Town Council Work Session

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Leesburg Town Council 3h 23m 7 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the purpose of the October 6 2025 Town Council work session?

Kelly Burk 2:07

It's meeting to order the October 6, 2025 work session. With permission from everybody on the dais, I would like to move item number B up above A. Mr. Bola is here to speak to us on this stormwater management program. Anybody have an objection? Seeing none, then I will ask Mr. Bola to come forward.

Jeannie LaCroix 2:42

Very good. Thank you very much. Madam Mayor and members of the council, wonderful to be here. I assume that somebody is behind the curtain and will hit the button to make this move forward. Is

Todd Cimino-Johnson 2:54

that

Jeannie LaCroix 2:54

you? Or is that this right here?

Unknown 2:56

That's

Jeannie LaCroix 2:56

that

Unknown 2:56

right there.

Jeannie LaCroix 2:57

I am the person behind the curtain.

2:59

Okay.

Jeannie LaCroix 3:00

All right. Anyways, wonderful to be here with you all tonight and looking forward to giving you an update on the stormwater funding feasibility study. Just to give you an idea of what we're going to be going over this evening. First of all is getting a better sense of what the town is doing to meet its current obligations. That's kind of the foundation of Any kind of funding feasibility is understanding what you are already doing in order to be able to effectuate the stormwater program. Then we'll look at some of the town's emerging challenges. These are gonna be the conversation drivers about where the program might be going into the future. And then we'll talk a little bit about what does it take to meet those challenges.

Jeannie LaCroix 3:46

So what are those options? How do we ultimately prioritize the levels of service that meet the best interests of the town? We'll end with a discussion about what is the fairest way to fund that program. So that gets at the core of general fund versus a stormwater utility fee, and then wrap it up with some discussion. And that we're really asking is for guidance from the town council about what do we do in terms of next steps. Just to provide a quick little backdrop, I know you all have seen this before, but it's important to recognize why on earth do we have a stormwater program to begin with. I put the first two things up there on purpose, which is it's all about public safety. It's about preventing flood.

Jeannie LaCroix 4:35

damage and it's also about protecting your local water quality and your local ecosystems. Supporting those things are your minimum standards. And so this is where state and federal regulations come in. So you've got your Virginia Erosion and Stormwater Management Act. You've got your MS4 permit requirements. Those MS4 permit requirements come out every five years. So it's a five-year cycle. Every cycle, they go ahead and increase the program and increase what is considered to be practical or what your expectations are. And then finally, the one that I know you all are very aware of, keenly so, is the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. And so, you know, with a lot of the MS4 program, it's a matter of not creating new problems.

Jeannie LaCroix 5:22

The Chesapeake Bay TMDL is different in that you have to go in and retrofit existing infrastructure to actually reduce pollutants of concern, being nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment. So in terms of meeting our current obligations, the town has a really big stormwater infrastructure. So this is something that quite honestly took us a little bit by surprise is just how big and extensive the system is. Part of this is because unlike the county, The town controls its roads. And so it's in the county, you're going to divide those between VDOT and the county in terms of its responsibilities. In this case, the town is responsible for most of the conveyance system. We're learning more about the conveyance system and the infrastructure.

Jeannie LaCroix 6:11

So over the last couple months and last couple years, we've done a lot of field verification to get a better sense of the extent of the system and fill in gaps. We also have additional infrastructure that's a result of annexations. But the bottom line is that you've got almost 200 linear miles of conveyance pipe, 21 linear miles of improved channels, over 8,000 storm drain inlets. That's a lot of inlets. A little over 1,000 pipe ends. So this is where the stormwater discharges from. 426 of those are regulated stormwater outfalls. So those are outfalls whose ultimate drainage goes into a stream or a creek.