Good evening. We'll bring this February 6th, 2024, National Town Council meeting to order. And we usually start with a moment of silence and have gotten in the habit of sharing what I would food for thought. And apologize for any time. It is less digestible. But tonight, I just wanted to say concerning taking time to ponder that we have on our consent agenda our Black History Month proclamation. And it occurred to me that with proclamations, and let me see exactly how I was saying this, whether it's Mother's Day or in the case for February is Black History Month, the sincerity of the statements we make, the proclamations, or what we sent, they don't really provide the evidence to how we feel about it as much as our daily interaction with others. So just once they consider our daily interactions. Celebrate, thank mom, especially on Mother's Day or whatever the occasion, but consider what we do every day. So please join me in a moment of silence on that Thank you. Mr. Vice-Mayer, would you lead us? As you are able, please stand and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, into the Republic of the Wichest Sands, one nation under ground, into this world, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll take a look at our agenda for tonight. We have our consent agenda, which includes minutes from our January 16th, 2024 town council meeting. We have our invoices to the town. And as I said, our Black History Month Proclamation. We have a presentation Virginia Rail Update and so we look forward to that from Mr. Stadler. Thank you for being here, sir. And we have our citizen input opportunity for any individual to come forward and speak to Council on a matter other than our public hearing. After a citizen input time, we do have a public hearing. Fiscal year 2025, 2029 capital improvement program. And we have one action item, a resolution, a special resolution. 2024-04 secretary artwork acceptance agreement. So looking forward to that, we have a discussion fiscal year 2024-, 2025 budget input. We won't be voting on it, but we want one people to be thinking about the budget and giving us input. We'll have reports after that, council member reports, mayors report, public works report, and the town managers report. After that, we will have closed session, which will include two matters. One having to do with considering the performance, annual performance evaluation of our town manager and then also to consult with legal counsel pertaining to a recently filed litigation against the town. If there's consensus, after we do our consent agenda, then I'll read the Black History Month Proclamation. Is there consensus to the agenda with that? Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you all. All right. So having done that, that brings us to our consent agenda. Is there a question, comment, or any discussion concerning the consent agenda? Or a motion? Oh, I move we approve the consent agenda and pay the bills. I second. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Soapall. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mayor Trevet. Aye. Aye. Thank you. All right, and now, read the proclamation. Whereas in 1976, Black History Month was formerly adopted to honor and affirm the importance of Black History throughout our American experience. And whereas the history of people of African heritage goes back thousands of years and includes some of the greatest most advanced and innovative societies in the history of human existence, and whereas African Americans have played a significant role in the history of the Ashland community, from the early days of the town to our present-day leaders in areas of business, education, and government. And whereas the town of Ashland respects and appreciates its partnership with such organizations as the Hanover County Black Heritage Society and the Hanover Branch of the N.O.A.C.P. as we undertake projects and missions with shared values that will better our community. And whereas the town of Ashland recognizes and honors its African-American community, and the leaders present and past who have taken their place on town council, including Pamela Soapal, Terria Brie, Anthony Keat, Melvin Hall, Franklin Jackson, and William Henderson. Now therefore, on behalf of the Ashland Town Council, we do hear Bob proclaim the month of February 2024 to be Black History Month. And further, we encourage all Ashland residents to join in events that honor and celebrate the ingenuity, creativity, culture, tradition, and general well-being of our community of Black Americans dated the sixth day of February 2024. All right, do we have consensus for the proclamation? Yes, 2024. All right. Do we have consensus for the proclamation? Yes. Yes. All right. Indeed. And not to embarrass or give any discomfort to one of our peers up here, but very pleased that we have this current event of Miss Pamela Soapall serving the town on our council and thank you for being. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank y'all for that. All right. Moving forward, we have our presentation, the Virginia Rail Update and Mr. DJ Stadler. We invite you up, sir. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. It's a pleasure to be here tonight to give you an update on passenger rail and the Virginia passenger rail authority. Let me just start off script by thanking you, Mr. Mayor for your opening statement at VPRA and really in my own life. What you say is very, very important. What you do is even more important and what you do when no one is watching is the most important. So I thank you for those opening comments. I just think that's something we should all live every single thing. So my name is DJ Stathler. I'm the executive director of the Virginia Passong-Jorelle Authority. I was supposed to be here this evening with Jennifer DeBroule, who's my board chair, a Hanover County resident. Unfortunately, I'm scheduled to do the presentation, and she was scheduled to answer the hard questions. But during General Assembly, none of our schedules are our own, and we had a last minute meeting this afternoon that I attend to part of, and then left, so here I am. But I promise any hard questions, I'll do my best to answer. Yes, sir. So again, I'm DJ Statler. I am the Executive Director of the VPRA. This map just shows Virginia really is the epicenter of the east for all rail. You see all the major freight quarters, all the passenger routes. We, Virginia, are the connection between the northeast, the southeast, and the west. And we play a huge role in moving people and freight. It's great to see as I go around the Commonwealth, all of the towns that have rail as part of their centerpiece. And Ashley, obviously obviously is one of those with the tracks coming. Two tracks and only two tracks, never more than two tracks. Going through the center of the time, everybody got that right? Oh my God. I, I, it's one we didn't break out in applause. I was the first employee of the VPRA in April of 2021. And we came here and presented in May. And I asked, look, I've only been here a minute, what are you looking for? You need to commit, you will never put a third track through Ashland. I have stood by that commitment and will continue to do so. So as you can see, we are truly the center of everything for rail. So what is the VPRA? We are an independent political subdivision that was created by the General Assembly back in 2020. I am the Executive Director, I report to a 15-member board that is appointed by the governor. It's intended to protect the passenger rail projects from the political ups and downs. Virginia, as you know, is a one-term gubernatorial state and many of the projects that we work on, I promise that wasn't a, many of the projects that we work on are multi-year projects. The Long Bridge, for example, is the bridge that goes from Washington, D.C. into Virginia. It's a two-track rail bridge that's over 100 years old and it's the current bottleneck for all freight and passenger traffic. So one thing we have to do to add capacity here in Virginia is add capacity to that bridge. That's going to take more than four years. The fear was another administration comes in and they change priorities. So we were protected, we were created to protect against that and put some consistency. We own the right of way. We don't operate the trains. We contract with Amtrak. They run the passenger trains. Viery also up north. They do passenger trains as well. So that's who we are. This is the passenger rail network. As you can see, these are the different routes that go all across the state. As of today, we have eight round trip Amtrak trains that are just state-sported trains that we pay for. There are five additional Amtrak routes that come through the state. Those are long distance trains. They go down the floor. They go to Atlanta, New Orleans. They actually come through the state and go back up to Chicago. Then there's one North Carolina train that goes through as well. We are here to expand that service and we'll do so the first phase ends in 2026 where we add two more trains and then more trains come in 2030. Here's the reason why we're here. These are the constraints and I'm not going to read them to you but everybody who lives in this area has sat in traffic and has their horror story or stories about I-95, I-66, I-81, I-64. This is why we're here. When the former secretary Valentine was finally sick and tired of getting complaints about highway congestion, she went to the V. folks and said, how do I fix this? And they said, well, we can put an extra land on each side of 95 from the Beltway South to Thornburg. And that's going to cost you about $12 billion and take about 10 years. And she said, well, wait a second, that's not a solution. we need to do something different. She was a huge advocate for passenger rail. She was the sponsor for the first train that went to Lynchburg in 2009. That train was expected to have 30,000 riders the first year and it had more than 100,000. So it far exceeded the ridership expectations. Since then every time Virginia has added passenger service, it has set records. I mean, we had continued to draw people to the train. cliche, if you build it, they will come and Virginia has truly shown that. So you see there are also another important part is the port of Virginia, the freight that we have running through the state continues to increase 40% capacity over the next 16 years or so. So we need to make sure we can handle that capacity. We run VPRA runs Transforming Rail in Virginia. That's the name of our portfolio of projects. What we've done is we've worked closely with CSX, we've worked closely with Norfolk Southern, the Frant Railroads, and we have gone to them and said, what do we need to do to increase capacity? Frant Railroad and Pasadure Railroad here in America is different than what you have in Europe We hear all the time in Europe. I can get on trains and they go really really fast and in Asia is the same thing Overseas they tend to have their own Dedicated infrastructure so the passenger trains are on passenger track and they don't have as much freight traffic Here we share infrastructure so when we have a train that we want to go fast for passengers, it inevitably comes up to a freight train that's doing about 35 miles an hour. So the key thing is to keep our trains out of the freightway and the freight trains out of our way. Historically, passenger rail has said, look, we have the right to run, we are going to do this, let's fight about it. Virginia took a different approach. Virginia went to CSX and said, let's look at the network, let's look at the bottle next, we are willing to invest to add key infrastructure to add capacity and that's what we've done. So the Transforming Rail and Virginia project is just that, the portfolio. These are all of the improvements that we are making here on the eastern line, the CSX R from P line. We bought half of that line, so it will be half dedicated passenger, half dedicated freight. These are all strategic projects that will add capacity where it's needed starting at the north with long bridge and then coming all the way down to the Hanover Third Track, which will be just north of Ashland, that'll be a siding north of Ashland that will come down to the two tracks and only two tracks that come to Rachelin. Knock on wood. This portfolio continues on schedule. We were fully funded. We had a gap of about $729 million. We applied for a grant from the federal government and they approved it in full, the full $729. So all of our projects are now fully funded. We're on schedule to have more service again in 2026 and again in 2030. Here is just Ashland specific. This is the ridership you see from schedule to have more service again in 2026 and again in 2030. Here is just Ashland specific. This is the ridership you see from January of 2022 until December 2023. You can see a 38% increase year over year. We continue to get more and more folks coming here to Ashland. We're thrilled that Ashland has a train day every year. I know we missed a couple years during COVID, but it's a great opportunity. Ashland is a great place to come, have a cup of coffee and just wash the trains. Their safety concerns, however, and that's something that I know you are all worried about. We are concerned about that as well. We recently worked with AMP Track. We had a number of station improvements. You've seen the new platforms. They're beautiful. We still have the issue where we're not always sure which track the train is coming on and folks unfortunately will stick their head out and say is it on this track and if there's a train coming the other way it's just a huge safety issue. We need to keep folks away from the track. So what we're doing to fix that is Amtrak has a system, PIDS, the passenger information display system. They install that at a number of their stations. We've worked with them, we've done all of the wiring, all of the design work on that, that's ready to go. Here's a picture here of the PIDs, this is the PIDs of the Petersburg station, it tells you when the next train is coming, what the next four or five trains are coming, what track they're going to be on and the status of it. So you'll no longer have the MION, this track, my on this track. All that design work is done, the cabling is done, we just have to have Amtrak folks install it, they have committed to have that installed by the end of the year. We at VPRA are big on under promising and over delivering. I guarantee you it will be here by the end of the year and long before that, but it's committed by the end of the year, so that's good. That will make a big difference to the passenger experience here in Ashland. And then the final thing that I want to talk about because I was told I only have 10 minutes is we also are looking to get a caretaker at the station. One of the problems is people get off the train in Ashland and they have questions. Well, where's this? Where's this? And there's no one there to help them. It's not a staff station. It's not a place where Amtrak has an employee. So what we're looking to do is get a caretaker there who would come and when the trains are there answer questions direct folks Let them know where the kids are and say yes, you're going to be on track two The challenge we've had however is they don't have a place to sit they don't place to be the visitor centers Obviously there there are a lot of trains that come before the visitor center opens and a lot of trains that go afterwards So we're working with the town actually to find a way for that caretaker to have a place to be protected from the elements and Use the restroom those kinds of things But we've had great partnership from the town great partnership from the community Really when we look at towns that that embody what we're looking to do at passenger rail At Ashlands right near the top people get on here. They go north they go here go south I mean it really you all have been a great partner. We greatly appreciate it So I believe it meant nine minutes and 40 seconds, I yield my time and happy to answer any questions. Questions, anyone? I had two questions but I did want to echo your comments about wanting to be about wanting to be a good partner with the town. And I think that extends to the region. I'm also Ashland's representative on the Richmond Transportation Planning Organization and the Central Virginia Transportation Authority. And I understand you or others may be coming to speak to us in the future, but we look forward to that. My two, one's a comment and another's a question you can't answer. Excellent. I look forward to that second one. There is a portion of the Hanover Siding. It's a little known fact that our town boundaries on the western side of the railroad track, so we will be the proud owner of three tracks from Archie-Cannon North up to our northern boundary. But the commitment, not the ghost south of Archie-Cannon is gratifying. And my comment that you can't answer is looking beyond DC to RVA when neither of us will be around. We do need to take the long view because at some point someone is going to look at the capacity of rail and freight and we'll need to deal with that and we don't know what the answer is but. We'll need to deal with that and we don't know what the answer is, but we'd appreciate any help or guidance along that line again looking beyond DC to RBA. Yep, so that's actually a question from my colleague. No, you're absolutely right. Oh, she wasn't there. So the Board Chair Jennifer DeBroule is the Chair of our Board and she's also by statute the Director of DRPT. I said that backward. By statute the Director of DRPT the Department of Rail and Public Transportation is also the VPRA board chair and the partnership works well for us because they do all the planning work and they design where rail is needed and we are the implementer. To your point thankfully the ridership has been so great that people are clamoring for more. I said this earlier, we under promise we over deliver. Our motto has been no surprises, so you mentioned we're going to be speaking. We are very big on getting out to the community and saying this is what's going to happen. This is when it's going to happen. This is how it's going to impact you so be prepared because no surprises. We say that all the time no surprises People have been coming to us saying we want a station stop here. Let's add this a lot of clamoring for let's go from if you are in In Newport news for example, and you want to go to Virginia Tech or Radford You've got to take a train all the way up to Alexandria switch trains and go all the way back down to not to Christiansburg yet now to RONO. So we're working on an extension that will take you from RONO to Christiansburg, our colleagues at DRPT are looking at the Commonwealth quarter which will bring you straight across. All of those things are being looked at to your point. I'm not hopeful maybe. It's going to be a long time. It's going to be a long time, but people are looking at it because people know that highways are not the transportation of the future. And really, any network has got to be multimodal. When you look at Ashland, when you look at Richmond, we always look at how does last mile work. Yes, we get trained to Ashland, but okay, how do people get where they want to go? How do they get to Randolph-makin, how do they get to their grandmother's house, who's a couple miles away. That multimodal is what we're working together on and again, rails a big part of that. Thank you for that. Certainly. Thanks, sir. Is there? So, excuse me. So when the train comes through the town, there's no traffic going north and south, it stops. So is there a limit to how long that traffic has stopped with the train and how often that can be impacted? Because I don't know, I think there are a lot of residents that sometimes wonder like that train's really long and I need to get across the tracks. You'll see that much more frequently with a freight train and there are no codified limits other than public nuisance. We, the trains are mostly CSX this stop there. I mean the passenger trains, unless there's a problem, they like to get in and out two and a half minutes and we talk about this a lot. If you are on a route that goes 400 miles and there are 20 stops and each stop you take a minute and a half longer than you expect, you're a half hour late or you're a half hour longer than you should be. So the passenger trains you shouldn't see that much for problem although some of the trains along distant trains are a little longer and you've got to take a long time with the baggage and bike snare thing. So I don't think the passenger trains are as much of the problem. The freight trains there's not a limit but it's something that we continue to work with them on because we've had those complaints as well. Thanks. I know not a great answer. Anyone else? It's a good answer. It's a clear one. I'll say. That begs another question. In speaking of the siding, nor the vassaline, you know, if the siding is for freight or passenger, then I would think to pass a freight, the siding has to be long enough to catch the entire freight. So is the siding good to find the length of freight trains? And if it does, are they already engineering sightings longer than current freight trains? I'm trying to see, where's the handcuff we'd like to see on how long a freight train can be? So that's a whole different conversation. There are debates on the whole precision scheduled railroading where you have fewer trains, but they're much longer. We are ensuring, we are staying out of that debate. We're on the bench. Yeah, I understand. We are ensuring that the sightings that we have in the plan now are long enough to hold the longest freight trains that are envisioned at this point. The longest freight? Yeah. There's, we have ensured with CSX and with the other freight, the sightings are plenty long. So whether it's a passenger train that's got to move over or a freight train it's not going there's going to be enough room. Okay. That's a huge concern because you're right if you pull over but you're not off of the main line you might as well pull over. Right. And we know this is we're not trying to put the CSX weight on you. There's been a lot of, I say, consternation and activity, even a general assembly, about stopped trains. And so that's obviously a concern for us and for everyone as far as safety and also just for traffic flow. But we'll deal with that another day, but we certainly appreciate your presentation in the sincerity. Did you have a question? I don't have a question. I just have a comment. I don't have a question. I just have a comment Bring on the pit system I mean it can't come soon enough you're right I'm gonna go back and say the council demanded it get done faster All right, thank you very much for being here. Thank you. I greatly appreciate it Alright that brings us to citizen input time before we open that up. I just wanted to call out that we have a member of the town's parks and rec committee, Miss Annette Chines. And so anytime somebody's here that's on one of our committees want to definitely thank them publicly for their service to the town that way. So, thank you for being here. And as far as is an input, I invite anyone forward who wants to speak to Council on a matter that's not the public hearing. Yes sir. How are you all doing? Just doing great. I'm Jim Hunt and I've come to talk about sidewalks. Specifically, Mr. Hunt, not to interrupt you. I'll go ahead. We do have our public hearing on the capital improvements program and that includes sidewalks is if you're going to speak the sidewalks It might be better to wait until we get to the capital improvements program Which is the next item. Yeah, well that's all right We appreciate your zeal Not not to put you off Anyone else for a matter to come before council tonight any one else for a matter to come before Council tonight. I'd see no one will close citizen input time and we'll get to the other matter at hand at hand our public hearing of fiscal year 2025 29 capital improvements program. Mr. Fair. Yes, I bring you the capital improvements program tonight and we've done there we go. Great presentation is ready. So this evening we're going to talk about the Capital Improvement Program. You'll hear us use the acronym CIP for that, and we use those acronyms quite regularly. But the simple version of what a Capital Improvement Program is, it's a five-year plan for your capital improvements, both funding and prioritization of those two issues. The CIP that we have before you today has 33 projects in it. We've separated them into categories just to get a better sense of where your funding is going whether it be economic development, public facilities, parks and rec, stormwater or transportation. We'll get into some scary numbers here but I want to reassure you later. There's more than 120 million dollars of projects within our CIP, and we've identified funding right now for about $10.7 million of that, and then we've identified about another $10 million for the next five years. That leaves us with $99 or almost $100 million of additional funding necessary. I know that can look daunting, but there's an important few caveats in that a lot of that unfunded number is based on a few projects i95 interchange being one the great separated rail crossing at Vaughan Road That would be very relevant to our prior discussion Those are 40 million dollar plus projects each and the town will not be the one funding those independently and so The reason that the funding for those isn't shown here is likely many of them might be five years out and so they're not included in the plan. But I do want to reassure you another unit of local government will most likely be funding a vast, vast majority of those. So don't get too scared by the unfunded numbers there. We have plans and there are programs eligible for us to try to get those funded in the future. So a little bit of history just to you know where this comes from. The Planning Commission by code needs to review the CIP and make a recommendation to you. They did that in October, November, December. The draft that you have and for that you had in front of you when you saw it on January 16, included their prioritized projects that they were recommending to you. And then when we brought that to you, we asked you to go home and do a little bit of homework and give us your priorities and we've included those in the drafts in front of you. The good news is is that the priorities came out relatively similar. There's a lot of themes across all the groups that have looked at this. We did also share with you a staff priority list that I can share a little bit of detail about if you need me to. But the key thing here in these prioritizations is the left column is the town council priority. That is what is in your document tonight and kind of part of the recommendation that you're making. You're saying please prioritize those projects. As I was saying earlier, the important point here is all the blue ones on the town council list. Those were priorities for all three groups. So both Planning Commission and staff thought that was a priority. The red ones have two of the groups at least. And then really it was only the Title and Y traffic improvements and the root one in Archie Can and Traffic signal that weren't universal across the group. And even then, you know, you have leeway. Those are good projects either way. But did want you to give you a little bit of a sense of where the priorities were coming from. So, oh, sorry, skip to head. Tonight we're going to hold the public hearing, take public input. We obviously want to hear anything that folks want to see, whether it be specific projects, whether it be where your priorities fall. So we may be recommending that one priority over another. Or funding of the projects. We probably wouldn't make a decision tonight about let's put an extra 100,000 towards a certain project, but even that input and especially hearing councils response to it is great as I go to prepare the budget over the course of the next few months that can make a real impact if we hear comments like that. You did, you have received a few comments that I believe were both in your packet and email to you today. I believe there were maybe two, is that correct? So you have those, they were, I believe, parks and sidewalk projects. So similar themes there. I wasn't planning to go through each project by project because that could extend our evening. I'm happy to dive into those details if you would like. But the recommendation tonight from staff is that you adopt the FY2529 Capital Improvement Program as presented, and then we have motions for you if you decide to amend the CIP as well. So with that, I'll be happy to take any questions or allow you to open up the public hearing. Right, for the sake of disclarity, the motion option there, adopting the capital's improvement program as presented. What is that? The document that was in your packet today with your priority. Can we put that up for individuals to say? I think you've talked about this. Oh, that's true. Sure, sure, sure. Of course. Yes. We're referring to something to be good to see what we're referring to. And I'll just say I'm out loud for those who may be listening rather than watching at home. But there's 10 priorities that are coming out of this from town council. And the remainder of the projects of the 33 still remain in the program, but just aren't listed as priorities. So we have our downtown street skate project, sidewalk curb and gutter, a townwide drainage improvement plan, which is largely how we deal with the quantity of water in town. North Ashland Park to continue progress on that park that we bought land for. The grade-separated railroad crossing that we've already spoken about touched on a little bit tonight. And then the priority level two, which is really just the second round of five that are in the priority list, our Comprehensive Stormwater Management, which is slightly different because that deals with the quality of the water and how we have to treat it versus moving the quantity of water. Residential Improvement Program, Townwide Traffic Improvements, that I-95 interchange that we are seeing issues with, and then again, Route 1 and Archie Can in Traffic Signal. All right, thank you. Yep. All right, any comments or questions from Council before we open the public here? Out at this time. All right. So we'll go ahead and open the public hearing and invite individuals up, starting with Mr. Hunt. And if you would, just for the record, identify yourself by name and address. Good to see you again. You too. I'm Jim Hunt and I live at 309, Hillsway Drive in the Carter Hills of Division in the North of town. And I've come to talk about PR-006 trails in parks and specifically trails along the North James and West Bond Street. And the route down here is safety. We live right off of the North James Street and that's a pretty dangerous street. And if we're at the north side of town, and if you're going out of town, it's 25 miles an hour at Speed Limit. People coming into town, they've a 25 mile an hour at Speed Limit, but sometimes they go on 55 miles an hour. And if we're walking into town, or riding bikes into town, there's no shoulders, there's nowhere to go. And if two cars are coming, it's the real problem. Okay? A little history here. Our subdivision in 2014 put a trail along our property because we knew it was bad. In 2017, we wrote a letter to the town council, which I have a copy of here, where all the residents in our subdivision signed it. And of 2017, asking to get sidewalks. And we've been pushing y'all, I mean, top of the y'all, about doing that ever since. And now what's happened is we're getting a new school right during our neighborhood. And our kids walk, some of my kids walk back and forth through the bus, some of my kids walk back and forth. And if you are used to coming up, how do we're avenue, it can replace clothing time, and a revenue is blocked. And although the car of the leaving had a revenue, and it coming to James Street, in a North Bond Street, and making it more dangerous. So we need some help. Also, we can't walk the town. So the people in the neighborhood, we can walk the town, but we shouldn't. We can't shop at the stores, we can't go to the restaurants, and we definitely can't walk back at night because that's's real or dangerous. Oh, I just wanna say, since we've been working on this, no one's been hurt. No kids have been hit. And I'd like for you to put some priority on our project, so that is a continuous. They were all safe. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? I don't believe so, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? This may. Hello. My name is Ned Shons. I live at 105 Race Corps Street and as you mentioned before I'm on the Parks and Rec Committee. If you could just read the two comments you got from previous some other citizens. I was going to add to that. I'd be the ones that are they Mr. Stevens and Oh, okay, Stevens is the one printed right here. Yeah, Mr. Stevens is pretty lengthy. Well, it just yeah, briefly just I thought he did a good. Well, I did read it coming in. Do you want to? I'm it read it for the people that are in some in some rate. It's he just. Oh, I want to miss Bonheart since you are. for the people that are in some in some rate it's he just uh... uh... uh... miss bonhearts and she or uh... liaison department if you know that i normally i normally watch this so i know that there's people listening and you know don't always see the information i think too i read the c if the c also and what he is asking in a nutshell is for us to please consider um... continuing to upgrade our parks and in particular he's looking at restocking the fish at DeGarnet. He's also asking for some more money for the skate park at Pufferbelly, some Carter pool renovations, but he's in hoping that we are going to be building a basketball court at and I believe that's the South Chaylor Street Park is where he's interested in having a basketball court there. Is that? Yeah. So basically those projects we've done, and he was complimenting those projects being done. He's been an advocate or a proponent for a basketball courts for a number of years. And we all get that money, there's a finite amount of money. But his point is that it stood the test of time. That basketball's always been popular, it's still popular. It's not a fad. And he was, he wanted to put in that, he thought that that was important. And I want to agree with that. And his suggestion was that we look at it. We got the new parkland on Taylor Park, and also look at it for the North Ashland Park, and I would like to throw in, he also talked about Carter Park. I would also like to throw in and this is separate, but I know the town does not own the elementary school, but when the elementary school is hopefully turned over to us, you know, fingers crossed, I don't know what would happen, but I think that it's served the community for our future, our youth, and I think it should stay that way, so it should be the continued use for the little league, the school itself I think would be perfect for a youth center which we need and also basketball courts would be great there okay so then the next item that someone sent in was about trails and pathways is Mr. Matheson and he is hoping that we'd consider trails and pathways in our budget and his he was specifically talking about the fact that we have the two bike routes, the international bike routes, we are blessed that go through our town. And now with the fall line trail coming, we're gonna get more bike traffic. And he was saying that we have the, we're in the enviable position to take advantage of that. And I know that Miss Halk has been looking at wayfaring. And she's doing a fantastic job. I've also been listening in on the fall line trail and we, and Miss Amos and she both have been representing our town very well. But I also want to say that this is a great opportunity for the town is that's being delivered to us basically. So I also wanted to say that this is a great opportunity for the town that's being delivered to us, basically. So I also wanted to agree with him. And then the third thing that I wanted to bring up was, now I'm blanking out. Michelle. Yes. Just as a point of order, Mr. Hendrickson's letter was referring to the bike lounge routes. Miss Matheson's letter was echoing Mr. Hunt's comments about the trail on North James Street. I just want to clear that up for the minute. Yes. So, you know, being as a resident and I live near these bike routes, I know the bike traffic that comes through. So I just wanted to echo that and then I'm on Parks and Rec because I believe in it. Obviously that's why I'm on it. And then the last thing I wanted to add was for public art that I think that that's another place that we can put public art at the fall line trail coming into town. I know that they talked about, you know, the 95 corridor and coming in from the other direction on 54, but people coming up the fall line trail, it's a perfect place for art in the future. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else this time? All right. Seeing no one else will close the public hearing and I'll take this moment just to do what I did earlier. Identify that we have Mysterio Bree in the audience. There's also a former council member and one that we named in our like history month proclamation a little earlier. So thank you for being here as well. All right, and so would bring the public hearing back to council for discussion and any comments on either some of the questions or what we heard from the public or I believe you had something. Yes. And I was listening to the comments in the public hearing. And I was noticing that trails and pathways, which was part of the comments, is the only project that both the staff and planning commission recommended, but the council has not included it's the red sort of wine colored category, and I didn't know whether we could consider adding that. That means taking something off. And my comment further is, I would not recommend taking off Route 1 in Archie, Canon, which is a white category. It's one that only council has included. We're about to open a new elementary school as has been discussed with the trail. And we're not sure what the impact's gonna be, but I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to be concerned about bus traffic entering Route 1 from Archie Cannon and vice versa. I understand that it may not meet Vida Lawrence for a traffic light at this time. Typically, they look backwards, not into the future and use objective criteria, which is appropriate. And I think there's been a hope in the past that the Holland track, which is across Archie Cannon, would develop, and that we would get a generous developer to make that contribution. I'm not sure whether in the next 10 years that's going to happen for five years, I'll shorten it. I hope it happens. But we have a need coming up in September when the ash on elementary opens. So I would argue for leaving that in place and potentially putting PR006 into town-wide traffic improvements, which and the staff can respond. I think it's something that we definitely will do, whether it's in our priorities or not, because those are safety concerns. But that's a suggestion for councils to consider. And just for a little clarification on that, and you're correct, the townwide traffic improvements is one of the few kind of misnomers in the CIP. It is a little bit of a catch all for places that we don't have an identified project but we receive a proffer. And so it's kind of understanding that there are projects that we haven't identified yet and placed a whole money. So again, vice mayor who I just said it correctly, that's going to happen regardless of whether you prioritize or not. And it's usually not an area we put money directly towards local dollars. So in this instance, I think there is good logic to that that wouldn't be a priority that we put local dollars for. Stays in the plan, we can put proffers if we get it there. And that allows you to reorganize and change a priority if you so see fit. Okay. Thank you. If I may. I'd like to agree with Vice Mayor Hodges. And I too would like to see how we can find a way to put PR-006 trails and pathways on our list. And I would also suggest, especially because now the town manager has given us a great explanation about the townwide traffic improvements and how there is funding for that. We've had so many people email us and share with us how important it is that we have the ability to walk around our town and how the connectivity is extremely important. So I would like to replace the townwide traffic improvements TR007 with PR006. All right. Others? Yes. I think what we heard from some of our residents, we already have in our priority. Sidewalks, there's like in priority, urgent priority at the top, and also the North Ashen Park, which, yes, there are priorities, and I'm glad to see them up there. I do want to put an argument in on behalf of public art, because I think there's a misnomer that public art doesn't have a public good because it's just art, but art actually heals people. Our art is where people go to find solace and comfort. And I've seen so many localities where people fought spending money publicly to have these public art displays or these monuments or these statues built and then once they were built they were destinations for people and they're very excited. I don't want to name the places because I don't want to bring up the hurt that people felt during those debates but I've enjoyed those places in Virginia and I've enjoyed it here too. There's been art around here and so we just recently formed up art commission and I just feel like it would be hurtful for them to not see public art. Even if we added like dash priority six under priority two, make it like at the bottom of, and we said, it's an asterisk that says, we meant to include this here, but, you know, because I don't know what else to take off. I agree moving trails in place of town-wide traffic improvements, but I don't know what some of my council members felt like when they were thinking about that, they probably had something specific in mind, but I don't know that. I didn't vote for it, so I don't want to be the one that says, I'm taking it off. But I don't know, I just, I do think those two things need to be there, and I realized that we got a letter from someone who disagreed with public art as a priority, but I know in my heart that it's valuable, and I think this community values it, and I do as well. So that's my two cents. Thank you, sir. Miss O'Bottom. Kind of a great with Councilman John Hodges moving the trails and pathway into the position of talent-wide traffic improvements. It makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Yes. We could have 11, can't we have 11? We're not stuck with 10. We just have to have our wonderful town manager do a little more. You move it in shaken. Every year we sometimes push for 15. And I was going to say that, you know, beyond, this is a CIP, we make commitments to it. And as has already been said, we don't remove any of the others out of the total of 33. Certainly not. In some of the things that take place are based on what's logical to do, if something happens in the way of repair, something happens in the way of just circumstance that it makes sense to address this now. We couldn't anticipate that whatever this road, this infrastructure, this thing was going to happen, but since it is. So there's a certain amount of happenstance to this. I agree as well that that traffic light is very important. It's important any day of the week, but it's especially important when 9.95 gets backed up and you don't want school buses guessing whether they can make it across the road or not. Not at all. So I'm in favor of that. When it comes to public art art now we've got money in the budget now for public art It about between General Fund and ARPA with about $50,000 Right, but I mean that's allocated to their first project and so my hope is that we get to a point with public art Where we treat it like many of our capital project items where it's not we have a $50,000 project I need 50,000 It's we know five years from now. We have a $50,000 project, I need $50,000. We know five years from now, we have a $50,000 project, so we put 10 away every year. And so I think regardless of whether you prioritize it, that would be my approach. Maybe if it was our priority, it would give me a signal it should get more dollars, but that is my intended budget approach is to start putting a regular amount into that line item on an annual basis rather than having a really highly fluctuating line item there. Right. So I feel like that will be addressed. And this isn't, it's not a critique at all. We have recently created a public art commission. And anytime you create something new, I think it's important to have a foundation solidify and that doesn't happen right away. So that commission has been put together under the great leadership there of Miss Martha Miller there. They're working on bylaws, they're working on how they operate, the focus of the group. And my thought is, give them time to settle in to a joint, if it's not there yet, a joint mission and vision for what it exists for. And in the meantime, they do have the 50,000 and perhaps more. And so I'm more inclined for me. I agree with you. Heels and inspires as well know here in a minute. So I'm supportive of that. I want to ask about sidewalks. Now the Parks and Rec Committee has gone through the exercise of listing out sidewalk projects according to criteria. How does that, I'll put the town manager on this, how does that work if we were to say Mr. Hunt, you know we want to move what you're asking for to the top of the list. Does that, how does that interact with the process that we have? Sure. I think right now that the James wants, Trail is number six on our priority ranking from the last time we did that. And we have, I think, completed a few of the top priorities there. And so there's kind of a two-step process. What you're talking about tonight with the CIP is a category to put funding in and then we have a process that the Parks and Rec Committee goes through that recommends to the council for the specific projects within that category. And so putting trails and pathways higher on the list is a signal to me put more money in there. Council wants this, the community wants this and then that process would come back to you through the Parks and Rec Committee, and they would then be the ones that would say, here's our process, here's our recommendation to council, and that's your opportunity to say, I love your process, Parks and Rec Committee, but this may, maybe didn't score as well as we want, we want to bump that out. Right. And another question, sorry'll be talking so much. With the Amburn project, how much more distance will be uncovered once that's going to carry the trail that's coming up from say Patrick Street further north. So that that subdivision has, I don't remember whether it's a sidewalk or a trail, but it has along the front edge of James Street, so it grabs all that piece. So that development has shortened the amount that public would then have to build in the long term. Right. And one last thing. If Parks and Rec says, their next, I guess, revisit of the sidewalk plan and says move this to the top. I guess it's anyone's guess whether or not that would happen quicker by doing that than it would by way of potential development with Vaughan Road Extension. It's kind of a give or take. If you put significant more funds into the capital project fund in the budget, it moves further down the list, right? You might accomplish projects 3, 4, and 5 and 6 this year. If that we did, let's say financially that wasn't an option, we had to do limited but still some funding into the, see I'm sorry, capital project fund at that point, that's when that process would allow you to kind of say, well I know we're kind of in the plans for those other priorities, but we want to bump that. And so, as long as we had it made significant progress on construction or engineering, then you do always have the ability to kind of jump in line. Right. But I want to be very transparent. That sidewalk prioritization process is an annual process. Because the funding is neat, we've prioritized seven, and that's multiple years worth of projects, there isn't an incentive for that process to go back through Parks and Rec in the very near future. We'd make it further down our already existing priority list, which this particular path inside walk is on. So it's kind of a little bit of a strategy. Which way do you want to approach it? Do we have the money to do it just through funding? Or do you want to approach it? Do we have the money to do it just through funding or do you want to try to insert yourself into the prioritization process to bump it further up the list? Okay. And I just want to be clear, because it's on that list, because I want to make sure that Mr. Hunt is hearing us, we're not taking an off that list. It's on that list. So it's not going to just go away because of another housing development down the road or whatever. So that's the first question I have or comment I want to make is it's on there and we're going to leave it there. The other thing was when I think of trails and pathways, I think that they're different from a sidewalk because I remember all the construction that's involved with a sidewalk and the gutterine and the survey, where I know that we have made decisions about putting a path like the tarmaccy kind of path and or the trails thinking about how we're linking that with fall line, et cetera. So I'm thinking of it as two very different things. And maybe I shouldn't think of it that way, but when it's listed separately, I'm thinking of it as two separate things. So. OK. Yes, sir. If I may jump in the 2040 Transportation Plan has two separate categories, one side walks and the other trails. Okay. And there's a whole list of priorities. The project Mr. Hunt is referring to and Ms. Matheson is a trail. It's shown on the 2040 Transportation Plan is a trail coming from along North James and going along Vaughan. And I think Auburn Lane is a trail extension. And I think we have a trail south of it and then it turns into a sidewalk so They are separate, but I think they are making the right request. I think so too Man make another of course the doctor McGraws point I Agree with the sentiment about public art, but there is later on the agenda, an item entitled FY2425 budget input, in which I think hearing what the manager has said, it might be so that the arts commission doesn't feel slighted, it might be worthwhile to provide input there so that it could be focused on a specific project that would enhance it being in the CIP, if that makes sense. So it's a comment on why I want it to be on a priority list is I like to see it done. And to not have it on a priority list is saying, oh, we got some money, we'll get to it when we get to it. But if it's there on the priority list, I our manager and I know he's gonna look at that and say yeah, that's something that I want to try to get done If I can't if it's opportunities there there's a motivation This is kind of why we have the grade separated railroad crossing We don't have the funds by ourselves, but having it in here has qualified us for Transportation grants that are in the future and if other grants come in sooner than we're in line to do it. And I don't know enough about how the public art commissions work statewide and nationally, but I would imagine they think the same way that the other organizations do. Do you have a priority list? Are you listed this or you just now liking it because I have a grant and you want it. Otherwise, I think that they want to like list it down to certain groups. So that's why I make my argument. If it's not a strong enough argument, I lose. That's okay. It's all right. I'm a big boy. It's okay. It's fine. A lot of these things are good. I do want to address one other thing that's not on here because it's something I've been driving for and I thought we were making fast progress but then I went down to some of the area businesses on Route 1 and there just doesn't seem to be any competition for broadband and I thought there would be by now. We have laid public, we have owned our own little broadband circle. We have a provider for some of those businesses, but it doesn't look like there's expansion from those businesses. And it makes me nervous that there's only one provider for the most part because as a school teacher, there have been times we couldn't take a test because the entire internet shut down because somebody cut a line in North Carolina. And it's not that I want there to be competition, so to speak, I just want there to be more options so that if something goes wrong, we're not stuck with just one provider. And so I was hoping that that would have come online by more. And I was also hoping we signed an agreement with a broadband provider for residents and I haven't seen any progress. And so I just, that makes me a little nervous, makes me anxious. And next year I might be talking about broadband again. And it's fine. I'm not saying that I need it for my house. I have adequate, I mean that's DSL, but it's still adequate for me, but I am concerned about the business is not having access because we rely heavily on them. So, I just, sorry, since I had the mic, I wanted to go ahead and lay it all out. But it's fine. If my peers feel like the one change from the trails to the town traffic is enough, and you don't want to add public art at the number six, or maybe you're really easy out. Public art was the number 11th ranked score. When you're like, thanks. Just do 11. Just do 11. All right. Thank you you mr. Manager. Thanks Sorry All right, we have agreement. We'll we have agreement that any other thoughts now for anyone Okay, I'm gonna try and make a recommendation here I recommend the approval of FY recommendation here. I recommend the approval of FY2025-FY2029 capital improvements program with our recommended priorities as amended to let's see replace TR007 the townwide traffic improvements with PR006 trails and pathways and add an 11th. I don't know the number. I'm sorry. Okay. ED-008 public art. Second. Second. Sorry. You get second. Can we have discussion real quick? Sure. Did we close public hearing? Yeah. Okay. I couldn't remember. Sorry. It's always good day. I just want to make sure. All right. I'm ready. Can I ask you seconded? I was busy trying to. John, thank you. I defer to Dr. McGraw. OK. Dr. McGraw. Very good. Dr. McGraw is. Thank you very much. Vice mayor Hodhart. Hi. So Paul. Hi. I'm Archibald. Hi. All right. Thank y'all. Thank you everyone. All the input is valuable today in upcoming days. All right, so that'll bring us to our action item Resolution 2024-04 Secretary artwork acceptance agreement this Miller this Miller. Good evening, Council. Good evening. Good evening. I want to see you, Ms. Soapal. So nice to see you. It's my first meeting with you up there on the dias. Welcome. So tonight I have a really quick staff report for you about the Secretary at Monument, artwork acceptance agreement and a resolution. So just as a little bit of a refresher since it's been a little bit over a year since we last kind of spoke about this in earnest. And you're regularly scheduled meeting back on October 18th and 2022. The Ashland Museum as well as representatives from the Secretariat for Virginia Committee presented a proposal to bring a statue of Secretariat titled Secretariat Racing into History, number two of two by artist Jocelyn Russell. Miss Russell was also present for that presentation. And the proposal was for to display and install this monument as a public artwork in our downtown Ashland area. At that time, Town Council will express support for the proposal, but contingent upon the committee independently raising enough funds for the museum to purchase the statue from Miss Russell. The committee also presented to the Towns Public Art Commission at their meeting on September 12th in 2023, as well as discussions back in February of 2023 with the college on the future location and leasing land from the college for its permanent installation. So the museum would now like to gift the statue to the town as they have successfully, the museum along with the committee, successfully raised enough funds to purchase the statue in that time span. And they're proposing gifting it to the town for inclusion and acceptance into our public artwork collection. The statue is already covered by our insurance policy and has been for the past couple of months and until installation, which it says in my report spring 2024, but we now know the date of that is scheduled for March 30th. So right up at the very beginning of spring, which is exciting. But until that time, it is currently being stored safely under roof off site. Upon acceptance by town council the museum will provide certificate of authenticity which you can see here to the town and that will be reported with the deed of gift. Included in your packet you will also see the deed of gift paperwork as well as the artwork acceptance agreement both of which have been signed by the town manager, representative, Miss Ann Martin from the museum, and notarized here at Town Hall. So with that, staff recommends that council adopt the resolution to accept the gift of secretariat, racing into history number two of two by artist Jocelyn Russell from the Ashland Museum, and I'm happy to answer any questions should you have them. Questions comments or emotions? So exciting. I just said I'm so excited. A mundane question, construction installation. The museum solely responsible for all labor and material costs associated with the building transporting installation and the town shall assist in the installation of the artwork by providing supervision of the installation. I assume the museum has sufficient funds to cover the part of the agreement. Yes, sir. The secretary for Virginia Committee, which is kind of operating under the museum 501C3 umbrella to raise those funds as kind of ongoing. Some of that funding for the installation is being given in kind services, and the rest is being actively fundraised for if not done so already. Great. Thank you. All right, anything else? Perhaps the motion. I'll be happy to. This group has worked very hard to bring this statute to Ashland. It's almost surreal that it's really going to happen tomorrow. They're going to have the ground breaking tomorrow and then on March 30, they're having them in place for his birthday. So if I may, I'd like to move to adopt and accept the gifts of artwork resolution as presented. Second. That's OK. I second. and accepted gifts of artwork resolution as presented. Second. Oh, that's okay. I second. So Paul. Hi. I smear Hodges. I, Dr. McGraw. I, as Barnhart. I. Mayor Trevett. I, and I know this is one step, but I can't help but have a plow. I know this is one step, but I can't help but have a plunder. Wonderful. In any case, anyone's going to leave, yes, tomorrow 11th. I have to go. At the location. So, looking forward to that. Sorry. That moves us to our discussion. Fisker here 24, 25th of the budget input. Mr. Fair? Yes. This is our most preliminary of budget discussions with town council. State code requires that you do a public hearing once the town manager has submitted his budget and go through the legal process of advertising it. And in action, we have found that that late of input typically does not do service to citizen input because at that point, largely the budget is complete and it's really too late to make substantial changes. And so for years, we have provided this, whether it has been well attended or well received or not, we like to provide the opportunity to make sure that citizens have the opportunity to come to us, tell us what they want in the budget, well before we actually, the ink is dry, any of the numbers are final, and having looked at the budget recently, I can tell you it is no way final, we still have a lot of work to do, so now is a great time for folks to provide input. I'll give a little bit of a brief presentation Just so for the folks at home, but as it says here we must adopt the budget. We have to do it by July 1st We do want to provide significant opportunities for budget input and so this is our first stab at it Which is just kind of an open call for now's the time tell us what you think and what you want But after tonight where we do this initial pre-budget preparation input, we'll have some really nice work sessions. And in those work sessions, we go through them in quite a bit of detail. I do have to say, don't pay too much attention to which departments are going to be included at which that may switch slightly depending on staff schedules, but on March 12th, gosh, that will be here before we know it. At 6 p.m., we will hold the A work session, note the different time, 6 p.m. here in the council chambers, and we'll go line by line through all those budgets, and then we will do it again on March 26th with the other ones that remain. We'll talk in detail about revenues. We'll go over all the things we're thinking about all these capital projects that you've just approved or not approved in the CIP go line by line and talk about staff and all the different costs that we have and so Tonight I would encourage this general input or specific if folks have it But then do know that we have those additional opportunities for public input at the work sessions and then we get into the more formal portions of Budget timeline where I present my formal town managers budget on April 16th. We hold public hearing for the budget and possibly a real estate tax public hearing if we need it on May 7th with the hopes of adoption on June 4th. So again we hope to get some input tonight. We certainly have finite resources and want to make sure that we're not just doing what's in our plans, but that we're doing as much of what the community actually wants us to do as we possibly can. And so with that, I would suggest we open up to the public an opportunity for budget input. All right. We do want to cite Stephen's letter that was referenced earlier. A number of budget related. Certainly. We're dealing with a lot of topics that are similar right now, whether it be CIP budget, all of these that all involved dollars. Exactly. Now this is on our agenda as a discussion item. We certainly would invite anyone from the public who would like to make a comment about the budget. You're here. So, Mr. Breed, would you like to make a comment on the budget? Since you. OK. All right. All right. OK, so we'll bring it back to council. You know We had a lot of people in this room a moment ago Important items and I understand Why they're here and now why they have Completed their business and I know that doesn't mean there's a lack of interest in the budget on their part. But we often do see that we have more interest from folks. It a whole lot smaller item than the biggest ticket item for the town being the budget. So I guess we'll just take the opportunity to encourage the public to share. Share the thoughts about the budget. This is the time to do it. I'll be the first to admit, it is much easier to react to something than it is typically to come up with. No prep. I want to share my idea. It's a little easier if you say, hey, that line at them doesn't look like you're putting enough in. I'd like more. So I'm sure we'll get a lot of public input throughout the process. Just a question for the manager. Am I right that the ARPA funds are coming to a close in the next budget year or is it a little more? This fiscal year that we're about to go into preparing the budget for. FY25 July 1, 24 to June 2025, I hope, and we're planning on being the last year that we have ARPA money to spend. Because the deadline, the general deadline, is December 31, 2024. So right in the dead middle of the upcoming fiscal year. And so we are doing everything possible to have all the dollars spent by that time. But I will be honest and say with some of the construction projects, there may be a carry-over into future years and that's allowed as long as the project is fully executed and contracted for. And so things like possibly the Lee Street stream restoration, I'm just using that as a possible example. Big project, relatively complex, lots of moving parts, there's a world in which that could theoretically flow over. As long as the contracts are signed and everything's dotted, it's fine that we spend it after. But to answer your question specifically, yes. The intent is that all that money be spent within the next fiscal year. And for Miss Soaple's benefit, I think we did a good job lowering expectations after our per money runs out that we may not be able to continue significant contributions for projects beyond that. We've set goals and we intend to meet them, but we may not be able to continue to provide that same level of funding. And the other comment you touched on that we're seeing at the regional level with construction costs for road improvement, that's changing the numbers. And reducing the number of projects, there's a consolidation going on. And I can expect that to impact our budget. Certainly. And I've just what you're saying about communicating that change to the public that we're back to. This is our ongoing budget. This is how we are going to have to live here. I've had to do much the same with our staff as well. So we hired a lot of staff within ARPA. And so they've only known the times where they could come and say, Josh, is there a little upper one here or there? And so, oh yeah, we do have a line on them for that. So unfortunately, the word no, where it's not available, will probably come a little more frequent in the out years. Thank you. Battle point. Other thoughts? Comments? All right. Well, we will take the assignment of meeting the bushes and asking the public to share more their thoughts on the budget and days to come. And that brings us to our reports. And so council member reports starting with this part. Okay. January seems like it was far, far away. Part of me, I had a chance to attend the Virginia Municipal League meeting I did it virtually. It was in Richmond. It was just really nice to have some contact with other folks, elected officials across the state, but also just to have a refresher on some things. They did a great job. They really did. It was a nice job. Park and Rec. Let's see. Park and Rec, We have welcome two great planning commission. And they do all of our, I think they do all of our hard work quite frankly. They are so dedicated and they're so determined to get everything just right. So I really appreciate them and all the work that they've done on the draft of the comprehensive plan. And finally, I attended our first art meeting of the year. We had a citizen input night, they're roughly, I'd say, probably two dozen people there, and Martha did a great job of organizing that and allowing the group to share their ideas and concerns and input of what kind of art they'd like to see and wear in town. And that's gonna be an exciting group. So thank you, Dr. McGraw for making sure you have some extra dollars in that flow. None of that is it. Well I do hope to see everyone tomorrow 11 o'clock for Secretary. Thank you. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Reporting on regional transportation attended the Richmond Regional Community Transportation Advisory Committee. Don't normally go to that. Mr. Charlie Martin and Don Rout are representatives, but it did allow me to make connections with the executive director of the Virginia Rail Policy Institute that I hadn't made before. Tended the January meeting of the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, which allocates money that they for our projects. And their inflation and cost estimates has become a factor for consideration in the next round of regional funding. It has, we have basically a number of projects out there, of Route 1 to Ashcake Road Intersection, Route 1, widening south of Ashcake Road, Vaughan Road, Grade Separated Railroad Crossing, I-95, Divergent Diamond, and a future grade separated railroad crossing at Ashcake Road. Finally, also attended February meeting of the Richmond Regional Planning Organization Policy Board. Ten projects were submitted from the region for round six of smart scale and you don't have to know what I'm talking about. It's just we compete at a state level and there's a win and wing out at the regional level. We made the cut, but we had to include a project that is US Route 1 from Ashcake Road South to the South Corporate Limits. That is meets the readiness criteria, even though I think some of us would believe the diverging diamond is a higher priority based on new smart scale standards. We're not ready to submit that. We need more studies and detail before we can put money into that. I also participated in the Virginia legislative day and I think others will comment on that and I enjoyed the police foundation and congratulate the chief on our job well done All right, thank you, sir. Thank you. Dr. McGraw I got to have my first EDA meeting and it was just a reorganization meeting So there's really nothing to report, but they meet again February 15th meeting so there's really nothing to report but they meet again February 15th. Tendent my first theater meeting which again was a reorganization and nothing major to report I was a bit overwhelmed in that first meeting. It was a it's a pretty active committee with lots of ideas and much energy so they have a big event that they're planning but it's not quite finalized, but it seems that that event will be probably September 8th, which is Hugh Joyce's birthday. It's called Full Steam ahead, and I just wanted to give you a heads up that it's going to be a big event in town, and I don't know exactly all the details. Just wanted to give people a heads up. And the theater meets again on February 28th. I joined the community choir for the annual untold stories, and that was great. We were small in number, but big in voice, and I think you're going to be really impressed with some of the talented people. So I hope everyone comes out to untold stories February 25th at 4 p.m. And if you're interested in joining the community choir, we welcome everybody. They meet mostly on Mondays at 7 p.m. at the Shiloh Baptist Church. Let's see, a did it 10, VML day, and when we got separated, I got to speak to lots of different delegates one on one, and I made it an intention to talk to Democrats and Republicans and tell them what our priorities were in town and I'm pleased to say that many of the people that I spoke to agreed with the priorities that we had and what we were concerned. And so I was, I'm hopeful that the things that we're concerned about will not be a problem, but never know with legislators. It's a pretty big one and this is the two-month one so it's going to be a problem, but never know with legislators. It's a pretty big one, and this is the two-month one, so it's going to be a long one. Let's see. Plan RVA, I'm part of the Audit and Finance and Facilities Group, and it was curious because I wanted to ask town manager about this. They're finding some growing pains. Finan financially fine, but because of high turnover, they're not able to do some of the projects that would be grant funded because they don't have the staff there to do the grant. And so it's a financial burden. And so we're gonna have to come up with some idea of do we shorten down our services, do we try to up, it's just hard. It's interesting, like not having the staff. They can't get the funds and the funds are just sitting there. So it's an unfortunate consequence of hiring good people and teaching them up and training them and then they fly away. So anyway, the Plan RVA itself meets this Thursday and that concludes my report. Thank you very much. Okay. Good evening again to everyone here and everyone watching. Again thank you Ashland residents for allowing me to be here for you. Many of you have let me know that you are watching from home. On January 3rd, I connected with community residents and we took a tour of the state capital just before the general assembly session started. January 5th, I attended a VML elected officials conference. I have a lot. I'm trying to not read everything. Okay, I went to a happy new year luncheon with community members on January 10th. I'm the liaison for Market Ashland Partnership. I enjoyed the dinner on January 11th and the new officers for the year were announced. That was a wonderful networking event also. On January 15th, I attended a Martin Luther King celebration at Randolph-Macon. I am also the liaison for Downtown Ashland Association. On January 22nd, the board members met with a representative of the Main Street Association. They're choosing a site to give funds to. Different sites have to apply for funds and they want to choose a site. Hopefully, Ashland will be one. choose a site, hopefully Ashland will be one. On January the 24th, I met with the downtown Ashland Association and we discussed entrepreneurship initiatives and the workshops and the great things coming up with that association. On 25th, attended the state of the housing in Richmond and there was a lot of discussion about housing in the area. On the first day of February I attended local government day at the General Assembly and it was a great opportunity to sit in on sessions and speak with legislators when we could catch up with them. And Saturday night I had a great time honoring our own Ashland Police Department. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you very much. All right. I'll just repeat what others have said. I'm thankful for everyone's the attendance and the opportunity for the networking with the town of Ashland and the Virginia Municipal League. I was there for the VML's new newly elected officials on January 5th and that was a very helpful good opportunity to talk to others around the state and last Thursday as already mentioned you know legislative day down the General Assembly and had opportunity as well you know we spread ourselves out and we make as many contacts as we can. We want to be, we want to be a familiar face. And hopefully someone that legislator would call if they have questions, if they need help, voice and support for bills that help local government, we're happy to do it. And I just want to, I wrote down a note to myself, bills, bills. I'm happy to do it. And I just want to, I wrote down a note to myself, Bill's, Bill's, Bill's. I imagine everyone gets the VML updates. Last night we got one, please, speak to your senators to oppose a couple of Senate bills and more today. Plus, there are things we ask people to support as well as opposed. We certainly want to do our job to try to help local government retain the authority that it needs being, I guess, the closest government to the people. Also attended the State of Housing presentation there and that was very well attended and there's a lot of energy concerning. I'll say a focus on affordable housing, workforce housing, more housing, in any way you can split it. And so hoping I'm sure a national will continue to do our part in trying to help meet the needs in housing. Tended the Richard Region Tourism meeting in January. This was my first one. It'll take me a while to catch up with Kathy. Kathy Abbott and her work there with them, but I'll just say it's maybe it's less than it was before with my attendance, but I'll say an impressive group concerning local jurisdictions, but it's, I'll say an impressive group concerning local jurisdictions, but also the different organizations from the Federal Reserve Bank to a lot of large business and corporations representative. So a lot of good things in Ashland has, I'll say we punch above our weight limit. And no matter it seems like where I go and talk to people, they've heard of the Ashland and they always talk about, oh yeah, you're from up there at the center of the universe. So well done, Ashland folks. We haven't had anything official as far as in the way of economic development, but I happen to ride by what used to be the dairy queen. And right now it's the Seas, Bounty, Seafood, and Chicken. And they were open yesterday. So I stopped by and just said, hey, we love our businesses. Thank you for being here. And I'll be back and advise them to speak to staff perhaps about a ribbon cutting or something to give them some more notoriety. I think that's enough from the mayor. And so I'll stop at this point and ask Mr. Jennings to come up for our Public Works report. Good evening, members of Town Council. You have the January Public Works report as part of your packet. I can talk about a few things been going on for the last month and continuing forward. A couple of highlights with the crew, another guy a lot going on, but we actually had our first step when almost two years. So they put in 122 hours of removal and cleanup for that event. Also at the beginning of the month they did remove the big Christmas tree and all the Christmas lights around town in January. So we keep our Italian Armstrong, our contractor busy around town, as y'all know. They're continuing work on a swan-e drive B&P project, and they put in the grass swales and some concrete ditches behind the house. And they actually started that rain garden yesterday, so that's the last thing to do to put in that nice rain garden between the two homes and put it nicely in escaping and stuff. And they expect to have that project done within the next week or so. And once that project's done, they're going to move on to the Maple Street sidewalk construction project. That's the Maple Street between Mertle and McMurdo that the Joel proved a month or so back. So the Ash a road, excuse me, ask a pedestrian improvement project. Vita's still trying to wrap up the final scope on that. One of the things we're working with the sheets and actually with the owner, because the Rainoff-Making College actually owns that property to see if we can put in a connector path over to our trail. So we're gonna work with them on that. And due to some questions and the way it's currently designed, there's some impacts to some houses that the town fields is a little more than necessary for the project. We've asked V.O.T. to have a public hearing on this project to meet with the residents and talk about the impacts and see what modifications we can make. So once we get a date for a public hearing, we'll let you all know. We can make so once we get a date for a public hearing while let we'll let you all know Or some kind of so because there's some properties that we feel are impacting more than they should be so Starting to rock. Yes, if if they come up with a date with that public hearing be over it this V dot's location V dot public here more than likely yes, sir It'd be at the V dot ashen residents see right or a public meeting Okay, just anyone listening. I wonder if okay,idency or a public meeting. Just anyone listening, I wanted to do that. Okay, but he talked public here and they often think it's here. But once we find out details and we need to host it, we'll host it. So whatever, even at the library here or wherever. But we think it's important for this project to have a meeting. The English Street Skate Project Phase 1, which is from Railroad Avenue to Henry Street, staff continues to work on trying to get some access agreements and find some pole locations on that project. So it's kind of interesting to move the power poles. We've had some issues trying to find some locations to get them out of or along the roadway there. They have actually, staff has ordered Kathleen Hall or project managers or to the street lights for the project. So we're getting parts and pieces, we're slowly moving forward. So, and the big thing that Dr. McGraw mentioned, I'd like to share. So as you all recall, back in 2021, Matt Renau worked on a memo of understanding with Shintel Communications LLC to install fiber throughout town. Well, that project has actually started last week. They, with their six permits that have been approved by us through the town, right away permits. And where they started is up the right away, the Route 1 corridor. So the first three permits, the first two permits are the entire corridor from the southern end of town, all into the north and into town, putting a base of backbone through town. You were fat. So, and along with the, along those lines there's four other permits that we've approved. They're actually the area west of Route 1 and east of the railroad tracks and then south of Vaughn all the way down to sunny drive. There's four permits and to install fiber and all those neighborhoods and business is all those streets in that area. And so that's just for residents or are they gonna try to do both? So they can do anybody's available to tap into it. So and a side note, Shintel, Lordell folks were interested in hearing about Shintel. So Shintel hosted a meeting in their neighborhood a week and a half ago just to talk about them coming and the fact that they're just providing an option for fiber. That's great. Yes. So. Make me happy. Well good. I'm glad that I could. We could help you solve one of the things that you mentioned earlier. I'm sorry. Wonderful. Yeah. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. All may have any questions. Yes sir. Just a comment. Shortly I understand what's called section one of the fall line trail system going all the way down to Peterford. But the section that includes that we talked about last week that ends near Guelph me and goes south to the Chikamani River. I asked the V.Dot representative if there was any plans for ground breaking. I know we had of ground breaking ceremony. I think when we built our section of the Charlie line trail but I don't think in this area we've had a groundbreaking, actual groundbreaking for the fall-eyed trail and I just pass on a hope as I did to be doubt that there might be one with the Hanover County. Yeah, it's something that we were going to look into. I know Emmys. Yeah, I spoke to Miss Hawke when we discussed that earlier, and she did say that I blew as Mr. Verdunis and some folks in Hanover County adults talked about that, and that it was a plan to do one nothing scheduled yet, but it is part of the discussion going forward. Very, thank you. All right, thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks for your team. Thank you. All right, Mr. Town Manager. Yes. You have my report in front of you. And unfortunately, Mr. Stadler stole my first exciting announcement. I was going to share about the PIDs, but then also the Amtrak assistant that they were going to have to help folks, getting off on and off the train, but also direct folks to which track to go. But either way, that is a very exciting announcement. We have been working closely with AMTRAC, especially Miss Miller and Miss Novak in the visitor center to try to work out the logistics of how that arrangement could work. You know, we always want to be a good partner and a good neighbor, but also don't want a lot of traffic in and out of the but the focus in my department has been budget. That is obviously one of the big things we're working on. We're starting to get the numbers together. Preliminary, I will just share revenues are looking relatively good. I don't want to, you know, we help them the rooftops, that everything's great, but we're in decent shape. And then I have finally, as of this weekend, have department information on their budget submittals. We'll start packaging that all together. And I would say in the next couple of weeks, we'd have a much better picture of where the budget's going to stand. So, preliminary looking very good, though. Also, I want to highlight, especially for the community, that I think it's a service that has been missed visibly, but even though it's been kind of there in other locations, the caravan, the capital area health network caravan is scheduled to come back in mid-February. We did get a little bit more information on that about the person who's going to be operating out of there and they're going through a credentialing process and CHAN is excited to get them back out there. It is my understanding and Mr. Goodman correct me if I get any of this wrong that they have been operating out of is it the pre clinic at St. James less and also wraparound services through the why. Right. So not as visible as we would like and maybe not doing exactly what they would like but they have still been actively trying to serve the community which we've certainly appreciated. And then oh as part of the budget also, we have received, I think, over $180,000 in community requests. So we are going through those as well. I just do also want to reiterate again, those are organizational requests for specific types of funding. And all of those individuals will receive a response back from me whether they do get recommended in the budget or not. We'll have a frank conversation about their application. So we'll go through that and that will be part of the work session process for town council as well. And then finally, if you have a second, I'd ask Miss Miller to come up because we really enjoy the community leadership program and it is about to kick off but in a little bit different format. So wanted the opportunity to share that publicly. Sure. So we the opportunity to share that publicly. Sure. So we're restructuring it a little bit this year, trying to give something a try to see how it works out. So rather than it happening once a month over a six month period, we're doing it over six consecutive Mondays. The thinking behind that is perhaps that that kind of concentrated time might be not only easier for folks to commit to, they can kind of block their calendars, but also allows people to build momentum and to build stronger relationships because, you know, a month is kind of a long time between sessions. So we're willing to give it a try and just see what the feedback is like and if we like it, we'll do it again. It kicks off on April 8th and concludes on May 13th. And like I said, it's Monday evenings at 6 p.m. The structure will largely be the same in terms of the topics covered, but I'm also going to try to work in some more interactive, kind of role-playing activities as well as looking into a bus tour component on the planning evening. Because what I noticed in our last session is that there are a lot of folks that aren't familiar with certain areas of town. So when Miss Amos and her team gets up and discusses economic development, there's a lack of familiarity about what they're referring to. So hopefully getting folks out in a battle a little bit more the parks and tourism session, you know, a visit to the visitor center out into the parks. So, you know, not so much time in this room is my hope. And getting folks kind of outdoors is much as possible. Applications are open now through March 15th. I did check really quickly before I stepped up here. They opened on February 1st, and we already have almost 10 applicants, which is great. For that kind of quick opening. So I'm hopeful we'll have another great group. We try to cap it at 20 folks. So optimistic about that. And if you don't mind, I have one more little plug for tourism because it came up. We will be hosting the IAM Tourism Program here, which is a program that the Richmond Region Tourism does. It's going to be the last week of March. We're going back and forth on two dates right now, so but I will let you know once those are committed. For those that are unfamiliar with the IAM tourism program, it's a program from Rich and Tourism that is free. It's capped at 50 people. They hold them around the region. We'll host it here in town council quarters here in council chambers, but there's also a bus store. So the executive director of the Valentine does a tour of downtown Richmond and teaches everybody about Richmond's history. The idea being that everyone is an ambassador for the Richmond region and to try to encourage people to come here. So I would encourage all of you if you have done it, but it's been a few years or you've never done it, sign up. I'll be doing it. We'll be passing it on to our staff as well as a lot of our committee and commission members. But for anyone watching at home, it is open to the public as well. So if you're a business owner, a community member that is just interested in learning more about what the assets in the Richmond region are in terms of tourism and how tourism really plays a huge role in economic development in the region then it is open to anyone to apply so I'll make sure that goes out on our channels once the signups are open for that. What's the name of the tour again, North? I am tourism. Thank you. Sure. All right. Thank you very much. And that's all I had. Yes, sir. When you're ready, I'm ready to make a motion. Well, I'm curious. In previous years, in terms, while we've talked about the budget, the question mark on the count of the governor's budget, the General Assembly, has been big and bold. This year is in less so. I think so. Timing is always a thing, right? So if they don't approve their budget again by the designated date, that could impact us. But again, that delay typically hurts a city or a county more than it would have town with school funding, all those kind of more state funded programs. Hours are V dot maintenance payment. We probably know the amount we're going to get and they're going to cut the check anyway. Similarly with our HB 599 funds for the police department. So there could be a small impact and I'm not that I'm too worried about it impacting our day to day operations. It's more for the cities and counties if there's a delay in state budget adoption that can impact their operations. All right, thank you. All right. If there's nothing else, is there a motion? I'm Mr. Mayor. Please. I move to enter close session, close meeting pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1 to discuss or consider the annual performance evaluation of the town manager and 2.2-3711A7 to consult with legal counsel pertaining to recently filed litigation against the town. All right. Is there a second? Second. This is Barnhart. Aye. Miss O'Paul. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Mayor Chabette. Aye. All right, we'll move into the closed session. And we'll be back. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on All right. We'll return to order in our meeting and ask if there's a motion concerning the certification of our closed session. Mr. Mayor, I move to return to open meeting and certify that only those matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and mentioned in the motion to inter-close meeting were heard, discussed or considered. Second. Disguster considered second The I so certified I so certified miss so Paul I so certified vice mayor Hodges I so certified here to bet I So certified. All right. Thank you. Is there any other business come before us tonight? I think that. Where do you? All right.