Good evening. Welcome to the December 5th, 2023 meeting of the Ashland Town Council. Appreciate you being here. Want to start off with a moment of silence and you know there's a lot of good folks in the town and we can't keep track of all the time or mention every citizen when they pass, but every time there's opportunity to mention someone for the specifics of them, but also as that represents other folks who have done the same thing. So what I'm saying is citizen and a business owner Tom Chikoski passed away recently. If you're familiar with Peppet-Cherley's pizza, that was his business, his and his families. And they donated pizzas constantly. They gave cast donations. Did a whole lot active with the community, I think. Both he and his wife may have been presidents of the Market Action Partnership at one time. I know they both were involved in that. So, you know, I just want to express our condolences to the family at his passing, and just want to highlight, you know, a citizen and a business owner who cared about his community and it should. So please join me in a moment, sounds. Thank you. Mr. Vice Mayor, would you leave some to pledge? As you're able, please stand and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which is stands one nation under God in this whole with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I will take a look at our agenda for this evening. We have our consent agenda, which includes minutes for our November 8, 23, town council meeting. We have our invoices in that referral for rezoning 23-1031 on its 2023-14 Patriot Lent. We have our budget meeting timeline for 2025 as we head that way on creating a budget. Ashland pedestrian crossings agreement implementation authorization. That's item E and following that consider engagement agreement for legal services with San San Anderson. G proclamation and honor of the honorable RE trip Chalkley and every county commonwealth attorney. So we'll also read that proclamation after the consent agenda is our first presentation. Presentation A, presentation B, the fiscal year 2023, 2023, annual comprehensive finance report. And that from representatives from PB mayors. Well our citizen input time, at which time we'll have Sherry Burton. Ashland's, I'll say poet laureate. I would like to share a couple of her poems with us about this town that she loves. And any citizen who'd like to speak to council on another matter tonight would be invited up at citizen input time. After citizen input time, we have two action items. Maple Street sidewalk construction. Mr. Jennings will bring that to us and then on 95 landscape improvements. Mr. Goodman and we have one discussion item. The 2024 legislative agenda for the town. Mr. Goodman again on that and we'll have our reports, council member reports, mayors report, Mr. Goodman again on that and we'll have our reports, Councilmember reports, Mayors report, Public Works report, Finance, Police and Town Managers report. All right. Mr. Mayor? Yes. Sorry, didn't make it to you all before the meeting, but the Planning Department has requested to pull the referral of rezoning 23-0131 Patriot Glen. Some new information came in from the applicant that changes that application pretty substantially, so we're gonna pull that one for this the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . certainly the consent agenda. Mr. Mayor I would like to remove item 2e, Ashland pedestrian crossing agreement implementation. There's a lot of public interest in this matter and I think it would benefit from an explanation from the town manager just be sure we all know. So I want to move that to a discussion item that worked however you want to put it. Okay well let's move that to a discussion item. That work. How do you want to put it, Mr. Mayor? Okay. Well, let's move that down and we'll make that the new A and make a legislative agenda of B. So we'll do the other first. And we'll take our town managers comment there about item C and consider that as a motion for removal of item C from the consent agenda as well. Is there a consensus for those changes to our agenda? Yes. Thank you very much. All right. We'll move forward at this time and ask concerning the consent agenda. Whether there's a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended. I motion that we pay the bills and approve the consent agenda as presented with those changes. I second. Good deal. Ms. Barnhart. I. Vice Mayor Hodges. I, Dr. McGraw. I, Miss Abbott. I. Mayor Trevett. I. All right. Thank you very much. And that brings us to our presentation. And we're very happy to have our guest of honor here tonight, Tripp Chalkley. And I know that's a nickname, but it's all I've ever heard for years and years. I was called. I think as soon as I was born. I'm really, it's been Mr. Pronoun, the rest of about 73 years. I'll talk about that. Thank you. Well, we've got a proclamation. We'd like to read on your behalf. And we're thankful to have your wife, Stephanie, son, Reese, and your sister and brother-in-law here with us well tonight. And we'll read this. And then we'd like to come down, present it to you and all of council and take a photo. And I think our chief Aaron Holt would also like to come up at that time and have a few words to say. All right, is that work? Yep. All right, let me read this proclamation now. Whereas our E. Tripp, Chalkley III began serving Hanover County on January 1, 1980 as an assistant Commonwealth's attorney, and served in that capacity until December 31, 1983. And whereas RE Tripp Chalkley III was elected the Commonwealth's attorney for Hanover County on November 6, 2007, assuming office on January 1, 2008, where he has over 47 years of combined legal experience with nearly 20 of those years serving the citizens of Hanover County. And whereas RE Tripp, Chalky III, I'm going to say that a few more times, with unwavering dedication expanded the office workforce from 16 to 24 employees, fortifying the foundation of successful prosecution in Hanover County. Whereas RE Tripp, chocolate, the third created and successfully implemented several office policies to promote transparency and access to the criminal justice process, including open file discovery, sending discovery electronically through the procurement of a new case management system, and staffing an attorney 24 hours a day, seven days a week to assist law enforcement. And whereas RE Tripp, Chalkley III, diligently, and annually updated the community, on new legislation, ensuring that the citizens of Hanover County are informed and engaged in matters of legal significance. And whereas RE Tripp Chalkley III has nurtured and strengthened relationships with the Ashland Police Department and our honored colleagues, laying the groundwork for a unified front in the pursuit of justice and safety of the community. Whereas RE Tripp, Chalkley III and his staff have been outstanding partners in responding to crime in our community and serving victims of notable import as a homicide on October 31, 2018. Upon the arrest of a suspect by APD staff, Mr. Chalkley and his staff began a three-year process to hold that individual accountable under the law. This process included multiple witnesses, technology components, and even attempts to interfere with witnesses. This work was further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the many challenges, the suspect was convicted through the persistent work of Mr. Chalkley and his staff whose expertise in the legal system was only surpassed by his display of compassion. And now, therefore, be it proclaimed on behalf of the Ashland Town Council, we hereby salute our E. Tripp Chalkley III and congratulate him on his well-earned and deserved retirement dated this fifth day of December 2023. All right. You'd like to come down and take a photo with it. I guess we get up from the boot and that way we have a good shot. Appreciate you. This move won't up here. Yeah, closing in here. Chief, did you want to come up and be in this photo or just? Sure, I just want to share something with the problem. All right. Another question? I speak to the lights. It's a question. All right. And so we'll give you an update and we'll give you an update for some comments. So, well, thank you. Thank you. Step up the window. So much. If you have any questions, please let us know. As a defense attorney and a prosecutor, I would always respect you. The guidance you have given to the office has been nothing but exemplary. I would like to thank you for everything you have done for my agency. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Seth, for being up there. I'll start my remarks now. The chief dead now started prosting at the same time, many years ago. And thanks for going through those numbers, Steve, I'm a little bit worried. I was very glad. I did ride very commercial in the 60s. I didn't want to tell that. This has been about 16 years of my life. I have been blessed to be in Hanover County since 1980. I remember I was a pro student in the city. I took good jobs. This panel for the change of the county. Somebody said, what are you going to do out there? There's nothing but country out there. What I did was beat some of the best people I've ever met in my life. I mean, I did a friend Emily Mitchell. As I met most people at Andeys. But I really, this, Honourable County has just been wonderful to me. My wife taught here, her son was born here, was educated here. I'm from the city of Richmond, but Honourable County is home to me. And we'll continue to be home. God bless you. Thank you for this. Thank you for everything you've done for me. Thank you. Have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. That brings us to our next presentation, the Fiscal Year 2022-2023 annual conference of financial report. What I'd like to do first though is introduce Terry Stone, our Ashland Finance Director. Great having you here and I'll let you do the introduction. Sure, thank you. It's great to be here, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. I'm Terry Stone, the finance director, however, this is my first meeting. I've attended because I have another commitment on a school board that will be ending at the end of this month. So I'm sure you will be seeing more of me incoming months. So what you have on your agenda tonight is an introduction of the fiscal year 2022-23 annual comprehensive financial report. There's a copy of the report at your place and this signifies the end of the audit. Yay. So, and we also have with us virtually the partner from PVMERS who is Betsy Hedrick and she is going to join us electronically and make a presentation to you all in regards to the audit. I'd be happy to take any questions after that and certainly it is a large document. So if you have questions later as you have an opportunity to look through it feel free to give me a call. So, and Betsy. All right, good evening. Hey, good evening. We have issued an unmodified opinion or a tweet in opinion on the town's annual financial report for the fiscal year and ended June 30, 2023. On the other two reports we issued, both being plain, are located in the complex section in the back of the financial statements. The first is all report on individual control over financial reporting and compliance, and the second one relates to our audit of the town's major federal program. The major program that we audited this year was the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds for ARPA, and again, our report on that audit is clean. The town was required to adopt governmental accounting standards for statement number 96, subscription-based information technology arrangements, and these financial statements, which required certain tangible assets and are corresponding liabilities to be pulled onto the town statement of net position or balance sheet. So that's something new for this sheet. Just reminder that the management discussion and analysis in the front of the financial statements provides some financial highlights of the fiscal year and then the statistical section of that provides some historical trend information that you may be interested in. Lastly, you should have a copy of our document called Results of the Audit, which includes an overview of annual comprehensive financial report, certain required communication that we have to share with you under our professional standards. Our management letter and some other current information about our firm in niche. And I wasn't going to touch on any numbers because I know you're well into another fiscal year and probably have a big agenda for this evening, but I am here for any questions that you may have of me. And I also want to say thank you to everybody that we've worked with. We feel very welcome what we're doing on it, even though I know that it can't be fun for everybody that's involved, but we're certainly always treated with respect and have always been able to do our work smoothly. It's gone very well. So thank you for the opportunity to serve the town. Any questions? There's one. Thank you for the service, Ylpervad. It's always well done and we like the results and that's obviously teamwork here, but I also appreciate the fact that it may seem boring to people because it's number crunching on one hand, but it's also about people. The end of it's about people and people's money and how the town deals with that. And so we thank you so much for that. I think I interrupted someone with questions, so I'll stop talking now. See if there's questions from anyone or other comments. No, I was just, I am so incredibly grateful, for your efforts and the fact that we continue to shine here after year, both because of town staff efforts and partnering with you. Thank you. Very grateful. Thank you. Thank you so much. And the rest of the staff have enjoyed visiting with them here in the building. So thank you very much. Thank you, Betsy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Thank you. All right. All right. That brings us to Citizen Inputown and we'll invite Ms. Burton up first and I already called your name for the record if you give your name and address. My name is Sherry Burton. I'm a poet and live in this beautiful town of Ashland, Virginia. This is Armato Be Kind. And I'm going to read two poems and my latest poem is called Ashwin hometown kindness and it will be followed by an Ashwin Christmas since Christmas is coming up. Now as I said, be kind is Ashwin's town motto. Ashwin hometown kindness. Kindness is a motto in Ashwin, my hometown. Here laughter, see smiles and thank yous are all around. Like a pirate's box look, many treasures are here. Little shops so delightful in a few blocks are near. Tiny Tim's training toy shop, there's so much to see if miniature people wrote small trades. What fun it would be. This train town's unique. Why just read the signs, the names, iron horse, caboose restaurants, fun times is their fame. Homemade by Susan, tasty meals you find there. Kind words to our visitors. They remember that you care. Henry Clay Inn, where fine dining is a pleasure. Thank you for being here. Kind remarks, you will treasure. Our history and houses from Civil War days, kindly curators, tell stories, peak our interests, what they say. Ashland Spirit, it's contagious. There's so much to do. Shopping restaurants in old theater, library programs, all for you. And the best part about it is the kindness shown here from Ashland's heart to yours, a warm welcome here, every year. Thank you. Applause. year. This is called an Ashling Christmas. Like savoring a homemade Christmas cookie, Ashling holidays are a treat. Local restaurants, you see lights, here carols, smiling faces, friends to meet. Decoration and bright colors on many buildings of delight for you, wherever you go in Ashland, a Christmas wonderland is for you. With a wonderful tradition in Ashland, candy cane sparkle on city poles, see lights, figurines, and candles. We feel Christmas in our souls. Cruising by the railroad tracks, Christmas is everywhere up and down. Large houses, some pre-Civil War era adorn this remarkable town. Then there is the enchanted forest like a deer spring here and there. Did you know Ashland's a natural habitat to see real deer and bear? Many holidays events are planned. Light up the tracks is just one. Several trains through the center of town, Ashland's unique and so much fun. so much fun. The 54th old-time Christmas parade over a thousand along the road. It's chilly bundle up you see little dogs and Christmas sweaters are cute. Ashling first responders start loud sirens and bright lights. Parade excitements in the air we smile and dissipate the sights. Our Ashwin officials friendly ways. Merry Christmas to one and all. Any issues we have are always welcome at meetings our new town hall. Shriners wrapped up their miniature Corvette to each V8's turns and twists. So close to each other we held our breasts, their precision and timing didn't miss. John Deere, Formal McCormick, all types of tractors, how they rolled, pictured in some memories past, old stories have been told. The Patrick Henry marching band, Jingle Bells, a favorite song. We sing, can't wait, and look ahead of sight still coming along. Happy children with all their candies, many paraders gave to them. Adult agree, this parades ahead, cherish moments with family, they spend. Roller Blader, summed-do tricks, horses and ponies marching step old time cars and Model T4s still run and are well kept the last float the last float sits shall I Santa Claus Christmas greetings to one and all we look forward to next year's parade this one we had a ball and Ashling Christmas. It's a one of the kind town holiday treasure memories last every year from far-wide folks return Find memories of the past Now since you referred to the parade and I didn't have opportunity because I was ill that day, I didn't get to wear my conductor's hat in the parade. So you set me up to show off my hat tonight. So I'll tip my hat to you. Next year. Yeah, next year. And just ask is there anyone else who'd like to speak to council? It's citizens time. All right, we'll close citizens time and move on to our first action item, Maple Street sidewalk construction. Mr. Ginny, Director of Public Works. Well, it's sure tough to follow those wonderful poems. So, yes and he. Let's see. All right. That's the right one. Is the adapter connected? Oh, that would help. Let's see. There you go. It's always something different. All right. All right. Okay. Good evening, members of Town Council. All right. Okay, good evening members of Town Council. Tonight I bring forward to you the Maple Street Construction sidewalk project. It is, so the request is for approval of a budget to install sidewalk on Maple Street between Mick Murdo and Murdo Street. And this, and if y'all recall, from our sidewalk priorities list, that y'all approved back at the end of 2022 or FY23, it was number one on our list for priorities. So, like I mentioned, we're gonna install a five-foot sidewalk between Mertel and McMurdo. It'll be on the west side between McMurdo Street and Allington Street and it's going to be on the east side between Allington Street and Murdo. The reason is there's not enough right away on the west side in that section. So that's why I need to go on the east side. So and then I will have Kerbingutter, meet all ADA standards and we'll redo any entrance ramps for the residents along there as necessary. Our annual on-call contractor Tally and Armstrong has given us a quote to perform the work. This is a kind of a visual, it kind of looks a little skewed because North is actually to your right. So as you can see from the screen from between Murrill Street and Arlington. It's actually it'll be on the east side and then between Murdo and Arlington it'll be on the west side. The budget for this project is a total of $288,000. This is what we're requesting. Italian Armstrong gave us a quote to do the construction of $221,136. Material purchased by the town is a stone and that's $9,408. Howder is going to do some survey stake in force for $5,000. Plus we always add a contingency. We're about almost 25% contingency to get to that $288,000. Just in case for anyone for seeing things come up, like poor soils or something like that. So summary, like I mentioned, the total budget of $288,000. It is eligible for V. maintenance funds, and we do have enough funding available in our Capital Projects Fund for Sidewalk. So with that, a staff's recommendation is for approval of a budget of $288,000 to complete the construction of sidewalk between Maple Street and McMurdo Street and as presented. With that I'd be happy, I'm saying that wrong. I get so many am's, I'm sorry. Maple Street sidewalk between McMurdo Street and Maple, Muriel Street as presented. Sorry. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. Since I'm already confused myself. Yes, sir. And I mentioned this earlier. We're in hopes that when the fall line trail was built, which looks like getting to Henrico in 2025 sometime or fiscal year 25. And this is a continuation of the fall line trail hopefully into England Street. Are we doing anything in this section that reflects that this is a continuation or we're trying to bring folks into downtown from where the fall line ends basically Carter Park. Not with this project but what we're gonna look at is when that moves forward with their signage and striping package we're gonna help facilitate people getting from Ashcake Road as you're talking all the way into downtown. We might do some sheroes on the road, we might stripe something in that little segment between New Street and McMurdo depending on what's necessary. But it depends on the whole signing package and striping of what we're going to put in there. But it's not what we don't have any plans with this project. I understand. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? All right. What is the distance, either in feet or miles for this project? It is approximately 1,300 feet. So like a quarter of a mile, maybe? Yes, that day about a quarter of a mile. Yes, ma'am. Okay. There's just been a lot of discussion about the cost of a mile. Yes ma'am. Okay. There's just been a lot of discussion about the cost of sidewalks and I think this is a great example of it's not cheap. No with the contingency thrown in and hopefully won't need that it's $272 per basically per lineal foot. If we don't using the contingency, it's around $223 per linear foot. So it is expensive to retrofit sidewalk. Yes, ma'am. We love you. Yeah. There's more to it than just pouring concrete. Yes. Yes, some is grading and adding curving gutter and sometimes you have to move utilities. So it depends on a project. This one's not terribly Bad for moving utilities and all that but there's some stuff we have to Redu entrances to driveways and there's some curving gutter that's not in good shapes We're taking that out put new in so there's a combination of things Value-added yep. Oh, I know I love it. Yep. You brought it going all right, so I'll be going to be happy to make a recommendation. I move to approve the budget of 288,000 to complete the construction of the Maple Street sidewalk between McMurdo Street and Murdo Street. Second. Barnhart. Hi. Dr. McGraw. Hi. Vice Mayor Hodges. Hi. Miss Abbott. Hi. Mayor Troubat. Hi. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That brings us to our next action item on 95 landscape improvement. Mr. Gooden. Sorry for the delay. Good. Okay, great. Well, I'm back again. Almost a year to the date we actually asked permission to start this project last year and will give you an update of where we're at now. And of course, our request for Council to approve a contract and the budget amount to complete this project. So we talked about this. You actually started talking about this before I took this position in this role of cleaning up the un-95 interchange and making our interchange more appealing, more aesthetically pleasing to our folks who are passing through that they may say, hey, you know, that looks like a place I want to stop and a visit and maybe buy a meal and fill up my tank. Maybe stay for the weekend and it all starts with that interstate interchange and being a little bit more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. So this is a background back in September 21st, 2021. You appropriated $20,000 of the ARPA amount that we had in the spin plan for this project. And then in November 1st of 2022, you approved the application to the V.comprehensive roadside maintenance program, which started that formal process of approval with V.com. And you've already seen this slide, but I'll just kind of hit that like this is basically a program that allows localities or organizations to come in and do maintenance work on V. Right away. V. Still owns the property. This just gives us the authority and probably best way to say it permission to go in and do the cleanup work that we desire to do. We're talking about 17 acres at the interchange, at the exit 92. And what you see, the scope of the work that we're talking about is within the exit ramps. So we're not taking out any trees that buffer the interstate from the rest of the town. We're talking about what folks see as they're actually traveling on the interstates or getting off the ramps. So more the internal aspects of it, if you will. These are some photos you've seen these before. I just kind of want to run through them. This is not a clear project. This is not a cut down a bunch of trees. The Lorax is not going to be upset with the town of Ashland for what we do in this project. This is a pruning project. This is a cutting out some of the dead wood, this is removing some of the diseased trees and we'll talk a little bit more about the invasive species that are prolific out there and the trees that are actually taking away from larger mature trees that are competing for resources and both trees are going to die if we don't take one out. So this is there you'll see this tree in the middle here, forgive me I didn't grab the laser pointer if I came down here, but that tree is mostly encompassed by vines and it needs to be removed, but that's just one tree and one quadrant, if that gives you an idea of what we're looking at. This tree is approaching northbound on the east side. That's a tree that is a healthy, big, good oak tree, I believe. And that just means it limbed up so the lawn mowers can actually get up under it. So that's kind of the work we're talking about here. This is an area where all that brush needs to come out because it's actually a site impediment to as you can see that's coming on the I-95 acceleration lane from 54 going north on 95 where you actually can't look to your left and see what's coming up beside you. It's also blocking a water channel. This is some of the brush again between the northbound one ramp and the northbound off ramp on the eastbound on the westbound 54. There's just overgrown with shrubs and and brush that's just not quite very sightly and quite frankly it's competing for resources some of the larger, more mature trees. Again, another picture you can see where some of our larger, more mature trees I get have brush and shrubs that are competing for resources such as water and nutrients in the ground. And then overgrown with vines. You can see two or three trees there, especially in the hot summer months, they are just completely overrun with vines. And the vines wind up killing them. Part of this project is cutting the vine off at the ground and then again about 55 feet tall, so the vine would die off with time. You'll see another couple pine trees that are good healthy pine trees, but they're just overrun with vines. This tree, I want to point out, our arborists couldn't even identify what this is. You'll see the stump is in the middle and not quite sure what that originally was, but that's just shrubbery grown around it. And it's just, again, it's not a healthy tree anymore. It's dead and stuff grown around it. Again, this is more sight line issues. So the scope of our work, we are presented this to you. And this is exactly the scope that you approved last fall that we presented to V. As litter removal before we take the first lawn mower out there, cut and remove any dead disease, compromised trees, including invasive or non-native species, selectively cut and remove image or trees that are either encroaching on recovery zones, blocking drainage channels or affecting a growth of a mature tree. Prune healthy trees update to 15 feet off the ground. So again, the moors can get up under them more easily. Cut and remove brush, define as stems that are less than three inches in diameter at a height of four and a half feet, which is kind of the chest level, if you will. And we're actually exceeding, I guess, the protections that are already in town code. By the limits we've set in town code by the limits we've set in the scope of work. Again, this kind of shows you the scope of work in the areas we're talking about. Again, we're not talking on the outside of the acceleration lanes or the exit ramps or on ramps. We're talking about the internal medians, if you will. I did not have this last time because the contractor gave it to me the day before or the day after my last presentation you on this topic last November because there was a question, I think there was a concern in the community that this would be a clear cut operation. That is not it. We actually had right view which is our landscape contractor, Sin-2 Arborist Out, and they catalog every tree, mature tree that was over four foot in diameter at chest height. They cataloged 216 trees. And what we're talking about is removing 29% of those trees. Most of which are invasive, and then the balance are diseased, or the competing for resources or what have you. So that's, again, less than a third, and most of those are in some way, shape, or form already compromised. So I thought that was information that Council would want to have in case that question comes up. And this is a pictures I took on a family trip in Kingsport, Tennessee. And Tennessee does a really good job like some other states, North Carolina's one of them, that they're a really good job of keeping their interchanges looking maybe not pristine, but maybe a little closer to a park than a natural degradation. And that's kind of what we're going for here too. It's just something that looks a little bit more like a park atmosphere versus just letting nature take its course in dead trees and dead limbs and growing someone unslately. So we put this, as you know last year we once we put submitted our paperwork to V. It took them a few months to process it and then there was an issue about protecting the bats in the area. We kind of went through that and then later on this summer we determined that it was not a bat habitat and we were given permission to tentatively move forward. So we put this out to bid in September 26, 2023, and we had no responses. We put it out to bid again. And after looking at it to see if there was anything we could really do with our invitation to bid product to make it more, I guess, readable and easy for our contractors to bid on it. We really didn't change much with that, but put it out to bid again. At two bids and the lowest responsive bid was 68,025 from PTD incorporated. They have a track record of working in V. Interstate right away, so I'm hoping that their relationship with V. will help this whole operation go a lot smoother as we move forward. The original budget set by Council on September 21st, 2021 was $20,000, and I would like to suggest that the overage be addressed with ARPA funds from projects that have already experienced significant savings or anticipated savings that are in light categories. We have, we're coming up on less than 13 months to spend on the remainder of our funds. We will spend them, we're not that, but this is how we're going to spend those remainder of funds is balancing out projects. So it might, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there. So at this point, we have got Intenative Authorization from V.Dot. They, we are awaiting them approving the contractors maintenance of traffic plant MOT which basically their traffic safety plan for putting cones and signage out to keep their staff members safe and to keep traffic flowing while they do their work. And I'll be happy to take any questions. I know that our initial goal is to clean up the area but is it possible since we are now a B city maybe down the road to plant some pollinators? It would certainly cut back on mowing, and it would just be really pretty. I am really glad you asked that question. If you recall, and I did not include that in this presentation, but we presented it back in November of 2022, a phased process. And that phase two and three would possibly involve more landscaping, more planning. That was not our original plan submitted to that. Right, we wanted to get all of us to clean that, to do the cleanup. We wanted to get a baseline of how much is it cost? And quite frankly, a baseline of how much does it cost to mo this once a month during the growing season, including the traffic control, because that's just a base of knowledge that none of us had To move through that so but that is something we've already actually sent Correspondence to beat up because they actually have a pollinator program that maybe we can dovetail this with their pollinator program as well Or even with Randolph-Macon, you know or something. Yes, ma'am. Thank you down the road. Thank you If I can or if you have a question go ahead Thank you. Maybe up down the road. Thank you. If I can. Or if you have a question, go ahead. That can't wait. It might be the same one that you might ask. So, Doug, we have a number of citizens who are very excited about the wildflowers that already exist out in that area. And I saw earlier that the scope of services included mowing the entire thing. What can you say to reassure those folks that those wildflowers will be maintained and or kept in a way that they enjoy? So I think one of the things, I've been working with Ann Martin throughout this process and that's she and I will reconnect again before we actually start work. And I believe because we're doing this work, it may commence again, depending on upon council approval to hang on V.O. to approval, the contractor has already moved pretty quickly on this. And I believe in talking with Ann as long as we're not doing some of this work in the spring time, we should be pretty safe. But I'm gonna verify with Ann if we need to dance around some areas. There were certain areas or certain fields in the plots that we didn't want to avoid. We're already working with them to make sure that they're working around, I believe, like the seven BMPs? There's seven BMPs in the area that they actually have to work around mowing too. So if that comes up, then we'll definitely, if there's an area that we definitely need to steer clear of because of the time of year, but I wanna recall my conversation with Anne that as long as we did it during the dormant season, we should be good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. I wish I had thought of that question. I always thought $20,000 was aspirational. And I think with all the inflation and competition out there, that the price is reasonable one and a good investment for the town. I did. I think you mentioned mowing. Is this an ongoing cost for the town or will did, I think you mentioned mowing. Is this an ongoing cost for the town or will V dot step up? So there's one of two ways we can go about this. Now that we know the mowing costs, and quite frankly, I don't want to hang my hat on that until the contract gets out and does it once. And then if we know the mowing cost, we can start to budget for that. Part of the program, the comprehensive roadside maintenance program, is that we could seek sponsorships for maintenance of the interchange. The state code actually sets the minimum buy-in for a sponsor of $20,000. That $20,000 would be paid basically into an account that we would set up for maintenance of that interchange. In return for that sponsorship, the sponsor gets a sign that's about two feet wide and about eight inches tall with the same font, no logos and no directional signs. I'm not quite sure in this economy how many folks would be willing to enter into an agreement of a $20,000 sign that doesn't provide their local or direction to their business. But I could be wrong. But that is something we want to explore, but we didn't feel comfortable exploring that with maybe approaching some of our corporations in town or map or the Chamber or DAA without knowing what our cost is going to be. What is it going to cost to mow this? Let's say six times during the growing season. If that we look at that and we determine that's just not going to be successful, we can refer this back to V.Maintnitz. But it will be at their maintenance schedules, which is maybe two or three times a year for mowing. Even if we have to do that, it will be much improvement on aesthetics, even if we have to go back to their maintenance, their mowing schedule. I would hope that we can get this done and maybe the latter part of December or maybe early January, so then we can start moving forward with, can we go to that phase two of the program, pitch this to members of our community who may be interested in a program like that. I think if you recall, when we pitched this back in November of 2022, the Lensberg area is actually who started this train flowing years ago, and they have multiple different interchanges that are sponsored by like Centera Health, which is their main hospital provider down in the Lensberg and Roanoke area and some other big corporations. So that's something we can definitely look at. But I guess I would ask for your patience on that to determine. If the contractor doesn't know it once and then say, yeah, if we have to bid on this again, it's not going to be here, it's going to be here. Then that's a whole different discussion. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Oh, thank you. You could say that what we see out there now is the result of V. Standard Maintenance Schedule. Yes, sir. Right. So that kind of helps you put it into perspective. If you want more, it's good to cost more. And they do a good job of that maintenance, but this is what we want more out of them right okay so I have a staff recommends that council approve the contract with PTT and incorporated scurry I misspelled that to investigator I apologize and a final budget of $68,025 to complete this project. Is there a motion? I'm willing to make a motion. I move to approve the contract with PCD and corporate it and budget $68,000 and $25 to complete this project has presented. Hi, second. Vice Mayor Hodges. Hi, Ms. Barnhart. Hi. Ms. Abbott. Hi. Dr. McGraw. Hi. Mayor Charette. Hi. Thank you very much, Councilor. Thank you. You informed of. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Mayor Cherelle. Aye. Thank you very much, Councilor. Thank you. You informed of our progress. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And this will take up the consent agenda. What was consent agenda? E. Ashland pedestrian crossings agreement, implementation authorization. Now, now, Madam Chair, he does have a presentation. Does it necessarily insist on presenting it, but you had moved to remove it. Yes. I'll leave it to you, sir. Well, thank you. It's an area that we've been working hard on, and there had been a lot of questions, because there had been activity, and it's a complicated issue. So I thought it might be a public interest if we rather than just approved it on consent, had some explanation. Untends to support the request, but I'd ask the manager if he would. Sure. However you want to present it. Probably easier with visuals. And they're not dramatic visuals. You will probably still leave the presentation a bit confused. But we're going to do the best we can to get you up to where everyone else is, right? So that the public is at the same place staff as understanding or not understanding how we're moving forward. Thank you please. I am plugged in. I heard it miss. Here is voice. Don't look behind the curtain. We just slide up here. While we're waiting, just want to thank our upcoming council member, Miss Pam Soapall, for being in this evening. We look forward to serving with you. Yes. I'm still not seeing it, but I can pull it up on my own. Ah, court came on board. And the long board came on board. There we go. All right. So much of this information is taken from the presentation we made to you back in December of 2021 when we adopted the agreement that we're going to speak about. So I'll just touch on how we got there because actually how we got there does explain the situation that we're in today. So, CSX approached the town in 2018, 2019 to discuss updating an agreement that we had from 1967 actually with RFMP. It wasn't even with CSX that completely outlined all the little pedestrian crossings that you see across the rail tracks. Also outlined at the time the vehicular crossings which have changed substantially if you go read that old agreement since then. But they wanted to update that largely because of the addition of the really nice at grade platform at the train station. That was a DOJ project, Department of Justice through the federal government, but CSX saw that and saw that that kind of indicated There's a change needed to the agreement and we wanted to kind of do two things really Outline the current status and what we wanted it to be of all those crossings, but then also really Concretely to find who's responsible for what that was a little bit up in the air was we would call them They'd say oh can you do that it just wasn't. And so for about two years, we negotiated with CSX to try to come up with an agreement that we could all live with. And thankfully in December of 2021, we got there. We all had to give a little, we took a little. And so we gave away one or two of our little pedestrian crossings in order to gain one, but also gain improvements to all the vehicular crossings that would accommodate pedestrians. And that was a real win for the town because it adds actual dedicated places for pedestrians to cross that isn't directly within the line of traffic. And so we were excited, right? We got most of what we wanted. It would be nice improvements. CSX was going to be responsible for maintenance. Everything was looking great. And at their request, there was inserted a clause that they had 18 months to accomplish the vehicular crossing improvements. And so that's the improvements that would add the pedestrian accommodations. Over the course of that 18 months, at your request, at my request, we'd reach out every now and again, say, hey, can we get an update? Really two things, what are the improvements going to look like, and when are they going to occur? Because we still, really, to this day, haven't gotten a clear answer from CSXO. This is what we want to do to bring to you to improve those vague York crossings. At about the end of those 18 months, you may remember. We had some discussions about maybe going up the ladder at CSX a little bit to see if we could get answers from their corporate folks and that worked. We started to get some very quick responses from the CSX maintenance folks and they were very responsive and so responsive they basically called and said hey we're coming out in about two weeks and we've got these plans to do these things and we want to phase it so that we can do all the behavioral crossings from Francis up to Patrick Street. And we were going to try to do it. It was right around when school would go back. And so that was tough timing. We did the southern portion first. And we're going to do the northern portion once the making kids got back in school. Maybe they got settled. It wasn't move in weekend. And largely, the first part of it, I thought, went pretty well. People were confused at what was going on, but this is what we ended up with. This is a picture of what's at Mertel Street. You can see on the vehicular portion of it, they re-graded it a little bit. That was a pretty steep hump that was going over there. They re-graded it to make it a little bit more flat. But then also added this really nice side area where pedestrians very clearly could go across. It's on the other side of the gate so that it kind of clearly demarcated that the pedestrians would go on the other side. Unfortunately, before that could be striped, we had someone, I don't know whether they were a resident or not, come through and the gate was down and they just took it upon themselves to drive on the pedestrian portion so they could go around the gate and not wait for the train. CSX got word of that and immediately called their maintenance folks and said, tear it up. Tear up that pedestrian piece. We do not want there. That's a safety concern. And unfortunately, that's about the last we've heard from CSX other than a few discussions about trying to schedule the future work that would come. The big communication problem is the main contact that the town has had for probably 10 years now. Their roadmaster went and took another job in another state. And so we've struggled to get communication since then. What we did, we're able to get out of them as the conversation about pulling these crossings up, was that they have a much larger project planned for 2024 It's part of their ongoing capital improvements and just for the public's Information it's what they call one of their tie projects and the ties are the wood pieces that go under the two metal tracks And as you can imagine pulling those out and replacing them as a pretty large construction project And so at that time they said hey, we're hoping to do that in 2024 and oh we, we didn't really tell you, but to do that project, we're going to have to tear out all of this anyway. And so at that point, we were kind of seeing the light and saying, well, if that's the case, let's just wait till 2024. Let's plan this so that making kids aren't there. We can plan it at a time that works for everyone. And that is literally the moment that communication basically stopped from CSX. And so we still have the crossings which I'm actually pleased with, they're really nice. How does that get us to here tonight though? And some conversations with Vice Mayor Hodges, we were talking about the project and the delays and where that kind of left the town and the process of we have this agreement that says it's supposed to be done in next time. And we were talking about fall and blame and all those types of things. And there was a world in which folks could read that agreement and go, well, why didn't the town do anything about this? And I don't see this as the town's fault in this instance. And so what we wanted to do is bring you an agenda item. And it's difficult toward this agenda item. That essentially authorizes me to implement and finish this project even though it's outside the bounds of the agreement because it's beyond the 18 months. And with a little bit of wiggle room because we know CSX isn't going to do exactly what we think they're going to do even for these types of projects that you see in front of you today, their solution to this after the tarot up was, oh, we'll tarot up, but then we'll just move at 15 feet away from the vehicular crossing so that people don't get that inclination to go over it. And so with all that said, that's a change from the agreement, right? The agreement was you're gonna expand the vehicular crossing to accommodate pedestrians, not build it somewhere else. And so the motion tonight is intended to allow me to try to finish this outside the bounds of the time frame and with a little bit of understanding it's not going to be exactly what they say on paper. And believe it or not, that's really hard to put in a motion language for you all to understand. So I appreciate you bringing it up, Vice Mayor Hodges, it is something that I know folks are interested in but I'm hesitant to talk too much about it because I don't have good answers. And I like to come with you to you with solutions and solving problems rather than, well, we're going to keep biting away at this and I'd appreciate a little bit of authority to try to keep moving it forward and keep things going. And so that's where we landed. As usual, the manager has exceeded my expectations and his description and it is a complicated issue but when you're ready for a motion I intend to support the manager and here's his desire to have counsel backing to pursue the best he can't I'm not making a motion now but I'm ready to make a motion when you are ready to consider Any other comments on this from anyone? Beautiful clarification. Thank you clarify Yeah, I just want to echo what the vice mayor's it has said that We had a conversation my phone earlier today and we talked about sometimes in the looking back in history it's hard to tell what council really intended because it may not be recorded as clearly as it could have been and so I also had concerned that someone could if if you didn't have this conversation as part of the minutes and this presentation, it could look like Council just said, we're throwing up our hands and doesn't matter about a contract because they're not going to abide by it anyway. And we're not saying that. What we're saying is, there was a contract, it was studied well, it was discussed well, it was voted on, and we still would like to hold them to the contract, but we know that it's not a matter where we can twist their arm, and so we do want to give that flexibility but determination opportunity to our town manager to carry this to the goal that we had from the get-go. So we have not let anything, we have not let them off the hook. And this also helps us in our further conversations with CSX or any other entity in the future that if you don't keep up your end of the bargain, it doesn't mean we just give up in goal away. We're going to keep afric. So I appreciate this being discussed a little bit more further tonight. Great. Thank you. And if there aren't any other comments, I would move to authorize the town manager to implement the Ashland pedestrian crossing agreement dated December 20, 2021 expeditiously and in close conformity with the agreements of regional tent. Second. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Ms. Abbott. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mayor Trebert. Aye. All right. Thank you all. Very good. All right. It brings us to discussion item B, twenty-twent more legislative agenda. So, Mr. Goodman. There's a, uh, sort of the main thing that making of sausage and, and laws and government and all that that and I'm hoping that's not we're up to here but at the same time legislative agenda is it's not a really etched in stone kind of act request so look forward to the discussion. Mr. Mayor members of, this is your draft. I should have stamped draft and big letters in the middle of this, legislative agenda for the 2024 General Assembly season. This is not Doug's work. This is not anyone's work. This is a compilation of past legislative agendas that you passed where the topics are still somewhat hot that we need to be concerned with. There's some topics that have gone away that are no longer necessarily needing your draft attention every day. And there are topics that have come up that we may not have seen before, but we need to pay attention to now. So if you'll do me the honor, I'm just gonna go through some of the hot points and then turn this over for your conversation. So as we look at this, our legislative agenda closely follows that of VML and we took some bullet points also from our partners at Hanover County as well because they had their eye on a particular topic. One of the new topics that we actually had on a letter sleeve agenda in past years, but we added some language that was more closely mirrored our friends from Hanover County regarding land use and expansion of biorite uses and public participation and zoning changes things along those lines. And you'll see that language is a little bit more strong than what we are normally used to, but I think Nanshawken with the manager that was somewhat necessary for this topic to be very clear and the where council stands on that. As far as some of the next topics, these are in alphabetical order. There are many of them of what you saw last year. Marijuana is still a topic that requires somewhat of oversight from governance. So I think the state is still working on some management of that idea, if you will. Mental Health Services continues to roll on. You have links in their hot links in your package that will take you to the step VA program as well as