The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Ned Gallaway And Neil Williamson Joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller On “Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Ned Gallaway, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, and Neil Williamson, President of Free Enterprise Forum, joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Monday, Wednesday and 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, Pearl Certification and YES Realty Partners.

Miller and thank you kindly for joining us live in downtown Charlottesville in our studio on Market Street in the Macklin building just a hop skip at a jump away from the courthouse of Albemarle County, which intriguingly is in the city of Charlottesville, just a hop skip at a jump away from the Charlottesville Police Department, Charlottesville courthouse and a lot of movers and shakers today's program live wherever you get your social media. I have a feeling the viewership and listenership is going to be escalated even more with many of us inside. The roads are not that bad. I made it from Keswick today. The roads are not that bad. So salute to those that are plowing the roads at the early morning to allow folks like us to do yeoman's work, which is

sitting in a chair behind a microphone and talking about the Muppets and Sesame Street. Judah Wittkower. Difficult job. It's a difficult job. Tough job. Somebody's got to do it. Judah Wittkower, the director and producer. If you'd go to the studio camera and welcome a distinguished panel. And I want to salute Ned Galloway here. Man's looking sharp. I really like the attire today. Neil Williamson came in with a fantastic hat a la Indiana Jones, which you can see over there. And Keith Smith, my friend, is always looking quite dapper. No hat.

Is that a fedora? Is that technical? It's a Stetson. Stetson. That's good. It looks sharp. I very much like it. Good morning, crew.

How's everybody doing? Oh, boy. There we go. Hey, take a sip of your coffee, Ned. Yeah, coffee. We have not. You're doing great. I haven't been on here in what, since the summertime? You've been coffee, Ned. Yeah, coffee. We have not. It's great. It's not.

I haven't been on here in, what, since the summertime. You've been missed, Ned. You've been missed. You know, I took it a little personal, but it's okay. I was just kidding around. Tough schedule. When was the last time we physically seen each other? It's been a while.

Well, that's probably been November, probably. Right. Because, you know, not all of us are the international jet centers. Keith Smith is. Seriously. Real talk without Keith Smith. It literally started. I took a sip of my coffee the international jet centers. Keith Smith is. All right, seriously. Real talk without Keith Smith. It literally started. I took a sip of my coffee.

There you go. It's real talk with Keith Smith, and occasionally it's real talk with Michael Guthrie with Keith Smith, real talk with Roy Van Doren, real talk with Roger Voisinet, real talk with Neil Williamson. But, hey, it's good to have you here. Thank you. I appreciate that. At the moment, I wouldn't want to be anyplace else. So let's figure out what Muppet you are.

Me? Yeah. Are you going to put him through the test? I'm going to put him through the test. It's 10 questions. It's fun. Got it. You ready?

Yeah. This is a tough test. I don't know if you can handle it. I'm ready. Got it. It said, so this is either strongly disagree, disagree, agree, or strongly agree at the moment. A natural leader. Strongly agree.

Strongly agree. I'll go there. You're definitely a natural leader. Should we call Donna? Donna did great on your show, by the way. Oh, she was fantastic. That was awesome. She ran the board excellent.

But you set it up nice for her before she took it over. There you go. Well, she did on the show the other day. Yeah, she was amazing. She was amazing. Musically gifted. Musically gifted. Strongly, not strongly, nothing strongly in there.

I guess I would say agree. Okay, great. Vain. I must look fabulous at all times. Strongly agree. I said strongly agree, too. I tried to click it two or three times. It only let me do it once.

It's a Muppet question. We've got to answer honestly. Aptitude for science, yes or no? Yes or no? Not the strongly agree? No, it's a yes or no. Aptitude for science. Hmm.

That's interesting. You want to go back to that? You can say no. Yes or no. Okay. A people's person. Strongly agree. Want to go back to that? Did I say no? Yes, I know. Okay. A people's person. Strongly agree. Strongly agree, yeah. Good at telling jokes.

Strongly agree. He's looking like he's going to be animal over here. A good singing voice. Is this the strongly agree? I would say disagree. Regular disagree or strongly disagree? I would say disagree. Got disagree or strongly disagree? I would say disagree. Got it.

Easily scared. Disagree. Regular disagree. Yeah. Enjoy your food. Oh, strongly agree. And the big one, number 10, last one. Did you like this test?

Strongly agree. Yeah? Yes. Very similar. All righty, let's see who you are. Oh, me and you are the same people. Kermit? We're both Kermits.

Wow. We're both Kermits. Do you want to take it, or do we already know who you are? I'm good. Kermit's a cool guy. Yeah, yeah, Kermit. It's not easy being green. It's not easy being green.

I think by voice alone, you're the patriot guy. The captain. What's the, what's the, Sam the Eagle. Sam the Eagle. Just your voice. I'm not saying anything else. I was driving in this morning, and I was talking to Yona that you guys are going to be on today, and I was going to do this stupid cut.

The first thing she said was behave, Keith. That's exactly what she said. No, she said pay attention. You're driving. But cut. The first thing she said was behave, Keith. That's exactly what she said. No, she said, pay attention. You're driving. But that was the first thing. You remember the two dudes that were up in the balcony, the old dudes? Stadler and Waldorf. Stadler, right? Stadler and Waldorf.

And they were the hecklers through the show. And I was like, I got a feeling they're going to do that through this whole show. So, gentlemen, I don't really have too much on the table to chat today, but, Ned, you haven't been on in a while. For the folks that are watching and listening, anything you want to share new and exciting at Albemarle County?

I mean, we're going to be neck deep in budget here in about a month. We had a very content-rich meeting just a few days ago. We found out what the average real estate assessment increase was on Wednesday 4.07 percent countywide so you know when you're when you're neck deep in comp plan and going through chapters like we did the other day and we know budgets coming and now real estate assessments are out I mean that it doesn't I guess it doesn't get any thicker than that doesn't know it's like like that's what we're doing right now.

It really provides context to the comprehensive plan discussion in so much as backing up to the assessment. Just because the assessment goes up 4%, that doesn't mean necessarily that your property taxes will go up 4%. The property tax rate is set by the supervisors after they know the assessment. And the budget. And the budget. It's a three-sided triangle. Well, the budget piece is really not part of the equation. The budget piece is what's funded by the equation. The equation is the assessment, which by state code must be 100% of market value

times the rate, which is set by the supervisors. The supervisors don't set that rate in a dark room. They set that rate knowing point blank what the assessments are. So don't get mad at assessors. They're doing their job. Get mad if you're mad or get happy if you're happy with your supervisors because that's where the taxes come from. I'm going to make you do this Muppets thing because I've got to figure out

what to call you. I love Neil so much. He's definitely a fan of me. He's sitting next to a supervisor and he's telling the people to get mad at the supervisors. Or get happy. I love him.

I don't think he'd get happy. Because you've got these comprehensive plan discussions where everybody wants a bucket, a pot with a chicken in it and luckily because of the supervisors that are

on the dais now, a few of them said that's great. Who's paying for that? And that is an important part of a conversation that is often lost when you're looking at a 20-year plan. Because the 20-year plan doesn't have to be funded. For many, many moons, localities have been doing what I call aspirational comprehensive planning. We want to have everyone in an affordable unit. Okay.

How are you going to do that? I ask for the A to be attainable rather than aspirational when they're talking about smart goals. Neil Williamson, president of the Free Enterprise Forum, coming out of the gates with some fire over here. Yeah, I'm thinking Ned was right. What was the Captain America character? Sam the Eagle, man. Sam the Eagle. That would be a total Sam the Eagle.

Get up on his soapbox and tell it like it is, brother. What do you think there, Ned? Well, I mean, you know, first off, to get mad or happy at your supervisor is exactly right. I mean, I've said on your show multiple times. Every year, if you want to see what people prioritize, see what electeds prioritize, watch what they do during the budget and what they say. So that's absolutely right. That's why I think that budget portion of that triangle is more important than what you may have mentioned. Now the comp plan, and Neil made public comment

the other day, you know, before we got into the work session on the comp plan items. But that's absolutely right, too. I think there's room in a comprehensive plan for aspirational and attainable, but you have to define what is what. Because when people read it, they're going to read all attainable. So there are certain aspirational things that we do want to do, but realistically some things may not ever be 100%, but you want to always strive for it. You know, like keeping your community safe. I would say that I'd want to keep 100% of the community healthy and safe. Yeah.

Is that an achievable, attainable goal at 100% level? Probably not, but I'm not going to sit there and go, oh, it's okay if we hit 95%. But the 10,000 units, how many affordable units are we going to bring online? How many actual units are we going to bring online? We're not even in control of the units. Now, that's not something that we should just be aspirationally stating. We should be stating specifics on that one. And that was kind of the nuance of the conversation that was happening Wednesday

through what we went through, good grief, what's it? Five chapters. Five chapters? No, five goals and objectives. Now, this is important for the listeners to hear. This is just the discussion of the goals and objectives. This isn't the actual plan. So we've had this overview first and the two work sessions talking about kind of vision and context, and now we have goals and objectives. And then there's going to be yet another work session at the planning commission and board talking about chapters and the actual comp plan

before the comp plan comes forward. So this is a marathon, not a sprint. Just real quickly before we kind of move off of the comp plan, if you could give the view and listeners who maybe not geeks out as much as we may be, what exactly is the comp plan, why is it important, and how often does it have to happen, and how does it connect with your world, Ned? So whoever wants to jump in. Well, comprehensive plans are dictated by the Commonwealth of Virginia for all localities to have a comprehensive plan, a 20-year plan that includes housing, transportation, and a few other

chapters are required. Many localities have more chapters than that. It must be reviewed every five years. It doesn't have to be redone. It doesn't even have to be examined. Nothing has to change. They can dust it off. That's all they have to do. That's all they have to do. I think that's an important thing to get out. In this iteration, Albemarle County has chosen to do a full redo, which is a three-year plan for updating a plan that has to be updated every five years, which is also known as a planner employment plan, to keep the goals meeting what the current community wants them to meet. And so that is where we are in the AC44 process. In full disclosure, Albemarle County has paid me $143 to be a part of phase two of the AC44 plan, and I cashed the check. Hold it. Are you buying lunch today? Well, I don't know if I'm still a volunteer because I took the check. Johnny Ornelas watching

the program, the owner of El Mariachi in Guadalajara. Questions are coming in. I will table these questions. We can save them because the show is moving over here. Keith Smith, I can see the wheels turning over there. You're taking notes. I'm taking notes. Actually, I was drawing pictures of Sam the Eagle trying to get that in my head. 10,000 units.

Let's talk about this a little bit. So, Jude, if you don't mind putting slide number seven on. I tend to geek out, spent a bunch of time yesterday crunching numbers, and we don't really have to go into great detail, but slide number seven was very interesting. I took a look at new construction attached going back from 2016 to 2023. And if you take a look at that, you know, the bottom line, the orange line, is the number of units that were sold. It would be nice if you mark these slides with a page number over there. They are. It says at the bottom.

It says slide seven. Does it say? Do you see that? Bottom here. Bottom left-hand corner. Okay. Thank you very much. I missed that. I didn't see that either. I apologize, Keith. I sincerely apologize. He did do that.

Slide 7. Okay. We probably have to talk this through because Mr. Smith didn't get it. Cool. If you just focus on slide seven, that's of the 32... John Blair, good morning, my friend. Of the 32,000 I sent you. But what's important, and we'll let Judah do his work,

and I'll chat about this a little bit, kind of what I wanted to get out there, when you take a look at this, this is why inventory matters and the ability to go ahead and produce more homes. So these are townhomes, new construction townhomes. You know, they start off at the $300,000 and ends up at the $460,000 between 16 and 23. But as Judah's working on that, gentlemen, if you take a look at the way as the inventory or the amount of sales uptick,

the price has stabilized or dropped. So I kind of want to throw a softball out here. If you take a look at 22 to 23, it jumped from 127 units in 22, thank you, buddy, to the end of 23 or 310. That's almost double in inventory. Do you take a look at what happened with the prices? It dropped. So, you know, existing inventory, I'm just going to throw this softball out there and see who wants to pick it up. The existing inventory... Can I push back on this a little bit? The price point stabilized.

Is it a drop of 7K? I wouldn't say it's necessarily a significant drop. I would say stabilization there. Is that a reflection of 7K? I wouldn't say it's necessarily a significant drop. I would say stabilization there. Is that a reflection of interest rates year over year to 60%, 70% increase in value in interest rates? No. So the 22 mark, we were flirting that all of 23 were flirting with 8. 23, we were 8. Yeah, which really –

So this is 23. I see that. I see that. I see that. So my point is that we had a high rate environment. Sales went up. But, Neil, why did sales go up in 23? There was more product. And why was there more product?

Because Albemarle County chose to allow density in the development area where density belongs. And they built it. And how long did that take to get to that point? Three years. How long did it take for projects to get approved and built up to that point? Ten years. That's exactly right. So, you know, the soapbox I'm on at the moment, and he's smiling as I'm waiting for him to jump in, is this is proof in my little world that if we can figure out a way to get more product out there, that it will help stabilize prices, in my opinion, simple supply and demand.

But I wanted to throw that out there. When I finished this slide yesterday, I expected to see it, but I didn't expect it to see it that egregious. Before we get into that, I need a recovering developer answer or perhaps a supervisor answer. What is the density per acre of townhome communities? I couldn't tell you that. But I mean, it's in what range? Yeah, so I mean, anywhere. God, it depends on the jurisdiction. I can't quote Albemarle County. Right, but townhomes are more dense than single-family.

Yeah, so from a cost-of-development perspective is maybe a different way of asking the question. Townhomes are more cost-effective. You take a look at that. I didn't create a slide, but the single-family detached homes got a strong 8, if not a 9. So is $460,000 affordable? Well, the question I'm getting at is, while you're excited about an increase in supply, where's the next increase coming? It's not coming to Alamo County. And I love you dearly, so I don't mean this to be negative. It's going to be in your not coming in Alamo County. And that's, and I love you dearly, so I

don't mean this to be negative. It's going to be in your county, in Greene County, because they have stuff in the thing. I don't actually own Greene County. He lives in Greene County. Okay, Sam. Okay, Sam. So what do you think? Well, I mean, you know, the time that it takes to get things through, I think, is getting shorter. You know, let's use the comp plan as the bookend, maybe the bookend or the timestamp, maybe the mile marker. The last time the Board of Supervisors went through a comp plan major update was before I was on the board. And I listened in. I mean, I was through their marathon sessions of going through each chapter. I do not recall major conversations

about affordable housing happening and not even necessarily housing happening. Now, you would know better than that because you would have probably listened in even more intently than I was back then. I was still on the school board when they started that process i was damn near on the board by the time the process was finished because it does take a while to go through a comp plan um we've had a change in a sea change in who's running the county running the county in the county executive's office and that's not just personality or individual, but that's approach.

And culture. And culture. So I think all of that is moving us to, you know, and I'm not trying to say that Albemarle doesn't deserve a reputation when it comes to how long it takes things to get through things, but I think it is improving. So, you know, but coming down the road, more inventory. We've always talked about that, Keith, and sidebar conversations at Regional Housing Partnership and that.

But just more inventory doesn't necessarily mean affordable units are going to be coming online. But, of course, more units is better from the standpoint of what the local market is going to look like. More housing everywhere for everyone. Hashtag. You're supposed to do a hashtag before that. Hashtag. So, I mean, that's a general piece. Now, if you don't do something to help, in my opinion, if you don't do something to help subsidize the affordability of all of those units coming on, then, you know, you could just let it go

and all of those units end up being priced out where a certain segment of the population, a huge segment of the population wouldn't be able to get into regardless of what they are. Homes, rentals, townhomes, doesn't really matter. As you know, I'm passionate about that, and I surely don't argue that. But about 25% of the cost for new construction is regulatory requirements, which, by the way, doesn't calculate in the cost to go through the rezoning process. That's from the point that you're rezoned going through. But the rezoning process is only a small portion of that process, right?

There's projects in your home county that I know is already in the site plan process that is about a year. It's probably got another six to 12 months to go before they start the development side of stuff. I concur with that analysis, but I think there's another important point that Ned brought up. Just in the last two weeks, the Board of Supervisors has stepped forward with funding for affordable housing projects. And I am a big proponent. If the community, the entire community, makes affordable housing a goal and there are costs associated with providing affordable housing, the entire community should share in that cost.

Do you want to talk about the project you funded? So it was the extra phase in Southwood and then the premier circle was the other. And? Premier circle. And? Well those were the two specific ones. Those were the two specific ones. And you also funded 23 units for the land trust. That wasn't this past. Okay. You're right that that's something we have done but this last time just those two specific ones specific ones were the ones we ran. And the Premier Circle is out on 29, and that's being run by Virginia Housing. And it's really interesting.

I had someone reach out to me, and I don't have the number in front of me, but they did the cost per square foot of Premier Circle. And it's pretty doggone high when you do that on based on the entire project um and that's not saying one thing or another i i made a point when i spoke before the supervisors which i do on occasion really um i i was one of one speaker this week um ned actually at one point quoted me and said i'm really sorry sorry to give Neil this much airtime. It was a nice quote. I did not mean to be giving Neil so much airtime. The costs of doing business and development in Albemarle County are high, period.

Whether you're a non-profit developer, whether you're a for-profit developer. And by the way, Habitat for Humanity, PHA, are developers. You guys want to throw around this idea that developers are bad. Developers create product that has been envisioned by the comprehensive plan that was vetted by the community. They are the ones that make the dream come true and put capital at risk. So I really push back on the idea that being a developer is a bad thing. And I'm not throwing stones at what they're doing at Premier Circle.

It's an aggressive project, which is fabulous. But we don't take positions on projects. We simply call out those things. When you have a pro forma that's out there for everyone to see, it's important to recognize when you're spending, what is it, $500 or $600 a square foot to make it happen. And I don't think developers are bad so i think that and that's probably said in my in my political grouping

that i'm labeled under might not be the best statement for me to say out loud but i mean we have developers around the table at the regional housing partnership we had developers with us in december in the incentives conversation that we brought to the table. And, you know, there was not, you know, at the time, Chair Price said we want to have some straight talk, some frank conversations that day. And we did, and there was no animosity there. So when you can have a meeting with that many people around the room and everybody's focused on how to achieve what we're trying to achieve. I think that's a sign that the mentalities or perhaps the mindset or the views of different groups, developers, supervisors, county, this, that, and the other, we've got to get away from the whole it's us versus them type of thing and just go we've got to figure this out together.

So this problem that Jerry and I have been talking about for a very long time, and all you've got to do is take a look at some of these slides, and I'll post them later, about where the volume of sales and so forth. We're all in this together, right? It's the affordable, it's the upper-end buyer, it's the geezers, buyers like me, and the millennials. We're all in this, and this is too important because, you know, Jerry will quote this, that what is, per because, you know, Jerry will quote this, that what is, per the good doc, the least hysteric,

what is the housing ecosystem in the state of Virginia? Number two. Number two. So it impacts everybody. We just did the study, or the Weldon Cooper did the study, on the defense industry and the impact on the local economy. Has anybody ever done that for the development community? We've actually talked about doing it, and it has been part of the challenge there is the.

Are you talking car here? I'm talking about the free enterprise forum. Okay. Taking a look at it. Yeah. And it is housing was determined, thankfully, by the governor to be a critical industry and state of business. During the pandemic. During the pandemic.

Right. And quite frankly, when you talk to people around the community, the folks that are at a minimum transiently attached to housing is significant. Oh, yeah. And housing is the lifeblood. Now, I don't know if it would be in the state. I'm not sure it would be number two here in central Virginia. What's the number one industry in the state? Well, according to Lisa Sturtevant, it's government contracting or the government supply chain.

Military, the whole nine yards. She's wrong. The number one business in the state is agriculture. By far. You would know that. By far. Really? In terms of straight numbers.

Now, businesses, if you make, some folks consider agriculture not a business. I happen to consider agriculture a business. There are 900 family farms operating in Albemarle County. Most of them are beef, but there's hay and there's all kinds of other things. They're not as big as some of the other counties in the state, but

agriculture is the number one industry in the state. We're going to have the good doctor in on the second quarter. She's supposed to come in this quarter, but she's widely all over the country speaking. How would Neil see the top five shaken out industries in central Virginia, out of curiosity? We have to define it. I think he's about to do that. You would say University of Virginia's supply chain is one, right? University of Virginia, in a big way,

again, kind of like housing, there's so many, I mean, I think the medical only has 12,000 employees. Right, right. Something like that. Do you go tourism, too? No. No. Tourism is, defense is definitely, too.

Okay. Now, the study that was done, just so that everyone knows, Weldon Cooper did a study that was released in February that was for Albemarle County and Greene County, and it showed a $1.2 billion, with a B, dollar impact. About half of that was from Rivanna Station. That's $500 million that's not in Greene County. So without a doubt, the defense industry very quietly, and by design quietly sure is number two okay um i probably again with the same kind of transential thing with uva put um tourism into the three spot okay um and then you've got a lot of major employers that are in four five six that are

across a number of different industries. So I don't know exactly how to qualify those numbers. Okay. What do you think, Ned? Well, I mean, there's, depending on what, I guess, criteria you use to break that down, just in the, we had the presentation the other day where we listed the employers. Yes. And I'm not remembering the list exactly the way it went. And then back in the fall when we had the local economic impact, local economic report

from the folks at Virginia Tech that are helping our finance team, they had talked about the different industries that were the sectors that are in there. So we've got the information. I'm just not remembering exactly what that billed list was. That was a deep dive. If anybody wants to go back and watch that, it was really well done by the economist from Virginia Tech. And Ned had done his homework and was comparing last year's report to this year's report and calling out things. And I was like, okay, he read both reports all the way through and remembered some stuff.

I wish he could remember the list right now. The big question is, do you know where you are right now? Right now. The coffee's is do you know where you are right now? Right now. The coffee's kicking in. There you go. So you kind of threw me a softball with the DOD thing because we've been talking about this on the Regional Housing Partnership and I'm going to go ahead and say this out publicly. You know, I've at the public meetings for the partnership have felt that the regional housing partnership should do exactly what they did for DOD for each one of the jurisdictions around housing, right? Because a lot of jurisdictions think that housing

or folks think housing may be a drain on the local government on what it brings into that, but we really don't know. There's never been an actual report that says, hey, you know, it does this and it does that. There was one done in 2011 by Virginia Housing, which is rather old. And, you know, I will continue at the meeting as long as the chairperson allows me to speak to make pitches for it, because I think we're built for that with Weldon Cooper, with Carr, with whoever, to go ahead and say, okay, this is the impact of housing on the local economy and the local government, and we can break it down so when that topic comes up, there's data that supports it. But I'll keep on throwing it out

there. Yeah, I mean, when, you know, I think of it from the standpoint, like, I legitimately don't know if you said, well, how many, think of developer as a business, a local business, it is. And how many are there? How many of them are there? How many people do they employ? And then when you start interacting with the actual construction, how many people are employed to do that construction? That's the type of stuff. I don't know the answers to this question.

I would encourage you to Google 2011. They changed the name. Help me out here, Neil. I think it was Virginia Housing. It's now, but I can't remember what it was at the time. And they actually break out the induced, indirect, and the direct expense of that. Right. And I also remember vividly 15 years ago there was a, you know, because we have to have task force studies.

We had an Albemarle County task force, the fiscal impact study. And they were trying to hone in on the question, well, how much does a house have to cost for it to break even for the county? That seems to me to be a knowable number. It really does. And they weren't able to do it. And they were working with, at the time, the economist for Albemarle County, who's now up in Loudoun, Steve All's house. Good guy.

And they weren't able to get it. I think there was some pressure to massage the numbers or not get to the number at the time. But it would seem to me that whether it is a house in a gated community with a golf course is what it has to be, or if it's maybe a house in Dunlora makes the break. There's a break point somewhere, and that's a knowable number. It's a very simple number to do. Well, you say that, and trust me when I say I'm efforting this now. I've done this in Fulvana County. It's not that difficult.

Okay. Right? You've just got your number of rooftops. What your budget is, you've got to take out your pass-through numbers, the numbers you get from the feds. Take out your pass-through numbers? Do you take out the commercial numbers? The commercial wouldn't exist without the residential. So does that count or doesn't it count? I know that, but if you are going to say, you know,

what is the break-even point for a rooftop, the math isn't that difficult. You've just got to be willing to make the tough choices and want to pull out to do the math. And then you can figure out if a house is assessed at X, anything below that is costing the local jurisdiction money. And that's what this report does in 2009. We had Chris Fairchild on set, supervisor for Fluvanna County, who straight up called housing a drain on Lubana County. He said new rooftops was a drain on the economy of Lubana County on this show. And I love, Chris, that we're dear friends. When I ask, that's what makes me think about this.

When I ask, I guess I approve it. I don't have to approve it. If a new house is a drain, what is an affordable house that we're now spending taxpayer dollars to create? Is that a super drain? Let's talk about that. Good question. We know this because of the land trust. In order, in today's environment, in order to buy a home and meet at least the floor of 65 AMI, you can't go over 200 grand. Woody Fitch have just said, can service workers, police officers, and school teachers afford a $460,000 house?

Right. So the answer is no. No. Yeah. So they're at this 200. So frankly, what we're doing at the land trust, I probably shouldn't talk about this, but that's never stopped me before. We're now looking at Lake Monticello. Because in order for me to do something, the land trust to do something in Almar County,

I've got to bring $200,000 to $300,000 cash to the table to get that to Fulton County. I'm looking at it right now. There's a wonderful, a great rock star of a real estate, Agent Maggie Gunnels, has something at $240,000. I can bring $40,000 to the table and put a family in that house. So we are now actively looking out in those jurisdictions. So you've been priced out of Albemarle County. I just need more money, brother. Don't we all?

Yeah. Go ahead, Matt. I was just going to say, that's the beauty of the question of, like, well, what does just the development from a pure business analytics, how many businesses, how many employees, et cetera. But then when you start, you get into the other layers of it. You know, the benefit to having, you know, affordable housing, everybody's mind kind of goes somewhere. That's sometimes the problem with the phrase.

It means different things. But when you go to, when we talk, because that's the first word out of most people, I want teachers and police officers and firemen to live and work in the community. And then, well, what is, because if they don't, then that activity is that, the activity of them living their lives is happening somewhere else. You know, forgetting the, or not forgetting the fact that it's just those people you would like to be here. You'd like your employees to live close by but when they take and they're living somewhere else then the economic activity of where they live is happening somewhere else and this was something

that Vaco this year that uh folks on the eastern shore they're like their whole population goes and works somewhere else and then they come back and there's nothing happening where they live so it's almost like the reverse where they they go to work, all their economic activity is happening, and they don't bring anything back. And 20 years ago, I wrote about this, when we were having this false choice of do we want to be Austin or Aspen, which was not a true choice. By the way, Austin is a state capital and has Dell Tech computers and a bunch of other stuff, and we don't have the mountains of Aspen.

But I was at the time 30,000 people were commuting into santa barbara county for services for serve to be service workers and commuting out and i was saying is that what we want now you were quoting i think the the transportation that the commute numbers uh in a meeting in the meeting on wednesday and i i can't remember the number but i want to say that there were somewhere in the meeting on Wednesday. And I can't remember the number, but I want to say that there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 people leaving Albemarle County, not going to Charlottesville, but going somewhere other than Charlottesville.

And I was fascinated. One of the leading places they were going was Fairfax County. I think that was Supervisor Andrews. It was Supervisor Andrews who was bringing that information up. But, you know, this is something that it's been over a year now since Keith. It'll be February 14th will be the year, actually, when we went to Nelson County to do a presentation on the Regional Housing Partnership. And Nelson County had just received their compensation study back,

and we're sitting there talking about how all their teachers and firemen and police officers were living somewhere else and had to come into the county to work couldn't afford to live in their County so it's like this giant ripple effect where you can just take the same conversation and go to each of the six counties that are in the TJ PDC and they're all having the same conversation and everybody's pushing out their own employees further and further out from where they're actually working it's even worse in the city of Charlottesville with police. 1982, Loudoun County was having this conversation, and specifically in a Board of Supervisors meeting that I attended.

Yes, I was a nerd in 82. They said, and we need to talk about manufactured housing as a solution for our public service workers. Comments are coming in really fast. Let's see if we can get to a lot of these. John, Blair, I'm going to get to yours here in a matter of moments for Ned Galloway specifically this is from Deep Throat who often is commenting on the I Love Seville show this guy is extremely well studied and backed by data he's speaking specifically in fact multiple people speaking

specifically to Neil on that number wanting to to know the study. He says, on the question of impact of new homes, it's almost certainly negative. You need businesses. They are massive net contributors. Neil's break-even is a very good number to know. You can't get that to one number, but you can do it for different housing types and cases. But generally, if the house had kids in public school almost totally sure it will be a net loser for the jurisdiction and i've sent this research he says to a number of the jurisdictions including the city of charlottesville um so that's along the lines of what fairchild has been saying uh on fluvanna county but back to my point is is that we, and thank you to Deep Throat for this, that if we actually go through what you guys did for DOD and actually do it,

then we can, it may take forever and it may be expensive, but at least we would have something. And we could utilize the same data that the county schools provide today. Townhouses provide, generate fewer kids than single family homes. And apartments fewer than that. And so you have those metrics there. It is not as easy as dividing by rooftops. I wish it was. I would have done it a while ago. And I will tell you, your county, Green County, is one of the few counties that do this. But when you do a rezoning application, you need to provide a fiscal impact analysis. And there are firms that do this out around the country that they can do that. A lot of stuff coming in from some smart people. This is for Supervisor Galloway from John Blair.

John, or excuse me, Jerry, I think Ned Galloway has been a key component in setting a tone at the Board of Supervisors level that is more housing supply oriented and economic development friendly than past boards. He needs to get a pat on the back for helping establish this tone. Here's a fun fact for you all from Weldon Cooper. Agriculture and timber accounted for 11% of gross state product in 2022. That's one out of every $9 in the Commonwealth were generated from agriculture and timber, which goes to back the point Williamson, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, has made about that being the number one industry in the Commonwealth and not government,

which counters what Dr. Lisa Sturtevant has said. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Sturtevant. You're not throwing shade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, it all depends on how you split the apple, right? of respect for Dr. Sternovich. You're not throwing shade. It's all dependent on how you split the apple, right? We don't know exactly what she's looking at. We're going to ask her.

Go ahead. I want to talk to John's point. I had a brief conversation with the new Economic Development Director in Albemarle County, Barry Albright. Albrecht. I followed it up with a thank you, and then I said, I spoke a little bit about where Albemarle had been,

and I said, it's really important to know where you've been. And so I went back to 2016, and I had a blog post about economic development in 2016, and it literally quoted, said, one of the key, that we were turning the ship at that point. And I wanted to, it was the X-Files, I want to believe you. But it was a, quite honestly, until that shift, the surrounding counties, the second thing they said, beside their name, is, and we're not Albemarle.

That was their pitch for securing business. That's not really the case today. And that's a big step forward. Well, in case and point, we had a great economic development conversation at the comp. That was one of the chapters. And actually, parks and rec and economic development, I felt, were some of the cleanest in terms of objective to goals. Tracking, oh, I can see how those objectives meet that.

And then once the action steps come in, if those are tight already, then the action steps will probably be tight. So I'm proud of our economic development team in Albemarle County. And by the way, there was a small team in 2014-15 of one or two people, not a true director. There was an economic development specialist. And, in fact, we didn't even use the terms economic development until 2016 because that was really language that was not welcome in Albemarle County. And John's too kind, so I appreciate John. He's giving you props.

But I love the fact that he's so engaged. I've been watching his commentary as different things go through the General Assembly right now. So he's a, you know, Neil is one of these folks, these folks that are sitting there paying attention and putting the content out there for everybody else to take it in. I just find that really valuable because that's not, you know, it's connected to what you do. John's obviously interested, but putting that information out is good for the community. Especially as the community is becoming somewhat of a news

desert. So I concur with what Supervisor Galloway said. I'm seeing your fingers move there. It's coming in extremely fast. Before you do that, just to follow off of that, Neil won't do this, but if you like what Neil does, do yourself a favor, support his organization and donate to it. Free Enterprise Forum, guys.

Support the Free Enterprise Forum. So this one's from a tenured economic professor. He's a Ph.D. at UVA. Jerry, as you know, we love your content and are routinely watching in our department at the university. To back what Deep Throat just said. There's no question new housing with children is an economic drain on any jurisdiction. Numerous studies are there to back what Deep Throat has said. And he then says,

Neil Williamson, please turn that magnet around. We routinely read your stuff on the Free Enterprise Forum. The magnet was backwards. So they read you at UVA, Neil Williamson, and he says there's no question the area needs the study that you guys are talking about, Doc. So to play off of that a little bit, so we get national data. We, as part of NAR, get national data. National Association of Realtors. Thank you.

I take a deep dive into United Van Lines, which talks about why people are moving back and forth. But 2023, according to NAR, the boomers outsold the millennials, which is the first time in a couple of years. Part of this report needs to talk about the profiles of folks coming in and out. I don't have access to that. Weldon Cooper probably does. The UVA professors, I'm sure they have access to that, but that's part of what I would want to put in this report is, okay, where

are people coming, you know, what's their income, you know, why are they moving here and in and out, and I think it's just just information that needs to get out to the decision makers, right, to decide if this is a good thing or not. Who knows? I'm pro-housing and I'm without a doubt pro-housing, but that data may come back and say, look, you know. Well, in that 2016 post and we were talking about the economic development and the change, I wrote a line that I read and I thought, oh, that was pretty good.

Yeah, thank you. That was a humble brag. A humble brag. The idea that no longer – You want to get the other side? So track what he says and do the Muppet questionnaire and just answer them. No longer is Albemarle looking at should we eat our vegetables regarding economic development. They're asking do you want peas or carrots.

And that peas or carrots question again came up on Wednesday. What kind of jobs do we want? You know what we want? We want jobs. We want jobs of all levels. Yeah, but what's happening, and Jerry's fingers are flying here, so, you know, Jerry's been talking about this. We've been talking this for a while. The jobs are coming, and they're multiple six-figure jobs. That's the reason we're at 123,300, right? According to HUD, per household income. Per

household, thank you. So, you know, as the housing guy at the table, where are we going to put these folks? And, you know, we're looking at our sales volume for the car footprint. There's a number of units sold, everything. Matches 2016. We are at 2003, 2023. We're at a 2016 level.

Albemarle County is flat, but the city of Charlottesville is 45, excuse me, 35% below, that would be slide number three, is 35% below 2016 numbers. And if you go back to 2014

and look at every year for the number of production, housing unit production in Albemarle County, there are three years where it topped over 1,000 units. Three. And you're talking about how many jobs coming? Oh, God. This is a good question right here. She's an engineer and a realtor, I believe, and then multiple realtors have followed up saying they

want to know the answer to this as well. Carly Wagner is asking this question. Do special use permits follow the property, the owner, or the applicant? If one tenant moves out from a property that was needing the special use permit, can a new tenant move in and operate under the same special use permit, or does it matter who the applicant was, tenant or owner? Great question. Do you want to take that one? I mean, You'll know the ins and outs of it. There are some that wish it was just for the applicant. There is actually a bill in the General Assembly today that talks about this. Right now, Virginia State Code indicates

special use permits are dictated by the parcel and the considerations of the parcel, and they convey with the parcel. Now, there are some that are trying to have done things to create limitations on that, requiring an annual registration or an annual license for a homestay. That makes it so that you can do a homestay, but you aren't licensed, and then all of a sudden you're in violation of local code. So would that be specific to homestays?

Homestays are Airbnbs for those that are late in terms. Homestays and Airbnb, and in general, state code looks at short-term rental, which is any rental less than 30 days, that folks have a special use permit for. The localities can require that, and if they get that, it can special use permit for. The localities can require that. And if they get that, it can convey with the land. But by creating the licensure program, they kind of pervert that intent.

So big level, SUP, special use permit. For those of us that are not in this world, the process is exactly like a rezoning. You have to go through the whole process. And the Board of Supervisors get to put conditions on that. That's the big difference between a rezoning and a special use permit. I know you're talking about something specific for that, but in general terms, and currently, to answer the question directly, it attaches to the land. As the land moves through it, you turn out and buy it. You inherit

those. Think about it from the real estate agents that are watching. Think about it as an easement. Easement or encumbrance. Easement is the simplest way to explain it, that it runs with the land.

There's often times where there's a special use permit attached to a rezoning and they've got to do it all at one time. But the homestay one is where the conversation about or the angst about it going with the land comes up the most in discussion. Yes. Which I can understand why. I just wanted to get a quick analysis out there. Randy O'Neill, modern economic development is focused on less workforce and all other margins like high rent and taxes. It works

everywhere but government. You can't approach them and say, I will reduce costs and improve services by exceeding goals and reducing workforce. The problem with that is it's so damn expensive to develop it, you have to go to high-end stuff. He says, another thought, does a new small business want location or sites?

Randy, I appreciate that. There's a lot of good comments coming in. And this is a conversation I have with my local rural board of supervisor friends all the time. You know, they can't grasp the rooftops versus business, right? You know, Louisa County, there's a couple of businesses that wanted to come and design Crossroads that I'm helping that just won't come because there's no workers to fill. And these are really good businesses, good high-tech kind of stuff that you would want there. So, you know, it's kind of a chicken and egg thing. And to the question of sites, and it came up in the conversation about economic development, there is a dearth of sites available in Albemarle County that are ready to move into.

And that's not just for new businesses. That's for expanding businesses that are already here. People are leaving Albemarle County because there's nowhere to grow. I believe current supervisor Michael Pruitt watching the program right now. Kevin Higgins in Greenwood, hello. Welcome to the broadcast. Lonnie Murray, welcome to the broadcast. Love you, Lonnie.

You're welcome anytime. Multiple developers, five developers watching the program right now that I can count. A handful of realtors watching the program right now. Let's get to this follow-up on the SUP, she was wondering if a non-profit has one private school vacated property that was using an SUP and a new school wants to move in, it sounds like the SUP will or should still cover the new school. Is that right? Or unless the bill Neil mentioned revises this. And then I got more questions coming in. The bill hasn't been passed yet.

The bill is going through there. I mean, literally this morning I was under the weight of 2,000 bills as I was reviewing things this morning. That's an exhilarating life you lead. I know. Here it comes again. But the idea that the school would do – It probably is, actually.

It's 1,500 in just the house. Oh, no, I'm not doubting you. I'm not doubting you. If you go to Richmond Sunlight and look up my photosynthesis, I'm tracking specifically over 100 bills. But the school itself would likely have some additional specifics that would need to be dealt with. I'm always amazed. Schools that do special use permits sometimes paint themselves in a corner. And the supervisors actually try and help them.

And they say, don't you want to say occasionally you'll have a night event or until 430 so you can have after school tutoring? Because they say, well, our hours are from 8 to 3. Yeah, but every now and again doesn't your staff stay? And so they don't want to put you in a place where you're in violation of your special use permit. Which I respect that. Or the student population. Well, we've got 180, we're going to grow to 200. Really? Are you going to stay at 200? How many times have they had to come back for a new

number? So we're getting close to running out of time. No, we can go. Let's keep going. This is great. So Carly, do me a favor. Reach out to me. Send me the SUP. We'll go ahead and read it because what's in the SUP matters because their conditions and those are the conditions you're going to have to live with. Or you go ahead and I'm assuming we might be looking at trying to buy a piece of property or something along those lines. You just go ahead and get a long enough study period that you go back to your board and amend and try to amend.

That's a long study period. That is a very long study period. If it's exact, though, if the use would be exact to what existed prior, then that should convince. And I'm out of curiosity, and this is just me spitballing right now. I'm very curious, and this is just me spitballing, if this is tied to Charlottesville Catholic and its choice for a high school because it goes up to the eighth grade, and whether or not it Catholic and its choice for a high school,

because it goes up to the eighth grade, and whether or not it needs additional land to create a high school, because I know that's something that's in the conversation for that respective school. So the smart move, and Carly's on track with this, just have her reach out to me. I can put her into some people that we can get in front of Ned's board, but the right path is to amend it to what you're trying to do. And listen to what Neil is saying. Don't box yourself into it. This is the word upzoning. This is a great one from Jennifer. She goes, you guys have gone almost an hour and haven't mentioned the word upzoning. It's clearly on the tip

of everyone's tongue because of what Charlottesville is doing. Would Albemarle County consider upzoning just the urban ring or the 5% development area so we can maintain or preserve the remaining 95% as most of us want to keep it green? That's a great question right there. I mean, it's a question that's been being asked a lot, obviously, because of what's going on in Charlottesville. It's not been discussed at all. It's been raised, the idea of expanding the development area has also been raised by someone occasionally. And did that not come up in the regional housing part? I didn't attend the thing, but didn't

the growth of the, I'll try to come up with the developer incentive? The closest thing I think we've had, you know, because it's one way for me to answer that question. That's the politician, then it's one way for me to answer that question. That's the politician. Then it's a different way if it's the supervisor. Nobody's watching. Answer it anyway. You know what I mean.

So it's like, well, how do you substantively actually start addressing that question knowing the reality of what's going on? So in the last few years, the only time anything close to this conversation was actually discussed at the board was when an affordable housing overlay was brought to the board. And it basically gave us by right to max out the density and the different properties and the temperature at the time because that affordable housing overlays never come back and i was one that even talked about you know with with developments that are in my district specifically at max density knowing the infrastructure and the impacts around it, I don't know that I was, at the time especially, I wasn't ready to give up the ability to consider it project by project.

Now, there are people that have been, since then, the offline conversations, individual supervisor, and watching what's going on with Charlottesville and hearing from folks to say, well, this is part of the answer of how you could potentially get there. I can speak from a national perspective. A different perspective now than I had a few years ago. I can speak from a national perspective

because I'm part of a couple of national cohorts. What Charlottesville did is on the tip of the tongue of quite a few people around the country to kind of take a look at that and was wondering what Neil's thoughts are. I again am called to the movie Airplane when Leslie Nielsen is asked, what did you have for dinner? And she said, we served the chicken and the fish.

And he said, yeah, I had lasagna. I don't believe that we have the solution as just one thing. I believe that creating new districts, expand the existing development area, but create a transitional area to the rural area that maybe doesn't get the water and sewer, maybe has a different level of services, and that's even larger than the enlarged development area.

And those parcels will allow them to be two instead of 21 acres. Back in the day, that's what they did. And by the way, you know who has this policy today in their comprehensive plan? Loudoun County, Virginia. So back in the day, that was it. That was the two-acre subdivision. I would love to get as many viewers and listeners' commentary and questions in. There's a lot of good stuff here.

So Deep Throat says what Keith is asking for, I've done a deep dive on ACS, Alamo County Public School. No, ACS Public Use Microdata. Help me with that. Neil, what are you talking about? I'm not sure. Maybe he's talking about Alamo County Public School's microdata and who is coming in and who is going out for our area. So he's got that. He can provide that.

He says, according to our data, the problem is that the jobs are coming and they are bringing the job holders from the outside. Economic development that brings in businesses with the employees is quite risky for the people already living in place. That leads to gentrification, as we know. And to play off of that, so that's the thing that I'm trying to work at with this program. I don't have access, Deep Throat probably does, to where the jobs are coming from to our region. I know where it's coming from, the state, right? Most of them. I mean, the University of Virginia straight up said on the record, and I've said this many times, that the $100 million gift that Paul Manning gave for the Biotech Institute,

that it's going to be 3,000 new jobs, all six figures, no one tied to the area. And they said that on the record at a press conference. They're not trying to dice or stand away from that. This is a good one. I think it would be nice to hear the panel discuss their vision and hopes for the rural crossroad concept that is proposed for the new comp plan. I'd love to see some mom and pop shops in free union, but I do not want to see free union be Tyson's corner of the next generation. Yes, Tyson's was a rural crossroads when I grew up there. As was Fair Oaks when I grew up there. Hender Veterinary Clinic was at the corner of 50. And I think that the supervisors discussed this at some length and expressed some trepidation with the idea. It was popping up, right, the other day at the comp plan.

It's definitely a conversation that needs to just get in front of us in a work session, and we need to start discussing it through because it's almost like it's coming up on the peripheral of other things right now. And when it does come up, since it's not necessarily scheduled for the discussion that day, we don't really get into the discussion. So the Free Enterprise Forum has a belief that some level of services should be provided to residents of Albemarle County so that they don't have to travel 40 miles to get their oil changed. Now, does that mean you have to have a jiffy lube? No. Does that mean, what does it mean? It means you should be

able to get basic stuff. You don't need a Whole Foods, but you know you need to have the Whitehall Market. You need to have those things that you can get some basics nearby. And what happens if you don't? You're in violation of the number two lens that you're evaluating the whole comprehensive plan by, which is climate change. Right. So I have only national data from United to Jerry's point, United Van Lines, inbound in 2023, the largest number was 33% came for a job. The smallest number coming in was actually retirement.

I don't even think we've seen the impact yet with $11 billion, Louisa, Amazon, the $200-300 million north of Grumbet and Waynesboro. They're not going to live in Waynesboro. They're going to be living in Crozet and the western Almarco County. We haven't seen the impact of Jaffrey's Data Science School. We haven't seen the impact of the Biotech School, UVA expanded enrollment. We will have a the impact of the Biotech School. UVA expanded enrollment. I mean, we will have a population increase, and those coming will bring bags of money with them. And I'm not as smart as Deep Throat or the good professors. You know, I'm just a simple guy.

But looking at 2022 numbers for the same company, job was down at 15%. So it's job moving in the last 12 months, out-of-state and inbound moves, more than doubled. Neil, because of Neil's commentary, a shout-out to Harris Auto Body and Dyke, an amazing shop. That's Carly. These comments come in, and this is in response to upzoning the urban ring. This is from Tom, who lives in the Scottsville district.

I know this gentleman well. He says, if the urban ring is not up zoned, then the natives will continue to be restless. Albemarle County needs to realize and needs to give a little to keep the remaining 95% as we want it. Before I forget, I also want to give a shout out to Maybell's Market. It's well worth the trip out in Dyke. It's a great place to grab a sandwich.

Standardsville is just as good. It is. It's right in the middle of town, but Dyke is a fun drive. I'm not sure here's where the politician at Galloway can help me. When I look at the magisterial districts, 25 years ago, Albemarle County made a decision that every magisterial district includes part of the development area and part of the rural area. I want to say it was maybe two or three years ago the densities in the development areas made it so that the rural areas could, though they're not being ignored, could be ignored. And if you win the development area, it doesn't matter what happens in the rural area. And so the 95% of the land mass may not have the political will.

What do you think of that? I mean, that tracks. I mean, the population lives in the development. In my district, the population lives in the ring. Yeah. So I've never actually gone back and looked at the numbers. Obviously, I've looked and said, all right, well, if you just look at it from a political party standpoint, you know which precincts are a little bit more liberal, which ones are more conservative, and how that breaks out.

But my guess is just that knowing where the numbers of people live, that that would likely track. Well, I mean, take the Scottsville district. You could carry the town of Scottsville. You could carry Glenmore. But if you get hammered in Mill Creek, you're going to lose. Well, and that's happened. There's been times where somebody's won all the precincts except Mill Creek. And then the winner of Mill Creek wins if it's carried by a certain margin, can wipe out the wins by the opponent in the other district. And Mill Creek identifies with the city of Charlottesville's politics

where Glenmore is more neutral. The town of Scottsville is certainly right-leaning. So it really offers a dichotomy, if you may, at the voter booth. What matters? Elections matter. So here's, I did a, we have a new deputy county executive. I'm sure it's fine to talk about this. This is a new deputy county executive, I'm sure it's fine to talk about this. A new deputy county executive, Ann Wall.

Great. She was here. And she's been, says the supervisors get to know her. We've been doing some driving tours of our district. And I just got to do mine a couple days ago. And, you know, of course, one of the questions was, what are some of the top things that you've been hearing about from your constituents? Or what are the top issues?

And I said, well, actually, I don't, that doesn't really work that way. Let's drive around and I'll tell you what the concerns are based on where we're at in the district. Because the issues do come in in different ways depending on where people live, at least in the Rio district. I assume it would be the same way in the other districts. So it wasn't so much so that here are the top three issues. I said one issue that everybody cares about is how fast everybody drives on the roads and what kind of danger that is.

But then when you start going around and say, well, here's what the concerns would be in this area of the district. Here's concerns in this area, in an election? I think, regardless of what your political party is, if you're not responding or listening to the actual everyday just things that people are contending with and need help with, then you're not going to be in your seat very long because you're just not being responsive to what they're saying. This is why I asked the politicians.

And I've always wondered this as a follow-up. As a supervisor, and you're a fantastic supervisor, are you voting by your district's needs or wants, or are you voting as the county in totality? And a sub-question to that is, do you prioritize votes in the urban ring over those outside the urban ring? Because from a democratic standpoint, there's more votes in the urban ring and you're supposed to do democracy here from a politics standpoint? So here's how I think about it. I ran for the seat initially back in 2017 was the election. And to Neil's dismay, I did not have an opponent, not because it's anything to do with Ned.

He just likes competitive elections. But I ran on a platform. And whether or not I had the opponent in one or don't have the opponent in one, I then take confidence in the fact that what I ran on my platform are what the people that voted for me are supportive of and are interested in. And then I state those priorities, and then I vote that way from a countywide perspective. So when I say things like pay attention to how we vote in the budget, what I'm saying to the people that have voted for me is did what I say out there when I wanted the seat

track with the votes that you see me taking once I'm in the seat? If I've changed my mind or a vote doesn't track, then why? And do you agree or disagree with me? Because the next time you perhaps have a chance to vote for me, then it's your decision to say whether or not you still support or not support. So it doesn't come down to, oh, I'm going to be, if it's a Rio district specific element, a development, or perhaps it's an SGP, or perhaps it's something to do with economic development or a business or something that's coming in, well, you know, I'm kind of

everybody else kind of looks to the sitting supervisor of the district to be the specialist for the district and to convey all the sides that are occurring in the localized district. But you really, if we started, if each supervisor started making decisions just on their district alone, then why even have a comp plan and why have strategic plans? Why have a supervisor, why not have a direct democracy? And direct democracy is where you vote on everything individually california and it is a um that that's a good example of headed that direction but the um one of the things that concerns me is when um 30 people speak and someone votes a different

way well then they're not being representative yeah Yeah. Well, was I consistent with what I said I was going to do? And, you know, I have to evaluate each and as a supervisor, they have to evaluate each and every item based upon their political philosophy. And if people aren't agreeing with that, throw the bums out. Thank God. Please let somebody run against them so they can throw them out. And I know you want to say something. I think in the last race with Supervisor Malik, who I believe this is five straight terms for Supervisor Malik, she ran against Brad Rickle, and Rickle lost.

It was closer than people expected. But was the political science the right play by Rickle by focusing potentially out of the density of Crozet where Malik got much more Crozet vote and that pushed her to a fifth term. As somebody who ran and lost in a district I knew I was never going to win

because of this funny accent I have on it, you run because you believe you can make a difference. Don't you run because you believe you can make a difference. Don't you run because you think you can win? No. Nobody runs for public office with the idea they want to ruin the

community. No, no, no. But don't you run for public office because you believe you can win the race? What is the point of running if you don't think you can win? I'm a competitive enough person that yes, of course I wanted to win. But the intent was to try to make my community a better place. The voters decided I was not the right person to do that.

That was a tough question that you got asked. I just want to let you know you handled it perfectly. Yeah, you're a pro on this. Well, you did. I think, you know, none of us are perfect that sit on the board. I appreciate that Neil did a call out with a tweet. What do you call these things now? Are they still tweets?

I think so. Exes. Exes. He said, well, if anybody doubts that the supervisors do their homework, they should be listening in to the comp plan discussion that we were having the other day. Because I think people, once they're there and they run, are interested in doing the work of being the supervisor. It's a tough freaking job. And we're not perfect.

I missed an email and had to send them, like, oh, my God, I missed the email. How many hours did you put in? It changes every day. Yeah, it's a lot. You're being kind. It's a lot. God, I missed the email. How many hours do you put in? It changes every day. Yeah, it's a lot. You're being kind. It's a lot. It just depends on the week. In order to do this job well, it's a full-time job.

And then you have a full-time job and you have family to take care of. It's a tough thing. One may not ever agree or disagree with, I mean, Chris Fairchild, I love him to death. But he and I do not see eye to eye on lots of things. But I have nothing but the utmost respect for him. And I think it comes this way. I usually have to give him a couple shots of bourbon before I get some. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks, Rob. I was looking for somebody. Especially, I think, sometimes with just the state not making commentary on it of local news and news coverage, having other folks that are finding different ways to get the content out there. So, you know, like Woody Fincham when he's on there, that's a must listen to. I go back and re-listen to many of the sessions that you guys have if I can't listen to it live because it's like, all right, that's content I need to be able to come in.

I'm thrilled that there are people like Neil and others and the folks that are chiming in. It'll be fun to go back and read through all those comments and questions because that's information. If that doesn't happen or this venue doesn't occur for that to happen, then we are void of that information

and that's not a good thing. Especially as the region or the area is changing when it comes to news. The legacy news, and I hate to say this because I'm a news junkie like everyone here, just being decimated. And a community is better when it has accountability, and accountability comes from people that report news. We're approaching five years,erry and i doing this together

i mean we go an hour and 15 minutes here without stopping yeah and and and and i think this gentleman's got to get uh and we get to work over here and we got 15 minutes over where we're supposed to stop so so thank you gentlemen for coming in this is it's been a long time for the ned and neil show so we didn't reschedule it again, please. I can speak for myself. This is a lot of fun just to sit back and listen and learn. So thank you, gentlemen, for coming in. The show is Archive Guys, wherever you get your podcasts. We prefer you find it on RealTalk or KeithSmith.com,

but it's live on all social media platforms. Judah Wickhauer keeps us online and doing what we like to do, which is talk about a community we love. For Keith Smith, Neil Williamson, and Ned Galloway, my name is Jerry Miller, and the I Love Seville show is up in 59 minutes. So long, everybody. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.

Good work. It was awesome. Definitely Sam Viggo. 시청해주셔서 감사합니다.