HomeMy Public PortalAbout2023_tcwsmin0313Council Work Session March 13, 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, Neil 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, Utilities Director Amy Wyks, Public Works and Capital
Projects Director Renee LaFollette, Finance and Administrative Services Director Clark
Case, Finance and Administrative Services Deputy Director/Treasurer Lisa Haley, Parks
and Recreation Director Rich Williams, Planning and Zoning Director James David,
Airport Director Scott Coffinan, Human Resources Director Josh Didawick, Information
Technology Director Jakub Jedrzejczak, Plan Review Director Bill Ackman, Leesburg
Interim Police Chief Vanessa Grigsby, Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Kate Trask,
Utilities Deputy Director Brian Stone, Public Information Officer Kara Rodriguez, Finance
and Administrative Services Management and Budget Officer Cole Fazenbaker, and Clerk
of Council Eileen Boeing.
Minutes prepared by Deputy Clerk of Council Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. Item for Discussion
a. Air Traffic Control Services at Leesburg Executive Airport
Mr. Coffinan gave a presentation on the Leesburg Executive Airport's remote
tower system, a chronology of its implementation, design approval milestones, and
the Federal Aviation Administration's justifications for cancelling the program.
Council and staff discussed the item. Saab's Business Development Director
Matt Massiano and JTR Strategies Founder and Lobbyist Jenny Rosenberg (via
phone) responded to Council's questions.
b. Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 — Utilities Fund, Boards and
Commissions, and Initial Mark-up Session
Ms. Wyks gave an overview of the Utilities budget for Fiscal Year 2024 and
Mr. Fazenbaker gave a presentation on the Boards and Commissions budget.
Planning Commission Chair Brian McAfee and Ms. LaFollette also answered
questions regarding the Planning Commission's recommendations to Council.
Council and staff discussed the items. The mark-up results are as follows:
It was the consensus of Council to:
• add $163Kfor the Liberty Lot Remediation Study
• add $285K for safety and decorative lighting at Raflo Park and Georgetown Park
• reduce the Cost -of -Living Adjustment by I%
There was no consensus of Council to:
• add $130Kfora Grant Writer
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Council Work Session March 13, 2023
• reduce the Real Estate Tax Rate by half a cent
• add $150K for the Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company and Loudoun County
Volunteer Rescue Squad
• add $75K to increase the Main Street Program funding
• add $8K to increase Planning Commission members' annual compensation
c. Changing the Start Time of Council Formal Session and "Committee of the
Whole" Meetings
Council Member Cimino -Johnson spoke to his proposal to change the start
time.
Council and staff discussed the item.
There was no Council consensus to move forward with this item.
2. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Mayor Burk requested a proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunications
Week, April 9-15.
It was the consensus of Council to present this proclamation at a future Council meeting.
Mayor Burk requested a proclamation for the Dark Skies Initiative, proposed by the
Environmental Advisory Commission.
It was the consensus of Council to present this proclamation at a future Council meeting.
3. Adjournment
On a motion by Vice Mayor Steinberg, seconded by Council Member Bagdasarian, the meeting
was adjourned at 9:•38 p.m.
Clerk of Council
2023_tcwsmin0313
2IPage
March 13, 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 aftera meeting per Library
of Virginia Records Retention guidelines.)
Mayor Kelly Burk: I would like to call tonight's Town Council Work Session of March 13, 2023, to order.
The first item for discussion tonight is the Air Traffic Control Service at Leesburg Executive Airport. Mr.
Coffman.
Scott Coffman: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of Council. I'm joined by Matt
Massiano. Matt is the Business Development Director for Saab. I got him in a couple of slides of my
presentation, but tonight I'm going to give you an update on what we know about the Airport's remote
tower, and it's in jeopardy by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Mayor Burk: You had asked for additional time?
Scott Coffman: Yes. If you have a few minutes, I'll try to be as brief and go through these slides, but I
do want to give you guys a good history on what brought us to where we are today.
Mayor Burk: How much time are you asking for?
Scott Coffman: I think 20 minutes between the two of us wouldn't --
Mayor Burk: All right. Does anybody have an objection to allowing 20 minutes? All right. Go ahead.
Scott Coffman: We might not get there. For the folks that may not know about the remote tower at
Leesburg, it is a piece of technology that was developed in Europe, probably before 2010. It was brought
to Leesburg in 2014 and 2015. It uses a set of cameras and other sensors at the airport, and it collects
and digitizes data, sends it to a remote location. In some airports, that's hundreds of miles away, but at
Leesburg, it's a quarter mile away in a County government building across the street because we're the
first in the US. The remote tower as you can see in the picture, recreates the airport environment for
actual air traffic controllers. There's no computers telling planes what to do. There are personnel behind
this, just like there would be in a traditional control tower building at a traditional airport.
Sorry. This project like I said, it's been in place since 2014, 2015 was when it was constructed. It's been
a great example of a multiagency project. I'm really proud that this is a collaboration between the Town
of Leesburg on a local level, Saab on a private level, VSATS from the State Research Corporation, and
then the Federal Aviation Administration. This crosses lots of agencies. Even Loudoun County has
donated space within their office building for this project.
To give you a little background on the chronology, as I said, in 2012, 2013, roughly, we started seeing-
- at least I started seeing, aircraft incidents, near misses that worried me at the airport. We saw airplanes
taking off towards each other, and there's a lot-- I won't go into all the technical background on why that
happens. It's really a location of where Leesburg is in relation to Dulles Airport. We also were receiving
numerous phone calls from the folks in charge of the security airspace around Washington, DC. They're
saying our pilots aren't educated about the rules of getting in and out of Leesburg. They were violating
airspace. They were violating procedures, and we needed to make that stop. Otherwise, there would
be additional restrictions on Leesburg.
The way to do that is a control tower. A control tower is at our airport, controls airspace within 4 miles
and is in communication with all the planes coming in and out of our airport. That's great. We want a
tower. Then the FAA says we're going to close 149 towers in the US in 2013. I think that's important to
know. They kept that program closed. They didn't actually close the towers, but they kept any new
entrants from going into that program till 2019, 2020 is when we received our approval.
Then Saab, and actually Matt was one of the first ones to come to us, said they had chosen out of
Virginia, Leesburg, as being a great place to set up a remote tower for the FAA to evaluate it and
Page 1 1 March 13, 2023
ultimately pursue certification of that equipment for use in the United States National Airspace System,
they call it the NAS, N -A -S. We installed the center in our conference room on a temporary basis. In
2016, the FAA got on board and started testing the program. They spent lots of money hiring aircraft to
fly around the airport, to do different kinds of tests and scenarios. They threw a lot at controllers and it
passed, and it kept passing, and it kept progressing.
By 2018, most of the testing was done. The FAA switched to what they call 1OC, initial operating
capability. They've tested it, they've thrown all sorts of things out, and they said, all right, let's just run it
on a regular basis and see how it does, monitor it and go forth. They addressed some other little issues
as they were going forward over the years. Since June of 2018, our remote tower has been operating
every day from 08:00 A.M to 06:00 P.M
In 2019, the FAA committed to building a new remote tower center. Take it out of our temporary
conference room, put it in a dedicated facility, and have actually the option to build more towers and
bring in more airports to that same facility. In 2020, as we saw our airport remote tower center being on
a path to certification within the next few years, we applied for and were accepted into the Federal
Contract Tower program. This changes kind of the source of funding from the next-gen program which
funds our tower today, into Federal Contract Tower, which is the permanent funding source for-- That's
our goal. That's the permanent funding source for towers across the US. There's over 250 contract
towers in the US.
In May of 21, the new remote tower center opened. For anybody that hasn't been there, please let me
know. I'm glad to give you a tour. Mike is the tower manager; he'll be glad to give you a tour. In 2021,
another successful milestone, the FAA issued, I'm probably skipping one, but the FAA issued its
operational viability decision. This was a memo saying, air traffic has evaluated and agrees that this
system can provide safe, efficient air traffic control services. Which was a big one for the US who had
never done this type of system before.
Also in 21, the FAA issued new draft operational, visual, and technical requirements. They called it
system design approval, and that's what Matt will talk a little bit about. That's what the process that
Saab has been going through for all these years is to get their system design approved. That's all the
technical side of it, and that's why I don't want to speak too much about it.
Here we are seeing this growth of our facility. In 2022, the FAA brings in a radar display. This is valued
at a million dollars, is what we've heard. This is a big investment into Leesburg. Frederick Airport doesn't
have one, they've had a tower for almost nine years. Throughout the year 22, Saab has continued to
submit its documentation and go back and forth with the FAA for their design approval.
In February of 23, this last month, Saab notified the FAA that it is no longer pursuing a systems design
approval, so they've run into a roadblock, and I'll let Matt talk about that in a few minutes. Then a few
weeks later, the FAA determined that they did not see a path forward for the remote tower certification,
and that they're going to end the system at Leesburg effective June 14 this year. Which was a real kick,
at least me, for the Airport Manager who's been involved in this, but also for the pilots, some of which
are in this room that have seen nothing but growth and increased safety throughout this program.
FAA's operational viability memo. I think it's important to quote what they quoted, that they conducted
more than a dozen safety risk management assessments. Each one of those is several weeks of work
with professionals and what are they calling the --
Matt Massiano: Subject matter experts.
Scott Coffman: Subject matter experts in the field that convey. They look at failures, they look at
scenarios, and they determine whether the system can go to the next step of testing. There's been a
lot of work done on this over the past five years, and they said that all safety performance targets have
been met through all periods of operational use of the system and for the provision of air traffic services
at Leesburg. They concluded that the system was operationally viable for the provision of air traffic
services. I am going to let Matt talk on the next couple of slides towards some of the things and
certification and how you got to where you are today.
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Matt Massiano: Great. Thank you, Scott. Thank you all for giving us a few minutes to explain why we
got here. I'm sure your first thing you're saying is why would Saab back out of this at this point in time?
That's a good question and we've been struggling with this decision for a number of months now. Some
milestones I'd like to touch on a little bit here, and without getting too much into the sausage -making,
let me explain how the FAA's process works here.
There are really two lines of business in the FAA that are relevant to this project and its approval. The
first is air traffic. When we came to the FAA with a public -private partnership with VSATS, with the
Town, with Saab, they said, we have to prove this concept. Even though it was operational and certified
in Sweden in 2015, the FAA needed to see that it was viable in the US, so that's fine.
We started on that activity, engaged quite a bit with air traffic folks, and as Scott mentioned, went
through years of testing and increasing complexity, reliability testing, air traffic evaluations and got that
operational viability decision in 2021. When we picked Leesburg back in 2014, we selected it because
it has so much traffic and it's in such crazy busy airspace. We figured this is a great stress test. We
Saab wanted to know would it work in this complex environment, and we embarked on that activity.
In that operational viability decision, the FAA said, by the way this is operationally viable for airports
similar to Leesburg, runways no longer than 5,5K feet and only a single runway. If you look at the 250
contract -towered airports in the US that have aging towers that's really the market for us, the 30, 40,
50 -year -old towers. There are 3 that are similar to Leesburg, not 250. Most general aviation airports
have two runways. Oftentimes half of them have three and much longer than 5,5K feet. That became a
concern of ours. What do we do now? We're going to have to retest all over again and replicate what
we've done since 2015.
The other thing that came out in 2021 were the system design approval requirements. Basically, this is
the process we need you guys to follow. These are all the documents and artifacts and design decisions
we need to see evidence of starting from the day you designed your system. This came out in 2021 as
well, and that's from the technical operations side of the FAA, not the air traffic side. Once the air traffic
folks said this is approved, they handed it off to tech ops, their engineering folks, and they have to
validate that the design itself is safe.
Regardless of all the operational data and the evidence we had that said it is a safe operation, they
need us to prove it through a design research, if you will, and have us reverse engineer a number of
things. After about a year and a half of working with tech ops, bringing them our system safety plans,
our system engineering management plans, our software assurance plans. Showing them how
Sweden, our product team developed this starting in 2010, we all collectively concluded we probably
can't get there over the next three years with the design we have.
It's an older baseline that's established, it's operational in dozens of airports, but it doesn't meet the
requirements the FAA rolled out from a technical nature in 2021. We came to a hard decision which is
we can't get there with this baseline. Frankly, even if we spent the next two years and millions of dollars
on top of what we all have collectively spent, there's no guarantee we would get there. We made that
decision. In February 7, we issued a letter to the FAA explaining our position.
One other thing they've changed since then, is they've said, now if any new vendors that want to get a
system approved, you need to go to the FAA technical center and install a system. In one argument we
said, well we could roll a new version of system out to Leesburg and test it, but because it has a shorter
runway and it's not the Atlantic City Airport, we couldn't take it anywhere after we do that. We recognize
we'll have to bring a brand-new system to the FAA technical center.
We offered to the FAA that should we decide to go through that process in the next few months and
spend those next couple of years going through that process, that would become the baseline for a tech
refresh to roll back into the Leesburg system, so that then Leesburg would be part of that certified
baseline. We advised the FAA we're pausing our approval process for Leesburg, because we A, can't
get there from here, and B it's a road to nowhere of sorts because of the limited market that we would
have in front of us. Ask them in that request, is there some way you could consider a limited approval
of the Leesburg baseline. We believe with the five years of data, that the demonstrated performance of
the system's reliability and how the controllers interact with it, the safety of it, the fact that it's never had
any downtime, shouldn't that maybe help demonstrate that we meet the intent of the system design
Page 3 I March 13, 2023
approval that they're embarking on. Their system design approval process clearly articulates in the
beginning, this applies to the design and development of systems, and it comes from the aircraft
certification side of the house. They're taking processes they've used to certify aircraft and avionics,
applying it to this system, which already is developed.
We haven't been able to get a compromise with them. We're working behind the scenes to hope they'll
open up the door again and sit down with us and have that discussion about is there a way to somehow
collectively with-- we'll do what we need to at our end but prove to you that we meet the intent of their
design approval. We're not convinced that going through reverse engineering a 10 -year -old design to
generate 90 and 100 artifacts so they can check a box. We're not convinced that's going to improve the
safety of the system, to be honest, but that's the way of doing business with them.
Just so you know Saab has got a 25 -year history of developing, testing, and deploying runway safety
systems across the US. We're at the top 50 airports in the country, including Dulles, with runway safety
systems that take surveillance data on the surface of an airport, put it into the control tower, and advise
the tower if there's a potential incursion between two aircraft like the one at JFK, that was our system
that alerted the controller. In one way, this isn't our first rodeo, but this is somewhat of a new path that
they've asked us to go down.
Apologize, that's the story, and happy to entertain any questions.
Scott Coffman: Let me finish. I wanted to go over some of the impacts. I'm probably going to skip in
the interest of time. My number one impact as the Airport Manager is safety. Our airport has grown from
53K operations in 2018 when the system was first deployed, to over 75K, almost 77K last year. Our
airport is in a very complex piece of airspace, we're eight miles from Washington Dulles Airport. We're
in the Washington, DC security zone. We have a very unique mix of traffic between students flying in
small airplanes going about 60 miles an hour, and corporate jets coming into the same airspace going
150 miles an hour, and then helicopters.
For the FAA to cancel Leesburg's air traffic services just doesn't make any sense from a safety point of
view. For an agency that's cornerstone is safety, it doesn't make any sense. Our ask is going to be that
FAA transition us to an alternative means of conducting air traffic services. If the remote tower doesn't
have a path forward, we want the FAA to transition us. We know there's going to be an economic impact
to the airport. Since the tower has opened, it's grown with jet traffic 36%.
Total landings and takeoffs have increased 47%. New investment in hangers by companies, a new
FBO, more flight schools. We know corporate air traffic will choose other airports. They have a choice
in the area, and we know they'll go to airports that have a tower because they want that level of safety
when they're flying their clients in and out. This is just a view of the traffic that's increased significantly.
We see that economic value of the tower in this graphic.
What is Leesburg asking for? As I try to wrap up here. We would first like the FAA to extend the date.
June 14th is just not enough time to react. We know we can't build a tower that's probably taking two,
three, four years, but we need to come up with a plan to continue those services and find alternatives.
We'd ask the FAA to extend if not to the end of the calendar year, maybe at least until the end of their
spending year they're authorized for. If that's not possible, to use the remote tower system, if they
believe that it's no longer a path forward, there are alternatives to pivoting temporary towers. We used
to have a trailer at the tower as a part of the test program, that could continue to be as a stop -gap
measure.
Again, if the Remote Tower Program is canceled, then we would want to ask the FAA and even some
of our delegation for funding towards a permanent tower. It seems like a waste of money to be asking
for permanent tower money when we have so much invested in our remote tower system that's worked
so well for five years. I'll let Chris and Kaj, do you guys mind taking over for some of the outreach that
we've done and next steps forward?
Kaj Dentler: Just briefly, I think most of Mayor and Council is familiar with our efforts. Obviously, we
have a lot of balls in the air right now. We're chasing and working with our Federal legislation, our State
legislation, Department of Aviation for Virginia. We have a lot of efforts going on. We're educating the
airport community. They have become active as well in lobbying for some efforts. Some of the things
Page 4 1 March 13, 2023
that we've done, immediately of biggest note is that the Town Attorney has retained outside legal
counsel that has FAA experience and directly our lobbyist who's on the line, Ms. Rosenberg has been
engaged as well and retained by Mr. Spera to help our efforts.
As Scott indicated, our efforts are first is what I would call is stop the bleeding. We need more time. For
the program to end on June 14th doesn't give us much option to pivot. We need more time to be able
to find out is there a path. Tomorrow our staff, Mr. Spera, and lobbyists outside counsel are meeting
with FAA. That's our first face-to-face meeting that we've had to begin to learn more details. That will
begin to give us a little bit of an idea of pathway of is there a solution here? Is there a compromise, et
cetera. If it becomes clear that we can't move forward with the project, then where do we land?
Obviously, we would need to move towards brick and mortar, but what's in between? What's the
transition plan? Which is what Scott has done. Really there's a short term, and there's a long-term
strategy that we're trying to accomplish. That doesn't even get into the funding right away. That's just
simply what are our paths to move forward. I think that gives you a good idea. I think we're ready to
answer all of your questions that you may have, but we wanted to give you a full picture of the challenge
that we're facing at this point.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much, we appreciate the information. I'm sure that there's many of us that
have questions at this point. Council Member Cimino -Johnson, do you have any questions?
Council Member Todd Cimino -Johnson: Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Matt, for your presentation. I
guess just my only question I have is, do we know what the economic impact if the FAA decides June
14th is it, and we're not giving any extension?
Scott Coffman: I don't think it's quantified. We know the airport back in 2018 had $121M economic
impact on the community. I do have already heard from pilots saying they would not bring their airplane
to Leesburg if the tower wasn't here. It gets too busy with aircraft in such a confined airspace that they
wouldn't bring their aircraft here. That worries me for the economic impact on our businesses, the
school's ability to teach the pilots of the future.
We had a nice tour today, and the five flight schools are probably turning out over 500 pilot certificates
a year at Leesburg which is what's helping staff our airlines for the future. There's a lot of economic
impact but I can't tell you in a dollar amount.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Zach Cummings: Thanks. Scott, what do we think the likelihood of the FAA
extending the deadline is?
Scott Coffman: Can you ask me tomorrow after 9:30?
Council Member Cummings: Sure.
Scott Coffman: I do know that the funding is coming from NextGen that's paying for the controllers,
and I know that funding is still in place. I don't know what FAA's decisions are in regards to operating
the remote tower equipment. They seem pretty in our first meeting, that they didn't want to operate that
equipment if it wasn't undergoing a certification program.
Council Member Cummings: The federal government's Fiscal Year ends what? The end of
September?
Scott Coffman: Yes.
Council Member Cummings: Are we just asking for December 31st, hoping that since it's funded
through this Fiscal Year, maybe that they'll give us, meet in the middle?
Page 5 I March 13, 2023
Kaj Dentler: We are looking for any extension that we can get, at least to the end of the year type of
thing to buy us more time to have conversations. We haven't locked into that that's a magical date and
we'll have everything worked out, we just need time first off. Just to remind you, your lobbyist is on the
line if you want to ask the lobbyist some questions.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings, did you want to ask the lobbyist your first question that you had?
Council Member Cummings: I sure will. Ms. Rosenberg, I ask about the likelihood of the FAA
extending the deadline.
Jenny Rosenberg: First of all, thank you all so much for having me this evening. Like Scott said, we're
going into this tomorrow with several questions that we hope will help determine the likelihood of the
FAA playing ball with us. I think the goal of this meeting is to get a dialogue going. I don't know how it's
going to turn out, but I think that we have a very strong case to make on behalf of Leesburg as Scott
has outlined so articulately. There are a lot of question marks about leaving this air state uncontrolled,
and we will need to really drive answers out of the FAA.
We have a plan, which is tomorrow to ask these questions, understand where the FAA is, and then
decide how we're going to proceed with the FAA. I assume that this group will be briefed as soon as
possible, but I can't predict what the FAA is going to say.
Council Member Cummings: Thank you. Then question. I know at the Airport Commission meeting,
the representatives from Saab talked about this as well. One of the things they mentioned was this was
a business decision due to the FAA's restriction on the 5,5K -foot runways, and that's the only, the three,
I think you mentioned three airports that you can operate this system in. Is Saab able to assist us in this
transition? Obviously, you all have made a business decision that now has impacted our Town and the
residents as well as the safety of our pilots. What can Saab as a multimillion, if not billion -dollar
corporation do to help us transition here in the Town of Leesburg? Can you speak up here? Sorry.
Scott Coffman: Can you speak up here. Sony.
Matt Massiano: I think this works. We would commit to operating and maintaining the system as long
as the FAA will allow controllers to use it. The system is sustainable and supportable. We have identical
copies of the system scattered around the globe, so that's not an issue. The thing that we are trying to
do with the FAA is to get them to sit across the table from us. Our general manager is going to be
reaching out to them in the next week or two to have that one-on-one, to say, what can we do to find a
way to meet the intent of what you're after, but not require us to go back and reverse engineer a 10 -
year -old baseline for no sound reasons that we can understand. If we had known these requirements
came out 2015, it'd be a different story.
Council Member Cummings: Okay. Then just last question. For someone who has no, I know we're
going through the process here, we're getting in front of the FAA it sounds like tomorrow and asking
these questions and trying to learn more. Obviously, our first aim is to extend the deadline that they've
given us to begin the transition. What is the next step assuming that we're not going to get the FAA to
totally reverse their decision to not approve the remote tower as in use, what's our next step? Do we
have a financial plan that we need to begin talking about as we're talking about the budget?
Kaj Dentler: We are working on various financial options now. One of the cautions is if we, I hate to
even say it publicly, but I don't know how to avoid it, if you put your money on the table first, then the
odds of us getting Federal money is concerning. We have to have some plans and we're working on
some financial ways to do that, but we need to know what that is. The short term, if the Saab program,
if it would be accepted, for example, who pays for the air traffic controllers? Is that the Town? Is it the
Feds or some combination, et cetera? We know what those costs are. We're looking at that.
If that program is not acceptable and we went back to the trailer program, we know what the air traffic
controller costs are, and then of course the rental of that trailer. We're looking to find the finances for
that. If you go all the way to the ultimate of the brick -and -mortar tower, then you're in 8, 10, 12M dollar
range, plus operational costs, including personnel. What does that makeup look like? We are looking
into all those options at this time. In order to at least be able to provide an extension of time, if nothing
else. That's really my greatest fear right now. Is if there is some transition plan that's approvable by the
Page 6 1 March 13, 2023
FAA, whether it's with Saab, or the trailer, but the Feds will not fund the air traffic and Leesburg has to
pick that up. We're already doing those exercises in-house to be prepared. I'm not telling you I'm sitting
on the money to make it happen. I'm going through the extras of finding options for us to make it happen.
Council Member Cummings: We don't know what we need to pay for it because we don't know it?
Kaj Dentler: Correct.
Council Member Cummings: Yes. Got you.
Mayor Burk: Yes, sir?
Scott Coffman: I was just going to chime in that the construction funding for a tower is going to be
much easier to find than the operational funding for controllers. There's a lot of money in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, and there's competitive grant programs, and a lot of FAA and State eligibility for
towers.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. Council Member Nacy?
Council Member Kari Nacy: Thank you. I appreciate all of the background. I think Council Member
Cummings just asked all of the questions I was going to ask. I'm in agreement with him, where I'd like
to know plans B, C, D, E and F please, even if we're not publicly talking about them, so maybe that's
something I can get with you on. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Bagdasarian?
Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Yes, thank you, Scott. Obviously, there are important economic
factors, but I think more importantly is the safety and security factors that this will implicate as a result
of closing the program. Absolutely critical. Safety for the local airport, but also, I think, from a national
security perspective, and the national capital region, I think it's important to have a tower available. Are
there any, and this might be something that you're going to discover tomorrow, but are there any long-
term plans of the FAA to continue the remote tower program in general? Not just in Leesburg, but just
generally. Is there a future for this program?
Matt Massiano: Yes, the program does continue. The FAA, because of the Leesburg project, and
there's one in Colorado as well, they've changed the ground rules now, so that if a new company shows
up and says, "I want to have my technology approved," you need to first submit a large part of the
design approval artifacts up front. The FAA has changed the order around. Instead of going in front of
air traffic, demonstrating it's operationally viable, they're requiring vendors to submit all their paperwork
up front. Get to a far enough maturity level that then they can go to the tech center and do maybe a
year's worth of testing and then continue the design approval process.
They still intend to run the program. As a matter of fact they have an industry day briefing, I think it's
this Wednesday. An hour and a half or two hours to industry to explain. They did one of these two years
ago, but they're going to revisit. This is how it's going to work going forward. There'll be four or five
companies on that call, I expect.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Once again this is an FAA question, but to your knowledge, is there
other plans to extend this to regional airports nationwide, or is it intended to be very small-scale?
Matt Massiano: The FAA has intentionally carved this out as a non -Federal program, so they're only
making it eligible for sponsors, airports, to purchase the equipment and run it either as a non -Federal
tower, or as part of the contract tower program. The FAA itself is embarked on replacing maybe about
120 towers, VFR towers they're called, and they've hired architects to design brick and mortar
replacements for that system. In spite of the trend internationally that everyone is moving towards this
camera -based technology, the FAA has decided that they will replace up to 100 of their towers with
bricks and mortar. It may indicate their interest in this technology, I'm not sure.
Council Member Bagdasarian: There is a decreased interest in the technology, correct, as far as
proliferating the remote tower technology using video analytics and everything?
Page 7 I March 13, 2023
Matt Massiano: It doesn't have the sponsorship and the building that it did when Michael Huerta was
the Administrator. In 2016, he came out here. This was one of two strategic priorities for him and the
FAA. The other was the operation of drones. Since he's left the agency, we haven't seen, at least in our
point of view, that much support at the administrative level in the FAA. Maybe that will change.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I know you've already mentioned this a few times, but just for
clarification, what exactly changed in the design approval requirements in 2021 that caused the impasse
that we're at currently?
Matt Massiano: Until 2021, there was no process laid out. We submitted a plan in 2020, which said,
this is how Saab proposes to have our system approved. We identified all our assumptions, the
schedule, the timetable, the deliverables. The FAA chose to more or less ignore that and then came
out a year later with their own plan, which was drastically different from anything we had ever seen
before on our side of building air traffic management system. It just threw us a curve and it took us a
year and a half to really working with them on a weekly basis understand what do you really mean by
the following? Their terminologies in there that we had never run across because it was coming from
the aircraft certification side of the house.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Scott, I'd be interested tomorrow to learn what the concern with FAA
is of extending this remote tower program until we have a long-term solution in place. Whether it takes
six months, I wouldn't say six years, but certainly it's going to take some considerable time to have a
long-term solution, because you mentioned the growth of the airport and the viability and the importance
of the airport. I guess the question is, why wouldn't we continue the program at least on a limited basis
until there's a permanent solution in place? I'm sure you're going to be discussing that tomorrow.
Scott Coffman: I do agree. We'll be taking that to to DC tomorrow.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Then also to your point also, Scott, you mentioned, there are Federal
dollars with transportation funding that I would think that there could not be a more justified project than
what we have here for safety perspective, as well as security, to bridge us from where we are today to
having a long-term solution if the program is no longer going to be a viable option, so thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Wilt?
Council Member Patrick Wilt: Thanks, very clear presentation, that was helpful.
Scott Coffman: Thank you.
Council Member Wilt: I think I've grasped how the Saab business situation and objectives, and the
FAA's objectives for having their system design requirements. Just for more clarity, I guess what the
FAA is specifying in the documentation it would like to see for the system design. These are technical
drawings, technical specifications, a subset of engineering specifications and those don't exist. You
used the term reverse engineering several times.
Matt Massiano: No, the items you mentioned do exist, and those are the easy items. Because their
process intends to start from the design of a system, they expect you have certain features and safety
monitors, if you will, right from the very beginning of your design. They expect a bunch of a large amount
of independent monitoring within the system to look for various types of failure modes that could
possibly happen. Because our design is 10 years old and was designed in Europe to different standards,
we don't have those artifacts in existing today.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, but it's not just that the artifacts -
Matt Massiano: It's the process.
Council Member Wilt: -don't exist, it's that the design of the system didn't anticipate those
requirements, so those design elements don't exist in the system.
Matt Massiano: Correct.
Page 81 March 13, 2023
Council Member Wilt: Okay. Then I understand.
Matt Massiano: As an example, they expect to have an independent monitors of various failure modes
and in our architecture, it's all built into the code to monitor for various fault modes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. Just intrinsically, Ara, was just asking about the appetite for remote
systems. What is the attractiveness of a remote system versus a physical tower in the first place?
Matt Massiano: Two primary advantages. The first is capital cost. Typically, remote tower systems may
be a third the cost of a brick -and -mortar facility. The advantage is, the benefits we're seeing in our
European market are service providers will consolidate facilities. We have, in the case of Sweden,
facilities operating six or seven airports from one facility, at one [unintelligible] trailer.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, because they're not location constrained.
Matt Massiano: Correct. You'll pipe video from a hundred miles away and there's huge economic
advantages. The FAA is not ready to even entertain that concept yet. We're, as you can see, we're are
struggling with just one airport.
Council Member Wilt: Capital cost and operational costs, both.
Matt Massiano: Exactly.
Council Member Wilt: Then this would be maybe a question for the FAA's expectation. June 4th,
getting a notification in February is a very short timeframe. Given the growth in traffic and the type of
traffic that's grown in Leesburg in the last couple of years, when this system shuts down in June, as
they're saying, what's the FAA's expectation that happens? That we suddenly become an unmanned
airport? What do they think is going to happen?
Scott Coffman: Unfortunately, that has been the FAA's response in their letters, is that Leesburg will
simply go back to being an uncontrolled, non -towered airport. Uncontrolled is probably the right word.
Not too big a deal. Most of the small airports in the US don't have the traffic that we do, but our airport
is nearly as busy as Norfolk International, and it's in constrained airspace. It would be like removing the
streetlight at Route 7 and Battlefield and just putting up a yield sign [crosstalk].
Council Member Wilt: That in terms of safety is a primary concern, that's not really a good transition
plan if that's what the FAA is expecting.
Scott Coffman: Uncontrolled airports can be safe, but at smaller volumes. It's really the volume and
it's the airspace that compresses all of Leesburg's traffic in and out of a relatively small area.
Council Member Wilt: Then the future, if a remote tower program has at least -- has a level of
uncertainty, the FAA is leaning toward physical towers. It takes, I've heard several two, three, four years
to build a physical tower. Then are we really looking for the FAA to somehow provide us the interim
solution? I think, Kaj you mentioned a trailer operation, some tower operations for up to four years. Is
that the time frame we're really looking at?
Scott Coffman: That is the potential side in air traffic control towers, and going through the
environmental does take time. I have some ideas as a manager of our facility on how maybe we can
make some short cuts, but it's years, it's not months.
Council Member Wilt: If we go down that path, do we know the FAA will support us in having a physical
tower?
Scott Coffman: I believe they will. Yes.
Council Member Wilt: They won't have any objection to it?
Page 9 I March 13, 2023
Scott Coffman: We've been accepted into the Federal Contract Tower Program. They've already done
the cost benefit, which cost of operating a tower versus the amount of traffic and efficiencies at the
airport and we've well exceeded the minimum.
Council Member Wilt: They're objecting to the specific remote tower because of their system design
requirements, but they're supportive of Leesburg remaining a towered airport?
Scott Coffman: Yes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay. All right. That's it. Thanks very much.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Neil Steinberg: Thanks, Scott and Matt. I'm going to ask a dumb question first, and I'm
sure it'll bring a smile to everyone's faces. Maybe this is best asked of our lobbyist. Is there actually any
leverage to be brought to bear against the FAA or with the FAA? Is this a movable object and it's entirely
at their discretion?
Scott Coffman: Jenny, has worked with the FAA before. Maybe I'd let her take the first crack at that.
Jenny Rosenberg: Sure. Virginia has a very powerful Senate delegation and House delegation. We
have a lot of leverage to really make noise with the delegation. I know Leesburg has been having diligent
conversations in keeping the delegation involved. I know that the FAA responds rapidly to pressure
from Congress, so we want to want to have that in our back pocket to use. Then the other thing is, we
are in the DC media market, and as we've gone through this meeting, all of the reasons why Leesburg
needs to be controlled airspace, this will inevitably become a very big news story if we want to make it
a big news story.
Then the other piece of this is the grassroots dismay at this FAA decision. I know from being at the FAA
myself, that the grassroots can move the FAA as well. We're going in tomorrow knowing that we have
these levers to pull. What we're hoping is to avoid a big public dispute about this, and to have a dialogue
with the FAA. I believe that they are well aware of the power of this delegation. I know that they don't
want the delegation on their back right now. They're dealing with a lot of issues. I also think that we
have the facts on our side with this. It is a bewildering decision by the FAA to pull the tower without any
interim solution, any long-term solution. The numbers are just too great now I believe to leave this
airspace, this airport un-towered. The other piece of this is just the safety risk. Frankly, we have not
talked about security, but they go hand in glove, I think in the Capital region. The FAA, we'll make that
point to them tomorrow as well.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Thank you for that.
Christopher Spera: Mr. Vice Mayor, before you ask your next question if I could just add to what, Ms.
Rosenberg stated. One of the other pieces of leverage that we're keeping in our back pocket, is there
is the ability to file an administrative appeal from a ruling a determination by the FAA. It's a relatively
short period of time, but we're keeping an eye on that deadline. Looking based on how the meeting
goes tomorrow, assessing whether or not that is a path forward. The law firm that we've retained
previously prepared one of these back in-- Was it 2019 when they?
Scott Coffman: 13.
Christopher Spera: 18?
Scott Coffman. 13, when the sequestration.
Christopher Spera: Yes, when the sequestration, and they were going to discontinue a number of
towers. This is the same law firm that prepared that administrative appeal, so they're familiar with the
process. That's the other piece of leverage I suppose. They probably don't want to deal with that if we
have to file it. I add that to the list of items that Ms. Rosenberg very correctly identified.
Page 10 I March 13, 2023
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Thank you for that. Making the argument with the FAA and looking at
how this whole thing came to be. Both you and Matt here have described Leesburg as somewhat
atypical as far as the other types of general aviation airports in the country. We are one of very few, as
opposed to a variety of other airports that have multiple runways, for example, longer runways. [clears
throat] Excuse me. Why did the FAA and Saab decide Leesburg was the place to start this program
when it was maybe not obvious then, but certainly obvious now, that it might limit eventually the
development of the program overall? Why didn't it start at one of these other runways that could then,
and then be brought here?
Matt Massiano: I can answer that. In 2014, when we went to the FAA, we did some research with
NATCA, the controllers union, took us out to Potomac TRACON, there was Saab in the Virginia Stats
Lab folks. We talked to the folks in the radar room at the TRACON that handled Shenandoah and
Leesburg, two of the other general aviation airports in that sector, "Which of those facilities do you think
would benefit the most from having an air traffic control tower?" They kept coming back to Leesburg
because of the complexity of the airspace, the amount of traffic, where it was relative to Dulles. We
selected it as being the most complex.
Also, in response to a lot of questions from the FAA, which is "How many operations can this system
handle?" Our operations in Sweden were very, very low -activity towers. They were concerned that, well,
if it can-- it works with 20K operations a year, will it work with a 100K let's say. That's largely why we
picked Leesburg. There was never any question about will it work on long runways. We do have 9K,
and 10K -foot runways where they are deployed in Europe. It never occurred to us back in 2014 that the
runway length would be a limiting factor. We thought it was the number of operations.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: How do we differ from the airport in Colorado, where I assume they've also
pulled the plug?
Matt Massiano: Fort Collins, I think they have a longer runway. It's 9,5K feet I want to say, but their
operations are probably comparable, maybe comparable 60K or 70K a year, very similar. Technically
they haven't even gotten into the passive testing mode yet, which we did in 2017, I want to say.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Out of curiosity, where would we be today had we not been in this program?
I'm just curious.
Scott Coffman: Where would we be?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Where would JYO be today had we not been involved in this program from the
get -go? What position?
Scott Coffman: Well, the Federal Contract Tower Program reopened for applications, they were re -
devising how they were going to judge airports. That didn't open until 2020. We were approved, I want
to say, in late 2020 to join the Contract Tower Program. Then at that stage, we would've been pursuing
the building of a brick -and -mortar tower, looking for funding, but we would not have been a controlled
airport at that time.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: The argument could be made that the whole reason our airport model is where
it is today, is because of the fact that we are in this program, is the point?
Scott Coffman: Absolutely.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: It certainly has pushed this development along. Would that be a fair statement
to make?
Scott Coffman: I would say that from an economic point of view, that our airport would be back where
it was in 2014-2015 from a growth and demand point of view.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: What would the timeframe be for an accelerated tower program? Out of
curiosity, what is the difference in the hardware between a brick -and -mortar tower and the remote tower,
other than the cameras I recognize? How do they effectively differ from each other? I assume you don't
have guys staring out windows looking for traffic in a brick -and -mortar tower. Is that correct? Go ahead.
Page 11 I March 13, 2023
Matt Massiano: Go ahead.
Scott Coffman: Well, I was going to say there's the physical tower. Yes, there are people looking out
glass windows in a cab up on top of a structure. Then the other part of it, which adds complexity because
I think Renee is pretty good at building things around our Town. The minimum equipment list, which is
the radios, the antenna firms. Mike, the tower manager, would like to see his radar come with him. All
those servers and connections are the complex side of building a tower. A lot of those exist now at the
airport. In fact, all of them exist at the airport. There's a generator in front of the lobby. I think a lot of
that stuff is in place. I have my own idea that the terminal building could be where we build a control
tower and we use some of the same infrastructure, parking lots, electricity, communications that's
already there to get us farther ahead versus building out in the greenfield somewhere where all that's
got to be built new.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. Thanks.
Mayor Burk: You have in one of your slides that the FAA Remote Tower Pilot Program, $30M in public
funding for multiple airports. What do you mean by that?
Scott Coffman: That's the public. I wanted to make the point that that's not just Leesburg's $30M.
Mayor Burk: Like the second one, the second slide.
Scott Coffman: Yes. That was the FAA's pilot program. It supported not only the controller staff at
Leesburg, the developmental cost of the remote tower center at Leesburg, but it also paid for FAA
employees evaluating the system, and it paid for facilities at Fort Collins, Colorado. This is the FAA's
investment in remote towers in the US that they're walking away from.
Mayor Burk: There's only two.
Scott Coffman: There's two.
Mayor Burk: They put $30M of taxpayers' money into these two airports. The other one, the Fort
Collins, that's a different vendor.
Scott Coffman: It is.
Mayor Burk: Correct? It isn't Saab, but are they continuing their program or is that being--?
Scott Coffman: I don't want to speculate about their airport. I know there's some things up in the air.
Mayor Burk: You haven't heard that theirs is being canceled? No.
Scott Coffman: I have not. I can't State yes or no.
Mayor Burk: All right.
Scott Coffman: I don't want to quote rumor or anything like that.
Mayor Burk: Right. This is a market decision by Saab because you found out that you can only do two
other airports when you're done with this. If this were to continue and they were to approve it, there
would only be two other airports that you could participate in.
Scott Coffman: Not necessarily.
Matt Massiano: That wasn't the factor that stopped us in our tracks. It really was, spending a year and
a half decoding what they really wanted in terms of system design information and discovering we can't
get there with a baseline that was built in 2010 in Europe.
Page 12 I March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Okay, now I'm not an aviation person, so that alarms me when you say that, because it's
in my head then that says, is our system so old? Is that what they're trying to say? That the system's
too old to be--?
Matt Massiano: When we started the development in Sweden in 2010, the product team that developed
it was working under a European R&D program called, SESAR, Aviation Research. They didn't have in
front of them some of the requirements the FAA has invoked in their 2021 requirements package. As a
matter of fact, as far as software design and assurance requirements, the requirements they have in
this package, we don't have in any of our FAA systems that are deployed across the NAS as the Runway
Status Lights, you name it. We have all these systems that don't have these requirements in them and
those are FAA funded developments.
In the recent years, the FAA started to impose more stringent requirements on new systems. They
chose to roll it out into this non-federal program, in my mind, not recognizing all these vendors have
non -developmental commercial off the shelf equipment that they're showing up with. They aren't starting
with a brand-new design from day one. The FAA doesn't seem to accommodate that in their
requirements from our interpretation.
Mayor Burk: Is it because our system is old?
Matt Massiano: Sure. It's been around a long time, but it's operational in 15 or 20 airports. It's been
approved by ministries of transport in the UK and in Germany and in Sweden and other European
countries. Their requirements, apparently, they aren't the same as the FAA's requirements.
Mayor Burk: The ones that are in Europe, and how many do you have in here?
Matt Massiano: I think we have close to 20 operational. It's not totally relevant, but we have systems
at Houston International Airport and Kansas City used by the airlines and the airports for ramp control.
Those don't fall under the FAA set of requirements. United Airlines have been running their ramp
operations at Houston for two years using this system, but that's not relevant to an air traffic control
application.
Mayor Burk: You're saying, I want to be very clear.
Matt Massiano: Sure.
Mayor Burk: The system is an older system, but it is still a very functional, a safe system that is
continuing to be safe and will continue to be safe for a long time.
Matt Massiano: That's our belief. Just to be clear, we've had two upgrades to the system in Leesburg.
When we moved to the new facility, we replaced some of the cameras in the crow's nest upstairs and
a lot of the processing equipment and all new displays showed up downstairs. The way it evolves over
time, you have a core software base that you start with, and you continue to evolve that software over
a decade. When the core software was written in 2010, it didn't anticipate the FAA's 2021 requirements.
We're having a hard time trying to convince ourselves and the FAA that we can reverse engineer it and
provide them with what they're after.
Our only real answer going forward likely is we have a third -generation system starting development in
Sweden in the last year. We would have to start with that system most likely to get through the FAA's
process, unless they were able to grant a variety of waivers they call it and waive some of their
requirements for us. They haven't shown an interest in doing that in the past. That would be part of a
sit down across the table from the FAA and say, "Are you willing to entertain waivers for these following
sets of requirements so we can get there."
Scott Coffman: Also, just to dumb it down a little bit, usually when the FAA is --
Mayor Burk: Excuse me, you might want to use another term.
Scott Coffman: Matt gets a little technical for me and I'm in that world. When the FAA is evaluating
something, they don't want you changing it. We know what this is, this is the-- Matt uses the term
Page 13 I March 13, 2023
baseline. This is how it's built. Don't change it because we're evaluating it. We just did a bunch of testing,
observing. You're not really changing it, you're locking it in to, this is what it is and this is what we're
approving.
Mayor Burk: Okay. That makes a little more sense, but anyway.
Scott Coffman: Sorry.
Mayor Burk: You mentioned the radar system, how long has the radar been in the remote tower?
Scott Coffman: January of '22, so about a year.
Mayor Burk: How much did it cost?
Scott Coffman: I can only speculate that I've heard rumors from FAA saying it's up to a million -dollar
system to bring in to Leesburg. It's FAA equipment, it belongs to the FAA and it's essentially a repeat
or a screen of the radar system that's at Dallas Airport, brought out to Leesburg to see the same thing.
Mayor Burk: As of a year ago, they invested probably close to a million dollars.
Scott Coffman: Yes.
Mayor Burk: The trailer that we've talked about that used to be there, and I think some of them referred
to it today as the horse trailer. Does that have the same vision as this remote tower that can see 360
degrees around the airport?
Scott Coffman: Can I let Mike answer that question?
Mayor Burk: Sure.
Scott Coffman: Put him on the spot.
Mayor Burk: Mike is the chief.
Scott Coffman: This is Mike Link. He is the air traffic manager for Leesburg tower and he works for a
company called RVA Aviation.
Mayor Burk: Okay, thank you.
Mike Link: Good evening. I'd like to give you just a little bit of my background. I've been an air traffic
controller for 36 years. I have worked for the Military Department of Defense, the FAA and for Contract
Towers. I've worked every aspect of air traffic, tower radar, high altitude, everything in air traffic. Coming
to this airport, to work in a remote tower, that was new for me. This is essentially a safe system.
Compared to a mobile tower, we have much more visibility throughout the airport and throughout the
airspace. A mobile tower's going to sit closer to the ground. It's going to limit our visibility on the airport
itself, and it's also going to limit our visibility for aircraft in the air. The aircraft that are going to be directly
in front of us on the runway and on the taxiways, we actually can see better from the mobile tower. The
aircraft that are further away from the mobile tower and up in the air further away from us, we're not
going to be able to see them as well.
Mayor Burk: Okay, thank you. Safety there's an implication there -
Mike Link: Yes, ma'am, definitely.
Mayor Burk: -to go back to the trailer. Today, Delegate Delaney and Reed came out and both of them
in their younger careers were involved in aviation. One of the things that was really amazing that all of
us learned today was the amount of pilots that are being trained at the Leesburg Airport that are going
into aviation. Going into being pilots for the big airlines, that they're such a tremendous shortage. The
gentleman that spoke with us, and his name escapes me, I'm sorry, but he's in charge of it all.
Page 14 I March 13, 2023
He said that if we lose the remote tower, that they will not be able to train those pilots as they are now,
and they will have to send them to other airports. We would lose the ability to train all those pilots, future
pilots which I thought was pretty shocking. The other thing, both, as I said, both of them were pilots at
some point in their careers and they didn't understand the whole concept until we took them on the tour
of it and talked to them. They were very, very concerned at the end that they kept asking, "How could
FAA do this? It doesn't make any sense."
Someone who's out of the system but knows what they're talking about more so than I was able to see
the value of this remote tower and the harm that could happen economically and safety -wise and other
components to it. That was very enlightening to hear their comments after they had taken the tour. Then
my last question is if the FAA were to approve this program tomorrow and say, "Okay, you can keep it
going until we get a tower. A tower may not come for 10, 12 years, but you can keep this program
going," would SAAB accept that? Would they continue to have this program in the Leesburg airport?
Matt Massiano: We certainly would, yes.
Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your answering all these questions. It's
not an easy situation. It's really important and we've got to come to a solution here and we got to do it.
Scott Coffman: I just want to say thank you to Council's support and I'm sure the pilot population and
appreciate your support and all the efforts to continue the services.
Mayor Burk: Absolutely. I hope we do hear from some pilots tomorrow. I think that would be very
important. Thank you all very much for coming out.
Scott Coffman: You're welcome.
Mayor Burk: Our lobbyist. Is there anything that you would like to add today to this discussion at this
point?
Jenny Rosenberg: No, I appreciate the discussion. It's wonderful to hear this before we go to talk to
the FAA tomorrow. Thank you for having me.
Mayor Burk: All right. We look forward to hearing good results tomorrow. All right, thank you. All right.
The next item is the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 Utilities Fund and Boards and Commissions
and Initial Markups.
Amy Wyks: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of Council. I'm Amy Wyks, Director
of Utilities here to give an overview of the Utilities budget for Fiscal Year 2024 as proposed. As you
know, the utility system provides both water and wastewater service to our citizens and customers,
including treatment, distribution, and collection. The budget for the Utilities Fund is an Enterprise Fund,
so our funding is solely based on availability, fixed fees, and user fees. There are no General Fund
revenues, otherwise in those taxes that are used in funding the Enterprise Fund for Utilities.
An overview of our budget, the proposed 2024 budget is just over $40M. Thirty million of that is
operations, 3.6 of that as Capital Asset. In Utilities, we do refer to that as 3R, which is repair,
replacement, and rehabilitation of our assets, and our Capital Projects is proposed at 7.5M. Our
proposed budget is based on continuing implementation of the previously Council -adopted five-year
rate plan. This is the fifth and final rate plan increase of 4.5%.
There are two enhancement staff positions that are included in the proposed budget. One being a Utility
Plant Engineer focusing on treatment processes and a Utilities IT Analyst that focuses on the SCADA
system at both plants. The Utility Fund is also providing 60% support towards the proposed Town -wide
Safety Manager. We have currently started a rate consultant study.
We hired a firm and they'll be evaluating 2025 through 2029 and we'll keep Council up to date related
to that process. Overall, the utility system goals with a lot of assets. Our current rate study has about a
40 -year replacement cycle. As a result, based on the value of the utility system, that equates to
approximately $10.5M annually to put back in for replacement costs. Another goal for the utility system
is we want to continue our high quality of service. We want to have timely repairs, great customer
Page 15 I March 13, 2023
service and continue having award -winning water quality. We also want to focus and work with DFAS
related to having a long-term financially sustainable fund.
Previously at the last meeting, Renee spoke of the CIP. I just want to talk briefly about the Utilities
portion of the Capital Projects that are proposed. Overall, for the six years that's proposed for Utilities,
just over 81 M is for 30 projects within the Utility Fund. Three of those are new projects. For Fiscal Year
24 alone, it's $11M for about 15 projects. Again, that's staying with the recommendation from the rate
consultant to invest 10.5M a year. That's staying on target to that. Then overall Utility projects represent
22% of the proposed CIP budget.
Here's a list of a few CIP projects that are in for 2024. Utility system storage facility, the water pollution
control, solids processing improvements, continuing to rehab storage tanks at the water pollution control
facility and continuing with the SCADA replacement project.
The three new projects that are in the CIP is a Phase 2 for aeration improvements that are at the
wastewater control facility. Filters three and four, and then the water treatment plant gravity thickener
replacement. I do want to note that tomorrow night filters three and four are actually on consent related
to increasing or moving that project up.
Currently, we have a contractor that's going to be doing filters one and two. We took number four off
out of service and the condition was worse than what we were anticipating. They're proposing to do all
four filters at this time. In the event that that's approved on consent tomorrow night, we would only have
two new projects in the CIP.
Again, just a quick overview. Comparing 2023 to 2024, the operating budget is going to $29.5M, Capital
Projects at 11.1, for a total of $40.6M compared to the 52M that was in 2023. With that, we'll start with
questions before I hand it over to Cole.
Mayor Burk: All right. Mr. Wilt, do you have any questions?
Council Member Wilt: Just one. Could we just break down essentially the operating expenses, there's
a $2M increase from '23 to '24. Could you just highlight the major elements of that?
Amy Wyks: The increase would be related to staffing, which is the COLA that's been proposed, as well
as the merit, as well as we are seeing increases in prices related to fuel surcharges and overall chemical
increases and some other things related to coming out of COVID from that perspective.
Council Member Wilt: Just that rate of increase, do we expect that to continue in farther out years?
Amy Wyks: Related to the chemicals and --
Council Member Wilt: Yes, staffing costs, chemical costs, other costs. On a $27M a year, we're
increasing about 8% a year. Was that the expected --
Cole Fazenbaker: That will be part of the rate study that we're working on, will be starting in 2025
through 2029. Part of that will be looking at our trends and some of our assumptions that we will make.
Typically, we estimate roughly about 3% growth each year. As everybody knows, inflation, the costs
have increased over the years. We will work with the rate study consultants to get better estimates
through 2025.
Council Member Wilt: We're saying this operating increase we're saying is a bit unusual year on year.
Cole Fazenbaker: Correct. Yes.
Council Member Wilt: Okay, but for identifiable causes that you just listed. Okay. Thank you. That's it.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Bagdasarian?
Page 16 I March 13, 2023
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes, thank you, Amy. Just one quick question. I know there're plans
for two enhancements of staff positions. Are you in the same position with trying to fill these positions
as other departments, it can be a challenge to find folks for those positions, or is this going to be a long-
term process?
Amy Wyks: We are experiencing the same with some of our professional positions not being filled as
quickly as we would like. We have started to see an increase in positions being applied for, so we are
hopeful that maybe there will be some opportunity for some applicants and interviews.
Council Member Bagdasarian: What is the downside to not filling those positions sooner rather than
later? Are there any downsides, any sort of issues compromising the quality of service at all?
Amy Wyks: Not really the quality service, it's more related to the capital side, making certain that we
can get the projects designed, quality control, and bid and constructed. Obviously, staff from the
beginning all the way to the project completion are deeply involved in our projects, so that we want to
be able to deliver the Capital Projects.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: I don't have anything.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Thank you, Amy, for your presentation. My question revolves
around the 40 -year replacement cycle for assets. Would that be the Capital Asset Replacement and
Capital Projects combined for the 10.5M?
Amy Wyks: Correct.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. That's one question I had. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Sure. Thanks. On the operational budget that were 29.5M versus 40.6M
total budget, is that typical for other utility organizations, that ratio?
Amy Wyks: I cannot speak to that, but we can look into that further, but I'm not aware of, haven't
compared.
Council Member Cummings: I was just curious. Thank you. Then the other question I always have
with utility is obviously someday in the future, we'll have to ramp up and expand our capacity. Are we
having like a piggybank that we're putting money into to that? Or is that with the rate study, we'll look at
here as we get closer to the need to pull the lever and expand. I'm assuming you just open the box up
and it works, yes.
Amy Wyks: Based on the undeveloped land, as well as redevelopment based on our flow projections
that we look at at least twice a year, we're not proposing or seeing a need to expand either plan at this
time.
Council Member Cummings: Are we saving money for that time?
Clark Case: We do get availability fees as new development comes in, and that those availability fees
are set aside for future expansion of the system. They are set aside in the Capital Projects Fund in
Utilities. Utilities has its own Capital Projects Fund, and that money is set aside for future expansion of
the system there, and it cannot be used for any other purpose.
Council Member Cummings: Thank you.
Page 17 1 March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor Steinberg?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No questions.
Mayor Burk: Really appreciate the report. It's pretty forward -thinking and I'll be really interested to see
what the recommendation from the consultant comes back with. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
Amy Wyks: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: All right. The next one is the Boards And Commissions.
Cole Fazenbaker: Evening, Madam Mayor, Council Members, members of the public. My name is Cole
Fazenbaker. I'm the Management and Budget Officer for the Town. I'm briefly going to go over the
boards and commissions part of the presentation. Currently, there are 13 boards and commissions.
They're listed above in this table, and the table shows the variances between what was adopted in
Fiscal Year 2023 and what's proposed in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
You'll see that overall the budget's decreasing about 28K, but really what's offsetting any of the smaller
increases is that last year we did a one-time $35K installation of signage in 7 parks throughout the town,
and it's now completed, so we don't need to budget for that this year, but as you can see in the Library
Advisory Commission, the BAR and the Diversity Commission, they have small increases.
As I stated, the small increases for Thomas Balch Library Advisory Commission is 1,625, and that's
comprised of $500 for printing services, 1,725 for basically travel for the Virginia Forum, and then there's
a decrease in their food and beverage budget of $250. For the Board of Architectural Review, there's
an increase of $1,5K. That's $2K for the Joint Architectural Review Board Awards, also offset with $500
for window workshops, community outreach, and then an increase of $3,850 for the Diversity
Commission, and that's for two job fairs, donation drives, and also the Halloween Parade float.
In the past, we've paid for it out of other buckets. It wasn't specifically budgeted, so this year we're
actually including them in the proposed budget. The one request that's not included in the Town
Manager's proposed budget is the request from the Planning Commission, which is an increase of
annual compensation for Planning Commission members and chair, and the proposal was based on an
increase of inflation since the last time that the Planning Commission increased their annual
compensation.
The increase request is $1,026 or 28.5% from $3,6K a year to $4,626. For the members, the same
28.5% increase for the chair from $3,750 to $4,819 annually. Then the second part of the request is to
each year adjust it by the CPI. The last adjustment was in 2013 and it was a $600 increase or 20% from
$3,6K for the members and 3,750 for the chair. With that, the presentation's concluded.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Does anybody have any questions on this?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I do.
Mayor Burk: Council Member Cimino -Johnson.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Thank you, Cole, for the presentation. My question has to do with
increase for the boards and commissions. You mentioned the Planning Commission. Does that also
include all the other boards and commissions?
Cole Fazenbaker: It doesn't include any other boards and commissions, and that's part of the reason
why it wasn't included, so there would be a comprehensive conversation on all of the boards and
commissions, but right now, Planning Commission is the only request.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: When was the last time the other boards and commissions saw
an increase?
Cole Fazenbaker: It was the same year, 2013.
Page 181 March 13, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Same year. Did they get 20% as well?
Cole Fazenbaker: I have to look. I believe it was 20% across the board, but we can definitely double-
check that.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Anyone else at this point? I just have a couple of the-- I don't completely understand why
some of the boards and commissions have a bigger budget than others. I know you explained a couple
of them, but is there a reason that Economic Development Commission will be getting $10,400, but
Information Technology only gets $9K?
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes, the difference is really in the non -personnel budgets or the operating where
they have a specified line item associated with any initiative that they request and gets adopted within
the budget, but the stipends are generally the same, except for the Planning Commission and I believe
the Board of Architectural Review a little bit more.
Mayor Burk: All right. One of the things that I am going to ask for a discussion at a work session is that
right now we could conceivably have 100% for most of the boards and commissions, we could have
100% non-residents as people on those boards. Am I incorrect about that? Feel free to correct me.
Eileen Boeing: Sorry, Madam Mayor, there is a minimum requirement that every board and
commission has at least four town residents or business owners that serve on it.
Mayor Burk: When did that change?
Eileen Boeing: It's in the Town Code, I can reference it and give you the date.
Mayor Burk: That's what I wanted, so I'm good with that. If it's already in there, that's great. Nevermind.
Then the other thing I was going to ask, we're starting the-- well, it's not for you. I'm sorry. We're starting
the markup session here soon and we haven't discussed the Planning Commission's recommendations.
Are we going to get to them to discuss, they sent out seven.
Cole Fazenbaker: For the Capital Improvements Program? We can certainly bring those up. We can
discuss it at the next workup session as well.
Kaj Dentler: When Renee presented the CIP, I believe she included those recommendations,
forwarded those to you, so now it is up to Council to decide what you want to do with those
recommendations. Whether you want to discuss them tonight as part of your markups or in your final
meetings in two weeks. All of the final decisions now rest with the Council, the entire budget proposal
has been presented to the Council. You'll have to make decisions to close it up.
Mayor Burk: They went to a great deal of effort to come up with these recommendations. I think we
should at least have a look at them and discuss them.
Kaj Dentler: Again, it was presented to Council.
Mayor Burk: No, I know. [crosstalk]
Kaj Dentler: Please, whatever you want.
Mayor Burk: I would like to have a discussion on that. If it's two weeks from now, that's fine. Unless
everybody's willing to do it tonight. If I have-- What?
Kaj Dentler: My recommendation would be that you begin those discussions tonight because in two
weeks is your final vote. We will obviously begin to make the final documents and the changes based
on what we believe you're going to do or an either-or type of thing. My advice would be to discuss them
tonight. Renee is still here. Planning Commission chair is here. We can address those as you wish.
Page 19 I March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Is the Planning Commission chair -- could we have that person come up and go over
them? This is unfair to do this to you.
Kaj Dentler: Sure, he will come up if you so request.
Mayor Burk: Can you pull them up and remember what they are?
[background conversation]
Mayor Burk: Welcome, Mr. McAfee. Nice to see you.
Brian McAfee: It's been a hot minute since I've been on this side. I came prepared to talk about the
stipend increase request. The six items before you were drafted by the Planning Commission as a
recommendation for inclusion in the CIP. These are six items. Do you want me to just read them out
loud? Do we have anything to look at?
Mayor Burk: We probably don't have anything to look at, so you're probably going to --
Brian McAfee: Okay, unfortunately. Add funding for land planning, design and construction of transit
infrastructure, and structured parking to serve the Crescent District, Eastern Gateway District and B1
Downtown Commercial District.
Mayor Burk: What is it that you're asking there?
Brian McAfee: The commissioner that was presenting this is looking for opportunities to secure land
for parking availability, as parking or as some will tell you, the lack thereof, is a concern for many
residents. If the opportunity is there for the Town to secure land for that purpose, that, again, funding
for planning, design, and construction of would be appropriate to include as a future CIP item.
Mayor Burk: If you don't know what you're planning funding for, how would we know? If you're asking
us to continue to keep looking for secure land, to secure land for parking, the possibility of parking
availability, I'm not sure how we could fund if we don't know what we've got is what I'm trying to say.
Brian McAfee: Yes, Madam Mayor, I don't disagree. It was a nice to have. Again, something to look
for in the future to set aside monies for the intended purpose of should it become available.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Anybody else have any questions on that, Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I do. Thanks, Mr. McAfee. Well, I know that we have plans on looking
engaging upon a Master Plan for parking in the H1- and perhaps that can extend to the Crescent District.
We can look at it from a holistic perspective, what are the parking requirements, anticipate current
needs and anticipated needs, so I think that would probably fall into that.
Mayor Burk: You check it off, we're going to do it.
Brian McAfee: Agreed. Number two, yay, thank you. Add funding for land planning, design and
construction of a pedestrian bridge over Route 7 in the Eastern Gateway District as indicated in the
Town Plan. This is the approximate area, I believe it is just west of the Clarion Hotel pedestrian walkway.
Renee LaFollette: It's in the area between Cardinal Park and Lawson Road in that general vicinity to
tie the south side of 7 by pedestrian access across Route 7. It's in Cardinal Park in the Town Plan was
originally shown as a bridge over Route 7 with no ramps, so just a straight road. That's where this one
is.
Mayor Burk: I know you're going to have a fight with the developer on that reluctance to --
Renee LaFollette: The feasibility of it would be questionable because of how close the office park is to
Cardinal Park and the Toyota dealership and the Honda dealership, would require retaining walls
Page 20 I March 13, 2023
access to those buildings. There would have to be redevelopment that occurs in that area before this
would be possible.
Mayor Burk: All right. Anybody have a question on this? Yes, sir.
Council Member Cummings: No, I don't have a question. I think I just want to get a clarification of
what-- so there's not a number attached to this, so we don't have any sense of it? Is the aim to put it
into the CIP all the way at the end?
Brian McAfee: Whatever the Town Council sees fit to do, the request is to consider it for inclusion even
if it is for a future or at the very least feedback to the commission to respectfully decline.
Council Member Cummings: Okay. I guess my one comment, because I was confused when we were
talking about number one, I just think when we are looking at a Crescent Design District and other
districts that private investment will be working within, I would rather see us allow private investors to
invest the money into parking facilities. Or public -private partnerships rather than the Town simply put
ourselves on the hook for building these parking facilities. Me, personally, I'm not sure if I think it's wise
to put this into the CIP at this point, but again, that's just-- I'm a day late and a dollar short, it seems,
because we've already talked about number one.
Mayor Burk: Yes. Okay, you're right. Number two, what's the general reaction to having this pedestrian
bridge over Route 7? You've already got the bridge on Battlefield, is it really necessary at this point do
you really think?
Brian McAfee: As motioned by the Planning Commission, yes, pedestrian access across Route 7.
Mayor Burk: All right. Okay.
Council Member Bagdasarian: The bulk of that.
Mayor Burk: Yes. I need to give you guys direction, right? Okay, so the first one we've taken care of.
The second one are therefore people that would be interested in putting a pedestrian bridge over Route
7 in the Eastern Gateway District.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I have a question.
Mayor Burk: Yes. [inaudible]
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: If it's in the Town Plan, then yes.
Mayor Burk: This is just a straw vote. [inaudible] Oh, okay.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Oh, sorry.
Mayor Burk: Are we waiting for you?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: No, I'm good.
Mayor Burk: Okay, are there four people that would want to do this?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I'm just looking in the map. You're talking about crossing Route 7 from
Cardinal Park Drive?
Mayor Burk: Cardinal Park all the way across.
Council Member Bagdasarian: What's on the other side of --
Mayor Burk: That's the Peterson property and that'll be developed at some point in the not -too -distant
future. They feel that there's major constraints in regard to that bridge, to a bridge, not a pedestrian
Page 21 I March 13, 2023
bridge, but a bridge, and they have expressed objection to a bridge being there. There's not four people
for that one.
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor, what was the straw vote on number one?
Mayor Burk: We are already doing it.
Kaj Dentler: Already doing it? Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: If you want us to take a vote on it, but it's already doing it. Okay. Number three.
Brian McAfee: Number three, and again, forgive my interpretation. I believe that this was an
enhancement, if you will, of number one, taking a look at opportunity areas within the Town. Again,
areas that can be funded for studies to evaluate for infrastructure projects within the Town purview. So,
whatever that may be. Again, it's a focus on available real estate that the Planning Commission would
prefer not to see a missed opportunity for the Town to procure.
Mayor Burk: Okay. So, you're asking me to prioritize an opportunity area in the Town Plan and add
funding for a study to evaluate an infrastructure project within the Town's purview so that it would be an
infrastructure project the Town would do.
Brian McAfee: With the possibility, yes, with possible public -private partnerships.
Mayor Burk: Including capital and operating costs, order of magnitude, possible public -private
partnerships that moved the vision for that opportunity area forward. A lot of words.
Council Member Nacy: A lot of words.
Brian McAfee: It is. We were drafting these on the fly, and again my apologies, I am interpreting the
verbiage.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Well, it seems to me since it specifically mentions public -private partnerships
that these might be coming forward from the public sector including potential land availability. It's not
exactly clear to me what this is asking for. I mean I believe staff already pays attention to available and
potential purchases of real estate we have. This Council has done that in a couple of times already,
and sometimes just to bank it and decide what we'll do with it at a future date, but since it specifically
mentions PPP, I think that almost takes care of itself.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: Just quickly reviewing. It seems to me that two, five, and six are the only ones
that appear to be actionable for potential adding to the CIP, and the other ones are potentially a
conversation at a work session for then maybe a future actionable budget item because they're kind of
involved and not something we can just say "Let's throw a random amount of money at, this time."
Mayor Burk: Oh.
Council Member Nacy: Oh, just a comment/observation.
Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you, Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: I actually took the converse. You said two, five, and six. I said one,
three, and four are actually from my simple pea brain would actually fall within a Master Plan when it
comes to parking, right? Because we're talking about, like Councilman Cummings mentioned, private -
public partnerships when it comes to parking, looking at reducing parking demand and structured
parking. I think those three items would fall underneath that category as far as I'm concerned.
Page 22 1 March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Okay. I don't understand what you just said. You're saying that one, three -
Council Member Bagdasarian: One, three and four.
Mayor Burk: -are really under the Master Plan that we're doing for one?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Is everybody okay with that if we put that under that category? Okay. Number two
is a no. Then that takes us to number five, prioritize the Police Mobile Command Center Project and
move it to active project list and complete as early as possible. Mr. Dentler, do you have anything to
add on to this?
Kaj Dentler: Five and six, but I'm trying to keep up with the narrative here.
Mayor Burk: Number five.
Kaj Dentler: Number five. The command bus is something that the Police Department has been asking
for the last several years. Our current command bus was obtained by the Town as a result of 9/11
grants. To give you a little sign of its age, it has certainly outworn its usefulness and reliability, cost or
anywhere from $800K to over a million dollars, I mean without costing it all out. We are looking to place
that this specific item into a funding request to our Federal legislators as they're going through their ear-
- I'm not sure what they call it now.
Mayor Burk: Wish list.
Kaj Dentler: Earmark programs. This has reached the interest of several of our legislators. There's no
guarantee that that would make it to the finalist and there's no guarantee it would be approved. It is an
asset that the Town needs to consider.
Mayor Burk: Where is it now?
Council Member Nacy: Yes. Where is it right now in terms of date on the CIP?
Mayor Burk: I think it's future.
Kaj Dentler: Future, correct? Probably.
Council Member Nacy: Or is it not on the CIP?
Renee LaFollette: I think, let me double check here.
Mayor Burk: While she's looking, how many times has it been used? How many times do?
Renee LaFollette: It is located in the priority futures section of the CIP.
Kaj Dentler: I will let the Major address how often it has been used.
Mayor Burk: This is just musical chairs. Everybody's going to talk.
Vanessa Grigsby: Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. What was your question?
Mayor Burk: Doesn't anybody listen to me? Geez.
Vanessa Grigsby: Well, this one. It threw me off guard. I wasn't sure if it was to be included tonight.
Mayor Burk: The question was how often have we used the command?
Page 23 1 March 13, 2023
Vanessa Grigsby: We haven't used it as often as we have in the past, and it's mainly because it's so
outdated. We had generator problems, there's wiring problems, so we just don't put it out as often as
we could. Usually, we like to take it out for every special event and any major events.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Have we used it in a police action of any sort recently in the last --
Vanessa Grigsby: Not recently, because it's, Yes, it's --
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Vanessa Grigsby: Yes, no, it hasn't been used recently.
Mayor Burk: Okay. All right. Do we know how much it costs?
Kaj Dentler: The estimates are anywhere from $800K to over a million dollars. Depends on what you
get, when you get, what you get on it.
Vanessa Grigsby: Exactly.
Mayor Burk: All right. Then do we have four people that want to prioritize the Police Mobile Command
Center Project and move it into the active project list and complete as early as possible?
Council Member Cummings: I have a question -
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Council Member Cummings: -to your question. If we put it into this, if we move it forward today, but
we find out some of our Federal legislators are able to secure the funding, we can shift it around, right?
Kaj Dentler: Yes.
Council Member Cummings: Okay.
Mayor Burk: Any other? Do we have four people that would like to prioritize the Police Mobile
Command Center Project? Okay. Just about everybody. Well, it's --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Who was it? Mr. Bagdasarian? Ms. Nacy? No?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Mr. Cummings and Mr. Cimino -Johnson. Okay. Then I'll go with it too. Okay. All
right. That takes us to our last-- Don't sit down.
Brian McAfee: I'm the last one again. I think pretty self-explanatory. Revaluing the need for a signal as
opposed to a pedestrian lighted crossing at Battlefield Parkway and Fieldstone Drive.
Mayor Burk: I would support that. Have driving, going on that street, I see people cross there and I'm
horrified.
Brian McAfee: I drive past there twice a week on the way to swim lessons at Ida Lee. I agree.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Renee LaFollette: I want to make sure you understand what this is saying, because right now we have
the traffic signal in the sixth year of the CIP and the Planning Commission said no to the traffic signal
and just putting a lighted pedestrian crossing, like a rapid flashing beacon at that intersection and not a
signal.
Page 24 1 March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Oh, opposed to it.
Renee LaFollette: That is the difference from what I think you said.
Mayor Burk: Oh. Okay, I wouldn't support that.
Brian McAfee: Poor verbiage.
Renee LaFollette: Yes.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Never mind. I'm off the list. [crosstalk]
Renee LaFollette: The traffic signal is in the sixth year of the CIP for this intersection. What the Planning
Commission voted on was to remove the traffic signal and replace that with a rapid flashing beacon, a
pedestrian. Just a pedestrian crossing without the full signal.
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Can you evaluate it for us? I mean, there's been a lot of discussion on that
signal and its proximity to 15. Will it work? It's not going to create problems of its own?
Renee LaFollette: I think if it's just the rapid flashing beacon, it will create a false sense of security
versus a full actuated traffic signal. It does not currently meet the warrants for a traffic signal there for
peak -hour volumes, turn volumes, or pedestrian crossings, actually. I have talked with Mr. Dentler and
agreed that we will continue to monitor that intersection and do the warrant analysis and then adjust it
as needed in the CIP. Once we get that first warrant, that signal would move forward in the CIP.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay, and that would also include pedestrian safety zone.
Renee LaFollette: It would include a pedestrian signal phase, yes.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: No, pedestrian safety zone in the median.
Mayor Burk: A crosswalk.
Renee LaFollette: We would have to at that location.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Okay. All right.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I do have a question about it. How much does it cost if we did put
in the pedestrian light at crossing?
Renee LaFollette: I don't know off the top of my head exactly how much those rapid flashing beacons
are currently. They've fluctuated quite a bit over the last two to three months, so I don't want to give you
wrong information. A traffic signal itself, full design to installation, now are running over a million dollars.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I'm just wondering if this is something we could do quickly to help,
and then once we get the light, we could put it in. Once we have a need for it.
Renee LaFollette: We would need to analyze it, because even the rapid flashing beacons require
what's called a pedestrian warrant. You have to meet a certain number of pedestrian crossings through
that intersection in order to meet the standards that VDOT has put in place for the installation of that
flashing crosswalk.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Thank you.
Page 25 I March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Are there four people that want to oppose putting the pedestrian -lighted crossing at
Battlefield Parkway and Fieldstone Drive?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Opposed to the flashing --
Mayor Burk: They're asking us to reevaluate the need for a signal as opposed to a pedestrian -lighted
crossing on Battlefield Parkway.
Brian McAfee: Some additional context. The feedback was that the, forgive me, I don't know what the
next street after Fieldstone Drive is, but there is a light, one more block.
Mayor Burk: There is.
Brian McAfee: Adding the light there, it was perceived that that could create even additional backup
into Battlefield. That was the concern was, do we need another light when there's already one one block
further that could potentially create more traffic back into Battlefield?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: That's the question I was asking. If you place a light at Fieldstone, given its
proximity to two lights, one at 15 and one at Catoctin, I guess. No, at the Plaza.
Renee LaFollette: The Plaza.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: What does that do there?
Renee LaFollette: Since we haven't looked at it other than it warrants, I cannot answer that question.
That's part of what we would have to study. If the traffic signal goes in that location, all of those signals
would need to be timed together so that you did not have that occurrence where the traffic backed up
into Battlefield. They would all have to be timed to work together.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: We certainly need to understand the feasibility of it in any case, so I guess it
has to stay.
Mayor Burk: Are there four people that want to --
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Madam Mayor, I have one more question.
Mayor Burk: Yes, sir.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Another question, and I know where this is, but I can't remember
the full layout. Is there a way to move the pedestrian crossing down to the light or to cut off that
pedestrian crossing so we don't have to worry about putting a light in there?
Renee LaFollette: People are going to cross where it's the easiest for them to cross. For us to take the
markings away for those pedestrian crossings makes that crossing less visible to the drivers. I would
recommend against removing the crosswalks that currently exist across Battlefield Parkway.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay. Thank you.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I know there are also concerns about traffic making left-hand turns from either
side of Fieldstone trying to get across. That's also an issue.
Mayor Burk: Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: Not that this is data that we just have in our back pocket, but I would be curious,
maybe at a future discussion, to know the volume of pedestrian crossing there/or do we encounter a lot
of public safety incidents. Do people get hit there? Are there a lot of accidents there? That sort of thing,
so not necessarily for tonight, but potentially a future discussion.
Mayor Burk: Unless you know that information.
Page 26 I March 13, 2023
Council Member Nacy: Yes, unless you just have that.
Renee LaFollette: Standing here tonight, I'm not aware of any pedestrian accidents at that intersection,
but that does not mean that there may not be one in the history. We would need to pull the accident
data for that specific intersection and all approaches.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Out of curiosity, what was the RTC recommendation? Or did they have one?
Renee LaFollette: The RTC has not weighed in officially on this. I know in speaking with the chair of
the RTC, he's in favor of the signal and not going to a rapid flashing beacon -type crossing.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Then let me ask again, do we have four people that want to reevaluate the need
for a signal as opposed to a pedestrian lighted crossing at Battlefield Parkway and Fieldstone? One. All
right. No, that didn't go anywhere. Sorry. Thank you very much for going through these with us. I thought
it was important. You guys spent some time putting it together and that we should at least address
them.
Brian McAfee. I'll pass it along back to the Commission. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: All right, thank you. All right, that brings us to our last item tonight, which is we have a
Markup Session.
Kaj Dentler: Your first markup, correct?
Mayor Burk: I was rushing ahead.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: [inaudible] spreadsheets.
Mayor Burk: I know. All right. This is where we get to add and delete things from the proposed budget.
I will start with Mr. Wilt. Do you have anything you want to add or delete from the budget at this point?
Council Member Wilt: I do not.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: No.
Mayor Burk: We only have one more meeting, remember? Okay. Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: Okay. That sounds loaded. Ooh, okay. Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Yes, I know in our next meeting we're supposed to get a staff report on the cost
for remediating Liberty Lot. I wouldn't want to miss that opportunity in this budget if we can avoid it.
Without knowing exactly what that funding is, it's hard for me to say what the amount should be.
Although in having a discussion with staff, an amount of $180K was floated, but I have no idea how
accurate that is.
Mayor Burk: What is it for?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: This is funding the study for remediation of the Liberty Lot, which I think the
Council at least expressed an interest in doing, having studied and also doing the remediation as part
of environmental stewardship. I'd like to understand what it would cost for a staff position for a grant
writer for the Town, that's possible that we are missing opportunities for grants that would help our
budget actually, and might well pay for itself given the right individual.
We're going to be spending a lot of money at LPD in the upgrade to the building and we've certainly
invested a lot in additional hardware and software. I wonder if it isn't time to consider an LPD IT analyst.
Page 27 I March 13, 2023
I'd be interested in understanding what that might cost the Town. I don't know if acting chief Grigsby
has any thoughts on that of her own.
Vanessa Grigsby: You talking about the IT position within the budget?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: IT analyst position, is that already in the budget?
Kaj Dentler: Is the position that you're referencing for the Police Department in addition to what I've
already proposed for an IT position at dedicated to PD?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I guess I must have missed it then. If it's already proposed, then we--
Kaj Dentler: Yes, there is a second position dedicated to PD in the proposed budget.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: I see. I apologize. Thank you.
Kaj Dentler: Okay. No problem.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: I don't want to spring this on everybody, but since we're having this
conversation, we do have another meeting, it'd be great. I've had been having conversations in my
neighborhood and as well as with other folks in the Town on their new assessments. I can just tell you
personally my assessment is up $86K from last year to this year and I can tell you my house hasn't
changed. I know I'm only anecdotally discussing this about my own, but other folks in my neighborhood
and then other neighborhoods throughout the Town have brought up their assessments. With that being
said, I wanted to see if there's any appetite to look at cutting the property tax rate half a point to help
provide some relief for our residents as well as just getting ready to move fund to what looks like
potentially a recession. I just wanted to throw that out there and see what folks' thoughts are.
Mayor Burk: Is anybody interested in, and you're asking to lower the tax rate on the --
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: That would be $500K?
Council Member Cummings: Yes. [inaudible]
Cole Fazenbaker: $546,160 would be the reduction loss of revenue from --
Mayor Burk: Where would you suggest that we cut that money from? That's $500K. That's quite a bit.
Where would you suggest that that money come from?
Council Member Cummings: I don't have my notes in front of me because I wasn't going to do this
yet, but I think the first place I look at is the Safety and Risk Management Position. If we haven't had it
up until this point, and when I asked about it previously, we're not going to see a direct cost savings to
it. I would say we could start there. The other areas, potentially the cost -of -living adjustment. We've
over the last two years given personnel a pay for performance raise. We could look at that 3% and
maybe we could tweak the numbers a bit to see if we can't do something that's not 3% and save some
money there. If we're going to put me on the spot and make me say some more, I don't know if it helps
in this, but we could, instead of spending a million dollars on the house over here on Wirt Street, we
could simply go through the process to demolish that and save us $600 or more thousand dollars there.
I would leave it at the Manager's discretion to find other smaller areas to cut. I just believe at this current
economic situation that we're facing with inflation slowly coming down, but not fast enough and
assessments continuing year after year to go up --
Mayor Burk: Okay. You made your argument. Good job, but you made your argument.
Page 28 1 March 13, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Zach, may I ask, do how much, if we keep the tax rate the same,
how much more you'll be paying in taxes, in dollars?
Council Member Cummings: How much more I would?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes.
Council Member Cummings: No, you can ask, but I don't know.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: You haven't figured that out?
Council Member Cummings: No.
Council Member Bagdasarian: That's worth looking at, what does that actually mean to your tax bill?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Right.
Council Member Cummings: Well, but we have the average assessments, and you can do the math
and see and yet it equals out to, I'm just trying to pull this number up, for a single family home, what
we're hearing is it's $6.67, but that's just the average assessment, not the median. I would just say that
from where I sit, if there are folks that I've talked to in the last couple weeks, that $6 a month makes a
difference, and $8 a month makes a difference. Assessments aren't going to stop going up. I sell real
estate. Even though the market slowing, there's less inventory, meaning supply and demand's going to
drive the home sales values up, which means assessments in a year from today are going to be up
again. It doesn't mean that folks have the cash to spend on it. I just think that if there are five folks, I
guess, I need to come with me on this venture.
I think we have some opportunities to make some small cuts that aren't going to rock the budget, but
we can at least show the residents that we're putting ourselves in their shoes because we all obviously
do and understand where we are today.
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor?
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Kaj Dentler: Not to debate his proposal, just for clarification, if Council wanted to demolish or even
renovate the Wirt Street house, the funding from that is our Unassigned Fund Balance. You've already
put that, so that won't move the needle on the tax rates. Just so you know.
Mayor Burk: Tonight we're not voting on any of these, we are just putting them up there, and that will
come at a later date. Just so everybody understands that.
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor, I'm sorry.
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Kaj Dentler: It would be helpful if we have a straw vote on the items tonight because staff has to begin
to-- we all have to formulate the final documents and so that allows us time between now and two
weeks. You won't take your final vote until then.
Mayor Burk: Yes, but we don't have any money associated with them, so we don't really know what
we're voting on.
Kaj Dentler: Understood, but the more clarification or direction you give me tonight, the more we can
prepare the documents in that line and then you will make the final decisions and we'll make the
adjustments. It helps us based on where you may be trying to go as a majority group, that's all.
Mayor Burk: Okay, let's get everything up there. Ms. Nacy did you -
Page 29 I March 13, 2023
Council Member Nacy: Yes, I was just going to add to-- I would be curious to see if we reduce the
COLA from three to two, how much does that move the needle versus eliminating it because that helps
the vote.
Kaj Dentler: Cole can tell you that.
Cole Fazenbaker: It's roughly $297K or $300K year-round.
Council Member Nacy: Okay. I [unintelligible] a good way there.
Mayor Burk: You're trading your employees' benefits. Just keep that in mind. I need to think about that
a little more. Okay.
Clark Case: Just keep the numbers. There's some [unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: He doesn't have any more numbers.
Clark Case: No, reduce the COLA and [unintelligible].
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Are we still adding?
Mayor Burk: Oh, he wants it tonight.
Clark Case: [unintelligible] or else, otherwise your contact, the 546 is wrong.
Mayor Burk: No, we are going to have to take things off. Everybody's going to put their thing what they
want and then we're going to take it off or keep it on.
Kaj Dentler: I would venture if it helps you on the grant writer, you're probably going to be paying
between $80K and $100K plus benefits. To be conservative for your budgeting purposes, you're
probably $125K cost, annual. Although I mentioned the Wirt Street house already, not impacting the
tax rate. That's $600K that you have already reserved for -- to decide what you want to do with that
building.
Mayor Burk: That really shouldn't be on there because it's not really-
Kaj Dentler: Not if your goal is to reduce the tax rate. If your goal is to decide whether to keep that
money in place or not. Yes. Depends on your purpose.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Mr. Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Before this meeting, I actually met with our Leesburg Fire
Department and one of the things they have told me is the promise from the County that they would be
making up the money from us not giving them any longer has not materialized. They were short 18%
last year. They have had to take money out of their savings. They can only do that for a couple of years
before, I don't know what happens. I would like to see us add $150K to the budget to gift to the Leesburg
Fire Department.
Mayor Burk: You are also proposing for the Rescue Squad?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Between the two of them.
Mayor Burk: You're proposing $300K?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: No, $150K for next year.
Mayor Burk: All right. That is something that we had done in the past. The County informed us that if
we give them that money, they will subtract that money from their funds. You can say no, but the County
keeps telling us that that's what will happen.
Page 30 I March 13, 2023
Kaj Dentler: That's exactly what's going to happen.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Well, I met with them the day and they told me the complete
opposite. If we gift it to them, it does not count against them.
Kaj Dentler: That is not accurate. In all due respect, the County has an entire algorithm for their funding
and that's exactly what's going to happen. It doesn't mean you can't do it, it's your prerogative, but that
is exactly what's going to happen.
Mayor Burk: You're not benefiting because they're going to get it subtracted out of whether they got
their money.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: They said gifts are not included in that. If we gifted to them, it does
not count.
Mayor Burk: We had multiple meetings with the County on that. The Chief of the Fire Department has
warned us not to do this, that that ends up really impacting them and causing our taxpayers to pay for
what the County taxpayers should be paying for.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Well, we have two weeks to figure it out.
Mayor Burk: We'II see. We got to get it. We got to see if you got enough votes.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I'd also like to add $75K to the Main Street Program since we
saved money on the Dining Out Program.
Mayor Burk: All right. Anything else?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Not at the moment, no.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Cole, is that the tax rate as [unintelligible].
Cole Fazenbaker: No. When you vote on it, I'll put pass and if it passes, then that will affect the tax
rate.
Mayor Burk: Okay, all right. There's just a couple of things I would like to add. I was at Loudoun Country
Day School today, and some of the students there had ideas that they thought would be very useful. I
wanted to share them with you. Samira would like to give free ice cream to everybody in Town.
Clark Case: Absolutely.
Mayor Burk: I think we should add that onto the list. We had another one where, "If I were mayor, I
would design more parks for our Town." Come on. We can put that in there. Then the last one was, "I
would like to fix all of the roads." Adam is thinking ahead there. Anyway, but it was very cute to have
the Loudoun Country Day School kids give us their planning, and their budget ideas, so I wanted to add
them.
The two things that I wanted to add was, one of them is, it's the Meet the Mayor program. This would
not cost anything because the only thing I'm asking is that if it comes an official program, then it can go
on the website to be advertised when it happens. This is something that future mayors can do or not
do, depending on what they want to do, but there wouldn't be any cost associated with that one. Then
the last one was the lighting at Georgetown and Raflo Park. We were looking to see if there was any
chance that there was funding from proffers or other items. Did we find anything on that one?
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes. It would be a one-time cost and we could use Unassigned Fund Balance for
that, but we could also use savings from the outdoor dining savings since we are only going to do
Fridays instead of how we've been budgeted in the past. I'll look up the exact amount, what it would be,
but I believe it's roughly in the $140K range.
Page 31 1 March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Is that correct, Ms. Trask?
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes. Savings of the outdoor dining program would be $142,500. We could use that
money. Kate's looking up the cost of the actual lighting at Georgetown and Raflo Parks.
Kate Trask: For both parks for the bollard -style lighting, it would be approximately $301 K.
Mayor Burk: $301K. Those are the safety lights?
Kate Trask: Safety and decorative.
Mayor Burk: What if we took it out and just did the safety lights? Do you have any idea?
Kate Trask: For just the safety lights at both parks, $250K.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Then if it was just for Raflo Park, because Georgetown Park is going to be near the
W&OD trail that has the lighting that's going to be going in that might help the Georgetown Park.
Kate Trask: Just Raflo, just safety or both?
Mayor Burk: Safety.
Kate Trask: Just safety. That gets you down to about 111 to 112, in my head.
Mayor Burk: Is it realistic that the W&OD lighting would help light up the Georgetown Park? No?
Kate Trask: I'm thinking why.
Mayor Burk: We'll make it so bright.
Kate Trask: Not the light engineer here to answer that question, but Renee's telling me probably not
the distance there. Plus, that's those lights if I understood what on the W&OD are to project down the
low profile.
Mayor Burk: All right. Then I would -
Kate Trask: I'm sorry, being redirected on that number, it wasn't 112. It's going to be a little bit more
than that with the contingency. You said just Raflo, we're looking at about 144 there.
Mayor Burk: 250 for the two parks?
Kate Trask: Correct.
Mayor Burk: That could be covered by Unassigned Fund Balance?
Cole Fazenbaker: One-time cost, correct.
Mayor Burk: All right. I'd be interested in having that at the 250 for both parks, for the safety aspect of
them.
Cole Fazenbaker: Would you propose using Unassigned Fund Balance for that 250?
Mayor Burk: Technically neither of mine [unintelligible]. Yes sir?
Kaj Dentler: I just have a clarification. The Meet the Mayor program that has no cost. Is that the same
as the Mayor for the Day program? It's something different.
Mayor Burk: It's just that going to the different businesses. Taking the Town information. Talking to -
Page 32 1 March 13, 2023
Kaj Dentler: Got you.
Mayor Burk: -people about the town.
Kaj Dentler: All right. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Do we need anything for the Mayor for the Day?
Kaj Dentler: No, I have money budgeted for that based on what we've been doing.
Mayor Burk: Great.
Kaj Dentler: I didn't know if that was the same. I just wanted to make sure. That's all.
Mayor Burk: All right. Anything else Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: We need to add a new program for the Mayor for Halloween
Nightmare. Okay, I had to say that. You mentioned W&OD, does that need to be added to this or is that
because that is already in the CIP?
Kaj Dentler: Yes, you should, it won't affect the tax rate unless there's local dollars involved. At least
we would have a straw vote if you want to move that forward in the schedule so we can prepare
accordingly.
Mayor Burk: Would you want that?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes, I would. I think.
Cole Fazenbaker: Is that the W&OD?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Sure.
Mayor Burk: All right. Anything else?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: [unintelligible] Maybe this was already asked and answered. I just can't
remember the answer. Why doesn't Nova Parks take care of the lighting on the trail?
Kaj Dentler: That's not something they do that's considered a park in reality, although linear and it's
dawn to dusk operated.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: All right, thanks.
Mayor Burk: Anyone else at this point? Then we have to go through each one of these and see if we
have five or four votes.
Kaj Dentler: Five votes [unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Okay, just four for this.
Kaj Dentler: I'm sorry. When you get to the reducing the tax rate, takes five votes, supermajority to set
the tax rate and whatever number you choose. You would look for five to see if that's there.
Mayor Burk: Remind me because I'll forget.
Cole Fazenbaker: Madam Mayor, just one quick point of clarification. Going back to the Mobile
Command Center Post. We submitted our applications to the Federal representatives last week for
$900K. Is the vote only to do that project if we get the Federal funding? Or would you like to include
local tax funding in that as well?
Page 33 I March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Well, I think the intent was to include local tax funding, if needed.
Cole Fazenbaker: Okay.
Mayor Burk: All right. No one else at this point? The first one is reduce the COLA by 1%.
Council Member Cummings: No.
Mayor Burk: Oh, okay. Liberty Lot study for remediation. Are there four people that want to do the
Liberty Lot study on what's in the dump? Are there four people? Mr. Wilt, Mr. Bagdasarian, Mr. Cimino -
Johnson, Mr. Steinberg, and myself.
Kaj Dentler: Then, Madam Mayor. Just on that note, at your next work session, I believe we will present
to you the scope of work for that project with that cost. You'll get more information on that at that point
before you actually vote on the final budget.
Mayor Burk: That one passed. The next one, a Grant Writer. That's $129,500. Are there four votes that
would like to see hire a Grant Writer? Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Cimino -Johnson. That did not pass. Well,
I'II come back to that one. Eliminate the Safety Manager. Are there four people that would like to
eliminate the Safety Manager? Mr. Cimino -Johnson, Ms. Nacy. Okay. That doesn't go. Now reduce the
COLA by 1%. That's Mr. Wilt, Ms. Nacy, Mr. Steinberg, and Mr. Cummings? Demolish Wilts? No, that's
nothing. Leesburg Volunteer Fire Department and Loudoun Rescue Squad contribution. Are there --
okay. Mr. --
Council member Bagdasarian: I would like more clarification on this.
Mayor Burk: This is not final, so they'll bring us more information on this.
Kaj Dentler: What I will do is, I have used the advice before directly from the County Administrator's
and I'll ask him if the Town makes a contribution, does that impact? I can only tell you again what I have
been told many, many times. If things have changed, so be it, but at least you'll know.
Mayor Burk: Right. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Cimino -Johnson?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I was just going to talk [unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Thanks. Did that pass? That didn't pass? Still didn't pass? [unintelligible] Sorry. Increase
Main Street program funding. Okay. Do we have funding in the budget for that now?
Kaj Dentler: No, because we haven't moved into the full program, so we're just working our way up
through the tiers. We're in tier one and ultimately, we're going to apply for tier two and then pursue tier
three based on the direction that you have given.
Council Member Bagdasarian: [unintelligible].
Kaj Dentler: I think you would've to ask Mr. Cimino -Johnson that.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Well, over the course of the next year, I mean, we could in six
months be looking at, the program wanting to hire, say a part-time Executive Director or a full-time
Executive Director at that point if the program is moving forward at that pace. For me, it's more of a
place marker just in case that program does move faster than what we anticipate.
Mayor Burk: Yes, Mr. Bagdasarian.
Council Member Bagdasarian: My understanding on that, because 1 absolutely am supporting the
Main Street Program and I know we have staff resources right now dedicated to this. I think in the
incubation period, I think that it's okay to utilize our staff resources until we're at the point where we're
ready. I would look at next year for this.
Page 34 I March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Okay. Are there four votes to do 7,5K for the Main Street Program funding? Are there four
for that? Okay. That doesn't pass either. Meet the Mayor Program has no money associated with it.
Safety lighting at Raflo and Georgetown Park that has no funding associated with it. Safety lighting at
just Raflo, we didn't --
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes. Depending on which one you prefer. I put both of them down. Is your preference
just for the 250 using UAFB? You probably still would want to vote on that if we want to include that in
the budget, even though it doesn't --
Mayor Burk: Safety lighting for Raflo and Georgetown Park?
Cole Fazenbaker: Using Unassigned Fund, would be 250K, but it wouldn't have an effect on the real
estate tax rate because we're using the Fund Balance.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Are there four people that would be willing to support the safety lighting at Raflo
and Georgetown Park using Unassigned Fund Balance?
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Can I ask a question?
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I think it's going to be to you Renee. I think this was taking out the
decorative lighting, is what you said?
Renee LaFollette: That's more a Kate question --
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Oh, okay. I couldn't remember who.
Kate Trask: Correct. That was taking out the decorative lighting.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Okay.
Kate Trask: It was just the safety lighting, which we're saying safety and what it is, is bollards along the
walkways.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Right. We're going to pay more later if we want to put in the
decorative lighting, like it looks like 50K now, but is it going to be 150 say in five years?
Kate Trask: I couldn't speak to those numbers in five years. The numbers that I took out for the
decorative lighting was the onetime expense to actually buy the lights. What we're looking at in that 250
is to actually have the infrastructure so that if in the future we want to add those lights, we could buy
the actual lights and not pay for the infrastructure to install. All the infrastructure would be included now.
We're just taking out that small sum that said the actual lights that would like go up in the trees for
decorative lighting. Decorative lighting would be more like to light the trees are uplights in the trees or
wrapping the trees with lights, to help define what we're talking about here.
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes. I'm just trying to figure out if we should go ahead and do all
of it now because we're putting in lighting or should we?
Mayor Burk: How much is the decorative?
Kate Trask: The decorative lighting, this is, again, when we say decorative lighting, it's literally buying
strings of lights or the flood lights for uplighting. That is about 20K for Raflo and about 15 for
Georgetown.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Oh, 35.
Kate Trask: Yes.
Page 35 1 March 13, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: I support all of it, to be honest.
Mayor Burk: Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Thanks. The safety lighting makes sense, but the Council, for example, has
received a request from EAC for a proclamation for the Dark Skies initiative. I'm not convinced that
actually decorative lighting in the parks to light up the trees and uplight and everything is something
that we necessarily need or want to do.
Mayor Burk: This is for the holidays.
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Oh, I apologize. Just for the holidays. Yes. I'm the scrooge. Well, you're right.
That wasn't made clear in the ask. I understand now. When we said decorative lighting, I appreciate
that. Okay, fine.
Mayor Burk: All right. You want to add the, how much was it? 20 and 15, 35. Do we have four people
that are interested in lighting-- Thank you. Lighting Raflo and Georgetown Park? Georgetown Park
using the Unassigned Fund Balance to the tune of 285, 290. Just set it at 290.
Cole Fazenbaker: What's the number be? 285K?
Mayor Burk: Yes. Are there four people that would like to do that? Mr. --
Vice Mayor Steinberg: What's the one where [unintelligible]?
Mayor Burk: It's not, that's going to go off. That was everybody actually, everybody wanted that one.
Then the next one is, we're not going to do that one. We're going to do it, but we're going to do all of it.
The next is--
Kaj Dentler: Madam Mayor?
Mayor Burk: Yes, sir?
Kaj Dentler: On the trail lighting, is there majority to move it forward because in the CIP--
Mayor Burk: I don't know. I haven't got to it yet. I'm just doing that.
Kaj Dentler: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said we weren't going to do it.
Mayor Burk: No, we're not doing the Raflo.
Clark Case: We're talking about the next line up. Cole just deleted.
[background conversations]
Mayor Burk: I'll start writing [unintelligible]. WO&D trail out lighting move forward to FY 24 from FY
27, and that comes from, it says no tax effect, where does that come from?
Cole Fazenbaker: That's in the CIP. It wouldn't have an effect on the real estate tax.
Mayor Burk: You're just knocking a project for-- yes, what project?
Cole Fazenbaker: It's a workload issue rather than a funding issue.
Council Member Nacy: What would get moved today?
Mayor Burk: What would end up happening on that one if we put that one forward? You'd have to move
something back.
Page 36 1 March 13, 2023
Renee LaFollette: Let me make sure I get to the right questions and answers packet here where we
gave you those answers. We gave you three potential projects that could move. We proposed moving
the Tuscarora Creek Trail phase one project out. It's currently in design right now. The contract is on
hold because we are waiting on the final FEMA comments on the Tuscarora Creek project that we're
expected to get in the next month.
Mayor Burk: How long has that been waiting?
Renee LaFollette: That project has been waiting on FEMA two and a half months probably.
Mayor Burk: No, I meant how long has it been in the CIP?
Renee LaFollette: It's since 2022. It's a '22 project. [crosstalk] It was in '23. We started design in fiscal
'23. We had to put it on hold, but it moved its way through its paces.
Mayor Burk: I'd hate to lose that one. Those people have been very patient.
Renee LaFollette: We have County funding on that project as well. The next one that was proposed
was the Church Street, South Street, and Harrison Street improvement project to move that project out
from '25 through '27 to Fiscal '26 through '28. That project currently is in study phase. We're trying to
develop the concept plans for those three roads. We do not have a finalized concept on that project yet.
The other project was the Royal Street improvements from Church Street to Wirt Street, which was curb
gutter, sidewalk, and some storm drainage there.
It will impact some parking spaces and that one was put on hold and moved out one year in the CIP
because we need to have the results of the Downtown Traffic Study because that was one of the roads
that was potentially identified to be one-way. We needed to understand the effects of that on the entire
grid. That was one project that was also proposed to be moved. Those were the three that to me made
the most sense to move because they had hindrances already on them.
Mayor Burk: Does anybody have a suggestion, a preference? Yes, Mr. Bagdasarian.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I'm sorry. What was the third one, Renee?
Renee LaFollette: The third one was Royal Street between Church and Wirt. It's two blocks. The fourth
one that we thought of after we submitted the answers to this is the potential of the Pickleball courts at
Ida Lee.
Mayor Burk: Oh, no, don't do that. No. I get monthly things on that. No.
[laughter]
Council Member Nacy: What was the second one you said in the Harrison Street?
Renee LaFollette: Church Street, South Street, and Harrison Street, which is some pedestrian
connectivity, pedestrian crossing issue at Harrison Street, doing some sidewalk improvements, curb,
gutter, sidewalk projects pretty much on those three streets.
Mayor Burk: Does anybody have a suggestion on --
Renee LaFollette: The other reason those were chosen is they had funding sources that we had more
control over that did not have spend -by deadlines. Anything that we have revenue sharing or other
VDOT funding on, we'd have specific spending deadlines on. We looked for things that had NVTA 30%
or bonding, funding on them and had other issues that we're struggling to work through.
Mayor Burk: I wouldn't have a problem postponing the Harrison Street, Church Street, South Street
designs. I don't know about anybody else.
Council Member Nacy: I agree.
Page 37 1 March 13, 2023
Council Member Bagdasarian: I guess the question is, is it pick one of these three projects or one of
these four projects or is it a combination of multiple projects that would cause the --
Renee LaFollette: For what the projects are, you can go one for one, but if you pick two, it helps even
more. They're also very similar in complexity too. There are multiple property owners that will have to
be dealt with. We will have numerous outreach meetings. Same thing will occur with the W&OD trail.
It's going to be complicated just because of all the utilities that we're going to have to work with.
Mayor Burk: You have to get permission from NOVA Parks.
Renee LaFollette: We have to get permission from NOVA Parks. We have to work with Dominion
Power.
Mayor Burk: First off, I guess I should make sure that there are four people that want to put lighting on
the W&OD trail. Are there four people that would like to see that happen? Everybody. Then the next
question is, would the Harrison, South Street, Church Street project be delaying that? Would that be
acceptable to the majority of people here? Everybody but Mr. —
Unidentified Council Member: [Unintelligible]
Mayor Burk: The Church Street, South Street, Harrison Street postponement. That's everybody.
Alright. Then the next one is the Mobile Command Center using local tax funding. The one question I
have on that one is if we put the money forward, would the Federal powers that be look at that and say,
"Oh, they have funding for it so we don't need to do it?"
Kaj Dentler: They may. It would be a conversation we'd want to have with them. We certainly can put
the project in the CIP and put it dependent upon Federal dollars and then if we don't get that, then we
can bring it back to you and you can take a vote at that time on how, if you want to proceed.
Mayor Burk: Is that acceptable to everybody? Okay. All right. We have one more, which was the
Planning Commission's --. Oh, we haven't even talked about that. Compensation increase. Are we
interested? Are there four people that are interested in increasing the compensation for the Planning
Commission? I would say that one died.
Cole Fazenbaker: Presentation.
Mayor Burk: Are we adding something else?
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes, so I'm looking up to see how much the Planning Commission actual annual
increase would be. It was on the presentation. I didn't have it.
Kaj Dentler: I think the only item there that needs to be addressed is if there's, what's the Council's
position on Mr. Cummings' request to consider a half -a -cent tax reduction?
Mayor Burk: Okay. They're busy trying to figure that one out. Are there five people that are interested
in lowering the tax rate by half a cent? Mr. Cummings, Mr. Wilt and Ms. Nacy? And that does not pass.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I do have a comment, a question about that. I think it's important to
see what the actual implication is on the different tiers for tax bill to make a decision on that, what the
actual impact [crosstalk].
Kaj Dentler: Sure. We can provide you some information on what that would look like for your
consideration. Sure. I think we can provide that in your packet on Friday, so you have plenty of time to
consider it.
Mayor Burk: All right.
Cole Fazenbaker: We have the model built that we can show the tax bill as well right now. Any vote
that we do, we can show what it would have an effect of. If that helps your decision.
Page 381 March 13, 2023
Mayor Burk: Is this what you're saying you're showing us now?
Cole Fazenbaker: Yes. The top table is what's proposed. The second one is the tax bill with the straw
votes that's been passed so far, basically. And the next table shows what the difference is between the
proposed and the straw votes. As you can see with the straw votes right now, the annual tax bill is now
988 as opposed to 994, which is an annual difference when average is $6.
Council Member Cummings: [Inaudible]
Cole Fazenbaker: 17.62. If you just want to look at just the half cent, is that what you would like to see?
I could do it right now.
Mayor Burk: You're not sure what you're doing right now.
Council Member Cummings: He's just changing [inaudible].
Cole Fazenbaker: Now you can see what the change was. The average tax bill went from $994 to
$966. The average tax bill went down $28 a year or $2 a month.
Mayor Burk: Okay. All right. Is there any additional -- that actually did not pass, that only had three
votes? That takes us then we are done with this part of the budget. Correct?
Clark Case: Good. I [unintelligible] out there.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Cole Fazenbaker: Then the only one we had was the Planning Commission --
Mayor Burk: We didn't accept that.
Cole Fazenbaker: You already said no. Okay. I missed that.
Clark Case: [inaudible]
Mayor Burk: We're done.
Council Member Cummings: No.
Mayor Burk: Okay.
Cole Fazenbaker: A point of clarification for the mobile command center is that the direction is just
included in the CIP as Federal dollars, and if we don't get that, we'll reevaluate at a later time.
Mayor Burk: Correct.
Clark Case: [unintelligible]
Mayor Burk: We're done for tonight. We will have a meeting in two weeks.
Kaj Dentler: No, we have a public hearing tomorrow night on the budget and then we'll have a final
work session on two weeks from now.
Mayor Burk: That's what I was trying to —
Kaj Dentler: Then your final votes will be on Tuesday, what's that? 26th, 27th.
Mayor Burk: Okay. The last thing we have for tonight is changing the start time of the Council format
session and the committee of the whole meeting. This was Mr. Cimino -Johnson, has suggested that
we change the time to six o'clock. Do you want to say anything to it, Mr. Cimino -Johnson?
Page 39 I March 13, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Yes, please vote for it. Thank you. No. No. Getting started late.
Just FYI, we'd be getting out at 8:30 right now if we started at six o'clock. I know some of us up here
have, not me, but have children and we have staff who have worked all day and staff members that
come in and sit. I would like to see us discuss and hopefully, evaluate starting, earlier than seven o'clock
for our meetings.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg, did you have anything you wanted to say?
Vice Mayor Steinberg: Yes. Personally, it doesn't affect me that much. I'm generally Downtown in my
office anyway, till 5:30. To be here at 6:00, for me is not that big a deal. I'm more concerned about how
it affects members of the public, who have to come in from the city or other commuting situations, deal
with getting families dinner and in bed or what have you. Then not being able to attend the meetings at
7:00, if we change it to 6:00. Without more data, I'd be reluctant to or at least more opinion, I'd be
reluctant to summarily just change it to 7:00 for the meetings.
Mayor Burk: All right. Ms. Nacy.
Council Member Nacy: Thank you. I definitely see why it would be advantageous to change it to 6:00,
but I echo what Vice Mayor was saying, and I would be personally affected as well, coming in from the
city to make it here. If you are hung up or you have a meeting that doesn't end until 5:00, or you just
have a job, somebody who has to stay until 5:00 and they don't have any other choice, getting here by
6:00 would be a miracle pretty much. Not just for myself, but obviously for other citizens who would
want to participate in the meeting, who are also commuting in. Even just thinking about potential future
Council Members, people out there who may want run and it affecting them too.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes. Thank you. Personally, I would love to keep it at seven night
[crosstalk] -
Mayor Burk: You wanted 7:00 AM.
Council Member Bagdasarian: -7:00 AM exactly. Then I'm not here. 7:00 AM. Our Town Manager
would probably appreciate that too, get things done early in the morning. One possible option. It is
important for the public to be able to participate in the meetings, in the Town Council meetings. One
possible option is to move the work sessions on Mondays to 6:00 and then keep the Council meetings
at 7:00 PM to keep it accessible to the public. That's an option I'll put on the table.
Mayor Burk: You still have individuals for whom that would be a struggle to get here at six o'clock. Just
keep that in mind. Mr. Cummings, anything?
Council Member Cummings: Did the Planning Commission attempt this at one point where they
moved their meetings to start at 6:00 p.m. versus 7:00 and then I think immediately went back to meeting
at 7:00 again, because it was hard for folks to get there. Kari was that on your watch?
Council Member Nacy: [inaudible].
Council Member Cummings: I thought I remember reading that somewhere, but I personally am fine
with 7:00 or 6:00, it really doesn't-- 7:00 a.m. sounds good too.
Mayor Burk: You have to make a decision.
Council Member Cummings: I'm like a flag, I'll go with the wind.
Mayor Burk: Great.
Council Member Nacy: I think [inaudible].
Mayor Burk: You've already spoken, did you want to say something else?
Page 40 1 March 13, 2023
Council Member Cimino -Johnson: Sure. I don't think it really would affect the public because we also
change the way our agenda is laid out to make sure all the items we discuss that aren't really relevant
to public discourse would fall first, and then we could have the more contentious items later on. I hear
what you're saying about individuals and Kari, I didn't know that you couldn't make it at 6:00. Sorry
about that. Thank you for considering.
Mayor Burk: The two things, most certainly the convenience of the Council Members now and in the
future, although they can change their meetings in the future is, I think that's a little problematic getting
people to run, if they think that they're not going to be able to come to the meeting. I think it's difficult,
but more so the public we want to make sure that we're open and friendly, that people know that they
can come to speak to us, that it's always consistent and at the same time would be my concern.
The final thing would be, by changing the agenda, we could conceivably have a 15 -minute section and
then not be able to do anything for 45 minutes, so we will be sitting here doing nothing. Those are my
concerns. Do we have four people that would be interested in changing the meeting time to six o'clock?
We keep moving it around, to six o'clock. Are there for people that would be-- That didn't pass. Two. It
did really bad. All right. Mr. Wilt, do you have anything for future meetings?
Council Member Wilt: I do not.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy, Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Cimino -Johnson? I have two things. One
is I have a request from our illustrious Interim Chief, that the week of April 9th to the 15th is National
Public Safety Telecommunications week. She has asked if we would put a proclamation forward on
that. Are there four people that would be willing to have that proclamation moved forward? That's
everybody. The other one, it's a recommendation from the Environmental Advisory Commission asking
for a proclamation on National Dark Skies Day? Now that doesn't work.
Unidentified Speaker: Initiative.
Mayor Burk: Initiative. All in favor of that indicate by saying, aye. Okay, that went all the way too. That's
all that I have. Is there a motion to adjourn?
Council Member Steinberg: So moved.
Mayor Burk: Moved by Mr. Steinberg, seconded by Mr. Bagdasarian. All in favor.
Council Members: Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed. All right. Moving forward.
Council Member Cummings: I got to figure out a way to eat dinner in front of the cameras before I
leave.
Mayor Burk: I know.
Page 41 1 March 13, 2023