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.