Board of Managers - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

You can see on the agenda, prior to this, our monthly meeting, the Chairman Case Village Board of Managers convened in closed session beginning at 7.15 p.m. here in Village Hall pursuant to section 3-305 of the General Provisions Article Annotated Code of Maryland to discuss personnel matters that affect specific individuals.

The board members in attendance voted unanimously. to approve monetary bonuses for specific administrative and public works personnel for outstanding performance.

So we did that. And now we will do the oath of office. Yes.

So we have three court members who are being sworn in this year. And so we have Mr. Karnas here. Oh, yeah. So the court, the county, here to do that ceremony for us on behalf of Karen Bichelle, the clerk of the court.

If it's all good, madam, Elisa Leonard and Nancy Waters can stand up. And basically you're gonna raise your right hand and when I say Swear, you can say swear or affirm. Okay, please raise your right hands. I. I solemnly swear. I solemnly swear. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. And bear true allegiance to the state of Maryland.

And bear true allegiance to the state of Maryland.

And support the Constitution and laws thereof, And that I will, to the best of my skill and judgment, diligently and faithfully, without partiality or prejudice, execute the office of board member according to the constitution and laws of this state. All right, if Mr. Goleman could step over here, please, to sign the book. You're first. It's all in alphabetical order.

I'm behind you. Are you guys behind me?

Yeah, we're behind you.

Very nice.

Oh, sure.

Thank you very much.

You can sign right there if you set the sign there.

I'm sorry. You good?

As long as you sign it right there, please.

Can I go sign it while you're at it?

That's fine, yeah. Sure.

With pleasure.

and also the 9,400th civil ceremony.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you very much for coming down. Congratulations. Thanks so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. So the next thing on the agenda is the election officers um do i have a motion to propose this i move um eliza leonard is here the morrisburg has placed here so i'll do the secretary gary croft is treasurer and needs to order this and use the assistant secretary. Oh yes, I'm sorry, Linda Willard as assistant secretary. Second?

All in favor?

Great, so we have the status quo here. We can move to the next thing on the agenda, which is the approval of the minutes of the two meetings, the regular board meeting May 11 and the special board meetings on May 14th and May 26th.

So these have been circulated.

If you have any questions or comments. I move to approve the minutes of the Board of Managers regular monthly meeting held on May 11th, 2026. The special board meetings held on May 14th, 2026 and May 26th, 2026. As drafted. All in favor? Okay, so the minutes are approved. So following that virtual special board meeting on May 26th, the board issued a letter to Montgomery County Planning Department staff outlining our position and concerns with the planning staff's preliminary recommendations for the sector plan. This letter was posted on the Village website and circulated to residents. And the board letter was also sent to the leadership of the Chippewa Chase Land Company, CCLC, who have accepted our invitation for members of the board to meet with CCLC leadership to discuss their plans for the two sites, the collection and the former Fifth Avenue, Texas Avenue, so that we can further explain our community concerns. This meeting will be held in late June, and we'll have more to report, obviously, next month. In the interim, Village staff has prepared a recommendation for a land planner to work with the board staff and the ad hoc committee going forward and we're gonna discuss that later this evening. Residents should continue to write to the planning staff and always copy Village Manager Shana Davis-Cook for our records. As a reminder, the planning department will release its next round of recommendations tomorrow evening, June 9th, in person at the Wisconsin Place Community Recreation Center in French and Heights, and the same presentation will be given during a virtual session on Thursday, June 11th. The virtual session will be recorded, and we're going to post the link of the video on our website. And there's going to be more information at the back of the room. So that's the update on that meeting. And definitely, tomorrow night's recommendations will precipitate a flurry of interest and activity.

But next we can go to the treasurer's report. That's it to add to the written report.

And now we can go to appeals, special permit and variance requests.

So I'm gonna be presenting these two appeals this evening, which are relatively straightforward and aligned with the board's case precedents. So the first case is 6108 Western Avenue. Applicants are Ms. Patricia McCrustell and Christopher Babbitt. They are applying for a special permit to install a black PVC coated wire mesh fence with a wood post measuring a maximum height of eight feet in the rear yard to deter deer. The proposed fencing would go around what is essentially a garden plot and it's centralized in the backyard. But every county actually officially refers to this as deer fence. We do not have a separate definition for deer fence within our building code. But essentially, this fencing would be located between an existing pergola that exists in the rear yard of this property and the house itself, where, again, it would be a garden that this would be surrounding to deter deer from entering. So if you go back to the prior slide, Jennifer, thank you. So you'll see in figure two, this is a view of the property from Nevada Avenue. So you can see that from that frontage, you really would not be able to see the proposed fence. Also, because this is a corner lot, it also angles in from East Lenox Street. We also provided your view of the property from East Lenox. You can see the existing pergola. In the rear yard, this fencing would be inside of that, on the house side of that, and so it would be very difficult to see even from that vantage point. And as you can see from the Western Avenue frontage, it would also be almost impossible to see as well. This assembly of fencing, if it were to be classified as a structure, actually complies with all of the setbacks for a structure, and the applicants received letters of consent from the two abutting properties at 110 East Lenox Street and 6100 Western Avenue. That is what allows the board to consider this as a special permit request as opposed to as a variance because the applicants were able to receive those letters of consent from the neighbors. In regard to covenant compliance, covenant compliance is not required for fencing and the board has at least three case precedents for allowing an eight foot high or greater fence in a side or rear yard, and one example actually of a fence that was approved while exceeding eight feet at a total max height of 11 feet nine inches.

So this is also aligned with that.

We have not received, other than the two letters of consent from the adjoining neighbors, we have not received any other letters of support or objection from other neighbors. I don't know if, are you the applicant? No, okay. It may be on the virtual feed if you have any questions for them.

Does any board member have any questions about this hearing? Does any board member have?

I move to approve the special permit or question case A8841 on the basis that the evidence presented, including the staff report and case synopsis, demonstrates that the applicable requirements for the approval of the special permit have been met. The staff is directed to draft a decision based on the sentence, including findings of facts and conclusions, approving the special permit.

Second. Okay, Alan Behmer? Aye. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to the second case to add to patch 5516 Cedar Parkway. This is a variance request filed by Mr. Paul Joseph Smith III and I believe it's pronounced Dara Chase Egan. They are relatively new residents of this property and they are proposing to install a front portico. The existing house does not have a covering or front portico over it and they are proposing to expand the entry walkway up to the house. As you can see, there is not an elevated stoop or elevated entry at this house. And so the applicants are proposing to expand that at-grade walkway area in front of the house and to build a portico that would measure four feet, six inches by 10 feet, nine inches. In regard to covenant compliance, the covenants for this property are unique made a 15-foot front setback, and so there is no encroachment forward of that covenant setback. The village arborist has assessed the proposed work and has issued a tree preservation plan. The project is part of, the portico is part of a larger project that will also include side and rear additions at this property. At this time, everything that has been submitted to our office appears to be in compliance for issuance of an administrative building permit for those other components. As a part of that larger review, our consulting civil engineer will review the project for stormwater management compliance as well. The proposed portico is of comparable dimensions to other front porticos that the board has approved prior variances for. And so this is consistent with case precedent and as was noted, there is not a covenant compliance issue either. To date, we have not received any letters in support or in opposition, sorry, excuse me. We have received one letter of support from one of the abutting neighbors. We have not received any statements in opposition from any of the neighbors.

If I may say, I live across from this property, and my wife and I submitted that letter of support, and I'm going to recuse myself on this hearing issue.

Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or a motion on this?

I move to approve the variance request in case A8844 on the basis that the evidence presented, including the staff report in case synopsis trim, demonstrates that the applicable requirements for approval of the variance have been met. Staff is directed to draft a decision based on this evidence, including findings of fact and conclusions approving the variance.

Okay, all in favor? All right, so six in favor and one abstentions. Thank you. All right, thank you all very much. So now we have a discussion on... Oh, yeah.

yeah so this is uh what's before you is resolution number zero six zero one two six which would be the fourth amendment to the budget that the board approved uh last april april 2025 i should be more specific and what we're proposing to do is to move forty thousand dollars from the capital budget line item for the belmont avenue extended uh drainage project As you know, that project originally was slated to be done in the current fiscal year. We have now moved that project out to FY 2027. So we're looking to take a portion of the remaining budget and reassign it to the operating budget to the professional services line item. This is for a couple of reasons. Number one, as you know, we needed to utilize far more of our zoning council's assistance over the last month in support of our review and analysis of the Friendship Heights Sector Plan. We also, later in this agenda, we have recommended that the board approve a land planner in support of that effort as well. And so the time and hours for that land planner would also be charged to the professional services line item in our budget. That category of the operating budget is where we charge general counsel's time, zoning council, our engineers, and any other professionals that we are bringing in to provide consulting services like this land. So the benefit of moving the monies within the budget as opposed to bringing monies in from reserves is it allows the overall bottom line of the budget to remain the same. although we know that we're actually well under budget this year, but still allows the budget numbers on paper to repeat the same as if we'd reassigned the money within the budget from capital to operating. So that is what is recommended by staff. Thank you for the recommendation.

Does anyone have any questions about this?

Or a motion? I'll move to adopt resolution number 0601.6, extra. Second.

Okay, thank you very much. So now we have some contract authorizations.

Yeah, so the Jacqueline Parker is on vacation, so I'm going to handle her contract recommendation, but should note for the record that she did all of the actual work for this contract recommendation. So the roll-off or pillow works yard dumpster is a Large dumpster that sits in our public works yard is what we use for the collection of special pickups. So we collect special pickups throughout the village every Wednesday. All of those items get placed into a dumpster in our public works yard, and then that dumpster is emptied every Thursday. What also goes into that dumpster is all of the refuse that is accumulated here in the village hall. So the day-to-day office use, as well as any events or parties that may take place here, as well as any refuse that is generated in the closed office, all gets placed into that dumpster. So an invitation for bids was advertised on the Maryland Marketplace, and there were a total of 153 companies or individuals who had registered themselves as performing this type of service. In addition to that, Jackie directly emailed to seven contractors that the village has personal awareness of who do this work, to invite them to bid as well. As a result of those efforts, we received three bids. The lowest responsive bidder is actually the village's current contractor, Waste Management of Maryland. They have current contracts in addition to the villages with the municipality of Leonardtown, the Holder's Association, and St. Mary's Public Schools. You'll see a summary of the bids on the screen. It's also in your briefing packets. They were considerably lower than the other bidders, and we have been very satisfied with their service to date. So staff recommendation is to award the contract to Waste Management. And I can answer any questions. The best of my ability given the check he sent in.

Any questions on the roll-off dumpster? Any motions on the dumpster?

All in favor? authorize the village manager to enter into a contract in substantially the form provided and subject to review by the village council with voice management and performance of a roll off refuse 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.

Sounds good. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank Jackie.

Yes, will do.

And next, the exciting thing.

Yes. So as the board directed at the special meeting that you held on May 14th, we did look into options for bringing on a land planner. And the company and individual that staff is recommending to you this evening is actually recommended to us by our current zoning attorney Michelle Rosenfeld, and that is for John Markelin of O'Connell and Morris. Mr. Markelin previously worked for Park and Planning many years ago before going into the private sector. I've spoken with his references who have all provided positive feedback about this work. I would note about his work is that it is very aligned with the specific task that we are looking for. So there's essentially two areas of assistance that we have identified would be helpful for the board, staff, and our ad hoc committee as we continue to analyze and respond to the recommendations in the sector plan. The first being traditional land planning services, drafting of conceptual images and studies, in response to the sector plan recommendations, helping to identify areas of concern and depicting the proposed zoning changes, multiple areas, including creating shadow studies. Shadow studies are essentially where you map out if a building were to be built, where would the shadows be cast from that building on the surrounding areas? The second area that you're looking for assistance with that is a little bit more unique than simple land planning support is for the technical expertise, someone who will work with the committee and with the board in drafting of reports and memoranda about the sector plan, helping to explain it in a manner that people who are not used to working in zoning can understand, specifically for our residents, and helping them understand the various different concepts and zoning terminology that are being recommended. And that is an area where Mr. Markalan's experience, as well as his references, spoke to his ability to do exactly that. When working for the planning department, he was involved in various different master plans, including the West Bar Master Plan, very close to us, right along River Road, as well as the Chebyshek Lake Plan. And so he is very used to not only the master plan sector planning process in the county, working with various different stakeholders, including community groups, developers, property owners, et cetera. But he has done the exact types of diagrams that we think would be very helpful for us in this process. Unfortunately, Mr. Marklin was not able to join us for this evening's meeting. I did circulate previously to the board his resume, as well as a revised proposal that is also at your places. This is a slight expansion of the proposal that I originally circulated to you last Thursday because I wanted to make sure that the proposal was very clear about that second tier of support that we need, that technical expertise. And so Mr. Margolin did flesh that piece of it out. It is slightly higher than, of course, the original proposal was as a result, but we wanted to make sure that we had accounted for his anticipated time attending board meetings attending committee meetings um and the needed feedback that we would need as a result of those things so mr marklin did send me the comments he would have provided if he was here this evening i'm not going to read that off to you i'll certainly circulate it around to the board after the meeting but i do feel very strongly that mr marklin would be the right fit for us for the type of feedback and support that we need as we continue through the sector planning process. I would note, however, that because I am making a singular recommendation to you, which is in light of the time constraints that we are under, as this letter noted at the beginning of the meeting, there are two recommendations, excuse me, there are two meetings this week at which the planning department will be issuing the next round of recommendations. we really are eager to bring a land planner on board promptly in light of those recommendations coming out this week. So I am recommending that we waive the competitive bidding requirement in our procurement ordinance, that's section 24-15. Under that provision, it states that in order to waive the competitive bidding process, it does require a vote of at least five board members. So just so that you're aware of that. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding this recommendation.

I'm thrilled that you were able to organize this so quickly because this is coming at us fast and this is going to be, we have some support.

And he's available. Yes, yes, he's available and he's already, I sent him a large package of materials to bring him up to speed, not only on planning department's recommendations but also on our deliberations the committee's report the board's letter etc so he is fully up to speed and ready to do the different um phases broken out in the proposal um do they overlap at all so the the headings imply conceptual studies and so forth and then

as would be expected, outlines the number of meetings that they'll attend. Do we add those up to see the total number of meetings or are they kind of overlapping? So it's really just up to three meetings of our board of the two meetings of the ad hoc committees.

Yes, I do think that you should look at this is about in total. So several different categories had up to about 27,000, but that is fully anticipatory of the work that may be required. That may be the board and to a lesser extent, the committee will still drive just how much of what's outlined here. You actually want Mr. Mark going to do. there will be some overlap in that some of the meetings will occur, and then some of the conceptual drawings will be made, so there will be some timing overlap, but from a time commitment, hourly billing standpoint, you should look at them as distinct costs, and that this will likely be about a $27,000 cost.

And the size of the cost then, so for example, where it says two meetings at the ad hoc friendship pipe sector planning committee meeting,

this proposal covers two committee meetings, not two plus two plus two.

Correct. Correct.

Yes, that is correct. And so, again, this is anticipatory of the level of work. Should he need to attend more than those two meetings, the proposal is structured to allow for that on a billable hour standpoint, but this was just to give an order of magnitude for starting off, you know, if we were to, be strategic in the number of meetings that we're asking him to attend and plan for and participate in, et cetera, what would that look like? But certainly, we should anticipate that it may be more than this. Probably unlikely that it'll be much less. But certainly, depending on the number of meetings and support that we need, it could be more.

Any more questions?

So this will be billed on an hourly rate.

So the way that this will be done initially is they've asked for a retainer up front of $2,000, I believe. Yeah, $2,000 retainer. And then, yes, it will be billed on an hourly basis from that. And so once we have met that initial retainer, and then we will pay from there on the hourly basis. So yes, that is how it will be charged. So the lump sum numbers in those categories is based upon the number of hours they anticipate in support of those areas. What is the fillable ? Sorry, it's not attached to the printout there, but in what I circulated around to the board by email, for his time specifically, it's 180 per hour. There are other... individuals within the firm that should we need their assistance there are other billable you know hourly rates for them but specifically for mr marklin is 180 an hour and the budget is now 27. the estimate the estimate sorry yes the estimate for his time based upon the um outline of the proposal 27 000. um but again i wouldn't would be cautious that that that is this is not being done as a project cost this is really being done as billable hours that is just to give the board a sense of the order of magnitude that we're talking about right and we are going to hear from the friendly people tomorrow so this is very timely yes um i'd love to hear a motion i move to authorize an override of the competitive bidding

and to authorize the Village Manager to enter into a contract in substantially the form provided and subject to review by Village Council with O'Connell and Lawrence Inc. for the performance by John Marklin of Land Planning and Design Consulting Services regarding the Friendship Heights Sector. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Great, thank you everyone. I appreciate it. That's really great that you could get something like that.

That's really, really terrific. again definitely special thanks to michelle for bringing this former colleague of hers they worked together when uh they were both at the planning department um so yeah glad to have uh this this resource great so the next thing is the police report great good evening good evening so uh month of may we had uh three uh best motto or tips from auto

On the 12th, we had the 5700 block of Kirk side where somebody entered a unlocked vehicle and removed some sunglasses. And then on the 21st, we had two in the unit block of Quincy Street during the day targeting housekeeping personnel. And that fits with kind of the pattern that had been kind of hitting the the county in this area where people, contractors or house cleaning crews, because they know majority of them keep their purses in the car. So even if they're under the seat, they know it's worth their time to break the window and look in. So that was two of those administratively. We still have one opening, but we have the applicant in the final stages. I'm just waiting for the lieutenant to give me the packet for final review. So hopefully we'll have that officer for midnight, maybe two, three weeks on the outside. So we are still preparing for National Night Out on August 4th. We're working hard with the Public Safety Committee as well as staff to try to kick this thing up a notch and bring some new information and some new things to the event. I will say that we're getting word out much earlier than we usually do with the flyers, and so we're expecting a good crowd. We're hopeful. You had mentioned the Sachs building. It is now empty. I was able to get ahold of some people, get the name of the director of security who will be the key holder for the property and a direct contact for anything that might be wrong or anything that we might find in the future. The lot is blocked off, so there's nobody parking there during the day, and officers have been instructed to keep an eye on the area. Lastly, we have the 4th of July coming up on the 4th of July. I hope everybody comes out for the parade and the little picnic social, because no good deed goes unpunished. I'll be back in the dump tank again as well. I'm trying to recruit someone for the second half of it right now, so... we should have somebody in there as well. That's it, if someone has a question.

Thank you so much for that. It will not be me.

So I mentioned this earlier, but thank you also for the wonderful food truck party. And you sang and played guitar. And Jennifer did an amazing job getting amazing food trucks. And the weather was spectacular.

Special order by Jennifer. It was really great, so thank you all.

I hope you sing at Emory. I'll trade my guitar for the duct tape any time.

So next is the manager's report.

Yes, and thank you for acknowledging the which really was fantastic great weather evening lots of people came out every year we see more and more families joining us for that event so it was a really really good time um also just again reminder about the two presentations this week from the sector plan public works have been focused on getting the sites of our new spring tree plantings set by putting down grass seed around areas where former trees have been browned out and getting the areas around the new trees mulched, et cetera. This will be our first full planting season with the tree gators. So far, they're already working well in allowing us to better manage our watering of the new trees in hopes of improved success for the tree stock. So really appreciate Public Works' efforts with that. As you may have seen, our landscape maintenance contractor began the planting of the median here at West Kirk in Connecticut. There were some additional plants and they were still in back order, and so they're hoping to get those this week to finish that project up.

Once that's done, that will also be a part of Public Works' watering schedule.

I mentioned a couple of months ago, following the major snow event at the end of January, when the state highway crew came along to clear snow and ice from Brookville Road, they damaged several sections of the timber curbing that goes along the Brookville Road sidewalk, and so Public Works is also in the process of replacing those broken timbers, in addition to some timbers that used to get replaced around the Benny English Farm at Brookville Oxford and Broad Branch. Last thing I'll mention, and thanks to Mr. Winstead, who reached out to our contacts over at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Perkside, Western, and Grove Street. All of the demolition activities have now been wrapped up. They will be commencing construction on the new building, the footprint of which will be almost identical to the original church that, of course, sustained major fire damage a few years ago, but that construction will not commence until likely early 2027. So the property will generally be in its current state through the end of this year. We are in contact with the same church leadership about ensuring that they're maintaining the property, maintaining the grass and ensuring that the construction fencing is remaining intact and that we don't have people trying to breach that fence. Police officers have been keeping that on the property, as has Aurelio Baca-Asher, our code enforcement coordinator, so that we can bring to church leadership's attention any things that we see. They have been highly responsive through this entire process, so I have every reason to believe that they will ensure that the property is being well maintained of the balance of this year. Once construction does commence, they have advised that it will likely take about a year for them to wrap up the construction for the replacement church. So we will put an article in the July issue of The Crier, just updating the community about where that stands. But again, thank you to Mr. Minster for reaching out to the contacts there. Other than that, I have no other things. Anyone has any questions?

Does anyone have any questions?

I moved over here.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.