Good evening. Welcome to the November 8, 2023 meeting of the Ashton Town Council. Thank you all for being here. We start with a moment of silence and what I would like to suggest, don't have to, I would like to suggest is that we maybe take a moment and reflect on democracy. Yesterday, there was a whole lot of hours spent in this chamber for individuals supporting democracy. And when the numbers are counted, their time is when I'm not pleased with what the result is. There's times when I'm very pleased with what the result is. But regardless of our pleasure or displeasure with the result, we should definitely celebrate that we have democracy to use and to stand on in the Lena. So please join me for a moment. Thank you. Mr. Vice Mayor. 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 it stands, one nation, front of God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll take a look at our agenda for this evening. On our consent agenda, we have our minutes for the October 17th, 2023 council meeting. We also have our invoices and we have a proclamation for Native American History Month. After our consent agenda, we have presentations. The first one, presentation to former council members and looking forward to that. Excited for these individuals to be here. We also have annual Richmond Region Tourism Update, Ms. Catherine O'Donnell, so it's always wonderful to hear from our Richmond Region Tourism folks. And last and certainly not least, on presentation, we have Downtown Ashland Association, our quarterly update from Miss Longest. Well, I've sent us citizen input time after that. Individual wants to speak to Council on an issue. That'd be the time to come forward. And we have one action item, a resolution to purchase park property and presented to the, it looks like with Mr. Ferrett and Ms. Hoke. And then we have our reports, Council member reports, mayors report, public works report, finance report, and the town manager's report. Do we have consensus reports, Council Member Reports, Mayors Report, Public Works Report, Finance Report, and the Town Managers Report. Do we have consensus for the agenda as presented? Yes. Yes. All right. We have our consent agenda. What I would like to do is after we vote on our consent agenda, I'd like to also read the proclamation. So any questions or comments? Yes sir? Never mind. Any questions or comments yes sir? Never mind. Any questions or comments on the any issue in the consent agenda or do we have a motion? I move we approve the consent agenda and pay our bills. I second. I see it. That's good. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Miss Barnhart. Aye. Miss. Dr. McGraw. I, Ms. Barnhart. I, Ms. Abbott. I, Vice Mayor Hodges. I, Mayor Trevet. I, all right. Thank you. And now I'll read this proclamation. Whereas the history and culture of our nation has been significantly influenced by American Indians and indigenous peoples. And whereas the contributions of American Indians and indigenous peoples. And whereas the contributions of American Indians and Alaska natives have enhanced the freedom, prosperity, and greatness of America today, and whereas their customs and traditions are respected and celebrated as part of a rich legacy throughout the United States, and whereas Native American Awareness Week began in 1976 and recognition was expanded by Congress, and approved by President George Bush in August 1990, designated the entire month of November as Native American Indian Heritage Month. And whereas Virginia's home to 11 state recognized Indian tribes, give me some grace here. The Chirona Haka, not away tribe, Chikahomini, Eastern Chikahomini, Madapanai, Monakin Nation, Nansaman, not away of Virginia, Pomunki, Patawolmuk, Rapa Henik, and the Upper Madapanai tribe. There we go, one too bad. Whereas in honor of National American Indian Heritage Month, community celebrations, as well as numerous cultural, artistic, educational, and historic activities have been planned. And whereas it is important to recognize the contributions of American Indians and Alaska natives who serve in the armed forces at five times the national average. Whereas this observance is also a time to acknowledge the many American Indians and Alaska natives who are members of federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement and who sacrificed their safety for the security of all. Now on behalf of the Ashton Town Council, we hear by proclaim November 2023 as Native American Heritage Month and Ashton and Call upon All Residents of Ashton to celebrate this month through activities and programs in enlightened and inspire our understanding of the amazing heritage dated this eighth day of November 2023. All right. Thank you. Here, here. All right, and now we'll go ahead and move to our first presentation to some of our former council members. I don't know whether you want to share a little history or I can certainly do that, Mr. Mayor, if you'd like. Outstanding, very good. We would like to recognize four of our former council members this evening. And just want to give you a little bit of background those who are in the crowd tonight and also those who may be watching at home. The town of Ashton has been blessed to have benefited from outstanding leaders in our community both formal and informal leaders. Tonight we're recognizing past members of town councils who served in our old town hall building, which was decommissioned in 2021. Previously before the tonight, we have acknowledged service of all of our past African American council members during Black History Month in February 2022, and the past and current female council members in March of 2023 during Women's History Month. We continue this tradition by presenting the past members listed that I'll list out shortly with a reclaimed brick from the Telltale Hall affixed with a brass plate enumerating their name and their years of service. So what I would like to do, I'm going to give council a little better instruction than the last time we did this. And I'm going to ask the chief to come come grab my phone so he can be our photographer for this evening. Sorry to put you on the spot, there chief. But there are four bricks in front of each of the four council members. I would ask that you take the brick down with you to the floor. And when I call the individual's name who you are holding that brick, you hand that to the mayor so he can then present that Rick to the receiving councilmember. Is that clear enough? I goofed it up last time. Okay. Thanks. Fine. Only have to tell for Mr. James. Can I do it? Can I do it? Grab that. First, and we're going in alphabetical order in case anybody's interest tonight, we'd ask for Mr. James, our Foley, to come forward. Mayor Foley? Mayor Foley, due to the serve of the Ashen Town Council from 2010 to 2014 and we even convinced him to come out of retirement from 2016 to 2018. Thank you Mayor Foley. Next on our list, Mr. Bruce W. Haynes. Mr. Haynes served the Ashland Town Council from 1980 to 1996, a total of 16 years and served as a stint as mayor during that time. Thank you, Mayor Haines. Next on our list, Mr. Edward L. Henson III. Councilmember Henson served the Ashontown Council from 2008 to 2016. And last but certainly not least, Mr. James T. Moore III. Councilmember Moore, sir, the Ash and Town Council from 1998 to 2002. Thank you all very much for coming, especially your families who supported you during your tenure as well. I thank you. We understand. Thank you. Good evening. Short and sweet. There we go. All right. That'll bring us to our next presentation, the Richmond Region Tourism Update. Miss Catherine had done. Or we may start with Jack. This is Kathy's cup of tea more than, or excuse me, councilwoman Abbott. and we're going to see you together with your presentations. Thank you. Cool. All of the interviews. So, first of course, is that part of the regional cooperation program is that the districts have, seven jurisdictions that we've been protesting, and all of them are going to be in the regional division, and the tourists who are going to move on and be considered a sort of successful group of cooperation. and the ability to enrich the division and the tourists because you know that you can consider that so successful through our cooperation. So this shows you the presentation of coordinate guests through the gate trotters. And it was here significant of course because being so close to keeping them in the gate trotters and now we're going to move in and watch them walk from the bathroom and throw the sawpeless. So, these are the numbers. These are the line of the interest rate. And the seed is a record here for us all. So, we're up in 90% of the children's home and the generation in court taxes and the job's in the courts. So this is where I take the slides instead. Okay. I'll listen to that again. When Jack Barry speaks, we want to hear. That's right. But in 2008, when the banks collapsed and there was the recession, we had just traveled in tourism industry. And so what happened then is that it took us 60 months, five years to recover to get back to record levels. And when the pandemic hit on March 13, 2020, we didn't know how long it was going to take to recover. It was only 16 months. And so once we came out of it in July of 2021, ever since then, for the last 26 months, we've been sitting in a record in Accuracy and Average Day of the Great, ever since then, for the last 26 months, we've been sitting in a record in occupancy and average daily rate ever since then, the destination is on fire. So these are the four pillars of travel and tourism that we've shown before, family and friends, which is one of our strengths because we have 1.3 million people within our footprint. And this is the number one reason people come to Virginia, come to any destination. And actually out of the pandemic was probably the first people you did to travel to sea and to do travel. And this has never been better for us. meetings, conventions, and sports. Sports, sports tourism. It's a caption a lot of the headlines. Catherine will touch on it a little later. But it also includes the meetings and conventions as well. Leisure, which is very strong, and in 2021, when travel started to pick up again, the traveler avoided first-tier cities, Europe, as well as the cruises in Disney. Now, we find that the travel is rebounded back to the first-tier cities and the other markets. So we have started to flatten out a little bit and that's true for every second tier city. And first tier cities are having a strong, strong year. But business travel, of course, we're fortunate to have eight, four to five hundred companies. But business travel has not returned yet and we don't expect it to return until the beginning of 2025. So then, of course, this shows you the visitor demographics. What's most interesting is to the right in that middle bar is, instead of the day tripping, people are really getting to become accustomed to spending the night, and what's a 23% increase on the room nights that we've collected, which is huge. The other interesting phenomena is the bottom left is that typically each quarter is about 25, 26% share, but now we've seen a huge shift into the summer and into the autumn, taking away from January, February, March, which is still strong with the soccer tournaments, with General Assembly, but summer is kind of extended into the autumn and October is a very strong one for us. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Katherine. Good evening, great to be with you all again. One of the jobs of Richmond Region Tourism is to help keep the Richmond Region top of mind for people when they're planning their trips. So we know people are traveling and they have a lot of choices and we want them to choose the Richmond Region. So one of the ways we do that is working with travel media and pitching stories to publications to write about us. So other people are talking about what a great place we are. And so I just wanted to share a couple highlights of those with you from the last year. Explore.com did a story on the 15 most charming small towns to visit in Virginia, featuring Ashland. Good housekeeping, named 15 best places to visit in April. And the Richmond region was named number seven on that list. And they list all the jurisdiction in Richmond, including the town of Ashland, which is wonderful. And then paced.com did a complete craft brewery guide to Virginia, including origin beer lab. So again, just a sampling of the ways Ashland is showing up in the work we're doing with different media outlets. Similarly, you all are very familiar with the importance of social media, just coming off an election season. We do the same. We want people on social media to be seeing what there is to see and do in the Richmond region hearing from us about that. So some examples here. We hope you're all following VisitRitchmanBA.com account and sharing our content with your followers. We also have a great blog that features tons of wonderful things and most, you know, last year and this year now we just put out our updated version of the holiday things to do and features the light of the tracks. So as Jack mentioned, you know, and we're not thinking about leisure travelers, we're looking at the booked business that Richmond Region Tourism generates. So meetings, conventions, and sports. And once again, sports tourism is the largest market share of what we're bringing in in terms of group business. So it continues to benefit everyone, including Ashlyn, with your inaugural half marathon. So a couple sports tourism highlights for you guys this year. So the BMW motorcycles owner of America's 21st anniversary in 2023 was here. It was at Meadow Event Park, but their headquarters hotel was the true by Hilton in Ashlyn. So they were here in June of this past year, and it was 6,000 to 8,000 attendees. So a huge event with a $3.5 million economic impact. The picture here is a blog that we were following from the Long Island BMW Riders Club where they died at Casa Heradura in Ashland. So there's an interesting little tidbit there as a people in Long Island. We're learning about Ashland in the restaurants. The middle one here is Tyrant Wrestling Day Star Tools. This was in February of 2023. Again, at Meadow Event Park, 700 athletes, 1200 spectators, a good economic impact, 732,000, and they'll be returning again for the third year and they utilize hotels in Ashland. And then finally, we love this one, International Senior Softball, they come almost every year and happen for a while. This took place in August of 2023. The closest venue was Porfarm Park. And again, they were using hotels in Ashland as well. They'll be back for 2024. It was 115 teams with nearly $2 million in economic impact. So Ashland is seeing benefits from sports tourism, just like every other jurisdiction in our region is as well. So one of the things we like to talk about when we come to see you is updating our progress on the tourism master plan. This is the plan that our region put together for the tourism ecosystem that launched in 2020. And we prioritize these four things. So I've updates on all of them, the Headquarter Hotel, the regional inspiration campaign, sustainable investment, and workforce development. The first is the Headquarter Hotel, and presumably even following what's been happening in the city of Richmond and with the city center project that's out for bid and they are negotiating with firms to develop that parcel of nine acres around where the former Coliseum was but for us the most important thing is the head quarter hotel because the convention center loses business quite often because we don't have enough rooms adjacent to the building and this is important to our entire region because people who are attending conventions travel all over the region and it helps create compression in our hotels. So that's moving forward. They should be making some decisions in the next quarter or so. Very exciting. The Inspiration Campaign, if you'll remember that through the ARPA funding there was money given to Virginia tourism corporation for tourism purposes. And of that, the Richmond region got $2 million. That was funneled to Richmond region tourism. And we used that to create an inspiration campaign in partnership with the Chamber and Greater Richmond Partnership. That we can all use to help, again, keep awareness of the Richmond region top of mind for all both visitors and also site selectors and talent. And what we did this approach here, you may be familiar if you have grandkids or children who know what ASMR technology is. This is the technology, I see some nods where there's just the sound. Not a lot of words and loud music. So in tourism marketing, you'll see so many similar commercials where it's, we have the best that. And we have all this music and all the same. And so what we wanted to really do is differentiate ourselves using sound and letting the Richmond region speak for itself. So I'll show you that now. No, let's see. It'll work. Halloween Grimlands. Sorry. Halloween Grimlands. Oh no. Let's see. I'm going to go one more. Okay. Will you press play? Yeah, got it. That works. Yeah. Starting room to the Richmond region. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. Yeah, that's right. Very good. Thanks. Yes, we think it's great to do. So the goal for the campaign is 90 million impressions. We're at 68 million already and it's running through June. So we're really excited to share that with the world See okay, so the next topic is sustainable funding so you all are very familiar with this having passed the TID in Ashland You remember we came to visit with you a lot to get this done But the TID the tourism improvement district started collecting in July one and this was really about again Right sizing rich men Tourism's budget so we'd be sort of in line with our competitors and as you know the mission of the TID is to drive more hotel room occupancy. So we have started receiving the funds. They started collecting July 1 and we started getting funds in September and October and now are spending them so quick updates on that from the marketing front the big takeaway is that now we're able to always be on. So quick updates on that. From the marketing front, the big takeaway is that now we're able to always be on. So before we could not afford to advertise year round, because our budget was so small, now we have advertising running throughout the year. In addition to the inspiration campaign, we have these new campaigns that will be launching through June and then continuing on into the next fiscal year. The goal of all of them is to drive hotel occupancy and revenue. We're target using machine learning and AI to target travel entenders who are interested in destinations like the Richmond region. We're really looking at driving travel in the midweek. You know our occupancy is very strong on weekends across the region. So midweek travel, holiday travel, we've heard from the hotel community that December is soft, so we're doing a campaign just to drive December travel. We're extending our markets, so we have six hours, instead of four hours away, and we're looking at fly markets as well. And again, always raising the awareness of the entire Richmond region. And on the business development side, this is allowing, the TID is really allowing us to go to more trade shows. That's a primary way that we interact with planners for meetings and conventions and tournaments as we go to these trade shows and meet with them and pitch the Richmond region to them. So the top ones are all new ones that we've added in because of the TID and the bottom ones listed are ones where we'd be able to expand our footprint. So we've gone from maybe a 10-foot table and one set of appointments to a 20-foot booth with two sets of appointments and meeting with more people. So again, the bottom line is the TIDs allowing us to do more that we could before. Additionally, we will be doing 360 videos of all the hotels within the TID that we'll be giving to them for free. And we are paying for membership in the Virginia Restaurant Lodging Travel Association for all of the hotels within the TID. The final priority is workforce development and Danielle fits to you who is our brand new vice president of Community Relations. It's going to share that with you. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Through our workforce development efforts, we're uplifting hospitality through a, uplifting hospitality career through diverse options, supporting our citizens, partners and localities to increase tourism in the region. Sports tourism, as you heard, has doubled in the last decade, along with this economic impact, and we continue to put resources towards supporting this growth. Part of that is our scholarship support, helping advance career paths in the industry, and also working to backfill the industry that has yet to recover over the last three to five years. Our IAM Tourism efforts is another one of our workforce development outreach. We're educating our communities and its citizens on being the best cheerleaders in our region through tourism. With our IAM Tourism classes, I'm happy to support. We're going to be doing one right here in Ashland in March of 2024. And we hope to see many of you there supporting the program. We also mentioned sports tourism growth. Our foundation growth is no different over 500 percent and we continue to reinvest through workforce development support for our next generation of learners through scholarships to all of our universities around the region that have hospitality and tourism related programs. Coming up in February, again, we'll be hosting our RBA Sports Awards at El Trio Theater. We hope to see you there. It highlights the best in sports throughout our region and it also is how we fundraise for our sports grants that we helped uplift events that are already happening here in the community. Next we'll show Lydia and just give you a little glimpse in case you weren't able to make it last year. I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna have to go to the other side I'm gonna be the best The RVA Sports Awards lie from from the All-Tree Theatre, presented by Rosie's Ganon Emporium and Colonial Doubts. You may have seen your favorite team on the video, but we're also adding two new awards this year. We're adding our Youth Award of the Year, the Youth Athlete, and our Youth Team of the Year. So we want to make sure that we know our youth players and athletes are our future and make sure that they're recognized in this programming as well. So we hope that you nominate your favorite youth athlete or team. Oops. OK, there we go. As you've heard, your investment in tourism pays off. More importantly, tourism improves the quality of life for residents right here, bolstering the economy, generating jobs, and supporting places that make living here just wonderful. Our team at RRT has a passion and love for our community that is unmatched throughout the region, and it's an honor for us to promote the town of Ashland. Thank you for letting us present, and I'm here to answer any questions. Any questions? Comments? Yeah, definitely. Thank you. It's super grateful that you come and present this to us on occasion and you do it far better than I can update these folks. So thank you. Well thank you for being on our board for so long. Sure. I just go ahead now. Okay so I am curious because we have six flags potentially coming on right and also Henrico has a lot of athletic type things happening pretty close to us. is this a time we should be looking to expand in the hotel market? So, I mean, I asked because it's important if people who are business adventurers are like, hey, where would I like to put a nice hotel? It might be actually, it might be a good location, it's what I'm hearing. Okay. All right. The facility is just opened up. They have 48 out of 52 weekends. Whoops. I know it should mean properties is gonna put two properties on the footprints with that. But at the end of the day, there's still a need for overflow hotels. And it's root one, it's right down the street and it fits perfectly into your backyard. So I can right go for economic development to enhance the hotel product. The other thing is that in that footprint we have 20,000 hotel rooms and we sell out practically every single weekend for hotel rooms. And with the building coming on strong, it's going to even put more pressure on occupancy. So yes, I would say that. All right, and on a not so happy note, like should we be concerned about resources being limited at some point, like entrances and extences onto the interstates, or is that diverging? Are you familiar with our diverging diamond that might come online in five or six years? Is that, don't hold your breath. Okay, well I'm just curious because, don't hold your breath. OK. Well, I'm just curious, because I don't know if this is something we need to start planning for now, for this beyond your tourism. I know, but it just seems like they all go together. Do we have enough access to food areas? Do we have enough grocery stores? Do we have what might this mean in both economic growth but also in strains. I'd keep my eye on Green City and RICO property in Durham in I-95 and that's going to be 17,000 seats. Our mission is working with the NCAA's and bringing in final fours for a variety of sports, not necessarily D1s. So we just envision that the terms of products going to grow from that as well. Traffic control, that's kind of out of our, I never understand. But at the end of the day, the fortunate thing for us is that all the jurisdictions keep investing into our product because as we have these great numbers, every destination is fighting to steal our business. And the pie is so big and one thing to take away is, and we have Jay Howell, who is the executive director of Stryker's. And they take sacriotrenomins all across the country and he's addressing our strategic plan next week because he came to one of our sportsmen and said, you know, this area is the best in the country, the most hospitable, the most affordable, the most clean, and it's the fields and the facilities. And he went out and I said, well, you've got to come and talk to my board. And so Kathy will see him on next Thursday for an all day retreat. But that's what's keeping the product fresh. And if we let our guard down, Mertle Beach, North Virginia, they're all putting the facilities, they need to fill those facilities. And so, and the other thing is, is the footprint for regional cooperation, that's how, that's the secret of our success. It's the secret sauce. To your question though about hotel inventory, we just had a quarterly meeting of all the sports facilities, athletic directors, et cetera, counties, parks and recs, and the athletic director from Randolph-Macon came. And he said, he pled to the whole room and said, I need help finding hotel rooms. I'm trying to bring teams in to play against us. And there are no rooms to put them in. So I would say considering more hotels is a good idea. I was just gonna say I've really been impressed since we partnered with y'all through Miss Abbott's leadership how far we've come y'all are doing a great job Yes indeed I could that very impressed. Thank you. I we've got positive marching orders That's always things to work on Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That will bring us to our next presentation. Down to the Ashland Association. It's the longest. Welcome. Howdy. Howdy. Nag. Nagy Longest. I'm Executive Director for Downtown National Association. I have with me tonight our board chair, EG Allen, and one of our board members, Net Sean's. We are here to give a quarterly report on the first quarter of the year, so July through September of this year and also take questions and talk about what's going on now. So while we're loading, I will talk off the cuff for a little bit. So as you know, we work with the town through a three-year agreement on the MOU. And so our goal here is to demonstrate how we're fulfilling that contract, but also tell you about all the fun stuff that's been happening. Frankly, the first quarter of the fiscal year is maybe the quietest for us July through September. But we still had some major victories. One of them being Fashioned Fourth Fridays. It was a good season this year. I think it partnered beautifully with the other public art projects that we've seen come online here in town during the same time. And it was really fun to be able to all be singing that song through the summer and I think we're making traction with the audience about Ashland being a very creative community and vibrant and then we were awarded $175,000 in grants from the state through the Department of Housing and Community Development. In September, those grants will come online later this month and you will see them roll out in 2024. And so we are really looking forward to working with the town on both of those initiatives, one for design guidelines in downtown Ashland and one for entrepreneurship support throughout the county, both the town and the county. So you will see lots of me over the next few months as we prepare for those programs. And one of the pieces of those grants that's already in motion as we were able to offer three scholarships to the Leadership Hanover Program run by Hanover Chamber. And so there are three small business owners who wouldn't have been able to access the program. Otherwise, who were able to through our grant funding. And it's been a really positive partnership between our organizations, but also to just elevate the profile of small business centers and so that we're thinking about including everyone as we roll out programs across the county. So I'm really proud of that work. So that's kind of the highlights for July through September. Do you have any questions on that? Questions or comments? Are we familiar? At one point there was going to be the initiation of the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Park. Can you fill us in on where you are with that? Yes. We are inching closer to the finish line. Shugging along is what I read. Shugging along is, yes, excuse me, let me fix my metaphors here. We are chugging along, but it is not a quick process. We have six private landowners in addition to the town as a landowner that we're working with. We also have multiple construction contractors. So at the moment we're held up on fabrication and one lease is still pending. And so we are looking into December for dates for contractors to get started. So I'm able to say with strength that we are moving forward and that it's very much a reality. I'm not able to give you a hard deadline today. I understand. Thank you. I appreciate that delays take place. But at the same time, we want to, we know y'all want to get it right rather than to get it fast. And so this is something we want to grace the town and be something that's part of the town's history and legacy. So anyway, we're patient for it to be exactly the best it can be. So thank you. That's very kind. And yes, I think the goal of keeping all stakeholders happy and working together has slowed us down, but is the point of doing a good job. That's right. So thank you. Anything else, anyone? I would quickly add that we had a very successful Halloween. It was in the second quarter. And I'll be glad to come back and talk all about it with all the metrics, but hopefully all of you were able to see the safe. And thank you to Ashley and Police Department and happy trigger treaters on Halloween night. It was really a wonderful event to be part of. But we were really pleased because the entire weekend went better than it's ever gone. We saw higher media rates which led to ticket sales. And so I'm really looking forward to reporting this metrics because I think we made big gains across the long weekend that we call Ashland Halloween. I was just gonna say I thought the scavenger helped spread folks around, get them off of the center street. That was the goal. We certainly hope so. Yeah, we'll continue to work with the town on how to handle trigger treating. Great event. Nice job. Yes. So we will see you at the light up the tracks celebration on Saturday, November 18th at 5 p.m. on your front lawn. And we are really looking forward to lighting that town Christmas tree. So thank you for your generous provision of that. But it is sure to be a great show and a crowded event, weather beginning. So we're looking forward to it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to a citizen input and just invite any citizen who would like to speak to council on an issue Come forward at this time and just Introduce yourself a name and address All right Paul Davies the CFL Randolph-Macon. Just wanted to make a statement how our partnership is so important between the town and the college. And one of the things they talk about the regional during COVID when the occupancy was down, we needed rooms because we had to have a single room for our students to isolate. We rented 10,000 hotel nights during COVID, which occupancy taxa one down over here, but again, just how our partnership is so important. We've got to get back and also ship about economic impact, how we work together, you know. But I just want to make sure since we're talking about that, this is how when some things don't work out well, there's other ways to balance it out and how we play together. So I just want to make sure you're aware of that because again, we value the town and it's also an opportunity We could get back and keep people employed on the way there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Good to hear that Anyone else Well, Chloe says in input and move on to our action item resolution to purchase park property Yes, that will be me this evening. We gave Ms. Hawk the night off with a relatively short agenda. But tonight we bring you a resolution that essentially authorizes the town manager to purchase. And I'm sorry it was wrong in the menu. Memo, it's actually 0.661 acres of property down on Pleasant Street, directly adjacent to South Taylor Street Park. The idea being that we would purchase this land and then take down the fence and make a much larger park amenity for the folks of South Taylor Street Randolph, Arlington, all those areas to take advantage of. Good news on this one. The purchaser is actually Randolph-Macon College. These to be property owned by Mr. Harold Duke that the college acquired or was donated and really appreciate the college going through the process of actually subdividing the parcel. There's a home on it as well. They subdivided it so that someone could still live in action and make a nice home available for folks but also allow us the opportunity to purchase the land to add to our park space as well. So really was a win-win in that the community gets to keep a nice affordable home in a nice area of town and the town gets to expand the park community. The price that we would be paying is 120,000 that is generally a market rate that we're comfortable with on the town side. If you were to approve this this evening, I believe we would actually sign all the documents on this coming Monday and record everything and be ready to move this this evening. I believe we would actually sign all the documents on this coming Monday and record everything and be ready to move forward from there. What you will expect going forward after this where you to approve it is Ms. Hawk will work with the Parks and Rec Committee to go through a design process and figure out how they would want to improve the larger area of South Taylor Street Park rather than just what's there now. But so no guarantees on what it's going to be. We want to let that go through the process. But adding the actual real estate would be a great value in a nice opportunity for us to expand that park area. Love it. With that, I'll take any questions you may have. Love it. Questions? Once we acquire the property, what are next steps in terms of how we're going to develop just out of curiosity. The park and rec committee have been working with Miss Hawk. They have a number of park facilities that need a little design help that is probably beyond just what we have on staff. And so we've been talking about the process of going out and putting out an RFP for a park designer landscape or protect type folks to help us not only with the addition at Sell Taylor Street Park, but the park that we bought up in North Asherund as well and then some other areas get a little bit of professional help so that we can have the plans and then just be ready to add budget so that we can build them in the time that's appropriate through our capital project fund. Thanks. I have the opportunity to represent the town mayors not available. This Saturday at the Star Neighborhood for the Habitat Project that they're starting and one of the comments that Habitat has asked for is our investments in that neighborhood. And this is one, a significant one, enhancing an existing part. And then in our plans extending the sidewalk and Randolph Street, among other sidewalks in that area. And it's very satisfying to be able to represent that to the community. Thank you. No, thank you for being available to do that. Excellent. All right. Do we have a motion? As a resolution. I'll be happy to. I'm very excited to add more green space to town. I move to approve the resolution to authorize the top manager to execute a purchase agreement for the property and the amount of $120,000 in any associated cost as presented. Second. I defer to Council Member McGraw. I think Council Member Abbot. I defer to Council Member Abbot. Second. Just for the clerk's records, I have, Mrs. Barnhart making the motion with council member Abbott making the second. Yes. Yes. Mrs. Barnhart. Hi. Vice Mayor Hodges. Hi. Dr. McGraw. Hi. Miss Abbott. Hi. Mayor Trevett. All right. Wonderful. Thank you all. Wonderful. All right, I bring us two reports council member reports and we'll start with okay. Well, no quickly Attended the theater 75th party and they are thank you They are continuing throughout the next roughly not in 10 months of having 75 cent movies So please check out the the website. They have lots of great things planned for the holidays. A 10 of the yarniverse ribbon cutting I believe was their third one. I'm so grateful that that little store has stayed in town. Such a special spot for people all over the region that come here just to get yarn. And if you haven't been in the store, please do so because it's not just knitting needles and skeins of yarn. They have lots of other great things there too. The parks in Rec will meet tomorrow night so I don't really have anything to report on that other than we will be going over the bike path update. And Halloween, I'll just say, was wonderful. We had roughly 325 kids come by our house on Howard Street. It was great. And just really appreciate everything that downtown Ashland does and everyone else does to make that happen. All right. Thank you very much. Yes sir. As far as I've had an opportunity to meet with members of town staff and representatives of sports backers. They're doing a vision plan for the full line trail trying to enhance the experience and also direct people to as an Ashland up Maple Street into the town and they're making progress and working with the staff. I was very satisfying that sports backers is a great organization. I'm sure that will be a great enhancement. I attended two transportation meetings. One was the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, and we approved an agreement along with several others that with VDOT allows the state to proceed with the widening of I-64 between Bottoms Bridge and James City County. And there's a groundbreaking this weekend and I will have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Central Virginia Transportation Authority. I know you aren't gonna be making it to the Welcome Center of the Central Virginia Transportation Authority. I know you aren't going to be making it to the Welcome Center in the middle, but I'll be there for you. Finally, in the October Richmond Regional Transportation Authority meeting, this body approved a draft letter or the drafting of a letter, which would express concern with the state's rating system called Smart Scale. The next round, there are draft amendments, which would, among other things, reduce the eligibility for pedestrian and bicycling paths in terms of priorities and funding from the state. I've talked with the manager about potentially drafting a letter for our next meeting. Expressing concern as did the Richmond Regional Transportation Authority. We have, based on the latest numbers, I could put my hands on about $132 million gap in funding the whole fall line trail to Petersburg and filling in. So we don't we hope that the transportation board for the state will reconsider the elimination of bicycles, pedestrian walkways and some transit that they're proposing. So more to come, that's all I have. All right, thank you. Dr. McGraw. I attended the, again, the ribbon cutting of the center of the universe. It was the third time that's been located here and looks great. We'll go. Tendered the, again, the ribbon cutting of the center of the universe. It was the third time that's been located here. And looks great. I also attended the Ashland Theater Gala. And I also experienced the Hispanic Heritage celebration that was at Los Rejios. And it was kind of eye-opening for me a little bit, because I had posted about it on my Facebook like two weeks prior, and then I went live. And my friends that liked my post two weeks prior said, oh, I didn't know about it, I would have come. So I don't know how to make people know about things. But I just thought, you know, we all have these same issues. Like you express them and then they don't know. But anyway, it was really nice and well attended the rain subsided and all of the things started happening. So there's a lot going on in the town but that's the only thing I did. I did not get to attend Plan RVA Council Member Abbott filled in for me so I don't have any to report on that. So thanks. All right. Councillor Wolmond had it. Well, since you brought up Plan RVA, I was happy to step in and a lot of the discussion really revolved around the audited financial statement. So I won't go on about that. But they are currently looking at membership dues, which are currently $0.60 per capita. And so part of a lot of the funding goes to how big you are. But they are also looking at trends and where that kind of information is leading us for future projections. Let's see what else did we have. I thought this was fascinating. They're pushing the Youngkin administration for funding for the planning district commissions, just because we have 21 of them, and it's about time that we really look at increasing the funding for those commissions, because the work they do is just so important. And if it's something that we want to do, they're looking for letters of support from community members. We also had our DAA meeting. A lot of that was centered around Halloween, as you can expect. But they are really looking forward to the England Street Project, and they are putting together a design guideline steering committee, and they're looking for folks there. Maggie mentioned the railroad park and then light up the tracks is going full force. So that's pretty much it. And it was great to see Kelly from business development there. You know, she was, she's going to be such a great asset to the town and she's jumping right in. Oh, and then I just wanted to apologize for my tardiness. I will be brutally honest. I'm a terrible napper. I sleep like the dead and I'm just so happy I was able to throw some clothes on and come over here. And I didn't want anyone to think that I somehow patchal in about the election results, which I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about. But I am personally, I'm sad that I won't be back for another term. It's certainly not the end for me, but I am thrilled that Ms. So'Paul is gonna be stepping in. You know, she ran a terrific campaign and resonated with so many folks. And I'm truly thrilled that she's gonna be stepping in. So congratulations. A plaza to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Mayor's report. All I would say is, yeah, I was at that thing and I was at that thing. Market Aspen Partnership is meeting in the morning, so I'll have a report on that next time. But it's been exciting talking to some of the new businesses, people that pop up, and then connecting them with other avenues where they can network and expand their connections into. Anyway, a lot of good things happening. Yarniverse, if three times is the charm as the expression goes, it's great that you see a business that tried something new was successful in a space that ended up being limited found another space in Ashley. And then did that again. So anyway, my hat's off to them and that was a great ribbon cutting. Our economic development authority has come up with two different, I'll say, new grant programs. One of them, sort of like our facade grant, maybe it's a little bit, and manager can help me. It may be a little bit bigger than that, but basically for businesses on Washington Highway, to try to encourage them to improve the look, if it's as simple as improving the driveway, the insurance ways. I know they've already given away, I believe it was about $8,000 to one of our small, I won't say strip mall, because that has such a negative connotation. But a business, a gathering of small businesses, a land of each other, just south of Scotland and other businesses are interested in doing that in the other grant is related to the Fallen Trail, looking to try to incentivize any business that's related to sports tourism, to draw them because we have the highlight of the Fallon Trail to raise interest. So anyway, hats off to them in what they're doing. And that's enough from the mayor tonight. So at this point, we'll give it to public works. I do not see our gentleman here. Oh, oh, we have our better than that. Don't tell Mr. Fjennies I said that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Which one of these is working? Speaking to the temporary mic. Sorry. All loud. Good evening, Mayor Trevet. Good evening. Members of Council. Council manager. Nice to be here. So I know that you have the Public Works Report in front of you. I will give you some highlights. So from our operations crew, our crews helped to move the eight pieces of artwork donated by Charles Stresley. And I think my name is hard. And they also did all the landscaping in the municipal parking lot. I know that was a lot of folks were waiting for that. We did a nice job with the new permeable pavers, but we wanted to wait till the weather was right for the planting. Let's see, our leaf removal has begun and I'm not. Mike gave me these notes and he wrote, zone C, I'm sorry I can't define zone C better. Perhaps you all know what that means. But we're advertising this and it looks like folks are really putting out a lot of leaves and picking them up. We have two one stormwater project that is completed. We just finished up the frontage road grass whale. We just have some eyes to dot and tease to cross on that. We're doing a final walk through next week. And that will be finished. And that was done by our on-call contractor, Talian Armstrong. And it was coordinated by our project manager, Brad Helman, who works in my department, and Brad is also working with Tally and Armstrong on the Swanee Drive stormwater management facility drainage improvements which have just gotten underway in the last week or two. And we've been working closely with the residents there. We're really underfoot with them there. And so we're trying to keep everybody happy and doing our best, making good progress on that. The passenger information display system at the visitor center Amtrak stop is at 90% now. Tomorrow we're having a meeting with Amtrak on the 90% plans. I reviewed the plans and didn't have any comments. So hopefully we'll be seeing some of, we'll be seeing that, some giving our passengers information on what side of the tracks to wait on for the train. I understand that the ash cake road bridge over 95 should be opening next week. We'll keep our fingers crossed on that. We'll believe it when we see it. Yeah, well, yes, we're hoping. We're going to think positive optimism on that. We've been working with V.On a couple of projects, the Ashcake Road pedestrian project. The design is underway by V. dot's taking the lead on that We have We and we have some wrinkles to iron out on that but it's coming along and we should be seeing something there the rat one ash cake I mean our brook to ash cake road is Supposed to go to add early next year and we think that might be postponed because of a shortage of funding. Planning our wonderful planning director Nora Amos is working hard to try and get that fully funded so that that can be moved ahead. And trying not to have the scope decreased on that, because that's the other option. If we can't get enough money, they might chop apart off. You probably see that with other of these V.led projects. Yes, sir. And I'm happy to answer any questions or elaborate on anything. I know we have at least two. Well, I can't promise anything, but for anything from a policy board position that we could do to address the route one funding. I know everybody's got the same problems and with inflation and construction costs, our things are getting more expensive and the money's not going as far. But again, if I can help, please let me know. Well, too. Yeah. All right. A couple of things. The passenger information display system, when you say 90%, that sounds really good. But what people, what I often listen to is, tell me when, and I know listen to is, tell me when. And I know it's a shot in the dark. Well, last time we met, they said within 18 months. So I think we're getting closer to maybe within 16 months. I think at that time that came out, we were, that meant it would end in, or be complete in July of 24. Whether that is still within that timeframe, but that is still, when that number came out, what we were thinking of. They have not changed that. Okay. And I know the terminology, like I just want to ask is when folks out there here, 90% you're thinking, oh wow, this probably this summer. Wow. Yes, and it's a 90% plan. Yeah. It means once the plans are complete, then they can move forward towards the, towards, I'm not really sure what their process is, but if it were our process, we would bid it and then go to construction. And one more thing for me. Sorry to step on, step ahead of anybody. Hanover Avenue and James Street, you know, see that the road's been blocked again, people wanted. How long will it be like that? We think it'll be done this week. They are, it is a Hanover County project. They're doing a sewer rehab there. And hopefully by the end of this week they should be done. But I can check on that and let you all know. That's good enough for me. Anyone else? Not forever. Yeah. Mr. Mayor. Yeah. I'll just follow up on the leaf collection right on the front page of our town website is a nice thing you can click that gives you all the information you need on leaf collection, the zones, the time frames, all that stuff. So if you are putting your leaves out, check that page and that'll let you know when they'll be coming by. I've been seeing them and they're doing an excellent job as always. Much appreciated. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Finance report. I'm going to fill in again until January when this stone will be able to be with us, but you have the finance report as well as an interest report in front of you And I'll touch on that briefly at the end Miss Stone notes that all our revenues even though some are up, some are down over prior years all on pace for budget, which is great. You may have seen this month in particular, sales tax is looking really, really good. Not all that surprising in a July time frame, kind of middle of the year when folks are doing a lot of travel and spending quite a bit of money. On the work side, the audit should be presented to you. I believe either at your next meeting or the first one in December. Mr. Stone is working with them right now to finalize that document. All the numbers are done, but they're putting it all together and making it look the way it's supposed to. Good news is, no major findings, clean audit, if anything, just a few things that we can do better, which is what we ask them to look for every year. So no major findings whatsoever. On the back of the report, you'll see this about every six months from us. I don't know that we do a great job of highlighting it, especially in past years, but we have a couple of places where we store money and earn interest on them through a state pool. In prior years, you may remember I would be thrilled if we got $20,000 per the whole year in interest. And I hope you can see based on this report, the interest rates being up are helping us out a lot and makes this report much more entertaining to present to you because we're earning a consider about amount of money on our investments, which is great. You know, that's the whole idea of having the kind of free cash that you have on hand that doesn't need to be spent today invested. And so we're doing much, much better. And you can see there the three vehicles that we invest in. And then the return for those month by month. I will note that will continue probably to go up as far as rates and the revenue. But as we spend down our ARPA money, that total amount will likely go down just because we have less money that we're earning the interest on. And so while it's been a good ride, I expect that to go down slightly over the next year as those funds are expended. With that, I'll take any questions you may have on the finance report. Yes, sir. I collect acronyms, LGIP, local government investment program. Pool, but yes. Pool, great job. Yep. And that is a program set up by the state and the state treasurer so that small local governments can invest in an investment vehicle that is run by the state and the state treasurer so that small local governments can invest in an investment vehicle that is run by the state and we don't have to have specialized investment managers looking through all the state code of what can we invest in, what can't we invest in, what grade of bonds or safe and all that. The state essentially does it for us. It's kind of a safe set it and for a credit place for small local governments to invest their funds. Excellent. Anything else in any other questions on finance? All right. We put your other hat on. And then finally, town manager report, you have my report in front of you. A few things to note that I don't believe I even put on the report. But do you want to put it out publicly? And we'll continue to talk about it as it comes to fruition. But the planning director and I did have a meeting with the folks from the Iron Horse Business Park proposal, and they do plan to submit a rezoning this month. So do you wanna put it out there to the community that that project will be coming back in front of us? We don't have the application yet, but just wanna be as transparent as we can with a project that kind of has so much community interest about it. As soon as we get that rezoning, kind of our next iteration of when we would do a public notice, I've asked Ms. Miller to put it out to the community to say we have the application and when the next scheduled meeting at the Planning Commission will be, just to try to make sure folks know what's going on. I hope you saw in the report, and sometimes wish Ms. Haught could be here so she could sing her own praises but lots of great stuff going on in the parks. The skate park is being rehabbed and worked on South Taylor Street Park not only did you all just potentially buy more land but we've replaced the playground equipment down there as well. I believe that was one of my first projects in 2007 when I came to the town was to replace that equipment and now we're already back at it being replaced again. So lots of great things going on in the parks and had a great pool season. I believe Ms. Hawk is working on our seasonal report for you right now that should come in December. So lots of good quality of life projects going on. And then I'll end on the good news and give you the piece of bad news. I did want to just let you all know and let the public know just so you when they see the job ad they're not surprised Our IT contractor has announced that they will be no longer servicing us or other Organizations as of December 31st and so as I evaluated that need in the community or in the organization and how to proceed forward Worked with staff and we we decided it might be best to give this a shot as a full-time employee rather than a contracted service to see if we could find someone who would kind of give that small town and local employee touch to this type of service rather than the contracted service. So I believe as of tomorrow you will start seeing a job ad pop out there. We've got to move fairly quickly since they end service on 12-31 but I'm optimistic that we'll be able to find a great person to fit in and meet that need for the town. And then finally, exciting news. Some of you may be asking what's going on out on the lawn, but the tree is going up. I know when we pitched the idea of a panel tree, some of you maybe didn't know what that was and what it would look like, but you'll be able to see over the next few days as the public works crew starts to assemble it. It was fun looking out the window this morning and seeing a lot of pointing and directing and trying to figure it out, but like everything, I'm sure that becomes experts on this, just like they do with most things. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Anything, anyone? All right. Anything else to come before succeeding? But you have to come up here. Introduce yourself. Give it your address. This will be a late addition to citizens and for board. Glad to have you. And I'm sorry. I just held up in a prairie back then. My name's Annette Shons. I live at one one oh five race course street. We had 1500 hallameters just to throw that in there. What I wanted to thank putting on my Parks and Rec hat. I'm on the Parks and Rec Committee and I want to thank everyone here for the vote for the new park land because that was something that as Josh has said. It's something that we were struggling with making that park improving that park, improving that park. And we got the new equipment, but the land will go a long way to improving it for that neighborhood, which was definitely needed. Thank you for all of your support. As you know, the land doesn't come up that often. And I'm just really thankful to both staff for finding it and working on it and for you for voting for it. Thank you. Thank you. Why are you standing there just to prolong the meeting? For folks that may be wondering, okay, there's a Parks and Rec Committee and we have a lead staff person for Parks and Rec. We have a liaison, the Parks and Rec. If someone says, what are you, how are you asking the community what they would like as opposed to, is this a committee to decide what the neighborhood gets? And I think I know the answer, but I think it's good to publicly say that. You want to go first? You want me to go first? I can answer. We try very much to solicit input. We encourage people to come and to the meetings. But we have done, for example, for park equipment, we had at the pool, we put up pictures of different things and had children and parents voting on them. We try to do different vehicles. We did do a survey in the past to try to solicit input and we have outstanding requests for that park in particular but we absolutely try to solicit input from we try to do our best as people that were placed on the committee because people that were placed on the committee voted on and placed on the committee, but we definitely need input from everyone on what they're looking for. Okay, that's great. And it starts just from the top, like you all have your comprehensive plan and your strategic plan. They have a parks and rec master plan that was done with considerable input. And then as you kind of go from plan to objectives to projects, every step of the way, there's some form of input that happens, whether it be the specific amenities in a park, what types of recreation, what types of amenities that you want to see throughout the town, where parks should be located. So at some point throughout the whole process, there's always some kind of public touch. Right. And I might add, we have one of the most outstanding directors in Emmy. I don't know where we found her. I mean, she's not, she's not even putting Ashland on the map as far as, you know, people in the, across the Commonwealth paying attention to what's going on in our parks and parks. She's making a name for Ashland across the country as well. And she just has great ideas. Are the committee itself is just a minute of interesting people that really care about not just green spaces and parks for themselves, but what it's going to look like down the road and how we can make sure that each one of them is very unique and interesting. And it's just a great committee. So I'm really happy. I had somebody yesterday and make that comment to me, but it's one of the best parts of Ashland is all the wonderful parks that we have. So, make sure that happens. And to say, Emmy has brought such an enthusiasm and fire to the project, which I'm so excited about. The other thing that did happen with Taylor Street, when we were doing the, going to do the updates, they actually put flyers, they handed out flyers to all of the people in the neighborhood just to make sure everyone knew and could give feedback. So we're trying, trying to get feedback. You can't serve us if you don't know what the need is. I appreciate that. I wouldn't want to try and put you on a spot or again along the meeting. But with everything that we do, any time we have an opportunity to try to stress to the public, you don't have to wait for a certain process. You don't have to wait for a certain time of year. You don't have to wait for a certain day. You have an idea, be on the lookout. Planning staff put together a nice confidence of plan, opportunity for people to see and update, and staff set that up. It was all nicely done. We didn't get a lot of folks there. And then yesterday, I think yesterday was the election day. It seems like three days ago. But I had, and likely anyone who was there had a number of conversations with people about well what are you doing about this or I think you ought to do that and so again trying to tell people don't wait, you have a question, you have an idea call the town, call the council member. Call us after. We have had people reluctant to do that just as a side. One of the other things we do look at is the residence page on Facebook. If people are very vocal in there, but there's been good feedback on things that are missing in the parks. And we take that avenue also. Oh yeah, I just wanted to highlight that that we are good at that and we are open to that so community y'all come. We have fantastic parks though. I mean, for sure. I'm just thrilled to be a part of it. You know, it's a pleasure to serve on the committee because it's a passion of mind and it's a fabulous system it really is. So I'm sorry that I interject here. I should have, but I've added to it, don't worry about it. To talk about it before you vote it. So that's kind of why. So thank you for all you do. Thank you. How does it add a presentation this past weekend in the director, Hanna Verkowney's director of Parks and Rec was there and he spoke of how good we had it with Ms. Hal and Hal impressed. He was and that they'll afford to partner and more together on different things. So on that great note I'll stop talking and we'll be adjourned.