This week in county government; BOS oks tax breaks for data center equipment; Firefly updates board on county-wide fiber project; Supes nix roaming livestock ordinance
This week in county government; BOS oks tax breaks for data center equipment; Firefly updates board on county-wide fiber project; Supes nix roaming livestock ordinance
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
This week in county government: public meetings, Sept. 25 through Sept. 30
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
Wednesday, September 27
Ag, Forestal and Rural Preservation Committee, Public Meeting Room, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 7 pm.
Thursday, September 28
Lake Anna Advisory Committee, Public Meeting Room, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 7 pm.
Additional information about Louisa County’s upcoming public meetings is available here.
Interested in taking your talents to one of the county’s numerous boards and commissions? Find out more here including which boards have vacancies and how to apply.
Supervisors approve tax breaks for data center equipment
Amid pushback from several community members who argued that one of the world’s wealthiest corporations should pay its fair share, the Louisa County Board of Supervisors on Monday night green-lighted tax breaks for data center equipment, a move that will directly benefit tech giant Amazon Web Services. (meeting materials, video)
The county announced in late August that AWS plans to invest $11 billion by 2040 to build two data center campuses in its newly created Technology Overlay District, a special zoning designation approved by supervisors in April that’s designed to attract tech sector development. The project is part of a planned $35 billion investment by AWS to build data centers across Virginia, a deal that Governor Glenn Youngkin announced in January.
As part of an incentives package to entice the company to come to Louisa, the board voted 7-0 to set a Business Personal Property tax rate for data center equipment at $1.25 per $100 of assessed value—down from the current $1.90 rate paid by businesses—and to adopt an accelerated depreciation schedule that rapidly decreases the equipment’s taxable value. Data center operators will be taxed at 50 percent of their equipment’s original cost when its new, 35 percent in year two, 20 percent in year three, 10 percent in year four and five percent in year five and every year thereafter until the equipment is replaced. Louisa County Economic Development Director Andy Wade said that AWS typically replaces its equipment every five to six years.
Even with the reduced BPP, Wade estimates that the 11 data centers AWS plans to build across its two campuses—the 150-acre Lake Anna Technology Campus at the corner of Kentucky Springs Road and Haley Drive adjacent to the North Anna Nuclear Power Station and the 1,400-acre North Creek Technology Campus just south of Route 33 across from the Northeast Creek Reservoir—will generate $25 million in local tax revenue annually at full buildout, which is expected to take 15 years. That revenue equals nearly 17 percent of the county’s $148 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2024 and more than doubles the taxes paid by Dominion Energy for the North Anna Power Station last year.
The bulk of that money will come from the BPP, Wade said, but each data center is expected to generate about a million dollars in real estate tax revenue each year at the county’s current tax rate. Wade also anticipates that the 11 facilities will create about 275 jobs.
Wade said that the $1.25 BPP and accelerated depreciation schedule are in line with the tax rates adopted by other localities vying for a piece of AWS’s investment.
The tax breaks are part of a larger performance agreement between the county and AWS, which the board approved at its September 5th meeting. Per that agreement, the county intends to offer AWS both the BPP tax breaks and infrastructure and performance grants while AWS plans to make at least an $11 billion capital investment by July 1, 2040 including paying for the off-site infrastructure needed to support the facilities.
The performance agreement, which runs through 2050 to align with a state incentives package, obligates the county to provide Amazon with infrastructure grants over the first 20 years (beginning in 2026) and performance grants over the last five. County officials say the grant money will be derived from new revenue generated by the campuses via real estate and personal property taxes, but the performance agreement doesn’t detail what percentage of that revenue the company will receive. The grants will work in concert with a $140 million state grant fund designed, in part, to entice AWS to build data centers in communities that currently lack the infrastructure to support them.
Wade said the performance agreement would be amended at a future board meeting to show what percentage of tax revenue would be returned to the company, noting that the state hasn't issued guidance on how the grant fund will work and the county is still negotiating with Amazon on some incentives. The state also exempts data center operators from paying sales and use taxes, a perk AWS is expected to enjoy at least through 2050.
Community concerns
Supervisors had limited discussion about the tax breaks during Monday night’s public hearing despite hearing concerns from community members who said that the county is failing to meet the needs of its most vulnerable residents and an influx of tax dollars from AWS could help change that. Specifically, several people said that the county should get as much revenue as it can from the company and use the money to build direly-needed medical facilities, affordable housing and a homeless shelter.
“We don’t have a hospital here. We don’t have a homeless shelter here. We could be using the tax money that they pay to build things that are needed in this community. I work with others in the community to meet the needs of the homeless folks who are living in their cars and in the Loyalty Inn. I’ve come here and I’ve spoken about this before,” said Patrick Henry District resident Ericka Williams Rodriguez, who told the board at a previous meeting that she and other activists frequently pool their money to help families with nowhere else to turn pay for a night or two of shelter at a local motel.
Patrick Henry District resident Sue Frankel Streit agreed. She said that she’ll be working extra to cover the real estate tax bill she just received from Louisa County while the board doles out tax breaks to one of the world’s largest corporations. Frankel Streit argued that the board should demand that AWS use the money it’s saving in taxes to support critical community needs like affordable housing and a homeless shelter.
“If the community is going to give this company, which is the fifth largest company in the world by market cap, if we’re giving them a tax break at the same time that we’re all trying to get our taxes together, I think we should insist that they give us something back beyond just collecting data, using water and adding to the power usage,” she said.
Brianna Patten, speaking on behalf of Serenity Solidarity, a local nonprofit focused on building collective living spaces and advancing racial justice, said that if Louisa County is going to open the door to data centers, it shouldn’t extend tax breaks to a company whose founder, Jeff Bezos, is worth some $165 billion.
“The man spent $500 million just for a yacht. That’s a toy, so I don’t understand why you would propose or even suggest that Amazon should be getting a tax break for building data centers here,” Patten said, noting that, with just a tiny fraction of Bezos’ wealth, the county could build a hospital.
Before motioning to approve the tax breaks, Louisa District Supervisor Eric Purcell said that incentivizing AWS to invest in Louisa makes sense and the tax money the company generates would allow the board to more effectively meet citizens’ needs.
“In order to compete, you’ve got to recruit and in order to recruit, you’ve got to have something to incentivize people to come,” Purcell said. “Trying to attract these type of business to our community through good recruiting doesn’t mean we are not sympathetic to (community) needs. I think it means we are sympathetic, and we’re trying to get the kind of money in here where we can do something to really help some folks.”
‘Historically significant land’
Beyond concerns about tax breaks, Patten said that she’s troubled by AWS’s plan to develop a data center campus at the Lake Anna site, which she described as “historically significant land.”
The property is located next to Laurel Hill Baptist Church, a historic Black church founded in 1868, with an adjacent cemetery. In the early 1970s, the remains of at least 100 residents were excavated and reinterred on the church’s property to make way for Lake Anna, according to correspondence from Virginia Electric and Power Company (now Dominion Energy), which built the lake as a cooling reservoir for the North Anna Nuclear Power Station. At least some of the graves were apparently left unmarked.
“I am very saddened because of the data center that’s being built in the Laurel Hill area, which is right next to and somewhat on the property of an historically African-American significant site near graves that have already been excavated and moved from Lake Anna to this area,” Patten told the board.
In an email to Engage Louisa last week, Patten, who coordinates the Louisa County Historical Society’s African American history program, said its unclear how many graves were moved to the church’s property based on records from the time and whether they “cross over the boundary line to the Data Center site.”
Beyond her concerns about those gravesites, Patten raised other questions about what might lie on the property. She said the site was once part of a plantation and is home to Laurel Hill, a now-dilapidated house that dates to the 18th or 19th century, according to the book, Old Homes Places of Louisa County Revisited.
“In this time period, it was common for the cemeteries of enslaved people to be placed in unmarked locations on plantations. Since the land has not had a complete archeological assessment yet, we do not know what other history lies beneath the soil,” Patten said.
Louisa County Historical Society Executive Director Katelyn Coughlan said in an email last week that she has communicated the society’s concerns about the history of the area to both Louisa County and a team conducting an archaeological assessment of the data center site. She said that the society has not yet seen a full report on the archeologists’ findings.
Louisa County Community Engagement Manager Cindy King said in an email on Friday that it’s the county’s understanding that the reinterred graves are on adjacent property, not the data center site, and “the applicant is going through the normal processes with the state’s Department of Historic Resources to mitigate disruptions.”
“The county doesn’t have a formal role in the effort, but as always, we support a careful consideration of resources,” she said.
In her email, Patten characterized the site as significant in local African American history, noting that it’s near an area formerly known as Garlandtown, named for the Garland sisters whose family owned Laurel Hill. Patten said the sisters “were instrumental in aiding many formerly enslaved families in Louisa after the Civil War.” Some of those families made their home in Garlandtown.
“(The sisters) worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau to reunite families torn apart during slavery and donated land, homes, and money to support African Americans after emancipation,” she said.
In Patten’s view, the site isn’t appropriate for data center development. She’d prefer that the facilities are built elsewhere and that the land and surrounding area are “preserved so future generations remember this history.”
“To me, the site represents the devastating impact of gentrification and Black land loss because of all the Black families who were pushed out to build the lake. But it also represents hope and people working together across racial barriers to rebuild their lives after the war because of the Garland sisters and their generosity to the Black community,” Patten said, adding that the opinions shared in her email and at Monday night’s meeting are her views and don’t represent any stance of the Louisa County Historical Society.
Firefly updates board on county-wide fiber project
Firefly Fiber Broadband still intends to deliver universal high-speed internet access to Louisa County by mid-2025 despite some early challenges.
Firefly CEO Gary Wood on Monday updated the Board of Supervisors on the company’s effort to extend fiber access to the county’s underserved and unserved areas, noting that the company hopes to finish the project by August 2025. When Wood last briefed the board in March, he said that the company and its partners, Dominion Energy and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, had been slowed by labor shortages and kinks in the supply chain. But, at Monday’s meeting, he indicated that the project is picking up steam.
“We are striving and we have not asked for any extensions. We are one of the fastest moving, if not the fastest moving, of these large projects in the state. It’s going to be a challenge, but we are working with every intention of having it complete,” Wood said, noting that Firefly’s contract with the state for millions of dollars in grant funding includes an August 2025 completion date.
Wood said that Firefly is connecting about 60 to 70 customers a week to fiber in parts of southern and eastern Louisa County and fiber construction and make-ready work—the time-consuming and highly technical task of preparing electrical poles for fiber installation—are underway in other parts of the county. He anticipates that the number of weekly connections will pick up now that the initial legwork to get the project off the ground is complete.
“I think you will start seeing the pace pick up with connections. There was a lot of legwork to get ready and to get up to the speed that we’re at now. We are building in the county about 12 to 15 miles of fiber a week. That puts us past about 150 homes a week,” he said.
But Wood cautioned that the pace of connections is, at times, slowed because the service tasked with marking underground utilities ahead of fiber installation can only handle so much work.
“One of the reasons there’s a limit with how fast you can go with some of this is the amount of underground markings it takes to do this type of construction in one area. You can overload the contractors with the 811 Miss Utility system. If you call in too many and they can’t get them marked then your crews can’t get out there and work,” Wood said.
In 2021, Louisa County partnered with Firefly, a wholly owned subsidiary of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, and the area’s two other electric providers—Dominion and REC—to expand broadband access to the county’s unserved areas. Firefly is serving as the internet service provider and, outside of CVEC territory, connecting to infrastructure owned by its partners.
Firefly’s Regional Internet Expansion Project (RISE), an initiative aimed at bringing fiber to parts of 13 central Virginia localities, is the main vehicle the company is using to connect the county. The project is expected to install more than 1,100 miles of fiber and cost about $70 million in Louisa County alone. Supervisors committed $9 million in local funds to the effort in 2021—a second $3 million installment is included in the FY24 capital budget—and Firefly received a $79 million state grant. More than $22 million of that money will help provide broadband access to some 11,000 homes and businesses in Louisa.
In a separate initiative, Firefly has already provided fiber access to the 4,100 customers in CVEC territory, which covers a large swath of western Louisa County. The company has laid 320 miles of fiber and invested more than $14 million in that project aided by a $550,000 tax abatement from Louisa County and federal CARES Act funding.
With respect to RISE, Wood said that Firefly is currently connecting customers around REC’s Shannon Hill and Mount Hope substation in south-central and southeastern Louisa, respectively. The Shannon Hill substation is home to about 520 customers, also called “passings.” The Mount Hope substation, REC’s largest in Louisa, includes just over 4,000 passings, divided into four circuits. Wood said that connections have started for the Locust Creek and Payne’s Mill circuits while splicing—the process of connecting fiber optic cables—is underway for the Copperline and Tip Top circuits. In-home connections are expected to begin for those circuits this fall, according to Firefly’s website.
Firefly is also making progress at REC’s three other substations in Louisa: Buckner, Ellisville and Cuckoo. Wood said that fiber construction is underway in Buckner, home to some 2,600 passings in eastern Louisa, and make-ready construction is ongoing in Ellisville, which covers more than 2,600 passings in the northern part of the county. Make-ready engineering has commenced at Cuckoo, which encompasses about 2,400 customers in the middle of the county.
According to Firefly’s website, connections for two of Buckner’s three circuits—Bumpass and Plum Tree—could begin by spring 2024 while connections for the Fredericks Hall circuit could start by next summer. Connections for two of Ellisville’s circuits—Ellisville and Monrovia—could also begin by next summer with connections for the Bibb Store and Louisa circuits expected to start next fall. A start date for connections around the Cuckoo substation hasn’t been determined.
While an influx of state and federal aid has helped Firefly connect thousands of customers to broadband in rural central Virginia, it has also increased the demand for supplies and work crews across the commonwealth and country. REC representative Mark Ponton said on Monday that the company, which is handling make-ready work in its territory, currently has a solid roster of crews on the ground in Louisa and it hopes to keep them here as broadband projects ramp up in other areas. The company has already completed some 400 miles of overhead make-ready construction, Ponton said.
Outside of REC’s service area, Firefly will provide broadband access to customers in Dominion territory with Dominion building middle-mile infrastructure and handling make-ready work in its service area. Dominion representative Sarah Marshall said on Monday that the company is expected to finish installing middle-mile fiber by the end of the year. Dominion’s service area includes some 1,160 customers in parts of central and western Louisa and the company plans to install about 63 miles of fiber.
Wood said that Firefly contractors are starting to construct some last-mile fiber in parts of Dominion territory. In-home connections for some Dominion customers could begin as soon as this winter, according to Firefly’s website.
Wood directed residents to Firefly’s website for more information about the county-wide fiber initiative. The site is periodically updated to reflect the company’s latest estimates for when connections could begin for specific substations and circuits. To learn more, click here.
BOS roundup: Board nixes proposed roaming livestock ordinance; Supes talk future of TOD, utility-scale solar development
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors held a wide-ranging, three-hour meeting on Monday night. Aside from hearing an update on Firefly’s county-wide fiber project and green-lighting tax breaks for data center equipment, the board nixed a proposed ordinance aimed at reining in habitually roaming livestock, discussed the future of the county’s Technology Overlay District and utility-scale solar development, okayed a pair of supplemental appropriations for Louisa County Public Schools and more.
Proposed roaming livestock ordinance dead for now: Supervisors nixed—at least for now—a proposed ordinance aimed at reining in habitually roaming livestock, saying the county has the tools to address the issue under existing state law.
After more than a dozen goats and sheep roamed from their Hasher Lane home onto Interstate 64 in late July, supervisors passed an emergency ordinance at their August 8 meeting that made it unlawful for livestock or poultry “to be allowed by the owner to run at large intentionally or knowingly.” The ordinance empowered county officials to impound the animals and subjected violators to potential fines and criminal charges. The board set a September 5 expiration date for the rules.
While the ordinance met stiff resistance from some farmers who worried it would unfairly penalize them, supervisors insisted it was necessary to address an imminent threat to public safety. Prior to the Hasher Lane herd making it to the interstate, animal control officers had been called to the area more than 450 times because of the roving animals. County officials said they had no immediate tools to rein in the livestock without board action.
Even before the emergency ordinance was adopted, however, animal control officers convinced the livestock’s owner to surrender most of the animals to another farmer, threatening criminal charges under a section of state code that prohibits livestock on state highways. (That code section doesn’t permit the county to impound the animals). After the emergency ordinance was adopted, the county collected the remaining animals.
To ensure that the troubles on Hasher Lane don’t happen again and to address concerns about livestock that’s routinely allowed to roam in other parts of the county, supervisors formed a committee to consider a permanent ordinance. During a late August meeting, the committee tentatively agreed to forward to supervisors a draft ordinance that would make it unlawful for livestock owners to allow their animals to roam “routinely, intentionally, and knowingly” and potentially impose a $250 fine and a misdemeanor charge. But several committee members said they’d prefer that the county use existing law to address issues with roaming livestock and implored the county officials to research the issue further.
During a discussion about the proposed ordinance Monday night, County Attorney Helen Phillips said that the county has tools to address animals on the interstate and related issues with livestock that’s not confined under existing state law, contradicting what supervisors were told at the August 8 meeting. She said that an attorney who specializes in animal law at the attorney general’s office confirmed that the county could impound habitually roaming livestock under certain circumstances. She added that the sheriff and the commonwealth’s attorney are both on board with the attorney’s interpretation of state code.
According to information shared with Engage Louisa, the attorney confirmed that the sheriff’s office has the power to impound livestock if it’s a threat to public safety and that it could also take possession of farm animals that have “been running at large for weeks, months, or more without any evidence of animal husbandry and traveling on state-maintained roads.”
With that information in hand, several supervisors said they weren’t interested in moving forward with the ordinance. Two said they likely wouldn’t have voted to pass the emergency ordinance had they known there was a remedy under state law.
“That was a hard vote for me. It wasn’t a slam dunk at all. I did it because I felt like we were in an emergency situation, and I truly felt that we had no other choice, we had no tools in the toolbox,” Louisa District Supervisor Eric Purcell said.
Mountain Road District Supervisor Tommy Barlow, one of two supervisors who opposed the emergency ordinance, said there’s no need “to keep the farming community stirred up” and the county should “utilize the ordinances or statutes that we have and see how that works.”
Board Chair Duane Adams, who also opposed the emergency ordinance, said that he requested an official opinion from Attorney General Jason Miyares, which could take 15 months to render. He agreed with Barlow, saying that the county should rely on existing state law as they wait for the attorney general to weigh in.
Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams said that the proposed ordinance is reasonable and narrower in scope than the tools provided by the state, but his argument didn’t garner support from other board members or the farmers in attendance.
During the meeting’s public comment period, Hasher Lane resident Lynnel Morris said that she was grateful that supervisors passed the emergency ordinance. She told the board at previous meetings that roving livestock had trespassed on her property for several years, damaging her car, garden and fence. At Monday’s meeting, she said that the last month has been peaceful because the county collected the animals and she asked the board to enact an ordinance to prevent the issue from happening again.
Several farmers, however, reiterated concerns they raised at previous meetings, arguing that the county already had the tools it needed to address problems with unconfined farm animals under state code.
“I don’t see where we need more laws and rules if we’ve already got one the state has in place that we can use,” said Lee Rosson, whose family runs Quaker Hill Farm, one of the county’s largest cattle operations.
Jim Riddell, a former president of the Louisa Farm Bureau and lobbyist with the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association, urged supervisors to nix the proposed ordinance and said that the board was misled about the tools it had to address the issues on Hasher Lane.
“What’s sad about this is the problem Ms. Morris and Mr. Hitchcock experienced could have been fixed several years ago. The county has had and does have the authority to deal with this under existing law,” Riddell said, referring to Morris and another Hasher Lane property owner whose land was damaged by roaming livestock.
Supes reject effort to alter TOD, reduce cap on solar development: Several supervisors rebuffed suggestions from Chair Duane Adams that the board consider shrinking the newly created Technology Overlay District and reducing the amount of county land that can be used for utility-scale solar development.
In April, supervisors adopted an ordinance establishing a Technology Overlay District, a special zoning designation designed to attract lucrative tech sector development. The ordinance permits data centers, advanced manufacturing and other high-tech industries by-right within the TOD and sets specific development standards. The district covers nearly 6,500 acres across six assemblages in parts of central, southern and eastern Louisa County. Most of the property is situated in proximity to high-voltage transmission lines and other infrastructure necessary for tech sector development.
With the county’s recent announcement that Amazon Web Services plans to build a pair of data center campuses in the TOD, Adams suggested Monday night that the board consider shrinking the district.
“We put these in place to market the county and we landed an awfully big fish. I think we need to take a look at some of the remaining overlay districts and direct staff to look at what some options may be with them. We may want to go back and remove those overlay districts. We’ve accomplished what we tried to do,” Adams said, adding that he’d like to see the county-owned Shannon Hill Regional Business Park stay in the TOD.
But some of his colleagues said not so fast.
Louisa District Supervisor Eric Purcell and Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes cautioned against removing property from the district, noting it was just adopted in April and Amazon has yet to put a shovel in the ground. Both suggested that the board wait at least a year before considering changes.
“I hope and pray that everything turns out fine, but (the Amazon project) is not done at this time. I think you may want to revisit it in a year,” Purcell said.
Some limits on development within the TOD are already in place. Though the district includes nearly 6,500 acres, supervisors limited the amount of property that can be used for by-right tech sector development to 3,266 acres or one percent of the county’s land. About 1,600 acres are expected to be used by AWS.
Furthermore, two of the TOD’s assemblages—the 1,200-acre Cooke Industrial Rail Park and the roughly 1,400-acre Fisher-Chewning tract are slated for utility-scale solar development. If the solar projects come to fruition, the properties would be taken off the table for tech industry use.
Adams next suggested that supervisors consider lowering the cap on utility-scale solar development, which the board adopted last year as part of a larger rewrite of its solar ordinance. The cap limits large-scale solar development to three percent of the county’s land, which roughly equals 9,800 acres. Supervisors have already green-lighted solar on some 5,200 acres and they haven’t approved any new projects since adopting the revised ordinance.
Adams floated the possibility of lowering the cap to two or two and a half percent.
Green Springs District Supervisor Rachel Jones said she agreed with lowering the cap, noting that she regularly hears from constituents who don’t want more solar facilities.
“The messages that I get from our community and our citizens is solar is not something they particularly want. We have some solar and they want agricultural land, and they want the land to remain as is,” she said.
But other supervisors said the county has a process in place to either grant or deny a Conditional Use Permit for large-scale solar installations and, at least for now, they should maintain the current cap and consider projects on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m pretty much a supporter of solar if it’s at the right place. And, of course, we go through that process and make that determination. I’m not sure if the county wants more or less. I don’t really hear that,” Cuckoo District Supervisor Willie Gentry said.
Louisa District Supervisor Eric Purcell reminded the board that the county’s land isn’t collectively owned, and people have a right to use their property as they see fit within reason.
“We are also talking about people’s land that we don’t own. We don’t pay that tax…it seems like the thrust of this is we’ve got (solar), but some people don’t like what other people are doing on their land, so now we are done,” Purcell said. Purcell and his father, Charles, have leased about 1,800 acres of timberland for a pair of solar projects. The projects have already been approved by Louisa County and wouldn’t be impacted by reducing the cap.
The board ultimately settled on revisiting both the TOD and the solar cap in the future.
Adams’ push to shrink the TOD and lower the cap on solar comes amid backlash from some residents who’ve argued in social media posts and, occasionally, at county meetings that data centers and utility-scale solar facilities threaten the county’s rural character. The mantra “Keep Louisa rural” is frequently invoked in Louisa-centric Facebook groups where some members complain that solar development is blighting the county and data centers will do the same.
The pushback against solar is particular prevalent among some local Republicans including Louisa District Board of Supervisors candidate Chris Colsey, whose locked in a tightly-contested three-man race ahead of the November 7 general election. Purcell, who currently holds the seat, opted not to seek reelection.
In a Facebook video shared by the Louisa County Republican Committee, Colsey calls for a moratorium on utility-scale solar development and claims the facilities are “polluting our air, our ground, and the water in Louisa County.”
Both Jones and Adams are also Republicans. The board’s third Republican member, Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams, has consistently voted in support of large-scale solar development during his tenure on the board. Williams didn’t weigh in during the board’s conversation about the solar cap or the TOD.
Supes approve nearly $900k in supplemental appropriations for Louisa County Public Schools: Supervisors voted unanimously to approve nearly $900,000 in supplemental appropriations for Louisa County Public Schools.
The board allocated $637,536 to complete design work for a planned 54,000-square foot career and technical education center adjacent to Louisa County High School. Supervisors previously appropriated $1.9 million for design work for both the CTE center and a 500-seat addition to Louisa County Middle School, using one-time state grant funding.
But Superintendent Doug Straley told the School Board at its September 5 meeting that the funding wasn’t enough to cover the design work for both structures. The school board subsequently approved a $2.2 million contract with Richmond-based RRMM Architects to design the CTE center and manage its construction.
Supervisors haven’t appropriated money for either the addition or the center, but they earmarked $26 million and $25 million respectively for the buildings in the FY25 Capital Improvement Plan.
Supervisors also approved a $261,550 supplemental appropriation to cover salaries and benefits for three new teachers, who were hired prior to the 2023-24 school year. The teachers are needed because of growing enrollment, according to county officials.
Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams, a member of the board’s finance committee who works closely with Straley on the school’s budget, said that the money for additional teachers will be drawn from funds the division didn’t use during the last fiscal year.
Supes approve MOU with IDA for Shannon Hill water tower project: Supervisors voted 7-0 to approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the Louisa County Industrial Development Authority. In the MOU, the IDA agrees to pay the county $4.9 million plus interest for the construction of a 750,000-gallon spheroid elevated water tank at the Shannon Hill Regional Business Park. Landmark Structures has been contracted to erect the tower at a cost of $5.6 million and the county will pay for the project up front.
The MOU stipulates that the IDA will draw on proceeds from land sales and potential revenue from a utility-scale solar project to pay the county back. The IDA agrees to pay the county $447,000, which it recently received from land sales, by January 1, 2024 then draw on solar lease proceeds to make annual payments, assuming it receives the latter revenue.
The IDA leased the 1200-acre Cooke Industrial Rail Park to Two Oaks Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of the Israeli firm, Energix, in 2021 for development of a 118 MW utility-scale solar facility and a 50 MW battery storage system. According to the lease agreement, the IDA is expected to receive $700 an acre for usable land annually for the project’s 35-year lifespan. The authority will use some of that money to pay back a note on the property, which it purchased in 2014. Additional revenue will be used for the water tower, per the MOU.
The tower is part of a larger project, estimated to cost just over $28 million, to bring wet utility infrastructure to the park, a 700-acre industrial site that the county is developing just off Interstate 64 in south-central Louisa. The board appropriated the money for the project in its FY24 capital budget, intending to rely on an $11.5 million state grant and debt issuance to initially cover the cost.
In a separate but related action, supervisors unanimously approved a resolution that allows the county to reimburse itself for expenses incurred for the utility project and construction of two turf fields adjacent to Louisa County Middle School prior to issuing debt. The county could borrow as much as $20.5 million to pay for the projects. The board included $3.4 million for the fields in this year’s capital budget.
Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams said that the resolution doesn’t authorize the county to issue any debt, only allows it to reimburse itself from the bond funding if it does. He said the finance committee, on which he serves, would likely recommend that the county borrow money for both the utility infrastructure and the fields, allowing it to hold on to its cash reserves. But the committee hasn’t formally settled on a financing plan for the board’s consideration.
Other business: The board unanimously approved updates to the county’s financial and procurement policies. The changes are, in part, necessary to conform with changes in state law.
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