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HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/9/2019 - Special July 9, 2019 275 Roanoke County Administration Center 5204 Bernard Drive Roanoke, Virginia 24018 The Board of Supervisors of Roanoke County, Virginia met this day at the Roanoke County Administration Center, this being a special meeting to hold a joint meeting with the Roanoke County Public School Board. The audio recording of this meeting will be held for five (5) years in the office of the Clerk to the Board of Supervisors. IN RE: CALL TO ORDER Chairman North called the meeting to order at 3:02 p.m. The roll call was taken. MEMBERS PRESENT: Chairman Phil C. North; Supervisors George G. Assaid, Martha B. Hooker, David F. Radford and P. Jason Peters MEMBERS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Daniel R. O’Donnell, County Administrator; Richard Caywood, Assistant County Administrator; Rebecca Owens, Assistant County Administrator, Peter Lubeck, Senior Assistant County Attorney; Amy Whittaker, Public Information Officer and Deborah C. Jacks, Chief Deputy Clerk to the Board SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Chairman Donald T. Butzer; Board Members Tim Greenway, David Linden, Jason Moretz and Michael Wray SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: None SCHOOL STAFF PRESENT: Dr. Kenneth Nicely, School Superintendent; Susan Peterson, Director of Finance; Mark Kitta, Director of Facilities and Operations; Jason Suhr, Director of CTE; Jeff Terry, Director of Technology; Chuck Lionberger, Public Relations, Angela Roberson, Clerk to the School Board Chairman North, Chairman Butzer, Daniel O’Donnell, County Administrator and Dr. Ken Nicely, School Superintendent all provided opening remarks. July 9, 2019 276 IN RE: NEW BUSINESS 1. Economic Development – Current and Future Initiatives Mr. O’Donnell provided the economic development update and turned the meeting over to Richard Caywood, who provided the transportation update. Mr. O’Donnell provided the overview for Explore Park. Mr. O’Donnell then outlined the restructure of Economic and Community Development Departments. He added that the recruiting process would still be going on for another week. Next, Mr. O’Donnell spoke on the transition to entrepreneurial/innovation economy. Lastly, he reviewed the apprenticeship program. 2. Broadband Update Mr. Bill Hunter, Director of Communications and Information Technology, provided overview. Ms. Hooker advised there has been a lot of commentary from school and home value perspectives. Mr. Hunter explained staff is trying to get viable options. Mr. O’Donnell emphasized there is no funding in our current budget. Supervisor Hooker stated there has been interest with the private sector. School Board Member Wray inquired about AEP, Yellow Mountain Road and Rt. 220 with regard to 5G and how does that fit. Mr. Hunter advised it will improve, if you have the equipment. Households will need to have the equipment and have the signal strength. Will be interesting to see how AEP handles this. 3. Public Service Announcement (PSA) Ms. Whittaker, Public Information Officer provided an overview of the Safe Firearm Storage Campaign overview. School Board Chairman Butzer commented this is one of the things that keep him up at night. There have been 3 very tragic events with unsecured firearms. 4. Shared Services Ms. Owens provided an overview and commented that she felt there are other things we can work on together. Laurie Gearheart, Acting Finance Manager provided the financial shared services, Bill Hunter reviewed the IT shared services, Mary Bath Nash provided the County Attorney information, which entails purchasing contract for schools. Next, Chief Hall provided the Police services. July 9, 2019 277 School Board Chairman Butzer thanked the Police Department for the officers and their involvement in the task force. Also noted updating the interoperability for school and police to coordinate in an emergency. School Board Member Michael Wray commented on the onsite training, with Chief Hall responding it is an ongoing process. Chief Simon provided the overview of shared services for Fire and Rescue and added information regarding weather conference calls. Sheriff Orange provided the Sheriff’s office shared services and noted the community outreach and PTA partnerships as well as Special Olympics. Doug Blount, Director of Parks, Recreation and Tourism outlined the parks and recreational information. School Board Chairman Butzer asked if there is anything schools can do to help make Mr. Blount’s job easier. Mr. Blount advised very few barriers, developed a relationship and are pleased. He also commented if they can light the fields more, they can bring in more events; they are beginning to max out especially in girls’ softball. Shari Henry, Director of Library Services reviewed library services. She added they look at each community and what see what they need. At 4:23 p.m., Chairman North recessed for a break. Meeting was called back into order at 4:34 p.m. Mr. Caywood reviewed the Economic and Community Development and the shared services with the schools, i.e. After School for Kids, Athletic Fields, EMT Training and Registered Apprenticeship. School Board Chairman Butzer stated we have talked about what we do today, what about potential to do more. For example, there are support services, i.e. fleet operations. He suggested that maybe it would be worthwhile to get the County folks and the School folks working together to see where we might have some synergies that we might be able to save the tax payers money. We should identify, price and go from there. Mr. O’Donnell commented it might be a good idea to sit down with General Services or others that would fit into that. Chairman North recessed at 4:42 and was back into open session at 5:00 p.m. for a working dinner. 5. Roanoke County and Schools Debt Capital Funding Plan Ms. Owens provided overview, touted bond ratings. Chairman Butzer questioned what was the ROI on the $1.8 million from Economic Development. This information should be on a handout from Jill Loope. Ms. Owens indicated that the $300,000 stopped in 2014 and in 2015, $1 million was removed and reallocate each side’s capital maintenance programs. Supervisor Peters inquired why we did not start putting the $300,000 back into the funding plan with Ms. Owens responding staff looks at as part of our overall July 9, 2019 278 budget process. Supervisor Peter asked why would we not shore back up. At some point, the 10-10-10 plan will change and we do not need to start out lagging behind. Chairman North reemphasized we need to start putting something back in. School Board Member Jason Moretz commented that Ms. Owens and Ms. Peterson should work on to see if it is fiscally responsible to do. It would be nice to have options. Chairman Butzer commented that we are doing some things differently on this Board. It has taken and will take some self-discipline. What we decided to do since the day he came on the Board as he was uncomfortable about how we prioritize and choose projects to do. Basically, it was up to each one of the Board members to pitch their projects and as a facility person, it has been his experience that the people who hired him expected him to make those decisions. So, this Board has agreed to do a couple of things. We will try, the best we can, to stay out of making any decisions on where to spend the money. We want to have our experts tell us where we should spend the capital money. For example, when it comes to renovations, what we decided to do a couple of months back was ask Dr. Nicely if he is not the person that should decide where and what should be done in our buildings from an instructional perspective. So, he is choosing the priorities; we are staying out of it. As you will see, there is a different set of projects that have been there in the past. We decided to let the chips fall where they may. Dr. Nicely is going to talk about the priorities based on what he thinks from an instructional perspective. The other thing they have done is hired an expert facilities director. We are asking him to make recommendations to us about what should be done, i.e. new roof, HVAC equipment. There is much more of a discipline in place where we are leaving it up to the experts – doing things differently. 6. Roanoke County Public Schools Dr. Nicely provided overview. Chairman North mentioned conversation with Wayne Strickland, Roanoke Valley Regional Commission and regarding study they will be doing funded by Go Virginia. A joint meeting will be held to obtain comments. Supervisor Hooker stated the study provides standing before the legislature. Chairman North would hope getting buy-in from the schools upfront is important. 7. School Renovation Assessment Report Dr. Nicely provided this information. 8. Revised CIP Projection July 9, 2019 279 Mr. Kitta, provided the revised Capital Improvement Project projections. Ms. Peterson provided overview for estimated CIP Funding. 9. Alternate Construction Contract Mr. Kitta outlined and explained Loudoun County is currently using; there are no change orders. 10. School maintenance needs Both Boards discussed setting a date for a follow-up meeting. It was decided to wait until after the facilities study is done. IN RE: ADJOURNMENT Chairman North and Chairman Butzer adjourned the meeting at 6:38 p.m. '.ub itted by: Approved by: / al 411) s )://:-k. 772/6, e•ljfeb. ah C. J.iff P it C. North Chief Deputytothe Board Chairman July 9, 2019 280 PAGE LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY