Town Council - Regular Meeting

The date is June 1st. I will now call to order the public hearing for ordinance 2026-2 for standards and process for rezoning properties. It looks like we have two people that signed up to speak. First up is Ms. Martina Hatley. If you could please, for the record, just state your name and address. Thank you.

Sorry. Thanks, Jared. Ready? Okay. Martina Hadley, 1302 South Main Street. I am speaking in opposition to this ordinance, not to the goal of improving clarity and detailed records in the rezoning process. As someone who has personally gone through this process, I found it unnecessarily stressful and intimidating, even though my request was straightforward and fully aligned with our master plan as well as meeting the standards for change in my neighborhood. This experience highlights the need for better clarity, not additional layers of legislation. Rather than introducing what appears to be a redundant and potentially confusing requirements, the town should focus on creating a clear, accessible worksheet, which is what members of the Planning Commission had asked for. Such a resource would simplify key information, property details, ownership, current zoning, proposed changes, and whether the request falls within or outside the master plan, while also allowing space for the to explain the reason for the request. Our existing code already contains multiple protocols that address these elements. Adding more language through this ordinance risks duplicating those provisions and making the process harder, not easier for residents to understand. This ordinance seems to be designed to make rezoning deliberately difficult and convoluted. A side effect of me rezoning is saving the old parsonage where I live. As a residential property, it could have been knocked down, but now the parsonage will be there forever because the NP rezone code says that you have to use the existing structure. Housing is changing in order to solve the crisis. What if someone wanted to knock down an old home and replace it with two or three on Main Street? But that can't happen now that I'm an NP. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Mr. Ralph Gantt.

Mayors and members of the council, thank you for this opportunity. As you're aware, the Planning Commission began its review of 2026-2 in February, and we provided our recommendation against the proposed amendment on April 27th. The Planning Commission provided the council a memorandum for record signifying that deliberation and that final vote, which was for, against, and one of the commissioners was supportive of it. That memorandum also showed the rationale of each commissioner's decision and vote. So I hope you've been afforded that. I wanted to stress that our three meetings worth of discussion on the amendment included two meetings with a sponsor of the amendment, and the last April meeting was solely a discussion among the commissioners, the town staff, and the town attorney. As a quick side note, after the second meeting in May, there was an effort to convene a separate working group with the sponsor to try and improve the text further, to distill the proposed text down to what the commissioners felt was supportive of the current code without intruding upon the executive authority of the mayor and town administrator to set policies and procedures for its staff in handling the business of the town, which in this case is the reclassification or rezoning of a property One property is known as piecemeal rezoning or properties plural, which is understood in the parlance of the land use as comprehensive rezoning, more than one. That working group did not occur because I, as the chair of that commission, felt like we were dangerously approaching taking up the pen and intruding upon the legislative authority of this council. That is your authority, not a volunteer commission. So said differently, I wanted to assure you that we took our review and recommendation task seriously and we bridled ourselves when it started to appear that we had started taking up the pen with specific edits. So we close with the vote that I mentioned against the proposed amendment and we provided our rationale. As you may be able to see in my rationale against the need for this amendment, it was based upon the mayor and the town staff developing a new staff policy number five that used much of the proposed text to establish improved recordation and processes. I personally reviewed that policy here in Town Hall and was pleased to see that it mirrored much of what was being proposed by Councilmember DeModer. So accolades to him laying the seed for that and accolades for the Town staff addressing it under their authority as a better process improvement. It's far easier in my judgment to adjust and amend and improve staff policies to affect process improvements than to go through the lengthy and arduous steps that are required for us to amend our code. I urge you to accept the new policy five as the remedy. I will close by reflecting on what Carroll County does in this exact situation. It's often instructive, I speak for the commission and myself, but it's often instructive for us to look to the two counties as to how they handle something that's maybe a jump ball amongst ourselves, an issue up in the air, I'm sorry. And so when I went to the county code, I found that county code 158, titled zoning regulations, I have a copy of that complete section which addresses reclassification and rezoning. Piecemeal rezoning begins here, it's so succinct it ends here. That's it. Comprehensive zoning basically refers, that's it right there, it refers to the master plan. So my point being, their code deliberately is short, sweet, and succinct. It does point to a guide. a separate document outside their code, which is six pages that the petitioner must fulfill and submit to the town staff to begin a rezoning reclassification request. This is essentially our policy number five. This is essentially our current code elements. So the bottom line is, I think we have the remedy in the new staff policy, And I would urge that we use staff policy editing to be more agile when we see a process that may need improvement. It's far easier, I think, for the staff to respond to that. And it's much more arduous, as you can tell from our proceedings here, in order to make an amendment to the code. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Does anyone else in the audience wish to speak on this? hearing all right hearing none I will go ahead and call to a close the public hearing for ordinance 2026-2 thank you All right, ladies and gentlemen, the time is 7.20. I will now call the public hearing for Resolution 2026-10, Water Resource Element, to order. No one signed up to speak on this. Do we have anyone who wishes to? All right, hearing none, I will now close the public hearing for Resolution 2026-10. We'll see everybody in about 10 minutes for the beginning of our council meeting. Thank you. Slide into the last minute.

That was quick.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, the time is 7.30. The date is June 1st. I will now call this town council meeting for the town of Mount Airy to order. If you would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

All right, thank you. All right, next up, we have our presentations portion of the agenda, and I will now relinquish to our mayor, Mayor Hushaura.

I forgot to turn the podium around. But we got it now. So it is my distinct honor now to invite up Joseph Garofalo, Braden Cordray, and Dylan Gassaway. As well as that, I'd like to have Ralph come up and stand with us as well. That's good. All right. It is extremely rare to get an appointment to a service academy. Academies are four-year military schools that provide a bachelor's degree in engineering, science, math, or subjects as required by the United States military. In return, these graduates, following their education, sacrifice five to 10 years of their lives in service to their country and the armed forces. Many graduates continue serving through an entire military career of service. Those who fulfill their commitment and then enter the civilian world often achieve great things as well. Of the four service academies, these three gentlemen have been accepted to either West Point, which is a U.S. military academy, or the Naval Academy in Annapolis. To have three appointed young persons from one town is virtually unheard of. realize 16,000 high school or college age kids apply to the US Naval Academy. Of those, 1,400 were offered appointments. Of those, 1,200 accepted, and of those in 2026, 1,059 of them graduated. For West Point, 12,000 applied, only 1,200 accepted, and only 998 graduated in 2026. These three gentlemen have already beat the odds. Now they must survive a rigorous four years that will allow them to join the ranks with past presidents, cabinet members, members of Congress, governors, astronauts, Rhodes Scholars, and true war heroes. The first year is the toughest. It is where such youthful greatness is humbled by the upperclassmen. These three will truly be tested physically, mentally, and academically. But I have no doubt that they're going to make it. As an incentive to graduate and a reminder of this town's support and pride in you, we, the mayor, class of 87, USNA, town council, back there, and Ralph Ghent, West Point class in 1975, offered this insignia as a second lieutenant and a Navy ensign to be worn upon your graduation. We hope that you'll keep it in your footlocker or at home somewhere that it may serve as a reminder that a town of 10,000 people stand behind you. But before we do so, Ralph, do you have a few words to say as well?

and my congratulations to these three young men.

It is an amazing achievement for us to have three going to these two academies. I also want to offer my recognition and thanks to the parents and families of these three young men. Their success in this is a direct and admirable reflection on you pushing for academic excellence, athletic excellence, and the development of great character a sense of honor, integrity, and above all, a desire to serve their country. So I and the mayor commend you right alongside these fine young men. On June 25, Dylan Gassaway will be reporting to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland for what is referred to as Induction Day or I-Day. On June 29th, exactly four weeks from today, Brayden and Joey will be reporting to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for what they refer to as Reception Day or R-Day. Those two days for these gentlemen will never be forgotten. It will be tough, but as the mayor said and as a tradition of academy graduates, we want them to keep their eye on the ball And as these bars await their graduation day on 2030, we want them to remain steadfast and look downrange at this goal as every challenge faces them every day of the next six weeks in new cadet training and then the later 40 years of rigorous academics and military training.

So I congratulate you.

And we have a second lieutenant bars. Keep them safe.

All right.

All right. Congratulations. If you don't mind, we'll call your families up.

Council, if you all come up. Slide a little more to the middle here.

Okay.

Amen.

Thank you.

Next thing on the agenda is a presentation of the Mount Airy Police Department's station that we've been working on for about a year now. And to get us started on this presentation, I'll just mention a few items that might lead us better into the project. Around 2015 is when we were still being served by the Maryland State Police Resident Trooper Program. This program was not cheap. I believe it had just gone over $800,000. It was intended to go over a million the following year. Without belaboring the point, it was decided to form our own police department. I think it's fair to say we underestimated the costs at that time associated with it. But we did get all the value that we wanted in terms of service to the community and quality of law enforcement. What was not fully anticipated was a need to hire several officers very quickly along with the cars, the guns, the uniforms, pay, annual upkeep, and a police station. In 2017, it was decided to rent a temporary space to house the police department. And this is where we are still located, still located eight years later. In June of 2021, Barney sent an email to Charlene explaining the anticipated costs of the MAPD station project. And Barney will explain how inflation has impacted that over these years. In October and November, of 2022, two council members brought forth an ordinance to obligate $2 million from reserves toward the MAPD project. I think the ordinance failed as it was written, but the wording in this ordinance characterized the station as a general health and safety related need for the town. In January, 2023, as part of the Mount Airy Crossing development, two acres a property were to be deeded or given to the town as a location for the station, this land would have come at the cost of a mixed use development. And the council rejected that and thus we had to find land and purchase that property. The property associated with Green Tree was purchased for the purpose of creating the MAPD station. AT THAT POINT WE INTERVIEWED SEVERAL ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS, COUNCIL MEMBER DEMOTOR WAS INTEGRAL TO THIS PROCESS AND ULTIMATELY MOSLEY WAS CHOSEN. THEY WILL REVIEW A QUICK TIMELINE OF MEETINGS THUS FAR AS PART OF THEIR PRESENTATION. THE PURPOSE TODAY IS TO PRESENT THE COUNCIL with the concept thus far. You may certainly ask questions after the presentation. There is no vote required at this meeting. As long as it is sensed that we're moving forward in an acceptable manner, Mosley and the staff will complete the architectural and engineering of the building, which is already funded, and then that product will be bid out for construction. THE ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION IS WHEN THE COUNCIL WOULD HIT THE NEXT WICKET AS THE ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION WILL REQUIRE COUNCIL APPROVAL. AND THAT'S WHERE WE ARE. AND WITH THAT I'LL TURN IT OVER TO MOSLEY AND YOU CAN SHOW US WHERE WE ARE.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU MAYOR. AND BEFORE I START I DO ALSO WANT TO EXTEND MY CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOUR GRADUATES GOING ON TO THE NAVAL AND TO WEST POINT NAVAL ACADEMY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY. With that, I would like to move forward into the agenda for the presentation tonight. So tonight we're going to first introduce to you the teams of people who have been working on this. We're going to go over the existing conditions of your current police station and then the needs of the police as it exists today and looking into the future for the next 10 years. We're going to look at the building and the site and how the diagrams interact and how the site lays out. We're gonna look at what we're calling our base design, and that would be the base building that you guys would need in order to function at an optimal ability. And then we're gonna look at future and expansion, and we'll get into that as we go, as to why we're looking at that now, and we're going to look at the cost estimate last. So if we look at the teams, first of all, my name is Danielle Anderson. I'm the project designer and an associate with Mosley. Today I have with me Martin. He's our project manager and Ashley Beesom. She is with Ad Tech. And then, of course, you may recognize the names on the list for Mount Airy. I'm actually going to kick it over to the chief of police for this slide. This goes over the existing conditions. We took a visit of the existing police station. I do understand that a lot of you have been able to get down there and visit it. If you haven't, of course, I would encourage you to go just to understand the state of the situation firsthand, but I'll let the police speak to this in more detail.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. CURRENT POLICE STATION CONDITIONS. THE CURRENT POLICE FACILITY HAS SERVED THE DEPARTMENT FOR MANY YEARS. HOWEVER, OPERATIONAL DEMANDS, STAFFING GROWTH, TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES, AND COMMUNITY EXPECTATIONS HAVE EXCEEDED THE BUILDING'S ORIGINAL DESIGN AND CAPACITY. Several areas require improvements to maintain efficiency, officer safety, and of course, public service standards. Our existing conditions, we have limited space, insufficient office and workspace for personnel investigations, command staff, and specialized units. In adequate briefing, report writing and training areas. For officer safety and security concerns, outdated prisoner processing and holding areas, limited separation between public access areas and secure operational spaces. Aging surveillance and access controlled systems. Technology limitations, infrastructure not designed for modern policing technology, limited data capacity, communication systems, and digital evidence storage capabilities. Training deficiencies, the lack of dedicated training rooms, scenario-based learning space, and wellness facilities. Limited accommodations for continuing education and interagency collaboration. Community accessibility. Public lobby and meeting spaces are outdated and insufficient for community engagement. Parking and accessibility limitations for visitors and staff. Building maintenance issues. aging HVAC plumbing and electrical systems, increased maintenance costs, and reduced energy efficiencies. The need for the new police station, a new police station would provide a modern, secure, and efficient environment capable of supporting current operations and future growth. The proposed facility would enhance public safety services while improving operational readiness, employee wellness, and community engagement. The new benefits of the facility would be improved operational efficiency, properly designed workspaces for patrol investigation, administration, and support services, enhanced workflow between divisions and operational units, enhanced officer safety and public safety, Secure access control systems and modern surveillance technology, safer prisoner transport and processing areas, improved emergency preparedness and response capabilities. Modern technology integration, infrastructure capable of supporting advanced communications, digital evidence management, and future technology upgrades. our dedicated server and emergency operation areas, expand training capabilities of onsite and training conference facilities, space for scenario-based instruction and professional development, community-focused design, welcoming public lobby and community meeting rooms, improved accessibility and accommodations for residents and partner agencies, long-term financial sustainability, reduced maintenance and repair cost, increased energy efficiency and operational savings, and facility designed to accommodate future departmental growth. In conclusion, MAPD has been on borrowed time from the state for a police station. While improvements to the current facility may be temporarily addressed, some deficiencies, the long-term operational safety and community needs of the department support the development of a new police station. A modern facility would better position the agency to provide professional, efficient, and a responsive public service for many years to come. Thank you. As you can see from some of the pictures, I'm sorry, could you go back from a slide there? Thank you. As you can see, again, some of the accommodations that I speak of, if you look at one of the pictures there where the bikes are in the middle picture, that, ladies and gentlemen, is the ladies' bathroom. that is stored, we're out of storage. I mean, we have bikes in there and we have other information set in there as far as stuff from COVID for usage and community service events. So currently we do have one civilian female employee, but if we were to expand with other females, either civilian or law enforcement, these are the current conditions that a female would have to use for that facility. And again, the bottom picture, inadequate storage for what we have for maintaining in the facility as well. Thank you.

just to carry on with from the chief what he said the leasing to talk about a little bit about costs we're spending about sixty five thousand at a time for this which is not cost-effective it's too small for current future needs the original building that was approved back in 2017 was granted an exception, a waiver to go into an existing building that's not a category risk category four building, which is required for a police or fire station or similar type station. So we were given a waiver with the condition that we'd be searching for a new station. So that's the reason why we're looking for a permanent station. And obviously, touch on just a few of the things the chief said, you know, to improve safety, reliability, compliance, and public service. That's some of our objectives here. So back to Danielle.

Thank you. This is the layout of the existing station as it stands today. We're looking at about a gross square footage. And gross just means that we're including corridors or circulation spaces. And then we're also including the thicknesses of walls, things like that that wouldn't actually be occupiable square footage. So that's what that means. It's about 4,500 gross square feet right now. We're looking at a request of 9,134 square feet. That was per the proposal that was brought to us when we initially signed the contract. And then if we look at the 20-year needs of your station after conversations and interviews and determining all of that, we took into account it would be about 10,200 gross square feet. So in about 20 years, that's what you're going to need. If you look at the base plan, which we're going to be presenting and talking about today, we are proposing a 6,600 gross square foot plan. And then there are some alternatives that we could add in the future that we're also going to go over today that would round you out to a little under 8,600 gross square feet. And we'll get into why those numbers are what they are as we go through the presentation. Building insight diagrams. So I'm going to start off with the inspiration because I know that we're going to talk about a lot of numbers here, but we don't want to lose sight of the fact of what this is for. The first thing that we determined after having conversations with your police department is one, they want it to be warm and welcoming to the community. The current police station is a little tucked away, and the lobby is rather small. They want it to be approachable, because when you're visiting a police station, you're obviously in some form of distress or disgruntlement, and so trying to make it as friendly as possible. They want it to reflect the context of Mount Airy, the beloved aspects. They want it to be durable, because they don't want to have to build another station anytime soon. functional, secure, poised for the future. They want it to be a landmark. So with the location that we're going to be working with and that green tree development, it's going to be one of the first buildings you see as you come into town from that side in that direction. So we want it to be something that is welcoming to Mount Airy, but also indicates you've reached this town. And then we also want it to be attractive to future recruits because It's very difficult to maintain police officers at a station right now. All across the country, people are feeling this pressure. So we want it to be attractive to your future police force. This is the site layout. This might be a little bit easier and more digestible for people to understand it, where we're looking at. We're going to be right off of Route 808 in Candace Drive. We're going to be on the corner of that lot. The future green tree village development is going to be going behind the station. So we're also very aware of that when we're designing it. There has got to be no back to this station because people are always going to have a view of it from every side. But right now we're putting the police up in front in that corner. This is a diagrammatic site plan. It's boiled down to the most basic ability to understand. So right now, we're anticipating that you have your Route 808 on the left-hand side. You will have your future Red Sunset Court, which will be developed by Green Tree, and that will be the main pedestrian entrance. I can use the laser pointer. That will be the main entrance for civilians to visit. You will have a sufficient-sized lot for the beginning of your station in this corner here, and they will route through the sidewalk to the public entrance here. As for the police officers, something that they don't have now that we're looking to give them is their own separate and secure entrance. This is typical for a police station where they will come in off instead of Candace Drive and they will circulate to the back of the building. This dash line here is indicating what would be a future sally port that would actually be built out, but for now we're gonna show a secure fence. And this is just intentional because you may be transporting someone for an interview and you don't want anything negative to happen. We also just have a modest dumpster enclosure as easy access as possible for anybody who would be picking up the trash for the town. And then as you may notice, we've got some locations like number two, number three, number five, and number four that are designated for the future build out. We're going to get to that and I will show you what that looks like in a second. The base design, as I mentioned before, the base design is what we need in order to function at an optimal position. So if you go to the next slide, this is the plan layout that we have come to rest on. This plan layout, if we start at the front door, you walk in through a vestibule and you've got a lobby that is where the public would stay, sit, wait for anybody who they need to speak to. You would have your duty desk, which is basically your receptionist, right off of that lobby. This dashed line is indicating what we call the secure perimeter, which is where the public would not go beyond. So that would be where the main public area would be contained. If you continue on back into the base or the bulk of the station, we would have offices along this front. corridor here, we would have some dedicated storage areas. The storage types have been removed for security purposes, but we have all of our different storage areas here. We have a main office or workroom. And then we actually positioned the mechanical and electrical sprinkler and IT rooms off of the back. That was very intentional because that's going to be easy to expand in the future for when your station is going to grow. Off of the back you also have your locker room with private and semi-private changing rooms and toilet shower rooms, unisex. And then we also have what we're calling your evidence suite for all of your different evidence storage types. Both the locker room and the evidence suite are located off the back because if you come in and you're on shift and you're either, for some reason you got wet or for some reason you're covered in something unspeakable, then you can go to the locker room immediately and you can shower and you can change. And then if you have your evidence suite, you do not want to carry evidence throughout the entire station before you bag and tag it. So we put both of those right off of this back entrance, which is where the police will be able to come in. If we continue on down the hallway, we've separated this part off. This is the suspect interview suite. This is where if somebody needs to be interviewed, they will bring in that person and they will not have access to the rest of the station in case anything needs to happen. And they will have their own private toilet. This is the soft interview or the juvenile interview room. That meaning that it's for a more casual conversation instead of a hard conversation. And then all of those other rooms are respective to that purpose. And then off the front, we also have a conference room for daily roll call, things like that. Now, if you notice, it sort of looks like a bite has been taken out of the building. And I'm going to explain that. We are very aware of the budget concerns for this town. And so we are doing our best to plan for the future and piece this building together in order for future build-ons to not interrupt the flow of the existing station if this was built. So I'm going to go ahead and move on and I'll show you a little bit more of what that looks like. Here's what it would look like if you would build the base building. Right now we're looking at A brick water table. You would have planters out front that would act also as vehicular barriers. And then the back, the main part of this structure would be a metal panel cladding. It has some of the patterning of a large format brick or stone, but instead it's a metal panel, which is a very lightweight material and much more durable than something like an e-fist panel that we've also discussed and explored. These are some of the renderings and the views of the station, looking at it from the corner, looking at it from the entrance as you would walk in, looking at it from the street, and then looking at it as if you would come down Candace Drive. So the future expansion. Like I said, we're very aware of the goal of this building. We're seeking to give you a police station that will function as good as well as possible without shortchanging anything. If we reduce square footage, then we might have to add to the building in an inefficient way. Instead, we're going to plan the building as a base, and then we're going to add things strategically and think about it in the future. So, for example, we have a canopy up at the front. That would just be added visual effect, but also protect people as they're coming in the station. You're going to have, instead of that conference room right here, it's going to be converted into a restroom and a storage area, and this would become what we call the emergency command center. The town will seek a grant for this. I will not talk to that too much. I will let the town talk to that. But we're looking to create that as a community room space, but also as a room because you guys are in between two counties as a place to host other police officers, which you guys do now, but do not have a space for. It is also a room for you guys to do things like your training. I know that TASER training was the specific one that was mentioned. You need a certain distance. You don't want to be hit close range. And so they actually have to go to a different space in order to do this right now, which is not effective or efficient. So we're trying to look to give them that kind of a space in their own building. And then off of the back, this is where I mentioned you would have that security fence currently. In the future, we envision it becoming what we call a sally port, which is basically a garage you drive up into and then you transfer your prisoner. It's just safer, more secure. less risk of what we call cut and run. And then you would also have large outdoor accessible storage types for things that would be something that you don't want to bring in. You saw some bikes in the other station. If you have an outdoor storage, it's a lot easier to store that. And then we would anticipate future expansion off of the back side. We've made that flat very intentionally so that it would be super simple. If you continue on, we have one other... Oh, not yet. So if you look at this, we're also developing the site in phases as well. So if you're looking at the building and we're developing different pieces at a time, different pieces of parking are going to come with that. So we're not doing it all at once because, again, we're trying to be very aware of our monetary abilities. So we would expand that fence in the future out so that it encompasses this entire back area as a parking lot for your officers. And then you would have the ability to circulate all the way around the building in a car like this. So the two drives would eventually connect. You would have additional civilian parking out front for that future community room and have the ability to rent that out. And then you would also have that build off of the Sally Port in the back. And as number eight still indicates, future expansion. The other ad alternate that we're looking to put into this is not just the community room, the canopy, the additional sally port, things like that. In respect to the context of Mount Airy, we're looking to add what we call a mansard screen on the roof and that gives it more of a contextual feel. Right now we have taken that off because it is purely aesthetic and it costs a little bit more than we want to pay for it right now. So that's planned for the future as well. And then like you see that bite mark that had been taken out of the building has been filled in with the community room. So just for comparison, this is your base elevation right here of the building. You would not have to, we've designed it so far that you would not have to do demo as much as possible. We are trying to build this as future proof as possible so that you would have as little interruption as you can. And then in the future, this is what you would have. I think there's a little animation if we continue forward. Yep, so the community room appears. And then you have the roof. the canopy, and that's all that's in that view. These are the 3D renders of what it would look like. And the cost estimate, which is I know what everybody is going to be anxious about. Schematic design cost estimates. We went through several rounds of cost estimation. We got sticker shock on the first one, so we went back to the drawing board and we kept working. Base construction for the site and the building is gonna be a little under $6 million. We've priced out all of those additional pieces that we're looking to add in the future and what that would cost. What we're looking to do is continue on through design and then you're never gonna know how much the building is really gonna cost you until you get a bid from a contractor. And so once you get a bid from a contractor, then you'll be able to know what you can afford. If for some reason you can afford, say for example, the metal canopy at the entrance, then you can afford that based on the bid. But otherwise until then, this is just the estimate that we're guessing and we are holding off on those for now. This is also assuming an escalation of 3.5%, which is based on the last 10 year average, which is also considering the fact that we went through COVID and those escalation rates are higher than average. I'm gonna turn it over to the town now to continue on with some of the facility budget updates and numbers.

Thank you. If you remember, we did a feasibility study back several years ago. From that feasibility study, we did not get an exact cost estimate from the consultant because we didn't have a site selected. That was the primary reason. And site selection makes a difference whether you have utilities there, whether you need to run longer driveways, or if you have hills that going to need more excavation. So we could not come up with a good estimate. What we did have is we had some base estimates that we had come up with in 2021 and the land acquisition, we were estimated about 900,000. And like the mayor had mentioned, this was based on an email that I had sent to to accounting. The land acquisition was if we didn't have, for instance, Beck property was one of the options where we might have been donated, you know, the land where it wouldn't have cost anything. The AAE design services was $450,000 and base building construction was up to $5 million. So it was somewhere around $4.5 to $5 million. Actually, we went up. heir to the worst case. So that was the 2021 estimate. I threw in a number for $100,000. I didn't change that each year because that's just an allowance. And I think even a couple years from now, that's going to be more than enough for security systems. So we come up with a total project cost of $6.4 million. If you look at the inflation and I just use consumer price index that we normally use for the last five years, if you take those same numbers, you'll see that number rises to six point one million for construction or seven point eight nine for total project costs in twenty twenty six. The actual costs, we see our land acquisition was a little bit under that estimate. The aid design services a little bit over, but that includes construction services through construction. So it's more than just design. And then the base building, as Daniel showed you, it was five point nine million or six point one kind of lines up. very close to that. Again, the actual costs we're estimating 7.6 million. Go to the next slide. So the 2026 estimate, again, we're not building it this year. So there's still an escalation, whether we build it next year or the year after. We figured about 3.5%. So we added to that 3.5% each year. So our 7.6 million went to 7.8 in 27 or 8.1 in 28. The way we're funding this, we do have a DHCD loan of $4.5 million. That doesn't change. That's the same amount regardless of which year you build it. We do have a grant for $100,000 currently. The reserves that you've already approved for land acquisition and engineering is $1.5 million. additional reserves needed again depending on the year ranges from 1.4 to 2 million and then next slide so showing that 1.4 to 2 million this is looking at the available reserves today general fund reserves for public safety we have about half a million up to if again if you add INFLATION WITH THAT NUMBER IN 28, WE MIGHT HAVE 989,000. THAT INCLUDES MORE THAN 3.5%. AND KATIE HELPED ME WITH THESE NUMBERS. THE GENERAL FUND RESERVES, WE HAVE 3.9 MILLION CURRENTLY ADDING 3.5% TO THOSE NUMBERS EACH YEAR FOR 27, 28, THAT'S ABOUT 4.2 MILLION OF THE 2 MILLION THAT WE WOULD NEED IN 28. OTHER GENERAL FUND RESERVES IS JUST SHOWING YOU THAT THERE'S MONEY IN THERE, BUT SOME OF IT'S EARMARKED FOR PARKS, SOME OF IT'S FOR STREETS AND ROADS, BUT IT'S JUST GIVING YOU AN IDEA OF HOW MUCH TOTAL RESERVES YOU HAVE BETWEEN 6.7 AND 7.7 MILLION IN THE GENERAL FUND. AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL I HAVE FOR THAT. SOME KEY TAKEAWAYS. ESTIMATED PROJECT COSTS, THEY DO INCREASE BECAUSE OF INFLATION, BUT YOU'RE ALSO INCREASING you know, earning interest on the money you have in your reserves that offset that a little bit. But it's about $270,000 a year each, you know, more each year that it costs. We are still paying a lease of, in today's cost, about $65,000 a year. And our existing reserve balances, as you can see, do exceed what the upfront cost would be. and potential new grant pending final appropriation requests. We do have other grants that we have applied for, and we are waiting on results of several, a few grants that have been applied for. And that's about all I have.

Thank you again for letting us come and talk to you about this. We know that police forces is a very important part of everybody's community, and they protect us every day. So we're very honored that you guys have allowed us to be a part of this process. And at this point, I'll turn it back over to the mayor for closing comments.

And in closing, the staff is not making a recommendation. What they're doing is putting the information out there for y'all to see where we're at on this project. And I think at this time, Council President, if you wanna open up the questions, that's fine.

I think I need to breathe for a minute.

Drinking from a fire hose.

While you get organized, I do have one question for you. Do you want to go first?

No, actually, what I'm going to do, I know Councilmember DeMotor's been kind of working with them and probably has more knowledge than any of us. And he might be able to answer questions before we even ask them. So if you wanna lead off, that's fine. Questions, comments?

Okay. So I think I've been, everybody here knows I've been incredibly supportive of our police department, our police officers, our chief. I've been a champion on the need for a police station. I'll just get to the brass tacks. Mayor Husher, in your introduction, you said, there's no vote tonight, but we just want to see if we're moving forward, quote, in an acceptable manner. This is not to me moving forward in an acceptable manner because the executive branch on numerous occasions communicated to our community and to my constituents that this entire project would cost $6 million. The entire project for the property and for the building. And now we're seeing cost estimates for a base building not even with some of the features we put in our RFP of 1.2 to $1.8 million over budget just for the base building. If I were a member of the community, I'd be a little bit really not happy about that. So I'm just telling you, and I have been on most of the team calls, and I've been very transparent. This is an executive branch project. I'm the liaison, and I appreciate being the liaison. So I've offered comments inter disperse but this is clearly an executive branch. I think I think it is a recommendation that that's what you're presenting here is your best foot forward here. On almost every call I kept saying you know you're you're kind of going over budget here you're going over budget this is not what we communicated to the citizens. And so for me, I cannot support this design and this cost because we told the community $6 million. As a decision maker, I like to see options. This is one option. I want to see other options. And so I think it was shortly after Christmas, and we had a team call, and I made a plea to the design team manager, Mr. Bennett, I think. And I said, look, I look at you as my doctor. I'm going to you asking for a prescription. You guys know how to build these buildings. You know what our budget is. bring back something that meets my needs in the budget. And he said, I apologize if this isn't meeting your expectations. We'll bring you back a design that meets your needs, that's within your budget. And two weeks later, on January 14th, we got a revised design that was much smaller, but I wonder, this is important, I wanna read this, because this is the email that Danielle sent. We have worked on creating a smaller plan as discussed after that week's meeting. What was removed is what we believe this station can do without and still optimally function. Please note this square footage is below what was laid out in the RFP. Please also note that the reduction in square footage will reduce the building and in italics, site costs. That said, we think this is a viable option that would still meet the police needs for many years. Please let us know if you have questions. We're here to help. So my point is, there was an option, you know, because I was pushing back. And so the team came back with an option of a smaller design. Granted, some of the rooms are smaller. We're not getting everything that maybe we would like to have. But it was a building that per the design team said would meet our needs. And at the time, they thought it would, they said it would likely fit within our five million budget. They'd have to send it to the cost estimation team. And I was happy with that. And then we kind of diverted back back to the older design and advance that process. And this smaller design, to me, never got its due consideration. If the council and the mayor wants my support on this building, I'm gonna need to see at least one other option as a decision maker. I have a lot of other comments and questions I could ask, but I just cannot support this project because it is over over budget and it's gonna keep climbing and it's not what we told the community. And I made a commitment to the citizens to be fiscally responsible and My goal is to keep this project within the budget that we told our community. So those are my initial reactions, thank you.

All right, I'll open the floor to council. Questions for Mosley or town staff?

What was that, sir? I said questions for Mosley or town staff.

Oh, okay, all right, gotcha. Oh, there's questions for Mosley. Because we constantly had the Civil Air Patrol come here when they were locally based over at the eyes of Walton Lake. They lost their center or their rights or whatever, permission to use that. They were currently, they were searching for a place. Currently, they're up at South Carroll. And I was hoping that, say, once the Emergency Command Center would be built on they would have enough space to do that, to use the command center as their weekly meeting, because they do provide services for the town. And I'm just wondering, by your best professional guess, the 867 general square feet, is that, how many people would that hold?

I would say it's probably a 30 to 40 person conference room.

How many? 30 to 40. Okay, so that might have been a little bit small. Sorry for them. Okay, anyhow. But no, the options, the way I've been understanding this for several years now is that back and forth, back and forth between you and the thing. We come back, so there has been options. You're the professional design, so I'm not gonna question that much on what the offices need. I know that their current location is woefully inadequate for them, to say the least. Almost, I would say, endangering them in some areas of things. So, and unfortunately, 2021 was a cheap year. Things have gone up. I wish I was paying the same gas price. I think everybody here was. I think diesel has gone to a point where it's everything that's not going to go back down. Unfortunately, prices in the grand scheme of things, over time, once they raise, they stay up. They're never going to go down. And unfortunately, we tried, and as the way I understood it, when this began, the best way to describe it is that we had a larger footprint for less money. Basically, say we had 10,000 square feet or maybe whatever we were asking for their RFP in 2021.

You might not have been- Yeah, your RFP was around 9,000 square feet. 9,000 for last month, okay. Assuming, yes.

Yeah, and that was 2021 where everything was priced out in 2021. Correct. weren't planning, nobody was planning on whatever the inflation rate now is, has been. Construction costs have gone up across the board. I'm sure home builders would love to be able to build a house for 2021 prices. I think everybody here would love to be able to purchase a house. for 2021 prices that's just not reasonable or realistic in today's market and unfortunately the longer we wait the more money is going to be so therefore we would have to sacrifice even more space for it so unfortunately i know we've kind of hinted they would be within this budget a different budget times change things have gone up all our budgets have gone up we have making due, we have made due by basically, I wanna say, removing items that other police stations have that would be almost classified as safety and security, both for the officers, the people, and the public for that. So we cannot, unfortunately, reduce it even more, and particularly for a person living up that way and would have to see this on a daily thing, I think the design is adequate for the area. Could it be improved on? Yes. But can we afford the improvements that would make it better at this time? No. I also like the fact that it's designed for the best way to describe it is easy addition. That way you don't have to say shut it down or shut down a part of it. It's basically, I want to say Lego blocks or something.

Phasing is expensive when you try to do an addition or renovation on an existing building.

Building that wasn't designed for it.

Yes.

This is designed good. Would the Sally Port be preferred at this stage? Yes. But it's a lot more than I would anticipate or thought. The additional canopy on the front door would look nicer. It would offer some protection. There are some things that would offer protection and maintenance, but unfortunately, that's what we live in. Unfortunately, the world we live in today, the town will, I'm trusting the executive branch to do whatever it takes to get grants and things of that nature to offset the costs. of it. Unfortunately, when we went out for the DHCD loans, I tried to say, can we get more just because of this reason? And I was told, no, we couldn't. It's just a state policy. Also, people out there might ask that, well, why can't the federal government... No, I'm going on, Tim. Sorry about that. Why can't the federal government? We should be getting some more money from the federal government for this. Well, unfortunately, during the last... visit by Congresswoman Elfrith, to our surprise even, that the current Congress for earmarks does not allow police station funding, which was interesting to us, and state can't do bond, but there are ways around it for police, so we will work with people to try and offset this cost. Unfortunately, I think if we try and shrink it down any more, it's almost what we have. Now, and as the chief said, that facility is beginning to degrade and is inadequate. I don't want to force female officers to go into a locker room that has bikes, storage, chemicals, and everything else. I know we're all adults over there and respectful, but in a case of an emergency, people really don't care what happens if you need to be washed off. because of a chemical spill or something else on you. But having a place, privacy to change and stuff is nice, even for the female employees.

And that has been a design challenge, fun, I say challenges in a fun way, to make sure that your building is not less than what you currently have, because otherwise there's no point in doing this.

Yeah.

So it's, I think, at a point where we think that it's in a good spot for what you guys need without being undersized. I don't want to ignore what Councilman DeMotor has said, however, and say that, yes, we put forth a plan because we were challenged with meeting a $5 million budget. So we went back and we gave you a 6,000 square foot plan. At this point, however, the economy of scale has kicked in. I do want to say you are going to get a higher cost per square foot if you go smaller. Right now you are at about 900 square feet. If you go smaller, your cost per square foot is going to do nothing but go up because the cost of mobilization and the trades and getting everything to the site and the actual construction of it, it's not going to offset anything anymore. That's in today's dollars at the moment as well, but I'm sorry, continue.

Oh, no, no, no. The cost and the price construction, we're not the experts here. We basically know that costs have risen, and I'm sure that construction CPI in the short term is much higher related to then overall daily expenses. So the longer we wait, and that's not going to go down. Trades are shorthanded now. Materials have been tariffed and everything else. Materials are in short supply. And we have to meet ever-increasing requirements from various organizations for safety and things of that nature. So I think, unfortunately... I don't want to say, yeah, let's do it. But it's like we can move forward with it and finalize the plans and put it out for bid because that's about the only way we will truly know the cost. As you said, if smaller square, if we shrink it down, it's going to go up. So we're not really potentially saving money. in the long run, unfortunately, if it gives more money, smaller costs or raises our overall costs. And this is for the taxpayers of the town for public safety and surrounding community members that have constantly said they do not represent or get proper coverage from the County Sheriff's offices. And I do like the fact that, the command center can offer, I wanna say a stopover for Frederick or Carroll County sheriffs, almost like an auxiliary stop for them. And I mean, a newer police station can also be a recruiting mechanism for our force. That's a long one, it shows that we have dedication that we want to support our police. We try and give them at least the basic requirements of it and basically giving them, I want to say, a less than optimal station that's now been designed 10 years ago with, I want to say, a waiver from the state. What happens if the waiver yanks it? Then trailers? So that concludes for now, Council President. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry for the long run.

Yes, please. Hi, thank you for your presentation. A couple questions, really specific one.

Sure.

Was a 9,000 square foot police station ever possible for $5 million? No. Between 2021 and now?

2021 and now, I cannot say that with certainty. I have only been practicing since 22. Martin, you might be able to answer that better.

2021, I can't speak to 2021 prices, honestly. I can tell you that we have, in terms of our choice of materials and the amount of glass on the building and the geometry of the building, everything we've done, all the design choices we've made. simple the base done was is done with them. While still using durable and appropriate materials to be as efficient as possible. So certainly in today's dollars, it's not based on on all the things that we actually had two different cost estimating firms. We got a cost estimate and then we had another firm to do a review of the first cost estimate. And they both which are for basically just affirms the first cost estimate. So The answer today is no, it's not possible.

Yeah, I understand that. These are historical questions because I'm the new guy here, right? So I guess through the whole presentation and Barney for some of your words, I'm wondering how did we get $5 million? I mean, you also said we couldn't come up with a good estimate.

We had some input from the previous consultant, but it was more just in-house estimate. Okay.

That's all I have right now.

Trace? Just as a general comment, there's been so much volatility in prices going back from 2020-ish to now. Prices have been all over the map. It's been a challenging time to project years in the future what something's going to be.

I completely understand. I'm worried that our base numbers were just flawed, which means the whole thing's flawed. So that's what I'm wrestling with. So that's what I'm trying to get to.

Thank you. Get that on the record, please.

What, that he spoke or has no questions?

First, like you said, great presentation. It's clear that you're firm and your ability to design a building. And really, I know, I think we were expecting this in January and the cost was way high. And the amount of time and effort that you guys have done to try to trim down everything you could that was access, but still give us a great product, definitely shows. So I 100% appreciate the time, the effort from your company. That being said, one question I do have is we have a 2026 estimate, a 27 and a 28 estimate when it comes to construction. Putting shovel to dirt, what year do you think that would be? So let's just say everything kind of goes along the way it should. Because, I mean, you're looking at a difference of about 300,000, give or take year over year.

And I did have a discussion with the developer of Green Tree who we're acquiring the property from. And if all the stars align, everything like that, We could potentially start as early as summer of 27, but I wouldn't count on all the stars aligning. You just don't know exactly what still we're going to run into as far as they still need to get everything excavated, get all the utilities in, have us a pad ready site so that we can get started. Will that be ready by next summer? I don't know. I think that's why I gave you a 27 number and a 28 number. Yeah. Just give you an idea of what 3.5% escalation would give you. Right.

As far as the design process, we can easily match that as well.

All right. What would the adjusted estimate be for 2029? Because we know how long it took just for the traffic circle to happen. I mean, we're adding probably what it'd be about 2.4 million. add it on if we're just doing the same 3.5%.

I think we said it was about 270,000 more if you add another year. About 2.3. Okay. What? 900, right?

200,000 a year?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So 2.9.

Starting from here?

I'm starting from here. So... What kind of is throwing me for a loop is, as I understand, cost inflation. I've owned my own business for 20 years now. I understand things go up. I understand how all of that works. What I'm struggling with is that this council was given a task to agree to a certain amount, and that amount was a $4.5 million DHCD loan and then a $1,550,000 $1,550,575 from reserves. That's what we agreed to. That's nowhere close to where we're at. And I do understand that things change, but as far as I'm concerned, if we're even thinking of allocating another 1.7 to 2 million, you might as well stop now. Because we are in no shape looking at our reserves, which are right here, to do that. I don't know what that means. Chief, you never know. I love our police more than just about anybody. But when it comes to a police station, it's a little bit different than a traffic circle or some other building. There are no grants that the state is really going to apply for. The state and the federal government stopped supporting police a long time ago. And that's just a fact. So I'm not counting on any grants. I'm not counting on any additional money. And the reason why this is so important is because we are reaching into our citizens' pockets and pulling this money directly out. And I agreed to the amount that pretty much everybody knew wasn't going to happen. So why was it in front of us? Mosley knew that this amount was not going to happen. I'm sure town staff knew it wasn't going to happen. So why did we waste our time voting on it? Just to say we're going to need $2 million more on top of it. If you would have thrown a number at me at almost $8 to $9 million, it's getting voted down right then and there. We're not in a position to do that. Money is not emotional. Money is factual. We don't have it. So I don't know where to go from here. I know we own the land, but we wouldn't have done that either if we knew what this cost was going to be. The good thing is we own the land with some equity into it. If we sell it, we sell it, we pocket the money. But I don't feel comfortable with any of these numbers. I'm not saying it's anybody's fault. Things are what they are. But you can afford what you can afford and you can't afford what you can't. And I'm not comfortable reaching into anyone else's pockets and pulling out more money than what I agreed to initially. And if that was the incorrect number, Whoever came up with that number is responsible for that. But when we approve a certain amount, that's the amount that this council expects it to be held to. And it wasn't with the traffic circle. And to the tune of almost $2 million by the time we actually get shoveled to ground, no, I'm not comfortable with it personally. So I don't know where we go from here, but... It's nowhere close to building, I can tell you that. Not at $2 million of strictly taxpayer money.

I mean, not, are you? I just don't want to. No, no, you're good. Okay, no, I'm just going to say, like, I can agree with you, but I look at it, it's the cost of inflation and things like that. I'm not saying the cost, what they came up with, what the town's correct, but one of the potential problems that I see is we have a bond out there that, unfortunately, we're paying for. We raised taxes, as council agreed to. I know it's potentially based on something, but if we don't move forward, we're still paying interest, we're still paying the bond and the bond can't be canceled, can't be removed. We're on the hook for it. So we're basically getting four, we're on the hook for $4 million of debt for nothing, basically. And the problem is it can't be transferred to any other project. It's not like, hey, let's put it to $4 million related to a community center up there or on land that we already own. So therefore, we delay, we're paying interest on a bond, or paying off a bond or a loan, basically, that we've raised taxes for. And as we wait to try and do a smaller building, the costs go up. So unfortunately, I get what you're saying that we need $2 million of regional reserves or whatever else, but the fixed cost of the general fund is, not the general fund, bond is, I'm just pulling out like 4.5. I mean, I'm just pulling that out, but I say 4.5 and cost for the building is going to go up and up and up. Approximately at 3.5, which I consider is probably a way conservative estimate based on construction related CPIs and things of that nature. And the reality of it is, will we get something that meets the needs in today's market or any future market for the price that we were told in 2021? My answer would be no. I mean, we've sacrificed things and I'm not sure if we can ask them. I mean, we would like to ask them for another loan. Not another loan, another look, see another option. And I'm not sure, every time I ride my motorcycle through Thurmont, they have what appears to me to be, I'm not sure of the size or anything else. or what they have in it, a pretty decent police station. So throw my council, mayor's look, and I'm giving you a compliment on that one. And I'm not sure if we've looked at it to see, to do a comparison of a local police station, because I think their population is approximately close to ours, I believe, but their force, is currently, I wanna say double our size maybe. So we're talking something approximately 20 offices there. That the building looks okay. I'm not sure if it's meeting their current needs or if they're even considering adding on building or moving. But if we're gonna ask the architects or the project managers to maybe take another look, see, something I would recommend look at that because it looks like to me just driving by mind you that the space the interior space is okay and it does have a drive-through sally port on it so I'm not sure if it can be done, or say, I would like to say, okay, like you all call them up and say, hey, what's your square foot there? Say if it's 5,000, 6,000, whatever. It might not meet our needs. Does it still meet your needs? Maybe staff should have done it. And then just do a simple... plug-in calculation with the cost estimates. I mean, simple. If we've got an estimate for what we want at 900, say, 1,000 bucks a square foot, or at 900 just to add up, we plug that in. Because it's got exterior. It's got brick. It's got probably the construction materials for it. So at least look at that. Maybe a comparable Sykesville's police station. No, it's an old converted house. It doesn't even meet. And they got five officers. No. Westminster's looks like a converted garage or block building. So that would probably not meet any modern standards. Tawny Towns is a converted train station, which probably would not. I think it's a converted train station. I might be incorrect on that. So again, it would not... plus you meet current needs or anything, then it would like, I like the design because it can be added on easily at a lower cost than totally adding a building or like a home renovation. It's ready to add on. which is a benefit. But, I mean, I'm sensing resistance on it, but from the council, and I understand the resistance. I'm not saying it's bad resistance or anything else. But we also have to realize that maybe construction costs to CPI, as you said, up and down, up and down, it might never level out. It might level out in two years, but it'll probably level out at a higher than what it was in 2021, no matter what, prices never return. I'm sure any business owner here or a person in businesses, it's never gonna return back to a level that it was when the original estimate was done. So I'm concerned that the longer we wait, actually the more money it's gonna cost us in the long run for either what's proposed here, we lose officers, or it does not, indicate the needs of this community. And selling the land maybe, but that's not the deal we struck for our purchasing of the land.

So the one thing that I will say from the design side, I don't envy you on the financial side. Unfortunately, we have no ability over there on that side. But from a design perspective, I think our goal at the end of the day is to be able to deliver you guys a set of drawings, hopefully get it through permitting, and that way If you guys keep this land, however, then you would be able to build the building in the future if you then had the chance to acquire more funding. If we got it through permitting, then you guys would have a document set that you could then build later. And then once you had the funding, but you wouldn't have to incur the additional design fees of going through the process again. Now I will caveat and say that however long you wait, it may change the space programming needs of the building. that may become a little bit obsolete, but you would at least have something that you could fall back on. If you get a bid back, for example, and you say, and it is $2, $3 million over your estimated budget, then you wouldn't have to go back to square one.

Thank you. One thing I was going to say is I want to stop here in 2021. We voted on these numbers within the last 12 months. This loan was not voted on in 2021. The amount of reserves was not voted on in 2021. We voted on 4.5 million and 1.55575 within the last 12 months. Why did we do that? If that was nowhere near what it was going to be. It was to start this process and then think, like you're thinking, well, we're already in it for 4 million. Let's throw another 3 million at it because we're already here. That's not how I do business. That's not how I do it at my home, and that's not how I'm going to do it with other people's money. So what do we do with the $4.5 million? I don't know. We pay it, but I'm not going to double that just because you think we're stuck. We're not. And I'm not going to be hamstrung for another $3.5 million because we were put in front of us 2021 numbers that, frankly, everybody knew were BS. So I don't feel stuck. I feel fine. Because the fact is, if we would have known it was going to be close to $8 million, our 3% tax increase would have needed to be more. The amount of the DHCD loan that we got for $4.5 million would have had to have been more. So no, no, we didn't put ourselves here. We were put here. And I'm not going to take more money out of people's pockets because of it. So I don't, that's my thoughts. I'm one person on this body, but I do not feel comfortable with any of this. And I don't like the fact that we talk about 2021 estimates when we voted on these numbers in 2025. And I don't know if anyone knew they weren't accurate, but this is what we were asked to do with taxpayer money. And we're talking about being $2 million short I don't know about you guys, but if you throw that other $2 million on top of that, my vote would have been different. I'm not going to throw good money after bad just because we signed a loan. I don't feel stuck in any way, shape, or form. So like I said, somebody smarter than me needs to tell us where we go from here, but $8 million is not the answer. Hang on one second.

Okay, yes, sir. Sorry.

I just wanted to point out that my stance and my feeling right now is based upon this can't be explained by... This cost overrun can't be explained by inflation or import costs because we're getting 28% less building without some of the important amenities we asked for. So you're starting in a 28% deficit and then adding... 33% on top of the original estimate. So that's why I'm feeling the basis for this just wasn't solid. And that's where, again, if we can sit here in 2026 and say inflation, tariffs, what have you, but you can't explain this like that.

The math doesn't work. I feel like if these numbers were voted on in 2021, but nothing happened, that makes sense, right? Voted on, but stuff happened.

We voted on these numbers within the last eight months. It's a 30% smaller bill, too, though. So we're getting less and paying more.

I mean... We were told it was going to cost X to get Y. And it was so grossly underfunded that if the actual numbers would have come out, 3% would have been known that it's not feasible for the tax increase to pay on what the actual loan probably should have been or the amount of town reserves that we should have approved. That vote would have been different here. And it doesn't sit well with me being a part of this council that basically held this vote based on these numbers. And it's so far under. And then we're just expected to throw another $2 million at it. I love Chief Endeavor, and I love our police. but this isn't grant money. This is taxpayer working money. And yeah, that's, I don't know where we go from here, but forward's probably not my suggestion.

Oh, mayor, sorry.

Carl, I'll be honest with you, man. You spoke a lot.

Okay, yeah, no, I just was going to ask you a question. That's it.

Yeah, so... This, we brought Mosley in in July of 2025 to go in there and figure out exactly what it was going to cost. And I remember our first meeting, And we walked into it with a lot of champagne taste, and we asked for everything. And it came back with a price tag of somewhere around, at one point, wasn't it 12?

I think it was just 10.

10? So regardless, it was extremely high. It made me want to throw up. But after that?

Yes, it was before escalation.

Okay. So we started working the plan back from our champagne tastes. And we basically took it back to where we're at. And I'm not, I mean, the fact that the council is not happy with the cost, I get I'm not happy with the cost either. But having said that, what the balance is, is do you, do you throw everything out or do you take a look at it and figure out if there's any other adjustments that can be made and then you factor in, is it fiscally responsible to keep kicking this can? Because it was in 2022 that the council came to me and said, we need to build a police station and I agreed with it. We needed to build a police station. The numbers are what the numbers are for this plan. Doesn't mean that there can't be a different plan, but where we're at right now is at a point where it's obvious that the council is not happy with the product that we have here, although Mosley has done a good job working with the base plan that we started with. But I think we just need to regroup and figure out what can be done after this and then come back again. But I'm not... I GET IT, IF I WERE SITTING AS A COUNCILMEMBER, I WOULD BE LOOKING AT THIS PLAN TOO, BUT AS THE EXECUTIVE, YOU GUYS ASKED ME TO PUT TOGETHER A PLAN, THIS IS OUR PLAN, AND UNFORTUNATELY IT CAME IN OVER BUDGET.

I WANT TO BE CLEAR, IT'S NOT THE BUILDING, IT'S NOT, I MEAN, You are very good at your job. Understood.

No, understood. We understand. I understand.

I'm a little shell-shocked on time. No, no.

You should have seen us last January when we got the first estimate. We were shell-shocked, too.

Well, I mean, I know we had you on the agenda a couple times, and we just kept pushing it to try and trim it down. So that's what I'm saying.

Your surprise is warranted.

It has nothing to do with the plan. It has nothing to do, honestly, with the numbers, right? Things cost what they cost. Money is factual. It's not emotional. That's why I like it. They are what they are. They cost what they cost. Where I am coming with this emotion is the fact that what we were told and what we voted on, we trusted and we went with and we shouldn't have. Because if in the past, since really since COVID and pricing, so That's all I'd like to say. Thank you, sir. So I think we can probably close this out real quick.

Quick comments. The resolution in one of the whereas statements, it says the town of Mount Airy is determined the adoption of the WRE of Carroll County Master Plan will serve to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the citizens of the town. I'm not in support of the w re element because I don't believe that the town I know we're working at it, but I don't believe the town has practiced. proactive stewardship regarding water capacity yield and water capacity supply and the development of water capacity management plans that are required by the MDE. And you can reference back to the last two council meetings on that. That's one of the reasons. The second reason that I won't be supporting this is Looking at it from a Carroll County perspective, if you look at the WRE, seven of the eight designated growth areas and all the other municipalities within Carroll County have a deficit. They will not be able to build out their towns given the water that they have now. They have major deficits. And it looks like the approach that most towns are going to take, Westminster is going to be different, but many of these towns, like Mount Airy, I believe, are relying on the, what is it, the, The Brinkman bill, the Brinkley bill. And that bill basically, just long story short, in so many words, it's basically taking water credits, if you will, from rural property owners and farmers and kind of using those credits to allocate to municipalities. So you're setting up a confrontation where You may be decreasing rural property owners' values and impacting farmers and other things. So I'm not in favor of the overall approach of using the Brinkley bill to solve these problems. And even MDE says it may be good for some towns, but not all towns. So for those reasons, I'll be voting no on this. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, we have a motion for adoption for Resolution 2026-10, Water Resource Element. All in favor of adopting, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

Thank you. Now we have Resolution 2026-12 to allow alcohol at Celebrate Monterey, Saturday, August 29th, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. This is for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. All right, any discussion? All right, hearing none, all in favor of adopting Resolution 2026-12 to allow alcohol to celebrate Mount Airy Saturday, August 29th from 5 to 8 p.m., please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, thank you. All right, next up, we have Ordinance 2026-2, Standards and Process for Rezoning Properties. This is for adoption. I'll open up the table for a motion.

I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO ADOPT WITH AMENDMENTS ORDINANCE 2026-2 FOR ESTABLISHING A PROCESS AND STANDARDS FOR REZONING OF PROPERTIES.

DO YOU HAVE A SECOND? SECOND. OKAY. WE ARE IN THE DISCUSSION PORTION. ANY DISCUSSION? I'LL OPEN THE TABLE.

IF I MAY, JUST TO GIVE A QUICK RECAP HERE. the in the purpose of this ordinance is to prescribe the criteria procedures and comprehensive documentation requirements that apply to all applications for the reclassification of property within the town's jurisdiction to ensure that every reclassification request is reviewed with transparency precision and accountability to adopted public policy. And a little bit about the development of this ordinance. We started work on this in late fall of last year, working with the town attorney. It's been a collaborative and coordinated approach. I attended all of the planning commission meetings where this ordinance was discussed. I believe the planning commission offered somewhere around 40 comments. And the town attorney and I diligently went through every one of those comments and where we thought those comments would make improvements to the document, we've incorporated those into a revised version AND WE WORKED VERY HARD TO TAKE A REVISED VERSION THEN BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION JUST TO SHOW THEM THAT WE WERE LISTENING TO THEIR COMMENTS. AT THAT TIME WHEN THE COMMISSION MADE A RECOMMENDATION, THEY WERE MAKING A RECOMMENDATION ON THE ORIGINAL ORDINANCE AS INTRODUCED. SO THEY WEREN'T LOOKING AT THE BENEFITS OF ALL OF THOSE COLLABORATIVE CHANGES THAT WE MADE LISTENING TO THEIR COMMENTS. And then I collaborated and coordinated with my fellow council members. And the amendments, there's only a few of them, and they're in the red line version. And I appreciate the comments I've received from all the council members. And this red line version is basically responsive to a council member's requests for some of these changes. So if you'd like, Council President, I can quickly walk you through some of these red lines if you need me to do that.

It's up to you. It's up to you. I mean, you don't have to. Okay. Everyone reviewed it. Yeah.

Okay. Well, if you're, again, the comments were helpful, and they've continually added to the clarity of the document, and I appreciate the comments that were provided, and I think we were responsive to all of the comments that were offered, so I thank you for those.

All right. I'll open up the floor.

Okay.

Sure, yeah, thank you. Councilman DeMiller, thank you for including me and all of us in all the collaboration, the comments, listening, and thank you for the revisions. The red lines, I think, are basically what we had talked about in an effort to smooth out some of the language, again, in hearing the Planning Commission's comments, and make it a little less prescriptive, which is one of my concerns. I just want to add that I wish we didn't need this. I've read the policy. I think the policy is 80% to 90% of this document. And I think, again, I wish you didn't need to do it. I think we need to codify something in there because coming through the master plan process as a citizen and as a council member, we can't do that again. There was too much confusion, angst in the community, angst on the council. And I think the aim is basically to smooth that out. So those are my comments. And thank you, Councilman DeMotor, for the efforts here.

I kind of echo Councilmember Kelly. Thank you for kind of streamlining this and getting it in front of us as part of the master plan process with Commissioner Gantt and those guys. If we had this back then, it would have made the job easier. And I do understand that there are policies and so on and so forth, but that's not to be said that the policy could change down the road after you're long gone or you're long gone or you're long gone, putting it as an ordinance, I think kind of gives us that credibility and stableness that we need. So thank you.

Thank you, Council President, and before I say anything, first off, I appreciate that at least Council Member DeMuta reached out to a couple of you all for collaboration. I was never contacted, never included any of my comments whatsoever related to this, so kudos that at least you all had the opportunity for them to take in your consideration and thoughts on this ordinance, but not mine. So the first problem with this ordinance is that I do agree with you two that we do need something in code, at least a basic set of requirements. And unbeknownst to me, I knew they were talking about the code, The policy, sorry, I get the policy. I was not aware that there was a standard well-documented. I did scan through it. I think the policy might be better than this, unfortunately, because as currently written, it really tells the mayor how to run town staff. The council dictates to the mayor, the staff, the quasi-legal policy, planning commission how to do something, how to review, how to make determinations, how they need to review something. And the rezoning cases happen once every 10 years or infrequently between that, maybe once or twice. So having something rigid might not be a good idea because over 10 years, it can change. The things that we need to look at might not become important. The town staff needs flexibility to say yay and to say nay. If this is in place, it could potentially tie future hands. Again, I'm not saying something's not needed, it just might not be this thing. I'm concerned that as currently drafted, it is an overreach towards the application process. Because right now, it requires an applicant to tell or reveal the intended purpose of their land. That is not really the purpose of zoning for an applicant to tell, I'm gonna put this specific structure or business there. It is basically related to, I wanna say, a variety of uses that could be placed there. That's what the rezoning is. If an applicant so divulges that information later, Okay, it's fair game from that. But during an application, the town should not be requiring an applicant to state what they're going to do. Because sometimes, say like what Twin Arch business was, it was agriculture. It was rezoned industrial. And it took over 15 years to fill it in. So if it was required to say, yeah, I'm going to do this, this, this is going to be this business, the developer is not going to know. It just allows for a cadre of businesses to potentially go in there. And specifically, I would really, now I'll scratch that out. And the problem is we heard earlier that this was a drain financially on the town. Well, if it's put into code, it could be even a worse financial drain on the town because there's no mention of who pays for this expanded review criteria listed in there. Because it says Shelby do this, Shelby review this, Shelby based on this. And while I love the town staff, they can do something, no one's an expert on everything that's listed here to review, because specific businesses, it impacts things differently. Related to like, you know, a computer manufacturing or something might be different than a professional consulting. It might be allowed in the same use, but yet here we're supposed to decide on a business. So it could be $100,000 for an applicant for us to review the cost of it easily if we are required to determine certain criteria and impacts on each and every criteria listed in the zone or potential use. And this is what I took some of most offenses. It tells the council how to do their jobs, how to review something, how to think. We're presuming, this document's presuming anyone that gets elected is not gonna do their job. And I reviewed stuff. I looked at all possible opportunities. Some people might not agree with it, but I do do my job, and I take offense being stated in code exactly how to do my job. And it tells the council and staff and the mayor how to do theirs. And here's another big problem. All the criteria that make determinations on zoning are highly ambiguous and subjective to personal interpretation. I could see something differently than impact on the community differently than planning commission and other councilmen and staff. So that is problematic. That adds more friction to the process than that again it is a rezoning of potential uses not as specific will require the town to create documents that is concerning that could be used against the town during a lawsuit or other legal actions that thus i want to say it's too rigid and flexible allow it forces the town to create a document that someone can use against us if they're not happy with our decision. I get it, this happens now, but it also could potentially hurt us in the defense of something going forward. Again, it's too rigid, not flexible enough for rezoning. This is not a site planning process that comes later. That is when a lot of these criteria should be included into the documentation of site plans. Throughout this whole rezoning process, say for the Beck and stuff, one of the biggest things was it's out of order. It's out of order for a site plan.

Okay, that's fine. Then put these criteria in the site planning, not for the rezoning.

As I said, the ordinance is written to create distrust between branches of town government and the quasi-legal independent commission. Who's better at it? When the council formed a planning commission in years past, it gave up some of its review authority and entrusted that to the planning commission, whoever's on it. So we're trying to take control back from something, in my view, from a quasi-legal independent agency to try and predetermine an outcome that we may or may not like, or some people may or may not like. Again, I'm not saying something shouldn't be in it, in code to do it, just not this. As I said, it's like I think Councilman Kelly said during the recent master plan process and one of the people that spoke on South Main said there was problems with the recent master plan process and this could have helped. It may or may not, might have made it worse. And I'm not saying the current master plan process was flawless. It wasn't, there was not hiccups in it. Does this fix the hiccups? For planning, probably not, in my view. I'm not saying, again, it's not the most recent, might not have had hiccups. The ordinance has some concepts that stop from this reoccurring, but both the town and the council is to blame for this, of the hiccups during it. I think we've taken, as a council, has taken some of the blame for it because we voted what I would classify out of order on some things during it. We voted zoning approvals before it was finalized, blah, blah, and that created a confusion. This does nothing to address that, to address what another council could do the same thing. It doesn't really solve the issue. Is it that the council should not really vote on a final version of the plan until everything else is settled for it. So it's just basically not a rubber stamp, I'm not saying, but okay, any zoning concerns are addressed prior to it. This does nothing. Therefore, I urge the rejection of this ordinance as currently drafted for the following reasons. It forces the will of the council upon the executive branch and the quasi-legal independent town government commission of the planning commission that must also follow state code on some things. So there's a question therefore is, does anything are we enforcing there violate current or future code? The way the master plan has been altered, not our master plan, the process on the state level can address some of the things and we may not want what's in the current master plan process from the state to be included in the future. So it changes over time, that's the point. We lock into something that may or may not work for us in the future. The biggest thing now is the implementation concerns related to the ability of town staff to do some of the things the ordinance requires of them to do it. As I said earlier, town staff is not an expert in everything. This ordinance says you need to look, review, include the decision. Why? Take into consideration the various things that nobody can be an expert on. The only way to be an expert is to hire an outside consulting firm to say it's good, bad, it does, what's the impact of water, pollution, runoff, yada, yada, all this. So then the question again, who pays? Right now, the applicant pays a simple, I might be incorrect, but 300 bucks or whatever the fee is, might be off, it might be a couple hundred. that pays for the application to pay for staff time. All of a sudden, we're concerned with fiscal, this town staff could be spending 40 hours on one thing to see if it's good or bad. So the only way to do it, consultant consultants don't come cheap. Who pays again? If we have one thing, it's 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, we don't know the cost of it. So that opens, I don't think an applicant would pay $50,000 to have their thing reviewed by a consultant on it. Because most of these people that come do it are homeowners that apply for it. So are we, question that needs to be, are we placing an undue burden upon a homeowner or a resident of the town? So that's... Still allows the council to vote the master plan, what I say, out of sequence, so it doesn't solve that. It is two ridges, does not provide flexibility in the approval process, especially for something that happens once every 10 years and frequently at other times throughout. Again, it allows for the creation of town documents that could be used for us and potentially hinder legal defense of something. So I could go on to provide more and more while this is not a good ordinance as drafted. If the council feels obligated to press ahead with the establishment of some form of criteria related to rezoning properties, I am more than willing to work with Councilmember Kelly and others and the Planning Commission and town staff to develop an ordinance that would, I've got six criteria that I think would cover a lot of the things that I saw that was problems with it and can solve it. And maybe it'd be a lot of the things that are in the policy that we like that can be set in code here. Set basic application requirements for it. Does not impose the will of council upon the mayor or town staff or the planning commission. It wouldn't do that. Ensure proper notification an application has been filed to surrounding landowners. Does not interfere with the powers of the planning commission or town staff to recommend the rezoning of properties during the master plan, either piecemeal or in hold. That was a problematic with South Main Street. It would ensure the rights of the property owner stays intact if the property was identified by the planning commission or town staff to be rezoned for whatever reason, it would provide them with proper notification that would just basically say, hey, your property has been identified for rezoning as part of the master plan process. and would allow them to either opt in or opt out of it. I haven't decided that for more of a discussion with it. So basically it's just saying nothing's final, it's not moving ahead, but hey, you've been identified that it could be potentially beneficial to the town or to you to do it. It's not saying it will be, it's just saying, hey, we did it, here's notification. If we don't hear anything back from you, you say you want to be part of it, It's not moving forward. It's done. Nobody gets identified or told that when the blue sign appears on their front yard saying, hey, you've been rezoned or potentially rezoned. It still allows a property owner to say no. It almost always does. I want to say ensure that the rights of the property owner is not... they makes the final decision prior to it moving forward. It doesn't get to the discussion phase. The property owner decides, yeah, we like it, we don't like it. It also allows them, what I want to say, one do-over. Like say for some reason if, a whole block is rezoned, this person wants a one holdout, but yet all the neighbors done it, then it potentially leaves that as a block of, you know, surrounded by something. Well, if they choose to do it later, that original decision's not final, they can opt back in at a later date or before we start discussion or make anything final. And it would require that all matters related to the master plan, especially zoning, has been finally approved and decided upon upon a council before we do any final vote on the master plan. That was part of the problem I saw. We voted it one thing and then come back, we revisit it, it creates confusion. Is it approved, not approved? So we don't need something that is rigid and flexible. We need to set a policy that the council, follow the council's, I mean I'm gonna say following councils can follow. Incorporate the basic set of requirements that I think the mayor has agreed upon, put in the policy. It seems to be taking most of the things from the ordinance, from Councilman DeMoto's ordinance in relation. It doesn't to mean anything, still provides flexibility. The Planning Commission has said they looked at it, agreed with it, gave kudos to that, to Councilman DeMota. So it's a way to move forward to protect the notification, set a policy that provides flexibility and allows the rezoning of the properties to happen once every 10 years, and really non-contentious, With all these requirements, it could take years for someone to say, well, I find this, I find that. We're not experts to say property values are going to fall because of this decision or that. Or I wasn't notified. Yeah, I'm not saying that people weren't notified properly. I would be mad as heck, too, if I came home and found a blue sign on it. What I'm proposing to move forward with uh is a much better ordinance provides some protection or good protection doesn't enforce our will upon the town it takes it it sets the basic thing of the sorry i'm touching the basic thing of chanel number five or policy five here that everybody seems to like and to so moving this point forward we know what was done wrong It's in code, but still someone can change the policy. At least we have a set of basic things in code that general overall concepts, not specific, because specifics can change. And a lot of specifics here are more related to site planning, which falls under the purview of the Planning Commission. and it's a much better location for site planning because it doesn't interrupt property rights of owners. It says, hey, you need to provide certain things to the council or to the planning commission prior to getting the site plan, more proper order. So if we want certain things impacted, it's the site plan. It can be specific to a site plan more so than general as what this ordinance does. I'm done. Sorry, Council. I told you it was long. Sorry. But I know it's OK. I got it. I'm done. Sorry, Council President.

I'm sorry. Monica, how's your arm doing? Good. All right, good. Another hour. Good, that was a workout. So first of all, I mean, the changes that were made, the amendments that were made were more semantics. So the Planning Commission rejected this. OR RECOMMENDED A DISAPPROVAL OF THIS ORDINANCE IN A 4-1 VOTE. SO IN MY OPINION, IT'S STILL THE MAJORITY OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION WOULD NOT BE HAPPY WITH THIS ORDINANCE, EVEN WITH THE AMENDMENTS. SECOND OF ALL, I DO THINK IT'S OVERREGULATION ON SOMETHING THAT COULD EASILY BE PUT IN A POLICY AND IN FACT HAS BEEN PUT IN A POLICY. I THINK IT'S OVERREACH. to the mayor as to how to manage the staff. And that's kind of where I'm coming from as a mayor. It gets to a point where it doesn't provide governments. What it does is it allows the council to tell the mayor to mandate something from the staff. And that's where I have a problem with it. And if it was such a good addition, why isn't it in the land use article? Why isn't it in the Carroll County? planning documents. In fact, even the county uses a policy to satisfy this. I think that overall it is more of a micromanagement ordinance as opposed to a law that should be in the code for the town. And I do think that it should be voted down. And the policy should stay in there. There's things in the policy book that have been there since Monica Weierbach was the town administrator. If it's good policy, it stays in there. And I think as a policy, we're where we need to be. I just don't think it needs to be in the code book.

All right, thank you. As usual, I'd go last. I'd like to hear everybody out. Corey, you kind of lost me there for a little while. I can refresh you if you need me. Nope, you're going to sit back and you're going to turn your mic off. So, yeah, I was really digging into this and every single time when I was swaying back and forth, I went back to that public hearing when the Planning Commission after the Planning Commission voted to recommend rezoning, based on two times the chairman asked the zoning administrator, are you sure that the people at Extended South Main want this? And both times, I went back and watched the meeting today, both times he said, yes, we have no pushback, they want this. I had a feeling that if that answer was no, I'm not going to THROW IT OUT THERE, BUT I HAVE A FEELING THAT THAT VOTE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE GONE A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY. NOBODY HERE CAN TELL OR NOBODY HERE KNOWS, BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT ANSWER COULD NOT BE VERIFIED. AND IF THAT ANSWER COULD HAVE BEEN VERIFIED, WE WOULD HAVE KNOWN, OKAY, THEY STILL WANT THIS TO BE REZONED EVEN AGAINST THE PROPERTY OWNER'S WISHES. OR, NO, THE PROPERTY OWNERS DON'T WANT IT. THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS DECIDING THAT WE DO NOT WANT TO REZONE EXTENDED SOUTH MAINE. AND Once we got past the approval or the recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission, then came a public hearing for the first time at the council side of things. And we had a line out that door of property owners wondering what in the heck is going on and why you're dictating what's going to happen to our property. And I was not comfortable with it then. I did not care what the master plan vote was. I was not going to read change people's property against their wishes. That is the biggest investment you make in your life. And I'm not changing their property owner. I'm sorry, I'm not changing their property values. I'm not changing. I would be distraught if I had to come up here and one lady was in tears with a brand new family moved in two years ago and she's going, what is going on? So I understand and I have been heavily influenced a proponent of governmental overreach and stuff, but I don't know if this reaches that benchmark. I think that the fact that this is not a everyday thing, it is not something that happens even every year, I don't see the overextension of town staff. The fact of the matter is, rezoning is the most important thing that town government does. It can completely change the entire complexion of an entire community. which is why it goes through the process it goes through. But to make the process valid, you have to have factual documented information. You cannot go off of unverified statements. And what we are codifying is factual documented information of where a decision of full factual knowledge can be made. I firmly believe that the Planning Commission would have had a different outcome if they had these documents in front of them with the current residents that stated, no, we do not want this rezoned. That's just my opinion. It's not a fact. What I do know is I don't want anybody to ever be in the position that we were in again, looking at families, begging us not to turn their homes into businesses. So, I think that the fact that this only happens every so often outside of a 10-year master plan, I think the fact that it doesn't take much to document exactly what needs to be documented. And to Carl's point, if we put ourselves in a position where we can get sued because we're documenting facts, then that's on us. Document the truth and stand behind what you document. Rezoning property is the most important thing that any elected official or town entity can do, bar none. And I just, I feel like after what happened and the experiences that we went through, I would not want that to happen to any other council. And to be honest, I wouldn't want it to happen to any other zoning administrator. You know, I don't believe that John did anything wrong. When they went through those public hearings, nobody came up and opposed it. So I understand what he's saying. I don't believe he was lying, and I don't believe I disagree with our public comment that, you know, it was a lie or even negligence. The option was there for those residents to come up and to speak against it when it was talked about. They did not. Don't know if they still live there. Now we have new people. We don't know if their thoughts changed, but we don't know that because nothing was ever documented. We don't know that because we didn't go and speak to them directly. Do you want this or not? We assumed a no-show means everybody's good with it. Well, by the time you get down to the decision to be made, that assumption was incorrect. So you cannot, in my opinion, make assumptions when it comes to rezoning. you need to work off of fact. And again, I don't think that the planning commissions, and I talked to a few of them today, actually, I don't think that that decision would have been the same if they would have known what was coming three weeks later at that public hearing. So I don't want to overstep. I've actually voted down other ordinances because of overstepping. I don't think this goes that far. I do think that it does, put forth a codified way of ensuring exactly what is going on, exactly what it is that the people want, so that the people that are charged to make that decision are going off of fact and not opinion. And then they make the best decision possible for the town. So those are my thoughts.

Just one little quick one. And you're pushing me. I'll just be a quick one. Just make sure. Be seconds. Okay, just make, as I said, some of the criteria that they are required to do are not very subjective. People will never be happy, will never agree. And If we are not experts in the subject matter, where do we find it and who pays for that?

We have a zoning administrator that is an expert on zoning. Do we not? Yes or no? Yeah. Okay, thank you. So that is the expert when it comes to rezoning. If you don't have the faith in our zoning administrator to be an expert on rezoning, why would we go and pay somebody else? You then have a planning commission that you have full faith in, like you said, to then vet the zoning administrator to then come with the best possible recommendation set forth to us. Do you think that that happened on the extended South Main Street homes? Yes or no? Yes or no. Do you think that that happened?

I wouldn't say. The answer is no.

I'm going to say no.

So, nope. Okay.

So that's a fact. Our zoning administrator is paid what he is paid because he is the expert. So we're not going outside of anything. That is not what we're doing. If he can't do the things that are in this document, then I strongly suggest we look for a new zoning administrator. I have the full faith in John that he can.

Well, sir, I just want to say some of the criteria in here I could find is water resources, the impacts on water, surface water, air quality, this, roads, everything else. These have always been complaints throughout time related to the site planning process. I'm not saying zoning and specific uses in that can negatively or positively impact it, but what use? This being required to see specific impacts related to something, one use that's under a zone, whatever zoning classification that is, can have a totally different impact than another use. So which one do we do the criteria for if we're doing a rezoning?

It's asking for a rationale of reclassification, a summary and documentation of the reasons provided for the applicant for seeking reclassification, including intended use, not this is the end all, be all. It's intended use. For example, when Ms. Hatley came up and was talking to us about the rezoning of her property, she was telling us the intended use of the property and why she wanted it rezoned. That's what this is asking for. Now, let me ask you this. With the MXD, we just went through that. Did we not go through water, how it was going to affect us. Did we not go through all of those things before we got to a site plan documentation? We did. It can be done. It should be done because the fact of the matter is rezoning is the most important thing that this table can do. So I understand your concerns, but we're going to move on.

Okay. I'm just concerned that we're setting this up. I said I understood. We're going to move on. You have a lot of time.

Sorry, sir. If you didn't get your stuff out in that amount of time, then I apologize. Thank you, sir. No problem. So, again, this is not anything against town staff. In fact, I think it protects town staff. I think that if John had the documentation, then nobody could have come after him for misspeaking or assuming something. or anything, this should protect the people that we trust to tell us what is going on. And nothing protects you more than the documentation and the wants and the needs of the homeowner. Mr. Gant.

I appreciate the time. And I'm not going to argue for it or against it. I just want to make something clear. In the Maryland land use, there are two types of rezoning. There's piecemeal rezoning, and that's usually a landowner who now wants to rezone or reclassify their property based upon one of two reasons. It was an error originally, or secondly, there's a significant change of character of the neighborhood or the area around their property. That's piecemeal. That's a person coming in and fulfilling what's in the code.

Right.

What happens in the master plan is called comprehensive rezoning. Comprehensive rezoning is not allowed to be petitioned by a private citizen. That is the role of a municipality's planning commission and council and staff to look at what the goals are for the next 10 years of a town. And if there's a goal which makes sense to taking a tract, plural properties, more than one, and rezoning them for the purposes of growing that purpose. And that purpose was described in your master plan as an economic goal. And so, the Commission did look at the approval of that goal and how to reach it through the comprehensive rezoning of an area of current structures, dwelling units, okay, from residential. And so we had a lot of options to look at meeting that economic goal. And as I explained when we had our joint commission meeting, we looked at what was available in the pockets of land that we could redevelop or develop on, those sorts of things. And they were strictly pockets. And if I recall correctly, the largest track that we could find toward that economic goal for rezoning was about a two acre area. Everything else was a patchwork quilt throughout the town. So the commission swung over and looked at that, trying to meet the need of an economic goal, comprehensive rezoning. As a side, we do know that down the road there's going to be the Century Business Park, if you're familiar with that. not there yet, not within the 10-year 2033 plan, but that would have been another example of saying, hey, to reach that economic goal that you all wanted, we would look to that Century Business Park, the Plank property, as fulfilling that, but we couldn't. So that South Main area became now kind of that way to achieve that economic goal, through comprehensive planning, okay? Now, it's up to the council as to whether that is the way to meet that end, if you follow what I'm saying. And so as we went through, we did hold the required planning commission hearings to hear from anyone who had opposition to that tract of 20 homes fulfilling that goal through a comprehensive rezoning. And as you said, we didn't get anybody that seemed to oppose it. And so we carried it forward, as you all well know, and we had discussions, and the council approved not only that goal, but that way to meet that end. And the rest of the story, you've illuminated the opposition that came in. So I close with this. If we push ourselves to 2030, which is when we ought to start the next comprehensive master plan, right? Give us two years. It took us 18 months, and we were pressed to meet that. If this code is in place, and we have to do everything required by this code to propose comprehensive rezoning, plural properties to meet a goal, Can you understand we're kind of hands tied because we have to go through and have all the environmental impact studies, for example, et cetera, et cetera. I'm trying to think about how we can achieve a draft of a 2033 master plan if we have to follow everything in that. Do you hear what I'm saying? I do. And again, I know there was opposition and I know we wanted to make sure there was some agreement of the property owners through the zoning administrator to that tract of land fulfilling that goal. But I'm just thinking what's required here may be difficult for us to go through and get a tract or comprehensive planning. What I'm thinking and I hate to be pessimistic is This code may very well prohibit comprehensive rezoning because of what all it requires. And as a council, you see an area where there's going to be good, sensible economic growth. you may not be able to do it if we have to do everything that's required in this new code. What portion do you think would prohibit it?

I mean, what would be the prohibiting factor, I guess, is what I'm asking.

Yeah, thank you, Council President. I think it's the studies, the subjective verification of whether it's going to affect an adjacent neighbor. There's a lot of words, I think it was mentioned before, originally in some of the drafts, and I'm not sure if it's in this one, but it did call for a professional evaluation, and that kind of goes back to who does that? Who gets paid for that?

That was taken out.

Yeah, okay. So, but I think there's an environmental study still in there.

Not study, just... Impact. Consider these elements.

Yeah, yeah. The word study has actually been removed, but it... To me, if just analyzing what it would do in the future prohibits us from doing it, then it prohibits us from making a mistake. I mean, I feel like if you look around to certain zoning areas, and I look at the first townhouse I bought in Mount Airy, it's at the Village of Tall Oaks, right? The townhome's right there. I backed up to Food Lion. Nobody now would ever want to put community commercial or a full CC district that abuts a residential home. That doesn't happen. But it did, probably because nobody analyzed, well, what is going to end up going next to this? What's going to end up going next to that? So looking ahead and trying to plan forward, I don't know if that's a bad thing. And I don't know if it... prohibits us from doing it. The word professional study, all of that stuff was removed from the one that we're looking at now. And I know you didn't get a chance to see it because you had to vote on the original document. But for me, it's more of the, we need to ensure that we are doing the right thing and we have to do the due diligence to make sure we're doing it. And that involves talking to every single resident that's affected. And if that takes time, it takes time. And that involves looking down the road, how is this going to affect abutting neighborhoods? The same way that we're expected to look at the Nottingham neighborhood and how this elite baseball is going to affect that neighborhood. Right. So, I mean, it's the same. It's the exact same thing to that point. I mean, if I ignored all of Nottingham the same way that we're talking about this being too much. Right. Then we would make a decision that is uninformed.

Yeah. And again, I preface by saying I'm not going to try to sway. No, no, no. I understand.

You're coming from the planning commission.

But just, yeah, from a planning, just put on the shoes of a planning commissioner now that has to develop. draft comprehensive master plan with goals that have to be captured in options for the council to approve or disapprove. As the Maryland land use regulations say, comprehensive rezoning is part of that master plan process from the planning commissioners. Get yourselves in our shoes. If we have to follow everything that's in this new amendment to develop that option for you, I'm just wondering how many more months we're going to have to lead into the next master plan is my point.

Yeah, I would hope that it won't be as long as what it was before. I think there was a lot of mitigating factors for that. But I think, you know, Sorry, go ahead, I lost my train of thought.

Oh, no, sorry. Be quick. I will. To reinforce what he said, as for supporting and to try and reinforce mine, on page 506, under 112.69, it says the time that it would do. He says the study isn't everything. To reinforce mine, it says the full range of uses permitted in the proposed new zoning for the property. So if you've got a zoning that allows 20 uses, of that property, no matter what it is, comprehensive or anything, you need to develop, you need to look at, I would interpret it as you need to look at the impacts of the property for all 20 uses of the proposal.

Isn't that already in code?

It probably is somewhere or something, but it should be better.

Copy and paste.

But it should be under the site plan, not this. No, I don't believe it is done for the full uses, for a specific use. Yes, when a site plan or you're proposing something, not for a full range of 20 uses. And then when you say there's no environmental study, well, environmental quality. The environmental impacts such as air impacts, noise, light, odors, water quality, discharges, and mitigation strategies.

Which our zoning administrator already does when he comes to us with a annexation review and everything else.

For one project, one specific purpose. But if you take number two, full range of uses permitted under the zoning for that property. As I said, if somebody wanted to do something downtown, you've got 40 to 50 uses in the downtown zone that by technically, by a strict interpretation of this code, you would need to do something on, do that, and then do environmental quality studies related to it.

I'm going to cut you off there.

You're seeing it, but I don't.

I said be quiet.

Okay.

That is not the way that this is written. What it has written is if we are going to rezone it a certain zone, you need to list what every intended use of that zone could be, not and then put a study on every single use. It is here's the options that could go there. Here's how it's going to affect it. I think you're trying to railroad this, so I'm going to ask you to turn your microphone off. That's not the way a reasonable person would read this code. Under no chance does any reasonable person expect you to list out 40 things and then 40 different reports and then 40 different things. That is absolutely obnoxious. What it is asking is what I've asked him before when they were rezoning extended South Main is what could possibly go there? And you know what he did? He went to the code, he copied it, he pasted it, and he sent me back an email. That's what this is asking for. All right. Sean.

Three seconds on the clock. I... I agree with Councilman Munder when you said, is there a problem with the master plan process? No, there isn't a problem with the process. I think this town is damn lucky that that planning commission was there at this time when we needed them. Chairman Gant was heading the helm and heading that project. And it was only 18 months late. In a different universe, that could still not be final. So I'm not questioning the commission, the process. What I want here, what I see in this ordinance is the commission of volunteers and this council starting with a foundation that's sound from the staff. And if you couldn't tell, it's funny how some of these meetings, there's echoes of other things. And earlier today, we had a bad foundation. So we're trying to get a solid foundation going forward to not have the angst and the confusion, as I said before, that we did last year.

We're going to go ahead and move on. Did you have any closing remarks, anything? Vote. That's exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna move on to a vote. Chairman Gant, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. All right, so we have a motion. We had extended conversation for ordinance 2026-2 for standards and process for rezoning properties. This is for adoption. So all in favor of adopting ordinance 2026-2, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

Nay, for the reasons I stated. Thank you.

Next up, we have ordinance 2026-8, budget amendment to add $10,000 for historical society donation for adoption. And just to recap, this is a lot of just cleanup stuff from throughout the year and going from one fiscal year budget to the next. So ordinance 2026-8, budget amendment to add $10,000 for historical society donation for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second?

Okay, before I start seconding, am I allowed to turn the mic back on, Council President?

No, you've wasted enough time. Somebody else second? Second. Good. Jason seconds. Any discussion? All in favor of ordinance 2026-8, budget amendment to add 10,000 for historical society donation, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Next up, ordinance 2026-9, budget amendment to remove $295,500 for Flatiron Building Phase 2 building improvements. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All right. All in favor of budget amendment to remove 295.5 for the Flatiron Building Phase 2, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Ordinance 2026-10, budget amendment to move $100,000 for state police grant from general fund to police station capital project fund for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor of ordinance 2026-10, Budget amendment to move $100,000 for state police grant from general fund of police station capital project fund. Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Ordinance 2026-11, budget amendment to remove $137,000 for public safety equipment for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of ordinance 2026-11, budget amendment to remove $137,000 for public safety equipment. Please signify by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

Ordinance 2026-12, budget amendment to remove $500,000 for Center Street Connection for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? No. All in favor of ordinance 2026-12, budget amendment to remove $500,000 for Center Street Connection, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right, now we have ordinance 2026-13. This is a budget amendment to reallocate $73,000 from streets and roads vehicles to streets and roads mobile equipment. This is for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. All right, any discussion?

Yes, sir. This is the one I mentioned earlier that I just have more question for. We're reallocating $73,000. The purchase order indicates approximately 35, so do we need to change this to show the real total, or what happens with the extra that we're allocating?

It's just not spent. So when I did this budget amendment, we didn't know exactly how much. So I just moved the amount that we didn't spend on trucks and vehicles to this amount. It's just like if we hadn't moved it and we spent less in like this much less, but if we had spent less on trucks and roads, it just...

gets reallocated the next fiscal year.

It just doesn't get spent.

Okay, but I mean, we don't need to do another budget ordinance to adjust the total differences. Okay, that's it.

All right, thank you, Carl.

You're welcome.

Any other questions? All right, all in favor of budget amendments, or I'm sorry, ordinance 202613, a budget amendment to reallocate 73,000 from streets and roads vehicles to streets and roads mobile equipment, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, thank you. If everyone could please go back real quick to new business. And this is what we just approved for the budget amendment. It's a recommendation for approval to purchase a Bobcat mini track loader MT-120. Jared, just quick overview.

This was the same same vehicle that we discussed during the budget sessions just for our public works department snow removal as well some other some other projects and this has to do with the. Allocation we just mentioned we're going to use the money that we did not spend on the truck purchase and the. what was it, the truck and the bucket truck purchases to purchase this.

Okay, perfect. And this will cut down on staff, hourly wages, et cetera?

Yep, especially with heavy snow and stone and things like that, yep.

Okay, cool. So we should get a pretty good ROI on this. And I know we got a good deal on it as well.

We did, yep, yeah. Brian found a really good deal on it. Okay, fantastic.

All right, I'll make a motion or recommendation, or I'm sorry, a motion to approve the, A Bobcat Mini Track Loader MT120. Do we have the final cost on that?

It should be the second page on the recommendation page.

Yeah, in the amount of $36,086.72. Sorry, I didn't have it right in front of me. Do we have a second? Second. All right, any discussion? All right, hearing none, all in favor of approving the recommendation to purchase a Bobcat Mini Track Loader MT120, Please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right, thank you.

You got a bucket and another piece of equipment.

Next up, ordinance 2026-14, budget amendment to remove 825,000 for rails to trails east of 27. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of approving or adopting ordinance 2026-14, a budget amendment to remove $825,000 for rails and trails east of 27, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Ordinance 2026-15, budget amendment to remove $171,751 for town police for salaries and wages. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of approving ordinance 2026-15, budget amendment to remove $171,751 for town police force salaries and wages. Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Ordinance 2026-16, budget amendment to remove $30,000 for town police force retirement. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of ordinance 2026-16 budget amendment to remove 30,000 for town police force retirement, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Ordinance 2026-17 budget amendment to remove $72,238 for town police force benefits. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of adopting ordinance 2026-17 budget amendment to remove $72,238 for town police force benefits, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Ordinance 202618, budget amendment to add $559,507 for PFAS class action settlement funds. This is for adoption. I'll definitely make a motion to adopt this one. Do we have a second?

Second. Oh, sorry. Sean.

All right. Any discussion? All in favor of adopting ordinance 2026-18 budget amendment to add $559,507 for PFAS class action settlement funds, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Ordinance 2026-19 budget amendment to remove $3,873,506 for water system PFAS remediation. I'll make a motion to adopt.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor of adopting 2026-19 budget amendment to remove $3,873,560 for water system PFAS remediation, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Ordinance 2026-20 budget amendment to remove $982,500 for police station for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Discussion? All in favor of ordinance 2026-20 being adopted, budget amendment to remove $982,500 for police station, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Ordinance 2026-21, budget amendment to remove $193,378 for principal on bonds and notes and interest on bonds and notes. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor of adopting ordinance 2026-21, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Ordinance 2026-22, food truck for introduction and referral to planning commission. I'll open up the table for... Introduction.

I'll introduce, I'll make, like to make a motion for introduction of ordinance 2026-22 food truck ordinance for introduction and referral to planning commission.

All right. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. I'll go off to the planning commission. Sorry. I just didn't want to take that. Somebody else's work.

I wasn't sure if Sean was going to grab it or not for me. Since he's planning liaison.

Ordinance 2026-23 emergency budget amendment to allocate an additional $306,000 to the water and sewer operating budget for necessary sewer maintenance and repairs. This is for adoption. I'll make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion?

DID THIS ALREADY HAPPEN OR?

THIS WAS THE BIG WATER MAIN BREAK THERE BY THE.

UNDER HIGHWAY 27 BEHIND THE CARNIVAL.

AND KUDOS TO TOWN STAFF AND EVERYBODY FOR HANDLING THAT. THAT WAS INCREDIBLE.

I AGREE JUST KUDOS BRIAN AND GUYS GOT OUT THERE QUICK.

SO THANK YOU. COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH WORSE. EVERYBODY THAT HANDLED THAT AND WHILE IT IS EXPENSIVE IT COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE AND A LOT MESSIER. SO BARNEY, STAFF, EVERYBODY THANK YOU GUYS FOR THAT. All right, all in favor of ordinance 2026-23, the emergency budget amendment to allocate an additional $306,000 to the water and sewer operating budget for necessary and already completed sewer maintenance and repairs for adoption, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right, thankfully we have no unfinished business. We will move into closed session at the, we'll roll call into closed session at the conclusion of that session. This meeting will be adjourned. Council Member DeNoder?

Aye.

Council Member Munder? Aye. Mr. Secretary? Yes.

I put it in anticipation that this might be a longing. I wrapped what I would say in the closed session very briefly.

Oh, then I will make a motion.

Somebody else has something, but it was.

Okay. But let me just verify what Tom said. Nope. All right. So what we got is we're on Council Secretary Evans. Aye. Council Member Kelly. Aye. I'm an aye as well. We will see everybody next month. Thank you.