Bedford Supervisors to review capital improvement plan; Charlottesville to get introduction to FY24 budget
The first of another week of newsletters previewing local government meetings in Virginia's Fifth District
Four meetings in this installment, finally out on a Sunday evening the way I hope. Two of the segments first originated on my other feed and two are original to this newsletter. There is a lot of diversity of political thought in the Fifth District. The intention is to have one central location to read about what’s happening at local governments.
“Reading material” will resume in the next installment which will be out tomorrow with segments on Amherst, Appomattox, Campbell, Danville, Goochland, and Nelson. Expect it tomorrow evening around the sunset.
Bedford County Supervisors to review Capital Improvement Program
Budget season means weekly Monday meetings for the seven members of the Bedford County Board of Supervisors. At this budget work session they will review the capital improvement program and take a look at the current revenue estimates for fiscal year 2024.
As part of the look at the CIP, they will review a list of completed projects that compares the original estimate as well as the final project cost. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a document covering Albemarle County or Charlottesville, or any other locality. Has any elected official in Albemarle or Charlottesville asked for such a list? What would be the response from staff?
In this case, a list of 29 projects had been estimated to cost $6,922,478.79 but actually came in at $6,618,215.74. That’s a savings of $304,263.05. For instance, an air chiller replacement had a budget estimate of $200,000 and came in at $182,660. Resurfacing of county-owned parking lots was budgeted $385K and the actual was $310K. Some projects did cost more, such as access control for the Sheriff’s office which were $6,000 over budget.
If you are unfamiliar with capital budgets, these look into the future to project infrastructure needs. This helps arrange financing mechanisms which primarily take the form of the sale of municipal bonds. When an elected body votes on the budget for the next fiscal year, that authorizes specific expenditures for that period of time. Bedford County anticipates spending $20,332,115.81 in the FY24 with a total-year CIP of nearly $56 million.
There are usually a wide variety of categories grouped by different government functions. Under general government for FY24, the Bedford budget anticipates $200,000 for “road projects supplemental reserve.” There’s $200,000 for a “YMCA Child Care” initiative. Under public safety, Bedford County anticipates $799,160.70 for the replacement of an ambulance. Under schools, there is a $2.5 million to the school’s capital fund. From the solid waste fund, there’s a $11.9 million appropriation to go toward closure of the landfill.
Halifax County supervisors to consider solar restrictions, employee health care costs
The eight-member Halifax County Board of Supervisors meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Mary Bethune Complex at 1050 Mary Bethune Street. (agenda)
There will be a public hearing on consideration of splitting the Midway Precinct into two separate precincts. This is to accommodate the new legislative maps for the General Assembly which place House District 49 and House District 50. This is a technical split as voters would still both cast ballots at the Midway Fire Department.
There will be presentations from the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, Danville Community College, and We the People Incorporated. The latter is a group concerned about solar installations in the area.
Then there will be a committee from the Solar Density Committee. They are recommending that no new solar facilities be allowed unless they are 2,000 feet away from a town boundary.
There are four pieces under new business:
A presentation on the six-year plan for secondary roads maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The public hearing will be on April 3.
A proposed resolution to join a second settlement over opioids. In all, Virginia is set to receive $425 million and Halifax will get $500,000 in payments over time.
The close-out of a project to upgrade the Courthouse will be considered. The total project cost nearly $21.9 million.
A resolution to consider a health plan for employees for 2023-2024. The renewal for another year with Anthem went up by 10 percent. If employees are not asked to chip anything in, the cost will be $135,000. If employees pay $11 a month, the cost to the county will be $117,500.
Transportation planning to take driver’s seat at Charlottesville City Council work session
The Charlottesville City Council will begin their day at 4 p.m. with a work session followed by a regular meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m. This will be the first regular meeting for City Councilor Leah Puryear who was appointed in February to a vacant seat. (meeting info)
Let’s assume for a second that you’re a brand new Councilor who may not have paid attention to every Council meeting. You’re coming to things with fresh eyes. As you go through today’s installment, think about what information you still need after writing this. After all, I’m writing this one up to add more context to the materials in the Council packet.
The 4 p.m. work session will focus on transportation planning in the city. Charlottesville maintains its own secondary road system and has staff to conduct planning work and to provide maintenance.
Over the last ten years, the city’s performance has not been stellar. The Belmont Bridge was delayed for several years. Several Smart Scale projects are behind schedule. Last year, the city returned millions to the Virginia Department of Transportation for two canceled projects, taking resources away from potential solutions on West Main Street and Preston Avenue.
But new leadership in the administration has finally realized the city had exceeded its capacity to deliver on projects. A transportation planning manager has been hired to help move the city’s forward.
“Looking at 2023 and beyond, the focus of transportation planning in the City will shift from responding to present-day concerns to more holistically aligning the City’s goals and objectives with future actions and projects,” writes Ben Chambers, the new transportation planning manager.
Chambers will provide updates on: the dockless mobility permit program that the city is negotiating for a requested expansion; an alternatives fuel study that Charlottesville Area Transit has been working on for the past year; the city’s participation in the federal funded Safe Streets 4 All regional study; prioritizing non-motorized projects; and transportation planning in Charlottesville moving forward.
Here are several questions that I will be looking for over the next few years:
When will the city deliver on an enhanced Stribling Avenue with drainage and sidewalks? This was a tacit condition of approval of a rezoning for 170 units on forested land. (September 30, 2022 story)
What funding role might the University of Virginia play for projects that support the higher-intensity uses they are building in the region? Examples that come to mind are the delayed Emmet Streetscape and the delayed Fontaine Avenue streetscape. Both roads connect major future projects such as the Biotechnology Institute and the many major buildings under construction at the Emmet-Ivy complex. How is this governed and how does anyone in the public know?
How will the city be able to respond to a growing call for new infrastructure to support an substantial increase in the number of housing units? All over the city, multifamily residential units will be built in areas where the city has never planned for them. One example that comes to mind is East High Street which could have 245 apartments on it. I wrote a Charlottesville Tomorrow article in May 2014 which took a look at the road’s deficiencies for pedestrians and cyclists. (Latest story on 0 East High Street)
The regular session begins at 6:30 p.m. with several proclamations and then appointments of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund committee. That’s the new group formed to recommend who gets the city’s resources for construction and continuation of below-market housing. There weren’t enough candidates to fill all of the positions in January. Now there are two candidates for the one at-large vacancy. (staff report)
One item on the consent agenda are the two pages of “minutes” for the three hour February 28, 2023 work session between the City Council and the Planning Commission on the first module of the zoning code. I will be writing a long account of that later in the week. But what do you think of these as minutes? The videos exist now, but will those resources be around in ten years when people look back at this generational shift in Charlottesville land use? What will the future know of us now? Do you think this is adequate? Do you care? (minutes)
Under action items:
Council will vote to approve redrawn precincts for the city. Around 40 percent of Charlottesville voters will cast their ballots somewhere different beginning with the June 20 primary. The public kickoff of this process began in January, as I wrote about. What appears missing from the staff report is any record of what comments were received. This document will also have to eventually be updated to reflect the new names of the elementary schools that have been renamed and will be renamed. Why not do that now? (staff report) (resolution)
Council will appropriate $175,000 from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund to purchase 8.6 acres of land in Albemarle County directly across Moores Creek from Azalea Park. The future Moores Creek Trail will not travel the southern side of that waterway, obviating the need for a bridge. (staff report)
The main item for this meeting will be the introduction of both the city’s budget for FY24 and the School Board’s $107,128,647 budget for Fiscal Year 2024. There is not a direct link to the School Board budget itself, but there is one to a 15-page presentation.
It used to be practice in Charlottesville for the City Manager to speak with reporters as soon as the FY24 budget was published to answer questions to help us tell the story of what’s in the budget. There’s no communications director now to organize that sort of thing, and I didn’t ask like I used to every week. But, there have been many, many meetings that I’ve reported on that get us to this point. My most recent story is from February 8 and explains that Council is not going to raise the real property tax rate this year. (all city budget stories)
The actual draft budget does not appear to be available online, so I’ll wait to write about the details another day. Take a look at the city’s budget page.
Louisa Supervisors to get update from Dominion on Lake Anna power station
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors will begin their day with a 4 p.m work session on the budget. There’s nothing published for this meeting, but if you want details on the budget picture so far, I suspect you might find that on Tammy Purcell’s Engage Louisa. It’s on Substack, which has a great app for the many publications posted on that platform. (download the app)
The regular session begins at 6 p.m. after closed session.
There will be presentations from the Louisa Arts Center, the Commission on Aging, and the regional Hazard Mitigation Plan that’s been put together by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Supervisors were also briefed on that plan in July 2022 as I wrote about at the time. The meeting packet includes several examples of mitigation specific to Louisa County (page 38).
Under new business, there will be a resolution to request that the Virginia Department of Transportation begin a project to address “Needs Associated with the Bridge on Hamilton Road Over the South Anna River.”
“The route includes a bridge over the South Anna River which requires attention to address its ability to handle vehicular traffic, as the bridge is insufficiently rated to carry necessary emergency vehicles and other heavier loads,” reads the resolution.
(image) A section of the State of the Station report from Dominion Energy (page 173)
There are three items under public hearings.
One is a discussion on the State of the Station from Dominion Energy on their Lake Anna power station. (page 173)
The second is a rezoning request from the Mercerville Land Trust for 33 acres of land from A-1 to R-2 for the creation of 13 single-family residential lots near Lake Anna but not directly on the waterway. (page 195)
The third is a request from Zion Town Center LLC for additional units at a multifamily mixed-use project at Zion Crossroads to the south of the Walmart Distribution Center. This project was previously rezoned in the summer of 2019 but now the Stony Point Development Group wants to go from 599 residential units to 723 units. (page 219)