Agenda
Transcript
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[0:42]
>> We will move on to the consent agenda.
[0:44]
We have a live agenda tonight.
[0:46]
The only item on the agenda is the town Council minutes from
[0:49]
August 11th, 2026, which will be approving.
[0:55]
What is Council's pleasure on the agenda?
[0:58]
>> I move approval on the consent agenda.
[1:00]
>> Second.
[1:01]
>> We have a motion and a second.
[1:03]
Would the clerk please call the roll?
[1:07]
[members voting]
[1:10]
>> The motion passes.
[1:12]
We will move on to public hearings
[1:13]
but we have no public hearings tonight.
[1:15]
So then we will move on to citizen comments.
[1:17]
During this section of the meeting,
[1:19]
please come up to the podium state your name
[1:21]
and address, and direct your comments
[1:23]
to Town Council with a maximum speaking time of three minutes.
[1:27]
This is the section of the agenda where anyone can speak
[1:30]
about any topic of interest.
[1:32]
We are now in citizen comments.
[1:34]
Would anyone like to speak?
[1:53]
>> Good evening.
[1:54]
My name is MacK Hollins.
[1:55]
Address?
[1:56]
Just come here to see how the meeting goes.
[1:59]
Don't see anybody saying anything.
[2:01]
So just seeing how things are going and about
[2:04]
if I want to make a petition to the town,
[2:09]
how would I go about doing such a thing?
[2:11]
I guess this is not a question and answer thing.
[2:16]
>> I'd be happy to talk to you after the meeting.
[2:20]
>> Thank you.
[2:20]
Thank you for your time.
[2:21]
>> Thank you.
[2:22]
Anyone else?
[2:23]
We are still in citizen comments.
[2:29]
Seeing none, we will go ahead and close citizen comments.
[2:32]
I will move on to appointments.
[2:33]
We have one appointment tonight.
[2:34]
This is appointment of Brad Saint Clair
[2:36]
as a jointly appointed board member To the River Valley
[2:43]
communications Authority.
[2:44]
This is a joint appointment with the Blacksburg Christian Port
[2:49]
and Virginia Tech are all in involved
[2:50]
in making this appointment.
[2:52]
Saint Clair comes recommended by the authority Board as well.
[2:56]
This is to fill the remainder of a term
[2:58]
by the current at large member retired Chief Catherine Foust.
[3:03]
Brad Saint Clair is a retired from a leadership
[3:05]
role with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office
[3:07]
and served as an interim director
[3:09]
of the authority before the current director
[3:11]
assumed the role.
[3:13]
So he comes well qualified.
[3:15]
What is Council's pleasure on this appointment?
[3:17]
>> I move approval appointment of Brad Saint Clair
[3:23]
to the jointly appointed-- to be the jointly appointed board
[3:28]
member.
[3:29]
>> We have a motion and a second.
[3:29]
Any discussion?
[3:29]
Seeing none with the clerk please call the roll?
[3:39]
[members voting]
[3:40]
>> The motion passes.
[3:41]
We'll move on to unfinished business.
[3:41]
Is there any unfinished business tonight?
[3:41]
New business any new business?
[3:44]
Now we move on to council reports.
[3:46]
For those who have been following town council meeting
[3:48]
we have not had a council report section.
[3:51]
Although we had it many years ago.
[3:52]
We have decided to bring it back.
[3:54]
This is an opportunity for council members
[3:55]
to share what they are working on,
[3:57]
especially committee appointments
[3:59]
or other initiatives that you might follow with.
[4:01]
If anyone would like to share any council now
[4:03]
would be the >> I attended the Economic Development
[4:15]
Commission last week.
[4:16]
We meet monthly.
[4:16]
And we had the report of the Montgomery County
[4:16]
Fire and Rescue.
[4:16]
So I'm looking forward to when we get that at council as well.
[4:20]
It was really well done.
[4:21]
>> Excellent.
[4:32]
>> I have been attending the stormwater advisory group.
[4:36]
And we have been hearing from other municipalities
[4:38]
about how they're handling stormwater utilities.
[4:38]
We have been learning a lot about how the town has managed
[4:40]
these stormwater utility to date, capital projects that
[4:49]
are completed in capital projects that
[4:50]
need to be performed to maintain compliance with the MS4 permit
[5:01]
that the town holds.
[5:02]
We meet every two weeks and continue
[5:02]
to do so through December.
[5:02]
We will be reevaluating the stormwater fee structure
[5:04]
as the committee moves forward.
[5:06]
>> I have a report.
[5:14]
It is from the Parks and Rec Advisory Board.
[5:17]
Have been diligently working through several drafts
[5:19]
of a survey going out in September.
[5:19]
This survey is designed the community's feedback
[5:19]
on the investment the town is making
[5:21]
and some of our athletic facilities at the Winfrey
[5:24]
and Kip baseball fields and at the old Blacksburg High School
[5:27]
track and field.
[5:28]
The survey designed to help guide the town's priorities
[5:30]
on which upgrades to make and where.
[5:32]
Please keep an eye out and an era
[5:34]
for when the survey goes live in September.
[5:36]
>> I have got one as well.
[5:51]
I'm currently chair of the new River Valley Regional
[5:53]
Commission.
[5:53]
We have an up meeting this Thursday, August 27th.
[6:00]
One section that I think is really interesting
[6:02]
every month is a review of mutual concerns and commission
[6:02]
reports where we share what is going on in our communities.
[6:02]
The regional can for you all out there has
[6:02]
in it Floyd County, Pulaski County, Montgomery County,
[6:05]
the city of Radford.
[6:07]
And every single town in those counties.
[6:09]
And so all of us get a chance to talk to each other about what
[6:12]
is going on in our community.
[6:15]
Sometimes you get good pointers and sometimes commiserate.
[6:18]
But that is a really wonderful spot on that agenda.
[6:21]
This upcoming meeting we're going to have our bylaws update.
[6:24]
We are also gone a model artificial intelligence or AI
[6:30]
use policy.
[6:31]
We had a draft.
[6:33]
Good practices draft from another regional commission.
[6:36]
And so I think this document is going
[6:38]
to be useful not only to our commission
[6:39]
but maybe to other organizations that
[6:41]
are struggling with what you do and what kind of policies
[6:45]
you should have.
[6:54]
It's always open to the public.
[7:06]
The public is welcome.
[7:07]
It is at some Thursday at the Pulaski County Innovation
[7:07]
Center.
[7:07]
And I can report on what happened next time.
[7:07]
>> Is that AI policy for AI use by the Commission?
[7:09]
>> By the Commission, yes, but it could be used for other
[7:22]
organizations.
[7:22]
>> I will share two quick council reports.
[7:26]
I think both of these with Susan and I serve
[7:28]
as a representative on the.
[7:28]
One is the Virginia Tech Liaison Group which meets monthly.
[7:28]
We discussed the start of the fall semester
[7:30]
at our most recent, similar to what we did as a council
[7:41]
at our most recent work session.
[7:42]
We also had Juan Espinoza, the Vice president of Enrollment
[7:42]
management, joined us and gave an update on enrollment
[7:42]
at Virginia Tech in case anyone was curious at the time
[7:42]
that he gave his presentation to us.
[7:42]
There were 7480 incoming students,
[7:42]
which is a little bit above what their target was,
[7:42]
but the numbers change every day.
[7:44]
We learned about just how complicated enrollment
[7:51]
management can be at Virginia Tech.
[8:13]
You might have seen some recent coverage
[8:15]
about graduate enrollment declining for a variety
[8:15]
of reasons at Virginia Tech.
[8:15]
Those are moving targets.
[8:15]
The other council report I will share
[8:15]
is the Blacksburg Partnership Board
[8:15]
of Directors that met recently.
[8:15]
We saw a presentation on the Midtown development
[8:15]
by Ian Friend with SAS builders.
[8:15]
I think we as a council have probably
[8:15]
seen all the information that he provided in different chunks
[8:15]
like when we're looking at this hotel or this.
[8:15]
But presentation went over the entire Midtown development.
[8:18]
So I thought that was kind of helpful for the group to share.
[8:21]
The Blacksburg partnership is also working to organizing
[8:24]
a shop Blacksburg Saturday event on October 3rd.
[8:30]
As we get closer to that, we can share more information
[8:33]
about that.
[8:34]
There may even be a proclamation about that.
[8:36]
Get excited, everyone.
[8:38]
Any other council reports?
[8:40]
What about council announcements?
[8:43]
Any announcements?
[8:45]
With that, our next council meeting is Tuesday September 1st
[8:50]
at 11 a.m.
[8:52]
In Blacksburg Conference Room.
[8:54]
Our next regular meeting we are voting on issues is Tuesday ,
[9:09]
September 8th.