2015-01-07January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 1)
A regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle Count y, Virginia, was held on
January 7, 2015, at 1:00 p.m., Lane Auditorium, County Office Building, McIntire Road, Charlottesville,
Virginia.
PRESENT: Mr. Kenneth C. Boyd, Ms. Jane D. Dittmar, Ms. Ann Mallek, Ms. Diantha H. McKeel,
Ms. Liz A. Palmer and Mr. Brad L. Sheffield.
ABSENT: None.
OFFICERS PRESENT: County Executive, Thomas C. Foley, County Attorney, Larry W. Davis,
Clerk, Ella W . Jordan, and Senior Deputy Clerk, Travis O. Morris.
Agenda Item No. 1. The meeting was called to order at 1:02 p.m. by the County Executive, Mr.
Foley. Mr. Foley stated that this is the Board of Supervisors’ organizational meeting for calendar year
2015.
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Agenda Item No. 2. Pledge of Allegiance.
Agenda Item No. 3. Moment of Silence.
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Agenda Item No. 4. Election of Chairman
Mr. Foley opened the floor for nominations for Chair. He added that a nomination does not
require a second.
Ms. Mallek nominated Ms. Jane Dittmar for Chair for Calendar Year 2015. There were no other
nominations. Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
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Agenda Item No. 5. Election of Vice-Chairman.
Ms. Dittmar assumed the role of Chair and then asked for nominations for Vice-Chair.
Ms. McKeel stated that there were four newly elected Board members at their annual
organizational meeting last year, which created new Board dynamics for experienced Board members
and the administrative staff. She thanked everyone for their hard work and support during the past year
as Vice-Chair. She congratulated Ms. Dittmar’s willingness to consider the Chair and the Vice-Chair
positions as part of a leadership team. Ms. McKeel said that she had learned a lot over the last year and
valued the experience very much. In that spirit, she will nominate Ms. Liz Palmer for Vice Chair for
Calendar Year 2015. She stated Ms. Palmer is interested, has the necessary flexibility in her schedule,
and is willing to take on a new challenge. There were no other nominations.
Roll was then called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
Ms. Palmer thanked Board members for the nomination.
Ms. Dittmar thanked Ms. McKeel for her kind and gracious words. She said the
entire Board joins in thanking her for her service as Vice-Chair.
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Agenda Item No. 6. Appointment of Clerk and Senior Deputy Clerk.
Ms. Mallek moved to reappoint Ms. Ella Jordan as Clerk and Mr. Travis Morris as Senior Deputy
Clerk for Calendar Year 2015. Ms. McKeel seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
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January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 2)
Agenda Item No. 7. Board 2015 Calendar.
Item No. 7a. Set Meeting Times, Dates and Places for Calendar Year 2015.
Ms. Mallek moved to adopt the meeting times, dates and places for Calendar Year 2015 as set
out in the agenda material which is: the first Wednesday of the month at 1:00 p.m., the second
Wednesday of the month at 6:00 p.m., with meetings to be held in the County Office Building on McIntire
Road; meeting dates for January, 2016 will be January 6, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. and January 13, 2016 at
6:00 p.m..
Ms. McKeel asked about the note in the Board’s agenda packet regarding cancelation of a
meeting in the summer.
Mr. Davis stated in their vote, the Board should clarify whether or not the August 12, 2016
meeting as proposed would be canceled as part of the regular meeting schedule; the other approach
would be to wait until summer to see if the meeting is necessary, as they could always cancel it. He said
the note in the Board’s packet suggests the Board not schedule it as a meeting day.
Mr. Foley said that would be recommended, so that the Planning schedule will reflect it.
Ms. Dittmar clarified that the Board should vote on its meeting dates, places and times and to
cancel the August 12, 2015 meeting. If the Board finds the need to meet, it can reschedule the meeting
at a later date.
Ms. Mallek amended her motion to include the cancellation of the August 12, 2015 meeting. Ms.
McKeel seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
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Item No. 7b. Set Dates for Hearing Zoning Text Amendments Requested by Citizens.
Ms. Mallek moved to consider zoning text amendment requests from citizens on the dates listed
in the Board’s packet - September 9 and December 9, 2015, and March 6 and June 8, 2016. Ms. McKeel
seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
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Agenda Item No. 8. Adoption of Rules of Procedures/Policies.
Ms. Dittmar noted that the Board made some changes to its rules in 2014, but there was also
some other suggested changes, seeking advice for ideas, incorporating policies that were already a part
of the Board-adopted policies, and she asked Board members to approve the redline or bring items up for
discussion.
Mr. Sheffield asked if the Board could move the public comment period before adoption of final
agenda, because sometimes they hear things from the public that they either want to take action on or
discuss, and if they adopt the agenda, they prevent that from happening other than general discussions.
Ms. McKeel said that with that change, the order would be Matters from the Public, Adoption of
Final Agenda, and then Consent Agenda.
Ms. Palmer asked where recognitions would go on the agenda.
Mr. Sheffield said that recognitions would be done first, so it would just change the order of
agenda adoption to be after public comments. He stated that the order currently seems to be backwards,
because if there is an item Board members want to take action on after public comment, they cannot do
that because they have already adopted the agenda.
Mr. Davis said the only nuance to this is that under the current rules, matters that are not for
action can be brought up by a Board member under “Matters from the Board,” so at that time a Board
member can direct something to be placed for action on a future agenda. Currently if a Board members
wants to act on something at a meeting that is not on the agenda, the rules indicate the member must
give prior notice to the Board of that matter, or there must be unanimous consent to place it on the
agenda for action.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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Ms. Palmer said that currently they talk at the end of the meeting about addressing it in the future,
but by that time the person who brought forth the issue has left.
Ms. Dittmar said it is an interesting idea, and perhaps they could move “From the Board” to earlier
in the agenda so they can discuss it while members of the public are still present.
Mr. Sheffield said that an example would be the item they just took action on, without hearing
from the public first.
Ms. Mallek said that she agrees as far as strictly administrative decisions, and is intrigued by the
idea of setting the agenda afterwards as a trial. She said that she thinks the Board could probably try it to
see if it makes a difference – but she is also very cautious about making it easier for end of meeting
actions that have not had a chance for proper vetting and public input.
Mr. Sheffield said the Board could leave it the way it is, and if they see there is a need he will
raise the issue again.
Ms. McKeel commented that the updated guidelines look more modern and are now collated into
one document that pulls everything together. She pointed out text in the stated policy, page 2, “The Clerk
of the Board shall establish the agenda for all meetings in consultation with the County Executive and the
Chair,”. She stated that she would like to see it include the Chair and the Vice Chair, so they can be
prepared in the event the Chair is not present, and also to make the process more collaborative. She
sees the Chair and Vice Chair working together as being very positive.
Ms. Palmer said she agrees with that suggestion.
Ms. Dittmar said that they currently have a practice of having a pre-agenda meeting.
Ms. McKeel acknowledged that, and said in the past it has been the Chair, but she and Ms.
Dittmar had expanded that to include the Vice Chair, so she would like to include that in the policy to
make it more formal.
Ms. Mallek said that when she was Chair, she invited the Vice Chair to attend the pre-agenda
meetings, in an effort to have him hear about things sooner. She thinks that it should be up to the Chair
to decide, so she would prefer to leave it alone. This would also allow the Chair to establish their own
relationship with staff in the role as Chair.
Mr. Boyd said that he agrees with Ms. Mallek, and having been through this himself for four
years, he would rather leave it up to the Chair, although he encouraged the inclusion of the Vice Chair.
Ms. Dittmar said that she fully intends to work with Ms. Palmer, Mr. Foley and the Clerk to
prepare for Board meetings.
Mr. Sheffield said that he supports the change.
Ms. Palmer agreed.
Ms. McKeel said in the past year Ms. Dittmar had been absent for a few pre-agenda meetings, so
this just confirms the attendance of the Vice Chair.
Mr. Foley said that this refers to the establishment of the agenda, so there are two things that go
on now: a meeting with the Chair, the Clerk and the County Executive on the establishment of the
agenda; and a “dress rehearsal,” which is when the Vice Chair attends and does a final look at the
agenda. He said at that point, the establishment of the agenda has already happened, and the latter
meeting is just the final look a week in advance of the meeting to do some final tweaking, which has
worked well.
Ms. McKeel said the text in the policy only mentions the one meeting, and she just wants to
ensure that the Vice Chair is involved in the knowledge of the meeting.
Ms. Mallek said she would support this if there were a sentence added about the second meeting
after the agenda was set, as a way of informing leadership.
Ms. Dittmar said they could include language that says something like, “whenever possible,” o r
“every attempt will be made” for there to be a meeting that includes both the Chair and the Vice Chair to
prepare for the upcoming meeting.
Mr. Foley said at the end of the second sentence, they could add something that says, “The Chair
and Vice Chair shall be involved in final review of the agenda before it is published, which would really
affect the current practice.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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Mr. Davis suggested a sentence that says, “The County Executive and the Clerk shall review the
agenda with the Chair and Vice Chair prior to the meeting.” Board members concurred with the
suggested language.
Mr. Sheffield then moved to adopt the Rules of Procedures/Policies as amended. Ms. Mallek
seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
ALBEMARLE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
RULES OF PROCEDURE
Adopted January 7, 2015
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Rules of Procedures
Table of Contents
Page
A. Board Members 1
B. Officers 1
C. Clerk and Deputy Clerks 1
D. Meetings
1. Annual Meeting
2. Regular Meetings
3. Special Meetings
1
1
1
2
E. Order of Business
1. Agenda
2. Adoption of Final Agenda
3. Brief Announcements by Board
Members
4. Proclamations and Recognitions
5. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for
Public Hearing on the Agenda
6. Consent Agenda
7. General Business
8. From the Board: Committee Reports
and Matters Not Listed on the Agenda
9. Report from the County Executive:
Report on Matters Not Listed on the
Agenda
10. Zoning Public Hearings
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
F. Travel Reimbursement 5
G. Quorum 6
H. Remote Electronic Participation 6
I. Meeting Decorum 6
J. Voting Procedures
1. Approval by Motion
2. Special Voting Requirements
3. Public Hearings
4. Motion to Amend
5. Previous Question
6. Motion to Reconsider
7. Motion to Rescind
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
K. Board Members Appointed to Boards,
Committees and Commissions
1. Voting Representatives
2. Liaison Representatives
8
8
8
L. Boards and Commissions
1. Review and Creation of Boards and
Commissions
2. Appointments to Boards and
Commissions
8
8
8
M. Amendment of Rules of Procedure 9
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 5)
N. Suspension of Rules of Procedure 9
O. Rules of Procedure 9
RULES OF PROCEDURE
ALBEMARLE BOARD OF COUNTY SUPERVISORS
These rules of procedure are designed and adopted for the benefit and convenience of the
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Their purpose is to help the Board conduct its affairs in a timely
and efficient manner. They incorporate the general principles of parliamentary procedure found in Robert’s
Rules of Order’s Procedure in Small Boards and applicable Virginia laws. The rules of procedure do not
create substantive rights for third parties or participants in proceedings before the Board. Further, the Board
reserves the right to amend the rules of procedure whenever a majority of the Board decides to do so or to
suspend the rules by a majority plus one vote, as set forth herein. The failure of the Board to stric tly comply
with the rules of procedure shall not invalidate any action of the Board.
A. Board Members
Unless otherwise specifically provided herein, all Board members have equal rights,
responsibilities, and authority. Board members will act in a collegial manner and will cooperate and assist
in preserving the decorum and order of the meetings. Changes to rules, policies, or procedures can only
be made at a public meeting of the Board.
B. Officers
1. Chair. The Board at its annual meeting shall elect a Chair who, if present, shall preside at
such meeting and at all other meetings during the year for which elected. In addition to
being presiding officer, the Chair shall be the head official for all the Board’s official
functions and for ceremonial purposes. The Chair shall have a vote but no veto. (Virginia
Code §§ 15.2-1422 and 15.2-1423)
2. Vice-Chair. The Board at its annual meeting shall also elect a Vice -Chair, who, if present,
shall preside at meetings in the absence of the Chair and shall discharg e the duties of the
Chair during the Chair’s absence or disability. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1422)
3. Term of Office. The Chair and Vice-Chair shall be elected for one-year terms; but either or
both may be re-elected for one or more additional terms. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1422)
4. Absence of Chair and Vice-Chair. If the Chair and Vice Chair are absent from any meeting,
a present member shall be chosen to act as Chair.
C. Clerk and Deputy Clerks
The Board at its annual meeting shall designate a Clerk and one or more Deputy Clerks who shall
serve at the pleasure of the Board. The duties of the Clerk shall be those set forth in Virginia Code
§ 15.2-1539 and such additional duties set forth in resolutions of the Board as adopted from time
to time. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1416)
D. Meetings
1. Annual Meeting. The first meeting in January held after the newly elected members of the
Board shall have qualified, and the first meeting held in January of each succeeding year,
shall be known as the annual meeting. At such annual meeting, the Board shall establish
the days, times, and places for regular meetings of the Board for that year. (Virginia Code
§ 15.2-1416)
2. Regular Meetings. The Board shall meet in regular session on such day or days as has
been established at the annual meeting. The Board may subsequently establish different
days, times, or places for such regular meetings by passing a resolution to that effect in
accord with Virginia Code § 15.2-1416. If any day established as a regular meeting day
falls on a legal holiday, the meeting scheduled for that day shall be held on the next regular
business day without action of any kind by the Board. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1416)
If the Chair (or Vice Chair, if the Chair is unable to act) finds and declares that weather or
other conditions are such that it is hazardous for Board members to attend a regular
meeting, such meeting shall be continued to the next regular meeting date. Such finding
shall be communicated to the members of the Board and to the pres s as promptly as
possible. All hearings and other matters previously advertised shall be conducted at the
continued meeting and no further advertisement shall be required. (Virginia Code
§ 15.2-1416)
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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Regular meetings, without further public notice, may be adjourned from day to day or from
time to time or from place to place, not beyond the time fixed for the next regular meeting,
until the business of the Board is complete. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1416)
3. Special Meetings. The Board may hold special meetings as it deems necessary at such
times and places as it deems convenient. A special meeting may be adjourned from time
to time as the Board finds necessary and convenient. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1417)
A special meeting shall be held when called by th e Chair or requested by two or more
members of the Board. The call or request shall be made to the Clerk and shall specify
the matters to be considered at the meeting. Upon receipt of such call or request, the
Clerk, after consultation with the Chair, shall immediately notify each member of the Board,
the County Executive, and the County Attorney. The notice shall be in writing and delivered
to the person or to his place of residence or business, or if requested by a member of the
Board, by electronic mail or facsimile. The notice shall state the time and place of the
meeting and shall specify the matters to be considered. No matter not specified in the
notice shall be considered at such meeting unless all members are present. The notice
may be waived if all members are present at the special meeting or if all members sign a
waiver for the notice. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1418) The Clerk shall notify the general news
media of the time and place of such special meeting and the matters to be considered.
E. Order of Business
1. Agenda. The Clerk of the Board shall establish the agenda for all meetings in consultation
with the County Executive and the Chair. The County Executive and Clerk shall review the
agenda with the Chair and Vice Chair prior to the meeting. The first two items on the
agenda for each regular meeting of the Board shall be the Pledge of Allegiance and a
moment for silent meditation.
a. At regular meetings of the Board, the order of business shall generally be as
follows:
1. Call to Order.
2. Pledge of Allegiance.
3. Moment of Silence.
4. Adoption of Final Agenda.
5. Brief Announcements by Board Members.
6. Proclamations and Recognitions.
7. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda.
8. Consent Agenda.
9. General Business.
10. From the Board: Committee Reports and Matters Not Listed on the Agenda.
11. From the County Executive: Report on Matters Not Listed on the Agenda.
12. Adjourn.
A Closed Meeting shall be held whenever necessary. Generally, a Closed Meeting will be
scheduled either at the midpoint of the agenda or at the end of the agenda prior to
adjournment.
b. The above order of business may be modified by the Clerk to facilitate the business
of the Board.
2. Adoption of Final Agenda. The draft agenda will be provided to the Board six days prior to the
regular meeting date. The first order of business for a regular meeting of the Board shall be to
adopt a final agenda for that meeting. The Board may modify the order of business as part of the
adoption of the final agenda. In addition, any Board member may propose to add additional items
to the agenda presented by the Clerk for action if notice of that item has been given in writing or by
email to all Board members, the Clerk, and the County Executive by 5:00 p.m. two days before the
date of the meeting or upon the unanimous consent of all Board members present. Any such item
shall be added to the end of the agenda for discussion or action unless a majority of the members
of the Board agree to consider the item earlier on the agenda. The final agenda shall be adopted
by a majority vote of the members of the Board. No matter for action not included on the final
agenda shall be considered at that meeting.
Resolutions may be proposed by a Board member requesting the Board to take a position on an
issue of importance to the Board. A Board member requesting the Board to adopt a resolution
should give notice of the intent to request action on such resolution on a specified meeting date
and submit a draft of the proposed resolution. The Clerk will distribute the draft resolution with
background information, if available, to all Board members. Board members may submit proposed
changes to the proposed resolution to the Clerk in a redline format. The Clerk shall forward all
comments received from Board members to the Board. The Board member requesting the
resolution will then coordinate with the Clerk to prepare a resolution for consideration by the Board.
The Clerk shall poll the Board members to determine if a majority of the Board members support
adding the resolution to the agenda for consideration. If a majority of the Board members indicate
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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support for considering the resolution, the resolution will be added to the proposed final agenda. If
all Board members indicate support for the resolution, the resolution may be placed on the
proposed consent agenda unless any member requests otherwise.
3. Brief Announcements by Board Members. “Brief Announcements by Board Members” are
announcements of special events or other items of interest that are not considered committee
reports and are not otherwise on the meeting agenda.
4. Proclamations and Recognitions. Proclamations are ceremonial documents or recognitions
adopted by the Board to draw public awareness to a day, week, or month to recognize events, arts
and cultural celebrations, or special occasions. Recognitions are ceremonial acknowledgements
by the Board of a person for service or achievement.
A request to place a proclamation or recognition on the agenda must be made at least four weeks
in advance of the meeting date. The request to advance a proclamation or recognition shall be
submitted to the Clerk. If the request is made to a Board member, the person making the request
will be directed to make the request to the Clerk. The Clerk will advise the person making the
request of the process and submittal requirements. Upon the submittal of the request, the Clerk
will review the submittal for completeness and forward it to Board members for review. T he Clerk
will poll Board members to determine if a majority of the Board supports adding the proclamation
or recognition to the agenda. The Clerk will advise the person requesting the proclamation or
recognition whether the proclamation or recognition will be considered by the Board.
5. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda. The procedures for receiving
comment from the public for matters not on the agenda shall be at the discretion of the Board.
Unless otherwise decided, due to the number of speakers or for other reasons, individuals will be
allowed a three-minute time limit in which to speak during the time set aside on the agenda for
“From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda”.
6. Consent Agenda. The “Consent Agenda” shall be used for matters that do not require discussion
or comment and are anticipated to have the unanimous approval of the Board. There shall be no
discussion or comment on consent agenda matters. Board members should ask the County
Executive or the staff member identified in the executive summary any questions regarding a
consent agenda item prior to the Board meeting. Any Board member may remove an item from
the consent agenda. Any item removed from the consent agenda shall be moved to a specific time
or to the end of the meeting agenda for further discussion or action. A matter requiring only brief
comment or discussion may be considered immediately after the approval of the consent agenda.
A motion to approve the consent agenda shall approve consent agenda items identified for action
and accept consent agenda items identified for information.
7. General Business. General Business shall include public hearings, work sessions, appointments
and other actions, discussions, and presentations.
8. From the Board: Committee Reports and Matters Not Listed on the Agenda. “From the Board:
Committee Reports and Matters Not Listed on the Agenda” shall be limited to matters that are not
substantial enough to be considered as additional agenda items to be added to the final agenda.
Such matters are not matters to be acted upon by the Board at that meeting. Routine committee
reports and information updates by Board members shall be presented under this agenda item.
9. Report from the County Executive. The County Executive will report on matters that the County
Executive deems should be brought to the Board’s attention and provide updates, if necessary, to
the monthly County Executive’s Report.
10. Zoning Public Hearings. Zoning applications advertised for public hearing shall be on the agenda
for public hearing on the advertised date unless the applicant submits a signed written deferral
request to the Clerk no later than noon on Wednesday of the week prior to the scheduled public
hearing. The first request for a deferral will be granted administratively by the Clerk. The Board
will be notified of the deferral in the next Board package and the deferral will be announced at the
earliest possible Board meeting to alert the public of the deferral. Any request received later than
the Wednesday deadline and any subsequent request for a deferral for the same application
previously deferred will be granted only at the discretion of the Board by a majority vote. The
deferral shall not be granted unless the Board determines that the reason for the deferral justifies
the likely inconvenience to the public caused by the deferral. The staff will make every effort to
alert the public when a deferral is granted.
It is the Board’s preference that a public hearing for a zoning matter should not be advertised until
all of the final materials for a zoning application have been received by the County and are available
for public review. To achieve this preference, applicants should provide final plans, final codes of
development, final proffers, and any other documents deemed necessary by the Director of
Community Development, to the County no later than two business days prior to the County’s
deadline for submitting the public hearing advertisement to the newspaper. Staff will advise
applicants of this date by including it in annual schedules for applications and by providing each
applicant a minimum of two weeks advance notice of the deadline.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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If the applicant does not submit the required materials by this date, the public hearing shall not be
advertised unless the applicant demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Director of Community
Development that good cause exists for the public hearing to be advertised. If not advertised, a
new public hearing date will be scheduled. If the public hearing is held without final materials being
available for review throughout the advertisement period due to a late submittal of documents, or
because substantial revisions or amendments are made to the submitted materials after the public
hearing has been advertised, it will be the policy of the Board to either defer action and schedule a
second public hearing that provides this opportunity to the public or to deny the application, unless
the Board finds that the deferral would not be in the public interest or not forward the purposes of
this policy.
Final signed proffers shall be submitted to the County no later than nine calendar days prior to the
date of the advertised public hearing. This policy is not intended to prevent changes from being
made to proffers resulting from comments received from the public or from Board members at the
public hearing.
F. Travel Reimbursement
Board members will be reimbursed travel expenses pursuant to uniform standards and procedures
that will allow Board members to travel for official County business purposes consistent with the
prudent use of County funds as follows:
1. Board members may be reimbursed for the following routine travel expenses at the
County’s authorized car mileage reimbursement rate, provided there are available funds:
a. Mileage for travel by personal vehicle or other travel costs to scheduled Board
meetings and Board committee meetings for committees to which a Board
member is appointed, from home or work, if a work day, which is not part of
routine personal travel;
b. Mileage for travel by personal vehicle or other travel costs to events reasonably
necessary to prepare for matters scheduled for consideration on the Board’s
agenda which is not part of routine personal travel (i.e., site visits, informational
meetings); and
c. Parades and other community gatherings not advertised as Supervisor’s town
hall meetings to discuss County business. Travel to use the COB office between
other personal travel or meetings, shall not be covered.
2. Board members may be reimbursed for the following educational conference travel
expenses, provided there are available funds:
a. All necessary, actual and reasonable meal, travel and lodging costs (including
gratuity and excluding alcohol) of attending regional, statewide or national
meetings at which the Board member represents the County, as approved by the
Board; and
b. All necessary, actual and reasonable meal, and travel (including gratuity and
excluding alcohol) of attending legislative or congressional hearings relating to
official County business.
3. Board members will not be reimbursed for the following travel expenses:
a. Travel to events which are political in nature (i.e., campaigning or partisan
events);
b. Personal expenses incurred during travel; or
c. Other travel which is not part of the statutory governmental duties of the Board of
Supervisors that are not provided for in Sections 1 or 2.
4. This policy will be applied and overseen in the following manner:
a. Reimbursement requests shall be made in writing on forms provided by the Clerk
of the Board and shall itemize the date, number of miles of travel expenses and
purpose of the meeting. Mileage for use of a personal vehicle shall be
reimbursed at the County’s authorized car mileage reimbursement rate. Other
reimbursements shall be for the amount of costs expended and shall be
documented by receipts for actual amounts paid.
b. The Clerk, or his/her designee, will review all travel reimbursement requests and
the Director of Finance will approve all travel reimbursement requests prior to
reimbursement. No payment will be made for incomplete submissions or
information.
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c. When all allocated funds for Board reimbursements have been expended, there
will be no further reimbursement for that fiscal year unless the Board
appropriates additional funding.
G. Quorum
A majority of the members of the Board shall constitute a quorum for any meeting of the
Board. If during a meeting less than a majority of the Board remains present, no action can
be taken except to adjourn the meeting. If prior to adjournment the quorum is again
established, the meeting shall continue. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1415)
A majority of the members of the Board present at the time and place established f or any
regular or special meeting shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of adjourning such
meeting from day to day or from time to time, but not beyond the time fixed for the next
regular meeting.
H. Remote Electronic Participation
The Board will permit a Board member to participate in a Board meeting electronically from a
remote location, provided that:
1. On or before the day of the meeting, the member shall notify the Chair that the member is
unable to attend the meeting due to an emergency or a pers onal matter or that the member
is unable to attend the meeting due to a temporary or permanent disability or other medical
condition that prevents the member’s physical attendance. The member must identify with
specificity the nature of the emergency or personal matter.
2. A quorum of the Board must be physically assembled at the primary or central meeting
location. The Board members present must approve the participation; however, the
decision shall be based solely on the criteria in Section F, without re gard to the identity of
the member or matters that will be considered or voted on during the meeting. The Clerk
shall record in the Board’s minutes the specific nature of the emergency, personal matter
or disability and the remote location from which the absent member participated. If the
absent member’s remote participation is disapproved because such participation would
violate this policy, such disapproval shall be recorded in the Board’s minutes.
3. Electronic participation by the absent member due to a n emergency or a personal matter
shall be limited in each calendar year to two (2) meetings.
4. The Clerk shall make arrangements for the voice of the absent member to be heard by all
persons in attendance at the meeting location. If, for any reason, the vo ice of the absent
member cannot reasonably be heard, the meeting may continue without the participation
of the absent member.
(Virginia Code § 2.2-3708.1)
I. Meeting Decorum
1. Meetings shall be conducted so as to provide a civil decorum. To preserve the or der and
decorum of the meeting, persons will use civil language and will not be permitted to clap
or make sounds in support of or in opposition to any matter during the meeting (except for
applause during the recognitions portion of the meeting) or act in any way to disturb or
disrupt the presentation of any matter on the agenda or the conduct of any discussion,
public hearing, or public comment time. Signs shall be permitted in the meeting room so
long as they are not attached to any stick or pole and do not obstruct the view of persons
attending the meeting. Cell phones and other electronic devices shall be muted so as not
to disrupt or interrupt the meeting.
2. The Chair may ask any person whose behavior is so disruptive as to prevent the orderly
conduct of the meeting to cease such conduct. If the conduct continues, the Chair may
order the removal of that person from the meeting.
J. Voting Procedures
1. Approval by Motion. Unless otherwise provided, decisions of the Board shall be made by
approval of a majority of the members present and voting on a motion properly made by a
member and seconded by another member. Any motion that is not seconded shall not be
further considered. The vote on the motion shall be by a voice vote. The Clerk shall record
the name of each member voting and how he voted on the motion. If any member abstains
from voting on any motion, he shall state his abstention. The abstention will be announced
by the Chair and recorded by the Clerk. A tie vote shall defeat the motion v oted upon. A
tie vote on a motion to approve shall be deemed a denial of the matter being proposed for
approval. (Article VII, § 7, Virginia Constitution)
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 10)
2. Special Voting Requirements. A recorded affirmative vote of a majority of all elected
members of the Board shall be required to approve an ordinance or resolution
(1) appropriating money exceeding the sum of $500; (2) imposing taxes; or (3) authorizing
the borrowing of money. (Virginia Code § 15.2-1428)
3. Public Hearings. The Board shall not decide any matter before the Board requiring a public
hearing until the public hearing has been held. The Board may, however, at its discretion,
defer or continue the holding of a public hearing or consideration of such matter. The
procedures for receiving comment from the applicant and the public for public hearings
shall be at the discretion of the Board. Unless otherwise decided, the applicant shall be
permitted no more than ten minutes to present its application. Following the applicant’s
presentation, any member of the public shall be permitted no more than three minutes to
present public comment. Speakers are limited to one appearance at any public hearing.
Following the public comments, the applicant shall be permitted no more than five minutes
for a rebuttal presentation.
4. Motion to Amend. A motion to amend a motion before the Board, properly seconded, shall
be discussed and voted by the Board before any vote is taken on the original motion unless
the motion to amend is accepted by both the members making and seconding the original
motion. If the motion to amend is approved, the amended motion is then before the Board
for its consideration. If the motion to amend is not approved, the original motion is again
before the Board for its consideration.
5. Previous Question. Discussion of any motion may be terminated by any member moving
the “previous question”. Upon a proper second, the Chair shall call for a vote on the motion
of the previous question. If approved by a majority of those voting, t he Chair shall
immediately call for a vote on the original motion under consideration. A motion of the
previous question shall not be subject to debate and shall take precedence over any other
matter.
6. Motion to Reconsider. Any decision made by the Board may be reconsidered if a motion
to reconsider is made at the same meeting or an adjourned meeting held on the same day
at which the matter was decided. The motion to reconsider may be made by any member
of the Board. Upon a proper second, the motion may be discussed and voted. The effect
of the motion to reconsider, if approved, shall be to place the matter for discussion in the
exact position it occupied before it was voted upon.
7. Motion to Rescind. Any decision made by the Board, except for zoning map amendments,
special use permit decisions, and ordinances, (these exceptions shall only be subject to
reconsideration as provided above) may be rescinded by a majority vote of all elected
members of the Board. The motion to rescind may be made by an y member of the Board.
Upon a proper second, the motion may be discussed and voted. The effect of the motion
to rescind, if approved, is to nullify the previous decision of the Board. Zoning map
amendments, special use permit decisions and ordinances ma y be rescinded or repealed
only upon meeting all the legal requirements necessary for taking action on such matters
as if it were a new matter before the Board for consideration.
K. Board Members Appointed to Boards, Committees and Commissions
The Board appoints its members to a variety of boards, committees and commissions to represent
the interests of the Board on those entities. It is important that the Board have confidence that its
policies and positions are being reflected in that representation.
1. Voting Representatives. The Board members who are appointed to boards, committees
and commissions are required to vote on matters that come before those entities in a
manner which is consistent with the policies and positions of the Board as reflected in
previously adopted resolutions or official actions of the Board on such matters.
2. Liaison Representatives. The Board members who are appointed to boards, committees
and commissions as liaisons are to act as a resource for the board, committee and/or
commission and are to report to the Board on the activities of the board committee and/or
commission.
L. Boards and Commissions
1. Review and creation of boards and commissions shall be as follows:
a. By October 1 of each year, all boards and commissions shall submit a report to the
Board to include key activities that support their mission and a summary of their
activities and attendance.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 11)
b. On an annual basis the list of active boards and commissions will be evaluated
and purged of all bodies not required by Federal, State, County or other
regulations, which have not met at least once during the prior twelve-month period.
c. Whenever possible and appropriate, the functions and activities of boards and
commissions will be combined, rather than encouraging the creation of new
bodies.
d. Any newly created task force or ad hoc committee which is intended to serve for a
limited time period may be comprised of magisterial or at-large members at the
discretion of the Board. The appointment process shall follow that adopted in
Section B for other magisterial and/or at-large positions.
2. Appointments to boards and commissions shall be as follows:
a. All appointments to boards and commissions based upon magisterial district
boundaries will be made by the Board. The Board will consider and/or interview
candidates recommended by the supervisor of that district.
b. Prior to each day Board meeting, the Clerk will provide the Board a list of expired
terms and vacancies that will occur within the next sixty days. The Board will then
advise the Clerk which vacancies to advertise.
c. In an effort to reach as many citizens as possible, notice of boards and
commissions with appointment positions available may be published through
available venues, such as, but not limited to, the County’s website, A-mail, public
service announcements and local newspapers. Interested citizens will be provided
a brief description of the duties and functions of each board, length of term of the
appointment, frequency of meetings, and qualifications necessary to fill the
position. An explanation of the appointment process for both magisterial and at -
large appointments will also be sent to all applicants.
d. All interested applicants will have a minimum of thirty days from the date of the first
notice to complete and return to the Clerk a detailed application, with the
understanding that such application may be released to the public, if requested.
No applications will be accepted if they are postmarked after the advertised
deadline, however, the Board, at its discretion, may extend the deadline.
e. Once the deadline for accepting applications is reached, the Clerk will distribute all
applications received to the members of the Board prior to the day meeting for their
review. For magisterial appointments, the Clerk will forward applications as they
are received to the supervisor of that district who will then recommend his/her
appointment.
f. From the pool of qualified candidates, the Board, at its discretion, may make an
appointment without conducting an interview, or may select applicants to interview
for the vacant positions. The Clerk will then schedule interviews with applicants to
be held during the next day meeting.
g. All efforts will be made to interview selected applicants and make appointments
within ninety days after the application deadline. For designated agency
appointments to boards and commissions, the agency will be asked to recommend
a person for appointment by the Board.
h. All vacancies will be filled as they occur, except that vacancies occurring in
Community Advisory Councils will be filled on an annual basis at the time regular
terms expire unless there are more than three vacancies on any Council at the
same time with more than three months remaining from the annual appointment
date.
i. As a condition of assuming office, all citizen members of boards and commissions
shall file a real estate disclosure form as set forth in the State and Local
Government Conflict of Interests Act and thereafter shall file such form annually
on or before January 15.
j. If a member of a board or commission does not participate in at least fifty percent
of a board’s or commission’s meetings, the Chair of the body may request the
Board terminate the appointment, if permitted by applicable law, and refill it
during the next scheduled advertising period.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 12)
M. Amendment of Rules of Procedure
These Rules of Procedure may be amended by a majority vote of the Board at the next regular
meeting following a regular meeting at which notice of the motion to amend is given.
N. Suspension of Rules of Procedure
These Rules of Procedure may be suspended by a majority plus one vote of the Board members
present and voting. The motion to suspend a rule may be made by any member of the Board.
Upon a proper second, the motion may be discussed and voted. The effect of the motion to
suspend a rule, if approved, is to make that rule inapplicable to the matter before the Board.
Provided, however, approval of a motion to suspend the rule shall not permit the Board to act in
violation of a requirement mandated by the Code of Virginia, the Constitution of Virginia, or any
other applicable law.
O. Rules of Procedure.
Necessary rules of procedure not covered by these Rules of Procedures shall be governed by
Robert's Rules of Order Procedure in Small Boards. Such rules provide:
1. Members are not required to obtain the floor before making motions or speaking, which
they can do while seated.
2. There is no limit to the number of times a member can speak to a question, and motions
to close or limit debate generally should not be entertained.
3. Informal discussion of a subject is permitted while no motion is pending.
4. Sometimes, when a proposal is perfectly clear to all present, a vote can be taken with out
a motion having been introduced. Unless agreed to by unanimous consent, however, all
proposed actions of a board must be approved by vote under the same rules as in other
assemblies, except that a vote can be taken initially by a show of hands, which is often a
better method in such meetings.
5. The chair need not rise while putting questions to vote.
6. The chair can speak in discussion without rising or leaving the chair; and, subject to rule
or custom within the particular board (which should be uniformly followed regardless of
how many members are present), the chair usually can make motions and usually votes
on all questions.
* * * * *
(Adopted 2-15-73; Amended and/or Readopted 9-5-74, 9-18-75; 2-19-76; 1-3-77; 1-4-78; 1-3-79;
1-2-80; 1-7-81; 1-6-82; 1-5-83; 1-3-84; 1-2-85; 1-3-86; 1-7-87; 1-6-88; 1-4-89; 1-2-90; 1-2-91;
1-2-92; 1-6-93; 1-5-94; 1-4-95; 1-3-96; 1-2-97; 1-7-98; 1-6-99; 1-5-2000; 1-3-2001; 1-9-2002; 1-
8-2003; 1-7-2004; 1-5-2005; 1-4-2006; 1-3-2007; 1-9-2008; 1-7-2009; 1-6-2010; 1-5-2011; 1-4-
2012; 1-09-2013; 1-8-2014; 7-9-2014; 1-7-2015).
_______________
Agenda Item No. 9. Adoption of Final Agenda.
At this time, the Chair introduced all staff present.
It was then the consensus of the Board to move adoption of the final agenda to after Matters from
the Public, renumbering it to Item 12A.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 10. Brief Announcements by Board Members.
Mr. Boyd announced that he will be holding a town hall meeting at Sutherland Middle School on
January 29, 2015 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
_____
Ms. Palmer encouraged people to bring their pets inside during this very cold weather.
_____
Ms. Mallek stated that yesterday she attended a discussion related to One Virginia 2021
redistricting effort. One Virginia will be hosting their new website opening the following Friday, with an
emphasis on citizen participation in the effort over the next four or five years.
Ms. Mallek announced that Earlysville neighbors and longtime Albemarle residents are missing
Mr. James B. Murray, who passed away at age 94 on January 2, 2015. She stated that one of her
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 13)
earliest memories is of Mr. Murray, who returned her teddy bear after she left it at his farm. Ms. Mallek
said that for 65 years, Mr. Murray has been a wonderful neighbor. Mr. Murray was a farmer, a
conservationist, and an organic farmer when very few people were doing that. She said he served from
1974-1982 in the House of Delegates, and one of his proudest accomplishments was designating the
Rivanna River as the first wild and scenic river in Virginia, supporting legislation that established
Piedmont Virginia Community College, and acting as the first board chair of PVCC.
Ms. Mallek said that Mr. Murray was also Chair of the County’s Electoral Board for 15 years, on
the Board of the Monticello Area Community Action Agency (MACAA) for 25 years, and served on the
Equalization Board. Mr. Murray supported Offender Aid and Restoration, and volunteered as a child
advocate for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) until he was 80 years old. Ms. Mallek said that
Mr. Murray donated the land for the Earlysville Volunteer Fire Company and provided the money to build
the first two-bay garage in 1966.
She said that Mr. Murray and his family have been incredible leaders in conservation and
stewardship, and in just the last year, the County has been working on ordinances for farms hosting non -
agricultural activities. However, at Mr. Murray’s Panorama Farm decades ago, he welcomed nature
camps, cross country running teams – where AHS and UVA run today, mountain biking courses, a game
preserve, milling of grain fields, and the commercial composting business called “Panorama Paydirt” in an
effort to balance economic activity with sustainable use on their 800-acre farm. Ms. Mallek said Mr.
Murray was an inspiration to all who try to wear many hats and make things better for the community, and
he will be greatly missed.
Ms. Dittmar said that Mr. Murray excelled in business, was an amazing family man, and set a
standard for public service to which they all try to aspire.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 11a. Recognition: Scott Keim – Executive Fire Officer
Ms. Dittmar stated that FEMA’s National Fire Academy recently announced that ACFR Battalion
Chief Scott Keim has successfully completed a four-year executive fire officer program, an intensive
program designed to augment already seasoned senior fire officers with the expertise they need to help
lead their departments in today’s challenging environment. She said that the modules that Chief K eim
covered were executive development, executive analysis of community risk reduction, executive analysis
of fire service operations and emergency management, and executive leadership. Ms. Dittmar said that
each of the four courses required a written, applied research project to demonstrate application of course
theory and real-life situations, and each project was evaluated through a formal process, with progression
contingent on achieving each of the milestones. She stated that Chief Keim graduated with flying colors
and received a perfect score on his last applied research project.
Fire Chief Dan Eggleston thanked the Board for recognizing Chief Keim . Chief Keim is a key
person in the department – very focused on professionalism and high quality of service, and is a good
employee and coworker as well as a good friend. Chief Eggleston said that the program is an intense
four year program that requires the equivalent of publish a master’s thesis every year for f our years. He
stated that the Department has already benefitted enormously from Chief Keim’s efforts . Chief Keim is
helping the Department focus on policies and procedures and training with the Police Department on
things such as active shooter, and developing and reinforcing mental health prog rams. Chief Eggleston
congratulated and thanked Chief Keim on this accomplishment.
Chief Scott Keim thanked the Board for the recognition, stating that it means a lot . He added that
Chief Eggleston has been a great mentor. Chief Keim also thanked his family, stating that they sacrificed
months and months of him being away to pursue this certification.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 12. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda.
Mr. Milton Moore, a resident of Blythe Court in the Jack Jouett District, said that since 1988 he
has fought the Route 29 bypass. The North Charlottesville Business Council promoted the bypass after
defeating Alternative 9, which would have had an expressway down the middle of Route 29. Mr. Moore
said the opponents of Route 29 Solutions oppose the interchanges at Hydraulic Road and Rio Road and
claim they will harm businesses, but he thinks it is unlikely that anyone who shopped there before would
stop shopping there. He stated that the group also claims that there has been a big reduction of traffic on
Route 29, but you would not know it during rush hour, especially at the busy intersections. Mr. Moore
said that it would also help to have efficient parallel roads and reduce unnecessary signals on Route 29.
He said he submitted a diagram of the signals some years ago that noted which ones could be taken out
– with at least six that could be removed between the Route 250 Bypass and Airport Road.
__________
Mr. Dennis Rooker, a County resident, said this Board is being hit on by a well-financed
campaign of misinformation to stop the building of the Rio overpass, the most important component of the
Route 29 Solutions package. He said the original widening of Route 29 was opposed by businesses in
the corridor, and the same type of scare tactics were used at that time. Mr. Rooker noted an article from
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 14)
October 31, 1986 with the headline, “Hundreds protest US 29 Plan,” which said that about 500
Charlottesville are residents told the State Highway Department that they did not care for a plan to widen
US 29 North from four to eight lanes. Mr. Rooker asked where they would be today had that widening not
occurred. Even at the time, the Board of Supervisors knew there would be some inconvenience with that
multi-phased project, and they also understood it was needed and would be in the long-term best interest
of the community as a whole, including present and future businesses. He said that since the completion
of the widening, there has been hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment in the Route 29 corridor
that likely would not have occurred if the widening had not taken place. Mr. Rooker said they are at a
similar place today, with perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to utilize $230 million in scarce
transportation funds to build projects that have been in the plans for years in this area. He emphasized
that Route 29 is not a main street, as main streets are usually two-lane, slow speed, pedestrian-friendly
streets with multi-story buildings fronting on the streets. This community has a Main Street that starts at
Emmett Street and runs to the Downtown Mall; there is also a Main Street in Crozet and one in
Scottsville. Mr. Rooker said Route 29 is an eight and ten-lane highway, with shopping centers scattered
along it to take advantage of the 55,000 vehicles per day of traffic that are there. He said that the
businesses both contribute to and benefit from that traffic, and will also benefit from the improvements in
the Route 29 corridor that are included in this package, because in the long run congestion destroys
value in a corridor, while mobility improves it.
__________
Mr. Scott Leake addressed the Board, conveying greetings from Congressman Hurt of the 5th
Congressional District. He said that it has been a pleasure to work with the Board on pertinent issues.
Mr. Leake said that there is now a federal budget that will take them through September , so there should
not be any federal government shutdowns. He added that the State budget is also expected soon. Mr.
Leaked added that he, as is Congressman Hurt, are available at any time should the Board need him to
come by.
__________
Mr. Saunders Midyette, a resident of the Jack Jouett District, said that he supports the Route 29
Solutions package and was pleased that the Board voted to approve it, and with Mr. Sheffield’s
representation on the VDOT Advisory Board. Mr. Midyette said the Smart 29 has questioned the 2014
VDOT analysis projecting increases in the Route 29 corridor traffic, particularly with regard to the Rio
Road interchange, which is a key component that hopefully will continue to be supported as needing
construction. He stated that Smart 29 is using outdated data that fails to take into account the current
traffic flow on Route 29, which has a failing grade and needs correction in terms of what the package will
bring.
__________
Mr. John Martin, a resident of Free Union, said that he would like to request that the vote taken in
December on live video streaming be reconsidered, and that Albemarle join the mainstream of its peer
communities by providing this service to County residents. He said this involves a monetary investment,
and there have been questions about the return on that investment. Mr. Martin said the return woul d
allow for a teenager to have a discussion with their parent about matters of County government, would
allow a senior who might not be able to attend meetings anymore to stay involved, would allow citizens to
view events for themselves and think for themselves, would allow citizens to be more informed voters,
and would allow everyone to be better informed – a hallmark of good citizenship. He stated that what it
really boils down to is the value of this being priceless, and he strongly encourages Board members to
reconsider this matter. The County residents deserve this service.
__________
Mr. Neil Williamson, of the Free Enterprise Forum , addressed the Board, stating that in the
Board’s Rules of Procedure, they highlighted the travel expenditures they would pay for in terms of the
Board, but it would also be helpful to have a quarterly report that included: what they spent, where they
went, what was done, and what the benefit was to the County. Mr. Williamson said this would add to the
transparency, as some of these meetings are critically important, and it would be helpful if the public had
a better understanding of what they are doing at the meetings and the significant time commitment the
Board puts in to attend meetings.
Mr. Williamson added that he has been opposed to interchanges on US 29 for eight years, and
he wants to make it clear that there is not a uniform consensus on this moving forward. Mr. Williamson
said that he will continue to stand in opposition, but will do so politely and cheerfully.
__________
Mr. Sheffield asked Board members if there was any interest in what Mr. Williamson suggested
about the quarterly report, as an information item.
Ms. Palmer and Ms. Dittmar expressed support for the report.
Ms. Mallek asked if they would pull this from their calendars as far as where they had been and
what they had done. She asked if they should include citizen meetings as part of the detail.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 15)
Mr. Sheffield said the suggestion was for an accounting of what was paid for and what was do ne.
Ms. Dittmar said they could work on the format and tweak it as it goes along.
Ms. Palmer said Board members probably do not need to have the name of every person they
meet with; they just have to talk about how they would handle that.
Mr. Sheffield noted that if Board members are driving hundreds of miles to meet with constituents,
it speaks volumes as to the size of the County.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 12a. Adoption of Final Agenda.
Mr. Sheffield said based on some of the public comments, he would like to express to the State
the Board’s satisfaction with the Route 29 process thus far, and since Mr. Boyd may be on the other side
of that position, they should probably take a vote on it. Mr. Sheffield said that he would like to add to the
agenda sending some sort of transmittal to the State as to where they stand on Route 29, how they feel
the process has gone thus far, and where they are headed.
Ms. Dittmar asked if they could consider it under their report from Mr. Mark Graham.
Mr. Boyd said he thought the Board’s current rules required unanimous Board approval in order
to put something on their agenda for a vote.
Mr. Davis said if it is going to be added as an action item without prior notice, it requires
unanimous consent to be added.
Mr. Boyd said he would be opposed to this, but it does not mean it cannot be brought up at their
next meeting.
Ms. Mallek said the Board could still talk about it today.
Mr. Sheffield asked what constitutes taking action. If the Board is talking ab out submitting a letter
acknowledging that the process is going well, is that still action? Mr. Davis said the Board can talk about
the letter and contents of the letter, but it could not vote, as a Board, to send it without making it an action
item.
Mr. Foley said if the Board wants to add something to next week’s agenda, it can do so, as long
as it is done by the following Monday.
Mr. Boyd said as part of that, he would like the Board to discuss an economic analysis of the
Route 29 Solutions package, particularly the grade-separated interchange.
Mr. Boyd stated that the other item he would like to discuss is the $2 million that has been set
aside in the CIP for more than eight years for the YMCA, in light of current discussions by City Council.
Mr. Sheffield said he would be open to taking action on the YMCA item, but not on the economic
analysis.
Ms. Dittmar said the Board members could discuss the fiscal impact under Mr. Graham’s report,
and asked if they wanted to discuss the YMCA issue under Board matters.
Mr. Boyd said he would like to ask staff to get back to the Board as to alternative uses for the $2
million that is currently earmarked in the CIP for the YMCA, and said he could bring it up under Other
Matters from the Board.
Ms. Mallek then moved to approve the final agenda with the changes as discussed, adding the
YMCA item under the Board matters. Mr. Sheffield seconded the motion.
Roll was then called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 13. Consent Agenda. Ms. Mallek moved to approve Items 13.1 (as read)
through 13.2a on the Consent Agenda. Ms. Palmer seconded the motion. Roll was called, and the
motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
__________
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 16)
Item No. 13.1. Approval of Minutes: February 26, March 5, April 15, July 8 and October 30, 2014.
Ms. McKeel had read the minutes of February 26, 2014 and found them to be in order.
Mr. Sheffield had read his portion of the minutes of March 5, 2014 and found them to be in order.
Ms. Mallek had read the minutes of April 15, 2014 and found them to be in order.
Mr. Boyd pulled his portion of the minutes of March 5, 2014 and carried them forward to the next
meeting.
Ms. Palmer pulled her portion of the minutes of March 5, 2014 and carried them forward to the
next meeting.
Ms. Dittmar pulled the minutes of July 8, 2014 and carried them forward to the next meeting.
Ms. McKeel pulled the minutes of October 30, 2014 and carried them forward to the next meeting.
By the above-recorded vote, the Board approved the minutes as read.
__________
Item No. 13.2. ACE Easement Purchases.
The executive summary states that on November 13, 2013, the Board approved the Acquisition of
Conservation Easement (ACE) Committee’s request to have the top five ranked properties from the April,
2013 applicant pool (see Attachment A) appraised. In May of 2014, the Caldwells voluntarily withdrew
their application, and in October, Mr. Campbell decided to not sell an easement to the County, leaving
only three (3) eligible properties for consideration: Henley Forest, Sta rgell and Woodson.
On November 5, 2014, the Board approved the recommendations of the ACE Committee and
staff to: 1) accept the Henley Forest Inc. written offer to sell a conservation easement to the County for
$363,780; 2) approve the Stargell and Woodson appraisals; and 3) authorize staff to invite Stargell and
Woodson to make written offers to sell conservation easements to the County for the amounts approved
by the ACE Appraisal Review Committee (ARC).
Currently, the County has $1,568,107.70 in funding available for the acquisition of eligible ACE
easements ($736,954.60 in ACE funds re-appropriated from the County’s FY 14 Budget, $640,759 of
ACE funds appropriated in FY 15, of which $120,000 is designated as grant revenue, and $310,394.10
from two Office of Farmland Preservation (OFP) grants previously awarded and currently being held by
OFP in a restricted account until the County submits a Reimbursement Claim Form for 50% of total
eligible easement acquisition costs, of which $120,000 was appropria ted as part of the FY 15
Budget). With the County’s impending purchase of Henley Forest, Inc.’s easement for $363,780 and the
related title insurance cost of approximately $1,250.00, a balance of approximately $1,203,000 will still
remain for the acquisition of the Woodson and Stargell easements, both of which are eligible for the OFP
grants, and all other future easements.
Funding for the purchase of these conservation easements would be paid for from existing funds
in the CIP-Planning-Conservation budget (line-item 9010-81010-580409) and grants from the Office of
Farmland Preservation (OFP). If the Woodson and Stargell easements are purchased for $72,000 and
$257,000, respectively, for a total of $329,000, and title insurance for both easements purchase d for
approximately $2,000 total, all of the currently available OFP grant funding will be used, and there will be
a balance of approximately $872,000 remaining in the County’s FY 15 Budget that may be used for future
qualifying ACE easement purchases. Applications for the 2014 application pool are currently being
reviewed and evaluated by staff.
The ACE Committee and staff recommend that the Board accept the Woodson and Stargell
written offers to sell conservation easements to the County for $72,000 and $257,000, respectively, for a
total amount of $329,000.
By the above-recorded vote, the Board accepted the Woodson and Stargell written offers
to sell conservation easements to the County for $72,000 and $257,000, respectively, for a total
amount of $329,000.
__________
Item No. 13.2a. Cancel January 14, 2015 Board Meeting.
By the above-recorded vote, the Board canceled its January 14, 2015 Board Meeting.
__________
Item No. 13.3. 2014 Third Quarter Certificate of Occupancy Report, as prepared by the
Community Development Department, was received for information.
The report states that during the third quarter of 2014, 97 certificates of occupancy were issued
for 97 dwelling units. There were four permits issued for mobile homes in existing parks, at an
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 17)
exchange rate of $2,500, for a total of $10,000. There were no certificates of occupancy issued for the
conversion of an apartment to a condominium.
__________
Item No. 13.4. 2014 Third Quarter Building Report, as prepared by the Community Development
Department, was received for information.
The report states that during the third quarter of 2014, 137 building permits were issued for 138
dwelling units. There were three permits issued for mobile homes in existing parks, at an exchange rate
of $2,500, for a total of $7,500. There were no permits issued for the conversion of an apartment to a
condominium.
__________
Item No. 13.5. Copy of letter dated December 8, 2014, from Ronald L. Higgins, Chief of
Zoning/Deputy Zoning Administrator, to Virginia Land Trust, c/o Greg Baldwin, re: AMENDMENT TO
OFFICIAL DETERMINATION OF PARCEL OF RECORD – Tax Map 79, parcel 23C (noncontiguous
portion) (Property of Virginia Land Trust) – Scottsville Magisterial District, was received for information.
__________
Item No. 13.6. Copy of letter dated December 10, 2014, from Ronald L. Higgins, Chief of
Zoning/Deputy Zoning Administrator, to Anvince Land Trust, c/o Sue A. Albrecht, Trustee, re:
LOD201400015 - OFFICIAL DETERMINATION OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS – Tax Map 61, Parcel 1B1
(property of VDoT) – Jack Jouett Magisterial District, was received for information.
__________
Item No. 13.7. Copy of letter dated December 11, 2014, from Sarah D. Baldwin, Senior Planner,
to Cheryl Rudduck, re: LOD201400017 - OFFICIAL DETERMINATION OF PARCEL OF RECORD – Tax
Map 119, Parcel 22 – Samuel Miller Magisterial District, was received for information.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 14. Water Resources Program – Level of Service.
The executive summary as presented by staff states that recent Virginia mandates, including the
Virginia Stormwater Management Program (VSMP) and the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Program ,
have led to significant increases in the cost of implementing County water resources programs. To
explore whether the Board should establish a dedicated funding mechanism to support these programs,
the Board appointed a Water Resources Funding Advisory Committee (See attached January 8, 2014
Executive Summary, Attachment A).
The Committee is charged with providing to the Board by September 2015 a recommendation for
a funding mechanism that would best meet County needs and goals (See Committee’s Charge,
Attachment B). Since September 2014, key staff and consultant representatives have facilitated monthly
Committee meetings covering topics such as major program elements, new mandates, the condition of
County streams, staff and department roles, and program gaps.
The Committee’s current task is to draft a preliminary program plan, which will enable the
Committee to provide direction and advice on the public engagement process and to estimate the total
program costs to serve as the basis of subsequent analyses and discussion regarding funding options,
rate structure options, and preliminary rates and cost distributions. The Committee will develop program
and funding option recommendations to be presented to the public beginning in April 2015.
The program plan will include the various operational and capital programs that will be supp orted
by funding sources. Before the funding study can be conducted, it is necessary to determine whether the
program plan should include proactively managing the County’s water resources’ infrastructure and
ecosystems. Infrastructure management includes operating and maintaining Stormwater management
facilities and drainage conveyances (pipes and open channels). Ecosystem management includes
activities that improve the quality of County streams and other natural resources, from stream buffer
protection to stream restoration.
The County must determine what level of service (LOS) it will provide to maintain compliance with
the County’s increased MS4 permit requirements. The LOS, in turn, is relevant to evaluating the
appropriate funding options.
The Committee, at its December 11, 2014 meeting, considered various questions regarding the
LOS of the preliminary program plan. Those questions and the Committee’s responses are summarized
in Attachment C. Staff is requesting the Board’s feedback on the Committee’s positions and any
additional thoughts or concerns regarding the preliminary program plan.
The information provided by the Board will simply inform the water resources funding study
and will not affect the budget at this time.
Staff recommends that the Board provide feedback regarding the Advisory Committee’s
recommendations regarding the preliminary program plan and, in particular, whether the Committee
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 18)
should continue to examine a level of service that includes the proactive management of the County’s
water resources’ infrastructure and ecosystems.
_____
Mr. Doug Walker, Deputy County Executive, addressed the Board. He stated the Board has been
in considerable discussion for the last several years regarding policy issues pertaining to water quality
improvement. He said this has included addressing mandates such as the Virginia Stormwater
Management Program, which requires the Board to amend its water protection ordinance, adopt a new
fee schedule and implement a new program effective as of July 1, 2014; MS4 and TMDL related to
stormwater, and their compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Act, part of which is governed by DEQ and
part of which is governed by the EPA. Mr. Walker said that a year earlier, the Board directed staff to
develop a process for engaging the public in a conversation about a variety of funding alternatives –
service districts, general fund, and/or stormwater utilities – and to bring back a public engagement plan.
He stated the Board reviewed it, and as a consequence the Board adopted a plan and appointed a Water
Resources Funding Advisory Committee, authorized hiring a consultant, and set the plan in motion. Mr.
Walker said the work has been ongoing, most actively over the last three or four months, with Ms. Mallek
serving as liaison to that committee and Ms. Palmer involved as an interested Board member, and the
committee work ing hard over the last several months to get to this point in their process. He stated the
committee hired Foster Wheeler as consultants to help the Committee with the policy questions needed
to frame their recommendations to the Board. Currently, the Committee is trying to get a sense of Board
support of their preferences related to levels of service – which will govern in some part the consideration
for the type of funding mechanism the Board will want to consider. Mr. Walker said the Committee went
through this exercise a month ago, and the intent today is to share an update of the process and results
of that with the Board, in hopes of receiving additional input from them.
Mr. Greg Harper, Water Resources Manager, addressed the Board, asking Committee members
who were present to raise their hands. Ms. Mallek identified Committee members as Ms. Kim Swanson
and Ms. Leslie Middleton.
Mr. Harper said the Committee is not asking the Board to making decisions on the levels of
service the County will be implementing over the years, but simply to validate the recommendations made
by the Advisory Committee on a level of service that will subsequently be utilized to play out the rest of
the analysis. He said to have discussions about funding mechanisms and rates, they need to have an
idea of what programs they will include as part of their assumptions, so this will provide a dollar sign on
which to base everything else for planning purposes.
Mr. Harper said that many localities are in the same position as Albemarle, and all are looking at
dedicated funding mechanisms to fund stormwater programs because costs have increased. He said the
Advisory Committee has been meeting since September. Staff has been covering a lot of background on
the programs to give the Committee a sense of what the County does currently, and to identify program
gaps. Mr. Harper said AMEC has analyzed some of the County processes and can see the challenges
and strengths that different mechanisms would benefit from or be challenged by. He stated they are
trying to finalize the preliminary program plan to put a cost to it. In the future the Committee will be
identifying different types of funding mechanisms, developing financial and user fee policies such as
credits and incentives. Mr. Harper said they will then take that information to establish rate structures,
and typically these efforts will determine the cost burden – who pays what portion. He then presented a
description of the major programs the County currently implements . The VSMP essentially regulates
development; the TMDL is the mandated program to address the Chesapeake Bay impairment and two
local impairments; the MS4 program includes TMDL but also other elements such as public education,
IDDE illicit discharge detection and elimination, and other programs. He said that many but not all of the
County’s programs have an emphasis on urbanized areas and are not necessarily count ywide, i.e., the
MS4 permit essentially covers the urban areas of the County. Mr. Harper stated that implementation of
these programs costs the County $2.6 million per year – approximately $1.6 million in staff time and $1
million per year in capital.
Mr. David Bulova, of AMEC Foster Wheeler, addressed the Board, stating that the County is
facing a number of state and federal mandates, and for those kinds of items, it is a matter of figuring out
how much those cost and how to efficiently implement them. Mr. Bulova said in looking at funding
mechanisms, this is a good opportunity to look at what other assets the County manages and maintains
to determine how it will be efficiently managed for the long term. He stated that this pertains to gray
infrastructure, such as pipes and stormwater management facilities, and green infrastructure such as
stream valleys and other ecosystems. Mr. Bulova said they are addressing it through this process
because of the size of the program, which drives how much the County will need to raise, and how it will
distribute the costs – implementing a countywide rate or areas that pay more or less. He stated that the
County will want to ensure that as it is developing its program, the expectations match up with what the
public is seeking, so this is an opportunity to address that. Mr. Bulova said the consulting process
involved a few days of very detailed interviews with County staff to determine current measures and
identify existing gaps, and they held discussions with the Committee as to how to address those through
recommendations.
Mr. Bulova stated he will review the gray infrastructure and ecosystem components, which pertain
to their scope of responsibility as a County. In considering what the County has done to date, it revolves
primarily around maintaining the conveyance on County properties. He said in thinking about a pipe
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 19)
collapse or burst or break, the things they will respond to would be on County property. Mr. Bulova said
as the County become accountable for its entire systems, it is probably responsible for more than just
what is on County property, as there are private properties with public stormwater easements that carry
public stormwater through the properties. He said that if the pipes were to collapse or break, because
they are within a public easement and it is public stormwater, the County probably has an up-front
responsibility for dealing with that, not the private property owner. Mr. Bulova said that the County’s
obligation has expanded, and the follow-up question to that is what the County’s responsibility should be
for a private property owner who has public stormwater going through their property, but it is not under a
public easement. He stated that it is a big question in terms of implications for the County. He then
presented a map showing the stormwater infrastructure on the north section of Route 29 – which is
mapped directly to public stormwater management facilities and other areas. Mr. Bulova said it is fairly
extensive infrastructure, but taking into account all the roads and areas that are not mapped, one of the
big challenges is that there is no map of that private infrastructure and which are in public easements. He
stated that the Committee is recommending that they go through and map and assess all of that private
conveyance to establish some sense of what they are facing. From a short-term standpoint they will need
to budget for maintenance for the stormwater infrastructure that is within a public easement.
Mr. Sheffield asked if mapping the private infrastructure would create a public obligation to
maintain it in the future, because if the County is identifying that there is a problem, it is by de facto
creating an obligation or liability. Mr. Davis explained that in most instances, it is clearly a private
responsibility – and where these instances arise is when there is often not a responsible party who is able
to deal with a significant issue that is creating an erosion problem threatening property, or is becoming a
public safety issue. In those instances, he said, the County has reviewed those on a case by case basis,
and before it can expend public funds to improve private property, it must acquire an easement – which it
will do when there is a potential threat to public saf ety or property. He said that what is being suggested
is perhaps assuming responsibility for all of these things once they are mapped, but that would still
require the task of acquiring easements on those properties. Mr. Davis said that gathering information
does not put the County in jeopardy, but it is a huge undertaking, and would include all of the subdivisions
platted prior to the year 2000. He added that before the County could enter into those properties and
take any action, it would still need to be consent through an easement to establish that public property
right. Mr. Davis noted that most property platted before 2000 was not required to dedicate stormwater
easements to public use, so there is a huge inventory out there.
Ms. Dittmar asked if the County is allowed to map the property will, or if it has to get permission
from landowners to do mapping. Mr. Davis said if the County enters onto people’s property, it would need
permission, but most of these could probably be established from subdivision plats and other
documentation that would not require that.
Ms. Palmer said there is also the question of how these findings would impact people’s property
values, if they find they have a major piece of infrastructure on their property.
Mr. Bulova said it is fairly typical for mapping to include private infrastructure within the system,
and for this exercise you would not be mapping the condition – so to the degree they are related, this is a
good question to ask. He said once the infrastructure is mapped and there is an understanding as to the
scope of the County’s responsibility, the question becomes how to efficiently maintain the infrastructure
for the long term. Mr. Bulova said the maintenance currently done on the system the County is primarily
reactive – you wait for something to break, then you go out and fix it – and the question is whether that is
the most efficient approach, as it is typically more expensive to manage by emergency than doing the
maintenance and rehabilitation all along. He noted that the question posed to staff and the Committee
was whether the County wanted to be more proactive with respect to how it deals with the system,
beginning with the assessment component to establish the scope of the system and its condition. Mr .
Bulova said the question then becomes how fast the County engages in maintenance and rehabilitation,
because even if infrastructure is well-maintained, it has a lifespan of 75-100 years, and setting aside a
certain percentage each year so the system can be maintained from a proactive standpoint. He said that
the Committee agreed that they wanted to be able to do that, and figured that if at the very best there
would be a 100-year lifespan for the pipe system, they would want to set aside one percent of the capital
cost of total replacement each year.
Mr. Bulova stated that another critical piece of the infrastructure are the stormwater management
facilities – dry ponds, wet ponds and bio-retention basins – and new VSMP regulations means the County
will see a lot more of these, and they will be scattered, smaller, and thus more difficult to maintain in the
long term. He said that the County maintains 58 smaller facilities, and 12 regional facilities . In addition to
that inventory, there are about 850 facilities privately maintained through maintenance agreements with
the County – and that is the inventory that is likely to increase fairly significantly over the next few years.
Mr. Bulova stated there is currently not an existing immediate gap. The County recently hired someone
to supplement inspections for the private infrastructure, with money set aside for the County BMPs . Over
the next five years, there will probably be enough inventory to require another inspector out in the field.
He said currently, most localities go out and inspect a facility; if it is not being maintained properly, a letter
is sent indicating they need to maintain it properly. Therefore, the question is, what happens if that owner
says “no” or does not get back to the County. Mr. Bulova said over the next five years, this will be very
telling because the EPA and DEQ will be looking at what the County is doing with respect to enforcement
of those maintenance agreements, and if there is a problem then it might need to reconsider a long-term
maintenance strategy. He noted that Loudoun County decided years ago that it would maintain all of the
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
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private stormwater management facilities in exchange for an easement and bringing them up to standard.
In talking about urban versus rural, he said, the public and private stormwater management facilities are
scattered throughout the County and are concentrated in urban areas, but because the stormwater
management requirements are countywide, they are both in and out of development areas.
Mr. Bulova said ecosystems pertain to streams and stream corridors, with the issue being
streams that are impaired or that have total daily maximum loads that are not mandated by law for the
County to address. He said the County has far more impaired streams than ones subject to TMDLs, and
if they continue to degrade they will be subject to the regulations – so the question is, at what point the
County should intervene. Mr. Bulova said the Committee is recommending that the County do the
necessary watershed planning to be able to identify and prioritize projects and programs to address the
impairments, so the streams that are on the edge might get ahead of the regulations and avoid future
mandated regulations. For those that have a TMDL anyway, he said, it gets them ahead of the curve
from a compliance standpoint, as well as an asset to the County in terms of stream quality. Mr. Bulova
said that they currently do not have this information, and the Committee’s recommendation is to spend
the next five years or so putting together comprehensive watershed plans that consider strategic
opportunities for improvement or programs; then they can start putting funding in place to support those
programs. He stated that the final issue relates to stream buffers and the stream buffer protection
ordinance. Albemarle is one of the few counties that has adopted this type of ordinance, outside of those
localities that are subject to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. He said that the issue raised by the
Committee and by staff is that there is not any enforcement of those buffer areas outside of being
complaint-driven, although at one point there had been staff to more proactively monitor encroachments
and deal with them. Mr. Bulova presented a map of all the streams protected under the water protection
ordinance with a buffer. He stated that the Committee concluded that if the County is serious about
continuing its stream buffer protection program, there ought to be the resources devoted to ensure there
is proactive enforcement rather than reactive. Mr. Bulova said he is looking for to the Board’s feedback
and any other guidance for the Committee.
Ms. Palmer asked if Mr. Harper could comment on whether the County has the staff capacity and
budget to actually map out the stormwater infrastructure and do the watershed analysis for the stream
buffers. Mr. Harper said that along with him, there are currently two inspectors, and they will be hiring a
new water resources engineer – so they will go from two to four staff positions, but they have a lot of
backlog of work. He said that the infrastructure can possibly be mapped with interns or through a
contract with an entity like the Soil & Water Conservation District, but the other efforts w ill probably
require hiring a consulting to assist them. Mr. Harper said it will be possible to do that over several years,
but the capacity is not currently there to deal with the specific projects pertaining to the second aspect of
this work.
Ms. Palmer asked about how long the mapping of the stormwater infrastructure will take. Mr.
Harper responded that the stormwater mapping will probably take about a year.
Mr. Boyd said that in 2015 there was $400,000 designated for this, with $1.24 million in the next
five years, and asked if this is an annual expense. He also asked if Mr. Harper could break down the
costs for planning, maintenance, infrastructure, etc. Mr. Harper said he can provide that information to
the Board.
Mr. Boyd said he is trying to understand what the County will accomplish with this money,
although not all the requirements are known yet. He also noted that the Committee is looking for direction
from the Board, in terms of stormwater district, utility fee, general fund, etc .
Ms. Dittmar asked what questions the Board needs to have answered today so the Committee
can keep a forward process going.
Mr. Foley asked Mr. Walker to clarify the attachment presented.
Mr. Walker said he had intended to try to clarify that on the front end as far as staff represent ation
a year ago, specific to one funding mechanism, but the Board said that it wanted to consider all three
funding mechanisms and have a public process to do that – and his thought was to reframe that around
where they have been the last year and where they are currently. He stated that the Committee and the
consultants have worked through the questions related to level of service, with the expectation that the
funding mechanism selected would be driven in part by how much the County wants to do and how far it
wants to go. He said the County is already doing slightly more than what is mandatory, but it is not doing
as much as it used to because the mandates have caught up to their level of service. Mr. Walker said
that in the conversation with the consultant and the Committee, they are trying to clarify the specific
measures being done with regard to maintenance of stormwater infrastructure, public infrastructure and
public easements – but the gap occurs because they are not doing maintenance on private infrastructure
that is already in a public easement. He said even beyond that is private infrastructure on privat e
easement, which the County cannot touch until an easement is available to do the work. Mr. Walker said
these are choices the County needs to consider, which will drive costs and also may drive the relationship
between the mechanism – who is paying, how much, and for what.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 21)
Mr. Bulova said the Committee did not want to give the sense that it was opening up the program
and adding on all sorts of things it would like to have. The Board could think about what it has looked at
in terms of mandates – which are short-term things that it must do – and then County obligations, which
are not necessarily mandated, but are necessary in order to manage stormwater infrastructure. He said
that the mandates are fairly short term with easily identified costs, but the Committee is focused on
obligations that are longer term and may require additional cost. Mr. Bulova said that the reason the
Committee did not come forth with cost distribution and different financing mechanisms is because it
wanted the Board to clarify first what level of service it wanted for the County.
Ms. Dittmar said that the question is whether the Board wants to stick with the .7 -cent tax
increase to cover the federal mandates, or to signal the Committee to study other things.
Ms. Mallek said they could also look at the .7 cents and how to use it more efficiently.
Ms. Palmer suggested that the Board needs to know the extent, and do the mapping in order to
know what it is getting into in the first place. Mr. Bulova agreed, and said like many programs, the Board
will want to understand the scope of the obligation or the opportunities first . In their presentation, while
they made some assumptions that the Board would want to set aside some money to proactively maintain
infrastructure for the long term, the primary up-front cost is to do the mapping to get a sense of the
condition of the infrastructure, and to do the watershed planning, to get a sense of where their priorities
might be.
Ms. Dittmar said that seems to be the question – whether the Board would want to pay for a study
first to get this information. Mr. Bulova agreed and added that the Committee’s recommendation is also
that the County should start saving for infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation now.
Ms. Mallek said that one question discussed by the Committee was the most financially prudent
way to accomplish things, because there is general understanding that keeping clean water clean is much
cheaper than trying to clean it up later. She said there are also situations in which privately-managed
stormwater basins are modified, then the water goes down into someone else’s basement, because there
is no knowledge base as to how to maintain these. Ms. Mallek said the other huge benefit to finding out
what is out there is that there may be opportunities to do improvements in the green infrastructure side
that are much less expensive and would divert some of the problems on the gray infrastructure side. She
stated that all of the members on the Committee have participated in these discussions, and all of the
business people have also made comments that the County must find out this information.
Ms. Dittmar asked Mr. Walker if there is cost information as to what the Board needs to provide
for this study and consulting work. Mr. Walker responded that it is most likely part of the consultant’s
scope of work that has already been approved, and the County is not looking for anything beyond
information.
Ms. Dittmar stated that she would like to know how to handle the urban versus suburban issue,
and the Board needs to be able to communicate to the public what they are getting for their taxes, utility
fee, or whatever model is chosen. She added that she would like to have examples from other localities.
Mr. Bulova stated that is important guidance for the Committee and the consultants to have, and
perhaps it might be a good idea to run back through the items he went over to get a sense from the Board
members about how they feel. He said the important thing, as mentioned by Mr. Walker, is that they will
take the guidance and flesh out costs, and sometime over the summer they will run scenarios to see how
programs will generate costs. The Board will then go back to the Committee and indicate which items are
politically feasible and which are not.
Mr. Foley said staff did have a fair amount of debate as far as what should come first, and
whether they needed to get costs before establishing levels of service.
Mr. Boyd stated that he would like to get some line item detail about what is involved in planning,
mapping and costs – and depending on who he talks to, some feel that the problems occur in the urban
area because of impervious surfaces, or in the rural area because of agriculture. He thinks that the Board
really needs to solve that problem before deciding how to allocate out the cost of this.
Mr. Bulova said they are not asking the Board to make any decisions at this point as to how to
allocate the cost out, and once they decide what the program might look like they can evaluate whether
there are differences between urban and rural areas, and whether they are significant enough
differentiators to charge someone in an urban area differently than someone in a rural area.
Mr. Walker emphasized that it is important to make that distinction that the regulated area related
to the MS4 TMDL, which is the County’s mandate, is primarily the urban area. There is a regulated area
within which the County is obliged to make certain improvements; then the question is whether
investments in non-regulated areas would provide overall water quality benefit to the community, and
perhaps even support the mandate. He said that regardless of the funding mechanism chosen, the Board
needs to establish how much money would be generated to accomplish what level of service.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 22)
Mr. Foley said if Mr. Bulova walk ed the Board through those choices that is about as much as the
Board can do at this point, and it would be very helpful for the next step of the process.
Mr. Bulova said he would walk through the items in the Committee’s report, and with the Board’s
direction they can run the scenarios with and without them. He said that the initial infrastructure is scope
of services, mapping and assessing everything, and starting to budget for maintenance within those
public easements – those areas the County knows it will be taking on responsibility for – and then
deferring the decision about maintenance of areas outside of the public easement until the Board has a
better sense as to the scope of the obligations.
Ms. Dittmar asked if the County is currently budgeting for maintenance, and if that is something
that would normally be done anyway. Mr. Foley said that is one of the reasons they hired new staff, but
Mr. Harper can be more specific.
Mr. Harper stated that the County does not actively maintain underground infrastructure, but does
maintain BMPs and has a maintenance budget for that. He said the County does not have an extensive
underground pipe maintenance program at all, especially when they start talking about the infrastructure
on private property within public easements – which they know very little about at this time.
Mr. Foley said the second bullet is a step forward that will have a cost to it, as new development
dedicates public easements to the County, but staff does not go around and make sure that everything is
working well. He noted the County is currently not budgeting for anything beyond its own facilities.
Ms. Dittmar asked if the Board was supportive of the Committee’s three bullet points. Ms. Mallek
and Ms. Palmer responded, “yes”.
Mr. Bulova said the next point is establishing what to do once they know their scope. He
reiterated that currently County maintenance is reactive – waiting for a failure and then taking action, and
the Advisory Committee is seeking feedback on their idea to be more proactive in maintaining that. He
stated that in order to be more proactive, they need to proactively assess the system and determine
where there are issues, which is a new budget item , and over a five-year period they would need to take
a TV camera and inspect the system to see where the breaks are and where there are problems. He said
that the County then needs to ensure that it has the capital resources to systematically rehabilitate and
replace that system as it ages and deteriorates. The Committee picked 1% very conservatively,
assuming that a pipe would only need to be replaced every 100 years. Mr. Bulova noted that within a
year, they would have a better sense of the scope of the County’s infrastructure in both categories –
public and privately owned.
Mr. Boyd asked how they would know how much 1% is, without knowing the scope. Ms. Mallek
responded that is why they need to get the first-year assessment done first. Mr. Bulova added that they
will make some educated professional assumptions for their modeling, so they can at least come up with
a ball park figure.
Mr. Boyd asked if there is a reason they had to do both at the same time. Mr. Bulova responded
that the idea is that if the Board is looking at new funding mechanisms, it does not want to have that
planning and then include the capital infrastructure costs because it would drive the County’s rate up –
and the idea is to start bringing in that money now so the rate will be leveled out.
Ms. Palmer asked if the 1% pertains only to those systems the County has already identified. Mr.
Harper responded that it is also the private infrastructure within public easements, which the County is not
doing currently. He added that it is mostly schools and County office buildings.
Ms. Dittmar suggested using the term “public easement” instead of “County.”
Mr. Walker asked if it was fair to say that the important point here is the order of magnitude, not
necessarily specific dollar amounts, and the choices made about the mechanism to generate revenue to
pay for this is going to have some relationship to the order of magnitude of the services and programs
provided. He said that if the Board only wants to do what it is doing now, that may lead to some
conversations around one type of mechanism for funding, but if it wants to do more than that, it may lead
to a conversation about a different type of funding.
Ms. Dittmar said it would be helpful to have the Committee’s consensus and bring this information
back to the Board to see if it is also their consensus.
Mr. Bulova said that would be the Committee’s intent.
Mr. Foley clarified that this does not mean that the Committee is recommending that the County
immediately set aside 1% of the funds.
Mr. Bulova said the Committee was trying to relay that the County should set this aside sooner
rather than later and come up with an order of magnitude cost, because if they go to another funding
mechanism with a rate for five years that just includes the cost for assessment, with year five including
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 23)
replacement costs, the rates will jump up. He noted that this will be a recommendation coming forth later
in the year, not right now.
Mr. Davis pointed out that most of the facilities that are on private property with public easements
have been built within the last 20 years, so the County has not started experiencing the maintenance,
repair and replacem ent crisis that it may in the future – and will have public responsibility for. He said that
the County currently deals with situations on an as-needed basis, and those involve costs, but what is
being suggested by the Committee is programmatically planning for the long-term replacement and repair
that is going to happen over the course of years.
Ms. Mallek said that the Service Authority model where they have been setting aside a tiny bit for
a very long time so they can methodically go through and replace and repair is a feasible model.
Mr. Bulova said that philosophically this is a good way to move forward, with the caveat that when
they come back in September it might be too high of a cost to take on at this point, in which case they
need to be prepared to re-run scenarios without that number or with a lower number included.
Ms. Mallek asked Mr. Davis if there was some County obligation commonly accepted that
conveyed easements on private property are the County’s responsibility. Mr. Davis said that the
expectation is that they will be maintained so they do not impact other property, because if the County’s
easement is not properly maintained and damages other property, there is some liability for that. Ms.
Mallek asked if it is a private liability for one homeowner to another if it is not a public easement. Mr.
Davis responded that whomever owns the system privately may have a liability. He added that
sometimes it is difficult to determine who owns it, as it can be an individual, a homeowners asso ciation, a
developer, etc. – and it must be looked at on a case by case basis that can often be complicated.
Mr. Foley said the dilemma of aging infrastructure has arisen more over the last 15 years.
Mr. Bulova stated that the Committee would also like their feedback on ecosystem management,
realizing that the County is legally obligated to do TMDL action plans for two impaired streams in the
County now. He said that the Committee is recommended getting ahead of that with respect to protecting
green infrastructure, conducting watershed planning over the next five years to identify issues and priority
projects that might be put in place to protect the infrastructure. Mr. Bulova said the recommendation is
also for the County to start setting aside some level of funding now to ensure that implementation can
actually happen at a reasonable pace after the plans occur.
Ms. Mallek said that some of it may be enforcement of the rules that are already in place.
Ms. Palmer said the County has a lot of information already, but she is not sure about the
consultant cost for the first tier of work with restoration.
Mr. Boyd said that if the Board does not know the dollar figures to coincide with the steps of
maintaining what is currently required and taking the extra step makes it difficult for the Board to decide.
Mr. Foley clarified that he was interested in looking at what the scenarios might be for the level of
service as the committee comes back, and costing them out would be helpful for the Board. Mr. Boyd
responded that he was correct.
Ms. Dittmar asked why the Committee is asking now about doing a Needs Assessment. Mr.
Walker said that the assessment will cost money, and implementing the outcomes of that study will also
have associated costs.
Ms. Mallek said these are elements that could be included in the program that is funded by the
new mechanism.
Ms. Palmer said they would like to do everything, depending on what it costs.
Mr. Harper said they were not asking permission to do these things, they wer e asking if the Board
is comfortable with assuming costs in the plan that would be used to calculate rates, for example. The
Committee and consultant need to know which things are assumptions in establishing a cost estimate to
be divided among the 40,000 residents of the County.
Mr. Foley said the County is doing a little bit of this now, and the Board can assume it will be part
of the program going forward, but the rest of the story is at what level they will do it – particularly in the
areas that expand beyond mandates in urban areas.
Mr. Bulova said they want to make sure that they are not going in a direction that the Board would
not even want to consider, in which case, they would not spend the time and effort to cost out.
Ms. Palmer said it would be helpful to her when the Committee comes back to have costs related
to not doing anything and having to clean up problems later.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 24)
Ms. Mallek said there was a lot of work already done by organizations such as the Rivanna River
Basin Commission, and that could be updated to jumpstart the watershed assessment.
Mr. Davis said that Mr. Harper’s report indicated that the cost was approximately $1 million per
year to do the mandates and the existing programming that the County currently has, for each of the next
five years; anything beyond that will exceed that cost estimate.
Mr. Boyd said the 0.7 cents came because of the $1 million. Mr. Foley agreed, stating that part of
the question is whether the 0.7 stays on as a general fund tax or is funded by a utility.
Mr. Bulova said the last question to discuss is the stream buffer protection, which is an existing
County program, and the issue again is reactive versus proactive enforcement – and a matter of staff
resources.
Ms. Mallek said when citizens complain about activity in the stream buffers, she has been told
that there is not County staff available to address that.
Mr. Foley said given the fact it is already happening in the rural areas, some level of proactive
approach is a good idea, and the question becomes how far the County goes with it.
Ms. Palmer stated that education is very important; some people have no idea how to deal with
buffers and floodplain.
Mr. Foley said that working with farmers will have so much more impact than some other things
the County can do, therefore, the County must be proactive to really move forward in this area – as called
for in their strategic plan.
Ms. Palmer mentioned that there is a large development coming online in the County that is
grandfathered from the new mandates, and she wondered if it is possible to get an idea of the County’s
cost if it took on these stormwater facilities. Mr. Bulova said the Chesapeake Bay TMDL action plan to be
submitted by June 30, 2015 has a specific category that addresses that, so before any grandfathered
project can be completed the County has responsibility for making sure the difference between
phosphorous loadings with the old criteria and the new is actually dealt with – so the County is on the
hook for finding the reductions and retrofitting somehow to achieve them. The cost falls directly on the
County.
Ms. Dittmar thanked Mr. Bulova, Mr. Harper and Committee members for their attendance and
discussion.
_______________
Recess. At 3:12 p.m., the Board took a brief recess then reconvened their meeting at 3:27 p.m.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 15. Board to Board Report – School Board.
Mr. Ned Gallaway, School Board Chairman, addressed the Board and said that although there
have been some spending cuts at the state level, they did not cut K-12 education. He said at their last
School Board meeting, the Board approved proceeding with the gym addition at Henley Middle School.
At its last meeting, the Board also adopted a resolution put out from the Virginia Association of School
Superintendents and Virginia School Board Association calling on the General Assembly to increase the
state’s share of funding for public education to the levels necessary to full y fund and meet the Standards
of Quality. Mr. Gallaway said that School Boards throughout the state are adopting this resolution, and
he would be happy to share it with the Board of Supervisors.
Mr. Gallaway said that for the second time in three years, the Albemarle County School Division
has received a magna award from the National School Boards Association, which is national recognition
of best practices and school district leadership. He said that the most recent award is for the Monticello
High School Learning Commons, formerly called the media center. The new space provides flexible
spaces to facilitate active instruction and learning that is impossible in traditional classrooms. Mr.
Gallaway reported that Becky Fisher, Director of Education Technology, received from the Virginia
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development its statewide “2014 Impact Award,” recognizing
individuals and leaders who re-imagine school libraries as contemporary learning spaces. He said this
has been an ongoing effort in their media centers with their Design 2015 grants along with the
modernization piece in the current CIP. He invited Board members to visit the media centers at County
schools, which Ms. Fisher has worked on.
Ms. Mallek commented that media centers are great places to have meetings, and she has met
with the CAP students at Monticello several times in the learning commons areas. Mr. Gallaway stated
that the work they had been doing in the learning commons has helped them with grants, and Delegate
Steve Landes visited early in the year.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 25)
Ms. Mallek said she was excited to see in Charlottesville Tomorrow the discussion of taking world
languages further and abroad. Mr. Gallaway said the School Board made sure that was part of their
curriculum, especially given the changing demographics of the school population. The School Division
has directed staff to develop the program as resources are available.
Ms. McKeel asked for him to forward the resolution he mentioned, so perhaps the Board of
Supervisors could consider it well. Mr. Gallaway agreed, stating that letting the General Assembly know
that would be a good idea.
Ms. Mallek asked if they had a number available for the gap, as she would like to have that as a
talking point. Mr. Gallaway said that as the schools work through its budget, they will have that
information available – but that is something that VAS and VSPA have put forward, which is getting
passed onto the General Assembly.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 16. Innovation Fund Round 2.
The executive summary forwarded to Board members states that the Board established the
County’s Innovation Fund in the FY 14 Budget, dedicating $166,500 in one-time money to support the
start-up of organizational initiatives that reduce costs and improve customer service and productivity. The
first round of the Innovation Fund was completed in April, 2014, with nine projects selected for funding in
the total amount of $86,989.51. The remaining $79,510.49 in FY 14 funding was re-appropriated to the
current fiscal year, and an additional $50,000 was allocated to th e Innovation Fund in the FY 15 Budget,
bringing the total available funding to $129,510.49.
Round 2 of the Innovation Fund was completed in November 2014, with eight projects selected
for funding in the total amount of $78,829.87. An appropriation request (Appropriation #2015070) is
included as part of the January 7, 2015 FY15 Amendment and Appropriations Executive Summary to
fund seven of the awarded projects in the total amount of $54,442.87. This executive summary provides
an overview of the approved Round 2 projects.
A cross-functional team of County employees came together to create the Innovation Fund
Program following adoption of the FY 14 Budget, which made Innovation Fund Program funding
available. Program guidelines were developed as outlined below, along with eligibility criteria and an
application and review process. The Innovation Fund program encourages a spirit of entrepreneurship
and creativity exemplified by the fact that one of the Round 1 projects, Technology Training Anytime, won
1st place in the Information Technology (IT) as Efficiency Driver – Government to Government
category at the 17th annual Commonwealth of Virginia Innovation Technology Symposium (COVITS) last
fall.
The “Inventing Albemarle” Innovation Fund supports projects that:
yield a return on investment, may be measured in new ideas or relationships as well as
new dollars
support an “innovation culture” in the organization
reduce operating costs/create capacity by freeing up employee time for more productive
work
increase process efficiency, quality, and services that impact staff and/or customers
leverage technology, including automating/standardizing routine processes
improve customer experience – both internal and external
establish a competitive edge
The applicants of the projects selected for funding were required to 1) provide a cost/benefit
analysis, including expected return on investment (ROI)); 2) identify savings and/or avoided costs, as well
as a means of measuring accountability and performance; and 3) provide an analysis of how the
proposed project fits into the mission, values and strategic plan goals of the County and how it supports
the County’s “ONE organization committed to excellence” philosophy. Quarterly progress reports are
required for all funded projects to ensure that goals are being met. A full report on the status of Round 1
projects, including return on investment, will be provided during budget work sessions in February.
Twenty applications were submitted to the Innovation Fund for consideration in Round 2. Of
those applications, the team approved eight for funding (list provided below) and determined that five did
not meet the criteria for funding, three could be implemented without funding, and four were of interest but
were not yet ready for funding. Full details on the approved projects are provided in Attachment A. Board
approval of Appropriation #2015070 is being requested on January 7th to fund seven projects, and the
remaining project is still being finalized for appropriation.
Diversity/Recruitment Video—Police Department
“What to Expect During Construction”—Office of Facilities Development
Digital Fire Simulator—Fire/Rescue
Paperless Plan Review Pilot—Community Development
Citizen Online Computer Station—Police Department
Au tomated Check-In—Social Services
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 26)
Rapid Response Outreach—Social Services
Agenda Management System —Board of Supervisors (still being finalized for
appropriation)
Total available funding for the Innovation Fund is $129,510.49. Awards for Round 2 of the
Innovation Fund total $78,829.87, which will leave a balance of $50,680.62 in the Innovation Fund.
This Executive Summary is for information only and no action is required by the Board.
_____
Ms. Lee Catlin, Assistant County Executive, reported that the Board approved an appropriation
on its Consent Agenda that included funding for projects in round two of the Innovation Fund . The Fund
was established in FY14 with one-time money to encourage a sense of entrepreneurship and creativity
among employees in facing challenges and opportunities within County government. Ms. Catlin said that
last fall, “Technology Training Anytime” won first place in the “Information Technology as Efficiency
Driver” at the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Innovation Technology Symposium. She stated the Innovation
Fund supports projects that yield a return on investment; new ideas or relationships, as well as new
dollars; supports an innovation culture in the organization; reduces operating costs or creates capacity;
increases efficiency, quality and services; leverages technology; improves customer experience; and
helps the County establish a competitive edge. In terms of the accountability and monitoring piece, she
said, the projects are required to provide a cost-benefit analysis, identify savings and/or avoided costs,
and provide an analysis of how the project fits in with the “one organization” mission and values.
Ms. Catlin said nine projects were funded in round one, and at this point they are six months past
when the funding was appropriated; three of the projects are complete; two are about 90% complete; two
of the projects are between 50 to 80% complete; and two of the projects are less than 50% complete.
She said the Board had asked for some return on investment details, and s taff will provide a full report on
that during the upcoming budget process.
Ms. Catlin reported that for round two, they received 20 applications; of those, eight were
approved for funding; three could be implemented without any funding at all; four were determined to be
of interest and potential, but needed a bit more development before they c an be funded and are still in the
incubation stage; five were determined to not meet the criteria for funding. She stated there was a wide
range of applicants – the Police Department, Fire/Rescue, Office of Facilities Development, Community
Development, Social Services, and the Board of Supervisors office. Ms. Catlin said this represents 20
teams of employees coming together upon their own initiative to think about projects that will improve
service, reduce costs and improve the customer experience. She recognized Blake Abplanalp from the
Office of Facilities Development; Amanda Burbage from Community Development; Travis Morris, India
Adams and Ella Jordan from the Board of Supervisors; and Kevin Wasilewski and Kelly Spencer from the
Department of Social Services. She also thanked Matt Regis and Jody Lewis from the County
Executive’s office for their work with the program.
Mr. Boyd asked for more information about the agenda management system as part of the Board
of Supervisors office innovation grant. Ms. Catlin said that staff reported on this during the video
streaming discussions, and said that this is a product called “Granicus” that many communities use, which
will save Mr. Morris and Ms. Jordan a day or two for every meeting in terms of the preparation time
needed to get the agendas through their workflow and loaded onto the Board’s I Pads and onto the
website with all the links in place.
Ms. Palmer asked when it was going to be completed. Ms. Jordan said she will have more
information and a timeline when they meet on Friday.
Ms. Palmer said that Mr. Martin’s statement about reconsidering video-streaming was excellent,
and asked if the video streaming could be added onto this package at any time. Ms. Catlin said they
could add that feature at any time, but will miss a little bit of a cost savings by not buying it all at one time.
She said that Mr. Sheffield had asked a question about video streaming, and the timing was such that it
could be included on the County’s community survey in the spring. Ms. Catlin said that she had reserved
space for a question on the survey to determine how many residents would be interested in video
streaming.
Ms. Palmer said Charlottesville Tomorrow also has a poll on their site that asks this question.
Mr. Boyd asked if the cost-benefit analysis of this particular project could also be included in their
report when it is provided to the Board. He said he would be interested to know if there are actual costs
savings or just time savings. Ms. Catlin responded that staff will be bringing that information back to the
Board.
Ms. McKeel said the new system , as she understands it, is similar to a system she was using
called, “Electronic Board Docs,” and asked if Board members will receive training. Ms. Catlin said it will
not change the Board’s experience in a huge amount, but staff will train them when necessary. She
added that staff will actually be more impacted by the change.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 27)
Ms. McKeel asked if staff has a location for the “citizen online computer station,” which sounded
like a kiosk-type setup. Ms. Catlin said that it will be at COB-5th Street in the lobby of the Police
Department, so that someone can come in and make a report without waiting to speak with an officer.
Ms. McKeel said the County has also been considering a similar mechanism to help people find
out about construction for ongoing projects, and asked if the system tied into that. Ms. Catlin said the
idea behind this is for occupiers of a building and surrounding neighbors to get something that explains
what the impacts would be and how they should deal with it, to ensure that the construction is as little
disruptive as possible.
Ms. Mallek asked when the Board would be considering the citizens survey. Ms. Catlin said that
Ms. Louise Wyatt will bring the item to the Board in February.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 17. Route 29 Solutions Update.
Ms. Dittmar noted that both Mr. Sheffield and Mr. Boyd have items related to this item to be
discussed.
Mr. Mark Graham, Director of Community Development, addressed the Board, stating that bids
have been submitted for the Route 29/250 interchange project, and the bids were und er the estimate – so
the award is pending along with a notice to proceed, and construction should begin within the next month
or so. He said that the City has started its advisory committee for Hillsdale, involving all neighborhoods
including those that lie in the County.
Mr. Graham said that regarding Rio Road/Route 29 North and Berkmar, the technical proposals
came in yesterday. The technical proposals is an outline of how the three qualified vendors plan to
approach the project. He said that VDOT will review the proposals over the next two weeks, and on
January 20 they will receive price proposals, with intent to award within a few days of that – going to the
Commonwealth Transportation Board in February for approval, with a notice to proceed to design
anticipated by early March 2015.
Mr. Graham said the panel will meet on January 8 to discuss VDOT directional signage, and will
be speaking with property owners about what they might be able to do in terms of providing signage in
the right of way there. He stated he also provided for the Board an updated rendering of the Rio Road
grade-separated interchange, and said there were some old ones floating around that do not include the
small but significant changes in the new version. Mr. Graham said he has also provided Board members
with a draft map of the property VDOT is looking to turn back from the defunct Western Bypass. VDOT
has done two releases of it thus far and is planning a third; once the County has all of the information,
staff will put it on the GIS to have it available for anyone interested in knowing which properties are being
turned back. Referring to the map, he noted that the green is Phase 1, purple is Phase 2 and a third
round not yet coded.
Mr. Sheffield said the right turn lane at the SunTrust Bank is a continuous right turn that will only
be signalized when a pedestrian presses a button across the street, which is a significant improvement as
the traffic will keep moving. He stated there will be a new video uploaded which provides a more
comprehensive look at the corridor, as well as, the intersection and VDOT confirmed that the timing of the
signal is realistic to what is predicted for the intersection, which is based on the synchro model used to
create the video.
Mr. Graham mentioned that VDOT is working on another video that will be a drive-through
simulation as to what it is like to drive through the intersection, which will be ready near the end of
January.
Mr. Boyd asked if they identified where they would stage all of the equipment necessary for this
project. Mr. Graham said that it is supposed to be identified in the technical proposal, so it will be a while
before the County can find out what they are doing. He added that VDOT has left it to the contractor to
make their own arrangements with private property owners for equipment.
Mr. Boyd asked if that meant there is no condemnation capability. Mr. Graham responded that
VDOT is not planning to provide the staging area, as the contractor will have to do it. The contractor does
not have condemnation authority, so they will have to make it work with somebody. He said staff has
looked at this from a zoning perspective, as to whether the County can work with VDOT to provide
staging areas, and think they have some answers to make it work without becomin g a zoning issue.
Mr. Sheffield asked if the County could ask for compensation for any property they provide for
staging this. Mr. Davis responded that he is not aware of County property available in that area.
Ms. Mallek said they would not want to use the library lot, as it has limited space already. She
asked if it has been discussed by the panel whether there is an option to have a second right turn lane
that could be used at high-traffic times, as those have made a huge difference elsewhere.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 28)
Mr. Sheffield commented that he does not think there is enough space for two right-turn lanes,
unless the LLC that owns the SunTrust property were to redevelop that site. He added that a signalized
right turn lane would be confusing, because the right lane w ould be continuous and the left lane would be
signalized.
Ms. Mallek said that is how Hydraulic is set up currently, and it works just fine.
Mr. Sheffield said the Hydraulic intersection is confusing.
Mr. Boyd said this is a common condition, not only at Hydraulic but also at Route 250 in the
Pantops area.
Mr. Sheffield stated as a member of the panel, he is close to some of the information provided
about the projects. He said that he wants to convey to the State that he is still in support of them and to
express his satisfaction with the level of engagement. He said that VDOT and Philip Shucet have been
very responsive to the community, including the opposition, and he believes it is important to show the
Board’s appreciation. Mr. Sheffield stated he has not seen this level of engagement with any other
project he has worked on in the southeast.
Mr. Boyd asked if he could get that same commitment from the Route 29 Solutions panel. Mr.
Sheffield said the panel does not vote, they just provide input. The input the panel has given – such as
the continuous right lane – came from the panel, and VDOT incorporated it.
Mr. Boyd said his question is why the Board would come out and endorse this as a great project
when it cannot even get that kind of commitment from the panel. Mr. Sheffield said the panel is supposed
to be representative of businesses, and by their own admission is not there to represent the community of
Albemarle County.
Ms. Dittmar clarified that Mr. Sheffield’s intent is to send a letter showing the County’s
appreciation for the extra resource that has been given through Philip Shucet and his actions, VDOT and
the work being done here rather than in Richmond.
Mr. Sheffield said the Board could also remind them of the past action it has taken.
Mr. Davis said if they want to do it as a Board, they could just add it to the agenda for the
following Tuesday’s meeting, and they could work with staff to have the letter drafted to be considered at
that time.
Ms. McKeel agreed with that approach.
Ms. Mallek said that between now and then, it would be great if individual Supervisors could send
letters of their own, with a copy by email as well to expedite the message.
Mr. Sheffield said he would be happy to draft something for them to consider.
Mr. Boyd asked if he would be willing to include a concern about the fact they are not going to do
an environmental impact statement, and the fact they are not going to do an economic analysis. Mr.
Sheffield said that they have addressed that numerous times, and it is not a concern for him.
Mr. Boyd asked if he was concerned about the stormwater management plan they have, and
stated his own concern over it. Mr. Sheffield reiterated that this has been addressed numerous times.
Ms. Dittmar asked Mr. Boyd to speak about the items he mentioned earlier in the meeting as
wanting to discuss in tandem with this item.
Mr. Boyd stated that one of the items listed earlier as a possibility was an econom ic impact
analysis, and he wants to know where that stands and how the Board might move forward with it. Ms.
Catlin said staff presented the Board with a list of items, and the Board suggested the ones it wanted to
see come back, so staff is currently working on the list – which they will bring back to the Board along
with appropriate actions for each of those items. For the economic impact study, she stated that staff is
currently considering what the methodology would be, what it would take to achieve something like that,
and what the outcomes would be so the Board has a full understanding of what it would take to get that
done.
Mr. Boyd asked what value that would have in March, after the contractor has already started.
Ms. Catlin said the Board will have a whole menu of items in March that staff has researched, from a legal
and financial perspective, and the hope is that the businesses assistance program w ill stem from that,
with the economic impact study as a part of that.
Ms. Mallek suggested staff incorporate information from other localities where this kind of study
had been done, for this size of project. She said that she does not want to start from scratch for a short-
term project like this.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 29)
Ms. Catlin asked if that is the Board’s understanding of where they should be with that study. Ms.
McKeel, Ms. Mallek and Ms. Palmer responded yes.
Mr. Sheffield said in his experience, it is usually the business community that puts together the
studies to fight for these types of projects.
Mr. Boyd said that when the business community tries to put those [studies] forward, people said
the data is not valid, and somehow government understands what is going on better than the businesses
themselves. His opinion is, that people who want to put a nail in the coffin of the bypass are the ones
pushing this forward, including a grade-separated interchange, which he does not think is needed, nor
does the people living around there.
Ms. Mallek said that is true for a few of them.
Mr. Boyd said it is quite a few.
Mr. Sheffield said he was conducting some online searches on similar corridors and examples of
the intersection, and he was reminded by Dennis Rooker that there is no other road in the
Commonwealth of Virginia that is eight lanes wide other than the Dulles Toll Road and the interstates . In
addition this is probably also the largest intersection in the state that is at-grade. He emphasized that
larger intersections have evolved to be grade-separated interchanges.
Mr. Boyd asked why they would study Hydraulic to see if it makes sense to do it, but not study
Rio. Mr. Sheffield said this is one-quarter of that intersection. Ms. Mallek said the City is trying to build
support for the Belmont Bridge project.
Ms. Catlin then distributed information on public engagement efforts, noting a list of activities
since May 2014 in terms of communications, engagement, and outreach by VDOT, the County and the
committee. She noted the highlighted items focuses on resident outreach, as well as business outreach –
and mentioned that there are regularly scheduled radio interviews with WINA and NBC-29 with Mr.
Shucet and Joel DeNunzio; there are public meetings ranging from individual meetings with business
owners to neighborhood meetings to broader-based town halls. Ms. Catlin said the County has done a
tax insert to all personal property tax holders, then revised it and sent it out to all the BPOL business
members at the end of December, adding items such as reminders to contact VDOT with particular issues
they wanted to discuss related to their property, including strategies f or the business assistance program
with a particular focus on the Rio/Route 29 interchange piece. She stated that the County has also been
communicating frequently through A-mail. She highlighted information on neighborhood outreach efforts
– with Emily Kilroy, the new Community Engagement Specialist, prioritizing the need to build the
neighborhood database, with 70 contacts thus far. Ms. Catlin said the County invited all 70 of them to an
open house at Jack Jouett in December, and while there was not a great turnout, there were about 15
attendees representing neighborhood homeowner associations, as well as representatives from VDOT,
police and fire rescue. She stated after that meeting, staff followed up with some communication and
encouraged them to stay connected. Ms. Catlin said the County has established a fairly active social
media presence on Facebook and Twitter regarding information dissemination. Ms. Catlin said staff is
working with the communications subcommittee – including representatives from VDOT, the City, TJPDC
and the County – and is finalizing a communications plan for the corridor, to include construction and
design milestones as well as communications and outreach strategies to align with them. She noted that
staff will hold a session with the Board in February on this effort, with an emphasis on future strategies.
Ms. Dittmar commented that a lot of work has been done on this, and noted that the Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ) had differing information – with the business version clearly indicating that Route
29 would be open during the entire construction period, but she was told by the President of a
homeowners association in the area that their Board was told that Route 29 was going to be closed
during some of the construction. She confirmed with Mr. Graham that this was not correct, but if an entire
board is thinking this, it should be clear in the FAQs. Ms. Catlin said staff will make sure to emphasize
the point that Route 29 will stay open.
Ms. Dittmar said she also heard from constituents that VDOT is using old data to make its
modeling decision, but the data they are using is only a year old – so they need to get that message out.
Mr. Boyd said all VDOT would have to do is supply the data.
Ms. Mallek said it is in the appendices of the long-range transportation plan, all modeled last year.
Mr. Sheffield said it is currently on Route29solutions.org, simplified by lane, turning movements,
and time of day.
Mr. Boyd asked why people who are planning experts have looked at that data and said it is not
good data. Mr. Sheffield said it is because they work for the opposition.
Ms. Mallek said they were hired to refute the data.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 30)
Mr. Boyd said he appreciates the work done by staff on this, but what the County is doing is
saying that VDOT and government know what is best for everyone. VDOT is implying that this is going to
be a great project with no disruption during construction because Route 29 will be kept open, and ignore
common sense because “government knows best.” He stated that there is nothing in here where the
Board is asking the public for response or input; the County is telling them what it is going to do and why
it is going to be good for them.
Ms. Mallek said that this may be true right now, but they have been as king people for input for the
last year.
Mr. Boyd said this has been ignored.
Ms. Catlin said with the business assistance and neighborhood programs, they are very open to
feedback – and if that is not obvious in the message, then they need to do a better job of that.
Mr. Boyd asked if anything could be changed with it. Ms. Catlin said staff’s premise has been
that decisions of that manner are being made in a place that the County is not affecting with this particular
communication program, The staff’s goal is for the community to stay as informed, engaged and up to
speed as they can possibly be. She said if decisions happen in a way that changes that, then staff will
change that approach – but until then, the reality they have is that the project is moving forward in the
way they have been told it is moving forward, and staff feels that it is the County’s obligation to have the
residents and businesses be as involved in that reality as they can.
Mr. Boyd stated what they are doing is providing the local community with information and no
options.
Mr. Sheffield said this Board has never done this level of community engagement on anything,
and they defer to the professionals – for the library design, stormwater management, etc. – not
government.
Ms. McKeel said they deferred to the professionals when they were talking about a bypass.
Ms. Dittmar said the Board does not defer. The Board asks professionals to advise it and then
makes decisions. This Board decided that it supported this project by a super-majority vote. Now the
Board is moving forward with a $230 million investment in the community, with a lot of input and advice
from residents about how to make the construction period the best it can be. She emphasized that no
one is Pollyanish about the fact that construction is a real pain, adding that VDOT closed a bridge leading
out of Glenmore for an entire summer, and it was inconvenient but the bridge needed to be fortified. Ms.
Dittmar said the Board wants to build roads and improve Route 29, and it is a redevelopment project –
which is not as easy as greenspace development.
Ms. Mallek said that at the Jack Jouett meeting held in December, there were suggestions from a
whole group of people looking at the Rio Road plan as to how important it was to have signalized
pedestrian crossings, because they had not been included in the first round. She said that those were
immediately incorporated into the plan, so when there are ideas that the engineers agree will not cause
disruption, there is tremendous willingness to consider them.
Mr. Sheffield said now is the time to make those kinds of suggestions, not when there are shovels
in the ground. The public needs to be aware that the input is being considered; the question is at what
level it is being put into the design – and things like a pedestrian bridge are not financially feasible.
Mr. Foley stated that regarding the issue raised about the traffic data, Philip Shucet has
responded to that on the webpage to clarify the basis of VDOT’s numbers, and h e will forward that to the
Board. He said that staff is also working on how to handle those kinds of issues and respond to them,
and while they cannot respond to every comment every day, they can reply quickly to those that are
factually incorrect. Mr. Foley said that VDOT is trying to focus on the panel work, and one of the
important matters the County will be discussing with them over the next few weeks is how they will work
together, but understanding VDOT’s limits in the context of what the Board expects.
Ms. Mallek said she is more interested in accurate information even if it takes longer to gather,
rather than a rapid response that may not be correct.
Ms. Dittmar stated the FAQs are a moving target as new issues come up, and if Board members
start getting a fair volume of comments on a particular question or concern, they should forward them to
Mr. Graham and Ms. Catlin for clarity.
Mr. Foley said that Superintendent Pam Moran is also working with staff to help disseminate
information through their networks, as the schools are also starting to get a lot of questions. He
emphasized that the website is the official place to get information, and staff will continue to direct people
to that source.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 31)
Ms. Mallek asked Mr. Graham about the timeframe when the design public hearings will begin.
Mr. Graham responded that there are no more design public hearings as they ha ve already been held,
but there will be opportunities to review the design along the way. He said the design public hearing is a
defined step through VDOT. The design-build process does offer three opportunities to review the
design, and the panel will be commenting on it at that time.
Mr. Sheffield noted that design public hearings are a required step, and VDOT is definitely going
beyond those requirements. He said the designs will be shown at the panel meetings, at which time the
public can view some of the information and provide comments.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 18. Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Funding Request.
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Denise Lunsford, stated that she will be presenting information as to
why she thinks her office needs an additional attorney – a request that is outside what she usually asks
for in terms of an increase or half-time attorney. She stated that their daily operation is fairly well-scripted,
with a Circuit Court calendar that is full through the end of June, 2015, and matters scheduled in the
Court into 2016. Their schedule is subject to change on a daily or even hourly basis. It would be an
extremely huge task to explain how many cases, the office has at any given time, not to mention what
they do every day and how they get their job done. Ms. Lunsford then highlighted her staff’s work from
the previous day. She mentioned what her staff members worked on the previous day, ranging from
review of videos pertaining to child sexual assault, domestic violence statistics review, Circuit Court and
Juvenile Court appearances, a bond hearing in which the defendant became angry and threate ning, an
alleged rape in an assisted living facility involving a 90-year-old victim, preparation for a larceny case and
an electronic fraud issue, a sentencing in a robbery case, and consultation with the Department of
Forensic Science.
Ms. Lunsford reported that her office is funded in large part by the Comp Board of Virginia, which
has a fairly complicated formula to determine how many attorneys are needed to handle felony cases –
and does not consider assaults, DUIs, shoplifting or misdemeanors, nor does it consider juvenile cases
unless they are felonies that make it to Circuit Court. She stated that part of the calculation that the
Comp Board uses is sentencing data, which comes from the Circuit Court. Ms. Lunsford said the Circuit
Court fills out a guideline form that must be signed by a judge and sent to the Commission, which they
count as one sentencing. Ideally there should be a form for each sentencing. She stated that in 2006,
Albemarle County was shown to have 50 sentencings – which was not accurate at all – with a more
realistic figure being 250 to 300 per year. She stated there was an issue in 2005 that led to Albemarle
having a number of substitute judges, some who left before they had the opportunity to sign the form, so
the Comp Board thought the County did not have as many cases and thus did not feel it needed as many
attorneys. Ms. Lunsford said that when she came to office, she was faced with the possibility of a
$50,000 funding cut from Virginia, and came to the Board of Supervisors to request restoration from the
County, which was “not a welcoming process” because Albemarle was facing the same issues as the
state. She stated her impression was that this funding would not come from the Board of Supervisors,
and as a result, she did not make any requests for staff until she felt she could ask for a half-time position.
Ms. Lunsford stated what prompted her to ask for this new funding immediately, rather than
waiting until the normal budget cycle, is a meeting she had scheduled with Mr. Bill Letteri last October,
2014 regarding funding issues. She said at that point, she had been working about 60 hours a week
focusing on a high-profile case, and had one attorney on vacation – and Mr. Letteri suggested that she
come before the Board at this meeting. Ms. Lunsford said her staff can typically handle a regular
caseload, but it is difficult when someone goes on vacation, more so when someone is sick because it
cannot be planned ahead. She stated when they have an unusual situation, as the y did in the fall, it
underscores why they need an additional attorney and an additional staff person. Ms. Lunsford said her
office currently has five and one-half attorneys, including her, with a part-time attorney added in 2013;
there are four staff people, including one paralegal, two office assistants, and one office assistant who
performs at a higher level but is paid at a lower level than the other assistants. She said except for the
half-time attorney, that staffing level has been the same since 1997.
Ms. Lunsford stated that Hanover County, with a population of approximately 100,000 has more
than nine attorneys, but the Commonwealth ’s Attorney there indicated they have 17 to 19 total
employees; Charlottesville, with a population of almost 44,000, has six attorneys, three staff people, and
one attorney paid for by the City of Charlottesville. She said that Pittsylvania County, with a population of
62,700, has the same staffing level as Albemarle County. Ms. Lunsford said that the Circuit Court s taffing
standard number for Albemarle is 461; Pittsylvania is 470, so they were very similar to Albemarle’s. She
stated that the 2012 misdemeanor caseload for Albemarle County courts combined had 5,919 new non-
traffic cases; Pittsylvania had 3,398 in the same year, about 1,400 less than Albemarle. Ms. Lunsford
said the Public Defender recently requested a funding increase, and Mr. Hingley indicated to the press at
one point, that his staff in 2012 had handled 2,158 cases, 53 of which were in Albemarle County,
indicating that his staff had handled 288 cases per attorney. She stated her office handles 626
defendants per attorney per year, and 1,252 offenses per attorney per year. Ms. Lunsford said one of her
frustrations has been that there is no consistent reporting of cases or defendants, with Circuit Court
reporting it one way, General District reporting it another way, etc.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 32)
Ms. Lunsford said, at this point, the Comp Board indicates Albemarle County should have seven
full-time attorneys, while her office has five, simply to handle their felony caseload. She noted that in
2009, the Board of Supervisors hired a consultant to look at a number of different functional areas in the
County, and the consultant indicated, at that time, the office needed one full-time attorney-- suggesting
that the cost be split between the Comp Board and the County. She stated there are currently two judges
sitting in Circuit Court, an attorney who is trying a jury case, and other attorneys who are there for various
matters. Between now and June 23, 2105, there are 329 total items, with 28 of them being jury trials –
which take more attorney and staff time for preparation. Ms. Lunsford said she has included items
coming up for jury trial, with seven of the cases being drug cases that might be pled out – but her staff still
has to prepare for them. She stated that in complex cases, they may hold off on bringing charges, so that
they do not end up with several long, complicated trials back to back. Ms. Lunsford said because of
these kinds of cases, their work is somewhat public safety related. She stated one of the Supervisors
asked if her office had ever had an efficiency analysis, but that was difficult to do because they do not
have a certain amount of output, and do have a lot of cases coming in. Ms. Lunsford said while defense
attorneys and the public defender’s office can refuse to take cases due to workload and other reasons,
her office cannot, and their docket is controlled in some respects by other people. She stated t hat her
office tries to be efficient in how they resolve cases, and a lot of them are resolved in General District
Court – before they have to go to Circuit Court. Ms. Lunsford said while this is advantageous to the
defendant, who will likely get less tim e through General District, it also makes her office’s numbers look
lower. She stated she has always suspected in some jurisdictions that while courts will resolve a case as
a misdemeanor, they will still indict it as a felony, get credit for it in Circuit Court, and have it knocked
down to a misdemeanor there – which takes more time and is unfair to the defendants. She has not
chosen to go this route in her office.
Ms. Lunsford then presented information on some of the other things her office does besides
trying cases, such as reviewing FOIA requests submitted to the Police Department and ECC Center,
consultations with events such as Foxfield on how to handle arrests and whether mobile magistrate
offices are permissible, unfunded mandates from the state such as multi-disciplinary teams that work on
prosecution of child abuse and sexual assault cases, participating in the Crisis Intervention Team, and
working with General Services and Facilities Development on court space usage issues. She presented
budget information for her department from 2012-2015, noting that the revenue received from the state
for costs and fee collection and the net cost to the County. Ms. Lunsford said that she does not feel the
state has been an equal funding partner because they have additional mandates put on the office every
year and the prosecution of misdemeanors that benefit the County. Ms. Lunsford said during this time
span, her office had a net increase in cost to the County of just under $60,000, and she emphasized tha t
her office does not use County cars, and they do not have a lot of office expenses.
Ms. Dittmar asked for clarification as to what Ms. Lunsford is requesting for her office. Ms.
Lunsford stated that the Comp Board has identified the need for two attorneys in her office for at least a
few years now, but the state has not funded it. She said Albemarle is pretty high on the list of people who
are in need and the extent to which they are in need, and if the Comp Board were to fund every position
that has been requested, from a department that is in need, they would have to fund an additional 21
attorneys throughout the state in order for her office to get one additional attorney. Ms. Lunsford reported
that fines for violations of County ordinances totals $990,000, and typically her office contributes about
$60,000 of that amount through collection of delinquent fines and fees. She stated that the Comp Board
had approved a position for her office at about $1,500 more than what the County was paying, so they
were not refunding any of that and Albemarle ended up funding the entire portion; she had the position
reclassified, and now the Comp Board covers it, but that staff person is still grossly underpaid.
Ms. Lunsford said every year her office comes to the County under budget, and whenever they
have been asked to cut money, they have done so. They cannot afford to lose a position because they
are already understaffed. This is an extraordinary request, but it is an extraordinary time. She said that
she is here today because her office is almost at a crisis.
Ms. McKeel asked for clarification that the County currently contributes 46.6% of the
Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office budget. Ms. Lunsford said that is correct, and noted that in 2004 their
budget was $1,055,800, and the net cost to the County was $490,000, with the net cost in 2013 at
$487,000, and in 2012 there was a 5% increase due to an across -the-board salary increase.
Ms. Dittmar asked the Board how they wished to proceed.
Ms. Mallek asked where this funding would come from, should the Board choose to fund this. Mr.
Foley said it would need to come from reserves, and would be the first obligation in the Board’s budget for
the following year.
Ms. Lunsford noted that the net cost for the remainder of this year is $83,497, assuming the two
positions and the initial office needs. The ongoing annual cost would be $182,275, assuming an attorney
position at a level 22 and an assistant at a level 10.
Ms. Mallek asked Ms. Lunsford about the additional court days requested by the judges. Ms.
Lunsford said Judge Barkley wants to add another court date, as does Judge Higgins – which would
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 33)
mean two attorneys at the same time, and Judge Worrell has indicated that he also wants to add at least
one day per month in Juvenile Court.
Ms. Dittmar asked what the situation would be if the County funded these right now, because this
would let the state off the hook – which is part of a repeating theme of the state not stepping up and doing
their funding portion, pushing it back on localities. Ms. Lunsford said the Comp Board is looking at the
number of attorneys they think the County needs for Circuit Court cases. If the Comp Board was to
provide funding for an additional attorney, it would offset any amount the County would be spending.
Ms. Dittmar asked if there are any strategies she might employ to get through the short period
until they get to the County Executive’s budget. Ms. Lunsford responded that she has tried to think of
some, with one of them being assignment of a County Attorney half-time to help with misdemeanor
cases, as she considers her office to work for public safety. She said that Mr. Davis recently hired a
former assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, and another possibility would be hiring a post-graduate fellow
or a temporary attorney. She said that graduate fellows are often paid by their universities, and their term
is only one year, with a lot of training involved. Ms. Lunsford noted that every time they have posted a
position, they get a flood of qualified applicants, and if the Board were to fund this position with a starting
date of March 15, that would at least get them through the next budget cycle to see if they could be fully
funded – but it is a stopgap measure.
Ms. Dittmar asked Mr. Davis if there would be a possibility to have one of his attorneys work part -
time in her office during the stopgap period. Mr. Davis responded that he could make a similar
presentation to Ms. Lunsford, stating that he is working his attorneys extremely hard right now, and they
are working far beyond their capacity.
Ms. Dittmar said she does not particularly like the graduate fellow approach, due to its temporary
nature.
Ms. Mallek agreed, stating that they want to get the highest level of skill po ssible. She asked
about the size of the County’s reserve fund.
Ms. Palmer stated that she truly empathizes with Ms. Lunsford, but would really prefer to look at
this in the context of the whole budget, while addressing a stopgap measure.
Ms. Dittmar mentioned the panel discussion that included the schools, police department and
social services office, and stated there is a lot of need out there – so to look at it globally would be helpful.
Mr. Foley said the County could better find a temporary solution than a permanent one, and they
have adequate reserves to cover the $83,000.
Ms. Lunsford clarified that the $83,000 would cover the attorney at level 22, with the legal
assistant at level 10 adding $35,886, from March 15 to December 31, 2015.
Mr. Foley said the reserve funding is likely adequate, but the bigger issue is the one that Ms.
Palmer raised.
Ms. Lunsford said the Office of Management and Budget provided her with an estimate of one
full-time attorney and one full-time assistant, beginning February 1, is $85,400.
Mr. Sheffield pointed out that the amount covers the remainder of the fiscal year.
Ms. Mallek said that one thing she hears from constituents time and time again is the need for
public safety, with the hiring of police officers generat ing more work for the attorney’s offices. She said
that she supports the addition of both positions.
Ms. Palmer said that she would like to look at it in a global sense, because the needs across all
departments are so great. She said she totally agrees with Ms. Lunsford’s need as demonstrated, but
she would like to look at a permanent position in the context of the whole budget.
Ms. Lunsford said that she did not consider a temporary attorney until that day, and that is why
she did not have budget information available for it.
Ms. McKeel said Ms. Lunsford has proven her case; her office is stretched, and she agrees with
Ms. Mallek’s position.
Mr. Sheffield said he is ready to take action on the request and supports the positions.
Mr. Boyd stated that he is not in favor of off-budget cycle requests. He said that he did not
support the transportation planner and several other positions that were presented in this way, although
he sees the need for these positions. Everyone who has come to the Board has made a case for their
positions of overworked staffing conditions.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 34)
Mr. Sheffield said the Board would be putting off the inevitable if it waits until the budget cycle.
Ms. Mallek moved to approve the request to fund one full-time attorney position and one full-time
Legal Services Assistant position for the Commonwealth’s Attorney office. Mr. Sheffield seconded the
motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: Mr. Boyd.
Board members thanked Ms. Lunsford for her work.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 19. Courts Project Update.
Due to time constraints, this item was moved to the afternoon portion of the meeting.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 20. Closed Meeting.
At 5:16 p.m., Mr. Sheffield moved that the Board go into a closed meeting pursuant to Section
2.2-3.711(A) of the Code of Virginia under Subsection (1) to consider appointments to boards,
committees and commissions in which there are pending vacancies or requests for reappointments; and
under Subsection (2) to consult with and be briefed by legal counsel and staff regarding specific legal
matters requiring legal advice relating to the negotiating of easements on the County Office Building
property. Ms. Mallek seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 21. Certify Closed Meeting.
At 6:04 p.m., Mr. Sheffield moved that the Board certify by a recorded vote that to the best of
each Board member’s knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting
requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the
closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Ms. Mallek seconded the
motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 22. Boards and Commissions:
Item No. 22a. Board Member Committee Appointments.
Ms. Palmer moved to reappoint Board members to continue to serve on the following
committees:
Ken Boyd:
Fiscal Impact Advisory Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Darden Towe Park Memorial Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Hazardous Material Local Emergency Planning Committee with said term to expire
December 31, 2015.
Jail Authority Board with said term to expire December 31, 2017.
Pantops Community Advisory Council with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Places 29 Community Advisory Council with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Property Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Jane Dittmar:
Audit Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Village of Rivanna Community Advisory Council with said term to expire December 31,
2015.
Workforce Investment Board with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Ann Mallek:
Acquisitions of Conservation Easement (ACE) Committee with said term to expire
December 31, 2015.
Agricultural and Forestal Advisory Committee with said term to expire December 31,
2015.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 35)
CIP Oversight Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Crozet Community Advisory Council with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Historic Preservation Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
High Growth Coalition with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Piedmont Workforce Network with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Water Resources Advisory Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Diantha McKeel:
Charlottesville/Albemarle/UVA Planning Coordination Council (PACC) with said term to
expire December 31, 2015.
Police Department Citizens Advisory Committee with said term to expire December 31,
2015.
Liz Palmer:
Audit Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
CIP Oversight Comm ittee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Long Range Solid Waste Solutions Advisory Committee with said term to expire
December 31, 2015.
Brad Sheffield:
Charlottesville/Albemarle/UVA Planning and Coordination Council (PACC) with said term
to expire December 31, 2015.
Darden Towe Park Memorial Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
High Growth Coalition with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Places 29 Community Advisory Council with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Property Committee with said term to expire December 31, 2015.
Ms. Mallek seconded the motion. Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following
recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_____
Item No. 11b. Boards and Commissions Vacancies and Appointments.
Ms. Palmer moved to the following appointment:
appoint Ms. Esther Volkan and Ms. Frances Lee-Vandell to the Agricultural and Forestal
District Advisory Committee with said term s to expire April 17, 2019
Ms. Mallek seconded the motion. Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following
recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 23. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda.
Ms. Nancy Carpenter, a resident of the Scottsville District, addressed the Board, stating that the
community needed to remember the overnight winter temperatures and the fact there are still people
unsheltered in the County and the City, and encouraging the public to reach out to those who are in need
and offer assistance, or make a non-emergency call to local law enforcement so they can check on the
welfare of those individuals.
_______________
The Board then went back to Agenda Item No. 19.
Agenda Item No. 19. Courts Project Update.
The executive summary forwarded to Board members states that on July 1, 2014, the Board of
Supervisors and City Council held a joint meeting to discuss mutual issues between the jurisdictions,
including the pending courts project. The outcome of this joint meeting was the formation of a special
committee that includes representation from the Board of Supervisors, City Council, and Courts
Stakeholders to evaluate the challenges and opportunities associated with the expansion of the courts
downtown (downtown development option), including the possibility of co -locating the general district
court operations and finding reasonable parking solutions.
On July 2, 2014, the Board directed its staff to work with City staff on a Committee charge and to
schedule a series of meetings for said Committee. On August 11, 2014, an organizational meeting of the
Courts Committee was held. It was agreed that the formal members of the Committee would be Board
Members Jane Dittmar and Ann Mallek, Mayor Satyendra Huja, City Councilor Robert Fenwick, County
Executive Tom Foley, Deputy County Executive Bill Letteri, City Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial
Officer Aubrey Watts, City Manager Maurice Jones, Judge Downer, and Charlottesville Albemarle Bar
Association Representative Paige Williams. Other potential participants, to include representatives of the
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 36)
Sheriff’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s and Clerk’s Offices, and the
Circuit Court Judge, would be invited for their input. The following purpose statement was approved by
the Committee: “To explore and resolve questions related to challenges, opportunities and colla boration
associated with expanding the County’s courts in downtown Charlottesville. The Committee, to include
elected officials from both jurisdictions, will engage in a series of discussions in an attempt to reach
agreement on proposed terms and conditions under which the downtown court option might proceed.
The Committee will make recommendations to the jurisdictions’ elected bodies for final consideration.”
Past studies and findings were reviewed by the Courts Committee in order to gain a general
knowledge and under-standing of the project history, current conditions of the courts, case load trends
and projected future needs. The Committee also met with Courts Stakeholders to obtain their input and
perspective on the Courts project. There was strong Stakeholder support for courts adjacency or co-
location, as they believe the citizens benefit from courts and offices that are closer together.
There was a consensus among the Courts Committee members to focus on the downtown option
for the County, and to further study the potential of co-locating the City and County General District
Courts at the existing Levy Building site, which is co-owned by the County and the City. The co-location
concept would involve a cost sharing agreement between the County and the City. This concept was
reviewed conceptually at the last Committee meeting. The Levy Building site, if selected, would include a
shared, secure entrance, co-located and split General District Court Clerk’s offices, four court rooms (one
for the City, two for the County and one for expansion), and the County’s Commonwealth’s Attorney’s
Office space. The City indicated support for accommodating short-term parking needs and to study
longer-term needs and solutions.
On December 15, 2014, the City Council: 1) voted to support the continuation of the due diligence
effort currently underway for co-locating the General District Courts at the Levy Building and further
investigating interim solutions to provide immediate parking space relief to the courts oper ations; 2)
adopted a Resolution appropriating $7,435.00 in the City’s Capital Improvement Program Contingency for
one-half of the cost of the update of the General District Courts Feasibility Study; and 3) directed City staff
to proceed to develop a short and long term parking availability study for the downtown courts area.
County staff is preparing to contract with an Architect to update the 2010 Levy Building study to
include validation of caseload assumptions, two building design concepts with massing models, and
revised cost and schedule estimates.
The Capital Improvement Project request for the Courts Project has been revised in this year’s
CIP cycle to allow more time in the process to determine the potential of the co-location option and for a
more realistic public engagement and approval process, pushing the start of construction out two years
from the adopted CIP plan to July 2018. Due to the delay, it is staff’s recommendation to fund, in the
interim, a modest expansion of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office within the footprint of the existing
Courts Annex building, and a limited reconfiguration of select, existing rooms within the footprint of the
current office space from the existing project funding. The proposed space modifications are ess ential to
maintain necessary staff support to the County’s judicial system by positioning key staff at strategic
locations to better secure the offices as well as providing suitable office space for administrative staff and
ensuring efficient placement of key courts files. The funding would also cover additional courts’ requests
for interim storage and sound system upgrades while the larger Courts Project is being designed and
executed. Staff will work closely with Courts Stakeholders to develop a plan that meets their interim
needs but minimizes costs.
The total amount included in the approved CIP plan for the Courts Project is approximately $43
million over a 7-year period and is based on the Downtown Renovation/Expansion option. As stated
above, the Court’s project has been revised in this year’s CIP cycle, pushing the start of construction out
two years from the adopted CIP plan to July 2018. The total budget impact will be dependent upon which
option the Board ultimately chooses to pursue and any revis ions to those options, such as the co-location
of the General District Courts. The City has identified $6.5 million in its CIP for its potential share of a
relocated General District Court.
The project currently has $2,462,683 appropriated. A separate appropriation request included as
part of the FY15 Amendment and Appropriations Executive Summary (Appropriation #2015072) on the
January 7th agenda seeks Board approval to re-allocate $150,000 of this existing funding towards the
necessary security and office renovations needed to allow the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to
continue to support the Courts function, improve their existing entrance security, and cover future costs of
storage for the Clerk’s office and a sound system upgrade for the Circuit Court.
Staff recommends that the Board: 1) support the continuation of the Committee’s due diligence
effort currently underway for co-locating the General District Courts at the Levy Building; and 2) approve
the interim, temporary solutions to provide imm ediate space relief to the courts operations funded by
Appropriation #2015072 included in the January 7, 2015 FY15 Amendment and Appropriations Executive
Summary.
_____
Mr. Bill Letteri, Deputy County Executive, addressed the Board, stating that he wanted to bring
them up to date on the work of the special steering committee, to further conversations with the City
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 37)
regarding building downtown and so forth. He said they would also talk about a limited scope study
recommended by the committee to further this conversation and work out some of the details of how the
co-location court could work. Mr. Letteri said Trevor Henry would also talk about interim work staff that
was necessary, in the old courthouse, due to the delay of the overall project, as limited effort should be
made there to accommodate some of the operational needs of the courts. Mr. Letteri reported that the
special committee was formed in July with two City Council members – Mr. Huja and Mr. Fenwick, and
two Board of Supervisors members – Ms. Mallek and Ms. Dittmar, the County Executive, the City
Manager, Mr. Letteri and Aubrey Watts. He said the committee had met several times over the course of
several months and also had an engagement process with the stakeholders’ group during that process.
The committee met in October where they came up with a series of recommendations, including that the
focus should be continuing to look at the downtown option.
Mr. Letteri said the City had signaled its willingness to collocate their General Distri ct Court facility
in a building on the Levy site; and the City indicated its support to proceed with a plan to accommodate
short-term parking needs and proceed with a formal study to examine the more permanent needs for
parking downtown. On December 15, he said, City Council met and voted to support the continuation of
the due diligence effort to collocate the court facilities at Levy; they adopted a resolution appropriating half
of the money required to fund a limited-scope study, and directed staff to proceed with development of a
short and long-term availability study to address the needs of the courts downtown. He noted that the
limited scope study would take the concept of collocating these facilities and flesh it out to a degree
where they can understand how the floor plan would work, how they would allocate the space, and come
up with a more developed cost estimate.
Mr. Trevor Henry, Director of the Office of Facilities Development, addressed the Board, stating
that the City included $6.5 million in their CIP recommendation, estimating their contribution toward a
collocated General District Court, in addition to authorizing their share of the study. He said there had
been a myriad of studies done on the courts over the past decade, including a 2010 study funded by the
City and the County to look at the Levy Building as a potential site for the collocated General District
Court. He stated that the Mosley Architect Group reported on a series of options, and during that time
period the City signaled that they would not want to proceed as an option, so the final variation of the
study was that it would be a County-only use. Mr. Henry said that the request before the Board today, as
recommended by the steering committee, is to work with Mosely and refresh that study – confirming the
programming, update the court case trends – which have stayed relatively flat instead of increasing as
predicted. He stated the study would result in a couple of designs with massing models, and they would
work collaboratively with the City, with an expectation of about three months to complete. Mr. Henry said
the estimated cost was $15,000 total, with the County’s share at half of that, and the study would be
managed out of his office in conjunction with the City. He explained that the study would basically be an
addendum to the existing study, so the work that was previously done would be built upon. Mr. Henry
noted that the 2010 study with Mosely was jointly funded, and a 2012 Dewberry study was funded by the
County completely. Mr. Henry said that $2.4 million was appropriated by the County on July 1,
designated for acquisition of the properties and the beginning of the design process, so they would tap
that funding for the study.
He stated that the second piece of this request would be allocation of $150,000 to make some
interim improvements – primarily to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, as well as, meeting some
storage needs that have been identified and are ongoing with the courts. Mr. Henry said that staff me t
with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, which has documented issues regarding their space including
security issues. If the improvements can stay within the general footprint of existing space and connect it,
they can improve security and circulation, which can create some additional offices that will allow the
office to function better. He stated they met briefly after the last agenda item to make sure they could
incorporate the last action the Board took, and they feel that they can with the given c ost estimate. Mr.
Henry said that the delay with not starting in July 2014, plus the City’s component, and assuming that
they stay downtown, the likelihood is that construction would be pushed out to July 2018 for funding.
Ms. Dittmar said the Board had tasked the committee with answering the parking question, and
asked when the short-term and long-term parking studies would be usable. Mr. Letteri responded that
their work on the immediate suggestions as to how to accommodate parking would go on concurre ntly
with this study, and he would not expect the long-term detailed study to be done in that timeframe.
Ms. Mallek asked if staff could reach out to Mr. Watts regarding the parking, because the City
indicated that they would move on the court issue in th e beginning of the project, and she hoped that had
not been lost in the context of their other planning. She added they might not have to wait four years to
begin the major project, although she felt the interim improvements were still worthwhile.
Mr. Letteri said that staff’s intent was to do the study and bring it back to the full Board. He stated
there was some thought that the work of the committee was over – as the goal was to get the City to
become a part of the project, therefore, if all goes as planned, they will proceed on that basis. He noted
that if the committee needed to be reformed for any reason, they would do that.
Ms. Dittmar said she and Major Huja wanted to take this back to their respective bodies for their
input, and the work group could be dormant until they were needed again.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 38)
Mr. Boyd asked if the collocation of the City and County courts was dependent on staying
downtown. Ms. Mallek and Ms. Dittmar confirmed that it was.
Mr. Boyd said he was not ready to disregard the cost of going to a completely new site rather
than renovation downtown, because the cost has already crept up by $3 million over the original $40
million.
Ms. Dittmar said the County’s share would fall dramatically with a shared facility.
Ms. Mallek said it went from $40 million to about $26 million.
Mr. Boyd said if it was relatively cheaper than a different location and building from scratch, he
was fine with that, but that had not been demonstrated to him yet. He stated, if they do not study the cost
of building at another location, they cannot compare it.
Mr. Foley said he was glad Mr. Boyd raised that issue, because there was an approach staff
would have to think through in terms of trying to estimate that cost. The Board has seen the greenfield
cost estimates, so if that is all they are interested in, then they are fine going forward; redevelopment of
another existing site is a much more complicated scenario.
Mr. Boyd asked if the parking was included in this total.
Ms. Dittmar stated that the City’s parking study was comprehensive, to include the courts, and
would service all the employees.
Mr. Boyd said he was concerned about the court users, as the employees parking will be covered
no matter what.
Ms. Mallek said the City reiterated their assurance that the court users would have use of the
parking garage in the short term, and longer term would possibly have use of a lot on 7th Street – but the
cost did not include any kind of parking deck. Mr. Henry clarified that parking programmed in the
Dewberry study as secured parking was intended to be used by the Commonwealth’s Attorney, judges,
and those officials – but would not necessarily accommodate all the staff; the downtown option numbers
did not include any additional parking as part of the projec t.
Mr. Foley stated the parking issue has not been resolved yet, and while the City is looking into it,
it was never designed to accommodate all courts staff.
Ms. Dittmar said the number provided in the 2010 report parks more people than are being
parked now, and there are some dedicated spaces on the street for judges and police officers – with
everyone else buying space in the garage or on the street as available.
Ms. Mallek noted that the clerks all park behind Levy, and have assigned spaces there.
Ms. Palmer asked if there had been discussion for the City to pay half the cost.
Ms. Mallek said that it was based upon actual usage, so it would not be half, it would be between
one-quarter and one-third.
Mr. Letteri clarified that they would be paying for half of the study that would evaluate this.
Mr. Foley said the usage would be based on their space needs.
Ms. Mallek moved to support the continuation of the due diligence efforts currently underway for
collocating the General District Courts at the Levy Building; and to approve the temporary solutions to
provide immediate space relief to the courts operation. Mr. Boyd seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 24. PUBLIC HEARING: To solicit public input on local community development
and housing needs in relation to Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for po tential
projects in the locality. (Advertised in the Daily Progress on December 22 and December 29, 2014.)
The executive summary forwarded to Board members states that the Virginia Community
Development Block Grant (VCDBG) is a federally-funded grant program administered by the Virginia
Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Since 1982, the DHCD has provided
funding to eligible units of local government (non-entitlement communities only) for projects that address
critical community needs including housing, infrastructure and economic development. Albemarle County
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 39)
has received numerous grants in previous years to support housing and community improvement
initiatives.
The VCDBG application process requires that two local public hearings b e conducted. The
purpose of the first public hearing is to provide information on eligible activities that may be funded by
CDBG, the amount of funding estimated to be available and past activities undertaken with CDBG funds,
and to receive public comment on this information and potential community development and housing
needs. The follow-up public hearing is held in order to consider proposed project applications and must
take place prior to the application due date in March 2012. Applications are to be submitted by the County
to DHCD; however, the proposed activities may be undertaken by other agencies.
Albemarle County, as a non-entitlement community, is eligible to apply to DHCD for up to $1.8
million in CDBG funding for projects that benefit low- and moderate-income persons, prevent slums and
blight, or address urgent community needs. Eligible activities include economic development, housing
rehabilitation, housing production, community facilities and community service facilities. Community
development projects can receive varying levels of funding, depending on the nature of the activity, or by
combining multiple activities. DHCD estimates that approximately $9.8 million will be available for
competitive grants in 2015 and $5,550,000 will be available for open submission applications.
Over the years, Albemarle County has been successful in receiving a number of CDBG grant
awards. The most recent grant was awarded in 2012 to fund the rehabilitation of twenty-four (24) homes
in the Orchard Acres subdivision located in Crozet. Prior grants funded the installation of a sanitary
sewer system and connection to 54 housing units in the Oak Hill Subdivision just south of the City off of
5th Street and the preservation and development of 134 affordable rental units, 38 of which are restricted
to seniors at Crozet Meadows. Over the past 30 years, the County has received numerous CDBG grants
to rehabilitate owner-occupied houses.
The Office of Housing is currently working with the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program
(AHIP) for a possible application for competitive CDBG funding for a housing rehabilitation project in
southern Albemarle County. The Office is also working with the Albemarle County Service Authority to
apply for open submission funding for a construction-ready sewer project for an additional twenty (20)
units in the Oak Hill subdivision.
For any project to be considered by the County for CDBG funding, the applicant must notify the
Office of Housing no later than January 26, 2015. This notice shall include a brief description of the
project, the proposed use of CDBG funds and a description of the beneficiaries of the proposed
activity. A completed application that includes the proposed budget shall be submitted to the Office of
Housing electronically by February 13, 2015, and the entire application, along with attachments, must be
received by February 27, 2015.
There is no budgetary impact until an application is made to DHCD and approved for a
funded project. Projects approved by CDBG generally require some level of local funding support,
which may include funding provided by the project sponsor.
Staff recommends that the Board receive information on available CDBG funding and eligible
uses and hold the public hearing to receive input from the public on potential community development
and housing needs. Staff also recommends that the Board set a public hearing on Wednesday, March 4,
2015 for the second required public hearing to review and approve the submission of any proposed
applications.
_____
Mr. Ron White, Chief of Housing, said that each year the Commonwealth of Virginia gets an
allocation of Community Development Block Grant funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and these funds are primarily targeted to benefit low and moderate income. Mr. White said
the funds could be used for addressing slums and blight and urgent community needs, and eligible
activities include housing production, housing rehab, economic development, community facilities and
community service facilities. He said the County of Albemarle is eligible to apply for funds for projects
that fall in these categories, and one of the requirements for application is that two public hearings be
held: one is to provide information on the availability of funds, how funds are used in the past, types of
projects done in the past, and to solicit public input. Mr. White stated that the second public hearing will
be held in March, and as part of the Board’s motion they will set that public hearing, a s applications are
due at the end of the month. He said they have used a lot of the CDBG funds for housing rehab over the
past 30 years, and the last project completed was sewer line extension to the Oak Hill neighborhood,
which only covered about 54 units in the neighborhood, leaving about 20 additional units to be hooked up.
Mr. White said the project they are currently working on is a housing rehab project in Orchard
Acres, which will involve the rehabilitation of at least 24 houses within that development in Crozet; 12 of
them have been completed, with 4 more complete and awaiting inspection, and project completion slated
for June. He stated that two projects have been identified as potentials for this year: phase two of the
Oak Hill sewer line, which is a cooperative project with the Albemarle County Service Authority, and they
have been advised by the Department of Housing and Community Development that they may not have
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 40)
to go through a competitive project; the other would be a competitive applic ation that would be due the
end of March, for a potential rehab project in southern Albemarle.
Mr. Boyd asked if there would be some money left over, based on the projects they are currently
working on, that the County could apply for. Mr. White said that they could apply for $2.5 million total and
currently have $700,000 outstanding, with Oak Hill in the $300,000 range – so that would leave $1.5
million to apply for if they are successful in getting the Oak Hill funding.
Mr. Boyd asked how much time people had to come with ideas as to how they might apply for
additional funds. Mr. White said that they would have to get the applications in by March 4, and for
something that takes a lot of time, it would make more sense to be well-prepared and submit it next year.
Ms. Palmer said that she was on the ACSA Board when they did the first Oak Hill project, and
staff commented that it took an incredible amount of time to go through this process – and they actually
questioned the value of going through the CDBG process.
Mr. White said that the process is fairly straightforward, and the application is now online, but
early on there was a lot of concern from service authority staff about getting involved with government
regulations. He stated that there was a lot of concern early on but that has been alleviated somewhat,
and he noted that sometimes it is the procurement process that takes time.
Ms. Palmer asked for more information about the project in southern Albemarle. Mr. White said
that it was a housing rehab project, and said they had identified about 20 projects that AHIP has on their
waiting list that they are trying to combine, as block grants require that projects meet “community” criteria
– which makes farms and rural housing challenging. He said that they need to get guidance from DHCD
to see if they will allow applications to combine a few areas, because they want them to be contiguous but
the nature of the need in southern Albemarle is more scattered than community-based.
Ms. Dittmar asked if CDBG funds could be used for broadband infrastructure. Mr. White said that
there was a separate telecommunications funding amount outside of this competitive grant process, and
that was something the County was already pursuing.
The Chair opened the public hearing.
Ms. Nancy Carpenter addressed the Board, and stated that while these projects address
moderate and low-income family needs, there is community need for homelessness prevention. She
stated there are a lot of families with school-aged children that are “doubled up,” which meets the HUD
definition for homelessness in that demographic. Ms. Carpenter said that she would like to see some of
this money focused on programs such as the Families in Crisis program in Albemarle County Schools that
help to stabilize housing. She stated that the data shows if you are unstably housed as a child, you have
a higher than average risk of being homeless as an adult, and if you are doubled up, the stress of
combined families can impact the ability for children to study. Ms. Carpenter stated that her hope is that
in addition to the sewer projects and homes in southern Albemarle, housing for families in crisis might be
part of the CDBG grants.
Mr. Neil Williamson, of the Free Enterprise Forum, said that the CDBG grants talk about
developing community, but community is more than houses – and there is money available for economic
development. He stated that Louisa received some of this funding a few years ago, and it was a huge
challenge, but the Albemarle County community is up to the task. Mr. Williamson mentioned Ridge
Schuyler’s projects, including his plans for a flash freezing facility, and said that these would be
candidates for this type of funding while helping to provide career -ladder jobs for local people. He stated
that it takes a $3 million investment to be eligible for these funds, and while he does not now the cost of a
flash freezing plant, his fear is that they are going to lose kids here who cannot find local jobs.
Ms. Mallek asked if Ms. Carpenter had any framework for her suggestions, such as things other
localities have done. Ms. Carpenter said that with the homeless prevention grant at the Haven, where
she works, they have served 85 individuals or families since August, and have kept them from fa lling back
into the continuum of care through places like PACEM. She stated that the program keeps people
stabilized and helps them get housing, particularly those who are doubled up and do not have a
permanent location.
Ms. McKeel said that anecdotally, she learned, through a school principal, about a family who
was living in a two-bedroom apartment, and there were 17 people in that dwelling – and those children
are really at risk.
Ms. Dittmar said for this round of applications, the deadline was looming, but for some of the
ideas mentioned, she wanted to know how the process might get started. Mr. White stated that for Ridge
Schuyler’s project, the Economic Development Department might be the best place to begin, but anyone
who has ideas and wants to learn more can be in contact with DHCD, through his office as facilitator.
Mr. Foley asked if projects typically started with a planning grant. Mr. White said that some of the
projects start with a planning grant, such as the Orchard Acres project and the telecommunications
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 41)
projects, so they start out with funding in the range of $25,000. He stated that the funds to which Ms.
Carpenter referred came from HUD and another pot of money, and were not connected to CDBG. Mr.
White said that there would probably have to be lobbying at the state to change their program, as they
have not done a lot with rental housing.
Ms. Dittmar asked how early his office would need to know that there is potential for a grant. Mr.
White said that the earlier, the better, and they can get planning grants up to September providing the
funds are not all used up, so the best time would be in the summer.
Ms. Dittmar suggested that Ms. Carpenter work with the school division to identify qualified
projects or programs for a planning grant.
Ms. Palmer said that she would like more information on the projects in southern Albemarle.
Mr. White said that AHIP has provided him with addresses, which are mostly around the Porter’s
Road and Esmont area, towards Route 29. He stated that Jo yce Dudek had provided him with the list,
and he could send them to her.
Ms. Mallek said that DHCD has a reputation for having hoops, but they are valuable hoops as
their work is based on skill development for people, and for viable projects; they want to make sure the
projects were actually going to do some good. She said that when they applied for funding for the
Artisan’s Trail, DHCD assigned a mentor from Richmond who was immensely helpful and allowed them to
be successful.
Ms. Mallek moved to set the public hearing for Wednesday, March 4, 2015 for the second
required public hearing to review and approve the submission of any proposed. Ms. McKeel seconded
the motion. Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 25. PUBLIC HEARING: FY15 Budget Amendment. (Advertised in the Daily
Progress on December 28, 2014.)
The executive summary forwarded to Board members states that the Virginia Code § 15.2-2507
provides that any locality may amend its budget to adjust the aggregate amount to be appropriated during
the fiscal year as shown in the currently adopted budget; provided, however, any such amen dment which
exceeds one percent of the total expenditures shown in the currently adopted budget must be
accomplished by first publishing a notice of a meeting and holding a public hearing before amending the
budget. The Code section applies to all County funds, i.e., General Fund, Capital Funds, E911, School
Self-Sustaining, etc.
The cumulative total of the FY 2015 appropriations itemized below is $4,497,519.56. Because the
cumulative amount of the appropriations exceeds one percent of the currently adopte d budget, a budget
amendment public hearing is required.
The proposed increase of this FY 2015 Budget Amendment totals $4,497,519.55. The estimated
expenses and revenues included in the proposed amendment are shown below:
ESTIMATED EXPENDITURES
General Fund $ 600,399.83
Special Revenue Funds $ 621,687.03
School Fund $ 50,000.00
School Special Revenue Funds $ 1,022,860.25
ECC $ 91,774.56
Capital Improvements Funds $ 2,010,797.89
TOTAL ESTIMATED EXPENDITURES – All Funds $
4,497,519.56
ESTIMATED REVENUES
Local Revenue $ (747,272.67)
State Revenue $ 644,129.80
Federal Revenue $ 2,514,948.46
Bond Proceeds $ 16,364.75
Proffer Revenue $ 233,000.00
General Fund Balance $ 574,024.64
Other Fund Balances $ 1,162,324.58
TOTAL ESTIMATED REVENUES – All Funds $ 4,497,519.56
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 42)
The budget amendment is comprised of thirty-eight (38) separate appropriations as follows,
twenty-nine (29) of which have already been approved by the Board as indicated below:
Approved October 1, 2014:
One (1) appropriation (#2015035) to re-appropriate $572,090.82 for various General
Fund projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015036) to re-appropriate $404,200.54 for various internal
service funds, grants, donations, and seized asset accounts;
One (1) appropriation (#2015037) to appropriate $119,002.92 for various school division
programs and projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015038) to re-appropriate $170,748.46 for various Capital
Improvement Program projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015039) to appropriate $25,358.00 from the Training Pool to
various departments for training and professional development. This appropriation did not
increase the total County budget;
One (1) appropriation (#2015040) to appropriate $94,478.00 for a Fire/Rescue
Prevention and Training grant;
One (1) appropriation (#2015041) to appropriate $172,187.00 to a Capital Improvement
project from the Department of Environmental Quality. This appropriation did not
increase the total County budget;
One (1) appropriation (#2015042) to appropriate $583,897.95 in funding for various
General Government Capital Improvement Program projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015043) to reduce the appropriation of funding for two School
Division Capital Improvement Program projects ($53,126.52);
One (1) appropriation (#2015044) to appropriate $53,467.00 for various Police
Department grants;
One (1) appropriation (#2015045) to appropriate $5,000.00 in donations to the Fire
Rescue Department; and
One (1) appropriation (#2015046) to re-appropriate $7,489.00 for the Emergency
Communications Center.
Approved November 5, 2014:
Two (2) appropriations (#2015047 and #2015053) to appropriate $113,513.24 for various
Capital Improvement Program projects; of which $83,513.24 did not increase the total
County budget;
One (1) appropriation (#2015048) to appropriate $365,806.43 for various school division
programs and projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015049) to appropriate $2,000.00 in donations to the Fire
Rescue Department;
One (1) appropriation (#2015050) to appropriate $25,452.00 in Federal revenue to the
Emergency Communications Center;
One (1) appropriation (#2015051) to appropriate $10,000.00 in State revenue and
$6,745.00 in Federal revenue to the Sheriff’s Office;
One (1) appropriation (#2015052) to re-appropriate $7,351.49 in Federal revenue to Fire
Rescue Department;
One (1) appropriation (#2015054) to appropriate $2,309.00 in Federal revenue to the
Department of Social Services;
One (1) appropriation (#2015055) to appropriate $2,535.00 in State revenue to the Police
Department;
One (1) appropriation (#2015055) to appropriate $144,700.00 received from VDOT as
compensation for the taking of a portion of the CATEC property to a special reserve
account in the CIP for a one-time CATEC capital or capital maintenance project as
requested by the joint CATEC Board.
Approved December 10, 2014:
One (1) appropriation (#2015056) to appropriate $55,235.00 from the Reserve for
Contingencies to Community Development for a Transportation Planner position. This
appropriation did not increase the total County budget.
One (1) appropriation (#2015058) to appropriate $533,050.90 for various school
division programs and projects.
One (1) appropriation (#2015059) to appropriate $6,700.00 from the Training pool
account to various departments for training and professional development. This
appropriation did not increase the total County budget;
One (1) appropriation (#2015060) to appropriate $42,910.00 from the Virginia
Department of Emergency Management to the Police Department for law enforcement
equipment and personal protective equipment.
One (1) appropriation (#2015061) to appropriate $5,000.00 from proffer revenue for
roadside historical markers.
One (1) appropriation (#2015062) to appropriate $14,000.00 to the Finance
Department to expand the Purchasing Card program; and
One (1) appropriation (#2015064) to appropriate $7,500.00 for a Local Emergency
Management Performance Grant to the Emergency Communications Center.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 43)
The nine (9) appropriations requested for Board approval on January 7, 2015 are as follows:
One (1) appropriation (#2015063) to appropriate $1,134,578.00 for the Regional Firearms
Training Center;
One (1) appropriation (#2015065) to appropriate $51,333.56 to the Emergency
Communications Center;
One (1) appropriation (#2015066) to appropriate $5,000.00 for various school division
programs and projects;
One (1) appropriation (#2015067) to appropriate $50,000.00 for anticipated school
division donations;
One (1) appropriation (#2015068) to properly identify the revenue source within th e
School Fund budget pursuant to the School Fund fund balance policy;
One (1) appropriation (#2015069) to properly identify the revenue source for the Police
Department’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT);
One (1) appropriation (#2015070) to appropriate $54,442.87 from the Innovation Fund to
various departments for Innovation Fund projects. This appropriation will not increase the
total County budget;
Two (2) appropriations (#2015072 & #2015073) to appropriate $100,000.00 for various
capital improvement projects.
After the public hearing, staff recommends approval of the FY 2015 Budget Amendment in
the amount of $4,497,519.56 and approval of #2015063, #2015065, #2015066, #2015067,
#2015068, #2015069, #2015070, #2015072 and #2015073 for local government and sch ool
division programs and projects as described in Attachment A (below).
*****
Appropriation #2015063 $1,134,578.00
Source: Local Non-Tax ($ 848,306.00)
Federal $ 1,942,334.00
Borrowed Proceeds $ 40,550.00
As a result of the Board’s December 10, 2014 approval of the Regional Firearms Training Center
Operational Agreement and the Ground Lease, this request is to appropriate a total of $1,134,578.00 from
the following revenue sources to support the Regional Firearms Training Center pro ject: (a) $40,550.00 in
borrowed proceeds for a portion of the County’s share, and (b) $1,942,334.00 in federal revenue from the
Abott Labs asset forfeiture funds received by the City and UVA. Additionally, this request is to reduce the
currently appropriated partner shares from the City and UVA by $848,306.00 for a net appropriation of
$1,094,028.00 in total partner shares from the City of Charlottesville and UVA. The shares are based on
the funding formula and other capital considerations set forth in th e Operational Agreement. This
appropriation would increase the total amount of funding appropriated for this project from $4,865,422 to
$6,000,000 pursuant to the Board’s approval on December 10th.
The original cost of the project was based upon the conceptual work scope and totaled $4.9 million. On
August 15, 2014, at an executive meeting with the fiscal management staff from the County, the City, and
UVA, an agreement was reached to establish a not to exceed (NTE) total project budget of $6 Million.
Appropriation #2015065 $ 51,333.56
Source: ECC Fund Balance $ 51,333.56
The Emergency Communications Center (ECC) requests that the County, acting as fiscal agent for the
ECC, appropriate:
$39,174.00 from the ECC fund balance for a one-time 6-month extension of the current
maintenance agreement covering license, hardware, and software of the Computer-Aided Dispatch
(CAD) system. The extension is from January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2015. The ECC
Management Board has approved this one-time payment out of fund balance. The July 2015
through December 2015 maintenance agreement costs will be added to the FY 16 ECC operational
budget.
$12,159.56 from the ECC fund balance to increase the salary for the Assistant Emergency
Management Coordinator position from January 1, 2015 through June 30, 2015. The ECC
Management Board has approved this position being moved from a 20-hour part-time position to a
40-hour full-time position effective January 1, 2015. These additional one-time costs in FY 15 have
been approved by the ECC Management Board and this increase will be included in the FY 16
Emergency Management budget.
Appropriation #2015066 $5.000.00
Source: Federal Revenue $ 5,000.00
This request is to appropriate the School Division appropriation request approved by the School Board on
November 6, 2014:
Carl Perkins Grant – This request is to appropriate $5,000.00 in increased Carl Perkins Grant
funding that was received by the School Division in FY 15. This grant provides funds to increase
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 44)
focus on the academic achievement of career and technical education students and strengthen the
connection between secondary and post-secondary education.
Appropriation #2015067 $50.000.00
Source: Local Revenue (Donations) $ 50,000.00
On July 11, 2012, the Board approved streamlining the appropriation process for anticipated FY 13 School
Fund revenue for grants, donations, and School Division Activity Funds. In FY 15, the School Division
included an initial appropriation of $166,411.00 in anticipated donatio ns. As of November 24, 2014, the
School Division has received over $130,000.00 in donations and anticipates there will be additional
donations through the remainder of the school year.
This request is to appropriate an additional $50,000.00 in donation f unding. Funds will not be expended
until the revenues are actually received.
Appropriation #2015068 $0.00
This appropriation will not increase the County Budget.
Source: School Fund Fund Balance ($ 211,237.00)
Transfer from GF School Reserve Fund $ 211,237.00
This appropriation is to properly identify a revenue source within the School Fund budget. During the
County’s audit process, the Finance Department determined that a correction was necessary to properly
identify the revenue source for the School Division Reserve Fund pursuant to the adopted School Division
Fund Balance policy. Instead of budgeting the use of School Fund balance revenues directly in the School
Fund, the fund balance funding should be appropriated to the School Fund from th e School Reserve Fund.
On March 13, 2013, the Board of Supervisors adopted a School Division Fund Balance policy. This policy
states that “at the close of each fiscal year before the County’s audit is complete, all non -appropriated
School Operating Fund balance will be transferred into the General Fund-School Reserve Fund. The Board
of Supervisors will maintain in the General Fund-School Reserve Fund an amount not greater than 2% of
the current year’s School Division adopted operating budget. These funds will be available for School
Division purposes subject to appropriation by the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors will
transfer any funds in excess of that 2% to the CIP on an annual basis unless otherwise determined by the
Board of Supervisors.”
In order to properly reflect this policy in the County’s Resolution of Appropriations, this request is to
appropriate a transfer totaling $211,237.00 from the General Fund’s School Reserve Fund to the School
Fund and to reduce the budgeted use of “School Fund” fund balance by $211,237.00. This is a change in
protocol and does not affect the use of fund balance monies by the School Division.
Appropriation #2015069 $0.00
Source: State ($ 275,858.90)
Federal 275,858.90
The County sometimes receives federal funding as pass-through funding from the State. This appropriation
request is to change the identification of the revenue source of Asset Forfeiture funding awarded to the
Police Department from “State” revenue to “Federal” revenue to corr ectly identify this funding source in the
County’s financial records.
This appropriation request would properly identify the revenue source for the funding that was originally
budgeted in #2014084 on April 2, 2014 for the enhancement of the Police Depart ment’s Crisis Intervention
Team (CIT). The award has been received and the balance of the award was budgeted in the Police CIT
fund. As a result of this adjustment, this decreases the current budgeted fund balance and expenditures
by $275,858.90 in the Police Department’s State Asset Forfeiture Fund and appropriates the $275,858.90
fund balance revenues and expenditures into the Police Department’s Federal CIT Fund.
The award supports “Train the Trainer” training, crisis negotiations training, travel fo r training, tasers, Crisis
Intervention and Crisis Negotiations Teams’ cell phone consoles and a crisis negotiations response vehicle.
This supports the Police Department’s ability to obtain training for the County’s officer’s in Crisis
Intervention, provide Tasers for officers in the field that do not currently have a taser, and provide enhanced
capabilities of the Crisis Interventions and Negotiations Teams through cell phone consoles and a Team
response vehicle.
Appropriation #2015070 $0.00
This appropriation will not increase the County Budget.
Source: Innovation Fund $ 54,442.87
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 45)
This request is to appropriate a transfer of $54,442.87 from the Innovation Fund to various department
operating budgets for the following Innovation Fund-sponsored projects:
Police – Diversity/Recruitment Video
Police – Citizen Online Computer Station
Fire/Rescue – Digital Fire Training Simulator
Social Services – Automated Check-In
Social Services – Information Delivery and Community Engagement
Community Development – Paperless Plan Review Project
Facilities Development – “What to Expect During Construction” citizen hand-out
document
The current balance in the Innovation Fund is $129,510.49. After this appropriation, $75,067.62 will remain
in the fund for future projects.
Appropriation #2015072 $.00
This appropriation will not increase the County Budget.
Source: Court Facilities Addition/Renovation $ 150,000.00
This request is to appropriate $150,000.00 in General Government Capital Fund fund balance and to
equally reduce borrowed proceeds currently budgeted from the Court Facilities Addition/Renovation Project
to provide interim, temporary solutions (both design and construction) for immediate space relief and
improved security to the courts operations.
These interim measures are necessary due to the delay in the Court's capital project to accommodate more
time in the process to confirm the City’s commitment to the downtown location option and for a more realistic
public engagement and approval process. The Courts Project has been revised in this year’s CIP cycle to
push the start of construction out two years from the adopted CIP plan date of July 2016 to July 2018.
The funding will provide for a modest expansion of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Off ice within the
footprint of the existing Courts Annex building, and limited reconfiguration of select, existing rooms within
the footprint of the current office space. The proposed space modifications are essential to maintain
necessary staff support to the County’s judicial system by positioning key staff at strategic locations to
better secure the offices as well as providing suitable office space for administrative staff and ensuring
efficient placement of key courts files. Funding will also cover additional courts’ requests for interim storage
and sound system upgrades while the larger Courts Project is being designed for execution once funding
is available. Upon approval of this appropriation, the process to procure an architectural firm to provide
design services will commence and the project is estimated to be completed in eight months.
Appropriation #2015073 $100,000.00
Source: Proffer Revenue $ 100,000.00
This request is to appropriate a total of $100,000.00 to the Crozet Elementary School Sidewalk and
Crossing Improvements Project.
$52,586.96 of this appropriation would be provided by the various proffer revenues listed below:
Liberty Hall $25,657.28
Wickham Pond $ 9,000.00
Wickham Pond II $13,500.00
Grayrock $ 946.98
Haden Place $ 2,430.98
Grayrock West $ 1,051.72
This request is also to appropriate $47,413.04 in Avinity proffer revenue to the Rio Road - Avon Street - US
Route 250 West project and to appropriate the equivalent amount of funding currently appropri ated in the
Rio Road – Avon Street – US 250 West project to the Crozet Elementary School Safe Routes to Schools
(SRTS) Sidewalk and Crossing Improvements Project so that the sidewalk project will be fully funded.
The following is provided for background information on this project:
The Crozet Elementary School SRTS Sidewalk and Crossing Improvements Project is an active project
currently supported by a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) awarded Safe Routes to School
(SRTS) Grant. The County initially bid the project in October 2013, however a "No Award" letter was issued
in December 2013 because the low bid exceeded available funds primarily due to a significant and
unanticipated waterline relocation. The low bid also exceeded the engineer's e stimate by 10%, so VDOT
required the project to be redesigned and rebid. The plans were redesigned so that the waterline relocation
was avoided and other substantial cost saving changes suggested by the bidders were incorporated, then
proffer revenues were appropriated to support the project.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 46)
The project was re-advertised and bids opened in November 2014. The apparent low bid was $268,750
and exceeds available funds. The revised total project budget estimate based on the apparent low bid is
$393,000.
The difference between the 3 lowest bids was less than 1%, so the bids are representative of the current
bidding climate and further redesign will not provide any substantial cost savings. Based on this information,
a request has been submitted to VDOT to allow for an "intent to award," even though the low bid was 10%
higher than the construction estimate, and VDOT has approved the request.
The Board's appropriation of the required additional funding is necessary to proceed with construction of
the project and to maintain the grant funding. If approved the “intent to award” will be issued to the low
bidder and the project will be constructed during the winter or early spring, depending on weather
conditions.
_____
Mr. Bill Letteri addressed the Board, stating that Virginia code requires the County to hold a public
hearing before amending its budget when the total amount of the funds appropriated exceeds 1% of the
expenditures in the currently-adopted budget. He said that the accumulated total outlined in the
executive summary is $4.5 million, and the summary includes 38 appropriations, 29 of which were
already approved by the Board in October, November and December. After the public hearing, he said,
staff recommends approval of the FY15 budget amendm ent and the approval of nine appropriations as
numbered and described in their attachment.
Ms. Dittmar asked if the additional staff for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office was reflected in
this appropriation. Mr. Davis said that it would be included in a future appropriation.
Mr. Boyd asked if the $211,000 school appropriation was over the 2% fund balance. Mr. Letteri
said his understanding was that it was just an accounting change, and the schools had put it in the wrong
account by mistake.
Mr. Boyd said another item he had a question about was the regional firearms training center. He
stated the Board had made clear in their approval that they did not want to cap it at $6 million if it meant
cutting another 25% of the building off – and in reading the appropriation, it does not seem that was
incorporated.
Mr. Foley said they were just waiting for the bids to come in so they know if they need to make an
adjustment, and they are hoping it would come in under $6 million.
Mr. Boyd said everyone hoped that, but he wanted to be sure that this reflected the Board’s
desire not to cut off that additional 25%.
Mr. Letteri stated that a meeting among the three parties was scheduled during the time it was
out to bid, to address those concerns and issues.
Ms. McKeel said that she would not want the building to be cut, and having the Board find out
later.
Mr. Foley said that staff got the message loud and clear on that one, and would convey that to the
partners.
Mr. Davis pointed out that exceeding the $6 million total would require an amendment to the
agreement; that provision was added.
Board members acknowledged that they understood that step.
Mr. Foley said they have already conveyed the Board’s intention to the partners.
Ms. Mallek said that it made sense to have some bid numbers to talk about, because then there
would be something concrete.
Ms. Dittmar asked when the RFP results would be in, so they will know what funding would be
needed. Mr. Trevor Henry stated that they were in final design review and had a meeting the following
week. He plans to incorporate comments by the end of the month and to put out bids in early February.
He said they would expect to have the bid results in by early March, at which time they could provide a
formal report.
Ms. Mallek asked if there was still consideration of a bid for the full amount. Mr. Henry said they
had not finalized their bid documents yet, and currently their plan required that they have a bid deduct so
they have that information.
Ms. Mallek said that she was suggesting they add on to it. Mr. Henry said they would be unable
to do that without further design.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 47)
The Chair opened the public hearing. Since no one came forward to speak, the public hearing
was closed.
Mr. Davis stated that the most efficient way to accomplish this action was to approve the budget
amendment and the appropriations as recommended by staff.
Ms. Mallek moved to approve the FY 2015 Budget Amendment in the amount of $4,497,519.56
and approve appropriations #2015063, #2015065, #2015066, #2015067, #2015068, #2015069,
#2015070, #2015072 and #2015073 for local government and school division programs and projects.
Ms. McKeel seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
COUNTY OF ALBEMARLE
APPROPRIATION SUMMARY
APP# ACCOUNT AMOUNT DESCRIPTION
2015063 3-9050-19000-319000-190319-3110 1327970.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 3-9050-19000-319000-190435-3110 256434.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 3-9050-33000-333000-330001-3110 1942334.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 3-9050-19000-319000-199900-3110 -687800.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 3-9050-19000-319000-199900-9999 -1744910.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 3-9050-41000-341000-410500-9999 40550.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015063 4-9050-31029-431010-800605-3110 1134578.00 SA2015063 Regional Firearms Training Center
2015065 4-4100-31040-435600-332100-1003 39174.00 SA2015065 ECC CAD Maintenance
2015065 3-4100-51000-351000-510100-9999 51333.56 SA2015065 ECC CAD Maintenance -
Emergency Mgmt Coord
2015065 4-4100-31045-435600-110000-1003 12159.56 SA2015065 PT to FT Asst Emergency Mgmt
Coord
2015066 3-3207-63207-333000-384048-6599 5000.00 SA2015066 Federal Revenue
2015066 4-3207-63207-461190-800100-6530 5000.00 SA2015066 Machinery/Equipment
2015067 3-2000-62000-318100-181109-6599 50000.00 SA2015067 Donations
2015067 4-2000-62101-461101-601300-6599 50000.00 SA2015067 Reserve - Donations & Activity
Funds
2015068 4-1005-93010-493010-930001-9999 211237.00 SA2015068 Transfer to School Fund
2015068 3-1005-51000-351000-510100-9999 211237.00 SA2015068 Fund Balance
2015068 3-2000-62000-351000-512012-6599 211237.00 SA2015068 Transfer from GF - School Reserve
Fund
2015068 3-2000-62000-351000-510100-6599 -211237.00 SA2015068 School Fund Fund Balance
2015069 3-1236-51000-351000-510100-9999 -275858.90 SA2015069 CIT/CNT Award Revenue Correction
2015069 4-1236-39000-439000-580905-1003 -275858.90 SA2015069 CIT/CNT Award Revenue Correction
2015069 3-1244-51000-351000-510100-9999 275858.90 SA2015069 CIT/CNT Award Revenue Correction
2015069 4-1244-31013-431010-550100-1003 114779.00 SA2015069 CIT/CNT Award Revenue Correction
2015069 4-1244-31013-431010-800125-1003 161079.90 SA2015069 CIT/CNT Award Revenue Correction
2015070 4-1000-31013-431010-360005-9980 15000.00 SA2015070 Diversity/Recruitment Video
2015070 4-1000-31013-431010-800200-9980 2000.00 SA2015070 Citizen Online Computer Station
2015070 4-1000-31013-431010-800700-9980 1500.00 SA2015070 Citizen Online Computer Station
2015070 4-1000-32012-432010-800100-9980 19425.87 SA2015070 Digital Fire Training Simulator
2015070 4-1000-43100-443100-312366-1004 2625.00 SA2015070 Innovation Fund Project
2015070 4-1000-53010-453010-800700-9980 1820.00 SA2015070 Automated Check-In
2015070 4-1000-53010-453010-800700-9980 1080.00 SA2015070 Info Delivery & Community
Engagement
2015070 4-1000-53010-453010-600100-9980 6120.00 SA2015070 Info Delivery & Community
Engagement
2015070 4-1000-81021-481020-800700-9980 3000.00 SA2015070 Paperless Plan Review Pilot
2015070 4-1000-81021-481020-800710-9980 1740.00 SA2015070 Paperless Plan Review Pilot
2015070 4-1000-81021-481020-550100-9980 132.00 SA2015070 Paperless Plan Review Pilot
2015070 4-1000-99900-499000-999978-9999 -54442.87 SA2015070 Distribute to Projects
2015070 4-1925-43100-443100-601700-9980 2625.00 SA2015070 What to Expect During Construction
2015070 3-1925-16000-316000-160560-1004 2625.00 SA2015070 Innovation Fund Project
2015072 3-9010-41400-341000-410530-9999 -150000.00 SA2015072 Court Facilities Borrowed Proceeds
2015072 3-9010-51000-351000-510100-9999 150000.00 SA2015072 Interim Court Facilities
2015072 4-9010-21009-421005-312350-2180 -150000.00 SA2015072 Court Facilities Add/Renov
2015072 4-9010-21005-421005-800610-2180 150000.00 SA2015072 Interim Court Facilities - Renovation
2015073 4-9010-41350-441200-950514-9999 100000.00 SA2015073 Crozet Avenue North Sidewalk (Safe
Routes To School)
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512065-9999 25657.28 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Liberty Hall
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512056-9999 9000.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512085-9999 13500.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond II
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512063-9999 946.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512086-9999 2430.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Haden
Place
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 48)
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512087-9999 1051.72 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
West
2015073 3-9010-51000-351000-512088-9999 47413.04 SA2015073 Rio Road Avon St US Route 250
West From Avinity Proffer
2015073 3-8548-51000-351000-510100-9999 47413.04 SA2015073 Rio Road Avon St US Route 250
West From Avinity Proffer
2015073 4-8548-93010-493010-930010-9999 47413.04 SA2015073 Rio Road Avon St US Route 250
West From Avinity Proffer
2015073 3-8523-51000-351000-510100-9999 946.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
2015073 4-8523-93010-493010-930010-9999 946.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
2015073 3-8577-18977-318000-189911-9999 1051.72 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
West
2015073 4-8577-93010-493010-930010-9999 1051.72 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Grayrock
West
2015073 3-8576-51000-351000-510100-9999 2430.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Haden
Place
2015073 4-8576-93010-493010-930010-9999 2430.98 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Haden
Place
2015073 3-8544-51000-351000-510100-9999 25657.28 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Liberty Hall
2015073 4-8544-93010-493010-930010-9999 25657.28 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Liberty Hall
2015073 3-8540-18940-318000-189911-9999 9000.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond
2015073 4-8540-93010-493010-930010-9999 9000.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond
2015073 3-8549-18949-318000-189911-9999 13500.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond II
2015073 4-8549-93010-493010-930010-9999 13500.00 SA2015073 Crozet Ave SRTS From Wickham
Pond II
TOTAL 3,309,547.12
_______________
Agenda Item No. 26. PUBLIC HEARING: To receive comments on its intent to adopt an
ordinance to amend County Code Chapter 12, Regulated Enterprises, Article I, False Alarms, by
amending Section 12-101, Definitions, to amend the definition of “false alarm” by deleting “activity
unauthorized by the alarm system user or activity outside the control of the alarm system user” from the
list of alarms that do not constitute a false alarm and by adding “weather-related events,” as defined in the
proposed ordinance, to the list of alarms that do not constitute a false alarm; by amending Section 12-102
to require that written notices issued to unregistered alarm system users be mailed to the physical
address of the alarm user and to reduce the service fee for third and subsequent responses to
unregistered alarm systems from $300.00 to $150.00; by amending Section 12-104 to increase the
amount of time an individual has to pay a false alarm service fee from thirty to ninety days and to
eliminate the assessment of a delinquent payment fee; and by amending Section 12-108 to eliminate the
requirement that Police Department forms be used for appeals of false alarm notices and to increase the
amount of time alarm system users have to submit appeals from ten to thirty days. (Advertised in the
Daily Progress on December 22 and December 29, 2014)
The executive summary forwarded to Board members states that on August 3, 2011, the Board of
Supervisors adopted the current False Alarms Ordinance. After three years of administering this
Ordinance, the Albemarle County Police Department (ACPD) is recommending amendments to the
Ordinance as set forth below.
Staff has prepared a draft ordinance (Attachment A) to amend County Code Chapter 12,
Regulated Enterprises, Article I, False alarms. The proposed ordinance would:
Amend the definition of “False alarm” in § 12-101. Currently the definition of “false alarm”
states that “False alarms shall not include any alarms determined…to have been
triggered by…activity unauthorized by the alarm system user or activity outside the
control of the alarm system user.” The ACPD receives a number of appeals from
homeowners who cite weather or high winds as “activity unauthorized by the alarm
system user or activity outside the control of the alarm system user.” The ACPD
recommends amending the definition of “false alarm” by deleting the language “activity
unauthorized by the alarm system user or activity outside the control of the alarm system
user” from the list of alarms that do not constitute a false alarm due to the ambiguity of
the terms. However, the ACPD recommends amending the definition to provide that
weather-related events triggering an alarm do not constitute a false alarm. A weather -
related event is defined as “an event caused by weather conditions that results in either
a) a disruption of electrical service to the building for four (4) consecutive hours or longer;
or (b) damage to the building that would activate the alarm. The four-hour threshold is
based on the typical time that a back -up battery provides electricity, preventing a false
alarm from being triggered.
Amend § 12-102 to require that written notices issued by the ACPD to unregistered alarm
system users be mailed to the physical address of the dwelling where the alarm system is
located and to the address of the owner listed in the real estate tax assessment records
of the County unless the physical address and the owner’s address listed in the tax
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 49)
assessment records are the same. This would establish a notice procedure for incidents
in which the alarm system user is not present to receive the notice at the site of the call.
Amend § 12-102 to eliminate the $300.00 service fee for third and subsequent responses
to an unregistered alarm system. Over the past three years, the ACPD has not found the
higher fee for third and subsequent responses to be a deterrent. Because the false
alarms ordinance is meant to be an enforcement tool rather than a revenue enhancement
mechanism, the ACPD recommends charging a $150.00 service fee for all unregistered
alarm responses, including second and subsequent responses.
Amend § 12-104 to increase the amount of time that an individual has to pay a false
alarm service fee from thirty to ninety days. The ACPD often responds to false alarms in
which the alarm system owner is out of town for an extended period of time. Allowing the
alarm system user more time to pay the service fee would make the process more
efficient. It would result in more alarm system users making their payments timely,
eliminating the need for staff to follow up with those system users.
Amend § 12-104 to eliminate the assessment of a delinquent payment fee equal to the
original fee of a false alarm when a service fee is not paid on time. The ACPD has found
that the delinquent payment fee has not been a deterrent to subsequent false alarms.
Amend § 12-108 to eliminate the requirement that an appeal of a false alarm notice be on
a form provided by the ACPD. The ACPD receives a number of such appeals, and those
appeals have been processed as a courtesy to the c itizens. This would clarify the current
process of the ACPD and provide a simpler process for citizens to note appeals.
Amend § 12-108 to increase the amount of time an alarm system user has to submit an
appeal to the chief of police, the fire and rescue chief and the county executive from ten
days to thirty days. This would provide more time for citizens to decide whether to file an
appeal.
The Department of Fire Rescue (FR) rarely responds to false fire alarms and has never issued a
notice. FR staff has reviewed this Executive Summary and the draft ordinance and agree with the
recommendations.
Please see the chart below for the budget impact if the Board adopts the attached ordinance
based on FY14 false alarm fees collected:
The County retains a private vendor to collect false alarm fees and pays the vendor 21.5% of the
fees collected by it.
If the Board adopts the attached ordinance, based on the FY14 false alarm fees collected, there
would be a $33,563.00 reduction in overall County revenues generated by false alarm fees per year, or a
24.15% reduction. However, staff believes these changes will significantly improve the process and
reduce staff time spent enforcing the ordinance.
Staff recommends that, after the public hearing, the Board adopt the attached proposed
Ordinance (Attachment A).
_____
Lieutenant Greg Jenkins of the County Police Department addressed the Board, stating that the
false alarm ordinance has been in place for about three years, and since that time they have identified a
few areas to be considered for change. Lt. Jenkins said the first portion is amendment to the definition of
“false alarm,” as there was some ambiguity within some of that language. He stated there was the need
for a clause to allow for weather-related events; the second item was written notice to unregistered alarm
users to be mailed directly to the address that the officers respond to, as some of the notices were being
sent out to second and third-party people but not the resident of the home; third, they would recommend
a reduction in the $300 service fee for unregistered alarms to $150, because they have not been able to
show evidence that the higher fee actually raises compliance for payment. He stated they would
recommend an increase in the time a person has to pay for a false alarm fee from 30 days to 90 days.
During some of the appeal process they learned as individuals were out of town, the notices were sitting
in the mail and the additional fees were racking up because the owners did not know about them. Lt.
Jenkins said an additional recommendation is elimination of the delinquent payment fee to the original fee
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 50)
of the false alarm, when the service fee is not paid – as there was no evidence that this was a deterrent.
He stated that another recommendation is to eliminate the requirement for appeals to be filed on a police
department form. Also during the appeals process they get a lot of correspondence from citizens on their
own stationery. Lt. Jenkins said they are also recommending an incre ase in the amount of time an alarm
user has to submit an appeal to the Chief of Police from 10 days to 30 days, which would give citizens a
better opportunity to comply with the ordinance and would allow the department to streamline the appeal
process.
Lt. Jenkins said that a question was raised earlier about the service charge fee that the County’s
vendor, and that company – Cry Wolf – charges 21.5% service fee for managing the false alarm program
for the County. He said that he was asked why the fire rescue vendor pays a 7% assessment of these
fees and services, and in speaking with Chief John Oprandy, the fire department was currently not
assessing fees and fines for false alarms – they were assessing fees for EMS responses. He stated that
it was a $1.6 million funding stream they were dealing with, and last year it was 6%, with this year being
5.5%, based on the amount of times they have to respond to transport. He said that the vendors try to
project from year to year what those service charges will be, and right now they are at 21.5%. Lt. Jenkins
said that Red-Flex, the company that manages the safety cameras on Route 29 at Rio Road, charges
20% - which is dictated by how much service they provide to the County. He stated his department does
not feel that a part-time person can manage the volume of false alarms that come into the County, and
the police department is a part of that appeals process. Lt. Jenkins said that Cry Wolf collected $38,000
from fees for these services, and it would likely cost the County more to do this itself.
Ms. Dittmar asked for an estimate of the number of false alarms they deal with every year. Lt.
Jenkins said that last year it was over 700; this year, for a six -month period it was 610, but overall there
has been a 20% decrease in residential alarms.
Ms. Mallek stated that she was surprised that people just ignored a $100 fine.
Ms. Palmer said that she was confused by Lt. Jenkins statement that there had been a decrease,
because the six-month period was almost as much as an entire year previously.
Lt. Jenkins said that the number dropped from 363 to 307 from July to December when
comparing this year to last year; residential alarms went from 337 to 303.
Ms. Palmer asked if they had an estimate as to how much the false alarms cost the department
every year. Lt. Jenkins said that he did not have an exact dollar figure, but every time that alarm comes
in, it requires a two-officer response, depending on gas/fuel, wear and tear on cars, location in the
County, etc.
Mr. Foley said that these recommended changes were intended to make this process more
efficient and spend less time on these types of calls.
Ms. Palmer said she was interested in whether the fines cover the cost of staff time.
Lt. Jenkins said years ago, there were no consequences for business owners or residential
owners for false alarms, so at least fines are being assessed now.
Ms. Palmer said that a constituent in her district had some complaints about the false alarm fine
and the whole process, but offered some good suggestions, some of which are reflected in these
proposed changes. She asked if alarm companies were required to tell purchasers they needed to
register, and if not then how people would find out they have to register. Lt. Jenkins said the companies
were not required to inform their buyers, and when this ordinance was first proposed the department did a
lot of media preparation and pushed the information out. He said when an officer goes to a residence or
business to respond to an alarm, they leave door hanger cards that explain what the exact ordinance
requirements are and how to comply with them.
Ms. Palmer asked if real estate agents gave out that information when they sold house, and if it
was a reasonable thing to suggest, if a house has an alarm.
Mr. Boyd said years ago they did not charge anything for false alarms. However, they
implemented these measures to cut down on the number of calls and the number of repeat offenders, not
to recoup costs. He stated that the department seems to want to tweak the ordinance a bit, and he is in
agreement with that. Lt. Jenkins stated that he would follow up with the realtors per Ms. Palmer’s
suggestion.
The Chair opened the public hearing. There being no public comment, the Chair closed the
public hearing.
Mr. Boyd moved to adopt the proposed ordinance as presented. Mr. Sheffield seconded the
motion. Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 51)
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
Ms. Mallek commented that she supports the changes, but still wants to make sure that people
are held accountable.
ORDINANCE NO. 15-12(1)
AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 12, REGULATED ENTERPRISES, ARTICLE I, FALSE
ALARMS, OF THE CODE OF THE COUNTY OF ALBEMARLE, VIRGINIA
BE IT ORDAINED By the Board of Supervisors of the County of Albemarle, Virginia, that Chapter
12, Regulated Enterprises, Article I, False Alarms, is hereby amended and reordained as follows:
By Amending:
Sec. 12-101 Definitions
Sec. 12-102 Registration of alarm systems designed to seek a police response
Sec. 12-104 False alarms prohibited; service fees
Sec. 12-108 Appeals
CHAPTER 12. REGULATED ENTERPRISES
ARTICLE I. FALSE ALARMS
Sec. 12-100 Purpose.
The board hereby finds that malfunctioning alarm systems, and the false alarms associated with
them, constitute a hazard to public safety personnel and to the public in general. The regulation of alarm
systems and false alarms is necessary to promote the health, safety and welfare of county citizens. False
alerts of intrusions or robberies increase the county’s public safety costs, divert public safety resources
from other critical areas of work, and burden the Charlottesville-U.Va.-Albemarle Emergency
Communications Center. In order to preserve the integrity and efficiency of the county’s police and fire and
rescue emergency services, those who utilize automatic alarm systems must be required to maintain those
systems in good working order and to promptly repair any defects which may cause those systems to trigger
false alarms.
Sec. 12-101 Definitions.
For the purposes of this article and, unless otherwise required by the context, the following words
and terms shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them by this section:
Alarm system means an assembly of equipment and devices arranged to signal the presence of a
hazard requiring urgent attention and to which a police or fire and rescue response is expected.
Alarm system user means: (1) any person or entity owning or leasing an alarm system; or (2) any
person or entity owning or leasing the premises on which such alarm system is maintained. An “alarm
system user” shall not include the United States, the Commonwealth of Virginia, or their respective agencies
or political subdivisions.
Automatic dialing device means any device, system or equipment that automatically transmits over
telephone lines, by direct connection or otherwise, a prerecorded voice message or coded signal indicating
the existence of an emergency situation to which a police, fire, or emergency medical services response is
expected.
Emergency communications center means the regional 911 center known as the Charlottesville-
U.Va.-Albemarle Emergency Communications Center.
False alarm means an alarm that causes a police or fire and rescue response when there is no
actual or threatened criminal activity, fire, or other emergency requiring an immediate police or fire and
rescue response. False alarms shall include, but not be limit ed to: negligently or accidentally activated
signals; signals which are the result of faulty, malfunctioning or improperly installed or maintained
equipment; signals which are purposefully activated to summon a police or fire and rescue response in
nonemergency situations; and alarms for which the actual cause is not determined. False alarms shall not
include any alarms caused by failure of the equipment at the emergency communications center, any
alarms determined by the responding police or fire and rescu e officer to have been triggered by criminal
activity, or any alarms caused by a weather-related event. “Weather-related event” shall mean an event
caused by weather conditions that results in either a) a disruption of electrical service to the building f or
four (4) consecutive hours or longer; or b) damage to the building that would activate the alarm.
(Ord. of 4-17-91; Code 1988, § 2.2-1; Ord. 98-A(1), 8-5-98; § 12-100)
State law reference--Va. Code §15.2-911
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 52)
Sec. 12-102 Registration of alarm systems designed to seek a police response.
A. General Requirements. Prior to installing, using or maintaining on any premises within the
county an alarm system which is designed to seek a police response, an alarm system user shall register
such alarm system by providing the following information, using forms provided by the county, to the chief
of police or his designee:
1. The street address of the premises at which the alarm system is to be installed or
used (the “premises”); the name, mailing address and telephone number of the owner and lessee, if any,
of such premises; and the name and mailing address of an individual (alarm user or designee of the alarm
user) to whom notices regarding the alarm system may be sent; and
2. The names, street addresses and telephone numbers of at least two (2) individuals
who will have day-to-day responsibility for the premises and alarm system, who will be immediately
available to be contacted in the event an alarm is activated, and who are authorized and able to deactivate
the alarm system; and
3. A description of the specific type of alarm system, manufacturer’s name, and the
name and telephone number of the alarm company monitoring, responding to or maintaining the alarm
system; and
4. If registering an alarm system that has been disconnected or disabled following a
notice to disconnect or disabled issued pursuant to §12-103, documentation that the alarm system has
been repaired or passed inspection by an individual or entity qualified to repair or inspect alarm systems .
B. Changes in Alarm System Registration Information. Whenever any registration information
provided by an alarm system user pursuant to subsection A changes, the alarm system user shall provide
correct, updated information to the chief of police or his designee within ten (10) business days of the
change. When an individual or entity takes possession of premises equipped with an activated alarm
system, the individual or entity must provide updated registration information within ten (10) business days
of taking possession as required by subsection A.
C. Failure to Register Alarm System. Upon the first police response to an unregistered alarm
system in response to a signal issued by the alarm system, the chief of police or his designee shall issue a
written notice to the alarm system user that the alarm system must be registered. This notice shall be
mailed to the physical address of the dwelling where the alarm system is located and to the address of the
owner listed in the real estate tax assessment records of the County. If the physical address of the alarm
system user is the same as the address of the owner listed in the real estate tax assessment records of the
County, then only one notice shall be mailed. The alarm system user shall be assessed a service fee in
the amount of $150.00. The fee for the first offense may be waived if the alarm system user files an appeal
pursuant to section 12-108, and presents satisfactory evidence that the alarm system has been registered.
Upon the second or subsequent police response caused by an unregistered alarm system, the alarm
system user shall be assessed a service fee in the amount of $150.
D. Registration of an alarm system shall not create a contract, duty or obligation, either
express or implied, for police to respond. Any and all liability and consequential damage resulting from the
failure to respond to a notification from an alarm system is hereby disclaimed. By registering an alarm
system, the alarm system user acknowledges that police responses may be based on factors such as the
availability of responding units, staffing levels, priority of pending requests for services, weather conditions,
traffic conditions and other emergency conditions.
Sec. 12-103 Maintenance of alarm systems required; disconnection of alarm systems.
A. Maintenance of alarm systems. Alarm system users shall maintain their alarm systems in
good working order. Because alarm systems that generate multiple false alarms within a short period of
time may be malfunctioning, the chief of police or his designee and the fire and rescue chief or his designee
shall have the discretion to suspend responses to an alarm system after the second false alarm generated
within a twenty-four (24) hour period; such suspension shall last for th e remainder of the twenty-four hour
period.
B. Disconnection of alarm systems. An alarm system user shall disconnect or disable any
alarm system upon a written determination and notice by the chief of police or his designee or by the fire
and rescue chief or his designee that the installation, use, operation and/or maintenance of the alarm
system would constitute an unreasonable burden on police or fire and rescue resources. Any alarm system
which generates eight (8) or more false alarms within any four (4) day period shall be deemed an
unreasonable burden on police or fire and rescue resources. An alarm system user required to disconnect
or disable an alarm system shall be entitled to register a new or repaired alarm system at any time in
accordance with §12-102.
Sec. 12-104 False alarms prohibited; service fees.
A. Prohibition. No alarm system user or other person shall send or activate a false alarm that
causes a police or fire-and rescue response where there is no actual or threatened crime, fire, or other
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 53)
emergency requiring an immediate police or fire and rescue response. Violations of this section shall result
in the assessment of service fees as provided below.
B. Service fee amounts. Alarm system users shall pay a service fee for false alarms within
ninety (90) days of billing. The service fee shall be assessed for each false alarm during any twelve (12)
month period as follows:
1. First false alarm: No charge
2. Second false alarm: No charge
3. Third false alarm: $100
4. Fourth false alarm: $150
5. Fifth false alarm: $200
6. Sixth and subsequent false alarms: $300
C. Service fee assessments. The county shall cause alarm system users to be billed for false
alarms in accordance with the above schedule of service fees. All fees shall be paid within ninety (90)
days of billing. Failure to pay a service fee within ninety (90) days of billing shall result in the initiation of
civil action, as necessary, for the recovery of the unpaid fee.
(Ord. of 4-17-91; Code 1988, § 2.2-4; Ord. 98-A(1), 8-5-98, § 12-101)
State law reference--Va. Code § 15.2-911.
Sec. 12-105 Deliberate false alarms a criminal offense.
It shall be a class 1 misdemeanor for any person to knowingly and without just cause activate an
alarm system to summon a police or fire and rescue response where there is no actual or threatened
criminal activity, fire, or other emergency that required an immediate police or fire and rescue response.
(Ord. of 4-17-91; Code 1988, § 2.2-2; Ord. 98-A(1), 8-5-98, § 12-102)
State law reference--Va. Code § 27-97; false alarms,§18.2-212, 18.2-461
Sec. 12-106 Automatic dialing devices prohibited; penalty.
No person or entity shall install, use, or maintain on any premises within the county any automatic
dialing device which delivers, or causes to be delivered, any prerecorded voice message or coded signal
to the emergency communications center or any department of the county. Violations of this section shall
constitute a class 4 misdemeanor.
Sec. 12-107 Administration.
The chief of police, the fire and rescue chief, in coordination with the director of finance, shall have
joint responsibility for administering this article under the supervision of the county executive.
(Ord. of 4-17-91; Code 1988, § 2.2-5; Ord. 98-A(1), 8-5-98, § 12-104)
Sec. 12-108 Appeals.
A. Appeals for Alarms Requiring a Police Response. Any fee imposed by the police
department pursuant to this article or notice to disconnect or disable an alarm system may be appealed in
writing to the chief of police within thirty (30) days of the date of notice of such fee or decision. Upon receipt
of such appeal, the chief of police or his designee may grant relief from the fee or notice or affirm the fee
or notice. Should the fee or notice be affirmed, the alarm system user may appeal the decision of the chief
of police or his designee to the county executive by filing a written appeal within thirty (30) days of the date
of the decision. Upon receipt of such appeal, the county executive or his de signee may grant relief from
the fee or notice, or affirm the fee or notice. The decision of the county executive or his designee is final.
B. Appeals for Alarms Requiring a Fire and Rescue Response. Any fee imposed by the
county department of fire and rescue pursuant to this article may be appealed in writing to the fire and
rescue chief, using forms provided by the department, within thirty (30) days of the date of notice of such
fee. Upon receipt of such appeal, the chief or his designee may grant re lief from the fee, or affirm the fee.
Should the fee be affirmed, the alarm system user may appeal the decision of the chief or his designee to
the county executive by filing a written appeal within thirty (30) days of the date of the decision. Upon
receipt of such appeal, the county executive or his designee may grant relief from the fee or affirm the fee.
The decision of the county executive or his designee is final.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 54)
(Ord. of 4-17-91; Code 1988, § 2.2-6; Ord. 98-A(1), 8-5-98, § 12-105)
_______________
Agenda Item No. 27. From the Board: Committee Reports and Matters Not Listed on the
Agenda.
Item No. 27a. Clarification of December 10, 2014 motion concerning evaluation of transfer station
alternatives.
Ms. Palmer stated that the Board’s previous motion had read, “Conduct a high-level evaluation
and comparison of possible collection and transport system alternatives, including a transfer station at Ivy
with an estimate of the capital and operating costs, for consideration by the Board of Superviso rs no later
than March 2015.” She said there seems to be some confusion communicating with the committee, and
what they needed to do was provide recommendations to the Board for a solid waste management plan,
and she hoped they were very specific with the ir proposals. Ms. Palmer said the wording of the motion
that says “including a transfer station at Ivy” would suggest that they might be considering a transfer
station somewhere other than Ivy. At their February 4 Board meeting, she has requested, that st aff bring
back a small amount of information that is already available, to let the Board make the determination that
they were not looking for transfer station at some other location, just to give the committee some
clarification.
_____
Mr. Boyd stated that this had been in the press lately, given that the County had a joint
agreement with the City to provide funds for a YMCA at McIntire Park; the City had a time commitment,
the County did not.
Mr. Davis said there were two different aspects to that: the City was acting on the extension of
the ground lease for the YMCA, not the funding of the facility, and there was a time limit that required the
facility be constructed within five years so they needed an extension. He stated that the County entered
into a use agreement with the YMCA and the City, which was conditioned upon an appropriation from the
County of $2,030,000. The Board appropriated that money in each year carrying it forward with the
understanding that the money would not be delivered to the YMCA until they have a project under
construction. The Boards next opportunity to take action on this would be in the next appropriation, if the
YMCA had not yet started construction.
Mr. Boyd said as they move forward with their CIP budget this year, h e would like to propose that
they get a reevaluation of how they might use some of that $2 million to make up some of the shortfalls in
the CIP or even operating costs for things like police officers, Commonwealth’s Attorney’s staff, etc. He
added that he would like staff to come back with a report as to how that money might be used. Mr. Boyd
stated it is his impression that the YMCA deal was falling apart – and it had been eight years since he had
seen a business plan for the facility.
Mr. Davis said it was one-time money, so it would typically not be something the Board would
apply to operating costs. He stated this would be an opportunity for the Board to request the YMCA to
give an update on the project and its status. He said this project had strong support since 2008 but there
have been problems getting it going. He stated that before the Board makes a decision on the YMCA,
they should probably hear from the YMCA.
Ms. Dittmar said Kurt Krueger had offered to do that.
Mr. Boyd said he did not have a problem listening to what the Y’s plan is now – and he was a big
proponent of it when it came forward eight years ago. He stated he does not want to end up with a facility
that the YMCA cannot maintain as it would end up being the responsibility of the Ci ty and County.
Mr. Davis said the provisions stipulate if they default, the facility defaults to the City and they
would then have to provide the same services to the County that the YMCA would provide.
Mr. Boyd said he would like to hear from staff on this project and alternatives, at that point they
can ask Mr. Krueger to address them.
Ms. Dittmar asked if this was something they could have on their February agenda. Mr. Foley
said he did not see a problem with scheduling it then, and staff could cover the current arrangement and
what that money might otherwise do for the CIP (because it is one-time funding) and then schedule Mr.
Krueger to come and talk with the Board.
Mr. Boyd said he knows it is one-time money, but depending on how much money is transferred,
there is also pay as you go money as well as debt service dollars, so there is some coalition that could be
done to apply it to operating funds.
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 55)
Ms. Dittmar said this could be scheduled on their agenda, and Mr. Krueger would be invited to
attend.
_____
Ms. McKeel stated they had been talking in the meeting when Denise Lunsford came before them
with another item the state was not funding, and her thought has been that they continue to express
concern to legislators. She stated it might be interesting to try a different approach, and perhaps sending
them a letter each time something like this happens would be more effective. She stated that over the
course of a year, it would certainly be an interesting paper trail to identify the individual obligations that
the Board has had to fund in lieu of state funding.
Ms. Dittmar said it was a great idea.
Ms. Mallek said it would be even more powerful if the legislators were asked to respond as to
what they intended to do about it.
Ms. Palmer said they should add to the letter that the County would be using property taxes to
pay for this, instead of income tax.
Mr. Foley said this was a great idea and staff could come up with a standard letter. He also noted
they would be bringing forth a resolution on the lack of SOQ funding.
_____
Ms. Dittmar reported that shortly after the Board decided to reach out to their Congressmen and
Senators to explore federal agency opportunities for their broadband project, they were invited to meet
with Congressman Hurt in Charlottesville. She stated that she, Mike Culp and Ms. Mallek, met with
Congressman Hurt and a staff person – John Lange, who had sent a letter outlining four future
opportunities and six that they had missed. Ms. Dittmar said t they had not yet made sp ecific requests of
senators.
Ms. Dittmar also mentioned that in the Board procedures, under their list of 88 boards and
commissions, it calls for a list of how the leadership works, how often they have met, etc.. She stated that
she would be coming back to them as to how they want information from these groups, such as a one-
page annual report.
She stated that Ms. Palmer had uncovered something with the Stormwater Management issue
regarding grandfathered projects. Mr. Davis said this was something that staff already had to do, and it is
really not committee work, with the filing due by mid-year.
Ms. Mallek stated they were not legally required in most cases to say they have to step up to the
new standards, especially if they have not broken ground yet.
Mr. Davis said the County was only grandfathering those developments that they were mandated
to grandfather by state legislation, and there were specific provisions added by the General Assembly, so
they have no choice. He explained that for the water protection ordinance, they were required to meet
current requirements – but under the new Stormwater regulations, there are some projects that are now
grandfathered from the new regulations that became effective July 1, 2014.
Ms. Dittmar asked why the County would be liable for the difference, if the state was requiring
this. Mr. Davis said this was a significant unfunded mandate.
Ms. Dittmar asked if they could hear more about this. Mr. Davis said that Community
Development or County Engineering would need to do.
Ms. Dittmar noted that she would not be present for the Comprehensive Plan discussion on
Facilities, so Ms. Palmer would be chairing that meeting.
Mr. Sheffield asked if Mr. Foley would provide an update on economic development. Mr. Foley
responded that it would be part of his report.
_______________
Agenda Item No. 28. From the County Executive: Report on Matters Not Listed on the Agenda.
Mr. Foley said that the January County Executive’s report included an update on the Economic
Development Director position, but what is not reflected is the fact that the County received approximately
70 applications, including some very well-qualified candidates. He said they have done interviews with
the top eight candidates and have narrowed it down to three who were recommended unanimously by the
search committee, which included representatives from the Economic Development Authority, the Central
Virginia Partnership for Economic Development, the Southern Environmental Law Center and the
Chamber of Commerce, as well as three County staff members. He stated that this was a great
community process, and the committee unanimously recommended the top three candidates. Over the
next few weeks, he said, the candidates would be coming in to tour the Count y and would be visiting the
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 56)
UVA Research Park, escorted by EDA member Rod Gentry. They will also meet with a group of business
community people, as well as, Susan Stimart, and candidates would do a presentation to the group. After
that, he said, they would come back and have lunch with Doug Walker and Bill Letteri, and meet with him
one on one for the final interview. Based on that, he said, there would be a Survey Monkey evaluation
done by interaction participants, and then he would sit down with Mr. Wa lker, Mr. Letteri, and Ms. Catlin to
talk about their experience. He stated he would bring the final recommendation to the board at the
February meeting, but as a part of the process the Board would get to meet the top candidate before the
final hire, with the expectation that they would start in March.
Ms. McKeel commented that with an applicant pool that size, they must have received a broad
group from in and out of state. Mr. Foley said they did, and had advertised through some economic
development magazines, through the web, and so forth. He stated everyone in the search process felt
very confident that these three candidates were well-qualified.
Mr. Foley stated that the Board calendar for the next few months was quite full, with the budget
work session process beginning in late February going into March, with the advertised tax rate after the
Board has done some review going out to the public, with a public hearing about three weeks later. He
said that staff would like to talk with them more about expectations for public engagement in this process.
Ms. Catlin stated that staff would like to discuss with them their expectations and desires for
public engagement during the budget process. She stated that the Board had endorsed a joint
budget/communications strategy with the schools that was recommended by the subcommittee, on which
Steve Koleszar and Mr. Sheffield served. She said they developed a pretty extensive list of activities,
with some of the highlights being continuation of the website, inc luding a shared budget portal page that
would provide access to both budgets from there, a calendar, FAQs, and other elements of the budget.
She stated they would also do A-mails, media outreach, public hearings, social media and other things
they normally do. Ms. Catlin said Ms. McKeel would be holding a town hall with Kate Acuff later in the
month using the schools’ electronic blackboard system, which was the first time it has been used for this
type of effort. She noted that this would be sort of a follow-up to the five-year plan panel meeting, and
staff would also be putting together a shorter YouTube video on discrete elements of the budget, also a
collaboration with the schools. Ms. Catlin said they would have Engage Albemarle as a tool this year,
and would also have the annual joint Citizens Advisory Council town hall meeting in early March,
providing another opportunity to discuss the budget. She stated that in the past, the bulk of the Board’s
town hall meetings took place after they finalize the tax rate for advertisement and before the last public
hearing – which on this calendar would put it somewhere between the early to mid-March to early-April
timeframe.
Mr. Foley said Ms. Mallek had raised the question that the last work session was Mar ch 11, and
they may want to make some final decisions on expenditures and hold the town hall meetings after that.
He stated that both Board and staff would be at many, many meetings as part of this process, so if there
are any ways they can consolidate them and still meet objectives, staff would welcome those
suggestions.
Ms. Mallek said she would be doing three meetings, but they would be listening events as
opposed to her doing a presentation.
Ms. McKeel stated that she would be doing some of the virtual town hall meetings.
Ms. Catlin noted that it does not cost the County to do more of those meetings.
Mr. Foley said that Mr. Sheffield had also made some suggestions about moving Board meetings
around, and it would be possible to hold those in different locations that followed more of the “town hall”
approach.
Ms. Dittmar commented that southern Albemarle people cannot participate online, so they would
need to come to an actual meeting, but if something could be sent to them they would at least stay in the
loop as to what was going on.
Ms. Mallek asked about the next tax bill mailing. Ms. Catlin said the tax mailings are already
done, but in the past the County has done an annual report – which they were putting together this year,
as an eight-page tabloid that goes into the Daily Progress as an insert.
Ms. McKeel asked if they had looked into using Cville for that purpose, as many people –
including the employees she works with at UVA – pick that up instead.
Ms. Catlin agreed that was a good idea, and she would look into it.
Ms. Palmer mentioned that the Rural Virginian was the paper that most people in southern
Albemarle read.
_______________
January 7, 2015 (Regular Day Meeting)
(Page 57)
Agenda Item No. 29. Adjourn to January 13, 2015, 5:00 p.m.
At 7:57 p.m., with no further business to come before the Board, Mr. Sheffield moved to adjourn
the meeting January 13, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. in the Lane Auditorium of the County Building. Ms. Mallek
seconded the motion.
Roll was called, and the motion passed by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Mr. Boyd, Ms. Dittmar, Ms. Mallek, Ms. McKeel, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Sheffield.
NAYS: None.
________________________________________
Chairman
Approved by Board
Date: 09/02/2015
Initials: EWJ