Good evening. I'd like to call the November 12th adjustment meeting on Tuesday rather than our normal Wednesday so I appreciate you all adjusting your schedules to be here and We'll continue with our call to order and then move on to the roll call with Miss Cornelius Miss Haye here Mr. Chambers here miss right here miss Bow here. Dr. Merrill here. We have a full Commission where we have quorum absolutely Item three on our agenda is the approval of the agenda so I'll pause to ask if any of the commissioners or staff has any modifications to the agenda as we're looking at it. Looks good. Do we need a motion? Do we kind of get a motion to approve the agenda as presented? I move we approve the agenda for tonight as presented. Miss Hay. I. Mr. Chambers. I. Miss Wright. I. Ms. Bowman. I. Dr. Merrill. I. Motion carries. Thanks, Dr. Marrow. Aye. Motion carries. Thanks, Bernie. So we have the citizen input section on the agenda next. This is where it would be nice to be high-flax, right, that we could pull people in from online and ask them if they, but maybe we don't want to do that. But I don't see any additional citizens here, so I will pause for a moment. Does anybody come running in from the hallway? And we don't have any citizens. So, we will move on from the citizen input section and discuss the minutes of the October 9th meeting. So, we like to pause. Linda is always a very good close reader of the minutes. If there were any corrections or revisions that the commissioner saw, another nice job, Bernie, there was a lot of content in that meeting. You go out there, but it'll go to me. Thank you, Bernie. Yeah, I felt the same. So thank you. Do we need to approve the minutes? How does that, we have to again take a motion to have those approved. I move that we approve the minutes of October 9th, 2024, meeting of the Planning Commission as distributed. Thanks, Linda. Mr. Chambers. Aye. Ms. Bowman. Aye. Ms. Wright. Aye. Ms. Hay. Aye. Dr. Merrill. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you again, Bernie. Really nice job with that. So the notice in the agenda, next is the public hearing where we're going to hear from Mr. Josh Farah, but I wanted to note that we did not continue with the initial hearing, right? Advertised for Patriot Glenn. Maybe when Miss Amos speaks later, we could hear a little bit more about that. But so officially on the agenda is really only our discussion about the capital improvement program. So I invite Josh forward, please, to walk us through that process. I'm eager to. Good evening. It results of your work. Thank you. Thank you for having me here tonight. Of course, absolutely. This gets up and running. We'll have a conversation. We're going to go over a little bit of background nor did a wonderful job last month introducing that to you. I do have a few follow-up items. I listen to the meeting and heard a few comments, so I just want to follow up on a few things that you guys asked about or had questions about. And then we'll move right into the prioritization, right? The all the work that you all did and see if you have any questions after that. moment if you have questions please ask. I know this is a lot and very new. A little bit of old hat to a lot of us so we talk quickly about it but we're happy to go into detail. We're an SS. Thank you so much. Yes. All right. So it's a little bit of background and nor again did a great job with this last month but the capital improvement program is our five-year financing plan for capital projects in the town. One of the key items to understand about the CIP is that I'll say none, but almost none of the projects are just made up out of thin air. All of them come from another plan, whether it's a transportation plan, a strategic plan, a parks and a master plan, and that gives us some level of justification for including them in the financing and allows us to be a little more systematic in how we go about doing that. The plan as presented to you this evening has 32 projects in it. You can see the split there. We did, over the course of last month, start working on the financing side of it a little bit to understand what the project cost may be. And just to have a big round number understanding of it, we have more than $150 million in projects. For a little bit of context, our current operating budget in the town is about $12 million and our capital improvement budget is about $2 million. So a lot of work we're going to have to do to get these projects done. But you'll know in a later note here that much of that is going to come from state or federal funding. So don't get too concerned there. We will find funding for most of these projects. We have about 10.6 million in existing funding right now, whether that is local town funding or committed state funding, and then we have another 40 million again identified in the future, whether that's local funding or again state funding as a key part of that. As you might imagine, a lot of those will either be tied to and you'll see the last bullet there, the I-95 interchange or the grade separated railroad crossing. And just because those projects are so incredibly expensive, that really bumps up the total project cost for the the I-95 interchange or the grade separated railroad crossing and just because those projects are so incredibly expensive. That really bumps up the total project cost for the CIP. From a timeline, perspectives you understand your role within the process, planning commission, does get first crack at the CIP, in order to a great job, as I said, introducing it to you tonight, we're going to talk largely about prioritization of the CIP and from a process perspective, you're actually not adopting it. You're recommending approval of it to town council. They're the ultimate approver of the document. So your action tonight, where you take one, is a recommendation to town council and we'll get into that in a little bit. So a few updates since the last meeting. We did go through and there's two main sections in the CIP from a narrative perspective program description Kind of describe what the project is and project justification. Why is it a project and really that's tying it out to the conference of plan tying it out to the Parks and Rec master plan tying it out to the transportation plan and so with our new comprehensive plan There was a lot of work to do there to catch up and get all those kind of references to the new comp plan included in the document I'd say those are in there now. I'm trusting that our staff did a good job with that. If you find errors, we're happy to correct them. So please let me know if you see something that doesn't make sense there. Also went through, and as I mentioned, worked on the financing and expenditure sections of the CIP. One of the key elements there that we wanted to do this year was separate out central Virginia transportation authority revenues. We had lumped those together with our capital project fund, but it's such a reliable and consistent revenue source for us now, and we're going to use it towards transportation projects that it was worthwhile to kind of separate that out, and you'll see it as a separate row within the financing section of each project. And then finally, and most importantly, we've included your priorities, right? So the 10 that ultimately your scores added up to, we've now put that in the document, you'll see them listed there as priority level one for the top five and priority level two for six through 10, and then everything else is listed as vision. So following up on a few things from last month, you guys did ask about, oh, that sidewalk curb and gutter, what are we building with that? What does that actually mean? So we wanted to bring you our current sidewalk construction plan. This was adopted by town council in 2022. The red ones are done. So those first two are already completed. And right now we are working on engineering of the Duncan Street and early street project that will go down and curve around the corner of early street there. It's actually a rough, hard-knockening to an old safe routes to school project. We did a number of years ago. We had some of the engineering already done So as you could see it's one of the more expensive projects as well But wanted you all to have an idea of when you vote for sidewalk curb and gutter this gives you a better idea of what you're actually voting for That's correct And then a few other ones and I call them oddities just because the narrative doesn't do them justice in the document Right, and so there's a little bit of a story behind them. And so I just want to give a few of those to you. And I'll run through them relatively quickly. E.D. Zerzer won overhead utilities. I would say just for simplicity, this will be the last year that's included in the CIP. It's my perspective that we should just wrap that into the Downtown Street Scape project now that we phased it out. So it was originally included because we thought that cost 20 years ago when we first came up with this idea was going to be so exponentially high that it was worth separating them out as projects doing the streetscape, rebuilding the sidewalks and then the dominion portion of it. As much as it's a difficult thing to get the lines news, it's not as expensive as we thought. And so I think it's much simpler just to wrap that into a streetscaping project going forward. And so in future years, I would say that one you won't see. So if you did vote for that one, you might make an argument to some of your peers here that your vote should be recast somewhere else and maybe work on your prioritization a little bit. Similar, but different story with municipal broadband. About a year and a half ago, two years ago, town council essentially made the decision to kind of shutter that project. We were actively working to build dark fiber throughout the town that we would bring in private sector providers to operate an internet network on our dark fiber. Thankfully two years ago, a company in you see in all the construction they've been doing, Shantel came into town, we offered them a franchise and they're just building out their own network. And so, that need for competition for our incumbent provider has reduced and so council doesn't see it as a need for us to be the ones investing in that project when the private sector is just coming in and doing it because they see it as a good business opportunity for them. So there are one or two little mini projects associated that that will finish out putting condo it in the street so that we could put fiber through it in the future. But again, that is one that you'll probably see roll off the CIP in future years as well. There's two stormwater projects in there. I understand for folks who aren't in local government, those can be one of my voting for you all actually and we really appreciate it, voted for both of those. I will give you a little bit of a hint here though, these ones, we're going to do whether you prioritize it or not, it's kind of legally required, right? So these are one of those ones that, I don't know if I wanted to move my points, I could maybe use it a little bit somewhere else, but the simplest way to think about it is SW001 drainage is about water quantity. There's so much rain that comes down, are our pipes big enough to hold it and move it to where we want it to go. SW002, comprehensive stormwater management, is about water quality. How do we get all the junk that it picks up as it goes through the pavement and off the impervious surface out of it before it gets into the stream and then makes it to the Chesapeake Bay? So, from staff's perspective, when I get to the budgeting level after Council's already approved this, if I see one or two of those in there, I'm kind of putting the money anyway, right? So to put both of them in there for the CIP prioritization process is a little bit duplicative. So if you wanted to play the prioritization game, that might be another one you could reallocate if you so choose. TR002, residential area improvement program. This is actually a project and a type of program that we do that has been incredibly successful, but they're incredibly expensive and difficult to execute. And so the examples that we've done in the past, and I think, again, Nord explained it last time, Randolph Circle, where we did all the impervious papers in there, rebuilt all the infrastructure, and that's essentially what this is. You pick an area and you go in on the road. You don't only take off the pavement, you take out all the subs surface of the road, rebuild it, make sure it's strong, and then repave it so that the drainage all works correctly. You do everything in the right way. You get the curbs done so that the water drains, you build new sidewalks. And all of that would be part of a residential area improvement program, but we don't even have a neighborhood picked right now, right? So it's great. We're going to have to nickel and dine this over time, so it's worth prioritizing because we can't fund it all in one year and we're going to build up to a neighborhood, but I didn't want you to get the impression that, oh, it's going to be in that neighborhood because just quite frankly, council hasn isn't a neighborhood selected yet. Townwide traffic improvement, that's also one that will likely roll off in the future. That one was put in the CIP back in the 2000s, not even 2010s, as a place to store proper money. So a development comes in. They profit some level of transportation improvements. This was a place. If it was unexpected, we could put that money and just hold it so that we could figure out what we wanted to do with it. We don't really do it that way anymore now, most of those dollars are kind of dedicated for a project. And so those profers, if they were to come, let's use iron horse, for example, it's going towards 95, right? It's going to be a road that's probably contiguous to it or that's impacted by it. And so this really doesn't have a great function. And again, from a transparency perspective, I worry a little bit that if you say, man, that intersection that I hate and it needs so much work, you think you're putting your vote towards it, but it's not even really included in the project, per se. So just want to be kind of transparent and honest about what these projects are and where your votes may be going. And then last one, and I didn't hear if Nora kind of explained this, grade-separated railroad crossing. In your document, that's Vaughan Road. We're now working and kind of discussing potentially moving that to Ashcake Road because that project did not score well from a federal funding perspective. And that's one of those two that we can't do alone. And so just again, no where your vote's going, right? It's not a final yet. It hasn't been finally determined that it's Ashcake. But we may be talking about Ashcake Road instead of Vaughan Road if you're putting your prioritization towards that project. So rather than go through every single one, thought I'd give you some that had some highlights and some unique elements to them. Right. And now we get to the good part, which is your prioritization and what you did. And I apologize the right sides, difficult to read, but it's kind of just informational, not the important part, the important parts on the left. For the audience at home, I'll just read them so that it's on the record. The Planning Commission did a prioritization exercise where they ranked every project one through 10 and that equated to the score they got. And when you add up all five member scores, this is the priority you get. In the top level, you have downtown streetscape, trolley line trail, which is also fall line trail, one on the same largely. Again, residential area improvement program, we talked about that one, sidewalk curb and gutter. You know where the dollars are going for that now. Trails and pathways is similar to the sidewalk curb and gutter one. and then in the priority level two, comprehensive storm water management, that's that water quality one, we're removing the junk out of it, strategic property acquisition, townwide drainage improvement plan, and that's the deal with water quantity, North Asher and Park and community connector trail, and then just for the note there, V.eligible from our perspective, we get a lot of V.eligible maintenance funds. As a town, we maintain all our own roads, and so we get money from the state. The projects listed in yellow are ones. We can put that money towards, and all that really signifies as a big pot of money is available for that project, where it's not available for the other ones. On the right side, I won't spend much time there, just for transparency again, wanted to show you where the cumulative scores, all five of you put in, where it ranks out. I know it's difficult to read there, but you can see it reached the projects you voted for were represented. They just didn't cumulatively raise to the top 10. And so while we do still have to move forward and do a public hearing, now or after the public hearing would be a great time for you all to talk about your priorities if you did want to change them or if you're perfectly happy? That's great too. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Yeah, that's great. This is information that I get excited about. So for Silly's benefit, this to me is an opportunity for us to really, I think, I like the independent scoring process, and I also like the opportunity to then either rethink based on information we created. And I value the opinions of my colleagues, so I always enjoy our discussions and our conversations because sometimes it gives me the opportunity to rethink things a little bit. So with that said, let me defer to my colleagues first because I have some things I'd like to offer. But Brent, do you have some thoughts first? Well I had a question for Josh and I'm not sure exactly how we want to pace out the public hearing card and the discussion all that but the residential improvement program although an area is not defined yet by voting for that or having it rank high we're saying we want to stock away money in eventually picking areas that's yep and that is functionally how this works is when it gets to budget time, and council has prioritized their top 10 based on your input, staff's input, the community input, those areas I always try to make sure some level of funding goes into that top 10. There's kind of gives me a pass on some of the others. We have to prioritize. That's the essence of budgeting. Those may not be funded. Those top 10 I'm always going to try to put some level of funding. It may not mean it's going to get done next year, but it's the commitment that you prioritized it, we're going to try to fund it. And because Brent brought that one up, is there a connection or a relationship, Josh, between that residential area improvement program and the strategic property acquisition? There are two different things I understand. We have not used them together in the past. So in my mind, they are not necessarily... They are not like, I think that an example nor a gave last month is the main example of, is there a dilapidated property that it's in the town's interest either to own and develop ourselves or to work with the EDA to flip? Okay. And that's just land acquisition cost money. And so again, we need to prioritize that and fund that as well. Got it. Yeah. Okay. I guess my other thing I'll raise. I've used a number of my available points for one of the parks that is on the list. And I had my rationale for that. But there are a couple of different parks we've talked about and I'm just curious where the parks and recs, committees, data and opinion sort of flows into this. Because it is my sense that we, like a lot of these projects, we have aspirations to do more things that we can afford. But we're also been saying, well let's try to build a park here, let's upgrade that park, let's do that park and over time we've, Carter Park took a big junk. But I'm not sure how those are, how well those are bubbling up and whether it would help at all to have more input from Parks and Rec. So obviously the Parks and Rec master plan is their main input into this and then I we do have Emmy kind of review it for her all her projects and really from my perspective she thinks of it from a workload over the next few years for Parks and Rec Right now they're so focused on finishing, they just finished Carter Park. We're working on a South Taylor Creek Park expansion. That's a big project for them. And I think Parks and Rec's next eye is towards that North Asher Park that we already have the land for and doing the design for that one. So while the other ones, the was it Northeast and Southeast parks are in the master plan. They haven't been prioritized by parks and rec. Quite yet. OK. OK. I have a question. What does the trolley line still include? I know that they use the- I only laugh because I actually don't even know the 100% clearest answer for you. But I largely think of the trolley line as the action portion of the fall line trail. And maybe others have a different distinction of it. That was the original trail that we were building. Was the trolley line trail? When you get it into the region, the name gets changed and it becomes fall line. But to me, that project just has a slash next to it. Right? Trolley line slash fall line trail. So there are one in the same now. There's no real distinction between the activities we're doing in the project. What you will see that kind of harkens to the trolley line is actually the downtown national association railroad park. There's going to be an element in that area where their trail kind of comes from Maple Street and hits 54 that does speak to the fact that it was a trolley line trail there and give folks who are coming up the fall line trail that that ability to kind of sit there and read and understand that this was a different thing in the past. So there's not that much distinction as the answer. What does it still include that needs to be done still? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh yeah. So as you come up fall line, we've built the sidewalks on Maple and they will come around. The last part is more pavement marking kind of the directional part of it. And then as it comes down, we're gonna actually gonna have it end on Robinson Street, the road that comes into the library and do a kiosk at the end is kind of a, you've arrived in downtown. Okay. And so that is a little bit of our tourism, economic development push too to combine with the Parks and Rec. And so that's the last element is to build that part of it and that I Think right now we have a very limited budget for so we do need money to actually finish it and accomplish it as the fall line breaks open Thank you Yeah, I will admit I did not vote for that at all It was really stunning to me to see Again the person always talks about bikes because my my assumption was that that was again when we were making our how do we allocate our points? That that was happening anyway. And so I thought, well, it's underway. So I'm glad to, somebody's point you clarified a little bit of what? Because I thought it's been plowed, it's been billed, it's ready to roll, let's just finish it. So I thought I'm not going to allocate any points to it because I think it's going to be a done deal. And there's so much momentum behind it, which I'm excited about. So I'll admit, I totally missed my colleagues rating that one highly. And again, I won't argue for a change to that. I do think it is worth me discussing because I did allocate points to the stormwater process. And because of what you just said, Josh, I'm wondering, it seems like we as a group did and whether or not what you offered is enough for us to rethink because we took up... 22 points for comprehensive storm water management and 13 points for townwide drainage, which combined would have made it the number one project. So we put both of those, so I'm hearing what you said, Josh, and it's making me pause and wonder if I could, if knowing what I know now, then, and for us to debate, and maybe everybody is just, we're fine, let's leave it alone, but I think it gives us the opportunity to rethink those stormwater points perhaps. I don't have my rankings with me but I've ranked those together fairly high because you, I was under the impression we had to do it. So I was taking the opposite point of view than what you just said. I'm thinking, go, I looked at this in a different way. I looked at it and then what we have to do it, we're required. And when I think about, well, I mean, frankly, like climate change and just the things coming in, and the national already has some drainage issues. First of all, that's important, but are you saying because we have to do it? Is the C up do in your mind is the CIP sort of You're gonna do the things you have to do and this is gravy is that kind of what you're thinking or it can be emphasis And so just so you all aren't feeling as though you're in a odd place This is the conversation we up with town council every year too is are you doing it in a vacuum? I just picked the ones I think are most important are you taking in I think I heard you all discussed last time Is it almost ready to be finished so I can just get it over the hump or is it? Mm-hmm guys are gonna do that anyway. I don't have to worry about it And the answer to all that is yes. And so we have tried not to, we've let individual council members vote how they see. So I'm like the vacuum and just say nope, if it's important, I'm gonna vote for it. Others wanna be a little more informational based decision making and so I hate to say it, but I'm gonna leave all that up to you of what is, which way do you wanna approach the CIP because all of them are perfectly acceptable? That's right. And so yeah, I certainly don't want to impose upon us as commissioners to rethink our votes. I am sharing with you all that I am rethinking mine a little bit based on what I heard. And the other distribution that I haven't really been thoughtful of in the past, maybe it does not matter. Again, maybe I should not. But the alphabetical codes in front of the projects are into different buckets. So economic development versus parks and rack, versus transportation, versus stormwater. And I like how our top 10 do represent all of those buckets. Now maybe that doesn't matter. And maybe that's a so what, and it would be nice if it did or not. But I appreciated the fact that we do seem to be allocating our votes to some different causes for lack of a better word. But I wonder if based on what we heard tonight, I'm just putting it out there for our commissioners, maybe our top five is pretty set. And maybe we're comfortable with that elevating to the top. But I wonder if we could, as a group, discuss moving something into the bottom five in place of one of the two storm waters or whether, again, I'm also happy to just say leave it alone or get. But I like the opportunity to hear how you all think or what your reactions to this are and if it's worthy of a. We did that last year remember we sort of argued and not argued we debated and had a good discussion about what could come onto our top 10 versus what could drop off based on our reactions to our scores. I think since there are two storm waters in there, would make sense to replace least one of them at a minimum. It seems like a fair gamble. And I agree, so that's what I'm sort of wondering. I like the fact that we have two parks and recs, projects in the top and two transportationists and one that's related to economic development. So I don't know that we need to have two stormwater projects in our bottom 10 or our bottom five. And if we don't, what would we think about moving into it? And remind me again, is trails and pathways a catch all for all trails. So technically trolley line trail would fall underneath that. Where is that? For a while trolley line was in there and then it got so big it was separated out into its own. But yeah, so a good example and it was actually, let me make sure I say it correctly. Number seven, North James Street Trail, right? It's on our sidewalk priority list but but that will end up being a trail. That would come out of the trails and pathways. One, what's it going from? Carter's Hill neighborhood down to Vaughn on James. Largely thinking we have the new school over on the other side of the tracks. Bring folks down safely. Hopefully sidewalks eventually get them across the rest of the way. That one would be built as a trail. So if you're voting for trails and pathways, this one would be one that town council would consider most certainly, but there would be a list behind that. There's the other trail too. Seven in. So when you say trail on this list, you're saying dirt path. More likely ten foot wide asphalt and there's other standards associated with it. But more like a fall line trail type path. Gotcha. Lockable, bikeable, wheelchairable. Yeah, Amy, I think what you just said was what was sort of in my mind when I was ranking, because I thought, well, trails and pathways are broader. I'm gonna think that trolley line is in that. So that was the highest of the rankings that I gave was trails and pathways. Just one question that comes to mind because as I'm looking at where I put my points, I'm realizing there is a project that we have or an ongoing set of projects to identify homeowners who need some help fixing up a leaking roof or plumbing or whatever. Is that not something that we... It's not capital for the town, right? So this is capital projects that we would be constructing. We have other funding programs that can help folks with that, but it's not a capital project. So as a big fan that we're doing that, I can't really vote for here. I really am. Just clarify. Thank you. But so the residential area improvement program doesn't get to that my doesn't get to individual homeowners it gets to the infrastructure right away in front of their street. Got it. Yeah because that was one of our top ones to the improvement program support. Yeah so for what it's worth I like where you're going I think it's worth a discussion do we see anything missing to add something and I agree that we could maybe not put as many points behind drainage and water things potentially. My lens would be what didn't make it that's really worth it. Correct. Correct. So it's that list on the right that's a little harder to see. But I've. Yeah, I mean, the one I tried to talk you out of overhead utilities is actually the next 11th one. But right after that, you have all very relevant projects. Southeast Ashen Park, that would be kind of down by the Sudgefield neighborhood, sorry, my eyes, to South Taylor Street Park, for Vitalization, and then Vaughan Road Extension, which all great projects. Or you have discretion to pick whatever you like. And then you're comment about grade separating, because I remember I thought Nora telling us that the concept of it being at Vaughn was just a not gonna work. So then I learned from you tonight because I have heard a lot of chatter about that railroad crossing at Ashcake and how that can be not to me but to some really frustrating it can back up. The concept of a grade separated crossing is something that goes over. Yeah it's over or under it just grades are separated right? The grade of this road is here, and the grade of the other road is here, or vice versa. But one way to avoid stopping at the train, and that's a big project. But I don't know if it's as immediate. Yeah, I think a Von Road part of the appeal was the fire. The fire. I heard someone in the school. Yeah, in the box. I'm going to do the school. Yeah, station in the. The topography. Yeah, he has a hand on the railroad. It's. Mm-hmm. But if that's not viable or too expensive or for whatever reason, I think do it somewhere so you can get emergency vehicles across is good. So I think for our consideration is Sylvia said it do we want to take one of the two SW's off of the bottom five and then Josh if you had to prioritize are they? They got very different rankings. Yeah so we write we honestly I wouldn't worry about which one I'll just kind of call them drainage okay and I'll tell council about the conversation so you know let's just pretend take SW1 out New North Ashland Park up Community I'll just kind of call them drainage. Okay. And I'll tell council about the conversation. So, you know, let's just pretend, take SW1 out, new North-Astron Park up, community connector trail, and then pick your new tent. That's what I was wondering. So if our new tent is just a move up from the bottom of the list, if we take drainage off of there, North-Astron Park is already there, the community connector trail. Utilities, Josh is saying not really needed, because that's part of the others. Then I guess we're debating whether we're talking about one of the parks. The next rankings would be either Southeast Ashland or South Taylor Street. Or yeah, and you get to Vaughan Road is the next. And did you say that the South Taylor's already kind of rolling that like that? Phase one is funded. It still has a phase two that will require quite a bit of funding. So it is one where if you're actually worried about, will it get funded and does my vote matter? It would matter in this. Interesting. So I personally like that. I'd rather see the money go towards it and let's get it done until like, it's a good point. I agree. I'll agree. Parks and then they're all just sitting in limbo. That's right. And the images we've seen either here or where else I've seen them online, I'm really excited to see that park finished. So I would be encouraged to include South Taylor in lieu of our Townline trainage. I would. You supported that as well. Yeah, I'm good. But other people think and is there is there anything else that we should debate? What you would know you wouldn't put it in the same position. You would put it take that off and everything up and put that as our number 10 yeah that sounds as Josh suggested yeah right where you can offer something I was gonna say the and this seems to be where our discussion is going but the top five feel like the right ones and the order is may not matter that much but you in the order feels about right. And I think the tweak of a specific park is a good ad for the sort of second set. But I'm not, I'm not saying anything major that really needs to be here that somehow didn't make it. Kind of the more we just did, I think folks on one of the parks is probably good idea. Good luck. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I like it too. I mean, it's, again, maybe paying too much attention to the, the categories, you know, we're going to add another Parks and Rec, which is great, but in our top 10, we'll have half of them being Parks and Rec projects, which maybe is a good thing, and certainly I could get behind it. So, again, maybe that doesn't matter, and maybe I shouldn't worry about it, but it's something that I am observing. So we are proposing SW001 coming off of place number eight, Ashland Park moving up to a community connector trail moving up to nine in South Taylor Street park revitalization moving into 10. Is that summarized? My thoughts? Amy, any reactions to that? I was just looking at the community connector, just because that's not one that I really looked that much into so I was just reading about it. I didn't have that one scored either. So I really let you all down in terms of support for the parks, both the trolley on and the community connector. I didn't put my money where my mouth is, all the talk I do. But I guess I was, like I said, I was assuming that the trolley line was going to happen regardless. But good to know. And again, I'm fine with where it is. So I think the only other point, Amy, that you raised, and we don't have to mess with our top five because Brent just said, I think, to represent our views that were fine with it, but the Trial Align Trail and the trails and pathways both being in our top five. If we're fine with that because they are two slightly different things, as Josh said, I am fine with leaving the top five alone. Just giving one more chance to. Yeah and to your point about sort of the percentage of things that are Parks and Rec or whatever I think the other if you look at the original list, wing it here that maybe 25% of the more Parks and Rec kind of things to start with and we have pulled a lot of those forward or a number of them. The other thing that seems to be a big grouping is individual traffic and road improvement project. Transportation. Which I largely look to staff who's done the study and I think what we're really doing is competing for state and federal funds and Vida, etc. in order to get those done. So I'm not sure when it comes to, I may be wrong, but when it comes to a particular, you know, Vda, et cetera, in order to get those done. So I'm not sure when it comes to, I may be wrong, but when it comes to a particular, you know, root one, ash cake intersection or whatever, I'm not sure how much sway our vote really has as opposed to staff knowing, well, this is the biggest problem or the chief weighing in or whatever, and then availability of larger funding sources. You know, the town setting aside $40,000 next year with the hope of fixing a traffic problem in the next five years may not be the best way for this prioritization unfold is my thought. Fair enough, I mean you're 100% correct, especially thinking about the Route 1 projects, the joke we have is staff is Route 1 and 54 and the Route 1 project we're about to start, I think we're planned in like 1982. So we're working on it. So those ones, the ones that I may say you would have more influence in are there other side treats you like built, right? So is Von Road extended? Is that something that's a goal for you that you'd like to, or one that Norrin I talk a lot about for economic development is Hillcarter Parkway North, right? So there's a few, but 90% of your comments are 100% accurate that largely that's us fighting the state and fighting the processes to try to get funding for those. So where to the comments you just made, Josh, where do we, I know Vaughn is its own thing, then would the Hillcarter Parkway North be the other, I mean we didn't score that very much at all. So, I don't know that it needs and I'm fine. I'm just trying to find a reason if there's anything else that we want to debate before. I think the 10 is we've laid out as sufficient. I just want to make sure we're we're good with it. I like this process, so I'm trying to stretch it out as well. You can technically still open up your public hearing and close your public hearing so it gives them a moment to think. Thank you, Bernie, for that. I guess that's right. We've got one moment. So we get the moment while our public is invited to come forward and we officially, Bernie, I say I open the public hearing for comment on the capital improvement program presentation. Seeing no one come forward we will close the public hearing on the capital improvements program thank you Josh. I'm fine with where we are I just wanted to leave us one more chance. Oh, back up. Yep. I'm fine with it too for the reasons we said and I think the transportation, what Brent was pointing out that really we leave it to the staff to figure those out. I will say it seems like a lot of trails. To me. Parks and trails. But I was the stormwater person. So I think it's just coming from different things. I think it can be good. And I think we're adding a park is good. It's just a lot of trails. Three out of 10. But that could be where you know we want our green town that's one of our goals. It doesn't surprise me in the least for about two and a half three years maybe four. One of the things we've heard from the public most consistently through surveys through comments is connectivity connectivity and that's going to come in the former sidewalk trails all that so it doesn't surprise me in the least bit to see planning commission staff starting to reference that as the priorities come forward. That's true, but I'm working in the comp plan that did rise to the top. Yeah. I see what you mean though. I mean, I personally don't have any attachment to the community connector trail. So if there's one that you wanted to come off, that one's not like the highest scoring and it from the funding it doesn't look like it's Couple bucks aren't gonna make or break it. It needs a lot of money to Make it happen But I do think the trolley line trail want to see it get money so I can yeah, like let's get it over That was a high priority so that obviously everyone ran to that fairly high. This might not be the right place for it, but where is the right place to address? How do you get to the trolley trail? Like if you park in the Carter Park, there is no crosswalk from there. They get you there. You have to go a little bit east. No, there's a little bit. The crosswalk is... There? Yeah. We looked at it the other day with the crosswalk. You'd have to... There's ramps, but maybe it hasn't been painted between it. It hasn't been painted. There's no... The crosswalk is gone. Right. And then... That would be the cross-party falls like a trail that really really worn off. So it's not like a spot that I wouldn't have confidence in saying having like an eight-year-old bike across it or something. Plus Ashcake is pretty. Yeah. It's busy. So we have all this and the trail is this important parking and getting to the trail seems like this would be key. Yeah. But that's not capital. I'll get that. Okay. You're regardless. I'm just. I just want to make sure that wasn't something we needed money for. I think so he's raising some good points. And I do wonder too about our maybe this is guidance from you, Joshua Nora, on how we can stay up to date on trolleyline progress. I know there's a broader email list that I'm on that I get. Did I get distribution. I want to talk about your working group are they the most up to date the fall line working group I don't know as much about it honestly. Particularly because it's our number two. Right. We're trying to connect it to downtown so we need to be able to get there. So by trolleyline you mean fall line trail. Yes. I don't have a lot of information on the trolley line from Carter Park North. But the fall line trail, there are several sections that are under construction and should open next year and into 2026, including the Hanover County section. So there are several committees meeting talking about everything from wayfinding signage to maintenance who's going to maintain it, who's going to program it. So we're having a lot of conversations about that. I serve on a couple of those committees and then Emmy Richards, our parks and rec manager also serves on some committees. So I'm happy to give you a monthly report. During my report, if you have any questions, I'm happy to give you that update. Thanks, Nora. Yeah, I don't know if it needs to be monthly, but I do think it would be helpful to learn what you know in some ways because that is going to impact. We sometimes think in our debates that it can have an impact on this town in terms of traffic and- Oh, it will. Good. I think good. If they were to go looking on the Internet? Is it sports backers? Are they hosting the main website or is it V.Dont? I think there, so V.Dont has kind of a project website but sports backers has a more user friend. And I'm happy to share that with my colleagues too as I gather information but I wanted it to also sort of be part of our town discussion too that I think because I'm you know excited about it but I think Sylvia is asking some good questions to say, hey, what do we know about? And, you know, I've said, I love I'm looking forward to seeing Maple Street be more designated as a bicycle friendly, you know, so we don't just bring people and park them right there at Ashkake and say, welcome to Ashland. It's like, no, no, no, keep coming, keep coming. Absolutely. So there are plans to extend it and there are plans to improve the pedestrian connections and to provide signage throughout the entire trail. But as we have openings of different sections or ground breaking, I can let you know. Yeah, you've done that. Thank you. That's great. Thanks, Narin. I'll follow up tomorrow with the website. It's the most relevant one, so you can kind of have a rouse at your own time. Thanks, Josh. Thank you. So just to help close out the discussion we were having about priorities and maybe too many trails, just my scan of the kind of lower section of list contenders to come on our second five, which suggests that if there's passion around either public art, the maintenance facility, which I know our town staff has some passion about and has talked about and never bubbles up, or one of the projects, the road project we're talking about, the Von Road extension or Hill Carter Parkway. And I don't have any passion about any of those in particular, but if we're rather than looking at what could we maybe take off, I think we should be looking at it as there's something important not to move up. That's a good point. That's good point. That's a good point. Yeah. I don't feel emotionally attached to any of those to push them up. Yeah, thanks Amy. I mean, I could do public art. I mean, that would probably be my highest contender out of that selection. Public art would get us one more economic development project too as far as we're trying to balance them out equally because we've got only one ED project. Interesting. So again, if we brought something on, what are we debating? We're debating, we're debating removing a trail option or are we debating jumping public art over South Taylor Street? No. I think we were. Amy, your comment was about trails, right? And having too many. Yeah, I think somebody said we had too many trails. I was saying if you wanted a trail to be removed, I would vote the connector trail. I would say we have too many trails. I would write a community trail. I would say we have too many trails. I would say we connector trail. We have two many. Right. Right. The community is like a lot of trails. But I'm the same as too many. But we are starting then to get to lower priorities. Sure. However, after what, you know. Yeah, the community connector trail got a lot of votes. Her points, I should say, relative. Again, not for me. No, for me. It's not. Somebody voted well. I'm sorry. I did get 12. But it hasn't 12, so that's significantly different. You gave it a high score. Let me hear you. Rent loves community can do that. Not too much. You're not 10. It's top of Brent's list. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. Josh, could you put that recommend motion and language back up for us? Yes, it's right here. And I guess if you were trying to make a motion to approve, you'd have to make the amended and then talk about the adjustment that we made to the priorization as well. Okay. Is somebody comfortable doing all that? Would you prefer me to do that since I summarized? Do you want to try, Linda? Can the chair make a motion? Is that all right to do? Yes, it's a fantastic view. So I think, yes, if you help me with that language, Josh, that would be great. Is there a motion to adopt or to recommend approval of the FY 2026, 2030 capital and program as amended to remove comprehensive storm order management and add South Taylor Street Park revitalization as number 10 in the priorities. I think it was- I think we were going to remove the drainage improvement. Oh, okay. I think that one was a little bit lower. Yep. Because of the ranking. Yeah, that's fine. All right, so let's say it again. That was nice. I. That's fine. All right. So, say it again. That was nice. I think Josh got it. Is there a motion to recommend approval of the FY 2026, 2030 capital and program as amended to remove, I'm sorry, which one was it again? Townwide drainage. Townwide drainage and add self-tailor street park revitalization as priority number 10. That's right. I think Bernie, as long as you feel like you've got it in the notes. Yeah, I have it from earlier. I salute. Not right now, but. All right. We can work. There you go. And it's all on tape. All right. And Linda made the motion. So thank you. OK. right for the motion. Okay so Mr. Chamers. Aye. Miss Hay aye. Miss Bowman. Aye. Miss right. Aye. And Dr. Merrill. Aye. Thank you. Motion carries. Thanks Josh. Thank you all. Thank you all. Good job. Very informative. So next on the agenda is action items which I don't think we have any we didn't add anything to the agenda so we are moving through the action items to the report of committees and we'll invite our guests to speak on the town council report. All right thank you. The only thing I want to share with you this evening is that the town council did approve the Iron Horse Data Center project. We'll be moving forward with that and And like thanks to your discussion and comments and questions, I think that we did a really good job settling on that project. And I think it's gonna be a wonderful asset to town. So thank you for all your hard work on that one. Sorry, I missed it. Was there much of a community presence at that meeting? There really wasn't much of a community presence at that meeting. There really wasn't much for community presence Obviously we had some folks that should say from the county but not from the town of Ashland directly And the same concerns that we all have been hearing Mostly about the height of the building and screening and of course noise and that type of thing all the things that were concerned with But I believe that the applicant did a great job of addressing all those issues and Anytime there was a question or concern they tried very hard to meet them. They had a balloon demonstration the other day just to show how high the buildings are going to be so people could see how far it was going to be from their house or what it was going to look like. So they really did, they went above and beyond. And so I think we asked great questions and we were able to do that because you all did a lot of groundwork for us. So thank you. Okay. We're keeping on our report which I'm glad for the plan RVA update. Yes. So just this will be real brief. There has not been a plan RVA meeting since I gave my kind of here's what it is update. It is actually going to be Thursday. There'll be a number of, through a formal agenda like ours, there will be updates from the finance committee and a few other things about sort of the operation of that organization. And then interestingly, there's going to be one of the things I think I mentioned last time to this audience is that they try to bring in different perspectives to have the regional leaders just be thinking about about the area, sometimes that's transportation and she's planning, et cetera. But this Thursday we'll get an update from a director of drug enforcement on the state police about drug activity and crime related to drug activity in the broader Richmond region and what that may mean in terms of things the communities need to be aware of. So I will hopefully be able to give you an update on any key headlines that come out of that or any other part of the meeting next time. Nice. Thanks, Mark. Thank you. Great. And the Director's Report from Miss Amos with September's updates and any other info you have for us. I have a pretty good list. I mean, we have like another hour. So first I did want to update you on the pay tree acclaimed application, which you all held a public hearing for last month and then deferred it to this month. We actually did advertise and send out notices, thinking that we would have everything wrapped up in time to get the application out, but I don't think we did. So last Wednesday, we were still missing a signed cover sheet from the applicant who is Hannaver County. So we thought that maybe that purchase would have gone through, but it hasn't. So we need a signed application sheet from Hannaver County for the stem lot. There is an agreement that they've come to. Part of that agreement is that the conditions and the agreement have to be included in the Prophers and so we received those I believe yesterday and then also we were not able to have their revised application reviewed by all the departments by last Wednesday so we're still waiting for Department of Public Utility comments. And there are, because of some of the conversation and we had to amend the roads from being 30 foot wide, which is what they were the right of way. It was 30 feet wide, which was not our standard, our standard is 50 foot wide. Because of that, they had to make changes to their plan right which also changed their proffers and some of the things that they were offering to make improvements to the project and so due to that we needed additional time to review it so I apologize to the applicant and anyone who I know we did have one resident who came and we'll retract out to them but there were just too many outstanding items that hadn't been addressed prior to getting our packet out to you. Okay, so are you thinking December? We are hopeful for December, yes. So I'm excited to announce we have a new hire. Hope Becker is coming to us from Colorado. So she moved to Mechanicsville and did very similar work in a small town in Wiggins, Colorado. And so we are thrilled to have her fill the community development specialist role as well as deputy zoning administrator. Oh, correct. She's hit the ground running. I wanted to give you, I don't think we've talked about the England Street Street Skate Project recently, but I wanted to give you a little update. You may have seen some work happening. We are working on moving the power to the rear of the buildings. And so a lot of that work has been accomplished over the past couple of weeks. And we hope to start actual construction of the street and sidewalks and we'll start with water utility improvements starting January 15th. So for the stakeholders, we're looking at hotel meeting in December just to get them up to date on the schedule and what to expect. But so January 15 after the holiday. And so I'll be I'm not sure if you're familiar with the English Street Street project. So I'm sorry I'll talk about it a little bit more. Thank you. So we did an English Street Master Plan project from Railroad Avenue out to Route 1. We talk about it, you know, being the red carpet to downtown, but it's not very attractive currently. And it hasn't been very pedestrian friendly. And we really want to bring the improvements that we've done along railroad and bring them down English street. So we will be narrowing the lanes so that we can increase the pedestrian walkway area where we can will be adding landscaping, we'll add the same furniture and lighting carrying it around from railroad avenue. And then most importantly, we're getting rid of the poles off of England street where we can. It might not happen on all the sections, but at least in this first section, which is from railroadroad Avenue to Henry Street. That's the one that'll start in January. Those polls are being removed and moved behind the buildings. So it's great. It's very exciting. Thank you. It was really good. So feel free to ask me if I talk about other things. I will, thank you. Okay. Just to give you a heads up, we've had several pre-application meetings in the past month or so and so that's a good pause for us to see what's coming down the road. So right now we kind of have a law, we've only really have this pay tree Glenn application under review but we have a feeling based off of those pre-application meetings that we'll have a few more for you coming into the new year. Austin in the new year, we'll be bringing you annual report but also bringing back an update to the Ashland by the numbers. So now that we have staff and census data we're excited to present that to you all in January. So good. The Virginia Center Commons GRTC fixed route opened up last month. And as part of that, there was an increase in our link service area. So our zone increased by a must double. So we're keeping an eye on that to make sure that we're still able to provide service to everyone in that zone because we got one extra bus at certain times of the day, but we were already working at about a 20% deficit of being able to provide service to everyone who was requesting it. So we're keeping an eye on that, but the most exciting news is that someone from Ashland can get a link ride down to Virginia Center and get on a fixed bus route all the way down to Chesterfield. That's great. Yeah, so it's very exciting. I thought I saw the link bus down Route 1 by MECC and I thought, that's outside of your zone a little bit, but I'd but sure enough. Yeah, that's the next one. And all the way down there. That's great. How many stops does it make? The fixed route? Yeah. I said just go one, it just goes to Chester. It makes multiple stops. I don't know how many. It's going to go in Northside and then presumably to Rich downtown up and down Route 1. Wow. That's great. That's very exciting. That's great. That's neat. Flagstop, you may have seen it last week, which is just south of Sheets, the Flagstop car wash got started last week. I think they did some clearing. They hope to open by late spring of next year. Any any dog entertainment? Were you thinking? No, I mean, they're still working. It blows my mind. Yeah, very, very slow. Revees show up slightly steady. So so next to Sylvia, the intersection where sheets is, and then there's the health kit, there's the new healthcare building. Hospice. Oh, it's hospice here. It's on the left side as you're heading towards the county, just prior to that, there's a cleared lot that we approved. Two years ago. How long ago? Yeah, to put in a dog. It's not training, but it's for people who enter dogs in agility courses. Agility courses. Yeah, it's a dog sports arena. Yeah. It's huge. Anyway, it's a good play. We were always doing it. We were doing it. We were doing it. Yeah, but they haven't made a lot of progress. I know. And apparently, when they made the presentation, they said, how many people at this broad domain thousands, businesses at dinner and, you know, economic development, and we still are. Next to the EGL, we are. Okay. Okay. That's right. All right. Yes, okay. And so, Mr. Chambers, you mentioned during the CIP Okay. That's right. All right. Yes. Okay. And so, Mr. Chambers, you mentioned during the CIP presentation, you asked about the residential improvement programs, and I really appreciate that, because we too would very much like to continue those and expand on those. But as was mentioned, those aren't part of the CIP process, but they will be part of the budget process. And so I would highly encourage you to maybe send a letter or email to your council members or if you're able to come to one of our open sessions to speak. Right. Councilor Josh. And last but not least, I got to do the amazing shake through Reynolds College at Patrick Henry for their ACC program. Yes, yes. ACA, what is that? The Advanced College Academy. Advanced College Academy. So it's dual enrollment through Reynolds. And this is the second time I've been able to do it. And if you are ever worried about the future in our youth, just go and hang out with this group because they are absolutely fantastic. I enjoy it and it really fills my cup to be able to spend time with them. They're really don't fantastic work through that program. So that concludes my report. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. I'm sorry. What is a shake? I mean, I understand the organization, but not what it was. It's a shake. So it's a program where we go in and we have a short amount of time with these students and they shake our hands and introduce themselves. We talk about eye contact and conversation skills. The last one we did, or I guess the one we'll do in the spring is an interview session, kind of a mock. It's only a two minute interview session, but then we provide feedback to them on how they can make improvements. Okay, thank you. I'm so like legit, shake. So the Route 1 South, I know there's been activity. The one sign said November 6th, expect to see traffic changes. And I haven't seen them yet. Is there an update date? So I think there's, I don't have an updated date to you. No, but they are out there working every day. Yeah, yeah. But fortunately it's just utility work and store water work that hasn't caused a need to change the traffic patch. Yeah, I'm excited for that. Don't worry it's coming. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. All right, thank you all. Thanks Nora, that was great update. Thank you. Okay, last round of comments, anything that we need to know. Sometimes we offer commissioners opportunities to share information or events or anything that we would like to put on our record on our radar. Hearing none, how are we on time? 659, less than an hour meeting. We'll adjourn.