County Business
VIRGINIA:
At a special meeting of the King George County Board of Supervisors, held on Monday, the 1st day of October, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. in the Board Room of the Revercomb Building at 10459 Courthouse Drive, King George, Virginia:
PRESENT: Jeff Bueche, Chairman Cathy Binder, Vice-Chairman Richard A. Granger, Member Ruby A. Brabo, Member John E. Jenkins, Jr., Member Neiman C. Young, County Administrator Eric A. Gregory, County Attorney
Mr. Chair: I’d like to call order this regular meeting of the King George County Board of supervisors. Are there any amendments to the agenda?
Dr. Young: Yes, Mr. Chair. I'd like to recommend that the board amend the agenda to move 10-03 B and A I'm sorry, the amendment to the second day of six-year plan and the route three route 301 speed limits study to the forefront of the meeting ahead of 10-01, the consent agenda. This request is being made for us having guests from out of town, so we're going to accommodate them, providing their presentation and allowing them to get back on the road.
Mr. Granger: So moved.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye, motion carries. At this time, I'll open the floor to public comment. Anybody wishing the address the board, ask that you limit your comments to three minutes to afford everyone the opportunity. Just ask that you state your name and address for the record. Floor is open. And this is not for the public hearing. This is for public comment to the board of supervisors.
Mr. Hingley: Hi, my name is Dan Hingley, operations manager with Aqua, Virginia. Good to see many of you all again. I won't take up too much of your time. I just wanted to take a minute to I guess make you all aware of a SSO that we had our presidential lakes section 14 facility in the collection system, about 750 gallons of untreated wastewater discharge as a result of a force main break. We notified DEQ within 24 hours upon observing it, corrected the issue immediately, and then issued the five- day letter to DEQ as well. One thing that did come from this, I understand that one of the neighboring residents reached out to several members of the board and a few other members of the community and regulatory agencies. Many of you already have my contact information, but I brought some cards here. So if that happens again, just reach out to me directly. I brought Brad Campbell, our area supervisor. He manages the facility up here, and so either one of us, Brad or myself, will reach out to Dr. Young if you're the best point of contact. If you want a copy of that 24-hour notice or five-day letter, we'll be sure to send that along in the future. So it’s all I had. Can I drop these off with you all?
Alan: Hello, my name is Alan Ty, 6267 Millpond Road. I'm here on the noise ordinance amendment. I appreciate you all looking at this and considering it. I've been a property owner of that property for over 30 years. I've seen King George grow like a lot of people have. It's thanks to sheriff Dempsey. He's kind of pushed me and he introduced me to Mr. Granger because I didn't know what to do. I've never done anything like this, but it's become quite evident that the noise laws in King George County, I don't think have grown with the County. I have neighbors that shoot guns all night long, and I'm talking about large caliber rifles, handguns. Start shooting at 9:00, 10 o'clock at night and shoot completely through the night until the next morning. Now I'm a gun owner; I'm all for shooting guns, but you can shoot these exploding targets at night.
You can't cut grass after 10 o'clock at night, but you can shoot guns in King George County 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I know that because sheriff Dempsey has sent police officers out to my place for years, and there's nothing you can do because there's no ordinances to not shoot guns all night long. So I would just like for it to be taken in consideration and look. I brought the supplied information to you all ATF or the noise decimal levels of certain guns which you allow in the County, and it exceeds it by far.
I think one of the things is I have my 95-year-old mother-in-law. My wife and I were sitting out there, and all of a sudden, boom, she fell off the chair. I mean it has just gotten to the point now where, as you say in your-- I don't have it in front of me right now, but if it starts affecting your health, your welfare, your mental, and it does. It's just something I’d like to take a look at, maybe 10 o'clock to 6:00 in the morning, that you cannot shoot. You can shoot guns 4th of July, something like that; I understand it's a different type. But right now there's no-- like sheriff Dempsey said, he says, I have to agree. I think it's time we need to change some laws because there's no restrictions on shooting. So thank you very much.
Ms. Brabo: Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Anyone else? Is there anyone online? No. Does anybody have any prepared correspondence to read in?
Mr. Granger: I do. Okay, I received an email from Ms. Werle. She's in Hopyard farms. To be honest, I don't know her address off the top my head. I apologize. I'm sure we can get that if we need it though. Okay.
During the last couple of years, I have been hearing about a proposed golden triangle planning report that was presented to the board of supervisors. I was under the impression that the architect made the presentation to the board of her own opinion. I didn't realize that it was a position that the County had adopted for future planning until I had attended the educational session of the September EDA meeting. As the former AICP and APA certified planner for the Corp of engineers, I have a few points relevant to planning requirements that should be drawn to your attention before you continue such doggerel.
One, the author of the presentation opened with two definitions that adequately described rural and urban properties in King George. She conspicuously neglected to define urban sprawl. The triangles, the confluence of not one but two major interstate highways, US 301 and route three, which is the major indicator of urban sprawl. US highway 301 in Maryland is a good example of what happens when development exists along just one major interstate. Is this what you are proposing for King George? Two, there's absolutely no population density in this area to justify this individual’s assume that this triangle should be developed as the County center. North, South, and East of this property is the lowest possible density of the entire County. It’s almost five miles West before the first housing development or business even exists. The speculation of private individuals to build along these routes is not justification to attempt to turn this area into a town center.
Three, one of the major premises of planning is to maintain a separation of heavy industrial activity and the social/cultural activities of humans. The current triangle zoning supports heavy industry, stone pits, and a major vehicle storage and repair lot. The division is even noted in the zoning and comprehensive plans of the King George.
Four, the purpose of incorporating planning and zoning in any County is to put services and its people together in a livable environment. I was certain that this County had already purchased more than 93 acres near the current police station to add a new courthouse in the near future. The cost of purchasing this amount of land within this triangle would be an unbelievable additional expense. If the courthouse, police, and fire stations do not incorporate the center of the county's business activities. What could possibly be more important to you? Within the five miles of the current and proposed courthouse locations are four churches, three schools, health department, farmer's market, grocery stores, doctors and three residential housing developments. These are the activities that form a town center.
Five, water and sewer exist along route three along with the best providing plans at Hopyard. King George paid half of the cost of boring under route 301 approximately 88,000 to provide these services to a single user, the tractor supply? Are you planning on undoing this again to get to the other side of route three? The cost of lane pipe is by the linear foot, and there’s no lines anywhere within this triangle. Six, an architect can build anywhere, but the goal of planning requires considering the residents first. Your golden triangle is fake coinage.
That's for Ms. Werle.
Mr. Chair: Thank you. Anyone else? All right, I'll bring around to reports from the board. Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins: Thank you for the comments and everyone for coming out. On September 18th I attended the CIP work session. On the 19th I attended the joint board supervisors and service authority meeting to discuss the Purkins Corner project and whether we were going to proceed with it, and of course we decided to proceed with that project. On 25th I attended the YMCA board meeting. On 26th, just I was in attendance for the candidate forum. It’s interesting to be on the other side of it, so I was kind of happy to be on the other side of it blesses me.
On the 28th I attended the Miss Fall Festival Pageant. I hope I get the title right. A little shout out to my daughter, Zoe, for winning Little Miss Fall Festival Pageant. I was quite proud of it and competitive still, I guess, but I was really excited about that. I did want to congratulate all the candidates, or not candidates but the participants in it and all the people that run it. It's all volunteer based, and I mean just the amount of work that obviously goes into it, I think everyone should be congratulated for that.
On the 30th I attended the CIP work session. I'm kind of tying in my comments on the one there since we've attended a lot of them. I think we're making really good progress overall as far as identifying which projects we're going to fund and what are important on top of the normal things, I suppose you could say. I'm really excited that we added a pedestrian pathway along Owens. I thought it was very important that we finally have a plan to start implementing some of these paths. I know we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback that we are doing that and it should aid a lot into the public safety. So I'm really excited about adding that. So that's the end of my report. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Mr. Granger.
Mr. Granger: Yes, I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who came out. I believe no one is here anymore, but I appreciate Aqua coming out and giving us the cards and being upfront about what was occurring. Mr. Ty to speak to noise ordinance and Ms. Werle for her correspondence.
September 18th, I also attended the second CIP work session. That's where we had our first not vote but cut of what we as a board were thinking we should entertain taking on this year. 19th I attended the joint board of supervisors and service authority board meeting to discuss the wastewater treatment plan at Purkins Corner. It was very fruitful and it was good that everyone seemed to be on the same page that it is something that we should be taking on sooner than later from both service authority perspective as well as the County for the need for economic development growth in that area, especially when you consider our comp plan that we're going to be taking a public hearing on tonight.
On the 30th I attended our third CIP work session. That was, I think we've, at that one, finally figured out for the most part what we're looking to take on for this year. We do have another CIP work session this Thursday, which will be just for discussions at the courthouse and the plans way forward for how we want to address that need. That's the elephant in the room in regards to the CIP this year. It's going to take a little more time. I imagine it'll probably be more than just one work session, but this Thursday at six o'clock in the boardroom, if you have the opportunity, you'll get to hear I think Ms. Binder will be having a presentation for all of us. So I appreciate her working hard on that and putting that together.
Lastly, today I did a meet with community development, just a couple of discussions about the King George Cross roads rezoning request. We have that coming up on the eighth, and since it's a dual public hearing between us and the planning commission, I thought it'd be best to reach out to commune development, just get my questions answered before we just go in there and try to hit them off the cuff. I appreciate their time and answering my questions, so thank you for that. That's all I have.
Mr. Chair: Ms. Binder.
Ms. Binder: Yes. I want to thank everyone who came out and spoke tonight. Concerning the golden triangle, as many know, one of my degrees is in history and so I love talking about history and I've talked to numerous residents who said the term golden triangle has been around for a very long time about that area. Before the recession hit in 2008, there were many plans that I've found in my tour of doing what I'm going to do on Thursday that called that area the government center. There's plans, there's designs, there's a lot of things. So that discussion has been around for a very long time, but the recession kind of put it on hold.
So with that being said, on Thursday at six o'clock, I've been working on this for about two months and it is my vision I guess you would say. It’s my idea; it doesn't mean everybody will like it, it doesn't mean everybody vote on it. I'm going to show a whole path forward that we can be positive in addressing all our needs in a phased approach from the courthouse to the preschool to the citizens center, all of it out there. It's an idea that gets lots of feedback and then we get our people who do the different areas of expertise and expand on it, but I really encourage everyone to come out at six o'clock on Thursday in the board room and I may even going to have a little thing out there that you can write a comment on what you think about it. Hopefully you all like it and the board likes it and can give me their feedback.
Then also with that being said, I’ve toured numerous courthouses and then I also last week, Ms. Brabo brought it up, at the ACEs luncheon where I learned about modular construction. And then today, Dr. Young and I met with people from NAPSI warfare centers to explore the innovation ecosystem. It's sort of, as Dr. Young said, it's really good a think tank to try to bring a positive between the higher-ups at the-- I guess you would say depending on the Admiral and the base in due partnerships where we can utilize our assets in the community and our brain trust and help out the military plus our community and stakeholders all around. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Ms. Brabo
Ms. Brabo: On the 18th, I attended the capital improvement plan work session. On the 19th I attended the good jobs here workshop held at the university of Mary Washington Stafford Campus. This is funded through a grant provided to the George Washington regional commission and it's actually going to be three separate workshops to complete it. The purpose of these planning workshops is regional visioning and collaboration. The definition of a good job is different for everyone. A demographic transformation is taking place in our region. Those who choose to ignore it and making decisions for the future of the community do so at their own peril. The information that Dr. Johnson provided relative to the population demographics of King George only reinforced what the Weldon Cooper study presentation three years ago demonstrated: King George population continues to grow exponentially in the age 65 and over population and will continue to do so over the next 20 years while continuing to remain stagnant and decline in school- age population. We need to be planning for the future of King George accordingly or we will not be equipped to meet the needs of the citizens in our community appropriately.
Once all of the presentations were completed, we completed a SWOT analysis of the region, which is where we will pick up at the next workshop. That evening, I attended the joint work session with the service authority to determine the path forward regarding the Purkins wastewater treatment plant. On the 21st I attended Senator Warner's BI annual pig roast held at his home here in King George. It is very generous how he opens his home to so many from our community, and it is always a fun event. The 23rd and 24th I attended the governor's summit on rural prosperity. While there I attended the Virginia rural center board of directors meeting where I have served on that board of directors for the last four years.
The rural center was created in 2004. Its mission is to help ensure rural communities are successful and prosperous. The last couple of meetings, most of the discussion has been around the lack of true leadership in rural counties and the lack of comprehension among the elected officials about the importance of getting out of your County to create connections for collaboration and to bring back fresh ideas. Out of those meetings, we have decided to create the Virginia Rural Leaders Institute to help identify and edify candidates within rural communities who have demonstrated potential. So many rural counties are not making progress because of the unwillingness of their leaders to leave their islands. During the actual presentations and workshops at the summit, much of the discussion focused on how entrepreneurship is strongly associated with a growing economy.
Unfortunately, the bureaucracy to start or expand a business can be challenging and too burdensome. There needs to be some creativity and flexibility to make the process easier. Michelle Wido with KGI communications was present the second day for the broadband workshop, which was held in conjunction with the Commonwealth connect coalition meeting. I was one of the speakers on the panel. While there we both learned about additional grant opportunities to help continue to expand the internet service here in our community. One of these is the arc A-R-C which had $15 million available in the last round, but only one application was submitted for funding. To apply for this grant, the County must demonstrate that expanding the internet service is beneficial to our future economic development. We feel there are a lot of opportunities related to this grant for our County.
On the 26th I participated in the NAACP King George chamber candidate forum. We are very fortunate to have organizations that are willing to host these forums for the citizens of our community. On the 27th I attended the cameral executive committee meeting. As part of the meeting, we discussed the primary settlement designation for Dahlgren and the ongoing concerns that impact the base with continuing to increase the density in that area. The next cameral meeting will be held at the University of Mary Washington Dahlgren Campus on November 6th at 8:00 a.m.
On the 28th I participated in the Fairview Beach resident association candidate forum, and last night I attended the capital improvement plan work session. While we still need to finalize plans for the courthouse and the Purkins Corner wastewater treatment plant, all other projects are able to once again be cash funded. October 29th from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the university of Mary Washington Dogurn campus, I will be hosting a joint town hall with Carlos Hopkins, secretary of veterans affairs. He is seeking feedback from veterans and those associated with the military from the entire region. In attendance will also be a veteran service officer to assist anyone who needs it with issues or questions. That's all I have. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Thank you. On 18 September, I attended CIP meeting number two, and on the 19th of September, I attended a board of supervisors service authority joint meeting. I think that was very fruitful discussion. We basically came to the conclusion that we need to rebuild Purkins Corner. One, it's essential for the service authority, but it's also essential for the County. If you recall, we just recently passed our economic development strategic plan that allows for us to diversify our economic footprint. We need revenues and we need those revenues to address the infrastructure needs in this County. Whether the County is growing, which it is, or if it stays where it's at, there are certain things that we still need to provide. That comes at a cost. So either we diversify our economic footprint and get those tax revenues or we have to raise taxes. We have to pay for that one way.
I'm not looking to raise taxes. I'm not a fan of taxes, so that money needs to come from somewhere. So we need to start looking at our economic development strategic plan and make sure that it's not just something that sits on a shelf. It needs to be fully implemented. On the 26th of September, I attended the candidate forum hosted by the NAACP and the chamber of commerce. On the 28th I attended the Fairview Beach residents association. There was a candidate forum following that meeting, but Fairview beach is in my district and they invite me to attend their residents association meetings so I gladly attend all of those. On the 30th of September, we had CIP meeting number three. I thought it was very fruitful, and Mr. Jenkins gave a good description of what came out of that. That'll conclude my report. Per our amendment I'm going to invite Mr. McKeever up for presentations on the amendment to the secondary six- year plan for VDOT, and then subsequently he'll also be presenting on the route three route 301-speed limit study. Mr. McKeever.
Mr. McKeever: Thank you. Good to be with y’all tonight. First off, Carl’s passing out a copy of the six-year plan we just got approved in June of this year. The reason I'm back so quick with that is we've identified that we need to add a new project to this plan which will be in assistance for the Fairview Beach slope repair, and before I can go forward with that, I need to add it to the plan. He's passed out, I think already turned to page two for you. What I'm seeking tonight is your approval and resolution to authorize me to move from the Countywide traffic engineering services the sum of not to exceed $36,000 that we can assist with that project down there. By moving it from this funding that way we don't hurt any of the projects that we just identified that we wanted to add to the plan.
We won't be touching any monies coming from the road projects themselves. This is a Countywide charge that we keep in reserve for different funds, but by doing this procedure, I just need to add a project for the Fairview beach too. And I have not got that. I have not got that part checked open yet. We need to get this approved first.
Ms. Brabo: I move to approve the amendment to the King George County secondary six-year plan as presented.
Mr. Granger: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye, motion passes.
Mr. McKeever: Thank you.
Mr. Chair: And now you're going to present on the route three, 301-speed limit study?
Mr. McKeever: Yes, sir. We've tried to set this up a couple times and have another business on a couple of nights. We just haven't got through this yet. So finally we're getting to do this. To the right. All right, let me see if I can work two machines here at once because I've got this on my laptop too. Well, I can probably see it up there again. This is the 60-mile an hour speed limit engineering study for routes three Kings Highway King George County, route 301 James Madison Highway King George County. First, just while I perform my engineering study, code of Virginia says we have to before we look at increasing the speed limit. Basically this system, the maximum general speed limit on the highways require speed limits to be determined by a traffic engineering study with analysis of available and appropriate accident and allow enforcement data. This was amended by code by the general assembly in 2018. The expanded routes eligible in Virginia for 60 mile an hour speed limit where the non-limited access multi lane and divided highways to include US 17, US 301, US 360, state route three and state route 207.
I'm going to kind of go through this quickly, the study components, and it'll come up two screens after this. We'll have the same date in it and what we found. So basically the speed data is based on speed samples, the road characteristics, which is the physical roadway and traffic control devices on the roadway, roadside development, environmental. These are the development types in roadside environment that we have nowaday or today. Parking practices and pedestrian activities. Is parking allowed, is it restricted, sidewalks and bike paths existing. Reported crash data experienced for most recent past three-year period compared to the statewide average and district averages and types of crashes. And then enforcement consensus, what the state police and the Sheriff's department have to say.
This is study area number one, route three. It consisted from 0.2 miles East of route 665 Birchwood Creek road to 0.3 miles West of route 206 Dahlgren road. The length of this segment is 6.64 miles, and the average annual daily traffic is 21,000 to 22,000 vehicles a day. The study results, and again these are by the types we showed while ago The speed data showed that the majority of the traffic is already exceeding 60 miles per hour. Road characteristics is it’s four lanes divided with paved and grass shoulders with proper signage and pavement markings. This segment has 26 crossovers, seven intersections, one signalized intersection, and no sight distance issues. The roadside development environment, mainly farmland. There are 60 residential entrances and seven commercial entrances along this segment. Parking practices and pedestrians. Parking's not prohibited, but none was observed. There are no pedestrian or bike path accommodations, and no activity was observed. Reporting crash experience for the most recent three-year period, the crash rate was less than statewide and district averages, and it showed a variety of crash types. The enforcement consensus show that the state police and the Sheriff's office support the increased speed limit to 60 mile an hour.
Recommendations for area one on route three. VDOT recommends posting the speed limit at 60 miles per hour from just East of Birchwood Creek road to about Barbara's way, where the 45 mile per hour begins. For study area two, route 301. Segment was from 0.12 miles North of James Madison bridge to 0.49 miles South of route three Kings highway. Length is four and a half miles. Average daily traffic, 14,000 vehicles a day. This one showed that the majority of the traffic is traveling at 60 miles an hour. Road characteristics is four-lane divided with paved and grass shoulders with proper signage and pavement markings. There's 17 crossovers, two intersections, two signalized intersections, and no sight distance issues. Roadside development environment mainly wooded in farmland with 36 residential entrances and six commercial entrances. Parking practices and pedestrian, parking not prohibited. Again, none was observed. No bike, no ped or pedestrian accommodations, and none were also observed. Crash rate once again was less than the statewide and district averages and again was a variety of crash types. Enforcement consensus, state police and Sheriff's office support increased speed limit. VDOT is recommending posting the speed limit at 60 miles per hour in just North of the James Madison bridge to about a half a mile South of route three Kings highway.
Study area three on 301 from 0.25 miles North of route 205 Ridge road to 0.72 miles South of 206 Dahlgren road, 5.5 miles in length. It average 16,000 to 21,000 vehicles a day. Again, the majority of the traffic is exceeding 60 miles per hour on this segment. This is a four-lane divided with paved and grass shoulder, same as the other two with proper signage and pave marking, 17 crossovers, 10 intersections, no signalized intersections, and no sight distance issues. The roadside development, mainly wooded, occasional residents and commercial businesses. Parking practices, again, not prohibited and none observed. Pedestrian and bike, no activity observed. Reported crash experience. Again, crash rate is less than statewide and district averages and with a variety of crash types. Enforcement consensus, again, state police, Sheriff's office support the increased speed limit.
Our recommendations will be from a quarter mile North of a Ridge road where the 45 mile hour end to a quarter mile South of Dahlgren road where the 45 miles per hour begins. That's pretty much it, and what we're asking for is a either a written letter or a resolution from the board supporting increasing your speed limits. Mr. Chair: I'm going to bring it to discussion from my colleagues, but I would like to ask Dr. Young or Mr. Gregory a question. Since something like this is going to impact all the citizens and stuff and we see the study, but should we have a public hearing for the public to be able to give comment? I know we represent the public directly, but it would be nice if there's other concerns too where they can weigh in on whether we as a body should be raising the speed limit or not. Would that be appropriate?
Mr. Gregory: I don't believe it's required by law, but certainly if the board--
Mr. Chair: I don't care if it's required by law, I'm just saying would it be the right thing do?
Mr. Gregory: I can't answer that question. I can tell you that there's never anything wrong with having a public hearing if you would like to have one.
Mr. Chair: Okay, but I'll bring it back to discussion from my colleagues.
Mr. Jenkins: I would be in support as long as it doesn't affect the process, so to speak, or the timing as far as having a public hearing. I think that would make some sense. Secondly, I mean looking at the report and everything else, I appreciate you presenting that by the way. I think the thing that stands out to me is just that the state law enforcement supports it. I think that's big for me. So that'd be in support of it, but also I'd like to give the public the opportunity to speak on it. So that's just my thought on it.
Mr. Chair: Mr. Granger?
Mr. Granger: Pretty lockstep with Mr. Jenkins actually is, this is a big issue if we were to push it out a little bit to have public hearing in regards to the process to implement that.
Mr. Gregory: Entirely up to you.
Mr. Granger: I appreciate that. Thank you. I appreciate the presentation put together, appreciate you coming out and giving it to us. Thank you for doing that and taking the time to do this study in the first place. So I agree though: if law enforcement is saying that they agree with this, I think it makes sense. If my colleagues would like to hold a public hearing, I don't think there's ever any problem. I don't ever think it's a bad idea to give citizens the opportunity to weigh in, but law enforcement carries a lot of weight with me as well and I appreciate VDOT there as well. [01:23:00 inaudible] in regards to this, and so I appreciate where they're coming from as well. I think carries a lot of weight with me as well, so thank you.
Mr. Chair: Ms. Binder?
Ms. Binder: I do have a concern, and it is because I live off of 301 and my child has to get the bus off at 301 and I don't see any data there about the amount of bus stops. Why I say this is numerous times I've seen people try to cut around the bus or not stop, and so my concern is increasing the speed limit that makes them going faster before they realize that they need to stop for the bus. I know that's probably not concern, but that's my concern because my daughter is not the only one that has to be picked up and let off on 301.
She has to make a quick turn over onto the left to get back to turnaround and continuing to run, and people quickly go right on the side. They have to get around her and they don't give her that enough time to slide over even though she has her turn signal on. I've seen the studies that say that probably going to recommend getting rid of some of the left turns, for those of us who have to turn around and go back to our house, and a lot of us don't have those-- I don't know what they're called, but where you could decelerate and make a turn into your road. We don't have one of those. When you have those tractor trailers coming at a very fast pace behind you and you have to quickly get off the road, it's one of my concerns. That's sort of why I'm not in support of a taking it to 60 miles an hour. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Ms. Brabo.
Ms. Brabo: I always welcome public feedback, so I have no issue with putting this out for a public hearing at our next meeting to get citizen feedback. I will say this: the reason we pursued this was because we had a number of citizens who requested that we look at increasing the speed limit in these areas. It did require legislation be submitted by our state representatives, so prior to doing that, we had already gotten feedback from Sheriff Dempsey to get his blessing, so to speak, that this would not create any type of concerns or issues for him and his department. He blessed off on it, so we asked our state representatives to go through the timely process and submit legislation on our behalf through the general assembly in order for us to be able to do this. So I just point that out. The only reason this came about was because of the number of citizens that did request this. But again, I'm in favor of knowing that Sheriff Dempsey blessed off on it from the beginning. Despite the growth that we've had since then, he has continued to bless off on it, so I'm very comfortable with moving forward. But I welcome the public hearing idea, Mr. Bueche. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Thank you. I'll just add that thank you for all the work you guys did on this, but I did notice in everything it showed speed limits currently exceed 60 miles an hour. That means we will probably be looking at speed limits currently exceed 70 miles an hour, and there's a big difference between an auto accident at 60 miles an hour and at 70 miles an hour. I'm very familiar with the school bus that was involved in an accident on 301, so that's fresh in my mind. But I really appreciate the studies. Yes, law enforcement's opinion does weigh a lot on me, but I'm a rational thinker and a free thinking man so I really am going to go a little different direction on it for now. But I really want to hear from the public for myself, so I would like to add a public hearing on this issue on our next agenda. At which point after that public hearing, we can make a recommendation move forward.
Ms. Brabo: And I would say I don't-- I guess my question would be, Dr. Young, are you comfortable giving this presentation so that Mr. McKeever does not need to make another trip back?
Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am. I'm comfortable giving the presentation, and I need a vote. I need to recommend the board authorize the County administrator to advertise the public hearing for the November 15th meeting.
Mr. Granger: So moved.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion?
Dr. Young: Correction. October 15th meeting.
Mr. Granger: Move, so moved.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye, motion passes. Thank you, sir.
Mr. McKeever: Thank you. Mr. Chair: Okay. That brings us back to the consent agenda. At this time I'll entertain a motion on the consent agenda. I'm sorry. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda?
Ms. Brabo: We didn't have a motion yet.
Mr. Granger: So moved.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion passes. Report from the County attorney.
Mr. Gregory: No report at this time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Okay. That takes us to board commission agency reports in public hearings. The King George County board of supervisors will now hold the public hearing to receive public input regarding the adoption of the 2019 comprehensive plan. I first asked for the staff report. I will then open the floor for public comment. I will ask that you limit your comments to three minutes in order to afford everyone the opportunity to speak. Upon completion of public comment, I'll bring the matter back to the board for consideration. The board may or may not take action tonight depending on the information received during public comment. Ms. Foroughi.
Ms. Foroughi: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm Angela Foroughi. I'm here this evening representing King George planning and community development to present the 2019 comprehensive plan update. I'm going to go a little quickly through the first couple of slides because you guys have seen all of these, but if we need to go back I'm certainly happy to do that as well.
As a refresher, the purpose of the comprehensive plan is to have a document that's designed to guide the future actions of the community, to present a vision for the future with long-range goals and objectives for all the activities that affect the locality. The comp plan would also address transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing. These are some state codes here, but the bottom line behind this is, so why do we do it? Why do we have a comprehensive plan and why do we look at it every five years to update it? The main answer is because it's the right thing to do, that that's what shapes and leads our community. But it's also state law, which is what I have up there that says each locality has to have a comprehensive plan and we have to look at it every five years. So that's what we're doing at this time.
During the development of the draft, just as a reminder, what did we say we needed to do? We needed a lot of input. We needed input from staff. We needed to input from the planning commission. We needed input from the public. We needed to hold public meetings, and we held two of them - I’ll go into that a little bit further detail - to gather some public input. We needed to perform some research. I mean, like I said, this is all just refreshers on what we've already done. So we needed to develop a draft comp plan and take the final draft to public hearing, which we did at the planning commission last month, and now that's what we're here doing this evening here. So, we've done it.
Again, looking back over the past year as to how we got here, in August of last year, we held our joint kickoff meeting with the planning commission and the board. During the fall, we reviewed the existing comprehensive plan. We coordinated with various departments, divisions, including schools, service authority, VDOT, the economic development authority, etcetera. We began preparing maps of the revised settlement areas, which have changed a couple times along the way. Then in January of this year, we completed our demographics research and began preparing for our open house sessions, which we held two, one in January and one in February. As we went along, we finalized the draft settlement areas, prepared the goals, the appendix, etcetera.
Then in March, we compiled or our open house data, which corresponded to the same time that we closed the Survey Monkey. If everyone remembers, that’s something that we sent out to the public that if they couldn't make it to one of our sessions or didn't feel comfortable reaching out directly, they had an anonymous way to go through the Survey Monkey as well.
Then in April, we revised the draft based on planning commission and staff feedback and began to prepare the draft for public hearing. We presented that version to you guys in early June, and the board elected to have a couple of work sessions to discuss the settlement areas as well as just page by page and look at what made sense. In September, we took the changes back to the planning commission with the major changes that you guys had made. And okay, I'll go into… and after that, clearly the-- and I'll get into that, but the planning commission recommended approval with the changes that the board made in their work sessions.
The major changes overall to the 2019 comprehensive plan. We coordinated with NSF Dahlgren very closely and added a land-use goal, which is to promote compatible land uses proximate to NSF Dahlgren through the establishment of a military influence area overlay zoning district, which will come a little bit later for the official all the details with the zoning ordinance update.
We coordinated with the economic development authority and added a couple of goals there to incorporate the newly developed economic development strategic plan and its initiatives as well as to develop special incentive zones and assessment district in order to encourage the type of growth that we want to see here in the County.
The other major change was that in the primary settlement areas, I do have the maps and the boards of the the major changes here in the front. They're also included in your packet. So, and I will, we'll go over-- and I apologize; I know it’s a lot of text, but I wanted that to be available for whether it was the public or the board to be able to look to see exactly what we had done. So in the courthouse settlement area, the area was divided into two areas, which we described as courthouse West and as route three and 301. And then the Dahlgren settlement area, this area, as you know, has changed a couple of times. At the most recent work session that you all had, there was some change of removal and some-- we expanded it and then we retracted and then extended it along 218 to Berry Wharf road. And like I said, I can get into that a little bit more.
These were the major changes that happened, just trying to keep track of how we got here and each step of the way. So these were the changes that were made from the planning commission draft and public hearing to what you guys had. Or I apologize, not the public hearing but the planning commission draft that they set up to the board and then the two work sessions that you guys had before it went back down to public hearing. So you changed the courthouse West settlement area to include the school district administration property. We changed the Dahlgren settlement area to remove the area West of 218 as well as the area North and East of the railroad line. Revised the cover page, which we ended up coming up with that Ms. Binder’s suggestion of the King George County 300th anniversary logo. And then some smaller changes like we added some language to the executive summary that Ms. Brabo wanted to see pulled up and kind of made front and center that was in there to call attention to that and then deleted some irrelevant language and then came back and strengthened some language because especially NSF Dahlgren had some concerns about legal requirements. In consultation with the County attorney, we strengthened some of that language backup.
Here are the settlement areas that have changed between 2013 and now, 2019, which is, this is a courthouse area west, also known as sort of the downtown area or just West of the downtown area. It now includes-- let me see if I can get my pointer. It now includes the-- yes, thank you. School board office. Thank you, Heather.
This is route three and 301. While this is a new settlement area from the 2013 comprehensive plan update, this has remained largely unchanged since we started this about a year ago and encompasses, as the name would suggest, the areas along three and 301. Then Dahlgren, as we know, we removed this park area and as after the last work session, we pulled this line down, pulled this line here. So that reflects all of the most recent changes that we discussed over the last couple of work sessions. There's a picture of the proposed cover page, the 300th- anniversary logo. At this point, as we're all well aware, we're currently holding the public hearing for the comp plan. We'll take in any feedback and revise if need be, and then your next action would be to take action on the comprehensive plan.
At the planning commission September 10th meeting, which was also their public hearing, the planning commission voted unanimously 9-0 to forward this version with the recent changes from the board back up to the board of supervisors for you to hold your public hearing with a recommendation of approval. In conclusion, King George community development recommends that the board of supervisors approve the 2019 King George County comprehensive plan.
Mr. Chair: Thank you, Ms. Foroughi. At this time I’d like to open the floor to public comment. Anybody wishing to address the board regarding the 2019 comprehensive plan, I ask that you state your name, address, and limit your comment to three minutes. Floor's open. Justin: My name is Justin Boynton. My family owns a lockup, self-storage, 8534 Kings highway right here in King George, Virginia. I live in bowling green. I just want to appreciate your time meeting with me, your accessibility early on. We've slowly been working on a rezoning plan for tax map 2465. We'd like to respectfully request that it continue to be included in that courthouse settlement area. Right now, it's literally just excluded. It abuts the exclusionary line. We think based on the goals of the County, there'll be many hurdles that would be involved in any kind of rezoning that will mitigate things like traffic impact, make sure it's a feature for the County as far as pedestrian access, price accessibility for the homes that go in there, commercial development that's viable and that's attractive. And then another part of our understanding of the goals of the County is there are, as we know, water and sewer issues to be resolved.
Having a development here we think is going to allow this 107 acres to be part of the solution to a lot of the challenges the County faces as opposed to having this prime piece of real estate that's adjacent to the high school simply be another well and septic development of about 30 homes at expensive prices. We think the goals of the County and as far as what's best for the community, obviously it's in our interest as well, would merit including this parcel in that courthouse West settlement area. Again, it literally abuts that line. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Thank you.
Edward: Chairman, honorable board members. Edward Murphy, 8009 Wolf Trap road, DeLorean, Virginia 22027. I just want to thank you very much and tell you that we endorsed the Dahlgren settlement area and appreciate everything you've done to get to this far. Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Anyone else? Do we have anyone online? Does anybody have any prepared correspondence regarding the public hearing? At this time I'll bring it back to the board for discussion.
Ms. Binder: I just wanted to see what my colleagues, when Mr. Boynton came in talked, what they feel about that area, understanding that there is a road access issue there and it would be congestion. I just wanting to get feedback.
Mr. Granger: That really hits my biggest concern right off the bat. When you look at the way that parcel is set up, it really kind of goosenecks down to just one access point, not to Indiantown. And then thinking about the amount of congestion that that would put in Indiantown, it is a concern. I appreciate where you’re coming from and that you've been working on a plan and I also appreciate that you think it would be good. I don't think it necessarily would be bad, but I think there's some challenges there that that was the reason we removed it in the first place.
Ms. Brabo: I'm not in favor of changing the boundaries as we have them currently, but I will just say this, that the board of supervisors does have the right to amend the comprehensive plan at any time going forward, if we feel differently later in the future. But at this time, I'm not in favor of changing the boundary lines.
Mr. Jenkins: My colleagues, I think-- and I appreciated Ruby's comments about the fact that if in the future we can amend it if it makes sense to do so. Other than that, I just thank everybody for coming out ready to move forward.
Mr. Chair: All right. I just want to say I appreciate everybody's hard work on this. It's been a long, long road, but we got here. So thank you to everyone who's worked so hard on this.
Ms. Brabo: Do you want to go first? Do you want me to?
Ms. Binder: You can go first.
Ms. Brabo: So we've had a lot of conversations throughout our work sessions as we have continued to work on the comp plan and the boundaries. I have brought forward to your attention that we are getting ever closer to being assigned an MS4 permit for the Dahlgren district, and what that encompasses as far as standing up a whole another department and the cost that will be borne by our taxpayers through a rate increase in order to cover the staff of being able to staff a whole another department just to manage that MS4 which is for stormwater management. I know we shrunk the boundaries already a little bit during our work session. Taking some of that into consideration, I just wanted to bring that to your attention again tonight to see if there is any interest in shrinking those boundary lines just a little bit more to sort of push that potential for an MS4 permit being assigned to us a little further down the road.
Mr. Granger: So my understanding is it has to do with the designation of an urbanized area. That’s how they make the decision. What quantitative data do they use to make the determination of what is considered urbanized or qualitative data that we could then use to apply to understand whether we've been close, because it can't just be someone sitting there going, yep, it's urbanized. You guys got to do it now. I mean, there's got to be some kind of process or some kind of data that's driving that in the first place.
Ms. Brabo: I wholeheartedly agree. I'm not the expert on that. I'm simply relaying to you what has-- what we are facing.
Mr. Granger: Well, if we don't understand it, then I guess the question is, do we know we're facing it if we don't know what those lines are and how to identify if we're getting close to it? Obviously, you're getting closer anytime you're going to increase-.
Ms. Brabo: Right.
Mr. Granger: Is it hey we’re 100 feet away. Are we now two feet away? You know, that's a big difference.
Ms. Brabo: I don't know. You've expanded the boundaries from as it is right now in the new draft; you’ve expanded what we already had previously. So you are allowing for a larger area to become more densely populated, and as well as you are signifying you are interested in rezoning.
Mr. Granger: I agree. I would just say, as you alluded to before, we can always readdress this. Maybe it would be good idea to go out and better understand what data is being used to make the determination of what is considered urbanized and would then make us qualify for an MS4 permit. And if we are getting close to that line, then I would definitely entertain saying let’s go back to our comp plan and make some changes to those boundary lines.
Ms. Brabo: That’s fair enough because-- exactly. Then I would respectfully request consensus from the board for Dr. Young to be able to put at a near- future meeting a report from DEQ staff to explain what quantifies us being assigned an MS4 permit.
Mr. Granger: I think that'd be great for all of us to better understand. Yes.
Ms. Brabo: Great.
Mr. Chair: Ms. Binder.
Ms. Binder: The only thing is I want to thank everyone who put in their hard work to put together this plan, and we had to make a lot of hard decisions. I wish we could make everything perfect, but this is the best that we can do and it can be amended in the future. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and their hard work. Thank you. Mr. Chair: So something additionally I'd like to add, we added these primary settlement areas with the realization that King George is growing. Again, we need to diversify our economic footprint. But with that growth coming, if we didn't have these primary settlement areas, the majority of the County is still agricultural or rural. There's a lot of trees. I don't know what the community development term is; there's a lot of trees and a lot of green. Okay. But people are coming, so either they're going to build sporadically throughout the County or they're going to look at these concentrated areas where there's amenities. Where there’s amenities, then that's where business will go because then you have the density to be able to support that business, thus bringing in those additional revenues that we need.
King George has actually put out this economic development strategic plan. We're open for business. These primary settlement areas play into that significantly, so I'd like to thank everybody again for all their hard work. I believe we're at a point where we have consensus, so I'll a motion on the comprehensive plan.
Mr. Granger: I move to adopt the 2019 draft comprehensive plan as presented.
Mr. Jenkins: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion passes. That'll take us to presentation and reports. Letter C, pod exercise presentation by Battalion Chief Stephen Linde.
Stephen: Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. I’m before you tonight to talk about an exercise we have coming up at the end of October, our pod plan exercise, and we'll get into the definitions of that in just a second. I want to show this slide. This is a very busy slide. It's a timeline of what we've been doing at the County level to improve our emergency management capabilities. Starts over here in April of last year up to today. Many of you all have been involved in some of the events we've done, the teaks classes we've had. We've hosted three teaks classes over the last year and a half. We had the Hurricane Florence local declaration and unfortunately, that missed us. But we've done a lot of things to improve the county's ability to prepare for and respond to a disaster. At the CIP meeting, we have presented the backup internet proposal, which is a part of the whole process of improving our emergency capabilities. But a lot of hard work went into this. We've learned a lot over continuing the monthly EM huddles that Dr. Young started. Once a month, all the County department heads and directors meet in the EOC. We discussed an emergency management topic, but a lot of hard work has gone into preparing the County and strengthening our abilities.
So what is a pod? This is FEMA’s definition: a Point of Distribution is a pod where the public can go get a supplies following a disaster, a catastrophic disaster. This is your Hurricane Isabel, Hurricane Sandy, those type of events where there's catastrophic impacts to the community. Power's going to be out for days. People aren't going to be able to go to the store and buy supplies at the grocery stores. This is where-- you've seen them on TV where supplies are provided for by FEMA or some other private entity to give out to the citizens. You can see the pictures there where loading bottled water and tarps and MREs into vehicles of the citizens so they can take those supplies home until the power's restored and normal operations resume.
This is a graphic of how our pod would play out. The vehicles would come in. People, the citizens, will stay in the car, and we would just load the supplies in the back of the car and the trunk. Very designed to move people quickly. People don't have to get out of their vehicles. We're able to move a large amount of supplies and large amount of people through it very quickly. The supplies would come, like I said, from FEMA or some other. Dominion power would be an example of a private entity that would give us supplies in an event of a catastrophic power outage, but designed real quickly to move people in and out to get some supplies.
Some quick assumptions about when we designed this pod plan. This started first of the year. We really met with the Dr. Young, called a meeting with the emergency management, the commission of revenues, the treasurer's office, and the registrar's office to put them and kind of in charge of this pod plan and run with it. We've worked since the beginning of the year to develop our plan, which is a very realistic plan, and now we're going to the next step to have this exercise at the end of October.
The a big thing is getting the FEMA or someone else provide supplies. We’re just not in a situation where the County would have large supplies of water and disaster supplies on hand to give out to the citizens. We would get notification from the state, from VDEM that, hey, we want to-- we're thinking about pushing out pod supplies to you, the trunk and trailer full of water. You need to come up with a plan and a location of where you want it delivered to and the hours to operate it, and you'd provide the staff to operate it. Also the big responsibility for us is to notify the public we’re going to have this pod. The times it's going to be open, the amount of supplies that are going to be given out, the location so people can prepare for and know where to go to get the supplies.
Some real quick roles and responsibilities in our pod plan. I mentioned the commission on revenue, the treasurer and registrar’s office. They’re going to be the pod managers. The EOC level will support it. We'll handle initial conversations with VDM and FEMA about this operation, but the pod manager will manage the overall operation of it, with King George Sheriff's office obviously being in charge of the traffic control, both vehicle traffic and also pedestrians and site security and those kinds of things. The public information officer, the ones that are participating in exercises. Public information is key. Getting the right message out to the citizens and making sure it's one consistent message when it's going to open and stuff like that is very important too. Our work chart, the EOC will support the pod manager and then it will break off like this in the different responsibilities of it.
Getting into the exercise, the exercise is going to be on October 28th at Cedell Brooks, Jr. Park. Here is a map of it. We are going to be utilizing the paved area right here. The park is going to remain open for citizens to use, and also the convenience center is going to be open. We're going to get that out in our messaging to that while we're having this exercise, the park’s still open for citizens that come and use a park. We picked the paved area right here because that's to be realistic. If we had a pod, a real life pod, you'd want to do it on a paved area versus in a gravel lot. So if you had a forklift or hand trucks or whatever, it's easier to move on that. But the park and the convenience center will remain open.
The scenario we're using, it's going to start at 10:00 a.m. for us on the 28th. The scenario we're using is basically a hurricane, the ratio type event catastrophic damage to the power grid. Dominion's telling us power's going to be out for several days and the stores are going to be closed. In this scenario, the service authority, they took some damage to their infrastructure too, so even on the service authority side, they're having trouble with their water delivery. So there's definitely a need to push a water out to the citizens. The County, for an event like this, we would have had declared a local emergency because the response to this disaster. Dominion has contacted the EOC saying that they're willing to provide a truck full, for the scenario purposes, a truck full of cases of bottled water to distribute to the public.
We've determined that the pod location for this event is going to be at the park. For exercise purposes, the County has purchased a hundred cases of water. We're going to rent a U-haul or a truck or some other type of vehicle there to simulate at track and trailer bringing in those supplies. We're working to actually have some citizens that are going to be role players to help our staff learn how to interact with citizens as we're going through the process of moving people through, putting cases of water in their vehicles, and dealing with all the typical things when you have a disaster, confusion, citizens asking more information, that kind of stuff, and have those role players engage our staff.
The pod managers, as I mentioned, the commission on revenue, the treasurer's office and the registrar's office, those three are going to handle the pod, be the pod managers. We've done one walkthrough already at King George Elementary School, and now we're going to go to the next step and actually have the public more involved and move more water, more supplies. Neil Richards is coordinating getting some role players in to play the disaster survivors in that part, the act or part of it interaction. We're going to enlist the public's help in this to receive some of the supplies, and if anyone wants to volunteer to help move cases of water, we're definitely looking for some more people to help there. The department heads and the directors, they're going to be involved too with moving water and acting as the people that would work the pod to distribute the water to the citizens.
In the morning of the exercise, we are going to utilize our KG alert for multiple reasons; to put out to the public that, hey, we're having this exercise. There's going to be exercise-related to traffic at the park, but the park and the convenience centers where remain open. Also, we're going to have water to give out to the citizens, so we want to engage the citizens to come and participate in our exercise essentially and get a free case of water while supplies last as they are just creating a surge of people in cars coming into them. We're working through the process of getting the supplies loaded quickly into their vehicles and getting the citizens back on their way out of the exercise area. That's my presentation. Any questions? Ms. Brabo: So I noticed on your slide you said there's three shifts, and you had listed who was in charge of each shift, 33 cases per shift. I'm assuming you're actually coordinating separate shifts. So if you have 50 people show up for the first shift when you put out the KG alert, when you hit 33 cases, are you then telling them you're out of water?
Stephen: No, ma'am. At that point, what we're doing is they're going to change hats.
Ms. Brabo: Got it. Once you give out 33 cases of water, the next manager will take on--
Stephen: Yeah, the next person would step in to be the manager.
Ms. Brabo: --to assume. Got it. That’s what I was trying to understand.
Stephen: The citizen won't see the difference. The citizen won’t notice-- it’s just on the back end on the exercise.
Ms. Brabo: Well, that would be a good role play though. How do you handle it when citizens pull up and you, in a real situation, have run out and you have to wait for the next delivery. So you may want to consider telling a few cars and see how the manager handles it.
Stephen: That will be part of the role play too.
Ms. Brabo: After you’ve waited in line all that time.
Stephen: The role players, we can do the inject there in the exercise and say, hey, we're out of water or we're running low. So there's definitely going to be some role play built into the exercise.
Ms. Brabo: I will say I really appreciate all of work that Dr. Young and you all have been doing to better train and better prepare in the event that our community faces a natural disaster. I know this has not been an easy task whatsoever, but I will raise again because I've heard this a lot since folks in the community have started realizing that we are making more of an effort to be prepared. A lot of people have asked that you stand back up the citizen response team, that you allow them to be trained to have their names and their contact information readily available so in situations like that-- I noticed you put up there additional labor will be needed. Well, those are the kind of folks; that if you already have them trained, that they already have their contact information, you can be like, hey, we need you here, and they will be there. There is a great interest in this community. People want to serve. They want to be involved.
Stephen: Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Chair: Thank you.
Stephen: Thank you.
Mr. Chair: Action items, County administration, award of a contract for King George County 2020 fireworks display. Dr. Young.
Dr. Young: Thank you, sir. Lawanda is bringing up a slide. It's a one-slider so I'm not sure if I'm going to need it, but if you could just move forward on the keyboard, Lawanda, to the Foursquare. King George County is approaching its 300th anniversary, as the board already knows. In light of this, the County has been planning to commemorate our tercentennial through a series of monthly events starting in November of 2019 and ending in December 2020. The event planning has being executed through the 300th anniversary planning committee, an informal commission comprised of members from the tourism advisory committee, the County staff, private citizens, and our third-party contractor for event planning.
The committee has asked the board to consider leveraging the funding for the celebration against the tourism fund. To date, the tourism fund balance is $620,427.65, with the expectation to receive an additional $92,000 in revenue by the close of fiscal year 19-20. The County has been in discussion with Naval support activity South Potomac to co-host a 4th of July event that commemorates the county's 300th anniversary. South Potomac will provide the space, marketing, staff support, security and entertainment for the event. In return, the South Potomac has asked that the County commit to purchasing the fireworks at least in two rides in support of the event. On August 20th, 2019 a best value request for quote/proposal or BVRFQ was advertised for a pyrotechnic display to be held on Saturday, July 4th, 2020. On September 5th, 2019 two quotes were received.
Since the BVRFQ listed a budget of $30,000 as a do not exceed amount, the 300th anniversary committee took a quantitative approach to dissect both quotes based on the shell size and how many shells the County will get for the budgeted amount. Based on the quantitative approach, it has been determined that the American Fireworks will provide the County with the best show based on our budget. In keeping with state code, the TAC, to include its members who represent the hotel industry and other travel-related fields, have been consulted prior to making this funding request. I'd recommend the board authorized $33,000 in expenditures against the tourism fund to fund fireworks and amusement rides in support of the 300th anniversary celebration event, authorize the County administrator to issue a notice of award to American Fireworks in the amount of $30,000, and authorize the County administrator to execute an agreement subject to approval by the County attorney.
Ms. Brabo: So moved.
Mr. Granger: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye, motion passes. Discussion item, noise ordinance amendment.
Mr. Gregory: Mr. Chairman, as you recall at the last meeting, you directed me to bring this forward at this meeting. In your package are the draft amendments to the King George County noise ordinance. In 2013, the board of supervisors promulgated amendments to the County noise ordinance in order to impose enforceable prohibitions on certain types of noise that included objective sound measurement standards for daytime and nighttime hours. These amendments were in part a response to the Virginia Supreme court case of Tanner vs. city of Virginia Beach, which required those objective measurement tools.
The 2013 amendments also included a fairly broad exemption for the lawful discharge of firearms at the direction of the board, as did many similar noise ordinance amendments adopted in Virginia localities before and after the Tanner case. This exemption was included in recognition of certain state law limitations on the local regulation of firearms and shooting and in deference to the second amendment of the constitution of the United States, lawful activities such as hunting and the county's rural character.
The sheriff is responsible for enforcement of the noise ordinance and acquired the necessary sound measuring equipment for this purpose in 2013 in compliance with the ordinance and applicable provisions of state law and the Tanner case. Unfortunately, it appears that the exemption for the lawful discharge of firearms is now inhibiting the county's ability to enforce the noise ordinance so as to prevent the regular and persistent discharge of firearms at night that is becoming a nuisance and cause for complaints from the public, including Mr. Ty, who spoke during public comment
To our knowledge, there is no particular state law that prohibits the discharge of firearms at night that would authorize local enforcement. Any reasonable person would not be discharging firearms at night to the detriment of one's neighbors, but there are unique situations that may necessitate a reasonable response in the form of prevention through regulation. Any such regulations should also be narrowly tailored to achieve the desired goal. To that end, it’s recommended that the board authorize staff to advertise and schedule a public hearing for the board to receive public comment and consider proposed amendments to the county's noise ordinance to restrict the exemption for the lawful discharge of firearms by providing that the exemption shall not apply to non hunting activities between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. to the extent that such noise or sound rises above 65 dBA, that is 65 decibels, as measured by the sound equipment held by the King George County sheriff.
The proposed amendment is narrowly tailored to achieve the desired end and is consistent with applicable state law that implies that local regulation on noise resulting from shooting of firearms must not being more stringent than as applied to other activities. I have discussed the proposed amendments with Sheriff Dempsey and Deputy Commonwealth's attorney, Charlie Clark, and they agree that the proposed amendments should provide adequate enforcement authority. As with any ordinance, if problems or concerns develop with his application or enforcement, the noise ordinance can be amended to address such concerns pending further input from the public hearing at the 10-15, at the October 15th meeting if you so direct, further direction and further direction from the board staff recommends adoption of the draft noise ordinance amendments as presented at that time.
And so we request that you authorize staff to schedule and advertise a public hearing concerning the proposed amendments to the King George County noise ordinance County code section 10-8 to prohibit the discharge of firearms and non hunting activities between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. where the decibel level is above 65 decibels. Mr. Granger: So moved.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes side aye. Motion passes.
Mr. Gregory: Thank you.
Mr. Granger: Thank you, Mr. Gregory.
Mr. Chair: County administrator’s report? Dr. Young.
Dr. Young: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Maryland transportation authority proposes to replace the Harry Nice bridge. This undertaking is being funded in part by the federal highway administration through our transportation infrastructure finance and innovation act or TIFI alone and is subject to section 106 of the national historic preservation act as amended and the national environmental policy act or NEPA. As part of the NEPA process, archeological studies must be conducted to identify environmental impacts the proposed project may cause.
The overall goal of the NHPA evaluation is to determine whether the proposed undertaking will have an effect on the resources either currently listed or eligible for listing, the national register of historic places. The archeological study will be conducted primarily in Wayside Park from October 2019 to June 2020. The County staff assumes the study will have little impact on the facility's operating hours and no significant burden on the neighboring homes or roads in the area. However, the staff will be working closely with the Maryland transportation authority to ensure that the study is properly supported and, more importantly, the facility is returned to its original condition after the study is completed.
Ms. Brabo: As I read this in the report, something occurred to me that I know Ms. Binder will greatly appreciate that I don't think we've thought about up to this point. This is a very historic area, and what are we doing to ensure that if any historic artifacts happen to be uncovered either through this process or the excavating and building of the new bridge, that those become the property of King George County and they're not simply just disposed of or stolen? Ms. Binder: That's a good point because many people except for people who have lived here a long time don't realize that there was actually a plantation house on the side of basically Wayside, and it had a big role in the civil war and including the first death in the civil war and the Naval death in the Matthias points. So there could be-- and there are-- has told me many times there were Indian villages there, so there could be a lot of Indian artifacts.
Mr. Chair: John still has my metal detectors, so he and I can go out there on the weekend.
Ms. Brabo: I don’t know if this is even something that we can respectfully request of them, you know, through some form of memorandum of understanding.
Dr. Young: Yes. Regarding the artifacts, it's been confirmed. This is actually not the first study. The first study was conducted in 2016, and it was discovered that there are indeed artifacts there. This is actually the follow-up study, and the whole point of the study is to ensure that those artifacts aren't destroyed or they aren't lost. I don't think that that's a concern that we should have because that's being observed by the national register of historic places. Now regarding the custody of those artifacts, that's something that we're obviously going to have to do some research on. We can just have that discussion with the Maryland transportation authority and all the different players here and just make sure that we have a good understanding that that custody of those artifacts are going to remain with King George County. We can do the research and do the follow up on that and definitely bring that information back to the board of supervisors.
Ms. Brabo: Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Young: I received correspondence from Ms. Ann Bueche, Mrs. Ann Bueche, the comprehensive policy management team or CPMT chair. Mrs. Bueche is requesting that Christopher Resendez be appointed to the CPMT as an alternate for the department of social services.
Ms. Brabo: So moved.
Mr. Granger Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye. Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion passes.
Dr. Young: I received correspondence from the Virginia Association of Counties or VACo. VACo would like to advise the board of the upcoming business meeting on Tuesday, November 12th, 2019. In light of the upcoming event, Vaco is asking that the board of supervisors designate a representative and proxy to cast votes at the upcoming business meeting.
Ms. Brabo: So as I've stated as long as the chair is going to be present at that meeting, the chair is typically the one who acts as our voting delegate.
Mr. Chair: I’m registered and will be present.
Ms. Brabo: All right, so I move that Mr. Bush be the voting delegate to represent King George County at the Virginia Association of Counties’ upcoming business meeting on Tuesday, November 12th.
Mr. Granger: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion passes.
Dr. Young: Also, would the board like to consider a proxy or alternate?
Ms. Brabo: Oh yeah, what if you got sick or something?
Mr. Chair: Or lazy?
Ms. Binder: I guess I'll be the proxy since I'm the vice-chairman.
Ms. Brabo: Very good. All right, so I move that Ms. Binder will be the alternate.
Mr. Granger: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. Motion passes.
Dr. Young: Mr. Chair, that concludes my report.
Mr. Chair: Thank you, sir. Is there any further business to come before the board? Mr. Granger: Move to adjourn until Thursday, October 3rd at 6:00 p.m. in the boardroom.
Ms. Brabo: Second.
Mr. Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor?
All: Aye.
Mr. Chair: Any opposed? Chair votes aye. We are adjourned.
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