Town Council - workshop

I'D LIKE TO CALL TO ORDER THE TOWN COUNCIL INFORMATIONAL WORK SESSION. IF YOU WOULD ALL JOIN US IN THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE PLEDGE OF THE UNITED STATES.

TO THE PROBLEM. LIBERTY AND JUSTICE. We welcome everybody tonight. The first thing that's on our agenda here is that we have candidates to fill two vacant seats. And we have Tracy Bensing, who is a candidate for the Board of Appeals. If you could come to the microphone. and introduce yourself to the Town Council. Tracy and I have had a chance to talk, and we're recommending that she be accepted to serve on the Board of Appeals. If you would tell us a little bit about your background and your interest, we'd appreciate it.

I have a background in education and administration, so that means that I have a graduate understanding of ethics and working, the inner workings of not only a school system, but pretty much a business. I own my own business as a muralist and faux finisher in California, New Mexico, and Maryland, where I was pretty successful at making murals and painting people's houses and things like that. So I have a pretty deep understanding of the construction world. I was able to attain bids from Camp Pendleton, MWR. I have a pretty extensive range. I also had a real estate license for a little while. My mother and aunt I've been in real estate in Calvert County for my aunt's probably like over 30 years. She was one of the first people to help develop the ranch club. And then my mom's been in for quite some years, over 20. So I've been exposed to Calvert County for a long time. I haven't always lived here, but When I have, I've been pretty much involved in what's going on. So living in Chesapeake Beach for the last 20, I guess 23 years, I've seen it grow and I've seen some beautiful things happen. I just want to make sure that I'm part of decision-making now that I can be. I think... I have a pretty good understanding about what a community can be, and I would love it if Chesapeake Beach grows and develops in a way that not only benefits the children who I teach at Beach Elementary, But also the first-time homebuyers that come here and still find this place to be affordable and pleasant and wonderful to experience.

Well, I appreciate your willingness to step up. We had a conversation recently, and I'm grateful that you're willing to step up. And I'd ask the council if they have any questions.

Oh, thank you. I'm definitely in support of this. And I think being a teacher and especially you're an art teacher, correct?

Yes.

Yeah. So you have so many different kids that come through being able to, I guess, hear a lot of different opinions. And I think one thing thing I see with the Board of Appeals is it's the argument for an exception, you know what I mean? So whether a house is too close to the road or something like that. So I think an educator has perfectly said it on the

Thank you, Dan. Anybody else?

I'll just, Dan said it perfectly. For the Board of Appeals, I'm very interested in somebody who's creative but can also read black and white. So everything you said, I'm on board with.

May I ask why you chose the Board of Appeals to be the one group that you wanted or commission that you wanted to be a part of? What made it be the Board of Appeals for you?

So that was what was offered. I'm willing to be on the planning and zoning. Also the ethics commission, that was the one that was just sort of offered to me, like, this is one that you seem to have the best fit based on the resume that I gave them. So I'm just being flexible and being like, okay, well, that's where the position is. Although there are openings in all the Well, and a few different boards. But, yeah, I mean, I'll try out the Board of Appeals for a little while and see how that works. And then there's a time when I can move over to a different board. I'd be happy to do that as well.

I'm pretty sure Board of Appeals is as exciting as it sounds.

Right. My neighbor.

But it's necessary. Come on, Anthony. It's necessary. Right. Well, and we appreciate your willingness to step up. That's really, I truly appreciate that. And Eric, you had something?

Yeah, I just, I love that answer because it shows a level of honesty and willing to speak the truth and bluntly. And so, you know, I think you'll do a good job and thank you for stepping up and volunteering.

Anybody else?

I would echo those exact thoughts. Thank you for stepping up. All right. Thank you. I think you're going to be great. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much.

And thanks for coming in tonight. Next, we have Nancy Garner, candidate for the Planning Commission.

Hello.

Hi. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I've been a resident of Chesapeake Beach for 23 years. I'm a native Marylander, born and raised here. I wasn't raised in Chesapeake Beach, but it was my summer playground, so I have seen the changes since the 50s. Before I moved here permanently, it had already felt like home to me. I'm a big advocate for the Bay and for the ecological system that we have here. My background is not in planning and zoning. I've been a small business owner for the last 22 years prior to my retirement. As a small business owner, you wear every single hat. You do every single job. So I've had to learn things that I didn't know I wanted to do. Maybe didn't want to do them after I had to do them. I've always been in the design field. I have an art degree, bachelor's degree in art. The experience I can bring I think is that I'm used to working with people and leadership. listening closely to people's concerns. I'm good at following any guidelines and rules that are put out there. I know I would have a lot of homework to do because it seems like planning and zoning has a whole lot going on right now. I have been shop steward for 14 years for a union, which requires explaining people's contracts and helping them through grievances. Typically, you're pretty much dealing with people's personal issues. I have been on two HOA boards. When we moved here, my husband made me promise I would not get on another HOA board. So here you are. So here I am. This is not an HOA board. Right. Hopefully I'm dealing with professionals. So, again, dealing with people's concerns and requests and knowing that there's rules and You have to stay in certain lanes to have certain things changed. I was actually on one HOA board where we had to actually change the bylaws, which is a very long process to get that done. I was able to... bring a union into a position and company I was in. I did a short stint at MGM as their lead designer. The horticulture department, which is what I fell under, which was only 36 people, were not unionized. There was 15 different unions in that building. So it took me 11 months, but we got them unionized, and then I left. Been retired for three years for the second time. I now feel like I have the time and energy to start volunteering again. I have volunteered in other smaller, with animals and such like that. I volunteer at the help store. So I have a lot of energy and I need to put it into the right direction. As far as the town, as a small business owner, I think I'm very supportive of them. I understand, and Mayor Walwood and I were talking about, this has always been a tourist town. It was built as a tourist town. So there has to be a good balance of... small businesses, homeowners, families that have moved here, and a town where we get a lot of outside visitors. And that's a lot going on in a very small town. So that's my concerns and that's what I want to be part of. I want to be part of keeping the balance in this town that makes it a wonderful place for people to own a business and people to raise their kids and people to live here.

Well, thank you. Council members, any of you have any questions, please? Go ahead.

So I actually have been a shop steward before, third generation, being an electrician. So I understand how to kind of compartmentalize that. And with that, I almost... I guess it almost seems like the Board of Appeals and the Planning Commission, it almost feels like you would be a great fit for that, and she would be a great fit for the Planning Commission. Maybe these things. I don't know if that's even open for discussion or something like that, but that would be – I think – I don't know.

Are we – No, these are the positions that these two ladies have stepped up for. So I think what we have is Nancy stepping up for planning and zoning, being willing to step up for planning and zoning.

Anything else? Jamie? No, I don't have any questions. I appreciate the rundown. I explicitly appreciate you calling out, like, being in support of, like, small businesses and finding the balance and then making sure that there's, because I think we're trying to accomplish a lot, and that if you've, ever paid attention to any of these council meetings, there's a lot of discussion on planning and zoning right now with the tables and a whole bunch of stuff. And you're going to feel some push. That's okay. But I appreciate your perspectives. Congrats on your second retirement. Welcome out of it. You know, thank you.

She's going to have to work forward to her third retirement, right? Yeah.

Okay.

Nobody believed me when I said I retired the second time. I wanted to know when my next job was. So there's the people that know me.

Did you say you do art as well? Yes. Okay, what kind of art do you do?

Well, right now I'm just doing small crafting art, pen and ink. Okay.

You're going to get to know Anthony really well.

I haven't picked up a paintbrush, a real paintbrush, in many a year. I was in the design field as an event designer in the floral end of it. I was designer at MGM in the floral end, lead designer for the entire building. Did a good job. And my business was that. So you're a muralist, right?

Yeah.

When she was up here, I kind of felt like it was me. At least RCP will come up. Thank you.

Thank you. Laura?

Yeah, it sounds like you have a diverse experience across all disciplines, and I think that's a great thing to have. You'd think I would be most heartened that you said you care about the Bay, but I am most heartened by the fact that you are a self... A self-initiator is what I heard from everything you said. And planning and zoning goes fast. So while you are told a lot of things, you'll have to dig into a lot of things yourself. And it's hard work, but it sounds like you're up for it. So thank you for stepping up.

Thank you. I understand there's going to be homework.

Yes. Thank you for your volunteerism. You're welcome. Because you're going to get thank yous from us up here, but it's going to be more or less thankless.

I've had those positions before. It won't be new to me.

Well, thank you so much for stepping up, both of you. And we will take this up for vote in our next council meeting.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor Wall and the council.

Mr. Mayor, is it possible to consider moving the sign regulation discussion to number three on the agenda due to... Well, you may notice that I've already done that on my agenda.

And I like to say that great minds work alike, but maybe we had the same motivation. Sarah Franklin has to leave for another meeting, I believe, in Upper Marlborough. And so we are going to reverse the order of items three and four. We're going to do the sign regulation discussion now. So go ahead, Sarah. You have the document.

Go ahead. If Tracy and Nancy don't want to sit through this, you should let them know that they can, unless you have something else for them to do this evening.

Well, but you're welcome to stay or you're free to leave. It's your choice, and you're going to get into the nuts and bolts of some of the planning and zoning right now. Okay. But if you need to go for other purposes, you can. But thank you. And again, thank both of you for stepping up. We appreciate it. Go ahead, Sarah.

They're going to get a little preview right now. You all have the sign ordinance that the Planning and Zoning spent several months reviewing. And before I dig into it, I just want to explain why the Planning and Zoning Commission decided to review it. The current ordinance is not modern. It does not allow any internally lit signs. And it is a little hard to navigate. It can be a little confusing. It requires permits for a lot of signs that don't feel like they need permits. And so the Planning and Zoning Commission wanted to modernize the regulations to reflect new technologies in illumination. and electronic messaging centers. They wanted to really make it clear what signs are prohibited, what signs are clearly allowed that you don't need a permit for, what all the enforcement procedures are, and then they wanted to create a table that can be cross-referenced so that the user of the ordinance is a really easy way to say, this is a sign I want to put up. Where can I find my regulations? And in doing all that, they wanted to make sure that they didn't make current signs, create a situation where current signs have to be taken down. So there are some little more legalese portions of this that deal with allowing existing signs that maybe went up at a time when there wasn't code enforcement. Maybe, I don't know how many years ago, but there was a period of time where there wasn't a code enforcement in the town. And so some of the signs have been there for quite some time without a permit, and we don't want to penalize people this far after the fact. So with all of that overview, I'd like to kind of take you through it. You have the ordinance, but you also have this walkthrough that I put together, which is the table version. And that has a memo in front of it. And I think that's a useful way to go through it because it can break it down for us piece by piece. And so... One of the really important parts of any piece of zoning legislation is this first part, which is the function and purpose. It feels like, why is this here? What is it doing? It is establishing the legal basis and the reasons that you are creating these organizational rules. And so this function and purpose was carefully crafted by the Planning and Zoning Commission. identifying that signs communicate, identify, and promote properties, and signs contribute to the physical environment, so we want to make sure that they are aesthetically pleasing or at least not aesthetically glaring. And then we want to make sure that signs aren't placed in places that threaten the public safety or general welfare. And so that is the purpose statement that goes with these regulations. Does anyone have any questions about what was being done, why it was being done, and what the purpose is?

Okay. Well, so I'm not fully up to speed on the present code related to signs. But just from what I can gather from what you're saying, what little that you've already said, there's probably a lot of signs that exist right now that are in violation of the current code. That is correct. Like a lot. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Because those signs were constructed at a time where there was not code enforcement, and there was no enforcement that happened after they were installed, and because those signs are extremely expensive, and because the Planning and Zoning Commission was reviewing these, it is my understanding that the town has said, we will address those signs when this is done. And this actually has a provision to say, you can have a permit for your sign. and you just need to follow a few rules with it. So people are not going to have to take down signs as part of the goal here.

I guess the second part of my question is, what was the catalyst for planning and zoning to take a look at this piece of legislation?

Okay. I think that it came out of ... I wasn't here when they started this, or the desire to talk about this, but I think it came out of the comprehensive plan process and recognizing that there were signs that had gone up that maybe didn't have a permit, but those signs aren't actually as detrimental or dangerous as the fear was that they could be. It was, let's get through the comprehensive plan, the comprehensive rezoning, and then critical area regulations had to be updated. And then we would like to take signs on when all that is over. So that was the work plan when I was hired on with the town.

And so there was a purposeful agenda stream within this process to... write a code that makes signs that are currently in violation allowable?

Not specifically. The general thing that's not allowable that you see everywhere is internally lit signs, which EMCs and even at the school, there's the little scrolling. All of those are not permitted by the current regulations. And the rules aren't crafted specifically to allow those signs to exist or continue. Those signs, depending on their size, they may or may not completely comply with the regulations here. But the ordinance says, if you have a sign, an existing sign that is not compliant, We will reach out to you and let you know, and then you come in for an after-the-fact permit. And what we'll do is we'll allow you to keep that sign, the noncompliant portion, but we are going to ask you to comply in other ways. For example, there are some electronic messaging centers that flash and blink and make a lot of distracting motions. Those signs are not permitted, but they could get a permit, even if they're too tall or too big. according to this sign. And going forward, they would just have to stop flashing and follow the EMC rules, which we're probably not going to get to tonight, so I don't want to get too deep into that. But the idea is that if you have a sign that you put in when there was a period without code enforcement, we don't want to penalize you. But we do want to make this we want to make this ordinance clearer for everyone as well So that a lot of it had to do with clarity But some of it had to do with recognizing that the rules around illuminated signs were antiquated The only signs then that we're talking about is traders rod and reel and the school No, who else is a scrolling sign?

Fire Department, sorry.

Theirs is actually permitted through a variance, but American Legion has one as well, and Sitco has one. The gas station?

Oh, fast stop.

Sorry.

And part of the compliance, I understand, like, bring it up to speed to make sure that we have some kind of rules with electronic signs, but then part of the compliance is saying that those are potentially dangerous the way they currently are used?

Right. So electronic messaging centers, there have been studies done as to how frequently that message changes as to how it relates to road safety done by transportation agencies. And so planning and zoning, we reviewed that information and then based the regulations on that.

I wonder, too, then, and I'm just going to throw this out there. I wonder if we've ever asked how many traffic incidents have occurred at any of those signs. Because, I mean, I would actually think the most dangerous part of town is the corner right over here.

Or the one at the shopping center. Yeah, yeah. Where the two traffic lights are.

Yeah. So... So what I'm trying to get at is I understand making sure our code is up to speed with current technology. I'm very in support of that. I am very cautious about trying to put people into where they're going to have to potentially spend money or change stuff that's going to impact. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with any of the signs that we have in town. I haven't seen anybody have an accident because of a, you know, traders is flashing that their stake's on sale. Or the sicko is saying, I don't know, gas just went up 45 cents?

Well, the studies are very polarizing. There's nothing that's definitive, but you can also look at minimum hold times. Most people are doing, you got to hold it for eight seconds, things like that. So I think once we go into it, we'll see what is there and what's not there. I don't think I saw an actual survey to reference and what was given, but I have looked up some of the different reports and things they did on it. I do know that they do have things that we can do, like implement actual hold times, if possible, but that doesn't cost anything to just make it stated for eight seconds instead of four.

Yeah, I guess what I'm getting at, and then I'll step off my soapbox, would just be this has been in work for two years plus now. Is this the highest priority we have as a town? I'm not sold on that. I've phrased that many, many times. But if there is just a bringing up to the code, that's pretty straightforward. If we're saying this is a safety hazard, I'm sure there's plenty of studies that say everything, just like you said, polarized. So I'll just stand out from that.

And I agree. We need to be more proactive about things. When technology changes, we've got to be at the forefront of it instead of catching up afterwards. But that's what we're dealing with right now. So we'll have to at least have the code updated so that we can at least make sense with what we have out here in the world. But going forward, being proactive is the better way to do it.

I wonder if maybe a less is more approach with this. If I could, I see a few signs that actually pose a danger from their location. At 261 and Harbor Road, there was a pedestrian that was in a mobile scooter hit by sitting at that sign, at that light, there's a certain spot you can sit. And if you go, the pedestrian would be in the blind spot until you turn and hit them. So the other one is where the old Papa John's was. The sign is so low, when you're leaving E Street, looking up 260 it's very hard to see and you have to inch out i think that sign on 260 is legal because it's been in there so at least what i've been told but having a mechanism in place for like sending a list of people that are not compliant and a sort of a process for a variance, maybe this stuff resolves itself and we don't have to redo this. So I think we have a lot of other things going on. This touches on a lot of different items, but I think we might be able to take a softer approach. than this because it's things that just the way it's written and before you got here, the triggering mechanism that went into even starting it, I have a disagreement with on it, the foundation of it. So in 2023, the signs went up because of statements that were made from the previous administration and calling somebody out. I want us to be called out. I want the public to hold us accountable. I don't want to do anything to suppress speech. Like, we're public officials. We represent the public. And it's just a small town. We're neighbors. We shouldn't hide behind making people not be able to express themselves. So there's some things in that that I would disagree with. So I know I've...

Thank you, Dan. Anybody else? Laura?

Have you received feedback from anybody about the sign ordinance, like from the business community or from residents who don't like sign? Anyone?

No. So we did invite, we did do the e-blast and had our public hearings. But we also, as we were going through the process, I was trying to get the business community to come out and share. And I think that the reality for the business community is that this ordinance is better for them. And so... I don't think they were concerned because this is helpful to them rather than harmful to them. Now, I could be wrong. But I will say that right now, one of the reasons this, for me, this feels pressing because if someone comes to me and people have, I have an application for an illuminated sign right now. I can't permit that illuminated sign. And at the same time, There are illuminated signs in town. So I think we're kind of at a point, because it has been a while, of either if we're not going to move forward, then we need to go to everyone with an illuminated sign that doesn't have a permit and tell them that their illuminated signs need to come down, or we need to move forward and find a way to allow those illuminated signs to exist, because right now we have a situation where it's unfair, right, for someone who's coming in and asking for a permit.

Well, we kind of ran into a very similar problem with the fencing thing as far as, you know, we could grandfather. I think we decided to do that, right? Grandfather in existing and then, you know, it's okay that they're different. It's okay that they get that privilege that someone else. Sometimes we have to be okay with that inconsistency. Just... By the concept of grandfathering in.

Right. And I think the consistencies can be okay. I think also that the current sign ordinance, I find it confusing, right? When someone comes to me with a sign, we have to kind of go through it. There's some stuff is in one place, some stuff is in another place. It is very difficult and residents and businesses cannot navigate it on their own. And those permits do actually take me a little longer to issue because I have to wade through every piece and make sure that I've gotten them all. And so I think that what's happening here, it's not just about electronic messaging centers, it's about making this easier and clearer for people to use. And I know that there are more words in it now than there used to be. And that feels like it makes things less clear. But sometimes when you have more words, you are making things more clear. You are saying, hey, here are all the signs you're allowed to install without even coming to the town and telling us about it. Here are all the signs that you're not allowed to install. Here's how you can have an illuminated sign in compliance with the town ordinances. And here's how if you have a sign that you installed at a time when there wasn't that code compliance, we're going to help you come up to code. And so I know that it feels like it's not urgent, but for property owners and business owners, I think it is to them. They would like to put their sign in, and so it's important to them.

Maybe a strange position to take, but I kind of like the not having messaging signs and internally lit signs. And because they built it in violation of the code, it's not justification to propel us to change the code.

Right, but that's not the only reason that we were changing the code, right? That's just something we pulled into the change.

And they wouldn't necessarily have to take it down. But if they wanted to be in, I mean, could they just not light it up?

So per the zoning ordinance, if you build out of compliance with the permit you were issued or without a permit, one of the actions the town can take is to compel you to take it down.

But the town would have to initiate that action to compel you to do so.

Yes, that's part of enforcing the town's regulations. I was kind of planning to talk more about EMCs next time and bring you some videos and take you through all that. I wanted to kind of talk more about the structure of the ordinance and how... how we've outlined it to make it easier for the user today. If we're okay to move forward talking about that, okay. So we have our setup. Your walkthrough does not have definitions separately because they are put next to wherever you see a term. So there's a lot more definitions in this ordinance and that makes it easier for the user to say, I want to put in this specific type of sign. Let me look it up and find out what my regulations are. So we have a set of general regulations that are going to apply to every sign. And this addresses things like if they're obstructing or within the public right-of-way, obstructing sight lines for vehicles traveling on roadways. Making sure that they are not taller than 20 feet and not exceeding the height of a building so that not blocking any of our lovely views. Making sure that they're durable and safe so they don't become projectiles. Make sure that they're weighted and they can withstand some of the weather that you'll get around here. And then... We have some basic illumination regulations. So just to be clear, even the sign that says open, the neon sign at the stores, those aren't allowed right now. And so this allows that type of thing. And I think Roland's has an illuminated sign above it. And it says that if the light's shaded or shielded, if it doesn't reflect onto residential structures and it's confined, then this is going to be okay illumination, right? Yeah. And then we have a definition of area of a sign. That definition is separate. And this definition was constructed in a way to ensure that people can have a mural and it doesn't have to be a sign. Now, some signs are murals because it has words on it, right? then they're going to be considered a sign, but only the word portion is a sign. So a great example of this is Novel Bakery going in. So they have a great mural. It has words on it. Those words comply with the sign regulations that are currently in the town. But then this would continue to allow that type of thing to happen.

So this then goes into the whole... Similar conversation about the fences in the front, right? So side yards, backyards, and stuff like that. So the novel bakery isn't the front-facing business side. It's the back parking lot is where their mural is, correct?

It faces the road. I mean, it faces the side.

You can see it from the road, but if we were to say if that was a six-foot fence, right, that wouldn't be the front yard kind of thing, right? So where does that line, do we have a line for that, and has that been considered and stuff like that? I mean, I just, like I said, I think there's a lot here that's considered. I know that when we did our fence ordinance, there's some certain disciplines we didn't follow there, and I...

don't want us to head back down that road on something that, like there's... A sign that can be, something that can be seen from a street that is advertising or has words, right? That's a sign.

On commercial property or residential property, is there a definition, is there a line? So me as a property owner, a residential property, can I...

a mural in my house and that not considered a sign so so there are rules specific to residential and commercial properties um a mural right it as long as it doesn't have words it's just pictures it's not really a sign um i residential mural I'm not sure that it would be considered a sign. I would have to think about that and get back to you when we talk about this at the next juncture. But generally the... The mural, if it is advertising a business in a commercial area, is what's causing it to be a sign. Now, I'm hesitating because one of the things we really tried to do here was make this as content neutral as possible because of the First Amendment laws around signs and of the court cases that have happened around signs and First Amendment laws since your sign ordinance was adopted. There's only one reference in this whole thing to the content, which is about obscene words, and those can be prohibited. So that's why I'm hesitating here. Commercial and noncommercial speech need to be treated the same.

I think if we have an understanding of what obscene is, obscene to one person is very questionable what obscene to another person is. The way we all speak, that's one example. Stop danger is another example. The governmental sign or scoreboard, that almost is a spot zoning allowance for the sign. I don't know. Like I said, I don't – I think this is –

The council requested that adjustment and we made that adjustment. But I just want to kind of get through a little bit more. So we've been through the general. There's the area. I've explained why we were sort of specific in defining what the area is and not wanting murals to be signs. And so then we have a whole section on prohibited signs, and this is signs that project above the roof, signs that are taller than 20 feet, signs that stick out from the wall, right, especially if they're at head height. That is prohibited. Signs that are in the median, signs that obstruct exits, ones that just create a safety and traffic hazard. Commercial signs in exclusively residential zones, unless they're exempt. Animated signs, flashing signs, revolving signs, those are all considered to be potential hazards. Anything that says stop or danger, that's an advertising sign, right? That's kind of like killing fire, right? It's not exactly, it creates a safety hazard because someone maybe does stop.

There is a ton of signs that were just here that everyone here was in support of when they said stop data centers. So that sign there would have definitely not been allowed.

So is that an advertising sign?

So if a sign said stop, right, that's a prohibited word. And all the signs throughout the county said stop data centers. So what we're saying, by the accident of hand and the vote of the council, disagrees with that.

So that's not an advertising sign. It's not a commercial sign. So...

I think the sign said no data centers, but I get your point. I have one question about the studies. I'm sorry. I will bring you some for next time. Okay. We'll talk about it next time.

Yes, please.

So the purpose, this is not going to be the only conversation you all have on signs. The next work session will continue it. We'll have a little bit more time to go more in depth. So the idea right now is that she's just giving you an overview of the work that the commission has done, what's coming before council. And the opportunity that you all have is to then take the information that she's giving you now formulate your questions, and then the next work session be able to bring it to her where we have more time to discuss what it is.

I will be available. I do not have a meeting on October 6th, so yeah.

And Sarah is on a deadline to get out of here tonight for another meeting in Upper Marlborough.

Do political signs fall under residential or commercial?

Political signs are a type of temporary sign. They are regulated elsewhere in your code, not in the zoning code. And they would really be a kind of exempt sign. And so... If I can just quickly go through the other prohibited signs, and then... And please go right through it.

Okay.

Because we need to get you out of here for your other meeting.

So signs that contain statements, words, or pictures of an obscene character. I did speak with the lawyer about this before leaving it in. She said it could be left in, and it could be left in without a definition, but we can review that with her. Snipe signs, beacons, balloon signs... and vehicular signs. The definitions of each of these kind of is helpful because a vehicular sign isn't just your car's wrapped, it's your car's wrapped and it's just sitting in the same place and you're not driving it. We're very careful with this because we wanted to make sure if you had a business and you had a car with that business and you drove it to your home and back and forth every day that you would not be having violations for having a sign in your yard because that's the car you use so that's this was really carefully crafted there um so i guess are there any questions there probably are questions about this I'm hearing that you guys would like to see some of the studies around electronic messaging centers for next time. I also have some videos that show the hold times that I will have working for next time. Are there any other specific interests that I can bring more information to you?

I mean, I would just go back. The only thing I would just ask is, have we, I think Laura, you might've brought up the survey or like talking to, have we talked to any of the businesses from planning zoning just to understand their perspective? I mean, I'm not, I'm not a signs guy, so I don't know necessarily if I, if 10 seconds is long enough, not long enough, but I don't understand if they would say this is going to hurt my business or not. And then understanding that in comparison to some of the studies, just don't know if they've reached out to anybody.

I don't remember if I reached out directly. One of the signs we use as a model of what a good electronic messaging center looks like is the rod and reel. If you look at the rod and reel and its hold time and how it's functioning, That is really, like, yes, it's getting your attention, but it's not getting your attention in a way that is distracting while you're driving. And so no, like, I don't think anyone specifically engaged. I kind of remember reaching out to them about their whole time and not hearing right back and then just going and measuring their whole time myself. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate it, Sarah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just real quick, with the messaging signs and the amount of time that I think that they're saying that they want more time before it flashes to the next message. Exactly, yes. Which I don't understand because if I'm driving down the road, it happens all the time, where there's some type of highway administration sign and... The message is more than the screen, so there's like three flashes to get the message. But I only get to like one and a half flashes before I'm gone, and I have no idea what it's saying. So I should really slow down, right? And that's going to make traffic worse, you know? If I slow down so I can read the sign. You shouldn't slow down. So like Councilman Green saying, you know, this must be polarized studies. You know, some say one thing, some say something else.

I will pull my study to double check, but I believe that the study I used was done by the Maryland Department of Transportation. I will bring it so that you have it.

No, they didn't survey me in Maryland. If you look into it, pages four through six, get into the media of the electronic signs and what's prohibited and things like that. So you guys take a look.

Is the sign ordinance specific to zoning, or is it universal town-wide?

It's actually part of the zoning ordinance. You do have an ordinance about political signs, I believe, or election signs, and then there are some other rules about signs in developments.

Does the zoning map matter when it comes to the sign ordinance or does the sign ordinance apply universally?

So the sign ordinance applies universally but also has a section for commercial zones and residential zones. And a commercial zone is going to be any zone that has commercial in it. So that would include mixed use zones.

So when it comes to home occupations, how does that fit in?

So there is an exempt sign, a four square feet sign that you can have in a residential area. So you're going to be able to kind of put up a plaque, but you're not going to be able to have big signs saying this is my, but you're not really allowed to have that level of traffic anyway.

Okay.

But your wrapped car can be in your driveway.

Okay.

I mean, it's not part of this, but with the political signs, we might as a council just put a tax amendment to say per election, and so then people could support and show support for primary elections. I know Calvert's has a sometimes strong turnout for primary elections, and if we had per election, that might cover that.

I would just recommend that be in your elections. Correct.

It just says election. But if we did per election, a primary is an election. And so then your length of time could get extended. Like if you supported a candidate for the primary and they won the primary. Like a county commissioner.

You're not talking about the council because there are no primaries? Correct.

Right.

For higher offices, if you will.

Per election, I think, would maybe be that thing that one of the sticking points, I have a bunch of sticking points on it, but one of the sticking points would be per election, I think, that compromised.

Yes, because those signs are covered by this ordinance. The signs for the council elections are not covered by this ordinance. I think that was my misunderstanding.

Yeah, so like county commissioners, you know, right now, you know, they're campaigning hard and

I think it's in our election thing for political signs in town or something like that.

But it is covered in here. So it's speech, right? So it's permitted, but there are size limitations in residential zones that would apply to those. Technically, right, your zoning ordinance does apply to your... signs during your election but really that's deferred to your elections ordinance and whether the candidates are complying with that and the time frame there right the zoning administrator is not going to be out issuing violations on candidate that's in the in the election ordinance

Yeah, because the reason I brought that up is I think there's something in the code that says, it might be like 30 or 60 days. You get a number of days a year, and I was like, who's counting these number of days? It's kind of goofy. So that's why I was asking this question earlier, because I didn't see anything related to that. But I will table that for a future discussion if it's elections related.

I will review those sections and pull them.

That would be great. And I think to recognize that you've got other commitments and that you need to leave, I think we need to close this at this time unless anybody's got one last word.

Thanks, Sarah.

All right. Well, thank you very much, Sarah. And I hope we didn't make you too late for your next meeting.

Thank you.

All right. The next item, we swapped them around. So what was number three is what we're going to cover now. Jay's going to take the lead on this, the town paving methodology and approach. You've got a nice big fat document in your collection, and these slides are going to be on the screen.

Take it away. Thank you, Mayor. First things first. Sometimes they come with signs. They put out them. I tell them, don't bring any signs. Whoever wins the contract. That was a little joke.

I know. I got it. It's funny. It's funny.

So it's been requested. And honestly, it was due to the council and the public how we kind of got our formula and how we figure out what roads we pave and how we get to where we're at. And I appreciate staff help, some of you included, and some other members that helped me put this together because it looks a lot better than the paperwork that I had. So we'll start with some criteria. If you look at the sheet right there, it's a basic low-level score sheet. One of the first things, the first category is the frequency of traveler, how many people use the road. That has a score. So if you had two roads in similar conditions and one had 500 cars a day and one had 100 cars a day, then the 500-car road is going to win if it's a tie, just to give you an example. So it is considered how many people travel that road. Is it a back alley or is it a major road? Then you go into different road features like potholes, cracking. When it comes to cracking, there's a lot of different types of cracking. I've taken some classes and so have my staff. you know, what you call delamination. You have a base pavement, and then you have a topping on top. Sometimes when you get cracks that look like spider webs, the top road is losing its bond with the base, and they're generalized cracks. It doesn't necessarily mean there's a substructure problem. where when you have like what they call alligator cracking, or you see it looks like an alligator's back, that's where below the surface actually failed. Now the whole road is getting ready to be a pothole. And there's about 10 different types of crack due to different reasons, but we go through that score sheet prioritizing, and at the end it totals up each road and gives it a score. Could you change the slide please, Amelia? So this is kind of the same thing. One thing for sure, number three, there's a couple roads in Richfield that did score high, but I know we're gonna do some proactive saddle replacement. So no sense in paving them right now until we get that work that's budgeted for this year done. And then once we have all those patches in the road, we'll mill it out and pave it. And there's two roads in Bayview Hills in the same way. And I'll go through it all and then I'll take some questions. You can switch the slide. So I have the data that supports this generalization, I'm going to call it, of the score sheets that you have in front of you. So if anyone wants to look through it, I can scan them and email them to anybody. But basically, the individual row sheets per year with each score are right here. And maybe we can follow up some of that. I'm behind on that getting it to you, but we need to get it to the public or any council members who want to see it. But what that individual school was spilled out was kind of a generalized condition that's up there.

Jay, I think we'll just distribute that to all the council members once you've got it ready.

Okay. You can change it. So 2019 we paved, 2020 we paved, and we haven't paved since until last year, 2025. And a lot of that was due to COVID. There was not a funding issue. It was just, we were at times not staffed all the way. There wasn't contractors. We didn't even have council meetings. So we paved last year and now we're paving this year. So some of that, I'm going to say three-year gap. Maybe it's on the next slide, if you can change it, Samilia. That's what we did in 2019. There's 2020 Bayview Hills, and it's in here, and it's documented in the surveys. So then we go from 20 to 25. So those three years, we did pave two alleys. It just didn't need an RFP. It didn't come in front of council. But for those three years, we kind of, let's say, banked the money. So this year's paving is the most expensive paving we've done in a while, which is 66,000 square yards, which is more than double we did in 2025. And if you can change the next one. So that's the process. And measuring each road and segment, I have to turn in a report every year to the State Highway Administration. And that spits out, they give a percentage by lineal foot of road by the width, and that spits out the... highway user revenue funds that we receive. So every town-owned road that we maintain, the state government gives us highway user revenue, which is the gas tax, if you will. So the amount of roads that we have is a direct correlation to how much funding we get. Now, they have recently reinstated. We get 100% of the funding. There were a few years, not this administration, but at the beginning of the last one in the prior administration where they cut that back to like 15%. But now it's back to 100%. But I'm just looking forward and have been through this decline and up in the way Maryland is trending. I can foresee that dropping off in the future. So these are some of the areas that we've scored. This is the first year I have William Varner, who's like asset management under me, and Donald Richardson. This is the first year I had them kind of do this on their own without me involved, beyond the fact of where to go in the process, because they need to step up and start taking over that task. So these are the roads that we're proposing to pave. We have a contract, we have a bid. It's the same paver we paved with last time, Calvert Ready Mix. They're $90,000 cheaper than anyone else. I'll be the first one to admit we had some issues with them last year. They got a little late start. They were paving into Thanksgiving, and there was a few weather issues, and there was a few coordination with the town. where they weren't as clear with their schedule and we couldn't be as clear to the citizens. So we've had a pow-wow. We've met with them. They have new field people. They're going to have a new manager out here and made it pretty clear of if we award a schedule, a timeline that we can put out to the residents because last year was kind of bounced around a little bit.

Did you have a discussion about...

Capacity manpower be able to handle this uptick that they say they do they they met all the criteria to submit the bid And that was an issue and I think it was more of an issue they bounced around and they had some equipment so I sat down with them, but we're gonna formalize before we award with them with some expectations and they're expected start times and stop times and

Yeah, I mean, I think Jamie, myself, John, like there was no traffic measures at all last year on Cox Road. It went way into the night. There was nothing there. It was almost an accident multiple times. It was a mess. I mean, I didn't see them taking any grades. So, like, I don't know how we're confirming that they're not altering the – The roadway like I mean sometimes the cheapest ain't the best but I agree like like you were uh It was it was a it was a mess last year Agreed and then there definitely were some traffic issues on the good part that we've initiated

within the last six years that we didn't do priors, we do have third-party inspections on what they mill out. We do after-the-fact cores. We have temperatures of the load. So we make sure they're putting back minimal two-inch depth. We make sure that they're milling the minimal two-inch depth. And then when they leave, we do cores. And then we get tickets from all the drivers from a third-party inspector that doesn't work for the paver. Which honestly is a big deal. There are some roads on here that were paving 20 years old. There are some roads in Richfield Station where we didn't have that implemented that we've already paved and aren't even 10 years old. So there is definitely means of control and checking on the contractor that you can get an old load of asphalt that's not hot and that makes all the difference in the world if there's not someone there checking it because I can't be there all the time. It pays to have a third-party inspector, and that's part of the RFPs that we put out now.

Does the RFP have work hours and project duration?

It doesn't, but it says the town's limits, right? So it's from 7 in the morning until 7 in the evening. They're not allowed to work holidays, but they are allowed to work weekends. So ideally, this is not drug out like it was before. We're getting a little bit earlier start. They didn't start till November last time. Hopefully we award next week and they can get started pretty soon. But yeah, basically in all the RFPs, it says follows the town schedule, which is seven to seven.

What about like duration, expected duration of start and completion for the entire?

Once they start the project, they have 120 days. four months. They'll be getting into winter before then. So the realistic expectation is about 45 to 60 days. And I will be the first one to admit they had that expectation last year too. And due to some of the reasons were not their fault, but due to some reasons, it dragged on in a few areas.

they didn't have so seven to seven it's well dark into the winter so you don't have any illuminated signs you don't have any like there's no traffic there's no paving ahead like all the things like it's like i mean and i know we need to tighten up just regardless with all the contractors i see that Do not put work ahead. Like these are, Sarah was talking, the hazards on the highway, that highway user fund. I mean, if we create hazardous things or if we don't supervise people doing work in the town correctly, you know, that falls back to us. I know that.

I agree. You're right. And they lacked, they had signage, but they definitely lacked after-hour lighting and different things last year that they're aware of this year.

Did we put it in the RFP? So if it's seven to seven, and then after sunset, is it required in there? It is. All traffic controls are required. I think, and in traffic controls, because I think some people couldn't even get into their place in Bayview Hills. Wasn't that an announcement? Didn't we have an announcement about it was some people that couldn't even get in Get home.

I'm not aware that they couldn't get home, but definitely while paving, there's going to be some times where they have to park other places and different things. I mean, it's not a convenient process, but I'm not aware of anyone that couldn't get to their house. I'm not going to say it didn't happen, but I'm not aware of that.

Okay, let's move on. Sure. Go ahead. Do you have something?

Yeah, how is this contract being paid? Is it a lump sum? Is it incremental? Is it per paved area?

So I can tell you how it's been in the past. It's by a certain amount of completion. Each section that they do is itemized out. I don't think it's every road, but it's not lump sum when they're done. They are paid in intervals as they complete. I would have to speak with Dan exactly how that works. But it's not when the job's entirely done, they get paid the whole thing. They will be paid as they go along as areas are complete.

So I would think that each road is listed out, and when that road's complete, then they get paid? Because that's how I would expect it to get paid.

It may not be per road, but it's like per section. So it's not every road that they do, but if there's five roads in this one area, that's part of the thing. When they complete that section, then they'll be paid for those five roads. It's not when they finish one road, they bill, finish the next road, they bill.

So in your planning, will you phase it based on groups of roads in an area? Yeah, so when... And then that will be priced out and...

Well, it's already been priced. Everything's already been priced.

Right. I know East Road has been priced, but then I guess the question is the schedule.

So normally what we do, we can suggest whatever, but when we meet with a contractor, once we award, we'll look at the logistics, any other details, and we'll set a schedule looking out for the entire plan so we know where they're going geographically, but that schedule is subject to change and weather and different things. But we'll sit once we award. We don't ask any paver in the RFP for the schedule up front. We just show them the roads. But when we meet the first time, They'll pick an area where they're going to start mill and then pave it before they leave and then go to the next place. But that's not set yet.

How many people gave a bid? You said 90,000.

I don't have that list in front of me, but I think we received nine bids back. I forget how many people were at the pre-bids, Amelia. I don't know if you remember that.

For general paving, we received four, well, Four firms attended the pre-bid meeting and we received four qualified proposals.

We might compare them. I mean, it might be we go with somebody else. I mean, there's a lot of paving here. If we had that many hassle on a few last year, it might work to see if we get a better vendor.

How can you, Halloween is on a Saturday, how can you ensure that not a single resident is inconvenienced on Halloween or can you even do that?

So holidays, like I said, last year was even Thanksgiving. That's definitely not a thing that we can do. So holidays are, it's in our thing, you're not allowed to work on the holidays. If it's a Saturday and it's not a holiday, they are allowed to work. But if it is a holiday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, I'm hoping we're done before Christmas, they are not allowed to work.

So Halloween, it's not like a federal holiday, so I don't know where that falls, but I would hope.

It's a Saturday.

No, I know it's a Saturday. It is. I don't know if it falls into the definition of the contract language. I think it's October 31st this year too. But since you have not signed the contract yet, if you could pay some special attention to our holidays and make sure nobody is inconvenienced and add that language as an addendum, I'm sure everybody would appreciate that.

Maybe not on the first birthday either. Yeah. 31st.

Eric's birthday, I want to be paving his road.

Now, now. And I do want to acknowledge what Dan said. You know, it is $90,000 savings, and there were some hiccups last year, and I know we have not gone with the lowest bidder before, because I'm the one going to be chasing around, making sure they're doing everything right. So... I think we're going to go with it now, but maybe if it's something or there's any other issues in the next time we do this review, we can have that notable. And I did consider that. I know Samilia brought up to me, hey, remember this, that, and that? So I had to powwow with them, but that is notable. If they don't perform, then this is their last chance for sure.

I mean, if we don't approve it, then I guess it gets us to use someone else, right? I mean, I don't know. We're late in the year to get started. I mean, I don't know. I'd like to see the other bidders.

I have two more questions on this, if you don't mind. Sure. So the one question has to do with life cycle, and is there anywhere in here that you – and help us understand what the life cycle, how many times we should be doing this over and over again. And I'll just, maybe I can press my questions together and see if you can answer them. This is highway user funds. You know the Walkable Community Advisory Group is also in, you know, wanting of the highway user funds for our projects. And there are a lot of projects that residents have been anticipating for a long time that would benefit from the highway user funds. So I see the prioritization of the roads, but I also see in the budget we have a million dollars projected out every single year in paving. And so my question is, how can we kind of bring some more things into the prioritization of those funds? And you can answer now, but I know that this is an on-the-spot question that I don't expect a super elaborate answer, but something that I want you to think about.

No, and I appreciate that, and I think I can. So life cycle, good example. If we pave every 20 years, it's five times a century. If we pave every 25, it's four times a century, right? If you Google or chat GPT or residential neighborhood, it's 15 to 20 years is a pretty long life. Last year was a pretty hard winter. We had a lot of freezing temperatures, a lot of different conditions, but That's a perfect example, and I think I referenced before, like we try to keep our trucks ten years versus the county, which is seven, and the state, which is five, because any time you can get two years more, it adds up eventually. It makes sense. But it's kind of like an asphalt shingle roof. If you wait too long... Now you have substructure problems that end up costing you more money. So it's a fine line, but I definitely do not anticipate next year being as expensive as this year just by the road sheets. I think we're in an anomaly. We're catching up from COVID when we didn't pave, but I would say this will probably be the most expensive paving we're going to do in the foreseeable future for sure. Next year would be half the monetary value and half the paving project in my mind just by looking at the road sheets and what's left. Now, once we pave or once we fix the saddles, I'm leaving money in that budget to make those paving improvements because that's not coming out of highway user revenue. That's a utility fund thing that they wouldn't pay specifically anyway. We get through that, I think next year we're going to be back in the normal ranges where we were, $350,000, $400,000. And you are correct, highway user revenue can go if it's sidewalk on a parallel road to a town road or a road we maintain within the town, but it's not eligible for every project that we may look at. If it doesn't parallel a town-maintained road, then it's not eligible for HUR funding, if that answers it.

I read something a little bit different, so maybe we can just review all the things that can be used. But, yeah, I appreciate that answer. Thank you.

And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that we're in catch-up mode because of COVID and everything else, right? A little bit, yes.

Yeah. We did. I was speaking earlier. I think we did put out an RFP during the first part of COVID, but couldn't get a contractor to perform, which is picking up. Last year was a lot of that, but this year is actually two pieces of that, too. If there's no other questions, I wanted to...

speak to um violytics which is here so i have one question for you go ahead go ahead so just i just want for for clarity's sake um on slide 11 where you have the i guess they're that's the schedule of values breakout basically or sections broken out, whether it's phasing or whatever it is there. In one, I believe on the following slide, slide 12, is this slide supposed to be detailing area number one in the previous slide? The reason I'm asking is because, if you could go back to the previous slide real quick, the bubble number one does not encompass Richfield Station, but when you go through the list, there is roads, or there are roads from Richfield Station on here, Greenspring, Greenspring Drive, if Streamwalk is... And Richfield Station. So I just wanted to confirm that bubble one does not encompass the entire area that you intend to pave in that phase. Is that correct?

Correct. And I wouldn't, those are kind of geographical areas, not necessarily phase one, phase two, phase three, but correct. Okay.

So I have just a laying out of things. So we have the, you were saying a prolonged closure at F Street and 260 starting after the summer. Correct? For the sewer? A prolonged closure of a lane on 260 and F Street.

Possibly. We're looking at trying to do it trenchless repairs. I've had two different contractors trying to give me bids on it. But if not, yes, it's going to be a prolonged F Street closure. Okay.

So with the paving schedule that it is, and Sarah talking that, I want to make sure that we are – getting the proper permits for our Christmas lights that we put on the state highway. I don't know if we have done that in the past. I'm not sure why we're not protecting our Christmas lights with GFI protection. We spent over $100,000 on new Christmas displays because of the other ones there. But I see people walk across all the time, people with dogs, children, walk across these courts with the lights on, and there is no GFI protection around our town hall. Veterans Park, all the different areas. Like the inconvenience of resetting a GFI versus having to say, man, I wish someone would have brought this to my attention. I'd rather have the inconvenience of resetting a GFI than worry about shocking somebody. So where are we at with that?

That's a good point. Thank you for bringing that up, and we'll take care of that.

We're going to get a permit for the lights because, like, I don't think we're supposed to have blue and red. I don't think we're supposed to have blue and red flashing lights on the state highway.

I thought we were talking about paving.

We were. We're talking about inconveniencing the roadways, right? So I brought up the F Street because we're having paving, the roadways to get around, and then I brought up other things that are going to be happening at that same time as the paving.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Violytics.

Thank you. So, violytics, it's... There's a lot of things. And, Mayor, you remember your first administration. We tried to incorporate a GIS system for the town for a lot of infrastructure, a lot of things I oversee and manage that would help in all these situations. So, violytics is a... A couple of you guys met them at MML, suggested they come out here, which they did. They did a presentation. I'm not going to steal their thunder, but they're going to show you what it does for road signs, capturing stuff with AI. But it also is going to allow us to capture a lot of assets that are on our roads. I was going through some today. Just... and I'm only gonna be a minute before you guys can get up here, but just between our valves, manhole, fire hydrants, blow-offs, air release, irrigation heads, storm drain inlets, I'm up to 1,340 assets that are from the road. That's not including our meters, any of our wet wells, our towers, our lights, our signs. So a way to move forward that's going to give the town some redundancy and not a bunch of institutional knowledge is capture this stuff. It's hard enough to manage when it's all in your head, but for budgeting and management we need to start capturing it so we know how many we have, how we can budget, how we can get them on a register, and we can start proactively looking ahead and be a lot more reactive than I'm sorry, proactive than reactive. And how you do that is, first we got to do is capture in a format that we can use so we can all see it and we can click on an asset and say, we have 1,470 signs, traffic related. We have 600 street signs. We have to start somewhere. So this is a good intro for them. We've met and we've sat behind the scenes. I think their main thing is AI and reading road assessments. So it's no longer like a score sheet and a guy riding around. This technology can do that for us and a lot of other things. So I'm gonna turn it over to them.

Thanks, Jay.

Sure.

Good evening, counsel. Good evening.

Your name, sir?

Excuse me?

Your name?

Sure. My name is Daniel Laufer. I'm a senior manager at Violytics. I'm one of the founding members of the software here for Violytics Americas US. I'm joined here by one of our customer success managers, Abby Wester, originally a Maryland native. And again, thanks for having me. I met with Jay, Dr. Arpodu previously. I got to even drive some of your streets. So I'm just going to give you a brief breakdown on Vialytics, how the technology works. I'll go through some of the deliverables that we'll be working with in tandem with Jay and his team here in the township. Then, of course, hope to answer any questions. There are some familiar faces from Maryland Municipal League. It's great to see you all again as well. Let me just get my cell phone locked here. Sorry about that. And we are at the right screen here perfectly. So before I jump into the deck that I prepared, Violytics. So what we're doing is we're using AI for road and asset management. At our core, we started as a tool that was used. It was designed to invent, to replace traditional legacy ways of collecting road condition data, infrastructure data that was typically done by engineers or public works supervisors. spending a tremendous amount of time doing very lengthy visual and subjective surveys. So the way that Violytics works, we're simply actually an iPhone application, so there are no sensors, hardware being installed on any of your vehicles or around town. We're just going to take an iPhone, mount it to the windshield of any of your municipal vehicles, and start the application. As you drive, the application is going to take a picture of the right of way every 10 to 12 feet. And the form of AI that we're using is visual search, image recognition. The AI is going to deliver an engineer grade surface level assessment of the road. So the AI will identify up to 16 types of distress by severity, not only on a segment level, but on an individual latitude longitudinal level. The AI is also going to automatically generate an inventory and assess damage to assets such as street signs, manholes, storm drains, and pavement markings. And we continue to improve the AI, introducing new models to address other critical infrastructure and assets within the right-of-way as well. A little bit about the company, the technology, the background. We were founded back in 2018 over in Stuttgart, Germany. Our research and development is still done over there. Very much a brainchild of German auto innovation. Two of our main investors being the Volkswagen Group and Scania Truck Manufacturer. We incorporated up in Edison, New Jersey, March, April of 2023. give and take three-plus years. We've been able to grow very, very quickly. Our technology is agnostic to the size, the complexity of the road network. We have towns, boroughs here in the U.S. using Violytics that are managing four to ten centerline miles of road, but also major county cities that are managing 1,000-plus centerline miles. Here in Maryland, we're already working with municipalities such as Cumberland, Brunswick, Elkton, Laurel, Somerset, soon be launching with Chevy Chase Village. So again, continuing to grow as a very easy-to-use, cost-efficient technology that is going to transform the way that we're managing roads, which is kind of why I'm standing here today to talk about road management. So typically, the way that we've been managing our roads and developing a treatment plan on an annual basis has been done via visual survey, where again, whether we're investing in an engineer to go out and do a full assessment report of each segment, or what I like to call playing pothole whack-a-mole after each of our winters. Again, we're developing our treatment plans on a very subjective nature, and then typically relying on a long-term plan that we're sticking to. But the reality is that the condition of our roads is changing far more frequently, especially from all of these different micro events that are affecting the conditions of our roads on an annual basis. whether it's from extreme weather, freeze and thaw, which is an increasing occurrence here on the Western Shore. You have an increase of heavy truck traffic due to commercial or residential development. So again, the condition of our roads are changing even after we invest these initial capital dollars to replace them where the way we manage our roads need to transform. If we want to be truly proactive, the way that we do that is by assessing our roads more frequently. So by being able to, again, just mount a phone in the windshield of a vehicle, we can assess the roads on a more frequent basis, to identify damage in its early onset and interject with more a cost-efficient preservation maintenance strategy rather than, as Jay mentioned before, waiting for roads to become mission critical and then investing significant capital dollars, you know, to fully replace whether, you know, it's a full resurfacing. We even have to do a full depth replacement. This year specifically, we're going to be spending the most amount of money in a very long time to resurface and replace roads. That doesn't buy us a license to then neglect those roads for the next five to ten years. What we want to do is assess those roads on a continuous basis to identify damage in its early onset. and invest in far more cost-efficient preventative maintenance before again waiting for these roads to become critical. A key example, and Abby can even speak to this a little bit later, but up in Brunswick, Maryland, just this year they invested in a crack-sealing machine because there was true objective data to back the ROI on the investment. This is a dominant distress that we're seeing across our road network. And this is the amount of years of remaining service life that we can inject back into our road network by investing in these treatments. Any questions so far for the group? Awesome. So a little bit away, just the way the technology works. Again, incredibly simple. It's just a mobile phone application. Top speed is around 40 miles an hour. We just want clear roads, good lighting, and a clean windshield. And this is an illustration of how the AI works. So you do not see this as you drive. It would be quite the driving hazard. But again, we can just drive. It's going to take that picture every 10 to 12 feet. The images are uploading into the cloud and the AI is going to process each of these images. We are an unlimited user technology. So many municipalities, many of our partners, data is being collected on an ongoing basis so that we can use these images, these condition assessments as frames of reference going back in time as well.

So as I'm watching here, There's a lot of our roads that don't have any lines. We don't have where stop signs are. There's no white line there. I mean, how is that going to detect? Is it still going to show that there's a platform where it's missing? Is it measuring the width of the roadways? I mean, this is... I mean, that is almost 40 miles an hour that's going there. Major intersections and stuff like that. So what's this, Brunswick?

So these images were actually taken from around the Pittsburgh area.

Pittsburgh? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that area is...

So the way that our AI works is the reason that our top speed is around 40 miles an hour is that is the top speed that the iPhone can maintain a quality clear picture of the right of way. So that's all that we need for our AI to work its magic is that clear picture of the right of way. Once we have that picture, we have individual models that are trained to assess, again, not only what is asphalt, but what is good asphalt, what is distressed within the asphalt, and what is the severity of that distress. There's also individual models that, again, were modeled for MUTCD street signs and detecting damage to those assets as well. And these models are also going to ignore, in certain cases even blur out, for privacy sakes, different areas of the images as well.

I saw some shading on the shoulder. So is it picking up failing shoulders?

So if the distress on the shoulder falls into the category of the engineering report, then yes. So if there is instance cracking, an edge rupture, if there is alligator cracking, if there is previous patchwork that's failing, the AI will pick it up. If it's not part of what would be a... Right there, see, like where it's leaning, so... So if it's, essentially, the AI will detect if it's paved, and then if it's paved, it will be able to do a condition assessment. So another use case that we've talked about is being able to do some of your bike trails, parking lots. Essentially, our AI can run its models on any paved surface as well. So we can also even mount the phone onto a bicycle handlebars, a golf cart, an electric PD bike.

Yes. Because on Bayside Road, which is, is that a county road? Jay, Bayside Road, like some of our shoulders there are not in the best of shape.

Mm-hmm. So this system is going to give you a full objective breakdown on a segment and point level. And then you'll be able to filter by roads that are state, county, your own, filter by, again, what may be a main artery, what might be an alleyway, what might be a more less heavy trafficked road. This will give you a really objective data-driven breakdown into where distress exists and what areas of the neighborhood as well. that sure looks like a good tool yep one other key benefit and i'll just mention as well is jay talked about asset management so in addition to establishing a true gis database of where all your assets assets exist we're also going to hopefully be doing away with a lot of emails text messaging paperwork that goes into managing our work orders and our day-to-day asset management. So built into the technology is very easy to use mobile applications that will allow very easy communication of this is where our assets exists. These are the work orders that are tied into managing these individual assets. So on January 1st of every month, it isn't a responsive list of work orders of these are things that we have to do. It's a list of a digital list of these are assets that we own that require their lifecycle maintenance this month, whether it's a vehicle, whether it's a beachside asset, whether it's a crosswalk. whether it's in one of your parks or on your bike trails. This is a tool that's evolved into a full public works operations platform that's powered by the AI that we use from those road condition assessments. He mentioned this that is important to mention in all meetings. We're taking a lot of images of the right of way from condition assessments and from asset management. The very first process that all of our images go through is a full privacy scrub of all faces, license plates. We've even started to work on cats and dogs because of some new legislation they're talking about in Europe. Via Lytics, we maintain full GDPR compliance, so that's the European level of data privacy. We're never showing live location of the users, and again, we're scrubbing all personal items that may pop up in the images. Any questions so far, or just to talk into some of the other features that exist in the technology?

Is this a yearly subscription?

Yes, Councilman. Yes, sir.

And what's the price for a yearly subscription, or is it based on user license, or is it based on roadways?

Sure. It's based on the total number of centerline miles that are under jurisdiction by the town. There's unlimited user licenses and unlimited use and unlimited support as well, which we'll talk about in just a moment.

We don't have no lines on the road, so we get a discount for them? Right.

It's the, by center line, it refers to not linear miles by lane. It's just. I got you. Yes.

So when you say unlimited user licenses, does that mean the whole town can have a user license? Yep.

Well, hopefully they would be a town employee, but yes, correct. Each town employee can have their own license with their own role and permission designed for whether they're managing stormwater, street signs, parks, or administrator level like Jay might have, but correct.

I guess when you mount your application on, I guess, the public works vehicles... You do that once to do a survey? Is that how this works? Or is it a permanent mount?

So there's nothing special about the mount. We're going to give you just a regular phone mount that will mount the phone in the windshield. There's this little smart button that will help you use the application while you're driving so you don't take your hands off the steering wheel. But our technology is truly just an iPhone app. Like you would download the Domino's app onto your phone. You just download the app. You click just maybe four times on the screen. You start to drive. It's going to automatically take pictures every 10 to 12 feet. There's nothing else you have to do. There isn't anything proprietary about the mount or about the iPhone. So if you have an iPhone 14 and up, you can download our app onto your own phones. And again, many of our partners have phones mounted on a daily basis on a street sweeper, sanitation vehicle. a supervisor's truck, which is already on that static route. Again, this is going to be a way to not only create updated condition data of your roads, but also a key benefit is replacing Google Earth as a true source of what your right-of-way looks like. So a true-life use case of our technology is we're about to repave 38 individual segments. So after a full network assessment, we'll be able to track individually the performance of those segments after that work has been complete. So we don't have to drive every single road every single day. We'll be able to drive individual segments of road to create very objective before and after data of this was the condition before the contractor started his work, including citizens that will say, you damaged the apron on my driveway. My mailbox is now knocked over. This is a way to create updated condition data before and after. And that goes for contractor work. Again, extreme weather, which has become a very important use case here in the Northeast. In Indiana, where there's a lot of commercial development, whether it's from data centers or growing towns, we have many counties that have received funds back from the DOT because they've been able to show objective data on damage that was caused when they detoured heavy truck traffic as well.

So with, I'm sorry. So one, believe it or not, complaint we get is like trash. Like, so are trash people have this?

The trash people can absolutely have a phone up in the windshield of their trash tuck and use the button and tag any issues they see within the right of way.

This person didn't have a trash can out, everybody getting emails and stuff like that.

We don't have any AI models that are associated with trash collection, but those images that are taken can be used for that purpose. Absolutely. And that is a benefit of that data collection.

i do have a excuse me a minute here go ahead i just want to interject really quickly and then i would yield the mic to lori who wasn't finished with her questions i don't believe um i just quickly wanted to make sure that the council was aware the idea is that we're moving from like disparate management of road conditions to something that a technology that will allow us to be more proactive with how we maintain the roads but also be able to be more accountable to the council and community when it comes to why we're making certain decisions around paving moving forward. So the idea is that the technology would be employed by the town staff to make sure that we're able to provide that information. Because right now, everything is tracked really by hand, pen and paper. And so there's an opportunity for us to just modernize the way we manage our roads. So that's the larger picture behind it all. And then Councilwoman.

Before you go ahead, I mean, in my mind, this really streamlines the process. I remember, what, almost two years ago when we were looking at an alternative, and it was very, very labor-intensive. This is not labor-intensive. You just drive, and then you have the data. And so that, to me, speaks volumes. And, Laura, you wanted to say something?

Sure. So I also see the value in this. I can see some concerns, too, so I'm just going to ask about both. Please. So you said something I think would put a lot of people's mind at ease, and what you said is that you scrub faces, you scrub, I guess, movement data. License plates.

License plates.

I'm sorry, say it again.

Faces or license plates, faces, and in many cases now even cats and dogs as well.

Okay. And so you scrub that for all the data going out after you collect it? This is...

Sure. So essentially the phone, we're going to be taking pictures using the iPhone camera, and those pictures are going to upload into the cloud, just like any data you would collect with a mobile phone. When those images hit our cloud, the very first process they go through is that privacy scrub of those faces license plates. So us as an organization, we don't even see them either. They're fully scrubbed.

Okay.

So, okay, so that means this Violytics has its own cloud, correct?

We use AWS GovCloud. So Amazon Web Services is our cloud provider, and then we use what's called AWS GovCloud, so we're using their U.S. public sector service. It's the same cloud provider that a county or any large government administration would use.

I guess my question is, who can get into your cloud? Can only you get into your cloud? Or is your cloud open to other data collectors?

Sure. So all of the data is that it is not open source data at all. The township you own, part of our GDPR compliance is the municipality owns the data that's collected. So ViaLytics does not do anything with the data that is collected other than the AI scanning of the images. And we use an element of what's called machine learning. So the AI will continue to improve as you collect more images. But nothing is done with the data that is collected.

I did a little search here. Does that answer the question?

Maybe, but I might follow up a little bit offline. Sure.

As a software company, so the way data is stored is there might be a local network where you have data stored, or you're using one of the major cloud providers, which you might use Microsoft or Amazon Web Services. And then within Amazon Web Services, You know, there are different options for software companies. So the one that we use is AWS GovCloud. So we do not store any of the data. Amazon stores it for us. We pay a premium for it. We have all of the protections of Amazon, all of their usage rates, their service limitations in terms of their usage time, their uptime, things of that nature. So we don't manage the cloud, if you will. It's not accessible by really anyone.

Gotcha. And I guess my comment is I see the value in this type of technology. I struggle with why AI is actually needed rather than a closed program. But it does look like you are developing an excellent product. And if it has the right data conservation measures around it, because you can pull a lot of data, you can load a lot of data, all of it's not always that necessary. That would be the type of thing that I would be researching offline because I know you can't answer it now. But I do think you are developing a useful product.

So what you're kind of talking about is, like, why wouldn't we have an on-prem service versus in the cloud? Well, I think it was we started looking at, like, real-time and then time savings. Yeah. Pretty much everybody's going away from on-prem and cloud services. Even our financial sector is heavily transitioning right now. There's huge migrations to cloud services. On-prem is extremely expensive to maintain, very arduous. And you could almost argue that the cloud services have higher protections oftentimes than our on-prem services because they're accessible to anybody who has access to a facility and can stick a USB drive into it. So I get what you're saying because I think the key is, I think where you answered it was if you don't have access, if it's ours and in the contract it states that it's our own data and Violetics does not have access to leverage the data and we're using AWS Gov, in my opinion, then I'm pretty comfortable because then that would be what all the services are.

And I will say we're used by major counties, DOTs, federal application. They use Violytics to survey the runways at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. So there's a lot of different applications that are all using the same security and safety parameters protocols that are around.

What I wanted to add earlier was just when me and Anthony, we met at MML, and we saw this use case, and really what sold us was the fact that he just said, well, you could just toss a couple iPhones onto all of our town vehicles, like everything that we have. We even asked maybe we could mount it to the police patrols, or not their patrols, but their little... UTV or ATV that they have and they're running around on some of the walkability paths and and then the cost is is I'm not going to spoil it because I know you guys think you said you'll get to that maybe or we'll talk about that, but it's pretty It's pretty reasonable And did you have anything else yeah, I think what Laurie was saying I was kind of piggybacking on that and

Yeah, I think, and something Anthony, me and him, messaged and discussed earlier this week, I think how we enter into these contracts and the data, I mean, big scrutiny at hand, and justifiably so, is the flock safety. And their platform and your platform are both AI, but I think... job for us is to make sure that entering into this we're looking out for uh safety it seems that that's what there's uh your company has taken that measure but i think making sure that we're aligned on that as a council and not rushing to that is probably the best

Yeah, I just want to talk about the same thing that Laurie brought up. I think what we're saying, but we're not actually directly saying it, is that the original images with the people's faces and the license plate and personal information and all that stuff will exist somewhere, and the person who has those images, or not the person, the entity, would be Amazon. Yeah.

Sure. So before the image enters the cloud, there is a model that identifies a face and then scrubs it. So anyone that access, if you were to log into Violytics, there is no, that image does not exist with a face in it.

As the end user, but that original data exists.

I believe that's not what he said.

No, after the image is taken, you can drive, let's say, 10 pictures. Once that picture uploads, there is a model that is run on that image that erases the face, the license plate, and cats and dogs, which were started.

If I understand it correctly, that means that while you have that information in the iPhone, It never gets stored at the destination with those images. Correct.

Do I have that correct? Correct.

There's no access to the image before it gets scrubbed. Eric, I think what you're saying is once the image is sent in, it's scrubbed, the original image is deleted.

Right, as it's entered.

Yeah, but the original, after it goes to the monitor.

There would be a stage right after it's taken before it gets scrubbed where that picture exists on the cloud or on the phone, but there isn't access to that image.

It has to get dumped at some point. The amount of data you would use would be insane.

What's the management of a public information request for these images? If somebody said, I want to put a request in for the recording, how does that process work?

So there, I can even jump back a little bit. So when you log into Vialytics, you'll be introduced to a heat map of your streets based on the most recent condition assessment.

I was speaking for a member of the public, not for me. Yes. So a member of the public.

Correct. So the image is each of those dots. that are color-coded are going to be the individual images that were taken by the iPhone corresponding with an image of the right-of-way associated with the condition of the asphalt at that location. So if someone were to file an OPRA request, it would come from this information if they wanted to know the condition of a road at a certain time or date. If they were looking for something personal within one of the images, there would be nothing there because all of that personal data is already scrubbed.

And I think that what I'm hearing from my council members is a concern for privacy. And I believe, if I'm hearing you correctly, and I know, Anthony, you and Jamie had a chance to talk more about this at the convention, but what I believe I'm hearing you say is that data is never stored in your system. That personal data is never stored in your system. It gets scrubbed as it's delivered. Correct. And true.

As a European-based organization, even though we're incorporated here in the US, we aren't required to maintain GDPR compliance. If you're like Google is not required to scrub faces within the right of way, you have to submit a request in order to scrub your house, your face, your license plate. We are ahead of that by being GDPR compliant, which is the European level of data privacy. It doesn't get more data private than the processes and protocols that we have in place.

And so if someone wanted to fuzz out their house, they're allowed to submit a form to do that?

They could submit a request to our mapping provider and have that image scrubbed out, correct? We aren't the mapping provider within our system, but they can submit a request to OpenStreetMap, which is our mapping provider, to do that.

And I'd like to try to move our meeting along. You've been very helpful and very good at your explanations. I think that... I just got one more. Okay.

That would be helpful. Is this the last one, Jamie? Yeah, my last one. So you talked about leveraging machine learning. Are you guys going to introduce like leveraging generative so that you, Jay, and maybe the staff can have a conversation with the roads and conditions to understand a little bit better?

Can you just repeat the question one more time? I'm sorry.

So you guys had mentioned that you're leveraging machine learning models to analyze the data, analyze imagery. But are you looking at injecting generative AI so that the public works could have a conversation with the data to maybe ask others? Yeah. Sure. So it's more like from a company perspective. Are you guys in that perspective, that route, or – We definitely have had – I'll actually let Abby speak to it a little bit.

She has a lot of communication with all of our partners here in Maryland and the Northeast.

Yeah. Hi, I'm Abby. I'm the customer success manager in the Northeast. But, yes, there has been a discussion within our product team to work towards a chat feature where you can kind of work with the data that we've already collected and create plans with it going forward. Okay.

If we do come to fruition and get this passed, I would very much love to maybe have a conversation with Sam and see if we could be maybe a test case for that, if you guys go that route.

Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Thank you.

I think that this has been very informative. And is there something else you wanted to say, Jay?

to reach the end of your presentation.

There's some other really cool features I could just run through real quick, and I don't want to take too much of your time. So for all manhole and storm drains, it's going to create inventory. It's also going to assess if any of those assets are raised or lowered relative to surface of the asphalt. So benefit of doing a pre-winter drive is so your plows don't hit any outsticking manholes or storm drains. After a road is resurfaced, we want to ensure those assets are then reset level with the asphalt as well. We're also going to create inventory of all of your MUTCD traffic signs. The AI is also going to detect if the sign is faded, if it's dirty, if it has stickers or graffiti on it, or if it's becoming hidden by a tree branch as well. There's also our newest model that we have is identifying damaged pavement markings, so damaged crosswalks, lane markings, things of that nature as well. You'll also have the ability to use our technology to open manage any other asset within the right-of-way, whether it's beachside, in your parks, or even here in the building. From a treatment planning perspective, you'll be able to put in your annual budgets, your expected treatment costs for upcoming projects. The AI will give you some recommendations of where you might want to do pothole patching, crack sealing, resurfacing, and then you'll be able to build out a multi-year treatment plan using the data that's collected and understanding if we need to adjust that plan on an annual basis, how is that, again, going to work with our budget year over year. Last but not least, just talking about our customer success, we pride ourselves on not just being a software company that, you know, sign up for, bring donuts on the first day. Abby and her team, we come here in person from training from day one, and then there's ongoing support. We will be here in person as often as necessary to ensure that the software can be accepted by all your Public Works users. Abby will work with your team on individualized trainings, use cases so that, again, this can be worked as a full public works operations for the entire city. And that's it. Thank you all for your time this evening. I appreciate it.

Yes, I can just add mayor. So I know it does all the road stuff and that's great. We need to get it done. But one of the things is myself, 20 years of institutional knowledge. If something breaks in town, I don't care where it's at. You tell me it's two streets. I'll be like, okay, close 3741. I just know it. It's not anywhere that exists except on some papers stapled together. We scan them and I have an iPad for the emergency response personnel who's leash. You can zoom in and try to read this piece of paper. When we first looked at GIS, I knew the amount of manpower it would take town staff to go out and locate all those attributes. So there's no way we could have done it without inundating the staff. This picks up every attribute in the road. So every valve and 90% of them are in our road. Every manhole, 90% of them are in our road. So this will pick it up, populate it. Now all we always have to do is take our plans and label it. That's... Easy, right? It's already on the map, so I'm not going to be here forever. The other person, DJ, is not going to be here. All that knowledge has to be for the next people on something usable. And this is very simple to populate. Anything we want to add to that attribute, internal notes like, hey, on this day we went down, there was this. It's there forever. Everything that's happened in this town for 20 years is here, and I need to get it out. Literally. That is true. So I know it does the road scoring, and believe me, that's worth its value to me alone. But the bigger thing is just like, I mean, no one in town knows how many Hall of Fame lights we have. We've got seven cabinets. No one knows how they're even fed. We never got a final plan from Streetscape. It's all up here. So that's easily captured because when it drives by, we're going to cabinet one. All right, what lights does it feed? Cabinet 1A. So anyone can step in here and say, that lights out. It's fed from this panel. Here's the feed. Here's the source. Here's the billing number for the B, G, and E. It's all out there. We just got to get it. And it sounds like this is a doable system that's going to populate a lot of it itself. And we just have to name it. So I just want to throw that out there.

You said on one of your slides, too, before that last, it populates with GIS. So we don't have GIS. So will this be a template to upload to GIS?

So our web system will be your GIS. It will serve as your GIS tool. So you won't have to subscribe to any other software. All of that data will be housed there as well.

It might be nice to compare the prices of them too. I think that's where the noticeable savings would be.

Yeah. So we were waiting for you to be able to present the price?

Oh, sure. So we are, as I mentioned, annual subscription based on total number of centerline miles with unlimited users, unlimited use. It comes out to just under $2,500 annually, all in, for all the AI, all the use, all the software. And then there is a one-time setup fee of $1,900 just year one to get started, and that includes all the in-person training and then ongoing support. There is no nickel-diming. That's your fee for the entire year. And then it's also you have an opt-in agreement every year. So at the end of year one, if you decide, hey, it's not for us, no foul, you'll have that full penalty-free opt-in for year two at that same price.

I think the only exception was we'd have to buy the phones, correct?

So you can choose to get the phones from us or you can use your own, either or.

Because I remember they said that they had that, and there's only iOS, right?

You have to purchase something. Thank you for that question. It's important to note, for the condition assessments, at the moment, that is iPhone only, just because we know what camera quality we're getting. But for all the work order asset management, it's called the Violytics to-do app. That is iPhone and Android. It works on pretty much any mobile device.

One of our council members has an Android phone. Yeah, it's gross. We don't judge. Thank you, sir. This has been very informative. We appreciate it. Thank you both for being here tonight. This looks very interesting. And we appreciate your taking the time and effort to come here and make the presentation. And you made it very clear. So thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. And if you want to slide out, you're welcome to. All right. Next thing on the agenda is we're down to five agenda items for consideration. And Samilia is going to tell us about council chamber media update, and there's a purchase order involved.

Yep. So these items are things that are affordable. Four here that are going to come before you all next Thursday's council meeting. So we're going to give you high-level overviews of what to expect for the things that you don't already know about and an opportunity to ask more detailed questions with the hope that when it comes time for voting, it'll be more streamlined. So the first item is council chamber media update.

We don't have the screen back.

Well, it wouldn't be on this screen. This is on the agenda. Okay. But thank you for flagging that the screens were off. The proposal is overall to help us improve the audiovisual capabilities within the chambers. So it's audio, video, broadcasting, and control infrastructure to provide clear, reliable, and accessible public meetings for both in-person and remote audiences. The integrated system will also improve the quality of public meeting record and simplifying meeting operations for town staff, reducing the technical challenges and the need for manual intervention So it will make the process more efficient. This is everything being presented are already items that have been budgeted. I'm going to skip over the truck purchase because I will turn that over to Jay to provide an eye-level overview.

Can I ask a question about the media thing?

Yeah.

Do you want to summarize at the end? You can ask a question. And maybe Wendy can chime in if she wants. So we had set up a portal a few months ago for an ADA questionnaire. Will this allow that? So like the transcript, will everything kind of be recorded? well how will it be monitored so if someone's not able to be here or someone that has a uh like whatever death or like how they can like interact too you know what i mean if somebody's not able to monitor it on this then uh well will somebody be monitoring it on this end from for all the meetings so like the public

But greatly, there will not be lines connected to lines wrapping all the way around the room. It will allow for the Zoom call to be on the screen. So you'll be able to see and they will also be able to see you.

It's just it's going to make this be like a recorded Zoom call like.

If a person's not able to be in the room, we will be able to allow them to make public comment via or speak to you guys via the Zoom call, and they will be able to see you, and you will be able to see them. At this time, it's a little difficult to connect together, but it works.

Okay, no problem. And we'll just kind of have one public comment, and then we'll just have a check or something like that before we move on or something like that? Is that what we're doing?

You're meaning if someone right now, the process is if someone wants to make a public comment and they're not able to come in person, they submit a request by a certain time. And then we we set up the equipment via Zoom for them to do that. But they can't they can only see one direction if we the way we have the system now. And you all can't see them if they were to join the call. Like everyone would be looking at trying to look at a computer screen that's face turned around. Right. So the idea is that we're modernizing the equipment to allow for that to happen more seamlessly. So it's not that someone would just join online and necessarily say, hey, I have a public comment. We would have to look at that process as a whole, but it would streamline the way that public comments are managed because right now, it's really clunky if someone were to call in via Zoom to make a public comment.

It would definitely look like it was a whole process to get it there. And then the person, I guess, wasn't available or something like that. But it would pop up from your research. It would pop up. There's a queue for public comment on the agenda, a queue for public comment or something like that.

It was something that was publicized in that fashion. In that particular instance, it was somebody that notified us in advance that they wanted to make a public comment, so they had a link to that specific meeting. It wasn't something that was publicized. It was just given to them. But yes, you can leave them in a waiting room and invite them into the room once the public comment portion...

Let me point out that what we're using now for the most part is equipment that was installed in this building when it was rebuilt. And that, I think, was over 20 years ago. And so we're talking about some really antique equipment in this room. And I know that Wendy, who is very good with technology, you know, has indicated that there's a lot better things available for us that make the meetings more accessible. And that's a good move on your part leaving.

I think she's put almost a year into this project. I mean, I know she's mentioned it to me before. I mean, like, I think... Is there a camera for the person to...

So there are three cameras on the quote, and one of them would be facing this way. It's kind of awkward to say it right now since that is currently the view, but this is not the most flattering look for the person standing at the podium. So wanting to be able to, particularly when you guys are interviewing candidates for boards or similar, having the residents be able to see the sincerity on their face and all of those things.

The view from our side also, yeah.

Right, right, precisely. And again, this is not a flattering look.

And what would be really nice would be if we could hear up here a little bit better what's going on.

It's also included in there. You'll see there's two speakers. They're kind of wedge-like speakers because you guys need a specific kind up there so that your microphones don't pick up the audio. But, yeah, interesting, there's not a single speaker up there. Exactly.

Sam, you've seen the X Factor. Is there a possibility we get buttons and stuff?

You know, I didn't get a price for that. I could definitely have it revised to include that.

I had asked Alyssa... to confirm whether or not virtual attendance for council members was actually codified or not. She's doing some research because she thinks it might actually be potentially authorized because they were maybe doing it during COVID. But if not, this might be an opportunity for us to say that we probably want to update our code because the technology now would allow us to attend virtually. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. That makes a whole lot of sense.

Yeah, I guess in... Are we doing December meeting the third Thursday or are we doing it the second Thursday?

I will follow up with you offline.

Okay. Great. Just one question. Is this the only quote for the work? Yes.

They're an existing vendor for us.

Okay, so then if there are no more questions about the AV, I'm just going to move over to the two RFPs, which you've already had now because we've talked about it last month. But if there are existing questions about paving or the rail trail expansion, now would be a good time to ask them.

Well, I just had the same question for the truck. Is this the only quote?

We're not at the truck yet. Oh, I thought you said. If there's no more, then I will yield it to Jay. He will give you an overview of the truck. Pick on Eric.

Do you mind if I are we still going to use the actual projector screens? Are we going to move into monitors? Mm-hmm. Are we going to keep the screens? Okay.

You're just going to repeat that so it goes into the feed. It's okay. There's no plan right now to update the projectors because they are fairly new. So we will continue to use what we have now when it comes to the projectors in the room.

Maybe next year. I was thinking we might move to monitors instead of projector screens, but that's fine.

Okay.

I'm just asking.

Good question. All right.

And now, Jay, can you give an overview of the track?

So there is not. We did have three competitive quotes for this truck, and it was actually Dan Baden, our treasurer, who had experience and said this company, because it's not local, although we did price out some local. This is actually sistered onto a government contract that gives us a cheaper price by $4,000. That information will be in your packet I submit next week. So we did get quotes. When I went to Dan with those, and actually it was Donald under me that did that, Dan said, did you check out this company on the eastern shore, which we didn't. And they're sistered in on the state contract that gave us the cheapest price, but that will all be explained in your council packet before we go to approve next week.

Can we please have those quotes in the packet? Yes.

All of them, you're saying? All that we received?

If we got three quotes and then this is a fourth, then, yeah, all four. Yeah, sure.

Good. All right. Next. RFP. I'm sorry, you have a question?

A comment, a question on these two topics. I know we need to upgrade. No doubt we need to upgrade everything here. If there is some assurance you can provide that the price that you have asked us to approve is reasonable, that would be useful in our packet. And then on the trucks, I'll just have to say, Jay, thank you for doing the paving and giving the overview and taking that initiative. You know I'm always looking for operational knowledge from you. So I would say like for the fleet one day when you're bored, which will maybe never happen, but I would be interested in understanding your fleet.

Sure. I will say this, and I should have said it already. This is replacing a 10-year-old truck that we currently have.

You did, yeah.

Okay. But yeah, that's a good...

I'm not questioning this purchase.

Understood. I would like to have a discussion with council here. So with the roadways and right-of-ways, the parking, the narrowness of a lot of our roads, I had put together a dormant-by-design parking plan. To go through each area of town to assess and to address things As we've heard like pavements once every 15 years or so in here the Uniformity of a lot of the roadways Isn't done It was pave the easy spot. Not all roadways in the assessment, we should... I'm going to make the case that we press pause on this because if we go methodically through, we can kind of map out sections of town and saying, hey, this area here... These are no parking spot because there's obstruction in the way, but we can create a uniformity to the right-of-way space. We go through the process because we will increase the impervious surface, but we can also check the grading and the stormwater runoff. There's... I think I discussed it being a few million dollars, and this is $1 million for just repaving. But we could improve and provide more parking for residents. Some places just need to be widened. We don't have sidewalks on our side streets. We have a few sidewalks through town I Think on the state highways their sidewalks on gorgeous tenet Rowlands, I think there might be one on 17th Street, but there's not a lot of sidewalks So, so I think There's a way for us to, considering this hasn't been done in a long time, there's a way for us to improve and evaluate versus just doing it. I mean, this is, I guess, one of the largest paving things we did, but not addressing things that... I believe are going to really come back to haunt us, especially when the water park opens. I mean, this section of town here, people are going to park on this section here. And if we don't evaluate the streets and areas, then we can't create a parking policy. So a dormant by design is not very flashy, but If there's a problematic street, the people who live on that street call in and they can activate the parking policy for that street. I think it would... It might not seem to be a big deal, but I think it would address... Issues such as ADU, if you have a problematic people and there's way more parking at one place, there's a parking policy that is designed and ready to be activated to kind of assist and not be reactive but proactive in its approach. And I think we're missing an opportunity on kind of addressing that In this paving project, we're just going back over with what's there. So I know I met with the mayor, Samilia and Jay in March about this, and it wasn't brought to my attention that we were having such a large paving project, which kind of lined with a lot of the things that I was proposing. So I just...

I ask you, let me ask a follow-up. So... It sounds like two initiatives you just described. One is the paving project that we would need to do because I would then get concerned that we get behind. And then Lori had also brought up a good question about how many years do we have, like a million-something dollars. So if we just kick the can, is it going to be a million plus whatever we would do next year? It's even larger. But it sounds like this would be we pave the roads that need to be paved, and then you're proposing an initiative where we would fund – a study of some sort to validate something to say if we need to pave more? They're just going over current road infrastructure. You're talking about potentially adding widening roads and stuff, which would be new infrastructure, right?

So there's a whole application process. I think, and Jay, definitely correct me if... I'm misspeaking on this, but for the past 25 years, the roads, very much the way that they were paved and how the width and all that stuff has been milled and repaved and kind of generally matched. And some adjustments here. additional impervious here there's an application process when you have to increase the impervious space and uh and and there's some requirements there but by having the narrow roads and they're not even running straight right um you know your neighborhood had a a plan for the roads to be there our comprehensive plan I think I looked at the one from 1970s, put that task on the town to create a uniform roadways. And we haven't done that.

I think to follow up what you're saying, Jamie, what we're doing now is like scheduled maintenance on existing roads, which is eligible for a highway user revenue funds, which we get from the gas tax. And if I'm hearing you right, what you're saying is true. There are other areas in town, but that's more of a, logistics and attorneys and how we get that property back and people's sheds are in a town where that's more of a administrative process to figure that out if we decide to do that as a town. I've been down that road a little bit. I think it's very complex in certain areas. You can spend 100 grand in attorney fees on both sides and get nowhere. If it was simple, I think we would have done it. I just don't think it's that simple. I don't disagree. It's out there. But it's like to solve it with this is not the answer. It's not how we use the revenue. We've got roads we already own we've got to take care of. And that's an initiative, if you want to pick up, see if the council's on board and figure out how we do that. But I will tell you this, it's not an easy path when you have structures and alleys and, like you said, stuff from the 30s and 40s that exist in a paper town road.

It's not at all. It's not. I think this section here, right? So from here, I think we have a block over. We have an alley. This road's not too bad. What's it, 26th here? So 26th is almost there, right? We could have a sample street and then people like an easy sample street. So that would be like, oh, wow. That's not bad, and it might be other town residents are more willing to work with us for this to be resolved. I know that certain areas over in B Street, 15th Street, 14th Street, waterfront side there. It is very...

adjustment it goes that entire area just goes back in ancient history for the town the campgrounds is what that was known as originally and I mean that's just south of where I live and I don't know what could be done because the houses are close together and they're close to the street and it's just the property and there's not a lot of extra room there it's not built by today's standards And so I don't know if anything could be done. Jay, what do you think?

I recognize those conditions exist, and they were here when I moved the town in the late 80s. So I'm not saying they don't exist. I just don't think there's a wave the wand cure. And with respect, you're saying we can do it, we can do it. Well, who's we?

We as an elected body, we as a town, we as a...

I get it, but who's the we? You make the decision to do it, but who's the staff or the entity? And maybe it is something you have to fund. Maybe it is attorneys. Maybe it's the council.

We as a town, the town residents, the town staff, the elected body, we as a whole say, hey... We're trying to address something, I think, forthcoming straight forward. I think people will rise to the occasion. I know that there's going to be some problematic areas, but I think avoiding items, you know, not everyone will be happy, but I think for the most part, I mean, get a good 60% happy, we're winning.

Well, I think specifically talking about what I know is the campgrounds, Wendy just dropped the hammer. Does that mean we need to quit? But those streets are steep. They're narrow. There's no room to expand the streets. And there's no funding for it. I mean, what we're talking about doing now is with something that we have funding for. And so while I think you've pointed out a need, I don't know that there's any, I can't conceive of any solution to that at the present time. But if we can come up with some solutions, then we can consider it. But I don't know where we could, I mean, I don't know how we could afford to do it, and I don't know where we could find the money to do it. And then once, even if you did that, you probably would be infringing on the people's property to widen the streets. And they're already small lots. They're small lots compared to the newer subdivisions have a lot greater space required for each lot. They're not jammed together like they are in that area.

100%. And I think maybe what I didn't communicate in March, right, is that at no point am I thinking that there is a solution on some of these. The solution is to equally evaluate the roads. then to take the findings to there, and because I would have an encompassed full town survey, right, where this road's here, this here, this is what our plan of action would be, at that point, I could create the dormant by design parking. So where... residents on just 16th Street, you know, where 17th and B, there's like, we have a little parking spot there, which is kind of people mostly respect for the residents there. But if we didn't go through the entire town, then we can't create that dormant by design. And it's not flashy to have a dormant by design. But if ADUs, if a rental, if we're... having more people come to town with the water park, being able to say, man, I came home from work and there's nowhere to park at. And 50% of the people on the road say that. They can say, we want to go ahead and activate parking on our street And they activate it. So we're 15th Street. Everybody was parking there. I got feedback from one of the residents there. They're like, well, parking's not that much of an issue, but there's a little bit of a hazard going on with climbing over an obstacle. It probably needs to be discussed, but... there's no parking for anyone but the people that live there. And then you might have one person that has four or five cars. We could say you get X amount of road frontage, you get X amount of parking here, and then there's 10 guest spots. You know what I mean?

Can I interject?

Mm-hmm.

I think that, to your point, this is a part of a larger discussion regarding the parking study, like a proper parking study that would need to be budgeted for. And so the only reason why I'm bringing that up is that while those things need to be done, I don't think it is a one-to-one comparison with what we're talking about now, only because it's not that we could take the funds that we have for paving and instead apply it to a parking study because these funds have to be used in a specific way. So I think that your concern and the conversation that you're bringing up is valid, specifically when we move into the budgeting time because that's when we would be able to make sure that we've allocated the funds. But not funding the paving that's currently before you now is not going to free up the funds that are currently assigned for this work.

Right, and that's what I'm saying. I did bring this up before the funding, you know what I mean? And, like, that was a very – it's been something I've talked about since the beginning. Sure. Like, nothing's more frustrating than coming home. I have parking spots at my house, but – So many people, like, there's maybe some agreement that this person knows that that's a parking spot. You go to visit somebody, you don't know that. I went to Cheryl Henley's house, come out, and the neighbor's yelling at me. I'm like, dude, I didn't know that was your parking spot. You don't want to park in somebody's. But if it's not identified, you know what I mean? And it is just street parking. So I don't know. I think that there's... There's one of the things that people might not even be, they complain, but what do they do about it? You know, it's even this. It is an undertaking, but. Okay.

All right. Anybody have anything else? Is there a motion for adjournment?

Yeah. Oh, come on, Eric. I'm sorry. Just one comment. Paving RFP. Well, actually, two. The memorandum has that ready mix bid amount is $915,770. But on their actual proposal, it's $965,000. Is that, am I missing something?

I'll have to go back and review it. But go ahead, Jay, unless you want to.

I didn't catch that discrepancy, but I'm going to look into it.

Okay. And then... Thank you, Harry. And then also, just for records purposes, for the packet, for the meeting, can we have the bid proposals so that we can see...

Specifically for paving?

Paving and for the trail trail design.

You want them in the printed packet?

Yes, please.

All right. It's a large. How much is our tree city going to burn in paper?

Is there a summary?

Can we get an electronic version?

I just need. I'm just looking for something like...

The technical... Like, is there just...

I don't need the whole thing. Okay.

Yeah, we can get back to you.

If it's like the total bid page and then maybe just a blurb that the scope is covered by that bid or not covered by that bid.

Okay, so... You know what I mean? Yes. I do.

Looks like it's a... All right. Two companies. The company...

The rail trail?

I mean, I think it's coming to us.

Next. Like what the technical recommendation was and why, the justification behind it? Oh, no.

No, I had, I sent my questions, and if the questions remain, I'll ask them later. But I'm just curious where my colleagues are on that.

In September correct yes for vote Yeah, I mean I mean I'll no surprise this type of conversation that you got you this is more of a council I will just say publicly that I support this project, and I always have supported this project But I do want to see what the bids are Yeah, Laurie. I'm in support as well Okay anything else

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor, aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you all. Good meeting.