City Council - Regular Meeting

Allegiance. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Present.

Present.

Present. Present. Present. And for the first time I get to say this with a new individual, mister city attorney, will you please present the next item on the agenda?

Happy to. The next item on the agenda is business and miscellaneous beginning with ID one eleven twenty six, a proposed closed session pursuant to the annotated code of Maryland general provision section three three zero five b eight. Discussion topic, city doc. Thank you.

At this time, I'm entertain a motion to move pursuant to annotated code of Maryland general provision article three dash three zero five b eight to go into closed session.

So moved.

Thank you, alderman Thorpe. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, madam city clerk. Please call the roll.

Aye. Alderman Huckley. Aye. Alderman O'Neill. Aye. Alderman Smith Brown. Aye.

Alderman Austin Johnson.

Aye. Aye.

At this time we are now in closed session. I'd ask anyone who is not part of the closed session to please exit the chambers.

Rotary Group. I mean, has just been outstanding in their help but people have been ordering from us. We've been delivering and just trying to keep going until we can reopen. So we're hoping to reopen very soon.

Thank you for sharing that. That's a beautiful sign that you have presented to the fire department. David or others, would you like to say anything?

Just order more signs.

I'm very proud to hand the microphone over to our fire chief, Doug Romalley.

Thank you, mister mayor. With us today is battalion chief Frederick. He was the incident commander on the incident, and the three individuals next to him are from the first in engine crew at Forest Drive Station. They were the first engine to get there. It's Lieutenant Collins, firefighter first class Peabody, and firefighter Brooks. They were the first ones to get a hand line into the business. We know you had a significant fire. It was a significant fire that day. We couldn't have extinguished the fire without our partnerships with Anne Arundel County and the United States Naval Academy. They were all there with us. There were probably about 75 firefighting personnel there at the time. We're glad that nobody got hurt. We're sorry for the loss of the business. We hope that we were able to save enough that you can continue to move forward. But this is fantastic.

They will proudly place it in the Forest Drive Fire Station, which is the one that is first due to that area. So we thank you, and we hope everything works out.

Thank you very much. Mr. City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is petitions, reports, and communications beginning with update from the mayor. Thank you.

Just gonna give everyone a moment to maintain order. Okay. This is another long one so as for everyone's patience, we have a lot going on. I want to start with offering condolences to former ward four alderwoman Sheila Finlayson. Over the weekend her father has passed away.

As many of you may recall, alderwoman Finlayson spent many of the last few years shuttling back and forth between Annapolis and Milwaukee to take care of her father. He lived to age 101. Doctor. William Finlayson was born in Manatee, Florida and had served in the Army. He matriculated to Morehouse College where he was a classmate of Doctor.

Martin Luther King, Jr. He received his MD and completed his residency at the University of Minnesota in 1958 and for the next forty years he was an OBGYN, literally delivering tens of thousands of babies in Milwaukee. And he also did so much more. He was a generous champion against housing discrimination, a volunteer for preserving black history and promoting financial literacy. In 1971, he founded the first black owned nonprofit bank in Milwaukee, and he served on the board and as chair.

He was generous with his volunteer time as well and as a member of the state medical society, a past president of the local YMCA and with the Urban League and the NAACP. Aldwoman Finlayson, you're in our thoughts during this difficult time and like us all to take a moment to remember the life of Doctor. William Finlayson. Thank you. I want to pivot tonight to talk a little bit about a topic of civility, which has been on my mind quite a bit the past few weeks.

We aren't immune to the national mood and we're seeing the same tensions that are playing out on a national stage showing up here in Annapolis. Some of it starts with the assumption by a few that everything is terrible and the government is working at cross purposes to the betterment of our community. In Annapolis that's simply not the case. The elected officials who sit with me on this dais are doing the job because they care. The people who work for the city do the work with great purpose.

And I have seen their compassion and communication and commitment up close. I have worked to recognize that good work and to give space when things aren't perfect. The way we get to Annapolis Works is not to tear each other down but to work together collaboratively. Last week I attended the evening roll call at the Annapolis Police Department. I got to talk with a detective who was sharing how proud he was of getting a confession in a major case just earlier that same day.

It was a deserved moment of true pride. I also got to attend the promotion ceremony at the Annapolis Fire Department for promotions from firefighter first class all the way up to our new deputy chief for operations John Ortlieb who I saw earlier. John if you wanna stand up, be acknowledged. Excuse me, it's not John, it's Deputy Chief Ortlieb.

Excuse me.

Congratulations. The sampling of these successes and so many more that I get to see up close every single day as your mayor shows me that we need to do more to advance civil discourse. We need to be the respectable examples who treat city staff in a responsive and professional manner. They deserve to work in a professional environment where they can do their best work without fear of personal attacks. We are when we protect that space, we all win.

I hope to set this tone and follow my own advice. And I hope that the members of the council, city staff, and members of the public will follow suit. We can get a lot more done by collaboration than we can by tearing each other down. And now I'll share some details of some topics that have frequently elicited frequently asked questions. I'll start by clarifying information about the market space.

About ten days ago, our office of law sent letters to the five market space leaseholders that we would not renew their current terms of their lease. I want to state clearly this doesn't mean outdoor dining is going away from that space. Outdoor dining is an important part of the Annapolis experience and we're keeping it. We were overdue in making some necessary adjustments and we're working with the market space tenants, some of whom who may be here tonight, to work through those terms. We could have managed the communications on this differently and we'll work on doing better going forward.

Another hot topic is the gardening gardening center going in near the Safeway Shopping Center on Forest Drive. I'm pleased to report that the city has issued a building permit for this project on May 4 once the applicant relocated electrical lines, a water line, and a water meter to ensure compliance with life safety requirements. But you should know that prior to that, our planning staff worked with the owner for months behind the scenes. Our economic development manager personally sat down with the applicant who did not have a computer so he could enter for him on the permit application to help the customer navigate the city's permit systems. That's true customer service.

I also have an update on some much needed repairs at the Gott's Garage, namely the flooding issues and the long overdue elevator replacement. I wanna thank Central Services and Transportation. The two departments work together to get those enhancements in the proposed 2027 capital improvement program that we'll be voting on in just a few weeks. If approved by this council, starting in July, a gutter and drain replacement project will get started with planning to help with the flooding. And the elevator project is further along.

Work there is expected to begin between September and December, September and December of this year with three major elevator projects in the queue. Another project that generates interest is the old seafood store on Forest Drive at Tyler Avenue. There is an applicant exploring concepts. They have not submitted a plan. They have presented ideas to the Planning Commission.

And those public meetings have been to coordinate, review, and challenge the proposal. At this time, the applicant is refining the plan for submission later this spring. At that point it will have another public hearing before the Planning Commission. What they are planning could address a tremendous problem in this area of Annapolis. That neighborhood is in a food desert.

It has limited access to fresh foods. Their proposal is in the idea around a seven to 8,000 square foot concept store that will be like a marketplace with fresh fruits, vegetables, and groceries as well as additional businesses. It will sell fuel, but it won't be a traditional convenience store. If you want to learn when those meetings will happen so you can watch online and participate in person, sign up for alerts from the Planning Commission on the City of Annapolis website. Parking news.

The Golden Pass parking is back. This parking program provides, a lot of peace, a full month of parking for seniors at metered spaces on Maryland Ave, Main Street, and in the Hillman Mills Himmon Garage for just $20 per month. This program is available from June 1 to August 31 of this year. It's open to seniors aged 55 and up, both residents and non residents. Sign up online or come to City Hall from nine a.

M. To noon this week to get signed up. I want to take a moment to thank and congratulate Megan who's sitting in the back, my right raising her hand. Megan is the superstar who, if you don't want to navigate online to get parking, if you're a senior, come visit Megan again this week nine to twelve right out here in the hallway. She's got a desk to help you sign up so you don't need an app. And once you get your parking established, you're set for the next three months unlimited number of days. Two hours per day. On Thursday, we'll be concluding our first round of town halls. Aldwoman Alsip Johnson and I will be at the Wiley H. Bates Legacy Center on Thursday from 06:30 to eight p.

M. Along with directors and chiefs. We invite Ward four residents to join us in another productive conversation with the leaders who work for you and city government. If you missed the first town hall in your ward, don't worry, we'll be holding another series of town halls in the fall and that series will be focused on the next city budget. Moving on to commissioning week. It's almost here. And in the days before the official commissioning ceremony on Friday, May 22, the city of Annapolis will play host to the U. S. Navy's Blue Angels next week on Tuesday for their practice and on Wednesday for the big show. Residents, you know to expect increased traffic, especially downtown and near the Naval Academy.

Traffic patterns will change in Eastport to try to help traffic exit more quickly. Please access the city's website and social media for event schedules, road closures, and parking updates. Be patient, with out of town visitors who are unfamiliar with our roads and habits. Thank you for making this a safe and memorable week for our midshipmen and their loved ones. Congratulations in advance to those midshipmen.

In the city of Annapolis, when someone is in a moment of need, our goal is always a fast, qualified response. That's why our budget proposal funds a new peak medic unit with six new hires and a fifth ambulance coming into service for the busiest half of the day. 90% of this core funding for those new hires in ambulance will be offset. 90% will be offset from regular emergency medical service billing and what was announced last week and why I'm bringing it up again today, a $294,000 grant from our county, Anne Arundel County, which was announced at the county executive's final state of the county speech on May 1. And to round out the contributions, a nearly $1,000,000 state grant, which I'd mentioned before, thanks to our state delegation of senator Shanika Henson, delegates Dana Jones, Dylan Baylor.

Appreciate them for this bringing this funding. It provides the reference new ambulance and a second ambulance which is intended for vehicle replacement. Admittedly, we need to convince the next county executive to continue that county support. If we do and and we have it for this year, our city's cost is roughly $100,000 for six new hires and the ambulance provide that peak medic unit. It reduces the burden on our hardworking firefighters and addresses their number one concern.

It's a huge win and shows how Annapolis works together. Speaking of the budget, I want to thank my fellow council members for the hard work that you've put in to this process. In particular, I want to recognize the members of the Finance Committee. Committee Chair Alderman Harry Huntley, members Alderman Karma O'Neill, and Alderman Frank Thorpe. You've all been holding nearly daily budget hearings for the last three weeks, not to mention the time spent deliberating.

Throughout this process, you've brought thoughtful questions and a focus on what's important. We'll be voting on the final budget proposal at the city council meeting on June 1. Until then, we'll continue to work on a budget to fund important city services while remaining fiscally responsible. And now let's get on with the meeting. Mr. City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda

is reports by committees. Thank you. Any council member wish to present a report of their committee? Alderman O'Neill, Alderman Huntley, think I'm not sure which hand. Alderman Savage.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that the Public Safety Committee scheduled for next Wednesday the twentieth has been canceled due to the fact that that is Blue Angels Day.

Thank you. Alderman Huntley.

Do I present now or is it later? I thought you

raised your hand. So I thought you wanted to you had a committee report.

Just the finance committee report, the big one. I told the

Okay. Just a second. Alderman Savage.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to do a preview for the next environmental matters committee meeting this Thursday. We are going to be hearing from staff as well as some other people associated with the electric hybrid ferry proposal, digging into what the status is, but also how it's connected to some other city projects. So if you're interested in that project, I encourage you to tune in. That's gonna be 03:00 this Thursday.

Thank you, Alderman. Alderman Thorpe. Then Alderman Smith Brown.

Thank you, mister mayor. Similar to Alderman O'Neill's report, we're going to cancel the audit committee on May 18 in order to support the acting city manager and the acting finance director as we complete the budget and also to give them more time as they continue to work on their performance metrics.

Thank you. Any other Alderman Smith Brown?

Yes, thank you. So we had our meeting 05/07/2026 where we postponed the reappointment of Thomas to the Planning Commission due to the website not having not having the correct or maybe the accurate date of current appointment renewal. We also postpone the requirements for the publication of the charter and code of the city of Annapolis. We're still working through that with my fellow council members. And we also postponed the oversight of the city's firing range which would allow for the police chief the right to offer or open up services for our fire's firing range. Our next meeting will be Thursday, June 4 at 06:30PM.

Thank you.

And this is the rules and city government committee, also with members Alderman Brook Schandenmeyer and Alderman Frankthorpe.

And before we get to Alderman Huntley, Caitlin can you confirm if the presentation has been uploaded to the website? What's that you're confirming now? I'll let you know. Okay. So for members of the public or anyone watching, Alderman Huntley is about to present a presentation from the finance committee that is their committee report on the entire budget.

It's a very lengthy document with lots of information and we're trying to get it uploaded for you so if it's not uploaded this second it will be probably by the time Alderman Huntley is done but hopefully we're trying to get it up there before he starts. So if you're watching from home or have a device in front of you, you could watch along. To get to these reports, you go to annapolis.gov. At the top bar you can click on legislation, city council, legislation, you pull up today's agenda and it will be a link for the presentation. Did I filibuster long enough, Kaelin?

I'm consulting with our webmaster so that I don't

do any edits. I won't

put you on the spot any longer. Alderman Huntley, if you can please present the financial report.

Absolutely. I'd be happy to. And I think, I think our goal is, in addition to what you said, to have it on the budget proposed and adopted page of the the city's website. So anybody should just be able to Google Annapolis budget, click the first link that comes up, and any moment now, it will be there. Yeah, I do want to say we we wrap this at 05:15 today.

So, if you noticed me eating beforehand the meeting, that's why. So I'm not gonna read through this whole document that is 33 pages, but the goal my goal with this document is really that it be a resource for all the members here who are not on the finance committee. If you didn't sit through the past three weeks worth of meetings, I want you to be able to read through this and get up to speed and and feel like you know what you need to know. So with that, I'm just gonna give us a few highlights. I'll talk a little bit about the overarching points of the budget and then highlight what I think are some of the most important and sort of broad reaching amendment recommendations that we had.

The first is just to go over what we heard as council priority, Something we started doing when I was first started as chair of finance committee last year was to bring the council together in the wintertime to share their priorities. We called out I think there's ended up being four in here. Improved infrastructure, so that's sidewalks, crosswalks, walkability, street lights, speed reduction, smart signals, raised intersections. All those things that lead to when you get around town, don't feel like you're getting you getting bounced around by potholes, you don't have to walk in the street, you don't have to put a wheelchair that can't get over a brick sidewalk. All those things were priority number one.

The next, in line with the Maricinapolis works and customer service initiative, was what we called service delivery. This is everything from getting permits through faster to making parking easier to better snow and garbage removal. And then we had youth and community programs. So this is something that I think was done quite well in the mayor's proposed budget was after school care, mentoring, childcare recreation investments. Environment and sustainability is a perennial theme, when you have people on your council who know what perennial means.

So, that's tree canopy, flood resilience, clean energy, and watershed restoration. And then, last thing was long term planning. So trying to get us a little bit better at when we spend some money off the bat, what is that gonna mean for us in the future? What are the the performance metrics we need? What are those multiyear funding strategies?

So those were the council's priorities coming into things. Like I started to say, I think this budget, really digs into the customer service part. It really digs in to the youth and community programs, and there's certainly investments across all of those goals. The highlight, I what I think, I see my friends with the capital who said here put in the headline was no property tax rate increase. So that was a benefit that we put that in a good news category.

I think it's, it's certainly better than the main alternative of having a property tax rate increase. I well, I won't talk about what my personal amendments are, but I would love to see us, get to such good news that we're reducing it. That was and then the overall number is that the general fund revenue is $122,000,000. $122,006,000. So we are seeing something of an increase over the f y twenty six budget, but, really pretty in line with recent years.

That growth is due to property tax revenue growing even though our, our budget our our tax rate is not changing as we see assessments go up because people's property is more valuable as folks might sell their property if they had a homestead credit beforehand, and then we bring it up to what it's truly worth. And then, something that surprised me was an increase in income tax receipts. So that's handled entirely by the state. We really don't have any say over it. We're not changing any rates or anything, but to see that go up was a reversal of what had been a short trend, and I found it very reassuring.

Those are some of the absolute top line things at the the highest level of what this budget looks like. Of course, you can dig in to get to more specifics. But I'm gonna jump to our, what some of our most important amendments are. The capital budget is the the exciting one of the more exciting parts. It's what I feel like, on the council, we always end up arguing over more than anything else.

And the broadest, maybe most important I wish I could remember the word you used for this today, Alderman Thorpe, but it wasn't most important. But, the the most overarching comment that I think the finance committee has on this budget as a whole, but particularly on the capital budget, was that there's some really important investments in internal facing upgrades to city government, especially towards facilities. And while we all recognize how much we can sometimes need that, that we would prefer to see a shift towards some more external facing improvements. Things like those sidewalks, like those roadways that residents can really bite their teeth into. There might be good reasons why we need to upgrade a fire station, but we know that our residents don't necessarily see that in the way that they do a new crosswalk.

So that was, I would say, like, the the single biggest recommendation that we had. Just to highlight a couple other ones. We made some recommendations within the Department of Central Services around reducing the risk management, new position, and adding in someone to manage real estate, which I think is really important. In the finance department, we had a fair amount of debate on some concepts around how we can maybe be a little bit more precise in our budgeting. We ultimately just took the tack of rather than endorsing any particular change to that, we just encouraged increasing the precision of our budgeting process.

So that means, you know, every year we we overestimate what our costs are going to be and underestimate what our revenues are going to be, and that's much better than the alternative of doing the reverse. But we certainly would prefer to be a little bit more precise on all of that and know that when we put a dollar into the budget, it's really going to get spent so that we're not having the option of returning it as a tax dollar, which if we can do that, we want to be able to do that. And then the last thing that I will highlight was just, around software. So there's a couple different recommendations in here around software. The one of the larger changes in this budget relative to last year's was centralization of a lot of costs for software and for some other things in the department of IT and in the department of central services respectively.

And while we think that's probably a good idea, we also want to see we're really going to do all this centralization to save money, it would be good to put that into the budget. We should recognize that they're that we're expecting those cost savings. At the same time, on that topic of software, I just wanna call out two that we saw real promise in and would like to see some funding for in the adopted budget, which is for better snow removal in the public works department. So that's we currently have some software that lets us track our snowplows, but this would really let us, dispatch them in a way, like actually plan their routes out ahead of time. And then also in planning and zoning, which, I don't know if the planning and zoning department head is still here.

But we heard about some of the really incredible work that they've been able to do to speed up permit times partially by using artificial intelligence, and we really want to invest more in that department's capabilities of using artificial intelligence to streamline permit applications and just plain make life a little bit easier on residents. So there's a lot more. There's 30 I don't know. Maybe I talked for one page. So there's 32 old pages in addition.

There's some suggested changes to fees and fines. Oh, actually, let me let do let me highlight that. One change that we suggested for fees and fines was increasing the baseline fine for unlicensed short term rentals and setting that minimum fine for an unlicensed short term rental to be equal to twice the highest advertised nightly rate. Meaning, if you are illegally renting a short term rental at $200 a night, I'm sorry, at $2,000 a night, you should not be able to get away with that by paying a $500 fee. That's that's not right.

As well as, hopefully increasing the short term rental registration fees for non owner occupied while lowering them for owner occupied. So just I know that tends to be a hot button topic. So that's the last thing I will highlight, and I really encourage anybody within hopefully the next half hour or hour to Google Annapolis budget. You'll be able to see the budget. You'll be able to see, and you'll be able to see our report on it. So thank you very much for the opportunity to present on this.

Thank you so much Alderman Huntley and again the committee members for your hard work in producing that report. Okay. Any questions for Alderman Huntley on his committee report by the way? We'll move on. Okay. Next item on the agenda please, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Attorney.

Next item on the agenda is comments by the general public.

Very good. So during comments by the general public, we're gonna ask you to come to the podium here. We're gonna ask you to start with your name and address. I'm gonna go in the order that you've signed up in. So I'm gonna be reading from the list for general comments. If you are here to speak on any of the stated public hearings, basically the budget hearings, eighttwenty six, R10, eleven, and twelve. Please save your comments for those specific public hearings. Alright, the first three people are David, looks like sorry, Magso, Sven Storm, and Jennifer Sauers. Please help me with your last name.

David Musso at 1012 Bay Ridge Avenue.

Thank you.

So first I would like to thank you all for all your hard work and for what you do for the city. It's really appreciated by me and others. But okay. So the issue I need to be concerned is really small and easy to solve issue in the scheme of things. I have two children and they both chose to leave the West Coast and move to Maryland and one's in D.

C. And the other one's in Baltimore. So they said, hey, how about living in Annapolis? I said, great, let's try it. So I bought a house, and I still live on the West Coast, but I come and see them often and we get together, have a great time and I love having parties and showing off to their friends and ours how great Annapolis is. So that's the nice part.

Let's stop right there. Sorry, your time's

up. That

would be

great, right? But it's also an Airbnb so that I can recoup some of the expenses that, you know, come with life. So that said, it's pretty successful in that I'm able to do that or it has been. I went to so we're fully licensed within the city and then all of a sudden the moratorium came in effect and the management company that we hired to manage the property because we're not here all the time, they were warned that, you know, hey, it's coming up. We have to pay our fee to the city, which is not a problem, you know, we're willing to do that.

And they hired a compliance company. The compliance company apparently missed the mark. I don't know how they did it. They managed to do it. And when we contacted the city to say, hey, we're late.

We know. We want to pay. And the response was sorry, you're late and there's just no getting around it. And it seems like the past there's been the ability to have a grace period or and you pay a fee to do that which I have no problem with, you know, a late fee. And anyway, so it seems like it's, you know, human errors happen.

I don't know who's at fault really. I don't know if it was the management company. I don't know if it was the company they hired and I don't even know if it wasn't the city itself because maybe they submitted something and it was rejected because the city website wasn't working well. I don't know. But I don't really want to have to sue anybody about any of it. It's a human error and I know that there's another couple, I guess another house or so that had the same problem. Anyway, I'd like to just say thank you for your time and I appreciate you listening to my problem.

Thank you. I don't know if you care to leave your name and number with our acting city manager Jackie Gill. She has just raised her hand to you. I don't know what the appropriate follow-up is but at least if you leave your name and phone number with her we could figure out if there is any.

Mr. Mayor, I've had a phone call with him

I'm sorry didn't hear you.

I've had a phone call with a gentleman and there's some more details and we're looking into whether there's a possibility. The application came in after the moratorium began and that's the hard spot. And so we'll continue to work it and do the right thing.

Thank you. Appreciate that Alderman Thorpe. Mr. Storm? Miss Harris, you're next after that.

I don't know who I would hand these to. I've got a copy for each of you.

Our city clerk just stepped out. Thank you.

I'm more than willing to deliver them.

Miss Reuters. Take it.

My name is Fade Storm. I live at 120 Dock Street. I have a business at 130 Dock Street. What you have handed to you is a complaint that I submitted with the city over a year ago about the bar next to me, Armadillo's, who has consistently violated their license for several years. The only response that I got from Cynthia Gaines was that she addressed one point in there and that had to do with them serving food and that being 51% of their take.

They haven't served food since 2024 and that would have been very easy to show. The other unfortunate thing though is that my name leaked out and so the owner came into my store while my employees were there and he threatened my life. In the last three months I've had my life threatened a half a dozen times or more downtown. Harry familiar with what it looks like down there. The police come regularly to me because I have a camera underneath my awning.

In that awning they come, one instance was a young girl who had been roofied and they beat her severely and threw her into a backyard. Her body wasn't found until several hours later. She did live. Am I not doing this properly?

It wasn't pointed to you. I was just trying to Should I

start over? No we heard you. Okay. I'm pretty timid and demure. Recently they got a call, an emergency call from in the bar and someone thought the person was dead. He wasn't. He was just comatose from being over served. It was alcohol intoxication and the paramedics showed up and they were afraid to go inside and the police had to empty the place first. The police reopened the place and when they did the fights ensued. The police were attacked.

They used tear gas. They arrested a bunch of people. This is a common occurrence. Every single one of my employees I buy pepper spray for and show them how to use it. Fortunately we have two bars near us who now, and I've never seen this in the fifty years I've been down there, they have two guards in front of their establishment, the Admiral's Cup and dock street bar.

The doorman at dock street bar walk my children, not children, my employees, they're my kids, to their cars so that they get there safely. I regularly one of the reasons I moved downtown is because patrons from this bar will come into my establishment in a very wasted condition and either leave technicolor yawns all over the place or threaten my employees. They will sit on my front bench and smoke marijuana and if they are asked to leave, well you know what ensues. They say they know my name and they know where I live. Hence the shirt.

The target on the front. The back says, please aim carefully. Don't Not gonna be intimidated anymore. If you go down there, you will see four or five police cars positioned right in front. Now we put cones out in front of armadillos to try and confine those people to that area.

That does not occur. 03:00 last morning or yesterday morning, the noise was still there and people in the middle of the street. The police have asked me and support me in doing this. I told you about the paramedics and the assaults. One evening I was told to get back in my apartment because I went down and started filming them with the phone. I was the only one obeying the law. They walk out of the bar with drinks. That's illegal. They smoke pot in public. I don't care what you do but it is against the law in Annapolis.

If we're gonna enforce the law, let's enforce the law. But people should not be allowed to walk in my establishment doing that nor intimidate my employees or my customers. I'm requesting you to follow-up with this. Look at everything that's in red there. You'll find that all of the other people downtown, all of the other bars, all the other restaurants, everybody feels the same way as I do. Harry, take the time to come down and talk to people about it. Better yet, hang out there until two or three in the morning.

Thank you. Ms. Sowers?

Good evening everyone. My name is Jennifer Sowers. I own Level at 69 West Street. Since the launch of the new parking program and the opening of Hillman in June 2023, my business has declined by 12% and my margins are slim. We all support a successful parking system that creates a balance between revenue generation, accessibility, employee safety, and economic stability.

However, there is a clear disconnect between what many people are experiencing day to day and what is being reflected in the current parking discussions here. Over the past several weeks, I reviewed transportation committee meetings going back several years. I binge watched them. What I found was a council doing its job, asking hard questions, requesting data, and attempting to hold contractors accountable. What I also found though were contractors that repeatedly failed to respond in a meaningful way or a timely manner.

In one instance, it took premium parking more than nine months to provide requested Hillman Garage performance data. That lack of urgency and transparency makes it difficult for this council and the public to fully evaluate whether the current system is truly serving the long term interest of our city. What we do know for sure based on our daily experiences is that there are numerous issues that are negatively impacting the people in this room. That is why we are here tonight. The changes negotiated last November by this council by council members Huntley, O'Neil, and Savage included a reduced fine, simplified promo codes, and a clarification on holiday parking.

This showed the community that progress is possible when concerns are taken seriously. Tonight we are asking you to continue that work. You guys should all have a packet from me. In it, there's a framework of current issues we are requesting be addressed. There's also a comparable city parking analysis showing that Annapolis has become one of the most expensive and complicated parking systems compared to similar cities.

There's a community survey identifying the top concerns. They are high fees, lack of safe and convenient employee parking, multiple confusing apps, aggressive employment practices or enforcement practices, unrealistic time limits, and insufficient handicap accommodations. I've also included crime statistics that are relevant to employee safety late at night as well as a list of legal actions involving Metropolis and its subsidiaries. They all mirror many of the complaints you are regularly hearing from your constituents and business owners. One of the core responsibilities of local government is protecting the public's trust in systems that directly impact our daily lives.

Sorry, almost done. When residents, visitors and businesses repeatedly report the same harmful harmful experiences being alleged in lawsuits in other states, it is imperative that the city council step up and ensure strong oversight, accountability, and consumer protections. Alderwoman O'Neil

Please wrap up.

I will. Was spot on when she said during a 2024 Transportation Committee meeting that the current parking program was unsustainable. This council has made changes previously through legislation and we are asking that you do the same thing in the next thirty days.

Thank you. The next three people are Lexi Niedecker, Kara Lynch, and Len Britton perhaps. Thank you. Lexi first please.

Hi there. My name's Lexi Niedecker. I am the general manager at Level Small Place Lounge on West Street. And I'm gonna be completely honest. I had written down an entire thing and I think I'm just going to ad lib this and go off script.

I'm working with Jennifer on everything about parking reform. I'm sure people have seen these orange flyers that are in the windows of buildings all throughout West Street and Main Street that is regarding a call for reform and I am extremely frustrated today. I've been working at Level for two years and I have gotten to know and love so many residents, patrons, and fellow employees of Downtown Annapolis. We had over a 150 people say that they were interested in coming, and over 60 of them today texted me saying that they would not be here because they feel like they will not be heard or seen no matter what they say up here. So I want to be able to speak on behalf of them.

I am blessed in my position as a general manager there to be able to talk to people and aid them in whatever way possible. Roughly five months ago is when things started getting really, really bad. I was on the phone with thirty minutes with a woman that had a reservation at our restaurant that was crying to me about how her and her daughter both got $300 tickets two minutes after their parking had expired because they were parked too far away during from a curb during a snowstorm where they could not see what was going on. Roughly three months after that, so two months ago, I was holding the hands of a 80 year old woman and her husband from Philly who were visiting Annapolis for the first time and got their car towed from a handicapped parking space that they had to walk five minutes from because there was none that were available after being thirty minutes late on their allotted time. I want to be there for people and I am so blessed to be able to help them with these kinds of situations but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to be able to help people when I talk about these things and I don't feel like there's any action being taken.

I will say that I appreciate everyone's time and I also appreciate the individual meetings and emails that I have back and forth with multiple different representatives such as Medco and the director of transportation. I am a 23 year old woman. I started working down here when I was 21. I do appreciate the initiatives with Park Place as well as Gott's Garage to try to have more accessible parking for the majority of us. But not all of that is going to work for us 100% of the time.

Especially when the most affordable is Park Place which which is roughly half a mile down the road from the majority of us. When I was freshly 21, I unfortunately had a situation where a man had grabbed the front of my dress and ripped it off as I was walking to my car to Park Place and that is not an isolated experience. I have multiple girlfriends around here that will have their male coworkers walk them to their car as a lot of us get out late at night because they are so fearful of what's going to happen. And when I had addressed this in a meeting with a representative, I was told point blank that they don't have enough time to care about or look at these things. I will finish up in just a moment.

The only thing that I am going to read is that I really really hope that our concerns do not fall on deaf ears because a lot of us feel like they are. I also have a lot of representatives and I'm sure a lot of other employees from downtown can say that we are the faces, the ears, the smiles of Annapolis and we also hear when representatives are very insensitive about the fact that they can get their tickets ripped away from their bills because they work for the city. Thank you guys for taking the time to listen to me and we just would like to call for action as soon as possible. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much Ms. Nidecker. Ms. Lynch?

My name is Kara Lynch and I'm an employee at Level Small Plates Lounge. Today I would like to briefly speak about the

Can I have your address please? If you start with the name and address, we got your name.

Is Kara Lynch.

And address?

Yeah. I I am an employee at Level Small Plates Lounge. Today I'd like to briefly speak about the parking enforcement in Downtown Annapolis and how it affects the residents, workers, and visitors. The combination of limited spaces, strict time limits, high demand, and confusing parking layouts creates a situation where parking can become unnecessarily stressful and difficult to manage for individuals who work downtown or need regular access to the area. The current parking situation places a significant burden on daily life and in many cases people are forced to park far away, repeatedly move vehicles throughout the day, or risk being late to work or appointments simply due to lack of fair parking.

This affects not only convenience but also local employees, small businesses, and visitors supporting downtown economy, and I believe it's not ethical. While I understand the purpose of park parking enforcement, the reality is that Downtown Annapolis has created a parking system that is unrealistic, overly restrictive, and extremely difficult for ordinary people to navigate. And I'm not asking for free parking, only fair parking. Just a couple examples of things. There's a bunch of broken meters in the Larkin lot that could potentially be fixed, extend time and allowed in zones, allow a potential grace period, and renewal parking within like, you can't renew parking within fifteen minutes, and that allows us to get tickets or have to go

out and

move our cars, different spots, which is really hard to do when we're in the middle of a rush. But yeah, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak and share my perspective.

Thank you very much much, Mitch Lynch.

My name is Leon Britton. From 63 West Street, Root Octopus. Though we've been there for about five years roughly now, we have gained a popularity that pulls a lot of foot traffic as well as interstate, out of state, local people who have consistently every client I'm seeing is letting me know it's a beautiful city. It's a fantastic town. Smiling faces.

I'm gonna ride some coattail a little bit but the one note that I've always fallen on deaf ears is what do we do with the parking. The passes that we've been given as a shop to give to our clients, the garages discounts no longer work. There's a technical aspect that confuses anyone over the age of 45. I say that on offensively. There's three different apps, 50 different broken meters, I'm exaggerating, and a reform that needs to be looked at that I'm here standing in front of you trying to just draw acknowledgment for.

Attention that there is an issue, there is a problem, there's a beautiful city with an abundance of resources and great minds in front of me that are gonna be able to figure it out if given the attention. Just some testimony of myself, the beautiful woman that spoke and gave that earlier testimony, Lexi Netaker. I've been working consistently paying for tickets as well that I've gotten for reasons here and there as well as getting my car towed consistently just for the sake of who knows a bad day from a lot owner. I've spent upwards of about $800 going back and forth making friends with the mechanics And it's it's it's a fun journey every time but he's gotten sick of seeing me there. And I've in turn love getting to know him.

Have not enjoyed being able to see him over and over and over because I'm getting my car towed for lack of spaces and or lack of who knows. I'm not in your chair. But I do come asking for consideration, asking for whatever there is available to the people. Thank you for my time.

Thank you very much sir. Cynthia, before we have the next speaker, can you adjust the microphone so it's pointed more towards the middle? Please. The next three speakers are Denise Robinson, Jen Hirschkovits and former Alderman Dwan Gay in that order.

Hello. I'm Denise Robinson. I live at 518 5th Street. Two weeks ago I emailed every member of this council and the mayor respectfully asking you to walk together in memorial day parade to honor the Annapolis men and women who gave their lives for our freedom. Memorial Day is the most sacred day in our in our nation.

As we prepare to celebrate America's two hundred and fiftieth, it is more important than ever we remember the true cost of our liberty. In that email I wrote, every neighborhood in our city has sent sons and daughters to war. Walking in the parade is our chance to honor them, to walk in their place, to stand united when our community needs unity more than ever. Council members have proudly marched in many other parades, actively inviting constituents to follow and join but never for Memorial Day. Why is that?

I included photos of some of our fallen. In the two weeks since that, not one of you has answered and replied to my email. Not one of you has asked questions about the men and women whose faces you saw. That silence is deeply painful, extremely painful to me and the families that lost them. Our city still stands because of their sacrifice. Before you, I placed cards, poppy cards, and inside each one of them have names of Annapolis fallen. If you look especially, one of you holds, I believe it's the mayor, lieutenant David Kerr Claude. Another holds Private George Fitzhughm Comb. They come from a family that had three mayors in their family line. Lieutenant Claude Cole, he was the uncle of Cobb.

One mother lost her brother and her son. One mother lost her son and her grandson. There's four cousins in that list. Tech Sergeant Harry Colson, Tolleson, Tech Sergeant Roland Saffield, Lieutenant George Hug, PFC Melvin Saffield. Tech sergeant Tolson and tech sergeant Saffield enlisted in the Army National Guard together after they graduated high school. They landed together on Omaha Beach in the second wave. They fought side by side through the hudros of Normandy and died a day apart. Four sisters each lost a son. Their parents lost four grandchildren. These are not unusual stories for our city.

This is the norm. We were all related and we all felt the sacrifice. The medals earned by Annapolis Fallen and Anne Arundel in World War two alone tell part of that story. One medal of honor, six navy crosses, 16 silver stars, three Distinguished Service Medals, four Legions of Merit, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, 13 Bronze Stars with Valor, 59 Air Medals, 161 Purple Hearts, six POW Medals, one sacrifice medal from Canada, and seven Mariners medals. Behind each medal was a mother, a father, a sibling, a spouse, or a child whose life was forever changed.

I stand here tonight to remind you of their sacrifice and our responsibility to honor and remember them. I also placed a book excuse me in front of Alderman Smith Brown. It's called Braided in Fire. I ask after he reads it that it pass along and be read by everybody and you will understand why it's important to remember the men who have the untold stories that need to be shared.

Council members Please wrap up, please.

Okay. I ask often you call this body a family. If that is true, then let us act like one. I urge you to walk together this memorial day as a unified city council, as a family of annapolitans for every man and woman who never came home. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Jen Herskovits. I live at 28 Market Space. After moving testimony like that, I mean, I know in the grand scheme of world problems, parking seems pretty trivial. But I think we all know that the way we treat each other in this world, the way we do business in this world does start locally. So I would like to start by saying thank you, mister mayor and city council, for opening this meeting up to residents and local business owners and workers, for giving us a chance to share our personal experiences with this current parking system that's in place.

And like Lexi from Level, I I was gonna come up here and give you all of my grievances with premium parking and list all the reasons why it doesn't work for our city, which we, you know, we will hear tonight. We did hear tonight. But at the risk of sounding too dramatic or philosophical, I'm gonna go a different route, and just quickly share with you, you know, I started working downtown on market space when I was a junior at Annapolis High School, a high class of four. I sort of grew up in this restaurant industry downtown and now many years later, I'm lucky enough to live and work in the same neighborhood. I gotta tell you one of the best things about being a bartender is all the stories we get to hear from our guests, you know, tourists and locals alike all have really interesting stories about their time and experiences in Annapolis.

I can't tell you the amount of negative feedback I hear on a daily basis about how difficult it is to park here. A lot of these guests are people that travel a lot and are familiar with this kind of parking system. Others are extremely confused by it. They remember a time when metered parking wasn't so difficult here. On the resident side, again, I'll just quickly share, you know, this last time my vehicle was towed right outside of my home I was an hour late on renewing my parking time allotment.

I I was a few tickets behind, you know. I think you could ask anyone here tonight that owns or works in a restaurant. Business doesn't flow the way it once did, you know, preconstruction, pre COVID. It's hard times for a lot of people. And, yeah, I got behind on a few metered parking tickets, they wanted to tow me again when I ran outside and basically pleaded with this premium parking employee. You know? Look. I'm sorry. I got behind. I'll pay these tickets right now. Please just don't tow me so I'm in a deeper hole. Look. I worked out here. I I live right there. This gentleman from Permian Parking looked at my house.

He looked back at me and he said, nobody cares where you live. That's not the Annapolis I know. That's not the Annapolis experience we want anyone to have, whether they're our guests, our workers, or our residents. The towing specifically I know. I'm I'm trying. The towing specifically at this point seems so over the top, seedy even. I mean, just like the basic size and design of how these downtown streets are built is not really conducive to regular predatory towing. We're not New York City. We're not LA. We're not Pittsburgh, we're not Baltimore.

We're not in a position to send that message. Nobody cares about you here.

Please wrap up.

We want our message to be come visit Annapolis. You're welcome in Annapolis. Come take a step back in time in this very special historic capital city. You know, do we wanna align with massive outsourced companies who see Annapolis as just another client that who don't necessarily have our city's best interest at heart? Or do we wanna take a hard look at the city code and how it's written?

Thank you for your testimony.

Yeah. Thank you guys for your hard work. I know this is a very difficult job and we do appreciate you.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Hello. Are you? Dewan Gay, 409 Hilltop Lane, Annapolis, Maryland 214003. I obviously my colleagues know how or my former colleagues know how uncomfortable I I hate when former elected officials come before the existing bodies and, you know, try to belabor them on how to do their jobs. But this is in particularly importance to me because I think it deals with a value that's at the core of being an elected official and that's protecting and preserving our most vulnerable citizens and and those are from an an unrepresented circumstances.

Last year, this body in the city budget approved two items that I wanna talk about in particular, and I'll be very brief. The first being a scholarship and acknowledgment of Alderman Ross Arnett who served twenty years, I believe, or nineteen years on the Annapolis City Council, and Alderman Sheila Finlayson who I was so pleased that the mayor extended acknowledgement to her family this afternoon. I am hearing rumblings and first and foremost for the general public, I did send an email three weeks ago to members of the council and staff inquiring about this before I came before the public. I'm hearing rumblings that that is being suspended, that those dollars are not being spent as they originally intended to do so. Now I am not a I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not in the position to say that if a previous city council passes funding, is the next city council obligated to, oblige those requests?

I would hope they are though and particularly for the scholarships. I think it's of incredible importance that we uplift individuals from our most unrepresented and unacknowledged communities in particular when they're trying, to achieve for higher education. The state does it and the city of Annapolis is well within its authority position in finance to do so. The second issue is the city council passed $250,000 for first time home buyer home buyers, to partner with the county's ACDS program, so that on top of the funding that the county was providing, the city would city would provide that funding for first time homebuyers. I was told that that contract had been, signed and it was out of law.

I've not heard a single thing about it. This also was in my email and I requested that, you know, someone from either the public information office or the mayor's administration address that, you know, not for my sake, but because I think it's in particularly important that individuals trying to buy homes can do so in the city of Annapolis in communities where the cost of of a home continue to rise. I think both of those issues are the core reason why you all have ran for elected office. It's particularly to serve the fundamental needs of our communities that are so often left out. I do not wanna belabor my point.

Also, I just wanna quickly say, please pass in this in in the staff's I mean, in the in this upcoming fiscal budget so that the city council can have staff so they can respond to the emails promptly and that and they can address their constituents as we intended previously. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Alderman Gay, Alderman Gay, as I mentioned to you when I saw you at an event, I'm more than happy to talk with you on your first point. Just feel free to reach out and I'm happy to talk about the status of that project. The second one I'm not familiar with.

Absolutely. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Joe Fleming, Abigail McBride, and Matt Stolars. Excuse me.

Thank you for allowing me to bring up an issue which is very personal to me. I have a small business. My name is Jo Fleming. I have a small business at 68 Maryland Avenue and I have noticed I'm wanting to address the issue of parking reform. I've noticed a significant reduction in foot traffic on Maryland Avenue.

I also since I have been in business starting in 2018, I have noticed a reduction in the amount of number of businesses or I'm sorry in the number of visitors that I have and my customers often enter my gallery with the first comment, they look at their phone and they say I have seven minutes left. So I'm selling fine art and much of my merchandise is over a thousand dollars so you can pretty much understand that people don't spend that kind of money on quality merchandise if they have only seven minutes. TEND in the old days, 2018, people used to come down have lunch and then they had time to follow-up with a little shopping and there were businesses business that was generated like that. A lot of my customers come from outside like Arnold, Silverna Park, other areas and those customers have said I got a parking ticket, I'm not coming downtown anymore. And so they limit their visits to my shop.

So I've had a reduction in business. Directly across the street an antique shop went out of business related to parking. Two doors up a woman who had been in business for decades on Maryland Avenue has retired partially due to parking. Two doors down. A gentleman who had been in business the entire time I've been on Maryland Avenue lost his business.

And I really, you know, I survived COVID but I thought that was temporary. So when that was over I really was hopeful that business would start an upward trajectory again and since 2023 really has been a problem. So I just wanted to address that and just let you know that for me it is definitely going to have an effect on how long I maintain my business on Maryland Avenue. So thank you very much for letting me speak.

Thank you.

My name is Abigail McBride and I represent my family's business McBride Gallery at 215 Main Street. Annapolis is such a charming town. I mean it's like a small town and a big city altogether and it's so beautiful and it's friendly and I love how all the businesses support each other and it's beautiful and I love the hard work that you guys do. I know you work hard and as evidenced by right now late hours. We also work late hours, all the other small business owners, and I'm also here to talk about parking reform.

And I really want you to deep dive into this list. Thank you, Level, for your leadership on this topic. I'm so impressed. It's I really feel that Annapolis already does a lot to try to solve the parking problem but there is a problem with people not knowing what you're doing. You even announced today about the Golden Pass.

I had not ever heard of the Golden Pass. I think there are two different shuttles that are meant to help relieve parking but I consistently hear from customers in our business I'm never coming back, you can't park, the fees are so expensive, why did I get fined when I still had time for parking? I've had so many personal experiences of trying to help people figure out those kiosks and someone else also mentioned that if you're over the age of 45 there is a real barrier to access the parking apps, the many different apps. Not everybody feels comfortable downloading all the different technologies to be able to engage in all the different parts of the town and I think that the city could take a firmer hand of leadership with their contractors to force them to comply to similar parking rates and similar parking hours so that when you look at

the

sign what's said in the app is the same as what's on the street sign. And my own personal anecdote is that I often park briefly on Main Street before I go park in Gotts Court and for months I had an issue where no matter where I parked on Upper Main I could only park for fifteen minutes. And I quizzed other business owners and I quizzed other people on the street. Are you experiencing this? And it took so many phone calls and messages and I never heard back from anyone but eventually I did see that they added another parking zone and I could park once again for longer than fifteen minutes on on Upper 15 Maine.

But when I think about a customer's experience, a citizen's experience, they want to come in maybe they're picking up something that they already purchased and they can't park for more than fifteen minutes. It's just like a wound that makes them not feel welcome that they couldn't come back. So please take a good look at this list and thank you so much for your hard work and I really believe that the city can do a more coordinated effort with signage and leadership with their contractors. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you. My name is Matthew Staller. I live at 2010 Harbor Gates Drive here in Annapolis. I'm an employee at the chop tank right over here on Compromise Street. I'm also here about parking. I'm gonna make it quick too because my spot at the garage is gonna be upstairs. But

yeah.

I've I've lived in Annapolis for sixteen years. I'm originally from Illinois, but I've been in the restaurant industry most of my life. And I love it down here. It's beautiful. I love working down here.

And I love the camaraderie with my staff and the people I work with and our guests from all over the the world that come to see Annapolis. Issue with parking, I actually lately I've been parking down on King George Street, nine hour parking. I've gotten three tickets in the last three weeks, $50 a pop. So I'm not sure what time I know a couple of times I have been over the nine hour mark. I'm not sure what time they're flagging me, but I'm working everyone else in this industry, early days, mid days, late nights.

And I'm walking from King George. It's nice on the way in. Sometimes when I'm leaving at night, I bartend, got money in my pocket, you know. You never know what's gonna happen on your your walk back to the car. But, you know, I know we all have our things going on in our life.

I'm going through some financial things in my life. So, you know, $50 a pop, it really starts to add up. So, I'm not asking, you know, for for free handout, but anything would be nice to, you know, work with the employees down here if there's I I know mister Mary said something about, you know, there's for senior citizens, they they get a flat rate for the next few months. I don't know if maybe that's something that we can do for for employees. I'd be happy to pay something for a monthly pass or couple monthly monthly pass for a garage spot knowing that, you know, I don't have to stress about where I'm gonna park or, you know, having a run-in my car after nine hours, two hours, or whatever to to, you know, see if I have a ticket or not.

So yep, that's my 2¢. I appreciate everyone listening and thank you for your time. The

next speaker is Laura Riggs who will be followed by Autumn Latundra and Stephen Green.

Hello. My name is Laura Riggs. I live in Odenton, Maryland, 1125 Colony Ridge Road. I also keep my boat in Eastport, so I consider myself a resident given the amount of money I pay for that. I'm here to talk about parking.

I came in support of all the business owners that are here. I am the customer and I don't know if you've noticed lately how much the price of a sushi roll and a cocktail has increased over the last six months but it's gone way up. And I have literally had to reconsider how often I come to go out to socialize here in Annapolis and particularly on West Street. My entire social life revolves around the city but I don't live here so I have to drive in. Not only that but I'm recovering from an ACL reconstruction and while I don't have a handicap placard I do look for accessible parking and things that don't have a lot of stairs.

So these are my concerns. My experience has been that the parking is very difficult. I've gotten a number of tickets in situations that I thought were very unfair and when I went back to appeal those tickets and to speak to various people I felt that the appeals process just they just didn't even care and that it wasn't really well adjudicated and I thought a number of the issues of why I got the ticket were things that others possibly consider taking some responsibility for. And I wanted to make all that clear because it's impacting these people's businesses, right? So when I have a 150 worth of tickets and when I'm paying for example $12 to park just to come to this meeting, I'm thinking do I want to spend another, you know, however much money to also go out to dinner or whatever.

Here's some here's and also I feel that two hours of parking on the streets is simply not enough time for somebody to socialize. Someone had explained to me that this was to keep up the churn of parking on the streets during business hours, but I'm not quite sure why it goes to two hour parking in the evening because that's not enough time to come and listen to music and to have some dinner, And especially if I'm coming to West Street to socialize all day during the first Sunday or on Wednesday evenings or Sunday evenings for all of the things that you're trying to do to gin up business for all the local vendors. Right? So it's like you have to park in a garage or else you just have to move your car constantly. So that's a choice.

I am the person who penned the letter to the mayor and I sent it to a number of you and I did try to send it to a number of the community business owners back in the fall about specific parking situations I had faced and so a number of you I think are in receipt of that letter and I'll share it with anyone who asked because it was really written as an open letter to business owners because I felt very strongly that this is impacting business owners because I know it's impacting me and I'm not alone.

Please wrap up.

Sorry. Anyway, I do wanna say that there are I think a number of software related issues that people get tickets and I don't think that the parking services pay enough attention to some of those issues and I'm happy to speak to you about them later and give you specific examples that you can look into. So I hope this helps and I do hope that you'll take the idea of reform seriously.

Thank you for your testimony.

Mayor and committee, my name is Autumn Litendri. I am a business owner on Main Street and, just a couple of things. I'm here for parking but a couple of other, mentions. For you who spoke about the military, I myself am a Marine Corps war widow. So I thank you for what this year is the twentieth year of my husband's death he was killed in action in o six so thank you.

And we can't hear you when you're not facing the microphone.

I apologize but that was a personal thank you as my husband was killed in action twenty years ago on May 3 and I just wanted to thank her personally for her words because whether you walk in the parade or not, that is freedom and it's your choice but for those of us who are affected by those who have given their lives, I appreciate it if you are to do that It's also your freedom, thank you in advance for that support. As for what was said by Storm, I also live on Dock Street. And is no joke that having a young child and walking to where we live on a day to day basis, it's beautiful, it's wonderful, and it's a great place to live down there. But we're inside at a very particular time. We walked the dog fast as we did before we got here because I knew we'd be here tonight.

I don't want to be out on Dock Street after a certain hour because it isn't safe. So please look into that. I really do ask that for just the families because many of us do live in that area. But as an owner on Main Street, I have two businesses, and it has been wonderful to become a part of this community within the past few months. And, the local community has embraced us and and we are so thankful to be a part of business I've done for twenty years and it's really wonderful to branch out here and be closer to my man at Arlington.

So as far as parking is concerned, I as an employer with my team, I am concerned about them first and I want to make sure that they're taken care of and I've paid numerous accounts for them so that they do not get tickets whether it's a twenty four hour bill so that they can be there during their shift and not have to worry. And that is my responsibility as their boss. But at the same time, I ask that maybe some reform is looked at to be put in place for us as owners to give to our staff. And I also want to mention from people who have come into the stores that are residents that no longer live here that have just picked up from conversation at the counter, not directed at us, just in passerby conversation they say, oh I've had my resident pass for years. I haven't lived in Annapolis for a very long time but I still use my resident pass.

And that is something to look at because that's a lot of extra spots being taken that they're so I don't know how often that's looked at but the lady who was mentioning it at the counter I said oh well how long have you not lived in Annapolis? She goes well I just got it renewed but I haven't lived here for three years. And I thought wow how does she is there not an address check? Is there there's nothing? So just as a mention, that's something to look at. But as a committee, thank you for what you do. Thank you for what our businesses are able to do. And yes, parking is a concern, but we also appreciate what you provide so that people do come and support us.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say if you can get any more information on how people are repeating that, please do send it to me. As a resident to me, it's like it's a really onerous process to renew it. So I'm miffed at how people can figure it out to repeat it.

Go back to the microphone please.

One of the ladies I heard talking in the store because I wasn't going to say, well let me learn about that. What she was saying to her friend because she goes how do you do that? And she said oh my boyfriend that I had during that time still lives there so because she was on the lease with him and no longer is there, that is how she was able to do that.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Steven Green and then Tom Creek and Dan Gallagher. I'm seeing Steven Green. Mr. Creek?

Top Creek, 14 Murray Avenue, Annapolis. The last, I guess Jennifer posted this Facebook page about two weeks ago. And over the last two weeks, there's been a rather large email train, text thread, whatever you want to call it, that's on the resident side. And I appreciate Jennifer posting that. I think that was the general consensus in the email chain. It's an issue that is out there, an issue that be addressed. And I want to try to provide a resident's perspective that came out of these conversations. And it was really centered toward Ward 1. And think about the historic district in Ward 1. And I'm going give you some stats about Ward 1 residents.

Ward 1 residents pay 25% more property tax. Okay? Of the entire Annapolis revenue stream, 25% of property tax comes from Ward born residents. That's 14% of households. They carry about a 75% of more burden than property tax than any other average resident. And then that's going to go up obviously as we go along. So that's a little bit of statistic. So that gives the residents a pause and says, well hold on a second. Why can't we have residents only parking on the streets? Go to lot of other tourist towns.

That's what happens. And I think that conflicts with some of the business issues. And and the general consensus in in the thread was, well, we wanna support the businesses. And we appreciate Jen for bringing this up because honestly maybe parking reform really needs to happen. You know, the STR issue obviously is a big issue.

Park reform is right below that if not 1A rather than one. Let me go into it a little bit more here. So through these threads we started talking about what's the real issue and why can't we do this. And when you start taking it back, and I tried to explain to a lot of people that when we financed Tillman Garage, as some of the people on council may know, we financed Tillman Garage with a general obligation bond. Then we subordinated that with a second bond that was based on revenue coming from the street. Okay? The street parking. The fines. And that was necessary in order to move that forward. And a creative financing, whatever you're going to call it, it worked.

If you go back and you look and you pull debt service and pull all the obligations that are out from the finance of the Hillman Garage, for a $45,000,000 garage we're going pay $102,000,000 at the end. Now look, if you owned a house, you realize you pay interest and you're going to pay more than the house owns. That's fine. And maybe it's a good time when you talk about parking reform to start looking at the stats and start saying that maybe we should revisit a lot of the issues with the parking reform, with the financing. John Hammond is going come up here and he's going explain some of the stats that we've identified in the last couple weeks.

And I think that's really important. I ask of the council and really the mayor more than the council and the administration is there's an emotional issue here both from the resident side and from the business side. And it makes sense from both sides. And what I ask is that the administration take a pause. Look at it holistically. Okay? Start listening to some of the things that John's gonna lay out to you and start looking at what happened with all the bonds when they were floated back in 2003, 2000 or excuse me, 2023. I'm sorry. 2022. And start looking at them. And maybe there's a chance right now to really look at this and look at holistically and change parking for everybody.

Please wrap up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for testimony. Dan Gallagher.

Hello. I'm Dan Gallagher. I'm a resident over at 118 Dock Street up on the 2nd Floor right above Pipps. I just wanted to speak about both the safety on Dock Street and also the parking from a resident's perspective. After last call, things get crazy down there.

I don't know how much time y'all have spent between 1AM and 3AM on the dock, but it's kinda like the block party keeps going and before the project to revitalize the city dock, right, people would kinda disperse and I think it kept things relatively civil, if not a little noisy. But now with the construction, it's like a funnel and it pushes people down in there. And to my understanding, there's been a couple of gun related incidents already this year, which is something that I haven't seen since I've lived here, 2020. You know, we all know what happened at The Graduate to that poor mother who was visiting, you know, and caught a stray bullet. And that's, you know, our bedroom is right there next to the right there next to the billboard.

Right? And it's gonna be me or my girlfriend is gonna be the one who who catches one of those. Something like that happens. We have noticed an increased police presence and definitely grateful for that and the agility and the response to keep people cleared out of there after last call because they're just they don't have any business down there at that point other than to let tempers flare and, you know, let crazy things get out of control. So appreciate the increased police presence.

Additionally, as a resident and parking down there, you know, before the reconstruction of the Hillman Garage that was resident only parking, so there is precedent for that. And we've been definitely very impacted with the closure of that lot down there. You know, have visitors parking all the time and I hear from the business owners and also as a resident, you know, it seems like there's a pretty straightforward solution which is to bring, you know, I can speak from the zone one perspective, to bring that back to resident only, create some kind of program for employees to get a permit so that the people who are here every day can park in the surface streets because it's very frustrating where as I came home today to park and attend this meeting, had to circle around the block, circle around the block. My girlfriend just she's a firefighter and just finished a twelve hour shift. She had to do the same thing just to come here and we have to walk past a parking garage that has a sign that says 480 space.

You know, so they're not being leveraged because visitors come down here and they don't they're not aware of it or it's whatever. But it seems like there's a way to take advantage of some of the systems that have already been built up. We look at the mobility options with the the shuttles have been added. Well, if you funnel visitors into the garages, then you have nodes that are gonna increase utilization. It kinda seems like there's some wins here for everyone. So I just wanted to ask for whatever parking reform we can get that works for everybody and to provide some perspective from the resident point of view. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay, that's everybody who signed up on one of the sign up sheet. Anyone who would wish to speak during the public comment period may do so now. We'll start with Mr. Hammond. If there's anyone else that would like to speak, I would suggest if you could line up by, on the window side so we can, speed this along. Mister Hammond.

Thank you very much, mister mayor and members of the council. John Hammond. 141 Monticello Avenue here in Annapolis. Three topics. One, the easy one. The streetlight at the corner of West And Monticello Avenue is still out. It's been out for three years. Repeated request to public works have resulted in nothing. It is a city of Annapolis responsibility streetlight. It is not a BG and E streetlight despite what public works may be telling you.

Look at the map. Second topic, trending topics, your April 14 edition titled Annapolis Revenue and Your Taxes Fact Checking. One of the facts you didn't point out was that the assessments went up 24% due to the last triennial assessment. That's 8% a year and that's why our tax bills are going up at least 8% a year. Even though you love to say that you haven't raised the tax rate, nobody in this room got an 8% raise each year for the last three years.

Yet we're expected to pay those taxes. In that same edition, talk about the hotel and amusement taxes where only 17% of the revenue raised comes to the city. That is not the case. The hotel tax, approximately 80% comes directly to the city. 17% is earmarked for the conference and visitor center and another 3% is earmarked for arts and public places. There are other two other 3% allocations that specifically come to the city. One is for affordable housing. So it's not 17%, it's at least 80%. Not the facts that you reported. The amusement tax.

Nearly all the amusement tax comes to the city of Annapolis. It's collected in Annapolis, not 17%. The state administers the amusement tax, it charges an administrative fee for the amusement tax, and the rest of the money comes directly to the city, not 17%. Check your facts. Third point, parking. Parking revenue. Has anybody on the council or the administration taken a look at the Medco annual report when it comes to the the operation of the Hillman Parking Garage and the whole project for downtown resilience? If you did, you'd find some startling facts.

One

is that the Medco has just discovered that there is no parking tax in Annapolis, yet they've been paying to the state of Maryland a parking tax which comes out of the revenue that should be coming to the city at the end of this 15 step waterfall. Somebody ought to be looking into that because the city still hasn't gotten the refund that Medco now is aware that is due to the city. Another point. The operator Medco citation revenue is recorded on the date that the ticket is issued. On the financial statements, they're now recording that allowance for doubtful accounts totaled $796,000 at the June 3024, and at the June 3025, $931,000 of allowance for doubtful accounts.

Somebody ought to be checking into why we have such a large amount of doubtful of doubtful accounts that are due to the city.

Thank you. Please wrap up.

Pardon me? Please wrap up. Well, one last point. As Mr. Craig mentioned, the city refinanced those bonds at the behest of the finance committee which I chaired of the city dock action committee and we saved $15,000,000. That's $15,000,000 additional coming to the city that wouldn't that wasn't part of what the consultants originally said. So there's $15,000,000 out there over the life of those bonds that should certainly help resolve some of these parking issues that you heard from the citizens tonight. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your testimony. Is there anyone else who would wish to speak during this general comment period? Okay. Seeing no movement in chambers, I declare the general public comment period closed. Mister city attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is a council discussion ID 10926, the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel Counties, discuss the work they perform for our city.

Thank you. Mr. Fleming, executive director for the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel Counties. Good to see you. Please come forward. And anyone else that you have with you to present with you? So just as a context for this for the general public, the Resilience Authority is a joint city county entity and Mr. Fleming, I've invited Mr. Fleming here to talk a little bit about it both for the new members for information and a refresher for the returning members. Just give it a minute for the chambers to quiet down. It was me, wasn't it? It was.

We're just too excited about sustainability.

You for your patience while we got to the general comment period. Why don't you begin whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Jackie Guild, acting city manager. So we're delighted to have the director of the Resilience Authority here tonight, Matt Fleming, and the other full time employees and the Resilience Authority that the city works very closely with are Christina Alexander who is the director of programs and sorry, director of operations and Gabe Cohee who is the director of programs. And this, the Resilience Authority which is a financing mechanism for resilience infrastructure, the financing planning and implementation of that that they work with the city on was established in 2022.

Originally there was an assessment in 2018 of how the city and the county and Arundel County could finance the staggering bill we face to prepare for, mitigate, and adapt to the changes that come along with climate change. Following that finance assessment, the city and county worked with the general assembly and in 2020 a bill was passed that allowed jurisdictions in Maryland to establish resilience authorities and it also allowed which is unique to this resilience authority the ability to form cross jurisdictional authorities. So you could form cities and counties or counties and counties and cities and cities, multiple, and different combinations could form to address climate change. And in our case, in 2021, the city and the county passed concomitant bills which was required in order to form the resilience authority that between Anne Arundel County and the city of Annapolis. This is especially useful to the city of Annapolis because it allows the city and the county to apply for grants that we otherwise could not.

We can apply for regional grants that grant makers really like to see and cross

Excuse me. Excuse me. Miss Robinson and Alderman Gay, thank you. If you just don't mind taking your conversation outside. Thanks.

Allows us to address cross boundary issues and these are things the city and the county could not do alone but the Resilience Authority allows us to do that. So I just wanted to emphasize that point how important this has been to the city. The resilience authority in just the last two years, three years has generated millions. I'm talking like $50.65 millions of dollars to the city and the county for projects that sometimes benefit both jurisdictions and, they have saved us millions of dollars in saved infrastructure costs. So with that, I will turn this over to Matt for the rest of the presentation.

And I know you guys have a long long night ahead of you so I'll try to go quick. If there's anything, you know, the offers always stands. Current alderman, new alderman, happy to go out, grab a coffee, hear your priorities, go through any of this in more detail. So please, is your is your congratulations for winning your new seat that you get to meet with me. Yeah. So as Jackie said, you know, I'm joined. I have two colleagues that join me at the Resilience Authority. Prior to this role, I spent twenty five years at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. I was the assistant secretary for the waterside, so responsible for all the waterside. I I don't I'm not sharing that to to illustrate how long I've been in government.

I think my hair does that. I just you you'll see that in my approach and how I approach the work that, we've done kind of early early off the rip. And one other comment is as we're even though I think our logo is all over this, the resilience already and, you know, I'm I'm here talking about the resilience already. None of these projects happen without the expertise, professionalism that exists within the county, within the city, and within each of the departments. It's been a tremendous partnership since day one.

So alright. So as Jackie said, just kind of the past year, and I'm reporting on 2025. That's the last budget that that we closed out and and have an audited budget on. Our next budget of of progress will be June 30. First two years, we're really kinda getting our feet under us, getting our policies, the framework in the play in place so we can be successful.

I had the the the mayor as our our former treasurer that helped us kind of kinda set up a a good foundation. But just as Jackie said, within three years, we brought in, in total, a little over $50,000,000 for resilient infrastructure projects. That does include some of the recent grants that happened since this 2025. We're probably closer to 70,000,000. In 2025, in that past year, so 36,200,000 we brought in 2025 advanced 13 new projects.

And that 16,200,000, that's looking at at dollars spent on the ground for projects that avoid climate related damages, things like flooding, infrastructure impacts, etcetera. I'm not won't belabor this too much. Just a couple kind of wave tops here. First of the kind across the country, we're the first multi jurisdictional finance authority, dedicated for financing, infrastructure to mitigate current and future impacts of climate change. The point I wanna really wanna make here is that we don't sit between governments or above or within any one agency.

We sit we sit alongside. The mayor, county executive, county council, city council, my board challenged me to, like, you know, really off you know, in addition to, you know, bringing dollars in, let's try to serve as a model for other jurisdictions. We've been we've pretty much every county East Of 95, I've spoken to states up and down the Eastern Seaboard, defense communities. I've been flown out to Japan who are interested in our work. So you guys are setting an example not only nationally but internationally in this type of work.

The PCR capacity that complements not competes with local agencies, you know, I I can't stress this enough. You know, we're not trying to duplicate work that an expertise that exists within the city and the county. Again, coming from where I came from, I know that there's tremendous amount of work that's been done by the city and the county agencies, all the planning, all the expertise, and how we can build off of that. So I really view the resilience already as a kind of a force multiplier in helping to amplify the work that's happening at the city and the county. And then from a city and county budget perspective as you guys have been talking, where we can try to reduce the burden on local budgets and local taxpayers by bringing in dollars.

The last bit, our built in transparency measures. We produce an annual report, hopefully you guys all received that. It was probably right after you guys got into office. But we do an annual report that's audited financial statements, kinda highlights the projects we're working on. We also provide quarterly reports to all the city council, all the county council members.

And the way we do that is, you know, again, coming from my prior role is trying to make it easy for you guys to see a quick status on the projects we're working on, where they are, and just so you have a question you quickly refer to that or obviously you guys can always call me and get information that you need. I'm just gonna try to go through this quicker. Buckets of work. We protect we protect projects that, protect public and private places. So think our parks, our roads, where we work, where we live.

We energy resilience helping the city and the county make that transition to more reliable and renewable, less polluting energy infrastructure. And then obviously nature, you know, where we sit here in Annapolis, where the the county sits, you know, looking at resilience, you know, certainly try to help support the resilience of the and healthy ecosystems. Alright. Leadership and governance. We're overseen by our board of directors.

So we were, again, as Jackie mentioned, which was unique about that state legislation is each county or municipality decided to form a resilience authority could basically set it up to address its local priorities. We decided to really go in the direction of creating what's called a government instrumentality so we can operate as a nonprofit. So we're gonna see private funding, but also we can operate as a as a local government instrumentality. So we did that very purposely to go after grants, but also dollars that come in go right back in know, we're trying to go right back into projects to help support the city and the county. Our governance, we're overseen by our board of directors, so we we're able to we have our own procurement policies, debt financing policies.

We have nine members appointed by the mayor of Annapolis and I'm sorry. Three appointed by the yeah. I'll give you guys a few more tonight. Three appointed by the the mayor of Annapolis, nine by the the county executive. And again, kind of that strong foundation we started with, we had we have what we had at 1.2 city administrators on our board directors, Theresa Sullen, David Gerald currently.

We had a former county council member on our board. Really kind of folks that understand how the two jurisdictions work. The other part and again I'll start moving into projects. One other piece about the governance, one of the things that we did is we formed an advisory committee. And the advisory committee is made up of the department heads within the city and the county. So we're that, again, close tie, and Jackie's a member of our advisory committee, close tie with the city and the county to ensure that we're working not separate from but working on the city and the county priorities. I mentioned this before. Just a couple highlights here. Focused on projects. So a couple of things I like to tout is every dollar we bring in, 94¢ of those dollars go in the ground for projects.

And then from an operating side, for every dollar of operating expense, we've been able to leverage $47. Kind of the county over overview of the county projects where they sit geographically currently, and this is through 2025. Here's a quick snapshot of the city projects. As you guys know, city projects, of course, benefit the county as the city sits in the county. But also I think as I kind of run through the projects, you'll see that many of the county projects are benefiting the city.

Initially right off the start is we did with my board we kind of did a zero to three year start up plan and that's where we really focused on how can we get these projects that the city and county identified and all these plans that they're being asked to do by the state and how we can get these projects in the ground. So we went after a grants portfolio, that's where that 50,300,000 is largely projects, but now we're starting to move towards, you know, let's try to build a more resilient, reliable infrastructure, our funding revenue structure to help support these projects. Alright, so some project highlights. I won't go too long on these. As Jackie mentioned, the resilience authority competed for a state grant that benefit both the city and the county.

It's basically it's a new state restoration of five major watersheds across the Chesapeake Bay. We applied for on behalf of the city and the county folks on the 7 River Watershed. It's a five year funding source to help implement projects that help support the restoration but also integrates resilience of the 7 River Watershed. And several initial projects right off the bat really benefit the city. We have a couple stormwater projects, Key Point Giant, Truxtun Park, Brewer Hill Cemetery.

Coming in fiscal '27, we're looking at Merriman Stream restoration here in the city, Carr's Beach. We talked, I think, maybe last month with you guys on. It's helping support some additional work at Truxton Cove. And one of the things I wanna highlight here is we work very closely with Burr Vogel, with Vicky to identify projects that potentially fall in this area that we can bring funding to help reduce the burden on the capital budget. So projects that where we can kind of that cost avoidance side of things.

Just wanna

add there that one of the concerns by council and some of the committee members on various committees when we first entered into whether or not to form the resilience authority was that the county with its greater representation on the board would benefit more than the city. And that has not occurred at all as when we look at projects probably getting equal projects on both sides but with this grant particularly this five year grant from DNR, the city ended up coming out with far more projects than the county on the first year and we're doing really well in the second year. So it it it's not affected by the fact that we have more or less representation.

And what's unique there is that we were able to compete for this grant by leveraging county match to help these projects move forward. Couple other things. Again, I'm gonna try to move fast. So if I'm moving too quick, mayor Lippman, please.

Matt, can I jump in and add something else cool about your last slide? Just I want to point out also that the city among the five places that were awarded for this, I believe ours got the most on the ground money. And when I talk to people about it, they say it's because the Resilience Authority had the most shovel ready products projects. Yeah.

We certainly we had we were ready to to go from the start. We identified working with the city, working with the county, there's probably about $60,000,000 worth of infrastructure projects that were ready to move forward. So there's no lack of need there. And then we, of course, wanna show this to the county flip, we talk all about the county projects. So this project, again, outside of the outside of the city, this is just one of the completed projects, just kinda the uniqueness of our structure.

This is in the Jubez Watershed. It's just upstream here. Every time you would have a big rainstorm, you would see that stream bank just wash off into Southern River, flow down into down into down to Severn. What we were able to do is, you know, to try to get this project in pencil is link together county storm water funds, state storm water funds, but also because the approach we were taking is reconnecting the flood plain and really try to address flooding and the health of that system, we were to bring in some federal resilience styles to make this project get over the finish line. Jonas Green, again another county project, wonderful partnership with Dave Mendell within your hazard mitigation, emergency management just helped us kind of work through again kind of that partnership with the city and county help us work through the application to get some federal a federal earmark here.

But this project benefits the city of Annapolis residents. Obviously folks across this bridge, able to to recreate this park. We're looking to rebuild the kind of the the shoreline here, make it a little bit more of a a resilient system. Also, this ties into all the work that Eric Leshinsky is doing, you know, with the trying to build that trail way, you have an opportunity to connect to this park. Again, thinking about our projects beyond just one project, we can look a little more holistically.

Cars at Oconee Beach, you guys saw this last month maybe? I won't belabor this. Other than just want to highlight Roz, your Parks Director, as amazing as this project is going to be when we finish, the passion she puts in, every community meeting I've been into, every public meeting I've been into late at night she's been there kind of driving that. Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative is one of the first grants we got. Again, talking about how we really try to be a force multiplier for the work that's happening within the city and the county.

The city had all the work and focus on city dock. There's all, you know, all that effort in place. Right off the start, I I talked with it was then this city public works director was David Gerald. It's like, well, let's really start trying to build up the effort in in Eastport. So that's where we focused on.

The whole idea is to develop this portfolio of projects, develop a pipeline for implementation. So we identified the most vulnerable assets, what are the top 10 solutions developing those designs and that's where we are right now. Charging infrastructure, one of the projects we're doing with the county is managing its fleet charging infrastructure. And I think what's unique from the city side leverage kind of the expertise that we've gained through that process and the procurement vehicle that we have and trying to just kind of jump over all the learning and be able to build off that so we help support the city infrastructure projects. Grant that working with Jackie and her team and Dylan Lyconic.

I totally butchered his last name. I got close enough. We just received a grant from MEMIS, a state grant. We got some money for Antarctica County to support some of their solar generation, but the city announced over $400,000 for energy enhancements. Spot road, I think you guys have been briefed on this hopefully.

Again, you have an amazing team working on this one. This is a project where EPA dollars, we would not be be able to attract these EPA dollars without a structure separate from the city because the city brownfield sites you need a third party entity which we are able to serve go after these EPA dollars. Hopefully we'll find out the results of that by the end of next month. And Alison DiMateo with Public Works has been Mayor's expertise on this project. Electric feasibility study, I'm not going go too much detail here because one of the council members knows way more.

But we put out again helping to support mobility that's across the county, the city. So we're kind of looking at even though the focus is kind of Main Street West Street corridor, we ought to bring in some county dollars to help look at the whole connection within kind of that parole district and also leverage some private dollars to make this fund it, get it out, and I think by the end of May, May 2021. One area where I think there could be an opportunity to build some, again, I intentionally, again, Jackie introduced my colleagues, It's staff of three. I promised from the start we weren't going to be program building. We were focused on projects.

We leveraged the partnerships with the city, the county, and all the nonprofit experts as well as private experts that one area that is far outstripping our response to respond is about on the ground technical assistance to private communities, private property owners, but even helping us support the different departments within the city and the county. Again my background is twenty five years in coastal management. We can go out and look at solutions related to coastal to respond to some of the constant. This one here, resilient ready portfolio. Like I said from the start, we really focused on going through all different plans that exist in the city and the county as pull those projects forward.

We really, I won't say we exhausted, but really I pulled forward kind of those top set of lists. So now we're working that next process in developing kind of a dashboard that will continually pull from these reports so that we can stay current with all the implementation plan where we can pull together projects to make Anne Arundel County in the city of Annapolis. I I rushed through that quick.

What else?

I just want to emphasize that how much the resilience authority helps the city almost like an extension of our staff. There I mean, last year I think we a number of us were referred to as grant writing ninjas. We still pursue grants and other funding mechanisms, you know, full force, but the resilience authority multiplies that many times over. We just don't have the staff to do all the work they've done going you know, looking into different ways of financing besides grants, but exploring grants, especially regional grant opportunities, and then helping, you know, writing the bulk of it up. All of us across all departments work on feeding that and working very collaboratively with Matt's very small but mighty team.

So this is a real benefit to the city that we don't really, you know, we don't put much money into this if any right now, but it really pays and it's really worked out really well for us. And you've heard almost every department in the city is working with the Resilience Authority. I the Resilience staff, we work on many other projects, but we have our fingers in almost every all of these projects. But again it really supports our work and enhances our work many times over. So I really applaud all the work you guys have done. I appreciate you.

Very good. Any questions? Alderman Savage, then Alderman Shettemeyer.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, first of all, just a huge kudos to you and the team. I mean, just the amount of the breadth of projects you've been able to get engaged on and underway and completed is just phenomenal. And the amount of time that you've been an active organization is just so impressive. And I've got to say, great to work with. I think that's one of the you know, the environment knows no boundaries. Right? And I love how the authority's been that opportunity to really be a bridge between the city, the county, and the community. Right?

Like on the electric streetcar feasibility, bringing in foundation local foundations. On other projects, bringing in local philanthropists. Right? A huge, huge benefit to the city. And really, I think you often do better than the city or the county. I mean, you're able to get an RFP out in record time compared to, I think, in both jurisdictions. And I think it's you have a very small but very efficient operation. So oh, and I did I guess one question I did have is how how how's your relationship been with the state? Have you is there anybody on the state on your board? Have they been is there a particular agency you've really started to work with a

lot that

you've been able to improve communication on?

Coming from the state, had some pretty good I have a good network there. Not saying we got favoritism in any way as this is being recorded. You Certainly Department of Natural Resources, tremendous amount of expertise and partners that can lean on MEA, the Energy Administration, kind of building off that with some of the recent energy grants. And one of the things and, again, as this project moves forward to Carr's Beach, the regulatory agency, m MD and and, you know, regulatory agencies are always kinda getting held up as, oh, you guys are holding up the process, then they got an incredibly difficult job. They've been hand in hand working with us because the way and I you guys got this kinda heavy presentation about how we're really trying to incorporate the latest science on civil rights and the design of that project, which requires us to be a little more aggressive in kind of going title word and how we're approaching this project.

And they're working us hand to hand trying to make this project a kind of pilot and how you incorporate climate resilience into building within on kind of our I think all the state agencies have been great partners. I'm hopeful about the Department of Transportation and SHA and the streetcar and looking forward to getting there.

Yeah and I should say a huge thank you too for the Cars Beach work. I mean that's been that's another I think interesting project as far as it's more than just climate resilience. Right? It's also, I think, in many ways, a cultural resilience tying in with the the rich history of that site, but also with the the electric hybrid ferry connecting with downtown, connecting with black community in Hawkins Cove. Right? All these efforts, it really helps bridge, just like I said earlier, bridging the agencies, you also bridge the community. And a huge thank you for all of your work.

And, again, I can't say enough about the the new program created. People tend to always like, oh, what am I gonna lose when something new gets created? From this downwardly by the council, the county council, the openness to partner from day one has been tremendous. And I think that's

All I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Really fantastic presentation. I guess this is more of a comment than a question, but one of the frustrating things about these fantastic projects is the process to complete them does take a very long time. A lot of checking boxes, lot of paperwork, lot of going through the steps for the sake of going through the steps.

So if you guys hit any process for the sake of process things that we can control at the city level, please let us know because we would love to cut through that red tape. Because delaying these projects, as we all have seen from the catastrophe of climate change, leads to very big real world problems. So if you see those problems that you hit city bureaucracy that because of things in our code, please let us know because I'm sure most of us or all of us would love to cut through that.

Alderman Huntley? Well, I sometimes just like Alderman Chandelmeier over there reached my mind. I was gonna say something very similar, but maybe a little bit more targeted. It's the green tie, I think. That's what we've both got going on today. And

the Oxfords.

Yeah.

I was thinking slightly different than what he was saying. Specific to procurement, because as I think you know, it's part of what I do on my day job, environmental procurement. And I appreciate that the resilience authority always is going to and should have more flexibility than the city does with procurement. At the same time, if there are things that you guys learn as opportunities for whatever in procurement where not necessarily the city's procurement process is holding up something the resilience authority wants to do, but as you guys have lessons learned about what does work well, we'd love to hear them about how we can speed up our procurement processes.

Thank you. One of the issues that the Resilience Authority faces is that any time you need something to be changed in your code, need the city and the county to both to change it at the same time essentially and to have those changes be done. You can't have the city make amendments that the county and vice versa. So with that framework in mind, do you have any proposed legislation that we should be aware of?

Yeah. So there was legislation introduced by at the county. This is something that the the board has been talking about for a while now. As I mentioned before, there's nine positions that have to be resident of Anne Arundel County, three that have to be residents and appointed by the mayor of the of Annapolis. The board has been interested in exploring that from a philanthropic standpoint, big funders that sometimes they like to see, not that we don't have a tremendous amount of expertise within those areas, but sometimes there's some expertise outside of our area that may benefit the board.

So there has been, conversation with the the county council. They introduced legislation that would provide some flexibility for the county executive and then the mayor if the if the city is willing to provide allow some flexibility for a certain number of board members to be outside of you kind of reduce those residential resident restrictions.

What is the status of that legislation before the

I think got interested in HEARD. That's where it is right now at the county.

Okay. So because the legislation has does that make sense what we're talking about? Okay. Because the legislation has to be identical, what has happened so far with the Resilience Authority is the county as a bigger jurisdiction, more members, more money, has led with passing their legislation and once it's complete, then the city would introduce corresponding legislation. It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing though. Certainly don't want to step on any council's right to make amendments but if you make amendments then they have to go back to the county.

Just a slight correction there. So you have we have to pass significantly similar legislation. It doesn't have to be identical. But when you're talking about what we're talking about here is adding certain kinds of organizations, the flexibility to do that to the board pretty much has to be identical. But otherwise, any other amendments, it's the the language is significantly similar.

Correct. Okay. So my instinct is to follow precedent and let the county finish. Okay? Finish the county finish its legislation and then introduce it in the city. Just wanted to let you know that context and have you get a chance to see the big picture of how that fits in. Does that give anyone heartburn? The alternative is to introduce the legislation now but then we, you know, we wanted to make sure we're substantially similar to the county's version.

And having gone through that, when we passed the initial legislation, were doing it at the same time. Actually, city started first and then got bogged down. It's it is a little bit more difficult when you're doing it at the same time.

Alderman Smith Brown.

Sure. Two points here. Thank you so very much. I look forward to talking further on this matter. For those who may wonder a question, how do we hand projects over to a resilience authority or how do we encourage the resilience authority to step in and manage what we at the time may not be able to. Will you provide that overview?

Yeah. So, I mean, I obviously, I work closely with the city and the county. So I work with their staff. So those priorities, we we're identifying those as within the plans, the capital budget, etcetera, and trying to figure out how bring funding for those projects. If there are projects that are outside of that process and, you know, a priority of the council members, you know, certainly, I'm open to meet with you all. And again, I one of my goals is to make sure that not saying that a certain council member is aware of a project or has a priority that conflicts with what the city or the county wants to do, but we just want to make sure that it's not they're they're a lot of steps. That it's not, you know, if there's a stream restoration project but there's a planned roadway improvement project that we figure out to tie those projects together. That makes sense.

So it it could be generated by staff or an alderman or by the resilience floor. They come to us. Go, there's an opportunity. Would you are you interested in working with us or are you interested in working with the county? So but what I would recommend that

you

do is that if it let's say it's storm water restoration that you're interested in, a particular project or an idea, that you go to, our director of public works. You know, whatever director is appropriate and and speak with them and so that you could jointly go to the resilience authority because they can help you formulate what you're asking.

And certainly, you know, the role that has been really interesting kind of coming from my previous life is trying to figure out to be a solutions provider. Like where we can, you know, I'm not, know, Jackie has to, you know, all the different requirements that a government employee has to do, managing staff, time cards and everything that takes time in your day, procurement policy, can go out to a site and help provide some initial recommendations, some solutions and bring that back. Again, that is where that close relationship is. So if there's a priority and you think of calling me, of course I go out there, we take a look at a project, but I would follow right back up with Byrne and his team to make sure that, you know, the

Thank you for that. The other point was a core looking at the legislation as it stands today, which was introduced by Julie Hummer, the chair at the time of accounting counsel, I I would say that it removes the requirement from both the nine members appointed by the county executive and the three members appointed by the mayor for any residency. And so as it stands today, mayor Littman, I do not believe that, the legislation would be favorable. I think that there should be some type of residency requirement there or listed that it is an option, not necessarily a requirement.

So as I understood the legislation, the city and county residents would be a preference. It's only when they're seeking a director with certain expertise that they can identify in a city or county resident, depending respectively. Is the is there any change from what I just said?

That's correct. And I think the conversation in the initial introduction, some of the conversation about like has been about, you know, maybe there's a certain number of members that that would be outside of the jurisdictions.

And, well, according to the legislation, it says the nine members shall be, in brackets indicate matter deleted from existing law and taglines, residents of the county appointed by the county executive. So they're removing residents of the county, and it would just be nine members shall be appointed by the county executive. And it says three members shall be the brackets, residents of the city of Annapolis, in brackets, appointed by the mayor of the city of Annapolis. So they're removing residents of the county and removing residents of the city of Annapolis in all in the original legislation which was introduced on April 20. So I just wanted to share that the hearing was is scheduled for the eighteenth. So maybe they'll provide some amendments or updates there.

And that was the conversation. Yes. I just wanna

share that that's the original legislation.

Thank you, Walderman. Okay. Again, thank you, Director Fleming, for coming and staying so late with us. To further build on what you were saying in Alderman Smith Brown, you were asking about their solution providers. So any project they take on has to be consistent with their charter. So you can't ask them to put out crossing guards in front of a school unless you could figure out a way to tie that in to how that's better for resilience infrastructure. As a just trying to be a light example.

Crossing guards is a light example.

But yeah, if you Director Fleming will be happy to talk with you about how to brainstorm or we'll just brainstorm with you on any council member of how they could potentially be solution oriented. We are so fortunate not only to have the resilience authority but to have Director Fleming whose expertise and background with DNR, working with different legislative bodies, knowledge of grants, and the people who can put those grants into action. We are just incredibly fortunate to have you leading the Resilience Authority and be so cooperative with us. So thank you Director, thank you Jackie for being the liaison and appreciate your presentation. It doesn't look like there's any further questions.

Thank you for time.

Alright. Mister city attorney, I think we're ready to begin the next step of the agenda.

If you can please call up.

The next item on the agenda is public hearings continued beginning with ordinance o eight twenty six annual budget and appropriation and property tax levy. Okay. I'm gonna do this a little fast because I'm not seeing

a lot of people I'm not seeing anybody signed up or anyone rushing to the podium. If there's anyone who wishes to speak on eighttwenty six, please come to the podium now. Seeing no movement in chambers, I am concluding that no one is here to speak on this. My intent is to leave this open for one more meeting. Anyone think otherwise? Okay. I declare public hearing eight twenty six open with the intention of we have public hearing one more time. Mr. City Attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is resolution r ten twenty six, f y 27, annual fees schedule.

Okay. And anyone who wishes to speak on this matter, please come forward. Not seeing anyone come forward. I am concluding that there's no one wish to speak today. I'll declare public hearing on R1026 open for one more meeting.

Mr. City Attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is resolution r eleven twenty six f y twenty twenty seven fine schedule.

Okay. At this time, if anyone wishes to speak on r eleven twenty six, please approach the podium. Tom, just adjusting your seat. Okay. Not seeing anyone approaching, I'm concluding that no one wishes to speak on this. I declare a public hearing on R11.26 open for one more meeting. Mr. City Attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

Next item is resolution r twelve twenty six f y twenty twenty seven position classifications and pay plan.

Alright. At this time, if there's anyone that wishes to speak, please come forward. Seeing none, concluding that no one else is intending to speak on this, I declare the public hearing R1226 open for one more meeting. City attorney,

please call the next item on the agenda. Next item is approval of the consent calendar. Items on the consent calendar include journal of proceedings, CCM four seven twenty six special meeting minutes, CCM four thirteen twenty six regular meeting minutes, CCM four twenty seven twenty six special meeting minutes. Thank you. Any objection to

the consent calendar? Seeing none, I entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. Thank you Alderman Schandelmeier. Alderman Thorpe, point of order.

Yes sir. Did the rules committee not forward the reappointment to the planning commission?

You talking about Mr. Svec Gounoudis? Yes. So we addressed that in the opening when we asked for approval of the minutes. We amended it to take him off.

Okay. Thank you.

Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Madam City Clerk please call the roll.

Yes sir. Mayor Littman. Aye. Alderman Huntley.

Aye.

Alderman O'Neill. Aye. Alderman Smith Brown. Aye. Alderman Alsop Johnson. Aye. Alderman Shanmaier. Aye. Alderman McConty. Aye. Alderman Savage. Aye. Alderman Thorpe.

Aye. Thank you.

Thank you. Alderman Thorpe, just for a little added information, there essentially was two different systems of tracking who was up for renewal and so we sorted it out and Mr. Spakanewis was not due up. Yep. Thank you. Sure. Mister city attorney, please call the next item on

the agenda. Next item is business and miscellaneous item fund transfer f t 11 public works capital projects. This fund transfer moves a $156,974 from Cedar Park sidewalks project to bonds watershed stormwater ms4 permit compliance project.

You. Do you accept ft 11/26?

So moved.

Thank you, Alderman Huntley. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. Mister city attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

The next item is fund transfer f t twelve twenty six general fund non allocated finance department. This budget revision transfers a $195,000 from the finance department salaries and benefits account and a $143,000 from the non allocated debt services account to the finance department contractual services account.

Thank you. I'd entertain a motion to accept f t twelve twenty six.

So moved.

Thank you Alderman Thorpe. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Those I in favor say have a question. Yes, discussion?

Yes. Regarding that transfer for contractual services, do we have at least maybe a breakdown or understanding of it says that it is outstanding consulting expenses. So are these expenses that we have yet to pay and we're looking to make sure that we're funding it? Or is this what is this specifically?

Alderman Huntley, were you were you raising to ask a question or to answer his question?

Answer it, but you should take it if you have Basically, the we were while we have not had a finance director, we've been employing consultants to step in that role. When you have somebody short term like that, they're going to be a higher hourly rate. We thought we were very close to hiring a finance director. Turned out that didn't work out. So we're continuing to pay those consultants, and that's what this money is for.

And who are the consultants for the record?

I feel a little bit like I'm in the courtroom to identify.

Harborview Consulting and Joel Blockle has been the acting finance director and Sean Doyle has also been on this team.

And he's in the room with us

right now.

It's just for the record because you know this isn't always listed in the details so it's important for us to share what it is. That's fine. Okay.

Yep. Okay. Any further discussion on FT1226? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Mister city attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

The next item is legislative actions on first readers beginning with charter amendment CA two twenty six, expanding the board of supervisors of elections membership. Is there

a motion to adopt CA two twenty six on first reader? So moved. Thank you Alderman Huntley. Is there a second?

Second. Any

discussion?

I'd like to be added as a cosponsor.

Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The ayes have it. Motion carries. I refer CA two twenty six to the rules and city government committee. Mister city attorney, please call the next item on

the agenda. Next item is ordinance o nine twenty six updating the standing committee section of the city code. Is there a

motion to adopt o nine twenty six on first reader? Moved. Thank you Alderman Schandelmeyer. There a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Okay, seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. I refer o nine twenty six to the rules and city government committee. Mister city attorney, call the next item on

the agenda. Next item is ordinance o ten twenty six reducing the human relations commission membership.

Okay. Is there a motion to adopt o ten twenty six on first reader?

So moved. Thank

you, old woman O'Neil. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I refer ten twenty six to the rules in city government committee. They're gonna be busy. Mr. City Attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

The next item is legislative actions on second readers beginning with ordinance o two twenty six moorings requirements in city waters. Thank you.

I'll ask for a motion to withdraw o two twenty six on 20 Thank you Alderman Thorpe. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. All those in any discussion?

Is that under your direction? You're saying they would withdraw this?

I am looking for a motion to withdraw and it was made by Alderman Thorpe. Oh okay. Yep. Okay, any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any nos? The motion carries. Mr. City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

The agenda is completed. Thank you.

Is there anything for the good of the order? Sure. Okay. Alderman O'Neill.

Thank you very much. I wanna remind everybody that this is the two hundred and fiftieth year of celebration. I do have passports if anybody's interested. They're also available at the Indianapolis. They're really great opportunities to visit places that are revolutionary in Annapolis. And we just completed our schedule for July third and fourth. It's pretty amazing. We're showing Hamilton on the big screen at St. John's College outside on July 3. And on July 4 there's activities starting at nine a. Going through the end of fireworks. Check out the website annapolis250.net.

Thank you, Alderwoman. Is there anyone else who has anything for the record? Alder Smith? Alder Huntley. Okay. Thank

you. Thank you, mayor. So two points here. The first, I wanted to just in working with Jerry Blackwell, which you mentioned in your report today, thank you very much for clarifying and providing some more detail on that. We we just wanted to say appreciation again to Adam Strach, who's one of our employees in the city of Annapolis.

And as you mentioned in your report, he has been literally walking Jerry through every single part. And I think that's the type of service that we need in our government, especially for whether you wanna say an elder or someone who may not be tech savvy. And so we just wanna give that out, shout that out for tonight. As well as in light of the conversation around the 02/1950, it's it's quite concerning, at least what was brought to my attention, some of the concern of looking further into and really begging the question if if we would be having other representation displayed around the city aside from slave owners signers as it regards to this. That was a question that was brought, and so I just wanted to see if that's been of conversation at all or if that's a plan as we begin jumping straight into this $250 recognition.

Excuse me, two fifty year recognition.

Okay. Thank you for adding that comment. If anyone wishes to discuss, we can. Okay. Alderman Huntley. I just

want to bring up two things about the budget. First, a huge thank you to Alderman Thorpe and Alderman O'Neill, to miss Jackson and miss Berger, and then also the whole finance team. I mean, this has been a really pleasant process. It's it's been a real pleasure to work with all of you guys. So really just appreciate.

I know we're not done yet, but we're we're through a good chunk, I it it has been smoother than last year, and it has been a a real joy. So thank you all. The second thing is, as I've said to quite a few of you guys, we're hoping to do something new with the amendment process this year to make it a little more equitable and also more efficient, too. So if you have not already, please do look through that email that I sent. I don't have the title of it immediately, but it's something like a budget amendment.

And just let me know if you have any glaring issues with that process. I heard a couple of feedback from Alderman Savage. I know I need to get back to you. I think all those are very addressable, but would really love to hear from anybody else if there are opportunities for improvement. And I'm excited to move forward into the second half of our role in the budget.

You. Alderman Smith Brown, I just wanted to at least raise the suggestion to you, particularly about the project that you were just talking about and your kind comments about Mr. Straat. Just consider sharing those kind comments in the same ways that you were sharing concerns about the project recently. Absolutely. Thank you. Alderman Thorpe.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, three things I'd like to highlight. One, I'd like to commend MRE for the incredibly strenuous effort to coordinate the spot creek point zero five ks run, which is a tremendous fundraiser and tremendous community event. A lot of volunteers put that together.

I'd also like to brief the council and anyone watching and commend Vic Pascoe and a group of other people who took it upon themselves to set a goal to raise $9,000 to send children in need to Annapolis City camps. I know Alderman Conti was involved in that as well. And I really want to commend that group. They set a goal to raise $9,000 and they rose almost $11,000 Really impressive effort. And I'd also like to thank you, mister mayor, for your effort as well as alderman Conte and alderman O'Neill in the effort to get Harbor House pool open this summer.

It has been a challenge to do from an organizational perspective, but I can I would like to really stress to the city council and to the people of Annapolis how impressive it is that the leadership of Annapolis has really stepped forward to make sure that that pool is open and thank you for your leadership to make that happen?

Thank you. I would admit that I'm still nervous that it will be able to come through but I'm optimistic at the same time. I was tempted to ask you for a list of the winners from the o five race so we can acknowledge them in this meeting's opening comments, but I thought it was already too long as it was.

I think there were 30 awards including former mayor Ellen Moyer who was commended maybe I shouldn't say what she was commended for but she was she she received one of the big awards. So thank you.

Thank you, Alderman. Alderman Savage?

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Just some moments of gratitude. I did want to extend a thank you to the administration for giving the council and staff some additional time on our budget amendment work. And related to that, I thank the staff for giving us back very rapid and well, rapid and thorough answers.

Much better than years past. And last, certainly not least, to thank the finance committee for all your work you've done. I know we haven't all been able to attend, but many of us have still paid attention and benefited from your deliberations. But also just thank the chair in particular for really having those meetings be quite efficient this year. Definitely packed full of information. So, yeah, thanks all around. I think hopefully that means we'll have a relatively smooth budget process. Thank you.

If you mean the efficiency of the meetings is determined by the members more than by the chair.

And the magnitude of the number of amendments.

That's a later meeting.

Anyone else? Okay. Being There no other items on the agenda, I entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you Alderman O'Neill. There a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye.