APB meeting summary 01152025 - Laserfiche WebLink

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z county recorded the video which is available through a link. Members agreed it was a valuable presentation. 6. Discussion Items: a) Review and discussion of draft Ag Preservation Plan: Saiers asked for general feedback about primary content issues. Members can write her directly with any specific minor corrections or spelling/grammar errors. Staff pointed out some of the big challenges we might face in making big asks from the county commissioners, like a new staff member and the PUV recapture funding. A lot of the success of this will depend on how we approach the commissioners with our recommendations. The APB will be on the agenda for the BOCC's work session on April 81h to talk about our recommendations and goals; they don't receive public input or comment at work sessions. Discussion followed. It's clear that we're going to be facing conflicting interests and needs, with farmland preservation vying with other needs like affordable housing and social services. The whole topic of the cost of community services will become relevant. The current land use planning process will provide additional opportunities. Ortosky provided an overview of the upcoming Jan. 171h BOCC work session when county staffers will be giving the BOCC members a thorough overview of the current state of the Ag and food systems economy in the county, so this is timely. The subcommittee tried to be mindful of target audiences: commissioners and public. Members were asked to provide any feedback or thoughts by email to Saiers in the next couple of weeks. In the end, the BOCC will look to the membership of the APB to represent the broad viewpoints of the farm community through this draft plan. When this goes to a full public meeting later this year, it might be helpful to have some real farmers (not APB members) make brief presentations about the importance of farms and farming, so that they hear that from folks who can tell personal stories about their experience on the land. We have a wide range of perspectives on the APB, but it's safe to say that all can agree about the importance of preserving our farmland. And the high cost/value of the land is absolutely driving all of these decisions, making it critical that we try to figure out how to have mechanisms for compensating farm owners who wish to preserve their farmland. Ortosky has spoken with the new farmland preservation staffers in Chatham and Wake, who have agreed to meet with us in the future to share information about their experiences in those counties. And there is a political side to this on the statewide level, where we need the different counties who are active in this topic reach out to their state representatives to help build larger coalitions that could eventually move legislation. The goal is to have a final in-house draft plan done in February; Saiers will then merge all comments into a new draft, for the April BOCC work session. There was general agreement that we should develop a "condensed version" that can be shared with the BOCC, and maybe even a set of simple bullet points that we can share with members for them to use in explaining what we're trying to do. We'll need to figure out what our actual "asks" will be when we approach the BOCC, starting on April 8, because ultimately, a big piece of the recommendations will involve asking for funds, especially through the PUV recapture funding and for the staff