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

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

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, joined Keith Smith & Jerry Miller 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.

We're quiet on the set. Oh, we're quiet on the set. I know it's hard for you, but we're quiet. Good Friday morning, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. Today's show is going to be a lot of fun. Today's show will also be educational and enlightening. We hope you, the viewer and listener, join us in the conversation by asking questions

of elected officials from three different neighboring jurisdictions. Tony O'Brien is in the house, Fluvana County Board of Supervisors. Ned Galloway is in the house. Almaro County Board of Supervisors. Jesse Rutherford is in the house, Nelson County Board of Supervisors. This is a roundtable organized by the esteemed Keith Smith. I sincerely mean that. We'll have some fun with Keith, but we kid because we care,

and I love this man dearly. I'm just trying to figure out what esteemed means. Real talk, Keith Smith, features a gentleman who's been in business since 1987 and a brokerage, yes, reality partners that you can absolutely trust. Judah Wigg-Cower is behind the camera. He's moved Mountain. to make this program possible. A four-man set is now a five-man set over there.

I just want to highlight that one more time for KISSF. I'm giving fair warning to everybody that this was going to be five-person. We got a basically, to put that in layman's perspective, we have a Geo Metro or a Toyota Prius that is now driving a football team to the football field today. That's basically how I put that together. It's crowded over here. Tony and I are in the back. Does anybody remember who's old enough here to remember when they used to try to stick all the people in the Beetle?

Yeah, the Cloud Show. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love that show. Was that Herbie? No. That was a different one. God, I can't remember. Ringling Brothers did a skit on that.

Studio camera, Jude, I'm sure you're doing that and then a five shot. Was it Monty Python? Oh, that's one. There's Mighty Python. We probably can't talk about it. Oh, yeah. But anyway, we're kicking off today. a series every, he's laughing in this cup of coffee.

We're kicking off every third Friday of the month. We're doing a roundtable with some of my elected buddies. These poor folks have the misfortune of seeing my face for, in some cases, decades, in some cases about 15 years. And I just want to have an open roundtable discussion about what's going on in our jurisdictions. And hopefully we'll get a bunch of questions from the feed. and just have a little bit of fun and share some information in this long-form format that we've been wrapping up our seventh year.

That's awesome. And in April, I can't remember exactly when, we're going to cross the threshold to doing this eight years running. Congratulations. Well, you think one day I get good at this. You're excellent at this. Hope spring's eternal, I don't know. So why don't we do a quick thing?

Just for the few folks that don't know who you are, we'll go from our right to the left, who you are, what jurisdiction, and then we'll just jump into some questions. Tony O'Brien, Flavanna County. I represent the Rivenna District, which is essentially the inside part of the lake. It handles how many? About 4,500 people. So Ned Galloway, I represent the Ryo District in Alamar County. So, you know, kind of railroad, 29 North, out and kind of caps out at the UVA research park up there on 29 North.

Got some of Early as well. And both of you guys are chairman. Jesse Rutherford, introduce yourself. Oh, boy. If you don't know, my name is Jesse Rutherford, East District Board of Supervisor, Vice Chair currently. And in Nelson County, I represent basically the Lvingston, Schuyler, and Wingina and Housinville and,

all the places in between. You guys are multiple term supervisors here. Tony, how many terms? I am in my, the beginning of my fourth, no, third turn. No, fourth term. Fourth term for Tony O'Brien, third? Third for me. Third, so collective combined governance amongst you three.

This is pretty impressive. What's the? I mean, who's better at math to me? Is that way, are we, and this is with the assumption we finish all four. We're starting. I'm talking budgets? Yeah. I'm trying to get at how experienced these guys.

We might have, I have some questions. I'm in my 13th year. You guys are in your... I'm in my ninth year. 18 plus 13. Yeah. Do that man. I guess that 32, right?

Yeah, 31. Yeah, 31 years of combined governance here. My whole life. That's, that's, I mean, you're 31? I'm 31. That's fantastic. That's amazing. I was a school president.

Does that count? School president does not count. It does not count. But these guys are in budget. season right now, Keith Smith. We are, but at the moment, Mr. Smith is trying to figure out what his password is to face... Not 31. Huh? Not 31. Not 31. So, but I want to, I want to kick off with our county and kick off with the power station. Oh, you and every else, right? Everybody else wondering. Yeah, let's talk about electricity. So is Fluvanna... No, no, no, no, no, no. I came up

with this new term, ask whole. Ask-H-K-H-R-R-R-R-E. So you take up a little bit on the power station, and I'm going to try to get my friend Judah up and running again. Well, in case you're coming out, because it's Potoxy Phil. Potoxi Phil. Flavanna County has been entertaining a new proposal for another gas plant in Flutana County, 1.5 gigawatts, which is pretty substantial. It's a lot.

as far as a gas fire plant goes. We, the applicant was to NASCA. We took a vote on Wednesday. It was a four to one vote to pass it. This was, you know, after of course months and months of deliberation, working through the Planning Commission, doing all those kinds of things. And it was, you know, it was a difficult vote for our county. A lot of people were very concerned about the climate impacts as well as, you know,

health impact potentially from the PMT. 2.5 that is generated by the plant, that pollution is generated by the plant. There were also concerns about noise levels and how that would be handled. But at the end of the day, the board kind of weighed all these issues, worked with the applicant. We had over, I was 49 conditions, but really, you know, some of the conditions had sub-conditions inside of it. So 49 conditions, and then we used a mechanism that we'd never used to, we'd never used to, used before which was rather interesting which was restrictive covenants and so we were able to add a couple of other items in the restrictive covenants net package

altogether to the County of Flumana when you look at both the restrictive covenants and some of the commitments that Tanaska made as well as the underlying tax base of this two billion dollar project is about three hundred million dollars over the course of the life of the project that's pretty substantial money for our county just to put it in perspective So that is going to go a long way to working to reduce the tax burden on homeowners. We're at 91% now. I think right around there, 91% down from 93, 12 years ago.

But with water coming to science, crossroads are already there and interest in new development all happening on that side. We're starting to see that balance change and this of course will help a lot. Right. I want to pick that apart for a little bit. little bit. So in my research, 35%, you correct me if I'm wrong, 35% of Virginia's power is imported? Is that correct? It's very significant. I'm glad you actually raised that point. Virginia is a net importer. It's part of the PJM grid. The PJM grid serves 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic. Right now, the assessment from, and the PJM is a nonprofit organization that kind of manages the whole grid network in the mid-Atlantic but also in essence is the auction house for pricing when producers such as to NASCA which are peakers you know provide electricity

companies like Dominion and CVEC because every company is you know essentially trying to do a little bit of load balancing if you want to look at it from that perspective you know you don't want to build to max capacity but you want to make sure that the pool has the ability to deal with max capacity well really what's happening at the PGM grid level right now is at max capacity is already there and so the commissioners of the PJM have essentially been saying we are at a near critical stage. Now they're saying we are at that critical stage and could be facing rolling blackouts. We don't have our friends from Louisiana here, but I think data centers are a big part of it.

Of course, you know, of course a lot of the impacts coming from the growth of data centers. That's a really significant aspect of it. Flavana County doesn't have a data center, but it doesn't mean that the, you know, as you look at the grid, the grid isn't. Well, my power plant serves me. The grid serves the entire region, and so it's important for the entire aspect. And, you know, as much as you may or may not like the data centers and the reality of AI today, the practical aspect of it is that we are moving away from fossil fuels at a net level into electrification, such as vehicles and so on.

And, of course, all of the ability to work from home and doing things along those lines has really changed kind of how we're using our technology and AI is both a economic and security aspect into how our country run so these are really key fundamental

issues and I think it's I want to say disingenuous but I think maybe you're missing the point if you think it's just about my electricity right and my you know needs in terms of that AI is probably the most significant thing that we're seeing

happening in in this country and this world. And it's fast. And it's moving very quickly. And so if we want to continue to be a premier technology-based society, we better stay on top of that. It was interesting. My research was that most of our powers coming from West Virginia,

your home state, Ned, in Pennsylvania, which are still using coal, majority coal. Yeah. And from what I understand that, this power panties, change that dynamic a little bit? Well, I mean, if you look at Virginia, it has over 193 power plants, and they range from nuclear, you know, solar, wind, natural gas, biosolids, petroleum. 30, so it's a total of 20, almost 28 gigawatts of power that's produced in Virginia. 30 of those plants are natural gas.

So, you know, if you look at 28 gigawatts and the 30 that are producing, they're producing 14,000. gigawatts. So 1.5 gigawatts of additional natural gas is 10% on top of that. But that's 10% that you're maybe as you're aging out some of these other older plants that are the biomass petroleum plants, coal plants, right? We do have two coal plants in Virginia. As you age those out, you're replacing that dirtier technology. So actually, if you look at the net increase in it, if you look at the net sort of pollution impact level, it's actually declined by like 16% in the last decade here Virginia. So that's part of that transition. So it's, yes, you're adding on, yes, you're adding more pollution, but hopefully to your point, you're also taking away from the dirtier producers from that standpoint. I think that was a point that a lot of folks struggled to understand. And when it comes to the electric conversation, of course, we've, we share some Virginia electric co-op and we've seen changes in the rates. And when the co-ops are changing the rates, you kind of have a systemic major problem. Because co-ops are not made to make money. That's the whole purpose of them. And just hearing some of the comments from Mr. Wood and some of my interactions with the members of the co-op.

I mean, we need an all of the above approach, of course, and that's electricity in every regard in a lot of different ways. And, of course, when it comes to clean energy, that's, of course, important. And, you know, doing your due diligence to make sure it's not impacting certain pieces of your day-to-day life. But, you know, our energy crisis is a crisis. watching gas at $4, approaching $4 and diesel going over $5. I mean, we've got an electric grid issue. And we've got to start taking really major steps. And honestly, some of the steps that need to be taken on electricity

are almost need to be what the federal government and the state did to address Internet in the United States during COVID. You need that much investment. We ended up on Internet with Nelson County. Yeah. Well, I mean, it wasn't, yeah, of course. We had to get to Internet. But you know, the module...

Who was the first county to have internet? It was Nelson County. Yeah, actually, ever. It goes back a couple thousand years, pretty much. Yeah, God foretold this. Went from the can and the string. Yes, yeah, yeah. It was on the arc,

when it flooded, you know, they left a little... There's an inside joke here, right? Every planning district commission meeting we have, usually kicks in somewhere about Nelson County had the first internet. I think that joke has made it to this talk to this talk. I'm sure it has... It was where it began.

In fact, Neil Williamson says the irony, and we have to weave our friend Ned Galloway into the mix here. He's got a lot going on with his, with Almore County. But Neil Williamson, the irony of discussing data centers on an internet-based talk show. Tony O'Brien is not lost on me. Neil Williamson right there. And trust me. Trust me, there was a lot of internet activity regarding me and my decision. I actually was going to go to your town hall that you were hosting that day.

I really wanted to go. He's got a town hall coming up, right? Let's talk about it. Oh, you did it last night. This is a town hall, right? Basically, this is a town hall. This is probably the most watched town hall that you guys may do here. But Ned Galloway just did one last night.

How was the attendance? What happened? Attendance was great. It was at the center at Belvedere. It's specifically for our budget. We do budget town halls every year. And it's a chance for there will be their staff there. So the first little half hours about mingling,

getting to go around, meet the people in the different departments, ask questions. Then there's a presentation to give the high level overview of the budget, and then the remainder is Q&A. So I got a lot of great questions last night. The turnout was phenomenal. But it also had other supervisors there listening to folks. We had-

Ann Malick. Anne was there, B was there, Sally was there, Fred was there. It was not in an announced meeting. We didn't talk to one another. so just from public meeting issues, which we announced last night as well. But also Jim Dillenbach, the new representative of the Rio District was in attendance. I was able to be able to introduce him to folks. School board.

School board chair, Dr. Berlin was also in attendance. So it was packed house. I mean, it was, you know, I'm always amazed at the questions we get because it's never one thing. Like, you know, obviously if it's a Tanaska or rezoning or something like that, all of it's going to be really hyper-focused on that. But last night, it was, it pretty much covered the whole swath of what we do. And it's interesting to watch folks do that because it's like, well, what are they thinking? What are their concerns?

And a lot of it was not, and this has been my experience over the last couple of years, it's never usually like, don't do this or do that. It's always explained to me why you're doing what you're doing. And that was the tone of the whole evening. So I really appreciate the folks in my district that come out and treat it that way because I think that is the level of conversation we should be doing. You should be asking me why we're choosing to pay for some things, maybe not pay for other things as much and why. And if we're raising taxes or proposing for you to respond to, we should explain to you why we're doing that and what the circumstances are. So we were able to do that.

It was good stuff. So that's a good segue because this guy I know said, you know, said, you know, if you watch how elected officials vote during their budget season, you don't know how they're going to vote the rest of the year. Some guy by name a day. In our budget meeting Wednesday, the work session, we did that. We had to take votes on some things. Now, some will, we've kind of parked because it depends on some wiggle of others.

But yeah, at the end of the day, once you start taking those kind of votes, then it loads into where the budget's at. Then you can start going, did he say that when he was campaigning? Was that consistent with what he said in the? the past so to me that's a good part of the process well something struck me from wednesday's meeting and then this could be tied to all jurisdictions uh supervisor pruitt scotsville district amorea county proposed um advertising a one cent real estate tax rate increase and a 29 cent personal property uh tax right

increase uh and last year there was a four cent real estate property tax I'll do this. And they don't talk about equalize, right? I could just like Jesse. Do you know what the concept of equalization is? Have you ever heard of it before? So just so I can prove what you're asking me, if we were to equalize in the current year,

it would be 85, we're at 894, so it would be at 85, let's see, 3. 853, I think. I think it's 5.5.4. It's 5.2 cents is what it would take to equalize. That would be about a $16 or $17 million equivalent to the operating budget. So for those that are asking, so that they go, do they even talk about it or think about it? There it is.

So for us to equalize, we would have to find in the budget a place to reduce things by that $17, $17, $17 million to be able to equalize. To meet this year's budget. To meet this year's from last year's. So, Jesse, do me a favor. jump in and explain what equalization. Yeah, okay. This might be equation. Also, to the internet as the Nelson County way, right?

Let me just. For those who heard of equalization, whenever we do assessments, we say, oh, my gosh, we can't do this to the taxpayer. How often do you do assessments? Every four years. Wasn't it longer than that this last time? No, that's Amherst did six years. Amherst has an entirely different disaster. Let's stay on top of you.

Anyways, yeah, you got me. Squirrel. Okay, sorry. Equalization is when the assessments have increased to a certain number, and to equalize the revenue that the county had year over year, you reduce the real estate tax, which would ever have any pennies, percentage, the rate. Down so that it equals a little bit closer to the revenue

the county received last year. It's never equal exactly. But Nelson County's philosophy is how much are we equalizing? We always try to equalize down as far as we can normally. For a layman's person's perspective, I live in Fulvana County.

So ultimately next year, my dollars that comes out should be the same. Should be as close to what I pay. I make it very simple. What's 10 times eight? I don't know. I figured. What's eight times? Is it the same thing?

All righty gentlemen. So we have to do a math question. Now, now listening to all those. I just want to let you know. I do have sponsors and I'd like the whole... Well, it's okay. Tony's only in charge of $161 million. It's all right.

Is that what it is? $161.16? Well, yes, but only because we allocated part of our proffer money from Dominion, which was a very substantial. That's a long number. It was a $50 million. Wow.

I think we allocated $45 million into the CIP for some of our programs. So that's a... That's different. That's different. In the Bremow-Blaw, Fork Union area, right. So that's the start of that program. So the goal is to get my dollars out of my pocket to be balances the year before. Yes.

And if you listen to Al-Marl supervisors speak, they say, we're not raising your tax is rate. Well, they... This year, which is a true statement. Pause. In the, this year, in the personal, in your real estate taxes, this year it did pass four to two to advertise to raise the personal property tax, 15 cents. So that would be from $4.28 of $100 of assessed value to $4.33 of every $100. And that, where people, where that hits and impacts people is their cars mostly.

It's machinery and tools as well. Yeah. Well, and it's important to emphasize. Let me throw this out here. A whiskers hair, Ned Galloway, Whisker's hair away here from a 29 cent personal property tax rate increase advertised, 3-3, so it's not advertised because it was 3-3,

and a 1-cent real estate tax rate increase, 3-3. And I'll do the rationale or the justification for the supervisor that was proposing it, which was supervisor. I believe he's watching the show. But the reason he was doing, exactly the one cent, then the initial 29 cent on the personal property, was the target for our county that we've not had majority supervisors in the past agree to want to get there, but it was

the $10 million into the affordable housing investment fund. So what he was doing was taking the county executive's recommended budget, which is a combo of some operating and one-time monies to get, which is at $5 million. And then in Mike's mathing, if you did a one-cent tax on the real estate and then you did the 29 cent on the real personal property, the way that taxes are collected, because we would still collect some from the current year, the way that that works, it allowed him to get, in his math, to get to that $10 million number. That's exactly because it was all going to be dedicated for affordable housing. All kidding aside, I mean, we as supervisors all struggle with the budgetary process.

That's your hardest thing you do. And it's not like we're not unaware of the impact of raising taxes on people. we totally get that. Whether it's stated or whether it's true assessment increases or so on, we all know what that feels like. And so, you know, going back to electricity, going back to gas, going back to health care, going back to all the things that are driving affordability problems right now, you know, when you have an opportunity to help to reduce the tax burden on the folks with projects like to NASCA,

you know, this is something we can control. I can't control the rate of water. Can't control the electric costs. I can't control those things, but what I can do is try to control how much we end up spending and also how much of that spending, how much of the revenues that we're collecting are coming from a lot. But 91% is talking about how much this power is going to move that needle? Well, in the first couple of years, once a plan is in production, it's $14 million a year. That's 31 cents on our current tax rate right now.

If you take our current rate, proposed rate for this year of 77 cents, that's 41%. were we to take all that money and apply it to the tax rate. That's 41% tax decrease that you could potentially apply. That's really substantial. That's not realistic because we are going to use some of those things for other projects. But even if it's half of it, it's still very significant, and that makes a huge difference. I mean, Louisa could do that maybe tomorrow. Well, Louisa could make all of us all.

Louisa could get rid of all of their tax rates. And ours. And ours, too. And, geez, I wonder what. How many power plants do they have? So many dating centers in the billions? So I've changed subject a little bit. Back to you, Jesse.

Sure. I'm just wondering how you guys are going to navigate what the state's giving you for the school system. Oh, it's a disaster. So just to set the stage here, from 2019 to now have you lost 15% of your student body. We've lost eight in Fulvana County. I think you're around two or three in Almar County. But most folks don't know this. that right they're getting the schools set the stage yeah i i think since the early 2000s uh nelson

had late 90s to today we've lost the student population i believe it's about five 600 kids we only had about 2 000 to start with so now we're down to 1300 wow so nelson's getting hit on two fronts one the student pupil the the pupil loss of course uh and then the lcii change because nelson county is a our assessments keep going up we're actually like the fourth highest expectation by the state to pay more money for a school system based on the SOQ from local from the local so we are over the next five years are expected to pay not expected the state is just going to take a million dollars a year wow over the next four to five years so we get hit twice we get hit with the

LCI and we get hit with the re-benchmarking yeah and it's it's kind of a disaster so when we talk about assessments basically in equalization the LCI has dominated our conversation. How is it that we... To give that acronym, please, what that stands for? Local Composite Index. Good job. Not the least composite.

So the local composite index. It basically is this complex formula. I actually have a picture on my phone. It uses real estate assessments. It uses incomes to some degree and it divides it out over this very complex formula and it says on this very fictitious, but it should be,

SOQ budget, which is what the state thinks your budget should be to govern a school system never is possible. Standards of quality. Yeah, standards of quality, which doesn't even include all the staff, just a certain number. So our state representatives can say they funded. Absolutely. And I can, and at this point, Nelson County has suffered through this for eight years in a row for me.

And I can confidently say that our state officials will do nothing to address it. We've successfully not gotten any more hold harmless. They've said, good luck. Nelson County should just pay for it all. And we are about to be equal with Fairfax City and the expectation to pay the maximum amount, 80%.

They're expecting the local government to pay 80% of that tiny SOQ budget. Not even tiny. Still millions. Sounds like they've been visiting your breweries. Apparently, yeah. They can afford this, but they take that tax money too. So we don't even get that. So, did you jump in and from Mountau? Well, it's something that every school

division and locality has to contend with. Two years ago is when Alamarle took a hit, and it was to the tune of $9, 10 million. So the county executive and his current recommended budget, and this is creating consternation between the two elected boards with us this year. He's brought... That's between the elected... Before the school board and the board of supervisors, the county executive brought forward a plan to fund the school's operations to the tune of basically the local

dollar increases about $9 million. Wow. They're getting... That's year over year. That's what they're giving. The state's coming in. I think the state additional monies are in that like $10, $11 million a year for them. So they've got extra money this year.

Now that's the opposite of what happened to them two years ago from the state. So the county executive said, all right, what we're going to do is we're going to fund your operations. We've got two new schools coming online. Let's make sure the operations are handled for that. Let's send the money over that's going to cover it that $9 million. But we're going to take $6.8 million that would traditionally go over in the form of our split that we've that has been a guideline over the years and we're going to keep that in a CIP reserve Sure. We're going to do that for two years in a row. So you have the six point I'm sorry six point four six point four million year one six point four million year two So at the end of two years you'd have 12.8 million dollars banked away in your CIP

What also though you've banked away is that six point four is still there for you and in your three years and in your three years to be able to use for operating. So if the LCI switches and goes the other direction again, if it's $9, $10, $11 million, you'd have money that you could use to help lessen the hit. If it's $3 million hit, then you've got enough to cover it. The school divisions recommended budget, once all of the money sent over to them,

which would be about $15, $16 million, they, the superintendent recommended putting $4 million into a CIP reserve for the first year, the rest would go to operate. And then it's unfair to say they're not doing anything in year two. They just haven't really even discussed year two. So there's no plan for that. But what would happen then, if everything stays equal, then it's just the normal kind of, well, normal. Increased costs.

What did we come and ask for in two years? But if that LCI goes and the state yanks money back, they're going to be looking to us to fill that. To fill the point. So Alba Morrow, about three, four years ago, we started doing. multi-year budgeting where we've said, all right, let's not plow everything into operations every year. Let's start building for things. The county executive has explicitly stated that without us building the bridge, which we're dipping into our budget stabilization reserve, a half percent this year, half percent next year, to help us get to

year three because what starts happening in year three, we start seeing revenue from Astros Aica coming up. That's huge. So the school division's unhappy. The school division's unhappy. They want the dollars. They want the decision. So I understand the point of view, but that's where we're at right now.

And there seems to be disagreement on our board of exactly how that can play out. So for those of those of know, CIP's capital improvement plan, right? Buildings. Buildings. Fire trucks. And listen to this little nugget on local composite index. We have something called the revenue sharing agreement with the city of Charlottesville. That's crazy.

So local composite index, the complex formula that Jesse was talking about is basically a county's ability to pay that they're calculating. The $20 million that we send to Seaville. Is it 22? $22 million. $22.5. Actually, I think. The state considers that still in our conference. That's bananas.

That's money you've got to make. That money is just going straight on it. Why? You get hit twice, but I know. There's so many questions here. I've been reading Jerry's body language. Out of curiosity with the revenue sharing agreement, is that ever a topic of consideration why we're still doing this with your supervisors?

Well, I mean, it's two jurisdictions that agreed. and came to the agreement back when the city was allowed to annex property. A perpetuity contract. And the voters endorsed it and voted on it. So the voters voted on it. So legally to change it, you'd have to have both jurisdictions would want to agree to do it. Well, one of those, it's kind of, you all got HOAs in your. And you know how when sometimes other properties want to do something through their property,

how that's like not in their interest to do that. So it would take something that, like legally there's no way. to get out of it. Some people think, and it seems to have reared its head again, it hadn't really come up in six years, seven years. But people seems to think that it's just an act of leadership or legal maneuvering or something like that to change this. Well, it's pretty well locked in. Is there an end date? No, it's... There's no end date in the contract. Well, take yourself back to when it got put into place. At the time, there was no moratorium on annexing property. The way the city was going to be able to grow their own revenue base was to take the land,

to be able to commercialize it, to be able to get the revenue. Well, since Alibald wanted that revenue too, right, they were going, well, we don't want them taking our land. So here's the agreement. We will share what's coming from that. So when you think of the logic of the agreement back in the context, it's not unreasonable. It's just none of them would have known that the state puts a moratorium on cities to be able to annex property, and then eventually it just goes away. So now all the places that maybe did those revenue sharing agreements are left going, what?

We all have done it up a little bit of business at this table. You're talking about 10% of Charleston's budget is coming from out. No, no, no contract is. That's why I asked. Yeah, yeah. I mean, all contracts are living documents in ways, some shape, or form, right? I'm not going to write a real estate contract with Tony. Did you shook my hand, maybe?

I want to say, consideration. 10%. There seems to have been disgruntlement over the revenue agreement for decades, And they haven't figured out how to come up with, you know, because it's not something that one can force on the other. And when you sit there, and you all are business people, when you sit there and you go, well, what's in it for me? And that's not a bad thing. But it would have to be something that would make up for in a value proposition for the city to be able to. The only way out I would see is a lump sum from Almar to Charlott'sville to get out.

That's the only way I could see out. And I don't see. Why would they negotiate? Well, Charlottes on the, what's it called? Catbird's. Yeah, Capers. Yeah, the Capric seat.

When you negotiate, you always negotiate a position of strength. Right. Oh, yeah. Right. But, excuse me, can we change the way the state is funding you?

So, back in, when I was on the school board, there was an effort, and this was not, this was created tension between the city school board, the city council, and Alvamar. And it really put, frankly, David Tuscano back then in a little bit of a pickle because he was representing both jurisdictions. What we tried legislatively back then was to go to the state and say, can you at least adjust in the local composite index and treat the revenue sharing amount as if it's not in our coffers?

That we can adjust our ability to pay to the tune of that amount. What that ends up meaning for the Charlottesville and the Albemar School Divisions, it's not just a lump sum change to either one's favor or disqualmie. favor, it can flip-flop back and forth. So we tried it in one year, and of course then you've got the county down there lobbying for one thing, you've got the city lobbying for another, and

then the rest of the state's going at your agreement. So that was kind of, it didn't really go anywhere with the rest of the G.A. See, Tony, if I were you, I'd try to figure out how to get that same agreement with Louisa. Yeah, that'd be good. I think probably to the tune of 150 mil. I would love to hear the conversation with Tony and

Fitzgerald Barnes and how that goes over there. I know fits fairly well. I have a feel for what Fitzwood do. I'm calling Tom. Yeah, we love our. We're taking science crossroads. That's right. Rachel, it's okay.

Don't worry about it. Pay me a couple million. I'll have to hear a little there. Go ahead. So let's dial it back a little bit. Right. So what are your projected budget? What do you think your budget is going to be?

Golly, it's kind of hard. Round numbers. There's a reason I'm asking. I think once you got in the school system, into the whole pool. It's probably about 77 to 80 mil. So I don't think what a lot of folks understand is how you get to that revenue,

right? Most people don't understand how much money comes from the state, how much of that comes from the feds, right, and then how much is the local dollar? I mean, big numbers, right? Is it? A third comes from the state? I mean, the state is always the biggest

number in pretty much everything. And they're dialing it back. I think we're around 40, 45% is. I think it's 30 to, yeah, I think it's, you know, between the feds and, and for just the school, we're definitely well above 50, 60%. Yeah, you that you contribute. Yeah, we're probably 50, 60%. So we're not quite a 50% of the budget. No.

There's local dollars is what you're saying. Oh, yeah, I would say it's probably over 50% of our budget of this. I mean, we're getting down to that. I mean, it would. I mean, we're at 700 plus million for the total budget. The schools are asking for, well, they've asked for the 315. So with ours, we'd be transferring somewhere between 307, 309, depending on what we land with it.

And that's with the CIP and everything in there. I mean, their school budget is more than our entire budget. Double. With the CIP. I mean, the head of the Amore County Venture Union is on social media today, throwing shots over the, you know, at the board of supervisors about not allocating enough. That's happening right now. Yeah.

I mean, that's something we're all going to have to deal with, right? I mean, that's a big thing. Those that are watching and listening that don't live in the state of Virginia, which we have a pretty decent following here. New York, for instance, has two separate tax structures, right? One tax for the school and one tax for the local government. I think I know the answer to this question, is that a path that we're never going to see here in Virginia? I don't know. That's never going to happen.

I just don't think we got the, I mean. So the schools spend the money. but you allocate. We have to allocate, and they don't have any taxing authority. I mean, it's always part of the, we once talked in supervisor school. You know,

you talk about the... Oh, there is such a thing? Yes, there is. I'm actually getting certified. After it was year nine, I said, that's a scary thought. I know, I'm getting certified. Certified crazy?

I'm going to get certified, I'm going to get certified, I think you need to move on. I think we all agree you're certified. This is true. I am certified, but what I was going to say is in relation to that,

piece of the pie for Nelson I mean it's it's eating us up I mean a million bucks is three real estate pennies to make up for if the state pulls a million every year we're raising it three pennies and you don't have a power pant coming on to offset that and then collect the bargaining is going to potentially come into play which can anyone explain to me what that means like how is the school board going to go into good faith arguments or discussions and negotiations right yes since they don't control the purse how do you going to do that's how do they do that I mean I don't even know So yes, teacher, you're going to get paid X dollars. Okay, board of supervisors, and we say we don't have the money.

Then what? Like, I've asked that question a few times. Right. Well, then they tried to leverage, negotiate, and or squeeze the, you know what, of the supervisors. To get more money. I mean. And then they threaten goodwill by saying they won't give the kids the money. Yeah.

Proudic classrooms, not paying teachers. I mean, what's... Because it constrains what they would do. Yeah. It locks their operating budget in that they must do that. compensation. So if the supervisors didn't provide whatever the offset was, then they'll have to go in and figure out what else to get rid of to make the, to meet the way. This is why I've brought up maybe they ought to get their own tax dollars. I mean, there is, I mean, if collective bargaining is coming into play, I mean, and you, the schools somehow are going into that good faith negotiation through the National Association of Educators or whatever it is, I don't know. I can't comprehend how they can do it.

Well, and if you want to see foreshadowing for what could happen with Nelson, look at Charlottesville. They were the first across the board, collective bargaining, all city employees unionized. Sam Sanders in budget season now with Charlottesville, we need two more cents on the real estate tax rates just to cover collective bargaining. He literally said why I'm asking you for two cents more is specifically because of collective bargaining. Third Friday of next month we're going to have some Charleston folks. I mean, that's, so that's coming down for Nelson. Now, if you're fair, though, if you look, because Alamar County just signed their collective bargaining agreement on the school division side, the compensation increases that are in there are really in line with what coal increases have been anyway. What the Albamaro Education Association really were going for were different kinds of things embedded in the school day in terms of planning time, who's being compensated for one, things like that.

Now, that does raise compensation, but this supervisor is not unhappy with what they were able to win in the school. that sort of agreement. And it's not hitting it. It's not like they baked in a 10 or 12%. It's just an uncertainty that we're going to have to measure. But correct me if I'm wrong, it does include a significant increase for support staff though. Teachers, janitorial, cafeteria, which I deserve. Which I'm not about. And so it does create a place where now, it does set up a constrained thing. The school division is required to deliver on that now. And they'll learn whatever there was you know the consequences of that are from a financial standpoint with the dollars they get but at the end of the day you know let's say the collective bargaining is

not there those internal pieces probably don't happen or do in such an incremental way that it takes a long time and you know for there were years when I was on the school board where teachers weren't even getting cost of living adjustments so I'm not going to act as if a 3.75 or something in that three and a half to four percent raise for teachers is not married. And I mean, I think that, you know, just taking a little bit to step further is that ultimately

if, you know, the board's supervisors allocates X amount of money and those staff positions have to be increased on the teacher side in order to meet the collective bargaining that has, you know, resulted in, well, we need these additional support staff. It really creates attention because

at that point in time, what do you do? You say, well, here's what we're funding you. Yes, you want that. So I guess you can get that support staff, but you're going to have to reduce your overall staff in order to get that support staff, right? And that's a tension that I don't think has been fully played out yet. And I don't know if that's necessarily healthy for the schools. I believe schools should advocate for what they need. Absolutely. And then, you know, we have the difficult decision of saying, here's what we can afford. But they should definitely advocate for what they need. And one of the things that I'm always frustrated with, especially

in years when we aren't able to fully fund a school request, is that what always gets left off are those new positions, which ultimately those new positions are there to drive and improve the quality of the school itself.

Most people don't realize, 85% of most budgets are salaries. There's not a lot left to play with, right? I'm going to play devil's advocate here, right? Sure. But If we have 8% less children since 2019 and now, how do you... Well, in Lovana County back in 2012, we cut the school budget by $3 plus million. So, you know, we're kind of basically getting back to where we were in a sense.

But also the other thing, too, is that, you know, of course, if you take those 8, I mean, those 12 years and you were to apply COLA to that, you know, that's a pretty significant increase as well, too, right? We're catching up. Yeah, you're catching up in a sense. We didn't have a good enough student to teach a ratio to start with. Oh, yeah. Now we're getting kind of back to where we were. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So let me get to some of these. We can keep going. Let's call on. The show's rock and roll, and there's a lot of comments coming in. This is coming from somebody that's asking for anonymity that's plugged in elected wise locally. Why is the $16 million spent on land use valuation in Al Morrow a better use of taxpayer dollars than other ways we could spend that money, for example, schools, roads, sidewalks, or other conservation programs? Question there for a question.

Glad you got that. That's a good question. I mean, yeah, but the answer, I mean, they'll probably won't be satisfied with my answer because it's the same thing we're doing in every other piece. We've got where are the available dollars and what are they being programmed? forward and the challenge that's challenging for all of us that have to make these decisions every budget year is going well when I program dollars here what does that mean for every other there's what 12 top priorities of each of every single one if not more so you have to go well what's the value of that program there's a cost associated with it is it legitimate to keep it there or do we need to

move that over here or do we need to raise taxes to be able to pay for something so the county has decided that that's an appropriate place and a prioritized place for those dollars to go and instead of pulling money out of it, it's prioritized in a way that increased revenues that we receive, higher tax bills, right, go to fund some of the other important needs that we see. So how the county residents have been dealing with increased services that are part of growth and the things that we're going to see year over year has been their property assessment values go up. That means we've received more tax revenue, even though we haven't changed the tax rate to your point earlier. The last two tax rate increases, we're all dedicated. We've been able to cleanly say to our taxpayers last year, all of this new tax rate dollar money is going to public safety and affordable housing, including the one we just... So two things. This guy, Ned said, watch how you vote during budget season.

You know how to go back on the cessiness. This is a real estate show. What? Unbelievable. Are we talking about real estate? I hope you're doing the assessments since COVID and how they've popped. Is that what you're going to? No, that's not what I was going to do because that's not going to happen in front of me, but, but watch this is. It's not a real estate show now. It's not a real estate show now.

We're talking about the referendum. Gary, COVID was five years ago. It usually goes this way. He's just got COVID brain fog. Let's behave, gentlemen. So we ended median, your county. Yeah. Ended median sales prices at the 2025 at 585.

at 580, so you're now this year to date, as of this morning, you're up to 591. And that's basically Q1 and of Q1. We're not even, yeah. For intensive purposes, we're at the end of Q1. So to your point on assessments, right, if we do everything like you're supposed to, you're going to start seeing numbers going up again. Oh, yeah. And by the way, giving all more grief, I know that they use a formula-driven percentage-based model

for the most part. Are we ever going to go to a yearly? Which I think is impressive. And I think you try to drive to a sustainable rate. I mean, I do think the idea of a sustainable rate is, you know, easier for citizens to understand and digest overall. Oh, I agree. You know, instead of this back and forth, you know,

oh, the taxes went up or then, you know, the needs go up. That's probably one of the big differences between a rural and urban context because, you know, you can have one major economic event in a rural context. And it's just, Louisa, in the last 10. years is a great example. A bunch of big stuff happened, boom. You know, Nelson, you get here. He's talking about science crossroads.

Yes. Well, the whole county. The whole county. The whole county. The whole county. Amazon. But in more of an urban context, like, I, you know, certainly

there's some level of trajectory we try to look out, especially since we only reassess every four years. You do have to trajectory. You're going to change that? We've discussed it. We'd like to address that on a regional basis and share. because it costs us $400,000.

We've said that a few times. It's a very reasonable thing. But how's that going to work? Because you've got staff that does it. We hire out. The theory is that multiple jurisdictions, and this is purely theory, no numbers, nothing's hit ink on paper, is that multiple rural jurisdictions could stagger their assessments. Exactly.

And be able to share. Hire staff and share the staff costs. Because it's no reason for us to do it every year. I think that's a little bit too much for Nelson. But every two years is not unreasonable. Well, and I mean, from experience, I can tell you this, because when I first came onto the board was 2012, right? And we were doing basically six-year assessments.

So we assessed at 2007 and then at 2012. Wow. It was a 30% drop. Yeah, that's how people lose their holes. That's how people lose their homes. And to your point there, Jerry, at that point in time, you had seen this really fast growth happen in Flavans. And so you had a lot of new time home buyers, you know, say they bought a home for 3, 350.

And we're breaking, barely surviving at that price. And then all of a sudden they get their assessment that says, oh, your home is only worth 200,000. We had a really high foreclosure and bank short sales in our county because a lot of people just said, you know what? I'm down 100, 150 grand. I've only had this house for two years. Here's the keys. Walk away. What I called white collar foreclosures, you know.

It's a little bit more than here's 50. But back to my point of the budgeting, I mean, for rural localities, it's usually a year-to-year vision. And, you know, the propensity of, you know, board changes do happen. I mean, I think that's also the same in your context. But because your budget is $2 billion, $1 billion, your total budget. $700,000. Yeah, $700,000.

Okay. Yeah, you have to have that five-year advisor. You can't govern year-to-year. Whereas in the local side, like, we can put in a week or two. worth of work sessions and figure our stuff out pretty easily. So that's why we kind of keep our day to day. But I do like that concept of, I think, especially when it comes to debt service, you need to have a financial plan.

I think every county should have a financial policy. Nelson County is finishing up drafting. Hopefully we'll have something drafted by this year on a financial policy. But for your constituents, you know, how is it that you, how we explain that jump is always hard. And usually every four years, it's not that big. we've just lived a bunch of major inflationary time periods economically that have just absolutely decimated specific geographical areas. Amherst, the neighboring county, if they were to equalize their rate because they did six years pre-COVID,

they would have to drop their tax rate from, I think, 60-some, 68 cents or 58 cents to 32 cents to truly equalize. And, yeah, I mean, that's dangerous. And maybe there's some philosophy the state has to look at. If we keep having hyperinflation, the state's going to have to step in and figure out what assessments mean, right? What percentage of the assessments we're going to be able to keep going forth? I can see a day where that happens. If rates go up again, if they go up another, you know, a couple hundred basis points, oh, I mean, it's going to be disastrous. And now we talked about this before the show.

Now the expectation is we will see an increased rate environment in 2026. I believe it. due to inflationary pressure from escalated oil, which is tied to the war in Iran. 3.89, the price per gallon, when I was driving in from IV, three and a half weeks ago, actually four weeks ago, it was $2.79. So it's up $1.10.

And I think, interestingly, with Supervisor O'Brien's county, Fluvana, I think he's gonna see the pressure from the escalating cost in Almaron. You already have experienced this, especially since post-COVID. Yeah. The populations are expected to uptick in Elmoreal County, 600 jobs tied to AstraZeneca, $125,000 the average of those 600 jobs.

When we raise personal property taxes, real estate taxes, at the same time that assessments go up. The middle class is going to get priced out. They're going to flock to Fluvana. And as they flock to Fluvana, that's going to drive values of houses. You're going to see a lot of pressure because of that. I also, my, our oldest kid is in private school. It's $25,000 for second grade here.

The folks that are coming to Almaro are, they have money. They're going to not put their kids in public schools. They're going to put their kids in private schools or homeschool. It's going to drop the numbers of enrollment with Almore County Public Schools, less funding for Almar County Public Schools. This is a snowball here. It was a cycle. And I think that, you know, you highlighted a really good point.

As our friend here, Mr. Smith likes to say, People drive till they can buy, right? That's one of your favorite lines, right? Try to qualify. Drive to you qualify. I think we're moving it to fly now. Yeah, fly to you qualify. You know, Louisiana, I'm sorry,

Flavanna County is actually, despite everybody's assessments of it, we've had one of the slowest growth is in population. I was literally just going to talk about that. You finished out. The last five years, so we've actually got very restrictive growth policies right now. You know when the biggest growth years were? Oh, back in the 90s, yeah, for sure. In the 80 to 90% of the county filled up in the late 90s in the early 2000.

Well, it's because you're not doing any development. We're not doing any development. To your point is... It's going to escalate values of homes. You have new pressure coming in because people want to buy, but there's less inventory. And since there's less inventory, it drives the prices up to be high. Lake Monticello is a perfect example. Which drives up affordability problem, right?

So it's like, and I talk about this all the time, is like, we need to get serious about having concentrated development. because I don't like to see horizontal development that much. I don't believe in the sprawl, right? I don't believe in, oh, you get your five, 10 acre, $2 million lot that Almar likes to do. Yeah, Amma likes to do. Because that ultimately does ruin the rural character. Right now, developing in Flavanna County is a challenge

because we've had a, A, we've changed their zoning laws, we took away cluster developments, which is one of the few ways that you could do it. And B, because we don't have an infrastructure for water, which is required, public utilities, in order to do the higher density zoning, we've made it very difficult. You do it now at the end of a power plant? We're getting there.

We're working on that. Yeah, we're working on that. I need to jump in on this when you're here. Yeah, but that affordability issue becomes bigger and bigger if you have restrictive zoning like that. I think our growth in the last five years has been under 4%. We were the lowest in the area, if I recall. Yeah. So, so, yeah.

Once Colonial Circle builds out. Flavana's done. You're done. Yeah. I do want to, we got more time? Oh yeah, keep going. Let's keep going. I want to jump in a little bit on this power plant conversation that happened because I wrote a note down. I really wasn't going to bring it up until you were talking about our county.

So I watched it until about midnight. Us old dudes go to sleep at midnight. We don't like to stay up to 2 o'clock in the morning. Matter of fact, usually 9.30 I'm asleep. Most of the fun was over by then. But there was a little bit more. But it was interesting, listening to the comments. and from the comprehensive plan purists, right, about the power plant,

that it didn't meet the comprehensive plan. I've stood in front of you. I've stood in front of every one of these bodies here with a project, a residential project that the Planning Commission voted for. I just did it in Green County, voted for, gets in front of your board. So the Planning Commission says, yeah, it meets our comp plan. It's in our growth area, yada, yada, yada, gets to the board.

and get shut down. It's very funny how that same people just switched. And I'm just wondering if you had any. Well, and yeah, I do have a lot of feedback on that, to be honest. I mean, in this case, the plan commission... Whatever you're comfortable with. Yeah, no, no, in this case, the plan commission voted 5-0 against the plant. And, you know, I know that, you know, there was some politicking happening, if you would,

and that, you know, some people just didn't make the vote that they should have done, is my opinion from that standpoint. And I know that there was some further intentions, but that's just the way that fell. Okay, it happens, it is what it is, not a big deal. I still appreciate all the hard work energy and thought that they put into it. It obviously puts you in an awkward position when you're at odds with your planning commission. You don't necessarily want to be that. So if you look at a 5-0 vote and a 4-1 vote, you go, there's some disconnect happening here, right? But we are in the process of doing our comprehensive plan, and in that process,

because there's been a lot of conversation about the rural character and nature of our county, I'm pretty sure the comprehensive plan just says rural on it. That's it. I mean, I'm kind of joking, but I think the word rural and character and all that kind of stuff is repeated throughout it. And we all get that and we all understand that. I was giving a presentation to the FLDP, Flavenile leadership development program, and it was a planning presentation. So we had our Todd Fortune, you know, lead planner there speaking. We had one of the planning commissioners and myself, and the planning commissioner was talking about the comprehensive plan

and sort of saying these are the aspirational aspects. This is what we work for. This is what we try to do and create. And after she was done, I said, yes, those are the aspirational aspects, but this is where the sausage gets made when it gets to the board of supervisors. We have to deal with that. So in our comprehensive plan touted quite a bit about the Tanaska plan. It says that we will have decentralized,

renewable energy. Okay, decentralized great. In order to provide the same amount of energy that the Tanaska plant was going to do, we would have to cover 30,000 acres in solar. Now, I'm pretty sure if we were doing that, we'd have a lot of people coming out and talking about that as well, too.

I asked Tanaska, and they offered it, to put in a condition, actually a restrictive easement, of $2 million to be matched by the county for putting it. in solar, home solar, right? To offset, you know, help reduce, and I thought this would be an innovative program that might be able to be taken on, you know, kind of by the state, as we've seen the subsidies have been reduced.

And so it was, you know, $2 million over 10 years match from that standpoint. I was hoping to also reach out to CEVAC and Dominion and see if they would offer some additional monies from that standpoint. Really helped to promote solar reduce the burden on that, on greenhouse gases, right? our county has the most restrictive solar ordinances probably in the state, i.e., we basically banned solar. Not home solar. This is industrial solar.

So we don't allow solar, and then our board voted to take that $2 million, and this was on Wednesday, and apply it to a firehouse that's being built. So basically, they felt that they didn't want to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize green, but yet our comprehensive plan says, we want decentralized renewable energy. And I said, well, if we're going to do that, then we need to remove that from the comprehensive plan, right? Because you are not putting your money to your mouth, right?

If you're going to say this is what we want, then do it, right? And so I was pretty fired up about that. But at the end of the day, money's still going to good use. I'm glad. Glad, glad is still there and appreciate what to NASCAR offered. Just I think that kind of highlights that dichotomy or that sort of, you know, silliness that sometimes in the aspirational. aspect we miss in the practical aspect. And especially in this case where so much of the conversation

was how this plan didn't fit with the comprehensive plan, but when you actually took the energy component of it, it was way out of whack to begin with. But what is the comprehensive plan? Well, the comprehensive plan is basically a five-year look into the future of where you want it to go. It's an aspirational goal of what you want it to do, where you want your growth to happen, how you want it to happen,

how you want certain pieces of things to work. So when I get voted down for how I get told it's aspirational. It's aspirational. Even the conference plan. We want affordable housing, but we don't want to build any housing. Well, you know, comprehensive plans are, you know, the guy who's on our board forever, Tommy Harvey, he was on our board for 40 years. He said, that's the most expensive paperweight you'd ever did have.

He said, just leave it on the shelf. Jeff Richardson, the county executive did present to the Amour County Board of Super Bowl. that every incremental unit of housing cost, what is it, $1.33. $1.33 in services, yeah. Yeah, $1.33 in services and generates a dollar in tax revenue. So a loss of $0.32 for every incremental unit of housing. This is the county executive talking. In the commercial side, it's $0.32.

Tell them where that document came from. Tell you where that data came from. That was the study that we did to learn on our cost of services and what it would be. And even multifamily is kind of embedded in there. But agricultural and commercial had dropped. We're at 11% of tax revenue coming from commercial in two years. This is part of our diversification plan. AstraZeneca alone, there's it from 11% up to 15%.

And everyone has to remember, AstraZeneca wasn't the finish line. Astrozenica was the first lap of a long race because there's more property on our site. And there's more property in North Fork, et cetera. That's the long goal for us. That's when people say raising our taxes on top of property values going up, what's your long goal because this plan isn't sustainable? That's the long goal. And you don't get jobs into an area unless you have good quality schools, affordable housing, places where your employees can live.

So it's a catch-22. It's easy to say, oh, you know, houses are expensive because of schools, much touted by some of my fellow supervisor. But by the same token, if you're not going to have a housing put in place, then you're going to have affordability issues. You're not going to have density, then you're not going to have the growth that you say you want. So when you say, oh, I want that Home Depot or why doesn't Lytle move out to where we live right now? You don't get that because you don't have the density. They're traveling in and out. Exactly.

Alamoa County, 2025. One million and up was 23, I rounded up to 24, 25%. A quarter of all your sales. in Almar County in 2025 was a million bucks and up. Yeah. And this year's property assessment, the highest growth, so those that grew the fastest were homes that were valued at 800,000 or more, and the million plus was hitting like that 10, 11% kind of growth here over here.

So, you know, my comment always is real estate is location, price, features, condition, timing, who's on the other side matters. I have a half a dozen buyers looking to buy between the one and one five in your county, And I can't find them anything. And when I do, it's multiple offers. Ours, a little higher than that. Talk to us here. You know us here.

Let's make that happen. I'm just talking about... She's got to convince my wife now. You move to Flavanna. And people have three houses. I love you. I love you dearly, but I fear your wife. She would do it.

You can have prime waterfront. Prime waterfront. Excuse you. Water's in the water. That's right. I think I'm out of the one. But people have to remember like five years ago, that one, that one million, one and a half million dollar home was not a one million. No. Well, that's the point.

So, you know, your waterfront property at $1.2 million, the waterfront's probably what, a puddle that you put out there with your hose. Because that house, that house, that house, that house was probably what, $600,000, $700,000, $700,000. So that's the point I'm trying to make. This compensation last year, that was, that number wasn't quite often. And wait 24 to 36 months when 600 people come with $100,000. $125,000 salaries with AstraZeneca. Just one person, not including the partner salary. The husband or wife also

working. I can't talk about the specific buyers. That's who the buyers. Yeah. How many people are coming from Astrosan? 600 just for AstraZeneca. $125,000 average just just to $600. And there are things. There is some data out there that suggests and it was presented

at the chamber. At the chamber state of the community. Chamber state of the community this year It was just a few weeks ago where Sam and Jeff give the state of the community reports. But the Walden Cooper Center's Hamilton Lombard said that if you have 600 folks come, and it's not $125,000 average. $125,000 is the minimum wage. So I don't really guess I don't know the full mix of how that works.

120, so I got to change by wording. 125,000 is the entry point? Okay, thank you. Thank you now. So they generally have two incomes. What happens at that? right is he said even at that level with what you're seeing in terms of land values pricing home pricing and things like that and he said this in front of everyone is that you might not be

the ones taking the hit of those bulk of those 600 employees because even they aren't going to be able to afford to live in your guess is true right man yeah that's why fluvenna and green are about to hit but i don't have the inventory well what it's just going to drive up the values green He's got some big inventory covenant. As God is my witness, I have buyers at that price range that are walking away with multiple offers. We've got no home inspections. At that price point in New York County, no home inspections of appraisal waivers. Those that don't know what that is, they're going to cover the cash to the table.

Cash to the table. So this means these people know they're buying a home that isn't going to appraise and they're prepared to bring the cash to the table. And it's crazy. And just to talk about it. couple of quick numbers and we're way over time, right? $591 is your median right now in order to hit 80% for the land trust, right? You've got to be at $250,000.

That's just median. You had to make $250,000. You've got to come up with $341,000 and plus closing costs just to put that 80% AMI Fire. Oh, by the way, has 80% of $125,000, which is not a small number. Once the new HUD family median usually comes out in April? In April? So very soon. And it's 125,900 now. It is. It's actually 126 something. So it'll probably inch up, I thought. Yeah, that's a 125-9, right? It's 125-9, right? It's 1-25 something. I can't remember.

So it must have a 124 of the year? Yeah, that's right. That's right. You'll see it creep up again. I don't think the year after that when all these dollars. When is the, when is the true AstraZanica, like impact that we will see? Like, what is the, you're teaching me here? Like, like, with. what impact what do you mean uh people here um like up and run like when we start seeing 600 people you got contractors in now i think them up and running is going to be a couple of years out but based on the incentive packages and what we're how we're looking out over 25 years we'll start pulling revenue in from them right uh in year three okay three years from now three years from okay and then people start coming here in 2028 i don't know i don't know the exact number i don't know what fast though man yeah they're not going to i mean you don't do something

like that at that level to mess around. Now one of the things that's why the, like this year we're putting $4 million in economic development that will translate right over to getting Boulder's road extended. And folks are like, well, why would you spend that $4 million for that? Because the whole project's $43 million. We got 20 million from the state. We got 12 million from Astrosenica.

We got a couple of grants to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars, or I'm a couple hundred, about a million dollars. So our four million has turned into $43 million to be able to build that road, which is critical. I'm curiously. Did AstraZetica buy the land? So, you know, with what I can tell you with what the incentive package is

total. Over 25 years, the revenue, the projected revenue from that project alone is $705 million. The incentives that we have put in place for them, it's just short, but it's basically $100 million. So all of that over 25.

So if you take that, that's about $605, $606 million of revenue to the county over 25 years. It's about $25 million a year. And starting in the free. So does that a... But that's direct. It doesn't do the induced income, right?

Indirect income. No, it's fantastic economic development. You guys are crushing economic development. So, you know, there's just with, you know, there's the mix between, you know, it's, we'll get all the details out there when it's all. Well, and I think something that, you know, we're talking about homes and people buying homes, but also lost on the conversation is that for those that aren't buying homes, they're ready.

And guess what? You're renting from people who bought an expensive home. Exactly. You know, and so your rents go up. And if your rents go up, the next thing you see is people that can't afford that. And so, you know, when we look at some of the challenges that Charlottesville's facing, let's face it, you know, those are a lot of the homeless folks that are coming from our surrounding areas because the services are there. And then you look at that and you look at the impact that it has on this area, right?

And you've told some stories, Jerry, about some of the fund that happens down here. it ultimately impacts a gem of the county. It specifically is the impact in Charlottesville City. But I'm saying downtown mall is a jam of central Virginia, right? And so the city

has to deal with the homeless issues and they got to spend money on it. So I mean, it's an entirely I don't want to say virtuous spiraling circle that can be very damaging. When I hear AstraZeneca coming to Nelson, all I see is my LCI going up even more because

in Nelson, from a real estate perspective, the buyers who we get are cash people. Like, I haven't never looked at what car says, what the percentage of cash is. Total around 33%. I believe it. For the car footprint. For just the car footprint. But I would that in the Nelson County context, it would be closer to 50%

and they're showing up with $700 million dollars. But they're on the mountain. That's specifically winter. Well, that 151 corridor itself all the way passed into the Roseland area. We're starting, same mountain views. What you got is me. what I got is you. He's talking boomers with money.

Right. Well, we were watching the whole transition in the wintergreen community, right? So who was the buyer in the 80s and 90s of the winter green community? That was probably the greatest generation, right? 70s, 80s getting their mountaintop. Now we're seeing the boomers transition because we originally said, oh, when all these old folks age out and our leave or pass away, who replaces them, oh, the next generation's equivalent.

So what's the age of the first time home buyer? Nationally? I thought it was at 40. 40. Very nicely done. Justin Rutherford, yeah. Well, that is first-time home. House is for it. National Association of Realtors, 40 years old, first-time homebuyer. And that's scary. And that's terrifying because, you know what the average age of the buyer is?

56. Wow. The average is that? In other words, person that, like me that's moving? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, unbelievable. I'm going to tell you how much cash in 2025, but we're way over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. That's good. No, no, no, this has been, this has been great. I want to thank these guys. They are good guys, good people. I think this is a good indication of, you can have a conversation about touchy subject, politics, and taxes,

and do it in a respectful way. You had 166 sales last year, of 62 of them, so it was cash. And Nelson? Still about 30. Wow. Around 30%. It's been holding and old in jurisdiction. Everywhere.

Somewhere around 30. That's still a huge. You'll see a little bit more in your jurisdiction. but it's roughly 13 which is a huge number historically since 87 I've never seen numbers 30% numbers like like that Keith Smith Tony O'Brien Ned Galloway Jesse Rutherford the show is archive for for anyone that's asking wherever you get your social media or podcasting content Judah Wiccarra behind the camera I like what you did with the five shot worked out well thank you do to do do we care moves some mountains today stay engaged folks all politics matter but local politics really matter Yes, I do.

And you're seeing that here. Thank you, Keith. Just like real estate. Local, Paul. Everything's local. Gentlemen, thank you. This was a lot of fun. I couldn't think of a better group of folks to kick off this series.

Until next week. No, I've already. He has a roller. Yeah, I'm the best client I ever had. Today. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

You had to get it. I'll say props for this. me, not for me. Okay, there we go. That was the saying, Judah like that, Judas laughing behind the camera. And I do have to give a shout out to the people of Flavanna. We did have a big meeting and the people were great.

They were respectful of each other's opinions. Everybody on the panel, on the dais was respectful. The portion that I watched, which is encouraging, right? It is always encouraging. Nobody broke down into. We had one person shout out, but that was basically. That's, that's. How many people do you have in the room?

About 200. Less than I would have expected. I thought it was going to be 500, 400, but Well, that place holds a thousand, right? Yeah, yeah. Politics have really put a lot. He needs to go. No, it's good, that's good.

Keith, Tony, Ned, Jesse, Judah. I'm Jerry. Thank you for joining us on Real Talk with Keyes. Thanks, God. Awesome. Thanks, guys. He's going to tell us on the mic's roll.