HomeMy Public PortalAbout2023_tcwsmin0123Council Work Session January 23, 2023
Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, Leesburg, Virginia, 7:00 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk
presiding.
Council Members Present: Ara Bagdasarian, Todd Cimino -Johnson, Zach Cummings, Kari
Nacy, Vice Mayor Steinberg, Patrick Wilt, and Mayor Kelly Burk.
Council Members Absent: None.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Christopher Spera, Deputy Town
Manager Keith Markel, Finance and Administration Services Director Clark Case, Public
Works and Capital Projects Director Renee LaFollette, Public Works and Capital Project
Assistant Director of Operations Chris Kohr, and Clerk of Council Eileen Boeing.
Minutes prepared by Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. Items for Discussion
a. Annual Financial Update
Davenport & Company Senior Vice President and Manager of Public Finance
David Rose provided Council with a comprehensive financial review regarding the
Town's finances.
Council and staff discussed the item. No follow up action required.
b. Town Recycling Program
Ms. LaFollette gave a presentation on the Town's recycling program, current
contract value and specifications, and information on recycling programs at other
jurisdictions and the County. Staff will proceed as recommended in the staff report
and will continue working with the Environmental Advisory Commission.
It was the consensus of Council to add this item to a future work session.
c. Electric Vehicle Pilot Program for Town Fleet
Mr. Kohr gave a presentation on a pilot program to introduce hybrid and
electric vehicles into the Town fleet and the necessary infrastructure improvements,
and costs for the program's implementation.
Council and staff discussed the item.
It was the consensus of Council to implement the pilot program as recommended and
for staff to provide an update at a future work session.
d. Green Infrastructure
Ms. LaFollette gave an overview on green infrastructure, the Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification requirements and costs, and
current and future Town sustainability initiatives.
Council and staff discussed the item. Staff will continue pursuing related
enhancements as noted in the staff report while not pursuing formal LEED
certification.
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Council Work Session
January 23, 2023
2. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Council Member Cummings requested a letter be sent to the Keolis Group in support
of continuing negotiations regarding the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 strike.
This item will be added to the January 24, 2023, Council Agenda for approval.
Council Member Cummings requested a future work session discussion on adding
solar panels to the Town parking garage top level.
It was the consensus of Council to add this to a future work session discussion.
Mayor Burk requested a future work session discussion on amending the Historic
Downtown maximum building height.
It was the consensus of Council to add this to a future work session discussion.
Mayor Burk requested a future work session discussion regarding the Town Hall Rose
Garden lights year-round.
It was the consensus of Council to add this to a future work session discussion.
Mayor Burk requested a proclamation for Read Across America.
It was the consensus of Council to present this proclamation at a future Council meeting.
Mayor Burk requested a future work session discussion on the impact the Dulles
Greenway proposed fee increase will have on Leesburg residents.
It was the consensus of Council to add this to a future work session.
3. Adjournment
On a motion by Council Member Cummings, seconded by Vice Mayor Steinberg, the meeting
was adjourned at 8:56 p.m.
Clerk of Council
2023_tcwsmin0123
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January 23, 2023 — Town Council Work Session
(Note: This is a transcript prepared by Town staff 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: Work session. There's a little bit of an echo here. Okay. I'm calling to order the
Town Council work session of January 23rd, 2023. Our first item for discussion tonight is the Annual
Finance Update. Mr. David Rose from Davenport and Company will be using 15 minutes. Does anybody
object to giving him 5 additional minutes for the 15 minutes? No. Okay, so you have 15 minutes.
David Rose: Thank you, Mayor, Members of Council, pleasure to be here. Congratulations to all the
new members. I'm going to move very quickly. I like to say that when you're explaining, you're losing,
and we don't have any explaining to do within reason. Just a few things here. Our background, I've had
the good fortune of working with you for about 25 years. I've been at Davenport all that time. You can
see some of the things we do. One of the things that we do is we represent you as your financial advisor.
We are not trying to sell you anything. We are your fiduciaries and as a result, we put your interest first.
Tonight, I'm going to do what I've done for many years, which is present an overview. We call it a
Comprehensive Financial Review. You could see on that next page the goals and objectives of this
review. We want to give you in a nutshell, the Town's finances. Talk about some of the major challenges.
Even though you are in excellent shape, we never take that for granted, especially with the overall
looming potential of a recession nationally. Talk a little bit about your debt profile, some of your capital
projects, the market trends, and next steps. Let's start with the finances.
No better place to start than where you were at the end of Fiscal Year '22, which was June 30th. You
had once again, what we call a structurally balanced budget. What does that simply mean? That means
that ongoing annual revenues exceeded ongoing annual expenditures. You can see that was basically
about $5.5M to the good, but we were actually even better than that because the revenues were better
than budgeted and the expenditures were under the budget. When all said and done, moved the
transfers around and all those details can be found in the appendix.
We added about $7M to fund balance. On top of that, we added about $900K from our existing
unassigned fund balance. Think of that as your rainy -day fund, has no direct ties to anything there. We
used $8M, as you could see here, to shore up some of the reserves that we have, and also to take care
of about $4M of some supplemental appropriations, which the staff can give you some more details on
what those exactly were. Unassigned fund balance, I mentioned that. That is probably the most critical
thing a local government can do, is to make sure they have that rainy -day fund.
Your policy says you'll be at 20% of annual expenditures. I'm pleased to say you're over 35% of annual
expenditures. You're in a very good mode. There's a reason we took some of the dollars from there
because you had the ability to do that and move it into some other critical areas. Why is an unassigned
fund balance important? Again, I'll let you read this for time's sake, but simply put, by virtue of having
this, we don't do short-term borrowing to pay bills. We earn interest off of this and it helps us borrow at
the most cost-effective way possible, and that's been very important to us.
Let's talk about challenges over the next three to five years. All right. Having said that, I want you to
look at this if you would. We are concerned generally about inflation. Hopefully, it's abating a little bit
now, but it is real. It has impacted us, and it impacts, for example, a lot of the Capital Projects that
you've identified because that inflation is impacting directly future abilities to fund things at some of the
old numbers and dollars you had. We also know that there's operating expenditure pressures. We know
that you're in competition even though if I were living here, I'd love to work for the Town, the reality is
there's a lot of competition out there. It's real, it's not easy. You also have two major projects on the
horizon. We'II talk about that in a moment. Then finally, we want to make sure that everyone realizes
those CARES and ARPA monies that were one-time dollars or maybe came a couple of times but
Page 1 1 January 23, 2023
effectively, one shot, they're done effectively. We maybe even want to think about going forward, some
additional revenue streams to help abate inflation and other pressures.
Credit ratings, I think all of you know, maybe you don't but I want to make sure. When I started with you
over 25 years ago, you were what they call a strong credit. Today, you're the highest rated, you're AAA
rated by all three of the national rating agencies. You've been that way for about seven, eight, nine
years. We want to do nothing to hinder that. You could see here what the drivers of those credit ratings
are. There are really four factors. One is the economy; we don't have a lot of control very shortly on
that.
The second is financial performance and flexibility. You do control that by your budget and decisions
you made. Third, by the debt levels, you control that, of course, by the decisions you make there. Then
finally, management factors, you are considered management, the staff is considered management,
and that management is things like financial forecasting and even having people like myself come in
front of you proactively to talk about issues positive and negative. All that is viewed as positive
management, and you get a very high grade for that.
What can make it go higher? It can't go higher but it could sustain itself, you could see the strengths
there are considerable. The weakness is, again, you've got some moderate fixed costs, as they say. All
things told, deterioration of reserves, liquidity is probably the biggest risk you have, and that's a control
that you have. Why is it important to maintain a AAA rating? If I get right down to it, lots of reasons but
you have a portfolio of some $100M of debt outstanding. If we cost ourselves 1 %-2% points on that, it's
millions of dollars over the years, excess interest paid and it's needless, so you're getting the benefit of
that.
In addition, when we did refundings for you, I've got a little later slide here, we've saved over $10M with
the Town by savings and doing refunding all because rates got better and you all, of course, were very,
very good credit. This is your debt portfolio. The good news here is that in 10 years, 85% of your debts
are paid out. I like to tell citizens and those that wonder is that good or bad. If you're fortunate to have
a mortgage and you have a 30 -year mortgage, after 10 years, you typically have 25% of your mortgage
paid out, you have 85% of your mortgage paid out.
That's a really good position. It looks like a ski slope there. We like that and we're going to show you,
you're in as good a position as you've been in years. If you look at this next page, we look at this as
basically your debt. Your debts are equal to today, where you are in 2018 but it's going lower very
quickly. It's that drop -down, that's going to allow us to layer in effectively new debt service. One of the
ratios you have is what's called debt to assessed value, you are as high as three-quarters of a percent,
which is very, very low.
Your policy, if you would is a 2.5%, you are basically 1/5 of your policy, that's terrific. It's going to
continue to go lower, so you're in great shape. I think the graph says it all. Then this one here, I think
it's even more important and this is your credit card. I can recall 25 years ago, when we wanted to get
that down to about 22% of your budget, 22%. Then we had a policy from 20%. The policy then went to
15%. You could see now, we basically are debt service as a benchmark of your overall expenditures is
lower this coming year than it's been in the last seven, eight years. Again, you are in very good shape
and continue to do well to allow us to layer a new debt. What are we doing right now with regard to debt
and funding and what have you? We created a line of credit several years ago, it comes due not this
June but next June. It's a fixed rate. It's worked very well for us. We've used that. We've taken it out
strategically, both for the General Fund and the Utility Fund. We'll be talking some more about this with
staff and may come back to you but we're really in quite a very good shape. In fact, I even forgot the
interest rate we pay on this is 1.5%.
That's as low as I have ever seen and I'm very, very excited. That's why, again, having good fund
balances and being AAA is so incredibly important because it allows you to have such a good situation.
Couple of more things. There's some refunding opportunities simply to save money. We're not pushing
debt out, we don't plan to do that, but we will keep you posted on where there may be some opportunities
if and when we monitor that as well. I said earlier, we have refunded some $75M of your debt over time
for nearly $10M of interest savings.
Page 2 1 January 23, 2023
Again, like the trajectory. Let's talk a little bit about capital funding observations and future borrowings.
Two major projects: Police Station Expansion, Town Shop. I point out to those new Council Members.
I don't create the projects; I don't advocate for the projects. I simply take what you give us in terms of
these projects and talk about how do we best do these projects and keep within our ratios. We've done
some scenarios. One was case 1, it was 20 -year level payments of $41 M. The second was a little bit
of structuring. Both of them we used a 5% interest rate.
Right now, rates are better than that, but we like to build in the cushion. I'm going to go past case 1
because it's not really as positive as case 2. Case 2 basically says, let's be strategic. Lets not start
paying principal back while the projects are being developed. That's a pretty standard thing to do. You
notice that blue there, we're going to hold off paying principal back for two years. We're not going to
add to the debt years. We're just going to hold off from paying the principal part.
When we do that on the far right-hand side, what you'll see is we're able to layer in all of your debt
service, not have to go above that but for two years and in a very de minimis amount. Basically at 5%,
and we'll do a little more structuring, this will not really be the way it is. We would need about $480K
and about $355K in every other year for a couple of years. The point here is we are able to layer in our
funds and not put additional burden on your overall budget in the future and that's very, very positive.
Here, you can see debt service as I meant, as of where we are.
The actual debt, it pops above that for a little bit. We'II clean that up when we ultimately do some
structuring and then again, debt service versus expenditures, you'll notice in 2024, slightly under 12%.
Your policy's at 15% but by 2026, we're right back at 12%. It continues to go lower even though we're
adding some $40M of projects. Again, we'll massage this a little bit, do what we do, but you're really in
good position. Debt service to assess value. Also, extraordinary position. Last concept here, payout
ratio. I said earlier that with your debt portfolio, you have 85% paid out in 10 years.
We do this, we'll still be at over 60% paid out in about 10 years. That is a really good situation and that's
after adding all that debt. When we add that debt, we are not putting it unfairly on future generations.
We're not doing that. Market update, just wanted to show you since 1980 where this index is. That index
hit about 14%. Now, it's up to about 4%. At one point, it got down to 2% last year. Again, on the right-
hand side, it's just the last few years, it's moved up somewhat. It has stabilized over the last couple of
weeks.
Who knows where it really goes but still, we're in a very, very strong borrowing environment. Just let
you see this, why it's evolved. I just thought we'd show this to you. You could see what the Federal
funds rate has done. This is what the Fed Reserve has done. You could see on the right-hand side on
the bottom, they keep pushing. The last push was at 12/14, December 14, half a percent. They seem
to want to do a couple of more. Who knows? Again, we'll keep monitoring that. Next steps and I'm
almost done. We'll go recommend that as you move forward with the 2024 budget, you maintain that
very strong Unassigned Fund Balance. It's a safeguard against inflation, economic uncertainties. Think
about some other sources of revenue down the road because, again, we know you're looking to
continue to make sure you have the best employees and fill back up. We're going to monitor the interest
rates and talk about funding for the Police Station and the Town Shops. We don't have to do them all
at once. We can do them in pieces.
We going to look at that line of credit. Again, I do not believe personally we'll be able to get a new line
of credit. This was too good a deal for the Town. Bottom line is, I think we'll be in a little different mode,
but we certainly can try. Then lastly, we're going to continue to look at refunding opportunities. With
that, Mayor, I think I have 16 seconds to go.
Mayor Burk: Wow. Very good.
David Rose: No, I really do appreciate it. I will tell you as a group, as a body, and the Mayor knows
this, at times when we've had problems, I've been up here for an hour and we've been very, very slow
and deliberate, but we've not had that in seven, eight, nine years because of the leadership and what's
going on. I'm not going to be shy about telling y'all if there's a problem and what we think we should be
doing. Again, you're in good shape. Happy to continue to answer any questions. Thank you, Mayor.
Page 3 1 January 23, 2023
Mayor Burk: Thank you, Mr. Rose, really appreciate it. The one concern I've had, and I've stated it
before, is on your last page, the need to really keep that Unassigned Fund Balance as a safeguard. If
we end up going into a recession, or if Congress doesn't approve the debt ceiling, what is the
implications to, will they be laying people off? Before? Previously when we had that terrible, what was
that called? I forget the term. Sequestration, right. When many people lost their jobs and people really
impacted the economy here.
I think one of the things that we really have to keep in mind is that we don't know where the economy
is going. It's good right now, but where's it going in the next few years? Keeping that Unassigned Fund
Balance as a safeguard is really very important. I hope everybody will remember that as we're going
through the budget in the next few weeks.
David Rose: Yes, I would add one more thing if I could, Mayor.
Mayor Burk: Sure.
David Rose: The nice thing about having that substantial balance as you do, as Clark will tell you
because interest rates have gone up, the earnings on those monies are quite good now, or will be very
good. From that perspective, we not only have the core, but we also earn interest on that core and that's
really a very positive thing for it helps your budget. I just point that out, too.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. You're always thorough and I'm very confident that the information you're
giving us is right on where it should be. Thank you very much.
David Rose: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mister, I'm going to go with Council Member Cimino -Johnson first.
Council Member Todd Cimino -Johnson: Thank you. Thank you for your report and your update. I
just have three quick questions that I'm sure you can answer. On page 9 and 43, you --
David Rose: You said what page?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: On page 9 and 43, you point out that we need to look at newer
additional revenue streams. Do you have any input into what that would be?
David Rose: We have in the appendix a couple of pages. One is showing what real estate looks like,
not advocating for it, but you could see that in the appendix here. Bear with me if you would-- try to get,
here we go. We pointed out a couple of things. If you were to look at a half -cent on the meals rate,
you're looking at about 1,000,001 of extra dollars. If you look at 1¢ on the real estate rate, you're at
about a million dollars but we said to ourselves, let's show everybody for the benefit of you how your
real estate compares to others, and you can see that on page 54.
Then we showed where you are on the meals tax. Not that I'm advocating, per se, however, meals tax
is something we have got a lot of experience on statewide and regionwide. You are at 3.5%. A lot of
your towns are that level or higher, and you'll notice the County, of course, has none. Fairfax County
has none, but the towns do. You'll notice some of the cities that are effectively surrounded by-- the
Fairfax is in this area; all have 4% or higher. I will say for whatever it's worth, that meals tax is really not
seen very much by almost the majority of people that come to a restaurant. We had that example in the
City of Richmond, if those of you familiar, Richmond, right next door is Henrico and Chesterfield.
Richmond went to 7.5%. At the same time, Chesterfield's still at zero and Henrico is at 4%. The local
area Chamber of Commerce is what have you did a study of that, and they found that there was no
discernible difference or change in anybody's eating habits and anybody's revenues.
In fact, Richmond continues to get more meals, tax revenues because the restaurants are good, but
nobody goes, for example, from McDonald's over in Richmond to McDonald's across the bridge in
Chesterfield because it's zero. They're not seeing any of that. I just point that out. I could be wrong
about that, but that's not me saying it. That's what we've learned from that area.
Page 4 1 January 23, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes, I was just there last week, and I did the calculation while I
was sitting there paying my bill and I was like, "13.5%, holy crap."
David Rose: There's no doubt our taxes are high in Richmond. We know that you know, but
nevertheless, you asked, so you said you had three questions. I don't know if I've answered.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes, page 24, case 2. I guess you're suggesting that in this case,
we would not pay the principle back for 24 months, but doesn't that in the long run cost us more money
in interest?
David Rose: You know what? Not really, because the final maturity is going to be the same. We're not
going beyond 20 years. In both cases, it's 20 years. In fact, what we're doing really is if we save the first
two years of principle, theoretically from a present value calculation, it's one and the same because
you're not using your tax dollars, you're not using your revenues, you could reinvest those revenues. In
fact, in today's environment, we could reinvest those revenues higher than we are having on our
borrowing costs. It'd actually be more cost-effective do case 2 than case 1, which is interesting.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay.
David Rose: That's good. We didn't recommend it that way. I just recommended that potentially
because our thinking is, we're paying it down pretty quickly. Twenty years for whole new buildings and
stuff is a fast, rapid repayment in the municipal world, but at the same time, it's not typical to start paying
principle back while you're still not using the facility. That's a standard in our world.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. My final question is, I didn't really see anything here that
resembled a balance sheet for the Town. Do you provide that?
David Rose: Yes, it's in the appendix.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay.
David Rose: Yes, you'll see it in the appendix. Like I said, we only have so much time, so I just want
to show you here. You'll see that. Bear with me. Okay, here it is. We've got CIP first, there's a capital
program.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Which page you're referring to?
David Rose: What's that? Page 45. Then if you go to 46, that's the general financial results, you'll see
there, revenues, expenditures, and ending fund balances. Then you'll notice the budget, the actual, so
I think it's what you're looking for is on 46 and 47. Then of course, we've got some more details.
Hopefully, that's helpful, doctor.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Thank you.
David Rose: You're welcome.
Mayor Burk: Is that it? Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Zach Cummings: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation. As always,
it's very thorough. We have a lot of good news and a lot of work to do, as we move forward. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Wilt?
Council Member Patrick Wilt: Thank you, also, actually, my one question was on additional revenues,
and you answered that quite well. Thank you. Nothing else.
David Rose: Thank you.
Page 5 1 January 23, 2023
Mayor Burk: Thank you. Council Member Bagdasarian.
Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Well, thank you for the title. My sole question is, I appreciate all
the detail, I'm going to obviously go through this week in greater detail. As far as the intergovernmental
revenues, that's over as far as 2023, and the foreseeable future, correct?
David Rose: I think so. The ARPA funds came in two waves. To your point, that's right. It's hard to
imagine even if we have another crisis in the Federal government getting trillions of dollars coming
through to local governments. It could, but I think we've upped that balance sheet so much on the
Federal side. I think we've spooked everybody. I might say we meaning -- so that's me talking.
Council Member Bagdasarian: So, what you're saying is be mindful of that as we plan for the future.
That's a one-time boost in our revenue. Thank you very much.
David Rose: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Councilwoman Nacy.
Council Member Kari Nacy: I have nothing.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Wait a minute.
Mayor Burk: --Steinberg.
Vice Mayor Neil Steinberg: I have nothing. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much, Mr. Rose.
David Rose: Thank you so much.
Mayor Burk: It's good to see you.
David Rose: Have a good new year. Thanks very much. Okay.
Mayor Burk: Yes. All right. Our next item for discussion is the Town Recycling Program. Ms. LaFollette,
we'll be giving us that. She's not in the room right now. All right.
Renee LaFollette: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. For the new Council Members,
my name's Renee LaFollette and I'm the Director of Public Works and Capital Projects. Tonight's first
environmental topic is the Recycling Program. We will cover what our current program is, what our
current contract value and budget is, what some other jurisdictions around us do. What our hauler in
our MRF facility and a MRF facility is a material recovery facility. I'll use the term MRF because it's
easier to say and then what changes, if any, should we make to our recycling program.
Our current trash and recycling contract is a seven-year contract. We're currently in year five with
Patriot. During the award of the contract, we made the decision to go to a one -day -per -week trash and
recycle collection. Downtown is six days for trash, three days; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for
recycling. All of our recycling is done as a single -stream recycling program, which means all of your
recyclables go into a single container for sorting at the MRF facility and the materials are sorted into the
commodities. Waste Management is our MRF facility.
They're in it obviously to make money, so they're looking at it from a commodities perspective. Tin, steel
aluminum, cardboards, papers, and the plastics, 1 through 7. From a budget perspective, our 2023
trash contract has a value of $3.6M. Of that, approximately $900K is the recycling cost on that contract.
Our solid waste tipping fee is part of that $3.6M, it's not above or beyond that, it's calculated into that
Page 6 1 January 23, 2023
contract value. The solid waste goes to the Loudoun County landfill and that's $52 a ton. Our recycling
tip fee at the Waste Management MRF in Sterling is $110 a ton.
What are some of the others around us doing? It's all over the board. There's no real consistency across
the NoVA region and what we do for recycling. Most of the jurisdictions to the east of us have removed
glass from their single -stream recycling and they have joined what's fondly referred to as the Purple
Can Club. They all use the Fairfax Glass Crusher. As we all know from growing up, the slogan has
always been reduce, reuse, recycle. The Purple Can Club is a reuse of glass through the crushing
operation. Let's see.
Loudoun County in their recycling centers that are scattered throughout the County, four of the six of
those recycling drop-off centers have glass only. Lucketts does not and I'm drawing a blank on the other
one but two of them have co -mingled recycling. Theirs is also hauled to Fairfax and they pay the tipping
fee in Fairfax. When we went to the MRF facility, we learned a little bit more about the dos and don'ts
of recycling for Patriot and Waste Management. What they are asking is aluminum cans, steel cans, tin
cans, paper, cardboard, those all have real high value for them.
Plastic containers, they said they'll take all plastic containers, numbers 1 through 7. They prefer 1s, 2s,
and 5s but they're not going to be real picky on plastics because they said the commodity market
changes on a whim. If 3 has a value next week and 7s a value in two or three weeks, they're going to
sort it and they're going to find a way to sell it. They've asked that we try not to confuse our public and
change all of the plastic numbers that we'll take in our recycling. They also take glass. The glass is not
recycled, it's a residual and it's used as cover at the landfills as an alternate daily cover. They did want
to point out specifically what's not acceptable because of wreaks havoc with their equipment; rubber
hoses, water hoses, chains, batteries, plastic bags like grocery bags. People don't think about this, but
the flat of soda that you get at Costco or Target or the water, that film that's shrink-wrapped around
those, that goes in the trash can, not in the recycled bin because that jams up their works as well. Soiled
food containers, like pizza boxes, if there's grease in those pizza boxes, trash can, they can't be
recycled, Styrofoam or foam of any kind, textiles, bedding, pillows.
You'd think that makes sense, but you'd be surprised the pile of clothing that's at the MRF facility. They
even had a mattress there when we visited them on Thursday. What else did we learn? Some statistics.
The Waste Management MRF in Sterling gets about 3,600 tons plus or minus of recycling from
Leesburg annually. Of that and of everything that's tipped onto their floor, about 17% of all inbound
materials by weight is considered residual and ends up at the landfill. That number surprised me. I
thought it was going to be a lot higher than that. The 17% is the residual that goes to landfill.
The other number that surprised most of us that were on that tour is the glass only accounted for 7.6%
of the weight of the materials. It is reused, as I said. It goes to the King George landfill and is used as
alternate daily cover. That's a reuse component. Some things that maybe we should consider. Staff has
been talking with the Environmental Advisory Commission about doing an education campaign.
Basically, how to recycle right.
Consider what to do with the glass, do we keep it in the single stream and continue trying to work with
Loudoun County to get into the Purple Can Club, or do we remove it from the glass and put it in trash?
Working with Loudoun County, I have been talking with the General Services Department about the
Purple Can Club.
They've indicated that they could provide us with one purple bin on a trailer, but it would be our staff's
responsibility to maintain and manage the site, connect the trailer to a truck, and tow it to Fairfax and
pay the tipping fee for the glass at Fairfax glass crusher. So, not a whole lot of help there yet. They
have a couple of programs that they're looking into that they have not discussed with the Board Of
Supervisors yet. One is to figure out how to do a larger bulk glass collection at the landfill so that the
actual recycling facilities, one located in Pennsylvania and one located in North Carolina, would actually
come and get the glass and it would actually go to a true recycling facility versus a reuse -type scenario.
Another suggestion or possibility would be to audit our recycling Toters for compliance with the Town's
established dos and don'ts. We did do an audit of our recycling Toters a couple of years ago when we
Page 7 1 January 23, 2023
were having a large issue with contamination in the recycling bins. We did an education campaign and
we checked again. The reason we did it was Waste Management indicated that we were at about a
25% contamination rate of all of our recycling that was being tipped onto their floor. We did an education
campaign outreach and did an audit again, talked with Waste Management and we had dropped that
contamination rate to below 10%. They were very happy with that. With that, I will answer some
questions.
Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you very much. First off, I want to recognize that we do have the Chair of
the EAC in the audience today. Paul Schafer's here, and they have done a really good job of trying to
educate the public on what can go into recycling and what can't. One of the frustrations they've had to
deal with is that keeps changing. Things that last year were okay, aren't okay this year, and vice versa.
It's always an ongoing issue for them and I commend them for continuing to work on it.
I thought it was interesting that only 7.7% of our inbound material is glass. Now, I know there's a lot of
people like myself to take it to the Purple Bin at the landfill, but still, I'm sorry. That's not a significant
amount.
Renee LaFollette: We were all quite surprised that-- we had three members of the Environmental
Advisory Commission, Chris Kohr, myself and Ara that went on the tour and all of us were like, "Are we
hearing you right, 7.6%?" They're questioning too. Are people just throwing it away is more of going to
the Purple Can Club, people not buying as much beer in bottles or wine in bottles and going to the box
and cans but they haven't quite figured out exactly why that number has dropped as it has?
Mayor Burk: For us to create a new program and not collect glass anymore, that doesn't really make
any sense if it's only 7% of the --
Renee LaFollette: That's what we thought as well. If we take glass out of the single stream, if it's 7.6%
and we have on average about 200 tons plus or minus, 7.6% of that's like 15.4 tons multiplied by the
110 is $1,600, $1,672 a month, it's about 20K a year. I can't maintain a Purple Can site and tow and
pay the tip fee at Fairfax for that amount of money. When I started looking at the numbers until we can
work with Loudoun County and maybe they figure out how to get the material directly to a recycler from
the landfill to me it's not economic to pull it out of the single stream at this point.
Mayor Burk: Well, the other thing I think it's important to mention is that the Downtown businesses,
they get their recycling and their litter picked or their garbage picked up every day. Is that correct?
Renee LaFollette: The trash is picked up Monday through Saturday; recycling is Tuesday, Thursday,
and Saturday for downtown business.
Mayor Burk: Wow. Do they pay extra for that?
Renee LaFollette: At this point in time, no.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to start down this way. Council Member Wilt.
Council Member Wilt: Thank you. Just two quick questions. The Purple Can Club, would that require,
you said that residents would then personally take their glass to a specific drop off location? That would
be the process?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay.
Mayor Burk: It's at the landfill presently.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. Then second, you mentioned at one point, we had a 25% residual and it
had dropped at a 10% residual and --
Page 81 January 23, 2023
Renee LaFollette: That was contamination or would be considered residual, yes.
Council Member Wilt: Right. Then they would have to sort out and go to landfill. I presume that's 10%
more attractive to Waste Management than 25%.
Renee LaFollette: Correct.
Council Member Wilt: Is there a contract provision which encourages us to try to drive that down?
Renee LaFollette: At this point in time, no.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. Part of this would be an idea is to create an education campaign to help
those numbers?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. There's probably similar, no element tied to the glass content, that 7.6%,
neither taking that out of the stream or doing something with it in financial benefit?
Renee LaFollette: At this point in time, no. There is not. When we started this contract, glass was
considered a single -stream recyclable material. That has changed over the five years of the contract,
so we don't have a specific provision in our contract related to that.
Council Member Wilt: All right. Good. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Bagdasarian? You went on the trip, right?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I was on the trip. Thank you very much. It was a quite experience.
First question is what is the address of the MRF in--? No, I'm kidding.
Renee LaFollette: Let me grab my phone.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes, hold on, no.
Mayor Burk: Did we have trouble finding it?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I had the wrong address. Actually, I arrived at the correct place initially,
but -- The only question is going back to the glass, why is that so undesirable because my understanding
from our meeting was that it's all market -based, is that why it's an issue and it's not recycled?
Renee LaFollette: From a glass perspective, clean glass is marketable. The type of glass that goes
through a single -stream recycling facility is not considered clean, it's considered contaminated because
of all of the small paper fragments and everything that get stuck to it and it's crushed to a point where
you can't separate out the clean glass from the other materials. The pile that we saw on the floor for the
MRF when you looked at it, it didn't look like it was glass but when they pull it out and weigh sort it all
and weigh it, they told us that it was about 90% glass but looking at it --
Council Member Bagdasarian: All right. Yes, that was --
Renee LaFollette: Okay.
Council Member Bagdasarian: We'll take a word for it.
Renee LaFollette: But clean glass does have a market, it's just a matter of the economics of getting it
to where those markets are. The closest recycling facilities of glass that I'm aware of, there's one in
Southern Pennsylvania and there's one in northern North Carolina. They have to have a clean, clean
source of glass, and right now, the hauling costs don't equal what we would save in pulling it out.
Page 91 January 23, 2023
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for arranging that tour as well.
Renee LaFollette: You're welcome.
Mayor Burk: Councilwoman Nacy.
Councilwoman Nacy: I just have one quick question for my education benefit, when you say the glass
is used to cover, what does that mean?
Renee LaFollette: At a landfill, at the end of every day, they have to cover the trash that is there. They
either have to use clean soil, which they have to try and scrape off of their roads, or they have to haul
it in and pay for it, or they can use glass as an alternative. The DEQ allows glass to be used as an
alternative cover, it keeps things from blowing out of the trash cell that they're filling for the trash.
Councilwoman Nacy: Interesting. Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Thank you for the presentation. Like the Mayor said, I was shocked that
only 17% is residual and sent to the landfill. I thought that number would be higher. It's the silver lining
of all of this. Thank you for taking Ara to the MRF and showing him around. I wanted to be there, but I
couldn't make it. I'm glad one of us were.
Renee LaFollette: He got lucky to go in January this time. I think the last time we went it was in August
or September and it was quite odiferous at the MRF facility.
Mayor Burk: It most certainly was.
Renee LaFollette: With some large friends scurrying on the floor.
Mayor Burk: Yes, that's right. I think we named them, didn't we? Council Member Cimino -Johnson.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Thank you, Renee, for your presentation and for the information.
I just have a couple of questions. The first one is the Downtown collections. You say that we do that six
days a week. Is there a need for six days a week in Downtown?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Then the second one is the Purple Cans. The Purple Boxes,
whatever you call them. Do you know how they handle when people throw, let's say plastic or something
else in there? Does it ruin the glass as well?
Renee LaFollette: Most of the Purple Cans that are used have a grate on the top of them to keep the
trash from going in into the glass. They can accept some contamination and it gets sorted out at the
crusher, but if there's a lot of contamination in there, they'll push that pile aside and it'll end up at the
landfill.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Then going back to plastics, you said that it depends on
the number when there's a market for it. Do they keep those numbers until there is a market for it or do
they just trash it if there's no market?
Renee LaFollette: That's part of the residual.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Then my final question, this might be something you can't
answer at the moment, but is there an opportunity to make money for Leesburg on clean glass?
Page 10 1 January 23, 2023
Renee LaFollette: Not that I'm aware of at this time, but I don't have the numbers to know exactly what
our tonnage of glass would be if we did it as a single stream type program. I know when I talked to
Patriot about doing glass only with three Purple Can sites for them to do the collection and everything,
they figured that that would cost us about $75K a year.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay.
Renee LaFollette: That was not counting the maintenance of keeping the sites clean.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thanks for the presentation, Renee. First of all, is it possible that the glass only
represents 7.5% because the fact is most of our packaging is actually in the plastic realm as opposed
to glass realm these days anyway, including wine and a lot of other things.
Renee LaFollette: It could be. We haven't dug real deep into that and when we ask Waste Management
where they thought the glass was going, they weren't sure.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: We don't know. Interesting. Is the County reluctant to help the towns because
they simply haven't yet budgeted to do so or it's just not in their budget period? Are we the only town
that isn't benefiting from the Purple Bins?
Renee LaFollette: They have the six locations. I wish I would've put the map in my presentation now.
There's six locations across county: Hamilton, Arcola, Lucketts are three that I can think of off the top
of my head.
Mayor Burk: Landfill.
Renee LaFollette: Yeah.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Landfill. Is it still considered more or less a pilot program?
Renee LaFollette: It is for the County. They've been into the Purple Can Club for two years. They went
to the Board of Supervisors for additional funding to add a location in the Sterling area. They're reluctant
to help us because of budget is what I've been told. They haven't been given the authority to spend
money within the Town and then we have our own trash contract, which is a challenge for them to work
around as well, I think.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: They don't currently have a crusher at the landfill, do they?
Renee LaFollette: No, they do not.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: They're not actually using the glass themselves as a cover?
Renee LaFollette: No, they're using a commercial hauler and they're hauling it to the Fairfax County's
glass crusher. Now, one, what they're thinking about trying to do once they run the numbers and take
it to the Board of Supervisors is potentially adding a bay, like they have for the metal and the appliances
and things, adding another one for glass where they can accumulate enough commodity that one of the
recyclers would come in and haul the glass to their recycling facility.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Recycling, the word recycling, or the term recycling, of course, somewhat
nebulous. How much old glass ever really becomes new glass?
Renee LaFollette: I do not know that percentage.
Page 11 1 January 23, 2023
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. All right and since so much of the glass is broken, it would seem to me
you have two issues, obviously, you have the issue of clean glass and it's easy to see how, I would
assume most of the glass gets broken in the overall process, how do you deal with the fact that so much
of recyclable paper would be infiltrated with glass shards? How do they work with that? How's that affect
the recycling of the paper itself?
Renee LaFollette: The small paper shards that are attached to the glass go to the --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No, I'm talking about the glass that's embedded into paper products. Let's say
you have cardboard and you've got broken glass mixed in with it, one would assume that cardboard
becomes infiltrated with the glass itself. How does that affect the recycling of paper?
Renee LaFollette: If it's caught as it's going through, it's pulled off that cardboard is pulled off and sent
to the residual pile. If it's not and it gets bound in a bale, whoever they sell that bale to will then ding
Waste Management for whatever level of contamination is in that bale of cardboard.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: That contamination actually works in both directions.
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: It's not beneficial either way nor is it is there really any effective way to deal
with it as long as the glass remains as part of the single stream. If we're going to continue recycling
paper and metals, which we absolutely should then removing the glass would probably be advisable, I
think, in the long run if we truly want to be able to recycle paper, especially long fiber papers. Would
that be a safe assumption at some point down the road? I don't know the extent to which the EAC
studied that aspect of it.
Renee LaFollette: I do not know the answer to that question.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. All right, and yet it still seems the greater issue is going to be the plastics,
the 1s, 2s, 3s, or whatever numbers notwithstanding. In the end, none of it is really all that recyclable.
Even the 1s and 2s have limited value. Are we, at some point, going to have to reevaluate that program
and start to look at whether or not we, just looking down the road here, whether or not we need to
concentrate more effectively on the papers and the metals and figure out something else for the plastics
and the glass?
Renee LaFollette: Well, what we were told Thursday is that papers and cardboards are definitely the
highest -valued commodity. The 1 s and 2s, natural versus pigmented, there's like a four times difference
in commodity value. Natural has a higher value than pigmented, and then the 5s are below that, but in
Waste Management's mind, it's all about what they can make money off of regardless of what that value
is. Right now, there's a commodity value for 1s, 2s, and 5s, and there has been for 3s and there has
been for 6s and 7s.
That's why they're reluctant to say, take those other numbers out because it's confusing a) for the
recycling public, and 2) they never know when that market's going to change for them.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Are they interested in all of the ones because the ones come in a variety of
forms, but I thought conventional wisdom was really what you're talking about are number 1 bottles as
opposed to some of these cartons that are also number 1 s. What happens to those?
Renee LaFollette: They didn't differentiate that precisely on the MRF tour, and I didn't think to ask that
question, but all of the bales that they showed us of 1 s and 2s, there were all different sizes, shapes,
and types of bottles in the bales that they had put together. So, I don't know.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thank you for that. I know the Chair for the EAC is sitting here but I'm going to
ask a question to him through you which is the EAC intending to continue to study this entire situation
and see where we have to get to in the months or years down the road and not too distant, I presume.
Page 12 1 January 23, 2023
Renee LaFollette: I would recommend that staff continue to work with the EAC to watch what the
market is doing so that we can hopefully be proactive and not reactive in what we want to do with the
program.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Are there any jurisdictions nearby that have eliminated everything but paper
and metal from their recycling or at least are no longer doing single stream? Let me put it that way.
Renee LaFollette: No, all of the jurisdictions are still doing single stream. Some have restricted what
plastics they accept. Some have not. The ones that have restricted more of the plastics are the ones
that have commodity -based contracts because they collect their own recycling. Their contract is based
on what the value of that commodity is, so they get some money back. One jurisdiction that used to
make over a million dollars in commodity value is now paying to have their recycling taken. It's not a
model, I think the Town needs to be looking at.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay, well thanks for the information.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Scheaffer, for being here. Our
next item is the Electric Vehicle Pilot Program for the Town Fleet.
Chris Kohr: I'm glad we get to actually present this round. Last time, we didn't get a chance.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Chris Kohr: My name's Chris Kohr. I work with Renee in Public Works on the operations side of the
house, for the new members, welcome. Council originally asked us to explore adding EVs to the fleet
last spring. We had a session in June where we presented some information for discussion. During that
meeting, we were asked to provide plan for a pilot plan to really start getting some EVs into the fleet.
Just a recap for the new members, we did a preliminary fleet classification.
We grouped the fleet that we have in Town so we can communicate better and really try to drill down
on what vehicles are suitable for what application of electric vehicle, either hybrid or electric. Since that
time, we have provided some training to staff, online training mostly on battery technology and EV safety
for maintaining the vehicles. One of the new hires as a result of promotions actually has some EV
experience with Volkswagen, which has been extremely helpful to us. We've met with Utilities, Police,
and the Town Manager's Office to discuss planning and what the needs would be, what their interests
were for what types of vehicles.
Then Public Works submitted a load letter to Dominion for adding chargers to the shop level, two
chargers to the shop. This is the current shop, not the expansion project. Just if Council would choose
to expedite the purchase of an electric vehicle, we could have a charger at the shop. The rest of this
presentation will go over a recommended pilot plan. This is a brief overview of the vehicles in the fleet.
Vice Mayor, you had asked that we remove any non -vehicles from that list. This chart has been updated
to reflect that. Everything here is just vehicles.
Of the fleet of the 203, we have 131 that fall into that light duty and smaller size that electric vehicles
are available for on the market right now. About 10% of that are vehicles that are not engaged in 24/7
emergency response if we'd get into a snow event or other emergency. How did we come up with a
method for how we would introduce these vehicles? Initially, we'd follow CARP as vehicles are due for
replacement. We would assess those vehicles based on the applicability of that vehicle to be EV, what
the use would be, and obviously funding available and chargers is the second part of that. We have to
have the chargers in place to have the electric vehicles so we can keep them charged obviously. Our
plan would be to incorporate chargers into any new facility projects, any large expansion like the public
shop expansion project, the Police building expansion, Utilities. I'll show you a slide later. Utilities has
a little truck shed outbuilding that they're going to be finishing I think in FY26 that we're going to actually
add chargers to. Then Council can consider on -street public charging if that was something that Council
would be interested in. Phase 1 is things that we are doing immediately, probably over the next two
years.
Page 13 1 January 23, 2023
We're proposing five vehicles to be incorporated as hybrid. One in this year and four in FY24. We would
plan to add two fully electric vehicles to the Utilities maintenance division in FY26, and some options
that Council could discuss and consider. Adding the two charging stations at the shop, it would take
about $10K of facility upgrades for us to get that circuit built and the equipment installed. Public Works
could add an electric vehicle with those chargers in place in FY25 or possibly sooner. Additional, we
could add a shared vehicle if Council would be interested in adding to the fleet.
Phase 2 is a couple of years out. Hybrid, we would just incorporate as the vehicles became due for
replacement. The hybrids are a pretty easy sell. There's not a huge issue for most staff, especially
admin vehicles in terms of performance. That would be a pretty logical thing to do for us. We would plan
for two electric vehicles in the Police fleet in FY27 and then Town Hall or Public Works vehicles we
would consider adding two vehicles also in FY27. We were actually able to switch one of the FY23
purchases. The Urban Forester Truck was originally ordered as a standard gasoline vehicle.
We worked with the manufacturer to change that to a hybrid. That'll be delivered this spring. We're
expecting about an 89 -gallon savings or $222 in fuel savings per year for that vehicle as a hybrid. The
hybrid purchasing plan for Utilities, we were talking about a hybrid Ford Explorer and an F150 that is
included in the FY24 CARP that will be presented. Then two administrative vehicles will be ordered as
hybrid. The SUVs get a little bit better mileage improvement with the hybrid vehicles. We'd be looking
at 191 gallons on average as an estimate and about $500 worth of fuel savings with the upgrades of
the hybrid.
We talked about the Utilities maintenance building that will be finished in FY26. We could actually look
at purchasing electric vehicles for Utilities in fiscal year '26. The Police Expansion Project initially had
two public chargers in the public lot in the front along Plaza Street. We added to that scope two secured
lot chargers so that when the two electric vehicles for Police would be ordered in FY26 or FY27, we'd
have something to charge those with. Again, the shop we could add two now and then obviously the
future shop expansion would anticipate adding charging infrastructure with that expansion.
Some considerations, again, these vehicles are a little bit more expensive. That's a consideration for
CARP. Staff training, the more we looked into this and the more we took training, it's going to be really
important for our staff to get training. You're talking a couple of 100 volts coming out of these battery
packs and our guys literally take the Police vehicles completely apart to outfit them. We have to be very,
very careful about what power we're tapping into to run the accessories. We estimate a purchase of
about $25K in tools and PPE to keep the guys safe as they're working on these vehicles in the first
year.
Then if Council would want to do more than a pilot study and really come up with a 5 -year plan, a 10 -
year plan, that would probably require a consultant and that's what the County has done. I think they're
going to present in the spring on that to Loudoun County. We spoke to a couple of people including the
vendor that the County had used for their assessment. It's the same vendor they use for their capital
asset replacement for fleet every year. It would run around $40K and they would do a full assessment
of the fleet.
They would look at all of our telematic data and look at what's available on the market and make
recommendations for us in the near term and the long term. That would be recommended if Council
would be interested in more than just a pilot program over the next couple of years. That's what we
have.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. I'm sorry that we had to postpone your presentation —
Chris Kohr: It's okay. We got it down now.
Mayor Burk: -- but now we can give it more attention now.
Chris Kohr: Yes ma'am.
Page 14 1 January 23, 2023
Mayor Burk: A couple of things. That program that you're talking about at the County, Supervisor
Umstattd did mention that we might want to look at it because some of the chargers that they're putting
in place, they plan on putting in Leesburg. She didn't know where at this point, but she did say that there
was a number of them. She wasn't sure if it was two to five that were going in Leesburg and so we
might want to keep that. I know most of the ones you're talking about are at Town locations that they
wouldn't use, but we still might want to look at that, and make sure that we're not replicating what's not
needed.
The fleet itself, how many-- I know on page-- Well, it doesn't have a page number, but at the beginning,
the vehicles available as EVs, while in phase one we're adding five vehicles and two EVs, on '23-'24,
how many total vehicles will we be adding? How many new ones [crosstalk]
Chris Kohr: Five hybrids in '23 and '24. If Council would direct us to install the charging stations at the
shop as an initial purchase and install of the charging infrastructure, we could probably purchase at
least one fully electric vehicle either next year or in FY25.
Mayor Burk: So, we won't be purchasing any gas vehicles anymore at this level?
Chris Kohr: [Unintelligible]
Mayor Burk: What I was trying to ask is, in total, how many vehicles do we plan to purchase in '23, '24,
just the 5 hybrids?
Chris Kohr: Five hybrids, right now.
Mayor Burk: Nothing more? We're not going to purchase any gas cars.
Chris Kohr: In the classes that are listed here, the car in the SUV and the light duty, we would look at
purchasing hybrids before we purchase, right.
Mayor Burk: Just hybrids, okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Cummings? Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation and thank you for the work
you've done, you and Renee, after our June meeting which was new for all of us. One question,
comment, I just want to make sure we're looking finance and other staff are looking as well as we do
this at Federal funds. I know during the bipartisan infrastructure bill had funding available for localities
for both electric chargers, as well as electrifying fleets with an emphasis on State and local
governments. We may have some opportunities there if the juice is worth the squeeze as they say to
get some funding from that.
Other than that, thank you. The Mayor asked some of the questions I had with the current fleet whether
we were going to continue to add fossil fuel -burning cars or if we were going to look at the hybrid model.
I'm happy to see that. I certainly would support as we look at the budget and moving forward, including
charging stations at the Town garage, as well as at the new Police Station as we continue to work on
that RFP. I think this is the future and we need to begin to build the infrastructure to allow us to operate
in the world we're moving in.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes. Thank you for your presentation and all the information. I just
have two questions I believe. The first is the charging stations at the Town shop. You have $10K. What
all does that entail?
Chris Kohr: The $10K?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes.
Page 15 1 January 23, 2023
Chris Kohr: That would be -- we are out of space on all of our electrical panels. We'd actually be having
to tap off of the transformer, put in new circuits, put in a new transfer box, new panel, and then run that
circuit outside to the charging station location.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Other locations would be a lot less than if they have room
on their circuit panel.
Chris Kohr: Those are two small level two chargers and the other sites it's going to vary a lot depending
on how close the infrastructure is to the transformer. The farther you go the more expensive, obviously,
it would be to install the infrastructure. We looked at installing EV chargers, I think at, Ida Lee, Liberty
Street, and Police, if I'm not mistaken. It was about $50K per location which is why we want to
incorporate it into expansion projects that are already in place so it's a little bit more competitive to
install.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Yes. I just paid someone today to install one at my house.
That will be installed this weekend. It was $500.
Chris Kohr: Awesome.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I'm just a little shocked at the price. The second one I have is the
Chevy Bolt price that you have at the last slide, 47K. Do you know what that is because I just priced
those out this weekend for myself and it was 38K, was the MSRP. I'm just wondering where that cost
is coming from.
Chris Kohr: Those were our contract costs that we found a few months ago. We typically look at
rideable contracts. This isn't a final cost. We'd look at the market value for the vehicle at the time we
are given the go-ahead to proceed, obviously. If the prices have gone down, that's great.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay, thank you.
Chris Kohr: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Councilwoman Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: Thank you. I just had two quick questions. The charging station at the Town
Shop, the 10K are you saying if we include that in this upcoming budget, you would then be able to
have potentially one fully electric car? Is that what you were saying?
Chris Kohr: If we're given the go-ahead by Council to spend the $10K for the facility upgrades then we
would have two chargers at the shop and we could purchase-- I think one F150 is due for replacement
in Public Works in '24, that could theoretically be purchased as an EV.
Council Member Nacy: That is something that we could potentially consider like right now as we're
entering the budget. Then my other question was similar to what Councilman Cummings mentioned
already which was, are there any Federal programs we could tap into or as we start to transition some
of the fleet into hybrid and electric, is there some credit we would be given? You know how households
get a credit on their taxes, do you know what State and local wise, if there's anything that we would
get?
Chris Kohr: We have not done that research, but we can definitely look into it. If we're given the go-
ahead to proceed, looking for those subsidies or funds would be on our list for sure.
Council Member Nacy: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Bagdasarian.
Page 16 1 January 23, 2023
Council Member Bagdasarian: This is just one question. Thank you very much for the presentation. I
appreciate it. The only question I have is the reason why we go to hybrid before going to full EV is it the
capacity of a pure play EV versus a hybrid as far as the ability to handle the workload of the Town?
Chris Kohr: The only reason we are not proposing that is just because the infrastructure is not here.
We have to build the infrastructure to charge the vehicles before we purchase them, obviously. The
pilot plan shows us incorporating those chargers at the Police Station, the Utilities building, and then
eventually the public shop expansion. If Council would want us to, we would have to spend money on
infrastructure before we could purchase those vehicles sooner, if that would be the direction.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay, great.
Chris Kohr: Does that make sense?
Council Member Bagdasarian: That does. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Wilt?
Council Member Wilt: Thank you.
Chris Kohr: Yes, sir.
Council Member Wilt: The first thing I want to understand in terms of the cost on your chart on page
13. The hybrid and the full electric vehicles are anywhere between 10% and 50% higher acquisition
costs than the gasoline vehicles [crosstalk]
Chris Kohr: Correct, depending on the model, yes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. Then when you were discussing operating costs, you're looking at about
$200 a year in gasoline cost savings with the hybrid, am I reading that correctly?
Chris Kohr: I actually looked that up. I figured I'd get a question like that.
Council Member Wilt: On page six.
Chris Kohr: I ran this today. I took a couple of the sample vehicles, an estimated hybrid savings in the
sedan size. This has just taken a generic vehicle of that class from our fleet and looking at the mileage
that we typically use in a year and the cost of fuel. Hybrid savings would be about anywhere from $66
to almost $1 K depending on which vehicle, what sedan it was replacing. If it was an SUV, we're looking
at about $500 to $800 in fuel savings, and a light truck around $600 in fuel savings.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, so those are different than the numbers on slide six and seven.
Chris Kohr: Yes.
Council Member Wilt: That's fuel savings?
Chris Kohr: Right.
Council Member Wilt: And those are in hybrids because at some point we're using the electric motor
to drive a car. We're not using fuel.
Chris Kohr: Correct.
Council Member Wilt: Do we have a view of the total operating cost for cost per 100 miles served
because now we're paying for electricity to charge the vehicles. Do we have a view of -
Page 17 1 January 23, 2023
Chris Kohr: We could pull that information.
Council Member Wilt: -the operating cost?
Chris Kohr: Yes. I don't have it readily available.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, that would be interesting to see in terms of if any of this capital acquisition
is offset and operating costs. Then also I was wondering about the fleet. None of these are intended to
be for emergency vehicle use, is that right?
Chris Kohr: Right. If we have an emergency or a snowstorm, for example, we have to be confident that
the fleet that we're using to respond to that is operational 24/7 --
Council Member Wilt: Right.
Chris Kohr: --because these events could go multiple days.
Council Member Wilt: Right.
Chris Kohr: Of the vehicles that we propose so far, those do not fill that function.
Council Member Wilt: For hybrid or [crosstalk]
Chris Kohr: Those are administrative vehicles that are typically just run during the day. Like the Miss
Utility truck for Utilities, that runs pretty much five days a week during the daytime.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, good. These are just administrative purpose, so emergency services,
there's no plan at this point to include these vehicles [crosstalk]
Chris Kohr: At least not in the pilot. We want to be a little bit more confident --
Council Member Wilt: Okay.
Chris Kohr: -- and I think the hesitation is if we would have that 24/7 requirement over a multi -day
period, we don't want to not plow snow or not respond to an emergency because we're waiting on
vehicles.
Council Member Wilt: All right, that's a valid concern. The only other question in terms of, 1 was looking
at or thinking about maintenance costs, but I didn't see anything on, so just casually listening to reports
I've heard that for EV vehicles sometimes battery replacements are $20K to $30K, so do we have a
projection on maintenance costs? That one repair seems like a pretty big number to me.
Chris Kohr: Hybrid from what we've gathered from other jurisdictions, the cost for maintenance on the
hybrid is slightly lower, less oil changes, but because it still has the gasoline engine, you're still doing
that maintenance. Less brake pad replacement so the maintenance cost for those vehicles is certainly
less, but still there. EVs, obviously, the cost is way low on an annual basis, but the battery replacement
is a concern.
When we called a couple of manufacturers to find out how we would even replace those batteries, we
were told that it's the cost of the battery but also the cost of the disposal because right now there's not
a recycling facility in the United States to send them to. Just shipping them and disposing of the old
batteries could be thousands of dollars.
Council Member Wilt: Right, okay.
Chris Kohr: So, that's why we recommend staying on a very rigid car replacement schedule for those
vehicles so that we're replacing them before the warranty runs out for those battery packs.
Page 18 1 January 23, 2023
Council Member Wilt: All right. Understood. All right. Thanks very much.
Chris Kohr: Yes, sir.
Mayor Burk: Thank you.
Chris Kohr: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: We really appreciate the information.
Chris Kohr: Yes, ma'am.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Excuse me.
Mayor Burk: Oh, I forgot you. Oh, I'm continuing a pattern.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I felt left off like Mr. Martinez.
Mayor Burk: I know. I call you Mr. Martinez.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: One moment.
Mayor Burk: Then I treat you like Mr. Martinez.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Just a few questions.
Chris Kohr: Yes, sir.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Getting back to maintenance and, of course, obviously, that analysis of
maintenance between gas vehicles and hybrids and EVs is what it's all about but as we develop these
programs now, we have three different types of vehicles, so who will initially be responsible for the
maintenance of these vehicles in the fleet?
Chris Kohr: It would be us.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Us, okay.
Chris Kohr: Right.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay, good answer.
Chris Kohr: [crosstalk] that would be under warranty.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. I guess what I'm asking is, so now you have gas vehicles, hybrids, and
EVs, all of which have their own requirements and sets of tools, I might add, so does this mean we'll be
developing shops at least initially? We'll be making the investment in all of these different types of
computerized analysis and the various tools that are required to maintain the vehicles as we transition
through this?
Chris Kohr: From what I gather, the maintenance on a hybrid vehicle, for example, is very similar to
what we're doing now. There wouldn't be a large amount of upgrades necessary except for those
vehicles that we're outfitting. For example, the police vehicles where we're literally tearing the insides
out so that we can put in all the accessories, the radar, and the lights, that would have --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: We're talking when we take delivery of the vehicle.
Page 19 1 January 23, 2023
Chris Kohr: Right. We outfit those ourselves internally. Our staff are taking all of the seats and
everything out to get to the inside of that vehicle and tapping into the power sources so that we can run
all the accessories. That's the safety concern for our staff, and that's where we'd have to have the
proper tools to do that. The EVs, the maintenance cost is significantly lower. Obviously, there's no oil
changes and we would hope that for most of the issues that would come from those, we'd have brake
pad replacement and whatnot, but far less than the hybrids. Those would probably fall under warranty.
Anything that would go majorly wrong with those would be a warranty replacement or warranty repair
at the dealership.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. For the police cruisers, right now you're just recommending hybrids for
those as opposed to the full EV, is that correct?
Chris Kohr: Yes, that's right.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. If we get to a point where it's full EV, are these vehicles, do they have
the ability to swap the batteries out onsite relatively easily as opposed to having to wait for them to
charge?
Chris Kohr: Full swaps rather than waiting the couple of hours --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Yes. You have an inventory of batteries and if necessary, you swap the battery
out as opposed to plugging it in.
Chris Kohr: That I have not heard of.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. The reason I asked that question, is the Mayor and I visited an electric
aircraft company down in DC last week and that's exactly what they do. They install the batteries
depending on the capacity of the load. A given aircraft might carry two or it might carry five or six
batteries depending on how the range that they want to achieve versus the weight they have to carry.
I'm just curious if that same idea could apply to cars and then would it be worth the investment for any
of the level three chargers or are the level two chargers basically fairly sufficient for motor vehicles of
this type?
Chris Kohr: The level three chargers would be excellent in terms of having the freedom to charge in --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I know they're more expensive.
Chris Kohr: The problem that we run into is that the current transformers at all of our sites are not
sufficient to provide that amount of power -
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Which led to my next question.
Chris Kohr: -so we would've to provide a lot of infrastructure upgrades. From what we've gathered,
yes, Dominion has told us that they'll do some cost sharing with us, but we would probably have to fork
over -- I don't know what the total amount would be, it would depend severely on the amount of chargers,
level three chargers that you're installing. From what I've heard, it's a very significant upgrade to get
level three.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Understood, okay. These are just all questions, obviously. It's a pilot program,
but at some point, we have to start, we need to think about these things. Right now, it's up to us to also
anticipate to what degree we're going to install chargers for the general public as opposed to just to
service our fleet.
Chris Kohr: This has been focused on charging our internal vehicles.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Exactly, okay.
Chris Kohr: So, if we want to look at that we could, if we're directed.
Page 20 1 January 23, 2023
Mayor Burk: Different program.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: It is but still something to consider. Thanks.
Mayor Burk: Are you asking us, or do you need for us tomorrow to agree to this pilot program? Do you
need for us to say that we would like you to do this, continue with this part?
Kaj Dentler: I think my advice to you, if you're comfortable with the pilot program that Mr. Kohr has
described, then we will march on in that direction. I don't need you to take a formal vote for that. Now,
obviously, if you want to and that's your decision, but I think it sounds like most everyone is interested
in the pilot. There are positives, there are negatives and there are unknowns and I think questions about
the full cost are very valid. I don't want Council to have the impression that we're changing our entire
fleet from gas vehicles because, as already discussed, we would fail on a lot of our missions if we took
that path today. This is the appropriate step to put our toe in the water, do a pilot program, try some
things out, et cetera.
The other positive is that we have the town shop expansion that as he talked about infrastructure needs
and different bays, storage, equipment, et cetera, that'll give us an opportunity. The right step is for us
to take the pilot and just grow into it, lessons learned, see how the market adjusts, et cetera.
Mayor Burk: All right. There's four people that would be interested in doing that. Eileen, do you need
the names of the four people? I saw Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy- everyone but Mr. Wilt. All right. Thank
you. You're back.
Renee LaFollette: I'm back.
Mayor Burk: You just couldn't stay away.
Renee LaFollette: You got an environmental night tonight. What's that? Didn't think about that. I wore
green to the Planning Commission. Our third environmental topic for tonight Green Infrastructure. With
this topic, we'll talk about what green infrastructure is, what LEED certification is. LEED stands for
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. How can we implement it through our CIP and what
have we already done related to green infrastructure in Town?
What is green infrastructure? Today a number of people think green infrastructure is building
construction or vertical construction where green infrastructure actually started in the stormwater arena
with bioswales and pervious pavements and best management practices and stormwater management
ponds. It wasn't until really the early to mid -1990s that it came into the building realm with LEED
certifications. When we talk about LEED certification, there's four certification levels, green or certified,
silver, gold, and platinum. All of this is based on a points system and all of the points go toward an effort
to reduce the impact and range of construction projects. It covers a range of metrics from building
materials to energy use.
There's six key areas that LEED covers. They look at water metering and use, greenhouse gas
emissions, indoor air quality, use of recycled materials, utilization of resources, maintenance and
operation costs. Those are six key areas, but in those six key areas, there's nine metrics or nine main
rating categories, location, water efficiency and use reduction, energy efficiency and atmosphere,
material selection and resources used, indoor environmental quality, integrative process, sustainable
sites, and regional priority. It's a very complicated program that we as the Town have never used on
any of our buildings.
I reached out to two of the architects that are currently working with the Town of Leesburg. One,
Dewberry, that's working on the Police Station, and Hughes Group who's working on our Town shop.
What both of them told me in two separate emails, design work to go for a LEED certification is going
to range between $115K to $150K in addition to the traditional design work on a project. There is an
application fee of $900 to $5K depending on the size of the project. It will have a construction cost of
anywhere from 1% to 10% of the total construction cost, all the project. Then you go through a
Page 21 1 January 23, 2023
certification and a building commissioning process upon completion of the building with the Green
Energy Council as part of that commissioning group.
How could we implement it potentially with our CIP? We have three building projects, the Police Station
expansion, which is getting ready to go to bid at the end of February, we have the Town shop expansion,
and we have the utility storage facility for vertical -type construction. The Police Station expansion,
attachment one to your memo, walks through all of the different sustainability initiatives that were looked
at as far as the Police Station project is concerned, reusing existing structures, Energy Star -rated HVAC
system, solar panels.
We went through the whole gamut, looked at cost -benefit ratios, and tried to figure out what we could
do as part of that project to work towards having some green initiatives in that building project.
The Town shop expansion, we have not started the design on that project yet. For the building itself,
we've done the space. We're starting to do the layout. We're trying to concentrate on the site design
now, so we're ready to accept some dirt from another parcel across the road when they get ready to
design, but we have told the architect to be looking at sustainable design for that project. The utility
storage facility is also just starting design as well.
In our storm drainage projects, we can look at riparian buffers as we did on the Tuscarora Creek stream
project, bioswales along some of our roadways. Our streets and trails projects, tree preservation is an
area of green initiative, bioswales, best management practices with our storm water detention ponds.
Adding EV charging infrastructure to our building projects, as Chris mentioned, with the Police Station
project, the Town shop, and the Utilities buildings. Our brush and leaf collection is considered a green
initiative because all of those materials actually go -to farms and vineyards within Loudoun County. Then
our trash and recycling contract going to one day a week, reducing our carbon footprint with that one
less day of trash and recycling collection.
The building maintenance, we currently look for Energy Star -rated HVAC units when we do
replacements in existing facilities, if we need to replace facility equipment. The boiler at Ida Lee, for
example, when that one went out, we put a new boiler in that is supposed to be 80% more effective
than the boiler that was put in in 1990 when it was replaced. We do have some State legislation coming
our way that was approved March 31, 2021. It's code section 15.2-1804.1 building by locality for high-
performance standards.
It does go into effect July 1, 2023, for any jurisdiction under 100K in population for building construction
greater than 5K square feet or renovation cost exceeding 50% of the building value, that ensures that
we are building to a LEED Green or LEED certified standard, has sufficient EV charging, and includes
features to measure the building's energy consumption and metering of all utilities and incorporates
appropriate resilience energy features.
The localities do have a choice if the building is less than 20K square feet, that the locality may ensure
the building achieves relevant Energy Star certification versus going for the full green certification. As I
read this legislation, if we have a contract in place before the July 1, 2023, we don't have to follow this
verbatim, but I would recommend that we do. We are under contract on all three of our building projects
currently.
What have we done on some of our past CIP projects as far as green infrastructure? The Ida Lee Park
maintenance building was built to a green certification, but we did not go through the process of actually
getting the certification. That is one building that has a green roof. I don't know if any of you have noticed
that building that's down by the Master Gardener, it has a planted roof. When we did the Tavistock Drive
traffic signal, we did include a bioswale on that one. The Battlefield Parkway at Kincaid Boulevard, when
we built Battlefield Parkway, we did build a very large bio-retention facility.
We are in the process of converting street lights to LED. We've done all of the high-pressure sodium
and mercury vapor. Streetlights in the Downtown have been switched over to LED lights and we are
starting to do that in some neighborhoods in Town. Our Tuscarora Creek stream restoration project with
the large riparian buffers on both sides of the stream. The millings from our milling and paving program
Page 22 1 January 23, 2023
are recycled. It's a wrapped product. We use up to 20% of that in new asphalt mixes. They come from
the asphalt plants. That is a requirement by VDOT. We're currently underway for hiring the sustainability
manager position that was approved with the '23 budget.
What should we consider? The first one, for our roadway and trail projects, we should be looking at
green infrastructure as part of those projects. It's going to take a thought process, change, a mental
shift for most of us engineers that we're not used to that. We're used to the traditional curb gutter,
sidewalk, straight line, minimal trees. We don't have roadway impacts but I think we need to start looking
in that direction.
Look for more ways to ensure tree preservation. Our new urban forester is a very large tree
preservationist. He's already looked at one of our trail projects and has put root aeration mating in there
to save six or seven trees on that project versus cutting down and replacing those trees. Then the
biggest question is, do we include the cost for full LEED certification or just design and build to the
LEED practices? That's really the big question. Do we spend that additional money? Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. I appreciate that. Council Member Bagdasarian? Still not on.
Council Member Bagdasarian: There we go. I know I could do it. I think I can. All right. In the LEED
certification slide, where it talks about what's involved with obtaining LEED and the design work was
about a 100K to 150K, the question is, if a project is designed from the start to be LEED certified, does
that impact that at all versus retrofitting a building that needs to be redesigned or have additional design
work?
Renee LaFollette: In talking with both of the design firms that I talked to, if they know going into a
project that it is to be designed to a LEED certification, they're going to be adding that to that because
there are a number of steps that they have to take with reporting and designing and figuring out cost -
benefit ratios, what types of materials can be used because you have to track through construction, you
have to track your separation of all of your demolition materials, you have to track every material that's
used in the building. It's an intensive use of the architect's time to get through all of the proper steps for
that certification.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Are there any benefits of being LEED certified versus just building to
LEED practices?
Renee LaFollette: I'm not extremely familiar with it, but the jurisdictions that I've talked to, they have
seen some savings in energy use but none of them that I talked to would say, "Yes, go for LEED gold
or platinum," because of the cost to do it.
Council Member Bagdasarian: All right. Thank you, Renee.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Wilt?
Council Member Wilt: Thank you. I was looking at slide six on the State legislation. I just wanted to
make sure I was not confused on the application. Building construction greater than 5K square feet
ensures, and that the next bullet, ensures that applies to that?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Council Member Wilt: Design, constructive, verified, operated to comply with LEED Green. What I
wasn't sure about is the last bullet, building that's less than 20K square feet. We're talking about a
building larger than 5K square feet but if it's less than 20K square feet, locality may ensure the building
achieves Energy Star certification? How does that, how do they interplay those two bullet points there?
Renee LaFollette: The Energy Star certification is just slightly below the LEED Green so you're still
designing to an established practice versus one of the full certifications.
Page 23 1 January 23, 2023
Council Member Wilt: In terms of the requirements, that's what I'm not quite getting. We're saying if
it's greater than 5K, we need to design to LEED but then we're saying if you're less than 20-- It sounds
to me like if you're greater than 20,000, you have to design to LEED. I'm confused by the language.
Renee LaFollette: Yes. I would have to get a legal interpretation on that exact nuance and difference
there.
Council Member Wilt: Just in terms of that application, which-- Right, I'm still confused that -
Renee LaFollette: It's new.
Council Member Wilt: -in terms of the projects, which are upcoming, Police Station, Town shop, utility
storage, how do their square footages line up with those metrics?
Renee LaFollette: We don't have the square footage determined yet for the Town shop project nor for
the storage building. The Police Station is over the square footage that would require us to build to the
green, but we're already under contract and ready to go to bid. If we were at the starting gate for the
Police Station after July 1, 2023, that would have to be built to the LEED Green certification as I
understand it.
Council Member Wilt: That's over 20K square feet. It is greater that square footage but you're saying
because of the start point, just in terms of -
Renee LaFollette: That's my understanding.
Council Member Wilt: -the applicability of the State legislation does not force us into that path. Is that
what you're saying or it does?
Christopher Spera: Renee, if I can just jump in because I've got the statute. Instead of your summary,
I've got the statute open in front of me. The way I read it is that if locality is in design on a new building
greater than 5K square feet, it shall ensure and it had the enumerated items. If it's bigger than 20K feet,
you have the option to go to the lower standard of --
Council Member Wilt: Larger than 20K, not less than 20K.
Christopher Spera: I'm sorry, I said that backwards, less than 20K square feet. If it's larger than 20,000
feet, you don't have the Energy Star option. There's an intersection that greater than 5K, but less than
20K you have options.
Council Member Wilt: You have an optionality.
Christopher Spera: Correct. Then one thing that Renee didn't mention, but is in the statute, that if there
are special circumstances with respect to any project, regardless of the project size, the governing body
can, by ordinance, grant itself an exemption from the standards.
Council Member Wilt: All right. Thank you. Thanks, Renee.
Mayor Burk: Councilwoman Nacy.
Council Member Nacy: Thank you. I'm glad you put the last bullet about do we include the cost for the
full certification or just design and build to the practices because that was going to be one of my
questions, something that may shock some of you in this room. When I was getting my MBA, I took a
sustainability course, and it was very eye-opening, and we had an extensive conversation about the
LEED certification and the pros and cons and benefits and whatnot of it. The general consensus was
why do you need a shiny like --
Renee LaFollette: Plaque on the wall?
Page 24 1 January 23, 2023
Council Member Nacy: Yes, exactly. When you can still do all of those things and save yourself couple
of hundred thousand dollars in the process. If we can lean towards the best practices of it, then I don't
necessarily see a reason to just have the shiny status symbol that says LEED. I think we can all sleep
at night knowing we designed things to those standards. Just my opinion.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thanks. Well, everybody seems to have latched onto this one particular detail
so I just want to clarify. Is there anything in the relatively new State code that would require us to actually
have certification as opposed to simply building to the standards? No.
Renee LaFollette: Not to my understanding and not based on what Mr. Spera--
Christopher Spera: Based upon the five minutes that I've spent looking at this since the discussion
began because I had not looked at this prior to that moment. There's nothing that requires that you
actually obtain the certification [unintelligible].
Vice Mayor Steinberg: We could do the right thing and bill to the standards, but we don't need the
trophy is the point. Okay. That would represent a savings both in the certification process itself and in
the construction cost?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Albeit the construction cost would probably run higher due to the fact
that we're meeting certain standards somewhere between green and platinum or even Energy Star for
that matter. Okay. That makes sense. That probably answers the question about the 1% to 10%
construction cost. That bullet point, did that have to do with what would be required to meet the
standards —
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: -- as opposed to the certification process itself?
Renee LaFollette: That goes to the documentation of your sorting all of your demolition debris, tracking
everything that comes into the site, and then the full cost for the commissioning of the building.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Well, that's fine. If you don't mind, I'd like to bring up something that's in
the report but was not in your presentation. It involved the potential solar panels at the new Police
Station. It showed a couple of configurations for the parking lot. Two of them were the exact same
square footage but one price was 635K, the other was 750K. I couldn't quite figure out why there was
a jump of $115K between the two when it looked like I was looking at the same thing. As you look that
up, I assume that includes the construction of a canopy, it's not just the solar panels themselves
because that would be a very expensive project indeed.
Renee LaFollette: Correct. One of the areas was 6,5K square feet and the other one was 9,5K square
feet.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Oh, no, the 95 was combined, 6,5K and then the second one.
Renee LaFollette: The 3,000.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: There were two views of the same configuration. Again, at one point the price
is shown at 635K, and the other it's shown at- and I'll have to go back to the staff report to find it. We
don't have to sit here while you find it.
Renee LaFollette: I'll have to look into that because I don't know off the top of my head.
Page 25 I January 23, 2023
Vice Mayor Steinberg: My primary question was that includes the actual canopy construction as well
because without the solar project then you don't need the canopy.
Renee LaFollette: I'm not 100% sure so let me look into it and get back to you.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Well, that would be an important distinction. All right. Okay. Thank you
very much. Oh, well, one final thing. We're hiring the sustainability manager and I assume we're going
to be looking at this in a very specific way once that individual comes on board.
Renee LaFollette: I would think so.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: That's what that person is designed to tell us. Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Thank you. One question, following up on the Vice Mayor, we're looking
at the solar arrays, in parking lots with canopies. Has staff ever looked into solar arrays on the fourth
level of the Town parking garage?
Renee LaFollette: We have not.
Council Member Cummings: Okay. I would certainly be interested in at least having either a
discussion if we needed or getting a little bit more into detail on that. I think it's certainly something we
could do to help offset the energy costs. As we all know, if you looked at your bill lately, Dominion has
just at the end of the year last year, got a $15 energy increase allowed and the kilowatt -per -hour energy
costs are going up. I'm assuming we don't get any sort of discount from Dominion Energy for being a
municipal customer, right?
Renee LaFollette: No.
Council Member Cummings: I didn't think so. I don't know if there are other folks who would join
asking staff to look into that if we're even allowed to place and part of that would be what's the process
to allow us to place solar on top of the garage.
Renee LaFollette: BAR review.
Council Member Cummings: Sure. We can appeal to ourselves.
Renee LaFollette: That's one thing.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Renee, Mr. Kohr, thank you so much for all the work you put into
this and for your presentation. I don't have any questions at this time.
Mayor Burk: When the Police Station renovation RFP went out, I was really very angry because it
didn't seem to have anything dealing with green infrastructure at all. I see a list here that indicates that
there was more than I was aware of. However, there's just so much more that we could do that we're
not doing in these new buildings. I agree with Council Member Nacy about we don't have to have the
plaque on the wall, but we can be looking at the best practices and trying to get some of these important
aspects to buildings that will cut down on energy use and make a difference to the people that work in
those buildings, too.
While I'm glad to see that there is some initiatives in there, there could be a lot more. I would hope that
as we hire this new manager, we'll be able to come up with new things as these buildings are being
progressed through the process. You did ask at the end do we need to include the cost for full LEED
certification or just design and build to the LEED practices. I think the majority of us here would be
Page 26 I January 23, 2023
happy if we designed it and built to those practices, very definitely. I would move forward in regard to
that as we think of these projects.
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor, if I can just clarify one thing, and we can close the conversation. As Renee
indicated, the architects for the Police Station did look at a significant amount of green infrastructure
and energy -saving mechanisms for building. Although it may not be visible, there are a lot of cost -
benefit ratio decisions have to be made. If you recall, the Police Station originally started at 16M. Now
we're at, what, probably $22 to $23M and it could be more. We don't know until we find out the bid.
The point that she's really trying to bring out to you is we can certainly commit and that is a Council
decision. If you wish to commit to certain things, we will add that. It will add cost. I'm sure there'll be
some savings, but the cost -benefit analysis ultimately helps us determine how much. The Police Station
is unique to the other buildings because of the level of security measures that have occurred since 911.
That's a little bit of a skew. I don't want you to walk away thinking we didn't do anything because one of
the first things she did say, they did go through a thorough scrub but, again, the project has risen $7M
alone just to build the project.
That's why ultimately, Council may wish to make some policy direction of you want us to do certain
things. We can frame it better so you know what, a little more quantified analysis, but you do have to
understand it will mean more costs to any project. That's not a bad thing based on other goals you may
have but that's the balance the staff is trying to find is what is acceptable as we go through some of
these very difficult, complex, and expensive projects. That's all.
Mayor Burk: The expense was not necessarily because of the additions. A lot of it had to do with
construction costs, changes, and things of that nature.
Kaj Dentler: Absolutely. If you interpreted what I said is the LEED rose up from 16 to 23M, I'm not
implying that at all, but I am clearly stating that any such a pursuit will increase the cost of a project and
we may catch it perfectly in times of the market and we may not. Ultimately, just Council will have to
make a decision of what your broader goals are and then we will take that in consideration. If it's up to
staff, we will look for a balance, and we may or may not hit your marks, but if you have policy direction
that you are to hit this, then we'll just build that into the cost. That's all. That might be something you
want to consider for more [crosstalk]
Mayor Burk: I want to clarify it. I said that originally, I didn't think there was much at all in there. Looking
at the list, there's a great deal more that was added as the design was going through. There just could
have been even more, but as you say, it's all cost and things of that nature.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I have one more question.
Mayor Burk: I still need to know, before you ask your question, are there four people that-- This is the
question you want answered tonight, is it not?
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Do we include the cost for the full LEED certification or just design and bill to the LEED
practices?
Kaj Dentler: I would recommend, honestly, that the Council just takes information and consider
because it's a whole package. It isn't just pursuing the LEED certification or not. What are your policy
goals in terms of when we build facilities? Then we can help you frame it as you have questions. I think
it is broader than just pursuing because, again, we are doing all best practices. I think most of you all
agree with we should try to accomplish as many best practices as possible. You may just want to
process information before you make a decision unless it's very clear to you already what you want to
do. That's all I'm saying.
Mayor Burk: Oh, I got the questions here.
Page 27 1 January 23, 2023
Renee LaFollette: In that.
Kaj Dentler: That's for your consideration.
Renee LaFollette: I wasn't necessarily intending for you to answer that question tonight. It was more
for us to think through and talk through. We have the CIP discussion coming up so that can be part of
the discussion with how the budgets are established in the CIP as well.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thank you. You didn't recommend a permeable surface and I'm just curious as
to what the downsides are of that.
Renee LaFollette: The soil types we have in probably 85% to 90% of Leesburg don't perk well, they
don't drain well because we have a lot of clays. There are some areas in Town where permeable
pavements are applicable but there aren't a lot of them.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: What would be underlying the --
Renee LaFollette: The underlying soil.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. All right. Thanks.
Mayor Burk: Vienna just did their Police Station with a permeable.
Renee LaFollette: What's that? I'm sorry.
Mayor Burk: Vienna just did their Police Station with permeable, so we'll see how that goes.
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much. Council Member Cimino -Johnson, do you have any future
additions? Thanks.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I do not.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Yes, I have two. One is I sent around some language for a letter for
those willing to sign urging Keolis, which is the contractor with the County's bus service, urging them to
get back to the table to negotiate with their employees. Currently, the bus service is not running except
for some paratransit so our Leesburg residents are not being served by the County bus system. If you're
interested, if you have changes if you'd like anything changed, let me know. I'd be happy to send you
all the final language tomorrow before the meeting, but I'd love to get as many folks to support that.
Mayor Burk: You want this on the agenda for tomorrow?
Council Member Cummings: Yes, please.
Mayor Burk: All right.
Council Member Cummings: Then my second --
Mayor Burk: Go ahead.
Christopher Spera: [unintelligible]
Page 28 1 January 23, 2023
Mayor Burk: He says, "I don't have to have four."
Christopher Spera: You don't have to have four because there's not any work for staff associated with
it. He can add it -
Mayor Burk: Written letter.
Christopher Spera: -under 14 sub 3 of your rules. Mr. Cummings can add it.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I don't want to get in the middle of that.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Council Member Cummings: No. Then the second is I'd like to see if there are four folks that would
join me in asking staff to look into a plan to create a solar array at Town Hall, especially on top of the
Town garage.
Mayor Burk: There are four votes to have staff look at. What do you mean by look at, study?
Council Member Cummings: Yes, study.
Mayor Burk: Plan for solar?
Council Member Cummings: Yes, plan what's the cost, what the process we'd have to go through
with Dominion, as well as with our own town government.
Speakerl: Work session.
Council Member Cummings: Yes, work session will be fine.
Mayor Burk: That actually going to go to work session. Four people that would be interested in doing
that. Mr. Bagdasarian, Mr. Steinberg, myself, Mr. Cummings, and Dr. Cimino -Johnson. I'll get all these
new names, I promise. That was so-- Vice Mayor Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Yes. Here I am.
Mayor Burk: Yes. Do you have anything that you would like to add for future meetings?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: No.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I do not.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Wilt?
Council Member Wilt: No items.
Mayor Burk: Well, I'm making up for all of you then because I have a couple here. The first one I was
supposed to do at the last meeting. I would like to have a discussion on the potential initiation of a
zoning ordinance amendment to increase the maximum building height in the Industrial Reserve Park.
I want zoning district from 50 feet to 65 feet on a future agenda.
Page 29 1 January 23, 2023
1 would move staff to consider ways to mitigate a visual impact to adjacent residential uses or districts
such as requiring 1-1 building heights to step down as it approaches any additional residential property.
This area is pretty well almost all built out. We only have two lots that are left. This is a request of one
of the attorneys in regard to one of the lots that the developers looking at putting something on that
would require an increase in height. It would end up in some ways having a minimal effect.
Are there four people that would be willing to have that discussion at a future work session?
Council Member Bagdasarian: This is the land [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: Yes. Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy, Vice Mayor, myself. Those guys too. I have a request
from a resident who was so enthralled by our Christmas lighting program. She spent a great deal of
time in the Rose Garden and noticed that there was a lot of people that ended up going into the Rose
Garden with our light display. She wondered if we would have a discussion on doing a light display in
the Rose Garden all year long. Not necessarily colored lights, but possibly white lights, but to keep them
on all year as opposed to just doing them during the holiday season. Are there four people that would
be willing to have that discussion?
Council Member Wilt: I have a question. Can you point us to where the Rose Garden is located?
Mayor Burk: Right there. Are there four people that would be interested in having that discussion? All
right. Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy, Vice Mayor, Council Member Cummings. That's four, okay. I would
like to ask for a proclamation for Read Across America. This is coming from the Birch Tree Books that
is having an all -day event there and asked if we could do a proclamation. That would have to be done
in the February meeting because Read Across America is March. Are there four people that would be
willing to do that one? One? Okay. Everybody but Mr. Wilt on that one also.
Then I would very much like-- We recently were down in Richmond talking to our legislators. One of the
questions one of them had for me was "What is the position on the Town Council for the change to the
Greenway funding or the charges to the Greenway, the short distance changes." I know nothing about
it. I assume the rest of us know nothing about it. I was wondering if we could have some information in
regard to what is the legislation, what does it mean to the residents of Leesburg? Does it increase the
cost for the residents? Is it neutral, that sort of thing? Are there four people that would be interested in
having that discussion sooner than later because, again, this is on the legislative short session for the
General Assembly? I think that is everybody. I'm sorry?
Kaj Dentler: [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: Work session.
Kaj Dentler: [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: Right. It would be useful. I believe the Greenway is beginning to have meetings with
individual members. That's all I have. Is there a motion to adjourn?
Council Member Cummings: So, moved.
Mayor Burk: Moved by Council Member Cummings, seconded by Vice Mayor Martinez. All in favor?
Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I'm so going to change my name.
Mayor Burk: I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Steinberg. All in favor?
Council Members: Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed.
Page 30 1 January 23, 2023
Vice Mayor Steinberg: You will not drive me away.
Mayor Burk: We are adjourned. I apologize. I am sorry.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I didn't think there was going to be that much [unintelligible]
Page 31 1 January 23, 2023