1 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
The Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors held a Joint meeting on January 19, 2017 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, Mary Lou Spiggle, M. Erin Finch, Steven T. Conner, Claudia G. Puckette, and Mayor Paul D. Harvey.
Absent: C. Lewis McDearmon, Jr.
County Board members present: Sara Carter, Sam Carter, Chad Millner, and Bill Hogan.
Absent: Bryan Moody
Others: Clarence Monday, Interim Town Manager, Linda Lipscomb, Susan Adams, County Administrator; Vicky Phelps, Daniel Puckette, Phillip Jamerson, Teresa Lawson, Nathan Harbin and Roxanne W. Casto, Town Clerk.
At 6:30 p.m., Mayor Harvey called the Town Council meeting to order. Mr. Carter, Chairman called the Board of Supervisors to order.
Mayor Harvey introduced Phillip Jamerson, Teresa Lawson and Nathan Harbin for a presentation of the Courtland Field/Park “Proposed” Project. Mayor Harvey turned the presentation over to Mr. Jamerson.
Mr. Jamerson presented a vision for Courtland Festival Park. Phillip, Teresa and Nathan having been meeting for some time along with Susan Adams, Jeff Elder and Paul Harvey. This all came from a community vision meeting held back in April/May 2016 and they started focusing on Courtland Field and Abbitt Park. Mr. Jamerson read the cover letter from the handout provided to Town Council and the Board of Supervisors.
Dear Supervisors & members of Town Council,
I represent a citizens group that would like for you to consider working with us to create a multi- faceted festival park at Courtland field. Research suggests that parks benefit community’s in many ways. There is economic value, direct and indirect income, as well as increased property values. There are health benefits both physical and mental. Finally, there are social benefits as far as civic pride and connecting citizens from diverse backgrounds. Attached is the conceptual design for the festival park, delivery method and budget. Our concept compliments the Experience Appomattox marketing plan that is in place now. If the joint board looks favorably upon our request, we propose to expand our group to include one supervisor and one council member and expect to bring in others as needed for consultation and inclusion. This proposal is the first step in our process, the second step is joint board approval and third is seed money to complete the design. If all goes well, we would like to break ground in April of this year (2017) and have completion by January 2018. We have successfully completed the silent phase of a fund-raising campaign and stand ready to put forth the effort to convert Courtland Field into a
2 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
community show place that we can all be proud of. We all appreciate this opportunity to present this for your consideration.
Mr. Jamerson stated they are hopeful to accomplish a center for cultural arts. Appomattox is known for its history, but we will always have that. It can’t be taken away from us. We are just trying to do something that adds to that. Other communities – Floyd County and Abington have people come from all over to their park and Barter Theatre – we can do it too – look at where we are situated. We have over 6 colleges and universities – that’s a lot of diversity – each of those colleges and universities have bands – have people who want to be in performing arts and we could be a place that could work with them to display it. There are 5 state parks within a 30- minute radius of Appomattox, the National Park Service and recreational opportunities.
We are just trying to kick start something not reidentify Appomattox. We are trying to compliment what we already have and build upon it for not just our citizens but also for people coming into our community.
Mr. Jamerson showed a power point presentation:
I. Proposal:
VISION – Beautification – something to make Appomattox feel nicer. Maybe others will do things to their property.
Direct/Indirect Income – The park can be used by families for reunions or music festivals – generate direct and indirect income. Farmers Market – Community Cultural Center and a place for reflection.
II. Program:
Landscaping and earth “sculpting”, performing arts/movie stage with dance area, serenity trail to Abbitt Park – connectivity between each park. Tables where people can eat lunch, walking trails, event lawn with vehicle access (Railroad Festival), Memorial Garden, Fountain, two pavilions with restrooms, vendors, farmers market, private functions, etc.
Conceptual design was unveiled but it’s only conceptual at this point. Anything can be changed.
III. Delivery & Operations:
Phillip Jamerson will volunteer as owner’s agent for the County to act as the Construction Manager. The work will be performed utilizing current procurement laws. Vendor contracts will be with the County.
The County will own the property and the Town will manage and maintain the property upon completion. This is always subject to change.
3 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
IV. Budget:
This is based on today’s budget numbers, $600,000 includes design, pavilions, stage, stormwater management plan, hardscape, landscape, water feature, removable fencing, signage, furnishings and general conditions.
V. Funding
Private - $300,000 Public - $300,000 (Town and County)
The committee views this is a community project.
The committee has already raised $200,000. He feels very confident that once this goes public tonight it will be fairly easy to raise the other $100,000 of private donations.
Mr. Garrett – Is the $200,000 all cash or in-kind services?
Mr. Jamerson – Cash
Mr. Monday – Of the money received has any conditions been put on how this money can or cannot be spent?
Mr. Jamerson – No
Mr. Jamerson – I have presented this program as you have seen it tonight to every person I’ve talked to.
There will be some money coming in on pledges over a 3-year time period.
Mr. Sam Carter – requested the slide of how the park will look like at the end of completion. He reminded everyone that he is an advocate of the Railroad Festival knowing full well it is only a 2-day event.
Mayor Harvey – talked to the Railroad Festival board and they are all on-board as long as there is ample room to get the rides and equipment in there.
Mr. Conner – this is the first time I’ve seen it but it’s in the heart of downtown. It’s the centerpiece of your town.
Mayor Harvey – This is in the footprint of the downtown revitalization and what we are providing as the downtown focal point.
4 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Mrs. Puckette – With the downtown project and all I think it would be nice if the park complimented downtown.
Mr. Jamerson – we will come up with something that compliments downtown hopefully through the inspiration of the Courtland home.
Ms. Spiggle – The County owns it, but the Town maintains it…I’m just asking about the maintenance.
Mr. Conner – If the County builds it, the Town can maintain it.
Mr. Jamerson – I have no idea.
Mayor Harvey – That has not been discussed at all. Jeff Elder, myself and Mrs. Adams need to get together to discuss that. It will have to be brought to the Town Council for approval. Everything will be low maintenance.
Mrs. Puckette – What’s the possibility of the Town and County applying for grants to help fund this park?
Nathan Harbin – Spoke to the grant opportunities. It can stretch out the timeframe quite a bit – so it depends on if you want to wait. Most of the grants for things like this are very competitive.
Mr. Jamerson – There is no contingency built into the budget and if money becomes a problem, we just won’t build one of the pavilions or something else in the scope. We will cut back until funding is available.
Mr. Hogan – Legally, can a person donate money to a locality?
Mr. Jamerson – Yes, I could donate money to a locality – you would send me a thank you letter, and I can put that on my taxes. We’ve already researched this because we were thinking we would have to set up one of those 501 (c) 3 tax exempt organizations but we don’t have to do that.
Mayor Harvey – I think you spoke of generating some revenue – would that be used for maintenance?
Mr. Jamerson – There are about 10 different ways of doing this. If this becomes a reality – we will find the vehicle to make that happen.
Mrs. Spiggle – Maintenance is more than cutting grass and there is a lot to consider.
Mr. Garrett – Currently the County mows the grass.
Mr. Hogan – Do you have any idea what it would cost to bury the overhead lines?
5 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Mayor Harvey – It is cost prohibitive.
Mr. Millner – I appreciate the private funding initiative. I would like to hear from citizens about the public funding. Some citizens may say the County already has other parks that need funding.
Mayor Harvey – advised that both bodies will have to go back to discuss this. Chad are you requesting a public hearing or public meeting/exposure to this information? We were not planning for there to be a vote tonight.
Mrs. Puckette – The concept is awesome. This is the very thing that we’ve been told to do to improve growth and economic development.
Ms. Finch – What about the sidewalk on Highland Avenue? I recall there being a lot of talk about VDOT and storm drainage.
Mayor Harvey – That’s on the other side of Highland.
Mr. Conner – You don’t need a sidewalk on that side of the street – just widen the street and solve a lot of problems.
Mr. Jamerson – This will be taken into consideration with the park plan.
Mr. Jamerson – I’m sure that there will be some stormwater management needed for the plan.
Ms. Spiggle – Quite a few years ago, Proctor Harvey came up with this similar project the Town Council advised Mr. Harvey that we can’t do this because we don’t own Courtland Field and at that time the two bodies were not so agreeable. The possibility of doing this now is great – haven’t we come along way.
Mr. Garrett – Do you intend to go over $300,000?
Mr. Jamerson – We’ve identified what we think we can get in donations.
Mayor Harvey – Once it is open to the public – some businesses will donate that haven’t been contacted.
Mr. Jamerson – On behalf of Teresa Lawson, Nathan Harbin, Susan Adams, Paul Harvey and Jeff Elder – I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight. We are very excited about this opportunity.
Susan Adams, Administrator – Appomattox County introduced the next topic. At the November 2016, joint meeting you indicated you would like to speak with an attorney about the possibility of merging the 2 EDA’s and so we have Bill Hefty with us. Bill is the expert of authorities in
6 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Virginia. Bill is going to provide you with a presentation and then we will have a question and answer session.
Bill Heft – Susan and Paul asked me to talk about the EDA’s and how you could possibly merge them.
Mr. Hefty – The state statue does not allow you just to merge. Two localities can create an authority, so you can have a joint authority from the get-go but nothing that says you can merge two existing authorities.
You could dissolve both of your authority’s and create a new joint authority and that would be legal, but you cannot dissolve the economic development authority if it has debt, so you can’t dissolve the County EDA even though you could dissolve the Town EDA and then create a joint EDA. So, that’s the legal side of merging them.
You could go back to the General Assembly and say merge the 2 EDA’s even though one has debt and that means the Town of Appomattox would be responsible for some of the debt of the County EDA, but we couldn’t do that until next year. So, merging them doesn’t work very well.
How are there other ways that you could end up with one EDA serving the Town and the County?
One approach is to have both EDA’s appoint the same 7 people to each EDA and then
they could meet and vote on things twice, but it would be the same seven people voting. I don’t like that very much but it’s a possibility.
Another option would be to dissolve the Town’s EDA and have an agreement with the County that they would appoint three (3) members to the County’s EDA from the Town. You would be dissolving the EDA that had no debt, leaving you with one EDA.
The other option is keeping both of your EDA’s and working together. You could have joint meetings of the EDA’s – separate votes – joint projects if you want to. You could have an agreement on how that would work if you wanted to.
There are some other opportunities like tax sharing agreements/revenues sharing agreements between localities.
The Town of Christiansburg and Montgomery County have a revenue sharing agreement that has been approved by the Commission on Local Governments in Richmond, but they have about a 50-acre site of land that is in Montgomery County where they are agreement for meals and lodging taxes. There is a process you have to go through to have the agreements.
Another opportunity is a new thing in Virginia called “Go Virginia” – it is an attempt by the private sector who say they want to have more say in how economic development happens and so we are going to use state money and it is going be run by more businesses. They have divided
7 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
the state into regions and they are going to economic development councils and award state grants based on the regions. It is going to be competitive and there are going to be pots of money – it isn’t going to be unlimited. Not sure that the merger works great from a legal standpoint, but we are trying to come up with other options.
Questions: Mr. Conner – Does the County have new people?
Mrs. Adams – We have almost a whole new slate of people and they are active.
Mrs. Puckette – From your vantage point do you see a benefit or advantage to both of us to have one or do you think we just try to work together?
Mr. Hefty – It all depends on how well you work together. Some localities work together well, others do not. If you’re going to have one, it’s going to be a partnership and I think having one has its advantages.
Mrs. Adams – Is the make up of the Town’s EDA all Town members?
Mayor Harvey – No
Mr. Hefty – The nice thing about the legislation is you can have a member from the adjoining locality.
Mrs. Adams – How would you re-establish new term limits?
Mr. Hefty – You may have to do it when they come up for re-election. You do have the issue of what happens when we both disagree.
Mayor Harvey – There was some discussion of leaving the 2 bodies as they are but together a workable policy that is a one-stop. What I’m hearing from you is that it is probably going to be easier to leave the 2 bodies as they are and find a way to work together jointly.
Mr. Conner – The problem as I see it is that the Town can’t keep enough people on ours anyway. We can’t find people willing to serve. I know from Economic Development that when businesses try to come here, they don’t know where to go.
Mayor Harvey – That’s my suggestion – have one place they can come.
Mr. Conner – We need a marketing plan that says these are our incentives if they are in town or county. People are confused. They don’t know whether to go to the Town Office or the County Office. I don’t care if we have one or two, but the Town is having a hard time finding members.
Mr. Hefty – The easiest way would be for the County to have the EDA with 4 members and the Town to recommend 3 members to the County EDA.
8 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Mrs. Carter – It seems to me that there is a lot to be said for moving forward together as we are. If you find out that doesn’t work, you can always come back to the idea of – just being one body. Take advantage that we would be a regional body and find a way to work together.
Mrs. Puckette – An agreement with two bodies – we need to get on one page. If you happen to meet an entrepreneur who wants something that we would have something that comes from both bodies that we could present so it’s the one stop shop. Do you have an idea of an agreement of sorts that we could consider? I think that would solve everyone’s problems.
Mr. Hefty – You need one document. You need to find the right mix for the business. Sometimes it’s in Town, other times in the County. You need to eliminate borders and try to attract business.
Mr. Conner – One thing that Appomattox is fortunate about is that the Town is right in the middle of the County – so it’s easier to work as one.
Mrs. Carter – Have those 2 EDA’s have a joint meeting scheduled, combining their meeting schedules and staffing and by doing that some of that will happen on their own and then the agreements over time.
Mrs. Adams – I think we need to look at this short and long term and that’s the purpose of having Bill here tonight. What happens if next year we want to merge. We need to know how to be preparing for that. We can’t just make our minds up tonight. If we want to start dissolving something, we start preparing for that. Let’s get some of those pieces in place so if 3 years down the road they decide to do this we are prepared so we don’t have to have this discussion.
Mayor Harvey – We must prepare for success not failure. The road starts with finding a way to put the 2 EDA’s together.
Mrs. Adams – Let’s find those common denominators.
Mayor Harvey – I agree with Mrs. Carter – let’s the 2 EDA’s get together and see what kinds of joint ideas they have but ultimately having one incentive package we could throw out there to come here. Like you said they must come to the Town anyway – even though the County manages most of it. The Town has its own Planning Commission and Zoning that could be streamlined so it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Mrs. Adams – I don’t think having joint meetings would be the way to start you may just need to focus on one thing like the marketing plan. So, if we go to joint meetings – we have different directions then we really aren’t accomplishing much.
Mr. Conner – I think the Board of Supervisors and Town Council, Town Manager, and County Administrator need to give the 2 EDA’s the function and direction of what they need to be looking at. They don’t get in there and look at the whole world.
9 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Mrs. Adams – Let’s pick one thing and focus on that.
Mr. Conner – We aren’t looking for an EDA with a vision, we are looking for an EDA to make this thing function. Because their vision is immaterial but what the developer is willing to put up with.
Mr. Hefty – EDA’s are largely vehicles for doing things. They can do the financing. It’s really your staffs that drive your economic development. At the staff level that really does the work. EDA’s are not the ones that should be out there meeting with clients.
Mayor Harvey – Staff to come up with potential marking and bring it to the joint people. Do we depend on the staff to do that first?
Mr. Conner – yes.
Mrs. Adams – I think we bring the ideas, but the EDA has to give the vision of where they want to be.
Mr. Millner – Both bodies need to have the discussion of the focus areas before you give the EDA meaning because they aren’t going to have any idea where the focus should be.
Mayor Harvey – I think we need to bring them something and say look at this. What do you think of it? We all have a vision of getting more jobs here – what we need is a package that gets them here. I don’t think putting 14 people together will work – look at us. I think we need as a staff to put together marketing ideas and incentive pages and say what do you think of this?
Mr. Conner – In the state of Virginia, the purpose of an EDA is because a town can’t write the check out to give incentives. Is that correct?
Mr. Hefty – Yes and I can help you put together marking ideas and incentive packages for consideration.
Mrs. Puckette – That was my whole point earlier – can you help us with us this? I think with some coaching and direction we can get there with our 2 EDA’s.
Mr. Hefty – Yes.
On a motion by Mr. Conner, seconded by Mr. Garrett, Council voted to give staff the direction along with Mr. Heft to come up with the idea and then present it the Council and then Council can present it to the EDA. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 5-0.
On a motion by Mrs. Carter, seconded by Mr. Hogan, the Board voted to give staff the direction along with Mr. Heft to come up with the idea and then present it the Council and then the Board can present it to the EDA. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 4-0.
10 Joint meeting - Appomattox Town Council and Appomattox County Board of Supervisors January 19, 2017
Everyone thanked Mr. Hefty for attending and providing the information.
Mayor Harvey apologized for overlooking our new Interim Town Manager, Clarence Monday. We have been fortunate to hire Mr. Monday on a part-time basis. He has over 32 years of experience in local government.
On a motion by Mr. Conner, seconded by Mr. Garrett, Council voted to meet on February 23, 2017, possibly at the hotel conference room. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 5-0.
On a motion by Mr. Millner, seconded by Mr. Hogan, the Board voted to meet on February 23, 2017, possibly at the hotel conference room. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 4-0.
On a motion by Mr. Conner, seconded by Ms. Spiggle, Council voted to adjourn at 7:54 p.m. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 5-0.
On a motion by Mrs. Sara Carter, seconded by Mr. Hogan, the Board voted to also adjourn at 7:54 p.m. All members present voting aye. Motion carried 4-0.
Roxanne W. Casto, MMC Clerk
Paul D. Harvey Mayor