It even, welcome to the March 4th, 2025 meeting of the Ash and Town Council. We thank y'all for being here. In the way at a moment of silence, I just wanted to mention a couple of things. Having to do with service, we had a former council member, former mayor Bruce Wayne Haynes, who passed away about mid-February. And he served as community well as council member and also had been a long time participant in the farmers market well known. And anyway, I just wanted to mention him in that loss to the, wasn't living in town now. But anyway, great contributor to the town. And while we're talking about contribution to the town, I just want to mention the Ashland Volunteer Rescue Squad, having that fire. And there are people who have answered the call, probably thousands and thousands of times when other people called and needed them. And now they've had a little disaster of their own. And I heard that Ashton Thott department, a company, one responded very quickly and we've come rotting to try to help them have space and help them with equipment as well. So anyway, we've got good examples from Mr. Haynes' life and from the rescue squad. And should I ask you to ponder that in a moment, and silence, please join me. Thank you. Mr. Vice-Manager, just in the pledge. As you're able, please stand and join me in the pledge. I pledge and we agree to sit with flag of the United States of America and continue to recovery, with the rich of the stands, on a nation under the guv, and in the physical, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll go ahead and review our agenda for this evening. We have a consent agenda and our consent agenda. We have minutes from our February 18th, 2025 Council meeting. We have our invoices for this moment in time. We have two proclamations, women's history month proclamation, and a proclamation honoring the service of Mr. Scott Samuel will handle that with a little extra in a presentation as well. Then we have citizen input time opportunity for anyone who wants to speak to counsel on a matter other than what's on a public hearing, which could come forward at that point. Then we have two public hearings, let me bring this up. Ornus 2025-101 residential picketing, Chief Aaron Holt will bring us that. Something similar, Ornus 2025-102 neighborhood events. We have three discussion items, Carter Park Poole, 2025 season performance report from Miss Richards. A public service far also from Miss Richards. And then our strategic plan work session, Mr. Goodman, will bring us that. That'll take us to reports for the council member reports, mayors report, public works report in the town manager's report. Before we close the meeting tonight, we have a closed session. I'll just say now it's discussion or consideration of the annual performance evaluation of the town manager pursuant to Virginia code 2.2-3711A1. Is there consensus for the agenda is presented? Yes. All right, thank y'all. All right, we'll go ahead and entertain a motion or discussion or questions concerning the consent agenda. I'm Mr. Mayor. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented and pay the bill. I second. Dr. McGraw. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Ms. Soapall. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Mayor Trebert. Aye. All right, Thank you all. And we have the two proclamations and I'd ask Councilmember Barnhardt if she would read the woman's history month proclamation. We happy to Where is during women's history month? We celebrate the many achievements and contributions including all of those that have gone on recorded made by women in our community, this Commonwealth, and nation throughout history. And whereas through leadership, innovation, ingenuity, generations of women have made significant contributions in science, medicine, technology, business, politics, entrepreneurship, government, public safety, and the arts and culture. And whereas women have been leaders in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunities, and in the abolitionist emancipation, industrial labor, civil rights, peace movements, and creating a more fair and more just society for all. And whereas the observance of women's history months calls our attention to recognize the and and create a more fair and more just society for all. And whereas the observance of women's history months calls our attention to recognize the significant contributions of women that are often undervalued and reinforces the need to battle sexism and build a society that lives up to its democratic ideals. And whereas the town of Ashton recognizes and honors our leaders past and present who have taken their place on town council, including Pam Soaple, myself, Kathy Abbott, Terry Winston-Abrie, Faith Pritchard, Angela Lawrence, Rosanne Scholf, Pettis Miller, and Hancock and Rebecca Grant. Now therefore, on behalf of the Ashland Town Council, we do hereby proclaim the month of March 2025 to be Women's History Month. I'm sorry, and further, we encourage all Ashland residents to honor and celebrate trailblazing women, past, present, and future. All right, here we go. All right, and we'll show our support for that with applause. Thank you. much. Thank you very much. Now next to our agenda we have a presentation. Proclamation honoring the service of Mr. Scott Samuel and so I'll read this and then we would like to present a proclamation to you and we'd like to come down and take a photo with you. We'd be honored to have a photo with you. Whereas on August 6th, 1993, Scott C. Samuel was hired by the town of Ashland Public Works Department. And whereas Mr. Samuel served in the position of lead equipment mechanic, and whereas during his tenure, Mr. Samuel managed and maintained the town's vehicles and equipment they get it to the high level of quality that it is today. And whereas Mr. Samuel was a great steward of the town's funds he researched and purchased parts and supplies wisely and planned so we could get the best out of our vehicles and equipment whether we were buying or selling them. He also searched for and recommended equipment that the town could purchase to make us more efficient like the leaf trucks. And whereas Mr. Samuel has worked during all extreme weather events, like snow storms and hurricanes, plowing snow or cleaning up debris, he would also volunteer support for many town events like the holiday parade and train day. And whereas Mr. Samuel consistently brought a superior work ethic, and by that example, he counseled and mentored many of the staff over the years. And whereas Mr. Samuel has contributed to the success of the town by working on many committees, and most recently helped develop the successful wellness program. And whereas Mr. Samuel was always a safety champion, and was an integral part of employee meetings teaching and promoting safe practices, he was a consistent, strong asset to the supervisors and managers for advice by using information from his many years of experience. And now therefore, on behalf of the Ashram Town Council, we do hereby express the gratitude of our community to Mr. Scott C. Samuel for the 31 and a half years of dedicated service to the town and so doing the council call upon all citizens and civic organizations to celebrate Mr. Samuel's legacy of service dated this fourth day of March 2025. We'll go down and take a photo, give you a recommendation, and then prepare for your speech. I'm going to get along a little longer than it sometimes. sometimes. I'm not going to ever be bothered just to this side of the public. Yeah, it would be great. You can put a little bit of oil. I'll scoot a little bit this spring for me so I don't get that black coating. Great. All right. All right. All right. All right. It's mine. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You said I'd stay here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank I'm going to read them, but bear with me through it. Scott started his career with the town in August of 1993 when the Ford Taurus was the best selling car in America. In 2024, the Tesla Model Y was the best selling car in the world. In the United States, the Ford F Series was the best selling vehicle. Think about how different Ford Taurus is to a Tesla. The world in general and the world of vehicle maintenance has changed dramatically in 32 years, but what has not changed a Scott's commitment to keeping our employees safe by keeping our fleet well maintained. When I think Scott's time with the town I don't think as much about the vehicles and equipment he serviced, but instead that commitment to the town and his co-workers. In particular I want to note the leadership role Scott has taken at the town shop. Whether it be mentoring fellow employees on town policies, participating in various teams, assigned to address issues of concern for the organization or community, or working with fellow employees to advise me when they think I may have missed the mark on a recommendation to town. participating in various teams assigned to address issues of concern for the organization or community, or working with fellow employees to advise me when they think I may have missed the mark on a recommendation to town council. Scott did it with commitment to the town and his fellow employees. Scott's a great example of leadership at all levels. While it may not be plainly obvious by looking at the town's organizational chart, Scott leaves an immensely large, leaves immensely large shoes to fill with this informal leadership role he took the responsibility to assume. Scott, it's these traits and many more we will certainly miss upon your retirement, but at the same time your retirement is completely deserved. You can step away knowing that everything you've done is greatly appreciated and your impact will remain with the town and the form of the mentorship and advice you've offered new employees and management, including myself, the excellent condition of our fleet and equipment, and the lasting positive influence you've had on the morale and wellbeing on the talent shop in our organization. All I can say is thank you for your service. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I'd like to say a few things and I would like to remember a couple employees that did not get to retire from the town that passed away while I was working here. I'd first like to remember Lieutenant George Hanson who passed away before he could retire with the town and operator Stephen Davidson who passed away during COVID. And leading into that I'd also like to give things to the Lord for allowing me to retire from the town because it's not a given. It was through his grace that I have been allowed to retire. I'd like to give thanks to all the council members here for the trust that y'all put in Josh in the leadership straight on down because she got some good people and they do a good job. When I took over the shop, I was 25 years old and it was a big responsibility to take over a whole fleet for town at 25 years old but the trust in faith was put in me and I feel that after all these years that I've done a great job. When I came here things were not in the shape they are now and I was given the support and to be able to bring them up to where they are now. And I feel really good about that. I like to thank my mom and dad, my mom, I'd like to thank for her kindness and loving nature that she's given me and like to thank my dad for all the advice he's given me along the way and for holding me to the fire. He's always been there for me and he has always taught me lots of things and when I graduated from Patrick Henry High School, I went to school to be a CPA like my dad at VCU. I didn't like it. So after that, me and my dad had a talk and he said, don't do it for me, do it, whatever you, what you're gonna do, because you're gonna be doing it a long time. He told me as long as I was good at what I did, I'd be successful. And he also told me, whatever you do, you better like doing it, because you could be doing it a long time. But I think that I made him proud, and I did exactly what he told me. I went to college, went to J. Sergeant Reynolds after that, got my degree in automotive mechanics and the grace of God delivered me back to my hometown here in Ashland and I'm 31 and half years later. I'm standing in front of y'all, thanking y'all for everything you have done for me. I'd like to thank Todd Evan, my supervisor, he's been incredible, he's been a huge support system for me. It's not ever an easy decision to retire, especially being younger, but I need to do things for my family and I feel like that's like that's the most important thing in my life right now. But I will say that the town has been here for me through 31 and a half years, and in 31 and a half years, you go through a lot. And the town has always been supportive of me and my family. And it's been my rock. So I'm going to miss that. In closing, I'd like to thank Alan Willes and Mike Molter. Alan was here earlier. Mike couldn't be here. They are along with Todd taking over the administrative side of the stuff that I do, taken care of the work until we can hire somebody for my position. And I hope they can find somebody that will carry on a good tradition and keep y'all in good hands. And I have faith that that will happen. And if it, I just, I really don't know what to say. I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. You've made everybody proud. Thank you. Thank time. I just want to invite anyone like to come forward and speak to council. On a matter of just come up and identify yourself by name and address if you would. Seeing no one coming forward, let's see like this sir. Okay, all right we'll close this in input time and move on to our first public hearing chief Aaron Holt. Born as 2025-01 residential picket in. Sorry if I close the door. Chief job is never done. That's right. So he does it all. With grace and authority. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, a member Town Council. On this evening, I'm going to present two ordinances. The first is going to be picketing in front of a residence. Before beginning, I just want to give some purpose behind the ordinance and how we got where we are. Let's see. I believe the best way to describe it is just what's contained in the ordinance itself. The protection and preservation of the home is key, is the keystone of democratic government and public health. Well fair and good order of the community require that the members of the community enjoy their homes and dwellings a feeling of well being in tranquility and privacy. absent from their homes and dwellings, a feeling of well-being and tranquility and privacy. An absent from their homes and dwellings carry on the sense of security inherent insurance that they may return to the enjoyment of their homes and dwellings. The practice of picketing before about residents and dwellings causes emotional disturbances and distress to the occupants, and obstruction and fears with the free use of public sidewalks, public ways of travel, and such practice has the object of harassing such occupants. And why do we have this ordinance? The important thing is, is the ordinance, the Commonwealth currently has a law on the books that deals with the ordinance, picketing. The problem is that there's a labor provision and they're in the Supreme Court decided back in 1980 that that made it a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the U.S. Constitution. So it struck down ordinances similar to the one that's still in existence in the Commonwealth Virginia that allows for a labor provision. There isn't any other form of protest that you can do or picketing in front of an individual residence unless it does pretend to labor. So the Supreme Court said that that was not allowable. However, in Brookfield, Wisconsin, they were enacting an ordinance similar to the one that you have before you this evening. That went before the Supreme Court as a part of a motion that was put forward to stop it. And it went all the way to Supreme Court and they said it was constitutional. It was fair as balanced. It removed any provision of labor and the ordinance you have before you this evening is actually drafted directly from that language that was in the Supreme Court. It's best to write ordinances and laws from those that have already been vetted by courts, especially with the strict scrutiny of the Supreme Court. It's best to write ordinances and laws from those that have been invented by courts, especially with the strict scrutiny of the Supreme Court. We were hopeful that the Commonwealth of Virginia had several bills and we were hopeful that they were going to enact an ordinance similar to the one that you have before you today. However, they've always died in committee and despite there being 45 years since the original decision that bossed on the even the fact that it's constitutional still this day. So one thing to identify is what is picketing. This was identified and was defined in the court which is Frisbee versus Schultz which is the court case that made this constitutional and And Piqueting is basically standing in a particular place. It's important to understand in this ordinance what is the content and what's the purpose of it. This ordinance is gonna characterize activity that focuses on a single residence. This ordinance is in fact modeled after Brookfield was consenced ordinance in ordinance that has been previously decided by the courts. This does not provide a total ban on protesting in residential areas. This is not meant to stifle free speech entirely. This is intended to prevent the harassment directed at a specific residence and the occupants by means of picketing. It's also important to note that this is not going to bar protesters from residential neighborhoods. They may go door to door. They may go in groups even marched within the neighborhoods. They also may process their views by going door to door. And they may distribute literature in a manner or they may send items through the mail. They may contact the residents by telephone, but they cannot harass the residents. That's important. Those are the exact words that were written in the Frisbee case about the ordinance that came out of Brookfield, Wisconsin. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. This is a serious matter. So I'm prepared to answer anybody. Any anyone have? Man,? Yes sir. If we adopt this, would it be considered a model for other jurisdictions? I would think so. I still am hopeful that the Commonwealth of Virginia, there's one ordinance right now. I don't think it has died in committee that deals with the courts, employees, judges, jurors, and clerks. At least I checked it was still in the books, but it is my hope that at some point in time, we'll just have an ordinance that models the state could would handle and our ordinance would become mute, but unfortunately still the state in time that that has not happened. So yes, it could be a model. But I hope that they come their senses and make it so the home is of everyone's castle. All right. Anyone else at this time? All right. Well, we'll open up the public hearing. I was going to keep going. It's the same ordinance. I just wanted to break it up. That's okay. You still working on the... I just... That was the first one and I just wanted to give opportunity to get any questions and break it up and just take it piece by piece. There are three other ordinances within the town code that we were recommending as well. The first is to ensure, is basically a nuisance code that deals with town owned property. Basically, this is going to ensure that the town's property is using a manner that's opened up to everyone. So you're not going to be able to put like a shed or fence into property. This allows it to make it a nuisance code. I did not see anything in the town code book when I was going over this that it was there, but I think it's important to define the town owned property, the town manager stands a premium over that and you have to have permission to use it in a manner that he sees fit. This is derived directly from the Virginia State Code 15.2, 2107. The wording of that is derived directly from that code as well. We just don't have that enacted in our town ordinance. 12-20, that's another ordinance that deals with the blocking of free passage in open areas of public and private property were requested. This is important because like in the last slide, the last part of the presentation we were dealing with picketing, well this would make it so, picketing in front of a residence is no longer lawful picketing so you're not going to be able to block the sidewalks or block someone's driveway or block people, in his people's ingress and ingress from businesses. So that will also allow us to enforce that as well as a class one misdemeanor. The same would apply for 12-20. This deals with general roadways, 12-20.1, excuse me. This deals with people who wish to stop vehicles on the highway. You're not able to prohibit traffic. So in other words, you can't make a chain across the roadway and block the freedom of passage and clear when I was Presenting this to one of my co-workers today. They said to me highways It's important to define that highways any roadway. It's not just like the interstate. It's any roadway within the Commonwealth So and this will prohibit you from blocking certain businesses such a fuel station, you're not able to prohibit them from doing their exercising their free business. And these two ordinances, the language is based off of the existing stakeholder, but being incorporated into our town. OK. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions on the second part of ordinance 25-01. Yes, sir. There have been any changes in the ordinance from what has been sent to us in our packet? Oh, yes, forgive me. In one of them, specifically in 12-20.1, it was pointed out that there was an emissional my part that I should have caught. There specifically in that there was a dealt with the Virginia Department of Transportation. What that also should have included was, and I would recommend this revision to it, is to include the town of Ashland, Annabra County, or any other contractor is approved by the town manager or his or her designate. So therefore, anybody who's working in the roadways is is preventing the freedom of movement. It will apply to anyone that the town manager has seen fitter. County members as well. I'm gonna pull this up for the chiefs so you can see it. Mr. Vice Mayor. I believe the chief. Yes sir. Always good to read though. Yes. There it is. For give me for that. I should have caught that it shouldn't have been just V dot but I'd forgot to include that into it Thank you for that you all right Any other questions? Just a comment I'll be happy to make a motion, but I want to thank you. I know this what it took a lot of time and effort for language had to be very, very specific because we certainly do not want to thank you. I know this, it took a lot of time and effort. The language had to be very, very specific because we certainly do not want to deny anyone a right to say what they want to say or to share their opinion. But I do, I'm very respectful of people's private space. So I'm grateful that we are going to put this together. And if so, I'll be happy to make a motion. Oh, sorry. As one heart, I think we have to. Oh, I'm sorry to myself. Yeah. I'll take your part. I have to have the public here. Oh, I'll take your part. Yeah. All right. I'm just so excited. I'm so excited to come up with a move. I'm so happy to get on the books. come forward and speak to this. Right now while it's open, come forward and express your point of view. Seeing no one will close the public hearing and bring it back forward. Now I can do that. Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of me here. Let's see. I moved to a dot ordinance 2025-1 and dash 2 if I can do it that way as presented or do we have to separately? I have to do it separately. Okay. I move for the adoption of ordinance 2025-1 has presented second Vice-mayor Hodges. Hi Dr. McGraw. Hi, it's Barnhart. Hi, the soap home. Hi, my name is Matt. Hi Bye. All right. Down over to the minor change that I recommend. So, forgive me on that. Basically, when we looked at this, when we originally presented this, in the all the other ordinances for the special event and the town special event, we were going to be a minor change to the minor change that I recommend. So, forgive me on that. Basically, when we looked at this, when we originally presented the, all the other ordinances for the special event and the town special event ordinances, if you remember, there were three different classifications. In the other two, you have to meet any one of the criteria, but in this, you have to be all of the criteria. So in looking at that, there was an important thing that stuck out to me and looking at the ordinance that I just presented to you. We're prohibiting the blocking of traffic, but nowhere in the special event that it discussed the prohibition of moving of vehicles or actually the prohibition of preventing the free movement of vehicles. And so my recommendation was to add to it that attendance attendance is not to be 25 participants at least 25 but less than 100 totaled any one-point time and the event will not occupy a road or impact traffic flow. The problem isn't speaking with council it is in conflict with number four so my recommendation is to remove the occupier road and simply say and the event will not impact traffic flow. So therefore it does in fact not go in conflict with any portion of the public street because the purpose of this was to allow a block party or something that's small in nature, that's a neighborhood's tile event, but not to make it so that there was just so much prohibition that you had to get a special event permit, because the old permit process was very involved. Yes, sir. This is where we're looking at the wording. Maybe we should say prevent traffic flow, because you might impact traffic flow, you just slow it down. Well, yes, but the thing about is why say impacts that you can't carelessly or maliciously interfere with the orderly passage of traffic. So the problem is, is you may have somebody who jumps out in front of traffic. And the thing is you may have a parade. And as long as you're following the rules of the road, you're sticking to the right side, it's fine. But if you start getting people who are walking around, it can impede traffic flow and are can impact it. So I'm obviously all deferred to the council, but I just want to make sure that, you know, if I say stop traffic, then that could mean that it's too restrictive and it might not allow me to go into enforcement action if necessary. We defer to Council's Council whether or not there's a about a way to go to enforcement action if necessary. We defer to Council's council, whether or not there's a better way to go, whether just leave it as a- I'll talk to the chief about this before the meeting. And I think as long as the two subsections are conflicting, which is I think what he's trying to make his change to do. I think that's fine. There is another term down below called a I think a town event, something like that. And that already takes care of what happens when you shut down whole streets and things like that. So what you're intending to do with this section is I understand it is keep small and so kind of small events don't have all of the requirements of a large scale festival or something like that. So as long as they don't conflict I'm good with it and we went over it before the meeting. Okay, all right, thank you. Yes, sir. I'll wait till after the public hearing. Any other questions for the Chief at this time? All right If you're ready, we'll go ahead and open the public hearing. Sure As for any comments on on his 2025-02 neighborhood events come forward this time Seeing no one will close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Mr. Vice-President. Just a question. I understand from the presentation and the staff report, the goal is to not limit this neighborhood special event requirement to events that have 25 participants or more. What language picks up that portion less than 25? Initially that was the intent, but in speaking with Council, the part where if they were to shut the roadway down itself that would, it would trigger number four. Yes, it would trigger, well number four there, but the town special event, if they're, if they're going to close the roadway that would trigger it. So that was the, the intent was the problem and this is that this has to meet all the criteria. The other park, any one of those will trigger it. So if it was to do it, it would be a catch-all. I do still have some concern about events from one to 25 people, but I think we're going to be okay as it goes my original goal to do so. So if we adopt this, it doesn't pick up zero to 25. But it will, but it should trigger and speaking with Mr. McRoberts, the town special event if they were to need a roadway closure or block the roadway, we would be able to use that to trigger it. Regardless of size. Correct. Yeah. All right. Anything else? Yes sir? Chief, can you just confirm that strike through that I made is your amendment for tonight? Yes sir. So would read and the event will not impact traffic flow. That's him. Okay. All right. Is there a motion? Any other discussion? Mr. Mayor. Yes sir. I move for adoption of ordinance 202502 as amended and presented. Second. So Paul. Aye. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGrone. Aye. Ms. Barnhart. Aye. Mayor Trebert. Aye. All right. Motion carries. Thank you Chief. Thank you. All right it brings us to our first discussion item here Carter Park pool 2025 season performance report miss Richards I have a new computer so I was really worried about that. Thank you so much for having me tonight. Despite the cold temperatures today was warmer. It is time to start thinking about summer and pool season daylight savings is this weekend. We're getting closer. So this is actually the 2024 pool performance report because it was last season. And so I apologize for the error on that. But yeah, so we're gonna, we'll talk about how the pool did this year or last year. Let's see if I can get that to disappear. Nope, wrong one. Okay. Where is it? Why is it not showing up? All right. Where is it? Why is it not showing up? All right. Thank you, Tom. Sorry. I had no problem. It showed up with earlier. You know how those grillers can be? Yes. It's going to blame the new computer. It's a great computer though. I really enjoy it. Okay. Let's see if this one works a little bit better. Okay. I don't know. All right. Is that good enough? Is that okay? Okay. I don't want to mess with anything else and then screw it up. So, season overview. Last year we were open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. 87 total days in the season. We changed our hours last year, open Monday through Friday, 12 to 7. In the mornings we have swim lessons and the Ashland Bear Cuda swim team. at that 12 o'clock time, but then we shifted to the 10 a.m. to 7 in the mornings we have swim lessons and the Ashland bear kuda swim team so we open at that 12 o'clock time but then we shifted to the 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the weekends to accommodate younger families with children who usually go and have a nap time around noon and once that caught on that ended up being really popular for those who wanted to kind of come in get their swim time in before they got hotter day, and before there were lots of crowds. 87 total days in the season. This season was more normal than the previous year. In 2023, we experienced the change in the Hanover County Public School's system, school dates, and so our season was shortened. So this was more of a normal full season. And then our busiest day was on June 20th, 2024. We had 504 people come to the pool during the course of the day. And that was mainly due to the statewide initiative called Play All Day VA, which I'll talk about a little bit later in the event section. But we had a free afternoon at the pool and we attracted a lot of users on that day. Visits, so our average visit was 297 people per day in 2024. A total of 19,061 visits for the course of the summer. That is a huge increase, an increase of 95 users a day from 2023. In 2024, we debuted the slide and the play structures. And so I think that that was really where we saw a lot of our, a lot of that increase in attendance. For our memberships and scholarships, we sold a total of 307 memberships last year. And for 165 total members, 333 members were residents and 732 were non-residents. We often see that kind of split and I'll remind you non-residents do pay a higher membership fee than residents, which helps us keep our resident member fee so low. We gave out 56 scholarships. Scholarships are based on financial need and the federal poverty level. And so it's an honor system. We take scholarship applications every year. We push that pretty heavily with the community and you have to be an Aftishland resident to qualify for one. So you're able to serve an additional 56 Aftishland residents with scholarships. So that was either a completely free or 50% off membership for the season. So that was a little bit of a jump from 2023. And so you might be thinking, well, how does that equate to the additional users? So we'll get to that part here with our passes. So in 2024, we sold 456 10 pack passes. So a 10-pack pass is at 10 entries into the pool and it's at a discounted rate. So the average entry is actually less than the daily rate, which is $7.10 that 10-pack pass is $65 for 10. And so that was a really popular, more budget option for people who maybe weren't looking to purchase a membership for the season, but knew that they would come to the pool a couple times with their families. I will say like a little asterisk on that is we switched systems for our software. And so you'll see in 2023, you're like, man, you only sold 149 10-pack passes. I do think that the data is accurate, but there is a chance that the reporting was a little different through the two software systems. But as you can see, our day passes also increased by about 2,500. So we definitely saw a lot more of those drop-in users than the regular membership fees. We had a lot of publicity last year on social media by a few influencers who talked about the affordability of the pool and that you could bring a family afford to the pool during the week for less than 30 bucks and how economical that was. And so I think that's where we saw a lot of those day passes as people, you know, using the pool is a really great low-barrier economic or financially avenue to to take their kids Our revenue and expenditures. So our expenses last year were about $38,000 higher than in 2023 That comes from an increase in staffing cost When you increase participation, you need more life guards for safety reasons, and then you need more assistant managers. So that's where most of our expenses came from. Our, we work with a third party contractor, pool crafters, to do all of our pool maintenance, including like at the regular like pump maintenance, chlorine things, and we did have some bigger maintenance items as part of a preventative maintenance plan this past year, so we did have to replace the lights in the pool and then make improvements to the lift, the chair lift, that allows those in wheelchairs to access the pool. And then we have to buy new pool furniture. All of it has a life. And so last year we spent a considerable amount in replacing deck chairs. And we have a replacement plan for that. So we have money every year. Last year just happened to be kind of like the first big purchase that we had to do of new ones in a while. Can we just pause there real quick? I love how you you've illustrated this but one thing that's missing is we lost less money this past year than the year before. Yes. So our revenues went up. Right. So yeah. So our costs went up but no I'll get there. Trust me I have a nerd when it comes to money. I'm sorry. Look at the numbers. Yeah so that's where we spent more but where we made more was from those passes and from the just seeing overall the 95 extra people a day that we saw the pool. So our cost recovery, this is a direct cost recovery. So our cost recovery was at 92%, which I think is a really great place to be. So it helps us, you know, we're not really in a money making business other than we want to cover the costs. So I was really excited to see that number. And because of that, I'll talk about it a little bit, but I don't anticipate raising any prices for next year. This last year we did increase the membership costs, but that was to offset the need for the additional life guard. We pretty much needed one to two additional life guards at every shift because of the addition of the slide and the risk management of making sure kids are tall enough at the top and then they're not, you know, spilling out of the bottom of the slide on each other at the other side. I've been down the slide, I can say. It's a huge hit. Staffing, and I'll explain the picture. It's a funny one. It's a funny one. So staffing, we had a total of 39 staff, including 29 lifeguards, 6 gate guards, 3 assistant managers, and 1 manager, Anthony Cruz. I want to give a shout out to him. He does a fantastic job in working with the pool every summer. summer he's been there multiple years and it's a well oiled machine including when he was not there and the sinks in the women's bathroom fell off the wall. All right, it might have been the men's and the staff were so quick to handle that situation. It wasn't we think somebody must have sat on it or something pulled the supports out. They immediately contacted us. They shut down the locker room. They assisted patrons and I was really impressed at the professionalism of the staff and I think that says a lot for the training and the effort that we put into making sure that we have excellent staff of the pool. We did fix it thanks to our public works department and put extra supports on this sink and the one in the other locker room to make sure this isn't going to happen. But, you know, things happen in facilities and it's all about how you react to them. And so, these were, this was the picture that I got, but we got it handled. Important dates, so I'll say the busiest day of the year was play all day VA. Play all day VA is a statewide initiative from the Virginia Recreation and Park Society to encourage play on the longest day of the year. So that is the summer solstice. We statewide had over 39 agencies participate and we were one of them. We did a free pool party from 3 to 7 p.m. at the pool. We had a DJ, We had the Parks and Recreation Committee there with giveaways. We had the Ashland Barracuda swim team selling popsicles as a fundraiser for their team. And all in all, we had 504 people that day, including over 300 come in between that three or four to 7 p.m. period. I've never seen the pool that busy, but we always monitored capacity. We had plenty of staff and so we were able to accommodate it all. I saw the link bus bring lots of people and it was right after we had introduced the link to town and so I was really excited to see that in action. So that was a great day to celebrate play all day VA and we will be doing another pool party this year With some with some changes on the same day for play all day VA 2025 We also did an opening day pool party and then a last splash pool bash And that was the last weekend before the pool closed once again We, we had DJ, giveaways, concessions, and it just really added some fun and flair to the pool. Speaking of parties, we offer private parties after hours at the pool so you can party from 7 to 10 PM. In 2024, we had 15 parties versus in 2023. We only had five. A few reasons for this. Our hours changed and so our parties went from being 8 to 11 PM to 7 to 10 PM, making it much more accessible for children's parties. 8 o'clock is kind of late to get a group of kids out. But 7 o'clock and you know, you get some pizza and cake. And it works. And it's also very reasonably priced. What I learned, I don't have children, but I started looking at other avenues and things get very expensive with planting a party. We have really reasonable rates. So I think that that's what drove a lot of the participation. Then we had some nonprofits reach out who wanted to have parties and so we worked with them to host events. Our swim team, so we had 164 swimmers with the Ashland Baracudas. Their record was 1 in 5. We're going to switch those numbers this year. Our coaches, Kevin Trent, Alan Rosenberg, Jenny DeRoch, current Henry and Sam Senfield. Sam was also a manager for us at the pool. Highlights, we had two swimmers when the Jamie has sportsmanship award. And then Elizabeth Northcraft, who is a parent, she won an award for parent volunteers. And then we had record centers, Kate Balloot and Chloe Brown. I don't remember exactly what swims but great for us. And then big recognitions to Kate Northcraft. She did her Girl Scouts Gold Award and did a free safety water safety course. So she certified water safety instructor. And so she hosted a free water safety course in the pool. And then Violet Lambert, if you have not been out to the pool and seen the amazing work that she did on the Ashland Bear Acuda's brick walk. She actually designed sold bricks and volunteered to build a memorial walk from the picnic shelter that goes to the pool gate and really improves access to the pool with bricks. And then a lot of the bricks were purchased and engraved with in memory of different veracudas. And then she also, because she is a very much a rising star, she also improved the emergency vehicle access path to the pool and the double gates from the picnic shelter using millings from the town shop. And so yeah, she couldn't just stop at the brick pathway. She said, is there more I can do? And I said, I'll always have more you can do. I will note that one thing that I did not mention earlier and you'll see in this picture here was also, and I'll talk about it for next year or for this year. This year is is that we partnered with the Richmond Guiding Eyes for the Blind Organization and we did a pup swim in the pool. So their handlers brought guiding, guide dogs in training to the pool to actually do a training session. So to learn about pools, some of them had never been swimming before and so we got to see, do you sink or do you swim? It's like my black lab you sink. But most of them did great. They got some socialization and they got to learn how to interact and be with how they would guide somebody who was around a water feature. They were very appreciative of this opportunity. We did it after the pool hit close for Labor Day and we plan on doing it again next year. I'll talk about that in my important dates. Updates, so I don't with the cost recovery and cost projections. I do not see any increase in membership fees or day passes for next year or for this year. I am working with our finance department to take our membership sales online. So traditionally, all membership sales have been done in person. With the new software we transitioned to last year, we should be able to take membership payments online. And that will be a huge time saver for our frontline staff as well as improve ease of access to the pool for people waiting in line on those first few days when it can be really busy waiting for people to fill out membership forms. Staffing and hiring, we do have a number of returners from the previous years and we're looking to hire 10 to 12 new staff. And as of today, the life guard and the gate guard, which is an access guard position, those positions are open on the town website. We usually get a lot of staff through word of mouth, especially through the school system. So if you know anybody, we hire at around the 15-age rate. That's when they can start working as a gate guard, and then you can become, actually become lifeguard certified at 15. Important dates, we will open on May 24th. And then this year I'm partnering with Hanover County Parks and Recreation on a number of programs throughout the year. The first being, some being at the pool a lot being outside in our other parks. The first being a water safety day on June 10th. So we're going to do water safety program tabling on that day at the pool. Play all day VA will again do that on June 20th, longest day of the year. Our last Flash pool party will be before school goes back on August 16th. And then Pup Swim, I'm working on not only allowing the guy to dogs for the blind to come in and work and do their Pup Swim, but I'm also going to open it up to the community. A lot of public pools, outdoor pools actually do public dog swims at the end of their season after they've, after adults are no longer, or people are no longer allowed to use it. And they have really great models for, for how that works and safety features and all of that. So, been working with some colleagues on, on that. And as a dog lover, as I said, my dog's don't't swim But I'm very excited to watch other people's dogs win With that being said any questions questions Looking back at the pool parties in 2024 they were 15 and 20, 23, five. That's a pretty big jump. But I just wanna say I have, my oldest was born in August, so the pool parties were always a big deal. And we did pool parties there all the time. And then I come along and have another who's born Valentine's Day. So he got another treat but the pool parties were really great. Yeah I have a December birthday. Yeah my December birthday I was always jealous of my friends who had summer birthdays and pool parties. It was always me. This is a terrific report. I don't recall. One is optimistic and pay for itself. Type of project of your innovation and creativity is evident and it's having an impact. I was going to ask you about the brick walk and to know that an eagle scout put it together. That's impressive. My only comment, the cost recovery, the wreck cost recovery 92%. And this may be a question Mr. Farah. Does that include debt service for all the improvements that we've put in? No, it does not. Well, still, it's a great number. But it would, maybe for the budget, it would be interesting to know that number. It will change that number significantly. Yes, yeah. OK. Well, don't want to throw any cold water on this president. Yeah. Hopefully. Good pun then. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Just curiosity. What is the capacity? So we we've had 508 like the most one day. So yeah. So at any one time, and believe it or not, we can fit 295 people is what I've been able to calculate in the pool, in the actual water. But then we also have a lot of deck space. And so just because there's 295 people at the pool doesn't mean all are in the pool at the same time. So what the lifeguards and our staff typically do is we monitor capacity as people are coming in and out. And usually there's a pretty good flow and we never kind of get to those ceilings. But on this particular day, we added extra guards and then we just monitored and if we felt like, and we checked in with the guards and the staff and if we felt like, hey, we're kind of getting to that level, we would have pulled shut down. But I think around like six o'clock, people started leaving and then the last, you know, so know so so yeah around 295 in the pool and I would I would say we haven't hit that particular we can close but we haven't hit it okay and yeah the staff positions that's not more staff members total that's new people to replace ones that aren't coming back. Correct, yes, on that last slide. Just want to make that point, because I would make a big difference in the hospital. Yeah, yeah. That's to replace. We had some people graduate, you know. Oh, yeah. No, I agree if everybody else is excellent. They're very, very well done. Thank you. And don't forget you get a free pool membership. Town Council. All right. Are you kidding? No. I know that. I'll talk. We wanted you to help with the cost recovery. Yeah. OK. All right. And while you're here, I guess you've transitioned to the public service. Yes. Let's hope this one behaves. It's only two slides, so it should. So next up we have the Ashland Public Service Forest. And I will note that these pictures were taken recently, obviously in the spring and the summer, it's going to look a lot more lively out there. But this is the plaque at the front of the public service forest. I'll get into kind of the history of it. But this quote is from Nelson Henderson. He is a Canadian author who wrote about his father. His father was an Irish immigrant who went to Canada during the Great Hunger in the famine and became a pioneer in Canada. And so it's a really, I have not read them anymore, but this is a very popular quote from it. And so we thought it was really applicable to put on the, on the sign to kind of invite people to reflect and to, you know, really kind of sit in the space in the moment and think about the magnitude of it and not just think, oh, some trees and some plaques. Would you mind reading that? Yes. For those who might be listening. Yes, the true meaning of life is to plant trees. Under whose shade you do not expect to sit. Excellent. And I think that leads into leaving a legacy and preparing for the future. And that's what this public service forest is. It's a way to say thank you to all of those who have left a legacy in Ashland. So I know once our council members, our commissioners, our committee members make the decision to step down that it's not an easy one, and there's such wonderful public servants. And so we wanted a way to honor them for years and years to come. So that is where the public service forest idea was kind of born. It was like, well, we can plan a tree. And it's like, okay, well, where do we plan a tree? And how many trees is that? And how do we kind of create a special space? And so the location for the public service forest is Real Side Park and Trail. There is a small green space about a one acre green space with some picnic tables, some parking. And it's really a spot that a lot of people go to for train watching and to read and just to kind of be in nature. So we thought this was a great place to plant these trees. It also was just location-wise for the life and longevity of the trees, the best location in town. So the eligibility is a committee commission board or council member who service ended after 2022. That's when we started the forest and so we'll continue on from there. So you can see there's currently four trees planted there. We do have an additional two trees that need to be planted but we are waiting for the weather to improve and to plant them and ensure that they will grow. And just for example, this is Robert Dole's, the whether to improve and to plant them and ensure that they will grow. And just for example, this is Robert Doles. The each tree has a little plaque in front of it that says the name and the years of service in the committee or commission council that the person served on in front of each tree. And so we'll continue to build out the public service forest as we have people who rotate off committees and commissions, but just a way to honor that legacy and continue to remember them. Right, excellent. Yes, sir. Is there a ceremony or it's a great idea? I think recognizing folks who at the time volunteer in their service for the town, this is a great idea. Is there like a recognition or something like Robert did, you all just telling or was there a ceremony? So we did not do any type of formal recognition when we did put these trees in, but we did notify and say, you know, when I thanked Rob for his service, I explained the public service for us and I told him about the tree that would be planted in the location and then I sent him a picture when it was done. All right, and my second question was, is there one plan for Kathy Abbott? There is one plan, yes, it's just not been good weather timing. I see. Yep. Thank you. But I do have the plaque for her. So once it gets to the point where we can plant things again, there will be one going in. Great, thank you. All right. Anyone else? Thanks for all you're doing. Yeah, thank you. Sighting. Thank you for your time. You too. Thank you. Next discussion item, Mr. TG plan work session. Mr. Goodman. And I'll say something here probably go to say anyway, but we want to do our strategic plan work session and I have discussion and look through what we already have on the books, but I just want to say that we're not going to be formally accepting or voting a final draft this evening. If anyone wants to give some input later on by emailing person, phone call, what have you, there's opportunity to do that. I guess it'll be a subsequent meeting that will formalize this. Yes, sir. And I'm gonna lead off with follow-emey. That's just punishment. I think the clerk would have done something better. I have to follow in me. That's very difficult. So Mr. Mayor, members of Council, you have a strategic plan on front of you and the agenda, both the presentation and staff report and the actual red line version of the strategic plan. But I'd like to kind of go through PowerPoint before we jump into it. This was originally planned for, I believe it was February 11th and we got snowed out. So we hated kind of tucks such an important topic on the end. jump into it. This was originally planned for, I believe it was February 11th and we got snowed out. So we hate to kind of talk such an important not topic on the end of a meeting, but we got snowed out twice already this year, so we were afraid we might get snowed out more, so we just kind of tucked it on the end of this meeting, so hopefully we can give this the attention it deserves without completely monopolizing your entire evening. To give you some background, the original strategic plan that we have in front of you that we built of us was created in 2016 and includes a mission, the vision, the values. It was broken down in the five focus areas at that time, 18 objectives and 101 initiatives. And of course, this was a roadmap for staff to follow Council's direction as we carried our daily work. One of the best things that Council did when they adopted the original one is that one of the initiatives is we shall go back and review this on a regular basis. So you've seen we've done that. 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023. The 2023 version, everyone was here. like Miss Soapall may have been the audience at that time, but was not up on the day at that point. But if you recall, we essentially took a buzz saw to these strategic plan and essentially cut it in half and we got archived a lot of initiatives that we had accomplished. We can't say we deleted them, we accomplished them. So they don't need to be in the plan moving forward anymore. This should be a future facing document to guide our work. We changed a bunch of the direct of initiatives, but the five focus areas remained. They didn't get unchanged. So the current strategic plan that we have that's currently adopted is five focus areas, 18 objectives and 59 initiatives. So what we've done this year for the review as directed by the Initiative and the Strategic Plan. 18 objectives and 59 initiatives. So, what we've done this year for the review as directed by the initiative and the strategic plan is not necessarily the same deep dive we did in 23, but more of a lighter touch. So we went about it slightly different than we did in 2023. As staff went through it and tried to do council's light work identifying ways that we can improve the verbiage. If there was something we could delete, if there was something we needed to add, and then we again bring it to you tonight to help us continue to polish it. We're hoping this will be more of a polish than a complete rewrite. But what we've got in your presentation will hit on this in just a minute, is we're now armed with a 2024 NCS National Community Survey results. That I hope will inform this discussion dramatically and you've all seen that but we're going to kind of go over the highlights as well just to kind of refresh everyone's memory but based on staff review of the Community Survey our work day-to-day work and carrying out the mission of the town and the vision to the council, we recommended the below revisions you see here on the slide. The FISCENT 59 initiatives, 45 remain untouched and remain as written. Nine were updated to reflect current climate. I'll give you one example of that is one of our initiatives was seek a regional interconducting bus service. We got that. So we had to reword that a little bit to kind of what's next steps with that. So that's kind of giving you an idea of what those nine were updated to reflect the current comment. Three were removed, 3.2.3, the fall on trail, and it's not because the fall on trail is not important. It's critically important, but we're almost done. Our section is almost done. Amy's given reports on that. So we think as a future facing document, we could afford to take that out because again, it's almost done. 3.3.4 was a housing bullet that we felt was fairly duplicative of two slots above it. Obviously, you guys will be the final judge, but we thought it was fairly duplicative and we could Remove that and be a little bit more streamlined 3.4.2 maintain accessible housing and neighborhoods We looked at that and just kept looking at and thought you know Much of the intents in the standard if not completely is really covered by the American with with this abilities act I know Mike has people looking at that from their perspective not only on new projects but existing Landscapes so that is something we want council to consider do we really need to have that in the strategic plan the whole goal in this is to Can you can continue to make this as lean as an informative and instructive for account for staff to follow councils in 10 we added to And initiatives were added 3.1.2 was just was just a sentence from Miss Amos to, hey, let's make green space and infrastructure maintenance like the median leading the 54 to 9.5, like the interchange at 9.5. Let's see if we can make that a priority for staff to continue to improve our green space when we can. Miss Richards added an initiative for 3.2.3 to develop in New Parks. And then we add, one objective was removed, and we'll talk a little bit about it as we dive into it. So before we actually dive into it, and I'm going to go through this fairly quickly, this review of the NCS. So if anyone wants me to stop, just please tell me to slow down. Yeah, feel free to interject as you feel, Ed lit. So as we know we did the survey back in the fall we had a really good response rate very commensurate with past few years we've done that and we know that from a community of ability our community rated our safety our natural environment our utilities economy and inclusivity and engagement really high in the top five. You know we did a really good job with Of course, there's others below that as well. Of importance to the community. Kind of a broken record here of a safety economy, natural environment, utilities, parks and recreation, health and wellness, we continue to see these themes of safety, economy, and natural environment as we move on. When we talk about funding priorities, and these are the slides that might be the most important to inform not only council the strategic plan, but as we move into our budget season that might help inform that especially the capital projects fund. Safe community was the top funding priority by those who respond to the survey, improving traffic flow, especially effects of interstate congestion. Bike and pedestrian infrastructure, Ms. Richards recently finished in the Parks and Rights Committee and you adopted the PED Bike Plan. So that's one of those things. Building new sidewalks, trails and shared use paths. That was in that top four as well and in economic development with that job creations and parentheses after that. What are projects? Citizens were asked what are projects we should spend our time. And that was kind of broken up kind of evenly in that top, you know, seven revitalization of aging neighborhoods and blighted homes. Recreational opportunities, again, another big theme that keeps popping up, neighborhood revitalization, twice in one chart, safe and visible pedestrian crossings, building sports fields and acquiring new park space, increasing public transportation, and the link is the same as did a fantastic job at bringing the link to town, and we want to see that just grow. And this was a question that was put to our citizens as well. In the next 10 years, how important are these projects? Safe streets, safe business area, safe neighborhoods, overwhelmingly number one in that category, close behind its safe and visible pedestrian crossings improving traffic flow, revitalization, avian shop incentives, again, these constant themes just added as in slightly a different manner. The summary of the conclusions, or if you recall from that presentation, we have to mincee us a couple of meetings ago. Residents are showing a growing satisfaction with town leadership. Residents of action reported feeling safe across various aspects of our community. Mobile rating, mobility ratings are in line with national comparisons, but show a slight of the con from 2022. And I think that was affected by the constant impact of the interstates, which we have. Very little control over, we're trying. Mr. Jennings done, and his crew have done an incredible work at working with the Jamestown Road community to put speed humps out there to try to slow traffic down. And, you know, that is really, we're really excited to see what happened already, but to see what's going to happen this summer with that. We also saw that residents highly value Ashland's national environment and parks and wre, I know the theme that keeps popping up there and affordability is valued at Asselin, but you know, we definitely saw that there was a recent decline. I guess Bob people's impressions that maybe Something that we can't control at all, but it's definitely was an impression So our request tonight is to request count and staff request counsel to conduct the work session provide feedback and recommendations for revision So what I'm going to do is I'm going to transition from the PowerPoint slide to the actual Word document that has the red line and I'm Forgive me. I'm going to do is I'm going to transition from the PowerPoint slide to the actual Word document that has the red line and I'm, forgive me, I'm going to have to go back and forth between the glasses and the screen. So it might be a little caddy-wampus just for a moment. moment. So this is your strategic plan. As it's written, you've got your comprehensive plan. What I guess the backbone of the strategic plan, those documents, again, I'm going to kind of speed through these first couple pages. So stop me if you want me to slow down or you want me to back up. The strategic plan process, we already kind of went over that in the PowerPoint presentation. Definition that gives you the definitions of the vision, mission, values, focus areas, objectives, and initiatives. Our vision statement, which I think guides our work. We spend a lot more time on the mission statement, but that's doesn't make the vision statement any less more important. Delta, I apologize. I'm gonna try to drag this out. Can you go back to slides? Yes, sir. Just the definitions. Yes, sir. I think Doug's laid it out for you. Obviously our focus tonight is on the objectives and the initiatives because that's so much of the meat of the actual document is. I'm happy to go over. Maybe we wait till the end and see what the appetite for it is. The vision, mission, values, I think we can offer some pretty good staff perspective on all those. They worked really well for us. I mean, genuinely, I mean, the mission is something that we talk about on a, at least monthly, if not weekly basis, in one form or another, where staff, our values have worked well. The vision is good, but I think those are things that we could certainly talk about discussing, but right now the objectives and the initiatives are the focus, but don't want to just gloss over that. If that's something you feel we need to touch on, just say the word and we'll go into that as well. Yes, sir. Thanks, sir. We're ready to. How difficult would it be to capitalize town throughout the document? Not difficult. I just it seems to me we're not speaking of a generic town. We're speaking of the Center of the universe Art and capitalizing it If it's easy to do it pops up throughout it'll take me all of about six seconds. That's pretty easy. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. I'm going to continue on. Again, we were talking about the vision. And of course the mission statement. Quite often the town manager and our townwide meetings when the room is full of all of our employees across the board. Town manager will ask who can recite the mission statement. And Mr. Jennings folks usually get the gold star because they can get up and recite the mission statement with incredible accuracy. So it's incredible how many of our folks really understand the mission. They may not be able to speak to letter and paragraph and page of the strategic plan, but they know the mission statement. And as we talk to staff, the most important elements of that, and we talk about it all the time here in town hall, is we're not in the government business, we're in the quality of life business. And that's how we phrase it to our staff, and so that every one of them from the top to the bottom understand that that's the business we're in. And the other part, obviously, is the public service. We refer to all of our Staff as public servants I add on the professional public servants I don't care if you're picking up brush you're stopping someone for a police call or taking payments You are a public servant and you are a professional in that job and so this this mission statement has been absolutely critical to what we've done in the town I'll at least since 2016 when we came up with it. You're here. And my only, I'm going to add a little bit of caution to that, that we can change a lot in this. But when we start to go to changing mission statements, we have that printed on so many different documents and painted on the walls and the police department and probably on the back of some uniforms that we would want to take great care if we ever wanted to change the mission. There's some cost implications of change. Yeah, well, that's good that it's perfect as is. Yes, sir. All right, I'm sorry. Old eyes here, folks. So we've got our guiding values as well, and I think that's what the manager was speaking to if there's an appetite if we need to go back and review any of the values of the mission, the mission statement, we can certainly do that. But let's jump into the focus areas. Of course, we know we have a strong diverse economy, cultural vitality, community and neighborhood and livability, responsive governments, and safe communities. We're going to go into those in numerical order. And again, I'm going to go page by page. I'm going to point out the change. And if I don't hear any deep breaths or pauses or anything from the goddess, I'm going to keep going. If that's OK. And then if you want to stop me, and again, I've got it in words so we can actually word-smith it as much as I hate doing that. On the fly here, we can word-mith it as much as I hate doing that on the fly here we can wordsmith it as we go. Okay? So the first change and this is one of the nine changes is we change 1.1.1 to reflect more of our desire to encourage redevelopment of maybe older properties, not just brand new properties, but redevelopment older properties. That was definitely something we heard of in the survey. And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to prolong the meeting. This is a discussion. and light removal and other things appear later in the priorities. But I thought since we're talking about strong and diverse economy, there might be a place to mention not only prioritize infrastructure investment but also collaborate with economic development authority to encourage redevelopment opportunities. They have authority that we don't have in terms of acquiring property and redeveloping it. So my suggestion would be to reference them, prioritize strategic infrastructure investments and collaboration with the economic development authority and then pick it up. If I could make a suggestion, whatever comments we do make tonight, this is a draft because you might want to change it yourself and you don't need to be so. But if I can can capture your thoughts as we're working This helps me dramatically because I can't read my own handwriting and I would point out I'm just one council member and I don't expect I'm just I throw it out there for councils consideration And we will make edits tonight obviously based on your comments But we're also going to take this back and this comment may be a perfect example of that statement may be better suited in an initiative later down the road. Sure. We're trying to get it right sized before we bring it back to you. Sure. Everyone please contribute as you feel, Ed. But I changed that one based on what the vice-meager said, prioritized strategic infrastructure investments and collaborate with economic development authority to encourage redevelopment opportunities. Thank you. This strategic infrastructure investments that also can also apply to neighborhoods. There is another section for neighborhoods. Okay, that's what I'm saying. This was more for just commercial. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So as we move forward here, you've got some minor changes to 1.1.3, continued to partner, we just changed the work, staff felt better with that language. And then 1.1.4 is not changed from the language, we just moved it to another section because it's, we wanted to elevate that to that first bullet, if you will. It made more sense to move that into the more of the economic development from then buried up a little further down the dog. So it's not a new language, it's just moving around a little bit. 1.2 is the objective and again that was a change that instead of promote just be an advocate for Ashland as a tourism, just a little bit of wordsmith changes. A lot of these wordsmithing changes came from staff. They're so we can understand it a little bit better. If we're the ones doing it, we understand it makes more sense to us some of these wordsmithing changes. So 1.2.2, you will see again, and that is somewhat of those wordsmith changes that kind of maybe puts in a little bit more concrete terms. What we do, continue to position assets of premaritourism destination by leveraging emerging technologies, promoting its unique attractions, fostering partnerships and implementing strategic marketing initiatives. Again, more concrete steps to accomplish that objective without initiative. 1.3.1, this is again under that objective 1.3, continue strategies to enhance and maintain visual appear appeal and commercial development of the exit 92 corridor, not just the exit with the whole corridor. I'm going to continue. 1.4.1, this is where that gave the example is that our previous initiative was develop, work with the organization to develop. We have the link now. So now that is continued to foster relationship with the Greater Richmond Transit Company, GRTC, to manage the on-demand transit service link. That can, gracious scology, effectively serve citizens or tourists to access actions expanding job market, cultural and recreational amenities. So kind of again, changing with the climate, we're working to not just develop it now to partner to effectively management. I think again Miss Amos has done a Yomans job on getting that here. Excuse me. As if, look at this. I don't know whether there needs to be or be worthwhile to mention that Hanover Dash program as well, while we're talking public transportation, or whether or not, as Link grows, maybe that's not even getting much, you know. I think with the kind of verbiage of manage, we do manage the Jink Link relationship. We don't necessarily have a management role in any way with the handover dash. We could add a partner, but I think they're fairly effectively serving the Asher and Residents without much influence from the town at the moment. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just from a language point of view, I understand why you want to strike amenities, because it's twice, but it's there because you have expanding job market, cultural amenities, recreational amenities. I know it's silly, but I'm a linguist, so I just, anyway, it doesn't bother me other than it's done. You have this. Okay. Done and done, sir. I think we were looking at the duplicative. If it's a better word than a minute he's I get it but it strikes as odd when I read it when I come thinking of anyway I'm not gonna get into the grammar. Cultural attractions Miss Miller this is kind of more in your neck of the woods. So take strike amenities and the comma. Does that? I'm still getting a grimace from the cake. It's going to look, it's going to sound weird to me. Well, because you have an adjective with a noun, whether it's a noun phrase or not, then you have another adjective, and then you have a and, it's just it's. Tractions. Tractions. Sorry. I don't mean the words that it's hard for me to read it when you. I understand. Fair. Is that change work okay for you, sir? That's fantastic. No? That's fantastic. Thank you. Going once, going twice. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Can we go back, scroll back a little? Yes, sir. 1.4.3. Monitor the DC to RVA rail project for strategic response to negative impacts to the Ashland area. I was trying to figure out what that meant. And the context is that the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission is initiating its 2025 long-range transportation plan. And when the DC to RVA National Environmental Protection Act study was done, it said in 2045, there is the potential for the 323 to fail for the 2 out of the 323, because it could create a wall of frames and sever the town. Not to be unduly negative. So while I have some ideas, my concern in this is to be more proactive. In other words, not the monitor. I would hope that we would take a position to take advantage of studies like the Richmond Regional 2050 long range transportation Plan to solicit federal state and federal support for a viable long-term solution that maintains the integrity of the town. This is not going to come up in a citizen survey. People just think it's It's done, but rail traffic, passenger and freight is going to continue to grow. Have a citizen survey. People just think it's done, but rail traffic, passenger and freight is going to continue to grow. They haven't even put in the third lanes on coming in and out of town. And just now is the time to plan for that period. So I'm not suggesting word smithing what that is, but maybe y'all could look at that and put it in practical terms. Yeah, I think that's perfectly appropriate. And vice mayor Hodges and I have had this conversation, not initially about the initiative, but about the topic. And I think what you see there is exactly what we've been doing, which is kind of a defensive approach of what bad could happen to us, how do we set up preventative measures measures for it and what you're asking and what we've talked about is we've got to figure out okay what are we doing in 2046 and that's kind of an initiative I think we can staff and bring back a draft for you at the next one and Wordsmith it up for you. That'd be great. Could you would you be so kind as to forward me the language you just offered? Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Yes sir. And I was just making a note for myself to insert there so we're in good shape there. All right may I continue? Yes. Very good. Section 2 or focus area 2, cultural vitality. You'll see this change, one of those nine changes, 2.1.5. Encourage festivals and regional events to be self-sustaining. I think that falls in line with council policy and the recent ordinances that council has passed. Continuing on to number three, community and neighborhood livability. This is the new and I mentioned in an opening slide that Miss Amos wished to insert 3.1.2 evaluate efforts to beautify our community by increase and maintaining green infrastructure. I our work out at the interchange our work to beautify the median from 54 from from route one out to interchange and there's so many other things, but I think we wanted that was staff's request so we can make that a priority in our work as well. Objective 3.2, this is under the parks and rec realm, provide high quality and there's a change and inclusive parks and recreational amenities and programming for Ashland residents and visitors. So just wordsmithing that slightly again give more clarity to staff of what we need to do our job on a daily basis. Continuing on 3.2.1, this is reflective and mis-Richards work in partnering with not only Hanover County but other partners such as the Department of Wildlife Resources and other many departments, partners she's been able to cultivate but work with community partners to introduce recreational program. 3.2.3, that is of the few deletions and that is advocate for efforts to fulfill the vision of the fall on trail and again that was something that we felt as staff that we're this close. We've actually done our section where this close so yes sir Mr. Vice Mayor. And I don't disagree with the intent the focus is on Ashland but in the region this is a $300 million project and it's not fully funded. It doesn't take us all the way to Petersburg and there are areas of Chesterfield and the city of Richmond that are not funded yet. So I'm fine with taking it out just so council remembers it's not a done deal. And with the prospect of federal funds being cut back, there is a concern how long it will take to finish. So I just, I acquiesce as a council member to deleting it. Other thoughts on that? Vice Mayor Hodges is 100% correct about the big larger term problem project. But I would say the Ashton portion is a done deal. I agree with that. Thank you. And I would agree that As portion is done and we were talking earlier today but there are things that we're still planning to do to just fully, fully activate, fully utilize, fully enhance whatever beyond the trail, but it has it comes into the town. So and that's still related to the trail. So the trail is the provision of more people and more energy, but what we may do, own right here in the town, downtown. So, anyways, as long as that's still one of our minds, whether that comes across as economic development or whatever, but anyway. So anyway, it's still a lively thing, is what I guess what I'm saying. Well, there is no doubt. I mean, it's a lively thing. So it's definitely in the bike pet plan. The question is, do you want it in the strategic plan? And it's, this is your plan, not ours. I can move forward or we can leave it or take it out. I will say we did just talk about an issue about recruiting folks to come to our cultural and recreational amenities that probably gets a lot at the other stuff you're talking about. We have another initiative for that as well. There you go. All right. I'll leave it as is for the moment. And again, we'll be coming back. So if there's any remorse tomorrow, we'll be coming back. This is a new addition, 3.2.3. Continuous strategic development of new parks and reccomendities to enhance community access to recreational areas. That is an addition from Miss Richards. And definitely a worthwhile addition. 3.3.4, and I know we're all very careful talking about housing initiatives and things along those lines. That was recommended as a deletion by staff because if you read that initiative and I'm sorry I'm going to see if I can scroll down a little bit more so you can see how you can't really see that. But if you read that initiative and then read 3.3.1, they're so close that we felt like one or the other should be deleted. Again, to keep it more streamlined. Can we go to the deleted? Yes, sir. I'm sorry. It skipped a page, I guess. Oh, that was helpful. So I'm going to see if I can make this a little smaller so I can include everything you can kind of see it about that. Now, still want to. The language about utilizing regional community organizations is a little different than the goal of achieving affordable housing. And we've had success with habitat on South Taylor Street in Arlington. And they continue to identify properties in that area. There is another lot across the street that they're looking to develop. So if maybe there's some place where the language of utilizing regional community organizations is spoken to, not just the housing, but we want to lose that. I believe we do have some partnership language further on. So if that would cover it, would that... Yes, I could be satisfied. The partnership for Housing Affordability is another group. It's out there that's come and done rehab work for us. Just did more. Sorry, the rush was going to say some opera money was also spent for it. It wasn't home. What was the project home? project it was another group. So I mean, we've utilized the intent of the initiative. I just don't want to lose that connection. If it's addressed somewhere else, I would be satisfied for happening. Even if it's not addressed somewhere else, we'll figure out some, if we don't find it elsewhere rewards methods so that we can get that partnership element with those other organizations. Maybe combine the two. Yes, for us. Okay. Very good. Doug, pause for me there before you jump to the next red lines. Missil Paul, you and I had a conversation about some priorities you might have. I think when we talked, what I was thinking of was 3.3.5 might touch on some of the things that you're talking about with improving older neighborhoods. That's something that we talked with council a few years about ago about is developing an actual program to go into neighborhoods and do that. And it is something I'd like to get back on the agenda. But I think that one touches on what we were talking about. But if you have other items you'd like included, just let us know. Actually, I had put two question marks beside it. OK. And so that must be it. Great. OK. Thank you very much. I think that's it. It's good highlighting that. And I was, I guess I'm thinking that we want to consider keeping healthy cores as the town grows and new neighborhoods come. You don't want your core or parts of the core to deteriorate and that's whether it's economic development, commercial or whether it's residential areas. So that needs to be higher up to make sure that we're not just blindly running toward the future and neglecting our investment in the past in historic homes and people that have been here. So thank you for pushing for that. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone for listening. Moving forward, we had an objective 3.4 and after moving, if you recall, we moved 3.4.1 to that first bullet of attracting a hospital medical complex or other continuing care facilities. We moved that, elevated that up to the number one focus area. And then 3.4.2 is the one where we've thought that maintaining a cesspool, how a neighbor is in the commercials is that much of that speaks to the American Disabilities Act. And we felt that really if we could, again, more streamlining, not trying to make that any less of it, but more streamlining this document for what we can control, we could actually take out that entire objective. Okay, thank you. Safe community, number four. If there's no comments on that one. It's a wonder looking at the community response. The safe community isn't number one, because it seems to come across number one everywhere else, but anyway. Certainly appreciate that feedback we got. And again, the numerical order this was developed in 2016. Oh yeah. Certainly I'm not trying to create more work for myself, but I mean they can be renumbered. That's not a herculean task. Not as easy as- The easier numbers have no priority, love. That's right. Not as easy as capitalizing all the towns, but it can be done. What we did here, and this was some input from the chief under the initiatives for safe community. And this is just, again, more to clarify exactly what Council's intent provide the necessary equipment and technology, adding those two words to strengthen the nation's public safety operations and prepare for a future public safety concerns. Not just growth but what are concerns, because in some cases it's not the growth that brings need for new equipment and training. It changes in our environment, changes in our climate, increase traffic on the interstate, that kind of thing. Number 423 or somewhere, we have something about making sure, you know, we're ensuring public safety officers meet or exceed appropriate training, but we do want to say something about making sure they have the best equipment that they can have as well. And that was the intent when we went through this because I've been here since 2016. The equipment is that 4.2.2 was the equipment. It used to say tools or necessary tools but I think by saying equipment and technology now it's counsel telling us this is what you want to do. Is that cover your thoughts, Mr. Mayor? Outstanding. Make sure we show our appreciation. And I think no chief air and hull has done a great job with making sure we're buying those things that we need to keep our officers safe, the equipment and tools they have, they're from their body armor to the things they wear around their belt. Yes indeed. Moving on. on. 4.4 maintain safe and effective traffic flow. This is a work to basically to add some language more intentional language to 4.4.2, which talks about work to mitigate repetitive but unpredictable traffic events. And the town manager spoke to me about this a few weeks ago and we thought we'd add this sentence and panel employee committee could be more than just employees, could be a broader than that, but in planal committee, to complete a detailed review and analysis of vehicle traffic and gesture trends with a report due to council in January of 2026 on recommendations for improvement or further action. Knowing that there's some three lanelane stretches of interstate going north and south that we have very little, if zero, control over, but can we at least study other things we could recommend to our state delegation, to our federal delegation, or the things that we can do internally here, like Mr. Jennings' work out on James Town Road and Martha's work with that community, Ms Miss Middletes work with that community to develop the speed hump idea. We wanted to be more intentional with addressing this, not just mitigate, but what are we going to do? So this is a little bit more about maybe a tactic versus just an initiative. Well, this certainly was a concern that was prioritized in the survey. Yes, sir. We're concerned about that. And I agree with the intent on certain about what the committee is and is this a planning study, is this a law enforcement study? What is this? I think the intent of the discussion is that this would be more of an employee committee would be staff to focus on, you know, maybe a multidisciplinary, some of my public works, engineering planning. We have some really bright minds out there, especially in that middle-med management level, some new minds that can maybe look at problems that we've looked at for years, they may just bring a different perspective. And if we do need to maybe get access to maybe some outside assistance, whether it be Timons or V.O.T. or Plan RVA, I think we can reach that, but I think the intent of this, correct me if wrong, was more staff led to bring a report to Council versus a more of a blue ribbon type committee, if you will. I wouldn't go down the line of thinking like a strategic plan report or report that you would typically see out of planning. The view I took on it is to try to use local resources in our partners rather than go with a consultant is let's identify the issues and the specific problems within the issue. I, 95 overflow traffic comes a lot. There's accidents, what's causing that? There's GPS ways that's causing elements. There's increases in traffic. It's identifying all the issues and then staff recommendations on steps we could take to mitigate. We all know nothing's going to solve the problem. There's no magic bullet on these, but that's what we're looking at is doing it comprehensively rather than I think we've done it a little bit piecemeal. I think we've actually done some pretty good work to try to address this, but it has been a little bit haphazard, and I'd like it to all come together in one document so we could show you. Here's everything we've kind of identified. Here's steps we think we could take. It may take 10 years to get to some of them, but what we'd like to try to move forward. So that we can really show that we're trying to address this. I think I agree with you 100% vice mayor. As I read through the NCS surveys, congestion was a theme that showed up throughout the entire thing in different ways. I love that we have that theme information and now we have good information. I hate that this is an issue that we don't codily control and so it's going to be incredibly difficult to solve. But that's why we have smart people on the team. So that's kind of what I'm envisioning is problem identification specifically with potential solutions. But that helps just looking it, and I'm sure Ms. Ames would have a similar perspective. You'll want to look at forecasts of traffic coming into and out of the town, not just from 95, around 154. And Hanover County has, I think, done a good job of creating a model that can provide that kind of information. And I think there's even some reference in the conference of plan to some joint study, not the ball of this staff, but at least there are resource. I think it's a great idea. I hope it's comprehensive. what I'm interested in. Yep. I think whether it was talking with council members or staff, I apologize, I can't remember, but it's almost as though we have two problems. We have the north-south problem of I-95 overflow and we have the east-west problem of the population growth around us and the additional traffic that that presents and they may have similar or they may have completely distinct and separate solutions. Yes. So they haven't worked, we're in the community. Interrupting you. That's the thought I had. If you take the 95 issue off the table for a minute and then just think about that East West because I don't know about my peers, that's probably one of the things I get the most comments about from people, people in the town and then people who live on either side of the town, talk about just getting through town. And so when you're thinking about that, that as we look at applications about development, and as we talk to the county about what the county's doing, East and, I think that needs its own look as well. So, yeah. And just to set some realistic expectations, especially if we're using our staff, our resources, you know, a recommendation might be that, you know, maybe this is part of your legislative agenda to our state and federal delegation for a formal study of the I-95 corridor from Dozwell to Sliding Hill and why are we having accidents in this area and why are we having slowdowns in this stretch of the highway, unexplicable slowdowns that then force traffic on around one. There's no accident, there's no disabled vehicles, but why is that? I mean, V. stun studies like that down in Hampton Roads at the Bay Bridge tunnel. They've done studies up in Lorton with similar type things. So I just wanted to manage expectations that I don't think this committee would bring the silver bullet at all in any way, shape or form, but maybe that could be running recommendations as that, you know, we can do these things. We can do speed humps. We can work with our neighborhoods. We can work with maybe better signage. You know, I think the police department's done an incredible job at positioning the folks. So some of the recommendations might be we need to elevate this to the next level from that perspective. Again, just want to manage expectations. It's definitely something that's followed up to this survey. Thank you. All right, moving forward. Responsible and responsive governance. I think we had very few changes here. Forgive me. This was a change in 5.3.1 and again this was a change from Miss Miller to again more concrete define What is community engagement in this instance continue to prioritize strategic community engagement by hosting regular public meetings, maintaining open communication channels, and actively soliciting input through surveys and forms to drop meaning of all outcomes. Again, trying to make that bullet point just more concrete of what we actually do. And down there, Ms. Vice Mayor 5.3.5, that may address our discussion with the housing earlier was actively participate with Hanover County as well as regional organizations to maximize positive outcomes and leverage resources. If that addresses your question with the leveraging resources with housing, I'm just curious if that kind of touches on it. touches touches on it. It actively participates with Hanover County as well as regional organizations to maximize positive outcomes and leverage. It touches on it but doesn't on it enough. I hear you loud and clear, sir. It just doesn't. It's a tap. It's a tap. It's a tap. It's a tap. I have to think about that. I knew there was another initiative in there. I just couldn't quote it earlier. I'll forgive you if it touches on it. No question. but which one meets the needs back. That'd be great. Thank you. And members of council, that is it. And we have updated the last page. It's just updating names. Miss so called. Thank you. And members of council, that is it. And we have updated the last page. It's just updating names. Miss Soap Hall, you're full. Full, my first name has been updated proper. And Miss Fine, sometimes. Yes ma'am. And that is the extent of my presentation as the town manager shared, I will take these changes, we'll clean this up a bit. And and maybe revisit Mr. Vice Mayor if you will share with me that sentence you had on the rail concerns and the 3 2 3 I will add that in there and will polish this up a little bit more and hopefully have it for your 18th meeting if not yeah 18th meeting sure. And council I know we scanned through this, but I do want to make sure, I know I said it to you all individually, but as you study this again and read through it, if you think there are areas that we're just missing, like, oh, we didn't even touch on that, please, this is the time to start getting your sentiment included here. So we're getting Once it's adopted, it's hard to get them back in, but now is a great time to add or delete as whatever your priorities may be. I'm sorry, but may I go back to 3.2.3? The discussion that the vice mayor is having about the following trail. And I realize that our portion is done, but we still are a part of the whole and Advocating just could mean that we can be supportive as far as Not necessarily adding financial support, but just being on a letter to ask for funds from the government or to just be a part of You know the publication or what have you so I took this I would have a problem putting that back in. I just unstruck it. That's a good point because even if we're not doing anything active. We can speak up for other jurisdictions about what we're seeing, the amount of attention, the amount of usage and all of that. But it's quite due for the whole area. Could we just add to clarify it so that somebody reading? No, just somebody reading this who hadn't been in this discussion, like put in there for the region, just so that it clarifies like it's not just Ashland that we're looking at advocating for. That's great. I think that's great. Vision of the region. The regional hall and the room. Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. Well, you've got our thoughts, and so y'all will be continuing to meld all this, so appreciate that. Yep. Good point. Okay. I'm happy to continue typing, but I'm also happy to walk away. Thank you very much, Council. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. We got us through that pretty smoothly. Yeah. Excellent. And swiftly, I love that part. That's right. All right council member reports Council member Okay Okay Good evening everyone and to all of you at home. On February the 5th, I attended the Henry Clay School Community Meeting. On the 6th of February I participated in the Main Street Directors Retreat in town. On the 7th of February, I participated in the amazing shake at Ashland Elementary School. It was excited, shaking hands with all the little kids. On the 7th of February, I attended the Randolph-Macon boot camp reception on the 8th of February at Randolph-Macon. We did mock interviews with students. On the 17th of February, I witnessed a new citizen ceremony at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. That was very exciting. On the 21st of February, I went to Bingo at the Ashland Nursing Home. Lots of prizes were given to the residents. On the 23rd of February, I attended untold stories, which normally is held at Patrick Henry High School, and that was held at Hanover High School this time. On the 26th of February, I attended a ribbon cutting for La Katrina at Ashland Junction by roses, and they really know how to do a ribbon cutting ceremony. They were outside giving away food, delicious food. It was very, very nice. On the 27th of this month, I attended a Hanover Chamber event at the Abbott Hotel. On the 27th in the evening, I attended a soulful black history event at Randolph-Macon with lots of good singing. On the 28th of this February, I attended a Randolph-Macon, I attended a divine assist event at Randolph-Macon. On the third, which was yesterday, I think, I had a tour, a third of March. I had a tour of the Berkley Town Heritage Park. And coming up is Secretariat for Virginia's birthday party celebration that's coming up on March 30th. It's gonna be a lot of Oh, thank you. Thanks. As my role as a teacher, I got to have an exchange student last year from Italy. And there was another exchange student from Germany. And today, they sent me pictures where they had gotten together, even though they were in different countries. And they had a video of them saying the Pledge of Allegiance with the American flags flags and how much they missed America and they really liked being here. So I just thought that that was nice. It was a great touch. The Ashland theater has a toddler takeover. 10 a.m. this Saturday or March the 8th. That's not exactly sure which day of the week that is, but it is at 10 a.m. still sponsored about T-Mobile and Medogate alpacas will be there. And if you haven't seen alpacas, they're cool because they give birth to children of different colors all the time. Like, yeah, blue alpaca could have a green and a red and it's just really cool. I don't know what makes it happen. It's just, they're really cool creatures. And then let's see, plan RVA heard from Mike Jones who used to be the chief of the capital district police. And it was really interesting to hear him talk about the value of communication. And we recently went through a crisis where communication was vital with the water situation. And he was talking about how during the 9-11 crisis, a lot of departments were not communicating and had they been communicating, we might have caught at least two of the people in the DMV area prior to them boarding the plane. So it was just interesting and also enlightening to hear about the value of our localities getting together and why Plan RVA us all working together is so important. And with that Martha Schickel who is director of Plan RVA, is being recognized by the Richmond Times of Spatch and the Richmond Raceway as one of the women who make Richmond. And so that was pretty cool. And that's somebody that we help employ and somebody who helps represent us. And so that's just something cool to say. And that, oh, and also I also attended untold stories where Hamilton tells you she was one of our speakers. You know, and so it was great to hear the stories of all these wonderful people. So anyway, that ends my report. Thank you. Mr. Vice President, I don't have any new meetings to report since our February 18th meeting, but I would like to take this opportunity to announce officially that I will not be running in the upcoming election for town council. This is in recognition of my uncertain health status and in recognition that the town of Ashland has a number of well-qualified potential candidates who could serve the town very well. The town has done an excellent job of attracting candidates to run for council, and hopefully this announcement will encourage others to consider running. I'm looking forward to completing my second full term or council this year, serving on council has been my most rewarding job in my career public service. I would be glad to talk with anyone who's considering running to help answer their questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's a difficult thing to follow. I have, we had no arts or planning meetings or parks and rec meetings during February. So I don't have anything to report on that. I would like to just add as council member, sople said yes, Secretary it is going to be having a birthday at the end of this one. The festivities begin on Saturday, the 29th as well because you know they can't just have one day for a party. They have to have a big old bachelor. They have to have a big old bachelor. So there's all kinds of events planned. The Secretary and Phil will be showed again for free at the theater. They'll be having events again around the statue, kids events, speakers, singers, food, cupcakes. And they will be hopefully installing a bench that will be behind the statue, a low bench. That way people could have a place to just sit and spend time with Secretary. That's all I have to report on. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'll repeat some of what's been said. I attended the untold stories and likewise, Miss Opal, did an excellent job. And it's a great program. So really enjoyed being there. A lot of the community in town and beyond was in attendance. Tended a dedication ceremony of for Hannah Rukin, William Habitat, on Taylor Street, on the 21st February. That was very well done. Again, well attended the family. Lots of hard work, lots of investment of their time and energy in a lot of appreciation, thankfulness expressed to the community and all that's provided that way. I caught the last act of the soulful event there at Randolph-Macon. I was glad I caught that. I got there late because I was at Scotch Town for an event out there in which the preservation of Virginia had held that, and they made common of Ashland, and the point that when it comes to historical places, locations and events, it's not competitive, but each one complements the other. And so it's good that we look regionally at all these things and see how together, you know, it builds on all that. I attended the Devine Assist event as well. It ran off making Friday night, last Friday night. That was excellent. In the Henry Clay School, one of the presentations done by Invercanny. So we appreciate that. And as I started out the meeting, I attended the visitation there for Bruce Wayne Haynes for his passing and his wife was very much appreciated to the town and to all the canises from her, well from their farmers market participation. And I think I'll stop at that point and invite Mr. Jennings up for the public works report. Good evening members of town council. You have the February public report as part of your packet. I like to hide a few things going on. Since we last met, since I had last attended the town council meeting, we had two more snow events. Crews put in 607 and a half hours of snow removal and clean up around town. Of course, they did their normal job. Other jobs at clean, drainage work and leave removal, streetsweeping and maintaining our vehicles and equipment and stuff like that. So, Italian Armstrong, you probably noticed, is wrapping up our additional parking lot out back here. They finished putting down the pavers, installed the lights and most of the landscaping. The one of our crew members started marking the parking spaces today. I hope they'll finish that up within the next couple of days depending on what kind of rain we get tomorrow and other calm for rain. So goal is to actually open up the parking lot to town staff by the end of this week. We do have a few other things we might have to wrap up just for the project to make it complete, but we might have to close it. And then part of that project is we have a shed coming, which will move that Christmas tree that's out here that has been up for quite a bit past Christmas. And so we're going to put that in the shed once out of Rosemallow. We expect that shed to become to be delivered within the next week. So it's a pre-made shed that will be delivered. So regarding another stormwater management project, the pre-construction meeting was held for the Stony Run, stream restoration projects, excuse me. That's the portion along Lee Avenue between the Jarnet Park and Hanover Avenue and the contractor is a KBS Earth Works Incorporated and they expect to start that project later this month or early April. So that project should be getting underway soon. Work started again back today on the PIDs. The passenger information display systems. You all may have noticed that I think one of the boards is up on one of the sides and they should have the other board up. They also have a little bit of conduit work because one of them actually is clogged to run some of the electrical work. So I hope we wrap up that work this week. And they expect to begin. You may see that the system is on, but that doesn't mean it's working at this point, the electricity might be showing that it's all on, but they do expect to be testing equipment within the next few weeks. That's the goal to start testing it. So, and along some more work in town, the England StreetScape Project, you may have noticed that a little bit of construction work started to get back this week. They're actually talling Armstrong or on call contractors, started the upgrade of the water line along that project. So that's under construction. So the water line work is expected to take two or three weeks and once they're complete we'll start working with the men to get the power poles, the rest of them relocated and hopefully start the big project of all the sidewalk and everything. So, and with that, I'd be happy to answer your questions. You have many public works, yes, ma'am. I just want to say during the Inclimate Weather, the town crew did an awesome job. I heard the trucks going by my house at night, all night on the weekends, and you all just did a wonderful job. Thank you. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, your team. Mr. Taylor Manager. Yes. Baron Council, you have my report in front of you. I'm largely going to touch on items that are not included on it. I was actually excited to talk about the peds, but Mike stole that one. That has been something very long coming and hopefully it will be up and running soon. But from a town staff and what I've been working on, obviously the General Assembly wrapped up so trying to get gain some level of understanding of what has been done. Mell has provided a really nice summary as of this past Friday that does a good job of touching on it. Part of the issue with trying to understand all that right now is that we still have vetoes to come and we have potential action after that. So we'll get an under our best understanding now, wait to see what happens then and then obviously we'll also have Mr. McRoberts come back a little bit later in the spring summer to give an understanding of what was actually passed, how it will impact us and the conference report that he will provide. I never looked forward to that. Let's see here. Miss Amos and I and the planning staff continue to have discussions with the potential new developers of the Holland track, that 200 plus acre track to land up to the north of us who've just recently received another proposal from them that we're going to review and have some conversations with them. At this point because it is so preliminary, I'll just say we're moving in the right direction and I think that's a good summary of where we are now but still some work to done, but do want to just keep you informed and also let the public know that that property will develop eventually. And there's a potential new buyer there that we are in conversations with. So that's coming as well. And then lastly, I'm hesitant to give too much of an update on it because it's not necessarily our story, but obviously people are aware of what happened and the ambulance bill, the rescue squad over there. What we can kind of share right now, and there's... on it because it's not necessarily our story, but obviously people are aware of what happened in the ambulance bill, the rescue squad, over there. What we can kind of share right now, and I think, Canaverton, he's actually doing a really good job of putting out information. So your best is to go find their information, but does appear as though the cause of the fire is stunder and investigation. So that keyword is cause. Does appear that the origination is in the vicinity of one of the ambulances, so in that bay there, the really good news of this story, and I think you've heard some of it, is that fire responded incredibly quickly, so there is some damage to that equipment and to that front area, but a lot of the back area was well protected where the staff is, where their memorabilia is, and from from the citizens perspective, reading it and hearing from our staff as well about their perspective on it, Hannah was done a really good job of propping up, mobilizing that rescue squad to move over to the fire station, coordinating, getting new, or vehicles so that the staff can respond. So I don't, I dare to say, I don't think that the citizens will actually notice a change in response from the county. I think they've done a really good job of triaging and making sure that they can get up and running. But again, it's something that our citizens are asking about us about. So I wanna say something, but please go get the direct information from Handler County Fire and ambulance, they're the ones who can provide you the details. With that, I'll take any questions you may have. Anything for the manager? At that point, that brings us to our closed session. I ask if there's a motion. Mr. Mayor. Yes sir. I move to enter closed session, closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1 to discuss or consider the annual performance evaluation of the town manager. I second. This is Barnhart. Aye. This is so cool. Vice Mayor Hodges. Aye. Dr. McGraw. Hi. Mayor Trebert. Hi. All right, we're going to go to closed session. And we will be back. 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