Town Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Well, reopen the uh meeting of the Hamstead Town Council. And please rise for the opening prayer and pledge of allegiance. Dear Lord, we submit ourselves to you as your servants and the servants of the people of Hamstead. Place their trust in us. Please every word that is spoken, every action taken to be in the best interest of Hamstead and for everyone gathered here tonight influence in these unsettled times. The Lord bless this meeting and our town. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands for Jim Roll. here.

Very good. Um, before we I reopened the meeting, you may have caught that, but we had a brief close session, executive session tonight to talk about a personnel matter which will add to the minutes for next uh to next month. So, that's the reason for the reopening. Minute approvals from the council meeting on March 10th. All those in favor? Anyone? Thank you. Okay, Jim. As always, project on the pipeline project. Pipeline number four is done with the exception of permanent. That leaves one more and that is the new water man to be installed along lower Beckleyville Road from the existing well 13 to the site of new water treatment plant to be constructed on the chief sites park property. They started out there today doing some test fitting along lower Beckley'sville. Um that's a very short run and they expect expect the entire pipeline project to be done by the end of May. Uh just as that's finishing up on the water treatment plant side grading and construction should begin in the next few weeks. Construction will begin with the addition to the North Carol Farms facility which has a completion date in early January 2027 after North Carol Farms. Uh they'll move on to Hamstead Valley. Then Shiloh and Derry will be the last one. and their preliminary schedule right now still says that the construction of all the water treatment plants will be completed and they will be in order uh working by July of 2027. Um mentioned before that we were exploring doing a town of Hamstead Mural. Well, we met with them a couple times and town staff hired Dominic Jones a local artist a town mural on the south side of Rockos Market in Delhi. Mr. Jones has painted numerous murals in the

area, including a Westminster mural on the wall at Westminster Automotive Tire Pros, and I will email that out to everyone so you can get an idea of his work. Judy and I saw the preliminary draft of the Hamstead mural, and it was very impressive. We gave him some suggestions on how he could make it more Hamstead and so he's going to update it and take some of our suggestions and put it in and then provide us with another proof. The mural focuses on all four on four aspects of Hamstead. Its origin, its past, the present, and its future. And if everything goes according to schedule, we're hoping to have it done by Hamstead.

Um, we'd like to welcome Dana Mangus to the town of Hamstead team as our new financial administrator. Dana, of course, replaces Cheryl Ryan, who retired on April 2nd after 17 years with the town. Preparation of the 2027 budget has begun. Preliminary numbers for general go, public works, police, parks, water system, everything has been established. All departments will meet later this month basically to fine-tune it and formulate a budget to present to the council at the budget workshop on May 7th. And of course, when all departments meet, the mayor will be there with us giving us his expertise in in the financial world. Um, Hydrant flushing tomorrow evening about 9:00 Wednesday, April 15th. Public works personnel will systematically flush all fire hydrants. This may cause some slight discoloration during the flushing hours and during the day on Thursday the 16th. Please run your cold water tap until the water is clear. You may wish to draw enough water before Wednesday night to accommodate your early morning consumption since the average house system contains less than 100 gallons of water. It would also be advisable to refrain from doing laundry during flushing hours on Thursday morning. Be assured that the water received or possibly discolored is still fully treated and portable. Uh if you plan to apply for a Town of Hamstead scholarship, you got to time's running out. You have till next Friday the 24th. Town's awarding three $1,000 scholarships to high school students who reside within the town limits have been accepted into a college or university. Applications can be mailed, dropped off the town hall or email to Judy Rang Jr. A NG at hamsteadmd.gov. Um, yardways pickup, it started again. It started last Monday the 6th and it

will run until the third Monday in December. Lawn clippings, leaves, and other waist yard should be placed in brown paper lawn and leaf bags. No plastic bags will be accepted. Uh, Waste must can also be placed in bins or cans that are clearly labeled yard waste. Branches must be smaller than 4 feet in length and less than 2 in in diameter, bundled and tied up for loads. Dirt, soil, animal waste, kitchen waste, which is used for composting materials, are not considered yard waste and will not be accepted. Uh Hamstead day, it's coming up just about a month away. It will be May 16th from 8 a.m. to 3:00 along Main Street. It'll be the normal footprint from the past few years from M Avenue to Rhinam Avenue and that section of Main Street will be closed from approximately 6:30 a.m. to 400 pm. Um, one other thing we have, uh, today was a very eventful day around here. So, I'll talk about one of the big things and Chief Monahan can discuss the other. So about 8:00 this morning, we discovered that uh Route 30 South was closed right at Northwoods Trail. You could turn into Northwoods Trail, but you could not go any further down. Uh I talked to Kevin and Toby and they rode down and CSX had decided that they were going to work on the rails down there today. They told Kevin and Toby that it was emergency repair. Um coincidentally, they had they've had a stack of ties sitting there for six months. So how much of an emergency I really don't know but so blew their tire out the very could have possibly been it. So they spent today basically uh replacing some of the southbound ties and refurbishing the southbound crossing. From what I understand they finished up

around 4:00. So that section of Main Street Route 30 business was closed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. without telling anyone. State Highway didn't know. State Highway found out when we called them. So, um, they said that at some point they will come back and do the northbound lane and they have been strongly urged to let state highway and the town of Hamstead know well in advance when they plan to do that. So, that was the first little bit of fun today. Chief can talk about another part of it later on. Any questions for Jim? nightmare. You know, two words. All right, Diane, we're getting close.

Yes, we are. The Hamster Farmers Market Advisory Team on April 6th. We now have 25 vendors and are still accepting applications. One of our new vendors will be selling cinnamon buns and granddaughter will be selling cookies. I hear she specializes in French macarons, so I'm looking forward to trying those. Chocolate chip,

maybe. I don't know. We'll see. Hut Coffee Company in Gettysburg will be selling coffee beverages one Saturday per month during the season. We may have another coffee vendor to fill in some of the other dates as long as they have enough. So stay tuned for that. We hosted our annual preseason vendor appreciation lunchon on April 11th at Green Mountain Station and as usual they did a really good job with the food and the service. Katie Troy of Northre Farm gave a PowerPoint presentation called Turning Browsers into Buyers and she talked about techniques vendors should use to attract customers such as clear signage, visually appealing product displays, samples, and a friendly and informative demeanor. She also suggests making payments easy by providing clear pricing and several payment options. The Hamstead Farmers Market will be participating in the Agra tourism passport program again this year. In addition to the stamp passport cards, there will be a digital passport option through a phone app. Visitors will be able to scan a QR code when they visit participating farms, markets, and events. I should have more information about that next month. Opening day is June 6. There will be a ribbon cutting at 8:30 and uh the mayor, town council members, and manager or anybody to participate.

Okay. Do I have got to make sure I got that on my calendar? June 6 8:30. Yes, ma'am. There bells on. All right. Wayne, we have a lunch that day, too. Yes, we do. It's a busy day. Busy. Hamstead train station will open up on May 16th. Ra in the park. Starts on June 13th and the posters coming soon. Tree commission. We did our arbor day planting, our spring planting this past Saturday. We planted 71 trees at North Carol Farms section four. Um we had five children and 15 adults. Special thanks to public works and to the mayor who worked very diligently to uh stakes in the ground. Not as much as what's that third grader's name? What was her name? Adrien.

Adrien. Something like that. She put us all to shame. Yeah, she did. She had endless energy. Yeah, she was she was lifting some stuff. But um we uh finished up the mayor read the Arbor Day proclamation and we got our picture and good time was had by all they work.

The Hamstead planning and zoning commission met on Wednesday March 25th and we had an introduction of the final site plan for the wise gas and go at 721 Hanover Pike. The only change from the concept to the final plan with some minor storm water changes and they're hoping to be open by the end of the year. So, we shall see. And then as far as the Carol County Department of Planning update, we had a new liaison. Her name was Carile, very sweet. And she let us know that they're going through their recommendations from their work groups, housing, economic development, and agriculture. And they're going to get feedback. The master plan is in process, but as I found out tonight, Carile has been assigned to a different municipality and we will now be working with Scott Graph.

When's when's Chipotle open? Chipotle? I don't know. We haven't They're working up there. I know they're working there like strictly building permit. It'll be sometime mid to late summer. That's

all right. hopefully soon. The MML uh Carol County chapter scholarships are out. Uh we too will be open for that until April 24th at 4 p.m. You can find that on our website here in the town town of Hamstead. Have it to us by 4 pm. So far, I've only gotten several. I got one tonight. We have three $1,000 scholarships. So, bring them in. Um this past Saturday, uh the Rain Street Partnership participated in a countywide trash pickup. We usually do one every month anyways for Main Street, but this was a little more expanded. We had a lot of help from um the um

honor society. That's exactly was the honor society up at Manchester Valley came down and uh we were a and pipe beside helped us out too. Uh we were able to get six 55gallon trash bags full of trash. Um we couldn't weigh it because it was mostly just paper stuff. I don't know how much it weighed, but that was impressive. We actually went out and did some parks that we don't normally do. Panther Park and we did behind Wise in that area down there as well. So, it was a busy Saturday. Ben,

all right. For water usage in March, it was 343,000 gallons per day and April so far is 342,000 gallons per day. Rainfall in March was 3.4 in and so far in April is 1.46. Even with all that rain, Hamstead still remains in a moderate drought category. And again, just to echo Jim, um reminder that the hydrant flushing will occur on the 15th tomorrow starting at 900 p.m. Um also, I think this is great. The town does this public works. um they actually check your water usage to see if there's a high variance and they'll call you um they've been working with homeowners to conduct these high water usage checks and they'll they'll call and say that this there's a variance and might want to check and see if there's a leak. So I like that they look out for us. Um just wanted to give a shout out for that.

Yeah. And actually um the the water customer can call into town hall and say, "Hey, I'm not sure where it is. I can't find anything." and we can schedule for public works to stop by that their residents and see if they can find anything. So, and normally they they can find them. So, that's great. They check everything daily. They know when something's happening. I thought that was great. Yep. All right. Going a little bit out of order. I'm going to do my report and then um we'll do police after that. But um so we all went to the in the past month we all went to the gall. I'm surprised nobody mentioned that for the fire department. We were going to let you mention

Okay. Well, thanks. So, um, the Hamstead Volunteer Fire Company held their first ever gala for, you know, obviously for the benefit of a fire department. Um, we attended and, uh, it was a great event. Really well attended, total sellout. Couldn't squeeze another person in there if you wanted to. And they, uh, and they, and they auctioned off a bunch of coins. Um, you know, Wayne got coin number one. Um, and, uh, it was lively bidding for the coins. number one, number two since that's their engine company, and the last one number 50. So, uh, the fire company did very well. So, I would anticipate I think they've already scheduled something for next year. Um, and, uh, they'll they'll continue to do it. So, uh, it was really well done. Um, then, uh, Dave already mentioned we were up in Union Bridge for Carol County, Maryland Municipal League meeting at Flood Zone. Uh, that went well. It's always good to get together with all the fellow municipalities in Carol County. We all attended the Northern News Awards this year. Johanna Brown um of um sorry

Quantum thank you man was escaping me. Internet services was the honore along with several other people in both towns Manchester and in Hampstead. Um and it was uh again really well done and it's great to recognize everybody in uh in the respective communities for the um extra effort they put into making these places so special to live. Um Jim already mentioned it's budget season. So, you know, looking forward to May 7th at 7 o'clock. We'll sit right out there in the middle of town hall and go through every single line entry that we have in the budget on our wonderful Excel spreadsheets. So, um I think that's pretty much everything. The last I mean it's been a busy month. Last month I was I told everybody that Dave Snyder would be moving on. He's um already done his first council meeting in Gettysburg. And so in the interim um we reached out and uh we're fortunate to have an interim police chief with um with Jim Monahan who's sitting here tonight and um you know I think everybody here has their resume u and for those out there in the audience but Jim was a career Baltimore County um officer and basically started his career in 1998 retiring in December of 22. um started as you know in the police academy and then as an officer working in different several different uh districts from Garrison to Woodlon and then um from there promotions and led him to burglary and then lieutenant which was operations and a brief stint in homicide. He was promoted to a captain in Frank Franklin precinct criminal intelligence. He did a stint in IAD internal affairs and then finally he was a major um and so retiring in December of 22. So we're fortunate to have Jim and uh and the background and expertise he brings with us. He's only going to do it in the interim. We are, you know, advertising for the police chief job. Um we were going through some of the resumes tonight. There's four or five of them that look real good that

we'll bring folks in and uh start the interview process. So, um, so I'm going to ask for you guys to confirm Jim as the interim police chief. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Your first police report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, the only correction is I started in 88.

Sorry, I said 98. I'm sorry. 10 years off. I wouldn't I wouldn't have been able to to leave then. So, um but no, it was a great career and I uh only been gone for three years and um I'm very much enjoying myself, but uh um still still keeping it as the interim. So, uh but so let me go over some of our stats and then I'll uh finish off on our wacky day today. Um, traffic safety wise, we had 13 accidents. Uh, six were minor, two hit and runs. Um, I'm sorry, seven were minor, six were reportable being two of them being hit and runs. Four of them in the circle.

So, I do I get a cut out of that or no? Okay. All right. Entertainment purposes only. I don't know why they don't all participate, right? Okay.

Um, traffic enforcement, we had uh 14 selective enforcement um conducted over three hours. Uh, two citations and four warnings and one DWI arrest. Overall, uh, traffic enforcement was 57 citations, 11 repair orders, and 221 warnings. I I do like the uh I like those numbers. Um, I think you get a lot more out of uh sometimes warnings than you can um you know, writing people tickets. So, I like it. To to finish off on on the crazy day, we had a uh little accident in the circle. Um it was a dump truck being driven by a sevenmon pregnant woman. And apparently as she was going around the turn, the tire blew, the load in the truck shifted and it flipped and she was okay. Um, Sergeant Crshaw handled the accident, went down to the hospital uh, personally to check on her and everything and she was all good. But um yeah, we had we had northbound closed at the train tracks and we had the telling everybody to go to the bypass and then we had the bypass closed while uh uh CJ Miller came and scraped up uh everything that was all over the road. And um we got we got it going pretty pretty quickly um for for such a mess. But um yeah, it was interesting day with both of those going on at the same time. Um as far as crime stats go, um seconddegree assaults, we had four uh burglary through with no force. Uh we

had one just put everybody's mind at ease. Um that was a uh eight-year-old autistic child that just walked into somebody's house. She heard it from upstairs. She thought somebody was breaking in, called it in, and when we got there, everybody was fine. And when she ended up coming down, she realized, you know, who it was. So, not not a not a big issue there. Um arrests, four DWI arrests, the child neglect, uh an unauthorized use, and two of the assaults. Uh, and then one driving without insurance, a suspended driver, and an unlicensed driver. Um,

that's it. Questions, Jim? Welcome aboard. Well done. Thank you.

I will say on the there on a personnel side, we're a little short right now. Um, Matt Bachmann had his first child, Lawrence. every mother and baby and everybody are doing great, but he's obviously on paternity leave for a few weeks. So, uh, you know, good on that and, uh, you know, welcome Lawrence to the family. All right. Uh, new business, which is the approval of of a fiscal 20 uh, fiscal year 26 budget revision. The affformentioned street scrape that we're working on requires transfer from the um, $7,000 from the streetscape capital to streetcape because it's not a capital expense. It's more it's under 10 grand. It's more of just a regular operating expense. So take that motion.

And I guess we technically have to do a roll call because it's a budget. Council member Barrett. Yes. Council member Painter. Yes. Council member Thomas. Yes. Council member. Yes. Council member. Yes.

All right. Simple. Um then uh ordinances and resolutions. An introduction and adoption of resolution 202601 which is a resolution to Florida task force to modernize county and municipal revenue sources. This is a task force that MML has backed as one of their legislative priorities. Uh initially it's forecast was looking bleak um because the Senate was not going to authorize any kind of task force, but at the end of the day they saw the light I think what they saw was the light of their budget

and u and all the issues they're going to have next year. So then it's going to trickle down to the counties and the towns. So they decided it was probably a good thing to have that task force to have everybody in the same room talking about uh revenues um and municipal revenues for those you know you'll learn um on in May for those who don't uh typically listen to our budget workshops but we're primarily relying on property taxes and then we get a split when you check that box on your Maryland tax return that you live in Hamstead. That doesn't mean you pay an extra tax to Hamstead just means we get our fair share instead of Annapolis. So, we get some of that income tax that you all paid to the state. Um, so those are our two biggest drivers. So, everybody who lives just outside of town who comes and and uses our roads and our restaurants and everything else, they they get a free ride and our police department is usually the first ones who show up at their door when something goes wrong. Uh, whether they're inside or outside of town. So, um, you know, it's trying to look at all that. I think it's been decades. It's been at least 30 years, I think.

I thought it was longer than that. um since it's been looked at previously. So that was the reason and that's the reason for this um adoption of this resolution. One thing I found when I was looking into this that was interesting is basically onethird of all sales tax and use tax is generated in municipalities for the for the state and yet we don't the municipalities don't see anything come back to help us with our budgets. very much. Okay, then that was quick motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Anyone opposed?

Thank you. And before we get to public comments, one other thing um I should mention, we Jim and I have been going back and forth with farmers and merchants because of the um construction projects we have going on with the water modernization project. Um they're significant um hundreds of thousand dollars a month. And so it requires us to fund the money, pay the contractors, then submit everything to MDE, get reimbursed. So in order to stay in goodstead with the contractors, we're going to have a line of credit, a revolving line of credit with farmers and merchants for $1.5 million. Um I think we can wait and approve that in May for the council meeting. Yes.

Um but we finally agreed to terms on that. I think F&M stepped up very nicely for us that we'll have that for consideration in May. All right, public comment. It's you. It's one person here. If it's you, if you want it. That's okay. Good. I'm glad you're here now. It's all good. If you if you're if you want,

just give us your name and address. Yeah. Uh Megan Streeting, 457 Northwood Street. Um I just have one question. Um there was proposed I guess 16% water hike in Hamstead. No, Arrol County. Carol County. Okay. What is that going to benefit for us? The um Carol County. It's not going to benefit anything. Um if for so you're you're in North So you're in Roberts Fields. Okay. So you have county sewer, right? So her county sees going up by 16%. And that's your county commissioners making that decision. Not us.

That's why I came to watch the media. Never been here before, but the water is atrocious in this town. Not going to lie. Rust is horrible. My veterinarian case advised me not to feed it to my cats. It's that bad. So that's why I was wondering why. Who's your veterinarian? Feathers, tails, and tails. Okay, maybe we should chat because I mean, we test our water. We test our water. It meets all EPA guidelines, regulations. Um, we Hamstead has been named small municipal water system of the year several times. Um there's one award from last year right over there. Um

from the state. So just so you understand we have our own water system. It's not the county's water system. This is Hstead's water system. So you have town water but you have county sewer. They're two different. Right. So when you get those bills the the water us the county is the sewer that you get. Yeah, I was just wonder

that's going to catch PA and other emergency. Yeah, we have that going on right now, which the mayor just referenced. We're rebuilding three of the water system and installing um granulated activated carbon systems to catch more contaminants. But as Right now, the way it's always been, we have we always are well within regulations. Can be in your we get tested. It gets tested quarterly. Yeah. We do say if you're seeing rust in your water from which the outside hose faucet

and our bathroom is just going to be technical. It's got to be something you can get your water tested. Yeah, we shouldn't have to do that. And it is literally dripping water, but it leaves a rusting around your drain. So, it's kind of gross. All right, we'll we'll talk to our public. We'll we'll talk to our public works guys about it. But thanks for coming letting us know. Don't be a stranger.

You too. Thanks for coming. All right. Motion to adjurnn. Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Thank you all. Thanks for those who are watching.