[0:04] testing one two
three
[0:07] four
[0:14] i just love working for the district 2
supervisor but district 1 and 3 are my
[0:18] favorites
[0:22] all right good evening ladies and
gentlemen i am so excited to see all of
[0:25] you out this evening i am respectful of
everybody's time
[0:29] but i'm glad that you all
got the notice this time we did a second
[0:34] round of retail strategies and what the
county is doing to move forward so
[0:38] tonight
a couple of housekeeping things
[0:42] one when you
there's going to be an engagement piece
[0:45] and so when you um
speak if you choose to
[0:49] sharon is going to come and bring a mic
so that it can be included in the
[0:54] recording
because this meeting is being recorded
[0:57] and we'll post it later but that you
can't capture if you're not using a
[1:00] microphone that's number one
number two
[1:04] there's an engagement please so we want
you all to talk back with us um and just
[1:09] another thing bathrooms to the left for
ladies to the right for the gentleman
[1:14] um just really quick tomorrow
is our covet clinic at the social center
[1:20] um they are giving the kovic
vaccinations as well as the boosters for
[1:24] all three and so if you are interested
please you don't need an appointment you
[1:29] can just show up from three to six
miranda from three to six tomorrow
[1:34] um quite a few people have called in so
we're excited to just keep moving
[1:38] charles city forward we have about
close to 70 percent of our county fully
[1:42] vaccinated we have three percent that
already have boosters and so we want to
[1:48] get the boosters numbers up um so we're
excited to to have that large percentage
[1:53] of people that are fully vaccinated so
please share with your neighbors from
[1:58] three to six tomorrow at the charles
city social center
[2:01] okay so tonight um the meeting
discussion is for retail strategies and
[2:06] so as you all know
the board of supervisors and i would
[2:10] like to say good evening to
our chairman our vice chairman and i
[2:13] remember mr smith mr code and mr atkins
thank you all for being here so i'm sure
[2:19] between the people in the room your
district representative is here as well
[2:24] but the vision that those gentlemen have
as well as administration is to move
[2:28] charles city county forward and to
develop very strategically
[2:33] to keep a rural character but however
bring the amenities um that's
[2:37] desperately needed and so if you
um
[2:41] if you you during covet we had an impact
of where you could get items from and so
[2:47] i think the dollar general really helped
during that time to help people get some
[2:53] necessary items that you needed for just
life right doing doing rough times and
[2:59] so we are excited to move charles city
forward in that capacity mr chairman or
[3:04] other members would you all like to have
a word before i get started or
[3:09] all right great
all right so
[3:12] my assistant county administrator
dr rhonda russell will join me shortly
[3:16] so tonight we're going to go through
what the county has what we where we are
[3:22] get your feedback and we feel like as
we're designing movement and growth in
[3:27] the county it's important for the board
and i
[3:31] to get your feedback and what you want
for the community now are we going to
[3:34] get everything every person wants no but
if we can get a general consensus of
[3:39] what the ideas are then that helps us as
we're doing the planning process
[3:44] so the county has contracted with a
company out of alabama um retail
[3:49] strategies who performed the last
meeting um who also shared the slides
[3:54] with charles city for tonight so the
vice president of the company sarah beth
[3:59] thornton and beth miller are our point
of contacts for this project and so
[4:04] basically um what they are doing is just
basically doing a market analysis for
[4:08] the county looking at all the
demographics that we'll talk about later
[4:12] looking at the county topography and
exactly what's needed here once they
[4:18] come complete the market analysis then
they will
[4:22] make a recommendation of what businesses
would fit here in the community some
[4:27] national brands
and then from there
[4:30] approach those retailers to come to our
community so they have been very
[4:34] successful with bringing grocery
fast food and other commercial
[4:39] development in other communities around
us and so we thought that this was a
[4:43] great idea to just have the study done
and then have someone actually advocate
[4:48] for us okay
and so micah and julia are also part of
[4:53] the team that's um just doing all the
analysis for the county
[4:59] so let's look at the retail trends we're
going to have a pop quiz and let's see
[5:04] what you know so
and you can just blurt out your answers
[5:08] and then we'll go through what the
findings are so in your thought process
[5:12] what do you think the percentage of jobs
in america are retail
[5:17] a 25 percent b 40 or c 50
just pop it out like popcorn
[5:25] see 50
[5:29] yeah
pop it out like popcorn
[5:35] so the percentage of jobs in america
that are retail are actually 25
[5:42] not 50
so one in four jobs are retail here in
[5:46] the united states okay
the next question how many jobs does a
[5:52] qsr quick service restaurant typically
bring to the community to a community
[5:58] well she gave us the answer
[Laughter]
[6:03] you're the winner mr atkins so when they
look at quick service restaurants like
[6:09] mcdonald's chick-fil-a hearties those
restaurants the fast food entities that
[6:15] we service they bring about 15 jobs for
each um
[6:21] business to a community i know we have
bonnie here tonight with calls how many
[6:25] employees do you have bonnie
[6:30] 12. so that's right in line with what's
the national trend so we can see that
[6:35] additional
retail restaurants bring about 15. so
[6:40] let's try not to give the answer away on
the next question okay
[6:44] so when you look at the average raises
especially from retail versus non-retail
[6:50] between individuals between 25 and 34.
is that 34
[6:56] 54.
my contacts are failing me so when you
[7:00] look at non-retail workers the average
salary is about 34 000 versus retail
[7:06] salaries of 35 000 and we're going to go
into our household median income later
[7:11] right dr russell
and just talk about what that looks like
[7:15] for charles city so
retail
[7:19] actually can earn more than non-retail
nationwide when you look at the trend
[7:26] so
in your
[7:28] and here are some options what is the
largest consumer demographic group
[7:33] millennials
gen z's
[7:36] baby boomers greatest generation or
generation x
[7:41] what do you guys think
[7:46] generation x i hear
[7:49] eight millennials
baby boomers
[7:53] well to tell the truth
the millennials
[7:57] are the largest consumer demographics
guess that's young folks they don't mind
[8:02] spending money because they're spending
our money right
[8:06] they they buy everything and everything
is probably from amazon or e-commerce
[8:11] and so millennials
the national trend shows they are the
[8:15] largest consumer okay question
[8:41] we need a microphone
yes because it's being recorded
[8:50] the sad part about this is
the median agent charles city's 47
[8:56] which
we don't spend a whole lot of money or
[9:00] 47 and up don't
whereas millennials spend everything
[9:03] they own and which produces sales tax
income and all for the county
[9:09] you have to use the microphone for
recording thank you sir
[9:14] all right
[9:16] so millennials we see are the largest
demographic
[9:19] group okay
so what percentage of retail sales are
[9:25] online 15
22 or 53
[9:30] national trend what do you guys think
see 53 percent
[9:36] b 22
anyone else
[9:40] and the winner is
15
[9:44] i couldn't believe that i would have
gone with 53 percent too but 15
[9:48] based on national trends
is the percentage of retail sales
[9:53] online um so that was very like
eye-opening for me because i know some
[9:58] of us in the room shop at amazon at
least three days a week i'm not gonna
[10:02] call any names they know who they are
[10:08] all right so when you look at post covet
what the retail strategies are seeing
[10:13] you know how you restaurant tech clothes
um you know smalls had closed it had a
[10:19] lot of restrictions so what they're
seeing post covet is just opportunity
[10:24] for drive-through curbside um delivery
and pop-ups and so what they're seeing
[10:30] is that's trending like retailers who
that are developing new projects are
[10:36] focusing more on external service than
internal service so you know they're not
[10:42] doing the um like the child fund gyms
and like the chick-fil-a's and that sort
[10:47] of thing so a lot of the the the new
retails or the retailers are focusing on
[10:51] drive-throughs and curbside delivery
[10:56] so the process that
retail strategies you will take first
[11:00] they're in the discovery phase which
they're in right now
[11:03] um which they're researching charles
city looking at the demographics looking
[11:07] at the travel times looking at um
everything all the assets that we have
[11:12] here in the community and then connect
the next phase would be to connect with
[11:17] retails
just to see exactly what will be a good
[11:21] fit here okay we don't want retail
popped up all over the place
[11:25] um you know we want to keep charles city
county beautiful the way that it is but
[11:30] we do need amenities i know if you're
like me you have to travel 20 30 minutes
[11:34] to go to the grocery store get insulated
bags so everything won't defrost um so
[11:40] we still want amenities but we want to
keep it real and beautiful as it is and
[11:44] then the next phase would be the advance
phase where
[11:47] they just look at their efforts and then
they go out to those retailers and
[11:51] advocate for charles city county
okay and so dr russell is going to talk
[11:57] about demographics here right all right
[12:06] good evening everyone
miss johnson actually did a few more of
[12:10] the slides and i thought so i'm going to
be in front of you for maybe one maybe
[12:14] two minutes at the most
but i want to go back and pick up on
[12:19] the slide that talked about
the percentage of sales nationally that
[12:24] are online or e-commerce space and just
draw a conclusion that should be very
[12:28] obvious to everyone it is prudent for us
to
[12:32] [Music]
invest
[12:34] in attracting what we call brick and
mortar retailers
[12:38] to our community because presently the
national trend is that consumers still
[12:43] want that on-site retail experience
right and there everybody is not doing
[12:49] it as well as amazon in terms of
timeliness and the easy return policy
[12:55] and the um
shipping costs the reasonable shipping
[13:00] cost of any at all
and so we have a potential to capture
[13:06] i guess what they call
leakage in terms of
[13:10] money that's spent outside of the
community for your convenience oriented
[13:15] retail needs to capture that and keep
that in the community
[13:19] okay so
is it so you go back to where we were so
[13:26] our potential market to capture
retail spending dollars in charles city
[13:33] county is broader than our boundaries
our neighboring communities prince
[13:39] george hopewell
even
[13:43] henrico and bordering
james city county
[13:47] we have the potential to capture
consumers who are traversing through in
[13:53] and around our communities and so not
retail strategies data but our census
[13:58] our u.s census data estimates that the
majority of our population community um
[14:04] commutes
25.6 miles um weekdays to and from work
[14:10] right and if you think about your own
shopping trends
[14:15] and what motivates you in terms of where
you go to shop
[14:19] consumers for the most part aren't
shopping they're not making a personal
[14:24] decision to i want to shop within my
locality boundaries i want to shop
[14:28] within my municipal boundaries they're
looking for an opportunity that they
[14:32] desire or they're looking for something
that's convenient and so if you think
[14:36] about your own behaviors and see if your
behaviors are like mine
[14:41] i and i don't know why i'm like this but
i'm like this
[14:45] i can't pass my house
um to go to a shopping opportunity if
[14:51] i'm on my way home it just it just
drives me crazy so i'm gonna stop
[14:56] before i get home
and it just depends on what i need
[15:02] if
if i want to do it in a hurry i'm
[15:04] looking for a small venue like
dollar general or a small neighborhood
[15:10] mart
there's a walmart
[15:13] off of
route 5 in williamsburg that i'll stop
[15:18] stop at and i keep just like miss
johnson the insulated bags in the car so
[15:22] that it won't go go bad right but i have
all of those opportunities in and around
[15:28] me
um where i live
[15:30] but i would have to pass my house to get
there right
[15:35] i love amazon
for a lot of different reasons right
[15:38] love amazon
um
[15:41] i don't like macy's for online shopping
you want to know why because it takes a
[15:45] week and a half for it to get to you
right so i'm just talking about me but
[15:50] if you think about your own behavior and
your own experiences and you multiply
[15:55] that times the number of
households and adult shoppers in this
[16:01] community and that are also traversing
in and around charles city county to to
[16:06] richmond the great richmond metropolitan
area or or the williamsburg james city
[16:11] county area we have lots of
opportunities to capture leakage that is
[16:16] coming out
dollars that are not coming in our
[16:19] community and this graphic is meant to
show
[16:24] retail strategies analysis for
what our
[16:30] market area our expanded market area is
for attracting retail vendors to charles
[16:36] city county
miranda
[16:41] so when we
look at our population we are
[16:46] right under 7
000
[16:49] persons in the county and so that number
that's reported in front of you looks
[16:54] like it's deceiving but it represents
the broader
[16:57] um
opportunities for shoppers in our
[17:01] community if we look outside of our
boundaries
[17:06] so i believe
not just charles city county but when
[17:10] you get in the roxbury road area the
closest grocery store is where
[17:18] food line on route 60.
so we have a large larger premium is
[17:24] that what you would call it what do you
call like the krogers and the
[17:28] publix the larger
brochures um you'd have parties well
[17:33] outside of the community that would come
and and shop in charles city because
[17:38] it's convenient and it represents an
opportunity that they seek and they want
[17:43] right
i shared with miss johnson earlier and
[17:46] as you know if you a numbers geek this
stuff gets real exciting to you right so
[17:51] the median household income
nationwide in 2010 was 50 000 right
[17:58] that's two a household has it's two
people so it wouldn't be called a
[18:02] household if it weren't two people
that's two people making
[18:06] 25 000 a year right
so the number that was reported for
[18:12] retail average retail annual salary was
36 to i think it's 36.238
[18:19] a household with that is an income of
above 70 000 a year
[18:24] so we potentially have access to median
household incomes of 72 000
[18:30] in our
market area that's very attractive to
[18:36] retailers in terms of what's the surplus
income that those households can spend
[18:43] for their convenience oriented retail
needs and so we we believe or we would
[18:50] not have invested in this opportunity
that it is going to
[18:54] result in some immediate returns
[19:01] you wanna
okay so miss johnson is gonna come back
[19:05] and this is we're liking this to a focus
group we want your um popcorn just
[19:10] respond like you know very um
um transparently with your answers to
[19:17] these questions about what you would
like to see in our community and we're
[19:21] not going to um
we're going to share that information
[19:25] with retail strategies untouched you
know we're not going to try to correct
[19:29] it or or add to it or take away from it
and they're going to look for trends in
[19:35] your comments
and summarize what the needs for our
[19:40] community are based on the feedback that
you provide and those are the
[19:44] opportunities that they're going to be
seeking on our behalf
[19:48] all right i want to thank you again for
your time this evening and partici your
[19:52] participation
one thing if we could go back to the
[19:56] other slide with the chart
that's taking place right now no one
[20:00] more right there so one of the things
that's being conducted
[20:05] whether you know it or not so the mobile
tracking is very very important it's not
[20:10] something that retail strategy
implemented it's already on your phone
[20:14] right and so they are tracking our
movements um so that they can see and
[20:19] basically just by zip code and it's just
any a lot of people can get this data so
[20:24] they're looking at to as to where you
live and where you shop okay so
[20:30] one of the reasons that
the
[20:33] the new dollar general on wayside road
in 106
[20:38] dollar general when they came back to
charles city county said we want to put
[20:42] another one here because the sales at
this location has superseded our
[20:48] expectation but what they found is that
individuals who lived in district 1 in
[20:52] district 2 part of district 2
did not shop here
[20:57] but they tracked the mobile numbers and
those citizens actually shopping at
[21:02] dollar general in other localities
that's not something that we do it's
[21:05] just a national thing and so that that
would that is what promoted or motivated
[21:11] dollar general to say
we want to bring another location to
[21:14] charles city and then they noticed okay
we don't have a grocery store so the
[21:20] second dollar general will have the
market component um and i'm excited that
[21:24] that's going to be the first one in
virginia of its kind okay
[21:28] so the market
[21:32] right the second one in the country new
model it's in north carolina so we're
[21:36] excited that for virginia another first
for charles city county okay
[21:41] so if we go forward this is the time now
where we want to capture your thoughts
[21:45] get your feedback don't be shy because
this is your opportunity to just say you
[21:50] know what you want your county to look
like
[21:53] what your thoughts are and we're
capturing those so that as they're
[21:57] developing all of the analysis putting
all the data together they have a full
[22:01] picture of you know what citizens are
seeing in charles city county and so i
[22:06] think at the last meeting we had about
20 24 people who attended same about
[22:10] tonight so we want to we're going to
take your answers and um actually give
[22:14] it to retail strategies so
um what sets in your opinion what sets
[22:20] our community apart from others
popcorn just pop up
[22:27] bonnie
we'll have to give you a mic
[22:34] um i feel like we're a visitor type
community also okay and probably i don't
[22:40] even know what the
what it could be but
[22:43] what what is brought in from visitors
could be almost equal to what
[22:47] the residents spend here
uh when we first opened the restaurant i
[22:51] was like we're gonna do breakfast you
know starting at seven oh i am so sorry
[22:55] go ahead
so um
[22:59] so the breakfast we did it for about a
month and no one in charles city goes
[23:03] away to eat breakfast because they're
traveling
[23:06] by half an hour to an hour to their um
their work so we'd scratch that so what
[23:13] we do is mostly i'd like to see us be a
big visitor
[23:17] type
of a retailer and we do need that dollar
[23:21] general let's help our restaurant out
100
[23:25] but so i i just think you got to take it
slowly to see
[23:30] what's different from us in other
counties
[23:32] and i feel like visitors are the biggest
thing we have i don't of course
[23:36] personally don't want to see fast food
drop through places and and
[23:41] and just to see it grow
the way it has with
[23:45] bed and breakfasts
with other restaurants
[23:50] you know with
to have shops open up in charleston to
[23:54] have i think local shops and charles
city would just be awesome
[23:59] but i think we're a visitor
county
[24:01] driven and that's what makes us
different okay i think your neighbor she
[24:05] right there
[Laughter]
[24:08] hi
um my name is jennifer um i think what
[24:11] sets charles city county apart and i am
a transplant i've only been here for
[24:15] about a year um is number one the
history obviously
[24:20] you can't touch that um but
honestly something that sets it apart is
[24:24] how untouched the county is and the fact
that there aren't these huge national
[24:30] names dotting the highway and whatnot
i don't think that needs to hold us back
[24:36] but i do think that's something that
makes us
[24:39] special
okay
[24:51] that's my man
but this is my best man and my only man
[24:57] the bill
so well it's all right with us but
[25:00] nevertheless i thank god for bill coley
in jesus name he plays a big part in me
[25:06] and my husband's life and i thank god
that we was able to visit this meeting
[25:11] but what i would like to see in charles
city
[25:14] is a laundromat many people have their
washing machines but it ain't nothing
[25:19] like
going to the large map throwing your big
[25:22] quilts or comforts in them
you know
[25:25] i just love the laundromat and we got to
go miles to get to a laundromat i would
[25:31] like to see charles city with
one or two one down the county and one
[25:36] up the county okay we up the county so i
sure would love to see a laundromat here
[25:40] in charles city okay
i went to the laundromat recently
[25:45] to do a comforter and i took like four
dollars in coins i'm like what i hadn't
[25:50] been a colander man in like 30 years i
was like oh my god i got to go to the
[25:54] atm machine to do my comforter what in
the world okay
[25:59] who else what sets charles city apart
anyone else
[26:08] thanks
so
[26:13] when you drive up route 60
toward richmond you arrive down route 60
[26:18] toward williamsburg
it's nothing but crap
[26:22] packed in everywhere
national chains the businesses selling
[26:27] all kinds of things trash everywhere
right
[26:31] we don't have that
to anything like that extent i mean i
[26:35] live on ruthville road it's trash
everywhere you know
[26:39] it's fast food junk all down the road
there
[26:42] it's bad enough now
if you start bringing in a mcdonald's or
[26:45] a hardee's or something like this
what's that going to do
[26:49] to the county i mean we're going to be
buried in trash
[26:54] and
we're going to lose
[26:57] the rural
character that has made charles city
[27:01] what it is for the last 400 years okay
[27:12] what i love about charles city is the
small town feel
[27:16] the fact that like we walk in here
tonight everybody's like hey hey how's
[27:20] your son how what you know like we all
know each other like hey hey how are you
[27:24] how are you you know
um and
[27:28] you know we do need to grow and i am
super glad that charleston is taking it
[27:33] seriously and taking it carefully
because we
[27:36] have seen what has happened to other
counties who didn't
[27:40] you know and just sort of let it happen
and it just went crazy
[27:43] um and i do
i would love to see
[27:47] like bonnie said more small businesses
more local businesses i do know that
[27:53] there's no way we're not going to have
any chains come in and i do appreciate
[27:57] what dollar general has done
and that that kind of opportunity but um
[28:03] you know i would just
love to not lose that
[28:08] you know sort of local feel and we got a
lot of talented people in this county
[28:14] yeah with all kinds of madden and just
gills and they could bring them you know
[28:19] to bear if they had the opportunity yeah
um and i don't know how to tap that
[28:24] but
i just you know i think like this is
[28:28] this is a big chance for the people here
um
[28:33] to
[28:35] to
you know make that come true for people
[28:38] that have that kind of dream right okay
all right so we're going to go to the
[28:43] next question
[Music]
[28:46] i'm sorry
so we have a couple more questions to go
[28:51] through
[28:53] let's go to the next question miranda up
so people other people can see the next
[28:57] question that's coming up while he's
giving his answer
[28:59] good evening everybody
you know you know
[29:03] i've looked at charleston is a a
beautiful place i've been living here
[29:07] for 75 years
and uh
[29:10] i think that uh the older folks
and i including the young folks i think
[29:16] we have to have activities
that i won't have to go all the way out
[29:21] of town
just to get a loaf of bread
[29:24] to vote you know i think that
everything that
[29:28] we the people that anticipated
charleston had i think is going to be a
[29:32] very big helper to the people in charles
city because we need we need playing i'm
[29:38] a very i'm a person i love to be doing
something
[29:41] and i don't want to go
to pittsburgh just to get me something
[29:44] to get but to do at home
we had to have this thing so
[29:50] the older people has hard to go
like doctors and
[29:54] whatever you know okay because
like i'm saying i'm just getting older
[29:58] right and i don't want to move around
like when i was young when i was young i
[30:01] wanted to get on that
but now i want to stay in town
[30:05] okay so while you have the microphone um
so the next question is which
[30:09] communities do you leave charles city to
go get goods and services so where do
[30:13] you primarily shop like for groceries
[30:18] say that again i know what i'm saying
what's what communities do you go to to
[30:22] shop primarily like for groceries do you
go to hopewell or richmond
[30:26] williamsburg or we go to we go to
hopewell and sometimes we go to the
[30:30] restaurant okay i don't go i don't visit
william bear too much okay but uh we go
[30:35] to hope we're enriching
hannah rocco okay places like that you
[30:39] know okay and we can just pop that out
what about other people's where do you
[30:43] go to shop
[30:47] yeah i go to williamsburg i go to james
city county i go all the way to newport
[30:50] news for costco um that is please don't
put a costco here even though i'd love
[30:55] that but
[30:58] all right well so the surrounding
counties just like you know most of us
[31:01] do and when you go if you're going to go
to the doctor's appointment you guys
[31:05] like okay i'm here let me grab something
on the way back like rhonda said if i'm
[31:09] in town already next question
what category of retail businesses would
[31:14] you like to see in charles city so you
have
[31:18] fast food you have grocery
you have of course apparel what
[31:24] categories would you primer like to see
here in charles city county
[31:29] pharmacy
[31:37] specialty shops boutique type shops
[31:45] okay
[31:56] okay so i think we've heard that a
couple of times tonight just specialty
[32:00] unique boutiques and when we did its
economic development study back in 2015
[32:04] that was that model show that you know
williamsburg is where you go to see
[32:08] history you should come here and
experience it and create entrepreneurial
[32:11] opportunities
pharmacies
[32:14] and another any other areas of retail
grocery
[32:21] definitely grocery miss
[32:27] not jones expand it so big
but at least the whole 50 to 70 people
[32:32] still are going to mcb hospital
you know
[32:36] that would be nice because when i went
to hospital in june
[32:40] it took me up to um
where did it take me baby
[32:44] took me up on 60. okay
they had to go to m's then i had to go
[32:49] to mcv so urgent care urgent care okay
all right anything else
[32:56] next question miranda
what brands would be successful in this
[33:01] market
we all shop at different brands i think
[33:05] i need to buy some chick-fil-a stock
myself but
[33:09] i know what brands did you all think
would be successful here we've heard the
[33:14] specialty shop but so we have some
national brands that have approached us
[33:19] but in your opinion what brands do you
think would be great for this community
[33:29] just for retail
[33:32] or grocery any of the categories
aldi
[33:36] one of my favorites
uh aldi will be really good the price
[33:40] point for aldi is great
[33:44] lidl
two brothers yeah
[33:49] anything else any other brand national
brands that you guys can think of
[33:55] okay
so what are our biggest challenges in
[33:59] charles city um if you had to guess if
we have you know challenges what what
[34:04] would you say our challenges are here
[34:13] infrastructure
lack of broadband we are remedying that
[34:17] problem
we are almost there we find out december
[34:21] 8th rhonda
we
[34:24] december we can't wait
the county just wrote another 12 million
[34:27] dollar grants and some bring every
household so we're waiting to hear from
[34:32] that we're going to
get them the microphone
[34:37] i think i think communication is much
better than it's been in past years um i
[34:43] personally miss the virtual meetings
because i think it makes it so much more
[34:48] accessible for working
folks within the community to stay
[34:53] connected i think communication is still
a challenge for us as a community
[34:59] you guys do good work and letting us
know
[35:02] that there are things but it's just such
a big gap
[35:06] facebook is there but if a lot of people
aren't on facebook
[35:11] so connecting our community we've got a
lot of diversity we've got a lot of
[35:17] gaps in age
of population
[35:21] and we just need to do a little bit
better job in getting the word out
[35:26] timely so people can get excited and
engaged in the things that we need to do
[35:32] to grow our tax base a good point and we
are working on the virtual component
[35:37] back to virtual we've been testing now
for two months it's gone great we don't
[35:41] want to deploy it until we make sure we
have any glitches and so hopefully the
[35:44] first of the year we'll be back because
it would hate we would hate to launch it
[35:49] and it just fails again so we're looking
to that biggest challenges in charles
[35:53] city
i would like to
[35:56] ask that question again but the december
event is going to take up like the money
[36:02] or something because when when they had
um
[36:06] i just had found out about you could go
to the
[36:09] down here and they would pay your light
bill
[36:12] they answered they would give you so
much money towards your life or whatever
[36:16] but when i came down here
they said we're totally out sorry
[36:21] right
it wasn't no help like
[36:24] i had heard and i didn't get no help at
all
[36:28] yeah that would be a social services i'm
not sure how they market that but i can
[36:32] talk with the director for the energy
share program through dominion
[36:36] oh i just think one of our retail
challenges is um just the space of you
[36:42] know the general
area that the county
[36:45] contains uh you know obviously the
people on the eastern side head to
[36:49] williamsburg for everything the people
on the western side are always going to
[36:52] enrico so so
i think that is going to be a challenge
[36:55] that we need to overcome in centralizing
kind of our kind of economic corridor
[37:00] okay
any other challenges
[37:03] yes
[37:07] maybe this is lack of knowledge on my
part but i i think um law enforcement
[37:13] and response times could
as we bring more retail to the community
[37:20] there's more potential for traffic
incidents and or
[37:26] crime incidents and and i live on route
5 which is a major corridor and there
[37:31] was an accident on route 5 a few weeks
ago in front of our house and we were
[37:35] there
15 minutes probably
[37:39] before the rescue squad arrived and
that's pretty significant when they
[37:44] could have been on another call
however
[37:48] their couple miles down the road and the
state police beat our local law
[37:53] enforcement to the accident again
understanding staffing can impact those
[37:58] things it was an evening
of eight o'clockish accident on a sunday
[38:02] night
but i think those things are
[38:06] it takes money
but it's something as we grow we have to
[38:10] keep up with the pacing to make sure
that we have that infrastructure in
[38:15] place
i totally agree i think
[38:18] we've done a much better job since we
have paid fire ems we have two of our
[38:22] ems folks here tonight and we're
thankful for them we've reduced our
[38:25] response time down from about 18 to 23
minutes to about 11 to 14 minutes and i
[38:32] can assure you if they weren't at the
call
[38:34] quickly they were out on another call
because we have to
[38:39] yeah and mr fleming will respond to that
and i think that you know we're getting
[38:44] ready we've gotten purchased some new
apparatuses so we're getting there so i
[38:48] think
calling 9-1-1 and having someone come to
[38:51] your house 11 minutes versus 23 minutes
we're getting there
[38:55] so
one of the biggest challenges that we
[38:58] face here in the county is that
the paid staff
[39:04] operates out of wilcox neck
so that's five miles
[39:08] shy of the chickahominy river
so it takes us
[39:12] 10 minutes to get from the firehouse to
here
[39:16] so if we're heading west that's
additional time and we're on curvy roads
[39:21] and we're driving
large pieces of apparatus there is a
[39:24] volunteer station on atkins road has
been there for many years
[39:28] but it's not staffed they kind of show
up when they show up i get it
[39:32] they have jobs families obligations we
are currently in the process of building
[39:39] a new station on
roxbury road
[39:42] we'll fully staff that station and i
think things will get better yeah
[39:48] so we have the the roxbury road we are
negotiating the final stage of the
[39:53] contract hopefully they break ground
sometime in january but that station
[39:57] will be open in the fall or the fourth
quarter of 2022 we are renovating the
[40:04] old high school bus garage behind the
old high school in ruthville so we'll
[40:08] have staffing there so we're trying to
bridge that gap so but we're getting
[40:12] there
all right
[40:16] is there anything else you'd like us to
know about charles city or anything else
[40:20] that you would like to see we've heard
you know small boutique retailers we've
[40:25] heard grocery laundry mats what else
would you like to know like us to know
[40:30] about charles city and what you
would like to see
[40:39] i think i'd like to see um you know
obviously the things we're talking about
[40:43] tonight in terms of economic development
um
[40:46] are kind of years down the road in
theory um so in the meantime i think i'd
[40:51] like to see
pop-ups and community-supported events
[40:54] where we bring you know whether it's
festivals or things like that where you
[40:57] can bring these boutique reels to like
you know local artisans and whatever um
[41:02] things that are supported community-wide
rather than just i know peace hill for
[41:06] example had one this past weekend things
that are are supported locally and um
[41:11] you know maybe not having them be done
by an independent person maybe them put
[41:16] on by the county i think that would be a
way to start getting people to know
[41:20] about charles city and and put us on the
map before these big things you know
[41:24] happen yeah
that would be great it's um is the town
[41:29] center i mean the um what was it going
to be called there at the courthouse
[41:33] green area that development is that
totally
[41:36] out of the question now the courthouse
area plan yes yeah no that's what we're
[41:41] working on i'm going to touch on that a
little bit later great okay
[41:45] what else would you like for us to know
what else would you like to see here in
[41:48] the community
because as we're reporting back to
[41:52] retail strategies and the board is
continuously developing strategy we want
[41:56] to make sure we capture as many
as much feedback as possible
[42:01] i would like to see i've been a resident
of charles city
[42:05] too for
x amount of years
[42:09] [Laughter]
but nevertheless
[42:12] i thank god for the coal that i got this
morning
[42:16] to come to this meeting
because most of the time we don't know
[42:21] nothing that's happening in charles city
and if you don't come to the meeting
[42:25] you're losing out more than losing in
so if we know more about it like send
[42:31] flyers out in the mailbox or whatever
whatever
[42:35] get the word of morse is
more sufficient
[42:40] than if i hadn't answered my phone this
morning i'd don't miss this meeting okay
[42:44] but i think if if we are anxious about
charles city getting this and that
[42:50] it should be more people out to support
the meetings
[42:55] okay more communication
so we do have the alert system so there
[43:01] are four streams of communication that
we get out we advertise in the chronicle
[43:07] okay
we send out text alerts or it will call
[43:11] your phone number that you designate to
get a we call them robocalls on your
[43:15] home phone or your cell phone text
messages
[43:18] we put it out on social media on
facebook and we also put it on the
[43:22] county's website we would like to
um and we also will email that
[43:28] that robocall does whatever you sign up
for text message email
[43:33] um and voicemail right
um we
[43:38] would like to send out notifications to
every household for everything but it's
[43:43] so expensive and you know we don't want
to take taxpayer dollars and spend four
[43:47] thousand dollars every time we have
something um so we are working on other
[43:52] communications within each district to
get the communication out faster and
[43:56] better but right now those are the four
main areas the four main ways that we we
[44:01] communicate so we appreciate whoever
calls you we appreciate them
[44:07] what else would you like for us to know
[44:20] notices that will come out things we
sometimes get notice of the meetings
[44:25] a couple of hours before they happen
right and so i really appreciate the
[44:29] fact that we got notified of this one on
friday okay
[44:32] good job good job
anything else that you would like us to
[44:37] know
and i'm excited to see that we have some
[44:41] eda economic development authority
members here tonight because they're
[44:45] partnering with the county to help us
bring economic
[44:49] so they're getting to hear
exactly what the board of supervisors is
[44:53] hearing
all right so
[44:56] uh following this meeting in the
previous meeting we're going to take all
[45:00] of the notes send it back to retail
strategies and sometime
[45:05] in december we will have the final
report of what they what they recommend
[45:10] what retailers will fit based on all of
the analysis and then we'll develop a
[45:15] plan to move forward like i said retail
strategies will go to those entities and
[45:21] advocate for charles city but a part of
this project
[45:25] staff
and our economic development authority
[45:28] members will also get go through retail
strategies academy
[45:32] to learn how to approach you know a
chick-fil-a or you know whatever entity
[45:38] we want on our own behalf once they go
away so the goal is for us to learn as
[45:43] much as possible and advocate it's very
important when you look at the
[45:47] demographics that they expand because
they looked at um
[45:53] jordan on the james so for those
individuals to get to a grocery store it
[45:57] takes them about 19 minutes you know you
don't realize that and even with the
[46:02] dollar general market that was one of
the things it takes them about eight
[46:05] minutes to get there so that's going to
help our numbers here in charleston when
[46:09] we have neighboring communities that
large you know right next door
[46:15] any questions for us
while she's queuing up the next
[46:19] um presentation
[46:23] any questions mr coda will be able to
answer them all
[46:29] right there you can start right there
[46:36] one moment the microphone is headed your
[46:40] way she's right behind you
you can come up at the end
[46:45] i hate this microphone
[46:49] the courthouse area plan that mrs
johnson is getting ready to
[46:54] show you um
i disagree with a hundred percent
[46:58] but i want to tell you why
um i said that because there's one
[47:04] beautiful thing that's happening here in
charles city and that's called a balance
[47:08] and it's a balance of ms johnson me the
board members and we all have our ideas
[47:14] and what we want to see charles city go
i'm a
[47:18] dollar and sense person
ms johnson
[47:22] she is a constituent person
and it makes for a good balance because
[47:27] she wants the courthouse area plan and
all for the you know like the farmer's
[47:32] market that she put together her and her
staff dr russell
[47:37] and this lady back here mentioned
festivals
[47:40] um and and whatnot the problem with
with festivals and bike races and
[47:46] farmers market is they don't generate a
lot of income
[47:49] income for the county
and
[47:52] years ago
we signed on with waste management
[47:55] because it was the only thing we had
at the time
[48:00] and it enabled us to lower the tax rates
on your property in charles city because
[48:04] charles city had the second highest tax
rate in the state of virginia
[48:10] only behind fairfax
so imagine that you're living out here
[48:15] in the country with the second highest
real estate tax rate in the entire state
[48:19] only behind fairfax
the problem with having all your eggs in
[48:23] one basket happened to us in 2014
and if you recall what happened then
[48:29] in the middle of a budget year waste
management came in and said
[48:33] we're not going to be able to give you a
million and a half of those dollars
[48:37] well that was catastrophic because that
happened
[48:41] midterm mid-budget year
so
[48:45] we've been talking and i've been
hammering ever since i've been on this
[48:48] board
my colleagues agree 100
[48:51] ms johnson agreed that we have to do
something
[48:55] in order
to not have all of our eggs in one
[48:58] basket
i it is my vision my my vision and the
[49:03] boards also
to develop 106
[49:07] because if you go 5 000 feet and look
down at trial city it's the only place
[49:11] to do it
155 is already filled up with houses
[49:15] route 5
you don't want to you don't want to
[49:18] diminish the historic of route 5.
106 actually connects interstate 85 95
[49:23] and 64 together
and if you see all the food line trucks
[49:27] running down it's because they're at the
other end out there and they shoot
[49:31] across 106 to get
all out to this end of the end of the
[49:34] state
but
[49:37] we're talking about the other
communities that we go to shop
[49:40] and let me tell you how that hurts
charles city
[49:43] when you go to williamsburg hopewell new
kent
[49:47] and you shop you pay your sales tax
there
[49:50] and we get nothing
because out of that six percent which is
[49:55] now six percent has been an increase
we get almost two percent of that
[49:59] and to tell you
how
[50:02] how that plays in one year
we ended up with
[50:06] 330 some thousand extra dollars
and we couldn't figure out where it came
[50:10] from so we're scrambling trying to
figure out where this extra 330 000 came
[50:13] from it was from sales tax
because dominion when the dominion that
[50:18] did the big upgrade to their thing so
it's critical that we collect those
[50:21] dollars
from those millennials that's spending
[50:24] all that money and and they're not going
to spend it in charles city unless we do
[50:28] something
and i've talked enough
[50:32] yeah and
you know since dollar general has been
[50:34] here i mean it's not an astronomical
amount but we see more sales tax i think
[50:39] this year
we exceeded a million dollars in sales
[50:43] tax where we budgeted based on trends
about 800 and about 774 000 between 774
[50:52] and 882 is what we budgeted when we
finished june 30 we had collected over a
[50:56] million dollars in sales tax so that
goes to show you when those retailers
[51:00] come
that sales tax is what drives us is what
[51:04] helps us to fund schools what else helps
us to fund other projects and so we
[51:09] that's one of the reasons you can
actually
[51:12] capitalize you know financially on those
retailers being here
[51:17] one of the reasons you know the
courthouse area plan mr colt and i we
[51:21] respectfully agree to disagree on this
but economic development you have
[51:26] industrial you have retail but you also
have tourism
[51:31] our neighbors in henrico
clear about eight million dollars in
[51:35] sports or recreational tourism so those
softball leagues those baseball league
[51:40] soccer that comes eight million dollars
between hotel restaurants and other
[51:45] entities that's what they bring in and
they don't do anything for it we have
[51:51] something that no other locality has
around us and that is the golden road
[51:55] called the virginia capital trail in
2020 1.2 million people
[52:02] rode that trail 337
000 of them were in charles city okay
[52:09] just imagine if we got one dollar from
every rider on the trail we probably
[52:13] should just put out a
bucket or something like drop your
[52:17] dollars you're passing by right
but i know
[52:21] bonnie you've seen the uptick in in
services for the capitol trail
[52:27] tripled right and so the courthouse area
plan for us is very important because
[52:32] like mr coda said we don't want to
compromise the rural character okay i
[52:37] mean i'm born and raised here i love
this place right so we want route 5 to
[52:41] still be beautiful to ride down and see
the canopy is amazing but we want
[52:46] industry on 106. we want to develop the
courthouse area plan we want district 3
[52:51] to focus on our recreational
opportunities the beautiful rivers down
[52:55] there and then
that's all that this board has vision
[52:59] the next board next county administrator
we don't know what they're going to do
[53:03] okay
so the courthouse area plan is our
[53:06] economic tourism um engine okay
and so what the board of supervisors has
[53:12] agreed to do and allowed dr russell and
i to do is purchase property around the
[53:17] courthouse area so dr russell presented
the courthouse area plan the board of
[53:22] supervisors adopted it in 2020
and so the area that you see in purple
[53:28] it's a little faint
but that is our courthouse area so right
[53:32] beyond um the schools right in front of
vdot and up to this building that is the
[53:38] entire courthouse area plan okay
and so
[53:42] the nfb site is what we already own um
however the county has leased that to a
[53:48] private developer and we'll show you
some renderings in a minute um
[53:53] the two parcels to the right is that 40
58 and 40 59.
[53:59] the county actually um we're purchasing
that i don't know if you all seen the
[54:04] activity the gas tanks were being
removed this week but the county
[54:08] purchased those
two parcels for about 11 point something
[54:13] acres
and so that's going to help
[54:16] bridge the gap for this courthouse area
plan
[54:20] along route 155 next slide the county
has purchased these three parcels so
[54:27] dollar general is not on this map but
right in the wooded area in front of the
[54:31] elementary school is dollar general so
the county has purchased all three
[54:35] parcels here that we are looking to
bring affordable housing okay
[54:41] and retail that was a you know
it's a compromise if i come to the board
[54:47] with the idea then they tell well you
can have this but you got to do this so
[54:50] we want um
retail for the general community and
[54:55] the potential homeowners as well as a
walkable community because you have the
[55:01] bike trail that they can walk to dollar
general up to the courthouse
[55:06] complex
and so
[55:08] one of the newer establishment is milk
and honey brewery that we've leased the
[55:13] neighborhood facility building to
and then the next slide will show you
[55:17] the rendering of what that will look
like okay so this will bring
[55:22] a brewery which will be brewed on site a
cafe
[55:26] outdoor area and one of the things
that's so unique about this the beer
[55:31] will not only be brewed but it will be a
canning operation and there will be a
[55:36] lab
that they have worked uh negotiated with
[55:39] virginia tech and virginia state to
create a certification for our students
[55:45] so once the students go to that program
they can work at any lab in america okay
[55:51] and so this just shows you a little
conference area um a small cafe and then
[55:56] the brewery and the in the rear of the
building and so our vision is that this
[56:02] entire complex will be a walkable
downtown charles city
[56:07] i think the more that we bring the more
people that will stop here we see on
[56:11] saturdays the courthouse area this park
line is filled with cyclists and so we
[56:16] want to
capitalize on that and gain
[56:20] some of their sales tax right because
the great thing about tourism they come
[56:25] in they experience your county and they
leave we don't have to educate them you
[56:30] know hopefully i know firing ems they
seem to pick up one 80 year old man off
[56:34] the bike trail who's falling at least a
week or somebody breaks their arm you
[56:38] see the 911 calls like why would i mean
he's 96 why is he on a bicycle anyway
[56:43] right
but they come in they spend their money
[56:46] at coals and other places and we want to
make sure that this area is like a
[56:51] downtown charles city or a hub because
this is the center
[56:55] of the capital trail it's 51 miles
charles city has 27 of those miles and
[57:01] this is the center of the virginia
capital trail
[57:04] and so we um i think that's that's all
for this so we are looking to develop
[57:10] this area
to help it make sense and to gain you
[57:15] know that tourism component bringing the
boutique shops
[57:18] we are going to be working with some
design team once the analysis comes back
[57:24] from retail strategies on what this
would look like for the entire corridor
[57:29] we have applied for housing grants
for the affordable housing projects we
[57:36] have two that we are applying for
looking at over close to three hundred
[57:40] thousand dollars to help with that
project and what's great about it that
[57:44] project is gonna score really high with
virginia housing because it's walkable
[57:49] to the schools
so if that brings you know
[57:53] um parents single parent families or
just families with children that can now
[57:58] walk to school which is you know scores
really high on
[58:02] their process and so we're excited um to
continue to move
[58:09] this area forward like stated earlier we
are building the fire station and a 5
[58:14] acre parcel on 106
the solar panels which you will not be
[58:19] able to see
we are also purchasing 47 acres on 106
[58:24] and that's the area we think
where retail should go but we'll wait
[58:29] for this analysis to come back because
we can just spin off of that development
[58:35] area um looking to bring water and sewer
down 106 for other industry in the
[58:41] roxbury industrial area and that is our
vision now after us again we don't know
[58:48] what the next board of supervisors the
next county administrator will bring but
[58:51] that's where we think
what is best for the community
[58:54] questions
[59:02] yes moving in
12 13 years ago and using the money i
[59:08] had from my retirement to open that
business
[59:12] um it's hard to compete against
a county that's also
[59:18] using money
to have competing
[59:21] um businesses and that's the part i
don't i mean i'm glad i hope this all
[59:25] works good but so the county has pretty
much done this correct yes and competing
[59:31] against a small woman-owned business
well we're not competing against a small
[59:35] woman on business we're looking to
strengthen the small woman business
[59:39] because statistics show that the more
development you bring the more
[59:44] opportunities because now they have more
than one option in the area the area
[59:49] that's down on route 5 that's where
we're looking to do the retail
[59:52] development with specialty shops on
route 5. but this is the old social
[59:57] services building correct
which is almost across straight from us
[1:00:01] correct okay um so different model but
you know the more that we can provide to
[1:00:07] uh you know what they retail strategy
especially has told us that it'll bring
[1:00:11] more people that are looking for other
options
[1:00:14] yes
when um can we expect to see any changes
[1:00:19] or anything done
so the
[1:00:23] neighborhood facility building they are
submitting their permits actually this
[1:00:27] week okay so it's already been gutted um
so you will see they're looking to open
[1:00:32] the brewery and spring of 2022
okay the the fire department again will
[1:00:38] break ground probably in january
and will be completed in december of
[1:00:43] 2022 as far as the other development we
have to wait for this analysis to come
[1:00:48] back to tell us
[1:00:51] december
[1:00:55] so you had mentioned another county had
made a lot of money off of um
[1:01:00] like outdoor sport things
um has there been any
[1:01:05] thought of maybe attracting somebody
like james river outfitters
[1:01:10] to do
like their kayaking business or
[1:01:13] something like that out of charles city
since we are
[1:01:16] right on the james river
and i mean we don't have you know big
[1:01:20] exciting rapids but we got a really
beautiful river and
[1:01:24] um
you know i know the
[1:01:26] [Music]
there's like a non-profit organization
[1:01:30] that does things that they took the kids
from the high school out and did like a
[1:01:34] really cool ecology thing but maybe
james river yeah maybe there would be
[1:01:38] you know some some tourist dollars we
could get from something like that i
[1:01:42] don't i don't know this is just like i
do
[1:01:46] yeah so we are in when is that meeting
chiron is it december with the tourism
[1:01:52] so tourism
entities we're all coming together to
[1:01:56] just put together a brainstorming
session for just tourism for all of our
[1:02:01] entities
so this is a time where money is just
[1:02:04] flowing from the federal government more
than we ever have seen and more we
[1:02:08] probably will ever see
and so there is the american rescue plan
[1:02:13] act funding that
we're going to get here in charles city
[1:02:16] county and so we're going to use that to
we have to use it for like marketing and
[1:02:22] different development but we are looking
to enhance our tourism part the only
[1:02:28] problem that we have as a county we
don't have riverfront property we have
[1:02:32] lawrence lewis park but a lot of the
entities especially the kayaking area is
[1:02:38] owned by private entities so
gary mitchell in community development
[1:02:43] came up with a good idea game
the wildlife area has over 4 000 acres
[1:02:49] so we're going to put together a plan to
approach our legislators about making
[1:02:54] that a state park because that wouldn't
be any county dollars it's you know
[1:02:59] wildlife management area and it could be
another opportunity because there's
[1:03:04] really no state parks within our region
that size so
[1:03:08] that's something that we're going to
explore as well but everything just
[1:03:11] takes time
yes
[1:03:15] any updates on when the breeze in on
sandy point or route 5 may open
[1:03:19] so they were looking to open july 4th
and then they ran into
[1:03:24] some
well and septic issues with vdh so now
[1:03:29] they're looking to open early
[1:03:33] in november yeah so they the the store
has really been outfitted so they're
[1:03:37] excited to be here so sometime this
month or first part of next month
[1:03:43] uh this um is just directly about the
last statement about um making the
[1:03:49] uh cwma a state park
is there any um
[1:03:54] way i can get further information about
that since i live
[1:03:57] in there so that is definitely talk
later idea hot off the press
[1:04:03] that's just like we had a brainstorming
session and we were like wait maybe we
[1:04:07] could do that so that's once we move
further along we'll engage district
[1:04:11] three but so that's the idea hot off the
price cool thank you
[1:04:16] yes
i think miss jones and then pat
[1:04:19] why is it
my husband
[1:04:23] has put in about six different
applications for down at the river
[1:04:28] to
work because he's a good cleanup man
[1:04:32] and he knows
about
[1:04:35] what happened to the bridge or whatever
before and all that good stuff
[1:04:39] it was repaired
but i wonder why he was never called and
[1:04:44] some of the others that we've seen there
because we go down the river anytime to
[1:04:48] fish
in the winter time or summertime
[1:04:51] but my husband he even fished in deep
snow down the river but
[1:04:57] i wonder why he was never called to give
a chance to work down the river
[1:05:03] you know to clean up
um so that's something that can talk
[1:05:06] offline i'm not really sure i would have
to talk with recreation but we can talk
[1:05:10] offline on that on that topic
[1:05:14] this isn't really an economic
development question but just a maybe a
[1:05:18] safety question in the community are
there more parking opportunities that
[1:05:23] are being developed for the people that
take
[1:05:27] advantage of the bike trail i know they
can use the county complex
[1:05:32] i've seen people parking sometimes
trespassing on private property
[1:05:39] parking on the bike trail itself at the
historic markers different places
[1:05:44] and i think people are just trying to
get out here and enjoy the bike path but
[1:05:49] it can create
safety
[1:05:52] safety issues and we've personally have
had some trouble with trespassing but
[1:05:56] just more in general i'd like to
know if there's any ability i know it's
[1:06:02] private property maybe trying to find
places for parking yeah i'll be honest
[1:06:06] it's not something that we have explored
but that doesn't mean staff is taking
[1:06:10] notes tonight that we can't i know
breesen will have some opportunity
[1:06:15] and they're looking to acquire more
property to expand another operation so
[1:06:19] it may be something in the future
but i know it's especially on the
[1:06:23] eastern end because they have herron
creek they have the courthouse area in
[1:06:26] this end but i've seen that on the on
the eastern end
[1:06:30] just in the like the little cuts so
we
[1:06:35] the
yeah the board and i we have not
[1:06:37] explored it again because we don't own
property so it's kind of it's harder to
[1:06:41] do development on property you don't own
right
[1:06:45] so that's something we can we can
explore
[1:06:48] i was also just gonna ask off that um so
if you're gonna put a brewery right
[1:06:52] there same thing are you gonna account
for people parking for long periods of
[1:06:56] time there and if not can we put it on
the radar
[1:07:00] for this development i think you know
[1:07:06] maybe so
we'll we'll explore that further
[1:07:13] anything else
[1:07:19] absolutely
[1:07:25] um
i would like for people to
[1:07:28] shout out answers on this one
how much do you think it takes to run
[1:07:32] the county and the schools for one week
in charles city
[1:07:36] hang on
how much
[1:07:40] how many 100 000
anybody else
[1:07:46] 100 and what
150 000 to operate the schools and the
[1:07:51] county for one week what does it take
[1:07:56] i haven't run the numbers on the new
budget
[1:07:59] but as before july was 436 000 a week
that's what it takes to run the schools
[1:08:06] now there's some federal state money in
that but that's why the board is
[1:08:10] really adamant about bringing in
economic development charles city
[1:08:15] we have to
and and i've said it for years and years
[1:08:18] and michelle's tired of hearing me say
it if we don't we're going to down the
[1:08:21] vine
[1:08:26] all right
i i do believe that it only takes an
[1:08:29] hour to have power and so
um or if there are not any other
[1:08:33] comments mr chairman do you have
anything you would like to address the
[1:08:38] audience we have a microphone for you
behind you
[1:08:41] we all have to use a microphone
[1:08:47] first i'd like to say good evening to
everyone and i commend the account
[1:08:51] administrator
and our assistant can administrator for
[1:08:55] making a great presentation and i think
we need more of this and i hope you all
[1:09:00] continue to do this on the count of the
citizens and i would like to thank the
[1:09:03] citizens for coming out this evening to
have the input we can always agree to
[1:09:08] disagree but still
we want to hear what you have to say
[1:09:12] it's very important that you come out
and address these issues
[1:09:17] and a whole lot of people i would call
them
[1:09:20] parking lot meetings
and you know that doesn't count i mean
[1:09:24] you come to us we don't we don't have to
disagree
[1:09:28] but we can work out these issues and you
know i commend all y'all for coming out
[1:09:33] this evening and i hope that uh
see you all shortly i know miss johnson
[1:09:37] and dr russell scheduled another meeting
they just beat us to death
[1:09:42] but thanks everyone for coming out this
evening
[1:09:45] we appreciate all of you um our doors
are always open via email phone calls i
[1:09:51] know we get you know several emails you
have a question and i try to get back to
[1:09:55] you within the week everything takes
time right you know some of these ideas
[1:09:59] have been going on now for three years
you know
[1:10:02] and we want it to happen expeditiously
but it just that we're in government in
[1:10:07] corporate we can make things happen
right but here it's a process we have to
[1:10:12] get public input but we are excited with
the direction that we're going we feel
[1:10:17] the board and administration that we're
going we're being very smart about it um
[1:10:22] and so we appreciate all of you if you
have any other questions you know we're
[1:10:26] going to hang around for a second
but please come out you know the next
[1:10:30] board of supervisors meeting is the
23
[1:10:35] tuesday before thanksgiving um so please
come out we have our christmas parade
[1:10:40] coming up on the 11th we put out a poll
on facebook about ice skating ring and
[1:10:45] we had several people about 85 people to
say yes so we'll have ice skating mr
[1:10:50] coat is going to get on some skates
y'all
[1:10:55] and
so
[1:10:58] we had 129 responses we had 37 no
and the rest were yeses
[1:11:06] well we're going to try one day and to
make sure we have the participation
[1:11:09] before we make the investment so our
grand illumination is december
[1:11:15] 5th
and so we're going to do a drive through
[1:11:18] on this area
and so we're going to light up the
[1:11:21] downtown we have some treats for
everybody who drives through we got some
[1:11:24] special things we're going to be giving
away so you stay in your car you enjoy
[1:11:28] the lights and you just drive out so
we're excited to do that on december 5th
[1:11:32] at 5 00. so
a lot of things that are going on parks
[1:11:36] and recreation is doing a lot you know i
see a lot of their events are now sold
[1:11:41] out and so we're excited to just
continue to offer great programming to
[1:11:45] you guys but we do appreciate you we
want to say thank you for coming out um
[1:11:50] and if you have any questions just let
us know enjoy the rest of your evening