The Louisa Board of Supervisors will have a special meeting at 4 p.m. followed by a regular one at 5 p.m. Both take place in the Public Meeting Room at the Louisa County Office Building at 1 Woolfolk Avenue in Louisa.
The first meeting is “to go over the meeting and agenda management process and board portal for electronic voting.”
The second meeting begins with a closed session at 5 p.m. before the open session begins at 6 p.m.
After the invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance, adoption of the agenda, approval of the minutes, and approval of bills, there will be adoption of the consent agenda. Some of these jump out as interesting:
- There’s a request to conduct a capacity study for the Northeast Creek Reservoir. Supervisors are being asked to spend $74,000 from the fund set aside for economic development projects. (staff report)
- There’s a request to authorize $25,000 for hiring bonuses to hire public safety employees. (staff report)
- Supervisors will approve a bid for CHA Consulting to install two turf fields at Louisa County Schools facilities. (bid process overview)
- Supervisors will be asked to approve half the cost of purchasing a new rescue boat for the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. The price could go as high as $163,438 and the rest comes from the Rescue Squad Assistance Fund. (resolution)
Before the rest of the meeting, there will be a recognition of September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
“Pediatric cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children yet is grossly under-funded and under-researched, and 1 in 285 children in the United States will be diagnosed by their 20th birthday,” reads the proclamation. “[Forty-six] children per day or 16,790 children per year are diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. each year, and at any given time there are approximately 40,000 children on active treatment.”
Under regular business there are three presentations including a discussion of the 2024 General Assembly session. The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission has a common set of priorities that will be reviewed. Here’s the starting point.
The other presentations are from the Louisa County Historical Society and a request from Brackett’s Farm for a real property tax exemption.
There are six items under new business.
The first is to approve the performance agreement with Amazon Data Services for incentives related to the company’s announcement it will invest $11 billion to build two data center campuses by the year 2040.
“The Company has proposed to build, develop, and operate, or cause to build, develop, and operate data center facilities (the “Project”) at locations in the County within the Technology Overlay District (“TOD”), including the Lake Anna Technology Campus and North Creek Technology Campus,” reads the resolution.
Those incentives include annual infrastructure grants, investment performance bonuses, permitting, utilities, and the real property tax rebates. The project will also seek to take advantage of the Commonwealth’s Cloud Computing Cluster Infrastructure Grant Fund. That was authorized in the 2023 General Assembly. (view the bill)
The details of the incentives are available here for your review.
The second item seems like it is worth a story. Supervisors will vote on a resolution to “express its concern” about language in the state budget that sets rates for private day care facilities. The 2022 Appropriations called for the Office of Children’s Services to set those rates. The resolution claims both the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate sought to eliminate these rates, but this did not end up in the “skinny budget.”
In July, the OCS announced that Virginia will not reimburse localities above a two percent increase above the rates for last year. That could increase costs for localities who have covered the cost of students who entered private school during the pandemic.
“Louisa County currently uses fourteen (14) private day facilities and eleven (11) of
those are increasing their rates between five to twelve percent for the 2023-2024 school year,” reads the resolution.
The third item is an amendment to the agreement for the James River Water Authority.
“The James River Water Project is a joint effort between the Counties of Louisa and Fluvanna which is intended to provide a long-term source of water for both localities and reduce reliance on groundwater by withdrawing water from the James River,” reads the resolution.
The project now has a total cost estimate of $45.6 million. That’s higher than previously anticipated due to the relocation of a pump station that had been originally sited on a Monacan historic site. (view the total costs)
The fourth item is a resolution to authorize the Economic Development Department to proceed with a $27.55 million project to expand utilities to the Shannon Hill Growth Area. The total cost of the project has increased to a total of $28,333,827. This particular resolution pertains to a water tower. (staff report)
The fifth item is a resolution to award a contract to Landmark Structures to build “a new 750,000 gallon spheroid elevated water storage tank and a booster pump station.” There were a total of four bids.
The sixth item is to approve an update to at least one color in the the county seal from #ffff00 to #efcc58. (staff report)
There’s also a public hearing on a request from Three Notch Road LLC to rezone 3.03 acres of land on U.S. 250 from the Industrial Limited Growth Area Overlay District to General Commercial Growth Area Overlay District. This would be to allow the sales of recreational vehicles and service. (staff report)
Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment comes from the September 4, 2023 Week Ahead. To ensure this research can be sustained, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing monthly through Patreon.
