I think in the James City County Board of Supervisors to order for the purpose of a business meeting. This is even if you please call the roll.
Member, Mr. Eisenhower. Mr. Hipple.
Here. Mr. Larson. Here.
We need a motion to allow Mr. Stadler to participate electronically due to a health related issue. Do I have a motion to include her?
Yes. So moved.
Please call the roll please.
Mr. Eisenhower.
Hi. Mr. Hipple.
Mr. Larson.
Hi. Mr. Moodwen.
Hi. Mr. Kirsten Kirsten.
So, welcome to the meeting.
Yes.
Thank you.
Okay.
We'll have a number of items on today's agenda.
We're going to start off with a couple of presentations.
And the first delighted to welcome to the podium, Dean Lynch, the Executive Director
of the Virginia Association of Counties.
Mr. Lynch is a very important part of the representation for Counties in Richmond and a great source of information,
education and training for county supervisors and the county government to buy and large so welcome.
Thank you for taking time to be with us today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, it's good to be here. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Stephens.
I'm Dean Lynch, Executive Director of the Virginia Association of Counties and for some of you who may not be familiar
with Virginia Association of Counties or Vaco, we were founded in 1934 to support the efforts of
officials through education programs, through advocacy, and through our business development services.
And thank you for making it possible for me to be here today to be in this stunning part
of the Commonwealth of Virginia to recognize Ms. Ruth Larson and her achievements in the
Certified Supervisors Program. A little bit about Ms. Larson's program that she went through is
This program was founded in 2006, we have had over 100 graduates of the program representing
40 counties across the Commonwealth.
Ms. Larson completed over 100 education hours to complete the certificate program and this
program is affiliated with the Virginia Association of Counties and Virginia Tech.
So congratulations, Ms. Larson, I'm completing this program and it's good to be here today
to award her her certificate, and her pins,
thank you
for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Congratulations to Ms. Larson.
Thank you.
We'll be reading your turnpapers that I showed that they caught all the type of draft
colors.
Well, it was an incredible, it's a great program.
I have to say I'm so glad that I did it and I really appreciate everything that they
co-staff puts into it.
I appreciate all the support of my colleagues and all the help from county staff and I learned
so much.
And as with any they co-program really, one of the best parts about it is the collaboration
with people all across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
And so you learn not only things about your own county
and counties like yours, the counties that are nothing like yours either.
So, but I really appreciate this a very busy time for vaco.
They're dealing with general assembly and issues that are happening there.
And I know that Dean has headed back immediately to go to committee meetings,
but I really appreciate you coming down Dean.
Thanks.
And I would point out that as Larson, as she completed her certification program,
was also elected the second-by-share of Baco at our annual leading this year. Congratulations
on that as well.
Thank you.
We now have a presentation from one of our favorite groups, the James City County Clean
County Commission, and it's Chair Peg Bourmon, is here today.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Savings. Can you hear me? Excuse my voice, it comes
goes. Good afternoon. I'm peg bourbon. I'm from downtown in life foot. I'm happy to be here and
I'm back. I'm going to talk a little trash just like I used to. I don't think that I have gone
away anywhere. But I want to give you a presentation from our Clean County Commission.
I thought
maybe some of our members would be here, but I guess they can't make it.
We have Charles Latheman from Berkeley, Kevin Radcliffe from Roberts, 10 Wim
Stanley, he's been also from Roberts, Rachel West is from Berkeley, Heath Richardson is
Stonehouse and Emma just finished her term with us this past fall and she's decided she's
not going to stay because she's going to go. She's going to be moving back to New York or
something as soon as school them. But anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I have,
we have some good news about a lot of things. We have a newsletter that was launched
this month, and it's called all hands-on deck. Perhaps you all might have got one. I think
the case is in and out email. We also did a podcast,
the end of December, and it was,
I
We're happy to have Heath Richardson with us, I forgot to say he's been a volunteer with the
Boy Scouts and a lot of other things that we've done, but he's with us now on the commission
and we're very glad to have him.
One of the, beginning we, we've just launched a program this past fall, about, it's called
literally, and it's literally clean up kids.
And we have, we develop these things, different kids to, to be passed out at the libraries.
And you can, you can check out a kit and go out and clean up something you turn it back in.
and then we have a report from them.
We've had eight checkouts since November,
and right now we've got two that are circulating
in each of the libraries from Croker and Williamsburg.
A group can also be formed,
and a team can go to the office or tuning road
and check out it and keep it as long as they want,
as long as they're working with them.
Does each library does have five Emma was real
instrumental in getting this started?
And we have the different topics are available
on the website or on YouTube.
And she does it was one, two, three, four, five, six.
About 10 different topics that she put together.
volunteers at work with it as well as the topics that she had. The letter and recycling
expo in 2020.
I don't think I'm, and thank you, Mr. Glennon, for coming out and supporting
us during that time frame. We all look like a rounded rats, because there was cats and dogs
rain and as well as rain drops. Also, there were results from there, and he was very instrumental
in getting all the statistics about EverCard that came in. And of course, it was in conjunction
with the hazardous waste that was on the other side of the school, all the information
there. We had from James City, we had 103 cars with 136 people. We had from Williamsburg,
there were 18 cars with 25 people. York County had three with five people and we had two cars
that came from New Kent jurisdictions. So that it could have been considered a success. I guess even
was very wet but the 2021 was much more successful.
We had we didn't do the tracking of
four people can to restore 53 for shredding 14 tires 10 for the glass and 18 for shoes
And clothing, 328 pounds of plastic,
two tires that actually came in.
And then we had 154, 155 pairs of shoes that came for this solves for shoes.
And 556...
Four pieces of clothing, and all that kept saved 400 forth through the environment. And we had
them three thousand pounds of paper that seemed to be the most popular part of it. And it was
cold day, but it was a sunny day. And then we had Earth Day, I hope that it's going to be
a new tradition for us because in the past we've celebrated our, our, our, our, our, our
Weasburg garden clubs and an earth day was celebrated with us and we're not even a black
gum.
I'm not sure, I sure.
But this year we're going to be planning American Chestnut and that will be on our
day and thank you, Mr. Eisenhower, for joining us.
We had the James City Routaine Club gave the presentation of the Will Barnes Gym Robertson,
some of you might remember, Jim.
We had the recipient for that.
She was from War Hill and I can't remember her name now, but we also dedicated the Will Barnes
shelter which had never been done because the first one we had is still it and I said well we've
haven't done it so we're going to do it so we had ribbon cutting for the shelter as well as the
flower box as the Jamesy Routans had installed and we had a nice volunteer from the county that
agreed to do it for us so it was very much appreciated this year I'm going to
I'm going to hold y'all to it now that you got an invitation.
The fallinator in rain gardens was at Veterans Park also on tears and I tried my best
to get everybody's sign up, but somehow I didn't get them all.
But we had so many people that was just gratifying to see that many people out there.
As you can see the picture, there's a large number of garden, as you can see over here on the left.
at the same time, but we had another planning in the September for the fall planning.
We want to make sure everybody takes a look at that sign when they're out there.
And we had in March, again, we had the number was, but we had people out cleaning up in different areas of the county.
We also had disperse.
So we gave her a real initiation on that day.
And we had 94 volunteers that came.
I think it was a 22 or three headed up.
And there was a lot of you out there.
I think for that.
And that was, it was really great to have so many people that came out for.
But we had 119 tires, I think on yours sheet it might have 27, we had 119 tires or club.
And some of them I think they risk life and limb for it to get those tires up out of those ravines.
Because there was so many of them.
and they do a real good job five tons of litter that was collected, disposed of.
And we cleaned up 42.5 miles within the county.
That's just, it was another picture of the cleanup.
I put a couple, we had to have our presentation in.
So, we did the litter index on January 8th.
We would plan to do it in November or October, November, and of course I wasn't able
to do it at that time, and so I'm glad I was, well we did all of these on the water shed,
And the one is just for this year, one with the five colors on it, that was for the just for this year.
And as you can look at this, you can tell the one point for Regina and Cassie from the county.
And we, everybody did a scoring of how they, they thought the litter was,
November, and then we did another, we did another, we did another, we did January of 20,
and then November of 20, and then we didn't do 21 until this year.
And you can see that some of the areas, each one of the colors is watershed,
And it gives you the comparison as the scoring as how it's done.
Some places stay about the same.
Some are greatly improved.
And, unfortunately, we had some letter, but not nearly as long as the adoptive spot.
We, this sign is from the Warhill High School Environmental Club and that's, they aren't
our newest, but this, they were in Newland, the area over by the 4H Camp near the, on the
capital trail and there, there are our newest group and each year the sign will have the class
senior class on that, like 2021,
2022, so forth. We'll be on that sign. Kevin and I toured them
eight spout there and cleaning it up. But we did find it on the eighth of January,
and Deborah Road was very, was very, and there was all kinds of trash scattered up and down there,
And it was just so, it was, it was disgusting to see that much trash,
but we informed the
right person to get it cleaned up, you do, and that's having the adoptive spots.
We've had three campaigns, Angeds and literature that we've passed out at any event we have,
and trying to educate people about it.
Also, we can compare the how much waste is minimum.
And with that is a lot of the plastic and stuff that was being recycled,
can't be recycled now.
And so that's going into the trash.
But we have clean county was instrumental in getting the glass.
and we're still working on the zero tolerance for litter. As you can see we're with
keep James City clowning beautiful and keep America beautiful. That's what we do
them. This litter index and with the spring cleanup, of course that's a more magnified.
And then we've got the new program with them literally and under them.
beautification, we've got the adopt spot in, we had an app only, one application for 2021,
and they requested money for their volunteers.
Well, we couldn't approve that because that was not part of the program, but they're still a good pro, they're 22, and the first checks have been received and the final
So project is completed by April 30th and the checks will be going out in May.
And so finally, overall, we've had 26 litter cleanups with $294 and 20 groups did displays or presentations.
And we've had approximately 1,359 people in attendance down here.
I wasn't sure which Mr. Larson or Mrs. Larson or Mr. Eisenhower will be needing to get us a replacement for Emma, because she's from the James town.
So, and from Stonehouse, we now have two, that's myself, and I picked on John for many years, so we finally got a couple.
But Mr. Hippel.
Mr. Hippel, we can use two right there.
We can use at least two in each district.
And ask if the board of anybody would like to ask me questions or you did say June 18th is from the Wilburne's day.
Will be Wilburne's down to a clock. I think.
Hi Paggets too. I just wanted to say hi from afar. Thank you for everything you're continuing to do. It's so nice to see you at the podium again.
And I just did all their pictures up there, so they've been helping out, so I gotta give
a shout out to my kid as well as a great thing for kids to help that with, because it
really gives them incentive to not be for your doing.
Thank you.
I appreciate the accolades.
It's all for the Clean County Commission.
It's not me, but I'm just up here talking.
Well, Ms. Bormann, it is a large part due to the efforts that you put into this patient on
the Clean County Commission to help you in that task. I'm very sorry to hear that we'll
be losing Emma because she has really made a significant contribution to the program stepping
up to help out as co-chair for a while and leaves at the end of the school year. But the real
test is that you are able to motivate other people to get involved as well, not just the members
of the commission, but all those volunteers out there. And we really do appreciate the lean and
do a better job of discouraging litter.
So you didn't really lose your voice.
It's great to see you in such good spirits
and so healthy.
Okay, well now move to the consent calendar
and we have a very large consent calendar.
I'm gonna go through very quickly
and then see if anybody has anything
that'd like to remove for further information or discussion.
We have acceptance of housing vouchers,
grant, we have additional appropriations of $220,000
For the 2019 scattered site housing rehabilitation community development block grant, we have 2021 scattered
site housing rehabilitation community development block grant adoption of the amended housing
rehabilitation program design.
We have competitive $127,000 for the automatic cardi-apomanary resuscitation devices.
We have a contract awarded $245,738 for emergency communication center, HVAC backup.
We have dedication of streets in Mason Parks of best partnership.
We have a grant award of $47,797 for the Commonwealth attorneys, the VSTOP grant program fund, grant award of $3333 for fiscal year 2022 law enforcement officers.
safety and wellness addressing psychological needs of $16,000 for state homeland security
program, almost done here, 21 emergency management, and finally adoption of a set of minutes
from previous board meetings. Do you have a motion?
The approval of the consent agenda. So I'll make the motion.
The motion to approve the consent agenda, Mr. Davis, call the roll please.
Just as I was looking through these grants, just a kudos to staff for the doesn't address all the needs of these particular programs, but it is a step.
I think it does the law enforcement safety and wellness addressing the psychological needs of law enforcement is this something that we had done before.
after me.
Thank you.
This is something we're doing new.
It's an initiative to look out for the officers, the welfare, and take cameras of the
games in county family.
So we're looking forward to it.
It's an ongoing contract.
We're working with.
And I'm assuming it will be anonymous, and I'm not, but between them and the person who they'll
be talking with, et cetera.
Absolutely.
And if they can go on their own, it'd be mandatory, but they'll be leading us.
This was Chief Ash.
It was the community animal response team.
I just want to, you could just talk about that.
It started after Hurricane Sandy.
A lot of the regulations change.
When we do sheltering, we have to also make sure we're providing
offerings for walk, things like that.
They're in a shelter.
The owners would be responsible for.
But when they're in a separate area, the shelter making sure that they're taking care of
have food, those types of things.
So those are another volunteer group.
Okay.
Come out today to answer any questions you want to have that.
Those items.
All right.
With that, we'll move on to board discussion.
And we have five items with us today for us today, plan update.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Tags.
An Andrew McPay, the project manager with mostly architects.
Building one of the space needs assessment, the facility's master plan provides a roadmap
to meet the county space needs for the next 20 years for the most critical facilities.
At the 75% identified as the master plan.
Some of the narratives in the document that you now have,
assessments were developed for all of
So these master plan options and projected out for the year 2040. With the school board, we have at the next regular meeting in February, and we're tentatively scheduled with the courthouse.
Thank you, Sean.
Mass going off.
Let's turn.
Project.
The study is pretty much wrapped up, and we can discuss next steps at the conclusion of the presentation.
But back in 2020, we completed a space needs assessment.
And that looked at all the existing space available for county facilities.
It looked at the current personnel populations within the county departments,
facilities master plan to fulfill those 24 space needs.
The level of detail, this is not a, you know, so if you ask me, what color is a carpet going to be?
Detailed direction, but it should be used as a guide as the county then moves forward with the development of the individual projects to meet those 20, 40 space needs.
And that's also a living document.
As you find, you go through the next 10 years, can update that plan periodically and check off boxes as you implement different projects.
And then you will keep moving that time for really sensitive advance or so I apologize
about it.
All right.
So preliminary budget estimates, as Sean said, were developed for HD.
And those projects were based on $20, $21, and then we took those $20, $21, and escalated
them over the next 20 years.
based all at one time, it's something that you will create a plan for and plan for over the next 20 years and beyond.
So the plan looks at the most critical needs of the facilities.
You know, this is not a wish list. This is a needs assessment.
The 2020 net, one needs there in the leftmost column.
That's the budget for county administration, school administration, and the Winsburg James City County Courts.
You'll see the total budget is 200, but again, these are all of the projects, these are
all of the needs for the entire county and, you know, when the terms of the courts,
it's city and county, and the terms of schools said, we developed what was called the master
plan, and then we all said the alternative concepts, we're only going to look at the master plan
today.
These are only the blue diagrams, as they're indicated in your final facilities master plan
study, or to as the water tower site.
So, the opportunity way site includes what's already existing, which is the law enforcement center, the LEC, a future administering city county school administration office.
So, five of those facilities don't even exist today. One does and one will be expanded on as 10 years of birth built in through the foresight of yourselves and the folks who plan that facility.
So, it has no growth needs in the first 10, but we need a plan for that.
So, the law enforcement center is at the very top of this screen.
You see a small addition and also a covered park in area, a plan for it.
And then you see the other building, then between fire administration, excuse me, between
fire station six, and the detail is all in the study, in terms of that spill.
We've got six facilities being proposed, that's the general services administration building,
the general services warehouse, residential facility, and then the fire training tower.
And those are all practical training, okay, as opposed to $47 million.
And you see how they, those currently let up to best serve the county's needs.
And you see how the six percent, the actual call center would move out of where it is now
next to fire station one, that would move into the county administration building, and the
That's not a short-term project, that's a long-term project, you know, fire services change as systems fail.
That building will need to be renovated.
So again, we're trying to forecast that we need to put about a 6700 square foot expansion on that building.
The existing fire station 22, and this would be about a $6.8 million additional renovation to fire station 2.
Fire Station 3, we were proposed the existing base could be renovated to serve either storage needs or dormitory, fitness needs of the fire station again over the next 20 years.
And fire station 5, similar to fire station 2, need some more base base.
We're proposing a bay, basically their plan south of the existing station.
The JECSA would then at that point occupying would be demolished.
There was a basically where general services is now, and a consolidated facility
be built for JECSA.
We'll keep the operate.
So the skinny leg that you see facing Tony Road, that would be the administration portion of that building.
This point.
This is a big picture analysis.
We just want to confirm that the building could building and get a renovation of that facility.
And the registrar would move into this medical would move out of this facility and social services
with at that point occupying the entire facility.
So this may very well be a two-step process
with expansion onto that building for that,
again, the 20-year need.
And a lot of these aspects have that one, too,
or phasing portions, you can make them more affordable, right?
And that's a strategy that the county has utilized
many times over the past 50 years.
The recsendums, so that this administration wing
You can also use these multi-purpose rooms for overflow and flex space.
And this is your existing campus and the future of it in any questions where we're
glad to that.
Thank you very much Mr. Bell.
Anybody have any questions from Mr. Bell at this time?
Cutting those big numbers into smaller numbers and starting to move them along the calendar
to create CIP project and no one goes unneeded.
Does that make sense?
It does, and I think it's important to understand that presumably we're not looking at any one of those three, but rather, this is kind of a continuum so that some closer to 20 years out.
Well, so the cost is more.
Yes.
Right.
I think when you even, even if we were doing everything under in 2040 dollars, it's important to remember doing that over to those needs to just keep stacking up.
And this is also clear that this is not the entirety of our capital improvements, they're going to be other issues that we are dealing with inventory.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is correct.
The, I guess, connecting the dots on this, it would probably be appropriate to these projects sort of rank ordered in the order of need.
And then how that translates into the proposed budget this brought forward to us because the CIP there should be looking out at least five or ten years on this so that we have a reasonable figure of
I guess
Things that should be tackled first and sort of a rank order and how how you would plan on building that it does we go forward and time much to what Mr. Bell had suggested so
Any other questions?
It's a very big number. I'm sure very scary to people that might be watching from home,
operate.
So, I am, and work through it. So, thank you very much.
Sure. Thank you very much, Mr. Bell. So, our second discussion item is
looking at minimum wage impacts in Alice's and that's a Patrick T.
Inges to Virginia's minimum wage upcoming changes,
James City County's plan and what's some of the
minimum wage move from
9.50 to 11 per hour. Next January, we will
buy with 12 an hour by 2023 employees will migrate
bulb an hour, and the resulting modified pay scale, salary range 6 will be our new minimum,
and that will mean we're income.
Have approximately 1,100 employees, 75% of those are full-time.
We currently have no full-time employees that earn less than $12 or under the 12 an hour.
So, those 264 non-fultime,
so the other thing we have to look at is the big compensated,
the same as someone who perhaps has only been here one or one and a half years.
And there's also full-time employees who would be adjusted, in the example below that's cut off
little bit. Full-time circulation assistance that may then well be within a few
dollars of that individual. Our goal, we've completed phase one. We met the
$11 now, we're on January the first, and then we are hoping on phase for
next January. Each of these phases, again, have compensation adjustments, and that
does include our benefit changes, so 0.5% wage increase and our cutoff is 16 per hour, no adjustments
occur to staff over 16 per hour, 15.99, so 12 dollars, oh, I'm sorry.
So this is what the
cost summary looks like for fiscal year 22, we're estimating 113,070 and that shows you
benefit break out for the compression adjustments for a full time.
And one of the reasons
we're looking at $2 an hour and the city of Newport News in December raised their minimum
start to 12 an hour as well.
Yes, sir. One question, when you're looking at these figures, a certain part of it is
a compression half of it, or I don't have an exact figure, but yeah, the total is closer to
40 or at 60 40 split. Those two numbers be added together of the total cost. Yes. Okay. So the total cost for a
wage is for our folks who are under 12. Okay. And understand where you're coming from start and mid-February of this year.
And then next year minimum wage is bump to 12. Yeah. And that's one of the pieces we're working into the
20, 3, 20, 4 budget is our goal of us because I could see it coming next year to the same
time we're going to take care.
Where are we getting the funds for the adjustment?
That piece I have no concern with funding yet.
The issue with the $12 in doing it early, we didn't have to do it this year.
I do believe it's hours and hours, so we're competing with somebody that's indoor and a controlled
environment versus our staff that is often outdoor.
we could accelerate and do it a little quicker. I know I spoke with Patrick Mitch and Newport News
going to fill challenge for local governments as well as private sector right now in terms of
I suspect some of that money that we have available to address this question this year is due to
our inability to build strategic and so she could I probably spent the general fund saving 3 or 4 or
5 times in her opinion but I feel confident that we can find it. People we have shortages all across the
with some of our staff, so I think it's important that we recognize that and hopefully the citizens understand it's very important, especially as they call and have issues about.
Yes, ma'am. And it's certainly the case that it's not just us that our experience this question locally and I think we've seen evidence that it is a national problem.
That's very day job. We have no issue with getting staff and of course we've bumped it up
considerably as well which you know some jobs you need to take a real look at they've been
paid way too low for very long time but other areas it's very very hard to to fill positions
and so it's your right, it's an ongoing issue.
Pre-budget catch up on our revenues and expenditures, Mistake.
Eight on the County's finances, as well as touch on a few matters regarding the upcoming
budgets for fiscal year 20th is comment at that time.
So some of our topics this afternoon will include an update on the fiscal year 2020.
COVID-19 update in terms of finances, and also we'll touch on meeting this year.
I provided a detail update on last year, fiscal year 2021, and that would not change
significantly from what I previously reported.
As a quick read, or purchase orders was about 192 million.
That resulted in a year in health and dental claims.
So that was a good trend to see.
Also included in that 26 million was about 8.1 million that came back to the
Kliciers budget as well as funding needs for the school division and future
budgets.
Also as part of our 22 budget, we had set aside and then the balance went to our
unassigned fund balance.
Excuse me and that was about 11 million to allocate 7 million of that for a
property acquisition which was those courthouse properties.
require that we maintain an unassigned fund balance fund that would include the other
funds that we talk about where we have our other programs, housing, social services, some
of our ongoing debt. That requirement would equate it to about $30 million. Our balance
was $56 million for expenditures that were cut from the budget due to the uncertainty of
the pandemic, but statement replacements and items of that nature. So we've definitely dipped
into our fund balance more in recent times,
then we have sure that we are staying well above
that requirement of 30 million.
So the next two set our fund balance provides cash flow
to us to help us get through not only tough economic times,
when the revenues are down, but off twice a year.
So there's certain months where our cash is high
and certain months itself could be low
because it's been a while since we've collected taxes.
So we have to maintain a healthy caro.
We have significant...
In projects on our CIP every year, we try to avoid going to market and borrowing money every year, because it costs money to borrow money.
There are really wait until we have several significant projects that make sense to borrow for, and then we had a time where our actual cash normally would be low, because it's been several months again since we collected taxes.
We do receive some threats to a year to get those reimbursements.
So again, that fund balance is there for those purposes.
In balance, how are we going to continue to pay that extra going forward?
The example that came up today was minimum wage.
We've been to replenish our fund balance when we do use it.
Generally, when we use fund balance, it's really after we've determined that we don't have
looking at the current year and we're doing a projection on where we think we're going to end
the year grants that we've been awarded.
that's just tonight. That was half a million dollars of grants. 10 grants are
across six departments. Utilize other people's money, aside our own.
So moving on
of this year, fiscal year 22, presented here is green much better than we were
this time during the height of the pandemic. I mentioned earlier that general
property taxes is the county's largest reservoir really in the other local taxes.
The state and federal and then the uses of fund balance. I'll talk about the
local tax sales tax for education. It used to come to the county as revenue and then we paid it to the
schools as an expense. And now it goes directly to the school division. It doesn't funnel through us at all.
Last year in fiscal year 21, we used to define some purchase orders. We did have some supply chain
issues that we had to buy some things 21. We had reduced our overall budget by 10%. There were some
ankle year 22, we're using fun balance to fund $5.8 million of planned projects back to the
school division for the design of a new preschool and we again had some outstanding purchase orders
from last year of about $1.5 million. There are a focus on the harder hit areas through the
pan, during the pandemic. This is a snapshot of how our major tourism drip in our meals and
lodging has a one month lag so we're really looking at about four to five months worth of activity
as a pandemic really did hit us hard last year, not on this slide, but worth mentioning,
is and put the numbers on the slide because it got hard to see, but basically for sales
tax, when we compare ourselves how we're trending this year to 2019, sales tax, we are now
trending about 1.2 million. And so that's about a 30% increase, most 13% over the actual numbers
before the pandemic. So that's a highly volatile times. So obviously we had the
Omicron variant here now that is impacting our local economy and we've had some
recent inclement weather, a downward trend again. Not shown in the figures above is the
new cigarette tax. It was a new tax $1,000 and through December we've collected almost 350,000.
But that's really only three months we will come in above budget. And just as a reminder
or that specific revenue source was your mark for CIP.
For the same amount, all expenses did come in evenly.
We would expect to have spent about half
or about 50% of our budget since for six months,
and it's really skewing that at 72%.
And I'll touch on that next.
So this stands, most of the departments that are under that,
where you're seeing the 46, 43%,
that is primarily due to turnover.
The question came up earlier again about the minimum wage,
not being budgeted this year or, and that is just a cross of board, we are seeing it in every
department where we had turnover and vacancies. We've also had some early retirements.
For those areas tracking above 50 admin, that's where we pay the county's annual insurance premiums,
it's also where we pay the county's annual audit. The entry, very similar scenario,
most of their equipment maintenance contracts and their software contracts are due at the
That's the one that was at 72 percent, that was really thrown off that overall percentage.
That's the area that we fund our outside-rated general fund's contribution to social services, housing, capital programs,
all of that money gets transferred at the beginning of the year.
So again, it's going to skew higher than 50.
So real quickly, in terms of the COVID-19 funding, as a reminder, I did want to mention that the financial information that I present
does not include COVID funding.
And those dollars don't get co-mingled or distort just our ongoing operational outlook.
COVID funds, of course, are one-time funds that are really meant to help with the pandemic
and they're not an ongoing revenue source for the county.
It's December 31st, 2021, and we met that deadline and fully utilized every dollar.
Our ARPA funding uses for our approved by you earlier this, some start some of those
capital projects.
We are continuing to watch inflation and also the supply chain and make modifications as we need to.
I also wanted to mention in terms of ARPA, the Treasury Department just recently released its
FICO and BACO to ensure that we have all the proper procedures in place.
So, these have been some severe economic ups and downs.
We've seen recovery in certain revenue items such as tourism, but again, when you've
personnel issues turnover and significant increases in the cost of construction.
So to touch on the upcoming budget, of course 2324 is our two-year budget. The first year
is appropriated. The second year is a plan. We are in the midst of our real of what's been done on
the budget at this point. We have been working finances been working with human resources
on the personnel needs for the next two years. The CIP requests have been submitted,
reviewed and sent to the Planning Commission to begin their work in terms of
the action of those requests. We've received our outside agency funding
requests and we've begun our analysis of those and we're also working on our
revenue projections for the next two years. There is great uncertainty of course
with the state's budget. And then in closing there are a few days that I
thought were worth mentioning. We obviously had our pre-budget public hearing back
January 11th, here with you this afternoon,
providing a financial update,
actions and working to balance the budget.
March 28th, the County Administrator,
should be releasing his proposed budget.
On April 5th, we have a community meeting,
likely to be virtual, that we will have.
April 12th will be our public hearing on the tax rates and the budget.
We have another meeting.
And with that, that concludes my remarks.
Happy to respond to any questions, comments in a half.
Thank you very much for that brief. I wanted to bring it up. I know that our, you know, 12% and the fun balance is I just would love to see us if we could push it to 14 and you know, even if we dip down to 10 that gives us a lot of room to
I'll be on a maneuver and buy a certainty if there's anything we can and I know damn
boards. I'll always tell us 12's a good number. You're most on don't get to 12.
I just want to say thank you. I always appreciate these updates and I think they're so
important to the citizens about January for sure. We've seen with the new variant plus the
weather. Oh, at least some local residents that I know went out. Eight there. That does help
us as well with meals tax and some of the hotel yours did we've had COVID. The tourism market
right now has been strictly leisure. So we've had nothing really in a James Town said
that they have several school groups that are scheduled to come out as well. So we'll hold our
that any conversations that you've had with the schools as they are talking about their budget.
I did see something briefly in the newspaper that they would very much like to do if you've heard anything from your counterpart there or not.
Most of what we've discussed has been very similar related to compensation and also capital needs.
Okay, I do know that they're pursuing some pretty significant grants that are result of the COVID funding.
She's an area that they're looking at.
She has also shared with my counterpart as shared with me that they have some significant increases in their health insurance premiums.
And I know they're utilizing the help of a consultant to pursue other programs as well to see if there's some cost savings there.
Okay. Thank you.
Is that how they're doing anything?
Now, actually, Ms. Larson asked a question I was going to ask so I'm welcome.
I've heard that they're talking about raises with teachers, which are sort of needed.
And I think the biggest concern right now is that given the rate of inflation, the 10%
of raise and have effectively zero.
So it's a concern, I don't know, I, yeah, skin that cat, but I think that's something we'll
to wrestle with in this upcoming budget.
We had a structural change, right, where we used to pass that money through and it appeared
in our budget, but now it's going directly to the schools.
We tools.
Do you have a sense of the money that we receive from sales tax that we've kept?
How much up in that comes to the county that we maintain?
We previously went in one eight percent or now goes to the school division. So they get theirs directly. We get ours and we keep it.
Okay. So they've seen the same type of increase in the 20 to 30 percent range.
So I guess what I'm wondering about is if we looked what that would look like if we had already applied that direction of the sales tax money for education to the schools.
The only thing that is left, we really received very little federal funding.
And I think we received about $8,000 for payment and lieu of taxes.
There are rest of that category's constitutional officers and money that we receive from this.
However, because of turnover, we haven't received the full alignment.
When we have turnover, we have expenditure saving
one more.
Yep, that 4.9 million?
Yes, right.
Right, so when we look at the amount here, am I doing this right?
Same federal.
And so there we saw the $4.9 million reduction compared to last year.
What?
The 15.6 million for this year? Yes. Yes. Today we've received 7.4 per exceed our 15.6.
I believe my revenue projection showed about a $2 million increase in our sales tax.
but miss day that budget number had we had the schools and this year's budget that 15 million would be
what the what the actual impact on our budget is going to be now that we have
decided to directly let that money flow to the schools and it line graph
would stop there i'm sorry go back one if you don't mind please so there is a line there for the school division you see that
hundred million that it is really in that zero
and miss day if they have a work experience in greater sales tax returns the school division would be
Especially we didn't take anything away from what is there year in surplus that would return to the county.
That number still should be the same.
It was really a significant increase.
Compare that will be provided through that direct funding to them.
Some what smaller overall increase in funding that they were looking for from localities.
Then we might have seen in previous years when this would have been included.
Thank you very much for that report.
I think that's a lot of positive news and interesting ideas to be pursuing.
Mr. Hamble's suggestion about the fund balance, to address some of our future needs,
by taking them off the table now.
Great.
All right, good afternoon, Chairman and members of the Board of Supervisors.
I like the accomplishments of county departments during fiscal year 2021.
I do want to make one note about the documents format.
You may recall that in our previous annual report document, we were response.
So now, as our pandemic response has become a protracted event,
throughout the department's accomplishments.
There are operational items that are related to COVID-19
as that's sort of a come-of-part.
I'll begin with a brief summary of our COVID-19 response.
The Greater Williamsburg Community Partners.
It opened on January 22nd, 2021,
and over the course of nearly four months,
the clinic administered 22,840 doses
of the modern vaccine to local residents and workers.
County departments expand at home versions of some of their special events.
Social services housing unit provided more than $1.4 million in assistance
for pandemic-related needs including emerge to the previous fiscal year.
In county administration, a second assistant county administrator position was created
with approval from you all the Board of Supervisors.
We established a diversity equity and inclusion team
and the communications division launched from the helm on E-45, the comprehensive plan update process.
Substantial progress occurred for several important transportation along for its road.
The Office of Economic Development worked with the NFS and assisted more than 125 small existing small businesses,
with securing all available pandemic relief funding to association for its role.
After two years of proper financial software system called Munis.
FMS managed over 30 million dollars in federal funding of funding.
Those are acronyms for a reason. That's a mouthful.
Worked with departments to restore operational budget needs.
The county closed out FY 2021.
one, let ready.
Was reaffirmed during that process.
Our fire department took the lead on behalf of James City County,
see communication center consoles to enhance social distancing and improved technology. The department
also improved live.
For general services, following the implementation of extensive floodplain
management activities, the county has been elevating the first community in Virginia to receive
a class 5 reading. As a result, county home of special flood hazard areas. General services
fleet and equipment division continues to incorporate alternative fuel equipment into
the county's fleet and the department also gets to a virtual format for its benefit, open
enrollment and new employee orientation was conducted in partnership with Virginia Tech
and York County. HR also developed and implemented the county's COVID-19
businesses to replace the county's 25-year-old financial system.
They worked with cost communications to.
Parks and Recreation partnered with more than 40 community organizations to offer more equitable
access to recreation services, including a day support program for young adults with disabilities,
front park shoreline stabilization project, mitigated the eroding of steep banks along
the Chica Harmony River and Gordon Creek through the establishment.
The Police Department was the recipient of the Board of Supervisors 2020 Chairman's Award
in recognition of its professionalism and positive comm-incident command system.
The plan was nationally recognized and shared as a model for best practices.
The 2020 Police Chiefs Award was given to members of social services, the Benefit Program's
eligibility phone line, received over 12,000 calls from citizens inquiring about medical and
financial assistance.
Excuse me, supplemental nutrition assistance program or SNAP, which experienced an 18% increase and the Medicaid program in which over
10 men and C was also achieved for 10 children in the foster care program.
Last but not least, after a delay due to the library's ongoing partnership with William and Mary resulted in a successful one book, one community reading event.
This concludes our FY 2021 annual report.
Thank you for your time and we would be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much, bud.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Over the past on the first steps of developing the natural and cultural assets plan.
Miss questions from the board and input to incorporate into the process.
Thank you.
My master, hear me better. Please let me know.
Thank you.
Are you okay?
All right.
I'll try not to mumble.
Because they're actually designed to be printed out at six feet.
Barch.
So you will have an opportunity to see those maps, a quick reminder of the project origin
for any members of the public, current out familiar with the project, talk about the progress
to date.
Show you some of the came out of your 20-35 strategic plan and a firm community priorities
established during your recent update.
for new missions, we're taking very much from the community work that's already been done.
In your strategy, an action environment, 3.1 assets and why do we need to evaluate them?
Well, as we have explained in the past, nature is also part of our asset portfolio,
its valuable places are so that we can add them to our resource inventory,
know their worth, and then decide to just farms and forests that contribute to the economy.
Protecting preserving water quality and supply, and you have a lot of your water coming from
storm.
Storms are going to keep happening.
But if we preserve some of those areas that are subject to storms, that will also save
us funds in the long run.
And then public health format, this gentle man or woman on a trip through one of your parks,
there is a number of barred house calling.
Things for plantations.
You think about battlefields, civil war, revolutionary war, as well applications for this
such as when you're working on your long-range transportation plan, next time you update your strategic plan for the county,
Agutzu, actually start to create some of the maps.
Now, they are there a draft now, but what we're doing is we're grabbing the most high-quality intact pieces of the landscape that we have modeled, using Landcover 2020,
and then also we're able to get LiDAR, which is basically satellite imagery beam to Earth that tap the data for your county.
And we're looking at those large chunks of landscape, but also how they connect through corridors.
So there's a six step process that we've been going through.
Stu data. So as I said, we've been able to obtain and create some new data for the county.
So this land cover information that we've created commused in many others.
A lot of work together data, but some of that data comes from the community.
So I'll talk about that in a moment.
And so where are areas where action may be needed?
And action could be as simple as a landowner taking action on their own land and then ranking.
So what should we actually do?
I call this the so what number of the effort.
Making maps is fun on implementation.
So we'll be creating a strategic plan that goes with this and people.
So if you'll be patient, we will get to that phase.
Just a highlight that we're here in January.
We've just had our steering committee committee.
But they just gave us a lot of great input that we are currently actually county staff that's also giving us advice and then we check in every two weeks to make sure that we're on track.
Lay anyone in the community can go online so place to me and they'll be able to tell us why.
So yeah, this is a favorite place to get engaged.
That was my favorite one.
This is a place we like to watch.
Sorting them out into making sense of all that.
Breathe that's flown and then we interpret it.
So of course some areas have been developed so you've taken them off the map.
And then we're walking at different landscapes and trying to understand what it's like on the ground.
So this is the first map, and I wouldn't be trying to think about how you might compare
to other localities.
You have a lot.
So that's good news.
Difficult than others.
An example of that would be if an area has a lot of cultural resources.
So it's right now we're just kind of looking at all of these things you see in the
on green or very high quality.
And then we're going to do it additional analysis once we fit and make it look like spaghetti.
So what we do is to try to tease out the different themes that we want to look at.
This data come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that can be helpful to us as we look at, say,
Agforce them, you know, they're placed dependent and conserving them is really important.
So you have a normal place is where you can pick berries and fruit, and farms and working with a committed economy.
And so what we're looking at is areas that are at least 13 over time, not just as you think about your economics,
thinking about the viability of forestry and the cax on that map. And then water, and planes,
and these rivers and streams, we mapped all those, and we'll also be looking at how well
forestry is of good news. And then recreation, now how we get out there and enjoy them, but they're
also maybe places that are places for hunting or fishing, but that community really loves walking
or biking or walking the dog on that road. So we'll be getting all of those assets on the map,
and then looking at how well the landscape supports them.
Heritage and culture are defined by the community.
So we will, of course, include and have included things
that are already identified as community.
You can post it online.
People telling us landscapes that are significant to them
and why.
And then, of course, they're going to put your property.
So you've got a lot of historic places and sites
that one of our community members
Allen Outliers, as you probably know, you appointed him
very vocal and knowledgeable, local historian.
So he's been helping us push the part and probably
a map that you'll continue to update over time.
Because as you know, you're, you're so
to know that, let's say we had a piece of landscape
that, biologically, we rated as highly significant,
but it all did.
It's part of the setting of our county, it's an iconic place.
So we would also use that to bump up the next steps
and expanded public engagement.
So in the near term, our GIS team is working now
getting all those comments and sketchy about three weeks. We thought we would launch it
on Valentine's Day just for a little fun. It gave us enough time to get all those comments
and we have so far from our didn't having the online effort that will promote with help
from county media. So that like take this sticky dot from your card and stick it, grind
your survey, some people really sick of surveys, and some people just like a good old
fashion paper map. Comments that you have in addition to the general public, you can feel,
So that'll be all through February and into March and then like I said, the comment stations and then the staff of the county will also be doing outreach to your existing county committees.
So you've already got established committees for history and you've got other committees for parks.
So they will be sort of we have a little show and tell presentation making so they can kind of take this around and and get those comments from those different experts that you've already pointed because there's a lot of knowledge that comes into this process.
So, we will be taking all of that together and then re-running the maps, and once we know
where those most important places are, then we'll be looking at how they connect.
So, getting to a longer term, like I said, we're refining these maps now, we're going to
be launching the online survey on Valentine's Day, we're going to be then taking that information
from the public moving into the springs and looking at both risks and opportunities.
Finally, we'll come back to the community with some strategies and we'll be also back to the
Board of Supervisors.
So we want to get more kind of vague notion, summer, but part of this depends on how much input
we get, how much time Virginia, some people think we're in Charlottesville, we're in Skotsville.
It's a little town on the James Shepherd's RGIS analyst.
And Lauren Durand is our landscape architect and her background is in culture and heritage mapping.
So, kind of a perfect team for the county.
So with that, are there questions or comments from the board at this time?
Yes, Graham, if somebody was asking, I think that's a perfect data to launch it.
So good.
Good for that.
I did have a question about the survey.
Yes, that's a great question.
The survey is literally half drafted sitting on my desktop computer.
So as soon as I get back to the office, I'll, we've much, because we want to have time
to.
Perfect.
The survey.
Make sure it makes sense.
Have the right and straggled to provide input with those questions?
We'll pass it through them on.
questions comments? Question I own a chunk of land and somebody goes that's the spot I like
and they start pinning this piece of land is significant because of this this and this but I
can see that also being a risk I could see it starting out as a plan of these are significant areas
for James City County which I agree we ought to keep as many as possible but also we have
I'm going to compensate me for this significant part that I own and pay taxes on.
If you own a piece of land and you see that it's like neon green, super important.
We think it's the best on this significant piece of the landscape.
So, as I'm doing my farm plan or as I'm, let's say I want to develop my land.
We showed them examples of how other counties have used this information and how private developers,
as well as private citizens use the information.
an example of a landowner in an important, said, well, I still got to put my dream house there
and I said, that's great.
But you know, I'm going to actually shift it over here a little, but she's going to manage
it how she wishes.
And so it's really changed my development layout.
And so he actually redesigned it with smaller lots.
We'll be sure to do a robust engagement and that's part of the, you know, on the website
we have a, because people will have those kind of concerns like, what does this mean if I'm
on this map?
They will and, you know, and I'm worried too that they'll they'll may not understand the whole thing
Yeah, I was publicly accessible
You know, so sometimes people say well, this is a favorite fishing hole where like well, yeah, but it's not open to the public because if we put on a map
Some of these things favorite fishing hole. They're like, oh, we can go fish there
I'm a kayak. This is not you know taking people's land and saying it's available forever. I know that's what some people would you know
Probably worry about
And I love it and I think when you actually overlay your park systems and your trails and things
There's plenty of that pristine or great quality land that's available to the public already
So they can already get out there and I can just tell you anecdotally
I've I've started our firm 14 years ago
So we've done many many dozens of plans of Virginia and across the south and have not yet had a situation or someone thought
That
I'll come over to you.
That's right.
Maybe that will show up as a significant place.
I think it's a stop-up.
Any other questions, comments?
Well, this is a very exciting project.
And she'd give us some terrific tools to work with.
As we update our conference of plan in the future,
as we consider various proposals,
as we think about how to invest county resources
in preservation of our environment and the viewsheds
and the like.
So I appreciate very much all the hard work
going into this, both on your part, and on our advisory team,
steering committee, and staff.
And supervise McLean, and can I make one more quick comment?
Sure.
I should have thought of this when you asked the question.
We've already had a situation in the county,
and I don't mean situation in negative tone.
But where a landowner said, I'm actually developing my property.
I heard that there's this plan.
I want to know how my development might fit in with this,
and so even though we're not done, we're still able to grab the map.
They took a look and said, OK, so I think based on this, I'm going to put my buildings over here.
So there's already a person who's developing a piece of property who's already wanting to use the information for their plan.
So it can actually be seen as a positive tool and to quote the past president of the Home Builders Association.
Please just tell me what you want and what you value.
And I'll do my best to take care of it.
But if I don't know, I can't do that.
So I leave you with that thought.
And thank you so much for the fire.
I appreciate it.
That is the last of our board discussions.
We have one board consideration.
Would anyone care for a recess for?
Right.
Why don't we just take a short recess right now.
We now have a board consideration, James City County Park's master plan update, Mr. Perkinson.
Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
We are pleased to share with you the park master plan updates for Upper County Park, the James City County Recreation Center Park and the Warhill Sports Complex.
The master plans are long-term planning documents created to provide a conceptual layout to guide the future growth of each park.
These plans were prepared in 2021 by an interdepartmental team of county staff in the Department of Parks and Recreation, General Services and Community Development.
Following the process used in the shaping our shore's master plan update, the team met on site at each location and held several planning meetings.
Each park was reviewed separately taking in the county water restrictions, equitable access, environmental concerns, resource protection areas, zoning, building codes, new trends and citizen needs.
initial drafts are created in these meetings and presented to the board in April of 2021 and the team
solicited input from the public through a month-long survey period, a virtual public meeting
in a Facebook live presentation in May of June of 2021. We received 174 online in paper surveys
regarding the plans. And so the plans were revised based on that input from the public and from the
and the proposed plans that we brought today have been supported by the Parks and Rec Advisory Commission and the James City County Planning Commission.
So these master plans are conceptual.
The elements may not be drawn to scalar located in their exact future positions.
Following approval, the elements of these plans will be prioritized and included in the Parks and Recreation Capital Improvements Program requests.
before any improvements are made,
the special use permits for each park
would need to be amended to include the changes.
So what I thought I'd do is go through each park map
and kind of talk about our existing amenities
and what the team is proposing
and adding in each master plan.
So to start out with, I have upper county park.
So upper counties, one of our oldest parks
that opened in 1984,
there was a draft master plan for the park,
created in the early 90s,
There's no current approved master plan for the site.
So we started with existing park amenities, which there are many.
This park is fairly well built out, and we incorporated citizen feedback and data from
our 2017 Parks and Rec Master Plan to guide potential future amenities.
So the master plan identified a lack of several park amenities in this region of the county,
notably hard surface trails, gymnasiums, rec centers, and indoor pools.
In the Citizen Survey, a multi-use trail splash pad and off-leash area where the most requested
amenities at this park.
Currently this park features a 25-meter outdoor pool, a toddler pool, basketball, and
sand volleyball courts, picnic shelters, a playground, mountain biking trails, a primitive
camping area for youth groups, restrooms, and a seasonal concession.
Our team is recommending the following additional amenities, the replacement of the existing
with a splash pad spray ground feature, a half-mile paved multi-use trail,
community gymnasium with two full-sized indoor courts and fitness area,
pickleball or tennis courts, an off-leash dog area, and an archery range for county programs,
and additionally park maintenance area and increase parking to support those new amenities.
The next park we looked at was the James City County Recreation Center Park,
So this is essentially all the grounds around the rec center, but it also includes a parcel
that was adjacent to the rec center that was a former side of a JCA water tower.
So similar to Upper County Park, there's no existing master plan for this area, but it
is largely developed outside of that parcel.
There was a conceptual plan for that area from the early 2000s, but no adopted plan.
So in our Citizen Survey, we've got a huge response from our skateboarders on the expansion,
the potential expansion of the skate park.
We've got a lot of feedback also on the addition of an off-leash area.
So currently we have the Recreation Center, the skate park, two-lighted softball fields,
two-lighted rectangular fields, a 2.1-mile multi-use paved trail, and an ADA accessible playground.
Our team is recommending, in addition to that, the possibility for future expansion of the
James City County Recreation Center, expansion of the skate park area, picnic shelter,
an off-least dog area, restrooms to support the picnic shelter, skate park, and off-least
dog area, and a restroom concession building to support the softball fields on this site.
And lastly, we looked at the Warhill Sports Complex, so the Warhill Sports Complex Master Plan was last updated in 2016 and since that time,
new features such as a private indoor pool facility and community garden have been added to the park.
Additionally, some amenities are originally featured on the park master plan have been represented at other park locations such as the potential running center at James Town Beach event park.
Since it is used by so many different groups before we even started our process, we held a meeting with our 22 community partner organizations to solicit feedback and determine needs for this complex.
The feedback we got from them primarily were more lighted rectangular fields, more full-size baseball fields, and softball fields to support the growing participation and senior softball.
And then additionally in our citizen survey, we citizens expressed a desire for full-size baseball fields, again an awfully stock area and tennis courts.
So we recommended the following additional amenities to this plan, a synthetic turf field complex featuring two lighted softball and multi-use fields and two lighted large baseball multi-use fields.
and restrooms and concessions to support that area.
A stadium complex featuring a baseball and softball field.
Redesign connector road between Long Hill Road and Opportunity Way,
and just to give a little more insight on that,
we currently have a connector road about where that letter H is,
the connects from the parking lot,
and essentially connects opportunity way to the entrance to the park on Long Hill Road.
Our proposal is to take that road out of the middle of the park and go around our park amenities
The addition of the existing private indoor pool facility, lighted pickle ball and tennis courts
We added the existing community garden to the plan and the existing general services grounds maintenance facility and of course parking to support these
new amenities and then also there were a few items on the
2016 master plan that we proposed to eliminate, one large field from the baseball complex A to
to enable us to expand parking in that area. Seven of the multipurpose rectangular fields.
We kept four that are the letter F on this plan, but we had 11 in that area originally.
A proposed indoor sports facility of BMX Park and the running center.
So, just to reiterate, following the adoption of these plans, the individual amenities that we've mentioned will be prioritized and included in the Parks and Recreation Capital Improvements Program requests.
Community input, citizen needs, and available funding will drive the timing of funding for these projects, and before any other improvements are made, the special use permits for each park would need to be amended to include any changes.
So, I'd love to take any questions.
So thank you very much. First of all, I think Parks and Rec does a great job. I think it's one of the best amenities that we offer here.
Um, however, I have some concerns, one being, um, pool.
Um, yes, we have a private pool out at, um, the War Hill track, but what planning is there
moving forward for more public pool space for our high schools, if we should get into a
Our high schoolers being able to board use this.
This year, they weren't here because you're coming up against a private organization club trying to get their practice in as well, plus, you know, it doesn't aquatic facilities are very expensive to run. So, you know, they have to look out for their bottom line as well. So, while that this may not be part of it, I hope it is part of a master plan in the future, having some food.
So, we cannot have our high schoolers practicing there.
If we waited years for a softball field out at the Warhill Track, we're going to do two.
You know, it's better than zero, but I do feel like we do owe the softball players in our community a little bit more than that.
So I'm a local ball.
Users for the past few years.
And I know it is a growing sport.
And I appreciate that.
But I don't want other things to get in the way of,
you know, I want other emphasis to also be put on the younger people in our area as well though.
I should say that pickle ball seems to be very popular across the age groups.
But so which I am glad to see some emphasis put on the skate park and some expansion of that.
So I very much appreciate that we're list as we continue to move forward with our parks and rack.
Maybe can you talk a little bit about why, because the splash, we changed the,
I think we changed one pool out at Chikami Park to a splash pad as well.
What's the, um, what's the appeal of a splash pad versus a toddler pool?
Well, yeah, it's, um, some of it is Parks and Recreation trends that we've really seen the trend of a splash pad.
It's, it can serve a lot more ages.
So every, it is limited and who, who can use it, they are a little bit difficult to maintain.
They, you know, there's even some safety issues, even though there's so shallow, there's some safety issues that are involved that aren't quite as big a concern with the splash pad. So that's what a lot of people want to see. And you've seen them pop up. Most folks are going in the trends are going towards more of the splash pad, which, you know, kind of include more inclusive of all different ages and levels of ability. So thank you.
The question on the off-leaf dog areas, I see the one over by the rec center is in that area where the old water tower used to be, and it's pretty, pretty heavily tree, which is, which is a benefit.
I'm assuming that when that thing is put in,
I'll leave as many trees around it for a shed,
upper county and existing one that's being just been built
over at Veterans Park and that is the surface and when it gets to be wet
and chewed up whether there's any aspect
been given to studying what other parts have done
as to different types of surfaces.
I know it's sometimes they use mulch as opposed to trying to maintain grass
because it gets to be the part-track process and planning these out as to how you might tackle
those different problems at each one.
Right, and we've been looking into the different types of surfaces like you said it can
range anywhere from an artificial turf that, you know, a design, we would look at that.
But that is probably one of the biggest parts of those dog areas that we need to continue
to research and look at other parks and see what they do.
They all seem to have their pros and cons of different types of materials that you can use out there.
And just to circle back to the shade, we do intend on keeping that forested area at the Rex Center.
There's a one up at Upper County Park being built in an area that's straight or solo, just open for you.
It's kind of a lot of it's brush kind of, you know, two, three inch wide trees growing up, but there are some larger trees in that area.
So we could be selective and how we plan that.
That would be helpful.
Thank you.
I do have one quick question if I might. Could you repeat and what was the other? What were the other ones?
Absolutely. We're considering the conversion of the toddler pool, the baby pool at Upper County Park to a spot.
The off-leash area, the paved multi-use trail, which we really, there is a real lack of paved multi-use trails in that,
pickle ball or tennis, but it would essentially, there's already a pad there for another court
space next to that. We added an archery area for our county programs. This would be kind of a
permanent home for that out of the way. And then just a maintenance area for our park staff.
All right. Thank you. I just wanted to just to put a plug in. We need some help up in the
upper county park. We're going to be getting about 1800 more homes over here as Stonehouse has built
So I think the need is going to increase over in upper counties.
So thank you for all you're doing to look into these things.
I think the archery component would be great because I know a lot of the micro-inquits would use if they love archery.
So anyway, I'm putting a plug-in for them.
But thank you. I appreciate all the updates.
Thank you.
I had the questions.
Anybody really interested in for approval?
If we have motion to approve any further discussion?
Mr. Hibble, aye. Mr. Eisenhower? Aye. Ms. Sadler? Aye.
Ms. Lawson? Aye. Mr. McLean. Aye.
Thank you. So now we move on to board requests.
Just very quickly. Mr. Person aye went out last week.
And you all may have noticed for some time a display on property that is...
at American flag and soldiers, that type of thing, there is a plan underway for an Iwo
Jima Memorial there, and Mr. Personai went out and won. And he is working with Mr.
Purse to make a presentation to the board. That will be in the near future. Did you all set up
a final date for that, Mr. Purse? Will that be in February?
Yeah, I haven't confirmed, but that's the plan.
Okay. Thank you so much. And then also have up to date we did get have a presentation from the
student youth travel organization. They're talked about the student travel is starting back.
It's not where it was, but they are seeing some increase in student travel.
And then also Ms. Sattler and I participated in a Zoom with a group of citizens last week that we were requested to participate in.
So, thank you.
First there was a do soon resolution for an eight million dollar bond for plain landing and they'll be coming to us within the next couple of months for approval.
and also the EDA approved a request to extend the sales agreement study period for the property
under contract tomorrow, but that's in congratulations, Ms. Larson, on completing your
Baker certification, your colleagues are very proud of you, and thank you for your participation in that.
Thank you.
Let me just report on a couple of meetings I attended last week, I attended the Hampton Road
transportation planning organization meeting followed by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission meeting.
A lot of discussion of transportation issues, obviously opportunity to interact with the other members of the region.
We heard a very interesting briefing on economic development, including a fascinating report on the port of Virginia Ports,
which was presented by Stephen Edwards, the CEO of the Virginia Ports Authority.
And then I wanted to take a moment to recognize that we lost another distinguished citizen
Bill Person who served as both Commonwealth's attorney and then later as a judge that's
the way recently.
If you have had not had the opportunity to see the obituary that he wrote himself, it is
fascinating and very unique document, so I think it's important to recognize the many contributions
that he made as a member of the court system here in the Williamsburg James City County area.
And which is family.
Well, thank you.
And that's it, Mr. Stevens, do you have a report of county administrator?
Nothing to share with you today.
With that, I would look for a motion to go into close session for the discussion would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.
So a dissection 2.2-371-A3 of the code of Virginia and pertaining to 6616, Cranston Mill pond
road as well as property along the Brickbat Road, Carter, James Town Road, Carter, and the
Ford Road, Carter.
Also for consideration of a personnel matter, the appointment of individuals to County
awards and or commissions,
percent of the section 2.237-11A,
one of the code of Virginia,
and pertaining to the planning commission.
And consultation with legal counsel,
employed or retained by a public body
regarding specific legal matters,
requiring the provision of legal advice,
by such council,
pursuant to section 2.237-11A,
eight of the code of Virginia,
and discussion of the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds,
including out interviews of bidders or offers, and discussion of the terms of scope of such contract,
where discussion in open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.
percent of the section 2.237-118-29 of the code of Virginia. So we're hitting a lot of
different sections of that code. Do I have a motion to move out to closed sessions?
Act session and look for a motion to certify.
Chair, I certify that we only spoke about those matters that we said that we would.
Thank you. We have a motion to certify the closed session. Mr. Stephen Scholar, please.
Choice an hour? Aye. Mr. Hippel? Aye. Ms. Larson? Aye. Ms. Sadler? Aye.
Mr. McLean? Aye. Mr. McLean? Aye. Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chairman, I'm making a motion that we adjourn until 8 a.m. on February 3, 2022 for the local government day at the Capitol.
Motion to adjourn, Mr. Steven's called roll please.
Mr. Rice Sauer, aye, Mr. Hibble, aye, Ms. Larson, aye.
Ms. Sadler, aye. Mr. McLean, aye.
So adjourn, meeting adjourn.