HomeMy Public PortalAbout2022_tcwsmin0222BudgetCouncil Budget Work Session February 22, 2022
Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, 5:30 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk presiding.
Council Members Present: Ara Bagdasarian, Zach Cummings, Suzanne Fox, Vice
Mayor Martinez, Kari Nacy (arrived at 5:34 p.m.), Neil Steinberg, and Mayor Kelly
Burk.
Council Members Absent: None.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Christopher Spera, Deputy
Town Manager Keith Markel, Director of Finance and Administrative Services Clark
Case, Director of Planning & Zoning Susan Berry Hill, Director of Utilities Amy Wyks,
Director Parks and Recreation Rich Williams, Director of Economic Development
Russell Seymour, Director of Plan Review Bill Ackman, Director of Public Works and
Capital Projects Renee LaFollette, Airport Director Scott Coffman, Director Information
Technology Jakub Jedrzejczak, Chief of Police Greg Brown, Deputy Director of Finance
and Administrative Services/Treasurer Lisa Haley, Deputy Director Parks and
Recreation Kate Trask, Deputy Director of Public Works and Capital Projects Leonard
"Bud" Siegel, Deputy Director of Utilities Patrick Moore, Emergency Management
Coordinator Joe Dame, Manager of Operations and Inspections Christopher Kohr,
Stormwater and Environmental Manager Phil Jones, Management and Budget Officer
Cole Fazenbaker, and Clerk of Council Eileen Boeing.
Minutes prepared by Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. CALL TO ORDER
2. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION
a. Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 -General Fund Key Enhancements and
Capital Improvements Program
i. General Fund Key Enhancements
Mr. Cole Fazenbaker presented the key enhancements per Council's Strategic Initiatives
as follows:
• Economic Development
• TownPlan
• Environment
• Information Technology
• Emergency Preparedness
Council and staff discussed the item.
ii. Capital Improvements Program
Ms. Renee LaFollette gave an overview of the Capital Improvements Program projects
for Fiscal Years 2023-2028 and also presented data on rising construction costs.
Council and staff discussed the item.
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Council Budget Work Session February 22, 2022
It was the consensus of Council to allow staff to work on options for Council's evaluation at a
future meeting regarding a traffic study and I or the hire of a transportation planner I consultant.
iii. Other
Council and staff also discussed fiber-optic internet, internet bandwidth, redundancy,
cyber security, video storage and video capturing.
3. Additions to Future Meetings
Vice Mayor Martinez requested a presentation from the Information Technology
Director Jakub Jedrzejczak regarding global cyber security attacks.
It was the consensus of Council to add this item to a future Council meeting.
4. Adjournment
On a motion by Council Member Fox, seconded by Vice Mayor Martinez, the meeting was
adjourned at 6:56 p.m.
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Clerk of Council
2022_tcwsminbudget0222
21Page
February 22, 2022 -Town Council Budget Work Session
(Note: This is a transcript prepared by a Town contractor based on the video of the meeting. It
may not be entirely accurate. For greater accuracy, we encourage you to review the video of the
meeting that is on the Town's Web site -www.leesburgva.gov or refer to the approved Council
meeting minutes. Council meeting videos are retained for three calendar years after a meeting
per Library of Virginia Records Retention guidelines.)
Mayor Kelly Burk: Let's call tonight's Town Council Budget Work Session. The first item for discussion
is the Proposed Budget for Fiscal 2023 General Fund Key Enhancements and Capital Improvement
Program. Cole, are you starting it?
Cole Fazenbaker: That's me, yes. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council Members, members of the
public. My name is Cole Fazenbaker. I'm the Management and Budget Officer for the Town of Leesburg.
Tonight, we have a brief presentation basically to kick off the first budget work session for the Fiscal
Year 2023 Proposed Budget. The main topics for tonight are Key Enhancements and the Capital
Improvements Program. I will briefly talk about the Key Enhancements and then will stop for questions
and answers handed over to Renee Lafollette, Director of Public Works and Capital Projects and she'll
go over the CIP.
Mayor Burk: Thank you.
Cole Fazenbaker: The Key Enhancements are basically budget items that are new and represent a
new level of service for the Town. The proposed budget is based on enhancements centered around
the Council's strategic initiatives, economic development, the Town Plan, environment, information
technology, and emergency preparedness.
The first enhancement area is economic development with a $29SK investment. It includes the
Economic Development Strategic Plan, a small business development coordinator position, and also
office leasing of space in Downtown for that position and to co-house the SBDC.
The next enhancement area is planning and community developments, and it includes the zoning
ordinance rewrites, the capital intensity factors development, and the traffic study. Also, a senior
management position analyst to manage those above goals and also to manage the fiscal impact model
and proper management for the Town.
Information technology is the next enhancement area with a $1 .2M investment, and it includes two new
positions, a systems analyst, and a customer service technician to address current workload and will
also free up senior leadership in the IT department to focus on cybersecurity. Also included under IT is
the second fiber connection at the Leesburg Police Department facility, a video storage project, and a
cloud-based phone system.
The last enhancement area is emergency management with a $S20K investment and its resources and
support for emergency planning, training, and public outreach and also includes $SOOK additionally for
snow removal. This next slide shows the spending history of the Town for snow removal. As you see,
Fiscal Year 2021 , last year, we spent over $1.2M. This year, we're projected to spend over $1.3M.
Our proposed budget for snow removal of Fiscal Year 2023 is $1 .1 M which is a $SOOK increase in order
to address upfront the snow budget and so we will have to come back mid-year for supplemental
preparation. That concludes the first part of the presentation for Key Enhancements.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. I won't go to you first. That's not fair, Ms. Nacy. I'll go over here. Mr. Cummings,
do you have any questions on the enhancements?
Council Member Zach Cummings: Just one quick question in the economic development portion on
the leasing of space. Has there been any conversations around maybe not leasing space, a stagnant
space, but looking at more space that's using a moving cohousing, going to different cohousing spaces?
Page 11 February 22, 2022
This mic is really hot, sorry. Moving around instead of just renting one space for this employee, but
maybe having them move about and trying to put that 75K somewhere else.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Seymour, can you answer that question?
Russell Seymour: Well, good evening, everyone. Madam Mayor, yes, I can. Your question w ith
regards to can we move people around. One of the issues is for the SBDC is what we're focusing on,
they do have a requirement for the SBDC, they have a requirement of three offices, a reception area,
and then a meeting space if you will, to actually have training classes. It's difficult to have that setup
and then have it move around consistently. They were looking to be able, and this would be part of our
work in our negotiations with Loudoun County as well, to keep a standard place.
Our primary goal is to keep it in Downtown Leesburg. It's a destination where people are used to coming
to right now and it really does make a nice--They talk about these broken wheels coming off or the, I
shouldn't say broken wheels, but they talk about that aspect of it and that is a major factor for it.
Council Member Cummings: I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood that this was specifically for the
SBDC. I thought this was for the new employee that we were looking to add.
Russell Seymour: They would be a part of that. They would most assuredly be a part of that location.
Yes, sir.
Council Member Cummings: Got you. I guess if we're working with the County, have we talked to
them about putting the 75K towards office space for the SBDC?
Russell Seymour: We have. We have given them a number of comments about as far as their
assurance on us is, and their budget that they're moving forward with is to fully fund the SBDC. I believe
that line item in their budget right now is $139K.
Our portion would be to provide space for them. The $75K came at an estimate for where they're at
right now, maintaining the space that they have. We don't have to maintain that same building space.
We certainly do have a couple of other options we can look at in Downtown, but it has to meet certain
requirements that are set forth by the SBDC.
Council Member Cummings: Got you. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: I'm going to have a follow-up on some of these questions so don't go away. You just
responded that part of that money will be for the individual that would be hired.
Russell Seymour: No, ma'am. The $75K is to secure a space primarily for the SBDC.
As part of that discussion, ifwe were able to maintain the space that we have now, part of our discussion
was if we brought on a new person, they would be able to be located there, whether on a full-time
position or move in and out of that office space as well as a different one. Their focus would be to keep
them where they would be working directly with the small businesses and with the businesses
Downtown as part of the programs that we're laying out.
Mayor Burk: You were there for a while; you didn't find it to be a very effective place to work out of so
why would we consider putting somebody back in there?
Russell Seymour: It's a space need. In looking at it, we can put that person anywhere in the Downtown
area. We're looking strictly at a space need. In my mind, ifwe were leasing space for the SBDC, if there
was space down here to house that person, it kept us from trying to put them in the log cabin where
we're at now, we're finding another space for him.
Page 21 February 22, 2022
It was simply for that reason, and to be able to support the programs because this position is going to
be focused not only on Main Street but specifically on the entrepreneur's portion of our project. That'll
be a lot of what they're working on.
Mayor Burk: A lot of people have asked me, and I've asked you this question, we have so many new
shared workspaces now. Why would we even worry about where the Small Business Development
Center would go as long as it stayed in Leesburg?
Russell Seymour: I'm not concerned where they go as long as they stay in Leesburg. We can look for
any space in Leesburg for them.
Mayor Burk: Why does it have to be we looking for Leesburg? Isn't this a State-run--
Russell Seymour: It is. The SBDC portion of their funds come Federal, State to local. In our agreement
with Loudoun County, in our discussions with them is that they are providing the funding for the SBDC.
Loudoun County will be glad to put them somewhere else in Loudoun County. Our focus was to keep
them in Downtown Leesburg. If we're going to do that then we would need to find a place for them.
Loudoun County's 139 is an actual match for the programs and for hiring the staff that runs the SBDC.
Our portion, I'm assuming this was laid out some time ago when it was regards to the MEC, but then
also running the SBDC program, our portion has always been to provide some physical location for
them.
We certainly do not have to, Madam Mayor, but I don't believe that we're going to then be able to keep
them or certainly keep the primary grouping of them in Downtown.
Mayor Burk: Has the County said that, they would not keep them in if we didn't do the $75K?
Russell Seymour: Has the County said that they would not? No, they have not.
Mayor Burk: Has the County said that they would like to keep it in Leesburg?
Russell Seymour: The County has said that they would like to keep it in Leesburg, as a preference.
Yes.
Mayor Burk: The County is paying $135K for the salaries of the individuals, I assume.
Russell Seymour: Well, for the salaries, for the programs that they run, basically, for everything that
runs the program with the exception of a place to stay.
Mayor Burk: What is the State and Federal pay for?
Russell Seymour: The State puts in; I want to say it's about $90K. The County goes over and above
the SBDC money that's put in at the Federal level or at the State level. The County matches it and then
goes about $40K above it.
Mayor Burk: The County, you said they match it, so they pay $90K?
Russell Seymour: Their entire budget receives its match. I don't have the exact number here with me
this evening, but I believe it's about $90K that comes in and part of that is a requirement is that you
have to match that from the locality. Yes, there is about $200K plus that goes toward the SBDC for
funding , and it funds four pieces or four positions. It funds all the programs. It funds all of the projects
that they work on, all of the training that's set up, and the money is allocated and broken down for those
programs.
Mayor Burk: Let me make sure I understand before 1--The County pays, you said $11 OK about.
Page 31 February 22, 2022
Russell Seymour: The County's line item in their budget is $139K.
Mayor Burk: Ninety of that is from the State.
Russell Seymour: Ninety of that, no. That is a match. $139K comes from the County. That's the
County's portion that they're paying. The State puts in additional funding, and that additional funding
requires a match. Think of it as the $139K that the County is putting in, $90K of that is because it's a
match to what the State's putting in. Over and above that is extra money that the Town or the County
has put in at the request of the SBDC over the years.
Mayor Burk: I'm a little confused by this. Maybe I'll talk to you offline on it. I'm sorry, I don't mean to
belabor the point. Then I hope that one of the programs, as I've talked to businesses walking once a
month, going around walking in businesses and talking to them, they don't know about the program.
I've often talked to the Director about what a great program it is, but he's got to get the word out. I hope
that's one of the things that they will work on to get the message out that we have this resource for
businesses. I hope they'll learn about it.
Russell Seymour: Yes, ma'am. That was one of the questions that we asked was who was coming
into these training sessions. They're a pretty widespread group. The groups that are coming in are not
necessarily the ones that are in Downtown, but we want to make sure that they are aware of those.
Yes, ma'am.
Mayor Burk: Most certainly we don't want it specific to Downtown. We want it to all businesses in the
Town.
Russell Seymour: Absolutely.
Mayor Burk: Thank you.
Russell Seymour: Yes, ma'am.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg, don't go away, you probably have more questions.
Council Member Neil Steinberg: Just to clarify. We are providing $75K for space. That provides space
for our employee and meeting space and the rest of the money is providing space for the, did you say
for SBDC?
Russell Seymour: From the $75K, right now the SBDC and the MEC are put together. We provide--
our portion has always been $75K to fund that position to give them basically the first floor of the MEC.
Council Member Steinberg: It's basically the entire first floor.
Russell Seymour: I'm sorry.
Council Member Steinberg: It's the entire first floor.
Russell Seymour: Yes. That gives them the space that they needed. It also gives them that conference
room which allows for them to open it up to any other businesses, not just the ones in the building, but
it's also the SBDC training center. They typically, and I'll give you an example. We had a meeting, I
believe it was two weeks ago, where the building people actually came in and utilized that space all
day. That was a graduate that's here in Leesburg that utilized that conference room.
Council Member Steinberg: Roughly how many square feet is that space, do we know?
Russell Seymour: I want to say off the top of my head it's about 2500 square feet, give or take, and
that's usable versus total square footage.
Page 41 February 22, 2022
Council Member Steinberg: Okay. Thanks.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Suzanne Fox: Thank you. Russ, just a follow-up to that. I see an asterisk by the 75K,
and I don't see why that has an asterisk. The reason I noticed that is I had another question somewhere
else. What does that mean?
Russell Seymour: I think the reason for the asterisk was that was an estimate based on specifically
the cost we were given for the MEC building and the square footage. The $30 a square foot roughly for
that square footage because that's where that number came from. It would fluctuate a little bit. I'm
assuming if we looked at another space in the Downtown, it could go up or down depending on square
footage in the exact per square foot cost, but that was a good number that we thought putting in the
budget. We thought we could meet that or come under it a little bit.
Council Member Fox: That's for the first year, is that going to stay, hold true year over year?
Russell Seymour: This would be per year. What we would have to do is by the time we start getting
into the fall of this calendar year, we would start looking at whatever building we were in as looking at
a lease rate for that. Also, a lot of this depends on what the County's take is going to be as well.
Right now, in my discussions with the County Economic Development Director, this has been the plan.
The plan is that we are going to continue to operate the SPDC either in that building but keep them in
Downtown Leesburg. The County is going to fully fund it as part of their request to run all the operations
and staff. Our request would be to continue to keep that space Downtown as sort of our match with it
and we would proceed forward from that.
Council Member Fox: Okay. All right.
Kaj Dentler: Can I add one note to that? While that asterisk is there in addition to what Mr. Seymour
mentioned, based on the current arrangement we have with Mason Enterprise Center, our net--so
Mason collects rent. We are on the hook for the lease. They collect rent and hopefully they collect more
than enough rent, but we have some expenses there. It nets out about $60K, $66K a year.
This 75K is what the cost would be to rent a space, whether it's at that location or somewhere else, but
we're already have an expenditure of about 60 plus thousand a year. It's really not a full ?SK in additional
money. That's what that asterisk was trying to explain. The new office [crosstalk]
Council Member Fox: We're talking more than $130K range.
Kaj Dentler: No. Opposite.
Council Member Fox: The other way.
Kaj Dentler: The other way on the positive. Really, we're adding about what 15-16K a year?
Cole Fazenbaker: Twelve.
Kaj Dentler: Twelve thousand additional if we were to lease it at the rate of the current location of the
Mason.
Council Member Fox: Got you. All right. Well--[crosstalk]
Kaj Dentler: Could be less.
Council Member Fox: -that makes me a little bit better.
Page 51 February 22, 2022
Kaj Dentler: It's much better, that's why the asterisk is there, is trying to explain. Sorry for that.
Council Member Fox: Well, thank you, Russ. I have another question about an asterisk, and it doesn't
have to do with Economic Development. It has to do with the traffic study. There's an asterisk there too.
Is that the same? Is it an estimate?
Kaj Dentler: I'll tell you why. The asterisk for that is that I wanted to make sure, and I think I said it in
my comments during the presentation, that when the Planning Commission recommended the traffic
study, their focus is different than the staff's focus. What I have directed Renee and our staff is that
make sure that the Town engineers and traffic, we are very clear in our position, Planning Commission
may have their position, make sure that is told to the Council. You can make your own decision on what
direction you want to do with the traffic study, if any.
That was just there to make sure that there's a difference of opinion. Now, last Thursday at the Planning
Commission, they received a report from VDOT and traffic study experts on how the processes work.
That may or may not have changed the position of the Commission on the traffic study focus. Renee
can address that tonight and you may want to do that now.
Council Member Fox: I'd like that. I have an opinion too, but I'll listen to yours first.
Renee LaFollette: The $250K traffic study is looking at what Council asked us about in combining all
of the traffic impact analysis of the existing developments, primarily looking at the loop inside Catoctin
Circle and how the traffic into Downtown and that area was affected by all of these different traffic impact
analysis.
What the Planning Commission is looking at is the traffic impact analysis that the developers do, wanting
the Town to then study them, again, once the development has reached at least 50% of construction to
see if their traffic studies are correct or not. That would be, in my opinion, very difficult to do on an
ongoing basis.
I think based on how staff has laid out how we can get to that $250K traffic study, in a later phase of
that 250, we would get to what the Planning Commission is looking for. When staff looked at how we
would structure the study for the 250K, it would be combining all of this traffic study, all the TIA's inside
the Catoctin Circle loop to study the impact, net impact on the traffic grid in Town, because we had
been asked about one-way streets like North Street, can we change North Street to one way? Can we
change Wirt Street to one way? Can we change Royal Street to one way? We can't do that in a vacuum
because that creates domino effects throughout the grid.
Council Member Fox: What about changing just taking a look at Market and Loudoun?
Renee LaFollette: That would be a potential component of combining all of those traffic impact
analysis. What is the impact of all of the development? How does it impact that? What streets can we
look at? What mitigation is needed to help with the traffic congestion? We've laid it out in a phased
approach for that 250K and we'd eventually get to what the Planning Commission is looking for.
Based on what we did last Thursday, I think they have a better idea of what goes into a traffic analysis.
It's not opinion, it's not what we think is going to happen. It's based on analytic data from industry-
standard manuals. You have a single-family home of x number of square feet, the number of trips is x,
you have this type of retail establishment, the number of trips is x, and how you work through the
process.
Kaj Dentler: I think the piece of advice I would give you is, regardless of the formula, this Council needs
to know what do you want the traffic study to produce? What are you studying? What is it that you want
to know? Regardless of the different opinions, before you commit to spending 250K or any amount of
money, what are your objectives? That's all my advice is on that, is that there are differences of opinions.
Page 61 February 22, 2022
The formula speaks for itself no matter what their opinions are of the laypeople such as we in that area,
but I would just advise you, make sure you know exactly what you're asking, and you want done if you're
going to fund this at all.
Mayor Burk: You're asking us at another time to come up with what it is that we--our objectives?
Kaj Dentler: No, I put the money in the budget because the Planning Commission moved it forward
through the Council as this is an area of interest and so I put the money forward and how you can fund
it. I'm advising you whether you approve funding in the budget process now or you approve it after the
budget process, just make sure you know very specifically what are you asking us to study and what
value is that going to give you. Just to spend 250K on a traffic study in general [crosstalk]
Council Member Fox: That was my question.
Kaj Dentler: I would question what you're trying to accomplish. I think whether Council Members agree
with your thoughts about a study to put Loudoun and Market only, at least that's specific enough to
know what it is you're trying to evaluate. That's all I'm trying to tell you.
Mayor Burk: Well, the Planning Commission wanted to know if the planning studies that the developers
were putting forward, are they accurate? Are they giving us accurate information when we make the
decisions? After the halfway through, they're trying to figure out, is that information, correct? And you're
saying you could do that as part of the study towards the end of it? Is that correct decision to collect all
that data, all those studies anyway?
Renee LaFollette: Yes. I think it all can all be combined into one study, and we would get there. Now,
there's a difference of opinion between the Planning Commission Chair and staff and how we get there.
They want it faster than what we would be delivering it but--
Mayor Burk: When would you deliver it? When would it be delivered?
Renee LaFollette: I would figure the 250, we're probably looking at 12 to 18 months to get through
each component of what we're after, and what the Planning Commission wants us to do is look at the
traffic studies when the development is 50% complete. Well, let's use Tuscarora Village as an example.
They've started building but they're nowhere near 50% complete. How do we fund that? Where did the
dollars come from? How do we figure out when they're 50% the way they phase. There's a lot of
challenges with how we do that.
Council Member Fox: Wouldn't it be obsolete though if we were to put this money toward that with
applications that come on. It seems like an ongoing process, not just a study. It would seem like it would
become obsolete. Is it a wise expenditure?
Renee La Follette: Part of what we're looking at when we're looking at the 250K from a staff perspective
is once we combine all of those traffic impact analysis inside Catoctin Circle is Phase 1 and look at any
mitigation there, we take that out to the next ring and bring the rest of the TIAs in to the point where we
have developed the transportation model for the Town that we used to have that we don't have anymore.
That would be the end goal that we see using that 250K, is getting that traffic model for the Town that
we would be able to then keep updated so we can verify numbers that developers are bringing in
because that model went away when our transportation planner went away. Nobody was able to keep
that updated. That's where we're looking to go with that.
Council Member Fox: One last question then. You're saying Market and Loudoun would be a
component of this whole thing.
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Fox: Can you put a price tag on that? Can we do that in a vacuum or not?
Page 71 February 22, 2022
Renee LaFollette: I would not recommend doing that in a vacuum because when you look at Market
and Loudoun as one-way pairs, it will have a direct impact to all of the north-south streets and the other
east-west components. If you look at that, you're going to be looking at the bigger network in Town just
because of the effects that happen with all of the intersections in that.
Council Member Fox: My humble opinion is we should start there and go out from there. I feel like
we've asked this before and we didn't quite get there. Now we have another chance to readdress it, but
that's just my opinion. If we spend money, I'd like to put it toward Market and Loudoun.
Mayor Burk: All right. Mr. Bagdasarian, since your light's on.
Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Okay. Thank you very much. I have a few questions regarding
the studies, the traffic study. The first one is, who selects the consulting firm to conduct the traffic study
when any new development is proposed?
Renee LaFollette: When a new development is proposed, it is the developer that selects their traffic
engineer. The Town does not select that engineer.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Would that change the dynamic because clearly there is a sense of
distrust with the results of the traffic study if a developer chooses their own firm to do that? Can the
Town not make that selection?
Renee La Follette: The way the ordinances are set up, we cannot make that selection for the developer.
That is their responsibility to do their traffic impact analysis and provide that information to the Town for
us to review the study that they submit. It is a very distinct back and forth between Town staff and that
traffic engineer. Before it gets to the Planning Commission or eventually to Town Council, it's probably
gone back and forth between Town staff and that traffic engineer three maybe four times to make sure
that we've reviewed everything that goes into that study.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Because clearly there's distrust there that we're putting money behind
another study to study the study because we don't trust the study at end of the day. I think that's
something that we need to look at.
Renee LaFollette: That's where I think that the $250K is not to study the study. It's to compile all of the
studies so that we can create that model and look at what those studies are showing is happening in
Town with all of the counts and what they're saying their directional choices are so that we can look at
the overall Town network. We're not just looking at the Courthouse project, we're not just looking at
Church and Market, we're not just looking at Crescent Park, but we're taking it as a holistic view.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Which is great. To the Town Manager's question, from my perspective,
the outcome or the objective of a traffic study is to determine what is the maximum number of people
with cars that the Town of Leesburg can support and whether it's single-family homes, multi-unit homes,
what is the maximum number? Because it's not just people, it's people driving cars and I don't know
personally that that can be determined from a study like this, is it? That's the magic number.
Renee LaFollette: I don't know that you'll get to what the maximum number is. You're going to get to
what your level of service is on your roadways and your intersections, A through F. It might not be a
maximum number but it's going to show us where we start having degraded level of service and is there
something we can do to improve the level of service, say at King and Market or King and Loudoun?
That's what I see this study doing, not necessarily to verify what the traffic engineers have put in front
of us, but to compile that so that we can figure out what to do with our network to make it as good as
we can.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I'm not sure if that's a capital intensity factor study, but I think that that
number is critical for any planning decisions as far as density, especially the Crescent District. What
can we actually physically support because right now it's very subjective and it'd be great to have of an
Page 81 February 22, 2022
objective perspective on what we can physically support given our infrastructure? That's it for that.
Economic Development questions. Where's Mr. Seymour?
Mayor Burk: He left; he ran away.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Oh, he ran away. Welcome back.
Mayor Burk: He had enough.
Council Member Bagdasarian: All right. To the Mayor's point about making people aware of the SBDC
and the programs, I think one of the key factors there is building a community of small businesses and
entrepreneurs. That makes the whole awareness of what's available, intrinsic to a community. Having
someone that can help facilitate that community through different types of programming, events,
communications, et cetera, I think is absolutely critical.
It's not just a matter of marketing or having full-page ads in the paper and on line, it's really building a
sense of a community. That requires a lot of effort and someone who's well connected. I think that's just
a key point.
One question that has come up a few times is, is the objective to build, co-workspace with the space
that the Town be renting or leasing?
Russell Seymour: For the space that Town is renting? No. The space of Town would be renting the
way we have it laid out in the budget is specifically for the SBDC. The remainder of the building that it's
in right now, I would assume based on the discussions we've had, it's going to remain co-working space,
but that really depends on if somebody leases the rest of the building, or they've leased it floor by floor
was the other option.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Exactly, so the co-workspace would be operated by the private sector,
not a Town initiative.
Russell Seymour: Correct. The co-working space would be operated by either the building owner or
whoever the manager is for that, not the Town.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay, great. How would this new ED position support small
businesses and entrepreneurs?
Russell Seymour: In a couple ways. We are right now staff as you know of two, primarily two full-time
people. We spend a lot of our time working on the marketing side, but then also working on the small
business side. The piece that we've really been missing is--now when you look at the Main Street
Program and you look at some of the other possibilities or options that are coming.
The piece we're missing is a person that can look at and basically take the needs of the small
businesses that we're seeing, coordinate with the SBDC coordinate though also with--we talked about
George Mason University, but we have also been working with the high schools and looking at one of
the things that we did a couple years ago was a Manufacturing Day.
The idea was is that you have a lot of students, and you have a lot of businesses right now that don't
need four-year degrees, don't need two-year degrees. They'll work with the high schools. We match
that up. Being able to expand on those types of procedures or those types of projects, I should say,
that's really where I see a lot of work specifically for this.
I will tell you the other piece of this is we talked about tourism, and we talked about the day-trippers.
Not just the hotels, Visit Loudoun does that, but we're looking at the day-trippers. We're looking at
anything and everything we can do to get more visitors to our area specifically to Downtown, to help
some of our small businesses. They're going to wear multiple hats, but the focus is always going to be
on those small businesses.
Page 91 February 22, 2022
Council Member Bagdasarian: Will one of those hats potentially be helping with the startup of a
Downtown organization, whether it's Main Street or another such program?
Russell Seymour: It is. Through the Main Street program, I see one of the pieces of this position is to
work with and we are at tier two right now. There are a lot of things to do before we get to tier four. One
of those would be to start to build. I believe, sir, you mentioned the word community and that's where
we'd look to build.
If you're going to have a successful program, you have to build a community. I see this position working
to help that, but then at the point where this would then become, if we're stepping into that 501 C3, this
position would step back at that, and it would take over as a private entity at that point and this position
then would continue to help support it but also focus on all those other aspects of it.
Council Member Bagdasarian: No doubt. I know the Mayor mentioned also about the incompatibility
of the Economic Development Department at the 202 Church Street location. From my observation, the
department was on the fourth floor, and it was somewhat inaccessible. I think it's important for anything
to be not necessarily a retail location, but accessible to small businesses, accessible for entrepreneurs
to have access to these resources.
Absolutely, you mentioned this earlier. It's critical for the SBDC to be the core, really the SBDC is core
to the programs, it's really cored to starting businesses. It's important to look at the whole spectrum of
starting a business and then becoming successful with your business long term and providing an
environment that allows, well not allows, but supports that.
The early-stage startups ideation process, it's absolutely critical to have resources like the SBDC there
to help those get started up and running, then you move on to the prototype development phase, having
mentors available. Those are things that are absolutely critical to build that community of
entrepreneurship small businesses.
I think it's important if this position is really entrenched in developing that community because making
those connecting synergies between different companies, I think is absolutely critical, small businesses.
I think that's an important factor.
The last question, how do you envision our initiatives here in lieu of the MEC working with the County
Economic Development?
Russell Seymour: We have a fairly good working relationship with the County Economic Development.
I think we have sat down with them on a number of occasions. We meet regularly to talk about a number
of factors, including small businesses. The MEC, as you know, was something that was not taken lightly.
This was something we looked at for a number of years. I see us now being able to work directly with
those businesses.
Working with OED, they now see I think with Loudoun County Economic Development. They see a true
focus on the need for those startup pieces. One of the things we talked about was not just a startup, we
talked about startup, we talked about established business, but there's that area in between, that once
a business becomes a startup, they make it through the SBDC, they're doing that. That next step is the
hardest one for them. That's where I see a lot of coworking between us and Loudoun County Economic
Development when making sure that transition period is successful for them.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Great. Thank you very much.
Mayor Burk: I need a clarification of a question he just asked. This new person that you would like to
hire, the small business, I don't know what term you're using in regard to them. Are they going to be
exclusive to the entrepreneur service?
Russell Seymour: No, they would not. That would be a function and I think we can all agree there's no
staff position that's ever focused on one thing. This certainly would not fall into that as well. This is a
Page 101 February 22, 2022
position that entrepreneurs are going to be a part of that, small businesses are going to be a part of
that. Small businesses are much larger than entrepreneurs. We're going to be looking at all those and
then also that tourism piece of it as well.
Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Kari Nacy: Thank you. I just had a quick question not for you, sir. I guess Renee,
traffic study, are we looking at you , Renee? In my day job, I see a lot of studies get done at Federal
government level that waste a lot of money and never do anything. In my mind, this traffic study needs
to be an actionable plan that we can use to solve our legitimate traffic issues. Is that really possible?
Before you answer that, you said something about a transportation planner. Is that a job that we used
to have in the Town that we don't have anymore?
Renee LaFollette: Yes. [unintelligible] part of your question, yes. There used to be a transportation
planner that's no longer here.
Council Member Nacy: I guess my question to Council would be is it a wiser use of money to invest
in a person again that would be in charge of that than a study that may not actually give us what we're
looking for or what we need? Just a thought for you all to mull over, but going back to the first part of
the question, if we go the study route versus getting a transportation planner back who would take this
back on, how do we get an actionable plan to solve our traffic issues?
Renee LaFollette: When we met at a staff group to discuss this project, we specifically talked through
what we would want to see from the study. The first was combining those traffic studies so that we had
the numbers and the data for them to be looking at how the network has been affected or will be affected
by these developments and looking to see what could be mitigated through capital construction, or just
changing the streets to one-way streets. That may be an actionable item that is as inexpensive as
changing some street signs to one way and some advertisement for that.
We were specifically looking at what actionable items could we get from this because I agree with you
in the 30 years, I've been in government work, there are a lot of studies that you do them and they sit
on a shelf, and you never see anything come from them. We know we have some issues in Town that
need to be resolved as far as traffic is concerned. King and Market, King and Loudoun, there are a
number of them. We were specifically wanting to target this to what can we make a physical change
and get some results?
Council Member Nacy: If the money were there, would a combination of a study and getting a
transportation planner back be more helpful or less helpful?
Renee LaFollette: That's what--
Mayor Burk: You put her in a bad spot.
Renee LaFollette: Mr. Dentler and I were just talking about this. I missed part of Suzanne's question.
lfwe do the study, and we do end up with a model, for example, that I would hope we would be able to
get from this, we would have to have either a consultant or a staff position to be able to maintain that
model so that it doesn't become an obsolete thing that just sits on the shelf again.
To answer your question, 250K to get everything that we want out of this is going to be a stretch but to
have that additional person to deal with all of this would be ideal. It's going to take us every bit of 12 to
18 months to get through the study, so I don't think it's necessarily something that you would need
immediately but down the road, yes, we would need something to keep someone or a consultant to
keep it updated for us.
Council Member Nacy: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez?
Page 111 February 22, 2022
Vice Mayor Fernando "Marty" Martinez: [inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: This is obviously going to be a conversation we're going to continue
having for a while. I'd like to ask the obvious question, what does the traffic planner do?
Renee LaFollette: I'm going to ask Ms. Berry Hill from Planning And Zoning to tell you more about what
a planner does. I know what a transportation engineer does, but not so much a planner.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay.
Susan Berry Hill: The Town did have a transportation planner in the early 2000s. At that time, the
decision was made by the Town to get a model made for the Town to evaluate transportation on an
ongoing basis and that transportation planner supported work on that model to keep it updated and to
apply it to land development applications that came in.
His role was as land development applications were submitted, run the model, see what the impacts
would be and would make recommendations based on that. That was part of the job of the transportation
planner.
The other job was to be looking, not as an engineer would on exactly the engineering logistics of lane
widths and turning lanes and so forth, but to look and see how do we best implement the Town Plan
with respect to transportation planning through our Capital Improvements Program and through review
of land development applications and other initiatives maybe that the Town Council could pursue to
improve transportation planning in Town. In a very broad sense, that's what the transportation planner
did back earlier in the 2000s, but we lost that planner during the recession and the reduction in force
that we had at that time. Consequently, we haven't been able to apply any resources to maintenance
of a model. Consequently, the model has not been used.
Council Member Steinberg: But at one point in time, it was considered an important function, and
obviously, for the transportation planner, the function, that individual needed data.
Susan Berry Hill: Yes.
Council Member Steinberg: Correct? Okay. We understand the economics of recession, so we didn't
choose to afford that as a planning tool, but we can see that we are, in the not-too-distant future,
approaching a critical situation with regards to the transportation within at least a certain sector of the
Town. If we're going to repeat that exercise, is there no way for us to quantify or come up with empirical
data that says, "If you do this, then your--" Somebody, I think, referred to it as level of service as opposed
to gross numbers? That's fine.
lfwe want to plan and say, "We are not interested in seeing our level of service get to a level of service
D because if it does, this is what happens," how do we know that, for example, within, again, the
Crescent Design District and all of that that that entails that we're talking about revisiting, how do we
know that these gross density numbers that we have said are potentially possible are actually practical
or possible at all if we want traffic to continue moving at a relatively decent service level? There must
be some way to get to that.
Susan Berry Hill: I think, and Renee can speak to this better, but we do have traffic counts done
periodically. I would think that one of the functions or tasks that the transportation planner would be
looking at is monitoring those trip counts all of the time to see how they are--It's kind of like what the
traffic study process is asking to do. It's looking at cumulative information produced by those traffic
studies, measuring those against actual traffic counts to see where we're at in our capacity of different
streets, and understanding how the turning movements and signalization, those all factor into how
efficiently our transportation system works.
Page 121 February 22, 2022
This person, I think, would be helping our transportation engineer be looking at it from not only an
engineering perspective but a planning perspective as well.
Council Member Steinberg: Obviously, this conversation can get pretty wide-ranging, and maybe this
is not the appropriate forum at this particular time, but since we are considering budget and since there
has been an opinion expressed that we need to revisit certain parts of the plan, then at what point do
we sit down either in this budget session or after and decide we need these dollars in order to make
this a reality and really be able to function?
Kaj Dentler: I think my advice is that if you're not ready to make a decision in the timeline of the budget
process, which is the end of March, on what you want to do with the traffic study, a traffic planner,
consultant, et cetera, you don't know the objectives, then you should not take that action during the
budget and defer it into your work sessions because the funding for the study is coming from our
Unassigned Fund Balance. So, you're holding that money. You don't have to approve it in the budget,
you can approve it later, type of thing. If you're not quite ready, then just defer it until you have more
discussion in a work session, type of thing.
Council Member Steinberg: Well, I would offer that I'm not sure it's a question of not being ready
because already we've had it said that a 12-to-18-month per component, if I understand that correctly,
that's not a Town-wide or even a region-within-the-Town-wide situation, am I correct with that? When
we say component? If we're talking about just Market and King--That's okay. The point is I think there
are a number of us who'd like to get to this sooner rather than later.
If the stage advice is to defer some things, post-budget conversation, that's fine, but I'm not sure that
we want to defer all of it, honestly.
Kaj Dentler: What we can do to help you is look at your options. You've discussed a variety of those
options tonight, whether you do a study and you've got specific objectives, outcomes, do you want to
hire a transportation planner? Do you want to hire a consultant? We've talked about the model that the
Town has. It hasn't been updated for a long time. How do we sustain that information? Because that's
what Renee and I talked about a few minutes ago based on Council Member Fox's question, because
there is a recurring cost. So, we can give you options and come back at the next meeting, feed that to
you. You can mull that over and then try to formulate where your direction is.
I agree with you, it's 12 to 18 months to get it done. We can just give you your best options because I
have some concerns just from the staffing perspective. I know from our past the traffic planner is very
difficult to find, they're very expensive, they're in high demand, this is a tough market. A consultant may
be better, but we can explore those options and give you our best recommendation so that we can
sustain--That, to me, is more important than anything. If we can't sustain the effort that you initiated
whatever point in the future, then we've just wasted money, and that's not good. None of us would agree
with that.
Council Member Steinberg: Well, I appreciate that. I understand when you say the recurring costs,
but my opinion would be to do nothing would be far worse in the end.
Kaj Dentler: I'm not suggesting we do nothing. I just want you to know, make sure that you're very clear
on what you want to accomplish, that your eyes are wide open, you understand there are different ways
to get there. Ultimately there is a recurring cost to sustain the effort, all admirable, but I don't want
Council to walk out of here or at the end of the budget and think if we spend $250K, all of your decisions
are made, and you don't have to spend any more money. We would've misled you as staff and I don't
want you to have that impression at all. It is a sustained cost, worthy, but there's a sustained cost.
How about if we just work on options and try to come back either at your next meeting, certainly before
you finish the budget. Okay, all right. We can do that.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Page 131 February 22, 2022
Council Member Cummings: Just quick wanted to point out on the traffic study. From where I sit, I
understand congestion is a concern for a lot of folks and it's a concern for me, but even more of a
concern that I have, as we're talking about traffic and we're getting more options, is safety. I'd like to
see what the traffic calming plan for the Town of Leesburg is. I'd like to have discussions about ways to
do that because if you continue just to build roads, especially big-wide roads, no matter what the speed
limit is, people drive fast. I don't want it to come off like I don't believe congestion is an issue. I do think
congestion is an issue, but I truly believe the bigger issue is safety.
As we're talking about traffic, I'd like to have those conversations.
Mayor Burk: Okay, thank you. Any additional--
Council Member Bagdasarian: Of course [crosstalk]--
Mayor Burk: We're really running short of time.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay, really quick question. Just pardon my ignorance, but why is
traffic not part of the capital intensity factors? Is that not part of the same mechanism?
Kaj Dentler: Well--Go ahead.
Cole Fazenbaker: The capital intensity factors are really guidelines for proffers. It's essentially saying
if you bring new development in, if you have X amount of houses, here are the guidelines of the amount
of proffers that you need to proffer to the Town where the traffic study is just--you understand the traffic
study, but the capital intensity factors are related to proffers.
Mayor Burk: They're also related to services and the cost of the services. The proffers tip are
considered looking at the services that are required by the new density--
Cole Fazenbaker: Correct.
Mayor Burk: -so the use of the roads, the schools, the trash collection, the snow removal, all of that
comes into play as to what's the intensity of the development and the cost that it costs us to provide
those services.
Cole Fazenbaker: Correct.
Kaj Dentler: They are intertwined, but they also have parallel pass. The traffic study as proposed here
is a planning tool that we're trying to accomplish. The capital intensity factor has its own mission, but
they do intertwine at various points based on what deliberations Council is having. Yes.
Mayor Burk: All right. Are we ready to move on to our capital improvement program?
Renee LaFollette: Part Two, Capital Projects. Our '23 to '28 Capital Program includes 81 projects of
which 46 of them are in Fiscal '23. There's 14 new projects, and those new projects were focused on
replacing old and broken infrastructure, operational needs, and some missing pedestrian lengths. The
Town has or will complete 11 projects by the end of Fiscal '22. The CIP is fairly even between General
Fund projects and Utilities Fund projects with Utilities Fund having 48%. Over the last 10 years, our CIP
has grown in both number of projects and budget, and it's been a fairly significant increase, especially
since Fiscal Year '18 to current day.
I want to spend a little bit of time on the rising costs of construction and what's happening in the
construction market. Obviously, pandemic-related inflation has been very rampant here recently. When
we were putting together the CIP, we definitely studied the cost indices through Engineering News-
Record and the CPI. They're up more than double what they are in a typical year. Our horizontal
construction was at a high of 9.2%. It's currently at 8%, and this is year over year. Vertical construction,
Page 141 February 22, 2022
basically buildings like the north hangers, Town Shop, police station, that was at a high of 17.9%. It's
currently at 13.9. When we were putting the CIP together, it was at 15.4.
Materials are off the charts in a lot of cases, plus delays in delivery. The most impacted in materials has
been structural steel. It is at a high of 139% over what the cost was in April of 2020. If you figure you
need 100 tons of steel, you're paying 139% more for that 100 tons of steel than you were in April of
2020. When we developed the CIP, for horizontal construction, we used an 8% increase for Fiscal '23.
Then, we went back to a 3% increase, which is our rule of thumb to the midpoint of construction. We
had to take into account the increase that inflation is showing on the projects, but we didn't want to
prolong it. We only included it for Fiscal '23.
We did the same thing for vertical construction, and we utilized 15.4% for '23 and went back to 3% to
the midpoint of construction. Design cost was 5.4%, according to CPI-U. We used 5.4% for the design
costs for '23 and 3% to end of design for the CIP. That did lead to some project budget changes. Those
are based not only on inflation but also on further refined development of the project schedules.
Materials are another big concern from a delay standpoint, and I'll use the Ida Lee roof project as an
example. We awarded that contract June 8th of 2022. We ordered materials between August and
October of 21. I'm sorry, of 2021. We will start getting roofing materials at the end of March, first part
of April.
The TPO roofing that we ordered for that project in October will not be delivered until late August of this
year. When we talk schedules on projects, we had to push some schedules out just looking at material
delivery time. The 14 new projects that we put in the CIP as I mentioned earlier, are dealing with
replacing old and broken infrastructure, operational needs, and pedestrian connections. There is our
list of projects for consideration as new projects. After we went to the Planning Commission, we did
have two projects brought forward to us. One is Kincaid Forest drainage improvements. This is a project
that the developer went bankrupt in '97 timeframe, and the Town called the bonds to do the work. This
was found just recently that one area of the drainage was not built-in accordance with the approved
plans. We have an estimated cost of $SOOK on this. It will take some engineering and figuring out what
we need to do. The drainage ditch wasn't dug where it was supposed to be, lo and behold, there's a
conglomerate rock in the area, so this one will be a challenge. Town-wide Facility Fiber Redundancy,
that's bringing fiber connections to all of the Town facilities that we have some redundancy in case
something happens.
We will be doing an in-house study on this just to lay out what our existing fiber network is to our Town
facilities. This estimated cost is also at $500K for an added project. With that, we'll go to questions and
answers on CIP.
Mayor Burk: All right. Any questions at this point? Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: I just have a quick one on your slide with developing the CIP. Do you really
think it's going to drop back down to normal? I mean, shouldn't we just be [crosstalk]--
Renee La Follette: Based on a webinar that I sat in on a couple of weeks ago that was sponsored by
Engineering News-Record had industry experts from Contractors Association of America, an
Engineering News economist, and one other economic leader, they're indicating that they anticipate
costs to start coming down on materials and labor and things in the third quarter of '22. They figure steel
will start coming down late third quarter, early fourth quarter. Given what's happening in the world right
now, it's anybody's guess. We utilized the best information we had at the time we put the CIP together.
Council Member Nacy: Is what you came up with for FY '23 enough to sustain us that we aren't going
to have to have another conversation? Is the 3% basically going to be FY '24 combo that we need to
have?
Renee LaFollette: There's always that possibility. Again, I'm reading Engineering News-Record, we're
looking at the Wall Street Journal, we're talking to our financial planners. The best information we have
is that they're anticipating costs to start coming down. Going into the last year and a half, the
Page 151 February 22, 2022
construction indices ranged anywhere from 2.7% to 3.4%. We were safe seeing a 3% increase. Right
now, there's still a lot of work out there, so there aren't as many contractors that have the bandwidth to
bid on some of our smaller projects. We like to think we're a big jurisdiction, and we are from a Town
perspective, but a lot of our projects are small in size .
Sometimes it's hard to get that competition to help drive the price down. If we're not comfortable with it,
when we review the bids, we will cancel bids. We've done that twice in the last four months. We canceled
the Airport hangers, and we canceled the Market and King Street intersection because the prices were
way beyond what we even thought were reasonable for the economic times. Long answer.
Council Member Nacy: No, that's good. Thank you.
Renee LaFollette: Short answer is I really don't know.
Kaj Dentler: I can add into that. I've mentioned in the presentation, our true test is the bellwether of the
Police Station. When that bid comes in, we're going to have a much better idea what numbers on that
slide there are accurate or close to being accurate to the projection.
Council Member Nacy: I'm a worst-case scenario planner and then hope for the best.
Renee LaFollette: We thought we were being worst-case scenario by using 8% and 15.4% considering
where the indices were, and they started coming down. They creeped up a little bit in the last couple of
weeks, but they still aren't as high as what we used in the CIP. As I'm standing here right now, the last
document I have.
Council Member Nacy: Right, I'm knocking on wood. You can't see, but I'm knocking on wood.
Renee LaFollette: We did a lot of that putting the CIP together.
Council Member Nacy: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Nothing right now, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Nothing right now. Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: On the fiber-optic network, we all know network mapping of our fiber-optic and
hardware ethernet cable network are confidential, correct?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Yes, especially the utility stuff.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay. Right now, we do not have a redundant fiber-optic network.
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Excuse me?
Vice Mayor Martinez: We don't have a redundant fiber-optic network?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: It's very complex and I will try to simplify as much as I can. We have redundant
internet, but to deliver the internet, to some facilities, we do have redundancy between the Police
Department and let's say Town Hall. That also depends on the function . For public safety function, we
do have a true redundancy, but when it comes to the regular operation, in most of the facility, we do not
have a redundancy. Plus, we have a limitation. Today, we're utilizing to connect all our facilities,
Comcast, and for example, to connect us to the Parks And Recs, where they are at 70% of capacity
just for the stream of our cameras and other devices.
Page 161 February 22, 2022
Vice Mayor Martinez: One of the things that I think some people have trouble visualizing is that when
we talk about bandwidth and data, we used to just talk about data, but now we're talking about streaming
video and storing video, which is incredibly costful to our bandwidth, correct?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Yes. At the same time, the other services that are utilized by the Town are heavily
impacting the internet. Whenever we can, we're trying to utilize the cloud-first approach where we're
trying to directly connect to the cloud, avoid as much as possible of our internet network traffic because
today, our internet network traffic is becoming slowly a problem.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Yes. Well, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that historically, way back when,
fiber-optic networks gave you plenty of bandwidth, but nowadays, we're using all that bandwidth.
Especially during the day, so that is why we're doing with the other fiber-optic networks to help offload
some of the work. Am I right?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Yes, that's correct.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay. I think that was basically it. Oh, security on these networks and stuff. Now
you had a great display of all the cyber-attacks and threats throughout the world. I would like just to ask
you to present that to the Council to give them an idea of what this world, our country, even our locality
is dealing with when it comes to cyber security threats.
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Yes. I'm happy to on one of the work sessions or Council meeting.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay. Part of a lot of this cost is making sure our networks are secure.
Jakub Jedrzejczak: We're working on it and that's number one priority. I always repeat we do two
things only in the Town in IT. One is the cyber security, and second, services that we provide in the
digital Town Hall. All the services for the residents, including Utilities, not only services in the Town hall,
but we're trying to streamline all of them.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Right and providing all these services to our residents and to our staff is not
cheap.
Jakub Jedrzejczak: It's not.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I just want to make sure we understand that the value that you're bringing to us
is a lot more than we believe in some cases. Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez, are you asking for staff to send a slide or something that was presented to
the [crosstalk]--
Vice Mayor Martinez: No, Jakub and I were talking about this a week or so ago. I'm just formally asking
him to make a presentation and he knows what I'm talking about, and he can--
Mayor Burk: Are there four people that would like to have a presentation from the IT Commission or IT
Director on this?
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay, great. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Renee, I understand the Kincaid
Forest drainage project, you're saying it costs 500K. Was it our fault that we missed it or was it the
developer before you had to take over missed it?
Renee LaFollette: I can't answer that question 100% because this all took place before I started work
for the Town. The approved plan shows the overland relief going in one location and what was
constructed does not meet the approved plan. I think it was probably a combination of the developer
not building it appropriately and it wasn't caught during punch list.
Page 171 February 22, 2022
Vice Mayor Martinez: The reason I was asking is I was just wondering if there was a possibility that
we could recover some of that 500K, but it seems like we can't. We're going to have to just suck it up
and pay for it.
Renee LaFollette: That's a question that would require a legal opinion.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Oh , okay.
Christopher Spera: My concern, Mr. Martinez, and we'll certainly look at every potential recourse that
we have, it was just so long ago, and there are limitations on actions for recovery.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Well, I just wanted to know if there was a possibility of recovery of any of that
500K, especially if it wasn't our fault, but since it's all--
Christopher Spera: We will explore all potential avenues--
Vice Mayor Martinez: I'll [inaudible].
Christopher Spera: -but I don't want to give you false hope. It's a long time ago and my full expectation
is that the statute of limitations on that has rung.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay. Well, I just wanted to ask the question. Thank you, Renee.
Renee La Follette: That 500K is very back of the envelope cost to not having full engineering done.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Vice Mayor Martinez: Thank you.
Council Member Cummings: Yes, just a couple questions on 16 Wirt Street facility. How many office
spaces are we looking to create with the $600K?
Kaj Dentler: I think Keith will correct me if I state it wrong, but I believe probably four is about the most
we could get.
Council Member Cummings: Four? Okay. Then, what is the cost to mothball? I know we talked about
this before. What is the cost to mothball the property?
Kaj Dentler: Renee? I know that we estimated pretty much a minimum of 200K for demolition, probably
a little bit more for mothballing or maybe up to a high of 600-some thousand for a total renovation. I
don't know if you have a specific for mothballing.
Renee LaFollette: It was right around 300K for demolishing and regrading the site. It was between
350K and 400K to be able to mothball it because we would have to do some roofing and window work
and door work to fully weather type that structure because there are some leaks over there currently if
we wanted to get it to that point. If we left it alone and just mothballed it, you eventually get to the point
where you can't use the facility because it will deteriorate too quickly and the 600K was the renovation
for future office space.
Council Member Cummings: Do we have a sense of who would use that office space?
Kaj Dentler: No, we've not gone that far. There's a variety of options that could occur, but we haven't
gone into that.
Council Member Cummings: Okay. Thank you.
Page 181 February 22, 2022
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Yes, so as we look at the rise in the CIP budget over a period of years,
do we expect to see spikes due to aging infrastructure, or are we able to plan for that to the point where
basically, it kind of keeps the curve smooth more or less?
Renee LaFollette: We're trying to plan for that with all of the information that we have been able to
gather through our new asset management program where we're going out and doing very specific
inspections of underground storm drainage, and we've had pavement condition ratings done, so we're
trying to stay and program the best we can with the dollars that were allocated.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay. It's safe to say that new projects we may choose to do are not, but
aging infrastructure, we don't have any choice. Would that be a fair assessment, more or less?
Renee LaFollette: That is correct. The miscellaneous storm drainage construction and repair, for
example, we have two locations where we know we have separated storm pipe under a roadway that
needs to be taken care of. We'll replace pipe that has been in the ground for 25 to 30 years and it will
involve digging up a road and a full-on CIP project to make that happen. As we are identifying, we're
trying to get into the CIP to plan forward.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay, thanks. For the Town Manager, not to make Chief Brown nervous
here, but we did have a discussion regarding the expansion of the LPD building. Are we waiting until
we get a final cost estimate before we make decisions or are these avenues we're still exploring?
Kaj Dentler: We are exploring other alternatives that are available to us to see. We will provide all that
information to the Council. The longer we can drag that out to some extent is to our advantage, but
some of these alternatives may only be available for so long, but we will present that to you. Our goal
is to present that to you before you have to make a final decision in case you want to take a different
path.
Council Member Steinberg: Before we have to make a final decision on the budget or the actual
expansion project?
Kaj Dentler: All of it.
Council Member Steinberg: All right. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thanks. Two quick questions. I want to go ahead and expand on what Council
Member Steinberg just asked about the expansion. I was looking at the project here in the CIP, and
we've expended $16.5M already on the expansion. Is that correct? Am I reading that correctly?
Renee La Follette: Let me get to the right page. No, we have not expended that amount of money. That
is the amount of money that has been budgeted for the project thus far. The only dollars that have been
expended are on design and project management. You're at $1.3 to $1 .4M dollars on that project.
Council Member Fox: Why does it say expended through, of course, coming up in June?
Renee LaFollette: The funded through column up above on the funding sources, we have to
accumulate and have all of the dollars in the bank before we can award a contract. The funded through
and the expended through columns balance on the CIP page, but we have not expended all of that
through the end of this Fiscal Year yet.
Council Member Fox: You're saying it's the 1.3 design and engineering, that's what we're expended?
Page 191 February 22, 2022
Renee LaFollette: And some project management that we have expended thus far. Not all of the 1.3
for the design because we're in the final phases of design now.
Council Member Fox: Okay, so that's what we need to consider when we hear these alternate plans?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Fox: Okay. That answers that question. Then, we were talking a little bit about the
COVID-related inflation and the refined project schedules. You were talking about that. As costs grow,
we just put something out for rebid like you alluded to. At what point in a project is it too late to put
something out for rebid?
Renee LaFollette: Preferably before you award the contract. We can always cancel a contract after it's
been awarded and started, but that is not good practice if you want to stay in a market where people
are willing to bid on your projects. If we do not want to award a contract, that is when we should cancel
the bid before we award it.
Council Member Fox: Are you saying we have a hard time getting bids?
Renee LaFollette: No, I'm just saying if we went to the practice of awarding a contract and letting them
start and then deciding we didn't want them to do the work, and we canceled the bid at that time, your
reputation starts to proceed you when you go out for projects. The more we can avoid that, the better
off we are.
Council Member Fox: I remember talking a couple of meetings ago about some sort of--We were
talking about procurement, and you said there was some list. They go through a process, and so we
choose from a list. Probably every one of us up here feels like with the inflation, we're not going to deny
that, but sometimes we could be gouged. Can't we go to outside sources?
Renee LaFollette: It depends on the type of procurement that you're doing. When we do a large bid,
we're required to go with low bidder on the projects that are in the CIP, for example. We will put that
out, not only in the newspaper, but we'll put it on our bid board, and we use a source called eVA, which
is the electronic vetting system for the State. We also, on larger projects, will put it out to specific plan
rooms like Dodge, and there are a couple of other ones that contractors are members of, and they get
notified when certain types of projects are out. We do everything we can to beat the bushes to get as
much competition on our projects as we can.
Council Member Fox: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: One question, Kuba. Just help clarify the 500K for the video storage.
I understand that this is a migration away from on-prem to cloud, which is great. Is that an annual
subscription for video storage?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: This one is extremely complex project. Today, we have at least between seven to
nine different systems, depends how we count, in regards to the video. The main urgent deficiency, it
comes to the traffic cameras. We have total approximately 230 cameras today, and we have immediate
desire from the department to add additional 140 cameras, and in the near future, add another 80
cameras. Basically, doubling in size. Some of the systems today are not good systems. Just to give you
an example, just in Parks and Recs, we have three, four different systems, DVDs, and it's hard to be
compliant when we're storing stuff on DVDs when it comes to the retention schedule.
We would like to, first of all, very decentralized system, centralize, and build a good platform for the
Town to be able to utilize for future expansion, as well. Very large part of this project will be to strengthen
our network. I estimate about 20% of the cost of the project will be to purchase additional internal
network equipment to be able to process, even to the cloud, those streams.
Page 201 February 22, 2022
Council Member Bagdasarian: It's video hardware and storage?
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Yes, it's a perfect example of the hybrid project. It's not only a subscription model
sound like, oh, 365 is a perfect subscription model, but this is like a hybrid, you have to purchase these
200 cameras initially, and the initial purchase probably of some core switches which cost $1 00K apiece.
This will have to be strengthened as well to meet the needs of this project. Today, we're in a really bad
situation when it comes to the traffic cameras. We cannot add additional cameras because we are
utilizing the Cisco system and it's really old and on this specific model of the Cisco system, we cannot
upgrade. We just can't.
We really have to rethink the process and start purchasing something that will sustain us for years.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay, thank you for the clarification. Appreciate it.
Jakub Jedrzejczak: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: My question deals with the notable project budget changes. I don't know who put this
together.
Kaj Dentler: We all did or Renee mainly but go ahead and ask your question.
Mayor Burk: Are these projects that are beyond the 14 new projects or are they--
Renee LaFollette: Those projects are all projects that are in the current CIP. The Police Station
expansion is to go out to bid this spring. The Town Shop expansion is to go to bid in 2024/25. Edwards
Ferry Road Northeast sidewalk is to go out to bid this spring. Evergreen Mill Road is two years out from
going to bid. Market Street and King Street intersection is one that we had to cancel that we're trying to
figure out when the best time to do that work is so we can put that back out to bid. Morven Park Road
sidewalk is to go out to bid this spring, summer. Lawson Road pedestrian crossing at Tuscarora Creek
is due to go out to bid this year as well, this calendar year.
The Town Branch Stream Channel at Mosby, Catoctin to Morven Park is to go into design in '23 and
construction in '24.
Mayor Burk: Okay, thank you. The only last question is, and this might be for Mr. Coffman, was there
an airplane accident today?
Scott Coffman: Not at our airport.
Mayor Burk: Not at our airport.
Scott Coffman: Not at our airport. I think that was an airplane went into Dulles. From what I understand,
from Joe Dame, everybody was okay.
Mayor Burk: There was one person injured, but it wasn't our Airport, but it hit right outside of Leesburg?
Scott Coffman: No, it wasn't [crosstalk)--
Mayor Burk: They said it was at [inaudible] Drummond Road.
Scott Coffman: It was at Ashburn, near the data centers in Ashburn. I think it was on approach into
Dulles Airport.
Mayor Burk: Well, good. I'm glad everybody's okay, and that-
Scott Coffman: Calm day at Leesburg.
Page 21 J February 22, 2022
Mayor Burk: -it wasn't ours, so good.
Christopher Spera: Madam Mayor, I can confirm from a very reliable source it was in fact a plane
going to Dulles General Aviation.
Mayor Burk: Okay. All right. Everybody's questions answered at this point? We have five minutes
before the session starts again.
Eileen Boeing: [inaudible).
Mayor Burk: I am in the process of doing that. Thank you. I will at this point adjourn this meeting and
we have five minutes before the regular meeting begins. Is there a motion to adjourn?
Council Member Fox: So moved.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Second.
Mayor Burk: By Ms. Fox, seconded by Mr. Martinez. All in favor?
Council Members: Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed? Okay.
Page 221 February 22, 2022