Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Today is September 14, 2026, and we'd like to begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us if you're able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God. So we are happy to have a packed house here today, and this is our first meeting back from recess. We appreciate all of you. We've been out in the community still, but first meeting since our first week of August. We're gonna start our day today with honoring and celebrating some key milestones in the city of Rockville, and I'll ask my colleagues to join me at the podium.

Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to start off our certificate of recognitions to present a certificate for record-breaking basketball scoring achievement for Taveras Boogie Von Cooper of Richard Montgomery High School. If the family can come up while I get to read all the wonderful things that he has done. I have a special affinity for saying names correctly. On behalf of the residents of Rockville, the mayor and council are pleased to present this certificate to Tavares Boogie Von Cooper in honor of his record-breaking scoring achievement of 1,592 points. Right? the mayor council members staff and entire rockville community congratulate him for all of his stellar athletic achievements while at richard montgomery high school during his high school basketball career boogie distinguished himself by scoring a record 1500 points over 98 games from his freshman to senior years his career statistics include 295 rebounds 351 assists 205 steals and 18 blocks he He also achieved multiple all-division, all-county, and regional awards. These are truly monumental achievements. We wish Boogie continued success with all his future endeavors.

I've got a couple of these. All right. Sorry, just getting organized. So today... I am honored and we're honored to present the certificate of recognition to four individuals who provided aid to a resident of Newmark Commons, Judge Dwyer. So let me read the proclamation and I'll ask Judge Dwyer to come up and say a few words and then we'll give out the certificates. So the mayor and council of city of Rockville providing aid and assistance to a resident presented to the Newmark Commons life card, the four of them, in recognition of your quick thinking, professionalism, bravery, and compassionate assistance to Rockville resident Judge Deborah Dwyer following a serious fall on July 29th, 2026. When Judge Dwyer was unable to get up or assist herself, you immediately responded, kept her calm, monitored her condition, summoned emergency medical assistance, and remained by her side until help arrived. Your actions demonstrated selflessness, care, compassion, and a steadfast commitment to the safety and well-being of a fellow Rockville resident. You rose to the occasion during a time of crisis and provided critical assistance when he was needed most. Thank you for your courage, compassion, and unwavering commitment to serving the city of Rockville and its residents. Thank you very much. So, Judge Dwyer, if you want to come up and say a few words.

Thank you so much for having me here tonight and for entertaining my suggestion to honor these young people. And I do have some comments, but you've said everything I was going to say. But I did want to acknowledge Jack and Alex and Ava and Katie and tell all of you personally, I know Jack is not here tonight, but I know the parents of all of you are here. I wanted to tell you that the four of you represent the best of who we are as neighbors. And I know I speak for everyone in this room in saying we are thankful that you are part of our community. We are surely in good hands with these young people. And I thank all four of you from the bottom of my heart for helping me that day when I was very seriously injured and by myself and afraid. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you were able to hear me yelling for help and respond the way you did, call an ambulance, keep me calm, and assess my situation and pass it on to the EMTs. I was very seriously injured that day, clearly. But I thank you all from the very, very bottom of my heart. And thank you, mayor and council members, for having me here today and for acknowledging these young people. Thank you so much. Thank you all.

Thank you. So we could have Alex and Ava and Katelyn up. No, no, you as well. You stay up here.

Good to see you again.

Thank you so much. All right. All right, so Alex is at the soccer game. Yeah, is this Eva? Oh, sorry, Ava. All right, so it looks like we have one.

I love celebrating young people and I'm glad you're okay. So we have a couple of other celebrations I'd like to invite up to join me, Chip Boylan. We're now gonna recognize and present the 2026 Recreation and Parks Foundation Community Achievement Awards. Who knows how many parks we have in the city of Rockville? Yeah, that's right, yeah. We're upwards of more than 65, but it's... I'm impressed. Did you feed her that answer? Well done on the homework. But Recreation and Parks really does take a village, and we're so thankful to be joined by partners, and Chair Chip Boylan's going to share a little bit about each, and will bestow a Rockville Recreation and Parks Community Achievement Award.

Okay, thank you.

So the foundation was established to support rec and park activities and programs in the city of Rockville. And about a dozen years ago or so, we created the community service awards because we recognized that before we existed as a foundation, there were many Rockville residents who were doing terrific volunteer work that supported rec and park programs and activities in the city. And so we've recognized people every year who have done that so well for us, and we have three recipients this year, and I'm gonna read something about each of them and invite them to come up. So we'll start off with, in the individual category, Lillian Fisher. Lillian has been part of the Croydon Creek Nature Center community since she first joined us as a young camper. After aging out of many of our programs, she chose to maintain involvement by becoming a volunteer, continuing the connection she built there as a child. For the past four and a half years, Lily has served as a dedicated animal care volunteer, coming in every week to help care for our animal ambassadors, I guess that's right, ambassadors, they're animal ambassadors. Over the past two summers, she expanded her role by volunteering with our camps, helping create the same meaningful experiences she once enjoyed as a child. Lily has contributed more than 230 hours of service, Staff is incredibly proud of her growth, her commitment, and her enthusiasm. Lily has made a lasting positive impact on our staff, our animals, and the community we serve. Her dedication truly makes the Nature Center a better place, and we are honored to recognize her as a Community Award recipient. So congratulations to Lily Fisher. Lily is away at college, first month at college as a freshman, so she couldn't be here in attendance, but tonight her mother, Elizabeth Fisher, who also happens to be a volunteer with the city, on the city's Rec and Park Advisory Board. So Elizabeth is gonna come up here and accept the award, perhaps, of Lily. So were we gonna see her?

Hopefully, on some sort of WebEx or Zoom.

Were we able to do that?

We'll go to the next person. Oh, unmute, Lily.

Yeah, hello? Can anyone hear me? Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. Did you hear us talking about you?

Yes, I did. Everything you said was very nice.

Okay, was it all true?

I'd like to think it was.

Well, sure it was. And congratulations and thank you for being a terrific example for the rest of us in our voluntary activities with the city.

Thank you. And good luck in college.

Thank you. Stay up here because we'll take a picture. Okay, in the business category, we have Montcare Potomac, otherwise called Montcare. Montcare is an exceptional business partner whose generosity and commitment greatly enhance programs and services at the Rockville Senior Center. Each year, they support more than 20 events, providing in-kind contributions, ranging from T-shirts to turkey trot, participants to giveaway items for the annual health fair. Their support extends beyond the senior center. They also contribute to the villages program and events throughout the neighborhoods by supplying bands, tents, food, and other key resources. During Heart Healthy Month, Montcare generously provides food for celebrations and ensures a representative is present to engage with participants at our heart health events. They also coordinate the Better Breathers Club by organizing monthly meetings, coordinating presentations, and often volunteering after regular work hours. Their representative even serves on the board for the Village Support Network, further demonstrating their dedication to our community. MonCare also plays an important role in our seasonal housing tours, helping seniors explore local senior living options. But their impact goes far beyond in-kind support. It's the way they show up, they're representative, Carrie Donnelly attends activities, sits with seniors, and jumps in to support staff whenever needed. Montcare is not only a generous partner, but they are also a true champion of Rockville Senior Services and the senior community. It is with sincere appreciation that we recognize and honor their outstanding contributions. Here to accept the award for Montcare is Carrie Donnelly. Carrie, where are you? Please stay up here, we're gonna take a picture, okay? Okay, and finally, in the nonprofit category, we have the Capital Area Food Bank. The Capital Area Food Bank has been an outstanding partner to the Rockville community for the past three years. Each month, they provide fresh produce to residents in need focusing on supporting individuals rather than relying on strict income requirements. Their thoughtful selection of both fresh and shelf-stable foods brings a sense of dignity and joy to participants, many of whom look forward to their distribution day. Serving more than 300 people monthly, the Capital Area Food Bank plays a vital role in ensuring that our neighbors have access to nutritious food. The city of Rockville is deeply grateful for their commitment, compassion, and dedication to reducing hunger and strengthening our community. Their partnership is truly valued and worthy of recognition. The Capital Area Food Bank representative, Anne Wright, is online with us tonight, but here to accept the award on their behalf is Alexis DeAngelo Swoop.

Alexis, where are you? Thank you.

So we wanna take a picture, but again, these three recipients are great examples of volunteerism in Rockville. And we also should mention, there's nothing to volunteer for unless we have the terrific Rockville recreation programs, activities, sites that are supported and maintained by our fine mayor, council, and city staff. So let's have a hand of applause for them.

Lily, cut your camera back on so we can see you in the picture.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for all the work on the foundation. Appreciate it. Thanks. Congrats, Mama. Yeah. Good job.

So the next two proclamations that we have today deal with a very important issue, and that's voting. We have an election coming up, and in this nation and across the world, people have lost their lives to have the right to vote. And so we have two special proclamations that we're honoring this month. One, which is the National Disability Voting Rights Week, where we talk about the importance of making sure everybody can have fair access to voting, but then also National Voter Registration Day, which is coming up. And I know the clerk's office does a phenomenal job, at least here in Rockville, of getting people to register. But whether you're in Rockville or not, if you're not registered, please register to vote. We even have same-day registration here in the state of Maryland. Whereas the right to vote is a cornerstone of what it means to be a free society, representing the bedrock tenets of equality and civic participation upon which our nation was founded and for which many have fought to obtain and protect. And now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of the City of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim September 15th, 2026, as National Voter Registration Day, and encourage all residents to register to vote, renew their voter registration status, update their information as needed, and be ready to exercise their most fundamental American right, the right to vote. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation.

Thank you. Do we have a second? Ms. Michelle seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye. Now we do have a recipient, but we're going to read the second one and then have him come up. Whereas there are over 61 million people of all ages living with disabilities in communities throughout the United States, making up almost a quarter of this country's population. And now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, designate the week of September 14th to 18th, 2026, as Disability Voting Rights Week in Rockville, Maryland, and support the growing involvement of the disability community in the process, and urge all residents to support this effort. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Thank you.

We have a second.

Council Member Blair. Second. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye. Excellent. All right, so we've got two unanimous proclamations, and I believe we have Jim Melanoff from the Rockville Board of Elections to come and say a few words.

Yeah, thank you very much. Councilman Van Graak, thank you very much, and Mayor and Council. It's really inspiring to me to see just how seriously the city of Rockville supports voter registration and importantly, disability voter rights. On the board, my fellow board members and I, Juliet Goldman and Kathy Sindos, Manifestly share those those commitments and we're very happy to accept I'm very happy to accept these proclamations on behalf of the board and I'd like to remind everyone that tomorrow as The councilman has noted is national voter registration day for those of you who would like to register to vote or update your voter registration please come to Rockville Town Square and And we will be there from 10 until 2 in order to help everybody who is interested to register to vote, including those who are 16 and above and citizens here and living in the city of Rockville or in Montgomery County. We can also take those registrations as well. But thank you very much. And it's really a pleasure to serve the city. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Can someone help me hold this open? Maybe one on both sides here. There we go.

Thank you very much.

Greetings, greetings. Thank you for indulging me. My face is half numb from an unexpected dental procedure, so I'll do my best not to drool on the proclamation here. This proclamation recognizes Hispanic Heritage Week, and I'm very proud to be able to give this or read this proclamation this evening. It reads, whereas the observation of Hispanic Heritage Week started in 1968 and was expanded into a month-long observation in 1988. And now, therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2026 as National Hispanic Heritage Month in Rockville and are proud to celebrate the resilience, contributions and culture of Latinx, Hispanic, and Latino-identified individuals, groups, and communities. With that, Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. I believe we have a recipient this evening, Ms. Olga Lee. How do I pronounce your last name, ma'am? Lee. Lee. I apologize for my mispronunciation. You want to say a few words? No? Okay. It's all good. Take a picture with us? If you want. No pressure.

Good evening. It's my honor to present the National Car Free Day Proclamation. Whereas Car Free Day benefits Rockville and the National Capital Region through improved air quality, reduced traffic congestion, and parking demands, and the conservation of energy. And whereas Car Free Day is a special day to rediscover Rockville without a car and reconnect with fellow residents, businesses, community organizations, and neighbors, and remind people about the transportation options, environmental impacts, and other quality of life issues. Now, therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland, hereby proclaim September 22, 2026 as Car Free Day throughout the city of Rockville and encourage all residents to pledge to go car free or car light by carpool or vanpool. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation.

Thank you. Do we have a second?

And I believe we have Mr. Jake Jakovic from Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee. Do you want to say a few words?

Good evening, everybody. I'm honored to receive this proclamation. My wife and I live car-light. We've only ever had one car. We've always gotten around using all the options that are available to us. We always encourage people and those of us to do the same with us. I rode my bike here today because I live a kilometer from here. You don't drive a car a kilometer, do you know? And one way we can all kind of figure that out actually as a segue is on to learn how to do this. We're having a family bike festival in Town Square on September the 27th from 1 to 4 p.m. Bring your kids, everybody along. We're going to have bike demonstrations. We're going to have a balance bike parade, decorating stuff all for the little ones. Teach people, teach kids how to, you know, ride bikes and enjoy them and maybe work to be car-free themselves. Thank you.

Okay, next up, I am really pleased to do the proclamation in honor of Economic Development Week. Whereas the economic growth and stability of the state affect all regions and jurisdictions of Maryland, and whereas October is Global Diversity Awareness Month, and this is an opportunity for us to spotlight and support diverse businesses here in Rockville, Now, therefore, the Mayor and Council hereby proclaim the week of September 28th through October 2nd, 2026 to be Economic Development Week in the City of Rockville, Maryland, in recognition of the importance of economic development and its role in supporting the business community, creating new and dynamic opportunities for residents and visitors, and enhancing the fiscal health of the city. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. And I believe we have Cindy Rivard from Rockville Economic Development, Inc., our amazing economic development partner, to come accept the proclamation. Oh, of course you should come as well. Who wants to say a few words?

Cindy. Go ahead, Cindy.

Thank you very much. I want to introduce the Ready Board Chair, Nancy Reglin, and our Deputy Director, Richelle Wilson. It takes a village, as you know. We really appreciate the acknowledgement of Economic Development Week. Our work is to increase the tax base of Rockville, to bring new businesses here, create more jobs, help the business who are here grow and be fruitful. And we do that with a lot of different services, helping people find locations, giving market data, helping people connect to resources. And so if anybody needs assistance with the business, please give us a call. Our website is www.rockvilleready.org. And thank you again. We really appreciate the city's support.

Thank you.

And now we will proclaim September 2026 as National Preparatives Month. I should also note that on September 11th, this Friday, we celebrated and honored, well not celebrated, but honored and commemorated the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I can't believe it's been so long. It feels like yesterday in this 250th year of our country. We honor the 3,000 lives who were lost, and we know that many others were impacted, people who had health issues after, people who were impacted by the subsequent wars, and many families who have suffered. It's a good reminder that we always have to be prepared, and preparedness comes in so many ways. We've dealt with COVID since then. We've had storms and changes related to climate change, and It's an important part of our city that we are prepared to protect our residents here in the city of Rockville. And I'm going to call up Brent Miller from the city of Rockville emergency manager. This is a new area that we have invested in the city. And I'll start with the proclamation. And if you could say a few words about our preparedness efforts. Whereas the city of Rockville is dedicated to promoting preparedness for its residents, whereas emergencies come in many forms, including fire, heat wave, drought, flood, hurricane, winter storms, and more. And whereas September is National Preparedness Month, and it's observed nationwide and in Rockville to raise awareness about the importance of preparedness and encourage all individuals, families, businesses, and communities to take action to be prepared for emergencies. Now, therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Preparedness Month and urge the Rockville community to prepare for emergencies and spread the word regarding the importance of everyone having a plan, as well as thanking our very many first responders, including police, fire, health, many other folks who help keep us safe every day. Welcome, Brenton.

Do we have someone who can move for me?

Council Member Fulton? And second, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Excellent, thank you.

All right, here we go.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Chief West. It is an honor to accept this proclamation on behalf of the City of Rockville. With emergency management embedded within the Police Department, our role has become increasingly operational, focused on readiness and response. In just a few months, we will also open the City's new Emergency Operations Center, strengthening our ability to coordinate during major incidents. Preparedness is a team effort And I am proud to be a part of that effort here in Rockville. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Chief West, I also want to acknowledge you. Thank you for being an amazing first responder.

Oh, man, I roll with a posse on this one. This is awesome. For many reasons, this is awesome. So I am beyond honored to move the National Recovery Month proclamation. As I'm sure everybody has seen around the city or on some people's dresses, we're all purple this month, but I'm a big fan of walking the walk. It's not just about putting the purple lights up, it's about the celebration of recovery. We can use this month to talk about opioid misuse, but if we're not celebrating recovery, we're only doing a small part of the story. And the recovery community is something that is beautiful. It is full of love and support. And no matter where you go in the country, you can find that kind of support. And that is a rarity, especially in this day and age. And I wouldn't be myself if I did not come up with a... prop as well to say if you are not Narcan trained, myself, Mayor Ashton, Councilmember Jackson, we all got trained up last Friday. It is just as important as being CPR certified. It is simple and you can literally save a life. And so I really encourage everybody, plus you can get really cool things like this. I will go ahead and read the proclamation. I'm trying to see, like, man, there's so many people here. And I see Fred. So we, there's LaTanya and Bonnie. Okay, cool. I'm going to make sure, like, I wasn't going to give you a shout out if you were in here. All right. All right. Whereas National Recovery Month is observed each September to celebrate the millions of people living in recovery and honor those whom we have lost to substance misuse, recognize the families and communities who support them, and promote the message that recovery is real. Whereas substance misuse and related mental health disorders affect individuals, families, workplaces, schools, and communities across every region, background, and political affiliation. And whereas the city of Rockville, as part of Rockville Goes Purple in the month of September, has lit city buildings in purple to support those struggling with substance misuse and those in recovery. Additionally, several events will take place, including but not limited to the International Overdose Awareness Day event that was held on August 29th, a panel discussion and movie screening of La Estrella with an introduction by Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller on September 30th, and community naloxone training and distribution, and Drug Take Back Day in October. Madam Mayor, I am proud to move the proclamation. And now I'm like, I'm going to invite everybody up. If the wonderful and amazing LaTanya and Bunny and the STEER team and the youth team, y'all can come up here. It's good to see you. I'm sorry. This is like, all right. I will. Here is for you and Bunny.

This time we are giving... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Excellent. All right. So I'll give you the STEER team one, and then y'all can fight over the youth team one.

Okay.

Or we'll make copies of them, too. Awesome.

Thank you.

Great, thank you for this recognition. I really want to share and really appreciate everybody for giving us a chance to put a face on recovery. It's really important from our end and I know from all of our teams, it really does mean a lot to be seen. I do want to say a couple of things about each team. So we have a STEER team, which is directly connected to the opioid response in the county. If something happens in the county, an emergency directly related to opioids, we get alerted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they show up bedside. Everybody on the SEER team does that. We also have a youth team, which is the NextGen Pathfinders, where we work with kids in high school and middle school from 13 all the way to 18. and provide them peer support. So in the same way that we're in recovery, we're also introducing young people into recovery so that they have an opportunity to see that it doesn't stop where they are, it continues to go. And then the last one that we have is our really important, our parent program, which directly supports the community and the parents of those that are struggling with substance misuse. And the benefit of that is that we're able to connect with people that don't understand what's going on and don't really understand what to do. And I think the biggest part of that is that we're able to show up for them and show them that it's possible and recovery is possible. So thank you.

Hi.

I'm Latonya Rich, and I am the co-founder and executive director of Tree of Hope. And I really just wanted to thank the city of Rockville for recognizing our organization. The people who work here have rebuilt their lives into something that's incredible. So the thing that used to give them shame it now empowers them to help so many people, right? And so I'm just proud to be a part of this. Everyone back here is, like, they don't work. They just do what they'd be doing anyway, but they get a paycheck for it, right? And as a direct result of being recognized as a service, they get to do that, and they get to... help other people live their best lives as well. So I thank you for the support for the city of Rockville. It's just been amazing being here and being so welcome. So thank you.

All right.

So it's my honor to present the last proclamation of the day, and it's a special one. It's to honor National Service Dog Month. Service dogs play a vital role in helping people with disabilities, whether it's helping to lead the blind, or alerting when people have seizures or when blood sugar is low. And not many people realize that there are so many roles that service dogs do play. So it's really my honor and our honor to honor National Service Dog Month. So whereas service dogs play a vital role in enhancing the lives of individuals with disabilities in our community, both visible and invisible, including visual impairments, hearing impairments, mobility limitations, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and seizure disorders. And now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of the City of Rockville, Maryland do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Service Dog Month, and Rockville and all residents to celebrate service dogs, honor their invaluable role in the lives of those with disabilities, and respect the rights of the adults, children, and veterans who lead more independent lives because of their assistance. And with that, Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. All right. And I believe we have Jennifer Weiland to, well, I will present this proclamation to her and she can say it for a few words. And is Jeffrey Baker here? All right. So Jennifer. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

This is McKetta. She's seven months old. And she is my sixth dog that I've trained. As Barry said, these dogs mean the world to a lot of people. Many of us have pet dogs and love them very much, but I will never hopefully know what it's like to need a dog and to have that relationship where I depend on a dog or that dog saves my life. So these dogs mean the world to me. to the people that they serve. And there's a lot of volunteers out there, like myself, who raise and train them through their first year, year and a half before they go on to more professional training. We're always looking for more volunteers to puppy sit, to help us raise them and get them to be respectable community members where they know how to behave in public so that they can go on to further training and become an invaluable part of someone's life. So thank you all for honoring her and all of her little buddies today. She's very well behaved. She's a good girl. She'll do whatever you ask.

Thank you very much, and we will take a brief break and rejoin at 6.30. I want to thank my colleagues and staff, as well as all of you for coming out to help us commemorate these important milestones and to celebrate achievements and each other. We'll be back. Good evening Rockville today is September 14 2026 and we are reconvening meeting 21 dash 26 before we begin with the rest of our agenda we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge a member of our Rockville family who we recently lost. I want to acknowledge the life and legacy of former Council Member Beryl F. Feinberg. She was a dear friend and a dedicated public servant. She served on Rockville City Council from 2013 to 2023, and she also served for many years on Montgomery County government, supporting their budget office, and she was a tireless advocate throughout her entire life for seniors, for children with disabilities, for the LGBTQ plus community, as well as just overall fostering a welcoming and inclusive community. We wanted to share a brief video tribute for Council Member Beryl F. Feinberg. While we get the video, may I acknowledge her partner, Ed Feinberg. He's also become a friend of mine and to the council and to the city. You guys were an incredible couple and would you like to share a few words? Sure. Welcome, Ed Feinberg.

Thank you, Mayor Hashton and members of the council. Dara loved her 10 years as a member of this body. She was a pragmatic visionary. She had high expectations for the city and for herself, but she was also conscious of budget limitations, the need to balance what was desirable with what was fiscally possible. She was a champion of serving people who had been historically marginalized, Beryl celebrated outreach and high quality services for people who are unhoused, people whose lives were affected by addiction, seniors who need a vital gathering place with top notch programming. She chaired the caregiver task force and was a fierce advocate for emergency preparedness in the city as well as through the Maryland Municipal League. Beryl was critical of government systems that did not always consider the impact on schools and public utilities when housing developments were proposed. She viewed the business community as the economic engine of the city. Beryl was highly collaborative and she also had strong convictions. She was prepared for all debates and discussions. She did prodigious research and expressed her opinions and positions with strength and eloquence. Thank you for your support during her four months of illness after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer was made in April. We so appreciated the cards, texts, emails, phone conversations, and tributes from the mayor and council and colleagues in city government. Special thanks to Kathy Densler and her colleagues for creating this outstanding video. I am now and will always be immensely proud of Beryl, the fact that she was my partner for 52 years, for her advocacy, integrity, and action. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I, Meryl L. Feinberg, do affirm that I will, do affirm that I will, support the Constitution of the United States, support the Constitution of the United States, and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance, and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of Maryland. Business Appreciation Week is a wonderful opportunity to thank businesses for establishing themselves here, for remaining here, and being a vital partner to the city of Rockville in terms of economic development. The City of Rockville honored Matty J.T. Stepanek for his remarkable contributions to his community. It's the willingness to look at our differences, celebrate our differences, communicate with each other, and respect one another. and we want to continue to actively celebrate the diversity of our community.

Thank you, and now we'll take a brief moment of silence. Thank you for taking some time to celebrate and honor the life of Beryl Feinberg, a friend and a servant to the city. We are a better city because of her. Thank you, Ed. I also want to acknowledge those who served with her as well, my colleagues up here, and former council member Mark Peschela, and I see former Mayor Bridget Newton. Thank you for being here as well. We also want to remember a few other lives that were unfortunately cut too short. Here in the city of Rockville, we remember Redufa Khalifi. She was a Rockville resident who was tragically struck and killed while walking her four-year-old son at the intersection of Twinbrook Parkway and Chapman Avenue. Her young son survived, and our thoughts are especially with him and all of Ms. Khalifi's family as loved ones as they endure this unimaginable loss. This morning we also lost Edward Duffy, a longtime Rockville resident. He worked for the city for more than 40 years and also served on the Rockville Housing Enterprise Board. We send condolences to his family. And a global icon, we recognize Dolly Parton. People might ask, what does Dolly Parton have to do with Rockville? Well, she helped fund the COVID vaccine. And that was, that clinical trial happened, one of those here in Rockville. She provided $1 million of her own work, of her own funds for that. In addition, she shared our love and compassion for LGBTQ plus communities. She supported racial and ethnic minorities. She shed light on the importance of supporting teen mothers and others who were often left at the margins. She lived through philanthropy. Thank you for allowing us some time to recognize the lives that were lost and our dear friends who have touched us and made us a better place. We're now going to move to agenda review. Ms. Sarah Taylor-Farrell.

Madam Mayor and Council Members, there are no changes for the agenda this evening, and there are agendas in the back of the room.

Thank you. We'll now move to the City Manager's Report. Mr. Mihalik.

Mayor Ashton members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. We have had unfortunately way too many vehicular and pedestrian conflicts, not only in the city limits, but also just outside. So as an extension of our existing Vision Zero initiative, we're going to be launching a brand new campaign. It's about traffic and pedestrian safety. We're calling it simply It's Up to Us. And the campaign really is going to reinforce a simple but important message that everyone, every single one of us, plays a role in keeping Rockville's streets safe. It doesn't matter whether we're driving, walking, rolling, biking, or taking transit, everyone has a responsibility to pay attention, follow the rules of the road, and look out for one another. I think that's the most important point, and that's, again, to look out for one another. So this new campaign, Canada will be a saturation campaign. We're going to use some existing programming that we have. We're going to dust that off and push that out immediately. In fact, we started last week. And then we'll be doing some additional content as well. It's going to be a saturation of social media, Rockville 11 bulletins, Rockville report articles. We'll do a special conversation with the mayor and council episode on this initiative and also a conversations in Rockville podcast. It'll include short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. It's really important for all of us to make sure that we're taking care of one another in this space. We're excited to launch that initiative. Secondarily, Councilmember Valeri kind of stole my thunder a little bit, but it's a good thing. I'm going to really invite people to go to one of our last Rockville Goes Purple and National Recovery Month events. It is the filming of La Estrella. It's a short film about Latino families who are affected by counterfeit prescription pills. It'll close out our discussion this month. The screening and panel discussion will be from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. Wednesday, September 30th at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater. We have great attendance so far, but there's plenty of seats available. I think people would really enjoy and learn from watching the screening and even more enjoy the panel discussion that will happen thereafter. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And we did show earlier the Naloxone training kit that we had. Just want to also remind folks that there is another training on September 28th. at 7 p.m. at the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center. Last week, Rockville City Police saved a life using it. It is available at fire departments, at a police station, but you too can get trained on it and have one. So Tree of Hope has been partnering on that training and come see us on September 28th at 7. We'll now move on to community forum. Welcome, Mark Paschala.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and council members. I'm going to talk about zoning, and I'm speaking on my own behalf tonight. As a follow-up to the recently adopted zoning ordinance, I would like to provide additional information on the concept of a champion project. This concept came up for discussion at both the Planning Commission and in a Mayor and Council meeting. I am the one who proposed the concept of a champion project in a letter I sent to my mayor and council colleagues on May 26, 2016, for the Rockville Pike Plan. Among its eligibility requirements is that it be at least five contiguous acres in the South Pike area. And if a developer chose to use a champion project concept, there would be a requirement for a 20% open space. The reason for the five acres and the 20% open space, among other goals, was to promote the idea of developing neighborhoods through property acquisition instead of watching development happen one building at a time. On June 6, 2016, the mayor and council inserted the champion project idea into the Rockville Pike plan with a few changes, notably the requirement for open spaces dropped to 15%. The Rockville Pike Plan was adopted on August 1st, 2016. The idea of creating new neighborhoods is my key motivation for champion projects. The B.F. Saul Company quickly used the idea of a champion project for its Twinbrook Quarter Plan. An additional necessary counterpart for B.F. Saul was the adoption of a developer rights and responsibility agreement known as a DRRA. This is a contract between the developer and the city and gives the development certain guarantees and responsibilities guiding us ability to develop. Geographically, the DRRA is defined as the boundaries of the champion project area, Twinbrook Quarter. The concept of a champion project can be applied to other parts of the city, but the eligibility criteria and requirements would have to be modified to fit the area. But let us think more broadly. That is the idea of a plan development. These went out with the 2009 zoning ordinance, were briefly allowed in the transition to the recent ZOR adoption, but are now out again. But why? Falls Grove, King Farm, and Newmark Commons are examples of planned developments among many others in the city. These are outstanding neighborhoods. My recollection of the 2009 Zoar process is that planned developments were not liked by certain neighborhoods because of their size. As you take up the Rockville Pike plan, I urge this mayor and council to consider expanding the idea of champion projects into full-blown plan developments and to allow these back into the zoning ordinance. This could be a key tool in encouraging the quick provision of housing. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We now welcome Samir Merchant. Please state your name, please state whether you live in the city of Rockville.

Yeah, I live in, my name is Samir Merchant. I live in the city of Rockville. Okay. Sorry, one minute. Oh, wait, that would. You have three minutes. I have three minutes, yeah. Let's go for it.

Sorry, I don't know why it's not loading.

It's okay.

Don't you love Google Drive? I love technology. It's really nice.

If you want to speak from the heart, you could also email it to us, no pressure.

Yeah, I don't think I'm very good at that, to be honest. Okay, cool. I'm good now. Good evening, council member and Mayor Ashton. I'm here today to ask that you implement ranked choice voting in the upcoming election. So let's take a look at our neighbors in Tacoma Park whose city council adopted this in 2006 and implemented it in 2007. According to Tacoma Park's website, ranked choice voting offers many benefits, like allowing voters to rank their preferred candidate first without having to worry that doing so would help elect a less preferred candidate. In addition, RCV allowed for encouraging more positive and inclusive campaigns as candidates have an incentive to appeal to voters beyond their core supporters to get a second, third, or fourth ranking. In addition, being forced to appeal to everyone means expanding the electorate to younger people, like myself, who may not be as politically tapped in, although I'm pretty politically tapped in. This is a great opportunity to get younger folks excited about local politics and I know the Rockville City Council is always working hard to try to expand the numbers of voters. I've seen that especially with how in 2023 Rockville implemented a vote by mail election which has increased the number of voters. Now the primary issue is getting more voters to register to vote. So there are actually studies on RCV that show that ranked choice voting jurisdictions are 17% more likely to turn out for non-RCV jurisdictions according to a 2024 study. By the way, I can send you all the studies later. It also turns out that youth turned out in RCV voting cities was higher than in non-RCV cities according to a 2021 study. So these studies all say that if we want to get more people Especially younger people to come out and vote in Rockville city elections, we need to implement ranked choice voting effective immediately. Do keep in mind that the average age in Rockville is between 39 and 39.6 years old. Millennials are between the ages of 30 and 45, so not trying to target them to come out and vote would be a mistake. I do find it a little bit disappointing that this isn't on the agenda, and no one, as far as I'm aware, has made it a point to bring this up as an issue for 2027. In essence, it really takes taking the Tacoma Parks RCV voting bill, maybe changing some things up, and making it fit our election and implementing it. I understand that there is some admin work that needs to be done. And I know you all are working very hard. But I think this will be very well worth implementing now rather than waiting for the next election, where it would be a whole new city council. So to be honest, we don't know about the future. So why not implement it now? We've seen Greenbelt on their ballot measure in 2025 vote 67% in favor of RCV. I hope Rockville can join Tacoma Park in implementing RCV. Thank you.

Thank you. I should also note just something new in our city hall. We have a more inclusive podium. And so if you need to raise it or elevate it, you can. And we hope that it works out well. Thank you. Thank you to the residents who helped provide input. Mr. Mihalik, want to say anything else about it? OK. Thank you. All right. Now we welcome Owen Anderson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Owen Anderson. I am the Deputy Director for Ranked Choice Voting Maryland, and I'm here to provide just a brief comment ahead of your work session on city elections. Our recommendation is that you keep moving forward Ranked Choice Voting so that the city is ready by the 2031 elections. The conversation on our CV has been ongoing since the charter review committee recommended the city consider rank choice voting, which I believe was back in 2022. And since the summer, when the election reform process began, I've seen residents speaking up on the issue. And I've seen how residents have been really happy to learn of your support for implementing rank choice voting. and express some disappointment that the city won't be ready in time for the 2027 elections, but are excited about the prospect of using ranked choice voting as soon as possible. So we respectfully ask that during the work session you find a way to keep the ball moving forward, whether that is including some language, forward-looking language in the code or some other official action. We also want to thank the city staff and Board of Supervisors of Elections for taking such great care to recommend thoughtful updates to the city elections. Democracy is truly an ongoing project that needs all of us to keep alive and grow. And we will continue to do voter education efforts and provide support to you all, however you need throughout this process. I look forward to the work session. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Jake Jakubek.

Good evening Madam Mayor and Rockville City Council. My name is Jake Jacobek. I live at 319 Granite Avenue in the City of Rockville. And I'm here as the Chair of the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee. I spoke to the room earlier and this time I wanted to formally invite the City Council to our event in Town Square on September the 27th. We're having our second family bike festival. in partnership with Waba and bike shops around the area. We're going to have interesting bike demonstrations, a balance bike parade, kids decorating, some community organizations going to be speaking with people. We're going to have an opportunity for anybody to speak. I'm going to have some audio comments. If you want to say a couple words to people at the event, we would appreciate that as well. So we'd love to see you there at the Family Bike Festival on September the 27th, Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That exhausts the list of those who signed up in advance. If anyone else would like to speak, please raise your hand. And I'll also note there is a public hearing later. So if you want to hold for public hearing for the topic we'll be discussing, we will call that at its time. Welcome. Please state your name whether you live in the city of Rockville.

Hello, my name is Hannah Lord Quigley. I live in the city of Rockville. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. It's wonderful to be in front of you this evening. I'm going to be here for another reason. Otherwise, I would have dressed up in my period garb today to invite you to Rockville Cemetery. So while the rest of the country is celebrating 250 years, we are celebrating 300 years at Rockville Cemetery. Christ Episcopal Church is going to be having a 300th year celebration on Sunday, September 20th, starting at 10 a.m. For those of you who have attended... Parties at Rockville Cemetery. You know not to miss this one. I want to extend an invitation. We're going to roll out the green carpet for all of you. From Christ Episcopal Church, Father Tim will be giving a sermon starting at 10 a.m. He's going to have the pulpit from the old church from the early 1800s we're going to be doing an unveiling of a plaque commemorating 300 years we're doing that with the rockville chamber of commerce and we're going to have rockville cemetery volunteers dressed in period garb talking about the history of the cemetery so please come one come all thank you so much thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak

My name is Libby Adams and as of Wednesday, I guess I will no longer be a Rockville resident. Every single member of this city's council has been extremely vocal about the mold situation over in Wooten High School. citing that kids are there for more than eight hours a day, exposed to mold, roaches, and rodents. Families are living in those kind of conditions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year over in the fields of Rockville. I haven't heard anything from any of you about that. Is it a concern for Wooten because it's a rich neighborhood, or maybe because your son goes there? I want to know where the outrage for my family and the other families living in the toxic conditions over in Fields of Rockville is. People are being poisoned in their homes and you all are silent. I've provided all of you with the proof of the toxic mold in the building at the Fields of Rockville, which I have with me if anybody wants to see it. I'm willing to share it with anyone and everyone. To you, Mr. City Manager. You said in June that you addressed all of my issues and were in complete compliance with the Maryland Mold Law. That couldn't be further from the truth. The Mold Law went into effect July 1st, 2025, and states that it could be triggered simply by a renter reporting a musty smell. My complaints were more than that. I have the trap with the termites and the vial of sludge for my toilet, if you would like to see it. Trevor Stevens from Rockville City Landlord Tenant Department sent me an email on 11-25-25 assuring me that my unit was safe to return to and all tests indicated that it was free and clear of mold. My family was forced back into that apartment Thanksgiving and despite me making further complaints to the city, They, oh, oh, I guess they're not paying attention to me anymore. Even though I made further complaints to the city.

Please address the mayor and council, thank you.

Even though I made further complaints to the city, they were ignored. Four months later and still without help, I paid for another professional mold test. As you all know, because you were copied on the email, it still shows black mold and indicates that there is still mold growing behind the walls. I'm pretty sure that makes you about 10 months out of compliance. All of you have been made well aware of the current state of that complex when I sent the email with the updated test results to which I was ignored. Fields of Rockville is a health hazard to the community. You guys made it a low income property and I can't help but wonder if the income caps over there are geared specifically to filling the building with people that can't afford to fight back. I know what I've been left with is go get a lawyer. I'm a disabled single mom of two. I can't afford a lawyer. I guess that means the laws only protect me if I can afford a lawyer, which I find to be pretty absurd. That doesn't seem right. Lastly, our lives belongings are scheduled to be put on the street on Wednesday because I can't afford a lawyer and the city refuses to help us. I just wonder if the sheriff and the moving company that's there to perform the eviction...

Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Welcome. Mr. Mihalik, did you want to say something? Okay.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. I am a Rockville resident. In fact, indeed, a couple of you have seen me where I reside at the David School Courts. which looks so much better than it used to with the new paved parking lot. Thank you very much for your guys' support on that and work on that. I have an issue, I was working with the code enforcement on, I won't name any particular code enforcement person, but bordering the David Scroll property, there's another commercial property, and there's a lot of trash there. I have pictures, I don't know if I am allowed to pass these to you guys. Okay. All right, thank you. Yes, and the thing is, what prompted this was that a lot of the children, there's a lot of children there, and I was getting ready to sort of coax them or convince them that not littering It's good. It's good not to just drop your trash anywhere. And then I remembered that they walk by a bunch of trash every day walking to school, and they can see that people litter there right on their path to school. And so I was thinking, children, they learn by... Demonstration what they see. So. I figured maybe I should start. Asking the council, I did make a little headway. I'm going to send you some pictures, but it used to be really bad. I mean, it was actually the trash. Halfway covered and blocked half of the sidewalk that these children had to walk around. work with code enforcement. They got the owner to do something, but it was very half-measured type, and it's still really bad, and it bores the David School property, and so it's I don't know, maybe it's, I don't think I would see this anywhere else. Maybe this is a environmental equality issue. But anyways, thank you for your time, and I will find out who I need to send these pictures to. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, we'll have a staff member in the back. We can get you an email, and if we can get the locations, we can help follow up. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

I'm going to take advantage of lifting this up. Hi, I'm Dave Hill. I'm the president of Rockville Sister Cities Corporation. And very quickly, I just wanted to make sure to take this opportunity to say the Bubble Tea Festival is this Saturday, which is an annual event that celebrates Taiwanese culture in honor of our sister city in Yilan City. It's become quite a regional affair, not just in Rockville, but we're very proud to be the sponsors and hosts here in Rockville. And we thank the city for all the collaboration we've had with the departments in the PIO, getting information out in events MAKING GIBBS STREET AVAILABLE TO US, WHICH GIVES US THE ROOM TO EXPAND. LAST YEAR WE WERE THE BIGGEST SINGLE-DAY EVENT IN THE CITY, AND I THINK IF THE WEATHER HOLDS, BECAUSE IT IS OUTDOORS, WE MAY BRING IN EVEN MORE THAN THAT THIS YEAR. SO IT'S FROM 10 O'CLOCK TO 4 O'CLOCK ON SATURDAY. Vendors mostly food and bubble tea drinks and other cultural and community groups that are involved all spread out. Trader Joe's is participating with us this year. We're trying to make a map of all the local businesses to encourage people to recognize those and find out what they do and come back and and. Patronize them, but it's a good time and you can come anytime during that period of open public visitation from 10 to 4 We hope to see all of the mayor and council around noon We'll get you all up on stage that are there and we'll have continuous stage performances at the gazebo and town center throughout that So it's a good time and yeah, please come on up. Thank you.

Thank you very much Not seeing any additional hands mr. Mihalik, did you have something? Okay

Hello, and I'll be brief. My name is Paul Bowman. I do live in Rockville, just a short walk away, actually. And I came to voice my support for ranked choice voting. There are a lot of reasons that you can look up, or people apparently are gonna send you and all that, but I think one of the main reasons that I support it, especially on a local level, is because when there's a party skew in a certain direction, there ends up with a lot of complacency, especially by the time you get to the general election, the election's kind of already over. the primary ends up being the general election because it previews everything that comes later. So having the ability to rank will give additional voice or additional opportunities to voices that are not as well heard. And people can vote for, and it will force people to actually think about who they're voting for as opposed to just voting the party line, which I would be very excited about. So that's it.

Thank you. Okay, last call for any other community forum members. Thank you for all of your testimony. Mr. Mihalik.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't want to get in the habit of creating a venue where we have dialogue of dispute or disagreement between residents and city staff. But every now and then when a resident says something that's just simply untrue, or more importantly, attack very hardworking, very well-intentioned city staff, then it's really important for me to speak up. And that's what I'm going to do right now. We are in full compliance with the state's mold law. We always have been since the 1st day it was adopted. We've been out to the fields on numerous occasions, both our housing team. Our inspectors members of the city manager's office, et cetera. Routinely regularly making sure. that that property is in full compliance. We've probably been out to that site in that particular unit more so than any other unit over the past couple years. So I want folks to know that the mere thought that we've been ignoring this situation, nothing could be further from the truth, and I'm happy to share emails with anybody. What we have now in the unit that's been brought up for discussion is really a dispute between the property owner and the tenant. The tenant did leave a number of their personal belongings in the unit. Then they also vacated the unit, did not take their personal belongings with them, then decided not to pay electricity bill, which means the electricity was turned off and there was no air circulation throughout the unit, which created some challenges there. That's where it stands today. So it is a dispute between the property owner and the tenant. We've talked to the property owner and said that unit should not be occupied. It is not occupied now and we want to allow anybody to occupy that unit till city staff goes back in, does a re inspection to make sure it meets all applicable locals and state codes. So please know we've done everything in compliance with state law city code and we've gone above and beyond to make sure that that property is safe. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mihalik. I appreciate the clarification. I just also want to note we do have an enhanced inspection program, and I just want to make sure that folks have the number 240-314-8300. And if there are any code enforcement or concerns, you can reach out to our and file a landlord-tenant code complaint. It's latinfo at rogfulmd.gov, and they can also direct you to the appropriate code enforcement folks. Thank you. Okay, we'll now move on to the special presentation. We are gonna hear from the Transportation and Mobility Commission and they're gonna share their annual report with us. Welcome Brian Barnett-Woods, Principal Transportation Planner of Public Works.

Good evening, Marin Council. My name is Brian Barnett Woods. I'm a principal transportation planner with the Department of Public Works. I'm also the staff liaison for the Transportation and Mobility Commission. Allow me to introduce to you Mike Brooks, who's going to provide the Transportation and Mobility Commission's annual report this evening. Also here with us is Kathleen Kleinman, chair of the commission. And with that, I'm going to pass it on to Mike. So thank you.

Welcome. Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor. Good evening, members of the council. My name is Mike Brooks. I am resident of Rockville. And I am a commissioner on the Transportation and Mobility Commission. We are a group of volunteer residents with an interest in transportation issues across multiple modes, be it transportation. cars, biking, walking, transit, the sort of whole gamut. I'm a regular commissioner. Kathleen Kleinman, our chair, is here. If I go a little too astray, I suppose. But no, I wanted to share what we have done over the last year, what we... are continuing to work on, to offer our invitation to continue to work with you, and just to reinforce the values and sort of guideposts that inform our work. So some of the concrete things we've done over the last year one area where we do have at administrative capacity is evaluation of residential parking permits applications and we actually did have one of those last year on crab avenue we did decide to keep it as it's currently zoned but we did have a very healthy consideration of both. uh, merits of, uh, residents, uh, local, uh, businesses. Um, and we, we really did put a lot of thought and, um, you took our responsibility seriously there. Um, this, this was fun. We, um, we went through, um, analyzed and provide recommendations for all of the, uh, transportation related and Rockville related, uh, bills coming up before the state legislature last year. And, um, We passed those on, and we hope those were helpful. We also provided comments and recommendations for the Chapter 25 zoning ordinance update, and we've had an ongoing effort to provide guidance and commentary on T-intersection crossings throughout the city. So that's kind of what we've been working on. Brian, go to the next slide. Right, so sort of our guiding principles. And I might bounce around a little bit in order here. As a transportation professional, My opinion is that safety is the bedrock for everything we do. People need to be safe in their communities. They need to be safe to conduct commerce. The transportation system, I've always said, In terms of all the issues we talk about, it's sometimes in the background, but it's really the connective tissue, the sort of neural network that connects so many other aspects of our lives, and it's critical, and our dedication as a commission to helping our community with these issues is apparent, I think, and your guys' commitment to keeping our city at the forefront and safe, I think is also very important. I mentioned multimodal in my opening. We're not just talking about roads. We don't meet every month and just talk about, okay, how can we get the pike a little better? We think about personal vehicles. We think about pedestrians, bikes, transit, and how they all sort of work in concert. Each one of these modes and considerations requires different types of infrastructure, different design standards, and they all have to work in unison for a smooth experience for travelers of all all shapes and sizes so already talked about safety I think we're all committed to division zero accessibility sort of mentioned that with the sort of a T intersection work we're doing we want our city to be enjoyable for not just the young, spry, able-bodied folks where not much of anything is a challenge. We want our entire community to be able to enjoy all of our events, all of our amenities. And we don't want that to be a hassle in their everyday life. So we, I think as a community, are very committed to that. And I know we, as a commission, are very committed to that. And I think community sort of brings together sort of all of those considerations I've talked about. You know, just making sure that our transportation system just enables the best lives for all of our residents. Next slide, Brian. Future topics, you know, I think this is one area where I think I'm comfortable offering, you know, we're at your service, you know, working with Brian and the planning team and public works. Our job and what we volunteered to do is to get together, offer our perspective on behalf of the community and try to provide our service that way. So if you guys have anything transportation related, please come to us. I will later in the presentation, I will remind everyone it's fourth Tuesdays every month. And of course, Council Member Valeri works very closely with us as our dedicated liaison from the Council. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member. And in terms of other things that we have coming up, I'll share my personal perspective that my day job, I work in the intelligent transportation realm and I think that you know, working with Brian, working with Public Works, I think that there are a lot of things that we could do in that area. Not just, I mean, step one is sort of educating what exactly does that mean. I won't bore everyone here right now, but there are a lot of technological innovations, even starting at a small scale and at a local, small city level like us, that I think could really reinforce all of those values that we talked about earlier so happy to work happy to work with you guys on that yeah we're continuing we're continuing to provide provide comments and review on the comprehensive transportation review so ongoing there and and yeah we are also working and this this goes back to safety and accessibility If everyone's not aware, the city is currently undergoing a multi-year asphalt rehabilitation effort where we're redoing all the streets, basically. And we're taking that opportunity. We've been advocating for taking that opportunity to upgrade our intersections, our sidewalk infrastructure up to, current federal guidance, because a lot of this infrastructure is decades old. It was not built to the same standard. The latest and greatest standard is something called PROWAG, which is the Public Right-of-Way Guidelines. And we've been really advocating for that to be our standard. We're tearing up these roads anyway. Let's take the time to do it right. So that's sort of where we are now and moving a little into the future. Yes, our meetings are fourth Tuesday every month. We start at 7 p.m. It is a public forum. Everyone's welcome to join and provide their feedback. Next slide, Brian. Thank you.

Excellent presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. We appreciate all the work of the Transportation and Mobility Commission. Also appreciate that you work collaboratively with RPAC and RBAC on pedestrian and bike safety. We appreciate all your advocacy and the ideas you share with us.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Council.

Thank you. Okay, we have several items on consent. I'll read them and then we'll discuss next steps. Consent agenda item 9A, award and authorize the city manager to execute a contract responsive for bids 3826 for David Skull Park improvements. This is for a 12-month term of about $1.116 million, and this is to help improve the park in the east side of the city. B is authorization for the city manager to execute a right of entry agreement with the property owner of 1010 Astor Boulevard due to construction impacts. And this is to support the senior center entrance project on West Goody to help residents in northern and western part of our city access it more efficiently. C is authorization for the city manager to execute the federal aid project guidelines and working supplemental agreement with the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration for the Twinbrook bike share project under the carbon reduction program. So this supports environmental as well as our Vision Zero efforts. D, adoption of a resolution to support the Bird City Maryland Initiative and World Migratory Bird Day. E, authorization for the city manager to execute Amendment 1 to the Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Rockville and the Maryland State Highway Administration in continued partnership in implementing stormwater projects throughout Rockville. And F would be the approval of minutes for July 27, 2026, as well as August 3, 2026. Colleagues, or say you, can we move all, or do you have any questions? Okay, if not, we'll entertain a motion to move.

Council Member Valeri. Madam Mayor, I move to approve consent agenda items A, B, C, D, E, and F. Thank you.

Do we have a second? Council Member Shaw seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Dr. Miles.

May I make a brief comment about consent agenda item 9C? I just wanted to say great job to the city in securing those matching funds to bring more bike share stations and access to Twinbrook. That's all.

Thank you. We'll now move on to our public hearing. Public hearing item, agenda 10A, on sexual map amendments, map 2026-127 to rezone property at Morton's Lane from R60 to R60 HD to place the property in the historic district zone. Welcome Katie Gerbis and Megan Flick from the Community Planning and Development Services Department.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I am Megan Flick. I'm a principal planner here at the city. And this is sectional map amendment 2026-127 for a historic designation of 24 Martins Lane. So I just want to start by going over the historic designation process. So the first step is the Historic District Commission, or the HDC, conducts an evaluation of significance to determine if the criteria are met, and then they recommend the historic designation. Staff then applies for a sectional map amendment to apply the historic district overlay zone to the property based on the HDC's determination. And then the planning commission reviews the sectional map amendment application and makes their recommendation to the Marin Council. So we are now at the final step of the process, which is the Marin Council holding a public hearing and taking action to designate the property or dismiss the request. So going back to that first step, the HDC evaluation of significance. On June 18th, the HDC conducted their evaluation of significance and determined that the property at 24 Martins Lane met the city's adopted designation criteria and therefore recommended to the mayor and council for historic designation. That criteria includes the historic significance criteria shown on the screen here and also architectural design and landscape criteria. Then on July 22nd, the Planning Commission found that the historic designation of 24 Martins Lane, one, conforms with the purposes of the historic district overlay zone, and two, is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. So getting into the property itself, 24 Martins Lane is located on a narrow but deep internal lot. The legal lot lines are shown on the aerial image here. And as you can see, it doesn't have direct frontage on Martins Lane, but it does have a pipe stem on the eastern side of the property that extends out to Martins Lane and has the frontage there. And the property is accessed via a drive or alley on the west side of the home. So here we have the building itself. The home on the property is commonly referred to as the Powell Crutchfield House. It's a two and a half story vernacular style home, and it's estimated to have been built sometime between 1892 and 1909. So the photo on the left is showing the home in 1988, the front or eastern facade, and then the photo on the right is showing the home as it currently stands today. So as you can see, the home is in severe disrepair. We have the door to the screen porch is falling off, and there's some overgrowth of ivy on the house. And then here we have the rear or western facade of the home, again showing it in 1988 on the left and in 2026 on the right. And the home is actually enlarged in the 1920s with an L-shaped kitchen wing, which was added onto the rear. And again, you can see here there's extensive damage on the rear of the home. The roof is collapsing in large areas. And there's some missing windows as well. And then finally, we have the north and south facades of the home. And both of these photos are showing the home in 2026. So this is as it currently stands today. And again, you can just see the deteriorating condition of the home. There's some damaged siding, some overgrowth, and some more missing windows. And we do have a structural report from 2022, which determined that the home is currently uninhabitable. So getting into some of the historic significance of this property, especially the family and neighborhood history, the map on the left is showing the Haytai Martins Lane Historic District. And other parts of this area are designated, including 22 Martins Lane. But this property, 24 Martins Lane, is not currently designated. So the Haytai community is one of the earliest black communities in Rockville. It was first established by Samuel Martin and it traces back to formerly enslaved people on the Bell property. And these lands were actually deeded from the Bell family originally. And then the 1916 map on the right shows the distinct geographic areas of the Martins Lane District, which includes the original Ross Powell Crutchfield Homestead. And that's outlined in red, and that does include 24 Martins Lane. And 24 Martins did remain in the same family and its ascendance for several generations until 2023. So staff recommend that the mayor and council hold a public hearing on map amendment 2026-127 to rezone the property at 24 Martins Lane from R60 to R60 HD, which would apply the historic district overlay zone to the property.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate this. More details on the condition of property as well as very extensive information on the important history as well. So thank you for that information. We'll now open to the public hearing. We have several folks who have signed up in advance. I'm going to call you by name. Please feel free to correct any mispronunciations and say whether you live in the city of Rockville. You'll be given three minutes. If you're an organization, please let us know. OK, so first we have Jason Ikas. Are you an organization?

I'm the owner representative.

Okay. Yes.

Sorry. Good evening. Mayor Ashton and members of the console. My name is Jason. I guess I'm with Pavilion real estate and I'm here as the author's authorized representative. For our HQ LLC, the owner of 24 Martins Lane on behalf of and our HQ, I respectfully ask you to deny. The map 2026 dash 1 to 7. Um, and our HQ has submitted detailed written opposition oppositions further. So rather than repeating that letter, I want to focus on what the city's own record actually says. First, briefly, who is in our HQ and our HQ did not purchase this property as a developer looking to tear down a historic family home. NRHQ was the lender. The property was sold from one family member to another one who had plans for development. A family dispute followed. The borrower ultimately defaulted and the property reverted to NRHQ through the foreclosure process. NRHQ was caught in the middle of a dispute it did not create. And let me be clear at the outset. Nobody is disputing the importance of the history of the Hayti and Martins Lane community. We respect that history, but there is a fundamental difference between preserving the history of a community and permanently designating this particular structure and parcel as historic. I think that distinction matters and it's gotten lost in the process. The applicant before you tonight is the Historic District Commission, but the city's own professional historic preservation staff recommended against designation of this property, specifically because of the severe neglect the property and its lack of integrity. That is significant because the city's own definition of a historic resource states that the physical resource must retain their integrity and defines integrity as the authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during its historic period. The structural evidence goes further. The engineer report concluded that most of the structural members have collapsed or rotten, that the property cannot be repaired or restored in its present condition, and that structural should be entirely demolished. Planning staff acknowledged that full restoration and rehabilitation is not probable, and that designation could result in the structure simply remaining in its present deteriorated condition until the owner eventually returns to the HDC seeking demolition approval anyways. Staff also acknowledged that designation may be inconsistent with historic preservation action 4.9 of the comprehensive plan, which is intended to keep designated properties code compliant and to avoid demolition by neglect. So I respectfully ask the council a very simple question. What exactly are we preserving? The proposed ordinance recites a number of historic designation Criteria I would ask the console to look past the labels and examine the city's own explanations for them. The city says this property qualifies as. The site of an important event in Rockville's history, but the actual staff analysis did not identify. an important event that occurred at 24 Martins Lane. The explanation given is that the site is one of the earliest Black settlements in the city. That supports the historical significance of the broader Hayti community. It does not identify a discrete historical significant event that occurred at this particular house or on this particular parcel. There is also a piece of history. 24 Martins Lane was historically associated with what was then 22A Martins Lane and treated as a separate portion of a larger family holding. When 22 Martins Lane was nominated and designated as historic in 2003, that designation was made at the request of then owners. 24 Martins Lane was not included and was not submitted for evaluation. The city's own report confirms that. The 2003 designation was voluntary. This one is not. The two remaining purposes, planning staff concluded that designation satisfies only two of the five stated purposes of the historic district overlay. On the other three, staff found that the designation would not permanently foster civic beauty, is unlikely to meaningful strengthen the local economy.

Thank you.

And the economy of the blah, blah, blah.

Thank you. We do have your letter. We appreciate it.

Anyways, in conclusion, we don't mean to erase history and what are we preserving. Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Welcome David Hill.

Good evening again. I'm David Hill. I live at 733 Bell Avenue in Rockville. I've been a former land use commissioner for an extensive amount of time and a few guys for the city and also certainly the county, but tonight I do speak as a private individual in support of this action. The HDC has already judged this is a historically significant property, and the Planning Commission has recommended the offered designation is consistent with master planning and the city ordinance. Will you replace your judgment for theirs? It is also odd that the state and county larger, less local jurisdictions recognize this property on their historic inventories, but the city does not. I urge you to follow these positions with enacting the subject map amendment. I observe to you the historic context of the property, which I think has received lesser due attention, not just the structure therein. And I'll add a little comment to say that the representative, the owner that just spoke, used structure and property interchangeably, but they're two different things. This is an enlarged, internal, mostly open lot, and it acts as the glue between the Martins Lane and North Street nodes of this enclave, both historically and contemporaneously. Changing this with a dramatically different structure out of scale will effectively divide this historic community into two parts and damage its entirety. The poor condition of the structure on the subject property is given as a negative point, yet a property can be both historic and have a structure in poor condition. The worst outcome here would be the loss of actual historic structure fiber and property context based solely on the poor structural condition without a clear way to something better. Clouding that way forward includes the current zoning, the community stability and expectation, the likely pipe stem character of access to anything else residential built on this property, and more. Therefore, having the HDC exercise ongoing regulatory oversight of change to this property is a good approach. This would be the effect of putting the R60 HD overlay on this parcel in a map amendment now. designating as historic property were specialized care to balance the issues encumbered on it by the HDC, the city body formed for the care of historic resources. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Kevin Zaletsky. Thank you.

good evening madam mayor and council members my name is kevin zaletsky i live at 101 north street and my backyard is directly adjacent to the property at 24 martin's lane i'd like to speak tonight about how the approval of this historic overlay preserves precious rockville history adheres to the city's planning goals by remaining consistent with our comprehensive plan and serves the greater interests of the rockville community I've lived for close to 25 years across the yard from the Crutchfields. My neighbor, one of the patriarchs of Hayti, Warren Crutchfield, was instrumental in the historic designation of the nearby Hayti Cemetery, the adjoining property at 22 Martins Lane before he passed away, and this property had to be sold. I've watched generations of the Crutchfield family celebrating countless reunions and holidays on this very property, as they have for more than a century and a half. The precious and fragile story of our freed black population is told in Rockville's oldest black kinship communities and properties like these. These sites aren't side notes to our signature and better preserved historical treasures like Glenview Mansion and the Bell Dawson House. On the contrary, they complement and they complete the story of these landmarks and are vital to a fuller understanding of Rockville's past. Historic District Commissioner Denvo stated this property was the most significant site they'd evaluated in his tenure, a sentiment that was widely shared by the other commissioners before they voted to recommend the overlay. I worked for more than three years starting in 2016 side by side with the city's planning department on a WECA committee tasked with developing a neighborhood plan for area four. It's now formally integrated as part of Rockville's comprehensive plan. In this plan, Hayti was just one of a small handful of areas specifically singled out in desperate need of critical historical evaluation and preservation. This particular site in its context contiguous to 22 Martins Lane, its location near other important designated and non-designated historic sites like the Hayti Cemetery, the Carroll House, and its function as a bridge between North Street and Martins Lane makes it a vital component in the overall historic neighborhood character and a critical candidate for preservation. Fair to approve this overlay would clearly be inconsistent with the intentions that are now codified in Rockville's Comprehensive Plan. The Planning Commission agreed. After hearing, Commissioner Fulton confided that the Hayti community is the most historically significant and important in the city before voting along with the rest of the Commission in favor of the overlay. We're incredibly fortunate as a city that we still have pieces of this history that exist in its context through the homes, land, and families like the Crutchfields and others that are there today. To our detriment, properties like these are rapidly being lost to sale or disrepair because the families that own them traditionally do not come from significant means. It's incredibly sad this home wasn't cataloged sooner by the city and that resources weren't made available to assist in its preservation, but the historic overlay applies to the overall map plot, not just to structures on the property. We should certainly strive to reserve this dork home, but whatever happens, the location and context of the house and land are vital in preserving the essential character of the neighborhood and our city's rich and diverse history. I'll close by saying that places like Haight-Iron Arch is peaches of Rockville's past, but incredibly significant parts of Maryland and American history, and it's our duty and responsibility to preserve them. As we lose these properties and the land they occupy, we forever lose the legacy of these entire communities, and with it, our own identity as a city and country. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome, Nancy Picard.

Thank you and good evening Madam Mayor and members of council. Nancy Picard, Director of Peerless Rockville speaking tonight on behalf of the organization. I want to thank the staff for the report tonight and I want to note many of the things that were called your attention to. I'll speak to some of those tonight. The designation of 24 Martins Lane before you provides a great opportunity to the city to protect historic black resources, and Peerless Rockville very strongly supports the designation of this property. We agree with the staff findings that 24 Martins Lane meets the city's historic significance criteria A, B, C, and D, as well as architectural design and landscape criteria A. The city found, and the HCC found, that the property is representative of the development, heritage, and cultural characteristics of the city. In particular, its relevance and very strong importance to the nascent black community known as Hayti. Hayti grew on the edge of Rockville and provided a place for the recently enslaved, for their descendants, a place for them to live in peace and to enjoy the right of a secure home, land ownership, and economic stability. All of these things had been very cruelly withheld from them in the past. That didn't happen here. The planning commission also looked at this property and based on its background in history, unanimously agreed that adding an historic overlay is not only important for this parcel, but meets the zoning and master plan goals of the city. This particular parcel and the adjacent parcels are known to have been deeded from Margaret Bell of the Bell Dawson house and farm to individuals that were held in slavery. 24 Martins Lane was conveyed to and for Flora Ross Powell and her husband, Adam Powell. It is very likely that Flora, who was born in 1856, was herself enslaved by the Bells as a child. The fact that she could find freedom for her family should not be lost and is important to the city's history. In Hayti, several generations of the Ross as well as the Wood and Smith families remained for many years, growing their families and establishing a distinct kinship community that we can still recognize today. We would hate to lose that. From its late 19th century beginning and up until today, this small but significant community has stood as a testament to the tenacity of the early owners and the desire for them to find a better future for their children. For the people who founded the Haitai community, owning land was a chance for prosperity, the possibility of a stable future for descendants, and for some status. Martins Lane in Haitai continues to be a source of pride and an example of resourcefulness for those who live there today. Many descendants of the original residents remain in the neighborhood, and I think they will speak passionately this evening. The strong ties remain very important. Not only was it here in Rockville hard to secure a place, but as you know, all throughout the county, this history should be recognized and it meets an important goal of the city's historic preservation element. A goal that suggests that we need to, as a city, pursue an equity and inclusion framework that includes this particular kind of history. We hope that tonight will be a significant step forward in recognizing and preserving the historic resources of Hayti, marking both the tenacity of the early owners, despite great social challenges and inequities, but also claiming that history is significant to the entire city of Rockville. 24 Martins Lane meets strict qualifying designation criteria and is in compliance with the city's comprehensive plan and with the purposes of the historic district overlay. I'd like to just say a word about integrity because that was brought up as a condition that has not been looked at tonight. I don't know if everyone understands the meaning of integrity. It's based on the National Register criteria, and when you look at integrity, they actually look at seven factors that kind of judge a property for why it's important and is there enough left of that property to still be considered historic. And while size and condition and materials are very important factors, other factors that are listed, and these are nationwide, include location, size, feeling, and association. And I think when you look at this property, things like location, size, scale, feeling, and association, they are all still there and all still available to be read. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome Jeffrey Land. Paul Bowman. Lashane Crutchfield.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lashane Crutchfield and I do live at 20 Martins Lane. I'm here to highlight the enduring historical importance of 24 Martins Lane, a property that stands as a meaningful part of Rockville's culture and agricultural story. This site is more than a structure. It's a physical record of the people, traditions, and generations that helped shape Rockville from its earliest days into the community that we know. For generations, the Martin Lane community has been home to the Crutchfield family, their ancestors, and other African American families who have lived in the cornerstone of the African American life in Rockville. Families who lived, worked, and worshiped here in Rockville helped to shape the culture and the civics identity of the city. Martin's Lane is more than a street. It is a living archive of the black history in the city of Rockville. The property at 24 Martins Lane stands as one of the few remaining physical links to the history. Its preservation would ensure the future residents and visitors understand the contributions, resilience, and lived experience of the African American community that helped build Rockville. Historical designation of this property is not simple, but protecting where the current structure is built, but also safeguarding the memory and identity and the truths of how the Crutchfield family were able to persevere when African American families faced segregation, redlining, and limited access to housing. As redevelopment pressures continue to increase, it becomes more urgent to preserve the site that reflects the diversity of Rockfield's past. Recognizing 24 Martins Lane a historic would affirm the city's commitment to inclusivity, storytelling, and the equitability of preservation. As you consider the matters before you tonight, I respectfully ask that the historical value of 24 Martins Lane remain central to its deliberations. Persevering the sites and insurance of future residents will continue to have a place where the city's heritage is not only remembered, but experienced firsthand and can continue to embrace diversity. I would like for the council, the mayor and council, to protect the landmark and uphold Rockville's commitment to honoring its past while planning thoughtfully for its future. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Welcome, panel or quickly.

Hello, my name is Hannah-Laure Quigley. I live at 2268 Glenmore Terrace, Rockville, Maryland 2085. I've lived at the same address for 50 years. My family has been resident of Rockville since 1805. Good evening, commissioners. This is my testimony to you for the mapping of the property at 24 Martins Lane to have the historic district of overlay. African-American historic places are facing erasure. That this property at 24 Martins Lane is historic should not be viewed as inconvenient. We're not making new historic properties. And we can't reach back and make new historic properties from this community and period. We can only preserve what we have. This overlay needs to come in line with the Maryland Historical Trust, which has already designated it historical zone. Just like the historic district overlay, the front lot of Hayti Cemetery at 205 Martins Lane was extended to the street. To include the historic district overlay in 2020, The property at 24 Martins Lane should also have the historic district overlay from 22 Martins Lane in 2003 extended to 24 Martins Lane. Originally, when the house at 22 Martins Lane was granted the historic district overlay, the property at 24 should have gotten the same treatment. The current city's overlay should reflect what the MHD overlay illustrates from the Maryland Historical Trout State Historic Sites Inventory Form with the Hayti Martins Lane Historic District encompassing Hayti Cemetery, 22 Martins Lane, and 24 Martins Lane. All of these paper trails document that 24 is a derivative of the historic properties around it. Historically, USPS, ESTAT, and Maryland Historical Trust all agree. I will say that the historic preservation community in Rockville is in alignment, that this piece of history be saved and protected, and this community is ready to back that up. To end, I will say that I attended the 80th birthday party of former owner Elaine Crutchfield on the grounds of 24 Martins Lane in July 2018 under five outdoor tents rented to host the event. And to say that the community congregated in this space would be missed in the future is a great understatement. Please take this recommendation from the HDC to apply the historic district overlay over this property. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Welcome. Please state your name and whether you live in the city of Rockville.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Wellington Crutchfield. I'm the seventh generation of this property. One thing I would like to get clear that I have to clear every time. The property that I currently live in is the original 24 Martins Lane. This property is the one that we call 22 Martins Lane. My great uncle, Claude Prather, who was my grandmother's brother, built that home that we call 24 Martins Lane back in the early 1900s. So I want everybody to get an understanding that the original 24 property is the property that I currently live in, and that's now called 22 Martins Lane. And the reason why I'm here is to let you know that I don't have paper, I don't have a computer, I'm speaking from the heart. Growing up in the neighborhood with my great grandparents and my great, great grandparents, we saw how history meant a lot to us. My grandparents always spoke about the black community being a strong community. I remember as a child going to both properties, 22 and 24, and seeing some of the educators who came up from the south so they can get a better job. I sat at a dinner table with principals. I sat at the dinner table with math teachers. And I sat at the dinner table with reverends and preachers that sat in that property so that they could do a better and get a better life for their family. My grandparents worked their butt off. My grandmother, who lived in 24, as we call it now, was an elevator operator. She never missed a day. She went to Dunbar High School in D.C. so that she could get the education. Her brother, my Uncle Claude, he went to what's now called Bowie State so that he could get the education to bring us up. My Uncle Warren Crutchfield, UMBC, My family was raised on these properties. The original property carried a long way. Some of you might not know, but where the Snowden Funeral Home was owned by my great grandmother, Gertrude McKnight, or better known as Gertrude Prather. So this property has a lot of history, a lot of history. Because I'm the seventh generation with my two cousins back here, but now I have children who are living in the property now, who are the eighth generation. And then when they have children who are going out right now, my grandkids, are the ninth generation of this property. So what I'm asking is that because there was some things that beyond our control with other family members, but I would hate to see losers because I would hate to see my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and my great-great-grandparents. I was lucky enough to know my great-grandparents, Ms. Gertrude McKnight. than my grandmother, Ms. Frances Prather Crutchfield, who worked their rear ends off to preserve what we have. I had a great time growing up, but it was all about education and it was all about pride. It was all about how you feel and how you want to feel as your family. So what I'm asking is, let's not lose this. Yes, things happen, granted, but let's not lose this because you know what? They worked too hard for this. They worked too hard. My grandfather was an assistant printer. He would go into DC every day with a shirt and tie on, and he was a printer. But he kept that house and that property in immaculate shape. I got married in that yard. It was one of the most beautiful places in the world. So this property means a lot to us. Not only does our graveyard mean a lot to me, but this property, along with my home, which is the original home, I still got log cabin, floor, I still got log cabin, walls, I still got the original wood floor. I don't wanna lose it. I don't wanna lose it, because it meant so much to our family. And I'm asking you to really consider it, think about it, but think about the history, because I think about it every day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? All right. I do want to acknowledge that we have received written commentary as well. The mayor and council has received. Just last comment, is there anyone else who would like to speak? All right. Okay. We'll now close this public hearing. Staff, is there a team? Ms. Kervis and others, are there anything else you want to do to close this public hearing?

Nothing else for the public hearing now. Okay.

All right. We can now move then on to our action agenda and discussion, which is 11A, potential adoption of a sexual amendment MAP 2026-127 to rezone property at 24 Martins Lane from R60 to R60HD to place the property in the historic district zone. I'll turn it back to you, Ms. Gerbis and Ms. Flick.

Sure. So for mayor and council action, our staff recommendation is as follows. Citing the HTC's finding that the property at 24 Martins Lane meets five of the city's adopted designation criteria and the planning commission's finding that the proposed designation is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the purposes of the historic district overlay zone. Staff recommend adoption of the proposed ordinance to designate 24 Martins Lane. And just want to note here that we do have a new zoning ordinance. And we have modified preservation regulations, including for historic designation of properties. So one of these modified regulations has to do with property owner consent. So due to formal opposition from the owner, which you all heard tonight and have also received in writing, we will need a super majority vote from the council for adoption of the ordinance. And that would be five out of seven members.

Thank you very much. I'm going to open the floor to my colleagues starting on this side to see if you have any questions before we move forward.

Thank you to staff. Thanks to the community. Thanks for our community partners in Peerless Rockville. Everybody who's opined, who's lived the story and come today. My question kind of posed it to staff, but I just wanted to be clear for my own clarification. if we weigh the layover period, we get the supermajority to label a historic designate, what are the implications for the property order themselves in terms of the building? Can they not make any changes? Can they make changes? Is it, as was indicated in the brief book, I mean, it is in disrepair, so what sort of provisions then come as a result of this designation, both things that the owner can do and things that the owner is mandated to do because of this designation given the age and repair of the property?

Sure. So historic designation of the property would essentially mean that once the overlay is applied, the owner would have to come back to the HTC to either do any modifications or repairs to the home or to request demolition again if they wish to do that.

I meant just to follow up. Thank you for your indulgence. Are they mandated to do repairs even before applying for because as you all know it, you know, they're there appears to be based on the pictures holes in the roof among other things.

From a historic preservation perspective, no, they're not mandated to do it. We do have a property maintenance code in the city. So certainly there is an expectation that all properties, regardless of ownership, regardless of if they're residential or commercial, are held to certain property maintenance standards. So potentially there would be some implications there, but we cannot mandate that a property owner, say, restore this structure.

Please proceed.

I apologize. This should be the last comment. Thank you for your indulgence were those City code provisions apply prior to this? I mean, how did it get to this point? I guess is what I'm trying to get at.

The property maintenance code, yes. So my understanding, and it's been a couple weeks since I've last pulled it, but the property over the years has been cited for property maintenance issues, such as tall grass, unsafe entries to the home, things of that nature. So that continues regardless of if a property is designated or not. Okay.

AI is speaking. Are you done, Council Member Miles? Yes, ma'am, for now.

Thank you.

Council Member Fulton.

Thank you. Maybe I'll pull a thread on what Council Member Miles was saying. Any alteration, change, demolition of the lake needs to be approved by the HDC. What are the criteria that HDC would be applying in deciding whether to approve any other use or change to the property?

So, the historic district commission has no authority over the use of a property. That's a zoning issue. So they only have purview over the built form of it. So they would be looking to make sure that any new development on the land is consistent with our technical guides for exterior alterations. That's a series of guidelines that gives feedback on the type of materials. the style, how the character of alterations to historic properties are consistent with the period of significance from when that home was designated. We also would apply the Secretary of the Interior standards. So those are a set of federal standards that apply all across the country to make sure that when we are making alterations to historic properties, we're doing that in a respectful way that maintains the history, celebrates the history and heritage, but also differentiates the new from the old. In preservation, we don't necessarily like to make a new additions look to be exactly old. We want there to be a little bit of differentiation. We want them to be consistent. We want them to have similar styles and form and massing, but we don't want a new structure to come off as if it was that old structure. So those are standards that apply to all of our historic districts regardless. Then specific for this historic district, if it were to be designated, the HGC would be looking at the rest of the district to kind of make sure that whatever is proposed there is consistent and compatible with the district at large. Right now, we have several other historic districts in the Hayti-Martins Lane community. This would not necessarily be one of those. There's kind of two ways we could do it. This could be its own single-site historic district, or we could expand the historic district that's immediately to the north at 22 Martins Lane. So we would be looking for consistency with, again, the period of significance, what's currently in that neighborhood that's deemed historic and within that historic district.

Do we have examples of designated historic properties in the city that were demolished in a new structure built and approved by the HTC?

Yes and no. There have been historic sites where structures have been demolished over the years. One example that I'm thinking of is right where the courthouse is, right across here, the old Rockville Library. That was demolished. I don't know off the top of my head if that got a certificate of approval for that demolition. More recently, I would say in the last category, calendar year or around the last calendar year the HTC did issue a certificate of approval to demolish a structure at I'm looking at Miss Wolters a hundred West Montgomery I think it's a hundred West Montgomery I can fact-check that address for you that demolition has not yet taken place and But it's a structure that's been vacant for, I believe, 15 to 20 years. There was a fire. It's not safe for habitation as well. So they've given that approval. I do not believe that demolition has happened yet. And because the demo has happened yet, we have not had a new structure be constructed there yet.

So just to clarify that answer, then I just have one more question. We've had approval to demolish, but no approval to actually build a new design structure in place yet?

On that property, no. However, on other properties, yes. So we have several new, more modern structures that are on historic land. Actually, on Martins Lane, we have a few examples of that. So on the north side of Martins Lane, there are three properties, 17, 19, and 21 Martins. The original, it was one kind of big piece of lot that had one structure on it. That whole property was designated. And then it's since subdivided. And there are two more modern, I would say built in the last 10-ish years, homes on those structures. or on those parcels that were subdivided. So those homes did have to come to the Historic District Commission for approval. And very recently in the last like six months, we've had one of those property owners want to make an alteration and they still have to come to the HTC. So the HTC still reviews it. They're still looking to make sure it's compatible. I will say that the HTC, I think weighs alterations or new construction there a little bit differently than it does an alteration to a home that's 200 years old. For example, they recognize this is a modern home that's on a historic lot. So it is possible in separate instances we've had them, but we've not yet had an example on one property where it's demo and rebuilding.

Okay, so last question that might be slightly unfair. This is clearly a historic property, but we've known hay ties historic and important to preserve for a really long time. Can you help me understand why it, and we just designated, what do they say, in 2023 or 2020, something next to it? Why are we not considering when we make the initial determinations when a property becomes a forest, like maybe taking a look broader and seeing is there more we should cover here?

Absolutely. Fair question. Um, so the property of the North was in 2003 that it was designated. So it has been a chunk of time. Um, staff looked into the records there to see if there was any consideration of any of the adjoining parcels in that application. And there were not. Um, so staff simply, that was an owner initiated designation. So the owner said, hi, I want to be designated city, looked at it and looked at that specific parcel. I hear you and largely share your thought of as we're looking, we should be looking more broadly. I think one of the reasons that we haven't done a lot of that is historically, no pun intended, we've kind of done these as they've come up. So as we're performing an evaluation of significance requested by someone who wants the property to be designated or someone who's looking to demolish it. I frankly don't think we've had the resources and bandwidth internally to be looking more holistically and more proactively at our historic sites or potentially historic sites. That's something that certainly in the future we can look into. And I personally would be a proponent of.

Councilman Valeri. Sorry. I'm always waiting for Councilmember Poulton to be like, that's great, thank you. All right. So, thank you. This is actually, everything has been really helpful. The materials, I was kind of joking that I have like a stack of paper like this because I like to have a map in my hand. I like to look at on these issues kind of see where the neighborhood plays into it. I was struck by the fact that it does seem to be a donut hole. And until Ms. Gerbis said when the property, I think you said to the north was designated in 2003, Well, let's just say that Jedi principles were not widely held in 2003, and neither was the preservation of black history. So in that sort of context, we can always do better than 20 years ago. But I agree. I think we should look at it more holistically if it takes greater staff input than that is something to consider for subsequent budget discussions because I think it would be nice to kind of look at in general at these decisions in a more holistic way. So where I stand on this, I want to be super transparent about something. I have spent months in our Zord deliberations advocating for owner consent protections in historic designation because I believe, and I really do believe that property owners deserve meaningful notice and a voice before a permanent overlay kind of seals in those protections. This case is exactly why I cared about that question, why I wanted us to dig in to the issue of historic designation, why I wanted us to think thoughtfully about the levels of historic designation, a example of an architectural style that is replicated across the city versus a piece of black Rockville history that is only existent in one point. Those should be different. When we're not, we're treating it all the same. And I appreciate it from a process perspective, but I think from history, historical preservation, and I mean the preservation of history, not buildings, it makes sense for us to have levels of historical significance. I appreciate what we heard about, well, nothing happened on this spot. That's not technically one of our criteria. It's built into the cultural significance part of that. I just wanted to flag that for my colleagues. If we could not kick this can down the road if we could have a work session on how we look at historic designation, extraordinary examples, I think this is an extraordinary example of a historic property and whether or not that means that it's the exact same building, it's another building, it is the property that we're discussing. and the historical significance of this. I really urge my colleagues to join me in having that work session, having that discussion, because we're gonna keep having these conflicts if we don't look at this issue, not just when it's coming forward. And to that extent, having a public hearing the same night as we are asked to have this action, frankly, to Mr. City Manager, I hope that we don't do that going forward. because this is something we should be having a deliberate, thoughtful approach on and having us have the hearing and then us voting on it the same night really doesn't allow us to reflect on what we're hearing in the testimony. So I think we're done a disservice there. I appreciate everything that you both have, the presentation was really helpful and I am, I truly believe that sometimes extraordinary circumstances need to earn a different answer. And I still truly believe in owner consent protections, that they belong in the code, and that we need to have a real conversation about delisting. And I will continue to push for them. But tonight, I think this is an example that makes sense for us to designate and to protect for future generations going forward.

Thank you. I have a lot of feelings and thoughts bottled up in myself right now. But I really appreciate the questions of my colleagues because it helped to inform my thinking. So thank you for your questions. I also want to thank the public for sharing your shared history as well as the tremendous responsibility. I respect the owner as well. So I just Really appreciate this space to have this incredibly difficult discussion. Um, I will start focus on this property and then I have another comment to make. Um, for me, the historic district commission determined the property meets the city's adopted designation criteria. I really, not only, we've had a lot that are focused on architecture, but this one really hits home at the cultural heritage significance, not only of this property, but of our place and time in Montgomery County and Rockville. The Planning Commission also unanimously found that the designations consist of a Rockwell's comprehensive plan and the purposes of district overlay. But beyond the criteria, there's really important story that we have a responsibility as a city. And why I'm struggling here is because I see oftentimes resources that represent the history of groups that are not as underrepresented. be preserved by government, be invested in, be beautiful, and are museums now. And I see properties, and this is not just in this community, but it's happening all across the United States, where black resources in history are not as respected. and I have a problem with that. So I just, I say this is important, and I'm really sorry that this is caught up in the finances of what the new property owner's dealing with, but we should never have had this get here. Whether that's a cemetery or such a historic property as this one. 24 Martins Lane is a very important part of the High Tane neighborhood. It's an important part of Rockville period. And it reaches back into that mid-19th century and reflects not just on land. It's about resilience and self-sufficiency and determination. That cultural experience matters in Rockville. When we developed the comprehensive plan for the first time in the historic preservation section, we added a goal. This isn't the 20, you know, was it 2021, 2022? Took that long to add a goal focus on equity and inclusion frameworks to recognize diverse, Rockwell's diverse history. This is where the road meets the road for me. And this is clearly a historic property. Now, with that said, I do appreciate that it's going to go through the historic district commission. It doesn't mean that nothing can happen here. It doesn't mean that everything is stopped. It means that there's a conversation and that the historic district commission review the history of the project and try to create a bright future for it going forward. So I look at this as an open conversation and a way to reflect as a city of how we preserve that history while also looking towards the future. So I don't have a question, but I had a lot to say. And I just want to thank all of you for being here. Council Member Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor, and that was wonderfully said. I want to thank my colleagues, because they've asked many of the questions that I would have, and thank the staff for the good presentation, and also the Historic District Commission and the Planning Commission. I take their views into account. That means a lot to me. But also I thank the residents and the owner for coming here and speaking tonight. You spoke really passionately and with a mind to the historic nature of the property and this is a session that I don't take lightly and I appreciate everybody's input and everybody's time and the effort it took to get up before this council body and speak and so thank you all for your time and for your presentation.

Council Member Shaw.

I want to echo my colleagues and thank them for their questions, as well as to thank staff, and most of all to thank the community for testifying, particularly the Crutchfield family. And going back to something Ms. Picard said around the feelings of the property and integrity, i feel like the crutchville family really spoke to that feeling and sharing the family history and lineage and why that space and place are so incredibly important to rockville and to every everyone's history here in rockville and i i also am going to take this moment to just highlight how um throughout the history of rockville black homes have not receive that same type of respect and value even through to today, right? Um, from, uh, the history that we heard today through urban renewal, through who actually is getting displaced right now and who is being priced out. There is a long history of Rockville of, of not really respecting the homes and lands of Black families. And so if we have a majority, I would like to move forward and introduce this ordinance, if that opportunity arises. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Van Graak.

Thank you. Echoing a lot of what's been said here today, there is no question 24 Martins Lane is historically significant. We have a significant history in this area of Rockville. I know I grew up with the Prathers hanging out. This is a history that doesn't just go to this neighborhood. It goes to their involvement in Rockville. at richard montgomery high school throughout the involvement of civic and the boards and commissions throughout this entire city there is an involvement and there is a culture that this neighborhood and these families bring and have brought to rockville that is a key preservation and i want to go back to something that was said earlier the big question my mind is why haven't we done this earlier Why have we gotten to – I mean, I have to tell you, I've been in this neighborhood. I assumed this property was historically designated, and I assumed that actually the reason why it was in a derelict state was some catch-up with the historic designation that was having an issue with approval and hadn't realized it. um which i think brings us to kind of some of the concerns that my colleagues and us have talked about not just why it was was has gotten to the state because uh lord knows it should never have gotten here but what are we going to do going forward and so i want to kind of ask some questions of staff because i mean again let's put off the table this is a historically significant property Period. End stop. The question is, what are we going to do going forward? Because we've let it get to this state. And I read through, and I think the city manager and staff are getting through to some of my questions. My understanding is we're just presuming is correct to the 2022 report, which says, and I quote, cannot be repaired or retained. That concerns me because we're relying now on a situation that says this building cannot be repaired or retained. What does that mean with regard to our historic designation? Does this mean that our only option here is a rebuild? I mean, it sounds like we're not going to force a demolition because we can't only give citations. But with regard to a rebuild, are we preserving the house? Are we preserving this property? What are we essentially doing with this designation with a property that it is unquestionably historic? What are we assigning with regard to the responsibilities of the city and the Historic District Commission?

So the way that our preservation program works currently in Rockville is when a site is designated, it applies to the structure and the site itself, so the property. So as we talked about before, in theory, the structure could be demolished or altered in any way while the preservation regulations would apply to anything new that were to come onto the site, whether that's alterations to the existing, we're demoing, we're building something else, we're building a shed, whatever it may be. So What do we do here? We kind of have to address them both. We have no way to force someone to demolish their property. We have no way to force them to rebuild the property. You brought up some quotes from the structural assessment. Accurate. I'm sure money solves everything, right? If we had a money tree... We could probably restore the property as it is, but we would not mandate that. Like designation in the loan does not mandate that the property owner has to restore exactly what's there. We will provide them guidelines for if they did want to do that, what would we be looking to do? What would be the characteristics that we would be monitoring and giving approvals for? But we can't mandate it.

So I want to bring up something because, you know, and I know it really doesn't come into play because, again, this property is historic. But when we've got a situation like this and we've got shared history, history of these families that are so ingrained in Rockville and these communities, It seems like we're so focused here on structures. And here's a demolished structure, whereas I know we've done a wonderful job. And I know we've got representatives from Peerless here. They've done a wonderful job with some of these historical markers, some of these locations of letting folks know of the shared history. And if we're just saying, hey, you can rebuild and rebuild it similar, are we really preserving the history? I know Councilmember Valeri was instructive with regard to Twinbrook Pool and getting a historical marker there. We've got a historical, and I know there is a historical marker in this community, but we've got history with regard to some of these buildings and what they've meant to the community, what they've meant to our city. And I wonder whether we're weighing preservation of a structure versus the preserved history and I know that's not really within the bounds of kind of the historic designation but it's something to think about because this is such a strong community there's such a strong history and I sometimes worry that you know the next generation might not have people like me that grew up with the Prather's you know playing football around you know in the area and some of that history might be lost and I don't want to lose the forest for the trees I mean heck and I know we can't mandate that if the if this house is going to have to be demolished, is there a way to preserve some parts of the house and incorporate it with the historical structure? I mean, I know there's so much shared history. We hear testimony about people being in this house, and it looks like we're going to lose the house. And so, again, it goes to what happened in the past. We can't always change it, but what we can do to move forward. But I know there was a lot going into it from the Historic District Commission and everything going into evaluating this. This is a tough case because of it. And I know staff, you did a phenomenal job looking into it. The Historic District Commission did a great job. So I really commend everybody in addition to those who came in here to testify today because this is an important part of our history and our city.

Thank you. I want to just, I'm hearing some energy on an introduction, but I just wanted to again thank the family members as well as the property owner and everyone for coming out. And I want to thank staff and peerless and previous people who have done history projects on this. This packet is something to look at and print out and put somewhere. it documents so much incredible history and what the value of that land is. And as I noted before, some people's land and houses have been preserved and people put money into it. We haven't seen that as equitably in other places, and that's part of why potentially we're here. But I did want to honor some of the families, the Prater family, the Crutrell family. There's also a larger history, the Carrolls, the Rosses, the the Proctors, there's so many people that are listed in this history book that you've put together for us. And I hope that we can find other ways to bring this to life, not just when we're coming at a historic designation. And I wonder if there's an opportunity for a larger conversation. on how we can prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future and how we can proactively preserve our history. I think that's something that, so that work session and other ideas, we need to do it. So with that said, Council Member Fulton.

So I do just want to, to the point you're making, it is clearly historic property, we need to preserve it. If there's anything that meets the criteria, it's this, yes, period, full stop. But this is the third time that I can think of where we've, a property owner has bought a property unencumbered thinking it was free, could do what they wanted, and then the designation came. We have got to do something to stop finding ourselves in this situation. And I don't mean to look just at staff. I'm looking at one of the things that HTC is supposed to do is identify and recommend properties in the area. So it shouldn't take the trigger. The point is that we don't have to wait for the trigger. And Peerless does a great job of... documenting the history here. Peerless has come forward and recommended now through HGC properties. I would love for it not just to be staff that has to do that. I don't want to be here again. I couldn't move out without saying that point.

I agree, and I'll just note that that goes for, I know that was one of the challenges with some of the design guidelines is when you're buying in, you know, you need to know what you're getting into. You need to be able to have it documented so when you're buying something for ankle, you know what you're walking into in that purchase. And so that's, I do think that we need to look at, and I think there's a remit to update the historical guide. I know there's an official name for it, but... Yes, yes. It's from last term, actually, and this term. And this term. So I think you're hearing from us that we would like to not be in this predicament and to just be more comprehensive so that people who are buying in the city of Rockville know what they're buying into. Dr. Miles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just one quick clarifying question. It's probably in there, but I apologize, but also for the listening public. The historic designation would be for the home and the property. Is that correct?

Yeah, the designation would cover the entire property based on the parcel lines.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate the comments of my colleagues and welcome additional discussion after this session. So, colleagues, what say you? We want to move Should we move to does anyone have a motion to move to introduce?

Councilmember Thank You madam mayor I Introduced the ordinance to grant zoning map amendment map 2027 dash 127 to rezone 24 Martins Lane into the historic district overlay zone I

Thank you. If we want to proceed tonight, we can move the layover period. Does anyone want to speak to that? Council Member Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor. I move to waive the layover period.

Thank you. Council Member Valeri. I second. Thank you. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Just making sure. We have six. Okay. Do we have a motion to adopt the ordinance? Do we have a motion? Council Member Fulton. Aye.

I move to adopt the ordinance to grant zoning map amendment MAP 2027-127 to rezone 24 Martins Lane into the historic district overlay zone.

Council Member Van Graak seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. Thank you all. Thank you to everyone.

Yes.

We're going to take a brief break. We can come back. I know we're going to get to the team on the elections, we promise. But we'll come back in about 8.40. Let's do that, 8.40. All right. Good evening, Rockville. Welcome back. We are getting started in our legislative bond initiative discussion. This is our work session part of the evening. I want to thank my colleagues and all the residents for your input. We're now ready to reconvene meeting 21-26. I want to turn it over to Linda Moran, who's going to walk us through our 2027 state legislative priorities and bond initiatives. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the Council. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. We will begin tonight's presentation by reviewing the outline. We will begin with an introduction, followed by background, proposed priorities, a discussion, next steps, requested feedback, and questions. This is the Mayor and Council's annual discussion of state legislative priorities and legislative bond initiatives for the 2027 General Assembly session. The upcoming session is going to begin on January 13th and it will end on April 12th, 2027. It is important for the mayor and council on an annual basis to adopt state legislative priorities. It disseminates the elected body's position on important bills, and it focuses the city's legislative advocacy on the highest priorities, which maximizes the impact of Rockville's legislative advocacy in Annapolis during the legislative session. As far as factors that we've been tracking that may impact the 2027 General Assembly session, we think there are going to be a few. But I will make a caveat that we're four months out from the session. And in the months and weeks, the agenda is going to change and evolve probably right up until the start of the session. But we think at this point, the November 2026 election results will have impact. as well as the deepening state budget shortfall and fiscal uncertainty around federal job losses and grant reductions, as well as the affordability of the blueprint for Maryland's future public education funding. Back on June 1st, earlier this year, the mayor and council began their discussion of 2027 state legislative priorities by approving three Maryland Municipal League legislative action requests as 2027 priorities to forward to MML. And I will briefly recap them here. The first item is modernizing municipal revenue structures. This includes protecting highway use of revenue and state aid for police protection funding. This item is tied to the local government revenues restructuring task force that is underway in Annapolis. They will provide a report to the General Assembly in early December, and the recommendations coming out of that report could lead to legislation perhaps that aligns with this initiative. The second item is legislation requiring boards of education to consult with municipalities and incorporate municipal data into their annual student residency and school zones reports, as well as advocating for municipal government autonomy to make benefits and leave decisions regarding the state's family and medical leave insurance program. The slide here shows a proposed 2027 state legislative priorities that staff is proposing. I will briefly go over them with you right now. The first three were just covered in the previous slide, so I'm going to skip to the fourth item. That is legislation to support funding for youth service bureaus and initiatives and juvenile services for teens during out-of-school hours, legislation strengthening tenant protections, expanding access to the state property tax credit for income challenge seniors and individuals with disabilities, advocating in support of the city's Vision Zero and Pedestrian Master Plan efforts, advocating in support of educational needs across the spectrum, including capital and operating funding, advocating for senior programming, and supporting legislation that advances the city's climate action goals. In terms of legislative bond initiatives for the 2027 session, staff is recommending that the Mayor and Council give staff approval to forward two project options to the District 17 delegation for their review and consideration. They are most familiar with the priorities and initiatives of the General Assembly and have a really good finger on the pulse of what projects may be most impactful. The first project is a playground equity project. This is at the Lone Oak Park Playground in Twinbrook Community. This is at a cost of $350,000. This would provide a safe and accessible playground and equitable playground for children of all abilities at this location. And the playground equipment at this park has not been replaced in 25 years. And the second location is at the Mattie Stepanek Park, and that's the playground accessibility enhancement project for a total request of $350,000, and it makes this total project cost at $700,000. This would provide a completely accessible and inclusive playground that meets the criteria for Maryland's Playgrounds for All program. And that's a program that has heightened ADA requirements and we're understanding that there's only a few parks across the state that meet this requirement and this park project aligns with the memory of Matty Stepanek who was a strong advocate. He was an individual with disability and he supported accessibility, inclusiveness and kindness. The second project is the City Hall accessibility and security project, and that's a project cost at $550,000. This project would provide enhancements to the front entrance of City Hall. It would include a gender-neutral restroom, co-compliant bathrooms, a adult changing station, doorway improvements, and security upgrades. As far as next steps, staff will prepare a resolution that reflects the direction provided by the Mayor and Council this evening on state legislative priorities and legislative bond initiatives. Staff will return on October 5th with a resolution that reflects the Mayor and Council's direction for adoption. And at the November 16th priorities hearing at the Montgomery County State Delegation, Rockville will provide testimony in support for the 2027 state legislative priorities. And in the coming weeks and months, Rockville will collaborate with the District 17 delegation and other key stakeholders to advance Rockville's priorities in the upcoming state legislative session. On this slide shows the recommended priorities and it also has a requested feedback. There are two key questions that staff is seeking input from, from the Mayor and Council. Does the Mayor and Council support the proposed 2027 state legislative priorities? And does the Mayor and Council have any priorities to add? We will end the presentation with questions, and we will move the slide back to the requested feedback so it can guide the mayor and council's discussion. This will end the presentation. Staff is available to answer any questions. We also have our state lobbyist, Christine Krohn, on the line, who can help answer questions. We're very much looking forward to the mayor and council's conversation and direction this evening. And we thank you, and with that, we'll turn it back over to you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. It feels like just yesterday we were preparing for the last session. It comes around quick. So just wanted to say thank you, because it's not only this that you do with us in public, but when session begins, we're having weekly meetings on legislative priorities and trying to be quick. and responsive to be able to advocate on behalf of the residents of the city of Rockville. So in advance, thank you for that as well. If we could start with the LBI's legislative bond initiatives, because I think that's a short item to try to be able to get consensus on. But just to set the level playing field, what I understand about the process is we're going to submit there they're three but they're technically two and we are going to give options sometimes the d17 team wants to come and see they're going to schedule a tour for them to be able to see these properties like we did last year so they can put their eyes and hands and and physically see the property and ask questions of us is that right

Yes, that is correct.

Okay. And then sometimes they give us feedback. This is likely to go versus not. So, I'm just saying that we don't have to whittle down necessarily because we're presenting options to G17. So, if you have anything else you want to consider for the future, let us know. But I just want to note that we don't have to say I want this and not that. We can present all three, technically two. All right. Colleagues, do you support the legislative bonds initiative? Do you want to go question? You have a question. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just have a quick question. I'm wondering, can staff provide a complete list of all the CIP projects that would be eligible for state bond initiatives? I appreciate the work that's done to present us with the options that we have here, but it would be I think helpful. Knowing our CIP load and knowing some of our other priorities, if we could just see the full list of what's eligible. Is that something that can be provided?

Mr. Mihalik.

We can provide that list.

Thank you. And I've asked this in the past because I'm trying to read your mind a little bit, but we've asked in the past about the Twinbrook Pedestrian Bridge, for example, and there's a certain level of readiness that you have to do for these LBIs. Mr. Mihalik, is that correct? That's correct. So some CIPs may qualify and some might not. You just have to have the studies done.

Yeah.

That's also correct shovel ready.

Okay, perfect.

That was thank you madam mayor. That's where I was coming from But I also know that there again we are have a lot of really important CIPs in general And it would be helpful to get that list and then we can kind of see you know the the other because I think these are great, but I I'm kind of you know, and I appreciate it especially I know the the lone Oak Park playground has not I been touched in a very long time, so I'm appreciative of that for sure. But I just kind of want to see where some of these projects came from and then shoot for the moon and we can always have backup plans.

Okay, so are there any questions on LBIs or can we give direction? Okay, all right, colleagues. Do you need a motion from us? We're just gonna do this as a work session, so we're gonna do a thumbs up, okay? Okay. You've got six thumbs up and a question. Council member Shah.

I would just, I would follow up with council member Valerie's question and just have to have more understanding. I definitely support the first two. Um, but I, I think there may be some more opportunities to do some projects and have some grants outside of City Hall, like within the community. And so I just wanted to have some more information. And so I support two out of the three. Thank you. Councilman Van Graak.

Well, not to be kind of the opposite, but I actually think the City Hall accessibility is a great idea. I have actually heard from numerous community members who've talked to me about some of the accessibility issues at City Hall and complained to me personally. So to the extent we can fix some of those issues, whether it's with our money, with the state's money, I know this is an issue that I've heard from community members is a need. So I actually was actually going to compliment staff for putting that one on the list.

Council Member Shaw. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I just want to be clear, I do support accessibility in City Hall, but I just want to see if there are any other accessibility issues outside of City Hall that we could make a comparison with.

Thank you and I know we'll go into the budget discussion about city hall more broadly so that we'll have a more robust discussion there. But thank you for bringing these to us and I definitely appreciate that. You're looking at recreational equity. Uh, to make sure we're getting a different parts of the city and replacing playground equipment that is outdated and looking. I know that as you're following the pros plan to help guide these, uh, these, um. Suggestions to the mayor and council, and then in terms of city hall, I know all of us really support accessibility and, um, we'll just note that. There are other things in city hall that could be discussed. So, um, did get some money outside of the LBI and I did send some information about that. So I just want to also be creative about other grant funding. Okay, all right. We're now moving on to the legislative priorities. So this really has grown to represent a lot of the feedback of our colleagues. Just want to see, do you support what's here? Can the slide be added back to the screen, please? While you're doing that, I did want to make one comment about the Time to Care Act. I think that my colleagues and I were clarifying that while we have concerns with the self-insurance approach that might inadvertently reduce benefits in some jurisdictions because they're going to revert to something that has less, I want to be careful that we're not saying don't make any requirements for parental leave and family leave we as an ethos i think most people believe that but we were just asking for them to have something in legislation that acknowledges jurisdictions who are meeting that through a leave a leave option versus the employee has to pay in and the and the city has to pay in so i think it's an important distinction and some of the language made me slightly uncomfortable with the way it is because i don't think it gives full support of family leave. I did send some alternate language to the city manager to consider and I can share that with my colleagues as well if you'd like but I just I think we just need to tweak that. Council Member Shaw.

Madam Mayor, I had some similar concerns with that. And I think we're getting at the same point here. But I do want to just make sure for employees that whatever is decided for their insurance, that it's either equal or better than the state. and what the state is providing across the board.

Yes, that's exactly what I shared.

And not an increased cost than what they would have to pay for, just across the state.

So the idea was trying to, so there's potential guidance on salary continuation, which is a paid leave versus making the employee pay through an insurance, and I think that is what we talked about advocating to the state for to say, listen, the city provides more. We would meet the leave requirements, but we would do it through leave versus having employees and the city and pay into a self-insurance model. And I've heard similar comments at MML wanting to make sure that municipality, I know Gaithersburg has been in the same position. Council Member Jackson.

Thank You mayor, I can't set too much light on it, but there was a discussion so I'm on the sit now on the legislative committee of MML and there was a discussion we had about the Family medical leave and I believe and maybe Linda you use that on this as well but The thinking was that we were going to wait and see, because there were regulations that are being developed by the department to take care of municipalities that had their own. So I'm not sure exactly where that is, but I think that we're going to wait, at least at MML, and take a position until we see what those regulations are.

Yes, so the payments start in January 2027, and that is a few months away. And I was at a board meeting this this past week where they are looking to try to do something through guidance, but it's not legislative. And so what I'm saying is that we could. since we're putting together our legislative priorities, be clear, as Rockville, on our legislative priorities. And I won't go too much into this because I want to be brief, but I would note that Rockville was one of the first municipalities in Montgomery County to offer a robust paid leave program for parental leave. We support the state's goal of expanding access to family medical leave, and Rockville offers a generous leave and benefits program, including paid parental leave. The city believes that paid salary continuation approaches should be allowed in the current regulatory framework, That focuses on insurance model unintentionally penalizes jurisdictions that offers a full paid leave approach its employees and taxpayers. In addition, Rockville approach doesn't require additional payments by the employee while the current law will collect payments from the jurisdiction and employee a year before benefits are allowed to be used. Request consideration of a regulatory framework for family that would allow municipalities to offer equal or better to the comments of my colleagues leave programs without the paid insurance model. This would help achieve the shared goal of providing employees the benefits of time to care and parental leave. So I've given that to City Manager. I just wanted to make sure if we are putting out language that it reflects what we were trying to achieve.

Council Member Shah. Was there any input from any workers or unions that got to this measure? Maybe this is a question.

Yeah, that's a question for Ms. Moran. But what I can tell you is that there Council Member Jackson might have it as well, but I think there are some unions as well as boards of education, as well as the counties are coming together to say, this might be burdensome on employees, let's figure out an approach to have a salary continuation. So I know that they're trying to appeal but there's not a lot of time between now and January the payments are going to take effect So that's why I just suggested that we'd be clear about what Rockville is suggesting So we have anything everything else unless is there anything that we want to add or remove Councilman Valeri Not remove so so yay, but I

I would really like to, I'd love to add something to our priorities. I'd been thinking about the enabling legislation that would let municipalities negotiate MOUs with their counties so that a guaranteed percentage of school impact taxes generated within our boundaries come back to serve the students who actually live here. I think Crown High School is a great example of where this matters. We're sitting here generating real school impact fee revenue and right now there's no mechanism to ensure any of it flows back to the schools those kids will attend. I'd love for staff to take a look at whether this could work as a standalone 2027 priority or as part of a broader, maybe MML related conversation. But I want to throw that out there because I would like to see the ability for municipalities to even enter into that discussion. My understanding is that it would require enabling legislation. And I'd love to hear the thoughts of my colleagues on being groundbreaking in this way.

I will say I'm open to the discussion. I think it's a great one. I'm not sure if it's a statewide issue because I'm not sure that all counties do impact taxes the way we do. So it would be more of a Rockville, you know, maybe we can also coordinate with others in Montgomery County. But I do think it's worth looking at. Councilman Van Graak.

So I actually would support this, but it can also be a Montgomery County pass particular bill. So I think that's absolutely the right thing, because whether it's happening in Gaithersburg, whether it's happening in Rockville or any other region of Montgomery County, I think that makes perfect sense.

Councilmember Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor. I think that Councilmember Van Graak is onto something. So I don't think that there was broader support at MML. That was one that we talked about. It didn't get much support. So not saying that someday it wouldn't, but right now it's not. But I think that making it a Montgomery County-focused bill would have more traction.

I think it may be because everyone does impact taxes differently. So that's probably why it would be for Montgomery County.

Then I would definitely want to then put it forward as a Montgomery County-specific bill and see if we can work with our delegation get that moving. Okay, so who supports this?

Okay, Council Member Fulton, you have a question or you're saying yes? Okay. We're a yes. Okay, good. Do you need anything from us on the parental leave, time to care act, language change? Do you want me to do a roll call on that too?

I'll just make a broad comment. I think that whole matter is evolving, and it has been for a number of months. We're tracking it very, very carefully. I would encourage you, but of course, we'll do whatever council wants on this, is back in June, what we asked and you guys supported was for us to just ask for some additional flexibility for municipalities. Some municipalities are saying, we want an exemption for municipalities from that act. And that's it we would would accept that at least from staff's perspective. We think that makes some sense, but we're not so sure that's going to get to the finish line. But we do think it needs we need more flexibility. To implement it as much as we can also say. with a little bit of reluctance, I'm wondering if this initiative actually gets to the finish line, considering that the state really hasn't, to our knowledge, stood up the infrastructure in place to guide this for 150,000 businesses in the state of Maryland. So we really wonder about that. Having said that, I think your having something in your priorities that talk about additional flexibility for municipalities to move forward with this act is what I would recommend.

Thanks, Jeff. I do think that some of the municipalities are hoping Rockville takes a more clear stance. I've heard this. There are some that are leading on this. I think we need to help lead on this. This is so close. January 2027 is going to hit before we know it. So I do think that the language I was raising kind of puts a more clear stake in the ground is we're not saying we don't support this. We're saying this is how it could happen without having a negative impact. So I just, I feel uncomfortable with the current language that may give the impression that we don't support. So that was how I read it. Council Member McFaulton.

Maybe just trying to thread a needle here. What I hear the Mayor saying is we need the context, right? So people don't assume that we want to provide worse benefits. The language that I think I heard you read, Madam Mayor was a long, do we achieve the goal by adding the words so long as the benefits provided are equal to or better than to what's in this bullet?

yeah so the actual full text that is not on the slide that is currently there is about as long as what i said so i was trying to replace it but it basically says the city believes the decision should be left to municipalities to determine the leave and benefits that align with their budgetary and operational structures it could mean like don't bother us we we may or may not do leave and so what so I just, that's not where Rockville has been. And so I just want to be clear about what position Rockville is taking, salaried continuation. Who supports just the clarity, so that Rockville's position? Okay, all right, okay. Anything else? I have a question about the sustainability. There are a lot of states that are looking at patio solar. I've heard this on the Environment Commission discussions as well. It hasn't made it in Maryland, but that's something that has been helping people to reduce electricity costs in other jurisdictions, and I just wonder if we might be supportive of something like that in Maryland. And then there's some pieces. I'm saying this so that as bills come through, we can know potentially what I'm interested in. Maybe my colleagues have others as well. But the Secretary of Housing is looking for... Some piece of legislation that supports single staircase. I know I've raised this in the past as well. Montgomery County is looking at it as well as a way to get more diverse housing types and reduce cost. And they also are looking at some things like being able to leverage approved plans. So that's a state bill that they would give local support where the state has some approved plans, local jurisdictions have approved plans, and it can really expedite permitting and making sure things are done more expeditiously but safely. Okay. All right. Give her a thumbs up. All right. Anything else?

Council Member Fillory. Thank you. As part of the packet that are the attachments to the Transportation Mobility Commission's report, The Commission sent us in February of this year their list, and actually Mr. Brooks alluded to it, their legislative list. I would love, I'm not sure, I believe that this would still be their priority, so if any of the bills in the February 26th memo did not cross the finish line, then I would say that these would continue to be our vision zero the baseline for our Vision Zero related legislative priorities. This is especially things like the no right turn on red, the fixed route transit services, crosswalk monitoring. I think just generally it might be great to let them know, okay, this is the things that are still outstanding. Presuming that they still support it, then those should be things that we would continue to support. Um, and these are not really. They don't deviate from things that this mayor and council have supported in the past too. So I would suggest that and then the question.

Yeah, sure. So this would be on a bill watch list. So if these bills come up, then those will be presented to the mayor and counsel, a lot of legislative discussions and we would decide to write or not. Right. Correct. Correct. Correct. Exactly. I'm being clear for the staff.

Exactly. Yes, this would be, um, like a really good starting point on that. And then I'm also presuming that. Everything that we were advocating for last year, um, that did not get passed, we would continue to support. Or am I, okay.

That's my understanding, and we would watch for nuance changes. Okay.

Because that happens. Yes, definitely. I know that there was the one climate action plan, goal-related one, the Tree of Heaven bill became more of an expansive invasive. related bill and yeah, I just wanted to make sure because we supported some good stuff last session and I think there's still work to be done, so thank you.

All right, Council Member Shaw.

With the reductions in federal funding around SNAP, if we could put on the watch list any bills related to food security and sustainability. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, Miss Moran. And thank you, Miss Crone.

Thank you.

All right. We're now moving on to our next work session. Discussion of the draft to amend chapter 8 of the rock full city cold entitled elections to update provisions make technical and other amendments. Welcome to our agenda presenter Sarah Taylor, who is our city, the city clerk, director of council operations and a panelist participant Cindy Walters, acting city attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council Members. Before we get started tonight, I just want to acknowledge our new board members and our former board member to the Board of Supervisors of Elections, just in case nobody knows who they are. Mr. Jim Melinex is our chair. Juliet Bowman is our new member and then Kathy Sandoz is our returning member who is serving with us. So I just wanted to acknowledge they are here. Before we get started, I just want to acknowledge that they have done a lot of work and so have my our acting city attorney working with us on many work sessions. Tonight, staff is seeking directions on proposed amendments to our Chapter 8 of the city code. Our goal is to walk through the proposed changes in which most of these changes were circulated via the red line version to the mayor and council on August 28th. We hope to answer any questions and to receive directions needed to finalize and move forward on the final ordinance. Slide two is the outline. I'll begin with a brief timeline and background and walk through recommendations of this Chapter 8 amendments. We will then discuss future voting methods, public financing, proposed charter amendments. protection of election officials and then have discussion on specific feedback staff is requesting tonight. Slide three is introduction. The draft incorporates recommendations from the Board of Supervisors of Elections along with the directions provided by the Mayor and Council during the June 8th work session and earlier discussions. Please be reminded that this is a targeted amendment to the existing election code rather than a complete rewrite of Chapter 8. The draft includes revised definitions, update campaign finance provisions, revised enforcement procedures, new state mandate legislation and provisions that correspond with potential charter amendments. Tonight's work session is intended to confirm whether the draft reflects Mayor and Council's directions and to identify any additional changes before we introduce and approve the ordinance. As slide four, our feedback summary, as we move through the presentation, there are three principal areas where staff is requesting mayor and council's direction. Chapter 8 amendments, particularly definition section 8-1, the powers and duties of the BSC campaign financing and enforcement, whether ranked choice voting and public financing should be considered as a nonbinding referendum question for the ballot in 2027 proposed charter amendments addressing voting 16 17 year olds and term limits. And slide 5 or background this proposed amendments focus on the areas that were identified through the city's election review process and needed clarification modernization and greater consistency. One significant aspect of this draft is to use plain language. They intend to make the election code easier to understand for candidates, campaign committees, voters, election officials, and members of the public. Center for Civic Design provided substantial assistance and guidance and revision of our provisions to make it more clear and more accessible language. You will notice that some of the language looks different from the traditional ordinance language. This is intentional. The long-term goal is that when the city undertakes a comprehensive rewrite of Chapter 8, the entire ordinance can be drafted using plain language principles. We had consultant assistants working with us, two outside organizations, through this process, one of which I just mentioned, Center for Design. They provided expertise in election best practices and plain language drafting. They previously, in 2023, helped us with our advisory ballot questions on that election during that cycle. Campaign Legal Center provided expertise specializing in related campaign financing. These resources combined with the work of the city clerk, the city attorney, and the BSE members help staff to address these presented challenges and questions during our 2023 election. There are state requirements now that are required for municipalities, and they have been an important component to propose in these amendments. The sections incorporate requirements imposed on municipalities by the Maryland General Assembly in the 2026 legislative session. These requirements include reporting certain municipal election information to state board elections. This includes election dates, candidate qualifications, qualified candidates, and information regarding voting procedures and locations. Following certification of results, municipalities now will be required to report election results to the state board for publication on their website as well. Including these requirements directly in Chapter 8 provisions, provides a clear reference to the city's election administrative responsibilities that we didn't have in the past. Slide six, work completed. The work began with the consultant's facilitated work sessions in May and June of 2025, followed by the acceptance of the consultant's report in September of 2025. The BSP BSE began reviewing the proposed updates in April 2026 and continued its review through May. Mayor and Council held a work session on June 8th, and the BSE work session continued during their June and July. Following these discussions, staff, BSE members, city attorney's office, and outside consultants worked through the proposed amendments before you tonight. Our timeline proposed adoption schedule. The first draft was provided for the mayor and council to review on August 28th, followed by the September 4th brief book district, um, distribution and tonight's work session subject to the mayor and council's direction. The proposed schedule is on October 5th of 2026 introduction of the election code and charter amendments. October 26, public hearing. November 2, attentive additional public hearing. And November 16, proposed adoption. The timeline then allows for the required posting publication period with the charter amendments shown effectively for January 5th of 2027 and the election code to become effective in January 8th of 2027. Once adopted, we would provide the training that is necessary for the revisions that you will hear about the updated campaign financing And the board is actively working on a new candidates, how, um, how to run for office. Um, we are also, I need to add in here that we have piloted with our it department and have also will have the new instructions for online petition. Slide eight, 2027 election readiness. The schedule is designed to help revise framework in place for the 2027 election, which is on November the 2nd. This presentation identifies the readiness notice for our first mailing in March, is usually when the first postcard, is when I'm saying first mailing, is the first notice of postcard that goes out for the 2027 in March. May 1, we have to have everything completed for the candidate's information packet and ready for the election in November 2. And between that time, there will be one or two campaign finance reports that are due, and there will be a lot of training involved with the new candidates and their treasurers. Working backwards from those operation deadlines is why staff is seeking clear direction tonight. Slides 9 through 14 is Section 8-1R definitions. The first substance group of amendments updates and clarifies definitions through Chapter 8. This is a new section. We've never had clear definitions of a section, so these are all new. The proposed revisions address to terms including board, campaign committee, campaign materials, candidate contribution, election expenditures, general election, independent, political committee, provisional ballots, recall, registration, runoff elections, special elections, and treasure. Several definitions are intended to make campaign finance obligations clear. For example, the proposed candidate definitions create a simplified definition but still identifies specific actions that trigger candidates status, including receiving or spending more than 300 or circulating and nominating petition. The political committee definitions similarity uses a $300 threshold for contributions received or expenditures made during a calendar year. We have also added several new definitions. Um, I am just going to stop there and ask if there's any questions or any concerns that the mayor and council have read about the definitions since it is a long presentation.

Thank you. So, I have some definitional questions. My colleagues may as well. Would you like us to raise those now? Sure. Okay. I started here. I'm going to start on, do you guys have any questions that you want to raise? I just, we don't have to go in a line the all way, but I wanted to at least offer the opportunity first in that direction. Okay. All right. I had a few questions about the definitions. One is on the committee side, I felt like it was confusing on committee being described as a a political committee, but then we describe a political committee in a different way later. So that was something that I found to be, because you, a little bit confusing. There's committee, then there's political committee, but you use political committee in the definition of committee.

You want to answer that? It's more or less in conjunction with one or committees we identified as more than two persons in a committee or a slate or a organization or a PAC. That is how it was identified and how it should be clarified. It's more or less persons and not looking at an individual.

Okay. So would you include PACs in here or not?

No, because they have consolidated that with political committees.

Okay. And you wouldn't include slates in here?

No, it's a group. Yes. Persons.

This could be, these are people, not candidates.

Correct.

Okay. All right, I will note that you use political committee, a political committee that has formed to support or oppose any candidate. But then you have a definition of political committee later. So I just think that weight, those are both phrased is confusing. Okay. So I just wanted to flag that. Um, candidate versus an official candidate. So a candidate, I'm just going through the line here. So a person can consider themselves a candidate when they receive money of more than $300, make an expenditure of more than $300, or they circulate a nomination petition. In the past, a candidate has become a candidate when they were certified as a candidate. So I just wanted to clarify. That's correct.

An official candidate. An official candidate is after you're certified. So it's a potential candidate.

After you met those requirements. They're not certified. Correct. Maybe that's worth clarifying, but Council Member Van Graak.

I was going to say, I actually like that because it prevents a loophole of someone trying to go around our finance procedures prior to the formal certification. Is that kind of your intent? That's the intent of that. Okay, thank you.

Yes. Because anybody can say you're a candidate, but until you're certified by the board and you have met all the requirements for a certified candidate, you're not a certified candidate. You can be out there and say, hey, I'm a candidate running for office, but you're not an official candidate. And you have requirements to file after you've received a threshold of funding.

So do we use official candidate anywhere else in this document?

I think it was just a definition so we could clarify that.

Okay. Well, it may be worth just clarifying in the one candidate section. Okay. We can do that. You're a candidate, but you know that you must be certified. Absolutely.

You have to meet those requirements for a certified candidate.

Okay. And it keeps it in one place so people can see what it takes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, I appreciate that. The other piece was on the expenditure section. So, I'm looking at page four of the draft. The following are not expenditures. Any costs incurred producing any media. Yeah, perfect. It also has that language on contributions. Yes, both sides. So if you hire a consultant to produce media for you, is that a loophole? Because you're saying any cost incurred in producing any media. Some people get, they might have someone doing a professional video. That's the production. Why aren't production costs included in expenditures or contributions?

That might be. You want to? Great, so Jim Mullinax.

So as we discussed this particular provision, and it's a great question, but I think what we were trying to get at was that we didn't want candidates to be sort of on the hook for the cost of so-called earned media. Could we say that? That is news reporting or other sort of outside activities media attention that would feature them on a podcast or something like that, that was not something that was related directly to their campaign. So a bonafide news account. I think there's a definition here, at least in the file that I'm looking at. A bonafide news account in a broadcast facility, for example, or part of a general pattern of campaign-related coverage. not a broadcaster controlled by any political party or any political action committee or anything like that, but basic news media that might feature a candidate. That's what we're talking about when we talk about media that is not a contribution. That's what we were trying to get at.

Okay. I definitely appreciate that because media can be also perceived more broadly. So, it might just be something to look at so that there's not any loopholes there.

Council Member? On that point, I think adding, there was a key word there in your explanation. That was the earned media component of it. So, if we just added earned there, because I can appreciate that. I would...

that we wouldn't need to make that clear but nobody should be on the hook for you know any cost incurred in producing any earned media because I think otherwise we start getting into a bit of a sticky situation there so I think the definition is that you are treating this as earned media not media as materials right like not like a campaign video that someone produced right okay I think that's thank you for the clarification Okay, and then the other piece, preservation of ballot and withdrawal of candidacy, are there no changes to those sections?

There are forms that are required, procedural, for withdrawal.

Okay.

That's more of forms and SOPs for the administrative part.

And one part of the draft that was empty, that's why. It was printed twice in the brief book, and the first part, it was empty, and I just wanted to understand how you were dealing with that.

Those parts that aren't new or added or updated, we left those blank. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you for the clarification. Just to be clear, yeah. Okay. So my next section is eight.

Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt. Sorry, sorry. I just want to make sure if my colleagues have any more definitional questions.

These are just kind of like, I can submit the VA in the email, but they're very minor, but I figured I'd just bring them up because I think we're doing a sweeping. Under the special elections definition, I think it's a cross-reference error. Could you say section 848, but there is no 848? Or at least that's reserved?

Probably a typo. We're going to scrub this again.

Thank you. Yeah, I'd noticed a few like typographical and but I assume that you guys are gonna do it.

Yeah Definitely.

Okay, and like for example, it says the board's established from the code. It's a charter. It's a charter. Exactly. Yeah All right, so we need to get into all the Thank you, but we did catch it.

We were going back Yes, thank you so Okay, I had a couple, and I'm losing my notes. I'm losing my mind a little bit here. On the point on an individual seeking, what definition is that? Candidate. And we're talking about a non-certified candidate. An individual seeking election to a city office, an individual becomes a candidate when they take any of the following actions. So an individual becomes a candidate, a non-certified candidate, totally clear on that. Are you stating then that an individual does not need to necessarily circulate a nomination petition if they either receive a contribution in excess of $300 or make an expenditure in excess of $300?

At that point, I would assume they are collecting petition signatures to qualify as an official candidate.

Because in theory, somebody could be receiving contributions or making an expenditure without being a certified candidate because that was the only threshold previously to become a certified candidate was the petition signature. nominating petition but as I'm reading this and totally correct me if I'm wrong as I'm reading this it's it's you can do you know it's like choose your own adventure you can pick like one of those three and that would make you a non-certified candidate to be certified then how what would that process look like all the requirements would have to be met for an official candidate which means your petitions

your forms, your treasurer, your campaign, all of that would have to be submitted to the clerk's office. And you would be certified with your nominating petitions with the board.

That is a lot more clear than maybe it's just a very slight tweak in an individual becomes a candidate when they take, instead of saying any of the following actions, take the following actions, because I think, and I defer to my legal colleagues, the word any there, to me, sounds like you can do one of those things, and then you become, okay. So it's not just me kind of losing my mind a little.

All right, sorry. My legal colleague.

Sorry, I didn't think I was confused, but now I'm confused. I thought that the definition of candidate was expanded to be beyond just filing the petition so that somebody who's going around calling themselves a candidate, taking money, spending money, but hasn't filed the certification, the petition yet, is still subject to these rules.

Is still subject to those rules to become an official. So that's why we want any in there to identify the two. We want it to be any of the three. Because you want to identify one from the other. Because people do do that.

No, no. And I totally appreciate that. I hope they don't. Sorry, Madam Mayor. They do. I think that there's something in between the two, right? Like there is as the rules apply to someone, and then there is the process by which you become a certified candidate. I think it's just in the framing of the definition. Because I hear what you're saying, totally get that as far as where the rules apply, but there's something in that first sentence that's just not, I think maybe we could be more clear that it is for the application of the rules in this section as well as the process by which you become a certified candidate. Because to me, reading just saying me reading this, I'd be like, okay, the rules apply to me and I don't have to do all these to become a certain.

Can I ask a follow up question there?

We were talking early about potentially them adding language in this section to say what it takes to become an official candidate so that people see it in 1 place. But that might make, I think the goal of what they're trying to do is so that people. who are collecting money that they know you still have to follow the rules. You're under the rules. Yes, but you become certified. You become official slash certified. And we'll put that in this one definition so people understand there's a step to becoming official. There's a more official. OK. But even if you don't become official and you collect money over $300, you still have to follow our rules.

You still have to follow the rules.

You still have to follow the campaign finance report.

That makes a lot more sense. Thank you. I appreciated now and I appreciate their earned media the addition of that to the media definition then as well just to make that that clear that clear to folks there was something else you have a recall we have runoff If I remember, then I will, I believe it has something to do with, not that we can add resign to run, but there is the, I know, I'm not even trying to get there. But there is the, I don't know how we would define the vacancy, how we would change the vacancy definition to encompass those sort of strange situations.

That's another section. Yes.

But that would be a definition, is what I'm saying.

A vacancy?

Yeah. We have a candidate definition. Would we define vacancy before we have that section?

I think that we can keep that in the section for the vacancy. It's just coming up.

Okay. I'm just throwing it out there.

But I appreciate what you're saying.

Thank you, Mayor. I was listening to the comments from Council Member Filari, and it was fascinating. Anyway, so I had a question just in terms of carrying through the whole document. So where did the specific language come from, from $300? How do you decide on $300? Why not $500? Why not $150? Why $300?

Good question. The board just came up with that and it's up to the discretion of the mayor and council. You can raise it, lower it, it's your discretion.

So, the only thing I would say, and I'm fine with $300, but elsewhere in the document, you actually mentioned $500. And I forget whether that's for any painted expenditure or whatever it is. So, we might just want to be consistent with our numbers there. So, either $500 throughout the document or $300 throughout the document. That's one thing. On bullet number three, under the definition of contributions, Well, it says the following are not contributions and then number three It's a little bit confusing a nominal fee paid by an individual For the use of a room on the residential premises like what are you trying to get out there? Are you under this contribution that we're looking at on the slide sorry page four is at the top of the page Yeah

That's what's not a contribution.

Yeah, I know it's not a contribution, but maybe the language just needs to be tightened, because honestly, what is a nominal fee? I mean, it's in, I guess, the purview of the board, but a nominal fee, I mean, to me, a nominal fee might be $50, but to somebody else, a nominal fee might be $500, right?

I think we could, I hope you can hear me. I think we could, you know, we could add some clarity to that. Some of these definitions at the behest of the board were based to some degree off of what's in the Code of Federal Regulations, which is similar to what we're doing. So what... The 1 of the things we wanted to be clear about what is what is not a contribution, but we can, I mean, if there's. If we need to add additional language to clarify what a nominal fee is, we can be.

Yeah, and I mean, and just the use of a room on their residential premises, like. What are we talking about there? What does that actually mean? And I guess my broader point, and this was the third point I was going to bring up, was just tightening up the language and making sure that it's not too casual. I understand that what you're trying to do is make it so that you don't have to be a super lawyer to understand the code. And I appreciate that. But I noted that on mail-in voting definition, A voter receives their ballot in the mail, and they mark it and seal it in an envelope following instructions for the ballot. They can return it by mail. It just seems a little bit too casual, and I noticed that throughout the document. So while I appreciate the attempt to kind of make it more accessible to people reading it. I just think that maybe we should go in and clean it up where we can because I think that some of the documents just reads a little bit too casually for what it is intended for.

And that was one of our consultants with Civic Design who write for these definitions like that. The goal is to keep it where somebody on a third grade level or fifth grade level can read and understand something without having to go in and really try to figure out what's that word mean or what actually are they trying to say to me. So we can do some of that, but we don't want to dive into it because the state has come up with the plain language and we really need to try to stick with the requirements when we're up dating these ordinances and stuff, particularly when it involves elections.

All right.

Thank you. Are we ready to move on?

Council Member Shaw. Oh, sorry. Thank you.

No, I just wanted to make a small comment that I appreciate the plain language and the grade level, especially if folks that are running English may be their second language or for whatever reason. I found it a lot clearer because of the plain language. And I just appreciate that. So thank you.

You're welcome.

I like plain language as well.

Good, we do too.

But I do understand my colleagues, but just make some consistency and making sure it's tight.

We can go back through and tighten it up some.

Thank you. Council Member Valeri.

I was just going to say we all appreciate plain language, but just consistency.

I love plain language. On that note, I just wanted to, I'm reconciling, it's my last input on the definitions, I'm reconciling public communication with media. I just want to be sure that under public communication that we add digital in there. in a more expansive way, so not just broadcast cable, satellite. Public communication should also cover digital communications because then otherwise it wouldn't cover social media, which we do have that requirement. Thanks.

We're now done with definitions.

Okay, now we're on to slide 15, 8-4, which is the powers and duties of our BSE. This draft also revises concerning powers of the BSE for the election and how they administer the election during the election cycle. The proposed language clarifies the board's role in administrating and supervising Rockville municipal election. reflects the operational support provided by the city clerk's office and other city departments. The intent is to be more clear, distinguishing their role and oversight and responsibilities from the administrative support necessary to carry out their responsibilities. There are quite a few things that we really went in depth and tried to add exactly the role of the board. There are some things that were not in there with the canvassing and oversight, the notices, the investigation part. All of this is all new, and we have to get SOPs written up for that and establish a process and procedures so that This board will now have a clear guidance on their role and as well as for the administrative part for my office and the city attorney's.

I'm raising my hand to myself.

Thank you for this. I think this was a huge part that we needed to clarify in the code. But one of the things that we needed to clarify is what an investigation is. And I think you said you're going to cover that in SOPs. How do those get approved?

The forms administrating, that's all done through the board, just like your forms for the election packet. They're all approved through the board.

Well, I guess my concern is investigate can mean look through publicly available material and draw conclusions of fact, or it can mean have subpoena power and the ability to require sworn statements. I think we need a little bit more clarity on what investigate means in the code itself.

So I think that would come. in the part of enforcement and remedies. And that's where we would have to go in more depth with that. Since those are the new sections of the code that we really needed to put in so that they'd have some guidance.

Okay, so you're telling me that the clarity that I'm looking for is not in this duties.

It's not in their outline of their duties, but it will have to be in the enforcement and the remedies section. Thank you.

Thank you. I was looking at the language related to, I see we added the city manager in here. Yes. So you still have that the board will administer and supervise elections with the city clerk. And then this is a city manager and city departments will assist and support the board and its official duties.

That's very broad I'm guessing it is very broad because as I said to our city manager at our directors meeting on Friday There is the election process expands across all city departments and we're going to have a little lesson learned to what those are. Um, so yes, it's not just my myself and the board. I need help assistant with CCE. I need to help with, um, our graphics and printing and need help with our police department. And those are all departments ran, uh, supervised under the city of city manager's office.

Thank you for the clarification. Long as the city manager is cool with that.

Yeah, we certainly talked about it.

Thank you. So one of the things the previous board talked about is wanting to have more clarity on whether the city attorney supports the BSE as well. And I didn't see the city attorney. I saw the city manager added here, but I didn't see the city attorney. So I was just wondering if that was intentional and what you're thinking.

Oh, you want to answer that, Deputy? Okay. That is a real yes, yes, and a yes. We're not going back there again. We will have our attorney present with this board when we administer.

But it wasn't in the code, so there was room for interpretation. That's what I wanted to understand.

Yes, exactly.

We can add it.

We can add it.

Yeah, so I think the city attorney was involved in municipal infractions, but they wanted advice along the way. So that was the challenge and wasn't clear in code before. So I just will say that may need additional clarity. You all had the experience to be able to figure out what you need to fix, but I just wanted to, I remembered that from my notes. Okay. Council Member Jackson.

Thank You mayor just a couple of questions if I can Six and eight for page eight number two I'm just curious. What is the oversee the nomination of elected city officials? Like what are we getting out there? And I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not understanding but maybe you could Clarify for me What are you looking at there number two right at the top it says oversee the nomination of elected city officials Yeah, I don't I don't see where he's talking about Yes session 8-4 Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry.

On 8-4.

Yeah, but. Okay. All right, so that's.

That is clearly them actually certifying you as a candidate. All right. If we want to make it clear, that's what we should say.

So my other question, and thank you for clarifying that, is section B, the board does not have the authority to ever see any of the following. Do we really even need that section? I mean, if it's not enumerated in what they have the power to do, then really do we need a section specifying that they don't have the power to do these two things?

So that section is the campaign policy section, which we don't oversee. That is those signs for the debates, the parade, all of that. We do not have any. The board does not have anything to do with that. That falls under the campaign policy itself. So that's a separate policy.

council member um i believe we added it because candidly people think the board has that authority all the time right reach out to the board um for those uh concerns and so this would be a way of just making it clear that no board doesn't have this authority yeah and that's a good answer thank you very much

So that's like if someone comes into the building wearing campaign materials, the BSC is not responsible for regulating that?

No.

And that would be the city manager, the city clerk?

Campaign policy falls under the city manager's office.

Does the city manager know that? No.

He will know that.

He wasn't here.

We can't do that to him. But the Department of Signs falls under the city manager. So I wouldn't feel comfortable telling, you know, enforcement, go take somebody's sign down because that's not my department to do that. And the parades, Memorial Day parade falls under Rec and Parks, which is under the city manager. I'm not going to tell a candidate whether or not, you know, you can participate in that. I don't even know what the requirements are to even participate in the parade other than being a certified candidate.

That's helpful. Yeah, there may be some useful scenarios to share because we have new staff on what to look out for.

Sure.

Yeah. Council Member Fulton.

Sorry, just one thing to clarify on that. I heard some of my colleagues say it. When I was reading this, people had mentioned signs. The use of city facilities for campaign purposes, is that the right of way? How are we covering signs?

Well, signs are through enforcement, through a sign ordinance. It's a sign ordinance.

No, no, no, I know, but if we're being clear here, I think, acting city attorney, to your point, things that people think the board is responsible for that they're not, we should probably add signs some way if that's what we're trying to enumerate. That's one of the biggest things. I was trying to squeeze it into city facilities. Is the right-of-way a city, but anyway.

It's also use of facilities for things as well.

Maybe it could.

Use of facilities, different like community centers and stuff for those who might, for events.

But I appreciate your point. It's city facilities and right of way to cover the sign issues. Yes. Council Member Valeri, then Jackson.

I think, no, and I think that's a good addition. On B2, the dissemination of election information, I would just change debates to forum, because we don't have debates. Some of us have thoughts on that, but we just don't have debates.

All right. So let me just return. I guess I'm just stuck on this language. Oversee the nomination of elected city officials. I understand now what you're getting at. But maybe to make it more clear, just because some people might read it the same way I did, oversee the nomination of candidates for elected city officials. So, I mean, that kind of clarifies, you know, I think what you're trying to get at. So the nomination of candidates for elected city officials.

Okay. Council Member Shaw.

And just building on Council Member Jackson's point for clarity, we could also include for Section A, I think there has to be 100 signatures, correct?

Yes, 100 signatures.

So maybe we could add reviewing and certifying the petition for the 100 signatures.

That'll be in other parts of the code. Yes.

That's in your forms and required. And it's going to be, now that we are going to have an online version for petition signatures, so all of that will have to be included.

But 100 is somewhere in the code.

I don't know that 100 signatures, because here's the thing. If somebody collects just 100 signatures they give to us and only 75 are qualified signatures, I have to go back out to the person and say, hey, you did not meet that requirement of 100 qualified.

But if it's not in the code language, then... Because this has come up before on... who had the appropriate, oh yeah, there was in 2019, there was a whole thing about this person had, I'm just trying to go back through history here.

Oh, you mean in circulation. I remember what you're talking about now. One person, it was not the candidate who actually circulated the petition.

That's another issue.

Yeah.

That's a different issue. The issue of Should it be in code, because we are saying the city, we want at least 100 signatures, right? Is 100 listed here? If that's what the goal is, then we should put it in the code.

Council Member Valeri. I think, shouldn't we have that discussion when we get to that part of the code? Because we're looking at the powers.

But she made a comment saying that it was going to be in a document.

Yeah, it's in the forms, not necessarily.

But we'll get to the part of the code that covers candidate certification, correct?

I am making the comment because she said it was not going to be. It's not in the code.

But it's not in this part.

It's not in this part of it.

But it is in what qualifies you as a candidate. And it lists out these requirements you need to certify it as a candidate.

Okay. We will just put a pin in it and see if it says the number 100. Okay. Thank you.

Anything else on the powers and duties of the BSE? So slide 16 here, these are sections of 8-6, 8-21, and 8-41. These are the... 8-6 includes proposed language related to voter eligibility for individuals who are not on the state or county voter rolls, including those proposed for 16-, 17-year-olds for the city of Rockville. This provision is independent, and it would require a charter action. 8-21 includes the proposed term limit language for the mayor and council. The draft reflects a policy change that still requires the mayor and council to take direction on the number of consecutive four-year terms. Section 8-41 updates the election procedure for ballot drop boxes, including the out side locations at City Hall, Montrose Community Center, and a new, a third one at Twinbrook Quarters, a location to be determined, as we'll need another additional outside drop box.

Council Member Jackson, were you raising your hand?

No, we're ready for questions, but I was just... I'm ready. Yeah. All right.

So...

Thank you. I was just raising my hand to get in line, but the line was so short.

I'm loving your punchiness today.

So I just want to ask, on 841, do we really want to be so specific? You know, talking about Thomas Farm, Twinbrook, Montrose. I mean, I'm fine if there's a reason to be specific. But if there isn't, I mean, we might, the board might change or, I mean, change where the drop boxes are.

mean do we want to be that specific and lock them in or do we want to be more flexible good question last year the board did not want them to be specific because they wanted to make a decision on where they thought it would be the best places for them but it was you know unanimous to put them in there so that's why we're doing it and we just added a Twinbrook Quarters for another location.

All right.

Council Member Valeri?

Yes. What Sarah said, absolutely. I think that we ultimately did make that decision. But I think it's also important for vote centers, outside drop boxes and inside drop boxes are all three very different entities. The inside drop boxes, drop boxes, for instance, at the Twinbrook Community Rec Center was like a little wagon that you then put your ballot into and was on the inside. The outside ones look like the one here at City Hall. So we were looking at the idea of the 24-hour outdoor one because having that one in Twinbrook because the east side of the city was the only one that didn't have a 24-hour. We have one in the middle. We've got one over here. So that was the rationale on that. I just wanted to share that.

Council Member Shah, followed by Council Member Van Graak.

I support the clarity and sharing the locations here. I know for a lot of first-time voters, they were trying to put their ballot in front of the executive building, like some of the other precinct locations. And so just having more information on where there's drop boxes, especially for first-time voters, I think is very helpful. And I don't expect a lot of first-time voters to be reading our code, but I do think that it's best just that we're, where it's more places, it's just better.

They get those four mailers, and each time they're all on there.

Council Member Van Graak.

So with regard to Section 841, I know that there was a discussion previously

I'm sorry. That's okay.

I know that in Section 841 there was a discussion previously that the council had with regard to 841D, and that's the order of the names on the ballot alphabetically versus random. And I know we had discussed random, and I know prior versions have a random. And outside of just retaining it, I think we should go with what we talked about before, which was a random order. I know there was also a further discussion as to whether that randomness means we've got full multiple types of random ballot with different orders or just one draw of the straw. I think that's up to the board, whichever way it is. I don't think it's a matter we didn't come to a conclusion. But I think having random would make more sense, which also goes against, I think, only about one fifth of states in the US still go by alphabetical.

The thing with random, we would have to do it once. And the reason why I would say that is because we are working with the state board elections contractor. And the only way we would be able to do that is to fix it at one time and then have the data to be incorporated in the scanning of the tabulation. And I'm not even sure if they are okay with doing that. I would have to reach out to the vendor ES&S and see if that's something that they could do for us. I'm sure they could. I'm sure it would also come with the cost because we're now having to have programming involved where before we did not.

Wait, so you're telling me that it's a debate as to whether the vendor could put the names in a random order as opposed to alphabetical?

No, I'm saying if we did that, we could probably do it once, do the draw before. We actually had the set ballot, the one race ballot, one for mayor, one for council. We would have to pick those names. It then would have to be in the random, and it'd be a fixed ballot in random. And then the ES&S would have to program their system to scan and tabulate those tabulations in that random order. I've never asked them to do or investigate into, you know, seeing what that would look like, but I'm sure that it would require us to pay for programming, which we have never additionally paid for that kind of programming.

Wait. To list them on the ballot in the order that we have that's randomly drawn, how would that be more cost than just an alphabetical order, which we told them?

It's the programming. It's the programming of the tabulation.

Can I clarify something? You're saying if you just change it one time, Councilman Van Graak, that's not an additional cost. Right. Oh, okay.

But if we're randomly, if you're trying to say every other one's going to be random, we're not going to be able to do it.

Yes. So to do it once is not an additional cost. Right. To do it multiple times is an additional cost. Right.

Now I understand what you're saying. And I would also state that we would have to set up some procedure to do that. And I don't think the board would be that person to pick those names randomly. So we'd have to come up with something. Okay. I wouldn't want to personally to follow my office or my board. I'm just saying.

Yeah, but we can usually put a procedure together.

Yeah. I will say in the last election, those with more advanced letters in the alphabet, not even the last election, previous elections, people with further down the alphabet have gotten more votes than people with other, so I just wanted to say I have not seen it have an impact, but when we talked about it last time, there were two people who were interested in this. I didn't see that there were multiple, so we should probably do a straw vote if you're trying to give direction.

Well, I would say either it doesn't matter, in which case we can have it random, or it matters and it should be random. So, it's one way or the other. If it doesn't matter, then there's no problem with random. And if it does have an impact, then we should do it random.

It doesn't necessarily have an impact. It's whether you want to do it or not, and we're pulling out of a straw hat and do it randomly.

It's just one time. No, no, no. What I'm saying is either ballot order has an impact on how many votes you get, in which case we should do it randomly, or it doesn't matter what the ballot order is, in which case there's no problem doing it randomly.

It has never been a problem, alphabetical order.

No, whether it's been a problem or not isn't the issue. There's clear data, which is in election. People have done these studies for decades, and they've shown that ballot order does have an impact. This is kind of well documented, and it's the reason why right now you have only one-fifth of states that do it purely alphabetical, and they do it randomly for a reason. The documented evidence show that ballot order makes a difference, in which case, having it randomly is a fair way to do it. But if anybody on this dais believes that it doesn't have an impact as to what the ballot order is, then therefore, there should be no objection for it being done randomly.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member. Shaw, then Valeri. Yes, Madam Mayor. Shaw first. Okay. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

If you want to. I feel like we're all speaking from the cohort of the end of the alphabet crew. And as somebody from the end of the alphabet crew, I believe that in municipal elections that the data is not there to show that order. I understand and have seen what Councilmember Van Graak Also from the end of the alphabet crew is mentioned that is more on the federal level. We're also looking at larger elections and also I would not want to Institute any policy that may make things such as if we are exploring ranked choice voting Would not want to to make that process any more complicated than it may already be Thank You councillor Shah

So I support this request from Council Member Van Graak. There is actual data on every level of elections that shows that there is a bias with the first that are listed. And I reviewed this data during the Charter Review Commission within my individual subcommittee. And I know that there are a lot of jurisdictions on the local level that do do a random ballot, or they pick names out of the hat. Like for example, Greenbelt, they pick names out of an actual hat. And I think it's even worth if there is a cost of random ballots, just to see how much it is, just to see how much that cost is. And not saying that we're going to do that, but just to have that information, because I do think it does lead to fairer elections. And that is our goal.

Thank you very much. Council Member Fulton.

I never thought we'd spend this much time on this, but I guess I'll weigh in. If there's a cost to it, I don't want to do it. But I think we said there is not a cost to do it one time, right? If there is data that says it leads to fairer elections and there's no downside and potential upside, I'm in favor of doing it.

Because I haven't heard anybody say there's a downside. Thank you. I don't support it for this election, but I would love to see the data for future elections.

So should we have a straw poll?

Yes, because we need something. Yeah. So we're going to have to go back and get some data.

Dr. Miles?

I'm just saying, I need to see the data. I'm kind of agnostic, but I can be swayed by data. So that's all.

So for what more data?

For more data.

Share the studies on the municipal.

On municipal level.

Thank you. I have comments on other sections.

Are you? One comment. And that is that I'm with Council Member Shaw. I would like to understand the cost of truly having randomized ballots. So not just one, you know, that we put out of the hat, but randomized ballots. I think that that would be worth looking into because that to me seems like the most fair answer that we could come up with. But Is it possible, and how expensive is it?

Exactly. Specifically, as we're using the state's vendor. So in order for us to keep our costs down, we really need to really dive into those things. We don't want to put additional.

If the goal and objective is that the data shows that's more equitable, then making it truly randomized is more equitable. Otherwise, you're just creating a different inequity, potentially. All right. I have some comments on... We need to weigh in on... You specifically asked us on the... You need to know about the 16, 17-year-olds. I think we talked about 16 and 17 previously. So we're doing that.

So our clarification is the... their term limits, the consecutive four, three, we're a little, we weren't sure.

I'm fine with four consecutive terms, but I could be swayed either way. Why don't we just go down that way? Council Member, four, three, four, four, four, two, four. Okay, four wins. Four it is. Okay.

Thank you for that.

Council Member Shaw. So just to clarify, for the 16 and 17-year-olds who are already registering at 16 and 17, you're saying that they can vote here and it would be for 2027? Yeah, we discussed that last session. Absolutely.

16 and 17-year-olds are already in the database. It's just a matter of us requesting to pull their registration and include them in our database. Municipal election that's all and I know it was discussed.

I did just want to confirm because there was a lot of back-and-forth with this conversation Yeah, thank you.

Oh I didn't weigh in I'm fine with putting Twinbrook Listing to McGreg Center as the location.

Okay. Thank you.

I think that was an equity Conversation that we had previously

Are we ready to move on to slide 17?

Yes, please.

This is on provisional voting, mail voting, state requirements, and election official protection. The draft removes the existing provisional voting provision that identified this slide and deletes outdated terminology like absentee voting, voter assistance, mail-in voting, it's mail-by voting instead on election day and provisions for that. The new section 8-47, the state requirements, consolidates the municipal reporting obligation enacted by the Maryland state legislation in 2026. Municipalities must report their dates, their candidates' qualifications, qualified candidates and voting procedures, location of their state board of election, and must report certified candidates' results for the state to publish on their website. The only thing that we were required before was to send campaign finance reports. And I think when you all submitted to us, you had to submit to the state as well. So there are some other provisions that were now added on the administrative side that we'll be responsible to do. The draft also includes the BSE recommendations for making it unlawful to threaten a municipal election official. This is not a new municipal. This is a new municipal mandate, but it parallels the state protection enacted in 2025. We listed here on the state selection code 16-904, which pretty much kind of helps those who administer and those election officials who are at the poll workers position. staff, the BSE, those who are administering the election process as a protection. So we thought that that would be something that should be added in as the state has already added that provision in in 2025.

Just for clarification, though, that section is in 8-111. It's not in 8. Yes.

111.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on these sections? Council Member Fulton.

Just one request on 8-44. It does note that the terminology was modernized throughout. I want to just take a double check. Like, I don't know if the Are we going with handicapped still in 2026?

It looks like. Should we say disability? Okay, thanks. Yeah.

We've got to come back and clean up some things. We know. We've got to scrub it one more time.

Council Member O'Leary.

Yes, to crosswalk that last part of the state requirements, the addition of the making it unlawful to threaten the municipal election official. If I skip to there, is that just completely, I believe, I didn't have the chance to do a one-to-one. That's just taken straight from the state law and making it applicable to? Yes. I just wanted to make sure.

Anyone else have other comments or questions?

Okay, the next two slides, Division 2, Campaign Financing. This group amends and addresses campaign financing across Sections 8-71 through 8-84. These provisions cover appointment of campaign committees, officers, treasurers, campaign accounts, expenditures, treasurer records and receipts, candidate contribution, loans, activity, reporting forms, reporting requirements, and preservation of records. The goal is to make the campaign finance framework clearer, more administrative consistent for candidates, treasurers, committees, and the cities. I'm just saying, I don't want to go into a deep dive because we're, I mean, we could be here for another two hours. If there are any of these sections, 8-71, which is appointment and registration of treasurer, 8-72, candidates joining slate campaign or committee, 8-73, campaign committees, 874, campaign accounts, 875, expenditures by treasurer. 876, account records and receipts. 8-77, candidate contributions and loans. 8-78, contributions, expenditures by persons who are not candidates. 8-79, campaign communications by organizations. 8 dash 80 walk around services. 8 dash 81 election reports 8 dash 82 campaign finance forms 8 dash 83 requirements and late filing 8 dash 84 preservation of reports. Are there any of those sections that the mayor and council have questions or concerns about?

Dr. Miles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I appreciate you all answering the questions prior to this. I just need a little more clarity with regard to what constituted walk-around services. Is this like canvassing, or is this... That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Can you put your mic on, please? Thank you.

Apologies. I thought it was on. The question was about Section 880 and what constitutes walk-around services. Is this canvassing as in knocking doors? In some instances, people volunteer as canvassers. Sometimes, organizations pay people to canvass. So I was trying to get clarification on what walk-around services meant.

So in the definition, it's defined paid election day services performed on behalf of a candidate or committee are cross-referenced in Section 8-80 for covered activities and exceptions. So we would have to go to 8-80. So I have retaining the general... prohibition against paying for election day political endorsements, walk-around services. That means the vote centers, the workers, or distribution of sample ballots. It also updates the terminology for poll worker, which include their activities, like you could not pay for what we call somebody coming into the poll to challenge her and watch her for you. you couldn't pay for those services.

Understood. Thanks for the clarification. You said election day services. What about, I guess the other thing to keep in mind is that vote by mail, mail-in voting, occurs over a continuum. It's not just, I guess, one day. So I don't know if there needs to be some clarification, but that's all semantics. I guess I was just trying to clarify more broadly whether or not this included canvassing, where people are just knocking doors on the county. Yeah, it doesn't include canvassing. Got it. Thank you.

It's only on election day.

So people can pay canvassers, and they will have to report that?

Yes. Oh, yeah.

Council Member Villarreal.

No, I actually really like this section around the walk-around services as listed in 8-80 because I think it goes in some small way toward what we're trying to do. I will say that we may want to consider some of the things about putting an individual or object that obstructs the path of any voter. That is the possibility to occur outside of election day. you could in theory pay somebody to block getting to the ballot drop box. Not that I would do that, but I just wanna close loopholes that there are obstructions that, unless we're more explicit about obstructing the ability for a, voter to drop off a ballot, anything like that, just to clarify, because I think it's really solid. I don't think you should be able to pay for political endorsements, but maybe I'm just wearing my rose-colored glasses. I think, just to be clear, just close that loophole of obstructing access to ballot drop boxes.

I'm trying to figure out, um, if that, I know like on election night, uh, we have had an issue with, you know, um, we've had to police help escort and monitor Dropbox locations and other people, other community, you know, the community wanting to help get through the line and they, take the person, but that is against the law. You're not supposed to touch other people's ballots unless they authorize, you know. But the board has usually handled that on election day. So I'm not sure. We'll have to dive into that a little more.

I think it's more in adding to the integrity and safety of the ability to use the ballot drop boxes. Because that, in a way, is the safety of an election worker. And again, like you said, but what I'm thinking more so is just you wouldn't want people to be able to putting any individual or object that obstructs the path of any voter on election day. That's all that we have in here. So the exception would be you could then pay somebody on not election day to block access to a ballot drop box if you think that would help your candidate.

That's why we have cameras.

No, no, no, absolutely. I just want to make sure it's like, you know, maybe there's a five and like any other, you know, all of the above or other, you know, applicable obstructions to the ability to vote, something like that, just to close that loophole. Does that make sense? Ms. Walters?

It's number three.

It's number three on page 19. Yeah. Are you wanting to put more adding? Well, no.

That clause, Section 880B, only any of the following activities when performed for money on election day. But I'm just saying to be expansive, you shouldn't be able to pay somebody to do that outside of election day either.

You know what I mean? Yeah, we can add it. That's all. We can add it.

Your comments made me think about the electioneering section. So this past county election, there was a lot of commenting on electioneering and potential. There were some fights about electioneering. And it just reminded me at City Hall, you kind of have to go, you know, if you're coming from the parking lot, you're going through the one narrow way. And you're talking about getting in someone's way. Can people stand right in the middle of that walkway?

No.

Because it technically doesn't hit the 50, I think the 50 foot mark was above. So I know like some people stood and then the people were angling to stand there as well. On that ramp so that you have to cross them. So is that is that allowed in this new code?

We have we actually mark it off now and it's over on the other side if you remember last year People were on the other side of the parking lot.

They were not at that ramp There were people at the ramp standing in the ramp Absolutely.

They were and yeah, some of our board members had to go out there and take care of that and

But I'm just saying it might be, anyway, just you might want to clarify.

So it's 50 feet. So, I mean, we would definitely have to have some policing to help us with that.

It just was a thing, and just seeing how it bubbled up in the county election, I'm just trying to think about all the scenarios. Okay, I just wanted to flag that. Question about campaign chairperson. That's new that we're acquiring a campaign chairperson. I know you have to have a treasurer, but do you have to have a chairperson? I know there was a place on the form for it, but is it now required, or was it always required?

So... A campaign committee has to have a treasurer, and so does an individual, and so does, say, Slate. That's right. So that's where we were getting at because we didn't have that for some of those groups.

Okay, but in addition, it looks like it's a treasurer and a chairperson now.

Well, it could be that, and it has been that before. because we've had had, for some of the slates, there is a chairperson and a treasurer.

It's on the form, but it wasn't necessarily clear as explicit as required as it is here.

Yes, it's still on the form, and we're making it.

Question, is it currently required to have a chairperson? It is required to have a treasurer, but is it currently required to have a chairperson? Yes. Is that a new thing?

No, we've had that.

And then you have language that it has to be a residence of Rockville.

No, it has to be a county resident. We got rid of Rockville. That should be changed because Montgomery County.

Sorry, I have more to finish in a section, but please go ahead.

It should say Montgomery County.

As I understood it as a candidate, a candidate can be a chairperson, right? A candidate can also be the chairperson of the committee? Because I know on the state level, on the county level. Not on the city level. The past elections, I believe the chairperson was also The candidate?

No.

No, no. OK. OK, because I know on other level elections, the chairperson can be the candidate. So this year, having a chairperson is new.

No, it's always been there. You can have a chairperson and a treasurer.

It's not can versus required.

It's required.

But was it required before? No. It was not required before. No. And that's what I'm questioning. And why? Yeah.

We're doing that because we had some people that we couldn't locate for those who violated the campaign policy.