, address, and you have three minutes.

Ann Gregorian, Baldrick Place, Yorktown, Virginia. I oppose this ordinance mostly because of the ability to provide screening as an option, such as shrubs. So I live in a cul-de-sac. I have five backyard neighbors. And there's been several situations where, oh, well, we'll let you do that, but you have to screen it. The problem is when the screening dies because of drought or because it's not watered, then the item's visible. And so you really don't want to be calling code, you know, every year and a half and saying, can you make my neighbor plant some more shrubs? So then you just live with it. So that's my objection to this ordinance. I like the idea of them having to side and roof. If you're gonna pass this ordinance, is a better, more permanent solution, especially in residential areas that are more dense. And so I really don't wanna be looking at, the guy behind me, he does a lot of work on cars, so I can imagine a huge shipping container back there you know, he can drive the cars in and out of it. So at least if it had siding and a roof, it would look more like a garage than a shipping container. So that's my objection. And so I hope that you'll refine this ordinance for a little bit more strict rules on this dwelling.

Thank you. Pam Pucho, 103 Kimberly Court. As I stated, well, let me ask you a question first. What does SUV stand for? Mr. Holroyd, you made that comment about SUV. What does it stand for? Special use permit.

Thank you.

Thank you. I wasn't sure. Containers can be up to 45 feet long. This is not a small, tiny structure. Are you gonna turn it into a B&B? Are you going to rent it out for housing? We don't say what that unit can be used for. It's not stated anywhere. If you want to renovate it, you can make, they're making houses out of these things today. If you have a caveat that the neighbors have to agree to it, any neighbor who disagrees, then you have a fight in the neighborhood. This is just another problem. We already allow large RVs, trailers, boats, and derelict cars in our backyards. Do we need to contribute to the junkyard effect of backyards? I hope not. I don't wanna see it as rental housing. I know if you plant landscaping, it can take many years to reach the height of one of those containers. They're not low to the ground. And I'm asking that you put this application in the county dump containers where it belongs. Thank you.

Seeing no others, I'll close the public meeting. Discussions by the board?

So I'll jump in so. You know this is another example of where you try to balance. The homeowner the property owner be able to use their property as a way they see fit to their enjoyment but also the balance between the neighbors been able to enjoy their property at the same time there are plenty places in the county where A structure like this can go seamlessly. People got multi-acres of property, slide in there, no problem. Other places, not so much. That kinda led to my comment about I think we need to look at augment the setback rules for structures of this type and the size and we may also need to have some discussion upon it will depend on how big your lot sizes how big of a structure you can put their 10 foot 40 foot 45 foot et cetera and to was a horror cock comments question about Special use permit I think these should go through the special use permit process so that we have the opportunity to look at the Particulars of a given application to see whether it's a good fit or whether we can Provide remedies to allow it to go into a certain area as well as give the homeowners Opportunity to speak for or against it or share that share their thoughts as well I don't know if this has ever come up before So I don't think we'll get inundated with too many special use permits. So I think it's manageable from there. So setback, proper sizes for a given lot probably should be looked at. And I believe this would be a special use permit process. So we have a chance to evaluate and citizens have a chance to provide input.

So this is somebody in my district, and I talked to them about this. Some of these look like a very nice shed. I've looked at pictures of a bunch of them, and Earl showed us a couple pictures. It's no different than a shed. It's no different than an accessory structure. It doesn't matter. How you face it on the front and the top, it's a shed. It's a building out back that somebody wants to use for storage. And my thought is it has to look good, it has to be where it's supposed to be, and the neighbors have to approve of it. That was my initial ask when I brought this up. It's not going to be a hideous looking, if we have anything to do with it, our zoning people are not going to let it, not allow it to look like some piece of junk sitting in somebody's backyard, just like they don't allow that for sheds. If it becomes dilapidated, they can send somebody out and condemn it. It's going to be the same thing. I don't think people are hearing what Earl said. about it's not going to be used as a living quarter. That is not going to happen if we know about it. If we find out about it, of course, we'll be out on them right away. It's going to look to our standards. It's going to be in our setbacks. I'm OK, Steven, with looking at the size, as long as it's within the perimeter of the, to me, the backyard, really. And I don't even have a problem with the SUP, honestly, because you're probably right. There's probably going to be very few of these. But that's all I've got.

To me, it's opening Pandora's box. If you live in a residential area, I just don't understand why something like this is needed. I think there are storage areas that you can rent if you need to store a lot of things. I'm a little bit befuddled about this. I really am. Thank you.

I think that's like saying you can't allow somebody to have a certain car.

I don't think so. Mr. Chairman? My sense is that I listen to the arguments and I go back to my youth living in the woods and we build our sheds and barns and crap like that and then the city comes over and takes over everything so we had to pull all that stuff out of there. um i this to me this is opening up a problem this is going to create a problem um it's more than just uh i know we've we've talked about we got this image of these big containers coming off these you know 40 foot containers and and the other ones yeah you can modify it most sheds are customized for a purpose. They're customized for, you know, if they're going to be a shop to work in. You're going to build a roof. You're going to have a storage bin inside, probably lights and everything. You're going to spend the money on it. You're going to make it fit within your community. Not everybody wants to do that, and I can understand this. And I don't know that every homeowner association that we have actually has limitations on sheds. I just, I can see where people are gonna wanna put these things in there, and beauty's in the eye of the beholder. Unless we can really clamp down on what this thing's gonna look like, I mean really clamp down on it, and I don't know why, somebody would spend that kind of money on a storage unit that had to put it on a concrete base if that's the permanent structure, this thing could be really expensive. So I just see this. If we did a special use, maybe there would not be a lot of folks up there, but this to me is just going to create a problem. And I don't know why we'd want to do this in New York County.

I think I'm echoing some of the same comments. I've seen these used as temporary housing in different parts of the world. I've stayed in one in Amsterdam on the canals. So I mean, sometimes they're attractive and make sense. I'm fearful of this becoming a dwelling unit. And maybe it's not a legal dwelling unit, but then I've got people parked in there that are perhaps of different origin or have immigrated to this country and not necessarily legally and et cetera. I'm just fearful that it leads to a whole new set of problems that we create by allowing this.

Well, that's my that's my thoughts.

So you could go to the sup process, but I think the wording has to be extremely clear that it may not house any individuals. And right now it says associated with residential living. That wording is already confusing. So I'm. I'm inclined to just say let's table this.

I'd like to give staff an opportunity to go back and address some of the things that we talked about here tonight on how to tighten that ordinance up to make it more amenable to being established somewhere on on a piece of property we can we we got property of all shapes and sizes. We can make a one size fits all rule that kind of led to the s u p consideration so that again we have an opportunity to look at this of this blanket yes a blanket no we have a chance to say whether it's a good fit or not people have a chance to comment on that as well. And I get the concern about what might happen but you gotta be careful on legislating or pass ordinance on concern to what might happen what what somebody may do where other people may not do as well that's like saying you can't purchase a certain item because you're afraid of what somebody else might might do with it even though you're going to use it responsibly and we we we got to stay away from us deciding what somebody may or may not need that's not for us to decide if if they want to use that great if they want to use a storage unit. That's fine if they want to put on property that we just need to tighten up language to to address it, but we should be one decide whether or not they just use a storage unit or they put a shed on their property that that's that we're getting outside of our lane.

The state I can take that this everything you just said I can take that and say why we have why we have these restrictions on on housing. why don't we expect you know uh rentals i mean everything you just said you could apply you could apply to anything we do in this county and and the point we do we do this because we want to have our county look a certain way i mean we're not a homeowner association but in some places you have you we actually actually have to serve almost as a homeowner association So I got this vision. I mean, maybe it's just because I'm old. But I got this vision. I've seen crap that you could take this thing. I see it rusting out, being rat infested. Somebody put crap in their store, old tires or food or stuff like that. And it just turns into be a nightmare if it's not handled properly. If we tighten it down, I agree. If you want to do something like this, The container is used for hauling stuff. You could take a tractor trailer and use the back end of a trailer as a storage. But we put limits. So if we want to crank this thing down tight, where they want to have to show how they're going to change the colors and stuff like that, yeah, we can go through that process. But I just kind of like, man, why go through this hassle? I mean, I don't know, what is it going to solve? not solve a problem so I can build some I want to go build a shed is fit for the community as fit for their for their environment.

But then we're going to be into right here is the type of said you can build so it's up somewhere along the lines where we're working with and that's what we're trying to address here for this too because you may be popping a 10 foot storage unit and and there's a difference between because that is a research on this before tonight. You know those containers or a whole lot more durable than say a tractor trailer trailer. They float well. They float well. And I looked into the expected lifespan of these. I think it was about 15 years of service as a storage container. But placing it on a piece of property as a storage shed on a proper foundation, you could probably get 40 or 50 years out of one of those things. You can't do that with a tractor trailer trailer. It'll fall apart. So these are a lot more durable than the shed in my backyard. That thing's, I don't know, not even 20 years old and it's got some problems where if I'd have dropped a 10 foot storage container back there, I'd have probably still got another 20 or 30 years on the thing. Not that I want to, but it's, I'm very reluctant to telling people what they can and can't do on their property. Yes, we have a lot of regulations on it, but we're not trying to solve all those problems tonight. We're just trying to solve this particular one. The question came up. This is how I think we should address it. Again, I'd like to give staff an opportunity to go back and see how they can fit some of these concerns into the ordinance and then have a follow-up discussion. Maybe it needs to come to a work session first. No.

That's where I'm at with Tom the comment you made about people just store and stuff in their people do that no sheds all day long. All day long nobody and sheds rot they fall apart. And they don't like Stephen said they don't last forever. And this is a this is a hefty metal container that will last a long long time.

So make it for now. I mean, seriously, to me, I just see a problem. It's going to happen. Now, I can be afraid of everything. But I will go along with tabling it. But it's going to be, you come back, you're going to have to tighten it down. And I'm not going to come out of it without a special use permit.

I'm OK with that.

I mean, seriously. I mean, I agree. I'm led by flexibility. But that's about as far as I'm going to go with this.

Well, if you've got SUP, you get public comments.

Yeah.

And as they come up, it gives staff an opportunity to go, well, listen, you're on a third acre plot, 45-foot container is not going to pass the SUP. So let us recommend something else for you.

I got a neighbor, not a neighbor, but one of my constituents has, I think, about four or five sheds on his property. He just likes sheds. And people are complaining that neighbors are complaining about the sheds because they're not being maintained or whatever, right? And I can see the same person coming in and say wait a minute I can put a forty foot thing on there Steven just said we're going to tighten those requirements up all you gotta do is bury them in shrubs but the point is I'm having an issue in my district where we have a fence a white fence that by some I'm not going to go all into it but we gotta hide the fence okay so Because we've got to wait for the trees to grow big enough to hide the things. So there's all these issues. I don't know why we have these issues. A minimum is going to be a special use permit. But I just feel almost, I feel almost personally, I almost feel embarrassed that the county is going to be known as a place where you can park a storage, you can turn a storage, a trailer into a storage unit. It's rubbing me the wrong way.

I don't think we have a path forward unless we table and ask for it, right? Yeah, I agree.

That's fine. And that gives each of us the opportunity to meet with staff and go, well, here's our concerns, and here's what we'll address and get into more detail on one-on-one discussions.

I would recommend that you continue the public hearing to a date certain. It doesn't have to be the next board meeting. I mean, given the amount of time, I'd say 60 days out maybe. Pick the... August September September of you know public hearing date or some other date after that would give you sufficient time to probably work it out but you continue the public hearings has already had the public hearing that we have any of the discussion. We haven't had a public hearing. But you can open the public hearing and have the discussion but he did oh he did he did that's what I'm saying but continue the public hearing that's what I recommend you do so to a date certain.

September's the earliest we should consider August as a busy calendar.

Yeah, I agree.

So I will make a motion to continue the public hearing until the second meeting of the Board of Supervisors in September, whatever date that is. Does that make sense? Got that.

The motion made by Mr. Rhone is to continue proposed ordinance 26-16 to the September 15th Board of Supervisors meeting. Mr. Drury?

Yes.

Mr. Rhone? Yes. Mr. Shepherd? Yes. Mrs. Noll? No. Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Motion carried.

The next item is donation of two easements to Newport News Water Works for the HRSD pressure reducing station. Call on Rob Krueger to address the board.

Chairman Holward, Vice Chair Shepard, members of the board. I come to you tonight to request board authorization to grant and donate two easements across county-owned property to the city of Newport News Water Works. I know you got some of this in your read ahead. This is being done in coordination with HRSD to facilitate service reliability maintenance and operations for the new pressure reducing station. Staff has vetted this and it won't affect our ability to access or operate on the easement. I'd be happy to answer any questions that I can.

I guess my question would be why do we donate? Why don't we get fair value for the land?

Well before we have that question that says question we could be in real estate property or just get his knees but he's been so we still on the property for us.

I'm sorry I didn't read it that way. I heard that we were donating right. I heard the word donate.

He's giving permanent water easements across County on property. It's just an easement.

It's a permanent easement, not possession of the land.

So if you want to do the permanent easement, if you do a temporary easement, they'll have to come back. But if something happens, they can come right out there, fix the water line, and support HRSD.

OK. Yeah, I don't see that building moving anywhere anytime soon. No, sir.

Mr. Holroyd, I would point out to you as well, this is part of that pressure reducing project, which included HRSD, Newport News Water Works. HRSD just donated 10 acres of land with this project. So we did get some value out of this.

OK. Thank you. Good point. That's a good point. I'll open the public hearing. Any citizens who wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing. Where's the pleasure of the board?

I move resolution R26-120. Roll call, please.

The motion made by Mrs. is to adopt proposed resolution R26-120 as submitted. Mr. Yes. Mr. Shepherd? Yes. Mrs. Noll? Yes. Mr. Drury?

Yes.

Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Motion carried.

I'll move on to the consent calendar.

Well, I'll say what I said earlier, like to.

Yeah, I was going to comment on that. So you've already requested that we pull 17 for several 17 out. It's fine, thanks. So this will be on the remaining items. Approval of minutes of May 19th and June 2nd. Reimbursement from bond proceeds, reimbursement from bond proceeds of school division. grant applications for emergency home repair program, smart scale transportation funding recommendations, asphalt paving and related site work, request indoor plumbing rehabilitation project funding, acceptance and appropriation of fiscal year 27 school security officer position grant award, easement conveyance to Dominion Energy for fire station number six, an appointment of county assessor. Of those, is there any that you would like to pull for discussion?

You've already pulled number 17 will do 17 separately. Yes, OK, well I'll I'll move the consent calendar.

If there's no other objections, I'd like to have a discussion on 14. Please one 14.

Well, why don't we just have the discussions and then?

Well, that's fine. So this is school security officers. And we had quite a discussion in pre-agenda on is this an RSO? Is it not an RSO? I'd like clarity on this. Are these permanent positions or are they not permanent positions? Where does the grant money come from?

Mr. Holroyd, Ms. Owens has done some research with Bill Bowen on this. And she's, I think, prepared to answer most of your questions.

Thank you.

These are five positions that are not school resource officers. They are not law enforcement. They won't hold any law enforcement powers. The grant is a federal grant. I believe it's through VDEM for that, for 2 thirds or 80% of the cost of them. And they're going to be used in the elementary school, for the 10 elementary schools.

And then one of the questions we had, are these permanent positions? Do we have a choice at the end of this grant period to remove these positions?

I think they're going to evaluate the effectiveness of it after the grant and determine whether they want to keep the positions or not and fund them, but that we are not required to continue to fund them.

So does that mean when the grant expires, The jobs expire unless they decide to reapply for a continuation of the grant?

Either a grant or they decide to use local funding. Or they become employees. Through the budget process. They'll go through a process.

OK, so how many? So we have these, what are they, SSOs, right? So we have these SSOs now, right? We have some. SR, what do they call it? Not the resource officer.

School resource officers is what we have today.

Well, hang on, let me ask my question. Do we have any of these now? Yes. That's what I thought. Okay, what are they called? School security officers. SCOs. SSOs. SSOs, I'm sorry, I can't spell. SSOs. Okay, so we got these. So we have SSOs. And we have them in our elementary school?

No, we do not. We have them in the high schools and the middle schools to supplement our SROs.

OK. Supplement to the SROs, which are the police guides for guns and stuff.

The actual sworn officers, yes. OK.

So these SSOs are going, the one for this grant, I can't remember the numbers. How many are we getting? Five. Five. These are all coming in on a grant. Yes. Historically, when we do this, and I'm not going to blame the county, but the county does this also. We go, oh, grant, grant. Next thing we know, the grant runs out, and we end up with a bunch of employees that have become part of our program. our funding's real, right? That's always a possibility. That's always a possibility. So let's get real here. So now the question I've got, are we hiring mall cops or are we hiring people that really do stuff?

I think we're hiring people that are going to be trained to do everything except for law enforcement.

They're going to be trained. Go ahead. Hang on. I know what you're going to do. I've heard this now. I've heard this from several. And I'm really supportive of the schools kind of, you know, the education cornered. Yeah, we're good. What I'm not really fired up about is that later you're going to come back and ask for money to support these positions when I'm not, I don't really understand what these guys are doing down there, okay? And because I got this vision that, I mean, I hate to use this, I'm using the mall cop vision because you guys go walking around in uniforms, you know, with radios, and, you know, it provides a presence that somebody gets in trouble, they can make a call, and then we'll have the the RSOs come run over there and do the smack down or whatever is needed to get things sorted out. But a question I've got, we have guidance counselors that already do stuff for this. So we got principals, we got assistant principals, we got all these people that are already doing some of this stuff. So what are these guys doing that's so different than what, because they're not armed, They've got to run around in uniforms, blue uniforms, looking, wearing a badge, looking all professional and everything. What are these guys doing?

My understanding is they're going to be used to de-escalate if there's a problem. De-escalate. They're going to be used for crowd control. De-escalate. They're going to be used to help supplement those principals, those assistant principals, and the folks in the schools to help them if there's a problem.

I'm going to cut to the chase here, okay? I'm going to support this because somebody else is paying for it, But when it comes to the end game, I'm going to meet with the superintendent, and he's going to explain to me what these guys are doing down here. Because we're spending money, I want to spend money on people that are going to teach our kids to do stuff, okay? I mean, we need police, and we need resource officers in our elementary schools, and I know we put a ton of money on the entrances, and great. You know, I... if these guys are not able to defend our children because some freak wants to come in there and damage our kids or our school, then the guys I want are like our, you know, our cop over here in the back. I want somebody that's armed up and ready to ready to act. I don't want to happen to have another person on a phone trying to call for police because I know we got a whole room of teachers, and professionals that sit there will they got the same phone okay so we're going to spend money on education i want it to be spent on education so i want i am going to meet with superintendent i am going to find out what these guys are doing and my my whole focus is that i didn't i wasn't aware of these scos okay i'm sorry i just i thought we had rsos in there so that's why i'm a little i'm i'm tired of this I'm tired of this add-on. We're maybe not paying attention. So anyway, that's my position on it. Thank you.

You're not alone.

school resource officers are your county deputies charge primarily I believe for school safety and for enforcing state code they are not charged with school disciplinary actions that is correct they report to the service department SSOs are going to report to who they report to

I believe there's Kyle Hahn, who is the school security person, correct? And Kyle Hahn, who's a former deputy here, former captain.

He's in charge of all that.

So are they going to be part of the school?

They're part of the school division. They're employees of the school division.

So they're going to be employees of the school division as opposed to SROs who are kind of deputies who are employees of the Sheriff's Department.

That is correct.

I have a really bigger question. Why would we not have SROs in our elementary schools? It's probably the number one place that kids are sex trafficked.

We just don't fund them.

That's what I'm asking the question.

Well, that's us. We don't fund them.

That's why I'm asking the question, Tom. You're saying you don't want to spend money, and I'm saying I think we ought to have SROs in the elementary schools more than we need elsewhere. for the safety of these children.

I think this is a school board and school superintendent decision.

I think so, too.

I'm at the point where I'd like to pull this particular item and have further discussion with the superintendent before it's brought back.

I would agree with that. I have no problem. He just left, too.

OK, I'm all right with it.

Do we have, is there a time on the grant?

I am not sure if there's a time limit on it. If you'll meet before, again, to vote on it before, there's a time limit to accept the grant. I'm not sure what that is.

So let's consider this, Mr. Chair. So the grant funding mentioned here covers those five employees. Those five employees, yes it does. For years?

For three, well, it's a three-year grant. This particular, it's a three-year reimbursement You have to reapply and get re-awarded, but it's a three-year continuation of a grant.

But that grant, that dollar right there, covers the salary for those five.

For those five for one year. There is a match, but the school picked that up. I think it's $80,000.

I don't mind going. I mean, somebody else is paying for it. Wait a minute.

You just said the school.

There is a match. There is a slight match on it. So what is that? It's $161,000. $87,000.

So the school system is going to pay $87,000 per year.

Yes.

That's coming out of their budget that we support. Right. OK.

There's 2 thirds paid by the grant, 1 third paid

where I was going with that is if that $161,000 covered fully the five people annually then we pass it but we're only passing that grant cover if that grant doesn't exist anymore then those roles don't exist anymore then we may need to have a different discussion on how to solve it. But now you're telling me there are $87,000 from the school budget, which we contribute to, so that we do have funding skin in the game to support this. So, you know, it... At the end of the day, yes, we need to understand what the roles and responsibilities are for the people. But I don't want to miss out on $161,000 of funding because we deferred too long. So we need to understand right quick, can we defer to another meeting or we're going to lose it?

If y'all can add, I can try to find out. I'd have to get online.

Mr. Chairman, could I suggest a question that the board might want to ask Ms. Owens and that is whether this is a pass. I mean are the county's role in this is largely ministerial. We're acting as a conduit for the school division. That is correct.

Only for the grant portion of it. In the end where we're not going to be the pass through is when we have to actually take it out of our pockets and pay for these guys to do whatever the heck they're doing.

Through the appropriations to the school division but the The grant itself, because of the way that they appropriate, as I understand it, the way they appropriate grants, it comes to the locality and we're the agents for it, but we're really just acting as a conduit for the school division and we're not really, we are accepting it and doing all those things as a matter, as a thing, but it's sort of a,

what you'd call a legal fiction in the sense that we're really just acting to me is that yeah would you say that's the the grant does not allow school divisions to um to apply for the grant it does have to go through the locality through the county so what's the best course of action here i i mean like i said i can i can go along with this now but i want to know what these guys are doing because in the future next year when we do a school budget you know, we should know by then whether the people that we have in here as SSOs are actually doing stuff that are needed for education as opposed to being mall cops.

So she said she could probably find out when this grant closes. Is that something you can find out here in the next 15 minutes?

Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I'd have to.

weeks away I think the whole thing is yes we're a conduit we're passed through to the school but they've got they've got the money the thing that I think we're thinking about is when that money runs out or at the end of it are we now then going to be responsible for pay for more money to pay for those

officers that we've been paid for by the grant. I think these positions are completely up to whether or not there's funding available for it. If the grant funding goes away and this board decides or the school board decides not to fund it, then the position goes away. So if we if we if we were to prove this tonight we're only proven it for what it says right here and that's only guarantee one year next year they may not get the grant funding the board may not decide to provide funding the school board may not may not decide funding in the jobs go away what happens Steve is is that this gets buried in the school budget I understand but and it won't happen for three years supposedly but you know

this is how we've ended up hiring firefighters, police, some grants. And then we try it out, see if it works, and then we go in and make it work. In this particular case, it's not an education fund thing here. This is pass-through money. The $87,000 is coming out of the school budget, a portion of which has got our money in it.

So in talking with Mr. Bowen, he said at the end of the grant, they are going to see how effective it is to determine whether they're going to continue or not. I think this is something that they think will be effective that will help education. It may not be in the classroom, but will help. But they're going to evaluate that at the end of the three years.

I think it'd be good if we get an evaluation after they've been in effect for a year, at least to let us know so that we will not be blindsided again is the whole thing, the whole issue.

I wish they had stayed around. We could have heard from them, but they didn't.

I'm sorry. Our recommendation is we pull this and we review it at the next workshop. Two weeks time.

Can we pass this through a work session?

It's already a consent item.

So I just want to make sure everybody's in agreement with that. So two weeks, we could pass it.

Can we pass this at a work session?

Yes, you may.

So in two weeks, they give us enough information to make a judgment. Yeah.

Thank you. So I'll take a motion for consent item seven through 16, excluding 14, and we'll have a vote on that, and then we'll come back to number 17. Go for it.

Okay, I lost the bubble here. What are we doing on 14?

Absent 14 and 17.

14, 17.

The motion made by Mrs. Knoll is to adopt the consent calendar as amended with the deletion of item number 14 and item number 17. No, no, no.

Not deletion of 17. We'll come back and review 17 separately.

Separate. But that makes it not part of the consent calendar. So she's talking just the consent calendar now. All right.

Yep. Mr. Shepherd?

Wait a minute. Okay, I thought 17. Why don't we do, okay. We're doing the consent now. They want to do 17 separately. I don't understand why. Oh, we got to come back and talk about it? Why don't we just continue on talking about it? Okay, so we're going to, everything, 17's out right now. And 14 and 17. 14 and 17. Mrs. Knoll?

Yes. Mr. Drury? Yes. Mr. Rohn? Yes. Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Motion carried.

I'll now come back to reference item 17, the referendum on additional local option sales and use tax for school capital projects.

Right. All right. So let me jump in on this. first of all understand the driver drivers behind this I've seen the numbers spoken with their county staff I spoken with school administration I spoken with school board members and I know what's what's down that path what we need to accomplish as a as a county for education with capital improvements. I understand the driver behind it. And this is also a very good use case for a public referendum to put it forth to the public to say, hey, here's what's happening. What is your pleasure? Two things, though, I'm hung up on. One, the speed at which we're moving with this. I mean, the ink has barely dried on adopting the legislation to allow this. And we haven't had an opportunity yet to even look at, well, what's option B? What is option C? As I have... residents and constituents come to me and go, well, what else could we do? We haven't had a discussion about that. I have nothing to share with anybody. If they come to me and go, well, what happens if the referendum doesn't pass? I don't know, we haven't had a discussion on that. We haven't had any idea on that. As an example, last night I had the opportunity to hear from Delegate Thornton about substantial budget increase for public education that was passed as part of the state budget. So I'm wondering, is there an opportunity where we can grab some of that? Have we had an opportunity to talk with our delegates in the General Assembly to advocate for on behalf of your county's capital improvement needs for our schools to go get funding for year to year to address that? We haven't had those discussions yet. We're kind of putting the cart before the horse, and we're moving too quickly on this. We won't give the public enough time to digest the ins and outs of this before we're going to ask them to make a decision on this referendum that is going to come on the heels of three other major referendums at the state, at least the two of which are going to be state constitution referendums they've got to decide upon. And the focus this year, by and large, is federal. Again, we're moving too fast. The second thing I'm concerned about is if this passes, we're already in the highest state tax district across the Commonwealth. What? Sales tax across the Commonwealth. We're already in the highest area for that now. We bump this to 8%, that $12 million that we are forecasting annually from this may not materialize because at 8%, people are going to start making some hard choices of where they're going to buy their bigger purchases at. And they're not going to purchase in New York County because they can go over a little bit further away and make those same purchases elsewhere to save that tax dollars, the sales tax dollars, they will never see any of that. So it may not be the funding source that we think it is. And I'm worried about business moving out of the county because the purchases aren't being made in the county for that stuff. Yes. I understand why. Yes, it's a good use case for public referendum. But we're moving too fast on this. We haven't had proper discussion on what other options are. Can we get help from the General Assembly on some of these projects? And we're going to put this in front of people and go, do you want option A, or do you want option A? And that's not a choice. And we need to give people choices. That's my hang up on this now.

Can I address some of your concerns? Yep. I think what you're trying to say is your county is at the highest sales tax in Virginia. That's true. It's true somewhat. And the reason it's true somewhat, because right now our sales tax is 7%. Of that 7%, 4.3 cents is taken by the state. That's not us. It doesn't come back to us. That's 4.3 cents. Then you got 0.7%, which is the Hampton Roads transportation that's still paid for widening of 64, the bridge tunnel and all that. That comes out of us, but it's kind of spread out with all the other jurisdictions. Then you got this 1% tax. Tracy, you have to help me on that one. That 1% is, what is that? That's the optional sales tax, local options. So that was added. So that's two and a half, that's two and a half, that'll make our tax at two and a half percent, I believe. And then there is this historical triangle tax, okay? That 50% of that goes to the tourism, our tourism fund, and 50% goes to the marketing, the tourism marketing up in Williamsburg. Isn't that it? No, that's not it? No. Fifty cents, oh, it's retained by the state. So the state retains the other half. So when you get through with this, what do we got? Maybe three cents or two and a half? One and a half, okay? That's all our sales tax is. All this other crap's been buried. It's been buried on all the, you know, you throw in the Tommy tax and the $2 room tax and all this other stuff. It's all because of the tourism historical triangle aspects of it and the transportation. So we're not really, they've tagged us as part of this tax scheme, but in the end, we're not paying that big a tax down here for sales tax. Now, all that being said, the question of whether we're moving fast enough You know, that's a good question. Because I don't know that this is a referendum from the state. I mean, an option. But it doesn't give us, what leeway do we have on it? Does it give us that, oh, we don't want to do it this year, we can do it next year? I mean, or does this thing run out? I mean, because I don't know what options would even be available for us if we did it.

So I think equally important for you to know is, and I did not mention it earlier, There's a 20-year sunset on this.

So we can do it next year, after we've studied it.

You could. And then you're down to 19 years. So you lost $12 million. I'm just pointing that out. You could decide that vision.

So the thing is that, to me, this gives citizens a chance to get into the do loop, if you will, on our taxes. Because next year. Next year is gonna be a tough year for us, financially. I mean, do we know it? week we were we got it we got it this year we're gonna finish up and address it and then we're gonna go into June of next year okay and then we're gonna have to decide what how we're gonna raise taxes to pay for all these these projects to me and a lot of them are school projects but we still we got fire fire you know fire stations we've got to do and all that and it's this courthouse thing so so Yeah, we can decide on this later. But part of this is still, I don't know, would this cover next year's taxes? Would this cover next year's taxes on schools?

We'll be able, if it was passed by the voters in November, my understanding is we'd be able to implement in January. Is that correct?

There's some confusion of what we can even do here.

There's a lot to the discussion that we haven't even started to pick apart yet.

So throwing it out there for people to make a decision on when we don't really know ourselves.

And there are questions that we can't answer for our constituents at this point, and that's irresponsible.

First of all, we have to decide what way we're going to go, and then we put out all the information, and you have between now and November.

I don't want to be in a position where we have to vote on it to understand what's in it.

I just tell you right now, I think we've got a problem in, again, this is almost like that damn statewide referendum on districting. Let's hurry up and do it and see what happens. And I don't think that's going to be a great idea. I don't think so either. But the point is that one way or another, next year, I'm concerned that this money, we've got to have money to be able to pay for all these school and capital improvement projects that we're going to do. This was an opportunity for citizens now to pitch in I don't know do we have any do we have any delay can we not delay another month on this and make the still may not may I know please may address so the time constraints are if we want this to be on the ballot this November.

This board has to approve the request. In the next couple of weeks. And so this is really the last opportunity for this board to make that request, because then we have to petition the circuit court. The circuit court approves the ballot, and then it goes before the voters in November. There's no requirement.

How many weeks do we need here to get more information?

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair, but there's no requirement that you do it this year to answer your previous question. The only constraint on that is the General Assembly may change their mind. And who knows whether they'll continue to authorize these referenda, what form they'll look like. They may remain in place permanently. And the 20-year period that Mr. Bellamy referred to is triggered by the date that the board passes the resolution. So if the board, for instance, opted next year to do it, it would be 20 years from that date. So just to clarify that day next year. Yes, but but you are losing you do lose a year in the implementation because once you once the board approves the referendum authorizing the at requesting the referendum if the voters approve it, then you can't actually make it go into effect for 120 days.

After you pass the order. After you pass the ordinance.

So the timing would be if the board were to request it and it went in front of the voters in November, once those results were certified, the earliest you could pass an ordinance would be December or January probably at the you know at lightning speed and then you'd have to wait 120 days after that before it could actually go into effect so you you you would be looking at if we wanted to go into the next budget if you wanted it to be in in that the earliest you'd be looking at that tax going into effect if you had the referendum this fall is April but

To go to Steve's point, let's say we don't worry about the timeline so much. And what we worry about is whether the constituency out here understands what the hell's going on. including us so that we just say, okay, let's prove it. Maybe then bring it up for a vote in December, January. We could do it any time in there.

Absolutely correct. There's no, there's no requirement that if the voters approved it, that you have to pass an ordinance. You could decide you don't want to. And you could also wait to do it for

a certain period of time as well I know staff would be upset with this because it takes money off the table but the point here is I think it's more important we understand what the hell we're doing okay just because we we got this golden apple dangling off the tree doesn't mean we have to go take a bite out of it right I didn't call it golden It's an apple, okay? So it's money grows on trees, don't you know that? So anyway, so I would think that I agree with Steve in the sense that we can take, we can prove it any time we want to bring it up. Right.

It just won't be on the vote until next November.

I'm getting a little bit confused with all going on. Are you saying that if we were to vote for the referendum tonight and the referendum is approved by the voters in November, The action to implement the 1% tax is up to the board when they wish to do that?

Correct.

Right.

The board, you could wait.

So it could get passed by the voters and we decide not to implement it for two years. I I I see nothing in the legislation that would prevent you from doing that but it is the will of the people so this is a this is a this is a paper that well this is that they want it yeah we have a think would be we would be obligated to get to sit on a few years don't you think that we would have information to the citizen before we don't know what this with the with the situation be at that time

done so you have the app you have the opportunity to either approve it right away or so so uh county administrator how is this going to affect our uh next year i'm not planning on spending money that i have no idea whether we'll get or not i'd be better off to buy a lottery ticket right okay yeah that's not going to affect next year so what's the rush What's the rush?

You're talking for fiscal year 28. So if the tax went into effect in April, it would be on the books and available for the entirety of fiscal year 28. The next budget that's going to be approved.

But as of right now, we've got a 50-50 chance. We don't even know what it's going to be. So we don't know if it's going to go through or not going to go through so right now we can't depend on the money.

But by the same time we still have the expenses

We're going to have those anyway. We're going to have them for the next 20, 40, 50 years. Right. That's not going to change.

I guess what I said earlier, though, is where I still come across. Citizens should have the right to make a decision. Sure. So me putting forth a referendum, if they don't like the referendum, they have every right to vote it down. That's right. I'm fine with that. That's citizens' choice. I think this has been thrown at us as an unfunded mandate said that earlier but I'll I'll defend the citizens right to be allowed to vote are we didn't but are we denying them the right and by the same we want to get more information so we can understand what the hell we're doing us because you'll miss the cut point for getting it on the referendum in November we want to if we want to put the money in for next year Regardless of money next year, General Assembly has authorized you to have a referendum this year on that question. They haven't necessarily extended it beyond this year.

I just wanted to add to the point that, as has been pointed out, there's still decisions to be made by the board if the referendum is authorized. it's not mandated to be one percent it could be less than that. When it goes into effect all those whether it goes into effect at all even after the referendum approval is still decisions that this board would have to make.

So we're asking the citizens in okay you want to one percent max right is I think one but you said two percent or something higher one that was one percent percent or less one percent or less okay one percent less So do you want to tax yourself at 1% on sales tax? I mean, that's what we're asking the citizens to do.

But that's a fundamental question right there, too. Mr. Rohn, Mr. Shepherd, are you going to do it at 1%, 1%? 3%? We haven't even discussed that yet. We just said up to. We don't even know what we're going to do yet. And I can't answer the questions from my constituents when they're going to come to me and ask me things like that.

Well, you put it in your referendum. That wouldn't be specified in the referendum.

But if they were to come to me and go, well, listen, if I vote yes on this, are you going to add a cent to this or half a cent or three quid? I don't know. We just said up to. And this goes back to go ahead and pass it, and then we'll figure out what to do afterwards. That's just going back to your example with the redistricting referendum. There's a whole lot of unknowns there. And then we're just asked to decide something.

I think what you've said, Doug, is correct. I think this is something that we have to put before the citizens and let them make the decision. All we need to do tonight is really decide that we will put it before the citizens in a referendum. But if citizens need good information to make the decision, yes. No. Today we vote for a referendum. And there's a A little publicity action that we need to take is to lay out all the pros and the cons of it, what the percentage would be, and so forth, before they actually go to vote in November. And we can do all that in three months. And you've got this time to be able to do that.

When do they start voting?

September? Two months. Two months out. You've got two months to do all that. That's too tight to be responsible.

I don't think that's too tight.

Well there's also that got to keep in mind to the part of it I thought was important was the fact that we're now going to have to herself paying for the school tax paying for the money on this tax which we don't have we have to do a real estate tax you do real estate taxes for the schools everybody has real estate in your county or if you do a sales deal that you would basically pay for school We do this, the other option is that the tourism will pay probably what, about 30% or so of the tax. So, I mean.

And I'm not saying this isn't the potential right path forward, but I don't, this is not the, there's still much to decide and discuss and settle before we put this in front of people to ask them to make a decision. If I'm on the other end of this, I would not like to be going to the booth and going, I've got to vote yes or no. I don't want to vote yes or no long.

What about this? They paid sales tax. They got what? They paid sales tax. They had to pay sales tax. That's interesting. Well, I hear what you're saying. Now, who knows? Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I think we've debated it enough. I think we need to take it to a resolution and a vote.

I think we do, too. I think we leave it up to the voters. This gives them a chance to put their oar in the water. If they don't like it, they don't like it. If they like it, then they move forward.

We can't even tell what it is at this point.

resolution number seven consent calendar item number seventeen so this is what twenty r twenty six dash one fifteen um i thought it was one eighteen r twenty six dash one eighteen yeah what am i looking at on this one okay number oh seventeen i'm sorry yeah well i don't know r twenty six dash one eighteen one yeah r twenty six dash one eighteen just to get us off the subject

The motion made by Mister Shepard is to adopt proposed resolution R twenty six one eighteen as submitted. Mrs Noll yes Mister Drury yes Mister Rohn no Mister Shepard yes Mister Holroyd yes motion carried I just think we need to get this much information out to our constituents as quickly as possible

marks they definitely well we've got to get I think it's going to be it could be easy to answer we just got to get it together one information put out there and I'm saying we got it we got to get that information right there is no additional new business we have a I think Mark wanted to say something Mr. Sheppard can you take us into closed session Mark Bellamy wanted to say something do you have new business he was going to talk about the referendum

Okay, this chairman close meeting on motion is the accordance with section 2.2 dash 3711 a one of the code of Virginia moved that the board supervisors convene close meeting to consider personnel matter involving performance okay also investing of public funds in accordance with section 2.2 dash 3711 a 6 the code of Virginia I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting to discuss the investing of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved. Also, addressing legal matters in accordance with Section 2.2-3711A7 of the Code of Virginia, I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting to consult with legal counsel, consultants, and or staff Roll call, please.

Mr. Drury?

Yes.

Mr. Rohn?

Yes.

Mr. Shepherd? Yes. Mrs. Noll? Yes. Mr. Holroyd? Yes. Motion carried.

Announce the next meeting of the York County Board of Supervisors will be held 6 PM, August 4, 2026, in the East Room of your call. With that, we stand adjourned.