HomeMy Public PortalAbout2022_tcwsmin0411 Council Work Session April 11, 2022
Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, 7:00 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk presiding.
Council Members Present: Ara Bagdasarian, Suzanne Fox, Vice Mayor Martinez, Kari
Nacy, Neil Steinberg, and Mayor Kelly Burk.
Council Members Absent: Zach Cummings.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Christopher Spera,
Chief of Police Gregory Brown, Emergency Management Coordinator Joe Dame, and
Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
Minutes prepared by Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. Items for Discussion
a. Police Citizen Task Force—Final Report
Police Citizen Task Force Chair Amy Harber gave a presentation on the
Task Force's findings and recommendations. Mr. Frank Holtz also provided
suggestions regarding funding for police training.
Council and staff discussed the item.
b. Emergency Preparedness—Electric Grid Outage
Mr. Joe Dame gave a presentation on past incidents, preparedness efforts,
and future initiatives regarding electric grid outages.
Council and staff discussed the item.
c. Discussion Topics for Joint Meeting with Loudoun County Board of
Supervisors
Mayor Burk and Council discussed and determined the order of the topics
for the April 28, 2022,joint meeting with the Loudoun County Board of
Supervisors.
1. Plastic bag tax revenue sharing
2. Compass Creek BLA and related revenue sharing for data centers in this
area
3. Crosstrail Boulevard and Kincaid Boulevard openings
4. Small Business Development Center(SBDC)
5. Future County space needs in Leesburg
6. Master Memorandum of Understanding for County Services
7. Affordable housing
8. Regular Meeting Schedule
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1 IPage
Council Work Session April 11, 2022
2. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Mayor Burk was unsure if the Stroke Awareness Proclamation had already been
included in a future agenda and requested four head nods. Council Members present
confirmed it was on a future agenda.
Vice Mayor Martinez asked about the Gun Violence Awareness Proclamation. Staff
confirmed that it is scheduled for a May meeting.
3. Adjournment
On a motion by Council Member Fox, seconded by Council Member Steinberg, the meeting
was adjourned at 8:03 p.m.
(21.2ee,4„
Clerk of Council
2022_tcwsmin0411
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April 11, 2022—Town Council 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: I call to order this Town Council work session of April 11, 2022. Our first item for
discussion tonight is the Police Citizens Task Force, and the Task Force Chair, Amy Harber, is going
to be giving the presentation.
Amy Harber: [inaudible] Frank Holtz, who some of you know, was the vice-chair of this Task Force,
and two other members of our Task Force are present tonight, Pat Daly and Enrique Gonzalez. We
appreciate having the opportunity to serve the Town in this capacity, and we're here tonight to share
with you our findings. First and foremost, our conclusion. Our conclusion was unanimously that the
Town at this time does not need a permanent oversight commission. I will elaborate more on that
recommendation as we go through the report, but I wanted to go ahead and get the main idea out
there first.
To just start off, in looking at our presentation, and our final report to the Town, as you all recall, I'm
sure this Task Force started with the enactment of Town Resolution No. 2021-107. That was adopted
last July toward the end of the month. It was in response to a legislative change at the statewide level
last year, the enactment of Virginia Code Section 9.1-601. That was specifically allowing localities to
form police oversight commissions. In the definitional language of that statute, they omitted Town,
which meant that the Town did not have the authority to do that, and there was lots of discussion, as
I'm sure you all can recall.
In that resolution, the purpose of our Task Force was to essentially evaluate the establishment of a
Police Advisory Commission, and it was to ensure fair and equal treatment of all citizens by the
Leesburg Police Department. The three main focuses were enhancing the public trust with the
members of the Leesburg community, increasing the public communication with the Town and
transparency, and promoting public education on police procedures. The resolution specifically
indicates that we were not going to have any kind of involvement in HR or personnel-related matters.
Moving on to the next page, if you look at Section 9.1-601,that is a fairly significant difference with the
State statute.
We certainly looked at that when looking at guidance and how we should formulate our review of the
Leesburg Police Department. In the statewide code, many of the sections deal with the oversight
commission's ability to review complaints and personnel issues. Since we did not have that in our
resolution, we were limited really in the scope that we could examine the Police Department.
Specifically, we looked at four sections of that statewide code and we tried to incorporate them into
our responsibilities over the six months that we examined the Police Department. Section C(4) was
we looked at their policies, procedures, and their practices, and make recommendations for changes.
We had the ability to request reports of annual expenditures and make budgetary recommendations
to the Council and to the Town staff. We are here tonight making our public report on the Task Force
activities. We also took meeting minutes and there was agendas published before each of our public
meetings and we undertook other duties as necessary. In terms of the Town's Task Force
membership, we held our first meeting on October 20th of 2021, there were seven members. One of
the members that this body initially appointed unfortunately moved out of Town limits after the first
meeting and had to resign from the Task Force.
That member was replaced, and that replacement member began attending meetings in December of
2021. Of the seven members, five of us attended at least 75% of the meetings. Obviously, with
professional obligations, family obligations, and I think a number of us actually had COVID at different
points, myself included, mostly everybody missed about one meeting, but the presentations were
circulated by Town staff, as well as Police staff, so everyone had the ability to participate in the
discussions that we missed. In addition to the public meetings, we reviewed the general orders of the
Leesburg Police Department under the supervision of the Town Attorney.
Page 11 April 11, 2022
We were provided redacted copies of those to review at our leisure and propose questions if needed.
We also heard different presentations from Town staff and Leesburg Police Department personnel.
Some of the things that we discussed were a general departmental overview with crime statistics. We
had specific presentations on FOIA and transparency with the public, specific presentations on
community outreach, recruitment and retention, officer training, and we had discussions about internal
affairs. Additionally, the Town made Police Department staff and Town staff available to members for
additional questions. We had Town e-mail addresses. The agendas, again, and the meeting minutes
were public.
There were members of the outside public that were able to come to the meetings if they wished to
attend. In terms of the Task Force findings, after these six months of meetings, our Task Force found
as a whole that the Leesburg Police Department and its officers are motivated to police itself against
any officer complaints or wrongdoing. They are committed to professionalism in their public
interactions. They are committed to transparency to the public, and they are committed to forging
positive community relationships.
As I mentioned at the beginning, we took a vote at our February Task Force meeting. There were six
of the seven members present, and the recommendation was that we do not believe that the
establishment of a Police Advisory Commission is-- it's not necessary at this point. There's no data to
support it. No members of the public came forth with information to warrant the need for it. There was
no departmental information shared with us that would suggest that there's a separate need for it.
This vote was circulated to the member that was not present. We did not hear any type of feedback
from that member who was not present to participate in the vote.
Some of the reasons that we came up with this recommendation, first of all, in 2020, the Leesburg
Police Department had only 15 internal affairs complaints and more than half of them were internally
reported by their officers. That's a fairly significant statistic, especially in the national dialogue about
policing. The fact that more than half of these complaints initiated from members who did not like what
they saw their colleagues doing, speaks volumes about the professionalism of the officers that are
involved in the Police Department.
Additionally, civilians have the ability to report complaints via the Town website, the Police
Department website, e-mail. They can come into the office and make a complaint.
All of those complaints are immediately investigated by the officer's direct supervision. If it can be
resolved at that level, it will be, or it can be escalated as needed. Additionally, as you all may be
aware, the Leesburg Police Department undergoes an independent accreditation process every four
years that involves meeting 190 separate standards. Those standards have to do with things such as
physical fitness, officer training, policies and procedures, discipline, and they have successfully
passed that accreditation. The Chief can certainly correct me if I'm wrong, I believe they're up again
next year or toward the end of this year for that next accreditation process.
The Leesburg Police sponsors a ton of community events and initiatives. They have Coffee with a
Cop. They have National Night-Out events. They have Shop with a Cop over the holiday season.
They have Fiesta Latina. They have different social media presences on Nextdoor, Linkedln,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. They are really making a significant effort to reach different members of
our community and really incorporate feedback about their different practices and engage with the
different community members. There are designated officers for each of the different homeowner's
associations in the Town.
Certainly, I know I've been a Town resident for 10 years and both of my HOAs have that contact
person directly that I can communicate with about any kind of specific issues in our neighborhood. As
you all may know, different personnel do participate already in other Town boards and commissions
such as the Residential Traffic Commission, the Diversity Commission meetings. Certainly, if there is
a need for police staff or police officers to attend different boards and commission meetings or
additional board and commission meetings, that can be arranged without the need for an entire
creation of a new Task Force.
There are a number of personnel involved in different multidisciplinary committees, both locally and
statewide, and perhaps nationally, we didn't really talk about nationally, but we're talking about the
Page 21 April 11,2022
Domestic Assault Response Team, the Child Advocacy Center, the Crisis Intervention Team, the
different initiatives with the County in criminal justice. We were not made aware of any other members
of these from the medical personnel, public safety personnel, civilian personnel, of any type of issue
that would warrant the need of a police oversight committee.
In keeping with the purpose of the Task Force, we do have some recommendations to Council, and I
would say that overall, they are centered around the aspect that police officers and police personnel
are hazardous duty employees, they are not your regular Town employee, and certainly, that
information is in front of you. If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to address them.
Mayor Burk:All right, thank you very much. Did you say everything you wanted to say in the report?
Amy Harber: Yes.
Mayor Burk: All right, thank you. Thank you very much. Truly, we really appreciate the fact that you
all came forward and volunteered to do this. It's most certainly very helpful for all the information that
you brought forward. Does anybody have any questions at this point? Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Fernando "Marty" Martinez: I just want to say thank you. I'm not surprised by your
recommendations, and I'm not surprised by some of your recommendations to help the police force
continue its duty. I just want to say thank you and I appreciate it, and one of the good things about this
whole thing is we've done it, it's on record. If anybody has any questions about the Town's
commitment to our Police Department, this is a good indicator of how we are committed to them.
Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Suzanne Fox: Thanks. No questions. I just wanted to thank you for the deep dive. I
know that we needed to have that and I agree with Vice Mayor Martinez about having it on record,
doing the homework. It just kind of verifies what we knew about our Police Department. Thank you
very much.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Neil Steinberg: Yes. Hi. Well, thank you for your work, very much appreciate it. I
wonder if you can just talk a little bit about these task force recommendations in your last slide. Just
give us an idea how you came to some of these.
Amy Harber: Sure, in terms of the departmental funding needs, especially when it comes to FOIA
and transparency, I know a lot of the national dialogue is about FOIA and transparency and the public
understanding what the Police Department does. The Town right now, I know the Police Department
right now employs I believe one and I think they're requesting a second FOIA officer, and that is
Officer Michael Drogin, who literally spends hundreds of hours in his capacity reviewing things to
respond to the public.As you all know, he has an obligation to do it in a certain period of time.
I think that if there is a dedicated need to improve transparency to the public, certainly that could help
alleviate some of the responsibility off him and help with the public response time. In terms of the
Leesburg Police training budget, as I kind of touched on earlier, it is difficult to compare the need for a
law enforcement officer to attend a safety training versus a customer service representative to attend
a service-related training, and they're both equally important in different ways. When we're talking
about pulling from the same type of money, one could impact life or death and the other one would
not. Really, it creates a manpower issue and a staffing issue with the rest of the department.
In terms of the law enforcement-specific grant coordinator analyst, it's our understanding that the
Town does have staff that are available to apply for grants. There is no designated position in the
Leesburg Police Department. There are a number of Department of Justice and national grants that
are available and some of the local departments do take a lot of advantage of that, Fairfax Police
Department being one of them, that apply for these grants, and its money to initiate projects.
Page 31 April 11,2022
Without a designated person to look into law enforcement-specific grants, I think our department is
not utilizing all the resources that are available in terms of what we could use geographically in our
proximity to the nation's capital. In terms of vacancy savings, obviously, there are vacancy savings in
the department. I know that several positions were approved shortly before the pandemic and there
was some hiring freeze that related to that. To the extent that money can be returned to the
department, that is being held by vacancy savings. We felt that that would be a good idea. There's
obviously a little bit more in play to that than we can address.
Then, in terms of additional recommendations about the separate pay band, again, focusing on the
fact that these are hazardous duty employees, different localities in our region do enact different pay
bands for public safety workers versus your general Town employees, or your general County
employees. One of the things that was brought up also was that this board or this Council has the
ability to advocate on a statewide level for better retirement incentives. Obviously, Leesburg
employees are members of the Virginia Retirement System. There are other police agencies in
Northern Virginia specifically that do not participate in that and as a result, they have better retirement
incentives.
They have higher retirement multipliers. They are allowed to specifically apply accrued leave to years
of service, so they can essentially retire a little bit earlier and that makes it very attractive for
experienced officers to go elsewhere. The Town I think briefly during our six-month period with the
pay raises had the highest new recruit rate. I think that lasted a very short period of time because
every jurisdiction is coming up, but certainly, recruitment and retention of officers will improve the
Town. Those were our recommendations.
Council Member Steinberg: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Yes, I also want to echo my appreciation for the work that
you've done and everyone on the Task Force to dive into this and really look at where there are
opportunities to improve. I'm not surprised by the professionalism of our force and Chief Brown. I was
going to ask about the recommendations, but just specifically, how active is LPD with grant
submissions currently? Is that something that we're actively doing?
Amy Harber: It was our understanding that they are as they become aware of grants and as staffing
is available to apply for them. I know that there were at least two, and I would have to defer to the
Chief on what they were that they have recently applied for and acquired. There are certainly
members of partnership kind of grants that go on in terms of the Child Advocacy Center, the Crisis
Intervention, that type of thing. By virtue of their participation in some of these other organizations,
they are participating in that process, albeit maybe not leading it.
Council Member Bagdasarian: That's great. I mean, it's looking at public safety from a holistic
perspective. It's not just isolated to law enforcement, emergency management, other services. That
said, I really appreciate your work,thank you.
Amy Harber: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: I do have a couple of questions for you. You said that there were 15 IA complaints in
2020.
Amy Harber: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Were you given the stats on the amount of complaints from the Town residents as a
whole? Not just the[crosstalk]--
Amy Harber: I'm not sure I understand your question, Mayor.
Mayor Burk: Did you get the statistics of the complaints that come from the public? Did you get any
number[inaudible] [crosstalk]--
Page 41 April 11,2022
Amy Harber: Of the 15, I believe 7 or 8 of them came from the public.
Mayor Burk: Okay.What does IA stand for then?
Amy Harber: Internal Affairs.
Mayor Burk: Okay, but don't we get other complaints? Does any complaint from the public go to
Internal Affairs, I guess, is what I need to ask?
Amy Harber: I believe under policy and procedures, a complaint would be investigated, yes, as an
Internal Affairs complaint. Whether-
Mayor Burk: In 2000--[crosstalk]
Amy Harber: -or not it continues to escalate up the chain of command is dependent on what the
issue is.
Mayor Burk: Depending on what the issue is and if it's solved, or whatever.
Amy Harber: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Right, I understand. Okay, great. So the Leesburg Police Department had only 15
complaints-
Amy Harber: Yes.
Mayor Burk: -in total? I think that's pretty remarkable for a locality as large as we are. I think that's
pretty amazing. It says some pretty interesting things. The third point you make about the multiple
community events and initiatives, I have to say that our police officers are truly amazing in the amount
of time they put into these events outside of their daily activities. The effort that they put in; the
outreach is just amazing. I had two ladies come here and I was not in the building at the time, but they
were homeless. The receptionist at the desk called the Leesburg Police. The officer came and within
a couple of hours he had them in shelters, and they had not been able to get into a shelter.
He took care of their dinner and he made sure that they got their placement. I mean, the amount of
outreach that our Police Department does is I think pretty inspiring. I think it's above and beyond what
a lot of other Police Departments do. I'm glad that that was something that you pointed out. Okay, I
got the answer to that question. The next one is the recommendations. Where you say dedicated
training budget. Do you mean that the Police Department does not have a line item on professional
training?
Amy Harber: I believe that they do. My understanding is that there's additional training money
available to the Town that essentially operates as a pot that different departments can apply for and
that those requests are considered equally I guess per department. In my understanding, a lot of the
law enforcement training, I would say also for the required credit training is sponsored through the
Department of Criminal Justice Services and is free. In terms of national trending, new police trends,
those often involve out-of-state travel and larger conference fees because the Town is not necessarily
members of that association.
I think those are the training opportunities that our department is not really able to as frequently take
advantage of.
Mayor Burk: That would be very interesting to pursue that. I would assume that there would be a
training budget automatically in the Police Department's budget, and if not, and if it's not sufficient
enough, that's something that we really need to look into. I'm assuming the training budget is part of
the budget request every year.
Amy Harber: I think so.
Page 51 April 11, 2022
Frank Holtz: Madam Mayor?
Mayor Burk: Yes?
Frank Holtz: Part of the whole issue about staffing, when you want officers to go to additional
training, meaning that most of it's in the Northern Virginia Training Academy. What we found is that a
lot of times that the sergeants and lieutenants, being short on officers had to maintain every-day
roster. You could not send that officer to that additional training, that officer-friendly training that we'd
like to have with all of our officers. When you're down 10, 15 officers, it makes it very difficult, and
that's something that obviously you guys look at every year. The sense of this committee is that the
Leesburg Police Department is understaffed, and the reason is for budget reasons.
If you're going to have a full-time professional law enforcement agency, that you really need to have
these officers go to additional training. Part of it is when you grow up, and you go to school around
here, when you have that traffic stop, you can relate to all of the people in Town. Most of these
officers don't live in the Town they serve. That's something that we thought about, but obviously, it
was beyond the scope of our committee. These are some things that need to be approached in the
future. Why do officers leave and go to the Sheriffs Department? Is it because of mandates or is it
because of training?That's for your purview to look at that.
Mayor Burk: Right. Thank you.
Frank Holtz: Again, training budget, the Chief needs a dedicated budget every year that he knows
that he can do this and provide those officers to go to additional training every year. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. That is something, Mr. Dentler, we need to be aware of, that there isn't a
training budget in the Police Department's request.
Kaj Dentler: Well, Chief can correct me wrong, but the Police Department does have a training
budget. The Town does have a pooled amount of funding for training that we started many years ago.
Amy is correct, that all departments can ask for funding. Maybe the Police Department's request
hasn't made it all the way through, but I'm not aware that any department's training requests haven't
been approved pre-COVID. Once COVID hit, everything was different.
Mayor Burk: Right. Well, that might be something we want to just look at in the future because I
really do believe in professional development. That's really important. Then, the last question I have is
about the VRS. How long does an officer have to serve before they get full retirement? Do you know
that?
Amy Harber: Depends on their age.
Mayor Burk: It depends on their age?
Amy Harber: Yes. I believe it's 20 years and age 50 is full retirement.
Frank Holtz: That's the minimum.
Amy Harber: That's the minimum for full retirement.
Mayor Burk: That's a little more attractive than other VRS recipients. Most recipients have to go the
30 years. At least there's that but there are most certainly some other things that we could be doing
and should be looking at to make it more attractive. Thank you very much, really appreciate all this
information.
Council Member Kari Nacy: Go on.
Mayor Burk: Anyway, thank you very much. I do appreciate all the information. I'm sure we'll be
continuing the discussion but thank you. Thank you all very much.
Page 61 April 11, 2022
Frank Holtz: Thank you.
Mayor Burk:All right. Our next discussion is Emergency Preparedness.
Joe Dame: All right, good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. I'm excited again to be here
to talk tonight about Emergency Preparedness this time as it relates to electrical grid outages. Before
I start, I'd just like to thank the Council for your continued proactive emergency management,
prioritization of the program, and having these discussions. I think it's definitely a very important topic
to talk about. Tonight, I'll hit on four key areas.
The first is going to be the impacts of an electrical grid outage, then we'll move on to looking at some
past events so we can understand the threat and the hazards associated with them, then move into
looking at what we have been doing as a Town to prepare for this type of event, and then look at
some path forward and some ideas that are out there. When I looked at this graphic, I thought this
was a great graphic to really drive home the importance of the energy sector as one of the 15 critical
infrastructure sectors. As you can see on the graphic, energy is at the center, at the hub of this spoke
and wheel. Really,that gets to that the energy sector really helps drive our 21st-century economy.
It touches all the other sectors that are around the outside of this ring here. Any disruption or cut in
between those little connected webs will cause some cascading impacts in particularly some of those
sectors that are in red, like our water and wastewater. If we have a loss of commercial power, we
can't use our pump stations appropriately, or things happen at the water treatment plant. In terms of
transportation, making sure that our signals can remain online all the time, our traffic signals, so we
could have orderly evacuations and things of that nature.
I also thought was interesting when the Airport Commission was here and talking about doing an
assessment of where all the electrical comes in at the Airport and understanding that. Great things
that folks are thinking about, which is great. Then, finally communications. We have a lot of normal
pathways of communication that we use every day but what happens if those become disrupted,
oftentimes, which will happen possibly due to a electrical outage. Those are really key areas to look
at.
Then, understanding the hazard and the threat environment. When the discussion item was brought
up by Mr. Steinberg, I thought, "Well, let me go look at some historical events that have taken place to
understand what the impacts would be and understand the threat environment." I'd call your attention
to the center column, which has some different causes. What I found is really there are three main
areas of hazard that can cause some type of electrical outage. The first being your natural hazards.
The things that we see on a routine basis with severe weather, tornadoes, we had the Derecho that
occurred that is listed there,which happened in 2012.
A lot of folks will remember that that really severely impacted communications, transportation here
locally within the Town. I also would call attention to extreme temperatures, whether it be a high
temperature or low temperatures like happened in Texas in 2021, where they had some grid failures
because of severely low temperatures. The second area of importance are technological hazards.
Those are dealing with systems and the interconnected nature of those and when there's a failure.
You can see in the August 2003 blackout that happened in the northeast there was actually a natural
hazard of tree growth and trees falling on lines but compounded by some software issues that came
up and when those systems began to fail. Then, finally, there are unfortunately human-caused
hazards as well. In 2013 in San Jose, California, some unidentified individuals actually fired weapons
at an electrical distribution location and rendered that area without power and cost $15 million in
damage. Then, certainly, cyber-attacks which is becoming an increasing concern. In 2015, it
happened in Ukraine and severely impacted the electrical grid there.
I'd just call that point that there are multiple different types of hazards and grouping of hazards that
can impact the electrical grid. Moving to what we've done to prepare. When I came on board with the
Town, one of the first initiatives I undertook was making sure that we had a comprehensive hazard
webpage that was easily accessible by residents, by businesses. There's an example on the screen
of the power failure section of our hazard website. What I tried to do there is show what the likelihood
of an occurrence of an electrical or a power failure is, what the warning time would be, and then giving
Page 71 April 11, 2022
some of those things of what can you do to prepare, giving folks some tangible things of what they
can do.
A lot of those are having a good plan in place, so knowing who your electrical provider is ahead of
time so you can gather information from the provider and report any types of outages. Also, having
that good communication plan if your primary means of communication have been disrupted, which is
really important. Then if you have other circumstances where you need a piece of medical equipment
that is a necessity, going one step further and maybe talking to an electrician about a generator and
having that appropriately connected to your house,which is a really great way to prepare yourself and
make sure that you're fully prepared.
Additional planning. Additional preparedness efforts would be our all-hazards planning that we do all
the time in the emergency operations plans, continuity of operations plan. We look critically at the
interdependencies of energy and making sure that we are planning for the impacts if there was an
outage. Another area I've worked in is looking at exercises. I did three tabletop exercises last year
with our Water Pollution Control Facility staff to review their plans and procedures, to talk through
equipment, to make sure that those procedures were up to date. There's some great projects in the
CIP. There is actually two CIP projects for emergency generators which is really great to see.
Those are serving critical infrastructure at the Utility, both water and wastewater, which is great to see
those projects in there. Then, finally, in terms of transportation, worked on a project scope that is
going to bring equipment to some key intersections in Town and put battery backups at those traffic
signals and also generators and the quick connection so we can keep those signals online in the
event of a power outage. Where do we go? What's the path forward? I think the big thing is to
continue to think about that spider web and all the energy sector being the spoke of that wheel and
that it touches everything that we do.
The first thing is as we plan and we continue to update our plans is identifying those
interdependencies where there's energy, as we bring new systems on, what are the power
requirements. We're making sure that we're always thinking of those energy interdependencies.
Another area is looking at mitigation projects. In the memo, I highlighted two microgrid projects that
were completed through FEMA grants. Those ones are leveraging solar and then some battery
storage to keep critical infrastructure online, allowing critical locations to work either on the grid or off
the grid if there was an electrical outage.
Then, finally would be continuing that public preparedness messaging. Updating our citizens'
emergency preparedness guide is a key to make sure that we continue to provide that information
ahead of time, that we're preparing both the residents and businesses, the actions that they should be
taking to make sure that we are preparing fully for if there was a long-term outage knowing that there
are a lot of cascading impacts that could come from an electrical outage. That's all for the
presentation. I'm happy to take any questions and help with the discussion.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. I do have to say that your last recommendation of enhancing public
preparedness messaging might be really important if we really do have to worry about people eating
spoiled food from their refrigerators and freezers after a prolonged power outage. That outreach is
probably pretty important.
Joe Dame: One that I neglected to mention was also how does the Town continue to communicate in
the event of a power failure? I've been working with the PIO on what we would call our stone age
communication plan where we have hub locations, but yes, we don't want to compound the
emergency even further.
Mayor Burk:All right, anyone? Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: Sure, I got a couple of ones and I'm sure you're expecting me to ask a couple.
Joe Dame: Sure.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Right now, we're dependent on, especially with batteries, on electrical power.
When are we going to think about solar power? We talk about UPS as battery backups and stuff, the
Page 81 April 11,2022
ideal setup is solar power to charge those batteries and use the power off the batteries to do our
work. How far are we from that?
Joe Dame: I think we're pretty far. One step that I have taken earlier this year is putting in a request
for FEMA assistance, direct technical assistance, so not monetary assistance to look at some of these
programs that are more cutting-edge type programs. In the last year, FEMA in their building resilient
infrastructure and communities, which is called their Brick Grant, there was only 14 grants that we're
looking at microgrids setups at different varieties. I think we need to look at the feasibility of that, and
then hopefully, if we were able to get that direct assistance from FEMA, we could brainstorm with
those experts some of these procedures and systems that are out there.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I look at the location of our parking garage, and putting a solar power grid on
top of the garage, my question is how much power will that generate and where would we store the
batteries? Of course, probably in the basement of the parking garage. The other thing is, and I'm
going to give you example of something that when I got Fios with home network and the bandwidth
and stuff, I thought I'm set, I won't need anything else. Then came the smart TVs, then came the kids
then came the iPhones, then came all these other little electrical things that are using my Wi-Fi that
has brought down the performance.
Now let's go back to here today, we're talking about battery-powered scooters, other forms of
transportation. Not only that, we're talking about buses that are going to be run on electric. What they
do, in some cases, is they have a charging station underneath the metal, and when the bus rides over
the metal, it's charging. All of that is taken little pieces of our power. The question is, are we okay with
that for now? When will we have to worry about our power grid system and finding other ways to
enhance it? Those seem trivial and I thought I would never have to worry about bandwidth for my
house until the kids moved in and everybody's using all my bandwidth.
I have to sit there and tell them to shut down, especially when you talk about video game streaming.
The point I'm making is that even though it's not here yet, it will be coming, and we need to make sure
we have a plan in place to take care of those leeches on our power grids.
Joe Dame: Definitely.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Then what advantage for our power needs, both fuel and maintenance and all
that, moving to an all-electric vehicle fleet give us?
Joe Dame: Yes, and I think that's one where we've had initial. I know Keith and I have kicked back
some ideas of what does that look like, and I think you're starting to see some of those vehicles come
online. EVs like a pickup truck if you're talking about our Public Works Department or different
departments that have different needs from a smaller vehicle. We need to look at that feasibility, look
at what the charging infrastructure looks like as you mentioned, and getting those things there. I think
those are things we're going to have to probably partner with Dominion, and then the power provider.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Some of our power charging stations are going to have to be places where the
public can use it too. Not that we're targeting the public, but we can't deny them the use, and the
power stations would be for us. I can imagine a couple of electric vehicles parking in the garage,
needing to hook up to a power thing in the garage. As soon as they leave, somebody else pulls in and
uses it from the public sector. I'm not going to deny them the ability to use it, but that's going to also
increase our cost. Unless we find some way that we can say it costs you so much per electric charge,
per half hour per whatever, but those are things that immediately are coming.
Especially if we start transitioning to electrical vehicles, then we're going to have to figure out where
we're going to put charging stations and how that also is going to impact our power grid. Thanks.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. What is the current state of our
backup power for critical infrastructure today?
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Joe Dame: I think a number of our critical infrastructures we've invested heavily. I know Utilities has
done a great job of looking at their backup power, and then looking at some of the other sites that
needed redundant power. I feel comfortable with those areas of the critical infrastructure, but it's
always to that point of going back and looking at the interdependencies. As we increase system
capacities and things like that, we constantly need to go back and make sure what we have is still
appropriate.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thank you. You talked about the grants, who is in charge of seeking those
grants right now?Would that be you?
Joe Dame:Yes, so that would be me.
Council Member Fox: Okay, so you're about in charge of everything, right?
Joe Dame:Yes.
Council Member Fox: Okay, got it. Is there really a good chance that we could benefit from some of
these, or is this something that is farfetched?
Joe Dame: I think there is a good chance. One of the parts with the technical assistance from FEMA
is understanding the project scoping and showing the return on investment that we would get out of it.
I'm always the eternal optimist that I think there would be a lot of benefits and I think we just need to
try to apply. We haven't applied, so it's hard to say that we're not going to get it if we don't apply.
Council Member Fox: Who informs, you said there's a path forward, and I agree with everything
that's going on here, I'm actually giddy about it, but who informs that path forward?When you have a
question,who do you go to?What kind of subject matter experts do you [crosstalk]?
Joe Dame: A lot of it is based off our Hazard Mitigation Plan, which we're working on right now. I rely
a lot on FEMA to give us some of those. A lot of the information on those microgrids came from
FEMA's hazard mitigations playbook that gives you some good ideas of what is out there. Now, I'll
also say some of those projects were from 2017 and 2018, so it's really catching up to where the
technology is today and understanding where we can go too, I think is going to be really important.
I would provide much of that expertise in working with the NVRC also has some good resources in
terms of solar power and their solarized NOVA program. There's some expertise I can reach out to
because we would need those experts at Dominion or the other power companies to help us inform
that too, I think, as well.
Council Member Fox: These big power generators that you're talking about, do we have the
expertise to operate these?
Joe Dame: I think there would be a learning curve. I don't know the exact answer to that with it being
in the initial stages, but I certainly think it's a different setup to have big, large battery banks to have
the installation. There's potential that we would have to look at some different resources that might not
be there honestly at this point
Council Member Fox: That's what I was getting at, okay. Then the last thing, and this has to do with
public awareness and everything, a lot of the public just they're not aware until something actually
happens, so what do you think we can do besides putting things on a website, things like that? What
can we do to be more proactive and increasing public awareness before something happens?
Joe Dame: I think a lot of it is going to be outreach as well, going out to HOAs, to community
meetings where we can proactively be out in the community. That's definitely an area to work on. We
have the passive outreach right now, but we need some more of the active outreach to get out there
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in the community and really educate on some of these areas and try and pass that message along
more actively.
Council Member Fox: All right,thank you.
Joe Dame: You're welcome.
Council Member Fox:Appreciate it.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Thanks, Joe, for all the information. I see there are two sides of this.
One, obviously, public awareness, but in the end, that's going to happen on a more individual basis
obviously or a neighborhood basis than necessarily a Town orchestrated situation other than
disseminating information. I think as a Council, our primary concern is obviously continuity of services
and government and how that's going to happen. Do we have a feeling, as of now, I assume
generators would still be considered the primary option as opposed to solar installations, but over a
period of time, that's going to start to transition.
I also assume that if we have an all-electric fleet and we need people to get around in an emergency
situation, then somehow those vehicles have to be charged. Again, that probably points more to a
generator as opposed to solar. I think one of the primary concerns is communication above and
beyond everything else. We have several departments, Leesburg Police Department, Emergency
Management and Government, and so on. How are all these departments going to communicate?
More important, who's in charge? I distinctly remember in 9/11, Alexander Haig on TV saying, "I'm in
charge." Obviously, that confusion doesn't bode well for good emergency planning and management.
Communications in the end will be key. Obviously, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. We
had the same discussion in the IT Commission meeting the other evening, which is, obviously, a
crucial part of this whole project. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this in general,
just to make people more aware of how complex an issue it is just in terms of continuity of our
functions overall. Thanks, and I know this is going to be an ongoing work in progress. Thanks.
Joe Dame: You're welcome, thank you.
Mayor Burk: I have a couple of questions before I get back to you. Are we looking at any alternative
forms of energy at this point? We've asked that we look at making our fleets electric, but is there any
step forward in any other areas besides fossil fuels?
Joe Dame: I think the one area that when I was looking through the Town Plan, the recently adopted
Town Plan is when you look at how you set subdivisions, there is indications for north and south in
that which is a good first step, but I think the short answer on the Town operation side is no. We
haven't jumped into alternative, the solar energy. I think the ideas are out there, but we haven't taken
that first step into it yet.
Mayor Burk: What would it take?
Joe Dame: I think one good step was the Energy Manager which will also fall under my office, and we
can start to investigate some of these technologies and understand how they apply to support
continuity of government as Mr. Steinberg was saying, but I also think, looking at this, to support the
community too and what can be done there. That's going to take some looking, some understanding,
what's feasible to do, but I think that is a good first step obviously, having someone who can
specialize in this and look into it and dig into it.
Mayor Burk: Then my next question is about the developers and the development mindset. Do we do
anything to encourage the developers to do things, like you just mentioned, of placing the houses in
certain directions because they get more sun in the winter and less in the summer, or are they looking
if any alternatives?Anything at all, do you ever talk to the Planning Department about moving forward
on those kind of ideas for these new developments that are coming into Town?
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Joe Dame: I have not yet, but that was where it was interesting seeing it in the Town Plan that at
least the thought is in there and how then we can look at really this pre-mitigation. That's super pre-
mitigation to be there and try and work and see what options are out there. The one example from
Illinois was a microgrid that was in the community and set up, but that's one that I'll put down is that
connection with Planning and Zoning and what that looks like to get it in the development stage
because frankly, I don't know whether it's done yet.
Mayor Burk: Then if an HOA was interested in having the discussion at their meetings, do we have
the ability to invite you or someone from your newly expanded department to attend?
Joe Dame: I would always be happy to come out and if there are any connections or if you all hear of
anything, certainly reach out and let me know. To the public, if you're watching, I'm always available
to come out and discuss it because I think it's a good thing to be thinking of it proactively ahead of
time as we were talking about for sure.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: To address one of Mr. Steinberg's questions, so the Town Council
and certain members of staff are on the FirstNet network, correct?
Joe Dame: Yes.
Council Member Bagdasarian:Would you mind just explaining just briefly what FirstNet is?
Joe Dame: Sure. FirstNet is a direct result of 9/11, where there is a 20-year contract that AT&T was
awarded the contract to provide. There's dedicated cellphone spectrum that is just for public safety,
and it is expanded also for continuity of government. What that system does is there's priority and
preemption where if you have a FirstNet phone, you're bumped up to the top of the list. To Mr.
Steinberg's point, I managed that uplift portal, where if things became congested, we could put in a
request to uplift our phones that are in our Town account to hopefully prioritize our communication
based on cell phone infrastructure.
We also do maintain a Town radio system, which is really good that is separate from the cell phone
network,which is a good second step as an alternative method.
Council Member Bagdasarian: One of the challenges with emergency management, especially with
comms outreach is that people just tend to be reactive and, "I'll get to this later, it's not important right
now." Then usually, after something bad happens, then you have an overreaction to that, and then
you truly take those steps that should have been done prior. That's going to be, obviously, a challenge
and it'd be great if HOAs and different neighborhoods are truly engaged and want to be proactive with
this and bring you out. Just a quick question.
We're talking about battery power, so the current infrastructure we have, the current backup, is that
diesel generators? Is that what we currently have for the water,transportation, and communications?
Joe Dame: We actually have a mixture, so we have diesel and natural gas. There isn't one
consistent, which is probably a benefit, honestly, so if there was an impact to one, that's what it is, but
it's a mixture today.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Good. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: All right, thank you very much.
Joe Dame: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Mayor Burk: We appreciate the information and thank you. The next one that we have is Potential
Topics for Consideration for the Joint Meeting with the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. Mr.
Dentler and I try throwing back and forth ideas and I sent out to all of you. This is the list that we came
up with. It may be too long, it may not have what you want, but I need to hear from you because I
Page 121 April 11, 2022
need to send this forward to the Board Chair. I would think the Small Business Development Center is
something we really want to get clarified. That yes, they will continue to support that in Leesburg.
Is there anybody that has strong feelings that that doesn't belong in our discussion? The Crosstrails
Boulevard and Kincaid Boulevard openings, that's going to be happening here soon. The Kincaid
HOA has already met to talk about it, and so I would think that would be something that we would
want to have a discussion with them as to when they're doing it and what are the things that we need
to be prepared for because it is going to be a bit of a change for Kincaid Boulevard. Does anybody
have any issues with that one?
Council Member Fox: No, I don't have an issue. I just wondering how long we are allocated.
Mayor Burk: We really haven't been given a time, but you know that they're not going to sit there for
three hours. If some of these are not, that's coming up pretty quick. Some of these may not, so we
may not want to put them on there,we may want to,that's why we're going through.
Council Member Fox: The one we just mentioned, I think it's important, but I also think that's
something that if there's a bullet point of what we can do, maybe we can just get that through staff. I
don't know if that's necessarily something we need to talk about.
Mayor Burk: I'd like to make sure that we're on the record as to when they are planning on opening,
so we're prepared.
Council Member Fox: Okay.
Mayor Burk: Compass Creek BLA, and related revenue-sharing data for data centers in this area.
Okay, everybody okay with that one? Evergreen Mill Road development, what is that? I'm not sure
what that is.
Council Member Steinberg:What about it?
Mayor Burk: Pardon me.
Council Member Steinberg: I was just saying,what about it?
Kaj Dentler: That's really just to give the Board an update of where the Town is with the project.
That's the only purpose, so it's exchange of information. The County has been helping fund it, so the
thought was that we would want to make sure that they knew where we were with that project.
Council Member Steinberg:We're currently a year or something behind on that now?
Kaj Dentler: I don't remember, so I don't want to say at this point.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay.
Kaj Dentler:We will make sure that we have the update.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay.
Mayor Burk: Do we want to keep that on the-- I'm not really married to that. If there are four people
that don't really want to bring that one up.What? Okay, yes, take it off. Okay.When I'm done with this
list, I will ask if you all want to add anything. Affordable housing, do we want to have a discussion on
affordable housing at this meeting?
Council Member Fox: [Unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: I suspect they will talk about it quite a bit. They might be willing to talk about it. I don't
know that we have much that we can add at this point. Do we have?
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Council Member Fox: I think it needs to be talked about, I don't mind talking about it, but I don't know
what we would add yet.
Mayor Burk: Then most of us want to keep that on. The plastic bag tax revenue sharing.
Council Member Steinberg:We're just looking for a definitive answer on that?
Mayor Burk: The definitive answer to me has been, well, you guys need to advocate for it in
Richmond. There's no reason we couldn't bring it back up. Anybody have a strong feeling that they
don't want it on there? Future Space Needs in Leesburg. The monthly meeting, I have with supervisor
Umstadd, she commented on that the Town wanted the County to leave the Shenandoah Building.
She was under the impression that the Town wanted the County to leave the Shenandoah Building,
and we assured her that that was not the case, that we hadn't even had a discussion on it.
No, that's never come up for discussion, but I thought maybe we need to clarify that then if they're
thinking because the whole idea that they bought so many pieces of property on Miller Drive was what
brought up a discussion about could you not keep taking our industrial area that brings us money, but
that was unintended for all of Leesburg. We should probably leave that on just for clarification
purpose. Do we want to talk to them about scheduling, having a regular meeting schedule once a
quarter? God, not once a month, please.
Council Member Steinberg: God, no.
Mayor Burk: Twice a year?
Council Member Steinberg: Couldn't hurt.At least twice a year I think would be an interesting idea.
Mayor Burk: We have had a request from our illustrious attorney to ask for one omnibus agreement
in regard to MOUs so that the process is in place, and we don't have to have separate MOUs for
everything, every service that the County provides. If we had one standard, then it would be the same
for all of them so that it would make sense that they would expire, so the same date they would do the
same thing, so that it was much clearer than what we have now.
Council Member Steinberg: If we did that, then we'd have more time to have a meeting with them
twice a year.
Mayor Burk: There you go. Is that all right?All right, did you have something you wanted to add?
Council Member Nacy: Just one-- Oh, my. I'm not trying to yell. Just wondering if knowing that our
time will be limited with them, should we rank these in order of what's most important to us?
Mayor Burk: Sure,we could do that, but let me go around and find out if there's any additions-
Council Member Nacy: Okay.
Mayor Burk: -if anybody wants to add to it? Is there anything that anybody does want to put on? Oh,
you are so cruel.
Council Member Fox: He just wants a [Unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Yes, you're right, it came out. Mr. Steinberg, your light's on, is there anything you
wanted to add?
Council Member Steinberg: Oh, no.
Mayor Burk: Nobody has anything?What was it that Mr. Cummings wanted? I forget now.
Kaj Dentler: The revenue sharing.
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Mayor Burk: The revenue sharing.
Council Member Fox:Yes,that's what I wanted. I want it at the top of the list.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Before we go there, we should go to the first one. Revenue sharing the first
one [inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Okay, so there's nothing. Keep that thought. No one's adding anything additional. All
right, then in that case, Mr. Martinez is suggesting that we put plastic bag tax revenue sharing first.
Are there four people that want to have that be first?
Council Member Bagdasarian: [Inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Yes, and I'm just putting these in order.
Council Member Fox: Easing into [inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Right.
Council Member Bagdasarian:Yes.
Mayor Burk: Okay, so that one would be number one.
Vice Mayor Martinez: [Inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Number two would be Compass Creek BLA and related revenue sharing for data
centers, correct?
Council Member Bagdasarian:Yes.
Mayor Burk: Everybody okay with that? Okay, now three.
Council Member Bagdasarian: That's more of an information. Take a breath.
Mayor Burk: It won't take a lot of time.
Vice Mayor Martinez: [Inaudible].That's probably been the driving force for some of their animosity.
Mayor Burk: That's true.
Vice Mayor Martinez: So we should not even have it on there.
Council Member Steinberg: It's over and done with now.
Mayor Burk: I think it's important that we know when and where and now and all that kind of stuff.
Council Member Steinberg: Exactly. I agree.
Mayor Burk: Now it's going to be opened. We're opening Kincaid Boulevard. When Crosstrails is
finished, let's be friends again.
Council Member Steinberg:Yes.
Mayor Burk: You want that to be three?
Council Member Steinberg:Yes.
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Mayor Burk: Everybody okay with three? Four,who has a suggestion on four?
Council Member Nacy: SBDC.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes, SBDC.
Mayor Burk: Okay,four.
Council Member Bagdasarian: That one should be easy.
Mayor Burk: Five.
Council Member Fox: [Inaudible] space needed. That's contiguous there.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Council Member Nacy: [Inaudible].
Mayor Burk: Six, do we want to do the MOU change?
Council Member Steinberg:Yes.
Mayor Burk: Seven would be affordable housing if we are able to get to it at that point then?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Exactly, because that could be this entire meeting on its own.
Council Member Fox: Oh, yes.
Mayor Burk: It could be. It easily could be an entire meeting by itself, and that's my fear that it would
be an entire meeting by itself. Then the schedule would be eight?
Council Member Fox:Yes.
Mayor Burk: Is that okay? Everybody's okay with that?
Council Member Steinberg:Yes,that's it, isn't it?
Mayor Burk: All right. Then we're set. We'll send this out. We'll clean it up, send it out. I don't know if
they have any issues they want to talk to us about. I'm sure they do, but we'll begin that process, and
it is on the 28th. It is set for the 28th at five o'clock. Not in the boardroom but in a smaller room, the
Dulles Room, so we won't be meeting in the boardroom. All right? Okay, that being the case, it takes
us to Future Council Meetings. Does anybody have anything they want to add to the Council meeting
schedule? The only thing I have and it's only because my computer's not working, so I can't check.
Last month, did I do the Stroke Awareness proclamation?
Council Member Nacy: I think it's in there.
Mayor Burk: Do you think it's on there?
Council Member Nacy: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Okay, but if I didn't,then do I have four people that I could put it back on?
Council Member Fox: Sure.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Chris Spera: [Inaudible].
Page 161 April 11, 2022
Council Member Nacy: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Kaj Dentler:Yes, it's on here.
Mayor Burk: Is it? Okay. I can't check because my computer's not working. No one else has anything
to add mister.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I'm trying to remember the proclamation that Julie asked us to do for Gun
Awareness. I just wanted to let everybody know that I was asked to check on it and Corina, it is on
for?
Corina Alvarez: May.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Well, it's on in May.
Corina Alvarez: The Mayor has my--
Mayor Burk: Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I got her thing.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I just wanted to let you know because I was going to ask for a proclamation,
but it's already part of our process, so I just want to let y'all know.
Mayor Burk: Okay.All right, is there a motion to adjourn?
Council Member Fox: So moved.
Mayor Burk: Second?
Council Member Steinberg: Second.
Mayor Burk: Moved by Ms. Fox, seconded by Mr. Steinberg. All in favor?
Council Members:Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed?
Vice Mayor Martinez: Nay.
Mayor Burk: The meeting is over.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Never oppose.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I just did. I just said nay.
Mayor Burk: Talk about something else.
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