The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Ned Gallaway, Tony O'Brien, Jesse Rutherford & Jerry Miller Live On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Ned Gallaway of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Tony O’Brien of the Fluvanna County Board Of Supervisors, Jesse Rutherford of the Nelson County Board Of Supervisors & Jerry Miller were live 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 El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali and YES Realty Partners.

Have fun. It's Christmas. Happy, huh. Okay. Jesse goes, are you Jewish, Jerry? I'm Southern Baptist. Just have a video. Oh, you're not. Okay. Yeah. You get some from Wickhauer, from the viewers and those.

He goes, I'm Protestant. Hey, man. 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 Seville Network and a show presented by Yes, Realty Partners. It is blustery, downright windy and cold in downtown Charlottesville.

And somewhere Keith Smith is drinking a Mai Tai with the beautiful Yonah Smith and the Caribbean, an umbrella drink on the sand. I can't say that I'm jealous at all. I know he's watching right now. You are missed my friend, but have no fear. Ned Galloway is here, and he's put together a panel of talented proportions. Tony O'Brien, Fluvana County supervisor. Jesse Rutherford, household name, so is Tony O'Brien.

So is Ned Galloway. Jesse Rutherford, you can't go to a watering hole. go to a restaurant. You can't go to a retail joint in Nelson County without no I'm Jesse Rutherford. I sincerely mean that. I mean, in Nelson County, in God's country? That's probably true. Half of my relatives.

Judah, you may see him at the Blue Ridge Barrel house from time to time. Judah Wickauer is behind the camera. He's the Elmer's glue of this team. The stats may not show up in the box score for Judah Wickhauer, but the team does not get to Victory Lane without Judah Wickhower. I sincerely mean that. Studio

camera, I'll stop talking, and let's welcome household name. You guys, this is like The dream team here. Central Virginia dream team. I don't know how the households are saying. It is true that we are also on the TJPDC and are known to encounter another water and hole after our media. It's the whiskey jar, right?

It's 50-50. Isn't it usually the whiskey jar? I was to say that we have some new traditions now that have changed in the last eight years, but local options. Patrick McClure does a great job at Lucky Blues. Great steak and cheese sandwiches. Steak and cheese sandwiches like affordable. Great price point.

Great price point. It's a great watering hole. It is a great watering hole. Ned Galloway, my friend. I will follow your lead, set the stage anywhere you want to go, Supervisor Galloway. No, I mean, I'm just happy to be here. I'm thrilled that Tony and Jesse are joining us. As Tony just mentioned, we sit together on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, and I thought it'd be fun.

That was kind of the first thought to bring the three of us together. And Keith sits with us on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission as well, and he is the current chair. And Keith will be finishing up his work through the commission and stuff this year. So I thought, oh, well, that's a nice little kind of link up, if you would, to bring us fellow commissioners together and newly elected to new terms, ran unimposed, because that's what Neil wanted, and thought we would talk a little hit on Keith's real estate type stuff, but also talk about what we think our constituents are concerned about as we start these next four years together

and to see where it goes. We'll say good morning to Neil Williamson, the president of the free Enterprise Forum watching the program right now, Travis Warburn, the tourism aficionado, Lonnie Murray, welcome to the program, Olivia Branch, the Queen of Keswick, fellow supervisors in

Al Morrow, Fluvana, Nelson, Louisa, Orange on the show at Love Fitzgerald Barnes, and two counselors watching the program. I can't, how many players are. All right, guys, let's say some controversial stuff. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. Which are my fellow supervisor

about. She'll talk trash. I want to talk about Chris Fairchild I love you Chris Fairchild I sincerely do All right Chris is in for a thousand today Chris It's good thing you're not in this room

How about we start it You know what he would have missed the I know He would have enjoyed that How about we start with Tony O'Brien Anywhere you want to go Maybe like a scatter shooting A State of the Union

Of Fluvana County For the viewers and listeners So yeah It's uh it's We just had our election And three of us were unopposed and so the board hasn't changed at all. You know, we are, and currently have a couple of big projects

that we're looking at, Tanaska being the largest. Tanaska is looking to put in another gas-fired power plant. In the county, and it would bring an awful lot of revenue, tax revenue to the county, there's some strong opposition, but there's also, I think, some strong support out there as well, too. So that's going to be coming up in January or February in terms of a vote. So that would be fun.

On Wednesday, we had an approval for rezoning of 185 acres down next to what is going to be the Amazon warehouse facility on Route 15. So the other 185 acres is being done by John Alexander, and he's going to develop that into an industrial park. had some really sharp-looking photos about what he's his vision is for it so that's exciting so we're really seeing you know route 15 with the advent of water finally coming to our flubana area here right now with the what we call the xr water system but soon also with the james river water authority bringing water to both flubana and louisa in the next couple of years that's going to really open the gateways if you would for further commercial and industrial development. So we're excited. We're excited because there's real opportunities to help lower the tax rate for Fluvada citizens. We were able to do, you know, lower the rate.

Of course, it was still up a little bit, but we were able to do that this last time around, and I think we have some real significant opportunities to be, you know, one of the more competitive tax rates as far as housing goes in the area. Stop the presses. someone said commercial and business in Fluvana County? Is that what Tonya O'Brien said? I know. I should also add that Wawa has broken ground.

Wow. If you happen to be right there at the corner of Zion Zon 15 and 53, I'm sorry, 15 and 250, if you look to your left as you're going up 250 next to the water tower, you will see some ground being broken, and that is a Wawa. Very excited to have them as a new partner in Floubana. Supervisor Galloway, maybe a scatter shooting state of the union for Almore. Well, we have a very different board coming up. it's going to be interesting. We have two

brand new members. One ran, did run a contested race, and Fred Missal won that in the Samuel Miller District. Sally Duncan, as we know, won the competitive primary against Dave Shreve back in June, so she'll be representing Jack Jewett after almost 30 years of,

you know, total service of Diantha McKeel. So that puts Anne Malick as the most senior supervisor, and then all of a sudden I find myself as the next senior supervisor. Is that third term? Third term. And, you know, I've been reflecting on that because a lot of times I've not been. I've usually been, like, the fourth or fifth most senior.

So the board has really changed, and it'll be interesting trying to figure out what that will mean for policy in Albemar County. But we've got a lot of good things going on. It doesn't mean we don't have a lot of challenges, but with the announcement of AstraZeneca. And with the Home Depot opening, we have an economic development strategic plan that is actually happening. and things are, you know, you can point to things that say, here's what successes have been. Now, we won't really yield the immediate, or won't immediately yield the results of those type of things.

With Home Depot, we will. But like the Astrosenica, when you start looking out in year three, four, and five of what that type of project means, that changes the dynamic in Albumaro in how the tax base is diversified for us. And there's still more acreage out at Ravana Futures, and there's acreage available

at North Fork. So I'm excited to see what happens economic development activity-wise in Elmore County over the next four years. I think the biggest challenge and what we have to turn our attention to is housing and figuring out the housing issue and not just affordable housing across the whole gambit. We continue to have growth. We continue to have people that want to come work here and live here. And they need a place to live if they are new. And for the folks that are here now, they need to be able to have the option to continue to live here and move up. If they want to move from multifamily into a single family detached or something like that, then they need to have the opportunity to do it.

But this is not an affordable place to live, and it's very, very difficult place to live if you're trying to break in as a new homeowner or even rent. So that's something that I think myself as a supervisor that I have to contend with for the next four years. And I think we're going to be hearing more and more about public safety, frankly, and not just the things that grab the headlines or the last. six, you know, the last six months or so, and it's a little different than what the city of Charlottesville has been dealing with. But I think public safety is on the minds of constituents, and I think we'll be hearing more of that as well. 600 incremental jobs at AstraZeneca, all six years.

3,000 indirect jobs tied to AstraZeneca. The 600 tied to AstraZeneca, the average wage, $125,000, also lost in the news cycle, but not on this network. The American Skin Association has relocated its headquarters to this area. That's big news. Jesse Rutherford, we're going to get to you. First, Neil Williamson, a little dig for the panel. The president of the Free Enterprise Forum. He says the panel may have run unopposed, but the panel is certainly not untested.

The president of the Free Enterprise Forum. Can you put that on a little canvas for me? Yeah, that sounds like someone's tagline right here. My friend, the show is yours. Before we start, should we take the hat off and show the... This is in Nelson County. Oh, I was going to say the recently manicured head for Jesse Rutherford. I know.

It was a little bit more bald a couple weeks ago. I like it. Looks good. But after the wedding, I caught the cold that everyone has. The whole panel does. Basically, three out of the five of us are sick right now. You will have it after today. You will get this.

I'm coughing that way. Thanks. So, yeah, I did shave my head. You know, really cold weather. No regrets. A beautiful wedding I was just at. And, you know, here I am. My wife is more beautiful than I am, of course.

And at the wedding, there was multiple people who didn't recognize me, mostly because I was wearing a suit. Oh, I thought it was because you were the beautiful lady. Oh, yeah, that's right. You're funny. You're funny. Did you get an invite to the wedding now? I did not.

You did? I was looking for you guys. I didn't find you. I heard it was in a winery, too. It was at multiple wineries. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, gee, I thought we had more breath with him. You go to the wedding?

I did not go to the way. You know, guys, let's just go rehearse it right after the show. You can tell the panel enjoys each other's company. Jesse Rutherford, the same of the union for Nelson County. Yeah, well, like Ned, it's been a strange feeling also becoming, you know, one of the elders on our board of supervisors. It's me and Ernie now are the most senior. Senior statesman. Apparently.

Yeah. And it's kind of a crazy ride because I was 23 when I got elected and definitely didn't quite imagine that happening in two and a half. half terms, then all of a sudden you're there. But in terms of Nelson County, I will tell you this, even for Albumoff-Luvana and Charlestville, all roads lead to one place. Do you know where that is? Lovingston. And I think our board is very hopeful and optimistic in economic development as well as housing opportunity in the Levingston area to support the businesses that are there and also promote more businesses. For those who don't know, Levingston's in a magical place. It's right in the middle between Lynchburg and Charlottesville. It's one of the few places where you can have

one spouse working in Lynchburg and one working in Charlottesville and have the exact same commute. And you can go to Vito's too. And you can go to Vito's. It's a wonderful place. And and we're optimistic for the future. We got the sidewalk grant through VDOT, so that's going to be underway. And then we also got, we were successful in getting some sewer upgrades. We were upgrading from a long time ago, terracotta pipe to something more real today. So we're, we're really optimistic in the future. We're also looking into water and sewer expansion, which is not a cheap feat. It's very complicated. And as we look into some of the acquisitions we made, what's going to be feasible there. Furthermore, into that, you know, of course, I'm sure we're going to get into this. But assessments came back, and there's a lot of opinions on that. I'm sure you just did a reassessment. We just did a reassessment. And it was pretty astronomical for a lot of people. And we do ours every four years. Some of our neighbors, they deal, Amherst County specifically does theirs every six.

And they actually got 95% to over 100% increases in their assessment. Six years seems to do a disservice to the taxpayers. Oh, yes. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. It's like the special assessment in the homeowners association. No one likes that. Nobody likes that at all. We assessed in 2007 and then again in 2012.

Yeah. So 2007 was more or less peak and 2012 was more or less. bottom. Yeah. So we had housing prices that decreased, you know, from assessment standpoint by 45% or so. So it goes both ways, you know, can go both ways. So, you know, as you look at assessments, you know, it's an indicator of, you know, people's property values, we're producing value for our communities.

But at the same time, as we have a lot of people with incomes that don't change, especially our retirees, who when they see this potential 30% increase in rate, that's a massive hit. And I can't emphasize this more. but the demographic differences between that 151 corridor and those who are a little bit more affluent over there versus the other side of 29 and where more working class-centered younger families are located it's just absolutely astronomical and which trickles into you know how the state schedules us money through the LIC where the local composite index as a result of that you know Nelson County

we are at one of the highest increases across the state for expectation of local government to pay. We're actually almost to the maximum. Wow. We're actually almost to expect that to pay for 80% of the local budget now. Right. So for the viewers, the LCI is basically an index that's used to assign the amount of dollars that locality will get from the state. And so that obviously impacts, you know, the budget of the local supervisors because they have to pony up their local dollars for that. Which comes back to, in most cases, the property owners.

right and it's looking like the state's going to pull you know somewhere between 800 to a million dollars from Nelson County again what's that on your percent on your tax rate well are you talking about in real estate tax I mean it takes three and a half pennies probably to the bridge the gap right so you know we're at I think 60 some so yeah 58 you know it's a serious yeah this is a serious number just to break even you're trying to catch up with Louisiana apparently apparently I have uh dropping school enrollment to cover.

Yes. Oh, yes. I think it was roughly 3%. 3%. We lost 50 kids. Nelson Public Schools is dropping. That's a point of concern because the state funds based on

head count, right? Based on head count. So we get hit not only with the change in their algorithm, we also get hit because we have a dropping average day membership. So that's all major hits.

And you said that's been ongoing. It's been going for years. Is there something in the water that's causing the birth rates to go out there? I think our demographics have usually been over the age of 60 moving to Nelson, which I agree with you guys. I mean, that's a serious issue. We have a demographic issue.

We're going to be the currently every 10 years, the median age increases 10 years. First time homebuyers find Nelson County hard to infiltrate. Our topography is already unforgiving. And they're competing with very fluent individuals who want the same Bueshed. And great lifestyle, you know, that is in Nelson County. The first-time homebuyer, according, and I'm going to throw this to Nat Galloway and Tony O'Brien, according to the National Association of Realtors, across the country, the first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. The oldest it's been in American history.

Almondo County is in the news for a number of reasons. Affordability, AstraZeneca, the University of Virginia, a new board. I'd love to throw to you because my whole job is to kind of stir the pile of over. Yeah, stir it. And I feel like I'm pretty good. The holiday pot. Supervisor Galloway is a third-term supervisor, soon to be, soon to be. Sally Duncan is about to be in her first term.

Fred Missal from the Planning Commission to the Board of Supervisors. Mike Pruitt, according to my crystal ball, is likely not going to beat Tom Perriello in a Democratic primary for the 5th District because the Perry-Ello name is so institutional. He's in Nelson County, sweetheart, man. People love Tom Perry-Ello. So if Pruitt finishes that term, he's got two years left on the board supervisors on the board with you, Sally Duncan, it seems like if you get one more vote, we could have in Almaro County that is as pro-housing as I've ever seen in my 25 years here. Anywhere you want to go on that topic? Well, I think the thing that came out of AC-44, and forget the development area, rural area conversation for a second. I mean, we did, the prior board did say the development area will not expand, and we kept that locked in at 5%.

I think with the new members coming in, you have one who did say they would be interested in expanding the development area, which is interesting that we'll have that person who said that elected coming on to the board. So I think it changes, Sally Duncan. I think it changes at least, at the very least, it changes conversations that happen in the board meetings when applications come to us that maybe have us look at, things differently than we have before but as these gentlemen know it's one thing what you say in a campaign when you haven't been elected yet yeah versus what happens once you are elected and you're on the board and you start to understand things in a different way that you didn't necessarily understand as a unseated candidate is that a fair fair statement absolutely so um i think it'll be

interesting fred missile has to take off his planning commissioner hat and put on a supervisor hat now And without being critical of a planning commission, I'm speaking generally, planning commissions know that they don't have the ultimate decision so that if there's something there that they're not necessarily comfortable with or maybe as too hot button or too controversial, they can always punt because they know the decision makers are coming behind them. Absolutely. You can't do that when you're the supervisor, so you have to make the call.

And I don't know if I didn't address any part of the question. You can call me out what I forgot. That's fine. But I think that, I think this board, between that change and what they actually say and how they vote as new supervisors, I think you can pretty much tell based on those of us that have been there before which way we go on things. And then you have to read the tea leaves if you're those putting those applications forward. But I think it'll take maybe the first year and some applications to come through to see how these new members really go. And same, I would say, from Supervisor Pruitt.

He's been there for two years. It takes about two years to get your feet under you. Exactly right. And understand your district and understand what the issues are. And even to start formulate, you know, like what is my philosophy on these? As a supervisor myself, I've always tried to be consistent across the board. I don't want to vote on one thing and then turn around and vote completely different on something else when it seems hypocritical. So I try to be consistent in how I think about an application.

That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a yes or no. but at least gives my residents a chance to go, okay, we know how Galloway thinks on this, so he'll likely end up here as an answer because of that. Well, I feel that's really important to be consistent. And to your point, it's always hard when you first start on the board because you've been elected and you have the wind of your constituents behind your back and you don't want to disappoint them.

And sometimes you're going to have to make decisions that come at odds with what they're doing. You know, for, and this has been one of my consistent messages all along, is that we need to take the burden off the homeowner and work towards bringing in development and we have made a lot of progress to create the infrastructure to allow that to happen which I'm proud of

the board over the years coming to that point but if you're encouraging business development into your community but then you send mixed messages because you end up with people saying well I don't want that here this is not appropriate here. That really can stop the whole investment cycle

into your community from developers. And I think that's a real challenge and something that you learn when you've been on the board for a couple of years is that you have to look out for the entire county and for the future of the county, you know, because these things take sometimes decades to happen. You've got to be consistent there.

Well, think about how many special use permits you voted on that actually didn't come to fruition. Yeah. You know, I've talked about that. at our board I said you know half of the ones I voted on never happened because financial feasibility just dipped out. Sure. Our

some life event happened to the person who was looking to do it so even if you vote yes it's still got a 50% chance because it's got all the other regulators right the financial markets and whatever other life things it might water energy all those things we should talk about electric bills. We'll talk electric bills talk about aqua too

we'll talk aqua and let me say this real quick it's also for the first time for the person newly elected supervisor or council member or school board member or whatever you run as an individual you run saying this is what's important to me here's what i'm going to do and vote for me because i'm going to take action i'm going to happen and then as soon as you start you have no power or authority to really do anything but attempt to persuade and influence others correct because the takes a whole board in order to make any decision or do enact any authority and that's a learning curve you have to figure out what that means and how that works.

And that's why I think it takes time that it forces the deliberation on things because if we had this individual authority and power and just went, we'd be in whiplash. We'd be back and forth all the time on things. And even worse, I mean, if you have a member who

is strident and tries to bully and tries to take things in a different direction, it can create a fair amount of disruption in the board and adding emotions and you don't do anything. And nothing's going to be successful. Exactly, and creating that tone and allowing that tone to maintain itself where you have that respect and at the end of the day, it is the will of the board. That's the decision that the board made.

You may not always be in support of that, but you respect that that is the will of the board. I'll get to Lonnie Murray's comment here in a matter of moments. Here's some commentary from me, and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting across me right now. I think Ned Galloway isn't a position to be the most influential and impactful elected official in central Virginia over the next 24 to 36 months and hear me out this is this is why this is why I think if Al Morrow counties if if Al Morrow County chooses to expand the development area and Almaro County chooses to expand the development area it's going to create price relief on housing in surrounding counties and for Al Morrow County to expand the development area that's

allocated what's 5% is the development area right now and if you were to expand the development area it's going to take four votes to do that. You are the senior statesman on the board. You, I think, are in favor of doing this. I think you have Pruitt in your corner for the expanded development area. He's already champion training out areas of development. Sally Duncan ran on a platform of expanding the development area.

So it basically requires some Fred and missile recruitment. We know B's not going to do it. We know A&Mallick's not going to do it. Those two are out. So if you get missile and Duncan and you and Pruitt, that's four. that means flu vana has price relief with housing nelson county has price relief with housing green has price relief with housing orange price relief with housing city of charlottesville price relief with housing and no pressure at all but that falls literally on you right there of any elected official save the commonwealth i genuinely believe save the commonwealth i genuinely if i would have known that was going to be said i might not have accepted peace irritation to come hosting And you know what, I'm not even in favor of expanding the development area,

but I do think it's going to happen in the next 24 to 36 months. Well, you know, aside from everything that was just said, we do have to figure out housing. And if we don't, then what has been happening will only continue to get worse. And we've already are pushing, and it's not just Albumerow. I know in talking to Jesse and Tony that this happens in their counties as well, But when you take the folks at the bottom of the income rung and we just keep pushing them further and further out where they have to live and then we create longer commute times back into where they go to work, we can't continue to do that because it's not like it happens and then stops. It just keeps climbing up that income ladder and more and more folks who earn even more and more start to get pushed out.

And I worry sometimes that there are folks that go, okay, that's what we want. And I don't want that. I want folks of all income to have the opportunity and the option to live in our community, work in our community, and thrive in our community. And I think it is contingent upon a local government to figure out the housing dynamic. And if you're going to be a county like Albemarle that says 95% of your area is going to be preserved as rural, and you're going to have 5% set up as development area, if that's your formula, then you've got to knuckle down and figure out how to make it work within that formula.

Sure. You want to touch on that, Tony? Well, I mean, 100%. I'm not sure that I agree that we're going to get the price relief because Allemarle is going to have more development in part because I think the price differential between the two counties is substantial enough that we won't see that catch. But would you say you get influence from Richmond and Louisiana now at this point?

Oh, yeah, yeah. So they're getting pushed from both directions. Yeah, right, exactly. So, and then, you know, to your point, it's in working with constituents and how people, them to try to understand, you know, development and how to concentrate development and the efficiency of development because, you know, rural is great, but it also stresses your resources. A lot more.

Right? A lot more. It means that, you know, you have houses further out. Maybe you don't have fire items there. Maybe you have incidents happening. You've got to send your sheriff's office over there, et cetera, school buses, all of that. You know, whereas, you know, if you can concentrate some development in a particular area, that really helps to keep the cost lower and also keep the housing costs a little lower. You know, we're now, I think, at five acres in terms of a subdivision.

You can't change it, you know, from that standpoint. I'm sort of by the right thing. You know, there was talk of making it 10 acres, I think. Nelson's at 6. So far. You know, well, not everybody wants six acres of land, right? Well, not everybody can afford six acres. I wouldn't say greater than 70% or 70% of people can't afford six acres of raw land.

And it seemed to me a little bit ironic because ultimately, I'm not sure that that maintains rural character. It doesn't. You're going horizontal, not vertical, right? Look at Falkier County. They did, like, I think it was 20-acre minimums. Now it's a giant subdivision of 20 acres, random houses. You want to destroy an ecosystem.

Make minimum lot sizes five acres or more, and then nothing's happy. Right. And you still got these just bigger subdivisions. And affordability continues to be a problem, right? And so that's, you know, I mean, housing is the number one source of creating wealth for America. Yes. Right? So it's a cascading effect because so many retirees count on the value of their homes to help supplement their retirement income, right?

If you are 40 years old, maybe, you know, you don't even get that chance to have that happen. You know, if you're 25 years old and you're looking and saying, gosh, I got to come up with all this money and the house is this much and I'll never qualify based on the incomes that I have, you know, again, you're robbing that opportunity to create wealth. And I think that ultimately will catch up to us because, you know, and as a nation in general, we do a pretty poor job with savings. If Chris Fairchild was here, he'd push back on that comment about housing. He would say this, he would say this, that housing is also the top strain for every jurisdiction when it comes to budget. Yeah, he loves to say that. He would say that.

Let's read the article he likes to do you. He would say that. He would say that. He would say 28 cents. That's right. I was waiting for it. He would say that. Lonnie Murray watching the program, very smart guy.

He says, one thing that concerns me about Nelson County, Jesse, when I visit, is that they don't seem to have much in the way of protections for critical slopes or streams. I still see people building right next to streams or on almost vertical sites. Given the history of Hurricane Camille, it feels like Nelson is setting itself up to repeat that history. Has there been any discussion of increasing protections for natural resources? Then he shares a link, Lonnie Murray. Smart eye. No, let's, I'll, let me lay this out there. So when the flood happened in 69, Nelson County took the flood maps very seriously.

And we have taken that, the 100 year and all that extremely seriously. If you own a house that's already in the floodplain, that's a non-conforming structure, you do have the right to continue to live and operate in that home. So there's some of that that we can't really stop. Now, when it comes to like riparian barriers and our natural resources, we have a lot of A lot of different entities that assist in making sure riparian barriers are protected. There's always a balance in trying to make sure that the cattle farmer still has access for his cows to get water. And that's why some of these entities come in, they drill a well, and they make sure the cows have access or livestock have access to water.

We are definitely addressing many of those different things, especially in our current rezoning. We've talked about critical slopes. We're talking about what that looks like and where those are. I think Albaal currently has a critical slope ordinance. Is that my right, Nudden? And so Nelson County is looking at what that means and making sure that, you know, are areas that have a little bit of a view shed protection, but also it's a safety protection, first and foremost, these individuals aren't just building on. Now, as it pertains to places like Wintergreen, that's not changing. Ironically, if Wintergreen tried to do what it did back in the day today, it wouldn't be possible.

They wouldn't be able to have built on those critical slopes. They wouldn't have been able to do basically anything. So, you know, I will look at some of these things with some level of balancing act. I do think Wintergreen, and what they did was a good, safe decision, and that though there are some improvements that need to happen, especially extra exits from the community and a fire happens. But at the same time, you know, there's a lot of people who only own land, especially poor demographics in some of those critical slope areas.

They deserve their ability to be able to build a house or their granddad did. Comments coming to end to the panel. We have literally two newspapers, a TV station, a radio station, and a paper in Richmond watching the program right now. Put the comments in the feed. We'll relay them live on air. Mike Walters is watching the program. I also agree that there will be no price relief happening in Nelson County. People who paid $400,000 for a home for a 1960s house in Nelson are stuck for a while. Irma Sue Harris is watching the program.

Deborah Peterson Rose says, Good Morning. Jesse Rutherford, and I will highlight Claudia Tucker, Lisa Lynch, Ginger Berg, Christine Jacobs, Paul, is it Quenonville, Thomas Guthrie, Michael Cornett, Caroline David Parr,

watching the program. You have two counselors, a fellow supervisor in Al Morrow, a fellow supervisor in Fluvana, I think one in Nelson. I don't know the Nelson ones as well. I should. I know yours and yours. I should do better. I absolutely should do better. let me throw the school board

we need a quarter billion dollars from you guys for a feeder high school in the northern feeder pattern you should probably call Louisa what can you give the long form context you have as much time as you want to go here

unlike sound bites with other media here of what your initial response was to give us a quarter billion dollars please to build a high school well let me just state up front that the state immediately puts attention that exists between the elected local government and a school board because the school or the state dictates that the school board can come forward with a needs request

for budget, both CIP and their operating budget, and not a balanced one. And that's what they're charged to do. So it puts right away on local government that says here's what our capacity to do, both operating and capital. So right away there's attention. And it makes it seems like we're at odds. So when the school board brings it forward, it's not up to me to decide what their needs are. They have to define that. The issues, I think, in all of, you can go back and watch this December 3rd meeting. It was a joint meeting between us and our school board if you want to hear each individual supervisor's thoughts on the matter. My concern was that a year ago, I asked specifically about the comprehensive high school, and it wasn't on the plan. There was a placeholder for a $110 million high school capacity project, and that wasn't very well-defined what that was going to be.

And I specifically said, as the high school needed, is this going to be discussed? Because it's out there in the community, and if it's not, then we need to stop that conversation, basically. Well, this year, the Long Range Planning Advisory Committee continued to look at it and came forward with the recommendation for a new Northern high school, and the school board decided to make that their top priority. So my heartache, or my heartburn over it, I guess, is better way to say, is that when you think of, in Albemarle, we try to do a lot of really good strategic plans and think outward in long-term financial planning of how to make things work based on our strategic plan. And I just felt like, okay, the fact that it wasn't there a year ago, and now it's your top ask, now remember, a quarter billion dollars, that was just one project. Yeah. So right away in the top five, they had additions at Western, and they have a new urban preschool center for $55 million coming in.

So between the high school project, the land acquisition, and that urban preschool, you're already up over $300 million. Now, is an urban preschool a good idea? Yeah, I said so. We need it. We have a huge demand for it. Makes sense if you consolidate it. But now that's almost $300 million and two projects, and there's still another 17 things on the. the priorities list. What's our capacity right now to do capital projects in Alvamaro County

for everything, local government and schools? 70 million. That's what we can do. With the current debt service, because we have $100 million in elementary schools currently in, and we're going to start the debt service on that. And even supervisors, I think us elected think that once a project's done, all it's paid for. No, you keep paying for that for 20 years, and you have to take that into account. That's why, like, last year's capacity in the CIP didn't really spike, and we didn't use any of last year. It's because of how debt service plays in every single year. So I think that the school division, and I'm not saying this without having watched, I watch all of their school board meetings. You're a former school board member. And a former school board member,

and I sit in on those meetings. So my questions that day were, have you considered how you're going to take on the operating costs of a new high school? Have you considered where it's going to go. Because if this were a smaller project, like when they considered the elementary schools, they had ideas of locations of where they were going to sit. And I think that's important. Because if you're going to come forward as your top ask, I think as a supervisor, I have to find a way to get to yes. How can I make that work? And with $70 million in capacity, there's no way I can make that work. Supervisor Pruitt said that. It's impossible. Supervisor Pruitt dropped an F bomb in this joint meeting. Literally dropped an F bomb in this joint meeting. And another cursed word in this

But the frustrating part is if you're, okay, I have to trust that the need is there. Now, we've gone in and we've said we're going to do a different study to figure out the data. If we do that study, I think that's going to inform a lot of decisions beyond just the schools in this one issue. It's going to help for decisions on the local government side as well. Let's really analyze and have better data than just birth data and housing units that are in the pipeline. Let's get a little bit more nuanced than that. Weldon Cooper is who we called out that could help us with that. But at the end of the day, I have to trust that they're saying it's needed, and they're elected to determine the need and to state it.

My job is to figure out how to meet the need. And right now, there's no way to meet that need in the next five, maybe ten years. Because even if we just put everything on hold, it's going to take a number of years to be able to gain the capacity needed to do that type of project. And folks seem to think, well, go take it to a bond referendum. Well, a bond referendum doesn't change your debt load. It changes how you can pay for it. it changes what your revenue, you might even be able to get a little cheaper money for it, but you still have to have your capacity within your financial policy limits.

And I'm just saying, I'm a supervisor. Supervisor Pruitt said he was willing to get a little liberal on how we do our financial policies. I'm not. A triple A bond rating is huge. It's important to say, well, here's how you do finances in your county, and I'm not going to threaten that. Because I've seen how it's helpful to us as a county to be efficient with the tax dollars you receive from our residents.

Joe Kennedy is watching. He wants to highlight the Nelson County School Board is watching the program here. Literally, all media locally is watching the program here. I'm going to go with Tony O'Brien on AstraZeneca and biotechnology and how it could impact Fluvana County or any other topic you want to cover here. Jesse Rutherford's got topics that are coming for him specifically tied to housing from constituent. that are pro-Jessie and also not pro-Jessie here. I'm shocked.

I will say this. For the school board of Almorel County that asked for basically a quarter of a billion dollars, it seemed out of touch to me, and this is someone who lives in Almero County in Ivy, and pays for a kid to go to private school as well because it came on the heels of a four-cent real estate tax rate increase, and it came on the heels where the county basically just asked us for more money. So for the school board to say we need $250 million, knowing the money is not there, and basically sent the message to taxpayers in Amar County,

we're going to shake you down. Those are my words. You could position that any way you want for more money to build this school. And that made my skink wrong. Before I get to AstraZeneca or so on, I think Ned rates a lot of great points. Absolutely. And, you know, when I first got elected was in part in part due to the tension around a new school that had been built. We built a new high school.

It was $70 million or $75. The newest in our area, right? The newest in our area. Beautiful school, and, you know, there was a sense from the community that it was overdone. Obviously, there are studies that were happening. The growth was too great. And it, of course, happened to happen when that 2012 came on that the bonds were coming due to start paying for the school, which added additional stress to the budget, which meant that we ended up cutting the school budget by almost $3,4 million.

That was a huge impact for our schools. and, of course, that created additional tension, right? So you have the tension of parents that are sending their kids to schools, want, you know, quality institutions, they don't want their kids and trailers, and then you have, you know, homeowners that are worried about real estate prices, I mean, are property tax continuing to rise and the affordability for their property taxes. So trying to balance and plan for the future doesn't always work out.

We didn't think that we were going to be at the bottom of the market in 2012, which may have released some of the stress. Folks said, oh, well, you spent too much money. Well, what I would say to my board, and I still say this regularly, is what monies did we set aside to build the school to begin with? You know, you can't have it both ways. You can't say the debt is too much, but then not save for the need that you know that is coming in place, right? And then, you know, you will have potentially new people coming in that run and say, oh, look, you're holding all this money, you know, and you're reserved. Well, that should be given back to the taxpayer, right?

Yeah. It's a huge balance between all those things, and it also comes back to the development growth, the residential growth, and the business growth that you're trying to bring into the area. AstraZeneca wouldn't have moved to Aldmoreal County if there wasn't housing opportunities for its staff to live and for the people that are going to work there. So you have to balance that all out, right? And most people these days, even with telecommuting, still don't want to have to commute 45, 50 miles into their job in order to go work there. And AstraZeneca is going to bring a lot of opportunity, and I hope that a lot of Flavanna residents go through that. I hope that a school system goes in and helps to create programs that will attract students to, you know, be a potential employee for AstraZeneca. I think, you know, we're continuing to see the entire area benefit from, you know, the excitement of living in central Virginia, right?

And that's going to bring more businesses. We're going to bring more housing, and it's our job to try to balance that out. It's not always easy, right? Jesse Rutherford Redding. Haters or No, you want to touch on that at all? Oh, AstraZeneca? You know, I think that's good.

Their school board. Your school population dropping 3%. Our school population dropping is one of the biggest, I think it's one of the biggest issues that we run into as a county because it's an indicator of something far worse, and that's we don't have families living, working, and raising kids in our hometown. A community that's not raising kids in,

and not getting educated in our home, it's not a community, you know. I do not want to see your community just be a place where you go and retire and then, you know, live the rest of your life out. This is a place that has a lot of history, hundreds of years. My family goes back to like 1702. And I'm really proud of all the generations that came before me and the stories and the kids and all of that. And when you start losing that fabric in our community,

you really start losing the story of what our Nelson County is. So I agree. You know, when it comes down to figuring out those populations, Nelson County has to figure out a housing problem so that we can get young families to be able to afford to live in Nelson County. We do know this. You just said it. The first time homebuyer is what? 40.

Average age, national. 40 years old. Yeah. Okay. That means, and I would even look at you and say in Nelson County, it could be a larger number of age than that. I think it's probably higher than 40. It could be higher than 40. I would not be surprised if it's the case in Amarro as well.

Right. The impacts on that is astronomical. It means less funding for the schools. It means less people to work in our workforce and service industries. It means we've got to figure out how to bridge that tax burden when you have this very affluent demographic. And then this other demographic that just can't barely afford to make ends meet in an expensive economy when electric bills are jumping up like they are in taxes. We have to really look into two things.

One, producing housing stock and two, producing jobs. I think AstraZeneca presents some unique opportunities, especially in the 3,000 jobs. It's 3,000? 3,000 indirect, 600 direct. Indirect jobs around it. I mean, that's a big deal because, you know, our hopes is that some of our people get the opportunity

to be some of those individuals. We already are, our workforce services Charlottesville and Almond. You know, UVA is one of the highest employers that our people commute to outside of Nelson. I'm sure it's the same in Flavana. I mean, we're going to have a lot of job opportunities in Flavana between, you know, assuming the Tenaska plant is approved. The building of the

Tenaska plant, that's going to create opportunities. Amazon, you know, now and another industrial park, Wahoo. I mean, I'm sorry, Wawa. You know, all of those things are going to help to create jobs in our area. Absolutely. And I'm going to compound this with two other things. Two things that we need. Nelson, we need jobs, whether that's some

type of manufacturing, if that's even going to be feasible, or some level of how is it that we can be this place that is servicing the outside areas around us. There are some businesses that have looked into Nelson County and said let's put home base here because we can work in both the draft area, we can work

in Charlottesville and we can work in Lynchburg and Amherst really easily and deploy our workforce. The second is workforce training. We can't say it enough. We have such a shortage in all the tradesmen in this central Virginia and around that if we don't start answering

that question then you know those those kids who are graduating definitely are not going to still be able to afford even to live in mom's house. Comment comments coming in. This one from Jason Howard on Ryo Road, your district. As an Amaral Homeowner and taxpayer, it was a surprise to see a four-cent tax hike on top of a double-digit assessment increase. Year-over-year taxes on our home have been the largest burden item in our household by far. Does the board have any plan to slow the increase in tax rate on homeowners, or does the steady influx of newcomers from Northern Virginia and beyond

who are willing to pay over asking price on these homes make it not a pressing issue. Back in the spring when we were doing our budget town halls, I have not shied away from the fact. Not only is it just a year, the year after they had an over 10%

increase in property value raise in assessment then a four cent increase on top of that, the years before that property values were going up. So it's been four or five, six years straight of us collecting more tax revenue and then a tax increase on top of it to bring more in. The thing that most of my constituents

that engage with us during the budget season, what they ask me, it's not so much or why are you raising my taxes. It's how are you going to use the taxes that you're raising and asking from us. And this past year when we did the four cent tax increase, we very specifically stated why. And 3.2 cents of it was dedicated to public safety.

We have had a huge demand put on our fire services over the last five years. We have gone through competitive process strategically to get safer grants, FEMA safer grants, which allow you to onboard people and the grant finances the cost up front, and then you can ease into taking on the cost burden of having those new personnel on. It lets you really kind of man up, if you will, in a way that lets you plan for the costs that are coming. So we did that, and we are at the point now where we've been so successful in these competitive grants that on some of them were at the point where we have to take on 100% of the cost. We knew that two, three, four years ago.

We held off until we thought, because we were getting more tax revenue from the increase in property values, so we were able to pay for some of that without needing a tax rate increase. But it got to a point where there's no safer grant for your police department. We are woefully understaffed in our police department. We always have been in Alamara County, frankly. And I think a lot of our local jurisdictions would say the same, that they're really stretched and stretched across a 700 plus square mile count, 700 and some plus miles in Albemarle. So that tax rate increase specifically allowed us to add to our police department, specifically not just for traffic enforcement and putting them in patrol, but also to allow you to build out in your detectives and do to be able to handle the burden of crime, prevention and investigation of. So when you go to your community and say, well, here's why we need to do it, it's just like in sales.

If you have a dollar and you see something and you see the value of that thing is higher than the dollar it takes to get it, then you accept it and you make your purchase. Well, it's contingent on us as electeds to say the same thing. Here's what we need. Here's what it costs. And here's what I need from you to be able to do that. And then you agree or disagree with us. And then that's how elections and things like that play out.

But when I explained to my constituents that, yes, I didn't try to act like the property values hadn't increased. I'm not trying to say that it's not been a burden on homeowners in my district or in the county, that it's getting more and more expensive to live here. But here are the needs that I'm hearing folks say need to be addressed, and here's what we're using those dollars for, and that's why we did the tax increase. Now, what's the answer? In the budget town halls last year, we started talking about that diversification in a strong economic development strategic plan. We didn't know about Astrozenica back in the spring.

Those things happen in different ways, right? That's true. You did not know about AstraZeneca in the spring. You know, back in the spring, when you're talking about, you know, how economic development projects happen, these things can pop up out of anywhere. Now, what did we know? What did we know in the spring? Right? Well, we know that we have a piece of property that we acquired for economic.

economic development activity and that it would yield us better tax revenue, right? So you go and you execute that and you hope that it's going to yield you some results. And what did it yield us? Well, the first out of the gate is AstraZeneca. And look, if people are like, well, what's the timeline and all of that? Well, all you have to do is look at the state and what the governor was doing in the lead-up to see where he was at and what he was doing. And I'm not just speaking of AstraZeneca.

He hammered down on what, three or four big projects. in the state and you could tell based on his international travel and what he was doing you can kind of figure out the timeline of how these things come to be, right? So, you know, we were telling folks we did this because we wanted to eventually change to collect more taxes from the commercial tax base to ease the burden on the homeowner. And it takes projects like an AstraZeneca to do that. But you know what? It also takes things like getting Home Depot up and running, which is why we also gave them

an incentive to get up them up to speed so that they would guarantee that they would open in 25, which they now have in six months ahead of time or five months ahead of time. And now that the value of that Fashion Square Mall, which had dropped to like $100,000-some-thousand-dollar. I think the declining revenue from that property. Now that's up and running. That whole tax base or value on that property has gone up. We'll collect more dollars from that commercial entity, which will help ease the burden on Mr. Howard and others that live here. You know, you bring up a great point, which is, you know, the percentage of the homeowner, of the homeowner

in terms of the budget for the county. Do you know what that percentage is in your county right now? How much we take from them? Yeah, I mean, in other words, of your budget is 85% coming from the homeowners? It's dropped down. It was 11% was commercial. The agricultural had dropped to, I think, 12% in that range. So that's 24.

There's a fourth category that I'm not remembering. So that had, I mean, that leaves you in that 70-some percent range. What is it in your county? Yes. What is it in your county? Yes. what percentage of your of your tax revenue comes from homeowners oh uh golly it's hard to think i'm at least i'd say it's probably 50 60 percent fluvenna what 93 94 well it used to be 93

is that counts the commercial but remember we don't have a ton of commercial out yeah so you don't have any t o't you don't have meals and lodging uh now we do now i'm sorry we do have meals and lodging right but we don't have the same right essentially our meals the meals just started. We just started meals. And by the way, if you're Flavanna business owner who serves meals, you know, you need to start, you need to start collecting those taxes in pain, you know. It is actually a crime. It is actually a crime. It is actually a crime. And we don't want to put our neighbors in jail. No, no. No, I would say between transient occupancy and meals and logic, I mean, that is a double digit percentage for us, you know, 20, 30%. It's a scary double digit because it's so large because we're also afraid of economic events, you know, what does that mean? We don't have a business license. Oh, you don't have a business license. Oh, you don't have a We don't have a B-POL. We don't even require businesses to have a business license. That's awesome. Yeah, we do charge $30 for that.

I thought the state required you to charge. I had to get a business license when I opened my fruit stand back in 1992 on the downtown mall. Yeah. And in Charlottesville City, they're making you pay your taxes in Q1 based on projections for the entire year. Yeah. So Fluvana County, maybe where you want to set up a business is what Tony O'Brien is saying.

Do you guys do gross receipts tax here? Do y'all do gross receipts? Yeah, we don't do that. Do you do gross receipts? seats? Awesome. Look at them, man. They're killing it. I mean, but, but, you know, to the larger point,

you know, okay, great, we don't have that, but our homeowners pay 90% of the burden. And so the task, the point that I'm trying to make is that the task of a board over years and decades is to try to do this balancing act and that balancing act

doesn't always work out because you get voted in or you get voted out based on what the sentiment is in the community. We want to be rural. We want to have growth. We want more development. We don't want to pay for the infrastructure. We don't want to pay for the school. All those things play into the election cycle. And if you don't have consistency and a vision on your board that is looking forward, you end up in a worse, in a worse situation. Well, and then you get situations that are even further worse than that is then the state will start taking the authority away from you. Absolutely. And we've seen this with solar.

Data centers. And it's not like a grant us a ton to begin with. There's a chance this will happen with housing you know if local governments if you there have been some interesting articles in cardinal's and articles in cardinal news talking about housing and specifically vaco and they said to baker they're like we're so frustrated with the local governments they won't even give solutions for housing they just want to keep their authority and today that's the wrong answer that is the wrong answer having no answer is definitely the wrong yeah yeah and local jurisdictions not coming up with solutions will have Big Daddy Commonwealth pick some random board at SCC and say, hey, actually it meets all this

criteria, stamped. Yeah. Right. Which, you know, may result in you're not getting proffers. You're not getting profits. You're not getting profits. You know, the negotiation of anything? Yeah.

It actually might be in the wrong location and we're like, can you go across the street? So, I mean, that's 100% true. Yeah. Again, the challenge is how do you balance it out when you have neighbors that are going to be affected because their property, the surrounding property is changing around them. But if we keep on saying no to businesses or no to housing, we're creating this problem. We've created a disaster. I mean, I'll look at you every day and say that, you know, in...

I'm good-looking. Yeah, I look at you every day. You are, Tony. You are. Sorry. Yes, you are a beautiful, Tony. But not as beautiful. I guess apparently not as good-looking as Ned.

Sure of the trust. But local governments have a... definitely a massive reason why developers haven't been able to produce housing in these areas, especially in metropolis areas, so that local areas like Nelson County don't have to share the burden. I mean, people don't realize this, but people are traveling to the town of Amherst and Affamatics working Charlottesville and Albumal government jobs. Government jobs. Because they cannot find anything from downtown all the way through Nelson. until they get to the town of Amherst.

And I don't think, you know, just looking at that core function of these local jobs, like, you know, if your teachers and deputies are all having to drive in to work their jobs, that's also not a community to me. I think they should have every opportunity to be able to live. One of the things I think you talked about in the TJPDC meeting was that you were going to be looking into building a pipeline down 29 for water, right? Pipeline, yeah, we're looking at expanding some water opportunity. Expanding some water opportunities there. Absolutely.

That's going to be tens and tens of millions. millions of dollars and it's really hard to justify any of the bill until you know it's chicken or the egg do we get astrozenica first and then we do it you don't get astrozenica without the water apparently we don't get astrozenica without the land and you don't get astrozenica without the land you don't get astrozenica without the workforce yeah don't yeah Donna price on this network where ned was sitting i don't know was it like a year and a half ago said the rivana futures and rivana station the purchase of almore county of that land was going to be the most significant economic economic development opportunity and deal in Almore County history saved the University of Virginia's creation and so far with Astrozenica's announcement she's proven to be right and we know the AstraZeneca announcement is going to be a domino effect of additional companies coming on board and we just had the American Skin Association the Paul Manning biotech Institute's about to come online I mean Al Morrow County I don't think a lot of the viewers and listeners may realize the significance of this Almaro County in this biotechnology was what highway, that Glenn Yucan called it, from Rockingham County to Richmond, Eli, Lilly, and Goochland, 650-some jobs. This is going to radically change

Central Virginia and all these gentlemen's counties. Do you agree with that? Biotech is coming, and we have some really great players already in the county doing a lot of biotech. And I think that incentive is growing. The more you consolidate that, more opportunity it gets created, the more jobs

they get created. And biotech is a good-paying job. We got a university. Everybody loves to talk about the triangle down in North Carolina, right? Well, you know, we're starting to become our own little hub from that standpoint, you know, and that's exciting. That's really exciting. The challenging thing with the biotechnology, and then I have to throw a peri-ello to you, and we're at the 1120 marker here, is the biotechnology jobs, while incremental jobs, are often filled by people out of market.

That comes back to training, right? You know they're coming, so now you work with BBCC, you work with UVA. to make the training available. And I'm sure Ashtra Zinica is counting on UVA being a feeder. Oh, 100%. 100%. They'll just say, hey, improve your program a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, everybody's getting a $100,000 job. Yeah, that's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. Supervisor Galloway, Perry Yellow's announcement, surprised me. Fifth District, this would be his third attempt, won the first one, thanks to Barack Obama and large part coming to this area and championing his push. Loses the second one. Was the second one lost to Denver?

I think so. It was Denver? No, no, no. What was that Bob good? No, no, no. When he ran the second time, he lost to Robert Hurt. Okay, thank you. Robert Hurt.

Thank you. I was so lost. Virgil Gude was before. Okay, thank you. And then now his third try, Periel. Where do you want to go with the Periello announcement, the 5th District, which is all the county seer and the 5th District? Well, I mean, it surprised me as well. That came out of left field.

I wasn't ready for. that. I think that it's interesting because when you compare, I mean, it cleared the field accepting, and I don't know, there might be a couple others that have, I don't know if they've decided to stay in or not. Three dropped out within 48 hours. Yeah, my colleague on the board, supervisor Pruitt, got off to a great start. People liked him. He's raised a lot of money. Smart guy. And you got to remember, Pruitt's of the age are kind of where Tom was back when he first ran. Right. young, energetic, good ideas, got the right things in minds.

I would even suggest similar, I mean, I think Mike comes from a little bit more of a blue-collar background. Definitely. So he's got a little different experience, but Tom's from the area and is well-liked. So, I mean, I don't have to speak to the enthusiasm that you've seen from it. So it's going to be interesting to watch this play out, because I don't think, I don't believe Mike. I mean, he's already said that he's going to stay in and go. And I think, as Neil Williamson says, contested elections are a good thing. I think that it definitely puts a fundraising burden on Pruitt because Periello doesn't just have a local fundraising machine.

He's got a national fundraising machine. I mean, the gentleman is in for good reason. I mean, he's had it there. But I have to tell you that I'm grateful for Mike for having Mike stepped up early. He got in the race, I think, his thought. And people were excited about that. So to have two exciting candidates to pick from that it will really be down to, okay, who do we think can deliver and who's saying the things and speaking to the things that I think we are important. And that's why this will play out.

And so as a Democrat, I'm excited for the fact to have a choice and be able to say, well, who am I going to vote for and watch this go? I don't want the field to clear for all the reasons that Neil Williamson speaks to. Yeah, I mean, it is exciting, and it's exciting to have two great candidates vying for this race. It's exciting to know that, you know, there's a real opportunity for Democrats to win this race, you know, given the anti-Trump sentiment that's been growing throughout the last year here. So there is a real opportunity to win in a heavily gerrymandered district, and that's exciting if you're a Democrat to see that opportunity happen. I believe gerrymander district.

Well, look, I mean, I actually do agree it's somewhat jerrymandered. Some way. My politics are slightly different than Tony's. I also want to highlight that this district could be reshaped very soon. Oh, exactly. And it's probably an indication of why Periello's jumped in the race. Is that safe to say? I mean, there's a reason why seven people wanted to run for that scene.

They all said, oh, wow, this looks magical. Well, yeah, I mean, sure. Yeah, it's so magical. You know, all right, Tom Perriello. Yeah. So Tom goes back, obviously I'm not a dim, but the history of Tom in Nelson County goes a long time. I guess he won in 2008, if I remember right, it was when he ran with Obama. And he beat Virgil Gude, who had been in office for multiple decades.

I think he was long enough in there that he actually was around for Bill Clinton's impeachment vote. It wasn't he all three parties, didn't he represent? He actually represented all three. He was a damn, then an independent, then decided he was a Republican. That was the, he lived through the whole transition. I don't know. It was multiple decades. Oh, yeah, no.

Virgilcoot was definitely at least 15 years. Yeah, probably 15, 15, 16 years. That's right. It's two decades in there, technically. Well, yeah, I mean, my late friend, Greg Kelly was, was the campaign manager for, Oh, yeah, LF. LF, LF, yeah, exactly. So.

So, Tom. Tom's a Nelson County sweetheart for the Dems. He was against Dominion in terms of the pipeline, major utility companies. I think his latest race was when he ran for governor. The Dem nod for governor. Against Northam. Against Northam? Primary.

Or is it McColliffe? No, I thought it was Northen back when he, didn't he primary Northam? I think it was McColliffe for some reason. You're the, I don't know. You got the political history. I'm going to, you're putting hands in a tough spot. I don't know. Because we all serve with Mike Pruer.

Yeah, no, it's okay. But so regardless, I think from a data standpoint, Tom Perriello, he's got a foothold in a lot of different places, people of color, as it relates to your most affluent Dems all the way down to your average ones. Like, he's been a table conversation and missed for a long time. For a lot of those folks. And then his facing off with utility companies. you know, put him in a little bit of a stronger spot.

I think it will be more interesting to see how this district is drawn, and then if it survives the referendum, that would be necessary for it to happen. But, you know, as data shows, it could very well pass both, and what that would mean politically over the next decade would be intriguing because it's forcing a lot of grassroots Republican committees to change philosophical takes if the referendum is lost. That's a story we should follow closely. That's a story.

That's significant. That's the end of the show. We went 15 minutes long. I would be remiss not to offer closing thoughts opportunities. I want to highlight Supervisor Galloway put this panel together, so thank you. I thought the panel was excellent. This was fun. No, I thrilled you guys were able to join me.

Keith had sent a, when I told him what the panel was going to be, sent me a nice picture with blue water and blue sky behind him. So I'm thrilled that he can be down there and join me. And we didn't even get that. We didn't even get to Keith's real estate question. Sorry, Keith. But I think I love serving with these guys on the Planning District Commission. We get together once a month with our colleagues from Green, Louisa, and Charlottesville. I think that regionality and having that connection with our fellow electeds, I think, for constituents just to say.

And you have a, I mean, Tony and I think are closer together politically, but you've got somebody and Jesse that's on the other side of the political spectrum. And we're good friends. We get along and we discuss things. And you know what? We disagree on some stuff. Now, Jesse and I have some great conversations on property rights. But the fact is, is when we do disagree, we're not disagreeable with one another. We sit down and we just talk it through and it doesn't get ugly.

And that, I think, is important that your regional, local elected officials, regardless of where we stand on some things that can rise to the level of being an R or a D, we all agree that local control is a good thing. and I'll really love our communities and want to try to make the best decisions we can for them and try to think of things regionally where it doesn't just stop at your boundary but how does it impact all of Central Virginia?

So just appreciate you guys being on the commission and thankful for the relationship and just wish everybody that's listening Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Yeah, absolutely. Tony O'Brien. I'm going to echo basically what Ned said. I mean, when I run, I always like to say,

these are not R or D issues, these are Fluvana issues, and, you know, they're also regional issues, as I just pointed out. It really, you know, each community needs to look at its leadership in its entirety and support, you know, the longer vision of what is trying to be accomplished in that community and work towards that. And I know that's a tough balance, and I know everybody has different views and opinions in terms of what they think the community is going to look like. But, you know, it's a real honor to be able to serve. It's a real honor to be able to serve. It's a real honor to create the friendships and the relationships. It's a real honor to be able to, you know, look at how your community is changing and shaping it.

So, you know, I'm excited to be back on the board, and I'm also excited to continue to work with folks like these guys, which, you know, that was really sweet of you. Just because you're an R doesn't mean I don't love you, you know. No, actually, you know, Jesse and I, we're actually very aligned on many of a, many of the ruining my reputation. And saying Jesse's an R might be an understatement. Yeah, let's argue about property rights in an afternoon. And happy holidays, of course.

Happy holidays, of course. Happy holidays to everybody. Absolutely. My friend. Listen, it continues to be one of the greatest honors of my life to serve the people of the East District in Nelson, my hometowns where I plan to live and finish out my last days in life because family hadn't left for so long, so I figure I don't want to change it yet. But I just want to emphasize what Ned and Tony have said. it is actually kind of it shouldn't be, but it is remarkable in the political realm that

we see around us in D.C. in Richmond and all the disagreements in the painful vitriol. Yet our region really does communicate well. We get along well, and we've done some big stuff together, specifically the Vati Grant

implementation and making sure that the internet conversation though Nelson County was first and we'd be able to it. And it's a little bit faster where we are. No, faster in Flavana. Oh, okay. But the fact that we were able to do that and then help the region out, we had other counties

begging to participate with us to see this accomplished. And we changed people's lives by virtue of all of our localities getting along. And that's something that's a big deal. We should root for our neighbors to be successful because their success is our success. That's right. We should be rooting for everybody to keep their taxes high so young families move to Nelson County hopefully but but regardless we we do have that going for us and maybe one day DC can take some some tricks from us on how to how to manage and get along and have a beer

together and have hard discussions yeah and and you know really the internet changed oh it did a shout out to the CEO of CVEC and Gary what is a hero if you can put that in there he is a yeah he did a solid job he came to us pre-COVID and said here's my vision for doing this and it was great COVID came in and then at the time that he came in the state of Virginia was spending $11 million a year on the internet for the entire state

he had gotten his board to raise $90 million and then was coming to the localities for additional revenues. Then COVID hit and everything changed and so in five years basically we've transformed the entire area the localities but this wouldn't have happened without his vision. So yeah, shout out to it. And I love the fact that you said celebrate other successes. Like we all were cheering at the commission when Green County got their water

situation figured out. We love hearing because we all know that eventually Louisa County is going to just let some of that spare money fly off their county. It's falling out of their pockets every time they drive. So, but I mean, that's important for our region. When counties are successful, all the, all the people that live in them are successful. So cheers to that. Ned Galloway, Tony O'Brien, Jesse Rutherford, all around good guys. Sincerely mean that. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera. Great guy as well. Save me with the water bottle. Thank you, Judah Wickhauer. This show is archive wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. I'm seeing that comment all over the feed. Find it all over social media.

Then the I Love Seville show is up at 1230 where we may have some breaking news tied to a new president of the University of Virginia. So, Logan, thank you for joining us, everyone. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you guys for the show. It's great. Thank you.