Board of Managers - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded. Welcome to the May meeting. And thank you all, staff, for participating in the dog party. It was a huge success. If you don't know about it, it was a big success. Doggy. What was it called?

Possum playtime. Yeah. It's a mouthful.

And I think we need to do it as much as possible to be continued.

To be continued.

Okay, first thing on the agenda, we're gonna approve the minutes of the previous meetings, the regular meeting and the 112th Annual Meeting. Does anyone have a motion on that?

I move to approve the minutes of the Monthly Meeting.

held on April 13, 2026, and the Village Annual Meeting held on April 20, 2026.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And we have two people online, maybe, David and Lou?

Yes. Yeah, I'm on.

OK, I hear David. Yeah. Lou has a cold. I hope he gets well soon. I'm here.

yes hi next thing on the agenda is the treasurer's report i have nothing to add to the written report okay great so the next item is uh we have some contract authorizations so i'm actually gonna go ahead and start on the refuse and recycling just because um we've got some some bouncing balls here and i'll help to just kind of get us all straight rather than having um jackie do this for you i just want to applaud jackie for getting this contract together because historically the village has bid out a single contract for refuse and recycling collection together with what is commonly referred to as the roloff dumpster that is um situated in the public works yard here at the village hall property We utilize that dumpster both for the trash disposal, for the trash that is accumulated here in the Village Hall, as well as the special pickups that our Public Works team collects from Village households. Due to some complications with the roll-off contract, we decided to split those contracts up. And so Jackie did great work in separating out the IFB so that we could bid those two contracts separately. So what we're bringing to you this evening is solely the refuse and recycling collection. We will come back to you in June with a recommendation for the award for the roll-off contract. But just to explain the thinking behind why that has been split up.

I have a quick question. Sure. For those special pickups, they just automatically go to landfill? Correct. You don't try to sort things out?

No, no. We have gotten requests over the years to do that because, frankly, there are many items that we pick up that are still in relatively good condition. But if a resident is eager to get, you know, something off of their property because they're selling or, you know, they just don't want to hang on to it. many times it can just go out to the curb or go outside for a special pickup because that's just the easiest way to get rid of it since we do that program weekly.

We should tell people that Green Drop picks up on Wednesdays as well and they will take it to charity.

Thank you. That's helpful. We can certainly increase our noticing of that. It's also why we have our spring event to collect items and so forth. But we have found that in trying to go through those items, number one, if we do it at you know, the curbside or at the property, it slows down the overall collection to do that. Secondly, the items have sat out. Sometimes they've been rained on or otherwise damaged. And then once they come back here to the village hall to go into the dumpster, again, it would be a slowing of the overall process to try to sort through the items before they go into the dumpster. So we have just found that the most efficient process is simply just to deposit everything into the dumpster without really going through and making any judgment calls about items that might have been, for instance, eligible for recycling or maybe eligible for a donation organization, things of that nature. But glad to hear that we maybe have another option that we can help to elevate with residents that might just be as easy as calling in for a special pickup. So we'll try to elevate that. So for the refuse and recycling recommendation, you will see that staff is actually not recommending the lowest bidder. And I wanted to just provide a little bit of background and explanation for why that is. So for the invitation for bids that Jacqueline posted, we received a total of three bids. Yeah. Of the two bids, one is our current contractor, but who has only been our current contractor for a limited timeframe because they actually bought our contract from the prior contractor, who is actually who we're recommending that we go with. The other bidder on the contract, as I said, is who we're recommending that we go with, which is GCI Residential. That company, gci or good companies has been the village's refuse and recycling collection contractor now for decades but under various different names so you may have heard of unity you may have just heard of good disposal and recycling this company has had various different names and iterations over the years they're now called gci residential so when we received the bids from Waste Management, the current contractor, and from GCI Residential because our current contract had been sold by the prior good company to Waste Management. We were confused as to why they were now bidding on our contract. I spoke with the owner last week who confirmed that they were looking to do some contract reorganization internally. Unfortunately, through an administrative error, our residential collection contract was swept into a contract sale over to waste management that was supposed to solely be for commercial contracts. So they actually had not intended for our contract to get wrapped up in that. One of the things that some of the longer serving board members may have heard me say over the years, while we have always been very happy with the front facing or the public facing side of this refuse and recycling contract, We have dealt for years with concerns on the administrative side, on the contract management in office side of things. And I think this is indicative of that. They do very good work when it comes to the public facing side. Unfortunately, we can have some challenges and difficulties on the administrative side that we deal with. That's okay. Our ultimate goal is we want to continue to provide a service that is positive and is well received by the village public. And so in speaking with the owner of GCI Residential, he confirmed that it had always been their intention to maintain our residential contract. And they would certainly, through their submission of the bid, would like to be able to continue to do that. You may also notice on the spreadsheet that Jackie put together that was in your briefing packet that has a comparison of the submitted bids. I asked Jackie to include what we are currently paying for refuse and recycling. One of the things that you will see there that frankly we've never seen when we've put out an IFB for any contract is that two of the bids actually came in lower than what we are paying today. I'm sorry, all three of the bids came in lower than what we are paying today. for recycling collection. So today we are paying 15,900 a month for recycling collection. All three bids came in lower than that, including GCI Residential, which came in at 9,900. Again, when I spoke to the owner of GCI Residential last week, essentially what he explained is that all of their companies do an actuarial analysis of the cost for collection. Of course, they had clear data for us because not only had they continued as a subcontractor performing the current contract and had our experience, they are also the owner and operator of the recycling facility where our recyclables are transported to in Capitol Heights in Prince George's County. So they were able to do an actuarial analysis and determine that they could bring the cost down, that basically the cost of performing this contract was not as expensive as certainly it had grown to be in recent years and as it's currently placed. So they came back with a bid that would save us quite a bit on a monthly basis. So if we go with GCI residential, albeit technically not the current contractor, but the current subcontractor, we will maintain the current crew, They will maintain the current vehicles that come in to the village. There will be no change for our residents in their recycling processes or habits. One of the concerns that I had with the bid from waste management, who's technically the current contractor, their bid actually would be to subcontract our contract out to another company who has not had collection experience here in the Montgomery County area. Although they are cheaper, they would also be taking our recyclables to a different recycling facility. Even though it would still be single stream recycling, so our residents would still only have to use one container, it is possible that by going to a different recycling facility, they may have different recycling policies, requirements, and protocols that would then require us to do reeducation of our residents. not an insurmountable task certainly for us but i don't but i don't think that the lower bid between these two vendors warrants going through that process of having having to re-educate our residents on recycling requirements protocols etc so the bottom line is that by going with staff's recommendation you will essentially be maintaining status quo service delivery But at a lower price than we pay today on the recycling side, if we go with waste management, which is the lower bidder, not staff's recommendation, yes, it would be less cost, but there would potentially be changes on the service delivery side, both from there being different personnel as well as our recycling going to a different facility.

Yeah. No, thank you for figuring all that out. I think we're happy with the people we have.

Yeah. and maintain the status quo.

Yeah.

So, Shana, is the savings of $6,000 because they own the site?

They prefer...

I mean, I find that amazing.

Well, it's not just because they own the facility. It's that they did an analysis of the cost of our recyclables. So one of the things that the owner told me is that there is very good compliance here in the village. He said that we're one of the best communities they collect from, from a standpoint of accurate and clean recyclables. That makes their jobs easier because they're not dealing with contaminants. They're not having to dispose of recycling loads because they've been contaminated. So he said that clearly we've been doing good education, that we have very good compliance from village residents. And so he said when they ran the numbers, they simply just determined that this amount that they've bid right sizes the cost for collecting the recycling. I have not yet. I wanted to wait and allow the board to make your decision before. Got it. You can even pass along the good news if you'd like.

Okay. So does anyone have any more questions on this or do we have a motion to authorize this?

I'll move to authorize the Village Manager to enter into a contract in substantially the form provided and subject to review by the Village Council with GCI Residential Incorporated for the performance of refuse and recycling collection services for an initial term of three years with the option to extend the contract for up to two additional one-year terms. Second.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

And I hear the ayes on the... Thank you. So the next contract is the sidewalk maintenance.

Yes. What I'm bringing before you is the contract extension for Scango Consulting, which does business as Capital Hardscapes. And they finally finished their first initial three-year part of the contract, and we are now requesting a one-year, first of their one-year extensions. We've been very satisfied with their work. And they basically, they help out Public Works when Public Works is too busy or the job may be too big. We use Capital Hardscapes to fix the sidewalks. They just finished last week, 4,000 block of Oliver. And they're starting tomorrow morning from 138 Grafton out to Wisconsin Avenue. They'll be making that a safer section of sidewalk. So what we're requesting is to be able to extend their contract for another year.

Okay.

Can I hear a motion on that? Exercising the birth to two one year contract extension options for sidewalk services with scandal consulting.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, good. So next is the tree maintenance services.

Yes. So Davy Tree Expert Company doing our tree maintenance services part of the contract. They finished their initial three years and we are requesting an extension of one year on their contract also. We've been very happy with their work. When we call them, they're able to get out here. They've helped us a lot during some of these storms we've had, getting roads reopened, trees cleaned up, such like that. Awesome.

Yep. I'll just say they are one of the most responsive contractors we have. We've been very happy with them.

Good. I move to authorize the village manager to execute a letter exercising the first of two one-year contract extension options. for tree maintenance services with the Daily Tree Expert Company. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. So next we have purchase authorizations. Please, please, please.

Okay, so thank you. So in the latest budget, we are marked for replacements for the two of the older hybrids. Much like last year, we will be replacing one with a fully electric vehicle blazer and another with a Ford hybrid utility. So both are on contracts. One is Maryland State Police, the other is a Howard County contract. So we are asking for the expenses for one not to exceed $52,000 and for the Ford, I believe it's not to exceed 50,000 for both from Bertrick, both had the cheaper contracts this year.

Okay. Is anyone here?

You may have said this and I just missed it. Which of the two is the fully electric one? The Blazer. That would be the 52. That's the marked.

That will be the unmarked. That will be unmarked. I'm sorry, it's unmarked. I apologize. Unmarked is the cheaper, the 50,000. Yeah, my apologies. I got it crossed.

Any questions or is there a motion?

I move to authorize the village manager to purchase a replacement fully outfitted marked cruiser in an amount not to exceed $52,000 and fully outfitted unmarked cruiser in an amount not to exceed $50,000, both from Pertrick Fleet Services as funded in the fiscal year 2027 capital budget. Okay.

okay all in favor and that motion passes and now we go back to public works we have a leaf vacuum and a pickup truck uh yes so the leaf vacuum that we had back in 2015 that we had purchased had a catastrophic engine failure in 2025 so we had to do leaf collection with only one leaf vac last year so we were requesting the purchase of a new leaf vac in the FY27 budget in the amount of $94,000. So this is the tow behind the vacuum.

No, this would have been well past the warranty. It was originally purchased in 2015. So it had originally been scheduled for replacement and I think originally in FY27. Yes, it was originally for FY27, yes. And we had hoped that we could have limped it along for an additional fall, this past fall of FY26, but calendar year 2025. Unfortunately, it was irreparable damage that we just could not get it fixed and operational again. So as Jackie said, we limped along this past leaf season. There is a big lead time to get these leaf vacuums. So that's why we're bringing this to the board now in hopes that we will be able to actually have it in service by the time we start leaf collection operations in late October, early November.

Sounds good.

I'm sorry, correction. We approved 94,000 in the CIP, but we only need 93,500.

I see that in the draft motion, and I was going to say, where's that $500 coming from? Maybe you'll just have to collect. While you're collecting leaves, you pass the cup for $500. No, thank you for the clarification. Does anyone?

And if the board would like, we can go ahead and also do the explanation for the Public Works truck. And then if someone's willing to do a single motion to vote, we can do that.

Sure, that works. Love to hear about the truck.

OK. so um we we are requesting uh to purchase a 2026 chevy silverado fully outfitted um and we were given a price of approximately 72 000 which we approved were approved for 78 000 so we're actually saving 6 300. uh we were able to sell the last two pickup trucks on municipal for $15,000 each. And at this time, the Public Works pickup trucks still are not, they aren't, the technology isn't there yet for battery powered trucks. So we're still going with the gasoline powered until something does come along that they can handle the type of work that we do.

And I can say I have gone to the exhibitor floor at the ICMA and MML conferences each year. Anthony has spoken to the various different vendors. While the technology has come along enough to support our use of electric vehicles for police functions, the principal public works function that continues to be the hurdle for us in going to electric is our snow removal operations. because we use our pickup trucks as the primary vehicles to support snow clearing operations, they just don't have the battery. And we deploy our trucks throughout the event. We don't have downtime for our trucks to the extent that they would need to be able to sufficiently charge. So with the power that is needed to run the salt spreaders and the plows and to go for the length of time, and because they're working in very cold conditions, which tends to drain these electric vehicles' batteries even more, the technology is just not at the place yet for switching to electric. But we'll keep on trying.

All right, so we need a dual motion then. You could.

I need to authorize the .

all in favor okay got some trucks so now we're on to Commission and committee matters got some appointments that can all be done together I'm sure so it's basically two series of appointments here one would be to add miss Leonard as one of the board liaisons to the ad hoc friendship height sector plan committee as you will hear Thursday night at your special meeting we are hot and heavy in the process for that plan. And so having some additional board support from Ms. Leonard would be really beneficial to continuing that committee's momentum. And then we have two appointments for these, sorry, I took these in reverse order, two appointments for the Friends of Western Grove Park. That committee is actually looking to get a little bit more engaged and they have been in recent years number one in regard to increased uses of the park there's also some efforts but that could lead to potential expansion of the children's play area in that space as well as that committee is also paying attention to and monitoring the Friendship Heights sector plan to the extent that some of the recommendations in that plan may have impacts on access to and use of Western Grove And so two names have been forwarded from the committee for appointment, Benjamin Pape of Cedar Parkway and John Philbin on Grove Street. Essentially, Mr. Philbin would be filling the place of a former resident in that block directly abutting the park who served in the role of having eyes and ears on the park. So this will leave us with two official committee members who live adjacent to the park serving on that committee.

Thank you. Nice to have more volunteers. Who wants to make a motion? to appoint these nice people.

Present company included.

I move to appoint Benjamin Pape of Cedar Parkway and John Philbin of Grove Street as members of the Friends of Western Grove Park. I also move to appoint Melissa Leonard to serve as board liaison to the Ad Hoc Friendship Heights Sector Plan Committee. Second.

OK, all in favor? Great. We did it. And now we move to the police report.

All right. Hello again. I'll be brief. We had one theft of a street sign, Montgomery Street at Oliver Street. Had some teenagers that thought it looked like a good collectible and took it down and fled towards Oliver, or on Oliver towards Wisconsin. I was back on the 1st of April. Guess I thought it was a good April Fool's kind of thing to do. On the 5th, we had a stolen auto on the unit block of Penrose. There were two gray SUVs in the area. They stopped. I'm not quite sure how they figured out that that was the one vehicle that had its key fob inside the vehicle. So they got out, got in the car, started it, did more like a four or five point U-turn and took off down Connecticut. So that's all that we have crime-wise. We still have one opening. That person is in the last stages, in the psychological and the polygraph stages. So we're hoping good thoughts for this, that we'll have that filled pretty soon. Never too early to plug National Night Out on August 4th. I've been working with the Public Safety Committee. We have another meeting on the 20th, I think, that we're going to try to step it up and really start to build this event together. We also have a meeting on May 28th with the Traffic Committee who have been looking at long-standing complaints and issues from Primrose Street. I know there's some long-standing concerns about speed or congestion in that area. So we've been looking at traffic studies, convening and passing some communications some of the residents there, so we're going to have a broader meeting on May 28th here at the Village Hall to look at any possible steps forward and get the traffic committee's recommendations. And that's it, unless anyone has questions or concerns.

Thank you very much. Manager's report.

Yeah, so just a scheduling reminder that you all will be convening a special meeting this coming Thursday at 7.30 to hear a report from the Ad Hoc Friendship High Sector Plan Committee. The goal of this meeting will be for the board to determine what position you will be taking on the planning department's preliminary recommendations so that the village board's position can then be transmitted back to the planning department as they further amend draft plan which will be then represented to the public as a staff draft scheduled for meetings now in june um also wanted to note that um village council is joining us virtually this evening because um she is finalizing preparations for our hearing tomorrow morning before the maryland public service commission on the uh streetlight case As you all know, this has been many years issue that we've been fighting with PEPCO to acquire a path forward for our purchase and ownership of the Streetlight Network. There are two outstanding issues related to those negotiations. And so we've gone back to the Maryland Public Service Commission and asked for them to decide on these two outstanding matters. So Sue Ellen will be representing not only the village, but five other municipalities in Montgomery and Prince George's County at the hearing tomorrow. And so as of right now, the way that the Public Service Commission's meeting procedures operate, it's unclear if they will render a decision tomorrow as a part of the hearing or if they will wait and issue a decision, a written decision after the meeting. So hopefully we'll have actual news. Certainly we should have some insights into the way that they're leaning by the time the hearing is done tomorrow, but we're hopeful decision and then Sue Ellen and I have talked about the need once this is officially concluded that we will then need to report out to our fellow municipalities who have not been formal parties to this case to make sure that the other municipalities across Montgomery and Prince George's County as well as their county governments who would also be benefiting from these decisions are fully aware of the traction that we have made of what the process and policies are that have been agreed to in hopes that everyone can then begin their process for owning and operating their own streetlight network. So more to come on that, including we will have more formal presentations to the board about moving forward with that because we don't want to predispose what the board's position on this may be, but at least we will have the ability to own them, but what the board may decide to do is still subject to further conversations later in the year. So just wanted to give you an update about that. Public Works has completed stump grinding work. The delivery of spring tree plantings arrived tomorrow. and they will immediately begin getting those into the ground. Once that is completed, we'll then of course be on watering of the tree stock. They will get back to some sidewalk repair work, and we also will be making, Public Works will be making repairs to the timber curb that goes along the Brookville Road sidewalk. The state highway trucks during the winter snow event really damage several sections of the timber curve along Brookville Road. So Public Works will be replacing several sections of that timber curve once they have wrapped up spring tree planting. So nothing else to add, Lester, any questions?

No, thank you. And thank you to, Sue Ellen is listening in?

Yes.

Yes, thank you for your work on the streetlights. So, gosh.

Gary. To make room for the Thursday meeting, I move to adjourn this meeting.

Okay. All in favor? Great. Thank you.

Thank you. That was quick.