Trash Fees, Water/ Sewer Tap fees, Utility Poles on Washington Ave, Flutter Flags and Ordinance updates and disposal of town owned properties were all discussed at Wednesday’s work session. See my blog for more details.
Caryn Self Sullivan was absent
Approval of Minutes
January 5, 14 & 28, 2022
I requested one minor adjustment for the January 5 minutes. I asked that a clarification be added to reflect that I did not support a Town owned food truck court at the bottom of Town Hill. My issue with using consensus vote versus individual voting is that you can never really tell where a council member stands on a specific issue, which could be problematic in the future. Vote 5-1 Mr. Allison abstained because he was not appointed at that time.
FY 22-23 Budget Amendments & Appropriations
This Vote was to accept grant money $2,500 signage, $2,700 police and $2,100 School Resource officer. Vote 6–0
Council Member Liaison Reports
Public Works - Pier piling replacement will start mid-February and take 2 to 4 weeks ($60k).
Parks and Rec - 345 responses to the parks and rec survey so far.
NGO - Neighbor to Neighbor has visited a number of residents and has identified a roof to help repair and replacement of a stove.
Planning Commission - Council voted to approve Bailey Thompson to the planning commission. He has actual planning experience and appears to be a neutral party, so I was happy to see his appointment.
Economic Development – Business Directory updates requested, Awards Ceremony 3/23, Goal Alignment, Support for Food Truck Court and they submitted an application for VTC Grant (Special Events)
Proclamation for Black History Month - Presented by the mayor.
Public Comment
One representative of a local Townhouse Community raised concerns over the tote trash cans having to be carried through homes because they had no rear access to their units. He was also was concerned over the $312k in additional fees and asked if it would be brought to the citizens for a vote.
Citizen - suggested several changes to our parking fee structure for the coming season.
Citizen - wrote in with concerns over the PUD that was passed last year, and the implementation of what they perceived as a bad move on the towns part because it opens up the door to all kinds of unintended consequences.
Utility Pole Relocation Analysis on Washington Ave, Director of Public Works
A number of residents have raised concerns about utility poles sitting in the middle of our sidewalks on Washington Avenue and other locations in town which prevents handicap access. This presentation/discussion was to provide potential solutions for this issue. Two options were given and a possible third discussed. One option would be to move the current utility poles, costing roughly $250k, not including the easement purchases. Issues with this option were that it still would not resolve all the poles and easements which could be hurdles. Another option would be to bury the powerlines underground which could cost in excess of $700k and require easements for transformers, etc. A couple of things that came out of our conversation: 1) Council is concerned about the price tag, 2) neither solution is ideal, 3) option suggested was to add “bump outs” into the parking spaces so that wheelchairs could go around the poles. I asked how far out in the road would the bump outs have to go and would we have to be ADA compliant with 5 feet. Public works Director said we could possibly get away with 3 feet. The direction from Council was for the public works Director to get more information and provide details on what bump outs would look like and cost.
Water/ Sewer TAP Connection Fees, Director of Public Works
This presentation/discussion was in regards to our outdated tap fee structure. The Tap Fees and the added availability fees that were proposed are charged to builder/homeowners to allow new access to our water/sewer system and only impacts new homes and businesses. Ten plus years ago CB actually reduced the tap fee to encourage more development but apparently, we are well below any other surrounding localities and actually losing money. Currently fees are $6k residential and $13.6k commercial. I did a quick calculation and with the 50+ homes built in the last year or so, we’ve probably lost as much as $500k. What does this mean to the average tax payer? This means that we have been supplementing these costs in our real estate taxes. Myself and others were a bit concerned about the amount of increase; example now $6K for residential vs proposed $20K and also the impact on business which will increase from $13.6k to $50k. I asked that the proposed figures be released to the public. Any proposed changes will have to go to public hearing so the citizens will have an opportunity to way in then. All of Council seemed to agree on an increase but maybe not full proposed amounts.
Trash Toter & Service Enterprise Fund, Director of Public Works
This presentation/discussion was on whether or not to start charging for trash pickup and reasons for proposed change. Currently the town budget is around $163K a year for trash operations which does not include capital investments like new trash trucks. The proposal was to charge $30 every 3 months which would include the purchase of trash totes that can be lifted by our current trash trucks (vs all being lifted by hand) and this would provide a self-sufficient enterprise fund. The proposal would increase our budget for trash to $312K versus current $163k and reduce the need for trash trucks to be paid for out of the general fund (I asked if the plan was to keep the general fund money and answer was yes). It was stated that trash pickup is currently free which I clarified by saying it is paid out of our taxes and refuse employees do not work for free. After a long discussion, I said under normal circumstances I might support this with caveats but the timing is really bad since we just came out of a large tax increase last year and taxpayers are more than tired of increases. I definitely support people using trash totes when possible and hope if nothing else, we can find a way to get more throughout the town and better pay for the crew. I asked Mr. Taylor our trash truck driver how many people currently use totes and he said around 800 to 1000 which means we would only need maybe 1600 more in order to cover the majority of town. Council did not make any decisions, but I assume this will be brought up in the near future again. I do wonder if we reduced the real estate taxes by $163k+ and start a separate trash fund if people would be more receptive to a separate trash fee. If I was asked to vote today based on citizen feedback, I would have to vote no.
DRAFT, Ordinance No. 739, Amends Article 12, Signs of the Town of Colonial Beach Zoning Ordinances, Director of Community Development.
Nothing too controversial here, Council discussed changing the sign ordinance to allow flutter flags and some other small changes and there will be a public hearing on this next meeting. While I’m not a huge fan of flutter flags, I have not received a whole lot of public feedback, so I’m assuming most people are OK with them in town.
DRAFT, Ordinance No. 740, Repeals and Reserves Ch. 16 Obscenity, Amends Ch. 18, Police and Ch. 19, Streets & Sidewalks, Town Attorney
The proposed changes to these ordinances were minor. In chapter 16 for example, obscenity is already covered by state code, and no longer needed. This was set to go to public hearing.
Disposition of Town Owned Property Discussion, Councilmember Moncure
Previously Council had discussed what to do with town owned properties, including easements and right of ways. Most if not all of us agreed that we need some sort of overall policy and suggested that they should still be addressed on a case-by-case basis. The Mayor suggested we set at 1500 sq ft or under requiring a broker assessment versus appraisal all of Council seemed to agree. I did bring up the issue of overgrown right of ways and the lack of maintenance by town in certain cases, specifically trees and vines. The town manager will bring a proposal to Council for a future meeting.
Closed Meeting
· Discussion of the performance of duties, and consideration of the disciplining, of specific appointees of the town council, including planning commission members,
· the disposition of publicly-held real properties,
· service agreement between the town and Westmoreland County.
· Rappahannock Regional.
Please email or call with questions or comments:
dwilliams@colonialbeachva.gov
540-604-4335
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