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HomeMy Public PortalAbout2011_tcwsmin0725Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Council Chambers, 25 West Market Street, 7:30 p.m. Mayor Kristen Umstattd presiding. Council Members Present: David S. Butler, Thomas S. Dunn, II, Katie Sheldon Hammler, Ken Reid, Kevin D. Wright and Mayor Kristen Umstattd. Council Members Absent: Council Member Martinez. Council Member Dunn arrived at 7:39 p.m. Staff Present: Town Manager John Wells, Deputy Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Jeanette Irby, Director of Finance Norm Butts, Chief of Police Joe Price, Deputy Director of Planning and Zoning Brian Boucher, Zoning Administrator Chris Murphy, and Clerk of Council Lee Ann Green AGENDA ITEMS 1. Work Session Items for Discussion a. Zoning Ordinance Change Residential Parking in the H -1 Chris Murphy: I am here this evening to speak to you about the initiated residential parking in the B -1 zoning district. Remember that in response to a downtown property owner's request that the Town Council consider amending the residential parking requirements in the downtown. In other words, the B -1 district. Council initiated an amendment to allow for alternative parking requirements in the B -1 on October 26. The initiation did not specify an option but was kept unspecific to enable staff to consider various options and present them to the Planning Commission and Council. So, Mr. Boucher and I are here this evening to present you with the options that we have developed so far and ask you if we can get any direction from Council as to which way to I have a staff report that elaborates on these options, but we will go over them this evening. The first one requires no change in the zoning ordinance. In fact, the zoning ordinance, Section 11.4.1 Off -Site Parking allows for the use of off -site parking agreements for residential uses in the B -1. Note that in order to do that, the property owner would go to Planning Commission. The Planning Commission would have to find that there are practical difficulties in providing the parking on that site. In other words, if the site was too small. That's an example. And /or the public safety, convenience is better served by off -site in that the property owner also secures the easements providing a permanent availability of off -site parking. They could utilize off -site parking to accommodate the residential development in the B -1. The advantage to the town by maintaining this and making no change to this is that, first of all, we don't have to go through the process of changing the zoning ordinance, but secondly, it puts no pressure on public facilities to provide that parking. This is a private agreement between private property owners and all the parking is kept off streets on private property. So, no one is coming to the town looking for public parking options to take care of the parking they can't provide onsite. 1 Pa Council Work Session July 25, 2011 The next one, number two, amends the zoning ordinance. What it does, is it extends the payment in lieu of option for residential parking in the B- 1. Right now, the payment in lieu is only for nonresidential uses. In some instances, what the payment in lieu does is for the paltry sum of $3,000 per space, allows the business owner to provide some or all of their parking by paying it in lieu to the town. Now, unfortunately the $3,000 for this payment does not provide the town with the money to build a new space or certainly expand the parking garage. We figured by the research that we have done, it would cost somewhere along the lines of $20,000 to build a new parking space in a structured parking facility. I think that figured this up at $8- 10,000 per surface parking lot. So, again, if we did that, residential property developer would be able to pay in lieu, yet still the people who live in that development would have to find parking someplace else. Most likely it would be on street or in the public parking facilities, the town garage, thus putting a strain on the The next one, number three, also amends the zoning ordinance and eliminates residential parking requirement when proximate to a municipal parking facility. Under this option, the residential property developer would not have to pay for that parking for the development, yet again we would have the same issue. Residential development has no parking on site. These people have to park someplace. They are going to go on street or to public facilities. Again, it is going to put stress on the public facilities to accommodate that. Number four, amends the town code and institutes an on street residential permit parking code. A lot of cities around the country have permit parking programs. You will fmd that in the instance...I'm familiar, I have worked with the City of Pittsburgh before coming here. Their permit parking program, you find that around universities and hospitals where you have students or employees of the hospitals spreading out into the neighborhoods to park for free. Residents would then come home, not be able to get any parking on the street and having to park blocks away. They approached the city and said can you do something for us? They instituted this permit parking program, whereby only those residents who have a sticker on their car can park 24 hours in that neighborhood. There is restrictions to an hour, two hours, depending on the situation. Our interest involved a lot of the administrative costs in determining the boundaries of the parking permit program areas, administering the permit process and then the enforcement of it. Again, this is something. Another downfall that this could also create is that if you restrict parking in the B -1, say this is streets that are nearby King Street or Loudoun Street and these neighborhoods are parked up with the permit parking, these residents will be parking on the streets. If there is no available parking on that street on King Street or Loudoun Street, that could put pressure on the businesses for their customers, for their patrons. Certainly, there are instances when the town has it's festivals, the Flower and Garden Show or the Car Show, where the public parking garage is filled, Liberty Street 2 E'a Council Work Session July 25, 2011 is filled. If all the streets are filled, then anyone that is coming to Leesburg wanting to go to the festival, they are going to have to park further and further away. Analogy we like to use is it's like water. You can block it off here, but it's going to go someplace else. It will keep going until it finds a place. So, again this option might have some utility, but it is going to have some issues. Finally, number five, also would amend the zoning ordinance to limit the residential parking exclusion to only those existing lots of record of a certain size within a specific distance from the parking. This helps a little bit in that if we limit it to lots of a certain size, making it in the range of 3500 to 4000 square feet, there are fewer of them downtown, though finding there are more than we expected. Based on the limitation, size of the lot, also a certain distance from the parking facility, be it 300 or 500 feet, we still have the issue of putting some of the demand on public facilities, but not so much if it were a blank anybody could do it anyway. So, staff's preference in order of preference we would say option #1, of course. There is no change necessary. It is something that is available right now in the zoning ordinance or option #5 since these two will have the least short term and long term impact on parking downtown and that's all I have for my presentation. Any question or if you want to discuss anything, Brian or I are available. Wright: A couple of questions. I remember, and again it could be just my memory, but I remember at the time we had discussed this, one of the ideas that was talked about for the payment in lieu as it relates to residential and be it the payment in lieu or one of these options is almost a tiered option. So, the idea if we were talking about a property developing one to five units that may have a different level of either restrictions or options or payments than obviously something that may be generating 20 units. Was that something you all had looked at and would that change this menu of options that you put in front of us? Murphy: We did. Boucher: One of the things that happened and the reason that we come back to you now is we looked at a lot of things. Behind all of this, I think this was in the memo at the end, is we probably need a more comprehensive approach to parking downtown because we did look at some of these things and what we were worried about is the stress on some of the parking facilities we have now. We haven't done any major change in the parking facilities downtown in more than a decade. Residential parking needs to be somewhere. We also thought that... we were looking at this and trying to say realistically if we are going to do something like this and reduce... somehow lighten up the parking requirements for downtown residential, we need to make sure that whatever we get out of it is going to help us solve the problems that will come down the road from doing that. Initially we talked a little bit about some type of tiered arrangement. That is always possible. You could 31pagc Council Work Session Reid: How much money do we have now? July 25, 2011 say, in the case of a particular individual, hey Paul Reimers came and said I want to build four units. Normally that would be eight spaces for single family or two bedroom apartments, etc. You could maybe make him pay something for that. The problem is when we really looked into it, we sold 150 parking spaces over the years and have been telling people, you don't need to park it. Give us $3,000 and we will build it later. We coupled that with what could come down the road soon. Did you see in the memo there are about 200 parking spaces that is in development either in process or already at site plan approval that could pay out, not actually have to build those on site parking spaces. You begin to see when you do the numbers, we are pretty stressed. We did a parking study in 2003. It said we had, I think, 571 off site spaces. Since that time, we have done a little bit of residential permit parking. We did something on Cornwall Street. We have restricted more areas. That parking has decreased. Again, the fear here is, when you look around at available land and the cost of things, we don't have a lot. We did notice that we have about 3500 private parking spaces on people's property controlled not by the public. One option that is in there is... interestingly enough, if you think about parking garage, that is going to go beyond the question.... Wright: No problem, it sounds to me like 10 more questions later... Boucher: When you look downtown, we do something for businesses that say within 500 feet of the parking structure, you don't have to provide any parking. We have a lot of businesses, some that have a fair amount of parking within 500 square feet. Right up Wirt Street, there is a building on the corner of Wirt and Loudoun Street, SE. There is a lot of parking behind there. Technically, they don't need to provide a single space. Oddly enough, that's proximate to the property that Paul Reimers had. That's the type of opportunity that you have to get an easement. I think what Paul will tell you is, boy it's really tough to get an easement on somebody else's property even if it is parking now because they may want to build a building in the future. What it all rolled into was we were a little bit leery of the payment in lieu unless you restricted it. I would just say this, in the end we are recommending at least talking about a lot size. Even if you said 4000 square feet in the general B -1 area, you are getting close to 100 lots. What you don't want to do too, you want residential downtown, but we don't want people to say I don't need to provide parking on residential. I'd like to take this little house and demo it and build something that is bigger and pay $3,000 and let the town worry about it. We would hit the threshold really quick with the payment in lieu. For anything we do, we would probably hit the threshold where we may need to provide some parking facilities. Unless we do something with the payment in lieu, probably won't have much money to do it. 41Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Boucher: of the approximately $450,000 we have collected over time, we have been using it to maintain the existing parking structure, resurface the Liberty Street lot, etc. You won't see a lot... downtown. Wright: So that brings up another question. I know we had talked about addressing the payment in lieu amount. The last time that got close to Council, the issue with it was that it did not have a kind of a grandfathering clause so that there were developments that had already been approved, were going through the site planning process that their pro forma numbers would have become drastically different in the way that it was proposed. Where on the shelf is that? I don't think it was anyone's intent for it to go away forever. So, when is it coming back? Boucher: We kind of tied it to this. We actually put up a couple of memos together. It can be tailored that way. You could grandfather development that is already in process where if the Council approves something... we have a number of special exception uses and the like that we are allowing to buy in on some of the parking. You could structure it to say anything improved after a certain date, you would pay this. I am not sure that Council ever got to a point where they thought that there was enough discussion. We gave you some memos and I'm not sure how much we actually talked with you all about that. This... internally at least with staff, we thought it kind of forces the issue because we did take a look at the inventory of what we have in the downtown and where we may be going with this. Things were good in 2003, but the town is growing. We almost tripled in size... not really doing that much downtown. We want to get residential downtown, but we want to have the parking spaces available for them if we are going to chose to do something and say they don't need to do it on site. At the moment, we are just saying those resources are pretty slim. We were thinking with this amendment, we would move very cautiously and in a somewhat limited fashion. On the other hand, perhaps in the long term work plan, we really start devising a more comprehensive parking plan downtown. Wright: The other question or comment... and I guess maybe this would go to Chris if you did the research. Looking at the other jurisdictions that you looked at. The one thing I don't see up there and maybe it would be embedded is a lot of the jurisdictions that said yeah, fine, we don't care, but a lot of the jurisdictions said okay, we will reduce your parking requirement by half and then there was some if condition. If you are near this or if you do that. Would that be something... the one thing I will go ahead and say now is I would agree whatever we do has to be combined with other things. The note I had here on my agenda was I don't like an option. It would be an hybrid of options. We need to address the payment in lieu amount and then attach to that, what would we do if someone pays us in lieu to generate spaces. Because we haven't had a lot of them so it has been maintaining spaces. If we start getting some big checks for spaces, we have to have some plan to create the 51Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 spaces. So that is kind of a planning issue and a management issue. There is probably some combination of different things that we can do within the ordinance. We have highlighted things we already do. Maybe reducing parking requirements based on the type of residential it would be, or just the environment that it is in Then some sort of tiering. There becomes a point if someone is going to build 20 -30 -40 units, I don't want a check to build their parking garage for them. We would want them... somehow it becomes rather a criss cross scale... you know your payment in lieu is allowed up to here... your parking restrictions kind of go one way or another, so it seems to me if we are going to tackle this, we should tackle it as the broader view. I would encourage you guys as far as next steps... hear what the rest of Council says, but before you go do a bunch more homework, I would also do a similar discussion as you are doing with us tonight with the planning commission and get their vibe on what they think. Murphy: I think that's what Brian is getting after... we also mentioned that in our staff report, both for the opportunity to... we feel we definitely need a comprehensive planning study for the town. Some of the other jurisdictions that we have seen that have... they have done comprehensive planning analyses. So, in that we really step forward and figure out how this development would work, we need to do that. It is going to result in presenting some hybrid, maybe a tiered system perhaps. Something different. In the short term, in the initiation that we have before us, do you see us needing to do anything other than... we are recommending option #1, keep it as it is and have the property owner rely on the existing ordinance and what's available and give us the movement to go forward and do the parking analysis to come up with a comprehensive study. The comprehensive method to apply to the far reaches of the downtown. Wright: We shouldn't piecemeal this... it needs to be a broader thing because if we do the one without addressing some of the others and the market gets ahead of us, we could find ourselves in trouble. Hammler: That seems reasonable and to the extent that we covered a lot of things in that time frame, I appreciate it. Butler: I am not sure that we are not overcomplicating this way too much. Meaning, the original intent was... First, I do agree that we should probably up the amount of the payment in lieu. I assume we would then be enthusiastic about that, if it came forward. Maybe that can come back. We got a house that maybe has offices on the top and somebody says we don't want offices anymore, we want a couple of apartments up there. Now, the burden is to go find two to three parking spots and create new ones and that is going to be impossible for them. So, the option of turning those offices into a couple of residential units is just not on the table. I don't know why we can't do something as simple as saying, hey, if you have one to four units, or 6 1 P Council Work Session July 25, 2011 something like that, especially in an existing building then you can do payment in lieu. It's not going to happen a lot. If it starts to steamroll, then we go and do something a little more comprehensive. But, I don't know why we need to spend another six months, years, coming up with a comprehensive study on downtown, which we have talked about 50 times and we have never done and we are not going to ever do because the situation is too dynamic. Boucher: Many of us said we don't want to overcomplicate that either. It's easy to say, okay you want one to four go ahead and don't worry about the parking. I think you will see a lot happen. I think you will even see new construction. The problem is where do you tell those people to park? I guarantee those residents when they can't find a place that's anywhere proximate to where they live, they will come to you all and say you allowed this. Why do I have to walk 500 feet to find a parking space. Then you may get resident's that are neighbors saying that now people are parking on the street in front of my place. That's happened in Leesburg, I know that. You all just dealt with one of those situations. The worry that the... and I don't think it's an illegitimate worry... that you are going to get a lot of competition for spaces. You are going to have situations where people will start parking in the town garage at night and getting out in the morning. You could get businesses saying that my customers can't really park because people who live downtown. You can't assume that everybody who lives downtown is going to drive away to work in the morning. You are probably going to get some people who have more than one car, people who have actually retired. If they don't park on site, they have to park somewhere. Our analysis of the spaces that are available is that there really aren't that many. So, it becomes a problem. If we charge the payment in lieu, $3,000 is a very token sum. I don't think the developers expect a whole lot from the town at the moment. If you raise it, they are going to want you to solve their... the people that they sell to, they are going to want you to solve their parking problem. That was just if you look at downtown there aren't many open parking spaces other than the town garage. We think you will hit that threshold very fast. Then you will be saying we need to do something in a very short period of time. One thing that I would say, what we were suggesting is something that is very limited. Very proximate area... parcels we said 4000 square feet. Frankly the lot that is in question is between 3500 and 4000 square feet. There is about 100 of those squeezed in the B -1 area. Actually, there are about 150 in the B -1. That's a lot of potential lots that could have multiple residential uses on them with no parking required or at a $3,000 amount. So, we were just thinking before we get anything that changed what we have done for so many years... remember when this ordinance was created, there was a concern with residences. That could be the thing that really overflows the public parking and the onstreet parking. For example, the Tally Ho, a fellow wanted to redevelop the Tally Ho as condos and park in the town garage. I can't provide parking, we will just park there. You don't need too many of those developments, I think, to really create competition with visitors, tourists, and commercial parking. So, 7 1' i Council Work Session July 25, 2011 we don't want to sound overly alarmist about it, but I think when you are looking at the numbers and start looking at the roads... we have provided some of the maps to show you where parking is restricted and where it isn't. These people are going to have to go on street and suddenly they are going to be showing up in other peoples neighborhoods. If you get into residential parking program, people usually want to park in front of their house. In the case of, I'll take Mr. Reimer's lot. He can't park on the street in front him. So, if his people don't park there, there isn't any place to park on Loudoun Street there because it's restricted. So, they are going to park somewhere and I can't tell you where that will be. It is probably going to be some distance away, probably in front of some other businesses or residential uses. We anticipate you would hear from the people who are there because that has happened to us on a number of occasions. We just want to try to prevent. We think maybe the only way to do it is do what I'm not sure the town has ever really done is just take a good solid look at downtown, the availability of parking and try to figure some of this out. We have done some of the financials on at least what a new parking space would cost. Actually start saying, hey if we are going to build a parking structure... if we are going to have additional parking lots to handle this, where is it going to be? At the moment, looking around town, we don't have those answers. So, that's why we were being so cautious here. We started with the pretty simple idea... why don't we just say 4000 and oh, that's 150 lots. That's a lot. That's a lot. We do know people can go up. So, that's why we were at the point of proceeding cautiously. Murphy: Those statistics that Brian was referring to in the staff report, right now, we have 125 spaces that can take $3,000 each. We have downtown developments that require a total of 196 spaces yet to be purchased. Right now, there are 290 spaces available in the town garage that have not been paid for, leased, etc. Factoring all those together, a 145 have been paid for, 196 yet to be paid for. That leaves you with a deficit of minus 51 spaces, so the parking garage could be completely filled if we do nothing. So, if we go ahead and start developing one to four units and not require them to do anything, then you can see how the streets would fill up pretty quickly if the parking garage is filled up with the development that we have already counted. Reid: Well, I agree with Dave. We had a parking summit in March 2009 and I don't know... we still have not had automation of the garage. We have the two folks working there. Nothing has happened with Liberty Street. There has been no initiation of any kind of PPEA. I agree with you Dave. It's nice to have a comprehensive approach, but I don't want to slow this down because the fact is there is a possibility that there is going to be a commercial property that is going to come in with a rezoning for residential and they are not going to have a place to put people to park and I think that maybe what is driving this now. I appreciate staff coming up with this report and I actually support option 5. I think that Option 5 is not the status quo, so I want to see if we can give it a try. I want to ask this question, is there a possibility that either 8I Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 through proffers or through ordinance that the town could have the developer work out a deal with a private lot owner to pay them to allow the residents to park over night. He needs the spaces during the day, but if you look through downtown Leesburg you are going to see a lot of office parking lots that are vacant. In fact, in the Royal Street situation we just dealt with... and the permit parking is up now, folks... I asked the residents who came to the microphone whether they talked to the people next door to see if they could park there. I think the guy was concerned about liability, so he didn't want it to happen. I guess that's my question. Is there something that can be done, instead of payment in lieu, payment to a private lot owner and therefore the guy has an economic incentive that he can use. Maybe some liability, but that's something he can work out through a private contract. Boucher: I see what you are talking about and we have an option now that they can get an easement. The good thing about an easement is that it is a permanent easement that they can't get rid of unless the town agrees. So that means, I they say we are not providing parking on site, we know where it is going to be provided on private property. You could require some kind of a monthly fee... if they run into some kind of financial difficulty and the guy says they are not paying me for the parking... I'm not letting them park here. Suddenly they need to park someplace, that guy is blocking his lot because he has not been paid. Then you have got the situation where you are embroiled with private property owners and also we have a parking problem. That's why, I think the option in the ordinance was just do an easement. It's clear. You have some control there. I think the Council is looking for #5. That was so that we could do something that is more controlled, more localized into a portion of the downtown. It wouldn't be all in B -1. I think the small area of the B -1, cut out a lot of the lots that could potentially give us problems. That was why we were recommending that. If you guys want us to do something now. Everything else is long term. Reid: But what about other lots like the Pennington lot, the Sheriff's office lot, that used to be Sheriff's department. What about the County garage. Boucher: The county controls those. They limit them. I think even recently, John Wells has dealt with Mr. Hemstreet and they tried to do some things to say some parking would be open, but the danger is because we don't control those, the rights to park there could be taken away. Reid: That's correct, but the thing is if a private property owner, and I know some who would love to have some cash just to help resurface their lots could work out a deal with the property owner. I mean... I know several property owners that may... it might be worthwhile to actually convene a meeting of some of these private lot owners who have large office lots and see what they think. That might be something that you guys could look at. If the Council... if we are only dealing with a net loss of 51 spaces... this can be 91page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 accomplished if we have the political will to stand up to Tom Mason and say... no I am serious. Tom Mason wants to have... he is concerned about turning movements of cars. The town is urbanizing. We have relaxed regulations in Lowenbach... we have square corners. We can relax certain regulations and restrictions on parking. We can one way part of Wirt. We can do certain things to allow parking on the street because we are getting a lot of requests now for handicapped parking, permit parking. I spoke to a lady on Royal, N.E. who wants a residential parking zone. We could talk to the hospital. I don't know... there could be some extra parking there with Cornwall. There are certain restrictions that we have based on car movement, but the town is urbanizing. The other thing I think we can look at is seeing what the TDM or Travel Demand Management approaches that are being used in other counties. Albeit, they are more urban... they are doing this in Tysons and Bethesda. If there is any applicability here, especially in terms of the payment in lieu fee. You are right, people want to have a place to park, but I don't think we should be looking at this... I think we are going to have to move this forward... Option 5 and I think that we are going to have to look at these other things in a different discussion. I encourage you to talk to the county and the other large lot owners. But I also encourage you to talk to your public works and transportation people who are concerned about the movement of traffic and rear ending and people colliding. Look at some of these streets with a cold eye where parking has been banned and see if there are some on street spaces. Finally, John with your study of the bagging of the meters, there could be residential parking down there on Harrison. Also expanding the Liberty Street lot by getting rid of that grassy area there. I actually tomorrow will bring you some pervious concrete, Dave, so you can see there are actually some things we can do. Mayor: I share staff's concerns about basically people not having a place to park right in front of wherever they live... putting more pressure on other streets, etc., etc. I think that the payment in lieu does have to be increased substantially. I can't imagine at $3,000 a space, it is even keeping up with maintenance requirements at this point. I think it is a mistake to allow any large lots to develop in a residential way without adequate on site parking and these days I see more of a demand for more parking spaces rather than less. You are getting increased friction out in the public between those who live on a street and those who can't find any other place to park, so they are parking... I am not optimistic that private parking owners will enter into agreements. I have seen too many battles even where there were agreements over payment, lack of payment, denial of spaces... even when a business owner of a lot isn't using the lot and another business could use it in off hours. There is friction and battles there. It is not conducive to good public order to deprive people of a place to park. I think if we begin lessening our standards, we are just asking for trouble. I would probably stick with #1 and #5 looks like the second best option. I think it is a big mistake to allow developers to develop residential areas without adequate parking. 101Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Reid: One space per unit? Are you good with that or do you want to see 1.5 per? Mayor: The demographics of the town are changing. One space per unit doesn't seem to be enough these days. We are not moving away from the automobile, we are having more and more people with more automobiles. Reid: If you look at what they are doing in more urbanized areas, they are actually relaxing the parking requirements because they are making folks pay for shuttles. They are making folks pay for... they are even relaxing the congestion standard. They are accepting levels of service D, because they want to move people to transit and walking. Downtown Leesburg could be moving in that direction. It's not as massive as Tysons, but I will accept your... obviously you have the history about the private thing and I will withdraw that. It's probably not going to be something that the town wants to get involved with. It is just that I just think that requiring more spaces per unit is going to detract from our ability to bring residential downtown. I think that we need that to make the downtown viable. Mayor: The problem with trying to force people not to rely on automobiles by not giving them enough parking spaces, is you better have a good public transportation system in place for them before you do that to them. The trouble with good public transportation, is it is highly subsidized by some level of government, so you are increasing the tax burden on everybody who lives everywhere in town to try to make it easier for the folks who live in the more urban sectors. That's not going to be appreciated by the people out in the single family detached subdivisions or the townhouse developments where there is enough parking. Unfortunately, it is a cascading series of results. Reid: But the parking may have to be located further away from where the people are living so that we can have parking for them. The one thing I forgot to mention is that it may be time again, John to look at if not a PPEA for Liberty Street because of the environment issues, but the town may have to look at a deck, but again that's not necessarily where people want to be. They want to be right where they are. Street parking seems to me to be something that we have to look at. We will have to do a study, of course. I think there is always a lot of people who want to one way Loudoun and Market because they figure that will add a lot of parking. That has always come up, but then you are going to have a freeway in downtown Leesburg and I don't think you want that. Boucher: Just something for Council overall... again we have been looking at this. Do you want us to pursue an event, if would recommend 5 11 1' a g Council Work Session July 25, 2011 because the impacts can be controlled the best. So, the majority of Council wants to pursue that? Mayor: Dave and Ken, yes. Katie? Hammler: I don't think these are mutually exclusive, but did you need specific council direction on the earlier point if and how we are going to proceed on some level of this grander plan? Boucher: I think it's something if Council so desired... something that I think has done a little research in that direction and certainly it is something that could go on the longer plan to try to start putting together a more... Hammler: To what extent it may link to the bike /pedestrian plan? Should we say the mass transit plan or how we are going to evolve, I would certainly welcome that. I guess I need to think a little bit more about #5, in as much as the way I am reading that. I may have missed a lot of... Wright: We just initiated the last time... Honestly, I would not make any recommendation until I at least see what you come back from talking with Planning. I still think, and maybe because we used the four letter word, Study, that we don't necessarily need a study, but whatever we do needs to comprehensively address multiple issues. I don't think we can do any one of those things separate of the other item that got put on the shelf, which is the payment in lieu item. We have to fix that. We need to fix that soon. We just need to figure out how we do that without having a backward impact on things that were already approved and anticipated to occur under the original plan. Wells: Go to the planning commission and then bring back feedback from the planning commission at your next... either next council... I guess it would be better to bring it back at the first meeting in September. Reid: Well, do we have three votes for 5? Mayor: I'm clear around this table tonight, that we do. Reid: Well, you don't want to do 5, Mayor? Mayor: No, my preference is 1 and higher payment in lieu fees. Wells: We can put together what the scope of the additional research would be without saying the four letter word. But, I think there are some pieces that Council has identified that may be able to be tied together in a way that either work with 1 or 5 or whatever the hybrid might be. We could bring something back that would include planning commission feedback as well as some more details along what we are hearing. 121Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Reid: But you are going to have to do a real significant jump. We gotta do some economic analysis of what payment in lieu would have to be because a surface space is $10,000 these days. A structured space is about $20. The payment in lieu could be so high that people just won't want to develop. Hammler: Could we discuss that when we actually bring it back to Council? b. Edwards Ferry Road Protection of Natural and Historic Resources Brian Boucher: I will be real quick on this. The idea came up a while ago that Edwards Ferry Road, which has a number of historic things along it. It also has some scenic value; it has a lot of canopy trees along it, that it really wasn't protected in any significant way at the present time. Just real quickly, the area that we are talking about... here is Edwards Ferry Road. If you look at the town, county line, so what we are really talking about is Edwards Ferry Road east of town, almost entirely in Loudoun County. I could go through and tell you a lot of things that it has historic about it. I think one thing is really important is there is this Civil War... 150 anniversary, we have some rather significant earthworks that straddle Edwards Ferry Road. If Edwards Ferry Road was four laned. At that point, it is not. The four lanes come to a stop at Battlefield. If it was four laned at that point, it would affect those significantly. Then, of course if you four lane the road heading out to the east, there would be a number of things that would be affected. There was discussion at the planning commission the other night and the thought was that there may be something that could be done to encourage the county to try to take some efforts to try to preserve Edwards Ferry Road. They actually have an ordinance called the Historic Access Corridor, which would put some additional development restrictions along the road. So, the discussion I think... the resolution was that perhaps the Council would consider asking the town manager to contact the county executive, Mr. Hemstreet, to encourage the county board of supervisors to create a historic access corridor along this portion of Edwards Ferry Road. Another thing that I think we could do, is strengthen the town plan language. We are going through the town plan review right now. It has some very general language about what is supposed to happen with this road. Again, it's in the urban growth area, the JLMA area, but there is certainly something we could do as far as the town plan. There is another thing that was discussed and I think Council Member Butler is very familiar with this... the Virginia Byways program. That is an honorary designation of any local governing body can adopt a resolution to try to recommend this. There are some criteria to meet. I will say this... looking at the standards, one thing that it says is you have to have local zoning action or other protective measures have to be in place to demonstrate that you are... I think, really moving forward yourself, in order to get the state to consider designating Virginia Byways. What I am not clear on yet, because I haven't talked to the right people, though I tried today... is there are a number of open 13 !Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 space easements out there. There is a park, etc. I'm not sure if those are the types of zoning things that they would say already exist that might show that there is some effort to preserve things along the road. That is certainly something that could happen in time. But I would say, perhaps the most effective thing to do if the town is interested in raising the level of this road on the radar screen for the board is what was suggested at the planning commission the other night is that you all authorize Mr. Wells to send a letter to recommend to the county that they consider a historic access corridor for this part of Edwards Ferry Road. This has a history in the County, just so you know real quick... there was a VDOT plan to develop it, but then these historic issues... there is a lot of natural issues there too. There are wetlands, steep slopes... there are canopy trees and you have got a number of historic buildings and structures. So, there was discussion at the county about this and they had a project to complete the road and I thought somebody would come and but they spent most of the money designing the road and then not doing anything. I think there is a history there that could get some type of designation, but since the road is in the county, they are the ones that need to take the zoning action to really give it some more teeth. Wright: Send a letter. Hammler: I support the letter, although I have just a quick question which is I am just curious as it relates to part of Edwards Ferry that is in Leesburg if we have given all the development that has occurred impacted something that was historic, that previous councils just disregarded. Boucher: Yes. The camp that was originally howitzers is now under pavement and there was some and things that were unfortunately removed, but I will say this, the council did take action to preserve what many consider... what I consider the most important for the town... and that is what we call the massive battery. I won't give you the whole history lesson, but if you study the battle of Balls Bluff, the union troops across from Balls Bluff, a larger force came down Edwards Ferry Road. Those earthworks are still there in the middle of the road, they were not very well manned and there were thousands of union troops ready to assault the fort coming up the road. They saw those earthworks and said those are very substantial. They haven't been repaired for 150 years and they still look pretty substantial, so they saw them and they paused. Then artillery opened fire from the woods. They really couldn't see what was back behind them and started dropping shells on them. They fell back. So, 2500 men retreat down the road and what happens at Balls Bluff is the union troops there are actually unsupported, so the confederates can take all of their men and rush them over there to counter them. Hence the disaster at Balls Bluff for the union army. So, these things were important and the massive battery, it was developer that actually discovered it was there. 141[ agc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Hammler: So, just a thought, it would be at least, I think, good of us to acknowledge the fact that there is historic significance even where we have made mistakes in the past, not preserving them properly, that we should be exploring them to perhaps retrofit some things that could be significantly memorialized, not dissimilar to what happened at the Miles LeHane House. Maybe, it's markers, but it ties back into another thing that seems to have slipped through the cracks is that intersection as you go down Edwards Ferry into the town of Leesburg, is one of the most unattractive intersections in town. We have talked about how do we beautify that? How do we create even on the bypass a sense of the kind of charm that Leesburg is? This could be the kind of catalyst to do that. Whether it's... you know you have got the history, lets figure out what that plan could be and put... I think this could be a number of things in addition to just telling the county to take care of your end. Let's go back and look at what we still can do to revive a sense of history and place for that part... Boucher: I will say one thing... it was tough because there were camps and houses right along side of the road. That would have been a tough one. Hammier: I don't know... you are entering a historic intersection. Just give people.. maybe that will be one reason not to throw their cigarette butts out the window... I don't know. Boucher: Certainly a step here as a start is to try to preserve what does exist out there... Hammler: So, I do support the letter, but I think we need to take responsibility for the fact that it is historically significant also. Butler: I would like to send the letter and I would also like to put it in the town plan because if this area becomes a part of the town in the next couple of years, I would like it in the town plan so that we know what our intent was regardless of what the county does or doesn't do in the meantime. Reid: You really want to annex those out of town water users, don't you? Okay. Hammler: I think he was talking about over by the airport. Reid: No, I think he is talking about Spring Lakes and River Creek. Yeah, I agree with sending a letter. Lee Ann, I want to correct something. When I said earlier to North Street, N.E. Not Cornwall, not Royal on that discussion I had on parking. I meant North Street where the lady wanted to have the residential parking. 151Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Butler: Yeah, I was wondering what you were talking about when you talked about Royal Street, N.E. Reid: No, it's North Street, N.E. c. Management Reports FY 12 Work Plan Status deferred until July 26 CIP Update deferred until July 26 Credit Rating Briefing Package /Ratings Results Wells: very briefly, as an introduction I think everybody has met Mr. Rose from Davenport and Company, our financial advisors. The purpose of this evening's conversation with Mr. Rose is to provide... The opportunity to relay in a little more detail some of the results that we received from the credit rating agencies. I have shared with all of you, the town was reaffirmed in all of those. There was some commentary that I think would be helpful for everybody to hear from Mr. Rose regarding some positives and some of the challenges that we as a local government, and other local governments, face as well as there was some interesting... Giving a brief overview of credit presentation provided to all of the agencies. It's really important... We've gone through thoroughly detailed set of discussions over the past several months regarding our budget, regarding our fund balances, and the essence of that plan is summarized in these documents. So I think it places it in a fairly helpful context to understand how the plan the Council has approved as part of the budget fits in with some of the demographics and some of the overall financial trends that you're seeing. So the good background piece for everybody's benefit. Again, we won't be going through this page by page but the short version is here and more importantly, Mr. Rose can address the questions regarding again our credit rating as well as the implications of where our rating is that vis -a -vis some of the actions at the federal government level. David Rose: thank you Mr. manager, I appreciate the opportunity to be here, Mdm. Mayor and members of Council. First of all let me start by thanking both the Mayor, the manager and staff, some of whom are here tonight for spending many, many hours working with us, and working with the rating agencies directly. Those of you may recall we had the rating agencies here for an on -site visit. I will tell you that we do these credit meetings, we only like to bring the rating agencies those places that we think when they visit and see the actual physical location would be an enhancement towards the overall ratings. Clearly, Leesburg is at the very top of that when it comes to wanting to show off the community and let them see as many folks as possible in the town as well as the businesses and the overall climate that exists. So having said that, we are in a mode where if all things reasonably speaking continue without any major surprises, we expect to go to the marketplace on Wednesday, next Wednesday. I say no surprises, those of you know that the president and the speaker of the house will be speaking out at nine o'clock. We tried before this meeting to go on the Internet to see if we 16 1 Pane Council Work Session July 25, 2011 could get any scuttlebutt as to what may be I think I would turn to the finance director to see if he wants to change any words. I don't know exactly what they are going to say, but the hope is that there is going to be ample progress and the markets will stay reasonably stable. That being said, the question you might have is what might happen if again, things really don't look very good after tonight or tomorrow. One of those answers that we have is we purposefully set up the finances so that we can negotiate them. That means we can literally pull the financing back on Wednesday morning if we so desire if things are not looking good. Now having said that, ironically while there is great concern about our federal government defaulting on its debt, the interesting part is the credit markets, the markets that we borrow. We meaning the town, are actually doing very well. Today they were off the tad but the overall interest rates that we will be looking at will be approximating forty -year loans in terms of interest rates. So, one of those things we will monitor very carefully. We will have a meeting, a conference call I should say, with the underwriters which were selected through a competitive process. Those two, by the way, were by Citi, Citigroup, Citibank that was their former name, now Citi, as well as Wells Fargo, formerly Wachovia, both of whom have offices here in the town and so pay tax locally. They were selected through a competitive process to the underwriting. We, of course, are your financial advisors. We do not underwrite your debt. That way we maintain the perspective of always being on the same side of the table as your staff and yourself. So, we are going to have a call tomorrow at four o'clock to get updated on what they say and the focus. Basically what happens then is they will give us some feedback if the financing is still a go. We will once again be able to revisit that on Wednesday morning to see if things have changed in the world overnight. And then we would go into the marketplace on Wednesday. Normally under what I would call normal circumstances, I would not bore all of you with these details, but then again we are not under normal circumstances and normal situations, as you know, as the second deadline is fast approaching. Now having said that, while it seems our federal government is having a tough time paying the bills and doing those things I'm pleased to say that the rating agencies view Leesburg and a very different light. We have received, as the town manager indicated, three affirmations by the three national credit rating agencies which are Fitch, Moody's, and Standard Poor's. Very solid, in fact ratings that are just one notch below AAA. That's the highest you could possibly get. I would point out in the credit package that we have, that booklet that's in front of you, since the city manager... The town manager took over and his colleague Mr. Butts came on as the chief financial officer, the town has seen a total of seven credit upgrades. So again, we are right there on the precipice of a AAA and with that the good news is that we find ourselves highly desirable from a credit standpoint. We find ourselves very competitive from an interest rate standpoint. The bad news, if there such a thing, is when you're that high up a lot is expected of you. I think what that means basically is that if you are going to ultimately go to the AAA, we have set the bar very high as a town thanks to the overall management, thanks to 17 Panc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 the Council decisions you have made. It's important that we don't backslide. I would like to point out that we talked about the overall plan financing... I get to that in a moment, we showed those things that we plan on doing, if necessary over the next five years. That's part of it is well is that you look at it, and the management has been here for a number of years, we have done those things that are necessary and they have been recognized for that. Fitch, for example, just to highlight a couple of comments... Their rating rationale says, and I quote "Leesburg's sound financial management has maintained healthy reserves with conservative budgeting and proven expenditure reduction, adherence to fiscal policies, and implementation of timely tax and utility system rate increases." So again, that's going to be important to continue with. The folks at Moody's, they have cited a number of those same strengths. They also talk about something such as the sound pension fund system, think about our pension fund and you would project we would go on making those payments, continuing to keep that solve it adding good stead. That probably flies in the face of the federal government with the Social Security program. Again, we are the recipient of having things trickle down from the federal and state to the local. We are probably judged most harsh. Our ratings matter the most. We are doing those things that are necessary but I just want to point out that those things that are necessary are not always easy and we appreciate that. The ratings agencies acknowledge that. With that, I would like to spend a few moments if I could before taking any questions just highlighting what you see here in this credit package. Some of these pages will be similar to those things that we have done with some of our budget discussions on the utility fund side and the general fund side over the years, but let me just say that if we jump on it... I'm just going to highlight a few pages if I could. If we jump on page 4 of the table of contents, what you will see there is sort of a graph of what we discussed and what we presented. That said, they were able to once again kick the tires, so to speak. It's one thing for them to see an aerial view of the town, Main St., King Street in this case. It's another thing to be right there and really appreciate it. On page 5, from an overview perspective, we indicated that we are going to be in the marketplace for almost $28 million of bonds. The important thing here, is a portion of that is what we call new money, both for the general fund and the utility fund. Those of you may recall the utility fund that we have a self supporting. The important thing there is that the rates and charges pay for those folks that actually use utility system so as not a burden on the general fund. To the contrary, it provides certain dollars to the general fund in the form of payment in lieu of services... Taxes I should say. In addition on the overall plan that we intend on participating, you notice that there are some moments of re- financing and were structuring. That refinancing is purely for savings purposes and again, you can even show by virtue of interest rates being very favorable, we have only exchanged high interest rate debt that we now have for lower interest rate debt that's by the refinancing. With regard to restructuring, we are going to be able to provide some cash flow relief over the next several years so that again, as you have the overall utility fund and general fund layer in, those needs as you have will not be as 181 rage Council Work Session July 25, 2011 onerous. So again, the overall plan has been endorsed by the rating in agencies. Obviously, the town Council here has heard me talk on several occasions about all of this. The bottom line is hopefully things will stay as they are leading to a very nice interest rate environment, better than we anticipated six months ago. Certainly better than we anticipated three months ago and only time will tell. I'm hopefully owing becoming back in a few weeks to say indeed, we were able to execute this on Wednesday. The second question that you may have is to what happens then if the federal government does get downgraded. Even if they make their deadline, there is great talk about some of the rating agencies... At least one of the rating agencies downgrading the federal government. The question then is what will that do to us... Us meaning the town. I think there's a lot of uncertainty what that will do in the longer term but I think in the shorter term which are going to hear is that we will be looked at on our ability to pay and meet our debts. The things that you have done, the plan of finance demonstrates that and so we think that while on a worst -case basis, we may be in a mode where the credit markets walk up for what might be a few weeks or a couple of months, as they did three years ago, and when they do come back in the fall it's important that those better credits... And you are at the very top of what you want to call the better, higher -rated credits, will have the ability to access the credit markets and hopefully access that recently good record. So I just wanted to point that out. I'm just going to go very briefly... Just a couple more moments and now allow you to it asks more questions. You can see there and green, these are the various credit rating upgrades that you have achieved... There you are again on the precipice of the AAA. The rest of that section is just a series of maps, demographics, economic trends. Again, trying to give them a flavor for the numbers behind what they were seeing. We took them, for example to the complex at Wegmans which is been sort of a centerpiece for it. They got to see all that and again, versus the last time they were here that was just a field or some woods. They got to see the vitality of the town, the folks that are utilizing it by coming here. On page 13, the population, obviously with the recent census being done, we got to see and appreciate really the growth of the town. They recognize the town has additional buildout opportunities, so all that factors into the various reports. Page 14, employment. I'm sure all of you know this better than I do, but the latest figures we have for April of 2011, the unemployment rate in the County... There is no way to separate that from the town... That's the best label to use other than Virginia here, was at 3.9 So again, they got to see that, how that compares to 5.8% for the state and almost 9% for the federal. Just a few other things I point out here, they asked about things like foreclosures and asked about pricing of housing and we were able to talk about how, again, the overall stepped values have stabilized and they were able to get comfortable with that and they really do feel good about the vitality of the overall market. Then on that second tab, starting with page 21, we went through with them year -to -year financial management. They understand and have seen the various ways in which the town has met its obligations and again, they feel very comfortable with the creation of the revenue stabilization 191 Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 fund was favorably received. The fact that you keep it in the policy as relates to the fund balance, being the rainy day fund equally favorably received. I would point out, we have talked about this in the past, probably the single most important thing the rating agencies care about is do you have adequate cash reserves. So we were able to say yes, we have kept with our policy, we have exceeded our policy... Hammler: where's councilmember Dunn when we are talking about this? Where did he go? Mayor: he warned us in advance, that he would have to leave early. Hammler: I thought he just stepped out briefly. I thought we could wait until he came back. Rose: so, the important thing here is again maintaining that. That's probably the fastest way to see our credit rating be put on a negative outlook is to slide back, not to keep our policy. That policy is not one that they created, that's one that you all created and it's important. So it's self imposed policies, they want to see you as a town keep. And you have been able to do that as well is the general and utility fund as well. Page 22, you were able to see how the tax rate is changed and evolved. You're also able to see that you are competitive relative to other towns, cities, counties in the overall region. One of the things that they look at, is they say you don't have to just live in Leesburg you could live across the border somewhere say in Montgomery County. You could live in that area. So again, they look at the over all and from that perspective the town of Leesburg continues to look favorable. That's important in terms of competitive nature. Finally, we talk at length about highlights of the 2012 budget. We talked about the overall multiyear plan of finance. We talked about the capital program. One of the most important point to make is if you look at the last seven, eight, to ten years... We have been fortunate to work with you in that timeframe... This town is done an extraordinary amount of capital projects both with the general fund and the utility fund. All of that comes due at a time when the economy falls apart nationally. But having said that nevertheless the overall plan of finance is one that allows you to continue to meet those needs, not have to spike the tax rate, but at the same time recognize that there can be an economy nationally it's they slow, it doesn't rebound as we were all hoping for. There is a plan that's in place over the next five years to do what is necessary to continue to be financially strong. That's something, again, that we presented to them. All of this is predicated on a balanced budget year in and year out for the next five years. It's also predicated upon the fact that following what has been a very difficult 2012 budget in terms of the overall reductions of the workforce, this contemplates keeping things on a steady stage going forward for the next seven years. Again this is the type of thing where you have taken the medicine and now our focus here is to hope that the overall economic environment gets a 201 Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 little bit better, making the next few years just that much more positive. Nevertheless, we just wanted to point out those things that that have been done, have been done well. If you go to page 29, the third section, we go over debt management. One plan is that.... The ratings agencies have noted is that we pay our debts down rapidly. That is their term, not mine. Obviously that's a credit strength because it allows us down the road to incorporate new debt for projects we don't even know about right now because we can do that, again, without throwing it unfairly on to the next generation of citizens in the town. The other couple points I would make is that we can identify on page 30 and page 31 that as it relates to the general fund and the utility fund is the same, the going forward capital program for the next five or six years is relatively modest size versus five or six years passed. That's a positive. What's really noted through all of this on page 31 is that of the overall capital program, roughly 50 on page 31, only a third of that is long -term debt. That's a very big credit strength. It's not as if we're using 85 to 90% of the capital program to be borrowed. We are talking about a third of that to be borrowed. That's another credit strength, I just want to point out. Finally, on page 32, 33 we talked about the plan of finance. That's something you all of course when we were here prior to the budget being finalized, there were a few things I would like to reiterate. One of those is that the action you took, you took $5 million with the bond anticipation note tied to the Ida Lee Park project, actually rather than borrowing permanently with the bond anticipation note, we actually took the funds and paid cash for that. So we did something that they like which is to pay down debt. We were planning in 2007 to pay down debt, we were planning to do permanent finance. One of the overall point here is that with all the difficulties financially, when you hone it down to the town of Leesburg, we are actually paying debt down, here to the tune of $5 million. Second thing, as I said were to try to take out some higher interest debt with some lower interest debt. We also are having a rapid paydown and it taken care of a number of various projects, all of which are going to continue to be paid off quickly than their useful life. That's an important point to make. Finally when obtaining the fund balance, the undesignated fund balance, I called the rainy day fund, that's critical, it's important Because That Way, Mr. butts and his staff won't have to do short -term borrowing to pay bills. They won't have to do the old payday loans if you will. The have enough cash to maintain the cash flows of the town you don't want one typical to individuals that are fortunate, let's say to get a paycheck every month and have typically about the same pay every month or expenses. Towns and local governments tend to have ebb and flow based upon a series of factors not least of which is when state monies come in. Some of those are not very well known, as to when they do come in. So on page 33, where the rubber meets the road, we were talking to them about our multiyear plans, pages 34 and 35, how about if you look at page 33, we show them that where we are today, what we have done, actions that have been taken by you, there will not be the need short of some unforeseen circumstances that in the next upcoming budget, the 2013 budget, or the 2014 budget, there will not be a need to have to tax equivalent impact for meeting 211Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 the budget. You see if things stay, in terms of the various mode, in 2015, we could need the equivalent of one penny on the real estate tax rate. That is what we are saying... one penny. In 2016, an additional penny and in 2017, we might be looking at as much as three pennies. Overall, what we showed them, and this is something they take comfort in is if indeed, the economy stays sluggish for the next four to five years, if indeed revenues don't look enchanced, if indeed we find that the various parties that we have out there that we have very little control over don't turn around we could use the equivalent of five cents unless we do further cutting of expenses. So they appreciate that long -term plan. That's what I want to underscore. We've shown this to you before and again this is on a worst -case basis. I just want to underscore that. With that said, on page 42 I'm not going to belabor it, we did the same with the utility fund. We took them, we showed them the new plant. We showed them the improvements that were made. It was very, very impressive. I think they look at little things such as the way the town maintains the cleanliness of their facilities. The way everything is well kept, everything is well presented. Those are little subtle things that they notice. That tells them that the bigger things, typically, are also taking care of. So again, we had the various directors of various different departments. We took them to Ida Lee Park. They really had an opportunity to see things and I can tell you it was very, very well received. Everyone did a wonderful job. With that, I'm going to stop here. I spoke longer than I should've, but I apologize. I must say it's easy to talk about detail. Wright: first off, congratulations to the team. I know John was lamenting not getting his upgrade. I guess, I think going in we didn't expect to not grade based on the overall climate. I'll be honest, I haven't read all of the reports that were sent out. We talked a lot about what the bond rating agencies saw as positive. Did they identify in any of their reports or commentaries areas for improvement? Rose: this is what they said. I'll give you some of what they called strengths and some of the challenges. I should've pointed that out. Let me do this. One of the challenges has been just the sort of slow growth on the utility fund, particularly. Let me share the page, because I was talking so much I didn't want to spend that much more time. Let me show you... page 44, I think this sums up a whole lot of things that are challenges. What you see there in green are the actual new connections, year to year, and in that dark blue line back in 2006 you had a rate study by the rate consultant. We are not your rate consultants. I don't think anybody in 2006 could have conceived... And those rate consultants again, they actually projected continuing dwindle yet things were still good in 2006. When they get done in 2006 in 2007 it went up. So they had a good feel for that. But if you look what happened in 08 when things really fell out, 9 and 10. So the point here is the dark blue is what is being projected and is a very careful, cautious projection. So you asked me what was the challenges are the weaknesses of all of that and what they wrote 2 211' ige Council Work Session July 25, 2011 was strain on operating budgets caused by the steep increase in the general fund and utility debt service and that's an important point because again look at back in 06 when when you did that rate study it was for positioning us to do those things that we had to do. The good news, though, is that when we were able to finish putting in those plants that you have now that will carry us for decades. That's the important thing. So you took on the debt that really the worst possible time but you really had no choice in doing that. So again, the point here is those are the strengths. The weaknesses so what they said for example was you had had slimmer water and sewer system debt service coverage. Meeting excess revenue from very helpful growth taking care of operations and debt service as a result, that's one of the clinical weaknesses they cited. Frankly, you have no control over that. The important thing is that on the flip side, that a talked about earlier is the fact that you have good management, you were conservative and you're going forward budgets. So I think you've already addressed that. Some of the other things that they identified where they said again diminished financial flexibility and reserves. If you look at your fund balance that rainy day, it was even higher three and four years ago again, you had to strategically use some of that over the last several years and so again that's why we have that reserve. That's why hopefully evening going forward to say above the 15% so if there is a surprise you have some elements of that to use if necessary but we really don't like to use that because using that cuts into your financial flexibility. All three rating agencies talked about the strength of management so again, they didn't have a whole lot to say in terms of negatives. Again put this in perspective, you are right there, one notch away from triple so again. The negatives are only going to be so much given what's happening. So I hope that's an answer. Wright: would it be fair to say as far as path forward if were looking at trying to reach that AAA rating, and I think you said this in your presentation as well, is kind of stay the course. So we have a multiyear plan, we need to follow that plan and execute accordingly. Your comment on page 33 word shows are, kind of forecasted history on tax rates based on the plan you guys had presented at the start of the budget process. I think, and I know you highlighted it, and I just wanted to highlight it again is those increases that are shown are based on the conservative estimates. So if were seeing better progress than that... John I don't think you have your 2017 signs laminated yet... But as we are progressing better hopefully in some of the earlier years, the idea is that we would use that to buy down that 2017. Wells: either via down or through operational savings, the overall trend line of what expenditures might be could go down if revenue estimates exceed where we're at. That could help the number. There are multiple ways of keeping track of that. I think the key is that we want to work with the Council on a regular basis to provide updates in a little more detailed than we have in the past. To highlight the importance of the plan, there are things we can do along the way. Part of it is just simply following the plan but 23I Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 opportunities arise to either create savings are track some additional revenue not by raising rates but simply higher trends. Visitors things that can affect the long -term but as we know the economy goes in cycles and there is certainly enough time between now and 2017 to go up down up and down again in that time. So we will be looking in more detail, but not necessarily at great length. Just by virtue of the fact that some of the information we are going to be presenting on a brief, but regular basis we will be keeping up with that. The 2017 sign will be ready when we need it. Wright: I think the other thing to highlight, if you will, and most people probably won't remember this particular movie quote, but if we get something that comes in higher than the conservative estimates, the default reaction is to look longer term and see how to use it as opposed to okay, we are going to Sizzler. Wells: Okay, I think that's were it is important to see where we track our fiscal impact of agenda items, it is going to be more important to be detailed with that and identify, again... it's almost like the decisions we make today... what do they do to 2017 working backwards as opposed to what do they do today and how do you push those forward. We will be having this discussion, again not necessarily at length, but it needs to become part of how we think and how we manage certainly internally and how the Council will address things budgetarily. It is a difficult time and as Mr. Rose mentioned, we are in midst of some... we are coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression and that is certainly something that as I sat back and looked at our ratings and the analysis, we have done a good job collectively as a Council and as a staff in some of the worst economic times you could possibly imagine. So, to get our ratings reaffirmed is really a positive statement to the actions that the council has taken and what we have all worked on collectively and brought forward. I think stay the course, take advantage of additional opportunities, recognizing the importance of taxpayer affordability but high quality service. Again, we are going to be highlighting that type of information for you maybe in some different ways. Wright: I guess one last question /comment. One of the things that I know in talking with people around the state and even elsewhere and maybe a little bragging in talking about the approach that we as a group, and you all specifically as kind of management took towards this budget and kind of looking at that five, six year horizon. Was there much commentary about having that extended plan and that approach through either the presentations or even the written commentary? Because obviously in the overall climate that is fairly unique. We can't get the Feds to plan for more than three months. So, what was the discussions about the fact that the town took a deep breath, looked out five years and created an affordability plan starting now. 24 P age Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Rose: Good question. If we are to be a AAA, every AAA is expected to have a five year pro forma. So, for example, when Loudoun County became AAA, the last thing that was holding it back a number of years going back as they did not have a five year pro forma. This is, again... when they finally put that in, that was the final thing that gave Standard and Poor's, the last hold out agency, the ability to recommend that they had a sense of where they were going to be five years down the road. In reality, no body truly knows what is going to happen five years from now, but they like the idea that we are thinking about it. That there is open dialogue between the council, staff and the citizenry about more than like you said, the next three months. More than the next year. The answer is, you are in rarified air. There are not a lot of local governments in the state that are AAA and there are not a lot of local governments that are rated as high as you with a population relatively modest. For example, you population is roughly 42,000. One of the things that AAAs tend to be is larger in terms of population. Why, the problem can be spread out over a greater number of folks. There are a couple of towns, cities, counties in the state that are AAA that have under 100,000, but not many. I can literally count them on one hand and it doesn't take a whole hand to do it. That is another thing again when you think about the overall for the town is somewhat limited. The last thing I will say and this is just a pure function of Virginia as it comes to things like annexing properties. Cities and towns in Virginia are more hamstrung than they are, for example, in North Carolina. That's just the way our state laws work. That's the way the past things have occurred. That is not something you have a lot of... you have no control over that. Whereas towns in North Carolina like Cary, or Raleigh, for them the county has an ability to annex and move out very easily. There aren't law suits about that in North Carolina. Here, as you know, it's a major project. Hammier: Thank you for the report. To some extent, I feel like I have heard this. Key things that we are reaffirming, all good. And so to the extent that I would be curious if I went home... I didn't bring my previous binders... I would like to know if there is anything different. But that aside, I think that you hit on what was going to be my key questions, which is if we can look at where we are and determine well then, let's turn this into very specific goals that will guide the rest of our discussion. Goal for how do we get to AAA. You have answered that at least very quickly, Mr. Rose, which is maybe we can't get there if it dictates a certain size of municipality. Maybe 42,000 people is just not enough that is not reasonable to assume that we ever will, but when you mention things like... the things that were going through my mind is how do the things that we have to set as priorities, whether it is revenue seeking economic development, which may be aligned with annexation and how does that tie into our VML program and aggressively seeking greater control where you may think we don't have it. How does that tie into a Loudoun Street property as relates to paying down debt. If we are paying down debt, what is that specifically. Where are we trying to get so that may impact higher bond rating. So, having more than just kind of those data points 25 1Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 that we know that we need to figure all those things out because we have goal of getting to AAA. I would love to see what that roadmap is. Secondly, the other key point is, clearly it is phenomenal that we have the kind of management experts that we have as relates to the five year plan. As relates to, I am sure those of us who are looking at 2017 and the five cent hike, that is the next related plan which is we then knowing that sometime between now and then we will look at how we can reduce expenses or tighten our belt. If we could get much more specific in terms of on a year to year or quarter by quarter basis, where and how are we going to get there. Including, beginning to set the expectation it's not unreasonable that there would be some modest level of inflationary increase in that real estate... you know tax revenue. If we could take this... you know applaud ourself today... which we are doing so well. We appreciate your being our cheerleader. But let this be our opportunity to put a real concrete road map into seeking AAA and determining how to reduce that spike that we have in our plan for 2017. Butler: I agree that I think this report is a credit to staff and to the Council especially for making decisions that are more longer term based and not simple short term... it looks like we have a big savings, I think the message has been more than clear, that we have savings and it would help to make it a little bit bigger. I would suggest that we increase our mass... we have been looking at annexation over the last couple of years. I don't mean annexing just empty property for the purposes of constructing commercial properties but annexing existing houses that we have talked about. Annexing our utility areas, which I think would give us enough mass to move up into that next credit rating and also provide us some alternatives in 2016, 2017, which these dynamics change significantly for the better, presumably if we take the steps to become a city. I think that would be when we do a detailed analysis of that. I think it would be very interesting to ask their rating agencies how they would see that as if they would see it as quite positive, not committing to a rating upgrade, but would they see that as a very positive direction or whether they would see that as moving in the wrong direction. Other than that, I guess it's stay the course and I appreciate all of your input and your leadership. Reid: Thank you. I would like to report a law... there is some very interesting data that I am going to go through. I knew you were going to mention cities, Dave. Would that help, if we were a city versus a town, like Manassas? Hammier: I asked John that question right when they had the briefing... that was the first question that I asked, but I don't believe they actually asked them that question. Reid: Manassas, do they have a AAA status, or Charlottesville? I don't know that. We were told two years ago that size was a factor, so that didn't surprise me. I want to know, what is the difference... you know if we 261Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 had a AAA rating, what would be the benefit in dollars? Can you tell me what that would be on this on this Rose: what I can do is based upon the sale on Wednesday. We can try to pass on that interest, with the difference is in the bid. I can tell you ahead of time, that it's a very, very minor difference. Minor means may be a couple of basis points. Think of it this way as one basis point is 1/100 of a percent. So it's saying to you instead of borrowing at 4.00 which is your interest rate on your home mortgage, if you have one, it's 4.03 That's how small the difference might be. Reid: I would like to get those numbers, if you can. Rose: that changes depending on the marketplace. Depending on whether or not a local government is back positively, but I think the point is it's more symbolic and psychological to recognize that we ultimately... When we ultimately become AAA, that's the good housekeeping seal that the rating agencies are saying you're at the pinnacle. I would now say that you're at the precipice of the pinnacle but I'm trying to make sure, and I think you've all heard me well, and I'm also trying to be cautious in saying that you can slide backwards if you don't continue to do those things. Reid: Correct, then we get to the business with the undesignated fund balance... That's something that has concerned me for a while and some residents wonder why we have $15 million in surplus undesignated funds sitting there. What is really the minimum that we could do to maintain this rating? Rose: well, let me say this first. One of the things I think is lost by a lot of citizens when it comes to seeing those monies being there is not I don't think all the citizens in this town, and that's the case in any place in this country, here as I mentioned earlier. Maybe I can make it clearer. You have really uneven cash flow requirements every month as a local government, whether it be in Virginia, North Carolina, California... It really doesn't matter. As a result of that, what all local governments need to do is make sure that there is a certain minimum dollar amount before it will affect that low -water amount in terms of revenue as opposed to expenditures in a given year. Now typically, typically, you will find that the undesignated fund balance is around 15 it's not atypical that that low -water mark maybe half or three quarters of that amount. It's a different way to think about this. Reid: So that percentage is not how much cash we actually have? Rose: No, no. 27IPane. Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Reid: So if we had 10 million versus 15 million, it would make a difference. Rose: Here is the point. The first thing you need to do is make sure you have enough just pure dollars. Whatever percentage it is, is really irrelevant. Pure dollars and never have to go into PayDay Loans. Never have to look to a local bank to borrow or for the utility fund to lend to the general fund. Reid: That's not going to happen. It hasn't happened. There is no money to lend. Rose: The second thing is recognizing the nature of the community and saying what happens if we have a catastrophe. What happens if we have something... a calamity that even if the Federal government and FEMA were to pay us back, anybody who has gone through that knows that you don't get paid back three weeks later. You typically get paid back one, two, three years later. Now, the good news is most likely you are going to get most of your money back, but you don't get all of it back. So, we have learned that the hard way with a number of hurricanes and things like that. So, there has to be an element of that as well, that a local government should have. The third element of all of this is recognizing that having a certain cushion of extra dollars being there, ala the revenue stabilization fund, or again, those unexpected years or situations where you need to draw on, that is sort of the for that. Take those three things, let alone maybe other circumstances and you will quickly find that local government of this size, having a 15% level is really not considered overly large. Reid: I thought we enacted 25... or we wanted too. There was some discussion to go to 25? Wells: We were at 10 and now we are at 15. Reid: We went back to 15? Rose: Never a discussion of 25 that I am aware of. Reid: Would that make a difference in our bond rating? 10 -15? Wells: Did it? We have received seven upgrades. Reid: That's good to know. So, by Wednesday we will also know what the savings to the utility fund is through this new rate. Wells: We will see what the sale actually is. Keep in mind, we have already programmed in the assumption of the restructured debt. The question 28 Pa nt Council Work Session July 25, 2011 is are we going to outperform our assumptions, not the fact that we are doing it. Reid: That's what I want to know. Whenever you get that data, that would be great. The other thing I want to close with, because I don't want to take too much time here, are these amazing statistics that you have on Page 21. I want my colleagues to open to page 21, because there is a real story here. If you look at 2006, you will see that there was almost equivalence with general property tax and other local taxes. Look at 2010, look how the gap has increased with the business taxes. I did some numbers here, 27% of the general property taxes are from commercial right now, roughly, right? Therefore, only about 9 million dollars of our 43 million dollar general fund budget is coming from residential property taxes. Now, I would like to see how much of the 16 million other local taxes are car tax, stuff like that. Norm, that would be nice, unless that is broken down somewhere else. That is really amazing right there. I think that is truly remarkable. The other thing that was remarkable is seeing that Wegman's is now our second largest employer. I was not aware of that. So, therefore, I want to thank Council Member Hammler and Mr. Martinez, and the other members of Council for voting for Villages at Leesburg and Kevin Wright... where you on the Planning Commission when you shepherded that thing through? Wright: In full disclosure, Planning Commission voted against it at the time... at the time it was at Planning, it had a much different proffer package than what was presented to Council. So, we encouraged them to fix their proffer package. Hammier: Ken is dancing around political issues because certain current supervisors...Burk was in Wegman's and the $25 million proffers which included the entire funding for the interchange. Reid: The road funding was very good. That was very good. Hammler: Incidentally, you could also mention the grand slide of the utility situation because of she also wanted to have the town hall That is what you are doing... Reid: I'm going to get into that. I'm thanking people like Marty Martinez and Katie Hammler for supporting that. Okay? That's what I am doing. Omnilert, you list as a major employer? How many employees do they have? Wells: I don't have that. Reid: I just found that every interesting. I think it's interesting for the media and for the public to note that people will complain about taxes, but I 291Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 think they are thinking about their county taxes or things like that. The reality is that the burden on the homeowner... the homeowner's is now only maybe 20% of the general fund budget. The other thing is that the town plan, I believe, Kevin, you have got to correct me on this Didn't we have one of the biggest discussions in the town plan whether we should have a 60/40 split or a 55/45 split? Isn't it 55/45? Wright: Yeah. Reid: 55 residential, 45 business? Wright: That's all general fund revenue. Reid: So 55 residential. Wright: The goal is flipped. To get 55 being commercial... Reid: Well, we are at 46. Wright: Yeah, 45 being residential. The goal is... that acknowledges a long term goal was to flip that. But it is of all general fund revenues, not just property tax. Reid: Yeah, I know, but we are at 46% but at least we have a target. So, I guess we still have some work to go. Do you think that's pretty good for a municipality of our size to have 55% of our revenue coming from... 45% of our overall general fund revenue coming from non residential sources. Rose: it is. years ago when we had Loudoun County going back 20 plus years and there was one strip mall in the whole county at the time. The rating agencies said we would like to see less burden on the individual homeowner and the goal was to get to 70/30. Reid: That's very ambitious. I think we are doing very good. Rose: You need 70% on the homeowner. 30% on the... so you are way past that. Reid: It is interesting to note that even in the good years, there was like zero office, zero commercial, zero institutional in '06, but it mushroomed in '08 and '09 during the bad years. Just amazing. Truly amazing, but I think it's also due to the streamlining, John. I think it has helped. Thank you very much. Wonderful report. Rose: You know, again. I would be also giving thanks to the staff. I want to make sure that there are no surprises. We typically come back on an 30 1 1' a e Council Work Session July 25, 2011 annual basis. This case might be in January or February time frame. Less than a year. We will come back to make sure that everybody is updated and there are no surprises. Reid: I would like to know what the difference is... Rose: just so you understand with the sale occurring... when the sale occurs, what typically happens, it's then a few weeks later to closing. Reid: Can you also give us the names of the towns and cities in the state that have a AAA. I would love to know if Blacksburg has a AAA and why. Rose: We work with them. They don't. d. August Recess Delegation of Authority for Performance Bonds John Wells: Given the length of the August break, we are recommending that the Council delegate authority for performance bonds for a 30 day period. Right now, that authority is at a $200,000 level. Typically when developers are either trying to place a bond, or have work removed from it and get those funds back, there is some sense of urgency. This would allow that to occur. The normal two week break isn't a problem. We think it might be better customer service if Council is comfortable to delegate that authority to me. Obviously, the same work that goes into forming a recommendation for Council would be the same for me. If staff doesn't recommend doing it, obviously I'm not going to sign it. Hammier: Could you email us, John? In case it is something, for whatever reason one of us may not be interested in doing. It could be highlighted. Wells: I'm not even sure that this will happen, but if it does, we are not left in a position to deal with it short of pulling everybody back in. Wright: If we plan for it, it won't be an issue. If we don't plan for it.... Wells: So, that will be on your agenda tomorrow evening. I have it placed on Consent. That would let us get to the closed session a little quicker. e. September 11 Memorial Ride Mayor: The first item we are going to take up is the September 11 Memorial ride through town. We have representatives from the riders here. We have representatives from the state police and Chief Price is here as well. You all have seen the state police responses to a series of questions that I sent out. Those I then emailed to the Leesburg Downtown Business Association. You got my email with the state police answers. So far, although we haven't 31 P t r Council Work Session July 25, 2011 received a whole lot of responses, probably 15 -20 now from downtown businesses and members of the public, especially those living on King Street, we appear to be getting a 70% to 75% public support for the downtown route. Tomorrow night, you have probably seen the motion on the agenda in support for the downtown route. Ken, questions, the state police have very graciously come... if we have any questions for them. I am sure if the riders wanted to answer any questions, they might be happy to as well. It's up to them. Reid: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for your email. I also want to thank the 9 -11 foundation. Jimmy Czimadia is on your board, called me today. I really have no problem with using King Street. I think that it would be very helpful for the community to see the riders. I think the police can work out the details with the state police. Our chief and our staff are very capable of dealing with this. I think they can stage it in such a way it won't interfere with rush hour. It's only an hour. I think the most important thing is its one hour out of a year that they are essentially recognizing a very important event. The fact that they do this ride and raise money for first responders is very, very good. More importantly, it reminds the public that sees these folks, that we are still at war. I think a lot of folks in this country have unfortunately forgotten what happened on 9 -11. Unfortunately, not all, but I think a lot have. They have forgotten that we are at war and we are at war with people to this day want to fight us for what our beliefs are. They don't appreciate that there are Jews and Christians in this world who want to observe their religion. Being a Jew, I really appreciate what these folks are doing. I appreciate all that they are doing. That's really the only concern that I have. I have talked with Mr. about this and I have talked to Jimmy about this. They are going to bunched up together when they cross Point of Rocks and I think the safety factor and the inconvenience is going to be very minimal. Butler: The emails have put what the issues are very well. Unless there are other issues that have not come up in the emails, then I don't think I have any questions. Wright: Chief Price, is the primary concern, I know we have talked about public safety but is the primary concern the traffic impact. Is that what then drives the public safety concerns? Chief Price: Let me state a couple of facts that I want to clarify. First off, while it may have been reported this way, this is not the state police trying to force something down on us, the Leesburg Police and Leesburg. This is a plan that we have worked out jointly and the intent of our plan... not any disrespect. I have been a first responder for 35 years and I served in the United States Army for 20+ years as active and reserves. So patriotism is not an issue. Our task is to provide for the public safety of our community and the larger region. The information that we have from the foundation is that in the past, there has been 400 riders and it has taken 45 minutes by our through 32 l p a g e Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Leesburg. Estimates for this year's ride from the 9 -11 foundation website is they capped it at 2996, which is the number of people who were killed in 9 -11. As of this morning, the website said over 50% of those positions have been filled. That's somewhere in the vicinity of 15 -1600 riders. That is not going to take an hour. That is liable to take two to three hours. That will severely impact not just the traffic in this community, but in the region. It is a Friday, summer, rush hour. For us to achieve the route that the foundation desires, we will have to shut down an entire length of King Street from the north boundary to the bypass. That is not anything that we have done in any past parades. All of our parades end at Fairfax Street, which leaves east /west traffic available on Catoctin. That will not be the case in this route. Additionally, all of our parades occur outside rush hour. That is not the case in this route. So, the impacts to the community would be severe. The only way to go east /west during this time would be the bypass and you know what the bypass is like on a Friday at rush hour. Additionally, you will be forced to shut down and detour northbound King Street at Evergreen, so all of that traffic that comes through Loudoun County, Prince William County to get on the 15/7 bypass through Leesburg will have to be detoured down Evergreen Mill, Battlefield, Sycolin. So we will have significant regional impact. Wright: Based on that, I have seen the bypass northbound pretty much becomes a parking lot at 2 p.m. on a normal Friday, so the bypass will be toast no matter what we do to it. Price: The bypass northbound, other than rubberneckers and gawkers won't be affected either way. worse. Wright: Well, it's already a parking lot, so you can't affect it any Price: Northbound 15 outside of town will be. I talked to the operations captain for Cumberland, Maryland, which is another jurisdiction that has some concern on this. Their direction came from the governors' office. Their word to us, was that the Maryland State Highway administration estimates that the length of this caravan will be 14 miles. So, to put that into perspective for you, if it is in fact 14 miles, that means as the first motorcycle is getting on the Greenway, the last units will be crossing into Virginia. With me from the Virginia State Police is Lt. Hawkins, the acting commander for 7t Division, Area 10 Supervisor 1S Sgt. Blankenship and Sgt. Patino. If you have any particular questions for the state police. But I want to reiterate, this is not just a state police operation. They have the entire Virginia aspect of it. Their thoughts were coordinated in concert with our staff. Wright: I am trying to picture, is knowing the condition the bypass gets in on a normal Friday at 2 or 3, it almost seems to me because of the interaction with Rt. 7 and the bypass, while both are probably going to cause a 3311'age Council Work Session July 25, 2011 headache, it almost seems to me we would have a broader, butterfly effect, if you will on the bypass with cascading effects on people trying to get around Leesburg, whereas going through downtown, we can't get across Leesburg, that maybe something that we can, if you will, educate ourselves out of. Price: One of the other issues is looking at passing on the roads and speeds. So, using the bypass to bypass the route, we would be moving them close to the speed limit. So, lets say 35 -40 miles per hour. Coming down King Street will probably be 10 mph. So, your time moving through Leesburg is going to be faster. I equate it to a motorcade versus a parade. Wright: Based on the public comment that I had gotten, I made the mistake of doing a survey. It was 227 to 6 for downtown. But I also got emails from some additional downtown businesses including some of the folks that I would assume would be opposed, which are more of the office building users and they kind of said the same thing. We would prefer to take the break, have the acknowledgement and kind of observe what the ride is about. Based on that, if the direction from council, as in the draft motion, to go with the downtown routes, do you guys have some contingencies or plans on how you would minimize the impact. I know the key component of that would be education and information but some other ideas such as batch releases at Catoctin Circle as time would allow, or anything like that? Price: I know there have been suggestions to the foundation from the state police as far as breaking them up. It is my understanding after talking to Maryland officials that is not a direction or option that the foundation wants. They want to stay as one group. We, unless we force the issue, are not going to break them up. So, what we can do is reroute traffic as best we can. Quite honestly, we are not. It does impact the downtown, you need to realize it impacts the entire town and the entire region. So, somebody and the policy decision needs to be prepared for all of the negative information and negative comments that are going to come as far as traffic congestion and traffic management. If we have weather like we have been having, we will significantly have greater problems. The only way into Cornwall would be bypass to West Market and going in that way. That doesn't mean we can't shut things down in an emergency, but that takes time. So, the quadrant split in simple terms, the only way from the eastern quadrants to the western quadrants during the length of this event would be the bypass. As traffic gets jammed up in town, more and more people will go the bypass, use that. I suspect our normal backups will be earlier and more severe. Dunn: I didn't have really one way or the other on this issue other than folks that had contacted me regarding downtown. With the lack of any dissent from having it put out to the bypass, I guess I can support the downtown. It does seem like it might be stretching the police a little. I did have one quick question... what was the length of time that this is supposed to be.... 341Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Price: Based on history... the number of about 400 in the past it has taken 45 minutes. The projections are, this morning, somewhere in the vicinity of 15 -1600 and potentially up to almost 3,000. So, if you multiply that out, you are looking at several hours shutting down King Street, shutting down access to that area. Dunn: Again, until I heard from other folks, I was leaning towards the bypass as a logical direction, but I don't know that we have had... John, in the 45 minute shut down have we really had complaints or issues in the past that are related to the Chief's information. Wells: It's not uncommon during any parade or event. We will typically hear some complaints. I can't say that they are overwhelming. It would be unusual to have any type of a shut down, whether it has been for any one of our regularly scheduled parades... we usually hear a few complaints. Price: our task as law enforcement is safety and being prepared for the worst. We have basically done the numbers provided by the foundation. The state police have been in contact with them. I know the council members have had some emails. They have had members email and on the webpage. The webpage shows close to 1600 registered riders. If that is the case, that is four times what we normally have. Dunn: Do we know what other communities are doing? Price: The only other city similar to us that they are going through is Cumberland, Maryland. They are not going through Hagerstown. They are stopping at the outlet mall, which is essentially right off 81. They are not going through Frederick. They are not going through any other Virginia locations other than Arlington at the end of the stop. They are not driving through Clarendon or Wilson Boulevard or that area. They are taking 66... the Greenway to 66 to the Pentagon. Reid: How is Cumberland handling it. Price: They are still in discussions. Cumberland went the same direction that we did and wanted to change the route. They had changed the route from where it has been in the past. They received pressure from the Governor's office to allow them to come in and they anticipate that they will have several hours of back up. Now the difference between Cumberland and Leesburg is it's half the size of Leesburg, it's 21,000 people. It is not a regional traffic hub. There's Cumberland and there's country. It's 9 a.m. in the morning, 8 -9 o'clock in the morning. Reid: And the time they will be hitting us is about 2 or 3? 351Pagc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Price: They... and they can probably answer that better. Their projected timeline on the web that they leave Hagerstown at 1 p.m. and want to be in Arlington by 3. I question that. I don't think you can drive a single car at speed from Hagerstown to Arlington in two hours. Reid: Could we stage them, I mentioned this before to Mr. Czimadia, about getting them all grouped up somewhere near Lucketts or Tuscarora High School or Morven Park, but I think there was an issue with that too. Albert Blankenship: We addressed that issue with our partners in Maryland State Police. Again, what they are doing in Maryland isn't going to affect how we operate here. It was my understanding that they asked the group to go down into a manageable 300, but they were told that it was going to be a whole group. That was the direction that we had. Again, the question of Cumberland... I think that's where a lot of the issue comes about. A lot of the emails and stuff that you have seen forward is because Cumberland changed their mind. Cumberland changed their mind only to reroute the traffic to the safest route. That's all we are asking for in Leesburg, is to do that safest route available for the riders and for the citizens of Leesburg. We have other reasons why we think Dunn: If we were to go on the bypass, are we going to make any type of special arrangements for those people who would like to view this? Price: Council member Dunn, we think there a number of places... the hill next to Kohl's and Chick- fil -A, that is usually filled with people during the fireworks that allows access. The area along the wrought iron fence from Edwards Ferry, just about over to Plaza is wide open and clearly off the road, but allows great views. The area opposite that at the Outlet Mall, if you come up from the parking lot, there is a large mound area that is clear of the roadway, but allows line of sight of the entire area. There are a number of places where people can view. Dunn: Of course, we would have to get with those property owners. Price: Many of it is right of way or town owned property. Wright: Another follow -up on the bypass route... the concern that I have with that route is so if we are coming around the bypass, so if it is two or three hours through downtown, it's an hour and a half to two hours on the bypass, I assume is your estimate. Something like that? Price: We figured an hour and a half. Depends on the numbers, but that's our estimate. 361 p ag Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Wright: So, if I am thinking of 7 westbound, then coming onto the 15/7 bypass, that ramp would get... or the flyover there would get closed for that duration because they have to come by that to get to the Greenway. Price: Except for oversized vehicles, the plan would be to divert the west bound 7 to outbound Battlefield onto the Greenway and allow them to access because that access point... that exit point on the Greenway is after the entry point for where the riders would be entering the Greenway. Wright: And that may help but I think even there, we will have log jams, obviously, in that sector of town. Route 7 will go... Route 7 will basically... in my mind Route 7 stops regardless. The one advantage of downtown, probably the only advantage at least in your mind is we still have the bypass functioning westbound. Price: Westbound. East bound will be affected and actually the entrance ramps to the Greenway at the Bypass will have to be closed... east and west. Because we won't be able to do westbound because it circles around in the left lane and goes down. The state police will have to move the riders on the right lane to the left lane so they don't interfere with the other exits along the Greenway. Their access point for the Greenway would be eastbound. So, essentially the end of the Greenway will have to be closed. The entrance points in Leesburg would be Battlefield during the duration. Dunn: Kevin, to follow -up on that, I would eventually guess that this is going to cause additional traffic back up everywhere. It's just... are there plans on the Greenway to limit them to one lane or two lanes and have two traffic on another lane? Blankenship: The original problem that we addressed was the volume traffic that we will be putting coming around the bypass and so forth. First, I would like to clarify your situation. The Battlefield branch, or road from Route 7 eastbound, we will direct through education, message boards and so forth, all traffic that would normally go around the ramp to take Battlefield to the Greenway. That would also leave open Route 15 north. Route 15 north, in our plan would not be affected at all. In our plan, the ramp would only be used for any oversized vehicles, large vehicles that we don't want coming into the town of Leesburg. The ramp coming out of Leesburg to go to Route 7 on the ramp, would again be directed to go to Battlefield to Sycolin, Battlefield to the Greenway to access that road. The estimated time again, our numbers are fluctuating because we really don't know what we are facing. If the organization is successful in getting that larger amount, this is going to be a major problem as far as regional. If they are an hour late getting to Leesburg, and again they have to refuel however many bikes that they have. Historically this ride has been late getting to Leesburg. It has always been on Friday afternoon and we have always had to deal with it. We have never had to deal 37 1 Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 with the volume of numbers that we have here. So, to now get to your question about the Greenway. No Greenway ramps will be closed during this event. Traffic will be able to regress onto the Greenway and that was a safety factor that we had to bring the bikes around the bypass to have them enter onto the Greenway. We want them to stay in the left lane and proceed the entire 14 miles of the Greenway in the left lane so there is no change in lanes and so forth. Those steps we have taken. The state police has assumed total responsibility for traffic control for this event... as far as when it comes into Maryland we will be working with our fellow partners in law enforcement, but we are going to oversee the whole situation. In the past, riders with this organization have stopped and actually directed traffic. From jurisdictions outside of Virginia, and how that was done. It's not going to be an issue this year... we have taken care of it. The riders were then encouraged to pass and get in front. We are talking about a 23 mile line that those riders would have to drive around at speeds that put everybody in jeopardy. So again, that is something that we would have to address. Does that answer your question, sir? Dunn: I was basically wondering what your expectations are for the traffic that may see that it's backing up on the Greenway, decide to take Route 7. Blankenship: There shouldn't be a backup on the Greenway. Dunn: Okay. Blankenship: We feel confident in our plan. If you bring this thing around the bypass, the Route 15 north will then bear some problems... what are you going to do with Route 15 north. Do you plan on re- routing the traffic back into Leesburg out by the high school there and bring that back while limiting the traffic that we have at that point. Again, this is an educational problem that we have. This is something that we have to get on. Law enforcement wasn't made aware of this increased ridership until June 25. This is a planning nightmare for the state police and all law enforcement. Again, I applaud these gentlemen and these ladies in this room for what they are doing and what they stand for, but again, it has caused problems for us that we are not going to be able to catch up. The plan that we presented before with the help of our associates, is the best possible, safe plan that we can put forward. Now, I wanted to address, if I could, some other issues that we had. I had sent a recent email to the director of the foundation. Parts of that, I have touched on some of these. We feel that the back up is going to be... every route outside of Leesburg is going to be affected. Again, if this thing is an hour late, it is going to put it at 4 -4:30 down in Fairfax on Interstate 66 and the Dulles Toll Road, we have major construction issues that they are trying to do. What we are trying to do in Leesburg is try to keep this organizations' ride on schedule. I have one purpose and that is to work with Chief Price and to provide the 38 Council Work Session July 25, 2011 safest ride for them to get from Point A to Point B. We have no other agenda. Again, this ride is not a Leesburg issue per se. There are going to be great consequences if we have to shut down Route 28 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon because this ride takes so long to get through Leesburg. You would imaging shutting down northbound Route 28 and the impact that would have if that occurs. Last year, a 40 minute delay that we had in Leesburg, the back up affected at the airport all the way back to the terminal from there in the Toll Road at 28. That was with 30 -40 minutes of stoppage. We are talking hours of stoppage on this ride. We have to take every opportunity as law enforcement professionals to try to bring this thing along on their path. They are not stopping in Leesburg. They are not gassing up in Leesburg. They are not eating in Leesburg. They are riding through our town. Now, we have not in anyway wanted to deprive them of the privilege or the citizens of Leesburg the privilege of observing this event, but for this year, we are asking that this route be used. We have warned them that next year when the numbers are back in more manageable numbers, we would be glad to support a downtown route, but we don't know what we are dealing with. There is an issue, that I don't think has been brought up that needs to be discussed. The second factor that we considered for this event is the security for the Leesburg community and to part of that, I would like to read some of this to make sure that I get the factual information. "The 9 -11 Foundation's efforts to support first responders nationwide is widely acknowledged and appreciated by every law enforcement agency in our great country. The riders remember the heroes, volunteers and terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and other sets of facts from that date. This event, as noble as it is, must be looked upon as a possible future terrorist target. The foundation stands for everything that extremists are against and declared to destroy in our way of life. Recent suicide attacks with motorcycle saddlebags packed with high explosives to carry the campaign of terror against innocent victims. This year is the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks and those events that lead us to reexamine how we develop, share and utilize information and intelligence to make our community as safe as possible by allowing groups such as yours to express your patriotism and love for this country. Extremists in the past, have used anniversary events as dates to engage in further attacks against the United States interests here at home and abroad. Mrs. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Defense stated Homeland Security starts with hometown security. Our state and local law enforcement partners and the public play an important role in keeping our country safe. The town of Leesburg itself renders itself a potential target for several reasons due to its proximity to Washington, DC. You have a large portion of citizens that work for the federal government and Leesburg is what is considered in terrorist invested forums as a soft target. After that, within Loudoun, recent intelligence information reveals instructions having been given extremists to strike back at the United States in small, coordinated attacks against soft targets. Our region is among the highest at risk for a future 391Pa Council Work Session July 25, 2011 terrorist attack. It is not if we will have another attack, it is when we will have another attack. Terrorists such as Eric Rudolf, the Olympic bomber, Terry McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, are examples of Americans that have taken violent acts against soft targets. Mr. Hamid, an Ashburn resident, was arrested in October 2010 for collecting information to assist in the planning of a terrorist attack on a transit facility as well as attempting to solicit material support for terrorists and attempting to provide material support for designated foreign terrorist organizations. This was a Loudoun County resident. This event, that recently occurred in Norway may foster copy cat attempts here in the United States. Every community thinks it won't happen here, but as law enforcement officials, it is our duty to plan for an event and hope it never happens. Looking at the available routes for the ride, the downtown route causes security concerns for subtle reasons. The riders are traveling a low speed with well wishers at a very close proximity to the riders. If suicide bomber standing on the corner of South King Street determined to detonate his explosive, could cause massive casualties along the downtown route. A gunman could step out into the roadway with a weapon would have the same results. Emergency response to neutralize the threat, law enforcement, would be hampered by the traffic congestion in town and emergency medical services would be hampered as well due to the traffic congestion and even the access and egress to the hospital would be affected by this back up with the use of the downtown route. A rider in group could unknowingly be carrying explosives on their motorcycles and detonate it during the highest casualty location, which is downtown. Rapid dispersion is a term used in terrorism training. Law enforcement takes an act or takes steps to deter a criminal or terrorist act in one location, it has to accept the terrorist or criminal to go to another location. This ruse, next stop is the pentagon, one of the targets of the 9 -11 attacks. That would be considered a hard target. If they can't get to the pentagon, the next target was Leesburg. We are asking for your assistance to try to prevent. We have no way of knowing that this is going to happen. The town council over in Norway, they didn't know that event was going to happen, with 92 people just got killed. They had no way. Law enforcement is asking you to support us in this bypass route to take this scenario... that's not saying it won't happen out there, but at least the bypass route discourages an attack. It allows the motorcycles to be spaced further apart and the crowds will be much further away limiting the possibility of casualties among the riders and the general public. The group will be traveling at a much higher speed around the bypass, again limiting the opportunity for an attack. I feel, the questions that you asked the chief earlier, that this is a greater concern than the traffic. Because we don't know who are terrorists. I don't think anybody here can tell you what a terrorist looks like. There is no way that we can guarantee the safety in downtown Leesburg with the traffic congestion that is going to be there if we use the downtown route. We can't guarantee it won't happen out around the bypass, but this is the tenth year anniversary and we are asking for your support, not to bring it through downtown. Let us get 401Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 through this one year and then we will work with the organization and work on a plan to get back into Leesburg next year. Any questions? Reid: I think motorcyclists are pretty tough people. I don't drive one, but I wouldn't want to mess with one, I'll tell you that. I appreciate your comments and your concerns. I still believe that using the bypass could cause traffic jams too. There is far more traffic on the bypass. Maybe what we need to do is talk to the folks and see if they are willing to bunch up and try to reduce the size of the processional. Folks that are dragging along can congregate at Morven Park or Tuscarora High School and they can come through in a quicker manner. Also, the timing too. If we can get them staged so that it's not during rush hour. I think that's something you folks can work out with them. Thank you for your....was that what we were waiting from... that was from... Blankenship: That was from an email sent to the town... Price: That has been suggested from Maryland officials and at this point, the foundation has declined to do that. Reid: Maybe we can make another attempt. Price: Well, we certainly can and perhaps if they take your comments... you may ask them if... Mayor: Is there a spokesperson for the foundation who would like to...do you want to go to the mic or have a chair. Ted Sjurseth: We do appreciate you all's patience and understanding and having a conversation about this. Reid: Introduce yourself. Ted Sjurseth: My name is Ted Sjurseth, I'm one of the co- founders of the foundation. I'm the president. The ride has come through Leesburg... first up, I want to say that we support the state police, the Town of Leesburg as we do with any area. We have been to Katrina, we have been to Joplin, MO. All free of charge to help out our first responders there. We are not here to argue to go through town or not to go through town. I will just give you some statistics that I do have. As of now, there are 2500+ people registered for this ride. That equates to 1722 motorcycles. That's what coming down to the Pentagon. That's not what's coming out of Somerset, Pennsylvania. What is coming out of Somerset, Pennsylvania is 1208, add 140 police to that, so you are seeing about 1400 motorcycles, if you care enough, at 25 miles per hour, 36 feet per second. If everybody rides properly and knows what you are supposed to do, the two second rule would be 80 feet between each motorcycle, you will 41 1Paze Council Work Session July 25, 2011 have a line a little over 10 miles long. If you travel at 35 miles an hour, you increase that distance to 110 feet between motorcycles and you end up with 15 miles. We have come out of Mike's Famous in New Jersey, or Delaware going into New Jersey. We have stretched 35 miles with 1700 motorcycles traveling 45 miles an hour. You do get some We have eliminated some of that in 2004, we learned a lot. We learned you can't control everybody who rides on this ride. You can't keep police officers enforcing the 1 /2 second. But we do know from the emails that we get, that people come out of Leesburg with tears in their eyes because of the We do go through Cumberland. There are some issues with Cumberland, but it really wasn't Cumberland. It was the state highway police that flat out said you are not going through Cumberland because you are not going to come out on the narrows. The police officers that had done this for nine years retired and the new guy said you are not closing our roads and the foundation was coming and you are going to feed 1500 people travel down the road and where are you going to stop them. They decided they really don't want to stop them because they don't want to feed them and take care of them. We do have a deadline to be in Arlington. Arlington is looking for us to be off the street by 4 p.m. They are actually making some changes down there and the hotels, we have a concert that is going to be played down there that is adding to their congestion and frustration. There is 1.5 million people that will be impacted between Loudoun County, Fairfax County... we touch Fairfax for just that small bit. There are 8.7 million people in New Jersey. You take 2 -95 54 miles and we will be doing 60 miles on rural towns. The towns come out. That's where we get our Most of them provide on Saturday.... these townships that we go through have anywhere from three police officers to no police officers for and we actually have to bring the ride to a screeching halt at 10 miles an hour so the guys at the back can get back to the front... these people are police officers that do this for a living. Last year was the first year we actually had the police come to meet at the Maryland House and go we got to we know we do this for a living and we The department thought it would be nice to put a guy out there and Thank you very much... our objective is safety. To get the participants from point A to point B. This year is a challenge. We are going to feed 2500 people in Hagerstown. We have got to fuel and we are leaving earlier than we have ever done before. We have gotten certain things down that we know how to do real well. Our concern isn't as much the town of Leesburg, as the that is going to come from shutting down 66. If you take 15 miles of motorcycles behaving themselves and staying somewhat together, it's going to take you 45 minutes to go through, if they are dragging, we have four fire trucks, six ambulances, 10 nurses that are riding motorcycles in uniform We plan for what we can plan for. What you do is work through the rest. If it is so desired that we go around the bypass, I support and the foundation will support. If it is chosen to go through town, we will support that. We have been through town every year and yes it's a congestion but every year the number of people that come out in the town are more and more. If you have specific questions, I don't know if I can answer 42 P ge Council Work Session July 25, 2011 them, but tell the state police or the town of Leesburg what to do or how to do... we were told that they understood on June 25 that there was this large of a number. The permit for the Town of Leesburg was requested in January for 2000 motorcycles stated on the permit. So, I believe the state was informed because Maryland governor and don't get me wrong... came from Maryland saying that Actually the secretary of state in Maryland and I spoke and he said They had one complaint last year. There was just under 500 motorcycles that came through Cumberland or out of Somerset that year. Most that came through the Town of Leesburg was just over 700. People in the town knew last year and responded, but it was somewhat lower because some people were waiting for this year because it costs the average person to buy fuel, food, The state of Maryland apologized to us. The gentleman in the newspaper in September said he would give the Foundation immediately for 2009. They contacted us said here is what you are going to do. People in the state said we agree tell us four or five weeks before your event, so we were going to have negotiations in October of looking to limit this ride to some number, be it 750, be it 705 the next time we would see anything like this would be If I can answer any questions on behalf of the foundation. Reid: So, what you are saying is... going back to your statistics. I wanted to have it printed out because it was sent to me by email... you are saying the 1400, 720 pairs, eight feet, could be 10 miles long. And you don't think you can bunch it up for those who are straggling? Sjuseth: The problem is you have different class of riders. We learned... we had a fatality in 2006, we had a guy with a brain aneurysm at 60 miles an hour and he was dead before he ever hit the ground, but bless him, there was nobody on the highway except motorcycles so that everybody saw what was occurring and backed off side of the road and that has been our only real issue that we ever had that we couldn't control. If you try and push people up, then people get nervous. It's just a motorcycle thing. If you and I ride motorcycles and go down the road at 100 mph if you get 15 of us, you are doing 70. Add another 100 to it and you are doing 65. My fear is I have to take 300 out of New York City which is 385 miles. We are normally running 100 bikes. It's just a logistic nightmare. Reid: Yeah, but using your statistics, what do you estimate the time involved to go through Leesburg. Sjuseth: We are saying best case is 40 minutes. Worst case is going to be an hour and 5, an hour and 10 if we stop. I am told by people who got to the pentagon last year about 40 minutes. 43 1'a Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Reid: Well, the Chief disagrees with you. He thinks it's going to be more like two to three hours because you have triple the number of people that came last year. Price: (inaudible). Reid: Jimmy told me that everyone is going to cross the bridge. Then you have that long stretch of Route 15, that is going to be shut down, or is it just going to be one lane of 15 that is shut down, from Lucketts? It's both lanes? Everything is going to be shut down? I was wondering about north of Leesburg. Butler: I think there is a difference between how long the actual ride is taking and how long the road will be shut down... Blankenship: The Route 15 traffic will be not affected northbound 15 at all. Our plan cannot be finalized. We have been informed by Maryland State Police and they are still in the planning stages of diverting traffic from highway 15. We plan on attending the meeting in Maryland to try to coordinate how you are sending this traffic to us because we have a large load... commercial traffic, so forth, that is going to be coming down. Maryland really doesn't know yet how they are going to deal with this. Reid: So, they are still driving through Brunswick down through Loudoun County, no, they won't do that. You can't take turns with the motorcade, it has to be pretty much straight, so we can use East market and part of King. Blankenship: the secretary of state has told us that there will be absolutely no change in anything that they have done in years past. Everything that was done will be done. Reid: the 60 towns in New Jersey, if you can come back to the mic. I'm from New Jersey. Blankenship: (inaudible) Reid: 60 small towns in New Jersey, you're going to drive through. Sjurseth: we'll go through Linden, which is where we stopped for lunch but you go through Rahway... Reid: so you're taking 27 up? Sjurseth: 130, but it's at mile marker 54. 44 1' a g e Council Work Session July 25, 2011 Reid: but you'll have to go through some downtowns, 60 downtowns. Sjurseth: 60 miles. It's 14 towns in that 60 miles. Reid: but you're going through those downtown areas? And that's how many towns in New Jersey? Sjurseth: 14. Reid: 14 towns and none of them have complained? They've all given your permit to go through their towns. Sjurseth: (inaudible) that's what we've done every year. The New Jersey State police has done an excellent.... Reid: are there some towns as big of Leesburg do you think, 40,000 people that you're going through? Sjurseth: right around Trenton, on the other side of Trenton.... Hammler: just wanted to chime in and say I very much appreciate everybody's willingness to dig into all the details of the logistics. Most significantly I appreciate everything, sir, that you're doing even how important this is. You may know that Leesburg has a 9 -11 Memorial. We had felt so strongly that so many people from Leesburg had been impacted. But one of the critical things whether it's clearly the traffic that's going to be impacted anywhere from an hour to three hours and certainly this purity, is what we do very well which is to communicate and set expectations. So, I would like to know what that exact plan is... John, once we know, I think we need to plan for the worst but to the extent that everyone is aware that they are planning to cut through town or if they lived here, they will be impacted that day. I think that is going to create a columnist as well as greater awareness. I do very much appreciate that preserving freedom comes at a price. That is not convenient certainly for those that protect us, the first responders and those in the military and it's going to be a wonderful day for us all to do that. Whether we're waiting to come home are hopefully we are in fact at home cheering on the riders. But to that end, that can be quite a communication plan that we are well aware that there are heightened security considerations and that just like when one is that an airport, there are things that going through an airport, you're on heightened alert for things that may be suspicious. Those are the things that we need to communicate. I think we have had 10 years to know our lives have been dramatically changed, but we do not live in fear. That's why we know terrorists do not win. So we look forward to having a great celebration that they and I know that whether the 14 towns in New Jersey were quite frankly look at any town in the world. France just had 1000 miles the bikers going through and they managed to get through it. It could've been a 45 (Pa gc Council Work Session July 25, 2011 terrorist attack. The Tour de France. The Yankees win, they close down cities in Manhattan for celebrations. I think there's nothing more important than celebrating our true heroes. I look forward to discussing this tomorrow evening. Mayor: Mr. Sjurseth I want to thank you for taking the time to come out and all the other folks who came out in support as well. I really want to thank the state police. I know that their only interest is to trying to protect both the riders and the residents in the community at large here and all along the route. This is a very difficult issue because traditionally I'm not comfortable going against what the state police recommend but it does strike me that a lot of people died and we don't recognize that the way we should every day of our lives and we should recognize the loss that may have impacted us slightly but has impacted almost 3000 families for the rest of their lives. I don't like to create a major traffic crisis in the region. I think this will be... This will take tremendous emergency planning, tremendous police resources but it seems that appropriate way to remember these people and when I have talked to the downtown businesses and the residents downtown about 30% agree with the state police recommendation, yet they are very respectful to what you are doing. About 70% have expressed the opinion we should do this. Even though it is going to make it impossible to move in Leesburg it is something they want that day to give up convenience and remember and honor the riders and honor those that the riders are saluting. But, we need to make that decision tomorrow night with our eyes open. I believe we will get tremendous criticism if we vote as I anticipate we will, to support the downtown route. I don't think we can imagine the amount of gridlock this is going to produce in the region, but 9/11 produced tremendous gridlock where it was and John has been working very hard on trying to come up with a public notification plan so that people just assume do not try to get through Leesburg Friday afternoon. Tomorrow night I anticipate supporting the downtown route, but we have to recognize that in the aftermath of it we will probably get quite a few angry e -mails and phone calls. I think there will be less anger from those inconvenienced if we follow the state police recommendations but it seems a little thing for us to have this go through downtown America, because really that's what were trying to protect. So, it's going to be a difficult aftermath but I want you to know I know there has been a lot of blogging on this and there have been some harsh words back and forth. But I want you to know, the Leesburg citizens I have spoken to who I was told this is going to be mess traffic wise, regardless of the route, even those who say the route should be the bypass have wanted to stress how much they respect the cause you are riding for. The vast majority of Leesburg businesses and citizens who have spoken to me and responded to Kevin survey have said we are willing to put up with the inconvenience to honor the riders and those have fallen. Butler: I came here tonight all thinking this would be a slamdunk decision, but I'm not feeling that same way now. I understand perfectly well 461Page Council Work Session July 25, 2011 that if we take a survey of people and businesses within Leesburg, I have no doubt that they would favor the downtown route because it's coming down through Leesburg. So why wouldn't they? A lot of my thoughts now are even if the riders take an hour and 5 min. to get through town, the amount of time that the roads are going to be close is significantly longer than that, somewhere between two and three hours is the estimate by the police. That will cause a much, much longer delay east of Leesburg and if they need to shut down 28 N., then there could be hundreds of thousands of people that are sitting in traffic for many hours and I would hate to see that happen because we feel like we would have more pride in having them come downtown. I think back to the last snowstorm when it took some people 11 hours to get home, how will we explain to people that are coming west and north that yes, the riders underestimated what time they would come through Leesburg. Instead of coming through two o'clock, they came through at 330 and there was a delay and Friday afternoon is already horrible for drivers. People that are going out of town, people that are going home to see their families, people that are going to see shows or movies or whatever, I'm concerned that they may end up being on the road in their Cars for an extra three or four hours. And our communication to people who live in West Virginia for Maryland or parts... Or Winchester or other areas that, well you're going to have to stay in your car for another four hours because Leesburg wants 1700 or 2000 or 2500 riders or whatever it is to come through the town. That were willing to make the sacrifice and stay in our air- conditioned homes and come down and watch the riders go through and take pride in our town and pride in 9/11 and pride in the United States of America but you get to spend an extra four hours in your car because we have decided that. So that's a lot of my thoughts right now and so I'm concerned, I don't think this is a slamdunk decision. If we think it's a slamdunk decision, I think we're not looking at a big enough picture. So I'd like some more data, so more information and it's not clear to me how I'm going to vote tomorrow night. Thank you. Wright: the one follow -up I would give, is when you talk about communications in years past when we got our hand slapped with some of the feedback about the ride, no one really has an issue with the ride, they have more of an issue with not knowing... Sort communication plan has got to be a regional communication plan. I mean were going to have to go all the way to the TV partners to make sure they know that it's coming and it needs to be basically whatever is decided tomorrow... Quite frankly regardless of which route is decided tomorrow there needs to be a regional communication plan that a) talks about what it is, but talks about the traffic impact because if you set those expectations and set the communications properly, that can help offset a lot of the dire circumstances. We certainly cannot take a passive approach to communicating this and hope that the media will pick it up. We are going to have to push it all the way. If it's not on the TV, we will have missed to we need to talk to. 47 Page Council Work Session times. night. Hammler: it has to be early and we have to repeat it many, many Dunn: I would say too, after hearing the officers speak tonight too, although I stated when I spoke that I could've gone one way or another, but after hearing the officers speak that I think that we would be remiss if something were to happen and we offered to not heed their advice and something were to happen, then there would be no shortage of angst thrust upon us. I could still go either way on this myself. I can say that with a friend of mine who was on that plane that hit the Pentagon. I had Bible study with him at his house and his family's house. DC Lee was his name and I don't need motorcycles to remember him. I think that some of the opinions that you heard tonight is greatly It's important, but I think we also need to remember too, that these officers back here are here to protect all of us and they are looking out for our best interest. If they feel that it could be more of a safety... You know if it was just safety on the road nevermind the terrorists, just safety on the road, then that's something we should consider and not just taken slightly. I have heard from people today that said we want to have it come right through town so that they can watch it from the front porch. They be considering the safety of all, means that you have to drive a half a mile to come watch it at the parking lot. Maybe that's the extra effort that you give to honor those folks. So again, I could vote either way but speaking from somebody who was hit closer than some, not a family member but a good friend of mine and as I said, he was on that plane. I know what we are remembering. We will see how it goes tomorrow night, but I just wanted to say this is a done deal. Also I had one quick question. John, the expectation is the bypass we are looking at about an hour and a half and through town about three hours. Is that roughly? Wells: that's one estimate. July 25, 2011 Reid: I guess, I would be more than happy to offer this tomorrow. It doesn't seem like we could put on consent. Mayor: I wouldn't put it on consent. Reid: it didn't seem like we had the consent for that. Mayor: and Marty is not here. We don't know his vote. Reid: I would like to offer this resolution that John drafted tomorrow Hammler: except we can't say unanimous. Mayor: True, we might need to remove the word unanimous. 481 Page Council Work Session 2. Additions to Future Council Meetings Mayor Umstattd requested that this section be taken up after the Closed Session. 3. Closed Session On a motion by Mayor Umstattd, seconded by Council Member Reid, the following was moved: Pursuant to Section 2.2- 3711(A) (3) and (7) of the Code of Virginia, I move that the Leesburg Town Council convene in a closed meeting for the purpose of receiving information and discussion regarding: (a) Red Cross Property (b) Linden Hill The motion was approved by the following vote: Aye: Butler, Hammier, Reid, Wright and Mayor Umstattd Nay: None Vote: 5 -0 -2 (Martinez /Dunn absent) The Council convened in Closed Session at 10:20 p.m. The Council reconvened in Open Session at 10:55 p.m. July 25, 2011 On a motion by Mayor Umstattd, seconded by Council Member Hammier, the following was moved: In accordance with Section 2.2 -3712 of the Code of Virginia, I move that Council certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed or considered in the meeting by Council. The motion was approved by the following vote: Aye: Butler, Hammier, Reid, Wright and Mayor Umstattd Nay: None Vote: 5 -0 -2 (Martinez /Dunn absent) 491Page Council Work Session 4. Adjournment On the motion of Council Member seconded by Council Member i the meeting was adjourned at 10:55 p.m. Clerk of Co 2011 tcwsmin0725 July 25, 2011 501Page