County Business

VIRGINIA:

At a regular meeting of the King George County Board of Supervisors, held on Monday, the 18th day of August, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of King George High School at 10100 Foxes Way, King George, Virginia:

PRESENT: Cathy Binder, Chairman Jeff Bueche, Member Annie Cupka, Vice-Chairman Richard Granger, Member Jeff Stonehill, Member Neiman C. Young, County Administrator Matt Britton, County Attorney

0:00:00 Cathy Binder: I wanna call to order this regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of King George County, and we will... First, do we have any amendments to the agenda?

0:00:08 Dr. Young: No, Madam Chair.

0:00:10 CATHY BINDER: Thank you very much. Next up, public comment. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. If comments relate to a specific public hearing item, we ask that you offer those comments at the time of the public hearing. Do we have anybody online who would like to speak?

0:00:30 Mr. Dines: No, Madam Chair.

0:00:31 CATHY BINDER: Thank you. Do we have anyone in the audience who would like to speak? That would mean no. Do we have any written correspondence from any board member? No? Well, we will close public comment now, and we will go with reports from members of the board. Mr. Stonehill.

0:01:00 Mr. Stonehill: Good evening, everyone. August 13th, I attended my first VACo General Government Steering Committee. Obviously, that was a virtual meeting with other supervisors and people from across the state. A couple of big things that they hit on right there of course was the law enforcement and citizen review boards and panels that are popping up here and there, rental car taxes, body-worn cameras, COIA/FOIA changes, rules and changes that are coming up, and then the upcoming special session that just got started. Also met with a local businessman who was thinking about coming here to King George, and they talked about bringing his company here and what was gonna be required to do that. Then also this week, toured the Backporch Vineyards off of Route 3, and then also toured the Landino Barn, both of them are really beautiful projects that they've done a great job with. So, that's it.

0:02:13 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Mr. Stonehill. Ms. Cupka.

0:02:15 Ms. Cupka: Thank you, Madam Chair. I too separately toured, visited Backporch Vineyard and Landino Barn, so I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say in support of their applications tomorrow night. And then, I have one item that I will read directly from my board report and I will, as I always do, share it online. On Wednesday, August 12th, we participated in a Federal Communications Commission call. So a few weeks ago, I started working with Representative Whitman's staff in efforts to obtain a waiver of FCC rules to access the fiber network that King George County schools installed a couple of years ago. The schools purchased the fiber at a reduced price through the E-Rate grant program, which limits access to the fiber to schools and libraries. Fiber was laid from Sealston Elementary School, south on Fletcher's Chapel Road to King's Highway. Eastbound, the length of King's Highway, dialing in King George Middle School and this school, continuing on to King George Elementary School, up Ridge Road to Route 301, and north to Dahlgren Road for a terminus at Potomac Elementary School. Dr. Young, Mr. Dines, and I, had a call with three FCC officials, chief of whom is the Assistant Division Chief of the Telecommunications Access Policy Division. Between what Dr. Young and Mr. Dines sent them via email in advance of the call, we made it clear what we were requesting, Waiver of the restriction that allows only schools and/or libraries to access the fiber network. We were provided with a history of the E-Rate grant program by the E-Rate grant program administrator. FCC stated that they cannot waive their own rules because the E-Rate grant program was established by an act of Congress, so only Congress can make the necessary rules to change the program. The E-Rate program requires, again, that the fiber can only be used at schools for physical classrooms. They also admitted to us that we are not the first locality to make such a request. There seems to be little appreciation for the fact that the physical classroom is no longer in the school. Local school boards have made that decision, just as they made the decision to purchase the fiber and build out the wide area network. Local school boards ought to be able to access their own fiber networks to work in partnership with their localities and internet service providers to meet the needs of the children they serve, where the children are learning, at home or at a child care provider. The school division's recent survey indicated 8% of students have no internet access at all and 18% have a slow connection that does not support live streaming as in synchronous or live learning. Thus, around a quarter, 26% of our school-aged children stand to be at a disadvantage. In addition to the school population, we have residing in our community, a large population of naval base workers and contractors, most of whom have been instructed to telework at least through the end of the 2020 calendar year. I know of households in which both parents work at Dahlgren and have school-aged children, all trying to learn and work at the same time on the same connection. I know of households with a parent that works at Dahlgren, another parent who teaches for King George County schools, and children attending our schools, again, all trying to learn and teach and work at the same time on the same connection, usually their home internet. These are workers whose jobs are critical to the defense of our nation. The fiber is already here in the ground in King George County, but we are not allowed to use it to expand broadband availability to our community. I respectfully request consensus of the board to direct Dr. Young to send correspondence to Representative Robert Whitman, Senator Tim Kaine, and Senator Mark Warner requesting a legislative solution on the federal level that would allow us and many other communities to access the fiber networks already in the ground, put in place by their schools through the E-Rate grant program. I wanna thank Dr. Young, Mr. Dines, and Mr. Kyle Conboy, who plotted the GIS coordinates of the fiber to provide us with the fiber map for their support of this endeavor. Thank you board members for your consideration.

0:06:54 CATHY BINDER: Alright, do we have a consensus? Can I get a consensus to...

0:06:58 Mr. Granger: Agreed.

0:07:00 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead, Mr. Stonehill.

0:07:01 Mr. Stonehill: Yes.

0:07:02 CATHY BINDER: Yes, Mr. Bueche.

0:07:05 Mr. Bueche: I would be in favor, but I do have a question regarding that. When the grant was awarded, it's my belief that there was a certain timeframe and then when that timeframe lapsed, we would then be able to tap into it. How far down the road are we on this grant? Is it a year or two years that we have to wait?

0:07:28 Ms. Cupka: So we talked about that on the call because we, myself included and staff, we were all under the impression from the schools that it was five years, and that we thought we were at least about two years into this. The officials from the FCC indicated to us that there was no time limit, that it's indefinite, or infinite rather. So that's why we want to see if we can get our congressional delegation to intervene on our behalf, on everyone's behalf because this is an asset that is already in the ground being used, just not being used as widely and as efficiently as it could be.

0:08:16 Mr. Bueche: I agree. And I'm not saying, bringing up the deadline 'cause I would wanna delay it, that's just for our own personal knowledge that we could use it for other things as well. But I believe there were two different grants for two different runs on the fiber. So I have no problem, let's move forward with getting this in writing. But if Mr. Britton can look at the legal language in the grants from when they were awarded because I do recall something about a timeline and it wasn't just talk. When the grant was presented and they voted on it, I believe that timeline was a sticking point. So if we can find out what the specific language is in the grant for both of them, I'd appreciate that. But yes, I agree. Let's move forward.

0:09:09 Mr. Granger: Agreed.

0:09:10 Ms. Cupka: And Dr. Young does have those. We were able to obtain those from procurement, and we did provide those to the FCC, and we can absolutely provide them to Mr. Britton for his review.

0:09:22 Dr. Young: That's correct, ma'am.

0:09:24 CATHY BINDER: Yeah. And Mr. Bush, I remember that also 'cause the last one that was laid was the one that goes in front of the road near my house. And I had my neighbor at the front of the road wanna know why he couldn't tap into it 'cause the line was going right down.

0:09:35 Ms. Cupka: We all did, right?

0:09:37 CATHY BINDER: And I had to tell him, "Sorry, no." But I do remember there was a time limit, and I even remember five years. So just to check into that to see.

0:09:48 Ms. Cupka: So if... Dr. Young, if we could try to get that correspondence out by Friday, I ask that because Representative Wittman is hosting a broadband fireside chat with the FCC on Monday.

0:10:03 Dr. Young: It'll be up tomorrow, ma'am.

0:10:05 Ms. Cupka: Thank you, sir. And thank you very much to my colleagues. I appreciate it.

0:10:09 CATHY BINDER: Thank you.

0:10:10 Ms. Cupka: That's all I have, ma'am.

0:10:11 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Bueche.

0:10:14 Mr. Bueche: Thank you, Madam Chair. On August 8th, I attended the One Nation Under God rally held here at the high school. It was wonderful to see a lot of people come out just waving American flags and loving their country. So that was great to see. On 17, August yesterday, I attended the Department of Social Services Board of Directors meeting. That's all I have at this moment. Thank you.

0:10:38 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Mr. Bush. Mr. Granger.

0:10:40 Mr. Granger: Yes, ma'am. On August 12th, I participated in a briefing calling President Trump's actions to safely reopening America's schools that a couple of interesting things came out of that. They said of the $13 billion that had been made available to states for support of school districts, only about 4% have been spent so far. So it's really not a very significant amount. I thought they had brought up a really good... A couple of really good points. This is a public health versus public health discussion when you talk about children not being in the schools. There's a lot of support and services provided that kids won't be getting, and it will have an impact on them. So it's important to keep those things in mind when making these decisions and thinking about what's the best interest of the children. Thought there were a couple of really good questions. Someone asked about open schools and even the idea of using tents, which I thought was an interesting idea. They did not answer the idea of tents in particular, but they did bring up air ventilation as an important part. Normally, we'd probably think about closing up all buildings and just using HVAC, but it's a good point to bring up opening windows and things of such would be of value as well. Asking about sports, the answer was first priority is face-to-face learning, which I think is a very reasonable answer and the right answer, honestly. And then the last question I thought that was really pertinent and important was asking about how to reframe this from a partisan narrative 'cause it's a very partisan discussion right now, and that's a problem because it really shouldn't be about the education of children. And so their suggestion was really trying to focus on that if this is a child-focused and child-centric discussion and what's best for the kids and how do we provide education for them in a safe way, but also to provide for all their needs. So I thought it was a good discussion. They'd talked about maybe making some more funds available. I don't know if that would be impacted by the fact that such a low percentage that's been allocated so far, I guess, obligated so far of the $13 billion that's been spent though. So I'm sure everyone's probably been tracking that. I think most of us have kids, so it's just what came out of that. Other than that, I don't have anything else. So thank you.

0:12:45 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Mr. Granger. First off, I wanna thank anyone who reached out to me in the last couple of weeks and gave me condolences on my dad's passing. I really appreciate it and my board members working through me with that. I also wanna say a kind remembrance. Some of you might have seen Mr. Irving Taylor passed away in the last week. I knew him as Coach Taylor. I worked with him and a lot of youth and people of a certain age group had him as a basketball coach or as a track coach, and he really had a positive impact on the community. And I wanna thank his family for his service to the community as a coach and as a mentor to a lot of students at King George Middle School, at King George High School. He will be missed.

I met with VDH, with Mr. Weakley concerning our consent orders, and they had a lot of positive things to say about us, which is surprising when you're under consent order. But they were very impressed with how we were proceeding with doing everything on our punch list. I also was on a couple of calls, especially on the VACo Energy subcommittee and that was quite interesting. We talked a lot about solar farms and how localities are attracting solar farms due to the environmental regulations that have been passed recently and coming down the pike. And there's a lot of concerns with solar farms and the fact that they can take agricultural land and make it into brown land. And the fact that in certain areas of the state, they don't work as well as wind farms or even as nuclear plants. So it was interesting to hear the whole discussion, and I had thought about some of these issues and they had brought it up.

I also went to the rally that Mr. Bueche came to, and I talked to Mr. Wittman, and we had a nice conversation about Wayside Park, about the stuff we could do down there and everything about that. And Dr. Young's working on some things with the fencing after our conversation, and trying to think all that. And one other thing I wanna mention is, as you so may know, I'm the chairman of GWRC, I serve on that committee with Ms. Cupka. And they've been talking a lot recently about GWRideConnect and getting cars off the road and infrastructure needs and how we... Sometimes we are at a disadvantage, and that COVID has changed the structure of how we think about working, telecommuting, transportation, and how, with that being said is that the whole way we look at things possibly could be changing, and we have seen an uptick in the market in King George with people wanting to flee the urban areas and come to the rural areas to live because now they can telework.

So it was just fascinating that a lot of things we have to... Why I'm bringing this up is we maybe have to start reevaluating our needs and how we look at things in... At infrastructure. And the fact that, as Ms. Cupka brought up, broadband is almost becoming utility, and it's vital to our workers and our students in the community, so they are not left behind. I mean, I know what... See, I thought I had better interconnectivity than I had recently. But as we found out last night, once again on a virtual call, I couldn't even use audio. I had turned off the webcam, I had turned off the video function, but my audio had to go out and they're having trouble hearing me, Ms. Cupka helped me out by my calling me and we were doing a two-way phone call. But the point of the matter is we live in an area that has a military base, lives near DC, and I have to get help to do a virtual call. So broadband is quite a vital service and when we... We do have to take care of that. But it is not gonna be easy. And that is the end of my board report, thank you.

Can I have a motion for the consent agenda?

0:16:32 Mr. Granger: So moved.

0:16:33 CATHY BINDER: And second?

0:16:34 Mr. Bueche: Second.

0:16:35 CATHY BINDER: All those in favor?

0:16:36 All: Aye.

0:16:38 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Next up is the constitutional officer's report. And we have our county attorney.

0:16:51 Mr. Britton: Thank you, Madam Chair. We... I don't have any report except for me handling the public hearings on the three ordinances.

0:17:01 CATHY BINDER: Alright. Thank you. Dr. Young, we have any other reports?

0:17:05 Dr. Young: No, Madam Chair.

0:17:06 CATHY BINDER: Alright. Thank you. Next up is our presentation on the courthouse design, financing options and our presentation is by Davenport and Associates, and I know Mr. Vic Mason is in the audience probably to ask any of our questions or answer any of our questions, sorry. Go ahead.

0:17:23 Kyle Laux: [0:17:23] ____ hear that. But again, nice to see, saw several of you before the meeting, but nice to see you all in person. Certainly a lot has changed since the last time we talked in person, which I think was back in January or February. So we always appreciate being able to see you. And I think in these circumstances, being able to see you in person, even more, so thank you for that. Before we get into the details here, just as a little bit of background, given everything that has happened in the world over the last six or eight months, and from our particular window of the world, which is finances, arguably... Maybe certainly less important than the health and human services side of things, but just some kudos to you as a board as well as your senior staff and then Dr. Young and Wilma in finance. We recently had a review by Fitch Ratings, which is one of the three rating agencies that rates the county in the creditworthiness and sort of financial wherewithal of King George County and all kinds of different counties across the country.

And basically came back with a clean bill of health. And so I just want to make sure that we as your outside advisors gave you some kudos as a board, as well as Dr. Young, Ms. Ward, and all the rest of your staff, as given all of the uncertainty, and all the difficult situation that we've all had over the last, however many months it's been, it's hard to keep track.

The county, at least from our perspective, and from Fitch's perspective, has thus far weathered that storm very, very well from a financial perspective. And so we'll talk more about that. And I'll bring that up on the front end of what we're gonna talk about, because what we think, my colleagues and I, is that given all of that you have an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that interest rates are so incredibly low by virtue of everything happening in the world. So it's one of those whereby good responsible decisions over the last five, eight months and really years past, build on themselves, and we think provides you an opportunity as a county, as a board to do some smart things into the future that you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do if indeed, those smart decisions weren't made the last several months and even clearly in years past.

So before we get into all the details, just wanted to maybe use that as an opening, and a preface and then we'll walk through this and sort of answer any questions that you have. But I think what you see up on the screen and for members of the board you have it in front of you in hard copy, the real topic for tonight from us is to talk about the courthouse, something that we know you've been thinking about for many, many years as a county planning for... And it appears that, at least as we understand it, we're at a time now whereby ready to take some action related to that project and so we wanted to bring you up to speed on some of our thoughts working with Dr. Young and Ms. Ward in terms of how the financing for that very large, generational project might work out. So on page number one... I'll give the screen here a second to catch up. There we go. So page number one will be the project itself. What we've understood is that is expected to be in the range of... And we don't know these exact numbers yet, but in the range of about a $22 million project, plus or minus. We refer to a project like the courthouse as a generational project, and so when we talk about a generational project... I don't remember offhand when the old courthouse, meaning the existing courthouse, was built, but clearly, probably 30, 40, 50 years ago with maybe a couple improvements along the way.

And so we think about something like the courthouse as a facility and an asset for the county that's gonna last for a generation. And so we think about that as a "generational project", that's why we use that term. We know you've been in the process of planning for that for a while, both from a... We'll call it an engineering and design standpoint, understand that that contract was just awarded, and what we'd like to talk about tonight is how indeed we finance and pay for that project, given the overall situation.

So, again, we're working with about $22 million, the exact cost, as you know we know isn't known yet, but somewhere in that ballpark. And I think what we have is a plan that'll allow us to work with that order of magnitude cost for the moment, knowing it'll probably be several months out before we really know the final cost, indeed, of the courthouse. So we'll move on to page number two here. Just a couple of other important pieces of background, again, top of the page, we mentioned this at the outset but given the fact the county has been so well-run financially, not just the last couple months, but really for years on end here, you've been able to conserve that fund balance.

And so when we talked back in January before any of this stuff happened, thinking about the budget, we always talk a lot about fund balance and why that's important. And as we went through that Fitch review, one of the primary factors they focused on was that even though we've had this whole pandemic situation over the latter part of FY20 into this fiscal year, you've been able to conserve your fund balance. And so we use a term, 'cash is king,' kinda always use that term but that's especially true given the uncertain situation that we have. And so what we've laid out here in terms of a plan going forward is to make sure that we're able to conserve, to the greatest extent possible, our fund balance knowing we've got a lot of uncertainty out in the world. That fund balance is also gonna be very important as we think about how the credit markets, how the other rating agencies are gonna view the county, we think they're gonna view you very well, and being able to demonstrate that we have good reserves, we follow our policies like you have, will continue to be an important factor.

So with all that said, bottom of page two, just relatively quickly here, we've got a couple different strategies we could employ. We refer to those at the bottom of the page as permanent financing and interim financing. And so what do we mean when we say permanent financing? What we mean by permanent financing is going forward and locking in long-term, fixed rate. I'm gonna use the term 'loan,' it's really a bond issue but to simplify it, we'll use the term 'loan' like a mortgage, that would allow us to finance this project and pay for it over 20 or 25 years, again, thinking about the generational side of things, with a fixed interest rate, largely akin to a mortgage, so that's permanent financing. When we talk about interim financing at the bottom of the page, that's really more akin to shorter term, interest only kind of payments, something whereby if you've ever had maybe built a home, if you had a construction loan, home equity lines, or even using your credit card can be thought of as interim financing.

It's short-term, flexible, but something that is not intended to be locked in for a whole term of the loan, again, like a mortgage. And so we've got these two concepts in here, we'll talk about how we might think about using one or both of them. On page number three, we'll also factor in here... And we've got all the details in the back for your reading after the meeting here, we'll focus on the highlights. But we've got debt capacity and debt affordability. And so we talk about that from time to time, debt capacity being, "How do we manage our debt profile and keep within our existing debt policies, keep within the expectations of the rating agencies, and keep responsible levels of outstanding debt?" And debt affordability is, "How are we gonna make those payments? How does that debt service, meaning the payments on the debt, flow through our budget, and what impact does that have to the general fund budget to the capital fund budget?" So we've got both of those concepts in here, they're both important. Arguably, as it relates to the budget, that debt affordability is probably the more important of the two, but given how well-run you are, and your high credit ratings, they're both gonna be very important in terms of how we think about all this.

So if you go to page four, just a couple of key assumptions in terms of how we're thinking about this. So you as a county have had the good fortune, by virtue of the landfill, of being able to pay for, effectively, all of your capital projects, whether it's a debt service or just cash-funded projects out of that capital fund that receives the revenue from that landfill. So what we've done in our planning going forward, knowing we've got a number of years left to run on that landfill contract, is to continue to plan for those revenues into the future and think about those as our primary source of funding for capital projects. What we have assumed, in terms of those revenues, this is laid out here on the page, number one, is that we'll have about $7 million, 6,950,000, but I'm gonna it round up and just call it $7 million, of annual recurring revenues from the landfill into the future.

Now, we'll say, as we look at the last couple of years, you've been running at a level much higher than that. And as we understand it, Dr. Young, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that's been due to both a very good economy and also some refuse from other landfills that have had issues being transferred temporarily to King George. We've had a couple very good years there, which has been very useful. But what we purposely tried to do is to hair-cut in our planning, be a little more conservative with how many of those dollars we plan for going forward. So I think you've probably been running in the $8, $9 million range here for a couple of years. We've really hair- cut that back to $7 million. Which if you look at the history of that revenue coming in the landfill back about 10 years, 8, 10 years, it's been about $7 million, but as low as, probably about 6.4 million and as high as 9 million. So we've tried to err on the lower side.

0:28:54 CATHY BINDER: Can we ask you a question?

0:28:54 Kyle: Absolutely.

0:28:55 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Bueche has a question.

0:28:56 Mr. Bueche: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Kyle. Just a quick question. Speaking about the landfill revenue, so in the last couple years, we've had excess tonnage that has come in, which is translated into those extra dollars, which is showing that higher amount coming in. But on average, it's about, let's say, $7 million. But that $7 million is already leveraged against existing capital improvement debt service that we're paying. Now, we are trying to get ahead of it by leveraging our debt mitigation plan, but that's on hold this year, along with other things. And it also coincides with less revenues coming in from the landfill, which is closed on weekends now, because, yes, we have a good economy overall, but as far as consumables, we don't... Because of COVID and all the shutdown, we do not have that tonnage coming into the landfill. So I think instead of seeing $7 million in the near future, I think we might experience a year or two of a recession, which could also translate into less consumables that are coming into the landfill. So those revenues are gonna be much shorter, but we still have that debt service to address. Just something to play in mind, 'cause when we're talking about leveraging landfill revenues, I mean, our debt is pretty substantial as a county right now. So I just wanna be cautious with looking at that.

0:30:29 Kyle: Yeah. You make a couple of very good points, Mr. Bush. You are correct that our existing debt service is paid out of that. We're gonna go with $7 million for the moment. And so, it's not like it's a free and clear $7 million. Far from it. We've got our existing debt we pay from that, as well as any cash-funded capital projects that we do on an annual basis, which is something you've got a good history of doing. Meaning, projects that you just pay for, we call that pay-go funding as opposed to debt funding. So, you're exactly right. We've factored that in and I think it's another reason that we come back to, again, a broken record, but come back to the fund balance side of things. Because while you've had those good, we'll call it couple of years, find an overly scientific term, but three, four, five years of very good results in the landfill. What that's allowed you to do is maintain a healthy balance within that capital fund as well as in the general fund.

And so one of the reasons we like keeping that substantial amount of dollars in the capital fund is at the end of the day, going forward, you might get $7 million a year, you might get $6 million. You don't know. And so we like having that cash flow, meaning that reserve buffer, to weather what could be a couple of years storm, in terms of the revenue. We don't wanna count on using too many of those fund balance dollars up front. We'll show you some cases here in a couple of pages. But it's one of the reasons we come back to the importance of fund balance. So if all this gets set up and we collectively assume that $7 million is the right number, we're not saying it necessarily is. We can certainly run some more cases on that. But assume $7 million is the number and that doesn't come to fruition, what do we do then? That's where we've got a little bit of a buffer and a back stop with the fund balance as well as with the amount of annual cash funding that you do out of that $7 million that can be moderated year-over-year. So you make some excellent points and it's something that we've been thinking about as we set this all up.

0:32:33 Mr. Bueche: And just a follow-up, so those years that we will... Inevitably, I'm optimistic. I think our country's gonna bounce back. I think it's gonna happen after the election. That's me, personally, but... Ultimately, when we do and we start looking at excess tonnage, again, coming in, that does play on the backside with the lifecycle of that landfill too. So the years that we're counting on this revenue coming in with excess tonnage on the front side, we're cutting back the life of the landfill, which means that's gonna be less years we have that revenue coming in.

0:33:12 Kyle: Yeah. And I'll tell you just again that too, you're making excellent points. What we've factored in here is that the term of the debt we'd be thinking about for the courthouse would not extend beyond the life of the existing contract and even would probably be a little bit shorter than the life of the existing landfill contract. So in some sense it's a bunch of years into the future, but what we've tried to plan on again is not necessarily setting exactly with the same final maturity, meaning have the loan be a little bit shorter than the final maturity of the contract we have with the landfill. So all very good points and things that hopefully we've factored into some extent here, and we certainly can continue to play with as we move forward. Again, what we've used for the moment, 7 million in terms of recurring dollars going in the landfill.

The second piece there in terms of number two, by virtue of the expansion from a couple of years ago, you're getting half a million dollar short-time payments, meaning not recurring, but half a million dollars per year through this fiscal year, '21, '22, '23, and then those go away. And so we've got that factored in there for that three-year time period, but it goes away after fiscal year 2023. And the last piece, number three, which is a revenue source that the King George hasn't had to use for a while to fund for capital, but the real estate tax rate. And so what we'll talk about it in the next couple of pages is, as we factor all this in and try and err on the conservative side with the planning, we may need to look to or we'll need to look to some additional revenue from outside. And the way we've thought about that is with the real estate tax rate. It's the primary revenue source in the general fund, is your lever you have the most control over in terms of revenue in the general fund. And so that's the way we've thought about that for the time being in terms of planning.

As we flip the page to page number five, there's some additional background, and we'll get into the details here. We've factored in the concept of what we call the Capital Reserve Fund. And with that concept, something we could think about, and frankly, given the situation with COVID and the uncertainty in the economy, whether it be this year and the future years, we'll tell you we like the idea of hanging on to more of our money for the time being. But we factored in looking at if we took two-and-a-half million out of the capital fund, not out of it, but segregated off to the side and had to use that to help shave the peak in our debt service, what that might look like. So we've got A cases, we call A cases down here at the bottom that do not assume that. Assume we'll leave the entire balance in the capital fund free and clear and not used for the courthouse project, and then the B cases assume we shave 2.5 million and use that to help make some debt service payments over the next basically five to seven years. We'll show you what the difference is between the two.

0:36:43 Mr. Bueche: Madam chair, if I may?

0:36:46 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead.

0:36:47 Mr. Bueche: Was the cigarette tax factored into any of this? Because effective July 1st, King George County will be able to assess a cigarette tax. If things play out the way that they look, that's a significant amount of money coming into the county. So I would like to look at that before I would, let's say, raise real estate taxes or dip into revenues.

0:37:15 Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you we...

0:37:16 Mr. Bueche: But was that factored in or not at this point?

0:37:21 Kyle: We haven't factored it in at this point just 'cause it's so new and so preliminary. And so as we think about the life-cycle of all of this, we know what we know today which is we've got a landfill revenue, we've got a good sense of what it is, not exact per se 'cause we've got the uncertainty. And we know obviously what our real estate side of things is to the extent that we have some new revenue sources, whether it's cigarette tax, whether it maybe meals tax pops back after the pandemic, comes back. Any other revenue sources, we can always think about those as we work through the planning in future budgets. We've tried to set up four years worst case, assume we don't have any cigarette tax, we don't have anything else. If all we had to rely on was the real estate tax rate, what does that look like in terms of the impact to it?

0:38:11 Mr. Bueche: So what we know now is interest rates are low, and eventually they're gonna jump back up, and we know this is something we gotta get done.

0:38:19 Kyle: That's been our assumption. Yeah. And to your point, if we get one more page here on page number six, Mr. Bush, to your point on interest rates. So what we're showing you here is tax-exempt interest rates, and I think you've probably seen this graph from us before. On the left-hand side, this is an index we watch. If you watch the stock market, maybe you watch the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones, this is a municipal bond corollary to that.

And what it's showing you is on the left-hand side of history since the year 2000, and we've circled on purpose the far right-hand portion of that graph, which is a very severe downhill ski slope in interest rates over, really, the last couple of years and very much over the last couple of months, to a point where if you take your eye to the graph on the right-hand side, we are, we say at or near all-time interest rate lows. Meaning you can go back a long time, look at different interest rates, there may have been a couple of time periods where they were this low, but in modern history, this is as favorable, meaning as low as interest rates have really ever been. We've historically done capital planning for the county, again, trying to err on the conservative side, using an assumption of an interest rate, maybe the 4% or 5% range, we should look over a long enough time period, was a good historical average. What we're talking about in this environment, again, no guarantees until something happened, markets move, all those kind of things, but something, it's at a low 2% range to lock in money for 20, 25 years. So it's a very, very substantial change, meaning benefit, in terms of lower interest rates given where we are.

So with that, page number seven, we've got a bunch of cases set up for you here. We're gonna show you in a table here in the next couple pages what it all looks like, but basically, case one, we call it 1A, 1B. Case one assumes that we would just go out and finance all $22 million on a permanent basis right now. So I'll tell you we're not recommending that case largely because we don't know if 22 million is the right number. We like the idea, we'll steal our own thunder here, like the idea of locking in some permanent financing now, and that'll be our recommendation to you here. We do like the idea, though, of hedging a little bit and honestly, going out and locking in an entire $22 million amount, not knowing exactly what that project cost is gonna be.

And so we'll talk you through the next couple scenarios here. We've used, to my prior point on interest rates, we've used, for planning purposes, a 325 as our planning rate. Again, markets have been very volatile. We had, March of this year where they were, effectively, March and April, completely locked up for a while, but they've normalized as we stand here today and again, dropped to a very, very low level. So there is likely some conservatism built into that 325 number as we sit here and talk today. So that's what we've assumed for case number one.

As we get in to case number two, what we've assumed in case number two is to do a two-phase approach, knowing that we're still in the early stages of designing, have bid construction, any of those kind of things, with respect to the courthouse. Think about a two-stage approach where we could borrow on the short-term and you go to balance this calendar year about 17.5 million, so a scientific number is about 80% of the estimated project cost. Go ahead and do that now, lock it in. Again, well, hopefully, rates remain favorable, and we've taken that interest rate risk off of the table by virtue of doing that. That then, let's use a county, Dr. Young and others run with the finalizing design, bidding construction, getting the thing built, and then you come back at the tailend of the project, and to the extent there is additional money needed, in this case, assuming a $22 million project, you'd need another $4.5 million to complete it. You come back and do a smaller, we'll call it clean-up financing at the end of it, when at that point, you know exactly what the project cost is, you're only borrowing for what you really need, and you've hedged your bets in that way in terms of both interest rate, the amount of money that you borrow, as well as the project cost. And so that's what we've...

0:43:30 Mr. Granger: Can I ask a quick question. I apologize, I just was looking in the case two and noticed that a couple of years out, the interest rate's actually lower than the planned interest rate's lower than what the fiscal year '20-'21 is. Is there a reason why that one's lower? As you said, we're at all-time lows now. Would you actually expect that to be the new...

0:43:50 Kyle: No, not necessarily. What we've done is the first financing we've assumed over a 25-year time period, and the second, called clean-up financing, we've assumed over a little bit shorter-time period. So we just took that into account, all for planning estimates.

0:44:04 Mr. Granger: Thank you, yeah, that makes sense.

0:44:05 Kyle: Yeah, good question. No, we don't expect rates are gonna be sort of lower in the future. In fairness, nobody really knows where they're gonna be. So it's all planning estimates, but that's why you see a difference there. And part of the reason there is that that second phase of the borrowing, again, it's probably... It's a little ways down the line, but we think about that more as a bank loan, and banks tend to like a little bit shorter, probably 20 years versus 25 years. So for planning purposes, that's what we assumed and thus, we assumed a little bit lower interest rate just for planning purposes. But good question, sir.

And so, that's our case two, and really, in fairness, the case that we like the most, and certainly, we want your input, case 3A and 3B assumes that we do, really, all interim financing right now, lock in enough financing, to get the project going, but only on an interim basis, and then come back and do permanent financing when we know the final project costs. Let's say in a more normal environment, that might be a case, we'd like a little bit more, but given how favorable long-term rates are right now, our suggestion, our recommendation to you is try and capture some of that sooner, rather than later, get it locked in, and take some of that interest rate and market risk off the table.

And so with all of that, if we flip to page eight, probably the most important page in the presentation. The overall impact, again, summarized. All the details are in the back in the appendix. But the overall impact to our ratios, as well as, ultimately, to our budget. And so what I'll tell you is that, as we work through these cases, any one of these cases is gonna maintain compliance with our debt policies. So we talked about debt capacity as one of the concepts. All these cases maintain compliance with the debt capacity. Meaning our debt ratios and what the rating agencies would expect from us. It's the difference, really is at the bottom of the page, and that is, ultimately, what is the impact to our budget? To Mr. Bush's earlier points, we've largely used the dollars from the landfill, assuming $7 million is a recurring amount, by paying existing debt service we have on the books right now. As well as making sure we've got a cushion and a contingency, which we've assumed at a million dollars a year, to allow us to continue to cash fund capital projects each and every year.

So basically what we've done is we've taken the $7 million we've assumed, we've shaved a million dollars off, knowing that each and every year you're gonna have any variety of smaller capital projects, whether it's fleet, whether it's roof repairs, whether it's HVAC, technology stuff, that is just an annual recurring need of any county, whether it's King George or anyone else. So we've assumed we keep those dollars segregated off to the side. And thus, have kind of taken the $7 million, taken a million dollars out, and said, "Alright, let's reserve that for our smaller capital projects." We also know that the county's contribution to the regional jail comes out of that landfill revenue. So we've carved that out. And then the balance, which we know is available for whether it's existing debt service or this new debt service. And so after we do all that, again, with all the numbers at the back, what we come up with, bottom of the page there, is that real estate tax equivalent impact of basically between 3 and 4 pennies. So you sum it all up, boil it all down, it's somewhere within that 3 to 4 penny range order of magnitude, that would be needed to fund the debt service on the courthouse, given all these assumptions that we've just talked about.

0:48:20 CATHY BINDER: Now, let me ask one clarifying question.

0:48:22 Kyle: Yes ma'am.

0:48:22 CATHY BINDER: So is that... And this might be a silly question. But is this a one-time real estate tax or is it every year for the life of the loan, one time?

0:48:32 Kyle: Well, it's one time, but it assumes that increase stays in place...

0:48:35 CATHY BINDER: Okay.

0:48:36 Kyle: For the foreseeable future. At some point, the debt service will decline. But I think for the foreseeable future, it assumes that you keep that tax rate, whether it's 3 pennies, 4 pennies you keep in place for the foreseeable future. So it's not something whereby you can raise it one year and lower it the next.

0:48:50 CATHY BINDER: I just wanted to clarify 'cause I could see someone reading that and wondering if it was every year.

0:48:52 Kyle: Yes ma'am. Good question. Yep.

0:48:55 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Bueche?

0:48:55 Mr. Bueche: So on those lines and that's based on if the county was to stay static, so there was no more population growth or any other sources, that's what that figures in?

0:49:06 Kyle: That's correct.

0:49:07 Mr. Bueche: Okay, and then the other thing. You were talking about looking at the debt. So whenever we eventually get back to our Debt Mitigation Plan, which is a financial policy now, that obviously is gonna be freeing up cash flow in the budget as that's paid down, but with new debt, that goes up. Was that debt mitigation plan in the revenue or the cash flow that it was gonna free up, was that figured into this as well? 0:49:36 Kyle: It was, in the sense that the debt mitigation we've already done is factored into this.

0:49:42 Mr. Bueche: Okay.

0:49:42 Kyle: And so that's baked in the cake already. Any debt mitigation we're able to do in the future, is just gonna make this look better. So what we've already done over the last couple of years, that's, to you again, use my term, baked in the cake already. We know about that. That's impacted your existing debt service. It's lowered it and really it's freed up capacity for what we're layering in here. So this would look... Or another way of saying, this would look more expensive, if you hadn't done that debt mitigation of the last couple of years. And so the extent you do it in the future, then again, all of this could look indeed better by virtue of that.

0:50:21 Mr. Bueche: Awesome. Thank you.

0:50:22 CATHY BINDER: Dr. Young?

0:50:23 Dr. Young: So Madam Chair, I just wanna make it abundantly clear to the board that if the board decided to go ahead and move forward with one of these financing options. The bottom line is that we can expect that our tax rate, we're gonna have to raise taxes next year $0.04 and that's all things being considered. I understand that there may be additional revenue that's coming from the cigarette tax that might offset, or the debt mitigation may offset. But as long as we can just educate the public that all things being considered, we can anticipate that there will be a $0.04 tax increase until we get a good handle around the cigarette tax and revenue and other things that we're doing, I think that will go a long way with making sure that the decision on the courthouse is embraced by the public. And then second, Kyle, I think that it would be good to expound upon the fact that, I know that we talked about the landfill revenue in the beginning, but with this $0.04 tax increase, I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong, that means that the courthouse debt service will be leveraged against real estate taxes versus against landfill revenue. This is basically landfill revenue free. Correct?

0:51:36 Kyle: Basically. Yeah, yeah. I guess a good summary, meaning the majority, almost all that three to four pennies, four pennies using that example, is gonna go directly to making sure we can make that courthouse debt service payment.

0:51:54 Dr. Young: And the reason why I wanna stress that, why that's important, because as you all... Mr. Bueche is absolutely correct. The landfill is almost leveraged to capacity on debt service and we have the remaining gap, that doesn't go towards the debt service, which pays our CIP each year. So if we were to touch that landfill revenue anymore, there basically wouldn't be a CIP without, again, raising the real estate tax to fund ambulances and school buses on each year. So I just want to make sure that that's clarified to the board.

0:52:27 Kyle: Yeah. And to Dr. Young's point, we think it's important to make sure we continue to plan on having that annual CIP funding amount because you, like any other county is gonna have those things that come up every single year. We talk about it as being maybe capital or one time. But the reality is every single year, you're gonna need some sheriff's vehicles or some school buses or a roof project, an HVAC project. It's just the nature of life doing business as a local government. So to Dr. Young's point, we think it's important to make sure we continue to have those dollars available to make those improvements because if you don't have those, either your assets, your building, your vehicles, etcetera, and they're becoming worn down and cost you more over the life of them, or you end up borrowing for some of those smaller items, which in a perfect situation, we would like to avoid doing and keep our debt capacity for the big stuff which in fairness to courthouse is gonna last a generation is indeed one of those things that we would classify at least as big stuff.

0:53:28 Dr. Young: And more importantly given today's current state of affairs, maintaining the ability to utilize landfill revenue for one-time purchases gives the board control. So it's just like now we're in the middle of a recession, we're gonna do an abbreviated CIP process and the board can control one-time purchases and say, "Hey, we can look at X amount of school buses and X amount of ambulances, and we'll get back onto our regular schedule next year." Whereas if this landfill revenue was leveraged against the courthouse, well, the board loses that control, and we're locked in for increasing real estate taxes basically into the perpetuity of a loan.

0:54:12 Kyle: Yeah. And the rating agencies will like and appreciate that because you think about debt service is really... It's a fixed cost. In fairness, once you've incurred it, you can't... Outside of doing a restructuring or something, it's basically set and fixed. Whereas as to Dr. Young's point with cash-funded capital on an annual basis, if you have a rough year, which we're having right now, no fault of anybody's, you've got an ability to push off some of those vehicles and say, "I will get back to that next year." So keeping some of that annual financial flexibility, I think gets back to Mr. Bush's point and Dr. Young's point, in terms of not wanting to count every single dollar of the projected landfill revenues towards debt service because again, once you get the debt service, you've gotta make that payment. And it's not flexible the same way as vehicle purchases are and school buses and things of that nature.

0:55:06 CATHY BINDER: And, Dr. Young before Mr. Bueche is on next, but I just want for public consumption to understand that the courthouse isn't a luxury and the COVID environment... Mr. Mason sent us a very detailed memo of all the requirements now in our courthouse. They're doing a good job of being able to meet those state requirements now with the courthouse we have, and it's very important that we get this courthouse so that our citizens can get a proper service and everything. And it is vital and it is a needed item. It's not a wish item, it's a needed item. And Mr. Bueche, and then Mr. Granger...

0:55:42 Mr. Bueche: Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe we've met and talked significantly about the need for a courthouse, and we've came at a conclusion, this needs to happen. Given the circumstances right now with the way interest rates are, and eventually they're gonna go up. And every month, every six months that we do not move forward on a project, there's always that potential for the materials, the labor, all those costs to go up. I believe we need to jump. Now, no one likes saying, "We're gonna have to raise your real estate taxes." But when you can demonstrate a need and you could tell the taxpayer, "This is the return on your investment."

We're not raising taxes because we wanna put some garden in the median or something. This is to provide an essential service, that this is a need. And I think we're doing our due diligence and being good fiscal agents of the taxpayers' money by moving forward now, taking advantage of a lower interest rate and locking in these lower costs upfront while we can. And this is done looking, like Kyle said, without considering the cigarette tax, which I think is gonna be significant, maybe some of those funds could be utilized to offset what we would use a real estate tax increase for, we could apply some of those cigarette tax dollars and maybe cut that in half. So that's my point. Thank you, Madam Chair.

0:57:18 CATHY BINDER: Thank you. Mr. Granger?

0:57:20 Mr. Granger: Yes, ma'am. Let's go back to page seven with the different cases. You have the case one which was looking to borrow what we think all the funds would be, which would be $22 million, which is the projection of what we expect the cost to be. My experience is usually costs don't go down, they go up. Do we actually think... Where I'm going is if I had any expectations, I'd be worried that 22 wouldn't be enough. Do we actually think it might be less than 22 or would it make more sense to borrow it and then if we need to... We hopefully wouldn't need to borrow more, but to go that route?

0:58:00 Kyle: It's a good question. We... We're not experts in construction costs and things of that nature. So whether the tendency is for it to cost more or less, that I can't necessarily offer a good opinion on, just 'cause it isn't our world per se...

0:58:20 Dr. Young: Kyle, I'll answer that, I'll answer that.

0:58:21 Kyle: Yeah.

0:58:21 Dr. Young: That's the planning figure that we gave to Davenport to utilize to put together some numbers for the board to consider for financing options. But that number is based off of discussions that we had with the different engineering firms that basically placed their bids for the design of the courthouse. So we interviewed no less than four firms. And of course, one of the questions that came from the RFP committee was, "Well, how much do you think it's gonna cost?" And on average, they all came in at around a... On average it's gonna come in at around $22 million. So getting that information from the experts in the field was, that's the planning figure that we've decided to utilize for the board to consider financing.

0:59:07 Mr. Granger: Which makes a lot of sense to me. I guess, just where I was going with this is, we're not breaking ground tomorrow, so I don't know, I hope construction prices won't go up and I guess it is possible. I mean, in the past, they have gone down on occasion, due to extreme situations, which we're kind of in... I guess I'm just asking, do we really think they might go down though? Or would it be more advantageous to borrow the money at a lower interest rate so we have it on hand?

0:59:39 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Stonehill...

0:59:41 Mr. Granger: It's more of just a food for thought for the whole board. I'm not looking necessarily for an answer. It's just looking at it from my perspective on that, that I almost think A, might be that should at least be considered from that perspective.

0:59:56 CATHY BINDER: Thank you. Mr. Stonehill, did you have any questions?

1:00:03 Mr. Stonehill: No, just trying to digest all this. There's a lot of what ifs and I can't imagine as we're dealing with the school... As the middle school project right now, it seems like everything is going up and up and up and up. But no, I'm just following along right here as we go.

1:00:19 CATHY BINDER: Ms Cupka?

1:00:23 Ms. Cupka: So, refresh my memory, Dr. Young, the... This $22 million cost estimate, what square footage of courthouse was that based on?

1:00:33 Dr. Young: 50,000 square feet.

1:00:35 Ms. Cupka: 50,000.

1:00:36 CATHY BINDER: Yeah.

1:00:41 MC: I just would emphasize to everyone... Well, first of all, Kyle, our current courthouse is actually a hundred, 100 years old. So it is well beyond its useful life. I think we all agree with that.

1:00:56 CATHY BINDER: Yes.

1:00:57 Ms. Cupka: And I agree with Ms. Binder, this is not a luxury. I know, I have seen myself, on social media, some people think this is not necessary. This is not a luxury item, this is necessary. This is where the accused go to either meet their judgment or clear their name. This is where victims go to make them as whole as we possibly can. Sometimes we can and sometimes we just can't. And this is where all of those court workers, every day go to work, whether you're the judge sitting on the bench or you're the person who cleans the toilets, they all deserve to work in a safe, healthy working environment. And the one that we have right now, I'm sorry, is... It's questionable, in my opinion as to whether it is healthy or not. So I too, would like to move forward. I just... Given... I know we have some correspondence from Mr. Mason about the new normal, the new rules as far as the size requirements, I'm not sure if we wanna revisit that or if that was a done deal by... On the part of the last board.

1:02:16 CATHY BINDER: Well, Ms. Cupka, I know, I was the biggest speaker for the 64,000 square foot because I went to all those courthouses with Mr. Mason and saw the need for space. So I don't know if we even want to entertain what the cost would be. But with COVID, I understand why it is valid, but I don't know if we'd get the votes on that. Dr. Young, hold on one second. And one other point I wanna make is not only people, victims or our workers that we have, our students that go there and get their driver's license, we have people going to get marriage licenses. We have people who go to look at land records, the whole community uses the courthouse and it is vital that we get it... Dr. Young, first, go ahead. 1:03:04 Dr. Young: I just wanted to state that if the board did want to move forward with changing, going to a 63,000 square foot courthouse, then that means that we've got to start the process over with getting the design, doing the RFP process and all the plans and the bids and everything has been based off of 50,000 square foot guidance from the board.

1:03:27 CATHY BINDER: And I realize that. And we had put in there that it... Possibilities, it would be designed so that if we wanted to add it in, in the future, but Mr. Bueche you had...

1:03:35 Mr. Bueche: Thank you. Yeah, and that's correct. We did say that we wanted the engineering to reflect future expansion to where it's built to where you can simply knock down a wall and extend out to where you don't have to rerun piping and all. And that's what my point was. My point is, for a matter of perspective, for everyone who's watching and following along and hearing the price tag of $22 million. That was the price of the middle school expansion $22 million. And it serves less than 1000 students in King George County. They provide a service, but that's the real numbers, okay? It's less than 1000 people. The courthouse would be serving close to 27,000 people. So I think there's merit there. So I just wanted to share that perspective. Thank you, Madam Chair.

1:04:27 CATHY BINDER: And it's unfortunate it just comes at the time that we have the whole COVID and recession, we could have never planned for that. It's just the way it is. And Dr. Young, did you have something else before?

1:04:37 Dr. Young: Yes, yes, Madam Chair. I'd be remiss in my duties if not to make a recommendation to the board. First, from the county staff's recommendation, we do recommend that the board move forward with not interim financing but permanent financing. We also recommend that the board move forward with either case 1A or 2A because the choice is A, do we have a capital reserve fund or do we not have a capital reserve fund. The staff is not fond of the capital reserve fund because the reality is to pay for... I mean, to fill that capital reserve fund, you gotta take money out of the fund balance. So it's kind of counterintuitive if we're trying to protect our fund balances. We'd recommend that A, in addition to the capital reserve fund and take a $2.5 million out of our fund balances, if you look at the bottom tax rates, there's not even a $0.01 difference in the tax rate. I don't think that we'd get the return on an investment for taking $2.5 million out of our fund balance just to get a $0.01 tax break.

I think that... And as explained to Davenport and Associates, we haven't increased the taxes since 2000s... Increased the effective tax since 2017, and I don't really believe that there's going to be a public perception of a difference between $0.03 or $0.04. I don't think that we should really jeopardize our fund balance just to save that $0.01. In addition, I know that Mr. Granger had a question if we'd recommend the 17.5 now and then 4.5 or whatever that remaining balance is next year. I'd recommend, just like how Mr. Granger thought, go and move forward with the whole $22 million, take advantage of the interest rates now and I do have a strong confidence that we'll be able to... That's gonna cover the base... I think I believe that will cover the entire project. If not, then, if we need another one or two million dollars, we can either cover that with fund balance or borrow. And if there's a larger interest rate on one or two million dollars, I think that's more advantageous for the county. So we'd recommend 1A. 1:07:00 CATHY BINDER: Now, before we make a decision, did you wanna hold off so we can really absorb this for our next meeting or would that affect any of the timelines?

1:07:09 Kyle: No... I think, Madam Chair, we appreciate all the comments. I'm gonna say one thing on the 17 and a half versus 22, just again, trying to think of it all at different sides, but I think what we could do, because in fairness, we hear you and have no problem with the $22 million going forward with that, what we could do is when the legal documents are set up that authorize that, provide some flexibility. Again, trying to think at all sides of the coin. So if you get best case situation, the project comes in at less than 22 and you have some residual, you could program that towards something else, whatever the other future needs are. We wouldn't kinda be like stuck with the additional dollars. It builds some flexibility in to allow you to manage your way through that project. Again, I mean, that's being overly optimistic and $22 million will be the amount, but just in the event that there are any... It comes in at less than 22, we certainly can build some flexibility in to give you as a board the ability to do some other things with those dollars if you get down the line and you understand that.

1:08:22 CATHY BINDER: I'm just asking the board 'cause this is a lot of financial information to digest and not putting it off, but just waiting 'til our next meeting to make a final decision just to make sure if we have any other questions or anything comes up or are you guys willing to do it right at this moment. What is your... What does everybody feel about it?

1:08:43 Mr. Granger: I'm prepared to move forward now if the rest of the board is.

1:08:44 Mr. Stonehill: Me too.

1:08:47 Ms. Cupka: As am I.

1:08:47 Cathy Binder: Mr. Stonehill? Okay. Well, I'm just giving that option just in case. So do we have somebody who wants to make a motion? Do we have to make a motion on this?

1:08:58 Mr. Granger: Were you done with your presentation? I just want to... I feel like we might be short shift to you a little bit. Was there anything else you needed?

1:09:02 Kyle: No. Well, I'll cut in one piece there for the chairwoman. Well, nothing, nothing we're doing tonight is locking you in to any particular action. We will need to come back to you with the various authorizing resolutions and legal documents that will formally approve the financing. So we got a little bit of work to do on our end...

1:09:20 Mr. Granger: Consensus.

1:09:21 Kyle: Working with legal counsel to kinda get that all pooled together for you so if that's some perspective, but it would be useful in fairness to have the proverbial green light to get things pulled together for you.

1:09:33 Mr. Bueche: Is there a consensus? 1:09:35 CATHY BINDER: It's consensus, right? Do we have a consensus then to have Dr. Young...

1:09:40 Mr. Granger: I would say 1A would be what I think we should move forward with.

1:09:43 Mr. Bueche: I concur.

1:09:47 Ms. Cupka: I'll third that.

1:09:50 Mr. Stonehill: 1A.

1:09:51 CATHY BINDER: Alright, I'll go with 1A also. So 1A.

1:10:00 Mr. Bueche: Awesome.

1:10:00 CATHY BINDER: Thank you very much as always.

1:10:00 Kyle: We really appreciate it again. We will get to work with Dr. Young and Ms. Ward and everybody and bring things back, probably, I would say in probably about 60 days, we'll be able to fully authorize it and get into the marketplace as quick as we can. I think Mr. Bush, to your points about how favorable rates are and everybody else, it'll be our mission to move this along as quick as we can.

1:10:25 CATHY BINDER: Thank you as always.

1:10:27 Kyle: We appreciate it. Thank you.

1:10:28 CATHY BINDER: Thank you. Alright, next up is our slate of public hearings. So if we bring up our slate. Public hearing number one, the King George County Board of Supervisors will now hold the public hearing has been properly advertised to receive public input regarding the proposed collection of delinquent accounts ordinance. I will first ask for the report from the county attorney and then we'll then open the floor for public comment. Public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please state your name and address before you comment. Upon completion of comment, public comment, I will 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. Mr. Britton.

1:11:15 Mr. Britton: Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the ordinance to allow a third party to collect delinquent accounts throughout the county and all of its boards. As you know, I did a summary... I've spoken with the treasurer, the Commissioner of Revenue, Mr. Weakley and met with various outside agencies. And the county from time to time, maintains various delinquent accounts, maybe a dozen or two vehicle taxes, meals tax, sales and use tax, un-reimbursed training for people who don't stay, things like that. But when we spoke with the Service Authority, it turned out that they had approximately 550 delinquent accounts equaling approximately $200,000 in outstanding debt, and so that is a... If it's gonna be an ongoing, hopefully, it won't be an ongoing problem once the collection agency is involved, and these are attorneys as well as accountants and financial folks, and they have a whole process. But right now, there's a lot of accounts so it's overwhelming.

So this ordinance is required if there is to be no fiscal impact on the county. The state law allows a locality to engage a third party to collect the taxes and impose 20% of the delinquent fee on the person who's delinquent if they are found to be delinquent to cover that cost, and then there's no further cost. I've met and interviewed tax with TACS, it's run by Jeff Sharp who is in Treasurer's, Commissioner of Revenue's Office in Arlington. He's a lawyer, they have several lawyers, they have about 100 people in their office. They represent 80 localities including two neighboring localities, got a consensus from the Commissioner, the Treasurer, and Mr. Weakley to go forward on that. Got a copy of the contract, bled some ink on it, we negotiated it, we're ready to go.

If the board were to consider this ordinance, then we could enter into a contract with them or others and begin collecting the delinquent taxes. One of the things I might say was that of the folks that do this, one great thing that we found was that the taxes on the Bright system, which we use as well, so basically our files go directly to them and there's no downtime, no lead time, they'd be up and running in five business days. There may be some transference from the Service Authority over to the Bright system, but that is... They're used to that. So basically, there's no limit on the delinquent accounts that can be collected and there would be no fiscal impact on the county if you were to pass this ordinance. The only other thing that you could do is get an attorney, and of course, then they take... Usually, do it on a contingency basis and take somewhere between 20% and 40% depending on the complexity of the case and whether they're appealed.

Obviously with the number of accounts and the fact that there's zero impact, it's not typically thought to be useful for my... I couldn't even take that number of cases at this time because we're so far back. I don't know when these cases started in the Service Authority, but we're talking about 600 total outstanding cases. So with that, I would recommend that the board consider the ordinance allowing 20% on folks who have been found to have delinquent accounts throughout the county, its board, and commissions.

1:15:14 CATHY BINDER: Do we have any questions? Wilma? Mr. Dines, do we have any public comment?

1:15:28 Mr. Stonehill: I have one question.

1:15:29 Ms. Binder: One question. Go ahead, Mr. Stonehill.

1:15:31 Mr. Stonehill: Mr. Britton, how do these folks go about collecting these funds?

1:15:37 Mr. Britton: It's a good question. They have a... We asked that question too because there's all sorts of reasons why people might be in arrears, they didn't get the mail, they moved, they were ill, they were deployed, they're just scofflaws and they're trying to escape, and there is a progressive, thoughtful and dignified process. They reach out to them by letter, they reach out to them by telephone, the Commissioner of the Revenue and the Treasurer have already once these get assigned usually made, as far as I can see, between three and six attempts. Some of the folks are known, most are not, and there could just be oversight, there could be... They're no longer renting the apartment, someone else took over and the bill didn't get paid. But I asked the question, "How many of these out of 600 would you expect to wind up in court?" And he said one or two. So it's not as though we're just going out and filing lawsuits, that's the rarity, that's the person that you either can't find and you get a judgment against them through service or the commonwealth, or just simply will not pay or believes they do not have to pay. And so that's the process.

There's a series of contacts which are robust between eight and 12, and most of them get resolved within the first letter. I can tell you the ones that I've handled, and also Charlie, at the Commonwealth Attorney's Office has handled, we have gotten them all resolved with a single letter. But that doesn't include the 550 Service Authority accounts, and, I mean, we have no idea what's going on with them, we haven't put an optic on them at all, but... So we expect this to be handled quickly and on telephone calls and papers and through administrative process, but it is one great benefit to the Treasurer and Commissioner of the Revenue, what they get out of it is, they get out of it. They entirely turn it over and they have a process where they haven't been able to do anything. I might note that there's only one person in the treasurer's office handling this, all of it, every bit of it. And she's very considerate and diligent, but you can't follow up with hundreds and hundreds of people, it's not possible. And so that's the process. It is laid out in their procedure that they've given and the Commissioner of the Revenue and the Treasurer reviewed that as well as Mr. Weakley on the Service Authority side.

1:18:16 Mr. Stonehill: Thank you.

1:18:19 CATHY BINDER: And then just... We had nobody online for public comment. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak on this matter? Is anybody of our board members have correspondence for anybody on this matter?

1:18:30 Mr. Granger: No, ma'am.

1:18:31 CATHY BINDER: Alright. Well, I will close public comment. And do we have a motion?

1:18:37 Mr. Granger: I move to adopt the collections of delinquent accounts ordinance as presented.

1:18:42 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:18:42 CATHY BINDER: Any more discussion? All those in favor?

1:18:45 All: Aye.

1:18:47 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Thank you very much, Mr. Britton for your work on this. Next up, public hearing number two, the King George County Board of Supervisors will now hold a public hearing that has been properly advertised to receive public input regarding the proposed amendments to the courthouse security fee ordinance. I will first ask for the report from the county attorney and then open the floor for public comment. Public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker in order to afford everyone opportunity to speak. Please state your name and address before you comment. Upon completion of public comment, I will bring the matter back to the board for consideration. The board may or may not take action tonight depending on information received during public comment, Mr. Britton.

1:19:27 Mr. Britton: Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Mason, who's here brought to my attention that the general assembly had changed the amount that a locality could charge for courthouse security personnel. I think you've just been discussing that a lot. And obviously with COVID-19 and other things, from $10 to $20 per convicted criminal defendant. So what this would do is if you get charged, and you're found... That the charges are dropped, you're found not guilty, or it's what's called nolle prossed, then you don't pay anything. You don't pay any court costs or fees because you were found not guilty. But if you are convicted of a criminal offense than they would have to pay a $20 fee. It's currently set at $10.

1:20:15 CATHY BINDER: Okay, thank you. Mr. Britton. Do we have anyone online Mr. Dines?

1:20:20 Mr. Dines: No, Madam Chair.

1:20:21 CATHY BINDER: Do we have anybody in the audience who would like to give public comment? Do we have any correspondence from board members?

1:20:28 Mr. Granger: No ma'am.

1:20:29 CATHY BINDER: Alright. How about any questions on this? No questions? Alright, can we have a recommendation in motion?

1:20:34 Mr. Granger: I move to approve and adopt the amendment to the courthouse security fee ordinance as presented.

1:20:39 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:20:39 Mr. Stonehill: Second.

1:20:40 CATHY BINDER: Any more discussion? All those in favor?

1:20:42 All: Aye.

1:20:44 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Next up, public hearing number three, the King George Board of Supervisors will now hold a public hearing that has been properly advertised to receive public input regarding the proposed amendments to the police requested towing ordinance. I will first ask for the report from the county attorney. I will then open the floor up for public comment. Public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker in order to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please state your name and address before you comment. 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 information received during public comment. Mr. Britton once again.

1:21:23 Mr. Britton: Thank you Madam Chair. Some time ago, 15 years, then Captain now Sheriff Giles and I drafted up the police requested towing ordinance for King George County, which means that when law enforcement is called to wherever, usually traffic incident, but not always, and a vehicle of any kind needs to be towed, that we can create a board to regulate how that happens. And this, a different board, but the board supervisor of King George passed that ordinance, and it's time has come for some revisions. Sheriff brought to my attention and assigned one of the sergeants to it, that the board, the tow board, that's what it's called was... Needed to be rejuvenated. And you all have done that and you have made all of the appointments. You made even a subsequent appointment at the last meeting. And so you now have a robust and active board. They have met as is required by the ordinance and they have suggested that you consider the amendments, which are here.

I went over these with Sergeant Weston and with the board, he went over them with the board, and the bottom line is there needed to be some updates, there was one typo. And the main thing that is changing here is that there are eight people maximum allowed on the towing rotation at any time and they have various approvals and inspections and the sheriff's office handles all that and the tow board controls that. But there was no level funding.

So if you had a law enforcement requested towing, you might get $125 and some other person might breakdown right next to you, just say, and they may get the same tow to the same yard or to the same shop and it's $325 or more likely, a cleanup fee may be different or hazardous spill fee may be different or a heavy towing equipment may be charged very differently.

So this requires the tow board to annually review, if you look at the last paragraph in red, the fees and to make sure that they're equitable and set levelly, so that all eight people are charging the same thing for towing related services such as glass cleanup, hazardous materials, gas and oil, as well as storage fees. I can tell you from personal experience when you're in court, and there's 200 or 300 people, and you get convicted of whatever it is, DUI and they towed your car, and your towing bill was $1375 and someone else's was $325, for whatever reason, even though the guy was drunk driving, the judge tends to listen to that. And they start to get into why one person got... It just doesn't seem fair, even though we don't have any optic. So the sheriff is here. We think we all agree that similarly situated people should be treated similarly. And that's the main drive of the changes here. And I would ask that you consider this. It has been duly reviewed and all of the changes in red that have been presented to you have been approved by the tow board.

1:24:39 CATHY BINDER: Do we have any comments before I open the public comment? Do we have anybody online, Mr. Dines on this matter?

1:24:47 Mr. Dines: No, Madam Chair. 1:24:48 CATHY BINDER: Anybody in the audience that would like to speak on this? How about any board correspondence?

1:24:54 Mr. Granger: No, ma'am.

1:24:55 CATHY BINDER: No. Do we have a motion?

1:24:57 Mr. Granger: I move to approve and adopt the amendments to the police requested towing ordinance as presented.

1:25:02 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:25:03 CATHY BINDER: Any more discussion? All those in favor?

1:25:05 All: Aye.

1:25:07 CATHY BINDER: Any nay? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Thank you very much for everybody... Sheriff Giles, Mr. Mason, Mr. Britton. Thank you. Alright, up for action items. Department of...

1:25:19 Mr. Stonehill: It's Sheriff Giles, just for a second, if you would also just pass on our thanks to Sergeant Weston as well for his work on it.

1:25:27 CATHY BINDER: Sorry, I missed that, and all your staff too, and the Tow Board. Alright, next up, Department of Finance CARES Act resolution and appropriation.

1:25:40 Dr. Young: Yes, Madam Chair. And I wanna advise the Board that a copy, a hard copy, of the resolution has been set at each of your seat, and that'll be the reference document presented by the Department of Finance.

1:26:00 CATHY BINDER: Do we have any questions? Do we have a...

1:26:02 Dr. Young: Wilma, do you wanna discuss it or...

Okay.

1:26:11 Mr. Granger: Yeah, I'm fine with this.

1:26:13 CATHY BINDER: Yeah, it looks great now.

1:26:13 Dr. Young: The resolution reflects the spend plan that was approved by the Board of Supervisors at the CARES Act work session. We just need to have it adopted and we need to have the funding appropriated by category and that will authorize the county departments and schools to go ahead and move forward with spending in accordance with the board's guidance.

1:26:31 CATHY BINDER: Alright. 1:26:31 Mr. Granger: Could I ask one question?

1:26:33 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead.

1:26:33 Mr. Granger: So I know that there's an update to this 'cause there was just some minor errors or clerical errors, and I know that one of the ones I think was that the schools' MiFi, we had approved and it wasn't put in as identified, and does this add up... I haven't actually sat down and added up, does it add to 2.3 million or... Because I see we increased the schools allocation, but we did not reduce the public safety, which is kind of the catch-all, so I wanna make sure that we're not going over the amount with adding these up.

1:27:05 Dr. Young: Are you referencing the hard copy in front of you, sir?

1:27:08 Mr. Granger: I am looking at that one and then I'm also looking at the Word document that was emailed out two days ago, just ignore that completely?

1:27:17 Dr. Young: Ignore that too, ignore that. Refer to the one that's right in front of you.

1:27:21 Ms. Cupka: This one here.

1:27:21 Dr. Young: Wilma and myself had a meeting of the minds, and if you'll notice, the schools does include the funding for the child care and the MiFi purchase, and you'll also notice that the public safety payroll has been reduced to slightly over 1.4 million versus the 1.5 million that was initially captured in the original resolution.

1:27:46 CATHY BINDER: So the one we've adopted is the one we have right here, this page?

1:27:51 Dr. Young: Yeah.

1:27:52 CATHY BINDER: Okay.

1:27:52 Dr. Young: That's correct.

1:27:53 CATHY BINDER: Just clarifying. Somebody like to make a motion?

1:28:00 Mr. Granger: I'm sorry, I'm just... Okay, I would move to adopt the fiscal year 2021 CARES Act budget, in the total amount of $2,341,338 as presented.

1:28:17 Mr. Stonehill: Second.

1:28:17 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:28:19 CATHY BINDER: Let me just clarify something. So do we have to make two separate motions for the budget amendment and appropriation or just one all together? 1:28:27 Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am, make one recommendation to adopt the resolution and then a second...

1:28:35 CATHY BINDER: For the appropriation?

1:28:35 Dr. Young: To appropriate by category as presented.

1:28:38 CATHY BINDER: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. So we have a motion, properly seconded, any discussion? All those in favor?

1:28:43 All: Aye.

1:28:45 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Do we have a second motion?

1:28:51 Mr. Granger: I move to amend the fiscal year 2021 budget to include the Federal CARES Act funding and appropriate $53,406 into the CARES fund for the registrar election expenses.

1:29:06 CATHY BINDER: Alright.

1:29:07 Dr. Young: No.

1:29:08 Mr. Granger: I'm sorry, I...

1:29:08 Dr. Young: No, that's the next action item.

1:29:09 Mr. Granger: That's the next action item, I apologize.

1:29:11 Ms. Cupka: Yeah, no we need to appropriate it by category...

1:29:13 Dr. Young: By category.

1:29:14 Ms. Cupka: As detailed in the printed version...

1:29:16 Mr. Granger: My apologies.

1:29:17 Dr. Young: That's right.

1:29:17 Ms. Cupka: We're looking at right now.

1:29:18 Mr. Granger: I would like to rescind my previous motions, and we'll come to that later. Then I would like to make a motion to appropriate the funds from the CARES Act funding as presented in our printed document...

1:29:34 Mr. Bueche: By category. 1:29:35 Mr. Granger: By category. Thank you.

1:29:37 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:29:37 CATHY BINDER: Any further discussion? All those in favor?

1:29:41 All: Aye.

1:29:42 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Next up, Department of Finance, FY '20-'21 budget amendment, an appropriation of Federal CARES Act funding for registrar election expenses. Dr. Young and Ms. Ward, if...

1:29:57 Dr. Young: Wilma, can you hear us? Or Wilma, are you... Can you speak? Okay, not a problem. As the board is aware, we had informed you during the CARES Act work session that Commissioner of Revenue had received slightly over $53,000 and with this own CARES Act funding from the State Department of Elections, and now we need to amend the fiscal year '20- '21 budget and appropriate that funding for the Commissioner... I'm sorry, for the registrar's use. I'm sorry, I'm trying to find the board report now. So we'd like to recommend that the board amends the fiscal year 2021 budget in accordance with the amount of the grant and appropriate those funds for the registrar election expenses.

1:31:02 CATHY BINDER: Alright, so that's two separate motions. So...

1:31:08 Mr. Bueche: No, you can amend...

1:31:08 CATHY BINDER: You could do one.

1:31:09 Mr. Bueche: You can amend and appropriate.

1:31:09 Dr.Young: Just doing one.

1:31:10 Mr. Granger: Alright.

1:31:10 Mr. Bueche: I'm just...

1:31:11 Dr. Young: I'm sorry.

1:31:11 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead.

1:31:11 Mr. Granger: I move to amend the fiscal year '20-'21 budget to include the Federal CARES Act funding and appropriate $53,406 into the CARES fund for the registrar's election expenses.

1:31:21 Mr. Bueche: Second. 1:31:22 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

1:31:25 All: Aye.

1:31:26 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Next up, Department of Finance, amend and appropriate revenue expenditures for $103,362 in the FY 2019-2020 King George County operating budget, under Department of Social Services, category, public assistance, line, adoption subsidy.

1:31:49 Dr. Young: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. This is just basic housekeeping. This happens very commonly with the DSS budget, strictly because those expenditures and revenues are based off of a volatile population, depends on people in need... One year and we try to predict that. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong depending on how many people come into the county, people move out of the county. Well, this year, we had budgeted $160,000 for the fiscal year 2019-20 budget. However, during fiscal year '20, we actually spent $263,362. Actual revenue and expenditures are determined at the end of the year once the numbers of residents needing services are determined. This line item budget is 100% reimbursement of state. So we'd recommend that the board amend and appropriate fiscal year '19-'20 budget $403,362 as presented.

1:32:46 Mr. Granger: So moved.

1:32:48 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:32:49 CATHY BINDER: Any further discussion? All those in favor?

1:32:52 All: Aye.

1:32:52 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Next up. Department of Finance amend and appropriate revenue and expenditures for $165,701 in the FY 2019-2020 King George County operating budget under the Department of Tourism from the transient occupancy taxes.

1:33:13 Dr. Young: Again, more housekeeping. We had a pretty detailed discussion regarding the tourism transient occupancy tax and it being a consumption tax. We had budgeted $92,000. However, we were able to receive $276,170 with 60% of the share for tourism being $165,701. So again, we'd recommend that the board amend and appropriate the fiscal year '19-'20 budget for $165,701 as presented.

1:33:46 Mr. Granger: So moved.

1:33:47 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:33:48 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

1:33:50 All: Aye. 1:33:51 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Next up, Department of Economic Development and Tourism. Resolution of support of SMART SCALE projects. Mr. Minor.

1:34:13 Mr. Minor: Hello, okay. Yes, I'm here to present the... Or not present, but give a report for the submission of the SMART SCALE projects. After discussing, our transportation needs with VDOT, VDOT representatives and the board, the following projects were recommened for SMART SCALE FY '20-'22. Number one, US 301 and Route 206 quadrant intersection. Number two, US 301 and route 205 median U-turn intersection. Number three, US 301 in Port Conway Lane extension. And number four, Route 206, Route 610 Indiantown Road roundabout intersection. Recommended action, I recommend that the Board authorize the county administrator to submit US 301 and route 206 quadrant intersection, US 301 and route 206 median U-turn intersection, US 301 in Port Conway Lane extension, and route 206, route 610 Indiantown Road roundabout intersection to the SMART SCALE system for VDOT and the CDBs consideration. And then what you should find is an attachment for the SMART SCALE projects and board of supervisors resolution of support.

1:35:23 CATHY BINDER: Do we have any questions for Mr. Minor?

1:35:25 Mr. Granger: I don't have any questions. I know we discussed this, I think, at the beginning of this calendar year roughly.

1:35:30 Mr. Minor: Yeah.

1:35:31 Mr. Granger: Does everyone still feel the same way about all these projects?

1:35:35 Mr. Stonehill: I do.

1:35:36 Ms. Cupka: May I...

1:35:36 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead, Ms. Cupka.

1:35:37 Ms. Cupka: So the smart portal application deadline was yesterday, right, Mr. Minor?

1:35:43 Mr. Minor: Yes.

1:35:43 Ms. Cupka: And GWRC has already approved... Adopted and approved the resolution of support for these four projects. So this is really a formality so that we the locality provide the resolution of support necessary for them to add to the portal, so they can check a box and get more points. So we really can't, yeah.

1:36:08 CATHY BINDER: This is housekeeping.

1:36:08 Mr. Granger: Thank you for that clarification. 1:36:09 CATHY BINDER: Yeah. Alright, do we have a motion?

1:36:13 Mr. Granger: So moved as Mr. Bryan Minor said.

1:36:15 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:36:15 CATHY BINDER: Any further discussion? All those in favor?

1:36:19 All: Aye.

1:36:20 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Minor. We'll see you in a few minutes.

1:36:25 Mr. Minor: Yup, thank you.

1:36:26 CATHY BINDER: County administration middle school roof repair. Dr. Young.

1:36:32 Dr. Young: Thank you, Madam Chair. In 2016, the county conducted a partial repair of the King George Middle School roof. The plan was to replace the second half of the roof after the middle school expansion project was completed. However, we have kind of realized that the second half of the roof is not yet ready to be replaced. Instead, the county engineer recommends that the county replace 36 roof pipe boots that have deteriorated and are subject to leakage. Once the pipe boots are replaced, the King George Middle School roof will be water tight and the roof will not need to be replaced for several years. The price to replace the roof pipes is $3350. I recommend that the board of supervisors appropriate $3350 of contingency funds to the King George Middle School roof repair and direct the county administrators to replace the 36 roof pipe boots.

1:37:17 Mr. Bueche: So moved.

1:37:18 Mr. Granger: Second.

1:37:19 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion?

1:37:21 Ms. Cupka: I have a question.

1:37:22 Ms. Binder: Go ahead.

1:37:24 Ms. Cupka: Dr. Young... And I don't know if you know the answer to this, or if you can refer this to engineering staff or school board maintenance. Do the schools have a maintenance plan for their facilities? I know this is a little bit off topic, but do they... For roof... I work for a company where we do what's called roof maintenance not for a school. I'm not trying to solicit anything like that. We do just residential stuff, but to give you an example, homeowners can call and we do what's called a roof maintenance where every year, we come out for a set fee a couple of hundred dollars and come out and inspect the roof. Do the schools have maintenance staff or general properties county staff? Do we have people on staff that do that or are qualified to do that and can do that? Or do we need to, at some point down the road, have a conversation and explore maintenance contracts for the schools? Because we have, in the past, had a history of school facilities that have deteriorated and we have some right now that we can't really do much with. So I was just curious.

1:38:43 Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am. I am aware of that they have a maintenance department. I don't know how robust it is. But I would assume just our general properties maintenance department, they don't have that expertise in-house for those specializations like roof inspections and roof maintenance, and whether they have maintenance contracts in place, that's something I'd have to talk to the school superintendent about. Or we're having a joint board meeting coming up, that could be a topic that we could add onto the agenda as well. But I'm not exactly certain if they do or they don't. I would assume they that have maintenance contracts, but I don't know.

1:39:22 Ms. Cupka: Would you mind exploring that for us, please, and reporting back at some point? I don't know that it needs to be next week when we do our school's CARES Act Joint Work Session, but at some point, if you could determine what the status is of that or how that's handled, I would appreciate it.

1:39:39 Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am.

1:39:40 Ms. Cupka: Thank you.

1:39:40 CATHY BINDER: And Mr. Stonehill, I know, I just had to make a point, Dr. Young, you know I've been really pushing that since last year when I had my infrastructure report that I don't think we have enough... We don't do that enough. And I was gonna bring it up at the work session with the school board members that we really need to have that. I know I've brought this up before, but the grade school that I went to, they actually have someone who comes in once a year in the summer and assesses their building for any project needs. Like, "How many years does the roof have? Is there any cracks in the foundation?" So that they can budget it properly and fix it. And I don't know if we've done that in the past. It might be because we were afraid of the cost, but it is vitally important, especially, from what I understand with the old middle school, part of it is we didn't do a lot of maintenance on that roof and flat roofs have to have lots of maintenance and upkeep, and I might be wrong on that, but it's really something... We have these buildings that need to be maintained properly and have plans in place.

1:40:36 Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am.

1:40:37 CATHY BINDER: And I know I've brought that up before.

1:40:38 Dr. Young: Yes, Madam Chair.

1:40:40 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Stonehill?

1:40:42 Mr. Stonehill: I was just gonna also say that I was contacted by somebody and they said that they're not doing any maintenance on the roof, and that's one of major problems that is costing us all to do. It's just as simple as cleaning gutters, you don't really need anybody to go up there. But spring and fall, when these gutters get clogged up, especially in the fall, and that's pretty simple. And it's backing up, water's coming down into these buildings, and I was told that they're just not doing it. That's a really simple maintenance thing, so that's something to add to that list.

1:41:19 Dr. Young: Yes, sir.

1:41:20 CATHY BINDER: That was my understanding on the old middle school, specifically, is that that was not done. And so that's why we're all concerned about it. Thank you, Dr. Young, for...

1:41:30 Mr. Bueche: Well, one thing to consider is we can have the discussion with the school board about a maintenance plan and agreement, but ultimately, it's the school board's responsibility. Now, we do have the power of the purse. We control what we allocate to them, and this is when we have to look at whenever the schools or future school board down the road comes up and says, "We need this taken care of," or, "We need this taken care of." That's where you have the influence to make sure that maintenance is being done and they have some kind of maintenance plan. Aside from that, they're an independently elected body and they could tell us to pack sand if they want. I don't think they will, but technically they can. So that's something that we need to consider going down the road, is when they come in with these projects, or they want to do X, Y, or Z, we need to say, "Are you accounting for maintenance?" Or, "What are the projected costs for that? What's your plan for that?" That's the only opportunity we have to address that. After that, that belongs to the school board, so. Thank you.

1:42:30 CATHY BINDER: My only clarification question on that, and this might be a question for Mr. Britton, is, the buildings that the county actually owns as opposed to the school board, we would possibly have control over the maintenance of the facility, and that's something that...

1:42:44 Mr. Britton: Well, that's a complicated question for buildings that are being used by the school board because even if the county is the owner of the building, they're under, by law, they're under the dominion and control of the elected school board. For the school board... For the buildings that are no longer being used, such as the old middle school, I don't know, but it doesn't look like it's being used, it wasn't when I was last there. Or very Ralph Bunche, for instance, which are owned by the county, those are under the complete control. But there is, or there was at least, leasing in place as well, so those would dictate by contract. But in point of fact, the school board is in control of property used by the school board by law.

1:43:37 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Mr. Britton, I just wanted clarification on that. Thank you. All right, where... Let me just... Yep. Any further discussion? All those in favor?

1:43:48 All: Aye.

1:43:51 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Next up, County Administration, appointments to the Tourism Advisory Committee.

1:44:00 Dr. Young: Thank you, Madam Chair. The terms for all the members of the Tourism Advisory Committee are set to expire on August 31st, 2020. Members of the committee have been asked if they desire to serve another term, or if they desire to step down from the committee. The responses from each member have been captured on the roster attached to this report. I'd recommend that the Board of Supervisors reappoint the volunteers who desire to serve another term on the Tourism Advisory Committee, and seek citizens to replace the representatives for the agricultural, chamber of commerce, and arts categories.

1:44:31 CATHY BINDER: I have one discussion on this, and I was gonna bring this up, Mr. Britton and Dr. Young know I'm gonna bring this up, is we have talked in the past on whether, number one, we need so many people on the Tourism Committee. Number two, whether we need a Tourism Committee, whether we can just appoint a tourism director. And I understand under law we could do either or. To me, even when we went back and revised it on our first year, Mr. Bush, I thought there was way too many people, and that we didn't have to have somebody for every category, we could have five people and these are the categories they can come from. So I want us to know if my colleagues would be... And we might have to do this at a work session 'cause I remember Mr. Britton had said that whether we wanted to keep the Tourism Committee, pare it down, what were your thoughts, feelings?

1:45:23 Ms. Cupka: May I?

1:45:23 CATHY BINDER: Mm-hmm.

1:45:24 Ms. Cupka: Thank you, Madam Chair. So actually, I would be in favor of keeping the Tourism Committee. I feel it does provide the mechanism by which we receive advice from the tourism providers. So I feel it's a tool, I hate to say... To refer to them as a tool, but it's a tool, it's the means by which we consult them and receive their input. Because if we don't have it at all then our staff is left to have to contact various tourism providers to say that they contacted and consulted with various tourism providers before they bring us stuff to decide how to spend the money from the tourism fund. So I myself would like to keep it. I don't think we need as many people. I feel like we probably could drop two people from the list.

I do have one person, I would like you all to consider appointing tonight that I think would make a nice addition, but I also feel like for what they do, and I feel like in the past, they maybe have gone a little bit beyond the scope of their charter. So if we have a joint work session, which we're gonna talk about later in the county administrator's report, I think that if we sit down with them and we give everybody a copy of the charter, we remind them the section of limited authority. And I'm not gonna read it, but basically the gist is it's advisory only, and they're not responsible for planning and the be-all and the end-all. That's Mr. Minor's department, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. So I feel if we can get this... Some of the ones that have been on there for a while, and then maybe this new person, we can have a joint meeting, we can talk about expectations, talk about where we think they need to be and move forward. And I also don't think they need to meet every month.

And I've reviewed the charter a couple of times. I cannot find anywhere in the charter where it requires that they must meet every month. I feel like every other month or maybe even quarterly, because really what we're asking them to do is review the grant, the tourism grant applications that come in and they don't really come in all that often. So maybe we'd have the folks actually be able to attend the meetings more regularly if they weren't every single month, if they weren't as frequent, maybe quarterly, like I said. But that being said, and those are my own personal opinions based on having worked in the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and worked with the Tourism Committee, I would like to hear if Mr. Minor has any thoughts? I don't mean to put you on the spot, sir, but this would have an impact on your department.

1:48:39 Mr. Minor: So the way I see it, I could work either/or, whether I have a TAC or whether I don't. I'm put here to do a job. So if you guys think it's best to pursue with a TAC, that's the way I'll operate. But also I think I also agree with the quarterly meetings, we don't get applications that often, and that's also a thing that my department has to generate as well. We have to generate activity, we have to get people thinking about putting together events for the county. But quarterly would probably work best, that would give people a chance to essentially plan out their events and give them time to gather things together for the spring, gather things for the fall, for the summer, for the winter, so to help them plan out. I do agree with the number of members. I think right now we're missing three appointments and that goes pretty well. But I think as of right now, we have five people participating, which leaves the voting at four, so we're dead even right now. So I think adding another person having five and the base liaison would probably be perfect. But those are my thoughts as of right now.

1:49:48 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Mr. Minor. Mr. Bueche?

1:49:50 Mr. Bueche: So I like what Ms. Cupka suggested. I would be amenable to approving the slate of names that was provided tonight and looking at quarterly meetings. And then if someone wants to add somebody else, like Ms. Cupka talked about earlier, we could do that and then schedule that work session where we can go over what their responsibilities are and the lanes we want them in because they are advisory and they are appointees. And after that meeting, we may have people that wanna serve, we may have people that don't want to, because it's voluntary. And then we can set the policy at that meeting, and adjust any charter issues we have to to set an appropriate quorum for you to be able to get the results you need. So that's where I'm at. If y'all are amenable, I'd like to approve the slate of names, and then if there are any other appointees.

1:50:42 CATHY BINDER: Yeah, my only thing, that's why I brought it up now, 'cause we had a lot of confusion on what the Tourism Committee was in the charter and everything. And this is just cleaning it up so that we have the work session, we could figure out what's the best path forward, and now is the time to do it because their appointments are up. And so that's why I did this to make sure that... 'Cause we've all talked about it, at least those of us who are on the board, been on the board a little while. So first up, Mr. Stonehill.

1:51:10 Mr. Stonehill: I was just saying, I think we need to keep it. We could thin it out a little bit, but these are all experts in their field. Having all these people come together quarterly getting to get ideas together and saying, "How can we build this?" They know a whole lot more than we do. And I don't wanna put all that on to Mr. Minor's plate, and he already has a whole lot to do over there. But I definitely say... I would agree with quarterly, maybe thinning it out a little bit. And like Mr. Bush said after we have a joint meeting with them, let's see who stays and who goes? 1:51:49 CATHY BINDER: Alright, Ms. Cupka, would you like to make your appointment first?

1:51:53 Ms. Cupka: Yes. So I did have Dr. Young circulate an email to all of you, earlier today. I would move to appoint Mr. David Hall of Wellington Farms, he is a vendor at King George Farmer's Market, and I think would make a great addition to the Tourism Advisory Committee.

1:52:15 Mr. Stonehill: Seconded.

1:52:16 CATHY BINDER: Any other discussion?

1:52:17 Mr. Bueche: So are we adding him to the slate?

1:52:20 CATHY BINDER: Right, and then I'm gonna do the slate.

1:52:21 Mr. Bueche: And then we're gonna...

1:52:22 Ms. Cupka: She's gonna do it...

1:52:22 Mr. Bueche: Okay.

1:52:23 Ms. Cupka: Separately.

1:52:23 CATHY BINDER: I'm just doing him separately because he would be a new member of the board, and then I'll do the slate of names we were given. So we have a motion, second. Any discussion? All those in favor?

1:52:34 All: Aye.

1:52:35 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Next motion for the slate of names that was presented in our packet.

1:52:46 Mr. Bueche: I move to approve the appointments, slate, from the Tourism Advisor... Or to the Tourism Advisory Committee as presented.

1:52:55 CATHY BINDER: Ms. Cupka, can you read the names? Since you...

1:52:57 Ms. Cupka: Friendly amendment. May I read the names?

1:53:00 CATHY BINDER: Yes.

1:53:00 Mr. Bueche: Yes, ma'am.

1:53:00 Ms. Cupka: So it's very clear. There's no misunderstanding. So that would be Ms. Dee Strauss, Mr. Bob Baird, Mr. Warren Veazey, Mr. Dave Zabelsky. Those four would be voting members, in addition to Mr. Hall, that was just appointed. And non-voting member Jeron Hayes. 1:53:19 CATHY BINDER: That's the base liaison?

1:53:21 Ms. Cupka: Mm-hmm.

1:53:21 CATHY BINDER: Alright, so we have a motion. Alright...

1:53:23 Mr. Granger: Second.

1:53:24 CATHY BINDER: Any further discussion? All those in favor?

1:53:27 All: Aye.

1:53:28 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye, motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Minor also.

1:53:36 Mr. Minor: Thank you.

1:53:36 CATHY BINDER: I'll move this. Alright, we're next up to discussion items. Waiver request for the FBRA.

1:53:50 Dr. Young: The County Golf Cart Ordinance requires that the homeowners association of each golf cart community be held responsible for conducting annual safety inspections for its residents carts. I have received correspondence from Michael Bennett, the president of The Fairview Beach Residents Association or FBRA. According to Mr. Bennett, the FBRA would like to request that the annual requirement to be waived this year, considering the current COVID-19 pandemic. I would recommend that the Board of Supervisors grant the FBRA's request to waive the annual golf cart inspection.

1:54:22 Mr. Granger: So moved.

1:54:24 CATHY BINDER: Any second? I see...

1:54:27 Mr. Bueche: Second.

1:54:29 CATHY BINDER: Is there any discussion? Mr. Bush.

1:54:30 Mr. Bueche: Yes ma'am, thank you. We had a town hall, and Ms. Cupka was there, along with Sheriff Giles. And we spoke to the residents, there were issues with people getting cited for being in violation, but they haven't been able to get these things done because no one was coming out to be able to get the inspections done like they had previously. So they asked us what we could do, and talking with Ms. Cupka and Sheriff Giles, we said submit a request to the county, because it is an ordinance, it lines up with the Golf Cart Ordinance that the county has, and it's within our purview to where we can amend it or alleviate it for them for this year, for those circumstances. So that's where this came from. 1:55:21 CATHY BINDER: Thank you. Any more discussion?

1:55:24 Ms. Cupka: I just would note, the box says legal review checked is complete, is that...

1:55:28 Mr. Britton: No, that's incorrect.

1:55:30 Ms. Cupka: Because that would be my question of our County Attorney. Are we able to do this or not?

1:55:36 Mr. Britton: No, I... It... It's an ordinance, it requires a public hearing to amend an ordinance. The only thing that you could do is request that the Sheriff's Office, in their discretion, not enforce it, but if you're talking about there's no... And to my knowledge, there's no waiver of an ordinance without a... That would be like the taxing authority, like the treasurer just waving taxes, just because of COVID-19. In fact, we looked at that and we delayed them and we set the rate down on vehicle taxes to 0.001 for disabled folks, or veterans, or what have you, because there's no waiver, but in my judgment, this is an ordinance amendment, which would require a public hearing. The board could resolve to request that the Sheriff's Office and the State Police not enforce it as a result of a hardship, but that would be a law enforcement decision, that's certainly in their discretion. I mean, police officers, law enforcement officers don't enforce laws all the time. Drive down the wind, some trash comes out of a window, somebody says, "I'm really sorry, my two-year-old threw the McDonald's bag out the window." That's littering, but they don't enforce it. So that's all that you could do without a public hearing.

1:57:01 Mr. Granger: I would like to make a motion to rescind my previous motion to adopt it as presented then.

1:57:07 Mr. Bueche: And I'd like, as discussion, I would like to maybe entertain having the public hearing to actually amend this ordinance at our next meeting, because Sheriff Giles was very... He made himself available to talk to the people out there, and it's not just Fairview Beach Residents Association, it's Potomac Landing, Potomac Overlook, it's that whole area. And people wanna be in compliance with the rules. Saying let's not enforce it, I get it, but I would rather make it clean. I don't wanna put the sheriff in that situation, especially after he was there and talking to everybody and said, "Look, right now we're enforcing the law." We can relax it, but at the end of the day, they have a job to do, and if a deputy cites somebody because they're enforcing an ordinance, well, he's doing his job or she's doing this job, so in my opinion, I would like to... Madam Chair, if we can, I'd like to put a... Or schedule a public hearing, to where we can amend the ordinance, and in the interim, until that ordinance can be amended, if we could get a resolution or something from the Board of Supervisors requesting the sheriff to see if he can be lenient on it until we have this public hearing, I'd appreciate it.

1:58:30 CATHY BINDER: What is the... Say of my board?

1:58:36 Dr. Young: I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I'm having a discussion with Matt as we speak...

1:58:38 CATHY BINDER: That's okay. 1:58:39 Dr. Young: I'm asking him, since the county is under a declaration of emergency, and obviously some laws are suspended under declarations of emergency...

1:58:48 CATHY BINDER: So, this might be one of them that...

1:58:50 Dr. Young: If this does not apply.

1:58:52 CATHY BINDER: How about this, can we have Dr. Young, Mr. Britton look into it. And we can bring it back up at the next meeting?

1:59:00 Mr. Britton: Yes, that might be a Dillon's rule issue as well. It's in the code under declaration of emergency, that you can suspend those things unnecessary for public procurement. That's why we have that in our local emergency, whether or not... It obviously, there's a good reason for it. It's been articulated, I just don't know whether it's legal, 'cause we're a Dillon's rule state. I would note that there was quite a bit of discussion many years ago when we passed this ordinance. I don't believe, certainly under the enabling statute, there's even a requirement for inspections. There may be under 46.2, the Motor Vehicle Code, I could get with the sheriff, but there was a lot, we didn't have any... And Jeff Stone, he'll probably remember this, we didn't have any golf carts on the road at that time.

So, Fairview Beach was the only area where it was allowed. And it's qualifying. It's 25 miles an hour or 35 miles an hour, I'm going back a long time in my memory, but one of the things that was very concerning for the board at that time was what if you have a golf cart with a bunch of kids in it, driven by a 16-year-old with a driver's license. And it's not... And the wheel comes off. And a tractor trailer runs over him from behind, even at 25 miles an hour. So the inspection was required to make sure that they were fit. I'm not saying that you should take that out, but I'm saying that it was something that was added. Because under state code, you have to follow these laws, but you can make it more restrictive than state law, but not less restrictive. In other words, you can't put a golf cart on I-95. You can only do a 25, 35 crossing certain roads that are not faster than 35. So, that was added.

So, it isn't something that's required to my knowledge by state code, which you couldn't waive to begin with. So, it is within your... For instance, you couldn't say you can drive a golf cart at night without lights, 'cause that's in the state code. That's not ability to be amended. So, I think this is amendable. And you can make that amendment and you would have to pick a date to waive the inspections through 2021 or whatever, because of COVID-19, or just knock the inspections out entirely.

2:01:15 CATHY BINDER: So my question, I remember we'll get more background information, bring it up in the next board meeting. Mr. Bueche?

2:01:21 Mr. Bueche: Well, I mean it's the summer. And they're driving these golf carts. I'd like to get this done as soon as possible. We're not meeting 'til September again. And I appreciate us wanting the thoroughness, but I'd like to schedule a public hearing to... Amend the ordinance to take this out and to a time, an undefined time, if it's not required. We don't have to put a deadline. We just strike it. And then after COVID, and once we're back under normal operations, we can look at reinstating it, but as of right now, whatever we have to do to allow our citizens to be able to operate their golf carts in these communities legally. They're asking us saying, "We don't wanna break the law. We wanna be in compliance. Can you please help us out?" And I'd like to be able to do that.

2:02:17 CATHY BINDER: Two questions, I know we have a lot on our plate up until our next board meeting. Can we add it to one of our work sessions that's already scheduled, or just go to September, our September 1st meeting?

2:02:28 Mr. Britton: For me, this is not a lot of heavy lifting. If you wanted to schedule a public hearing, I can be ready at the public hearing, too, with everything that you need.

2:02:38 CATHY BINDER: Okay.

2:02:38 Ms. Cupka: So, but notice requirement is 14 days, right, so...

2:02:42 Mr. Britton: Right, but that whatever the... Yes, that is correct.

2:02:45 Ms. Cupka: That is pretty close to September 1st.

2:02:49 CATHY BINDER: I just say we go September 1st.

2:02:52 Ms. Cupka: I mean it's knock out the weekends, and it's 14 days. So...

2:02:57 CATHY BINDER: I would suggest September 1st to put it on the agenda for September. Okay. Especially since our noticing requirements, that's why I was trying to...

2:03:07 Mr. Granger: You said September 1st?

2:03:08 CATHY BINDER: Yeah, that's our next meeting.

2:03:09 Mr. Granger: Yeah, that's exactly 14 days.

2:03:12 CATHY BINDER: So, that... There we go.

2:03:14 Mr. Granger: But we need to have it out like now.

2:03:16 CATHY BINDER: Yeah.

2:03:18 Mr. Granger: Like today. It's just not... I don't think that's gonna be if people opt-in...

2:03:22 CATHY BINDER: So it would have to be our second meeting in September. Unless we had a separate meeting. Alright, so our second...

2:03:29 Mr. Bueche: I'm fine with that. But will my colleagues be willing to get a consensus? And if Dr. Young could reach out to the Sheriff formally requesting leniency on a county ordinance due to COVID, requested by consensus of the board. Can we do that?

2:03:51 Mr. Granger: Agreed.

2:03:52 CATHY BINDER: Mr. Britton is that... Okay. Yeah. I have no problem with that. Ms. Cupka? Mr. Stonehill? Okay. Agree to that.

2:03:58 Mr. Bueche: Thank you.

2:04:00 CATHY BINDER: And then, we will put it on the second meeting in September.

Before the county administrator's report, chair privilege, I missed one thing in my board report. I know Mr. Britton and our Director of Community Development are looking at ordinances and everything. And we discusses this Mr. Britton. I was gonna make a request to my colleagues. I know Mr. Granger has a couple in his district, and a couple of you have also reached out to me of different... Especially the sign ordinance with the digital signs. And it's length of putting in by our next meeting. Any when... Go over the ordinances and look if there's anything you want them to consider looking at when they go over the revision of the ordinances of the county. So, by September 1st, can you guys just look over our ordinances. If you need a copy, we can get one of those, but 'cause I know all of us... I even have one of the things we would like to look at so that they have some direction and could get more information. Go ahead Dr. Young.

2:05:08 Dr. Young: Okay. So, I just wanna make sure I'm clear... The board is gonna collect a laundry list of what concerns they have, and that's gonna be provided to the staff September 1st with the expectation that community development and the staff will respond on September 15.

2:05:25 CATHY BINDER: No, so Mr. Britton, I'll just clarify, I know you and Mr. Hudson have been looking at some of them and we'll continue to updating the ordinances, so this is just adding. I know we had a conversation of it, so that you're aware of things that we were looking to amend, fix, clarify, corrected...

2:05:43 Mr. Britton: Yes, and this is specifically with respect to community development...

2:05:47 CATHY BINDER: Correct. In the ordinances?

2:05:49 Mr. Britton: Yes, that's correct. We've been looking at updates, you just did one tonight in fact for payment of tax or you... Excuse me, I got confused. We are [2:06:00] ____ one of the Planning Commission at the next planning commission for that if you apply for a permit, you gotta pay your back taxes on that particular parcel of land, so we're updating as they come. And I think that Dr. Young is working on a global revision as well, so even if we didn't get them serially one after another, the concerns of the board could be brought into the global assessment.

2:06:23 CATHY BINDER: Yeah, 'cause I know all of us, Mr. Granger, you've given me... Of what... We've had community members that have asked, the sign ordinance always comes up, I had one about people who have property that they've had for hundreds of years, some of them haven't, and they have issues with zoning because of new ordinance that came in after the property.

2:06:43 CATHY BINDER: So I just thought it would give a list, they could look at them, some might not be able to be workable, but at least we're answering our constituents and we're having it all looked at because many people complain about our ordinances, and we're actually gonna get a hard look at them now, finally.

2:07:00 Mr. Bueche: I appreciate that. That's something I really wanna look at.

2:07:03 CATHY BINDER: So by September 1st, everybody okay with that?

[background conversation]

2:07:06 Mr. Bueche: I got ordinances I wanna get rid of...

2:07:13 CATHY BINDER: Well, that too, I mean it's just... We've all looked at it, we've all had people come and express to us, Mr. Butler came in and talked about the sign ordinances, the amounts of time, the neon signs can go. I mean, I know Mr. Granger has had some, Ms. Cupka, Mr. Stonehill, I'm sure has had people, so we'd just lay it down so they have it. Absent correction.

2:07:32 Mr. Bueche: We're a little too restrictive in some of our ordinances, and we need to exercise a little more personal property rights.

2:07:38 CATHY BINDER: And I apologize, I meant to put this at the end of my board report, but I forgot that one little thing 'cause I didn't write it down, but thank you. And Dr. Young, does that answer your question?

2:07:47 Dr. Young: Yes madam chair.

2:07:48 CATHY BINDER: Okay. Mr. Bueche. Alright, county administrator's report.

2:07:55 Dr. Young: First madam chair, I need to talk to you all about the Tourism Advisor Committee work session. You all requested, the TAC provide the board dates of their availability, and the TAC is available September 17th or September 24th, with a start time at 5:30 PM or 6:30 PM, if that works with all of you all's calendars.

2:08:18 CATHY BINDER: Either day at 5:30 is fine with me. What does... So we go for the 17th?

2:08:25 Mr. Bueche: I'm good with 5:30 on either date.

2:08:27 Mr. Granger: 17th is fine with me.

2:08:28 CATHY BINDER: Ms. Cupka and Mr. Stonehill? Mr Stonehill 17th fine? I guess it'll be 17th at 5:30. Could you send out an invite as you always do?

2:08:44 Dr. Young: Yes, madam chair.

2:08:45 CATHY BINDER: Thank you.

2:08:46 Mr. Granger: Did we say 5:30 or 6:30?

2:08:48 Mr. Bueche: 5:30.

2:08:50 CATHY BINDER: 5:30.

2:08:50 Mr. Granger: Okay, thank you.

2:09:10 CATHY BINDER: Ready Dr. Young?

2:09:11 Dr. Young: Yes madam chair. County administrators report, I received correspondence from Ms. Anne Bueche, who was the chair of the CPMT. The CPMT is writing to request that the board nominate with Melanie Cobb to the Comprehensive Policy and Management Team as the Department of Social Services Representative.

2:09:34 CATHY BINDER: Do we have a motion?

2:09:36 Mr. Granger: So moved.

2:09:38 CATHY BINDER: So moved.

2:09:38 Ms. Cupka: Second.

2:09:38 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

2:09:40 All: Aye.

2:09:42 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair vote aye. Motion carries.

2:09:54 Dr. Young: Second, I received correspondence from the school board, they responded to the board's request for a joint meeting to discuss the CARES funding, they agreed to the boards offer to meet on August 26th, and I believe that the board stated that you all desired time of 6:30 PM? Correct? Okay, well, then, I would like to request that board authorize the county staff to advertise a special meeting, a joint meeting of the school board and board of supervisors.

2:10:24 Mr. Granger: So moved.

2:10:25 Mr. Bueche: Second.

2:10:26 Ms. Cupka: Did you say... I'm sorry. 2:10:27 CATHY BINDER: Go ahead.

2:10:30 Ms. Cupka: Madam chair may I? Did you say the 26th?

2:10:32 Dr. Young: Yes, ma'am.

2:10:33 Ms. Cupka: Of August?

2:10:33 Dr. Young: Yes Ma'am.

2:10:34 Ms. Cupka: So do we have to do 14-day notice for that? Are you calling it a special meeting or are you calling a work session?

2:10:42 Dr. Young: Work Session.

2:10:43 Mr. Britton: Work sessions are regular meetings of the board, whatever the normal requirement is, the only time that you waive requirements is under a special emergency meeting.

2:11:02 Mr. Bueche: Are we under an emergency?

2:11:07 CATHY BINDER: It is about CARES Act funding, but that might be splitting hairs as they may say.

2:11:13 Mr. Britton: Well, you can declare an emergency meeting and waive the public hearing requirement, but you'd have to do it as an emergency meeting...

2:11:23 CATHY BINDER: What would be 14 days? That would be... Yeah, it'd have to be in September. Correct?

Well they go back to school August 31st, but...

2:11:38 Dr. Young: I'd recommend that we just... I would talk with them... If the board will so authorize, I would ask that I could coordinate with Dr. Benson, but you authorize us to advertise this as an emergency meeting of the school board and the board of supervisors, and consideration of the fact that we're so close to school starting, we gotta get this money.

2:11:56 Mr. Bueche: I would say that it fits the definitive line of an emergency meeting because it's about procurement, which is what our Emergency Declaration is about, so for meeting with the school board, and this is to determine what is being funded through CARES Act funding, like their PPE and the other requests that they have in there in order for them to be able to open the schools, and if they would have to wait on the procurement of those items, I think this absolutely fits within the lines of our our emergency ordinance.

2:12:28 Ms. Cupka: I'm comfortable moving forward. Under that, absolutely. So... 2:12:37 Mr. Granger: Do we need to make an amendment to the motion to say that it's an emergency meeting or our motion and second still standards, okay?

2:12:46 Mr. Britton: I can't recall what the language of the...

2:12:49 CATHY BINDER: We need to amend the motion.

2:12:50 Mr. Britton: Motion was.

2:12:50 Dr. Young: I'd recommend that it be a minute to reflect the fact on the record that it's an emergency meeting of the...

2:12:56 Mr. Granger: Okay, I'd like to make an amendment to my motion to declare that it is an emergency meeting with the school board to discuss the CARES Act funding.

2:13:05 Mr. Bueche: Second.

2:13:06 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

2:13:08 All: Aye.

2:13:10 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Dr. Young.

2:13:12 Dr. Young: Thank you madam chair. On July 14, 2020. The board of supervisors re- declared a local state of emergency that is set to expire today, I would like to recommend that the board re-declare the local emergency as presented as an attachment to this report.

2:13:29 Mr. Granger: So moved.

2:13:33 Ms. Cupka: Second.

2:13:33 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

2:13:36 All: Aye.

2:13:38 CATHY BINDER: Any nays? Chair votes aye. Motion carries.

2:13:39 Dr. Young: Madam chair that concludes my report.

2:13:43 CATHY BINDER: Thank you, Dr. Young. Do we have a motion for adjournment?

2:13:46 Mr. Granger: Move to adjourn until August 19, at 6:30 PM in the King George High School auditorium.

2:13:54 Mr. Bueche: Second. 2:13:55 CATHY BINDER: Any discussion? All those in favor?

2:13:57 All: Aye.

2:14:00 CATHY BINDER: Chair votes aye. Motion carries. Goodnight everyone, the meeting is adjourned.