Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the open session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners for Thursday, May 28th, 2026. As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent reflection. 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. I hope everybody is doing well today. We have some sunlight today for the first time in a couple of days, but I know we needed the rain and Commissioner Kyler will kick off with you today.

OK, thank you. A lot of stuff going on this week, but I'll keep it to a minimum. The Farm Museum did their volunteer tea and Rhonda and I went great group. It's interesting. I love being in Carroll County with people that know exactly what a corn crib is, a smokehouse is, and other things you see on a farm because a lot of people don't. There's there's me with the people running the show out there. And I think there's a picture of the volunteers, too. And yes, and it's great. And some of them had many, many hours a great group does a lot of work out there and this is so similar to rec and parks the volunteer fire companies so many things in carroll county if we had to pay all those people to do everything they do out there we couldn't afford it so i want to thank you guys at the farm museum and thank the volunteers throughout carroll county Memorial Day I got to speak at Hampstead's Memorial and for all the Forecast of rain and and tough weather over the holiday weekend. Still over 100 people showed up to. To listen to the. Farm Museum on the Farm Museum. I'm still on old notes. The commander of. American Legion Post 200 in Hampstead Chris McLean opened it. Jack Bauer socks a past commander. did the prayer, and Laurie Young, a past commander, sang the national anthem. So it's awesome. What a great group. American Legion Post 200 is. Mayor Chris Nevins spoke, I spoke, and there was just a great bunch of people there. It was a fun day. Man Valley, Rhonda and I went to their FFA banquet. There's some of their officers, and it was so great. And I don't think people not involved in the AgCenter or FFA in school um understand oh let me digress um aaron guyman's on the left um he spent nine years at westminster high school after he was at north carroll high school and now he's back in our area at man valley and and he's he's awesome teacher awesome advisor for them. And it was nice seeing him in the group. The principal was there. Assistant principals were there. It was a very active group. And back to where I was, so many don't understand. They're not about just animals. They do judging. They do speaking. They do writing. And so many of these, I think, Half to three quarters of them stopped by where we were sitting, said hi, thanked us for being there. We thanked them for all they do. Talked about where they were headed to college and what decisions they were making. It's just an awesome, awesome night, awesome group. went to Carroll Community College graduation, always a great event. They now have incorporated the more tech side of things, the more career side of things into the graduation. And in past years, just the math, English, and reading group were at the graduation. Now they all are, and I think that really shows what all they do out there. It was great to see the The faculty, the speakers were great, both the student and the lady that spoke, and it was a great, great graduation. After graduation, I went to Winters Mill. They call it Community Awards Ceremony. And again, the principal, assistant principals were there, advisors. They gave over 41 scholarships in about an hour that night. Everything from rec councils to legacy septic to in memory of different young people who passed, delegates, senators. It was a great night, and I just want to encourage everybody. It's probably not too late for some this year, but for most it is. You got to go to your guidance office and ask for the scholarship list and apply for them. It's a lot of people don't apply for these. Two for McDaniel, almost said Western Maryland, probably are worth 100 grand each. And then it's a lot from the community groups, 1,500, 2,000, 3,000. College isn't cheap, and it all adds up. So I just encourage you to apply. Some have income restrictions. Some have you have to go in the state of Maryland. Some you have to go to McDaniel or the community college. But still, there's a lot of different scholarships that suit different people. it's interesting we know um a couple of the families that have lost people and it was interesting to see uh two or three of them couldn't quite get through the presentation without choking up a little bit and taking a minute and uh and because of that some of the recipients uh i know my grandson uh um he ended up not just walking up and shaking hands he he hugged doug dell after he talked about tommy and uh so it's uh it's just a great evening and you see a lot of students uh i some won multiple but i i bet there were still over 20 winners that night and it's just awesome so um and i'll stop there i've rattled enough

you very much commissioner kyler commissioner gordon uh good morning uh first one to mention uh last friday evening attended the uh production of legally blonde junior at westminster west middle school excuse me uh was quite the uh remarkable performance uh heartfelt congratulations to the students the staff teachers volunteers just an outstanding job but the energy the talent that was brought to this production You know, it's always great and inspiring to see our young people shine through the arts and showcase the hard work they've put in over the past several months putting this production together. The sets, the costuming, just everything was very well done. I just want to thank everybody at West Middle for the fantastic evening and also for the continuing support of arts and theater opportunities for our students in Carroll County Public Schools. Also wanted to mention McDaniel's recent graduation. Congratulations to all the graduates of McDaniel. Obviously, I'm not going to go down the list, but an extensive number of different master's degrees, very well represented. It was 25 states plus DC and 26 countries represented at their graduation. Also wanted to mention something new that's just been launched, which is the Carol County America 250th Town Story Map. So it's an interactive experience that brings local history to life through historic landmarks, cultural sites, public spaces, and the generations of residents who helped build the foundation of our county. these story maps offer a chance to explore the rich heritage found throughout our towns and municipalities and the community as a whole while recognizing the importance of our past to our future from historic homes to gathering places to meaningful community landmarks there's something for everybody to review this is a new project that's just been launched online you can find this on the carrollcountytourism.org website definitely something to check out Also wanted to mention I was in the Westminster Memorial Day Parade, always a great day to pay our respects because that's what Memorial Day is about, which is paying our respects. Very well attended, even though there was some questionable weather that morning. And for me personally, it's always been something I've attended, whether I was a young kid and I was there with my two grandfathers who served in World War II, or the gentleman who was our neighbor at the time who had served in World War I, been doing that since as long as I can remember. Later, walking in the parade over the years at various times with the Boy Scout troop that I was part of, and became an Eagle Scout with some people remember the very large American flag that used to take up the entire street that was that troop and then now to get to be involved from this side of things but definitely a good turnout was a was a great event and then last but definitely not least yesterday myself Commissioner Kyler and Commissioner Krebs got to attend the Carroll Community College graduation always just exceptional to hear some of the stories about first-time college graduates. There were a number of high school kids that are getting dual degrees and they're actually graduating from community college before they're getting their high school diploma. Just a tremendous positive day to see and hear a lot of the positive opportunities in our community and watch where this next generation is going to take us and also have to mention was not at the event but they also did a graduation event for their nursing program and just exceptional was following up on some of that and just absolutely exceptional and it's something that's so desperately needed not locally but also nationally as we have a shortage of people in nursing so just My hat's off to all of them in that career as well. It's a tough field, but well needed and truly appreciate it. And that's all for me. Very well said, Commissioner Gordon. Commissioner Neron? Nothing for me this morning. Thank you. Mr. Krebs?

Oh, thank you. I missed Priority Carol last week, but I wanted to mention a function I went to yesterday. Earlier the week before, the Carroll Hospital Founders Circle had a dinner that was honoring Miriam Beck, and she got the 2026 Community Spirit Award. The significance of the founding fathers and mothers, and she was a founding mother of the hospital, is something that is just remarkable. that these folks knew that we needed a hospital in Carroll and got together and there's a lot of history there. But Miriam, she was a former teacher, long-term teacher in Carroll County Public Schools. She was the only woman I think on the board at the time that got together and pulled the money together to envision and build Carroll Hospital because we needed it in Carroll County. philanthropists in this county is unbelievable that for everything I mean whether they're for this or the community college or many many many um organizations but our hospital continues to have grateful patients and families and we're so it's grown over the years but Miriam Beck um I'm not going to state her age but she was I think she's proud of her aging marched up the steps and tore her speech up because Wayne Barnes introduced her and there wasn't much more that we needed to say. But she basically told her story of just having this vision to build a hospital and how they got together and were able to do that. So honoring Miriam Beck was really a very... grateful time, and we did it at Wakefield Valley, which is a beautiful new event space, so we're so glad to have that back into production for everyone to use. Then this week I went on our own of Carroll County, which was a mental health awareness event. It was called Spring into Wellness. I just put that up there on the screen. It was an opportunity for people to network and bring awareness to the many support organizations in Carroll County and we also had a lot of people there that used the mental health services and we had an amazing what they call drum circle which I've never been in a drum circle but it was really therapeutic they had these bongo drums and we all did different things and it was very interesting so thank you all those folks that help everyone with their mental health issues and there's services out there for people to access The other thing I went to last week was the 130th anniversary for Springfield Hospital. People forget, in my area, that's Jordan Butler. He's the new CEO there. That building, that property, I think is one of the most beautiful, pristine properties in the state of Maryland. I think the mayor said, the county and I said, you know, I think it's the state of Maryland. It's just absolutely a beautiful campus. 130 years old, but it's still owned by the state and operates as a forensic mental health facility, and this was the cake. And if you just look at how the nurses were dressed back then, how did they even do their job dressed in long dresses? And years ago when we actually broke ground on one of the buildings there to redo it, there was a number of women there that had worked in that building and were telling stories about during World War II, of course these folks are probably not with us anymore, about what the women had to do to hold down the fort, because the men were all called to war, the doctors, and they still had to survive, and they had thousands of patients back then. Now we're down to about 200 and some patients, because we've changed how we do things in the mental health world, but Springfield Hospital was the largest employer in the county for many, many years, It was a fabric of our community. I mean, no one minded. Springfield was just who we were and the volunteers and the people that work there and many were invited back to see what was going on. And so it still operates as a forensic mental health facility. But most of it now is forensic, which means their court ordered so they don't have the the room of the campus like they used to but one of the exciting people that I've just recently met and it's a young man named Brennan Vanderveer and he's 18 and he's a fifth generation um he's fifth generation of a Springfield worker and his you know different family members worked there over the years and he became interested in the campus which has got a lot of history so he now does public tours of the historic buildings and he has immersed himself into researching Springfield and he also hooked up with some folks over there from the Historic Society and from Union Mills and hopefully they'll all work together to make sure this history is saved as well. Also there with them to celebrate was Paula Langmead. Paula worked there for 40 years and she was a former CEO and she was phenomenal, always reached out to the community, was a part of our community and involved in many organizations And they buried a time capsule to be opened in 45 years. So I'm not sure who will be there to see that. I will not be. But it was very interesting what they would put in the time capsule. They also had a bunch of artifacts on display like paychecks. And if you see what they used to type up the paychecks and how much withholding came out, like a dollar. I mean, it was very, very interesting. And I'm so glad that someone has taken an interest in pulling this together. And I think they're even going to try to open a 501c3 to be able to support some of these. memories and savings of the historic aspects of Springfield Hospital. And Dr. Levy was there, our new county health department officer, and he spoke about improvements in destigmatization of mental health and noted there's always room to grow, but he urged the crowd to learn about the signs of mental health struggles and to normalize the conversations And this campus is a beautiful place to heal and just wanted to bring attention to what a jewel we have. And we're trying to redo pieces of it because a lot of these buildings are historic. They've fallen into disarray. They're expensive to rehabilitate. But there's an effort to clean up the campus and to really make sure we save this gem. The other thing I did last night, and I forgot about, is I went to the Carroll County Library board meeting, and I really appreciate how they invite us to their local board meetings in the local branches. It's a great opportunity to say, here, come to this date, see the library, talk to folks that are there at the local library in the branch. I've met the library folks in Annapolis for many, many years, but never have really at the local level worked with that group. I was very impressed with their agenda. I was very impressed with their bylaws that are one of the most up-to-date bylaws that we have here along with ESAC. I was also impressed with their budget night. And they read the budget out, how it was explained, how it was laid out. Very, very well done. I mentioned that to them. But then they also talked about all the activities going on in all of our libraries. And it's so much you could sit here forever. But the most recent one was Battle of the Books. And Battle of the Books, the number of students that are now participating in that in all of our schools, elementary and middle schools, is phenomenal. I think it grew 31%. Am I right, Beth? You're sitting over there. um so that is just one issue but they they really have got so many things going on for all folks in our libraries and they were very very appreciative of the replacement library that library is the most used in the county and our system in general in carroll county is the most used in the state of maryland it's been number one for many many years i've always bragged about that and it's used for things you wouldn't it's not just to get good books out anymore in fact that's probably the smallest thing there's so many other things going on in our library um so just wanted to give a shout out to those guys and they're also starting a foundation there they have a friends of the library group and it's for all the libraries and very active group because they're they're very dedicated to offering these services and and reaching out to our schools and all in Carroll County so thank you to the board and thank you for a great evening and I learned a lot

Very well said. Very well shared. Thank you, Commissioner. So myself, I'll be pretty quick today as well. So just a couple of things. Obviously, this past week, along with my colleagues all over the place, I had the honor of participating in Memorial Day observances, the first of the American Legion Hess and Snyder Post 120 in Tawny Town, where during the ceremony, Mayor Miller and myself honored longtime veteran and adjutant of the Legion, Ethel Leffingwell, with proclamations for her lifetime of service to the town, county, and the country. I also had the privilege of getting to participate in the town's Memorial Day Parade along with Mayor Miller, Mayor Pro Tem Rachel Miller, Delegate Tomlin, State's Attorney Shoemaker and others. It was a phenomenal parade, very well organized and very well attended as always. There's some of the Taneytown City Council members and Taneytown Police Department and then the next image of course is like a wide shot of part of the parade route. So very well attended, very well organized, very well done. And then Chris, you can skip ahead to the, or when you get, yep, there we go, thank you. So also this week, along with our Director of Citizen Services, Celine Steckel, Rich O'Tone, Deputy County Administrator, Deb Effingham, and Director Brian Boeke, I had the honor of getting a preview tour from Erica there in the picture of the back room renovation of the Tawny Town Senior Center. Everybody remembers this was part of our inclusion for the current fiscal year's budget. And the work through of this back room effectively doubles the amount of space that the residents who attend Tawny Town Senior Center are going to have. And they're going to be using it for things like glass cutting. which is an up-and-coming and really popular art form among the attendees of the senior centers, and I thought that was really interesting. They were explaining to me that they have to not just cut the glass, but they're soldering, and they're doing all these really fascinating things to actually make these stained glass decorations and windows. It really is phenomenal. So there'll be a ribbon cutting for this in the next couple of weeks, and everybody will get the information. Everybody's gonna be invited. And last but not least, as always, I was grateful to attend the regular meeting of the Commission on Aging and Disabilities this week. A wonderful commission with members from across the county. There's some concern about cuts that have been made from the state through the Department of Aging and how those are going to affect local programs and resources here in Carroll. So we might have to consider that for the FY28 budget coming up. Additionally, the Commission is already preparing for the amazing annual Aging Your Way Expo, which is going to be on September 23rd this year, and more details will be forthcoming about that as we get closer. And that is all from me for today. Does anybody else have anything for...

I'd like to say one more thing. I apologize, and I apologize to the family. More importantly, Vince DePalma, 91 years old, passed in Manchester. His viewing is tomorrow at Eckharts from 5 to 8. Vince started Manchester Rec Council. And Terry Leatherwood spoke about him last night with the North Carolina Rec Council Scholarship Award. But he started Manchester Rec Council, was president for many years. and he was very active he helped write the joint use agreement with the school system and uh did did stuff with county rec and parks he was uh he's in their hall of fame he was volunteer the year a couple times and uh um we changed uh manchester rec council to north carol rec council back Back in the 70s, Hampstead and Manchester were at war with each other. If you played basketball, you better pick a town and hate the other players. But it was pretty awesome. So we changed the name to North Carroll Rec Council to try to draw the communities together, which I think has happened over the years. and uh but vince just did so much uh big in bocce ball had a court his house and did fundraisers for the town of manchester with bocce fundraisers just an awesome family and and it's interesting uh He had a great, great daughters and son. But Stevie is a Brigadier General. He was a pilot. And he and the one wall son both buzzed Manchester at different times. And Rhonda happened to be walking out of the pharmacy. And they predicted it. They told us they were going to do it. He was so low, I think she thought we were at war with somebody. But just a great family. And I just wanted to mention that because he probably developed one of the first rec councils in Carroll County, I remember years later. rec and parks used our bylaws and constitution as an example for we were the only one that had them and uh as for other rec councils to generate theirs it just uh it he's he's done a lot of great things in carroll county Thank you.

Mr. President, I forgot to mention one thing. Yeah, please, please. I just make sure I shout out to Steve Lance, our former commissioner. He was the president of the library board and ran a very good meeting with a little humor yesterday. So just want to see some people just can't let go. But he's in a good spot in the library board. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Anybody else have anything for Priority Carol? All right hearing that we will move into our regular part of the agenda of up first a public hearing on proposed ordinance amending chapters one fifty eight zoning and one fifty five development and subdivision. So before I call the public hearing to order of anybody is here for the public hearing there are salmon colored cards at the back and if you'd like to speak please do fill one of those out and then hand them to Roberta up here. And so I will now call to order the public hearing for proposed amendments prohibiting residential uses and planned commercial centers. What I'm going to do is kick things over to Tim for a very brief introduction, and then we'll throw things over to Chris and Daphne for a presentation on this, and then we'll open the floor to comments from the public. So, Tim.

Good morning, commissioners. The purpose of this morning is to solicit public comment on a proposal that would prohibit new residential uses in new planned commercial centers. In addition to Carroll Connect and the website and our various other Forms of publicity. This hearing was advertised in the Carroll County Times on May the 14th and May the 21st, 2026. As Commissioner Vigliotti stated, Chris Hine is here with Daphne Daly. They have a short summary of what's being proposed and the history of how we got here, if the board is interested.

Thank you very much, Tim. Chris Daphne, I'll hand it over to you.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I'm just going to briefly run through how we got here and what's being proposed for a little background. Initially, we came to you on February 5th to talk about the potential for a text amendment that would remove residential as an accessory use in planned commercial centers. This was in response to some of the conversation around this use that kind of precipitated the deferral for planned commercial centers that's currently in place. We received direction from the board to take this topic to the Planning and Zoning Commission to consider Removing this as a provision in Chapter 155, our development and subdivision regulations, and Chapter 158, our zoning regulations. The Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed this at their meetings on March 4th and March 17th and conveyed to you a recommendation that the use be removed entirely as a permitted accessory use in planned commercial centers. in our development and subdivision regulations, and that we modify language in our zoning ordinance that would allow this as an accessory use only if it had already been permitted as of a certain date. And so that is what's the subject of the public hearing now. I apologize for the very tiny text on the slide. I wanted to fit it all in one slide, but the upshot of it is this section of our subdivision regulations that addresses accessory uses in planned commercial centers. exclusively devoted to residential as an accessory use and because the recommendation is to remove that you'll see everything redlined out there except for the introductory text which simply says regardless of the underlying zoning district the Planning and Zoning Commission may not allow residential uses as an accessory use to a planned commercial center And then this is the modified language in our zoning ordinance that allows accessory uses only when approved prior to December 18, 2025, which was the effective date of the deferral ordinance. And that is the proposal at hand.

Thank you very much, Daphne. Thank you very much, Chris. If there are no comments from my colleagues, I will open the floor to public comment. Roberta, do we have anybody here for a public comment?

Yes. First is Beth Gray. Microphone. Do you want to, I think you need to minimize this so Chris can put up a, yeah, three minutes.

Good morning, Commissioners. Morning. As many do, I wear several different hats in my community. Today I'm here as a resident of the Freedom Area to give my testimony and thoughts on the residential development issue before us. Since 2001, I've been what the PZC called a watchdog. I walked every step of the freedom plan from 2014 and continued after its adoption. Today, I point you to several facts. One, growth and change are two of life's most consistent constants, but the decision making and reasons for it in government policy and planning need to be solid. Citizens, developers and builders all need a reliable, stable system on which they can depend. Land use needs to be consistent and predictable and fair, and it should work for those who live and work in all of our communities. The US is experiencing a housing crisis in many places and shortages in others. Nearly 100,000 people are struggling to find a home to buy or rent. In Carroll County, we already know we have a shortage. I think we should not limit ourselves in any more ways regarding housing. Our own work in the county points to this. I also would say there are ways we can improve what and how things are being developed. And the Planning Commission, they discussed a lot of those, which I hope you will look into. But back to what our county has found first, the planning and zoning commission and planning department did an extensive roadshow and survey at locations throughout the county in 2025. The data collected bore out that predominantly People want more affordable housing choices in Carroll. We want places where our recently graduated children can live, thrive, and start. We need smaller homes and apartments, choices for those who are beginning to build their futures and families, as well as for those seniors living on more limited financial constraints or who want a smaller place, and for those with physical or mental needs and considerations. So the variety of homes needs to be vast to accommodate all sectors. I believe we need to work away from our binary thinking. Most problems or challenges require nuance and options to solve them. Next, please Remember your citizens, staff, and professionals who worked for weeks last summer on the 2035 Master Plan Working Groups. I was a member of the Economy Working Group, and while our focus was just that, it absolutely could not be separated from housing discussions. Discussion often came back to this point in and amongst where we develop for businesses we must also consider the working people who will want these jobs and where they could live. This means continuing to grow our single family homes which make up 65 percent of our inventory but again having variety for all lifestyles and financial groups. Lastly I'll point to the housing study that the county paid consultants to produce in 2024 it also tells the same consistent story as a county we need more housing options we look at the dga in the freedom area and now open spaces are filling in today right now we need every housing opportunity we can make available how we do it is key So in closing, I'd like to say I urge you to not remove all residential from commercial zoning, but to look at how that can be improved upon through our ordinances and our definitions. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Next is Rebecca Rolfes.

good morning rebecca ralphs i live in taylorsville uh tom and joe it was nice to meet you at the veterans event and uh the parade on sunday i did that too monday excuse me it was wonderful turnout it was it was so nice to see everybody out there i want to start off with saying thank you to everybody and i do understand that we've been reaching out and this ordinance and zoning and all that it became much more aware for me when I was speaking to my commissioner Michael thank you for all your work with us you are fighting for our district and that strip mall at clean mill in 26 and I totally understand what you're saying as far as the apartments but We have opportunity there, but now we're in a situation to where we have a community of people that just spent $500,000 on a 55 and older beautiful complex, and they're looking across the street at a strip mall with apartments. And one of the apartment rentals is four tires rode up against the balcony and all of that. And we have to take that in consideration. And do we need to put residential over the top? If we are going to be in that situation, we already have some of them built, I think that we have to consider here too. First of all, anyone that's in these departments, are they US citizens? That has to be checked and that is just a security situation there in my concern. But I do feel was speaking to some of you privately with the ordinance and the zoning and all that, that during COVID until now, there were some tweaks and I'm going to make it very simple, but changes made it to our zoning that has allowed a lot of things to come into this county. So I'm very pleased that you all are taking the time you have that private consultant coming in and we're looking at all of these things now are we going to agree on everything no but i do think that we can't agree on a lot um we want carroll county to stay and we're right on the border here as far as going much more urban um but i've been here since the beginning 30 years ago when I was on a board, they didn't want to put the Home Depot at 26 and 32. We are where we are, but we have to take considerations of what we're allowing in here and so forth. I see that I have a few seconds left. My last question is that my understanding is with the budgets. that the budgets are the amount of money is allocated and when it comes to the school board of education they get a lump of sum of money and they divide it to where it's going to go and then it comes back to you for your final approval is that true Well, this is a public hearing for... Okay, well, I just want to ask one point, and I think a lot of people are hearing about this and getting really upset, is our superintendent of Carroll County Public Schools just renewed her contract, and her base salary is $290,000 with a $950 car allowance, full benefits, pension, so forth. This is Carroll County. She's getting paid much higher than the average in the state. So I'm wondering, I'm seeing these big jumps in salaries at the base. And I sent an email, and I did hear, I believe, back from Susan. But this big jump down at central office, these people are making this kind of money. And then I'm hearing there's leaks in the building at central office. i do not think that we need to be paying that amount of money for a superintendent especially right now those dollars could have been allocated much better and one of the things that i did suggest to a board member the other day is considering finding funds and getting a tutor at every single school in this county to help those children that are struggling because right now i have several girlfriends that are paying for tutors to get their children through. So I have you all here in front of me, so I stepped a little bit out of the bounds, but I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Next is Diana Bergman.

Good morning. Morning. I'm Diana Bergman and I'm a candidate for Maryland House of Delegates for District 5. However, today I'm speaking as an invested resident in the South Carroll County and the Eldersburg-Shikesville community. I'm concerned regarding the limitations set by the proposal to limit the use of mixed-use spaces for the future of Carroll County. By limiting the mixed-use spaces throughout Carroll County, you're hurting our retirees, our veterans with disabilities who would like to age out in Carroll. Our seniors in Carroll with limited mobility. Mixed use spaces provides community the flexibility to have access to food, healthcare, and public services within walking distance. Makes it easier on the environment. And when you have walkable, accessible spaces for those residing in the area, it brings unity to the community. Such limitations being proposed seems to be done with intention to divide people. It creates a space of the haves and the have not. Basically, if you have a car versus if you don't, if you have the ability to still drive versus if you're no longer able to drive. I'll note that my husband, a retired United States Army veteran, has a service-related injury to his back. As he ages, his mobility will continue to decrease, and he's not able to drive for a long period of time, and we have a lot of veterans residing here in Carroll that have chosen to retire here. When the question comes, what would happen with all the big box stores when they go away? What will be done with those empty spaces? Will it look like endless storage facilities along 26? Is that what we want to see in Carroll County? I don't think so. Spaces that have the potential for thriving communities are being limited and denied its potential when limited use mixed spaces are not even allowed to have an opportunity. Please reconsider your decision and keep in mind that you have the responsibility to improve the quality of life for residents in Carroll County, not limit the quality of life. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And the last speaker from this topic that I have is Dean Camlin.

Good morning commissioners morning morning. Um, I don't have any prepared comments. Uh, uh, I think you're all aware I'm, I'm an architect here in Carroll County have been for many years. Um, the main reason for my coming today was to find out why, why is this proposal being considered? Um, because it would really prohibit a a kind of living situation that we're now calling live-work units, where people can live directly above their place of business. And I just feel like this is needlessly restrictive when if you're having problems with one or two planned business centers that have residential as part of them, Maybe the answer is some more specific regulations than a simple prohibition. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And actually, I think I misunderstood, but Ms. Terry Smack would also like to speak on this topic.

Good morning, everybody. How are you doing today? Good morning. Well, thank you.

How are you?

Great. Just glad to be standing here. Thank you all for everything you guys do. I just want to make a quick comment. We have so many vacant spots. on our main streets that need to be filled before we need to put up these shopping plazas, or whatever they're called. I'm trying to start a business on Main Street. I'm running into a little bit of an issue, as Dean has come across with me, and hopefully we'll get all that straightened out. But, you know, we need to fill our main streets. We need to get back to where we were some time ago. We have one of the best little towns in our county, Sykesville, and I would love to see Westminster get the same thing. It's not as small as Sykesville, but there's a lot of empty buildings and storefronts that are in Tawny Town and Manchester, Hampstead that we need to fill in. Yes, we need housing. Housing is a desperate need. Affordable, desperate housing is needed in our county. My kids are all lucky. I was able to help them get homes. There are so many more people that are not in the same situation as my family. We have a lot of kids who are starting out very young now that need to have affordable housing. so i think that that's something that we really need to focus on in this county instead of having the shopping centers um you know with all the vacancies that we have along main streets um here in our county it's something that we need to look at so i appreciate your time and i'm sorry that i have been missing mr manning i i'm sure that you guys have been missing him too thank you very much for your comments chris do we have anybody on the line for public comment

I have no one of the line, sir. All right. Well, thank you very much. Uh, any thoughts or comments from my colleagues, directions, actions.

I asked for, I'm going to just explain why we're doing this and hopefully you all can agree. Um, Beth, you served on the, you were sitting there for years and years with a freedom plan. You also are one of the people on the community work group that was asked to be put together by commissioner Rothstein and you guys submitted paper after paper after paper recommendations. virtually everything you recommended is what we're trying to do now because it was not done i don't know why but it was not it was not taken up as you know the details are not put in you guys put a lot of and i go back and read those letters because i still have them and that's exactly what we're trying to do today is put the things in place that the community group that was asked to present ask them to do and this is what we're doing so the reason for this as you know we have these four deferrals very specific deferrals they're not a moratorium because you can still build you know regular housing but certain things but on these commercial centers what we realized is we have no design requirements none So mixed use, they have them all over the place. Mixed use has a vision of people, and it's like our towns are main streets. People have business downstairs, they live upstairs, and they're nice. That's what our main streets are. That's what good mixed use is. And when we were going through the Freedom Plan years ago, they showed us all these pictures of mixed use all over the state in great places, and it all looked nice. But that's not what we got. We got nothing that says, you may have a strip shopping center and a planned commercial center, and you may put residential on the top. That's it. there's nothing else there's nothing i think we can do better just like our main streets do just like everyone around us does and i think everyone agrees with that we only have two in the unincorporated areas in the towns they have very extensive guidelines on what you can do and not do in the in the town centers and that's great because they love their communities and they want to do what's best for them and they try to do that but for ours these planned commercial centers they with residential again we have two I'm just gonna say I don't think either are ones to be proud of we can do better and they're not they're not affordable at all they're $2,000 a month they're not affordable building new is not affordable just because of all the things you have to do but so we put a deferral on doing new ones because there's none in the pipeline so it doesn't affect anything that's going on because there's none in the pipeline maybe somebody's thinking about it But we need to go back. And this is a big issue. It's going to take a lot. There's lots of different kinds of mixed use. And it's going to take time. So we have the consultant that's going to do some of these things. However, it takes time. As we're working on right now, the retirement community is first, because we do have five in the pipeline. And that needs to change. but that definitely needs to change we need to make sure we have different types of housing right now we're getting everything the same all three story townhouses pretty much everything for seniors with no extra space no and they're very expensive they're 750 000 they're not 500 000 but i mean the ones the last 12 that settled were 750 000 so maybe there's different price points so my point is we need to do better even with that so that's our priority because there's five of them in the pipeline And then the other two uses, we didn't have anything in the pipeline. So that gives us time. But it takes a lot of time to go through all the steps that we have to go through, the public hearings and the planning commission and writing all the thinking about it. So the retirement communities came first, then the commercial with the storage facilities, because that was major changes that were made to no one's knowledge because they just took one word out of something and And so as you know, it was not done very transparently because no one knows what chapter 155 and 158 are when you advertise that. Nobody knows what that is. And we need to be more specific about what we're doing. So the reason we're putting this deferral on, extending the deferral, or actually, I'm sorry, we've been trying to extend deferrals on the other ones because it's taking more time than we thought. And so instead of doing that with this and keep extending it, how long is it going to take? Since nothing's in the pipeline, we thought it'd be easier to just remove it for now but the consultant is still going to deal with this and say what should we put back in instead of keep coming back and having to go to hearings about extending a deferral on something that we never had before in our ordinance and we don't have any in the pipeline but the intention is to have some thoughtfulness of moving forward in the unincorporated areas of of the um county just like the towns do so dean maybe you can sign up for that group because you do good work and that's what we want we want quality work it's not about who lives where and what lives it's about putting a product out there and it doesn't mean it has to cost more it just means maybe how you lay it out maybe how you instead of putting the patio space in the driveway or the parking lot overlooking the vape shop maybe you turn them around there's lots of ways we can do this and make it better for the residents give us a better product and um and and make it be like a main street and make it look like a main street and make it just have some visual appearance and some um I don't even know if they have laundry facilities because some of them you know the laundry hanging out and it's you know hanging out on our main street and it's just not a product that I think when you mentioned It's what we allow because we have no design requirements for pretty much everything. But this is the new thing and that's why we're moving it right now so we don't have to keep extending these deferrals and keep going back through this process which has been challenging because we wouldn't have much how long to even do it for so we're looking for some good ideas when this comes back up how do we make sure that I think you all understand the vision for us and and I appreciate that but that's the reason for this is not that we're taking it out never want to do it again it's just that's the most reasonable, convenient thing right now to do while we get the other things done. Then we'll come back and have folks with some vision and foresight and just how we want to grow. Just like the towns do. And we'd like to have that locally in our community. And Beth, hopefully you'll be a part of it. And Dean, you've done some beautiful work everywhere. And I hope you're part of that as well. So that's the purpose of this is not to say no, we don't ever want it. It's to say, let's do it right.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Any other comments or direction from the board?

I got one other comment while I'm saying this, and this is just for the record. I notice one of the reasons that people have been confused in the past is it's a way we advertise things, and we're doing way better now with our Carroll Connect. But even on the issue at the top, it says proposed ordinance amending 158, 155 development and subdivision. You know it by heart. I know it now. I would never know that as a citizen what it is. And we did that with other things, billboards. I mean, we've got to make sure that it's layman's terms and people know what it is we're talking about in the advertisement. And we're doing better, but in the paper, you can't even read it. And when I go back and look at some of these advertisements, changes to chapter 158, this, this, you have no idea what it means. So I suggest that somehow, We need to, I think, put it in our ordinance that we are going to advertise through Carroll Connect. It's a great tool. People can sign up for it, and it needs to be in layman's terms. We put out a whole thing on it, and then people can weigh in like we want them to. Because so many times I've heard in the last year or so, yeah we had a hearing and nobody showed up and nobody emailed us well that's because they have no idea what chapter one and they're not going to like look it up and say let me read but see what this is i care about it if you put it out there like we did with billboards people do care you put this out thank you for coming sorry it was more not more of a convenient time but you know what i'm saying if we if we really want to hear from people we have to say what it is in layman's terms explain it and then put some links in there to what the current code is and it's not that hard and then we'll get some good feedback and i think we're moving in that direction but we need to codify it that this is how I know that the newspaper article is required by state law, that little teeny ad that I never even knew was there. I've never seen it. Now I see it. I can't even read it with my glasses on. And even if I read it, I don't know what it's for. And I shouldn't have to call up and get more information. It should say, yes, I'm interested in this subject. So how we're doing it with Carroll Connect is good. I want to continue to make sure that that information is easily available to folks so they can read it. and be involved and email us back or participate. And that's gonna make our part of the community better for good. So continue to do that. And I would like to see that codified somewhere that this is how we communicate for all of these, Every one of these hearings, when they say nobody cares, they're gonna care when the shovel goes in the ground, well, that's because they really don't know and cannot follow it. And even those of us who try to follow it, it's almost impossible to follow. Now that we know what Chapter 158 and 155 is, it's easier, but it still should be more transparent. So I thank you for moving in that direction, and that's the purpose for this change today. And I hope more people, if anybody's listening and they care, Please get involved in these work groups. We'll try to, I mean, we want to hear from people what their ideas are. And I think we could all agree. We want predictability, as you said, predictability for the developers, the builders. We need to compress the timeline. And if you have that stuff out there clearly, it's going to be a win for everybody. So, thank you.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. Any motions or directions from the board? I have a couple questions, actually, if I could.

Of course. Mr. Hine, we don't have anything on the books currently for this type of project, do we?

You are correct. There is nothing on the books.

Hypothetically, and I know this is a tricky question, I should say, if someone wanted to put in a planned commercial center mixed use, roughly what's the time frame it would take to put that from start to finish?

Typical site plan process is 12 to 18 months.

Okay, so we're looking at least almost two years to get something off the ground and physically built. Yes. So we've got 24 months in theory to, we could modify something without taking it off the books. um i understand wanting to do it right i'm one of the one person that sits up here constantly talking about a balancing act in this community being at our agriculture being at our need for housing whether it's you know older homes uh housing for youth uh you know we're being told how $2,000 rents are extreme and unacceptable. Well, that's the market we live in right now. I don't like the market, people don't like the market, but sadly, that's where we are. We can't magically fix that. And to me, the challenge is taking this off the books when there's nothing on the books, potentially for over two years, would be like buying a home and tearing the floors out because you don't like them, and then tearing the house down instead of just redoing the floors. Yes, we do have empty business locations in Westminster. I'm very familiar with it. No one can argue that. Some of those are based on a lot of factors within those municipalities, be it what the rent's being charged, who owns the properties. There's a lot of varying factors, and this is not one size fits all. We've heard about tires on balconies, which I'm not suggesting hasn't happened. people hang in their laundry, grills, and I've said this multiple times, if it's a code issue, call somebody and get it enforced. Grills aren't legally allowed. Call the fire marshal. Call the property owners. There's reasons there are guidelines for these types of things. And we're looking at older housing. What about the youth? How do we expect to keep people in this community, be they teachers, firefighters, police, if they've got nowhere to live? It's a challenge. You look at a lot of other areas, and I know some people would be like, wow, you're looking at an area that's a little too urban for some people's liking, but there are plenty of areas that have been rebuilt with mixed use and it's been done properly. And the thing is, yes, if we look at downtown Westminster, for example, back in the 1900s, your shop owner would have owned the business on the bottom floor and they might have lived above it. That's Westminster. And unfortunately, we don't have that availability to control that in exactly that fashion. But it's a known fact that ground floor residential retail does gain a building customer base typically from the nearby residents. I can point out countless places in the entire state of Maryland. We can look at North Carolina. We can look at other places where it's been done correctly. So to me, it's not a case of should we have it or not have it. I don't see the purpose in taking this off the books. Yes, we need a balanced portfolio because how are we gonna have people living here if they can't afford to live here? I mean, we lose people to Littlestown and Hanover all the time that have wanted to stay here, be they from various families that have been here, whether it's 50 years or they've been here 10 years, they wanna stay in Carroll County. You look at some of the communities, and I hear it all the time with Westminster. Well, you know, we're becoming too commercial. We're becoming too corporate. Well, Main Street, last I checked, is in the municipality, and I'm by no means casting anything negative on my good colleagues over and friends over at the City of Westminster, but that's their jurisdiction. We don't have any control over that. But if you look at our Main Street, our Main Street typically is local businesses. It's the boutique shops. It's the small restaurants. 140 is more of our corporate type of situation. But if we had mixed use in a corporate situation done properly, I don't see a problem with it because the reality is we need housing. So I'm not really sure where we're planning to go if we're not going to offer a wide variety of housing to everybody. I mean, is it a challenge? Yes. There's no reason we can't be enforcing what I'm sure is already on the books in relationship to grills and so forth and so on. I mean, do we allow two potential bad actors or whatever situations to totally modify our entire way of doing things? I hope not. We should deal with the bad actors. And since there's nothing on the books right now, for me, it's a real challenge to want to just take this out. We can fix it now. We don't need, we can fix it. I hate to say it, we can fix it while the plane's in flight. Because there's nobody on the plane. So to me, I just think that, you know, there's a better way to do this. I agree. And I know Commissioner Krebs has brought it up a few times, as have I. We need consistency. We do need that. We all need certainty. But I think we can fix this piece specifically without taking it out. That's just my thoughts. Thank you very much, Commissioner.

I just want to mention one more thing. Right now, We've never had this before. We never had this ability to do this until a couple years ago. And I don't want to call the people bad actors, because they followed the rules that we had. I mean, just because a developer wants to do something and follow the very basic rules that you can put this and there's nothing else to go with it, that doesn't mean you're a bad actor. That means you're taking advantage of a situation that we allow. So unless we allow it, if we have the standards out there, and they do. Most counties do. Most jurisdictions do. That's what we're trying to do. We never had this ability to do this until a couple of years ago. There was one done before, I'm not sure how that occurred, but it's not, I don't wanna call them bad actors, because that's not, they're doing what they can. If they had to go somewhere else, they would have to do it differently. Because there's none in there, you know, we talked, the other thing I wanna bring up, I served on the housing work group like you served on the economy work group. and we spent weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months working on it and one of the big issues that came up that i was brought to our attention from the study that the county paid for that we have not really given any attention to this board is how many vacant homes our number of vacant homes has doubled in that study period and we don't want to see our vacant home study i mean went from like four percent to eight eight percent or something like that um We'd like to figure out how do we get these vacant homes back on the books? How do we identify these vacant homes? Because that could become blight like it happens in Baltimore City. You start with one vacancy. So I think there are lots of opportunities that we could take if this board would give some direction. And when that study was presented to the board, I watched the meeting and there was like nobody even asked any questions. They leave it to the planning commission. And listen, I appreciate the work of the planning commission. They work one or two days a month. They're paid $125 a meeting. I mean, we are the board. We are the ones who are elected to do this stuff. And then we punt it and say, let the Planning Commission figure it out. Well, nobody ever gave them the direction to put designs. We've never had design standards for the unincorporated areas. So I don't think it's fair to punt this huge thing back to them. That's why we have a consultant. so that they can be recommending, because they have the bandwidth to go out. I mean, even your department is down people, and we appreciate that you're doubling and tripling up for folks, but it's a lot of heavy lift. And if you, Commissioner Gorman, are volunteering to the Planning Commission to come up with these things, all they got on their plate right now is just a lot going on. And I think when this zoning was done, it was not thoughtfully done, because there was so much going on at once with the master plan and so many changes, and that's why all these issues that we're talking about have come up because there weren't design standards put in place we just we put these new categories in we never had before like retirement villages with no no guidelines this it's it's not called mixed use it's called planned commercial center and then in a different chapter over here it says you may put residential on the top of it it's not even the same it's not even in the same paragraph to know that's it one of the issues with the one we have the newer one we have there's no parking i keep talking about parking but if you're a resident and living upstairs usually you want to park somewhere and not out in the parking lot with everyone else and carry all your laundry and your stuff up you want to have parking in the rear well the parking in the rear is a fire hydrant because it's a little teeny alley so we need to make sure there's a way for the residents to get usually mixed use the retail enters from one way and the residents i've seen many mixed use they're beautiful there's beautiful mixed use out there and it doesn't mean it's more expensive it just means it's nicely required to be done so that's an issue i have with currently we don't have the regulations and i see people parking in the back along the fire hydrant every time i go by that's not safe should they be parking there am i going to call the police no but we've got to design it better because those folks deserve to have a place to be able to park and walk into their residence and not be just coming from the front streets with all the the vendors that are coming to the stores below so there are a number of reasons but we did not have this use before and we added it and now we're just trying to pause it and if you rather keep doing longer deferrals we can this was just meant to be i think it's up a stop gap to say okay it's out until we fix it we have we're paying somebody to recommend those changes and it's our intention to bring it back in some way that is a positive asset for everybody, the people living there and the community, and it will be a benefit. That's the goal.

So I just want to backtrack for a second, just for clarification purposes. I apologize, Commissioner Gordon.

I'm going to give you a chance to respond, but after that, I'm going to ask for direction from the board because this really is a public hearing, not a discussion.

I get to speak also. You need to rotate commissioners. It's not fair that some of us don't get to speak.

I apologize, Commissioner Collier.

I have notes I want to speak.

Commissioner Kyler, I apologize. I did not know you wanted to speak. When I asked earlier if anybody wanted to speak, you didn't say anything.

I tried to say something, but I was interrupted.

I will give you the opportunity to speak. I apologize, Commissioner Kyler.

Please go ahead. Go ahead. You were first.

I'm going to defer to you.

Please. My comments can wait. Okay I agree we need to discuss everything I need I need to agree that we need to evaluate zoning all the time I understand the concern about in jurisdictions and in towns we need to recognize some of the jurisdictions in Carroll County pay about double the property taxes that we pay outside the jurisdiction so it's hard to make it more affordable in there now we need to keep trying I've been against the deferrals from the beginning. I don't think there's an emergency. I don't think they're needed. I knew they would take longer and they'd have to be renewed if we really wanted them to. I think most people knew that. They are more affordable, these current residential. I think they're full. I always... I always struggle with the this is negative that's negative this negative that's negative but they're full and they are more affordable I know first-year teachers that were able to move out of their parents house because of these so now are they cheap or were we ever going to get to the definition of affordable I'm not sure But new teachers, college grads, when we lose them to Littlestown and Hanover, they're probably not coming back. And that used to be the joke in Carroll County. We have affordable housing, it's just across the state line. I agree we need some regulations. The more regulations we do, the more expensive these units will be. And that's OK. And as long as they're still running and and. The developers will take care of that. They're not going to build something that stays empty. That's not their nature. So again, I agree. We need to discuss. We need to look at everything. There's obviously nothing in the pipeline, so there's no emergency to take something out of the regulations or defer something. And I just hate to see us. Keep deferring things when there's no no valid reason to do so. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Gordon, did you want to? I just wanted to go back real quick on one of the comments I made just for clarification. When I mentioned bad actors, I'm not speaking about developers. I'm speaking about various comments that have been made from the public and other folks, whether it be about, you know, grills on the decks or laundry or whatever those kind of issues that's what I mean by bad actors because clearly that at that point that is up to the maintenance company or the management company or the property owner to resolve that but I do want to mention one other other quick thing In the Carroll County 2024 housing study, a big emphasis was placed that these types of mixed-use properties or planned commercial centers, whatever you want to call them, would be a great opportunity for not having large single-lot family homes and would allow people a place to live. The other thing that it also does, and the five of us up here are very supportive of this, is it would preserve open space and farmland. We're very heavy in AgPres, I don't have to go into that this morning, but it would allow us to have a concentration in certain areas. and i think you know over the decades you look at back at our development process and these in various parts of the community we built developments that were pretty broad and wide well this is an opportunity to keep things in a concentrated area done properly which we all agree that it needs to be done properly but also allowing us to have more open green space farmland and other open spaces so that that is one of the reasons that i do think it's a good use if and that's the if they're properly planned that's all for me

Thank You Commissioner Commissioner Guerin you'd mentioned you wanted to yes so I think it's worth mentioning to people who are watching the actions that's that's in front of us today is whether we want to close the public hearing and keep the record open we're not going to make any decisions right now I am certainly opposed to permanently removing this use from our codes I think that is a unanimous sentiment among all five of us and that we can improve on what's currently being done. I think for me, it'll be how quickly we can get that done. There may be some basic guidelines that we can agree on sooner rather than later. They may be as simple as parking and access and where the residential units are facing. Do you want them literally up on a major road or if they're facing the opposite direction, does anybody care and does anybody mind? So, for me, I'm opposed to taking it out of there, but also hoping that we can make some, at least propose some tangible improvements in the short term so we are not adversely affecting anybody who may want to go ahead and move forward with a project such as this. And with that said, with that said, I'm going to make a motion. I move the board conclude the public hearing and keep the record open for 10 calendar days. Second. We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Daphne. All right. Up next, we have briefing and discussion on cluster subdivision, cluster subdivisions. The two of you look awfully familiar. Yes.

Good morning again.

Good morning again.

Yes. So following up on our discussion from last week regarding residential development and the deferrals and so on, I'm back here today to talk about cluster subdivisions. So just a little bit of background to bring everybody back up to speed. So as a reminder, what we're talking about is residential cluster development and we copied out of the Freedom Comprehensive Community Plan what that is, which is essentially a development that groups residential uses on a specific portion of a development site in order to provide for reduction in permitted lot size and increase in resulting open space, environmental or landscape resources or recreation or other public facilities. So we had a pretty extensive discussion back in October of last year related to cluster subdivisions. And as you're all very aware, in December then we then passed a deferral to delay and allow us some additional time to look more into those. That deferral did exempt the two cluster subdivisions in the Freedom Area that are continuing to move forward. And so there are no new projects that are actually being held up by this cluster deferral. We did task Michael Baker, who is our consultant, who is working on these deferral land uses, that cluster subdivisions are one of those uses that they're looking into. They are prioritizing, as has been mentioned, the age-restricted, the retirement villages, retirement homes, as well as the self-service storage, so they have not had time yet to start working on cluster subdivisions. Recent legislation passed by the state, which we talked about last week, the House Bill 548, Senate Bill 325, the Maryland Housing Certainty Act, has in it a provision for vesting of residential development October 1st. So as of October 1st, the state of Maryland will become an early vesting state rather than a late vesting state as it relates to residential development. Just to note, the governor did sign that bill this past Tuesday, so it is official at this point. So as we discussed last week, given the other projects that we are currently working on, we have limited resources to be able to make any significant changes to cluster subdivisions before that October 1st deadline. And so the recommendation was that if we are going to make any changes right now as stopgaps, that we could discuss those, and that's what we're here to discuss today. So I have boiled this down into three basic choices, recommendations for options to be considered. The first obvious one is no change. Is that we do not have any cluster subdivisions other than the two that were exempted that are in the works. So really the deferral is not affecting any projects currently. And so we certainly could take some time to allow the consultant to come back with recommendations as resources are available and as we can get to them. The second option would be to remove that section of code that allows for cluster subdivisions in the residential and historic districts. And so on the slide, I've copied that section of code for your reference. So essentially if we take it out, then cluster subdivisions would not be a development option until the point that we have maybe had more discussions and time to come up with more robust or nuanced codes. The other option that has been discussed is reverting back to previous code. So on this next slide, I went back to the 1993 code, which I was able to find pretty easily. I believe this was a carryover from 89, but I didn't have the time to go back and find the 89 code. So I'm not gonna go through and read through all the differences, but on the next slide, I summarized what has changed between 1993 and the latest version of the cluster code was adopted in 2022. Now, just to clarify, these changes, these differences did not all occur in 2022. They occurred over the 30 years between them. I did not go back and try and ferret out exactly when each change occurred. But these are the four primary differences between the 1993 version of the cluster code and the 2022. So the first is the determination of number of lots, the overall yield, the maximum yield of a property. back in 1993 and up until 2022 this one I do know we changed in 2022. uh we required the developer to develop a to produce a conventional plan a non-clustered plan to show the maximum amount of yield that that property could could produce and then that was the uh the maximum threshold they could use when they then clustered the the project Back in 2022, after a lot of analysis and looking at all the various projects that had come through the pipeline over 30 years, we recognized that there really was not a difference in the number of lots that developer proposed if they simply looked at the gross acreage of the property. It's just two different methodologies of coming up with the same number. By using the gross acreage, there's the additional expense of having to produce the conventional plan, and so to eliminate some of those costs for the developer that then get passed on to the property owners, we changed the code so that that determination of maximum yield was based on the gross acreage. We certainly could roll that back to the language that was back in 1993. Another change is the minimum parent parcel size. So back in 93, and I'm not sure when this changed, but there was a requirement that in order to cluster, the parent parcel must be at least 10 acres. So at some point over the years, that was eliminated. So you could cluster a subdivision on a parent parcel that was less than 10 acres. However, we recognized that some of the active open space requirements, one of those requirements is that you have at least an acre and a half of active open space, that if you have a parent parcel that's 10 acres, an acre and a half is a pretty good chunk of your parent parcel. And so we put in the provision that the Planning Commission could allow variances on the open space requirements when the lots are less than 10 acres, just recognizing that acre and a half would be a big chunk of the 10 acres or less. So that is a change that has occurred. Another change is the minimum lot size when you cluster. So back in 1993, and this is another change I believe that occurred in 2022. Up until 2022, there was no minimum lot size. So if you started with one acre lots, the cluster subdivision could go down to as small as the developer wanted if they were clustering. In 2022, we set that minimum threshold to be half the size of the allowable zoning. So if you were zoned R40 or one acre lots, then the smallest you could go would be R20 or 20,000 or half acre lots. Again, prior to 2022, there was no limit on that. The final change was, and this was also done in 2022, was in addition that all the lot yield on that property had to be utilized as part of the subdivision plan. So you could not do a partial subdivision, as it were, and take only some of your lots, cluster them, and then come back later and do another subdivision with perhaps a conventional planter or anything like that. If you're doing a cluster subdivision on a parcel, you have to utilize all of your yields and develop it fully. And that was something we added in 2022. So those are really the only changes that have occurred over the past 30-some years. As I mentioned, the three options that we've brought to you for discussion, again, no action. The code remains as it is. We can coordinate with the Planning and Zoning Commission as far as removing that section of code. or we could coordinate some specific amendments. If we limit it to just rolling it back to some of the things in place in 1993, that's not a heavy lift. We're not getting into the nuances, and we could do that. in a relatively short period of time and i say relatively short period of time um just recognizing that any code amendments uh we we discussed with planning zoning commission we then bring them back to you all we then have a public hearing that we have further discussion and adoption so it's a it's two months worth of work at a very minimum of any code changes so with that happy to answer any questions you may have well thank you very much chris thank you very much daphne any questions or comments from the board

Chris, I know you guys get tired of hearing me. This was discussed extensively in 2017. It had a whole folder on it. PowerPoint presentation, and it affects Westminster. Back then, and this could have changed, how many parcels would be affected in, this is from 2017, the report. Freedom area, 27 parcels. Westminster, 13 parcels. Hampstead, Manchester, one parcel. Number of acres affected in Westminster, 226 acres. And Hampstead, 66. And Freedom, 539. Again, I'm not sure what's been done or not done with these. But this was a pretty, and it was voted down to change things three to two by the commissioners at that time. I have a boatload of stuff here, ones from our former planning director, who I respect very much, Ned Kuhman, and he pretty much wrote us back then about the way they were proposing it was inconsistent and disingenuous, because if you're gonna allow certain lot sizes to be changed, and not give a benefit, a public benefit to it, then just zone at that because there's no other opportunity to weigh in on it. So I've got like three or four emails. I learned a lot from him. He was a phenomenal planning director. I think he's very well respected. And I was reading my notes the other night and as I said, I'm a pack rat and pulling this stuff out of my basement, glad I didn't throw it away. But I'm just looking here, it's interesting. We had a public hearing, I guess, June 15th of 2017. Board of Commissioners voted three to two to table further discussions on the clustering concept that would have allowed blah, blah, blah. Smaller lots is not the issue. The issue is not getting something in return. What is the purpose of allowing clustering? It used to be done well. I mean, there's developments that were done very nicely. The community benefited from it. And one of the things I'm trying to figure out myself is what's the difference in when you do clustering or the planned unit development? Because when I was in the library meeting yesterday, The library where it sits in Carrolltown was a planned unit development. We don't really do that much anymore. I don't hear of it. And that was done nicely. The developer gave a community benefit back to the people of the library site. And then the commercial was built in the front. It was an open air mall. And then there was housing in the back. And it was all starter homes. So we all started there. We had a big playground, open space in the middle. Houses were on a fifth of an acre. Worked for everybody because it was planned. There was space for the people. There was space for the library, a community benefit. And I thought it was very well done for that era. That's a long time ago. Now we've just sort of mish-moshed this clustering, and we really don't do that anymore. That had some very affordable homes that were forced to be done back then. It was a very nice community for starter homes for folks. That's not what has happened here. And since then, I've been reading. It's not just about what's the purpose of it. It's evolved and look back to this meeting again. When they had this meeting in 2017, everyone was opposed to I wish Beth was still here. It's quoting her. It seemed like the public is being tricked. It appears that the amendments of reaction to an individual property owner's request which it was, and I won't tell you the connection there, same connection, lots of other things, but it was about a certain property that wanted to do something. They had 500 people sign an amendment opposing it. People came all to this meeting, and it was not passed at that time. I don't know how it got in. A lot of this stuff has changed. It got changed during times that, I don't know every time, but people didn't know what was going on, but when they all showed up at the meeting, it was advertised right, there was tons of people there opposed it, and it didn't pass. It was tabled. And then somehow it got, it happened again. It came back in a different form of what it was prior to that and how it was supposed to be done. So one of the things that the consultant's been asked to do is what is the purpose of all of these different, I mean, any developer can build regular whatever zone today. There's no moratorium. They can build today what the zoning is. What is being deferred is the type of use that they're asking to occur with it. So that's why it is a deferral and it's not a moratorium because they can just build regular. So I was reading and we're talking about affordable houses and one thing that's been coming up a lot is these homeowner fees and an article in the paper surging homeowner fees pinch homeowners. Some of our Some people are paying more in HOA and condo fees, insurance, and property taxes than they do for interest on their mortgage. And it goes on to explain what that is. Now, there's different kind of condo fees. But on some of these, when you're clustering, I mean, I just look at my own development, 13 houses. It was not clustered. We all got the benefit of just having that extra property. I've taken 17 trees down. I paid for it. I had to pay for it because they died. we don't have that community property however they do it in another community and now we carve off these areas that either go to the association or they go to the county to maintain that becomes a burden on the county because if those trees have died you would have to come take them all down you're now responsible so i'm trying to figure out when we do this what is the purpose of the clustering who then does the burden fall on for taking care of that extra property whether it's a community association or it is the county taxpayers who now have the burden versus a homeowner. What is the benefit of it? I'm not sure how you quantify it, but some of these developments have, it's not as much as a homeowner fee that you have for elevators and things, but it's definitely a cost. And what's happening now in some of these older communities is the people are aging out and their homeowner associations become more defunct. And we now have a property over that same way that they stopped taking care of the community. The community association stopped taking care of all the property. It's become a burden because all the young people are gone. It becomes, depending on the size of the community, if you only have 10 people and people move away, who takes care of it? So those are issues that are coming up now. If you have a lot of folks there, maybe people will still pay attention and have their home, but they become responsible, and if you don't have responsible parties, that homeowner association who takes care of it and then what happens so there are when it's just the person's lot it's their responsibility so there are the things that I hope that we're going to look into what is the purpose what was the purpose of having this and again this is not something that we're getting rid of this is something that changed Clearly, the changes were not wanted. That's why I went to my good buddy, I don't want to keep dropping his name, and asked him, because the original way we used to do this was done right, and it was done for the purpose, benefit of the community. They had some extra open space, but since then, it's not been. I've showed you some examples of that in person, so that's the purpose of why are we doing it, and now who's responsible, and what's the burden of the financial burden on people?

So if I may, you have the two slides of the 1993 code and current code. Those requirements related to open space and the percentages and so on, those have not changed over the past 30 plus years. I went through the various minor changes that have occurred. So all of the points that you've made, we are actually absolutely committed to working on documenting those more and discussing them more and having those discussions as what could be changed. I think the only what the concern is today is whether we want to put a stopgap in place to allow us the time to get to those having those discussions or not but as far as how the code has changed from today going back to I believe it's 1989 I have documented 93, but I don't think there were any changes from 89 to 93. The code is very, very similar.

One thing changed, and it was one word. It was called net engross. Remember we talked about net engross. the application of it has changed the application of how it's being looked at has changed it went from that to gross i looked at westminster they have what i'm looking for frederick county has what we're looking for it's just to make it clear what it is what the expectations are with the purposes and again i i like westminster's code they have purposes for each of those things why are we doing why are we making an exception to this is to do x because it has underlying zoning and so we're just trying to have some again transparency expectation rationale the reason we let the ones go through i think that um because they were done they were done nicely we could you know that's why we looked down and said hey they're good they're okay commissioner garen any thoughts or comments i'm just trying to clarify so i'm sorry i stepped out you might have addressed this the um the minimum the minimum lot size so the way you've got it in the graphic here um

In 1993, you have no minimum lot size. Are you saying that the lot size was what it was zoned for?

no actually the when you clustered you could reduce the size of the lot and there was no lower limit so it was it was developer driven as market driven as as far as the size that they and they wanted to to lower it to in 2022 we revised that code to set that minimum floor to being half the size of the zoning so if you were zoned r40 the smallest that you could reduce the size down to was r20

And the change on number of lots in 93 to 2022, isn't that the issue of net versus gross? You've got the requirement, required conventional plan to determine lot yield in 93, but when you go with maximum lot yield being reflective of the gross acreage, isn't that essentially net to gross?

So... Prior to 2022, one of the metrics of looking at how many lots you could feasibly get on a property required the development of, or the production of a conventional plan. So a developer would hire an engineer to say, lay out my parcel, say it's 10 acres, zoned R20, 10 acres, Figure out where the road is gonna be, figure out where the environmental features are you can't touch and so on, and what's the maximum number of lots that we could get? And so you take that 10 acres or 20 acres, whatever it is, and they would come up with, well, even though it's zoned, that in theory we could get 40 lots or 20 lots, we can realistically only fit 15 lots. that then was was set as sort of the the for that property if you're going to cluster you can cluster but you can't get any more than what you determined from that from that analysis What we found over the years is that when the developer then laid out the cluster subdivision, which again includes the roadway, again includes the environmental features, but now you have the additional open space that's required. So that's chewing up acreage also. That the number of lots that you can get on the cluster It was the same as what they proved on the conventional plan. So we were requiring developers to spend the money to develop this conventional plan to prove a number that really was meaningless. They could just go to the cluster layout and the number of lots that they could get was essentially the same as what they laid out on the conventional plan, the number of lots. Now there were smaller lots, but you had the space that's taken up by the required open space by the cluster subdivision. So the discussion we had was that we're requiring developers to spend this money to prove something that really didn't need to be proven. And so let's eliminate that from the code. And Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners at the time agreed, let's save everybody that cost that is really not achieving anything. The end product is still gonna have essentially the same number of dwelling units. That's what we proved in looking at practically every cluster subdivision that we looked at as part of this analysis. It's not a hill that I'm trying to die on. It doesn't matter to me which way we do it. It's just two different ways of looking at the same thing and you get to the same number. If we want them to spend the additional money to produce the conventional plan, that's fine.

And again, I'm just trying to understand it. So I appreciate it. But the way you've explained it though, the way it's currently done now, doesn't that have? Or can it? Can it typically? Can it have a negative effect on? You got to factor in the open space and stormwater management issue at that?

Yes. Yeah.

So doesn't it? make that that issue sort of more acute because now you've got stormwater management that is being it has to be stormwater management but it's factored into gross acreage which nobody can use and and then you've got open space that you still have to deal with We don't have real world guidelines for that when you're talking about gross acreage as the sort of denominator. Am I right?

Yeah. Yeah. So that it's not it's not yeah, it's not a simple issue. And it's not when when you're looking at the gross acreage and I'll keep the numbers simple for argument's sake, you're looking at ten acres zoned one acre lots. Right. So that's easy math that anybody can look at and say, I can I can get ten ten dwelling units on that. Right. The complexity is when you start laying that development out. So you put a driveway or you put a public road, you've got some environmental features and so on. So that 10 goes down to say seven, right? On a conventional plan. When you're doing the cluster layout, Let's say that we wanted to hold them at seven, but when they do the same layout, when you lay out the roadway, the environmental features and so on, but you can make the lot smaller, half the size. So in theory, from that perspective, maybe you can get more lots, but the problem is that they're open space requirements that chew up that acreage. So you're still more than likely only going to get the seven lots that the conventional plan proved out. But in the meantime, you've spent the money to develop that convention plan to produce the engineering drawings, right, for a conventional plan. So you get to the same answer. The answer is still seven. there's seven smaller lots with open space with all the other environmental features, the roadway and so on, as compared to seven larger lots with the roadway and the environmental features. You get to the same answer. And so that's all we were trying to do was save some dollars for the developer and for the property owners who are ultimately buying the property. But it's just two different ways of looking at it. You get to the same end product.

Thank you.

Commissioner Gordon, anything for you? Nope. Nothing for me. Commissioner Kyler?

A couple of things. One, I have an issue with no one's held up. If I'm a developer and I own a piece of property, I'm held up. I would have submitted something three months ago, and now I'm waiting to see if I'm doing it in vain. So we are holding people up. I think there's a lot of misinformation about this. And I'll get to my last thing last. Rarely do you cluster and get as many Lots like you just described as you could have if you didn't cluster So you have less Lots maybe? It may be as much as ten or more percent You have less stormwater management because you have less roads less rooftops. You have less water and sewer and and all of that is a good thing for carroll county because we have to maintain the water and sewer and the roads and the stormwater management and and it's less of it like you said it requires more open space and i'm fine if we tweak some of the open space um and And my problem is the 2022 change on lot size. At the same time or near the same time, we changed some zoning to R40. So that made them R20. I look at Holly Hills. I met a friend last week that lives there. He has one-third of an acre. He has two or three kids. He said, I wouldn't want anything bigger because there would be more mowing, more whatever. I've said before, my three kids have lots that their house is half the size of a lot, and they're quite happy. I think we ought to look at the minimum lot size. I know of one subdivision right now that is R40, so taking it to R20, out of 40 lots, say, they're going to lose 20%. And the problem with that, for me, is there's a potential school site there. If they could maintain the number of lots or closer than 20%, I think know how i want to say it it's it's very inexpensive school site and could be free if we did the clustering right so that's the benefits we get in carroll county from clustering we get an almost free or free school site so that's a pretty good benefit like i say if we want to tweak the open space a little more but in in this case almost half the property would go to the county um but think we're in a pinch because of the r40 r20 if they were even third acres I wouldn't care if they were four per acre personally because they're more sellable I can't imagine In today's market, anybody wants a one-acre lot on water and sewer. And a lot don't want a half-acre lot on water and sewer. A third to a quarter is way more saleable. So I would like to see us look at this. I definitely don't think we want to take clustering out of it. I think we need to tweak it. But we are holding people up. and any of the stuff we talked about. All these defers are holding people up on submitting because my humble opinion, they're like saying, what the hell is Carroll County doing? I'm not submitting a plan there. And I think we're gonna maybe see some developers walk um if if we keep he keep dragging this on so that that i i'd love to see us look at the lot size i i think and and i um i communicated with all the commissioners when they changed our 20 to r40 on water and sewer that that was crazy it was a waste of land um and and i felt the same way about saying these could only be half size

Thank you very much, Commissioner. I have a couple of questions or thoughts about it myself. So any changes for us that might potentially be made to the code to these particular chapters would be countywide, correct?

Absolutely.

And so the third option about directing staff to coordinate specific amendments, those would adhere to things like strengthening the code or altering parts of it without eliminating the entire section. I guess for me, the thought that I have looking at this is that maybe clustering may work in some areas it may not work in others so i'm skeptical about removing the entire thing completely if if the board decided that they were interested in directing staff to coordinate specific amendments Is that something that you would need from us today, or is this something that we would discuss in the future? Is it something that you would bring back to us? How would that work?

So it really comes down to timing. So as we discussed last week, making some nuanced changes to the code, we would want those informed by the work by Michael Baker, the consultant, right? And they're tasked with coming back with recommendations and so on. but it's going to be it's going to be some time because we've got a lot of other stuff that they're working on and that we have to get done right so if there are nuanced changes as long as the board is okay with those happening later at the end of this year that sort of time frame then my recommendation would be leave the code as is, and we will work on these as the resources are available, as we task Michael Baker with doing the analysis and bringing that information back to the board and so on, but without a sense of urgency. If the board, however, feels that there is a sense of urgency that we need to absolutely put some things in place, the one option would be to eliminate the code and then we can go through that normal progression of evaluation and then readoption at some point. or if there are some very specific items that the board wishes us to change now, the net versus gross discussion. If we wanted to go back to what the code was prior to 2022, that's a simple change. It would still take a couple months to go through the process, but we can make just that change and then still have the longer term nuanced discussion as far as what kind of other changes we would want to envision. So hopefully that answers your question. It does, thank you.

And how many developers are currently subjected to the deferral for a cluster?

Currently there are not any. There are two projects that are in process in the Freedom Area, but those were both exempted from the deferral, so they are moving forward. Now, as Commissioner Kyler mentioned, if there is another property owner in the Freedom Area that is interested in clustering, they would be held up because of the deferral that's in place.

How many other properties in Carroll County or in the Freedom Area could be clustered? That's pretty limited, right?

yes and no it's it from a ease of moving forward right today um they're probably two main properties i could think of in the freedom area that can move forward however when you start looking at the overall freedom area and the um and the planned water and sewer system if there was a desire on parts i'd say further west in the freedom area that are planned to ultimately have water and sewer there's some additional properties but there would be a considerable investment needed to get water and sewer to them and so on so i can't tell you exactly how many properties but for ease of development there are two that i can think of

So that was going to be my next question. And then my last question, and it goes off what Commissioner Gordon had mentioned with our previous discussion earlier this session. If somebody decided they wanted to do a cluster development, what is the time frame for that in which it would occur from start to putting a shovel in the ground?

So I always give the same answer as far as how long the time it takes to get through the process, 12 to 18 months. However, the reality with a subdivision, it is more complex, so it's going to certainly be on the higher end. And a lot of subdivisions, because of their complexity, it can easily be two years, three years to get through the entire process.

Thank you very much. Commissioner Collins, do you have another question?

Along with that, your question, so I'm a developer and I want to submit a cluster plan and we decide no action today, but we ask you in planning to look at some stuff. I get vested in October if I submit, but if we change lot size from our 20 to a third acre, I can do stuff more liberal or I can do stuff stricter if I want. In other words, I, the developer, can change things. after October 1st, if I think it's to my advantage. Yes. But you can't make me. Correct. Yes.

State law allows that if there's changes to the local code that allow more for the developer, that those can be implemented. Yes.

A couple of other little things didn't come up. I think when we did the direction to the consultant, conservation district is out. So you can still cluster in conservation. I'll just make that clear. And that's fine. The big lots, they can be moved down to minimum of whatever. So that is not on the table. R40, can that still be clustered currently, or is that taken off too? Yes. Okay, so R40, R20. I'm trying to figure out again what the difference is in having a PUD, a planned unit development, and the club, because you've got common space. Yes. Again, I've been reading all these codes and I notice they're more robust, much more robust. And one thing that even Westminster requires is that you have a copy of the homeowner what they're going to be responsible for so you know yes this is what we're doing with the homeowner association we're forming it we don't even require that we don't require them to give that to us and it's nice to know you know what how they're going to establish this homeowner association um i think there should be a minimum number of lots i think 10 is a little bit low for clustering we should make it a larger number But having those things knows that that association will go on to take care of these extra spaces. The spaces aren't necessarily all in one place, like we envision, maybe with a playground. A lot of them just have a little piece over here, a little piece over here. they gotta now mow that, they gotta maintain that. If it was part of somebody's lot, the person just mows it themselves. So it depends on where it is. I mean, we all have our vision of what this is, it depends on the property. Some is advantages to people, because they are getting a walking path, or they're getting something out of it. Other is just, they got these extra parcels, either they take care of it themselves, or in some cases, they're deeding it over to us. I'd like to, again, understand I look at the back of these plans and how many parcels are deeded over. It's a lot of work. What does that put the onus on us, the county taxpayers, to maintain these things? Also, one thing that changed is stormwater management's become much greater of an issue since 1983 when this was envisioned, or 1993. and that's what has been counting into the the extra space to me the stormwater management um some stormwater management is a benefit I mean I know lots of places that have I've talked about this the fountains that go up that's a benefit but some of these ones and they have it up in Frederick County I just went to one beautiful place it's an asset but ones we have are not assets necessarily they're just sort of got a grate in the middle they're dirt they're they're not uh what i'd say i'd say that it's a negative value to your property versus a positive value so some of the issues if we're going to do this is you know what is the um cost of the county for maintaining this stuff what's the hoa requirement cost of the homeowner what's the advantage to the homeowner what is the purpose of doing the clustering i know i i can i know what i think it should be but we don't have a purpose paragraph again go read westminster's go read frederick counties they have a purpose paragraph and then we'll say and then then whoever's developing it can say this is what they want out of it i might just do conventional because you can do that they can move forward whoever these people they can move forward tomorrow with conventional so and i would just want to mention the school site i'm going to tell you one thing as long as i sit on this board we are not buying another school site that is deficient because of the the drop-off we have four elementary schools in my district three of them do not have a playable field on them because they were given to us or they were part of something and now we don't have them for rec space even though they count them for right there's not a regulation size field on any of them because we took them from they weren't prime property let's put it that way in one case i know piney ridge elementary school i remember when it happened it was given to the county and we spent more money fixing the site up and filling it in it's below grade it still sits below grade the county spent more money then than they could have bought five i mean a lot of sites because we spent back then eight hundred thousand dollars filling in dirt so that we could build a school on something that was given to us so um i know that site that was proposed is a huge drop-off huge drop-off we're not going to do another i do not want to participate in that again the whole reason we want to move freedom elementary someday is because it's on a substandard site now built many many many years ago we've added on so much so we can't we can't just keep building on substandard sites just because they're given to us or I'm not sure we can go through the county and I think we've agreed with that in the past it's got to be something that the amount of space that we require so that our we have places to do you know our ball fields and our rec councils that we don't have so that's that's the piece that um we differ on because I'm not you know when you have a big I think it was 90 foot drop off that's a huge drop off from front to back So we got to look at, you can't just be looking on a piece of paper where it's flat and say, oh, this looks good on a piece of paper when you actually look at the topography of it. And I've learned that when lines are close together, that means it's steep. And when it will throw apart, that means they're more flat. So I've learned that and I've learned from looking at it. So I thank you for that. But can we get some of these things answered? Because any of these properties can move forward, any of them that are on deferral with what it was the underlying zoning is. It's just these things that changed all these things were changes or changes over time that were never um supported and we're trying to get them back to what they were but no one is being held up from building anything with the underlying zoning at all so i just want to make sure people know that

I'd like to counter the misinformation on the school site Punty Ridge the problem was wetlands not not topos not contour lines being close together the site I'm talking about is a very gradable site I've only done thousands of them it's not a problem it would have fields our issue right now with school sites is CCPS doesn't want them that's our issue so my opinion this site would be graded as fields while it was waiting to be a school site so the grading wouldn't wouldn't be an issue and it's an easily gradable site I've walked it I've looked at the plan and it's an easily gradable site and like i say the the problem the spring garden the problem with a lot of the schools were wetlands the problem with manchester valley was rock and a stream crossing they spent two million on that i mean it's i used to say that the carroll county commissioners buy the worst possible or acquire because sometimes it was free the worst possible school site that exists in carroll county and uh they did back before you guys in rules we were actually pre grade some sites to minimize the wetlands and minimize stuff which you could not allowed to do anymore but you can't do that now but this site the wetlands are in the right place but but yeah so I I just don't want anybody thinking that's not a gradable site because it is

Commissioner Gordon, is there anything you'd like to say or add? Commissioner Guerin?

I'll only add that we have got, obviously we've got a lot going on. We've got these multiple deferrals. And we're relying heavily on a consultant that's Probably just like your staff is being overworked and and these things need to be looked at I I voted for them I'm supportive of taking a look at these It seems to me that in terms of the cluster issue if we can reach some basic changes that address I know it's not the right terminology, this issue of gross versus net, the issue of open space, how we're handling stormwater management, whether that's factored in. If we can just get close enough with some good recommendations, I'd like to see us try to at least eliminate one of these deferrals from the from our to do list and so we can focus on the others. And it would seem like this is probably a good one. And we may not all agree. on some of the changes I mean we'll vote on them I mean we'll get to a vote but it just seems to me that this is one of those deferrals that if we can try to come up with some some basic changes and it seems as though maybe moving towards what was existing back in 93 might be the answer to that question then we can maybe get this checked off i don't know how the other members feel about this because we have plenty plenty to do and doing nothing doesn't seem like a good option do you want to make a motion Well, that's the thing. I mean, what what's this motion going to look like? I mean, you know, we've got some options, do nothing. We remove it altogether, make some changes.

But I think you're looking at number two, if I may say, Chris, maybe it was the complete removal. Oh, two. Sorry. Yeah, I read three.

So it's it's more than likely three. But again, we you know, I'm making a mistake of thinking out loud here. We're constantly we're constantly We're pushing things back to the Planning and Zoning Commission now.

Yeah, it has to, though.

I know it has to, and whether we go with Planning and Zoning's recommendations is up to us. That's something I think people need to understand. Our code says we have to submit it to the Planning and Zoning Commission. We don't have to do what the Planning and Zoning Commission tells us to do, but they're a thoughtful group, and they spend a lot of time and a lot of hard work trying to do the right thing, so we always take that into account.

So if you say option three, I think what you're saying is no changes to the code today, no deferrals, but ask them to look at it during the normal course, but not make it an emergency.

When is the deferral? Is that what you're saying? Maybe, maybe. When is the deferral?

So the two dates that are kind of important to this. First is that this deferral ends June 18th. There's no way we're going to get any code changes between now and June 18th. The second date is the October 1st. So that October 1st date is what the state has basically said that as of October 1st, if something is submitted, it receives early vesting. So any code changes that we were to make after October 1st Yes, any code changes that were made after October 1st, if a project came in, would not be subject to those code changes because they would be vested when they submit after October 1st. So those are the two dates. What we're proposing is that the option three of making some minor changes would be something that we could get in place by October 1st, but I would ask that we stay away from nuance type things related to a percentage of open space and so on, which that's gonna require a lot of discussion and so on. what I've got on the screen are the five changes, the five differences between what was in place in 93 and what was in place currently. And so if the board were to direct, for example, the first one, which is the gross versus net, if you wanted to go back to what the code was like in 93, that's a simple discussion with the planning commission and in two months we would have that in place. So we could have that in place by October 1st. If you wanted to get rid of the minimum lot size, as Commissioner Kyler mentioned, that again, we could go back to what the code was in 93 and we could have that back before you. So I guess what I'm asking is if the changes that you wanna make are on this screen, I think we can have them done by October 1st. If you wanna do additional changes, I've got some reservations, but we will do the best we can.

Is that paid in our packet? I'm sorry? Is that the one with the five on it? I'm trying to see which one it is.

I don't know if you mentioned it.

Slide number five.

You don't have an eminent project. Correct. But we don't know what developers and engineers are thinking.

Correct. So would the best procedural way to approach this be extending the deferral until October 1st and then also directing staff to coordinate specific amendments as they relate to 1993?

So you certainly could. I don't know that extending the deferral is really necessary because the amount of time that a project would take to get through the process, when you, in a general normal course of changing codes, it is up to the board when you adopt them whether you grandfather in projects that are in process. So say hypothetically June 19th after the deferral expires someone submits a plan It's going to be probably two to three years before they get to the end. If before October 1st you make code changes, it's entirely up to you as to whether you're going to require them to follow the new codes or the old codes. October 1st, whatever's in place, they're going to be vested with what's in place.

All right. No, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Well, the situation with the storage facilities. And there's certain things we said we know we're going to change. I made it very clear with them. This is something that needs to get changed. And again, it's getting changed back to what it was before it was not done in a very transparent way for people to know what was going on. That's been my biggest issue with all this stuff. But then they move forward anyway at their own risk, and now we're saying, oh, gosh, they spent all this money. Well, they did it at their own risk. And that's my problem, is I don't know that we will go back and say, well, you went at your own risk. I don't know what they're going to propose. It might be nice, might not be. But I don't want to just say there's not that many parcels left, and we want to get them right. And when I look at some of the parcels that have been not right, They're not good. I mean, they're not an advantage to the homeowner. There's some negatives. It was done right a long time ago. They were done nicely. That has been deteriorated for whatever reason. So I think, again, it's one of those things you can build what you want to build today. If you want to make these changes, I mean, it takes it back, but the question becomes, even with net versus gross, what things are you including in net versus gross?

So that's why net versus gross is not the right term. Okay, but that's what they- Never had net versus gross, let's just say it. But this says it in the- The county never had net versus gross in their ordinance since at least 1989. what they did between 65 and 89 I don't know the what the county had was you the developer was required to do a conventional plan and then they clustered plan and the cluster plan could have no more lot yield than the conventional plan what we changed more recently was elimination of the conventional plan because staff found working with the developers that there was really no increase in in yield by making that requirement we can and require the conventional plan. That's an easy fix. The nuance, and this is why I'm stepping in here, because the nuance of determining what net means is a lot of conversation. um it's not an easy easy fix um and say we can't go back to this is what we had you know previously and just pull it out of out of a drawer so um in order to have time to have those nuanced conversations if the board wants to go back to the way we had done it prior to the change the change was

requiring a conventional plan and not requiring a conventional plan not not actually a net versus growth so that's what that's why and and maybe the word the terminology you're using um there was a change it was a substantial change i've got i'll share with you it's offline about all the comments that were made to me from class planning director who i supported back when this was happening and it was a big change that was being discussed and then it was tabled and then somehow it happened anyway again during 2022 when we were in the middle of covid um so i'm just going to say again these are changes of that that were defeated and we thought they were defeated. We're trying to go back to what it was. It basically is a gross versus net. You can call it what you want. It's exactly what it is. It might not the word be there. I think the word was there. But as you stated, sometimes can be more cost effective because it could reduce infrastructure. I think it puts the cost on the back end in the homeowner association and causes more in some cases has it made homes more affordable and oh no it has not one way or another the market drives the houses um and the cost it might cost less to develop i don't know that it really does but um the burden the homeowners have the burden of maintenance in the substandard community in some places in some ways compared to conventional layout um so This is what's going on in my community. This affects my community, affects some places in Westminster. I do know the ones in Westminster, eventually we turn over to the town and they annex it in, which is good. And they have a lot of say in what they're doing because they're giving them water. And they're good at making sure their layouts are nice. And that's what I'm trying to do for our area as well. So I think We hired the consultant to do this and do it right. And we want to do it right. And this will be for the future. If we expand somewhere else, we will have this stuff in place. But I keep saying all decisions must be driven by the goal of implementing the master plans. And the master plans were written in a certain way to say things should fit in with the existing communities. And as was said, by a former planning director who was very good, who wrote the master plan. It's disingenuous to put things in that usurp the original zoning. If you want to change the zoning, then change the zoning. And people have a chance to weigh in on it, the existing neighborhoods. But when you do it through something like this and call it something else, it's not it's not transparent and when there is no real benefit from it it's like we say we're doing it for a benefit but we can't figure out what the benefit is in many of these cases so I agree with them that just was disingenuous to say if we don't put something in place I think the intention the entire board is to change the cluster

zoning. Where we are today is trying to do something as a stopgap with the anticipation that we can't do the deep dive between now and October. So what the options are that we can do in this time crunch because of state law change is do nothing. We could go back to basically some of the things or all of the things that were in place in 93. or eliminate clustering as an option altogether. So I think Commissioner Guerin was going down the path of maybe picking two or three of these or maybe all of these things that were backed in 93 and then giving staff the direction to work with the Planning Commission to make those changes happen.

which we believe we could come back with you know before the end of the summer with those kinds of with those kinds of changes without too much stress on the on the current system so if we did that if we did that will we continue i mean that would be a stop gap but we're trying to again look at why are we doing this what's the purpose and these other issues that have come up would we still then use the consultant to find so he would continue on yes and then we'd fine-tune it again at some other point

This is just the step gap because we know that October 1, we cannot have the as, as we did, was it last week or two weeks ago, whatever it was, there just is not time to fix all of the issues that have been brought up between now and now we have because of the state law change, we have this hard deadline of October 1, for the, the residential portions of the of the concerns, they're The self-storage and the planned commercial center really aren't residential in the same sense that the other two, the cluster and the retirement

and the reason that the 93 the 93 stuff was done well for a long time and then somehow it was interpreted and i showed you one of the interpretations and i think it was a wrong interpret i mean totally clearly not correct and the homeowners have not been a beneficiary of it and um so how do we make sure that the interpretation that we're going to put in is going to be the interpretation that they used to use that had a benefit to the and it had and followed the concepts of what we that were put out there in 1993 why the clustering was put in how do we make sure that it's not going to go back to the interpretation being something different like like has been that's why they wanted to clarify it back during the seven during the last master plan um is because it had been on it it had been interpreted differently

So that's part of the discussion that we'll have with the consultant.

That will happen after. That would happen after we allow this. If we send it back to 1993 and the interpretation stays the same as it has been done in recent years, nothing's going to change. So we want to make sure the interpretation is what it was meant to be. um i'm i'm sorry i wouldn't i'm not sure what you're talking about regarding the interpretation well the interpretation of what exactly is usable space or open and what's the benefit at the end of the day the purpose the purpose paragraph in westminster in frederick is it's a benefit to the community if something is there

I'm sorry, but the purpose statement and so on has never been in code, has never been in county code. So that would be something new. And then as far as what is counted towards open space and so on, that was in code in 93 and it's in code today. That has not changed.

Okay, and I want to suggest that I have not read another code that doesn't have a purpose paragraph. The more clear we make it, we keep talking about development. I agree that developers need more predictability upfront. They need to tighten. I agree with all of that. If you have a purpose paragraph, it sort of explains why you're doing it. Because I still can't understand the difference between that and a PUD and why we don't do PUDs. But if we had a purpose of it.

So our code does allow PUDs.

I know, but we haven't done one in years and years.

That's up to the developers and the landowners.

But I don't understand why they wouldn't use that, take that advantage. But if you understand me, I think we should have a purpose paragraph. I think our code is very poorly done, especially after reading the multiple ones that I've read. And it's not clear. And we do want predictability for everybody. Yes.

and we can certainly do that, but that's a more nuanced discussion that is gonna take some time that we do not have right now. So we absolutely are going to be discussing that and can do that.

So it seems to me that probably our best option forward would be to direct staff to coordinate the code to revert to not maybe reverse not the right word to reflect. The code is it existed in 1993 think commissioner Guerin was on the right path and Robert I want to say thank you to you because you know your use of the term stop gap put everything in complete context for their conversations and that's not to take away anything from Chris or my but the use of the word stop gap really did contextualize everything about where we are today and why this has come up so.

And while I think we could probably agree that option three is the best way to go forward, I think we'd spend the next three or four hours debating which one of these we're going to go with and which one we're not. And we've got 18 other agenda items to go to today. So I think each commissioner needs to really do some homework and decide where they're willing to go with this. and be ready to vote on it. If we're not ready to vote on it today, we have to be ready to vote on it next week. Because I just don't want to spend the next three hours deciding which one. I mean, again, we've got so much going on. You know, everybody's heard the term the enemy of the good is the perfect. That's where we are right now with a lot of these. Paralysis by analysis, call it whatever you want. That's what's going on, and we've really got to get out of this loop. And I know these things are important, but we've got to start to make decisions here and move them forward. And it's not going to be perfect. So I don't know, but are we ready to talk about this today? Are we ready to vote on this? I don't even know if I am. We may have to decide we're going to do this next week. But we've got to do something, because before you know it, it's going to be October.

I'm perfectly willing to consent to pushing this off for a week to give us time to reflect on the potential changes from 1993 that would apply to the code as it was changed in 2022.

Because I do have a couple other questions for you regarding a couple different scenarios. I know we're not using the net versus gross analogy anymore, but this will give me a chance to do that. But I'm only one of five, so I don't know where everybody else feels.

Anybody on the board have any suggestions or thoughts about whether they want to move forward today or take Commissioner Guerin's suggestion to push it back a week?

Does option three cover what we're talking about?

Yes. So, yes.

The understanding that you're going to get, we can finalize some steps by October.

Yes.

There's no deferral. There's nothing taken out of the code. I'm up for that. I don't particularly want to talk about this another hour next week.

I agree with you, and I'm always the one sort of complaining that, you know, we don't want to kick the can down the road. I think we all agree that's something none of us want to do, and here I am proposing, well, that's what we might want to do. But I just – I'm just offering that as a suggestion to my other commissioners.

I just thought it will come back to you. So just a thought. if you're if i don't want to have anybody do any extra work but if if the idea is that you want to revert to all or at least some of the 93 changes you could direct staff to go start working with the planning commission and then and then have them come back with their recommendations about which of these would change and how And that's when you could say, oh, you know, and in the meantime, have the conversation with staff that you want to have and, you know, learn, you know, get the answers that you want to get so that when they come back with a planning commission recommendation, you know that you really liked the idea that the parent parcel must be at least a minimum of 10 acres. And so you want to make sure that stays in there. Or the obverse of that, that you really disliked that.

Yeah.

How long is the process after the Planning Commission's recommendation? Should we put a deadline on that as September 1st? There's a month. We'll need to have a public hearing. How long does that take?

It typically takes about a month depending on how much discussion you want to have because that the real time issue is the notification for the public hearing that typically takes about three weeks. So if we come to you with recommendations by early beginning of September, I think the way I've worked it out is that it can be in place by October 1st, but it has to be like September 3rd is when.

No, you have to have the public hearing. I like this thought, but we need to put it together. Beginning of August.

I'm sorry, it's beginning of August that we have to come before you because the public hearing has to happen September 3rd and then the 10 days and then.

So we want you to come back by the end. By August 3rd. Of August.

Yes, and beginning of beginning of August.

The beginning direction today would be really nice.

On that note, Commissioner Gordon, Commissioner Guerin, what do you think? Any? Any thoughts? I mean, I think Roberta does make a good point that if we move forward with asking to see the 1993 retro changes, we'll call them, they certainly would be back before us to discuss about whether or not we push them forward to public hearing and implementation. So it's not like we have to make our mind up. And that's a very good point. We don't have to make up our mind specifically today other than to say we'd like to look at the changes.

We can come back with recommendations, yes.

I think the safest consideration would be moving forward because doing nothing is still doing something and given the timeline that really concerns me if we allow this to go out another week or whatever.

yeah if if we can all if we're all going to agree on on commissioner vigliotti's it wasn't a motion yeah it was a yeah i didn't think we'd get to that point today i was just figuring we weren't even going to get there if we can all get there that's great it's better than nothing and we can always take some things out yes yes so i you know maybe i maybe i read the room wrong but

No, no, it's good that we have the conversation about trying to gain some kind of consensus. It's certainly reflective on your character that you're pushing for that, so it's good.

And I just want to mention, I like to look at history and learn from it. All this stuff that we were talking about for months and months and why I'm here, and not home with my grandkids or playing pickleball why I'm here is because we had a process that was not followed we had a master plan process that lasted years thousand people were involved lots of people involved work groups everything all that stuff we're supposed to do all this stuff's wonderful and then it wasn't followed through with it actually turned things around and everything we're doing here is we're we're reversing something that was done with the opposite of what was talked about in the master plan. We wouldn't be here today. Our development would have been fine. Everybody would have had some predictability. I think we need more predictability in our code for developers, what I expect. And they'll do it. They will. We have good people that want to do stuff. But they're not going to just offer it up. They might do it somewhere else. But everything we're doing here is fixing something that got changed that no one had any participation in. And when they did participate, it was the opposite of what happened. I still can't figure out how it all happened because I can't follow it. Some of it happened during COVID, the residential stuff. Little things got slipped in that changed a lot, but clearly I've got all the files and clearly I could go through, I won't bore you with it. I know that, again, our last planning director weighed in a lot about how things should work. It did not work that way. And I feel bad, the planning commission, they don't they're not there they don't live there they don't live near the area to even like know what these when you see it you'll say gosh that shouldn't happen like this they're not familiar with it it's hard to do something that you're not familiar with and that's why i always go back to the people that are in the area know the best of what works and what doesn't work they live in these communities and we're we punt everything back to the planning commission but we should be giving them direction and the direction should come from the master plan and from the people that's why we have it That's why I think that's why we haven't. If we're going to do it again in 2035, we're not going to follow it, then why bother getting involved with it? I probably would never get involved again. From what happened before and what happened now, why bother? I mean, Beth, that whole group was asked to participate. all this stuff that we're doing today is to reverse is exactly what they said and now we're fixing it now and spending a lot of time and i know it's less important because it's not your area it's very important to people in my area there people are just saying forget it because it's just things are not going well and it's it's not because one of these in particular is because all of everything put together and and then you got state issues on top of it and it's um I'm here to try to make it back to where it should be. It's not gonna take anybody's, everybody can build what is on the underlying zoning before a few years ago. That's all I can say. And we work with them, try to expedite plans. And I'm not sure if this will do that, but again, no one's mentioned, again, the master plan and read what was in there, what was written and what the board's adopted. And we got a whole planning commission. I don't know if any of them were even here during that period of time to know the history. So they sort of need to know what, what direction we're heading in and we just want to make people whole again and follow the master plan. And it was changed. Some of these things did not follow it at all. They were, and again, people testify. We've got folders full of people testifying articles, written stuff ignored.

Commissioner, if I may, two things. I mean, again, I understand the passion and where we're going with this, and we're trying to make some amendments, and we are going to be looking at what the consultant recommends to us. But what we're talking about today, as Roberta had very summarily and excellently explained, is a stopgap measure to get us through October 1st and beyond. The second thing, I do have to take issue with what you said, is that none of us care about your district.

As much. I know you care.

I'm sorry. Even that, though, is not true. We may represent different districts from the county. We may represent different areas, but we serve the entire county. and and yes while we may not be living down among the the areas that are up for conversation right now i promise you that among the four of us it does matter to us i mean if it didn't matter to us we never would have have entered in the discussion about the deferrals we never would have said okay let's look at this we never would have said let's hire the consultant my colleagues would have been free not to attend the public hearing back in december to see what the people down there had to say about this but everybody showed up and we stayed there the entire time because we were interested And of course, also as well in deference to you because you represent that area. So again, it's not that we don't care or not as much as we do care. We are committed to the entire county. Again, we represent different areas, but we are in service to the entire county. And that's why we've all engaged as well in this conversation today about a stopgap measure. We really do want to try to do the right thing here.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion that we make no changes to code today, but we direct staff and Planning Commission to bring us back as much as they can by August 1st on this subject.

We already have a motion on the floor.

No, no, we don't. I wish we did.

So are we talking the changes back to 93 just to clarify your motion?

Well, I think as much as they can do. Again, that's fine.

OK. I'd like to have a clearer motion than as much as they can do. It needs to be clear.

Okay, I'll make a motion that I think they decrease lot sizes and consider that. Is that clear? I mean, why don't we talk about this to 12 or 1?

Commissioner, you had a previous motion to...

I don't care. I withdraw my motion. You guys make whatever the hell you want. We've been an hour and 10 minutes on this topic and haven't added anything new to the subject, so...

I mean, I'm prepared to make a motion, but essentially it's the same motion you just made.

Maybe that'll, I'll second it. So go ahead and make it, I'll second it. We need to get the hell out of Dodge someday.

Okay, so I will make a motion that no changes to code be made today, and that the Board of County Commissioners direct staff to coordinate potential text amendments or modifications to 155-period 036-alpha Cluster subdivision and residential and historic zoning districts in accordance with the interests discussed by the board.

Second.

We have a motion.

We have a second. Is there any further discussion?

We discussed 1993 going back as a basis. Is that the basis? Yes. Just make sure. Correct. Yes. Make sure you amend your motion and say the basis for it is the 1993. That would be the starting point.

That wasn't the motion he made. That wasn't the motion I second, but I think the motion's adequate. Let's talk about it till noon and tweak the motion.

Okay, so I can amend the motion and add that the 1993 to 2022 changes be the basis of

It changes the potential text. And I second that because evidently everything was perfect in 1993.

So we've got a we have a motion and we have a motion and a second and an amended motion and the agreement to the amended second to the agreement to the amended motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor. Aye. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, everybody. All right. Up next, we have contract award for construction inspection services for the Liberty Water Storage Tank Booster Pump Station Project.

Thanks, guys. That's a long title. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Daphne. Morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Commissioner. Good morning.

The office of procurement cooperation with the division of utilities request your approval toward a contract for construction inspection services for the Liberty water storage tank booster pump station project and commissioner district 5 to Johnson Miriam and Thompson incorporated of Hunt Valley Maryland and the amount of $99,789 this purchase will be made from a competitively big term contract and the proposal is amount is within the adopted budget.

So, commissioners, this is the second of three parts of our, in my opinion, our very exciting and much needed water booster pump station for for for the Freedom District Water Service District. As I briefly mentioned last week this project includes both the construction of a booster pump station at the liberty storage tank as well as the installation of approximately 2400 linear feet of 12 inch diameter water main from along johnsville road from the water storage tank to bartholo road this will incorporate the booster pump station into the what we call the high elevation zone of the water service district and due to the scope and complexity of the work full-time construction inspection services are required by my office the scope of these services include the inspection of construction activities obviously the the preparation of daily inspection reports and photographs all attendance at onsite meetings, review of contractor progress schedules, verification of approved submittals of materials, and tracking of punch list items through project completion. Bids for the construction contract itself were received last week and I expect to return to the board in late June or early July for consideration of the construction contract award. The anticipated construction duration of the project is 150 days following the issuance of notice to proceed. And with that, any questions for me?

Any questions or direction from the board?

I just had a question. I was just noticing they're on site for the whole time. Is that common?

It's very common.

Just have someone on site. Because it seemed like a lot. I was going to ask you what the length of the project, the time length. You said 150 days. Yes. So they get 99,000 to be there every day to watch what's going on.

Yes, ma'am.

And do they bill us like by, if they have a rain day, do we pay them for that as well?

So they'll bill us by contract day. So in the event of rain, if they're working outside on the pipe section of the project, that will not be a construction day.

And the only reason I'm getting curious about these things is because I know all this stuff gets put into the cost of the water bills. And we're trying to make sure that we're just doing the stuff we have to do because it's all increasing our water rates. But thank you.

On that note, we'll have some very good news when the construction contract presentation is made. We came in well below the budget.

Good. We like good news. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or direction from the board?

I move the Board of Commissioners award a contract for construction inspection services for the Liberty Water Storage Tank Booster Pump Station project to Johnson, Merriman, Thompson in the amount of $99,789. Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. up next we have the transportation development plan presentation morning ladies good morning thank you for being with us here today

Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. The Transportation Development Plan or TDP is the result of a planning process that is undertaken on a periodic basis by every transit system. The TDP process builds on Carroll County's goals and objectives for transit, provides a review and assessment of current transit services, identifies unmet transit needs, and develops an appropriate course of action to address objectives. Our last TDP was completed at the end of 2019. The plan you're going to see today has been reviewed and approved and worked on intensively by our Transit Advisory Council. They are instrumental in the process of putting this plan together. And I do want to mention before we get really started that this plan doesn't obligate you to anything, just a plan for, you know, some moving forward in the next five years. The company responsible for compiling our TDP is KFH Group. Lib is here with KFH to present the plan to you for your questions and approval.

I just want to say you have a fantastic transit advisory council. They worked really hard with us on this plan. We met every other month. Some of you came to the meetings. We had a quorum almost every time, especially once we got going. They provided great input. They really took time. We had a very deliberative process about what things are moving forward. So I think Stacy already gave you a pretty good background about what a TDP is. It reviews and assesses the current transit services, identifies unmet transit needs, develops a short-range course of action. We term it short-range. It's about a five-year plan. It serves as a guide for implementing service and organizational changes, improvements, expansions. It's used as a basis for future grant applications to the state. And it is a requirement by MDOT MTA for grant assistance to help with public transportation in Carroll County. And again, this is an update of the 2019 plan. So here's just the timeline. It's been about a year. We've basically followed the tax schedule, which meets every other month. We added an extra meeting to make sure we had the alternatives down correctly and followed their priorities. So we did add an extra month onto the process for that. But we kicked it off in May of 2025, and then we developed the existing conditions review. We did a lot of community outreach. We had a great survey process. We'll talk about that in a minute. We developed the alternatives in three major categories, capital, infrastructure, marketing, communication, and service, and then we developed a draft plan. We still have it in draft form in case you have any recommendations for changes, but we're hoping to get you a blessing on the plan today. So again, it was guided by the Carroll County Transit Advisory Council. Again, my kudos to them. I work on a lot of these plans and your council does a great job. And here are the products along the way. A review of existing conditions, a review of the demographic and land use analysis. We had the 2020 census this time around to work with and also now they have the ACS data which is really more of the data that we use for transit planning purposes other than total population. Outreach, that's what I wanted to talk about, 631 total surveys, which was a really great response. I think that was quite a few more than we got last time. 191 were from riders. The contractor did a great job getting the paper copies out to riders, and we also had a QR code, and there were posters put around the community, and we got 440 from non-riders. So again, we developed options in three categories. Again, capital infrastructure, marketing and communications, and service. And then we have pulled together the draft plan with the priorities, the financial plan, and the capital plan. So here we go. This is what we came up with. And not just us. all of us together came up with the draft plan, the short term recommendations for capital infrastructure. So what people really want to see is a real time transit information and that you already have that in your contract with ride with us. So that's going to be rolling out by the end of this year. So we don't have anything. There was no budgetary impact on that. That's already coming. So that'll be very nice for riders so they can look on an app and see when their scheduled trip is going to come pick them up in real time instead of having to call the office. So that'll really save on the where's my ride type of calls. The next thing is security cameras on the vehicles. These are a great tool to use for risk management. So there's no he said, she said. You can see exactly what happened if there's an incident both inside the vehicle or outside if there's an accident or something. So we're recommending security cameras on the vehicles. And that's for 2028. Any of our recommendations that might cost any money, we had to start with 2028, because you're already well into the 2027 budget cycle, so we know that's not realistic. So anything that had a financial impact went to 2028, at the earliest. And then design for the facility expansion project, and that's for 2029. And I want to step back a minute. All of our priorities really reflect making the most of the current system. So we don't have a lot of expansion, at least not initially. It's mostly firming up what you have and making it better, working within the current framework of Carroll Transit System. So anyway, and once the design is ready and we're recommending that to be, actually I think it was your capital people that recommended this and we just incorporated, that the design be locally funded so then you can go after the federal and state grants for the construction and then the completion. So these are the capital infrastructure projects for the plan. um the next the next part of the plan are marketing and communications initiatives and what we really heard was that people maybe don't know about carroll transit or know how to use it properly so we're really recommending some website improvements new brochures with updated maps and translation into spanish for um for vital documents and this was really a high priority for the tech and they really agreed to help with this and turn you know once once a new brochure a new script once these new materials are made they're willing to take it to all of their constituencies that they represent in their various roles in the community. So this was a really positive thing and a high priority for the tech. And this is implementable now because it's a low-cost item. So this one will be FY2027. And we also talked about the concept of a mobility manager, and this came up in the 2019 plan also. And the committee thought, let's wait on that. Let's get these new brochures out. Let's get the website improved. Let's get a better, let's push Carroll Transit better through our existing networks and see where that goes and see if we get a better read. Stacey does annual surveys, and so she can find out over the next couple years if there's a better, people know more about how to use it. So then evaluate a need for a mobility manager at that time. And a mobility manager would just really do the job of meeting with agencies and letting them know how to use Carroll Transit, letting the public know, and making all systems that are available to county residents, make them known in one spot. So here's the good part, the service initiatives. Again, we have short-term, mid-term, long-term. The list is pretty long, and it was a very deliberative process that the tech used to rank these and decide what to do first. And what they really thought was that earlier weekday morning hours for the demand response was the number one improvement that would help the riders, both potentially new riders and also existing riders, mostly because their current schedule, they don't really schedule trips until about 7 a.m., And the dialysis starts at 6 a.m., so they're missing a whole shift of dialysis right now. Further, if you need to get to work that starts at 7 a.m., you really can't do that using the system that we have in place now. It was mentioned that a lot of people can get a ride home from work from their coworkers, but getting to work is really an issue with the hours now. So starting at 5 a.m. instead of 7, that was the number one thing to do. The second idea was to add a second vehicle for the North Carroll Trailblazer so they can stay on a little better time schedule. That one's getting busier all the time in that area of the county. So that's the second option for the short term. And then the third one is to mirror the expansion on demand response and expand the weekday morning hours for the Trailblazers for the same reason. Although they start pretty early already, but just to get a little more morning coverage, again, with the goal of getting someone to work or an appointment at 7 a.m. So, midterm is really doing a similar thing, just expanding in the afternoon. Now, right now, they run to 5. So, we're just recommending they run until 6. So, it's not as expensive on the demand response for the midterm. We're adding another bus on the demand response for capacity reasons around 2030, and then expanding the weekday evening hours for the trailblazers in similar mirroring what we would do for the demand response and running until 6. And then evaluating lower fares on the trailblazers. We threw out the idea of lower fares or no fares on the trailblazers to try to get more people to use them as opposed to calling for a ride that picks you up and takes you where you want to go. But the committee really didn't feel that they needed to do that. So the thought was, well, let's evaluate it later on and see how things shake out over the next couple of years with the trailblazers and see if it's still an issue with the trailblazer ridership not being as robust as it might be. And then longer term, Saturday service and then an additional trailblazer route in the Westminster area. So I know this is hard to see, and there's no way to do this. There wasn't any way to do this where it's not hard to see. But the first, this is the financial plan for the operating expenses. And the starting point is what you have now. 2027 estimated budget is just over 3.4 million. And so that top line, we just add 3% inflation across the years. Now the official plan only goes to 2031, but we just took it out to some things we have more in the long term that are past the five year. So we just added that, but it's the actual official, plan ends in 2031. And then we start adding and then you can see how how as the services are added and then inflation is added added to that over the years. So you can see the weekday morning early hours are 2028 for the for the demand response and then the second view on North Carroll Trailblazers and then you can see in 2029 we continue those two things and then we're adding the expanded weekday morning hours on the Trailblazers and then in 2030 we're keeping those things and then adding the later hours on demand response and capacity and then finally last year the TDP were adding expanded weekday evening hours for the Trailblazers So that's the concept. You can see it does. It does raise the price quite a bit over the years. Again, we're asking for your blessing in concepts, not in commitment. So again, going from about three point just over 3.4 to up to almost $5 million annually. And then the funding sources, now for this funding source side of it, we were directed to keep federal and state sources just inflation only, but we don't know what's gonna happen. They could be more generous, they could be less generous. We don't know those things at this point. So what we've done is put all of the expansions on the local side, just so it's realistic. It could be that there's more money federal and state, but we don't know that. So we're just leaving the local, any expansions, in the plan are locally funded. And then the other part of the plan is really just a nitty gritty. You know, we have all these buses, you know, 42 buses out there and they age, you know, they they have a seven year lifespan. But I know you guys keep them longer than that. You have good maintenance as long as we can. You have good maintenance, so you keep them longer than that. So here, it's a little bit lumpy, the replacement schedule, because you've got a lot of vehicles in 2017 and a lot in 2019. So therefore, they're going to age at the same time. So this is just a replacement schedule for when those vehicles are going to need to be replaced. They might have to smooth that out a little because it's probably not realistic to get nine in one year. Yeah, yeah. Neither from the federal and state side or from the county side. So this might have to be smoothed out. But this is where, you know, if you could do it, this would be the plan. So probably this will get smoothed out a little bit to where usually at four or five a year.

We usually get three.

OK, so this might take a year.

We have gotten four.

It might take a while to get through this. But that's the concept. And again, the federal and state funding is really quite generous with capital. It's 80 percent federal and 5 percent state. It used to be, and sometimes it's 10 percent state, but right now it's 5 percent state. So it's really, it's quite generous considering the amount of capital that you get for the resources that are locally expended. Then we also did the financial plan for other capital needs. In the Federal Transit Administration world, preventive maintenance, they put that under capital, and so it's funded at 80% similar capital, so that's very nice, whereas operating is only funded up to 50% by the federal government. So you can see the preventive maintenance line just carries through with inflation, and then we'll add the cameras in 2028. the facility design in 2029, and then the facility construction in 30 and then 31. And again, these are generally 80% federal, 15% local, and 5% state.

Are you optimistic that'll work?

I don't know. No? The facility thing? That's the only big thing in here. I think the cameras.

I think the cameras we could get federal funding on. There is a bus and bus facility grant that FDA has come out with. I don't know whether it came out this year or not, but historically on an annual basis, and that would be my plan for getting funding for the construction.

Yeah, that's how most localities fund a big ticket item like that is through that bus and bus facilities grant. It's 5339, I think it is, under the federal transit code.

So yeah, that's how most people do it. But that is why we want to start with the design first. It's hard to get a grant for a building when you have no plan. So pay for the design, then we can have a shovel-ready project to submit for grants.

Yeah, and the full discussion about why it's needed is in the full report. I don't know if you guys have the full report, but so, okay. Yes. They need more spaces, basically, both in terms of circulation and in terms of interior space for the staff to do their job. So, in summary, it really recommends transit improvements that seek to improve marketing to help riders and potential riders realize the services that are available right now that they can use without any expansions or anything. Just, you know, let's get more people on what's out there now. We want to improve driver and passenger safety through the installation of cameras on vehicles. That's very much industry standard these days, so I think that's kind of a must-do also. Keeping the fleet in a state of good repair, the vehicle replacement schedule, as much as you can stick to it. I know it's a little bit aggressive. And again, those big years were because of some big federal grants that came around, which is why you had those big replacements in those years. expanding the facility to meet the current needs of the program the current and future needs you know expansions needed now and obviously you know the program is probably only going to grow over the years as the county grows providing additional hours of service to better meet employment and medical transportation needs and add capacity where needed And finally, next steps, we'd like to get your adoption. Acceptance does not obligate Carroll County or MDOT MTA to fund any particular improvement. Implementation, of course, is a is a function of funding availability. So this is going to go any of these projects would go through the annual grant cycle. Stacey will come up to you and ask you, could you please help me with this with local funding? And I think the big thing to remember is that MTA is probably not going to fund something if they have not seen it before. So that's why we kind of get a little bit long-term, a little more expansionary. Like, these are things that the community wants. We understand we can't afford them this year, but we're putting them in the plan should the money be available. So that when Stacey writes, it gets, oh, look at this grant opportunity. Let's go for it. And MDOT says, well, it's not in your plan. So that's really the basis why it might be a little more aggressive than is presently affordable.

And so in essence, you want us to approve the five-year plan, but each budget is what's important and what we approve each year moving forward.

And everything will be brought to you in the budget cycle like any other year.

Yeah, we're asking you to approve the concept of let's do the early morning hours first. Let's you know, the things that are in the plan. But it could shuffle around based on if the community next year and their services we want Saturday service today, then OK, well, maybe we shuffle things around. But, you know, that's the basic idea.

OK, I'm going to make a motion, but I also have a couple of quick questions after that. I'm going to move the Board of Commissioners approve the five year transportation development plan.

Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. And then I have two quick questions. So you mentioned under the draft plan for capital and infrastructure, the talk of security cameras. Yes. Is that fair for me to surmise that we don't have security cameras at this point? right on the vehicles yeah okay and then the other question i have um was looking at them under the marketing communications you mentioned the idea of website improvements brochures etc etc with the from the tech have they given any consideration to uh i mean it's great it's great to put out brochures and i understand that but you know it's we do live in a very digital age are they looking to do anything on social media because right now we have a carroll county in Ohio and a Carroll County in Illinois that both have Carroll Transit. And I think given that, you know, we've talked about various digital ways in which we're trying to push out information, be it, and I'm sorry, I cannot think of the name. What is the email system or service we're using now over here? Thank you, Carroll Connect. think we need to be utilizing a lot more digital than just physical assets in that sense for marketing so I think that's something that maybe the tax should take a look at I like I like I like everything I say I just think that's something that I think it's probably being underutilized given that I'm sure most people at this point have at least one cell phone in their house if not multiple tablets and other products be it the adults or the kids

Yeah, that actually has been talked about at a lot of our TAC meetings, even before the TDP got started. We had come up with some brochures and flyers and things that can convert to social media. It just never got out of that discussion. Sure. And I don't know. I think now with the change in marketing. Change in the language. And then I think we'd be able to do that, yeah.

And I'm not certain how all this works on that end, but also I would think maybe besides just that, maybe whether it be Facebook ads were exceptionally cheap, you know, Facebook posts, because I just literally looked and there's nothing really showing up. So I think given that we live in a very digital age, it's probably good we get a little more interactive with the community if we can.

Agree. And we can strengthen that language in that part. Talk about, you know, getting the word out there better.

Any other questions or discussion?

I've got a couple. Thank you, Lib. You really focused this group. It was sort of fleeting for a while. We didn't have participation, and you came, and we had a focus, and I saw lots of participation, anxious participation, and so I'm pleased with that. So it's nice to have a plan. On the outreach, one of the things we talked about at the last meeting is making sure that they are collecting this outreach information for those who call in and maybe can't get services, because they're the people that want service and can't get it for whatever reason. You do track that. So outreach to those who, and we call it Ride With Me. Should we be calling it Carroll Transit, or is it Ride With Me, or should we market that different, or Ride With Us, not Ride With Me, Ride With Us? Should we be using one brand versus, we're using both. I call it Carroll Transit all the time, but it, You know, it's ride with me. So should we use slash ride with me? So it's one in the same.

Carroll Transit is the county provided transit service. Ride with us is our contractor. So they we're not going to brand them together. They are their own company and they they actually have their own fleet of vehicles and they handle their own private their own private transportation. So, you know, the only time you're going to see them together is, you know, Carroll Transit provided by ride with us.

which is part of the logo and the buses are all say Carroll Transit.

Yes, all of our buses say Carroll Transit or Trailblazer, depending on which because of what Commissioner Gordon just mentioned.

Can you? The cameras are a great idea, just so people know, not the cameras, the real-time transit information is a great idea, because sometimes people just don't know where the bus is. They get antsy. Yeah, they get antsy. That's something that's very easy to do now, and hopefully we can get that done pretty inexpensively. But on the operating expenses, you have costs with inflation. What do you have built in?

So built in, we started with this year's costs, which was starting with 3.4 million. And that's based on, that includes the cost of administration that the, you know, Stacy and whatever the things in that office. And then the contractor cost is about $55 an operating hour. So it's all the operating hours times 55. So all the improvements are,

No, I just see it says with inflation. I didn't know if you had something built.

Inflation, so each, so we start with this year's ask, and then each year I add 3%. The 3%, okay. So that's what's happening, yeah.

Okay, and I didn't know if that coincided with, you said the federal and state.

I inflated their contributions to just the 3%, but I didn't, but I did not ask, I didn't put their contributions into any new improvements in terms of the 50%, you know, it's usually, well, up to 50%, but you're not a 50% match now, right? um we are for services at 50 so they'll they'll fund up to 50 federal and and then state will fund usually another some percent of that so and and these short term i know we talked about it in the meeting but for the expansion of services is that the how much it would cost just like for that one morning i thought it wasn't that much is there any it's well okay it's 55 an hour uh one bus one hour is is what we're talking about so there's eight buses eight times 55 for one hour of service will be the total.

What would it take in a budget for one year to add one the morning hours that we had talked about? I think some of the folks thought we were going to try to do that.

It's in there and it's inflated because it's not the first year, but the morning hours is two hundred and thirty seven thousand eight hundred sixty four. That's based on fifty five dollars an hour times. I think it's one point three and maybe another one point three again because it's two years out and that's in here somewhere. Yes.

I can tell you which side directly that is.

Yeah, I didn't put the nitty gritty of that on the slides, but I can tell you that.

But the amount is on the slide.

The amount it's four thousand eight. It's four thousand eighty hours.

Oh, the amount is on slide eight.

Yeah, I think I've got time to do that. I'm just asking because, you know, they worked hard on this release to see what would that just to take one of the things this year and one next year, you know, what would it look like so we could see some activity for all the for all their work and then On the building, the need, you said ridership, you're looking flat. So why is the need for the expansion of the building?

They're walking all over themselves over there now. I don't know if you've ever been. Dispatch office, it can be very loud, and they're all in the same room talking to customers at the same time, and they need a little more space to do that. They don't have enough space to do that right now. It's only 1,700 square feet or something like that. It's small. It's 1,700 square feet, the whole building.

Maybe you could speak to the expansion would expand the dispatch area so that they are not quite as close together. It would provide two additional offices right now. Our road supervisor is in the break room because there is no office for him. And then it would it would expand the Right now we cannot train all of the drivers at one time. So any kind of safety training and all the things that we need to go over, wheelchair training and all the things, we wind up having to do two or three times to get everybody trained. So to expand that area that we could do everybody all at once. So downtime wouldn't be nearly as affected.

I don't know if we knew why. We could maybe think of other alternatives. But one other issue had on here about the service initiatives. It talked about evaluating lower fares. And one thing I've always been a proponent of, I think there should be some fare box recovery, even on mass transit. And the fares are very low. I mean, was it a dollar?

And so the demand response fares, which is the bulk of the service now right now, Carroll Transit, it's about about 80,000 trips are on the demand response and about 30 some thousand are on Trailblazer. So your demand response is a bulk of the of the service. And that fare is what it starts at $4, $4. Yeah, so that's quite, the mail response pulls its weight pretty well. I think that it's about 18% fare recovers, I recall. I'd have to look it up, but it's pretty good. Now, the Trailblazer fare recover is very poor, and the fare is, I think it's a little high, honestly, considering it's just a circulator. It's $2 a trip. Oh, I thought it was $1.

It's $2, yeah. It's $1 for seniors or Medicare cardholders or persons with disabilities. Okay. But regular Joe, it's $2 for Joe.

The only reason I'm saying, I mean, it's a very low fare box recovery. I forget the numbers. It is. And I'm just going to suggest, I think that we should have some fare box recovery. Sure.

And that's why it stayed. That's why it wasn't voted on.

That's why it didn't make it forward other than to look at it again. Okay. Just evaluate. And that's only just the trailblazer.

Just the trailblazer. Well, we didn't dream of doing that on the demand response. It was just the trailblazers. And again, to have, it's already out there running. Let's put people on it. You know, no one has to call ahead. They can just wait out there and get on it and, you know.

And the other thing you mentioned that I did not know is that anybody can call for it on demand. Anybody. And that's unusual for.

So it's unusual with the services that they provide countywide to get that service is really fantastic because it's a big county and it's yeah, that's a great service.

Thank you. You did a good job.

All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor.

All right.

All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you both very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Up next, approval to transfer FY 2026 annual housing bond allocation. Morning, everybody. Afternoon, everybody.

I'm sorry. I need to clear out of this.

Minimize that. There we go.

All right. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. I am joined this morning with Danielle Yates, who is our division division manager with the Division of Housing Community Connections and also Paul Moffitt, who is our housing manager. And we're here today, as you noted, seeking approval to authorize the $8.3 million in bond allocation to the state's Department of Housing and Community Development's Maryland Mortgage Program on behalf of Carroll County. This initiative is an annual state bond issue that we use to promote home ownership and the state administers this program for us. And Danielle is going to talk to the program, speak to the benefits of it, the number of people utilizing in our county, and the amounts of the mortgages that people are assisted with throughout the county. It's really a great program.

Good morning, Commissioner. So we noted we're here to get approval to authorize $8,368,353 in bond allocation to the state's Department of Housing Community Development's Maryland Mortgage Program on behalf of Carroll County. The on behalf of initiative is an annual state bond issue used to promote homeownership. The program offers local government opportunities to partner with the state to provide mortgage financing for first-time homebuyers. Since 2021, we have had 223 households participate in the Maryland Mortgage Program utilizing $66,023,765. So far in the year of 2026, we have had 33 participants utilize $10,651,490. The Maryland Mortgage Program offers various advantages to first time home buyers, such as fixed low interest rate loans, down payment and closing costs provided in the form of a grant or as a deferred no interest loan, partner match programs where a home buyer may qualify for anywhere from $2,500 to $6,000 in matching funds, that is to be paid back at the end of the loan at 0% interest. There are over 100 qualified lenders that participate with this program. There are requirements to becoming a participant with the Maryland Mortgage Program. First, the home must be the primary residence in which the home buyer will live. The home buyer must complete a home buyer education course prior to applying. The home buyer must be at least 18 years of age. The household must meet the actual program income requirements. The household also must not own any other residential properties, and the home must be being purchased in the state of Maryland. That's just a brief overview of the Maryland Mortgage Program. Are there other questions that I can answer for you?

Any questions or direction from the board?

I moved the board of commissioners approved the authorization of $8,386,353 in bond allocation to the state DHCD Maryland mortgage program on behalf of Carroll County and sign the statement of conditions for participation.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second it. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion?

i have a couple questions um so is this money that we put in or is it all state money no this is this is um bond funding but what is bond funding in annapolis is a grant so what is it what's the bond funding for us this is not money that we have it's a bond allocation that we just give the state gives to us but we give back okay so we don't put any we don't have any any match or anything okay And the state always calls things bonds, but they're really just giving you money. They call it a bond. So it says here statement of conditions for participation. What is it that they have to sign to participate?

So the first thing they have to do is a home buyer's class, which they can find, it could be done online, or there are various agencies within different counties that provide that. Then, like we said, there are income limits that the state determines that they must meet. Also, there's income limit or requirement limit as far as the home that can be purchased.

um what will happen is they will be assigned a loan officer who will work with them and assist them in qualifying for the program that best fits the needs of the household does that help yes yes very much and do you know what they're so they make the determinations of who gets the money do you know what their matrix that you talked about some of these things but if they get x number of applications is it rolling how do they decide who gets this the money

So I know, I do believe it's more of a first come first serve basis. What they do is when the funding goes back, it goes into a pot. So even though they had allotted us the 8 million, as you can see, every year we have utilized more funding than what we actually were designated bond wise. So it goes back into a pot and it's a first come first serve basis with them.

So if we have more applicants than our money allocation, we can get more?

Absolutely, and we have every year.

So is this, Celine, you were on the housing work group with me and they talked about, is this the fund they talked about?

This is one of the funds that they talked because they said we didn't participate, but we don't administer it. We allow the state to administer the program for us on our behalf.

We did participate. It's available because they wanted us to have another fund. But yet we do participate in this fund. And I just didn't know what the matrix was, if they're making the decisions. And do we know, like, who they are, how long they stay here? What's the success rate if they're if they're administering it? Do they give us any kind of data?

we can try to dig deeper um we have data for the like i said the past three year um since 21 so like in 21 the first bond allocation we got was six million four hundred eighty four thousand five hundred and seventeen dollars but we actually utilized in loans that year fourteen million two hundred fifty nine thousand two fifty two same with 2022. We were issued $6,636,000. We actually used $8,599,000. So every year historically, we have actually utilized or participants have utilized more in loan amount than they actually set aside in the bond allocation initially.

That's a good thing. So do you know what the interest rate is?

So it varies.

I know it varies, but how much less is it then?

We actually have information on the current interest rates that they have, as well as we have information on the loans, if you'd like to see.

No, because, again, this was an issue during our housing work group that we should make a fund, and we do have funding available. Obviously, we need to make sure.

And you'll see, like with the one first-time advantage loan, right now it's a fixed rate of 3%. Very much. They have another one that's first-time advantage for 4% and another for 5%. So it's very competitive, and I think mainly it's going to be based on what that household is going to qualify for.

And do you know how long this lasts us through the year or how many people get denied? How many people are not being served that would like to be served and will qualify?

That I don't know if there's anyone that has not been served. That is a good question. I can absolutely go back to- What's the need?

Because our group put forth a recommendation that we put together a fund. It sounds like we have a fund. The question is, how much is it working? Are people taking advantage of it, and is there still an unmet need?

Inquiries that I receive, I always direct to the Maryland Mortgage Program. I've never had anyone come back and say they have not been served.

No, that's really good information, so we know that. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Any we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. I all those opposed. Motion carries. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners.

Up next, we have a grant approval to submit application and acceptance of award for the FY 2027 Competitive Senior Center Operating Fund Grant for the Division of Aging and Disabilities.

Okay, and so I am being joined by Gina Ballantyne. She is our division manager with the Division of Aging and Disabilities. And then Rich Oton, who is our community services manager with the Division of Aging and Disabilities. And today we are, as you said before you, we are here to talk about our Senior Center Operating Fund grant opportunity, which comes in two forms. One is the standard formula funding that we receive each year. the other piece is a competitive piece so this year we've done some research listen to some of the considerations that Commissioner Krebs has talked about regarding kind of enhancing our strategy where we have folks signing in and registering for our senior centers each year to be members of our centers and the data that we are collecting from individuals and taking that into a more user friendly process and to try to work with our vendor that we have currently to operationalize that as an online registration rather than a paper process. So Gina's done a lot of great work very quickly behind the scenes as this competitive grant has just come out and we have come up with some strategies and she's talked with our vendor MJM and she's gonna share with us some of the work that she's done behind the scenes and what we're proposing for this application.

God bless you. Bless you.

Thanks, Celine. So as Celine said, we're looking to modernize our Senior Center membership registration process. It's all done on paper, as Celine said. And the registration forms include data that we're required to collect under the Order of Americans Act. And we're looking to move to an online application, working with MJM, who is the vendor who helps us with senior stat or that we contract for for senior stat. Senior stat is the swipe card system that our members use when they come into the center to acknowledge what activities that they're participating in that day or if they're attending there for lunch. So the project will improve the organizational capacity by streamlining and modernizing our registration process and transitioning, of course, from paper applications and manual data entry to online registration system would reduce the administrative workload for our staff, improve efficiency, and allow staff to redirect significant amount of time toward member engagement, program development, outreach, and service delivery. So in addition to working with MJM in order to, and we're the first ones, like there are other counties throughout the state who use senior stat and work with MJM and we are the first county that has reached out to them and Rich made those contacts with MJM in order to ask if they could develop an online application or mobile app for us for the registration process. They said they had been thinking about it and so we're excited if you approve and also if Maryland Department of Aging approves our grant request for the competitive grant to implement this in fiscal year 2027. In addition to working with MJ on the project, we also intend to partner with Carroll Tech to support the members in learning how to use the online application process. Carroll Tech Council is already doing a lot of work in our centers and providing classes to help members feel more comfortable with using their own devices, but also computers and email and educating them about frauds and scams and things to be careful of when being online and using their devices. So, but it will help to, you know, anything that's a change is always, like, there's apprehension with it, but, you know, in working with Carroll Tech Council, we have our computer labs in all of our senior centers that we can help people, you know, learn to use the new process once it's implemented. So, we think it's a great step in the right direction to, you know, just to improve the process for people to register and make it much more easy for them. So we're happy to answer any questions that you might have.

I just want to thank you. And it's not just about making it easier. There's two staff members in each senior center. I know ours is very, very busy. Sometimes if one's not there, one's got to cover. And they're retyping all this paperwork every year. And if you make one mistake, it's wrong. And if you just had it in there and somebody could correct it each year or whatever, it's much easier. So I think change is always tough, especially when you go to automation. But once you do it, you're like, wow. you just saved a ton of time and the accuracy is better because retyping a whole sheet you get their email address wrong you get their phone number wrong so there's a lot of room for error when you're doing it all manually so I'm just trying to take this burden off of staff and say if we do it automatically not everything's perfect but if even 80 percent become perfect they don't have to sit there and be inputting all these issues and then they can focus on managing their job and they again two people at each senior center For as busy as ours is, it's tough feeding all those meals, and then you're sitting there typing in for hours, changing these forms. So thank you. I hope it works smoothly. We don't register for much. Hopefully they can send it. It's already populated. You don't even have to just make changes where you need to make changes. I think I know it's again I hate change too and I love paper but I think hopefully it'll be easier for everyone and I think this efficiency and the amount of staff time to free up we're not going to save any positions we're going to free up the time and the stress of doing this paperwork so thank you for following up I can make a motion if you don't want please I move that the Board of Commissioners approve the submission of the FY27 competitive SCOF grant application for the Division of Aging and Disabilities and accept the award. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we are going to hear a request for a public hearing for FY25 Community Development Block Grant Family Shelter Renovation.

Good morning, commissioners. I am joined here with Debbie Staniford, our grants manager with the county, and she is going to be asking for the request for a public hearing, and she'll share a little bit about the reason we need to do that and the why.

Good morning, Commissioners. I'm noticing as I'm looking at the briefing paper, this was almost two years ago to the date that we accepted a CDBG or Community Development Block Grant Award that supported the construction of the family shelter. We received $800,000. That project is complete, as you know, and open, and a requirement of CDBG is to hold a second public hearing once the project is underway. So we are asking your permission to schedule that, and we will be back before you in June to hold the hearing.

Any questions or direction from the board?

I move the Board of Commissioners direct staff to schedule the public hearing. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion?

I know it's a dumb question. I'm sorry. But why do they want another hearing when it's finished? They just want to make sure it's finished successfully? I mean, what's the purpose of them requiring another hearing?

To hear if there are any public concerns about the project. So just to close it out and to say- Just to close it out. It's just a requirement of the, it's federally funded. It is a requirement of the program to hold a second public hearing.

Okay, I'm just curious. Thank you. It's a great facility.

All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you, Commissioners.

All right. Up next, we have state and local fiscal recovery fund update with our Department of Budgets.

all right i am staying and i'm going to be joined by corey and you know i don't do this often enough to remember how to find the uh powerpoint but oh there we go okay you're doing a good job with it you got it it's been a while i feel like i haven't okay now what do i do corey you know roberta i wonder i wonder what powerpoint looked like in 1993. i don't remember So it has been about six months since we provided the board with an update of your FRF plan. So we are here to do that today. We want to review the projects for you. And then we also have a recommendation for your consideration for the grant staff project. A big picture look at the plan, the Board was awarded just over $32 million in federal funding from the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, or FRF. There is another $4 million in county funding in these projects, and you have earned $4.6 million in interest over the years of the plan. We have allocated $4 million in interest when we were here before you last fall. If you'll remember, you had given staff, the FRF team, the ability to use that interest strategically on capital projects. So that team right now is Corey and I and the county administrator and deputy administrator. Our goal in that was to make sure that the FRF or federal funds were spent first. We still have some interest in the plan that is unallocated. It's about 600,000 that is not being utilized in any projects right now. So visual of your plan, the biggest portion of the plan went to broadband, 42%. The next largest category was water and wastewater projects, including the funding that we gave to municipal water projects. human services this is the family shelter project and the behavioral health expansion that you funded public works included hvac generator and the ag center parking lot we had one storm water project COVID response, a very small part of this, but as you remember, we had already received $20 million in direct federal funding for COVID response, so we had little need for that as a part of this plan, and then administrative costs were less than zero at this point, or I mean less than 1%. So, here are your projects. You have this in your packet. I've numbered them if you have a question about any of the projects. The yellow projects are those that are still spending, and these are the ones that we are monitoring. We meet with the implementation teams on a regular basis. We are monitoring progress on these projects, and these are the projects that we will use that interest strategically to make sure federal dollars are spent first. Treasury still allows that flexibility, so we're pleased with that, that we still have that ability. Blue projects, these are like one invoice away from closing. These are just about done, and green projects are complete. Now, this is the total plan, 70% in total is spent, but that includes both your interest and county funds. The FRF funds, we are around 82% spent right now in the federal funds.

So 5 and 6 are county projects, Shiloh and Freedom, right? Yes, sir. Then does that save money for infrastructure work that would go to water and sewer fees? Yes. Yes.

And Hampstead. The biggest project is the Hampstead Wastewater Treatment Plant. Those three are county projects.

Which is our sewer. So, yeah. We build sewer, right? In Hampstead, yes. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

And on the same page, while I was asking, I could read the descriptions on these others, but what's a long driveway hard to connect?

So this is a project, and there's state dollars in this project. This is a grant agreement between the county and the state to connect those long driveways, that last mile of connection. I think all in, this is a Comcast project. All in, this project is about $2 million. So it's not the driveway. It's the actual broadband.

It's broadband going down the driveway. I'm thinking it's a driveway.

Oh, sorry. No, it is broadband for those long driveways. I probably need a better description for that.

No. Yeah. That's what the grant was called.

I understand.

It's hard to get that.

Comcast has a... maximum distance they're due free correct and and like mine was free but when you have a long driveway they charge you a bunch of money it becomes expensive and so Comcast has match in this the county has match and then the state is funding the rest of it this in total is about two million I thought it was about broadband

I mean, about just the driveway. So what's a county RFP?

And so we put out an RFP. Yeah, you're right. And sometimes, you know, you just look at it too much. I have looked at these project names for years. And the county RFP was also for broadband. We had 4.3 million. We put out an RFP a couple years ago or more. We awarded two contracts, one to Verizon and one to Comcast. And Verizon's project is complete. Comcast is underway. And really, one and two are being built concurrently because Comcast is the builder for both of those. I think we'll connect about 800.

And the only reason I think it's good to put the descriptions in is so that somebody reading it, like myself, or just somebody, you know, we are applying for these things. The broadband is for, like, the ones that are not connected, the handful that we have left. So I think it's good to put that in there. And what's the single audit? Yes.

So every year the county has a single audit. Aside from our financial audit, we also are audited on all the federal funding that we spend. So this is the cost of the single audit for the FRF because the FRF has been part of the single audit each year. So that was some money that we have set aside for those costs.

And the only other one I couldn't understand was the match for NIG 23. Also a broadband project.

Yeah, I appreciate your comments because these aren't very descriptive.

No, and I think it's good to show what we're spending on because it's good. 100%. Broadband.

So this is Neighborhood Infrastructure Grant.

Neighborhood. Network infrastructure.

Network infrastructure grant. There are two of those. Both were awarded to Quantum. Project number 10 was the first grant that they received. These are much larger projects. This is just the county portion. And then NIG 23 also awarded to Quantum. And this is just the county portion.

And then also the family shelter that we just talked about. This was for design. And so we got money from the feds and money from, uh, well, two different kinds of grants for that as well. No, it's I'm all about going for the grants and I appreciate you telling them what they're for. So we're trying to do these things. Okay.

OK. So I wanted to talk about Project 22, which is grant staff. Originally, the board had included grant staff in the FRF plan. We had a part-time grant tech was approved. We hired that position. When they left, I think we went out twice more with an ad and interviews and didn't find anybody and decided at that time manage it internally we spent a fraction of what was put into that budget so I would like to ask the board to reconsider or consider opening that project approving a full-time grant analyst and using the interest that is currently unallocated to fund that position we have you know some needs one is the FRF audit you know they Treasury continues to build this ship as it sails we do not know what closeout will look like I anticipate that there will be some requests from Treasury as we close these projects that will be next spring so and we will be subject to audit through 31 so I would like to get that shored up internal audits we just mentioned that as part of our single audit the frf has been part of that audit every year and i will say and i think this is in part in in response to the new uniform guidance that was just released the audits have become increasingly rigorous i think the first year that we had covet funds audited we might have uploaded five documents This year, it was better part of two months of Corey and our time. We uploaded hundreds of compliance documents. We had multiple interviews with the auditors. We passed with flying colors. We had no findings. And I think it also prepares us for a federal audit, because we understand what the auditors are looking for. But it's quite time consuming. And this project will be audited both in 26 and 27. So we'll have two more years of single audit with the FRF. transition to Tyler I am very excited about this is going to this is going to manage grants in a very different way for the county but it also will require a lot of setup we've in 26 we had 280 separate grant projects worth 95 million dollars and each one of those grants is different and will require a little bit different setup in Tyler So we need to prepare for that. And we are looking to go live with grants over 27 and 28. It's going to be a process. We're not going live with all grants on July 1st just because of the complexity of it. I also see, you know, I think when I was in the middle of COVID funding and we were getting all this federal money that this would end and we would kind of go back to normal. And I don't see that anymore. We've got some big capital projects that are going to be federally funded, the airport and Piney Run Dam. DFAM is now a fully functional department that can apply for a lot of federal funding. The board has applied this year for federal earmark. So an emphasis on federal funding. And that takes work in our office to help train and set up appropriate policies and do compliance reviews so for all of those reasons i would ask the board to consider that request how long right now that 600 000 would fund a full-time position for about four and a half years is there any direction from the board

So this is for the whole, because I was wondering why it was 600,000, so that would last us all the way up. Yes. I fully support doing this. I've said all along, it's worth our investment in money, especially using their money, but using their money to leverage more money. And you've done a good job, but I think there's more that we can do. And it's worth it if you're getting, I don't know what the penny, you said $95 million. I'm not sure what your budget is, but it's um i appreciate you going after the two of us you've done a good job people in the grants office and i think if we have someone that can help out for four and a half years to help go after more of these dollars and be successful and we need to look be start being a little more strategic of what we want to go after but thank you for that and i certainly i certainly support doing it so this would be a county employee or a contract employee

A county I would yeah county, but I guess we don't really have the grant contingent nomenclature anymore. They would be a full county staff.

Any other questions or direction from the board?

I move the Board of Commissioners accept staff recommendations for unallocated FRF interest and approve a full-time grants analysis position in the Grants Office. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye.

Aye. All those opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you very much. All right. Up next, we have a contract award for the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund, FRP number 45F12526. And I know we also have public comment for this. I think we'll go through the presentation first, then open to public comment, and then open to discussion from the board.

Good to go. All right.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Department of Management and Budget request your approval to award four contracts for community reinvestment and repair fund services. The county solicited proposals for behavioral health, youth and after school programs and housing and homeless services and received 10 responses with four proposals recommended for funding. Collectively, a total of $1,150,000 is recommended for award. The county will renew the tier one contracts annually pending satisfactory performance through June 30th, 2029. The cost will be 100% funded through the community reinvestment and repair fund grant.

Thank you very much. Roberta, who do we have for public comment?

It's Catherine Adelaide.

Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. I'd have to say, can you hear me this time, right? My name is Catherine Adelaide, a county resident and member of the Carroll County Republican Central Committee. I have a little bit of an issue with the transparency issue. Item 10 should have been identified under community reinvestment and repair fund. as funded by adult use recreational cannabis tax revenue. I've been waiting for this, so I caught it quite accidentally. Actually, I was wondering when it was coming, but it really didn't give proper notice. And I know Commissioner Krebs has been all of you have been concerned about making sure the public really knows what is coming before you. So that's my first problem. But the bigger problem, of course, is that I mean, I guess these are great and deserving groups for legitimate community funding, and I'm not trying to be here to be the spoiling on it, but again, this is not legitimate community funding. Illegal is illegal, and therefore it's wrong. and it doesn't deserve your vote. It's still illegal. The Controlled Substance Act have a schedule one to three for certain limited purposes which have absolutely nothing to do with adult use cannabis. Article six is still the supremacy clause. The Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Rake from 2005 is still good opinion and the Supreme Court has refused to hear a recent case brought by the cannabis industry. If adult use cannabis is illegal regardless of a rogue state law and referendum, et cetera, then the proceeds are also illegal. Drug proceeds now called community reinvestment and repair fund equals money laundering as I've testified to before. It's illegal for you to receive it and or distribute it. It makes more money laundering. And it actually implicates the very good, great agencies that are receiving it. I wonder if they really know what this money was from. You can't receive stolen goods. You can't receive laundered money. What if it was human trafficking? Would you take those proceeds to help victims of trafficking? The key to drugs, and by the way, human trafficking is now exceeding the profit margin of drugs. You might think it's impossible. 50 years ago, nobody would have ever thought our commissioners in Carroll County would be bringing this in here. So you might go, well, she's just off the deep end with human trafficking. No, I am not. It's coming also. You wouldn't do it then. You could see the problem. I hope you see it now. The key to drugs and trafficking is prevention, not education and treatment after the fact, of okaying it when it was illegal in the first place. After this vote, you can't take it back because you didn't have to take the proceeds. It was not a mandate. It's more like a bribe. Also, for the public record, in a vote you take today to distribute these, it confirms that the sheriff and state's attorney or law enforcement and the Carroll County government are racist. without any proof. Cannabis money for reinvestment in the community that has been disproportionately impacted by past enforcement of cannabis prohibitions. Have any of you seen any proof of that? This is what liberals claim. So I don't know how it ended up in Carroll County. As Republicans, you know, I urge you to at least read some report and convince me that, you know, that that kind of racism has gone on. I'm not saying it hasn't.

Please finish your thoughts. You have 30 seconds over.

Okay. So what I would propose is delay the vote for two weeks and get a formal written legal opinion from your attorney about how taking drug proceeds is legal. If you take a vote today, I'm asking Commissioners Guerin and Vigliotti, who voted against the recreational pot, to be consistent as a matter of principle. But greatly, I would ask that there be a third vote and just vote no on receiving these illegal funds. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Roberta, do we have any other public comments? All right. I'll open up to the discussion to the board. Any discussion or direction?

Move the Board of Commissioners award for contract for the Community Reinvestment Repair Fund services to the Boys and Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity, Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovative Collaboratory, and Westminster Rescue Mission for a total collective award of $1.1 million, $50,000. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Oh, you need a second? Second. I'll second.

We have a motion. We have two seconds. Is there any further discussion?

I mean, I'm just going to say I philosophically agree on many things you just said. However, I've been through this many years in the legislature about cannabis, medical marijuana for years and years and years. What we're trying to do, and I think we did a good job of it, giving direction last fall, whenever we did, of what kind of groups we wanted to go to. And these are great groups. They are trying to do prevention. I can speak for all of them. I don't know about magic with how that ties in. But my point is, I think the bulk of this is going to groups that are clearly focusing on prevention, Boys and Girls Club, Westminster Rescue Mission. And whether it's illegal or not, if we don't use it, it's going to go to somebody else. And these organizations will not be able to help with the prevention piece. I think it's so important. So I just think you've got to weigh the principles. I like to do a lot of things for the principle of the thing, but sometimes the principle doesn't override the underlying what you might be able to achieve with it. So that's why I'm going to support this.

All right. Is there any other discussion? All right. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you, Commissioners.

Thank you. Up next, we have approval to purchase replacement vests and accessories for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office for FY26.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, questioners.

Good afternoon.

North Carolina.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office is requesting your approval to purchase replacement vests and accessories from MES Service Company in the amount of $104,327.08. This purchase will be made utilizing North Carolina Sheriff's Association contract that was competitively bid. This amount is approved in the FY26 budget.

So, Commissioner, just a little bit on this and the next two items before you. We're looking to do an overall vest replacement project for the entire agency spanning the course of two fiscal years. In the past, we have done as each vest expires. So you can do eight one year, 20, 50, et cetera. In this case, we've been able to look at the technology. Imagine there's technology in vests. We're able to go with a level 3A, which we've not been able to do. One, the cost, one, the structure, how it was made. So one of the things was working with budget so that we can actually switch the entire agency. For officer safety, we don't want to take five years to get everyone into the new type of vest. So this is the first part looking to get a certain amount of the best ordered with this particular request. And if there's any other questions, I'm happy to answer.

I move the Board of Commissioners approve the purchase of vests and accessories to MES Service Company in the amount of $104,327.08. Second. We have a motion to be seconded.

Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Up next, approval to purchase replacement vests and accessories for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office for FY27.

Okay, I apologize. You got excited and we're hoping we were moving along. Okay, because it's showing up on mine as the exact same thing. All right, so approval to purchase replacement vest accessories for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office for FY26.

All right.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office is requesting your approval to purchase replacement vest accessories from Gulls in the amount of $67,747.50. This purchase will be made utilizing a source well contract that was competitively bid. This amount is approved in the FY26 budget.

So part two of this, some different items to go along with the vest from a different vendor for the same project.

So is that why a different supplier?

Yes, a different supplier, correct.

I move the Board of Commissioners approve the purchase of replacement vests and accessories to Gauls in the amount of $67,747.50. Second. We have a motion, we have a second.

Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed?

Are you opposed or? I'm a four. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Yes.

All right, motion carries unanimously. Up next, now, approval to purchase replacement vests and accessories to the Carroll County Sheriff's Office for FY27. I apologize for my confusion.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office is requesting your approval to purchase replacement vests and accessories from MES Service Company in the amount of $109,905.71. This purchase will be made utilizing North Carolina Sheriff's Association contract that was competitively bid. This amount is approved in the FY27 budget.

the last piece of the very big project, so we can continue right along as soon as July 1 hits here.

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the purchase of S and Accessories to MBS Service Company in the amount of $109,905.71. Second. We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion?

I just want to make sure. I read this like three times, so I just want to understand for clarity purposes. So you're buying two different sets of things over two budget years to get it all done at one time. Is that correct? Correct. And the second budget year, FY27, won't happen, that part, until July. Correct.

We're just getting the approval now. I understand.

It was confusing because I'm looking, how is this different?

Because it's a very big project.

And there's two separate types of things that you're buying.

There's many accessories and things that go along with it with all the vests. So, yes, we had to break it up between different years.

I get it. I just want to make it clear because I've read it several times myself. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right, up next, Spending Authority for Food Services for the Carroll County Detention Center Sheriff's Office.

The Office of Procurement Cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office requests spending authority approval to spend up to but not to exceed $750,000 for food service operations to Summit Food Service. The amount will cover costs for FY27. Payments will be made utilizing Calvert County's contract that was competitively bid. The funds are approved in FY27.

So commissioners, this one and the next one have to do with our continuing service for food services. The next one is to finish out 2627 got in front and this is to continue. So we're able to continue paying right through July as soon as the next fiscal year starts.

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the Spending Authority for Food Service Operations for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office, the amount of $750,000. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Up next, approval of additional cost for food service operations for the Carroll County Detention Center.

The Office of Procurement, in cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office, was before the board in July of last year and received spending authority approval for food service operations at the Carroll County Detention Center to summit food in the amount of $700,000. The original $700,000 was an estimate amount to encumber funds through the end of the fiscal year. We are requesting an additional $100,000 to cover May and June of 2026 cost for the food service. The amount exceeds 10% of the original spending Authority approval and per resolution number 116-2022, delegation of authority requires approval by the Board of County Commissioners to spend these additional funds. This purchase will be made utilizing the Calvert County's contract that was competitively bid. This amount is within the FY26 budget.

Commissioners, as James just read, this is to have coverage for the rest of our expenses for the fiscal year for food service and the detention center.

I move the Board of Commissioners approve the additional cost for food service operations for the Carroll County Detention Center inmates to summit food in the amount of $100,000.

Second.

We have a motion, we have a second.

Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Up next, vending authority for Prime Care Medical Incorporated for July 2026 medical services.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office is requesting your approval to spend up to but not to exceed $447,350.72 for medical services to PrimeCare Medical, Inc. for July 2026. This purchase will be made utilizing Cecil County's contract that was competitively bid. The funds are approved in the FY27 budget.

Commissioners, this covers just several different pieces, our ongoing services into July so that we can continue with that, as well as any catastrophic billing that I've been before you in different months so that we can continue with that as those expenses are incurred right through into the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the cost of medical services for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office to Prime Care Medical Inc. in the amount of $447,350.72. Second. We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion?

I just have a question about, is any of this reimbursable through Medicaid or private insurance?

So the medical providers look at that first to see if there is anything, whether they can get discounted, if anyone has insurance, et cetera, before we receive any of the catastrophic billing invoices.

So if someone's not applied for Medicaid, do you try to get them applied?

As far as I know, medical staff works with whomever does have it if they come in.

Well, it's not who has it, but who's eligible, because usually if you're in jail, you're eligible.

They would work with whoever to do that.

No, it's just it there would pay a portion of it. And most of the time, you're not working.

Yes, I just confirm that if anything can be covered, they do work with that. Yes.

Again, it's not just that they're already covered is that they might not even be happy on Medicaid. And that's why you try to make sure that they get right to save you money in the long run. And at the hospitals, we try to make sure somebody's. Yes, there are that they're eligible. They should be filling out the paperwork. Thank you.

All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Up next, Spending Authority for Prime Care Medical Incorporated for Medical Assisted Treatment Related Expenses.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office is requesting your approval to spend up to but not to exceed $635,000 for medical assisted treatment related expenses to Prime Care Medical Inc. This purchase will be made utilizing Cecil County's RFP that was competitively bid. The funds are approved in the FY27 budget. This purchase will be made with 100% covered by the Opioid Restitution Settlement Grant.

We've been before you in the past with updates for this entire program. This is looking to continue the service into FY27. It does cover several things, supplies, the nursing staff, all the medications that our medical provider provides. I didn't quite say that right. um for the year so it is separate it is broken out separately it is the funding is through the opioid restitution and i will tell you every year we do look at that we do go back and negotiate look at what we need for staffing what the supplies are what all the expenses are so we are forecasting the expenses to be lower this coming fiscal year than last fiscal year just so you're aware just on the types of medications and how all that how that entire program is managed

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the cost of medical assisted treatment related expenses for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office to Prime Care Medical in the amount of $635,000. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Is there any discussion?

Sorry, can you tell me if upon discharge does this follow them and if it does for how long?

So there are warm handoffs. I can't explain what happens after they leave, but they work with several agencies to do a warm handoff depending on what their status is when they leave the facility.

I don't know how long the settlement would follow them because that's one of the biggest issues.

The settlement is for costs while they're within the detention center.

Part of it is when they're discharged, they're cold turkey. So there's a handoff. Is that still covered under the opioid settlement grant?

I wouldn't know.

Because that's one of the issues. It's just that continuation when they get out.

I wouldn't know because those expenses aren't through us.

Thank you. Sure.

All right, we have a motion of a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Up next, spending authority for medical assistant treatment related expenses from Genesis Incorporated.

The Office of Procurement and Cooperation with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office requests your approval to spend up to but not to exceed $132,000 to Genesis Treatment Services for medication-assisted treatment-related expenses for FY27. Genesis Treatment Centers is an approved term contractor. This amount is approved in the FY27 budget. This purchase will be made with 100% covered by the Opioid Restitution Settlement Grant.

commissioners just another one of the vendors that's part of the program I'm looking for your approval for ongoing services for the next fiscal year.

With the Board of Commissioners approved the spending authority Genesis treatment services for the medication assisted treatment related expenses for the care of County Sheriff's Office in the amount of 300 coxies me a 132,000 which will be paid through the opioid restitution settlement grant.

We have a motion we have a second is there any discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right, up next, we have spending authority for Prime Care Medical Incorporated for FY26 cat billing, but not cat cats.

The Office of Procurement Cooperation with Carroll County Sheriff's Office requests your approval to spend up to but not to exceed $80,000 to Prime Care Medical Inc. for the Carroll County Detention Center for catastrophic billing and related medical expenses for the remainder of FY26. The funds are approved in the FY26 budget.

So you heard earlier about the continuing service in FY27. This is to cover the remainder of our expenses for catastrophic billing for the rest of this fiscal year.

Move the Board of Commissioners approve the Spending Authority for catastrophic billing and related medical expenses incurred through the remainder of FY26 to Prime Care Medical in the amount of $80,000. Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye. All those opposed?

Motion carries unanimously. Thank you both very much.

Thank you.

And last but not least on our agenda, we have the Carroll County Infrastructure and Investment Fund Transfer. Excuse me.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you both. Elise Beaver, Director of Economic Development. I have Paige Sunderland, who's the Deputy Director here with me. And she provides support to the Industrial Development Authority. As you know, we have funding in the Infrastructure and Investments Fund. to help with economic development expansions and relocation projects. And this money is intended to help us kind of secure those projects and make sure that either existing businesses stay here in Carroll and expand here in Carroll, or relocation projects to be competitive in the region and in the state. And so it is a long-term investment process that you have to undergo through for any economic development project. Usually takes a few years to get these things done. And one of the things that we find is that companies want ready sites, you know, infrastructure in place and ready sites, and so we work with the Industrial Development Authority to make sure that that happens over the period of time. So we have this fund, and what we have done the last few years has come to you, and the money is already allocated in the economic development budget, and we would like your approval to transfer some of the remaining funding, $700,000, to the Industrial Development Fund. and authority so that they can work on these future projects for Carroll County's economic future. So we're here today to ask for the authority to do that.

Move the Board of County Commissioners to approve the Carroll County Infrastructure Investment Fund to transfer the amount of $700,000 to the Industrial Development Authority.

Second.

We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion?

Yeah, a question. It says, you know, North Carol, it says, is complete and being actively marketed. That's good. So what is this? What's the next? What's next? Or is that part of what you're trying to market for the North Carol parcel?

I could hear.

Go ahead. Okay. I could hear. It's actually both. So North Carroll Business Park South section is ready and is being marketed. We have a North section that the IDA could develop, but right now they're looking at a couple of different opportunities. They haven't made a selection yet on what property they want to engage with.

We already have the property. This would just be to get the site.

They have the Hamstead property. The other two would be acquiring.

Okay. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any further discussion?

Are there currently any other projects or potential projects down in the southern part of the county that you can talk about?

That's always a good question that I can talk about. I got a caveat in there that I can talk about.

In terms of development projects or in terms of property that the Industrial Development Authority is looking at?

The latter.

Okay, and we had talked about the Delaney property in District 5 previously. We had come to the board looking at that. That is property that the county currently owns and certainly the plan all along over the last several years was to transfer that property to the Industrial Development Authority for development. And when we brought up before the board the last time, you weren't ready. The board wasn't ready to make that decision. I believe the Industrial Development Authority is, you know, they've been talking actively about that. They are still interested. There is an interested party that's next to that property that is interested in purchasing 10 acres. That can't happen until the Industrial Development Authority would have ownership of the property. So, yes, I'd say that property in particular is one that Basically, the ball's in the Board of Commissioner's Court to say, you know, we would like to move forward with transferring this to the Industrial Development Authority for future development. So we made some steps to change some of the employment campus zoning language so that, you know, it met everybody's approval. And so I would say that that's definitely one in that area. And then there are a couple others that they're looking in the Westminster area. Okay, thank you.

Alright, we have a motion of a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. I all those opposed motion carries unanimously. Thank you both very much. Thank you for birds. We have anybody here for public comment. Alright, Chris, do you have anybody on the line for public comment?

Yes Sir.

Alright, well thank you very much. Next we'll move into admin open. Does anybody have anything for admin open today?

Oh, one little quick thing. I didn't realize there's another part of the website that I haven't seen where you print out minutes. And last time when I left, there's three things that abstain. It should just be absent. abstain is different than absent somebody pointed it out I don't know just email maybe I don't know I've never seen it it's something that gets typed up as minutes and it just you know it's the voting record it's not minutes but we'll make sure it's changed not the one that comes not the one that gets okay thank you just not abstain but absent excuse absent thank you

All right, next one. Two things.

The turf field at Carroll Community College, I've asked the project managers to do a tour of it, a site visit sometime. They've come back with, and particularly, I think, for people that haven't seen a turf field built, when the turf's going down is the best time, I don't think people care about drainage below it but they think late June or early July that that turf will start being installed so if anybody's interested I'll let you know when they when they decide that's happening and I just think it would be a good site visit there to see the field and then secondly only because of those two are we ready to put the Delaney property on the agenda and talk about it or still Not ready.

You mean talk about what to do with it?

Yeah, that IDA could take it and develop it.

Didn't we just approve some solar down there as well?

Yeah, solar is happening and doesn't affect- Right, doesn't affect what the IDA wants. According to the county staff, that's a rocky slope that isn't suitable for anything else in the world, right?

We don't have here a chutzpah when it comes to moving dirt.

But the solar is happening. Yeah.

It's a good place for the solar because it's rocky and hilly. That's where you should put it.

All right. Anything else for Ed?

I mean, we could we could ask. I mean, staff's got enough going on. I can't recall. I'd have to go back and look and I can't recall. I know the Enterprise Industrial Complex is across the street. I'm trying to remember exactly what is south of the Delaney property. It's all that development at the corner of Clean Mill and 26, if I'm not mistaken.

um so it's it on 26 is actually the two are the two schools linton and um century um and then the the rest of the property sort of sits behind them okay i'd have to solar's even are we interested in a quick review in close to just say what the property is yeah maybe a quick review would be a good idea because i just can't remember yeah oh i understand that's like i say if they wouldn't have mentioned i wasn't going to bring it up but

We can do that.

And the other thing is, are they ready for it, number one? And number two, I'd like to revisit just before we transfer it what the setbacks and all are for that property. Just all that. Just review it. What are the setbacks on the industrial property?

It's an employment campus.

Employment campus. Whatever. Whatever it is. That we can look at and say, yeah, we've done it.

So can we get an update on it enclosed, and then we can decide if we want it on the agenda? Mm-hmm. I definitely don't want to bring them back for the cold reception they got last time.

It wasn't cold reception. It was just that we had committed it to something else.

They got a very cold reception last time. That's factual. I'm sorry.

Let's not digress. We've agreed to.

I just made a statement, and it's factual, so I don't want to be told I'm wrong. I'm sorry.

I just have another question. Along with when you're bringing that up, they've just mentioned that maybe someone was interested in a parcel, and the question is, do they want the finished parcel, or would they just want a parcel? When that came up, just cover that as well.

Probably shovel-ready.

I'd like to find out from them.

All right. Does anybody else have anything for admin open?

No?

Then we'll move into our agenda review for the week of June 1st, 2026.

Good afternoon, Wanda. How are you? Hi, Wanda.

Alright, so up first week of Monday, June 1st on Monday, June 1st, Winters Mill High School graduation with Commissioners Gordon and Kyler and Manchester Valley High School graduation with Commissioner Kyler Tuesday, June 2nd. Commissioner Gordon has his Chamber of Commerce breakfast and Commissioners Gordon and Kyler slated to attend.

I got to ask again. So I have to pay to listen to him. That's correct.

It's a rough life, you know. OK, sorry. No worries.

Pay double. That's what Commissioner Gordon told me.

I don't recall that. 9 o'clock a.m., Century High School graduation with Commissioner Krebs. 3 o'clock p.m., Francis Scott Key High School graduation with myself. Wednesday, June 3rd, South Carroll High School graduation with Commissioner Guerin. And then that afternoon, Liberty High School graduation with Commissioner Krebs. Thursday, June 4th, 8 o'clock a.m., Board of County Commissioners closed admin, followed by open session at 9 o'clock a.m., First up, Priority Carol, followed by item number two, approval to purchase PFAS phase two groundwater remedial investigation. Item number three, approval to purchase Team Dynamics IT service management ITSM system. Item number four, approval to purchase pipelining. That's a very vague High planning for the county or for a specific area. Do we know? Could be both.

I'm sure the briefing paper will.

Okay. Item number five, change order, waste transfer and disposal. Item number six, contract approval for medical director for the Department of Fire and EMS. Item number seven, contract award for the background checks for volunteers RFP. Followed by public comments and then admin open agenda review. And then that afternoon is the Westminster High School graduation with Commissioner Gordon. Friday, June 5th, Sheriff's Office Correctional Entry Level Training Academy graduation at the community college. Commissioner Kyler is slated to attend. And Wander, would you put me down for that as well, please? Thank you. Please add me as well.

Thank you.

Saturday, June 6th, shows nothing on the formal calendar. Sunday, June 7th, Commissioner Gordon has the podcast. At 1 o'clock p.m., the Historical Society of Carroll County Remembrance and Reconciliation Historical Marker Dedication with Commissioner Gordon. And then the Townsend Cook Historic Marker Installation and Unveiling on the Grounds of the Sheriff's Office Administration Offices in Westminster. Are there any changes or corrections for our first week? All right, hearing none, we'll move into the second week, the week of Monday, June 8th. On Monday, June 8th, the formal calendar shows nothing. Tuesday, June 9th, law enforcement torch run presentations and lunch at McDaniel College. That's when they bring the torch in, I believe, right? Yes. So I know I will be attending that, I believe, I think. I'll double check on that. Is anybody else interested in attending that?

I might. I'll look at the rest of the day.

Okay.

Put me down.

Noon, the Leadership Carol Class of 2026 Commencement at Wakefield Valley, followed by the Greater Baltimore Committee Meeting, and then the AgCenter Board Meeting that evening.

Just tell me about the Greater Committee Meeting. How does that work? Are we all just there? Virginia was supposed to be part of a regular meeting, and then it moved to Tuesday, which is fine. So is this something where we're just automatically there, or do we say we're going?

You'd have to RSVP or say you're going.

But is it a meeting to us? I thought it was a meeting in front of us. the whole what it what is that what is this i thought they were coming to report to us or is that not true it's a meeting and where is it it's their their meeting with economic development and you're invited oh okay okay so it's not a meeting that we're necessarily expected to be at but we could be at it correct is it something that we would want to be at that's up to you i mean i just never i know i know for a fact that that afternoon i could not make that but Okay.

You can think about it. You don't have to decide. Write me down.

I'll just think about it.

All right. Wednesday, June 10th, Farm Museum board meeting with myself. Eagle Court of Honor ceremony for William Dean Schreier with proclamation at the Portico at St. John's with Commissioner Gordon. Thursday, June 11th, the Board of Commissioners closed administrative session followed by open session at 9 o'clock a.m. Item number one, Priority Carol, followed by Mr. Glenn Edwards retiring, who will be in attendance. He's the Environmental Coordinator at NPDES, followed by Daily Perks Challenge Recognition for the Department of Human Resources. Item number two, briefing discussion on presentation on self-service storage. Item number three, grant approval to submit application and acceptance of award for the FY2027 Baltimore Regional Transportation Board Transportation and Land Use Connections Grant Program. That is a long title. Item number four, public hearing for the possible extension of temporary deferrals on retirement villages and retirement homes in the Freedom Designated Growth Area. Item number five, update on engaging neighborhoods, organizations, unions, governments, and households for the Enough program. Item number six, spending authority for substance use recovery treatment services program, oversight and monitoring services, followed by public comments, admin open, agenda review. Friday, June 12th shows nothing on the formal calendar. Saturday, June 13th. Every step counts at Bell Mac Macrae. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

I cannot attend that. I'm at a wedding about two and a half hours away.

Okay. And then Sunday, Commissioner Guerin has the podcast. Are there any changes or corrections for the second week of the agenda? All right. Hearing none, we now need a motion to adjourn.

A couple questions. I'm sorry. Yes. We did have an invitation while we're all here together about a ribbon cutting for the tannery farm. I don't know what it is.

And I guess... That's the women's shelter from the rescue mission.

Well, it just says a ribbon cutting for the tannery farm. We'd like to have them in attendance. The date would be July 10th. Is that something that should be on the calendar? Or is that not? We're not that far yet. Oh, we're not. This is something. Okay.

Yes, it will be on your calendar.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

All right. Without anything else for the good of the order, I need a motion to adjourn. So moved. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and two seconds.

Everybody's seconded.

All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.