Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting (Public Hearing on Calendar Year 2020 Tax Rate and FY 20-21 Board Proposed Budget)   4/13/2020

So Jeff, I'm going to need you to restart from the top about your recommendation.

Yes sir.

Yes sir.

Yes, sir, Mr. Chair.

You did have two public hearings that were originally advertised and scheduled for this evening.

And I had recommended late last week that the board consider postponing tonight's public hearing on the proposed operating and capital budget, which would originally been scheduled for this evening.

And the purpose is to hear from the general public on our proposed recommended budget.

I did come before this board on April the 1st with Ms.

Lori Allshouse, our Office of Management and Budget Director.

And she and I updated the board on April the 1st with our current year revenue losses due to our recent pandemic.

And at that time, we did tell the board that we would be coming back before the board to not only update the fiscal year 20 budget,

with budget balancing strategies, but we would also be coming back to the board with revised revenue figures for fiscal year 21 budget.

We also committed to this board that we would be bringing a revised proposed fiscal year 21 budget on April 22nd.

It makes sense to me, Mr. Chair, if I could go through our budget balancing strategies for our current fiscal year and also cover in general at a very high level, what we're looking at for fiscal year 21,

that we postpone the public hearing portion of this budget process until May the 6th.

We will provide the budget by April 22nd.

We will also go through a revised schedule with you this evening.

And if the board agrees, the board can then take action to postpone this public hearing and then go to the other public hearing, which is scheduled for tonight.

So with the board permission, I will start the overview of the fiscal year 20.

budget balancing strategies, and then quickly with Ms.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much, members of the board and members of the general public.

I'm going to be going over this evening.

If you'll go ahead and turn to slide two, please.

Ms.

Halshaus and myself, we were before this board on April the 1st, and we talked about the loss of revenue in our current fiscal year.

And we indicated to the board that we were taking some immediate steps to recapture the loss of revenue to ensure that we would be balanced by the end of this fiscal year.

So we will go through that in just a second.

In addition to that, we also want to go over our

Review of the fiscal year budget development goals.

We want to talk with this board about some initial steps we have taken in an effort to begin to cover loss of revenue, which we project through fiscal year 21.

Ms.

Alshaus will cover our work with our school system on the capital budget today.

And then finally, we will go through a budget development schedule with this board.

and then turn it back over, Mr. Chair, for the board's consideration of postponing this public hearing until we get the revised FY21 budget in front of the board on April 22nd.

This is a slide that I did show this board back on April the 1st, and we talked about our last quarter, the fourth quarter, which we just entered into in April, our fourth quarter revenue

picture, we did take a very severe hit to revenues in the fourth quarter of this year.

And what this slide projects is our loss of revenue in the fourth quarter of our current fiscal year.

And so what you see is you see this divided through our funding formula calculation with our local revenue loss adjusted for the fourth quarter.

Our school division, and we have communicated this to the school division several weeks ago, and they were working

in collaboration with the local government to reduce this gap.

But their projected loss is just at 2.64 million.

And then for us on the general government side, through the shared revenue formula, our projected loss is 1.87 million.

And then we would also project that we're going to lose fees that does not go through the shared formula at just over 1 million.

And so on the local government side, as our

reported in April 1, we're projected to lose $3 million of revenue between now and the end of the fiscal year closeout.

Our steps in the first three months of dealing with the

economic loss as well as the pandemic from an emergency operations side, we've taken immediate steps to rebalance the current year budget.

We have frozen 15 positions to date and we are continuing to evaluate additional positions that are currently vacant to see if we have the ability to freeze these positions between now and the end of the fiscal year as this will give us a jump start on the gap that we face going into next fiscal year.

We are holding

All budgeted reserves.

If you'd move back to that.

Thank you.

We're holding all budgeted reserves and contingencies.

We are in addition to that directing departments to hold on all discretionary funding.

We've captured some mid year health care savings due to a very strong performing health care fund.

As this board knows, we are fully self funded.

and we are in a shared health fund with the school system and so this strong performing health fund will not only help local government but also schools.

And finally, we are also looking at positions that have been vacant for some period of time and we are capturing lap salaries from those positions and will continue to do so.

When you add all of these

budget balancing strategies together.

We are on course to capture $3 million of money that will not be spent between now and the end of the year.

We will continue to monitor the current year budget beyond the end of June.

As you know, there is a closeout process.

This board is familiar that we go well into the summer and fall before we officially close our books on fiscal year 20.

These steps though will ensure that we balance and come back under budget

from what was previously planned when this budget was adopted last year.

These strategies will help support us as we move into the gap for fiscal 21, but I can assure the board at this point that we have rebalanced and that we are positioned to close out on a positive note.

So as we move into fiscal year 21 and we talk about our strategies and goals, first of all, as this board knows, we're going to adhere to our financial policies.

We're going to look at our best practices as a triple, triple A rated organization, a local government.

We also have, we're the recipient of a number of related GFOA awards, and we will adhere to strong financial policies, conservative fiscal management.

In doing so, we're going to,

I continue to evaluate our service delivery and we will provide our essential levels of service to our residents.

The highest priority is public safety, human services, and the need for continued business support.

We will support the continuity of our operations and our service delivery to our citizens.

and we need to position our organization for recovery.

So we will be continuing to take a look at workload in all of our departments and we will be evaluating workload vacant positions to try and look at individual workload caseload across the organization, but we have to be prepared to help lead the recovery efforts.

The budget balancing strategies that we're gonna put in place with some structural ongoing money cuts along with the

strategic use of one-time money should position us into the fall to be more flexible and more nimble as we continue to monitor what our new economic base looks like.

Finally, I think this will please the board that at this point, we are not looking at the strategic reserves.

And that includes the 1% stabilization fund that this board has had for several years

as well as several other strategic reserves that are tied to the strategic operating plan, okay?

So as we go into next year for the first six months period, as I have talked to the board, we had several obligations and mandates that we had to push forward from this current year into next year, or these were mandates and obligations that we were going to inherit going into next year.

As I've mentioned, we're going to maintain our strategic reserves.

We have gone ahead and we have rebuilt the budget next year with no market increases, no compensation increases across the board.

We will have to postpone the implementation of minimum wage.

As this board knows, that was a high strategic priority of the board and we were poised to

to make significant steps along with our school system, a much needed step to be competitive on our entry level positions with both local government and schools and we will have to postpone that until we get into next year and see what economic recovery looks like.

I have mentioned to the board that in the current year we are freezing 15 positions

and going into next year, we project that we will have to freeze a total of 35 positions, which is about 5% of the workforce, in order to be able to capture enough ongoing salary savings

to ensure that we're able to help cover the gap next year.

We'll continue to review our healthcare program and our hope is to roll our healthcare program over flat next year, which would mean no employer increase and also no projected increase for our employees.

We're still doing technical adjustments to make sure that we can do it.

As I move to the next column, one of the big budget balancing strategies for next year is that we're going department by department and we're reducing each department's operating budget

hoping that we're able to hit a mark of between 5 and 10%.

I'll stop there and I will highlight to the board that there is absolutely no way that we can cut 5 to 10% of the department's operating budget and not see some effect on services that we provide to our community every day.

It's just too much of a hit at one time, it's too much of a reduction, and we will see reductions in services to some degree.

We are modeling what that looks like and our goals will be by the time that we provide the budget to you on April the 22nd that we have made adjustments and recommendations that hopefully are the least noticeable as we go through next year.

We're lucky in that we're going to be able to incorporate some fuel savings.

We have also gone through our fleet replacement plan, and we have done a good job over the years in being responsible and diligent in servicing, maintaining, and replacing fleet whenever we need to.

Next year, we will

put that on hold probably for at least 75 to 80% of our planned fleet replacements.

And that will generate some nice one-time savings that we need in order to help balance the budget next year.

And then to the far right, as we get into the fall, we will also implement fire rescue systems adjustments.

In this upcoming budget, I know that we've got to budget for at least 12 full-time staff.

That will be replacement staff for the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue System, CARS, and we will be planning to bring those staff on board so that we can continue with ALS EMS services.

We've also got some expenses associated with early voting, and I will be recommending that we continue to support our key community agencies

A lot of our relationships with our nonprofits need to continue as we continue to try to serve our citizens through a recovery, hopefully this summer and then later this fall.

As we enter the second six months of next year, would you please go back to the slide just one second?

I'm sorry.

I did want to point out, and I apologize, on this slide I meant to point out that as we work through the levers and recommendations of rebalancing the fiscal year 21 budget, as we move from 20 to 21 and we look at some of the things that we're doing with no compensation, freezing of positions, reviewing the healthcare fund,

We're facing a $5.7 million shortfall for next year.

This $5.7 million shortfall equates to almost three cents on the tax rate.

And again, I would tell this board that there's no way that this organization with its size, that we're going to be able to absorb this and it not be in some way noticeable to us.

and to the citizens that we serve.

But this is a significant shortfall, but I'm confident that over the next week to two weeks that we're gonna be able to close that shortfall and provide a budget that's responsible and sound given our situation.

And then as we get into the late fall months, the second six months of next fiscal year, we, I hope, will be managing the first half of the fiscal year

I believe our community's economic picture should be clearer than it is today.

And as we approach the second six months, we're going to be able to evaluate our readjusted economic picture.

We're going to see, hopefully,

some signs of recovery.

We don't know what that looks like at this time in this community, but hopefully we're going to see some signs of recovery.

We're going to see what the new economic base looks like.

We will have had almost six months to evaluate year-to-date revenues and year-to-date expenses as we approach the second six-month process.

And then, Mr. Chair, members of the board, that will give us an opportunity to adjust as we approach mid-year

at the end of this calendar year, as we approach mid-year on our fiscal year, that's gonna give us an opportunity to revisit our options as necessary.

That could mean additional structural cuts, or if we see signs of our economy recovering in this community, that could be reconsidering things that we've either had to pause, freeze, suspend, and then those are the types of discussions that we would have with the board at that time.

At this time, I'm going to switch gears and go to the capital budget and I'm going to ask Ms.

Let's hold here and let me see if there are any questions.

We had an order following our voting order for questions, so I'll go through the list and if you'd like to defer, you can.

I have one just for clarity.

On your slide, I think you answered this, Jeff, but on your slide you had the first six months when you were speaking of it you talked about the $5.7 million shortfall.

Is that

and then you said that was the whole year.

So that is when your staff was doing projections, was the majority of that shortfall in the first six months or just extended out through the whole year?

That's a really good question, Supervisor Palmer.

And I don't think I did a good job at all of clarifying that.

The $5.7 million shortfall going into fiscal year 21

That's the amount of money that we need to make up for the entire fiscal year.

And so when I divide the 12 months into two six-month periods, we've made projections for the entire fiscal year for next year on the revenue side.

And in the first six months, what we're going to be providing to this board is a blended approach of ongoing structural cuts along with the use of one-time savings.

and as we move to the mid-year point and have six months under our belt of looking at six months of performance, we'll be able to see if our revenue projections have been accurate, too low or too high.

And then from that, we'll be able to discuss with the board on an ongoing basis as to whether or not we've made enough structural cuts over the $5.7 million and we're on track of whether we can begin to back off a little bit and reconsider some things

because we've got an economy that's performing better than what we thought.

Thank you.

Just briefly, County Executive Richardson, on this slide, I think we could get a little bit of a double savings in the respect that fuel prices are lower.

So I see that incorporates some fuel savings.

And also with the social distancing, we may not be putting as many miles on our vehicles, so that may extend some of the mileage longevity of the vehicles.

Fleet vehicles before they need replacement.

I know because of our conversations that you are going to pay very close attention to that so that we don't find ourselves in a really bad situation coming out of this, where we're incapable of delivering services.

So I appreciate the attention you're paying for that.

Thank you.

All right, very good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So I will forward the presentation, and I will ask Ms.

Allshouse if she could please give an overview to the board as to where we are with our review of our capital budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

My name is Lori Alshouse.

I'm the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, I'll pick it up from here and be available for any questions at the end.

This is, in addition to an operating budget, you'll be asked to approve a capital budget as well.

And as you know, we have a pretty robust CIP program, which is a five-year plan, and we also carry forward projects from prior years.

So the capital budget will also be something you'll be considering.

So what I wanted to share with you today is that we're coordinating very closely with the school division.

As you remember over the past year, you as a board and the school board work so closely together to develop a CIP, to identify projects that are important to the community,

and to place them into a plan.

And so in that spirit, our staff is working really close with the school division staff on a weekly basis going through the projects, going through the projects that are not only planned for 21 but are in your fiscal year current budget and really looking at all of them.

We're also monitoring our cash flow in the county and the bond market

to make sure that we stay abreast of what's going on, working very closely with our financial advisors.

Capital projects are often very large.

They often involve borrowing.

So we're paying very close attention to that as well as the current economic situation in our community.

We are working with the school division staff to identify recommended projects to continue, which ones that we would think that we could delay for a while until we get a better economic picture.

So with capital, just like with your operating budget, we can do some structured appropriations.

And so we're going to plan for appropriations.

But then, as Mr. Richardson mentioned, when you think about his 366 plan, as we learn more about the economy, and we could actually appropriate additional projects as we go along, if we think that

Next slide please.

So the other thing I wanted to mention, in addition to the capital budget that you'll be approving for 21, we're also recommending that we amend the CIP, but we don't do that till mid-year.

So the CIP that we put together through the fall will just be, it's a plan, not a budget.

So we'll just maintain that as is.

and then in the fall pick that up and we have a better understanding of our economic picture and again to coordinate again with the school board and the board and our advisory council to look at that in a more structured way by probably next December or so.

So that's our plan basically delay the CIP development and really study our current projects as well as our 21 projects.

You will have a list of 21 projects in your

Are there any other questions about capital?

is an overview of the new schedule.

So you can see that we're recommending changes to our schedule, the one being tonight on changing the timing of the public hearing.

So I'd like to start at the left side of the screen and just walk you through the schedule briefly.

and to see if you accept this change.

So today is the April 13th public hearing on the tax rate.

We're planning to ask you to, as you know, to delay the public hearing on the actual budget later in the process.

On the 15th, we'll be asking you to approve the tax rate.

On April 22nd, that's when we'll be bringing the updated fiscal year 21 recommended budget forward, also posting it on the website for the community.

It'll be not the same as our current document.

As you know, our current document is about 300 pages, so you'll have a summary document this time, so it'll be a much smaller document that'll have the pertinent information included in it.

On May 6th is the public hearing.

And then as you see down below on the block at the bottom, there'll be a public engagement period that will include many avenues for the public to become involved in the budget process.

So it's not just the public hearing.

There'll be other avenues that will be available for the public.

And we're currently working through that to identify what they are.

So there'll be a longer public engagement period

and a more robust way that the community can participate in many different ways.

And then on May 11th would be, oh I'm sorry, April 29th would be your first work session and then the public hearing and then on May 11th will be a second work session if we need to wrap anything up.

And then on May 14th the board would approve the budget and then in June would be your appropriations of the first part of the appropriations for the year.

And then we only just added some information there on the bottom about the governor's budget.

As you know, the state budget is very important to us and especially to the school division.

So that's going to be coming forward.

We're starting to see a little bit of information about it, but we'll learn more about the state's budget, which will also impact your budget.

So that ends the information on this schedule.

So at this point, we're gonna pause and we do have a few slides to introduce the public hearing on the tax rate, but this is our recommendation to postpone the public hearing on the 21 budget until May 6th.

Thank you, Lori.

So that item is it would be an action item that the board would have to approve that recommendation to postpone.

I'll go through this, the order we've established for questions or comments regarding this.

And then if there are none or after we handle that, we'll go to a motion.

A comment that I think the proposed timeline and what staff and Jeff are proposing is excellent.

And I do think it's a good idea to postpone the public hearing until we have more time.

Thank you.

Supervisor Palm.

I'll just loop back if needed.

No questions.

I concur with Supervisor McKeel and appreciate the great work that county staff has done.

I think the, I agree.

I think the staff, I agree with Supervisor McKeel.

I think the staff has done an outstanding job.

I do like the extended public comment period that the staff has provided.

and I do appreciate all the work that's gone into this.

Thank you.

I agree.

I think that the all the work that's gone into getting our original budget made made it even more possible for us to do better with this horrific situation we have right now for everybody's health wise as well as

the financial health of the county.

So thankfully it was in the last quarter of the year and hopefully we will get everybody well again as soon as possible.

So I don't have any questions.

I concur with what is said.

I believe it's smart after we have more information to postpone the public hearing so that the public hearing can be specific to the items and the new information we have.

So I'm happy to support that recommendation by our county executive.

If there are no other questions, we will need to make a motion.

Second.

So we have a motion was made for by Supervisor Mallek to postpone the public hearing.

It was seconded by Supervisor Palmer.

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

And if I can just say something really quick.

I'm sorry I was muted when you asked before, but I am OK with the schedule.

It looks good to me.

Thank you, Supervisor Comer.

All right, the next item on the agenda this evening is the public hearing for the calendar year 2020 tax rates.

Yes, it's on the next slide.

Thank goodness we don't have to load another one, right?

So yes, so the public hearing tonight is on calendar year 2020 tax rates.

Go to the next slide, please.

And so this is not only your real estate tax rate, but your other tax rates as well.

So this list shares the tax rates that are available for public comment tonight.

The real estate tax rate information is on the next slide.

So the real estate property tax is a very important one, as you know.

The calendar year 2020 real estate tax rate is 0.854 per 100 of assessed value.

A little bit of information about that.

Each penny on the real estate tax rate yields around $2.1 million in estimated collectible real estate revenues.

The lowered or effective tax rate would be 0.826 per 100 of assessed value.

The board will be asked to approve the proposed tax rates on April 15, 2020.

And that concludes my remarks.

Thank you, Lori.

I'll go through the order for questions or comments.

Not at this time.

I have one quick one.

What do RVs come under, recreational vehicles?

Actually, they are personal property.

Okay, thank you.

Supervisor Price?

No questions at this time.

No questions at this time.

Very good.

I don't have any questions at this time either.

If there are no further discussion or questions, then we will go ahead and open the public hearing.

And this is the first time we're actually going to public hearing via virtual.

So are we there?

And staff, you may need to lead me through this piece if we have live speakers.

Do we have anybody who would wish to address us?

No one has signed up.

All right.

And this time, we did leave the sign-ups open live, correct, if I'm understanding that right?

Correct.

Thank you.

If there's nobody who has raised their hand or has signed up to speak to this item this evening, then we will go ahead and close the virtual public hearing portion.

I know that we had received some emails and some communication regarding this item from some folks.

So I know that each supervisor I'm sure has read those.

All right, then the public hearing is now closed.

The matter is back before the board for further discussion, comments, questions, and or we will make a motion at some point.

Is there anybody who wishes to make any questions or comments?

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

As you just mentioned, I know that each of us has received correspondence, typically through email, from our constituents, and I want to simply acknowledge receipt and reading of those.

I recognize that a number of those communications came in

specifically addressing concerns over the current economic situation with a variety of suggestions for the board to consider.

And I just want to publicly state that I have reviewed those.

I have considered them.

I believe that ultimately, however, we must continue to ensure that the county remains a viable entity that can provide the essential services to our constituents.

and I support maintaining the tax rate where it is right now.

Are there any other comments at this time?

Then I will ask for a motion on the tax rate.

Very good.

Following through, our script for this item is a little more complex than the normal agenda, so I'm making sure I hit all the bullet points.

We had a call for the motion.

Then that should bring us on our agenda that with the public hearing closed, matters from the board, the committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda.

And I'll go through the same order we've gone through this evening.

I don't think I have any at this time.

I have a question for staff if, and certainly it shouldn't be answered now, but I'm wondering what kind of flood damage has been done in the county for roads overall from result of last night and this morning's flooding.

Having sent out the email, the picture from the Howard's Hill Turnpike in the Samuel Miller district, I was wondering county-wide if there were

More damage to roads.

Do a follow up on that is Supervisor Price.

I just want to express my great appreciation to the entire staff, but in particular, Assistant County Executive, Mr. Walker, and the Incident Management Team.

Thanks, Bryce.

Nothing at this time other than to thank once again the entire staff for the outstanding job they're doing.

This afternoon was the first adventure with the EPA small local government advisory committee

and about how they're going to be opening coming periods and changes to air quality rules such as ozone and particulates and it's pretty terrifying.

So I will do my best to keep people up to date on what I learned and ways that we can participate and try to get our voice out there.

Secondly, I'm really grateful for all the work that people throughout the community have done to share how important it is for people to stay at home.

and even though our numbers in Albemarle County are shockingly high to me, I think I see fewer or hear about fewer activities happening that are dangerous.

People have asked why about the ambassadors and I've explained why they're there at the parks and hopefully we will continue to see improvement on this going forward.

And once we fix the health, then the budget can be fixed.

But I agree that we have to do the health part first.

Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

Otherwise, I will move to Mr. Richardson from the County Executive.

Report on matters not listed on the agenda.

Yes sir, I do have one item that I wanted to make the board aware of.

I did want to make the board aware that the incident management team has been evaluating the breadth of impact on COVID-19 to our community.

Fire Marshal's Office brought forward a concern around commercial burns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The incident management team staff recommended to me that I act in my capacity as emergency manager to extend the current ban on commercial burning for 30 days into 24 hours per day.

And I would like to take that action and I'll make that effective tomorrow.

And this will extend the commercial ban from May the 1st through May the 31st.

The board will probably remember the reason, well, let me back up.

The reason for the extension would be the exposure to smoke in the development area.

As you will recall that when we recently changed the commercial burn restrictions a few years ago, we set the hours from 8a to 8pm operating under the assumption that people would be at work and school during this time.

The commercial burn ban extension was proposed in recognition

that with more residents exposed to smoke from the commercial burns in the development area, respiratory issues could be expected to increase.

The respiratory issues associated with COVID-19 creates public safety risk.

Our fire marshal's office has already reached out to the sites currently doing commercial burns, and there are three that we are aware of.

to explain that an extension of the commercial burn ban would not present an issue.

The third, which is associated with the North Point development, has indicated that it will negatively impact their site development timeline.

So anyway, the staff did recommend that I take this action.

And under our current state of emergency, a county attorney did prepare an order

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

I just had one real quick one that I wanted to just note that the health department is now has a little asterisk next to the numbers that they're putting out that because of the lack of testing there are many more cases in the Thomas Jefferson planning district and being reported

and I think that's important in talking with some healthcare workers that are answering phones at hospital and doctor's office.

It's very clear that they're getting a lot of calls and telling people to stay home.

And so I just wanted to just to highlight that and to say when we do put out those numbers, it's really good to add that little asterisk and comment that the health department is adding to their numbers.

Thank you.

I sent one in.

Yes, Supervisor Malek.

I see there's a couple coming in.

Okay.

So my question is for Greg Kamner to address when he has time and that is, do we have the authority to do a similar

banned postponement on agricultural burning.

Because over the weekend, we had a late Saturday night, a late Saturday afternoon fire begun right up next to a boundary line, which filled many houses close by with smoke because there was no notification to anybody around.

And the same, even at a quarter mile away, the same ability to affect people's breathing, respiratory impaired people.

is great.

So I don't know if we have the authority to do that, whether we need to go to the state and ask the governor to do it.

But it was something that was actually mentioned by the EPA administrator today during the call that the federal government is considering, but I hope we don't have to wait for them because it may take them a long time.

And Arizona and other places, they're having a really terrible

That was actually discussed at one of the IMT meetings and that was the fire marshal's initial recommendation.

The decision was to start with the ban on commercial burning to see how that works, but with the potential of a new order being issued that would expand it to include all types of open burning.

Okay.

To comment, if you don't mind.

Yes, ma'am.

I would endorse that as well.

I would not have a problem if Jeff extended that to open burns right now.

Eric Alloy, did you call on me next?

I did, Supervisor Price.

All right, thank you.

Mr. Richardson, I agree with the comments of everyone else with regard to the burn.

The only question or comment that I would make is, as I understood it, one of the commercial enterprises indicated that a ban on a commercial burn would have an impact on their development.

And so I would simply ask that, while not opposing the extension of a commercial ban, that we continue to monitor the situation so as not to unduly burden the opportunity for economic interests to continue to engage in their businesses, but we don't want to put health

at risk over the economy at this point.

And if it works out that there is a way later on and it's reasonable, then I would not have an objection to an exception being made.

Thank you, Mr. Campner.

That really solves, I think, the problem.

Yes, that if there is some, the chippers and haulers in Free Union, Dines Crossroads, cannot get enough chips to be able to run their kilns and to supply the poultry industry in the valley.

So there is definitely a market for this.

I think that it's assuredly better to haul it away to a place where the things can be ground up off site.

There are several of those operating in the county.

But also, if it has to happen, I think there should be day-to-day inspection and determination.

If the wind is blowing from south to north and it's going to carry the smoke totally away from where the cluster of people live,

That's one thing, but to give a 30-day permit regardless of the weather, that's what happened in this circumstance that we had.

And they just decided the rain was coming and they got it started and went without really, well, it didn't happen during daylight, that's for sure.

And I think that's a serious problem for follow-up.

Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

Last call.

Supervisors, any other questions or comments?

All right.

Thank you this evening.

Again, our apologies at the top.

We had some technical issues getting up and running this evening.

So I appreciate those who are both participating and who are watching for their patience as we got moving.

And with that, I will adjourn to, the board will adjourn to April 15th, 2020, 3 30 PM, which is an electronic meeting.

That meeting will be held pursuant to emergency ordinance number 20E2, an emergency ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

And information on how to participate in the meeting will be posted on the Albemarle County website, Board of Supervisors homepage.

I would imagine that will make its way to the calendar as well.

So thank you again, everyone.

I hope everybody has a good evening and be safe.

See everybody Wednesday.

Be safe.