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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 11Page 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. Page 2 I March 13, 2023 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