Veterans Advisory Council - Regular Meeting

Perfect. Alright. Welcome to the 05/21/2025 Veterans Advisory Council. I'm your chairman, Patrick Pearson. Let's go ahead and call to order and say the pledge of allegiance, please.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. We do have a quorum so that is great. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Fantastic. Do I have a second? Do I have a second? Any discussion about the approval of the agenda? Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion. The agenda is approved. We'll move on to old business. Do I have a motion to approve the previous meetings minutes that were sent out electronically by Makayla?

I'll make a motion

to approve the meeting minutes previous meeting minutes. Excuse me.

Have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Fantastic. We have a second. Any discussion about the approval of the previous meetings minutes? Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, those are approved. Change it up a little bit from chair's comments. We're gonna do vice chair's comments today.

Oh my god.

You'll be okay.

Alright. So some of

what I'm gonna say probably is gonna sound familiar if you've well, I don't know. Was the sitrep published?

Yes. Yeah.

So if you've read the sitrep, some of this might sound familiar. Alright. So good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us at tonight's public meeting of the Frederick County Veterans Advisory Council. As we approach Memorial Day, it's important that we pause, not just for a long weekend, but to remember the solemn reason behind the National Day of Reflection. Memorial Day is a time to honor the men and women who gave their lives and service to this country.

Their sacrifice is the reason we are here, free to gather, speak, and serve others in our own ways. This council exists because we believe that service doesn't end when the uniform comes off. Whether we served or support those who did, we each have a duty to continue showing up for our veterans, our families, and our communities. Tonight's meeting reinforces the commitment. We are grateful to have Pulling for Veterans with us, an organization that not only raises awareness about PTSD, but does the hard work of meeting veterans where they are.

Their presence reminds us that the invisible wounds of war are just as real as deserving of attention as the visible ones. Excuse me. To those struggling or or who know someone who is, let tonight be a reminder that you are not alone. Help exists in this council as part of that network. We're not here just to hold meetings. We're here to create meaningful change and foster connection, veteran to veteran and neighbor to neighbor. So thank you again for being here, and we look forward to your input, your voice, and your continued support in strengthening Frederick's veteran community.

Thank you so much, Garth. Appreciate it. Let's move on into presentations, polling for veterans.

Don't think I need that.

Okay. They

they do. They They do.

They'll need you online. Yeah. Oh. Okay. They're gonna face it in which way?

Whichever way you

want them.

They'll turn the

camera to you.

For the TV folks.

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me for Pulling for Veterans. I'm Nicholas Walker, owner of We Help You Move, founder of Pulling for Veterans, United States Air Force veteran. I'm here to talk about suicide and suicide prevention. By a show of hands, who wants to talk about that tonight?

I can't hear about it. Alright. Very now you're gonna

Very few people ever raise their hands. And that's the problem we have with suicide and talking about it is being able to speak about it. And that's what we do. We start conversations with our trailers. They have very powerful words on one side of it, and it talks all about veterans and what we go through. Is everyone familiar with our trailers? If not, here's some cars you can pass around. Thank you. It's okay. I mean,

no. Alrighty

then. So what we do is we put powerful words on the side of our trailers. One side of it is all about veterans. Talks about, you know, where it starts with with isolation. And then from there, we go into withdrawal and begin to this downward spin we don't know how

to get out of.

And then we won't talk about it because we launder in the mill we learned in the military that if we talk about it, it's not a good thing. It shows a sign of weakness. And none of us in the military show signs of weakness on the outside. So on the flip side of the trailer, we talk about our caregivers because they're the backbone that keep us somewhat sane and we're so self absorbed that we really don't see what we put them through. So in the process of speaking to both the caregiver and the veteran, it actually starts a very uninvasive conversation about what each person is go going through.

Now in the back of our trailers, every trailer is named after a veteran and we actually put faces on PTSD. Somehow that makes it real to the, rest of the world, but, it's real. So again, thanks for having us out here. I just, wanted to share with that. Now the ways that we reach out to it, we have events for veterans. On the June 21, we're having a, big event out in Burkittsville again this year. Last year was, what, a 105 degrees. And, we still had 300 plus veterans out. But we have, you know, we have smokers out there, and we're cooking all day. A few of y'all been there last year.

And, and then on the June 27, we also have the vigil this year. It's a Baker Park. We're going down to rolling to remember this year as we do every year. And we actually means it's a mental health crisis. We have, vehicles that, are pulling our trailers to go through the demonstration ride about the, the first amendment, the POWMIA, and everybody we have missing that hasn't come home yet.

So, if if y'all wanna join us down there on Memorial Day itself, I and two other veterans, I never knew there was Memorial Day parade because after rolling thunder, now rolling to remember we leave. But this year, we're actually three of us veterans are suiting up and we're shackling with chains and we're gonna pull it down up Constitution Avenue. And hopefully, we get a lot of national because ABC, NBC, and CBS will be there. So we're looking at a national, you know, epidemic. It's just not local.

It's in every town. So if you guys can come out and support us, go to pullingforveterans.org. We're looking for donations in because we have more faces than we have trailers. And all of our trailers are local Frederick County people from Newmarket, Dickerson, Damascus. Our latest and most biggest demographic grant right now is Vietnam veterans, and we have one on our our back of a trailer from June that committed suicide because, you know, we'll take care of you.

Not so much. Anyway so thank you for having us out. Do do y'all have any questions? Do you understand what we do? Anything I can explain? If you know anyone with tractor trailers, we have big decals. That are 16 big I don't know where the camera's at, but big decals that we put on tractor trailers. That's the easiest way to get into small towns across the nation, not only our county, but our state because this affects all 3,144 counties in The United States. So go to our website, wehelpyourroom.com. Follow us on Facebook.

Wrong website.

How many trailers do you have, and how many, do you need?

Well, post 09:11, we've lost a hundred and ninety thousand to suicide across The US, not including the ninety seven thousand from the Vietnam War. So lots of trailers. Just in our local area, probably five more trailers. We have, five veterans on the back of trailers now, and I misspoke about one of the companies. It's pulling for veterans.org. I think I said my moving company.

And how and how much does the trailer cost?

Well, since post COVID, they've doubled. So in order yeah. In order to buy a three to set up one org one location with a four by eight or five by 10 and a six by 12, you're talking about $4, $5, and $6, and then we have to wrap them. So it's usually about $20 per three trailers.

Any other questions? Talk about your reduced rates for moving veterans.

Well, that okay. We Help You Move also gives a 10% discount for moving veterans. One of the things the moving company does when people have things that they don't wanna move with them, we gather. We're we're, connected with other organizations, take veterans from homeless to housing, and then we show up with free furniture to make the house a home. If we get big pieces like a two piece China, a homeless veteran really doesn't need one.

So what we do is put it out in the marketplace and turn it into a gift card for incidentals. So everything we get in goes right back out to veterans to those in the brothers and sisters in need. And we have a, an expansion program that if you go to our website at pullingforveterans.org, it'll be listed there about what we have in the future about taking care of 22,000 veterans a day.

Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Okay.

Any others? Fantastic. Thank you for having us. You forveteransthankyou..org.

Thank you.

Thank you for everything you do. At this time, no other presentations. Do we have any public comments?

Well, that's our public comment. But I just wanna amplify what Nick sort of slid over. For two years in a row, they've been successful in getting over a 100,000 pieces of merchandise from Walmart, tagged new, and then they set it up in a number of warehouses. Put it out, sort it by size, by sex, by season, and let the groups come in and start with the charitable groups first, right, and nonprofits. And then if there's material left over, which there always is, then invites the community into into take what they what they need.

Actually, Colonel, it's veterans first.

Well, okay.

And then we have we have community. I thought it was a nonprofit. So okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. Over 10,000. Yeah. We helped over 10,600 families in the last couple of years, and a lot of it goes over to

the VA so they can get out to

know those veterans. But we we the VA is first. And then from there, we go to veteran organizations and then back to nonprofits and

then local community. We've worked a lot with

the schools to get a lot of things into the Judy closet. Is that it?

I know where it is.

Don't know what it's called. Judy Center Center. The posturing Oh, Judy Center. Yeah. So

we work well with the community. Mhmm.

Thank you, ma'am.

Any other public comment? Fantastic. I mean, not fantastic.

Mean, we want we want

public public comment. It's it's what we're here for. Let's go into staff report, please.

Okay. So if you haven't heard yet, we are organizing the second annual Veterans Appreciation Day in Frederick County, Bridging Communities Through Gratitude. That will be Saturday, July 19 from ten to 2PM at 1 Frederick Health Way. Pulling for veterans will be there with some trailers. So doors open at 09:30.

We'll have opening ceremony at 10:00. The county executive will be there for some remarks, and you might see some familiar faces from the Veterans Advisory Council there. And so we'll have information resource fair, static display. There's gonna be fire trucks and vehicles from the sheriff's department and vehicles from hopefully, the National Guard will be there. Big Blue will be there.

That's the VA mobile unit and the Martinsburg VA Vet Center will be on hand with their mobile unit. Actually, the division of aging has a mobile unit now called the Move Mobile. So you can access division of aging county services and speak with division of aging staff. So if we are able to organize that and get get it staffed, hopefully, that will be there this this year as well. And, of course, DJ Cruz and Chris from WFMD is back.

Food trucks and free entry, free parking, and free workshops. We're gonna have VA save training. We're gonna have lethal means training. And I believe we're gonna have oh gosh. What's it called? The Suicide Prevention Coalition will be there on hand with the gun locks. Right? Yes. Okay. Yes. So gun locks for gun responsible gun ownership. That's what the term I was looking for. Thank you. And, of course, Warrior Canine Connection will be there. So there's gonna be a lot of good stuff and of course a VA benefits workshop.

So it's gonna be a really good day, fun day for the whole family, but also lots of really good important information for veterans and the community. Yeah. So

You said you have a new mobile unit. What so so what do you what is it used for?

So apparently, and I don't know a lot of the details, but the the division of Aging and Independence was given a decommissioned ambulance from the county and we got it wrapped. And so it's gonna be like kind of like the pub the library has their mobile library. Yeah. It's gonna be sort of like that. So it'll be like resources on the move. So we can go out into the community and bring the Maryland access point and state health insurance caregiver programs and things like that and take that out into the community. That's my understanding. Hopefully, if I don't get in trouble, if my boss is watching. It's a very very new thing but if you drive by the senior center you'll see it parked in the parking lot out there. Yeah so we'll see.

We're hoping to have it at the event this year but it's very new. Yeah.

Yeah. It's

great. Alright. Any questions about Veterans Appreciation Day? Yes.

Are you are you still looking for more resources to set up? I'm with the city.

Oh, for the for the resource fair? Yes. There's a few vendor spots left. So if you're interested, I can and if you wanna talk to me after, I can get you the link to register.

Yeah. That'd

great. Okay. Sure. Can

you scan the QR code on that picture?

Yeah. And there's some flyers out in the hallway as well. Yeah. Mhmm. Okay.

I don't know that we have any new business unless anybody's tracking anything that I'm not.

So

I don't know if it's if we want to go over it now, but the the tagline and the copy, the marketing lady does need your input on that pretty quickly. And then also, the nominations for the Quilts of Valor, I've gotten three three submissions. So I was gonna email those out to you guys to go over. So those were the items that I was gonna bring up.

Sure. Mhmm.

Which one are you gonna go over first?

I guess the so the division of aging is getting a rack card for the vac designed. So the marketing director wanted the the vac's input on this copy. And I know we kind of already discussed a few corrections that are needed.

I thought everything on there is accurate. Makes makes sense. It's the things we wanna put out there. I just the one comment about the ages for, BSO assistance. Mhmm. Don't wanna turn anybody away, but obviously because you're certified with the VA, but from Department of Aging, there's probably some internal preference that can be given to older veterans of your time. But still, obviously, you'll want to connect any veteran with VA resources.

Okay. So either change the wording to priority given to you or just delete that

part altogether.

Yeah. From my perspective, I think if you just delete it and then internally you're, you know, you're able to say to a younger vet, hey, I'm I'm booked out a month. It's it's entirely reasonable. There's a lot of people submitting claims. One of the other VSOs or the state most likely will have Mhmm. Time available.

K. Yeah. You could just change that last line to, like, the the priority for free resources will be given to those Mhmm. And then those two bullet points. And that way, it could be compliant for

your role too.

Can we go back to that first the very first top paragraph? I like the suggestion of changing vital resource to vital advocate for veterans. Mhmm. And then I thought paying some attention to the that that second half of that sentence would be a good thing to do in the sense of, like, offering essential information. Like, we're not necessarily offering them information on benefits. Right? But we're advocating and getting them connected to resources and bringing to light legislation that can affect veterans within Frederick County.

Does that make sense? Yeah. This makes it sound like we're

the one.

Come to us for this Yeah. Assistance and and that we're the resource. So, yeah, exactly what Jay said for the first part, and I love what you're

saying. So I was saying advocating for legislation, services, and community community support for county veterans or something like that.

Can you say it one more time? Yep.

Advocating for legislation, services, and community support for county veterans.

Okay. Or something. Yeah.

Because I do

think it I mean, the wording is good. I just think that it's it's more acting like we're the initial source of that information as opposed to advocating doing those other things. So Okay. That's my 2¢.

Okay. It's a good 2¢.

Okay. It's almost 3¢.

It's probably 5, but Okay.

Yeah.

Alright.

And then, like, the three priorities there in the middle for the when you say those are still, like, the top three sort of priorities for the identifying opportunities.

Those those are

good. Okay. Alright. Mhmm.

And make sure, you know, when we first when the back when the back was first stood up, we had I don't know where it is. What what came out exactly what we are. Look look at that and make sure we're not missing anything in here. Mhmm. I don't know. It used to be on the the web page. I went on there. It's it's changed. There's not as much information there. But Mhmm. It it it spelled out when when the county executive

when it

was passed, that the back would we stood up. It it listed exactly what we would do, and I just wanna make sure there's nothing missing. Mhmm.

Okay. I'm sure I have it somewhere. I'm sure because I've got, like, the original files and

stuff somewhere.

I can try to find that and then I can email it out to everybody. It might be Friday though because tomorrow I'm teleworking. So if it's not in the computer, it'll be in my office

in the senior center. But I I mean, I this this is good. It's what we do, but I I just wanna make sure there's nothing missing. Right. Okay. Alright.

Okay. And then so the tagline, so we were thinking and changing it. It's from helping our resources to advocating for veterans. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. So just advocating for veterans and their families?

Yeah.

Okay. Cool. That was easy. Alright. And then the last thing that I wanted to just like

I said

is we've partnered with Quilts of Valor for the Veterans Appreciation Day. And so and this is for everybody's, you know, information. You can go to our website and nominate a deserving veteran to receive a quilt from the Quilts of Valor at the Veterans Appreciation Day in July. So if you have a veteran in mind, go to our website and fill out the nomination form. So, they've agreed to give us six quilts.

We've gotten three submissions so far. So if you have anybody in mind, please, you know, get online and put a nomination in. And, I'm gonna forward the nominations to the council so you can, take a look at those. So that was the last piece of new business. So and for all of everybody watching online as well. So

Great.

Does anybody on the back have any announcements? Yes, sir. I do.

So the Frederick County Health Department applied for funds. This is what Mikaela was talking about earlier with our safe storage initiative. Applied for funds to support the purchase of firearms safe storage devices. The idea is promoting responsible gun ownership, encouraging people to have their firearms secured, doing so helps save lives by preventing gun violence and preventing death by suicide. And so we purchased a large number of safe storage devices.

And what I wanted to announce more than anything is that you can come to the health department using entrance c on Mondays from three to 5PM or Wednesdays from five to 7PM. You can walk in as long as you are a Frederick County resident over the age of 18 and either own a firearm or intend to own a firearm, you can receive a safe storage device at no cost. Today I went to Platoon 22 and hung out there for a little over an hour and handed out safe storage devices to veterans there. So if you know of anybody that has a firearm that needs to be secured, needs safe storage for it, please send them our way and we'll as long as supplies last, we will sound like a commercial there. We're happy to help folks connect with that.

Great. That's awesome. Great. Anybody

else? Yep.

Just a few announcements. Meeting

we had with the Frederick Chamber of Commerce and Secretary Woods. I'll tell you that Secretary Woods resigned from his position and took a job in the private sector. Last Saturday, over 4,000 flags were placed at Mount Olivet Cemetery at the auspices of the American Legion and all the veterans, Boy Scouts, friends of Mount Olivet, contributed to that process. Events are taking place on Memorial Day, 10:30, I'll be giving a tour through Memorial Park. At 12:00, they'll have a ceremony at Mount Olivet, and at 03:00, it's the moment of silence nationwide for that.

Nick talked about his picnic on the twenty first. If you'd like to have a picnic on the fourteenth, Operation Second Chance up in the Heroes Ridge is hosting a picnic for veterans and their families in that location. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that June 14?

Fourteenth. Any

other announcements?

Please, yes. Can I go? Yeah.

So I'm Javeena Lugley. I'm with the Maryland the State of Maryland Behavioral Health Advisory Assist Administration. Sorry. And we're we work with our sector. The section is called Maryland's commitment to veterans. So work primarily in behavioral health. So we have grant opportunities. We do have a phone number, a line for veterans to call for behavioral health, finance, any kind of resources that they need. So we have a June workshop coming up. We just got approved for the Hickson grant starting in July.

That is a grant provided by Maryland's commitment through to veterans throughout the state of Maryland. It's for therapy for veterans. And if you need any information, I can give it to you. And also for the Cohen Clinic, we have been approved for a 143 new episodes of care. So yes.

Do veterans can they apply on their own for the grant, or do they have to go through an organization?

They can apply on

their own.

Okay. But I can give you the information and everything, but there is an application online.

Okay. And can you send get that and send it out to us?

Sure. Let's connect right after the meeting. Can you stick around? Okay. Yeah. If you guys also stick around,

I've got some slide

in the car.

Thank you.

Any other announcements? Going once? Yes, sir. Please. June 14,

two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the United States

out now.

I'm just saying. Thank you. If you have a chance, please drive through Fort Detrick. They have all the flags out. Yeah. That's great. But also the plaques of the individuals lining the main drive there who gave their life for the country.

Yes, sir. With Memorial weekend coming up, look twice for motorcycles. There'll be a 100,000 of us out in DC in the local area. We're out here. Give us a break.

To keep a good minder. I

won't be down there, so

you can not count on me doing that. So

Alright. Going once, going twice. Private motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second. Second.

I have

a second. Way for

Sharon. Do we have a third?

A third.

Any discussion? No.

Other discussion? 07:00 in the dud.

Any other discussion? Adjourned, thank you very much.

Good evening. Today is Tuesday, May 20. We want to welcome you to our legislative day. We'll be taking public comment at the beginning of the meeting for a total of fifteen minutes. We do have five people signed up, so that will be it at the beginning.

We'll also take public comment at the end of the meeting for those who cannot do it at the beginning. If you would like to call in to give public comment, you can call (855) 925-2801, enter meeting code 8365, and press 3 to be put into a virtual line, or 2 to leave a recorded message that will be transcribed and sent to the entire council. We remind the public you need to state your name and address for the record, and please silence any electronic devices before giving comment. As a reminder, our meetings are also televised on Frederick County government channel nineteen, on the Frederick County's website, fredericountymd.gov/fcgtv, and on the council's website, frederickcountymd.gov/councilmeetings. You may also listen to the meetings by calling the same number, (855) 925-2801 and enter meeting code 8365.

And you can always send comments to the entire council at councilmembersfrederickcountymd dot gov. At this point, we're gonna start our meeting with a moment of silence. Thank you. I'd like to ask those who can please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. For those that are listening or establish quorum.

Councilmember Carter.

Here.

Councilmember Donald.

Here.

Council vice president Duckett.

Present.

Councilmember Keegan Eyre. Here. Councilmember Knapp. Here. Councilmember McKay.

Here.

And council president Young.

Here. All members of the council are present. At this point, we need a motion on the agenda. Council member Keegan Eyre.

I move to approve the agenda for Tuesday, 05/20/2025 as presented.

Second.

We have a second. Any comment? Hearing none, you can call the roll.

Councilmember Carter. Aye. Councilmember Donald. Aye. Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Councilmember McKay. Aye. And Council President Young?

Aye. The agenda is approved unanimously. Next up, we have public comment. As a reminder, you have three minutes. The clock is up here. When your time has expired, please finish your thought. We have five people signed up. Maria Roat, Megan Schweigert, Tony Chiquia, Tom Natelli, and Danny Severin.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Maria Rhode. I live on Bassford Road in Frederick. I'm the former US Deputy Federal Chief Information Officer with an entire career in technology and cybersecurity. With what's going on here today with the CDI, I understand very clearly the art of compromise. I appreciate the level of effort required on how best to handle data center development in Frederick County, from the working groups to Maryland Tech Council to inputs from the community, local industry, and data center developers, just to name a few.

Look, the train, we all know, left the station on data centers in the brownfield in the former East Alcoa site. So we're at the next steps in this journey. In my experience, it's never easy to compromise. It requires efforts by all, all parties, especially when it involves long term planning for the decades ahead. Compromise requires us to be good stewards, good partners, and good advocates.

Strategically, the CDI is responsible and provides the guardrails necessary to ensure responsible development, contribute to economic development, contribute to economic growth, and balance the tax base, yet with carbon neutral goals, commitment to enhanced operational sustainability, and increased grid stability for the county. The CDI covering no more than 1% of Frederick County's total land and subsequent data center approvals impacts and benefits the entire county. These companies and future tenants are invested in Frederick County's future today. Carol Manor, Tuscarora, and Whittier Elementary Schools are already benefiting from investment in STEM centers, thanks to collaborations and partnerships with Rowan Digital Infrastructure, the Cal Ripken Senior Foundation, and Edgewater Federal Solutions. In fifteen years, STEM center investments will likely result in a generation of students who are well equipped with critical thinking and technical skills, making them more competitive in the job market.

They will be better prepared for careers in technology, engineering, science contributing to innovation and economic growth. Additionally, the extra and early exposure to STEM center can inspire a lifelong passion for learning and discovery, leading to advancements in various fields in a more knowledgeable society that contributes, whether locally elsewhere. They are the next generation. They will be here sitting in our seats long after you and I are gone. I'm good at visualizing long term strategy.

Short term steps and investments like STEM centers play a crucial role in shaping and supporting the long term strategy. I acknowledge the short term is disruptive and messy, yet overall the long term benefits that this CDI creates a comprehensive framework that supports responsible growth, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and reliable infrastructure for the entire county. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Megan Swigert at 6319 Knollwood Drive. I'm here to express my strong support for the Data Center Bill 2,505. This legislation represents a thoughtful and forward looking approach to managing the growth of the data centers in Frederick County. This bill is not anti tech. It's pro community, pro environment, and pro responsible development. Data centers are part of our economic future. But without clear guardrails, they risk encroaching on the very qualities that make Frederick County special. This bill sets those boundaries. It does three important things.

It places data centers in the right zones, limited and general industrial, keeping them out of the residential neighborhoods. It requires impact studies sound, vibration, air quality, and visual impact before projects can proceed. And it excludes critical preservation areas, protecting Frederick's farmland, landscapes, and the rural character that we all love. These aren't abstract problems. They're measurable, enforceable standards that reflect the lessons we've learned from places like Loudoun County.

We talk often about how we don't want to become Loudoun, and this bill ensures we will not. It's a result of listening, learning, and choosing a better path. Councilmember McKay, I noticed I wanted to acknowledge something that I read on Facebook. You have wrote, Nearly all of the commentary and support of the bill didn't touch upon any particular aspects of the bill. It was all just data centers are good and jobs are good. I appreciate that perspective. I've stood here many times speaking about the jobs. But I want to be clear. My support is grounded in the specifics of this bill, particularly the requirement that developers conduct through environmental and community impact assessments before any project project moves forward. That's not a small thing.

It's a major safeguard that ensures data center development in Frederick County is held to these high standards. And it's not just jobs are good. These are careers, stable, high paying careers that can offer real environmental hope and opportunity. Imagine a high school student in Frederick seeking a future in tech right here at home with growth, purpose, and long term potential. This bill will make that possible.

Done responsibly, data centers bring high paying jobs, new business for local contractors and tech firms, and significant tax revenue. That revenue will help fund schools, emergency services, infrastructure, and reduce the burden on residential taxpayers, all without adding traffic or streaming services like traditional development. This bill is how we grow with purpose. It reflects our values and secures our future economically, environmentally, and equitably. I urge you all to pass this bill this evening and help guide Frederick County forward thoughtfully, responsibly, and together. Thank you for all the time you've put into this.

Thank you.

Good evening. For the record, Tony Chiquia. I live at 8707 Liberty Road. I wanna start out by offering, not an apology, but just an acknowledgment of some things that were said at the last hearing directed to you, the council members. My expectation as a resident and a taxpayer is not that you listen to me and act upon what I say, but that you just acknowledge that you hear what I have to say?

I have no idea what it takes to sit there and hear insults being levied or accusations being levied that challenge you to act upon words just because they're being spoken at you. I was on the Historic Preservation Commission many years ago, and it was always an interesting exercise for me to sit on that panel and have opposite views. And I loved that that we would come together and we'd reach a solution. This topic of data centers is intriguing to me as a business person, as a real estate practitioner who's been in Frederick County my entire life. This property is a mile and a half away from where I grew up.

And it's been zoned general industrial for as long as I've been on this earth. And the former use was obnoxious. And it was not an environmentally friendly use. The warehouses that are being built there that identify as data centers, I think, for Frederick County was a windfall. Be able to have a site that has power, that has water and fiber, It has the zoning.

It wasn't rezoned to accommodate this use. And in the general industrial zone, as you know, there are a lot of other uses that could be a lot more obnoxious, like a salvage yard or an asphalt plant or a concrete plant. And that's not being contemplated for this site. I think this is a perfect fit for that site. And I think that Frederick County will benefit from it tremendously, especially in our tax base, which we desperately need to increase our commercial and industrial tax base.

I've testified to that topic before. This site alone, a raw site, now being developed, is producing nearly $1,000,000 in real estate taxes and is projected to produce 40,000,000 to $50,000,000 when built out just on the real estate tax side alone. Let me close by saying this. Again, I appreciate all that you've all the work you've done on this, and we're not always going to agree. I know that the votes are probably already decided.

I'm not delusional enough to think that anything that I could say could change your opinions, nor do I expect you to. What I expect is that as elected officials, you do what you believe is in Frederick County's best interest. I believe it's in Frederick County's best interest to allow this project to move forward. And I think that the protective measures that you've built in above and beyond the current zoning were rational, reasonable, and well thought out. Thank you for all the work you put into this. I support this bill, and I hope that you all will reach a consensus this evening that will allow this bill to move forward and and this development to move forward for Frederick County's sake. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members. For the record, Tom Natelli with an office address in Frederick of 3501 Urbana Pike. And I'm sure it comes as no surprise surprises that I'm in support of 2505 tonight. But I I wanted to take a moment to make a plug for more effort like this in comprehensive planning for the county. I think this process has forced us to face certain questions, including where data centers can and should go in the near and intermediate term.

And I think that council has arrived at good conclusions on that. I think this county can achieve both economic development and can continue to preserve vast areas in preservation over time. I think these two things can coexist. And I know the goal is 160,000 acres, and we're part of the way there, maybe at 80,000 acres. But I think we can get there.

I think we can do both. And one of the things when you really sit back and try to study what's possible in the county from an economic development standpoint, you quickly realize that there are only limited areas where there's infrastructure extended that would permit development to occur in the first place. And we ought to be preserving the opportunity in those areas for development happen. And in areas where that's not possible and again, we're talking about 440,000 acres here in the whole county that we should be focused on preservation. So I think more effort to continue to evolve that either through I w two plus good planning for where agricultural preservation should happen should be on the agenda because they can coexist.

So tonight, you're gonna have the opportunity to approve an agricultural easement, which I hope and expect you to do on a piece of property that I saw was on the agenda. And I'm not an expert on agricultural easements, but I do think about the planning implications of all the decisions we make. And what I would not to dwell on this particular piece, but I would note that it's not inside any of the preservation areas, it happens to cross an interchange I mean, a highway close to an interchange. I'm not trying to dissuade you from approving it. I think you should, given where it is.

But I would ask us all to step back and think about how we, as a community, decide where we should allow development to occur and wherever we do it, we should allow it to develop to its maximum potential, that's the best way to preserve agriculture in the long term. And so I just ask you to think about that as we move forward as a community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Danny Severin. I reside one block up at 224 East Church Street. So thank you for the quick commute tonight. I really appreciate that. I'm a lifelong Fredrietonian. I'm here to support Bill 2505. But I wanted to provide a little color for someone who grew up in Frederick, graduated from Middletown. Let's go Knights. I have also performed a large part of my career in commercial real estate development in Loudoun County and Prince William County.

I've done data center development. I've done the entitlements for the sites. I've done all aspects of that. And I really just take my hat off to this group here for the Herculean effort and the process and the committees and the workshops that went into doing this. It's not something I've ever seen in twenty years of from Loudoun's start of data center, from PDIP to OP to the creation of how they handled zoning. I tip my hat to you. I'm also a political science nerd. That was my degree from York College. So I just here to honestly say I appreciate the support, appreciate the transparent nature that this happened, and looks good. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes public comment. We'll have it again at the end of the meeting. With that, we will move on to our agenda. First up, we have the approval of minutes. Council member Keegan Eyre.

So I move to approve the minutes for April 29 with one addition on page 15 under amendment 19. At the top, it should designate that the amendment was rejected. But beyond that, the rest of that particular date, the April 29 minutes are correct as well as I move to approve May 6 and 05/13/2025 as presented.

So we have a motion for the approval of the three with that one addition. Do we have a second?

Second.

A second. Any discussion? Hearing no, we can call the roll.

Councilmember Carter.

Aye.

Councilmember Donald.

Aye.

Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Councilmember McKay. Aye. And council president Young.

Aye. That is unanimous. We'll move on to budget adjustments. Council member Donald.

I move that we approve budget adjustment j twenty five three thirty division of planning and permitting. Second.

We have a second. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none, you can call the roll.

Council member Carter. Aye. Council member Donald. Aye. Council vice president Duckett. Aye. Council member Keegan Air. Aye. Council member Natt. Aye. Council member McKay.

Aye.

Council president Young.

Aye. That is unanimous. We'll move on to the final fiscal year twenty twenty six budget adoption. Council member Keegan Air.

I move to approve the budget for or adopt the budget for fiscal year twenty twenty six, the operating budget for 2026, the FY '26 capital budget, and the FY twenty six through thirty one capital improvement program, and the budget message, and the ordinance that goes along. Second.

Motion is second. Do you wish to speak to your motion?

No. I think we've talked about this enough. Thank you.

Anybody who wish to speak to the motion or have comment? Councilmember McKay.

Yeah. I'll just say a couple words really brief. So in any budget, you're gonna find things that you disagree with. So you wanna look at it from the standpoint of, you know, do I agree more than I disagree with the budget? And, I haven't voted for the last couple budgets.

I am gonna vote in favor of this budget for a few simple reasons. I mean, yes, there are a few things in there that maybe I don't like. But one thing that I've always been pretty transparent about, know, ever since I've been doing this from this chair is that I have a particular approach at budget time and it starts with it from the standpoint from a top down perspective, you know, I want to see modest budget growth from the county. And this is the first time I'm actually seeing that. I think this is my sixth or seventh budget.

I don't know. And it's the first time that I'm actually looking at a modest growth in our budget. Now I wish it wasn't coming at the with the property tax rate where it is, particularly given the assessments that we have. I really do wish that. But at least from the standpoint of how much the budget is growing, I can support this. I just wish we had been doing that. I wish we do this every year because I think we owe the residents that. We don't need ten, eleven, 12% year over year budget growth. You know? This represents 3.8% over last year.

To me, that's responsible, modest budget growth, and I hope we do it again next year.

Any other comments? Councilmember Carter.

Thank you, mister president. I think I'm gonna begin my comments this evening with a quote from county executive Fitzwater in her initial fiscal year twenty six budget video. We need to be fiscally responsible and conservative in our approach. That's what she said, and I think that she's very right. In the face of added pressure from the state of Maryland, we need to do our part to ease the burden on our taxpayers.

And I'm not saying breaking news or saying something that has never been said before when I tell you all that Frederick County is an expensive place to live. In fact, nearly one third of Frederick County residents have been identified by the United Way as being asset limited, income constrained, employed, or better known as ALICE. These are individuals in our community who are working, yet cannot afford the basic cost of living. These things are rent, mortgage, health care, transportation, and similar fundamental survival needs. I believe it is in our best interest of this council to empower our people by allowing them to keep more of the money they make, by lowering the taxes and fees that bring anxiety and uncertainty upon our families.

It was this, our working families that I had in mind when I approached this year's budget. As I have with the last last two. But far too often, I receive emails and phone calls from the residents of Northern Frederick County detailing their valid fears of being priced out of their homes. Many of these interactions are with seniors living on fixed incomes. Although I would I was able to connect many of them with resources, which is our senior tax rate that I was honored to strengthen with council member Kay.

It just wasn't enough. We needed to do more. I want everyone to understand how hard it is to have these conversations with constituents, especially when they present you with the dilemma of whether or not to pay their property tax bill or pay for their medicine. Well, I know that our property tax rate is staying the same. Understand that people will pay more.

Thanks to the state of Maryland, properties that have remained unchanged for years are being assessed at much higher levels, increasing the amount in which homeowners are being taxed on. This is why I brought over $6,000,000 in proposed cuts before this council. Had those passed, we would have been able to sit here tonight and deliver a 1 and a half cent cut to our property tax. And though that amount sounds small, I have heard the people of this county clearly. Any little bit helps. And for those reasons, I'll be voting against the budget.

Vice president Duckett.

Thank you, mister president. I just wanna remind my colleagues that we did put money back into our residents' pockets when we passed the income tax variation with last was it last year or two years? Last year, I believe. And so I think that was a step in the right direction. And it did help those families that you are talking about, the ALICE population. And so I just wanna make that very clear that we are making strides in the right direction. And I will acknowledge that acknowledge everything that you were saying, but I just wanna put it on the record that we have taken steps to help those in our community that need it.

Council member Donald.

Thank you. Mention a couple things that have been said. First of all, it is a rather conservative budget. It's by far the smallest growth that I've seen in, I guess this is my eleventh budget, much smaller than ones that we had before. So I think it's a responsible budget.

I had, you know, my own proposals, things that I wanted to talk about with some of the contracts, but we moved away from that and that's the decision we made. I'll talk about Alice for a bit to respond. They didn't have Alice when I was a young head of household with our three kids. We haven't even talked about that, but I do know that I got two paychecks a month, and the first one plus a chunk of the second one went to pay the mortgage. So I'm pretty sure we would have qualified for Alice at that point.

I didn't. It wasn't the tax rate that concerned me with a whole lot of other things to deal with at that time, but you do what you have to do if that's the way you want to live. Think this budget will help seniors. I think we have done a lot for the school system in the eleven years that we've been doing these budgets. Our parks programs are expanding and they're doing a lot of good for people. We use some of this money to conserve our farms and buy up development rights so that we have these farms in perpetuity. I think it's a good budget and I'll be voting for it. Thank you.

Councilmember Keeganeere.

I wasn't gonna speak, but I will. Like Councilmember Donald, I've been up here. This is my eleventh budget. And while our budget has grown over the years, this budget, like every other budget, has met or is attempting to meet the needs of a growing Frederick population. Eleven years ago elected, the population in Frederick County was not approaching 300,000 people.

We are now. I went back over the weekend and I watched every single public hearing on the budget, both the ones that were held in all of our districts as well as the one that was held in December and the one that was held in March for the county executive and then I watched the one that the council held. I listened to everything that everyone asked for, and they were advocating for education. They were advocating for libraries, senior centers, additional programs for our seniors, transit options, bus shelters, health programs, additional parks, additional recreation programs, the lists were long, very, very long, and yes, I will acknowledge our accessible tax rate is going up, but we don't control that, that is the state. We do control property tax rate and we control the income tax rate and Council Vice President Duckett is correct.

Last year we went back and readjusted our income tax rate and we actually did something for the first time since it was the first time the comptroller was allowing us to do it, we differentiated that income tax rate so that if you were a lower income resident, you will be paying less for your income taxes than if you were at the higher end of the income bracket, and we broke it up. And that was again a compromise because that was not what the county executive had put forward, but we went back to her and said we would rather break it into more categories so that there is more options for people depending on their income. All the things that we have to fund, public safety programs, making sure that our roads and bridges are safe, making sure that we are meeting the requirements of federal and state law, they all cost money. Everyone loves Frederick County, that's why everyone wants to live here, that's why we don't have an issue selling our homes, that's why homes are expensive here. People love Frederick County, they wanna live here, but that takes money and this budget I think goes a long way towards balancing all the needs of everyone in the county, but it also does what council member McKay said, where the county executive made every division go back and reexamine their base budget and make sure that number one, they were meeting their mission and providing the services that the public expected, but they were also, if there was money that was not being spent, they reappropriated that money for something else that they had been asking for and there were several amendments that we talked about and agreed that we were to go ahead and fund those things because the division had found that money within their base budget.

So I will be supporting this. It is a tall task to balance the budget and so far I think we are doing a good job with the expert guidance of our staff. I think our finance folks, our budget folks do a great job. They have always provided us with the answers we wanted and the answers we needed. And I am very proud to be able to once again support the budget.

Councilmember Knapp.

Thank you, Mr. President. Well, Councilmember Keeganero covered it. I was going to speak on the last part about the it didn't take long once we received the budget books to flip through the budget. And my initial reading of it was you could clearly see with the number of appeals that this is a responsible budget and a conservative budget. And every penny was looked at, and it was very clear that it was very well considered. And I also echo Councilmember Donald's comments. And so I will also be supporting this budget.

And I will go last, which is always tough because many of the points I was going to talk about are covered, so I'll keep it brief. You know, in sitting through most of the budget hearings, there was two issues that dominated education and supporting our seniors. The two largest classes of individuals we have in our county, seniors being one and students being two. And so, trying to make sure that we're meeting the needs, number one, of education, which I've stated is always my top priority, is important. I would love to have seen us to be able to do more for education this year than we did, but it is at least an improvement over where we were.

And on the senior side, again, I intend to look at further and come back with some suggestions on changes in some of the senior tax credits that we have. That is an issue. We've had a couple that have come in here and talked about their property taxes and being on a fixed income. I know Councilmember Carter has sympathy for many of the folks in Northern Frederick County. Once a month, I ride up as a volunteer for SOAR supporting a senior in Emmitsburg the last five years buying their groceries because it's tough for them.

And so we need to make sure that either through the government, through private, through nonprofit, that we're finding ways to support folks, but we also have to be able to provide the services. Now that being said, I'm going to kind of segue this to our future agenda item on this agenda, which is the bill we're going to talk about later. We have to find ways of producing additional tax revenue, which is not on the backs of our residents. We need to expand our commercial and industrial tax base and be able to provide additional services without having to continually go back to our residents and increasing property taxes or taking the revenue from their tax assessment increases. We have to do it responsibly, which we'll talk about later and I think we will do that.

So, with that, I think we're ready to call the roll.

Councilmember Carter?

Nay.

Councilmember Donald?

Aye.

Council Vice President Jacket? Aye. Councilmember Kienaer? Aye. Councilmember Knapp? Aye. Councilmember McKay?

Aye.

And Council President Young?

Aye. Motion passes six-four-one, opposed. Next up, we have the fiscal year twenty twenty six tax rate adoption. Councilmember Kegan Eyre.

I move that the fiscal tax year twenty twenty six tax rate for general property tax be set at the sum of $1 and $1.01 $0.00 on each $100 of, accessible real property in Frederick County except that the real prop property tax for accessible property within the city Of Frederick shall be set at 1.0079, and the accessible for every $100 worth of assessed property and the general real property tax for the incorporated municipality of Myersville be set at the sum of 0.9967 and that the resolution attached be signed by the council president.

Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. I just wanted to point out because a couple of people have asked why we adopt the budget first and then the tax rate. The way our charter stated, we have to adopt a budget and then the tax rate has to produce the revenue to support the budget. So we go through the budget first and then that determines the amount of revenue that we need, which then in essence sets what the tax rate will be. So that's why we adopt our budget first and then go to the tax rate. Questions or comments? Councilmember Donald.

Think he I mean

If I may, the motion does need to include if you do want to dedicate that 5¢ as well as that Okay.

We needed a revision of the motion. Yep.

I'm just gonna add to the bottom of the motion. Sorry. That the 0.5¢ on each $100 will be dedicated for the exclusive use of the dedicated reserve for future school construction projects in Frederick County. And that the, hold on a second, the 2026 tax rate on operating personal and real property shall be set at $2.775 on each 100 of assessed valuation of such property.

Does the seconder accept that?

Second.

Okay. Gotcha. Now any discussion on that? Hearing none, can I'm sorry. Council member Donald.

I just like to read this. I'm I'm reading from the Middletown Citizen, a a newspaper that sadly went out of business during COVID, but it was a nice little newspaper. And they got their hundred years ago section from the Valley Register. So I'm gonna and they're talking about the tax rate. And I'm gonna give you a second.

This is wait time to imagine what the tax rate was for 1918. The assessment set for the tax year, this is for the from the paper, was a dollar 25 per 100. Isn't that amazing? So and then it goes on to say people were complaining about the high cost of living and things like that and and some things change and some things stay the same.

Thank you. With that, we'll call the roll.

Councilmember Carter. Nay. Councilmember Donald. Aye. Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Councilmember McKay. Aye. And Council President Young.

Aye. That motion carries. 41 opposed. Next up, we have the installment purchase program, request for approval for resolutions. Enter into installment purchase agreements with Patricia H. Color, trustee of the Patricia H. Color Revocable Trust and Clyde Dale Color, trustee of the Clyde Dale Culler Revocable Trust. We have Shannon O'Neill, Department of Agricultural Preservation through the Office of Agriculture. Good evening.

Good evening, council members. Thank you for having us tonight. I'm also joined by Anna Jorge from Maguire Woods who is our the county's bond counsel. She's with us virtually. Tonight, we are requesting approval to a resolution to enter into an installment purchase agreement on the Dale and Patty Color property.

This farm is a 108.6 acres on Jefferson Pike. It was approved as part of the fiscal year twenty twenty four installment purchase program cycle. Inclusion of this property in the installment purchase program will bring the total acres preserved in this program to 23,031 or 301, excuse me, the total acres preserved through all of the county's preservation programs to 79,381 acres. So should the council approve the resolution this evening, the county will purchase a bond the day of settlement, and the landowner will receive tax free interest only payments for a period of ten years and then a lump sum payment at the end of the term. Funding for the installment purchase program comes from a dedicated revenue source, a portion of our local recordation taxes.

And I will turn it over to Anna in case she has anything to add.

The only comment that I have on this transaction is on the typical IPA. We are not going to be doing the closing immediately after the approval today. Normally, it happens on the day following the approval that this council grants. But due to some scheduling issues with the callers, we have rearranged it to occur on the twenty eighth. So there's a little bit of a gap in timing between the approval and the actual consummation of the transaction.

Any questions?

Happy to answer any questions.

Councilmember Donald?

Just to comment that I think we've approved several of these properties in this area over the last ten years. It's not even the first Color farm, I think, that we approved.

Correct. Yes. They have family members who have a preserve farm just next door.

Council Member McKay. Yep.

I move that we approve the resolution to enter into the installment purchase agreement and IPP easement on the color property.

Second.

Motion is second. Any discussion? Hearing none, can call the wrong.

Councilmember Carter. Aye. Councilmember Donald. Aye. Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Councilmember McKay.

Aye.

And Council President Young.

Aye. That is unanimous. Thank you. All right. We will now move on to our third reading calendar. First up, we have item a, the amended bill 2,505 design and specific use regulation regulations for critical digital infrastructure facilities and electric substations, council member Knapp.

Thank you, mister president. I move amended bill twenty five zero five.

Second. Motion is second. You can speak to your motion.

Thank you. So this bill, bill 2,505, updates Bill 2,205, which was passed by the county council in '22, in March 2022. Unanimously, that bill passed. So in early twenty twenty three, the county executive, in her transition report, designated that the successful incorporation of the data center economy into Frederick County's local economy was the goal that Frederick County should be pursuing. And so after that, the county executive formed the data centers work group.

And it's hard to believe that it's two years ago that we've been working on this. But that's the right thing to do. There's been a lot of information, a lot of testimony on all sides of the issue, and the transparent process that the county executive set up, I think, is to be applauded. Was not the way, as we heard earlier, that's not the way other areas in the region have handled this. And this bill specifically will address the siting and design updates for data centers in Frederick County.

So some of the recommendations from the data center work group regarding siting, this bill will address, we have mitigation of visual impacts, mitigation of sound and vibration impacts, the designation of unacceptable areas of the county that we don't want to have data centers in, such as rural legacy areas, priority preservation areas, agricultural preservation areas, and treasured landscape areas. Along the sustainability lines, stricter exterior lighting to mitigate impacts to wildlife. And this is a really important one that I think has maybe not gotten the amount of attention that it deserves. The requirement of tier four or equivalent backup generators to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Think I that's a really important update in this bill.

And we also, throughout the course of this process, as I mentioned when we had a press conference a couple about the overlay text amendment that's coming, we've had tireless advocacy on both sides of this issue. And it's important to hear from everybody in the community and to hear from all of the stakeholders. We've heard from concerned citizens, environmental advocates. And after we sort of had workshopped the spill a couple of times in a couple of different ways, We went and we met with industry to see what they thought of the bill. And it's important to include them in that process because otherwise, don't know what you don't know.

And in order for the data center industry to be successful, it requires partnership. And we have had people in the industry who reached out and leaned in and agreed to things that other areas like in the region haven't they don't have to adhere to these standards. And the people that we've been working with have reached out and have done that. So we also recognize there are areas that this bill does not address. The data centers work group final report was very comprehensive.

We looked at siting and design, sustainability, and community benefit. And we recognize that there are some Council President Young, who forgot to thank for cosponsoring this bill this bill is confined to citing and design guidelines. And we recognize that there's more work to do with sustainability. There's maybe things to examine and stand up within the county infrastructure in terms of escrow accounts and additional reviews by the Energy and Environment Department. That's going to require future effort.

And it should be considered, absolutely. So the data center work group report did identify additional opportunities for sustainability and community benefit. Right now, I live in Adamstown. I drive by the site every day. We've moved beyond I think it was also mentioned earlier we've moved beyond the theoretical. They're here. They're happening. And we need to pass these requirements as soon as possible. They've been requested by the Planning Commission. They've had to approve sites last week without the new guidelines.

So I would ask my colleagues to support this bill, all of my colleagues. It is time to make sure that we have the data center industry moving forward in a way that's responsible and will add to Frederick County getting the value that we need out of this industry. So again, I ask my colleagues to support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Others? Council member Donald.

Thank you. To start with, I'd like to thank council member Knapp for all the work she has put in with the work group and in writing a large bill like this, even if I disagree with it in parts, I still have to respect the amount of work that you put in and the time and effort. So thank you. Secondly, I did something along similar lines. I did a large work group with ag tourism and a big bill that had a lot of working details in it.

And I changed two things in the bill. The and they were, to me, fairly minor. But I was told to me, everybody, No, no, no. You got to go back to what the work group said. You have to do what the work group said. So I changed them back. I did. Thank you, Katie Stevens, who's here, who did that work. But with this one, we've gotten away from a lot of what the work group said. Not a lot of it's in this bill, but considerable amount isn't.

And I don't hear anybody pushing the fact that we have to do what the work group said. Somehow, our philosophy has changed between one and the other. When I talked about ag tourism, one of the things I said was, if you had a home and all of a sudden, one of these ag tourism places came in that had the fireworks and the noise constantly and the amplified music and all this and the dust and the smoke in your backyard, would you want

to live there? Would you?

Well, in this case, if you had a house that's been there for a long time, and I realized the East Outco site is fairly large, but East Outco itself was contained in the middle of it. Most of it was farmland around there, you've been living by a farm. You're fine with living by a farm, and suddenly you are 200 feet away from a 75 foot tall, huge building, would you wanna live there? And if not, you have to consider that when you're voting on this bill. The the next point I'd I'd just like to make is that the promise of jobs, I'm not sure.

I just really don't know. I mean, we're told 1,200 jobs. I'm sure there'll a lot of construction jobs. But in areas like this, how many will actually be located at the site? I don't know how they're gonna count that. I mean, for all I know, somebody will work all day with data center things in Adamstown that is in Eugene, Oregon. I I literally don't know. These could be remote jobs. I don't if they're gonna have much impact on our accounting or not. What I'm I Data centers are big.

They're important to us in our economy. I agree with that. But it also reminds me of of the old story I heard years ago from a superintendent who said, the future factory will have two things in it, a man and a dog. The man's job is to feed the dog. The dog's job is to bite the man if he touches any of the machinery. And I wonder if data centers are going in that direction.

But

thank you for all the work that you did on this bill. The one last bit I have to say is I I wanted to have stronger standards in this bill because these data centers, for what they want to do, have to be in a certain area. It's not like they can go any place, any time. These have to be within a certain range of some things in Northern Virginia. So in effect, we have the leverage, but we have it now. We won't have it in sixty days if this goes into effect. My family jump here for a little bit. Give me a second. My my family is actually from Allegheny County. I'm the first one to grow up here.

And that's coal country, the Western Part of Allegheny County. My my family were coal miners. They mined in Scotland, they mined in England, and they came here and got a pick and started mining here. And if you ever lived in a place like coal country, it's an extraction economy. I don't know if you're familiar with the term extraction economy. An extraction economy is when you're extracting something and then selling it. And it tends to, in spite of the fact that you think, wow, this is really valuable land, it is, but it does not make for for, let's just say, it doesn't make a lot of money for the people who live there. It makes darn little. You don't own the mineral rights under your own house. You don't own much.

But at the beginning, if you did it right and you have the leverage and I'll give you an example in the state of Alaska. Alaska founded it had a lot of oil and it had a lot of leverage at the time. And they do a program where they send checks to everybody in Alaska. They basically socialized a lot of that to help give people something for what they were gonna have to deal with. But you have to do it when you have the leverage at the beginning. You can't change it in the middle. So I would have liked a stronger bill because we have the power right now to do it. I'm sorry that some of the amendments I think have, to me, weakened the bill. I don't think this the data center industry was suddenly gonna turn and run away to someplace else because they were gonna come here one way or the other. We just got to make the rules.

So I would have preferred stronger rules to protect the people that we have here now. Thank you.

There's council member McKay.

Thank you. If you could bring that slide up for me please. So a couple weeks ago, we talked about a lot of amendments that I brought forward basically trying to reinstitute some of the protections that were in the original administration bill that had been either deleted or or, well, bastardized in in the current bill current bill. And they largely failed except for some minor, you know, tweaks. And then we but you know what?

I think what bothered me almost as much about that was the fact that the first amendment passed amendment one. It was a bit of a surprise to me, and I think it surprised a lot of people. And so I wanna spend a little time in talking about that and explaining that a little bit. You know, because what folks may or may not remember is that mister Pleasance, Don Pleasance, came to this council in a public session back in February February 25, and he basically asked for amendment one. He had a lot of LI zone land that he wanted to be able to use for data center development in the corridor between 355 And 270 North of Hyattstown.

It met all of the criteria we were talking about. It's LI. It's in a growth area. It was the right distance to the power line, not that that means anything really. Outside of a preservation area, he has W 5 S 5, so he had the right water and sewer categorization. The problem was it had joined residential across the street on 355. So he asked for consideration. K? Amendment one granted him that consideration. You can see these are the parcels up here.

I pointed the arrows at his LI zoned land. Mister Pleasance controls a lot of that area in the purplish there, and it's right across from that residential subdivision. And so and the irony of that day is that that very afternoon, we all got together and said, you know what? We ought to keep all the data center development over here at Eastalco, and yet they passed by five to vote, amendment one, which opened the window for data centers over here by Hyattstown. Now some will argue that, well, okay, now it qualifies, but it's really not gonna happen.

I don't know if it will or won't. You know, the water and sewer constructions, that would be pretty costly to bring it down there. He's got the right water and sewer categorization, and that's what counts in the bill. But whether he does or doesn't, I don't know. All I know is the window's open. The window's now open probably till about November when the next bill, the overlay bill, will become effective, you know, just forecasting that time period here. And so between now and then, all he's got to do is submit a site plan. Doesn't even have to be approved. He just have to submit it because that was amendment two. Right?

Where he just has to submit a site plan. And and maybe all he'll really wanna do is, you know, increase the potential value of the land. I don't know. But they've opened the window for data center development in an area that I thought we were not going to contemplate. And then I got to thinking that maybe it's not just about that. Let me go to the next slide here. Yeah. There we go. Can I do it or come on now? Where are you?

Thank you. Can you do it? Thank you. So and I got to thinking that maybe it's really about the next bill now. And because there had to be a reason for why these five members voted to allow Excuse data center me?

Question. Point of order, mister chair. Why? What are we doing?

Yeah.

I'm talking about the decision that was made.

What we're hearing to vote on the bill now. We've already done this. Those amendments have been discussed. We voted on them. We're moving on. We're now discussing the bill itself.

And this is my time to talk about the bill, and I'm gonna talk about it in the manner that I choose. So I didn't interrupt anybody else when they were talking.

So actually, we don't normally do PowerPoints and slides when you're talking But your

picture paints a thousand words, in my opinion. And rather than just waving my hands around describing something, I think it's better for people to actually

see You're

sorry. We we don't have to dis we don't discuss a point of order. This is out of the realm of what we do during third reader.

So so I will acknowledge that council member McKay asked me for the slides and I allowed him that the slides, but the discussion should be about your position on the bill. We're not going back and relitigating what's already happened.

This is my opinion on the bill, and I'm not relitigating. I know the vote's taken. Yeah. I'm just trying to help people understand why.

Well, you're you're you're speculating as to why, which is not fair to the other members. We will state our case.

Okay. Well, so anyway, moving on then. So thinking ahead to and this language, that amendment share your language

decide that he could move forward with this discussion? Because I think we're beating a horse that's already dead.

No. Actually, we haven't actually talked about any of this. That's the problem.

We discussed all of these amendments

not during Yeah.

But we didn't talk about the implications of amendment one. Your This is the invention of it.

The amendment was passed.

The amendment passed. And I wanna explain to people what it means.

I understand that, but that is not what we're here for now. You should have done that last when we were having the discussion on the amendments.

Sorry. Actually, the people who proposed the amendment should have explained what it meant then.

This is your interpretation or your belief?

This is your interpretation of what we meant, which is not fair to the council.

Then why did you vote for it?

That will be up to each council member to speak.

Okay. Well, anyway, so looking ahead at the East Alco area, the only reason to have contemplated allowing development 200 feet from residential areas is if Again, you're there's speculating

I ask the member to quit speculating and state

far in excess

of

the current growth area there. Far in excess. It's an extra additional 1,400 acres. That's the that's the implication of that vote. And if you don't understand it, they need to understand it.

Got it.

Because I understand.

Your point's been made.

And that language is in the current overlay text that we'll be talking about next week.

And we're anytime we talk about it.

That. And oddly enough, the same individual who asked for the amendment owns two large pieces of property right up there that's implicated by the result.

Let's go to the next slide. Point of order, Mr. Chair.

As I said in the point of order, he did ask me for presenting the slides and I did approve it. That's I think that is within the purview. But again, I would ask to keep the comments to where your vote is. We don't need to redo what we've already done three times.

All right. Well, we've talked about the data center working group recommendations quite a bit. And what you see here are all of the recommendations. And you can't necessarily read it, but I want you to focus in on the color because I want people to understand the magnitude of what wasn't addressed. I mean, up there, green, it's addressed in the bill. Yellow, it's it's kinda wishy washy or partial, and red is just not.

And we point out that this is your interpretation of that?

Yes. It's my interpretation. This is my time to talk about it. Yes. You wanna ask

me about it, I information sent to you to get approval to have it on the agenda for today?

When was it sent, Reagan? I it was Thursday Friday?

I sent it Friday and I sent it over the weekend with this last one.

And you did not see fit to include your colleagues so that we had a chance to look at this in advance of this meeting?

Why? We're not voting on it. Doesn't matter. It's my comments. Do you share your comments with me prior to this discussion?

I don't do slides.

Let's go back to the vote and finish your comments on what we've where your position is.

So what we should what people should understand is that a lot of time was spent on that working group and very little of it is represented in this bill. And we've heard some of the reasons why. But rather than just saying it, I think it's better to actually see it, and that's why I put this together. And one of the last things I wanna say is that when I talked about the the amendments that I proposed, they were almost entirely about restoring text that had been taken out of the administration bill. And, and when the administration doesn't like legislation we're working on up here, they've never been very shy about it.

I've been on the receiving end of it myself quite

And I would allow administration to speak for themselves instead of interpreting your view of it.

Anyway, they but they never objected to any of this. And I can only conclude that they supported the changes to their language that we saw, you know, through from October through January, frankly. So take that for what it's worth. To me, it just made the original bill language almost a bit of a charade when they would accept everything that was changed. We had a fiscal note for this bill that came out in mid March.

Nobody ever talked about it. The bill doesn't change impact any county revenues, doesn't impact any county expenditures, it doesn't impact anything with respect to what a fiscal note says. To me, that means that we didn't really do nearly enough in this bill. We're not pushing anybody away. There was no expectation of lost revenue or even gained revenue.

It almost seemed like the bill didn't even matter from a fiscal impact. That was kind of surprising. The council majority said no to citizen complaints, said no to baseline testing. It said yes to increasing the height to 75 despite the fact that the justification that was made repeatedly was categorically wrong. It said yes to industry self policing every two years, which a recipe for non enforcement.

Said yes to data centers near residential developments as we discussed. No discussion about sustainability. There's a big chunk of those recommendations up there in the red are about sustainability. And the council would not even entertain the ability of the Planning Commission to talk about it during review. Not even talk about it. So I'm just gonna spoil the surprise here. I won't be supporting this bill. I think there's just too much wrong with it. We gave away too much unnecessarily. There are things in here that just don't make sense.

We're requiring, you know, sound studies to be modeled sound studies that will never be measured. Never. It just doesn't make there are pieces of this that make no sense whatsoever and still here. So that's all I had to say.

Got you.

I'm sorry you didn't like hearing it, but I needed to say it.

Who's next? Council member Carter.

I'll follow it up. Thank you, mister president. When when debating this bill, I feel necessary to note that we have an existing data center bill that has relaxed regulations, which has brought us to where we are. The bill before us tonight strengthens those regulations to ensure that we can balance the critical need of economic development with our commitment to preserve our farms and environmentally sensitive areas, all while minimizing impacts to vulnerable air vulnerable populations. I have reservations about certain parts of the bill.

Most notably, the maximum building height of 75 feet, which I believe is unnecessary. The original language of 60 feet is sufficient for a two story data center. However, we must note that this industry brings stable, high paying jobs to people who are already living and working in Frederick County. Pairing this bill with an overlay zone, keeping data center development just to that of the Isauqua area, I feel confident that we are learning from, not duplicating the mistakes observed in Northern Frederick County or Northern Virginia.

Thank you. Before I go, anyone else? Councilmember Keeganehrer?

I'm not gonna address the theater we just had. I will just echo what Councilmember Carter just said. The original data center bill was passed at a time when the folks were first starting to develop the Eastalco site. We knew we had to put some kind of parameters on them. That was what the staff had come up with quickly.

I appreciate the amount of time that Councilmember Knapp put into the data center work group. I appreciate the efforts of all the folks on that work group. Again, I had a very boring weekend, I went back and watched a lot of meetings. I went back and watched the meetings of the data center work group. I rewatched our meetings where we were discussing this bill and I did listen to what folks were talking about initially about they wanted the elected officials to be making decisions and they wanted certainty and predictability and as council member Knapp said, that will be the discussions along with the overlay bill about where these things will be allowed to go beyond the East Alco site.

But also I heard people talk about concerns that they had about what these things looked like and what the issues they had with the possible noise and possible vibration issues and we have monitoring provisions in this bill. I watched the hearing of the Planning Commission last week when they were considering the Align application and the Planning Commission is already using provisions in this bill to help guide them and to get agreements from the aligned folks to do even more with their development of their buildings than is even in this bill. I mean I literally watched a debate where Ms. Seppe went back and forth about building cement walls around the generators to keep the vibration and the noise contained in where the generators are and not be spilling out into the into the neighborhood even though the developer said that that they didn't need to do it because it was far enough away from from the residences in the area. So they are already using things that are in this bill.

This bill does take what is currently on the books and beefs it up tremendously. I will tell you, I watched and went back and read reports out of Loudoun County and out of Prince William County and out of other counties in Virginia. There is counties further down in Virginia that are considering data centers and I have read reports from across the country. We are doing more right now than has been done in many of these folks, in many of these places. And while I certainly understand some of what Councilmember McKay has concerns about, this is going to be a process and we are necessarily going to get everything perfect the first time around.

We may have to come back and do some tweaking. We are already recognizing that there needs to be some certainty about where these things can go and looking at where in the county it is appropriate and making sure that the structural infrastructure is there to make sure that it is a good fit, but we are so much further ahead than places in Virginia and I appreciate everyone who has come and given us their opinion and their thoughts on their concerns because we have tried to incorporate a lot of that into this bill. At the same time, we have an industry that is developing right now and without us doing something, that industry can just literally meet the requirements of the ordinances currently on the books which is not very much at all. So as far as where things can go, I believe there are additional restrictions that has to be in a growth area. I don't know if the areas that Councilmember McKay talked about are within a growth area.

It's very easy to pull up maps which is why I would have liked to have seen them ahead of time so I could go back and do my research. There is other requirements that are in this bill that were not in the current bill that they still have to meet before they can move forward with any kind of application for what their development is going to look like. So I would just remind everyone up here, we work better when we work together as a team and we're having conversations and not waiting to get to the bench of the dais and have those conversations. Legislation by gotcha is never a good idea, but also turning our council meetings into a platform for performance is also not a good idea. So I will be supporting this.

I actually think this goes a long way towards putting some additional guardrails and safety rails or whatever you want to call them, guidelines on what is currently going on and I would just continue to urge Councilmember Knapp if she is so inclined or any other council member to continue to reach out to the community. And again, it's kind of like other new industries. We're not going to get it absolutely perfect the first time around. We have to be open enough to continue to tweak as we see things not working the way we intended them. But right now, this is actually a very, very good first step and I plan to support it.

Vice President, doctor. Thank you, mister president. Thank you, council member Knapp, council president Young for all of your work on this bill. Agreeing with my colleagues, council member Carter and council member Keegan Ayr, this strengthens what is currently on our books. And the reality here is there was a compromise across the board. The industry did not get everything that they wanted. The community didn't get everything that they wanted. And I think that is a good legislative process where we all come together to try to figure out what is best for Frederick County. That's what we try to do with this bill. You know, to council member McKay, he's right.

He does not know what mister Pleasant's intentions are. I don't know what his intentions are. I'm not gonna sit up here and pretend to know what any developer is is gonna do in this county. And I think we are doing a disservice to mister Pleasants in particular to not even allow him to defend the acquisitions that came up tonight is just beyond me. But I think that, again, we are doing everything that we can do to make sure that everyone, yes, we none of us are ever gonna be satisfied and pleased with everything that comes out of a piece of legislation, but I think this was a good compromise.

Thank you, mister vice president. And I will first start by saying my greatest respect to Councilmember Knapp for not only putting this bill together, but for sitting through the workforce, the work group and coming together. Listen, the administration dropped the bill. It would have been very easy to walk away and say, just leave it where it was. It's we'd have none of these regulations. We don't need to go through that heartburn. But Councilmember Knapp said, no, I was on that committee. There's a lot of things that make sense. I want to find a way to get what we can get into place. And she did that, and I congratulate you for that.

I also say my apologies for some of the insults that you and other members of the council have had to take on what your intentions or your views or your beliefs are without allowing you to speak those because I think you do those so eloquently. I will say that I support this bill on data centers because it strikes the necessary balance between increasing commercial tax base, fostering technological growth, and protecting our community's well-being. I want to state that this bill does not expand data center rights at all. They were approved by the previous council. It puts significant new restrictions on them that do not exist today.

Major reasons that I support this is that it supports strategic zoning for responsible development. The bill mandates that data centers be located in areas zoned for industrial or commercial use, specifically within community growth zones. This ensures that such facilities are situated in appropriate locations, minimizing disruption to residential and agricultural areas. The second is environmental safeguards by restricting data centers from being built in ecologically sensitive areas such as priority preservations areas, rural legacy areas or treasured landscape management areas. The bill prioritizes the protection of our natural resources.

This approach helps prevent potential environmental degradation associated with large scale infrastructure projects. Third is infrastructure considerations as legislation requires data centers to be within two miles of 69 kilovolt or greater electrical transmission lines. The provision ensures that the necessary infrastructure is in place to support the high energy demands of these centers, reducing the risk of overloading local power grids. Number four, comprehensive impact assessments. The bill mandates assessment of visual, auditory and environmental impacts, including air quality considerations.

This holistic approach ensures that all potential effects of data center operations are evaluated and mitigated safeguarding public health and quality of life. The fifth point, alignment with broader policy goals by introducing clear regulations on data centers placement and operation to build lines with broader efforts to manage technological growth responsibly. It's a proactive stance in ensuring that advancements in digital infrastructure do not come at the expense of community values and environmental integrity. For those of you that were here at the last meeting and heard the young man with the IBEW that was so proud that he just was able to buy a home in Frederick County, and the pride that he had in being able to do that from the job that he has through the IBEW, where he gets a salary and benefits and the time to be able to be with his family, we need to provide more opportunities like that for that young man. In conclusion, our bill represents a thoughtful approach to integrating data centers into our community, balancing economic development with environmental stewardship and quality of life considerations.

In addition, with the announced overlay amendment, data centers will be in a very limited part of our county. Now, I say county because I don't want people to miss the point. Because we're talking about what we regulate, and that is Frederick County. We also have our municipalities. And I would not be surprised to see municipalities consider data centers.

And particularly, if we voted down this bill, and we said, or we came up with more regulations that made it impossible, we're going to have data centers. And so we want to be in the right places, under the right conditions and generate that revenue and increase our tax base in Frederick County that's not on the backs of our residential tax base. That's why I strongly support this bill. Any other comments before we vote? Call for vote.

Councilmember Carter.

Aye.

Councilmember Donald.

Nay.

Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Council Member McKay.

Nay.

And Council President Young.

Aye. The motion carries five in favor two opposed. We'll move on to bill twenty seven zero seven establishing the Francis Scott Keysen of Volunteer Advisory Board. Who would like to make a motion on this? Vice president Duckett, go ahead.

Move bill twenty five zero seven to establish the Scott Key Center Volunteer Advisory Board.

Second. Motion and a second.

I'll let the

I'm gonna speak

to the motion.

I'll let the president speak to the motion.

It's Well, this is, again, a part of a process where we now have to establish a volunteer advisory board. This came from administration. We've had discussion on it. It's a great center that we have in Frederick County for our developmentally disabled folks, and I think it's should be adopted. Any further discussion? We can call the roll.

Councilmember Carter.

Aye.

Councilmember Donald. Aye. Council Vice President Duckett. Aye. Councilmember Keegan Air. Aye. Councilmember Knapp. Aye. Councilmember McKay. Aye. Council President Young.

That carries seven four, zero opposed. That wraps up our business for this evening. We will now move back to general public comment. If anybody would like to make general public comment who has not done so already, please approach the lectern and you have three minutes. Go ahead, Mark.

For the record, Mark Thorembio, 8794, Darren Court. I just wanna speak briefly on I wanna say thank you for passing. First off, the Scott Key bill. I believe that a service as important as Scott Key Center does need to have an accountability board, and I would also be you know, I'm also very interested in trying to join that because why not? But another thing that has been on my mind lately is the closure of the Children's Center.

And it has come to my attention now that especially when the service is critical, we can't always rely on the private sector. It's just an unfortunate part of our

lives

because the private sector, in a lot of cases, prioritizes profit over a service. So what

do

we do? Well, my idea would be hopefully to do a public option, but that's just not in the cards, especially for a county like this, and where we have a significant budget crunch. But what I would pitch is a public private partnership, a partnership with private industries that basically both sides take some of the cost to ensure that we provide a service for all. I don't know if we I don't know. I'm aware that we do have a study going on.

I would hope that that is brought up in the study. But we really need to prioritize child care because it's beyond expensive. And we've just lost a massive part of our community and a massive part of child care. It was, I'd rather call correctly, one of the best child care services in the county. So we need to somehow fill that void, and we need to do it fast because the what people would have only people are gonna keep wanna keep coming here.

There will be more kids, more parents who need that service because they can't afford to, take off the time and then also pay the mortgage or pay their rent. So I urge the council to look at finding solutions to this critical service that we need. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Good evening, counsel. Michael Kirchnall, 5601 I represent Catellis Development, the developer and manager of the former Eastalco site. I really just wanted to come up. I'll keep my comments brief. I want to commend both the council, the administration, and the community at large.

There have been lots of differing opinions legislation. I have personally had dozens and dozens of coffee meetings with people that are opposed to the bill, people that were for the bill. And I think that's the kind of engagement that this type of project and this type of community needs. And I want to extend an olive branch to both counsel, the administration, as well as the community that the conversation doesn't end tonight with the vote that just happened. As I have said many, many times, my door is open.

If anybody wants to have conversations about this specifically or anything about the project, that's what we're here for. We want to be good members of the community continue those conversations and continue to evolve as the project evolves. And so, Kotel, I've had the privilege of working in many different jurisdictions across the country. And I will say I have been blown away by the level of engagement and sophistication and thoughtfulness that the community and everyone has brought to this discussion. And so as a member of the community now, I really do thank everyone and want people to know that the conversation doesn't end with this vote.

We're here. We're happy to continue those conversations, and we look forward to continuing to be a part of this community. So thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Good evening. Kelly KELLY Schultz. I reside at 6773 Belmoral Ridge in Lake Lingenor. I'm

also

the CEO of the Maryland Tech Council here representing the industry. And boy, what a civics lesson I've had the last several months. I want to thank County Executive Fitzwater for inviting me to be a part of the original data center work group. That, in and of itself, was an education. There were people there that were willing to listen to facts and industry perspective, and there were those there that were not. I'm very grateful for those that were there that were willing to listen. Councilmember Knapp, you have learned more about this industry in such a short period of time. Thank you for listening. Thank you for hearing. Thank you for asking questions.

And thank you for just putting Frederick County right now in a position in this state where we have, as a county, everyone in this room and those that are listening, we have set a standard for the state of Maryland, for other counties, and other jurisdictions to follow suit for their exploration of expanding data centers in their jurisdictions as well. So my hope is that other jurisdictions are just as willing to listen to the actual facts as opposed to presumptive behavior. By the way, did you know the best way to find out who is opposed to data centers out there in the world? They start a conversation like this. I'm not opposed to data centers, but and that leads you into a conversation where they're gonna come up with a thousand reasons why they should not be here as opposed to looking at factual information of where we should go in the future.

Being an elected official is not easy. It's very difficult. But having an open mind and listening to both sides of a conversation are critical. I'm really proud of Frederick County for leading the state in this effort right now. I'm proud of those members of this council that are looking this as a way to prevent more expensive growth in this county as opposed to ways in which we can help to, as council president Young said, bring more commercial viability to this county so that we can keep my children here to be able to afford their homes.

Young council member Carter, good luck with that. And my grandchildren, who, by the way, will probably go to Blue Heron Elementary School, which is the newest of the schools that was built because of development in my neighborhood. So thank you, counsel, for doing what you did. We at the tech council are here to be able to help and support and provide information and data that's gonna be inform informational helpful for the future growth of Frederick County. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Nick Carrera, still living on Scenic Thurston Road. About the bill, as Julius Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon River, the die is cast. Now forward. I just wanted to remind you all that, as has been pointed out by a number of times, in the data centers work group report, there was information offered on the benefits to the county, the financial benefit to the county from data centers.

But it was not an analysis of the net benefits. In other words, there are going to be certain costs associated with data centers. Infrastructure may be needed. And the figure that was given there, I think, was $41,000,000 I think we really should do a careful analysis going forward and find out what the net financial benefit to the county will be. And along with that, either the Sage report or the Muni Corp report I think it was included in that talked about the possibility for additional revenue beyond that $41,000,000 figure if we were to have a personal property tax that would apply to data centers.

Now, I know it's not up to you to do that. But maybe if it looks like a good idea to you, maybe you could influence whoever would go to the state. I guess the state has to approve it. We have counties around us that do have a personal property tax. We could have one too, is my understanding, if we wanted it and pushed hard enough. If we did have a personal property tax of, say, dollars 2 or $3 it would still be way under what they're getting in Loudoun County, Virginia. It's over $4 per $100 evaluation. Anyway, we could get more. And it wouldn't cost us anything. And it probably wouldn't chase anybody away because they're willing to pay that in Loudoun.

Why not here? Now, the other thing is there's going to be a bill coming down the pike that will put into law what was decided and announced on May 6 about this compromise. And that's good. We need that. One of the things that Fitzwater said was there's going to be she intends to have a five for one swap.

So any ag acreage used around in this overlay there around Quantum will be compensated by five acres somewhere else. I don't know how that's going to go into the bill that you produce. Who's five acres somewhere else? And what acreage if around the Quantum place, most of it is agricultural right now, right around quantum. What if they don't want to give up their acreage to go to data centers? Are they going to be forced to? Will there be a forcible taking? Anyway, that's something to think about in the bill coming down the pike. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have to put my glasses on. I'm old. My name is Harry George. I live at 50 Citizens Way in Frederick. And I will start out, as Ms.

Kelly Shultz indicated, I'm not against data centers. In fact, I frankly think that they have the potential to be a great asset to the county. However, I also think that it's incumbent upon us, as Mr. Carrera indicated, that we go into this with our eyes wide open and consider not only the benefits, specifically the financial benefits, which I know many of you are thinking about as well as the governor, but also the costs. Do a net benefit cost benefit analysis, or at least I hope that someone will at some point.

I hear folks from the DIS and elsewhere say that this bill offers more protections than what we have today. And I just ask you to reflect and really consider if that is true. The bill reduces compliance. Now, this bill actually allows the industry to self police in areas such as vibration, noise. And given the construct of the nominal penalties associated with noncompliance, not to mention reducing measurements to every two years and extended six month cure periods.

This bill allows them to do things to the maximum extent practicable, which is in the eye of the beholder and specifically the industry. This bill increases allowable building hikes from 70 to 75 feet from 60 feet. And most distressing, this bill egregiously allows these massive buildings with their rooftop chillers and hundreds of diesel generators to be within 200 feet of residential development, not yards, as The Frederick News Post reported. Council member Carter and Duckett, frankly, don't know what you were thinking and what constituent interests you were representing when you brought forth this amendment. But it'll be interesting to see what the residents feel in five or ten years from now.

So no, I don't think that this bill is an improvement from what we have today. Instead of learning from our neighbors in Loudoun County, I think you're setting the stage for the industry to run roughshod over the county and allow them to define how they operate versus protecting the citizens of the county. Council member McKay put forth a variety of thoughtful, well crafted, balanced amendments to try to correct these deficiencies, but was defeated each time by a five-two majority. I guess we can all hold out the hope that county executive will re veto this bill, but I think the adage, don't hold your breath probably applies. To say I'm disappointed minimizes my feelings.

And I know you're gonna call me, so thank you very much.

Thank you.

My name is Don Pleasants. I reside at 15408 Conrad Spring Road, Voyage, Maryland. I'd like to thank this council for taking the actions they have and being responsible in what they've done. I'd like to thank mister McKay for interpreting what I think and what my motives are, mister McKay. You know, it's it's quite frustrating to have someone speak up and interpret what what I think.

You've you've put thoughts into people's head that weren't in mine. The property you you can grin and laugh like you think you know what you're doing there. But the property across from my property on 355, we're currently building flex space right across from there. So the 200 fleet does nothing there. The the purpose of my my intent was and my motive was that the bill called for no parcels adjacent to residential.

I've got property there. It's 500 acres of property. And for and it abuts residential. The areas where it abuts residential, I'm very familiar with all of this. There's a big stream valley between me and most of the residences. The other area where there's a residence residences is the closest house that there I'm very familiar with. I looked into all of this stuff. It's a 130 feet from the parcel line. You take another 200 feet. That's 330 feet.

Just about goalpost to goalpost. And when all this with

the

with the screening, the berms, and everything else, there's no one gonna be have problems there. You have to look at the topography of the ground, the the woodlands in the ground, and there's not real impact there like like you think there is. And so I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but I just had to felt like I had to clarify what my intentions are and not what others interpret them to be. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in the room? Seeing none, are there any on the phone line?

We do not have anyone on the phone.

Then we will close public comment. Again, remind folks that if you want to send any additional comments to the council, you can always do that at council members of frederickcountymd dot gov or calling (301) 600-1135 leaving a message that will be transcribed and sent to the council. At this point, we would do council member comments. Council member McKay.

None for me.

Council member Natt.

Thank you, mister president. I would like to thank all my colleagues who supported this bill. I also would like to thank my colleagues who did not support this bill. Their feedback from everybody is important, and I know at the end of this process, like other issues that come across the dais, I believe in my heart that everybody up here wants the best for Frederick County. We don't always agree.

We have heated discussions that can get very contentious, like they did tonight. But like I said, I still believe that each of us were put here by the people and that we all serve the best interests of Frederick County as best we can. So it is hard to believe that two years ago, county almost two years ago, the county executive asked me to be co chair of the data centers work group. The other co chair, Karen Cannon, is here tonight. And also, I think I counted five members of the work group who are here tonight.

And yes, as Councilmember Keegan Eyre said, we spent many weeks and hours over a huge amount of information trying to get up to speed to make these decisions. And I want to thank everybody for their time. This has been a community led process. And again, as been mentioned, we are leading the region in data center regulations. And I think that we can all be proud of that.

Everybody who attended a meeting, watched a meeting, offered public comment, we've had dozens and dozens and dozens of people who've offered their comments. Two ideas I kept in mind throughout this entire process. One was provided by Buddy Riser very early on in the process when he said, Define your opportunity. And I think that has I think we have done that with this bill and especially with the upcoming overlay bill. I was very encouraged when we all showed our support for that bill.

I think that will even further define the opportunity that Frederick County has. And Frederick County is different than other areas in the region. The transition report says we want Frederick County to have a successful data center economy. We don't measure that the same way as some of our neighboring jurisdictions do. They have millions of square feet of data centers.

That's they define their economic opportunity. We have carved out an economic opportunity where we think that we can add to, as Council President Young said, the commercial tax base in a way that can help fund our school system and the growing list of needs in a growing county. And that goes to the second idea that I kept throughout the process, was securing the value for Frederick County. This industry has a tremendous opportunity here. They're going to make a lot of money in Frederick County.

And what I wanted to do was make sure that we had everybody coming to the conversation, coming up with regulations that we can all agree on, benefit both sides. And lastly, I will say Councilmember Keegan Air also mentioned this earlier. The last paragraph of the data centers work group calls for Frederick County leaders and stakeholders to stay engaged in this process. Technology will change. Changes are the only thing that you can count on.

So we will have to revisit this issue with subsequent bills that deal with sustainability, focusing on sustainability, not kind of just adding it. And I understand the impulse to want to get it all done at once. I do. But this is a very complex issue with a lot of moving parts, and each one deserves to have the proper amount of consideration. So we still yet have to visit sustainability and community benefit. And that is all I have for tonight. I just want to thank you all again for your support in this bill.

Thank you. Council Member

congratulations that your bill passed. Even if we disagree with it, you worked awfully hard on it. And I know you have the best interest of Frederick County at heart and also you live near it. So you're going to have to live more than anybody else here with the results of your work. So congratulations to you. As always, when I'm on the short end of a vote, I hope you're right. I really do. I hope there are lots of jobs there. My interpretation may be off, and I hope there are plenty of jobs there. As to Nick Carrera's point, I think there will be a personal property tax on equipment and data centers.

That's inevitable. I think the data center people even know that. So that's not going to be an issue. I wanted more restrictions on it, but so it goes. We decided what we decided. I mean, they can only go in these hyperscale centers can only go in certain places, so that's why I thought we had the leverage to kind of do what we wanted before it's over with. Maybe we will go back and look at a few things in the future. Just a last word. Tony left, but he asked what it he couldn't imagine what it's like to do this where people are yelling at you and you have to make decisions. And I wanted to say right then, I had the perfect training for this.

I was a football official for for years. And it it it it was very useful in in in these things. I have to tell Tony that sometime. Thank you.

Jerry, did basketball. I think that was worse for ten years. So council member Carter.

I think to add on to your guys' conversation, I grew with an older sister. So I think that that really strengthens you. And so I think that makes it a little easier. Nothing can compare to growing up with an older sister, especially one that's taller than you for most of, your childhood. But with that, I'll know?

Council member Keegan Eyre.

Thank you, mister president. I think I have you all beat. I taught kindergarten and first grade. So trust me. You you not only have people yelling at you, you have people crying on you, so or having doing other things.

Anyway, I just wanted to for for folks that didn't understand, when I was doing my points of order, Typically for third readers, we speak to how we're gonna vote on something. We don't bring slides or pictures or things like that, and so that was atypical of how we normally do things. I still do not agree with it, but I'm willing to let that one go. I would also, speaking to the comments about how we're going to determine that we will get additional tax money. Right now, the land is being taxed as unimproved land, which is a very low rate.

Once the buildings are there and they are operational, it's taxed at a higher rate because it's now improved. So the tax assessment goes up. That's where part of, if not all of that 41,000,000 came from in the Sage report. It's the increased value of the land based on the State Department of Assessments and Taxations assessment of that property in a completely developed state and that's where we get that money from and anything above with the personal property tax would be above that. So that's a little bit of background nerdness that you probably didn't even want to know about.

That wasn't what I intended to talk about this evening, so I'm just going to throw out there. Many times we sit up here and talk about things that are either coming up that we want the public to be aware of or things that we have been doing. So in the last two weeks since our last meeting, I have sat through one, two, three, four, five meetings that have been webinars that have been hosted by either the National Association of Counties, WSCOG or other folks at national level talking about what counties are going to the pinch the counties are going to feel based on cuts that are being proposed right now in Washington through the reconciliation bill. One of the things that I have already heard from our farmers on is the the way they are going to refinance the SNAP program, which is our supplemental nutritional assistance program to people who have trouble affording food. That is going to hit counties hard.

It's going to hit the state hard. There is a lot going on at the national level, which you may agree with the overall goal, but I think people need to be aware that it's going to hit the states and the counties really hard financially if we continue to fund certain priorities that we are funding right now. Things like school food programs to make sure that our children have nutritional food in the schools, making sure that people who get WIC benefits or SNAP benefits, these are all programs that are gonna be taking a huge financial hit. And as I said, the last two weeks of my life I have probably sat through about twenty hours of meetings on this. It's a little scary and it's really disconcerting decisions that are being made in Washington and they don't seem to be in my opinion doing their due diligence to understand what the impacts of these decisions are gonna mean on the ground to everyday people and how they currently survive.

So I would just make sure that please make sure you're reading and watching the news on a regular basis because there are decisions that are being made that are going to impact all of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice President Duckett.

Thank you, mister president. I just wanna wish all of those who will be graduating from Frederick County Public Schools next week a happy and joyous graduation day. And to those, I think FCC's is this week actually. And so Frederick Community College, Hood, The Mount, congratulations to all of our graduates.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I always hate to put somebody on the spot, but we have a special young guest this evening. He's here. Would you feel comfortable coming up and tell us your name and tell you why you were here tonight?

Hello. My name is Nathaniel Werf. I'm with troop two sixty eight for communications merit badge.

And he earned his badge tonight listening to this. Thank you. Thank you for coming. You know, in my many years on and couple years here and many years on the board of FCPS, I always enjoyed our scouts coming in. Again, many times having to sit through some meetings that are not the most interesting thing for a young person to listen through, but certainly he earned his badge tonight.

So thank you for coming out. I did want to say again thank you to everybody that came out on both sides of the equation this evening. This isn't an easy issue and what we put in place tonight are regulations that weren't there in the past and it may not be as far as some wanted, it may be further than others wanted. What you'll learn about legislating is a lot like making sausage is the old phrase that a lot goes in and something else comes out. And again, I think what we did was some good compromises.

Did it's again, it's not perfect, but it's certainly better than what we have. And so I thank the council for having a good discussion and getting to where we were at this evening. Over the past two weeks, had the pleasure of attending a number of things. Went to the Navy Federal Credit Union opening. They opened their second branch in Frederick on Fort Detrick.

So those that go on Fort Detrick, now they have a new branch that's there. Last week, it was exciting to be at Hairy Grove Stadium where they broke the ground on the improvements that they're doing there, which will hopefully bring professional minor league baseball back to Frederick where it belongs and get a professionally affiliated team. I went to the ribbon cutting of actually the expansion of the unrivaled gym expansion over off of Church Street. Beautiful facility, again, doing a great job there. Went to the first year ribbon cutting of the Clear Mind Centers providing mental health services in Frederick.

As Vice President Duckett said, I went to Hood College's graduation last Saturday. Both Hood and Mount have graduated. As was also mentioned, all 10 of our comprehensive high schools graduate this coming week. If you are driving on Route 15 North, please be aware that there are many young drivers and their families that will be attending the ceremony at Mount Saint Mary's University. I'm gonna get to, I believe, six of those.

So look forward to that. And the last graduation that I went to this week that was an extremely special one, was the Fire Rescue High School internship program over at the Independence Fire Hall. Frederick County and Frederick County Public Schools have a great relationship in developing potential young firefighters. This graduating class had 10, I think it was six young men and four young women from eight different high schools in Frederick County that have gone through an intense program to potentially either become firefighters or EMTs, and they had their graduation yesterday for that. And so congratulations to all those.

And again, thank you for the great program to our Fire and Rescue Service. With that, I'll let everybody know our next meeting will be a workshop on Tuesday, May 27, and then a legislative day on Tuesday, June 3, both at 05:30 p. M. In this room. With that, we are adjourned.

I'm Jake Winn from Visit Frederick, and I'm on a mission to uncover the amazing antique finds that make Frederick County, Maryland a must see for collectors and curious shoppers alike. Whether you're a seasoned treasure hunter, a weekend browser, or just hoping to stumble upon something unique, you'll find plenty of surprises around every corner at the antique store across this region. First up, we're heading to Emporium Antiques in Downtown Frederick. It's a sprawling one stop shop brimming with vintage furniture, handmade jewelry, and countless other hidden gems. No two visits are ever the same.

Would you mind taking me around, showing me some of the boots?

Yeah. Let's do it. So this is Booth PR, and she deals with small furnishings. We have vintage clothing over here and some pretty handbags and things. We have vintage cameras. We also have Becky's booth here, and she has a little bit of everything. She's got albums and flatware and glassware

and

books.

It's a lot of variety.

It is a lot of variety.

Can you tell us a bit little bit about why people go antiquing?

People go antiquing because it's just really fun to get away from the everyday thing, either going out to restaurants or going to the movies. It's a little bit something different that people can do. So this is one of our newest dealers. Her booth is Fly of L Y. She does a lot of styling in her booth and she also hand paints pieces of furniture. She hand painted this whole, chipmunkil. And over here, just brought in a pair of French country chairs. Some of our dealers, they have a theme that they're going for. Not only do we have vintage and antiques, we also have some modern things that you can come in here and you can get a great deal on a sofa to work into your home and, pick up some antiques on the way out too.

So I see lots of different booths here, with a whole variety of different things. Can you tell us a little bit about the the different, variety you'd see

in in on the antique

store? Sure. We have about 70 different dealers, and they all do a little bit something different. There's definitely something for everybody in our store, whether it's mid century modern, Chinese chip and dale, European, funky stuff, industrial. We have something for everybody. So this is one of my favorite paintings in the shop right now. It's done in a trompe l'oeil style, which is like a two, three-dimensional kind of a thing where it feels like you're actually in the painting. It feels like some of the items are coming out at you. It's of one my favorite pieces.

Curiosity, what makes Frederick a a good place to go, for antiquers?

So Frederick is right in the center of the DMV area, and it's of course, it's in historic beautiful downtown Frederick, Maryland. Many restaurants and shops. We are 55,000 square feet of vintage goodness, and so why would you not wanna come? So this is the consignment section of our store. You have a mix of vintage and antiques and modern things, and it's just a section of our store where people like you and me can consign our items.

Well, thank you so much for showing us around the store today.

Thanks for coming.

We're making our way to Northern Frederick County to the Emmitsburg Antique Mall, a huge space packed floor to ceiling with relics and collectibles that each tell their own story. This is where the thrill of the hunt really comes alive.

Hey, Mike. It's nice to

meet you. Would you be willing to show me around the Emmitsburg Antique Mall?

Absolutely. Let's do it. The Emmitsburg Antique Mall, we have a lot of variety for the customers that come in here, and I think that's really important because, truthfully, everybody usually collects something. So we have something for anybody, really, is what it comes down to. As we just passed, we passed a booth that had mid century modern stuff. A lot of the booths here have a variety of things. So you'll see glassware or coins or primitive stuff. Like, it's just a, you know, well encompassing antique mall.

So we're pretty close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania here. Right? So you have some civil war history items as well?

Absolutely. Yeah. We do, which is pretty neat. I mean, we just passed the booth. They have some old rifles, civil bullets. It's fascinating to be so close to Gettysburg and see these items come through because it's such a unique part of American history.

Do you have any kind of advice for someone who maybe is new to antiquing of things that they should be looking for when they when they come into an antique mall like this?