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Buckingham CountyBoard of SupervisorsNovember 10, 2020Monthly MeetingAt a regular monthly meeting of the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors held on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. by open meeting and live stream to the public in the Peter Francisco Auditorium of the Buckingham County Administration Complex, the following members were present: Harry W. Bryant, Jr., Chairman; Don Matthews, Vice Chairman; Dennis Davis; Donald E. Bryan; Danny R. Allen; T. Jordan Miles, III; and Joe N. Chambers, Jr. Also present were Rebecca S. Carter, County Administrator; Karl Carter, Asst. County Administrator; Cheryl T. “Nicci” Edmondston, Zoning Administrator; Jamie Shumaker, IT Manager; Cody Davis, Emergency Services Director; and E.M. Wright, Jr., County Attorney. Re: Call to OrderChairman Bryant called the meeting to order.Re: Establishment of a QuorumChairman Bryant certified there was a quorum. Seven of seven members present and the meeting could continue. Re: Invocation and Pledge of AllegianceSupervisor Chambers gave the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance was said by all who were in attendance.Re: Approval of AgendaSupervisor Miles moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the agenda as presented.Re: Approval of MinutesSupervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Allen seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the October 13, 2020 minutes as presented.Re: Approval of ClaimsSupervisor Miles moved, Supervisor Bryan seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the claims as presented.Re: AnnouncementsThere were none.Re: Public CommentsLann: We have six signed up, eight voicemails and eleven emails.Joyce Gooden, District 6: Good evening. My name is Joyce Gooden and I live on Shelton’s Store Road in District 6. Joe Chambers is my Board of Supervisors representative. My comments have to do with the 2020 Electoral process here in Buckingham County. My polling site is the Masonic Hall. I work the dual primary in June. I volunteer to help prepare the absentee ballots for mailing. I worked the early voting at the central office. I was the Slate River’s Assistant Chief until the 3rd of November. I tell you of my background so you will understand that I know firsthand of what I say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the person or persons who hired Lindsey Taylor as the Registrar and Director of Elections. I applaud Lindsey’s dedication, energy, her election protocol knowledge, equipment knowledge and ability to get the job done. Let me not forget to mention Lindsey’s patience. Lindsey’s patience with me and my many questions foremost but also her patience with the questions and the scheduling of all the people needed for early voting and all 11 voting precincts. A huge thank you goes to Lindsay's team of the Buckingham County Electoral Board. Rick Caldwell, Chairman; Gail Braxton, Vice Chair; Larry Davis, Secretary. Thank you to all of the central office support. Thank you to Margaret Thomas, and all of the poll workers who supported our electoral processes here in Buckingham. As a final note, I urge the Board of Supervisors to expedite the upgrade of the cell phone and internet service here in Buckingham County. You were able to support the school system in their quest to provide buses with hotspots to support student educational needs. We truly needed better service at the Masonic Hall. At one point, 3 of us were on our cell phones, trying to find the sweet spot in the room to get a call to the registrar's office. We were all going to ask the same question. By the way, the signal sweet spot was never twice in the same spot. It would be wonderful if Buckingham precincts could use laptops instead of paper poll books that would translate into quicker voter verification and less calls to the central office. Again, thank you for allowing me to express myself at this meeting.Marie Flowers, District 3: Marie flowers the third district and I'm coming because of the gold mining. My interpretation of the responsibility of government is to promote an orderly society and protect people. For example roads, speed limits, etc. You know we have guidelines so that things go smoothly and people were safe. We need to protect the health of the people. Now this board, except for the two people who were not on the board that previously, in my opinion did not do their utmost to protect the people of Union Hill from the consequences of the compressor. Obviously, there are people in this county who do not matter. This Board, the Planning Commission, they wouldn't demand an electric generator. They wouldn't demand closer turn off valves. There were a number of things that this Board and the Planning Commission could have done to protect the people. But you all went along with whatever Dominion wanted. And I just feel like you don't care about people. You only care about what you want. You have another opportunity to shortchange these same people with the goldmine and with the poison that mining generates. Try to remember they are people. They're more important than money. Thank you.Julie Quillen, District 5: Good evening. My name is Julie Quillen. And I grew up on a Warminster Church Road. I currently reside with my father David Quillen, at 4484 Warminster Church Road in the James River district. I live on the land and property that I will inherit, and this is the land that I hold, dear. And this is where I hope to raise my future children. As I was a young child, my brother and I spent our summers roaming the woods and playing in Branch Creek behind our house. We built forts from tree branches, covered ourselves in mud and dammed up sections of the creek to make swimming pools. There's a certain type of happiness, health and wellbeing that comes from a childhood of loving the land that you live on. I hope that all of you listening today have a sense of what that feels like. Also, there's a there's a certain type of pride in adulthood that comes from believing that your county officials will do the right thing to preserve the land that you love, as well as to maintain the health and wellbeing of the citizens who live on it. As I stand here this evening, I question whether I have that sense of pride or not. I do not support a zoning text amendment that would allow core sampling for commercial purposes with a special use permit. Aston Bay holdings has been illegally conducting core sampling in this county for four years. I understand that we are here this evening to talk about core sampling. And yet core sampling is the obvious precursor to gold mining. A zoning text amendment is simply a slap on the wrist and opens the door for a potential open pit gold mine. This would pollute our air and discharge toxic chemicals into our streams and groundwater. This would wreak havoc on our health and on the land that we hold so dear. Open pit gold mining could irreparably damage Northwestern Buckingham. Rather than a zoning text amendment. I urge you to make changes in the zoning laws to prohibit mining and related activities in A-1 and to issue a fine against Aston Bay holdings for their violation of our zoning ordinance. Imagine that this is happening in your backyard. Imagine it's your children or grandchildren who want to roam through the woods and play in the creek. Imagine it's your well water and your family and your neighbor’s health and wellbeing at stake. Like you I love Buckingham County and I want to preserve it for future generations. I want a healthy childhood for my children just as I had as a child. No amount of money gained from this project is worth the cost of our health, our community and our future. Thank you.David Ball, District 3: Good evening, David ball district three. I see that you're looking at some policy changes with regards to what's happened with this pandemic. And I can tell you that this pandemic is gonna be over pretty quickly. Now that we have a pharmaceutical company that has successfully proven that they have 90% capacity in their results to cure this virus or to immune people against it. So I expect that this event is going to end very quickly. And it's always good to have a backup policy for future events. And you can't always forecast with those events are going to be, but bear in mind that the county here except for the prison system has fared fairly well as opposed to the more populated areas. And the other side of that is the fact that there are a lot of small businesses here that actually suffered, or were put out of business because of this COVID thing. There was no provision. There was no ability for those companies or businesses to adjust. And so they shut down. And even major corporations, I mean, you can see major corporations like AC Moore, they just decided a tough market, we are just closing down all together. So there's been a lot of effect on not just the county, but the state and the country as far as what's happened with this pandemic virus. And so we need to plan for the future and know that in the present day and what's going on, that there are cures out there. That we have fantastic pharmaceutical companies that have worked on this aggressively, and come up with cures. And those will be available shortly to the general public. So I think that's something that we can all be comforted by and look forward to a more prosperous future. Thank you.Quinn Robinson, District 4: Good evening, gentlemen, fellow citizens. My name is Quinn Robinson, I live out in Andersonville. I can't give you the address right now. Because VDoT ran over the sign or the box but I can be reached at P.O. Box 888 in Dillwyn. I have a couple of comments. First of all, I had extreme difficulty accessing the website in order to get information about this meeting. It's just… it's probably something that CenturyLink is doing or neglected to do. And I think it's… it merits some consideration, investigating, if not an audit of what is happening with the website and how to improve it. There's a lot of dead ends with old information that should have been purged a long time ago. And I couldn't get the agenda to load because it was over 300 and some pages, according to my printer, not that I was going to print them, but I wanted to navigate it. And that's another problem. But anyway, my concerns tonight are the nature of these meetings, and how they're run. And I think we can do better. And I think this apparatus now, this is being filmed and people are looking at backs of people's heads. That's a little bit awkward. And there are other ways of doing it. I shared something with Supervisor Miles that possibly could correct this and it's an inexpensive option in terms of cameras, record a live stream and can be controlled by the county and not by YouTube. The other thing is about the gold mining, I'm opposed to it. And I'd like to repeat what I said at the Planning Commission. First thing is we did... there was an episode back in the 70s and 80s, when the Love dump was created and became a disaster. It’s now a Superfund site. We don't want to repeat that time. And again, when you hear people say that they appreciate the rural nature of the county, farming, forestry, and friendship, whatever, but not heavy industry. There were very little necessary provisions for heavy industry or anything like this gold mine. But the point is, you didn't get it right that time. And then along came Dominion with the pipeline. The same thing was said we like it the way it is, you know, casual, comfortable setting where people can live in peace. But that didn't happen. He spent a better part of six years for the pipeline, it was wrong. And now we're going to be having potential gold mining and you're gonna throw out all the ordinances and fix them so the Southwick murkier. It's wrong. Just look at the poisons that are used to extract the gold from the ore.Paul Barlow, District 5: Good evening. Paul Barlow, district five. I live off of Pond Road, two miles from the core drilling site. So it looks like we're all going to get crash courses here soon and gold mining. I've learned quite a bit in the last few weeks. But first and foremost, before pursuing a zoning text amendment to allow core drilling for A-1 zones, we should consult with some experts to figure out why all of a sudden we have a cluster of wells going dry in the area surrounding the core drilling site. Somehow it seems the hydrology of the area has been affected by this. And if Aston Bay activity is to blame, then then they should be held accountable. We all know that core drilling is a gateway to open pit mining. It will be an open pit because of the gold is near the surface. And that's just going to cause an environmental disaster for generations to come. And also everyone here should be angry or at least miffed that a company snuck in here and started drilling holes into the local aquifer without any permission or supervision. You know, I mean, you know, we need to get some ire up about that. So I say let's just take a timeout and consult with some experts. And if the zoning ordinance is to be amended, amend it so the core drilling and mining is prohibited in A-1 zones. Thank you.Voicemails:Alan Binstock: Greetings. I'm Alan Binstock. I'm a master planner with 20 years, two years experience at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. And I'm currently working on a Draft Master Plan for the Yogaville community and area. I just wanted to let you folks know that we're looking at 20 years, which will focus in on village growth, economic growth, and particularly development of businesses and perhaps light industry that's all ahead of us coming up and our community expects to expand and grow. And as we've done in the past, we will continue to employ people, the Ashram community will employ people who are from the community. And this is important to us. And of course, as you probably guessed, it's critical that our area remain healthy and helpful to live in. I'm very concerned as we go forward to do this, about the outfall and side effects of the potential gold mining and I will at future meetings show up in person. I couldn't come for this meeting coming up. So I wanted to go on record for you. I am at 301-395-6080 if you have any questions. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.Cassandra Stish: Good evening, honorable Board of Supervisors and members of the Planning Commission. This Cassandra fish 3098 Sycamore Creek Road, Buckingham, Virginia 23921. I live in the fifth district. I have spoken to some of you directly and thank you for taking time to listen to my concerns, and for telling me about your upcoming work session where you're expecting to learn more about the industrial drilling and mineral prospecting currently occurring approximately two miles from my home. I'm glad to hear that more information is coming from some experts to help everyone understand what is before us. Even so, please be sure you are getting information from all angles, not merely from permitting agencies who have explained how they regulate this activity, not the impact of it, per se. And I implore you to get more information or more experts if our current concerns are addressed. It would be helpful to present all of the information provided during the work session to the public in a format a little more useful than the meeting minutes. Please be proactive on behalf of the citizens and make sure we have access to and can easily share information provided to our leaders. It's a travesty this activity went on for so long unnoticed and I hope that our county attorney is exploring if injunctive relief is called for in the case of the citizens who have already experienced detrimental effects on our wells. This is only the camel’s nose in the tent. Please do everything you can to keep it from progressing further. Do not permit the ZTA to move forward. Deny Aston Bay’s requests for a ZTA and therefore the inevitable subsequent special use requests that will follow to permit industrial mining and significant zoning map amendment. The industrial mining activity that is being marketed as an investment opportunity, as a result of this illegal industrial drilling conducted by Aston Bay does not belong in A-1 district. Weyerhaeuser doesn't live here. We do. Aston Bay doesn't live here. We do. Their kids don't drink the water. Ours do. It is the job of the comprehensive plan in our zoning ordinance to protect Buckingham and to shepherd a clean, bright future for all of us. It's the job of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission to make sure we don't get screwed over. We're counting on you for do your jobs for our sakes. Thank you very much. I look forward to talking to you about this more in the future. Have a lovely evening.Chad Oba: My name is Chad Oba and I am in district number six. Good evening. It's my understanding that what is being considered here tonight is an advisory to the Planning Commission of what you want to do about a Canadian company that has been doing drilling on an A-1 zoned land for four years. And this is an activity as prohibited by our Buckingham zoning ordinance. First of all, I say do a legal notification to cease this activity which I understand you've already done and then find them to the maximum amount. 23 holes times whatever should be a good amount. And I'm surprised that they haven't been fined already. I don't believe that drilling 23 exploratory holes with questions about how much water has already been used. And certainly where it was dispersed to afterwards can lead to anything other than full out open pit gold mining. So even considering a zoning text amendment will ensure that it will be taken to the next step. I say stop it now and keep this A-1 zone integrity intact for what it was intended to be as clearly spelled out in your own zoning ordinance. I've been practicing mental health here in Buckingham and surrounding counties for 25 years. And what that means is that I listen to people's stories, where they're working and where they aren't. Sometimes I'm able to help them reframe them and make a new story that works better. I think that this story of moving Buckingham towards open pit mining would not have a good ending. There are people who you will hear from that are already being impacted through water loss of this risky trajectory. Who is paying for their new wells? Is asked Aston Bay? We could well end up with another Superfund Love dump. I'm asking you to protect the good people here. Many of whom have contributed positively to Buckingham teaching your children, developing their land for agricultural use, paying their taxes and living on the land for what it was intended for. Why have a zoning plan if you don't follow it? We need an new story that protects the people the land or water tables or wildlife. Please do not create another sacrifice with little regard for the impact it would have and have had already. I've further support having a Citizens Advisory Board that can offer some real information and what open pit gold mining leads to. Although there were good people that work in our state agencies, they are limited in what they can say. Further research needs to be done. I say delay this process. Do the research. Do not pass a zoning text amendment. Thank youHeidi Berthoud: Hi, my name is Heidi Dhivya Berthoud. I'm in the James River district and these comments are for the public comments for the Board of Supervisors tonight, November 10 2020. Thank you for making this available. Aston Bay drillers were informed in June that their drilling is prohibited by county law. And that's after four years of exploratory drilling without the county's knowledge or permission. So please do not reward very bad behavior by making it easier for them by creating a ZTA that would permit core typical drilling. We heard you deny, in an earlier meeting that exploratory drilling for gold leads to gold mining, but that's exactly what it's for. I'm very concerned that your need to watch over a healthy economy in Buckingham is being clouded by thinking that gold mining would bring money to the county. Unfortunately, gold mining has a clearly proven, very bad business history that would cost the county and the state dearly for generations to come. I asked you to please slow down and do the research that is readily available. Friends of Buckingham has been compiling information on the website. And if you just put goldmining in the search all those posted articles will come up. What penalties will be levied? I see that it is not just our right but also our duty to demand that you penalize this company. That’s their income resource. You have guidance for this in zoning codes. What oversight would be conducted on the 23 holes that were drilled? Who will do that? A nontoxic water well requires oversight site. A GW 2 form is filed for each well dug, listing things like the day the drilling started when it finished the depth flow size of the hole, how it was closed. What and so what else is needed for the gold drilling site. I formally asked you to make zoning changes to remove the allowable activity of mining and quarrying in the A-1 zone as it is contrary to the purpose stated for this zone. And I sent in an email that has excerpts from both the A-1 zone and industrial zone. So the industrial zone is in alignment with these purposes. Industry would have to apply to change the zone from A-1 to M-2 to do their very dirty impactful work. But the county would then be in, you know, in keeping with the zoning masterplan. And environmental impact studies should be required. Other allowable, way less impactful activities require close scrutiny and updated review. I asked you to create a citizen Advisory Council so that the growing number of very alarmed residents can have a reasonable conversation with you. These public comment periods fall short of what is needed to address this very serious situation. There's already been a lot of unnecessary confusion. Please see us as your best resources and not the enemy. Let's work together. To be clear. I am opposed to open pit gold mining as there is substantial and justifiable fear of gold mining doing irreparable harm to our county, state and beyond. Let us not create more sacrifice zones in this county that only benefit the mining companies and leave us with external lack of living with toxic soil, water, air, water tables drastically drawn down, health care burdens, expensive road repairs. Cleanup is not really possible. We live with a mess we allow for centuries to come. Let's be open for clean business.Jeeva Abbate: Hello, this is Jeeva Abbate, representing Yogaville, from district five. I'm addressing the issue of gold mining and core drilling in Buckingham County. Dear county supervisors, thank you for your service. Yogaville and many of our community members, staff and leadership are now informed of the plan gold mining operations in the county by Canadian mining company Aston Bay Holdings. The history of toxic gold mining operations is well established with huge cost of cleanup, pollution mitigations and legal actions. Open pit, deep pit and other types of gold mining produce waste containing dangerous chemicals including mercury, arsenic, cyanide, lead, petroleum byproducts and acids. Mining, mineral processing and metallurgic extractions produce large quantities of waste into the environment and waste metals leaching out in contaminated water called acid mine drainage which threatens groundwater, our well water our farms and livestock. Well Aston Bay and their representatives claim that they don't use poisonous toxins but biodegradable products and little water, the clear science on this matter disputes that claim. A paper on heavy metal pollution from gold mines and the bacterial strategies for resistance from the National Institutes of Health hold that there is no clean approach and using any kind of biodegradable products. All gold mining is dirty. While the request for a zoning text amendment by Aston Bay is being framed as just providing for a zoning change to allow an entity to apply for a permit for core sampling, the whole basis of this is to open up gold mining in Buckingham. The A-1 agricultural zoning is currently in place in our region to protect us from such a toxic operation. In fact, to quote the comprehensive plan, this district is established for the purpose of preserving and promoting rural land uses. It's supposed to be facilitating existing and future farm operations found in Buckingham County. Preserving farm and forest lands, conserving water, reducing soil erosion, preventing water pollution, protecting watersheds and reducing hazards from flood and fire. Finally, an independent environmental impact study conducted on the potential impact of this operation on the health and safety of Buckingham communities and property should be conducted before opening the doors such an operation. Yogaville and our many community members urge each of you as a County Representatives to vote no on any change to the zoning text amendment, or the zoning text at all that would open the door for goldmining to our beautiful Buckingham County. Thank you for your continued service. Respectfully submitted. Jeeva Abbate. Thank you.Katherine Thimnakis: For tonight's Board of Supervisors meeting. This is Katherine Thimnakis, Coordinator for Concerned Citizens for Animal Protection. I am speaking out from the Glenmore district. Appealing to everyone in charge to not make any amendments to the zoning text which continues enforcement of prohibited activity. This gold mine project is only for profit. Literally gold digging and will destroy the ecosystem. The most precious of all our resources. Thank youKenda Hanuman: This is Kenda Hanuman from district five and I'm speaking to the ZTA that is proposed for exploratory zoning text amendment. Thank you for hearing what Buckingham has been discovering about this topic. Several of you have stated the text amendment is simply about exploratory drilling. Does anyone here really think that drilling isn't the precursor to mining? Your constituents have uncovered information regarding Aston Bay Holdings Buckingham project. This is what this Canadian company is telling their investors in their Aston Bay corporate presentation of September 2020. I quote “the hail mine is a great play and one we'd like to replicate in Virginia.” This is at about the 12 minute point in their recording for investors on that Aston Bay website. Not only is the drilling finding gold, but other minerals, copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, referred to as polymetallic substances. Consider where this is heading. A lot is impaired should this mining be allowed. I quote, “acid drainage and cyanide are among the major environmental threats in gold mines across the country contaminating ground water and rivers in some places”. This is in the June 30, 2019 WFAE report called Mining Company wants to expand operations at the historic South Carolina goldmine. Leave this ordinance as it is thus continuing to prohibit exploratory drilling. Again, please leave the ordinance as it is continuing to prohibit exploratory drilling. This is a decision made regarding tonight’s ordinance. This is the choice I ask you to make for the good of Buckingham residents, environment, and our children’s and grandchildren’s future. Thank you.Swami Dayananda: Good evening. My name is Swami Dayananda living on Warminster Church Road, district number five. I want to begin for tonight's November 10th Board of Supervisors meeting for public comment. Firstly, thank you to planning commissioners for discussing the possibility so inviting experts on the matter of gold mining before making any recommendations on zoning text amendment. I am very glad that Board of Supervisors will be considering the topic this evening. The gold mining project, which can have such great impact on our water, land, our health and environment, and for some of us possibility so losing our homes.Gardens, some farms require taking time to study and get all the facts on what it means to the residents nearby the sites and for the entire county. As a part of the study, I asked the Board to consider Citizens Advisory Council. When the citizens and the county administrators work together with free communication and sharing of information, I believe we can go through the process of considering gold mining project in our county with more civility and with mutual respect and common goal for the betterment of the County. We all want the best for Buckingham County residents, farms, businesses, our family, our health and wellbeing.I look forward to the expert’s presentation. And also for Board of Supervisors to please consider creating Citizens Advisory Board. Thank you so very much for your service.Lann: Now, Nicci will read you the emails.Edmondston: The first email states: My name is Brian Lucy. My wife and I own a home and 43 acres at 2878 Warminster Church Road in district five. Our property is about a mile from current core sampling activity. The facts as I see it is Aston Bay violated page one of its own code of conduct. Aston Bay violated the county zoning ordinance. Aston Bay failed to exercise even a minimum of due diligence before drilling for core samples and then continued to illegally drill core samples for four years without so much as making a simple phone call to the zoning office during that entire time. Instead of communicating with the county government, they preferred to talk only with investors and shareholders. They touted their prospecting funds and celebrated what they claimed to be a permissive legal jurisdiction. This does not bode well for future operations. I can only surmise from this that they are either malevolent, incompetent or lazy. Any one of those three will spell disaster. In Montana, another Canadian gold company, Pegasus Gold stuck taxpayers there with a $100 million with a $100 million cleanup bill after they went bankrupt in the late 90s. The company's cleanup Bond was insufficient to repair the damage it caused. It's now one of several gold mines that are EPA Superfund sites. A 2013 earthworks study of 93% of all gold producing mines in the US found that every single site had at least one pipeline spill, and three quarters of them harm to ground or surface waters adjacent to their operations. Core sampling and mining activities are in direct conflict with the intent and scope of A-1 zoning as is expressly stated in county code. Deviation from that intent will open the door not to business opportunity, but to countless burdens heaped on taxpayers. At the October 26 meeting of the Planning Commission, the chairman told us that the 50 to 100 age demographic in our community cannot afford tax increases caused by a lack of business tax revenue. This community is telling you what we cannot afford. We cannot afford to drink poison water. We cannot afford to have water delivered when our wells dry up beneath us. We cannot afford to breathe polluted air. We cannot afford to sell our homes at a loss when the value plummets. We cannot afford to lose our wildlife. We cannot afford to be stuck with the cleanup bill once gold profits dry up and the mine operators disappear in a cloud of lawyers. Allowing this activity to go forwards here or elsewhere in A-1 zoned areas that the county will not bring long term sustainable revenue, jobs and opportunity. It will bring some short term gains for a few people followed by decades of expense for everyone. Do not amend the zoning ordinance to allow for core sampling in A-1 zones.Our next comment states: Gold drilling in Buckingham. Fjord public comment. Lakshmi Fjord, district five. I asked the Board of Supervisors not only to deny zoning text amendment to the list of special use permits and an A-1 agricultural district to allow core sampling for commercial use, but that you also issue hefty fines to Blue Ridge property owners for each 28 plus exploratory core drilling sites, which defied our local ordinances unlikely calls nearby wells that share this aquifer to go dry. There is no economic justification imaginable to instead reward that elect illegality by overturning our farmland protections ordinance to endanger our 100% single source of water, which is illegal under the US Clean Water Act for the sole benefit of a Canadian gold mining operation. Because of the mining operations, location and immense environmental and environmental justice impacts, the Board of Supervisors must instead stop this permit process to involve federal and state agencies and required prescreening reviews for the site suitability of this project. Your special use permit for the Union Hill compressor station was considered not relevant by the US appeals court for the fourth district when vacating the ACP air permit. Why? Because Dominion had supplied you FERC and DEQ with the same poor incomplete and deliberately omitted data that led to our last lawsuit and its favorable outcome. The judges required the DEQs and Dominions lawyer to place in the record that Union Hill is an environmental justice community to accept the door to door household findings of 84% majority minority from the community household study designed and LED. The other one half of the basis for the judges unanimous decision was the proposed fine particulate matter emissions from gas fired turbine which this mining operation will also cause. The Department of Transportation, DOT, requires environmental justice reviews and reviews of particulate matter and new infrastructure that we use public roads as part of their operations. Thus the board must not for goldmining as for fracked gas prior only consult with and accept as factual corporate provided gold mining environmental science data, which like the coal industry has their mining operations, health and morality hazards, or tobacco and opioid industries having addiction and health impacts by manipulating data. The billions in fines now for doing so do not bring back the dead. Instead, the Board must consult open pit mining environmental scientists who are independent of industry ties, whose methods and findings stand up as replicable real replicable by other independent scientist. A National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, guidelines based environmental justice review, we'll find the same EI findings and air emissions with this site for open pit mining activities. And the site must be reviewed under the Historic Preservation Act section 106 that brings the Federal Advisory Council of Historic Preservation, CHP, into consult. Because both Yogaville and Union Hill Rural Historic District are under Virginia Department of Historic Resources review processes. A new gold rush in Buckingham will this time leave permanent scars and contaminations with its tossed toxic cocktail of chemicals degradations that heightened sickness and mortality. We will bring these issues before the courts to because preventing health conditions and deaths from gold mining and all forms of toxic polluting air, water and soil hazards to Buckingham is our mission. Respectfully submitted Lakshmi Fjord, PhD 108 Yogaville Way, Buckingham Virginia 23921.Deborah Branch 2375 Warminster Church Road Buckingham Virginia, Highway 737. A-1 zone James River district, November 10 2020, Attention Board of Supervisors, in relation to gold mining project. Ladies and gentlemen I have lived in Buckingham County all my life and raised my four children here. I served in the school system as a teacher for 30 years. My children have remained here with their children and all serving in the medical realm, school system, and DOC. I have not come to you today with maps and graphs to speak of impacts to infrastructure of land or quality of water, but to represent not only my family, but the hundreds of families and friends who live in the A-1 zone as well. We are not in real estate and you will not find our photos and your map keys. But we are here. We have dreams and aspirations in life as you do. This land is our place of safety inside our homes from COVID and unrest in the world around us. The place where our memories are made. We are people who have served you not only with human resources but financially for generations as well. My home burned down in 1994. As tragic as it was, it's not what I remember the most I remember how all of Buckingham rallied around my family setting up totes and filling them with basic needs. That's why I remain Buckingham proud. Now I see the flames reignited. I can see the flames threatening to take away all that we hold so dear, our homes, our memories and our children and grandchildren's inheritance. We are all dedicated human beings to Buckingham to support you with our taxes and have done so for generations and hope to do so for generations to come. We vote no to any amendments that to the A-1 zone that will allow core drilling and gold mining. We look to you to rally and protect us from these outside entities who threaten our livelihood and future respectfully and sincerely submitted, Deborah Branch.My name is Sharon Williams and my husband is Jeffrey Williams. We live at 3007 South James River Highway, Wingina, Virginia 24599 on Route 56. We are longtime residents of Buckingham County. My husband was born and has lived in this county for 55 years. The home we live in was graciously left to us eight years ago from his parents, Georgia and Bessie Williams. His mother drove the school bus for Buckingham County approximately 26 years. So our home is not just a house, its memories and a home we would like to remain in for the rest of our lifetime. We share this because apparently our home is right next to the proposed gold mining area. We are concerned not only of possibly losing our home but of the toxic chemicals that could be used and released into our environment. I, Sharon, am a three year breast cancer survivor and I'm very concerned what that would mean for myself but for everyone's health. Also the fact that this mining process could shorten or even deplete our water supply is outrageous. No amount of money can take the place of water. Water is the essence of life not gold. There's a particular creek runs across the proposed mining properties that leads into the James River. If the chemicals were to get into the James there will be an even bigger problem with our water supply. So because of these issues, we asked the Board of Supervisors to do whatever it takes to stop any process that would allow mining or any related activities in A-1. This company Aston Bay or any other company should not have the right to come into our community for the sake of greed and destroy the health property and wellbeing a Buckingham County residents. Thank you for your time and consideration to this important matter.Dear Buckingham County Supervisors, I was alarmed to hear that a foreign corporation requested a zoning change in Buckingham so that they can explore the area in preparation for extracting gold through an open pit mine. Gold mining creates long term problems for the surrounding environment and human health by polluting the water, soil and air with toxic waste and heavy metals. This can cause real harm to people, animals and plants and does not seem at all compatible with our need for the healthy environment that our lives here depend on so much. I hope that you will choose to protect our environment by saying no to this company before their project goes any further. Thank you for your service and I hope you're doing well during this pandemic Best regards Mark Zimmerman 108 Yogaville Way, Buckingham Virginia district five.Stephanie Rinaldi 2878 Warminster Church Road, District Five. Excerpts from Buckingham County’s Comprehensive Plan:VisionBuckingham County will be a model of planned residential and business development that ensures sufficient managed economic growth to enhance the quality of life of its residents, to attract desired socially responsible new businesses, and to ensure a fiscally sound County government that is responsive to the needs of its residents and businesses while maintaining tax rates at a responsible level and while preserving the desired rural characteristics of the County. Attainment of this vision will be supported by the following planning principles: -Seek sufficient economic growth by attracting socially and environmentally responsible businesses -Ensure that development is done in an environmentally sensitive, planned, and “green” manner that serves to preserve environmentally sensitive features. -Preserve the County’s natural resources that provide valuable benefits to the County and its residents. Continuing to recognize that one of its richest assets is agricultural, forestry and rural lands, Buckingham wants to continue to protect these areas and natural resources to ensure that a rural quality of life is maintained. Protecting and preserving farmland, forest uses, livestock operations, wetlands, significant wildlife habitats, and water resources are of primary importance to these areas. Future residential, commercial and industrial development should be encouraged to locate in areas of the County where adequate public services are available or planned. Development that does occur in the rural agricultural and forestall portions of the County should be designed to incorporate significant open spaces and designed to minimize environmental impacts on the County’s land and water resources. The specific location of future land uses should be determined by the zoning ordinance, and when required by the zoning ordinance, the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors review of specific land use requests. Such review should consider the compatibility and benefits of the use, and the land impacts of a specific use on the surrounding neighborhood and larger community. When future development requests require Planning Commission review and Board of Supervisors approval, the economic and quality of life benefits of open space, agricultural and forest land uses should be considered, as well as the adequacy of public facilities and services within the area. The environmental impacts of the development should also be considered. It is important to maintain a balance between development and preservation objectives throughout the County. The issue before you regarding the amendment of the zoning ordinance to allow core drilling for commercial use in A1 must be held to the standards set in the Comprehensive plan. These were only some of the pertinent excerpts you must consider when determining your course of action. Core drilling, particularly the drilling already illegally occurring in A1, is in direct opposition to the goals and vision this county has established for itself. Do not amend the zoning ordinance to allow this activity. Charge the company with the misdemeanors they have been committing. Fine them, as our laws allow. Protect our land and our water, protect our community. Thank you for your work on our behalf. Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board.My name is Tammy Huddleston. I reside at 806 Seven Eleven Road in District #2. I’d like to begin by quoting the legendary film director, “John Ford”. Mr. Ford said, “You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.”I’m speaking from my heart. We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the possibility of gold mining in Buckingham County. I’d like to address this. The community of Warminister Church is very dear to me. I grew up there and I have fond memories as a child of playing in the creeks and woods, helping my grandparents work in their gardens and witnessing many hunting seasons. My family lived off the land and they have been there for generations. Many of my family members and childhood friends still live there. When I visit, it is very special to me. These people are an example of what community is all about. To think that one day all of this could be polluted and destroyed forever due to gold mining breaks my heart. I care about how these families and future generations could be impacted. I’m sure you are aware that many people in Buckingham are struggling right now just to make ends meet. COVID has made this even harder. They are trying to keep food on their tables….but how will they with the increase of taxes we just received? Some have said, that’s why we need this mine…to bring in more revenue for the county. Yes, we need to attract more businesses to our county to help keep our taxes low, but not businesses that will have a negative impact on our people and environment. Have you thought about reconsidering the Meals Tax? I know it was previously voted down, but I don’t think the people fully understood it. All they saw was the word tax. Please reconsider educating our residents on how it works and its benefits and please think long and hard about the effects of open pit gold mining in Buckingham County. Respectfully, Tammy HuddlestonNext comment is from Robert Day, District 5. 3337 Woodland Church Road, Buckingham. First I would like to thank the members of this board for their service. I?have recently been made aware of illegal drilling of core samples near my home for a potential open pit mine.? This goes well beyond the normal character of A-1 zoning and modern mining has no business in an agricultural zoning.??Clearly this activity should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, with maximum fines and even reimbursement to those who have had to drill new wells because of the extravagant water use during this preliminary activity. Needless to say, open pit gold mining will cause even worse damage including poisoning air and water for many generations to come. Even the best financial deal will still see most of the wealth generated going to out of state and out of country investors. ?The whole idea that a special use permit here for modern mining operations?could?possibly be justified ? is absurd. While the mine is operating they will disrupt traffic patterns, put extra burdens on road maintenance, not to mention animal and plant contamination, obvious noise and dust issues.?Local inhabitants will be forced to flee with great losses of property value and or health issues directly related to the mining operations. I have been told that company representatives have approached local landowners to purchase their properties saying "You wouldn't want to live next to our mine anyway. Condemning many innocent citizens to these devastating losses is unconscionable. Any agreement with or retreat from these international terrorists is nothing short of dereliction of duty. I will remind you that as our local representatives you have a duty of care to act promptly and decisively to prevent further harm to the county you serve. Comment comes from Betty Zumbro. And she states. OK so where are we with disallowing further illegal core drilling in our county?? As I understand, we have to vote on a ZTA which allows us the authority to issue or not issue a SUP.? It this correct?? I listened intently to the discussion in the Zoning/Planning Commission meeting several days ago.? I ONLY heard discussion as it relates to opposition to the core drilling.? I heard the county attorney say that if we "do nothing". Then the matter is closed and no further drilling would be allowed.? Every citizen that was heard whether in person or by e-mail was adamantly opposed to this activity, albeit, someone suggested that the Planning Commission and the BOS together with citizen input hear further experts/opinions on this matter. I feel that would be an inordinate waste of time and energy.? Simply put, core drilling will lead to open pit mining.? Let us nip this in the bud NOW.? We do not wish this devastation to our way of life, our clean water, our clean air, and quiet rural way of life, and our sanity.? Agree?? Thank you. Betty Dunnevant Zumbro, Pembleton Road.Congratulations!? You have all been given another opportunity to protect the citizens, water and soil of Buckingham County!? The only ordinance that you need to pass is one that protects our right to be free of chemical trespass. The proposed mining process will compromise the water table and wells with its “acid mine waste” that includes dangerous chemicals such as mercury, arsenic, cyanide, lead, petroleum byproducts and acids that can threaten groundwater. All citizens of Buckingham could be affected by this kind of mining, including you, even though you might not?live near the sites.? It is time to look at the big picture of health and safety instead of the short-term picture of gains that industrial?revenue might bring to the county.? I understand how strapped the county is for money, every county is, but this doesn’t mean that our health and safety should be compromised by giving corporations the right to drill for commercial purposes. The “Zoning Text Amendment” would allow core sampling for commercial purposes, changing an ordinance to allow drilling in an A-1 agriculturally zoned part of the county. Allowing exploratory drilling is just the beginning of opening the county doors to open pit gold mining. We all know that. There is already a Town Council on record which protected their citizens from chemical trespass - in Halifax, Virginia.? They used every means they could, including a Community Bill of Rights that declared they had a right to be free of chemical trespass to protect their land, water and citizens from uranium mining. In 2008, they succeeded and uranium mining is still banned in Halifax. Gold mining sounds more exciting and not as troublesome as uranium mining, doesn’t it? Everyone knows how dangerous uranium can be- but gold is a good thing, isn’t it?? My research bears out that it is not the product but the process of gold mining that is dangerous to us.? Gold mining requires massive amounts of water withdrawal, which would impact our water table, the source of our shallow drinking water wells.? That is why you and all Buckingham County residents would be affected, not just the people in the area around the mines, who would also be affected by noise, air pollution and industry traffic. So will you take up this opportunity to protect the citizens of Buckingham like your colleagues in Halifax did for their constituents in 2008? Say NO to the Zoning Text Amendment that would ultimately allow?gold mining in Buckingham County. Protect our people, air, water and soil for now and for future generations.? You can do this.? It is in your power.? Don’t for a second think it is not.?Mindy Zlotnick, 132 The Way, Buckingham, VA 23921Glenmore District And our last email comes from J Sumati Thorn, 3355 Warminster Church Rd, Buckingham VATo be presented to the Buckingham Board of Supervisors: We must stop gold exploration in Buckingham right now. If current drilling is allowed to continue the entire county will be opened up to potential mining sites. The massive amounts of water needed even for test boring is already drying up wells in adjacent properties. We do not know what chemicals are being used to lubricate the exploration drilling bits but the ground water may already be experiencing contamination. You only need to refer to current and past sites to learn about the sad effects of open pit mining. The most terrifying parts are the perpetual cyanide lagoons that remain long after the temporary mining projects are closed down. But the forced displacement of residents on neighboring properties is also terrifying in its own way. Adjacent homeowners are typically asked to relocate and offered a ‘fair market price’ for their homes. But ‘fair market price’ won’t allow them to duplicate their holdings in a different location like say Albemarle County. If they refuse to sell, they are harassed by perimeter fencing, berms and property line crowding. Other alarming aspects to local mining sites is the twenty-four-hour onslaught of blasting noise & vibrations, truck traffic and intense lighting. The work force on mining sites tends towards a high turnover of single males who are not invested in the community, its values or preservation. The temporary nature of gold mines encourages a fast in, fast out, take what you can business approach that can and does leave the hosting locales wounded and depressed. Groundwater WILL be affected. Its contamination and depletion can distress not only neighboring areas but the James River and the Chesapeake Bay as well. Expect endless lawsuits, confrontations, surveillance, demonstrations and constant media exposure directed at the mining companies and the County of Buckingham. Expect this to go on for years unless it is stopped in its tracks now. Please defend your county, its water, its citizens and its future by preventing further commercial gold exploration within the borders of Buckingham County. Thank you.Bryant: Is that all the comments you have?Edmondston: Yes sir.Re: Public Hearing: Cody Davis, Emergency Services Director, Consider Emergency Ordinance to Allow for the Continuity of Government Operations during the PandemicBryant: We move on to public hearing. We will open the public hearing now for Mr. Cody Davis.Davis: Good evening, gentlemen, I'll just start with a quick update on the situation. The website, Health Department website, does indicate an uptick in cases. The short of it is that a lot of that is due to the fact that the prisons are starting to do their point prevalence testing again. Hundred tests at one given time. So Buckingham facility did that a couple of weeks ago. So they're starting to get a lot of positive results or a lot around 50 at this point. Dillwyn is slated to do the exact same thing tomorrow. So it's going to grow. But the good thing is it's confined to those facilities like it was at the beginning of this thing. In terms of outside of those facilities. We're still averaging roughly two cases, a developed a day. And according to the health department, those are really associated with family gathering events, Sunday meals and things like that. But kind of a good outlook for Buckingham outside of those facilities, not to downplay the situation or anything but I do think we fared well. So without further ado with that said since this is still a dynamic and progressing event, we ask that you guys readapt, the emergency ordinance that you guys adopted towards the beginning of all of this, which the short of it allows for continuity of government of operations during the pandemic, including altering the process for conducting public meetings, restricting the use of public buildings and facilities, providing additional powers to the Director of Emergency Management or Mrs. Carter to incur cost, waive procedures and take the other temporary actions and suspending deadlines and procedures. We think that it's been a valuable asset throughout this response. And we'll need that tool in our pocket to continue our response. Questions?Carter: I’d like to add that this would be in effect until you come back and rescind it.Bryant: Thank you, Mr. Davis.Lann: We have two signed up to speak for the public hearing.Bryant: We will hear comments on this.David Ball, District 3: Yes, David Ball, District Three. I think given the fact that as I said earlier, there is adequate treatment now available. They waited till after the presidential election to announce that there are drugs available to treat people as well as immune, inoculate people to make them immune to this disease. To take the government and shut it down again, to shut the people out. Yet businesses like Walmart, Shoppers Food Warehouse, hardware stores, etc. continue to operate and do it successfully without any loss of revenue or availability to the cut you know to their consumers. If the government wants to shut everything down, you can't get anything done with Government anymore. Ever try going to DMV. From what I understand, they basically have shut that down. And there are people piling up who want to get into DMV for particular services, they can't do it. You go to Richmond, you can't get into the government. The screw ups that are occurring in government because of the shutdown. And the fact that people aren't being responsible, and putting proper protocols in place to assure that there isn't a vast spread of the disease. It just is mind blowing. You can't just shut down government. You can't shut people out. The whole purpose of government in this country is to be open, viewable, and accessible to the public. At 100 years ago, a similar event with the Spanish Flu occurred in this country. The population of the date, that 120 million people, 2.2% of the population were infected and died from that disease. So the current situation in this country, you've got maybe .1 or .2 of a percent of the population who have actually died. We have over 3.5 million people in this country. The percent of people who are getting sick and cured is phenomenal. The response in this country of the medical society to treat this disease, to minimize the loss of life has been fantastic. So the idea that we keep shutting down government, shutting down people, closing everything off, and I guarantee you, I've tried when you had a shutdown before, you can't watch anything about these meetings. You can't even properly broadcast it shuts down. It shuts you out, you lose signal. It's ridiculous. Thank you.Carter: It does not shut anything down. We have to follow the Governor's executive order, which we have no control over. But this ordinance is not to shut down any businesses. And we would only go back to phase two with government operations if the governor directs us to. So this ordinance is just so that we can continue our government operations during the pandemic.Quinn Robinson, District 4: Thank you. Again, my name is Quinn Robinson, District Four and I live in Andersonville. I have some concerns about this. But it's not so much on the broader scale. I think it's important. This has been an incredible disaster for the entire world. And precaution is good and reasonable thing. And it's been trivialized and politicized often. Perhaps things are improving to the point where we can get some things accomplished. But the main thing for Buckingham as far as I'm concerned, and I refer you to the editorial in the Herald, the school board had their meeting in the cafeteria or the gymnasium or something I'm not sure exactly where but you need more space. People are being locked out of this because they can't get here on time or figure out how to make the online things work. I couldn't figure out how to get into the county site last night. Very annoying. And it's an obstacle and you don't need them. You want people to have confidence and trust in what you're doing. And you're doing it well. So let them see that. But get open it up again so more people can take part. It's very important. And I noticed that this is only good for 60 days. And hopefully things will progress and can be reexamined at that time. But they all the medicine argues that caution be made. And it's not a matter of opening the economy up because we're going to have troubles with that for some time. This is far from over. Anyway. Thank you for your input and attention. This is its very important. Thanks.Lann: That's all.Bryant: Any other comment?Carter: Mr. Chairman, before you all vote, I know that at the end of the ordinance, that was the emergency ordinance that you all adopted before, was the 60 days to try to pretty much save money of having a public hearing. So often, that ordinance would be in effect until you rescind it. Bryant: Do we have a motion to that effect?Miles: Mr. Chairman. I'd like to make a just offer a general observational remark in terms of how this county has handled its response to this pandemic, which, you know, has put over 100,000 people in the grave. Let me just add that and second of all, this document, through the governor's orders, and through orders from the federal government, is going to really bring a lot of different options to how the public can interact with their elected officials. And this board has done nothing, in my opinion, as former editor and former being in media, this board has done nothing, has done nothing to make anything less transparent with regard to COVID-19. We were one of the first counties to offer this online method of calling in your public comments, of emailing your public comments, of watching our proceedings, and their entirety on YouTube. So I don't want to hear anything about how this board is not transparent. And by the way, you want to talk about helping businesses, this county board of supervisors, but $60,000, $60,000 of our CARES Act money into helping small businesses. And we did that. Every board member will tell you that small businesses are the backbone of our economy, of the Virginia economy, and we're supporting them. And this document is going to do nothing but help continue to give the staff and us give the staff the authority to help keep our government open instead of shutting down, which is this is no shutdown. And I've heard, and I'm sure my colleagues up here have heard some concerns about our audio. And obviously we're working on that, you know, we use some carriers that can money. We've got some new technology up here in front of us that we're learning about. But Buckingham is a leader when it comes to and this board has seen to that when it comes to transparency, working with the people being present, even if it's not physically but also virtually taking those public comments on voicemail. So I resent the comment, that we're shutting things down. We're shutting businesses down. We're helping businesses as best we can. And other parts of the government are to and I can't speak to that. But I can tell you what this board has done. We've helped keep things transparent. We are keeping our space as Mr. Robinson said, we're wearing masks. So you know, let's take a look at the facts. And I would make a motion that we approve this or I would second the motion that we approve this ordinance. Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Motion made and a second that we approve this thing and go on until it’s rescinded. Any other comments? Call for the vote.Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the Emergency Ordinance to Allow for the Continuity of Government Operations during the Pandemic.Re: Public Hearing: Case 20-SUP279 Charles A. Jackson, Owner/Fredrick Jackson, Applicant. Request for a private park/playground, at 785 Sleepy Hollow RoadEdmondston: Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board. Tonight we will have the public hearing for Case 20-SUP279. As you may remember from the introduction last month this is for Frederick Jackson. His father Charles A Jackson at 785 Sleepy Hollow Road is the landowner. Frederick lives at 113 River Core Apartment A in Charlottesville, Virginia. His request is to obtain a special use permit for a private park/playground. The property in question is Tax Map 54 Parcel 177A and contains approximately .6 of an acre and is currently zoned A-1. The zoning ordinance does not, of course, list private parks playgrounds as a permitted use however, within the A-1 zoning district, private parks and playgrounds may be permitted by way of a special use permit. The Planning Commission may recommend that the Board may impose conditions. We do have 13 conditions attached to this SUP for the public hearing. Mr. Frederick Jackson is actually with us tonight via zoom to answer any questions that you or the public may have. As far as commentary.Bryant: Okay. Does anyone have any comments?Davis: That’s in my district? And everybody I've talked to is for it. I'm ready to approve it tonight. This is a good thing for the community.Lann: We have one signed up. David ball District Three.David Ball, District 3: Yes, David Ball, District 3. And I do think you ought to approve it. With a cut back on restrictions, because it's such a small park, serving in such a small, confined community to try and put all these hard restrictions on it make no sense. I will also point out looking here, I only see two of seven supervisors who actually are wearing masks. The other five in the back row never wear masks at this meeting. So it's an observed event. Matthews: That's a lie. I've worn the mask before. There’s a six foot distance between each one of these members.Ball: Yes, but you require…Bryan: You see I put on a mask when I moved close to Mr. Bryant. You take care of Mr. Ball and I'll take care of Mr. Bryan. Okay.Ball: We're observing what we see. Oh, the other thing is, there's a lot of information that I will say with regards to the gold, because I wanted to hear what people said and having a background in that. And knowing what's been done have…Bryan: This doesn’t have anything to do with gold. You are making your comments on the playground.Ball: Right.Bryan: Stick to that please? Ball: Okay, so you don't want to hear anything?Bryan: I want to hear what your comments are about the current hearing that we're hearing on not about gold.Ball: All right. And I've told you, I think that because it is such a small area. And putting hard restrictions on it wouldn't make sense. You need to make it open and accessible because it serves a small local community. Give them the availability to have more features there without having all these setback restrictions and everything that were originally proposed on them that would have limited it to virtually nothing. I mean, it's a small community, a small property. It can't really, and it's for playground for the community. It's not for building for homes and accessible. So there.Bryant: Any other comments?Lann: No, sir. It's allBryant: Any board members, have a comment on it? And we'll take a motion. Bryan: Mr. Chairman, I do have one comment. Mrs. Edmondston, you said the person is via zoom?Edmondston: Yes.Bryan: Okay. I noticed that it's going to be operating from dawn to dusk, so there will be no lighting.Edmondston: That's correct. That's the way the conditions have passed through the Planning Commission. Bryan: Okay. And they are okay with that?Edmondston: Mr. Jackson had agreed to the conditions. Yes, sir. Thank you.Bryant: Any other comments?Davis: I make a motion that we approve it.Bryant: Motion made, is there a second.Matthews: Second.Bryant: Motion made and a second that we approve this SUP. Any other comments? Call for the vote.Supervisor Davis moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve 20-SUP279 for Charles Jackson/Fredrick Jackson for private park/playground on Sleepy Hollow Road.Re: VDOT Road MattersCarter: Mr. Chairman. VDOT is calling in. Scott Fredrick: Good evening board. Can you guys hear me?Carter/Bryant: Yes, sir. Yes, very good.Fredrick: I turned my video on as well. I got a good update for you guys tonight. You guys have asked me several times over the past eight months, when the Six Year Plan Improvement Plan would resume. And we just got that good news late last week. The pause has been removed and we're resuming the program. So we're gonna pick up right where we left off. Remember, in spring, we did a work session, and we are ramping up to do a public hearing. And that was right when it got pause. So tonight, I need to request that at the December meeting to hold a public hearing. And I sent the programming to Administrator Carter so that we can use that with a resolution that will hopefully pass next month based off the work we did in the early spring. So that's great news. I'm excited. I think the unsafe roads program is a great program. As far as the update on the work that we've been doing. We've been battling wet weather seems like for the last six months, and we've had a lot of stopped up pipe. We currently have a couple more that we need to get throughout the county that we're aware of. We got one on Union Church Road. I got a few on other roads. Then there is a slope brought to my attention there on 60. And I was unaware of it. But my guys have actually been monitoring that area for a while and they said it hasn't really been getting worse. But it is on our list of things we want to fix. So probably over the next couple months, we're hoping to either place some concrete or maybe some asphalt material to help kind of change the slope right there across from Route 60 Convenience. But so we've had our eye on it. And there's not any kind of problem now that the structural that could affect the roads integrity at all. It is mostly ascetic. And it hasn't been getting worse as long as they've been watching it but they were aware of it and they've just been trying to get it scheduled. So thank you for bringing that to my attention. It taught me something new about the community. We're getting close to finishing our mowing for the year of secondary and primary. We're kind of wrapping that all up. If it wasn't going to rain the next two days. I think we would finish it this week, but I think we'll probably end up finishing it next week. Let's see here. But then machining our gravel road. And we've been, we had that amount caught up before tropical storms came in, we're trying to catch back up on that in preparation for that, you know, to get them ready for the winter. So we're almost there. And then thinking about winter, we did a dry run for our snow event for our snow operations. That's where we mount up our equipment and look for anything that has deteriorated, electrical connections. But all of our stuff is in good shape again, and ready for the winter. We've also been working to get our emergency snow contractors that we use to help us plow the road, making sure their equipment is ready and getting them signed back up. They were in very good shape going into winter. A couple other quick updates of stuff that come up over the last few months, Troublesome Creek Road, where it connects with 60, the radius, the radii, I'll call them on each side of that road and have a habit of getting kind of beat out by traffic to where they drop off. And we've put stone back in them up several times over the last few months. And it seems like we're just kind of chasing our tail right there. So just over the last few days, we've put a plan together, we're going to extend the pipe that goes under Troublesome Creek Road, eight feet on either side, and we're going to add fill material and improve the radii with asphalt. So hopefully after we do that, we'll never have to touch it. Again, the weather and everything cooperates with us, we'll be up there sometime within the next two weeks to do this. I think that's a good, good thing that we're about to try to accomplish there. Then the other last thing on the event on the agenda for me to afford on is a little bit of bad news, we had a pipe get washed out on Route 664. But me and the team here in the Farmville residency, we've done the preliminary engineering. We've sized the pipe. We're actually going to put multiple pipes back in. So we have to get an environmental permit for the work we're going to do there. That's not really holding us up, though, because we had to order a bunch of different materials. And they're going to be being delivered to that site. So you'll start seeing that stuff show up out there. And we'll get that repair made. But it's going to be that roads gonna be closed for. I think the notice that we put in Virginia traffic goes into January. So you'll start seeing materials delivered and work probably starting sometime in early December. But I hate it when a road gets closed. So we are attacking it, trying to get it back open as fast as we can. So I guess that wraps up my report session. Do you guys have any matters that you want to bring to my attention?Bryant: I don't have anybody gotBryan: Scott, I have one. This brought Donnie Bryan, were you able to look at the runoff right there at 6939 Bell Road?Fredrick: Yes, sir. I sent Gareth Taylor out there actually, I didn't look at it myself. But he was…it’s kind of a shared driveway connection there. And he was saying to him, he didn't… I actually am flecked on my part of the deal that I made with him. But he wanted me to get clarification from you of what type of improvement he felt we needed to make because he said he didn't see any sight distance or drainage or drop off problems there in the state right away. But I think I was having trouble hearing you last month, or last time you brought it up. But I should have called you by now and I apologize. But could you tell me what specific issue you were wanting to address?Bryan: Yeah, can you take a look at it, the water pours off of that area right there at the driveway, and it runs along the… if you're looking towards Dillwyn away from the Chuck Stop, the water runs down that hill and along the road and it's puddling which is creating, you know, a kind of bad puddle there when we get heavy rains because of the way grass and stuff has grown in the ditch area. You know, there's really no place for it to go. Fredrick: Okay. Well, we'll take a closer look at it. I sent him out there and he actually took some video of it, sent it to me. I'm not saying anything, but he said if you could get clarification and he said I'm happy to come back down. So now that I've heard you more clearly and understand a little bit better, we'll take a second look at it. Bryan: Okay, appreciate it. Fredrick: Thank you, Mr. Bryan.Davis: I got some Mr. Bryant. This is Supervisor Davis. Cartersville Road, when you are coming from Bryant’s Store west, the road is deteriorating. It's approximately a quarter of a mile from Bryant’s Store coming west back toward 15, the road is like the shoulder is trying to give away and you can see the road crumbling. A couple citizens bought it to my attention and I rode down and looked at it the other evening. If you could get somebody down to look at that it would be very much appreciated. Fredrick: Okay, the quarter mile from Bryant’s Store heading toward 15?Davis: Yes. After you get past the curve opponent up the hill it looks like the road is just…the sides of it are coming loose. Fredrick: Okay, what was the actual road name itself? I missed that part.Davis: Cartersville Road.Fredrick: Oh, Cartersville. Virtual world does not make it easy. I got a good note wrote down on that one. We'll take a look at that.Davis: Thank you very much.Miles: Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Oh, thank you, Scott.Fredrick: I'm always a phone call away. Miles: Mr. Chairman, I've got a quick question for Scott. If you don't mind sir. We need to schedule a public hearing for December 14th for a public hearing with regard to the six year improvement plan. And I'll make a motion to that effect if no one has anything else.Bryant: Miles made a motion to second to that motion to have a public hearing on December 14. Allen: Second. Bryant: We have a second. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Miles moved, Supervisor Allen seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to schedule a public hearing for December 14, 2020 to hear public comments on the Six Year Plan.Re: Zoning Matters: Consider request of Planning Commission regarding a work session and direction regarding the Core Drilling IssueEdmondston: Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board at our last Planning Commission meeting held on October 26, it was indicated by our Planning Commission members that they would like to provide an update to the status as to where they were with disseminating information in regard to commercial core sampling. The regular meeting was held October 26. And of course, there was a discussion period regarding those activities. The Planning Commission believes that expert opinion would be beneficial prior to any determination regarding prospecting activity. The Planning Commission made a motion at their meeting to ask the Board of Supervisors to provide guidance and direction forward with respect to the subject matter. The Planning Commission by way of consensus has decided to ask a panel of experts to speak on this matter at the upcoming work session. At this time, if you find it agreeable. The planning commission is requesting your attendance at the Planning Commission work session on Monday, November 16, at 6pm.Allen: Normally we have a 7:00 meeting on the Planning Commission. So why are we doing 6:00?Edmondston: To make it a bit more agreeable. Some of the Board of Supervisors had asked in other forums to try to make this 6p.m.Allen: I'm just saying it’s normally at 7:00. You’ve got to call the rest of the Planning Commission to let them know. Edmondston: Well usually Wednesday or Thursday prior to the work session or meeting, I always send a text message to them to notify them, so if everyone finds it agreeable. If not, do you want to change it to 7p.m.? Bryant: I think the Planning Commission voted us to meet at 6:00 when meeting with the Board of Supervisors at the meeting before last.Edmondston: There was some discussion to change it to 6:00.Bryant: Meet at 6:00.Carter: This meeting is probably going to take a while so we need to start early.Edmondston: Yes, I would imagine that this fact finding session with the panel of experts would last quite a while.Bryant: 6:00 then.Edmondston: Yes, sir. If that's agreeable.Miles: Yes.Bryan: Yes.Miles: I've got a question, Mr. Chairman for Mrs. Edmondston, if I may sir?Bryant: Go ahead.Miles: Could you talk about, please, if it's ok, this panel of experts and who you sought out or who the county has sought out, I should say, I should ask, and what sort of representation that that I know the Planning Commission has tasked the staff to look for and sort of what you've got going?Edmondston: Sure, so there have been various state agencies, I do have a list of those. And we do have responses back confirming multiple members from some others, they're still working to put together a representative that will most likely attend via zoom. In an effort to maintain virtual and social distancing. I have reached out to the DEQ, the health department, the Division of Mining and Mineral Energy, extension agents through Virginia Tech, geologists within Virginia Tech and the geosciences department, the Office of the Attorney General and Department of Forestry. As of right now we have five confirmed panel experts that will be on the panel, and I'm still awaiting three other offices. Miles: Thank you.Edmondston: Yes, sir.Miles: And us agreeing to meet with the Planning Commission during your work session, obviously does not bond us to do anything. We are simply exploring some of the options that we have. Is that right?Carter: Yeah, yeah, this would not be a regular meeting. There would just be a work session. Miles: Therefore we couldn't vote. Is that right?Edmondston: You can vote. Carter: You need to take action to accept the invitation of the Planning CommissionAllen: Don’t you think there is need to have the people who are actually doing the drilling to come and talk too? And we know what they are doing and what they've done? How they do it? So we'll have something to work…Bryant: I would like to have as much information as possible.Miles: I agree.Allen: I understand that part, but I mean, asked him questions about what drillers have done so you know what to ask. You don't know what to ask if you don't, they're not here to tell you what they’ve done or what they’re doing. Miles: Right. And Mr. Chairman, Supervisor Allen, if they want to, if we go down the road of a ZTA, if they want to put in for an application I think that's when we would hear from them. That's my understanding of it. Allen: Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying I like to know, what's going on before we get there.Bryant: I’m just trying to get information as to what' gold mining actually is because I don't know. Allen: Well, I don't know if the people coming will be able to tell you.Bryant: They've tell you what the impact is. EPA and all this kind of stuff coming. Allen: The gold mine part, I don’t know.Miles: Yeah, we need to hear from the experts on this. Mr. Chairman, I would move that we meet with the Planning Commission during the work session on Monday, November 16. at 6:00.Bryant: All right. Got a motion made. A second to that. Any more discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Miles moved, Supervisor Allen seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to meet with the Planning Commission for a work session on Monday, November 16, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. Re: County Attorney E.M. Wright, Jr.: Information regarding the Core Drilling Process as it relates to the County Zoning Ordinance. Wright: Mr. Chairman, and members of Board. What it says on the agenda item is probably more information in there than what I've really got for you. What we're talking about tonight is sort of a rehash of what I spoke with the Planning Commission about when they met. And I know that several of you were there and heard it so I hope this won't be too boring for you. What I want to do is talk a little bit about process. So in talking about process, please understand that this is not a statement that says I'm in favor of this or in favor of that. It's not a further discussion of the interaction between the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan. This is simply a discussion of how you move forward if you want to do something or the implications if you don't do something. So that that's sort of the topic that I want to talk about. And we'll play a little bit off the notes that were in your Board package. And I know you have reviewed so I’m going to start sort of on the back of that. We’ve got a situation here in the county, that's been discovered relating particularly to I'm going to call it commercial prospecting. There may be other ways to describe it, we may end up if you do something describing it differently. But for the purposes of this discussion, we're gonna call it commercial prospecting. And that commercial prospecting is happening in A-1. The zoning office in consultation with me, we don't see where that operation is permitted and an A-1. But we understand there's a lot swirling around it. So they've been advised of that’s the position of the county. So now, the topics been before you for about a little bit over a couple of months now. I know you want to know, what are your options as you go forward. So I see it that you really have three options. I’m talking about whether they're good, bad or indifferent, but the options themselves are if you do nothing, in other words, you decide we've heard everything we want to hear about it. And we just don't care to change what we got. The implication would be that the status quo would remain the same. And the interpretation that the county has right now is prospecting, commercial prospecting would not be allowed. But that's your first option, just do nothing. Let it ride and then boning on… would have to take additional action if the violation or perceived violation to make a determination in the proper way to bring an end to that. A second thing you could do, is you and it ultimately resides on you, though we'll talk about procedure a little bit later here. You can say, okay, we don't have any heartburn with it. We don't think we need to worry about it. We don't want to have any control over it. You can permit it as a use by right. In other words, to do that, you've got to make a zoning text amendment. You'd go down into the A-1 area, and where you have permitted things that you can do by right, you'd need to put language in there that would allow this operation to continue. And with the Planning Commission, we talked about a little variation, there was some concern was a way to make people register if they did that. And just register. I won't go into that tonight because that's sort of a different discussion. Well, that's a second thing you can do. The zoning text amendment to allow commercial prospecting, maybe different words to occur as a matter by right. In other words, they don't have to do anything come and go to work, do whatever they want to do. The third option would be to go into… it requires a zoning text amendment, would be to go into the A-1 district or any other district you wanted this to occur for any of these. You wanted to do by right use and he wanted to be allowed another district you could make that zoning text amendment and those districts too. And you would amend down where it says uses that are permitted with the use permit or special use permit, you would amend that to say it would be allowed with a permit and again, whether you call it a commercial prospecting, whatever, we come up with a some discussion going on and maybe geotechnical, boring or exploring or those types of things might be a way we want to go. So the general pattern would be do nothing. Make it a right, where people can do it without having to do anything. Have them apply for a special use permit. And to do that you'd make your text amendment in the zoning ordinance at that place. Now, what's the path forward? You know your options. Well, while all the amendments if you do a text amendment comes ultimately back to you. All zoning stuff, passes through the Planning Commission. They can adopt and say, hey, we want you to look at this and you can look at it referred back to them or you can say Planning Commission, take a look at this. And you can do that independent of each other. But ultimately it's gonna go back to the Planning Commission and then back up to you. The path you're choosing appears that you're choosing, you're gonna have a work session with them to sort of get a temperature of the water hear the information, get some ideas of a way you want to go. When you're holding those joint hearings, that’s sort of saying, you to the Planning Commission, the Board saying to the Planning Commission, we want you to look at this thing. Now it can go back to the Planning Commission with specific directions. And they can say we've studied it. We don't think that's a good idea, here's our report. And then you get to decide really what you want to do with it. You can stay with the original plan, you can modify your plan, you can do nothing, and you come back to that type of arrangement. All those paths are gonna have to go through the Planning Commission, with ultimately the Board of Supervisors in control. It's gonna require a public hearing in the planning commission. It's gonna require public hearing by the board. That can be a joint public hearing. What I would ask that you be thinking about, is when you have this work session, that you've agreed to be a part of next Monday night, you begin to formulate what you really want the Planning Commission to look at. And whether you want to continue to have a joint public hearing with them, once you decide what you want them to look at. The advantage of that you all hear the same thing at the same time. So Monday night, you're gonna gather information. You need to consider whether you want to continue to work jointly with the Planning Commission. And I don't mean this in a negative way, whether you want your own meetings, whether you want to have joint meetings with the Planning Commission, to get some direction of what you really want to put out for the public to come comment on. And once they come comment on it, you're not bound specifically to the language to use. There is some flexibility once you get the public comments, you can craft your language a little differently. But as I say the information on the agenda item is a lot broader than what I want to talk about tonight. Try to answer any questions that you have. But that's about what I have for this part, Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Thank you, Mr. Wright. Really appreciate that. Wright: Thank you. Re: VACO Executive Director Dean Lynch: Recognition of Supervisor Joe N. Chambers, Jr. for his service of over 30 years on the Buckingham County Board of SupervisorsCarter: Yes, Mr. Chairman, that presentation will be in December. What that is about Supervisor Chambers has served on the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors for 30 years. So the Executive Director of Virginia Association of Counties will come to present him with a plaque of recognition.Re: Dr. Daisy Hicks, Division Superintendent, Buckingham County Public School System: Consider request of School Board for budget adjustments due to changes in state and federal fundingDr. Hicks: Good evening. Mr. Chairman, Board of Supervisors, I’ll start off with thank you for providing the Wi Fi hotspot to our students. It has been a tremendous step with our teachers in providing synchronous virtual instruction during this time. They have been very appreciative. So I just want to first start off with thanking you all for that. We are requesting approval of the fiscal year 21 budget update. This is a routine budget update regarding our budget to include changes in federal grant from the original adoption back in May.Carter: To make it clear, this is the budget that we are operating in right now.Chambers: They want approval to transfer funds. Right?Miles: Right. The request is, Mr. Chairman to approve the transfer of funds right? I'll second it, Mr. Chairman, if I can find a button.Carter: And this is mainly to revise the present budget there and right now. Changes in federal and state money.Bryant: What’s the pleasure of the Board?Matthews: We have a motion and a second to adjustments for the current fiscal year, right? So we need to take the vote.Bryant: I guess we do.Bryan: Looks like a lot of grants. Carter: If you're looking at categories, you see that Instruction, the adjustment as an additional $587,046. And your Administration, Attendance and Health is an increase of $453,077, Transportation is an increase of $40,884, Operations and Maintenance is an increase of $179,001. And Technology is an increase of $478,869. And again, that’s state and federal money, not local money.Bryant: We need to adopt that budget now.Carter: Yes, sir. You need to approve the amendments.Bryant: Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any other comments? Call for the vote then. Supervisor Chambers moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the requested changes to the FY21 budget for federal and state funds.Re: Dr. Daisy Hicks, Superintendent: Discussion of savings due to the pandemic and request for contract employees 2% bonus with the exception of Board members and SuperintendentCarter: Dr. Hicks, if you want to, if you will address the second request for the FY 20 ending year balance money.Hicks: Second request is we have $579,000 in savings from the closure last year as outlined in the document you have in front of you. Of that $579,000 we would like to propose to request $279,000 of that money back to provide all contract employees with the exception of myself at one time 2% bonus.Matthews: I've got a couple questions. Bryant: Okay. Go right ahead, Mr. Matthews.Matthews: Dr. Hicks. This is Don Matthews, District 3. I'm just curious. First thing is we haven’t even reached the halfway point of this year, this school year and you want to give a bonus. Why? What reasoning is that for?Hicks: This $579,000 was from last year's money. Not this years. It is based on the fact that the employees did not get the 2% raise that we had projected for them to give us a budget. So we just thought in honor of them and all of their hard work and effort that they've shown throughout this year and throughout the years. They would appreciate that onetime 2% bonus.Matthews: I have one other question. Typically, when you give a bonus, is that money counting towards their Virginia retirement? Why would you not want to give them a raise, a 2% raise instead of a bonus because that way that money would count towards their Virginia Retirement?Hicks: And that would cause a lot more than $279,000.Matthews: What are you basing the 2% on?Hicks: Their salary they are currently making now.Carter: I believe you are saying the bonus would be a onetime expenditure where a 2% raise would be recurring. Hicks: Exactly, yes.Matthews: Well, that leads to another question. You are half way through the year and you’ve got over ? a million dollars which you have already saved from when the schools closed. What date does that run through? What period of time is this?Hicks: This is was up June 30th of last year. This is not coming off of this year’s budget. Matthews: Okay, so you saved this much money in three months? Is that what you're telling me?Hicks: Yes, sir. Matthews: All right. So my question to you would be, if you go to December, how much more money are you going to save? And that way, you could give them a raise of 2% and it will still count towards their retirement instead of a onetime situation. And you could also freeze the raise for next year, if you give it to them this year. I just think you're wasting money by not putting it in their retirement system.Hicks: Basically, I was just trying to save some money. But if that's something you all wanted to take a look at, I'll be more than happy to look into it. We wanted give them something with the bonus that we knew we had already saved from last year.Matthews: I don’t like to give someone a bonus when they haven't completed the year in task.So I mean, that's my question. So anybody else has anything else? I'll turn the floor over to them.Chambers: I don’t have no problem with it. But you know, she had to give a bonus for the employees. But I look at that 2%, I would like to see them…I look at the bus drivers and the cafeteria workers. If a person making $50- 60,000 they would get a right good bonus, and the person under that, the little man, he’s going to be kind of stuck in the hole? I would like to see them give a one amount bonus for everybody. Same amount of money all across the board. See what I’m saying?Bryan: Include non-contracted employees. Chambers: Right. What we did one time, we had done that 2% too, and the little people was really getting nothing compared with the high salaries. So we reconsidered on the personnel committee, and I was on the Personnel Committee to give everybody at one time bonus of the same thing right across the board. One figure. That's something I would like you take a look at.I think is a good thing to recognize your employee. When people do good job they deserve it.I agree about it. I think you should do and I appreciate you, applaud you for doing it. Well, I'm just looking at the small people that are not making as much others. That's all I'm saying. You understand what I'm saying? If you give up a one figure to everybody. What I'm saying is this, Dr. Hicks, if Jordan was making $60,000 a year and I was making 15,000-$20,000 a year, look what he will get versus what I will get at 2%. You see what I'm saying? If you give me and Jordan $500, both of us get $500. I think that’s fair. That's all I'm saying.Hicks: That's perfectly fine. Chambers: Okay, thank you.Bryan: Mr. Chairman. I'd like to see him add the non-contracted employees as well. Chambers: That is what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm talking about everybody. The school bus drivers and the cafeteria workers and all those. You know, the whole fleet I'm talking about.Miles: Dr. Hicks, if I could ask a question, what percentage of the school staff are non- contracted versus contracted?Hicks: About 34.Miles: Percent?Hicks: 34 people that are non-contracted.Chambers: I’d like to see them included.Hicks: There are 34 people that are non-contracted that work full time. Carter: I wouldn't want to put you on the spot. But do you know right off the number of total employees, you have including bus drivers, everyone.Hicks: It is over 300.Miles: I'd add to what, Mr. Chairman, I'd add to what Supervisor Chambers said. I definitelythink that the teachers have worked very hard along with the parents. And, you know, we can, I'm sure the school board is addressing that, hopefully in a very meaningful way. But there's no doubt that the teachers and the school bus drivers, and the cafeteria workers and the paraprofessionals, and all those folks have been working hard and deserve to be recognized. Dr. Hicks, could I ask you a question related to the schools in terms of what the… I know a lot of parents and a lot of folks that we've heard from or have questions about the reopening of the schools? Could you update us on that? Please?Hicks: Do you want me to talk about that before you all vote on what we’ve been talking about?Chambers: I'm saying I'm all in favor what you're doing? I think it's a great idea, but I'm just saying it, you know, to bring other people in on it too. Matthews: I think I think the wise thing to do would be to come back with some figures to our board on, I mean, I don't want to fly by the seat of my pants here. I'd like to have some concrete information on what you're talking about dollar wise.Chambers: What are you talking about Mr. Matthews, bringing it back to the next board meeting? Matthews: Yes. I mean, yes. Chambers: Can you do that Dr. Hicks?Hicks: What am I bringing back? Am i dividing the $279,000 into the number of employees?Bryan: Yes.Hicks: Is that what you want me to do?Carter: I get a little over $800.Miles: Did non-contracted staff work during the pandemic, Dr. Hicks?Chambers: They had to clean his schools.Miles: Some did some didn't. Chambers: I think you should bring everybody on board.Allen: You want to wait for a numbers or just divide the $279,000 between everybody.Chambers: I think the $279,000 for each, right Mrs. Carter?Carter: We could divide it up to make sure it's the exact number but that's an average I think.300 times 800 it comes to 240,000. So that's close.Chambers: So that’s about $800 a piece roughly.Miles: That's with non-contracted, right Mrs. Carter?Chambers: Everybody.Miles: Okay. Sure. I just didn't hear okay.Bryant: We have a motion here. Motioned by Mr. Chambers, seconded by Mr. Miles.Bryan: I have a question. Bryant: Yes, sir.Bryan: Dr. Hicks. I've searched and searched and searched and I can't find it anywhere in the amended budget it doesn't look like they have proposed a teacher pay raise. In fact, it looks like they froze everything. Is that what you're getting out of the amended budget from the governor?Hicks: That's exactly what I'm getting. Yes. They've frozen all of the raises and increases that we're looking at for teachers.Bryan: And from the little bit that I could gather, it's frozen in 2022 as well, because he doesn't want to commit himself based on the economy right now.Hicks: Yes, that's what it is as of right this minute now. No, they're talking with the legislators and I've met with them today and last week, and expressed my concern about teacher pay, pay up to the national level as well as I mentioned to them even with insurance you know, they treat us as Virginia State employees, new VRS but we did not get the benefits that the regular state employees get with health insurance. All of that information is being presented to them and see what happens when they meet again in January, February time.Bryan: Good luck on that fight. I've been fighting that one for years. But good luck. Hopefully we can fight together for different ends. So is there a motion on the floor for that? Bryant: Are we going to except this 2%. Bryan: Mr. Chairman, that we take the money that is being proposed for the bonus and split it equally among the employees across the board to include non-contracted employees, as well. I'll second the motion.Bryant: Any discussion on it? Miles: Can I ask one question? I mean, I do have I… before I vote on this, I would like to know what the reopening plan is for our schools if there is one.Bryan: Jordan, the school board's not going to meet again until… at the last meeting, they voted to stay closed until the first semester is over. So they will address the situation, hopefully at the end of the first semester. And that depends on what the COVID count is going to be. I do know that that like Cody presented, I saw today where the state average is ticked up to 6.2%. At one time, we were down to 4.7%. So, you know, it depends on how safe we are in the community. Whether or not you know we can safely reopen based on the COVID count.Bryant: Does that answer your question, Mr. Miles?Miles: Yes, in part it did.Bryant: Motion to give the school employees divide the $279,000 into the school employees down to the non-contract workers. That correct?Bryan: Yes, sir.Bryant: Question all that? Call for the vote.Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Chambers seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve for the schools to take the $279,000 requested and divide it equally between all employees even the non-contracted employees.Hicks: We really appreciate that. Thank you.Re: Consider appointments to the Board of Building Code OfficialsBryant: How many of them need to be appointed?Carter: All of them are vacant. Miles: Mr. Chairman, I did talk to Larry Haskins who lives in my district and he's willing to continue his service if that helps. Matthews: Is that a motion.Miles: Sure. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, so I would move that we reappoint Larry B Haskins, for the term that is noted for Board of the Building Code Appeals.Bryant: I know Gordon Rush can’t do it because he’s dead. Miles: I can’t do it because I’m on the Board.Chambers: Can we do that next month?Carter: Yes, sir.Bryan: Why don't we just wait and come back next month with 1, 2, and 3,4,5,6 names.Carter: They do not have to reside in the district that you're appointing. If you have a difficult time.Miles: But take my name off at least.Carter: We have to take your name off because you're on the board. So we need a replacement for that though.Bryant: So we will come back with the name of our next meeting.Re: Consider appointment/reappointment to the Industrial Development Authority for District 3Bryant: Jeffery Steffers is on there now.Matthews: So I think you'll do it again. I'd like to reappoint him. I’d like to make the motion to reappoint Bryant: Is there a second?Miles: I'll second it. Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Motion made and a second to reappoint Jeffery Steffers to the Industrial Development Authority. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Vice Chairman Matthews moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to reappoint Jeffery Steffers to the Industrial Development Authority for a term that will end December 31, 2024.Re: Cody Davis, Emergency Services Director: Update regarding Rescue Squad transition to take place December 15, 2020.C. Davis: Thank you. Okay. Good evening. Again, gentlemen, and I'll make this quick.Just in regards to the transition. We're still moving mountains, things are going well. Mrs. Carter is gonna key on something here in a minute. That's a pretty important item. And then Mr. Wright will have another important item within his update. But while I'm here, the first thing I'd like to talk to you guys about is the Glenmore station renovation project. I gave you guy’s three different items just now. The first would be a memo more or less from Mrs. Carter and Mr. Wright and myself, suggested allocation for utilizing the design build approach to contract with the firm for those renovations. And you can read the specifics about why we have come to the opinion that design build is the best approach. But and then to follow that it is pretty much the exact same thing except for we specifically state that the contractor would be the Jameson and Lewis company to complete the design build of that Glenmore station and more or less ends up being a turnkey project that they would turn out for us aside from the county has a statutory requirement to secure its own architectural design individual under direct contract for consulting reasons. And I think we're able to utilize the exact same individual that you utilize for the library project. So any questions we'll knock out those items.Okay, and then the last thing to follow all of that up would be a resolution from you guys to authorize us to proceed with the design build and construction management contracts that Mr. Wright is working with.Wright: All three items before you but there is an order of adoption that I would ask that you give to those. If you adopt the resolution as county policy to use design build. You've got to have that in place before you can move forward. After you adopt the resolution, then you need specifically for this project to find the justification appropriate to use design build and this particular project. And then finally, the other one would be the justification to move forward with Jameson-Lewis. So there is the property before you but there is a particular order that I'd ask you to consider in.Carter: You gave them to them in an order I believe.Allen: Motion to approve the resolution. Matthews: Second. Bryant: Motion made and a second that we approve the resolution. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Allen moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the resolution to make it county policy to use design build.Davis: Thank you. And the last two items that I would update you guys on at this time would be all of the assets of the rescue squad are now assets of the county with a use agreement in place for them to continue doing business until December 15. And then lastly, we've secured a contract signed by both parties DRT and us for them to continue to provide staffing services for 18 and a half months that we all discussed and you all approved at the last board meeting. Any questions on any of that?Carter: We’ve got to vote on the next two things.Allen: I make a motion to accept the design bill. Miles: I'll second it Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Motion made and seconded to accept the design build. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Allen moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to accept the design build from Jameson-Lewis for the Glenmore squad building.Allen: Make a motion to move forward with the bids you have.Matthews: Second.Bryant: Motion made and second to move forward with the contract for the Glenmore squad building. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Allen moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to move forward with the contract for the Glenmore squad building.Re: Cody Davis, Consider appropriation of Virginia Fire Programs grant of $11,445.87Davis: So the next item that I'm up for would be the request for you guys to appropriate some funding from Virginia Department of Fire Programs. They granted us a grant to complete some repairs to the training facility, the burn building. We've gotten the work completed. Things were turned in and submitted and they've awarded us the funds in the amount of $11,445.87.Allen: I make a motion that we accept.Bryant: Okay. That's what it is cost us?Davis: To complete those repairs. Yes, sir. Carter: That's all grants. So.Bryant: We got a motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Allen moved, Supervisor Bryan seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to appropriate the $11,445.87 grant received from the Virginia Department of Fire Programs for repairs to the burn building.Re: Rebecca Carter, Rescue Squad Committee Transition: Consider Rescue Squad Committee to transition to the Emergency Services Committee and Consider the authorities of this committeeBryan: Cody, don’t go anywhere. What the update on the squads?Davis: Yes, they are almost complete. I got a great production report a couple of days ago. They look like they're almost road ready. Now. Just a few final touches. It sounds like we're slated to travel down there to the factory, the week of December the 14th to do our final inspection. That'll be a busy week. It'll be our go live date and also when we get to see those for the first time. I'll be happy to share that report with any of you guys that would like to see it. Bryan: Thank you. Carter: The board meeting will be the eve of the transition. Final transition. Yes, the next item is sometime back the Board of Supervisors did appoint a Rescue Squad Committee to work with the volunteer rescue squad regarding finances and to try to help the squad get more volunteers. That committee is Vice Chairman Matthew, Supervisor Allen, the president and vice president of volunteer rescue squad, Cody Davis, Mr. Wright, Karl Carter and myself. Now, but now this service has become the Buckingham County Emergency Services Department, I do believe we need to transition this committee appropriately. So I would recommend that the committee title be changed to the Emergency Services Committee. This committee would oversee the Buckingham County Emergency Services as it relates to the operation of emergency medical services. And just to make it clear, this does not oversee the volunteer fire department. I state this because of course, we've had some inquiries that possibly that that would be taken place. And we want to clear that we appreciate our volunteer fire departments and, and that's not in in in the cards right now. Presently, the fire department do have a quarterly meeting with Mr. Davis, Mr. Carter and the four fire chiefs and someone from dispatch. So I think that's a good way that they're communicating with each other. And I think the new Emergency Services Committee should consist of only county officials and staff. If you wish to leave the same board members on the committee, it will be all the rescue squad committees listed above, with the exception of representatives from the volunteer rescue squad. If this is to be a standing committee, the By-Laws will need to be revised to add this committee to the list of standing committees that the Board considers every year with the adoption of the By-Laws. By-Laws can be revised anytime a year at the discretion of the Board of Supervisors. Also, I would like for you to consider the authority of this committee. For example, the public utilities committee and solid waste committees have the authority to interview hire, suspend terminate employees so that their departments, they also have the authority set the salaries as long as the money is available in the budget. Any changes in total budget would have to be approved by the full board. So I asked at this time, if you do establish this committee. And if you establish this as a setting committee, also, do you want to extend the same authority to this committee? Or do you want this committee to have all actions, including recommendations of hiring and everything to come back to the pool Board of Supervisors? Chambers: I think they should. That we should give it the authority to hire and fire. Miles: It's like you said Mrs. Carter. It mimics the authority of the water I mean, the of the utilities committee. Right?Carter: So the action said that I would ask that you consider the motions to accomplish these steps. If you desire to do this would be first you consider the establishment of Emergency Service Committee. In place of the squad committee. Consider revising your By-Laws. If you do do that, consider revising your By-Laws to add this committee as a standing committee, you will not have to have a public hearing. Three, consider confirmed appointments to the committee and four, consider authority of this committee. Matthews: I make a motion.Carter: I think it would be good to have a motion for each item so that we have a clear record ofMotion.Chambers: So one motion for each item she discussed.Carter: You will have to make a motion to change the By-Laws and you have to take a motion for committee. You need to take action and motion for the authorities.I guess the first item would be for you to consider the establishment of an Emergency Services Committee.Bryant: Do we have a motion to establish the Emergency Services Committee.Bryan: I second that Mr. Chairman.Bryant: A motion and a second to establish the Emergency Services Committee. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Chambers moved, Supervisor Bryan seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to transition the Rescue Squad Committee to the Emergency Services Committee.Carter: The second order would be considered revising the By-Laws to add this committee as a standing committee.Miles: I move, Mr. Chairman. Bryant: Motion made and second to consider to the By-Laws this committee as a standing committee. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Miles moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to add the Emergency Services Committee as a standing committee to the By-Laws.Carter: The third item would be to consider appointments to the committee or confirm it as presented with the exception of the volunteer rescue squad members. I need a motion for considered for the performance to the committee.D. Davis: I'll make a motion.Miles: Second.Bryant: Motion made by Mr. Davis and a second by Mr. Miles. Any discussion? Miles: And we're gonna keep the same board members want it right. Mr. Chairman?Bryan: We keep the same. Yeah until January.Carter: This committee would be considered every January when you consider your By-Laws.Bryant: Any other discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Davis moved, Supervisor Miles seconded to confirm the same members to this committee with the exception of the volunteer squad’s president and vice president. These members are Vice Chairman Matthew, Supervisor Allen, Cody Davis, Mr. Wright, Karl Carter and Mrs. Carter. This motion passed with a 6-1 vote with Supervisor Allen abstaining.Allen: I'm on the committee. Bryan: One more. The motion should be that this committee should have the full authority as public utilities and solid waste for hiring, interviewing, suspending, terminating and adjusting the salaries. That's my motion.Bryant: Motion made and a second by Mr. Davis. Is there any other discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Davis seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to give the Emergency Services Committee the authority for hiring, interviewing, suspending, terminating and adjusting the salaries. Carter: I'd like to just take a moment to thank those on the squad committee. It's been a long time you've been working on this. And also working with Kerry Flippen, the president of the squad. We've had a lot of issues to overcome. And you've all worked hard and worked well together. And we appreciate what the volunteer rescue squad has tried to do with this. Bryant: It has been challenging, I know. Carter: It has been.Re: Lyn Hill, Solid Waste Manager: Consider closing of Waste Sites for ChristmasCarter: So notice that Mr. Hill is not here, but he is proposing…he has to find out if the landfill is closed both days.Bryan: Did he find out for sure if it was going to be closed the 24th?Carter: He was supposed to. Some of this stuff is just Christmas Day. Bryan: We talked about it. You know, he sent emails out to me because I'm on solid waste. And what he said was he wasn’t sure about the 24th. He knows that it's going to be closed Christmas Day. So we would close just the one site Christmas Day. Because right now it's an unrenovated site. That way no employees had to come out and unlock it, it would be closed. All others are our gated sites. People can get in them with the proper decal. If for some reason the landfill is closed the 24th as well, we have no choice but to close the sites, all sites because we wouldn't have a place to put the garbage. And currently we empty the sites daily. And if they're closed, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, there's no way to empty the sites. The stuff would be running everywhere. Carter: I think what we ran into last year was we just didn't give notice to people and people would come with their trucks loaded with trash. So I would further say that we could send out the telephone message, the red alert message, to everyone to let them know the Dillwyn site will be closed but the other sites will be open. Bryan: Unless the landfill is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.Miles: Could you maybe get it on the website to Mrs. Carter.Carter: If it's if the landfill is closed Christmas Eve …Bryan: And Christmas Day, then we have to close the sites that day. We have to close from what Lynn told me we would have to close the sites both days. Yeah, for one day. Yeah, Christmas Day they would all have to be closed because we would empty them Christmas Eve and then the trucks are full and there is no place to put it. Carter: So, all of them will be closed Christmas Eve.Bryan: Possibly Christmas Day? Carter: Yeah, I think he said the 25th but he didn't let me know for sure. Bryan: I'll shoot him an email as well tomorrow. And have him nail it down and ask him the scenario of what's the latest we can empty them? Can we empty the trucks the 23rd? Bryant: Late 23rd. Bryan: Yeah, late 23rd. And then we would empty the site the 24th. And we would only have to close for possibly one day.Carter: Christmas Day. All right. Bryan: I won’t know anything until I talk with Lyn. Carter: And it's what we thought that day is the only day we'll be close. So they can do early morning pickups on Christmas Eve. Take it to the landfill, then be home with their family on Christmas Eve night and home with their families on Christmas Day. Re: Consider application through the Commonwealth Regional Council for Fast Track Broadband funding to partner with MBCCarter: This certainly was a fast track funding thing and something that we were notified on to do on a fast track. So it's…we will turn this into the CRC and get what we can get out of it. We don't know yet. But this is also some more money that's available because of the pandemic. So we want to apply with the CRC and see what comes up with the region.Miles: Mr. Chairman, I move we approve the application as presented. Looks like it's going to improve access to about 600 homes and 69 businesses, which I think is excellent. If that goes through. Carter: I think this is to try to assist with that. But as we're finding out with the CARES money, because we've had this question a lot, and some of the COVID grant money, there's just not timing when you get you get a notice in October that you could get some money for broadband, but it's got to be built out by the end of December. It just isn't…I've made a request, many of us have made a request for an extension. You could possibly have a contract and not pay out till after that date. But that contract has to be the delay has to be at no fault of the local government. And you really couldn't have a design by that time. So this will be whatever they can do for us to help us. I don't think it's gonna even be a lot of money, but whatever they can do they help us. Miles: And it's 10%. Right, Becky?Carter: Yeah, yeah. That we would get 10% of the total. It'll be through the other six counties, maybe seven now with Cumberland.Miles: And I think the CRC has worked really hard on getting all this information to county staff. They ought to be commended.Bryant: Motion and second to consider the Commonwealth Regional Council Fast Track Broadband. Any discussion? Call for the vote. Supervisor Miles moved, Supervisor Allen seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to approve the application through the CRC for Fast Track Broadband funding to partner with MBC.Re: Other Board Matters Miles: Mr. Chairman. Regarding Anti-Litter, I distributed a copy of our most recent report from the meeting we had on everyone's desk and y'all can get with me if you have any questions or Lynn Hill who was there, but we do have someone who's interested. Liz Jones lives in District 1, and I've talked to Supervisor Davis, and he's, familiar with her. And I would offer a motion that we appoint Mrs. Jones to the Anti-Litter Task Force representing District 1.Matthews: Second.Bryant: Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Miles moved, Vice Chairman Matthews seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to appoint Liz Jones to the Anti-Litter Task Force.Bryant: Any other Board matters?Re: County Attorney MattersWright: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board. I have two matters that I’d like your direction on the first amount of deals with a request made from the McGuire Woods. As you may or may not know, McGuire Woods is served in bond counsel for the county for a number of years, and we've had a good working relationship with them. I had a request from one of the managing partners of the firm if they had been approached by Buckingham Land and Timber Company, asking them to represent them in regard to advising them concerning the onsite drilling by the company and on the land that it owns here in Buckingham County. They would be prohibited from doing that, unless you consent to allowing them to do that. It's not uncommon with a firm the size of McGuire Woods, that there are so many various departments, the bond department is probably the most isolated one of all, to have other people doing that, but they can't do it without your permission. They are not seeking a general wave of what they're asking for is a limited consent, that if at any time in the future, really, they should become totally adversarial and we go to court. And they would not be adversarial. They would not represent a party in an adversarial relationship and a court action against the county. What they want to do is appear administratively before hearings and otherwise and represent the Buckingham Land and Timber Company. But they can't do that without your consent. It's not uncustomary. But I don't have the authority. You are the client and you're the one that has to give them permission after they have disclosed you that information.Bryant: You heard what he said. Anyone make a motion to that effect?Carter: I don’t see a problem.Wright: The motion would be and I heard Mrs. Carter saying she doesn't see a problem and I don't see a problem with it either. I mean, they are advocates for their client. They said we are not limited if it comes down to ever go into court, they are not going to represent somebodyin court against the county. So if you agree with that, then I would ask that you make a motion to give McGuire Woods a call it a limited consent to represent Buckingham Land and Timber Company in regard to zoning requirements are related to on site drilling by that company.Bryan: That's my motion as presented. Miles: Second Bryant: Motion and second, any discussion? Call for the vote.Wright: Second item is Mr. Davis reported to you on what's happening with the Buckingham County rescue squad. I have two items in regard to that. One of which you authorized the purchase of a remainder interest. We have not been able to make that happen yet through no fault of anybody but the Prince Edward County Clerk's Office had to limit the number of people that could come into the clerk's office because of this pandemic. There are certain records in that clerk's office that I need to get and put on record and this clerk's office to complete the chain of title. I’m monitoring when I can get in there. So that will happen. But that does not hold up anything in regard to the transition of the services in providing the services by the county so I'll offer that to you as just as an update and why that hadn't been completed. The other item a little bit more delicate. We are engaged in discussion with the company who will do the billing to insurance companies and Medicare on behalf of the County. We are in the process of talking about a contract. We have gotten down to where there are issues to that. I need your direction so accordingly and I know the hour is late. And you've heard a lot of information. And I promise you a short discussion to go into Executive Session under 2.2- 3711.A.29 when the time comes, so we can talk about that model. It deals with negotiation of the contract and the expenditure of public funds. So when the appropriate time comes, if you could do that, I'd appreciate it if you choose not to do it, it really does bog things down and we might not be able to resolve some issues. So I appreciate it. Re: County Administrator’s ReportCarter: Yes, sir. The first item is a very nice thank you from the school board for the student hotspots. And then also thank you from Theresa's place for the CARES business grant. And they've expressed to you the appreciation situation they were in prior to getting that grant, kept them to been able to keep going.Miles: Absolutely, yeah, very gracious for what board has done for them.Edmondston: Comment from three other businesses. Cheryl White, Sherry Midkiff and Bruce Dunnavant expressed their sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Board of Supervisors as well for making that happen.Carter: The next item is cigarette tax workshop information update. Karl and I have started working on because we don't know how to do a cigarette tax increase. And a budget time we wanted to look at any aspect we could to bring in more revenue instead of real estate tax and personal property tax. We started with this workgroup to Virginia Association Counties. So we're gathering information and trying to learn more about this so that we'll know by budget time. It does seem to be more complicated than we would ever think. So Virginia Association of Counties is really helping to educate us. The next item, I wanted to give you an update on the Gold Hill School. I don't have it on the agenda. We will close that out November the 17th. Soas of November 17, the county will no longer own that building. And Mr. Christian is very eager to start the renovations to the building to get this business going. So we think that's a great thing. Last thing is the Personnel Committee recommendation report that we provided you. And as always, if you agree with it, you do not have to take action. If you don't agree, I would ask you to go into closed session to discuss.Re: Executive Closed SessionChambers: Before we go into closed session, I want to thank my friends from St. Thomas. They want to learn more about the county government. So they want to come over tonight. We're glad they came and I hope you got a better understanding how the county government operates. I hope you'll come back again. Thank you.Bryan: Mr. Chairman. I make a motion that we go into executive closed session under Section 2.2 -3711.A.29 Discussion of the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds, including interviews of bidders or offers and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract. Where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.Miles: Second, Mr. Chairman, Bryant: Motion and a second that we go into Executive Session.Bryan: I would also like to add in there, section 2.2- 3711.A.1 Discussions, consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment, appointment promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific public officers, appointees or employees of any public body and evaluation of performance of departments.Bryant: You heard the motion. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to enter into Executive Closed Session under the above stated Codes.Re: Return to Regular SessionBryan: Mr. Chairman, I move that we return to open session and certification that to the best of each board members knowledge, only business matters related to the codes of which the executive meeting was convened was discussed or considered in the closed executive session. Miles: Second, Mr. Chairman.Bryant: Motion and second to return to regular session. Any discussion? Call for the vote.Supervisor Bryan moved, Supervisor Miles seconded and was unanimously carried by the Board to return to regular session and certification of business discussed.Re: Recess to reconveneBryant: We will recess to reconvene on the 16th at 6:00 p.m.There being no further business to discuss, Chairman Bryant recessed the meeting to reconvene on November 16, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. for a joint work session with the Planning Commission.ATTEST:_______________________________________________________________Rebecca S. CarterHarry W. Bryant, Jr.County AdministratorChairman ................
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