3/9/2021 - Regular - DRAFT
March 9, 2021
199
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 the first regularly scheduled meeting
of the month of March 2021. Audio and video recordings of this meeting will be held on
file for a minimum of five (5) years in the office of the Clerk to the Board of Supervisors.
IN RE: OPENING CEREMONIES
Before the meeting was called to order, a moment of silence was
observed. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all present.
IN RE: CALL TO ORDER
Chairman Peters called the meeting to order at 3:01 p.m. The roll call was
taken.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Chairman P. Jason Peters; Supervisors Martha B. Hooker,
Paul M. Mahoney, Phil C. North and David F. Radford
MEMBERS ABSENT: None
STAFF PRESENT: Daniel R. O’Donnell, County Administrator; Richard
Caywood, Assistant County Administrator; Rebecca Owens,
Assistant County Administrator; Peter S. Lubeck, County
Attorney; Amy Whittaker, Public Information Officer and
Deborah C. Jacks, Chief Deputy Clerk to the Board
IN RE: BRIEFINGS
1. Briefing to introduce the new Chief of the Roanoke County
Department of Fire and Rescue (Daniel R. O'Donnell, County
Administrator)
Mr. O’Donnell introduced Travis Griffith, Chief of Fire and Rescue
2. Briefing to discuss with the Board of Supervisors the County
Administrator's Proposed Fiscal Year 2021-2022 Operating
Budget (Daniel R. O'Donnell, County Administrator)
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Mr. O’Donnell provided the following briefing. A copy of the PowerPoint
presentation is one file in the office of the Clerk to the Board. “Mr. Chairman and
members of the Board. Today I am before you to propose the fiscal year 2021/2022
operating budget for Roanoke County. As you know the last fiscal year was greatly
impacted by the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were forced
to decrease our original budget substantially and had to manage through layoffs of part
time employees, hiring and salary freezes and deferrals of capital expenditures. Fiscal
year 20/21 was the most difficult budget year I ever faced in my over 30 years of public
management. However, there is some good news in the proposed budget for next year.
While we are not completely recovered from the economic upheaval we are well on our
way to recovery although not completely there. I would characterize this budget as one
of recovery and maintenance. Although we are not able to provide many additional
services we are finally able to ensure service stability in the upcoming year, especially
pertaining to public safety and public education as you will see in this presentation.
Slide Two
Today I will begin by presenting the budget priorities, provide an operating budget
summary, and provide some details of the revenues and expenditures. I will also show
you brief overviews of the general and the other operating funds and describe the next
steps in the budget process.
Slide Three
Budget Priorities – The priorities in the proposed operating budget are as follows:
Maintain Service Levels with no Tax Rate Changes
Enhance Public Safety
Enact fair compensation plans for employees – This priority also dovetails with
enhancing public safety as you will see.
Support for Roanoke County Public Schools
Provide for managed debt service and maintenance of capital assets
And continue to provide support for regional services.
Slide Four
The proposed operating budget overall totals $201,038,851. This is a 6.8 million dollar
increase over the current fiscal year amended budget which is a 3.5% increase.
Slide 5
I earlier mentioned that I refer to this budget as a recovery budget. This slide shows the
proposed budget compared with the original Fiscal Year 20/21 budget that had to be
severely cut due to the pandemic impacts. As you can see our budget has almost
recovered to what it would have been this year without the pandemic but is still
$686,271 or .34 percent short of where we thought we would be this year. Although
revenue trends are recovering and improving I believe it will be one more year until we
are able to achieve normal revenue growth.
Slide 6
Concerning tax rates, this proposed budget maintains our current tax rates of 1.09 per
100 dollars of assessed value for real estate, 3.50 per 100 dollars of assessed value for
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personal property and 2.85 dollars of assessed value for Machinery and Tools. These
rates are unchanged.
Slide 7
General Government Revenues
Slide 8
Now I would like to move into the categories of revenues and their proportions. The pie
chart shows that the largest revenue sources are real estate tax and personal property
tax which together comprise 67.5 percent of our revenues. The only new tax proposed
this year is the cigarette tax which is planned to begin collections half way through the
fiscal year. Our proposal is to charge 25 cents per pack which will generate 250,000
dollars for this fiscal year based on a projection of 500,000 for a full fiscal year.
Slide 9
This slide shows a list of the revenue sources in order of magnitude and contains the
same data as the previous pie chart. The top four revenue sources are Real Estate Tax,
Personal Property Tax, State and Federal support, and consumer taxes consisting of
Sales, Hotel Motel, Meals and Cigarette taxes. These four categories of revenue
combined equal over 85 percent of our projected revenue. The Hotel Motel tax is
beginning to make a recovery but we are still budgeting this at 60 percent of what was
collected prior to the pandemic.
Slide 10
Now we will transition to the expenditure side of the budget.
Slide 11
As you can see from this graph the largest expenditure category is funding for Roanoke
County Public Schools at 81.35 million or 40.5 percent. This is followed by Public Safety
and Judicial Services with 57.22 million or 28.5 percent.
Slide 12
This slide is a list of the same expenditure categories as shown in the previous pie
chart. As you can see the largest categories are school funding and Public Safety,
followed by non-school transfers which consists of transactions such as the transfer to
Information technology and capital at 7.7 percent. The next three categories of
expenditure are the functional budget areas of internal services, human services and
community services. Each make up approximately 5.6 percent of the budget.
Slide 13
Now I would like to turn some service enhancements of public safety functions that
come with staffing requests. The first item deals with a request from the Sheriff to
provide adequate medical care in the local jail. Our inmate healthcare needs continue to
become more complex and there is an increase in the cost of services that we are faced
with. It is becoming difficult to retain licensed independent physicians to provide
medical services in the jails which forces the Sheriff to rely more on contracted services
and medically trained deputies.
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Slide 14
To deal with these needs the Sheriff has requested increased funds for contracted
medical services of $50,000 and the addition of two Deputy Sheriff Medic positions
which will cost $123,203. The result of these requests would be to maintain an
adequate level of service for inmates, ensure that administrative requirements are met
for record maintenance, accreditation and better coordination of service providers. This
would also provide adequate staffing to cover vacations, sick leave and any other
emergencies the medical staff may have. The total cost of these additions comes to
173,203.
Slide 15
Another public safety request in this budget proposal is to add three positions in the
Department of Social Services in Family Services Division. These positions would
concentrate on complaints of alleged abuse or neglect of children which unfortunately
continue to increase.
Slide 16
The budget impact of these three positions will have little general fund cost as of the
total $183,273 cost, all but $12,320 dollars will be reimbursed by the State or paid for by
the City of Salem.
The outcome of these positions would be to support the safety of children and families
and prevent foster care placements by utilizing a variety of services and in-home parent
skill based programs.
Slide 17
This slide summarizes the total cost and general fund cost of all five requested
positions. The total cost would be $306,476 but the General Fund impact would be
reduced to $135,523 due to offsetting reimbursements.
Slide 18
The major organizational change proposed in the budget is to provide systems for fair
market based compensation for our employees. The County has lacked a consistent
compensation philosophy over the years and since 2011 the average pay increase has
been 1.43 percent compared to the average inflation increase of 1.67 percent. In
addition to our pay lagging inflation, several health benefit cost increases have been
passed on to our employees. Pay increases have been a budgetary afterthought in
most years resulting in problems with recruitment and retention, especially in public
safety. Over the last 14 months we have lost 35 police officers with only five of them
leaving for retirement. Prior to this year we did not have good comprehensive
compensation data to benchmark with the market. Due to research conducted this past
year we now have good comparative data upon which to base our compensation
recommendations. It has become clear that we need to focus our attention on
appropriate compensation systems to attract and retain the quality of employee our
citizens deserve.
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Slide 19
The goals set for our compensation plans are as follows:
Improved recruitment and retention
Competitive market based starting salaries
Addressing pay compression issues that have developed due to small increases in the
first few years of employment.
And the need to encourage longevity as it is very expensive to train employees only to
see them leave in a few years.
Slide 20
In order to correct these issues in public safety we have been working with Police, Fire
and Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office to develop three step structures with differing
starting salaries based on market data. We are addressing the compression issue by
adjusting for years of service in order to encourage retention of trained employees. The
step systems also establish predictable career paths which is also key to retention of
employees. In order to fully fund these plans we are taking a three year approach. This
year’s budget funds the first year of the three year plan.
Slide 21
For the non-public safety positions we are utilizing market data and a methodology
provided by Gallagher and Company, our compensation and HR consultant. The
methodology is called the Decision Band Method that uses job evaluations to place
positions into six broad bands based on the scope of decision making of the position.
Gallagher and our staff completed a market study to compare our positions to those in
similar local governments in order to place the positions in the proper pay bands. We
will work during the next fiscal year to finalize the transfer of these positions into each
correct band.
Slide 22
The total cost for the first year of the three year plan is just under three million dollars. In
addition to the changes in pay from the public safety step plan implementation I am
proposing a 3 percent average increase for all other employees.
Slide 23
In addition to these compensation plans there is no increase to our health and dental
insurance costs in this budget. We have budgeted $256 thousand dollars to adjust the
personnel base for some market adjustments and to cover costs of employees
progressing through career paths. There is an increase for part-time employees
budgeted, and we have budgeted funds in the general fund to cover the increase in the
minimum wage to 9.50 in May and 11.00 next January.
Slide 24
Now we will discuss support for Public Schools. As we all know schools are a very
important feature of our community and take a very high priority in our budget. The total
proposed contribution to Roanoke County Schools is $81,354,445. This includes a
$71.82 million transfer for operating, $7.65 million for school debt service and a 1.88
million dollar transfer for Children’s Service Act costs. Concerning the operating transfer
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there is a 2.11 million dollar increase from the current fiscal year, with $461,030 being
provided as a result of holding schools harmless for loss of enrollment numbers, or
Average Daily Membership.
Slide 25
This slide is to document that the school transfer is in a recovery mode, similar to the
County general government budget. In Fiscal Year 2020 the operating transfer was 70.5
million dollars. Unfortunately we were forced to reduce that during the pandemic to 68
million dollars. In February of this year we were able to make an adjustment to increase
the transfer by 1.7 million dollars due to revenues exceeding expectations. Finally for
next year we are increasing the transfer to 71.8 million dollars despite the declining
enrollment due to the pandemic. As you can see the school transfer recovery is
paralleling the recovery of the general government budget.
Slide 26
This proposed budget also provides for the increased debt plan known as the 12-12-12
plan wherein each year a total of twelve million dollars in debt is authorized, with the
schools receiving two of the three year’s allocations. We are fortunate to have a
decrease in our annual debt service payment as this fluctuates annually based on
payment schedules. We are adding $125,000 to the transfer to communications and
information technology projects and we are adding a transfer of $200,000 to light fleet
and equipment replacement. These transfers are part of our recovery as they were not
able to be fully funded in this fiscal year.
Slide 27
We have some fluctuations in our regional services costs with an increase in per diem
charges for prisoners in the Regional Jail of$ 80,000. We are fortunate to have a
decrease in our payment to the regional jail for debt service due to a lower population of
county prisoners in the jail. We will have an increased cost of $100,000 for solid waste
fees paid to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority due to increased tonnage, but we
are not anticipating any increase in the tipping fee rate.
Slide 28
This slide documents a variety of other miscellaneous budget adjustments totaling
$1,133,934 with the largest being our transfer to CommIT for increased costs of
software contractual agreements. Other notable cost increases are in Children’s Service
Act programs and adoption subsidy funds that are provided to our budget by the State.
Slide 29
Now I would like to recap the changes in the budget I have just walked through. Our
current fiscal year amended budget is $194,247,003. Expenditure increases next year
include $356,476 to enhance public safety in the Sheriff’s Office and the Department of
Social Services. All of the combined compensation changes totals $3,305,396. Our
support for Roanoke County Schools is increasing $2,110,780 and we have a saving of
$131,449 for debt service and capital assets. Our support for regional services has a
slight increase of $16,711 and a variety of other departmental budget adjustments adds
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up to $1,133,934. Overall this brings us to the $6,791,848 increase to our general
government budget that totals $201,038,851.
Slide 30
This slide presents a summary of the changes to all of our other general funds. The
largest change is in the Communications / IT fund which includes the $525,000 software
cost I previously mentioned. Also of note is the decrease of recreation fee class funds of
$338,578. Due to the pandemic fewer recreational fee based services can be offered
and we will manage this change mostly through having fewer part time recreation
employees compared to years of full recreation service demand.
Slide 31
In summary, although this budget is characterized as a recovery budget it builds a solid
foundation for future organizational improvement. Our employees are our greatest asset
and this budget invests in their future. In the next year we will continue to phase in our
compensation system plans and develop long range financial forecasting to be used in
multi-year budgets. We will continue with our conservative debt management practices
and maintain our ten year plans for capital improvements, vehicles and capital
maintenance. Finally we will provide for all reserves and fund balances according to our
sound financial policies.
Slide 32 and 33
And now for the Next Steps in the budget process. On March 23 we have scheduled the
public hearings for the Effective Tax Rate and the Maximum Tax rate. We have also
scheduled a work session with the Sheriff and the Director of Social Services to discuss
their staffing needs. We also plan review our recommendations for outside agency
requests with the Board. On April 13 we have additional public hearings for tax rate
adoption and operating and capital budgets. We will also hold a work session on Fleet
Replacement, Fund Balances and Capital Reserves on that date. On April 27 we have
our second public hearing on operating and capital budgets and the first reading of the
budget ordinances. And finally, barring a new pandemic, we well have the second
reading of the 2021-2022 Operating and Capital budgets and the Board will vote on
operating and capital budgets for both the County and the Roanoke County Public
schools. As always if Board members have any detailed questions about the budget we
request that you submit them to us via e-mail and we will respond with a budget memo
to all Board members. This concludes my budget presentation and I would be happy to
address any immediate questions you may have.”
Supervisor Peters asked why the sheriff positions not paid by the
Compensation Board. Mr. O’Donnell explained the Compensation Board only covers so
many positions.
Supervisor North commented with regard to the funding of the annual debt
service of $200,000, he thinks this is the second year and four (4) years previous to
2020, he is not sure there was much to fund the debt service. He stated it was a big
step in the right direction. Second, with regard to employee compensation, he thinks
that has been kicked down the road and we have had some tough years back in 2000-
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2005 timeline when there was no salary increase or growth. He complemented Mr.
O’Donnell and his staff on their professional approach to the employee pay structure
utilizing Gallagher and others. He thinks that is a huge benefit that will have dividends
in year to come, which is why we can keep such good employees like Travis Griffith and
continue their growth and career with Roanoke County. Lastly, he talked about our
“crown jewel” that is the schools. He sees from looking at some of these numbers that
we are going to fund Roanoke County Schools $81.3 million. He was looking at the
numbers and he noticed that the real estate revenues are $102.1 and he calculated the
percentage that our funding for the schools, including debt service is 70.6% and so he
looked at other school systems, particularly one County in Northern Virginia and the
percentage was 67.5%, so Roanoke County is proud of its schools, the support that the
Supervisors provide the school and we look forward to working with our schools in the
near future as we discuss other items.
Supervisor Radford commented it is a recovery budget and we did not get
quite back to where we were; it will take another year to get there. He is very thankful
that we are looking at a fair and competitive compensation for County employees along
with the Sheriff, Police and Fire and Rescue Departments as they are very important.
You are exactly right when you said “invest in the future of our people.” Again same
thing that Supervisor North stated, our schools are our “crown jewel” and we were very
serious, the five (5) of us when we said we are going to hold them harmless and we are
going to do it. Hats off to making that work. Finally, he is glad we are going to keep the
real estate rate where it is right now; it is important. We need stability and certainty in
the next 12 months. Good job.
IN RE: SECOND READING OF ORDINANCES
1. Ordinance accepting and appropriating grant funds in the amount
of $88,757 from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice
Services (DCJS) to the Roanoke County Police Department
(Richard L. Caywood, Assistant County Administrator)
Mr. Caywood advised no changes. There was no discussion.
ORDINANCE 030921-1 ACCEPTING AND APPROPRIATING
FUNDS IN THE AMOUNT OF $88,757 FROM THE VIRGINIA
DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SERVICES (DCJS) TO
THE ROANOKE COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT
WHEREAS, on November 18, 2020, Governor Ralph Northam signed the state
budget bill, which included funds to be distributed by the Department of Criminal Justice
Services (“DCJS”) to local police departments statewide; and
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WHEREAS, these funds are to be used to promote the recruitment and retention
of the most qualified local police department sworn personnel and to support the costs
associated with criminal justice reform; and
WHEREAS, DCJS is responsible for dispersing these funds to local police
departments; and
WHEREAS, Roanoke County Police Department received an allocation of these
funds in the amount of $88,757; and
WHEREAS, the Roanoke County Police Department intends to use these funds
to develop a targeted online recruiting campaign to attract highly qualified police officer
applicants, upgrade the Department's records management software to meet the new
regulations for demographic reporting, and support officer wellness; and
WHEREAS, Section 18.04 of the Roanoke County Charter provides that funds be
appropriated by ordinance; and
WHEREAS, the first reading of this ordinance was held on February 23, 2021,
and the second reading was held on March 9, 2021.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the Board of Supervisors of Roanoke
County, Virginia, as follows:
1. That the sum of $88,757, made available to the Roanoke County Police
Department by DCJS, is accepted.
2. That the sum of $88,757 is hereby appropriated to the Roanoke County
Police Department.
3. That this ordinance shall take effect from and after the date of adoption.
On motion of Supervisor Peters to adopt the ordinance, seconded by Supervisor
Radford and carried by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Supervisors Mahoney, Hooker, North, Radford, Peters
NAYS: None
IN RE: CONSENT AGENDA
RESOLUTION 030921-2 APPROVING AND CONCURRING IN
CERTAIN ITEMS SET FORTH ON THE BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS AGENDA FOR THIS DATE DESIGNATED AS
ITEM F- CONSENT AGENDA
BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Supervisors of Roanoke County, Virginia, as
follows:
That the certain section of the agenda of the Board of Supervisors for March 9,
2021, designated as Item F - Consent Agenda be, and hereby is, approved and
concurred in as to each item separately set forth in said section designated Items 1
through 2 inclusive, as follows:
1. Approval of minutes – January 26, 2021
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2. Confirmation of appointment to the Local Office on Aging (LOA)
On motion of Supervisor Mahoney to adopt the resolution, seconded by
Supervisor Hooker and carried by the following recorded vote:
AYES: Supervisors Mahoney, Hooker, North, Radford, Peters
NAYS: None
A-030921-2.a
IN RE: REPORTS
Supervisor Hooker moved to receive and file the following reports. The
motion was seconded by Supervisor Radford and carried by the following recorded
vote:
AYES: Supervisors Mahoney, Hooker, North Radford, Peters
NAYS: None
1. Unappropriated, Board Contingency and Capital Reserves Report
2. Outstanding Debt Report
3. Statement of Treasurer's Accountability per Investment and Portfolio
Policy as of January 31, 2021
IN RE: REPORTS AND INQUIRIES OF BOARD MEMBERS
Supervisor Hooker stated she is particularly proud of the athletes from
Glenvar High School in a very difficult year with a lot of challenges academically, our
athletes have excelled. She wanted to congratulate them because they are significant
accomplishments. She congratulated the following State champions: Jake Cline, who
is a sophomore; she has him in class and his a wonderful young man. He won the
weight class of 132; he is the 2021 Class 2A Champion. Indoor Track, Sydney Loder
with 55 meter hurdles, Carly Wilkes, the 1600 meter and the 1000 meter race. The 4 x
4 relay team, Delaney Eller, Carrie Horrell, Carly Wilkes and Sydney Loder. They are
the 2021 Class 2A Team champions. In swimming, the 200 Relay Team of Reese
Dunkenberger, Isabelle Pope, Adrianna Hall and Claire Griffith (a familiar name that we
are going to hear more of too), Claire Griffith also won the 50 yard freestyle and is the
Class 2A Champion independently. Reese Dunkenberger – 100 yard freestyle and 100
yard backstroke. She is also the State Champion individually. The 200 yard free relay
team of Reese Dunkenberger, Delaney Eller, Carly Wilkes and Claire Griffith are the
2021 Class 2A Team champions. She is so proud of what they have accomplished in
this difficult year and want us to congratulate them and hopefully we can have a whole
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group of people that come if we can publically recognize them. Moving on to Chief
Griffith, she is really pleased that we were able to hire within and get such a good
quality leader and be able to keep him on our staff; it is really going to be great. In the
same vein, thank you to Chief Simon for his good work and appreciate his service to our
community. She met with some volunteer firefighters on Sunday night, and we do not
say it enough, we appreciate what they do. They put themselves in harm’s way to
protect our citizens and to serve them and we appreciate them. Lastly, she thanked
staff, she gets a lot of contact from her citizens and she wins the prize for some of
those. Most every day she is sending emails and making phone calls to our staff and
they are so quick to respond and help resolve situations and mitigate certain
circumstances and sends a sincere thank you to our staff, especially Richard Caywood,
she has leaned on him a lot lately
Supervisor North advised on February 22, 2021, he met with the Hollins
President, May Hinton, for an introductory meeting and to review the Hollins Town
Center Plan. This was their first person to person meeting with partners in Roanoke.
So, it was a socially distanced moment in one of their conference rooms with Jill Loope
and myself. Also presented to Dr. Hinton a print of McAffee’s Knob, which she has
st
placed in her office. On March 1, our transportation team here in the County met with
Dr. Ray Smoot, Commonwealth Transportation Board representative to advocate for
priority Smart Scale projects and also for our CORTRAN grant, which we are applying
for this year to help our CORTRAN service that we provide here in Roanoke County.
Later in the day, he joined a VACo/VML legislative call, which was the last one for this
session of the State General Assembly. On that call, our resident expert Jim Regimbal,
Fiscal Analytics, LTD, who is always right except when he says, “I may not be right”
commented on the anticipated next round of stimulus funds for the State and the
counties. Virginia local governments are expected to receive some $7 billion in the next
round of stimulus funds and the nation’s schools, $2 billion. Roanoke County will
receive some of these revenues as a share. Jim stated that locals should be
considering ways on what they are going to do with the money when we get it. He
suggested school and HVAC systems, broadband and fire stations. Also, on another
subject, bills before the State legislature were either laid on the table or failed to come
out of committee to the floor for final votes feature state school construction funding and
will now be directed to a tax study for alternatives, whatever that might mean in the
future. We will have to stay tuned to see where that one goes. Kiplinger Report stated
that $7.6 billion of the $1.3 trillion stimulus nationwide will be slated for broadband; that
is a good story. Another $130 billion is earmarked for schools nationwide. The
legislation says some 20% of those school funds must be used for learning loss during
th
the pandemic. On March 8, he participated in the National Counties Transportation
Steering Committee’s annual conference and that committee discussed a couple of
topics, extension and funding of the highway trust fund set to expire on September 30,
2021; something must be done to replenish funds in that account or else we are not
going to be able to address all of the nation’s highway needs. Number two (2) was the
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infrastructure bill, which is gaining some discussion and interest in the Senate,
advocating for what counties need. One DOT and now Senate staffer asked for input.
He mentioned I73 has been discussed for 15 years or more. If anything more is going
to be done to help the counties south of us from the North Carolina state line to the
Shenandoah Valley connecting with I81 and I64, now is the time to start giving some
funds so that can finally become something of a reality in the future. The states cannot
afford to spend money on that and that is why we are looking at safety improvement
along the Rt. 220 corridor today. Something will come from that in the context of
reauthorizing the surface transportation fund. Finally, he was glad to read Ms. Loope’s
report that Virginia Tech’s Office of Economic Development finalized with our economic
staff the planning survey and stakeholder questionnaire, which has gone out to some
400 stakeholders already and additional distribution to the community is expected this
week.
Supervisor Radford stated we are going to announce here shortly that we
are going into a work session on the Oak Grove Center plan. This is very similar to
what we have done in the Hollins area and the 419 Town Center. He is looking forward
to getting an update and getting that guide to future planning the Oak Grove area where
it is much needed. Looking forward to hearing that. Just to piggyback a little bit on the
State Champs in Glenvar, he follows that because he has a sister that was a great
runner in Salem. There is a superstar over there, Carly Wilkes. She has been looked
at by a lot of D-1 schools; she has impressive times and he heard her in an interview on
the radio show. Congratulations to her and her team mates. The pandemic has
stamped that down a little bit, but not her running.
Chairman Peters recessed the meeting to the third floor at 3:47 p.m. for
work session.
IN RE: WORK SESSIONS
1. Work session to discuss the draft Oak Grove Center Plan with the
Board of Supervisors (Philip Thompson, Director of Planning)
Mr. Thompson provided a PowerPoint presentation. Supervisor Radford
asked if response times are adequate, with Mr. Thompson responding in the affirmative,
at least for now.
Supervisor North inquired with regard to Hidden Valley Middle School if
the school was in Roanoke City with Mr. Thompson responding in the affirmative due to
annexation. Supervisor North then asked with regard to regional transportation, what is
meant by the transit lines? Mr. Thompson stated there was a proposal to run the Smart
Bus down Rt. 419; when we talk about transit when we are going these plans, the public
always brings the topic up about the need. We can always put a recommendation such
as “when and where feasible.” Supervisor North asked if the City has a bus line to Oak
Grove Plaza now with Mr. Thompson advising in the negative.
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Supervisor North then stated with regard to CORTRAN, we have filed for
grants to help with that funding. He then asked Mr. Caywood should we consider
transportation, which we have in the Hollins area. Would we consider extension of a
bus line that runs a loop, Valley View around through Hollins to Williamson Road? If
that were to occur, could we seek a grant from that same source that we are trying to
get for CORTRAN on an experimental basis? The reason he brings this up is that it
came out in the Hollins Town Plan three (3) years ago when we were having those
sessions at Hollins Library and while it has not come up at Hollins College recently, it
has in the past. If the opportunity presents itself, can we seeking funding for some of
that cost. Mr. Caywood advised this is out of his area of expertise with Transit Funding,
however, it is his understanding there are different types of programs especially for
expansion of service. The long-range plan for Valley Metro, look at routes that are in
the County, but that is something if the Board desires, we could arrange a work session
with more information just on that topic and how any potential expansion would work in
the County. Some of the grants are more generous for expansion of service versus
ongoing maintenance of service. We would really need to look at ongoing reoccurring
costs.
Supervisor Hooker stated when talking about transit she was curious as to
whether it was a resident request or commercial. Mr. Thompson stated his recollection
was more of a residential request.
Supervisor Radford commented when people see the picture (Carriage
and Rt. 410) and see what it is now and what could be, it scares the older residents; the
younger residents in the area really like it. So, there is that conflict going on. We saw
that when we had the evaluation over at Oak Grove Elementary School; he was hearing
that as kind of a theme, but the older citizens do not like and the younger go. We need
to think about the future and when you look at the American Planning Association has a
nice little guidebook. It tells you how to make your spaces more efficient, higher
density. The building in Oak Grove where the old Mick or Mack is still there. Someday,
there will be a new owner in there. When we talk about this, the investor, or owner, has
to really be thinking, “they are going to allow me the ability to do something by right.”
This is not clicking yet. Mr. Thompson responded 2021 goals will include changes that
we will bring to you later. One of the things we are looking at is changing some of the
requirements based on these three (3) (Hollins, Oak Grove, Rt. 419) and will allow
higher density, taller buildings. We are going to make some of those changes. We
recognize that what we are envisioning we need to make by right. We will also be
working with Roanoke City and see what the path forward it.
Supervisor Radford then asked how quick can we make improvements to
the park; high interest to bring the park from its abandoned state to where it is more
useful. Mr. Thompson advised the park process could start at any time and then you
would need to find the funding.
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Supervisor Mahoney stated we have to acknowledge the limitations of
what government can do. Mr. Thompson said the key Oak Grove Plaza, whatever that
owner wants to do with it. He thinks if you look back and the County was very optimistic
with the Keagy Road development. It has not happened. He has heard all the reasons
and he has talked to all kinds of developers and they give, but it is what it is. We can try
to set the stage through our planning document and zoning ordinance and hopes that a
developer comes in and takes advantage of it. It is a private market function. Roanoke
County has been talking about Oak Grove Plaza as long as he has been here. The
other issue probably the County made a mistake when we bought that piece of land
beside Oak Grove Park; we were going to put a fire station there. It has languished
there for over twenty (20) years ago. So, part of the problem is us, but thinks what staff
have done is an attempt to address some of those problems and put this area of the
County into position where it can be successful. He thinks it can be. Mr. Thompson
stated we try to control what we can control and that is all we can do.
Mr. Caywood stated the Keagy development has been very successful.
Supervisor Peters asked if staff was going to do a study on fire stations?
Cave Spring may be okay where it is, but at some point, if we are doing all this planning
that needs to be part of it. Mr. Caywood commented it would be on the to do list of our
new Fire Chief.
The work session was held from 4:01 p.m. until 4:52 p.m.
IN RE: ADJOURNMENT
Chairman Peters adjourned the meeting at 4:53 p.m.
Submitted by: Approved by:
________________________ ___________________________________
Deborah C. Jacks P. Jason Peters
Chief Deputy Clerk to the Board Chairman