Board of Supervisors Meeting   7/11/2023

I call this regular supervisor meeting to order this July 11, 2023.

First and foremost, we're getting to some important business after public comments and our consent agenda referencing our resolution honoring Officer Wagner in support of legislation changes to LODA.

And so when we go into our moment of silence here in a second, please be in continuous prayer for our law enforcement community.

as well as the family of Mr. Wagner.

So at this time, let us all rise for that moment of silence.

All right, now we will go on to the pledge.

Okay, we're now going to begin the public comment section of our agenda.

My name is Reverend James Rose, 2225 Union Hill,

Good afternoon members of the board and Candice McGarry.

I come to you this afternoon on behalf of the Gladstone Senior Center.

First let me thank the board for how you have supported our center in the past.

For we are requesting $3,000 for a defibrillator for our center.

We have discussed among ourselves the need for a defibrillator because we are seniors and many of us have medical problems.

We know that defibrillator will help save lives.

We have two members of our group who knows how to use a defibrillator.

Blue Ridge Medical Center has volunteered to train other members of our center.

About a month ago, one of our members fell and fractured her hip.

It took nearly an hour before EMS arrived.

They had to respond all the way from Wintergreen

But that's why we are making requests in the event of an emergency.

As I said before, we know the stipulator can have saved lives.

Ernie just reminded me, I did state the rules.

Three minutes for individual, please state your name and address for the record.

If you're speaking on behalf of a group, you can have five minutes.

Please specify that group.

Only one member of that group is allowed to speak on behalf of it.

And if you need a few more seconds to wrap up, you will be at the chair's discretion to give you more time.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

I want to stress that the lines of law enforcement and revenue generation should never be blurred.

It is in my opinion that ATE not only blurs the line, but it crosses the line.

ATE is not law enforcement.

It is not deployed nor marketed as such.

and nor is it a tool to increase public safety, but merely as a method of revenue generation.

Consecuting correctly ticketed drivers does not identify drivers, but merely the vehicle believe in the burden otherwise of the owner of other ones.

Also the privatization of traffic enforcement has many things.

It's going to incentivize companies to prioritize profits over public safety.

And it's exactly what ATE is.

revenue over-enforcement.

William Piercey, 608 Fortune's Cove, here in Lovingston.

Can you hear me okay, Jesse?

Sounds good.

I just wanted to take a couple minutes to say thank you to the board for their participation with the

of the fireworks here in the fire department and all that.

We need to make you know that what I've done because we were a success there for the first time here in Nelson County and hope that we continue with this.

This is a good start.

Back at another thank you.

My voice helped carry it on.

I'm with Jim Fortunat, Earl Hamer, dedication to Saturday, and the, what was the proclamation, I guess what it was, or is it the month of July, or the week of whatever that was, to recognize them in the music in Nelson County.

Thanks.

I believe that encouraging the public participation in the Board of Supervisors meeting helps to raise the confidence in this process.

Along those lines, if these YouTube videos could be made just a little more clear, and particularly towards the border there, you can hardly see that at all on the YouTube videos.

And

Like I said, my voice don't care very well, but I couldn't hardly understand the word I said when I was on last time.

So anyway, I was wondering, could you bring some of that school board equipment over here that Promethean and the SAM system they got works real well over there.

Let's see, what else I had.

I want to say thank you to VDOT for getting the grass cut there.

I know it's a continuous effort and it's about time to start over again with this range we've been having.

They're doing a good job on that now.

I just encourage them to be more proactive and aggressive in their continuous improvement of widening the roads and extending these left turn slow down lanes.

I sent an email to you, I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, about the park over in Queensborough, they call it Riverside Park.

It'd be something to take a look at as far as what we do out at the market property.

I think they've done a really good job out there, and maybe somebody on their city board will get the way they're at.

Edith Napier, 43 Napier, Luke Road, Arrington, Virginia.

First, I would like to thank you again for your service.

Secondly,

I'd like to apologize to Ernie, the others of you who we meet out in the street every day and we confront you immediately with what's going wrong in the county.

I've forgotten from school board days past that can affect you over time, so I'm hoping that I'm going to make an effort in others' wheels to challenge their concerns in the right manner.

Last month, I came to you regarding the grass being cut on the southern end of the county.

One of the most underserved areas of the county.

The only thing that happened, grass wasn't cut, it was tall, people were sliding up to the front in their cars to see how to cross over it.

And a week later, St. 29, which was the main highway in Nelson County, that was an accident.

Accident happened to him at 29 and Napier-Leuf Road.

In the middle of the day,

Grass was extremely tall, which required the routing of large tractor-trailers on a small neighborhood road.

I'm not complaining about that because I understand that traffic has to keep moving, but I'm concerned that because VDOT was negligent, it ended up endangering the citizens on that road too in order to keep traffic moving.

I'm going to ask each of you, please impress upon VDOT the importance of cutting the grass on a timely manner, especially on Route 29 and especially 29 South which seems to be kind of an elected area.

We don't want to wait until somebody's killed to all of a sudden figure out we can cut the grass and make a difference.

Is there anyone else who

on your list.

Hearing none, we will now close the public comment section of this agenda.

Moving on to the consent agenda.

We have minutes for approval, amendments to recreation fee schedule.

Can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

Yeah.

Motion from Skip.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Second from Mr. Reed.

Any further discussion?

If you have further discussion, we'll do a vote by acclamation.

All those in favor say aye.

Any objections or abstentions?

Hearing none, consent agenda passes unanimously.

So as we move into this next item, our resolution, I think it's important that those who may not know or ever, I imagine most of you do, we recently lost one of our own in Nelson County in the line of duty, Mr. Chris Wagner.

was serving up in Wintergreen.

And of course, in the line of duty, he lost his life.

As a result, we as a board want to honor him and his service to this community.

And it is also important that we as a locality look to see how we can improve situations that arise.

And soon after the incident, Mr. Parr and Mr. McGarry and I went up to Wintergreen

to drop off some food and have a quick discussion.

One thing that we've learned is that those who are licensed or properly licensed police officers who work for private entities do not get line of duty benefits.

What does this mean?

Some of the individuals who serve us today in the event that they were to get killed in the line of duty,

Their families would be able to realize some monetary contributions similar to a life insurance policy.

And this benefit does not exist from Mr. Wagner.

And as for those of you who don't know, you know, he struggled financially, or that family will struggle financially absent of him.

So this resolution came about with some of our discussions with them and state legislators.

And this is a no brainer.

I think we as Nelson County want to take care of our own.

We want to see the future be for those who do serve our community that we are going to take care of their families when they are killed in the line of duty.

And we want to, one, like I said, honor his memory and two, begin the second part of this and begin working legislation.

I soon after that meeting confronted some state senators and state delegates and there is legislation already in the works and will be hopefully on the agenda in the next coming cycle.

I have spoken to Senator Mark Peek as well as delegate Ellen Campbell and they're working together with their respective majority heads

on how they want to verbalize and how they want to word and what proper procedures it should be to accomplish the proper legislation to see that this has changed.

So at this time, we have this resolution.

We're going to read it.

Upon its completion, there have been several other localities who have agreed to take this on as well to honor his memory as well as to support the same legislation.

So we're the first step in the right direction over the next eight months.

So Mr. Reed,

Before I do, I really want to thank our board chairman, Mr. Rutherford, for taking the initiative on this.

He moved really quickly to get this

as an idea in front of many people, localities, elected officials and ourselves.

And I did get a, we all got an email from Mr. Jay Roberts this morning offering his gratitude for the resolution and his support for it.

And wanted to make note because he, he noted that he could not be here today.

So, um,

We have Resolution R-2023-45, Nelson County Board of Supervisors, Resolution Honoring Officer Mark Christopher Wagner II in requesting an amendment of the Line of Duty Act.

Whereas Mark Christopher Wagner II served for seven years with the Massenetton Police Department beginning his law enforcement career as a gate attendant in May of 2019 earned police officer status following his graduation from Central Shenandoah Police Academy.

And whereas Officer Wagner joined the Wintergreen Police Department in August 2020 and diligently served the Wintergreen community with unwavering honor and commitment.

On June 16, 2023, in his capacity as a law enforcement officer employed by the Wintergreen Police Department, a private police department.

And whereas the line of duty act, Virginia code 9.9-400 excludes private police officers from the benefits of the act.

And whereas by definition under the code of Virginia, private police officers are law enforcement officers,

and whereas private police officers, just as their counterparts employed by a police department or sheriff's office, which is a part of or administered by the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, are responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the enforcement of the penal laws and are exposed to the same risks of injury or death.

Nelson County Board of Supervisors that the Line of Duty Act should be amended to afford private police officers the benefits available under the act.

Now, therefore, be it resolved, the Nelson County Board of Supervisors hereby honors Officer Mark Christopher Wagner II of Wintergreen Police Department for his heroism and honorable service to the citizens of Wintergreen and the county for whom he made the ultimate sacrifice.

And be it further resolved, the Nelson County Board of Supervisors hereby calls upon the General Assembly to amend the Code of Virginia to afford private police officers the benefits available under Virginia Code 9.9400 in the Line of Duty Act.

If we have a motion, do we have a second?

Second.

Second from Mr. Harvey.

Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Barr?

Yes.

Yes.

Mr. Rutherford?

Yes.

So if for a second, obviously we have a few guests with us today, Mr. Russell, Mr.

Sheets, and Ms. Harris, please know that we are here for you.

We support you all and members of our

Law enforcement community need to know this and please extend this and we're just getting started on trying to bridge these gaps.

Thank you all for your service.

Okay.

Moving on in the agenda.

We have some presentations that are gonna be made.

Let's see, we got the VDOT report.

Thank you, Chairman.

We have a whole lot to report this month.

We have been mowing in Nelson County.

Pretty much everything on the on the west side of 49 has been completed.

We're still working on the east side.

We still have tractors mowing.

We're getting up into the Shipman and went down our area.

Hopefully that will be completed in the next couple of weeks.

The weather doesn't distract us and everything.

And also we've been working the last month since the last meeting since the Facebook post came out.

We've been working to resolve those issues and concerns.

I know a lot of those are moving and we've been working on those but with some others and after some signage and some other things that we've been addressing those also.

As far as our rural rustic paving, the unpaved roads, hard surfacing, Honeysuckle Road is complete, all mountain is complete, and we are, we're starting to work on Jacks Hill, a pretty good drainage structure to put in over there, and the road will be closed to put in that drainage structure, initially did reopen, and we've been doing a lot of cleanup, trees and flood damage from some of these heavy

from these storms where we got heavy rain.

I know Mr. Parr brought up some shoulders on Route 56 between 29 and 151.

Those have been repaired.

I think there were some on Roseland Road also.

I have not gotten anything back from our traffic engineers on the Kyle River River underpass additional warning signs and

detection system.

I am pushing them to get me something so we can see what it involves and what it's going to cost to install.

So hopefully that'll come back, come up pretty soon.

Other than that, I don't have a whole lot of other information that I share with you, but I'd be glad to answer any questions that anyone asks.

I just want to put this record because we talked about it, about the area

I'm 56, close to the Buckingham Bridge and the finishing of that paving area.

Yes, and that lower section of 56 and Reverend Rose asked me a question when it was going to be paved.

It's looking like 2025 is when that's set up to be paved.

Well, that don't do you a whole lot of good for it though.

Mr. Harvey?

Mr. Reed?

Yeah, I've got a few things.

First of all, not sure if you're aware, but the Department of Parks and Recreation

developing a piece of property that the county owns, a Sturt property on the lower part of Findley Gap Road.

What road is that?

Yeah.

And it's north of Norwood.

Yeah.

But the hopes are is that we can, we'll be taking some positive steps pretty soon to start to do some development there and starting to make it something that could be more of a destination and a park to be utilized by the people here.

Is that on the unpaid section?

The road that he's talking about, there are five creeks that don't have culprits.

There's two significant ones that have been brought to me brought to my attention specifically.

You know, as cruel a road as you can, it counts as a road in Nelson County, is that road that goes from Finley Mountain Road down to the river.

Mostly logging trucks use it.

It's got five creeks that cross it that don't have culverts.

And I think there are only two creeks from the east that don't have culverts.

No, it's not pavement, it's all dirt.

It's live streams running across the road.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, obviously, as we kind of get into

the approval process for whatever through the planning commission that does it or not.

That's a long road.

It's quite a long road and I certainly hope the county will be open to asking for proffers to approve that road because really the only funding we have inside

We have secondary road construction funding, which most of that is designated for unpaid roads.

We get some toll fees, which is not a lot.

Maybe it's $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 toll fee.

That's secondary road money.

And we get our county safety money, which is about $50,000.

But we already use that to take care of a lot of other things on primary, like taking care of a wayside up on the Nelson wayside.

I'm just saying

If there's going to be a need for a major road improvement, we at VDOT and the county, we need to keep our eyes open for opportunities to ask for help from that development to fix the road.

Because it's either that or it's a smart skill submission, which is, Mr. Reed, you know, that's a long, that's a long draw on our process.

There are economic

Development funds that the county can apply for, but some of that's a match.

And that funding is not big dollars.

Maybe you might need to get a million, a million and a half out of that.

I mean, basically right now, that road is, most of the traffic on that road is used to a hot season, and that's what it is, it's a hot season road.

We'll take a look at it and, you know,

I know we did eight or nine years ago we didn't want a bit of work because it was almost impossible and there was water running everywhere, no ditches.

to the property.

The main access is from, I guess you say, from the west.

The road is in fairly good shape down near James River.

It comes down, yeah, on the river road.

Okay, next thing.

One of my constituents contacted me this week, and on Dutch Creek Road, there was some work that was being done.

I think a call was being replaced down there.

Dutch Creek, I think it's on Dutch Creek.

Robert, is that Dutch Creek?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It just finished.

Yeah, thanks.

When that was going on, someone that contacted me had noticed that some of the pumps that they use to divert the water that are vacuum pumps that use oil and appear to be

Reeking a lot and that there was a lot of oil on the ground and he was offering some support for trying to remediate that spillage that happens but those you know if those if those pumps are old and not under good repair you know he said there were there was literally a pile of of oil you know plastic oil cans in around it

Clearly they've gone through the process and would like to see that you're not contributing to the pollution of the creek there.

Well, our bridge crew, not my bridge crew, they don't work for me, but our district bridge crew, they're in charge of that structure.

I'll contact them when I leave this lake to look at those pumps.

Thank you for that.

Finally, I have not heard anything recently about the 151 corridor study.

And we're working on our comprehensive plan.

We're working on the final draft as we speak.

I'll have to talk to Rick about that because I don't remember when he said that was going to be complete

Yeah, I was not able to track down what that was.

I didn't look really hard.

I just knew that I hadn't heard anything yet.

I'll check into that, Mr. Reed.

OK.

I'm just looking.

I know you talk about the priority of cutting grass.

And I would like you to think about setting priority because in the southern part of the county, there are many places where the grass

blocks your view.

It makes it very difficult.

It's more Jonathan Grass and

Those type of grasses.

In the northern part of the county, it's a lot smaller.

But the southern part of the county, there's a lot more grass.

Well, our priority that we, Route 29 and I think 151, they're treated with a growth retarder.

if the grass comes out.

So usually, if that takes effect, that holds that down for a while, but we usually don't need to mow the four lanes until just prior to the 4th of July.

Usually about the middle of June.

In the meantime, you know, typically we start mowing second thirds around the first of May or maybe late April.

And then right before the four, then we, well let me back up.

We hold off on the four lane of whatever has been treated with the broke guitar.

Then we hit the two lane primaries because they have a higher priority than the secondary routes.

And then after we did the two lane primaries, we used to start on the secondary, which is around the first of May.

I do understand what you're saying.

Typically, I know in the southern end of Nelson County, which is actually maintained by Amherst Area headquarters, they start down in the Gladstone area because Angola.

They hit those routes, but that was a lot of Johnson grass down there.

I understand what you're saying, Mr. Barton, and we do

Bryan Area headquarters pretty much mows the west side of 29 and Shipman mows the east side of 29, which may be a little bigger area.

So we'll keep that in mind.

We are intending on awarding a contract mowing contract where we have a contractor come in and help us mow secondary realms.

and Nelson County, Emmers, Appomattox, A. Campbell.

Because quite frankly, we don't have the people or resources to knock it out like we would like to.

And to get us off on doing some other work.

I'm not going to make excuses that the moment hasn't been delayed in Nelson County.

But I would like to, you know, everybody has their own story.

And I'm not

This, the east side of the 29th, which is covered by Shipman Area headquarters, we're short of people.

We've had three vacancies for most of the month of May and June.

Had several people out on medical leave.

And from about the middle of May up until the end of June, I had five people working on the road at Shipman Area headquarters.

That's a fact.

Does that change anything?

Doesn't change anything.

I accept that.

And you're also saying what some people have talked about is the danger of 29 is real.

When we had moved to 29th, we had moved to intersections about the middle of May on 29th.

And as far as that intersection, I think he was talking about that Nate Bier had actually said, I had no suit but didn't take pictures.

He said that to me.

Mr. Parr sent me a text of

The intersection said there's been an accident at Napier and 29.

And I was sitting there and I said, would you go up there and give me a picture?

Because it said vegetation.

And I could show everyone in here the picture.

Why do we can't know talking from the audience?

And I'll be glad to discuss that with anyone.

I live down there and I access 29 from a lot of those secondary roads there and when you go across that highway, when that grass is high, it's dangerous.

That's all I'm saying.

And make you aware of that.

And more so than there's a north where

The north, the weeds in the northern part of 29th, there's not so much the grass as the weeds.

Everything grows but the grass as the weeds grow.

Mr. Harvey?

Sorry, we already did you.

Mr. Parr did send me a few notes.

He had a question about a flip bridge on Rose Mill Road.

Back into that, he might send you an email here in a bit.

He wanted to thank you for the repairs to the shoulders of another road that he had done.

Yes, and I'm going to look at that here in a few minutes.

That COVID needs replacing.

It's under 151.

We've got to get that COVID replaced.

Gotcha.

He just said for the record, Mr. Parr is out for the day.

He had to get a surgery he'd been planning on for a while.

He's out of commission for the next couple of days, but he's doing good and he'll be back on his feet.

I think he's back on his feet kind of today, but not officially all the way.

So keep praying for Mr. Parr.

Maybe shoot him an email and follow up on those items.

As it relates to East District Schuyler mowing, obviously we were having issues in the Schuyler area.

I talked to our shipment crew.

There are a few potholes between Gordon's Crossing, which is Laurel Road and Ball Mountain.

There's a couple potholes that have come about.

You guys have patched them a few times and they're starting to come back again.

Are those scheduled to be repaved?

Do we get a repaving schedule at all in the future?

I don't know when they'll be on the schedule.

So that's the only notes that I have for today.

Hearing none, let's see if you can catch him on his way out.

Thank you, sir.

Safe travels back.

Always good to have you.

Always good to have you.

Yeah.

All right.

Moving on to automated speed enforcement in school zones, Blue Line Solutions.

Good afternoon.

I just wanted to do a quick introduction.

We have Mr. Greg Hoxton here from Blue Line Solutions.

to discuss their automated speed enforcement program for school zones.

County staff, the sheriff, and also the school superintendent, and also several supervisors, well actually two supervisors, met with Mr. Hodgson to just kind of review this program, and we all thought it'd be beneficial for the board to have a presentation.

Next steps following the presentation,

The board could consider authorizing a public hearing, possibly on August 8th or whenever you prefer, to get the public's input on this program, or you could opt to move forward or take no action.

Thank you.

Again, I'd like to thank you for having me.

Let me come back today and speak with you.

My name is Greg Hodgson.

I live in Washington County, Virginia, in the hometown of Wayne Springs, just north of Abingdon.

I'm a retired law enforcement veteran.

I started my career back in 1996 in Smith County, transitioned to Washington County, and finished out my career with the City of Bristol in December of 2021.

Then I stepped into my second career, which I had a passion for, for 26 years of traffic safety.

And the General Assembly back in 2020 passed legislation in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

under 462882.1, which would allow this new type of enforcement within the Commonwealth.

And it specifically focuses on two locations only for this to be used.

And that is school zones and how we work zones.

And our main focus is keeping our school zones safe, reducing the number of violations, and we focus on our children in those zones.

And just to give you a background on our company,

We have over 200 years of law enforcement experience within our organization.

We're a private owned organization.

We're not a publicly traded company.

Our owner started his law enforcement career back in the late 80s in Louisville County, Johnson County, Tennessee, which is a Virginia, Tennessee border down there.

He started this company here in 2010, focusing on the production of speeding violations in our school and worked on

We all here, me being former law enforcement, other law enforcement officers in the house, we're very familiar with each year in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we have a program called Click It or Ticket.

This is the most successful program that NHTSA has launched, and it's been around since 2000.

What we do in the Click It or Ticket method is we go out and we choose an intersection in our county, locality, or town, and we do an observation of 100 drivers, and we take an observation of how many felt

that we have doing what they should do, and that's wearing their seat belt at all times when they're operating on a grid.

But after we receive the funding from DMV to go out and do this type of D to D enforcement for the increase of seat belt usage, we take that information that we've captured, we turn it into the DMV, and then after they get the information enrichment and put it on file, we launch what we call the Public Information and Education-based program, which is proper education to the public.

and any enforcement program is only successful on how well you educate the audience that the enforcement is effective.

So our key component of this is proper education to the county citizens that this type of enforcement would be effective.

So once in the clicker picker program, you move forward and you educate that target audience.

Then we go back and we do enforcement for two weeks.

And then after that enforcement, we go back to that same intersection on the same day, same time, and take that initial study and see how the seek out usage rates went up.

And the reason this program has been so successful was because of two components.

Public information number one combined with enforcement.

Because if you only do public information, the only people that will put their seat belts on and watch for them is the people who pay attention to the education.

The other ones, they don't.

They just keep going.

They don't wear their seat belt, and they should be.

If you go solely on enforcement, the only people that you're educating is the people that you're stopping on the road.

That's the ones that's getting the violation.

So when you combine the two components together, and you properly educate the people, and then you follow up with the enforcement, those two combined is why seat belt rates go up.

And me being a former officer, and I was a traffic sergeant,

First Sergeant in our agency and overseeing all of our traffic safety division.

And Southwest Virginia at one point in time was the reason the state of Virginia fell below the state's seatbelt, the national rate, because of rollover crashes and young male drivers in pickup trucks with ejections.

So the owner of this company took this program and flipped the model.

And I'll go into that.

We come out and we go to a school zone to a chief or sheriff

We say, let us conduct a five-day, independent, unscued Vegas driving report in your school work zone.

And I come out to that locality, probably on a Sunday morning, and we deploy very, very small radar boxes, which contains what they call a KA band radar unit in it, and it captures the flow of vehicles and the violations for a week, and you get raw data.

At that point in time,

We share that data with the sheriff, chief, the board, school board members, because we want to come at this as a collaborative approach, not just the sheriff, not just the chief, but we want the board members, the school board members to understand the gravity of the offenses and then look at this as a type of solution for the problem.

So we came, and the reason I found Nelson County is, where I live in Southwest Virginia, I know a former school

And we met one day, and we were talking, both of us had retired, and he was like, have you ever talked to Nelson County?

He said, I-29 or Interstate 29, going between Charlottesville and Lynchburg.

He said, it's terrible going down that mountain.

And he was like, I worry every day of our buses crossing that four lane due to the amount of speeding violations.

He's like, so I'm reaching out to Sherrifield.

We met last year, went over it, and as you can see, our data was collected in September

And we came up here and deployed our devices in the school zones, three school zones.

And I'll let you see the numbers for each one.

And anyone after a presentation today, if you would like to ask any questions for me now, I'll field any question and answer anything that you have today.

I just want to make sure that everyone has a proper understanding of the way this should be implemented in any locality in this community.

At Nelson County Midland High School,

The study was done in a five-day period between Tuesday, September 27th and October 3rd.

From the hours of 7.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Now you'll see it's broken down into three windows.

Usually it's a morning, midday, and afternoon.

Usually in each school zone across the Commonwealth, some are different depending upon locality.

The lights usually flash in the morning section and the afternoon.

But as a whole day run, as this study,

You had 45,282 vehicles come through the school zone on 49th.

5,314 were considered to be a violation by statute.

And under 46.2, 882.1, you cannot consider a speeding violation for photo speed unless it's 11 or above the school zone speedway.

That is the only code that I'm aware of in the Commonwealth that put an actual buffer in a speed zone that did not do the construction for the officer when he was there.

Moving on, as you'll see, the little pie chart there, the green, pardon me, I didn't have my glasses with me today.

The blue, the little pie chart there, if I can please step over here, it says- You got a little laser pointer there.

The point of our little share, okay?

Right there.

In the blue, that is considered 10 to 14 miles an hour over the closest streamline.

You had a little over 1,000 at that point in time.

The orange is considered to be 15 to 20 above the posted speed limit.

And then anything in the gray is considered to be regular driving by speed.

That goes from a traffic infraction under the loft to a classroom that's estimated by speed.

Okay, that's 3,000 violations in that one school zone in that specific time frame.

Rockfish Elementary School,

I had 23,387 violations come through that school's own in a week's time.

2,241 violations considered for all 11.

As you can see, it breaks down the school.

Each school's own barriers.

You had 1,700 violations, which is the lower end, 11 to 14, 454, which is 15 to 20, and then 21 reckless plus three new hires.

The last school we did was High River.

As you can see also, they had 48,000 vehicles come through through that school zone with 4,203 violations.

I think it's about 2,500 from 10 to 14, 941 at 15 to 20, and then 700 to 21 and above, which would be considered regular prostate.

So what we try to do is,

The only way to make sure a program is successful is to be 100% open and transparent with the data, and we like to share that with everyone.

This is public available.

Every board member should have a copy of it.

The school board members, if they want it, they can see what the numbers reflect in your school buildings.

That's how we identify if there's a problem.

Now, once we do our problem and we identify if the locality decides to go with us,

Automated speed enforcement is what I consider to be a less punishing enforcement, but the General Assembly made this specifically for two locations, school zones and work zones.

By the State Supreme Court fee schedule, they are set to find the civil penalty for this under code to be $100 per violation.

There's no point assessed to any type of violation like this at all.

So it will not go on your driving record as a merit point violation.

You don't have to go for it.

You won't be charged any additional court assessment fee unless you follow the rebuttal process.

So if you do receive a violation under this statute,

If you go through a school zone in your personal vehicle and you pay that, it's not going to reflect on your CDL list.

I'm a CDL holder.

If I was to go out here and get stopped today in a traditional traffic stop and get a violation by an officer, if I go to the district court, I would qualify for driving school.

Because I'm a CDL holder, the federal statute will not prevent you from going to a driving school to keep the court off your end.

So the Supreme Court set the fine high enough to deter a bad driving ban.

So to show how our program works as far as going back to public information and education and how this works, and this absolutely blew my mind when we actually got the data.

This is the town of Bridgewater, Virginia, which is in Rockingham County.

We started with G3 a while back.

They went through the whole program of public information and education and into the enforcement by code.

After we do the public information of education, before any law violation is issued, there is 30 days of warning phase.

So if you go through that violation in the first 30 days and you receive that letter in the mail, it will say warning violation on it.

Make sure to say, hey, slow down.

Just be careful.

We also provide what they call free radar feedback signs for the school zones, which everyone seen with this, the flashing signs,

That tells you your speed.

In New Kent County, all of our zones are up.

They'll be launched this fall.

Every school zone, even in the county where the flashing lights are, there's a radar feedback that's attached to that beacon.

So before you enter into that enforcement area, you're going to have your speed flashing at you.

So when you have this rumor, it goes around and it's hard to address this because

and revenue-generated type of enforcement.

These reports right here, and that's why it is so important to collect the data first and then open and transparent with the public so they can see how the program works if it's properly implemented.

It's not about revenue generation and collection.

It's about the reduction of speed in our school's office, period.

The media likes sometimes to take a narrative and remember how many citations have you issued

How much money have you collected?

It's not about that.

This is about the safety of the children and the amount of production of the speed offenses in the school.

And just to show you how the program works, if it's properly followed.

We'll get to that one here.

OK, right down here in the bottom, speed study database, John Whalen Elementary,

and John Williams School in the town of Bridgewater in our baseline street zone.

It had 1,095 violations that was collected.

That's from all day when it was popping through.

Through public and information phase, which means that we connect with the police department, sheriff's office, locality, school board, the municipality, social media platforms, we do school banners,

We do yard signs, we do anything and everything that we can to drop this message out to the people who will be traveling through our school systems to properly educate.

No matter who your vendor is, no matter who's over your program, it will not be successful until you properly educate the people that it's going to affect.

And that is the whole purpose of this program.

And this police department started off with 1,095 violations.

Through just public and information, this is no enforcement.

This is just an educational thing.

We went from 1,095 violations to 90 seconds.

Through the warning phase, we dropped to 86.

And then at the end of it, we went back up to 94 post enforcement.

But overall, we had a 91% reduction rate in the town of Bridgewater.

That was our reduction, and we continuously track this and provide it to the localities so you can see the success of this program.

When school lets out for the summer, before we start back, we start another very aggressive P.I.

and E-wave, which is Public Information and Education.

We like to start about the first of July and start pushing that information back up through the school portals, reminding parents, I've got all my accounts

This is our first account in the Commonwealth of Virginia with Webb County Sheriff's Office.

We started their program back in early 2022.

Our schools, we have three active schools in the county gathering launched the fourth one this fall.

We had an issue with a permitting thing to feed off where there was no school zone speed limit resolution filed years ago.

But at Fort Chisel High School, Jackson Elementary and Chevy, Fort Chisel High School, our baseline speed study, now this is post-enforcement.

This is an active program that's actually up and running.

They had 2,500 violations at the baseline five-day speed study.

We reduced it by down to 90 violations per week.

Jackson Elementary School had 1,000 violations.

We reduced it to 59.

They have a 96% overall reduction, which from a former law enforcement standpoint, I just couldn't believe it was achievable until I seen the data for myself.

Now it's a little bit different in Wythe County.

Each VDOT region across Commonwealth County has sometimes different rules on how they implement programs.

Wythe County, when we submitted our permits to VDOT,

at that point in time.

Mid Kent County, they have granted our request to put the radar feedback signs to give that last visual cue to every modus traveling into their school zones just to say, hey, slow down, be aware there's kids present.

And that's the main focus on our program to take the data to be open and transparent to make sure that anyone in that community from the school administration,

parents, teachers, school bus drivers, any type of motors when they travel through these school zones that they are properly educated.

Because in Southwest Virginia, where I live, when photo speed was passed, there's a little community, it's in Northeast Tennessee, that I had to overcome this hurdle in my name of the state because of enforcement for revenue.

We had one local, if you could just put a photo speed up

And when the vehicles would come to the photo speed device, they would slow down.

And they'd slow down for about the width of a football field.

And guess what?

They would speed up again.

Because they knew what was that.

That's the whole purpose for photo speed enforcement because you want that traffic flow to slow down when they get to that school zone.

And after they travel safely through that school zone, they can put the speed back out.

And every locale that we go into, that's some of the issues that we run into.

Even the school resource officers within the school zone.

They're attending to the kids, the parents, they're making sure everything stays on campus.

We try to assign someone to a school zone and then try

I've had the privilege of starting out working with a local Commonwealth attorney in that region where we had our first contract with the courts.

We've seen it through from the motor process all the way through the appeals process and everything has worked out just exactly like the code has defined it.

And if someone receives a violation in the mail and they say, I would drive in the vehicle, they can either take care of it online by transfer of liability forms and send them in and have their information abstracted from the system.

As long as they provide the correct information, then it will be sent back out.

If they want to come before the district court judge in the civil hearing, then they can go to the department court and just file an affidavit having a case put on without getting

The process works as long as you follow it.

We like to move very slowly through this point because each locality has different methods, different board systems, and how things play out.

So we like to take our time with it and make sure that things go correctly because the last thing we want to do is cause a burden or ID issue for local law enforcement agencies that we're partnered with.

But right now in Commonwealth, we've got seven active accounts going right now.

That's our company, just in a nutshell.

I know it's hard to get through this because a normal presentation usually takes about an hour, an hour and 20 minutes.

And we will, if you have any questions, please ask, because I want you to have the correct information.

Who wants to get started?

A couple questions I have.

So if we could go to the Nelson County Middle and High School item that talks about 5,300 looks like and defining 100 I'd see your note is anybody who goes essentially 11.

11 miles an hour.

So by code, it's considered about violations.

So in five days, we'd have 5,300 violations.

I'm reading your little sheet.

Sorry, right there.

Now, here's what I will explain to you on that.

Usually, each jurisdiction varies across the state.

Some localities clash the lights of the morning and the afternoon.

Some localities flash their lights, as like the code gives you in A-73, from an half an hour before regular school hours to a half an hour after.

So we have some localities who flash their lights all day, depending upon the location of the school, because that's solely given to the discretion of school superintendent.

But for this purpose here, if you're looking at violations, that would be considered a violation by law.

You would take the 1800 year, that's when your lights flash in the morning, and the 2500

and then that would be, you would take the $871 out of this number.

Okay.

Because it wouldn't be the middle of the day dollars.

Got it.

All right.

It's 100 bucks in last.

The violation, the Supreme Court says, $100 per violation as a civil penalty.

Now the code under 883.1 allows a third party vendor to enter into an agreement with the localities.

and our fee for our penalty is $25 per violation.

$75 of that would come back to the locale.

Okay.

Okay.

Alright.

So, if we play the numbers, you take your 5314, subtract the 871, that's about

Yeah.

And so half a million dollars and you're going to take essentially 25% of it.

Yeah.

I know.

I'm just, I'm working this math where we are.

They are real numbers, but here's the thing, you can never determine

I mean, it's a camera.

It's automated.

You said it's unbiased.

It is.

Think about this.

I get that.

So do you have any examples where, so for example, 29 is a through, it's an interstate of sorts, right?

There's people drive from Danville to DC every day.

I mean, these are new, and there's people who go from Danville to, or wherever to go to UVA.

That's a very common intersection.

So when we educate, we aren't going to educate the drivers of Danville.

We're not going to be able to educate the drivers of anybody who's coming from that direction, North or South.

We can only educate the local populace, which

Well, you know, that's true, but you want to educate the populace that the enforcement's going to affect.

So my question with me is all those drivers from other localities, why did they not take any consideration for flashing lights on 29th fire in Nelson County State this year?

That's getting their school wrong.

So when you put the radar feedback signs up,

and you give that last visual cue to that driver, when they're coming up 29 and going down 29 and it's 55, they see the flashes and it reduces to 35.

They know, hey, I'm internet school zone, but when you put that last visual cue up, that their speed is actually looking at them eyeball, eyeball when they get through there.

If they go past that point, disregarding, irregardless whether Sheriff Nelson, the Sheriff sitting out there, or Virginia State Police, you know,

And here's one other thing that I'd like to throw out too, of course, enforcement.

And the reason this is passionate to me is because I spent 26 years in it.

And anytime that you pull out new traditional enforcement in a work zone or in a school zone, it makes it more dangerous than it already is.

Because people do not pay attention with blue lights on.

It happens.

And then when you accelerate your speed from stop location

to catch up with a violator that's going 20 or 30 miles an hour or 10 miles an hour speed line.

It makes that whole situation, it's safer for the officer.

You have less officer violator contact.

And what you're trying to do is correct driving behavior.

You have an automated means of enforcement that tries to make it safer for that.

And then like you say, if you focus on the baseline number, yeah, it has the potential to drive money.

I mean, that's just the bottom line for traditional enforcement.

And I understand that.

Where my hesitation comes from is safety is not a money making mechanism.

It is never meant to be that.

And knowing that there's that's a real dollar number that could exist.

I am hesitant.

You know, let's just say you get, you know, 100 infractions a day hypothetically.

Very large numbers.

And you know, $100 means a lot different from an affluent individual who's just driving to D.C.

They're going to throw that $100 in that letter, send it to you, and call it a day.

They do not care.

But it means a lot to a Nelsonian who might be on the way to work and last 10 feet, he pushed some gas a little bit too hard.

And I'm not really sure of the mechanisms and where the point of the camera is.

No one is saying any of that.

It's the question of where we are with this mechanism.

You know, we have SROs that we fund.

We need to make sure that they're in the schools too and making sure they're keeping those kids safe.

And we don't have SROs in every school either.

I got you.

And this is a new thing.

We learn as we

And you know, it's not only local departments, state police is one of the RFPs for this.

And any violation that's issued by Deputy Sheriff, a local town officer, or state troopers, not by code, state police issue a violation of silence,

Any fine money that comes back as a byproduct of traffic safety goes to the state literary firm.

Any violation by the local township or county sheriff, no matter what road they're on, if they put their local adoptee code before they've adopted the 46200 vehicle code and that summons is issued, they say it's being 45 under 35 and they go to district court and the general fine gets imposed.

Then that money comes back to the locality through a local fund to the Board of Supervisors to be reallocated into the general fund under the local county code or town code for any type of enforcement.

No one wants to enforce by for-profit.

It brings up a million questions.

Yes, it's properly marked on 29 to where at Rockfish.

No.

What this is is a traditional LiDAR enforcement device, just like law enforcement uses on the highway now.

It is a single beam, single-lane device that's on a stationary fixed pole that emits a beam of radiation into the roadway

And it is single beam, single lane only.

So as a vehicle travels through that beam, and that beam is usually fixed to the roadway anywhere between 85 feet to 200 feet, depending upon the device used.

And once that vehicle breaks that beam, there's parameters set within the software of that LiDAR device and that camera system.

If it breaks that parameter of 11 miles an hour or more.

Anywhere during that time?

The code, it's the violation is issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, not the file maker, not the person behind the wheel.

Now, if you receive a summons in the mail and you say, I was a driver in my vehicle that day, my wife was, at that point in time, you can go on our website and hit what they call a transfer of liability.

You get a summons?

Summons to Nelson County?

Yes, it will have the sheriff's office patch on the top of it.

Well, I've been to New York City for a while,

People would get parking tickets and throw them away.

Well, right now in the code where this is new, there's not what you say any real teeth to the matter to do collections.

The code specifically states the process for collection if someone does not pay the violation.

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the sheriff has the authority under state code

If we provide the information for an unpaid violation, we can request a civil summons through the magistrate, and they can either be personal served within the county if the resident lives here, or they can be sent to the sheriff.

That's the sheriff's option, but whether he wants to follow through with the sheriff.

For people who reside within the commonwealth.

If they live outside of the Commonwealth, we have a partnership with a government collection agency that only deals with county, cities, and municipalities for government collections that we turn it over after 60 days of non-payment.

Once they go, they can go through any means by code that says to exhaust any means by out-of-state collections.

Once that fee is collected, it's paid to us, we give you your

Yes sir, and then we in turn charge a $25 only processing fee and you get the $75.

For our infrastructure, our costs, there is no cost associated to this with the county at all, period.

There's always a cost.

There is a cost.

There might not be money, but there is a cost.

And there's the benefit too.

Again, it goes back to the old saying, do you put public perception in front of public safety?

Do you do the right thing for the right reasons at the right time?

Or do you let emotions drive your decision and not data?

So that's the true way to look at it.

You know, I haven't made up my mind yet.

I want you to know that.

But, you know, one of the points the person made was the privatization of law enforcement and being somewhat similar, familiar, excuse me,

with like improvisations of prisons which most people would consider a complete disaster you know although it looked good in the beginning and you know it's yes well and you know what i would i would encourage anyone to do is any agency

Yeah, I mean I appreciate that.

This would be, if the localities say the sheriff decided to move forward with this program, you're looking at reality, the most time consuming process for this is going through the VDOT phases of permitting.

Because once we have a form

Construction Safety Engineer used to work as a contractor for VDOT that does our Virginia permitting now.

Once that permit is finalized and submitted, it usually takes the residency engineer a couple months to turn it over just to make sure that it meets all the criteria by VDOT.

Within our permit, they look at the site plans and make sure everything is put in a safe location.

And VDOT Engineering has to sign off on that.

and we have a company, it's a turnkey job.

And I actually had a conversation with Major Thompson last night

Well, with Kennedy, we'll be starting our second school year.

They started last year as using the handheld method, just the regular handheld model unit.

This will be starting our first full school year.

Have they, what kind of, I looked, is that the Chiswell High School?

Or Chiswell.

Do you have anything that's similar to 29 with the traffic count we have?

Because that's got, I think it's just a regular turning intersection, no different than what we would consider Nellysford.

So it's not necessarily a 50,000 car area every five days.

I mean, .9 is a serious corridor.

It is a very serious corridor.

You know, we've not done anything in Campbell.

New Kent County would probably be the only one in its more rural city, but they've got one in New Kent Highway that runs through it and had a pretty significant number on it.

But as far as actually Four Lane, Bridgewater.

The town of Bridgewater?

The town of Bridgewater is four lane.

Yes, sir.

Sure is.

And they had a 90% reduction.

Can I mention one thing?

When this study was conducted, we actually had deputies present in the school zones that actually conduct traffic stops and issue summons.

And those numbers are pretty astronomical.

I would say in the beginning when I learned about businesses that provide a service like this, I agreed with Quentin.

I was thinking, okay, I'm trying to make money.

But as I learned more through Greg educating me on the preventative

And so that's where that infrastructure really would help our school zones out tremendously because we don't have a manpower to set up deputies on each side of 29 because even the study shows, and we can show you in the CAD reports, that often people would call N Plus and say, well, you didn't have a deputy in the school zone this morning.

And I look back to check to make sure they were there and our deputies will log out.

You know, they will mark out in the school zones in the mornings when they're there for the luxury of being there.

And anyhow, our citizens will not see them because they're south of the school zone or north of the school zone, out of the violator.

And so as far as they don't see them.

And so the deterrent's not there necessarily.

So this is that force multiplier, as Greg mentioned,

That is key, I think, but having that buy-in from you all is very important in our citizens and the kids are our future.

And you know, it's the thing is looking back, you know, what would happen if one of our kids or the school buses hit in the cross and our families lost?

You all just paid honor to Officer Wagner today, okay?

This is the second time I've seen your presentation and I had weeks to mull it over.

My first response, identical to Mr. Bibbs, I'm really against, you know, something like this as a revenue generator and I really don't like surveillance from the get-go.

But if I was looking for a best case scenario to accomplish the same type of results that this program does, I can't even envision one.

I don't think we could have five, seven, ten times the traffic staff that we have now and

and have a safer zone that this could create as a result of that.

And that means something to me.

I'm really sympathetic that we've got two school zones on 29.

I am not sympathetic to people that are going 10 miles an hour above the speed limit under any circumstances.

I have no compassion for them at all.

And when I go over it, I have no compassion for myself either.

Just saying.

And along the 151 corridor, to have any kind of a deterrent that can create a single corridor along 151, especially connected with the schools, but under any circumstances to me, is worth being thoughtful about.

Because as the sheriff mentioned, you know, one of the things that I hear mostly is like, where are the traffic cops on 151?

And because they're concerned of the impacts of 151 is not just a speeding the tractor trailer traffic as well.

On a tangent,

The only way we're going to keep track of trailer traffic off of 6 and 151 is by creating situations that are safer.

It's the only way we can do it.

And this creates a safer, a slower, and an accountable, but also an educative component, which is, I think, the only way that we will have a safer corridor is when

The tractor trailer traffic and the people at speed take a quicker route and where they can do that and feel safe and expedited in terms of doing it.

I don't think that 151 is that.

And the location of Rockfish Elementary is really key.

Just being south of the straightaways of Afton and just north of the south part of Afton

is a really important area because that's where you have the twists and the turns and the change in elevation that is so key.

And so when Sheriff Hill brought this up maybe two years ago to me, I just kind of dismissed it off the cuff as being something, well,

But what happened since then, and this is a pretty interesting story, I gave my Toyota Prius, I sacrificed my Prius for a pickup, which I had picked up truck envy for decades.

Finally gave up my Prius and gave it to my son.

I got issued three violations on that car before we changed title.

for New Jersey and New York where they were under photo surveillance of a car and of course it came to me.

So I kind of accept that as the cost of doing business and took care of it of course.

But this cat is out of the box.

And it is, I really think, if you're talking about safety, we're not talking about convenience or anything else, we're not even talking about money.

If we're talking about safety alone, I can't even conceive of a best case scenario that would come close to these kinds of results under any other circumstances.

Really, I can't.

I don't like surveillance.

I don't like being under cameras.

I don't like the incentives that we have to create an environment that's not safe.

There are many of them.

I don't like those at all.

I'd like to nip those in the bud before people start being impacted by them.

But you know, given this the thought that I have, I'm very sympathetic to this.

And I think it's a pretty good program.

And I mean, I really don't know that it's a good program, but I really haven't seen it happen.

The code, the way it's written, any violation captured for a violation of either under 882.1 for schools on board or at all works on the defense, that cannot be used for like investigative purposes.

It can only be used for the violation which is captured under code.

If there's a violation captured and it's not approved by law enforcement officer within 60 days of it being captured, it's to be purged from the system.

Yeah, and you know where it's a new program, it's new legislation.

We looked at the focus on the amount of reduction of violations, nothing else, to try to get 100% compliance with our goal, but get as close to it as possible.

I myself never dreamed that we would see a 90% reduction.

I'm just going to be straight up with you.

And just one more thing, I drive much more carefully when I'm driving through D.C. than I used to.

I've seen four violations by mail myself from the EZ Pass lane and I-66 corridor.

And then once I got it, there was one character that responded wrong that was revved wrong and entered into the database.

So I understand

There's issues that can happen with any type of technology that's implemented in the field.

But the way to correct it is going about it very slowly, making sure that we implement the statute correctly.

What we do is we sign the contract with the locality for two years, okay?

And the reason we need two years is we come into the locality and for the infrastructure, if the school system's blinkers are not up to code and they have to be upgraded

If new placards have to be put into place, we do that at no cost to the school system, at no cost to the county.

Anything that we put into this program to get it up and off the ground, we meet the cost of the construction and implementation up front.

It takes us two years for us to get our infrastructure costs that we've invested into the lookout to make sure the program is implemented correctly and up to code and up to VDOT standards.

before we can do any type of enforcement.

There are some localities that we're looking at right now that we've done the speech studies, but they don't even have flashing lights in their localities.

But by go, before you can do any type of photo speed enforcement to be considered a school zone, there has to be a resolution adopted through VDOT that declares a reduction speed limit to be considered a school zone, and there has to be flashing lights put in place.

We're actually going into some localities if we get

I can check with the other states that we're in.

We're in Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Ottawa.

I just checked the two intersections that you had indicated and the speed limits on those highways was 45 miles an hour and had stop lights.

So let's try to, that would have been the one in Bridgewater.

I think it's 42, 42, something of that nature.

And you know, I think, I guess we, we dropped from 60 to 30, 45, 35.

What does our school does?

35, 35.

and actually this year starting in law one they amended the code under 873 to extend the school zone from 650 to 750 feet.

So it goes back to each VDOT district on what their engineer wants to require us to put proper signage up for more upcoming motors and by code it says there has to be a sign placed within 1,000 feet of any type of this type of information.

If I had a picture I could show you of our new Kent County school zones of the signage we had to go up on VDOT recommendations as far as new signage put up and then we extended the school vegans from 12 feet to 15 feet because their engineer wanted us to put the radar feedback sign on the actual classroom to get that motor stacked at the very last visual cue before you got into that school zone and before the enforcement area so

You're actually getting the static sign of the mother child crossing the road.

If it's painted on the road, you're getting that warning.

Then you get the flashing light with the two beacons and then the radar feedback sign before you get into it.

We're only enforcing this during that period of time.

Okay.

So we've been on this topic for quite a while now, and we do need to get on with our agenda.

So board, we do have a decision to make, you know, of course, I maintain my hesitancy.

I mean, to your contract, I can understand a buyout.

I would expect that to exist there.

And a 25% commission, you know, it's pretty hefty.

Well, it's a 25%.

So it's not code.

You're not allowed to do what they call the revenue split in Virginia.

The max is $100.

Right.

Can you charge $25 on top?

Yeah.

And we get $75?

It's 25% commission.

Got it.

Alright.

What's the board want to do?

We have, I think it was indicated we could do a public hearing.

Obviously, we are do not have Mr. Parr with us today.

So if we wanted to wait till Mr. Parr got here, we could also do that.

Well,

All right, so public hearing, do you want to make a motion for that?

I would suggest what's our next month look like?

Would we have the same presentation at the public hearing?

Yeah, let's do September.

You want to do it in September?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll make a motion that we have a public hearing on this issue at our September board of supervisors meeting.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconder, Mr. Barton.

Any further discussion?

Mr. Harvey?

Yes.

Mr. Barton?

Yes.

Mr. Reed?

Mr. Rutherford?

Yes.

Let's take a five minute break.

Harvey Say, y'all do what you want.

Okay.

We're now going to continue this meeting.

We've finished A and B of presentations, moving on to new and unfinished business.

All right, the board requested that we put this topic back on the agenda.

And this is consideration of ordinance 2023-02, Amendment of the Code of Nelson County, Virginia, Chapter 11 Taxation, Article 6, Changing Occupancy Tax.

Public hearing was held on this proposed ordinance amendment on May 9th.

And this amendment would propose to move the rate from 5% to 7%.

Any questions for Candy at this time?

This is the topic of bringing this up to 7%.

You can have a cool graph in your reports.

I'll talk more about that when we get to your reports.

Any questions for Candy?

Thank you, Candy.

Ernie?

Skip?

Should I make a motion?

I make a motion to adopt ordinance 2023-2-02 and increase the transient speed acts from 5% to 7%.

There's a motion.

Is there a second before we go to discussion?

who you guys want to discuss now.

Okay, thank you.

So motion for Mr. Barton, second from Mr. Reed.

So to move the transit occupancy tax from 5% to 7%, is that with the deadline as we suggested?

Yeah, January 1.

You know, I don't think there is that, though I think the transit occupancy tax is the tax that we could catch when we need it.

At this time, it doesn't show up

I don't believe it is necessary to raise the tax at this time because we do not have any item for this necessary.

We're at a really interesting place in this county where we have a lot of big picture things in front of us.

We have

The Larkin Property, which we'll be talking about later, and possibilities for that and for recreation.

We have possibilities for housing.

There's been discussion among the board members about

We're talking about making development available on the 151 corridor by increasing infrastructure and that might mean an impoundment on Dillard Creek or some like thing which is going to be a costly thing for the county as well.

With Callahill Drive development which

which right now includes Department of Social Services and Planning and Zoning and the capital that that's going to entail.

And I remember two years ago when we had a public hearing on increasing the transient occupancy tax to 10%.

And at that time, the reason that that

was brought before to the public at a public hearing was in an attempt to give additional funding to the schools.

And since that time, the state has actually decreased and made even more difficult obtaining the funding that we had two years ago in the county.

And so that's a real

So that's even more real now I think than it was two years ago.

Since we chose to take no action at that time, we did have a stakeholder team, including Mr. Rutherford and myself, and we had discussions with other people in the short-term rental community.

And if you

And now business licenses are required for short-term rentals.

That is something that we're tracking a whole lot more closely.

In the reports that we received from the Commissioner of Revenue, it was noted that last month we had 36 applications for business licenses for short-term rentals in one month.

who are doing short term rentals but didn't have business licenses.

But in this county, given the attractiveness of Nelson County to people that are not residents here and the things they take back with them and the costs that we have to put up with in terms of making sure that they have the

High-quality experiences that they really want to have and that they pay for.

You know, we have to be able to provide services and those are of course our costs.

In my district alone, we have a rough number of a thousand short-term

and if you look at a thousand short-term rentals in a county that has a population of 15,000, you know, we could be talking about a population here that is, you know, that is in actuality on any particular time, you know, maybe 18,000 people, 3,000 of which don't actually reside here and don't actually pay taxes and services.

So given that we have so many things that on a capital level, water infrastructure, which is going to be so critical for us to be able to do really any development at all along the 29 corridor,

And the things that the county would like to do that many of us talk about doing for the people, because if we wait for the market economy to provide housing for seniors, for families, for people that don't have a choice for having single family options in the county,

It's something that's going to cost us money, and it's certainly easier to move on something when you can afford to do so.

This was the second public hearing that we had on short-term rentals.

This went on a 2% increase.

I just wanted to address two,

to people that think that 7% might be an outrageous amount for transient occupancy tax or that it might compromise the ability for our short-term renters to be competitive in the market.

When I look at the rates that are currently being charged in other counties,

Albemarle County is 8%, Richmond 8%, Loudoun County 8%, Ericksonburg 7%, Stanton 6.7%, Lynchburg is a little more convoluted but it turned out to be more than 7%, Augusta County is 6%, Waynesboro is 6%,

One thing I would really hate to do in addition to all that is sell our county short.

One of the things that I've learned is that if you don't value things, people don't value them.

And so I think that being able to increase our transient occupancy tax

to give us the ability to do some of these things that we really want to accomplish for the county that we can only do if we have enough recurring revenue and enough money for debt service to be able to borrow the funds that we're going to have to do to do some of these things.

We can build on something that we have now and we're really fortunate in this county that we have

You know, we are blessed right now having a very good credit rating and having a good vision for having enough debt service to be able to act on some of these things sooner instead of later.

And having the ability to do that, especially right now where it's costing more money to borrow money, I think

We have to meet that challenge by having more revenue to be able to borrow that money that we're going to need to borrow.

Because these things that we want to do aren't going to happen unless we move on them.

And we won't be able to move on them unless we have the ability, the financial ability to do it.

All that being said, again, this is probably the third go round on this.

I am strongly in favor of increasing the transient occupancy tax to 70%.

Mr. Rutherford said it still gives us room.

I imagine the day will come when we're going to want to consider using up that room now, but I certainly don't want to be in the position next year

to be asking the public to accept another public hearing on something that we have heard from them already quite a few times and acknowledging that we've listened, acknowledging that we've considered it, and acknowledging that we have a much better proposal now at 7% than we would have had at 10 a year ago.

and also notice the fact that our current budget actually decreased the amount of money which we kind of planned to have in debt service and this gives us an opportunity to build that back up so that we can be on track to do the things that we've talked about to our capital planning over the last couple of years and now be in the position to act instead of being in the position again to wait.

because we have good things that we can only do if we do it as a county.

And we can only do it as a county that we can afford to.

And we can only do it if we have the support of the community and the financial support to be able to do it.

I concur with everything that Ernie had to say.

To say this is a good tax, there's no tax, it's good.

But this is not a tax that the people of Nelson County are going to pay.

This is a tax that people who come here to enjoy Nelson County are going to pay.

And they enjoy it because Nelson County is beautiful.

And it's clean.

And all those things incur costs.

So you increase of 5% to 2% or 7%.

That means the price the person is going to pay to stay in a bed and breakfast or whatever is going to increase by 2%.

That is not going to have any impact on who decides to come to vacation Nelson County.

But that extra money can be used by Nelson County, not only for depth service, contingency fund is less than it was last year.

And, you know, I don't see this this industry of bed and breakfasts as

It seems to be incredibly profitable, you know, noting how much, how many more of these kinds of places are in Nelson County.

So I don't think we'll be doing anything than exacting a fee for the people who come to visit Nelson County that we will be able to maintain

The beauty that exists here.

But also, we can use that money for the people of Nelson County.

I mean, we represent the people of Nelson County.

And this is an opportunity to do things for them with money without increasing taxes to the people of Nelson County.

You know, the first time when we changed the tax in 5% to 10%, a whole bunch of people showed up and it was really funny because I don't know, on the computer they had to call me on the phone when we talked about it and the idea that this is about a 5% increase in taxes, a 5% increase

Now, increase in the price of a service that you're doing.

Now, then we had a second meeting, remember?

And although the first meeting had a lot of people here, and a lot of people that were here said, well, 5% is too much, 2% is okay.

Well, two people showed up to speak against it at the last public, was that what it was?

I don't want to misrepresent what happened, but I think only

Two people spoke against it.

I think this is an opportunity for us to charge a fee to the people who come to Nelson County for the benefit of Nelson County.

I mean, yeah, I understand agritourism and all that stuff.

But this county is still for the people who live here.

a fair tax.

And thank you.

There is a motion on the floor with a second to increase the transient occupancy tax from five to 7%.

If there is no further discussion,

We will go to a roll call vote.

OK. And there's a motion to increase the tax from 5% to 7% for transient occupancy.

If there's no other discussion, we'll do a roll call vote.

Are you good?

Mr. Barton?

Yes.

No.

Go on.

All right, moving on to the next item in the agenda, proposed PACE study implementation.

I did include a cover memo with this agenda item in your packets and I'll run through that very quickly.

That'll kind of give you a status of where we are and the purpose of what we're looking at today.

The last compensation study was formed in 2016 and implemented in 2017.

In January of 22, the Board of Supervisors authorized the conduct of the classification and compensation study.

through contracting with Management Advisory Group International Inc., or MAG.

This was in order to form periodic comprehensive employee compensation review.

The study encompassed all county constitutional office and department social services positions.

The study methodology included

Collection of current personnel, human resources, and organizational background information.

Review and analysis of current class and job descriptions, identification of classification benchmarks, conduct of a market review of the county's market position, monitoring of job analysis questionnaires completed by employees, review of the job data provided by employees, and analysis with recommendations concerning the relative ranking of included county positions

to develop a classification plan that will ensure internal equity.

Organizations typically included as competitors in a market review are those that are competing with the county government for employees for either lower level or higher level positions.

They're geographically situated in such a fashion and it's almost automatically be considered a competitor.

They're structured similarly to the county or providing similar types of services.

They're attracted to highly valued employees for one reason or another and within a reasonable community distance.

The organization surveyed and reviewed in this study included Albemarle County, Augusta County, Amherst County, Appomattox County, Bedford County, Buckingham County, Campbell County, Savannah County, Greene County, Lynchburg, Orange County, Powhatan County, Stanton, and Waynesboro.

The board was provided with a presentation on the preliminary results of the pay study by MAG at its regular meeting on February 14, 23, including cost implementation.

These preliminary implementation costs were used to assist the board in FY24 budgetary planning to implement two of the three components recommended in the study.

The first being a five percent across the board cost of living adjustment and or

movement to the minimum of the newly recommended pay bands for each position, whichever is greater.

The third element, currently not budgeted for in FY24, includes an equity or market adjustment based on the time and position to address compression.

Since the initial presentation, staff has worked with MAG to refine the recommended pay structure, and a memo is attached that details those adjustments, which I will run through quickly following this

Synopsis.

These adjustments are anticipated to be addressed within the employee benefits funding currently in the adopted FY20 budget.

Staff would like the board to possibly consider implementation of the third pay adjustment component, which is the equity or market adjustment to address compression sometime during the fiscal year, possibly in December.

The action requested today is consideration of adoption of the proposed resolutions 2023-46 and 2023-47.

The first resolution 2023-46 would provide for adoption of the proposed pay plan.

which is necessary in order to establish position pay ranges for each county constitutional office and registrar's office position.

And this provides a basis for which to move applicable employees to the minimum pay for their position.

The second resolution, 2023-47, amends the salary and classification system based on the two elements of the pay study that are funded within the FY24 budget.

And it describes how those are applied to the county employees, constitutional officers and registrar and their employees in order to establish new rates of pay effective July 1st, 2023.

There still are a couple of things that remain to be completed.

So potential future action includes

Possible implementation of the third pay adjustment component, which would address compression and implementation of new position descriptions developed by MAG.

These are still to be reviewed by staff and presented to the board for approval and implementation.

This is the first preliminary presentation by MAG.

As I said, staff consulted with MAG and some department head

input, and make some adjustments to the position classifications that were recommended.

You received the attached report dated July 5, 2023 in your packets.

So these changes more accurately represent the level of duties and responsibilities associated with positions relative to those in similar class codes and corresponding pay grades within the study.

No new positions were created by these changes.

Fences relative to the changes listed are shown on the last page of the implementation report summary in your packets.

Some of the individual changes that were addressed are as follows.

The Animal Control Officer position was preliminarily graded at 110 and is now a 111.

The Animal Control Supervisor position was a 114 and is now 116.

with just a new title of Director of Animal Control.

The Sheriff's Department Administrative Assistant 1, Grade 1 and 9 is now Administrative Assistant 2, Grade 111.

Information Systems Specialist Grade 115 represents both non-exempt positions in the Information Systems Department.

There was a Senior Information Systems Specialist position included in the original comparisons that doesn't really exist.

The Parks and Recreation Technician was in Grade 108 is now Parks and Recreation Specialist Grade 110.

We have a lot of positions that use the word technician that is really not very applicable in staff's opinion.

So

We're trying to be more uniform in using the word specialist versus technician.

The Supervisor of Buildings, Grounds, and Maintenance was Grade 120, is now Director of Public Works, Grade 121.

Maintenance Worker, Grade 106, is now Maintenance Technician 1, Grade 107.

We have a Maintenance Technician 2, which is Grade 109.

Finance Technician II for accounts payable with Grade 107 and Finance Technician II, Payroll and HR, Grade 1 and 9.

These are both now finance and HR specialist positions, both graded at 110.

The Director of Planning and Zoning, Grade 124, now Grade 123.

It is classified with the Director of Information Systems and Director of Tourism and Economic Development.

Constitutional officers are not included in the pay classifications due to their status as elected officials whose pay is determined by the state according to each locality's population size.

Pay adjustments for FY24, which would be July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, will be at least a 5% increase of FY23 salaries

and an adjustment to minimum if needed to meet the new salary scales as presented in this compensation study.

And then finally, just some more detailed information on the potential adjustment toward the maximum, which would address compression.

Let's see, an additional future cost of $96,807 plus benefits for a total of $117,437 would represent the annualized additional amount required.

Staff recommends this component be revisited possibly in December for consideration effective January 2024.

And that would be a cost of $58,719.

So what we have here is the view, the pay scale, including all of these adjustments that I just kind of ran through very quickly.

and the classifications for each week one.

So here we have what their current grade is, the proposed title of the position, and then the minimum, midpoint and maximum pay range for that class of positions.

All of these here would be considered a grade 104.

And this would be the salary range for that position.

Those positions here in that grade.

So what we'd like the board to consider, and I believe in your packet, it shows you got a class comparison list by pay grade.

How does this impact part time jobs?

We do.

We have a lot of part-time positions in Solid Waste, the Convenience Center attendance.

Yes.

Yes.

That's good.

Yes, you would have to be full-time in order to get anything other than the pipeline Medicare.

Gotcha.

And to clarify, you know, what the board did during the budget process was provide the funding for the 5% cost of living and then moving people to the minimum of the new scales if they were not already there.

This provides that framework for us in order to be able to move folks to the minimum by having the newly established pay ranges.

Scroll up if you'd like.

Now we have already budgeted this in our budget, correct?

So today we will be voting on the resolution in front of me.

All right.

Are there any questions for Candy before we make this motion?

Yes.

We would like the board to possibly consider that a compression adjustment, because what we're going to find is when we move people to the minimum and we have vacancies, we're going to hire people in at that minimum.

So you're going to have people that have no experience making the same amount of money as people that may have been here a couple of years.

So the consideration would be to increase...

So with the page study results, they provided how much it would cost to provide a 5% increase, how much it would cost to move people to the minimum of the new scale.

And then there was another component based on

And that's the bump we're looking for?

And that's the compression component, yes.

Okay.

I don't have 46.

What does it look like?

No, I don't have it.

I move that we adopt resolution R2023-46 Nelson County Board of Supervisors adoption of the fiscal year 2023-24.

Do we have a second?

Do we have a second?

Mr. Harvey, is that a second?

Okay, Mr. Harvey has seconded it.

Any further discussion?

Mr. Barton?

Hearing no discussion, we'll do a vote by acclamation.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any objections, abstentions?

All right.

Okay, moving on to FY 23-24 satellite classification system R2823-47.

Do you all have that one in front of you?

No.

I'll make the motion that we adopt resolution R 2023-47, Nelson County Board of Supervisors fiscal year 2023-24 amendment of the salary and classification system.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Mr. Harvey seconds it.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, let's do a vote by acclamation.

Any objections, abstentions?

Hearing none, motion passes.

All right.

Didn't have a cover memo on this item as well.

And just for the public's benefit, I will run through that fairly quickly.

This is to amend our Chapter 2 Administration, Article 1, Section 2-2, Safety Program.

There are two ways localities can obtain Line of Duty Act coverage.

One is to participate and contribute to the state's Line of Duty Act trust fund, which is managed by the Virginia Retirement System.

The second is to elect to directly fund the cost of benefits provided under the state statute and not participate in the fund.

At some point, when provided the option, Nelson County opted for the latter and obtained this coverage through our insurance carrier, Bakers.

County is and has been paying for line of duty at coverage through Bay Corp for Sheriff's Department deputies, volunteer fire and rescue agencies, including the career EMS staff.

During the annual insurance renewal process, active deputies and fire and EMS rosters are verified with each covered agency, and these are provided to Bay Corp for coverage.

So the load of benefits paid are subject to approval by the state and may include a death benefit of $100,000,

$25,000 for presumptive causes within five years after retirement, continuation of health insurance coverage for an officer in the case of permanent disability, spouse in the case of officer death of permanent disability, and for children in the case of officer death of permanent disability to age 26.

So the state Lotus statute, which is Line of Duty Act Statute 9.1-400,

applies to members of any fire company or department or emergency medical services agency that has been recognized by an ordinance or resolution of the governing body of any county, city, or town of the Commonwealth as an integral part of the official safety program of such county.

Chapter two, article one, section 2.2 of the county code, which is displayed here, provides these named entities recognized by the county under the statute.

However, this was last done in 1996, and some of the named entities have changed names since then.

Leaving this as is could cause an issue should the state question a claimless coverage under an improperly named entity within the county code, and could potentially compromise these members' access to these benefits.

So staff is requesting adoption of the proposed resolution 2023-48, which authorizes a public hearing to be held on August 8,

to amend the County Code Chapter 2, Article 1, Section 2.2 Safety Program to reflect the current proper organizational means that are recognized by the county as an integral part of the official safety program of the county and are therefore covered by the county's LOBA insurance coverage.

Active rosters for these entities provided today for it would also be updated to reflect the current organizational means, if needed.

Ensuring continuity between the active organizational rosters on final paperwork and the covered entities listed in the county code.

So these are the recognized official names now of each of these entities that are covered under our section 2.2 safety program.

Any questions for Candy at this time?

Hearing none, can we get a motion to approve as R-2023-28?

So moved.

All right, Mr. Barton.

Second.

Are there any seconds?

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, we'll do a vote by acclamation.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any objections, abstentions?

Hearing none, motion passes.

Moving on to reports.

And I apologize for Linda.

She was going to be here to present the pre-study information, but she had an eye emergency, so she had to go to the bathroom.

Okay.

All right.

I've got a couple of items to add to my report that aren't in it at the moment.

Some of you may have known our former Nelson County Finance Director Ella Browning.

She has passed away.

She was employed by the county for approximately 27 years from about July 1st, 1973 to around December of 2000.

So all we know at this point is that Will Sheffield is handling her arrangements and we'll pass along any new information we get on that.

Secondly, I'd like to thank the Lovingston Volunteer Fire Department and the school division for their collaboration on the 4th of July fireworks display.

We received a lot of positive feedback on that, so I want to thank them very much for their work on that.

Also, the New County website has launched.

I don't know if you all have taken the time to check that out.

Most of the site is complete and functional.

We're still working on some upgrades and adding documents.

Please provide feedback and suggestions using the link on the site.

It looks really nice.

Alright, well back to my written report.

On the comprehensive plan project website, www.nelson2042.com, the draft chapters and implementation matrix were reviewed at a joint work session of the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission.

There's much work still to be done and more public engagement to be had.

There will be a public open house on the latest full draft plan on August 29th at 630 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Nelson Center in Lovingston.

In follow-up to a question posed by the Board of the June meeting regarding personal property tax valuation, the Commissioner does indeed use 90% of the retail value of vehicles provided by the J.D.

Towers Pricing Guide.

State Code Section 58.1.3103, that's the Commissioner of Revenue with the authority to assess at fair market value all subjects of taxation in his county or city each year.

All right, so the assessment ratio, that's the 90% of the value.

I'd have to go back and look.

I'm not sure.

It's been that way for a little while now.

So that's the only thing, but in terms of the assessment method, that's at the discretion of the Commissioner of Revenue?

Correct.

Got it.

OK. Yeah.

Thank you.

OK. Short-term rentals.

One, questions were asked regarding the business licenses.

by the board of the June meeting.

The commissioner's office is tracking the number of business licenses issued for short-term rentals.

They'll be providing me with that information to be distributed to the board.

I did provide a graph of eight year history of transient occupancy tax receipts on a cash basis for May year over year from 2016 to 2023.

In May of 2016, we were at about $441,000 in receipts.

It went up a little bit, then down, then started climbing in May of 2021.

And in May of 2023, we had $1.5 million in receipts on the cash basis.

I did receive a status update on the Virginia Department of Health renovations at the Heritage Center.

Ms. John Burdette, the Director, emailed me an update that included challenges they have faced through the pandemic that has driven up their costs from those originally expected.

The cost of renovation has more than doubled since initial estimates.

The bid cost was substantially more than original estimates due to increase in supply and labor costs while the Department of General Services was working on the lease for VDH.

They have increased interest rates, presented a problem with their debt to income ratio.

They've been working with Virginia Community Council and securing the required funding for the project and are now working on lease amendments with DGS.

Amid staffing transitions in both DGS, which is the Department of General Services and the Virginia Department of Health.

They anticipate a new completion date of December 23 and will share a revised construction schedule once they have that.

Ms. Burdette would like to come and provide the board with an official update at the August regular meeting.

So we can get that scheduled.

Our Nelson County Adult Drug Court is coming along.

They have created some informational flyers which are being sent to area attorneys, magistrates, and the El Marshall Regional Jail.

Just in order to get the word out, the court is ready for participants.

The court currently has two referrals, one of which is in the screening process and the other's intake I think is being slowed down by their attorney's lack of response.

Coordination meetings are taking place between the coordinator, clinician, and Region 10 in order to iron out the evaluation processes as they start to get referrals.

The coordinator's office has been established in one of the former advisement offices near the circuit court.

and is in the process of getting furnished and drug testing supplies have been ordered.

All of these costs are covered by the Department of Justice implementation grant.

As a reminder, this court will be conducted weekly on Tuesdays at 1230 in Circuit Court.

And follow up on the Virginia Outdoors Foundation grant for Stark Park, Jerry West directed Parks and Recreation,

participated in an application feedback session with Virginia Outdoors Foundation and is scheduling a small stakeholder meeting to review that feedback and collaborate on ways to improve our application prior to the next submission deadline of August 7th.

Areas of improvement include

Things to do with public access, with it being a rural area away from foot access, how will we promote access and bring people in to visit, such as field trips, et cetera?

Secondly, plan alignment.

How will this best fit an underserved community?

How does it align with a new comprehensive plan?

And given a master plan has not yet been developed, what are the next steps and how will it be best fit into community needs?

One of the elements of the grant is to provide funding for master plans, so be looking at that.

Lock-in master planning.

A work session with architectural departments related to the master planning is being considered for either Tuesday, August 1st or Wednesday, August 2nd.

So I'd need the board's input on those dates.

Either Tuesday, August 1st or Wednesday, August 2nd.

Have you talked to David?

I have not.

I'm fine with penciling in Wednesday, as long as that works for David.

Is that all right with you?

I'm fine with Wednesday, as long as Mr. Parr is able to make it.

Because just before you head out of town for a bit, so.

Is that all for you?

Yeah, that's good.

OK.

The Nelson County Service Authority rape increase has occurred.

They have a public hearing on the proposed increase on June 15th.

The new rate is being adopted as advertised to the effect of July 1, 2023.

We can provide the new rate schedule upon request if y'all want to see that.

Let's see.

Courthouse complex tree evaluations.

All trust loans having several tree specialists or arborists evaluate and make recommendations regarding the health of the trees on the courthouse lawn.

A particular concern of a large pin oak at the right-hand corner of the entrance road and the sugar maple on the opposite side or left hand of the entrance road into the complex.

These evaluations and recommendations will be shared with the board for consideration at a future meeting.

Question on the, I spoke to Mr. Tresla today and I'm glad to hear that

I guess we have one large ash tree out front.

Is that the only one we got?

Those who don't know, it's blight and we lost all our ash trees pretty much everywhere.

I think it doesn't look bad because I looked at it yesterday.

It looks pretty good.

It's got some cabling within the branches too that are kind of

I understand it's pretty costly.

I'm glad we saved that one because that's a big deal to have at least one around locally.

Any questions for Candy before we move on to board reports?

Hearing nothing, thank you Candy.

The Jail Board did not meet this last week.

And that's it.

All right, Mr. Harvey.

Don't have any.

We didn't have a PC meeting.

I've missed a couple meetings this month already.

So nothing to report there.

Moving on to appointments.

So we received an application for the Library Advisory Committee Central District Representative.

I actually got that yesterday, provided copies.

We've been waiting on it.

It is Chuck Strauss.

Is that by district?

Yes.

Is that yours?

Yep.

Okay, we have a motion, we have a second.

Second.

Second from Mr. Barton.

Any further discussion?

Hearing no further discussion, we'll do a vote of acclamation.

Any objections, abstentions?

None.

Which passes.

We're still looking for a producer member for the Ag and Forest Oil Advisory Committee, but we're re-emphasized.

It's on the new website post, but also we'll run it in paper.

And just for the record, I've served as a producer before and figured it would be an opportunity to get someone else on the committee.

If there's another board member who would like to be the board position, I could be the producer.

I'd be happy to do that to get a full... How often does it make?

As needed.

That fits that box.

How many times have you met in the last year?

Twice, but that's because we had an application that we were dealing with.

I'll do it.

Okay.

You wanna do that?

You can be the board member.

Yes.

Okay, make that motion.

Okay, so we just need a motion to appoint Jesse as the board member and skip Ernie's gonna be the producer.

Okay.

Motion.

Tommy, can you second that?

Yup.

Alright, great.

Mr.

Yes.

Taking care of that.

Wasn't Mr. Bruegher on that for like 100 years?

I don't know.

I don't either.

I think he was.

Bruegher?

Was Bruegher on it?

Okay.

Alright.

Moving on to correspondence.

Rose talked about defibrillator and needing money for it.

Seems to me a good idea.

Down at the Senior Center in Gladstone, defibrillator, because it takes so long for an ambulance to get there.

and that they have several members who can use it and that they have a commitment by Virginia Fullridge to teach other members how to use it.

Don't they have numbers down there now?

Excuse me.

This rescue.

I want to be for that because then everybody else in the county will get the fine rescue there.

Well, nobody is there in these events.

Well, there's one way to deal with that.

Let's ask staff to get some numbers on what a defibrillator is and get some correspondence with rescue potentially.

Well, that's what I think is what you're doing.

I don't see it as that.

I see the purpose of it is

It doesn't make any isolation to nobody, Skip.

They've got a fire rescue in Gladstone, which is probably next door.

Not in the building.

What you're saying is that we are there on wins and there's no one there, no defibrillator or anything.

We want a defibrillator so in case an inverter is right there, some place might have a harder time.

They can use it right then and there.

They don't have to wait for you until the EMS responds.

I think it'd be good if we asked Gladstone Fire, since they're utilizing that building, maybe some of their commentary on that as well.

Because if they have one that they can make accessible to that group, that might

Well, Tommy, how do you feel about the defibrillators that are in the courthouse?

The what?

There are two people at Gladstone that are seniors that know how to use them.

and the proposal is to have Blue Ridge Medical Center says that they would give training to the rest of the seniors and it would give them an opportunity not only to have the service available but to be autonomous and to be able to provide that service on a Wednesday when there's nobody in the fire and rescue to do it.

So it'd be supplementary to that.

I just put that out and say that I think that the

I think that's fine.

But there's a good chance that Gladstone might have one that they can make accessible.

That may be true.

I feel pretty odd.

And in the event in the event, that's not the possibility.

We can ask how we can remedy that.

I think that's a reasonable ask.

All right, Skip, are you all right with that?

All right.

We haven't gotten there yet.

No, we haven't gotten to directives yet.

Correspondents.

We haven't got to everyone else.

Mr. Harvey.

Mr. Reed.

Well, there's a couple things.

One, several people have alerted me to the idea that Gavin Gladstone

The dumpster, after a few days, is a mess.

And that person who's employed to open the gate to the dumpster and to close the gate to the dumpsters has informed the people there that it's not that person's duty to keep it clean.

You have to have such a perplexing place in the idea that three counties share that spot, right?

Appomattox, Amherst, Nelson.

I mean culturally it's got all of those entities in one spot.

I've often been critical to the Amherst side, just as much as I have been to the Albemarle side, when you start seeing certain things being utilized, which is a good thing.

However, if it's getting dirty, it's our responsibility, right?

It's not our responsibility to see the little trash that's coming in.

That's basically what it is.

The problem is the larger items that people dump there like mattresses or furniture.

And that's why Amherst went away with their open systems that they had, the one down there on Toy Town.

We got rid of ours, too.

And, you know, I think the long term fix for anything of that nature is doing a manned situation.

And I would only advocate for a manned site if Amherst was willing to participate.

All I remember is how critical of them.

It's like when I ride my bike on the railroad trail, I always call them and say an Amherst tree is falling down and blocking Nelson County's trail.

It's nice to be dealt with one way or another.

We have had cameras up there in the past and we would review the footage and try to figure out who might be jumping and it was pretty just time intensive and didn't really do much.

Any other directives?

OK, you're working less hard today Skip.

Yeah, but it was described to me that we can always do that, right?

Any other directives?

Are you sure?

You're on a roll.

No, I prefer.

No, it's OK. All right.

Mr. Harvey, Ernie, do you have directives?

I do.

Two things that are in process, but I'm not clear exactly where they are and if they are moving forward.

One is now that we've received the Callahill plan from the geotech,

What would be our next step in terms of implementing the development up there and the potential of maybe including something in addition to the Department of Social Services and Planning Commission

and the Planning and Zoning Department and what that might be and it might be a work session.

So I believe where we are with that is PMA and Mr. Burdette, the new director of social services, we're going to work through any kind of space needs, adjustments they might have to see what impact that would have to the cost estimates they've put together.

It's on my radar to follow up and see where that is.

My understanding is that the board wasn't quite, I guess, ready to proceed with building inspections in a planning and zoning facility up there.

They've done the space needs study already.

We already have all of that.

We have the preliminary cost estimate that TMA put together, and then the estimators also provided.

So I believe maybe their building was around 3 million, 2.6 to 3-ish, I believe, without having it in front of me.

What I would like to do is before we commit to a site plan or infrastructure build out that

that the board get together and consider other parts of the Caliville property that might be possible for other things that we might be able to incorporate.

to the site prep, which might reduce costs to other things at that time.

So if we were to do that, perhaps that would be a working meeting to discuss those possibilities

and I suggest that we have planning and zoning, social services, and someone from the Community Development Foundation be there so that we could discuss possibilities.

I was just thinking about this today.

Is the building department

being included in the DSS Committee?

You're speaking in a professional capacity.

Yes, definitely.

Yeah, we probably should as we get into the site prep and all that.

I mean,

We got folks who look at a lot of sites all the time so using their expertise to be critical and that's something we probably need to bring them to the Larkin property discussion too.

And I'm aware of some of the discussions that

Staff has had with the Nelson County Service Authority concerning the comprehensive plan and some things about that that I can talk to you can be later that we don't need to include right now but I'm just wondering what

Well we can start moving forward in terms of considering a utilizing of the larger property for a possible water resource account on Duluth Creek.

I'd just like to see that moving forward because in the process of doing things we of course can talk about that in a matter of minutes.

I'd like to have that information available for the meeting so we would know what steps to take and who to talk to about getting information.

Yeah, I mean, they may be aware of who those people are, but there might be other people.

You know, it's out of my league.

So I just don't know exactly where to go.

Thank you.

Any other directors?

Hearing none, can we continue this meeting to seven o'clock?

So I move the motion to continue.

I get a second from Ms. Parr.

Any further discussion?

Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any objections, abstentions?

Talking about some history.

I was looking at the back of this.

Mr. Reed.

Call this Board of Supervisors meeting that was continued from this afternoon to order.