1 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and
Appomatox County Board of Supervisors August 30, 2016
The Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors held a Joint meeting on August 30, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. at the American Civil War Museum – Museum of the Confederacy Appomattox meeting room, located at 159 Horseshoe Road, Appomattox, Virginia.
Town Council Members present: Timothy W. Garrett, C. Lewis McDearmon, Jr., Mary Lou Spiggle, Steven T. Conner, Claudia G. Puckette, and Mayor Paul D. Harvey.
County Board members present: Sara Carter, Sam Carter, Bryan Moody, Chad Millner, and Bill Hogan.
Others: Linda Lipscomb, Susan Adams, County Administrator; Vicky Phelps, Emily Coleman, Patrick Saylor, Ashlie Walter, Daniel Puckette, Philipp Gabathuler, Town Manager and Roxanne W. Casto, Town Clerk.
Emily Coleman welcomed everyone to the Civil War Museum (Museum of the Confederacy) for this historic meeting between the two bodies for a visioning process.
Mayor Harvey called Town Council meeting to order.
Mr. Carter, Chairman called the Board of Supervisors to order.
Mr. Gabathuler thanked everyone for attending and is looking forward to finding common goals.
Mrs. Adams discussed the ground rules for the meeting.
Each member was presented with seven (7) cards laid out in front of them on the table. They are areas of focus within each comprehensive plan, specifically the efforts in the past. Each member was asked to pick out their top two (2) cards and to be prioritized.
Each member was then asked to identify their “dreams” for this meeting –
Lewis McDearmon – 460 Corridor (sewer expansion) and work together one Economic Development.
Sara Carter – Multi-purpose trail including the Museum of the Confederacy – National Park Service Battlefield into Downtown
Steve Conner – 500 + jobs
Bryan Moody – come alongside all small business recognized by state as what can happen working together.
Claudia Puckette – Economic Development – Our demographics are bleak, create jobs, educational opportunities, opportunity to learn to fill good jobs, make a good living and stay here.
2 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and
Appomatox County Board of Supervisors August 30, 2016
Mary Lou Spiggle – personally love to see a small retail mall with shops. The Town did a feasibility study regarding this. Tourists and locals could go without having to go to Lynchburg or Farmville.
Chad Millner – collectively 5-10 businesses creating 25-50 jobs each.
Bill Hogan – Tap into unutilized resources, our uniqueness, what do we have that no one else has. Everyone has an industrial park.
Timmy Garrett – Workforce Training – 65% of our graduates that do not go to college. Put some money to this or get some money to implement.
Sam Carter – Expand and populate 460, small shopping elements.
Paul Harvey – We need a Master Long Range Utility Plan, where we need to expand, extra water and sewer. It’s the first piece of the whole puzzle. Jeff Elder and Bill Gillespie are willing to work on this. They are very familiar with the system.
Susan Adams – Everyone is thinking in these directions which all appear to be common.
The cards turned in by the members showed the following:
1 – Business Retention / Expansion – Qty – 10 2 – Infrastructure Development – Qty – 6 3 – Tax Reduction – Qty – 3 4 – Community Safety – Qty – 2 5 – Recreational Facilities – Qty – 1
How can we work together?
1 – Packages – Incentive Agreements for existing and business businesses - Coordinated approaches. Town Council, Board of Supervisors and Schools need coordinated economic strategies - in the right way it becomes marketable.
Discussion items:
Workforce Training
When businesses come to Appomattox – we need to do something to market “Appomattox” not Town and County. Instead of overlay we need to market as one with one stop shopping such as zoning.
Paint the water tanks “Welcome to Appomattox”
3 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and
Appomatox County Board of Supervisors August 30, 2016
Better recognize existing businesses.
Coordinated efforts - both have EDA’s. Is there a lot of communication? Create some cross pollination. Why do we have 2 EDA’s? Maybe there is a legitimate reason.
County – schools Town – utilities
Town Council and Board of Supervisors weren’t getting along and the Board of Supervisors and County EDA weren’t getting along. You need to get the administrator to go to the state. Re- organize your boards – get rid of the generals.
We all offer different services – truly representative of each jurisdiction.
EDA represents the pieces – what it would look like in the future.
New chairman for the Board of Supervisors EDA
Economic Development – County Administrator and Town Manager can do economic development directors work.
We need to work together so they can work together.
County EDA only uses the EDA for Economic Development – EDA has a lot of power that they weren’t utilizing.
Industrial Park is a glorified hayfield.
County wasn’t moving away from the industrial park.
No new businesses have come to the IDA park – 4 companies in the industrial park were in the Town. It’s a net loss in jobs since moving.
Idea to get 2 EDA’s together at a future meeting.
Working toward a joint EDA with common goals created by both the BOS and TC.
Visioning needs to come from this group.
2 – Infrastructure Development Master Utility Plan – Infrastructure – Water and Sewer specifically open doors for funding too. EDA, USDA, Tobacco Commission.
Need a vision and market ourselves, set out goals, timeline to get them done, mark them off.
4 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and
Appomatox County Board of Supervisors August 30, 2016
Barriers have been put up and those need to come down.
Need to work together – in the past these joint meetings were unproductive.
We, BOS & TC need to get the right people - unable to get the Town and County EDA’s together jointly.
Who is on the all-stars from each body – regionalize when we become one body.
Shift gears – Barriers/Obstacles Philipp and Susan don’t know historical background – synergy to make things happen (from the room). Realize we may not always agree.
Town taxpayers are also County residents and taxpayers. Everyone has an opinion and they are valid.
Bryan Moody – reference to the Lion King movie – Move on with your life – move ahead with what you have. We can get muddled down in the past but Apostle Paul said move towards the goals.
Stubbornness – unwilling to let go over what we have.
Time to move away from all the sewage – we need to cooperate.
New group of people – younger, what to do, what’s best – 2 new administrator and manager and looking at it differently.
Keep in mind – we need to understand each other responsibilities to the public. Understand each other. We need to understand each other to find common ground. Get into each other’s shoes.
Bill Hogan – County Administrator and Town Manager to get us a list of the Town’s responsibilities – what do the County citizens get for their tax dollars. Tax dollars – taxing authority. EDA abilities and responsibilities.
Workforce Development (South Hill) Tobacco Commission funded
Healthcare is broken – dollar responsibility HHR – 7 pods – Central Virginia Region Pod – amazing what has been done in the last 4 meetings.
Town Council, EDA and BOS – all the folks that drive. One big voice – one group (players) a couple of local businesses. Connect the dots.
Sam Carter – Spent 20 years on Town Council, 16 years on the BOS. When on TC everyone got along. In the 2000’s everyone was working against each other.
5 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and
Appomatox County Board of Supervisors August 30, 2016
People in Appomattox don’t like change – change needs to be filtered in nice and easy.
Streamline the zoning, business permits, building permits process.
TC and BOS got along but nothing got done.
Jealousy – BLA statement of why you are stealing our property – Suspicious of each other.
Frequency of follow up meetings – Sara Carter – quarterly Steve Conner – monthly
Next meeting will be September 21, 2016 at 6:00 p.m., then maybe 6 weeks after that.
Everyone thanked Linda Lipscomb for use of the space.
Keep in mind – business retention and infrastructure development.
On a motion by Mr. Conner, seconded by Mr. Garrett, Council voted to adjourn at 7:45 p.m. All members present voting aye. Motion carried.
On a motion by Mr. Millner, seconded by Ms. Carter, the Board voted to also adjourn at 7:45 p.m. All members present voting aye. Motion carried.
Roxanne W. Casto, MMC Clerk
Paul D. Harvey Mayor