Town Council - Regular Meeting

If I could have your attention, I'd like to call to order the public hearing at 6:20. as of 620. Uh, and this public hearing is on ordinance 0-25-9, an ordinance of the town council of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, amending the annual budget for the general fund of the town of Chesig Beach for the fiscal year July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026 to allocate funding for an expenditure of funds for additional costs for holiday lighting, which I think is a great cause. Uh, Dan, do you want to give us any of the details at this point? Sure. Uh this was introduced at last month's meeting. Uh the ordinance uh increases the holiday lighting uh allocation in the budget by $80,000. Uh this is to take advantage of pricing of uh discounted displays that we could obtain now versus waiting to you know the peak of the holiday season. So this is the amount that was recommended uh for inclusion and there was a detailed breakdown that was submitted by uh the design or the uh

person in charge of our decorations. Right. Les King, right? Yeah. In collaboration with Jay. Yep. Okay. Anybody got any questions or comments on this? If there are none, then we will adjourn the hearing and we will start the regular meeting uh as scheduled at 6:30 p.m.

thing and we're not we're not in session, sir. No, we weren't looking at you. I said to order the meeting of the town council of Chesapeake Beach uh January 15th uh of 2026. Uh we'll start with the pledge of allegiance and Jay, I'm going to lean on you, sir.

Pledge allegiance to the Liberty Council, is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve. There a second. Second. All in favor? I. I. Opposed? The eyes have it. This is the opportunity for the public to comment on any item that is on the agenda. Hearing none, we will move on. Council, I need a motion to approve the minutes of the December 18th town council meeting.

Motion to approve. Second. Second. All in favor? I opposed. The eyes have it. A motion to approve the minutes of the December 18th close session, please. Motion. Second. All in favor? I opposed. The eyes have it. Um, a motion to approve the minutes of the January 6, 2026 work session, please. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor, please say I. I. Okay. Any opposed?

So, we have one abstension. All right. Um All right. Next, we have a special presentation. Charles Day Jr. overview overview regarding the Maryland infrastructure financing program for the water park. Welcome sir, please come to the podium.

Good evening everyone. Sorry to have my back back to you all.

Mayor Walt, it's good to see you. Council members. Um, yes, my name is Charlie Day and I work for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and I wear many hats, but one of my primary responsibilities is I help administer the state's local government infrastructure finance program. It's a loan program that was created by the Maryland legislature back in 1985. We did our first financing in 1988. It's a program that was created to help Maryland's municipalities, particularly the smaller ones. access capital at reasonable rates in reasonable terms to fund critical infrastructure projects. Tax exempt execution is the prominent means by which states and local governments access capital here in this country. When you get to be smaller though, you're challenged. um jurisdictions that are small, jurisdictions that you know don't have the expertise, have limited access to the capital markets or administering a public bond offering on your own is either inconvenient and/or expensive. So the state created this mechanism and it's a conduit issuance mechanism and what do I mean by that is is that we work with municipalities across the state and when we identify jurisdictional demand a sufficient critical mass we will administer a poolled bond offering and their efficiencies and economies of scale that are achieved by doing a pooling that would not be achieved if any one jurisdiction was to try to administer. If you were to do a public bond offering and you did it on your own, you'd be assuming a 100% of the costs through a pool, those costs, many of them are spread out on a prora base. It's a much more efficient mechanism. And the reality is in the capital market, size matters. So the state of Maryland, for example, when it does a geo bond issue,

it might go out for 200 million, 300 million, 500 million dollars. If a county goes to the market, they might issue 15, 20, 50, $80 million. So, municipalities, we've worked over since our first financing was 1988. Uh to the present, we've assisted 66 municipalities, four counties, and two instrumentalities of counties. We've done 42 distinct bond offerings. We have raised almost $625 million in par value bonds and lent it out to those municipalities to fund hundreds and hundreds of projects. Chesapeake Beach has used the program in the past. Um I was looking at this. So 2001, the town borrowed a million dollars for trail walkways, park improvements, renovate the recreation complex, and renovate the town hall. In 2007, the town came back in and borrowed $2.5 million for railway trail improvements, streetscape improvements, and storm water management improvements. And more recently in 2010, the town came back in and used the program borrowing 2.14 million for a water storage tank and production. Um, who's eligible? Incorporated municipalities are eligible to use the use the pro use the program. Obviously, the town of Chesapeake Beach has used the program. um eligible kinds of projects. It's very it's vast and numerous and I'm not going to go into the details, but it's the kind of things that you would think about. It's roads and sidewalks and water and sewer, storm water management. It's town halls. It's

public works facilities. The key is for us programmatically, the asset that's financed needs to be owned, operated, and maintained by the local government and benefit the public service system. Okay, we typically do uh one or two transactions a year. Um, usually the the size of the transaction might be 20 to $25 million. We might have anywhere from four to six or eight jurisdictions in a pool. We are looking forward to uh and working towards administering a public bond offering later this spring. um and it has the potential to be a significant size in aggregate about 48 million in loan requests. A couple of key dates to keep in mind with the transaction. Um we have an application deadline of March 3rd. Um we um would like to have on April 14th uh the return of letters of intent fully executed. April 17th we'd like to is the deadline for all local government legislation to become fully enacted. Referendum periods were applicable have expired. CDA, which is the financing arm of the Department of Housing and Community Development, will be looking to go out into the market with the bond transaction the week of May 4th and then close on the bond issue on May 21st. May 21st, the loan proceeds would be available to the participants to start drawing down. Any questions? uh very useful information and uh I was

here in 2001 when this was done and I remember this is a far cry from what this town hall looked like before uh and uh this made it this uh financing made it a possible for us to make the make the upgrades and make this the nice place that it's been for a long time now. Yeah, it's a beautiful it's a beautiful town hall and I've visited a lot of town halls all across the state. So this is I have too asset. I was president of MML for a while and I got to visit a lot of town a lot of town halls and uh makes me proud of where we are.

It's a great program. Um again you know you know it helps it's helpful. Now jurisdictions might be thinking about well what are your alternatives right as far as securing financing? Well it could be with a bank right? uh my 20ome well I've been over 31 years in some form or fashion in the capital markets in 22 I'll have a 23 year anniversary with state this coming October banks don't like to op typically don't like to operate in that space of lending out their capital beyond 10 years when you get beyond that 10-year term 15 20 25 year they're not going to want to offer a fixed rate product they would rather go to a variable rate product or I've seen them do a 25 for example a 25 your amateurization, but it has a 10-year put, meaning in 10 years, you either have you're faced with one of two options. You either have to pay it off or you have to refinance it. We can do terms as short as 5 years and as long as 30 years. And anything in between those two points with this very simple caveat, the term of the loan cannot exceed the useful life of the asset. And that makes sense, right? Uh a good example I always like to give is the useful life of a police car is five years. So, no one should be wanting or thinking about carrying a loan on their books for seven or 10 years for that asset. That wouldn't be prudent.

Council, anybody have any questions or comments?

Yeah. Uh, when was the last like pool or bill that you guys put out? You said you're doing the next one in the spring. When was the last one? And what was the like rate for a typical 10-year? So, uh, we closed the bond transaction in May of 2025. It was one of our smaller, uh, pools. It was, uh, in aggregate about 12 million, I think, off the top of my head. We had three different terms for that. The seven-year term, and and we are a market rate product. I would like to emphasize that. So, whatever the prevailing market interest rates are at the time that CDA goes into the market and finalizes pricing, its transaction, that that's the point where the rates will be locked. And for purposes of our borrowers, that's good. It once it's locked in, it's not ever going to change. You're going to receive a fixed amortization schedule, and it's not ever going to change. Okay? Uh so for the the last pool, the 7-year term rate that we were able to secure and pass through was 3.96%. For 10 years, it was 4.05% and 20 years, it was 4.88%. If we had gone into the market in the end of December, the rate that we think we would have been able to secure and pass through for a 7-year term would have been 3.13%. 10year term 3.22% and 20-year term somewhere between a 4 and 4.2%.

Uh that's that's kind of what Dan and I were talking about a while ago. Like I said, by the time we get the water park situated, hopefully the rates will come down. So it sounds like that's kind of what's happening and that should benefit the town. Yeah. Right. R rate rates going down would every jurisdiction that borrows is contemplating borrow is going to would benefit from that by by what is it April May they they should be coming down more hopefully from the December rates. You know what that's I I understand where I think you're going with this and and um I will tell you this this is the way I always um try to answer that question. If I knew where rates were going to be in May of 2026, that would be extremely valuable information to have.

Just being optimistic and and if I knew them, I wouldn't be here. I'd be sitting on some small island that I own and being served a very dry martini, someone who works for me. Well, they'll be better than they were this year, so that's good. Other questions? Is there a prepayment penalty?

Great question. So, we have what's called a 10-year lockout, and that's not done for the benefit of the state, and it certainly isn't done for the benefit of our participating local governments that participate in our pool transaction. You have to understand our source of capital comes from bond investors. And bond investors, if nothing else, they like certainty. So, for them, capital markets, certainty reigns. So, we have a 10-year lockout. So, anyone that buys our bonds and they know that for at least 10 years, they will receive while they hold that paper a guaranteed investment stream. Um, I would argue that we get a better interest rate because we have the 10-year lockout. And here's why. If I was a bond investor and my bond could be called away from me at any time, I would demand to receive a higher interest rate. I will accept a lower interest rate for that because I've got that guarantee that 10-year guarantee of certainty. I will accept a lower interest rate with that guarantee.

So that's pretty much the exchange then. So we get the good rate because they hold us into they know what their fixed return is going to be. Yeah. And if you have a 10-year term or shorter, you're not going to be able to prepay. But if you have a term that's 11 years out to 30 years once we get to that 10-year mark from the closing of the transaction, all bets are off and a jurisdiction can prepay all or a portion of its outstanding indebtedness at any time and there is no penalty like sometimes there'd be like callable at 101 or you know a premium. There's

Yeah. So there's no refinancing it. The terms that we set in are the terms they are for a minimum of 10 years. it's it's it's going to be for the term of the of the loan period. If it's a 15-year term, it's those rates that schedule will not change. Uh the other thing I maybe might be helpful to mention, so the proceeds when we close the transaction are held by our trustee in a very safe, very liquid federated money market account. And what we do is it's earning investment earnings. And what we do with those investment earnings is we credit it towards while a jurisdiction has unspent loan proceeds on a se our debt service payments are uh semiannual. They're due in April and October of each year. While you have unspent loan proceeds, investment earnings from those unspent loan proceeds is credited towards your subsequent semiannual debt service payment applied towards interest. We cannot apply it towards principal reduction. So it's working for you. Great. Other question? Go ahead.

So, you've said it sounds like you've said that there is a penalty. What is the penalty for early payment? There's no there's no penalty. There's no penalty after the 10-year lockout. What is the penalty before the You can't you can't prepay. You simply can't there's no penalty. There's no there's no means of prepaying before 10 years.

Okay. So my next question is um can you pay more than your principal and interest payment and then get into a situation where your payments are recalculated and they are less as the as it goes on.

You can it's it's not like a mortgage. you're would be analogist to a mortgage where you you know you monthly you might make a few additional payments towards it and it reduces that's not the way ours you've got a fixed you'll know what your payments are principal and interest and and you will need to make those payments if you have investment earnings it will be credited towards reduction in your interest payments uh while you have unspent loan proceeds but principal payments will not change until we get to that 10-year mark and then if you happen to have or jurisdiction happens to have excess money and and wants to prepay all or a portion, you're well within your right, you just need to let us know and we'll calculate the payoff.

Other questions? Just to be clear, you said the application deadline was March 3rd. Yes. The LOI is due April 13th. April 14th. 14th. I'm sorry if I said the 13th. And then you said on April 17th all legislation needs to be enacted. And then you said something about a referendum. So could you just elaborate what all legislation enacted means?

Well, Alyssa Alyssa is familiar with this. So depending on where you're standing in Maryland in the and the local charter requirements, there may be applicable to adopting legislation a referendum period. I don't know what it is here in Chesapeake Beach. I don't know what what the charter requires as far does it require you to can you adopt a resolution? Does it require you to adopt an ordinance? Is there a referendum period? I don't know the answer to that. So, just fully and active legislation allocating the money.

Yeah, we've got we and the other thing is we have all of these template forms. So, jurisdictions uh and Alyssa is familiar with our template forms. They've been vetted by bond counsel over many years and they have all the boilerplate language and it's more or less fill in the blank. Alyssa knows how to keep us straight is your answer. Thank you. Well, generally speaking, turn your mic on.

Generally speaking, jurisdictions have um bond counsel. Um so I can look over the documents and I am familiar with them as Charlie has indicated. I've worked with Charlie for many years. However, um I don't um it's not my specialty and it is a highly specialized field. So most jurisdictions hire bond counsel. Um you probably have bond counsel from your prior issuance is maybe my former partner who's very very good but there are certainly a number of individuals out there who specialize in local government if you choose to go that way I'm going to highly recommend that you

other questions one more question Um, and it may be for your last one. It may be for you, Mr. Mayor, more so than uh the guest is um uh what's the ballpark that the town is is thinking about picking a bond or uh borrowing the what is the ballpark amount? I think that's a Dan question. Last uh recommendation that we made it was at uh 5.9 million. Yeah. Did you have something J for 10 years? Uh we've said 10 or 15. My original uh analysis to the council was at 15.

Other questions? Go ahead. And so with that, if we did 15, we could 10 years in one day, we could pay the remaining five years. Correct. Correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for being here with us tonight. That helps to clarify the situation and we appreciate what you're doing. Thank you for the opportunity. You all have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for coming in. Next on the agenda is Kelly Stewart. Uh talking about the fence. Yeah, we're trying to get a fence. um you know he has to help because he knows all the ins and outs but um we were bind I guess we started putting it up and I guess uh we got a ticket right so um we just want to come to a resolution to see what we can work out with our property East Street Elm Elm Oh Elm okay

so I did I guess everybody has my little drawings I did on the property we have a U-shaped driveway way. Um, so our goal was to enclose the whole property. Um, I have a grandchild that stays with me. We have dogs. Um, one recently was hit by a car. Um, we're very, very close to 260. Um, we've had stray Dobermans in our yard. I've been surprised. Um, so I just want something that's large enough that's going to keep people and animals out, keep my uh grandchild and my animals in. Um, just because we are so close to the road. Um, we did go with a decorative rod iron. We're a little bit bougie, but nothing is um, what do you call privacy? No privacy. Um, it's black rod iron. It's it's small enough that a dog can't get through and a child can't get through. I guess the issue is the height and the front. So, um, if there's a way that we can work out, um, that the front would be great because I just don't think three foot is going to do it.

Three and three and a half foot. What's the What is the height you're trying to achieve? Is it fix five feet? Yeah. In the front. The back would just the back. I don't The sides don't matter. Correct. Yeah. So, it's the front. It's It's just It's It's like five foot six on all all the other sides and back. So, um actually, I think you guys submitted this a while ago. Yeah. I think it was maybe around Thanksgiving or something like that.

It was before that, I think, wasn't it? It's been a while. Yeah. Um me and uh the mayor had actually rode around and uh looked at some of your place and then a couple other ones and stuff like that. So and do we talk back and forth or do we do that later or is thisformational now? Oh, the council's going to discuss this issue in close session. Well, just Okay. But this is your opportunity to discuss with so had the honor.

Uh so within some of the pictures I live over in y'all's I'm not too far from y'all. Um so some of the people's examples that you gave. Yes.

I walk by their houses and so I know sort of that area town a little bit. Um so I think A confusion is like that and Jake can correct me if I'm wrong on this is that if your address is like just say a a letter street or number street so the the face your house is the side of it where it might look like that's a front of a house or the front street facing thing that's sort of not the front of their house where you guys don't have I don't think you're facing 260. There's a space there. And so it's it's uh so that's where some of them look like that person's right in the front of their yard. I know there was an example. I was like, "Well, that's in the front of their yard, but their address was facing I think it was D Street or something like that." And I was like, "Well, what about that one?" And so we were trying to see if there was some. So have you considered or would you consider um you know in the front of your house where you had the gates have you looked at the option of where it would be like with the so it doesn't go past the front of your house.

So pushing the pillars putting the pillars back. Have you looked at that option? The option that we proposed on here was when you get to the front of the house, turn back into each side of the house, then leave the front of the house completely open.

Oh, that's one that's one of the options. Yeah, that that was one of the options we put in here if we weren't allowed to go across the front. So, stop at the deck. But you're actually talking about the pillars pushing the pillars back or no. Okay. See, I wasn't understanding. That's why. So, you know, on some of the examples on that that you submitted where the like where I know one of my neighbors, it's uh like like so his house is here and the fence goes it doesn't go past the front of their house. It it's goes to the edge of the house. I think in some of the and some of them are privacy fences and some of them are

I know there's like uh like wooden fences and and there's different ones and some of them are newer and some of them are older, you know what I mean? And and I think that's probably I mean I guess you could say was that some are like what's the rule, right? Yeah. And uh I don't know. So, so you're open to So, yeah, like in exhibit two where I have it outlined, that's a that's a deck, which I consider our back deck, but it's on the road of Elm because our front door is actually on the back side, which is there's no road back there.

So, I was going to ask that because I'm looking at it. I pulled up Google Maps so I could actually visualize it a little bit better. So, your your house is also completely surrounded by trees. Um, so the back of the deck is what faces Elm and then you're asking Brother House faces Elm. No, no, it's not even a It's just a deck. There's not. The front door is in the back. The house is very very old and yeah, it's configured very odd, but it's in the back and hence the U-shaped driveway. Um, but yeah, that that's a deck in the front with no door there like Yeah, the doors on the other side of the house once you go up on the deck. So,

so trees house between the trees or is it kind of pretty coverage or covered by the trees? So, the front we have trees in the summertime. it pretty much. Um, yeah, like the fence will be you won't see the fence when they're in bloom. I just have a couple questions about policy. Oh.

Um, so I'm not going to ask you about your your choices, but I do love Fra I so um but I'm just curious how you ended up in front of us and not in front of the board of appeals. So if could you just go through here? What's the board of appeals? Is that where you I I don't know. Tell me that. I guess I didn't know the order and No, it's okay. It's fine. I mean to that. Okay.

And Alyssa, you straighten me out. Um, so the the and that's one thing I was going to tell the council this technically. So, turns out when Sarah came on planning his own, I'm the one that approves fences and it's clearly written in her ordinance, no fence shall exceed 42 in in a front yard, which is the midpoint of the house. So, in this case, I denied the permit. It was actually a stop work. They did it without a permit. Billy came to me. I was like, well, either way, it would be denied as is just so so there is no appeal process right now. It's in clear violation. If the council did anything, you'd have to change the code. Just put thrown out there. But in working with Sarah and talking with Similia, we're looking at moving it to planning and zoning. So where it is a board, there is an appeal process. There is uh just not one person or this legislation that's written in stone, right? Because as of right now, there is no appeal process. It falls under public works and I have to follow the law and it there's no gray area. It clearly states no fence over 42 in in the front yard.

Does it say that it's in your authority to deny their permit? Yes. our code and not Sarah. It's not under planning and zoning and it's it's not my authority to deny. It's my authority. I can't approve an illegal fence. It's just the opposite really. Right. I'm just wondering why you have so am I.

So, I'll be completely transparent. Sarah, when we when we hired her realized that has been the way it's always been. It's not the way it's always been done. Um but that is the law as it's written today. So once I took on the job, you know, I've approved and denied many fences. This one, unfortunately, was built with a stop work and it's already existing at six, not 6 ft, but five. So I just want to be clear on how we are and it it is um cut and dry. There's no gray area right now. I just can't approve it by its nature and there's no way around it because it's unless we change it. Is already existing. I'm sorry. What was that? you want to build it or it exists? Started building up front.

We started building it. There was some fencing up on property falling down everything else. We've done a lot to the property since we've been there for 10 years. We've done a lot. Um but yeah, we started, you know, just putting it up. So, we've paid the fine. We've paid over $800 in fines and whatever it whatever it is. Yeah. We paid it all and now we're here. And now we're here. Yeah. We paid over 800. It was well between five and eight. I can't remember the exact number. I think the permit was three and fine.

I I think that I don't I'm not sure. I can't speak to the fines. Codesport for not here, but any stop work after the permit. Like if you doing anything in town without a permit and we put a stop work when you file for an after the fact permit, that's a $300 charge. I don't know what it what it is after that, but so that's to give you the history. Okay. Someone called in, hey, they're building the fence. No permit. Went out there, stopped work, illegal fence as it exists. So when they filed for the after the fact permit, it's illegal. We can't I can't approve it. Do you know if the other fences in the pictures have permits?

I don't know because I haven't seen the pictures, but there's a chance they don't. I would guarantee you that. So some of those I think are new. Um I'm just I I and and I'm sorry um that you are standing here watching me. No, that's okay. Totally understand. scrunch my eyes the policies that have been in place and followed and um but yeah, it sounds like it's a policy problem more than anything that has become your problem and I'm sorry that that happened to you.

Thank you. to clarify. It's because um there's this unusual provision in chapter 110, which is your building construction chapter of your code, that covers fences, and says it's the public works administrator, and it says, you know, no fence higher than 42 in shall be erected in any residential area without a building permit, etc., etc. So, if you want to take a look, that's where it is, 110-1 of your code. and and just to try to fill in the public and yourselves. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a beautiful fence, too. I saw it, but I've got to enforce the laws written, right? So, the reason I think public works was involved, there are areas where I go through town and there's a storm drain easement in someone's backyard. And on the paper, it's a 20 foot easement, but it only makes sense to put their fence. So, in those areas, I'll say, "Yes, it's okay. You you'll be close to the easement, but you're subject to if we got to come in and work on it, we're going to tear your fence down." So, I think that's why they had public works review alleys, easements, and roadways. But it's very clear the law. It doesn't say Jake. It could say, "Yeah, you could have a six foot fence." But I I just I know you're going to talk real quick.

I want to be shouldn't be involved in permitting. Well, well, maybe that's that's the council's decision from the from a code perspective, but uh I I would say it does say in 1103 that the if the public works administrator denies fence permit, the applicant would appeal to the town council, hence why you both are standing in front of us. So, that is the that is the process in place.

So, do we know how long it would take to change the code? Is that something we would have to expedite like we did with the other um I don't I don't I also would probably imagine this fence is beautiful. I I do not think it would meet emergency uh requirements like you're talking about, but yeah, there would be a process and it takes like 60 to 90 days to be able to change the code if that's the decision. Um, I would also argue, and I was going to wait to let Eric talk because I know he's got his finger on the mic, but um, I would say that I I think this uh ties to a larger discussion that we need to have regarding when I brought up uh, planning and zoning, uh, before the New Year's and the holidays that there is a uh, there's a lot of ambiguity, there's a lot of overregulation, there's a lot of uh, you know, if you get one denial, you're immediately at the highest level of authority to to get some kind of resolution. versus like a tiered or a layer approval system. You know, there should be escalations. I I'm not a I mean, this goes right to to Jay to the town council. It doesn't give the town administrator anything. It doesn't give the mayor anything. Uh there's a lot of I think there's just in general in our code, it's if it's no, it's escalated to this really high uh authority instead of using some common sense and trying to uh you know, take care of our residents. Uh I looked at your house on on uh uh Google Maps and it's like surrounded by trees in a circle. So uh it's just an interesting also a lot like we we

we have to allow some flexibility uh in our code and I think that's what's missing. Yeah. Hopefully we can take a look at the code and help you guys out. And so given that the fence is built half built or all what what are you it's half built and you are asking to complete it? Yes. Yes. You want to say something Eric? I'm waiting patiently.

Um I would just comment that it is unfortunate that Sarah is not here. Um, all right. So, my question is really, um, I mean, I I agree with what everyone else is saying. You know, um, sure, your fence is beautiful. Um, we've got some issues that we probably need to resolve, um, process issues, but, um, I think something that we really probably need to dig into, um, with this particular lot and, um, as far as if we were to follow the code as it is right now, um, you know, what what is the legal definition of a front yard? Um, it's it the address is Elm Lane. Um, but you're saying that's your backyard, but I don't know it even though you don't have a door there. That's probably your front yard because of your address.

Yeah. So, and uh Sarah is very aware of this. We've had a lot of back and forth and she's trying to move forward to get it to planning and zoning, but what it defers to is the street facing side. Yeah. um where the where the address the address well even if the address in your entrance door is in the rear whatever side faces the street that's what the public sees and that's why the law that's the that's what we're talking about as front yard just to be clear I mean I don't know if that makes a difference or not but I think that's probably the front yard be considered property line of property line or just in front of your house

the front yard is defined in the zoning ordinance as the required open space the full width of the lot extending from the street line to the nearest building on the lot inclusive of overhanging eaves gutters or cornises. So that hole um which went down the street to the building.

So if you didn't want to wait for the town machinations to change laws and things like that to make it legal for you to do what you to to encompass the entire property with a 5 and a half foot fence. Your option sounds like it would be um the five and a half foot fence um you know around what you think is what you call the front of your house would be fine. It's the other side, the back side that you'd have to back back up to the street side where the deck is that you'd have to back up to where the building is if you wanted to expedite this process without laws being changed. You know what I mean?

No, I think we'd rather wait because I don't think it would serve a purpose. I was going to say I'm three foot fence is not or three what is it? Three and a half. Yeah. Yeah. I just Yeah. I' I'd think I'd rather wait to if we're gonna make it beautiful, I want it to be beautiful. I think that's what I was saying with that example that was on the house that looked like it was on I believe

in proximity to uh one of the side streets in D Street either 207th or 8th or something wrong that where it appeared that the front of their house had the fence And I said, "Well, what about that one?" And their address was facing the D Street. And so that's where there wasn't another example in town we could find. At least we weren't able to find another example to compare it to.

Can I ask one clarifying question, too? So, I'm looking again at your house. If the front is Elm Street, that would be your front yard. You can't go all the way around. Can You have to go to the back and up against it. You can do it. It's just really tight in the back. Oh, we have we have 12 14 foot wide. And there's an access we own an part of an access road back there or an access way that I don't know if that matters either. It's not does that not matter? The alleyway. The alleyway, but it's not a road. Yeah. Yeah,

one thing I will just throw out because you know on a stop work anywhere else someone's building which is an illegal structure at the moment we it would be you get cited you have x amount of time to remove it so we have put everything on hold right we knew that this was going to come up so the the town is not actively tacking on fines or saying tear it down trying to small town work with the people see where this ends up I just want to throw that out for the council and the residents I think you're aware of We need to like make a resolution about that or do anything about that to make I mean this she said we're close

creates a slippery slope for anybody that wants to violate the code and I get that this is a situation that is unfortunate too. Um, but this is kind of a off way to do business. What is recommended here to make sure that we are I'm sorry I forgot your name. This couple, Kelly and Kelly and Billy. Billy

and Dylan. Billy. Billy. Kelly and Billy. We're fair. Kelly and Billy and their situation. And we are not creating a precedent to invite situations that may not be appropriate or desirable.

Thank you both so much for this for this write up and these explanations and also for your proposal. I look forward to talking about this in the closed session and I believe that we can take from this go to the future see what things we can do for others as well. But I do think that we want to do the best for you guys also. So thank you for coming out. Thank you. Thanks everybody for coming out being here. All right. Next on the agenda is the town administrator report.

Thank you. The town administrator's report was submitted as a part of the town council agenda package um of what was submitted. The highlights are um we had our first uh water reclamation treatment plant partner meeting of the year. Um we typically have four meetings um with all of our partners from the county, North Beach and Anna. Um and we updated them at this meeting we updated them on the progress of our um RSPs and budgeted projects. Um, additional highlights are that the water park contract has been signed and work is moving forward. Um, we expect to receive the certificate of occupancy at the end of May in 2027 as outlined in our contract. Next, um the town is working to continuing continuing to work to enhance communication with residents, um which includes ongoing improvements to the town website. So, in the coming weeks, we'll be launching a community communication survey to gather feedback on how residents access information and their preferred channels for receiving updates. So that will be launching soon and um ask for support as it goes live so we can get as much feedback as possible um because that will help us design better systems on the back end. Um so the survey will help the town evaluate current communication methods, identify gaps and ensure that information is shared in a timely, accurate and accessible manner reflecting the commitment to transparency and resident engagement. And the last highlight that I wanted to flag is not included in in the report because it happened yesterday. Um, so the town is continuing to work with consultants to advocate for the funding

and repair for the Harbor Road Well. So we're doing that through the legislative session. And in addition to Harbor Road Well funding, we've also asked for our consultants to provide support when it comes to our um collaboration with SHA. One to identify additional funds if they're available. So whatever the town is cost sharing, we might be able to use those funds to help um supplement um but also so that we can um add a little bit more pressure to get things moving forward more quickly. So, those are highlights that I thought you all would, one in particular, would really appreciate hearing, but that you would all be um excited to hear. And I'm happy to take any questions.

Um, you know, I have them. First of all, thank you for the um website survey. I think that um that's direct response to a conversation we access to general information. So, thank you for that. Absolutely. idea and approach um the safe routes to school. I'm a little confused about what you said. So you said our consultant is going to legislative session.

Our consultants are they the way they're lobbyists, right? So what they do is they help identify funds that can be earmarked for projects. So an example of work they've done in the past is the tennis court, right? They were able to advocate for the town's project in the past to be able to find funds that we could use to rehab the tennis pickle ball courts which they did successfully. Our primary focus this go round with them is the Harbor Road Well. Um and in so that's what they're focused on. Um however in those conversations they always say if there are any other ways that we could be supportive to you let us know. So this is not technically a traditional way in which they would be lobbying for us but they have connections when it comes to MDOT and SHA and so we you know laid it out on the line. We're trying to get this done. It's a project that's been you know a long time coming and it seems to not be moving as quickly as we would like for it to be moving. Is there anything that you can do to help us expedite the work? So that's what they've agreed to do. Um and then additionally I said and if there are funds that are available that we could use that SHA won't have a problem with us using for the cost shared portion of the work. If you can identify those funds independent of our funds that have already been allocated that would be appreciated as well. So it's really just to add on to what we already have and it would cover the town's portion of the cost share of the project if they're able to find it. But you asked them to because you had a meeting with SHA and they said what?

So they said I'll invite Wayne to share a little bit more about it in a concise way. So, long story short, uh, SHA has told us we have the ability to request additional funds to add to the to the design contract because the design contract or proposal from the state's consultant exceeds the state's estimate for design. So, you said no, is that what you said? Just said

we have said we have the ability to request additional funds and we have done so. Um, however, we gave them a number that we know is inclusive of Rossy's proposal. However, they can't move forward on that until they have Rossy's actual actual proposal. So, they're expecting that in the next few days, next week. Then they will move forward to make the request for us to the federal highway administration through the state highway through the state highway administration. They'll come back to us and tell us what they can or can't do. That's where we where we stand with that. assuming uh they can obtain additional funds that allows us to move forward then we can they they can sign the Rossy contract we can move forward

and so the you're asking the consultant to identify funds for our 20% share. Yes. All clear and all good as you said. Any other questions for the administrator? Just have you gotten any uh any takes on any of the vacancies? I know we've been trying to uptick that a little. So far, we have two applications or two applicants. All right, cool. Great. Moving on. Time for the treasurer's report. Mr. Treasurer,

mayor, you have a copy of my report in your packet. Uh, I don't have anything else to add at this time, but would be glad to entertain any questions. Any questions for the treasurer? Hey, Dan. Um, how are you today? I'm doing well. Good. Uh, just uh I guess question. If we wanted to add some uh line items to our budget, what would you want us to suggest to you in order to do that for next budget cycle? Um, just shoot me an email with what those would be. Sounds good. Thank you. Y,

that was easy. Sooner than later. That was easy. Yeah, they're working. He's working on that. The uh the bond bill for the tennis court. Uh what what was that amount? I know the tennis courts were around 300,000.

So, the bond bill was 500,000. Uh the tennis courts themselves were under 300,000 to build. Um the actual paperwork was never submitted to the state in order to get those funds. Uh which, you know, I found that out since I've been here. So, I've applied for that. And as part of that application, I included that we're going to do tennis courts at the uh Kellum's Field as well. So, uh, right now they've, uh, accepted the proposal, uh, or the application, uh, which will then go before the board of public works for approval. And if it gets approval, then the additional once it gets approved, we'll be able to submit for reimbursement for the tennis courts that we've already done. And then the additional funds will be able to be used for um, tennis courts at Kellum's Field if we go forward with that. And the water park was 1.1 million, right?

Yep. And that was two different years. Uh 1.1 million. Again, none of that paperwork had been submitted either. So, I'm in the process of doing that. Then it goes again before the board of public works. And once that's approved, then we could start using those funds. All right. Great. And I'm unfamiliar with the water tower project. What's that?

Um that was another one where uh we did upgrades to the water tower was $400,000. We spent 362,000 which we had been reimbursed for. As I was researching all the other bonds, I found out that there was still $38,000 available there. So, with the work that Jay did to have the water tower painted, I've now submitted for reimbursement for that. So, we'll be getting that money uh back shortly. Great. Hey Dan, what what are you targeting for uh budget uh reviews like for the I know it's January, but um are we looking March or April to to start that process?

Um I should be able to get drafts uh first draft in March, so we should be able to get it done earlier this year. Um I'm actually meeting with Josh next week to get the water or the uh treatment plant first draft done so we get that to the partners by uh the beginning of uh February. Yep. So that's a a little sooner than the rest of the budget. Yeah, since it's jointly owned. Yep. Right. Any other questions for the treasur? Thank you, sir. All right. Uh, next we have the public works report. And I see that you've been getting taking lessons from Josh about how to drop a lot of photos.

Well, I I said, you know what? I'm going to slowly I'm going to slowly work my way up to Josh's world. I'll be there in the next millennium. Put this one. You can put this one in the calendar. Right.

There you go. But I want to I want to uh jump back to what our treasurer was saying because I've done a few meetings, did a little ride around with Dan, and he won't toot his own horn, but I will for him. So those those monies that he found. So we painted a water tow at Richfield. We got a grant. But what I didn't realize, we did some other upgrades. The chlorine pump, the chlorine analyzer. I didn't realize they were eligible. Dan's like, "Hey, we've got this. Did you do it?" I was like, "We did." So, I was able to submit that, save the utility fund another 40,000, which may be on me to not be aware that they were eligible, but kudos to Dan. And the other part of that was the top lot upgrades that we did. There was 150 grand not resubmitted for. Tell me if I'm wrong, Dan. For open space that we can get reimbured that we I just took some pictures with some signage, sent it to him. He was finalizing that. That's another 150,000 that was out there that he was able to apply and get back. So, I just think that was notable. And I know Dan well enough. He's not going to get out here and beat his chest, but I was like, that's very notable to me.

Thanks, Dan. Well, that's obviously very helpful. Yeah. 150 grand. I'll take it. Yeah. But any keep up the good works. That's great. Um, but I'll take any questions. One thing I did I did want to say up front, if you look at the first picture since I put him in there, it's hard to tell, but that's the the top of the 6-in valve that blew off in Richfield Station, and that's complete mud and sediment. And the second picture is when we filled the 24 by 20 foot hole back in 6 and 1/2 ft deep. And the reason I same same spot

same spot um and the reason I say that is is before in the prior administration and different things when you do it proactive versus reactive. Now, this is not a saddle. This is one of those anomalies of valuing it happens, but it just gives you the scale of, you know, 1,500 gallons a minute coming up through the road is powerful and it once that sediment is kind of loosened and removed, we can't put it back. So, you got to haul that out, which is a cost, buy new material, put it back, and then fix the road. And that's on top of the repair. But that that was just a notable picture, and I'll take any questions. I guess the second one, I want to say this, too. You see town staff picking up Christmas trees and and our trash contractor will pick them up also. But as part of the sustainable Maryland, this is one of the things that we do. And these trees are actually taken to local farms. And actually one of the public works employees has goats if you look at the next page. And they're eaten by goats if you're just curious.

Um but it's one way to not throw them in the landfill. and and public works picks. Last year it was like I think 225 and this year it's a little bit less. We probably be around 200 trees. Um and that's it. If there were any questions, I'll take them. Yeah. This whole you were offering a report on IQ Fiber. I think that would be helpful. Uh I have some neighbors that are asking like when is it going to be done? They're they're getting excited and

Sure. So I was I was going to ask the administrator and mayor. They they had offered that we can either get a written report with their update where they're at or we could even have them come here. Um up to you guys. Okay. That would be next works or next council meeting. Okay. Anybody got other questions for Jay? All right. Next we have the wastewater treatment plant. I'm sorry. Water reclamation treatment plant. I still call old dog new tricks. I still call it wastewater plant and I work there.

Uh good evening. Um just touch on a couple of the uh projects that were in the memo that I submitted. Um the two faulty actuators from the filters. Uh the one for the filter 3 effluent valve. That one we got the actuator replaced, programmed, started up. Everything's working fine with that. We're going to take the old one. Uh we're assessing, do we want to get the parts just repaired or just outright send it out to Alma to be rebuilt and get back and be used as our spare. Uh the number four filter backwash valve, the actuator just needs an adjustment on the limit switch and we're back in service. No problems. Um we had some work done for replacement of the motor for the number one aeration blower. Uh that work was completed by DSI and Excelsier was out here yesterday and completed the alignment and startup for the motor. Uh they checked the bearings, bearing vibrations, everything. Everything seems to be working well. They said that the numbers are really good for that. Um we are still awaiting a replacement gateway for the number two RAZ pump, which is part of the Raz pump replacement project um from Zyllem. Uh they're putting in a rush order for the part and we're still waiting for expected delivery on that. Uh hopefully we'll be able to close this project out here pretty soon because this has been getting dragged out for a while just for the startup on these pumps. Uh we received bids for the aeration base and handrail modification project and those are being assessed. Uh and then as a part of the memo for the uh council agenda, the bid opening was done for our lab analysis contract. And we're going to be looking at a pretty substantial reduction just in our lab services cost for the uh the budget. Um when I run the budget for lab services,

I usually add in extra tests. the so if we know we have 118 of this type of test, 106 of this, we figure that in, then I add a couple more on top of it in case we need more during the year. Our toxic chemical testing, I usually figure for two of those tests to be done, uh, two for our our wet testing. Um, looking at last year's budget, we had budgeted $128,413 for the um all the lab services. And looking right now at this year with the new numbers that we have with the from this project, we're looking at about 38,600. So pretty substantial decrease in cost. And that was the whole purpose of this uh RFP to go out is try and get competitive pricing because it it was just through the roof. So if anybody has any questions,

hey Josh. Yes, sir. Um I figured I'd just wait for you to get up. um might have a little to do with Mayor and Samilia also in regards to that quarterly partners meeting and I asked about the Highlands and seeing if y'all had any discussion or feedback from that. We actually did not have any information from Calbert on that. We can follow up with them and see if we can get an update from them.

Yeah. Uh especially uh since we have the winner of our Christmas display which is from the Highlands which we don't forget about. Uh so just making sure that we are not only looking out for our residents of our town, you know, but just making sure that get an update on that. Yeah, I can reach out to Kyber County and see if we can get an update.

Thank you. I I I I I hate to be nitpicky, but on the next to the last page, it you talk about no incidents reported in the plant solids and handling operation, and it said that the con solids hauling contract is set to expire on August 1st, 2025. I thought I had updated that. I will get back. Yeah, I thought you might want to correct that. Yeah, I'll get back. And I don't want you to think I'm nitpicking, but I noticed it and I didn't think you'd want that staying in your river. That's actually good for TW that's through to we well 2026. Uh but we have two years extensions on that.

Right. All right. Good. Anybody else got anything? Thank you, sir. No problem. Appreciate it. Appreciate all your work. Okay. Next. Let's see. Next we have the town engineers report. and we have a written report. Could you give us the highlights, please, sir?

Yep. I'd also like to give you a couple changes since this this was a week ago, which seems like a year ago. Um, so Waterpark, you you're aware administrator report, we signed the contract. I am working with and meeting with the uh contract manager next week to get that proposal moving forward. He has a copy of the contract and he's working on his proposal. Um, big news, a meeting tomorrow with MDE and core for Seagate. Very good. They called me today and said the core is in town. Can you meet tomorrow? Yes. What time?

Jay and I are going to meet with them tomorrow. Um, master plan. Jamie, I know J Jenny has sent you some things. Uh, I checked the master plan document today which she'll send you tomorrow. You'll have that. So, any questions you have? I'll be happy to take them. Any questions?

I don't have any questions, but just Lauri, you just asked like when we would be able to see it. So, um I I did she she gave me like a sneak peek. I know the master one will come out and then um there will be some some uh like follow-ups on how I want to propose it or show it to to the council because there the idea was to have like a grand like this is if we think everything in the realm of possible like think big and then we as a council can parse it together how we see fit scale stuff up and down adjust stuff very flexible but uh we didn't want to limit her creativity uh based off of like a random number that that we came up that I came up with. So, just just FYI since you had asked last time.

Yeah. And and to your point, everything that you see in that when when you do see it is up for discussion. Uh this is just a planner being a planner and she's really good at it. Um so, I'm pretty excited about what she came up with. But anything's up for discussion. Don't feel like you're going to hurt our feelings if you have different ideas. On that topic, there's certain things that we budgeted for this year, like a retaining wall. I think is that um is that still going to happen this year or

so? So so the and when I go to the Kellum stuff, I'm just going to say no update. Uh but uh since we're talking but the to the point is we would either do the retaining wall or uh we would repurpose that since it was already allocated to Kellums to a different effort. There was discussions about the uh uh amplitheater type stage uh so that we could leverage that for future events uh immediately that that the town would like to do. Okay. So the plan is been engineered with Wayne and his team. Correct. You say the plan, you mean the plan presented? Yes.

Yeah. So our planner, landscape architect, has created a a concept plan of our we took the comments from our prior meeting with the committee and she created a concept plan of of the what we believe the vision could be. It fills all the gaps that you were looking for. Um, and it's pretty creative in my opinion. It's really just for a discussion point at this point. It really is this is what we see possible. This is what we heard you say. Did we get it right? And what do you want to change?

Um, so I was just wondering, there has been some discussion about the walkability RFI being used for a portion of that plan and I don't know if that's changed. So maybe you could tell us where the RFI is at, if it intersects with that or if it's been separated. So there are walking trails in this plan and they do connect to other trails in inside the uh the town and inside the park. There's actually a bridge to the tot which is pretty cool. Um and I believe if you decide to move forward with those plans, in my opinion, those funds could be used for that. Okay. Because they do provide connectivity. Sounds like logical plans and logical processes. Yeah, only do logical.

What's that? We only do logical. Oh, I love logical. It's It's sometimes rare. We have a target date for the uh project manager for the water park. Like I know I'm assuming Paddock's working on their demolition permits and all that right now. So, I will be reviewing the schedule of values next week when uh Shy sends them over. The schedule of values is basically how you're going to review and approve their invoices. Um, once that's complete, I will I will consult with the project manager on that. I would expect in the next two weeks we'd have him on board. Thank you. Any other questions? Hey, Wayne.

Um, few things. I remember us mentioning something about a B Street and a survey and stuff like that and uh looking on Google Maps along B Street. Um, I see some addresses and stuff like that overlapping on the boardwalk. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't have any encroachment or if there was an agreement in place making sure that there's anything that needs to be addressed on that, we do. So, we actually completed a survey on I think it was 4433 um B Street where you have um discussed with the homeowner of swapping some properties because there's some interesting property lines there and we've created an exhibit which shows what that looks like and in in so doing we have found that the boardwalk in a lot of locations sit over top of what you otherwise know as a sewer easement. Um so there are rights of ways for the boardwalk to be there. Some of them are on private properties but there's a rightway or easement there. So happy to investigate it further if you have further questions, but that's what we found at at least that intersection at 15th Street.

Thank you. Hey Wayne, um question we had discussed um about putting something into contract with um Shyel andor Paddock. Um I guess the be um about having access to old drawings. Um, did that go through? Is it just the old drawings or is it um all construction documents? So, as a part of and Alysa can correct me if I'm wrong, but as a part of the contract, we have access to all drawings and all documents that are part of render rendered as part of the service. Okay. Do

do we need to request um or are they going are they are they going to be is there some type of prompt that needs to happen for us to get documents? Okay, thanks. Anything else? All right, let's move on. Um time for the sheriff's office uh report. We have our detachment commander here. Good evening, sir. Evening. H how are you all this evening? Great.

Um in December, uh we handled 173 calls for service um that were uh initiated by calls uh of in addition to that there was 100 I mean 863 selfinitiated calls, patrol checks, follow-ups, traffic stops. Um there were some thefts. Uh there were a couple destruction, three destruction of properties and five DUI arrests in the month of December. Um any questions on any of this questions. Okay.

Yeah, it's Christmas time, Christmas parties. I think actually DUI have gone down a lot um compared to where they used to be. I think people have wised up. I think there's a lot more access to Ubers and things like that. So like they're expensive. Yeah. And I think expensive than getting out cheaper to pay for an Uber and you know or etc. So all right. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Okay. Short and sweet. There you go. Thank you. North Beach Volunteer Fire Department. Good evening.

Good evening. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. Greetings from uh Chief Stanton and President G. I uh everybody got their uh statistical report looks like. All right. Um been pretty kind of quiet for us, which is a good thing. We're entering our hundth year, so there'll be a lot of uh stuff this upcoming year that's we'll be doing at the firehouse. So, we've been putting pushing out stuff on our social media, some history stuff and everything. So, uh, welcome anybody to come by the firehouse. Our big stuff will be in August where we'll kick off the month with a banquet and then there will be a parade on August 8th and we're actually having a carnival back at Firehouse again from August 18th through the 22nd.

So, great. Everything will be uh publicized on social media. We do have our sportsman's bash coming up on March 7th if anybody's interested. Tickets are $75 donation and feel free to contact any of the members. Come by the firehouse if you would like to purchase tickets and attend. Anybody? Yes, they are on sale. I bet they go fast. They do. They go very fast. Yeah. So, get them get them while they're hot. tickets go fast for that sort of thing, gun bash and so forth. Anybody got any questions? Thank you for your patience and being with us tonight. Thank you, sir. Look forward to the events.

Absolutely. And let's make sure that we uh as a town broadcast that that these events are going to be happening. We want to do we want to collaborate. We have a uh as part of our 100th anniversary uh committee, we have a social media person on board and she's actually uh retired from the College of Southern Maryland and a couple other social media things. So, she's really good with that and she will be in touch with the town to absolutely coordinate reach out reach out to Smelia to start with and that would be a great way to build that that relationship. give her your name and have her reach out to you. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Chief.

All right, time for the mayor's report. First thing we want to talk about is that the uh light up the town went has gone very well and been very well received. Uh just earlier this week, uh Les King uh the first lady and Jay and I uh drove around and looked at everything that we have up in the town this year. Randy doesn't realize that we've got a uh

council meeting. Sorry about that. Um, and so anyway, um, we had a we we spent, uh, I don't know, it was probably a couple hours, uh, the other night, um, and came up with a a long list of things that we want to do and, uh, we'll be, uh, building in some new features and so forth for the town decorations and we'll, you'll see that coming up in the forthcoming budget. One of the things that uh Dan Baden mentioned a minute ago or a little while ago is that we have placed an order for some uh items that we that are deeply discounted if you buy them this time of the year because I think it's up to 40% off on the stuff from Moscow Design which is the principal uh provider that we use for all all this stuff. And uh so it seemed prudent to take advantage of uh of discounts of 40% off. And if you wait until later in the year, the prices just escalate when the demand goes up. And so, um, at any rate, um, next thing I wanted to mention was, uh, that we took a, uh, council member and I took a visit to, uh, uh, the Coward Cliffs, uh, nuclear power plant and and hosted by, uh, our council member, Jonathan Evans, who is an employee there, and he provided the tour for us. Unfortunately, one of the council members didn't make it into that picture because she's camera shy and I don't know who we're talking about.

Need somebody to take the picture. That's Yeah. So, uh, so anyway, but this was in Tell us what this room is right here. It's the turban building where See, we're standing right behind unit one turbine. It's pretty massive. Obviously, it this this place I when you go in this area, you feel small. It's a steam turbine. It puts out about 1 gawatt. It's a lot of power. And then there's another unit um on the picture on the left, which is a little bit smaller, but it's also a gigawatt. And we're not too far from the reactors here. We're a couple hundred yards. 25 miles. Oh, in the picture. Yeah. The reactor. What's he talking about?

The reactors are Yeah. A couple hundred yards. Couple hundred yards away from where we're here. 25 miles. And this is the second time that I've uh had a tour there, but the first time was probably 35 years ago. And surprisingly, very little seems to have changed as far as what you can see here. Um, but I think all of the control systems and everything else are really advanced a whole lot, but the reactors are doing essentially the same thing. Very cool. Another interesting fact about the plant is that all of the spent fuel rods are are stored there. They they don't go anywhere. They are all stored there. And there's not there's not that many, right?

No, it's uh takes up like half a parking lot maybe. That's it's in a a giant concrete steel structure basically. It just kind of sits on the parking lot, but there's no radiation emitted from it. and they track and monitor that, of course. And we have to wear a radiation monitor at work to make sure we stay under a certain limit. So, it's it's it's a very safe place. And uh hopefully we can maybe get some more power there. I know they're looking into doing that. So, it's a great asset for the county

and it's a it's really it is it is a tremendous asset for the county and the income that has come to the county because of this plan has enabled the county to do tremendous things uh that otherwise would not have been possible in this very rural county. Uh, and it's uh, but what I found it very interesting personally uh, because this is only the second tour I've ever been there, but standing in this room, there's really hardly any difference from what I recall from 35 years ago. Yeah. And right now we're working on getting our uh, license amendment to be able to operate up to 80 years. Then currently we're around well it was built in the 70s. So,

right, we're trying to get another 20 to 30 years for our license.

But at any rate, uh wanted to share this with you. That was fun thing. Um go ahead. And th this is a picture that I took with my cell phone of uh just the other morning. I think it was Monday or Tuesday. It was Monday or Tuesday. And it was Monday because I the only reason I was up that early before sunrise was because my granddaughter wanted to spend the night with us and she had to be at school at 7:00 in the morning or something like that. So, uh we got her to school and came home and uh this this was just the sun rising out at Chesapeake Station and it was a spectacular morning and uh so it was it was great fun. There's a one more here of of that. And the tide was real low, which was interesting. Uh, and you just don't it doesn't I mean that the color that shows up on these projectors is not as good as it actually was, but it was just a spectacular morning and I wanted to share that with you.

Um, and here is this one. Oh, the Maryland. Oh, the Maryland 250 proclamation

proclamation from the county, right? Okay. So, at any rate, that was uh that was recent. And so, uh that is really all I uh let's see, is there um I I am continuing to meet with Randy Gman, who's the uh board of elections chair, who just called me um regarding the forthcoming changes to the election in 2029. it's going to be different. Um there's there's just so many different changes that are ongoing. So be prepared for that. Um it was uh brought to my attention um recently uh within the past few days that the previous administration had prepared a document or a presentation called state of the town and that they presented that uh at the beginning of the year. The first time I ever saw one of them was yesterday or the day before or something like that. So, uh, having looked at that, I think it makes sense. We're going to continue that practice. So, we'll put one together for next month and then start doing that at the beginning of each year. Um, and I mentioned earlier that this Friday will be the last day for the holiday lights um in Chesapeake Beach. uh and that that uh the first lady uh Jay um Les King and I did a ride around earlier this week to determine what we want to change and add next year. And uh that is the mayor's report. Okay. At this point, we're going to move on to uh resolutions and ordinances. It's time to vote on ordinance 0-25-9, an ordinance of the town council of Chesake Beach, Maryland, amending the annual budget for the general fund of the town of Chesake Beach for the fiscal year July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026 to allocate funding for an expenditure of

expenditure of funds for additional cost of holiday lighting. And you have a copy of the ordinance uh in your packet. Is there a motion to approve? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say Hold on. I don't really have any discussion. I just want because we it hasn't been announced um yet. I just wanted to say that uh the amount is $80,000. Right. Okay. Thank you. Uh any other comments before we vote? Okay. All in favor, please say I. I.

Opposed? The eyes have it. All right. And next, we're going to introduce ordinance 0-26-1, an ordinance of the town council of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, amending chapter 196, parks and public areas of the town code, article 3, boardwalk park, uh, paragraph 196-20. Skateboards, bicycles, and other conveyances prohibited to pre permit bicycle riding on the town boardwalk under certain conditions. and we're going to set a public hearing uh prior to the next regular council meeting on February 19th and we will set that for 6:20 p.m. Does that sound reasonable, Sharon? Okay. All right. Time for reports of officers, boards, and committees. Uh planning and zoning commission. Is there a report? anything that we submitted, right?

Report. Okay, you've got the report uh from the Cindy Greenold chair. Any question left or comment or anything? All right, let's move forward. Um, next the board of appeals. No, no hearing was held. Uh, Sabox,

speak to C seabox doing as well as Sue. I will say that um, this is the Sabox annual report. Um, there's quite a lot of accomplishments in here. I would encourage anybody to to read the whole thing and see what the Seabox team does. It's a lot of volunteer hours spent. Well, it's fun volunteer hours. So, I would encourage people to come out and volunteer for Seabbox next, you know, this coming year. Um, they'll be doing Reef Balls soon. So if you want to get in touch with Sabox and have a really great volunteer experience, if you want to thank them, uh you can reach out to me or you can reach out to Silia or you can reach out to Sue Alexander. Um it's an outstanding organization,

right? It's great to see that that has continued on for decades now. Does a great job with it. All right. Economic development And

yeah, so we uh earlier today we had our rental subcommittee um meeting and we uh started out um we had some working drafts that that we went over and then we kind of uh just sort introduced ourselves and and went over that. Um myself and Councilman Green are on there. Uh I'd like to have uh something uh maybe reviewed with inside of committees. I think uh I don't know if it's clarified or not, but I I believe a good procedure to have or at least discuss is on these committees having like a maximum of two council involved inside of that. I'd like to not sort of load count committees up without to be like a coming in with almost a majority. And u I don't know if that's a rule or something we could review, but I think I don't think you need more than two council participating in in uh committees. But either way, we'll have a draft worked up and we're in discussions and we have uh Sama communicated with me a couple times this week and uh we have a point of liaison from the town and uh we're in discussion. We have the next meeting uh is on February 10th. Um, we could schedule that and

and uh I think the committee is going to kind of send each other our top 10 ideas to uh to put forth as a discussionary items. Thank you. I just want to ask you, Dan, can you describe how the public can access your documents and your website.

Yeah, I'd really appreciate if uh people want to submit comments as I have had in the uh weekly newsletter at the info. any past, future, anybody that has anything to say would would encourage you to reach out uh and submit uh anything you want to at info@ches beachmd.gov. Thank you.

And so how will they know what to comment on? What do you have to show the public from your committee? the committee is meeting and we're discussing things and then we're going to advise. So I I know you're upset that I said I didn't want you to be there, Lori, and I appreciate you like wanting to talk about it. So Lori, I didn't want you there because that was three council. I kind of I don't think it's good to have three council meeting behind together. I I don't know what you're trying to get at, but that's where we're at.

I'm not trying to get it. Can I Can I assume that you're going to to know how to address those public committee documents? Can can I assume that there will be a report published post your your meetings that you're going to write up that would be then provided to the town through uh the reports like we all we all do anyways when Miss Sharon asked for our reports. Yes. Will be minutes. We have general notes that we took so I can send them in if you'd like.

Sounds good. also would like to communicate a concern that because your committee seems to be so closed that you may not be getting all the perspectives you need to do committee making public policy. So since um I and you also could have called me to let me know that um I shouldn't attend your meeting because I told you I was attending your meeting ahead of time. The concern that I was going to bring to you at your meeting that you said was public but was not is that I would like to know how your committee is going to advise the town on not on policy that will prevent tenants from being exploited by landlords and will prevent the situation where tenants are living in unsafe conditions. So, please take that note back to your committee.

Would you please submit that at info@ chespic beachmd.gov and just put riddle in the subject line. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Let's move on. Next um is the election kitty committee and you came in Randy at just the perfect time and I know you tried to call me. I don't Were you telling me that you were on your way? No, I was telling you that I had had uh by Zoom attended the North Beach uh town council meeting and and saw their vote

uh and they and they voted uh three to two to to do a town run with contractor. So that's really what what I was telling you. The alternative was the state doing it, right? The the alternatives was turn it over to the state and let the state run it, keep it in the town and do contractor support or keep it in the town and get equipment from the state. Now, I they updated their their cost estimates for those two of the second option.

Um and and I haven't seen them yet, but but they said they were pretty good. And also one of the town council members commented that you know the actual cost of the election is is manuk compared to the the budget and things going on you know that it was wasn't that big of a deal. Um so I that was the one reason I rushed over here was to tell you that yes we know what t town of North Beach is doing now. They are they are going to run their own election and they're going to look into a little bit more about the contractor support and which one to get and stuff. Um but but uh and update their estimate and make sure they're getting everything they need. And that's this fall, right? That I believe it's November.

November. Okay. Yeah. Uh of of 26.

Uh but but uh um so to give you an update of where we stand, our election committee, we we were waiting to see how um North Beach was going to proceed. Um, and and we will I I will continue to gather their information that they use to make their decision as long as as well as the information I've been gathering on our other options. Um we have a a meeting scheduled for right now it's scheduled for the 12th of March and we're looking at whether we're going to move it to the 9th of March but in March we're going to hold a meeting and and the uh committee the election committee will discuss all the information and then after that we will come to the town council. Uh I am scheduled on the town council meeting uh for the next the March one. Right.

Yeah. So, so we'll we will present u what our committee says in in March to you, but I thought it was important to tell you how town be town count uh yeah town the town of North Beach voted. Let's vote. Thank you, Randy. Well, thank you for thank you for that, Randy.

And they also had a another vote that they took after that another motion and and it was uh five for it, zero against. uh and it was it was to uh put it on the next ballot the question and a non-binding question to the uh uh registered voters uh whether they would prefer in the future to have a town run or a state-run election and any questions for me uh probably most Is the meeting already over? What's that? Is the meeting already over? Uh, no. I as soon as they finished that, I left. I I was on a Zoom call, right? So,

I'm just checking. Yeah, they they may be over, they may not. Competitive.

Well, and be before you leave, I I want to I want to personally thank you once again for all the hard work that you're putting into this. And I know that you're standing alone right now. You're two two other members of your uh board have uh have left, right? And so, uh, we need two two people to step up and volunteer to serve on the board. Now, I know we're three years away, but, uh, roughly three years away, but, um, we with everything that's going on and the transition and the things that are changing, you need we need that board now. So, I'm putting a plea out to the public. Please, if you have the slightest bit of interest, if you are a registered voter in the town, please reach out and see if uh if there's a fit

and and she has a she has a form out there uh that they can fill out if application is still live. It'll go out in the eblast tomorrow. Okay. Okay. So, thank you so much, Randy. Anybody got any questions while we got him held captive? Thank you, Randy. You bet. Appreciate everything you're doing. We're really lucky to have him. All right, green team. We have a green team report. We have a report, but we don't have anybody here to speak to it, I don't think. Lori, you want to speak to it? Lori?

Um, I I would say the same thing about the green team. They're an outstanding organization. Um, they have a tree talk coming up on February 28th. um that's their next big event and um that's going to be held at let me let me just look I don't want to give out wrong information um it's at the library

says in partnership with the library for some reason um I don't see the location on here so I don't want to give out a location but the tree talk is going to teach you all about how to um take care of your trees. It's going to teach you about natives. Um, it's a fun event. They usually have a lot of people attend their February event. Um, so please stay tuned and I will make sure that I ask Smelia to put it out on the blast this Friday. Great.

Okay. Columns revitalization. Uh, all my comments were provided during the engineers report. Uh, and but we should see a ramp up here in the in the near future as the the master plan becomes available. So, more to come. Any any questions for Jamie? I was going to ask um have you guys just had that one or one or two meetings so far like every every quarter or uh Yeah, we we did it uh and then we paused just because we were waiting for discussions with engineer. There's no point in bringing everybody together to to say we're waiting on a master plan. Okay. Twin Beach Community Health Coalition.

Nothing tonight. It's a short and sweet report. How you doing? I have to copy that. Walkability.

Walkability. We've been meeting monthly. Uh my group is also outstanding. So many outstanding volunteer groups. Um my report typically um just goes over tracking of items that we've done. I think um as I said last time, we're in long-term planning. Um part of our long-term planning is going to be to try to build some partnerships and some organizations that do what we want to do and what we like to do. So, uh we'll be working on that and talking about that more in our next meeting which is public and all my meetings are always public. Um, it's at the Twin Beach Library this Tuesday at 6:30. Okay.

Yeah, committee. We did not meet last month, uh, nor this month. Uh, we didn't really have any updates, but now we have a signed contract, so that's awesome. Um, so that's big news. That's that's huge. Uh, so next month we I'll have to figure out if I'm able to meet due to my work schedule, but we'll definitely be meeting in March at least.

Great. Any questions? Okay. Uh, I see uh no unfinished business on the agenda. Does anybody have any unfinished business to bring before the council? Hearing none, uh, time for new business. Um there is a town council to award an RFP for the uh water reclamation treatment plant laboratory analysis service in the amount of 28,434 dollars to Homeland Labs and Euro Fins Lancaster Laboratories Environment Testing and it is in the budget. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second.

Uh any discussion? All in favor say I. I opposed. Abstensions. The eyes have it. It is time for public comment. I believe we have time. We do have some public comment.

Come on down. Do I have five minutes or 20 minutes? Five minutes. Of course. Of course. You know, I had issues. Hey, how you doing? You can introduce yourself to the people that don't know you. I was in the process of doing that. Okay, go right ahead. I don't have to do that though, right? You don't. Yeah, I do have to.

Okay. I just may maybe it's just because you said something. Um, you know, I had I had um some situations with this. And of course, my name is Paul Messes. Live 3538 Cox Road. I've been this town for over 20 years. Had several dealings with Mr. Wall. Um, never none of them pleasant. Okay. But I had situations with Billy and Jay and over the years, you know, we've gotten along, you know, great. I had situation with Billy about two years ago and unfortunately this town administrator got involved. Another situation with Billy again, town administrator got involved. He was communicating fine until she got involved. He wouldn't communicate with me anymore. But her behavior was unacceptable. Unacceptable. blatantly disrespectful towards not only me but to any town residents. The way she handled it, it could have been resolved. I didn't have to even be here. But what I did do is I've been trying to do things differently. I've been trying to make people aware of, you know, you know, this kind of conduct between really both of you because I've opened up both of you. You really could have reached out to me, Bruce, and communicate with me. You you've known me. We've had, you know, runs before. I've been on my roof to protest you over 20 years ago. I mean, I have signs in my house now. 20 years I've made about you, but you didn't do anything. No, I've opened everybody. For some reason, I can't get your email. I spoke to you. Um, same with you. I don't have I tried to shoot you an email. Not I don't like him. Just Just get off, Mr. V. I don't like you've been at my house. My My pot that my my tin man is stern is the one you gave me. That 10 is from you. I'm glad that day you left, you never came back. Sir, thank you. you I got you met earlier. Both you gentlemen spoke to me. You came to me. Both you reached out to me. So look, I'm starting the show. It's called Corporate Conversations, you know, and and I have these signs at my house that that I don't know if you're part of it, but you're trying to you're trying to not tell me I can't take it down. I have to have these permits, which I don't, but I'm sorry. This show

is called Corp Conversation. It's all about conversations. The purpose of this is to inform, inspire critical thinking, falsen creative controversy, opening dialogue, which I tried to do with you and bring awareness and hope to all of us. So what I did yesterday, I went to the general assembly to carry my some of my signs that are around my house right now like that speaking to all the cameramen and everybody. They thought I was a politician. They thought I was who is this guy? I'm walking around nice suit. How you doing? I'm introducing myself to everybody. Cameraman from channel 9. Oh, there he is. His name is Amari. I think his name is Gen Amari Musa. He is the He is the uh personal assistant. What is he? Senior vice press secretary and director and media for the governor, Mr. Mo. He chase him down and all a sudden we come back and I'm talking to him having a conversation with him and you know we're talking about this person right here and I lean in. I said, "You know what? I call her call her a bitch." And I

Hey, hey, now look, we're not going to have that kind of language in this meeting. I'm telling you right now I'm not talking this and you don't point at me when you good enough stop now you're done stop I won't say again you listen to me when you when you start denigrating I'm telling you what he said to me stop don't tell me to sh officer you telling me how to leave I'm telling you if you don't language gives us your last chance I said I was going to stop and I don't stop talking Why do you got to keep talking that you already said I was going to do it? Stop. You don't need to keep going on. I listen. Good enough.

Got under two minutes left. Paul, I want to wrap it up. So you won't have to Come on. That's what you were saying. You got two minutes. I told him after I said that to her, I said, "Nice tie. Listen to me." Cameraman saying, "Well, two minutes." Like I said, 10 minutes later, he writing me down his information. I'm I can't read that. You better write it better. Second time writes it again. Where'd you go to school at? No problem, Paul. Got his email. Wants me to directly email. I'm going to sit down with him or the governor about this situation right here. That's what I'm going to do. Would you ever talk to me like that again? You could have corrected me.

Paul, Paul, you got 30 like 30 seconds left. I I when I sent you that message, I asked you please just give a concise ask so I can understand how to support you. But right now, you're not giving an ask like what is your ask to the town council? I would I would encourage you to use that in your your remaining time. This how I can how we can help you. That's my my my encouragement to you, sir. I'll be emailing them tomorrow. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right, it is time for the lightning round. Let's start with Jamie. Okay. Um I I'm just going to double down on the conversations earlier about the planning and zoning uh stuff. I've had a a handful of conversations with council members over the time. Um, I I I need to have some conversations with with Sarah as well and Jay and I just the more and more I dig into this stuff and the more that we hear about from residents or just coming up or just driving around uh there is some there's some deficiencies uh across what people have in their their on their property and then there's deficiencies when you look across the code and and the town is just kind of a mess when it comes to it. So, I think it's on us to fix and and resolve. So, uh, something I'm going to continue to incorporate in with the the land use, uh, table. So, thanks. I think that, uh, one item that we're uncovering is that there's improvement that we can do with procedures and policies, and we're working at it. And sometimes it takes uh a little bumpy path, but we're working. Um, so I would like to yield my lightning round to Jay so he can give his public announcement about the cold weather that's coming.

You're my hero, Eric. Councilman, uh, I did want to just real quick, the town does put out eblast, but if you have a hose, a frostfree hose bib or not, if your hose is still hooked to it, it's going to freeze and pop. Uh, they're predicting our first three days starting Monday of not getting above freezing until Wednesday. So, that's when it'll happen. So, just a reminder to the public, crawl spaces, all those things. And believe me, I'll be at someone's house at 2 in the morning that won't get the message, but everyone that gets the message saves us all money.

Check your propane tanks. Yeah. And if you if your neighbor I tell this to everyone, if you if you live in a townhouse and you know your neighbor's not there, bank foreclosure, no one's living there, this is a time of year when the heat's on the minimal that it will show and the fire pressure will freeze and you will have a shower. So if you know you live in an abandoned neighbor, make sure someone's aware and the heat's on in that building because this time of year it's going to happen. And thank you, Eric. Eric, you can still have your Councilman Reinhardt. No. Um, yeah. I don't really have anything except I'm sorry for what just happened. Like that was unacceptable and it's been going on for decades. It's It's unfortunate, but uh hopefully different.

Yeah. Hopefully we can we can get through it and help them however we can, but that's all I got. Um, I'd like to acknowledge the importance of leadership and uh the great leadership we had in Dr. Martin Luther King. Uh, he encouraged all of us to see the content of our characters and not anything else. And I think those two words are so important. the content, meaning everything and and the emphasis on character, not labels, not color, um not titles, not anything else. We are all people. And for the content of their character and what a great man, what a great leader. Um I look forward to celebrating him. Sam, you good?

Um, first thing I would like to say is that I think we should name the water park after Eric. Maybe the bath bathrooms.

I'm just kidding. Um, you know, a lot of our conversations up here in the das can be taken and and had while we're not up here. Um, because there are important things that we do have to talk to amongst each other and amongst our staff to make sure that we have straight. Um, and we can be a tighter unit if we do work on doing that. I'm really uh think that what I just saw was between Councilman Duval and Councilman Blackwell that could have been handled not on his DS. It would be a better look for us if we can take care of those things before getting up here in front of the public. I know it might be emotional, but you know, we need to curtail that. That doesn't need to happen. And also um speaking about Dr. King uh he also talked about the military industrial part uh he talked about the poor people's movement. So when we talk about character we talk about people that we care about and talk about equality. We need to look at all communities not just our own all of our neighbors. We are all here in Chesapeake Beach. We all have to be nice to each other, kind to each other. um people are going through a lot of things. They are seeing a lot of things. They're having a lot of issues that they're dealing with personally. We need to be in mind of that. And um look past our differences and not just look at it as one day, but 365 days of being good to each other. That's what I would like for us. I think that's what Dr. King would like for us. I think that's what Councilwoman Black Welder would like for us. So, I think we should all kind of work on that going forward. Um, but I'm very proud of you all because it's about 8:30 and we can get out of here and do the next thing. Good job, guys. I'm proud of you. Very good. Give

him a hand. Give him a hand. They did it at this time. Thank you so much. Take it away, Mayor. All right. We have at this uh is now we are going to go into close session uh for the moment u and we need to have in addition to the council members Silia, Sharon and Jay and Lissa. Okay. So we need a motion to close session. Motion to close session. Okay. We have a motion. We need a second. Okay. Have a motion to second. All in favor? I I oppose. Thank you all very much for being here. I'm sorry for that joke, but

it happens. You're home safely.

Do we have to Should we take a rest because it's an ongoing