Town Council - workshop

I'm going to wait another few minutes before we start. We have one council member that is on his way and when he arrives then we'll start.

Enjoy yourself for the next few minutes.

Now that you're here, I'd like to call the meeting to order. We note that two of our council members are unable to join us tonight, Eric Reinhart and Anthony Green. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

I want to thank all of you for being here. We have five items on this short agenda. And the first one is on the, you know, the big news in Calvert County and all around is data centers. And so we have a proposed planning and zoning plan amendment regarding data centers, and I'm going to hand it to our town administrator to carry us through this section. Sure.

So you will have before you a recommendation from Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Cindy Greengle, as well as the suggested amendments incorporated in the ordinance that you, if you all are aligned with, would be introduced at the next town council meeting. So if you have questions, please ask them now if there's other discussion that needs to happen. It seemed relatively straightforward from the last town council meeting, the direction that you all wanted to move in. And so I believe that this is representative of that direction of the body. But if you have questions, and I'd also invite Sarah to respond.

So I have some input on this. So I'm a third-generation electrician, and I actually, in the last month, have gone and worked at a data center for a week or so. So I go to different data centers. The infrastructure and the... The roadways, the distribution power lines and stuff like that that go there are vastly different than what we have. I think that this is a statement. I think this is a statement that many other jurisdictions and municipalities don't actually make such a defined statement. I think if we have anything that we would have to look out for, for our community, for our town, would possibly be against some speculative and some proposed items. And they're sort of like if they're standalone items. single unit micro centers that would be for a residential home. The reason that I'm having this discussion is because the way that our grid is, like you have a transformer that's outside on a pole or something like that, that transformer isn't actually designed to handle all the connected load. Our grid is actually... If you went to your house and you added up all the numbers on how many amperage there, it would equal more than 200. Yeah, yeah. It would equal more than 200. There's a calculation that goes into that. And just as there's a calculation as an inside wireman, the outside linemen and the distribution of the power are there too. Somebody that does a little bit of... Mining, like whatever, Bitcoin mining or whatever it is. Jamie, that thing that you got in your basement? Kidding you. But an individual that does that, that's an individual. But somewhere if they were to enter into a contract with like, I think there's a proposal for NVIDIA. They have neighborhoods and they have a connection for like terabytes or something like that. So I would look at maybe putting together a draft that would add to this, and I just wanted to kind of discuss that. So a good way to look at it is if you have a singular pool at your house and you have a heater, It's okay for one, maybe two people on the street, but if everybody did that, if everybody had maybe a 70 amps that was running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like our town grid can't handle something like that. The infrastructure can't support that? I think that our home-based businesses, where we said nothing outside and stuff like that, maybe protects us against that, but it's more about thinking... I mean, I think they're only proposed to be like the size of an outdoor air-conditioned unit. But the amount of 24 hours a day, seven-day-a-week load on our transmission lines, I'm not sure that could handle it. So that's... Not the only thing I was thinking.

Well, I was going to say, yeah, I know what you're talking about. It's very experimental right now. So it's like the size of an air conditioning unit or smaller, and they can go in the backyard and act as a data center instead of a large one. But I think, I mean... Very close to this, and it's very, like there's startups that are looking at that, but there's also, I mean, Elon's going to put stuff in space. I would stick with what this is, and then as that stuff becomes available, that would be something that the council in the future would decide whether to allow it or not, or people just put it in their yards anyway.

And I think that our home-based business, the outdoor language there, The outdoor items?

This, I don't think, this wouldn't, that'd be completely separate, because this would just be, like, the thing the language here is a data center in the sense of you're not going to have a ginormous facility sitting here. I don't even know if technically, because, again, because that technology isn't even available yet, I don't even know if they'll be considered a data center or how they'll do it, because you can...

I'm not at all convinced that the town geography has any place that a large data center could be. I don't think so either. I just don't think that's feasible. Sarah, do you want to chime in on this? Because you've worked hard on this.

Well, so I think the point about the small micro data centers is a good one. The planning commission actually talked about this in making the recommendation to you all. And they asked me to provide them with what information I can find on them for them to discuss. Because, remember, that bigger document with the whole land use table and the not permitted data centers is coming forward. And so they wanted to look at what the micro data centers might mean and how that might change definitions and how that might change the recommendations to you. So I think kind of what you're asking for is actually happening at the planning commission level and will be coming to you in a different time frame. And so hopefully that addresses the concern.

I was just going to ask if we could add a definition so we can tell people what actually is a data center by definition so that we don't have that confusion between a micro data center and a commercial data center. But it sounds like that's coming in the future. All right.

Yes, coming in the future but also the planning commission did in their recommendation to you just provide a reference that their current draft proposes the definition of a data center to be a specialized facility whose primary purpose is a centralized housing, storage, management, processing and distribution of electronic data, computer systems and associated telecommunications equipment. This use typically includes extensive infrastructure to support its operations, such as redundant or backup power generation, example, diesel generators, battery banks, specialized environmental controls, example, industrial cooling systems and chillers, and enhanced security systems and high-capacity fiber optic data connections. That's their working definition right now, and they wanted to provide it to you for your reference.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that, to me, sounds like somebody, if they just wanted to put something in their bedroom to mine Bitcoin, I don't think that would be an issue.

I think that's not what this is about.

We're targeting the commercial data centers with this, which...

And I think if you look at the geography of the town, I think it's really not practical. I mean, off the top of my head. And, you know, my background since the 1960s has been in electronics and computers and so forth. And so I don't look at this as an evil thing. But I do think that given where we live, and our geography and everything, that it probably just doesn't make sense. And I recently was over in Northern Virginia. I had to drive out to Dulles Airport. And, I mean, there's just – and you see this, Jamie. I mean, there's just so much going on out there. And my brother lives in Manassas, Virginia. And he's older than I am, if you can believe that. And he complains about data centers and all this kind of stuff all the time. But I think, frankly, where we are in the geography of the town and what we have, I think what Sarah has put together here is real straightforward. And I think that we're doing what I believe that most of the population of the town would like for us to do, which is to not have a great big data center come into the town.

Yeah, I'll just say real quick, I appreciate the work that you guys do. I think this is a super easy knockout fix, and then Bitcoin has nothing to worry about. You don't need a data center for Bitcoin, you just need a computer.

So I have a question about the legalities and the rules involved. You had mentioned in the Planning Commission that in the case of like a solar generating system, that if we did not want one, it might be more beneficial just to not have them in the land use table. So my general question about the land use table is, if it is not in the land use table, is the assumption that it is not permitted?

I'm looking at the attorney and she's nodding as well. So the assumption is it's not permitted. The solar is different because it has state regulation and case law behind it. So if your question is could we just remove them and then they wouldn't be allowed, probably yes. But also you have other things that are under expressly prohibited uses because you wanted to take a stand and say, Under no circumstances should anyone be able to convince the Planning and Zoning Administrator or the Planning Commission that this is actually this other type of use. And so that's why you would expressly prohibit it. So someone can't say, well, it's actually this use that's in your table.

But your recommendation is to put it in the table and have NP in it. So I'm not understanding why we would need it. the table and I feel like this has happened before where we're putting things in the table we're saying they're not permitted but we're really just making it easier for them to be permitted because all you have to do is change the NP to a P whereas before This wasn't even in our table. It wasn't introduced. There was no reason for it to be introduced that anybody knew of, but somebody introduced it and put it in the table. And that would be the case of these data centers. It would be the case of the bioengineering, and that would be the case of the solar energy systems. And we do have a three-square-mile town. less than a three square mile of land mass. And I don't think anybody wants to entertain a bunch of things that don't make sense. And so I guess my question is why are we making things more difficult. We're spending an entire meeting on this today when we could have just left them off the table in the first place, all three of those things.

It was already in there from 2022, though.

Well, it was, but somebody put it in there in 2022.

Right, so that's, yeah. We've got to look at it today.

I guess the question, why is there an expressly prohibited section versus not having it at all? I think that's the question, right? Thank you, yes. Okay, so... That's a fair question.

I don't know why. The Planning and Zoning Commission agrees with you because what they're proposing to send to you does not have an expressly prohibited uses section. Now, I don't know if the attorney has experience that would lead you to have insight on why places might have it in the table versus not in the table, but you do have a table. You're working with what you have now and you're trying to make this change now.

So I think this is the frustration with both the public and my frustration as a planning commissioner and now my frustration as a council. We need staff to tell us how we can legally implement the will of the people. And so when we get things that are confusing and we get them with just different loopholes, which happens, that is not helpful because then we open ourselves up to legal things and we open ourselves up to interpretations and we open ourselves up to the next step, which actually brings us closer to things that we don't want when we don't want them. So I guess my question to the team of use there and our legal team is how can we most effectively and legally implement the will of the people which is not to have data centers in Chesapeake Beach and then I would say for the other industrial uses those were introduced nobody asked any staff person to introduce Industrial uses of any sort to Chesapeake Beach. They got introduced by somebody and put into the code In a way that I would argue probably Didn't meet the muster I know I didn't vote on the table of uses because it was not in front of me When I was a planning commissioner and was asked to vote on it All of that is a problem so so I don't we were comprehensive planning nobody said please bring industrial uses to our three square mile town and Take up all our land for all So that we can't have it for anything else that we Said comprehensively we wanted to work towards so I guess when we get that table back from planning and zoning and when we get this data center amendment back, I would hope that you and the attorney and the mayor, because you work under his guidance, put something in front of us that is airtight and not confusing. Because I think we're all saying the same thing that we don't want. In this case, the data centers, but I will bring the same conversation to the other industrial uses that were introduced for no reason that I know of.

I think there's two pieces, right? Is that you guys want to take a stand on data centers now, right? Right. And so that's why it is going in the expressly prohibited uses, because what you have existing is what we're trying to make the amendment to. I think your point that it's confusing and it's not as clear and there can be a lot more details to make it tighter is part of what this modernizing and simplifying process that's happening at the Planning and Zoning Commission is doing. And it's a bigger process. And so we could sit here and change this table. And you're also getting a whole new table that's organized differently from Planning and Zoning Commission. And so my understanding was just that you guys wanted to take a stand on the data centers and say that they wouldn't be permitted. And so the attorney drafted the ordinance. And we discussed it. I've reviewed it. And it does exactly that within your existing probably not exactly easy to read structure.

So is the staff recommendation to leave it in the table and add a definition or to take it completely out of the table? Because to me, the first option just brings us closer to maybe we're going to change it one day soon to add a data center. To me, going back to where we were without data centers even mentioned in the table is the way to go that is the most protective But I'm curious what the staff recommendation is from a legal standpoint.

So I think – sorry. So what I understand – I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, I was just going to – obviously, I have not been involved in all of the conversations relative to this issue. But I will say –

I think so, yep.

Discreet. But Section 290.10 of your code, which is your land use table, specifically says that Table 1 lists the different uses and zoning districts in which they're permitted. If a use is not listed or does not fall within any of the general use categories, it is not a permitted use in the district, okay? If a use is specifically listed in Table 1, it takes precedence over general use listings, and then it goes on. If you look at the table of uses, you as a town have identified uses that are permitted, not permitted, permitted by special condition, by special exception. But when you go down to the end, you have specifically identified uses No, it's not coming up for me. Sorry about that. Uses that are not permitted. Expressly prohibited uses. There we go. And so there's a number of them there. And so it seems to me that when you have a use that you're taking out of being a permitted use, that the cleanest way and the clearest way to make sure that everybody knows you don't want it is to then put it in your expressly prohibited uses. There are jurisdictions that will receive an application, and you may try to fit it into one of the permitted uses. They'll argue with you that, oh, this is just like X use. But it's not really X use, right? It might kind of sort of be like it, but it isn't it. I think that the best thing for you to do is what's being proposed and listed under expressly prohibited. If you didn't have that section, right, you would just delete it. And then the language I read first... So it was, if it's not there, it's not permitted. But I think you guys have vehemently said here that these are the ones that we don't want under any circumstances, under the expressly prohibited uses.

And are we defining the expressly prohibited uses or not?

Well, I have to go back to the definition section. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

The answer is no, they're not defined.

They're 12 uses.

They're not currently defined.

So why define this? Is that one of the questions? I guess my question is, so if we define that, what happens if we define them or not define them? Don't define them. Yes, the expressly prohibited uses is just kind of a nod, I guess, to the planner to say, we don't really want this. If you think it's this, we don't want it. But because it's not on the table of permitted uses, it's already not permitted. Right. So, but if you look at them, so for example,

A tattoo parlor, right? You don't really need to define that. You're going to know what a tattoo parlor is, right? Because of what activity is going to go on there. That's one of your things. A landfill. You don't necessarily need to define landfill. What I think is up for the council to decide is whether a data center is something that Could be argued as one thing or another, and is it cleaner to put in the definition or leave a definition out?

I listen to you because technology is rapidly evolving.

She's saying it's up to us. And I would say a data center is a data center. I mean, they're very explicitly what they are. I'm for keeping it in expressly prohibited in the sense that there is a – we saw a significant amount of people come here, talk about it. It just gives also peace of mind that we are taking it serious. We're putting it right there, and expressly prohibited is pretty – inherent in what it means. In the future, another council can remove it out of the table if they deem that appropriate. But I think from what we committed to the residents, I think it just, the simplest thing is to turn it to an NP and can't do it.

And to, well, no, I don't think that. I think removing it out of the table is the most, will give, will provide the most peace of mind.

This is saying explicitly is that it's not permitted. I mean, this makes it very clear that it is not permitted. That's more clear than not having it in the table, in my opinion.

That's not what our attorney just said.

Yeah, this gives us another layer of protection by having it expressly prohibited.

Right. There's a list of expressly prohibited uses. And you're saying if we have it in the table, right? M.P. ? That is the clearest and most protective thing we can do.

Absolutely.

Okay. That's all I need to know. Okay.

All right. Anything else on this particular issue to discuss? And thank you. I mean, this is a good conversation.

One more question.

I'm surprised.

We are only addressing data centers in this amendment that's going to be proposed. We're not changing any of the other or talking about any of the other uses.

You confirmed that, right, Sarah?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. That's good. That was a good discussion. Next, ADU, Accessory Milling Unit Adoption Discussion. And I guess you get to take the lead again.

Okay. Well, we started discussing the state's ADU regulations and the changes to your ADU conditions to meet the state regulations, and you have a couple of different documents because it is a lot, and so we want to give you some clear ways to look at it. You have a memo that has all the language and explains why the Planning Commission recommended that language, But you also have just the plain language of the amendment you would be adopting. And you have a version of that that has blue and red text. And the red text means you can't change this text. This text is what it is. And the state has designated it. The blue text are recommendations from your Planning and Zoning Commission. to make adjustments to the regulations. And so you can discuss and make changes to those. You also have a version that doesn't have the blue and red, if that's easier to read. And you have an explanatory document that's out for everyone to kind of just understand what ADUs are, what the law is, and why we're doing this. And you also... have the actual House bill that these amendments are based on, which is House Bill 1466 from 2024, I think, 2024 or 25. But that's in your packet. To clarify for me, I think that this is

Put upon us because of what the state legislature did. Is that not correct?

Yes. So you have the House bill from the state legislature. That made us need to change our rules. And just to kind of go over again what those changes need to be is that the definition of an accessory dwelling is set by the state, and that definition includes the size. So you can no longer regulate the size of the dwelling. It has... that you have to allow an accessory dwelling on any lot that has a single family home on it, and that you can't consider them as part of your density. So those things are in there. Also, the next topic is the parking study, because you have a parking requirement. And in order to maintain your parking requirement, you need a parking study and parking waiver. But I think probably it's best right now to focus on the document that's in your text, and then we can talk about the parking study and the parking waiver in the next section.

Yeah, we'll talk about that next.

Do you want me to go through everything again? Do you have additional questions from last time?

Council members, have you had the opportunity to go through this yet?

Yeah, I mean, so you have... Yeah, I have stuff to talk about.

Okay, and I think I went through it in detail yesterday and today, and I think what you've put together is pretty clear. And I think also that what we're dealing with is what has been dealt to us by the state legislature. So based on that, council members, questions?

Yeah. Go ahead, Dan. Y'all can go first, and then I'll go. Go ahead, Laura.

So my question just has to do with lot coverage. So I did read the state law, and the 75% rule is saying it just has to be subordinate. They're not saying we have to allow all 75% from what I understood when I read. I could be wrong. But my question is... Will an ADU, if it's constructed as an attached unit or an addition, have to comply with lot coverage rules within our zoning ordinance? Because if they don't, I have concerns about stormwater management.

So ADUs still need to comply with the lot coverage. Okay, perfect. On the 75%, we do need to allow it to go up to 75%. That, as long as it stays within the setbacks for accessory structure and the lot coverage and any other regulations we have.

Okay. And this is written like that because I did read one little passage that says that the square footage of the first floor will govern the space. the maximum size allowed by the AU. And I'm just worried that that phrase will somehow override lot coverage rules within the zoning ordinance, and I wouldn't want it to. So if that is a concern, I would hope that you and our legal team would work that out prior to bringing it to us for a vote.

Right. So that is not a concern. That section is number three. And that's there specifically to set a standard so that the planning and zoning administrator, as they're reviewing permits, knows, okay, so it has to be 75% of the or it can't be more than 75% of the main structure, but how am I measuring 75%? So this is setting the standard for measuring that 75%. It's actually setting it at the SDAT number. And that SDAT number is your, if you look at your SDAT, it says above grade living area. And so that also has the benefit of, so it's, your total living area above the grade, which helps keep it subordinate in massing, right? And so that's why the Planning Commission chose to do that, partly because it's easy and partly because it does relate to what you're actually seeing a lot.

But if their lot isn't large enough, then what?

Right. If they're going to go over lot coverage, they would be denied. Obviously, someone can always go to Board of Appeals and apply for a variance and, you know, whether they grant it or not is the Board of Appeals. But it won't be permitted if it goes above lot coverage or violates any other part of our regulations.

Okay. Well, that was my only concern.

Yeah, Sarah. Can you remind me is a shed considered an ad you I?

So a shed is not an ADU unless you convert it to a dwelling unit. You can convert sheds to dwelling units, and your rules for ADUs have to be the same as your rules for sheds with regard to placement on the lot.

Okay, because that was going to be my next question. So with an ADU, would we have to follow the placement off, or does the state law require that, or would we need to adjust that in the code as well? Because what is it, like eight feet or...

Well, so this attorney and I have actually had this discussion. I think it was you that I talked to about this, is because the shed can be, your setback is eight feet. But then for a shed, you can get to five feet. And so that means for an ADU, you can get to five feet. And the way the legislation is written is like your existing setback regulations for the shed. And so the question becomes, if you change your setback regulations, right? So you say all sheds have to be eight feet. Does that stand or does that not stand? And so that's... Can you change your shed regulations is a question I would definitely want to have more conversation. I'm sure the attorney would want more than me just putting her on the spot right now to discuss.

Yeah, and I'll qualify the question a little bit is really because if you look across the town, well, obviously we have a lot of small yards, right? And the shed requirements, it's really goofy. You've got to basically have your shed in the middle of your yard. Um, because it's a five foot setback. If you, if you look at just some of these, like any of these neighborhoods here or the houses here, I mean, you could have your whole backyard could be your shed, uh, which instead of just putting it off to a corner or something. So I, the reason I was asking is because if that's it, and that's part of a conversation in the future, uh, that obviously is an impact that we need to be, uh, aware of, but I don't know if there's a distinction that we could make, uh, for shed because I mean, five feet off your yard is kind of goofy for a shed. They're typically up against the property, or maybe not on the property lines, but close to it.

If you allow sheds to go up to your property line, then you have to allow accessory dwelling units to go up to your property line. So that is the sort of catch-22 there.

And that's why I was asking, because that's why if an ADU is not a shed, why they followed that requirement. Okay, that's interesting.

It's because some towns were setting different setbacks for a shed versus an ADU. You're required to have ADUs. They were functionally trying to design their code to eliminate the ADU but still let you have your shed back there. And so the state wanted to close what they saw as a loophole to get around allowing ADUs.

Yes. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to complicate matters. The law says that established setback requirements that exceed the existing accessory structure setback requirements from side and rear lot lines, that's the state law. Does the town, I'm asking you because I don't know, does the town have a setback for accessory structures but a separate one for sheds? Yes. Because if so, I would say that the accessory structure is what we would want to be looking at.

Yes, a shed is an accessory. It's just accessory structures. It's underneath. So they are allowed to encroach. They don't have their own setback. It's that they're allowed to encroach into the setback up to five feet. Well, sorry, up to three feet so that your setback is five feet. And there is discretion on that, but that would be more difficult to do with regard to an ADU unless there's a height issue. Like if a very tall house, if you're doing a very tall accessory dwelling unit, then it could be argued that it has to be the eight feet.

I think I would just say, can we just circle back to really validate all of the... I'm not saying I don't trust what you're saying, just from a legal perspective. Because I do think that there's some conversations that should be had around shed placement. But if ADUs really complicates that, then we have to be due diligent with that to make sure that we don't... I don't know the right word, but do something in a negative manner. But I worry that sheds right now sit in the back of people in the middle of yards. But in reality, most of the time it's non-compliant anyways. So I just think that we can maybe, yeah, that's it right now. I just think like as we continue this conversation, I'll reach out and send an actual message with my concern written out or something.

Question. How many ADUs do we currently have in town? Do we have a license program for those if they rent them out?

I mean, if they rent them, they should have a rental license.

I don't know. I guess if it's an ADU, it could be like an in-law or something. They might not be profiting from it. I guess not all ADUs are rentals.

Right. I've only permitted... one ADU since I started working with you all in September of 2023. There are ADUs in town, but I don't know how many there were before.

This code change by the state will probably, it looks like it's making it a little easier for people to get permitted as an ADU. Yes. Because I guess the goal is, I assume, to solve the housing crisis and make it more affordable for people. And this seems like it accomplishes that because the property is already there in most cases, and they're just going to be able to have somebody move in there and rent it out. So if they do rent it out, they'll have to go through our rental program.

Correct.

Which is a whole separate thing.

Right.

Okay. Any other questions or comments?

Yeah. Dan, go ahead. Mayor, I'd like to kind of connect my comment after the next item for my things I want to discuss with ADU. I'll do it in conjunction with the next item. The parking study? Yeah, but I just... If I can just kind of have that, I'll let everybody else talk and then just kind of summarize it. Okay. It just, I think, would be best. That's okay? It's two separate issues, right? Yeah, two separate, but connected. Okay. All right.

Before we switch over to that, I want to invite Josh to speak. just to share the other considerations that the council needs to keep in mind, specifically as it relates to how we assign EDUs and how we would be accounting for the increased capacity or demand on the water reclamation treatment system. Because this is something that you all have to keep in mind that all of our partners who have limited capacity when it comes to our plant have to also keep in mind. And the idea, and Josh can speak more to this, that if we get to the point of 80% utilization of the plant, we have to do another ENR upgrade, which is very costly. So that's important for you guys to keep in mind, but Josh, take it away.

Good evening. I had sent you all out a memo I had put together earlier today. I don't know if you all had a chance to read over it. I know, John, you did say you had a chance to read it. Basically, I was just explaining my concerns regarding ADUs and making sure that we're actually accounting for flow that's coming from those properties and a few recommendations for how that may be able to be done. Basically, If we have wastewater generation increasing without corresponding EDU tracking, the town's planning documents may no longer accurately reflect actual system loading. I ran some numbers. Say if we had 50 ADUs and we assigned them a half an EDU each, that would account for 142,500 gallons a month added on to the – or 142,500 gallons a day added on. That's a little too much flow. That's going to start getting over our allocations. There were a couple of options I had recommended. for the way they could be accounted for. Option one was just making an ADU equivalent to an EDU. So you would just say, okay, each ADU equates to 190 gallons per day. That option really isn't the best because I think we're going to be overestimating flows. The properties are going to be up to 75% of an existing home. And depending on what that 75% actually equates to is going to really be a little different on flow. So that's not really the best way to go about it. You could go a little more down into the weeds where you do the calculation an ADU is equal to the livable area of an ADU in square footage divided by the principal residence livable area square footage. An example would be a house that's 2,000 square foot. If the ADU is 500 square foot of that, then that would be aside 0.25 EDUs. If you're a 2,000 square foot house, 1,500 square foot ADU, then that would be 0.75 EDU. The one concern I have with that is you're going to start getting into complicated math, figuring all that stuff out. I mean... Five out of four people struggle with math in some cases. So it just gets a little overconfident.

Good thing that doesn't apply to Dan.

So the third option I was looking at

is we just look at ADUs based off the actual size, or EDUs based off the actual size of the ADU. So up to 500 square foot, you would say .25 EDU would be assigned. 501 square foot to 1,000 square foot, .5 EDUs. 1,001 square foot to 1,500 square foot, .75 EDU. Anything above that, that would have to be, you might want to get into some discussion on that. I don't know what size properties we'd be dealing with. When we're looking at 75% of a home. 2,000 square feet or above.

Can I make a recommendation there? So I know we're talking ADUs, we're talking parking. We probably just need to, in an upcoming session, also then talk these EDUs because obviously that's a significant factor. We've had public comments for a long time on EDUs. I think there's just a lot of confusion in general around EDUs, and we probably need to surface it up. I appreciate you giving me fractional math during the session. I'm not sure I can get the .25s, but I'm not sure I'm following all the options just because we've bounced back and forth. But I just think we probably need to have it as part of the discussion overall.

For sure. And really what this is to – the idea behind Josh sharing this information is just so you all know that this is how we will have to administer it, right? So there's also language in the state bill that says, we can limit the number of ADUs if we don't have the capacity at our water reclamation treatment plant. So that's also important for you to know, although it might not be explicitly in the language and the code that you all adopt. It's just important to know specifically because there's been a lot of conversations around ADUs and EDUs. and all of the things, you all get the questions, well, how is this being, how is this going to be rolled out administratively? And so making sure you're aware of the thought that we're putting into how we're doing this, and we'll be following the lead of what you all put in the code. So it's just, it's more so for your awareness that this is happening, and that we have to have conversations with our partners who will also have to figure out how to operate or incorporate this into their existing code and their capacity.

How big is the concern of the flow that would be caused by the potential ADUs that people desire in our town? Because I guess nobody wants to be surprised by having all these people get ADUs and then all of a sudden

Somebody's neighbors denied or something, you know Ultimately it just comes this is reason why we need to track this because if we don't track a to use at one point the float are going to continue to get more and more and more coming in from Chesapeake Beach side and There is a definite cutoff point for flows if we get to a certain point that we can't grant any more construction permits we can't build any more properties and in the town and

We already have ADUs out there that are not tracked as an EDU, like a partial EDU. That would be my assumption, yes. And our fixed fees are based on EDUs, right? Yes. EDUs. If somebody's ADU gets a .5 EDU tied to it, they'll get basically half of the fixed fee charged to their account.

So that's what we're trying to work through now is what this would potentially look like. We've mulled around with the idea that it could be based off of square footage, so anything below a certain threshold of square footage, we would account for it with fractional EDUs, but anything above a certain square footage would be one EDU. And I think that that is likely going to be the path forward, but we have to talk through it a bit more. The other thing that you have to take into consideration is that with some of these existing ADUs and some that could come that can be up to 75% of the primary dwelling. Depending on how big the lot is, they could end up subdividing the lot. They could end up selling it. So if you don't require capital connections for those larger ADUs, you could end up with someone who sold property of a now standalone house that doesn't have the appropriate capital connection. And so that's, and they haven't tied appropriately into the town Infrastructure so those are also things that we're taking into account because it can it seems like something very easy Just do this, but there's so many nuances That we're trying to account for all of that while we are anticipating what you all are going to decide It would still be getting charged for the water and sewer right because it all comes into the before the flow meter Yeah, they get charged for you for use

So I would say that we wouldn't want to leave this behind from all those standpoints. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm glad you're thinking about that. Several things that I didn't even think about.

I'll also hold this comment that will connect to that. The only thing I want to say at this moment is that If we remember new gen and how much they were saying with how much the bills were, that would have been a path we would have taken because we were a town that was looking towards building a new... What did you call it when you revamped it? E&R. E&R. An upgrade. Yeah, an upgrade. So it's like that's sort of that... direction of the billing is sort of what you do towards that. So I think that's a consideration that should be thought of. If we were to address one thing, their dominoing effect would be that you have to increase the billing because of the NR upgrade that would inevitably come.

So what I will say to that is, I believe I understand your point, and what I will say to it is, yes, that is something that you all have to consider, is if we were to just let everyone do an ADU, right, it's going to cause strain on the system, and if we, the The amount that you account for maintenance of the system is independent of what would happen if you push the system to pass 80%. We haven't accounted for needing another ENR upgrade. That hasn't been in the rate that you all just passed. If you push the system to 80%, not just in our municipality, but if any of our, collectively, of our four partners, or three partners and us, push the system to 80%, we don't get to decide if we need an ENR upgrade. So that's just something to be mindful of when we're walking through this process.

Have we looked at the math reverse, though? So we're hyper-focused right now on the flow, but should we be looking at what the potential allocation could be that would be within the limits of acceptable flow with known potential properties? Because that was what you said, right? If we exceed, you can't build new houses. I don't know. There's very limited land in town anyways to build something new that would require capital connection, I believe. For us.

For us.

But, you know, maybe part of the equation is to say, like, if we have 100,000 gallons that we would be okay allocating towards ADUs, what would that look like? And then there could be a – because I think there's an assumption being made that this law gets turned on and then everybody builds an ADU in their backyard, and I'm not sold that that's the actual answer, right? Because – Maybe I'll go convert a shed or something. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. Yeah, I just don't know that we're going to have 100 ADUs built on day one. But we do need to track it. But I do, yes, 100% concur. But I'm almost leaning more instead of like maybe there's a potential path could be an allocation of ADUs because that could drive an upgrade conversation in the future. And then at the same time, I would say as that conversation is going on, we should reach out to our legislative person and say, is the state, now that they're forcing this requirement, are they looking, is there any grants that are going to be coming that would allow us to upgrade the plant in general that we might be able to capitalize on? I'm not sure if they're going to do that, or maybe we need to be one of the first municipalities chirping in the legislation's ear and saying, hey, you want us to do affordable housing, we'll help us upgrade our facilities.

Good point. I like the idea of reverse engineering it to help people more. So this is the capacity we have for ADUs versus assuming everyone's going to do it. I think that's a fair point.

And I want to point out that... I'm going to build one in Lori's yard, though.

That's where my first ADU is going.

I don't know. I don't know if that's going to work. But I want to point out that there are several pieces of property... in the town that have not been developed that still could be developed. I mean, you don't instantly see them, but there's one piece right up off of Cox Road that belongs to Jeff Kraling that he would like to do something with. I also know of others in the town, I mean, Donovan's own several pieces of property that have... been in limbo. I don't know what the status of that is, but I would assume that sooner or later they'd like to build something. So it's not like we're done. It's not like we're built out. We're not 100% built out. So we need to keep that in mind as we go forward too. That's just a thought. Anybody else got any questions?

Can I add one thing, Mayor? Yes, sir. Because since we're all weighing in and you have the legislative body make a decision, I'll tell you now, they call me every day, there's developers in town where before these lots were not practical to build. They were not going to turn a profit. Well, we've run out this infill. I know lots of right now that are waiting for this legislation to work its way out. So you may be thinking, well, this is some lady in town who wants to rent and have a local person. This could easily be bought by a developer that's never stepped foot in this town, build a house with an ADU, pay for one tap, and doesn't help any resident. So I just want to let you know that those lots are looked at. I get the calls. When I started here 20 years ago, no one would touch them. Now they're going to build anywhere they possibly can and jump through every hurdle because it's economical. So I want you to, there's that aspect of it too. Depending on what you pass, it may not be a resident. It may not even be an existing developed lot. But if someone can come in and say, this lot that's set for 80 years, that's worthless. If I can put a house in 80U and pay for one tap, it's worth it to me. Just throwing that out there.

Well, and I mean, we've had conversations with the developer of Richfield Station, and he stayed away from the town for eight years, but he is back with plans now and wants to move forward to finish out the subdivision. And I don't know how many that is, but I know up at the top of the trail, it's 40 units there. And StreamWalk Way, I don't know how many that is.

Correct, but I'm thinking that's a different developer project passes through. I'm thinking of individual lots that have sat for years that were not economical.

But I'm just talking about the overall capacity. Sure.

It's going to create more housing and more use, guaranteed.

What does the connection fee actually cover? Is that the town doing that connection, or do we hire a contractor to make that connection?

It's all the above. It depends on the area, if the infrastructure is there. But if a developer comes in, we make the developer pay for that. It's the cost to tie into our ready water, ready sewer system, if you will.

If I can just... Jay's point goes to item number two, which you currently have, which is accessory dwelling units are limited to lots that are owner-occupied. So that's why that's there. That's trying to prevent what Jay's talking about. But... There's a lot of demand. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of money to be made. And you're talking about an enforcement problem, right? It's owner-occupied. We tell them that's the condition. Maybe they're living there. They get approved. Maybe they move out. Maybe they're renting it. It becomes sort of an enforcement situation. So I wouldn't say that that's full protection from what Jay's talking about, but it is something. And then I don't know if... You wanted to comment on that or not as well. No, okay?

If there's a specific class I have a specific question I Have a great specific question all right be ready for a great question now putting language together That makes it so your water that's for that ADU, because the legislative body, It's specifically stated this is an owner-occupied dwelling unit. It's to make housing more affordable. The burden on everybody that's in town, in all the towns, in all the areas that's based on it. So would there be... a legal way to place that the connection of an adu falling within this guideline would be the required for an owner occupied dwelling can you state that one more time just the last portion of it what would the legal part of it be to require that an ADU done under this program is required to be an owner-occupied dwelling. Not by a business, not by an entity, but by a singular person, a family that's the person, not a whatever. It's It's in your husband and wife. They get a house. It's in their name, and they have it there. And that's what determines the occupancy, and it's tied in that manner.

I believe, as proposed, it's required to be an owner-occupied. The house that allows you to build the ADU must be owner-occupied.

If there's a way to attach the occupancy for future use in the connection for the water sewer manual, so you can sell the house all day long, but if it's not an owner-occupied, then that water doesn't get turned on. You do not have permission to have water if it's not an owner-occupied dwelling.

I don't know.

That's why we got a lawyer.

I can't comment on the legal, defer to Karen on that. But part of what we were talking about before was the idea that If it's above a certain square footage, then they would be required to connect to town because otherwise we wouldn't be able to control it one way or the other unless we cut off the water to the main house. If they're feeding the water lines from the primary house to the accessory unit, the only way the town would be able to deny turning on the water would be to deny the water on the primary structure. Is that what you're saying or are you saying something different?

Your property has a tax ID to it. Your tax ID, when you go to sale, Fran gets a notice and she knows to change the billing. If that comes through and it's not an owner-occupied and it's an ADU lot, then it doesn't convert. Like, that's just as plain and simple as it gets. The condition of the property, it is very clearly bound to being an owner-occupied accessory dwelling.

Like if a company buys it or... Nope.

If a company buys it, it's...

I know, but that's what you're saying. If a company buys it or it becomes a rental property versus a...

That will stop the flow.

As you can see, the state has put these requirements on municipalities and it is wrought with issues. I don't know how else to say it. The only latitude that we really have is under the health, safety, welfare. We have to tie any additional things that we do, right, to that. I had a conversation with Sarah today, and she astutely pointed out that also the subordinate issue, things that we can tie to making it subordinate, that's kind of where we are. So if you've got, I own a piece of property, I have an ADU, and it's not my son or daughter or grandparent or anybody like that, and I have a lease. with somebody. I'm allowed to do that under the ADU, right? I'm owner occupied. I got a lease. I'm going to sell my house subject to that lease. So that Therein lies the problem.

No, no, no. Not subject to that lease. But so it's I think even on the national level, it's about businesses going in and buying homes. So it's that homes are available to people, not entities in businesses. I mean, I'm a huge... You can't reside there.

So I guess we're saying that already by saying it has to be owner-occupied.

There's a ton of places in town that are not owner-occupied. They got one LLC or one entity, and they're rentals. So rentals are off the table because it's not an owner-occupied item.

Of the primary residence.

Of the primary residence. The primary residence is an owner-occupied, and it's to...

Let me just answer your own question. So a company could not come in and purchase because they wouldn't owner-occupy either?

When you go through this agreement and you go into put this in there, you're saying that it's an owner-occupied house, and I'm going to sell it to owner-occupied people. And to have access to the water and sewer, we have an agreement. The lawyer writes up. is in compliance with the state law. I mean, I'm a big fan of this. It makes housing more affordable. I mean, think about buying a $500,000, $600,000 house. One of my apprentices, him and his sister bought a house. They set an agreement between themselves. They live in Montgomery County. I think they did like a $70,000. 5, 25, or 70, 30 split in ownership, and they had an apartment at that place, and it made it so they could afford a 700-some-thousand-dollar home. I understand the principle behind this. I talked to the comptroller. They came to the thing on North Beach and talked to him about it. I support this, but I also need to be mindful of just how... much this could be exploited. I mean, it could be very exploited in that I want to have neighbors that you have, and you want good neighbors, but I think that the complicated part of this that everyone's dealing with, everyone being different municipalities and counties, is that I want to make sure that we're protecting to have neighbors,

I agree with you. I think that this is kind of like opening a can of worms, you know, and it can be very complicated, especially if you have owner occupied and then an ADU and they rent the ADU and then the owner decides to move out, you know, or whatever. And does that mean the ADU is no longer valid? I mean, and there's all kinds of issues here. I just think, and so as I look at Sarah sitting over here, she's going, mm-hmm, there's a lot to work through. I think, but you bring up a good point. You bring up a very good point. Go ahead, Jamie.

I know, Sam, you have a point. I guess, so what I hear, I'm just trying to make sure I understand everything, but what I hear is that if somebody, owner-operator, builds an ADU and they have a tenant, Or, you know, they have this lease, but if they leave and it's sold, there's nothing really stopping other than some enforcement actions on the town. Right. Correct, yeah. So it would be an enforcement action because I think my follow-on question goes back to, like, the EDUs and how to tap in. I'm assuming that these ADUs would tap into the current water and sewer versus – something being, I don't know, I'm not a construction person, but...

It would depend on the size, and that's what we were talking about. Like, if it's smaller, you could just feed it from the house, so it's still pulling on the system, but it's not officially tapped into the system.

Okay, so then maybe an opportunity that we would be able to think about is there could be in our code, if you are not owner-operated, and you... are using this and you lease out that and you're not supposed to, there could be a hefty fine associated with that to discourage. I don't know though.

Can I ask a quick question or a clarifying question? You're proposing something that would then be enforced through our rental program, not necessarily through the ADA?

Correct, yeah. Or however, I don't know the right administrative process or whatever the staff deems appropriate. I don't think we can dictate that. I think that's an administrative process.

update the rental program ordinance to be reflective of how you want the ADUs to be administered as rentals.

And I am talking out loud right now. I'm not saying like I'm...

And that's where we still have the rental program that we put together. But I think that the way that we do this now, the way that we set the stage for this, the looking down the road, we can lighten things up in the future. If we're like, hey, maybe we went a little too far. strong on that and we can walk it back. But, like, I know that it's not just us connected there. I know that it would be the amount of the split between the partners, that's a fixed number, correct?

The way the allocations are set up, yes. And that's based off of a breakdown of the design of a plan.

What's the item, what happens when, let's say, A, B, C, D, partner A, partner B, partner C, partner D, right?

Right.

So if you have partner A, that doesn't do anything, partner B that's not doing much, but partner C and D would drastically increase what happens.

There is language in the inter-jurisdictional, I think both inter-jurisdictional agreements that say if a partner needs additional capacity, they need to purchase those additional EDUs from one of the other partners. At the rates that those partners charge for their capital connections. So say North Beach wants to buy EDUs from us, they would have to buy them at our capital connection rate for sewer connection, I think for just sewer connections, to be able to increase their EDUs.

If they are already at their capacity.

And that's also if we're willing to sell them. Correct.

If we're willing to sell them. Yeah, there's no language in there that compels anybody to sell that capacity.

We could introduce something that would be something for a council approval on that.

On what?

Depending on what our percentages are, at least for the what ours are.

This is already in place.

Not for council approval?

It's not, no.

Who approves the sale of it?

The sale of it, I assume that would come down to probably the council would have to ultimately approve that. Have we sold any discussions? To my knowledge, no.

Not since I've been here. I don't recall that it's ever happened.

My understanding is that typically it comes before staff, right? Now, if the staff said, we don't recommend the sale, the council could say, well, we compel staff to sell however many capacity shares that are being requested. But typically, if someone comes in to purchase a capital connection, it doesn't come before council. It's my understanding, but if you understand it differently, Jay, please chime in.

The only thing that ever I can recall coming to mind is the Highlands with the failed septics. The county residents versus town residents, the county was trying to get them from us, vice versa, and that was never resolved. That's the only case I can ever think of where anyone approached the town to even consider purchasing one, but that's...

And I understand that has more to do with the fact that they are not within the municipality, the portion of the Highlands that wanted to tap into the town.

Correct.

That's a larger discussion that would be for the council to have, but general sale of EDUs is not a council.

So it seems like it should be, though, because technically... The staff could sell away all the development rights in the town.

I can assure you that I would not do that just because I understand that.

But that doesn't seem like it should be a staff decision. It seems like it should actually be a council decision.

What I would say is that what would make sense in that regard is to. If you wanted, the council so felt the need to do it. Incorporate language that says when it comes to, right now we have 60% of the share, right? So council could say, the council does not want staff to move anything beyond 60%, right? And then at that point, or 55%. So then at that point, we have leeway to administer until we get to 55%. And then because that would, selling of anything more than 55% would, divest us from majority ownership, that would be a council decision. But there's no language that currently says that. And I think that would make more sense than saying the council needs to approve every sale of

Right. We don't want to spend all day every meeting doing this. I mean, I don't mind if you don't mind.

No, I think that that is a logical way to approach it.

And I have another question about do we not have language that says every lot with a dwelling unit on it that is its own lot has its own capital connection? I would be shocked if we did not require that every developed lot requires a capital connection. Right.

It's just not the ADU, right?

Well, let's not respond.

We could subdivide this ADU theoretically at some point.

I think the subdivision ordinance would catch that, right? So that you wouldn't be able to subdivide without the individual water connection. Right. I am 95% confident in that, but I want to think about it some more because we just started talking about this today before I say for sure it would catch it. If I don't think it would, then I would recommend changes, but...

Oh, yeah. Some language that just tells them. Because people might think, oh, well, I'm going to do this. And it's a logical thing to think. I'm going to buy this house. This is my stepping stone. And I have this ADU. And then I'm going to subdivide and look. I can do it. And it might just be a regular everyday family. This is their financial plan. And they don't realize they have to pay a capital connection fee to do that. So now their plan's out the window. So I think it would be helpful to put the language in. So people understand that if subdividing is in their plan, there's a capital connection fee involved.

Or we could just charge the capital connection up front to the ADU. Well, then they'd never do it. Not for the full price, but like only for new construction.

Anything I've recommended tonight, I just want to make sure it's clear. This is not saying we need to increase any rates. We need to charge anything at another rate. I just say we need to track the data so I know what to be able to calculate what the expected flow is. I do track our flow for the town, for us, for North Beach and for Anne Arundel and for Calvert. to compare what their flows are compared to what's expected based on their EDUs. And we do see exceedances of that on daily basis. I can give you the data back for the last couple of years. We've been for this year, we've Where did I put it? 14 times this year, if I remember correctly. Last year, 49 days, 2024, 105 days, and 2023, 73 days where we exceeded the expected flow based on EDUs. I looked at it, and it does not correlate to, okay, we had a heavy rain day. I don't know what caused that. I don't know was somebody backwashing their pool and sending it down the pipe. I don't know.

We're grateful for your tracking.

I will echo that sentiment because I know that you do a great job of keeping track of what's going on. Yes, go ahead.

I hate to come back to this issue, although I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the bill, 1466, does not say that you're allowed to require the home to be owner-occupied. However, and I'm going to have Sarah correct me if I'm wrong, MDP, Maryland Department of Planning's guidance has been that it doesn't address it and that it is a possibility. Is that correct?

That's correct. Their guidance also points out all of the issues with making it a requirement that we've discussed.

And then we're going to adopt this, and then we have to send it. to the state. I'm not really sure what's going to happen at that point, whether they're going to be reading all of these and then sending it back and saying, oh, you didn't comply here, you can't do that.

But that would also suggest that if there are additional things the town wants to do to ensure that it is owner-occupied for renting, that that could be done through our rental program, the ordinance that governs our rental program. Right. So they wouldn't necessarily check that.

And so when you look at unreasonable limitations that are referenced in 1466, it says... It includes restrictions on the use that prohibits either explicitly or by effect a property owner from developing or offering ADU for rent. So we have to... it's the primary residents that we're talking about being owner-occupied. Yes.

Yes. Sorry. Yes. So the rent, the primary person, so it's not businesses, and I think that's even, like, even at the federal level, they're trying to address, like, these just entities that have forever money buying up housing and everybody having to be, not have a, their own home.

Can you repeat that last statement again? Sorry. The unreasonable limitation piece, because the question is, so MDP told me that doesn't apply to us because it's not in the land use article. It's in the real property article. But I guess the question is, does it apply to them when they go to, if they're doing something with the rental from the real property article? And I don't know the answer to that because land use is what I do.

Y'all lost me anyway, so I don't know what you're talking about.

So to the next portion of this, I mean, Sarah's going to talk about the parking study. So the question that I would like for you all to be considering is once you get the information, you have the discussion around the parking study. Are you ready to introduce this in the town council meeting that takes place next week? Or do you need more time, another work session to work through it? So you don't answer it now. This is something I want you guys to be able to answer so we can make sure that when it comes before you in the council meeting, we can move forward efficiently. So just something to mull over.

A lot to think about. It's a lot of twists and turns. Thank you, Josh. Thank you all very much. This has been a good discussion, and I appreciate the council's diligence. The next item listed is a parking study, and this was just received today. This is also work that Sarah has been doing, so do you want to give us a brief discussion or comment?

I do have slides.

Oh, you got slides.

So we were trying to get quotes from folks. Some stuff did come in, but there's not time for them. The people who could do the study don't have time to do it in time. And so Wayne and I worked together to develop a very quick study that was done with readily available data that meets the requirements of the state law. And that was done very quickly, so quickly that you all did just receive it today, so I don't expect you to have digested it yet. And I want to go through side by side to explain what we did and answer questions about our methodology. And then that leads to the parking waiver recommendations, which were required to have by the state. And so I've started to draft those for you guys to discuss and think about. So first, what are we doing and why are we doing it? The state mandated us to, if you have a parking requirement in your ADU legislation, then you need a parking study that considers the cost for off-street parking, the curb area available for on-street parking, the impacts of impervious surface and stormwater management, and lot size variability. So those are the four things that we've considered in this study. We started with some background information, and that is sort of setting the stage. Chesapeake Beach is a bedroom community. It doesn't have a lot of employment available. Most people who live in Chesapeake Beach are traveling for work. There is some bus service, but it's limited bus service other than those employed, you know, in walking distance. And so there is bus service to D.C., which leaves out of North Beach's municipal lot. And then there's the Calvert County public transit system, which does sort of a loop around the north part of the county. The... Residents, as they travel, 71% of them drive to work alone, 20% work from home, 7% carpool. 1% takes public transit, but the margin of error on that is larger than the actual number. So maybe 1% takes transit, maybe nobody takes public transit. The biggest thing, though, is that... People have a lot of cars available to them. So the vehicles available to workers in the town, 16 and up, is almost 50% of the population has three vehicles available to them every day. It doesn't mean every household associated with them, because there's more than one worker in each household. But when you combine that with the number of workers who have two vehicles available to them, it's 87% of workers have more than two vehicles available, which means most households are going to need more than two parking spaces or at least two parking spaces. So then we get into the actual costs. And so what Wayne had wanted to do, and I think this was a really good idea, was say, not just what does it cost to build an off-street parking space for the property owner, but what would it cost to provide on street parking for these ADUs because that's the alternative, right? They're going to have a car, where are they going to park it and what's it going to cost? So he actually calculated what it would cost to widen the streets and this is based on 100 linear feet of street, which would provide four parking spaces, and that would cost the town over $18,000 per parking space, versus adding a gravel parking pad for the individual property owner, which, depending on whether it's sloped and some other site factors, would be anywhere from $1,225 to nearly $3,000 of additional cost. So we got the cost down. Now the question is, what's the capacity of your curb to provide parking? And so rather than looking at, does everyone have a wide enough space to provide a parking? We asked the question, well, are the roads safe to park on? And so we use the data from the highway user revenue reports that Public Works provides to the state. and we looked at the number of roads that could accommodate parking. And so we used a 20-foot clear roadway width that was needed for fire apparatus to get down the street. And so you need to have at least 20 feet of clear area. And so we said 29 feet is how much you need to provide parking on one side of the street. and let the fire engine still get down. And 38 feet is what you would need to provide parking on both sides of the street. And which of your roads meet this standard? There are only seven roads in town that would allow parking on one side of the street safely, and only three roads in town that would allow parking on two sides of the street safely. And you can see the linear feet of road associated with that if you're interested. So what this tells us is that there's very limited availability of parking on the curb. So then we looked at impervious surface and again compared the impervious surface increase if we widened the roads so that people could have parking on the streets versus if people provided the parking on their lots. So if the road was expanded, we would have a couple of issues with stormwater management, not just that there's more impervious surface, which is what these numbers are. And so public expansion, right, is over a million square feet. Those numbers are the same. I apologize for that. The numbers were different. Hold on. I have the different numbers. I don't know what happened when I sent it over. So impervious surface. from the public end would be 605 hundred thousand square feet to 1.3 million additional impervious surface square feet. Whereas the parking spaces for an individual lot, if the lots have one parking space, it would be 165-ish thousand square feet, and two spaces would be a little over 300,000 square feet of increased impervious surface. So it's a big difference. There's a lot less impervious surface when you are having the individual property owners provide that parking space. Other issues with this aren't just the total amount of impervious surface, but the way that the water is traveling, right? When you have it on the road, you're having this continuous sheet flow, higher discharge rates at peak rainfall. and then you're going right into your stormwater facilities. Whereas on the individual lot, that parking pad can be angled a certain way. There can be a vegetative order so that the stormwater can stay on site and be treated on site and not go into the stormwater system, which is another impact to your plant. And then the last piece that we needed to look at is the lot size variability. And so this is a little challenging in Chesapeake Beach because you have homes that are on four lots, three lots, two lots, plotted lots. And so you can't look at it straight through measurements. This is more of a narrative in the document, and it talks about how you have these historically plotted areas with very small lots that are combined, maybe not officially, right, to make up a larger lot. And in those areas, there's a lot more density and there's a lot more challenges to creating a ADU that is detached from the main structure for most lots, not all, but most of them. And then you have your HOA communities and your larger lots that, for the most part, use septic systems. The HOA communities, there's room for a detached ADU. Houses that are on septic, those ADUs, the septic has to have capacity for them. That's the limiting factor there as to whether they can have an ADU or not. What we talked about in the lot size variability is that it's the type of ADU that you're going to have that's going to be different. You're going to have more internal ADUs. in places that are like the historically platted areas of town that are more dense, and you'll have more detached in the communities with larger lots. And so the parking still needs to be required, regardless of what your lot size is, because you can still have an ADU, and we still have the situation where there's not enough parking on the street for those ADUs. questions before I go to how that leads to the recommendations and the waiver process.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, we've talked. Okay.

So the last piece and where this is driving us, right, is to why we need the parking requirement and what a waiver might look like. This is the first time you're seeing this. The attorney has not seen this. So this is really just me saying, based on the parking study, Here's some language for you to look at. And you do have that in front of you on a sheet of paper. It is the last page. And there is an error in it, which I'll get to. So what the parking study showed is that there just isn't on street parking capacity. So we need to continue to require that. But there is some transit. it is far away but there are a few properties in town that could reach the transit within a reasonable walking distance. And so the waiver could provide for those properties that are in a half mile of the both transit systems that they could have a waiver of parking because the residents can walk there. The other piece which I think is something you all need to discuss but if you're within a quarter mile of municipal public parking that would allow municipal overnight parking well then you could theoretically have a waiver but i don't know if there's municipal parking that would allow overnight i don't know if you all are comfortable with having people parking overnight in your municipal lots so that doesn't necessarily need to stay that's a thought and then the last piece is if you are on one of those 10 roads that is wide enough for on-street parking and your property has enough parking for your main dwelling, then you can say, okay, I've got two cars, I've got two parking spaces, I'm putting in an ADU, the road is 38 feet wide, and so I would like a waiver from the parking because my ADU residents will park on the street. And then that would be acceptable in those cases. The other idea that I kind of threw out for you to consider is waiving one of the parking spaces. Right now you require two parking spaces, but waiving one of the parking spaces for any lot that is 650 square feet or less. Now there's a typo where I put one or both, but it should just say one. And so that's highlighted on here. None of these are things you should just take without discussion. None of these are things that you should take without the attorney looking at them first. But I wanted you to have something to think about because we are on a timeline. And so those are the recommendations. That is the study. And I will take questions. And it is in draft form right now because Wayne does need to do a final review of it.

Well, this is very helpful. Any questions, council members?

It's very well put together. I do have a question about B, about the waiver for one parking space. How did you come up with the 650 square feet number?

So it's your current ADU number, and it's small, right? And it may go back and forth. It may be better to tie it to Josh's numbers for the plant, right? But at a certain size, you're really going to have one person living there rather than two. Two is going to start to be really tight. If you only have one person living there, do you need two parking spaces? And so if you're building something of a small enough size, maybe you don't need two parking spaces.

I would suggest maybe basing it off the bedroom. Can we do that? Like one bedroom? If they only have one bedroom, we can do one parking space.

One bedroom, one parking space. Right. Well, we have a two-bedroom requirement, so if it's one bedroom, then is it one parking space? You could still have a couple living there, but... Yeah. Yeah.

Think about...

Yeah.

That's pretty much all I got. Anybody else got any questions or comments for Sarah?

I do. I'll just wait if anybody else does. Go ahead. Anybody else?

Thanks, Sarah.

Yeah. All right, so... This is kind of everybody has their subjects and stuff like that. This kind of hits on a lot of my talking points. I think any time we talk about our state laws and rules and the items that come down, they can, for a small town, you know, kind of get mixed up or confused and things haven't always been, like information hasn't always been available. Maybe someone's interpretation was different. I mean, here it's 2026 and we're dealing with a bunch of back and forth. So I think regardless of what, I think there's some things happening. I think the way and how our town has been put together and how we've come to be, we have a long history of that. One of the things in regards to roads, I've done a decent amount of research in all of this. There was like a 1976 summary judgment in regards to the roads and alleyways inside of our town. So that's sort of a past factual item. But I think that as I've looked through and I haven't gone through this personally, completely, but the subject matter in combination with a few items that have come ahead recently kind of makes me think that some of this might be best handled at the closed session. I know that There's some items that I've been working on. I know the parking and roadways in general. I had presented a multi-million dollar approach. I think Wayne's sort of... um presentation kind of shows that but the uh items that it's kind of a they're connected it's a list so um for for next week or even maybe the next month depending on if how much work's going into it i'd appreciate the uh mayor and staff support for us to look at going into enclosed session to go over um These subjects, future and past capital connection fees, ADA, ADU, EDU, roads, sidewalks, pathways, annexation, meets and bounds, plots and deeds. And I think... That would probably be best for us to kind of align and get some legal advice on exactly how this would kind of affect things at hand.

So, you know, if you go into closed session, the Open Meetings Act applies to all of your meetings. So you have to relate your topics for closed session to one of the permissible reasons to go into closed session. So that would be something that staff would have to work with you to identify.

Yeah, of course. And I'd also would like that at the time that I know that sometimes when we go to closed session that the I don't know if it's how we enter in closed session, but. if there's a way for us to like make it so that whenever the topic is finished and allowed to be publicized, that it would be done that way too. But yeah, that's why I was asking at a work session to kind of get staff and mayor's support in aligning these overall topics. It kind of brings some things ahead.

So some of the things that you mentioned I'm aware of other ones are new to the topic at hand. So what I would request is if you want to send the list of things that you want included, because the only one I was aware of that you wanted to talk to as it pertains to the ADU conversation was around annexations. So that, as we've already discussed, I am happy to talk to the mayor and the attorney to make sure that we've advertised for that for you all to discuss as a body at the end of next week's council meeting. And so from that perspective, a lot of the things that you are proposing have implications that outdate any of the staff that's currently here. And so what I would also request is that we don't allow these larger topics that have been looming for decades at this point to slow down the role in the job of council right now to legislate the things that the state is mandating. So I think there's a way to work them in tandem and I would like to do that when possible. I just don't want these larger, like, there's an issue from 40 years ago. Let's figure out that 40-year-old issue before we move forward on these things that we actually have to have in place in three months, right? Like, there has to be some sort of balance to address those things, but also make sure that we are not creating compliance issues with the state today. So my request would be If there is something outside of what we've explicitly discussed earlier, that you would send that in an email. Because as Karen says, there has to be Open Meeting Act justification for closed sessions in general.

Yeah, I mean, I'm good at talking about it. I mean, like, I'm more than willing to talk about it, but I just don't know if that's the best path forward. But I'm okay to talk about it.

I have no doubt in your willingness to talk about it. If you are requesting that the staff... put something on the agenda. My request is that you put it, if it's outside of the annexation topic that we've already discussed, that you would put that explicitly bullet pointed in email to me so I can make sure I go through with the appropriate staff members to make sure that we are actually in alignment with what we are allowed to do through Open Meetings Act. That was my only request.

And that's why I said a lot of this stuff is, I mean, it's kind of all come ahead at one point. The Parkin study tracks in with something I haven't even mentioned to y'all. I mean, I went and pulled the entire transcripts from the archives for that 1976 summary judgment. I mean, it's... To say I've done a little research would be an understatement. It's...

no longer have called the liability for what my statements are and and it's uh and I believe we should address them and I think that what somebody is asking is if we do that in an organized fashion we we can we can see our way through that so appreciate that let's move on next is public works saddle replacement

Yeah, so both of these are approved in this current budget, which started July 1. The first one's pretty cut and dry. This is some components I need to start the saddle replacement project, which I don't have a date or even a contractor yet that's going to work with us, but I am able to purchase these at last year's prices because their budget changes July 1, so I know I need the product. I have several other quotes in there. This is the same vendor we used last time. It's also the same vendor North Beach is currently using on their saddle replacement projects, so we're getting a pretty good deal. So I don't know if there's any questions on that. I can take them.

Have any of the newer, I guess you've been replacing these saddles for a couple years now. Have any of those failed since you replaced them?

No, nothing has failed that we've replaced. And to be truthful, no matter what product we used, I don't think they would fail this early, right, because they're only four years old. But what we were using was lasting anywhere as soon as failure, I think, was at nine years, and most of them were failing at 15 years. So in theory, this should last as long as the rest of the infrastructure being stainless and non-ferrous metal. But nothing that we've done has failed due to, let's say, part failures. We've had stuff hit. We've had other reasons. Was there any other questions? What have you done to address the electrolysis that was corroding? Good question. So... There's a couple things. One is we're paid to have a third party come out here and study different areas in town. They worked with us through some changes. They worked with us in Ridgefield Station. They worked with us in other areas where fill was brought in. There's several different phenomenon. One is you have a copper lateral, which is the line that comes off of a plastic main that's non-ferrous metal that feeds an iron saddle. The pH levels are different in the soils because they had a lime cement that soil up top because it's diatomaceous soil and it could not meet the compaction level. Basically, in some areas, they created a battery. They put a copper anode and the sacrificial metal. Once that current hooks to the line, it travels up and down. There's nothing in the house it can eat. It goes to the end. It finds the weakest link is the iron. It eats the saddle. That's one scenario. The other scenario was some houses, the code was to ground the electric panel, you should know, Dan, to the plumbing. In a normal everything's right situation, it does nothing, but a lot of panels have back feed. Someone took a neutral, made it a hot, so it's back feeding through the lateral, finds the same anode. Third scenario they found is just like you take a balloon and scratch it on your head and sticks to the wall, static electricity, when you have water traveling through a plastic pipe, creates a current. It can travel through water indefinitely, but then it finds the same anode. So what we're doing, we're breaking the copper line with the HDPE plastic. That was their recommendation. And we're also using non-ferrous saddles. When I started, I was using a bronze saddle, which I thought was perfect until we did this study, and it's been recommended that even a bronze saddle goes to a copper curb stop. It's two different metals, so there could be dielectric things between them. This saddle we're ordering now is one piece, all one metal, no different metals. It goes straight to plastic. It's going to last forever. And if anyone would like to read that whole study, I have it and I can send it to anyone. So is there bonding when you're doing these? We're actually not bonding. It's almost the opposite of bonding. We're trying to separate it from it.

So is that pushing the problem back to the homeowner or is it just a connection between the homes that was the finding? So like maybe you got 10 houses on the road, three of them are using a ground wire to back feed the neutral so you have a little bit of voltage on there and you add that up. I mean, if you go and run a power line 100 200 feet you're going to pick voltage up because the reference to ground like the birds that sit on the wire don't get shocked because electricity is a difference of potential so you're eliminating the difference of potential is what the recommendation was to do correct and when you're doing the saddle replacements you're doing that so it Prevents the brakes, is that what we're saying?

Prevents it from coming a sacrificial metal. In other words, that current's no longer getting to the failing componentry. There's still current traveling up and down the copper lateral. We don't touch that. It comes to the dead end. There's no sacrificial metal. It goes back. It goes back. It goes back to the ground rod. In theory, now it takes the path of least resistance is a ground rod. Before, it was an iron saddle taken at the ground.

Right. So when you're changing these out proactively, what conditions are they in?

They're bad. So that's another thing, and I'm going to share this data. It's on my next report. In Richfield Station alone, one-third of the saddles were leaking. We didn't even know. You think of a water main break, boom, the road blows up, we get a call. It's always 2 o'clock in the morning. Ask me how I know. But... And you see it. Well, what was happening there, due to the infrastructure, a gravel path, someone cut the road. A lot of these saddles, a third of them, were already failed. They're leaking. It just found another way out. It didn't come to the path of least resistance. It was not up through the road. So what we're finding in the areas that we test-pitted, I have plenty of pictures. Last administration, I brought the cart of failed saddles and put them right there so you could see them firsthand. But I still have all those pictures. They're 100% at a point of failure. or they're getting ready to fail. And how it'll be in our council meeting. When I took over in 2013, I had to do the semiannual annual report. You had to realize that was before Chesapeake Village was complete, it was before the Heritage, it was before anything past Green Spring and Richfield Station. We actually used more water then than we do today. And I think it's a direct result of solving and finding all of these leaks that run metered. In other words, the towers are metered. I know how much water I produced. MDE says report that. When I started here, we were out of compliance. We had more of a 10% difference than what we billed for, than what we produced. And now we're within like 4.5%. So I know it's solved unknown leaks. And that's the only way you can kind of capture it. So there's 4.5% at every total.

Total. Is there a greater, is one tower less percentage or is it everyone?

It's hard to say because we have PRVs, so you don't know what, I mean, in theory you say this feeds the south side, this feeds the north side, but in different events and fires, it's hard to say what tower goes to every house. They're all tied together. So you take the total number of towers, you take the total amount that we bill for, and you do the math. Okay. But anyway, I'm not trying. I do want to, because I'm kind of proud of that fact. I mean, we actually produce less water today than we did before we had a lot of Richfield Station, any part of Chesapeake Village, and the entire heritage, not including all the other infill. But if you've got any more questions, Dan, we're going to talk about the theory of electricity. We can keep going.

No, no. I think there hasn't been any saddle... Failures in Chesapeake Village, is there? Nope. And so that's another thing. So that's what I was getting at is I don't think they have much leaking over there. If it was able to be isolated, you could monitor if there was a higher leak, especially I think there's one water tower really primarily feeding Richfield Station, right? Yes, Richfield Station Tower.

So this company did rule out the water or anything like that. And one thing notable is when I started with the town, which is just prior to Chesapeake Village being built, I met with Paul Woodburn, understood the problems at Richfield and said, we can't add iron saddles. They've got to be off. So that developer we made, Ryan... Ryan Holmes didn't do it in Richfield. Quality Built did it in Chesapeake Village. And in the Heritage, we used stainless and HDPE. So in those two neighborhoods, we won't have this phenomenon.

Yeah, I think they're bougie. That's why.

Well, I mean, I literally shared this with the mayor the other day. When I started at this town, we were over here fixing a saddle in Richfield Station that I did this for a living. I was like, this is an inferior product. We've got a problem. At the same time, the developer two streets up was putting the same saddle. So... We got ahead of it, our last two developments. We're not going to suffer that, which is substantial. Anyway, I don't want to take up the whole meeting on...

So what I'm getting at is we have the saddle. I'd like to get that list. So I think if we're tracking the dates of the home purchased, there's some logic behind where we're at on that. So if we're... Ideally, we'd be having no failures. That's where we should be doing. So if we want to increase a little bit, however that is, to make sure that... Last year, would we have three or four? How many did we have last year? Oh, failed saddles? Way more than three or four. We did? Yeah. So is there a way that we're doing more so we don't have them?

Oh, yeah. No, I agree. So I'll tell you, in general, there are findings, which is in the study. We can read it. From about 1994 to 2005, we got a lot of steel from China, which these saddles were made of, cast iron saddles. It was an inferior steel across the board. So some of it is the uniqueness of the diatomaceous soil, the battery effect and all that, but also globally around this nation. It was at that specific date we got a lot of bad iron in automotive industry, in the railroad industry, and in the saddle making. That has a lot to do with it. So if you go to Richfield Station, prior to that time, you start in Richfield Station, Richfield Lane, Harrison Boulevard, none of those have ever failed. You can start at the date when that product came in, which is Richfield Lane on, all of those have failed, which are younger than the original infrastructure. I'd love to share the study with you. I'll give it to you.

It's all in there. I'd like to get kind of like an itemized list I think we had talked about before so we can kind of track whatever, like with the paving, whatever our schedule for that is. We'll schedule with the saddle replacements. I think just in general to have... a report. I don't know if it's either quarterly or what, so we can just make sure that we're keeping an eye on everything. Understood.

I'll tell you what would help me out with that a lot is a GIS system for the town. Because all I can give you is a bunch of paperwork.

These saddles, is it all for water or some of them for sewer?

It's all for water. Sewer's mostly all plastic, so you don't have this phenomenon. It's glued fittings and different issue. All right, the second part of it. Yeah, the second part. I'm trying to purchase a tool cat. It's a budgeted item. It's been there. It's replacing our 11-year-old tool cat. Dan Baden, being the efficient CPA town treasurer that he is, reminded me that something over $60,000, we're buying from Bobcat, and the distributor is in Forestville. So I don't really have the other bids, but I'm going to get the other bids prior to our council meeting next week, which in theory are going to be the same of whether I got it in Rockville or the other one is in Baltimore. But I don't have other bids like I do for my saddle project, but I'm going to have those come council meeting and just tell you that we reached out, if you will. It's like going to Ford and say, hey, make me this Bobcat. They're just a distributor of it. But I'm still going to have two other bids from other distributors of Bobcats the council meeting but I think the price will not change if that makes sense and I'll take any questions that if anyone's ever seen it it's the multi tool attachment we have a snowblower we clean the sidewalks has a little pickup on the back and the one we have is 11 years old so we're gonna swap it out yeah I mean I talked to you about having a snowblower especially as we notice how many

there are streets i know especially over there and b street we had drove and talked about like i know you said we used to have one and that's that's part of my plan to get a snowblower for this attachment there so can we have that presented to us because and then i guess how are we getting how's that snow getting removed is it blowing it forward or blowing it back blows it to the side and it has an articulating arm like blows it

honestly, in someone's yard. And where we get down to the bottom where there isn't anywhere to blow, we blow it into the back of a truck.

Right, but it's like... So we're identifying that we don't have... road widths for fire to get through. And then we're not, and then in the case of emergencies, we're not being proactive on a difficult situation when there's, people are trying to get in and out. So like that's, that was pretty, I have a pretty justified reason why. You said we used to have a snowblower that we would remove if we were trapping people in, if there was no place to snow. I know we only get a couple snow events a year, and I hope we never get one like that ice snow we got. But at the end of the day, we need to... I mean, there's a decent Asian population here. I'd like to see something where we're – I think they have some attachments in different cities where they're clearing off the sidewalks. They have a trailer that comes behind them, and it kind of like almost like a – almost a farming equipment. So I don't know what that is, but I think that would be very well received for the town residents.

I'll tell you what I can do. I can present you a budget and buy all this equipment, and you get these guys to pass it. I would love to have it.

I'll go knock on everybody's door and be like, hey, how's the snow been for you? And I'll get a whole audience here that will help me get that food.

I would be all about it. If you could make that happen, Dan, I'm in support.

Present it.

Do you guys do your own maintenance on these things? If it's under warranty, like the first two oil changes, the hydraulic changes, they have to do, which is part of the first cost and everything else we do. I mean, it's basically one hydraulic motor that runs everything. But anything for the first, I think it's... It's either 500 or 750 hours or three years. We have to get them to do it, to keep it under warranty. Right, and that gets costly, I'm guessing. Actually, of all the things that we have and as many uses it has, it's not. It's one hydraulic system that can run all kinds of attachments. So it's really, I'll put it this way. If we didn't do snow removal and never had to get it in salt, we'd still have the first one we have when we start here. What happens to them? It's like a cancer. They just eventually don't care how much you clean and do it, salt gets to it.

I was just wondering, I think I remember seeing grants for like electric municipality vehicles. I'm all for it.

And I'm all for it too, but electric and salt do not mix. Electric, anything with snow is going to fail. I hate to be like that. That's just a reality. Electric motor and salt are just not a good combination. But I'll tell you the same thing. If you want to buy me one, I will try it.

I will. All right. Let's move forward with the last item on the agenda. I believe that Dr. Akpodu will talk to us about the FY27 Town Council Work Plan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I shared the proposed Council Work Plan with you all. I want to reiterate. The goal of this document is really so that the staff can align on the priorities of the council. So moving us out of like whack-a-mole legislation and into more of like a thoughtful approach to how the council wants to address a lot of the issues. I know Dan touched on this earlier, but I've had individual conversations with you all over the last year and a half. There are a lot of topics and areas of concern which motivated you to run, right, that you wanted to see changed. And so from the staff perspective, we want to be able to be supportive of that and also thoughtful about how we allocate our time. also being able to give things the appropriate amount of thought, because as you've seen, even with the ADU, which is a relatively small piece of legislation in the grand scheme of things, there are so many potential areas of loopholes that people can exploit. And so we want to be thoughtful about how we're approaching legislation so when possible we can think through everything that is potentially an issue. So what would be helpful for you all is if there are projects that you would like to see done that you would use this document to inform and then at another work session we can come through and figure out and you guys can kind of talk as a a body on when you want that to take place. Because the other side of it is, I mean, I don't mind being here for five hours, love spending the time with you, but if we're not thoughtful about how we're scheduling these meetings and stacking these agendas, we end up with really long meetings And it's difficult for everyone at the end of their day to bring their best foot forward when they're thinking about how they want to approach this legislation. And the downstream product of that is legislation that didn't have your full 100% faculties about you when you were applying it, right? And so I want to get us out of that. And I think the way to do it is for everyone to be aligned on how we're moving forward. So this is my attempt to do that, but also there are things that need to be on the staff's agenda, projects that the staff is working on. I want you all to be aware of that as well, because there's legislation that we're supporting, but there's also administrative projects that take big lifts as well. and have large implications on top of the day-to-day that the staff is managing. So really, this document is for this purpose. So if there are topics, there's code that you said, hey, actually, I want to see this changed, and it's not already reflected, if you could send that to me. If you suggest edits in the document, I'll see who made the edit. And then we can bring it to a work session at a future date so that everyone is prepared.

So something that would be helpful is if you could just inform us, maybe on a weekly basis, what staff has focused on for the week. Because a lot of things come up that you have focused on, they end up on an agenda, and I have no idea how much work's gone into them or, you know, what legwork's been gone, what conversations has happened. or have happened. So if we had an understanding of what staff was working on, like you want us to do it in reverse, I can't predict what I don't see or don't know. So I don't know what I might want on that agenda based on what is being worked on. Does that make sense? In some ways, right?

Right now, the way the agenda is informed is typically by what we talk about in work sessions, and the work session agendas are informed by the council request, right? So what I'm asking, I think it's fine, we can add more things, but what do you want to take away in order to add a report that does that? Because I would then need to meet with all of the staff to figure out what each person is working on individually, which I'm fine doing, right? But As long as you're aware that whenever you ask to add something, you are also suggesting you're comfortable with certain things being removed so I have the capacity to do that.

Well, and that's, you know, I held quite a few initiatives to get through the water park, for example. And then, you know, the water park dragged out. Still dragging out a little bit. But, you know, I would have... that's how I prioritize things. You know, I wanted that to go forward. That was the biggest thing that worked on without me knowing all that. Like I, I, IQ Fibers coming through. That was something that I knew nothing about. It was fully launched.

That was a council request, right? That came from a council member in an open meeting. So that wasn't like it was something the staff was working on independently. Someone said, can you add this to the agenda? I want to propose this to the staff. So I could have had all the conversations with the staff, but the staff is not who brought it to the body. One of your colleagues brought it to the body. So I understand the My request from you all is that if there are things that you want the staff to work on, rather than sending an email saying, this is a priority, we need to move on it, is that you send it to me, we can put it in front of you all, because you all have legislation that you want to get done. And that's the purpose of this legislative document. It's so that you all are clear on what you need to work on so that we also can prepare you accordingly. Because right now, there's a lot of focus on what the staff does or is doing. But your role as legislator is to legislate. So we want to be able to support you in doing that. But I need to know what your priorities are. So I receive your request and also say, For the time being, it would be more helpful if you all focused on what your legislative priorities are, communicate that so we can get on a calendar and be intentional and efficient about how we move forward with it.

Right. So the primary impact that we can have on this town is the budget. Okay. The budget includes the project. So that's why I say we need to know what staff is working on to understand, A, the feasibility of what we want done, the reality of whether or not it can be prioritized and when. So I think it's a give and take. I understand that you don't want to be blindsided by us, but take that conversely. We would like to know what's going on in the town.

Right. Well... Let me chime in real quick. I don't... Okay, well, you... I know, but I want to address this specifically, not a different point. I don't want a weekly activity report from the staff. Like, that's... What I do... agree with is like working with similia to ensure whatever the priorities we're driving towards how do we get the capacity to the staff but i do not personally i know we keep saying we keep using the word we but i do not want a weekly activity report on the staffs that is not my role as a legislator that is the executive's branch's role that's the mayor's job to to do i don't need personally i do not want a weekly report

I personally do, and I think there's a lot of people that will come to us with questions and expect us to know the answer, what is going on. And I think it is appropriate for us to know what's going on. So I don't think you need to make something that you can present to Congress. But, you know, I think bullet points for the week, this is what we're working for, is entirely an appropriate request. Thank you for your request.

So, I actually... I really liked it. I liked it because it allows me to have the plan that I'm putting in place to say, okay, I want to schedule it here so we can put it out. So one example. That I would bring forth to legislate that our Town Council budget cycle would be Designed to only be budget cycle So that's an example of something that I would legislate for us as a council to discuss at a work session so that then in a coming years, we would only have budgetary items. So there would be an additional meeting that we would go to, but that's something that I would take an initiative to legislate something like that. Doesn't have to be probably until December or something like that, but it's able to put that. One of the items that I had submitted in a rough framework was for, in high level, is like My hope is to make it so where anyone in town doesn't have to fend for themselves, whether it's town staff, whether it's a new resident, whether it's a longstanding resident. And one of the proposals that I put there was if somebody stands here and listens to us blab around and just chat around for hours, and they get up and they talk in public comment, that we hear their public comment, and we all, I know I sometimes really want to say it, but to allow that public comment that is given through either ADA or through in person at the time of public comment to then have sort of a form or whatever where They would say, this is what my ask would be. And then staff would look at it. And then us as a body would talk about it at a work session. So that's like some of the things that I saw that this sort of fiscal year of 27 would That work plan, that's one of the things that I saw could be there. Talking to different people on the staff, most people come and they want to talk about something. They might need to be directed in information, but just a few people will come maybe 10, 15 a year to have a true ask of us. And as a council, being able to allow for public comment is there. But when we're as a body, we talk differently. And I would love to have that as ability to deliberate on public comment. And with the goal of being there, to actually represent a person that has an ask. But their requirement would also be to have to write down what the ask would be. What's the ask? I don't know. Something along that is what I see that this would allow for.

Thank you for sharing that.

Jamie, did you have a comment? Yeah, I'll just say a crossword. Sam, thanks for putting this together. I appreciate that it's like a quarterly outlook, quarterly roadmap, so I can reflect back on it to see what's missing from discussions that I have for prioritization. So I appreciate that. It actually drives questions, too, of... why, well, actually to your point, Laurie, there's projects that you want to get after. Like I can look at this quarterly roadmap and say, why are we prioritizing this versus something else? I think it's going to allow us to have that kind of conversation as well. I need a second meeting sometimes too. I don't know about that. Let's not go that far.

But that's all to that point, right? Like, we know that there are some discussions that will require multiple meetings. If we know the topics that you guys or the pain points that you're trying to address, we can budget the time accordingly. And so that's really what this is. As legislators, your job is to legislate. So how can the staff help you do that more effectively? And that's ultimately the question that is being addressed with this document. So if you have other things that you'd like to add to it, my understanding is that you probably have those things that you want to add to it that are independent of what else is happening. Like, these are the topics that are important to me. When you flag that for me, I'm able to bring it here and we can say, okay, well, this is where we are agenda-wise. Do you want to do this in August? Let's talk through what August looks like. So that way it's a more public deliberation of how you're approaching the next couple of months because the goals that the council has as individuals are very ambitious. As a body, it's very ambitious, but we can get that done. I have full confidence in our ability to get it done, and it'll be easier for us to get that done if we can be organized in how we approach it.

I like the document. I think it would be helpful to have a little summary of where we're at with that bullet point and then what we need from the council to achieve that. Yeah, I agree. The five-hour meeting thing is definitely... Sometimes we go around in circles and we don't make the most use of our time up here. So that's definitely something we need to... We'll move further if we work together.

All right. And if there's nothing else, I'd like for you to introduce your guest here tonight.

Oh, yep, my dad. My dad. Jeff. He's also an accountant, so. He's retired, though.

We're glad you're here. Thank you for coming tonight. Is there a motion for adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

I heard a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anybody crazy enough to say no, forget about it. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Good meeting tonight. We got a lot done. Appreciate it.