Board of Town Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's now 7 o'clock on July the 20th, and the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners Town Hall meeting is now in session. And I'm going to briefly call the roll. Commissioner Chismar.

Here.

Commissioner Taylor.

Here.

And Commissioner Hanley. Here. And Commissioner Foss did let us know that she could not be with us this evening due to a conflict in her schedule. And next we have the invocation.

Dear Lord, we are grateful to be gathered tonight to discuss town business. We are grateful to live in a beautiful, safe, flourishing town with incredible staff and citizenry. We ask that you continue to bless the town and give us the agency to make decisions with wisdom and clarity. In your name we pray, amen.

Amen. All right, if everyone will please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. Next, we have the approval of the agenda. May I have a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you. Any changes to the agenda this evening? All right. In that case, Mr. Krantz, we're ready for a vote on the agenda.

Thank you Madam Chair this is for the approval of the Baylor Board of Town Commissioners Town Hall meeting agenda for July 20th 2026 Commissioner Chismar Aye Commissioner Taylor Aye Commissioner Hanley Aye and Chair Enning Aye Agenda is approved thank you Thank you all right next we have the approval of the minutes may I have a motion

Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the minutes be approved as submitted.

Thank you. And do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Commissioner Chisholm. Any discussion of the minutes this evening? All right. We're ready, Mr. Krantz.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for approval of the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioner meeting minutes held on June 8th, June 22nd, and July 7th. Commissioner Chisler, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Taylor? Aye. Commissioner Hanley? Aye. And Chair Edding? Aye. Minutes are approved. Thank you.

All right. Moving on to new business, we have Resolution 1277-26, the Bel Air Planning Commission Annual Report for 2025. May I have a motion?

Yes, Madam Chair. I move the resolution number 1277-26, the Planning Commission 2025 Annual Report, be filed with the Beller Board of Town Commissioners.

Thank you, Commissioner Chismore. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Hanley. And Mr. Baird.

Yes, thank you. I apologize it took a bit of time to bring this to you. The Planning Commission actually approved the annual report in February as one of Kevin Small's I think last official actions and didn't realize in the transition that we hadn't brought it to you yet. So I brought you your copies tonight. This is a report that annually gets filed with the Maryland Department of Planning. which they then compile all the data for the report that goes back to each of the jurisdictions within the state. So what this does, it's required under the land use article that all the planning commissions file this report as a legislative body, and then it's particularly focused on development capacity, preservation activities, and the implementation of the comprehensive plan. so that if you page through it or will look through it, you will notice and note all of the details relative to that. We will also note that in 2025, the development regulations regarding open space were reviewed and changes were made to advance how the fee in lieu may be implemented. As I think many of you know, after several years of slow residential building permit issuance, residential projects picked up in 2025. The Planning Commission approved four new single-family lots along Linwood Avenue, 30 new apartments along Bond Street as part of the mixed-use development, as well as two residential building permits were issued. Preliminary approval of commercial projects continued with the expansion of the Chick-fil-A last year, the drive-thru, and development of office and restaurant uses along Bond Street as part of the mixed-use development that we mentioned earlier. As well, there's detail about the Board of Appeals and Historic Preservation Commission approvals and other data included in the plan. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Mr. Baker? Madam Chair, did we not get around to changing the section of the code that requires us to vote on this? Maybe the Town Council remembers.

We changed the section of the code concerning acceptance of the growth report, not the Planning Commission's annual report.

He said that word requires it to file with us and that's what tripped me off there. Okay, I got you.

And it's just filed. The other language we have been using sort of sounded like we were approving it or something and we have no input into it. It's produced by somebody else and we just have it to work with in the future for planning purposes. And we didn't want it to sound like we had any say in the matter because we don't. And this is very similar. We don't have any hand in producing this report, but I know it is required by law to be filed with us, and this will allow there to be a record that it actually has been filed. So I think that's where we are with that. Anyone have any questions for Mr. Behr? I know this will be very fascinating reading and ought to be familiar to us because we ought to know about all these projects that are in there since we've seen them over the year. Anything else? All right.

I will note that the county's report was completed as of June 1st, so we'll be forwarding that on to you. And if anybody would like a print version, please let me know. Okay.

Thank you. All right. So there's no member of the public here to comment. So Mr. Krantz, I think we are ready for the vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the vote on Resolution 1277-26. Commissioner Chismark? Aye. Commissioner Taylor? Aye. Commissioner Hanley? Aye. And Chair Edding? Aye. The resolution is accepted. Thank you.

All right. Next, we have Resolution 1278-26 to adjust the term limit of Jeffrey Stamm to the Bel Air Planning Commission. May I have a motion?

Madam Chair, I move that the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners approve resolution number 1278-26, adjusting the term limit of Jeffrey Sam on the Town of Bel Air Planning Commission.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

Second.

All right. Mr. Behr or Ms. Thompson? This is the Planning Commission. We're adjusting the term limit of Mr. Jeffrey Stamm so we can not have four commissioners in a year be named to the Planning Commission.

Correct. So Maryland law requires that the Planning Commission members serve a term of five years and those five-year terms be staggered. Mr. Chismar recently... brought to the attention of the board and staff that the Planning Commission was not staggered in taking a look at this the easiest solution was to reduce down Jeffrey Stamps term of five years by eight months to change his date of expiration so they would literally be in line one after the other We did speak to Mr. Stamm at the public hearing, the last planning commission. He had no objection to that reduction, and we did encourage him that at the end of his term, he can certainly ask for a reappointment. That reappointment would be for five years. There are going to be two spots that are gonna be open. We recognize the staggering issue may still be an issue in the future, but we'll try to keep a better tab on that staggering issue in the future to avoid any kind of issues. Okay.

So hopefully this will fix it now and for the future so we don't have so much turnover at the same time, leaving the board with a number of members who aren't really experienced, and it's nice to have a good mix of new people and folks that have been there for a while. Correct.

Any questions for Mr. Behr or Ms. Thompson about that?

All right. There being no member of the public here to comment, we're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is for the approval of Resolution 1278-26. Commissioner Chismore? Aye. Commissioner Taylor? Aye. Commissioner Hanley? Aye. And Chair Edding?

Aye.

Resolution is approved. Thank you.

All right. Next, we have the purchase of some Axon body-worn cameras. May I have a motion?

Yes, Madam Chair, I move that the quote from Axon Enterprises Incorporated for the renewal of the Axon Body-Worn Camera Contract and the associated accessory package that accompanies the system for a total cost for a five-year period of $420,103.20 be accepted by the Board of Town Commissioners.

Thank you, Commissioner Taylor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioners. I'll second. Sorry about that. There you go, Chief.

Got it.

Thank you. The town of Bel Air Police Department initially began equipping officers with body-worn camera in 2020, well before the mandate required by Maryland law. since then the town has entered into additional contracts with axon enterprises to upgrade and support our body worn camera system the last contract upgrade was completed in october 2023 the two largest contracts were for five-year terms however early negotiations and renewals began for cost-saving efforts The early renewal will enable consolidation efforts of two additional smaller open contracts that were grant funded through the Governor's Office of Crime Prevention and Policy, otherwise known as GO-CAP. These contracts had different renewal dates and were slated to conclude in the near future. Additionally, some useful features included in those contracts would have been eliminated with the expiration. Those features will be merged into the new five-year contract. This renewal will result in full vendor support for 40 body cameras accompanying accoutrements, the cloud-based video evidence storage program, evidence.com, and other useful features, which I'll highlight some of those below. Since its inception, the system has unquestionably promoted and strengthened officer safety, complaint reduction, department transparency, community relations, investigative findings, court prosecutions, and their training demands. Benefits of the early renewal of the contract expiring in November 2027 include cost savings of $199,988.81 over the course of the contract. A vendor representative has also refined the contract to include nearly $200,000 in bundled savings and an estimated $42,000 in cost avoidance by early renewal. lastly the town will receive three thousand seven hundred fifty five dollars and forty three cents transfer credit from the consolidation of three contracts into one technology upgrades of hardware will continue to proceed with the new contracts several software upgrade features to include some consolidated from the past contracts include auto redaction which will automatically identify screen faces screen and faces and license plate license plates auto tagging This will automatically sync with the computer-aided dispatch incident with video evidence. Unlimited memory. Past a la carte memory purchases were needed because of insufficient memory capacity.