The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Diantha McKeel Joined Ned Gallaway & Jerry Miller On “Real Talk” On The I Love CVille Network!

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Diantha McKeel of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors joined Ned Gallaway of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors & Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali and YES Realty Partners.

Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Civo Network on a show that airs live on every social media platform possible. Today's program encourages you, the viewer and listener, to chime in and help shape the conversation. That's what makes the network the water cooler of Central

Virginia. You can determine where we go. Keith Smith, the star of Real Talk with Keith Smith, is currently driving up the Eastern Seaboard. He's heading to Connecticut where he's going to spend some time with his grandbabies and also on Sunday ride in a big-time bike race to raise money for charity. Keith Smith is a passionate cyclist and certainly a gentleman that loves to give back to communities, not just locally, but nationally as well. So Keith, we miss you, my friend. Have no fear though, Ned Galloway and Diantha McKeel are here. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera. If you could go to the studio camera and then welcome Diantha and Ned on a three shot. First we start with the dapper, Ned Galloway.

Look at the ensemble today, Diantha. He's looking quite sharp today. He always looks sharp. He does look sharp. I have to give Ned Galloway props. He's always dressed well. When you sit in Keith's chair though, Keith is the one that always.

He's always looking sharp. Always looking sharp. So I was like, oh, I'm sitting in Keith's chair today Got a better put that I didn't have I didn't have you know, I don't wear the vans, but I have It's like all right. I think I do see an Alamo County So that's good I saw the same that's also got a fresh haircut Maybe we encourage him to make a special announcement as well fresh haircut, maybe we encourage him to make a special announcement as well. But first, Ned, I'll get out of your way here. Kind of give us your vision of what you are seeing

for the show today. Oh, well, you know, Keith, as Keith has done in the past, I've been fortunate enough to sit in this chair a few other times with Neil and, you know, he always is gracious and says, let's, you know, you get to choose how we want to do that. And I thought, you know what? Supervisor McKeel has been my great friend and long-serving colleague, both on the school board and the board of supervisors.

And this is her final year of election. It'll be her 28th and final year. And I thought, what better thing to do than to sit down and look at, relative to the fact that this is a realtor and we talk housing and things on the show, but look over the 28 years and think of how things change from your first year to the year now and talk about stuff that's happened in the county and I think that would be of interest to folks.

That's where I think we'll be. I'm sure some things will come up that we'll have to address. But this is more about let's talk about, you know, let's look backward perspective and then how does that relate to the present and then what Diantha thinks and sees coming in the future. So, I mean, we'll take these in small bites. We won't do it all at one time. Well, and I say to Ned, often we're partners in crime.

We have been partners in crime for a long time. But I will stress that I'm not sure I remember what I did yesterday, Ned. So when you're talking about- Oh, you've got a great memory. I'll say this, Jerry. In 2009, I got motivated to run for the school board. And I was sitting in the auditorium of Lane Auditorium attending a school board meeting. And when you first run and nobody knows who you are, like who's this guy, whatever, a

lot of times they just look at you from around the room. Well, at the time, school board member McKeel, Diantha came up to me at a break and introduced herself, asked who I was, and that, I remember that. That was our first introduction initiated by you, and then I was a fixture in that auditorium for school board meetings for a long time until I finally won the race I had.

But I always appreciated the fact that, you know, of all the different people that were in that auditorium and feeling like a stranger, that Diantha made me feel welcome. And I always appreciated that. And I will just add that it's really important, as people announce that they're running for a position, an elected position, that they attend meetings and get to know the concerns and what people are thinking and what's on the table and the issues. That's really important. Wholeheartedly endorse that.

I would love to throw kind of the flip book of your service with Almar County to the viewers and listeners because it's not just 28 years on the board of supervisors. It's also time on the school board here. So kind of give us that flip book of when you first chose to get civically engaged. What motivated you? What inspired you? Where you were at your time of life then? And then kind of give us the chapters of your civic duty. Yeah. Well, I was in my late 40s. I was had been appointed to the Elmar County Health Advisory Board. And I was interested in

that work because I was a nurse, and there was still rampant smoking in the schools and on the school campuses. And so that was my involvement. And then the Jewett District was the last district to come on board with an elected supervisor, because we had a rolling cycle. And the current sitting supervisor,

who is Karen Powell, many people will know Karen, called me and said, I am not interested in running for election, why don't you run for my seat. And this was school board. This was school board now, right, 28 years ago, well 29, 28 years ago. And so I tossed my hat in the ring. But I think really it was a health issue to answer your direct question.

I was interested because I really thought that our schools should be smoke-free. I didn't know that. Yeah. And actually, that's what happened. It took a while. I also didn't know that it was the rolling. You're saying because school boards

used to be appointed in the. Yeah. And that was. Well, what that it was the rolling you're saying because school boards used to be appointed in the yeah And that was well what was rolling was the supervisor and Karen did not want to run as the sitting supervisor She'd been appointed and she didn't want to run for reelection. Yeah, so why what motivates you to transition from school board to board? Supervisors I think was an opportunity Karen was not running and I saw it as an opportunity to serve the community. And I'll be honest, the other driving concern I had, I also taught school.

So I was first a school teacher and then a nurse at UVA. I was very concerned about public education in this country because I'd been watching for years the threat to public education and how people were, for lack of a better word, dissing public education, the lack of funding that was going into public education. So that was my, one of the other driver that I had for being, running for school board. Well, I remember when, so when I was elected in 2011 to be the at-large member, then I had the opportunity to serve on the school board with Diantha.

And I remember the transition and I remember being thrilled when you chose to run for the board of supervisors when Dennis Rooker retired. And that was the same situation. Dennis called me and said, I'm not running for supervisor, so different board here. And he said, why don't you run for my seat? And I kept saying, no, no, no, I love education. And he called me, I don't know how many times he finally called me, and finally he just, I just gave in.

But I will say, let's go back to the school piece because an interesting data point that people don't know, when I was elected 28 years ago to the school board, the state of Virginia was funding education at about 70 percent, a little over 70 percent. Today they're funding at 30 percent. So if you think about that, so the localities in Virginia have had to step up into that vacuum to fund their public education. And you think about Alamaro County right now, government gives, provides to the schools about 60 percent of their funding. Well that's because if you think about it, the large amount is because we've

gone from 70, over 70% of funding from the state to now 30% of funding from the state. Think about who you elect. Yeah, every time they, and that takes your local dollars away from being able to be used somewhere else. And every time they do any sort of unfunded mandate down from the state. And recently in the last what, four or five, six years, the state will want to do a teacher raise, but they only give the raise to the SOQ positions. So if you have a division and you have, you know, positions that aren't specifically those SOQ positions,

like maybe you have a full-time school nurse instead of a half-time. Maybe you have an, in Albemarle, we like to have an assistant principal in every single building. That's not required. So if you have a small school that's based on population, you can maybe have a part-time if any. And what are you going to do? Not give them the raise? But then that comes out of your own pocket. So it seems like the state's funding it, but really they're only they're doing a percentage on the dollar of what they're supporting. And that's part of what drives, right now for us, real estate tax rates, right?

Which is good news. And if you think about it, the 4 cents that we just voted supported, that included even additional funding for schools over what our formula was because of the need. So, and it's another reason in Virginia, it's very frustrating in Virginia for me, because what happens is as the localities have

to fund education, education is provided to students in Virginia by zip code, because Alamaro County has been able to step up to the plate. But if you go down to Southwest or South Side, they just don't have the money in the, so we are really funding education in Virginia by zip code. Hence, what I was concerned about 28 years ago, came to fruition and why I actually ran for school board

the first time as a part of why I ran. And at Vaco, when we go to Vaco, like the whole one centcent sales tax piece that folks around the state have been trying to get the General Assembly and the governors vetoed it now what, twice? Twice, yep. When you go to Vaco, because a lot of times when you're in politics, you're thinking are Republicans, Democrats, that sort of thing.

Oh, well only certain members think that. And Vaco is Virginia. Association of counties. But when we go down there, it doesn't matter what the politics of a school board or a board of supervisors is. They all are interested in having this one cent sales tax piece for their because of this reason,

because things have underfunded for so long. And it's like, give us the ability, one, to make the decision so the voters can vote on it, because it must be done by referendum first. And then if your community supports it, then we should have it as a tool. And yet, what we hear from the governor's office is, we're not going to even give you permission

to ask your voters. To have a vote. Right, right. So to put in perspective what they're talking about, there's some talk and it's been going on for a while. And then we'll get to the questions that are coming in, that an additional one cent of sales tax could be allocated directly to schools. And localities are asking, because it's a Dillon Rule state, localities are asking to have the ability to have their citizens vote to see if they

want to do this. But it's not operational for schools. It is construction for capital. Right. Because many of the schools in Virginia are 50 years and older. operational for schools, it is construction for capital. Because many of the schools in Virginia are 50 years and older. Of course, of course. And the governor right now has disallowed that twice. And some folks have said this would be an across aisle topic

where it would unify Democrats and Republicans alike because we're doing it on behalf of schools. And I think there's probably a lot of truth to that. Chris Fairchild's watching the program. Flavanna County supervisor, we love when Chris watches the show. You got two on council and two on Nelson County's board of supervisors watching right now. The similarities with you guys and on paper are very tangible. School board, right? Then to supervisors. You both, you, can we say pursuing another term? Can I say that? I will officially tell you now I'm running for re-election. I have dodged that question. It's not a secret, I don't think at this point, but I've not done an official announcement. We should have done a drum roll.

Why don't we take a moment here, Nat Galloway, you want to make a statement here? I'm simply stating that this will be my run for a third term for the Rio District seat. I am looking forward to it and I hope the voters of the district will give me that opportunity to serve again. Still got plenty of things I'd like to do on my to‑do list as a supervisor. But at this point I've attended a candidate forum as a candidate. I've said I've just not done any sort of big press release or some of the stuff you do to roll it out.

But you know what? This is a great place to be able to announce officially that I am running for re-election. And after all these years you're going to miss me. I am going to miss Diantha. So Diantha, the beauty of Supervisor McKeel, this quick little tangent, is that, you know, everybody presumes since we are our current board of supervisors of one party that we're just going to agree on everything. Now, Diantha and I have agreed on a lot of things

over the years, but when we haven't, we've always remained in the ability to be able to say, and Diantha, to her credit, void, direct, you don't, there's no guessing with Supervisor McKeel. You know where she's at, you know what she thinks, and she understands that when she talks directly to people that behind that is being clear is kind. There's nothing you can do in doing anything but being direct. It's not kind to do to people. So when Supervisor McKeel and I though, when we do disagree on issues, you have to remain, you know,

we always have retained that respect for one another and be able to just talk it through and be like, all right, well then we agree to disagree. We can't get there. But in that, you know, it stood out. I mean, it's been on the supervisors and the school board I think we've had at times where we've disagreed on different issues.

But I think people need, local officials, regardless of their party right now, and I think this is true around Virginia, a lot of other boards are the opposite, right? They're all Republican. But most understand that, look, when you disagree, you should do it in a way where you're not creating bad feelings amongst everybody. Like I see that in our surrounding counties. It's like, don't get into this where you're not creating bad feelings amongst everybody. Like I see that in our surrounding counties.

It's like don't get into this where you're taking it where some of the, where clearly the national politics, where they stand and then even some level with the state. But you just can't do that. That's not good for anybody. I would jump in. Congratulations on your announcement. Absolutely. I would jump in right now and this is a little tangent on my part,

but one of the great where we are right now, and this is a little tangent on my part, but one of the great, where we are right now with the city and the county and the university is one of the best places that I remember from my 28 years. We have now a city manager and a county executive who are working together, talking, and we have the president at the University of Virginia with Jim Ryan, and those three individuals meet every 60 days, and they talk about issues, they figure out what is best for our entire community,

not just the city or the county or the university, and that is a sea change from where we were 28 years ago when I was first elected. So I just want to send a shout out to Sam and Jeff and Jim, because this is really important for people to realize. I think that I hear all the time, why don't you all ever talk to each other? Well, not only do the boards talk to each other,

in Almera County, the chair and the vice chair meet monthly with the mayor and vice mayor. So we're all talking and working together much more than we ever used to, and I think that it's worthy of the community understanding that. Put in perspective what it was like 28 years ago. Oh, well, I used to say to people,

when I was on the school board and early on on the board of supervisors, the hardest thing that I do is work with trying to work with the city and the county. I'm not kidding. I'm sorry, city and the university. Because you know, it's so easy to be in silos. Silos happen. And I will say, and this is me being very honest, one of the problems that I had,

especially with on the school board was that because the city is all at large, you know, when you're elected to a district or an area, you have a responsibility to that area and you get to know those folks in your area. When everybody represents everybody, there's less accountability. And I'm not saying that the city is not accountable, I'm just saying that the process, the structure is different. And so when I was on the school board, I would have my neighborhoods would be split by the city and City was over here on one side of the road and I had a representation on the other side and it was hard to get

The attention from someone from the city to meet with me to have a joint. Do you sure? Yeah And I think it's also fair to say that and this is what I sensed when we had our overlap on the school board, I think over the years Supervisor McKeel has always tried to get local government and the school division to work better. In the same fashion of what you're talking about with the city and UVA. That was not always the case. We had silos.

So it's those silos. When I was at the university, there were silos within the university, there were silos between county schools and county government. Matter of fact, when we first hired Jeff Richardson, Jeff laughs and says that one of the first things you said to me, Diantha, was we need to figure out how to work better with the schools. Because getting, and that's one of the, I guess to get back to what Ned was talking about earlier, that's one of the things that I am the proudest of is that I have really worked to break down walls and get people out of silos, whether it's getting the chamber together with Almar County Public Schools over workforce development or school system and county government together or city and county

together. You know, I really should just network and get people together because you really get a lot more done if you're sitting around a table talking or over lunch. Right. Right. Yeah. You got a lot of comments coming in. I want to highlight a friend of the program, Donna Price, former supervisor watching the show. And since I saw that Donna was watching the show, it got me thinking of something that she said

while sitting in the chair, and that's sitting in right now. Ravana, future, it's Ravana Station, is gonna be the most significant driver of the economy in Alamora County history, save the University of Virginia. The University of Virginia's founding and significance here in Alamora County. Put in perspective what you guys did, Diantha,

and then buying land in the northern aspect of Alamora County to strengthen or to put a a foothold for the the government sector the defense sector in Alamaro and why that was so important for Alamaro County moving forward. I'll just frame a little bit and then you can take over. So I don't think people realize that obviously the University of Virginia is the largest employer in our community. The Department of Defense is the second largest. 1.3 billion dollar impact. I was just going to say, they have 3,000 employees

and 1.3 billion dollars. Now that's not just to the investment or returns to the city and the county, that's the region. Region. But that is an incredible footprint and critical to our economy, right? And so you want to... Yeah, and I think, you know, I had somebody recently,

because I've been, you know, economic development was something that I know before I was on the supervisors, that folks like Supervisor McKeer were starting to push and why it's important for the county. But it is, we're not even 10 years in really on a real strong economic development approach. But when you think of what our project enables states, we're interested in homegrown businesses

and keeping them and trying to do things to be able to let them stay here. So I've had some folks who frankly are uncomfortable, like well I don't know if I'd picked the defense industry or the military and I'm like well look, they were here. So it wasn't like we could pick who's gonna start or set up shop here. But we have to recognize whether it's NJIC,

the National Ground Intelligence Center, whether it's the Defense Department, whether it's a small homegrown restaurant that has started out on Ryo Road, we have to do the things I think to help them be successful and maintain. And we want to keep them here because it's so important to our local economy. But you know, the decision to buy 462 acres, what's your take on the assessment of property

value in Elmour County? Pretty good investment in property in Elmour? So there was a low risk in buying, I mean, very good purpose to want to retain Ravanna Station. The purchase of the property was done in a way that even if the worst case happened and this and Ravana Station closes or they leave, we still own that property and then we could start thinking

about other things that we could do for the public good or if we decided to get out of the property, we probably wouldn't lose in that situation. So the risk was really not that high when you think of it in those terms. And I think the thing that resonates big time through our town halls that we did during the budget cycle this year,

especially with the fact that our property values have skyrocketed over the last three years, especially since we now have voted on a tax rate increase. You know, we have to and we have started, we've already started to talk about it in our board meetings, figure out how to diversify where we quit hitting that property tax so hard. Right. And if we're not doing, leaning forward

into economic development projects to raise that commercial tax revenue, which is sitting at what, like 11%? It's on 11% which is just just when I was elected to the Board of Supervisors, Ned, in 13, it was at about 17%, and we've fallen to 11%. Put in perspective, commercial tax revenue for the viewers and listeners. So I mean, you have the, what comes from the property tax and the other piece accounts for about 70% of our revenues coming in.

And then now it's 11%? For commercial. For commercial. Right. And in our rural area, the ag economy is only about 15%. Both of those used to be higher. Yes. Yes.

And so what that has meant as commercial has dropped and as the agricultural piece, you know, coming from the rural areas dropped, what had to go up? You've had to tax residential rooftops more. That's right. And a healthy economy, and you can talk to economists and everybody will give you kind of a different number, but a healthy economy, we should have at least a minimum of about 20% commercial base, right? And many will tell you 25 to 30.

But we are at 11. And when I was elected, we were at 17. And I was saying then we've got to get 25 to 30. But we are at 11. And when I was elected, we were at 17. And I was saying then we've got to get it to 30. And so, you know, in doing those projects around Ravana station, Home Depot is the best example. I've said that on this show before. The tax, we're not collecting any revenue from that site, really. A couple hundred thousand dollars compared to what it used to be in the past. Right.

Once Home Depot is up and running, we're going to see more commercial revenue or coming in from a commercial sector. And the importance of that, which I'm thrilled our county executive always reminds us of, is that when you build a residence, a residential unit, that the demand on services is about three times what it is when you set up a retail operation

or a business entity. Because you don't, you know, if Home Depot sets up you're not sending anybody to school because of Home Depot being there. Now there's other demands on the service, it does have a hit, but it is literally, it's what, I think it's three times the cost. It is. If you, if you get down to like a per dollar basis on commercial versus what residential will do. But if we don't, if we do not get really vigorous and rigorous in our economic development approach, then yeah, we're going to keep having to hit property and that's just not sustainable. Because our population is growing and putting more demand on our services. And if you think about it, Jeff talks about this,

Jeff Richardson talks about this a lot, but heads in beds at night, but we also have all of these people driving in during the daytime that are not heads in beds at night, but they put demand on our services. For example, if you're coming in to work, is what I'm basically talking about. Most people that are coming in, and the tourism,

they need, sometimes they need fire and rescue, sometimes they need police. I mean, those are also challenging our services and our need to fund services. And it's not just on a special weekend, like UVA graduation weekend. But that certainly is true too. This is on a regular daily basis.

And then you add to that the challenges that we're having right now with needing to provide services during events, and I don't mean just UVA events, but climate events, floods. Well, and I think it's worth, I mean, we were devastated this week. We see what happens with floods, with the loss of Jordan Sims. That was terrible. 12 year old boy. Heart goes out to their family. Good grief. Terrible situation. And then just, what, a year and a half ago we had a fire that we didn't have. Our firemen, that fire was large enough that our fire crews couldn't handle it. We had to reach out to surrounding counties for help and certainly no criticism of them. It's just the reality

of what is happening these days with events. Which is where a portion of the 4 cent real estate tax rate increase, it was allocated to improving fire and rescue and support personnel. I'll just for the sake of a talk show here, I'm sure you guys heard some of the pushback of increasing the tax rate and how that could, you know, just take our family. We know the groceries are higher, you know, the assessments on homes are higher, everything's more expensive now. How do you navigate, Diantha and Ned, that walk of knowing a tax rate increase is going to be tough,

but knowing the county absolutely needs it. Just walk us through kind of your thinking there. Well, when I mentioned earlier how Supervisor McKeel is always a very direct speaker of folks. In the town hall, I was saying this to folks. I know this. I'm not gonna pretend like your property bills have not gone up and we've collected more tax revenue.

To the tune of what, seven or 8 percent three years ago, average of 13 percent two years ago, another hit of five but really for residential it was more like an average of 7 or 8 percent and then yes, we asked for an additional 4 cents. But what we have, the choice was we do that and ask our voters and then explain why we're doing it or not do it and then the decision would have been, all right, we don't put, you know, we've hired 57 firefighters on safer grants to allow us

to get into that, to spread the cost out over the other, over a year. So one of the decisions could have been, all right, well we give up those 57 paid fire positions and the volunteer stations are going to not have, because that's why those 57 really came into play. We've hired 97 firefighters since 2021, but 57 of them were really about the demand of the volunteer stations coming in and going, we don't have the volunteer personnel to be able to provide adequate service to the rural area.

So what's the decision? You put in paid professional fire staff to try to fill the gap or you don't. And I don't think Don't is the right answer. So I've been telling folks we need to do this I think police has been understaffed forever And I'm just more and more have become more concerned over 12 and 18 months Especially with how just a couple of little of things little, I don't mean to undermine them, but we all think of big events as putting a strain on the system.

But what we're having are a handful of events putting a strain on the system. And if we don't get ahead of that, that can be problematic from a public safety standpoint. And I think when you show, at least I felt this in the town halls, you know, when the taxpayers that were there and that was explained, they might not like it, but they're at least saying, all right, well, I at least understand the rationale behind why you're hitting the tax.

I understand the rationale. And it's totally what you just said. I don't like it, but I understand the rationale of why you had to do it. And it really puts, and I'll get out of your way here, but it really puts the emphasis on the need to drive economic development, which is the points that you guys have really been making. I see the economic opportunity there, say the Paul Manning Biotech Institute that's coming, thousands of jobs indirectly or directly tied there, the data science school, your

commitment to RIVANA station I think was a brilliant move by you guys. And I think when we reflect in history, the board, Donna, Diantha, Ned, the board during the Ravana station, you guys are gonna get credit from a legacy standpoint of having a noteworthy impact at Alamaro County, keeping the defense sector here. But I also am concerned and I think, and I'll get out of your way here, I think this is gonna be one of the drivers

of the Jack Jewett race, your district, where you have two Democrats going toe to toe. I think this race is gonna be determined by taxes. And I think the candidates will be determined, the winning candidate, and how voters decide is how Sally Duncan, or is it Dave Shreve? Dave Shreve, their stance on taxes this election year, I think, is going to determine this race.

It's just one man's take here. You had something you want to say here. I was just going to say, getting back to what we were talking about, how fire and rescue, police, safety, all that plays into our need to, again, economic development. Businesses don't go to a community that's not safe. So we have to have a safe community and for economic development to really happen and I've had people say,

well, I've never used a fire department in the whole time I've been in this community, but you do, one little tidbit is that because we have such a robust fire protection in this community, but you do, one little tidbit is that because we have such a robust fire protection in this area and we maintain it, everyone in this community gets a break on their fire insurance. So don't forget that because that is, while it doesn't offset it completely, it is a good thing to keep in mind. A respectful, respectful devil's advocate for you. With economic development, the new businesses that come to Alamaro County also need workers

to staff their businesses. And there's some that are in ownership of businesses in Alamaro County that are screaming at the top of their lungs saying, we can't find help. And the reason we can't find help for folks to staff our businesses is because they can't afford to live in Almar County anymore. So just a respectful devil's advocate for you. Well, and I'll just respond back and it's a little bit different from the way you're saying it, but one of the things

that we're working really hard, Almar County Public Schools right now is that they're working on career pathways, local career pathways to local career pathways, to help train students, pathways for students where they could get jobs where they don't have to go to college for the job or PVCC. And that is what Center Two is all about with Alomar County Public Schools.

But just to follow up with that, many of our young people graduate from our high schools and leave here to take jobs in Richmond and in Lynchburg. We need to keep them here exactly for what you're talking about. And I would say based just to piggyback on that is that if this is a topic of interest, then everybody should be paying attention

to our board meeting this coming Wednesday. Because we're gonna be, we've got a jam-packed work session that's going to have the consultant report back on this, the update to Project Enable, which is our economic development strategic plan. We're going to have some conversation around the affordable housing trust fund, because to your point, it's not just that when you said they can't afford to live here, we have a housing issue that we have to help, we have to figure out, and that is an economic development issue understood.

We're going to have some conversation around data centers and what that could mean from a revenue perspective to it and then we're also going to have and get into the report that shows what we talked about earlier about what the demand is on services residential versus these other things. And those four topics. Now you could silo those as economic development, housing, I guess what, services based conversation.

Or you could say, all right, these are all tied together and let's jump in and figure this out because we do understand the importance of, if the housing's not there for the workforce that is needed, then the companies won't want to set up shop here for that reason. That is not lost on this board. Right. Comments are coming in. We'll highlight some of them. We'll highlight some of the viewers and listeners. Conan Owen is watching the owner of Sir Speedy. David Riddick

watching the program. Someone from your district, Carol Thorpe of the Jack Jewett district is watching. Michael Guthrie watching the program, Stephanie Wells-Rhodes watching the program, Logan Wells-Claylow. Let us know your thoughts, viewers and listeners. This is a fair question. Jerry, could you relay to the board what economic development looks like for them for all classes of people? Well, here's... Do you think that's what they mean?

Go ahead. Yeah, the way I respond to that, because it's not when we first, when Ravana Futures was first done and it was announced publicly and we had some conversation about it, I remember in one of the board meetings I said, well, let's make sure that that doesn't suck all the oxygen out of the room. We still have other economic development activities that we have to focus on. And I think that's what I call out what we're going to be talking about Wednesday. I've already given some feedback because we've had some ‑‑ I mean, it's so much content. Sometimes we'll do two‑by‑twos with the

staff to get a little bit more in depth with it. I know those have occurred. And workforce and workforce development, but also doing the clarion call to folks to partner, to provide skills that we hear employers saying they need. not ‑‑ act in scientific. Tom Thorpe when he denounced his expansion, I'm pretty sure he did this on that day. He was like ‑‑ or it was in the go region, region 9 economic development thing I'm on. As an employer, he knows he's going to have to train the people coming in the door. There's nowhere that's going to give them the skill and the training they need to be able to do what he needs his labor force to do. What he needs is them to be prepped to be good employees. And all the soft skills that we hear talk

about. So I love career pathways. I think we should focus on that from a workforce development standpoint. But we also have to pull back and go doesn't really matter what field you're going into, doesn't really matter what level of the workforce, whether it's, you know, base minimum wage type job up to the highest wage or salary or commission that you can think of, if you do not have the soft skills to know how to work with other people, communicate, interview to get the job, understand the responsibility of showing up on time, I mean, you would think these are all basics, right? communicate, interview to get the job, understand the responsibility of showing up on time.

You would think these are all basics, right? This isn't necessarily taught anywhere. In the last two years of sitting in economic development in the regional pieces, and this isn't a ‑‑ I'm not poking UVA, PVCC or our own public school division. I hear this at the VACO, at the Virginia level and the national level. Employers keep pointing at the institutions of education and saying, but you're not prepping them in these areas. Right. And I would say that we need parents help with that as well. I would add that, right? Because parents are their children's first teacher, and if they're not getting concerned when the children are going to school late every morning. What does that, you know, make sure your kids

really understand that it's important to get to school on time just like it's important to get to work on time. That's role modeling good behavior, right, and behavior that will play out in the work, in your working world, you know. Now to give a little bit more of a specific answer to the question, Home Depot is another good example here. 100 workers, 100 new jobs. The type of job that will be coming in the biotech industry and some of the things with Manning Institute and North

Fork and those things come online are going to be across the spectrum. But right there, Home Depot, we did a tax abatement for them to help with some remediation of what they found when they did the demo of the old Sears building. We got a nice piece of property back where we're going to realign Hillsdale Drive so it will take the cost down on that. But it forced them to come online by December 24th of this year. They're already ‑‑ they're clicking. I think they're going to be open. They have a sign up that says July. They've moved it up. When we incentivize them to do that and then they committed to it, they went right on. That means that it's not just about oh, we can go buy our home supplies, our DIY stuff

faster. It means those employers are going to be able to hire all those employees and get them up and running sooner rather than later. And that's how, that's what I meant by don't let this big future project that's going to take a couple decades to really realize outweigh and take the oxygen away for making sure we're doing the ground level economic development things like a Home Depot as well. Right. And businesses that hire a variety of people with a variety of skills, right? Well, and that was your district.

I think that was another genius, a smart move by you guys. Not just the Taken Fashion Square Mall, which was a ghost town, and revitalizing it as Home Depot, which should uptick that tax revenue that comes from the commercial line. Not just the 100 jobs, but that's a critical gateway, Alamo County gateway, that Rio Road, Rio district into Alamo County.

And on top of that, the piece where there's redevelopment of the old Red Lobster site, I thought was genius to be included as well. That was a smart move. To the viewers comments, and they're coming in really quickly now, that we've opened the flood gates here. To the viewers comments.

Pull up your pants. Yeah. I think there's a lot. We're not gonna be able to get to all these guys. now that we've opened the floodgates here. To the viewers' comments, and you touched on it, the concern is that the jobs that are coming to Alamara County are extremely white collar and the jobs that are coming to Alamara County may gentrify the county even more. I think that was what the viewer was asking with the comment. I can understand that concern for sure. And a lot of economic development activity, in my opinion, last few years is always focused on entrepreneurs and the person starting the business. But at the end of the day, the type of work, especially in this biotech field,

we're not going to see the manufacturing type of jobs that we used to see. I don't, maybe I will admit it if I'm wrong that the whole point of tariffs is they're going to bring back a historical manufacturing class that used to exist in this country that's going to bring it back into fruition. I think what is going to happen is that manufacturing turns into, when you're, when you look at an Afton Scientific, that's a manufacturing type of job. And those are not white collar jobs. They're strong wage paying. They're beyond minimum wage. But they're not the person sitting in the office doing financial services and helping folks figure out how to profit from their investments. These are folks that are going to be there doing physical things to create medicines

and do things. That's right. Whether it's tools or the actual medical, the medicine, I guess, is how I would say that. Right, that's right. And I think that's going to be the case with some of those different types of things that come up. I mean, we have other little small level manufacturing or light industrial things that are like that. That

should prompt with the building, I mean, we haven't had a recent housing study to see how housing development and all the contractors, I mean, there's a lot of employees in the contractor that it takes to build a home or to build an apartment building. That should be able to continue. Those are not white collar type jobs. So people need to realize that these businesses hire a variety, right? And that's what we want. And that's one of the strengths of looking at workforce development. I hate to keep going back to that. But for example, we don't have enough ‑‑ one of the most common complaints that we hear from our employees when we hire new employees

is I can't find a dentist. The reason that we have a problem with folks finding a dentist is because there's a lack of dental hygienists. So we're working right now, we have a group that's working to get through the Center 2, who's looking at the dental hygienist program and PVCC to create a track and you can be a technician, you can be a hygienist, or you can go on and be a dentist. But that's a good example of how the dentists need technicians that are not college educated, right? But they train them themselves to do the work. And then there's a hygienist level that is really highly paid.

And then of course dentistry. So that gives you an example of just in a medical office, the variety, plus then of course you have the receptionist and those other jobs as well. This question's coming from Earleysville, from Vanessa Parkhill. What steps does the Board of Supervisors take to reduce costs and pass savings on to taxpayers? The taxes are going to be such a huge piece of this election.

So she's asking that question from Earleysville as a homeowner and as a small business owner. Go ahead. I was just simply going to point out our SPIR report. I was just simply going to point out our SPEAR report. We produced this year a SPEAR report which actually lays out the reductions that we have made and how we have gone through. We charged Jeff Richardson, our county executive and staff, to look at through the lens of reductions. And so we certainly have put out a whole report, it's called SPEAR, S-P-E-A-R, that talks about how we've done that,

and we actually have less positions this year, even with the addition of our police officers and the police officers that are in the budget, we have, is it, I think, well, it's less positions this year than we had last year, and you can take it from there. No, it's 11, without the addition of the police officers, it would have been about 11 and a half positions that were now gone in there because of reengineering and looking at what we've

called business optimization over the last handful of years in the county. So the tax rate increase is going to allow us to put six officers onto the force, but even with that six, we've still reduced down five and a half FTEs at Average cost I asked this question during the budget season because you have to think of salaries and benefits So what it hits so an one FTE in our county on average, so this isn't your bottom person This isn't our top people. This is kind of an average place. It's about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per FTE So those five and a half is on the tune of, I think this year was around $800,000 was the savings from that.

Now, four cents allowed us to put, you know, 13, collect another 13, 14 million. So when you're like, well, I saved a million here, but that means we didn't have to raise the tax rate 4.5 cents because of those positions and the savings that those positions brought us. Now, I have said in the town hall meetings that if any individual, because it's obvious

and I think it is a question that is valid to ask, are you being efficient enough with the revenue you're receiving? And where the story is told is in the budget book. And I'm happy to sit down with anyone on a one-on-one basis with the group and go, okay, let's look through here and I'll be open-minded for you to say, well, what about this? And then I'll speak to the rationale of why that's there

and what happens if it's not and then we'll discuss whether it's important or not. And just to say that our systems in Albemarle County were so antiquated, we were operating, and again, siloed, right? And they were at the end of their lifespan. The companies were not even supporting them anymore. So we have spent over the last few years,

since Jeff came especially and started looking at this, upgrades to our systems. And of course, as we're improving our technology systems we're needing fewer people. Now that's a double-edged sword too. Sure, sure. But we're needing fewer people so we're really, we're spending money on technology and upgrading our systems but at the same time we're looking at how those systems work for us and we

don't need as many people. Dan Pettit watching the program viewers and listeners the comments are coming in very quickly now this is a great one for supervisor McKeel this has come in for her specifically you're sponsoring a candidate forum with the two Jack Jewett candidates can she offer a take of what she thinks of the candidates and and a take of what she thinks of the candidates and both platforms, what she thinks of the platforms? You know, I think I'm gonna wait until that forum is next Wednesday.

Yep. And one of the reasons why I'm sponsoring that forum is because the candidates are so very different. Very different. They are very different. They're both Democrats, but they so very different. Very different. They are both Democrats, but they're very different. They commit things very differently. I would encourage folks to look at Dave Shreve right now is working for a think tank.

He's working from home from a think tank. I would encourage them to look at Dave's, the think tank that he is up and employed for. I think that is very enlightening into what his beliefs are, right? Sally, on the other hand, is a teacher and has a website, you know? And of course they both have websites. But I just think it's really interesting to look at professions and what

the professions for the folks. So I would encourage folks to look at Dave's, the website that represents Dave's think tank. Having said that, the forum will be, is open to the public, but of course we're also going to podcast it and put it on YouTube. So it'll be available to people because we, I think there's going to be a lot of interest. Not sure we can get everybody into the media center at Journey Middle School. But anyway, we will podcast it and drop it onto YouTube. But I think that will be very informative for the public. And that was what I was trying to do.

The reason I'm sponsoring it is to give my community an opportunity to ask questions and listen to the candidates. And I think, Diantha, smartly, a brilliant idea, first off, to be able to do this as an outgoing supervisor. I don't know that that's ever been done before, so kudos to you for that. But having, it's, now it's Neil and Jane Floyd? Yeah, well, so I went to Neil Williamson and I said, Neil, the candidates are very different.

And I said, I have some leftover money from my campaigns over the years and this is a good way to spend that money. And I said, so I want, Neil, would you do all the back end work, you know, or the front end work, however you want to call it. And I'll just write you a check. And he said, I love that. He said, I like that. So we have Neil Williamson, right.

And then Jane Foy, who is a really good friend of mine. And most people in the community remember Jane from the morning show, from WINA morning show. And she's a good friend. So she stepped up to the plate for me and said she'd be happy to help Neil moderate. So we have Neil and Jane. But two very informed individuals who know the history

and will be able to come up. I think those candidates better be ready because those two folks are gonna be able to ask good questions of them. Yeah. So, go ahead. But I think it's important that people just do their due diligence as well.

Sure, sure. It's interesting because they're already positioning themselves and their platforms with how they're interacting with media or online. Miss Duncan, as you said, is a teacher. She's very much emphasizing that she's a renter in her platform points. She rents in Earleysville.

And her husband works for Charlottesville City Hall. And Dave Shreve, as you've highlighted, is a senior economist with the Center for the Advancement of Steady State Economy. Right. So you've encouraged folks to check out his employer there. I'm curious. His website for that.

And I will say, Dave would correct you, I think, in all fairness. Dave is an economic historian. Economic historian. He would correct you. OK, economic historian. Just going by his LinkedIn there. And I'll throw this to you here.

The Jack Jewett district, the board right now is in a very interesting place. I think you're starting to see a political tide potentially turn. You have Mike Pruitt in the Scottsville district who's unabashed in his housing advocacy. He's a housing champion. I think that's safe to say, right? We would all agree there. Sure, oh yeah, sure.

He ran, that was his platform. That was his platform. You have Miss Duncan who is unabashed in her housing advocacy density, potentially more taxes for that density. I think that would be probably safe to say. You have Supervisor Galloway here, who I've watched over the last few years

understand the value of housing locally, to the point where you think perhaps more density should be in the mix. You have Supervisor Malik, who some would say, and we have evidence historically, that maybe the density of housing is not her first priority. I think that's safe to say. Supervisor Andrews, who's on his way out,

follows the ideology of Supervisor Malik. B. Lepisto currently, I think, is on that side of the fence as well. So we have this board, this tide that's changing, that if the cards fall the right way, you could have a more pro-housing board than maybe I've seen in my 25 years of Alamaro County. Well, I would just add that we really have a,

we're really struggling with housing right now. So that's why this has happened now, is because of the lack of housing that we have in this community. Especially the affordable. And it's for, and when we say affordable, what we're talking about is teachers, police officers. Frontline workers.

Yes, exactly, that's exactly. And we need those folks to be able to live in our community. Now, I'll throw this to you, and we've been covering, for example, the development that's coming, the multi-family development, old Ivy residents. We've covered on the I love Seville network very closely. And some folks have said that the housing that is coming, this multifamily luxury apartment housing is not necessarily the housing we need that would breed that affordability. And then in covering it with the I love Seville network, we also highlighted that this was all happening while VDOT was reimagining or renovating the old Ivy Road which

was tough. So may I throw a lot of this to you Nat and curious what's kind of going on in your head there? Quickly though I just participated in the groundbreaking for the Grey Stars, Olavi Road. You know that Olavi Road. 525 units. And they are a mix. There's affordable housing there, and they are a mix of town homes.

So to call them luxury community is really not, in my viewpoint, accurate. There is a real mix. There'll be single family residences, there are town homes, their apartments, and that is the first development in my district in that area on that side of town that will provide housing for what I think of as the University of Virginia employees. It's on that on that particular side of town which is a great location for them. We do not have it.

Everything else on that side of town is million dollars and plus more, million more. So this is a great development and I will add laughingly that UTS, the University Transit System, just purchased two small buses which will go under those two railroad bridges to pick up employees, to go to take them. That's been a barrier on that road for a long time, are those railroad bridges. So we're really excited about that. 35 acres net, 525 units, a mixed Dantha's right of apartments, townhomes and standalone houses. Interestingly, it's a build for rent community.

That's right. Not a build to own. That's right. And if I misspoke about that, but it is okay. The other thing is they have proffered the Ravana trails. There's green space over there. It's not gonna be all just asphalt, right? Asphalt.

But lots of the, and they're actually building more trails on their property other than just the Ravana, which they have promised to take. It is, I hope, going to be a model of what a really wonderful community could be. Now, would I like to see a little bit more of affordable housing? Definitely, we need that everywhere in the community,

but this is a start, and especially in an area where we really need it. 15% of the development tied to 80% AMI. Yeah, yeah. 80% AMI would put it right about $100,000 a household. Which is what our policy is right now. And would, I mentioned this the other night in a candidate forum that I was in. There was a person that I ran into a few weeks ago

at a volunteer and teach a class. And she was saying it wasn't necessarily that she couldn't afford. It wasn't like she could afford, you know, some of these exorbitant rates that are going up. But she said, I have a certain window of affordability and those units aren't available because it's on the, you know, from a rental perspective, because they're snapped up so quick by those that can get into that. And she's like, where are the other ones that are like this? Where else can I get a place that's not on the bottom end of the spectrum,

but it's not on that mid even to high end. So when you look at like in my district right now with what's going on on Rio West, there's a big, you know that apartment by the Charlesville Rehabilitation Center. Rio Points coming online. Now Rio Points got it right out there on their sign, luxury apartments.

They all say luxury. But all of those developments came in and were approved and applied for before we changed the needle from the, they got a density bonus to do 15% of the units at 80% AMI. Which is 100 grand a household. So, but, well, I mean, and that's the nature of where we're at from an income standpoint. That's fair.

$125,800 is HUD, family median household income. But if, and I've heard you and Keith talk about it on this show many times, we're finally seeing a lot of supply coming on that's been their kind of a glut. My concern is if we don't stay ahead of it, because when we move the needle, we're gonna have to contend with this. It's the same thing I think you talked about in the city

with their inclusionary zoning. When we moved the needle to 20% at 60% AMI and then came up with our incentive package, we've still really yet to see any application come in of any size. Now there's a couple working through the system right now that I'm really excited about and I can't wait to see how they turn out. But they're going to be, that's going to be probably six months

down the road before those, you know, kind of get into the public process. They're, you know, they're working and doing pre-apps and just getting their applications in. But all of the apartments that are coming online along Berkmar between Agner Hurt and Wal-Mart and then Ryo West, Ryo Point and then there's some buy-write projects I know that are coming online that will also have kind of a town home, mixture of rentals and stuff.

They will, all of those applications were in before so at a bare minimum they have to bring the 15% units of affordability and will help folks like the lady I just mentioned find a place because she said if I could get into that rent piece and that rent parameter, then I can start maybe putting a little away so that I don't have to rent forever and I can maybe then go save some down payment and go get into something that I cannot. In all fairness, this is why Mike Pruitt and Sally Duncan are talking about affordable housing. It is critical to this community right now. It is a hot topic.

It is a hot topic because it's important and we don't have enough housing. That's fair. That's fair. I'd love to continue the discussion here. Viewers and listeners, we're going to try to get to as many of these comments as possible. I do not think we're going to get to all these comments right now. Do you want me to address a little bit the VDOT piece or do you want to just let that go?

I was going to follow up with the VDOT piece. Okay. All right. And the concern with the folks was that the VDOT, what's the word I should use here? Renovation, reimagination of the old Ivy Road corridor? Right. I mean, what's the word that I should use here? The rebuilding, the reconstruction?

Well, VDOT refers to it as a pipeline study. It doesn't have anything to do with burying pipes. It simply is that that whole corridor, Ivy Road and Old Ivy Road are critical for statewide traffic for VDOT. So they have declared that a pipeline study, which means that they're studying it and will be proposing improvements in that area. Unfortunately, that pipeline study and those

improvements hit at the same time that they had planned for the bridge, that resurfacing of the bridge there at Olavi Road and that had to happen first before we could do anything else. And as everybody knows, Albemarle County roads, unless they're private, are maintained and paid for through VDOT, which in my opinion is a good thing because you wouldn't want to know what your tax rate would be. Charlesville City can tell you about that. We were paying for all of our own.

Having said that, I think it's also important and truth in advertising, my late husband was a 41-year employee at VDOT. He was a structural bridge engineer. So I spent a lot of time in the VDOT world. But VDOT is very underfunded. People don't want to believe that, but they are underfunded statewide. So they are struggling with the same challenges

around funding that we are in the county. We are all struggling with money. So some of what we see happening is, we have projects that are, we didn't get funded this year through smart smart scale because of their funding. Their funding is also part of their struggle with funding right now is based on what they're having to deal with with storms and maintenance and the same thing that we're seeing cleaning up of roadways. So their maintenance fund

has exploded, which means that their funding for some projects has gone down. And the General Assembly is going to have to contend with that. They have to figure out how they're going to do funding of transportation projects around the state. We have had a gas tax. We have raised the gas tax in Virginia, I believe, once in 30 years. Now, no one wants to pay more in gas tax. But what we hear a lot of complaints about are traffic and road congestion as well. And at the end of the day, it doesn't drop like manna from the sky. And we've had to put local dollars aside. We have a

transportation leveraging program that's in our CIP. We have an excellent transportation staff. They do a good job of applying and knowing where and get creative and trying to find how to use or get projects done through the different state sources that are there. But at the end of the day, I mean, that 20 ‑‑ well, it might even be closer to 30 million now that's in that leveraging piece. That's simply there for us to pull from that if we have a ‑‑ if we have a $20 million project and we put $2 million towards it, it helps you get the other 18 from the state. So that's why it's called

a leveraging program. But if we don't do that, you don't even see the projects. I think everybody would agree that they're not seeing the projects happening at the speed they'd like to see them happen at. But if we had to really do the revenue sharing at the point where I'm worried the state's going to go, it's just like your point earlier about, you know, all the state funding for education went away, so the locality had to pick it up. If we have to start picking it up

for transportation projects too, we don't have that capacity. That's going to be expensive. I got one comment that's a good one on the old IV residents project that I want to read to you. And then I want, and we're up against time here, but I would love if your schedule permits the chance to go a little bit longer

because the show has been so excellent. Maybe five more minutes if possible. Yeah, I'm fine. I can stay until lunch if you'll give me a sandwich. You have a full bar over there. A full bar. I don't know. Put a line for happy hour.

Oh, I see. You do have a bar. We do have a full bar. Wow. Oh boy. This comment, and we have some top shelf stuff over there. This comment is coming from John Blair here. He says the big problem with this project, the old IV residents project, is that the property was rezoned in 1985 with a proffer that it

would never have a density greater than R1 until old Ivy Road was approved to the satisfaction of the Board of Supervisors. Therefore, this rezoning did not have to be approved as a proffer, as the force of law. The BOS could have relied on that proffer and not up zone. In 2023, the BOS made the decision to obliterate that prior proffer and up zone the property. People should know that context. And then he also adds a few more sentences and then I'll stop. He says there hasn't been any serious improvement to old IV since 1985. The BOS had the ability to deny the rezoning based on that proffer and instead the BOS voted to up zone. Legally the BOS could negate the proffer but it did

not have to and the proffer gave them the ability to say no to the rezoning. His response there. Any thoughts on that at all? Here's what I learned during the RioPoint project, which I think is similar, without the proffer point that he's trying to make. I voted against RioPoint as the Rio District supervisor. I wasn't against the density. I was not against that, but what I was against was the fact that there was so much density

happening in there that it was creating transportation issues. My point was the timing. I wanted to get the transportation projects done first. Well, I've learned since that vote that that's not how things work in this state. What my vote against the Rio point, because it failed initially 3-3 and then it moved to the local developer. I voted for it. She voted, Diantha voted for it for this reason.

We can't wait for all the infrastructure ahead of time because if you do that, you can't put everything on hold because one of the ways you get infrastructure is because of the demand on the system that you're there. So what ended up happening was Supervisor Price changed her vote when it came back before us under a different developer to 4-2. I still voted against it the second time. But the commitment I got that vote when it came back before us under a different developer to four to two. I still voted against it the second time. But the commitment I got that evening in my loss of the vote was from the

rest of the board. I got a ryo road corridor study was a commitment to get that done and two projects that weren't on the transportation list at that time were the roundabout at John Warner Parkway and the green T that was coming out of Belvedere. Both of those projects, I have never seen projects that weren't on a transportation priorities list make it to smart scale and get funded by the state with such speed as that. And I think everybody recognized that the point was there was so much density and the transportation issues that were going there helped us get that. So when we approved that project out there on Old Ivy Road, of course we knew that Old IV hadn't been.

We know what the problems are with that whole area for transportation. But the fact that VDOT had identified it as a pipeline study, that negates what we apply for. They'll put that project through. We'll get, say, in the design. But getting that project in place was the board saying we'll commit to adding this density and allowing this project to move it forward here. but every single supervisor was nodding their head going and we're going to stay on this to be able to get those improvements in place to do the

road stuff that has to happen. Infrastructure follows development. It's not the other way around. And for VDOT, VDOT is not going to spend money figuring out infrastructure changes and road changes until they are approved. They used to do that decades ago, and their staffs were spending all of this time on projects that were never approved.

So infrastructure, especially highways, but schools too. But because if you build the infrastructure before the project, you end up with roads to nowhere. We have other states that have roads to nowhere, right? And it takes years and years for the development to happen. So in Virginia, infrastructure follows the approval by the governing body. That's just the way it is.

Last topic here, you guys have, I mean, we got just about every media outlet that we're watching the program. I guess I should look and see some projects in Stanton and see what they're doing over there. We got. There you go, John Bliger. Yeah, to nudge him back there a little bit.

That was a zing right there for Supervisor Gallivay. John, we love you. We love John. You can handle it. That was a zing. We appreciate the question. I'll throw this to the panel here. The development area is restricted to 5%.

And I've been here 25 years, you guys have been here longer than me, but in my 25 years I have seen the appetite to expand the development area gain momentum. Now there's still kind of that old guard in Almar County that does not want it to happen, but there's newer blood in Almar County that's pushing to do it. Neal should get some of this credit because I think he's leading the charge of expanding it. Can we talk about the likelihood of that being expanded first? And the second part, if it's not expanded, trading out other parcels of land for parcels of land

in the development area that either don't have the topography or as you mentioned too close to the river or the slope that will never be developed. I think this is a great way to close the show. Well I would say that we're going through the AC44 update right now. Let them know what AC44. The comprehensive plan. And it's 20 year plan, 44. And I can tell you as somebody that's been closely following

the county's politics since 2009, that it's only been this year that conversations about the swap idea, like let's be clear what the record is. Not a single sitting supervisor has said they want to expand the development area, that they would agree to do that if a vote was put on us right now. We did agree to that like six months ago, eight months ago when we started the AC44. Now, the swap idea... Michael Pruitt has pretty much said he would be willing to expand the development area.

Well, then maybe that was done before he was sitting with us. Yeah. And he's certainly politic, maybe that's not the right word, but he's certainly papered the record with, was it Rivana Village? And how- We've talked about, yeah, how come so all of us is this a swap? That's part of the swap.

There is a difference here. Let's talk about this swap. That's not an expansion. When the swap came up, it was about, and we have a criteria now. They brought that forward a few months ago that said, let's identify property that's currently rural area, but its proximity to sewer and water and some other things

in that criteria could be, oh, if this were in the development area, it'd be primed for development and then identify the reverse, places that could revert back to the rural area. Supervisor Pruitt was very much interested in that because of Rosanna Village. I don't think, I have to go back and re-listen to the minutes to see if he actually said he wanted to

expand the development area during that conversation. But this conversation of even the swap was not happening two years ago. It certainly wasn't happening five and ten years ago. So the fact that it is I think reflects the fact that you have current supervisors that are saying, look, you know, Diantha is always reminds us if we keep doing things the way we've always done it, we can expect a different result, that's wackadoodle, to use her favorite word.

So we have to start thinking differently and start getting ahead. There's nothing to say that whether it's 20 years or 40 years, if the growth continues to happen, it's wise of us to do the proper planning and have the conversations of how we're going to contend with that. And I would say that all of us have supported the 5%, 95%,

because to be honest with you, that is our regulator. It regulates our growth and where we want it and where we put it. It's really been good for Alomar County. Having said that, to continue to do it the same way and not make adjustments, if I went to a doctor who told me he was going to use the same procedure on me that he's been using for 40 years.

You got the wrong doctor. I would go to another doctor. Right. I'm just saying that. And looking at the criteria of how we might change this around the edges, because when might change this around the edges, because when the development area and the rural area lines were drawn all those years ago, right now we have about 50% less acreage in the development area than we had at that time because the factors that are really good, I mean, Biscuit Run took what, 400 acres out of the development area.

And the protection area around the river. We don't want to be building right up to the river area. So what we're looking at now all these years later is how can we make some very targeted changes not to expand necessarily the development area or throw the baby out with the bath water, right? But to get some more land that we know will never be developed, right?

You personally, Supervisor McKeel, have gotten more open-minded with this. I remember the first time that you've come on the show with the development area, you said on the show, sitting in that seat that you, until the 5% was at capacity, we are, go ahead. I was just gonna say, well, but you know what?

My profession is from the medical world and we change when we see new facts. Right, right, right, right, I understand that. I don't want somebody that is saying I'm gonna do something the same way for 20 or 30 years that I've always done. I like to actually look at the data and the facts and I often change my mind. Right and I appreciate that and that's what I wanted to highlight and and you know that's why I think this election cycle is a huge election cycle because if the

cards fall a certain way and say a Sally Duncan were to win your district and you would have Supervisor Pruitt and Supervisor Duncan on the board and potentially Supervisor Galloway over here, I think Supervisor Galloway is going to win his race here. Right now I do not believe there's opposition. I haven't heard of opposition. You got a month left. Okay, so if the cards go the right way, you're looking at third term here, then you would have three of six that are very open-minded to this.

It is interesting because I would encourage folks to look at some of the presentations that Hamilton Lombard has made from one. I just asked him to come to my CAC recently to present data on Albemarle County. And at that CAC meeting, he referenced very clearly several communities across the United States that were in exactly the same place we were where they were lacking in affordable housing, service people were living outside of the area and having to drive in. I say that we are an Aspen. Don't talk to me about getting to be an Aspen in Elmour County. We are already

Aspen. Right. And Hamilton was saying that it is really interesting in those communities what has happened is because of them not being willing to change or even tinker with what they've been doing, whole boards were thrown out, unelected, because people were fed up with lack of housing and the service people not having places to live, teachers and firemen. So it is a dynamic that is happening across the country

because all across the country, we're struggling with affordable housing. And housing's too expensive. And we have the expertise on the board with our staff, with the resources we have available in this community to protect the things that we value in Albuquerque County. Right. And we can do it with this rural area development area dynamic that we have, but we also have tough issues and if we just stand back and say oh we're gonna make these issues compete against one another versus

leaning in and going all right we have these values but we also have to solve these problems and both have to play into that. It can't just be the development area on the development area to solve economic development and housing issues in this county. And that's just fact in my opinion. And I don't think anyone on the board of supervisors, and I certainly have not heard any other candidates so far say, but we don't want to throw the baby out

with the bath water because that development area and rural area has done some really positive things for us. But to just keep doing it, maybe we do, it's time to look at doing something differently. And that switch would be, we ask staff to come back to us with the criteria of what it might look like, water and sewer, location. But protecting.

Well, but the rural area protects our water supply. And what we have out there, there's in the water supply, you know, all the folks in the rural area on wells, the water supply that's going into the reservoirs and stuff is protected coming through the rural area, and then being served on public water to the development area. So I get the back and forth relationship between having a strong development area and a strong rural area. It's just we've got things to contend with

and we can't do it like it was done 20 years ago. Or 40 years ago. Or longer. This is a great show. It's a great show. We have three seats on the board that are up for election. We have the Rio district. Supervisor Galloway has indicated

he will pursue a third term today. The Samuel Miller district has a contested election, but not until the general side of it with, was it Fred Missal? Fred Missal. And then what's Scott Smith? Scott Smith, the Republican. And then the Jack Jewett race,

I think is gonna be the most closely followed of the three races. Agree. I agree. Sally Duncan and Dave Shreve, toe to toe. Supervisor McKeel has kindly and generously offered to sponsor a forum. Why don't we close with that, the details of the forum? So it will be next Wednesday, the 21st, 530 to 730.

It's really 530 to 7, but we're trying to say 730 because we know there will be Q&A and a lot of answers, questions and answers. It's at Journey Middle School in the Media Center, but I will say that we will have it on YouTube and we have a podcast and we have somebody coming to take care of all of that first. So you don't have to just come that night. You can pick it up later as well.

Fantastic. Yep. We encourage you guys to stay engaged and to vote. I want to thank Diantha McHale for four terms of service on the board and I hope you will come back. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You often get, I mean every time get me thinking and I learn from you.

I sincerely mean that. Go for it. Seven terms on two boards. Yeah, four on the board of supervisors. Three. Oh, did I say four? Yeah. Okay, four on the board of supervisors. Three. Oh, did I say four? Yeah. Okay, three on the board of supervisors.

Four on the school board. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for that correction. Ned Galloway is gonna certainly be back here as he pursues his third term. Correct. Thank you, Supervisor Galloway, for organizing this. Well, and I appreciate Supervisor McKeel coming on.

I mean, it's, I got to tell you, it's going to be weird not having, if I'm lucky enough, if my voters send me back for another opportunity to serve on the board and Supervisor McKeel is not there, it's going to be very, very weird for me. So I've always appreciated you and appreciate you coming on today to be able to talk about some stuff. And we're going to snap a picture here, take a photo after the show. Oh, yes. Because I'm not on the Hall of Fame wall. We're going to get able to talk about some stuff. And we're going to snap a picture here, take a photo after the show.

Oh yes, because I'm not on the Hall of Fame wall. We're going to get her on the Hall of Fame wall. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera, thank you to you Judah. And viewers and listeners, the I Love Seville show is up at 1230 p.m. So long everybody. That was fun. That was fun. Tell us here when the...

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. I'm going to turn it off. I'm going to turn it off. I'm going to turn it off. I'm going to turn it off. I'm going to turn it off. I'm fun. That was fun.