Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority Meeting   3/27/2025

Also Albemarle Regional Transit Authority for our March 27th meeting.

And our first item that we always do are introductions.

So I'm Ben Chambers.

And I will add that Christine Jacobs is on the screen with us.

Jacobs, Executive Director, TJPDC.

And forgive my remote participation, I'm home with a sick kid.

So if my camera goes off, I'm attending to things, but I'll be back as quickly as I can.

Sounds great.

Ann Wall, I serve as Deputy County Executive.

Gretchen Thomas, TJPDC.

All right.

Welcome, everybody.

We have an agenda before us.

I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

I move for adoption of the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

We have a motion from Brian and a second from Mike.

Yes.

Councillor Pinkston?

Yes.

Councillor Oschrin?

Yes.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Oh, it seems like it's not permitting.

I know.

I was waiting.

I remember that next person.

We have draft meeting minutes from our previous meeting and they are in your packet.

Did anyone have any questions or thoughts?

OK.

So we have a motion from Mike.

Is there a second?

Supervisor McKeel?

Yes.

Aye.

This is really nice because it's very quick.

All right.

So we're good on that.

And I want to take the time, I should have done this at the very beginning, to thank Lucinda as well as Gretchen for copies of the Region 10 Transit Governance Study and the Regional Transit Visions.

We now have our own copies that we can carry with us and report through because we do talk about them all the time.

So Lucinda was so thoughtful in thinking about that and I really appreciate it.

Well Gretchen, thank you very much.

If anybody from the public wishes to speak now, you may raise your hand using the raise your hand function on Zoom.

All right.

So I guess, Ann, it's your time to show.

And I will walk through the changes that the authority members have, the directors have, and then I have one late-breaking change.

Okay, so what I tried to do is to modify or to put in these bylaws the changes that we discussed at the last meeting.

I'll walk you through those very quickly.

Under quorum, I identified that a quorum is represented by one director from, at least one director from the city and one director from the county.

Acknowledging that both entities would have to be present in order to achieve a quorum.

That was the first one that I made.

We did a little bit of cleaning up on page four about voting.

You'll see a section that we would indicate voting, roll call of all voting members.

Additionally, under M on agenda, the change has been made to say that any director that wants to add an item

needs to let the chair know no later than seven days prior to the meeting to include that item on the agenda.

And the meeting minutes will be provided pursuant to the Code of Virginia.

And what we tried to do going through is to identify the Code of Virginia going through so that we could always be consistent with the Code of Virginia.

And I did notice that was good.

That's that portion.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm going to just remind you all that I skipped over this minor change.

Page two, we moved the regular meeting, the organizational meeting, to January.

It was July, but we felt like January worked better with the elections.

And then if we go further along, we finesse the words on pages six and seven related to membership, identifying

that on the finance committee, as well as the technical advisory committee, that we would appoint people who would represent the members of the authority.

So it wouldn't be the authority members, wouldn't be the four directors, it would be people that would represent those, our organizations.

And we felt like we needed to clear that up.

I think that's it except for my late-breaking change.

So my late-breaking change is this.

Directors will recall there is a section related to audits, item C, which is on page 8, related to the auditor of public accounts.

I did a little ferreting around, talked with our legal team as well as the

as the CFO at the county and he provided a lengthy email.

And basically what it says is that the authority would have to do its own audit and the audit would be needed when we have funds in excess, financial transactions in excess of $25,000.

And that's in section

I think it's Section 4.

I think it's Section 4.

I haven't identified.

All of a sudden I cannot find it.

Well, I specified it.

Let me pass this out.

I'm sorry.

Section 30.

I think I haven't copied.

Section 30, 140.

So what I've done is changed the words to say that we would have an audit conducted as specified by the Code of Virginia.

So then we're good, whatever the code requires.

And we do the audit, not the auditor, a public account.

That was what I thought.

Right.

And then the last one is about bonds.

I spoke with Jacob about bonds.

Again, it's important to point out we don't have money now, so we don't necessarily have to worry about bonds.

When our CFO suggested that we do, we have something in the bylaws related to a bond, if at which point we would need a bond.

And no, these are bonds on public officials, which is sort of an insurance.

I'm weighing into legal.

So Supervisor Pruitt, you know, I'm not an attorney, so.

OK.

And so, but sometimes public officials, particularly those that relate to money will have to have bonds or insurance because they're signing checks and financially responsible or to ensure that public funds are expended in the appropriate way.

And Jacob provided me with some language that was used by Jaunt.

and their bylaws.

But when I went back and looked at our language, our language specifically uses the word may.

A bond may be required to give bond payable to the authority and the authority then would cover the cost of the bond.

And so my suggestion is we leave that language alone and at the point that we need a bond, we'll make sure that we work with TJPDC and any insurance requirements they have and then require the bonds at that point.

OK?

So with that, those should be the only changes to the bylaws.

So we have C on page 8.

It's amended.

And then the voluntary section does not need to be amended.

Right, it does not change.

So with that, I'm looking at Natalie because you look like you're still reading.

We're not in any hurry.

Go ahead and take it down.

Is there a second?

Second.

Brian made a motion second by Natalie that we have a motion to approve the bylaws as presented and as amended.

Yes.

Counselor Pinkston?

Yes.

Counselor Oschrin?

Yes.

Supervisor McKeel?

Yes.

Aye.

All right, so we have been to item 3, Hecke-Hera.

All right, so we've set aside some extra time for this because this is more of a discussion for y'all.

You have options for who you'd like to invite to be additional members of the board.

We've given you the legislation and what that says about the members of the board.

The first part, 33.2, 2803, mentions that governing bodies in the jurisdictions can join the board, but so can agencies, institutions, and facilities wishing to join the board.

The next section down lays out sort of the governance terms of the authority and says up to four additional directors who shall be non-voting representing the interests of such agencies, institutions, and facilities described and the thing above can join the authority.

So now it's up to you all to decide who are those members that get invited to join the authority.

We have a lot of additional members on RTP that are beyond our elected officials.

Which of those would make up the correct mix for those four additional members?

There's also a bit of oblique reference to UVA in some of the legislation.

It's somewhat assumed that they would be a partner at the table.

How they participate and how you'd like them to participate is up for discussion.

And by that, I mean, what part of UVA needs to be at the table?

Does it need to be someone from the president's office?

Does it need to be someone from office of architect?

Does it need to be someone from parking and transportation?

So there's that sort of question around that big institutional partner, but then there's also questions of do you want transit agencies at the table?

Do you want other stakeholders at the table?

Are there other institutions and bodies that you'd like to invite to the table?

Are there people who are sitting at the RTP table that you'd like to bring over?

So that's sort of an open question for y'all to discuss.

We are not anticipating that you're going to vote today and come to a firm decision on who you're bringing.

I think we'll talk about that in the next meeting and formally invite people in the next meeting.

Oh, absolutely.

Before we bring up new ideas,

Is there anyone here who knows a little bit about the history of adding people to RTP and how those folks were selected?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, and the way I remember it, it was the transit providers.

So in Joan, in CAT, of course.

And then we had the surrounding counties, the TJPDC counties.

We identified transportation from the University of Virginia.

So Becca White, who was the director of transportation at the time at UVA, she was director of UTS, was at the table.

Well, and parking and transportation.

The same job as Scott.

Yeah, but I mean, if you think about it, early UTS was at the table.

For a good while, they were not voting members.

They were just at the table.

And then when President Ryan came in, we approached President Ryan.

And I sat down with President Ryan and I asked if they would please become voting members.

And he agreed.

And so at that point, they became, Becca became a voting member.

She was not a voting member before.

Is this helping?

Yeah.

The concern was always that

With a lot going on in transit and the world and everybody's jobs, there was not a lot of communication from UTS and BECA to the powers that be.

So what we found was that the administration folks that dealt with transportation at the university were not aware of what we were doing at the time.

So I guess what I'm saying is that

I think we're talking about the university.

Yeah, I think it should go to, you know, the request should go, of course, Collette, she is retiring.

Right.

But in lieu of that to JJ Davis with a request that, you know, I think it should be a more kind of full request than just transit.

It should talk about like how we want all the new partners

as we build this authority now.

So it's a central piece of that, but I think there's, it's just,

And to do that, you have to have high enough administrator who can actually make a decision.

You know what I'm saying.

And I don't want to make the same mistake again.

And it's not that Becca didn't do a great job because she did, but it's really hard to keep other offices apprised.

But for the other ones, like

I'm just looking at the RTP list.

Non-voting members like the PEC and the hospital are on here.

Do they show up and say, hey, can we be on it?

Or did we invite them to join?

Chip Boyles, who was Christina's predecessor.

And Christina, you might be able to add something to this discussion.

My old brain is struggling to parse it.

Yeah, I can speak a little bit to it.

Of course, all of this was before I was in this position, but the bylaws of the Regional Transit Partner speak to potential non-voting membership as well.

So it says in the RTP's bylaws that non-voting members may be comprised of, and then it has a long list of transit providers, health system, university, environmental groups, the Chamber of Commerce, the MPO,

So I think at the time that the bylaws were adopted, there was a vision to have a large non-voting body.

But I think as the RTP came into its own and the work that was being done, a lot of those folks were attending as guests, but weren't necessarily added to the board as non-voting members.

There were a couple, just as I was coming on board, that my predecessor,

that did petition the board to join.

And at that time, the partnership did agree to allow, I believe it was Piedmont Environmental Council and Peter from the Charlottesville Area Alliance.

And we did have several of those groups, for example, that really didn't participate because it just wasn't in their wheelhouse, right?

So we thought it would be and it turned out that it wasn't.

They have always liked to be invited to participate or to join us.

Yeah, sort of wondering if this is what Natalie is getting, what are the criteria of

sort of institutional reach or the kind of work they do, whether they're with the state government or Joe, some words that people feel are obvious.

New York City feels obvious to me and John feels obvious to me.

Well, there's also a consideration you need to make of the difference between the RTP and the CARTA.

RTP didn't have any money, and eventually we would like CARTA to be a conduit for money.

Do you want the people who are receiving that money to be sitting on the board helping you make decisions about that money or not?

So that might have some implications for Jaunt or for CAT.

But they're not voting and they are also, they have spoken with us about, you know, how are we supposed to be integrated into this system?

Like, what is our role here?

And then also just for some context, as we were doing the governance study, we were also looking at the existing authorities within the Commonwealth and authorities outside of the Commonwealth to look at what their governance structure was.

And so we did a review of a lot of their membership.

So it's important to keep in mind, we all know this, but I feel like stating it again.

that we are a transit authority, but the membership of some of those other authorities can inform some of the discussion that you have.

So for example, in Central Virginia, their authority has members of both, you know, a voting member from the House of Delegates, from the Senate, from the Commonwealth Transportation Board, but then they have a whole list of ex officio non-voting membership that includes, you know, the Department of Railroad and Public Transportation, or, you know, from the Commissioner of Highways, the Port Authority, the airport,

So theirs is a much more comprehensive list because it's including all modes of transportation versus just a transit authority.

And for the director's information, in Appendix E of the governance study, are the bylaws from the other authorities that would list, to Christine's point, would list

who some of those other ex officio members are.

The other point that I'll make about John while you're looking through is currently RTP has three members from John's.

It has a rural, an urban, and then the CEO.

It's like every Virginia-based one has included DRPT as a non-Virginia sponsor.

And I would agree with that.

And we came up with the number four.

Right.

And we have to do, to Ben's point, you don't have to do four.

And we also know that we may very well have the need to go back to the General Assembly to change.

Yeah.

So we could do that if we felt like.

And so I don't want that to be in the future.

I think what it comes down to is in the next 6, 12, 18 months

Who are critical members that are going to help inform your decisions in establishing this board?

And then at a future date, once the board is operating and we know the direction that it's taking, then a review of that legislation is going to be necessary to say, what kind of changes are we going to need before we're seeking funding or alongside while we're seeking funding?

We do feel like we're going to have to... Are we thinking RTP is going to sunset?

Yes, eventually.

We'll just... Like in the next 18 months?

Well, maybe sooner.

If we're wondering, we're just thinking of going and replicating and go ahead and keep planning because we could do parts of the assumptions.

I guess, for example, we could always invite Garland.

I feel like with Natalie and I, we're representing the city, which is, and now it looks like the university, I want to say better of course.

I mean, I don't know how they really feel about this whole thing, but it seems like they're certainly a large enough, you know, they are the largest employer and I think having them,

It seems like non-voting members are the best option unless we just invite them and see if they come.

I don't know if there's any problem with inviting Jaunt.

They're also a critical partner.

Like I mentioned with Garland, we could just ask him to be here and he can give his feedback to us directly.

I don't know about DRPT and VDOT much.

Well, I don't think VDOT needs to be at the beginning.

I think that's a seat that I don't think, but later as we're going through this, we may find that we need their advice or their work, but I do think DRPT could be valuable.

I think both on the question of what's the sunset timeline for RTP and the question of

Can we add more members?

Who are those additional members that we want to identify out years when we're doing changes to the legislation?

That really depends on what the changes to the legislation look like this round and how successful we are at getting those through the legislature.

I will also just add, I think I'm hearing, maybe I'm reading into it, but I feel like I'm hearing some concern about

CAT is currently a non-voting member of the RTP.

Are we losing expertise by not carrying CAT over as a voting member?

Just thinking, we had this back and forth last time about what even the language means in our bylaws.

I would say that Charlottesville is a member, right?

Y'all are not members.

Charlottesville is a member.

And in that capacity, Garland or anyone from CAT are natural persons who can be representatives of a member of the board, right?

I think that's right, too.

So what I'm hearing is that we would definitely have

We actually did put the invite out to the transit agencies to join us at this meeting and we also said

might be a little uncomfortable if we're talking about whether you get to join or not.

Then we, basically the difference is they're not at the table in the discussion unless they get called to the table.

So yeah, that was my question is like, how do we involve, is there like, is it the same rules as like, okay, public comment period.

It's more of like, think of MPO policy board.

I sit in the back row, but you guys sometimes need me to answer a question and you pull me up and I answer a question, then I go sit back down.

Like that sort of function is what they're looking at.

Yeah, I'm just trying to think this through because we do have other authorities.

Well, and the other thing to consider is you're the voting members.

These members are supposed to supplement the discussion.

Who is going to help you make decisions as voting members?

So that's helpful to have.

So CAT could do as in the room, but not at the table.

And I would say the same thing for Jaunt.

Can I ask a question just to make sure we're on the same page?

It's going to sound fundamental, but I want to make sure we're all thinking about the same thing.

So great question, and help me with this a little bit, but one thing we'll be deciding about is our funding stream, where the funding comes from.

So you all would be prioritizing city projects.

We'd be prioritizing perhaps Albemarle County projects, right?

It's regional, but I'm just saying cause you know more about yours, but we're all so we're prioritizing projects.

Yeah, you guys are going to be also very much involved in the strategy for going before the General Assembly and the timeline and what the ask is going to be, what consensus you have with your own jurisdictions on what revenue sources you're going to be looking at, but then ultimately,

If and when an authority gets funded, you're going to be the ones making the decisions on where the funding goes once it's received.

I would also think a core part of what we're going to have to do is think through how existing services and service platforms are going to be combined, right?

Like, especially if we're thinking about funding, right?

Don't we have to have that open discussion that we've been kind of dancing around about how we engage with UVA as a part of this transit ecosystem?

I know

I think almost every elected in this room has pointed out before that combining UVA into a single transit provider service increases our federal dollar pull down.

I know I've talked about that because this is a sexy thing to talk about.

But if that's going to play into how we think about our funding, then we need to have that conversation as part of our development of a legislative program, right?

Because that becomes essential to what kind of ask we're making to the GA. Is that something that we would

I think we have had, the city has had an initial conversation with COAD in her office about the possibility

Merging at least some of the roots.

And I don't, you were there.

I don't think there's been any follow up from that.

So some of these, some of these are hard conversations that are going to have to be handled.

I don't want to say hard closed doors.

That's not what I'm trying to say, but I think, you know, face to face with some of these.

Versus bringing them in here and then making one take a bear.

Not that we shouldn't pull our punches, but we just have to be thoughtful about how we're doing it, I guess.

But I think that is a huge thing when someone's keeping a list.

I mean, the things you mentioned are important things on the list.

I think that's a huge thing on the list, seeing if you're really pinning down the university about what they're willing to commit to.

If they're responsive, well, we're just not willing to commit right now, then that's an answer for now.

And when you decide to name members, you may also give us direction of, here's how you'd like us to engage them.

And it may be different for different agencies.

It may be, hey, UVA, you need to go have a meeting with them in quiet and figure out what their interest is in joining this board before they formally are asked to join the board.

But with some of the other ones,

And they may say yes immediately and be totally cool with being on your board and know what they're going to get out of it.

And if you really look at some of the models, like we all, you know, we went to Champaign-Urbana where they have just a big umbrella, right?

Or Blacksburg, looking at those models, but

But they're not authorities.

So I'm not really talking about that.

I'm just talking about getting the systems together.

Because as Mike said, we really need the university.

We need that population, if at all possible.

Because it really helps us pull down funding.

I would caution, though, that the holding of transit agencies is not

Absolutely necessary for you to start pulling down state-allowed funding sources.

Yeah, and then I think more about it that we have three transit agencies or four, however you want to count it.

Yeah.

Because I think you start talking about merging them and everybody's hiring.

Yeah, we're really not talking about merging.

It is important to point out that this isn't something that the directors have to decide tonight.

Nobody has to decide tonight.

You could come back and say, in two months, you could say, we want to add one member, and we're going to agree it's ABC.

And then a couple months later, you could add another one.

The bylaws don't require that you add four.

Let me ask, rather than inventing the wheel, are there any transit authorities?

I thought when we received the presentation last month, there were several communities that had a transit authority.

Not many, but several were there, not Christine.

And I'm just wondering what they look like.

Yeah, there are a couple of transit funds that you've shared.

This is that big chart.

Yeah.

And remember, I thought Danny presented it.

And remember we had that big from Danny and I thought there were two, no more than three for sure, that were authorities perhaps that were

The example I can give is the Williamsburg area.

They're transit authorities.

So they've got a board of directors, but they've also got a group of advisors where they've got their foundation.

They've got their university.

They've got DRPT.

So similar to what we've been talking about, at least that one example.

That's what I was getting at, Christine, trying to figure out if there were several that were actually working, right?

up and running and what they look like.

And that's a good example because they have a university too.

That's my recommendation would be that we informally, maybe it's the chair and vice chair.

It's great to see a little bit.

You're smart.

You know, maybe one,

Not some binding resolution, but some sort of general acceptance that it would be a good thing to perhaps piggyback off what Sam Sanders and Jeff Richardson are doing with the university right now to talk about areas of common interest and to elevate this as something that we'd like to talk about under a talent-driven conversation that are happening.

That's interesting.

I'm happy to go instead if one of you would prefer, but I think setting up some time to meet directly with either Collette or with

Ms. Davis would be something that we should do sooner than later.

Because they may very well not even know that we're doing this.

Why don't we do that?

I think the town and gown and have it around.

Because we've had one discussion with the group.

Yeah, we'll go back and have a follow-up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I would be interested in

you know we see the list of what everyone else has included and we're like okay everyone's doing it but to actually have a this is why this is what they contribute this is you know the right to actually talk about and break down the rationale for for including those just so it's spelled out and clear and we're all not yeah and I don't think there were but a couple we're not talking about six or seven right yeah you know it's like they all have DRPT a lot of them have VDOT and

William & Mary does show up in the Williamsburg one, which makes sense.

But then they don't have VDOT because they can only have two.

Well, I'll just speak for the group.

I think we could make a recommendation.

I don't think we wanted

to make a recommendation unless y'all ask for it.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

It's OK. OK.

When Danny, I found that spreadsheet that he sent out.

So I will forward this email to everybody so you have it.

Because in that spreadsheet, they talk about transit, transit-related agencies, and those that are more than just transit.

So you can see that as well.

And going back to that, because there were just two or three.

Some are funds, some are- Interesting what, like, subject matter experts, like, everyone else living here, except for me, what you all would think, hey, I think this would be really important, maybe to, you know, at least pouring just a couple of reasons why.

Yes.

I will allow them both to talk.

Hey, can you guys hear me?

Yes, this is Grant.

Okay.

You're hearing our conversation, I think.

Yes.

Yeah, so I kind of anticipated this seeing the agenda.

So I had a chance to talk to some of our leadership about it.

We're happy to, I guess, participate in CARTA as a non-voting member just to share our expertise with transit funding.

at the federal, state level.

Happy to do that.

We essentially play that role with the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority right now.

We attend all of those board meetings.

Yeah, but also feelings won't be hurt if you guys leave us out.

We want to be able to provide you value.

I would have some hesitations, though, if we were a voting member.

We probably have to really think hard about that.

Yeah, right.

That helps a lot.

Thank you.

Katie, did you want to say anything?

Just want to leave you out.

All right.

Yeah, so that's good.

So we have, I think what we've asked in is for staff to go away and come back to us with a recommendation and some thoughts about the pros and cons of what they were thinking about those recommendations.

Doesn't have to be exhaustive, but

And is it reasonable for you all to be able to do that by, so our next meeting is RTP the following month.

So that's, is that reasonable for the next meeting?

Which is what Brian was referencing.

So that's good.

So that's two.

I have one more thing just for the group to think on and consider.

When the bylaws are written, so CAT would be represented already by Charlottesville by the members that are already voting.

Jaunt, if they were to participate in the technical advisory committee, finance committee, they would have to be a nonvoting member to be able to participate in that capacity on technical advisory, finance.

If that was something we would want their input on in those, they would have to be a nonvoting member.

We don't have somebody from VDOT.

So I'd like to have some further conversations on whether VDOT at this stage is the appropriate role.

I mean, there's certainly I can think of a ton of reasons for and a ton of reasons for not at this point.

So I think staff can do some more.

I'm thinking further down the road, but that's okay.

Yeah.

The first thing that came to my mind is, you know, transit agencies are eligible applicants for smart scale.

It just isn't, they don't typically go after it, but there's another avenue for that.

They can do that, you know, by engaging within the MPO, by engaging directly with VDOT.

Yeah.

All right.

So we just finished the non-voting

I'm sorry, I just thought of one really dumb additional closing thought on this.

If we feel constrained by form, which I'm not saying we are, but if that is a thing that we feel constrained by it, if we do not want to rejigger the wheel, you could do the kind of thing that people do with corporate structures all the time, where we appoint the RTP as a member.

which would allow us to accept everything if we wanted those persons on.

Because you could pull in anybody from the RTP.

Yes.

And I'm not saying that's even prudent.

All right.

Very good.

All right.

Yeah.

And fortunately, the staff at TJPDC, Lucinda, drafted a resolution.

So the resolution in front of the directors today officially designates the fourth Thursday of every other month as the meeting time at five o'clock at the TJPDC office as the

The time, the date, and the location for the meetings for CARTA.

And the bylaws that you all just approved have said you're going to designate regular meeting times by resolution.

It does also, as you'll note, say that we're going to operate in accordance with Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

We'll advertise it.

There'll be certain opportunities to go into closed session for the Code of Virginia.

and that there'll be appropriate notice given to the public.

So I would just ask the board if they have any questions and if not.

Lucinda.

Lucinda.

I'm sorry.

I thought you said Christine.

My name is Lucinda.

Great.

Oh, Christine, do you want to go ahead?

No, please do.

My question is, it says for Thursday every other month, do we need to specify starting in January?

Why don't we say starting in May?

Starting in May.

May 2025.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Any other comments or additions or...

Thank you.

I was talking through a mute.

We will have to have a separate policy for you all on the virtual meetings policy.

We have one that we standard use for the PDC, but we'll adapt it for you all and bring that back to you at a future date.

OK, great.

Then second.

So we now have a motion by Brian and a second by Natalie.

Could you please call the vote?

Supervisor Oschrin.

Your city council.

So the next thing before you is the public comment policy.

Pretty simple.

We are allowing members of the public to speak for up to three minutes to the board.

Up to 10 members may speak during the comment period, first come first serve basis.

You can only speak at one public comment period per meeting.

And once the public comment period begins, the sign up for that public comment is closed.

We do give some guidelines that are associated with the public comment.

Oh, I kind of skipped over.

You can sign up by email and you can call in.

You can also participate through Zoom or in person provided there are lots of people.

We also give some guidelines that sort of direct people that this is to provide comment to the board.

This is not a dialogue between you and the board.

So you may be familiar with these.

All the comments we are saying will be live streamed, recorded, and published on TJPDC's website.

That's a nice addition.

I noticed that.

At City Council we have public comments at the beginning, then we have the whole meeting, then we have public comments at the end.

So we have a public comment for each session, one for each session.

I'll note that this policy does not dictate how many public comments you get.

We do that through the agenda.

So if the chair and vice chair want to add or subtract the number of public comments, as long as we have one, we're covered.

But if you want to add five more on there, go for it.

I think this is fine.

But let me ask a quick question.

Will we ever have public hearings?

No.

I would imagine that at some point, if there were long-term financing bonds, anything like that, you might have to have public hearing, but you would not need public hearing to allocate funds, right?

With a budget, there potentially might need

There was, the TJPDC earlier this year had to do something as a public hearing, I think.

If you had a public hearing, you would want to have a public comment.

So your public hearing would be, the requirements of that would be dictated by the public.

Your comment made me think about public hearings.

Yeah, no, I was talking about, and there's usually not anyone at the end, but sometimes people who do stick around for the whole meeting are like, that was cool for that thing.

Well, what's important also to note in a public hearing then is required to go into the newspaper.

Like there's a whole different.

It's kind of interesting.

We hope so.

We hope that there would be a reason to have a public hearing.

Three minutes has just been the standard forever.

Yeah.

We can smooth it to two.

I don't have a problem with that.

It seems like there is a board that has two minutes.

I think our rules allow us to exercise the discretion.

Because we limit the number of speakers.

No, I think three minutes is fine.

I'm just trying to think of what is the two minute thing because that's ringing a bell in my head too.

Definitely.

And we used to have that when I was on the school board, but you had to call in and schedule out with the clerk ahead of time so that it was organized, not just to drop in.

That means to give to someone on death.

So is this just an edit?

This is not as amended.

Do we have a motion and a second on this one?

Yes.

So Brian had made a motion and I didn't move it, but I will submit it.

Okay.

There we go.

So we've switched now.

We're on to other business updates and reminders.

I don't have any if anyone else does.

Oh, there's a hand up.

This is such a small thing.

I'm almost embarrassed to bring it up and that I didn't notice it earlier.

But for the resolution for the meetings, it specifically says 401 Water Street.

I would love it if you all would take action to say 401 or 407 because if we begin to have public and non-voting members, we're going to want to be able to be in the Water Street Center.

Yeah, whatever the board is happy with.

Yeah.

Can they move that as just a separate amendment to resolution?

So in the third whereas, it says, at such a time and place as we may determine.

And then below, it gives that specific thing.

That's the language directly from the legislation.

Yeah, I would think we would want to establish a location for the regular meetings.

And if there was some special meeting that required a larger venue, you all could, we could notice it that way to be somewhere else.

You know, I would think that we're going to say we're going to be at the TJPDC offices or to your point, Councillor Oschrin, leave it open.

I just want the public to know where those meetings are going to be.

And if it, if it's left vague,

Point one to be, you know, regularly held meetings will be at 401-407 East Water Street or noticed elsewhere.

Yes.

Great.

Okay.

Is that?

Sure.

So do we need to vote on that, I guess?

So this is what I just said.

I got it.

So our five best hypos has it that we're good.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yes.

Counselor Osher.

Yes.

We're abusing you today because I'm trying to vote for you.

All right, so other business, anybody?

That was great, Christine.

Good catch.

Thank you, Gary.

Anything else from anybody?

And with that, then I will adjourn our meeting, or this meeting, to what would be the date.

I'm sorry, Lucy.

We do it for you, James.

Do it for us.

So it's going to be May, but I just don't know.

May 22nd.

So I'm adjuring this to May 22nd, 2025.

As opposed to 4, which we switched up today.

So 5 o'clock.

That's a long one.

It just occurred to me while I was sitting here and I emailed people to have my phone out.