Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor and council meeting for Tuesday, August 25th. Please stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And Julie, roll call.

Councilmember John.

Here.

Council Member Smothers.

Here.

Council Member Sandusky.

Here.

Council Member Caves.

Here.

All present and accounted for with the exception of Council Member Bonanno and our vacant seats.

All right, thank you. Okie dokie. Under Mayor's remarks, we have no items tonight, so I'll move on to Citizens Forum. During Citizens Forum, members of the public are given the opportunity to speak and present comments. Individuals are required to state their first and last name and address for the public record and are given three minutes to speak. Comments made during this time should be directed to the mayor. Citizen comments are encouraged. Members of the council and staff will not be expected to immediately respond to any subject brought up. The mayor may respond or permit individual members to respond. Citizens with specific questions requiring dialogue are encouraged to set up an appointment with the appropriate individuals. So with that, if anybody here tonight would like to speak, come on up and state your name and address and you have three minutes. Anybody? All right, seeing none, then let's move along to resolutions and ordinances. Tonight we have resolution 2026-19, which is the revision of the administrative fee schedule. Bruce.

Yeah, good evening. This is more of a housekeeping item. Last meeting we adopted the ADU ordinance. This is the resolution to amend the development administrative fee schedule to add that incremental impact and it shows up on page four and page three. Page three and four. Any questions?

Questions for Bruce? Or a motion? I make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-19. I'll second it. Motion and second. Discussion? Councilmember Cates?

Just one question. Just confirming the only thing that's changed in this from last time is we have the ADU fees in there. Correct. Got it.

Any other questions or comments? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The vote is unanimous on Resolution 2026-19. Next up is Ordinance 634, Mayor and Council Salaries Carry.

This is a leftover item that Got really far down on my to-do list. So this has been sitting in my lap for a while now. When we redid the charter last year, the old charter used to say the amount of salaries for the mayor and council. We took that language out of the charter because it's pretty specific for that level of document. So we made reference in the charter to being able to set those amounts periodically by resolution. So this amount sets them at the current rates, which is... Oh gosh, let me see here. 96,000, I bet you wish. 9,600 annually for mayor and 3,600 annually for council members. That will be set by resolution and stay there until which time it's brought up by someone else in the future. That's no change from what it currently is and has been for quite a while.

Any questions? And we are not clear as to how long it's been at that rate, correct?

at least 23 years, as long as I've been here. And I did misspeak. I said it was a resolution. It's by ordinance. So this is the first read. It would be second read and vote next time. There has been discussion about increasing it. If you notice, there is. language in the ordinance or code or ordinance now that speaks about when and how it could be increased. That is relatively newer language as far as it goes probably, I don't know, maybe 10 or 12 years ago. Council Member Lashley at the time brought that about. And of course it states, I'm paraphrasing, but if the council were to enact an increase of the salary, it would not be put into effect until the following election. So basically you can't you can't vote on an increase of your own salaries.

So if we were to vote on an increase, it wouldn't take effect until 2028. 2026.

it would be each seat yeah you're well you're okay you just got re-elected so yours probably would not take effect 28. someone who has only two years left theirs would be now if you're re-elected into that seat then the new rate would come into effect then but it would basically we'd have some council members making the first amount until their four-year term was completed

Basically, that is a stagger. You have to be reelected.

It's staggered with the terms, yes.

In order for it to apply to you or otherwise whoever.

Correct. Well, I make a motion that we approve Ordinance 634. It's the only first read tonight. Okay.

I do wonder if it's time to have a conversation about whether it's an opportune time to have a conversation about increasing it. Particularly, we just got through a general election in which we didn't have the election because we had only one person outside the current council step up. I don't think this is a decisive factor in that. I don't think any of us are really doing it for the money that comes with it. but I do wonder if it's one factor that goes into some folks considerations. I know there's a few people who had some interest theoretically in running and then decided not to. And I was just riding on the train this morning, kicking around, looking at sort of bases for comparison. And my mind went to like the National Guard, a similar sort of thing where it's a civic sort of part-time gig. And when I was looking at the numbers, the first I looked at was, Captain in the Army National Guard makes something along the lines of 14K a year if he or she is only doing the sort of weekend drill and the annual training. So no deployments, no active service, anything like that. And to me that seemed sort of similar in certain ways that that responsibility that that individual would have to, for example, the mayor of Brunswick. As the captain in the Army, you've got a bit of a larger set of personnel that you're managing, but it's also a much less complicated organization than a city staff is, a military company. And that army captain is also not responsible for decisions that affect a town of 8,000 or so people. And then looking at comparing sort of council member salaries to what you see in the National Guard, we make about half as much as a buck sergeant would. So Uncle Sam obviously has more resources, but it was an interesting sort of point of comparison. And it occurred to me that there's a couple of things we could look at if we did want to look at something like that, mindful of the fact obviously that we're not raising it essentially for ourselves, it wouldn't take effect until after an intervening election. One possibility for a sort of more modest increase would be if you looked at increasing it by about 25% compared to the way it is now. That would bring the mayor's salary over the course of the year up to $12,000 a year, which amounts to about $1,000 a month. And bringing the council salaries would go up to $4,500 a year, which would amount to about $375 a month for a total budget impact of $1,000 a year. what I calculated was $7,800, so less than 10K. That's the sort of modest, and I'm more sort of, if we were to say, hey, we wanna bring it closer to these sort of things that I've discussed now, guards for example, and say, hey, it's been a long time, we haven't done this for a while. If you increased it by 50%, you'd be bringing the mayor's salary up to $14,400 a year, which amounts to about 1200 bucks a month. council salaries to 5,400 a year, 450 bucks a month for a budget impact of about $15,600. So just throwing some numbers out on the table. This isn't something I have particularly strong feelings about, but I know it's a conversation that often we'd be nervous to start, but throw it out there, see if anyone is interested in having that conversation.

I can add one quick thing. Emmitsburg has been looking at this recently and has shared with us some numbers that they've used. I would look at it personally from a staff perspective. Personally, I don't think that council members should do this research because of the nature of like what you just said. I would look at similar types of government and similar populations and I would pull the other municipalities. And as the clerk, I certainly have those resources and things. So I could do that research and have those numbers. But I think that that's probably the best, you know, You can't do it with a different form of government because the council members and mayors have different responsibilities.

Council Member Smothers?

She was right on target with where I was going. I was wondering when was the last time that the city actually did a study since we're saying that's 23 years. That's a long time.

Maybe longer.

Well, it's longer. I mean, we don't have a starting point or an end point. Well, we know what the end point is. But I would think that we should look at other municipalities of the same size and what we do. Especially in this day and age, none of us are doing it for the financial reasons here, for sure. It's not the reason why we ran, or at least that's not why I ran, but I think it would behoove us to look outside and see what other jurisdictions of similar size, military side, but I think that would get us a better opportunity to take a look and see what's comparable and then base our decisions based on some of that information that we receive.

I believe Dave Dunn actually did do that. about six or seven years ago. I remember that being discussed in about the time that Harry Lashley had put his proposal forward. And I don't recall the results, but whatever they were, the council decided not to act upon them. So we have looked at it in the last 23 years, but I don't think anything has changed. I mean, I look at it generally almost an expense reimbursement. We've got mileage going back and forth to this and that, childcare, any number of things going on. There's some level of effort involved. If nothing else, it's hours that I would not be able to be working at my paying job. There's something to be said for that. I think it's certainly worth looking at it and get some data and see where we stand.

Brian, anything?

Sorry, I thought you had your light on. I was nodding along because I agree with everything that's been said. I know that Carrie and I have discussed it just as a casual conversation about a month ago. I think it's actually something that is slightly overdue to be looked at, even if we don't do anything change-wise.

I do remember when we looked at it before. You're right, it hasn't been done. I'll find that. It'll be in the old council packets and I have all that information. But we'll start a new search and look for now because, you know, I don't know how many have updated since then, but I will find that old data too, so.

All right, so just a couple comments from me just to button this up. One is I think whatever we do tonight's first read on Ordinance 634, we should pass at least that at the next one because currently nothing's written anywhere. So let's at least put what's currently occurring back on the books, and that will solve that. And then I am happy to do the will of the council if you guys want to research this. I personally don't think we should at this point only because I'm Conscious that there is a mountain of work going on right now. And I think what's going to come back is we're probably within a few thousand dollars of where we need to be. Nothing earth shattering. And so I just don't think it's a priority. But if the consensus here is for Carrie to do that, then we will do it. So. Maybe head nods or no, or just some final comments on it. I mean, it's always good to know. I just, there is a lot going on right now, so.

I appreciate that. I think that we should at least take a look at it and see where we're at.

Okay. Everybody want to do that?

Yeah, and I don't think there's a huge urgency to do it right away, too. Right. Okay. If something comes back later in the year, next year or something. All right, so that's what we'll do then.

If the will is, we'll bring this back and then we can at least get that on the books and then Carrie can start looking at that. All righty. Next up, council liaison reports. We'll start with council member Caves.

Canal Towns Partnership Trail to History brochure is been updated now. It's in production so there should be a new brochure coming out to various locations in the towns soon. We've got, I usually have this in front of me and now I'm trying to find it. History Commission, History Commission, the Distinguished Citizens Luncheon is coming up on September, And so that's the luncheon that we do each year to honor the sort of 10 to 12 folks who have been chosen as Brunswick Distinguished Citizens for their contributions to the community over the course of their lifetimes. That's usually most of the audience there is the family members of those honorees, but tickets are available for purchase by the public. I checked earlier today, there is a link in the special events page on the city website where members of the public who are interested can go and get tickets. Housing Advisory Committee, we met for the second time recently, had a very good discussion about short-term rentals and accessory dwelling units. Thank you for the Planning Department for helping facilitate that, put that together. Finance Commission. We talked over a few purchase orders and also some contracts for renovation work on the Kaplan building. I think that's all come before council already at this point. And... Oh, Beacon did their annual school supplies drive, managed to fill 250 backpacks with school supplies for kids going to Valley and Brunswick Elementary as well as Brunswick Middle and High School. So thank you to all who either donated their time or their supplies or money to make that happen. And I, I think that's it. Oh, last thing, Potomac Street Mile, in memory of our late police chief, Milton Fretz Jr. That's a little, you know, one mile fun run community event that's happening this coming Saturday. Pre-race registration opens up at eight o'clock in the morning, right down here across the street at Square Corner Park.

That's it.

All right, thank you, sir. Council Member Sandusky.

i'm going to start off with brunswick fire volunteer fire department they were at national night out they felt like it was very well attended they were still looking for volunteers so anybody interested in volunteering in the fire service they are willing to train you the uh friends of the brunswick library are looking for volunteers for book sales at railroad days and lastly on my list is the brunswick crossing hoa their next uh board meeting will be on september 3rd at 6 30 p.m and that meeting will be virtual and outside of that i'm good to go all right thank you sir council members mothers

Well, I think our emergency management group was quiet. Nothing going on there. The ambulance company is the same way. We're always looking for volunteers. They will start back on September the 12th for their annual pancake breakfast. So that's in the works. They're also scheduled to receive a new rescue boat. It's just a matter of going way out to Garrett County and pick it up. So hopefully in the next two weeks, we'll have another piece of equipment for the ambulance company. I don't think a lot of folks realize that between Harpers Ferry and Porner Rocks. This is probably the most dangerous part of the Potomac River. And the birth services, fire and rescue services are on the river just about every weekend. Looking for folks that are overdue or folks that are getting in trouble and sometimes during the week or late at night. So that resource is very well needed. And as far as the cemetery, things are quiet there. No pun intended. But that's moving along. Grass is getting cut and people are happy. So there we go.

Are they happy?

Well, you know.

All right. Thank you, sir.

Council Member St. John.

The museum is at a busy summer. We have some new volunteers. We've had a lot of people through the museum, and things have been very busy down there. So we're very pleased with the way that's going along. The green team had a meeting with the city this past week to discuss some new options and operations, and we're looking forward to some big things happening from them soon. The Rotary had their meeting earlier this month and they are mostly looking at planning for the Oktoberfest down at the Frederick Fairgrounds. And of course looking for volunteers for Oktoberfest at the Frederick Fairgrounds. And that's all I have to report.

All right, thank you, sir. That concludes the council reports. So we'll move along to the consent agenda. Tonight we have two items, an FY26 budget amendment and the G Street sewer line change order. Any questions on the consent agenda or motion?

I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as it sits.

Second. Motion, second. Discussion? I do have just one question.

It would not affect the way that I vote on it, but with the G Street sewer line, I read here that it's missed utility failed to come out there and mark the utilities, and then the contractor sort of found them the hard way, as I understand it. But what I'm wondering is when nothing was marked, did that not cause the contractor to wonder why nothing was marked?

John, come on up.

So everything was marked, water, sewer. There were two power lines running up. So it's not common or uncommon to have two power lines running up. They seen the one over there marked and everything. When it wasn't marked, it took four times before they, well, when they found it, it was pre-marked three times before that and it was never identified by them. which none of this would have happened if they actually would have done their job because their surveyors, the engineers would actually put it in, said, okay, we're not putting it here. And that would have changed a lot of things. Got it.

So there were markings, just not all of the markings. Yes. All right. Thanks.

So I guess my only question to that is how did Miss Utility miss the utility part of it? You know, when it's supposed to be there. And why do we get stuck with the? It happens all the time, believe it or not.

We've dug and hit cable power. We've called, have it marked and they didn't mark it. It all depends on how well the guy wants to get out and do his job. And sometimes they do a really nice job and other times they choose not to do it so well and they'll mark some of it and not all of it.

And Ms. Utilities has disclaimers that they're not liable.

Yeah, I looked into that, trust me. They got all kinds of loopholes to get them out of that.

Mr. Utility missed the utility. That's correct.

Very often. Any other questions or comments? Good questions on that. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, vote is unanimous on consent agenda. Next up, unfinished business. We have a maintenance agreement for Yorty Springs. Jeremy.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Jeremy Moos, Deputy City Administrator. This agreement is the last step in the permitting process to begin construction of the Yori Spring water treatment, water storage tank in Washington County. So this agreement basically, ensures that the city is gonna maintain the stormwater facilities at the water storage tank site. And it gives Washington County, who is administering the stormwater oversight, permission to come in and inspect the facilities. This agreement also attaches it to the deed so that if the parcel of land would ever change hands, this agreement goes with it and there's, in that, facility will stay there. So this is almost identical to the agreements that we have with Fresher County. We have these agreements with every single stormwater facility that is on city property. So we have these agreements that B&O Park, we have these agreements that 811 we have them at the sports complex at the wastewater plant so this is a very typical agreement and it's just part of the permitting process we had legal review it and it's just the standard document they had new concerns and their red flags about it and with that i'd be happy to take any questions

I make a motion that we approve the maintenance agreement.

I'll second it.

Motion and second. Discussion? All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, vote is unanimous. Next up on new business, we have a sponsorship request from Jay's People. Carrie.

okay so as i promised i have started putting the amount that is left in the fund so um right now in the uh general uh community sponsorship fund there's seven thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars remaining um so they are asking for a donation for an upcoming golf tournament so when i look at that it's 125 dollars per golfer but then they're asking for whole sponsorships and so Staff recommends sponsoring one hole for $150.

I'll make a motion that we approve that. motion and second discussion I just have a question I know normally like when we have various teams and clubs and so forth they have ties to Brunswick and I'm just trying to put together in my head how this is tied to Brunswick so Jay's people came here before and they did a discussion they they fundraise and then they donate money to people in the community and things that need you know needy from from

a whole range of issues. So they give back to the community. So they're kind of the conduit for the fundraisers.

Gotcha. No problem. I just kind of wanted an associative connection.

It's a valid question.

Any other discussion? Yes, sir. Do they have a list of who they donate to? Is that available for the public to see? I can check on their site.

I haven't seen any, but I know I see them on Facebook all the time.

I don't think there is because sometimes it's private.

Yeah, but they also, I mean, they work, I know they work with Licho Reynolds Fund and, you know, you see them doing sponsorships with that and stuff. So, yeah.

I understand when it comes to some of the individuals and stuff. I was just asking that question. Okay, any more?

All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Vote is unanimous. Next up, sponsorship requests for Heartbreakers.

Okay, so this one is for a local softball team, which many of the players are involved with the team or on the community. So they're asking for 2026-2027 team banners. there would be $7,600 left in the fund after you subtract the Jays sponsorship that you just did. So staff recommends the approval of $150 banner sponsorship.

I'll make a motion that we donate the $150 for the banner sponsorship. I'll second.

Motion and second discussion. All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, vote is unanimous. Next up, council member vacancy update. It is the Carrie Show.

All right, just this last part. So as everyone knows, our election process failed to elect a person, so we are now moving to the council member vacancy process. This will be similar to what we did when Mr. Bonanno, Council Member Bonanno filled that seat. So basically, our city charter allows us to do this process now in case of any vacancy on the council for any reason. By unanimous vote, the council shall elect a qualified person. So unanimous being the key word there. So should a unanimous decision not be reached, which it was not in the case of our last vacancy process, it did result in a special election held in accordance with our regular typical special election process. So we have a seat open that was vacated by Mr. Yockelson, and it runs until August of 2030. The process and timeline to fill the vacancy will be as follows. Starting next week, I will issue the call for press release via the website, Facebook. Councilmember Kays has also asked me to make sure that I get in touch with the local paper, which I can do tomorrow so they get it in for this month. This will include, the call to interest includes all of the typical interest paperwork like a letter, a resume, ethics disclosure, and nomination and petition of signatures just like a regular application process would for the election. This will be open until September 28th. On September 29th, I am proposing that council will meet in closed session to select the candidates for interviews and agree upon interview questions. I think probably our interview questions will be updated slightly because I know some of them were pretty specific to some timely issues that we were having at the time. I would propose if we have only one or two candidates, we may wanna just go ahead and, I don't know that we need to have that closed session. If the will is just to go ahead and interview all of them, we will reach that discussion when we get there. October the sixth, we would hold interviews in a public session here in the council chamber. Immediately following, the council would meet in closed session to discuss those candidate interviews. And then if a unanimous decision was made, that person would be appointed by the council and sworn in by the mayor at the following meeting on October the 13th. If not, following October 6th is closed session, we will move immediately into the special election process. Any questions?

Sure. I will not get to be here October 6.

And I failed to notify you of that.

So I'm wondering if we could do the 5th.

I just selected these dates. I've not communicated with them. It's not a normal meeting week. I try to pick Tuesday nights because I know people are free on Tuesdays generally. But yeah, if you guys are okay with another date.

I'm not generally free on Tuesdays anyway.

Oh, okay.

All my other... The committees and commissions meet on the Tuesdays, but the council doesn't meet.

Yes, so you can insert whatever date you'd like in that, but I would like it tonight if we could because I can be that week. It can be that week, so that's fine.

I'm okay with the 5th.

I'm looking at my schedule, and I don't see anything that I would have a conflict for the 5th, so I'm okay with the 5th. Okay.

Okay.

So we'll just slide that today.

All right. Well, I will go ahead and make that amendment then.

All right.

Okay.

Anybody have questions? Council Member Caves.

Just one question. The last time when we did it, we did the closed session and then we came out of the closed session and we had the public vote. I'm reading this here. It says vote on appointment for that sort of week following. So it's just, you know, I'm open to it, but is the intention here to have that be a change to figure out if we've got... consensus in the closed session and then wait a week before voting an open session or would we want to do it more along the lines of what we did last time where we just come out there and vote?

So I don't, did we vote last time or we waited?

So you knew that you didn't have a consensus last time. I'm assuming.

So we didn't actually take a vote though. You took a vote and it failed because you didn't have a consensus.

I was being very optimistic and assuming that this would go swimmingly and we would not have to go to special elections.

So I just, I don't remember the last time, but the problem is if we have an open session and we move to close, We have to redo. We basically have to advertise twice, I think.

Which I did last time. You're right. We did do that. We can do that. It's not a big deal. We can do that.

It's cleaner, I think, the way Carrie has listed it here.

But I mean, so I think in my mind that did get a little convoluted. It was a little awkward that we had two candidates just sitting here for an hour. You guys felt a little bit rushed in your decision making potentially. So I guess I kind of thought we'd have the interview, dismiss them and then start again at the next open session.

So. So, yeah, then we'll just advertise the advertise it the way it needs to go. And then October 13th, you can just remove council vote on appointment and we would just have a swear and should there be a unanimous.

on the fifth. Right. Because I mean, if you think about it like a job interview, you rarely hear that night whether you're going to get that job or not. So having people come back a week later usually isn't a deterrent. He's saying, Council Member Case, if there's a unanimous decision, I can remove that part. But I think we would still need to vote, right? If there's a unanimous... We could vote that night. not if we don't come back into open session.

I was going to say that we still need to have a vote in open session. We can come back in open session. That's what I'm saying.

We can advertise it as such. Okay. I think it's just if you have multiple candidates, you invite them back to then one of them is sworn in and one of them we. The concern is they bring their family and stuff. Yeah.

However you want to do it, I can make it work.

I mean, it's always been tentative that there'll be a decision that night. It isn't a requirement. Everything can be shifted from the 5th on, meaning if people aren't comfortable to vote that night, then they can vote on the 13th, and then the person can be sworn in at the end of October. This is just tentative from the 5th on.

I mean, that is true. We can do October 13th to vote, and then we can do the swearing in the 27th.

Well, let's plan to do everything the 5th. Okay. because we don't want to hold it up if we don't have to. The intention is always to fill the seat as soon as possible. And then if something happens, then we can punt the 13th to a vote.

So we'll just do the flip-flop open-close meeting thing again like we did last year.

All right. Anybody have any more questions on the vacancy process?

Do we need a motion to approve this timeline? I was thinking about that today. Did we?

I think they did because it wasn't.

It's not a legislated process. It's a, you know, I mean.

Yeah.

The timeline is the timeline based off your vote.

Yeah, I don't think we need that. Your charter basically says we hold an election, but it doesn't really say how.

Yeah, I'm actually, before we leave here, let me just make 100% sure. I don't remember what we did last time.

I mean, so far, the only day we're changing is the 6th to the 5th.

I just don't remember what this appointment language says, so I want to make 100% sure. I don't even see it. Why am I missing it?

What are you looking for?

Section 530.

Okay, that's why. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, we're good. We don't need to vote on the process.

Yeah, I don't believe it.

Yeah, so we're good.

I don't even see an agenda item last time. I think I talked about it during this time.

Yeah, we're good. All right, any more questions or comments on that? All right, so let's move along to council member comments. Council member St. John.

I have nothing to add beyond my previous reports.

All right. Council members, mothers. I think the only thing that I missed was the high school, the Zumba race that's coming up the week of September the 5th on that Saturday. So watch out for the runners along Cummings Drive in that area. There'll be a lot of kids and stuff outside of that, don't we? We'll be taking care of that, so that's it.

Council Member Sandusky? I know because I did not bring this up during that discussion because I know there's nothing we can do to change it at this point, but I really think Section 513 that we should revise the language to rather than be by unanimous vote to be by a super majority. So that would be four out of five. And I think that might resolve some of our issues in terms of saving the city some money with regards to special elections in the future.

okay and that's all i'd like to say today councilmember caves and i'll just note that i concur with councilmember sandusky on that point um and in fact i think i pitched the language um to that extent earlier so things kind of got held up by the election that then didn't happen so the charter amendments are on carrie's to-do list

have them and it was something that you added to tonight the mayor and i talked about however we didn't think now would it be a prudent time to change it given that we have the process going i concur they are totally on and you know the charter amendment process is a lengthy one so i wanted to make sure we had all of our ducks and around but yep it's there on my list great thank you any other comments all right and i will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved all right thank you all we are adjourned