Good evening. We'll bring this July 16th, 2024 meeting of the Ascent Town Council to order. And I'm going to surprise my peers in say for a moment of silence, I would suggest that we have a moment of silence. And just it's hot. You know, people are tired and we have a rather light agenda so I'll not talk as much. So please join me in a moment of silence and just reflect as you feel that. Thank you. All right, thank you. Miss Opal, would you lead us in the place of lead? Please. Yes. Could everyone stand us please? Yes. Would everyone stand please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll take a look at the agenda that we have before tonight. We have our consent agenda which includes our minutes of the July 2nd, 2024 town council meeting. We have invoices. We have a resolution of support for smart scale round six applications. Then we have our citizen input time, opportunity for any citizen to come forward, speak to council on a matter. In our action agenda, we have three items, contract for Gateway Public Art Project, brought to us by Ms. Miller, purchase of Campbell property, brought by Mr. Farrell, and the third one, Federal Funding Support Letter for Habitat for Humanity, also, also, Mr. Farrell. For our reports tonight, we have the Planning Department, Ms. Amos Finance Department, Ms. Stone, Police Department, Chief Aaron Holt, and then Community Engagement, Miss Miller. Is there a consensus for the agenda is presented? Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. And now I'll allow our clerk to take care of a matter of business. Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3708.2 subsection A. Vice Mayor Hodges notified the mayor and the town manager and the clerk yesterday that he would not be able to attend tonight's meeting in person and would like to participate by electronic means remotely. Through the power of technology, vice mayor Hodges will be joining us from his home in Ashland tonight due to a medical necessity. The remote participation meets the requirements of council policy COU 114, electronic participation in council meetings. However, the Virginia Code still requires those physically present to confirm that through a vote. So I would ask, is there a motion to confirm that this request is within Council Policy, COU 114 and should be approved? So moved. A second. Miss Opal. Hi. Dr. So moved. A second. Miss Soapall. Hi. Dr. Soapall. Hi. Hello. Miss Barnhart. Hi. Mayor Trevatton. Hi. Thank you. All right. Welcome, Vice Mayor Hodges. Thank you for being with us. Hi. Thank you all for your support. Yes sir. All right. On our consent agenda, as I said, we have our minutes from July 2nd meeting. We have invoices. Resolution of support for Smart Scale, Round 6, applications. I'm going to look to our town manager and say, just want to give a little bit of background for folks that might be curious about that. Sure. At the very basic level, SmartSkill is a state funding program for transportation projects. The ones submitted by the town are largely a balance of priorities for the town that we want accomplish that may be out of our ability to fund locally, but also we work very heavily with Plan RVA and the Richmond Region Transportation Planning Organization to understand what projects may have the likelihood of scoring the highest. We try not to do a lot of work submitting applications where we know we're not going to get funding for. And so these two that are in here are a balance of those two being on our transportation plan, as well as having an opportunity for funding that we see as positive. Right. And right now, there's a lot of funding that we see as positive. Right. Right now. Right. Don't have it in front of you. I want to read them off. Yeah. Those two are as route one and ash cake that intersection. Mm-hmm. And also I 95 and route 54 the possibility of a future new interchange. Yes. So all right. So that's an explanation on that resolution. Are there any other questions concerning the consent agenda or is there a motion? Mr. Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented and pay the bills. I second Miss Opal. I vice mayor Hodges. I Dr. McGraw I this barnheart I Barnhart, Mayor Trevett. All right, well done. All right, that brings us to the citizen input time and would invite anyone who would like to come forward, speak to council to come forward. Then if I yourself, by name and address, if you would. Welcome. Hi, my name is Rachel Levy. I prefer not to give my address. Can I submit my address? You can share that with the clerk. Okay. But I do live in the town of Ashland. And I, you know, I checked your public comment policy. My, I'm going to fully disclose my statement is between five and 10 minutes. And if that's too long, I can abbreviate it and submit the whole thing. We don't see a crowd here tonight, so. All right, and did I leave off any information for you? I don't believe so. Okay. All right, well good evening, Mr. Farar, Mr. Mayor and members of the Ashland Town Council. My name is Rachel Levy. I am a long time resident of the town ofland, along with my husband and three kids. My husband and I attended the community meeting about the Iron Horse Business Park Development proposal on June 3rd at the Ashland Theater. And I then viewed the presentation and the discussion about data centers that this body held at your regular meeting on Tuesday, June 4th. And I am here this evening to speak with you about this proposal and about data centers more generally. First of all, I know many of you up here on the dias well and I know that you are all dedicated public servants who want what's best for our town and our greater community. Likewise, I care deeply about our town and our greater community in region. As someone who spent 2021, 2022, and 2023 running for office, many of you know I'm a two time candidate for the Virginia House of delegates in this area and that I was a senior level staffer for a congressional campaign in the first district of Virginia in 2022, land use, and in particular data centers is an issue that I studied and know very well. And the people of Hanover, Caroline, Louisa, and Henrico counties where I ran are all navigating the establishment of data centers. In fact, the issue is coming up across localities in Virginia, as I also discovered in my recent role as interim executive director of an organization called New Rural Virginia. So I did find myself scratching my head a little bit after watching the June 4th meeting and wondering if we were at the same meeting on June 3d. Because what some of you seem to have heard and taken away from that was very different from what I heard and frankly said and what I took away from that meeting. And in light of all of the above, I will outline some thoughts and concerns that I have. So I heard the term low impact being used as in data centers have low impact. And I disagree, they do not have a low impact, they have a different impact. Noise and traffic are a concern, especially if you consider how much noise, traffic, and other pollution happen when these mammoth data centers are being built, but they are hardly the only concern, nor would they make the biggest impact. Data centers use an incredible amount of water and energy, even if they are more efficient now and use less water, that is achieved by increased energy use. So the water usage decreases, but the energy use increases and with greater water usage comes less energy usage. So higher energy usage means more electricity usage, which means higher rates for citizens to energy monopoly such as dominion depending on what part of Virginia you live in. Another factor that is often left out of discussions about data centers are the transmission lines that may need to be built to connect the data centers to the power plants. I believe that the Piedmont Environmental Council houses a map with all of the data centers planned across the state and the projected transmission lines needed. Furthermore, with the need for transmission lines, eminent domain claims will likely follow. I heard it said that the developers and elected officials on other governing bodies, such as boards of supervisors and other localities, are not that concerned about data centers and are pretty happy with them. But there's actually been several changes in policy and approach just recently in localities that already have data centers. And during the past year, there has been a lot of activity on data center reform in the general assembly. This reflects the facts that citizens and grassroots environmental groups are not happy with the proliferation of data centers in their communities. In northern Virginia, citizens are very concerned, often telling citizens in localities like ours to take heed and to do more due diligence than they did a number of years ago. As you may know, Virginia is the data center capital of the world. We have more data centers than any other political jurisdiction. Loud and in Prince William counties have the largest concentration of data centers in Virginia, serving as ground zero for how to do data center planning and building right and wrong. I recently heard Virginia House delegate Josh Thomas speak. He represents that area. And from his mouth, most of delegate Thomas's constituents have said their local and state government have not gotten data center development right. I heard it mentioned that technology is just getting better and better, which would minimize the impacts of data centers. However, there's no real evidence or any plan for this to actually happen. And in any case, technological advancement is not magical, it's not without downsides, it has trade-offs. Artificial intelligence, otherwise known as AI, is the reason there is so much increased need for data centers. And this is a perfect example of this. There are no guardrails right now on AI and there need to be. And AI should be treated like a precious resource and it is not. And what fuels AI is our precious resources. Speaking of which, to me, what's happening with data centers in Virginia right now is akin to a gold rush. Only it seems that the data center companies and developers have convinced elected officials that the data centers are the gold. They are not. Our land and our natural resources are the gold. This needs to be your mindset when you negotiate on citizens' behalf. needs to be your mindset when you negotiate on citizens' behalf. There can be a fine line between economic development and economic exploitation. First of all, overall the number of jobs data centers brings are relatively low. Many are not high-paying and many can be done remotely, so it might not even mean jobs for our area residents. Second, I don't trust the revenues forecast that are being promised. At the June 3rd meeting, a representative of the Iron Horse Project said that Loudoun County hadn't raised taxes in many years. Loudoun already has much higher taxes, especially property taxes, than we do, and they have other sources of revenues that we don't have here. Furthermore, they've had a ton of housing development and their property assessments have gone way up. So that has all contributed to their property tax rate not increasing, not just the data center revenue. And then speaking of taxes, there's a lot of promises of enormous tax revenues, but these are projections, their speculation, and this is all supposed to come after localities grant steep tax breaks to these data center companies and developers. And these are tax breaks to these data center companies and developers. And these are tax breaks that they don't need. These companies don't need these. And down the line, we the tax and rate payers will be on the hook for funding the energy needed to power the data centers. Please remember, they need us and our resources more than we need them and we should act like it. Speaking of down the line, what happens when the data centers are defunct? These are gigantic colossal buildings with a huge footprint, with other types of development, housing, retail, offices, businesses, residents, residencies and businesses and institutions can come and go. This is not as fluid with a data center. Data centers are built for one thing and one thing only. So in some I'm not saying to say no to this project or say no to data centers for the town or for the county. I am saying approach these cases with more skepticism, more critical minds and thinking and learn from and ask questions of those who already have them and who have studied them, such as citizen groups in Northern Virginia and the Piedmont Environmental Council. Keep your eyes on behalf of us, the citizens, wide open and demand and negotiate the best possible deal for us in our town, because we and our resources are worth it, and the data center developers know that. So thank you so much for your time and consideration. I can give you, I have a few copies of this. I can also email it to you if that would be easier. I'll do both. There's a few typos I can see. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's just coming to me. I'll make sure I get it. Thank you. All right. I see one more citizen. I'll give you opportunity if you'd like to say anything it's citizen time for Okay, all right. Thank you. All right. We'll we'll move on to our first action item contract for the Gateway Public Art Project Miss Miller Good evening. Good evening. Nice to see you all. Connect here. Alrighty. I just have a few slides with some visuals, but I'm just thrilled to bring this to you all tonight for your consideration. This has been a lengthy and I think very well done process with our Public Art Commission. And so I bring this to you on their behalf. And this is for the Gateway Public Artwork Project. So just a quick overview of that project. It was approved on July 1st, the final design by our public art commission with a vote of 4 to 0. We had one member missing at that meeting. And the artist selected was Harry McDaniel. He's a sculptor based out of Asheville, North Carolina. And his final design happened after multiple revisions, kind of back and forth with the art commission, which was a great process as well as putting those out there for public input as well. The contracted amount I bring before you is for 61,700. That is for the sculpture only. As a reminder, those funds are about 30,000 half of ARPA dollars, which have been flagged for public art, as well as 30,000 from the Capital Projects Fund for Public Art. The timeline from execution of the contract to fabrication and installation is about one year. So we have in the contract estimated time of arrival of August 2025. There's a lot of work to do on his end, but we also have some site work to do here locally. So that's hence the timeline. And then just to clarify again, this is a little bit of a change from the original RFP that went out, that the town is going to coordinate all the site work and the pedestal construction to the artist's specifications. But since he's out of state, figured it would make the most sense for the town and our engineering department to kind of work with our on-call contractors who are familiar with town code to execute that and kind of do it simultaneously while Mr. McDaniel is fabricating the sculpture in down a North Carolina. And once it's finished, then he will bring it here and install it on the pedestal himself. So I wanted to just walk through a couple visuals to give you all an idea. Again, these are renderings created by the artist, Mr. McDaniel, of the final concept design. The sidewalks, of course, will be relocated to go around the pedestals, as you will see here. And again, you'll see in the next couple of slides, the main consideration in approving this design over others is that this one just had a much grander scale than any of the other designs presented and $60,000 while is a great budget for a public art project and the commission is incredibly excited about that, it is not a huge budget for a large art way. So the feeling was that this really capitalized by giving the illusion of it going over without having to extend the materials completely over. So you will see that this is England Street Route 54 where the 25 mile per hour sign there that is the Wawa side and then on the other side that is where the tobacco hut property is. This is the site plan that is being prepared, kind of giving you an overview by Timons. So as you can see, I've labeled the two entrances to the businesses. This is on the tobacco hut side of the street. And then that square there, let me see if my mouse will show up. I don't think yeah, there it is. This is where the concrete pad would likely go for the pedestal to be mounted on, and then the sidewalk would be moved around that to come around it, and so that it would allow that kind of a nice visual, which would actually, I think in talking with the artist, actually increase the visual presence even more so of it as you have that kind of landscaping around. This is the other side of the street, the overview. The Wawa entrance is actually a little bit even farther up. It's not even on the site plan here, but you see the concrete pad here. And so just to for clarity, the design, visibility was a concern, obviously, of vehicles turning in and out. That was also another disqualifying factor from the other designs and a strength of this one, which I'll be a little bit clearer in the detailed picture. So here you can see kind of the artists thinking about the arc and the ellipsis. It does a gittin and give that kind of illusion. This also gives you an idea of kind of the scale next to a standard vehicle or a pedestrian. And then finally this is a detailed image. One of the revisions that we were happy that Mr. McDaniel was very open to and then actually even became very excited about was changing the original pedestal design. He had the design kind of just on a regular concrete pad. We, in talking with the Public Art Commission, there was a lot of interest in adding some signage to root it in place. And then there was a suggestion of using some of the recycled bricks from the town train station platform. And it really does give that kind of historic nod tying it with the more forward looking abstract sculpture. And so he was happy to take that edit and add that in there, which I think was a great addition to this as well. One thing that is not visible in these images is the lighting proposal, which actually is probably the most exciting part, but hard to represent in these visuals. The plan is that he will be using commercial grade but very small, almost like Christmas lights, which will be embedded inside the fabricated steel with more light concentrated at the top and then kind of dispersing as it comes down to give kind of the illusion of almost a constellation or an asteroid or getting at that kind of center of the universe. And he actually brought, I'll look on the last slide, you can see in this, he brought it to not to scale obviously, but a model of kind of, this is not what the finished product will look like. He did a lot of different examples of treatments he could do on the metal. Different ways the lights could be displayed so that the Public Art Commission and the members of the public that were present could kind of get up close and touch and see it. And there was just a lot of excitement about the possibilities of kind of having this beacon coming in that is still dark sky compliant, right? So he's already in conversation with Clayton on our zoning team in Nora to make sure that it kind of goes with all our town code but kind of creates this very different and unique, very Ashland thing. So without any belaboring the point anymore, I'm happy to answer questions. You'll see in the staff report for this, the contract is attached, which has been reviewed by our legal council. It is based on the model contract for public art from Americans for the arts, which is kind of the benchmark standard, as well as reviewed to make sure it's in compliance with kind of existing town contracts. And my recommendation is that town council approve the contract with Mr. McDaniel is presented and instruct staff to proceed with executing that contract. And with that I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Right, any questions? I just want to say thank you for explaining the sidewalks because I was wondering how that was going to work and now I understand. Are you sure? You're welcome. Anyone else? No questions. Well, you're the liaison to the committee. I think I see a hand raised. Oh, Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor. I know you'd be disappointed if I didn't say something. For sure. I just wanted to commend the work of the Arts Commission and Council Member Barnhart as well as the creator, Harry McDaniel. I think the great way sculpture is innovative, created with flair in a way we want the town to be represented. I had questions about what additional costs besides the contract that we're considering tonight. I hadn't had an opportunity or I hadn't asked as Miller the question, but as I understand it, it's in addition, the town's responsibility for the sidewalk work as well as the installation foundation, engineering work and the total project cost. I don't know if there was an estimate ballpark in that area to the town. That was my question. Sure, we don't have an overall estimate for the remaining site work, but the budget available, we're going to, in speaking with Mr. Farah, we do have funding available in the Downtown Street Scape Fund up to $75,000 to go towards any site work that needs to happen. And some of that has already actually been commissioned and paid for like the original the initial site plan that you see here that has already been done and paid for so that's not including the 75,000 that we have available. So funds are budgeted and appreciate the response. Thank you. Thank you. Well I too am just going to echo what Vice Mayor said. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, I too. I'm just going to echo what Vice Mayor said. Thank you so much, because I know it's been a lot of work. We greatly appreciate that. And the art commission, they were very thorough, very excited. They asked great questions. They wanted to make sure that the first piece of art that we put in our downtown area was going to be something very interesting and fun and exciting and I think they've picked one and again I'll thank you to all the applicants as well. So I would like to move to approve the contract with Mr. Harry McDaniels in the amount of $61,700 and instruct a staff to proceed with the contract pardon me with the contract. Thank you Second me with the contract. Thank you. Second. Miss Opal. I. Dr. McGraw. I. Vice Mayor Hodges. Hi. Miss Barnhart. Hi. Here's your vet. Hi. All right. Thank you very much. We'll move to the next action item here. the purchase of Campbell property, Mr. Fair. Yes, and as the presentation comes up, I'll give you a little bit of a verbal update. This is to purchase a very small piece of land just to our south and probably south largely in downtown. And it's not all that exciting because it's a drive aisle, but we'll go through the presentation and explain it all to you and the importance to the town. So we were presented with a unique opportunity to purchase a small piece of property directly adjacent to the town municipal lot. That would be the one with the permeable pavers on the other side of Hanover Ave for those watching. We'll have a map here in a few slides that will make that a little bit clearer as well. It's currently being used for ingress and regress to our parking lot as well as the current property owners private business in town. As we discussed it with the current owner, Mr. Campbell, we were able to find a mutually agreeable price of $60,000. The importance to the town, you might say, why would we do this when it's already a dry-vile, is we have drainage infrastructure under that particular drive-ile that we do not own and do not have an easement to maintain. So that limits us a little bit and then this is also a little bit of future proofing in that if we were not to purchase this property I wouldn't say Mr. Campbell would ever do this but future property owners of that could go and install ballards that would present prevent us from accessing our parking lot or even if they didn't install ballards they could tear down his building build something up that doesn't have a lot line setbacks because it's in downtown and then we wouldn't have access to that parking lot. And so while not the most exciting property purchase there are some logistical reason that it's worth us to have that. The good news is we do have funds available from the American Rescue Plan act to purchase this property. The fortunate part of this is that we are all, once we do execute this purchase, we will do permeable papers in the drive aisle as well to match the rest of the parking lot, which means we can do this as a stormwater project or in stormwater credits while also gaining access to that underground drainage infrastructure and maintaining access to the town property going forward. So, do a few visuals. I hope they will help understand this. I'm going to do this way. So this is an area that may not be all that helpful, but over here is Town Hall. This is Hanover Avenue, municipal parking lot that's pavers. This one is actually now pavers as well. This is an older photo. The part so that we are talking about is this drive aisle right around there. That's all we're really talking about. It does not include the parking spaces. Those are going to remain with this building here. So as we move forward we'll do a little bit more visual. This is the current property ownership makeup. Yellow is town of Asher, and that's our municipal lots. And all the building property, there's one parcel here of this part of the dry vile, and then the other part of the dry vile are all owned by Mr. Hugh Campbell. And so we were able to work with one property owner to move forward. So this is existing conditions as we move forward. Here is the possible purchase we are looking at. We would be looking to purchase this property as part of the dry vial, and then also this other part of the orange property as a dry vial. There is one, nothing can be easy, so there's a little bit of a step we have to take. Mr. Campbell, who owns this building, his utilities in HVAC is right on this piece of property and he really doesn't have room to put it on the building. And so prior to, if you were to agree to purchase this property on the August 6th meeting, we will bring you a boundary line adjustment so we can create a scenario like this where we shave off that little triangle from this parcel and add it back to his parcel So he'll be left whole have his building have his parking spots and his HVAC units We will be able to have the drive aisle and have access to our property and then finally the last piece of this is that we're also Finally, the last piece of this is that we're also asking you to approve easements for this property. So, the easements would be reciprocal in that we would offer Mr. Campbell access easement through our drive aisle so he can still access his parking spaces. And then we would get a drainage easement to manage this underground drainage infrastructure that you can see actually still goes under his property But is in our drive aisle as well And so it's a little bit of a both a purchase as well as the improvement of a reciprocal easement as well and so that would be the end End of arrangement once the Lotline adjustment is made is all of this would then be town owned Mr. Campbell would have his building and his little piece for his age back unit as well. And with that, I am happy to answer any questions you may have whether that be about the purchase agreement, the easement, the pictures I've shown or anything. And I see Mr. Paul has some questions. I do. Can you go back to the part before shaved off? This here? No. The one or that one. Okay, so hit the property that's being purchased comes in, you know, right there, comes in right there and then it goes all the way around. Then you're gonna shave off the part so he can have access to what he needs access to. Is that shaving off anything on the price? We negotiated knowing that that would be part of the deal. So this price is inclusive of that. Oh, OK. Thanks. Anyone else? Well, just for comment, this has been a long time coming, right? Because we've been talking about how to get access to that for several years. We've had concerns about the drainage, most definitely. I just know, because I remember this coming up at times, it not purchasing it, but trying to get access to it. And we couldn't find a good answer. And I appreciate you giving the explanation of what is the benefit, because I was a question I had for you on Monday. And I think you made a clear explanation for it. But I just want the public to know, this isn't like one day you were having like a drink with somebody that said, hey, let's go purchase some property for the sake of getting access. I just, I don't want to belabor it because it felt like you gave a great enough presentation. So thank you. Thank you. No, I appreciate the question. Square footage wise, you're looking to say, how many square feet are we buying for $6,000 or $7,000? And it's sort of like we're purchasing more than the property. We're purchasing access and confidence in the futarity of our ability to continue to access our municipal parking lot. Sure, there are certainly other goals other than price, but we did evaluate a per acre price, did some comparables of other property that we purchased. The building right behind us was an example that was used. We went back to 2009 and looked when we bought the actual municipal parking lot from the McKinney's. And so we did some comparisons. Obviously prices have only been going up. So we were slightly above what that probably would have been, but by this time, by the time we make the purchase, I bet it probably is a very accurate, per acre price. All right. Any other questions? If not, motion. Thank you. Oh, Mr. Vice Mayor. No, he was shaking. Did you have any questions? Remarkably, I have no questions. Okay. Okay. Well, Mr. Mayor, I move for approval of the resolution to authorize the town manager to execute a purchase agreement for the subject property in the amount of $60,000 and authorize up to $10,000 additional funds for associated acquisition and closing cost as amended. We're not as presented sorry. A second. It's born hard. I. The so-called. I. Vice Mayor Barnhart. I. The Soap Hall. I. Vice Mayor Hodges. I. I. To McGraw. I. Archbeth. I. All right. Thank y'all. Move to the next and last action item. Federal funding support letter for habitat for humanity. This is an item that we don't necessarily need to have this on our public agenda, but we're doing this with intention because we want to provide support for and you'll hear with the explanation, support for Hanover Habitat, Hanover King William Habitat. But it's beyond looking out for one organization because this is a national issue. And so it's more about being advocates for affordable housing that makes us want to do this in a more public form. And we would invite anyone from the public if you have more questions afterward. You certainly can have opportunity to check with the town or speak with the King, hand over King William habitat to find out more information and how you might advocate in the same way that the town is discussing today. Yeah, no. You did a very good presentation, Mr. Mayor, but I'll double down on a lot of that. Yes. Our local representatives of King William, Hannah Verhabitat, Mr. Renee Robinson, made us aware of a federal funding program that did not end up in a bill that they'd hoped it would be. And it's a long time program that they use to fund the mortgages for a lot of these homes that they build. And you are 100% correct. This is not a thing that we would normally bring to town council that would necessitate a council vote or action, but knowing the importance of habitat to so many on this board wanted to bring it to you. Not only is an opportunity to share it with the public, but for you to voice your support for habitat and the funding and the programming. And just as you did, provide a little bit of an opportunity to enhance public awareness of the concern and the impact it may have on affordable housing in not only the state, but the country as this program is not funded fully. So the letter, you can see the details there. We would send the exact same letter to Senator Scane in Warner as well. This was not drafted by town staff. This was assisted to be drafted by Hannover Habitat and King William, so we know it says exactly what their organization wanted to say to make sure we make the points that are important to them and the importance of the funding. But largely we just wanted to tee that up for you for discussion, for any support you want to offer for the program funding, and any call to action you want to make to your citizens. Okay, well, I know in my pack that I have that is going to Congressman Whitman, Senators Kane and Warner. It's just not showing and I just want the people at home to know is definitely going to all three. Yep. You know, I said, you know, we don't have a very media agenda, but at the same time, I don't want to add to it. But I think it's worthwhile to read the letter. Okay. Would you like me to do that? Yes. I'm happy to. If you wouldn't, I think it provides a little bit more background. Sure. As to how abrupt it is from a financial point of view for habitat in other organizations as well using these funds and all of a sudden the spiket is turned off as you're drinking the water. Oh, certainly. Yes. And so as Mr. Paul said, this will be addressed to both Congressman Whitman as well as senators Warner and King. As members of the Ashland Town Council, we are writing to advocate for additional funding for the USDA Rural Development Single Family Housing Section 502 Direct Alone Program. Affordable Home Ownership brings numerous benefits to families including a sense of pride, community, connection, stability, and the potential to build equity and generational wealth. However, recent developments threaten the progress of affordable home ownership options. Hanover and King William Habitat for Humanity has been utilizing the USDA World Development Single Family Housing Section 502 Direct Loan Program to help low and very low income households purchase affordable, safe, and decent housing in our community. Unfortunately, the FY24 Consolid consolidated Appropriations Act has significantly reduced funding for USDA single-family housing programs, leading to a halt in many affordable mortgages across the nation. In Ashland, Habitat Star Development has three homes awaiting full funding. Originally Habitat anticipated $540,000 in mortgage funding from the USDA, which is now unavailable, threatening Habitat's ability to complete the remaining homes in the start development and future developments. Habitat for Humanity plays a crucial role in our community. Without the USDA RD502 program, many low income and very low income community members will miss the opportunity to own a home. Lady to continued unsafe, substantive and overcrowded living conditions. We respectfully request your support and restoring funding to the USDA RD502 Program to 2020-23 levels, ensuring economic stimulation and bright futures for local families. Thank you for your attention and this critical matter sincerely. And then we have Mayor Steve Trevet on behalf of the Ashlandtown Council, consisting of Vice Mayor John Hodges, Councilmember Dr. Damagraw, Councilmember Anita Barnhart, and Councilmember Pam Sofall. All right, thank you for reading that. And again, we can invite the public. They can duplicate such a letter for themselves as well. All right. Any mayor? Yes sir. I did want to make a comment to add. I appreciate very much reading of the letter to provide the details that really is an impact, particularly on the town, because it affects three out of the five houses that are supposed to go into the star project. And I did want to point out with the public that I would urge those able to support habitats efforts to raise funds, you know, half a million dollars is a big hit to a small nonprofit like habitat. This Thursday at four o'clock at Arlington and South Taylor Street, there will be groundbreaking for two homes. To me, that's a great act of faith by that nonprofit, faith-based nonprofit, to go ahead with those two building permits. I would recommend Council and the public. At 10, it'll be a joyous experience and also be the last official act by Renee Robinson, Habitat's exceptional executive director who is sadly leaving for a new position. So I just wanted to point that out to the council and public. Thank you and public. Thank you and welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Mr. Mayor, I'll fill in one of the vice mayor's roles. The star neighborhood is South Taylor, Arlington, and Randolph. It's a time we use for that neighborhood. Thank you very much for that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. All right. Is there a motion? Well Well before a motion I just want to add to the report because we have always advocated for affordable living here and Habitat has consistently been one of the few groups that helps make that happen in our town so I definitely want to give my full support so I just wanted to mention that. And with that I'm'm really to make a motion unless Ms. Barnhart would like to make a motion. No, go ahead. Okay. I moved to authorize the town manager to send a letter as presented to federal legislators requesting funding support for Hanover King William Habitat for Humanity on behalf of the Ashland Town Council. I second. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Ms. Soapall. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mayor Trevett. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. We have taken care of our action items moving on to reports. Now, I see the first one says planning department. Miss Amos. Didn't we hear from her last time? We did hear from her last time but that was a back-up report so we will hear from her at the next one. Okay. Let's look at that. All right and the next one it says, Miss Stone. That's going to be me tonight. Okay. All right. Miss Stone unfortunately has a medical procedure she needs to undergo so I'm gonna fill in as best I can All right, we thank you. Yes, what's her and what you have well the finance report in front of you this evening You can see our invested funds still healthy balances beginning of the fiscal year with meals and lodging in our strong period That's usually the case so we're doing very well there from an office Work product perspective, the big, two big things are largely continued implementation of our new accounting software. We have successfully implemented the payroll function and so that we are operating with that relatively successfully, still a few kinks to work out, but that is live. We are currently working on the business license implementation, which is going to be not only business license, but all our meals lodging, non-property taxes. And so that will get done over probably the next six months or so. And then final one will be those property tax modules that we're working on. I'm a little bit of a broken record, but I will continue to say that transition is practically a full-time job. So all the kudos in the world to Miss Stone for not only getting us through that, but also managing a very successful finance department because in addition to software implementation, it's audit season. And so we are doing end of year clothes, trying to get all the books in order to make sure that the auditors have everything that they need when August comes around and they come and do final field work. And then remaining in the report, we have our tax histories. You'll see this particular month. Meals and lodging are below FY 23 levels, but still largely at highs relative to prior years when you compare past years. Beyond that, sales this month though did absolutely remarkably well. And so that again is one that we get a piece of the whole handover pie isn't directly related to what Ashland generates in sales tax. So we are still in very good condition. I am very optimistic that our end of fiscal year will have expenditures under budget and revenues well above budget, which will be put us in a good position to maybe either add to our unreserved fund balance or at least limit the amount we expected to take out of our fund balance in the budget. And so with that, I will do my best to answer any questions you may have. All right. Anyone? Well, I was going to ask about the meals tax, but you seem not concerned because I'm seeing two months in a row that we're seeing a decline and I'm concerned a third-month might shell us a trend and I've got our art clerk Wanda Jones is kind of looking through trying to see if there's one player who's down or if it's a townwide thing or it's a root 54 section thing trying to understand where that downturn has has let us yeah and I'm happy with the hotel revenue because overall it's been it's it's exceeded expectations but this is the first time we've seen it down, yep, Michael. That one doesn't concern me as much as the meals tax because I feel like, I don't know, just, yeah, we've only been opening new restaurants, it's gonna be going down, right? Right, right. Okay, but we will look at that for you, sir. Thanks. Yeah, we appreciate that. All right. Nothing else in finance? We'll move on to the police department. Chief Rannold. Mr. Mayor, members of town council. In your packet of evening, you have the Asham Police Department multi-report for June. I'm happy to report when compared with last year in June we did have a decrease in part one crimes. However we still do have an increase over last year. On the stills attributed large part to the increase aggravated assaults as well as we've also had an audit and auto theft which I'm sure you've been watching in the news is kind of a regional problem that we're having. There you go. We've noticed that there's been a regional trend in auto theft, which has been covered by the news recently. So this is a problem that's not just plaguing Ashland, but the area in general. We have seen this year a decrease in accidents, although we did have a slight increase in June when compared with last June of last year. We still experiencing backups on the state 95 that is spilling onto the roadway. So imagine this trend is going to continue, but we are placing officers in strategic locations. We'll still focus on James Town Road as those that neighborhood is experiencing an influx of traffic when they're state 95 backs up. I am happy to report that we had some successful investigations last month, one of which involved the firearm, which was discharged at a local motel. On the investigators were able to determine a suspect and we executed a search warrant and we found out where it worked on his vehicle and were able to recover the firearm that we thought was used in that crime. So we're submitting that to lab for analysis as well as the ammunition to verify that. The subject was arrested on multiple felonies which included use of firearm in the commission of felony and shooting into an occupied dwelling. Also, as I've reported in the last previous meetings, we've had a significant trend with thefts from unlocked vehicles. On the investigators using technology that we've purchased, we're able to secure an arrest of one individual and three of those larcing some vehicles that led to 18 arrest warrants. Because the individual had stolen credit cards from those vehicles, he used those, so we charged them not only with the thefts from the vehicles, but also with the fraudulent use of the credit card as well. So investigations that are very busy, and I'm proud of the efforts they put put into that. Also some highlights from last month. We've been able to with the some of the new staff basically bring back the bike program. Sergeant Agner and also chip Watts have been on the bike. I don't know if anybody has seen them but they have definitely been out there. Chip has adjusted his schedule and has been riding with Adams the two-man unit. So as we increase our manpower and we have the availability will continue to increase our presence in that program as well. We also had a very successful strawberry fair and we partook in the June 10th program. We have a really good relationship with Ms. Hunter Jordan and appreciate that. So we were able to come out and had a good time with us. Our members of council as well as many members of the police department. Also we participate in the RMC freshman orientation and I'm happy to report that we with the allocation of all the new officers that you provided We do need to buy new equipment so we did I've told you in the past we attempted to get a $10,000 grant found out from DCGS We were awarded that so we will be buying new tasers for the new officers with that money as well Upcoming on August 6th we'll be getting you the itinerary, but it is national night out. We will get that to you. So I look forward to spending time with you all. We are going to partner with the colonists again as well as the Asham Foundation to put on an event at Puffer Belly Park. It was very successful. We did run out of hot dogs, so we will increase that. So we'll have Kona ice again and be putting that event on also we will stall so I have the event with the Masonic lodge which they have the best party in town and also such fields so there may be some other events that come in but those are three that we know of right now so we're looking forward to that. And finally to conclude my presentation I'm happy to say in hiring we currently right now have 23 swarm positions. Those are the folks that are actually out there handling calls. So I say this that we are increased gun numbers, but we still have stressors put on our existing staff. But we do have five people that are in the Academy or in orientation. So that will bring us up to 28 and I hope to extend another officer to offer to another person which is becoming a police officer which will bring us up to 29 so we are steadily making positive progress and look forward to telling you when we get to 30 which won't be in too long I hope so with that I'll be happy to answer any questions. All right questions anyone? Well just thank you thank you to you and the team. Thank you sir. Keep it safe. All right community engagement invite Miss Miller back. Good evening again and so I come to you with the first community engagement report. The idea is that these will probably happen quarterly. I'm not really sure community engagement report is the best title as the typical assistant town manager. It's a grab bag of things. Whatever projects kind of fall in my lap, maybe popery. I don't know what we'll call it in the future. But so let's hear before you. I'm just going to touch on a couple of highlights. Culture works wrapped up their art classes with the YMCA and theater classes with the divine assist, as thanks to the grant provided by the town of Ashland. Both programs were really well received by the community. They just as a reminder, they took a little bit of a different approach this year rather than doing one-off events. They decided to do a series of classes, And I believe that's the direction they'd like to take going forward. I think it's a more sustained and greater impact because it allows them to build relationships with the children in those programs. And I'm actually meeting with Scott Garcaw from Culture Works in the next two weeks to start planning the events for this coming year. So more to come on that. And then third bullet on your list. Ms. Kieran Segaloff has joined the team as our part-time communications specialist. I believe Mr. Mayor had the opportunity to meet her last week. And thanks to you all is the reason she exists by approving that part-time position. She has hit the ground running already. She is just this creative ball of excitement and is really into social media and analytics and trending. And so I think one area where she's really excited to make an impact is to get us much more into the video and Reels game on social media channels. And so doing short little snippets, community member interviews, Council interviews. So look for some positive changes to our social media platforms. Rich and Regent tourism held their quarterly board meeting in Ashland last week, as I mentioned just previously, and that was held at the ToCom ash and olive space, which is going to be in the depot, and that was a great occasion for them to kind of get a sneak peek of that coming soon space with a really influential crowd and tourism. And then this last bullet is not public information until now, but we're really excited about it. So Ms. Amy Richardson and I were kind of brainstorming the Berkeley Town Heritage Park. As you all know, she's handling the construction component of that. And I'm handling the signage of storytelling in conjunction with Hanover County Black Heritage Society as well as the steering committee of residents of the Berkeley town community. And lively and harper, Matt Lively and Tim Harper are two artists, and they actually were one of the three finalists for the Ashland Gateway Public Artwork Project. They did the kind of mural style collage, which the commission felt maybe wasn't right for that place, but I flagged it and I said, you know, I think there is a place potentially for that style of art in Ashland. So I approached them with the idea of working together on custom signage design. He asked designs for the Berkeley Town Heritage Park. And they, so they were kind of on initial concepts. The idea being is that the face of it will be still informational storytelling, like we're accustomed to seeing, but the basis will actually be imagery like candy with cutouts in it that allows it to be interactive and for children that don't read that they can so colorful and really interactive and something really custom to that space. So once they come back with those initial designs, we'll be holding a stakeholder meeting again with the community to get their input and feedback on what they like and what they like to see. So again, just another way we're trying to incorporate artwork into kind of existing functional pieces. I have a little section here on Parks and Recreation because with my new role, I was blessed to inherit Miss Emmy Richards. I couldn't ask for a better direct report. I feel a little bit spoiled having her because she's a rock star, as we all know. So she provided these bullets. The Play All Day VA event was a wild success over 300 people at the pool, which was free. And it actually attracted a lot more folks to come back for day passes, which is exactly the opportunities we were looking for. And the pool continues to see record attendance. Of course, this heat wave is helping with that. But the affordability, the slide, the excellent customer service, I will say anecdotally, I was at the pool last Friday afternoon and overheard two women who had driven up from Chesterfield to do a day pass and they were talking about how clean the pool was and how well run it was. And so it was nice to kind of be a secret shopper, fly on the wall. And so I'm going to make sure I pass that along to Miss Richardson, our pool manager. And then the Parks and Rec Committee met last week to discuss their final edits to the bike and ped plan, as well as initial concepts for the revitalization of South Taylor Park. If you have not seen those concepts in designs, I would encourage you to pull those up on the agenda. Really interesting, they definitely are leaning more towards going in the direction of the first concept, which really makes the basketball court the key feature, which I think is in response to what the community actually wants. The neighborhood has been asking for, which is fantastic. You'll see some analytics from our social channels. I'm not getting a belabor those, but I'm hoping to see some boosts in that with some of our new reels that Miss Segaloff is going to be working on. And then looking ahead, this Thursday we have our Jamestown Road Residence Community meeting at the Ashland Library. Again, the focus of that meeting is going to be on traffic calming, given the results of the recent speed study that was done there. So this has been a great collaborative process with Ashland Police Department as well as Public Works Department. And so we're really excited about hopefully getting some consists of them for next steps. And then we have Hanover County Public School does their start and style event. That's not a town event necessarily, but we did offer up Puffer Belly Park as a location for that this year. For those unfamiliar, it's a fantastic event that anyone in the community can come and bring their children and get a brand new back to school outfit, they can shop, they can get their nails done. And so it's just a really exciting, kind of fun event for the community. I'll be on hand, I think, as well as Ms. Richards to help out with that. We have our next community ambassadors lunch in August, and then coming up for the website, we are scheduled for a redesign. So I'm pulling together an internal team to kind of work on that and figure out what's working and what's not on our website so we can kind of make sure that it's user friendly and continues to work for the town. And if that I'm happy to answer questions. I have just one question. Back to the local artist, the Mr. Lively and Mr. Harper, when you present those designs, is that going to go back through the art commission? It's not because this is just a purchase through the town for signage, but I am going to encourage the art commission to kind of be involved in an informal way, to come to the community meetings, just to kind of see that community engagement process. Thank you. Any other questions? No, I just want to comment that what you've done with our followers, it's just incredible. Like Instagram alone has more followers than we have doors in Ashland. And then we look at 11,000 on Facebook, 3400 newsletter subscribers. It's just impressive. Thank you. So I appreciate your hard work. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Thank you. I appreciate your hard work. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Thank you. Is there anything else to come before us to see? Nope. Thank you for joining us. Hope to see you in August. It's not the same without you. Hope to see you in August. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. All right. Where's your. Thank you, John.